Victor Davis Hanson.

The diversity, equity, and inclusion project, often seen as a major element of the so-called “woke” creed along with green fanaticism, keeps popping up as a possible subtext in a variety of recent tragedies.

In the case of the Los Angeles fires, Mayor Karen Bass, who cut the fire department budget, was warned of the mounting fire dangers of the Santa Anna winds and parched brush on surrounding hillsides. No matter—she junketed in Uganda. When furor followed, on cue, her defenders decried a racialist attack on “a black woman.”

Her possible stand-in deputy mayor for “security” was under suspension for allegations that he called in a bomb threat to the Los Angeles city council—a factor mysteriously forgotten.

ZMan is having fun.

a character in the Asimov novels called The Mule. This was a character called the “destroyer of worlds” because he literally destroyed whole worlds, but he also destroyed the conception of the world. In fact, his very existence was a threat to accepted understanding of the universe, because the universally accepted conception of the universe precluded the existence of The Mule.

This has been the issue since Trump arrived on the scene. The people atop the post-Cold War world and the post-Cold War world itself, were all based on the assumption that a political character like Trump was impossible. The days of populist, nationalist and picaresque political actors was done. The present and future belonged to the Davos persons, the boys and girls who were produced by and benefitted the most from the managerial ideology that dominated the West.

What Trump’s success in 2016 represented was the nullification of the managerial order because according to the logic of managerialism, men like Trump had no place in the system, so they could never be a threat to the system. Instead, they were marginalized to the fringes of managerial life, the place where things are made, fixed, and created to keep the mechanics of the world going. They had no place in the world where decisions were made by the great and the good.

Read it.

Lets in all sorts of riff-raff.

Last week, Donald Trump signed a new executive order which attempts to end so-called “birthright citizenship” in the United States. During the signing ceremony, Trump declared that the United States is “the only country in the world that does this with birthright…”

This is untrue and the Washington Post, among other publications, was quick to declare that Trump “falsely claimed” that the US is the only country with birthright citizenship, also known as the legal principle of unrestricted—or “pure”—jus soli.

Trump would have been accurate, however, had he said that birthright citizenship is becoming rare, and that it is especially rare among those wealthier countries that experience positive net in-migration. [Letting in a lot of riff-raff]

In many countries, as generous welfare states attract growing numbers of migrants, the idea of unrestricted jus soli has become less popular.

Indeed, Europe no longer contains any states that offer birthright citizenship, and others have added new restrictions to what jus soli provisions they have.

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Senior civil servants—permanent state employees—advising Britain’s elected home secretary would widen the range of targets for counter-extremism policy, all while downplaying the proven, lethal challenge posed by Islamist groups. While institutions often fail to prevent actual violence, ‘the blob’—the nickname given to the current crop of woke, publicly funded yet largely anonymous policymakers—has been revealed as keen to redefine thoughts and words as dangerous.

Last week Home Secretary Yvette Cooper denied incorporating an extensive and now-public rogues’ gallery of types of wrong-think (and worse) into policy. Yet it was she who in August 2024 commissioned a “Rapid Analytical Sprint” approach to extremism, prompting her advisers to cook up a hit list of problematic ideas. Security minister Dan Jarvis also briefed Parliament that, while he didn’t know which Whitehall materials had been made public by the think-tank Policy Exchange, he would still distance them from current government policy.

Regardless of precisely which draft of the report was leaked to authors Andrew Gilligan and Dr Paul Stott, it is clear that Whitehall chiefs are seeking to centralise greater power for the authorities. Extremely Confused: The Government’s new counter-extremism review revealed

UnHerd.

Donald Trump returned to office issuing a range of executive orders that toughened up immigration enforcement. These include using the armed forces to facilitate deportations, boosting the number of troops at the border, and reinstating the Remain in Mexico policy, which requires asylum-seekers to apply in Mexico, while blocking those who trek to the US border. To the surprise of pundits, polls suggest robust public backing for many of these measures, not least mass deportations.

One clear reason is economic: Mass low-wage migration depresses wages, especially on the lower rungs of the labour market. Progressives would do well to come to grips with this reality, even as the Trumpians would be wise neither to overstep their mandate nor to limit their policy to showy and polarising deportation actions.

To see why, it’s worth examining the history. Between 1965 and 1995, the share of Americans who favoured lower immigration rates rose to 65%, up from a third. The shift in attitudes corresponded with a dramatic rise in low-skilled legal — and especially illegal — immigration. Migrant encounters at the US-Mexico border reached 1.64 million in 2000, more than double the rate in 1980 (the 2000 peak would be surpassed under Team Biden).

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“Indigenous knowledge,” a pseudoscience that posits Native Americans possess an innate understanding of how the world works, is thriving in California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D.) administration has contended that “Western science” must embrace “the generations of knowledge held by Indigenous communities,” according to a Washington Free Beacon review of state documents.

Since Newsom entered office six years ago, the California state government has allocated hundreds of millions of dollars on programs promoting the idea, which the state also refers to as “traditional ecological knowledge,” and has leveraged it across several government functions, including wildfire mitigation, energy development, wildlife recovery, and land conservation, the documents show. The Newsom administration has made indigenous knowledge a central pillar of its climate agenda in particular.

The extensive taxpayer-funded indigenous knowledge efforts in California, which are detailed in an intricate web of state initiatives, reports, programs, and laws, highlight just how far a fringe academic theory has proliferated throughout Democratic Party-controlled governments. While scientists describe it as “dangerous” and a rejection of the scientific method, the Biden administration forced indigenous knowledge into agencies across the federal government, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to the Department of Defense.

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An Afghan migrant in Germany whose asylum application was rejected is violent and dangerous, but he can’t be deported because… Well, just because. As a result, the local authorities have to pay €40,000 a month for private security to guard him.

Read it.

The following video is a plug for an anti-migration French magazine called Frontières, narrated by one of its reporters, Jordan Florentin. It’s a hard-sell promotion, but this brief blurb contains some useful information, and the magazine appears to be worth looking at (for those who read French).

Jonathan Turley.

For Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the weaponization of the criminal justice system has always followed a certain Casablanca pattern. Like Claude Rains as the venerable Captain Louis Renault, it is simply a matter of “rounding up the usual suspects.”

Grassley released FBI whistleblower records on Thursday showing that an anti-Trump figure, former FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Timothy Thibault, previously found to have violated the Hatch Act was a key factor in pushing the election charges brought by former Special Counsel Jack Smith.

Grassley suggested that Thibault violated protocol in opening and advancing the FBI’s initial probe into the 2020 election without sufficient predication. The investigation, called Operation Arctic Frost, was opened on April 13, 2022.

New York Times, a Voice of the Crust.

Many Americans say they do not believe the Democratic Party is focused on the economic issues that matter most to them and is instead placing too much emphasis on social issues that they consider less urgent.

Asked to identify the Democratic Party’s most important priorities, Americans most often listed abortion, L.G.B.T.Q. rights and climate change, according to a poll from The New York Times and Ipsos conducted from Jan. 2 to 10.

The issues that people cited as most important to them personally were the economy and inflation, health care and immigration, the poll found. The kinds of social causes that progressive activists have championed in recent years ranked much lower.

Canada’s Trudeau announces tariffs on US in retaliation for Trump’s tariffs (Reuters)

Global alarm, condemnation as Trump tariffs hit Mexico, Canada and China (Al Jezeera)

Canada hits back against Trump tariffs: ‘We will not back down’ (Politico)

With tariffs and threats, Trump turns on America’s closest allies (Washington Poop) Allies act like allies. Mexico and Canada don’t act like allies.

Elon Musk Plans to Take Over GSA Next—With Disturbing Plan of Action (The New Republic)

Trump administration directs 70% cut to internal OPM staffing, programs (Federal News Network)

Musk’s DOGE Accused of Seizing Sole Control of Essential Federal Databases (Truthout)

RFK Jr. confirmation could hinge on his embrace of false vaccine-autism link (Washington Poop)

The Republican doctor who could be a hurdle to RFK Jr.’s confirmation (NBC News)

RFK Jr. disparaged vaccines dozens of times in recent years and misled on race (Washington Poop) Straight-up character assassination.

“There is no common ground with fascists”: Progressives rip Klobuchar’s call for bipartisanship (Griffin Eckstein/Salon)

‘Make them pay’: Canada puts Trump’s ‘first friend’ Elon Musk’s Tesla in the crosshairs of tariff war (Business Today)

Military Strikes On Cartels Inside Mexico “On The Table”: Hegseth

Trump administration sued for halting legal aid for detained immigrants (Rachel Uranga/Los Angeles Times)

Trump Says Tariffs Are Coming on Computer Chips, Steel and More (Wall Street Journal)

‘He’s Such a P*S’: MSNBC Makes Reagan Airport Tragedy All About Trump

‘This is not right’: Outrage as major government agency accused of ‘breaking the law’ (David McAfee/Raw Story)

DOGE Staff Had Questions About the ‘Resign’ Email. Their New HR Chief Dodged Them (Makena Kelly/Wired)

John Brennan’s Protests To President Trump Lifting His Security Clearances Are Absurd

BREAKING NEWS: CDC orders mass retraction and revision of submitted research across all science and medicine journals. Banned terms must be scrubbed. (Jeremy Faust/Inside Medicine)

Trump administration gives Musk allies access to Treasury payment system (Politico)

DOJ’s deletion of Jan. 6 records triggers legal challenge (Scott Macfarlane/CBS News)

B.C. premier announces countermeasures against U.S. tariffs, including ban on ‘red-state’ liquor (CBC News)

Mexico’s President Claims She Has ‘Plan A, Plan B, Plan C’ In Response To Trump Tariffs

CDC advisers push agency to explain data removal, say when info will be restored (Usha Lee McFarling/STAT)

DOGE is ripping out the guts of government (Henry Farrell/Programmable Mutter)  Good.

Education Department employees placed on leave for attending diversity training (Bianca Quilantan/Politico)  The horror!!

U.S. Chamber: Tariffs Are Not the Answer (U.S. Chamber of Commerce)

Trump’s DEI purge targets federal workers who did not work in DEI (Washington Post)

End Appears Near for U.S. Aid Agency, Democratic Lawmakers Say (Karoun Demirjian/New York Times)

Mexican president orders retaliatory tariffs against U.S. (Reuters)

USA Today’s Report on Trump Blaming DEI for Air Crash Exposes Ugly Truth About SPLC

Stanton Leads 40+ House Democrats in Letter Calling on Trump to Immediately Rescind Tariffs on Mexico and Canada (Congressman Greg Stanton) Me! Me! Look at me!

Kristi Noem’s week-one blitz (Politico)

‘We Have No Coherent Message’: Democrats Struggle to Oppose Trump (New York Times)  Except Orange Man Bad.

Trump Favors Blunt Force in Dealing With Foreign Allies and Enemies Alike (Peter Baker/New York Times)  Very refreshing after decades of ineffective ‘nuance’.

NPR Helps MSNBC’s Chris Hayes to Trash Trump, ‘Attention Capitalism’

Hockey fans boo U.S. national anthem at Ottawa Senators game after Trump imposes tariffs (William Eltherington/CTV News)

Trump Administration to Remove 4 Major News Outlets From Pentagon Office Space (Katie Robertson/New York Times)

Memo to Elon: Know Your Boss (Jonathan Martin/Politico)

China to retaliate after Trump fires first salvo in trade war (Zia Weise/Politico)

Germany’s Pistorius pushes back on Trump’s NATO spending demand (Chris Lunday/Politico)

We do not know what exactly Elon Musk is doing to the federal government (Zachary B. Wolf/CNN)  How lame is modern ‘journalism’…?

The Logic of Destruction – What is a country? The way its people govern themselves. (Timothy Snyder/Thinking about)

Education Officials Placed on Leave in Trump’s Sprawling Effort to Curb D.E.I. (New York Times)

The Republicans’ Choice: Tax Cuts for the Rich or Health Care for Americans (Aaron E. Carroll/New York Times)

DOGE Gains Access to Payment System Doling Out Trillions to Americans (Wall Street Journal)

Trump’s Tariffs May Complicate Efforts to Tame Inflation (Colby Smith/New York Times)

Trump Kicks Aside Congress With Sweeping Claims of Presidential Power (Aaron Zitner/Wall Street Journal)

Some Hospitals Stop Transgender Surgeries On Children After Trump’s Order

Wrecking ball: Trump’s war on ‘woke’ marks US society’s plunge into ‘dark times’ (David Smith/The Guardian)

GOP pollster says Trump voters ‘tired’ of being accused of racism (Sarah Fortinsky/The Hill)

Senior USAID security officials put on leave after refusing Musk’s DOGE access to agency systems (CNN)

Trump is waging war against his own government (NBC News)  It’s not his government … yet.

The coup rolls on, but we will prevail. (Robert B. Hubbell/Today’s Edition …)

USAID security leaders on leave after trying to keep Musk’s DOGE from classified info, officials say (Ellen Knickmeyer/Associated Press)

The Young, Inexperienced Engineers Aiding Elon Musk’s Government Takeover (Vittoria Elliott/Wired)

Why Write About the Illegality of What Trump and Musk are Doing? (Samuel Bagenstos/Inside/Outside)  Because you get paid to do so?

Top F.B.I. Agent in New York Vows to ‘Dig In’ After Removals at Agency (New York Times)

Musk on USAID: ‘Time for it to die’ (Politico)

More USAID staff ousted as Trump administration dismantles aid agency (Reuters)

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New York City, Chicago and Boston are among the sanctuary cities collapsing after waves of migrants stormed across the open borders. Even cities that once boasted of providing sanctuary to illegal aliens from federal immigration enforcement are now running away from the name.

Sanctuary cities were always intended to be destructive. They were not, as many Democrats now wrongly claim, about providing safe harbor to refugees, but about bringing down America.

The sanctuary cities did not emerge in response to the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide or any actual genocide, but to provide support and sanctuary for Marxists fleeing the civil wars they had started in Latin America, and then later for Islamic terrorists after September 11.

Sanctuary cities were not about helping refugees, but about harboring America’s enemies.

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Senator Chuck Schumer is a lawyer, so presumably he is familiar with the provisions of 18 U.S. Code § 115.

In case he has forgotten—after all, there are a lot of statutes to keep track of—Edward R. Martin, Jr., the Interim D.C. U.S. Attorney, is in the process of reminding him.

Among other things, that statute holds that anyone who threatens a federal government official or their family with the “intent to impede, intimidate, or interfere with such official, judge, or law enforcement officer while engaged in the performance of official duties, or with intent to retaliate against such official, judge, or law enforcement officer on account of the performance of official duties,” shall be punished with a term in the slammer, the length of the sentence being dependent on the actual harm caused.

When the Supreme Court was hearing an abortion case in March 2020, Schumer showed up at a protest rally in front of the Court and shouted, “I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh: You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price.”

Perhaps Nicholas John Roske had that speech in mind in June 2022. It was then that he traveled from California to Maryland to pay the Kavanaughs a visit. It was not intended to be a friendly visit. In the dead of night, he took a taxi to their home. According to the court filing, he carried a suitcase in which was a “black tactical chest rig and tactical knife, a Glock 17 pistol with two magazines and ammunition, pepper spray, zip ties, a hammer, screwdriver, nail punch, crowbar, pistol light, duct tape, hiking boots with padding on the outside of the soles, and other items.”

When apprehended, Roske admitted that he had come to kill Brett Kavanaugh. I wonder what Chuck Schumer thought of that. It looks like Edward Martin is going to find out. On Friday, Martin announced not only that he was firing more than two dozen federal prosecutors; he also announced that he was opening an investigation into Schumer for his threats against two U.S. Supreme Court justices. For most mortals, issuing such threats would earn one a visit from the authorities.

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Trump signed an Executive Order to build an Iron Dome for America, which aims to defend the homeland “against ballistic, hypersonic, advanced cruise missiles, and other next-generation aerial attacks.”

And about fucking time, too.

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In the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s new policy against transgenders serving in the military, MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell gave an unchallenged forum to Delaware U.S. Representative Sarah McBride to trash Republicans for acting on the issue.

Washington Poop, a Voice of the Crust.

The framers of the Constitution imagined Congress as the preeminent branch of government. But many Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill seem content to play second fiddle.

That hasn’t been true since Wilson (a Democrat) and FDR (a Democrat). Try to keep up, guys.

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YACBDP (Yet Another Corrupt Black Democrat Politician).

Be the first on your block to collect the complete set.

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The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) on Saturday said it will stop e-mailing news organizations and reporters with updates about two plane crashes that occurred earlier this week.

Moving forward, the federal agency tasked with investigating transportation-related accidents and disasters said news organizations and reporters will have to follow the agency’s official account on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, where “all NTSB updates about news conferences or other investigative information” will be posted moving forward.

The NTSB did not say why it was choosing to post information about public safety matters exclusively on X, a private social media platform owned by technology mogul Elon Musk, who has curried favor with President Donald Trump in recent weeks. The Desk has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the government agency to learn more about the NTSB’s decision-making process in moving updates to the news media exclusively to X.d

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They’ve hacked everything else in the U.S., so why would we be surprised to find out that patient health data collected by Chinese-made health monitors was being sent, via ‘backdoor’ to China.

Now China has access to Janet Yellen’s photos (god we hope there’s no nudes) and your blood pressure on a random Tuesday.

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) warns that Contec CMS8000, a widely used patient monitoring device, contains a backdoor that transmits patient data to a remote IP and downloads executable files, according to BleepingComputer.

Suddenly I don’t trust my iPhone….

Read it.

John Harold Rogers, 63, worked for 11 years as a senior advisor for the international finance division of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, the main governing body for the U.S. central bank.

A federal indictment alleged that Rogers began working with Chinese conspirators since at least 2018. The Chinese handlers worked for the Chinese intelligence and security apparatus and posed as graduate students at a Chinese university, according to the filing.

Rogers, in the collaboration, allegedly solicited trade-secret information that included proprietary economic data sets, China tariff deliberations, and briefing books for specific board governors. He also allegedly solicited internal discussions and forthcoming announcements from the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), a 12-member body consisting of the seven Federal Reserve board of governors, the New York Federal Reserve Bank president, and four of the remaining 11 Reserve Bank presidents that rotate on an annual basis.

New York Times, a Voice of the Crust.

In its heyday, The Star-Ledger, New Jersey’s longtime paper of record, boasted the nation’s largest State House bureau, an enviable circulation and enough editorial clout to alter the trajectory of the region’s defining infrastructure projects and environmental preservation efforts.

Reporters were well paid and often remained at the paper throughout the arc of their careers, imbuing The Ledger’s news coverage with institutional memory and gravitas, even as its thick, zoned editions were crammed with mundane dispatches from the state’s quilt of tiny towns and big cities.

On Sunday, The Ledger’s nearly century-long run as New Jersey’s dominant newspaper will come to an end when it prints its final edition and shifts to an online-only format. Its editorial board will vanish, as will its clippable sports photos and pages of printed obituaries.

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“Follow the science” is a common chorus among progressives. But often they, not those they moralize against, are the real science deniers.

Take progressive prosecutors. Many, like George Gascon in Los Angeles, tout their soft-on-crime policies as “data driven” or “scientifically backed.”

Yet this is a complete hoax. These prosecutors cite studies that are misleading, non-replicable, non-peer-reviewed, or entirely disproven.

ZMan:

The thing I am watching is the Musk takeover of the IT systems. The crazies are freaking out over this and maybe with good reason. The amount of collusion between the government, social media employees and the domestic terrorist doxing and stalking people is something that has never got much attention, but that could change. At least that is something the crazies fear. Then you have the billions that flow into underwriting the crazies from the government.
We now live in interesting times.

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fighting a class action lawsuit alleging it denied 1,000 people air traffic controller jobs based on diversity hiring targets, according to the New York Post.

The lawsuit, originally filed in 2015, resurfaced following a fatal midair collision in Washington, DC, that claimed 67 lives—the deadliest U.S. aviation disaster in nearly 25 years. Hours later, a small private plane crashed in Northeast Philadelphia, putting emphasis on the role of air traffic control.

At the time of the blackhawk helicopter incident, staffing levels were reportedly “not normal.” Andrew Brigida, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, criticized the FAA’s focus on diversity and inclusion, suggesting it contributed to the likelihood of such an accident.

The New York Post report says that the lawsuit claims the FAA, under the Obama administration, replaced a skill-based hiring system with a “biographical assessment” to increase minority hires.

The Other McCain.

There are layers and layers to the story of the radical vegan transgender death cult known as “Zizians,” whose existence became newsworthy after two reputed associates of the cult, Teresa “Milo” Youngblut and Felix “Ophelia” Bauckholt, got into a shootout in Vermont that killed a Border Patrol agent on Jan. 20. In the first few days after the shootout, in which Bauckholt was also killed, the news accounts were mysterious. What were Youngblut, a Seattle native, and Bauckholt, a German citizen in the U.S. on a work visa, doing up in Vermont near the Canadian border?

Jessica Taylor (@jessi_cata), who knew Bauckholt in New York City circa 2022 and tried to warn him about the cult following of Jack “Ziz” LaSota, connected the dots early, but it was Andy Ngo who was the first journalist to follow up on Taylor’s information.

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Amanda Lefton, the former director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), went to work for a major offshore wind company after the agency boosted the industry and worked to limit offshore fossil fuel development on her watch.

Lefton spearheaded the Biden administration’s effort to build out 30 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity along America’s coasts by 2030 in her capacity as the leader of BOEM, playing a key role in the administration’s all-of-government offshore wind push from February 2021 to February 2023, according to her LinkedIn profile. She then went to work on green energy-related issues for Foley Hoag LLC — a major D.C. law firm — for approximately six months and then joined RWE, a major player in the offshore wind space, as the head of development for the east coast in July 2023.

This is hardly surprising given the incestuous relations between the Biden BOEM and the wind industry. On Ms. Lefton’s watch the agency helped rush the so-far disastrous Vineyard Wind project through. BOEM even waived the financial assurance requirements intended to protect the taxpayers from the costs of decommissioning the project when complete (while, in the Gulf, it was modifying those same requirements in an attempt to drive small oil and gas companies out of business),” Michael Chamberlain, director of Protect the Public’s Trust, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Former Deputy Secretary of the Interior Tommy Beaudreau, her boss during most of her tenure at BOEM, had previously represented Vineyard Wind. This revolving door has been spinning everywhere the Biden administration and the climate sector meet. The players remain the same, the only thing that changes is who signs the paychecks.”

“And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.” — Luke 16:9.

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The Salafi jihadist group Hurras al-Din, Syria’s official al-Qaeda affiliate, announced this week that it was dissolving, saying its goals were complete following the regime change that ousted former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“[T]he sons of the Al-Qaeda Jihad organization rushed to support the people of the Levant and assist them in removing injustice from them until God permitted this Sunni Muslim people to triumph over one of the most unjust tyrants of the modern era,” Hurras al-Din said in a statement.

The group said al-Qaeda had ordered it to dissolve. “In light of these developments on the Levantine scene, and by an emir’s decision from the general command of al-Qaeda in the Levant organization, we announce to our Muslim nation and to the Sunnis in the Levant the dissolution of the Guardians of Religion Organization (Hurras al-Din),” the group said.

As long as Islam exists, ‘jihadis’ will be a problem. It’s been that way for 1400 years, and there is no indication that it will change. Whether our Ruling Class will continue prating how ‘peaceful’ Muslims are while ignoring the mass murder, or whether they will wake up and decide to do something about it, is an exercise left for the reader. (Exercise that doesn’t raise a sweat–my favorite kind.)

The Atlantic, a Voice of the Crust.

The Democrats are angry. Well, at least some of them.

For months, party activists have felt bitter about Kamala Harris’s election loss, and incensed at the leaders who first went along with Joe Biden’s decision to run again. They feel fresh outrage each time a new detail is revealed about the then-81-year-old’s enfeeblement and its concealment by the advisers in charge. But right now, what’s making these Democrats angriest is that many of their elected leaders don’t seem angry at all.

For all the people in Watts’s camp, the party’s response to Donald Trump’s first 12 days in office has been maddening at best and demoralizing at worst. After Trump issued pardons or commutations for the January 6 rioters last week, including the ones who attacked police officers, no immediate chorus of anger came from what is supposed to be the next generation of Democratic talent, including Maryland Governor Wes Moore, California Governor Gavin Newsom, and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, another 2028 hopeful, who is on tour selling a young-adult version of her autobiography, has told interviewers, “I am not out looking for fights. I am always looking to collaborate.”

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Several anti-Israel organizations that blocked major roadways in Washington D.C. last year were slapped with a class action lawsuit Friday by a legal group representing a traveler trapped in the traffic jam.

Left-wing groups, including Jewish Voice for Peace, the Palestinian Youth Movement and its fiscal sponsor, the Westchester Political Action Committee Foundation, among others, shut down access to several major roadways in D.C. on Feb. 1, 2024, for close to an hour. A total of 23 anti-Israel activists were arrested on charges of “crowding, obstructing or incommoding.” Three were also charged with resisting arrest.

The keffiyeh-clad activists chained themselves together in the middle of highways while others linked arms with PVC pipes, forming human chains to block roads. Many of the activists held signs that said, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Must be Free,” and chanted slogans including “We Don’t Want No Jewish State” and “If We Don’t Get It, Shut It Down!”

 

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Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass’s (D.) wildfire recovery czar, Steve Soboroff, advised Hollywood talent executives on a private Zoom call to wait to sell their properties. City investments in the Palisades neighborhood, he said, will allow them to “triple” the low-ball offers they’re currently receiving.

“Whether you’re broke or you’re old, don’t sell now, because in one year we’re going to be putting billions of dollars in your neighborhood of improvements,” Soboroff said Thursday. “You’ll get triple what these guys are offering you for now.”

It appeared at least some of the call’s attendees had their homes damaged or destroyed entirely in this month’s wildfires, while others were looking for ways to help.

If the Soviet Union hadn’t been an existential threat, there wouldn’t be any NATO installations there.

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The entertainment sector has been at the core of the woke movement over the course of the last ten years, integrating Critical Race Theory, feminism, gay and trans propaganda, climate change hysteria, anti-gun rights messaging and pro-socialist rhetoric into their content at breakneck speed. There has always been progressive politics in movies and TV, but this new social justice takeover was a highly coordinated tidal wave; a Blitzkrieg of hard-left ideology into every possible media space.

One group of consumers noticed the threat very early on – Gamers picked up on the leftist subversion of their hobby almost immediately in 2013. They would go on to launch “Gamergate” in 2014, a movement to expose the feminist hijacking of games journalism and the hobby at large. They were punished for their foresight, accused of “misogyny”, “bigotry”, “racism” and even terrorism, but they were correct. There was indeed a far-left agenda to dominate the gaming world and extort companies into adopting social justice propaganda.

The plan succeeded spectacularly. Most corporations eventually folded and instituted DEI programs outright. Gaming developers were some of the worst perpetrators and their products quickly became replete with woke indoctrination. The one thing they didn’t count on, though, was a consumer revolt.

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President Donald Trump on Thursday directed the Federal Aviation Administration to assess safety standards, including evaluating hiring practices, in the wake of the midair collision over Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Wednesday night.

The presidential memorandum comes after Trump suggested the military helicopter that crashed into an American Airlines regional jet may have been due in part to the FAA’s diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

All 67 people aboard the two aircraft were killed.

“President Trump swiftly signed a memorandum directing an immediate assessment of the Federal Aviation Administration to ensure the federal government is maintaining the highest personnel and policy aviation-safety standards,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.

UPDATE: December FAA Report Cites “Urgent Need To Modernize Air Traffic Systems” I remember Newt Gingrich, at that time the new Speaker of the House, pointing out on television how far behind in technology the FAA was — and that was thirty years ago.

UPDATE: On MSNBC, Former Biden FAA Boss Doesn’t Dispute Trump’s Hiring Claims

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Homeschool families in Virginia celebrated a victory Thursday after the Virginia state Senate backed away from a bill that threatened religious exemptions for homeschoolers.

SB 1031 sought to get rid of an exemption that permits families in the state to homeschool their children because of their religious convictions. After initially voting to pass the bill, the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee acted on a motion to reconsider and voted 13-2 to pass by indefinitely on the bill, meaning the bill will not go to the Senate floor unless the committee takes the bill up again.

This comes after Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, said he would veto the bill in a statement to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been undermined by repeated leaks of his comments and policy changes since agreeing to dismantle the censorship regime at Meta. That’s not a coincidence.

Zuckerberg announced on Jan. 7 that his platforms would cut ties with pro-censorship fact-checkers, allow free speech on “topics like immigration and gender,” and make other changes to reduce censorship on the platform. Since that announcement, Meta employees have repeatedly leaked Zuckerberg’s internal communications to the media.

Among the leaked content are announcements of additional changes to dismantle woke elements on Meta platforms and even Meta’s plans to step away from discriminatory diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

Why tariffs on Mexico and Canada could drive up grocery costs, in 3 charts (CNN)

Trump builds a tariff wall (Axios)

Trump sketches unprecedented plan for sweeping tariffs (Washington Poop)

What Trump’s Trade War Would Mean, in Nine Charts (Council on Foreign Relations)

Why the Panama Canal matters (Washington Poop)

Does a ‘foreign power’ threaten the Panama Canal? Here’s what you need to know (CNN) Come get yer Narrative, right here.

Why the US is claiming China’s presence violates the Panama neutrality treaty (Reuters Canada)

Yes, really, it’s going to be called the Gulf of America (Washington Poop)

Mexican president says she sent letter to Google contesting Gulf of Mexico name change (CNN)

Chevron calls Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America in earnings release after Trump order (CNBC)

Google Maps users in U.S. will see Gulf of Mexico renamed Gulf of America and Denali changed to Mount McKinley (CBS) Yet another reason not to use Google Maps.

Trump administration purges websites across federal health agencies (NPR)  Trump obviously learned a lot from his first term.

Tennessee GOP passes immigration law to criminalize elected officials’ votes (Melissa Brown/The Tennessean)

Trump and Elon Musk Just Pulled Off Another Purge–and It’s a Scary One (Greg Sargent/New Republic)  Greg Sargent loses his shit.

Trump administration directs 70% cut to internal OPM staffing, programs (Drew Friedman/Federal News Network)

Democrat-Controlled Trade Tribunal Rules Against Menthol Vape-Maker, Contravening Trump’s Opposition to Menthol Bans

Contrarians, Assemble: Chuck Todd’s Exit From NBC Fuels Speculation of Resistance ‘Dream Team’

Trump putting ‘pause’ on most US government websites, source says (Reuters)

Interim U.S. attorney fires more than 2 dozen Jan. 6 prosecutors in D.C. (Spencer Hsu/Washington Post)

Elon Musk is reportedly taking control of the inner workings of US government agencies (Sean O’Kane/TechCrunch)

Agencies asked to scrub federal government websites to remove diversity-related content (CBS News)

Trump administration forces out multiple senior FBI officials (NBC News)

Brett Kavanaugh has very bad news for Donald Trump (Ian Millhiser/Vox)

A Red-Alert for Democracy: The Patel FBI Purge Begins (Garrett M. Graff/Doomsday Scenario)

Some federal websites temporarily go dark after order to comply with Trump DEI directive (NBC News)

These Clowns are Economic Illiterates (Joan Westenberg/The Index)  Just like Krugman!

Elon Musk’s Friends Have Infiltrated Another Government Agency (Wired) Dunh dunh DUNHHHHH….

Trump officials make plans to revoke legal status of migrants welcomed under Biden (Camilo Montoya-Galvez/CBS News)  Which is why people voted for Trump. Duh.

Elon’s Twitter Destruction Playbook Hits The US Government, And It’s Even More Dangerous (Mike Masnick/Techdirt)

FBI Agents Are Stunned by the Scale of the Expected Trump Purge (Shane Harris/The Atlantic)  Which is why people voted for Trump. Duh.

Trump says he opened California’s water. Local officials say he nearly flooded them. (Politico)

Acting on Trump’s order, federal officials opened up two California dams (Los Angeles Times)

The Situation: Kash Patel’s “Odor of Mendacity” (Benjamin Wittes/Default)

Second judge to block Trump’s spending freeze says the policy is likely unconstitutional (Politico)

DOJ fires dozens of prosecutors who handled Jan. 6 cases (Politico)

Top DOJ Official Resigns After Attempted Reassignment

Trump is wreaking havoc at USAID. Is the goal to shut it down? (Politico)

CDC Data Are Disappearing (Katherine J. Wu/The Atlantic)

Who Can Stop Elon’s ‘Team’ Wilding Its Way Through the Federal Government? (Josh Marshall/Talking Points Memo)

Federal Judge Orders White House to Keep Money Flowing to 22 States (Mattathias Schwartz/New York Times)

Federal Bureaucrats Ordered to Remove Pronouns From Email Signatures

Trump Approval Rating Looks Fragile at Start of Second Term (Ed Kilgore/New York Magazine)

Public health information pulled offline in response to Trump orders (Sophie Gardner/Politico)

Trump sketches unprecedented plan for sweeping tariffs (Washington Post)  I guess they never heard of Smoot-Harley.

Trump’s Funding Freeze May Be on Hold, but Overall Goal Remains Popular, Poll Finds

Trump’s fierce attacks on DEI reflect a longtime GOP focus (Washington Post)

Journos Attack Trump & Musk as Fascist Nazis, Toss Bouquets to Biden

The RFK Jr. Op-Ed the Los Angeles Times Didn’t Want You to Read (Eric Reinhart/New Republic)

Trump’s disregard for US constitution ‘a blitzkrieg on the law’, legal experts say (Steven Greenhouse/The Guardian)

NYT, NBC, NPR, Politico Evicted From Pentagon Press Offices In Favor Of Trump-Friendly Outlets

Trump fires the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Josh Boak/Associated Press)

Chopra removed from consumer bureau post (Katy O’Donnell/Politico)

Trump prepares to revoke legal status for many migrants who arrived under Biden (Priscilla Alvarez/CNN)

Trump Officials Release Water in California That Experts Say Will Serve Little Use (New York Times)

‘There will be many casualties’: Panama girds for war as Rubio opens talks (Ben Schreckinger/Politico)  Tell it to Noriega.

The GOP’s Unreliable Cutter-in-chief (Rachael Bade/Politico)

Trump’s revenge agenda has shocked officials who ‘didn’t think it was going to be this bad’, insiders say (Robert Tait/The Guardian)

Crazy Liberal Podcaster Says Trump’s Inauguration Speech Was an Impeachable Offense

Trump Raises New Threat to Sanctuary Cities: Blocking Transportation Dollars (Emily Badger/New York Times)

Musk’s Junta Establishes Him as Head of Government (Garrett M. Graff/Doomsday Scenario)

The high-stakes question Trump’s nominees curiously won’t answer (Aaron Blake/Washington Post)

Trump’s MAGA machine mobilizes to boost Gabbard (Axios)  MAGA is the New Nigger.

Behind the Curtain: Purges, punishments, payback (Axios)

Trump’s Overhaul Of The Federal Bureaucracy Backed By Recent Survey Research

Air Traffic Control Offices Are in Chaos in Trump’s New Administration (Rolling Stone)

Oh Shut Up, You Ken Doll: Pontificating Actor Upset Trump Won’t Make His Taxes Go Up

The tragic air collision revealed Trump’s rancid, irredeemable character once again (Sidney Blumenthal/The Guardian)  Sid Vicious crawls out from under his rock again.

Trump says he ordered precision military strike against senior ISIS planner (Brett Samuels/The Hill)

Red states love Trump–and mooching off the federal funds he wants to cut (Kos/Daily Kos)

Michael Rapaport: I Was Duped by Fake Elon Musk Nazi Salute

“It’s Like A Switch Was Flipped”: Border Encounters Plummet 94% Under Trump

Trump fires head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CNN)

Health Programs Shutter Around the World After Trump Pauses Foreign Aid (Stephanie Nolen/New York Times)  We are the friends of health everywhere but the guardians only of our own.

Rubio embarks on mission impossible: Retake the Panama Canal (John Hudson/Washington Post)

Gov. Newsom Served Recall Papers Following LA Fire Outrage

Trump: Venezuela Agrees to Accept Illegals From US

Trump to send Venezuelans back to Maduro’s repressive state (Washington Post)

‘Trantifa’ Insurrectionist Who Went To D.C. To Kill GOP Leaders Was Inspired By Luigi Mangione

Can the President Dissolve USAID by Executive Order? (Tess Bridgeman/Just Security)

Senior FBI official forcefully resisted Trump administration firings (NBC News)

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The monetary black hole that is the MTA apparently hasn’t figured out a way to secure its property, despite what appears to be an incessant, neverending need for additional cash.

That’s because the NYPD is now searching for six suspects who allegedly stole an R train from a Brooklyn storage yard and took it for a joyride, traveling down the tracks.

The incident occurred around 10 p.m. Saturday near the 71st Avenue station in Forest Hills, Queens, according to Fox 5.

Fox reported that the suspects operated the train and vandalized its camera by marking the glass panels. No arrests or injuries have been reported. Their identities and whereabouts after leaving the train remain unknown.

Read it.

Researchers at the University of Queensland have discovered the first henipavirus detected in North America.

Dr. Rhys Parry from the School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences confirmed the presence of Camp Hill virus in shrews in Alabama, USA.

“Henipaviruses have caused serious disease and death in people and animals in other regions,” Dr Parry said

“One of the most dangerous is the Hendra virus, which was first detected in Brisbane, Australia, and has a fatality rate of 70 percent.

“Another example is Nipah virus which has recorded fatality rates between 40 and 75 per cent in outbreaks in Southeast Asia, including in Malaysia and Bangladesh.

“The discovery of a henipavirus in North America is highly significant, as it suggests these viruses may be more globally distributed than previously thought.”

OH NOES WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE….

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Boston University’s much-maligned Center for Antiracist Research will be shut down this coming summer as its founder, Ibram X. Kendi, prepares to jump ship to Howard University.

Kendi had high hopes for his Center for Antiracist Research, saying the $50 million project would “solve seemingly intractable problems of racial inequality and injustice” when he launched the initiative at the height of the “defund the police” movement in 2020. But the center produced hardly any research five years into the project, and Boston University now says it wants nothing more to do with it when its charter expires on June 30.

Kendi’s center was hamstrung by allegations of financial malfeasance under his watch. By 2023, financial contributions to the center had largely dried up as it produced only two original pieces of research and had long since stopped collecting information for its “Racial Data Lab,” which Kendi claimed years earlier would “give us the ability to see the hotspots of racial inequity in real time in this country,” the Washington Free Beacon reported. A Boston University audit ultimately cleared the center of any illegality in the misuse of its $50 million endowment. In September 2023, the think tank slashed a third of its workforce in a restructuring effort that Kendi said would ensure its viability for decades to come.

Another race grifter bites the dust….

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First Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg dined with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago following the presidential election. Then, he appointed UFC CEO Dana White (Trump’s friend) to the company’s board, dismantled its woke fact-checking system, and now is reportedly mulling over relocating Meta’s legal residence from Delaware to Texas—a state that has positioned itself as a pro-business alternative to heavily-regulated blue states run by the radical left.

Wall Street Journal report reveals that Meta has been discussing a potential move to reincorporate outside of Delaware. Sources familiar with the matter said Texas had been heavily considered for the company’s new legal domicile but noted there would be no changes to its corporate headquarters in Menlo Park, California.

But tomorrow may rain, so I’ll follow the sun….

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The Treasury Department withdrew the United States from a global climate alliance that was launched to push the financial sector to adopt green mandates.

The so-called Network of Central Banks and Supervisors for Greening the Financial System was originally created to pressure banks and financial institutions to meet sweeping global climate targets, many of which have been set during United Nations summits. The Treasury Department said late Thursday that the alliance’s mission doesn’t align with the Trump administration’s “priorities to grow the U.S. economy and American jobs.”

The announcement is part of the Trump administration’s move to exit what it considers to be harmful global climate agreements. And it is the latest signal to the international community that the United States under Trump’s leadership will seek to prioritize domestic energy production over commitments to bolster green energy and fight global warming.

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Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach appeared Thursday on Fox Business to discuss concerns regarding the diversity, equity, and inclusion hiring practices in the aviation industry.

An American Airlines passenger plane collided with a military helicopter near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday evening, resulting in fatalities for everyone involved. During an appearance on “The Bottom Line,” Kobach said DEI hiring increased operational errors in the air that resulted in hundreds of incidents.

“It’s too early to know if the air traffic controllers made any mistakes,” Kobach said.

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MSNBC host Jonathan Capehart told candidates seeking to chair the Democratic National Committee they “passed” when they blamed “racism and misogyny” for former Vice President Kamala Harris’ defeat in the 2024 election.

President-elect Donald Trump secured the 270 electoral votes necessary to win the presidency early in the morning of Nov. 6, 2024, fueled by increased support from black and Hispanic voters compared to his previous campaigns. Capehart asked for a show of hands among the contenders when he asked the question during a forum in a video clip posted on X late Thursday.

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Former US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg has reportedly removed the pronouns “he/him” from his X profile, which he had prominently displayed during President Biden’s first term. This comes a day after a US Army Black Hawk helicopter collided with American Eagle Flight 5342, operated by PSA Airlines, over the Potomac River, resulting in the deaths of 64 passengers on the plane and three crew members on the helicopter, for a total of 67 fatalities.

X user Colin Wright reported on Thursday night that Buttigieg “has quietly removed his gender pronouns (he/him) from his ? and other social media profiles”

“Gender ideology is absolutely toxic. Expect more Dems to start quietly distancing themselves from it,” Wright added.

UPDATE: He’s Running: Pete Buttigieg Axes Pronouns on Social Media Amid Michigan Senate Speculation

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Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., sent a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio asking him to investigate reports that a foreign aid agency pushed abortion on a black-majority country under the Biden administration.

The letter cites The Daily Signal’s Dec. 16 report that the Biden administration was pressuring Sierra Leone to pass an unpopular pro-abortion bill before Donald Trump took office.

It is common knowledge among nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs, in Sierra Leone that a U.S. foreign aid agency called the Millennium Challenge Corporation is threatening to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars from a U.S. agreement with Sierra Leone unless the West African country’s parliament passes the bill decriminalizing abortion, a former senior U.S. government official who has worked in the West African region told The Daily Signal. Millennium Challenge Corporation denies this.

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Democrats have never been more “aroused,” according to Chuck Schumer. We’ve certainly noticed a difference. At the moment, Democrats are passionately trying to figure out how Donald Trump used creeping fascism to crash a plane into the Potomac and whining theatrically about his failure to restore food prices to their pre-Biden levels since his swearing-in last week. They’re still upset about Trump’s popular plan to deport foreign criminals and other illegal immigrants. “I can’t wait until American women can’t get blueberries for their smoothies,” Democratic strategist Jenna Arnold actually said on CNN. In case you were wondering, yes, her voice sounds like an extreme parody of a liberal white Instagram mom letting loose after splitting a bottle of rosé with her bestie.

Arnold is also the author of the book Raising Our Hands: How White Women Can Stop Avoiding Hard Conversations, Start Accepting Responsibility, and Find Our Place on the New Frontlines (2020), which was courageous enough to land a spot on the Forbes list of “Anti-Racism Resources for White People.” She helped organize the pussy-hatted Women’s March in 2017 and was part of the successful campaign to persuade Joe Biden to declare the unratified Equal Rights Amendment to be part of the Constitution, which was both pointless and illegal. Arnold has two kids named Ever Alula and Atlas Oz. (We promise we’re not making this up.) She is active on Instagram, obviously, and posts content that is cringingly stereotypical of her race, gender, and ideology.

“Are you supportive of these onesies?” is a question that was actually asked (more like shouted) during RFK Jr.’s confirmation hearing when Democrats were pretending to be appalled by a Kennedy. Meanwhile, their former colleague, “Bullion Bob” Menendez, was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison for cartoonish corruption involving Egyptian meat tycoons and a secret stash of gold bars. Bakari Sellers, another Democratic strategist on CNN, was forced to apologize after he rushed to blame Trump for the deadly midair collision between a passenger jet and a military helicopter near Reagan National Airport. Sellers is the author of the courageous book The Moment: Thoughts on the Race Reckoning That Wasn’t and How We All Can Move Forward Now (2024) and is best known for being cited in the lawsuit CNN settled for millions of dollars after defaming a teenaged Trump supporter.

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The U.S. government has been wasting money in some of the most bizarre ways imaginable. Some of the examples that I am about to share with you are likely to make you feel sick. Wasting colossal piles of our tax dollars would be bad enough if we were running a balanced budget, but that is certainly not the case. We have been adding trillions of dollars to the national debt each year, and our federal government is now more than 36 trillion dollars in debt.

So the truth is that we have had to borrow the money that we have been recklessly wasting.

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DOJ Pride, an LGBTQ employee resource group at the Department of Justice, has shut down more than a week after President Donald Trump signed an executive order seeking to root out all diversity, equity and inclusion measures from the federal government.

The group “ceased to operate effective immediately,” the group’s board said in an email sent to members Tuesday evening.

“In this time of uncertainty and concern, we have taken the extraordinary measure of ceasing operations of DOJ Pride,” the message said. “We have made this decision in the interest and for the protection of all members.”