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Trump-Appointed Judge Hands Fake News CNN, MS NOW, and Politico Indefinite White House Access – Blocks President’s Ban in Preliminary Injunction

Posted on by patriotsheart

Judge Timothy J. Kelly

A Trump-appointed federal judge on Tuesday night handed a major victory to the Fake News industrial complex, blocking President Donald Trump’s effort to ban CNN, MS NOW (the rebranded failure formerly known as MSNBC), and Politico from the White House.

U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly, appointed by Trump in 2017, granted a preliminary injunction that indefinitely maintains access for reporters from the three outlets. The order prevents administration officials (except the President himself) from enforcing the September 18, 2026, revocation of their “hard pass” credentials while the lawsuit proceeds. Plaintiffs were required to post a laughable $1 nominal bond.

As The Gateway Pundit reported, President Trump announced the ban on Truth Social on September 18, stating he was “proud to announce that, effective immediately,” he was banning the outlets “as a result of their constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS.”

He specifically called out MS NOW’s name change due to “lack of viewership and credibility” and Politico’s “illegal and ridiculous $8 Million Dollar subscription” from the Biden administration—“an All Time Record… to keep them ‘alive.’ Seems like corruption to me!”

Trump warned that “Other Fake News Media Outlets to follow” and argued media should not be allowed to constantly report “FICTION and LIES” about the President, the administration, or the country.

When asked the next day about a “particular reason,” Trump said it was “really just cumulative stories over the last two years” of outlets that “purposely write negative news” to “diminish the Republicans and a Republican administration.” He added he would “love it” if they “could straighten themselves out.”

The outlets sued, alleging Fifth Amendment due process violations and First Amendment retaliation and viewpoint discrimination.

Kelly, who previously ruled in favor of Jim Acosta’s hard pass in 2018, found the plaintiffs likely to succeed on all three claims.

In a 26-page decision, Kelly cited D.C. Circuit precedent (Sherrill v. Knight and Karem v. Trump) holding that hard passes create a protected liberty interest requiring adequate process, including advance notice of standards and sanctions.

The court emphasized Trump’s own statements as evidence of a causal link between the outlets’ negative coverage and the ban.

Kelly wrote that “President Trump likely banned Plaintiffs from the White House because he believes that their reporting is generally inaccurate and biased against him.”

He rejected the administration’s later national security justifications as “post-hoc,” noting Trump’s initial announcement and follow-up comments focused on “Fake News,” negativity, and election coverage rather than classified information.

Even while ruling against the administration, Kelly wrote: “no one should interpret the Court’s decision to suggest that President Trump’s concerns about accuracy and fairness in the media’s reporting are unfounded, or that the government is powerless when its true aim is to protect national security when classified information is unlawfully disclosed.”

This is not the first time Judge Kelly has ruled against the Trump White House in a high-profile press-access dispute.

In November 2018, Kelly ordered the administration to temporarily restore CNN reporter Jim Acosta’s White House press credential after an explosive confrontation during a presidential press conference.

Now, nearly eight years later, Kelly has again intervened in a dispute between Trump and CNN.

As The Gateway Pundit reported on September 24, Kelly previously issued a temporary restraining order restoring White House access to CNN, MS NOW, and Politico.

That order required administration officials, excluding Trump personally, to reinstate press credentials that had been revoked around September 18.

Trump has previously said the case would likely go to appeal because outlets that “only write negatively” and traffic in unnamed sources “shouldn’t be allowed access to the most important Office anywhere in the World.”

The post Trump-Appointed Judge Hands Fake News CNN, MS NOW, and Politico Indefinite White House Access – Blocks President’s Ban in Preliminary Injunction appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

BRUTAL SHOWDOWN: Republican Bruce Blakeman TORCHES Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul in Fiery New York Debate

Posted on by patriotsheart

Bruce Blakeman confronts Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul over rising crime, cashless bail, illegal immigration, ICE enforcement, and the collapse of New York. (Screenshot: Spectrum News NY1)

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman came loaded for bear Tuesday night and left New York’s disastrous Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul on defense for the full hour of their only gubernatorial debate.

With the race tightening into a dead heat and early voting weeks away, Blakeman repeatedly forced Hochul to answer for her sanctuary-state policies, sky-high costs, and record of failure while she defaulted to blaming President Trump and refusing accountability.

A Pollfinity survey released the day of the debate showed Hochul clinging to a razor-thin 47%–44% lead, with the rest undecided or supporting others.

One of Blakeman’s strongest moments came when he confronted Hochul over the crushing financial burden facing New York families.

The Republican pointed to the dramatic differences between neighboring Pennsylvania and New York, arguing that the Empire State’s energy policies have left residents paying the price.

“On the Pennsylvania side of the border, people are driving around in brand-new Cadillac Escalades,” Blakeman said.

He contrasted those vehicles with the aging, rusted trucks he said New Yorkers were driving because of Hochul’s policies.

The exchange highlighted a central argument of Blakeman’s campaign: New Yorkers are being squeezed by high taxes, soaring utility bills, and an increasingly expensive cost of living.

Hochul defended her administration’s record while attempting to blame President Trump for utility bills.

“Kathy, Donald Trump didn’t raise utility rates 48 times. You did! Donald Trump didn’t increase our utility bills by 50% since you became governor. You did!” Blakeman fired back.

WATCH:

Blakeman: “I’ve said it many times, so I’ll repeat it. When you look at your energy bill, get your energy bill out tonight. Only about 30% of your payment actually goes for energy. The rest goes for taxes. Yes, Kathy Hochul taxes your energy bill as well, and excessive delivery costs that are merely trying to masquerade rate hikes and her slush fund, where she collects money every month from you, billions of dollars, and invests in science projects like wind turbines in the middle of the ocean or solar farms in upstate New York that are taking away our rich farmland, which, by the way, are covered under snow three months out of the year.

“It’s very expensive. She’s paying billions of dollars to foreign corporations for these. And guess what? That’s why we’re in an energy crisis.

“I would extract the natural gas from the Marcellus Shale. We’ll get rid of that green energy scam of Kathy Hochul, and I will cut utility bills in half, just like they did in Pennsylvania.”

WATCH:

The most devastating exchange came when Blakeman confronted Hochul over the human cost of her sanctuary policies. He listed specific cases enabled by her refusal to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement:

  • A 14-year-old girl raped in New York by an illegal migrant.
  • Four Irondequoit residents killed recently by an illegal migrant, including two children under the age of five.
  • Two Nassau County women in their 30s killed by an illegal migrant.

Blakeman asked point-blank: “Will you apologize to that 14-year-old girl, whose life is forever changed and her family, and the families of those who were killed? The ones that’ll never get to sit another Thanksgiving dinner, never be able to open their presents under the Christmas tree? Will you apologize to them, and will you please return Sheridan Gorman’s parents’ calls to talk to you about your sanctuary policy?”

Hochul dodged, offering only generic platitudes: “You know, any crime is heartbreaking. There’s a family left with a huge hole in their heart. And I abhor all crimes, regardless of the perpetrator…”

She never apologized or addressed the specific victims or the parents whose calls she had not returned. Blakeman also noted she had spent roughly $8 billion on illegal migrants while giving them more benefits than many New Yorkers receive.

Blakeman has long said he rejected sanctuary policies in Nassau County and would end them statewide.

Bruce Blakeman: “We have an epidemic of crime from these illegal migrants. There are 16,000 detainers out there for people who committed 52,000 crimes in our state, and you won’t let local law enforcement cooperate with ICE to pick them up and get them out of this state. This never would have happened, Kathy, if it weren’t for your policies.”

“You have invited criminals to come into our state and prey on our communities. And now you won’t let local law enforcement cooperate with ICE in an orderly way like we did in my county. We didn’t have any incidents in my county because we were allowed to cooperate with local law enforcement. But you took that tool away. The reason why that happened is because of you, Kathy Hochul, and your immigration policies where you actually invite people into our state, give them free everything, and you don’t care whether they’re criminals or not.”

WATCH:

Blakeman also challenged Hochul over state spending on migrants, contrasting the cost of migrant assistance with funding for law enforcement.

The Nassau County executive defended his public safety record and said his administration provides police officers with the resources necessary to protect residents.

Blakeman: “U.S. News & World Report says I have the safest county in America. So I back law enforcement, and I back the laws of both our federal government and our state government. And I give our law enforcement professionals the tools they need to keep us safe. But you say you spent $4 billion on law enforcement. Well, you spent $8 billion on illegal migrants and gave them more benefits than New Yorkers get. How does that make any sense?”

WATCH:

Another fiery moment came when Blakeman confronted Hochul over New York’s criminal justice laws, retail theft, and her handling of the state’s prison staffing crisis.

Blakeman: “Well, first of all, she’ll never give Donald Trump any accolades for sealing our borders. Maybe that’s why the shootings are down. Maybe that’s why all the fentanyl deaths are down. Not by anything that you did. But let me say this about crime.

“If you walk into any CVS or Walgreens and you want to buy a bottle of shampoo, in Kathy Hochul’s world, you got to ring a buzzer. A store clerk has to come out, unlock a glass door for you to buy a bottle of shampoo in New York State. It’s because we have a revolving door of criminality: cashless bail, Raise the Age, the HALT Act. And you talk about militias? You’re the only one on this stage that has a militia.

”You have two: the National Guard and the State Guard. And you have the National Guard at the cost of $1 billion a year to the taxpayers because you fired corrections officers who said, ‘These prisons are not only unsafe for corrections officers, they’re not safe for the prisoners.’ And you fired them and put the National Guard in there. You’re the one that used the militia, not me.”

WATCH:

Blakeman also hammered Hochul over the dropped “Cornell 7” sexual assault case. As an ex-officio trustee of Cornell and the governor who oversees roughly $150 million in annual state funding to the university, she failed to demand an independent investigation after the local district attorney dropped the charges.

“Kathy Hochul has already prejudged this case… Where were you? What did you do for the trustee of Cornell University?” Blakeman charged. “You were the governor of the state. You funded Cornell University to the tune of $150 million a year. As a partner of the state of New York and as a trustee and as governor, you didn’t call for an independent investigation. When you find out that the district attorney was dropping the case… Shame on you.”

Hochul’s response fell flat: “That’s pretty pathetic to blame me for what happened in a fraternity.” Blakeman pressed: “Why didn’t you call the investigation afterwards? Do you deny that you were a trustee there?”

Blakeman saved some of his sharpest attacks for the final stretch of Tuesday night’s sole New York gubernatorial debate, unloading on Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul’s cozy alliance with radical New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

While Hochul spent most of the hour trying to hang President Trump around Blakeman’s neck, the Republican challenger flipped the script and forced her to answer for embracing a democratic socialist who has made Jewish New Yorkers feel less safe.

WATCH:

The post BRUTAL SHOWDOWN: Republican Bruce Blakeman TORCHES Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul in Fiery New York Debate appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Dario Amodei’s AI Cartel

Posted on by patriotsheart
Artificial Intelligence

Dario Amodei’s AI Cartel

“Pacing the frontier” would be a massive boon to incumbents like Anthropic.

INDIA-FRANCE-TECHNOLOGY-AI
(Ludovic MARIN / AFP via Getty Images)

Dario Amodei seems to think the product he is building will destroy the world. Last month, the Anthropic CEO published an essay urging AI companies and the U.S. government to, as he put it, “pace the frontier.” He claimed that the unconstrained development of artificial intelligence could lead to economic disruption, devastating biological or cyber attacks, and possibly even the loss of human control over AI systems. His solution? Slow the pace of development through a mixture of voluntary cooperation among private companies and government regulation. 

This may seem altruistic to many Americans. After all, Amodei has built a reputation in part by touting regulation and “transparency” as the solution to worries about the technology. He previously worked at OpenAI, until leaving to found Anthropic as a more safety-focused alternative. 

Amodei may indeed have some benevolent intentions. But as with any sweeping policy proposal, we should ask ourselves: Cui bono?

The fact of the matter is that these proposals would lead to an AI cartel—massively benefitting Anthropic, a large and established player in the industry.

Amodei has made the case for more regulation since 2023, when he told the Senate Judiciary Committee that AI could be “misused on a grand scale in the domains of cybersecurity, nuclear technology chemistry, and especially biology.” His recommendations to that committee were to impose regulatory control over the development of AI models, establish a “testing and auditing regime,” and fund more “measurement and research on measurement.”

But this summer, an incident occurred that seemed to give these calls a new urgency. In July, OpenAI tested an unreleased research model on its internal benchmark called ExploitGym (this benchmark tests the ability of the models to exploit software vulnerabilities). In attempting to complete these tasks, the company’s AI agents began to communicate through a software repository their sandboxes shared, and ultimately worked together to hack the Hugging Face collaboration platform, where they believed they would find some of the answers. The agents then tried to trick the automated grader by modifying the transcripts of their activities. 

This, together with an increase in the speed of recursive self-improvement (basically, a process by which AI models autonomously improve their own capabilities), led Amodei to argue for “pacing.” As he put it in his September essay:

The most effective method of pacing is via regulation that targets all US frontier AI companies, as that covers even those who are unwilling to cooperate voluntarily…. I believe all frontier labs should partner with government to formalize the idea of permanent embedded evaluators to better prevent and document internal alignment incidents like those that have occurred in the last few months, and to implement regulation focused on keeping capabilities in balance with safety.

What goes unmentioned is that the evaluators favored by Amodei appear to have ties to Anthropic and himself directly. METR, which investigated the Hugging Face incident and claims to take no money from AI companies, is funded in part by Open Philanthropy—whose co-founder, Holden Karnofsky, now works at Anthropic and is married to Anthropic’s president Daniela Amodei (Dario’s sister). Anthropic has since hired another firm, Accenture, to be an evaluator, paying it $1 billion over five years. 

All of these measures, of course, will help Anthropic and other incumbents at the expense of up-and-comers in the industry. Onerous regulations will strangle new companies in the cradle by imposing burdens that will be difficult for anyone but deep-pocketed and established players to meet. Open-source models, though not mentioned by Amodei, may pose the greatest long-term competitive challenge to closed-source companies like Anthropic and OpenAI; one wonders whether they are the real target of such regulations. 

As the federal government incorporates AI into ever more of its operations (including, critically, the development and deployment of military capabilities), stronger and stronger incentives will develop to prevent these suppliers from suffering setbacks. The current players could quickly be rendered “too big to fail.”

And there are parallels from even before the Great Financial Crisis. In the depths of the Great Depression, Gerard Swope, president of General Electric, shopped around proposals for government-facilitated cartelization of industry, advocating the formation of “trade associations” to keep prices high. Notably, he attempted to tailor these plans to apply only to firms with at least 50 employees—the “frontier” threshold of its time. That plan would form much of the intellectual backbone of what would become the National Recovery Administration. Amodei stressed the “need to issue a narrow waiver” from antitrust “for certain kinds of safety conversations” to enable the companies to coordinate—that is, to cartelize as they did under the NRA.

The railways present another example. Attempts at cartelization in this industry by inefficient, government-subsidized rail companies produced regulations not dissimilar to Amodei’s proposals. After failing to seize control by horizontal integration, these railroad cartels lobbied for publication of rates to stop rebates that benefitted rail consumers and drove down rail prices. Published rates ensured that no cartel members defected from their higher prices, preventing the “cheating” that helped consumers. Amodei wants similarly to throw open the books to “verify adherence to safety practices and commitments” among all of the companies.

What this would amount to, in practice, is the granting of a virtual monopoly power to existing AI companies over something they consider to be immensely dangerous. A point not emphasized enough about the Hugging Face incident was its use of an open-source AI model, GLM, to decode the attack the AI agents had waged against their website. Hugging Face was unable to use Claude Opus and Fable, because of the guardrails that prevent users from prompting broadly on issues of cybersecurity. It took a cheaper, but un-guardrailed open-source model to clean up the mess. The takeaway? Anthropic would like you to put down your weapon, while it keeps its own pointed at you. 

Amodei’s proposals for inter-governmental coordination with China would also close the other door for competitors to incumbent companies. Open-source Chinese models like Kimi K3, GLM, and the famously low-cost DeepSeek present a unique competitive challenge to the business models of established labs like Anthropic and OpenAI. Anthropic has accused DeepSeek and other Chinese models of copying Claude. Amodei has also lobbied in the past for export controls on parts to China, undercutting this active competitor in the name of geopolitical competition. Coordination would solve the problem of competitors on two fronts.

Why form a cartel? Well, these companies are not exactly profitable. Massive expenditures on training and expansion—a requirement of racing other labs along the cutting edge of AI—drives AI firms into the red. Pacing the frontier would allow the current players to cut down on this spending, trimming investments without having to fear being overtaken by hungrier competitors.

Even though OpenAI reported that its revenue in Q2 of 2026 was higher than ever, its costs accelerated faster than its revenue, so its losses continued to grow. This may be part of why OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has pushed back his company’s IPO to next year (although, naturally, OpenAI has preferred to cite concerns over AI safety and the need for more government-industry cooperation). Altman, for his part, has said that he “agree[s] with Dario that we need to pace the frontier.”

Elon Musk also joined Amodei’s calls for pacing the frontier as his company xAI continues to register losses, even after being acquired by his other company, SpaceX. This convergence of three leading labs may provide an answer to the question of what is happening: If it looks like a cartel, and quacks like a cartel….

It is clear that incumbent companies are the ones who stand to gain from new AI regulations. Just as with bootleggers and Baptists, unholy alliances often form between proponents of regulation on moral grounds and those who stand to materially benefit from their imposition. The measures advocated by Amodei et al. may be good for the frontier labs’ bottom lines—but the American people will pay the price.

The post Dario Amodei’s AI Cartel appeared first on The American Conservative.

Livestreaming an Execution Is a Bad Idea

Posted on by patriotsheart
Law and Order

Livestreaming an Execution Is a Bad Idea

Americans no longer have the stomach for public displays of violence.

Maj. Nidal Hasan Moved To Jail
(Bell County Sheriff’s Office via Getty Images)

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced last week that the infamous Fort Hood terrorist will die by firing squad. Not only will Nidal Hasan be shot to death, but his execution will be broadcast live for the whole world to watch. 

The news wasn’t greeted with much enthusiasm. Some hardcore MAGA types loved the idea, arguing it would deter future terrorists and provide the public with proper justice. But they’re a distinct minority. The idea naturally outraged the left, who argued the whole idea is abominable. Many Republicans were also not thrilled with the decision. Louisiana’s Sen. John Kennedy, a strong ally of the administration, said it would make our society “coarser.” House Speaker Mike Johnson said the execution could be used as a “recruiting tool for future terrorists.” Even Vice President J.D. Vance isn’t a fan of the livestreamed execution, and President Donald Trump himself denied any involvement in the decision.

It’s unlikely the live execution will be a crowd-pleaser if even Trump and Vance are weirded out by it.

Hegseth assumes the American public is the same as it was in the 19th century. Back then, hangings served as community entertainment. But we live in a different age now, and the people don’t want to have the government broadcast such acts of violence to households across the country. The purpose of such a move is ostensibly to sate the public’s appetite for justice. But all it will do is repel them.

This is not an argument against the death penalty. The sentence is necessary for certain crimes. People like Hasan, who shot and killed 13 people and wounded dozens more, should not be allowed to live out their days on the taxpayer’s dime. There are crimes so horrible that they demand the ultimate penalty. It matters little if studies “prove” that the sentence doesn’t deter future horrific crimes. Certain offenses should be met with death.

The problem with the death penalty is how it’s implemented. The recent Christa Pike case exemplifies one way America gets this wrong. Pike brutally murdered a romantic rival in 1995. A year later, the state of Tennessee sentenced her to death. After 30 years on death row, Pike was finally set to meet her maker via lethal injection. It went terribly wrong, in spite of multiple attempts, and the murderer is now still alive and even receiving public sympathy.

This should’ve never happened. Pike should’ve been dispatched long ago by a more effective means than lethal injection. The death penalty is made ineffective by the endless rounds of appeals and delays on behalf of the defendant. Executions should be carried out quickly and in a way that will ensure the criminal dies.

A firing squad is better than lethal injection, which is an attempt to make the execution seem like a routine medical procedure and thereby take the nastiness out of the whole thing. But that’s a fool’s errand. Whatever happens, you ultimately kill a person (or at least, that’s the objective). Lethal injection is meant to be more “humane,” but it’s no such thing if it can have results like Pike’s botched execution. It’s only humane for people who want to think of the act as putting a killer to “sleep” like a dog. 

This event should convince states to ditch lethal injection in favor of a more traditional execution approach. It’s far better to drop the humanitarian pretenses of such an execution and go with a firing squad, which is more humane and effective than trying to kill someone by a medical procedure. Hegseth has the right idea to execute Hasan by firing squad. Another Christa Pike situation is virtually impossible with this method. 

But broadcasting the execution of Hasan will likely have a political effect opposite the one Hegseth is hoping for. Americans don’t have the stomach for such publicized displays of violence, particularly at the hands of the government. 

Violent deaths are occasionally shown on the news, and they rarely win the public over to the killer’s side. Clips of police officers using lethal force against suspects inspired Black Lives Matter protests. There would’ve been no riots over George Floyd without the video of Derek Chauvin having his knee on a black man’s back. That particular clip persuaded nearly two-thirds of the country to support BLM and tens of thousands of Americans to march in the streets. You had Republicans like Governor Greg Abbott of Texas saying it was the “most horrific tragedy” they’ve ever seen. Many Americans agreed.

Similarly, the videotaped ICE shootings this January made Americans turn against immigration enforcement. It didn’t matter if the officers were justified in shooting Renee Good and Alex Pretti, or if the enforcement operations during which the shootings happened were justified; Americans felt queasy, and some turned against ICE. 

Americans rarely experience such acts of violence. We barely even see public fights break out, much less witness someone getting seriously hurt. Public executions too are foreign to our daily lives. The United States is not like a Middle Eastern country; we even get upset and start defending cold-hearted killers like Pike when they’re slated for execution. 

Nidal Hasan, it’s worth noting, was shot in the back during his arrest and has been in a wheelchair ever since. Wheeling out a handicapped man to die before a firing squad will not thrill the masses. It doesn’t matter how many pictures of 19th-century crowds gathered before hangings you find to “prove” the people will love it. Americans of 2026 are not the same people they were in the 1870s. On top of that, Hasan, who committed his crimes in 2009, has largely been forgotten by the public. There aren’t millions of people baying for his blood. Even the families of his victims aren’t happy with the idea of a livestreamed execution.

Theoretically, Americans may have supported a public execution of Osama bin Laden, especially if we had captured him immediately after 9/11. But that’s about the only recent case where you could have expected strong public support for such an act.

Supporters of the Hasan execution claim it could deter future terrorists. But Islamists are infamous for seeking death, particularly in a highly public fashion. Shooting a handicapped Hasan before a live audience isn’t going to terrify would-be suicide bombers. It’s a great way to make Hasan a hero to jihadis all over the world and further condemn America in their eyes.

The livestreamed execution will not deter a single terrorist, nor satisfy some imaginary public demand for justice. All it will do is undermine support for the death penalty and the administration itself. 

To be sure, it won’t mark the end of the Trump White House, and people will probably forget about it after the outrage. But that doesn’t make it a worthwhile idea to pursue. It’s a cartoonish idea perfectly designed to tick off the public and make Pete Hegseth appear completely out of touch with mainstream America.

The post Livestreaming an Execution Is a Bad Idea appeared first on The American Conservative.

Rubio’s Western Civ Speech Backfires

Posted on by patriotsheart
Foreign Affairs

Rubio’s Western Civ Speech Backfires

America’s top diplomat treated Persian civilization as an inherent enemy.

GREECE-US-POLITICS-DIPLOMACY
Photo by Mark Schiefelbein / POOL / AFP via Getty Images

The Trump administration, whatever it may claim, tried to engineer regime change in Iran. When President Donald Trump announced the American–Israeli strikes that launched the current war, he offered immunity to Iran’s soldiers if they laid down their arms, and he called on its people to take over their government.

“To the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump declared. During an interview with the Washington Post the next day, regime change was top of mind for the president.

Nearly eight months later, the Islamic Republic of Iran is still standing. One reason for its resilience under intense military and economic pressure is that the Iranian people—despite claims to the contrary from Iran hawks and some diaspora Iranians—rallied around the regime as their protector against external aggression.

And one reason they rallied is that Trump has given every impression that the U.S. is at war with the Iranian people, not just their oppressive regime. “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to ​be brought back ​again,” he threatened in April. Such statements are impossible to square with Trump’s proclaimed empathy for the Iranian people.

Trump is now joined in that ill-advised effort of mixed messaging by America’s top diplomat, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who recently gave an intellectual twist to Trump’s hostility to Iranian civilization. Predictably, the Islamic Republic pointed to Rubio’s remarks as further evidence that the U.S. is at war with Iran’s people and indeed its entire history and culture, not just its government.

Rubio made his unwise rhetorical intervention during a soaring speech last week on Western civilization, delivered in Athens against the dramatic backdrop of the Acropolis. The aesthetics were kino, as the kids say, but the substance of the speech was confused and counterproductive.

The secretary thematized the profound influence of ancient Greece on America’s Founders, and to be sure, this influence cannot be denied. But Rubio went further, insinuating, with minimal subtlety, that Iran’s own historic civilization is hostile to the West.

Early in the speech, Rubio narrated the second Persian invasion of Greece, when “the armies of Xerxes arrived in this city and they put its sanctuaries to the torch.” Most of the Athenians fled, he explained, but a brave few stayed behind in defense of their city, barricading themselves in the Acropolis and “heaving massive stones down the cliffs onto the Persian invaders.”

Later in the speech, Rubio cited “the legendary stand of 300 Spartans—surrounded and hopelessly outnumbered by the vast armies of Persia—who refused the chance to save themselves, choosing to fight to the last man rather than abandon their post or abandon their duty.”

The rhetorical effect, apparently deliberate, was to figure battles between the Persian empire and ancient Greek city-states as precursors to a civilizational clash between Iran and the West today. And indeed, Rubio contrasted the “heroes of the West” with the “radical mullahs of Iran, whose cult of death hails child suicide bombers as national heroes, and portrays martyrdom as an end to itself.”

You don’t have to love the “mullahs of Iran” to see a problem here. In fact, even a radical Iran hawk who despises Tehran’s clerical leadership should easily see the problem.

Rubio’s villainization of Persia bolstered the impression that 1) the U.S. aims to “annihilate” Iran, as Trump repeatedly says, and 2) that it harbors this eliminationist intent for deep cultural reasons divorced from the foreign and domestic policies of the Islamic Republic. The speech, in other words, was a PR coup for Tehran.

Iranian officials, with justification, pounced. “Praising resistance when it serves ‘one’s own’ and denigrating it when it comes from ‘the other’ is not civilization; it is sophistry in the service of domination,” said Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior advisor to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei. “Mr. Rubio, your problem is not with the Islamic Revolution; It is with a strong, independent Iranian civilization.”

If Rubio’s speech was an own goal, the ball didn’t exactly bounce off his shinguard as he leapt to block the opponent’s free kick—the secretary turned around at midfield and blasted the leather into his own team’s empty net. To understand the weirdness of his error, consider how other Western civilizational thinkers have thought about Iran and its predecessor Persia. 

While Rubio depicted pre-Islamic Persian civilization as antithetical to the West, Samuel Huntington, author of The Clash of Civilizations, focused instead on Iran’s modern Islamism as the characteristic likely to generate tensions with America and Europe. And Hungtington didn’t tell a simple story of Islamic aggression. In his analysis, the legacy of Western colonialism and continued tendency of Westerners to try imposing liberal values on other civilizations stoked the resentments of young men in the Muslim world.

Moreover, many great thinkers in the Western canon held Persian civilization in high esteem. Germans of the 19th Century were notably effusive in their praise. “If we now turn to a peaceful, civilized people, the Persians …” is how Goethe introduced the topic in his book West–East Divan. Hegel too saw ancient Persia as a bridge between East and West, admiring its tolerance and spirit of freedom. And Nietzsche, surpassed by no one in his affection for the pre-Socratic Greeks, nevertheless deeply respected the Persian people. “To speak the truth and to aim straight: that is the first Persian virtue,” writes Nietzsche in Ecce Homo.

It’s not too late for Rubio to walk back his remarks and express similar respect for the cultural contributions of Persian civilization. But unfortunately, much of the damage is already done. After his speech, some Iranian officials didn’t merely present it as proof of America’s comprehensive hostility—they further fanned the fires of civilizational strife.

“When they go to Athens after defeat and humiliation before Iran to shape a narrative of a civilizational war,” said Mohsen Rezaei, the hardline secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. “It would be better for them to read another important part of history: where the Roman emperor knelt before Shapur I of the Sasanian Empire.”

It’s a U.S.–Iran hardliner doom loop, and our hardliners seem ever eager to ratchet up the rhetorical antagonism.

Rezaei’s predecessor, by the way, was the pragmatist Ali Larijani. Several decades ago, Larijani had been a scholar of the German philosopher Kant, who, like his compatriots mentioned above, discerned a deep cultural affinity between Persians and Europeans. Larijani probably would have offered a less belligerent response to Rubio, holding out some hope of diplomatic engagement—but Israel killed him early in the war.

Perhaps that fact offers a clue to understanding Rubio’s needlessly provocative speech. His vision of Western civilization seems a patently Israeli-fied one, crafted to justify a war of aggression against Israel’s chief adversary. The Trump administration has searched in vain for an argument that will compel the Europeans to join that war, but if they do, and if Iran is destroyed in the process, it won’t be Western civilization that benefits.

The post Rubio’s Western Civ Speech Backfires appeared first on The American Conservative.

Jen ‘Circle Back’ Psaki Has the NERVE to Criticize Trump Press Secretary Katie Zacharia on Her First Day

Posted on by patriotsheart

New book by former WH Press Secretary Jen Psaki falsely claims Biden never looked at his watch as dead service members returned from Afghanistan. (Credit: Getty Images)

Jen Psaki, who lied to the press and the American people about the vegetable in the White House known as Joe Biden for years, had the nerve to raise her obnoxious voice to criticize Trump’s new press secretary Katie Zacharia on her first day, today.

This is the same woman who was allegedly negotiating a deal for her own show on MSNBC while she was still serving as White House press secretary.

This is the same woman who was famous for saying she would ‘circle back’ about a dozen times a day because she didn’t know the answer to a question.

Yet she has the nerve to throw stones.

From Twitchy:

The knives are out today for newly appointed White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia, who held her first press briefing on Tuesday. Some are saying that her career is already over, and she’ll have a shorter tenure than Anthony Scaramucci. As our own Just Mindy reported just a bit ago, CBS News senior White House reporter Jennifer Jacobs has informed us that White House Director of Communications Steven Cheung has moved into Karoline Leavitt’s old office, leaving Zacharia with the small corner office.

Her debut was nothing spectacular, but former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, who made the lateral move to MS NOW host, says the briefing was “basically an SNL skit,” but we have to watch her show tonight for her to circle back to learn more (we won’t be watching).

Here’s Paki’s tweet:

She got an earful from other Twitter/X users.

Here’s a reminder of what Psaki’s tenure as press secretary was like:

She should probably just sit this one out.

The post Jen ‘Circle Back’ Psaki Has the NERVE to Criticize Trump Press Secretary Katie Zacharia on Her First Day appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

WHOA! Republican Mike Collins Drops a Jeffrey Epstein Sized BOMB on Democrat Jon Ossoff in Georgia Senate Debate (VIDEO)

Posted on by patriotsheart

Screencap of Twitter/X video.

For months now, people on the left have been trying, unsuccessfully, to tie President Trump to the disgraced, deceased, and shady investor Jeffrey Epstein. They have nothing but they keep pushing it because they think it sounds effective.

Tonight, during the Georgia Senate debate between Republican Mike Collins and Democrat Jon Ossoff, Collins dropped a bomb on Ossoff that was all about his ties to Epstein.

One of Ossoff’s biggest donors is billionaire Reid Hoffman, who was a close and personal friend of Jeffrey Epstein. Reid Hoffman is also a major donor to James Talarico in Texas. Funny how you never hear Democrats complaining about this particular billionaire, isn’t it?

This description of the exchange by CBS News doesn’t do it justice:

Both candidates attacked each other over Jeffrey Epstein. Collins brought up that Ossoff’s campaign has drawn support from Silicon Valley investor Reid Hoffman, a major Democratic Party donor who had meetings with Epstein. (Hoffman has said he “only knew Jeffrey Epstein because of a fundraising relationship with MIT, which I very much regret.”)

In response, Ossoff argued that Collins voted to cover up government records on Epstein during his time in Congress, referring to a set of unsuccessful votes to release the Epstein files in the summer of 2025. A bill to release the files ultimately passed late last year by a near-unanimous margin after Mr. Trump backed the legislation…

Collins said that he did vote to release the files, emphasized Ossoff’s connection to Hoffman again and said the “call’s coming from inside the house.”

When pressed by Collins to condemn Hoffman, Ossoff said that Mr. Trump was named “a thousand times in the Epstein files,” and repeated that Collins voted to cover up the files.

Watch the video to get the reality of it. This was a political slam dunk:

Ask yourself this question.

Why is it the job of Mike Collins and not the media, to point out that one of Ossoff’s biggest donors was pals with Jeffrey Epstein?

The post WHOA! Republican Mike Collins Drops a Jeffrey Epstein Sized BOMB on Democrat Jon Ossoff in Georgia Senate Debate (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Democrat Senator Accused of Violating Federal Law with Anti-White X Post

Posted on by patriotsheart

Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts has come under attack for a post calling for specific populations to apply for internships.

“I’m hiring motivated and eager interns for the Spring 2027 semester in my Boston office,” Markey posted on X.

“BIPOC, LGBTQ+, working class, veterans, and other underrepresented candidates with Massachusetts ties are encouraged to apply,” he posted.

BIPOC stands for black, indigenous, and people of color.

Many criticized the post.

“Crazy that a United States Senator can openly violate civil rights law on Twitter,” Christopher Rufo wrote on X.

Jayme Leagh Franklin suggested if Markey was so interested in the downtrodden, he should take action himself by resigning his post.

“Why doesn’t Ed Markey, a white man, hand over his Senate seat to an underrepresented candidate??” Franklin posted.

Daniel DiMartino had a question given whom Markey wants to hire.

“Are straight white men not encouraged to apply?” he wrote.

Over at Twitchy, Markey’s invitation to apply was slammed as “the kind of posting that treats identity categories as the main qualification, which is exactly the approach that has drawn scrutiny from people who still think government offices should hire based on competence rather than checklist demographics.”

One poster countered that while the intent might be to discriminate, the post did not technically break the law.

“’Encouraged to apply’ is the key phrase. Seeking a broader applicant pool isn’t illegal. Likely why he put it this way. It suggests a possible intent to classify applicants by demography and/or to the treat them differently, but it’d be illegal at stage 2, not here,” Dan Morenoff wrote on X.

But that did not stop the criticism.

“Just open, blatant discrimination against straight White people. Incredible,” Libs of TikTok wrote.

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.

The post Democrat Senator Accused of Violating Federal Law with Anti-White X Post appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Nebraska ‘Independent’ Senate Candidate Dan Osborn Caught on a Hot Mic AGAIN! – This Time Trashing HIS OWN STAFF (AUDIO)

Posted on by patriotsheart

U.S. Senate candidate Dan Osborn – Screencap of YouTube video.

Nebraska’s supposedly ‘independent’ senate candidate Dan Osborn is a hot mess. This guy has been caught saying awful things on a hot mic multiple times, it’s truly amazing.

In this latest example, Osborn is trashing his own staff, saying his field team ‘f**king sucks.’

He then goes on to claim that this is why it’s so hard for Democrats (not independents, Democrats) to win in Nebraska. Is he basically admitting that he’s really a Democrat? Sure sounds that way.

Townhall broke the story:

‘My Field Team F***ing Sucks’: More Leaked Audio Exposes Dan Osborn’s Failing Senate Campaign

Fake independent Senate candidate Dan Osborne’s Nebraska Senate campaign is falling apart at the seams, and today we’ve learned that senior staff are jumping ship at an alarming rate. According to Punchbowl News, numerous staffers have left in recent months including campaign manager James Dolan, who left in May.

Communications director Colleen Craig left in July; a recording of her claiming Osborn recruiting Graham Platner to run in Maine later surfaced. Other longtime staffers have also left the campaign in the months and weeks before the general election, which is unusual. Two prominent consultants also left the campaign recently; Daniel Moraff and Morris Katz were part of Osborn’s failed 2024 campaign and played key roles in Graham Platner’s catastrophic Senate effort…

All this leads to even more leaked audio, which may explain why senior staff are fleeing the Osborn campaign. In this latest audio, Osborn admits that “my field team f***ing sucks.”

“First of all, my field team f***ing sucks,” Osborn said. “Because trying to get field people, that is why, another reason why Democrats don’t win in Nebraska, because there’s no hiring pool for that industry for people that want to work in politics.”

Listen to the audio below:

It seems like the only reason that Osborn decided to run as an independent is because he and his backers knew he would lose as a Democrat.

And now he might lose anyway. What a shame.

The post Nebraska ‘Independent’ Senate Candidate Dan Osborn Caught on a Hot Mic AGAIN! – This Time Trashing HIS OWN STAFF (AUDIO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Mollie Hemingway Makes an Outstanding and Pro-American Point About Trump’s Oil Deal With Russia (VIDEO)

Posted on by patriotsheart

Screencap of Twitter/X video.

Conservative commentator Mollie Hemingway of The Federalist made a great point about Trump’s oil deal with Russia during a recent appearance on FOX News.

Hemingway noted that this is a deal that will help the American people, so it’s still America First policy. Trump is still putting the American people first.

She also points out that despite the left’s rhetoric, we are not currently at war with Russia, and that we make deals with adversaries such as China all the time.

Transcript via Real Clear Politics:

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY: Well, the legislation mentioned does include a provision that the president can work within the restrictions of the sanctions. But I think what President Trump is trying to do here is put the American people first and let them have an interest in this ongoing, lengthy war between Russia and Ukraine. People in America are suffering. Farmers in Nebraska, Kansas, and Iowa who are dealing with very high diesel prices. Just normal Americans who are struggling to fill up their tanks at the pump. And diesel is something that Russia has a lot of.

Contrary to what some of those people seem to be suggesting, we’re not actually at war with Russia. We’re not at war with China. We do make arrangements with both of these countries, adversarial though they may be.

And Americans are very happy to help Ukraine, but not when it’s hurting American interests as much as this is currently. We’ve given hundreds of billions of dollars. We provide the technology, weapons, intelligence, and we’re happy to do that in their efforts. But again, this war, which has been going on for a long time and seems to not be near resolution unless the parties admit the reality of what’s going on, is hurting Americans in a way and President Trump seems to be caring about it more than those voices in D.C. who tend to support lengthy wars.

Watch the video below:

Democrats continually complain about the prices of gas and oil but don’t want to actually do anything about it.

They see it as an election advantage.

The post Mollie Hemingway Makes an Outstanding and Pro-American Point About Trump’s Oil Deal With Russia (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.