DOGE staffer fights off a mob and sparks a national conversation on violence and virtue, the presidential medal of freedom, and celebrating what this country needs — balls.

Thug life. It was 3AM or so a few weeks back when Edward Coristine, a 19-year-old working with the Social Security Administration in Washington D.C., walked Emily Bryant back to her car after a party, and a small mob attacked them — around ten people, according to police who witnessed the assault. Edward shoved Emily in the driver’s seat, slammed it shut, and squared off against the assailants. A couple got around him, opened the door, and Edward slammed it shut again. This time, Emily managed to lock the car. Frustrated, the gang tried punching through the windows, Edward threw himself between them one more time, and then, finally, they focused on him. But Emily was safe. By now, most of you have seen the aftermath, as a photo of Edward shirtless and bloodied, with a concussion and a broken nose, went massively viral after President Trump shared it on Truth Social and threatened to take federal control of the nation’s capital due to runaway violent crime. And I recognized the kid at once.

You probably know Edward by another name, a nickname given to him by his friends, which was amplified around the world when earlier this year he took a job with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE): “Big Balls,” they call him. I call him. We all call him. A legend of a young man who already, entirely against his will, loomed large in our minds by the time of the attack. From here, the discourse could only be chaos.

There is no crime in Washington. Or, there’s never been so little crime. But on the other hand, there’s never been so much. I mean holy shit, it’s Fallujah out here, in fact it’s literally worse than Fallujah — at least, depending on the politics of your chosen talking head. The same is true of course of how we’re all responding to the crime that is or isn’t real, and how the White House has addressed this crime. Donald Trump’s a fascist. Donald Trump dissolved the D.C. government! He seized the police. He is presently putting innocent kids in concentration camps. But actually, he’s following the law, to the letter. And actually, a lot of residents have noticed things are kind of nice without the gunshots overhead, and the roving mobs of pillaging, plundering, straight-up Clockwork Orange kinda teenaged lunatics.

But actually, but actually, but actually.

Our national conversation will carry on like this at least through Trump’s presidency, and in all likelihood forever. Chaos is the nature of the internet, and of our president who was born inside the internet like Bane was born inside the darkness. But today I’d like to focus on the living breathing human in our actual reality, who was actually brutally attacked by a mob, and became the early focal point of our most recent never-ending media circus freak show: an actually good person, doing actually good things, and not just depending on your favorite talking head, because none of them have actually talked to him. But I have.

I talked to Edward last week. It was a very brief conversation, after I asked for details of the attack, which have been distorted across the internet. The guy hates attention, and wouldn’t get into much more than that beyond his own personal motivations, which is really all he wanted to express, and I’ll touch on those in a moment. But our brief conversation inspired me. Because that feeling, today, which I might describe as a feeling of hope for the future, is incredibly rare.

When I asked Edward about the attack, he was humble and adamant: “it wasn’t some conscious heroic act.” He wasn’t even thinking. Everything happened very fast. He just… did a bunch of stuff.

But what he did, of course, was save another person’s life. Despite the following noise, and despite what you think about this person who — again — you do not know anything about, all evidence of the night, including not only the police report but this first-hand account, indicates the same thing: in the face of life-threatening danger, Edward, a 19-year-old kid, took immediate action to protect a young woman from a violent mob. He was wildly outnumbered. He threw himself directly into harm’s way. The girl was saved.

Edward is a hero, in other words. Unambiguously.

But that is really not how this story was told.

If you keyword search “Big Balls” on Threads, there are only celebrations and conspiracy theories (ex, ex, ex, ex). On Bluesky, it was a mix of similar psychopathy and also a lot of mentally unwell older men insisting they are capable of defeating Big Balls in a fight? Which they would really love to do (ex, ex, ex). On X, the reaction was far more supportive. Though as Trump moved forward with his plans to police the city, X was also home to some of the most viral posts diminishing the attack (ex, ex), including a distorted portrait of the mob (lie) echoed by the New Republic.

Why would a man post something like this about a much younger man who just saved a girl’s life? Why frame it like this? Why, rather than focus on Trump, would even the most committed hater focus on Edward, whose actions were unambiguously good?

Sawyer’s reaction, along with the reaction of most of the trolls of his ilk, is a classic moral inversion. This is a modern phenomenon I’ve written about with horrified fascination for years, in which the good is not only ignored or marginalized, but actually framed as evil, while the evil is framed as good. It’s a tool of demoralization, and dehumanization. When our national political tide finally turns, and the left takes control, I will not be surprised when Sawyer calls for draconian retribution against his political enemies. That is the purpose of rhetoric like this — to justify evil.

But in this case, and increasingly online, the inversion was met with an inversion of the inversion. The louder Edward’s haters mocked and twisted his story, the louder his supporters praised him, which ultimately led to the following phenomenal headline from the Daily Beast:

An ex-DOGE staffer known as ‘Big Balls’ could end up receiving the highest civilian honor in the United States,” wrote Farrah Tomazin of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, “placing him in the company of luminaries such as Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Teresa.”

And literally no single piece of this sentence is honest. The first half is total speculation, the second half requires a s[***] ton of context, which I’m about to provide, and the headline is simply, objectively, a lie.

This entire story was woven from a single offhand comment from the president’s press secretary. The day the Daily Beast decided to be crazy, the Presidential Medal of Freedom wasn’t on Karoline Leavitt’s docket. Trump, to the best of our knowledge, had never even discussed this medal by the time of that day’s press conference. Really, this entire story was cooked up after some Trump glazing social media guy asked the press secretary if Balls would get the medal. “Perhaps it’s something he would consider,” Leavitt replied of Trump. And that was it. That was the whole thing.

The Daily Beast then ran a piece effectively imagining what it would be like if the story they just invented were real, and framed it dishonestly for rage clicks — obviously on purpose, and with malice. At the time of the piece’s publication, nobody in government had seriously floated anything even close to what the story suggested.

However.

While I have you here.

Why shouldn’t Big Balls get the medal?

Rosa Parks, who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Bill Clinton back in 1996, holds a place of semi-sacred space in the hearts and minds of most Americans, given we were for some reason taught her story with the same reverence as George Washington. But — and you may be shocked to hear this — a lot of people have received this thing. Some of them? Dweebs. Losers. And very bad people. (quote me)

Like most of you I’m sure, the first loser recipient I thought of was Joe Biden, who infamously received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Obama while the two of them were serving together in the White House.

The Presidential Medal of Freedom was created by John F. Kennedy in 1963. Importantly, he expanded the award from an earlier version established by Truman in 1945 to recognize World War II service, and intended the medal as the country’s highest civilian honor. According to its official dot gov website:

“It is awarded by the President of the United States to individuals who have made exceptional contributions to the security or national interests of America, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”

It is a medal for heroes, in other words. Though it has since… evolved.

You can find a complete list of recipients on Wikipedia. But in addition to a wide range of fantastic, truly-deserving men and women, as well as a heavy helping of duds in politics who obviously only got this thing as a favor, there are several — let’s say — interesting choices, and they have only grown more — let’s say — interesting over time.

Sure, Barack gave the medal to Bill and Melinda Gates for their charity work (*cough* Democratic fundraising), and Warren Buffet for the Giving Pledge I guess (jk, also Democratic fundraising). He gave it to Stephen Hawking for being a very inspiring smart guy, John Glenn and Sally Ride for being astronauts (we love this actually, no notes), and a handful of deranged left-wing political activists for being deranged left-wing political activists. But he also gave the medal to athletes, musicians, actors, and media personalities he obviously just wanted to party with in Cape Cod. He gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Oprah Winfrey, to Ellen DeGeneres, to Meryl Streep. Trump followed with some of the same, though on a much smaller scale (24 medals to Obama’s 118). Then, most controversially, he gave it to Rush Limbaugh, which opened the door to Biden’s bats[***] crazy countermedals.

Anna Wintour? Bill Nye the Science Guy? Megan f[-]ing Rapinoe? By the time Biden, or whoever was running the country while Biden was officially in charge, got to the fifth or sixth most popular female soccer player, this thing had already lost most of its legacy meaning. But then, finally, he awarded it to the pro-crime left-wing megadonor George Soros, and the entire country discussed the decision, furiously, for weeks.

The Presidential Medal of Freedom was created by John F. Kennedy in 1963. Importantly, he expanded the award from an earlier version established by Truman in 1945 to recognize World War II service, and intended the medal as the country’s highest civilian honor. According to its official dot gov website:

“It is awarded by the President of the United States to individuals who have made exceptional contributions to the security or national interests of America, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”

It is a medal for heroes, in other words. Though it has since… evolved.

You can find a complete list of recipients on Wikipedia. But in addition to a wide range of fantastic, truly-deserving men and women, as well as a heavy helping of duds in politics who obviously only got this thing as a favor, there are several — let’s say — interesting choices, and they have only grown more — let’s say — interesting over time.

Sure, Barack gave the medal to Bill and Melinda Gates for their charity work (*cough* Democratic fundraising), and Warren Buffet for the Giving Pledge I guess (jk, also Democratic fundraising). He gave it to Stephen Hawking for being a very inspiring smart guy, John Glenn and Sally Ride for being astronauts (we love this actually, no notes), and a handful of deranged left-wing political activists for being deranged left-wing political activists. But he also gave the medal to athletes, musicians, actors, and media personalities he obviously just wanted to party with in Cape Cod. He gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Oprah Winfrey, to Ellen DeGeneres, to Meryl Streep. Trump followed with some of the same, though on a much smaller scale (24 medals to Obama’s 118). Then, most controversially, he gave it to Rush Limbaugh, which opened the door to Biden’s bats[***] crazy countermedals.

Anna Wintour? Bill Nye the Science Guy? Megan f[-]ing Rapinoe? By the time Biden, or whoever was running the country while Biden was officially in charge, got to the fifth or sixth most popular female soccer player, this thing had already lost most of its legacy meaning. But then, finally, he awarded it to the pro-crime left-wing megadonor George Soros, and the entire country discussed the decision, furiously, for weeks.

What the hell is this thing for?

I guess you could say it’s a kind of cultural project. To receive the medal is to be “good.” Not actually, of course. Soros, for example, is definitely evil. But “good” is what the award means. That stamp of “good” is why men like Soros want it. And recipients, when not so transparently receiving it in exchange for money, are I think intended to define “good behavior.” Biden didn’t give the medal to Rapinoe because she’s, again, the most mediocre of our best female soccer players. He gave it to Rapinoe because Rapinoe is a very loud left-wing political activist, which is a kind of behavior he wanted to encourage. I’m assuming this is because (while trying my absolute best to steelman the decision) he believes more of her behavior will lead to a better country.

Disrespectfully, I disagree.

The United States of America is over $37 trillion in debt. We have outsourced most of our manufacturing capacity, and almost all of our capacity to process most of the essential stuff of modern civilization: rare earth metal mining and processing, semiconductors, battery production integral to solar power and electric vehicles, large power transformers, and pretty much all uranium enrichment. We have a housing crisis. We have a student debt crisis. We have, depending on who you ask, a rather large crime problem on our hands, and the reason this depends on who you ask is our even larger problem of a fractured information ecosystem, which has shattered our common identity. Americans in 2025 will have to fix this country, but — insanely — before we can do that we’ll have to agree on whether the existence of this country is even legitimate, as radical Boomer philosophy has metastasized over these past five decades into a pathological self-hatred among (mostly) well-meaning Millennials suffering from a politics that looks suspiciously like mental illness.

We are facing a lot of problems, in other words. Dying your hair purple and taking a knee at a soccer game is not going to solve them. The only thing capable of solving these problems is first accurately identifying them, and then working on a solution.

Edward joined DOGE because he was inspired by the mission, which was to fix the government’s ability to work by shattering our bureaucratic paralysis. That paralysis is a problem so enormous, and so apparently intractable, it has kept competent people from working with the government for generations, which constitutes another huge problem: nobody good, who you would actually want working in Washington, wants to work in Washington. DOGE addressed both of these problems, and despite constant, obsessed maligning from the media, the team has achieved some important wins.

I asked a couple of high-ranking DOGE officials about their work beyond identifying billions in waste and fraud, and while the project is still ongoing, I did discover a bunch of interesting, overlooked accomplishments. On the ground floor, the unit empowered career bureaucrats to raise efficiency roadblocks they’ve long since identified, but never had a path to surface. DOGE has rationalized… the entire federal fleet, apparently? In terms of acquisitions waste, the team is currently rewriting the Federal Acquisitions Regulations (FAR), which governs how and what the government buys. And they have also employed an AI deregulation tool to analyze something like 200,000 federal regulations no longer required by law, which can now safely be ignored. There are no shortage of regulations that still need to be eliminated. But you can’t kill what you can’t see, and using agentic tools to identify bottlenecks in need of deregulation is just a smart good thing all of us should be excited about.

Still, maybe the most important thing DOGE did was make, for the first time in any of our lives, the prospect of working for the government on difficult projects seem cool to competent people, and especially young people in tech. But for people who have made a career of hiding extremely unpopular policies and pet projects inside our crippled bloated government, the prospect of efficiency sounds like a threat, which is why they’ve ratcheted the volume on their histrionics up to 9, and why younger guys like Edward especially have been targeted. Not that he seems to give a s[***].

“I don’t care for what people have to say online,” he said. “I haven’t from the start, just trying to do what is right, public opinion is just a wave.”

That shook me to be honest.

“Is Big Balls… wise?” a colleague of mine asked.

I thought about that picture of him covered in blood. “Just trying my best,” he told me. “Just trying to do my work, and do a great job at that work.” “Just trying to make a better future.”

He hates the spotlight, but the spotlight is drawn to him. That is because he has exhibited rare degrees of goodness, which — in this fallen a[**] world of darkness — makes him a target. But we could all stand to have a pair as big as Edward’s.

We notice problems every day. I’ve written about them for years. But Edward noticed one and did something. Despite all of the attention he never wanted, Edward did the hard, right thing. And as of this month, it’s now apparent he has a habit of doing the hard, right thing. Which means he is exactly the kind of person who, in 2025, should be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

There’s not a chance in hell he wants this thing, given his aversion to attention. But if he could do the hard, right thing just one more time and accept this, maybe with all of the younger DOGE guys, the country would be better for it. Because America doesn’t need another athlete who hates America. We don’t need another athlete at all, in fact, nor do we need another musician, or actor, or megalomaniacal partisan political donor. Today, right now, what we need is a generation of young men willing to do the hard, right thing, even as millions of people across the world tell them that they’re wrong and bad, and wish them harm because of it.

Today, America needs balls. And so balls are what we must reward.

Mike Solana, Pirate Wires

In what is being called the largest single-year cut in civilian federal employment since World War II, 2025 will end with 300,000 fewer workers employed by the United States government.

Trump is called a dictator. But dictators EXPAND the power of government; not deplete it. Trump has cut the government more than any political leader in modern history–maybe ever. I find it hilarious that leftists view this as dictatorship. Leftists actually feel victimized when they don’t get to loot and control productive people. Leftists feel crazed and spat upon when rapists and murderers are deported and imprisoned. For doing what should be done, and for making life on earth sane and possible, leftists call you evil.

And then there are the self-proclaimed lovers of liberty (establishment Republicans, libertarians, the Ayn Rand Institute) who stand ready to bear any burden and suffer any fate to get rid of Trump. They would rather have Stalin as President than Trump, even though Trump has done more to advance their policies and principles than any American president for a century or more.

Psychologists will study the anti-Trump hysteria for generations to come. Whatever they conclude or discover, it will have something to do with what gave us Nazi Germany. But today’s leftists and faux conservatives are just so pitiful, so lightweight, so unimportant. They’re not really Darth Vaders so much as mosquitos. How did we get to a place where the metaphysically insignificant get to have any influence at all?

Trump’s greatest achievement is something that he did not directly do. He showed us what’s wrong with not just the government, but our whole way of thinking. By not buying any of the brainwashing, and displaying his uncanny immunity to it, he showed us that we never needed to tolerate any of the madness. He is a heroic figure in his willingness to take unconscionable legal harassment and literal bullets for daring to state the plainly obvious. Now it’s up to the rest of us to embrace this lesson, and run with it.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

I don’t trust the actor (and his wife with her American taxpayer financed Fifth Avenue shopping sprees) in charge of Ukraine any more than I trust Putin. He clearly is in it for the money and the fame. Putin, an obvious meglomaniac, wants it for the power.

You can debate which motive is worse, but the end result is the same. Neither Ukraine nor Russia are free, nor will they ever be under the stewardship of these two torpid tyrants. There are good people in Russia and Ukraine, of course. But not in their governments. Their governments can wipe each other out for all I care. After these two, there’s nowhere to go but up.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

By J.B. Shurk

When the FBI visited Deep Stater John Bolton early Friday morning, a line from The Godfather crept into my mind: “Today I settle all family business.”  Surely I wasn’t the only one who hoped cable news would soon be reporting similar raids at the homes of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Brennan, James Comey, Jim Clapper, Susan Rice, and all the other co-conspirators responsible for the Russia Collusion Hoax, the Ukraine impeachment, the Hunter Biden laptop cover-up, and all the fraudulently predicated criminal investigations into President Trump and his associates.

Alas, Bolton was the only fish dumped out of his sanctuary bowl for the time being.  Still, with the farcical half-a-billion-dollar civil fraud judgment against Trump recently overturned and the Supreme Court slowly but surely ruling in his favor on a host of executive orders intended to streamline the federal government, I feel as if we’re getting closer to a time when a great deal of “family business” will be settled swiftly.

That thought sparked another thought: President Trump’s entire governing philosophy has a lot in common with some of the better wisdom from the Godfather movies.  Consider some of these jewels from Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola:

(1) “Keep your friends close but your enemies closer.”

Does it drive you nuts that Trump seems to quickly forgive people who wrong him?  He lets left-wing “journalists” interview him.  He gave Hillary Clinton a pass for illegally transferring highly classified government documents to a private and unsecured computer server.  He even considered Mitt Romney — a “man” who repeatedly stabbed him in the back — for the position of secretary of State!

At the same time, though, Trump has no problem rumbling with those he brings near.  After all, he made Bolton his chief national security adviser before firing the warmonger a year later.  Trump likes having his adversaries where he can see them.  That reminds me of something Sonny Corleone once said: “You gotta get ’em close like this, and badda-bing, you blow their brains all over your nice Ivy League suit.”

(2) “I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse.”

Most of the celebrity economists on television hate tariffs because they primarily benefit American workers and Main Street businesses, while threatening the bottom line of multinational corporations and Wall Street investment firms.  For years, the pundits have said that Trump’s tariffs would destroy both the economy and relations with allies.  What Trump and his economic policy team have known all along, though, is that no nation on the planet can afford to be closed off from the American market.

American consumers are the wealth-creating engine for the entire world.  When Trump insists that other nations treat America fairly, he does so while holding a giant stick.

(3) “Don’t ever take sides with anyone against the family again.”

Notice to all Democrat-run “sanctuary cities”: Your days of aiding and abetting illegal aliens, harboring criminals, and putting the American people in danger are over.  How many times have we heard Democrats describe foreign nationals who broke into our country more favorably than they describe American citizens?  How often have we seen Democrats fighting tooth and nail to keep foreign robbers, rapists, and murderers in the United States?

President Trump is absolutely committed to removing invaders from Democrat “sanctuaries” and preventing future harm to Americans.  He will assume control over criminal enforcement operations in Democrat-run cities if he must.  The era of taking sides against the family has come to an end.

(4) “It’s not personal; it’s strictly business.”

Trump’s done with North American trade “deals” that enable Canada and Mexico to operate as pass-through entities for China and other adversaries flooding American markets with cheap goods.  Whether it’s illegal drugs or finished products from foreign companies exploiting trade loopholes, the U.S. will no longer subsidize Mexico’s cartel government or Canada’s “Green New Deal” unicorn economy.  America must be self-resilient and have an economy more diverse than Wall Street bankers and taxpayer-funded NGOs.  It’s not personal, Prime Minister Carney.  It’s economic security.

(5) “Hold on to your friends, but make peace with your enemies.”

The Russia Collusion Hoaxers can push for war with Russia all they want.  President Trump knows that America loses if it gets stuck in a European civil war over Russian-speaking lands in Ukraine whose people have repeatedly voted to be a part of the Russian Federation.  Sending money and weapons to Ukraine until every last able-bodied man dies prolongs useless slaughter.  From the Arctic to the Middle East, the U.S. and Russia have much more to gain by working together.  Both also correctly view communist China as a serious adversary.  As Sollozzo tells Tom Hagen, “I don’t like violence. … I’m a businessman.  Blood is a big expense.”

(6) “Revenge is a dish best served cold.”

Hillary, Obama, the lawfare operatives at the DOJ, or the gangsters manipulating global affairs in the espionage agencies — take your pick.  With Bolton getting his home and office tossed and ongoing criminal investigations heating up with regards to Senator Adam Schiff, New York attorney general Letitia James, and many others, those who abused their offices to defraud the American people and overthrow President Trump in a Deep State-engineered coup d’état should be afraid.  How many Establishment figures in D.C. are unlawfully in possession of classified materials?  How many have profited in quid-pro-quo arrangements with foreign nations?  How many have committed fraud when signing mortgage documents?  How many are guilty of insider trading?  Perhaps we will soon know.

(7) “A man who doesn’t spend time with his family can never be a real man.”

Out with the “transgender” madness.  In with the traditional nuclear family.  Have you noticed that the winds of American culture are shifting after twelve years of Obama-Biden delusions during which we were told that families are “oppressive” and “systemically racist”?  Obama’s “Life of Julia” campaign promised women that they did not need men or children because the government would be their perfect “partner” for life.  Biden’s DOJ harassed parents for opposing school districts’ obsession with sexualizing childhood education.  The Democrat party argues that teachers should secretly “transition” children away from their biological sex and assist young girls in obtaining abortions without parental notification.  Trump is putting an end to all that.  

Children need moms and dads.  Adults need spouses.  America needs more children.  Families grow the economy and foster strong communities.  As the Trump administration shows every day, there is nothing more critical for America’s success than promoting healthy American families.

(8) “Great men are not born great; they grow great.”

There are many similarities between Donald Trump and Winston Churchill.  Despised by the Establishment of their respective times, they changed the course of history through sheer force of will.  They share an exuberant energy and tenacious spirit.  Churchill reportedly remarked, “Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.”  After surviving an assassin’s bullet, Trump clenched his fist and shouted, “Fight!  Fight!  Fight!”  These two imperfect men perfectly personify this lesson in leadership: Never give up!  You are not bestowed with that kind of greatness upon birth.  You must suffer and fall and get back up — again and again — until everyone — including your opponents — marvels at your fearlessness.

(9) “I believe in America.”

Not since Ronald Reagan have we had a president who is so unabashedly pro-American.  Trump’s enemies call his “Make America Great Again” slogan “imperialist” or “racist.”  He calls it a mission statement.  You are either part of the monumental effort to secure peace, prosperity, and freedom for the people of the United States, or your loyalties lie elsewhere.  You have to really love something to sacrifice everything for it.  President Trump loves America.

By Monica Showalter

Amid all the other things that have rattled the deep state — notably the search and seizure of evidence from Trump-hating John Bolton’s residence and office — President Trump has quietly shut down the ‘five eyes’ intelligence arrangement between the English-speaking countries — the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, rocking the deep-state’s overseas allies, too. The comity is over.

Which makes sense, given that these countries are now electing leftists, not moving in tandem with the U.S. on the policy front. It was one thing for Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher to pool intelligence about a common enemy. It’s quite another for President Trump to be doing the same with the likes of Keir Starmer and Mark Carney, even if they’re able to maintain civility with Trump, unlike a lot of leftists. They are simple going their own way. They have no common enemy. The same as true for whatever they’ve got Down Under.

But that’s the broadest picture.

The secondary picture is that this alliance attempted to undercut President Trump during his first term. An alliance isn’t much use if the allies have decided that you are the common enemy. More disgusting still, they have yet to admit their error, meaning, they will do it again, so bye-bye, bozos.

American Thinker’s retired founder, Thomas Lifson, has been keeping an eye on this picture and has written a terrific analysis of the picture, drawing on the credible sources he knows. On his Substack, which I believe is free to read, his analysis is must-reading for all the angles and backstories that make this alliance a thing of the past.

Lifson writes:

The “Five Eyes” intelligence sharing arrangement has put the United States’ hundred billion dollar+ intelligence budget at the service of the UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, vastly benefitting the intelligence agencies of Anglosphere allies.

But, to the shock of many, the Trump administration is cutting them out of key areas of interest. Politico’s European edition reports:

U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is blocking America’s closest intelligence allies from receiving updates on Russia-Ukraine peace talks in a shock move that upends decades of tight cooperation.

That effectively cuts America’s Five Eyes partners — the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand — out of the loop, stunning the intelligence community that has relied on the network since the end of World War II.

In a July 20 directive signed by Gabbard, reported by CBS, the U.S. intelligence community was given orders to classify all analysis and information related to the Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations as “NOFORN,” or no foreign dissemination, meaning the information cannot be shared with any other country or foreign nationals.

There is no love lost between President Trump and the collective Deep State of the Anglosphere.

In concert with Deep State operatives embedded in the US intel community, spooks from half of the other four members collaborated in trying to bring down President Trump’s first campaign and then successfully hobble his first term in office.

Remember Trump campaign aide young George Papadopoulos being set up — to provide an excuse for electronic surveillance of the Trump campaign – in a night of “heavy drinking” in a posh London wine bar? In that operation, top level Aussie diplomat/politician/spook Alexander Downer was joined by a comely undercover female FBI agent who called herself Azra Turk, who has never been publicly identified. Thefemme fatale delivered the question that yielded the statement that became the alleged basis for spying on the 2016 Trump campaign

It’s a fascinating deep dive into all the reasons this alliance was not working, and Trump, to his credit, got rid of it. Read the whole thing here.

On Thursday, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears (R-Va.) attended a school board meeting in Arlington County, Va., where she spoke during public comment about the school system’s transgender bathroom and locker room policies.

She said:

“Here’s the truth: there are two sexes, boys and girls, and for generations we’ve understood this, that they deserve their own sports teams, their own locker rooms, their own bathrooms. That’s not discrimination, it is common sense. But here in Arlington, the trust between parents and schools is being broken.

When girls lose their privacy, when boys are punished for speaking plain truth, when parents are silenced for simply asking questions, that’s not education, that’s indoctrination. You are one of the five NOVA school districts who have been found in violation of Title IX.

Title IX was written to protect biological girls’ spaces and opportunities on the basis of biological sex, not gender identity. And by refusing to reverse your reckless policies, you are failing our daughters and risking losing millions of dollars in funding our children. This is not theoretical.”

A group of protesters had gathered outside the meeting to demonstrate in favor of letting boys into girls’ spaces and endangering young women. My Townhall colleague Corey Inganamort confronted some of them; one protester blew on a whistle and revealed herself to be the most annoying human being on the planet.

Earle-Sears appeared on Fox & Friends on Friday to address the controversy:

This is nonsense. And my opponent will not come forward and say anything. And then last night, you saw that they equated bathroom opportunities with me being Black in America. And here I am, second-in-command in– of the– a former capital of the Confederacy. Me, the immigrant, whom they say, as Democrats, they love more than anybody. Me, a black woman who they say they love, as Democrats, more than anybody. This is insane.

The idea that a black woman could run for governor in the state that was the capital of the Confederacy is testimony to the promise of freedom that America offers. And her opponents meet her with abject racism.

Earle-Sears’ opponent, Abigail Spanberger, didn’t address the issue until nearly lunchtime on Friday.

Anytime a Democrat says that Republicans want to put black people back in chains or bring back Jim Crow, we should respond by showing them that sign. It’s time to throw their true colors back in their faces.

Democrats love to accuse Republicans of wanting to drag America back into Jim Crow, but when push comes to shove, it’s their own activists who spew the ugliest racism. Just ask Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears. 

Her response? Calm, strong, and rooted in truth.

That’s the kind of clarity and courage the media won’t give you. PJ Media will. Join us today for 60% off with the code FIGHT — because exposing the Left’s hypocrisy takes more than headlines. It takes a movement.

Chris Queen is an editor and columnist at PJ Media. He’s a UGA alum (#DGD), a fan of anything involving his beloved Georgia Bulldogs, and an amateur Disney historian. He’s a Certified Bourbon Steward, but that doesn’t make him a bourbon snob.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said Tuesday that he believes President Donald Trump is prepared to “crush” Russia’s economy with a new wave of sanctions if Russian President Vladimir Putin refuses to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the coming weeks.

Graham, who spoke with Trump on Tuesday morning, has pushed the president for months to support his sweeping bipartisan sanctions bill that would impose steep tariffs on countries that are fueling Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by buying its oil, gas, uranium, and other exports. The legislation has the backing of 85 senators, but Trump has yet to endorse it. Republican leaders have said they won’t move without him.

“If we don’t have this thing moving in the right direction by the time we get back, then I think that plan B needs to kick in,” Graham said in a phone interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday. The Senate, now away from Washington for the August recess, is scheduled to return in September.

Graham’s call with Trump came less than 24 hours after high-stakes meetings at the White House with Zelenskyy and several European leaders. Trump and the leaders emerged from those talks sounding optimistic, with the expectation being that a Putin and Zelenskyy sit-down will happen soon.

As Congress prepares to return to session in early September, the next few weeks could become a defining test of whether lawmakers and international allies are prepared to act on their own if Trump doesn’t follow through.

Trump’s comments to Graham, one of his top congressional allies, mark the latest sign that pressure is building — not just on Putin, but on Trump as well.

“Trump believes that if Putin doesn’t do his part, that he’s going to have to crush his economy. Because you’ve got to mean what you say,” Graham told reporters in South Carolina on Tuesday.

Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the lead Democrat pushing the bill with Graham, says there is a “lot of reason for skepticism and doubt” after the meetings with Trump, especially because Putin has not made any direct promises. He said the Russian leader has an incentive to play “rope-a-dope” with Trump.

“The only way to bring Putin to the table is to show strength,” Blumenthal told the AP this week. “What Putin understands is force and pressure.”

Still, Republicans have shown little willingness to override Trump in his second term. They abruptly halted work on the sanctions bill before the August recess after Trump said the legislation may not be needed.

Asked Tuesday in a phone interview whether the sanctions bill should be brought up even without Trump’s support, Graham said, “the best way to do it is with him.”

“There will come a point where if it’s clear that Putin is not going to entertain peace, that President Trump will have to back up what he said he would do,” Graham said. “And the best way to do it is have congressional blessing.”

The legislation would impose tariffs of up to 500% on countries such as China and India, which together account for roughly 70% of Russia’s energy trade. The framework has the support of many European leaders.

Many of those same European leaders left the White House on Monday with a more hopeful tone. Zelenskyy called the meeting with Trump “an important step toward ending this war.” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that his expectations “were not just met, they were exceeded.”

Still, little concrete progress was visible on the main obstacles to peace. That deadlock likely favors Putin, whose forces continue to make steady, if slow, progress on the ground in Ukraine.

French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters after talks at the White House that Trump believes a deal with Putin is possible. But he said sanctions remain on the table if the process fails.

___

Associated Press reporter Meg Kinnard contributed to this report from Florence, South Carolina.

Gerrymandering is an idea that should be terminated.

The independent redistricting movement here, has vowed to fight Newsom with the same vigor that his character as a Thank goodness for Arnold Schwarzenegger. Not only did he utter one of the top lines in movie history—“I’ll be back”—but he’s also bringing muscle to the fight against Gov. Gavin Newsom’s scheme to take Ventura County and the rest of the state back to the days when shady politicians decided who spoke for us in Sacramento and Washington.

Newsom’s “Election Rigging Response Act” is a constitutional amendment that, if passed by California voters, would temporarily override the state’s independent Citizens Redistricting Commission. Since 2008, that body has drawn state district lines. In 2010, it was handed responsibility for congressional districts.

The commission has worked fine ever since and there’s no indication that any Californian, save for Democrat Newsom, has an appetite to scrap the independent process.

The governor wants to temporarily suspend the commission and have the legislature redraw the state to favor his party, an ugly ploy from the past to counter what is a lawful redistricting attempt in Texas favoring Republicans. And he’s trying to ram his plan through as quickly as possible.

Newsom getting his way could have serious consequences for Ventura County, which shares the 26th Congressional District with a small portion of Los Angeles County.

Drawn by the independent commission, the district reflects the shared interests of residents from the coastal cities of Oxnard and Ventura to the inland areas of Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley, providing a cohesive voice for the region in Washington.

Under Newsom’s proposed scheme, Ventura County could be split into multiple new districts, meaning people in different parts of the county who share concerns about water, agriculture, infrastructure and other local issues, would suddenly find themselves represented by different members of Congress.

A collective voice would be weakened. Schwarzenegger, California’s most recent Republican governor and driver of cyborg assassin, first introduced in 1984 in “The Terminator,” fought. And he’s got a powerful sidekick in Charles Munger Jr., a fellow Republican who spent nearly $13 million on the campaign to pass independent redistricting and is ready to spend again to defend it.

These two care about California. Term limited Newsom cares only about his next job, which he hopes will be as president.

At the Reagan Library Republican Primary Debate in 2023, Newsom wagged his finger at the Acorn when asked about the state’s standing outside California.

“The future happens here first,” he responded emphatically, words that could apply to today, given Newsom’s desire to see other states take his lead on redistricting.

But California has seen the future that Newsom is turning to our ugly past to resurrect. If it’s not terminated immediately, we’ll have only ourselves to blame.

Acorn News Simi Valley CA Staff

What is really going on?  Why is the DOJ still preventing the release of Seth Rich documents requested for nearly a decade?

It is believed that Seth Rich is a pivotal key to the Russia Collusion coup attempt of the first Trump Administration.

The Deep State DOJ and FBI have gone through extreme efforts to cover-up any information they have on Seth Rich.  Rich is who many believe transferred DNC emails to WikiLeaks during the 2016 election.  He was a Bernie fan who worked in the DNC at that time.  He was reportedly upset with what the DNC was doing to Bernie.  On July 10, 2016, Rich was found shot in the back due to what law enforcement labeled a burglary, and yet his wallet, phone, and watch were left on his person.  This is after WikiLeaks began dropping damaging DNC emails that showed the inner-workings of the Hillary campaign.

It is believed that Seth Rich forwarded those Podesta emails to WikiLeaks.  We all know now without a doubt that it is a lie to claim that the Russians were involved in the transfer of these emails.  

Hillary wanted to deflect from her email scandal and what was in her emails.  She also wanted to punish whoever sent those emails to WikiLeaks.  This is why many believe Seth Rich was murdered.

Attorney Ty Clevenger for years has doggedly gone after information held by the Deep State FBI and DOJ that they refuse to release related to Seth Rich’s murder.  It is the law that documents related to Seth Rich be released per Clevenger’s requests but the Deep State DOJ keeps hiding these documents from the public.

Clevenger previously shared a potential reason why the Deep State won’t provide requested documents from the Seth Rich case.

We filed a motion today to compel the @FBI to search its “prohibited access” files and its previously-secret evidence room for records about Seth Rich. On May 29, 2025, Senate Judiciary Chairman @ChuckGrassley revealed that the FBI had been designating certain records “prohibited access” such that they would not appear during records searches. In other words, “prohibited access” files would have been hidden from FOIA requesters.

For the reasons set forth in the motion (URL below), there is good reason to believe Seth Rich and CrowdStrike records would have been designated “prohibited access.”

The day after Senator Grassley revealed the “prohibited access” feature, @FBIDDBongino revealed the existence of a previously-hidden evidence room at FBI headquarters, and he said records in that room had not been entered into FBI records systems. In other words, those records would also have been hidden from FOIA requesters.

We tried for six weeks to get some straight answers out of the FBI, but no luck. I wish Bongino and @FBIDirectorKash would pay attention to this case, which has been pending since 2020. If they won’t, then maybe Senator Grassley, @JamesComer, @RepMTG, @Jim_Jordan, @RepLuna, @RepThomasMassie, @DNIGabbard or @SpeakerJohnson will. According to Julian Assange, this goes to the heart of the Russia-collusion hoax. @wikileaks

Per a document related to the Russia collusion lie, Hillary Clinton approved the Russia Collusion lie on July 26, 2016, barely two weeks after Seth Rich’s murder.

Today Seth Rich shared another message from the DOJ that they refuse to provide documents related to the Seth Rich murder.  After nearly a decade, they just refuse to provide any documentation.

The @FBI is searching for Seth Rich records in the “secret” evidence room disclosed by @FBIDDBongino, according to a sworn declaration filed today. That’s the same place where the appendix to the Durham report was found in a burn bag.

In the same declaration, the FBI claims that “prohibited access” files would have shown up during the original records search because FOIA personnel are NOT blocked from seeing such files. That’s strange.

@ChuckGrassley expressed concern that the FBI’s own internal investigators could not see “prohibited access” files — potentially interfering with Congressional oversight — so why would low-level records clerks have blanket access when investigators do not? Maybe @GOBactual, @RealStevefriend, @PhillipAKenn, or @FXRegan have some insight.

BTW, why couldn’t the FBI just answer our questions instead of making us file a motion for partial summary judgment? A URL for the declaration is below, and a URL for the FBI’s response to our motion is below that.

Joe Hoft

It is a curious thing when a superpower begins to run out of the two things it needs most in war: fuel and men. Yet that is precisely what seems to be happening to Russia in Ukraine. After more than two years of fighting, Moscow’s once-vaunted war machine is showing unmistakable signs of exhaustion.

When Russia launched its invasion in February 2022, it relied heavily on professional soldiers but the disastrous battles outside Kyiv and Kharkiv shattered that backbone. Thousands of seasoned fighters were lost, and the logistical chaos that followed forced Russia into an embarrassing retreat from northern Ukraine.

The Kremlin’s answer was Wagner. The mercenary army, battle-hardened from Africa to the Middle East, became the spearhead of Russia’s offensive. For a time, Wagner succeeded. In the brutal fight for Bakhmut, it won headlines, captured territory, and gave Moscow its only significant victory of 2023. Yet those same battles consumed Wagner’s ranks, and the rebellion that followed sealed its demise. The Kremlin had sacrificed its sharpest blade.

Since then, Russia has leaned on a far weaker substitute: poorly trained volunteers and mercenaries recruited from among ordinary citizens. These men have been thrown into grinding assaults in the south and east. For a while, they produced modest gains. Some analysts even warned that Ukraine’s lines were close to breaking, or that the war was sliding toward stalemate. The pressure on President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government was intense.

But Ukraine endured. If its battlefield victories were few, its persistence was notable. Its drones repeatedly struck oil refineries near the front, irritating but not crippling Moscow. Its political leadership refused to crack. And slowly, the picture began to change.

Today, Russia faces a crisis that no artillery barrage can solve: firstly its own fuel shortage. Videos emerging from Crimea show gas stations with long lines and dwindling supplies. In Moscow, the government has gone so far as to ban price hikes at the pump—an extraordinary intervention that signals just how tight supplies have become. Exports of gasoline have also been restricted. The Kremlin may hope this will stabilize the situation, but history suggests otherwise. In the late 1980s, the Soviet Union imposed similar controls, only to create massive shortages that fed into the collapse of the system itself.

Some optimists blame tourism. Crimea, they argue, is simply overcrowded during summer, and supplies will normalize when the season ends. But experts warn the opposite: the shortages may spread. What is now a regional inconvenience could soon reach Russia’s great metropolises—Moscow, St. Petersburg, and beyond. That would be more than an economic irritation; it would be a political one. For a government that has staked its legitimacy on stability, empty gas stations are as dangerous as empty barracks.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s strikes are becoming bolder. Reports suggest that Kyiv has completed tests of a domestically produced long-range missile, the Flamingo, with a range of 3,000 kilometers—enough to reach deep into Russia’s interior. On August 21, Donald Trump, fueled speculation that Ukraine could soon receive additional Western-made long-range systems as well. If true, Russia’s already vulnerable energy infrastructure may face unprecedented pressure.

And then there is the problem of manpower. Even as fuel grows scarce, so too does cash. In recent weeks, Russian officials admitted that payments to volunteer fighters have been reduced. One local commissar in Yamal tried to spin this as a patriotic test, claiming that true defenders of the motherland should not fight for money. But the truth is hard to disguise: Russia is struggling to afford its own war.

The consequences are immediate. When Vladimir Putin announced mobilization in 2022, hundreds of thousands of Russians fled the country, unwilling to be cannon fodder. Those who stayed often did so for pay. Now, with wages cut and inflation eroding the value of the ruble, even that incentive is slipping away. A war that already lacked enthusiasm may soon lack bodies altogether.

Taken together, these crises suggest something profound. Russia is not just facing setbacks on the battlefield; it is hollowing out from within. Logistics—a dull word, but the lifeblood of any army—threaten to break the Kremlin’s campaign. Shortages of fuel and money are not tactical problems. They are systemic. And once they spread, they are very hard to reverse.

Ukraine has every reason to believe the tide is turning. Just as Russia was forced to abandon Kyiv and Kharkiv in 2022, it may soon find itself unable to sustain its hold over parts of the occupied south and east. The war will not end quickly, and Ukraine’s own sacrifices are immense. But Russia’s weakness is no longer hidden. It is on the surface—at the pump, in the barracks, and in the morale of its exhausted soldiers.

Wars are often decided less by the brilliance of generals than by the endurance of nations. By that measure, Russia is faltering. Ukraine, bloodied but unbowed, still stands.

Qabil Ashirov, Azernews