Gotham’s Game

Gotham’s Game

A new book examines New York’s role in the birth of baseball as we know it.

The New York Game: Baseball and the Rise of New York City, Kevin Baker, Knopf, 2024, 511 pages

This book is one long love letter to New York City and to the baseball that was played there. What comes across to the reader is the author’s sheer joy in writing about the city, its boroughs, its streets, and its baseball culture.

Baker’s basic argument is that baseball was a New York creation with its origin not in the countryside but in the streets of the city. Something called “base” was played in other parts of the country, New England and Philadelphia in particular, but its consolidation took place in New York in the 1840s and 1850s: Bases were placed 90 feet apart, the diamond shape was adopted, a batting order was created, three outs constituted an inning, and balls had to be caught in the air. He also argues that the role of statistics, batting average, and totaling a pitcher’s wins and losses helped secure the popularity of the game. The box score invented in 1859 by Henry Chadwick, a former fan of cricket who became the first major baseball writer and cheerleader, created what Branch Rickey called “the mortar which held baseball together.” 

Baker sprinkles the text with odd baseball items: In 1883–1884, two New York pitchers took part in every game but one for their team while hurling 206 complete games. Babe Ruth played in over 800 exhibition games during his time with Yankees, enriching the coffers of the team while risking the careers of its players. The brother of Dolph Camilli, Dodger first baseman in the late 1930s and early 1940s, was killed in the ring by the heavyweight champion Max Baer.

Baker builds his argument about the centricity of New York’s importance for baseball around the characters who became the faces of the game: first John McGraw and then Babe Ruth. He argues (correctly, in my view, especially so far as Ruth is concerned) that they were responsible for baseball’s true acceptance as America’s game, a term that dated back to the 1850s and 60s. 

Baker may overdo McGraw’s importance for establishing baseball’s popularity in the early years of the 20th century, if only because Connie Mack played a major role also. The irascible “Muggsy” McGraw and the kindly “Tall Tactician” set the tone for almost all future baseball managers. The line from McGraw to Durocher to Casey Stengel is a straight one, while Mack influenced more quiet and cerebral managers like the Yankees’ Joe McCarthy and Al Lopez, who managed the White Sox and the Cleveland Indians in the 1950s and 60s.

While McGraw is Baker’s first New York hero, it is Babe Ruth whom he idolizes, writing about him with something approaching awe. Ruth commanded sport like no other figure—Mohammed Ali is a distant second. After the Black Sox scandal, about which Baker writes one of the best and clearest sketches this side of Eliot Asinof’s Eight Men Out, Ruth (with the help of baseball Commissioner Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis’s crackdown on gambling) literally saved baseball.

In the words of the baseball historian Bill Jenkinson, Ruth’s “real life accomplishments transcend his myth.” Among Ruth’s 714 home runs 198 were over 450 feet. For comparison, Barry Bonds hit 36 that distance and even Mark McGwire with some chemical help, only did that 74 times. Ruth was also a talented pitcher, winning 94 games with a career 2.28 ERA.

The success of the Yankees, personified by Ruth’s dominance of the game, enabled the Bronx Bombers to build the first modern ballpark, Yankee Stadium with its 70,000-seat capacity—the first ball field to be called a stadium, not a ballpark.

Ruth personified the New York of the 1920s when the city reached its Golden Age, and Baker enjoys nothing more than long disquisitions about the expansion of the city—the growth of its skyscrapers, the development of new neighborhoods in Queens and Brooklyn, the expansion of the subway so that, by 1930, 91 percent of New Yorkers were within a half mile of a station.  

New York teams dominated both leagues in the 1920s, winning 11 pennants among the three teams. Baker argues as many others have that the 1927 Yankees were the greatest team in baseball history, outscoring their opponents by almost 400 runs. Ruth out-homered every other team in the American League, while he and Lou Gehrig hit one less home run than the Giants team that led the National League in circuit clouts.

In what I believe is an overstatement, Baker argues that New York never recovered from the Great Depression. “The city would get rich again,” he writes, “grow again. But the easy confidence in its genius that had existed before the great slump was gone for good.” Surely in the post-war era up to the early 1960s, New York dominated as it had in the ’20s, culturally, financially, and certainly in baseball terms. In the decade and half after World War II, the Yankees, Giants, and Dodgers won a collective 19 pennants.

The second half of Baker’s paean of praise to New York is not as lively as the first part, but there are still some wonderful portraits. The passing of the Yankee dynasty from Ruth to Gehrig to Joe DiMaggio is handled well. DiMaggio fascinates him, but Baker cannot humanize the cold, aloof Yankee Clipper.

Also, by stopping at the end of World War II, Baker misses out on one of the last great contributions of New York to baseball and America: Branch Rickey putting an end to baseball’s original sin, the banning of African Americans from America’s game. A chapter on the integration of baseball, which, after all, was a New York phenomenon, is a missed opportunity in my mind, a chance to measure Jackie Robinson’s impact on the sport and nation—the most dramatic change in baseball since Babe Ruth launched the modern game in the 1920s.

Baker’s sheer joy in writing this book comes through almost every page. The reader has almost as much fun reading the book as Baker obviously had in researching and writing it. I found a few minor mistakes, but they do not detract from a book that should be on every baseball (and New York city) fan’s bookshelf.

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U.S. Officials Believe That ‘We’ Are at War With Russia

U.S. Officials Believe That ‘We’ Are at War With Russia

American officials should unashamedly act for the American people.

(Photo by YURIY DYACHYSHYN/AFP via Getty Images)

Could someone please tell Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of the Senate’s premier warmongers, that “we” are not at war with Russia? Ukraine is. 

The grandstanding warrior wannabe recently visited Kiev. The Zelensky government is under pressure to expand conscription to bulk up its army. Graham enthusiastically backed the effort. Reported the Washington Post: “‘I would hope that those eligible to serve in the Ukrainian military would join. I can’t believe it’s at 27,’ he told reporters Monday. ‘You’re in a fight for your life, so you should be serving—not at 25 or 27’.” He insisted: “We need more people in the line.”

We? When did Graham accept Ukrainian citizenship and enter the Ukrainian Rada?

Graham is one of many witless American officials who seem to believe that they are to represent foreign countries dealing with the U.S. rather than the U.S. in dealing with foreign countries. This isn’t a new phenomenon. People often have been devoted to other nations reflecting their ethnic or religious background, supporting everything up to military intervention by Washington, often to America’s great disadvantage. A commitment to ancestral homelands accounted for significant backing for NATO’s ill-fated expansion up to Russia’s borders. (So did the desire of the merchants of death to open new markets for weapons sales.)

Graham appears to have a bizarre enthusiasm for sending others off to war, here, there, and almost everywhere. Send is the key verb, at least until now. If we really “need more people in the line,” he could join Ukraine’s forces. After all, Kiev is calling on foreigners to bolster its defense. Several already have died fighting for Ukraine. Graham could finally put his life, rather than the rest of our lives, where his mouth is.

Ukrainians would welcome the move. Many Americans would as well. Graham could demonstrate that he isn’t just a showboating blowhard pretending to be tough, finally fighting in one of the wars into which he desperately sought to plunge the U.S.

The overriding duty of American officeholders is to serve the American people. Indeed, that is why the national government exists. Washington’s foreign policy should focus on U.S. national interests, particularly protecting America’s people, territory, prosperity, and constitutional system.

Of course, the means adopted should reflect the rights and interests of others. Washington has often fallen short of that ideal. Support for a murderous medley of repressive regimes during the Cold War was terrible but at least understandable. Underwriting mass killers and oppressors in such nations as Egypt and Saudi Arabiaparticular favorites of dictator fanboy Graham—today is less forgivable.

At least Ukraine deserves our sympathy, in contrast to such ruthless autocracies. Nevertheless, even Kiev’s fight is more complicated than commonly presented. Ukraine is hardly a Western-style liberal democracy. Freedom House rates Kiev only “partly free,” hardly a ringing endorsement. The latter’s leaders indulge in demagoguery and demonization against foreigners who don’t kowtow and back their demands. (Russia, of course, is more oppressive and its brutal invasion, which has wreaked such carnage for both countries, was not justified, despite the West’s reckless and belligerent behavior. Primary blame for the war remains with Moscow.)

Nevertheless, for Washington, Americans’ interests should remain central. It is one thing to wish Kiev well. It is quite another to launch a global nuclear war on its behalf, as proposed by Mississippi’s reckless, even unhinged, Sen. Roger Wicker. Those pressing to arm Ukraine irrespective of consequences and undertake the most aggressive ends—retake Crimea, overthrow the Putin government, and break up the Russian Federation—are only slightly less foolish. The U.S. already is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Russian soldiers. With a nuclear arsenal that matches America’s, Moscow can respond forcefully, and with a military doctrine that relies on nuclear weapons to cover its relative conventional weakness is likely to do so if it fears defeat. 

Nothing about the Russo–Ukrainian conflict warrants risking war with Russia.

Of course, the Ukraine lobby puts forth several reasons why Washington policymakers should put Kiev’s desires first. None are persuasive. One is that if victorious, Putin’s legions aren’t likely to stop, but would surge westward. A new evil empire would be born. 

It is difficult to articulate what Moscow would hope to gain from assaulting the rest of the continent. Indeed, Putin, noting such hysterical claims, responded, “The whole of NATO cannot fail to understand that Russia has no reason, no interest—neither geopolitical, nor economic, nor political, nor military—to fight with NATO countries.” Of course, nothing he says should be taken on faith, just as it would be foolish to trust U.S. and allied officials who have violated their commitments and lied about their plans. 

Nevertheless, while Putin is not a gentle liberal, he also isn’t a militaristic lunatic. Indeed, he originally hoped for a positive relationship with the West, telling the German Bundestag in 2001: “No one calls in question the great value of Europe’s relations with the United States. I am just of the opinion that Europe will reinforce its reputation of a strong and truly independent center of world politics soundly and for a long time if it succeeds in bringing together its own potential and that of Russia, including its human, territorial and natural resources and its economic, cultural and defense potential.”

Nothing Putin has said or done since suggests he is interested in European conquest. His military assaults, while lawless, have been limited to Georgia and Ukraine, and do not make him Hitler reincarnated. Even now President George W. Bush is responsible for far more civilian deaths. Moscow always viewed Tbilisi and Kiev differently and made clear NATO expansion could trigger a violent response. In 2008, CIA Director William Burns, then U.S. ambassador to Russia, expressed what today would be dismissed as Putin talking points: “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players…. I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.”

Equally important, who imagines that the Russian army, which in more than two years of war in Ukraine has suffered severe losses while making only modest territorial gains, would go on to conquer the Baltics and Poland, march down the Unter den Linden in Berlin, sweep past the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, and reach the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean? Even over the long-term Moscow’s military potential remains limited. Europe possesses a much larger economy and population than Russia; the European governments already spend far more on the military. The key to Europe’s defense is Europe, not Ukraine.

Much is made about the supposed malign precedent set by a potential Russian victory. Then authoritarians everywhere—meaning China, North Korea, and Iran, after which the list of expected evildoers and aggressors runs out—would take note and launch their own bids for world domination. Yet this claim also makes little sense. 

Aggression almost always reflects local conditions. Iran’s conventional military is weak; Tehran’s main ability is to strike out unconventionally, which it already is doing. Ukraine is meaningless as a precedent for the Korean peninsula, where the U.S. previously defended the South, and with which America retains a defense treaty and troop tripwire 

Beijing knows that the U.S. would provide weapons and training to Taiwan since Washington is already doing so. In Ukraine Europe has already demonstrated its willingness to impose restrictions on commerce and finance. Privately, Chinese officials indicate that their government already expects an American military response to any attack, especially since President Joe Biden has several times said that he would intervene. From Beijing’s standpoint, Ukraine is a welcome distraction for Washington. The conflict also drives Russia closer to China.

Finally, advocates of perpetual war argue that failure in Ukraine would hurt America’s credibility. Washington has survived multiple mistakes, disasters, and crimes over the years. Despite Hungary, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Iran, Poland, Somalia, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Hong Kong, Venezuela, and Afghanistan, foreign governments, including Ukraine and Taiwan, continue to flock to Washington begging for money, arms, treaties, and promises. After nearly 80 years punctuated by frustration and disappointment, the Europeans still put their defense in Washington’s hands, whining and wailing at the slightest suggestion that the U.S. might leave them responsible for their own defense. America would survive failure in Ukraine.

In short, the conflict, though a humanitarian horror, is not a vital security interest for the U.S. It does not warrant fighting an endless proxy war. There is no “we” when it comes to the Russo–Ukrainian war. America’s interests stand apart.

The U.S. retains a stake in a stable and peaceful Europe. Washington also prefers Kiev’s survival as an independent and sovereign government, with its people free to make their own political and economic choices. The best way to achieve both these ends would be to engage Russia over a revised security order. Reaching a workable compromise wouldn’t be easy. Nevertheless, with Ukraine as the battlefield, it is in Kiev’s as well as America’s interest to end the conflict sooner rather than later. 

Foreign governments long have sought to influence the U.S. government, distorting American foreign policy for their benefit. Graham and other members of the Washington War Party have been only too willing to do the bidding of favored foreign interests, confusing “them” with “we.” American officials should unashamedly act for the American people.

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Saving Julian Assange, Free Speech, and Democracy

Saving Julian Assange, Free Speech, and Democracy

The fight against extradition is probably the last best chance for even a facade of due process.

How much is a non-binding “assurance” worth from people who probably want to see you dead? This is the linchpin question as a British court deliberates on the Biden administration’s latest conniving to bring Julian Assange to America for his legal destruction.

Since Julian Assange was indicted in 2019 for 17 charges of violating the Espionage Act, the U.S. Justice Department has sought his extradition from Belmarsh, the supermax prison in Britain where he has spent almost five years. The fight against extradition is probably the last best chance for even a facade of due process for Assange.

On Tuesday, the British High Court announced that it had effectively accepted assurances from U.S. politicians to British politicians that the Assange case is non-political, but the British judges did recognize three potential grounds for appeal. That court gave the U.S. government three weeks to provide “satisfactory assurances” that “Assange is permitted to rely on the First Amendment to the United States Constitution… that he is afforded the same First Amendment protections as a United States citizen and that the death penalty is not imposed,” and that the U.S. court would not be prejudiced against him because he is a foreigner.   

None of the British or American officials recognized the supreme irony of the court decision. Assange and Wikileaks exposed deceptions and depredations by many governments around the world. Yet his legal fate depends on whether the British government chooses to trust the U.S. government—regardless of the endless lies that Assange exposed.

Stella Assange, Julian’s wife, scoffed that the decision was “astounding”: “What the courts have done is to invite a political intervention from the United States, to send a letter saying, ‘It’s all okay.’” Amnesty International stated, “While the U.S. has allegedly assured the UK that it will not violate Assange’s rights, we know from past cases that such ‘guarantees’ are deeply flawed—and the diplomatic assurances so far in the Assange case are riddled with loopholes.” 

If Assange is brought to the U.S., his fate will be settled in an Alexandria, Virginia federal courtroom notorious for stacking the deck against anyone who exposed government crimes or wrongful killings. Ask John Kiriakou—the former CIA agent and torture whistleblower who was convicted there and sentenced to 30 months in prison. Ask Daniel Hale—the whistleblower who exposed the coverup of mass killings of innocent people by Obama’s drones, convicted and sentenced to prison for 45 months. Edward Snowden was charged in the same court but prudently omitted showing up for a kangaroo trial. 

Assange’s fate threatens to be a bellwether for the destruction of journalists who vex officialdom. David Davis, a Conservative member of Parliament, warned, “The successful extradition of Julian Assange would effectively criminalize investigative journalism as espionage. It would set a legal precedent allowing the prosecution of anyone who breaks the duty of silence on classified American information and state sponsored crime.” Jodie Ginsberg, chief of the Committee to Protect Journalists, warned that Assange’s prosecution “would have disastrous implications for press freedom. It is time that the U.S. Justice Department put an end to all these court proceedings and dropped its dogged pursuit of the WikiLeaks founder.”

The U.S. government has been vilifying Assange ever since he and Wikileaks commenced revealing that thousands of innocent Iraqis and Afghanis were killed by the U.S. military. Vice President Joe Biden denounced Assange in 2010 as a “high-tech terrorist.” But even Biden admitted at that time: “I don’t think there’s any substantive damage” from the Wikileaks revelations. “Look, some of the cables that are coming out here and around the world are embarrassing,” he said.  

Federal agencies also never proved that any of the information that Assange and Wikileaks released was false. At the court martial of former Army Corporal Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning, who leaked the documents, prosecutors failed to show that any information Wikileaks disclosed had led to the death of a single person in Afghanistan or Iraq. That conclusion was re-confirmed by a 2017 investigation by PolitiFact. But Assange was guilty of violating the U.S. government’s divine right to blindfold the American people. 

The fact that Assange disclosed classified documents is sufficient to seal his legal doom—at least according to how the game is played in federal courts. After Britain arrested Assange on behalf of the U.S. government in 2019, Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, whooped that Assange “is our property and we can get the facts and the truth from him.” But Manchin had no recommendations on how Americans can “get the facts and the truth” from the federal government. Federal agencies are creating trillions of pages of new “classified” secrets each year.  

Ironically, while howling for Assange’s scalp, the Biden White House purportedly launched a “new war on secrecy” and is especially concerned about “potentially illegal [government] activities that have been shielded from the public for decades,” POLITICO reported in late 2022. A Biden administration official, speaking anonymously, declared that it is in the “nation’s best interest to be as transparent as possible with the American public.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, groused, “We spend $18 billion protecting the classification system and only about $102 million … on declassification efforts… That ratio feels off in a democracy.” But inside the Beltway, rigging the game 176-to-1 is “close enough for government work” for transparency. Thus far, Biden’s “war on secrecy” has apparently not gone beyond self-serving White House statements. 

Perhaps the most important testimony for Assange dribbled out during a sometimes scatter-brained interview last October conducted by Special Counsel Robert Hur. As Hur was pressing President Biden about the stashes of confidential documents discovered illicitly stored in his garage, his den, his think tank, his office, etc., Biden declared, “We over-classify everything…. And 99.9 percent of it has nothing to do with anything I couldn’t pick up and read out loud to the public.” Special Counsel Hur deigned not to file charges against Biden—even though his violations of federal law had plenty of similarities to the conduct that spurred 40 felony charges against former President Donald Trump. The bizarre dichotomy in the Biden and Trump cases is showcasing the arbitrariness and absurdities of federal classification policy. 

Another key to the Assange case is whether he is “permitted to rely on the First Amendment,” as the British judges wrote. Assange can’t rely on the First Amendment when telling the truth is the only war crime now recognized by the U.S. government. Defendants on espionage act cases routinely face so many piled-on court charges that they plea bargain, muzzling themselves as the price for not being locked up forever. 

There are lessons from an early American landmark court case that could help resolve the Assange case. In 1735, John Peter Zenger was charged with seditious libel for an article he published on the Royal Governor of New York. Zenger’s criticism was accurate but that was irrelevant. In Britain and its colonies, truth was no defense against seditious libel; thus, any criticism of the government risked personal destruction. But a jury of New Yorkers heroically refused to convict Zenger, thereby revolutionizing both freedom of speech and the relation of citizens to government. 

 Could a similar legal standard be used to end persecution of anyone who publicly reveals official documents that never should have been classified? Instead of rubberstamp convictions, the government should be obliged to prove that a disclosure harmed the public interest or endangered the nation. That would also undermine the perverse incentive that perpetually propels overclassification. Unfortunately, it would not be possible to get the same positive impact simply by relying on jury trials. Since that federal court is inside the Beltway, the jury pool would be overstocked with people who work for the feds and/or believe everything they hear on National Public Radio. Washington jurors are prone to behave like Soviet mobs in the 1930s who howled for death sentences for anyone the Communist Party accused of being a “wrecker.” 

Almost all the media coverage of the Assange case is failing to credit him for revealing how blindfolding citizens defines down democracy. Self-government is a sham if citizens are prohibited from knowing what elected officials are doing in their name. Politicians and Washington’s “best and brightest” have long been accustomed to covertly and recklessly intervening around the world with none of the usual checks and balances of democracy. But there is never a penalty for officialdom deceiving the public they claim to serve. 

Biden’s Justice Department and Assange’s lawyers have reportedly discussed a possible plea deal that would drop the most serious charges against him. Fair play would be satisfied if Assange pleads guilty to lese majeste—embarrassing the government by exposing its follies, frauds, and crimes. I still believe that Assange deserves a presidential Medal of Freedom, as I recommended in USA Today in 2018. 

But that would never satisfy people like Hillary Clinton, who joked about seeing Assange dead, or former CIA chief Mike Pompeo, who plotted on kidnapping and killing Assange. Hell-raisers like Assange are necessary to prevent America from becoming an Impunity Democracy in which government officials pay no price for their abuses.

The next hearing in the Assange case will be May 20 in London, a few weeks after the annual World Press Freedom Day. Biden marked that day last year by proclaiming, “Courageous journalists around the world have shown time and again that they will not be silenced or intimidated. The United States sees them and stands with them.” Except, of course, for any courageous journalist that Biden seeks to destroy. 

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NTSB Releases Data on DALI’s Black Box, Reveals No CCTV Footage Found, Sensors Cut Off and Turned Backed On, Voice Recorder Disrupted By Background Noise

As The Gateway Pundit reported earlier the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chair Jennifer Homendy announced the voyage data recorder known as the “black box’ was recovered from the DALI cargo ship that crashed into the Francis Scott Key bridge early Tuesday morning.

On Tuesday evening, Homendy and NTSB investigator Marcel Muise held a press conference to reveal the data on the DALI’s black box, also known as the Voyage Data Recorder (VDR).

NTSB investigator Marcel Muise revealed there were about six hours of VDR on data and included a timeline of midnight to 6 am.

Before revealing the data on the VDR, Muise warned that the quality of the voice recording and radio data was hard to comprehend due to background noise.

Muise then shared that the “VDR sensor data ceased recording. The VDR audio continued to record using the redundant power source.”

“VDR resumed recording sensor data, and during this time, steering commands and rutter orders were recorded on the audio,” added Muise.

Muise continued, “The ship’s pilot made a very high-frequency radio call for tugs in the vicinity to assist. About this time, the pilot dispatcher phoned the Maryland Transportation Authority duty officer regarding the blackout.”

He concluded his statement by adding that “The ship’s speed over ground was recorded at just under 7 knots. From this moment to approximately 1:29:33, the VDR audio recorded sounds consistent with the collision of the bridge.”

WATCH:

NTSB Reveals Data on DALI’s Black Box

Sensors’s Mysteriously Cut off

Voice recording too hard to understand due to background noise pic.twitter.com/ALlz7qYIXc

— Anthony Scott (@AnthonyScottTGP) March 28, 2024

Before the content on the black box was revealed, Homendy noted a group of operations and engineering groups boarded the DALI to do a walk-through of the ship’s bridge and engine room to find any electronic recorders, cameras, or CCTV footage but could not find any.

WATCH:

NTSB Engineers Were Able to Board DALI But Found NO CCTV Footage, Cameras Or Any Downloadable Data@gatewaypundit pic.twitter.com/Asv3Z5ZOyx

— Anthony Scott (@AnthonyScottTGP) March 28, 2024

Per The Washington Post:

The alarms first sounded on the Dali around 1:24 a.m. Tuesday, an NTSB official said in a Wednesday evening news conference, citing preliminary information from the container ship’s voice data recorder.

About a minute and a half later, the ship’s pilot used a high-frequency radio to request assistance, helping to alert the on-duty Maryland Transportation Authority officer. The pilot called for “tugs in the vicinity,” which help vessels leave the port and get into its main channel. Before the Dali hit the bridge, it had no tugs. Thirty seconds later, the pilot ordered the ship’s anchor to be dropped and gave “additional steering commands,” said Marcel Muise, the lead investigator.

At 1:27 a.m., the pilot reported that the Dali had lost all power and was approaching the bridge, Muise said. At the time, there were two Maryland Transportation Authority units at the scene because of the ongoing construction, and those units shut down all lanes of traffic on the bridge, according to Muise.
He said the voice data recorder captured “sounds consistent with the collision” at 1:29 a.m. Around this time, the lights on the Key Bridge also went out.

Watch the entire press conference below:

The post NTSB Releases Data on DALI’s Black Box, Reveals No CCTV Footage Found, Sensors Cut Off and Turned Backed On, Voice Recorder Disrupted By Background Noise appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Federal Appeals Court Rejects ‘Invasion’ Claims, Issues New Block on Texas Immigration Law That Gives Police Power to Arrest Illegal Aliens

Last week the US Supreme Court allowed Texas to enforce its immigration law that allows police to arrest illegal aliens.

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority rejected an emergency application by the Biden Regime requesting the high court block Texas’ immigration law.

The high court temporarily rejected the Biden Regime’s request as litigation made its way through the courts.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals last week temporarily suspended the immigration law after the Supreme Court rejected the emergency application.

A three-judge panel for the Fifth Circuit in a 2-1 ruling Tuesday night rejected ‘invasion’ claims and issued a new block on Texas’ immigration law.

The one judge who dissented was appointed by Trump.

The AP reported:

Texas’ plans to arrest migrants suspected of illegally entering the U.S. will remain on hold under a federal appeals court order that likely prevents enforcement of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s new immigration law until a broader decision on whether it is legal.

The 2-1 ruling late Tuesday is the second time a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has put a temporary hold on the the Texas law. It follows a confusing few hours last week the Supreme Court allowed the law to take effect, setting off anger and anticipation along the U.S.-Mexico border.

In Tuesday’s order, Chief Judge Priscilla Richman cited a 2012 Supreme Court decision that struck down portions of a strict Arizona immigration law, including arrest power. The Texas law is considered by opponents to be the most dramatic attempt by a state to police immigration since that Arizona law.

“For nearly 150 years, the Supreme Court has held that the power to control immigration — the entry, admission, and removal of noncitizens — is exclusively a federal power,” wrote Richman, an appointee of Republican President George W. Bush.

In December Governor Greg Abbott (R) signed a bill that gives Texas police power to arrest illegal aliens amid Biden’s border invasion.

“Biden’s deliberate inaction has left Texas to fend for itself,” Abbott said, adding the new bill is designed to “stop the tidal wave of illegal entry into Texas.”

“At the Texas-Mexico border today for a bill signing ceremony that will take #OperationLoneStar to the next level,” Abbott said on X in December.

Brownsville

At the Texas-Mexico border today for a bill signing ceremony that will take #OperationLoneStar to the next level.

Join me LIVE as I sign historic border security legislation into law: https://t.co/rmFb1eHMdK pic.twitter.com/6jZ3qPNWPg

— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) December 18, 2023

The post Federal Appeals Court Rejects ‘Invasion’ Claims, Issues New Block on Texas Immigration Law That Gives Police Power to Arrest Illegal Aliens appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison: We’re Investigating Automakers for Making Cars That Are ‘Too Easy’ for Young People to Steal (VIDEO)

During a recent appearance on MSNBC, far left Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said that he is investigating two major automakers for making cars that are too easy for young people to steal.

This is the sort of backwards thinking that the left is forcing on the rest of the country.

They don’t want to charge criminals for stealing cars, they want to attack the car makers for making the cars too easy to steal. It’s really amazing that Ellison can go on national TV and say this with a straight face.

RedState reports:

We’ve seen a lot of bad approaches to crime from those on the left, particularly from progressive prosecutors who seem to want to upend the enforcement of the law. We’ve been seeing it a lot lately — people who are let out who never should have been let out and then go on to commit horrific crimes.

There’s a frequent failure to hold bad actors responsible. We see in the cases of gun crimes, for example, where the fault somehow is on the gun, the NRA, or the Republican Party rather than on the bad actor and the people who haven’t held him responsible in the past for his bad acts. Somehow, it’s the evil gun’s fault.

Now we have another entrant into this bizarre kind of thinking from Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison…

“But we have to go upstream, and we got to make sure that the automobiles are not so easy to steal that they are a tempting, attractive nuisance for young people. Right now we are investigating two major automakers because their cars are dramatically too easy to steal for young people,” he claimed.

Watch the clip below:

Minnesota AG Keith Ellison on car theft:

“We are investigating 2 automakers. Their cars are too easy to steal for young people.”

pic.twitter.com/RTRTm3FP5Q

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) March 24, 2024

If someone burns down a house, do you go after the person who built the house for making it too easy to burn down?

If that makes sense to you, you might be a leftist.

The post Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison: We’re Investigating Automakers for Making Cars That Are ‘Too Easy’ for Young People to Steal (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

NJ Democrat Councilwoman Posts Meme Calling Easter Eggs ‘Aborted Chicken Babies That are Painted in Drag’

A New Jersey councilwoman is under fire for posting a meme calling Easter eggs “aborted chicken babies that are painted in drag.”

Paula Gilligan, a Glen Rock councilwoman, had posted the rainbow meme to her Instagram to mock Christian pro-life beliefs.

By Sunday, Gilligan had issued a statement about the meme on the municipal website — but did not apologize.

“It has come to my attention that there are constituents in Glen Rock that have concerns with a meme on my personal Instagram story,” Gilligan wrote. “The meme takes aim at the absurdity of ‘personhood’ laws.”

Gilligan continued, “Currently 40 bills with personhood language have been proposed in 16 states. Personhood language refers to legal language that would codify the dangerous notion that from the moment of fertilization, an egg should be legally recognized as a person with full constitutional rights.”

“This legislation supports an extremist political position that I disagree with. It is my personal opinion that people have the right to control their bodies and their lives,” the politician continued.

The statement concluded with a non-apology: “My personal Instagram does not constitute the official views, opinions or beliefs of the Mayor and Council of the Borough of Glen Rock. To those who feel it mocks your holiday traditions, that was not my intention. Wishing all who celebrate a peaceful, joyous holiday.”

The entire Borough Council issued a statement with an actual apology.

“We have been made aware of a post that appeared on one of our Council Member’s personal Instagram stories. This post invoked Easter, the holiest day of the year in the Christian calendar, in a point about two issues that have nothing to do with Easter. As Mayor and members of the Borough Council, we want to apologize to everyone who was offended by this post.”

The statement continued, “We all feel very strongly that everyone’s religious beliefs and traditions must be treated with respect. They should not be the subject of jokes or inflammatory social media posts.  That is even more true when the social media post is made by an elected official, because we are here to represent and support all Glen Rockers of all religious beliefs and backgrounds.  We understand how important Easter and the symbols of Easter are to the many Glen Rockers who celebrate.”

“As we have stated on many occasions before, we believe strongly that Glen Rock should be an inclusive community that celebrates and honors everyone’s religious beliefs and traditions.  This includes Christianity as well as all of the other religions represented in town.  We call on all Glen Rockers to support and respect each other, and as your elected officials, we continue to strive to be examples of that support and respect.”

The entire council, including Gilligan, signed the statement.

The post NJ Democrat Councilwoman Posts Meme Calling Easter Eggs ‘Aborted Chicken Babies That are Painted in Drag’ appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Hypocrite Jon Stewart Went After Trump for Overvaluing His Property – Turns Out He Did the Exact Same Thing With His NYC Apartment

Jon Stewart recently went after Trump on the Daily Show, claiming that Trump overvaluing his property, as the Letitia James case claims, was not a victimless crime. In truth it wasn’t a crime at all, it’s standard operating procedure in real estate deals.

But it turns out that Jon Stewart did the exact same thing with his New York City apartment.

Are leftists capable of anything other than projection?

The New York Post reports:

Jon Stewart benefited by 829% ‘overvalue’ of his NYC home even as he labels Trump’s civil case ‘not victimless’

Comedian Jon Stewart ranted this week that Donald Trump’s civil real-estate case overvaluing his properties was “not victimless,” yet when it came to his own home, Stewart benefited from a similar inflation…

But it didn’t take long for internet sleuths to look into Stewart’s own property history, which shows his New York City penthouse sold for 829% more than its assessed value, records confirmed by The Post reveal.

In 2014, Stewart sold his 6,280-square-foot Tribeca duplex to financier Parag Pande for $17.5 million. The property’s asking price at that time is not available in listing records.

But according to 2013-2014 assessor records obtained by The Post, the property had the estimated market-value at only $1.882 million. The actual assessor valuation was even lower, at $847,174.

Records also show that Stewart paid significantly lower property taxes, which were calculated based on that assessor valuation price — precisely what he called Trump out for doing in his Monday monologue.

Anyone surprised?

Iron Law of Woke Projection never misses. https://t.co/ZavkeKSO6a

— James Lindsay, full varsity (@ConceptualJames) March 27, 2024

Hey @jonstewart,

When will you volunteer to plead guilty and pay the difference in taxes or has this jogged your memory to the fact that assessed values for taxes are almost universally lower than sale prices pretty much everywhere on earth? Looking forward to your apology. https://t.co/GVgnMJBImy

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) March 27, 2024

Jon Stewart sold his home for many millions more than the valuation he was taxed on. Admit you’re wrong @jonstewart – or claim that the US should start prosecuting millions of people including yourself. https://t.co/Ql7hGJENUz

— Rob Schmitt (@SchmittNYC) March 27, 2024

Letitia James is probably going to charge Stewart any moment now. Right?

(Image:Source)

The post Hypocrite Jon Stewart Went After Trump for Overvaluing His Property – Turns Out He Did the Exact Same Thing With His NYC Apartment appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

CLASSY: Democrat Strategist Paul Begala Compares Third Party Candidates to Cockroaches (VIDEO)

Democrat strategist Paul Begala compared third party candidates to cockroaches during a recent appearance on CNN. Isn’t it great when liberals make it clear what kind of people they really are?

One other reason why this segment is important is because it shows how absolutely terrified Democrats are about third party candidates taking votes away from Biden.

As Begala notes, it doesn’t take much for a third party candidate to completely change the outcome of an election.

FOX News reports:

Third parties are like ‘cockroaches in the kitchen,’ former Clinton adviser says: ‘Foul it up’ for Biden

Paul Begala, a former adviser to Bill Clinton, compared third-parties to cockroaches on Monday and said Robert F. Kennedy Jr would throw “the whole election to Donald Trump,” which he said was a very real threat.

While discussing the Biden campaign and DNC effort to “diminish” RFK Jr.’s third-party effort, Begala, a CNN political commentator, suggested Kennedy could throw the election to Trump and compared third-parties to cockroaches.

“Third parties elected Donald Trump in 2016, about six to seven percent of Americans voted third-party. That third-party vote dropped to less than two, which is how Biden won. So, anything over two, Democrats are in trouble. Kennedy alone is getting 15 in some of these places. So yeah, my view is third parties, they’re like cockroaches in the kitchen, okay?”

He added, “It’s not what they carry off that upsets you. It’s what they fall into and foul up. Bobby Kennedy can fall into every swing state and foul it up for Joe Biden and throw the whole election to Donald Trump. So, I’m very happy as a Democrat that the Democrats are on this because it’s a very real threat,” Begala said.

Here’s the clip:

Gotta love CNN “political analysts” comparing Kennedy to a cockroach that must be squashed.#CNN #DNClies #Kennedy24 pic.twitter.com/yCPzfp4uPC

— JRS (@jrs_1202) March 25, 2024

Had Trump made this comparison, Paul Begala would be on TV huffing and puffing about how Trump dehumanizes people.

It’s just (D)ifferent when they do it.

The post CLASSY: Democrat Strategist Paul Begala Compares Third Party Candidates to Cockroaches (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Feb. 24: US Govt. Confirms China Compromised US Infrastructure via Cyber Attacks Including Transportation …March 24: Major US Bridge Collapses After Runaway Cargo Ship Takes Out Bridge Support

Early Tuesday morning the Singaporean-Flagged Cargo Ship crashed into the supports and took down the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland.

The M/V Dali can be seen suffering a Total Loss of Power at least Twice before the Crash.

But there’s more to the story.

DC Draino reported on a CISA Conference in February 2024 (just last month) where the US government confirmed that China compromised US infrastructure via cyber attacks – including transportation.

DC Draino: Feb 2024: The US Gov’t confirmed China compromised US-Infrastructure via cyber attacks…to include *TRANSPORTATION*

CISA and its U.S. Government partners have confirmed that this group of PRC state-sponsored cyber actors has compromised entities across multiple critical infrastructure sectors in cyberspace, including communications, energy, *TRANSPORTATION*, and water and wastewater, in the United States and its territories.

The data and information CISA and its U.S. Government partners have gathered strongly suggest the PRC is positioning itself to launch destructive cyber-attacks that would jeopardize the physical safety of Americans and impede military readiness in the event of a major crisis or conflict with the United States.

Great dig by @its_gabbygabs

Feb 2024: The US Gov’t confirmed China compromised US-Infrastructure via cyber attacks…to include *TRANSPORTATION*

CISA and its U.S. Government partners have confirmed that this group of PRC state-sponsored cyber actors has compromised entities across multiple critical… https://t.co/Flya4EBn2G pic.twitter.com/CM2UMu0npu

— DC_Draino (@DC_Draino) March 27, 2024

The report was published on February 7, 2024.

Advisory provides details on the PRC’s efforts to conceal its hacking activity, discovery and mitigation guidance to potential victims, and encourage reporting of any suspected incident  

WASHINGTON – The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), National Security Agency (NSA), and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), along with key U.S. and international government agencies published a Joint Cybersecurity Advisory today on malicious activity by a People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-sponsored cyber actor, known as Volt Typhoon, to compromise critical infrastructure and associated actions that should be urgently undertaken by all organizations.

CISA and its U.S. Government partners have confirmed that this group of PRC state-sponsored cyber actors has compromised entities across multiple critical infrastructure sectors in cyberspace, including communications, energy, transportation, and water and wastewater, in the United States and its territories. The data and information CISA and its U.S. Government partners have gathered strongly suggest the PRC is positioning itself to launch destructive cyber-attacks that would jeopardize the physical safety of Americans and impede military readiness in the event of a major crisis or conflict with the United States.

In addition to the joint Cybersecurity Advisory, CISA and our partners also released complementary Joint Guidance to help all organizations effectively hunt for and detect the sophisticated types of techniques used by actors such as Volt Typhoon, known as “living off the land.” In recent years, the U.S. has seen a strategic shift in PRC cyber threat activity from a focus on espionage to pre-positioning for possible disruptive cyber-attacks against U.S. critical infrastructure. By using “living off the land” techniques, PRC cyber actors blend in with normal system and network activities, avoid identification by network defenses, and limit the amount of activity that is captured in common logging configurations.

Detecting and mitigating “living off the land” malicious cyber activity requires a multi-faceted and comprehensive approach to discern legitimate behavior from malicious behavior and conduct behavior analytics, anomaly detection, and proactive hunting. This advisory and complementary guidance provide organizations with details on how Volt Typhoon cyber threat actors use “living off the land” techniques to abuse legitimate, native tools and processes on systems, and identifies specific details on the actors’ tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) using certain adversarial behavior patterns.

“The PRC cyber threat is not theoretical: leveraging information from our government and industry partners, CISA teams have found and eradicated Volt Typhoon intrusions into critical infrastructure across multiple sectors. And what we’ve found to date is likely the tip of the iceberg,” said CISA Director Jen Easterly. “Today’s joint advisory and guide are the result of effective, persistent operational collaboration with our industry, federal, and international partners and reflect our continued commitment to providing timely, actionable guidance to all of our stakeholders. We are at a critical juncture for our national security. We strongly encourage all critical infrastructure organizations to review and implement the actions in these advisories and report any suspected Volt Typhoon or living off the land activity to CISA or FBI.”

Today’s joint advisory is based primarily on technical insights gleaned from CISA and industry response activities at victim organizations within the United States, primarily in communications, energy, transportation, and water and wastewater sectors. Our complementary joint guide is derived from those insights as well as previously published products, red team assessments, and industry partners.

The new advisory and guide have been jointly issued by CISA, National Security Agency (NSA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Department of Energy (DOE), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Transportation Security Administration (TSA), Australian Signals Directorate’s (ASD’s) Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC), Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS), a part of the Communications Security Establishment (CSE), United Kingdom National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-UK), and New Zealand National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-NZ).

For more information, visit People’s Republic of China Cyber Threat.

This national cyber security warning was sent out just last month!

And yet these same government officials believe the Francis Scott Key Bridge incident was not an attack?

Seems a bit questionable.

The post Feb. 24: US Govt. Confirms China Compromised US Infrastructure via Cyber Attacks Including Transportation …March 24: Major US Bridge Collapses After Runaway Cargo Ship Takes Out Bridge Support appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.