THINK OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY AS WHAT IT REALLY IS: A CRIMINAL ORGANIZATION MASQUERADING AS A POLITICAL PARTY: Minnesota State Senator Nicole Mitchell found guilty of first-degree burglary, possession of burglary tools.

In April 2024, Mitchell was arrested and charged with first-degree burglary after allegedly breaking into her stepmother’s Detroit Lakes home with the intent to take items that once belonged to her late father. A second felony charge, possession of burglary or theft tools, was later added by prosecutors.

Mitchell’s trial began on Monday and featured body-camera footage, several witnesses, and the senator testifying in her own defense. On Friday, the defense rested their case and both sides made their closing arguments.

During the trial, Becker County Attorney Brian McDonald argued that Mitchell’s guilt was demonstrated by statements she made on the morning she was arrested by police.

Those statements include “I have never done anything like this,” “There were just a couple things of my dad’s I wanted to come get,” “I’m clearly not good at this,” “I know I did something bad,” and “I just wanted to get a couple of my dad’s mementos.”

Additionally, the prosecution highlighted how Mitchell entered the house through an egress window under cover of darkness, was dressed in black clothing, had a flashlight with a sock covering it, and went to great efforts not to be noticed.

McDonald argued that Mitchell was in the home with the intent to steal items. He told jurors to “trust your eyes and ears, do not get distracted, use your common sense and good judgement.” The prosecutor warned the jury that Mitchell’s testimony was “carefully crafted to protect the one person that she cares the most about in this case, herself.”

* * * * * * * * *

The convictions will have major ramifications for Mitchell personally and the state Senate. Under Minnesota law, a conviction of first-degree burglary carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, a $35,000 fine, or both. Mitchell has two young sons.

Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul, released a statement after Mitchell’s convictions which said “Senator Mitchell has told colleagues that she intended to resign if found guilty of this crime, and I expect her to follow through on that pledge. Our caucus remains focused on the issues that matter to Minnesotan families and communities.”

In the Senate, Democrats have a one-seat majority (34-33). With Mitchell’s conviction, the Senate is poised to be evenly split between the GOP and the DFL. In turn, a special election will likely be called to fill Mitchell’s seat with the winner determining which party controls the chamber.

The Senate seat in question, District 47, includes all of Woodbury and part of Maplewood. In 2022, Mitchell won the seat by roughly 17 points.

On Wednesday, John Hinderaker of Power Line wrote, “Like the Balkans, Minnesota produces more news than can be consumed locally:”

One of our state’s recent scandals is the arrest for burglary of State Senator Nicole Mitchell. Mitchell was caught red-handed, burglarizing her stepmother’s house at 4:30 in the morning. The crime occurred during the 2024 legislative session, and the Democrats had a 34-33 majority in the Senate and thus needed her vote. The Senate voted on whether she would be able to vote for the remainder of the session, and Mitchell cast the deciding vote in her own favor.

When the 2024 session was over, Minnesota Democrats, including Tim Walz and now-DNC Chairman Ken Martin, belatedly demanded that Mitchell resign. But she hung tough. Her case was scheduled for trial, but the trial was continued so that she could participate in the 2025 session. Which she did, again representing the decisive vote in a chamber that was divided 44-43. Once the session began, not a single Democrat suggested that she ought to resign. Not a single reporter asked any Democrat why he had changed his tune.

As Hinderaker concludes, “This is the kind of soft corruption that permeates Minnesota politics.”

🚨 WATCH: The moment Minnesota Senator Nicole Mitchell (D) is found GUILTY on two felony counts.

The circumstances are unprecedented. With Mitchell expected to resign, the Minnesota Senate will be tied 33-33, and the House is already deadlocked 67-67. pic.twitter.com/vJEX6SyJCe

— Dustin Grage (@GrageDustin) July 18, 2025

(Classical reference in headline.)

READER FAVORITE: Headlamp Rechargeable 3000 High Lumens Super Bright LED Head Lamp for Adults. #CommissionEarned

PARTLY THROUGH U.S. NEGLIGENCE: How China Became the World’s Biggest Shipbuilder.

LEAVE THEM KIDS ALONE:

Migrant punches a man holding a baby at a London underground station, baby falling to the floor.

The English team up and take him down.

The country has had more than enough of this shit!
pic.twitter.com/0aWk5cjRn9

— Tommy Robinson 🇬🇧 (@TRobinsonNewEra) July 18, 2025

(The original URL was to a community note and doesn’t automatically expand. This is to the original tweet now. — Charlie)

GRIFTING WILL WAIT: CA Bill creating LA fire rebuilding agency on hold over backlash.

A controversial California bill that would have created a powerful “Resilient Rebuilding Authority” for the Los Angeles fires was put on temporary hold by state Sen. Ben Allen, D-Santa Monica, in response to widespread community concerns.

“I appreciate the input of the folks who have weighed in about the bill, and along with legislative colleagues have decided that it would be best for us to pause the bill until next year to give us more time to see if we can get it right,” said Allen in a statement on SB 549.

At the Assembly Local Government Committee hearing on Wednesday night, Allen conceded the bill’s lack of clear path for community input into the RRA’s decision making, while hinting at future changes to the legislation in 2026.

“I’m not looking to jam this down people’s throats,” said Allen. “On the community input question, it doesn’t cut out community input. It just doesn’t specify one path or another, so we’re going to have to build significant community input into the governance structure in order for this to pass the smell test with the locals.”

Translation: Dems got caught with their hand so deep in the cookie jar that even the locals noticed

THE USA HAS HAD GOOD PRESIDENTS, AND SOME VERY BAD ONES. THE COMPETITION FOR WORST HAS GOTTEN PRETTY STIFF: Here’s How the Obama Admin ‘Manufactured’ Bogus Russia Hoax Intelligence.

IT’S TIME FOR VICTORIA TAFT’S West Coast, Messed Coast™: Outraged Victims Stop Dems’ Palisades Land Grab at the Point of a Fire Hose. “Between the bizarre woke politicians, woke universities, and woke saboteurs, however, there was winning.”

CLEAN YOUR KEYBOARD: Solareye Compressed Air Duster – 180000RPM Electric Air Duster. #CommissionEarned

GLOBAL WARMING: IS THERE ANYTHING IT CAN’T DO? Germany: After nine underage girls sexually abused by Syrians at swimming pool, CDU mayor points to ‘hot weather.’

After underage girls were sexually assaulted in the Barbarossabad swimming pool in Gelnhausen, the CDU mayor of the area pointed out that “hot weather” makes tempers “fray.”

However, local Mayor Christian Litzinge (CDU) appeared to allude that the weather is at least partly to blame for the incident.

In a statement to Welt, he said: “Of course, it’s always high temperatures, and sometimes tempers are frayed.”

His comments were met with backlash and he has already apologized.

Gelnhausen’s FDP parliamentary group leader, Kolja Saß, told Focus magazine that failures on the part of the city should be addressed:

“When Mayor Litzinger now claims that the matter is being addressed and that the staff acted correctly, this is a mockery of the victims of the sexual assaults and must have consequences,” she said.

Saß said that sexual assaults have been occurring at the pool for a long time and no efforts were taken to prevent further assaults.

That’s not true – the Germans made signs advising frisky full-figured fräuleins (and/or zaftig ginger Vulcans) to cease molesting one-legged Somali pirates:

NO. HE’S LYING BECAUSE HE THINKS YOU’RE STUPID. Has Gavin Newsom Undergone a Miraculous Road to Damascus Gun Rights Conversion?

SUSTAINABILITY: America’s Debt Situation Will Soon Be Worse Than Right After World War II.

The difference between then and now is, now there’s no end in sight.

WELL, GOOD: RFK Jr. Rejects Dystopian WHO Pandemic Amendments.

KEEP YOUR KNIVES SHARP: Orange Ninja 4-Stage Knife Sharpener -Kitchen & Serrated Knife Sharpener. #CommissionEarned

WAIT, WUT? Woman Who Helped Kamala Harris Demonize Brett Kavanaugh Now Works for Trump at DOD. “Samantha Goldstein, who gave more than $19,000 to Democrats in the past three years and called Trump ‘unfit to hold office,’ nonetheless works as an associate deputy general counsel in the DOD under him. She previously served as a special counsel for Harris in 2018.”

YES. NEXT QUESTION? Is Colbert’s Ouster Really Just a ‘Financial Decision?’ CBS no longer deserves the benefit of the doubt.

Building an empire takes decades. Destroying it can take only a few years, and sometimes the vandals are in the palace, not outside the gates.

For much of the 20th century, American broadcast television revolved around three networks: NBC, ABC, and CBS. William S. Paley, CBS’s longtime CEO, made sure that his company—the Columbia Broadcasting Service—was a leader among them. The network was home to Edward R. Murrow, who brought World War II in Europe home to Americans on CBS Radio; after the war, Murrow’s reporting played a pivotal role in bringing down Senator Joseph McCarthy. Walter Cronkite dominated American evenings from his perch at the Evening News. And from the days of Mike Wallace to the more recent era of Lesley Stahl and Scott Pelley, 60 Minutes set the standard for long-form television reporting.

Yet CBS’s current ownership seems determined to demolish this legacy. This evening, the network announced plans to end The Late Show With Stephen Colbert when the host’s contract ends next May. Late-night personalities come and go, but usually that happens when their ratings sag. Colbert, however, has consistently led competitors in his time slot. CBS said this was “purely a financial decision,” made as traditional linear television fades.

Perhaps this is true, but the network that once made Cronkite the most trusted man in America no longer gets the benefit of the doubt.

Why does Cronkite get the benefit of the doubt, given biases his lefty biographer could spot them? Why does CTRL-F “Dan Rather” bring up zero results in the above Atlantic article?

But yes, while Colbert may have sped up his demise by railing against CBS and Trump, ultimately, the late night model is doomed, Jim Geraghty writes:

Someone out there is likely arguing, “CBS should hire Greg Gutfeld!” Indeed, Gutfeld gets about 3 million viewers per night on average, compared to Colbert’s 1.9 million. Alienating, ridiculing, and repelling the entire right-of-center audience, night after night, has not done The Late Show any favors.

But there are signs that the problem is more than just boring left-wing politics infusing the previously relatively apolitical form of entertainment. The old audience for late night just isn’t watching anymore, and younger Americans are turning elsewhere for their entertainment. (Joe Rogan has more than 20 million subscribers on YouTube. That doesn’t mean that every subscriber is listening to or watching every episode, but it does give a sense of the expanse of Rogan’s potential audience for each show.)

If CBS has concluded The Late Show doesn’t make financial sense with any host, you have to wonder what the long-term outlook is for The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Late Night with Seth Meyers, or Jimmy Kimmel Live.

As Christian Toto wrote last night, “Last year, Jimmy Kimmel predicted the late-night TV format might have only 10 years left. Today’s shocking announcement suggests that the timeframe could be cut in half. Maybe two-thirds.”

No doubt, the Federation will be calling in the President of United Earth to investigate what went wrong:

UPDATE: “Late Show has been losing more than $40 million a year for CBS (though that doesn’t include some ancillary revenue). While the show still garners an average of 2.47 million viewers a night, leads its 11:35 rivals in total audience, and just this week was nominated for its ninth consecutive Emmy for outstanding talk/variety series, its ad revenue has plummeted precipitously since the 2021-22 season:”

Linear ratings are down everywhere, of course, and as the Times reported, the network late-night shows took in $439 million combined in ad revenue in 2018. By last year, though, that figure had dropped by 50 percent. Measure that against the more than $100 million per season it costs to produce Late Show. By contrast, the CBS primetime and daytime dayparts are still profitable, and that programming is supported by robust license fees for streaming and other off-network viewing. Late Show, with its topical humor and celebrity interviews pegged to specific projects, has struggled on Paramount+. And of the three network late-night shows, Late Show has by far the smallest digital footprint on YouTube and other platforms.

So from a business perspective, the cancellation makes sense, and Cheeks and his underlings said in a carefully worded press release that “it is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.” But… nothing is just business these days, right? Only three days ago, Colbert unleashed on his parent company for paying a $16 million “big fat bribe” to settle the Trump 60 Minutes litigation. And Colbert, who initially struggled on CBS before rising to first place after he positioned Late Show as a key voice of the Trump 1.0 resistance, regularly attacks the president and often hosts fire-breathing left-wing guests like Sen. Adam Schiff and the Pod Save America guys. If Trump has an enemies list, Colbert is on it.

* * * * * * * *

I’ve sensed that the networks have all been reluctant to be the first to pull the trigger on a cancellation in the historic time slot. CBS has now fired the opening shot, and it’s reasonable to suspect that NBC and ABC will follow. So no, I wouldn’t sleep well tonight if I were Kimmel or Fallon, though both have larger digital footprints and do a lot more for their respective networks. Fallon and Meyers have also been protected by Lorne Michaels, who produces both their shows, though I wonder if even Lorne might recognize that the 12:30 slot is increasingly not viable, and the sacred cows of television are being slaughtered, one by one.

Faster, please.

MORE:

The only people claiming Colbert was cancelled over his politics are the ones who would cancel you over yours.

— Clifton Duncan (@cliftonaduncan) July 18, 2025

DISPATCHES FROM THE WIDE, WIDE WORLD OF DIHYDROGEN MONOXIDE: The boxed water hoax: When green marketing turns toxic.

Once upon a time, choosing paper over plastic felt like a personal environmental victory. It turns out, however, that most of our early information on responsible packaging was wrong.

Plastic bags are greener when you consider all the environmental impacts of both products through a “life cycle analysis.” Measuring and comparing the total impact from production, transportation and disposal are the major determinants when comparing environmental impacts.

Enter boxed water, perhaps the greatest example of eco-theater in modern marketing. Alas, it’s mostly fiction.

These boxes are not simply made of paper. They are constructed from paperboard fused with a thin layer of aluminum to prevent leakage. That thin aluminum layer is the problem, and the lie.

To recycle the box, the paper must be separated from the aluminum. The volume of boxed water consumption is so small that most municipal recycling programs don’t find it worthwhile to employ the technology to separate the materials. In eco-conscious California, that technology is found in not one recycling facility. Zero.

A spokesperson at the uber-environment-focused Natural Resources Defense Council suggested that “it’s a little bit ludicrous to put your water in a carton and claim that that is more sustainable than putting it in a plastic bottle, which is, in fact, more readily recyclable.” The scientists at the Danish Ministry of Environment and researchers at the international consulting firm McKinsey & Co. agree that paper boxes are clear losers for the environment when compared with easily recycled plastic bottles.

The marketing of boxed water as more environmentally sound than plastic is simply false. A class-action lawsuit alleges that cartons are misleading consumers with false claims about recyclability. Here’s where the story goes from deceptive to absurd: To back up its claims, a major boxed water brand sought to justify its marketing claims through a third party. Did it turn to independent scientists or peer-reviewed environmental assessments? No. While in litigation, it agreed to rely on an analysis by the Better Business Bureau, the same organization that had been exposed for selling high ratings to small businesses.

I would assume that the vast majority of America’s top water sommeliers would simply roll their eyes towards Gaia if a customer ever dared to order an infra dig boxed water to pair with their meal.

21st CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Shocked Astronomer CEO’s stunned words as he was caught on Coldplay kisscam cuddling his HR director.

UPDATE:

FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY [VIP]: He Did WHAT With His Prized Lamborghini? “It’s time for your much-needed break from the serious news, and this week, we’ll learn what not to do in the Dollar General arts and crafts aisle, why the chicken shouldn’t cross the road, and when France Man has had enough of that Palestine stuff.”

WELL, SHE CAN’T ADMIT OTHERWISE:

Do you think Sweden became the rape capital of Europe because of Swedish men? https://t.co/hieD92fNPx

— 𝗡𝗶𝗼𝗵 𝗕𝗲𝗿𝗴 ♛ ✡︎ (@NiohBerg) July 18, 2025

Related:

Women when an 18yo sleeps with a 16yo:
“Absolutely disgusting pedophile”

Women when a 14 yo gets brutally gang raped by migrants:
“Err she doesn’t look 14. Can we get an age check?” https://t.co/ENfxJDRzCi

— Prometheus (@CaribbeanRythms) July 18, 2025

WELL, WHEN YOU PUT IT LIKE THAT…:

"Stephen Colbert's legacy will be this…

"He was a gerbil of a man, an establishment shill, a toadie to big government, a follower instead of a trailblazer, a self-involved statist, a moral coward in the face of Woke McCarthyism, and a divisive, self-regarding loser who killed…

— John Ocasio-Rodham Nolte (@NolteNC) July 18, 2025

Full text:

“Stephen Colbert’s legacy will be this…

“He was a gerbil of a man, an establishment shill, a toadie to big government, a follower instead of a trailblazer, a self-involved statist, a moral coward in the face of Woke McCarthyism, and a divisive, self-regarding loser who killed an entire late-night franchise because he sought applause from those who agreed with him instead of laughs from the rest of us.

“Most unforgivably, he sought only the approval of elites because he saw himself as too superior to entertain the rest of us.

“In short, Stephen Colbert will be remembered as a dick.”

Assuming he’s remembered at all.

CNN’S ALLISON MORROW ON THURSDAY MORNING: Trump may have broken Wall Street.

CNBC ON THURSDAY AFTERNOON: S&P 500 rises to new closing record, boosted by solid earnings and U.S. economic data. “The S&P 500 added 0.54% for a record close of 6,297.36 — its ninth this year. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.75% for its tenth record close of 2025, ending at 20,885.65. Both indexes also touched fresh intraday all-time highs. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 229.71 points, or 0.52%, and settled at 44,484.49.”

Please break it some more, Mr. President.

THE CRITICAL DRINKER: Bye, Rian. No More Star Wars For You.

SURE, BUT THEY’D RATHER HAVE THE FREE MONEY: Dear PBS: Independence Can Be Glorious.

WAGES OF LOST TRUST: Few babies getting RSV antibody shot, study says.

NO. NEXT QUESTION? Has Gavin Newsom Undergone a Miraculous Road to Damascus Gun Rights Conversion?