Austin Fire Chief Who Refused To Deploy Rescue Boats For Flood Victims Was A DEI Hire

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Similar to the flood itself, the tragedy of the high waters sweeping through the Central Texas Hill Country has violently ebbed and flowed from the public consciousness. At the last count, the death toll has reached 135 souls, at least a dozen of them little girls at a Christian camp.

True to the spirit of the times, the disaster soon degenerated into yet another game of partisan mudslinging.

Of course, leftists immediately blamed DOGE cuts to disaster relief and climate change, neither of which was true. As for those on the right, when they were not actively debunking these claims, most of them concluded that this was just one of those unavoidable evils that occur in a fallen world.

However, there happens to be more to this story that few people on either side seem to discuss. There actually was someone who could have intervened in time to save many of the victims: Austin’s Fire Department Chief Joel Baker.

According to a public comment from the Austin Firefighters Association (AFA), Chief Baker had several opportunities to “send life-saving swift water boat teams to pre-deploy to Kerrville during devastating flooding” but decided against this out of a “misguided attempt to save money.” Evidently, he didn’t understand that “the fire department is fully reimbursed by the state to deploy,” even when someone explained “this very simple concept” to him. As such, the AFA overwhelmingly affirmed a vote of no confidence in Baker. (Read more from “Austin Fire Chief Who Refused To Deploy Rescue Boats For Flood Victims Was A DEI Hire” HERE)

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Jonathan Turley Says This Obama Intel Head Might Want To Lawyer Up

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George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said Thursday former CIA Director John Brennan could face criminal charges in the wake of new documents regarding the “Russiagate” scandal.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released documents and a memo Friday detailing what she called a “years-long coup” against Trump after he defeated Clinton in the 2016 presidential race, adding that she had referred the documents to the Justice Department for potential criminal activity. Turley said that while the Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling in favor of Trump’s claims of immunity over “official acts” as president would protect Obama, Brennan and Comey might not be as fortunate.

“It does appear a couple of these figures may have committed perjury. I think the most vulnerable may be Brennan, who is, like, a 30-point buck in the open,” Turley said. “This stuff goes directly to information that he gave to Congress and seems to be in contradiction, and so there are real questions here.” (Read more from “Jonathan Turley Says This Obama Intel Head Might Want To Lawyer Up” HERE)

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Trump Was Told by Bondi His Name Appeared Multiple Times in Epstein Files: Report

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According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Attorney General Pam Bondi and her deputy Todd Blanche informed President Donald Trump in May that his name appeared multiple times in the government’s files on Jeffrey Epstein that the Department of Justice and the FBI reviewed.

The officials told Trump of their plan not to release any additional documents, the report says, because the material contained child pornography and the personal information of victims.

President Trump, according to the Journal, said he would defer to the Justice Department’s decision not to release additional files on Epstein, the wealthy financier and convicted sex offender who died by suicide in jail in 2019.

According to the report, Trump was also informed that the names of many other high-profile individuals appeared in the documents, which the Journal reported was not evidence of wrongdoing.

The Trump administration did not say anything publicly about the decision not to release additional files until July, when it angered many of Trump’s supporters by announcing that it would not release any additional files after earlier promising to do so. (Read more from “Trump Was Told by Bondi His Name Appeared Multiple Times in Epstein Files: Report” HERE)

Past Clips Of Obama’s Intel Chiefs May Come Back To Bite Them Following Russiagate Docs Release

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Former Obama administration intelligence officials’ past statements don’t appear to match what newly declassified information shows about key aspects of their findings on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

President Donald Trump’s intelligence officials have been declassifying documents containing intelligence findings from the Obama administration on Russia and the 2016 election. The documents appear to contradict past statements by former CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI Director James Comey and former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper during television interviews and before Congress.

For instance, Brennan said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in February 2018 that the discredited Steele Dossier “did not play any role whatsoever in the intelligence community assessments that was done that was presented to then President Obama and then President-elect Trump.”

A 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) found that Russian President Vladimir Putin interfered in the 2016 election with “a clear preference” for Trump. The CIA’s June review of the ICA found that Brennan pushed to include the Steele Dossier in the ICA.

(Read more from “Past Clips Of Obama’s Intel Chiefs May Come Back To Bite Them Following Russiagate Docs Release” HERE)

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Biden’s Ex-Chief Reveals Clinton Raised Alarm about Former President’s Future ‘By 2024′

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Ex-President Joe Biden’s former chief of staff Ron Klain told House investigators that Hillary Clinton approached him with concerns about the octogenarian leader’s political viability “by 2024,” Fox News Digital has learned.

Klain spoke with staff on the House Oversight Committee for over five hours on Thursday, as Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., continues to probe whether top Biden aides concealed signs of mental decline in the ex-president.

A source familiar with his voluntary interview told Fox News Digital that Klain believed Biden was mentally sharp enough to serve as president, and was not too old to run.

But the ex-secretary of state and former Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan both “approached Ron Klain stating they believed Joe Biden was not politically viable” months before he dropped his re-election bid in July 2024, the source said.

Sullivan told Klain that Biden “was less effective in 2024 compared to 2022,” the source said. (Read more from “Biden’s Ex-Chief Reveals Clinton Raised Alarm about Former President’s Future ‘By 2024′” HERE)

Ghislaine Maxwell Breaks Silence to Deputy AG One Day after House Subpoena

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U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche met with Ghislaine Maxwell in Florida on Thursday – just one day after a Congressional committee voted to subpoena Jeffrey Epstein’s accomplice to provide additional testimony surrounding his years of sex crimes.

Speaking to reporters outside the federal courthouse in Tallahassee on Thursday afternoon, Maxwell’s attorney, David Oscar Markus, said his client and Blanche had a “very productive day.” H

“[Blanche] took a full day and asked a lot of questions,” Markus said. “Miss Maxwell answered every single question. She never stopped. She never invoked a privilege. She never declined to answer. She answered all the questions truthfully, honestly and to the best of her ability.”

Markus declined to comment on whether the pair would be meeting again Friday, but Blanche said they would be meeting again.

“Today, I met with Ghislaine Maxwell, and I will continue my interview of her tomorrow,” Blanche said in a post on X Thursday. “The Department of Justice will share additional information about what we learned at the appropriate time.” (Read more from “Ghislaine Maxwell Breaks Silence to Deputy AG One Day after House Subpoena” HERE)

Social Security Benefits to Be Cut by 24% over Next Seven Years: Fiscal Watchdog

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Social Security beneficiaries are expected to face a 24% cut in payments by late 2032 following the enactment of President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, according to new projections from a nonpartisan fiscal watchdog.

The projected cut would equal an $18,100 annual benefit cut for a dual-earning, middle-class couple that retires at the start of 2033, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget revealed in an analysis released Thursday. In comparison, a single-income couple at the same class level that retires at the end of the seven-year period would see a lower benefit cut of $13,600 per year.

“Policymakers pledging not to touch Social Security are implicitly endorsing these deep benefit cuts for 62 million retirees in 2032 and beyond,” the nonprofit organization said. “It is time for policymakers to tell the truth about the program’s finances and to pursue trust fund solutions to head off insolvency and improve the program for current and future generations.”

The new tax law essentially reduces the incoming tax revenue toward Social Security’s trust fund, accelerating the retirement program’s depletion. The drastic cut would take effect once the Social Security trust fund runs out of money in less than a decade.

Retirees may also find it harder to access healthcare due to an 11% cut in Medicare hospital insurance payments, the analysis shows. (Read more from “Social Security Benefits to Be Cut by 24% over Next Seven Years: Fiscal Watchdog” HERE)

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France Will Recognize ‘Palestinian State’; Israel Slaps Back

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French President Emmanuel Macron surrendered to the pressures of Islamist and anti-Israel forces on Thursday, announcing that he would recognize the fictitious “State of Palestine” in September.

Macron’s decision is a significant break with the United States, and drew accusations from Israel of supporting terrorism.

One Israeli government minister, Amichai Chikli, who used to live in France, responded by posting a video of Macron being slapped by his wife.

Other responses were fast and furious, including from former Prime Minister Naftali Bennet, who accused France of “moral collapse”:

(Read more from “France Will Recognize ‘Palestinian State’; Israel Slaps Back” HERE)

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Armed Hero Stops Masked ‘Church Shooter’ with a Hail of Perfectly-Aimed Bullets

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There’s a very specific kind of mass shooting story the media doesn’t like to cover… it’s the kind that doesn’t happen because a good guy with a gun stopped it cold.

Roughly a month ago, a man stormed into a Michigan church during Sunday worship and opened fire. It could have ended in total carnage. But it didn’t. Because a legally armed, everyday churchgoer took him down. No military training. No law enforcement background. Just courage, quick action, and a gun.

This should have been front-page news. It wasn’t. And we all know why… because it doesn’t fit the left’s anti-gun agenda. They’d rather Americans believe that firearms are the problem, not the psychopaths who use them. But the truth is, more often than not, guns save lives. That’s not just a marketing slogan. It’s a fact.

The gun control lobby loves to promise safety, but all it’s really delivered is more victims. Disarmed citizens, soft targets, and a culture of helplessness. The left has built a society where law-abiding people are told to sit still, pray for mercy, and wait for the cops—while criminals do whatever they want with whatever weapon they can get their hands on.

Guns, knives, machetes, acid, bombs—you name it—evil will always find a tool. But the difference between life and death is what good people have at their disposal. Thankfully, we live in a country where the right to bear arms still exists—and millions of Americans take that responsibility seriously.

(Read more from “Armed Hero Stops Masked ‘Church Shooter’ with a Hail of Perfectly-Aimed Bullets” HERE)

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New Docs Contradict Top Obama Officials’ Claims Steele Dossier Wasn’t Included In Critical Russiagate Report

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Newly declassified records show the phony dossier intel agencies used to spy on Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign was included in a critical Obama-era report on Russia’s activities in the 2016 election — despite claims from top Obama officials that it wasn’t.

The information was disclosed Wednesday in a declassified 2020 report by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI). Approved for release by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, the unsealed records paint a damning picture of how high-ranking Obama administration officials included unsubstantiated dirt about Trump in its 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) on Moscow’s shenanigans in the 2016 contest.

That ICA, as The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway noted, included a “‘key judgment’ … that Russia had interfered in the election specifically because Putin and the Russian government ‘aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances.’”

The declassified report released Wednesday not only significantly undermines the ICA’s “key judgement,” but it also contradicts claims made by top Obama officials that salacious information from the infamous Steele dossier were not incorporated into the main body of the 2017 ICA.

As a quick refresher, the allegations that ultimately became the dossier were compiled by ex-British spy Christopher Steele on behalf of the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which in turn had been hired by the Hillary Clinton campaign’s law firm (Perkins Coie) to dig up dirt on Trump ahead of the 2016 election. The dossier was ultimately shopped by Steele to the FBI in early July 2016 and later used by the agency to obtain a warrant to spy on Trump campaign official Carter Page. (Read more from “New Docs Contradict Top Obama Officials’ Claims Steele Dossier Wasn’t Included In Critical Russiagate Report” HERE)

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