The Russians are getting a GRU assassin, Vadim Krasikov, who was sentenced to life in prison in Germany for gunning down Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, a Georgian-born Chechen dissident, in broad daylight in a Berlin park. Also possibly involved: "Four Russians detained in the US on charges including cyber crime, smuggling and money laundering were thought to possibly be part of the exchange - although their names have not yet been made public."

Another part of the puzzle seems to be two deep-cover Russian agents arrested in Slovenia in December 2022 who were suddenly sentenced to 19 months in prison Wednesday and then immediately released on time served and expelled from the country.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee held a joint hearing Tuesday to examine the totality of the goat-rope that was security for former President Donald Trump at Butler, PA, on July 13, which led to him being wounded by a rifle bullet (see Sen. Kennedy Hilariously Destroys FBI Over Whether Trump Was Shot: 'It Wasn't a Murder Hornet?') and coming within millimeters of death.

The hearing did not shed a lot of light on the events of July 13. Everyone agreed that the Secret Service accepted responsibility but not so much as to do anything about it; //

All in all, the picture painted was one of a Secret Service management structure that deprived the Trump campaign of requested resources for security because they could. The security coordination for the rally was slipshod and lackadaisical, with no apparent attempt to establish a unified command and operations structure for the different law enforcement agencies involved. //

Not everyone saw a petty, vindictive, blundering command structure in the Secret Service as the proximate cause of the killing of one rally participant and the wounding of two others and a presidential candidate.

Lindsey Graham used his opening statement to insist that someone needed to be fired:
[Video]

Fair enough. But Graham devoted his first question to giving the acting Secret Service director Ronald Rowe carte blanche to ask for more money. //

The Secret Service currently has a budget in excess of $3 billion. Delaware's budget is $4.5 billion. //

Let's review the bidding. The Secret Service has stonewalled the Senate and House in providing details on the assassination attempt. The Secret Service communications apparatus blatantly lied to Congress and the nation. Secret Service agents were diverted from Trump's outdoor rally to beef up the protection for Dr. Jill, who was engaged in what can only be called counter-programming in a secure hotel in Pittsburgh. The site security plan ignored a big f-ing building a mere 140 yards from the speaker's dais. Counter-sniper teams were only made available the day before the rally and did not have time to produce a site plan. No one has been fired. The overwhelming odds are no one will be fired because most of these foul-ups were brought on by decisions made at Secret Service headquarters.

The answer is not more money. As we've seen from history, more money begets more arrogance and more incompetence. The answer is a massive haircut that cleans out the headquarters and eliminates any task that is not a core function of the agency specified by federal statute. If the Secret Service doesn't have adequate resources to protect presidential candidates, maybe their role should be reduced to providing a small command-and-control cell with the actual security provided by something like the successor to Blackwater Worldwide.

As Ronald Reagan said, "If you want more of something, subsidize it; if you want less of something, tax it."

Somehow, the NYT and their bevy of so-called experts think they can divine the cause of these fires. In each case, the NYT has blamed climate change as either a driver or contributor to these three fires without so much as a shred of proof. In fact, the NYT contradicts their own claims in the table of the top ten fires in California by acreage burned provided in their article. //

While there was indeed a heat wave prior to the Park Fire, that had no bearing on the fire at all. The area where the fire ignited, Butte County, California, and the most-burned area in Tehama County are not in drought conditions according to the U.S. Drought Monitor for July 23 – the day before the Park Fire was ignited by a criminal arsonist.

So, “climate change caused drought” creating abnormally dry conditions didn’t figure into the Park Fire at all. The fire wouldn’t exist without the criminal act of arson.

The arson ignition point in Chico’s Bidwell Park is in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Just to the north of that point, huge acreages of grassland and scrubbrush exist. Combine that ignition with the sustained southerly winds that day of 20-25 mph, and it is no surprise that the fire rapidly spread north. Rick Carhart, the Public Information Officer for CalFire in Butte County and a Chico resident for decades, confirmed in a telephone interview that the area “had not naturally burned in several decades, and had no control burns to reduce fuel loads.” He added that these “high fuel loads, combined with the wind that day made a very aggressive fire.”

Climate change contributed nothing to the actual circumstances or rapid spread of the fire – local weather and a criminal act are at fault. The drying of grasses (which happens every spring) and the heat wave (which happens every summer) are both weather patterns that operate on short-term time scales as opposed to long-term climate change.

My colleague, Heartland Institute Research Fellow Linnea Lueken, published a scathing factual rebuttal last year of a case with The Sacramento Bee making similar, baseless claims like the NYT when they attempted to connect climate change to wildfires and their natural drivers, such as lightning. She writes:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change finds no climate signal, nor increasing trend, behind thunderstorms, or lightning occurrences. Also, NASA satellites have documented a global long-term decline in wildfires. NASA reports satellites have measured a 25-percent decrease in global lands burned since 2003.

Examining wildfires in California in particular, research shows massive wildfires have regularly swept through the state. Indeed, a 2007 paper in the journal Forest Ecology and Management reported that prior to European colonization in the 1800s, more than 4.4 million acres of California forest and shrub-land burned annually. As compared to the 4.4 million California acres that burned each year prior to European colonization, only 90,000 acres to 1.6 million California acres burn in a typical year now.

Clearly, there is no climate change component to California wildfires at all. If there were, fires in the present would be consuming much more than 4.4 million acres annually – but this isn’t happening. The simple fact is: Arsonists are responsible for more wildfires than climate change. The intensity and coverage of wildfire varies greatly from year to year, as evidenced by the 2022 NYT story: Why California’s 2022 Wildfire Season Was Unexpectedly Quiet. A map of fires from year to year in the article demonstrates this well.

Instead of asking Trump to give reasons why Black voters should vote for him, Scott turned into the "LANGUAGE POLICE," and couched the narrative that it is what Trump says, and not what he does, that is why "Black people" do not like him. Trump rightly called her out on the rude and disingenuous line of questioning.

TRUMP: First of all, I don't think I've ever been asked a question in such a horrible manner, a first question. You don't even say, "Hello," "How are you?" Are you with ABC? Because I think they are a fake news network, a terrible network. And I think it's disgraceful that I came here in good spirit. I love the Black population of this country, I've done so much for the Black population of this country. Including employment, including opportunity zones with Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, which is one of the greatest programs ever for Black workers and Black entrepreneurs.
...
I think it's a very rude introduction. I don't know exactly why you would do something like that. And let me go a step further, I was invited here, and I was told my opponent—whether it was Biden or Kamala—I was told my opponent was going to be here. It turned out my opponent isn't here. You invited me under false pretense. //

R SCOTT: Mr. President I would love for you to answer the question...

TRUMP: I have been the best president for the Black population since Abraham Lincoln. That's my answer.

R SCOTT: Better than President Johnson who signed the Voting Rights Act?

} TRUMP: That's my answer. //

And leave it to a Democrat apparatchik to invoke Lyndon Baines Johnson, one of the most racist presidents in history, second only to Woodrow Wilson. While Johnson claims the Voting Rights Act, it was overwhelming Republican support that allowed it to be passed into law. So, Scott is either not much of a journalist or not very bright, to bypass these factors. //

TRUMP: The inflation is absolutely destroying our middle class, our working class, virtually every class. Inflation is a disaster in our country. Inflation is a country buster, it breaks every country. And we had, in my opinion, the worst inflation we've ever had—they say it's 58 years but I think it's much more than that—it's been devastating. ...

HARRIS F: What's your plan?

TRUMP: You know what we have to do, we have to bring down cost of energy, and that's going to bring down the cost of inflation. This was all started by a bad energy policy by Joe Biden. //

Faulkner asked the question that got an answer that is a reflection of what Trump deems important not only in a VP candidate, but what elicits respect and admiration from him as a person. Faulkner interjected, "Why did you choose him?" Trump gave a full-throated, 10-toes down response.

Trump War Room @TrumpWarRoom
·
PRESIDENT TRUMP on @JDVance: I chose him because he is a very strong believer in WORK and the working man and woman who have been treated very unfairly.

3:46 PM · Jul 31, 2024

Ashley McGuire, senior fellow with The Catholic Association had this to say about Buttigieg's comment:

Buttigieg is just admitting what we have always known about abortion: that it empowers men to exploit women. Buttigieg’s male ‘freedom’ comes at the cost of women’s freedom. It creates a world where men are ‘free’ to use women and women are coerced into abortions they don’t want to have. That’s not authentic freedom. It’s just domination by another name.

President of the National Right to Life Committee, Carol Tobias, said:

Pete Buttigieg is recklessly suggesting that legal abortion makes men ‘more free’ as they can push a woman into having an abortion in order to shun responsibility. If men are part of creating a new life, they should accept the responsibility that goes along with caring for their child and the child's mother. //

As the media remains focused on Vance pointing out that Democrats should promote pro-family and pro-child values, Buttigieg said the quiet part out loud: Men will have more "freedom" if women are able to freely abort children. It is a disgusting statement made by Buttigieg and whether he will try to walk it back or not, it won't matter because people will not forget his way of thinking about abortion.

Ten days. It's been ten days since Kamala Harris was anointed as the Democratic Party's Chosen One to replace the failing Joe Biden in the 2024 presidential election. She has not won one primary vote, but the Democrats waved their hands over her and she's the candidate.

And since this happened, she has not given one unscripted press conference. //

Review senior writer Noah Rothman asked his social media followers on Wednesday, "When is Kamala Harris going to hold a press conference?"

Here's a hint, Mr. Rothman: She won't, for as long as she can get away with it. An open, unscripted press conference in which she would (presumably) be required to answer questions off the cuff would be to Kamala Harris as a crucifix is to Dracula. //

RedinOR
7 hours ago
At the root of it all, in addition to being stupid she is also lazy. We all know someone who is just "a natural" when it comes to speaking/communicating; Mike Rowe and Guy Fieri come to mind. It seems so effortless and comfortable for them. Others of us need to prepare and prepare and prepare. Que-Mala is too lazy for that, and we see the results.

Just Jim
2 hours ago
I'm tired of hearing "black community." I'm tired of hearing, "What are you going to do for the black community?"
This is a separate-but-equal mentality and until it ends, we will always have to pretend we have racial issues. And that's what it is; a pretense. It's a facade erected by people that want power.
There are very few issues facing black people that aren't faced by people of every other race. The few issues that are supposedly different are either some very specific health issues or issues that have been imposed by decades of failed Democrat policies.
Trump is correct. Solve issues for all Americans and you solve issues for the "black community."

Joe Biden's Defense Department approved a plea deal Wednesday for three of the conspirators behind the attacks of September 11, 2001. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and Walid Bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi will enter pleas before the military commission at Guantanamo Bay next week. //

The Pentagon announcement Wednesday didn’t include details, but a person familiar with the deal said that it involved a life sentence in exchange for a guilty plea. Prosecutors had been seeking the death penalty, but the torture of the defendants while in Central Intelligence Agency custody had clouded proceedings for years. //

President Biden learned of the plea bargain Wednesday, a National Security Council spokesman said.

“The president and the White House played no role in this process. The president has directed his team to consult as appropriate with officials and lawyers at the Department of Defense on this matter,” the spokesman said. //

The only reason we are going through this is because of a direct usurpation of congressional power by a crazed Anthony Kennedy and four fellow travelers. The Military Commissions Act of 2006 specifically placed review of the act outside the purview of the Supreme Court as allowed by Article III, Section 2, Clause 2 of the US Constitution: "with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make." The actions of the Supreme Court in Boumediene v. Bush should have resulted in Bush telling Kennedy to take a long walk on a short pier, and impeachment proceedings should have been brought against every federal judge who agreed to touch the case. But, alas, that would have required courage.

So, the final curtain is coming down on 9/11 and the Global War on Terror. Thanks to the Defense Department's total lack of transparency, it looks like that curtain will go down with as much controversy as when it came up.