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22 LA sheriff's recruits on morning run injured, several critically, after group mowed down by wrong-way driver
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 6: Politix
12 17:51 JohnQC [7] 
2 19:38 lord garth [10] 
7 14:09 trailing wife [5] 
14 13:41 NoMoreBS [10] 
20 16:24 Matt [13] 
6 19:39 magpie [7] 
4 16:12 Skidmark [7] 
2 08:28 M. Murcek [8] 
5 17:03 Besoeker [15] 
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Page 4: Opinion
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Page 5: Russia-Former Soviet Union
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12 14:59 Phailet Poodle4316 [7]
-Lurid Crime Tales-
'Biden was chairman of the board': Republicans claim President IS compromised by Hunter's foreign deals involving 50 countries
[MAIL] Republicans are claiming that President Joe Biden was involved in his son Hunter's controversial foreign business deals, which allegedly spans 50 different countries, lawmakers said in a press conference on Thursday.

It comes one day after the GOP clinched 218 seats in the House of Representatives, cementing their majority - and investigative powers - in the next Congress.

The president has long denied involvement in and knowledge of his son's foreign dealings - some of which are being investigated by federal authorities.

But Rep. James Comer accused Biden of being 'chairman of the board' of his family's business dealings and even claimed the White House spent more than $250,000 to deflect negative stories about Hunter.

'This is an investigation of Joe Biden,' he said. 'I think we've laid out the evidence as to why we feel it's important, and we're going to move forward with that.'

He said later, 'We're trying to stay focused on - was Joe Biden directly involved with Hunter Biden's business deals, and is he compromised?'

Comer said he'd even like members of the Biden family to testify before the House when asked, but said the main focus of their probe right now was to access bank records.

'As part of our investigation, we have evidence that the finances, credit cards, and bank accounts of Hunter and Joe Biden were commingled, if not shared,' the Republican lawmaker said.

'One of Hunter's closest associates, Eric Schwerin, was accessing Joe Biden's money and writing checks to reimburse Hunter.'
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/17/2022 11:57 || Comments || Link || [10 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Looking for a 'soft' health exit for Biden.
Posted by: Skidmark || 11/17/2022 16:28 Comments || Top||

#2  who would KH's VP be

Amy K
Pete B

heh heh
Posted by: lord garth || 11/17/2022 19:38 Comments || Top||


'Give It Back': Calls Grow for Democrats to Return Money Donated by Disgraced FTX Founder
[Red State] Democrats love to feign outrage at the role "dark money" plays in politics. Dark money, they say, allows unnamed donors to have undue influence over elections and that kind of money should be banned. (They, of course, collect gobs of money from dark money sources every election cycle, but that’s a story for another day.) If they hate dark money so much — wink, wink — they should really be outraged by the scandalous bankrolling of the 2022 election by a not-so-secret source, crypto fraud Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX infamy.

Quick recap of the astonishing downfall of FTX and its founder, courtesy of RedState’s own Jennifer Oliver O’Connell:

According to Reuters’ sources, they claim that at least $1 billion of customer funds have vanished from individual accounts, reportedly triggered through a "backdoor" housed in the finance software.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/17/2022 01:46 || Comments || Link || [13 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Can't we just give it another name and begin anew ?

Bankruptcy

In late 1998 it tried to merge with other aviation companies, but it filed for bankruptcy on October 1 in Columbus, Ohio - the same day that the CIA Inspector General released a report detailing allegations of Southern Air Transport’s involvement in drug trafficking in connection with US-backed and funded right-wing Contras in Nicaragua.[10]

On March 10, 1999, the assets of Southern Air Transport were purchased by Southern Air, and the new carrier began operations in November 1999.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/17/2022 2:28 Comments || Top||

#2  Look at these media cockroaches circling the wagons:

The impact of SBF's support for Democrats is massively overstated
Posted by: DooDahMan || 11/17/2022 6:01 Comments || Top||

#3  SB-F will be dead soon.
Posted by: The Walking Unvaxed || 11/17/2022 6:25 Comments || Top||

#4  I reckon he must have made a lot of enemies else I figured he'd have been on the next plane to Tel Aviv instead of the rumored flight to Argentina.
Posted by: DooDahMan || 11/17/2022 6:27 Comments || Top||

#5  According to OPENSECRETS

FTX ranked #3 in 2022 US Federal Political donations.

However, it criminally embezzled and donated over $70 Million of it users E-coins to various DC SWAMP campaigns and pockets to do so.

SIMPLE QUESTION:
Shouldn't the DC SWAMP be required to return the illegally given Money?

Posted by: NN2N1 || 11/17/2022 6:48 Comments || Top||

#6  Word was planning quick exit to Qatar
Posted by: Frank G || 11/17/2022 6:50 Comments || Top||

#7  /\ Ref #3: Yep, Epsteined soon I suspect. He knows too much.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/17/2022 6:58 Comments || Top||

#8  In late 1998 it tried to merge with other aviation companies, but it filed for bankruptcy on October 1 in Columbus, Ohio - the same day that the CIA Inspector General released a report detailing allegations of Southern Air Transport’s involvement in drug trafficking in connection with US-backed and funded right-wing Contras in Nicaragua.[10]

On March 10, 1999, the assets of Southern Air Transport were purchased by Southern Air, and the new carrier began operations in November 1999.
Posted by: Besoeker 2022-11-17 02:28


...I remember those guys - they used to show up at Langley AFB VA about once or twice a month, beautiful white C-130s with gray tops, discreet lettering and an almost microscopic NC number hidden under the horizontal stab. My junior crew members would ask what they were, and I would gently suggest they forget they even saw them, lest they find themselves inspecting nail driver carts at Thule for what was left of their short, miserable careers in the USAF.

Mike
Posted by: MikeKozlowski || 11/17/2022 6:59 Comments || Top||

#9  Big operation and central hub at Rickenbacher Airport in Columbus, Ohio back in the day. No time for customs inspections, just taxi over to pad 3 and the ground team will roll out with the K-Loader.

FTX and Open border now. No need for costly air operations, ghost fleets, and costly hanger maintenance.

Posted by: Besoeker || 11/17/2022 7:12 Comments || Top||

#10  Epstein'ed or Seth-Rich'ed
Posted by: DooDahMan || 11/17/2022 9:03 Comments || Top||

#11  If you think FTX is the only ones doing this - you haven't been paying attention.

I'm thinking FTX is only the tip of the iceberg. The Dems have been doing this for decades.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 11/17/2022 9:04 Comments || Top||

#12  Not only the Fed can debase the currency. Or launder money.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 11/17/2022 9:29 Comments || Top||

#13  The "all at once" part of the bankruptcy equation is so much more sudden in the electronic age.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 11/17/2022 9:33 Comments || Top||

#14  Democrats don't return stolen money. John Glen died owing the people of Lincoln Savings and Loan.
Posted by: Vespasian Ebboting9735 || 11/17/2022 9:58 Comments || Top||

#15  'This isn't a heist...this is a getaway. You're nothing but common launderers.'

'We are exceptionally well connected launderers. And while they are still sifting through the rubble, we'll be in a non-extradition country, earning 10%'
Posted by: swksvolFF || 11/17/2022 11:23 Comments || Top||

#16  There will be a rush to enact federal control of bitcoin during the lame duck before the details cascade out. My senator, Portman, will sign almost anything at this point. He has nothing to lose.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/17/2022 12:28 Comments || Top||

#17  Well, once it's gummint regulated, it's sort of a castrated donkey.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 11/17/2022 12:39 Comments || Top||

#18  #2 Look at these media cockroaches circling the wagons:
The impact of SBF's support for Democrats is massively overstated
Posted by: DooDahMan


Within the "overstated" article is this admission of guilt by the very folks (VoX) that wrote it...
(Disclosure: This August, Bankman-Fried’s philanthropic family foundation, Building a Stronger Future, awarded Vox’s Future Perfect a grant for a 2023 reporting project. That project is now on pause.)

Posted by: Tennessee || 11/17/2022 14:42 Comments || Top||

#19  Maxine Waters was asked if she would return the money she got and she went off on Republicans.
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 11/17/2022 16:13 Comments || Top||

#20  Very loosely speaking, one of the defenses to a claw-back action could be for the guy who got the $$$ to show that the guy who paid the $$$ got "reasonably equivalent value" in exchange. I double-dog dare them.
Posted by: Matt || 11/17/2022 16:24 Comments || Top||


Fifth Column
PA House Votes to Impeach Soros-Backed Philadelphia D.A.
I am truly shocked.
[Townhall] The Pennsylvania House of Representatives has voted to impeach Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner over "misbehavior in office in the nature of dereliction of duty and refusal to enforce the law."

House Resolution 240 lays out dozens of complaints about the Soros-supported DA, including, "exhibiting unethical conduct by lacking candor to the courts" and "committing professional misconduct in violation of rule of professional conduct and engaging in impropriety and appearances of impropriety."

Krasner fired over 30 assistant district attorneys upon taking office. The resolution accuses him of replacing those experienced attorneys with unqualified attorneys.

If Krasner is successfully removed from his office, he will follow fellow Soros-backed DA Chesa Boudin, who was recalled from his San Francisco post earlier this year. Krasner’s mentor, George Gascon, remains in his Los Angeles position. As the empire of district attorneys Gascon has built begins to crumble, it looks like the emperor himself will remain on his throne until the voters can take another swipe at the office.
The Epoch Times adds:
In the final days of a Republican controlled Pennsylvania House, the Judiciary Committee voted along party lines Tuesday to move two impeachment articles against Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner to the full House, which is expected to vote on it Wednesday.

The articles blame Krasner’s leadership in the district attorney’s office (DAO) as being a direct cause of increasing Philadelphia crime and accuse him of obstructing the impeachment investigation by not sufficiently complying with a subpoena from the Select Committee on Restoring Law and Order.

That select committee released a report of its investigation on Oct. 24 and, although it did not recommend impeachment, it offered a grim look at Philadelphia’s crime.

The report (pdf) looked at rising crime rates, the use of public funds intended for enforcing the law and prosecuting crime, the enforcement of crime victims’ rights, and the use of public funds intended to benefit crime victims in the City of Philadelphia.

‘SHOCKING INCREASES’ IN CRIME UNDER KRASNER
Between Jan. 1, 2021, and Oct. 16, 2022, the report says, 992 people have died as a result of a homicide in Philadelphia. The report compares that to the 557 homicide deaths in 2015 and 2016, combined. Nonfatal shootings have increased, too. In 2022, there have been eight victims of nonfatal shootings who have not yet celebrated their sixth birthdays.

"It is no secret that the DAO and DA Krasner’s progressive policies are the focus of criticism with respect to the increasing crime rate, the handling of criminal cases, and the abject failure to respond, in any meaningful way, to the current crisis," the report says. "Most troubling to the Select Committee, is what happens after arrests are made—the DAO’s prosecution, or lack thereof," the report says.

The office categorizes violent mostly peaceful offenses as homicides, nonfatal shootings, rape, robberies, aggravated assault, and other forms of assault. To the date of the report, 65 percent of all violent mostly peaceful offenses have been withdrawn by the DA’s office or dismissed by the courts, resulting in no prosecution for those crimes. Compared to district attorney’s offices in other Pennsylvania counties, the Philadelphia office withdraws cases much more often.

"No doubt, Philadelphia criminals are emboldened by the knowledge that the likelihood that they will be arrested is slim, and once caught, the likelihood that they will be prosecuted and incarcerated is minimal," the report says.
Posted by: Bobby || 11/17/2022 00:00 || Comments || Link || [15 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Impeachment is not the same as recall in that this will have to be adjudicated by Dems that are beholden to Soros. This sounds symbolic but I like it. Sort of like turning off your stateroom tap as you proceed to the Titanic’s quarterdeck to listen to the band play. Do what’s right and then pack a UHaul and head to Florida.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/17/2022 6:57 Comments || Top||

#2  About time to go after Soros himself?
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/17/2022 11:26 Comments || Top||

#3  Felony murder. RICO...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 11/17/2022 11:29 Comments || Top||

#4  But they keep voting for the same people and expect them to act differently
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 11/17/2022 16:12 Comments || Top||

#5  /\ You noticed that as well.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/17/2022 17:03 Comments || Top||


Government Corruption
Wray Refuses To Say If FBI Had Sources 'Dressed As Trump Supporters' On January 6
[ZERO] "Did the FBI have confidential human sources embedded within the Jan. 6 protesters on Jan. 6 of 2021?" Rep. Clay Higgins asked FBI Director Christopher Wray on Tuesday.

"As I’m sure you can appreciate, I have to be very careful about what I can say, about when we do and do not, and where we have and have not used confidential human sources," Wray replied, adding "But to the extent there’s a suggestion, for example, that the FBI’s confidential human sources or FBI employees in someway instigated or orchestrated Jan 6th, that’s categorically false."

Higgins then asked, "Did you have confidential human sources dressed as Trump supporters inside the Capitol on January 6th prior to the doors being opened?"

To which Wray pushed back, "Again, I have to be very careful about what I can say."

"It should be a no!" Higgins interjected. "Can you not tell the American people: ’no, we did not have confidential human sources dressed as Trump sources positioned inside the Capitol on January the 6th?"

To which Wray replied: "You should not read anything into my decision not to share information about confidential human sources."
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/17/2022 02:05 || Comments || Link || [10 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Any answer other than.... "No, we did not," is actually a YES !

Posted by: Besoeker || 11/17/2022 2:09 Comments || Top||

#2  So basically the Director of the FBI took the 5th?
Posted by: NN2N1 || 11/17/2022 6:32 Comments || Top||

#3  Why does Congress even bother with these hearings? One, I'm sick of hearing what "the American people" want, and two, what results from these? Uh, like, not a g.d. thing?
Posted by: DooDahMan || 11/17/2022 6:36 Comments || Top||

#4  Did they ask if the FBI sources led the Trump Supporters on Jan 6th?
Posted by: Airandee || 11/17/2022 7:07 Comments || Top||

#5  /\ Plant fake bombs, weapons cache ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/17/2022 7:13 Comments || Top||

#6  Unless these idiots are being fired and sent to prison, it is all kabuki theater.
Posted by: DarthVader || 11/17/2022 8:36 Comments || Top||

#7  The Trunks have to hurry up and these investigations. They'll soon be in power and will actually be responsible for results, which we know they are never up to.
Posted by: Rex Mundi || 11/17/2022 8:49 Comments || Top||

#8  Again, I have to be very careful about what I can say."

"I have to be exceedingly circumspect against blurting out the truth."

Posted by: Dron66046 || 11/17/2022 9:10 Comments || Top||

#9  Ron Brown overseas flight for this one.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 11/17/2022 9:27 Comments || Top||

#10  Wray is worthless as a law enforcement head. He is part of the cover-up. Hope the Pubs drill down on this in their investigations from the House.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/17/2022 11:34 Comments || Top||


#12  McCarthy will function as Ryan did in the Obama years. He will withhold subpoena authority to the investigations. His only power is his ability to prevent Biden’s agenda. Instead he will rubber stamp what Biden wants and claim that he did us a great service by only giving him half of what he asked for. That is a McConnell win. Maybe McConnell and Schumer will allow McCarthy to a wear Webelo neckerchief for his trouble.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/17/2022 12:37 Comments || Top||

#13  Ref #2 above:
..."(a deputy medical examiner at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology) LtCol Cogswell, a forensic pathologist, examined the mountaintop crash scene five days after the disaster in which Brown and 34 others died. He told the Tribune-Review he believed the wound was suspicious based on photographs and X-rays of the remains and conversations with those who examined the corpse."

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/1997/dec/05/army-examiner-disputes-results-from-autopsy-on/
Posted by: NoMoreBS || 11/17/2022 13:41 Comments || Top||

#14  #11, not 2
Posted by: NoMoreBS || 11/17/2022 13:41 Comments || Top||


WaPo Sheepishly Admits the FBI Found No Nuclear Secrets, or Anything Else, in Mar-a-Lago Raid
[PJ] There is nothing funnier than watching leftist Punchinellos beclown themselves over the latest "We’ve got Trump NOW!" hijinks.

Remember when the FBI raided Trump’s home supposedly looking for "nuclear secrets" a few months back? Guess how that turned out?

I’ll let the quislings at the Washinton Post spell it out:

Federal agents and prosecutors have come to believe former president Donald Trump’s motive for allegedly taking and keeping classified documents was largely his ego and a desire to hold on to the materials as trophies or mementos, according to people familiar with the matter.

In other words, Trump was keeping souvenirs, as everyone else does.

Funny how WaPo sat on that story until after the midterms, right?

But wait, there’s more!
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/17/2022 01:38 || Comments || Link || [7 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Sheepish?
Posted by: Skidmark || 11/17/2022 7:24 Comments || Top||

#2  Hircine
Posted by: M. Murcek || 11/17/2022 8:33 Comments || Top||

#3  I expect that they will arrest Trump at some point the same way that they arrested the True The Vote folks, ie with no legal basis. Conversely, charges are dropped regarding Konnech. Hunter Biden will likely also get some nominal charges and then a pardon on Joe’s way out. We are at a crisis of the law with respect to equal protection that I can’t see being fixed. The J6 versus Antifa treatment is an illustration. McConnell and McCarthy are not part of the solution.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/17/2022 12:23 Comments || Top||

#4  Go on. Keep making the law a bad joke. See how that works out, long term...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 11/17/2022 12:24 Comments || Top||

#5  #SovietAmerica
Posted by: mossomo || 11/17/2022 12:55 Comments || Top||

#6  On Page 47 in very, very, very small type?
Posted by: magpie || 11/17/2022 19:39 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Pelosi won't seek leadership role, plans to stay in Congress
Posted by: DarthVader || 11/17/2022 12:46 || Comments || Link || [7 views] Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats

#1  Dear Nancy -

How can we miss you if you won't go away?

Mike
Posted by: MikeKozlowski || 11/17/2022 13:16 Comments || Top||

#2  After McCarthy takes the gavel, Nancy bails, big love-fest send-off at the Capitol and then Gov Hairdo appoints her daughter to the seat.
Posted by: NoMoreBS || 11/17/2022 13:26 Comments || Top||

#3  Good riddance to one of the most malignant politicians of my lifetime. I still have Harry Reid in my #1 asshole slot but Nancy's longevity might give her the edge in overall rot and corruption inflicted on this country. She'll be missed like the two dozen hemorrhoids the doctor just removed from one's ass after a surgery.
Posted by: Raj || 11/17/2022 13:35 Comments || Top||

#4  Times have changed. She's about to have no clout and nobody is going to ask her who she knows who still does.

It will be fun to watch.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 11/17/2022 13:42 Comments || Top||

#5  I would prefer if she just dropped dead on the house floor from organ failure from alcoholism.
Posted by: DarthVader || 11/17/2022 13:49 Comments || Top||

#6  I holding out for canine mastadenovirus A, with painful gastrointestinal swelling and hemorrhaging.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/17/2022 13:56 Comments || Top||

#7  Without the leadership role, she will not be MC Hammer.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 11/17/2022 14:00 Comments || Top||

#8  /\ You've got to know the SOB won't quietly slip away into the night. She'll be a shi* disturber until the gurney rolls her out of the chamber.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/17/2022 14:03 Comments || Top||

#9  I'm with Darth but from a massive heart attack and I hope it hurts likea mutherfucker.
Posted by: Chris || 11/17/2022 14:14 Comments || Top||

#10  At least she'll not be home and having to trip over Paul's 'friends'.

There's usually a reason why some power couples have remote relationships.
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 11/17/2022 15:12 Comments || Top||

#11  She should go home and look after Paul. Recent events indicate he could use some supervision.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 11/17/2022 16:00 Comments || Top||

#12  How do the people of California get rid of this annoying hemorroid?
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/17/2022 17:51 Comments || Top||


Trump not first politician to be ditched by Rupert Murdoch
[BBC] The bashing of Donald Trump by Rupert Murdoch's US newspapers looks like a familiar pattern of the Australian-born media baron turning on political leaders who are no longer useful to him.

This was the confidential instruction for a political hit job issued by Rupert Murdoch in the mid-1970s to his editors, according to an American diplomat's telegram sent to the US Department of State.

The target was Australia's Prime Minister Gough Whitlam.

The Labour leader had been a guest at the Murdoch sheep farm outside Canberra, drawing admiring coverage in his left-leaning broadsheet The Australian.

But after winning election in 1972, Whitlam stopped speaking to Murdoch, as Michael Wolff recounts in his absorbing biography The Man Who Owns the News.

From that point the relationship only grew worse. Among other things, the Whitlam government dragged its feet on granting licences for Murdoch's venture into bauxite mining, before devaluing the Australian dollar, costing the media magnate in his foreign exchange dealings.

In response, The Australian began assailing the prime minister's administration with suggestions of financial and sexual scandal.

Murdoch himself penned articles savaging Whitlam, writes Wolff, and stared down a revolt from newsroom staff outraged by the paper's dramatic shift to the right.

Ten months after that "Kill Whitlam" directive, the prime minister was dismissed by the governor general of Australia amid a budget crisis.

Since Murdoch inherited Adelaide's The News 70 years ago, conjuring from these unlikely beginnings a multi-billion dollar global business empire, 18 Australian prime ministers have come and gone.

Through his media megaphone, Murdoch is said to have helped overthrow a few of them, including more recently Malcolm Turnbull and Kevin Rudd.

Thirteen British prime ministers and 10 American presidents, meanwhile, have taken office since Murdoch's raucous style of journalism began shaping voter opinion in the UK and US.

But the Sun King, as he has been dubbed, reigns on.

Former Fox News executive and chief Murdoch lobbyist Preston Padden watched his boss at close quarters as he exercised the art of political power.

"The Rupert Murdoch I knew was gentlemanly, courtly," says Padden, who scheduled the media baron's meetings on Capitol Hill as he built up his television holdings in the mid-1990s. "I never heard him raise his voice.

"He also gives generously. I mean, when [Senate Republican minority leader] Mitch McConnell calls Rupert and says, 'I need a million dollars for this Pac [political action committee] or that Pac', mostly Rupert complies.

"Particularly the Republicans were always eager to see him. Because he's a rock star, right? I mean, the world figure."

Despite Murdoch's genial manner, a sneering contempt for elected office-holders was said to lurk behind that craggy-faced smile.

In 2011, Kelvin MacKenzie, editor of Murdoch's Sun during the British tabloid's heyday, told the Leveson Inquiry into press ethics following a phone-hacking scandal at Murdoch's News of the World: "Rupert told me there is nothing more gut-wrenching than a room full of politicians.

"They queued up like the bloody seven dwarves to kiss his rear end."

There is perhaps no greater demonstration of the awesome power wielded by the Sun than when a collapse in pound sterling forced Britain into a humiliating withdrawal from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992, as detailed in Peter Chippindale and Chris Horrie's riveting history of the newspaper, Stick It Up Your Punter!

When Prime Minister John Major telephoned MacKenzie to ask how he planned to cover the story, the editor replied: "Prime Minister, I have on my desk in front of me a very large bucket of [expletive], which I am just about to pour all over you."

The next-day headline, a riff on the economic turmoil and Tory sleaze, screamed: "Now we've ALL been screwed by the Cabinet."

Though Murdoch says he has never asked a prime minister for anything, Sir John told a different story.

He claimed the News Corp titan had badgered him at a dinner in February 1997 to rethink his direction on Europe.

"It is not very often someone sits in front of a prime minister and says, 'I would like you to change your policy and if you don't change your policy my organisation cannot support you'," he told the Leveson Inquiry.

Sir John said he refused.

The Sun switched its backing a month later to Sir John's Labour rival, Tony Blair, who went on to win a landslide victory that spring.

Blair had already flown out in 1995 to Hayman Island in Queensland, Australia, to secure Murdoch's endorsement.

Australian PM Paul Keating offered some advice to Blair before that meeting.

According to the diaries of former Blair spin doctor Alastair Campbell, Keating told the British Labour leader of Murdoch: "He's a big bad [expletive], and the only way you can deal with him is to make sure he thinks you can be a big bad [expletive] too."

Lance Price, who was an adviser to Prime Minister Blair, says Murdoch was a de facto member of the cabinet, especially when it came to big decisions.

"Tony Blair would take into account how Rupert Murdoch and his titles might respond to any policy decision that he was thinking about," Price tells the BBC.

"He'd be more concerned about Murdoch, and at his reaction, than he was to the transport secretary or he would be at the secretary of state for the environment.

"So in that sense, I felt that he [Murdoch] had a place in the cabinet table."

Which brings us to Trump.

Despite their professed friendship, Murdoch's reported contempt for his fellow New York billionaire is laid bare in Michael Wolff's fly-on-the-wall books about the Trump presidency.

According to Fire and Fury, Murdoch once ended a phone call with the-then commander-in-chief by hanging up and referring to him as an idiot, adding an obscenity.

The chilly shift in tone among the media baron's formerly Trump-friendly outlets has been noticeable since Republicans fizzled out in last week's midterm elections.

On Tuesday night, Fox News cut away during Trump's announcement of his new White House campaign. The Wall Street Journal editorial board called Trump a "loser" and predicted certain defeat for him. The New York Post covered Trump's declaration with a bottom-of-front-page footer irreverently headlined, "Florida Man Makes Announcement".

Whether the Trump equivalent of a "Kill Whitlam" directive has gone out to Murdoch's editors is not yet clear.

The hostile tone is all the more remarkable bearing in mind that Trump is the first US president with whom Murdoch has been able to cultivate a friendship.

But as Trump is no doubt aware, the media baron's idea of a personal connection is just as transactional as his own is often said to be.

Or as one witness, in evidence to the Leveson Inquiry, said witheringly of the Murdoch media's treacherous dealings: "It's just business."
Posted by: Skidmark || 11/17/2022 07:42 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  After coming here from Australia, Rupert seems to be enjoying the benefits of America as a uniparty Rino and globalist. Being ditched by Murdoch maybe the greatest endorsement for Trump.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/17/2022 11:40 Comments || Top||

#2  ^ Yeah. FauxNews, WSJ, etc. are not Trump boosters anyway.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 11/17/2022 11:43 Comments || Top||

#3  It's OK. I tried the Wall Street Journal. But it was pretty clear it was not the objective source of information I expected it to be. So I ditched Rupert Murdoch and his newspaper.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 11/17/2022 11:53 Comments || Top||

#4  Considered my daily WSJ a great thing for 30+ years. Dropped it and never looked back when it became a branch of the Lincoln Project.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 11/17/2022 12:26 Comments || Top||

#5  I voted for Trump and agree with all his actions. It is time for him to get out of politics at the national level. His use of twitter was not professional! The only way he could ever be President would be as speaker of the house!
Posted by: Sloluger Crusomble4225 || 11/17/2022 13:56 Comments || Top||

#6  /\ The best the Orange Man can give us is 4 years.
DeSantis could give us 8. A Trump-DeSantis ticket could give us 12, but let the people decide.
Posted by: Besoeker || 11/17/2022 14:00 Comments || Top||

#7  Much can happen in the year before the campaigning gets serious. I refuse to foreclose on any possibilities at this stage — that’s how the Democrats got both Hillary and Biden.
Posted by: trailing wife || 11/17/2022 14:09 Comments || Top||


Same-sex marriage legislation clears key Senate hurdle
[NYPOST] The US on Wednesday is one step closer to codifying the right to same-sex and interracial marriage after the Senate voted to advance a bill that would protect such unions should the Supreme Court overturn its prior decisions that made them law.

By a 62-37 vote, senators decided to end debate on the "Respect for Marriage Act" Wednesday afternoon, moving the bill toward final approval with the support of 12 Republicans and all Democrats.

The 12 included Sen. Roy Blunt
...A Missouri political oligarch. As a member of Congress he was reelected six times without significant opposition. He married Roseann Ray in May 1967 and had three children with her: Matt (the former Governor of Missouri), Amy Blunt Mosby and Andrew Blunt, both lawyers and lobbyists. Blunt and Ray divorced after 35 years of marriage. Afterward, he married Abigail Perlman, a lobbyist for Kraft Foods. In April 2006, he and his wife adopted an 18-month old boy from Russia, whom they renamed Alexander Charles Charlie Blunt. He will be either a politician or a lobbyist or both when he grows up.
(R-Mo.); Sens. Richard Burr and Thom Tillis(R-N.C.); Sen. Shelley Capito (R-WV); Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine); Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa); Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY); Sens. Lisa Daddy, can I be a senator? Murkowski
... representing K Street ...
and Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska); Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio); Sen. Willard Mitt Romney, aka Pierre Delecto
...former governor of Massachussetts, the Publican nominee for president in 2012, now Senator from Utah. He is the son of the former governor of Michigan, George Romney, who himself ran for president after saving American Motors from failure, though not permanently. Romney has a record as a successful businessman, heading Bain Capital, and he rescued the 2002 Winter Olympics from the midst of bribery and mismanagement scandals. He is currently a trans Republican and a member in good standing of the Never Trump Party, attempting to assume the mantle of the late John McCain...
(R-Utah); and Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.)
Posted by: Fred || 11/17/2022 00:00 || Comments || Link || [7 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Looks like the Dems are pushing this legislation at the expense of freedom of religion. The legislation would require churchs to provide services if requested.
Posted by: JohnQC || 11/17/2022 11:30 Comments || Top||

#2  Churches pushing politics are getting what the deserve.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 11/17/2022 11:36 Comments || Top||

#3  Courts don’t make law. Churches are Constitutionally protected from laws that interfere with them. That includes churches that I disagree with.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/17/2022 12:14 Comments || Top||



Democrats keep passing the buck on who pays for illegal immigration
[NYPOST] Democrats, from the president to the governor to the mayor, all encourage illegal immigration, then try to fob off the cost onto someone else.

Joe The Big Guy Biden
...46th president of the U.S. SOld, boring, a plagiarist, fond of hair sniffing and grabbing the protruding parts of women, and not whatcha call brilliant... or is that an act?...
issues an invitation to everyone in the world to cross our border illegally, and then expects the taxpayers of El Paso, McAllen, Uvalde, and elsewhere to deal with it . . . somehow.

Saddled with these costs, Texas ships a couple days’ worth of illegal immigrants colonists to New York and other sanctuary cities, and Mayor Adams and the others cry bloody murder and demand that Texas not transfer the costs to them.

When Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand
...Machine non-entity selected to become the successor to Hillary Clinton as Senatrix-for-Life from Noo Yawk. She is running for the Dem presidential nomination in 2020. She has no observable principles, will apparently say anything to anyone, and seemingly lacks any personality of her own....
proposed a gimmick to ship some of New York City’s illegal immigrants colonists upstate, so cities there can get federal money intended to fight urban blight, Gov. Kathy Hochul objects and wants them to stay in the city.

All this happens because the rhetoric of Democratic politicians about the wonders of unlimited immigration is bull, and they know it. New York City’s Independent Budget Office recently estimated that providing services just to the recent influx of illegal immigrants colonists could cost taxpayers $600 million per year.

Overall, about half of families headed by immigrants colonists (legal or illegal) use at least one welfare program. My organization estimates that the lifetime net fiscal drain (services used minus taxes paid) from each undocumented Democrat at the federal, state, and local levels combined is nearly $70,000. New York is already home to an estimated 520,000 illegal immigrants colonists, attracted in part by the very sanctuary policies governor and the mayor support. And with a federal judge striking down the only border control policy still being used by the Biden administration (something called Title 42), a lot more will be arriving soon.

Posted by: Fred || 11/17/2022 00:00 || Comments || Link || [8 views] Top|| File under:


#2  This one is easy. Ship the immigrants from wherever the dems ship them to the Canadian border. Call it "Underground Railroad II" Dare the dems to besmirch the name of a beloved anti-slavery institution and dare the Canuks to out themselves as xenophobes, all in one stroke.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 11/17/2022 8:28 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
34[untagged]
4Islamic State
4Govt of Iran
3Govt of Saudi Arabia
3Commies
3Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
3Sublime Porte
2Boko Haram (ISIS)
2Muslim Brotherhood
2Pak Taliban (TTP)
2Taliban/IEA
1Thai Insurgency
1[untagged]
1Pirates
1Govt of Pakistan
1al-Shabaab (AQ)
1Houthis
1al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
1ISWAP

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Two weeks of WOT
Thu 2022-11-17
  22 LA sheriff's recruits on morning run injured, several critically, after group mowed down by wrong-way driver
Wed 2022-11-16
  US Navy: 70 tons of missile fuel from Iran to Yemen seized
Tue 2022-11-15
  Russian missiles cross into Poland during strike on Ukraine
Mon 2022-11-14
  Bomb rocks avenue in heart of Istanbul; 6 dead, dozens hurt UPDATE: Turks blame Kurds, boomerette
Sun 2022-11-13
  Ukraine: Area larger than Rhode Island collapsed almost overnight
Sat 2022-11-12
  Ukraine forces enter Kherson
Fri 2022-11-11
  Russia is digging new trenches in... Northern Crimea
Thu 2022-11-10
  Fierce fighting breaks out between Philippine Army, MILF forces
Wed 2022-11-09
  Border Patrol agent assaulted by migrants crossing border into Texas
Tue 2022-11-08
  Separatist militias prepare for all-out war as they once again reject Saudi-led puppet government
Mon 2022-11-07
  Near Vuhledar Russian units are refusing to advance and writing letters of complaints
Sun 2022-11-06
  Somalia claims to kill over 100 al-Shabaab members in single operation
Sat 2022-11-05
  Raisi dismisses Biden 'free Iran' pledge after protest surge
Fri 2022-11-04
  LeT ​associate ​h​eld with ​ammunition in Pulwama
Thu 2022-11-03
  Imran Khan Assassination Attempt


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