Politics

• Garland still plans to release at least part of Smith report: Elections have consequences, but some folks just don’t seem to get the message. Take outgoing Attorney General Merrick Garland, for example, who somehow thinks that the American people still give a rip about unconstitutional “special counsel” Jack Smith’s investigation into Donald Trump. Otherwise, why would Garland insist on releasing Smith’s report on Trump’s so-called interference in the 2020 election? As Fox News reports, “The Department of Justice told the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Wednesday that should an injunction be lifted, Garland intends to release Volume One of Smith’s final report to Congress and the public, which covers the allegations that Trump attempted to illegally undo the results of the 2020 presidential election.” Garland, though, isn’t planning to release Volume Two, the “classified documents” portion of the case, as two defendants in that case are still facing charges. The November 5 election was a referendum on many matters — one of them no doubt the Democrats’ lawfare campaign against Trump. Perhaps, on his way out the door, Garland just can’t help but register his disdain for the American electorate.

• Biden doesn’t think he’d finish a second term: If we needed a reminder that Joe Biden was never mentally fit for the presidency, he gave us one via an interview with USA Today that was published on Wednesday. He once again maintained the ridiculous notion that he could have beaten Donald Trump had he remained in the race, even though he trailed Trump for months in the polls and saw his numbers crater following his disastrous debate. Yet that wasn’t the craziest thing Biden said. It was this: “When Trump was running again for reelection, I really thought I had the best chance of beating him. But I also wasn’t looking to be president when I was 85 years old, 86 years old.” Newsflash: Biden turned 82 last November, and here he is admitting he had no plans on fulfilling an entire second term should he have won. That’s because, as he later adds, “Who knows what I’m going to be when I’m 85 years old?” Biden stepped down because he was too old and yet still believes he could beat Trump. It appears that the only thing floating around in Biden’s age-addled mind are delusions of grandeur.

• Biden claims he “meant what I said” with promise not to pardon Hunter, hopes it doesn’t set precedent (Fox News)

• Biden mocked for tone-deaf “good news” while Californians flee wildfires (Washington Examiner)

Security

• Mexico finally gets the message: Not to be lost amid Donald Trump’s recent pronouncements on Ourland and the PanaMAGA Canal are the president-elect’s remarks about Mexico, which has for the past four years served as a thoroughfare for illegal immigration into the United States. If Mexico doesn’t clean up its act, warns Trump, he’ll slap a 25% tariff on its goods. Duly chastened, the Mexican government has been working to break up caravans of migrants still bent on making it to the U.S. before January 20, at which point our nation’s southern border will come under new management and serious enforcement. “The Mexican government has embraced a policy of ‘dispersion and exhaustion’ to reduce the number of migrants reaching the U.S. border,” Fox News reports. “Authorities let migrants walk for days until they’re exhausted and then offer to bus them to various cities where they say their immigration status will be reviewed.” As an added bonus, if Mexico becomes more neighborly, Trump might refrain from rebranding the large body of water that constitutes its eastern shoreline.

Climate

• Banks leave ecofascist alliance: Following Donald Trump’s election victory, America’s six largest banks — Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan — have subsequently ditched the United Nations Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA). These six banks joined the NZBA years ago, embracing the ecofascist ESG (environmental, social, and governance). NZBA pushed banks to ditch investments in fossil fuel-based energy production in favor of a green energy agenda. This resulted in several Republican-run state governments divesting from holdings in banks that embraced ESG. Now, with Trump coming into office with an agenda of expanding the nation’s energy development, especially with fossil fuels, it comes as little surprise that these banks are now looking to follow the money.

• Granholm blasted for wasting taxpayer dollars: Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm has been found to have wasted taxpayer dollars in pushing Joe Biden’s electric vehicle boondoggle. House Oversight and Accountability Committee chairman James Comer (R-KY), who had called for an audit of Granholm’s travel expenses, noted that her team broke expensing rules for the $124,823.94 in travel vouchers submitted following a not-so-excellent adventure promoting EVs in 2023. The submitted vouchers exceeded the allotted per diem rate for the trip by nearly $10,000. The excuse for exceeding the allotted rate was that Granholm’s team had trouble finding hotels with functioning EV charges. However, the inspector general noted, “We found that there were nearby hotels at each location where travelers could have inquired about government per diem rates or lower than those of the selected hotels with EV chargers. In fact, we identified numerous alternative hotels in each of the four states which were less than a mile away from the chosen hotels.” Comer blasted Granholm’s EV trip as a “publicity stunt” that “illustrates how out of touch the Biden administration is with the consequences of its policies but came at the expense of American taxpayers.”

Heartland

• DeSantis offers help to CA to fight fires: With the fires raging in and around Los Angeles and blame being pointed all around, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis offered a needed breath of genuine concern and decency. In an X post, DeSantis wrote: “Our prayers are with everyone affected by the horrific fires in Southern California. When disaster strikes, we must come together to help our fellow Americans in any way we can. The state of Florida has offered help to assist the people of California in responding to these fires and in rebuilding communities that have been devastated.” As a governor of a state that has endured its share of natural disasters, DeSantis is well aware that it takes everyone to work together to tackle the issue and get stuff done. Promoting a spirit of concern and eagerness to help is what Californians need now.

• LA Mayor Karen Bass refuses to answer questions for her absence as wildfires ravage city (Fox News)

• Newsom passes the buck to “local folks” when asked about hydrants running out of water (NY Post)

• Minneapolis cops stand up for Derek Chauvin: One of the gravest injustices of the Left’s penchant for racial arson is the railroading of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, now serving a 22.5-year prison sentence as a human sacrifice to the “social justice” mob. Indeed, the more one learns about the miscarriage of justice in the Chauvin trial, the less one trusts our two-tiered justice system. Now, Chauvin’s law-enforcement brotherhood is speaking out. As author and investigative journalist Peter Schweizer writes: “WHOA: Fourteen current and former police officers with the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) have signed sworn declarations which say they believe MPD Assistant Chief Katie Blackwell perjured herself when testifying in former MPD officer Derek Chauvin’s murder trial….Blackwell perjured herself when she testified in court that the restraint method Chauvin used to subdue George Floyd in May 2020 was not a part of MPD officer training.” Chauvin should never have been jailed for standard police procedure.

World

• UK parliament votes not to investigate Pakistani rape gangs: If Western civilization is one day dead and gone, historians may look back on this moment in the once-proud United Kingdom as a seminal marker of its demise. Earlier this week, we wrote at length about the UK’s appalling and infuriating unwillingness to protect its young girls from being raped by gangs of mostly Pakistani men. Now we learn that the UK’s parliament is refusing to investigate the massive cover-up that enabled these horrific crimes. “They did it,” writes Hot Air’s David Strom. “The UK Labour Party has formally rejected the proposal to make a formal inquiry into the Muslim Grooming Gangs/Rape Gangs scandal that has plagued Britain for over a decade and perhaps for decades.” In short, then, there’s nothing to see here … except the repeated rapes of thousands of mostly poor, young, white girls by gangs of Muslim men and the widespread efforts of law enforcement and other public officials to keep these crimes under wraps lest they reflect poorly on the UK’s embrace of multiculturalism. In a word: Shame.

Misc.

• Nancy Pelosi’s stock portfolio explodes in value, beats market by nearly 200% (Daily Caller)

• Rick Scott reintroduces bill to keep Daylight Saving Time year-round (Just the News)

• Policy: How years of corruption and mismanagement led to LA running out of water in the middle of the Palisades wildfire (NY Post)

• Humor: Ten more things Trump plans to rename (Babylon Bee)

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