Recent revelations from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard have undermined the Deep State party line that Seth Rich’s murder was a botched robbery. This assumption hinged on the nearly universal acceptance that it was the Russians who hacked the DNC and DCCC servers in 2016. That assumption has collapsed.

In the early morning hours of July 10, 2016, unknown assailants beat and then shot to death the 27-year-old DNC data analyst. This much is not in question. Everything else about Rich’s murder is. The most honest assessment of what happened to Rich came from his mother. On the day after the shooting, Mary Rich, told local TV news that her son struggled with his attackers: “His hands were bruised, his knees are bruised, his face is bruised, and yet he had two shots to his back, and yet they never took anything….They took his life for literally no reason. They didn’t finish robbing him, they just took his life.”

In fact, they did not start robbing him. They left without taking his cellphone, his wallet, or his watch. The dying Rich told the police only that his assailants spoke Spanish (as, curiously, did the operatives who broke into the Watergate). Against the backdrop of the very public Hillary email scandal, the inexplicable murder of a Bernie Sanders-supporting DNC data analyst should have been catnip for every red blooded journalist in DC.

It wasn’t. From this point on, Democrats and their media allies aggressively suppressed any suggestion that Rich’s death was something other than a “botched robbery.” As FOX News learned the hard way, to question whether Rich may have been the source of the emails leaked to Julian Assange and Wikileaks was to invite scorn and crippling law suits.

For Democrats, the one silver lining in the April 2019 release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference was the belief that, if nothing else, Team Mueller put the kibosh on the various “conspiracy theories” around Rich’s murder. Said the leftist Daily Beast at the time, “Julian Assange repeatedly blamed Seth Rich, the murdered DNC staffer, for Russia’s leaks. The Mueller report shows that Assange was lying from the start.”

Far from “blaming” Rich, Assange offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to Rich’s killers. Team Mueller acknowledged that Assange had strongly suggested Rich was his source but dismissed Assange’s comments, claiming they were “designed to obscure the source of the materials that WikiLeaks was releasing.“ This was nuts. Assange had far less reason to protect the Russians than Mueller did to indict them.

Team Mueller expressed shock that even after the now infamous Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) was released on January 6, 2017, “Assange continued to deny that the Clinton materials released by WikiLeaks had come from Russian hacking.” According to Mueller, Assange reportedly told a U.S. congressman “that the DNC hack was an ‘inside job,’ and purported to have ‘physical proof’ that Russians did not give materials to Assange.”

It would have helped, of course, if Mueller and his team had spoken with Assange, but his first hand evidence would have spoiled the second hand narrative they established at the top of the report—”The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion.” This unfounded assumption dictated all conclusions that followed. Assange was “lying” because he challenged those conclusions.

In tracing the “evidence of Russian government operations,” the Mueller report cites as Exhibit A the fact that “in June [2016], the Democratic National Committee and its cyber response team publicly announced that Russian hackers had compromised its computer network.”

The “cyber response team” in question was CrowdStrike, an outfit recommended by Perkins Coie, the same law firm responsible for the Steele dossier. The FBI had been shut out of the review. On January 5, 2017, a “senior law enforcement official” admitted as much, telling CNN, “The FBI repeatedly stressed to DNC officials the necessity of obtaining direct access to servers and data, only to be rebuffed until well after the initial compromise had been mitigated.” CNN reported this a day before the ICA was released.

The fact that its agents were denied access to the DNC servers may explain why, as Tulsi Gabbard reported, “the FBI and NSA had ‘low confidence’ in attributing the data leaks from these entities to Russia.” In its October 7, 2016 press release on Russian interference the Director of National Intelligence and the Director of Homeland Security chose to suppress this exculpatory bit of information.

Even CrowdStrike president Shawn Henry had doubts about Russia hacking the DNC servers. In closed door testimony before the House Intelligence Community in 2017, he conceded, “There’s not evidence that [the data] were actually exfiltrated. There’s circumstantial evidence but no evidence that they were actually exfiltrated.”

Leonard Benardo was less concerned about whether Russians hacked the DNC servers than he was about how Hillary Clinton could exploit the rumor that they had. Benardo, senior vice president for George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, was planted deep in the Clinton campaign. Of note, he began his work with the Open Society Foundations at the Soros Foundation Moscow.

Clinton’s schemes, laid out in a pair of emails, were unearthed by the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) John Durham and shared by Gabbard this week. In a July 25, 2016, email, Bernardo wrote, “The media analysis on the DNC hacking appears solid…Julie says it will be a long-term affair to demonize Putin and Trump. Now it is good for a post-convention bounce. Later the FBI will put more oil into the fire.”

“Julie” refers to Clinton campaign official Julia Smith. In the two days that followed Smith appears to have run her plans by Hillary Clinton. On July 27, 2016, Benardo wrote, “HRC approved Julia’s idea about Trump and Russia hampering U.S. elections. This should distract people from her own missing email, especially if the affair goes to the Olympic level.” When questioned by Durham’s staff, Benardo lamely asserted that “to the best of his knowledge, he did not draft the emails.”

None of this proves people close to Hillary Clinton had Seth Rich killed, but it does show that Assange is a more credible source than the conspirators who framed Donald Trump. The Rich murder deserves the attention it was denied from day one. There can be no surer way to pierce the fog in which the legacy media have shrouded this scandal than to find Rich’s killers.

Jack Cashill

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott will begin trying to remove Democratic lawmakers from office Monday if they don’t return. Dozens of them left the state in a last-resort attempt to block redrawn U.S. House maps that President Trump wants before the 2026 midterm elections.

Abbott is taking a far more aggressive stance than the one he took in 2021. He swiftly warning Democrats that he will seek to remove them from office if they are not back when the House reconvenes Monday afternoon. Abbott cited a non-binding 2021 legal opinion issued by Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, which suggested a court could determine that a legislator had forfeited their office.

He also suggested the lawmakers may have committed felonies by raising money to help pay for fines they’d face.

“This truancy ends now,” Abbott said.

In response, House Democrats issued a four-word statement: “Come and take it.”

Background

Forty Democrats left the state on Sunday and fled to Illinois so they wouldn’t have to deal with the vote on redistricting. Ironically, Illinois is one of the worst gerrymandered states in the nation, which is why it goes left most elections.

The Republicans are trying to add five more seats through redistricting at the suggestion of President Trump. Four of the five new districts are majority Hispanic. This is not a racial move.

Republicans hold 25 of the 38 states. They are attempting to do what Democrats have done in states like California, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and so on.

A vote on the proposed maps had been set for Monday in the Texas House of Representatives, but it cannot proceed if the majority of Democratic members deny a quorum by not showing up. After one group of Democrats landed in Chicago on Sunday, they were welcomed by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, but declined to say how long they were prepared to stay out of Texas.

“We will do whatever it takes. What that looks like, we don’t know,” said state Rep. Gene Wu, the Texas House Democratic Caucus leader.

All the walkout does is delay the vote. In other words, it’s theatrics to show their base they are doing something so courageous that you have to vote for them again.

M. DOWLING, INDEPENDENT SENTINEL

How many people do you employ this month?” might sound like the kind of question an employer can easily answer, but it’s not. Especially for large businesses, the exact number of employees in a given month is hard to pin down. The media report layoffs and hires in round numbers, but for calculating total employment in the country, it really matters whether “500” means 478 or 523, because those discrepancies multiplied across millions of businesses make a huge difference.

August 4, 2025 6:30 AM

‘How many people do you employ this month?” might sound like the kind of question an employer can easily answer, but it’s not. Especially for large businesses, the exact number of employees in a given month is hard to pin down. The media report layoffs and hires in round numbers, but for calculating total employment in the country, it really matters whether “500” means 478 or 523, because those discrepancies multiplied across millions of businesses make a huge difference.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics sends a survey to employers each month to figure out how many people they employ, as part of the jobs report. In the good old days before Covid, that survey had a response rate of about 60 percent. From respondents’ guesses about how many people they employ, the BLS had to guess about how many people are employed in this nation of 340 million souls.

That’s a really hard job. The BLS employs some of the best statisticians in the world, and they happen to be pretty good at it, often getting within a tenth of a percent of the final workforce numbers.

Then, Covid happened, and the establishment survey response rate dropped like a rock. It hasn’t recovered and currently sits at 43 percent. What was already hard at a 60 percent response rate is now even harder.

The problem of falling response rates has been well known for years, even before Covid. “The quality of data from household surveys is in decline,” said a paper published in the fall 2015 issue of the Journal of Economic Perspectives, because “households have become increasingly less likely to answer surveys at all” and “those that respond are less likely to answer certain questions.”

Within government, Donald Trump’s appointee as BLS commissioner, William Beach, has been a leader in calling for modernizing the surveys that statistical agencies rely on. As commissioner from 2019 to 2023, Beach asked Congress for several million dollars in funding — peanuts, in federal budget terms — to redo the survey along the lines of other countries such as the U.K., which now uses an online-first methodology. It never came to be.

Beach organized a letter to Congress and the executive branch signed by numerous statistical experts in February of this year outlining the long-running problems statistical agencies have been facing. Budgets have not kept up with costs that are out of the agencies’ control, and staff who were doing vital work have been cut. Neither Congress nor the administration took action.

Beach has called Trump’s firing of his successor, Erika McEntarfer, “totally groundless,” and he’s correct. The issues with jobs reporting are not about politics or McEntarfer’s competence. In fact, they are exactly the kind of thing that an administration committed to technological modernization and government efficiency should find to be in its wheelhouse. And there’s no reason to think this particular jobs report was any more flawed than any other.

McEntarfer was not standing in the way of this modernization. Trump was mad about the jobs report, so he fired her.

He made this abundantly clear in a Truth Social post less than an hour after the one announcing McEntarfer’s firing, where he called the jobs numbers “rigged” against Republicans. So biased, apparently, that Vice President Vance was referring to them approvingly on social media mere hours beforehand.

There’s no consistent partisan bias at work here, as was demonstrated last year when the same BLS that Trump said was pro-Democrat for issuing downward revisions of earlier jobs reports under Biden issued the weakest jobs report of the year right before the presidential election. The job is hard when done well, and it’s been getting harder to do well.

Trump is now claiming the downward revisions of earlier jobs reports under Trump are a sign of political bias, even though that means it was initially making him look better. He says so because he wants the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates, and weakening job performance makes that more likely.

No one should have to take these tantrums seriously, but firing the BLS commissioner is serious. The integrity of United States statistics is important not just for the government, but for the private sector as well. And these reports are relied upon around the world, not just in the U.S. The goal should be to get them right, not make them more favorable to the president.

Trump is shooting the messenger of bad economic news, not unlike when China discontinues inconvenient data series that make the Communist Party look bad. The BLS will continue to do its work, but now under a justified cloud of speculation that it is manipulating data to avoid Trump’s wrath. And the economy itself is what it is, no matter how the statistics are reported.

National Review Staff

By Victor Davis Hanson

Trump is rewriting the rules of politics, economics, and culture—and no one, not even the experts, knows what happens when the old orthodoxy finally breaks.

Donald Trump’s far-ranging counter-revolution, to quote the old Star Trek mission statement, seeks “To boldly go where no one has gone before.”

Because no conservative president has dared to question the last 70 years of progressive cultural, social, economic, and political dominance, all traditional wisdom, all our renowned “experts,” and all the self-described “authorities” have no real credibility in their mostly flawed analyses and wrong prognoses.

Read what our legacy media predicted in March for this summer’s economy, or in January for the future of the border, or what would happen should the U.S. Air Force enter Iranian airspace.

Take the border. “Comprehensive immigration reform” (a euphemism for rolling amnesties and a still-open border) was the establishment’s answer to 10,000 foreign nationals storming the border during peak surges of the Biden administration.

But no president had ever simultaneously 1) pressured Mexico to close its borders and patrol ours, 2) announced a plan to complete a border wall along the entire US-Mexico boundary, 3) stopped catch-and-release, 4) ceased refugee applications after illegally entering the U.S., 5) introduced policies encouraging voluntary self-deportation, and 6) prevented all illegal entries at the border.

The result is that we do not know the full effects of these combined border policies.

So far, one million foreign nationals have lost jobs, and 2 million Americans have gained them since Trump’s inauguration. How much money will be saved in local, state, and federal entitlements if illegal immigrants return home?

How much trauma and costs will be avoided if 500,000 criminal aliens are deported?

How many serious and lethal hit-and-run accidents will be prevented?

To what degree will the idea of citizenship be reenergized once it is not reduced to the equivalency of mere residence?

How many emergency rooms will have more space for U.S. citizens? No one knows, but the consequences could be enormous.

The U.S. has never applied so many tariffs in so many ways upon so many goods from so many countries. As a result, economists have sworn since March that we are headed to a recession, stock collapse, stagflation, and high unemployment.

But do they really know the profit margins of our mercantile importers, who tariff our goods but expect easy entry for their exports to the U.S.?

Can importers pay a 15% tariff, still make a handsome profit, and not raise costs excessively on the U.S. consumer? If trade surpluses do not matter and tariffs hurt those who implement them, why do sophisticated Europeans, adroit Japanese, and smart Chinese prefer surpluses and tariffs to our deficits and zero or low tariffs? Are they on to something?

Do moderate tariffs encourage rather than retard American enterprise, on the theory that it will not be undercut by dumping and exchange manipulation and can also compete with far cheaper energy and transportation costs?

No one really knows these answers because the U.S. has never tried the current policy in quite the present way before. We do know that the radical free trade and asymmetrical tariffs of the last half-century empowered China to world power status with a dangerous military and hollowed out the U.S. industrial interior.

Is the $2 trillion budget deficit, as predicted, set in stone? Will the national debt only grow to unsustainable levels? However, federal agencies have never announced annual cuts of nearly $200 billion—along with a ten percent reduction in the budget deficit.

Never has the government promised to deregulate and fast-track permits for construction, energy development, and manufacturing from 2-3 years to mere months. What will the financial results be?

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum suggests that $15 trillion in new foreign investments are now promised. If accurate, what will such influxes do to employment? To federal revenues? To the economy in general?

Is it possible that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent could be right that $300 billion in federal income will come from new tariffs—if true, that might reduce the deficit by another 15 percent?

What is the effect on the economy of cheaper energy costs when production is slated to rise without draining the strategic petroleum reserve on the eve of elections?

No one has ever questioned universities before so systematically.

We do know that student loan debt has spiraled to $1.7 trillion. Graduation rates have dropped to about 50-60 percent of those who enroll. The average student now takes six—not four—years to graduate. Today’s graduates, by all accounts, leave universities with fewer analytical skills, less language fluency, and reduced general knowledge than in past decades. Faculties have never been more weaponized, with 90-95 percent reportedly holding progressive views.

If universities are taxed on their endowments, will that not force them to reconsider their efforts to maintain their non-profit status?

Will 15 percent limits on overhead charges on federal grants force researchers to watch their budgets and universities to curb their bloated administrative legions?

What is so wrong with curbing the tuition gouging and profiteering off foreign students, and limiting their numbers to ensure access to underserved, deserving Americans?

Will the end of segregated dorms, safe spaces, and “affinity” graduations lead to more integration and assimilation than do the current tribal fixations on race and ethnicity? Historically, does tribalism or assimilation best serve a nation?

Will meritocratic admissions improve student skills, rewarding those who study hard and encouraging those who do not to emulate those who do? Will minorities who are admitted under meritocratic criteria be seen as more or less qualified?

Are far fewer administrators, more emphasis on instruction and less on politics, and more students from the heartland and fewer from communist China or the illiberal Middle East such bad things?

In the last 50 years, affirmative action transmogrified into DEI racial separatism, chauvinism, and a system of reparatory spoils, played and manipulated by grifters, opportunists, and fakers, from Elizabeth Warren-style phonies and Jussie Smollett-like con artists to opportunists like Zohran Mamdani who game the system.

Has any chauvinistic multiracial democracy—like Brazil or India—or any multiethnic or multireligious confederation—such as Lebanon, the former Yugoslavia, or Iraq—ever succeeded by prioritizing caste, race, religious sectarianism, or ethnic tribalism?

Can any top-down imposed policy ever be successful when 70 percent of the electorate opposes it?

Can any government that institutionalizes bias and preferences succeed while ignoring class in favor of race—without ever clearly defining which racial criteria justify the entire spoils system, or why?

In our postmodern 21st-century system, no one knows exactly what will happen when race becomes incidental rather than essential. But we do know from history where we were headed under the current aberrant system.

Abroad, in the last 30 years, NATO was voluntarily hollowed out—largely praised in the abstract by European grandees and shorted and ignored in the concrete by Euro budget technocrats. Yet since the days of the Cold War, NATO members had not met their defense expenditure promises.

Now, most NATO members have met those commitments. Frontline NATO states like Sweden, Finland, and Poland are far better armed and prepared than legacy Western members like Belgium, Spain, or Italy. If there follows a rearmed and recommitted NATO, will not the world become a safer place?

We were told for a half-century to steer clear of Iran, the supposed unhinged, lethal bully of the Middle East. Their henchmen blew up barracks and embassies, took and executed hostages, and sowed terror throughout the Middle East with their killer surrogates Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis.

But Iran had never really fought, much less won a war, since it pleaded with Saddam Hussein for an armistice from the catastrophic Iran-Iraq conflict.

What will be the effect on the Middle East with a currently impotent Iran, an inert Hezbollah, and a subterranean Hamas in hiding? More importantly, what is the current regional role of Iran without a nuclear program, air defenses, a navy, or expeditionary terrorist forces? Again, no one knows.

Finally, we have never seen anything quite so radical as the new Democratic Party, at least not since the McGovern blowout of 1972. In its 24/7, 360-degree fixation on hating Donald Trump and his MAGA agenda, rarely has a party embraced signature policies that are so despised by the American people. As a result, we have no idea what the result will be other than a national implosion at the polls.

Why would any political party embrace open borders, the influx of 12 million illegal aliens, 600 sanctuary cities, biological men dominating women’s sports, dismantling the oil, gas, coal, and nuclear industries, prosecutors who release rather than indict and convict violent criminals, defunding the police, tribal fixations and racial spoils systems in defiance of the Supreme Court, the terrorists of Hamas over democratic Israel, and overt campus anti-Semitism?

We are in the middle of a counter-revolution, whose fate will likely be decided in 15 months by the midterm elections and the status of the late 2026 economy.

Structural changes across the economy, culture, and politics of the country are underway. Our bicoastal experts and authorities are mostly predicting a multifaceted systems failure—without explaining why or how.

Yet the only constant in their predictions is that when and if they prove wrong, they will not pivot, correct, or apologize, but simply move on to their next flawed prognosis, fortified by their titles and letters after their names—but otherwise little else.

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The Supreme Court just handed Trump the nuclear key: the authority to fire entrenched Deep State agents embedded across federal agencies. For the first time in 90 years, the President can dismantle the bureaucratic dictatorship that’s hijacked our Republic.

FOR 90 YEARS, THE PRESIDENCY WAS A PRISON..

Since 1935, unelected operatives hid inside “independent” agencies like the FTC, SEC, and CPSC. These ideological soldiers wrote regulations like laws. Enforced them like tyrants. And they couldn’t be fired—not even by the President.

Until now.

THE COURT SWINGS THE HAMMER – TRUMP TAKES THE SWORD..

In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court confirmed President Trump’s power to remove Mary Boyle, Richard Trumka Jr., and Alexander Hoehn-Saric from the CPSC—shattering the legal shield created by the New Deal’s corrupt legacy.

This isn’t just a ruling. It’s a strike against the Deep State’s fortress. It cracks the entire foundation of Humphrey’s Executor—the case that let federal commissioners rule without accountability.

TRUMP CAN NOW:

• Purge federal agencies of leftist loyalists.

• Terminate obstructive commissioners.

• Seize control of energy, labor, commerce, and finance.

• Reclaim the executive power STOLEN from We The People.

The CPSC falls first. But 700 other Deep State seats could collapse next.

THE SILENT COUP IS BEING REVERSED..

For decades, elections didn’t matter. Permanent bureaucrats ran the country. Same agenda, same handlers, different puppet Presidents.

Now, that loop is broken. The regime’s firewall is burning. And they know it.

TRUMP’S WAR POWER IS RESTORED..

In 2016, Trump was surrounded. Saboteurs on every side. He couldn’t remove them. He couldn’t override them. That was the trap.

Now, that trap is gone.

This ruling unleashes him to:

• Clean house.

• Burn shadow governance to the ground.

• Rebuild an executive branch LOYAL TO THE PEOPLE.

This isn’t just a legal technicality. It’s the beginning of a federal exorcism.

THE DEEP STATE IS CORNERED – AND TRUMP HOLDS THE AXE..

No more “independence.” No more untouchables. No more invisible rulers with unearned power.

The Great Reclamation has begun.

And this time—they can’t stop him.

by Barron Trump

Steven Richards, Just the News

Hamas leaders are likely to be emboldened to carry on fighting by French and British proposals to recognize a Palestinian state in a break with Trump..

Frustrated by the deadlocked peace negotiations between Israel and Hamas, and seeing the chances of a two-state solution slipping away, several European countries led by the United Kingdom and France have now promised to recognize an independent Palestinian state to reaffirm their commitment to a permanent settlement.

However, far from encouraging a ceasefire in the conflict that has raged in the Gaza Strip for nearly two years, European efforts will only encourage Hamas to continue fighting, prolonging the conflict that has devastated Gaza, Trump administration officials and experts warn.

“You’re rewarding Hamas if you do that. I don’t think they should be rewarded,” President Donald Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One earlier this week while returning from a trip to Scotland.

Trump also previously criticized French President Emmanuel Macron’s July 24 vow to officially recognize a Palestinian state while downplaying the impact that European countries would have on the ongoing ceasefire and hostage negotiations, saying it wouldn’t “change anything.”

“The president expressed his displeasure and his disagreement with the leaders of France, the United Kingdom and Canada,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at a press briefing Thursday. “He feels as though that’s rewarding Hamas at a time where Hamas is the true impediment to a ceasefire and to the release of all of the hostages.”

France and Britain, erstwhile global powers that have declined in importance under the American security umbrella, nevertheless hold some weight in the Middle East, a region previously colonized by the two countries following the First World War. Both countries have long advocated for a two-state solution, a proposal that would see an independent Israel and Palestine coexist alongside one another as homelands for their respective peoples.

But the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, which is a designated terrorist group in the United States, has brutalized the notion that a peaceful coexistence is within immediate reach. Despite attempts by the United States to mediate a hostage rescue and ceasefire, negotiations between the sides have stalled, with no end to the conflict in sight.

Both the French and the British argue that moving to formally recognize a State of Palestine in the coming months – teaming up with Saudi Arabia and a coalition of Arab states – is important for charting a path forward for a post-conflict Gaza and West Bank that preserves the dream of a two-state solution.

“[The] prospect of two states, whose rights are recognized and respected, is in mortal danger,” said French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Noël Barrot at a United Nations conference on the Palestinian issue July 28.

“It is threatened by the barbaric attack of 7 October,” it is “Threatened by the unprecedented savagery and cruelty that Hamas terrorists unleashed,” and “Threatened by the shameful fate of the hostages who are still being held,” continued Barrot, referring to Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel.

But, it is also “threatened by the indefinite prolongation of Israel’s military operations in Gaza, launched in turn, which have long since ceased to have any military or political justification,” Barrot added, placing blame on Israel for mass displacement of Gazan civilians, destroyed places of worship, schools, hospitals and poor distribution of humanitarian aid.

The two-state solution “is about to give way to perpetual confrontation,” he also said. “That is something that France simply cannot resign itself to.”

The following day, United Kingdom Prime Minister Kier Starmer echoed the French minister, warning that a permanent peace settlement between the two sides is “under threat” by the ongoing conflict.

Starmer vowed that the United Kingdom would recognize an independent Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly meeting in September if the Israelis and Hamas do not make meaningful progress towards a ceasefire that includes Hamas releasing hostages, Israel increasing access to humanitarian aid, and Israel agreeing to commit to “a long-term, sustainable peace, reviving the prospect of a Two-State Solution.”

But, President Trump and his diplomatic officials have pushed back on this Europe-led effort to recognize a Palestinian state, characterizing it as unproductive at best and a gift to Hamas at worst. Ultimately, they view the European effort as more likely to prolong the conflict rather than bring about a peaceful outcome.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the decision to recognize a Palestinian state later this year if no ceasefire is reached only encourages Hamas to obstruct any negotiations in the meantime.

“If Hamas refuses to agree to a ceasefire, it guarantees a Palestinian state will be recognized by all these countries in September,” Rubio said in an interview on Fox News Radio on Thursday. “So they’re not going to agree to a ceasefire. I mean, it’s so clumsy.”

By threatening to recognize a Palestinian state to spur peace negotiations, France and Britain are placing pressure on the wrong party. According to the Trump administration, Hamas is the main party stalling negotiations, while Israel has shown a willingness to make concessions to achieve a ceasefire.

David May, a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies who focuses his research on Israel and Palestine, told Just the News that “Hamas will only compromise when it feels intense pressure and when it thinks that continued fighting would present an existential danger to the group” because the group is primarily motivated by destruction of the Israeli state.

“Almost immediately after European support for recognizing a Palestinian state started dominating headlines, Hamas began changing agreed-upon ceasefire terms and introducing new demands,” May said. “When Europe places all the demands on Israel and doesn’t condition them on requirements of Hamas, the Iran-backed terrorist group just has to sit back and let European pressure do the work for it.”

The day after French President Macron vowed to recognize a Palestinian state, ceasefire and hostage negotiations with Hamas broke down over what the United States said was Hamas’s unwillingness to negotiate. The United States and Israel announced they were pulling out of the talks with Hamas because the American president said the group “didn’t want to make a deal.”

“I think they want to die. And it’s very bad. And it got to be to a point where you’re going to have to finish the job,” President Trump told reporters. Trump’s chief negotiator Steve Witkoff also blamed Hamas for the breakdown.

It is unclear whether the terror group was made aware of the French president’s announcement before it submitted the latest ceasefire proposal, which was unacceptable to the Israeli and U.S. negotiators.

Nevertheless, the European support for a Palestinian state appears to have emboldened the group. Hamas later praised the French and British promises of Palestinian recognition, even though both countries said that it would be unacceptable for the terror group to remain in control of the Gaza Strip.

“Any effort made at the international level to support our Palestinian people and their legitimate rights is appreciated and welcomed,” Hamas said in a statement. The group also demanded the “unconditional recognition” of a Palestinian state, the New York Times reported.

May said that the European intervention would end up having the “opposite effect” from what they intended.

“Rather than empowering moderate Palestinians, as the Europeans hope would happen, it would have the opposite effect,” May said. “Not only is there no credible moderate Palestinian leadership, this action as a result of a war Hamas started would prove to the Palestinians that they can only achieve independence through violence, and Hamas will be crowned as the deliverer of Palestinian statehood.”

The U.S. Senate confirmed former Fox News star and longtime Trump ally Jeanine “Judge Jeanine” Pirro as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.

It can be recalled that President Trump appointed Pirro to the position following Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC)’s derailment of Ed Martin’s Senate confirmation in May.

Tillis, who voted to confirm Biden’s radical pick for Attorney General Merrick Garland, told reporters that he opposes the nomination of Ed Martin for DC US Attorney for political reasons.

He said he would have supported Martin for any district except the District of Columbia.

President Trump described her as “one of the Top District Attorneys in the History of the State of New York.”

Trump: Jeanine Pirro, I have no doubt, will be an exceptional US Attorney for the District of Columbia, one of the truly most important positions in our country of any position, where she will restore public safety in our nation’s capital, break up vicious street gangs and criminal networks, and ensure equal justice under the law. You’ll see very, very big improvements in the DC area, that I can promise you.

On Saturday evening, the U.S. Senate confirmed Jeanine Pirro as the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia with a razor‑thin 50–45 vote.

More from CBS:

The Senate on Saturday approved the nomination of Jeanine Pirro, an ardent loyalist of President Trump and a Fox News fixture, confirming the cable news personality to a top prosecutor post in Washington, D.C.

Pirro, a former county prosecutor and elected judge, was confirmed in a 50-45 vote. She has been in the job as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia on an acting basis since May. Before then, she co-hosted “The Five” on Fox News on weekday evenings, where she frequently interviewed Mr. Trump.

The U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia is a powerful position with a huge staff, budget and portfolio. Her confirmation came days after the Senate approved the nomination of Emil Bove, Mr. Trump’s former defense lawyer, to serve on a U.S. appeals court.

Majority Leader John Thune said the Senate will adjourn until Sept. 2 once they finish with the round of votes scheduled for Saturday evening.

“I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourns to then convene for pro forma session only,” Thune said.

Senators have 12 votes remaining following Pirro’s confirmation, which is why Thune asked for senators to stay in the chamber to expedite votes. There was no objection.

Pirro’s elevation comes amid intense uproar from Senate Democrats and the far-left legal establishment.

They had vociferously attacked her as an election‑denier, citing her role in amplifying the “Big Lie,” and filed smears accusing her of being an unelected partisan operative in the nation’s capital.

Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin even wrote Senate leadership calling her “a partisan instrument of the Donald Trump administration,” urging outright rejection of her nomination.

“I write with grave concern about President Trump’s nomination of Jeanine Pirro to lead the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. Over the past decade, Ms. Pirro has consistently demonstrated that her loyalty lies with Donald Trump the person, not with the Constitution or the rule of law.

Her blind loyalty to Trump, her embarrassing support for the ‘big lie’ that the 2020 election was rigged in the face of all evidence to the contrary and 60 federal and state court decisions rejecting such claims, her unswerving defense of convicted January 6th rioters, and her incendiary rhetoric urging President Trump to seek retribution against his alleged enemies all make clear that she lacks the intellectual honesty, personal temperament, integrity and fundamental constitutional fidelity required to lead this important office.”

Jim Hoft, Gateway Pundit

A PILF review found nearly 50,000 registrants on the Empire State’s rolls are registered in at least one other state.

New York is known for a lot of things: The Big Apple, Niagara Falls, and Buffalo wings. The Empire State also lays claim to some of the worst voter rolls in the country, according to a new report from an election-integrity watchdog.

According to the Public Interest Legal Foundation, nearly 50,000 registrants on New York’s voter list are registered in at least one other state. About half of those — 24,873 registrants — are also registered in Florida. Another 6,247 have duplicate registrations in North Carolina, and another 5,724 are also on New Jersey’s voting rolls. 

PILF’s review stated 6,788 cases of duplicate or triplicate registrations were found at the same residential addresses because of name variations, typographical errors, or missing Social Security data. The mess includes 3,845 registrants with placeholder or likely false birth dates going back to the turn of the 20th century.

A sample of 15 records found six registrants who had died dating back to 1998, and four registrants who could not be matched to any Social Security or credit bureau data, putting in doubt the authenticity of the records.

“New York is a disaster,” J. Christian Adams, president and general counsel of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, told The Federalist in an interview. “They have got millions of voters in New York who don’t have complete voter files, don’t have full names, don’t have driver’s license numbers, things required under federal law.”

‘Slipping Through the Cracks’

A lawsuit filed last month by Mount Vernon City Council candidate Bill Schwartz alleges the New York City suburb of some 80,000 residents saw its voter rolls surge by 30 percent — or nearly 10,000 voters — in the course of a year, and the numbers heavily favor Democrats, the New York Post reported. The complaint asserts the city’s voter rolls include registrants born as early as 1901, more than suggesting there are dead people in Mount Vernon’s voter file. Schwartz charges the list includes registrants who have not voted in over a decade.

“The requested relief arises from documented irregularities and credible allegations of election fraud in the June 24, 2025 Democratic Primary, including the unexplained addition of over 9,600 new voter IDs, purging of enrolled voters without notice, and mismatches in voter ID and registration data,” the lawsuit states.

Schwartz lost a party primary election in June, the Post reported. Mount Vernon is a Democratic Party stronghold in Westchester County. 

“When the voter rolls are that sloppy and no one at the Board of Elections is answering questions, you start to wonder what else is slipping through the cracks — or being pushed through them,” Schwartz told the Post. “I’m asking the court to step in and make sure the November election and future elections are conducted fairly, transparently and by the book.” 

‘We’ve Got to be Vigilant’

As The Federalist reported earlier this week, voter rolls are sloppy all over. The Public Interest Legal Foundation has tracked more than 19,000 registrants on Pennsylvania’s voter rolls with second registrations in other states. PILF found north of 32,000 suspect voter records in New Jersey. In Maine, the foundation flagged 18,453 apparently deceased registrants in the state’s voter files.

PILF successfully sued the state for refusing to release voter registration records as required under the National Voter Registration Act. In internal communications uncovered during the lawsuit, the watchdog said it found Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows’ office “flagged PILF and other organizations for government staff to discredit and attack on social media.”

“Other emails show coordination with left-wing advocacy groups to portray PILF and even other sitting Secretaries of State as purveyors of disinformation in the lead-up to congressional hearings,” asserts a PILF press release. 

Dirty voter rolls in states across the country is an alarming concern as partisans prepare for next year’s midterm elections. Adams said the concern is particularly worrisome in key battleground states. 

“It’s going to make a difference in places like Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Nevada,” he said, adding that “Nevada is worst of all.”

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, a Democrat, told NPR just days before November’s election what Democrat elections officials have long said: the system is safe and secure. Trust us. 

 “I hope, notwithstanding that recent news, that people look at numbers … and they understand that the system really is one of integrity,” Simon told the left-leaning news outlet. He was responding to a glitch in Minnesota’s new automatic voter registration system that added nearly 1,000 noncitizens to the voter rolls. Simon said elections officials quickly caught the “mistake” and removed the ineligible voters from the database. 

PILF has sent letters to several state elections officials seeking meetings to further discuss sloppy voter rolls. Adams said failure to clean the voter lists of ineligible registrants presents a significant threat to election security. 

“We’ve got to be vigilant. We’ve go to make sure everything is being done even-handed.” 

M.D. Kittle, The Federalist

Kamala Harris on Thursday defended Joe Biden’s fitness to serve as president and blasted her fellow Democrats for “piling on” after his disastrous debate performance exposed the cognitive decline she helped conceal.

“I feel very strongly that, um, I mean, it’s an instinct of mine to be, um, someone who does not participate in piling on,” she told Stephen Colbert during an appearance on the Late Show to plug her new book about the election. “And I was not going to pile on. And I just wasn’t going to do that. And there was a lot of piling on at that time, and I just wasn’t going to participate in that.”

Utilizing her remarkable gift for off-the-cuff eloquence, Harris praised Biden for “aspiring to have integrity,” and urged Colbert and other Democrats to stop criticizing the disgraced octogenarian. “Let me say something about Joe Biden,” she said. “I have an incredible amount of respect for him. And, um, I think that the way that we should be thinking about where we are right now is to remember that we had a president of the United States who believed in the rule of law, who believed in the importance of aspiring to have integrity, and to do the work on behalf of the people.”

Less than 24 hours after announcing her decision to pass on California governor’s race in 2026, prompting speculation about a presidential comeback in 2028, Harris unveiled 107 Days, the book she “wrote” about last year’s election and why it wasn’t her fault that she lost because she didn’t have enough time to introduce herself to the American people (after serving as vice president for four years).

Harris told Colbert the book was “basically what I would offer as a behind-the-scenes, um, sharing of what it means to run for president.” Her goal was to invite normal Americans to “see from the inside what it is in a way that they can see something about themselves that tells them, ‘Hey, I can do that.'” Indeed, it’s safe to say that anytime Kamala Harris does a thing, most observers will conclude (correctly) that they could do it (better).

Colbert, the former comedian whose failure to earn money prompted CBS to abolish the Late Show, spoke truth to power by grilling Harris about her complicity in the cover-up of Biden’s decline. (Not really.) “First of all, you look rested,” he said. “I’m happy for you.” The host went on to ask a probing question that was “on everyone’s mind right now.” The question was: “How’s Doug?” Kamala cackled in response while the audience cheered. Colbert effusively praised Harris (without evidence) as a “very hopeful and dynamic presidential candidate” who was “very qualified for the presidency.” It was her eighth appearance on the show.

Asked about her decision not to run for governor of California, Harris blamed the “broken” system and said she wasn’t interested in trying to fix things from within. “I believe and I always believed that as fragile as our democracy is, our systems would be strong enough to defend our most fundamental principles,” she said. “And I think right now that, um, they’re not as strong as they need to be, and I just don’t want to, for now, I don’t want to go back in the system.”

Andrew Stiles, Washington Free Beacon

Devon Kash

The American film industry, long a bastion of cultural influence, is teetering on the edge of obsolescence, and Google’s Veo 3, an AI-powered video generation model launched in May 2025, may have delivered the fatal blow. This technological upheaval is not only a disruption of Hollywood’s economic model but a long-overdue reckoning for an industry steeped in liberal bias, out of touch with traditional values and increasingly irrelevant to the average person.

Veo 3, with its ability to generate high-quality videos from simple text prompts or static images, threatens to dismantle the bloated budgets, overpaid actors, and elitist gatekeepers of Tinseltown, while empowering independent creators to produce compelling content without the need for vast financial resources. Veo 3 is poised to end Hollywood’s reign, send its actors to the unemployment line, liberate creative individuals, and expose the industry’s liberal excesses as a relic of a bygone era. Hollywood has long been a symbol of American creativity, but its dominance has come at a cost. The industry’s reliance on massive budgets—often exceeding $200 million for a single blockbuster—has created a system where only a handful of studios, backed by corporate conglomerates, can afford to produce films.

These budgets fuel exorbitant salaries for A-list actors, who command tens of millions per project, while crews, writers, and smaller players scrape by. The result is an inefficient, top-heavy industry that prioritizes spectacle over substance, often alienating audiences who crave authentic storytelling. Veo 3 upends this model by enabling anyone with a computer and a vision to create professional-grade videos. Capable of producing 8-second clips in up to 4K resolution with synchronized audio, Veo 3 can generate everything from cinematic scenes to marketing content with stunning realism. For example, a prompt like “a cowboy riding through a dusty desert at sunset, with galloping hooves and a haunting harmonica” yields a visually and aurally immersive result, rivaling the output of multi-million-dollar productions.

This democratization of filmmaking threatens to render Hollywood’s lavish budgets obsolete, as independent creators can now compete without the need for studio backing.

The implications for Hollywood’s workforce, particularly its actors, are dire. Actors, especially those at the top, have long been the face of Hollywood’s excess, earning astronomical sums while contributing little to the creative process beyond their celebrity. Veo 3 eliminates the need for physical actors by generating lifelike characters from text descriptions. A creator can input “a grizzled war veteran delivering a stirring speech” and receive a fully realized scene, complete with nuanced expressions and synchronized dialogue, without ever hiring an actor. This capability could lead to widespread unemployment in an industry already grappling with a 12.5% unemployment rate in August 2024, a figure likely understated due to underreported claims. The Screen Actors Guild, which fought an 8-month strike in 2023 partly over AI concerns, foresaw this threat, but Veo 3’s rapid advancement has outpaced their ability to adapt. For conservatives, this shift is a market-driven correction, stripping away the privilege of an overpaid elite who often use their platforms to push progressive agendas, from climate activism to identity politics, that clash with the values of middle America.

Veo 3’s impact extends beyond economics, striking at the heart of Hollywood’s cultural dominance. The industry has long been criticized for its liberal bias, a perception rooted in its history and reinforced by its output. From the 1930s, when Warner Bros. produced “social consciousness” films promoting New Deal policies, to modern blockbusters that weave in themes of diversity, equity, and inclusion, Hollywood has often aligned itself with left-leaning ideologies. A 2011 book, Primetime Propaganda, documented how TV executives like Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman admitted to favouring liberal writers and marginalizing conservatives, creating an echo chamber that alienates conservative audiences. Recent examples, such as Disney’s Snow White reboot, criticized for its progressive messaging, and the backlash against The Marvels for its perceived “woke” undertones, highlight a disconnect with viewers who feel Hollywood prioritizes ideology over entertainment.

Hollywood’s liberal tilt is not just a creative misstep but a betrayal of American principles. Films like The Tillman Story, which portrayed Pat Tillman as an anti-war figure, and An Inconvenient Truth, criticized for exaggerating climate change claims, exemplify how Hollywood has weaponized storytelling to advance progressive narratives. The industry’s hostility toward conservatives is palpable: actors like Antonio Sabato Jr. have claimed their careers were derailed after expressing support for Donald Trump, and conservative organizations like Friends of Abe operate in secrecy to avoid professional repercussions. Veo 3’s arrival is thus seen as a divine reckoning, a tool that bypasses Hollywood’s gatekeepers and allows creators to tell stories that resonate with heartland values—stories of faith, family, and patriotism that Hollywood often ignores. The success of faith-based films like The Chosen and Sound of Freedom, which grossed $250 million on a $15 million budget, proves there’s a hungry audience for content that reflects conservative ideals.

For creative individuals, Veo 3 is a game-changer, leveling the playing field in a way that aligns with individual liberty and free-market innovation. Previously, aspiring filmmakers faced insurmountable barriers: studio approval, union regulations, and the need for multimillion-dollar budgets. Veo 3, accessible through platforms like the Gemini app, Google Flow, and Vertex AI, allows anyone to create professional-quality content for as little as $19.99 a month with a Google AI Pro subscription. A small-town filmmaker in rural America can now produce a scene of “a small-town parade with American flags and cheering crowds” without ever leaving their desk. This empowerment aligns with the conservative belief in self-reliance, freeing creators from Hollywood’s bureaucratic stranglehold and enabling them to tell stories that reflect their communities’ values.The potential for Veo 3 to foster a new wave of conservative storytelling is immense.

Unlike Hollywood, which often caters to urban, multicultural audiences, independent creators can use Veo to produce content that speaks to the heartland. A patriot in Texas could generate a short film about a veteran’s homecoming, complete with realistic visuals and stirring music, and distribute it on platforms like X or Rumble, bypassing traditional studio channels. This shift could give rise to a decentralized film industry, where creators compete based on talent and vision, not access to Hollywood’s elite networks. The success of Am I Racist?, a conservative mockumentary that grossed $12 million on a $3 million budget, shows that audiences are eager for content that challenges Hollywood’s orthodoxy. Veo 3 amplifies this trend, enabling creators to produce similar projects at a fraction of the cost.

However, Veo 3 is not without limitations, and its impact on Hollywood must be tempered by practical realities. The current 8-second clip duration restricts its use for feature-length films, requiring creators to stitch together multiple segments, which can disrupt narrative flow. Audio generation, while impressive, struggles with short speech segments, occasionally producing unnatural dialogue. Prompt accuracy is critical; vague inputs can yield subpar results, demanding a level of skill that not all amateurs possess. Additionally, regional restrictions, such as the unavailability of image-to-video features in the European Economic Area, could limit global adoption. These challenges suggest that Hollywood’s demise may not be immediate, as studios can still leverage their expertise in long-form storytelling and global distribution networks. Yet these limitations do not diminish Veo 3’s revolutionary potential.

Devon Kash