PrairiePundit

 National Review: It wasn’t an elaborate, multilayered plot. It wasn’t democracy hanging by a thread. It was a mob run amok, a riot. It was dangerous for those on the scene, and it was notorious because it happened at the Capitol instead of, say, on the streets of Minneapolis. But it was a spontaneous, chaotic, nearly pointless tantrum that had no chance of achieving even the nebulous, short-term aim of preventing Congress from counting state-certified electoral votes, much less of overthrowing America’s constitutional order. Oh, and to hear prosecutors tell the story of January 6, Donald Trump had precious little to do with the whole thing. ... To think Trump had some role in their riot you would have to overlook the fact that in his speech he asked his followers to be peaceful.  I suspect those who blamed him for the riot did so more out of animous for him politically.  There was an element on the left that tried to blame Trump as a way to criminalize him and stop him f...

 PJ Media: Working to Save the Energy Grid From ESG Investing ESG is mainly pushing the climate cult agenda that tries to restrict the use of fossil fuels.

 Red States: If you were following politics way back in early 2021, you may remember a story that broke ( click here  to read my write-up on it) describing a “secret cabal” that colluded to rig the outcome of the 2020 election. Here’s how TIME described it. The key phrase there in regard to Twitter is the attempt to “steer media coverage and control the flow of information.” That’s exactly what was happening until Musk’s takeover, and he seems keen to expose everything the old regime did. ... There are more examples of Twitter putting its thumb on the scale than one can reasonably keep track of. Obviously, its policy against COVID-19 “misinformation” was a big source of bias until Musk  put a stop to it  recently. Still, nothing touches what social media companies did with the Hunter Biden story. Even today, it’s astounding to think back to just how far they went to suppress what was obviously true information in order to benefit Joe Biden’s presidential campaign. .....

 FoxNews: The White House pushed back on a bombshell Department of Defense report alleging the Chinese utilized the U.S. Afghanistan withdrawal as a propaganda gift to undermine American influence across the globe. "Fox & Friends" co-host Brian Kilmeade grilled National Security Council Strategic Communications Coordinator John Kirby over the report, calling out the Biden administration for its handling of what many critics call the botched exit and how it impacted alliances. "Nations like China and Russia took a look at what we did in Afghanistan, and we've talked about this many, many times over the last year, and had to marvel at the speed, the efficiency of their effectiveness that very small number… of troops… are able to move that many Afghans safely out of that country," Kirby said Wednesday. "No other nation in the world can do that." BIDEN ADMIN'S AFGHANISTAN WITHDRAWAL FAILURES DETAILED IN REPORT Kilmeade pushed back on Kirby's r...

 NPR: When protests erupted in China over the weekend, a social media post forwarded countless times quoted a former Chinese leader saying, "the people should be allowed to speak and encouraged to care about state affairs." That leader was Xi Zhongxun, the late father of Chinese President Xi Jinping. Whether the younger Xi will take the advice given in a speech years ago is unclear. Several days of extraordinary street protests in cities and universities across the country have highlighted with brutal clarity how unpopular China's "dynamic zero COVID" policy has become. But experts say the country is ill-prepared to face the consequences of dropping those policies altogether and triggering a likely tsunami of COVID-19 cases. China is already grappling with a record outbreak. On Tuesday, it reported around 40,000 new cases. "Two bad options" After first detecting the new coronavirus in 2019, China imposed tight travel restrictions, mandatory mass testi...

 Yahoo News: Putin acting ‘absolutely despicable’ over defeat in Ukraine, says White House Kirby was commenting on Russian missile strikes on Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure a few days before the beginning of winter. Read also: Putin says he should have seized Donbas in 2014 “And it’s designed to want – for one reason, and that’s to try to bring the Ukrainian people to their knees, because he can’t bring the Ukrainian armed forces to its knees,” he said. The official emphasized the United States will continue to help the Ukrainian military, which is demonstrating success on the battlefield. ... Putin's launching of the war in Ukraine made little sense.  He claimed to be going after Nazis in Ukraine, but so far it is the Russian troops and their commanders who are looking like Nazis.  They are perpetrating war crimes in combat operations and in broad attacks on civilian infrastructure.  See, also: Winter historically protected Russia. Now it's a form of attack That ...

 NY Post: “I intend to be the most  pro-union president  leading the most pro- union administration in American history,” President Biden promised last year. At least until a rail strike threatened his poll numbers. Biden is hammering Congress to enact legislation to effectively outlaw a strike next week by 100,000 railroad freight workers. Unions are threatening a work stoppage to compel railroad owners to provide sick leave. Biden declared in April, “Workers who join a union gain power — the power over decisions that affect their lives.” But not as much power as the president has over them. And considering how disruptive a strike would be for the national economy, Biden needs to stop it. Liberal activists are stunned at Biden’s apparent betrayal of rank-and-file workers. But the Democrats’ posturing is no surprise. Unions are great — if someone else pays. When Congress dished out $52 billion in subsidies for new semiconductor factories, Biden boasted last month in Syracuse that...

 Scotus Blog: The Supreme Court will hear oral argument on Tuesday in a dispute over the Biden administration’s authority to set immigration policy. Texas and Louisiana are challenging a federal policy that prioritizes certain groups of unauthorized immigrants for arrest and deportation, arguing that it violates federal law. But the Biden administration and its supporters counter that a ruling for the states would have sweeping implications – not only for immigration policy but also for states’ ability to sue the federal government when they disagree with its actions. The policy at the heart of United States v. Texas is outlined in a September 2021 memorandum by Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas on the federal government’s priorities for immigration enforcement. Explaining that there are over 11 million noncitizens currently in the United States who could be subject to deportation, but that the Department of Homeland Security does not have the resources to apprehe...

 Just the News: The earliest demographics to get COVID-19 vaccines, such as healthcare workers, reported a surprisingly high rate of serious complications from them, according to data the CDC turned over under court order. Among the 10 million-plus users of the agency's v-safe active monitoring smartphone app through July — 8.5 million of whom signed up between December 2020 and April 2021, before all adults were eligible for COVID vaccines — nearly 8% said they required medical care after receiving the vaccines. For patients ages 3 and older needing such care, nearly 3 in 4 couldn't rely on telehealth visits. They required urgent care (48%), emergency room (15%) or hospitalization (10%). For infants, who were authorized to receive the jabs this summer and are enrolled in v-safe through parents or guardians, hospitalizations were much lower (2%) but urgent care much higher (66%). Another 12% of v-safe users reported they were unable to perform normal daily activities, and 13%...

 AP: China’s ruling Communist Party has vowed to “resolutely crack down on infiltration and sabotage activities by hostile forces,” following the largest street demonstrations in decades staged by citizens fed up with strict anti-virus restrictions. The statement from the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission released late Tuesday comes amid a massive show of force by security services to deter a recurrence of the protests that broke out over the weekend in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and several other cities. While it did not directly address the protests, the statement serves as a reminder of the party’s determination to enforce its rule. Hundreds of SUVs, vans and armored vehicles with flashing lights were parked along city streets Wednesday while police and paramilitary forces conducted random ID checks and searched people’s mobile phones for photos, banned apps or other potential evidence that they had taken part in the demonstrations. The number of people who have ...

 ISW: ... The United Kingdom Ministry of Defense (MoD) reported on November 29 that Russian forces have likely stopped deploying battalion tactical groups (BTGs) in the past three months.[4] The UK MoD stated that the BTGs‘ relatively low allocation of infantry, decentralized distribution of artillery, and the limited independence of BTG decision-making hindered their success in Ukraine.[5] ISW assessed starting in April that Russian BTGs were degraded in various failed or culminated Russian offensives, including the attacks on Kyiv, Mariupol, Severodonetsk, and Lysychansk, and later efforts to reconstitute these BTGs to restore their combat power have failed.[6] Russian forces have likely since thrown their remaining combat power and new personnel, including mobilized personnel, into poorly trained, equipped, and organized ad hoc structures with low morale and discipline.[7] The structure of BTGs and the way the Russian military formed them by breaking up doctrinal battalions, reg...

 Red States: ... “These experts were wrong and you had people on Twitter that were calling that out and Twitter, the old regime and Twitter, their response was to try to just suffocate the dissent and Elon Musk knows that’s not a winning formula,” DeSantis said. Musk announced Monday that Apple “threatened” to withhold Twitter from the App Store without providing a reason as to why. “He’s providing free speech and so if Apple responds to that by nuking them from the App Store, you know, I think that would be a huge, huge mistake,” DeSantis said in response. He said that would be an exercise of “monopolistic power” and Congress should respond if Apple goes through with it. ... DeSantis is right.  When Big Tech starts acting like the censor in chief it has stepped over a line.  They should not have a monopoly on social media or its content.  See, also: A Tesla Smartphone Is Not an Idle Threat And:

 Andrew McCarthy: Is there anything more infuriating than the Biden administration’s public rhetoric — or, rather, its lack of meaningful rhetoric — in response to the Chinese people’s valorous protests against the monstrous communist regime that enslaves them? Jimmy Quinn has a post on the latest drivel to come out of the White House. I found yesterday’s commentary by the administration’s national-security spokesman, retired rear admiral John Kirby, especially disheartening. He avoided any criticism, much less condemnation, of Xi Jinping’s regime, mouthing instead the Biden line that everyone should have the right of peaceful protest — which, of course, the Chinese are denied because of lethal repression by the regime. The White House, Kirby insisted, won’t speak for the protesters because they are speaking for themselves. Translation: The Biden administration does not want to be perceived as sympathetic to truth-telling about the Xi regime’s atrocities. At the risk of belaboring ...

 Lauren Smith: Elon Musk has promised to throw open the doors of Twitter jail and reinstate a large number of suspended accounts. Last week, Twitter’s proud new owner posted a poll asking whether users thought Twitter should ‘offer a general amnesty to suspended accounts, provided that they have not broken the law or engaged in egregious spam’. The results came out overwhelmingly on the side that it should, with 72 per cent for ‘yes’ and 26 per cent for ‘no’. Signing off with the words ‘Vox Populi, Vox Dei’ (‘The voice of the people, the voice of God’), Musk announced that an amnesty will be granted this week. Ever since Musk completed his Twitter takeover, the blue-check class has been losing its collective mind. These people are clearly terrified by Musk’s promise to ‘free the bird’ and make Twitter a haven for free speech. For someone who is not terminally online, this entire controversy might seem irrelevant. After all, Twitter is not real life. But the elites’ response to Musk...

 Reuters: President Joe Biden's administration on Monday proposed rules aimed at limiting methane leaks from oil and gas drilling on public lands, Washington's latest move to crack down on emissions of the potent greenhouse gas. The proposal complements new rules the U.S. government already proposed for the industry on private lands. It would place monthly limits on flaring and require oil and gas companies to undertake methane leak detection programs for operations on federal lands, where nearly a tenth of U.S. oil and natural gas production takes place, primarily in Western states. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management said the rules would help prevent gas from being wasted and boost tax-payer returns. ... The Interior Department said venting and flaring activity from production on public lands has significantly increased over several decades. Flaring, or deliberately burning gas produced as a byproduct to oil, releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, while venting releases ...

  It is hard to imagine a more absurd media. The media that spend years pushing a bogus claim of Russian collusion is worried about someone on Twitter disagreeing with them.  Musk is right to question why they are against free speech.

 NY Times: Russian Retreat Reveals Signs of an Atrocity in a Ukrainian Village In the southern Kherson region, the pattern seen in eastern Ukraine is repeating: Russia’s withdrawal yields evidence of possible war crimes. The Russian casus belli was to root out Nazis, and it turns out they were the ones acting like Nazis.  Unfortunately, it is unlikely that they will ever be prosecuted for these crimes because there is no likelihood that the Russian government will be overthrown. 

 Fox News: ‘Woke’ military provisions are sticking points for GOP as vote on defense policy bill looms Republicans say they might prefer to delay NDAA until next year, when they will control House Democrat Sen. Schumer is accused of delaying the bill so that they're would be no time to debate the issue.  Making the military more "woke" will make it less effective and destroy morale.

 Fox Business: FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried donated thousands to House committee members who will investigate him Nine members of House Financial Services Committee received donations from Bankman-Fried, other FTX employees So far they are not rushing to give the money over to the bankruptcy court.  Democrat Maxine Waters who chairs the committee says,   "Well, I don't want to get into that. As a matter of fact, both sides, Democrats and Republicans, have received donations. So thank you." She and others who received the money need to step away from the investigation.

 NY Post: Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.) called on Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to resign on Friday, warning that he will face House investigations if he refuses. The border state lawmaker’s message comes days after House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) promised to launch investigations in next year’s Republican-controlled House to determine whether Mayorkas should be impeached. “I’m glad that he has given Mayorkas an ultimatum: Either resign or we’re going to start investigations and see if it leads to impeachment,” Lesko said on Fox News, referencing McCarthy’s comments from earlier this week. “I personally have signed on to legislation to impeach Mayorkas. Prior to that, I signed on to legislation that he resign, and I signed on to letters asking him to resign,” Lesko added. Lesko, a member of the House Border Security Caucus, went on to accuse the DHS chief of lying to Congress about the situation on the southern border. “We had written him a letter sa...

 ISW: ... Russian forces continue to face issues with adequate training and equipment and challenges with morale and discipline. A Russian source stated on November 28 that Russian marksmen receive rifles without optics, troops in Russia’s Western Military District (WMD) did not receive anti-tank weapons, and mechanized infantry battalions failed to receive proper training.[50] The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported on November 28 that the behavior of Russian forces in Melitopol, Zaporizhia Oblast has worsened since the arrival of the Russian troops from the Kherson withdrawal, indicating the worsening morale and increased restlessness of these forces.[51] The Ukrainian Resistance Center reported that Russian troops are looting, engaging in physical altercations with one another, and raping locals at higher rates than before.[52] A Ukrainian milblogger also shared footage of intoxicated Russian conscripts in Melitopol on November 28.[53] An open-source intelligence aggregator amp...

 Fox News: RNC, Arizona AG candidate file lawsuit alleging election mismanagement by officials Lawsuit names Democratic candidate for attorney general Kris Mayes and Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs It looks like one of the worse run elections in the country.  The fiasco was supervised by Democrats and they appear to have benefited from the mismanagement.  Arizona was not the only place with mismanaged elections.  Texas's largest county, Harris which includes the city of Houston election was also poorly run and appears to have tried to suppress the Republican vote in that county.  The State of Texas is investigating the Harris County mess.

 Daily Caller: The Dutch government is planning to buy and close down up to 3,000 farms near environmentally sensitive areas to be in compliance with EU environmental rules. It comes after farmer protests erupted this summer following a government plan to reduce nitrogen emissions by 50% by 2030, The New York Times reported . Farmers believe the measure unfairly targeted the agricultural sector, which is responsible for the largest portion of nitrogen emissions in the Netherlands, the Times added. The government will conduct a “compulsory purchase” of large nitrogen emitters as part of a voluntary, one-time offer, announced Nitrogen Minister Christianne van der Wal, Bloomberg reported . Farmers will be offered a deal “well over” the value of the farm, according to the government plan . She asserted “there is no better offer coming” in a Friday meeting with MPs. ... The Netherlands has become the world’s second largest exporter of agricultural products after the United States, and p...

 TippInsights: Voters Favor More Drilling, Fewer Rules To End Diesel Fuel Shortage:   I&I/TIPP Poll Due to dwindling supplies, diesel fuel prices are up 50% from last year, raising the cost of food, transportation, manufactured goods, and even gifts. ... Diesel fuel prices are up roughly 50% from last year, in large part due to fast-dwindling supplies, affecting the cost of everything, including food, transportation, manufactured goods, even gifts. Ships use diesel fuel. So do trucks and trains. Desperate farmers need diesel to fuel their tractors and other farm equipment. It all adds up to higher costs. Can something be done about this? Americans overwhelmingly answer yes, the latest I&I/TIPP Poll shows. ... Americans mostly favored No. 1, encourage more drilling and refining of oil to boost diesel and other fuel supplies. It garnered an overall response of 39%. A close second, at 36%, was "Return to the rules and standards for energy production that prevailed in 20...

  Kevin Downey: The key to understanding the Democrats is this: They accuse the Republicans of whatever they are up to. So when the libs call us “Nazis,” it’s time to take a peak under the non-binary, black bloc fashion-wear of their own street thugs and see what they’re really up to. Antifa violently attacks Republicans, Christians, and conservatives around the nation. They  shut down speeches  by conservatives like Ann Coulter. Such violence is reminiscent of Hitler’s S.A., which is short for  Sturmabteilung  (assault division), also known as the “ brown shirts .” FASCISM-O-RAMA!  Nazis, commies, and fascists  hate democracy . They use/used  violence against  their political opponents, including shutting down speeches by their ideological adversaries. Antifa also  opposes democracy ,  attacks people  who disagree with them, and riots to cancel speeches by conservatives. If it  walks like a duck  goosesteps like a Na...

 Rich Lowry: ... Democrats consider Biden the safe choice in 2024, since he’s the incumbent and surrounded by flawed alternatives, yet he is actually an enormous risk. Nominating him again would be extremely reckless, both for the party and for the country. First, the partisan considerations. It may well be that Biden, even in his enfeebled state, is the best matchup against Donald Trump. He beat him once before, after all, and used him as an effective foil during the midterms. It is to Biden’s advantage that it has proven difficult for anyone to work up a passionate hatred of him, rather than a low-intensity sense of pity or contempt. (That so many had hated Hillary Clinton for so long was her ultimate undoing in 2016.) Biden still has a relatively moderate affect and profile — there are limits to how woke an 80-something, silver-haired creature of the Democratic establishment can appear, no matter how far left his policies are. But there’s no guarantee that Biden will get Trump a...

  What we are learning about the left is that they do not trust people who are not leftists and this mistake will hurt them in the long run.  What Musk is doing is making Twitter a better and fairer platform for people to discuss the issues of the day.  The threat that Apple or Google may kick them off their servers is an absurd idea that they should rethink.  It would hurt both Apple and Google in the long run to do such a thing.  Musk is perfectly capable of creating a competitive phone.

 Fox News: The next generation of America’s top doctors could be more concerned about a patient’s race than previous generations. CriticalRace.org, which monitors critical race theory (CRT) curricula and training in higher education, has expanded its Medical School Database and found that 58 of the nation’s top 100 medical schools have some form of mandatory student training or coursework related to the polarizing idea that racism is systemic in America's institutions. "Medical School education is in crisis, with 'social justice' and race-focused activism being imposed on students, faculty, and staff," William Jacobson told Fox News Digital. Jacobson, Clinical Professor of Law at Cornell Law School and founder of the Legal Insurrection website, founded CriticalRace.org’s sprawling database that has also examined elite K-12 private schools, 500 of America's top undergraduate programs and military service academies. CRITICAL RACE THEORY TAUGHT TO FUTURE MILIT...

 Washington Times: Maria Esperanza Diaz Ruiz had expected to pay a smuggler to get across the U.S.- Mexico border. Then she learned that the Biden administration ’s new program would let her walk into the country at no cost as long as she had a tale of woe from back home. She is one of the migrants taking advantage of a Biden policy that is converting illegal immigrants into legal “parolees,” a status that offers a work permit and a foothold in the U.S., according to the Center for Immigration Studies, which observed Ms. Diaz Ruiz and others. “This is real,” she told the center’s Todd Bensman . “This is not a magic trick.” Her justification for gaining parole, she said, is that she worked for a Nicaraguan government official who was homosexual. Her ex-husband threatened her and her boss, she told Mr. Bensman . “I had to leave because I would be killed,” she said. Armed with documents and a criminal background check, she joined a group of roughly two dozen migrants who wer...

  Julie Kelly  @julie_kelly2 Defying congressional subpoenas is about to get cool again Quote Tweet RNC Research @RNCResearch · Nov 27 "If you are subpoenaed by Republicans when they take over, will you comply?" ADAM SCHIFF: "We’ll have to consider the validity of the subpoena." 1:09 PM · Nov 27, 2022 · Twitter for iPhone 2,049 Retweets 89 Quote Tweets 7,037 Likes I think Schiff should be held to account for his bogus allegations against Trump and other Republicans. He should also be called to account for his part in pushing the obviously false Russian collusion hoax.