“any suggestion that he would or has ever hit a woman is false.” The post Media Maintains ‘Wall of Silence’ on First Gentleman #MeToo Scandal appeared first on Frontpage Mag.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said that FEMA is out of disaster funds. However, the DHS Inspector General released a report saying FEMA has $8.3 billion in untapped and unspent funds. Mayorkas claimed he doesn’t have money to deal with another hurricane, as Hurricane Milton is barreling down on Florida. Allegedly, FEMA can’t spend old […] The post 600 Missing, FEMA’s a Slush Fund & Mayorkas Has $8 Billion? appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff behaved in an “inappropriate” and “misogynistic” manner at work, former colleagues allege in a new report. The Daily Mail — which first exposed Emhoff’s affair with his nanny and allegations that he drunkenly assaulted an ex-girlfriend — reported Tuesday that Emhoff singled out attractive female employees for special treatment and penalized those who would not flirt back, in addition to shouting expletives at a coworker. The report also highlighted a 2019 lawsuit which states that Emhoff’s former partners at the law firm Venable engaged in sex discrimination, and that Emhoff hired a legal secretary who was allegedly unqualified but “young, attractive and friendly with the powerful men in the office.” Emhoff joined Venable in 2006 when he merged his company with another legal firm. He became Venable’s “Managing Director, West Coast” in August 2015, overseeing the firm’s offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco. He left Venable for DLA Piper in 2017, according to the Daily Mail, and took a leave of absence in 2020 due to his wife’s political career. The lawsuit, which did not name Emhoff as a defendant, describes how other members at Venable viewed Emhoff’s secretary as a “trophy secretary.” Her name was Katya Calderone, according to The Daily Mail, and she worked as a part-time model, joining Venable in 2014. The publication reported that Calderone has been pictured “partying at the Playboy Mansion, in GQ Magazine at Coachella Festival, socializing with Hollywood actors, and trying out for Bravo reality TV show Millionaire Matchmaker.” The lawsuit describes how defendant Alex Weingarten, a partner at Venable, verbally berated his own secretary and finally “drove her from his desk after deciding that he deserved a young, attractive secretary like his partner Douglas Emhoff had.” One woman who worked under Emhoff at Venable told the Daily Mail that he showed favoritism to “young, pretty girls” at their firm. “If there was an event, like the Justice Ball, he would favor certain people. Usually it was young, pretty girls. And he would prefer for them to ride with him. He would get a limo.” “I just don’t think his behavior was appropriate for the position he was in,” she told the Daily Mail. (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images) A top former Venable staffer told the publication that “plenty of people” where aware of Emhoff’s inappropriate behavior. A third former Venable employee, who worked as a lawyer for the firm, said it was a well-established fact that Emhoff was “very flirty” and that “if you weren’t flirty back or didn’t respond positively then you were on his s**t list.” If a woman didn’t flirt back with Emhoff, “you wouldn’t get to work on the cases you wanted to work on,” that third employee told the publication. “There were deadlines that, if you were one of his favorite people, wouldn’t apply. But if you weren’t, they would,” she added. Another former Venable employee, a senior staffer, told the publication that Emhoff “bragged” about yelling at a female partner, “Get the f*** out of my office,” and later allegedly told his colleagues that he “put her in her place.” “What’s worse was he bragged about it to the management at Venable and they were aghast,” the former staffer said. “He’s an a**hole. He told them how he ‘put her in her place.’ A misogynist, that’s who does that.” The White House and the Harris campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Daily Wire. Last week, an unnamed Emhoff spokesman told Semafor that the report alleging he hit his ex-girlfriend is “untrue,” and that “any suggestion that he would or has ever hit a woman is false.”

The cohosts of ABC’s “The View” invited Vice President Kamala Harris to join them on Tuesday in piling on former President Donald Trump, and Harris was only too happy to take them up on the offer. Harris has faced criticism from both Republicans and Democrats for failing to do substantive interviews — and if the softball questions she got from the left-leaning cohosts of the midday talk show are any indication of what’s to come, those critics aren’t likely to be satisfied anytime soon. Couched comfortably between the softballs, cohosts Ana Navarro and Joy Behar encouraged Harris to take a few potshots at her Republican opponent, and she obliged. Navarro rescued Harris from the only serious question of the day — which she had fumbled by saying that she couldn’t think of anything she would have done differently from President Biden — and gave her a mulligan. Am I Racist? Is In Theaters NOW — Get Your Tickets Here! “Well, let’s — Kamala, and I’m calling you Kamala ’cause for all of those who are mispronouncing it, I want you all to know how to say it,” Navarro began, prompting laughs and applause. “Let’s talk about something you would do different from Donald Trump. Right now there is a monster storm barreling towards my state of Florida, a place that’s still reeling from Hurricane Helene. Trump is lying, claiming that the Biden administration is intentionally withholding aid from the areas where Republicans live and that FEMA funds are being redirected to migrants. Ironically, that is something he did in 2019. What do you think the effect of these lies are and why is he doing this?” “It’s profound and it is the height of irresponsibility, and frankly, callousness,” Harris replied. WATCH: Harris: "He puts himself before the needs of others. I fear that he really lacks empathy on a very basic level to care about the suffering of other people, and then understand the role of a leader is not to beat people down, it's to lift people up." pic.twitter.com/u2llC8J9Rp — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) October 8, 2024 “And the idea that somebody would be playing political games for the sake of himself, but this is so consistent about Donald Trump,” Harris continued. “He puts himself before the needs of others. I fear that he really lacks empathy on a very basic level to care about the suffering of other people, and then understand the role of a leader is not to beat people down, it’s to lift people up.” Later on in the show, it was Behar who pushed Harris to jab at Trump again. Despite the fact that cohost Whoopi Goldberg refuses to say Trump’s name allowed — and once pretended to spit on the studio floor after accidentally letting it slip — Behar suggested that Trump was afraid to come on the show. WATCH: Joy Behar suggests Trump is refusing to come on The View, meanwhile they announced that they've banned him from the show."First, let me say that I like candidates who show up for interviews," she tells Harris.Behar uses dangerous rhetoric to suggest he's a Nazi and "dictator." pic.twitter.com/SjKGkbavio — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) October 8, 2024 “First, let me say that I like candidates who show up for interviews, just saying,” she said, and the audience laughed. “So – um — we all know the background of the guy — is a convicted felon, okay, a big-time loser, has been pretty open about his plans if elected to stack D.C. with loyalists, going after the media and comedians. How threatened do you have to be to go after comedians? He wants to do some mass deportations which really, really is a throwback to the thirties. A dictatorship by any other name, this is what he is planning.” “People are saying this could be the closest election in a century,” Behar continued. “I personally cannot understand why anyone would vote for him, a lot of it I think is people are getting bad information from other channels, but do you have an explanation for this at all?” “Well, let me just add to your list,” Harris, who had been nodding along in agreement with Behar throughout, began — and then started laughing along with the audience and cohosts. “It’s only an hour show,” Behar interrupted. “How much time do you have?” Harris laughed. “Including he has said he would terminate the Constitution of the United States.” What Trump actually said, in a Truth Social post in December of 2022, was a response to internal Twitter emails proving that the platform had intentionally buried reporting on the contents of Hunter Biden’s now infamous laptop — information which, according to polling, could very well have changed the outcome of the 2020 election. “Do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” Trump said at the time, accusing Democrats of colluding with social media platforms. “Our great ‘Founders’ did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!”

The Wisconsin Senate race is now a “toss up” between incumbent Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Republican challenger Eric Hovde, according to the Cook Political Report. The election forecaster announced on Tuesday that the race had shifted from “lean Democratic” to “toss up” as polls show Baldwin’s lead decreasing. The move comes after a survey from Cook found that Baldwin held a 49%-47% lead over Hovde, much smaller than her seven point lead in Cook’s previous poll. The race has tightened because Hovde had consolidated Republican support and made gains among independents, according to Cook. “Sen. Baldwin’s radical agenda has sparked record high inflation, created chaos [at] the southern border, and made our communities less safe,” Hovde spokesman Zach Bannon said in response to the news. “Eric Hovde is going to win because the people of Wisconsin are ready for change.” The National Republican Senatorial Committee said that the ratings shift demonstrated that Wisconsin was ready for change. “After 25 years in Washington, Tammy Baldwin has become the typical D.C. politician, voting in lockstep with the failed Biden agenda and hiding her Wall Street partner’s stock trades from her constituents. Wisconsinites are ready for change, and Eric Hovde has the momentum,” spokesman Tate Mitchell said. Last week, it was reported that Democratic strategists were having “alarm bells” and “growing fear” about retaining Baldwin’s seat as Axios reported that her lead in internal polls had shrunk to just two points. Am I Racist? Is In Theaters NOW — Get Your Tickets Here! The Democratic fears come as Hovde has benefited from a recent influx of cash backing his campaign. The Republican Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC linked to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), is committing $17 million to elect Hovde. With Democrats currently holding a 51-49 advantage in the Senate, both parties are gearing up for what is expected to be a tight battle for the majority. Republicans are currently expected to pick up seats in West Virginia and Montana, while races in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin are all expected to be competitive. “I wish I had better news, but four recent polls show this race statistically tied,” Baldwin said in September. “Our Senate majority will come down to Wisconsin.” Hovde and Baldwin are set to debate on October 18 in Madison, just weeks before Election Day.

I didn’t expect to have to do this so soon after the release of my film “Am I Racist?,” but at this point I have no choice. Already, I find myself having to dispel rumors on social media that a sequel to the film is in production, in which I don an even more convincing disguise and infiltrate the most absurd DEI struggle sessions that I can find, deep inside the bowels of corporate America. You might think that rumors like this would be hard to take seriously — if only because I probably wouldn’t be able to find any more DEI struggle sessions to infiltrate. After all, it’s been more than four years since the DEI craze began. And it’s clear now that the industry is crumbling. Universities from Florida to Texas to Kentucky have closed their DEI departments. Various state governments are doing the same thing. Meanwhile, people like Robby Starbuck have exposed several major companies for promoting the DEI scam — including Tractor Supply, John Deere and Harley Davidson. And every single time, once they’re exposed, these companies reverse course. They’re all aware how shameful and counterproductive DEI programs are. So they’re canceling them, left and right. But the truth is that, despite all that’s happened, there are still a few failing institutions in this country that are clinging on to the DEI industry. In times of internal crisis, there are some major corporations and government agencies that are willing to pay DEI consultants in a desperate attempt to right the ship. And some of these attempts are so comical, on their face, that they would admittedly make great fodder for a sequel to “Am I Racist?”. I’ll go through a couple of examples in a second. But first I want to reassure anyone who’s about to be forced to attend a DEI workshop that no, I will not be in attendance — with a man bun or otherwise. I’ve done my time. I’ve already been certified. I don’t need to go back into that environment. And that might be a missed opportunity, frankly, since these DEI sessions are now so absurd that they really should be featured in a comedy movie of some kind. WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show What’s happening at CBS News right now is maybe the best example.  They’ve just brought in a DEI expert because the whole company is falling apart. They’re self-immolating. Here’s the background.  Yesterday, Puck News reported that: “CBS NEWS has been roiling after a CBS Mornings interview in which [a CBS anchor] pressed Ta-Nehisi Coates over his pro-Palestinian framing of Israel-Palestine conflict. … This morning, on October 7, CBS News leaders Wendy McMahon & Adrienne Roark told staff that the interview did not meet editorial standards for impartiality, though they declined to elaborate on how or why. When they tried to move on, CBS News chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford criticized the leaders for their decision.” So to summarize, CBS News is melting down internally over a seven-minute interview on CBS Mornings, in which an anchor supposedly failed to be “impartial” during an interview with a guest named Ta-Nehisi Coates. Here’s part of the interview. This is as heated as it got, as far as I can tell. Watch:   So there’s a question that’s not very flattering, at least by the standards of a “CBS Mornings” interview. But it’s a completely reasonable question. The anchor wants to know why the guy’s book is so one-sided. And instead of answering the question, the author starts talking about how the media is aligned against him. It’s a pretty obvious dodge. But there’s nothing particularly remarkable about any of this. And the rest of the conversation goes on in the same way. It remains cordial, on both sides, for the entire segment. Put another way, this was not the kind of interview that should’ve caused any kind of meltdown inside a news organization that employs adults. It really shouldn’t have provoked any kind of reaction whatsoever. Reasonable people — whatever they think of this particular issue — should be able to tolerate frank, direct questions about their beliefs. But inside CBS News, that’s not happening. The network is tearing itself apart because a lot of their employees are upset that the anchor didn’t heap praise on this guy’s book. The anchor wasn’t sufficiently deferential to the plight of people in Gaza, or whatever. So the leaders of CBS News are now apologizing — saying the interview didn’t meet their, “editorial standards.” First of all, the idea that CBS News has any “editorial standards” would be news to anyone who watched the vice presidential debate between JD Vance and Tim Walz. At one point, the CBS moderators invented a quote out of thin air, and then attributed it to Vance. At another point, they tried to do a drive-by fact-check that happened to be false. And when Vance tried to correct the record, they cut his microphone. But, despite all this, CBS News is still pretending that they’re a serious news organization with “standards.” And those “standards” apparently mean that anchors don’t get to ask questions about books — at least when those questions upset the Left-wing activists inside the organization who, for some reason, are posing as journalists. So CBS’ management is panicking. They have no idea what to do. And in their panic, they’re falling back on a familiar strategy. Instead of displaying any form of leadership whatsoever, they’re outsourcing the job. And they’re not just outsourcing it to anyone. They’re bringing in the big guns. Specifically, they’re bringing in a DEI expert. Am I Racist? Is In Theaters NOW — Get Your Tickets Here! Here’s the follow-up report, again from Puck News. I promise this isn’t a guerilla marketing campaign for my movie: “UPDATE: CBS News has invited self-described ‘mental health expert, DEI strategist and trauma trainer’ Dr. Donald Grant to moderate conversation on this issue in an all-staff meeting tomorrow.” Again, to be clear, I am not Dr. Donald Grant. That is not my alter ego. But you’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise, given the circumstances. I mean, if you go on LinkedIn, you’ll find that Dr. Grant is the author of an article about Kamala Harris that’s entitled, “She is a DEI hire. So what?” And that does sound like something I’d write. But in fact, Dr. Donald Grant is a very real DEI consultant that CBS News has called in, all because one of their anchors asked a mildly probing question to a guest on a talk show. And Dr. Donald Grant is not me. He doesn’t appear to be anything like me, in fact. For one thing, I’m DEI certified, which Dr. Donald Grant doesn’t appear to be. And that’s a big credential, as I outline in the film. Also, Dr. Donald Grant does not have a glorious man bun. Additionally, unlike Dr. Donald Grant, I don’t post unhinged cartoons on Instagram that mock black Republicans simply because they’re black. That’s another notable difference. This is one of those cartoons that Grant uploaded, to give you some idea what I’m talking about: As @JerryDunleavy pointed out, here is an Instagram post from the DEI expert that CBS News called in to their offices tomorrow for an all staff struggle session https://t.co/Zw6wWIj7J5 pic.twitter.com/j5ny5dwIsQ — Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) October 7, 2024   This is the kind of thing that CBS News apparently likes to see in their DEI experts. If you ask me, it seems a bit like a liability. But the biggest distinction between myself and Dr. Donald Grant — and the reason that CBS should’ve hired me instead of him — is that I don’t just make things up. If you’ve seen my film, you know that my DEI workshop was airtight. Everything I said was verifiably true, sane and reasonable. My workshops really get down to the nitty gritty, even to the point of elder abuse and self-flagellation. Dr. Donald Grant isn’t as serious about doing the work. His DEI sessions clearly don’t meet the same standard. I can make that assumption because I just watched Grant’s recent appearance on a podcast entitled, “BORN TO BE DOPE!”. Here’s part of it. As you watch this, try not to be distracted by the bizarre, lifesize photo of the host that’s displayed on the screen right behind him. We’ll come back to that later. Watch: So “one of the biggest pieces of evidence” that white supremacy is real, according to Dr. Grant, is the “black mortality rate.” Specifically, he says that, quote, “research shows us that black babies are more likely to live if they’re cared for by black doctors.” This is a claim that’s very popular among DEI activists. In fact, one of our DEI Supreme Court justices, Ketanji Brown Jackson, made this same argument in a recent opinion. The implication is that white doctors just don’t care as much about black babies, so they let them die, I guess. Or they don’t try as hard, or communicate as well with the babies’ parents, or whatever. (As an aside, this is maybe the only time you’ll get Left-wing activists to pretend to care about babies being left to die. When Tim Walz or Ralph Northam say doctors can kill babies who survive abortions, they have no problem with it. But if they can blame “white supremacy,” then suddenly they care.) Except this isn’t happening, at all, in any way, shape, or form. A lawyer named Ted Frank took a close look at the data. He found two things. First of all, this claim appears to originate from a study by Northwestern University doctors showing that, when there’s a black doctor and a black infant, the survival rate for the infant is 99.96%. And when it’s a white doctor and a black infant, the survival rate is marginally lower — at 99.91%. So this is not a big difference we’re talking about. And more importantly, there’s a very clear explanation for the difference, which is that white doctors tend to be more highly specialized than black doctors on average. So they see the worst cases — babies in the NICU who are barely clinging to life. That’s the logical explanation for the difference in survival rates. But it never even occurs to these liars, because all they’re capable of doing is lying. They’re too busy promoting themselves and their victimhood to actually think about the issues they’re talking about. That’s especially true of the host of this “BORN TO BE DOPE!” podcast, who as I mentioned, does his show in front of a gigantic picture of himself. That actually came up at one point during this conversation. Here’s how he explains why he has a massive picture of himself right behind him, at all times. Watch: So growing up, this podcast host went to church, where he learned to be “meek” and “humble.” And then he grew out of that nonsense. Now he understands the true purpose of life. Now he realizes he was “BORN TO BE DOPE!”. Now, I’m a little rusty on my exegesis, admittedly. But I believe “born to be dope” is somewhere in 1Corinthians. So this checks out. Who needs hope, love, or faith, when you have your own doneness to fall back on? Who needs humility when you can elevate and worship yourself? That’s the foundation of DEI, after all. And remarkably, not every company has abandoned it yet. There are still dumpster fires like CBS News that have a place for this nonsense, long after every reasonable person has moved on. WATCH THE TRAILER FOR ‘AM I RACIST?’ — A MATT WALSH COMEDY ON DEI Another one of those dumpster fires, as we all know, is the federal government. They also have a use for DEI. Take FEMA, for example. As you may have heard, they’re under fire lately for completely failing to do their one job, which is to respond quickly and effectively to disasters. In fact, if anything, they’re actively impeding rescue efforts. They’ve also somehow managed to run out of money, even as they’re giving more than a billion dollars to illegal migrants. How did that happen, exactly? In recent days, a lot of people have noticed that FEMA’s top strategic priority, according to its website, is “equity.” Here’s what that looks like in practice. This is footage from an internal FEMA disaster preparedness meeting called ‘“Helping LGBTQIA+ Survivors Before Disasters.” It was held last year. Panelists included Maggie Jarry of the “Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration,” and someone named Tyler Atkins, an “Emergency Management Specialist at FEMA” who uses he/they pronouns. Watch: ““The shift we’re seeing right now is a shift in emergency services from utilitarian principles — where everything is designed for the greatest good for the greatest amount of people — to disaster equity. But we have to do more.” That’s a quote that needs to be repeated every day until this entire organization is dismantled. They’re openly admitting they don’t want to help as many people as they can. They’re saying that some people deserve to suffer during disasters — specifically, American citizens (and particularly straight white males, we can assume). Illegal aliens, meanwhile, get to loot the treasury. They get more than a billion dollars, while FEMA runs out of money for American citizens. This is the anti-American, anti-human ideology that defines DEI. That’s always been the case, ever since DEI became a multi-billion dollar industry. What’s changed is that almost everyone realizes this now. The only organizations that are still clinging to DEI, at least publicly, are some of the most dysfunctional places on the planet. And I don’t need to make another movie mocking their DEI programs, because at this point, they’re doing a great job of that on their own. So no, I’m not secretly leading the DEI session at CBS News today. I won’t be infiltrating FEMA any time soon. That’s the good news for the people running the DEI scams at these organizations. The bad news — the news that spells the end for their entire industry — is that, with or without my involvement, the rest of the country is now united in laughing at them.

Amazon is starting the Holiday season early with their Prime Day promotion starting today. Jeremy’s Razors has been dominating the market there and is offering the Precision 5 Razor for 30% off on Amazon for the next 48 hours! Plus, JeremysRazors.com is matching the sale with 30% off site wide! There are enough woke razor companies – ahem, Gillette, Harry’s — so stop giving those companies your hard-earned money and rewarding their Left-wing bent. Trust your shave to us. Because at Jeremy’s, we know there are only two genders, and only one and a half of them need to shave their mustaches. Jeremy’s Razors are engineered for the man who knows what he wants — a razor that delivers a clean, close shave, without the blatant virtue-signaling. This isn’t just another razor, it’s a statement. But also it’s a premium quality razor. The Precision 5 Blade Razor has loads of rave reviews. Peter wrote in saying how he’s “skeptical” of new razors but was pleasantly blown away by the shave he got with his Precision 5. “This razor gives me the best shave ever with the least amount of effort. I’m ecstatic with the results. I’m not sure how they do it, whether it’s blade spacing, the angle of the edge, or some material breakthrough, but the results are noteworthy,” he wrote. JCS agreed, writing of his shave experience, “I admit to [switching] because of ideology. Will NEVER buy Gillette again after they went woke and demeaned the men that make up their customers. But now I’m thankful for the reason to switch. This second-gen of Jeremy’s razor is excellent. My non-partisan review is that this is the best [razor] I have ever used.” This is all thanks to the 5 coated stainless steel blades with lubricating strips infused with Argan oil and aloe, a head that comfortably pivots without caving, and an ergonomic handle for maximum control and durability.  But on JeremysRazors.com, the deal continues with Buy One Get One shaving cream, body wash, and post-shave balm. Plus, for the next 48 hours, you can save 30% off of Jeremy’s best-selling deodorant, hand soap, and beard products. This is the BIGGEST DISCOUNT on the new, 2nd Gen Precision 5 & Sprint 3 Razors. If you have put off joining the parallel economy, now is your chance to join in to fight the left and build the future.  Christmas is right around the corner, and whether it’s a gift for your dad, brother, husband, or friend, or if you’re just buying for yourself, Jeremy’s Razors makes the perfect gift for men who believe in a quality shave without compromising their principles. This Prime Day, skip the woke brands and pick out something you’ll actually feel good about buying.  Why settle for brands that promote woke ideologies? Keep your high standards and strong convictions when you pick out your new Jeremy’s razor today.  Jeremy’s Razors shares common ownership with The Daily Wire.  

Jonathan Dekel-Chen said his life has been a “living hell” since his son, Sagui Dekel-Chen — an American citizen — was taken hostage from Kibbutz Nir Oz by Hamas terrorists one year ago. “It’s our own crisis of having a hostage that we know nothing of his fate. Our homes were destroyed. Most of our property [was] either looted or burned by the looters, and we’ve lost our way of life,” Dekel-Chen told The Daily Wire. Jonathan Dekel-Chen said his life has been a “living hell” since his son, Sagui Dekel-Chen — an American citizen — was taken hostage from Kibbutz Nir Oz by Hamas terrorists one year ago. My interview with him: pic.twitter.com/CJX7pYCV27 — Kassy Akiva (@KassyAkiva) October 8, 2024 Dekel-Chen, who also lived in Kibbutz Nir Oz, said the entire community is “completely traumatized” because there is “not a single household that wasn’t touched, either by someone being murdered, or taken hostage, or both.” “We don’t know what the future holds for any of us. So it’s been a year of agony,” said Dekel-Chen, a professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.  When Hamas terrorists entered Nir Oz, 36-year-old Sagui put his pregnant wife Avital and their children in a safe room and went to defend the kibbutz. He was then taken hostage by Hamas. His family has not received news of his condition since November, when freed hostages said they saw him wounded. Dekel-Chen said his son was heavily involved in serving the Jewish and Arab Bedouin communities of southern Israel, and was working on converting old buses to usable objects for underserved communities on the morning of October 7. “He’s the son that any parent would dream of,” Dekel-Chen said. “It’s such a terrible waste that he and another 100 — almost all of them civilians — have had their lives and the lives of their families destroyed this way.” During his speech at the Remembering October 7 event hosted Monday by the Philos Project in Washington, D.C., Dekel-Chen said he often wonders how much Saugi knew in captivity about the fate of the rest of his family. “Ever since he was taken, I ask myself, what does he know? Does he know that his wife and two young daughters or anyone from [nearby] all survived the massacre? Does he know that his youngest daughter, Shahar, which means Dawn in Hebrew, was born in mid-December?” He added that he and the residents of Nir Oz feel like “refugees in our own country.” Out of the about 400 residents of Nir Oz, 51 were murdered and 79 others were taken hostage, according to Dekel-Chen. Twenty-six people are still in captivity. “Hamas and the civilian looters from Gaza reduced us in one day from a hyper-productive proud farming community to a smoldering shell by the afternoon of October 7,” Dekel-Chen, who lived in Connecticut before moving to Israel, said. He added that he wishes the governments of Israel and the United States would do more to free the hostages. “I must humbly ask for more: for you to dig deeper, fight harder for the hostages and for the future of Israel,” he said. “I do not seek revenge. I seek justice. Justice for the hostages. For their families. For the simple right to be free and to live in a Jewish state that protects its citizens even when it requires political courage from our leaders in Israel.”

The Maryland Department of State Police (MDSP) agreed to shell out $2.75 million in back pay to black applicants who failed a simple written test and female applicants who failed a basic physical test. Because black applicants failed the written test at a higher rate than white applicants, and female applicants failed the physical test at a higher rate than male applicants, the U.S. Department of Justice determined the tests were racist and sexist. Last week, the DOJ announced that it had reached a settlement agreement with the MDSP that included paying those who failed the test $2.75 million in back pay as if they would have been hired had they not failed the tests, and changing the tests so that equal numbers of black applicants and female applicants pass, among other provisions. The written test, called the Police Officer Selection Test (POST), consists of 75 questions and includes a basic math, reading comprehension, and grammar section. It also has a short section about writing police reports. Applicants need only an aggregate score of 70% on all components to pass, as well as a 70% score on each of the reading, grammar, and report writing components. A copy of the test found online includes early grade-school level math and reading comprehension questions. The first sample test question is about basic time-telling skills. Maryland Department of State Police Several questions following that sample include simple math skills. Maryland Department of State Police The sample test questions for reading comprehension include a few paragraphs that include the answers in the provided paragraph. The section about filling out police reports includes a blank copy of a police report and a paragraph about a reported crime. Applicants would then be asked questions the answers for which could be found in the paragraph. The grammar section asks only the most basic questions, requiring applicants to know the difference between “its” and “it’s,” as well as simple conjugation (the test does not use the word “conjugation”) and spelling. Maryland Department of State Police According to the lawsuit against the MDSP, applicants can take the POST up to four times within a 12-month period. If they fail to get 70% on those four attempts, they must wait one year from the final failure date in order to try again. Failing this test will also prevent them from moving forward in the hiring process. Since 2017, according to the lawsuit, approximately 91% of white applicants passed the POST at least once, compared to just 71% of black applicants. Because of this disparate impact — and without showing how a test about basic math and reading skills can be racist — the DOJ determined the MDSP violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, claiming the test discriminated against black applicants. Am I Racist? Is In Theaters NOW — Get Your Tickets Here! As for the physical test, applicants were required to complete 18 push-ups within a minute, 27 sit-ups within a minute, reach about 1.5 inches beyond their toes while sitting, and run 1.5 miles within 15 minutes and 20 seconds. Applicants were allowed to take the physical test up to three times in a given year, and would not move forward in the application process if they failed all three times. According to the lawsuit, 81% of male applicants passed the physical test at least once, compared to only 51% of female applicants. Using the same logic as the written test, the DOJ determined the physical test was somehow discriminatory because women failed at a higher rate than men. DOJ argued that “using the POST as a pass/fail screening device for its selection of entry-level troopers which (i) results in a disparate impact on African-American candidates, (ii) is not job related for the position in question or consistent with business necessity, and (iii) does not otherwise meet the requirements of Section 703(k) of Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(k).” The DOJ similarly argued that the physical test “as a pass/fail screening device for its selection of entry-level troopers which (i) results in a disparate impact on female candidates, (ii) is not job related for the position in question or consistent with business necessity, and (iii) does not otherwise meet the requirements of Section 703(k) of Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(k).” The MDSP agreed to a settlement with the DOJ, and must now provide written and physical tests that result in similar pass/fail rates for applicants regardless of sex or race — it is unclear how the MDSP can accomplish that without reducing standards. The MDSP must also provide data to the DOJ about its new tests to ensure it is complying with the DOJ’s demands, pay $2.75 million in back pay to applicants who failed the test and therefore weren’t hired (the assumption being they would have otherwise been hired), and hire up to 25 of the failed applicants. One option for the MDSP is to adopt the physical test required of the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, which lowered its standards to attract more female applicants, The Daily Wire previously reported. The previous physical test in Nashville was similar to the one in Maryland, but the new test — called an “agility” test — “consists of a 99-yard agility run, a rescue simulation (dummy drag), chain link fence climb, solid wall climb and a 500 yard run,” according to the MNPD. When Nashville implemented the different test, the fail rate fell from 6% to 2%.

Michigan Democratic Congresswoman and Senate candidate Elissa Slotkin remains ahead of Republican Mike Rogers, but her lead has dwindled by 5 points since late August, according to poll results published by The Detroit News on Monday. The Detroit News and WDIV-TV poll, which was conducted between October 1-4, showed Slotkin at 46.8% among likely Michigan voters to Rogers’ 43.3%. Slotkin’s 3.5-point lead over the Republican in the latest poll is a big drop from her 8.5-point lead over Rogers in a Detroit News poll conducted at the end of August. The poll suggests that Rogers has picked up significant support from voters who were undecided in late August. In the Detroit News’ August poll, Rogers was at 35% to Slotkin’s 43.5% while 15% of respondents said they were still undecided. In the newest poll, only 5.4% of respondents said they were still undecided as Rogers’ support jumped to 43.3%. Rogers has also started to close the gap in the RealClearPolitics average of polls, where he is just 3 points behind Slotkin as of Tuesday afternoon after trailing by 5 points in mid-September. The Rogers campaign is benefitting from conservative political action committees dumping $30 million into the race. The Great Lakes Conservative Fund, a super PAC, spent $8 million on statewide ads last week, Axios reported. That ad buy came after Mitch McConnell-aligned Senate Leadership Fund started to spend $22.5 million in Michigan to boost Rogers, according to The Wall Street Journal. The Detroit News poll comes shortly after Slotkin warned donors on a call that her campaign’s internal polling shows Vice President Kamala Harris “underwater” in Michigan. “I’m not feeling my best right now about where we are in Kamala Harris in a place like Michigan. We have her underwater in our polling,” Slotkin said last month. Am I Racist? Is In Theaters NOW — Get Your Tickets Here! Rogers has recently focused his attention on hitting Slotkin over comments she has made on electric vehicles, a major issue for Michigan’s economy. In a new ad, Slotkin pushes back on EV mandates, saying, “No one should tell us what to buy, and no one is gonna mandate anything.” In September, however, Slotkin voted against a bipartisan bill that would have blocked the Biden-Harris administration from requiring two-thirds of new vehicles sold in the U.S. to be electric, Fox News reported. “Michigan voters understand Slotkin’s lip service in an election year doesn’t match her actions in Washington. Voters recognize Mike Rogers has their back when it comes to fighting the job killing EV mandate, securing the border, and fixing the economy,” Rogers For Senate Press Secretary Kate DeTurk said in a statement shared with The Daily Wire. The Michigan Senate race, along with the Ohio and Wisconsin Senate races, is considered a “toss-up,” according to Cook Political Report. Republicans are looking to flip the seats from Democrats in all of those races.