WELL, PUT HIM BACK: Prisoner CNN helped free from Syrian prison was actually notorious Assad-regime torturer.

The prisoner CNN helped free from a secret facility in Syria was actually a notorious member of Bashar al-Assad’s forces known to torture those who refused to pay him off, according to a shocking local fact check.

The network went viral last week with footage of the startled prisoner being led from the prison by journalist Clarissa Ward, who called it “one of the most extraordinary moments I have witnessed” in her 20 years of reporting.

But “independent and unbiased” fact-checkers Verify-Sy published a detailed report Sunday saying that the seemingly innocent prisoner was actually Salama Mohammad Salama — a first lieutenant in Syrian Air Force Intelligence with a long history of alleged war crimes.

“We have subsequently been investigating his background and are aware that he may have given a false identity,” CNN acknoweldged to the Telegraph. “We are continuing our reporting into this and the wider story.”

The CNN story last week showed Ward and a camera crew, escorted by a rebel fighter, visiting a former Syrian Air Force intelligence headquarters in Damascus and freeing the man who was found under a blanket locked in a windowless cell.

Exit quote: “Verify-Sy noted, however, that he appeared ‘well-groomed, and physically healthy, with no visible injuries or signs of torture — an incongruous portrayal of someone allegedly held in solitary confinement in the dark for 90 days.'”

Heckuva job, CNN.

CHANGE? End of the Line for Nancy Pelosi: Hip Fractures, Mortality Rates, and Father Time.

BIDEN MIGHT BE SENILE BUT HE STILL KNOWS HOW TO SERVICE HIS MOST IMPORTANT CONSTITUENTS:

Presidents, and the number of individuals that they have of pardoned, commuted, or rescinded:

– John F Kennedy: 575

– Lyndon B Johnson: 1,187

– Richard Nixon: 926

– Gerald Ford: 409

– Jimmy Carter: 566 people + 200K Vietnam War draft evaders

– Ronald Reagan: 406

-…

— 🇺🇸ProudArmyBrat (@leslibless) December 14, 2024

MEANWHILE, IN THE BLACK SEA: How to Sink Two Oil Tankers With This 1 Weird Trick.

IT WOULD TAKE A HEART OF STONE NOT TO LAUGH: MSNBC and CNN Fight to Dig Out of a Postelection Ratings Hole.

MSNBC averaged 603,000 prime-time viewers from the day after the election through Dec. 8, down by more than half from the network’s year-to-date average through the election, according to Nielsen data. CNN was down 46%, to 401,000 viewers. Meanwhile, Fox News was up 12%, averaging about 2.7 million viewers.

MSNBC and CNN both reported dips for the month following the 2016 election, but they weren’t nearly as steep. CNN’s drop was off a higher baseline.

Partisan viewers “turn away in disgust when it’s the other side having that postelection euphoria,” said Johanna Dunaway, a political science professor and research director of the Syracuse University Institute for Democracy, Journalism and Citizenship.

Dunaway said Democrats and Republicans grow disenchanted with the media and society when their candidates lose. After Biden won in 2020, Fox News’s prime-time viewership fell by 6%. Following Barack Obama’s 2012 win against Mitt Romney in the presidential election, Fox News’s prime-time viewership was down 13%.

Nobody wants to lose 13% or even just 6% of their business. But Fox’s 2012 and 2020 losses were a drop in the ratings bucket compared to CNN and MSNBC this year.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Good Times — The Trump Train Runs Over George Stephanopoulos. “The people who participated in making the Biden years a liberty-choking slog are taking it on the chin now, and it’s a heck of a lot of fun to watch. Trump’s latest roundhouse punch to the Left is one that has been long overdue. The Democrats’ flying monkeys in the mainstream media have been working to undermine the Constitution for decades and most Republicans in Washington have been letting them get away with it.”

HE FINALLY GETS IT:

Van Jones: Donald Trump is smarter than all of us pic.twitter.com/9RyN90mDSb

— Karli Bonne’ 🇺🇸 (@KarluskaP) December 14, 2024

The best part is at the end when Chris Cillizza says, “You’re totally right” while shaking his head “No.”

HMM: Drones Shut Down NY Airport Runway, Even Hochul Says ‘This Has Gone Too Far.’

EVERYTHING IS BIGGER IN RUSSIA: Russian Banks Raise Mortgage Rates To 100% Amid Market Turmoil.

According to Chebeskov, financial institutions are using various tactics to discourage mortgage lending, including additional fees, inflated down payments, and issuing part of the loan under market rates far above state-supported programs.

“We are working with the Central Bank to eliminate these extreme practices,” Chebeskov stated, adding that such schemes violate the principles of fair lending. The Central Bank confirmed the rise of such tactics, noting that some banks exploit state-backed combo mortgage programs by applying exorbitant rates to the market-linked portion of the loan.

Economist Olga Gogaladze explained that borrowers resort to these programs when home prices surpass state-subsidized limits. With Moscow’s average apartment price at 20.3 million rubles (and Russia’s national average at 6.2 million rubles, many homebuyers must seek costly supplementary loans.

Analysts warn that unless market stability improves, Russia’s already paralyzed property market will soon enter freefall.

A $350,000 loan at 100% for 30 years requires a monthly payment of $29,167. Which, if you’re trying to put a damper on a housing market, ought to do the trick.

IT’S FAIR TO ASK IF THE BIG GUY AT LEAST GOT HIS TEN PERCENT: It Turns Out That Biden Never Considered the ‘Specifics’ of the 1500 Clemency Cases He Commuted.

THE FIFTEEN MILLION DOLLAR MAN:

ABC TOOK AWAY HIS SOCIAL MEDIA PRIVILEGES LMAAAAOOOOOOO https://t.co/wYQKy6V1k5

— Oilfield Rando (@Oilfield_Rando) December 15, 2024

Neither ABC nor Stephanopoulos said anything but this speaks volumes: ABC News settles defamation suit with Trump for $15 million.

ABC News will pay $15 million to a “presidential foundation and museum” in a settlement reached with President-elect Donald Trump in his defamation suit against the network and anchor George Stephanopoulos.

The settlement, which was filed publicly Saturday, reveals the network will also pay $1 million in Trump’s attorneys’ fees and will issue an apology.

ABC News will issue the following statement as an editor’s note on the online article at the center of the suit: “ABC News and George Stephanopoulos regret statements regarding President Donald J. Trump made during an interview by George Stephanopoulos with Rep. Nancy Mace on ABC’s This Week on March 10, 2024.”

“We are pleased that the parties have reached an agreement to dismiss the lawsuit on the terms in the court filing,” an ABC News spokesperson wrote in a statement.

Trump filed the lawsuit in Florida federal court earlier this year, arguing that Stephanopoulos and ABC News defamed him when the anchor said 10 times during a contentious on-air interview with South Carolina GOP Rep. Nancy Mace in March that a jury found Trump had “raped” E. Jean Carroll.

Trump will be pleased every time he remembers his future presidential foundation was funded in part by ABC.

HMM: Why Hasn’t Trump Said Anything About All the Drones? Weird, No?

UPDATE: You ask, Trump answers. “Can this really be happening without our government’s knowledge. I don’t think so! Let the public know, and now. Otherwise, shoot them down!!!”

FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY [VIP]: Stole a Rolls, Made His Own Drive-Thru. “It’s time for your much-needed break from the serious news, and this week, we have the man who really missed the Checkers drive-thru, how not to order sex on the beach, and Virginia Man shoplifting in front of 50 cops.”

BEST. CITY NAME. EVER.

SpaceX HQ will now officially be in the city of Starbase, Texas! https://t.co/zpN4t3mJQT

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 13, 2024

Please get this done, Judge Treviño.

IT’S TIME FOR VICTORIA TAFT’S West Coast, Messed Coast™ — Oh, Geez, Now It’s Happening in Oregon. “We’ve been wondering about those drones in New Jersey, but now Oregon has just said: Hold my IPA.”

OUCH: YouTube TV Raises Price 14%, to $83 per Month, Citing ‘Rising Cost of Content.’

YouTube TV is getting more expensive — outpacing the rate of inflation — with a 14% price increase for the streaming pay-TV package going into effect for new customers immediately.

The cost of a new YouTube TV base plan subscription is increasing from $72.99 to $82.99, starting Dec. 12, 2024, for new users, the company said in a message to customers Thursday. The new price will go into effect Jan. 13, 2025, for most existing users, while those on existing trials and promotional rates “will not be affected.” The increase is “due to the rising cost of content,” according to YouTube.

With the higher fee, YouTube TV has now more than doubled in price in just under five years, from $40/month as of March 2018 to $83/month.

Has the value of the content doubled?

COME SEE THE VIOLENCE INHERENT IN THE LEFTISM: ‘Understandable’ Violence and the Left. “Anger is natural. A desire to peacefully bring about change through the democratic process is natural. Wishing murder on civilians because of your own pathological immaturity is not natural.”

It certainly seems to be becoming habitual in some corners.

SYRIA GOES OUT OF THE FRYING PAN…

Female judges now excluded from courts in Syria.

The first step taken by Syria's new justice minister, Shadi Alwaisi, is to decree that female judges will be banned from courts that are now reserved exclusively for men. All pending cases handled by women will have to be… pic.twitter.com/D0VAZxmcGn

— Daniel Pawłowski (@pavvlovvsky13) December 12, 2024

…and into the sharia fire.

BLUE ON BLUE: It’s AOC vs. The Wicked Witch of the West in Oversight Committee Slugfest.

VIDEO: Diversity != Strength. “The ritual cliche invoked by the social justice left is that ‘diversity is strength.’ But as the Irish mother in the video notes, importing waves of unassimilated foreigners into local communities doesn’t strengthen them at all.”

NEVER CHANGE, ATLANTIC: Political Violence Is Kinda Mainstream, Ackshully.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: ‘Multilevel classes’ aren’t equitable or excellent, say teachers.

Mixing high-achieving, average and low-achieving students in the same class was a noble experiment, writes Ryan Normandin, a high school math and physics teacher in Newton, Massachusetts. But it’s not working in math, science and foreign language classes. Everyone learns less, he writes. The students who need the most support are doing the worst.

Tracking isn’t perfect, he writes. It can be hard for students to move up a level. Students tend to segregate by achievement and by race and ethnicity: Black, Hispanic and low-income students disproportionately take lower-level classes.

Multilevel classes in English and history had some success, writes Normandin. Students opted in. Teachers got support. Then administrators expanded the model to math, science and world languages, subjects that build on previous learning.

After three years, nearly all teachers at Newton South High, where he chairs the Faculty Council, say the model is failing students and exhausting teachers.

The only people who seem truly surprised by outcomes like this one are the experts.

BIDENFLATION:

🚨 INFLATION IS BACK UP 🚨

Wonder why?

The Fed has worked to quietly pump another $650 billion newly created dollars into the market over the last year.

This artificially gave the economy a buzz before the election, but now comes the inflation hangover.

As the money supply… pic.twitter.com/EzYuswALvL

— Richard A. Stern (@RichAStern) December 13, 2024

Plus this gem from Peter St. Onge in response: “The more the Fed prints, the greedier the grocers get.”

Flashback: Joe Biden, Milton Friedman, and the Tyranny of Tiny Minds.

Of all the stupid, petty, bigoted things Presidentish Biden ever sputtered, none bothers me so much as “Milton Friedman isn’t running the show anymore.”

In April of last year, when Biden’s $5 trillion “Build Back Better” scheme was first percolating in the dark, shriveled mass that was once his frontal lobe, the then-candidate told POLITICO he wanted “a new stimulus ‘a hell of a lot bigger’ than $2 trillion.”

“Milton Friedman isn’t running the show anymore,” a reportedly “fiery” Biden told POLITICO’s Michael Grunwald.

It wasn’t Biden’s first run-in with the libertarian-leaning, Nobel Prize-winning economist.

That was 2021. Biden spent his entire term butting heads with the late Friedman — and losing.

Blame it on the grocers, kulaks, hoarders, or the Jews, but in the end, “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.”

IT MIGHT BE THE ONLY CARD THEY HAVE LEFT TO PLAY: Iran’s Next Move Is Playing the Nuclear Card.

PAYBACK: Top Russian Cruise Missile Engineer Gunned Down Near Moscow.

Mikhail Shatsky was found dead in the Kuzminki forest park in the suburb of Kotelniki southeast of Moscow this week.

Shatsky was deputy chief of design and head of software at the Moscow Experimental Design Bureau Mars, which develops automatic control and navigation systems for satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles. Mars is part of Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom.

Exiled opposition journalist Alexander Nevzorov, who first broke the news of the assassination, said Shatsky also oversaw upgrades of Kh-59 missiles into the low-flying subsonic Kh-69 versions.

The upgrades must be going well enough or Putin might have had him thrown out a window.