PrairiePundit

 National Review: Anheuser-Busch Lays Off Nearly 400 Corporate Workers as Bud Light Backlash Continues It is rare to see an ad campaign backfire so spectacularly. 

 National Review: Protecting the Bidens It’s hard to believe, but the Hunter Biden plea agreement turns out to be even worse than advertised. It blew up in court on Wednesday under questioning by Judge Maryellen Noreika, who was understandably mystified by its bizarre structure and opaque provisions. ... Fortunately, the judge was much smarter than the Biden DOJ, and its screwy deal that made zero sense to anyone other than the Bidens.  See, also: Judge: Hunter Biden Faces JAIL Time for Drug Use And:   Why isn't the DOJ going after Hunter Biden?: Rep. Claudia Tenney

 DailyWise: This week “Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol agents have encountered five large groups consisting of 648 migrants in Hidalgo and Starr Counties”. According to the CBP, “Four of the large groups were encountered in Starr County by agents from the Rio Grande City Border Patrol Station. The total of those groups was 520 migrants, consisting of family members, unaccompanied children, and single adults from various countries in Central and South America. Additionally, Border Patrol Agents from the McAllen Station encountered a large group of 128 migrants in Hidalgo County. The (group) consisted of mainly family members and single adults from Guatemala and Honduras”. In West Texas, The that agents seized more than $900,000 worth of cocaine at a checkpoint on Interstate 10: Meanwhile, in Laredo, the Department of Public Safety that troopers arrested a driver for human smuggling after finding four illegal immigrants inside her vehicle. Also in Webb County, the that its Tro...

 ISW: ... Russian President Vladimir Putin attempted to reassure African partner states that Russia will maintain its economic and security commitments during the second day of the Russia-Africa Summit in St. Petersburg. Putin addressed African heads of state and representatives at the summit’s plenary session on July 28 and highlighted military-technical agreements with 40 African countries and plans to expand Russia’s diplomatic presence in Africa.[14] Putin stated that Russia aims to help train African partners‘ military and law enforcement personnel and noted that there are many African personnel at the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) academy.[15] Putin also claimed that between 2022 and 2023 Russia wrote off $23 billion of debt for African countries.[16] Putin claimed that Russia has sent almost 10 million tons of grain to African countries so far in 2023 and reiterated a pledge to send 25,000 to 50,000 tons of grain to six African countries in the next three to four months...

 Benzinga: Cows, like all living mammals, produce greenhouse gases, which could threaten their existence. According to the Telegraph, Ireland is reportedly considering killing 200,000 cows in the country to meet the European Union’s climate targets. Not everyone is a fan of this method. “Reports like this only serve to further fuel the view that the government is working behind the scenes to undermine our dairy and livestock sectors,” said Tim Cullinan, president of the Irish Farmers’ Association. It also caught the attention of Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk. “This really needs to stop. Killing some cows doesn’t matter for climate change,” he wrote in a tweet. ... Living in the country with cows grazing and people driving cars and trucks does not appear to have impacted the climate or the atmosphere.  You have to go into a city to see the haze in the air.

 I&I: It didn’t take long for a New York Times article about Donald Trump’s plans to “increase presidential power in 2025” for the left to suffer yet another mental breakdown, rushing on the air and in print to call the news “terrifying,” “frightening,” “menacing,” “incredibly alarming.” And, of course, “fascist,” or as a University of North Carolina professor took to the Atlantic to declare, “a new kind of fascism.” What has the left grasping for the Xanax again? Here are the horrifying facts as reported by the Times: Trump – as well as other Republicans running for office – hope to “increase the president’s authority” over the executive branch of government, including “independent” federal agencies. “He wants to revive the practice of ‘impounding’ funds, refusing to spend money Congress has appropriated for programs a president doesn’t like,” the Times reports. “He intends to strip employment protections from tens of thousands of career civil servants, making it easier to rep...

 Philip Wegmann: ... The ongoing political controversy was compounded by new legal drama Wednesday when a plea deal between Hunter Biden and federal prosecutors stemming from two misdemeanor tax charges was unexpectedly placed on hold. The defense was reportedly shocked that the deal, which would spare the president’s son from prison, would not shield him from future prosecution under other laws that notably include the Foreign Agent Registration Act. Leo Wise, the lead prosecutor for the Department of Justice, said in federal court that there was “an ongoing investigation.” When the court asked for more details, Wise reportedly replied that he wasn’t “in a position where I can say.” Legal wrangling to salvage or update that plea agreement is ongoing, but House Republicans will continue to press their own case. Devon Archer, a close friend and former business partner of Hunter Biden, is set to speak to lawmakers behind closed doors next week. The New York Post reported earlier this...

 National Review: Internal Facebook Emails Reveal White House Pressured Social-Media Platform to Censor Covid ‘Misinformation’ What they were labeling as "misinformation" were matters that were the subject of a dispute and they shortchanged the public by not allowing the debate over issues to play out.  Censorship is an attack on freedom of speech and the remedy for alleged misinformation is more speech challenging it, not telling people to shut up.

 Stephen Green: ... Have you seen the latest clip making the rounds? Three “plus-size suspects,” according to the  New York Post , loaded up three shopping carts worth of stuff at a Burlington in Sacramento and then loaded up the stolen goods “into a red Dodge Charger as alarms blared in the background.” The slow-motion audacity is almost thrilling. Whatever you think of the “Ocean’s 11” remake with George Clooney and Brad Pitt, today’s short film is the exact opposite. Despite the all-in-the-family vibe of today’s thieves, much of the shoplifting wave isn’t committed by starving Jean Valjeans desperate for a loaf of bread. In San Francisco, organized crime gangs, often operating out of Oakland, have capitalized on the city’s anything-goes attitude towards so-called lifestyle crimes. Their thugs go in to steal high-margin goods that the OC outfits then sell on the black market. ... This is happening because liberal prosecutors do not have these perps arrested and tried....

  The man knows how to make a good argument.

 Charles Lipson: Hunter’s grift was really the whole family’s business That business had only one product: selling political influence The Biden administration has repeatedly told the public that Hunter’s lucrative consulting business doesn’t matter unless it is directly connected to his father. That’s true. Moreover, they add, that connection is not just unproven, it cannot be proved because it didn’t exist. That’s false, although the mainstream media has repeated it faithfully. But even the most feckless are finding it increasingly difficult to sustain this awkward lip-syncing with the White House press office. Actually, the Biden grifting operation extends well beyond Hunter to include multiple family members. It always centered on Joe’s public position… ... Before he became president, Joe Biden used to brag about the families' influence-peddling operation.  Hunter was not the only family member involved.  Other relatives were in on it. Joe was said to get a piece of t...

 ISW: ... The Kremlin reportedly distributed a manual to Russian state media on framing the anniversary of the Baptism of Rus on July 28, likely as part of continued information operations and propaganda narratives to advance Russian military objectives. Russian opposition news outlet Meduza reported on July 27 that it obtained the manual but did not publish the manual itself, which reportedly directs Russian state media to frame the Baptism of Rus as “a key turning point in Russian history” and “the point of formation of statehood.”[27] The manual reportedly emphasized that a “common faith” allowed the “East Slavic tribes” to unify as “one people.”[28] The manual reportedly instructs state media to paint Russian President Vladimir Putin as the one who “brought the mission of defending the Orthodox faith back to Russia” and reportedly labels the Ukrainian government an “apostate regime” and a “satanic regime” that is trying to “destroy” Orthodoxy in Ukraine and “the spiritual ties ...

 Breitbart: Hunter Biden Could be Jailed if He Consumes Drugs, Alcohol as Part of Release Conditions I was in court waiting to try a case and the Judge was handling several cases where the defendant was given probation and one of the conditions of the probation was that the accused could not go anywhere where alcohol was sold or served.  The Judge whose name was Mace Thurmond always added, "That means you can't go into a 7-11 to cash a check.  I later was trying a case in his court and after cross-examining the state's main witness, the Assistant District Attorney said, "The State rests." Thurmond was not impressed.  He yelled at the ADA, "You can't rest.  You haven't made your case."  Thurmond slammed down his gavel and said, "Dismissed."   Hunter's deal allegedly fell apart for other reasons.

 Betsy McCaughey: A Pew Research poll released July 20 found that 70% of Democrats think the government should restrict what appears on social media, a dramatic change from five years ago when a majority of Democrats supported a free marketplace of ideas. It's no wonder, considering the drumbeat of warnings from leftist politicians and their liberal media allies about "disinformation" and "misinformation." But be warned: Democracy cannot survive for long if one of the nation's two major political parties wants to put blinders on the public, limiting their access to information and canceling political opponents. That's a rigged system. Ask the Iranians, Russians or Chinese. A House hearing on July 20 held by the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government showed that the Biden administration is already censoring social media on a massive scale, putting blinders on all of us. Hearing witness D. John Sauer, special assistant attorney ...

 Michael Goodwin: Attorney General Merrick Garland is a bitter partisan hack, but apparently not a bright one. His timing for giving Hunter Biden a sweetheart deal marks him as dumb as a rock. Garland easily could have buried the 5-year-old case during the first two years of Joe Biden’s tenure, before Republicans won the House majority in the 2022 midterms. Had he done so, The Post and a few other outlets would have barked at the rancid favoritism, but the caravan of corruption would have moved on with the blessing of the Democrats running Congress and their media mouthpieces. In short order, the case would have been forgotten, in part because so many of the incriminating details we know now were still secret. Instead, Garland foolishly waited until the GOP, armed with subpoena power, could demand documents from banks, protect whistleblowers and hold hearings. As a result, GOP-led committees have demonstrated beyond doubt that the Department of Justice cooked the books. Testimony f...

 TCD: Maryland is already famous for its crabs — but researchers at the University of Maryland are looking to give that distinction an entirely different meaning. A team of scientists at the school’s Center for Materials Innovation found that crustaceans like crabs and lobsters contain a chemical in their shells called chitin, which can be used to power batteries when combined with zinc. Crustacean shells packed with this chemical are typically thrown out en masse by restaurants that have no other use for them. But researchers believe this waste could serve as a powerful resource in the search for more sustainable batteries. Lithium-ion batteries, the common kind found in most of our cellphones and laptops, can take hundreds of thousands of years to break down after they’re used up — not to mention the devastating environmental impact lithium extraction has on our planet. But these shellfish batteries are biodegradable and can decompose in soil after just five months, leaving b...

 Fox News: The millions of dollars President Biden's State Department has put toward "pet projects" is coming under a microscope as delays plague areas of the department. Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo, sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday demanding answers regarding large amounts of money the department has dropped into the likes of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and environmental funding abroad as his constituents face "unprecedented delays" in passport processing times. "Unnecessary expenditures by the State Department on pet projects of little or no value to the American taxpayer all while continuing to struggle with the passport backlog underscores how misplaced Antony Blinken and this entire Administration’s priorities are," Schmitt said in a statement. ...  DEI is lib speak for racial preferences that Democrats want to impose in the workplace.  They also think that spending more money will control the we...

 NY Post: Ex-intel official claims feds ‘absolutely’ have UFOs, bodies of ‘non-human’ origin during bombshell hearing A former Air Force officer and intelligence official told Congress Wednesday he believes the government is hiding captured UFOs — and claimed he could not reveal whether anyone was murdered to keep the secret contained. David Grusch, a former national reconnaissance officer representative for the Pentagon’s Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Task Force, made the startling remarks during a bombshell House Oversight subcommittee hearing on UAP — Pentagon jargon for UFOs. Asked whether the government has possession of such vehicles, Grusch replied: “Absolutely.” “Based on interviewing over 40 witnesses over four years and where, I know the exact locations [the UFOs are kept],” he said. “And those locations were provided to the inspector general.” ... It is not clear to me why the government has been keeping this a secret.    See, also: Former defense official...

 Breitbart: DHS Deputy: Biden’s Border Policy Expands Cartels’ Wealth and Reach ...   The admissions came from Blas Nunez-Neto, who is Alejandro Mayorkas’ deputy for border and immigration policy at DHS: We see migrants now routinely paying smuggling organizations vast sums of money — often more than $10,000 to $15,000 — to facilitate their journey to the border. This is so lucrative [for the cartels], in fact, that we are now seeing the drug cartels increasingly becoming a key player in not just collecting taxes for people who transit through their territory [in Northern Mexico] — which is what we saw historically — but actually moving people and becoming deeply involved in human smuggling, not just in Mexico, but throughout the region, including, you know, in [South America’s] Colombia and Darien [Gap] region. ...  Clearly, Joe Biden does not care that his policies are enriching the drug cartels.    See, also: ONCE AGAIN… Mayorkas Lies and Says Biden Regi...

 PJ Media: On Wednesday, Hunter Biden appeared in federal court in Delaware to plead guilty to two misdemeanors for failing to pay millions in federal taxes and to accept a pre-trial diversion agreement on a gun charge, all in exchange for two years probation with no jail time. The sweetheart plea deal that was widely panned by experts fell apart in court and was ultimately rejected by the judge, forcing Hunter Biden to plead “not guilty.” Suddenly, the president’s son’s “Get Out of Jail Free” card was gone, and the Democrats’ hopes of putting the Hunter Biden saga behind them were dashed. This is certainly going to be a huge problem for Democrats because it means that Hunter’s legal issues are far from over, and that the First Son could in fact face jail time — all while his father runs for president again, and his own Department of Justice faces questions of interfering with the investigation. Related:   Brave Judge REJECTS Hunter Biden Sweetheart Plea Deal George Washington...