pgnewser

Blurb:

Pennsylvania’s mail scandal — that mail vendor Capitol Presort Services reportedly failed to deliver the state’s mail for a month — is another reason we should not trust the mail with our elections.

Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Gillian McGoldrick reported Saturday that 3.4 million official letters from Pennsylvania state agencies were stuck in limbo from Nov. 3 through Dec. 3. The communications did not get sent until last week, after the state fired the mail vendor and hired another one to send the letters.

It is not clear why state workers can’t handle mailing letters without the complication of a contracted vendor.

Some of the delayed letters contained time-sensitive communications about services with important deadlines, including notices for recipients to interact with agencies or lose benefits, according to McGoldrick’s report. Health coverage, SNAP food benefits, child abuse clearances, decisions about elder abuse and foster homes for kids, along with timely notices of hearings — all from the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services — reportedly piled up at the vendor instead of being given to the U.S. Postal Service for delivery.

Important communications from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation were also delayed. Halted mail included driver’s license and vehicle registration renewal reminders, vehicle registration cards, driver’s license camera cards, and address card updates.

Blurb:

A new report from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform accuses the outgoing Washington D.C. police chief of falsifying crime statistics to make the city seem safer than it was.

Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) Chief Pamela A. Smith, according to the Republican-led committee, “pressured and at times directed commanders to manipulate crime data in order to maintain the appearance of low crime in the nation’s capital.”

The Oversight Committee explained on X that DC Chief Smith “pressured staff to manipulate crime data by miscategorizing publicly reportable crimes into lower categories.”

The Committee added that these falsified crime stats put “Americans at risk by creating an illusion of a safe city.”

Smith was sworn in as MPD police chief—the first black female to serve in that role—by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) on July 17, 2023. She was previously the Chief Equity Officer, leading the department’s efforts on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).

Blurb:

 

While Europe refuses to fortify its borders against mass migration, European cities are now forced to put up security barriers, concrete blocks, and even tank traps to prevent Islamic terrorists from driving vehicles into Christmas markets.

Writing for The Spectator magazine (UK), Druin Burch noted recently how the Islamic “terror triumphed at the Christmas market” this festive season. A visitor to “Christmas markets in Berlin, London or Strasbourg” would see them “surrounded by steel posts, truck-proof planters, and one-way systems designed to stop SUVs achieving murderous velocities before hitting crash barriers,” he adds.

Blurb:

According to Rep. Ilhan Omar, ICE pulled over her son. But if this were true, why is it not true? Because ICE has the receipts, and there are, in fact, none. They have zero record of this incident occurring. So, it’s unclear if she’s delusional or lying, but yes, both can be true.

According to Omar, her son was pulled over by ICE officers at Target and asked to prove he was a citizen of this great nation. She claims that he was released once he showed them his passport.

However, Acting Director Todd Lyons said there is “absolutely zero record of its officers or agents pulling over Congresswoman Omar’s son” and claimed she is “unfairly demonizing our law enforcement officers.”

And while only one of these people can logically be telling the truth, my money is on the latter explanation. What do you think?

According to CBS:

“Yesterday, after he made a stop at Target, he did get pulled over by [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents, and once he was able to produce his passport ID, they did let him go,” Omar said in an interview with Esme Murphy on WCCO Sunday Morning.

Blurb:

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Wednesday that she will sign dangerous legislation legalizing assisted suicide.

That’s a move pro-life and disability rights advocates warn endangers the state’s most vulnerable citizens, discriminates against the disabled and opens the door to future expansions of state-sanctioned death.

Hochul, a Catholic, said she has reached an agreement with legislative leaders to add supposed “guardrails” to the Medical Aid in Dying Act before signing it into law next year. However pro-life groups warn that such limits have eventually been abused or removed in other states and countries, leading to euthanasia and pressure to die.

Blurb:

Democrats in the United States repeatedly praise Australia’s 1996 gun confiscation law as a successful model to emulate, while many Australians — especially after the Bondi Beach terror attack earlier this week — argue that the confiscation helped but failed to go far enough. Yet the supposed benefits of this policy rest on deeply flawed statistical analysis.

After the Minneapolis school shooting in September, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz claimed, “When they had a school shooting in Scotland or they had an incident in Australia, they simply made changes. … And since they did those things, they don’t have them. We’re an outlier amongst nations in terms of what happens to our children.” Prominent Democrats, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden, have echoed this praise for Australia’s 1996 gun confiscation law.

Blurb:

Australian police announced on Wednesday that the suspected gunman who killed 15 people in a shooting on Sydney’s Bondi Beach has been charged with 59 offences, including 15 counts of murder.

24-year-old Naveed Akram was arrested at the scene of the incident and taken to a Sydney hospital following a shootout with police that killed his father, 50-year-old Sajid Akram.

Naveed Akram was charged with one count of murder for each victim who died and one count of committing a terrorist act after waking from a coma on Tuesday.

The pair allegedly opened fire on those attending an event to mark the start of an eight-day Hanukkah festival at Bondi beach on Sunday.

The men had reportedly pledged allegiance to the radical Islamic State group (IS) and flags of the terrorist group were found in their car where police also discovered at least two improvised explosive devices.

Blurb:

The Senate passed a huge, $901 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) Wednesday on a 77-20 vote, sending the measure to President Trump’s desk. The bipartisan package comes in at more than 3,000 pages and checks off several boxes on the president’s to-do list, including a pay raise of nearly four percent for military service members, improved military housing, a codification of Trump’s order to end DEI efforts at the Pentagon, and a restriction on U.S. investment in China.

Two Republicans, Sens. Mike Lee (UT) and Rand Paul (KY), voted no, while 18 Democrats also opposed it.

Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee were stoked:

✔️ensure @POTUS has sufficient military options.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said on the Senate floor Tuesday that it would make America stronger:

This NDAA will make the most significant reforms to the way the Pentagon does business in a generation. These reforms will make our military stronger, more agile and more ready for whatever the mission may be, and that needs to be our mission here — to do whatever it takes to support American soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and guardians.

Armed Service Committee Chair Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) echoed President Trump’s (and Ronald Reagan’s) mantra, “peace through strength”:

Blurb:

Former special counsel Jack Smith told members of Congress that his team had evidence that President Donald Trump tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

Smith’s case against the president began when former Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed him to lead two Justice Department investigations into Trump: the mishandling of classified documents and his post-2020 election conduct.

From The Associated Press:

Former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith told lawmakers in a closed-door interview on Wednesday that his team of investigators “developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt” that President Donald Trump had criminally conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election, according to portions of his opening statement obtained by The Associated Press.

He also said investigators had accrued “powerful evidence” that Trump broke the law by hoarding classified documents from his first term as president at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, and by obstructing government efforts to recover the records.

Blurb:

British authorities sentenced a Dorset man to 18 months in jail for inciting hate and violence on X in the heated aftermath of the 2024 Southport stabbings that left three children dead and another 10 people injured.

Luke Yarwood’s posts were viewed a total of 33 times before being taken down. If I’ve done my math correctly, that’s nearly 17 days of jail time per view. If I know anything about people, half of those views were Yarwood checking his mentions.

There’s no denying the nasty nature of Yarwood’s posts, sent to X before the identity of the killer — 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana — was known, but was widely misreported to have been a Muslim immigrant. Rudakubana was born in Cardiff, but his parents were evangelical immigrants from Rwanda.

Yarwood’s posts called for “slaughter in the streets” of Muslims and encouraged people to “Head for the hotels housing them and burn them to the ground.”

Blurb:

Former President Joe Biden has lost a battle in his effort to limit the investigation into the use of the autopen during his presidency.

Biden had contacted the National Archives in an effort to claim executive privilege over certain documents, but the Trump administration turned down the request Tuesday, Fox News has reported.

“I am concerned that disclosure of these materials would damage important institutional interests of the Presidency, including by impairing the ability of future Presidents to receive robust, candid advice from their close advisers,” Biden said in an Oct. 1 letter to the Archival Operations Division of the National Archives and Records Administration

Blurb:

 

President Donald Trump added countries to a list that restricts nationals from traveling to the U.S.

“The United States must exercise extreme vigilance during the visa-issuance and immigration processes to identify, prior to their admission or entry into the United States, foreign nationals who intend to harm Americans or our national interests,” Trump declared. “The United States Government must ensure that admitted aliens do not intend to threaten its citizens; undermine or destabilize its culture, government, institutions, or founding principles; or advocate for, aid, or support designated foreign terrorists or other threats to our national security.”

The move comes days after two terrorists killed 16 people celebrating Hanukkah in Sydney, Australia.

Blurb:

The FBI did not believe it had probable cause to raid President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in 2022, but did it anyway after pressure from then-President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice, according to newly uncovered emails.

Emails released by Sen. Chuck Grassley’s office show that officials at the FBI and DOJ communicated about FBI concerns about the warrant in the months leading up to the August raid.

In one June 1 email an unidentified FBI assistant special agent in charge wrote to FBI official Anthony Riedlinger, “Very little has been developed related to who might be culpable for mishandling the documents.”

“[FBI Washington Field Office] has been drafting a Search Warrant affidavit related to these potential boxes, but has some concerns that the information is single source, has not been corroborated, and may be dated. DOJ CES opines, however, that the SWs meet the probable cause standard.” The same agent described the “potential boxes” as “presumably of the same type as were sent back to NARA [National Archives and Records Administration] in January.”

Blurb:

A growing number of ultra-wealthy Chinese nationals are turning to U.S. surrogates to have children on American soil, taking advantage of America’s largely unregulated market and birthright citizenship, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.

In one such case, Chinese video game billionaire Xu Bo has sought parental rights for at least four unborn children in Los Angeles, having already fathered or arranged surrogacy for at least eight additional children, according to the WSJ. The trend coincides with intensifying debates over the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of U.S. citizenship for anyone born in the country, a policy the Trump administration has sought to reinterpret.

Blurb:

At least 15 people were murdered at a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach in Australia on Sunday after two alleged Islamic terrorists opened fire.

One of the suspects, Sajid Akram, moved to Australia in 1998 on a student visa before becoming a permanent resident, while his son, Naveed Akram, was born in Australia, according to Sky News. Authorities previously investigated the son “on the basis of being associated with” alleged terrorists, but authorities ultimately determined “there was no indication of any ongoing threat or threat of him engaging in violence,” according to the report.

Blurb:

The second student who was killed over the weekend in the tragic Brown University mass shooting has just been identified.

MukhammadAziz Umurzokov, an 18-year-old freshman who dreamed of becoming a brain surgeon, lost his life on Saturday.

Blurb:

The largest gain in jobs was in the healthcare sector, with 46,000 jobs added.

The US economy added 64,000 jobs in November, beating economists’ expectations. The unemployment rate has remained little changed from September, at 4.6 percent for the year’s penultimate month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed on Tuesday. The release of November’s jobs report was delayed due to the government shutdown that went from October 1 through November 12, and the October jobs report was not released due to the shutdown.

The largest gain in jobs was in the healthcare sector, with 46,000 jobs added. Of that total, 24,000 were in ambulatory health care services, 11,000 were in hospitals, and 11,000 were in nursing and residential care facilities. Construction saw 28,000 jobs added, and 18,000 jobs were added in social assistance. Transportation and warehousing saw a decrease in 18,000 jobs. The BLS noted that the federal government went down by 6,000 jobs, with a total of federal government employment going down by 271,000 since January.

Blurb:

A few days ago, Attorney General Pam Bondi dropped a bombshell press release about U.S. anti-discrimination law. 

“Disparate impact” is effectively dead. 

“The prior ‘disparate impact’ regulations encouraged people to file lawsuits challenging racially neutral policies, without evidence of intentional discrimination,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in the release. “Our rejection of this theory will restore true equality under the law by requiring proof of actual discrimination, rather than enforcing race- or sex-based quotas or assumptions.”

The Justice Department will essentially deprioritize discrimination cases that rely on “disparate impact” under this new standard.  

Most of the media ignored the announcement. But Politico regurgitated left-wing talking points, asserting in a supposedly straight news story that the move “end[s] long-standing civil rights policies that prohibit local governments and organizations that receive federal funding from maintaining policies that disproportionately harm people of color.” They added it “will make it harder to challenge potential bias in housing, criminal law, employment, environmental regulations and other policy areas.”

Blurb:

Voters are warming up to New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and some of his left-wing policy priorities, according to a Siena University poll released Tuesday.

Mamdani, a self avowed socialist, achieved a 46% favorability rating across New York state, marking an increase from his 40% favorable rating last month, according to the new poll. Meanwhile, by a 49-32% margin, up from 45-39% in November, voters statewide think that Mamdani‘s Nov. 4 mayoral victory will be good for New York City, per the poll. 

Among New York City voters alone, 66% said Mamdani’s election will be good for the city, while 25% said it is bad for the city, according to the poll. This marks an increase from in November, when 57% said his being elected was a good thing for the city and 26% said it was a bad thing, the poll shows.

“Enjoy the honeymoon, Mayor-elect Mamdani,” Siena pollster Steven Greenberg said in a statement. “Two-thirds of Democrats across the state view him favorably. Independent voters are now leaning favorably by six points, while they were six points on the unfavorable side in November. And while he’s viewed favorably in New York City, 61-23%, voters outside the City, who were decidedly negative toward him last month, are now close to breakeven.”

Blurb:

 

The last time I reported on the hostilities between Cambodia and Thailand, President Donald Trump was planning to call officials from both nations to try to salvage the summer cease-fire.

Unfortunately, there was no deal, and the conflict appears no closer to ending; Cambodia officially closed its border to Thailand this weekend.

The move comes as border clashes between the Southeast Asian nations have continued, despite US President Donald Trump saying Friday that they had agreed to a ceasefire.

“The Royal Government of Cambodia has decided to fully suspend all entry and exit movements at all Cambodia-Thailand border crossings, effective immediately and until further notice,” the Cambodian Interior Ministry said in a statement.

The announcement comes after Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said that his country would keep up military strikes on Cambodia until it no longer felt under threat from its neighbor, telling local media there was no ceasefire in place.

Blurb:

Five months ago, in these pages I expressed concern that Congress was missing the opportunity to restore merit to the military personnel system. To accomplish that task I urged Congress to include a meritocracy provision in the 2026 NDAA that does four things: (1) require all military personnel actions to be based exclusively on merit; (2) forbid race and sex-based preferences; (3) provide for reasonable exceptions when mission success requires sex or race be considered; and (4) define key terms so idealogues in the Pentagon cannot manipulate the language to further their diversity agenda.

When the House and Senate passed their versions of the NDAA, it appeared that between the two chambers some progress toward establishing a merit-based personnel system was being made. When the compromise bill resolving the differences between the House and Senate version, S. 1017, was released last week, it was readily apparent that Congress had no intention of requiring merit principles to govern military personnel actions. To make matters worse, the drafters employed smoke and mirrors to put a merit-sounding title on a provision that just reinforces the Biden-era identity preference status quo.

Blurb:

On Sunday, two Islamic terrorists — who were inspired by ISIS — opened fire at a Hanukkah event on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia. Eyewitness reports said police on the scene responded by cowering in fear behind vehicles instead of engaging the terrorists. Those same police were very quick to crack down on anyone who didn’t comply with Australia’s draconian COVID policies, and would come down on someone like a house of bricks if they used the wrong pronouns. But actually protecting people from gun-wielding terrorists? No.

There was viral video of one man, Ahmed Al Ahmed, who snuck up on one of the terrorists and tackled him to the ground before taking his gun. Ahmed was wounded by the terrorists.

But there was another man who confronted the terrorists on the bridge from where they were firing on the crowd of Jews.

For his bravery, he ended up being shot by the police who refused to engage the actual terrorists.

Blurb:

A Pentagon spokesperson announced Monday that the department is “escalating” a preliminary review into “serious allegations of misconduct” against Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), following his role in a controversial video reminding troops they can disobey orders from their superiors that they feel are “unlawful”—a move the Trump administration slams as undermining military discipline.

The review, reported on by RedState’s Becca Lower late last week, had been initiated by the Pentagon’s Office of General Counsel to determine possible punishments for the retired naval captain.

Now, Captain Kelly is facing “an official Command Investigation,” according to the spokesperson.

“The Office of the Secretary of War, in conjunction with the Department of War’s Office of the General Counsel, is escalating the preliminary review of Captain Mark Kelly, USN (Ret.), to an official Command Investigation,” the Department of War official said in a statement sent to Breitbart News.

Blurb:

The U.S. has agreed to provide unspecified security guarantees to Ukraine as part of a peace deal to end Russia’s nearly four-year war, and more talks are likely this weekend, U.S. officials said Monday following the latest discussions with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Berlin.

The officials said talks with President Donald Trump’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, led to narrowing differences on security guarantees that Kyiv said must be provided, as well as on Moscow’s demand that Ukraine concede land in the Donbas region in the country’s east.

Trump dialed into a dinner Monday evening with negotiators and European leaders, and more talks are expected this weekend in Miami or elsewhere in the United States, according to the U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly by the White House.

Blurb:

Friends, neighbors, and former classmates of Nick Reiner say warning signs had long surrounded the troubled son of famed Hollywood director Rob Reiner, with several saying they were not shocked when authorities charged him in the brutal killings of his parents.

Nick Reiner, 32, has been accused of fatally slitting the throats of his father, 78, and mother, photographer Michele Singer Reiner, 68, inside their multimillion-dollar Brentwood, Los Angeles home. While police have not publicly detailed a motive, those who knew the family say the suspect had a long history of violence, addiction, and instability.

“This is not the first time their son has been violent,” a longtime neighbor told the New York Post, declining to give his name. “I know of another incident a few years back with Nick, but I won’t say more than that. I just never thought it would ever get to this point.”

Blurb:

The World Health Organization (WHO) has unveiled its newest blueprint for “digital health transformation,” and critics warn it’s the clearest signal yet that the unelected global body intends to normalize trackable wearables, AI-driven monitoring, and centralized “health” data control for the world’s population.

Released this month, the updated “Global strategy on digital health 2020–2027” lays out a sweeping plan to expand the use of digital IDs, biometric devices, AI analytics, and remote-surveillance tools, all under the banner of “universal health coverage.”

WHO says digital health means everything from phone apps to “artificial intelligence (AI), big data analytics and smart wearables,” and the organization wants governments worldwide to accelerate adoption.

Its own language makes clear this will not remain optional.