January 13, 2025

Monday: Below the Fold

Jack Smith resigns, Dems raise wildfire money through Dem super PAC, people are not fleeing pro-life states, and more.

Politics

  • Biden says he could have won! Regarding Joe Biden’s latest BIG Lie that he could have defeated Trump had he not dropped out, CNN’s senior political data reporter Harry Enten notes: “Biden … claims that he could have beaten Donald Trump had he stayed in the race. So, this begs the question, could Biden have won the 2024 election had he [stayed] in the race?” He concludes: “Truthfully, I categorize his statement as flat-out bonkers. Biden was well behind Trump when he dropped out. Biden never led in all of 2024. And no incumbent president who was anywhere near as unpopular as Biden has ever won. The bottom line is this: Joe Biden was behind, he had always been behind and he most likely would have stayed behind.”

  • Jack Smith resigns: Jack Smith, the special prosecutor handpicked by Attorney General Merrick Garland to get Donald Trump over his objection to the 2020 election results and mishandling of classified documents, tendered his resignation on Friday. Smith failed in both cases to do what was the real intention behind the lawfare against Trump, which was to prevent him from winning the 2024 presidential election. Following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling granting presidents certain immunity from prosecution related to their duties as official acts, the legal underpinning of Smith’s lawfare crusade against Trump was effectively gutted. The legality of Smith’s own selection as special prosecutor came under fire from SCOTUS, which served to end his mishandled classified documents case against Trump and called into question any real possibility for success he might have in his January 6 case. Now, Smith is finally slinking away with his legacy as one who sought to bend the law in a failed effort to prevent a second Trump term.

  • Trump praises “commonsense” Fetterman after Mar-a-Lago meeting (National Review)

  • Dems raise wildfire money through Dem super PAC: Have you no sense of decency? That’s the question famously asked of Senator Joe McCarthy during his righteous anti-communist crusade in the early ‘50s, but we might today ask the same question of California Governor Gavin Newsom, who, as the New York Post reports, “sparked fierce outrage for soliciting donations to victims of the deadly Los Angeles wildfires via his super PAC, which pushed users to add their personal information to a Democratic fundraising site.” Newsom directed folks to a website, California Fire Facts, that his campaign committee had set up, ostensibly to fight misinformation. But the “DONATE TO CAL FIRE FOUNDATION” link on the site actually takes folks to an ActBlue fundraising page. Imagine that: promoting one’s political fortunes as a deadly catastrophe destroys the lives of countless of his constituents. As of today, at least 24 are dead, and preliminary estimates have damages somewhere around $150 billion. Newsom might well have no shame, but at least his hair still looks great.

  • LA officials issued countywide evacuation order — by mistake (Washington Free Beacon) | Satire: Newsom assures wildfire victims he is diverting millions of dollars to emergency DEI initiatives (Babylon Bee)

Security

  • Suspect arrested with “flamethrower” near LA fire is an illegal immigrant (NY Post)

  • Vance says those who “committed violence” on January 6 “obviously” shouldn’t be pardoned (The Hill)

  • Trump promises to release report on mystery drones after taking office (Daily Wire)

  • Supreme Court seems likely to uphold TikTok ban (Axios)

  • Austin denies woke military: Outgoing Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has presided over a prolonged and historic shortfall in military recruiting and a deadly serious decline in our nation’s force readiness, but, he says, don’t blame it on wokeness. In a legacy-protecting exit interview with the incurious friendlies at Bloomberg, Austin began with a scintillating circularity: “The United States of America has a military that reflects the United States of America — we are a diverse country, we will have a diverse military.” As for charges about the wokeness that’s plain for all to see, Austin says move along; nothing to see here. “Many of the people who make those comments,” he says, “may not really have a full understanding of what our troops are doing and how well they’re doing it.” In fact, he asserts, “You probably couldn’t get two people to provide the same definition of 'woke’ because nobody really knows what that is.” We beg to differ. Everyone knows what wokeness is, whether it takes the form of race- and gender-based promotion policies or “Transgender Visibility and Awareness” seminars at our military academies.

  • Smuggler tunnel between Mexico and U.S. discovered: U.S. Border Patrol and Homeland Security Investigations agents recently discovered a tunnel constructed between Mexico and the U.S. in El Paso, Texas. The tunnel, which measured six feet high by four feet wide and included both electricity and a ventilation system, was located near a storm drain system by the border wall. Agents believed the tunnel had been built within the last year and was used in the trafficking of humans and drugs. Border Patrol spokesman Claudio Herrera called the discovery “historic.” HSI Special Agent in Charge Jason Stevens noted, “Transnational criminal organizations mistakenly think they can avoid detection by moving people and contraband underground.” He added, “This recent discovery is a significant blow to their operations as it highlights our capability to disrupt their sophisticated smuggling networks.”

  • Biden admin rushing to regulate AI ahead of Trump: The Biden administration is scrambling to set the U.S. agenda regarding Artificial Intelligence regulation before Donald Trump takes office. According to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, the target of AI regulation is not “ordinary commercial business in AI.” Instead, it is for the most advanced AI developers. Trump has pledged to undo Joe Biden’s executive orders related to AI regulation. Thus, the Biden administration is working to enact new AI rules that will be difficult for Trump to undo rapidly. Biden’s handlers hope to solidify rules protecting certain AI developers from competition. In other words, Biden’s picking winners and losers in the AI development industry on his way out the door, all under the guise of protecting national security. The AI restrictions will “go down as one of the most destructive to ever hit the U.S. technology industry,” contends Oracle Executive Vice President Ken Glueck. “To retroactively and surreptitiously issue a final rule of this magnitude without industry consultation and only days before the change in administration is highly consequential. For the first time, we are applying draconian new regulations to largely unregulated public, commercial cloud.”

Culture

  • No, people are not fleeing pro-life states: The Leftmedia touted a recent study purporting to show that single people were moving away from states that have enacted strong pro-life laws. The study claimed that the 13 states that have effectively banned abortion have collectively lost a total of 36,000 residents since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. To come to this conclusion, the study looked at U.S. Postal Service data regarding address changes. However, the application of change-of-address data is a problematic means of measuring population movement due to both privacy laws and the fact that not everyone who moves files a change-of-address form. Furthermore, the study begins its count of movers with the Dobbs decision, as if all pro-life laws went into effect immediately following the overturning of Roe when, in fact, in many cases, it was several months before pro-life laws took effect. Finally, the 16 states with the largest population growth in the U.S. Census already had pro-life laws on the books. In other words, the study does not actually back up the headline claim that pro-life laws are chasing people out of these states.

  • Former MP who downplayed UK rape gangs is arrested as a pedo: The latest punctuation mark on the UK’s societal ruin comes courtesy of a former Labour MP named Ivor Caplin, who Hot Air’s David Strom says “was a prominent critic of Elon Musk’s campaign to highlight the failure of British politicians to adequately investigate the so-called ‘grooming gang’ (really rape gang) scandal.” As it turns out, Caplin has good reason for being a foot-dragging critic of justice for these vile predators and their victims, some of them as young as 11. As Strom notes, “Just as you would expect, just days after appearing on GB News to take his shots at Musk, he was caught trying to meet up with a young boy to have sex.”

  • Satire: Notorious grooming gang votes to not investigate itself (Babylon Bee)

  • How a surgeon saved his cul-de-sac from the inferno: Los Angeles may well have been built to burn, but one courageous resident wasn’t inclined to give up his home — or the homes of his neighbors — without a fight. With the inferno consuming homes all around his Malibu cul-de-sac, 62-year-old Los Angeles brain surgeon Chester Griffiths, along with his son and a neighbor, sprung into action with fire hoses that he’d staged long ago. As PJ Media reports, “For five nights and four days, the men donned N95 masks and used spades and fire hoses to keep the fire from consuming their homes.” Softball-size embers were falling all around them, but they kept at it. As Griffiths said, “I’m a surgeon. You train and you prepare, and then when you’re in the thick of it, you rely on your training and your preparedness. Our exit strategy was paddle boards out into the ocean. … There was no time to be scared.” If that’s not the American Spirit, we don’t know what is.

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