Report: Biden’s Nap Delayed Meeting With Gold Star Families Following Chaotic Afghanistan Withdrawal

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With President Joe Biden’s presidency coming to an end in approximately one month, reports keep coming out to confirm what we knew all along, that he was a doddering old man who wasn’t properly dealing with his tasks of the presidency. Afghanistan has come up plenty, as Sarah covered when mentioning that report from The Wall Street Journal, in how the president was too “mentally fatigued” to take a call from Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) about his concerns with the withdrawal, who was then the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Now, a new report from the Daily Mail details how Biden’s nap delayed his meeting with Gold Star families.

“Senile Biden’s insult to families of Marines murdered in disastrous Afghan withdrawal,” read the damning headline. According to the piece, the president kept the Gold Star families waiting for three hours while they napped on the tarmac. Biden was meeting with family members of those 13 U.S. servicemembers who were killed when a suicide bomber attacked Abbey Gate in Kabul on August 26, 2021. . .

The Daily Mail report also mentions Biden checking his watch and includes comments from Gold Star family members as well:

While Biden was absent from the withdrawal planning, he did show up to greet the caskets of the US Servicemen and woman who were killed, infamously checking his watch on the tarmac before their coffins were brought out.

It was his second insult to their families that day, according to the sister of Rylee McCollum, one of the men who died.

‘(Biden) made us wait an extra three hours to receive the bodies of our dead family members because he couldn’t pull it together,’ Roice McCollum told DailyMail.com.

Roice said she and others were waiting for Biden to appear when a military officer told her he was napping on his plane.

Christy Shamblin, the mother-in-law of Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee, and Darin Hoover, the father of Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover, who were also killed in the Kabul blast, told DailyMail.com that their families were also left waiting on the tarmac.

‘We sat in that office for what seemed like an eternity waiting on the doddering old fool,’ Hoover recalled.

(Read more from “Report: Biden’s Nap Delayed Meeting With Gold Star Families Following Chaotic Afghanistan Withdrawal” HERE)

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Man Arrested After Allegedly Filming Himself Spraying Bug Killer On Food In Walmart

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An Arizona man was arrested Saturday after allegedly filming himself spraying bug killer on food items inside a Walmart, police said.

Charles Smith, 27, was arrested in connection with a “reckless social media post involving the spraying of pesticides on produce and other food items at a Mesa Walmart,” the Mesa Police Department (MPD) said in a press release. The alleged incident occurred on Thursday around 8:30 p.m., police said.

Smith allegedly entered the store with the intention to film prank videos for his social media and grabbed a can of Hot Shot Ultra Bed Bug and Flea Killer from the store’s shelf without paying for it, according to police.

The 27-year-old then allegedly sprayed the pesticide on fruit, vegetables and rotisserie chickens that were available for purchase inside the store. . .

The video has since been deleted from his TikTok account but continues to circulate on social media. His most recent video shows him tying a bungee cord around the door handles of a store, telling customers inside “You guys are locked in there, forever.” (Read more from “Man Arrested After Allegedly Filming Himself Spraying Bug Killer On Food In Walmart” HERE)

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Navy Admits DOD Will Shell Out Funds For Obscure Environmental Initiative With No Impact On Military Readiness

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A little-known environmental provision in the fiscal year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) has no impact on military operations, but will instead serve to “protect the native vegetation,” a Navy spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation in a statement Tuesday.

The nearly $884 billion defense bill passed by the U.S. Senate Wednesday includes an initiative to “manage, control and interdict the coconut rhinoceros beetle” — an invasive species of insect that bore holes into the canopies of palm trees — “on military installations in Hawaii.” By the Navy’s own admission, the initiative’s purpose is to preserve vegetation, and thus is effectively unrelated to the Department of Defense’s (DOD) stated mission “to provide the military forces needed to deter war and ensure our nation’s security.”

“While coconut rhinoceros beetles (CRB) don’t pose an operational threat to Navy installations in Hawaii, the invasive insects cause significant harm to the environment,” a spokesperson from Commander, Navy Region Hawaii told the DCNF. “CRB damage and kill palm trees, including the native loulou-hiwa palm (Pritchardia martii), and have potential to significantly reduce coconut production and palm stands … It was important for the Navy to fund projects related to CRB control to protect the native vegetation on Oahu.”

The spokesperson justified the effort on the grounds the Navy is meant to serve as a “steward” of the environment, adding that “biosecurity has become an increasing priority and preventing new introductions of invasive species is critical.” Biosecurity became a DOD priority under former President Barack Obama in 2015, when the agency completed the Regional Biosecurity Plan (RBP) to limit the potential for invasive species to be spread in the Pacific as part of “the environmental impact analysis for a plan to potentially relocate military personnel from a base in Okinawa, Japan.” (Read more from “Navy Admits DOD Will Shell Out Funds For Obscure Environmental Initiative With No Impact On Military Readiness” HERE)

Like Your Taxes Low? Trump and Republicans Want to Keep It That Way.

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Sunday is the seven-year anniversary of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, a landmark piece of legislation that contributed to historic economic prosperity under the first Trump administration.

In December 2017, a Republican Congress passed and President Donald Trump signed this package of sweeping reforms into the U.S. tax code, both for individual filers and corporations. Next year, Congress and Trump are poised to renew the expiring provisions of the law as well as add additional reforms.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act cut income tax rates for workers at every level and nearly doubled the standard deduction, shielding more income from taxation. It expanded the child tax credit and preserved other popular tax benefits like the deductions for mortgage interest and charitable deductions, among others.

Tyler Cowen, an economics professor at George Mason University, reported in July—some 6 1/2 years after the legislation took effect—that as a result of the law, “total tangible corporate investment went up by about 11%” and “there has been a long-run increase in GDP [gross domestic product] of 0.9%—a substantial sum in an economy of more than $27 trillion.”

Before the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, American corporations faced one of the world’s highest statutory corporate income tax rates at 35%. The tax law lowered this rate to 21%, putting the U.S. rate near the global average. Many small businesses known as “pass-through entities” (because income “passes through” to the owner and is taxed as the owner’s personal income) benefited from tax reform because the law provides them with a 20% deduction on business profits. (Read more from “Like Your Taxes Low? Trump and Republicans Want to Keep It That Way.” HERE)

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Joe Biden Met With Hunter’s Business Associates More Times Than With His Cabinet

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They say the U.S. presidency is the loneliest job in the world. Maybe the second-loneliest gig is that of Cabinet secretary in President Joe Biden’s administration.

A piece published Thursday in the Wall Street Journal pulls from dozens of sources who say Biden’s inner circle of trusted aides increasingly kept contact with the president at a minimum, including the people he should have depended on most to consult and advise for the good of the nation.

The president who has spent a good chunk of his term out of the office apparently was not all that keen on meetings with his Cabinet secretaries. In fact, Biden may have met more often with his criminal son’s sketchy clients than he has with his administration’s top managers.

Joe Biden was such a political liability that his handlers hid him away during the 2020 presidential campaign. The man campaigned from his Delaware basement through the brunt of the election year. The cloistered strategy wasn’t as much about protecting the feeble geezer from Covid as it was designed to prevent American voters from seeing what a physical and mental mess Biden really was.

Even the Pravda Press, which was openly rooting for — and covering for — the Democrat gaffe machine, was forced to report on Biden’s bunker campaign. (Read more from “Joe Biden Met With Hunter’s Business Associates More Times Than With His Cabinet” HERE)

Trump Picks Fight With Pope With Pick for New Vatican Ambassador

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President-elect Donald Trump on Friday nominated Brian Burch, a ring-wing Catholic who has often criticized Pope Francis, as his ambassador to the Holy See.

Trump announced Burch, a father of nine and president of the non-profit CatholicVote.org (which he described as “one of the largest Catholic advocacy groups in the Country”) as his nominee in a Truth Social post, which was followed by a message selling “God Bless the USA” Bibles.

Burch is also the author of the independently-published book A New Catholic Moment: Donald Trump and the Politics of the Common Good, which touts Trump’s impact on US politics “to make sure that Americans from all walks of life can live the American Dream.”

“He represented me well during the last Election, having garnered more Catholic votes than any Presidential Candidate in History,” wrote Trump of Burch and, of course, his recent re-election. “Brian loves his Church and the United States – He will make us all proud.”

Burch, however, may not have a lot of love for Pope Francis specifically. He strongly opposed the pontiff’s decision to allow the blessing of same-sex couples; in a post on X last year, he derided the “progressive Catholic cheerleading” that he associated with Francis’ leadership—as well as what he charged as a crackdown on conservative critics. (Read more from “Trump Picks Fight With Pope With Pick for New Vatican Ambassador” HERE)

Official Transcript Directly Contradicts J6 Committee Messaging

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One of the more salacious messaging tidbits that came out of ex-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s partisan J6 committee which was set up to investigate the Capitol riot, but actually tried to rearrange evidence to blame President Donald Trump for the events, was that Trump tried to commandeer the presidential limousine.

That claim came from Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide who has come under scrutiny for not just the content of her testimony to Pelosi’s committee, but changing it, and then allegedly working at the behest of former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., to orchestra her statements.

Hutchinson had claimed at the time Pelosi’s committee was holding hearings that Trump had insisted that his Secret Service driver take him to the Capitol that day. . .

Now a report in the Federalist documents how newly released testimony from the Secret Service pushed back on the wild claim.

It was House Administration’s subcommittee on Oversight that released the transcripts of a Secret Service driver for President Donald Trump, the report said.

“I did not see him reach. He never grabbed the steering wheel,” the driver told Cheney at the time. “I didn’t see him, you know, lunge to try to get into the front seat at all.” (Read more from “Official Transcript Directly Contradicts J6 Committee Messaging” HERE)

Nobody In The Biden Admin Wants To Explain How 1,100 More US Troops Appeared In Syria — Or If The President Knew

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The increased force presence has “been going on for a while,” with Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder estimating that the troops have been there “at a minimum, months.” But he stressed the extra troops are supporting the counter-ISIS mission and were unrelated to the fall of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s regime two weeks ago.

The new figures are particularly notable as the Pentagon in recent days and weeks has been asked repeatedly about its troop presence in Syria, with the stark increase never disclosed.

A “core 900” U.S. service members are in the country as part of an official nine to 12 month deployment, with another 1,100 troops there on a temporary basis for 30 to 90 days “to address shifting mission requirements,” Ryder told reporters. He added that Army conventional and special operations troops make up most of the extra forces.

Pressed on why the Pentagon did not reveal the updated numbers until now, Ryder said he had only learned of the new figure earlier Thursday and cited “sensitivity from a diplomatic and operational security standpoint.” . . .

It’s also unclear as to whether President Biden was aware of the extra forces, as Ryder said he would not speak for the White House. (Read more from “Nobody In The Biden Admin Wants To Explain How 1,100 More US Troops Appeared In Syria — Or If The President Knew” HERE)

Congress Passes Bill to Stop Partial Government Shutdown After Missing Midnight Deadline

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Senators voted to pass a new version of a stopgap spending bill early Saturday morning after the midnight deadline for a partial government shutdown came and went.

The Senate advanced the third version of a short-term spending bill by 85 to 11, and it will now head to President Biden’s desk, who has already signaled that he will sign it.

An original agreement on a short-term spending bill was released earlier in the week, totaling 1,547-pages and including a number of policy provisions and disaster aid.

But soon after its release, billionaire Elon Musk and other conservative critics publicly blasted the measure, ultimately resulting in it being condemned by President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance.

“Republicans must GET SMART and TOUGH. If Democrats threaten to shut down the government unless we give them everything they want, then CALL THEIR BLUFF. It is Schumer and Biden who are holding up aid to our farmers and disaster relief,” Trump and Vance said in a lengthy statement opposing the bill on Wednesday afternoon. (Read more from “Congress Passes Bill to Stop Partial Government Shutdown After Missing Midnight Deadline” HERE)

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Biden Reportedly Considers Commuting Sentences for Most Prisoners on Federal Death Row

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As President Biden’s term comes to an end, he is reportedly considering commuting the sentences of most, if not all, of the 40 men on the federal government’s death row.

The Wall Street Journal, citing sources familiar with the matter, reported that the move would frustrate President-elect Trump’s plan to streamline executions as he takes office in January.

Attorney General Merrick Garland, who oversees federal prisons, recommended that Biden commute all but a handful of egregious sentences, the sources said.

The outlet reported that possible exceptions could include Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 2013 Boston Marathon bomber who killed three and wounded more than 250; Robert Bowers, who killed 11 people in the 2018 attack on the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh; and Dylann Roof, who in 2015 killed nine at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. (Read more from “Biden Reportedly Considers Commuting Sentences for Most Prisoners on Federal Death Row” HERE)