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

Why not just say “no deals” with Hamas at all? That seems to be Hamas’ position now that France, Canada, and the UK have decided to recognize a Palestinian state while Hamas continues to hold hostages. In fact, Hamas has stopped talking at all, save with one entity:

There is growing pessimism in Israel over the possibility that Hamas will show flexibility and return to the negotiating table, an Israeli source told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.

The feeling within the government is that the talks are nearing collapse, an Israeli official said. “It now seems that an expanded military operation in Gaza is inevitable,” the official said.

“Hamas has cut off contact,” an Israeli source said. “There are no real negotiations with them.”

Hamas has also partially severed ties with Qatar and Egypt, another official familiar with the talks told the Post.“At the moment, they are primarily engaged in talks with Turkey,” the source said.

One can grasp why Hamas wants to cut off Israel and the US, and maybe even Egypt, which suppresses Hamas’ parent org, the Muslim Brotherhood. Why cut off Qatar, which has not just acted as an interlocutor but has sheltered Hamas leadership for more than a decade in Doha? The Qataris have not just made Hamas leaders into billionaires, they are essentially the only thing standing between them and the Mossad, which would love to make them pay for October 7.

Hamas cut off Qatar for demanding their exit from Gaza this week. The entire Arab world has had enough of Hamas, especially as a proxy for the Iranian mullahcracy. Mostly at this moment, the Arabs want them out because they are the biggest remaining obstacle to a settlement for the Palestinians, an issue about which they tired long ago:

The world’s Arab countries for the first time have joined unanimously in the call for Hamas to lay down its weapons, release all hostages and end its rule of the Gaza Strip, conditions that they said could help the establishment of a Palestinian state.

The surprise declaration, endorsed on Tuesday by the 22 member nations of the Arab League, also condemned Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, which set off the devastating war in Gaza. The statement came at a United Nations conference in New York on a two-state solution to end the decades-long conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

“In the context of ending the war in Gaza, Hamas must end its rule in Gaza and hand over its weapons to the Palestinian Authority, with international engagement and support, in line with the objectives of a sovereign and independent Palestinian state,” said the declaration. It was also signed by all 27 European Union states and 17 other countries.

The Turks and the Iranians are the only countries still willing to help out Hamas. The Iranians have no way to influence events now, not after Israel and the US depantsed the IRGC in the 12 Day War, and the Turks would dearly love to interfere with Israel’s security. They have zero value as interlocutors as well, which means that Hamas simply refuses to make any deal at all that doesn’t result in renewing their grip on power.

That makes the two-state solution a moot issue at the moment. France, the UK, and Canada can “recognize” it all they want, but Israel will not stop the war without the return of the hostages, both alive and dead. The chutzpah of those nations demanding otherwise may be breathtaking, but it’s not impressive, nor will it impact the trajectory in Gaza — except to make Israel more determined to erase Hamas before they can claim statehood.

And since phased agreements would only encourage that development, the Israelis declared today that they will no longer negotiate within that framework. It’s now all or nothing, thanks largely to the incentives set by feckless Western leadership as well as Hamas’ intransigence. And the US is endorsing this new policy:

As negotiations with Hamas stall, Israel and the United States are now aligned on aiming for a comprehensive framework in place of a partial ceasefire and hostage-release deal, a senior Israeli official told reporters during a Thursday briefing.

“There will be no more partial deals,” the official was quoted as saying, explaining that Israel and the US now concur on the need to “shift from a framework for the release of some of the hostages to a framework for the release of all of the hostages, the disarmament of Hamas and the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip.”

“At the same time,” the source was quoted as saying, “Israel and the US will work to increase the humanitarian aid, while continuing the fighting in Gaza.”

This has implications for Benjamin Netanyahu’s strategy, as the Times of Israel points out:

If actualized, the new stance would mark a major shift for Israel, which came up with the phased hostage deal framework during the first year of the war, as it enabled Israel to secure the release of some of its hostages, while maintaining the ability to resume the war — something Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu needed to maintain his coalition, as far-right partners threatened to collapse the government if Israel agreed to a permanent ceasefire.

This is true, but incomplete. Phased negotiations suited Hamas far more than Israel. It allowed Hamas to seek massively unbalanced swaps between hostages and Palestinian prisoners, plus various tactical concessions from Israel. Phased negotiations also allowed for the Hamas Hokey Pokey, wherein Hamas would offer concessions, Israel would agree, and Hamas would subsequently change its position and get Western negotiators to press Israel for more concessions. 

Politically speaking, Netanyahu probably needs a deal now more than ever. However, he’s not going to concede on Hamas’ status, certainly not after the entire Arab world just told them to lay down their weapons and exit Gaza. The deal Netanyahu needs is one that ends the war on those terms. There is no point in creating phased deals short of that where Hamas attempts to evade that outcome and remain in control of Gaza. And, ironically, the moral retreat by our allies on this war has made that clearer than ever to the Israelis.

Ed Morrissey, Hotair

With apologies for bluntness, the mainstream press f[–]d around, now the mainstream press is finding out.” —Matt Taibbi.

By now, it must be kind of obvious that Mr. Putin of Russia was staged-up into a demon for the convenience of Hillary Clinton — resulting in a decade of deformed US foreign relations that has dragged us to the edge of a third world war. Nice work, Democratic Party!

I will proffer a harsh truth to you: the best outcome in Ukraine would be for Russia to win the war as expeditiously as possible, neutralize and disarm the place, change-out its illegitimate government, and let it revert to being the frontier backwater it was for eight decades previous, when it was not a problem for the other nations of the region.

Mr. Putin has put up with our country’s psychotic nonsense with remarkable patience. The idea that he seeks to conquer western Europe was a preposterous confection of the neocon crazies in our State Department and Intel “community.”

The long game for the neocon crazies has been to use NATO as the instrument to break up Russia and gain control of its resources. This was after Secretary of State James Baker told Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, in discussions over German reunification, that “not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction.” Starting in 1999 with the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland, sixteen additional nations were induced to join NATO, encroaching on Russia’s borders, with new military bases and missiles. It was a stupid game.

And it failed. Ukraine was the final gambit. The US destabilized it on purpose in 2014, installed a series of governments we could control, made it a ward of US taxpayers, sprinkled it with bio-weapons labs and money laundries, and gave Mr. Zelenskyy the go-ahead to start shelling the Donbas provinces adjacent to Russia. After years of that, Mr. Putin moved to stop it in 2022. The development of drone weapons, along with US-based satellite targeting tech, has prolonged the war. But, of course, the Russians, too, have modernized their own weapons arsenal to match that. The current state of things is a slow Russian grind to defeat a Ukraine that has run out of available fighting men and is apparently short of all weapons besides its drones.

On the campaign trail, Mr. Trump promised to end the Ukraine war in a New York minute. That proved more difficult and complicated than he realized. He said lately in so many words that he has “lost patience” with Mr. Putin for failing to join a ceasefire as a prelude to peace talks. Accordingly, Mr. Trump set a fifty-day deadline and then shortened it to twelve-days, running out on August 8-9 (accounting for time zones). Failure to comply will cause Russia to suffer a new round of sanctions. Mr. Putin has shrugged off that threat, saying that time has proven Russia to be sanction-proofed.

Some kind of game is afoot in all this. Neither Trump nor Putin could possibly want to turn this fiasco in Ukraine into a greater war that will destroy what’s left of Western Civilization. You might find this startling, but for all our efforts to anathemize Russia, it is still a part of Western Civ. After its soviet experiment failed, Russia wanted above all to reintegrate economically with Europe, but the neocons here and the globalists of Europe would not allow that. They became determined instead to wreck Russia — a vicious ethos likely to have emanated from the UK, with its lingering imperial delusions. (For Germany, it has brought only economic suicide.)

You might suspect that Mr. Trump has to pretend to be tough with Russia to counter the still-lingering suspicion — germinated by the Hillary Clinton campaign a decade ago — that he is “Putin’s puppet.” By coincidence, strange or not, that trope is now unraveling with the release of the RussiaGate intel archive that the rogue DOJ and FBI squirreled away since the Trump 1.0 term in office. Mr. Patel found a trove of documentary evidence in a burn-bag in a back room at FBI headquarters. DNI Tulsi Gabbard retrieves more previously-hidden evidence by the day from the vast NSA data base. It ought to be clear now that the initial Hillary Clinton campaign prank metastasized into the worst perversion of abusive government power in our country’s history, and is yet on-going.

The major news organs, who were accomplices in RussiaGate, won’t publish or broadcast any of the recent discoveries about exactly how the hoax evolved into a body of delusion that took over the brains of half of the country and led to a string of additional vicious hoaxes including the Covid-19 operation, the stolen election of 2020, and the J-6 prosecutions. Maybe nothing can be done about the perfidious New York Times or Washington Post because the First Amendment allows lies to be printed within the limits of the libel laws. But the TV networks have additional obligations to the public interest under the broadcast regulations and they can lose their licenses. Perhaps they should and will.

For the moment, realize that we are in the middle of a maelstrom. Arrests and prosecutions are coming, and Mr. Trump’s clock is ticking on the Ukraine war. Upping the ante on the war is the last thing our country needs. The RussiaGate disclosures afford the president an out on his strong-arm tactics with Mr. Putin and his support of the Zelenskyy regime.

James Howard Kunstler

Is college worth all the expense and trouble these days? I used to think it was. But look at all the changes for the worse.

So much of what passes for a college education these days is indoctrination in political correctness.

A recent study reported in Newsweek found that one in four Gen Z college graduates regret attending university—all the trouble, all the expense, all the debt. Pew Research Center says Gen Z are those born from 1997 through 2012.

Writing for Newsweek, Suzanne Blake observes: “As artificial intelligence transforms the workplace and student debt balloons, a significant portion of Generation Z now expresses regret over their college education. According to a new survey by Resume Genius, 23 percent of full-time Gen Z workers regret attending college, and 19 percent say their degree didn’t contribute to their career.”

Blake adds, “Only 32 percent said they’re content with their education path and wouldn’t change it, according to Resume Genius.”

I am so glad that I was able to study at college in the 1970s. It was liberal, but it wasn’t Marxist.

To me, a large part of the problem is that college these days represents perhaps one of the largest “mission drifts” in history.

What was the original reason for colleges in the first place? All the original colleges and universities in North America—all of them (certainly as early as the settling and founding eras) —were thoroughly Christian. But today most of these schools stand for the exact opposite. But the liberals didn’t start these schools. They just eventually took them over, turning them away from God.

Consider just a quick run-down of these schools that many of our nation’s founders attended:

∙The original motto of Harvard was (in Latin): “For Christ and the Church”—with the word Veritas (Latin for Truth) on the college seal. In the early 20th century, they jettisoned everything but the word Veritas. Founded in 1630, named after Rev. John Harvard, a 1643 statement of the school’s goals said, “Every one shall consider the main End of his life and studies, to know God and Jesus Christ which is Eternal life. John 17.3.”

∙William and Mary was Anglican in its founding and as such, Jesus Christ was pre-eminent. Among other things, two of the Statutes of the College of William and Mary (1727) state the school’s purpose: “That the Churches of America, especially Virginia, should be supplied with good Ministers after the Doctrine and Government of the Church of England; and that the College should be a constant Seminary for this Purpose… That the Indians of America should be instructed in the Christian Religion…”

∙Yale was founded to train ministers of the Gospel in the Connecticut area in 1700, and named after the Puritan benefactor, Elihu Yale. Its 1745 charter stated, “All scholars shall live religious, godly, and blameless lives according to the rules of God’s Word, diligently reading the Holy Scriptures, the fountain of light and truth; and constantly attend upon all the duties of religion, both in public and secret.”

∙An early advertisement for King’s College, which opened in 1754 and is now Columbia University, read: “The chief thing that is aimed at in this college is to teach and engage children to know God in Jesus Christ.” The same Columbia that now sees many pro-Hamas riots.

∙Rev. Jonathan Dickinson was the first president of the College of New Jersey, which later became known as Princeton. Dickinson once said, “Cursed be all that learning that is contrary to the cross of Christ.”  Its official motto even now is reported to be, “Under God’s Power She Flourishes.”

∙Dartmouth was originally founded for the purpose of training ministers of the Gospel and missionaries to the Indians.

And on and on it goes. Too bad we have been largely cut off from this important tradition.

In fact, the phenomenon of the university was created by the Church around 1200 AD. The University of Paris was one of the very first, and Christian theology was a key part of the curriculum.

Dr. Paul Maier of Western Michigan University once said, “You had students from England, studying in Paris who decided to go to a place where the oxen crossed the river, Oxenford, otherwise known as ‘Oxford.’ And that gave birth to Cambridge. Cambridge gave birth to John Harvard, coming over to the United States, Harvard University in 1636. That was the background of our state university system, as well as our private university system, and so on to the universities we have today. Direct Christian origin.”

Today we have cut ourselves off from the ancient wisdom found in the Scriptures, and instead find ourselves adrift in a sea of relativism. No wonder so many young graduates regret going to college.

Dr. Jerry Newcombe

“The truth is stranger than fiction” (as attributed to Mark Twain) 

Conspiracy theorists have long thought that Seth Rich’s death was an assassination facilitated by the Deep State — a Machiavellian hit by the Deep State to cover for its operation known as Russian Collusion because Rich could expose it as false from the beginning.  It was an actual “Spy vs. Spy” episode, straight out of Mad Magazine — except our side went full Stasi against the American people.  There were the DOJ, FBI, CIA, ODNI, and others in the Intelligence Community (I.C.), except NSA director Adm. Mike Rogers (See more).

With the bombshell release of documents (and here) by DNI director Tulsi Gabbard and more releases every day, Rich’s death at the hands of the Deep State is no longer a conspiracy theory.  I agree with Director Gabbard’s conclusion: Accountability and the rule of law must be restored.

Their goal was to subvert the will of the American people and enact what was essentially a years-long coup with the objective of trying to usurp the President from fulfilling the mandate bestowed upon him by the American people. …

Their egregious abuse of power and blatant rejection of our Constitution threatens the very foundation and integrity of our democratic republic.  No matter how powerful, every person involved in this conspiracy must be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, to ensure nothing like this ever happens again.  The American people’s faith and trust in our democratic republic and therefore the future of our nation depends on it.

Gabbard spoke at the regular White House press conference.  CNN cut away while Gabbard was speaking.  Why?  Fraud by omission on a significant news story of the day?  The legacy media are up to their usual spin.  Politico was less biased than the rest so far.  Politico does have a link to the documents.

The circumstances surrounding the death of Rich are well known to the American Thinker readers.  I will limit this piece to new information.  I did glean one thing from these releases that is significant to the death of Seth Rich, which I’ll explain soon.

METRO DC police quickly attributed Rich’s death to a street robbery gone bad.  Any Deep State involvement was swiftly dismissed as a fantasy of conspiracy theorists by the authorities and echoed by the legacy media. 

Attorney Ty Clevenger and I have made many attempts to bring information about Rich’s death to the congressional oversight committees.  The silence has been deafening.  I empathize with A.G. Pam Bondi and FBI director Kash Patel.  Especially since the DOJ, FBI, ODNI, and CIA are principals in this conspiracy — who destroy, withhold, hide, curate, and create evidence under the guise of classification, ongoing criminal investigations, or national security from the American people. 

The absence of information leads to speculation and conspiracy theories.  Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn (ret.), a victim of egregious lawfare by the Deep State, is beginning to wonder.  Gen. Flynn knew too much, as likely did Rich.  People have little awareness of what it takes to put together a good criminal case, let alone prosecute it, especially when the DOJ is in the tank.  People’s expectations often stem from fictional accounts in movies and TV, where everything typically happens within 60 to 90 minutes.

Ty’s information was the source of this article in The Gateway Pundit:

BREAKING: Attorney Ty Clevenger Exposes FBI’s Role in Hiding Seth Rich Records and Perpetuating the Russia Hoax — Sends Scathing Letter to Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, and Trump Officials

And later:

Attorney Ty Clevenger BLASTS FBI’s “Weak” Excuses in Seth Rich Case — Demands Congress to Haul FBI Into Hearings: “Patel and Bondi Have Allowed the FBI to Continue its Pattern of Obfuscation and Delay”

On the day of Gabbard’s bombshell press release, Clevenger filed his latest motion in his FOIA case against the FBI for non-release of Seth Rich’s records.  Patel and FBI deputy director Dan Bongino recently disclosed the existence of a hidden evidence room at FBI HQ.  Senate Judiciary chairman Chuck Grassley revealed the existence of a previously hidden feature of the FBI’s record management system, “Prohibited Access,” that cloaks files from discovery by most FBI personnel and FOIA requests.  Clevenger wants the FBI to search using this cloaking feature and the hidden evidence room for Rich-related evidence.

By divine providence, I recently stumbled across this Rolling Stone article.  It is an excerpt from Andy Kroll’s book A Death on W Street.  This article included the civil defamation case brought by Matt Couch, a blogger and journalist.

I sat straight up in my chair with a chill running up my spine when I saw that journalist Michael Isikoff was a defendant/appellee in this appellate case brought by Couch. 

Matt Couch doxxed a quasi-witness in the Rich case.  Deborah Sines, an AUSA with the D.C. District Office, was assigned to the Seth Rich investigation.  There’s this: 

He [Couch] claimed that the witness had worked in the intelligence community and was possibly a “plant.” Couch said the witness had “worked for the CIA for a decade,” which there was no publicly available evidence to support.  The post went on to say that this onetime intelligence agent now worked as a veterinary technician …

Sines could hardly believe it when she read Couch’s post.  The woman listed in the post was indeed the only quasi-witness to the crime.  According to Sines, the woman said she’d been out walking her elderly dog when she heard loud bang sounds and then saw two Black men running away from the direction of the sound.  Sines hadn’t told anyone about the witness. … Neither had the detective on the case.

Yet Couch had too much specific information — down to the correct spelling of the woman’s name. … The witness had apparently told one neighbor what she’d seen and no one else.  (The witness did not respond to requests for comment.) Sines doubted the conspiracy theorists had gotten the information from the woman’s neighbor. … That left one explanation: the name had come from someone on the inside.

Couch accidentally revealed one of his sources, who was an active METRO Police officer, Douglas Berlin.  Sines traced the leak to Berlin.  Sines reported Berlin to METRO Police.  Officer Berlin later resigned after being interviewed by the I.A. unit.

Berlin’s union representative said he’d likely face a thirty-day suspension and told him to go along with it. … But Berlin refused to do it.  He resigned from the force.  “I loved that job.  It was my passion,” he would later say. …

No amount of contradictory evidence could change his mind.  And as he would later say, he was hardly the only one on the force to feel this way.  Even within DC’s own law enforcement agency, the Rich theories had seemingly found a willing audience.

As I asked in the beginning, was Seth Rich assassinated by operatives of the Deep State to prevent the exposure of the Russian Collusion narrative as false before the 2016 election?  I believe that his death warrants a complete and thorough investigation to determine one way or another.  There is more to come as this house of cards begins to fall.

As I began this tale with Twain, I will end with this: “Dead men tell no tales.”

Ron Wright is a retired detective, having served thirty-five years with Riverside P.D., Calif.  Ron earned a B.A. in political science from Cal State University, Fullerton, and a Master of Administration from the University of California, Riverside.  X @

UPDATE: A 36-year-old woman is being held on felony stalking charges in a bizarre case where a wedding was held without the groom present and without his knowledge.

Beverly Hills Police Chief Kory Martin expressed he’s never seen anything like this.

“I was here Friday evening when this came in. When I was talking to the lieutenant, I said, ‘I don’t I don’t think in 23 years I’ve ever heard of anybody who managed somehow to get married to someone who wasn’t present for a ceremony.’”

“At first, we were really considering that it may be some forged documents. However, once we made contact with the reverend who ended up signing the actual ceremony, showing that they were unified, he basically, you know, solidified the fact that, yeah, the groom was not present when that occurred,” he continued.

Kristin Marie Spearman was arrested and booked into the McLennan County Jail.

Chief Martin said his office was contacted by a 42-year-old man on Friday, who said that he found a package from his ex-girlfriend at his home which included a copy of a marriage certificate – showing he was married.

The victim told police he had been in a relationship with the suspect, and they got a marriage license around June 2, but broke up before a wedding took place. Chief Martin said the investigation determined that the woman convinced a pastor to certify the marriage without the groom being present. Chief Martin said she then went to the County Clerk’s Office and filed the certificate.

The Chief explained that he has spoken with the victim, who expressed that he’s going through a significant process to try and fix the situation, “I’ve talked to the victim, and he’s going through a significant process to try to have to fix this at this point, and so that’s a whole ‘nother situation….is not only the concern of, ‘What does that mean for my safety, my property,’ you know, which is a huge conversation in this, but also what I have to do to fix it, you know, and it’s looking like the process is going to be quite lengthy.”

Chief Martin explained how this situation has been a rare occurrence and how they’ve been handling it.

“I had to do some research on this, and you know, going through the family code and looking at the sections of marriage, there was only one caveat that I could locate, which was, you know, active military overseas unable to make it,” he explained. “You still had to have a proxy stand in, and that also has to be part of like the licensing itself, is all of that stuff has to be there — So the groom should have been there. A proxy wouldn’t have worked. And that should have been witnessed by the executive, you know, executing that and having that authority to actually witness that document.”

Chief Martin said that with the assistance of the Hewitt Police Department, the suspect was located at her residence near Hewitt. Police had obtained an arrest warrant for third-degree felony stalking, and Spearman was transported to the McLennan County Jail.

Chief Martin said his department was not releasing any information on who officiated the ceremony, as of Monday, as they move forward with the case.

Resisting tremendous pressure from the Trump administration, the Federal Reserve held its key interest rate steady on Wednesday as two of President Donald Trump’s appointees dissented from the decision and voted for cuts.

Wednesday’s meeting reportedly marks the first time in more than 30 years that two members of the Fed’s seven-member Board of Governors voted against a rate decision at the central bank.

Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman and board member Christopher Waller “preferred to lower the target range for the federal funds rate by one quarter of a percentage point at this meeting,” according to the Fed’s policy statement. [Newsmax 7-30-25]

A central government bank (ours was established in 1913) should not be setting interest rates. Interest rates should be the result of market forces — supply and demand, and other factors at play in voluntary human trade. The moment government becomes involved, things become political, not economic.

The current Federal Reserve chair is, by definition, a Deep Stater. It’s his job to represent political interests, not economic interests (other than his own). This will be the case with the next Federal Reserve chair, and the next, until we get government out of the banking and currency creation business completely. The # 1 political agenda of all Deep Staters isn’t necessarily Communism or socialism. Their overriding and only priority at present is: Destroy Trump. They will do it at any cost. And they will use their media to spread the fallacy that whatever happens was all Trump’s fault.

How do we know this? It’s based on 100 percent of the evidence of the last 9 or 10 years, when Trump first became a serious government influence.

Long before Trump, we the people gradually created a government with almost unlimited power, the very thing our Founders and later Ronald Reagan warned us about. This government exists first and foremost to protect itself. If you believe or assume otherwise, you are a naive fool, and most likely a Democrat.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

Speaker Johnson seems to be very optimistic these days, saying the GOP will “defy history when we grow the majority in the House” in 2026.

The Speaker is clearly referencing the announcement of the new Texas GOP redistricting plan for the U.S. House seats in Texas, which was announced recently and could change a 25 Republican to 13 Democrat House delegation edge to a 30 Republican to 8 Democrat edge.  This would be a net gain of 5 seats, if the five new seats that are all pro-Trump by double digits vote Republican.  But a lot depends on whether the Hispanic voters in those districts continue their electoral march towards the GOP.

This is not the only redistricting plan that Johnson may be relying on.  We are also waiting on the Ohio GOP to redistrict, which may net 2 or 3 more seats.  It is also possible that Republicans will redistrict in Indiana, Georgia, Kansas, Missouri, New Hampshire and Florida.  Only in Florida could the GOP pick up more than one seat, although it is unlikely to be as big as the possible shift in Texas, as the Republicans currently have a 20 to 8 edge in the Florida delegation.

Democrats, of course, are squawking in fake partisan outrage about the gerrymandering, but, in Texas, the new districts are actually more compact and geographically logical than the old districts were, and the new map includes more Hispanic majority districts as well.  Further, the Democrats themselves have instituted ridiculous gerrymanders in California, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Oregon, New Mexico, and Nevada, sometimes by serendipitous means, so it is hard to take their objections seriously.

While Democrats have vowed to respond in their own states, that seems unlikely to accomplish much, with only Maryland’s one GOP district in any real danger.

Anyway, this clearly shows that the GOP is taking a page from the GOP experience in 2002, one time in recent years when the majority party bucked the mid-term curse, by making redistricting a crucial part of the Trump campaign team’s plan to hold the U.S. House.  

The entire Trump plan now seems to be:

1. Push GOP redistricting – see above; 
2. Minimize retirements – the Trump team has “steered Republican candidates in House races in Iowa, Michigan and New York” from running for other offices and thus opening up their potentially vulnerable districts;
3. Spend big – the GOP continues to spend large amounts of money to protect its majority, although not quite as much as the Democrats.  It is unclear how much the affiliated outside groups are spending, though;
4. Take primary challengers off the table – by endorsing members for their House seats early, Trump is making it hard for another Republican to challenge the incumbent; 
5. Raise gobs more money – the GOP has outraised the Democrats at both the relevant national committees;
6. Ramp up recruiting;
7. Push certain issues – taking a page from 1998, the only other recent time the majority party bucked the mid-term curse, the GOP plans to attack House Democrats on impeachment (I am glad I suggested that 😊).  Considering the great hatred emanating from Democrats regarding Trump, it seems likely that many individual Democrat candidates will come out for another impeachment, even though the Senate will never remove the President.

• The Democrats can’t stop fighting Donald Trump on every issue, including the ‘80/20’ issues that favor him.  The GOP should continue to take advantage of that, especially on immigration issues and deportations.  
• The Democrats also can’t stop hating/ranting against Trump in public, and castigating their own party leadership for not acting as belligerently, despite how off-putting it looks to moderates and non-partisans.  I have belabored this point multiple times in my doom loop series of columns, but here is a Democrat consultant saying the same thing and begging his party to stop acting like loons. I suspect the Democrats won’t learn this lesson in 2026, however (It took them 12 years to learn to stop running outspoken and weak leftists against the GOP in the 1980’s).
• Strangely enough, after claiming that he was going to challenge Republicans and Democrats with a deficits-do-matter third party, Elon Musk has decided to give much of his money to GOP super PACs.  This is the smart play, although at this point I have no idea what Musk is going to do next, so he certainly could change his strategy again.

Keep in mind that the GOP needs only to limit their losses to two seats in the House to retain control of that chamber (Any additional seats are simply gravy). If the Republicans do pick up a sizable number of seats in redistricting, and there is no recession, considering that the GOP is not in a bad place in the boom-and-bust cycle of the House, this is very doable.     

Adam Turner

Gaza hunger crisis intensifies amid ongoing conflict and aid restrictions. The situation in Gaza remains critical, with widespread hunger and a rising number of deaths linked to malnutrition, according to the World Health Organization and numerous humanitarian agencies. An international food security authority warns of a “worst-case scenario of famine” unfolding in the territory.

Here’s a breakdown of the current situation:

Widespread Hunger and Malnutrition:
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a global standard for measuring food insecurity, states that Gaza has been on the brink of famine for two years and the situation has dramatically worsened.
Around 470,000 people are facing catastrophic hunger, with the entire population of 2.23 million facing high levels of acute food insecurity.

<><>One in three people are going without food for days, with the proportion of households experiencing extreme hunger doubling between May and July 2025.
In northern Gaza, 81% of households reported poor food consumption in July, a significant increase from 33% in April.

Escalating Deaths: The Palestinian Health Ministry reported 43 deaths due to hunger in the five days leading up to July 23, 2025. As of July 26, 2025, 127 Palestinians have died from malnutrition most were children.

However, according to NBC News, the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza stated on July 31, 2025, that 154 people had died from starvation since the war began, including 89 children. The World Health Organization reported that 63 out of 74 malnutrition-related deaths in Gaza in 2025 occurred in July. The number of malnutrition-related deaths is rapidly increasing.

Children Particularly Vulnerable:
Over 320,000 children under five in Gaza are at risk of acute malnutrition, with thousands suffering from severe acute malnutrition, the deadliest form of undernutrition.
The overall rate of acute malnutrition among screened children increased from 2.4% in February to 6% in June and 8.8% in July.

In Gaza City, acute malnutrition prevalence soared from 4.4% in May to 16.5% in early July, reaching the threshold for famine.

Ten child deaths from severe acute malnutrition were reported in July, increasing the overall death toll reported by partners in 2025 to 17. A severely malnourished child is over ten times more likely to die than a well-nourished peer.

Overwhelmed Hospitals:
Hospitals are overflowing with malnourished patients and are reaching their “breaking point”.
Doctors have reportedly fainted from hunger while trying to treat patients. Nearly 94% of Gaza’s 36 hospitals have been damaged or destroyed.

Dangerous Conditions for Aid Seekers:
Over 1,000 Palestinians have died trying to access food in recent weeks. Distribution sites, some controlled by the Israeli military, have become increasingly dangerous, with reports of shootings and stampedes resulting in mass casualties.

Human Rights Watch reports that Israeli forces at the sites of a new US-backed aid distribution system have routinely opened fire on starving Palestinian civilians, acts that amount to serious violations of international law and war crimes.

Aid Restrictions and Distribution Challenges:
Israel has faced growing international condemnation for its restrictions on aid distribution, with some experts alleging violations of international humanitarian law.
Israel eased some restrictions in May but humanitarian groups say the aid allowed into Gaza isn’t enough.
Distribution is further hampered by security impediments and a breakdown in law and order.

Israel maintains that the restrictions are necessary to prevent Hamas from diverting aid. However, an internal US government review found no evidence of widespread theft by Hamas of US-funded humanitarian aid in Gaza.
Airdrops have been widely criticized by aid groups as insufficient to address the humanitarian crisis and potentially dangerous.

Israel’s Position:
Israeli officials deny the existence of starvation in Gaza and claim that Israel has supplied enough aid.
Israel has announced daily “humanitarian pauses” in military activity in parts of Gaza and the establishment of “secure routes” for aid convoys. However, these measures have been criticized as insufficient and deceptive by Hamas and some aid organizations.
New York Times Controversy:

The New York Times recently published a story detailing children’s starvation in Gaza, including a photograph of a severely malnourished baby. The Times later issued a correction, stating that the baby had a pre-existing medical condition influencing his appearance.

This sparked criticism from pro-Palestinian activists, who accused the Times of downplaying the suffering in Gaza.
The New York Times building was vandalized with red paint and the message “NYT LIES, GAZA DIES”.

The situation in Gaza remains dire, with a growing number of organizations describing it as a looming famine. The international community continues to call for Israel to ease restrictions on aid and for an immediate ceasefire to alleviate the crisis.