A moving rendition.

This column has done the not-so-important work of chronicling the ignominious performance of CBS News anchor Margaret Brennan, at least since she made herself noticeable by marching into the rhetorical jackpot that is JD Vance by attempting to shill for Afghan terrorists residing within our borders. That earned her notoriety as the butt of the now world-famous “I Don’t Really Care, Margaret” meme. (RELATED: Five Quick Things: Scenes From a Commonsense Revolution) It hasn’t gotten any better since then. In fact, when Brennan had Secretary of State Marco Rubio taking her to preschool to explain that no, too much free speech didn’t cause the Holocaust, it looked an awful lot like that would be her last hurrah. But it wasn’t. Actually, the Brennanisms are beginning to get worse and multiply. And over the weekend she managed to get owned not once but twice on her “Face The Nation” program. The first was disastrous enough, especially since it came courtesy of a rematch. Brennan had Rubio on for another round, and his “free speech didn’t cause the holocaust” smackdown might actually have to take a back seat to this… It wouldn’t be Sunday Funday without Margaret Brennan maintaining her position as Most Embarrassing UVA Alum Brennan claims not to know why Columbia’s Mahmoud Khalil is up for deportation. Rubio: “You should watch the news.” pic.twitter.com/zFQBc6MsRc — C’villeBubble (@CvilleBubble) March 16, 2025 We’ll see if the internet creates any “You Should Watch the News” memes because that’s a line that has a lot of potential — especially given “Face The Nation” ’s saggy ratings. Not many people watch the news, at least as CBS styles it, and it’s fairly obvious why. The stupidity of this position that somehow Mahmoud Khalil, the pro-Hamas agitator here on a student visa, can’t be deported or it’s some sort of First Amendment violation, is hard to get over. (RELATED: Mahmoud Khalil and the Red-Green Assault on American Sovereignty) Especially when it’s coming from Brennan, who tried to blame free speech for the Holocaust the last time she tangled with Rubio. (RELATED: Margaret Brennan and the Good Germans at CBS News) Mahmoud Khalil doesn’t have the same rights in America that an American citizen has. Our government is stuck with American citizens and it has to put up with things we say. It so happens that the Margaret Brennans of the world don’t understand this all that well, given their implicit or explicit support for the throttling of disapproved points of view on election integrity, COVID lockdowns, and other subjects; it was OK to deplatform America’s Frontline Doctors but not a Syrian student leading rioters who terrorize Jewish students at Columbia? (RELATED: The Arrest of Columbia University’s Mahmoud Khalil: Unmasking Campus Radicalism) Huh? Khalil was carrying around pro-Hamas literature calling for violence against Jews and she wanted to see evidence of “material support for terrorism?” Lady, what on earth are you talking about? And as Rubio noted in the interview and several other times last week, that isn’t even the applicable standard here. Had Khalil been known as an outspoken supporter of Hamas, his State Department would not have given Khalil a visa to come to the U.S. In fact, you’re supposed to disclose any affiliations to terrorist groups in your visa application. So is it all that surprising that when Khalil turns out to be a pro-Hamas agitator his visa gets revoked and they’re sending him home? And who cares about Mahmoud Khalil’s problems anyway? It’s certainly pretty rich that the Margaret Brennans of the world are interested in making him into some sort of elite-media cause célèbre; do Brennan or the suits in CBS’s newsroom who tell her what to say really think we can’t see through all this? If this wasn’t the latest effort to make the Trump administration look bad, would anybody know Mahmoud Khalil’s name? Of course not. He’s just another line item on the list of Things-to-be-Thrown-Against-the-Wall-in-Hopes-They’ll-Stick, sitting somewhere between egg prices and lamentations over layoffs at Voice of America. (RELATED: The Price of Eggs at CNN) Oh, but the Rubio Beatdown Redux wasn’t necessarily even the worst of the bunch. Brennan had Sen. Lindsey Graham on, and she proceeded to attempt to interrogate him on the question of Trump’s decision to strip security clearances and access to the government by a number of high-priced Washington insider law firms who, in concert with Team Obama (Team Biden) mob, had participated in a campaign of personal destruction of the once-and-future president and his family. Graham’s response was quite good, but what was striking was how easy it was for him to pound her into the sand… In a heated exchange on Face the Nation, Margaret Brennan tries to catch Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) out but it spectacularly backfires. Brennan: “The president is trying to use government power to punish private business because he didn’t like some of the work they had been… pic.twitter.com/w6CcaNmYOQ — DeVory Darkins (@devorydarkins) March 16, 2025 Yes, you heard that correctly. She’s trying to complain about “government actions against private business,” as though partisan Democrats like Margaret Brennan have ever had a philosophical problem with such things. And calling Covington Burling and Perkins Coie, a pair of law firms whose business model is centered around their access to government officials and their insider status within the bureaucracy and Capitol Hill staff, “private business” ought to generate breathless guffaws from just about every American. I could say that Margaret Brennan is a joke. I’d say it and you the reader would respond by saying “Tell me something I don’t know.” But here’s the question: Why is Margaret Brennan where she is? Why are once-prestigious legacy TV news outlets subjecting their dwindling viewership to clowns like Margaret Brennan? There’s a competition of sorts afoot, of course, because Margaret Brennan is perhaps no less a joke than Kaitlan Collins at CNN or Kristen Welker at NBC. In fact, network news is full of photogenic dunces whose offense isn’t just that they’re partisan Democrats but that they just plain suck at it. Rubio and Graham didn’t even have to put forth much of an effort to make Brennan come off like an idiot. Neither did Vance when he cranked out that “I Don’t Really Care, Margaret” nuclear bomb to her career. This keeps happening and yet there doesn’t seem to be any effort toward making a change at CBS. It’s hard not to wonder where the leftist journos are who can at least hold their own without snarling or saying something disqualifyingly stupid while trying to have a debate with a Republican politician. If it’s absolutely necessary to have the debate at all rather than an interview. I’m going to venture a guess that even CBS’s rump audience would rather listen to what Rubio has to say than hear Brennan berating him. Though maybe I’m wrong, and CBS has lost those people already. Which begs the question why Vance, Rubio, and Graham even let themselves be booked on those shows rather than simply do a long-form podcast interview with somebody who draws a lot bigger audience, like for example Megyn Kelly. And the success of independent New Media types like Kelly, who found themselves flushed out of alphabet-soup media and found that it was the best thing that ever could have happened to them, would seem to be a bracing development for the suits at CBS. Do they now think Brennan is the best they can do? Didn’t CBS employ Lara Logan, Sharyl Attkisson, and Catherine Herridge not so long ago? All of them were regarded by everyone as serious journalists. One could argue all three are doing quite well now that they’re independent New Media players. How well do you think Margaret Brennan would do if she had to swim in that deep water? You don’t have to answer that. We’re coming rapidly to the point where we’re going to find out soon enough. Because even at a place like CBS, there has to be a level of embarrassment beyond which they’re not willing to go. They should have reached that point by now, for certain. But given the current direction, it’s only a matter of time before she crashes into that wall. READ MORE from Scott McKay: Five Quick Things: Welcome to the Briar Patch, Chuck Schumer Entitlement Fraud Is Now a Stated Aim of the Democrat Party We Always Knew It Was Going to Get Weird — As Elon Musk Can Tell You The post How Much Longer Is CBS Going to Carry Margaret Brennan? appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

One by one, Democrats are deciding that the jig is up and it’s time to join the side of the American people on transgenderism. Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton said he doesn’t want to see his young daughters “getting run over” by a male athlete. California Gov. Gavin Newsom said that it is “deeply unfair” to have male athletes in women’s sports. (RELATED: Is the Transgender Movement Really Backing Down?) And now, we also have Rahm Emanuel. The former ambassador to Japan and mayor of Chicago broke from transgender orthodoxy in perhaps the most blustery way possible. “Look,” he said, “in seventh grade, if I had known that I could have said the word ‘they’ and got in the girls’ bathroom, I would have done it.” Those comments, which he made on the anti-woke-but-left-leaning Real Time With Bill Maher, followed earlier comments he made in which he said Democrats should be focused on improving educational outcomes rather than on bathrooms and locker rooms. (RELATED: Dissatisfied Democrats Voice Frustrations With Party Line on Transgender Issues) Rahm Emanuel’s break from transgender orthodoxy is particularly notable for its boldness. He isn’t just walking back the idea of allowing biological boys in girls’ locker rooms, he is — through humor — questioning the whole ideology. According to Politico’s Jonathan Martin, this is all part of an effort to set up a run for the presidency. Martin posited that Emanuel’s biggest liability in such an endeavor would be that he “reeks of yesterday.” But by bucking the Democratic consensus on unpopular areas with provocative and headline-making comments, Emanuel is hoping that he can break from the pack and distinguish himself as a leader of the party’s new direction. (RELATED: Five Quick Things: Welcome to the Briar Patch, Chuck Schumer) Indeed, Emanuel has sought to push toward the center in a number of other ways in recent weeks, including on urban crime. He told Maher: “We’ve gone through five years where people became way too permissive as a culture — which is why everything is locked up at CVS and Walgreens, and that’s a disaster.” Meanwhile, most of the Democratic Party is still tied in a knot over transgenderism, and they are too afraid to break free. This includes Maine Gov. Janet Mills, who recently doubled down on keeping men in women’s sports, and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who recently pledged to veto a bill that would nullify his executive order banning children from receiving therapy to help them accept their biological sex. For years, Democrats have proclaimed that it is bigoted for anyone or any law to treat someone who identifies as transgender as anything less than a full and complete member of their opposite biological sex. Yet public opinion has shifted, with Americans now opposing the presence of men in women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, prisons, and sports teams. (Nearly 80 percent of Americans oppose allowing men in women’s sports, according to a recent New York Times poll.) If Democrats back down, they will be endorsing actions they condemned as bigoted just months ago. They will also be crossing a big red line in the Democrats’ unofficial moral code by refuting the notion that transgender identities should be “affirmed” in every way by society. Let’s step back and consider how Democrats got into this kerfuffle. The primary reason is that they have become stuck in the clutches of progressive advocacy organizations, think tanks, policy institutes, and lobbying groups. A January tell-all by Vanity Fair on the collapse of the Democratic Party termed these organizations simply “the groups.” Many on the center-left, the essay asserted, believe “the groups” are “the reason why Democrats are now so nervous about breaking even slightly with the consensus of the party.”(RELATED: The Democratic Party Is Collapsing) An essay in the Atlantic last month likewise laid the blame for the Democratic Party’s travails at the feet of “the groups.” The groups, it asserted, “have managed to amass enormous influence over the party” even though they “seldom have a broad base of support.” The Atlantic essay explained that the groups do so by “monopolizing the brand value of various causes,” including climate change, abortion, and racial justice. This means they are able to “define” what the Democratic Party’s policies should be on the issues, particularly through the dissemination of their ideas via progressive journalists. Interestingly, the Atlantic takes the 2020 Democratic primary as the crux of the groups’ power. It explains: “The gigantic field of candidates slogged through a series of debates and interviews in which journalists asked if they would affirm various positions demanded by the groups.” For me, this brings to mind Planned Parenthood’s 2019 “forum on reproductive rights,” at which 16 Democratic presidential candidates came out to parrot exactly what the abortion advocacy group wanted to hear. Likewise, the LGBTQ-focused Human Rights Campaign hosted an October 2019 event for Democratic presidential candidates at which Kamala Harris introduced herself by saying, “My pronouns are she, her, and hers.” The priorities of these activist groups simply do not represent those of the Democratic Party writ large. By recognizing this and breaking from the elite consensus — as Emanuel has now done on transgenderism — Democrats could theoretically give themselves a major political boost. But “the groups” still have the Democratic Party in their clutches, and defying them presents major risks. When Gavin Newsom came out to oppose men in women’s sports, the Human Rights Campaign released a statement suggesting that his comments “make it seem like Gov. Newsom believes our civil rights are up for grabs.” Two members of the state legislature additionally said they were “profoundly sickened and frustrated” by the governor’s comments. Likewise, Emanuel’s comments invited a band of radicals to come forward and attack him. “I cannot think of another Democrat more unsuited to the current political moment than Rahm Fcking Emanuel, whose only real political gift is alienating members of his party’s political base,” wrote Charles P. Pierce in Esquire. The enduring influence of “the groups” can be seen in the fact that no Democrats have switched their stance on transgenderism beyond rhetoric. California continues to allow men in women’s sports, keeps men in women’s prisons, promises to shield children who identify as transgender from parents who oppose medical transition treatments, and bans schools from revealing a transgender identity to parents without a child’s permission. Likewise, no Democrats in the House or Senate joined Republicans in voting to ban men from women’s sports earlier this year. (RELATED: The Democratic Party Is Collapsing) What seems certain is that the first Democrat who can successfully defy this elite class of ideologues — in reality, and not just rhetoric — without losing the party’s support stands a major chance of winning the nomination come 2028. Moulton, Newsom, and Emanuel are unlikely to be the only ones to try. The Democratic presidential debate stage — which will feature candidates who choose to defy “the groups” and those who stick with them — is going to be fiery. READ MORE from Ellie Gardey Holmes: Melania Trump Finds Her Stride With IVF Executive Order, Trump Bows to Radical Liberals Starbucks Recognizes Sanity and Backs Away From DEI Policy The post Democrats’ Civil War Over Transgenderism Heats Up appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Ya gotta love the, as it were, gall. Or maybe make that “gaul.” News reports are reporting headlines like this one from USA Today: “French lawmaker says US should return Statue of Liberty. White House says ‘absolutely not.’” The story reports: A French politician said Sunday the U.S. should give back the Statue of Liberty in an apparent critique of President Donald Trump’s leadership. “We’re going to say to the Americans who have chosen to side with the tyrants, to the Americans who fired researchers for demanding scientific freedom: ‘Give us back the Statue of Liberty,’” said French member of the European Parliament Raphaël Glucksmann Sunday, according to local outlet France 24. France gifted the Statue of Liberty to the U.S. after the Civil War, and it has become a renowned symbol of democracy and freedom. “We gave it to you as a gift, but apparently you despise it. So it will be just fine here at home,” Glucksmann said at a convention of his Place Publique movement, according to France 24. Presumably, Monsieur Glucksmann made his remarks in French. Most assuredly he did not make them in German. There is a reason for that. As White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “It’s only because of the United States of America that the French are not speaking German right now. So they should be very grateful to our great country.” Amen. For those who don’t recall history, as apparently Monsieur Glucksmann does not, France does not speak German today because, on June 6, 1944, America and its Western allies landed over 150,000 soldiers on the beaches of France to rescue Glucksmann’s country and its citizens from the fascist captivity of Adolph Hitler’s Nazi Germany. The Germans had invaded France four years earlier in May of 1940. In coming to France’s rescue, history records over 10,000 Allied troops were killed by the Germans, with thousands more wounded or missing. All of which is to say the German invaders of Glucksmann’s country were repelled precisely because Americans were literally putting their lives on the line for the principles of liberty represented by the Statue of Liberty. And while we’re on the subject of dictatorships? It is Glucksmann’s France that has a history sprinkled with dictatorships. It was, for example, the ruling Jacobins of France who declared “Terror as the order of the day.” As noted here (bold print supplied for emphasis) it was France where the French Revolution would last from September 1793 to July 1794. During this time, the Jacobins implemented harsh measures to suppress dissent and eliminate enemies of the revolution. The Revolutionary Tribunal, established by the National Convention, conducted a series of trials that resulted in increasing numbers of public executions. Thousands of people, including former allies, were executed under the Revolutionary Tribunal, which was established to try those accused of counter-revolutionary activities. Under Robespierre’s direction, the committee implemented the Law of Suspects on September 17, 1793. This law broadened the definition of counter-revolutionary activities, leading to the arrest of tens of thousands of people. Between September 1793 and July 1794, approximately 300,000 individuals were detained under suspicion of opposing the revolution. With this as the historical record of his own country, Monsieur Glucksmann presumes to lecture Americans about our support for freedom and liberty. All because millions of Americans have voted in a free election to support a candidate with a decided record of speaking out for freedom and American liberty. Not to mention demanding that America’s Western allies put their money on the table to support freedom and liberty as it comes under threat from foreign adversaries. In short, what Americans have just heard in a French politician’s call to give back the Statue of Liberty is a reminder of not only the hypocrisy some in Europe exhibit when it comes to America. We are reminded that America is free in the first place because of our ancestors’ willingness to stand up to the threats of dictatorship whether, for Americans, from a long ago British monarchy or, for the French, from a Jacobin French Revolution that featured terror as its organizing principle. And oh yes there was that French ruler named Napoleon. That would be the guy who declared himself Emperor and made a point of having the only person in France whom he saw as qualified place the Emperor’s crown on his head. That would be himself. Perhaps before Monsieur Glucksmann presumes to lecture Americans on our decidedly vivid support for freedom and liberty, he should take a look at the history of his own country. And maybe get out the French wallet to pay Americans back for the cost of D-Day? Thanks for the statue. As someone from the Reagan White House who had a ringside seat for the president’s celebration of the Statue’s centennial in 1986, I can assure France’s contribution has not been forgotten. READ MORE from Jeffrey Lord: The Democrats’ Antisemitism Problem The Attack on Elon Musk’s X Al Green Sabotages Democrats The post French Politician Demands America Return the Statue of Liberty appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Most of my adult life has been involved with the terrorism threat, first as a scholar, then, for many years, as a counterterrorism practitioner, and now the author of frequent articles on the evolving threat. Most of this involvement has been about “big” terrorism: mass casualty events, potential attacks on nuclear facilities, assassinations, kidnappings, and airline hijackings. At one time or the other, I worked in executive protection, aviation security, hostage negotiation, and the training and testing of protective forces assigned to high-value national security and critical infrastructure targets. And in my recent writings here at The American Spectator, I’ve focused on such things as Chinese state-sponsored terrorism or the machinations of Iranian proxies. Lately, however, I find myself more and more concerned with terrorism in a minor key, what I’ve come to think of as “the terrorism of small things.” No, I don’t mean things like the individuals who’ve aligned themselves with ISIS before going out to drive a truck through a crowd of holiday revelers. For present purposes, even the “lone actor” must be considered part of “big” terrorism, partly due to alignment with the larger international terrorist actors, but mainly because we must never allow ourselves to minimize the vile behavior of those who choose to murder the innocent. (RELATED: To Terror No Sanction) Increasingly, however, we’re seeing a category of events that may not be lethal, but which exert a chilling and disruptive effect. The recent wave of vandalism aimed at Tesla cars and Tesla dealerships exemplifies the problem. (RELATED: We Always Knew It Was Going to Get Weird — As Elon Musk Can Tell You) I’ve never been a fan of electric cars, and I’ve positively detested the manner in which “Green New Deal” zealots have promoted Teslas and others of their ilk. That our government and the governments of major European countries have, in effect, forced electric cars down our collective throats strikes me as insulting, both to our freedom and to our intelligence. And I’ve found those people who’ve worn their Tesla purchase as a badge of honor to be ridiculous. A Tesla parked in a driveway marked with a “Hate Has No Home Here Sign” has long been evidence of the worst kind of virtue signaling. (RELATED: The Personal Is Political for Foolish Tesla Owners) It’s unsurprising, then, that a vehicle draped in performative woke excess should have become the object of bitter anger when the godfather of Tesla, Elon Musk, suddenly turned into both the most prominent ally and most energetic agent of Donald Trump and his agenda. If all this meant was a decline in sales, then so be it. Musk certainly profited when Teslas were purchased by the “in-crowd,” so there’s perhaps a certain justice when that same crowd walks away. In any event, one doubts declining Tesla sales really matters much to him just now. But it’s not just declining sales. Instead, we read every day of Tesla dealerships being attacked and the cars themselves being vandalized, frequently, contemptibly with swastikas — these people really can’t let go of their idiotic “Musk = Hitler” fantasies. Ironically, this has become but the latest example of the woke eating their own, and it would be easy for the rest of us to derive a certain pleasure in watching this play out. The Germans have a good word for this — schadenfreude, that is, amusement at the discomfort of others, and, specifically, when they’ve earned it through their own silly actions. Still, we would do well to withhold our laughter, because this kind of vandalism represents a threat to some fundamentally conservative values. It’s not just Teslas, but all manner of other targets, including those we conservatives would value. When the “Just Stop Oil” fanatics splash paint on great works of art, society bears the cost of restoration. When “Jane’s Revenge” spray paints threats on the walls of pregnancy help centers, it intimidates both those seeking help and those who provide it, and the cleanup diverts resources better spent on these women in their hour of need. Worse yet, this kind of political vandalism nurtures progressively greater violence, moving the needle from graffiti and broken windows to destructive acts such as arson, and sooner or later, to lethal attacks. Years ago we learned to appreciate this dynamic in the context of ordinary, non-political criminality. One of the great insights of crime fighting was that tolerating neighborhood decline by allowing small things to slide served as an incubator for progressively more serious crimes. Reversing this tolerance, refusing to accept the “broken windows” that gave this crime-fighting concept its name, proved itself on the streets of New York and other cities. Unlike petty criminality, however, political vandalism cloaks itself in the language of legitimate protest and hides behind the First Amendment right of free speech. This is profoundly dangerous, and it should not be tolerated. In particular, we should resolutely reject the notion that “it doesn’t really harm anyone,” or, “it’s only property.” Repainting a Tesla to get rid of the swastika takes resources away from something better — maybe that Tesla owner would otherwise have donated to a homeless shelter. A brick through a window matters. When Nazi thugs rampaged through German cities on Kristallnacht in 1938, smashing the windows of hundreds of Jewish-owned businesses, Nazi leader Hermann Goering dismissed the damage with an arch “it’s the insurance companies that will have to pay.” In fact, when such things occur, all of us, that is, all of us who care about the society we live in, are called upon to pay. The “terrorism of small things” reaches into every corner of our lives, and normalizing it diminishes every aspect of our lives. (RELATED: So, You Want to Talk Hitler?) And so, then, a simple value proposition. If one wants to publicly protest, then get a parade permit and march in accordance with its provisions. If one wants to send a message, write a letter to the editor, or append your thoughts to articles in the comments section of whichever online journal you either love or hate. But the moment you damage a piece of property or, worse, injure another human being, then you deserve punishment to the full extent of the law, ideally an extent not mitigated by some Soros-backed district attorney. “Zero-tolerance” made “broken windows” policing work to reduce crime. It’s time for a similar approach to ending “the terrorism of small things.” READ MORE from James H. McGee: ‘No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Die.’ Suppressing Speech in Germany: 1933 vs. 2025 Trump, Zelenskyy, and Ukraine: A Tale of Frustration James H. McGee retired in 2018 after nearly four decades as a national security and counterterrorism professional, working primarily in the nuclear security field. Since retiring, he’s begun a second career as a thriller writer. His recent novel, Letter of Reprisal, tells the tale of a desperate mission to destroy a Chinese bioweapon facility hidden in the heart of the central African conflict region. A forthcoming sequel finds the Reprisal team fighting against terrorists who’ve infiltrated our southern border in a conspiracy that ranges across the globe. You can find Letter of Reprisal on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback editions, as well as on Kindle Unlimited. The post ‘Broken Windows’ and the Terrorism of Small Things appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

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by Matt Agorist, The Free Thought Project: (Drop Site News) SANA’A, Yemen—On Saturday, Nasser Mohammed Saad was at a friend’s home celebrating iftar—the evening meal where Muslims break their daily fast during the holy month of Ramadan—when he received a distressed call from his family. His house in the al-Jiraf area, north of Yemen’s capital Sana’a, had […]

by Mac Slavo, SHTF Plan: United States ruler Donald Trump has ordered a series of new airstrikes on Yemen’s capital, Sanaa. Trump warned he will continue using “overwhelming lethal force” until the Iranian-backed Houthi completely halt their attacks in the Red Sea. Days ago Yemen’s Houthis announced they are resuming attacks on Red Sea shipping […]