Politics, law, education, and culture ran four-way stop signs simultaneously to detonate a mushroom cloud known as 2024. The highlights are apparent, but you may have forgotten some lesser-known events. Here’s a recap of the year’s most consequential stories. Trump wasted no time by nominating every major Fox News personality to a cabinet position. January: Claudine Gay resigned as Harvard’s president after telling Congressmembers they needed to contextualize the call to slaughter Jews on an industrial scale. A few people found this preposterous, chief among them Jews, along with much of the sane, civilized world. Harvard understood it erred and immediately interviewed Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan to guide the storied school temporarily. Sadly, he didn’t get the job. February: Special prosecutor Robert Hur reported he would not charge President Biden with illegally possessing classified documents because that’s simply what lovable, infirmed grampas do. Biden took exception to the elderly description, grabbed his walker with tennis balls on its feet, hobbled before the White House press corps, and promptly forgot why he went out there in the first place. House Republicans impeached Secretary of Allowing Anyone to Illegally Walk Across the Border Alejandro Mayorkas for being criminally bad at his job. Senate Democrats voted to dismiss the case and give him a raise. March: New York Gov. Kathy Hochul deployed 750 National Guardsmen to the New York City subway system to counter recent violent assaults. Criminals quickly overrun the guardsmen, steal their weapons, and occupy the Lexington Avenue subway stations between 51st and 53rd streets. Hochul reassures concerned citizens that the subways are safe if you don’t use them. Meanwhile, that creepy Joe Biden automaton featured in Disney’s Hall of Presidents delivered a stirring State of the Union Address in which it decried Georgia nursing student “Lincoln” Riley’s murder at the hands of “an illegal.” The Biden contraption grovellingly regretted not using the term “salt-of-the-earth migrant.” Disney decommissioned the animatronic Biden and sold it to U.S. Steel for scrap, making it infinitely more useful than the actual President Biden. April: A magnitude 4.8 earthquake struck New Jersey, rattling the East Coast and becoming the most exciting thing to happen in the Garden State since HBO filmed the Johnny Cakes episode of The Sopranos in Boonton. In politics, Cornell West named Melina Abdulla as his pick for vice president, causing a nationwide internet outage because everyone simultaneously Googled “Who the hell is Melina Abdulla?” In business, 99 Cents Only announced it would close all 371 of its stores, leading one to logically ask, “Can I buy all the doomed shops for $362.29?” May: The Justice Department sued Ticketmaster, accusing it of monopolizing its competition and increasing prices. Ticketmaster responded by charging the Justice Department a $1.5 billion lawsuit acceptance fee, a $3 billion legal jargon reading fee, and a $5 billion only-a-complete-idiot-would-pay-this-fee fee. The Justice Department paid the fee. Elsewhere, a Manhattan jury convicted Donald Trump of falsifying business records in furtherance of another crime. Which crime? Presiding Judge Juan Merchan, D-N.Y., didn’t want to bog down jurors with inconsequential details and gave them an exaggerated wink along with Choose Your Own Adventure-style jury cards with a plethora of crimes from which to pick. June: Maj. Gen. William Sherman burned Atlanta to the ground during the Civil War — easily the most catastrophic event in the city’s history. Fast-forward 160 years to when Joe Biden debated Donald Trump there. So enamored was former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with Biden’s performance, she asked Vice President Harris to procure an anatomical chart of the human back and scampered out to the nearest cutlery store. Barack Obama frantically dialed U.S. Steel to see if the Biden robot could be salvaged. July: In an otherwise uneventful month, Trump came within a flea’s whisker of having his head blown off on national television during a failed assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania rally. Secret Service agents had no clue anything was amiss before the crime except for countless rally-goers screaming and pointing at a rooftop toward a suspicious man aiming a rifle and wearing an “I’m going to kill Trump today” T-shirt. A few weeks later, as an oblivious Biden showered, a shadowy figure silhouetted the curtain and appeared to raise a sharp instrument while screeching violin music repeated. The president later tweeted that he was mentally fit as a rickety, 81-year-old fiddle but would drop his re-election bid. August: Vice President Harris kicked off a joyful summer by speaking platitudinous gibberish to promise price controls and post-birth abortions upon “winning” the Democratic presidential nomination. Understanding she must win Pennsylvania, helmed by Josh Shapiro, its dynamic Democratic governor who’d be a logical choice for vice president, Harris used astute political judgment to pick the Skipper from Gilligan’s Island. The Skipper, portrayed by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, bumbled around stages, spastically waving jazz hands to anyone in front of him, causing small children to flee in terror. The estates of Alan Hale Jr. and Chris Farley sued Walz for unauthorized use of their likenesses. September: Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, pleaded guilty to federal tax evasion in California, prompting the senior Biden to unequivocally state that he will never, hand-on-the-Bible, I-swear-before-God, ever pardon his son. In Philadelphia, ABC News reporters David Muir and Linsey Davis teamed up with Harris to defeat Trump in a debate — what? No. Biden won’t pardon his son, so stop asking about it. Trump steals the show by declaring of Haitian immigrants in Ohio: “They’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.” This would later become PolitiFact’s lie of the year. Oh, for goodness’ sake, for the last time, President Biden repeatedly said he would not pardon his son. Trust him. October: The largest Nazi rally in the United States since 1939 occurred at Madison Square Garden. Torch-wielding, brown-shirted, swastika-armband-wearing troglodytes marched in time down the aisles, unfurled enormous Nazi flags, and festooned the famous New York venue with billowing Totenkopf (death head) banners where retired Knicks/Rangers jersey numbers once swayed. An alarming number of Jews and people of color joined forces with the Nazis and laughed when an evil insult comic dared to joke about Puerto Rico, sealing Vice President Harris’s inevitable victory in a few days. November: Famed Iowa pollster Ann Selzer declared Harris would win the state in a three-point landslide, causing MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow to audibly orgasm on air. The poll showed Harris leading among college-educated, suburban white women in their fifties who majored in belly dance theory at Vassar and read every Nicholas Sparks book in print. American citizens faced a daunting choice between a tough-as-nails former prosecutor and a Hitlerian convicted felon who serially lies and abuses women emotionally and physically. Selzer was slightly off by 13 points, with a cuddlier version of the Führer winning the state and national election convincingly, aided by millions of Puerto Ricans with a sense of humor. Democrats could not comprehend how Harris’s strategy of not saying anything of substance caused her to lose. The New York Times dispatched teams of anthropologists to states Trump won to understand why the unenlightened creatures lurking there voted how they did. Trump wasted no time by nominating every major Fox News personality to a cabinet position. December: President Biden unexpectedly pardoned Hunter to the extent that Hunter could’ve dropped a nuclear warhead onto Mar-a-Lago the night his father announced the pardon and still gotten away with it. In the oddest story of the year, alien drones in search of intelligent life for some reason hovered over New Jersey. Congress narrowly averted a government shutdown after Elon Musk examined a pork-laden spending bill and arched one of his eyebrows like a Bond villain. The nation’s ghouls made themselves known by glorifying an entitled trust fund baby who allegedly murdered a health insurance executive in broad daylight in New York City. This occurred roughly a week after a Manhattan jury acquitted a former marine who subdued and inadvertently killed a raving madman who threatened to murder passengers on a subway car a year earlier. Guess whose side the ghouls took. Democracy died in 2024 because people went to the polls and freely and fairly elected one person over another for president. That’s the antithesis of democracy, at least according to Nicolle Wallace, Chris Hayes, and other such lunatics. Soon, we will forget we ever democratically elected our leaders — until the special House elections occur in early 2025 to fill the seats vacated by representatives who want to work for Trump. Until then, let’s hope for a peaceful dictatorship starting on day one. READ MORE from Matt Manochio: The Power to Pardon Joe and Mika Reconcile With the Don The post Unravelling the Events of Trump’s Spectacular Year appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

The U.S. financial regulatory system is a labyrinth of overlapping, duplicative, dysfunctional, and costly federal government agencies badly in need of fresh review and overhaul. With the possible exception of the healthcare industry, there is perhaps no business sector more heavily regulated in the United States than the financial sector.   Diagram credit to the U.S. Department of Treasury report, ‘A Financial System That Creates Economic Opportunities’ June 2017, page 29. The diagram above of federal financial regulators and their oversight responsibilities succinctly shows the overly complicated nature of the U.S. financial regulatory system. But big changes may be coming to this long-standing regulatory mess after the new Trump administration takes office next month. According to a Wall Street Journal article on December 12th, the Trump transition team is exploring ways to dramatically downsize, consolidate, or even abolish some federal financial regulatory agencies. Excerpts from the WSJ article: In recent interviews with potential nominees to lead bank regulatory agencies, Trump advisers and officials from his newfound Department of Government Efficiency have, for example, asked whether the president-elect could abolish the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., people familiar with the matter said. Advisers have asked the nominees under consideration for the FDIC, as well as the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, if deposit insurance could then be absorbed into the Treasury Department, some of the people said. Any proposal to eliminate the FDIC or any agency would require congressional action. While past presidents have reorganized and rebranded departments, Washington has never shut down a major cabinet-level agency and rarely closed other agencies like the FDIC that are not. The discussions underscore the drastic approach Trump could take in his attempt to slash the size of the government and ease oversight, including for the highly regulated financial industry. Potential bank regulator nominees have interviewed with Treasury Secretary pick Scott Bessent and the new DOGE department, the outside advisory group co-chaired by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, some of the people said. Musk last month also called for the elimination of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency Republicans have long hated. “There are too many duplicative regulatory agencies,” Musk said. Trump advisers and potential nominees have also discussed plans to either combine or otherwise restructure the main federal bank regulators: the FDIC, OCC and the Federal Reserve….” As a former federal financial regulatory employee, I wholeheartedly endorse the abolition of both the FDIC and the CFPB. Both agencies are massively overstaffed, badly bloated, and heavily politicized. The regulations and compliance enforcement actions that they impose on the financial sector are burdensome, costly, and mostly counter-productive. (READ MORE from Steve Dewey: Turmoil at the FDIC) But any overhaul can only be achieved while Republicans have control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives. The standard argument for the existence of the FDIC is its responsibility for providing deposit insurance for bank customers. However, there have been numerous studies since the FDIC’s creation in 1933 that government-funded deposit insurance establishes an inherent moral hazard that actually leads to more, not less, bank failures and financial crises. In a study authored by Thomas Hogan and Kristine Johnson, “Alternatives to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation,” published in The Independent Review, Winter 2016, privatization of bank deposit insurance and the abolition of the FDIC were considered. Key excerpts from the study: [T]hree potential changes that might be made to the current system of deposit insurance managed by the FDIC. First, international studies find that private or semi-privately managed deposit insurance systems tend to outperform public systems. The FDIC might therefore be partly or fully privatized in a manner similar to most European deposit insurance systems. Second, the evidence shows that lower levels of mandated deposit insurance coverage tend to increase stability in the banking system. The current maximum level of $250,000 in mandated FDIC deposit insurance coverage can be greatly reduced without endangering the vast majority of depositors, a change that is likely to benefit smaller depositors by increasing stability and reducing costs. Finally, we propose that mandated insurance could be eliminated and that the FDIC be privatized or abolished altogether. Historical evidence of deposit insurance prior to the FDIC indicates that private mechanisms, such as clearinghouses, coinsurance programs, and systems of self-regulation are likely to emerge to stem bank risk. The empirical evidence indicates that these proposals are likely to increase efficiency and stability in the U.S. banking system. As for the CFPB, it was created in Title X of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (Dodd-Frank Act). The progressive Democrat sponsors of this legislation, former Senator Chris Dodd and former Congressman Barney Frank, were successful in setting up the CFPB to be uniquely independent of congressional budget authority and oversight. The CFPB’s funding, rather than being authorized by Congress, would come from the Federal Reserve and with funding amounts to be at the discretion of the CFPB itself. Thus, the legislation was crafted to keep the CFPB as free from congressional oversight as possible. (READ MORE: Back-to-Back Bank Closures: The Fallout From the Failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank) Legal scholar Peter Wallison, Senior Fellow Emeritus of the American Enterprise Institute, served as a member of the 1–member Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) established by Congress in 2009 to investigate and report on the causes of the 2008 financial crisis. Mr. Wallison was a dissenter on the final report issued by the FCIC in January 2011. Subsequent to serving on the FCIC, Mr. Wallison authored a 546-page book on the Dodd-Frank Act in 2013 entitled “Bad History, Worse Policy.” In his book, Mr. Wallison was highly critical of the creation of the CFPB in the Dodd-Frank Act. He wrote: Another provision of the Dodd-Frank Act that is derived from the left’s narrative is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was given authority under Title X of the act to police all financial relationships between consumers and firms of any kind — not just financial firms. In the U.S. constitutional structure, Congress has the power to appropriate funds for the operations of the executive branch. However, the Dodd-Frank Act provides a unique funding mechanism for the CFPB, granting it a direct statutory allocation of funds from the Federal Reserve. So Congress has no power to control the scope of the agency’s activities through appropriations … although the CFPB’s funds come from the Fed, the Dodd-Frank Act forbids the Fed to exercise any control over the agency. In other words, the CFPB, alone among federal agencies (except the Fed itself), is free of any political or policy controls. A much more recent and even more devastating indictment of the U.S. financial regulatory system was provided by the Bank Policy Institute just last month, November 19th, in an article posted on its website, “Bank Supervision is Broken. Here’s How to Fix It.” Excerpts from the article: Banks are unique among U.S. companies because they are not only subject to intense regulation but also directly overseen by an army of well over 5,000 government examiners. The banking agencies refer to this function as “supervision,” and that term itself illustrates the problem: by statute, the agencies are only authorized to examine banks for legal compliance and unsafe and unsound practices, but over time they have expanded their function to now “supervise” and micromanage banks’ operations and governance, and increasingly dictate their business choices based on how the government thinks they should operate. Furthermore, this power is subject to no checks and balances: “supervision” operates in secret based on the varying views of individual examiners, and the agencies have created their own enforcement regime, not based on rule or law, to impose significant penalties on banks that do not follow their mandates. These penalties can be severe and greatly affect the ability of banks to run their business; they range from limits on business growth, orders to divest from certain business lines and customers, denials of mergers and acquisitions and increases in deposit insurance fees, among other things. The banking agencies are able to impose severe mandates on banks for one reason: they have established a secret enforcement regime that allows them to impose massive sanctions without any due process or, in most cases, public disclosure. In the past, and under the law, a banking agency’s only recourse to force a bank to change its practices was a formal enforcement order that came with a right of the bank to receive notice of the charges and contest them in court. Now, there is effectively no way for a bank to contest a supervisory mandate. The above excerpts from the writings of highly credible financial regulatory experts supports the rationale of the Trump transition team in exploring a major overhaul and simplification of the nation’s financial regulatory system. But any overhaul can only be achieved while Republicans have control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives with a reform-minded Trump-Vance administration. Democrats en masse will surely oppose any major reforms that downsize, weaken, or abolish any federal regulatory agencies. Steve Dewey is a retired federal financial regulator and founder of GeoFinancial Trends, LLC (www.geofinancialtrends.org). He can be reached at steve@geofinancialtrends.org The post Overhaul the Financial Regulatory System appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

from Sarah Westall: TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

by Peter Breggin MD & Ginger Breggin, America Outloud: There is currently a case before the Hague that will determine the UN’s capacity to bully the rest of the world on climate change. Here is the UN’s statement on the importance of the ongoing legal case: This opinion on climate change can help inform subsequent judicial proceedings such as domestic […]

A kitten once spotted wobbling outside finally had her wish come true and her first perfect Christmas. KatydidKrisKaiserA little wobbly kitten was found living on the streets. It took Nicole, a compassionate animal rescuer, a few days to finally catch her. With the support of Pet Haven MN, she was placed in a foster home.Estimated to be 12 weeks old, the kitten was initially scared and uncertain, but once she realized she was safe, the fear in her eyes melted away. Despite being wobbly, she showed an unstoppable spirit, embracing her new life as an indoor cat."After eating, she played for hours, which was amazing to see," Kris Kaiser, a volunteer for the rescue and an advocate for wobbly kittens, shared. KrisKaiser"She has a congenital disorder called Cerebellar Hypoplasia (CH), which causes issues with balance and coordination. She is mildly affected, so she gets around pretty well but has a bit more hop and bounce to her run."Kris began bringing the kitten, named Katydid, to work so she could continue socializing her. "All she does all day is play, purr, nap, and distract the workers." KrisKaiserKatydid was excited with her assortment of new toys, trying to play with them all at once. "She must bite them all before she can decide on a favorite. It's hard to believe just ten days ago, she was a feral kitty living on the streets."As she became more comfortable around people, she started using her charm to demand food and attention. KrisKaiserWhenever Kris entered the room with food, Katydid would roll out of her bed and glide over to her foster mom. "I get a few cute little chirps to say hello, and then all this rolling around."Before long, she'd nestle into her lap, filling the room with her rumbling purrs. "Katydid is quite the little cuddle bug." KrisKaiser"She loves to play and has lots of energy; her wobbles don't slow her down at all. Some of her favorite toys are plastic springs that she can bat around and chase, plush toys to carry in her mouth, larger toys to bunny kick, the tower tracks is lots of fun... Basically, Katydid loves all kinds of toys and lots of them.""After most of my coworkers leave for the night, I've been letting her run around the office. She's just full of funny antics." See on Instagram Once the kitten tires from all her playtime, she loves curling up on a cozy bed or lap, snuggling with her people or feline friends."Uncle Calvin (a resident cat) came down to play with Katydid, but she's a lot of energy for this boy. He liked having the upper paw from the couch. While Calvin gets overwhelmed, he comes upstairs and has zoomies of his own (without the fear of a Katydid sneak attack)." Uncle Calvin and KatydidKrisKaiserAfter weeks in foster care, Katydid's dream came true when she met Taylor, her forever mom, Ed and Otis, her new feline brothers with matching markings, and Dory, the golden retriever.They knew she would have a blast keeping all her furry siblings on their toes. KrisKaiser"She settled into the house immediately and explored and played," Taylor shared.Katydid, now CC or Cecilia, fit right into her new home as if she'd always belonged there. Dory, smitten with the kitten, took her under her wing, and soon the two were seeking each other out for play and snuggles. She's found her forever homeTaylorCC celebrated her first Christmas with the family of her dreams. She carefully inspected all the gifts under the Christmas tree and ensured every decoration was feline-approved.She had the most perfect Christmas, surrounded by her loving humans and furry siblings. TaylorAfter weeks of wandering the streets, CC is now living the life she always wanted with a big family, endless toys to play with, and all the love she could ever need. TaylorShare this story with your friends. More on Kris's fosters on Instagram and Pet Haven MN on Instagram. More on CC and Dory on Instagram.Related story: Tiny Kitten Seen on the Road Begging to Be Rescued Ends Up Having All Her Wishes Come True

In this final year of the Biden presidency, the ever-inept Karine Jean-Pierre provided a litany of verbal stumbles and word salads when under tough questioning from Fox’s Peter Doocy, Jacqui Heinrich, Edward Lawrence, and even from liberal legacy outlets. Thankfully for her, there were also times when she had assists from the press corps in peddling the left’s preferred storylines (to hide President Biden’s cognitive impairment) or was challenged from the left. Below is our top-ten list of times White House correspondents either hit Jean-Pierre (or foreign policy spokesman John Kirby) from the left or lobbed weak softballs. The list is presented in chronological order: January 3 – Al-Jazeera Wonders If U.S. Is Escalating Tensions, Reuters Questions If Election Will Be ‘Free and Fair’ The first White House press briefing of 2024 yielded some hardballs, but plenty of insane hot takes, including this exchange in which Al-Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett pressed Kirby on whether the U.S. (and not, say, Hamas, Houthis in Yemen, or Iran) are responsible for escalating Middle East tensions: WATCH: Leave it to the Al Jazeera reporter to claim w/o evidence it's the U.S. -- not Iran or Houthis -- who's esclating matters toward a Middle East war in the Red Sea b/c commercial vessels can't travel safely. John Kirby was NOT having any of this pro-terrorist propaganda. pic.twitter.com/dD0M6xvlt9 — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) January 3, 2024 Later, Reuters’s Trevor Hunnicutt cartoonishly wondered to Jean-Pierre if President Biden “think[s] the United States is ready to have free and fair elections in November” as a way of spreading fear that Trump supporters would cause violence. Isn’t it amazing how liberal journalists never face professional blowback from their organizations for claims like this? March 25: CNN’s Lee, WH’s KJP Team Up to SLAM NBC for Hiring McDaniel, Demand Censorship In late March, NBC faced entirely predictable and childish blowback from the cancel culture left for its decision to hire former Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel as a political analyst. McDaniel eventually withdrew, but not before CNN’s M.J. Lee could help Jean-Pierre decry this decision by the latter’s former employer. “I wanted to ask you about former RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel being hired by NBC News. Given that this is a White House that has condemned lies about January 6, condemned allies about the 2020 election, what do you make of the network hiring somebody who participated in a phone call — um — you know, pressuring Michigan officials to not certify certain votes,” Lee began. One of Lee’s follow-ups was an outright call for censorship: “[D]o you — does this White House, does the President believe that that — um — kind of voice — that voice like hers — that there’s room for her in the national political discourse?”  April 1: AP Reporter, KJP Link Up to Smear ‘Hateful’ GOP Over Transgender Visibility Day In 2024, Easter and Transgender Day of Visibility fell on the same day and thus the Biden regime put out statements on both and, predictably, the latter went into far more emotional detail. As such, this drew some intense pushback from the right and Christians writ large. Instead of asking why one seemed to have been given more heft, Associated Press correspondent Will Weissert whined about those expressing outrage: “So, the criticism over the Transgender Day of Visibility, the White House said that the President wouldn’t abuse his faith for political purposes. Does the President think that’s what Republicans are doing on this?” As we said at the time, Weissert chose that route instead of having “asked about this in any number of productive ways, such as why was this tweeted from the White House’s main account, but not their Spanish-language profile, or why did Biden use only half of Genesis 1:27 to endorse transgenderism when the second, omitting portion would show God vehemently opposes it.” April 2: AP Lobs INSANE Softball Cheering Illegal Immigration as Doocy Brings Heat on Crisis The Associated Press made a second straight appearance on this list thanks to the following day’s opener from Weissert’s colleague Josh Boak, who tried to lead Jean-Pierre on a path of praising the value of having immigrants (read: illegal immigrants) prop up the workforce: “[O]n Friday, we’re going to get jobs figures and past jobs reports have shown that immigrants are helping the U.S. economy. Is the view of this administration that the inflow of immigrants do more to strengthen the United States or hurt the United States? Does it do more?” May 16: ABC Reporter, KJP Team Up to Trash Butker for Pro-Life, Pro-Family Speech Commencement season was dominated in the liberal media not by the usual platitudes and flowery language about changing the world, but attempts to cancel Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker for speaking about his Catholic faith and family values in the St. Benedictine College’s commencement address.     ABC’s Karen Travers took up the cause of the woke mob trying to have Butker kicked out of the NFL (pun intended) and society for talking about the joy women often have when they become mothers: I want to ask you about the topic that's getting a lot of attention. The Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker is facing criticism for his recent commencement address where he told female graduates that the most important title a woman can hold is homemaker. He was critical about surrogacy, IVF, and Pride Month, and he also criticized the President for being a Catholic who supports abortion rights. Has the President seen those comments? Does he have a reaction to that? After Jean-Pierre gave a long-winded answer revolving around allowing women to kill their unborn children, Travers had one follow-up: “As the President gets ready to give his own commencement address, does he think a message like that is appropriate at a commencement address?” May 17: Of Course the Al-Jazeera Reporter Asks About Genocide in Israel and CNN Reporter Tries to Get KJP to Have Butker Banned From WH Thankfully, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan wasn’t having any of it when Al-Jazeera’s Halkett demanded he explain why the U.S. believes “genocide is not being committed” by Israel against Palestinians since the “Francesca Albanese, the Special U.N. Rapporteur on Human Rights in Palestine” said so. Halkett went into three criteria the anti-Israel body found that they were guilty of: “intent to destroy national ethnic, racial, or religious groups; serious bodily or mental harm to a group; inflicting on a group conditions of life calculated to bring physical destruction, in whole or in part, with imposing measures intended to prevent birth within the group; process of erasure of the native Palestinians.” CNN’s Lee was more concerned with matters back in the U.S., specifically the manufactured outrage over Butker. First, she wondered whether Butker’s speech meant President Biden would no longer welcome the Chiefs to the White House (as is customary for the Super Bowl champion team). When that didn’t work, she twice asked if Butker was banned: “So, can you confirm — you said everyone on the team is obviously invited. Is the Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker welcome at this White House…Given his recent comments, is he specifically welcome at this White House?” June 17: AP Tag-Teams With KJP to Promulgate False ‘Cheap Fakes’ Hoax About Biden Perhaps the single worst liberal media cover-up of 2024 was President Biden’s continued cognitive decline (aside from a story here or there from, say, The Wall Street Journal) and it was on full display when, just days before the presidential debate that nuked Biden’s reelection bid, Jean-Pierre and her media allies promulgated a bizarre claim that videos showing Biden confused and distant were manipulated media. In what surely was a focus group-tested moniker, Jean-Pierre deemed these videos “cheap fakes.” The AP’s Weissert did his part by whining to her a “rash of videos…have been edited to make the President appear especially frail or mentally confused” and asked if the White House was “worried…that this appears to be a pattern[.]” August 12: Washington Post’s Wootson Demands White House Censor Trump The Washington Post’s Cleve T. Wootson provided the most repugnant and biased question of the year when he expressed alarm about now-President-Elect Trump’s August X Spaces interview with owner and now-First Buddy Elon Musk. As The Post continued to hemorrhage money and personnel in 2024, Wootson’s defense of censorship encapsulated their stale way of thinking: The Washington Post’s Cleve Wootson: “One more, @ElonMusk is slated to interview [@realDonaldTrump] tomorrow — tonight on — on @X. I don't know if the president is going to — feel free to say if he is or not — but I — I think that misinformation on Twitter is not just a campaign… pic.twitter.com/zKxJNF1zbf — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) August 12, 2024 October 4: Biden FINALLY Visits WH Briefing Room, But Journos Waste Time With Softballs President Biden finally made an appearance in the Briefing Room on this day and, while there were multiple instances in which the room held Jean-Pierre to account for Biden’s policies, those called on didn’t do that for the man himself. Boak went first and whined about those casting doubt on job numbers: “Florida Senator Marco Rubio described today's jobs report as having fake numbers. What do you make of that and how worried are you that many Americans are hearing that the jobs numbers aren't real?” ABC’s Selina Wang and CBS’s Weijia Jiang lobbed laments to Biden about Israel, including this from Wang: “But over the past few months they've consistently defied your administration's own advice, so do you believe that the Israelis are going to listen to the advice you're giving them?” Another weak-tea query was this one from NPR’s Tamara Keith: “The election is a month away. One, I'd like to know how you're feeling about how this election is going? And then, also, do you have confidence that it will be a free and fair election, and then it will be peaceful?” Sad trombone, Tam! The elections were free, fair, and peaceful! October 10: Despicable Tools: WH Reporters Hijack Briefing on Milton to Hold Trump Hatefest To close out this nauseating list, we go back to the aftermath of devastating landfalls by Hurricanes Helene and Milton and the frustratingly incompetent roll out of FEMA aid to affected communities from Florida to western North Carolina. Instead of pressing Homeland Security Secretary Alejando Mayorkas for answers, many White House reporters lobbed anti-Trump softballs claiming he was making recovery efforts worse, misinformation was afoot about FEMA’s budget, and that Trump placed the lives of FEMA workers in danger. ABC’s Mary Bruce unsurprisingly was the worst. Click the tweet to see the two-part thread in which Bruce expressed concern about FEMA workers (versus Americans who’ve lost their livelihoods and loved ones) and blamed Trump and Russia: ABC’s @MaryKBruce with the REAL question that matters to those affected by #Helene and #Milton.... Bruce: “You know, we've seen reports that some FEMA officials, including the administrator, are being doxxed and targeted online in the wake of these hurricanes. Are you concerned… pic.twitter.com/rCX66GxqC3 — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) October 10, 2024 In addition to the reporter in the Reuters seat, CNN’s Kayla Tausche also went down this rabbit hole: “You said on CNN yesterday that some of the misinformation that had been perpetuated...was already beginning to have an impact on individuals either applying or deciding not to apply for government relief. Can you elaborate on what exactly you’re seeing and what exactly you determined to be the cause of that?”

German President Thinks X Is a Threat to Democracy