WaPo Wonders: Why Won't Trump Let 'Deep State' Vet His Nominees?

Charlotte Klein at New York magazine unloaded the terrible financial news at The Washington Post: "Even before 250,000 digital readers unsubscribed from the Washington Post in protest, the paper was on track to lose at least as much money as it lost last year: $77 million." Isn't that chump change for billionaire owner Jeff Bezos? It certainly gives him a reason to push changes, which she calls a "crackdown." “Mind-blowing,” as one staffer put it. “The level of anger is through the roof, and fear is also through the roof. There’s huge concern that Bezos is going to pull the plug.” That's unlikely, Klein suggests, but Bezos "and his already controversial publisher pick, Will Lewis — seems determined to fix the paper, whether the current staff likes it or not." Interim executive editor Matt Murray and managing editor Matea Gold are the two internal candidates for the executive editor job. The search is "expected to conclude by the end of the year."  Klein claims the Post staff are mixed on Murray: He came in and instantly seemed more engaged in the journalism than [Sally] Buzbee—talkative in news meetings, shooting notes about headlines—which was a big and welcome change. But several staffers told me he was, frustratingly to them, a company man during the endorsement mess, telling staff in a meeting that he didn’t know how many subscribers were lost and to buck up for the changes ahead. “Completely the wrong message,” one staffer said. “The message should be we’re not doing anything different journalistically, and I’m going to be out there defending you guys.” The newsroom was looking for someone to rally around—as they have been since Marty Baron left—and Murray instead, in their view, stuck close to the boss. The Post rank and file wants to go to war again on Trump, and never mind Baron lamely claiming they weren't at war. If you read the paper, you see the daily aggression. No one should tell them to put down their axes.  The boss also angered people by demanding staffers must return to the office full-time by June 2025. That's five years after the pandemic hit its stride. One anonymous grumbler told Klein the new office policy “felt punitive...like a response to the outcry to them driving us in the ditch with that lack of endorsement. And if that wasn’t the intention, then they certainly missed the boat on the optics of that, too.”  “These aren’t changes that will help us compete in the 21st century,” one staffer said, recalling how Lewis, who dared to tell the newsroom that “people are not reading your stuff” and that their “audience has halved in recent years” back in June. “He has not asked for a single change that in any way seems designed to improve our business plan,” the staffer claimed, and instead “has contempt and derision for the newsroom.” With employees being told they must be back in the office five days a week (hankies out), "some of the Post's most marketable journalists are looking to get ahead of that, seeking out opportunities at other outlets even as the grind of the new Trump administration begins."

ABC, CBS, and NBC have shown a disturbing aversion to covering the murder trial of Georgia student Laken Riley by an illegal immigrant. In five days, they spent nearly four times less coverage on the flagship newscasts about Riley versus the manufactured and partisan obsession over the October 27 remark by a pro-Trump comedian that Puerto Rico was a “floating island of garbage.” From Friday, November 15 through Tuesday, November 19, the networks dedicated 20 minutes and 33 seconds to the Riley trial across their top morning and evening newscasts and Sunday morning talk shows. That paled in comparison to the nearly 78 minutes (77:42) whining about the so-called joke from Tony Hinchcliffe during President Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally. To capture an equal number of newscasts, NewsBusters included coverage from October 27 to November 1. CBS led the way with 31 minutes and 25 seconds on what one could be refer to as garbage-gate, thanks in part to a lengthy segment by correspondent Lilia Luciano (which aired on both CBS Mornings and the CBS Evening News) hoping Hinchcliffe’s remark would cause fellow Puerto Ricans and Hispanics writ large to abandon Trump. ABC came in second with nearly 24 minutes (23:42) and NBC only a minute behind (22:35). As we wrote at the time, the networks were apoplectic about the Trump rally and Hinchcliffe’s quip, which ABC’s Good Morning America deemed “dark,” “filled with grievances,” “incendiary,” “outright racist,” “profane,” and “vulgar.” When President Biden referred to Trump supporters on October 29 as the real “garbage,” the networks were trapped in conceding Biden committed a gaffe but blamed Hinchcliffe for having started this hullabaloo. As for Riley’s murder at the hands of a reported Tren de Aragua member, ABC’s newscasts — Good Morning America and World News Tonight — fetched nearly half the total at eight minutes and 19 seconds. Between CBS’s newscasts CBS Mornings and the CBS Evening News, Riley’s trial drew only six minutes and 34 seconds. NBC fell even further back with a measly five minutes and 40 seconds over five days on Today and NBC Nightly News. Worse yet, only three of the five days received coverage. Nothing from the Sunday morning talk shows (ABC’s This Week, CBS’s Face the Nation, and NBC’s Meet the Press). The November 15 NBC Nightly News clutched its pearls when covering the trial, boasting that the illegal immigrant’s defense attorney whined “people have used this case for their own personal gave gain, financial gain, political gain.” The show also pointed to a March interview Riley’s father did with NBC in which he said he’s “angry” his “daughter’s name” has been brought up in our political sphere. Correspondent Priya Sridhar conveniently left out that Riley’s mother and stepfather attended a Trump rally and blamed the country’s open southern border for Laken’s death. Thanks to The Atlantic and The New York Times, the coverage on ABC, CBS, and NBC of John Kelly’s anti-Trump media crusade also towered over Riley’s trial with over three times more coverage. Kelly’s declaration of Trump being a fascist and Hitler enthusiast drew nearly 65 minutes (64:39) on the morning, evening, and Sunday morning news programs with a remarkable 60 percent of that tally (39:05) coming courtesy of the assiduous Trump haters at ABC. At least Riley’s name was mentioned by ABC, CBS, and NBC. Searches on Nexis and Snapstream revealed two other young women allegedly murdered by illegal immigrants — Rachel Morin and Jocelyn Nungaray — yielded few results on the flagship morning, evening, and Sunday political talk shows. Along with both women having been mentioned on the June 21 and October 16 NBC Nightly News, Morin came up June 16 on CBS’s Face the Nation. At the Republican National Convention, all three carried President Trump’s acceptance speech, which had a passage memoralizing them as victims of the border crisis. Two days earlier, family members spoke of their memories, which ABC and CBS had the decency to air. One could argue history had repeated itself. 11 years ago, the murder trial of Phildelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell received scant attention on these same networks and the liberal media writ large. Then-Washington Post Sarah Kliff said it all, deeming it merely a “local crime” story.

Former Coca-Cola lobbyist Calley Means first caught Liz Wheeler's eye when he spoke out about the company using “racism” to force the government into putting its product on the food stamps program. “I thought, ‘What an extraordinary story. This exemplifies the corruption, the ideological corruption, the financial corruption, that is in our health care industry. This revolving door between Big Food and Big Pharma and the federal government,’” Wheeler says. Now, Means is an adviser to RFK Jr. in the Make America Healthy Again movement that’s taken America by storm. “I’ve gone from when President Trump first came down that golden escalator ten years ago thinking he’s a threat to democracy to believing that this election is by far the most important victory of our lifetime and, I think, a historic moment in American history where I’ve never been more excited about a president being elected,” Means tells Wheeler. Wheeler is also thrilled by what’s to come. “By marrying ‘Make America Great Again’ with ‘Make America Healthy Again,’” Wheeler explains that RFK Jr. and President Trump are telling those with autoimmune diseases, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and obesity that “you don’t have to suffer this.” And RFK’s plan to ensure they don’t have to suffer as they have been is the best part. “We’ve heard a couple of promises from Bobby in the past couple days. One of my favorite ones is that he’s going to take all the nutritional scientists out of HHS and either fire them on day one, or if he’s not allowed to fire them, he’s going to build a new headquarters for them in Guam,” Wheeler says. While the latter part of RFK’s statement was a joke, his plans to reform the American health care system are as serious as it gets. “We’re going to return to science,” Means says. “I think what bad interests have realized is that there’s nothing higher-level in society than an NIH study. And I’ve actually, Liz, had conversations in the past three days with the senior-most members of the NIH who are defending the institution publicly, who are saying this is an absolute and utter dumpster fire.” “There’s huge DEI regulations and parameters around what can and can’t be said, a feeling of absolute assault on academic freedom, and from what I’m hearing, when you add it up, eighty to ninety percent of NIH grants and funding goes to pharmaceutical R&D,” Means explains. “We’re going to get any type of ideology out of our scientific guidelines,” he continues. “And that’s the key to everything.” Want more from Liz Wheeler?To enjoy more of Liz’s based commentary, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

Berlin is once again a dangerous place for Jews and homosexuals, according to the city's chief of police. The German newspaper Berliner Zeitung recently asked chief Barbara Slowik whether Berlin was safe. Slowik initially tried to avoid characterizing her city as a haven for imported extremism, suggesting, "Berlin is as safe as many other cities in Germany and safer than many other European capitals." When pressed on whether there were "no-go areas," Slowik, who was instrumental in setting up the Joint Extremism and Counter-Terrorism Center, admitted that "there are areas — and we have to be honest here — where I would advise people who wear a kippah or are openly gay or lesbian to be more alert." Slowik said she wouldn't "defame any groups of people here" but acknowledged that "there are certain neighborhoods where the majority of people liv[ing there] are of Arab descent, who also have sympathies for terrorist groups." The German ministry of the interior and community acknowledged in September that the country's worsening crime problem was the result, in part, of "more foreigner crime." Many of the non-Germans hail from Middle Eastern hotbeds for Islamic radicalism. 'It is not the job of Jews and homosexuals to be "more attentive" in certain areas of Berlin.' According to the publication Junge Freiheit, the number of all registered crimes — not including violations of immigration law — skyrocketed by 4.4% last year to 5.6 million incidents. Rainer Wendt, the head of the German Police Union, highlighted police statistics in April indicating that foreigners now account for at least 41% of all suspects in Germany and are massively over-represented among violent and sexual offenders. The problem of imported crime bled into 2024 with some high-profile examples, starting right away in the early hours of New Year's Day, when scores of Syrians and Afghan males rioted in several German cities, attacking first responders with incendiary devices and robbing others. Months later, an Afghan immigrant went on a stabbing spree and butchered a police officer at an anti-jihad rally in the southwestern German town of Mannheim. Anti-Semitic attacks have apparently skyrocketed since Oct. 7, 2023. "Open anti-Semitism is expressed there against people of Jewish faith and origin," continued the police chief, adding that the force has opened over 6,200 investigations into anti-Semitic incidents, including 1,300 violent crimes, since the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel last year. 'The safety of Jews and homosexuals can only be guaranteed by ending mass migration.' According to Slowik, the city was able to prevent 24 mass gatherings that were explicitly aimed at celebrating the murder of Israeli civilians. Other rallies featuring anti-Semitic messaging and glorifying Islamic terrorism have apparently gone unchecked in part due to the fact that bans would not ultimately rid Berlin of the extremists responsible as well as a desire on the part of officials to selectively respect residents' rights to expression and assembly. Although keen not to encroach on the rights of foreign-born anti-Semites, German authorities have sought to ban, vilify, disarm, de-bank, and criminalize the popular Alternative for Germany party and its members, largely over their criticism of mass immigration, open borders, and Islamization. Marie-Thérèse Kaiser, a member of the AFD, was convicted of a "hate crime" in May for sharing statistics about the disproportionate number of gang rapes committed by immigrants, specifically Afghan nationals, and for asking whether multiculturalism means accommodating rape culture. Just last week, 113 German lawmakers from various leftist and establishment factions reportedly signed an application to begin proceedings to ban the AFD. They appear especially concerned by recent polls showing that the AFD ranks second going into the 2025 federal election. While kneecapping the AFD is a key priority for the German political establishment, the AFD alternatively appears keen on tackling the fallout of Germany's failed multicultural project — having learned independently what former British Home Secretary Suella Braverman concluded in 2023: that "uncontrolled immigration, inadequate integration, and a misguided dogma of multiculturalism have proven a toxic combination" for the West. The AFD said in a statement Tuesday that Slowik's admission about no-go zones was "an absolute declaration of bankruptcy for [Christian Democratic Union]-governed Berlin," adding that this "is what 'cosmopolitan' Berlin looks like under a CDU mayor." "The police chief is turning the responsibilities on their head. It is not the job of Jews and homosexuals to be 'more attentive' in certain areas of Berlin, but rather it is the job of the CDU-led Senate to be 'more attentive' to consistent deportations, protected borders and an assertive constitutional state," said the AFD. "The safety of Jews and homosexuals can only be guaranteed by ending mass migration," added the AFD statement. Berlin is far from the only Western city where Jewish citizens have been told to keep their heads down to avoid the fallout of liberal elites' promised cultural enrichment. Blaze News reported earlier this year that London's Metropolitan Police threatened to arrest Gideon Falter, the head of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, in April for daring to be "quite openly Jewish" in the English capital's Aldwych area while pro-Hamas protesters were demonstrating nearby. A police sergeant took notice of Falter and his kippah cap and confronted him, saying, "I'm sure there are an awful lot of people of all sorts of faiths and creeds who want to go where they want. But unfortunately, today is different." "So basically, because I'm Jewish, I can't cross the road today?" asked Falter. "Because of the march," said the sergeant. Falter pressed the issue, saying, "Yes, because I am Jewish?" "That is part of — unfortunately part of the fact," said the sergeant. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

On Wednesday, the Bucks County commissioners' meeting was packed with citizens who were fed up with Democratic officials' alleged attempts to count illegal ballots in the recount of the Senate race between incumbent Bob Casey (D) and Dave McCormick (R).Residents showed up en masse to torch Diane Ellis-Marseglia (D), commissioners chair, after she made comments last week essentially admitting that she planned to count undated and misdated mail ballots in direct defiance of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's order. 'I have decided to file a criminal complaint against both of you.'"People violate laws any time they want," Ellis-Marseglia stated. "So for me, if I violate this law it's because I want a court to pay attention. There's nothing more important than counting votes."After the state's supreme court again ruled on Monday that such ballots cannot be counted, Ellis-Marseglia backtracked on her previous statement, claiming it was taken out of context.She blamed a "misinterpretation of [an] inartfully worded statement on my part" and apologized to constituents for causing any "upset and confusion."However, Ellis-Marseglia's brief apology was not enough for Bucks County residents, who showed up in droves on Wednesday to call her out for allegedly trying to break the law.Before the public comment section began, Ellis-Marseglia offered another apology, at points seeming — or perhaps trying to seem — as though she was overcome with emotion and regret. Residents interrupted her with boos and jeers. At times, Ellis-Marseglia's attempt at a sincere tone appeared to briefly shift to frustration toward those in the crowd. "Last Thursday, when I spoke at the meeting that you're all here about, the passion in my heart got the best of me, and I apologize again for that," she told residents.Ellis-Marseglia claimed that many were unaware that she was referring to provisional ballots, not mail-in ballots."Even as I say this, I know it's confusing, and it's no surprise to me that these issues have gotten conflated," Ellis-Marseglia said."It was my poor choice of words," she admitted before immediately turning around and saying that her statement was "clipped.""They were out of context," Ellis-Marseglia declared before shushing the crowd, who responded to her statement with sneers."I have literally been contacted by hundreds of people. And, I'm being honest with you, all of them involved horrible, horrible expletives," she claimed. "Many involved threats, not just on my life, but on the people who work in this county."Ellis-Marseglia told residents that everybody says things "out of turn" and griped that she, as an elected official, is held to a "far higher standard than everybody else."Someone in the crowd responded by calling on her to resign."When I inartfully spoke and used the word 'precedent' when I was talking about provisional ballots, I was referring to the United States Supreme Court and the precedent that has been lost on many issues, including Roe versus Wade," Ellis-Marseglia stated.Many in the crowd scoffed. Ellis-Marseglia chuckled and smiled before pounding on her gavel to quiet the room.She concluded her speech by stating she did not believe she could apologize anymore, adding that the meeting was her only opportunity to set the record straight.The meeting then proceeded into public comments.The first speaker revealed a bombshell announcement, stating that she planned to file a criminal complaint against Ellis-Marseglia and Vice Chair Robert Harvie Jr."Diane's actually right, though: The law doesn't matter anymore in this country because people like you violate it all the time, and all we the people do is sit here and complain," the resident said."I'm not going to take it anymore," she declared. "I have decided to file a criminal complaint against both of you for breaking the following laws: Title 25, Section 3050; Title 25, Section 3501; Title 25, Section 3510; Title 25, Section 3527, 52 U.S.C. 103.08."Several residents who approached the mic on Wednesday accused Ellis-Marseglia of rolling her eyes during the public's comments.One citizen stepped up to the lectern and told Ellis-Marseglia that she found it difficult to believe her apology based on her previous comments and actions."You called all of us here 'extremists,' 'MAGA extremists,' 'white Christian nationalists,' all kinds of horrible names. The rolling of the eye — that is the real you," she said.Conservative activist Scott Presler also spoke at the meeting."I have a message: Peacefully, peacefully, we are coming for your seat in 2027 if you don't resign today," Presler said.Ellis-Marseglia, who repeatedly stated throughout the meeting that she would not respond during the public comment section, replied to Presler, saying, "Have at it.""I want you to know that I am going to spend all of my time in Bucks County for the next three years making sure we take back this county," Presler added.Numerous attendees demanded the resignation of the commissioners, and several advocated for their criminal prosecution.Ellis-Marseglia, Harvie, and Bucks County District Attorney Jennifer Schorn did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

With a charming (but sometimes mysterious) setting, the ability to craft your dream homestead, fishing, mining, cooking, and co-op support, it’s difficult not to compare Luma Island to the likes of Stardew Valley. While there are lots of fresh cozy co-op life sims and survival-lite games dropping at the moment, Luma Island appears to be making a much bigger splash than many of its fellow newcomers. Continue reading New Stardew Valley rival Luma Island is off to a strong start on Steam MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best co-op games, Best farming games, Best relaxing games

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