They’re so used to presenting one side of the issue that they find anything else to be anathema. They’re used to journalism as leftist activism. For most of them, I bet it’s what they’ve been explicitly taught.
CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss created a firestorm when she recently pulled a 60 Minutes piece about illegal aliens and CECOT, the prison in El Salvador.
Weiss made it clear in a memo to staff this week that she expected more from them in that story and what they put out to the public. One of the main things that she thought was missing in the piece was a new comment from the Trump administration.
One of the people on the story, Sharyn Alfonsi, apparently wrote to colleagues saying they had tried to get administration comments but there was no answer, and “Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story.”
However, guess what? The administration had answered. Fancy that:
According to Axios, the Trump administration provided three on-the-record statements from the White House, State Department, and Department of Homeland Security. There was even a more than 300-word statement from DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. None of that was included in the final story.
I would guess that the vast majority of people working in that newsroom find it horrific to have to present the point of view of this administration as part of their stories – unless, of course, it makes the administration look bad or they can twist the answer in order to make the administration look bad. The idea that the boss would call them to task for that sort of behavior is probably extremely new to them, and abhorrent.
In a marathon interview on “The Shawn Ryan Show” released Monday, the former first son said the Biden-era immigration approach became “a disaster” and acknowledged the chaotic Kabul exit that left 13 U.S. service members dead was “an obvious” failure.
Hunter Biden argued the U.S. needs “vibrant” legal immigration but warned the country “doesn’t want immigrants that are coming here illegally, draining us of resources” and being “prioritized above” veterans and other Americans struggling at home.
(2) If you’re curious about those weight-loss drugs like Ozempic, this video seems to me to be the most reasonable source of information I’ve seen so far:
(3) The head of security for Brown University, Rodney Chatman, has been placed on leave pending investigation. I wrote about Chatman previously in this post.
… 98 mayors across Minnesota have sounded the alarm in a no-nonsense letter to Walz and state lawmakers, blistering the state’s fiscal mismanagement. The distraught mayors warned that what was once an $18 billion surplus has not only vanished under the far-left governor’s watch; the surplus has been replaced by a projected $3 billion deficit for the 2028–29 budget cycle.
The mayors went bottom-line, warning that Walz’s policies have strained their cities, harmed residents, and pushed Minnesota down in national economic rankings — evidence, they said, of the state government racing headlong toward “fiscal disaster.”
I have a feeling – or is it a hope? – that Candace Owens’ recent spewings may alienate even some of her real followers (as opposed to the bots). The context was that Ben Shapiro called her out for her hateful mendacity, at a recent TPUSA event, and this was her response.
Why do I highlight this? It’s disturbing to watch, but this woman does have influence on many people who celebrate her (hard to say how many because her audience is so bot-heavy). In this most recent clip, she’s also very obviously trying to incite a race war of black people against Jews:
Now that you’ve digested that, this is the book she’s holding up:
Der Talmudjude, by anti-Jewish German Catholic theologian August Rohling, claimed that the Talmud commanded Jews to steal, lie, cheat, and kill Christians.
Rohling had repeatedly spread the libel that Jews consumed human blood in murder rituals. The theologian’s scholarship was cast into doubt during a failed libel suit against one of his detractors, but Der Talmudjude has remained a mainstay of antisemitic texts.
The book was written in 1871 and was a Nazi favorite:
In addition there have been fabricated interpretations such as the 19th-century antisemitic book “The Talmudic Jew” by German Catholic theologian August Rohling, a popular text with the anti-Jewish newspaper Der Stürmer in the years leading up to the Holocaust and the rise of the Third Reich.
And there it was, one of the digital right’s best-known figures, a woman with more than five million YouTube subscribers, hawking a book full of anti-Semitic lies. Rohling was a German Catholic theologian. He was an infamous Jew-hater. The Talmudic Jew depicts the Talmud as a ‘repository of anti-Christian hatred’ and a ‘manual for swindling Gentiles’, says Hussein Aboubakr Mansour. And of course it’s fraudulent, Mansour writes. It relies on ‘medieval anti-Jewish polemics and out-of-context quotations’.
Rohling later wrote a hateful pamphlet on the ‘human sacrifices’ carried out by rabbis. The Jews do indeed engage in the ritual murder of Christian children, he wrote. It was a pseudo-academic revival of the medieval blood libel. And it helped to whip up Jewphobic animus across Germany and beyond. That a 21st-century right-winger is citing this Jew-hater – worse, actively promoting his work – is extraordinary.
Perhaps no book has excited the intrigue of antisemites quite like the Talmud and which became its own self-contained myth. Just the mention of “the Talmud” is bound to conjure up worlds. It is difficult to say exactly why. Its sheer inaccessibility, certainly—the alien script running right to left like a mirror of proper reading. To European eyes it has always carried the aura of the esoteric, something halfway between scripture and spellbook. The very look of it suggests secrets. Perhaps that Jews possessed a textual tradition beyond the Bible, an “oral law” whispered down through generations and only later committed to writing, was itself suspect: what were they hiding? What had they added?
But the fantasy of the Talmud has always exceeded the Talmud itself. As a matter of fact, the real Talmud is a big disappointment compared to the muscular, mythological one; we would do better to make the distinction between the Talmud of reality and that of myth. One opens the former expecting occult mysteries and finds rabbis arguing about liability for damages caused by an ox. The gap between the myth and the text is so vast that one suspects the myth requires the text to remain unread. Rohling understood this, perhaps instinctively: his readers would never check.
Rohling claimed expertise in rabbinical literature that he did not have. His interpretations of Hebrew texts were dilettantish at best, fraudulent at worst. He relied heavily on medieval anti-Jewish polemics and on out-of-context quotations ripped from the vast sea of Talmudic disputation. The truth is, he likely never actually read the Talmud.
The Talmud is not a catechism; it is a record of centuries of legal debate among rabbis, filled with minority opinions, hypothetical arguments, and positions that were never adopted as normative practice. It is the definition of pedantry, written primarily in Aramaic, a language Rohling could not read, with Hebrew interspersed, in a terse and allusive style that presupposes familiarity with an entire tradition of commentary. It dwells, for pages—volumes, really—on the most mundane and technical details of daily life: the proper handling of food, the timing of prayers, the laws governing agricultural cycles, rules for feasts and holidays, the conditions under which an egg laid on a festival day may or may not be eaten, if and how to carry things on the Sabbath in what kind of vessel. It endlessly argues over these riveting and exhilarating questions. So exciting to read it should really come with a heart rate monitor. To extract from this a simple set of commands—”Jews must swindle Christians”—is not to misread the Talmud; it is to have never encountered it at all. It is to have read about it in other books written by other people who also never read it, which is likely what Rohling did.
But I noticed this sort of Jew-hatred online long long ago, at least as long as I’ve been blogging. There’s been a huge genre of web-based propaganda about the Talmud and how Jews are evil and their evil is expressed in the Talmud, and it’s probably based on books such as Rohling’s. I am relatively sure these falsehoods have been spread worldwide on the internet long before Owens got into the act, although she’s certainly doing her bit to spread the venomous stuff still further.
The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that “Venezuelan oil exports are at risk thanks to a partial blockade targeting sanctioned tankers — the kind that carry about 70% of the country’s crude.” The story continued, “Were Venezuela’s oil shipments to stop, or sharply decline, the Cubans know it would be devastating.”
Cuban exile and energy expert Jorge Piñón told the Journal, “It would be the collapse of the Cuban economy, no question about it.”
Communist Cuba has relied on foreign benefactors to stay afloat, pretty much since Fidel Castro and his butcher boys like Che Guevara seized power more than 60 years ago. In recent years, the regime — ruled since 2018 by Communist party chief Miguel Díaz-Canel — relies on the largess of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro for cheap oil the country can’t afford to buy at market price.
An elderly woman was savagely attacked in broad daylight by a man wielding a wooden board with nails in it.
Jeanette Marken, 75, was left permanently blinded in her right eye after being hit in the face with the makeshift weapon in Seattle, allegedly at the hands of repeat offender Fale Vaigalepa Pea, 42.
Family members told KOMO that a screw sticking out of the board gouged out Marken’s eye, and after several surgeries she was told she will not recover her eyesight in the eye. …
Police said Pea was ‘notorious’ for attacking random victims on Third Avenue in Seattle.
The bodycam footage showed a paramedic question the officer after he recognized Pea, asking: ‘Who is this guy?’
‘He’s a regular. He usually punches,’ the officer responds.
‘I guess today he decided to escalate from his usual.’
According to KOMO, Pea’s string of offenses dates back to 2011, when he stabbed two people at a party.
One of the victims in that attack was stabbed eight times, yet despite a jury finding Pea guilty of the savage attack, he received a sentence of just 18-months community custody.
Pea continued racking up criminal offenses over the years, including one in 2020, four in 2023, and one in 2024.
This year, the King County jail reported that Pea has been booked into custody a staggering eight times, for offenses including assault, indecent exposure, drug offenses, and property destruction.
However, KOMO reported Seattle Municipal Court and King County Superior Court records show none of his arrests this year resulted in charges – until the alleged attack on Marken.
This story is very familiar. Our criminal justice system in blue cities seems to be broken, and innocent citizens pay the price. This is not an accident; it’s a policy decision.
A Georgia woman suffered severe burns to her face and body after being doused with a toxic chemical in a random attack while she was strolling through a park — and her sadistic assailant is still on the loose.
Ashley Wasielewski, 46, was walking laps around Forsyth Park in Savannah Wednesday night after attending a Christmas program at a nearby church when a stranger approached her from behind and poured the corrosive liquid over her head, according to her devastated friends and family.
The perp is still at large. There’s a blurry photo of a suspect at the link; I can’t tell much from it. But my guess is that it’s another serial offender. These attacks, as far as I can tell, are often on white women or Asian women – at least, the ones that are reported.
[NOTE: Regulars here may remember that most years I put up a family Christmas recipe. And here it is again.]
This recipe was brought over from Germany sometime in the mid-1800s, and was my favorite of all the wonderful treats cooked by my great-aunt, a baker of rare gifts. She and my great-uncle were not only exceptionally wonderful people, but to my childish and wondering eyes they looked very much like Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus.
The name of the treat is lebkuchen. But it’s quite a different one from the traditional recipe, which I don’t much care for. This is sweet and dense, can be made ahead, and keeps very well when stored in tins.
Flora’s Lebkuchen:
(preheat the oven to 375 degrees)
1 pound dark brown sugar
4 eggs
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
4 oz. chopped dates
1 cup raisins
1 tsp. orange juice
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. almond extract
1 tsp. lemon juice
Sift the dry ingredients together (flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon).
Beat the eggs and brown sugar together with a rotary beater till the mixture forms the ribbon. Add the orange juice, lemon juice, and extracts to it.
Add the dry mixture to it, a little at a time, stirring.
Add the raisins, dates, and walnuts.
Grease and flour two 8 X 8 cake pans [NOTE: In previous years I sometimes said 9 X 9, but 8 X 8 is actually much better and makes for a far moister product.] Put batter in pans and bake for about 25 minutes (or a little less; test the cake with a cake tester at 21 or 22 minutes to see if it’s done yet). You don’t want it to get too dark and dry on the edges, but the middle can’t still be wet when tested.
Meanwhile, make the frosting.
Melt about 6 Tbs. of unsalted butter and add 2 Tbs. hot milk, and 1 Tbs. almond extract. Add enough confectioner’s sugar to make a frosting of spreading consistency (the recipe says “2 cups,” but I’ve always noticed that’s not exactly correct). You can make even more frosting if you like a lot of frosting.
Let cake cool to at least lukewarm, and spread generously with the frosting. Then cut into small pieces and store (or eat!).
“Tucker’s a friend of mine,” [Vance] told Ahmari. “And do I have disagreements with Tucker Carlson? Sure. I have disagreements with most of my friends, especially those who work in politics. You know this. Most people who know me know this. I’m [also] a very loyal person, and I am not going to get into the business of throwing friends under the bus.”
I had no idea that friends can’t be criticized when they lie publicly and often. “My friend, right or wrong” isn’t a principle of which I’m aware. When your friend is doing something mendacious and destructive, and it’s public and influential, it’s moral cowardice to say nothing.
Of course, this isn’t really about friendship. I think I’m on safe ground when I say that. Tucker Carlson isn’t all that charming. What’s happening here, I believe, is that Vance doesn’t want to alienate Carlson’s Jew-hating supporters. They vote too, right? I don’t know how numerous they are, But J. D. must believe they are numerous enough that he needs them in the coalition. It’s true that Vance and others are in a bind, if this group is large enough that it’s necessary for victory. But they’re going to alienate a lot of other people in the process, and not just Jews.
More from Vance:
Vance noted further that “the idea that Tucker Carlson — who has one of the largest podcasts in the world, who has millions of listeners, who supported Donald Trump in the 2024 election, who supported me in the 2024 election — the idea that his views are somehow completely anathema to conservatism, that he has no place in the conservative movement, is frankly absurd.”
Meanwhile, the latest from good old friend Tucker to help you make up your own mind as to whether Carlson has a place in “the conservative movement”:
Pernicious mendacious garbage. The Qataris must love it, though.
My email, which is at Yahoo, isn’t loading on my computer.. I’m out of town but haven’t had trouble with it till today, and I’ve been in the same place for several days. Anyone else with yahoo email having trouble at the moment?
