Never Start Your Argument by Posing With an Elmo Puppet

Jewish World Review 

 . . ."But how did these "major news sources" perform in questioning authority in the Biden administration? Look no further than their propagandistic coverage of Biden's mental state."

"When former Labor Secretary Robert Reich can muster equal enthusiasm for radical leftist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani and for PBS, that might help people locate precisely where PBS is on the political spectrum.

"In a new video, Reich began by posing with an Elmo puppet. Doesn't every leftist begin their PBS argument with Elmo? Supposedly, President Donald Trump opposes "Sesame Street" because they once made a puppet called "Donald Grump." I'm sure he loved that parody when it happened ... 20 years ago.

"Reich asked: "Why is Trump so hell-bent on defunding PBS? It's part of a larger plan — one where he can control not just what we do, but what we think." It's a conspiracy theory: "Trump is waging a war on the American mind!"

"Once again, Trump is painted as a dictator. Reich claimed: "Throughout history, tyrants have understood that their major enemy is an educated public. Slaveholders prohibited enslaved people from learning how to read. The Third Reich burned books. The Khmer Rouge banned music. Stalin and Pinochet censored the media."

" 'Fact-checkers" could ask: How is Trump just like slaveholders, Hitler, Stalin, Pinochet and the Khmer Rouge? Where has Trump prevented people from reading, burned books, banned music or censored the media? And how is taking taxpayer subsidies away from PBS anything like book banning or reading prevention?

"The Left always associates itself with education. Reich said Trump believes, as they say in Orwell's novel "1984," that "ignorance is strength." Reich claimed Trump favors teaching children "our country has never been wrong." That's what they claimed about the Florida education standards under Gov. Ron DeSantis.

"Leftists are firmly in control of universities and suppress all dissent. But Reich pretended the opposite: "As a professor, I know firsthand how education empowers young people's minds. We can't have a functioning democracy if people cannot deliberate critically about it. That's why authoritarians replace education with indoctrination. Instead of teaching students to think for themselves, authoritarians seek to instill blind allegiance and to suppress dissent.' " . . .

Obama’s ‘Scolding’ Offends Democrats; He is facing backlash even from his own party.

 The American Spectator 

 "Another referred to Obama as “very scoldy these days,” which she claims does not go over well with the voter base anymore. Yet another anchor on the program was interested in “who [Obama] is holding up, and who he’s not mentioning.'” 

"Former President Barack Obama is receiving media criticism for the exhortations he shared with his floundering party at a fundraiser in New Jersey last Friday. The fundraiser, aimed at raising money for gubernatorial candidates and the Democratic National Committee, was hosted by New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy at his home. 

"It is no secret that since the 2024 election, the Left has been struggling to maintain a unified front. While some of the party is digging its heels into radical agendas and ideologies, others are trying to move on from the loss by changing their views or leaving the party altogether.

Obama’s Advice to a Failing Party

"Obama’s speech focused on how to elevate the Democrat Party going forward, according to reports of the speech gathered by CNN.

“ 'I think [success] is going to require a little bit less navel-gazing and a little less whining and being in fetal positions,” said Obama, who has not been publicly involved in fundraising since the previous election cycle. “And it’s going to require Democrats to just toughen up.”

"It is unclear whether Obama was criticizing the extreme progressives or the aspiring moderates in his party. Either way, the former president implored his base to stop “looking for a quick fix” and “waiting for the messiah”; instead, posited Obama, Democrats must focus on the candidates up for election this year. He praised Democrat nominees for governor in Virginia and New Jersey who will be up for election this November, calling them “great candidates.”

"In preparation for the next election cycle, Obama suggests the “DNC [get] what it needs to compete in what will be a more data-driven, more social media-driven cycle, which will cost some money and expertise and time.”

"Democrats trying to walk back progressive viewpoints seem to fit the bill for success described by Obama: They try to discern what Americans want via data in hopes to become relevant again. However, Obama notably refused to condemn the most radical candidates in his party, such as Zohran Mamdani.

“ 'There’s been… some argument between the left of the party and people who are promoting the quote-unquote abundance agenda,” said Obama. He argued that these positions are not contradictory to one another; rather, Democrats have just “got to figure out how to do it.” Presumably, “doing it” means uniting as a party. 

Democrats Bristle at Obama’s Non-Advice

"Though Obama used swaths of motivational language, according to the CNN report, his vague encouragement and simultaneous chastisement did not sit well with Democrats, who have been dissatisfied with the politician for some time now.

"During an interview with David Axelrod, Obama’s former senior advisor, CNN anchors questioned and ridiculed Obama’s decision to advise his fellow Democrats as though he himself held all the answers to their problems." . . .

Gavin Newsom's Four Hour, Curse-Filled, Gaslighting Interview Previews His Presidential Campaign

PJ Media

"Four hours of gaslighting and cursing. 

"I've watched most of Newsom's latest venture in podcast politics in a four-hour-long Shawn Ryan Show interview. It was a curse-word-filled apologia of his time as governor and how everything is great in LaLa Land. 

"Here are some highlights.

"Gavin Newsom is in favor of gun control, but he's not. He presided over and encouraged the dumbest decriminalization of felonies, prompting massive theft rings to prey upon shop owners, causing a mass exodus of people and retail outlets, but California is one of the toughest on crime. He's not running for president, but he is. 

https://x.com/i/status/1944895145062650138

"He got bamboozled by the Trump administration on COVID, but his state lost BILLIONS in fraud. He got scammed, but he's a smart businessman. His state spent billions to solve homelessness, but billions are missing, and homelessness went up. Tech entrepreneurs and major companies left California, but they're coming back because of how well he's running the state. His regressive energy policies gave California more energy than ever! 

"There was little to no pushback, nor was there a scintilla of fact-checking, as Newsom held court for the four-hour show, offering up spin, distraction, and deflection against an unarmed host. In a way, Ryan did us all a favor by peacing out of his own interview by giving Newsom enough rope to hang himself so that we could get these gems. 

"Shawn Ryan gave Newsom a gift of a "California-compliant SIG Sauer P365 X-Macro pistol," which Newsom enthused over, "Oh, wow. By the way, man, this is too cool, the fact you would give me this… The last thing people would expect is that I respect this gift.”

Gavin Newsom attempting to answer a simple yes/no question. pic.twitter.com/wLBlhTBe9n

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) July 14, 2025

Trump Ends Boondoggle on Rails – PJ Media  

. . . "Imagine if a private consortium had been handed $11 billion and told to build a rail line from L.A. to San Francisco. Given the right contractor, it would have been completed by now, including terminals, security, solar roofing, and possibly even a profit margin, potentially while under budget.

"Instead, the decision was to give it to the same folks who bring you the DMV and Caltrans road construction schedules. 

"The result? 

The project has produced fewer deliverables than an intern with no login credentials. (Shocked face.)

"And the price tag keeps climbing. Inflation. Material costs. “Unexpected” underground conditions. Litigation delays. You name it, the excuses are printed, bound, and preloaded into press briefings.

The Green Mirage "Supporters often wrap this train in the green flag, arguing it’s about clean energy and climate progress. That argument evaporates when you realize that not one soul has been riding it. Phantom trains don't save emissions. Pollution isn't reduced by running diesel trucks full of construction supplies across 119 miles of scorched farmland for a decade.

"There’s nothing green about wasting billions. There’s nothing sustainable about a project that can’t even sustain momentum."

Yet Californians, when given the chance to remove this man by popular vote, chose to keep him. He must have told his people that he alone gave them that beautiful coast and the coastal people believed His Loveliness.

Language:

Related: West Coast, Messed Coast™ — ICE Is 'Gestapo' Sent by 'Hitler'

Butler: The Riveting Untold Story of the Shooting of Donald Trump; Salena Zito’s witness to the near assassination of the president is a must-read.

 The American Spectator  

"In her fascinating insider’s account, Salena Zito talks about still much more: the Milwaukee convention, Thomas Matthew Crooks and his family, Corey Comperatore and his family, and, yes, the epic failure of the Secret Service to protect Donald Trump."

. . . "Of course, we knew right away that Trump was not killed. I still marvel at turning to my wife amid the trauma and saying, “Wow, Trump just shook his fist in the air and said, ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’” We weren’t really worried about the former president. Our concern was for our son, his friends, and the tens of thousands of others. Those bullets fired by Thomas Matthew Crooks had to hit flesh somewhere. A fatal victim was a firefighter from Buffalo Township, Corey Comperatore. My son was fine. But Corey — someone else’s son, husband, father — was not.

"I figured that my longtime friend Salena Zito — also a longtime friend of The American Spectator — was there. A fellow Pittsburgh-born, lifelong native of western Pennsylvania, who I first met when we both wrote for the late Dick Scaife’s Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Salena has distinguished herself as one of America’s best on-the-ground reporters with her “The Middle of Somewhere” dispatches. And no journalist knows or has covered Donald Trump like Zito. She was the one who in a September 2016 interview with Trump for the Atlantic coined the brilliant formulation: “Trump’s supporters take him seriously but not literally, whereas his critics take him literally but not seriously.” She predicted a Trump victory that November, claiming he would win our home state of Pennsylvania.

"Zito certainly would not have missed Trump’s Butler appearance on July 13, 2024. She attended with the intention of doing a scheduled interview after his speech. She experienced much more than an interview. She saw everything, heard everything, and then repeatedly heard from Donald Trump over the next 24 hours in an intimate way no one else did. What she experienced was so remarkable that she has written a book titled, Butler: The Untold Story of the Near Assassination of Donald Trump and the Fight for America’s Heartland.

"The book is riveting. This review cannot do it justice. I’ll underscore some highlights, but I strongly advise getting the book for yourself and for friends." . . . More...

The Judicial Tyranny of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson

 Larry Elder 

. . ."Scalia, in 2007, said: "Over the past 40 or 50 years, the philosophy of a living, or evolving, Constitution has become popular. It is enormously seductive. You think everything you care about passionately is there in the Constitution. Everything comes out the way you want it to. ... (The Constitution) is not an empty bottle to be filled up by each generation. 

"How can you tell if the newest Supreme Court Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is an "activist" judge? She admits it. Worse, she appears to think it is her job, if not her duty, to engage in (left-wing) judicial activism.

"In an interview with CBS News, Jackson explained what she hopes to accomplish in her many dissents. "I just feel that I have a wonderful opportunity to tell people in my opinions how I feel about the issues," she said, "and that's what I try to do." She added, "And I'm not afraid to use my voice." This sounds like a podcaster rather than a judge.

"You might be forgiven for thinking judges are supposed to interpret the law as intended by the legislature and apply the law to resolve disputes before the court.

"Chief Justice John Roberts, for example, compares the role of a justice to that of an umpire whose job is to call balls and strikes. "Judges," Roberts said, "are like umpires. They don't make the rules, they apply them." As to judges deciding cases based on policy or on "how (they) feel about the issues," on their weighing in on policy, Roberts said, "I don't think you want judges deciding cases based on what is good policy ... there are legal questions here."

"Justice Amy Coney Barrett, in her majority decision that reined in the power of district courts to impose nationwide injunctions, scolded Jackson for departing from this conventional view of the role of a judge. Barrett wrote, "We observe only this: Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary."

"Jackson's judicial philosophy mirrors that of then-Supreme Court Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall who described his judicial philosophy as follows, "You have to do what's right and let the law catch up." . . .