On February 16, 2024, Alexei Navalny died under mysterious circumstances in the remote Siberian penal colony to which he was moved in late 2023. Founder and leader of the Anti- Corruption Foundation, Navalny was a long-time dissident and one of the most vocal critics of Putin’s regime over the past two decades, so his suspicious death was no surprise to anyone remotely acquainted with contemporary Russian politics. Continue Reading...

by Olivia Rondeau, Breitbart: The relationship between President Joe Biden and House Democrats appears to have grown strained after the president backtracked on his previous refusal to pardon his son, Hunter Biden. Multiple House members told Axios this week that tensions were already brewing between the commander in chief and Democrat lawmakers, but the pardon […]

from Sputnik News: WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – The incoming US administration will prioritize oil extraction, President-elect Donald Trump said in an interview with NBC out on Sunday. “I’m going to focus on drill, baby, drill,” Trump said. During his presidential campaign, Trump vowed to tap oil reserves in order to cut energy costs and raise more money […]

from Stew Peters Network: TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

  In the crazy, tumultuous decades of the Old West, few lawmen’s names ring out like Bass Reeves. As one the few African American lawmen in the West, Reeves began as a U.S. Marshal in 1875, hired by the infamous Hanging Judge Parker. Despite prevalent racial attitudes, few men matched Reeves’s storied career in terms of success, ability, or determination.   Where Was Bass Reeves Born and Taken To? Bass Reeves. Source: National Museum of African American History & Culture   Born as a slave in 1838 Crawford Country, Arkansas, Reeves traveled with his owner’s family to Texas as a child. He worked in the fields until he was old enough to serve or protect his owner’s son. The start of the American Civil War found Reeves traveling and perhaps fighting alongside his owner, Colonel George Reeves. This situation did not last long; sometime in 1861, Reeves attacked the Colonel and fled into Indian Territory. There, no law could touch them.   How Did Living in Indian Territory Benefit Reeves Later? Indian Territory. Source: Library of Congress   The time Reeves spent as a fugitive in the Indian Territory, later called Oklahoma, proved fruitful. This vast chunk of territory housed the exiled Five Nations tribes of Native Americans sent there decades prior by the U.S. government. Once becoming a deputy ten years later, Reeves, a natural polyglot, learned their languages – Choctaw, Seminole, Cherokee, Cree, and Chickasaw. His ability and contacts aided in hunting down outlaws who hid in Oklahoma. Reeves left the area upon hearing of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, settling down in Arkansas.   When Did Bass Reeves Start His Career as a U.S. Marshal? The states of Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas. Source: Library of Congress   1875 turned out to be a time of lawlessness in the American West. Many new towns experienced a need for more professional lawmen. The U.S. government created laws, but enforcing them was a different matter. In a push to reign in the chaos, the government hired two hundred U.S. Marshals, Bass Reeves among them.    Reeves’s qualifications for the job seemed tailor-made for the job. He was already fluent in the local languages and adept with pistol or rifle. Additionally, the Native Americans taught him tracking and stalking. Judge Parker and Reeve’s fellow law enforcement officers later would benefit from his marksmanship and tracking abilities. Few would have a prolific career like Reeves. As a Marshal, Reeves would help cover Arkansas and Oklahoma, which meant over 70,000 square miles in 1875.   Why Is Bass Reeves Considered Such a Great Lawman? Colt Single-Action Army Revolver. Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art   Many things made an Old West lawman dangerous. First, most became crack shots. An American Civil War veteran, Reeves knew guns. Also, guns were a frontier tool, whether for outlaws or hunting. Reeves constantly practiced being that crack shot. He achieved quick draw or accurate shooting of revolvers with either hand. His two Colt revolvers and Winchester rifle were the same caliber, cutting out errors while reloading.   Besides his formidable gun and tracking skills, Reeves’s integrity cemented his reputation. During Reeves’s time, many outlaws also became lawmen before switching back. Reeves never played that game. He kept an honest reputation, at one point arresting his son for murder.   What Dangerous Fugitives Did Bass Reeves Arrest or Kill? Belle Starr Warrant. Source: U.S. National Archives   Bass’s career lasted from 1875 until his retirement in 1907. Probably as dangerous as the outlaws themselves, he arrested over 3,000 outlaws and shot fourteen men dead. He clashed with notorious outlaws like Tom Story. Their entanglement lasted five years, from 1884 to 1889, as Bass tracked Story. Known for his horse thievery, Story eluded the law until Reeves took up the chase. Bass tracked Story to his Oklahoma hideout. Their confrontation escalated, both drawing their guns, and Reeves shot Story dead. In another perilous encounter, Reeves tracked down Jim Webb in 1884. Known for a violent temper, Webb killed an African American preacher.    Reeves memorized Webb’s arrest warrant as he was illiterate. He found, arrested, and imprisoned Webb, but the outlaw escaped. Their subsequent encounter ended in a shootout as Bass shot him down from 500 yards with his Winchester. Webb’s shots grazed Reeves’s saddle horn, coat button, and hat. Soon, Reeves’s reputation became intimidating enough that Belle Starr, another disreputable outlaw, surrendered upon hearing the U.S. Marshal now owned her warrant.    Why Was Bass Reeves Arrested? Bass Reeves. Source: Wikimedia   In 1884 year, Reeves was arrested for the shooting death of his posse’s cook. He admitted to the shooting, claiming the event was accidental. Based on his ironclad reputation for honesty, the charges were dropped. Bass Reeves’s long career ended as a policeman when Oklahoma gained statehood in 1907. By then, the great lawman’s health began to fail. After only two years, perhaps the Old West’s greatest lawman passed away from nephritis, or kidney disease.

It was only a matter of time before FBI Director Christopher Wray was out. Even though he still has three years left in his 10-year appointment, the FBI director serves at the pleasure of the president. Wray, who replaced the noxious James Comey in the position, did little better to...

Finding My Way by Jump bassist Andy Faulkner tells his story as a Rush fan from hearing 2112 to the band's farewell show

It is a truth universally acknowledged (by all right-thinking people, anyway) that Christmas comes too early. First you have the people who hoist up their wreaths and garlands at the first sign of falling leaves—a practice which should, in my opinion, be punishable by immediate deportation. I don’t care if you’re a legal citizen. The spirit of Project 2025 surely demands that we send October hall-deckers back to whichever country their ancestors most recently arrived from. Boughs of holly, gay apparel, and so forth become permissible at exactly the moment when Santa Claus reaches Herald Square in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. This was decided at the Council of Chalcedon. But even then, December 25 is surely a demoralizing choice of dates for the pinnacle of all jollities. The excitement ramps up to a maximum just as the days are starting to droop into their coldest and darkest. This is a bright consolation for the feeling that you are looking at the sun from an increasingly unflattering angle. But then Boxing Day hits like a hangover on December 26 when, in the words of an extraordinarily depressing and mawkish poem by civil rights leader Howard Thurman, “the star in the sky is gone” and “the kings and princes are home.” Thurman somehow meant this to be inspiring, but it’s obviously a galactic let-down. Here you are, your yearly allotment of cheer utterly spent, and there now stretch before you two months of slush and darkness with nothing to punctuate the tedium but New Year’s resolutions and Valentine’s Day. So the only activities scheduled to leaven the winter doldrums in our modern system are setting homework assignments for yourself and grappling with the crushing fear that you might die alone. Nice going, everyone. Our ancestors knew better. What if I told you December 25 could be not the punishing end, but the gleeful start of the festivities? “The Twelve Days of Christmas” isn’t just the wish-list of an eccentric and high-maintenance wifejak. It’s a picture of how the season ought to be. Instead of dutifully pledging to obsess over hydration come January, you could be cavorting merrily among a retinue of milkmaids and an assortment of waterfowl. Or at least you could leave your Christmas lights up without remorse. All this and more can be ours if we simply ditch the secular falderal and refer back to the liturgical calendar. Christmas would then last until January 6—which is not the Solemnity of the Insurrection but the Feast of the Epiphany, commemorating the wise men’s visit to the manger. The kings and princes are not home come New Year’s, thanks very much, they are just getting started—as we should be. By some accounts the Christmas season extends all the way to “Candlemas” on February 2, which commemorates the presentation of the baby Jesus in the temple according to Jewish rite. That would make Christmas 40 days long, rivaling the 50 days of “Eastertide” to celebrate the resurrection. But just as the exuberance of Easter is preceded by the 40 somber days of Lent, the 40 days of Christmas are preceded by days of preparation known as Advent. This is the key to understanding the rhythm of the whole liturgical calendar: it goes through successive periods of grief and joy, silence and music, death and resurrection. It takes the natural ebb and flow of the light throughout the year as raw material in a grand work of art, using the solar system itself to construct a symbolic picture of Jesus’ life. In Genesis, when God sets up the stars as “signs to mark the seasons,” the rhythm of the year becomes a language for conveying the order of creation. The Jewish calendar, pinned to the cycles of the moon, established the pattern. The Christian calendar, founded on the schedule of Jewish feasts that Christ observed, grows out of it. The winter solstice, when the daylight becomes shortest, makes for a natural beginning to this yearly sequence. Unlike Easter, which took place firmly during the festival of Passover, Christmas isn’t identified with a specific date in the Bible. Many people now think Jesus was born sometime in the Spring. But the winter date was fixed already by the 4th century A.D. St. Augustine of Hippo loved to preach about the symbolic appropriateness of December 25th as an entry point for God into the world, precisely because of the dark and the cold: “He, therefore, who bent low and lifted us up chose the shortest day, yet the one whence light begins to increase.” As the day wanes to its lowest ebb and the year rolls into its most brooding silence, the light of the world slips in and begins to grow. This is deep and ancient magic. Every people and tribe has long since recognized that the earth wheels through a cycle of death and rebirth. Christians saw in their lord and savior the answer to a promise whispered through the very structure of creation, written in the very bones of the year. This is why it remains hilarious when detractors, as they have done since antiquity, accuse Christians of “appropriating” or imitating pagan rituals. The obvious answer to this is that yes, of course—in Christ we behold the fullness of a reality only dimly glimpsed in the nature worship of old. All the pageantry of myth and legend points at last to the greatest story ever told, and told again each year. Hence the season of Advent, a period of waiting and watching as the world grows dark. It covers the four weeks before Christmas, each one of which is dedicated to a different element of the story—the hope of the prophets, the peace of Bethlehem, the joy of the shepherds, the love of the angels. Shortly after St. Martin of Tours ripped his cloak and gave half to a beggar on a cold winter day, the season became associated in France with alms and fasting. Now most churches keep some form of the ritual. Creation itself holds its breath, and mankind awaits the adventus, the arrival, of a transforming light. Not that you can’t play Christmas music in December. But you’ll get more out of the season if you spend part of it in contemplation, reading, and prayer. The world winds down this month in anticipation of a rebirth that comes just when creation feels most exhausted, its natural powers and energies spent. At that moment an all but invisible gap opens in the machinery of things, and there enters—unseen by the government sentries prowling the city streets, undreamt of in the palaces of emperors—the light and the lord of the world. At which point, the party’s on. * * * Spencer A. Klavan is host of the Young Heretics podcast and author, most recently, of Light of the Mind, Light of the World: Illuminating Science Through Faith. The associate editor of the Claremont Review of Books, he has written for many outlets, including The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Times, City Journal, Newsweek, The Federalist, The American Mind, and The Daily Wire. Follow him on X: @SpencerKlavan. You find his daily Advent posts on Substack at and read further theological reflections at The New Jerusalem, where he writes alongside his father, novelist Andrew Klavan. The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Daily Wire.

The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), a group that facilitates medical education in the United States, has wielded its influence and prestige to politicize the medical field and push diversity, equity, and inclusion, according to a report first shared with The Daily Wire.  Do No Harm, an organization devoted to de-politicizing medicine, published an exhaustive 80-page report on Tuesday documenting how the AAMC has integrated DEI into its influential academic programs and advanced a leftist public policy agenda. This includes allowing ideology to creep into medical school testing, pushing racially-focused medical theories, and promoting transgender medical procedures on children.  “The AAMC corrupts medical education by blatantly embedding DEI into American medical schools,” Dr. Jared Ross, a senior fellow with Do No Harm, told The Daily Wire. “Our report offers practical solutions to restore excellence in the medical curriculum. The medical education system in this country should be focused on science-based teachings rather than forcing students to engage with a radical political ideology.” Founded in 1876, the AAMC works with 171 accredited medical schools in the United States and Canada, over 400 teaching hospitals and health systems, and 70 academic societies. It also administers the MCAT, a test used for admission to medical colleges, and sponsors the accrediting body for allopathic medical schools.  “Through its demonstrated commitment to activism over meritocracy, the AAMC has firmly planted itself on the Mt. Rushmore of DEI-centric organizations,” the report says.  Ian Kingsbury, the director of research at Do No Harm, told The Daily Wire that the association had infused DEI ideology “into all facets of medical school application, education, and then placement into residency.” “These are politically radical people who are destroying medical education in the United States,” he said.  AAMC’s Open Embrace of DEI While many corporations and educational institutions have backed away from DEI programs and policies over the past year, the AAMC is still fully on board with the ideology.  On its website, the AAMC lists “diversity, inclusion, and equity in health care” as one of its four primary mission areas. In another section. the website says that DEI “in medical education and the physician workforce is critical for everyone’s health.” The AAMC says that it is “committed” to DEI and has published numerous DEI-focused articles and hosted numerous webinars on the topic.  “Advancing anti-racism is a continuous process that requires a variety of approaches and strategies. Below is a list of resources to further assist institutions in catalyzing change in academic medicine,” the organization says.  It points people to the work of leftists like Kimberle Crenshaw and the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research directed by Ibram X. Kendi.  In a “health equity” guide produced by the AAMC and the American Medical Association, the organizations claim that narratives advantaging white men need to be “deconstructed.” “Narratives grounded in white supremacy and sustaining structural racism, for example, perpetuate cumulative disadvantage for some populations and cumulative advantage for white people, and especially white men,” the guide said. “Patriarchal narratives enforce rigidly defined traditional norms, and reinforce inequities based on gender.” The AAMC’s Outsized Role in Medical Education “The AAMC’s influence touches nearly every step of the medical education experience,” Do No Harm wrote. “The revenue generated by its services that all U.S. medical students and future residents must use – more than $200 million in 2022 – creates a near-bottomless well from which the AAMC can draw.” The AAMC has a tremendous role in shaping medical education and policy throughout the United States. In addition to administering the MCAT, the association runs the Medical School Admission Requirements database, runs the American Medical College Application Service, and is a co-sponsor of the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), an accrediting body for allopathic medical schools. Each of these projects has been impacted by the association’s DEI focus. For example, one of the foundational concepts for the MCAT is “social inequality.” Topics under this category include “environmental justice,” class consciousness, intersectionality, and privilege.   AAMC resource: Do No Harm report. “Institutionalized racism and discrimination are also factors which prevent some groups from obtaining equal access to resources,” the association says.  CHECK OUT THE DAILY WIRE HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE The association also says that MCAT test score disparities are the fault of “societal inequalities.”  “Research suggests the differences in MCAT scores for examinees from groups underrepresented in medicine based on race/ethnicity and other background characteristics reflect societal inequalities in income, education, and other factors rather than test bias,” the AAMC said in its 2024 analysis of MCAT data.  For its American Medical College Application Service, a centralized medical school application service, the association allows future doctors and surgeons to select a variety of gender identities. These identities include “trans man,” “trans woman,” “genderqueer/gender non-conforming,” “nonbinary,” and “agender.” The prospective students are allowed to write in the identity of their choice.  Application gender selection The application also allows students to highlight their “social justice/advocacy” work. This is an experience where an applicant “worked to advance the rights, privileges, or opportunities of a person, a group of people, or a cause.” “The medical community recognizes that social justice/advocacy is a core value for those working and learning in medicine and medical education,” the association explained.  Additionally, the LCME, which accredits nearly every medical school in the United States, has diversity requirements. The Do No Harm report highlights how schools are supposed to recognize “the benefits of diversity” and focus on diversity in recruitment and retention.  In one instance, the LCME pressured the University of Utah School of Medicine after it said the school’s “diversity/pipeline programs and partnerships” were “unsatisfactory.” LCME later claimed that it had a broad definition of diversity that expanded beyond race and gender.  The AAMC has also pointed students toward student programs intended only for minorities. It recommends that students take part in the Summer Health Professions Education Program (SHPEP) organized by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. SHPEP is a “free summer academic program” for medical students who are “underrepresented in the health professions.”  According to the AAMC, students who “students who identify with a group that is racially or ethnically underrepresented” are “encouraged to apply.”  “From the moment that prospective students decide to apply to medical school up to the day they receive their acceptance to a residency program, they are met with AAMC messaging that reflects a clear intent to indoctrinate, rather than educate,” the Do No Harm report says.  The AAMC’s Promotion of Leftist Policies The AAMC has taken a strong stance in favor of race-based college admission and vigorously criticized the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn affirmative action policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina in June 2023. The group filed an amicus curiae brief in favor of race-based admissions before leadership at the school spoke out against the ruling.  “Today’s decision demonstrates a lack of understanding of the critical benefits of racial and ethnic diversity in educational settings,” leadership of the AAMC said in a statement at the time. “We will work together to adapt following today’s court decision without compromising these goals. The health of everyone depends on it.” The association also encourages medical schools to look beyond MCAT scores, and consider “holistic” experiences. “By looking at students’ applications holistically, taking into account their educational opportunities, lived experiences, attributes, and other factors, you can show your commitment to excellence and equity in medical education,” the AAMC said.  One justification for its DEI policies is the questionable theory of “racial concordance,” the idea that black and Hispanic patients do better with doctors of the same race. It has done this through various platforms and publications. “There’s no indication whatsoever that patients benefit from doctors who look like them,” Kingsbury told The Daily Wire. “The reason they have to insist that that is true is they want you to imagine that there are tradeoffs here in terms of how the process works for medical school admissions.”  The AAMC has also prompted life-altering and irreversible transgender procedures on children.  A 2016 webinar called “The Nuts and Bolts of Caring for and Teaching about Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Youth,” available on the association’s website, claimed puberty blockers were “reversible” for children and that cross-sex hormones are partially reversible. Puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones have been shown to damage bone development, cause infertility, and lead to heart problems.  AAMC slide on transgender procedures. The AAMC has also taken a consistent stand against Republican-led states that have moved to protect children from transgender procedures.  “Efforts to restrict the provision of gender-affirming health care for transgender individuals will reduce health care access for transgender Americans, promote discrimination, and widen already significant health inequities,” the association said in 2021.  The Continued Fight Against DEI The Do No Harm report concludes by arguing that the fight against DEI must be continued at both the state and federal levels. The report highlighted actions taken by a variety of Republican-led states to push back and praised federal legislation from Rep. Greg Murphy (R-NC) that would pull federal funding from medical institutions that adopt DEI policies.  Additionally, the report recommended that there be more steps taken for accountability for both the AAMC and LCME.  Despite the seeming decline of DEI in the last year, Kingsbury said it seemed as if the AAMC was too ideologically committed to back off.  “For their purposes the political headwinds look pretty strong, both on the DEI front and the gender front,” he told The Daily Wire. “By any measure people are pretty tired of this stuff and looking to move past it. The challenge is that based on the reactions that I am seeing from the AAMC is that this is an ideologically captured institution.” Kingsbury said that it may take the federal government to restore sanity to health care education.  Do No Harm said the result of all of its current policies and direction will end up with lower quality health care, less qualified doctors, and a continued erosion of merit-based academics.  “The AAMC claims to be in the business of bettering everyone’s health through its service to academic medicine,” the report concludes. “Yet, closer inspection reveals that they repeatedly undermine merit – the best predictor of clinical success – by promoting a system that prioritizes identity group status and allegiance to radical political orthodoxy.”