Authored by Jackson Richman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration cannot withhold billions of dollars in foreign assistance approved by Congress, including aid that the White House recently said it would not spend.

The Trump administration must release $11.5 billion in foreign aid that is set to expire at the end of the month, said U.S. District Judge Amir Ali in a Sept. 3 decision.

“There is not a plausible interpretation of the statutes that would justify the billions of dollars they plan to withhold,” Ali wrote in his ruling.

“To be clear, no one disputes that Defendants have significant discretion in how to spend the funds at issue, and the Court is not directing Defendants to make payments to any particular recipients. But Defendants do not have any discretion as to whether to spend the funds.”

The Trump administration last week requested that Congress rescind $4.9 billion in foreign aid. The $11.5 billion figure includes the $4.9 billion.

In accordance with the Impoundment Control Act, a rescission is when the White House requests Congress to reverse government funding that has been appropriated by Congress. Typically, it must be approved within 45 days of the request being sent to Congress, or else the money must be spent.

Given that this request was made within 45 days of the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, the cancellation could take effect without Congress approving it. This maneuver is known as a pocket rescission.

Ali wrote that the funding is to be spent since Congress appropriated it.

“It is undisputed the relevant appropriations acts have been valid law from the time they were enacted to today. For almost all that period, Defendants did not even dispute that the laws were mandatory and required them to spend the funds,” he wrote. “The President never asked Congress to rescind the funds at issue even though he successfully sought rescission of analogous funds in May 2025.”

The Trump administration filed a notice of appeal on Sept. 4.

“President Trump has the executive authority to ensure that all foreign aid is accountable to taxpayers and aligns with the America First priorities people voted for,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement.

Republicans and Democrats have criticized the pocket rescission.

“With the Trump Administration’s attempt of the so-called ’pocket rescission,’ it is clear that Republicans are prioritizing chaos over governing, partisanship over partnership, and their own power over the American people,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a Sept. 2 letter.

“Republicans should not accept Russ Vought’s brazen attempt to usurp their own power,” Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said in an Aug. 29 statement, referring to the director of the Office of Management and Budget.

“No president has a line item veto—and certainly not a retroactive line item veto.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) called the pocket rescission “unlawful.”

“Congress alone bears the constitutional responsibility for funding our government, and any effort to claw back resources outside of the appropriations process undermines that responsibility,” she wrote on X.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

On Friday, for the second time in just two days, a Venezuelan F-16 jet flew near a US warship in the southern Caribbean. At least eight American navel vessels have been deployed off the Latin American country which possesses the world’s largest proven crude oil reserves.

President Trump the same day warned that if Venezuelan jets fly over US naval ships and “put us in a dangerous position, they’ll be shot down.”

CBS late Friday cited Pentagon officials who said a Venezuelan plane flew over the US destroyer “Jason Dunham” for the second time.

Some observers have begun to question the circumstances behind the prior US strike on a “drug-carrying vessel from Venezuela” operated allegedly by a drug trafficking gang, which killed all eleven people on board. Assuming they weren’t military, it could be classified as an extrajudicial killing in international waters, with no warning issued or attempt at intercept.

The Commander-in-Chief has put US forces deployed there on a war footing, it appears:

When asked by reporters in the Oval Office on Friday what would happen if Venezuelan jets flew over US vessels again, Trump said Venezuela would be in “trouble”.

Trump told his general, standing beside him, that he could do anything he wanted if the situation escalated.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has responded by rejecting the state-linked narcotrafficking allegations, and explained that current problems and differences between the nations do not justify a “military conflict”.

Maduro continued, “Venezuela has always been willing to talk, to engage in dialogue, but we demand respect.”

Watch: Trump issues his new warning:

NOW – Trump instructs General Caine to shoot down Venezuelan jets if they approach U.S. naval ships dangerously. pic.twitter.com/g0gDfVHkB2

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) September 5, 2025

Shooting down a Venezuelan jet would constitute an act of war, but Trump would likely not immediately go beyond that – unless there was further retaliation from Caracas. However, there remains the likely possibility that Trump could be pursuing a regime change policy, in continuation of some statements from his first term. On this, CNN writes:

Asked by a reporter on Friday if he would like to see regime change in Venezuela, Trump said, “We’re not talking about that.”

He went to say, “But we are talking about the fact that [Venezuela] had an election, which was a very strange election, to put it mildly.”

CNN further claims, “President Donald Trump is weighing a multitude of options for carrying out military strikes against drug cartels operating in Venezuela, including potentially hitting targets inside the country as part of a broader strategy aimed at weakening leader Nicolas Maduro, according to multiple sources briefed on the administration’s plans.”

Like the other many conflicts and unchecked adventurism in foreign lands, Congress appears to be missing in action, with the exceptions of Kentucky’s Rand Paul and Thomas Massie. 

Authored by Matt Margolis via PJ Media,

Fresh revelations about Joe Biden’s autopen scandal paint a picture so damning that even his most loyal defenders should be squirming in their seats. Internal emails obtained by the New York Post show a White House in complete disarray, with staff frantically scrambling to figure out whether Biden actually knew what documents were being signed in his name.

The timeline alone should make every American’s blood boil. On Jan. 11, Biden allegedly gave verbal approval for commuting the sentences of crack cocaine offenders. But those documents weren’t signed until Jan. 17, and only after a series of panicked late-night emails between White House staff trying to establish some semblance of proper authorization.

Staff Secretary Stef Feldman, clearly the only adult in the room, demanded verification of Biden’s approval before allowing the autopen to do its work. At 9:16 p.m. on Jan. 16, she wrote to Biden’s aides, “I’ll need an [email] from [Deputy Assistant to the President Rosa Po] confirming the president’s sign-off on the specific documents when they are finalized.”

But here’s where it gets really ugly. Deputy White House Counsel Tyeesha Dixon forwarded concerns to Chief of Staff Michael Posada, asking, “Michael, any thoughts on how to address this?” Most tellingly, Dixon noted in her email that “the president did not review the warrants.”

The expectation that autopen would handle Biden’s pardons and commutations says everything about how his White House operated and raises legitimate questions about who was really running the country. Staffers routinely mechanically applied Biden’s signature to legal documents, and now we know his own counsel admitted he never actually reviewed what he was supposedly signing.

Among those benefiting from this constitutional chaos was Russell McIntosh, a 51-year-old involved in the 1999 murder of a woman and her two-year-old child in North Carolina. This is the caliber of individual Biden’s team was cutting loose while the president remained blissfully unaware of the specifics.

The Justice Department wasn’t faring any better. 

Here’s more from the Post:

The emails also indicate Justice Department confusion on how to carry out Biden’s orders — with the department not receiving names of the roughly 2,500 affected inmates from the White House until after the public announcement and then quibbling with the content of the files.

DOJ veterans expressed concerns about the fact that some of the commutation recipients were violent criminals — and also raised questions about whether the wording of one of three of Biden’s clemency warrants rendered the grants null and void.

That document said offenders were having their punishments reduced for “offenses described to the Department of Justice,” without any specifics.

DOJ official Elysa Wan wrote to Dixon, English and White House associate counsel DeAnna Evans on the evening of Jan. 17: “We do not know how to interpret ‘offenses described to the Department of Justice.’ Could you please clarify?”

Then-Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer wrote to Dixon and Evans on Jan. 18 that he too was concerned about the vague wording of the clemency warrants impacting dozens of more serious cases.

This wasn’t a fluke or a simple mistake. Biden’s team ran a shadow presidency, making major decisions while their boss stayed clueless, and in the process, they shredded any pretense of accountability. This was a full-blown constitutional crisis. Americans should be furious.

This constitutional chaos evidence exposes the Biden White House as nothing more than a puppet show. While the mainstream media stays silent, PJ Media delivers the hard-hitting investigative journalism that holds corrupt politicians accountable. Join PJ Media VIP today to support our mission. Use promo code FIGHT for 60% off your membership. Get exclusive access to fearless reporting, ad-free browsing, and the truth they don’t want you to see. Support real journalism that puts America first!

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A shocking new video obtained by local media outlet WBTV shows the moments before 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska was randomly stabbed on Charlotte’s public transportation light rail. 

According to an affidavit obtained by WBTV on Aug. 28, Zarutska, a Ukrainian who fled the war-torn country, was stabbed in the neck on the Lynx Blue Line train at the East/West Boulevard station along Camden Road in the South End. She was pronounced dead from knife wounds at the scene. 

The murderer, who was later arrested and held without bond, was career criminal Decarlos Brown Jr., a 34-year-old diagnosed with schizophrenia. 

The video is absolutely disturbing. 

BREAKING:

New video shows the moment the repeat offender Decarlos Brown Jr stabbed the 23-y-old Ukrainian war refugee Iryna Zarutska to death on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina

Reopen the asylum homes. Too many violent crazies roam the streets 🇺🇸🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/QPzG7cqwvZ

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) September 6, 2025

North Carolina House Majority Leader Brenden Jones, a Republican representing Columbus and Robeson counties, responded on X, criticizing the Democrats’ failed woke agenda for allowing violent criminals to roam the city streets…

“The tragedy of Iryna Zarutska’s death in Charlotte is the result of decades of Democrat DAs and Sheriffs putting their woke agendas above public safety,” Rep. Jones said, adding, “Violent criminals commit crimes with impunity, while families live in fear.” 

The tragedy of Iryna Zarutska’s death in Charlotte is the result of decades of Democrat DAs and Sheriffs putting their woke agendas above public safety.

Violent criminals commit crimes with impunity, while families live in fear. #ncpol pic.twitter.com/QNIGSVP0HZ

— Rep. Brenden Jones (@BrendenJonesNC) September 6, 2025

Zarutska’s death raises alarm over the effectiveness of criminal justice reforms and highlights the Democratic Party’s massive failures that have allowed violent criminals to walk the streets, creating a national public safety threat.

If it’s defund the police, no cash bail, woke judges, and continue down the list of failures that have sparked out-of-control violent crime across major cities nationwide, it’s time the American people hold Democrats accountable for their deadly progressive experiments.

Defunded police

No cash bail

DEI judges

This is what all of that “progressive” garbage leads to👇🏼 pic.twitter.com/aOpSTRMrDh

— DC_Draino (@DC_Draino) September 6, 2025

President Trump’s move to restore law and order nationwide has been a countermeasure to clean up this epic mess left behind by the failures of progressive policies. It’s time to demand accountability.

Authored by Kimberley Hayek via The Epoch Times,

California’s community colleges are grappling with a surge in fraudulent enrollments, with 1.2 million fake applicants last year accounting for nearly 30 percent of new students, blocking real students from classes and costing millions in stolen financial aid, according to college officials.

The problem, exacerbated by the shift to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, affects at least 90 of the state’s 116 campuses, said Marvin Martinez, chancellor of the Rancho Santiago Community College District, and Jeannie Kim, president of Santiago Canyon College.

Before the pandemic, most classes were in-person, making fraud more difficult, Martinez said. But with 80 percent of courses moving online, bots and fake students can enroll from anywhere, including other states or countries.

“It’s happened on a massive scale,” Martinez told Epoch TV’s California Insider host Siyamak Khorrami.

“What’s made this situation of fraudulent enrollment so different than anything that I’ve seen before in my 36 years in higher ed is that it’s happened in almost 80 percent now of the campuses.”

At Santiago Canyon College, fall 2024 enrollment initially spiked 10 percent to 13 percent, Kim said, but faculty discovered many registrants were fraudulent. In one anthropology course, administrators raised the enrollment cap by 30 daily, only for bots to fill slots instantly, leaving just 12 to 15 genuine students. 

Faculty identified fakes through non-engagement, identical assignments, or invalid contact details, like phone numbers tied to businesses or defunct entities. Removing fraudulent enrollments cut the college’s headcount by 10,000 to 12,000 spots, with some bad actors enrolled in up to five classes each.

The fallout is severe. Real students are denied access to required courses, delaying graduations, certificates, and transfers to four-year universities.

“Counselors saw the crestfallen faces of students unable to get classes they needed to graduate,” Kim said.

Among faculty, morale has gone down as classes shrink to single digits, making them cost-inefficient yet necessary for student progress. “Faculty teach because they love their discipline, but it’s devastating to see classes dwindle,” Kim added. 

Low-enrollment classes were allowed to run, doubling budgetary strain to prioritize student needs. Financially, colleges face significant losses. California funds community colleges based on enrollment, but removing fake students can cut revenue by up to 23 percent, Martinez said.

 “You can’t get paid for fake enrollments,” he noted.

“It’s better to make that cut upfront than face audits later.”

In 2024, scammers stole $8.4 million in federal aid and $2.7 million in state aid, with losses since 2021 exceeding $18 million, state reports show. 

The colleges reported 20 to 25 identity theft cases, requiring notifications to victims and reports to the U.S. Department of Education.

Fraud motivations include exploiting Pell Grants, with “Pell runners” collecting up to $7,400 before vanishing, and harvesting personal data such as Social Security numbers for identity theft, Martinez said. 

Perpetrators, often international, use AI tools such as ChatGPT to mimic students, targeting no-prerequisite courses such as accounting or business. 

To combat the issue, colleges are deploying LightLeap.AI, an artificial intelligence platform from N2N Services, initially developed for course predictions but adapted for fraud detection.

Santiago Canyon adopted it for under $100,000 after Kim discovered it at a conference, and it is now scaled to 80 campuses statewide at about $75,000 per institution.

Processing nearly 3 million applications and flagging 360,000 suspected fraudsters, LightLeap.AI uses machine learning to analyze shared phone numbers, IP addresses, minimal application data, and suspicious course-taking patterns, achieving a 99 percent accuracy rate at Santiago Canyon. 

“One art faculty member was ecstatic, saying, ‘I have a clean roster. They’re all real,’” Kim recalled.

LightLeap.AI’s triangulation method cross-references application data with student information systems and proprietary blacklist/whitelist databases, identifying patterns such as multiple applications from one IP address. 

Operating in three stages—application, registration, and financial aid—it catches twice as many scammers as manual methods, freeing 7,500 seats for real students at Santiago Canyon. Its network effect allows fraud detection at one college to flag bad actors across 83 campuses, with a 92.3 percent effectiveness rate at West Valley-Mission. The system adapts to evolving tactics by incorporating geolocation data and reducing false positives through continuous learning. Since its intersession rollout, it has been applied across spring, summer, and fall terms, with updates to counter fraudsters’ use of generative AI.

Implementing LightLeap.AI presents challenges.

“We need tech-savvy staff, but community colleges can’t compete with tech industry salaries,” Martinez said. Budgets, unchanged in 20 years, hinder hiring, and manual verification tools like ID.me are voluntary and inadequate. 

A proposed $10 application fee, discussed in 2025, aims to deter fraud but risks burdening vulnerable students such as the homeless or undocumented, who struggle with ID verification. 

Online education is essential for working adults, who now outnumber recent high school graduates enrolled at community colleges.

 “Adult students—parents with jobs and bills—rely on online classes,” Martinez said. To support this shift, he urged Sacramento to increase funding for technology and staffing. “If it doesn’t happen, we’re going to keep losing money,” he warned. A 2025 state audit is evaluating fraud trends and mitigation effectiveness to guide future funding.

“We’re easy prey because bureaucracies react slowly,” Martinez said.

Kim emphasized ethical duty: “We’re public servants with a moral obligation to protect taxpayer dollars.” 

California community colleges serve about 1.8 million students annually, offering low-cost pathways to degrees and jobs. 

The billionaire map of America looks very different today than it did a decade ago.

New faces and shifting fortunes have reshaped where the country’s wealthiest residents call home, and some states have vaulted ahead in the billionaire rankings as Visual Capitalist’s Pallavi Rao shows in the infographic below.

The data for this map comes from two related Forbes sources.

Their 2016 billionaire breakdown (which used net worth figures as of November, 2015), and their Real-Time Billionaires List, accessed July, 2025.

Using both datasets, we mapped the net change in U.S. billionaires by state. Due to data limitations, this map does not count U.S. billionaires in Washington D.C. and overseas territories.

The South is Gaining Billionaires, Fast

While California leads by overall billionaire gains (+75), two southern states are in the top five.

In fact, second-ranked Florida added 73 billionaires—more than doubling its roster to 117—thanks to the influx of hedge-fund titans, tech founders, and pandemic-era corporate relocations.

Texas gained 35, cementing its draw as America’s energy capital and a swelling tech hub around Austin and Dallas.

With no state income tax and a cost of living well below coastal peers, both states have become magnets for high-net-worth individuals fleeing higher-tax jurisdictions.

Tech Hubs Keep Their Billionaire Edge, But is Growth Cooling?

California remains the undisputed leader with 199 billionaires in 2025—up 75 from 2015—anchored by Silicon Valley fortunes from companies such as Apple, Google, and OpenAI.

Yet the Golden State’s growth rate lags that of Florida and Texas, hinting at headwinds from rising costs and remote-friendly work patterns.

New York added 43 new billionaires, driven largely by finance and media exits, but also saw some flight to lower-tax locales.

Even with slowing momentum, these coastal giants still host 39% of all U.S. billionaires.

Unexpected Wealth Hotspots in the Mountain West and Midwest

Beyond the big four, several smaller states quietly punched above their weight.

Nevada added 11 billionaires, boosted by Las Vegas real-estate windfalls and a growing tech presence around Reno.

Utah’s count jumped six-fold on the back of booming software IPOs along the “Silicon Slopes.”

Illinois and Massachusetts each gained 13 billionaires, underscoring the enduring wealth-creation power of Chicago’s trading dynasties and Boston’s life-science clusters.

Conversely, traditional manufacturing states such as Michigan and Wisconsin slipped, each losing two members of the three-comma club.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out The Richest Billionaire in Every Country (That Has One) on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson,

President Donald Trump’s greatest achievement within six months was simply ending illegal immigration as we had once known it — without “comprehensive immigration reform” or any other rhetorical trickery.

It remains difficult to find, much less deport, the 10 to 12 million illegal aliens who entered in the last four years.

Those who helped break the law, by design or indifference, now believe it was moral to destroy federal immigration law but immoral to uphold it.

And it is still unclear whether former President Joe Biden’s handlers deliberately sabotaged their own border for political and demographic purposes out of sheer orneriness or utter incompetence.

Many of the left’s cherished totems — massive Green New Deal subsidies, the diversity/equity/inclusion industry, biological males competing in women’s sports, and the USAID revolving door — are either comatose or in their death throes.

The historic drop-off in military recruitment reversed shortly after Trump took office.

Republican voter registration is up, and Democratic registration is down.

Abroad, Trump finds remarkable successes.

For now, there are pauses in the fighting between India and Pakistan, Egypt and Somalia, Cambodia and Thailand, Rwanda and Congo, Serbia and Kosovo, and Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Much credit is due to Trump for brokering ceasefires.

Iran will not get a bomb in the next four years — as seemed likely when Biden left office.

The Middle East’s current most grotesque terrorist cadres and states — Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis — are far weaker than they were when Trump entered office in January.

There is at least some engagement in envisioning the outlines of a ceasefire in Trump’s inherited Ukraine War.

The rub is finding the degree of ordnance necessary to convince Putin that increasing Russia’s casualties to more than one million will endanger his own dictatorship sooner than destroy Ukraine.

Breaking up the new three-billion-person China/India/Russia nexus hinges on ending the war.

The economy is still strong. Gas prices are at historic lows. Increases in all types of energy production proceed full bore.

Current GDP, inflation, unemployment, and the stock market — all at one time or another said to be in a crisis state — remain strong. Talk of an impending recession or hyperinflation is mostly muted.

No one quite knows either the full effects of Trump’s tariffs — especially given the injunctions issued by left-wing district justices — or of the promised over $10 trillion in foreign investments.

Much of Trump’s agenda will hinge on whether interest rates are lowered, Republicans survive the midterms, and the degree to which unelected left-wing lower-court justices can be stopped from hijacking the Constitution and de facto running the country.

As for the Democratic opposition, there is no counter agenda, no shadow government responsible leadership, and no willingness to craft bipartisan legislation.

Instead, the left’s strategy is that of the kamikaze: to destroy Trump at the cost of destroying the Democratic Party.

Otherwise, Democrats seek to prove so obnoxious in demonizing Trump that they create such mass hysteria that the weary electorate figuratively lies down, closes its eyes, covers its ears, and screams nonstop, “Make them all go away!”

Former foul-mouthed vice presidential candidate Tim Walz is now reduced to a ghoulish status. He recently boasted to an audience that rumors of Trump’s death — who survived two assassination attempts last summer — will thankfully one day prove true. 

The top of the failed ticket, Kamala Harris, wanders aimlessly without an office, constituency, audience, or ideas.

To remain viable, she knows she must continue touring and speaking.

But Harris accepts that the more anyone hears her word salads, the more they will remember her 2024 train wreck.

Head of the Democratic Party, Ken Martin, now screams that Trump is a fascist.

But by what standards does he judge? Did Trump try to take his rivals off state ballots?

Does he advocate for destroying the filibuster, the Electoral College, and the 156-year-old nine-justice Supreme Court, or packing the Senate by admitting two new states?

Are local, state, and federal prosecutors — a la Bragg, James, Smith, and Willis — coordinating with the White House and DOJ to indict Trump’s current chief adversaries, such as Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris, or Josh Shapiro?

Did Trumpers hire a foreign spy to concoct a fake hit dossier on Democratic grandees?

Are his subordinates now spreading it to the media?

Are 51 conservative former CIA contractors and retired spooks swearing that Newsom or Harris is working with the Russians, Chinese, or any of our enemies?

The greatest Democrat fear?

That it has so institutionalized excessive executive orders, ad hominem lawfare, lower-court usurpation, state nullification of federal law, and federal intervention in higher education, the energy industry, and the nation’s open spaces that their own legacies empowered Trump and now will boomerang upon themselves — as the public applauds the karma.

The “Maryland Father” (well, in the eyes of leftist corporate media), otherwise known as alleged MS-13 illegal alien gangster Kilmar Abrego Garcia, was notified by the Department of Homeland Security about deportation plans to a tiny African country. 

In an email to the alleged MS-13 illegal alien gangster, published on X by Fox News’ Bill Melugin, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official informed the illegal that, given his concerns about being prosecuted and or even tortured in nearly two dozen countries, Eswatini is now considered the best fit.

The email added, “Nonetheless, we hereby notify you that your new country of removal is Eswatini, Africa.” 

Homeland Security commented on X, “Homie is afraid of the entire western hemisphere.”

Homie is afraid of the entire western hemisphere. https://t.co/lH7oZLaCKI

— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) September 5, 2025

Last month, leftist activist District Judge Paula Xinis, overseeing the illegal’s case, ruled that the El Salvador native cannot be deported until early October. This comes as the illegal has been fighting for renewed asylum claims. 

The Trump administration recently offered the El Salvador native the option of deportation to Costa Rica in exchange for a guilty plea. However, his lawyers rejected the offer. He has been accused of human trafficking by the federal government.

New data obtained by Newsweek of ICE data via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request showed that the Trump administration is on track to deport 276,207 illegals annually, or about 1.1 million over four years. 

In other news…

https://t.co/nZkBEj3GGi https://t.co/Zem0AayWUO pic.twitter.com/qJVpaAyJLb

— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) September 5, 2025

. . . 

Authored by Dr. James Allan via DailySceptic.org,

Last year when I was asked to write a chapter for a US book on the incredible inroads and attacks on our civil liberties during the thuggish Covid lockdown years I decided, in part, to rank the worst offending groups. The lawyerly and doctorly castes were bad. They were woeful in fact. But the politicians as a class, the ones who ultimately made the calls, were worse – and there were very few exceptions to that generalised claim, as any Australian knows who looks for politicians who, say, resigned from Cabinet on principle (nada, zero) or who spoke up publicly and loudly against the massive authoritarian over-reach and aping of the policies of the Chinese Communist Politburo (a mere handful at most). 

So I gave the silver medal for thuggish lockdown commitment and stalwart thuggery to the political class. However, in terms of letting all of us citizens down I reserved the gold medal for the journalists of the legacy media. As a class they exhibited no scepticism. No thinking for themselves. They were fearmongers and PR agents for the modellers, public health gurus, ‘nudge’ manipulators and politicos. Yes, there were some brave exceptions. But very few. What we got from the legacy media was a sort of attempt to play the type of media you’d see in George Orwell’s 1984, dealing in Big Brother doublethink. And all of that is on top of the verifiably huge drift towards the political Left of the legacy media over the last few decades.

Well, if you were hoping things would get noticeably better after the lockdowns ended, they haven’t. 

For just one instance, let me take you to the murders of two young children and the wounding of at least 17 others in Minneapolis, Minnesota last week. It took place at a Catholic school with the murderer shooting at random through a stained-glass window during the first school mass of the academic year. The legacy media embarrassed itself reporting on this because it went against all the progressive class’s and legacy media’s (but I repeat myself) deeply held shibboleths and Left-wing bromides. You see the murderer was a man, Robert Westman, who back in 2020 had changed his first name to Robin and come out as transgender. He said he was now a female. And he hated Donald Trump. And he left behind a sort of manifesto that oozed antisemitism along with other bits of nastiness.

How to report this? How to report this, while still genuflecting before the progressive worldview? Life for the legacy media is just so much easier when a multiple shooter is a white, heterosexual male, preferably with conservative leanings. Then the details can be reported pronto. And the label ‘white nationalist’ will just be begging to be used. Alas, it was not to be. So on the transgender front the legacy media tied itself in knots. NBC News described the shooter as “a person in her early 20s”. The New York Times also used ‘she’ to describe the murderer. CNN talking heads worried about ‘misgendering’ the person who had killed two primary school kids and wounded 17 others, some severely. These journalists definitely know what’s important in a story, don’t they? The Washington Post got itself in a bit of a conundrum because, as it reported, “it is unclear how the shooter identified at the time of the incident”. 

Likewise, the NPR that President Trump has just defunded wrote that we “do not know how the person currently identified” while the very Left-leaning Associated Press told readers “the shooter’s gender identity wasn’t clear”. 

Oh, and on CNN the former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, the man embroiled up to his neck in the Russian collusion scam against Donald Trump, made a point of calling the trans murderer by his preferred identity: “I’m sure [the killer’s mother] is grieving for her daughter” – also somewhat misdirecting the first port of call for sympathy you might think.

Meantime no legacy media outlet that I know of mentioned the fact that an awful lot of recent mass school shootings have been committed by transgender murderers – in Denver, Nashville, Uvalde, Georgia, Aberdeen, Philadelphia, the list goes on.

 In fact, it is a massively disproportionate number of such crimes being committed by transgender school shooters, a point I make for all the identity politics Lefties out there who insist on seeing the world in terms of groups.

I agree with the growing numbers of people who say the two most likely reasons for this are a) gender dysphoria is a severe mental illness which right now is not being treated as mental illness, but instead is being humoured and encouraged. Or, b) transgender people who transition are being subjected to intense doses of drugs that may be having an unpredictable effect on their behaviour or aggravating their pre-existing mental illness. Because let’s be honest. If you told someone you were Napoleon Bonaparte trapped in the wrong body that person would not make empathy his main response and cater to your self-delusion. He would try to explain that there is a mind-independent truth about the external, causal world. Likewise, the 47 year-old cannot identify as a 13 year-old to win some sporting competition. Because however he feels or whatever his preferences, he is not 13 years old. Again, the white woman doesn’t get to be black just because that’s what she would like and is how she sees herself. 

As one US commentator rightly noted after this Minnesota tragedy, “The trans movement has been a disaster in every way and should be re-examined from the ground up.” 

And the higher up the socio-economic ladder you go, the more sympathy you find for this toxic empathy. Rich, white women seem to be the most in its thrall.

The other big difficulty for the legacy media in reporting this shooting was the fact that the shooter hated Trump and wasn’t all-in on MAGA. Indeed, this shooter, Robert Westwood, had written “kill Donald Trump” on his gun. Now, how could they report that without pushing a characterisation that would help the current US President (a.k.a. ‘Hitler’)? Well, one of the terrestrial, longstanding main US TV networks tried to square that circle by reporting that the murderer had “Donald Trump’s name on his gun”. Yes, you read that sleight of hand correctly. Still want to know why the legacy media is dying and why conservatives, especially, no longer trust anything that they are being told by these partisan hacks? Why supposed Right-of-centre politicians pay any attention to these legacy media journalists is beyond me. Just look and see how Donald Trump and Pierre Poilievre treat them with disdain and copy that.

Authored by Jesse Coghlan via CoinTelegraph.com,

The European Central Bank (ECB) renewed its push to issue a digital euro, drawing pushback from EU lawmakers over privacy protections and potential risks to commercial banks.

ECB board member Piero Cipollone told a parliamentary economic committee on Thursday that a digital euro “will ensure that all Europeans can pay at all times with a free, universally accepted digital means of payment, even in case of major disruptions.”

Some parliamentarians pushed back over concerns that the digital currency wouldn’t protect user privacy, and that offering accounts backed by the central bank would undercut the private sector.

Legislation for the central bank digital currency (CBDC) has been before the European Parliament since 2023, and has faced delays amid political concerns and the 2024 elections.

Digital euro seen as fallback in crisis

The ECB’s Cipollone said the core of the bloc’s digital payment systems comes from non-EU providers, which could hinder the “capacity to act swiftly and independently — particularly in times of crisis.”

He pitched the digital euro as a fallback in cases of cyberattacks or network outages, and noted US efforts to promote dollar-backed stablecoins.

Source: ECB

Cipollone said a digital euro would “complement physical cash, which remains key for resilience and inclusion,” but added that digital payments are now “essential to daily life,” which the government is expected to ensure.

Lawmakers warn on privacy, risks to banks

Some lawmakers raised concerns about the privacy implications of a digital euro and the risk that EU citizens would choose to bank with the ECB over a commercial bank, as it would present a safer option.

On privacy, Cipollone stressed that the central bank “will not know anything about the payer and the payee” and that an offline solution for the digital currency “will be as good as cash in terms of preserving the privacy of the people.”

Pierre Pimpie of the right-wing Eurosceptic Patriots for Europe group said “accounts in private banks could be emptied” due to a digital euro and took issue with the ECB having control over setting a cap on user accounts, which he argued the bank could raise in a crisis.

Cipollone said the central bank’s cap would be set “on the basis of rigorous analysis” and added that if corporations and wealthy individuals “see a crisis in Europe, it will take them a second to buy a stablecoins denominated in a different currency.”

“The digital euro at that point would be the least of our problems,” he added.

ECB eyes 2026 law, rollout by 2029

Cipollone said the ECB was working under the assumption that digital euro legislation would be in place by the second quarter of 2026.

Three EU institutions must greenlight the digital euro, including the parliament, the European Commission and the European Council. Talks among them could take months.

After the law is passed, which could be as late as the middle of 2026, the ECB has to create and test the digital currency’s infrastructure, which could take up to three years, putting a potential launch around 2029 if no delays occur.