Month: May 2025

President Donald Trump announced on Friday the long talked about military parade to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the establishment of the United States Army by the Continental Congress will indeed take place in Washington, D.C. on June 14.

President Trump and the Army were born on the same day, June 14. Trump will turn 79 that day. The parade is estimated to cost about $45 million.

In addition to the parade, the celebration will feature a parachute jump, a concert, fireworks and a speech by President Trump.

This 1775 etching shows George Washington taking command of the Continental Army at Cambridge, Massachusetts, just two weeks after his appointment by the Continental Congress., image via CUNY.

“I am proud to announce that we will be hosting a magnificent Parade to honor the United States Army’s 250th Birthday, on Saturday, June 14th, in Washington, D.C. For two and a half centuries, our brave soldiers have fought, bled, and died to keep us FREE, and now we will honor them with a wonderful Parade, one that is worthy of their service and sacrifice. Americans across the Nation are invited to attend. RSVP at america250.org/.”

Excerpt from History.com on the founding of the Army:

On June 14, 1775, the Continental Congress authorizes the enlistment of expert riflemen to serve the United Colonies for one year. This launches the U.S. Army as America’s first national institution, more than a year before the Declaration of Independence is published on July 4, 1776.

“Resolved, that six companies of expert riflemen, be immediately raised in Pennsylvania, two in Maryland, and two in Virginia…that each company, as soon as completed, shall march and join the Army near Boston, to be there employed as light infantry, under the command of the chief Officer in that army,” said the Continental Congress resolution.

With the resolution, the congress adopted the New England Army of Observation, making it the Continental Army. The fighters were charged with defending the 13 American colonies from British attack in the Revolutionary War.

One day after issuing the resolution, Congress unanimously selected George Washington, a Virginian with a strong military record, as commander in chief of the new army. Washington received his commission on June 19, 1775; after leading the colonial army to victory over the British, he was elected the new nation’s first president in 1789.

The parade runs from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. The concert starts right after with the fireworks set for 9:45 p.m. A festival on the Mall starts in the morning and runs all day.

Press release with times and details of activities:

The United States of America to Honor the 250th Anniversary of the U.S. Army with a Grand Military Parade and Celebration in Washington, D.C.

On June 14, 2025–the U.S. Army’s 250th birthday–the nation will honor its legacy with a grand military parade in Washington, D.C. President Donald J. Trump will join veterans, active-duty troops, wounded warriors, Gold Star Families, and Patriotic Americans from across the country to celebrate our heroes who have protected our country through strength and selflessness. Tickets for the Parade and Celebration are available through America250’s event registration portal.

This historic event will commemorate the legacy and enduring strength of the U.S. Army, while looking boldly toward the next 250 years of American patriotism and technological advancement. The event is designed not only to showcase the Army’s modern capabilities but also to inspire a new generation to embrace the spirit of service, resilience, and leadership that defines the United States. The parade will trace the Army’s evolution from the Revolutionary War through to the U.S. Army of Tomorrow. Attendees will experience 250 years of Army heritage through historical U.S. Army personnel reenactors, period-accurate equipment, vehicles, impressive flyovers, and military bands participating in this landmark event.

President Donald J. Trump is scheduled to deliver remarks celebrating 250 Years of the U.S. Army’s exceptional service, significant achievements, and enduring legacy. Under President Trump’s leadership, the U.S. Army has been restored to strength and readiness. His America First agenda has delivered historic pay raises for service members, rebuilt military stockpiles, invested in cutting-edge technologies, and ensured our soldiers have the tools and support they need to win on any battlefield. The Army is on track to meet its annual recruiting goals well ahead of schedule, with more than 85% of its 2025 target already achieved.

On June 14, 1775, the Second Continental Congress voted to establish the Continental Army. This action marked the creation of America’s first national military force, more than a year before the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

For 250 years, the United States Army has played a vital role in defending America. From the Revolutionary War to the present day, Americans have served selflessly–many sacrificing their lives–in defense of the country. Our service members’ courage, loyalty, and dedication have inspired generations. At the same time, Army-led innovations and breakthroughs–from radar and the internet to everyday items like wireless communications–have advanced our national security, transformed global commerce, and propelled America’s economic competitiveness.

Date and Time:

Saturday, June 14, 2025

6:30 PM EDT – 9:30PM EDT

Location:

Constitution Ave – Washington, D.C.

The parade will take place on Constitution Ave NW between 15th Street and 23rd Street.

Timeline of Events:

8:00 AM: Guest Entry for Army Fitness Competition and Festival

2:00 PM: Guest Entry for Parade

6:30 PM: Parade & Celebration Begins

9:30 PM: Event Concludes

Due to security screening requirements, please plan to arrive early.

Public RSVP:

REGISTER HERE

More details from the AP (excerpt):

The U.S. Army will place large metal plates at key points on D.C. streets to better protect the pavement from the movements of 25 M1 Abrams main battle tanks set to roll through the capital June 14, a U.S. official told the Associated Press.

…It will involve thousands of troops also marching in formation, in uniforms representing every U.S. conflict dating back to the Revolutionary War, which began in 1775. Each war will be represented by 60 troops in period costume, followed by 400 troops from that same unit in their regular battle dress uniforms. For example, the Civil War will be represented by the Army’s 4th Infantry Division, based in Fort Carson, Colorado, with 60 soldiers wearing historical costumes and 400 in today’s uniforms.

Overall the parade plans call for about 6,600 soldiers, 150 vehicles and 50 helicopters to follow a route from the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, to the National Mall.

The late-afternoon parade will be followed by a parachute jump by the Army’s Golden Knights, a concert and fireworks.

The post President Trump Announces “Magnificent Parade” in DC to Celebrate 250th Anniversary of US Army appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

If chutzpah could take human form, it would strongly resemble CNN’s Jake Tapper.

The recent spectacle of Tapper making the rounds on the interview circuit to promote his latest book, “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,” co-authored with Alex Thompson, has such a wolf-in-the-henhouse feel to it that both the interview tour and the five-years-too-late investigation into former President Joe Biden’s cognitive decline simply must involve sinister, ulterior motives.

Sure enough, in an interview posted to the social media platform X Friday, Tapper revealed those motives.

“This applies to Donald Trump, too,” Tapper said of the lack of transparency surrounding the former president’s health.

Ah, there it is.

Tapper, who actively participated in the cover-up of Biden’s decline, now has a public service to perform.

Apparently, this wasn’t about a historic political scandal in which Biden’s surrogates and allies in the establishment media gaslit the American public for four years while propping up a corrupt, pudding-brained old fool whose existence provided cover for their war against American citizens — a scandal perpetrated by specific people who committed specific crimes. No! This story involves lessons for the future!

“Donald Trump has released, like, nothing about his health,” Tapper added. “And while there aren’t the questions of acuity, there are certainly questions about his health.”

Questions about President Donald Trump’s health? What questions, exactly? Could anyone outside the establishment media fail to recognize Trump’s superhuman work ethic? The president accomplishes more in a week than Tapper does in a year, and yet the establishment shill has the audacity to question Trump’s health?

Of course, to maintain his disinterested facade, Tapper proceeded to frame the question as a constitutional one.

“We can’t have this as a country,” the establishment journalist said. “We have such a powerful executive branch, and at this stage, such an un-co-equal legislative branch, and such weak political parties, [that] we’re really racing towards a very dangerous situation.”

Indeed, if the first four months of Trump’s administration have taught us anything, they have taught us that the other two branches of government, particularly the judicial branch, would never DARE usurp powers the Constitution does not grant them to interfere with the legitimate workings of the executive branch. Perish the thought!

Of course, Tapper had it right, and we owe him a debt of gratitude for his service. Trump has wielded unchecked power, and the courts have shown him too much deference!

What a clown Tapper is.

Very instructive one minute clip:

Jake Tapper says the purpose of his book is to make sure there’s “transparency” with political leaders — then makes it all about Trump and “questions about his health.”

That’s where this is going — media is going to use this book as cover to do… pic.twitter.com/lJpKbjEerw

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) May 23, 2025

Meanwhile, the larger story here goes beyond Tapper. The establishment media has assumed the posture of scrutinizing the crime it committed.

“We outed Biden’s mental state after he served. See how honest we are? This qualifies us to go after Trump while he is serving,” one X user sarcastically and perceptively wrote.

I’m starting to get it now.

We outed Biden’s mental state after he served. See how honest we are?

This qualifies us to go after Trump while he is serving. https://t.co/y0ze8klfYx

— Walter Kirn (@walterkirn) May 18, 2025

In short, Tapper’s “investigation” into the Biden cover-up has the same surreal, mockery-of-justice quality as Anthony Fauci leading the COVID response.

Now, at least, we know that Tapper and Fauci had the same underlying motive to take down Trump.

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.

The post Now It All Makes Sense: Tapper Lets It Slip That Coming Clean on Biden Is Really About Getting Trump appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

The mainstream media and liberal Democrats are up in arms over a recent ICE arrest—yet again ignoring the facts in favor of outrage. But as with so many of these cases, this removal was fully justified and rooted in a long-standing legal order.

Kasper Juul Eriksen, a Danish national living in Mississippi, was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during what was supposed to be his final naturalization interview in April 2025.

The arrest was based on a missed paperwork deadline from 2015—specifically, Eriksen failed to file Form I-751, the “Petition to Remove Conditions on Residence.” That failure led to a final order of removal issued in 2019.

The media places great importance on the family’s claim that they were unaware of the removal order.

That may or may not be true—but even if it is, the law does not require knowledge of a removal order for it to be valid. The order stands, and ICE was simply doing its job by enforcing it.

The media seems to think it’s very important that the family claims they were unaware of the “petition to remove.” That claim may be false, but even if it’s true, the order remains legally enforceable. Whether Eriksen knew about it or not is irrelevant. The media keeps repeating that he is a father, his wife is pregnant, and that he has “deep community ties”, none of which has any bearing on the case. ICE carried out a lawful civil immigration arrest.

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), ICE has full authority to arrest individuals who are subject to a final order of removal.

Outlets are using emotionally charged language like, “Despite having no criminal record and being a long-term resident contributing to his community, Eriksen was taken into custody and transported to the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Jena, Louisiana.”

But having no criminal record is irrelevant. Eriksen violated the terms of his residency by failing to file the required paperwork and then failed to appear at his immigration hearing on April 2, 2019.

As a result, an immigration judge issued a final order of removal. ICE, as the official enforcement arm, simply executed that lawful order.

There was no error, no overreach, no “Gestapo tactics,” and no “Nazism.” Eriksen broke immigration law and was arrested—end of story.

The media keep saying that ICE “shackled” Eriksen. In reality, it is standard procedure for anyone being arrested to be placed in handcuffs.

There is significant evidence that some individuals resist arrest or attempt to flee, so handcuffs are used for officer safety, not as a punishment, but as protocol.

The next liberal complaint is that Eriksen was locked in a “gulag.” No, there are no gulags. He was detained in an ICE processing center, which is exactly what happens when someone is arrested by ICE.

According to media reports, the facility has been criticized for being in a remote location and for alleged substandard conditions. But “remote location” is a strange complaint.

Should the center be in the middle of town? There’s no law requiring ICE detention centers to be centrally located. Land is cheaper outside urban areas, and these are large federal facilities that don’t need to be inside city limits like a local jail might.

As for the “substandard” conditions, the facility is located in Louisiana, a relatively poor state. But whether the facility is luxurious or not is irrelevant to the legality of the arrest. If liberals want better detention centers, I’m sure most Republicans would support funding them, especially if the money comes from cutting off benefits for illegal aliens.

As usual in deportation cases, the media go on to explain how the father breaking the law has put a strain on the family, cue the emotional appeal: “Just think of the children…” And I agree with that sentiment. Parents should think of their children before breaking the law.

Coverage has portrayed Eriksen’s arrest as an overreach by ICE, but when you follow up on most of the recent high-profile cases that triggered media outrage, the facts show that the arrests and deportations were justified, legal, and carried out in full accordance with U.S. immigration law.

So far, the only identifiable error was in the case of Kilmar Abrego García, who should have been deported to Sudan or another country willing to accept U.S. deportees, instead of El Salvador. That mistake has since been corrected, and he is now back in his country of citizenship.

Despite repeated media claims, no U.S. citizens have been deported. As for the highly publicized ICE raid that supposedly “terrorized” a family, that operation was also justified, the house in question was tied to a cartel based in Guatemala, and the individuals inside were linked to trafficking.

Abrego García was deported because his confirmed membership in MS-13 invalidated his U.S. residency. These were not overreaches, they were lawful enforcement actions grounded in public safety and immigration law.

One of the most dishonest portrayals was the case of Ximena Arias-Cristobal. The media claimed she was deported simply for failing to signal, but the reality is quite different.

She was pulled over for a traffic violation, found to be driving without a license, and arrested. In that jurisdiction, standard arrest procedures include checking immigration status—and that’s when it was discovered that she was in the country illegally. That, not the traffic stop, was the real reason for her deportation.

The left is also celebrating public officials and judges who actively impede lawful ICE operations. This sets a dangerous precedent, suggesting that government employees are only obligated to enforce the laws they personally agree with.

That is not how a constitutional republic is meant to operate. Existing laws represent the will of the people, and enforcing those laws is, by definition, the enforcement of the people’s will.

If liberals don’t like the laws being enforced, they should work to change them through the democratic process. But as long as those laws remain on the books, it is not “Nazism” to enforce them, it is simply law and order.

The post Another Justified ICE Removal—And More Media Lies appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Welcome to The Gateway Pundit’s Week-in-Review with Elijah Schaffer, where he covers the top 5 stories throughout the last 24 hours.

 

ARTICLE 1: WATCH: New Video Shows Milwaukee County Judge Hanna Dugan Angrily Confronting ICE Agents in Courthouse 

ARTICLE 2:  The Lord Is Moving’: Former Mocker of Christianity Joe Rogan Is Now Attending a Church

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ARTICLE 3:  Georgia Elections: 74% VOTING SYSTEM ERROR- Saved By Hand Count! — VIDEO  

Please leave your opinions / comments on these stories below as Elijah reads every single one and appreciates your perspective.

The post UNHINGED Judge ATTACKS ICE Agents in Viral Courthouse Clash! | Elijah Schaffer’s Top Stories Of The Last 24 Hours (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Memorial Day weekend is the perfect opportunity to get together with family and friends to celebrate the burgeoning summer: a three-day weekend full of great food, great music, and, depending on your interests, great lacrosse. 

For those who love the fastest game on two feet, Memorial Day weekend is the culmination of the NCAA lacrosse season. This year’s event will feature powerhouses Syracuse, Cornell, Maryland, and the outsiders from Penn State, who rallied from down 6 against Notre Dame this past weekend to punch their ticket to the Final Four. It will be only the Nittany Lions’ third appearance in the final weekend of the lacrosse season.

Lacrosse has, for most of the modern era, been a Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic game played by the elite prep high schools and colleges of our United States. In its most recent years, the game has spread to the Rockies and beyond, with the University of Denver becoming the first college team west of the Mississippi to win a national championship when the Pioneers achieved the feat in 2015. Today, lacrosse is booming in England, Ireland, Japan, Australia, and Israel. 

But long before that, before national titles were won and stats were kept, back when lacrosse sticks were still made of wood, the game belonged to the Six Nations tribes who invented it on this continent nearly 1,000 years ago. Formerly known as the Iroqouis, the Six Nations comprise the Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk, Seneca, Cayuga, and Tuscarora Nations. Today, they’re known as the Six Nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, or Haudenosaunee for short.

Some of the best to ever play the sport have been born and raised inside the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Cody Jamieson of the Mohawk Nation led the Syracuse Orangemen to a national title in 2009, scoring the game-winning goal in sudden-death overtime. Sid Smith, an indigenous defender born in Six Nations, Ontario, was also a major part of that Syracuse championship team. Tehoka Nanticoke, Austin Staats, Cory Bomberry, the Powless family, and many, many others have paved the way for young members of the Confederacy to find success in the modern era of the sport.

But none have had perhaps as deep an impact on the game itself as the Thompson brothers from the Onondaga Nation, who lit the lacrosse world on fire in the 2010s. Lyles, Miles, and Jeremy each left his mark on the game in a way that continues to be honored to this day. Lyles, specifically, is considered to be one of the greatest to ever play the sport. He holds the record for most points ever scored by a player and won the Tewaaraton Award, the nation’s highest honor for collegiate players, in 2014 and 2015. The trophy itself is a bronze sculpture featuring a Mohawk native playing lacrosse.

“It’s traditional that we’re given [a lacrosse stick] in our cradleboard as a youngster, as a young little boy growing up you’re given one,” explained Jeremy of the Thompson clan. “When we leave this place, this earth, we’re given it in our coffin. So as you can see, from birth to death, it’s with us, spiritually.” 

Lacrosse will feature in the Olympic Games for the first time since 1948 when the event takes place in Los Angeles in the summer of 2028. As of today, the Haudenosaunee, who are ranked as the third best team in the world, are on the outside looking in. To participate in the Olympic Games, a nation must satisfy two major criteria: recognition by the international community and the creation of a National Olympic Committee. The Haudenosaunee possess neither. 

The International Olympic Committee has its reasons for including lacrosse in the games but excluding its creators. There is a valid concern that the Haudenosaunee’s presence could lead to separatist movements and auxiliary nations around the world to seek similar exemptions to participate in future editions of the Olympics. But that fear overlooks the special reality of lacrosse, its inventors, and a rich tradition within America’s sporting culture. 

This is not the first time the Haudenosaunee have faced hurdles in its mission to achieve an even playing field at the international level. The Haudenosaunee have struggled to take part in the World Lacrosse Championship and the Lacrosse World Games, a six-on-six competition created in anticipation of the game being included in the 2028 Olympic Games. In 2010, the Haudenosaunee qualified for the World Championships in England but ultimately did not play in the event after the British rejected their passports. Members of the U.S. government offered the Haudenosaunee expedited U.S. passports but the team refused, insisting on traveling and playing as their own nation. 

“I would never play for Canada or the U.S.,” Lyle Thompson told the New York Times. 

The former president Joe Biden and former prime minister of Canada Justin Trudeau backed the Haudenosaunee’s 2028 Olympic bid with a joint statement in January of this year, only days before Biden ceded the White House to President Trump. 

“Given the unique and exceptional circumstances of the Haudenosaunee’s historic connection to this sport, and their Men’s and Women’s teams continuously ranked participation in international competitive lacrosse for almost half a century, we believe that a narrowly scoped exception is appropriate,” read the statement signed by both men.

An Olympics in America featuring the return of a sport created in present-day America but without the participation of its unique founders would miss a pivotal point of the games—to bring together the whole world in top-level competition while celebrating the differences, both vast and minute, that differentiate the peoples of the world. Watching the Haudenosaunee lacrosse players walk across the Olympic stage with the Hiawatha Belt flag waving in the California breeze would be a small but not inconsequential moment bridging the ever-present gap between the United States and its people before.

“Lacrosse is a medicine game, first, before it was a secular game,” says indigenous lacrosse legend Rex Lyons. “It was for the vitality, the health and wellness of the community, the nation, the families, and the clans.” Speaking to the game’s healing power, Lyons pointed to news that lacrosse is now being played in Iran of all places. “There’s still hope for the world. They’re playing our game in Iran, that’s the medicine.” 

If there was ever a place that needed medicine, it’s Los Angeles. The IOC should see this moment as the opportunity it is and allow the Haudenosaunee to play. 

The post Let the Haudenosaunee Play appeared first on The American Conservative.

Redefining Racism: How Racism Became Power + Prejudice
By Joseph (Jake) Klein, Black Sheep Press (September 2024),
pp. 252, $14.99

America is obsessed with race. Every day, the media reports on a new front in the conflict over racial preferences and racial grievances. 

The obsession seems to have abated somewhat, at least for now. With the reelection of Donald Trump and the ensuing corporate flight from DEI and other openly discriminatory practices and policies, the racialist craze may have crested, but more waves are surely on their way. And no one can forget the extent to which race dominated the news, culture, and basically all of life in 2020 and beyond.

An historical trajectory that had seemed to many like tremendous progress towards a country that judged people by the content of their character, rather than the color of their skin, somehow ended up in a place where not judging someone by their skin color is considered racist and white supremacist.

How did we get here? How did we go from optimism about race relations in the wake of Barack Obama’s election victory in 2008 to profound pessimism just over a decade later? And how did race become such a dominant factor in many areas of life?

Jake Klein’s new book, Redefining Racism, strives to solve a major portion of that puzzle by exploring how the meaning of racism changed from the everyday definition of “racial prejudice or discrimination” to instead include considerations of social and institutional power—sometimes called “structural” or “systemic” racism. Klein identifies this alternative definition as a major source of worsening racial relations. The purpose of the book, Klein writes, is to demonstrate “that the ‘Power + Prejudice’ definition of racism, and its associated ideas spread via Racism Awareness Training, are making things much worse.”

To that end, Klein revisits the foggy early beginnings of the racial grievance industry to trace, from its origins, the racialist zeitgeist that has upended society. Klein’s archival research is impressive, with meticulous footnotes serving as a testament to deep dives into dusty texts that have been long forgotten, despite their extreme relevance to today’s zeitgeist. 

Klein identifies the first major use of the “power + prejudice” definition of racism in a curriculum developed by high-school teacher Pat Bidol, who included it in a list of definitions of racism with no citation or indication where this novel idea had come from. Notably, Klein’s genealogy refutes the appeal to authority made by contemporary racial-grievance mongers who insist the definition arose out of the rigorous scholarship of eminent academics. 

But Bidol didn’t invent the definition de novo, as Klein shows. Rather, it was developed in large part by a black radical communist, Stokely Carmichael, a figure so extreme that even the Black Panthers kicked him out. 

Truly, there is nothing new under the sun. Today’s racial-grievance industry, which has accumulated tens of millions of dollars in the wake of the mad summer of 2020, is basically operating on the same playbook developed back in the late 1960s by shameless race-baiting profiteers. 

In much the same way that the riots and disorder of 2020 fueled attention and investment in people claiming to be experts in “anti-racism,” Carmichael’s fringe ideology got a boost from the 1967 Detroit race riot that featured arson, mass looting, and 43 deaths, and that was only ended after the national guard deployed tanks and machine guns to the scene.

Eager to avoid another such catastrophe, the Detroit mayor and Michigan governor organized a meeting with business and community leaders, the result of which was the formation of the New Detroit Committee. Klein traces how this committee was soon captured by violent black separatists who did not represent anything close to the mainstream of black opinion at the time, and who essentially used the committee as a way to extort “riot insurance” from local businesses. These funds were then distributed to the organizer’s cronies and their own radical organizations to promote revolutionary racial ideology. 

From the start, Carmichael’s radical ideology—laundered by educators like Bidol, a variety of activist groups, the NEA teacher’s union, and even the military (the Trump administration should probably take a look at what the Pentagon’s Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute is up to)—led to an increased focus on race. “Racism awareness training” and other similar programs began to spread throughout society.

Foreshadowing things to come, these trainings amounted to struggle sessions, with participants who failed to toe the racialist line getting browbeaten or pathologized. Klein documents many instances where participants concluded their trainings with much worse mental health and outlooks than they had before. It’s not hard to see why. Whites were told that being white is an incurable affliction, while blacks were taught that they had little to no power to improve their lives in the face of structural forces. Studies at the time noted the similarities of these practices to psychological torture used on American POWs in the Korean War. 

Redefining Racism is an engaging read that succinctly, yet thoroughly, explores the roots of bad ideas that are shredding America’s social fabric and wrecking the country. By exposing the extremist origins of today’s mainstream racialist ideology, he thwarts the usual attempt to shroud these obviously bonkers ideas in academic respectability, and he helps us to build true racial progress on firmer ground. 

Unfortunately, it takes much longer to build than to destroy, and one can expect much time to pass before American racial relations can be redirected to a promising trajectory that leads towards harmony and peaceful coexistence, rather than seemingly intractable conflict and strife.

The post How America Went Crazy on Race appeared first on The American Conservative.

Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy has long served as an anchor for the alliance between left-wing academia and mainstream media, prioritizing liberal narratives over objective reporting. The center conspires with media, liberal think tanks, and Big Tech to shut down opposing viewpoints to further damage journalism’s integrity.

Founded in 1986 with ties to liberal media elites, the Shorenstein Center evolved into a hub for liberal narrative control and coordination. The parents of the deceased journalist Joan Shorenstein, the center’s namesake, even removed the name of her widower, Michael Barone, from the center’s name because he became a conservative pundit. 

Its advisory board includes liberal figures such as Katie Couric and the former Washington Post editor Marty Baron. Liberal donors include George Soros’s Foundation to Promote Open Society, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Former Shorenstein fellows include prominent liberal journalists like NPR’s Ann Cooper, CNN’s Brian Stelter, PBS NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff, Newsweek’s Alexis Gelber, and the New York Times’s Jennifer Preston.

The center’s Journalist’s Resource website reflects this liberal influence in its goal of “bridging the gap between journalism and academia.” It sends weekly email blasts to over 50,000 subscribers, whom it describes as journalists, policymakers, and educators. The Journalist’s Resource’s articles advise journalists on covering news topics by summarizing relevant academic studies with a left-leaning slant.

For example, the managing editor Denise-Marie Ordway once advised journalists to highlight academic findings favoring Democrat school-board victories while subtly suggesting journalists emphasizing teachers union endorsements could halt the political influence of conservative groups like Moms for Liberty.

The center’s shift toward overt partisanship became more pronounced after President Donald Trump’s 2016 election. Its postelection report criticized media for treating Clinton and Trump as equals, arguing critical coverage of politicians in general “helps the right wing.” In 2018, it hosted an event claiming Russian interference secured Trump’s victory. 

The center also became increasingly obsessed with the idea that “misinformation” drives the public to elect right-leaning politicians. It sought to collaborate with other universities, liberal think tanks, the entrenched bureaucracy, and Big Tech to find ways to amplify liberal establishment narratives and shut down online free speech. 

Its Misinformation Review labeled right-leaning media consumers as prone to “inaccurate beliefs” and claimed Democrats consume “more reliable” media. After the January 6 riot, Shorenstein faculty repeated the 2016 accusation that mainstream media wasn’t biased enough. Research Director Joan Donovan—who recently helped to inspire the violent “Tesla Takedown” campaign—blamed social media companies for not censoring the right.

The center’s censorship efforts included collaboration with programs like First Draft News, which it hosted in the run-up to the 2018 midterms. Founded by Google News Labs and funded by Soros and eBay’s left-wing founder Pierre Omidyar, First Draft’s CrossCheck program coordinated with journalists to shape breaking news narratives and trained thousands to counter “misinformation.” 

The Twitter Files later revealed First Draft’s role in suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story. 

Similarly, the center’s Information Disorder Lab, led by Cameron Hickey, tracked online “disinformation” and fed “non-partisan” research to newsrooms. Hickey later started a “Civic Listening Corps” at the Algorithmic Transparency Institute to train citizens to monitor private group chats for politically incorrect speech.

The center’s Technology and Social Change Project, under Donovan, treated “misinformation” as a public health crisis. It hosted a workshop with academics, left-wing think tank scholars, and taxpayer-funded bureaucrats, comparing “far-right” Americans to 9/11 terrorists and seeking ways to counter conservative movements globally. 

Likewise, the Center’s Digital Platforms & Democracy Project advocated government regulation of social media to curb “hate speech” and “misinformation.”

The academic-media collusion that the center facilitates starts with the assumption that journalism’s purpose is to defend the leftist ideals behind academia’s warped view of democracy. It began as a base to reinforce liberal media narratives with leftist academic research. After Trump’s election showed that the internet can overcome institutional gatekeeping, the center panicked. This resulted in institutional collaboration with other leftists, crafting methods from deeper narrative collusion to private sector censorship of online speech.

Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter and Trump’s hostile takeover of the intelligence agencies greatly undermined the left’s ability to gatekeep online discourse. Still, the Shorenstein Center remains a potent force on the institutional left—backed by Harvard, the only Ivy League university to resist the Trump administration’s reforms targeting left-wing discriminatory practices. Its collaboration with media elites, funding by leftist authoritarians, and continuing role as a media narrative architect show the dangers of institutional collusion between left-wing academics and mainstream media.

The post The Harvard Institution Stoking Left-Wing Media Bias appeared first on The American Conservative.

The Trump administration is sending mixed signals about the future of the American presence in Venezuela’s oil fields.

Special Envoy Ric Grenell told Steve Bannon Tuesday on the latter’s War Room program that President Donald Trump had authorized an extension of Chevron Corporation’s license for oil extraction in the South American country, where it runs a joint operation with Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, PDVSA. That assertion was contradicted the next day by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who stated in a post on his personal X account that “The pro-Maduro Biden oil license in #Venezuela will expire as scheduled next Tuesday May 27.”

Chevron’s presence in Venezuela has been a matter of some controversy for the administration, as the confusion surrounding the expiration of the license this past week demonstrates. Both Trump administrations have taken a hard line towards the repressive Maduro government, including imposing sweeping sanctions on the country in 2019 and asserting early this year that it is cooperating with the prison gang and drug cartel Tren de Aragua in perpetrating an invasion of American territory. The Chevron license, on the other hand, is a product of then-president Joe Biden’s failed attempt to achieve cooperation from Maduro by loosening the restrictions on American companies’ operations in Venezuela.

When Trump returned to office in 2025, his “maximum pressure” strategy on Venezuela seemed to have returned as well. The administration announced in March that it would be revoking Chevron’s license for Venezuelan drilling effective May 27. But that decision has received sharp pushback from some quarters.

Within the administration, Grenell has provided the most public support for a more transactional approach to the Venezuelan government. Shortly after Trump’s inauguration, Grenell met with Venezuelan officials and freed 6 Americans being held prisoner by the government, as well as obtaining an agreement that Venezuela would accept U.S. deportation flights. This week, Grenell also secured the release of American prisoner Joseph St. Clair, an Air Force veteran, as part of negotiations which reportedly included the possibility of extending Chevron’s operations in the country, potentially in exchange for the government accepting further repatriation flights. (The Trump administration recently revoked Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans living illegally in the U.S., meaning hundreds of thousands will be eligible for deportation).

Support for a new approach to Venezuela outside the administration has come from figures in right-wing media, including Bannon and Laura Loomer, as well as those in the oil industry like the former Florida Republican Party Finance Chair Harry Sargeant III, whose company, Global Oil Terminals, also operates in Venezuela. In an op-ed posted to X on May 8, Loomer contended that terminating Chevron’s license in Venezuela would simply turn Venezuelan oil fields over to China while depriving the U.S. of an important energy resource and squeezing domestic consumers.

This is sharply opposed by proponents of Trump’s oppositional “maximum pressure” strategy towards Maduro. Rubio, who asserted that Chevron’s license will expire as planned, has strongly supported a confrontational stance towards Maduro, as does Special Envoy for Latin America Mauricio Claver-Carone. In Congress, the approach has the backing of the three Cuban-American representatives, Mario Díaz-Balart (R-FL), María Elvira Salazar (R-FL), and Carlos Giménez (R-FL), who aggressively lobbied the incoming administration to revoke Chevron’s license earlier this year.

Those who support ending Chevron’s drilling operations with Venezuela argue that the company provides a significant source of financing for the autocratic government. Chevron’s ventures contribute over 200,000 barrels of oil daily to Venezuela’s production, nearly one quarter of all oil produced in the country. That production is worth hundreds of millions of dollars annually to cash-starved Venezuela. 

Chevron’s modern and efficient fleet is also much better equipped to operate the fields than its state-owned partner, PDVSA, which struggles with corruption, poor management, and the disruption caused by American sanctions. The gap left by Chevron could potentially be filled by Chinese companies, but China has pulled back significantly on investments in Venezuela in recent years. (It previously sank billions of dollars into the country between 2008 and 2017, but the economy of the country has crumbled and put returns on Chinese projects and financing at risk.)

At time of writing, Trump has made no comment on Chevron’s license, leaving its future in limbo. The next several days will be an important test of the administration’s position on Venezuela going forward: Will the license expire as planned, confirming a continuation of the “maximum pressure” approach of Trump I? Or will the administration follow up Grenell’s movement towards a more transactional approach to the Maduro government?

The post The Fight Over American Involvement in Venezuelan Oil appeared first on The American Conservative.

Earlier this month, Bill Ackman made it clear that he is on Trump’s side in his ongoing battle with Harvard. He correctly suggested that Harvard has become “a political advocacy organization for one party.”

One of the reasons why Harvard is in a panic over this fight is because their famously huge endowment is not nearly the financial powerhouse people think it is. It may be large, but it’s not liquid.

Ackman recently broke it down in a lengthy post on Twitter/X:

I believe it is likely @Harvard’s that financial position is overstated by the media and the general public. I believe this is principally for two reasons.

One, people ignore Harvard’s $7.9 billion of debt outstanding, which is likely to increase in order for Harvard to meet its cash needs due to the loss of government funding and reduced alumni gifts.

Second, Harvard’s endowment is principally invested in illiquid private assets including real estate, private equity, and venture capital funds.

Real estate and private equity funds are highly levered so relatively small changes in asset values can have a large impact on equity values. For example, if a real estate fund’s asset values decline by 15% and the assets are levered 60%, the fund’s equity value will decline by 37.5%…

In my interview with @nfergus below, I said the realizable values of Harvard’s private assets could be as low 40% of current carrying values if Harvard needs to liquidate substantial portions of its assets to meet its obligations.

I am told by an expert I highly respect in this space that my 40% discount is much too high and a 7% – 15% discount is a better estimate.

Watch as Ackman analyzes the real value of Harvard’s endowment below:

Bill Ackman: “One thing I believe is that the private equity, venture capital and real estate portfolios are mismarked”

Ackman on Harvard and Yale endowment’s exposure to private equity and VC. One of the best clips I have seen

From his recent interview at University of Austin pic.twitter.com/MZN2CpITDN

— Boring_Business (@BoringBiz_) May 22, 2025

The point that Ackman is making here, is that Harvard really is in a horrible position if they don’t get federal tax dollars. Their endowment is not cash sitting in a savings account. It’s tied up in a ton of different investments. The school could be in real financial trouble.

The post Billionaire Investor Bill Ackman Explains Why Harvard is Panicked – Their Endowment is Not Nearly as Great as People Think (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

The ‘Obama Bros’ are the former Obama staffers and speech writers who now do a podcast called ‘Pod Save America.’

During an episode this week, they looked at the outcome of the 2024 election and voter shifts, ultimately concluding that Trump has now taken over what used to be called the Obama Coalition. They noted how awful Kamala Harris did with certain demographics and called the results ‘depressing.’

One of them even suggested that if Democrats don’t get serious, they might as well be rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. OOF.

The Daily Caller reported:

‘Ouch’: Ex-Obama Aide Saddened By ‘Depressing’ New Data Showing Trump Took His Old Boss’ Coalition

Former President Barack Obama aide Jon Favreau said during a Friday podcast that fresh data from Democratic firm Catalist on how former Vice President Kamala Harris lost to President Donald Trump in the 2024 election was upsetting, although not surprising…

“We have been saying since November that we can’t draw too many decisive conclusions about what happened in the election based only on the exit polls — that we have to wait for the gold standard data, which comes from two places: Catalist and Pew,” Favreau said. “We finally got the Catalist data and the headlines out of it were as unsurprising as they were depressing. Kamala Harris lost critical ground with young voters and people of color, especially men of color — especially young men of color. In fact, she gained ground only with married white women and not by much … one point.”

“And super voters in this report — which are people who voted in the last four elections — she did one point better [than former President Joe] Biden among the super voters,” he continued. “But she lost a lot of ground among the irregular voters, people who have voted in just a few of the last four elections. As Amy Walter and Carrie Dann at the Cook Political Report put in their headline, the main conclusion from this report is: ‘The Obama Coalition Turned Into the Trump Coalition.’ Ouch.”

Watch this clip:

NEW: Ex-Obama Aide Jon Favreau says new data showing Trump took his old boss’ coalition is “DEPRESSING”

“Kamala Harris lost critical ground with young voters and people of color, especially men of color — especially young men of color.”

“‘The Obama Coalition Turned Into the… pic.twitter.com/fsAZdJgOZS

— Jason Cohen (@JasonJournoDC) May 23, 2025

Here’s the one that mentions the Titanic:

NEW: Ex-Obama Aide Dan Pfeiffer says Dems on “WRONG SIDE OF POLITICAL HISTORY” after new 2024 election data

“We are the party that is hoping for lower turnout, that the fewer people that vote, we have a better chance of winning, that we are losing ground with the… pic.twitter.com/PNdqszQWK8

— Jason Cohen (@JasonJournoDC) May 23, 2025

There is a lot of truth in what these guys are saying. The Democrat party is in worse shape than many people realize.

The post The Obama Bros Admit That Democrats Are Screwed: ‘Rearranging Deck Chairs on the Titanic’ (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.