State Department's controversial Global Engagement Center Closed

 The State Department's controversial Global Engagement Center will close its doors tonight after Republicans stripped its funding from the spending bill. Critics say the 120-person agency used its $61M budget to blacklist conservative voices.

Hamas’s Favorite TV Show Gets Canceled By Palestinian Authority

The Palestinian Authority has banned Al Jazeera’s broadcasts in areas under its control, accusing the network of inciting hatred and glorifying terrorists amid ongoing clashes with Islamic Jihad militants.
 

Don't Favor one over the other

 

Judicial Watch Statement on Resignation of FBI Director Christopher Wray

  Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton made the following statement on the pending resignation of FBI Director Christopher Wray:

Director Wray’s resignation is a good first step to cleaning house at the FBI. Under Wray’s leadership, the FBI has become an enemy of transparency, the rule of law, constitutional government, and the civil rights of tens of millions of Americans. (Judicial Watch and I witnessed firsthand the corruption of Wray’s operation when FBI agents came to my home in what was obvious retaliation for our criticism and lawsuits exposing their abuses.)

The FBI is irredeemably corrupt. From sitting on Hunter Biden’s laptop in order to influence the 2020 election, the raid of President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, and the censorship of Americans, to the targeting of traditional Catholics, this FBI has been turned into the political police for partisan leftists. Accordingly, Wray should be subject to criminal investigation.

And, as sunlight is the best disinfectant, President Trump and his FBI Director nominee Kash Patel should open wide the FBI files on its abuses of power targeting Trump and countless other American citizens.

In the meantime, Judicial Watch will continue to investigate and sue the FBI for the truth in its role in the worst government corruption in American history.

In his new book Rights and Freedoms in Peril Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton details a long chain of abuses officials and politicians have made against the American people and calls readers to battle for “the soul and survival of America.”

Judicial Watch is perhaps the nation’s leading FOIA litigant against the FBI on its corruption issues. For example:

• In October 2024, Judicial Watch sued the Justice Department for messages among top leaders of the FBI referencing social media posts of Special Agent Jeffrey Veltri, head of the Miami Field Office, which is investigating the September 15 assassination attempt against Donald Trump.
• In May 2024, Judicial Watch uncovered a recording of a phone message left by an FBI special agent for someone at the Secret Service in the context of the raid on President Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida.
• In April 2024, Justice Department records showed that  the FBI opened a criminal investigation of Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt after her killing and listed four “potential violations of federal law,” including felony rioting and civil disorder.
• Judicial Watch in January 2023 sued the DOJ for records of communications between the FBI and social media sites regarding foreign influence in elections, as well as the Hunter Biden laptop story.
• In November 2023, Judicial Watch, along with  CatholicVote Civic Action, received FBI records showing top officials rushing to craft a public response to the leaked FBI intelligence memo that revealed its targeting of Catholics who adhere to traditional beliefs on church issues. In December 2023, heavily redacted records from the FBI showed that the agency’s Office of General Counsel reviewed the controversial targeting of the Catholics by the Richmond field office of the FBI. 
• In August 2022, the Department of Justice’s released a highly redacted affidavit in response to Judicial Watch’s court request to unseal the warrant materials used in the unprecedented raid on the home of President Trump.

Trump Not Pushing for "Humantarian Aid" in Gaza

 According to Amit Segel of Channel 12, Trump has communicated to Israel that, unlike Biden, he would not push for the provision of humanitarian aid.

John Fetterman Sends His Fellow Democrats a Reality Check After Meeting with Pete Hegseth and Kash Patel

 The Democratic Party has long since degenerated into a cult united primarily by members' unhinged hatred of President-elect Donald Trump.

Recently, however, a few signs have emerged suggesting that some Democrats have grown tired of their party's anti-Trump obsession.

In a Sunday interview with ABC's Jonathan Karl on "This Week," Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania urged fellow Democrats to "chill out" and even expressed "no regrets" at having met with Trump's Cabinet picks, including Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth and FBI Director nominee Kash Patel.

"I have met with all of them so far," Fetterman said. "And the ones that we haven't, they're on the schedule back in January."

Karl then asked if Fetterman regarded Hegseth as qualified, to which the senator replied, "We're gonna learn more."

Fetterman's full comments, however, suggested that Democrats cannot rely on him to vote against Hegseth.

"The president picked these people," the Pennsylvania senator said. "Not gonna be my first choice, second choice, third choice, but that's democracy."

"And, to me, it would be distressing if he is confirmed, if the Democrats are gonna turn our back collectively to the leader of Defense. That's astonishing, and that's dangerous," he added.

Fetterman expressed similar openness following his meeting with Patel. In that meeting, for instance, the two men talked about immigration-related stories in their respective families.

"I have learned things, and I have heard things, and I have no regrets," the senator said.

Indeed, the entire tone of the interview suggested, at minimum, an eagerness to avoid appearances of anti-Trump hostility.

"I've been warning people, like, 'You gotta chill out,'" Fetterman said of the Trump Derangement Syndrome that has plagued many in his party since 2016.

The senator also pledged to root for Trump, whom he called a "singular political talent."

Readers may watch the entire interview in the YouTube video below. Fetterman's comments on Hegseth and Patel began around the 6:30 mark.

Cynics, of course, might speculate that Fetterman simply sees the political writing on the wall.

"The support's astonishing," he said of voters' enthusiasm for Trump in "red" Pennsylvania counties. According to the Associated Press, in the 2024 election Trump won the swing state by more than 120,000 votes.

Thus, a Pennsylvania senator calculating his own political future might want to get on Trump's good side.

On the other hand, to view things less cynically, senators absolutely should consider their constituents' views. In that sense, self-interest and proper public service should dovetail. And on the issue of Trump's Cabinet picks, at least, it appears that they have done so in Fetterman.

Moreover, the Pennsylvania senator reflects a segment inside the Democratic Party that has grown tired of fighting Trump. Opposing the president-elect where necessary is one thing, but the over-the-top anti-Trump rhetoric has left them exhausted.

That fact alone suggests that even Trump's most anti-establishment nominees might win unexpected support from a small number of dissident Democrats.

Banality of Evil on 93rd and Columbus

 

Have you ever seen someone tear down a poster of a missing dog. I haven’t.

Now what if the poster was of your missing child, parent or grandparent, or worse, one or more of your family members that had been taken hostage?

The banality of evil on 93rd and Columbus in full… https://t.co/ti2Q5A7fpR

— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) December 22, 2024

Trump Serenades Crazed DemonRat Representative

 

😂🇺🇸
pic.twitter.com/iN9sDT4UOu

— Tammy Bruce (@HeyTammyBruce) December 22, 2024

Cargo vessel transporting Russian military equipment from Syria breaks down in open sea

 The cargo vessel Sparta sent to Syria to bring out Russian military equipment broke down in the open sea and now drifts near the shore of Portugal, Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) claimed in a post on Dec. 23.

Concurrently, marine traffic monitors show a Vladivostok-bound cargo ship, Ursa Major, previously registered as Sparta III and visually matching the picture published by HUR, moving at a very low speed of little over 1 knot in the open sea between Spain and Algeria.

"The cargo ship Sparta, which Russia sent to transport its weapons and equipment from Syria, broke down during movement. A fuel pipe of the main engine failed," Ukraine's military intelligence claimed.

"The Russian crew is trying to fix the problem and (the ship) is drifting in the open sea near Portugal."

Marine traffic monitors show the Ursa Major sailing under the Russian flag and previously making port calls in St. Petersburg.

The Kyiv Independent could not verify whether the vessel was sent to Syria to transport Russian military equipment as HUR claims.

Russia, the main backer of the recently ousted Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, began evacuating its military stationed in its bases in Syria. According to HUR, Russian military assets in Syria are now limited to two bases: the airbase in Khmeimim and the naval base in Tartus.

In an earlier statement, the agency claimed that losing the Tartus and Khmeimim bases would significantly damage Russia's presence in the Middle East and solidify its defeat in the region.

According to the agency, the victorious rebel leadership is negotiating with the Kremlin to close their remaining bases in the country no later than February 2025.

Scandal: Wall Street Journal Reports that Biden Was Already "Mentally Declined" Four Years Ago When He took Office

 

HOLY SHLIT. According to a new bombshell report by The Wall Street Journal, staffers in the Biden administration worked to hide Joe's mental decline from the moment he took office.

This included putting other officials into roles occupied by the President and scrapping national… pic.twitter.com/sM8r4GFLiB

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) December 20, 2024