x01a Research Archives

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As my late grandfather was fond of pointing out, it’s a tough world, but sometimes you get a laugh out of it. Case in point: Democrats in and out of Congress were whining for more oversight of the actions of Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE), but now the partial government shutdown that Democrats voted for and caused has curtailed the very department that was carrying out that oversight – the Department of Homeland Security.

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The Anglican Communion and the Church of England have faced significant challenges in modern times, with the church grappling with how to stay relevant while also preserving traditions for its more conservative members.

The debate surrounding gay marriage was an extremely divisive topic, with a 10-year debate resulting in the rejection of same-sex seremonies in 2023. Now, the Church of England has voted again against standalone ceremonies for homosexual couples at its general council.

The bishops concluded that theological and legal obstacles prevented the introduction of separate ceremonies, and so they were excluded from church practice, writes Hetek.hu.

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Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson delivered her first State of the City address on Tuesday, but what was supposed to be a defining moment for the newly elected leader quickly drew criticism after a rocky start marked by technical glitches and visible confusion.

Wilson, who has been in office for roughly six weeks, opened her remarks by greeting the audience and acknowledging the length of the speech ahead.

“Good morning. How are you all doing today? OK. Are you ready for this? I don’t think I’ve ever talked for as long as I’m about to talk, so we’ll see how it goes,” she said.

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In the wake of 9/11, the newly established Office of the Director of National Intelligence produced the nation’s first National Intelligence Strategy, a document explicitly intended to guide reforms to the intelligence community and help prevent another terrorist attack on the U.S. homeland. The challenges U.S. intelligence faces today are no less dramatic. While crises in Ukraine, Iran, and Venezuela have each been driven by their own internal logics, together they reflect profound shifts in the balance and nature of power as a new international order begins to take shape. These shifts — a more contested strategic environment; accelerating technology competition; and eroding faith in international rules, norms, and institutions — have significantly increased uncertainty in world politics and elevated the risk and potential costs of strategic surprise.

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Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is calling on Casey Wasserman to resign from his leadership role with the LA28 Organizing Committee following backlash over past emails tied to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell.

Bass said this week that while she does not have the authority to remove Wasserman from his post, she believes he should step aside for the good of the city and the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

“Ultimately, any decision on the LA28 leadership must be made by the LA28 Board,” Bass said to CNN. “As you know, they are a separate and independent nonprofit organization.”

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WikiLeaks published tens of thousands of leaked emails from the personal account of John Podesta, former President Bill Clinton’s chief of staff, in late 2016.

The decentralized army of sleuths that subsequently combed over the leaked emails found not only damning insights into Hillary Clinton and her doomed presidential campaign but odd messages about pizza, hot dogs, ice cream, and other foods.

‘842 occurrences of the word pizza, which seems like a lot.’

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I’m trying to think of four words less appealing to me in American politics than “Eric Swalwell’s erotic poetry” and drawing a blank.

“Vice President Hunter Biden?” Kind of implausible, also kind of funny. “SCOUTUS Justice Judge Judy?” I mightn’t mind that, but also kind of outlandish. And I suppose I could just think of the grossest things possible and then attach candidate names to them, but that’s cheating.

“Eric Swalwell’s erotic poetry,” however, is unfortunately a very real thing. See, the representative is running for governor of California — and while Gavin Newsom has managed to tawdry up the office a bit, he still doesn’t rank up there with Swalwell, a man who’s been plausibly accused of having a sexual relationship with a Chinese spy, in terms of outright scumminess.

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Stephen Colbert’s time as host of The Late Show is almost ending, but that’s not stopping him from lying. Colbert claims CBS refused to air an interview with Senate candidate James Talarico. Today’s show shines a light on the truth.

“The good news is that for people like Colbert…the stunt does not have to be rooted in truth to be successful, you just have to be lucky enough that people have moved on before the truth reveals itself. That’s what they were banking on,” Crowder said.

According to CNBC:

“Late Show” host Stephen Colbert on Tuesday night called CBS’ denial of his claim that it blocked the broadcast of his interview with Texas state Rep. James Talarico “crap” — and urged the network and its parent, Paramount Skydance , to stand up to the “bullies” in the Trump administration.

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If this adviser is correct, there’s a good chance the United States will be at war with Iran.

A senior adviser to President Trump has revealed that there’s a 90% chance the United States will launch a strike against Iran.

The potential attack comes as the United States has sent a large number of Navy and Air Force assets to the Middle East, which includes two of the largest U.S. aircraft carriers.

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The Israel Defence Forces have told CBC News that they dug 20 to 30 metres deep in a Gaza war cemetery where 22 Canadian soldiers are buried in order to destroy a Hamas tunnel.

An IDF officer who spoke to CBC News on background and who was involved in combat operations in the area said he was not able to give any assurance that Israeli forces had taken measures to preserve human remains.

News that the cemetery had been damaged during IDF combat operations was first reported in The Guardian on Feb. 4, but until now it was not clear whether the damage was just to surface structures such as headstones and walls or also included the remains of the dead. Bodies are normally buried at a depth of two to three metres.

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The DOJ said Yaoning Sun had acted as an illegal agent “while serving as the campaign advisor for a political candidate who was elected to the city council of a Southern California city.”

A man with ties to the mayor of a Los Angeles County city has been sentenced to four years in prison for “acting as an illegal agent of the People’s Republic of China.”

The Department of Justice announced on February 10 that 65-year-old Yaoning “Mike” Sun, of Chino Hills, California had been sentenced to 48 months in federal prison, saying that Sun had acted as an illegal agent “while serving as the campaign advisor for a political candidate who was elected to the city council of a Southern California city.”

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A narrative of a looming “blue wave” just hit a wall — and it came from inside CNN.

During a segment breaking down the 2026 gubernatorial map, CNN data analyst Harry Enten delivered a “wake-up call for Democrats,” pointing to race ratings that currently tilt in Republicans’ favor across the country.

“I think electoral races nationwide should stand as a wake-up call for Democrats,” Enten said. “A wake-up call for Democrats.”

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On February 12, the EU legislative body adopted the text by 502 votes in favor, two against, and 59 abstentions, demonstrating broad cross-party consensus on the issue.

The resolution said Turkey is expelling Christians missionaries under an opaque “national security” pretext. It urged the government to uphold freedom of religion and allow the expelled Christians to return to the country.

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At this year’s Grammy Awards, pop artist Billie Eilish made national headlines not for her music, but for a political statement wrapped in an award acceptance speech.

After thanking her supporters and fellow artists, she added, “As grateful as I feel, I honestly don’t feel like I need to say anything, but that no one is illegal on stolen land.”

This comment echoed two familiar positions of modern, progressive left-wing ideology: first, that the United States should allow unrestricted immigration and, second, that Americans are living on land illegitimately taken from Native Americans.

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Welcome to today’s episode of Democrats Sure Got It Good, where, after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) humiliates herself in Germany in ways unseen since Neville Chamberlain, the far-left New York Times happily acts as her stenographer to try and clean up the mess.

First, looking like a dumb little girl pretending to be a mature adult, AOC went the full-Kamala at the Munich Security Conference, attempting to answer a no-brainer question about defending Taiwan against a Chinese invasion:

A couple of days later at a public town hall at the Technical University of Berlin, AOC proved she’s geography-challenged:

And finally, here’s AOC in Berlin stepping on a rake while attempting to troll Secretary of State Marco Rubio after his triumph in Munich:

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Officials have launched a sweeping new investigation into Jeffrey Epstein’s remote New Mexico compound after new allegations emerged in files released by the Department of Justice that suggested murdered victims may have been buried on land surrounding the property.

The probe into Epstein’s Zorro Ranch could expose some of the darkest allegations yet tied to the disgraced financier’s criminal network.

For years, public attention focused on Epstein’s “Pedophile Island” in the Caribbean and his seven-story “House of Horrors” townhouse in New York.

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Arch globalist Christine Lagarde is reportedly planning to leave her post at the helm of the European Central Bank before the end of her term next year in a bid to lock in liberal leadership long after French President Emmanuel Macron leaves office.

The anti-Trump former French finance minister has served as president of the European Central Bank since 2019. While her eight-year term is set to expire in October next year, the Financial Times, citing a “person familiar with her thinking”, reported that Lagarde is considering stepping down before then to allow French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz to select her successor.

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“There are certain aspects of the movie that don’t hold up too well,” Levine told The Hollywood Reporter. “We all know more, and I’m a lot wiser about transgender issues. There are some lines in that script and movie that are unfortunate. [It’s] just over time and having gotten aware and worked with trans folks, and understanding a bit more about the culture and the reality of the meaning of gender.”

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The glossary is full of exciting, new progressive words and phrases.

Boston U. teaching hospital glossary says ‘biology’ doesn’t define sex

The primary teaching hospital of Boston University’s medical school recently updated its “Glossary for Culture Transformation” to include dozens of ideologically loaded terms, a medical advocacy group found.

For example, Boston Medical Center’s glossary includes entries for “assigned sex at birth,” “LGBTQIA+,” “fatphobia,” “anti-blackness,”

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Republican-controlled Iowa, Texas, Oklahoma, and Wyoming are revising social studies curricula for K-12 public schools, promising voters accurate, non-leftist revisions.

Yet Iowa recently delivered new K-12 curricula that entrench rather than solve the nationwide crisis of fact-challenged, anti-American Marxists controlling publicly financed history instruction. Oklahoma is one public comment period away from a similar outcome. That public comment closes Wednesday.

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There have been a number of videos posted with loud—and early—calls of submission. Eli Shepherd at RedState: A tweet making the rounds this week shows video of the Islamic call to prayer, the Adhan, echoing through New York City streets at dawn. Five in the morning. Amplified. Projected over neighborhoods that still carry the scars of September 11, 2001. That date is not ancient history. It is living memory…. The Adhan is not ambient background music. It is a declaration. The phrase “Allahu Akbar” means “God is greatest.” It is a theological claim. It is a call to submission. Practicing Muslims understand this. That is not controversial. That is simply fact. Now imagine living in lower Manhattan. Imagine hearing that broadcast before sunrise, rolling through concrete and glass, over a skyline where nearly 3,000 Americans were murdered in an attack carried out in the name of that same phrase. Context matters. Memory matters. And if that memory is ingrained in my mind, being in 6th grade and states away at the time, I can’t imagine where it sits for those in the city (Red State).

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Independent journalists from Muckraker released footage Tuesday showing a New York City Board of Elections employee giving a registration form to someone claiming non-citizen status, noting the office accepts any submission without reporting issues. The worker acknowledged occasional non-citizen attempts but said his role is just to collect and forward forms, which later face database checks. Critics highlighted it as a vulnerability, while studies show non-citizen voting remains rare, fueling partisan divides over stricter proof-of-citizenship laws like the SAVE Act ahead of 2026 midterms.

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Reading Matt Shumer’s viral essay about artificial intelligence was like stepping back in time to roughly six years ago, when the world started going insane over Covid-19.

It hits all the same beats as those viral essays from 2020, when we were told “something big was coming” and “life will never be the same.” It is written with the same insider tone, like the author is doing us a favor by telling us how horrible life is about to become. And the intent is clearly the same: to so unsettle a population that they will begin to feel powerless in the face of what is about to come.

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JB Prikzker, a prominent Democrat governor viewed as a potential 2028 presidential contender, is facing renewed political attention after his cousin abruptly stepped down from a major corporate leadership role, citing regret over past ties to convicted child predator Jeffrey Epstein.

On Monday, Thomas J. Pritzker, 75, announced he would retire immediately as executive chairman of Hyatt Hotels Corporation.

He also confirmed that he would not seek reelection to the company’s board at its 2026 annual meeting.

In a company statement, Pritzker acknowledged that his past contact with Epstein and the pedophile’s child sex trafficking accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell reflected a serious lapse in judgment.