Think Hunter’s pardon is bad? President Biden’s ‘merit’ mercies are even worse

 NY Post 

 "If Democrats had a lick of self-respect — or any real instinct for political self-preservation — they would censure, if not impeach, Biden while they still have the time." 

Joe Biden’s last-minute pardons have been positively scandalous — and the one for his son Hunter hasn’t even been the worst of them.

"Biden’s pardons are terrible in and of themselves, but taken together they illustrate a more important point. Pardons are for resolving individual cases one at a time; pardons aren’t for policymaking. 

"First: Holy smokes, some of these pardons are bonkers, including Biden’s grant of clemency for the corrupt judge at the center of the “Kids for Cash” case, in which former Pennsylvania Judge Michael Conahan took bribes in exchange for wrongly sentencing children to time in for-profit youth prisons, padding his own bank account while helping the prisons to pad theirs.

"Some 4,000 juvenile convictions had to be thrown out after the kickbacks were discovered.

"And Biden gave clemency to Rita Crundwell, a corrupt local official in Illinois who carried out the largest municipal fraud scheme in US history.

"Also on the list: Meera Sachdeva, a Mississippi doctor who committed large-scale Medicare fraud, in part by shortchanging cancer patients by giving them diluted drugs.

"She also reused needles, which seems to have led to an HIV infection in at least one patient."

...More... 

 ‘Black Widow,’ Who Murdered 3 Ex-Lovers, Freed in Biden’s Historic  Clemency Spree   . . ."A Maryland woman dubbed the "Black Widow" for murdering two husbands and a boyfriend for insurance money is now free after President Joe Biden commuted her 40-year prison sentence, undercutting the White House's claim that Biden released only "non-violent" offenders in a clemency bonanza last week." 

 Gray, who collected $165,000 from the three insurance settlements, was charged with murder by Maryland state authorities but ultimately convicted in federal court in 2002 for insurance fraud for violating what’s known as the "slayers rule," which prohibits killers from receiving inheritance and insurance proceeds from their victims' death. 

Trump files amicus brief to 'immediately' stop Biden sale of border wall, says conduct is 'possibly criminal'

Fox News 

"Perception suggests the current administration is “...deliberately selling off border-wall materials...to obstruct the pro-wall policy of Congress and President Trump...likely constitutes a criminal act, such as a conspiracy to defraud the United States.” . . . Comment to the post below.

President-elect Trump filed an amicus brief late Thursday in support of a legal effort by Texas and Missouri to "immediately" stop the Biden administration’s sale of border wall materials, saying the action is "possibly criminal." 

"Texas and Missouri filed a motion earlier this week in a district court in the southern district of Texas to hold a status conference to determine if the government is in breach of the court’s permanent injunction from earlier this year. That injunction barred the Biden administration from using funds obligated for wall construction for anything other than that purpose. 

"The Court should issue an order directing the Defendants to immediately stop any ongoing sale of border-barrier materials to private parties pending the Court’s review of Defendant’s conduct, and the Court should swiftly conduct a searching examination of the Government’s conduct, by formal discovery if necessary, to examine the Government’s compliance with the law, the Constitution, and the Court’s injunction," Trump’s amicus brief states. " . . .

More...

George Soros-backed Cook County’s former top prosecutor, Kim Foxx, lost her Illinois license to practice law

 Fox News 

 Foxx entered office with significant support from billionaire George Soros, who contributed $400,000 to her 2016 campaign. He also donated $2 million to a fund supporting Foxx in the 2020 election. 

"Former Cook County Prosecutor Kim Foxx is no longer authorized to practice law in Illinois after she failed to keep her license current.

"According to the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission (ARCD), Foxx is "unauthorized to practice law as [the] attorney has not demonstrated required MCLE [Minimum Continuing Legal Education] compliance."

"Her license to practice law was suspended on Dec. 1." . . .

. . ."Foxx became the state's attorney for Cook County, Illinois, in 2016 and has frequently been under heavy criticism over her lax enforcement policies, including her handling of the Jussie Smollett case.

"The prosecutor set off widespread objections after she dropped charges against Smollett, a Black and gay actor who had concocted an elaborate "hate crime" hoax in which he claimed two White individuals attacked him in the streets of Chicago while yelling, "This is MAGA country," tying a rope around his neck and dousing him in bleach." . . .

Biden Promised A Return To Normalcy, Looks Like Trump Will Deliver It

 I & I Editorial Board  

"As an added bonus to all this, the country won’t have to endure the freak shows Biden staged on the White House lawn." . . .

"What do a $15 million settlement with ABC News, a Washington, D.C., waitress getting fired, and the Los Angeles Times planning to include a bias meter in its news stories have in common?

"They are all welcome signs that the nation is embracing normalcy once again – something that Joe Biden was allegedly going to restore after Donald Trump’s supposedly chaotic years.

"Trump’s first term was chaotic, but not because of what he did so much as the four-year hysteria unleashed by his opponents.

"Biden, on the other hand, brought true chaos. A tainted election, foreign wars, open borders, runaway inflation, exploding deficits, shortages, censorship, weaponized justice, incompetent leaders and a senile president, two assassination attempts, rising disunity, despair.

"But now that the left’s unhinged efforts to silence conservative voices and block Trump’s reelection have been soundly defeated, a return to some semblance of normalcy is actually possible."ABC News’ settlement – which includes a public apology in addition to the $15 million to settle a defamation case over “journalist” George Stephanopoulos’ repeated assertion that Trump had been found “liable for rape” – is a sign that news media can’t do or say whatever it wants to push an agenda.

"That came after two papers refused to endorse Kamala Harris for president because she is so undeniably unsuited for the office, causing some allegedly neutral reporters and editors at those papers to quit.

" 'More recently, the owner of the Los Angeles Times’ spiked an editorial he deemed unfairly critical of Trump’s Cabinet picks and announced that Times news stories would be accompanied by an AI-powered bias meter rating. As CNN reports, “(Patrick) Soon-Shiong said major publishers have so far failed to adequately separate news and opinion, which he suggested ‘could be the downfall of what now people call mainstream media.'”

"That also has the left freaking out. How dare a publisher ask journalists to do what they promise – report the news – and not propagandize their readers." . . .

Biden Seals His Legacy As Worst President In History  . . ."To further underscore Biden’s disdain for taxpayers, he’s instructed his people to spend as much money as they can in their final weeks because Trump has promised to rescind unspent funds for Biden boondoggles such as the Inflation Reduction Act.

Biden’s chief of staff Jeff Zients called it a “sprint to the finish line” to “get as much done as possible for the American people.”

We call it another stick in the eye of taxpayers.

Finally, there was Biden’s speech last week in which he once again cluelessly bragged about how great the economy has been on his watch – a claim that voters just overwhelmingly rejected – and repeated the lies that he’d “rescued” the economy and created “over 16 million new jobs.” Even the teleprompter couldn’t take it anymore and shorted out halfway through his speech.

News reports say Biden is trying to protect his legacy. We agree. He’s sealing his failures in amber.

Why Were Feminists So Silent After 10/7? And Why Are They Still Silent?

 Phyllis Chesler

"On December 15, the Marxist-feminist Katha Pollitt followed Letty’s example and challenged the feminist silence in a piece published by The Nation. Like Letty, Katha herself had been silent for many months. She wrote: “This silence sits oddly with how quick our movement has been to credit much iffier claims and to raise consciousness around sexual misconduct that falls far short of rape. What happened to the clarion call to ‘believe women’? What happened to #metoo? Where’s the Women’s March? Feminist Majority? The National Women’s Studies Association?”

Below: Families of female Israeli hostages release graphic abduction footage to pile pressure on Netanyahu | CNN  A year later, what are these women like now? Ask campus scarf people. TD

"I feel that I've been writing versions of this piece for the last year. And yes, I am weary of this subject--but not as weary or as traumatized as Israelis must be after a year and almost a month of being attacked, wounded, displaced, murdered, kidnapped--and blamed for having provoked Iran.

"To date, the shameful feminist silence continues, heels dug right in.

"In this issue of the estimable journal, Dr. Catherine Chatterley, the Editor of Antisemitism Studies, focuses on the immediate denials of sexual violence--despite or because just such violence had occurred. In her article, Dr. Amy Elman correctly refers to the silent ones as "feminist impersonators." For a long while, I've described them as "faux feminists." Doing so, gives me no pleasure. Here's a necessary perspective: Academics, leading literary lights, international organizations, politicians, the media, have not only remained silent--they have actively blamed Israel for daring to defend herself.

"Educated, progressive, pro-woman advocates ought to be better than the common herd but they aren't.

"How did a globalized version of Stalinism trump their feminist ideals? How could these "feminist impersonators" have chosen gender over sex based rights; become so invested in the legalization of surrogacy and in trans rights over and above women's rights; queer and bi rights over and above the rights of women not to be raped, beaten, trafficked, honor killed, tortured, and murdered?

"But mainly, why are so many radical feminists so hard-hearted against Israel? So inclined to believe the worst about the Jewish state when the allegations are simply not true?

"I wrote this piece in the summer of 2024. In the hope that this abbreviated timeline may be of use, in case you haven’t already read all about it, I share it with you.

Why Were Feminists Silent After October 7?  By Phyllis Chesler:   "In the early 1970s, I experienced antisemitism among leftwing and lesbian feminists. It was not political. I was told that Jews like me were too pushy, too smart, too sexy, and were taking over the movement. Such views sent me straight to Israel. A small group including myself, Aviva Cantor Zuckoff, the founder of Lilith Magazine, and Cheryl Moch held a press conference on the subject of antisemitism; for years, we tried to interest leading Jewish feminists in joining us to discuss the problem. At the time, neither Andrea Dworkin nor Letty Cottin Pogrebin were interested in such a discussion.: . . ."

The Brilliance of Trump’s New Campaign Suing Fake News

 The American Spectator  Trump’s legal action against the media is not about revenge, payback, or getting even — it is justice.  

"In America, no person in our time has been lied about and defamed more than Donald Trump. (Honorable Mention: Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Third Runner Up: Nick Sandmann.)" 

"Every American to the right of Ocasio knows that the mainstream media lie and lie. Even much of truth and facts can be honestly, inadvertently tilted. Other facts can be deliberately slanted, though technically true. That is why Kellyanne Conway was right when she uttered her much-mocked assertion that there are “alternate facts.” Certainly, facts are facts, and they do not care about your feelings. But facts indeed can be slanted into alternate facts. Figures don’t lie, but liars can figure. And the media often go beyond reporting facts into concocting outright lies. Think of the Charlottesville lie. It will never stop being spread, even though the video exists all over YouTube, even though left-wing Snopes declared it a lie. Yet, Biden lied, saying that the Charlottesville press conference was why he ran for president. Such a liar, from his first gulp of mother’s milk to his future final injection of morphine. Then Harris repeated the same debunked lie in her presidential debate with Trump. The moderators, who kept fact-checking Trump throughout the debate, never fact-checked Harris, even though Charlottesville is the most famous lie since Gamal Abdul Nasser announced in June 1967 that Egypt had just wiped out the Israeli air force. So, even “fact-checking” often is rooted in and based on lies.

"Nothing is more frustrating than to have one’s character or identity lied about. We all have experienced that, perhaps in elementary or high school, perhaps at work, perhaps in a volunteer-based non-profit association. Wherever people exist with an opportunity to ascend on some status or financial ladder, someone may undercut the competition by lying. We all have encountered this. In almost all our cases, we still are standing and thriving despite it all. However, some have been destroyed, and even a few have committed suicide.". . .

. . ."Trump’s predicament is that he is hand-tied by the accumulated Supreme Court holdings on defamation law. For each lie published about him, the media have the same defense because they truly suffer from DTS, Trump Derangement Syndrome: “But we really thought he called the Charlottesville Nazis ‘fine people.’ We were wrong? Oops. We really thought he called for an insurrection. We were wrong? Oops. We really thought he was as anti-Semitic as Hitler. We were wrong? Oops. We really thought he colluded with Putin. We were wrong? Oops.

"So Trump has been hand-tied legally. The guy has been unable to get justice on this issue — until now." . . .

Springsteen writes for the wrong generation

Bruce mourns American culture's failings; what has he written about ANTIFA's wave of destruction in our cities? Has he written about Hamas rapes and murder of innocent young Israelis? The persecution of Jews on the streets of Western nations that once lost millions of lives fighting the evil of Naziism? TD

 ThePrincessDiana  

"This twenty-first century decline of America is the stuff of songs, but there seems to be nobody capable of writing them, including Bruce Springsteen." . . .

 "I love Bruce Springsteen's music and can listen to it all day, many songs making me stop to just enjoy the experience of listening to them, their refrains bouncing around in my head for hours afterward.

"But then I pay attention to what the man is saying.

"One song such as this is "American Land", a real stem-winder of a song that stirs the emotions and pride in American history through each verse. Until this stanza:

They died building the railroads, worked to bones and skin
They died in the fields and factories, names scattered in the wind
They died to get here a hundred years ago, they're dyin' now
The hands that built the country we're always trying to keep down

"It was just not in the man to give our nation untainted praise.

"There was a video some time back of Springsteen doing solo acoustic on a British street and asking people to make requests. If only someone could have said to him, "Man I love anything you do as long as you aren't trashing our country!"


"The man just sees a different America and I don't know where he gets his impressions. Perhaps it is when he leaves his mega-million dollar estate through its locked gates to rub elbows with Pete Seeger, Bill Ayres, Reverends Wright and Sharpton, along with other liberal and entertainment elites.

"Whomever has influenced "The Boss", the Great Depression is the America Springsteen visualizes and writes about, making him the darling of the guilt-ridden limousine liberals: . . .

Bill Hayden, the Tunnel Dweller

Proof that the Biden DOJ is not only corrupt but is pure evil

Patricia McCarthy

  "Now, after four years of the most corrupt, devious, destructive and anti-American administration in U.S. history, the American people are waking up to this fact:  Joe Biden was never a competent member of Congress or the Senate.  He was always a pathological liar, an avowed racist, and a money-grubber.  He would do anything for money, including betray his own country and use his family to do it."

. . ."If there is anything Americans have learned from the horrific four years of the Biden administration, it is that our government and its institutions — the FBI, CIA, DOJ, etc. — is deeply corrupt, and operate as any mafia or crime family organization. This state of affairs began under Obama, was escalated and perfected by the destroy-Trump cabal, and consolidated under Biden and his team of traitors — Mayorkas, Blinken, Sullivan, Garland, to name a few.  Each of them has, at the very least, behaved treasonously during their terms of office.  They’ve done terrible damage.  They engineered the invasion of ten to fifteen million illegal migrants and the concomitant rise in crime.  With the open border came the trafficking of hundreds of  thousands of children and massive amounts of fentanyl that has been killing a hundred thousand Americans a year.  Biden’s indiscriminate spending caused the inflation that is hurting every working and middle class American.  The Biden administration sabotaged the country by ending our energy independence that Trump put in place." . . .

“ 'Meet the Monsters” released by Joe;

a doctor who defrauded Medicaid, diluted chemotherapy drugs, and used dirty needles and another doctor who “illegally distributed fentanyl” and directly exacerbated the opioid crisis;

the half-brother of the leader of Hamas;

the Chinese Communist Party asset who admitted to possessing images and videos of infant rape;

a great essay from the brilliant Jonathan Turley;

and “5 things to know” about Biden’s political stunt.

Google Maps helps solve murder mystery by capturing moment a person put suspected corpse into car in Spain

 CBS News  

"Google technology has helped investigators make breakthroughs in cases before. In 2022, an Italian mafia boss who was on the run for decades was arrested after he was spotted on Google Maps."

"Google Maps has guided Spanish investigators to resolve a year-long murder mystery by capturing the moment a person stowed a suspected corpse into a car.

"Police in the northern region of Castile and Leon began their probe in November 2023 when someone reported the disappearance of a male relative.

"Officers arrested a woman who was the missing male's partner and another man who was her ex-partner in Soria province on November 12, police said in a statement on Wednesday.

"Investigators then raided the suspects' homes and inspected their vehicles but also stumbled on an unexpected lead in the search for further clues.

"These were "images in a location application" where they "detected a vehicle that may have been used during the course of the crime," the statement said.

"Spanish media circulated pictures of a screenshot of Google Maps' Street View from October 2024 showing a person dumping an object covered in a white shroud into a car trunk in the village of Tajueco. It was the first time in 15 years that the car had been to the town of Tajueco, the BBC reported." . . .

Outside court as Luigi Mangione arrives in New York to face murder charges

 Sky News; Whatfinger   "Luigi Mangione is suspected of shooting Brian Thompson, chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, on 4 December, and was arrested after a manhunt that ended with police finding the 26-year-old in a McDonald’s.

He was in court for two hearings earlier today – one about a gun charge in Pennsylvania, and the other regarding his potential extradition to New York. We learned Mangione dropped his fight to be extradited to New York and has arrived in the State where he will face murder charges.

Read more: https://trib.al/XxaJAD2

Luigi Mangione fans are getting tattoos of him on their bodies after he cowardly...

A Hard Heart Kills: Why Liberal Values Breed School Shootings

 John Nantz

. . ."Rupnow’s 9mm pistol is an irrelevancy. She could have perpetrated her heinous crime in a multitude of ways with a plethora of tools. Liberals want you to focus on the shiny object and forget the evil they have wrought in our midst." . . . 

Coach Aaron Feis Killed in previous school shooting

. . ."It is a very disturbing trend indeed when our young girls, typically characterized by feminine compassion, who should be anticipating the joys of family, motherhood, or career, instead are driven to find meaning in mass homicide. Surely, this is a sign of cultural apocalypse. 

"Reportedly, Natalie Rupnow had an online obsession with mass shootings and death. Can it really be surprising that our culture of death (the death of God, death of the unborn, the death of personhood) produces mass-murdering kids? 

"We treat the unborn like bio-waste and devalue life to the point of absurd irrelevance, discarding it at will. The message to anyone paying attention is that life is disposable and subject to whim or convenience. Making a statement with the lives of innocent people is a simple metaphysical extension of the secular culture of grievance and lack of eternal accountability." . . . 

. . ."Rupnow’s 9mm pistol is an irrelevancy. She could have perpetrated her heinous crime in a multitude of ways with a plethora of tools. Liberals want you to focus on the shiny object and forget the evil they have wrought in our midst. There is a war for the minds and souls of our children afoot, and we’re losing it to the purveyors of cultural rot in politics, Hollywood, and education. We’ve no one to blame but ourselves. It’s time, as a nation, that we take responsibility for the destruction of our youth and return to the God of our forefathers.". . .

 As R. Lee Ermey’s character in Full Metal Jacket, Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, famously said,”Your rifle is only a tool. It is a hard heart that kills.”

Stephanopoulos and the Implosion of ABC News

George Stephanopoulos is a former Bill Clinton hatchet man and major player in Democrat politics. He should never have been put in charge of political news at ABC in the first place.

 Megyn Kelly and Adam Carolla Discuss Stephanopoulos and the Implosion of ABC News: ‘Blew up Their Own Reputation   "Now that ABC News has settled with Donald Trump for $16 million, the situation at the network is dire. Staffers are angry and there are rumors that George Stephanopoulos may be on his way out the door.

"Megyn Kelly recently discussed this with comedian Adam Carolla and they both agreed that ABC News did this to themselves.

"Carolla points out that ABC News was wrong about the Russia collusion hoax and got a lot of things wrong about COVID, two of the biggest stories in recent years.

"Partial transcript via Eric Abbenante on Twitter/X:

Megyn Kelly: “Stephanopoulos Who is humiliated and very angry, according to the reports that this has happened to him." . . .

Adam Carolla: “They blew up their own reputation over the last five years systematically. First with Russian collusion and three or four years of lying or at least being wrong about that.

ABC News executives are in 'full revolt' after settling for 15 million in the George Stephanopoulos case, not anticipating the extent to which they would damage their reputation:
Megyn Kelly: "Stephanopoulos Who is humiliated and very angry, according to the reports that this has… pic.twitter.com/nd5nfV8XJK

— Eric Abbenante (@EricAbbenante) December 18, 2024 

Why Did ABC Roll Over and Beg Trump for Mercy?   

. . ."There’s big money at stake now. The left decided it was going to use legal civil lawfare, as well as criminal lawfare, to take out in court the opponents it couldn’t take out in the public square. This initiative worked for a little while. Now, they’ve got a problem. We’re doing it to them. And it’s only going to get worse for them." . . .