We Americans are the ultimate innocents. We are forever desperate to believe that this time the government is telling us the truth.—Sydney Schanberg, New York Times
War is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.–Marine Major General S. Butler
President Donald Trump is putting the “scandal” of former President Joe Biden’s autopen executive actions up among the “biggest, ever.”
“The Biden autopen scandal is big, not as big as the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax, or the rigged 2020 presidential election, but, nevertheless, one of the biggest, ever!!!” Trump wrote Monday morning on Truth Social.
The House Oversight Committee continues to dig into “who was running the White House” as Biden was in his final months as president, struggling with cognitive decline, unreported metastasizing cancer from his prostate to the bone, and issuing mass executive actions and pardons – including his own staff and family.
“The American people deserve to know who was actually calling the shots in the Biden White House, because it wasn’t Joe Biden,” Oversight Chair James Comer, R-Ky., said. “His mental decline was obvious to anyone paying attention.
“But instead of being honest, the Biden administration, Democrats in Congress, and the legacy media lied and covered it up. They gaslit the American people while propping up a man who was unfit to lead.”
While Biden was allegedly unfit to perform his duties, several high-level aides are reported to have been operating with unchecked authority, according to the committee.
“Some of these witnesses, who are closest to Biden, have invoked the Fifth Amendment, refusing to testify willingly, attempting to delay their appearance before the Committee, and hiding the truth from the American people,” the House Oversight website reads.
The latest reports have Biden aides questioning the mass actions and pardons — and even whether Biden himself knew about them.
In a blanket statement earlier this summer, Biden effectively absolved potential wrongdoing with the claim he made all the decisions, even if the autopen was ultimately what signed the documents.
“Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency,” Biden’s statement read. “I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false.”
Senior Biden administration officials expressed unease over the former president’s sweeping clemency drive and reliance on an autopen to sign pardons and commutations in his final months in office, internal emails showed, Axios reported Saturday. After Biden pardoned his son Hunter Biden in December 2024, aides scrambled to assemble additional lists of recipients, often bypassing Justice Department review.
The result was a historic 4,245 clemency grants, with more than 95% issued in the last three and a half months of his presidency, including 2,490 commutations announced just three days before leaving office.
Critics inside the DOJ, including ethics attorney Bradley Weinsheimer, who later resigned, warned that some cases involved violent offenders, despite White House claims that the effort focused on nonviolent drug convictions.
Records indicate White House chief of staff Jeff Zients authorized use of the autopen for mass clemency orders, fueling concerns among staff over whether Biden personally approved each action. The House Oversight Committee plans to hear testimony from Zients on Sept. 18 about the clemency process and the extent of the autopen’s use.
New York City mayoral candidate and Democratic Socialist Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani is doubling down on his push for government-run grocery stores — even as real-world examples suggest the idea doesn’t work.
In an appearance on CNN NewsNight Friday, Mamdani defended his plan to spend $60 million of taxpayer money to open five city-run grocery stores, one in each borough. He insisted the program would deliver “cheaper groceries,” not free food, and claimed that food has become a luxury New Yorkers are being “priced out of.”
CNN host Abby Phillip pressed Mamdani on why the government — which routinely struggles to run basic services — is the solution to food deserts, rather than partnering with the private sector.
“Why is the government a better solution… than just working with the private sector to do what they know how to do, which is run grocery stores?” she asked.
Mamdani responded by pointing to the “promise” of a public option and said urban studies support his case. But when challenged with the failure of a government-run grocery store in Kansas City — now on the brink of shutting down due to high crime and mismanagement — Mamdani dismissed the criticism.
“We have to prove not only the efficacy, but the excellence of this idea,” he said, arguing that for every failure, there’s another city “considering” such a program.
In other words, Mamdani wants to gamble taxpayer dollars on a model that has already shown itself to be ineffective, hoping this time it will be different.
He also attempted to justify the $60 million price tag by comparing it to what the city already spends subsidizing corporate supermarkets — a classic bait-and-switch that ignores the inefficiencies and bureaucratic waste inherent in government-run operations.
Mamdani’s idea is less about solving food access issues and more about imposing ideology on public policy. His approach assumes private businesses are the problem, not rising crime, stifling regulations, or economic mismanagement that have driven stores out of lower-income areas.
The reality is that New Yorkers don’t need government-run grocery chains. They need safe neighborhoods, fewer taxes, and a city government that stops penalizing business owners at every turn. Mamdani’s plan is a costly experiment in socialist wish-casting — and struggling families shouldn’t have to pay the price.
Sarah Arnold, Townhall
The Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police Department and federal partners have conducted more than 1,900 arrests since President Donald Trump federalized policing in the nation’s capital.
FBI Director Kash Patel announced on Sept. 5 that, in addition to the total arrests, in just the days of Sept. 4–5, there were 26 arrests involving FBI personnel, five gun recoveries, and four drug seizures.
Trump federalized the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department on Aug. 11, ordering about 800 National Guard troops to assist with law enforcement.
“I’m announcing a historic action to rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor, and worse,“ Trump said at a White House press briefing at the time.
“This is Liberation Day in D.C., and we’re going to take our capital back.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi also lauded the federal cooperation by law enforcement, saying Department of Justice (DOJ) statistics show 73 total arrests for Sept. 4 alone. Bondi also said that since the federalization of policing in Washington, there have been 200 illegal guns taken off the streets.
The same day, Patel also confirmed, in a post on X, the arrests of two suspects believed to have been involved in the murder of Capitol Hill intern Eric Tarpinian-Jachym.
Tarpinian-Jachym, 21, an intern for Rep. Ron Estes (R-Kan.) and a University of Massachusetts student, was shot and killed on June 30. At the time, police believed he was an innocent bystander in the shooting, which injured two others.
Bondi said in a Sept. 5 post on X that if convicted, the two suspects will face “severe justice,” and that she hopes it provides “some measure of solace to his family.”
Patel thanked members of the Metropolitan Police Department and said, “We are delivering on President Trump’s promise to make DC safe again.”
The National Guard presence in Washington has surged to nearly 2,300 troops, and the Pentagon mobilized another 1,700 National Guard members across 19 states to bolster federal immigration enforcement.
A Joint Task Force–D.C spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement on Aug. 24 that troops had arrived in Washington from West Virginia, South Carolina, Ohio, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee for a total of 2,270 National Guard members.
Trump has voiced an interest in sending National Guard troops to other major cities, including New York and Chicago, to enforce a similar crackdown on crime in major metropolitan areas.
Meanwhile, U.S. Attorney Judge Jeanine Pirro announced the largest seizure of fentanyl and meth precursors in U.S. history, at a Sept. 3 news conference in Houston.
Judge Pirro spoke to reporters while standing in front of 1,300 barrels of chemicals, and asked those in attendance to “imagine bodies where those barrels are,” saying the work of law enforcement would save lives by keeping drugs such as fentanyl off the streets.
irro said it would take 24 18-wheelers to transport the seized chemicals to a storage facility.
Savannah Hulsey, Epoch Times
President Donald Trump invoked a dark twist on a famous movie line this week, sharing an artificial intelligence-generated image of himself as a war-movie character while warning Chicago of looming deportations.
“‘I love the smell of deportations in the morning…’ Chicago about to find out why it is called the Department of WAR,” Trump posted alongside an image of himself as Robert Duvall’s character from the 1979 film “Apocalypse Now” with helicopters hovering above the Chicago city skyline.
The Trump administration is preparing to send at least 300 federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and other agencies to the Great Lakes Naval Base in North Chicago, Illinois. The mobilization is part of what officials describe as enhanced immigration enforcement operations slated to begin this weekend.
While National Guard units will not be deployed inside Chicago, other states are moving to reinforce federal operations.
Reportedly, dozens of Indiana National Guard members will soon be called up to assist immigration enforcement efforts across the state. About 50 members are expected to deploy by mid-September.
A state spokesperson said the troops will not conduct arrests or participate directly in enforcement. Instead, they will handle “administrative logistics and support tasks.”
Louisiana has launched a similar initiative, mobilizing nearly 100 members of its National Guard for administrative duties tied to immigration enforcement.
Vice President JD Vance was recently asked whether National Guard troops could be sent to Chicago to address crime or immigration issues. He said there were “no immediate plans,” but added that Trump is prepared to act decisively if needed.
“The president has said he has the legal authority to protect American citizens, whether that’s in Chicago or Washington, D.C.,” Vance said.
Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., said Friday that “Trump Derangement Syndrome” is so strong among Democrats that it’s preventing them from fixing Washington, D.C.’s crime issues.
“It goes to show you how vastly different the two sides are,” Clyde told the Daily Caller.
“Here you have President Trump and the Republicans wanting to restore law and order, wanting to make the city safe for the American people and for the residents of D.C., and you have the Democrats, who are there cheering on the criminals. And that is baffling to me.
“I guess either Trump Derangement Syndrome is so strong among the Democrats that anything President Trump does, whether it helps them, you know, and helps their constituency or not, they’re going to oppose [it].”
Trump placed the capital district’s Metropolitan Police Department under direct federal control and sent federal law enforcement personnel, including members of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to police the city’s streets, moves critics have decried as federal overreach.
More than 2,000 troops, including those from six Republican-led states, are patrolling the city. It is unclear when their mission will end, though the Army this week extended orders for the D.C. National Guard through November 30.
Information from Reuters was used in this report.
Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer echoed President Donald Trump’s complaint about the Federal Reserve’s failure to lower interest rates.
Following Friday’s monthly employment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Chavez-DeRemer said in a news release that despite smaller-than-expected job gains in the past month, the overall picture is solid. But she said the Fed’s lowering of interest rates would change the picture dramatically.
“After a successful Labor Day weekend where we saw gas prices hit their lowest point in five years, this report shows working-class Americans are also benefiting from strong and consistent hourly wage growth, which is up nearly four percent,” she said in a statement in the release.
The price of goods has increased globally over the past year, but the U.S. is bucking that trend with lower inflation thanks to the return of America First leadership. President Trump’s historic Working Families Tax Cut will ensure the American worker can keep even more of their hard-earned money moving forward.
“Additionally, second-quarter GDP [gross domestic product] smashed many economists’ expectations, demonstrating strong growth and resilience. All job growth this year has been in the private sector among native-born Americans,” her statement continued.
“Despite all these positive signs for our economy, the Fed is failing American workers by dragging its feet and refusing to lower rates. As I travel the nation on my America at Work listening tour, I often hear frustration in the voices of entrepreneurs and business owners. President Trump was right before, and he is right again — it is past time for the Fed to act.”
Trump has complained about Fed Chairman Jerome Powell holding the interest rate higher than what Trump believes is appropriate, saying it has cost the country and Americans billions of dollars.
In a Friday post on Truth Social, the president wrote: “Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell should have lowered rates long ago. As usual, he’s ‘Too Late!’
Trump has said he is reviewing information about potential nominees to replace Powell, but it does not appear that Powell intends to leave his position before the end of his term in May of 2026.
Democrats are on a dead end: Socialism is 200 years old and is leading these leftists to doom.
The left sealed its fate in tying itself to collectivist ideologies, but now they’re joining with some very ominous allies.
Everything old is ‘new’ again – with a very ominous novel twist. The rising stars of socialism are bursting forth with brand-new’ ideas of buying votes with other people’s money. But these days the left is in dire straits and taking a page from the Iranian revolution in teaming up with Islamists in a desperate bid to win and then sort out the details of who will wield power. For now, they say ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ – even if the Islamists would just as soon throw them off a tall building.
Socialists Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have joined with Zohran Mamdani in the perennial quest for power in offering something for nothing, for the low price of your liberty.
And for the ancient ideas of collectivism that have been tried for the past 400 years and have never worked, we easily found fresh videos that decimate these ‘democratic’ ideas from the past few days.
With one from Mark Levin: The REAL Reason why Communism Will NEVER Work and from Dad Saves America: Socialism Fails in Theory and Destroys in Practice – Daniel Di Martino happen to be available at the moment.
These collectivist ideologies – whatever the ‘ism‘ of the moment (Excluding that made-up term from the left for economic freedom) – are always doomed to disaster. But they are very analogous to the similar assessments of the very same ‘new‘ ideas from a century ago.
Because if you ask anyone, how many times socialism (or its other collectivist variants) has been tried, the answers will range from a patently absurd never from leftists to the far more realistic answer that it’s been tried in so many different ways and so many different places to the point that it’s almost impossible to count them all.
If you then ask when and where it was first tried, the answers get even more interesting, because even getting leftists to define the term is like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall. Some may actually admit that it was tried in Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, as well as in many other socialist nations during the last century, but even that answer is way off.
Because leftists are, shall we say – quite creative in coming up with why their ‘wonderous’ ideology has yet to take hold in the world’s imagination as an ever-popular form of a perfect people’s Utopia.
Most of these excuses center around the U.S. government attacking these wondrous ‘people’s republics,’ directly or through nefarious means, e.g., the CIA, and ruining them. With all kinds of other excuses for the position, they claim that socialism can actually work on a small scale.
Some leftists will even admit that the book Utopia, published more than 500 years ago in 1516, was the ‘first socialist position,’ describing a communist Utopia on an island somewhere near the Americas.
We should note that some of the first experiments in collectivism were tried in the first colonies of the American continent 400 years ago in 1607 and 1623; thus, we can say that these ‘isms‘ (we’re specifically excluding the leftist-coined term capitalism – that is actually economic freedom or free enterprise) have a long storied 400-year-old record of abject failure.
However, given that the left is wont to play games with words, the focus here is on the word ‘socialist,’ its first usage in print, and its references to the experiments in collectivism of two centuries ago. Because we’ve noted something rather interesting about how this is not being covered by the national socialist media.
The first usage of the word ‘socialist’ was in reference to what were called at the time the ‘villages of cooperation’ – small communist communes – the first experiments in socialism 200 years ago. There was a frontier mindset of exploration and experimentation in the early decades of the country, and thus, there were a number of pioneers developing ‘new’ societal norms.
One of these in particular was created by Robert Owen, a Welsh textile manufacturer-turned-philanthropist who, in 1825, purchased a small town on the banks of the Wabash River in Indiana. He renamed the town ‘New Harmony.’ According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first documented use of ‘socialist’ was in a letter published in the November 1827 edition of The Co-operative Magazine in reference to these ‘villages of cooperation’, including New Harmony. As you might have guessed, these experiments only lasted a few years and then fell apart, but that didn’t stop the socialists from going on and trying to give it a go in multiple other locations. These also failed, as expected.
A century later, many looked back at this abject failure, including former President William Howard Taft in an address in 1914: Taft Shows Why Socialism Fails; It Offers No Substitute for the Reward of Human Effort.
NEW HARMONY, Ind., June 8.-Reasons for the failure of experiments in socialism were discussed by William H. Taft today in an address delivered at the centennial celebration of the founding of New Harmony. …
“The most notable socialistic experiment, that of Robert Owen, at New Harmony, failed as all socialism must fail,” said Mr. Taft, “because it found no substitute for the motive essential to arouse and make constant human effort that is furnished by the institution of private property and the shaping of reward by competition and natural economic adjustment.
A New York Times article from June 9, 1914, on the centennial celebration of the town and former President Taft’s exposition on this failure, entitled: Failure of New Harmony. It described how a real socialist community was founded, along with
…similar communities at Yellow Springs, Ohio; at Nashoba, near Memphis; at Haverstraw and Coxsackie, N. Y., and in the Kendal Community at Canton, Ohio, did not suffice to prevent successive failures.
Continuing on to note that:
The value of Mr. TAFT’s exposition of the long series of futile experiments consists in its warning to future enthusiasts. Usually, new socialistic communities are founded by leaders who are reckless or know little of previous attempts.
All of this history demonstrates that excuses for leftist failures lack merit, since these socialist projects operated on a small scale, without U.S. government interference and long before agencies like the CIA were created.
As we reach the 200th anniversary of socialism, the left recycles these discredited ideas, passing figures like Mamdani off as pioneers when, in fact, their proposals are outdated.
The latest evolution of this ongoing failure is a new and risky partnership: leftist socialists are once again collaborating with Islamist factions, echoing a strategy seen during the Iranian revolution. There, such an alliance ousted the shah before Islamists seized total control.
This highlights the central lesson—socialism, after 200 years of defeat, now carries a heightened threat by joining with another dangerous ideology, making vigilance and awareness more important than ever.
D. Parker is an engineer, inventor, wordsmith, and student of history, former director of communications for a civil rights organization, and a long-time contributor to conservative websites. Find him on Substack.
A new poll conducted by Leger360 between August 29 and 31, 2025, is causing controversy in the world of U.S. politics, as it projects that California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, is the frontrunner for the 2028 presidential election.
The results of the survey, which were shared on social media, pitted Newsom against potential GOP candidates, including Vice President JD Vance, former President Donald Trump, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The California governor narrowly leads the president by a score of 48 percent to 44 percent, 47 percent to Vance’s 46 percent, and 49 percent to Rubio’s 44 percent.
The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percent, which makes these potential races extremely close. Many conservatives are already greeting the survey’s results with a healthy dose of skepticism, primarily due to the methodology employed, as well as the context of Newsom’s political record and recent actions.
Some have pointed out red flags that raise questions about the credibility of the poll. They note that Leger360’s track record, which was the subject of a study completed by the “Journal of Election Studies,” found that Leger overestimated Democratic support by a total of 5 percent. According to the study, this was the result of oversampling urban voters in online panels.
Experts point out that if the current numbers are adjusted to factor this in, Trump’s support could rise to 49 percent, Vance’s to 51 percent, and Rubio’s to 49 percent, which changes the entire narrative and some of the conclusions drawn from the poll.
As MAGA supporters have all but crowned Vance as the man to take over the mantel of leadership for the movement, it’s likely that, with all of the information taken into context, the biggest threat to Newsom’s potential campaign is the vice president.
Newsom recently attempted to reach out to popular conservative podcast host and founder of Talking Point USA, Charlie Kirk, which signals a shift to broaden support. However, many on the political right believe the move is opportunistic, especially given his extreme left-wing policies, like climate regulations, which have strained his state’s economy.
Conservative commentator Arthur Morgan has waved off the results of the Leger survey as nothing more than Democratic propaganda. Others are also viewing them with caution, specifically citing the above-mentioned bias of the company that produced the poll.
Trending Politics
Ukraine has intensified its campaign of drone strikes on Russian oil infrastructure, hitting refineries in recent weeks and deepening fuel shortages across the country.
For two years, Ukraine has targeted Russian refineries and depots, but since early August the pace has quickened, with the country’s officials reporting more than a dozen strikes on refining and distribution sites over the past month, including Aug. 30 attacks on facilities in Krasnodar and Syzran in the Samara region, reports The Economist.
Both have been struck multiple times and supply fuel to Russian military units, according to Robert “Madyar” Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces.
About 40% of Ukraine’s long-range strike missions this year have focused on refineries, while others have hit storage and pumping facilities.
Independent estimates suggest up to 20% of Russia’s refining capacity has been disabled, cutting more than 1 million barrels a day of output, mostly gasoline. Refineries that have been hit repeatedly have sustained lasting damage, especially to cracking units that are difficult to replace under Western sanctions.
The impact has been felt nationwide. Motorists face fuel shortages, long lines, and record prices. Wholesale gasoline prices have jumped 54% since January, prompting authorities to suspend exports and impose rationing in some regions.
Russia’s budget deficit reached $61.4 billion in the first seven months of the year, nearly 3% of annual GDP.
Analysts say the August strikes were larger and more sophisticated than earlier attacks. Sergey Vakulenko of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Centre, a former Gazprom Neft executive, said Ukrainian drones now fly in greater numbers, navigate more effectively, and often overwhelm Russian air defenses.
Strikes have spanned an 800-kilometer arc from Ryazan, near Moscow, to Volgograd in the south.
The timing has added pressure, coinciding with peak summer demand and the harvest season. Vakulenko noted that “tens of millions of Russians live to the west of this arc,” where shortages have been acute. Reports of scarcity have also come from Russian-occupied Crimea and Vladivostok in the far east.
Ukraine’s expanded drone production has made the campaign possible. The FP-1 long-range “kamikaze” drone, introduced in May, now accounts for about 60% of strikes inside Russia. Produced at an estimated 100 units a day, it carries a 60- to 120-kilogram warhead with a range of up to 1,600 kilometers.
Despite a price of about $55,000, it is said to feature advanced guidance software that maintains accuracy under electronic jamming. Ukraine has also deployed heavier Lyutyi drones.
Vakulenko described the situation as “challenging but manageable” for Russia. But British strategist Sir Lawrence Freedman warned that continued refinery strikes could intensify economic and military pressure.
“By itself it will not be decisive, but in combination with a weakening economy and Ukrainian forces holding back Russian advances, it will add to the pressure on Putin,” he said.
THE ARTFUL DILETTANTE 