THE ODYSSEY OF THE ICE CREAM SOCIALIST COMES TO ITS CONCLUSION: Biden orders milkshakes in bizarre behind-the-scenes video of final days in White House.

Sir, this is the White House.

President Biden’s staff released a behind-the-scenes video Thursday of the retiring president ordering milkshakes and chatting with staff during his final days as commander in chief.

Biden, 82, was shown asking for the dairy treat twice — in one instance being told he’d have to wait for the blended confection to be prepared.

“I’m going to miss you. I just came down to say hi, and by the way, can you make me a milkshake?” the leader of the free world asked a staffer at the Navy Mess on the floor below the Oval Office.

“Yeah, just give me like five minutes,” the male staffer said.

In another clip, a female Mess employee said to the president: “A chocolate milkshake? You want one? On it, sir!”

Biden, joined by adviser Amos Hochstein, proceeds to walk around the executive grounds with a chocolate syrup-lined ice-cream-sundae glass.

“Honestly Biden aimlessly wandering the halls of the White House slurping a milkshake is pretty much how I thought the last 4 years went,” one X user snarked, summing up the thoughts of many conservatives. “It all tracks.”

It really does, alas:

BREAKING: Fox News cuts to Joe Biden expecting him to speak on the Nashville shooting, instead finds him ranting about eating Jeni’s chocolate chip ice cream.pic.twitter.com/6rJsFL2dAN

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) March 27, 2023

THE AXIOS OF EVIL:

Step 1 – engage in the largest coverup of a president’s mental condition in the history of the United States https://t.co/wyXkfw9OPI

— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) January 17, 2025

Flashback: Axios CEO Beclowns Himself Defending Journalisming.

The best part of this sanctimonious rant is when he uses Qatari-funded Al Jazeera as an exemplar of a media outlet that does real truth-seeking reporting without fear or favor. https://t.co/AIeOH5Ga9W

— Philip Klein (@philipaklein) November 25, 2024

RUY TEIXEIRA: The Sad Tale of Moderate Joe Biden — he blew it.

Joe Biden, by and large, did not participate in this race to the left. Instead, he took advantage of both his primary opponents’ radical ideas and the chaos of Trump’s governance by striking a moderate note, promising to pursue progressive but sensible policies, restore the “soul of America,” provide the help Americans needed to get through the crisis, and, of course and above all, beat Donald Trump. This was a congenial message to the Democratic primary electorate, starting with black voters in South Carolina on February 29 and running through every demographic on Super Tuesday and beyond. It turned out that, despite the strenuous appeals of many candidates to the party’s rising left, most Democratic primary voters had more pragmatic and moderate views than the media-anointed advocates for a more radical party. Other candidates’ failure to understand this emptied the field for Biden, who cruised to the nomination after Super Tuesday.

Then a funny thing happened which was a “tell” on whether Biden intended to govern—as opposed to run—as a moderate. Usually, candidates attempt to move toward the center in preparation for a general-election campaign. But Biden did the reverse. He formed six “unity task forces” jointly coordinated by Biden and Bernie Sanders campaign figures, covering climate change, criminal-justice reform, the economy, education, health care, and immigration. The co-chairs included such lions of the left as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Pramila Jayapal, then-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and the task forces themselves were well stocked with Sanders (and Elizabeth Warren) supporters. The task forces produced a blizzard of positions and language considerably to the left of the “moderate, normie” politics upon which Biden had built his successful campaign. And these positions and language found their way into the Democratic Party platform, were incorporated into Biden’s campaign promises and, importantly, determined how the Biden administration made staffing and policy decisions. Despite Biden and his team’s initial insistence that the strenuous leftism found on Twitter wasn’t real life, by the end of the campaign they seemed to be quite happy to act as though it was.

Sure enough, once the Biden administration was up and running, moderation was conspicuous by its absence. First, there were the executive orders that, among other things, dramatically loosened the rules for dealing with illegal immigrants (pleasing progressive immigration advocacy groups), cancelled the Keystone XL pipeline and paused oil and gas leasing on Federal lands (pleasing progressive climate groups) and instituted a sweeping, government-wide effort to promote “equity” (pleasing the congeries of progressive identity-focused groups). He also signaled his support for transgender activists by appointing a transwoman, Rachel “gender-affirming care is settled science” Levine, as Assistant Secretary for Health and de facto administration spokesperson on transgender issues. And Biden repeatedly referred to transgender equality as “the civil rights issue of our time.”

None of this suggested a moderate approach targeted to the bulk of voters who had put him in office but rather one focused on pleasing the progressive wing of his party. The ordinary voters that supported Biden had bought the image of moderate “Scranton Joe” who would restore normality to the country after the stormy Trump years and the double whammy of a pandemic and subsequent economic crash. They were not really looking for a “transformational” president.

Given the worldview of the DNC-MSM, the media would never complain about Biden feigning right on the campaign trail and then governing far to the left of his campaign promises. This has been the frequent approach of Democrat presidents all the way back to FDR on the stump in 1932. We know that by 2024 Biden was simply a husk of a man, but his mental and physical decline was dramatically apparent even while he was campaigning during the 2020 election cycle.

How much was Biden simply a puppet and a teleprompter reader right from the start of his presidency with little or no input on the decisions of the administration that bears his name? Who was actually making the decisions? And how did the DNC-MSM maintain such media discipline until it no longer needed to?

HEY GROK, WRITE A MOVIE OUTLINE THAT’S A CROSS BETWEEN DOWNFALL, WAG THE DOG, THE FINAL DAYS, AND MEAN GIRLS: Karine Jean-Pierre Pisses Off Lapdog Press By Bumping John Kirby and His “Peace Deal” Briefing to Focus on Her “Goodbye Party.”

TREASURY SECRETARY NOMINEE SCHOOLS RON WYDEN: “China will build 100 new coal plants this year. There is not a clean energy race. There is an energy race.”

DEMOCRACY DIES IN HACKNEYED CLICHES: The Washington Post’s New Mission: Reach ‘All of America.’ This week, the Post began trying out a new mission statement: “Riveting Storytelling for All of America.”

After Donald J. Trump entered the White House in 2017, The Washington Post adopted a slogan that underscored the newspaper’s traditional role as a government watchdog: “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”

This week, as Mr. Trump prepares to re-enter the White House, the newspaper debuted a mission statement that evokes a more expansive view of The Post’s journalism, without death or darkness: “Riveting Storytelling for All of America.”

The statement is meant to be an internal rallying point for employees, according to two people with knowledge of the decision. Executives are not planning to replace its more strident public slogan. Suzi Watford, The Post’s chief strategy officer, has been previewing it to some employees this week.

To be fair, the Bezos Post will have to have some seriously “riveting” storytelling to make up for the Graham family’s earlier attempts to really push the envelope. Come back Janet Cooke and Mark Felt, all is forgiven!

WAPO’S PULITZER-WINNING CARTOONIST, WHO PORTRAYS REPUBLICANS AS GROOMERS AND PREDATORS, ARRESTED FOR POSSESSION OF CHILD PORN.

Darrin Bell, the cartoonist who made this, was just arrested with child porn on his computer pic.twitter.com/lVuUVhRfB0

— Joel Berry (@JoelWBerry) January 16, 2025

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS NOBODY IS ASKING: Huh? CBS Wonders If Biden Will Be Compared to FDR and Washington or Wilson and JFK.

CBS’s Ed O’Keefe wonders if Biden will be compared in the history books “alongside Franklin Roosevelt and LBJ and George Washington in terms of great presidents who did big things or does he end up in the conversation with Woodrow Wilson and James Garfield and John Kennedy of, if they had lived longer, if they had been healthy enough, if they had been able to do more, how would we have assessed them.”

And he’s right!

● Students demand removal of George Washington statue … from the University of Washington … in the state of Washington.

—Not the Bee, February 20, 2021.

● Woodrow Wilson’s reputation continues to decline.

—The Economist, November 21^st, 2024.

● The Hater’s Guide to Woodrow Wilson.

— Dan McLaughlin, NRO, March 16^th, 2022.

● FDR’s policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate.

—Frontiers of Freedom, December 14^th, 2015.

● New Documents Reveal FDR’s Eugenic Project to ‘Resettle’ Jews During World War II.

—Steve Usdin, Tablet, April 29, 2018.

● How JFK secretly ADMIRED Hitler: Explosive book reveals former President’s praise for the Nazis as he travelled through Germany before Second World War.

—The London Daily Mail, May 23, 2013.

● The Fascist New Frontier.

—Speech by Ayn Rand, 1963.

—All the President’s [JFK’s] Women.

—The New York Post, November 10^th, 2013.

● JFK and the Death of Liberalism.

—Jeffrey Lord, the American Spectator, May 31^st, 2012.

● Lyndon Johnson: The Not-So-Great Society.

—Video from Amity Shlaes, the author of Great Society, at PragerU.

● Poverty in the U.S. Was Plummeting—Until Lyndon Johnson Declared War On It.

—Daniel J, Mitchell, Foundation for Economic Education, October 16^th, 2018.

So by a process of elimination, Garfield’s looking pretty awesome in comparison. And anybody who’s been portrayed over the years by Lorenzo Music, Bill Murray and Chris Pratt can’t be all bad.

FAFO, OLD TOFF: How it started: British Labour Party sending staff to campaign for Harris in US swing states.

The left-leaning British Labour Party is sending nearly 100 members to U.S. battleground states to campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of the presidential election.

Sofia Patel, head of operations for the Labour Party, shared the plans via LinkedIn Wednesday. She claimed current and former party staff will target key swing states like North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

“I have 10 spots available for anyone available to head to the battleground state of North Carolina – we will sort your housing,” Patel offered in the post.

Patel also noted she plans to arrive in the U.S. two weeks prior to the election and stay in Washington, D.C., for a few days afterward.

Patel’s profile shows she previously spent time in the Hillary Clinton campaign from October to November of 2016. She included the description “travelled to the US to campaign for Clinton in the presidential election.”

Reacting to Patel’s post was Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., who suggested via X it was “yet another reason to vote for President Trump.”

—Mobile Alabama’s NBC affiliate, WPMI, October 17th 2024.

How it’s going: Tears for Keir: No Matter How Often Starmer Checks the Mail, There’s No Inauguration Invite.

This time around, Mr Trump is breaking with tradition by inviting foreign presidents and prime ministers to the event, which is not usually the case for US oath-taking ceremonies.

Reports indicate he has raised a record-breaking over $170 million (nearly £140 million) for the inauguration, with tech executives and major donors contributing large sums to support the ceremony.

This figure is also twice the $62 million secured by Joe Biden four years ago for his inauguration, which Trump did not attend. He became the fifth outgoing president not to attend his successor’s inauguration and the first in 152 years. Biden confirmed he would “of course” attend Trump’s presidential inauguration.

While the complete guest list has yet to be announced, several key global leaders have already been asked. Keir Starmer’s name, however, appears absent from the initial guest list.

—As spotted by Beege Welborn at Hot Air, yesterday.

OUT ON A LIMB: White House reporters who hid Biden’s infirmity can’t be trusted.

Even after The Wall Street Journal published a four-byline bombshell detailing how President Joe Biden’s staff energetically hid his ongoing cognitive decline from the public, there wasn’t a single question at the White House briefing. No reporters demanded answers about how they were misled, or complained they were pressured into silence.

They mustered that umbrage over the Hunter Biden pardon, but this slow-rolling scandal was apparently too painful to recount. Perhaps they thought that since Joe Biden was talked out of a reelection bid, the matter was settled. This scandal is already over. But Trump scandals never stop emerging.

Radio host Hugh Hewitt proclaimed he had been calling Biden “infirm” for two years but didn’t know the depth of the infirmity that’s now been revealed. Everyone inside the White House must have known, including the reporters. He said they were “either explicitly complicit or recklessly indifferent” to Biden’s decline.

Hewitt upset knee-jerk defenders of the media when he said, “With the exception of Peter Doocy, I would ban everyone from the White House press room who has been there for the past four years because they are obviously of no use to the country. They didn’t tell us the No. 1 thing, which is that [Biden] is not competent. Why in the world would Trump let them in?”

Why indeed? Expect Big Changes in the White House Press Room as Trump Will All But Sideline Legacy Media.

UNWINDING WOKE: America’s Classless Act.

America’s lower class is not revolutionary but aspirational, which is why Trump—who uses his fantastic wealth to express notably plebeian tastes for things like Big Macs and gold plating—can seem to millions of more modestly situated voters like “one of them.” In the terms of the American class system, he is—since our class markers have less to do with money and more to do with cultural sensibility.

Vanity Fair contributing editor Fran Liebowitz was being snide when she said that Trump is “a poor person’s idea of a rich person,” but she was also hitting on a foundational element of his appeal. In American terms, Trump is fundamentally aligned with the working poor because he doesn’t look down on them and because, though he has more money than them, he uses it (and regards them) in ways they find appealing. He may have grown up extremely wealthy and moved to Manhattan—but he’s still Donald from Queens. In European terms, Americans voted for Trump in record numbers in 2024 because we have no class.

Unless and until the American Left relearns that lesson, they will remain in the political wilderness. Mr. Trump’s victory represents our desire for a president who sees his job as serving the broad middle class, against the woke on one side and the aristocratic technocracy on the other. Enacting this attitude as a matter of public policy, however, will be much more of a challenge than one might think.

Read the whole thing.

REPORT: Hunter Biden Artworks Worth ‘Millions of Dollars’ Burned Up in LA Fires.

Remember Hunter Biden’s supposed stint as an artist? It was, without doubt, one of the shallowest, most obvious money-laundering efforts undertaken by any member of the Biden family, and that’s really saying something. Hunter’s “art” was reminiscent of what might result from a bomb going off in a paint factory when a truck loaded with bolts of canvas sat parked outside; a talented kindergartner could finger-paint more compelling art than Hunter’s best efforts. But somehow, Hunter’s daubs gained some acclaim in the art community – at least the art community that was willing to help the Biden family to launder bribes – and the paintings sold for, wonder of wonders, a lot of money.

But hey, they sold to anonymous buyers. Give me a break.

Now, the New York Post is breaking the exclusive, heartbreaking story of how Hunter Biden paintings and other artworks worth “millions of dollars” have, according to a source close to the Biden family, reportedly burned up in the ongoing LA-area wildfires.

A trove of nearly 200 artworks by Hunter Biden has been destroyed — one of the casualties of the wildfires ravaging Los Angeles, The Post has learned.

The controversial art had been in storage near the Pacific Palisades home of Hunter’s Hollywood attorney Kevin Morris and is valued at “millions of dollars,” a source close to the Biden family said.

Morris, who loaned the first son nearly $5 million to help pay a tax bill and has been financing a documentary on him, lives in a sprawling five-bedroom, six-bathroom home which is among the few houses still intact in the posh neighborhood, The Post can confirm.

Still though, look on the upside: In the midst of responding to the unspeakable, unending horror in California, Flo from Progressive and Jake from State Farm are about to break the tension with some massive laughs:

LMFAO. Imagine the insurance adjusters face when they file this claim. https://t.co/ZgoDqwunie

— Prison Mitch (@MidnightMitch) January 15, 2025

TEAM BIDEN COMES FULL CIRCLE: How it started: Jim Treacher: Happy Anniversary to Hunter’s Laptop.

Four years ago today, my Twitter account was instantly suspended for posting the following picture:

That’s Hunter Biden. The photo came from the laptop he abandoned at a Delaware repair shop, less than five miles from his father’s house.

Vladimir Putin didn’t take that snapshot. He didn’t plant the laptop. It belonged to Hunter, who then abandoned it and lost legal custody of it because he’s a drug addict.

And yet when I posted that photo in October 2020, just weeks before the election, my Twitter account was instantly locked down.

I don’t mean within minutes, either. The instant I clicked the button to post that, I was locked out of my account.

Here’s the warning I received:

I had been censored. Lil’ ol’ me!

So I removed the tweet, under duress, to restore access to my account.

As it turned out, I was far from the only one. Anybody who shared any part of that news story — and it is a news story — got instantly locked down by Twitter. You couldn’t even share the URL of the original NY Post story. A complete blackout.

The Democrats wanted Trump out of the White House, and they thought this story would interfere with that. So they locked it down.

How it ended: New US ‘oligarchy’ threatens democracy, Biden warns in farewell speech.

Speaking from the Oval Office, the outgoing US President criticised social media bosses who are “giving up on fact checking” and burying Americans in an “avalanche of disinformation and misinformation”.

Mr Biden’s comments will be interpreted as a thinly veiled attack on Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, the billionaire owners of X and Facebook, who have scrapped fact checkers on their platforms, claiming they hinder free speech.

Channelling President Dwight Eisenhower, Mr Biden warned of the “potential rise of a tech industrial complex” threatening to undermine US democracy.

Mr Eisenhower, a former US army general, spoke in his 1961 farewell address about the rise of a “military-industrial complex”.

Mr Biden said: “Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation, enabling the abuse of power. The free press is crumbling. Editors are disappearing. Social media is giving up on fact checking.

“The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit. We must hold the social platforms accountable to protect our children, our families, and our very democracy from the abuse of power.”

Biden’s speechwriters have to be trolling us on the way, knowing that Joe is too far gone to remind them there’s no way he can mention disinformation and social media, because everyone will bring up the mass censoring of the New York Post and anyone who mentioned Hunter’s laptop in 2020. Or as Glenn wrote last year in the aforementioned Post: Hunter’s laptop, Wuhan and more: ‘Disinformation’ and ‘conspiracies’ turn out to be true — again and again.

RON BURGUNDY WILL READ ANYTHING THAT IS PUT ON THAT TELEPROMPTER!

Biden spent his entire career crapping all over journalists, the vast majority of whom were members of his own party — and who circled the wagons to keep him in power, long after his mental decline was more than obvious. He doesn’t get to suddenly play the “free press is crumbling” game on his way out the door.

ISRAEL, HAMAS REACH DEAL TO RELEASE HOSTAGES, PAUSE FIGHTING IN GAZA:

Leaders of Israel and the Hamas terrorist organization have agreed to the outlines of a cease-fire that would pause the brutal 15-month military campaign in Gaza launched in response to the October 7 terror attack, according to multiple reports from the Middle East.

The deal, which needs to be ratified by Israel’s cabinet, comes after months of negotiations between the two sides over a multi-phased plan that would include the release of hostages held by Hamas in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

President Joe Biden announced the deal from the White House on Wednesday, saying it comes after more than “15 months of terror for the hostages, their families, the Israeli people” and “15 months of suffering by the innocent people of Gaza.”

“Media reports a few minutes ago claimed that the deal had been concluded,” Ed Morrissey adds. “Netanyahu’s office says not so fast:”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office says ceasefire deal with Hamas has still not been reached and that the final details were still being sorted out. That comes after multiple mediators had said Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire in Gaza and the release dozens of hostages after more than 15 months of war.

That’s because the terrorists tried to play the Hamas Hokey Pokey again:

The Israeli negotiating team was recently informed that Hamas decided at the last minute to make new demands – this time regarding the Philadelphi corridor, in contrast to the maps that have already been approved by the cabinet and American mediators.

Israel strongly opposed any changes to these maps, the source said.

An informed source told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that Hamas found a “loophole” in the agreed-upon deal, with Egypt agreeing to amend the deal and “close the loophole” based on Hamas’s demands in the latter stages and in coordination with the Israeli team, as per the Arab media report.

As I wrote earlier, don’t count on this deal holding up until the hostages get released. And even if it holds up through Phase I, don’t be surprised when Hamas reneges and demands a renegotiation at that point, too.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE:

Biden: I got the Israel-Hamas deal done

Netanyahu: Thank you Trump for getting this deal done

Brutal. pic.twitter.com/HqED61euQx

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) January 16, 2025

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Joanne Jacobs: Students want A’s for trying hard, B’s for (mostly) showing up.

Psychologist Carol Dweck persuaded teachers and parents to praise Gen Z children for effort, not their abilities, to create a “growth mindset,” Grant writes. “The idea of lauding persistence quickly made its way into viral articles, best-selling books and popular TED talks. It resonated with the Protestant work ethic and reinforced the American dream that with hard work, anyone could achieve success.”

Earlier: The Anxious Generation: Jonathan Haidt on why today’s young people are so anxious.

WELCOME TO THE ERA OF PERSONALITY MEDIA:

Pay-check journalists largely relied on hefty corporate salaries to sate their egos. Who, though, will cough up $7 a month to read Jennifer Rubin? The ultimate irony in all of this is the former corporate media scolds who are vehemently anti-Trump are becoming just like him — hoping to brand their own name for profit in media. That is how Trump made his billions, by emblazoning his name on casinos, hotels and television shows. Now a slew of media personalities are attempting a Trump act of their own: say the most outrageous thing the loudest to draw as many eyeballs to them as possible.

Chuck Todd scored a nice salary off the back of sales from the 30 Rockefeller gift shop. But who is going out of their way to purchase a Chuck Todd T-shirt? For better or worse, this new era of “personality journalism” will likely confirm the worst impulses of corporate media personalities — that they have always been driven by a thirst for celebrity, not truth in broadcasting. As Jennifer Rubin attempts to out-crazy Don Lemon, who attempts to out-crazy Chris Cillizza for a smaller and smaller piece of the pie, chances are their critics will be exonerated.

Speaking of which:

🚨Jen Rubin falsely reports that Pete Hegseth was unable to answer allegations of sex with minors in yesterday’s confirmation hearings.

No such allegations exist or were asked about. This is outright defamation. pic.twitter.com/OR3gL6W6kF

— Bluesky Libs (@BlueskyLibs) January 15, 2025

But what will happen to the biggest showboaters of them all, who still have their legacy corporate brands behind them? Expect Big Changes in the White House Press Room as Trump Will All But Sideline Legacy Media.

MY HOVERCRAFT IS FULL OF EELS: AI tool lets users speak another language without learning a word.

A live translation tool could soon enable people to engage in conversations in real-time despite speaking different languages.

Facebook parent company Meta has launched a tool called Seamless which is able to take spoken or written communication and convert it almost instantly into another language.

The technology is able to work on more than 100 different languages and the Meta engineers behind the technology hope to one day create a real-life version of the talking Babel Fish gadget from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

In the book, the tool enables translation but modern technology has not yet been able to match the fictional capabilities.

I’m sure eventually, we’ll have the full Star Trek universal translator, but getting there is going to be quite a ride:

LOS ANGELES MEGA-FIRE: The Tragic Consequence of Protecting Shrubs Before People:

In 2019, the LA Department of Water and Power (LADWP) began replacing nearly 100-year-old power line poles cutting through Topanga State Park, when the project was halted within days by conservationists outraged that federally endangered Braunton’s milkvetch plants had been trampled during the process.

…But, after an amateur botanist hiking through the park during the work saw the harm done to some of the park’s Braunton’s milkvetch — a flowering shrub with only a few thousand specimens remaining in the wild — and complained, the project was completely halted, Courthouse News Service reported.

Instead of fire-hardening the park, the city — which the state said had undertaken the work without proper permitting — ended up paying $2 million in fines and was ordered by the California Coastal Commission to reverse the whole project and replant the rare herb.

That work saved about 200 Braunton’s milkvetch plants — almost all of which have now likely been torched in the wildfires that consumed Topanga Canyon, along with nearly 24,000 acres (37 square miles) of some of LA’s most sought-after real estate.

The LAWDP had crews and equipment there, and yet the whining of a virtue-signalling “expert” stopped fire prevention.

I am beyond angry now, and there are no words that can adequately express my rage.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: John Nolte: Jon Stewart’s Stupid Meltdown Over ‘Conditional’ Federal Wildfire Aid Falls Flat. “A decent person would be thrilled if federal aid came with conditions that forced California Democrats to do what they have so far refused — everything possible to protect the lives and property of its citizens. In his defense, Jon Stewart is a firefighter. No matter the danger to his credibility and integrity, he’s the first on the scene to put fires out for Democrats. Clown.”

TEAM BIDEN GOING OUT WITH A BANG: President Joe Biden removed Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, according to a White House announcement Tuesday.

The White House said Cuba has not provided aid to a terrorist organization for the last six months and provided no indication that it would sponsor terrorism, according to the announcement. Cuba was previously put on the list by the president-elect Donald Trump’s first administration, saying the regime does “oppress its people” and also supported the National Liberation Army, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, according to the U.S. Embassy in Cuba on Jan. 11, 2021.

“The United States will continue to support the Cuban people in their desire for a democratic government and respect for human rights, including freedom of religion, expression, and association,” the U.S. Embassy in Cuba said in 2021 announcing the most recent designation. “Until these rights and freedoms are respected, we will continue to hold the regime accountable.”

Earlier: Surprise! Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is a life-long rabid supporter of communism and the Cuban dictatorship.

SHE IS LARGE; SHE CONTAINS MULTITUDES: Stacey Abrams group to pay largest fine for campaign violations in Georgia history.

A voting rights group founded by Stacey Abrams will pay $300,000 for illegally supporting her 2018 gubernatorial campaign — the largest fine ever assessed for violating Georgia campaign finance laws.

Under a consent order approved by the State Ethics Commission on Wednesday, the New Georgia Project admitted it raised and spent millions of dollars to support Abrams’ unsuccessful campaign without registering as an independent political committee and disclosing its activities, as required by state law. It also supported the campaigns of other Democratic candidates that year, as well as the unsuccessful 2019 Gwinnett County MARTA referendum.

In all, the New Georgia Project and an affiliated group, the New Georgia Project Action Fund, admitted to 16 violations of state campaign finance laws.

It’s a dramatic about-face for a group that for years denied it did anything improper and mocked the investigation as a politically motivated “fishing expedition.” On Wednesday, it admitted to every allegation the commission had leveled against it.

To be fair, her campaign to be governor was merely a stepping stone towards the ultimate prize:

PAM BONDI GLORIOUSLY OUTSMARTED DICK DURBIN:

Despite claiming concern over actions that Donald Trump might take, which Joe Biden himself actually did, Durbin continues to grandstand by pretending to be concerned that Trump is going to violate the Constitution and whether Bondi will say “no” to Trump when he does.

He even brought up the 2020 election as an example, and Bondi blindsided him by pointing out his deception.

“He said to the Georgia secretary of state, find 11,780 votes,” Durbin told her reference

“Do you have the entire context of that call?” Bondi asked. “I feel like it was long — much longer than that, and may have been taken out of context.”

“It was an hour long,” Durbin admitted.

“Right,” Bondi replied.

Bondi’s point pans out because reading the transcript of the call proves that Trump’s words show he was actually arguing that a thorough investigation would reveal evidence of fraudulent votes that altered the outcome of the election, not that he was directly asking Raffensperger to “find” 11,780 votes for him. Trump was emphasizing his belief that the election was marred by irregularities, and he insisted that uncovering these discrepancies would restore the rightful results with his victory in Georgia. The request for “11,780 votes” was a response to the reports of fraudulent activities, not a demand to fabricate votes.

Related:

You’re a little late, Dick https://t.co/FpKCoqJjVJ

— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) January 15, 2025

More: Pam Bondi Helps Dem Sen. Mazie Hirono Make a Fool of Herself at ANOTHER Hearing.

Scott Adams ponders the horror — the horror — of what we’re watching this week:

I have bad news.

Those were their smartest members. https://t.co/Dq3eOtdFdX

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) January 15, 2025

ONE MAN’S TERRORIST IS ANOTHER MAN’S FREEDOM FIGHTER: BBC blasted after hiring new boss from Canada who told journalists not to call Hamas ‘terrorists.’

(Classical reference in headline.)

OPEN THREAD: Wherever you go, that’s where you are.

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD IS SEVERELY TEMPTING FATE HERE: