"Biggest National Security Debacle"
Former Biden White House adviser Susan Rice went on MSNBC to proclaim the Trump Administration's Signal group chat on the Houthi air strike "the biggest national security debacle that any national security advisor can remember. The pure laziness, malpractice, recklessness of the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, the Director of National Intelligence, the CIA Director and others is bizarre."
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth questioned Rice's remarks, saying "I think most normal people would consider the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 the biggest national security debacle. Over 2,400 people were killed by a massive Japanese air attack. This included 2,000+ Navy personnel, 100+ Marines, 200+ Army troops, and nearly 70 civilians. Seven warships were sunk. This was followed by a long and brutal war in which more than 400,000 American military personnel were killed."
"Our Signal group chat suffered one minor glitch--Jeffrey Goldberg, the vile editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine, was mistakenly included," Hegseth said. "The air strikes on the Houthi terrorists that have been attacking shipping in the Red Sea were successful. No American lives or aircraft were lost."
Rice pointed out "as terrible as the attack on Pearl Harbor might have been it was instrumental for getting the United States into the war that defeated the Nazis. FDR's maneuvering that got Japan to fire the first shot overcame America's reluctance to enter any foreign wars. Given the successful outcome of WWII that maneuvering cannot be called a debacle. We don't yet know the full repercussions of the Signal chat. So, for now, I stand by my assessment that it is our nation's greatest security debacle."
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich) called the airstrike on the Houthis "unwarranted. They have not be found guilty in any court of law. Trump's goons have essentially murdered presumed innocent men. I will be filing impeachment papers so Trump and his goons can be removed from office and turned over to the International Court of Justice where they will be prosecuted and punished for their crimes against humanity."
In related news, American Oversight filed a lawsuit against John Ratcliffe, Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard and others for violating the Presidential Records Act. Judge James Boasberg, Chief Judge of the US District Court for the District of Columbia, has demanded that "the Trump Administration must obtain my permission for any further actions against the Houthis or other alleged enemies. From this day forward, until I have been provided with irrefutable evidence that it is necessary no new military missions may be undertaken."
Academic Duplicity at Columbia
With President Trump threatening to withhold $400 million in federal grants to Columbia University, president Katrina Armstrong agreed to dial back the antisemitism that has been allowed to disrupt the education of the school's Jewish students. The targeted antisemitic actions include masked protesters intimidating and blocking Jews from attending classes and professors from the school's Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies (MESAAS) Department spouting anti-Semitic propaganda--one of whom, Dr. Joseph Massad, described the Hamas October 7, 2023 massacre of over 1,000 Israeli men, women, and children as "awesome."
This weekend, Armstrong conducted a Zoom call to 75 faculty members in an attempt to reassure them that "I lied to Trump. There will be no changes. Masks will continue to be allowed for health reasons. Protesters' freedom of speech and assembly will remain protected. The MESAAS Department will remain totally independent." These remarks were not intended to be made public, but because one of the 75 participants chose the transcribe option despite being asked to turn it off a transcription made its way to the media.
Many of the participating faculty members expressed anger over Armstrong's "surrender to tyranny." One called Trump's demanded actions against antisemitism "the most significant assault on academic culture in my lifetime." Others urged "suing Trump for over-stepping his authority."
Armstrong argued that "suing would take time and money with no guarantee of success. Appearing to agree seemed the best option. I've already issued a statement that we are taking a series of decisive actions we have been taking and will take to combat antisemitism and all forms of discrimination and harassment, including immediately strengthening our processes for enforcement of rules on demonstrations, identification and masking. Trump has to give us time to implement the changes he wants. Meanwhile, we could be signing contracts committing us to spend the $400 million. Trump would have to sue to get it back and, as we have seen in 100 other cases, a district court judge will rule that he can't."
NPR Funding Debated
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting which is comprised of the National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) are budgeted to receive $535 million from the federal government for FY2025. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has recommended this funding be cut. Paula Kerger, CEO, of PBS and Katherine Maher, CEO of NPR appeared at the House of Representatives DOGE subcommittee to testify against budget cuts.
Subcommittee Chair Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga) said "folks in my district listen to podcasts and internet based news. At the same time, NPR and PBS have increasingly become radical, left-wing echo chambers for a narrow audience. It seems to me that the abundance of news available on the Internet and from commercial broadcasters would seem to make continued federal funding unnecessary."
Maher pointed out that "in America, conservative commercial talk radio stations out number progressive stations ten to one. It seems uncharitable of you to quibble over what we put out one non-conservative news outlet."
"Well, you've called President Trump a 'fascist,' a 'deranged racist sociopath,' said that America is 'addicted to white supremacy,' and publicly chastised using the phrase 'boy and girl' because it 'erases the language of non-binary people.' Why should taxpayers have to fund such propaganda?"
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) asked "is NPR biased?"
Maher insisted "I have never seen any political bias."
Jordan pointed out that "in the DC area, editorial positions at NPR have 87 registered Democrats and 0 Republicans. Most people would infer bias from this imbalance of viewpoints among your editors."
Maher countered, saying "we are very DEI compliant in our personnel decisions. Minorities are well represented as are the ability challenged, gay, lesbian, and trans-gendered segments of the nation's population. Your fear that NPR's workforce is unbalanced is not supported by the facts."
Kerger hastened to remind everyone "I think our PBS show featuring a drag queen reading a children's' book titled, 'The hips on the drag queen go swish, swish, swish' is a stellar example of how we balance our programs to ensure that non-traditional perspectives are included. I know of no conservative broadcasters that would expose their juvenile audiences to this type of diversity."
Los Angeles Building Permits Difficult to Get
In January, the Palisades fire in Los Angeles burned 6800 buildings. In the two months since the fire was extinguished the City has issued only four permits to rebuild in the area. Residents who lost their homes are eager to build, but are finding that comedian Adam Carolla's prediction that it would be near to impossible to get a building permit is proving accurate.
Democrat Mayor Karen Bass insists that "it would be foolish to rush things. With a fire of such magnitude we must carefully consider so many factors. I'm reminded by what I was taught growing up that 'haste makes waste' and 'look before you leap.' We want to make sure to, in the immortal words of our former great President Joe Biden, 'build back better.'"
"The first item to consider is whether we should build back at all," the Mayor asserted. "Perhaps the Palisades are just too dangerous a site to build on. During the fire structures uphill often tumbled down onto structures below and set them ablaze. The death of all the vegetation increases the risk of mud slides. I think we may need extensive examination of the suitability of putting so many structures onto potentially unstable ground."
"If we do decide to allow rebuilding we need to consider whether less combustible materials should be required," Bass speculated. "In the story of the 'Three Little Pigs' it was only the house made of brick that survived. Maybe we shouldn't allow structures made of straw or wood to be built in this area."
"On top of these obvious practical considerations there's the less obvious environmental impacts to keep in mind," Bass added. "Remember, the natural state for land is wilderness. Humans intrude upon and defile wilderness wherever they go. Do we dare allow such degradation now that we know better than the aborigines who first moved into the region? Perhaps our dwellings should be constructed from animal skins and other natural materials. My basic point is that we must think carefully about what we do. I'm asking the folks who lost their homes to be patient and accept the possibility that more may be required of them. While they're waiting for our experts to determine the best overall approach we have many tent encampment areas around the city where they can reside."
Senator Questions Threat Assessment
This week, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) published its 2025 Annual Threat Assessment. ODNI Director Tulsi Gabbard, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Ratcliffe, and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Kash Patel testified at the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Sen. Angus King (I-Me) professed himself "confused by the lack of mention of what we have been told was the greatest threat for each of the previous four annual reports. Why wasn't the danger of climate change included in this year's report? Isn't climate change the major cause of mass migration, famine, and political violence?"
Gabbard answered "we're focused on the most direct threats to Americans' safety, well-being, and security that are within our power to handle. Climate change is not currently a clear threat and may never be. Neither is it something that is within our capability to significantly alter."
"Couldn't we take steps to convert to clean energy by banning coal, oil, and gas?" King asked. "Or converting to solar and wind power? Or seeding the atmosphere with sulfur to reflect sunlight away from Earth?"
"Global temperatures have swung much higher and much lower than they are currently," Gabbard explained. "Almost all of this occurred before humanity reached it current state of industrialization. Clearly, this more recent industrialization didn't cause those fluctuations. There isn't evidence that any actions we could take as humans would be able to significantly affect the current trend toward global warming. Neither is it obvious that global warming is a bad thing. Warmth from the sun is crucial to life on this planet. Finally, even if government were expected to do something about global warming it wouldn't be the intelligence community that would do it."
"Our job at the ODNI, CIA, and FBI is to assess threats posed by the enemies of our country," she emphasized. "These are the kind of threats that can be averted by understanding those enemies and taking effective actions to counter these threats by diplomacy or military means."
"Well, geniuses like Bill Gates and Klaus Schwab don't agree with anything you've said," King pointed out. "Why shouldn't I trust them instead of you and Trump?"
"You might want to consider that both Schwab and Gates want to shrink the human population by 95% and strictly control the lives of those who survive the culling," Gabbard told him.
Dems' Favorable Rating Plunges
Former Clinton pollster Mark Penn went on Fox News to report that "I've never seen anything like this in over 40 years of polling. Those voters who have a favorable opinion of the Democratic Party have plunged to only 29%. That's an incredible loss of moderate, working-class voters. They need those voters to win elections. And having extreme leftists like AOC and Bernie Sanders carrying the Democrat banner is not helping."
Minority Leader of the Senate Chuck Schumer pointed out that "these poll figures came before the launch of our new campaign to shout down Republican politicians at their home district town hall meetings with constituents. In Wyoming, 500 people packed into the Gryphon Theatre at the Laramie Civic Center for Rep. Harriet Hageman's town hall. At least 75% of them were Democrats. Our people were so disruptive that she couldn't answer any of the other attendees' questions. In Nebraska, incessant chats of 'tax the rich' totally drowned out Rep. Mike Flood voice. This is just the early phase of our battle back to power."
Hageman observed that "this type of rowdy behavior is becoming commonplace in college towns across the country. The students don't realize that shouting down those whose views differ from theirs was a prime tactic of the Nazis when they were a minor Party during the Weimar Republic era in Germany."
Schumer admitted "I didn't know that, but obviously it was an effective strategy because the Nazi Party grew in popularity to become Germany's largest political Party. This enabled Hitler to eventually be appointed premier and later be elected president of Germany. Maybe the strategy will work similar miracles for us as we work to resist Trump's tyranny here."
Meanwhile, another dubious accomplishment by Democrats in 2024 was Chicago's 13th consecutive year as the American city with the most homicides: 573. The city has been continuously governed by Democrats for each of these years. Defunding the police is the Party's latest approach to dealing with crime. Mayor Brandon Johnson's latest budget eliminated 833 street-cop positions. The Chicago Board of Education voted to remove all police officers from Chicago Public Schools, including schools that wanted to keep them.
Kinzinger Mocks MAGA's "Double Standards"
Former Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger wonders "why is it that whenever Republicans decide to boycott a company like Bud Light or Disney, it's okay? Yet when the rest of America protests against a company like Tesla because the CEO is running around telling Americans what government spending they can live without, then all of a sudden it's a crime. Why do we let them get away with double standards."
Attorney General Pam Bondi explained that "there is no double standard. Boycotting a company's merchandise is a perfectly legal action. In a free society every individual can freely choose what they buy or not buy for any reason or for no reason. On the other hand, vandalizing a business, firing bullets into a place of business, setting fire to the merchandise, and endangering lives is totally illegal. We will find, arrest, prosecute, and punish any person who commits any of these crimes."
Kinzinger asserted "more harm was done to the company that manufactured and sold Bud Light than has been done to Musk, the dealers who sell Teslas, and the owners of the cars. Anheuser Busch lost billions of dollars in sales and profits. Why should the folks who caused this damage go unpunished? If I were still in Congress I'd sponsor a bill making those who boycott businesses or their merchandise liable for the lost sales and profits they cause."
