Dems’ Lawfare Attack on Georgia’s District Maps Set for Trial Next Week

Wire Editor
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Dems’ Lawfare Attack on Georgia’s District Maps Set for Trial Next Week

(By T.A. DeFeo, The Center Square) A federal trial over Georgia’s state legislative district maps is set to kick off next week in Atlanta.

In 2021, several Georgia residents and groups, including the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity and the Sixth District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, filed suit against Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. They argued that the state’s legislative maps drafted in 2021 violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In the lawsuit, they alleged state lawmakers enacted maps with district lines that ignored the state’s demographic shift, including a 16% increase in the state’s Black population and sought to “systematically minimize the political power of Black Georgians in violation of federal law.” Lawmakers “drew only a small handful of new Black-majority districts, mostly in areas that were already electing Black-preferred candidates.”

“When districts are drawn to minimize the voices of black voters in Georgia, it damages our democracy,” Rahul Garabadu, senior voting rights staff attorney, ACLU of Georgia, said in a statement. “We filed this lawsuit on behalf of our clients to ensure that state legislative districts are drawn so that black voters have an equal opportunity to elect candidates of choice. We look forward to presenting our case at trial next week.”

Spokespeople for Raffensperger, Gov. Brian Kemp and Attorney General Chris Carr, all Republicans, did not respond to a request for comment. Last month, a federal judge denied the state’s motion for a summary judgment in the lawsuit.

What Happens If the Government Outspends Its Ability to Pay?

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What Happens If the Government Outspends Its Ability to Pay?

(By Peter Jacobsen, FEE) For “Ask an Economist” this week, I have two questions from J.R. He says,

“My question is what happens when the government continues to spend out of control where it potentially out spends its ability to pay its bills/debt?

With the national debt over $30 trillion and climbing when do you think we will hit the tipping point and what do you think will happen?”

So what happens if we can’t pay our debts? To understand, we need to think about where the government’s money comes from.

Three Sources of Government Spending

Where does the government’s money come from? Unlike private businesses and households, the government doesn’t sell services to voluntary buyers in order to cover its expenditures. As you likely already know, the government’s money comes from us—the taxpayers.

However, there are three different ways the government extracts resources from us: taxation (T), debt financing (D), and money printing (M). Government spending (G) is equal to the sum of these three sources of funds. In math terms:

G=T+D+M

Taxation is the most straightforward source of government funds. The government taxes incomes, spending, property ownership, property sales, and death. If the government simply spent that money and stopped, that would be the end of the story. But it isn’t.

For over two decades now, the U.S. government has had more spending than tax revenue. When spending exceeds tax revenue, this is called a deficit. So the deficit is the difference between government spending and tax revenue, or G-T. Mathematically we can express the deficit as follows:

G-T=D+M

This new equation shows that the government deficit must be paid by the remaining sources of revenue: debt financing and money printing.

At this point someone may argue that we could simply raise taxes to eliminate the deficit. And that works—until it doesn’t. The problem with relying on tax increases to support spending is that tax increases have a limit to how much additional revenue they can bring in. To understand why, ask yourself a simple question: if the government tried to tax income at 100%, how much revenue would they collect?

The answer is zero. There would be no reason to work for money if the government took every cent you earned, and even if people did work for no pay, they’d die of starvation. Taxes disincentivize work. Past some tax rate, the government disincentivizes work so much that it actually receives lower revenue. This was famously illustrated by economist Art Laffer’s Laffer Curve. The curve illustrates plainly that as you increase the tax rate, you collect more revenue at first, but eventually the revenue begins to fall as the rate gets too high and begins discouraging work.

What rate provides the “maximum” tax revenue is up for debate, but the fundamental logic of the Laffer curve is not. There is a maximum amount of revenue the government can earn via taxation. Once it’s collecting at this maximum, the government only has two remaining tools to support spending.

Let’s talk about debt first. To begin, although it’s not immediately obvious, debt is also ultimately paid by taxpayers. If the U.S. government gets a loan today, that loan must be repaid. How can the U.S. repay loans in the future? Future taxes. So debt kicks the cost down the road somewhat, but the taxpayer ultimately still holds the bag.

So can the government simply keep borrowing forever to cover spending? No. Much like with taxation, there is a sort of Laffer curve for debt financing too. If the government wants to attract more lenders than it already has, it has to offer something in return—more money. This takes on the form of higher interest rates. So maybe lenders were unwilling to lend $100 to the government at a 3% rate, but if the government offers 4% they will jump in.

The problem is you run out of willing lenders at 4%. The government then has to offer 5%. This process continues until the interest rate is so high that the net proceeds collected by issuing bonds (sometimes called debt seigniorage) actually begins to fall. Much like the revenue-maximizing tax rate, there is an interest rate at which the revenue for issuing debt falls.

So if tax revenue can no longer be raised, and issuing more debt is no longer an option, we are left with only one option—print money.

Governments who run out of tax revenue and debt finance can only pay their bills by inflationary monetary policy. This sort of policy is disastrous for the economy. As the currency loses value, savings are destroyed, citizens have to spend real resources to quickly convert currency before it loses all value, and investment dries up.

Meanwhile, a less valuable currency means government spending will increase even more if government officials want to maintain the same spending habits. At this point the only way to stop the economic chaos is to stop spending.

Where Does the U.S. Stand?

The first part of J.R.’s question was the easy part. It’s theoretically pretty straightforward to understand what happens if government spending outpaces the government’s ability to pay debts: the money-printers get to work. The harder question is, where is the U.S. in this process?

Debt is clearly an issue in the U.S. As the data show, the level of debt relative to spending has been climbing and spiked to unprecedented levels during the COVID-19 policy era.

However, I have to disappoint when I say I can offer no honest predictions apart from the fact that I don’t think a crisis is happening soon.

I give this answer for two reasons. First, I don’t have any investments on the line that predict collapse. If the U.S. government descended into a hyperinflation hellscape, there would probably be a way to arrange my financial portfolio in such a way that I’d make money from it.

I haven’t made any bets against the well-being of the U.S., so it would be dishonest of me to claim I’m expecting a collapse any time now. When someone predicts doom, always ask if their money is where their mouth is. My money is in pretty straightforward assets—many of which would do very poorly in light of a U.S. financial crisis.

The second reason I won’t predict imminent collapse is that I’m not sure that U.S. productivity gains will be unable to keep up with growing debt. Again, the rising debt-to-GDP ratio is concerning, but past debt-to-GDP ratios are not perfect predictors of future debt-to-GDP ratios.

Much like personal debt, the government can safely borrow so long as future incomes can pay for that borrowing. If U.S. citizens become richer, the government gets more revenue to pay off debts.

So, in summary, I think the recent trend of U.S. debt is very bad. If the trend continues, there will be serious consequences. In the short term, though, I don’t see any major changes right around the corner. I could be wrong. I hope I’m not. Economics provides a solid way to understand tendencies, but it provides no crystal balls for fortune telling.

House Oversight Demands Info on Hunter’s Use of Air Force Two

Contributing Author
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House Oversight Demands Info on Hunter’s Use of Air Force Two

(Headline USA) The House Oversight Committee demanded records from the National Archives and Records Administration this week regarding Hunter Biden’s use of Air Force Two.

As part of their investigation into the Biden family business dealings, House Republicans said they are looking into how frequently Hunter Biden accompanied his father while Joe Biden was vice president on official political trips.

“The Committee is concerned about then-Vice President Biden’s role in his family’s foreign business ventures and that he may have used his office to enrich his family. For example, recent reporting indicates Hunter Biden traveled to at least 15 countries with then-Vice President Biden,” a letter from the committee reads.

House Oversight members are seeking unrestricted access to the NARA records by Sept. 13, 2023.

An analysis of Secret Service records and Hunter Biden’s laptop showed Hunter Biden frequently accompanied his father on trips to Europe, Africa, Asia, Canada, and Mexico.

“Then-Vice President Biden’s misuse of Air Force Two and Marine Two is indicative of yet another way in which the President has abused his various offices of public trust and wasted taxpayer money to benefit his family’s enterprise, which consisted of nothing more than access to Joe Biden himself,” committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., wrote.

Devon Archer, one of Hunter Biden’s former business associates, told Congress last month that Joe Biden met with one of Hunter’s Chinese business partners on one such trip to Beijing. Joe Biden later wrote a letter of recommendation for the associate’s daughter college applications, Archer said.

“Devon Archer, a longtime Biden family associate, has stated it is ‘categorically false’ that Joe Biden played no role in his son’s foreign business dealings. Flights on Air Force Two around the world to seal business deals are evidence of that role,” the letter reads.

House GOP leadership has indicated they will open an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden unless the administration’s agencies comply with oversight requests.

Ex-N.Y. Times CEO Mark Thompson Takes Over at Desperately Foundering CNN

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Ex-N.Y. Times CEO Mark Thompson Takes Over at Desperately Foundering CNN

(Headline USA) A man who helped steward the once-vaunted New York Times from a liberal-leaning paper of record to a vangard of globalist disinformation-peddling—in complete concert with deep-state propagandists—now has the opportunity to lead one of the most egregious examples of bad journalism run amok since the Trump era as it desperately tries to regain its reputation.

Mark Thompson, former chief executive of both the BBC and the New York Times, was chosen Wednesday to head CNN, which has burned through two leaders and bled viewers over the past two years.

Thompson was appointed as CNN’s new chair and CEO by the network’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, to replace Chris Licht, who was fired in June after daring to host a town hall with former president and GOP frontrunner Donald Trump.

After many of the network’s far-left on-air “talent” revolted, a four-person team took over and has been running CNN in the interim. Thompson will officially begin on Oct. 9.

Despite his dubious role in sullying the Times‘s journalistic standards, alongside radical journalist–activists like managing editor Dean Baquet, Thompson’s supporters credit him with helping the newspaper to turn around its own failing business model after the rise of online journalism and other factors contributed to the de-facto demise of print media.

Thompson, who left the Times in 2020 after eight years as president and CEO, is credited with helping the newspaper transition to a digital-first organization more dependent on paid subscribers than the collapsing advertising market that has doomed many newspapers.

The native of England, who was knighted by the British government this year, was director–general of the BBC from 2004 to 2012.

“I’ve long admired Mark’s transformative leadership and his ability to inspire organizations to raise their own ambitions and sense of what’s possible, and achieve it,” David Zaslav, chief of Warner Bros. Discovery, said in a note to CNN staff.

Thompson, in his own note, said that television journalism is approaching peak disruption. CNN and other networks have suffered from people cutting off cable subscriptions, and the company has, so far, fumbled its attempt to establish a streaming service.

“We face pressure from every direction—structural, political, cultural, you name it,” Thompson said.

“Like many other media organizations, CNN has recently felt some of the uncertainty and heartache that comes with all of that,” hr continued. “There’s no magic wand I or anyone else can wield to make this disruption go away. But what I can say is that where others see threat, I see opportunity.”

CNN will be going from someone with little leadership experience—Licht was a producer who ran shows like “Morning Joe” and the CBS “Late Show” before taking over CNN—to a person with top executive roles at two of the world’s largest and most respected news organizations.

At the Times, he concentrated on the business side, not journalism. CNN will give him a broader role, similar to what he achieved at the BBC, where he steadily rose through the ranks to the top spot.

He helped steady the BBC in his early years as leader after it had been rocked by scandal over its reporting on Britain’s intelligence about Iraq’s weapons programs in the run-up to the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Thompson later faced criticism over the broadcaster’s handling of child-abuse allegations against the longtime BBC children’s TV presenter Jimmy Savile, who was exposed after his death in 2011 as a pedophile who molested children for decades.

An investigation into Savile by the BBC’s “Newsnight” program due to run soon after his death was shelved at the last minute; Thompson denied involvement in that decision.

In a 2021 interview with Exec Publications, Thompson said there was a lot of skepticism within the Times that digital subscriptions could be built up significantly, given a public aversion to pay walls. But he said he hired teams of engineers and data scientists to improve the experience of reading the newspaper on different devices.

The Times, which also benefited from a boost in news interest during the Trump administration, had 10 times as many paid subscribers when he left than when he started.

Thompson had a far worse experience implementing a digital media plan for the BBC. He was called before a parliamentary committee to testify after a government audit found that a plan to combine digital production and archiving wasted millions of dollars due to confusion and poor planning.

At CNN, he faces a dynamic nearly as old as the network itself. Viewership interest in its news coverage has peaks and valleys. CNN has fallen well behind Fox News and MSNBC in popularity, with opinionated talk connecting more with viewers in a politically polarized time. Licht had encouraged CNN to find a middle ground and flex its newsgathering muscles.

He was doomed at the end by a damning Atlantic magazine profile that showed his failure to connect with employees, many loyal to his predecessor, Jeff Zucker.

Zucker—whose personal vendetta against Trump was largely responsible for the pioneering network’s transformation into a propagandist Dumpster fire—was pushed out in February 2022 after failing to disclose to his bosses a romantic relationship with a fellow network executive.

Besides ratings, CNN’s finances have suffered. The network earned $892 million in profit in 2022, down from $1.08 billion in 2020, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Shortly after Licht was named to his new job, CNN’s new corporate masters pulled the plug on a well-publicized streaming service after only weeks in operation. Just this month, it announced that CNN news would be part of its Max streaming service.

CNN also fired two popular prime-time hosts over the past two years, Chris Cuomo and Don Lemon, the latter after an ill-fated move to a new morning show. Both had seen their reputations tarnished by a series of off-camera scandals and ethical lapses.

Cuomo was using his position to actively run interference for his brother, then-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, after the latter faced serious sexual-harrassment allegations by more than a dozen accusers.

Lemon—who faced an ongoing sexual-assault trial for rubing his genital juices on the face of a young, male bartender in the Hamptons—was accused of making a series of misogynist comments that frazzled the rapport with his new morning co-hosts, including suggesting that women over 40 were past their “prime.”

Licht never settled on a new prime-time lineup in his tenure. The four-person interim leadership team—Amy Entelis, David Leavy, Virginia Moseley and Eric Sherling—recently set a new lineup that includes Kaitlan Collins, Abby Phillip and Laura Coates in weeknight roles, with veteran Christiane Amanpour and Chris Wallace getting new weekend gigs.

Zaslav said that the four interim leaders would remain at CNN, reporting to Thompson.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

‘Call Back Trump’: Hungarian PM Viktor Orban Warns Biden’s Incompetence Could Spark WW3

Mark Pellin
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‘Call Back Trump’: Hungarian PM Viktor Orban Warns Biden’s Incompetence Could Spark WW3

(Mark Pellin, Headline USA) Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban strongly criticized the Biden administration’s handling of the Ukrainian conflict, blasting the president and his mainstream media collaborators for leading the country closer to another world war.

When the prime minister was asked during an interview with Tucker Carlson for his guidance on how to handle the Ukraine debacle, Orban offered a straight-forward solution.

“Peace, immediately,” he said. “Call back Trump. That’s the only way out.”

Orban conceded that he understood why people opposed Trump for myriad reasons of their own, but argued the “best foreign policy of the recent several decades belong to him,” Orban said.

“He did not initiate any new war. He treated nicely the North Koreans and Russia, even the Chinese,” the Hungarian leader reminded Carlson. “You know, he delivered a policy which was the best one for the Middle East, Abraham Accords. So he had very good foreign policy.”

The same foreign policy reasoning could have prevented the chaos that has unfolded in Ukraine, he said.

“If he would have been the president at the moment of the Russia invasion started, no, it would not have been possible to do that by the Russians,” Orban claimed. “Trump is the man who can save the Western world.”

The Biden regime, by contrast, is digging itself deeper into the conflict and through its incompetence is escalating the chances of triggering another World War.

“To understand the Russians it’s a difficult thing, especially if you have an ocean between you and Russia.” Putin’s top concern is to consolidate power and keep the country together under his rule, no matter the cost in blood or treasure, Orban said.

“We can not beat them as we do just now. It’s impossible. If we invest more, they will invest more. If you send more technical equipment, they will produce more.” Put in basic terms, “What finally will count is boots on the ground, and the Russians are far stronger,” Orban said.

The prime minister blasted mainstream media for its efforts trying to convince the public otherwise. “It is not just a misunderstanding, it is a lie,” Orban said about fake news propagandizing the war with claims that Ukraine is winning.

Biden and war hawk Democrats and Republicans have sunk billions into the proxy war with Russia, and show no signs of stopping.

Orban slammed the Biden administration’s approach to Ukraine’s drive for NATO membership as dangerous, specifically Vice President Kamala Harris’s misguided outreach to Ukraine before the invasion. Harris at the time said the U.S. would like Ukraine to join NATO.

“That would mean an immediate war danger to all of us. It’s dangerous even for the United States,” Orban said. “It’s not a realistic proposal at this moment.”

Biden, however, seems insistent of furthering engaging with the drive for Ukraine membership, based off its original strategy that “the Ukrainian soldiers will fight” and NATO member nations would finance the proxy war with Russia.

“This strategy will never work. This is a bad strategy,” Orban said. “This is a very dangerous moment now. The third world war is knocking on our door.”

Mark Pellin is an editor at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/sabrepaw70.

Vivek Ramaswamy Humiliates Tired Media Shill Andrea Mitchell over Climate Hoax

Jacob Bruns
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Vivek Ramaswamy Humiliates Tired Media Shill Andrea Mitchell over Climate Hoax

(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) In a recent MSNBC appearance, GOP presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy called out Democrat Party mouthpiece Andrea Mitchell for using an isolated weather event to peddle leftist disinformation about climate change, Fox News reported.

Alluding to Ramaswamy’s recent debate comment, wherein he claimed that climate change is a “hoax,” Mitchell began the heated exchange by claiming that climate change had caused over 2 million deaths in the past 50 years.

Ramaswamy countered, however by citing statistics that climate-related deaths had actually dropped substantially as a direct result of the 20th Century industrial revolution, which climate activists often cite as the catalyst for a rise in carbon-dioxide emissions, blaming so-called greenhouse gasses for any recent weather anomaly.

“I can offer clear evidence that the number of climate disaster related deaths is down by 98% over the last century,” Ramaswamy said.

“The number of people who died of hurricanes, tornadoes, heatwaves and other weather-related events in 1920—for every 100 that died then, two die today,” he continued. “And the reason why is more plentiful, abundant access to fossil fuels and technology powered by fossil fuels.”

According to the successful entrepreneur and author of Woke, Inc., even if there were adverse global-warming effects related to the global reliance on gas, oil and petroleum products, the benefits would far outweigh the costs.

“[E]ight times as many people die of cold temperatures than die of warm ones,” he said. “The right answer to all temperature-related deaths is more plentiful abundant access to fossil fuels.”

A flustered Mitchell attempted to use anecdotal evidence about Hurricane Idalia, which was ravaging parts of western Florida as it made its way up the coast.

But the sharp-thinking Ramaswamy quicky dismantled her claims and turned them back on her.

“If someone on the other side who were an uneducated person from Arkansas who didn’t go to college and offered one weather event as one anecdote to support the theory of global climate change, you’d laugh them off stage as a rube for saying they don’t follow data,” Ramaswamy said, according to The Hill.

Going into the interview, Ramaswamy certainly must have known what was coming given Mitchell’s history of engaging in climate conspiracy theories.

For instance, she has gone out of her way in the past to declare climate change a massive emergency, condemning Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., in 2021 for not being sufficiently alarmed.

“West Virginia is a state that needs remediation on climate and on many effects of fossil fuels, more than any other states in the nation,” she chastised him.

But her climate advocacy is par for the course with Mitchell, who is widely regarded as one of the most notorious party-line shills in all of mainstream media, and a favorite topic of criticism for the Media Research Center’s watchdog NewsBusters website.

‘Beyond Redemption’: Cornell West Rips Democrat Party, Dumps on AOC, Bernie Sanders

Robert Jonathan
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‘Beyond Redemption’: Cornell West Rips Democrat Party, Dumps on AOC, Bernie Sanders

(Robert Jonathan, Headline USA) Cornel West condemned the Democrat Party as, in effect, being irretrievably broken for selling out purported progressivism to corporations and the military-industrial complex.

West, the far-left former Harvard and Princeton professor, is running for president in 2024 for the Green Party.

During a 20-minute interview, West weighed in on election-strategy-related comments made by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the millionaire so-called independent who votes in lockstep with the Democrat agenda in Congress.

Sanders recently vocalized on NBC that the progressive community needs to unite behind Joe Biden’s reelection to prevent, without a hint of irony or self-awareness, “authoritarian” and “dangerous” Donald Trump from winning a second term.

In response, Cornel West, who backed Sanders for president in 2016, sharply criticized Democrats for being too cozy with “Wall Street and war” instead of representing the interests of low- and middle-income Americans.

In this context, the author, philosopher and academic activist nonetheless maintained that he still “loves Brother Bernie,” but there’s a bigger picture beyond mere lip service.

“So I think in many ways, Brother Bernie is making a plausible argument, but I think deep down in his heart, he knows that the Democratic Party has no fundamental intention of speaking to the needs of poor people and working people.”

His takedown continued: “They are dominated by their corporate wing, they’re dominated by the militarists when it comes to foreign policy, and that he and AOC and the others are going to be, in a certain sense, window dressing at worst, and at best, people to appeal to every four years.”

West added that “But the Democratic Party is beyond redemption at this point, when it comes to seriously speaking to the needs of poor and working people.”

Given the various uncertainties in play, he also expressed some doubt as to whether Joe Biden or Trump will, in the end, actually become the nominees of their respective parties.

The professor originally intended to be the standard-bearer for the fledgling People’s Party, but switched to the Green Party apparently because of more established ballot access.

The Greens will officially select the party’s presidential nominee at their national convention on a date yet to be determined. There are currently eight candidates, but obviously Prof. West, 70, is the most high-profile, if not charismatic, among them.

West advocates various radical policies for which the populist right could never abide, but there is common ground in the opposition to both endless war and crony capitalism.

Reports are increasing in the media that the Democrat establishment — including the go-along-to-get along progressive cohort — has grown concerned that West could be a spoiler in the upcoming presidential contest such that his third-party bid could help elect Trump.

West should probably anticipate some negative coverage from his former fans in the pro-Biden corporate media, and it seems it’s already happening.

The Daily Beast, for example, claims that West — a tax-the-rich advocate — allegedly owes approximately $500,000 in federal taxes.

West responded to the news outlet by email that “I have asked my accountant to respond to these charges some of which are not true.”

The accountant apparently has yet to respond.

In a flashback to 2016, some Democrat operatives believe that Jill Stein’s Green Party candidacy helped elect Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton.

This time around, Stein is serving as West’s interim campaign manager.

Biden is also facing a primary challenge from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a lifelong liberal who has taken a populist approach on some key issues including free speech and health autonomy.

Earlier this month, when asked on the Breakfast Club radio show about his potential disruption to Biden’s reelection, Cornel West quipped that “It’s a beautiful thing. That’s what it means to be a servant of the people…what it means to be a threat is you calling into question an order that’s predicated on too much suffering of precious everyday people.”

Although he is obviously no fan of the GOP, Trump, or the “corporate duopoly,” back in 2013, West characterized Barack Obama as a “war criminal” for authorizing drone strikes in the Middle East.

EXCLUSIVE: ATF Declines to Release Evidence of Alleged Pentagon Leaker’s ‘Bazooka’

Ken Silva
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EXCLUSIVE: ATF Declines to Release Evidence of Alleged Pentagon Leaker’s ‘Bazooka’

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) When the U.S. government arrested 21-year-old Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira in April for allegedly leaking classified Pentagon documents, prosecutors said he needed to be kept in pretrial detention because he’s a criminal with an “arsenal of weapons”—including AR- and AK-style weapons, and a “bazooka.”

Most media reported on the U.S. government’s claim uncritically.

But law enforcement never charged Teixeira with having a bazooka, and they never produced any photographs or other evidence of the weapon. The only evidence released about Teixeira’s “arsenal” were several orange-tipped apparent airsoft guns, as pictured above.

Seeking to discover whether the bazooka even exists, Headline USA filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the ATF for an inventory of the weapons seized from Teixeira.

However, the ATF declined the request.

“The information you requested is related to ongoing litigation,” the bureau said in a letter on Tuesday.

Teixeira, who is remains in pretrial detention, is accused of being the solider responsible for the trove of internal Defense Department documents known as the “Discord leaks”—named for the fact that he allegedly leaked the records on a Discord server used by him and his friends for online gaming.

The documents show, among other things, that the U.S. has boots on the ground in Ukraine, that the U.S. the Biden administration spied on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and that the war there was going worse for Ukraine that officials were saying publicly—while shoveling more than $100 billion toward that effort.

But instead of being hailed as a whistleblower for exposing Biden’s lies and malfeasance, mainstream media outlets and Democrat politicians have accused him of being a traitor. The New York Times and government-funded publication Bellingcat went as far as help the FBI identify Teixeira as the alleged leaker.

Since then, the FBI has reportedly been visiting the homes of people who posted stories about the leaked Pentagon documents in an “intimidating” attempt to remove such content from the internet.

SpyTalk reported earlier this month that one of its readers, former U.S. Army “information warfare expert” Paul Cobaugh, was visited by the FBI last week over an article he posted on his LinkedIn account about the Pentagon leaks in April.

Cobaugh said the FBI agents’ visit “scared the hell out of my wife and still does.”

“I believe it was a message of sorts,” he told SpyTalk, adding that he refuses to be intimidated.

“Me, I’m too damn old and stubborn to quit the fight for truth and integrity,” he said.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Biden Commerce Sec. Hosts 4-Hr. Meeting on China, Gets Nothing Done

Molly Bruns
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Biden Commerce Sec. Hosts 4-Hr. Meeting on China, Gets Nothing Done

(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo wasted a lot of time and taxpayers’ money on a visit to Beijing for a meeting with China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng to discuss China’s trade concerns.

The meeting lasted for four and a half hours, and reportedly solved nothing, according to Breitbart.

The meeting reportedly focused on the eastern nation’s trade concerns and neglected to mention any American concerns or contributions.

“The Chinese side expressed its concerns over measures taken by the United States, such as Section 301 tariffs, export controls against China and two-way investment restrictions,” said a report by state-run Xinhua news. “The two sides agreed to continue to maintain communication and support enterprises of the two countries in carrying out pragmatic cooperation.”

Raimondo repeated a pledge by President Joe Biden, restating that the U.S. would not cut economic ties with China.

She did add that China’s intense regulations made it hostile towards foreign investors.

“Increasingly, I hear from businesses China is uninvestible because it has become too risky,” she said.

Raimondo said she took time to voice the concerns of many American businesses that operate in China, such as the recent implementation of “counter-espionage” laws which allow Chinese police raids and gargantuan fines slapped on foreign businesses with little reason.

The Mintz Group, an American firm, received fines from China for allegedly conducting “unapproved statistical work.” The firm was also the target of a state-funded raid in March 2023. Five Chinese nationals who worked for the company faced arrest.

Some speculated that the Chinese Communist Party raided Mintz after they dug too deeply into the party’s falsified economic reports.

Raimondo advocated for greater American independence in their overseas business without worry of Chinese interference or surveillance.

“I was very firm in our expectations. I think I was heard. We’ll have to see if they take any action,” Raimondo said. She admitted that the Chinese leader did not commit to actions during the meeting.

Mitch McConnell Suffers Another Apparent Medical Episode at Press Conference

Ken Silva
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Mitch McConnell Suffers Another Apparent Medical Episode at Press Conference

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) A Wednesday press conference with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was interrupted after he stopped his remarks mid-sentence and stared off into space for several seconds—the second such public medical episode in the span of about a month for the 81-year-old senator.

McConnell’s apparent medical episode occurred at a Covington, Kentucky presser, after a reporter asked him if he plans to run for reelection in 2026.

“What are my thoughts about what?” he asked once, prompting the report to reiterate his question. McConnell then stared off into space for about 30 seconds. He did field two more questions before exiting stage right.

McConnell’s troubling episode followed a July 26 press conference in Washington DC, where he appeared to freeze up and stared vacantly for around 20 seconds before his colleagues in Republican leadership, who were standing behind him and could not see his face, grabbed his elbows and asked if he wanted to go back to his office.

McConnell was also hospitalized in March, after he tripped at a DC hotel.

His seemingly declining health has constituents calling for his resignation.

At the 143rd Annual St. Jerome Fancy Farm Picnic in Kentucky earlier this month, McConnell was met with boos and jeers from the locals, who yelled at him to “retire!”

However, McConnell insisted at the event: “This is my 28th Fancy Farm, and I want to assure you it’s not my last,” as his early retirement might be securing another senate seat for the Democrats.

With only three months left for Kentucky voters to make their voting decision, McConnell gave his two cents to the crowd. He said, “Biden and [Kentucky Gov. Andy] Beshear aren’t working for Kentucky. Andy might as well be on the White House payroll, and it’s high time he was honest about it.”

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

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