By John B. Carpenter, Op-ed contributor Thursday, November 27, 2025(Photo: Unsplash/Priscilla Du Preez)This week, we celebrate our most Christian and theological holiday: Thanksgiving. While we associate…

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A man who served in the Afghan Army for a decade before being evacuated to America during the chaotic 2021 military withdrawal has been identified as the suspect in a shooting that left two National Guard…

On Wednesday evening at PlayGround Global in Palo Alto, some very smart people who are building things you don’t understand yet will explain what’s coming. This is the final StrictlyVC event of 2025, and truly, the lineup is ridiculous. The series has bounced around the globe under the auspices of TechCrunch. Steve Case rented a […]

Foreign Affairs The BBC’s Left Turn Has Endangered Its Own Existence The venerable British outlet is facing a serious libel suit just as its financing is being called into question. UK Special Coverage The British Broadcasting Corporation is a century-old anachronism—as many in the BBC freely admit. It is unique in being financed by a poll tax of £175 a year served on every household with a TV, whether they watch its output or not. And, increasingly, they don’t, if they are under 35 or have conservative political views. Last year the BBC lost nearly £1 billion to the Great Switch-Off, as it has been called. But it still raised a tidy £3.8 billion, enough to finance a lot of “Trump Bad” programs, LGBTQ celebrations, and unfunny left-wing comedy shows. Though it may lose a chunk of this if the American president, Donald Trump, is successful in suing the BBC for defamation over its misrepresentation of his Capitol speech on January 6. Unable to find a clip of the then-president actually calling for a riot, the flagship BBC current affairs show Panorama made one up by splicing two unrelated sentences together. It was the most disastrous edit in BBC history. So how did this curious institution, whose independence is supposedly guaranteed by a royal charter renewed every 10 years, survive for nearly 100? How can the UK government compel people to pay for this state-sponsored option when there is a myriad of high-quality streaming services to choose from? Well, in the past, people were prepared to pay the license fee because it seemed pretty decent value for the money. Back in the days of terrestrial broadcasting, many viewers, especially in the U.S., regarded the BBC as the best broadcasting service in the world. This was largely down to the absence of intrusive commercials and the presence of world-leading arts and science documentaries like Civilisation and The Ascent of Man in the ’60s and ’70s, presented by Kenneth Clark and Jacob Bronowski respectively. These programmes could never be made today because they were written and presented by middle-aged white men with humanist values. Such people are no longer valued by the BBC. The corporation also justified itself, rightly, on its reputation formed during the Second World War for impartiality and objectivity in news and factual programs. I worked at the BBC as a political reporter and presenter for over 25 years; in my day, impartiality was almost a cult. The vast majority of BBC journalists even then were of the liberal left, myself included. But it was considered extremely bad form for this to be apparent in any programs. The idea that it was the BBC’s job to privilege and promote certain political agendas was considered obviously flawed, not least because we realized it would be impossible to justify the license fee if the corporation excluded the views of the large number of conservative viewers and listeners. So when did all this change? In my view, the decline and fall of the BBC began, not with its notorious Trump edit, but with its passion for climate change. More than a decade ago the BBC decided that this was an issue about which there should be no debate, no “two-sidesism”. The science of global warming was unarguable, so critics of climate change like the Conservative former chancellor, Nigel Lawson, or the popular botanist and broadcaster, David Bellamy, should not be allowed to air their views lest someone believe them. Climate change denial was, in the BBC view, equal in moral infamy to Holocaust denial. This “no debate” principle spread rapidly through the corporation. LGBTQ people said there should be no debate over transgenderism because… well, just because. The BBC famously amplified the 100 genders fallacy in its children’s programs and showcased groups like Mermaids, which advocated sex change for minors. BBC news guidelines required journalists to refer to natal male sex offenders as women. Pronoun mandates spread like a disease across the corporation’s staff of 21,000. Doctor Who became an almost comic parody of bien-pensant BBC attitudes—Doctor DEI. Then came Black Lives Matter. A man died in police custody in Minneapolis, and the UK media went slightly mad over race, slavery and anti-colonialism. Diversity and inclusion became the new religion, and heretics were vilified. One of the BBC’s favourite feminist comedians, Jo Brand, famously “joked” that the populist politician Nigel Farage should be pelted with “battery acid” instead of milkshakes. But times change, and so does politics. The middle-aged white man the BBC loves to hate, Nigel Farage, is likely to be the UK’s next prime minister, according to opinion polls. A leaked report from an independent adviser on editorial standards, Michael Prescott, confirmed what had been obvious to many viewers: The BBC has been assiduously promoting minority beliefs like transgenderism and has essentially abandoned impartiality in its treatment of immigration, climate change, and conservative politicians. So how could the BBC intelligentsia not realize that it was destroying any justification for the license fee? As critical friends of the BBC, like the former BBC diplomatic editor, Mark Urban, and the former BBC politics editor, Andrew Marr, have pointed out, a new generation of activist journalists have colonized the broadcaster. This was partly a result of two decades of DEI hiring policies and partly because nearly every graduate of an elite university in the UK is left-wing. These new guardians regard journalism not as a job reporting news stories but as a vehicle to promote social justice, oppose climate catastrophe, and celebrate immigration and multiculturalism. There’s nothing wrong with having these views. But the BBC cannot survive by turning itself into the Guardian of the airwaves. The BBC lost the plot by turning left just at the moment when the British people were turning right. It is very difficult to see how the BBC can now default to its original mission of impartiality. The gospel according to DEI is so deeply ingrained in the BBC culture that it would take a radical clearing out of key staff to get the corporation back on track. The BBC’s director general, Tim Davie, and head of news, Deborah Turness, have indeed resigned because of editorial incompetence and the corporation’s misrepresentation of Trump. But that isn’t enough. Elite voices in and out of the BBC still insist that they are determined to defy what they see as a right-wing coup. They seem incapable of understanding that privileging liberal-left attitudes is not compatible with public service broadcasting.  Even the UK’s Labour government is now seriously questioning the sustainability of the license fee. Donald Trump’s $5 billion legal action could be the last straw. “Go woke, go broke” may be the BBC’s epitaph. The post The BBC’s Left Turn Has Endangered Its Own Existence appeared first on The American Conservative.

Politics Jeffrey Epstein’s Federal Agents for Hire The most recent Epstein emails disclose ties to DEA, FBI, CIA, and D.A.R.E. (Photo by Rick Friedman/Corbis via Getty Images) The American Conservative has gained access to more than 20,000 unreleased emails from Jeffrey Epstein’s private Yahoo account. The emails were first leaked to Bloomberg shortly after passwords for Jeffrey Epstein’s email accounts were obtained and published by Deeper States. A slightly modified version of the same set of emails—verified by Bloomberg as authentic—was leaked to the non-profit Distributed Denial of Secrets, which provided TAC with access to the files.  What the most recent cache of emails shows, among other things, is the ease with which elite operators like Epstein routinely hire (or are offered) the services of former federal law enforcement agents and intelligence personnel who maintain close ties to those still employed by the federal government. In addition to purchasing the services of former DOJ officials whose expertise and connections helped secure a sweetheart plea deal, the disclosure also shows that Epstein was able to purchase favor and proximity with officers of the law.  Epstein himself contracted with a private investigation firm run by two former DEA agents to investigate his victims and aid in his legal defense. More than a decade after his plea deal in 2008, Epstein was still being invited to meet-and-greets through the firm with senior federal law enforcement executives including agents and officials from the FBI, DEA, NYPD, and Secret Service.  In the email tranche, Epstein’s longtime fixer and girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell describes being approached by a former CIA asset for hire. And a DHS official is found in the emails soliciting Epstein for a charitable donation to the “U.S. Custom and Border Patrol Explorer’s Post 5101”, a Boy Scouts affiliate overseen by the Department of Homeland Security.  Taken together, the new emails offer an insight into the world of special agents for hire, where the deep ties forged between special agents and intelligence officers serving their country are tapped for the benefit of the rich and powerful who can afford services in an elevated lane of justice reserved for those who operate above the law.  In a July article published in Rolling Stone, multiple FBI sources said that Epstein had hired private investigators to surveil and intimidate FBI agents who were contacted by the West Palm Beach Police Department to investigate Epstein. While the recent tranche does not show further evidence of this allegation, it does shed light on a private firm tied to federal law enforcement surveilling Epstein’s accusers.  Dozens of emails in the recent tranche entail Epstein’s communication with private investigators from the private investigation firm Investigative Management Group, founded by the former DEA agents Robert J. Strang and Ann Hayes. A handful of those emails are dated to April 2006, one month prior to Palm Beach police filing a probable cause affidavit for unlawful sex with minors and sexual abuse.   In one of the emails, Epstein appears to describe one of his victims to aid in surveillance: In another email, a private investigator from Investigative Management describes surveillance of a victim to try to obtain proof that she is partying.  While Epstein’s messages to his private investigators trail off, luncheon invitations with current and former law enforcement officials from the firm continued up through 2021. Among those event hosts were the former NYPD Commissioner James P. O’Neill, Secret Service special agent Thomas A. Petro, DEA Special Agent James J. Hunt, NYPD Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence and Counterterrorism John Miller, NYC DEA Special Agent in Charge Raymond P. Donovan, the FBI special agent in charge of counterterrorism, Bryan Paarmann, and a former member of the French intelligence service.  In another instance of intelligence connections put up for sale, an email from Ghislaine Maxwell to Epstein details the efforts of one unnamed man to trade off the CIA’s good name. In the email below, Maxwell claims to have met a CIA “operative” who worked with her father Robert Maxwell, a notorious British media magnate and fraudster who was suspected by the British foreign service of being a spy. That “operative,” a term no CIA officer would use, claimed he “could tell, all find all, and reveal all, (for a price)!!”  As POLITICO reported in the 2010s, the CIA has routinely allowed its employees to moonlight for corporate firms, with hedge funds winning out as the top landing spot. Other agencies including the Department of Defense, the National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, and Office of the Director of National Intelligence have also endorsed the practice to varying degrees. In 2013, Newsweek reported that the financial benefits of working on Wall Street were so great that the CIA was concerned about the number of officers hemorrhaging to the private sector.  In another bizarre exchange documented in the latest email tranche, Epstein agreed to pony up $10,000 dollars for a joint DHS/Boy Scouts of America program called U.S. Customs & Border Protection Explorer Post 5101 Saint Thomas (USCBPE).  According to the back and forth,  The Virgin Islands Police Department Training Staff and Immigration and Customs Enforcement RAC and Special Agents train “Explorers” in  Accident Scene, Traffic Stop Neighborhood Watch, Bomb Threat, Shoot Drill, Domestic Violence, Forensic, Inspection, Narcotics, Self Defense, White Collar Crime & Arrest Techniques. “For the past 14 years, the U.S. Customs & Border Protection Explorer Post 5101 Saint Thomas, (USCBPE) has been a youth organization, registered under the Learning for Life, a division of the Boy Scouts of America career education program, that is developed to help young adults build character, enhance leadership, professionalism, and personal development by promoting integrity, accountability, fairness, service, and pride that is useful in selecting a career in law enforcement,” a DHS employee wrote to Epstein as part of solicitation for program funds. “The Instructors and Advisors have joined together to work hand in hand to encourage positive behavior conducive to promoting productive, law abiding citizens amongst our youths in the community. One of our goals is to have the community realize that the programs will also develop a positive relationship between law enforcement and the youths and citizens of this community.” The CBP Explorers were not the only youth organization seeking donations from Epstein. For years after Epstein inked his plea deal, the disgraced financier was routinely invited to attend the D.A.R.E fundraising gala in New York by the chairmen Robert J. Strang (former FBI/DEA), Howard Safir (NYPD/DEA/USMS), and the D.A.R.E President Frank Pegueros. Jeffrey Epstein’s affinity for Israel is now well documented. Emails first reported by Drop Site News show how Epstein helped the celebrity lawyer Alan Dershowitz organize a campaign against the political scientists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt following their paper on the Israel lobby while simultaneously working with Dershowitz to discredit a teenager who accused him of sexual abuse. The Harvard megadonor Les Wexner, a longtime Epstein associate, also participated in the campaign against Walt through the surrogate David Gergen. In another illustrative email, Ghislaine Maxwell forwards a complaint from a Davos participant objecting to what they call “the single most anti-Semitic, anti-Israel article” printed in the World Economic Forum’s official magazine at the time, Global Agenda. “woujld he like me to call mort.. ..2 where are you?” replied Epstein. “Mort” is a likely reference to the Canadian-American billionaire and owner of U.S. News and World Report Mort Zuckerman. The material reviewed by TAC so far does not suggest that Epstein manipulated or directed intelligence services. What it does reveal is that Epstein was a player in a market for private investigators, technology, and connections that is only on offer for the most powerful and well-financed business people.  What remains notable about the Epstein saga is that even now, with thousands of emails available and reporters combing through them, some of the simplest questions about Epstein remain unanswered: how he acquired his wealth, what role he played in the finances of an international suite of billionaires and power players. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and the House Oversight Committee are currently leading an effort in Congress to subpoena the world’s largest banks, many of which Epstein continued to do business with up until the time of his death. The post Jeffrey Epstein’s Federal Agents for Hire appeared first on The American Conservative.

Uncategorized Xi’s Purge Could Signal Danger. America Must Be Ready A more politically pliable Chinese military does not guarantee more rational policy. (Photo by Maxim Shemetov-Pool/Getty Images) Indications are that China’s Premier Xi Jinping is tightening his grip on power—and in the process, making China’s military less predictable, more brittle, and potentially more dangerous.  America needs to be prepared. At a recent briefing in Pearl Harbor, U.S. officials told reporters that Xi has fired nine senior generals and admirals from the People’s Liberation Army, expelled them from the Communist Party, and referred them for military prosecution. According to the Washington Times and other outlets, the purged officers include multiple Politburo members and two generals directly involved in operational planning against Taiwan. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth received a more detailed classified version of the same assessment. The move reflects an escalation: Xi’s fear of internal dissent has now reached the highest levels of China’s armed forces. He has replaced professionals with loyalists, and debate with obedience. History shows that such purges come at a cost. Josef Stalin’s Great Purge of the late 1930s removed some 35,000 Soviet officers, a self-inflicted wound that would later cripple Russia’s ability to fight the Wehrmacht in the opening stages of the Second World War. Xi’s own political “rectification” campaign may have a similar short-term effect, as the PLA scales back exercises and grapples with disorganization and mistrust within its ranks. But that’s cold comfort. The same purge that temporarily weakens the PLA could ultimately make it more responsive to Xi’s personal whims, particularly regarding Taiwan. And history has shown that when a dictator replaces competent commanders with sycophants, the danger is not caution—it’s overconfidence. Xi has staked his legitimacy on what he calls the “reunification” of Taiwan. Every scenario for achieving that goal is fraught with peril for him. A blockade would risk confrontation with the U.S. Navy and American allies and invite crushing global sanctions. And despite China’s new Fujian aircraft carrier and recent display of advanced weaponry, a full-scale amphibious invasion would be even riskier. No power has attempted one against a peer adversary since Korea, and modern missile technology has made such operations extremely daunting. If Taiwan’s defenses inflicted major losses, the resulting humiliation could threaten the Communist Party’s survival. That may be why Xi’s recent firings included key Taiwan planners. Perhaps they were guilty not of corruption but of realism—raising the same concerns military experts in every country would. In communist systems, honesty often looks like treason. Mao Zedong once branded warnings about famine during the Great Leap Forward as “counterrevolutionary.” Xi could be repeating the pattern: silencing those who tell him what he doesn’t want to hear. The result is a Chinese military that may be less competent but more compliant, led by yes-men who tell Xi victory will be easy. That’s what makes the situation truly volatile. A leader surrounded by loyalists and convinced of his own infallibility is far more likely to gamble and to drag the world into crisis. If that happens, the United States and its Indo-Pacific allies must not only be prepared; we must signal preparedness. Deterrence in this era isn’t just about having more ships or jets; it’s about technical supremacy, from cyber resilience to secure communications to artificial intelligence. That starts with protecting the networks that bind our militaries and economies together. The Chinese telecom giant Huawei, with its deep ties to the CCP, still dominates much of the world’s 5G infrastructure—including in countries that would be key to any Pacific conflict. In a crisis, those networks could become Trojan horses for cyberwarfare, allowing Beijing to disrupt command systems, manufacturing, even hospitals. The United States has banned Huawei equipment, and some allies have followed suit. But others—including major economies in Europe and Asia—have not. That’s why the Justice Department’s recent approval of Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s acquisition of Juniper Networks—reportedly at the urging of U.S. intelligence officials—matters. The merger creates a credible Western alternative to Huawei and a more secure digital backbone for democratic nations.  Kudos to the administration for recognizing these concerns. America’s edge in artificial intelligence is equally critical. Artificial intelligence now underpins decision-making in logistics, targeting, and cyber defense. We must ensure our AI infrastructure—data centers, cloud pipelines, and semiconductor supply chains—remains secure from Chinese influence or espionage. That means incentivizing domestic production, tightening restrictions on sensitive technology exports, and preventing U.S. companies from training China’s next generation of AI engineers.  And yes: This means the Nvidia premium chips stay here. And finally, cyberspace now extends into outer space. China is testing anti-satellite weapons, orbital “grapplers,” and algorithms designed to disable Starlink and other low-Earth-orbit constellations—the very systems that would keep U.S. communications alive in a conflict. Washington should accelerate partnerships between the Space Force and private industry, ensuring that commercial satellite networks can sustain military operations when conventional channels go dark. Xi’s latest purge suggests he may be building a war machine in his own image: centralized, loyal, and intolerant of doubt. That could make China’s behavior less rational, not more. The United States cannot afford complacency. We must treat technology, cybersecurity, and space infrastructure as strategic assets, not afterthoughts. For all his power, Xi’s regime still depends on the brittle system of Party loyalty, fear, and censorship. Ours depends on open innovation and trust. The best way to deter China is not through slogans, but through technical mastery: ensuring that when deterrence is tested, our capabilities leave no doubt. If Xi is silencing the truth-tellers in Beijing, we can’t afford to silence the engineers in Silicon Valley. As the China challenge deepens, America’s future security depends on them. The post Xi’s Purge Could Signal Danger. America Must Be Ready appeared first on The American Conservative.

?MAJOR BREAK! Someone DIRECTLY involved in the booking process has confirmed to me that our “Egyptians” who flew into Provo ahead of Charlie Kirk’s assasination were staying at the La Quinta Inn & Suites in Orem, Utah. Specifically, the University Parkway location.… — Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) November 26, 2025