‘Corrupt Biden Family’: GOP Slams White House, IRS Amid Scathing Hunter Whistleblower

Luis Cornelio
-
0
‘Corrupt Biden Family’: GOP Slams White House, IRS Amid Scathing Hunter Whistleblower

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Republicans took to Twitter to blast President Joe Biden over allegations by an IRS whistleblower that the Biden administration is trying to influence the criminal investigation into Hunter Biden, the president’s son.

Mark D. Lytle, an attorney for the unnamed IRS criminal supervisory special agent, told Congress that his client had evidence that contradicts sworn statements from a “senior political appointee” in relation to the criminal investigation of what media reports is Hunter Biden. Criminal investigators, said the attorney in a letter sent to bipartisan leaders in Congress, failed to “mitigate clear conflicts of interest in the ultimate disposition of the case.” 

“It’s deeply concerning that the Biden Administration may be obstructing justice by blocking efforts to charge Hunter Biden for tax violations,” said House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., who has led several probes into the Biden family. “It’s clear from our investigation that Hunter and other members of the Biden family engaged in a deceptive, shady business scheme to avoid scrutiny as they made millions from foreign adversaries like China.” 

“We’ve been wondering all along where the heck the DOJ and the IRS have been,” he continued. “Now it appears the Biden Administration may have been working overtime to prevent the Bidens from facing any consequences.” 

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., who sits on the Senate Finance Committee which oversees the IRS, unsuccessfully attempted to get information from the head of the IRS. “It is absurd that not even the IRS Commissioner himself will tell me whether he was made aware of the Hunter Biden whistleblower,” she said. “This reeks of political interference by the Biden Administration.”

Blackburn said in an interview with Fox Business she will meet with the IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel to ask about the extent of conversations between his agency and the Biden White House. 

“We are seeking to do is find out who knew what, when and how big the universe of involvement is both at the IRS and then at the White House and figure out what conversations have taken place between these two,” the senator told Fox Business host Stuart Varney. “It appears from what we’ve learned so far about the whistleblower that he does have items that are timestamped that he can bring forward that will show a concerted effort to shield Hunter Biden from prosecution, from charges.” 

When pressed by U.S. senators, Commissioner Werfel, who was confirmed by the Senate a little over a month ago, said there was little information he could share.  

“I’m learning that there’s very little that I’m allowed to say to you or to anyone except maybe the chair of the committee, the Chair of Senate Financial or the Chair of Ways and Means, about those activities,” Wefel said, according to Fox News. “So, I’m just … not in a position to be able to respond to those questions in this setting.” 

“Sounds like a coverup,” slammed Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., in reference to allegations that Attorney General Merrick Garland may have lied under oath when he claimed the criminal investigation of the president’s son ran independently. 

“Last year I asked AG Garland how the Biden Admin could impartially investigate Hunter, & this report regarding this testimony is very concerning,” said Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-TN., “The IRS whistleblower deserves protection to provide information, & the American people deserve transparency.” 

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas., took to his “Verdict” podcast to blast Joe Biden over his alleged interference. “This is about Joe Biden,” the senator warned. 

House Republicans were equally voiceful in their criticism of the apparent IRS and Biden White House collusion to protect Hunter.

“While the Biden Administration sics 87,000 IRS agents on unsuspecting Americans and their negligible Venmo transactions, it’s also directing the IRS to ignore Hunter Biden’s tax violations,” Rep. Ken Buck, R-CO., said on Twitter, adding that “it pays to be a member of the corrupt Biden family dynasty.” 

Rep. Mary Miller, R-IL., blasted the Justice Department for attacking Trump and protecting Hunter. “We cannot have TWO SYSTEMS OF JUSTICE or a DOJ that attacks President Trump but protects the Biden family because of POLITICS.” 

Hunter Biden attempted to dismiss the whistleblower’s scathing allegations, saying via attorneys that the IRS special agent committed a crime. “It appears this IRS agent has committed a crime” by “improperly disclos[ing] information about an ongoing tax investigation,” the Washington Free Beacon reported Friday.

It is unclear when or if whistleblower protection laws will be granted to the IRS whistleblower. Attorney Lytle responded to critics that the IRS special agent may be a political person in an interview with Fox News’s Brett Bair. “My client wants to come forward. He is not a political person, he is not a social media person, he is not coming here with a political agenda,” Lytle said, adding that he has “been at the IRS for more than 10 years” as a special agent, who is “trusted with international investigations.”

Biden Lost $250 Billion in ‘Payment Errors’ in 2022 Alone, Watchdog Warns

Luis Cornelio
-
0
Biden Lost $250 Billion in ‘Payment Errors’ in 2022 Alone, Watchdog Warns

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) The federal government has lost almost $2.4 trillion (about $7,400 per person in the U.S.) in “improper payments” over the last two decades and this past year was no exception. The Biden administration wasted approximately $247 billion in taxpayer money in 2022 alone, says the Government Accountability Office (GAO). 

“In fiscal year 2022, federal agencies made an estimated $247 billion in payment errors—either payments that should not have been made or that were made in the incorrect amount,” GAO said in its report. “Overpayments accounted for about $200 billion of the total. But the total doesn’t yet include estimates for certain risky programs, like the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.” 

The report —titled “Improper Payments: Fiscal Year 2022 Estimates and Opportunities for Improvement”— details that 18 federal agencies made the multi-billion-dollar error across 82 programs, primarily social and COVID-relief programs. 

“Approximately 78 percent of this total (about $194 billion) was reported by five program areas: (1) Medicaid ($81 billion), (2) Medicare ($47 billion), (3) the Paycheck Protection Program ($29 billion), (4) Unemployment Insurance ($19 billion), and (5) Earned Income Tax Credit ($18 billion),” GAO found, warning that “the $247 billion total does not include estimates for certain risk-susceptible programs, such as the Department of Labor’s Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program and the Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.” 

Conservatives called out the federal government in reaction to the scathing report.

“Over the last two decades, the U.S. has lost over $2 TRILLION in simple payment errors,” blasted Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., on Twitter. “Why allow Washington to spend unlimited amounts of your hard-earned money if they’re already wasting what they have??”

 “The government has just lost, as if you dropped it on the sidewalk, trillions and trillions of dollars over the last few decades,” said Richard Stern, a budget and spending expert from the Heritage Foundation, according to CNBC. “That is money that was stolen from hardworking Americans to just simply get wasted.” 

“As bad – and expensive – as these screw-ups are, they don’t include all the taxpayer cash the feds dump on bloated agencies, ridiculous grants and studies, empty buildings, unnecessary or duplicate programs, and the salaries of self-aggrandizing bureaucrats like Anthony Fauci,” said Brittany M. Hughes, host of the MRCTV’s The Brittany M. Hughes show. 

“Happy tax day everyone!” blasted conservative commentator Nick Sortor via Twitter. 

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., claimed in a 2021 report that the federal government wasted billions in taxpayer money each year. His report included a Department of Homeland Security-led program that paid $17 million in unused hotel rooms for undocumented migrants between April and June 2021, the Washington Examiner noted.  

There is little information on how to best solve this costly issue because the government doesn’t understand its own functions, the watchdog agency said.  

“Improper payments—payments that should not have been made or were made in the incorrect amount—have consistently been a government-wide issue despite efforts to identify their root causes and reduce them,” the agency said. “In fact, the government still doesn’t fully understand the size of federal improper payments, partly because it doesn’t have complete, reliable, or accurate estimates.” 

Read the full “Improper Payments” by the Government Accountability Office here. 

NYT: Teixeira Leak Bigger Than Originally Thought

Ezekiel Loseke
-
0
NYT: Teixeira Leak Bigger Than Originally Thought

(Ezekiel Loseke, Headline USA) New documents discovered and verified by The New York Times suggest that the leaks allegedly produced by Airman Jack Teixeira were more in depth and shared with more people than previously believed.

Teixeira was arrested for allegedly leaking classified information to a group chat with about 50 people in it in October of 2022. However, new documents suggest he may have leaked information to a group with 600 people in it on Discord in February of 2022, according to The New York Times.

The paper reports that “it is not clear” if authorities know of this earlier and larger potential leak.

The Times reports being informed of the new leak by a user on Discord, and being able to find the group publicly cited in a YouTube channel.

The Times listed how it verified the account belonged to Airman Teixeira:

  • The posts leaking classified information were posted by a user bearing a name connected to Teixeira.
  • The leaker reported working at a United States Air Force intelligence unit.
  • Details in leaked photos match details in other photographs taken and posted by family members of Teixeira’s in his family home.
  • Discord users wished Teixeira happy birthday on the same day that social media users wished him a happy birthday.
  • The account leaking information posted a photograph of an antique rifle that matches one purchased in Teixeira’s name.

The Times reports that the posts it has found are summaries of classified documents. It suggests that photographs of classified documents were “likely” posted, but those pictures have since been deleted.

The Times reports that the first leak appeared to come within 48 hours of the initial Russian invasion.

“Saw a pentagon report saying that ⅓ of the force is being used to invade,” the user wrote. “I have a little more than open source info.”

“Perks of being in a USAF intel unit.”

A post made on March 27, 2022 that shared classified information about the withdraw from Kyiv was reportedly, “found on an NSA site.”

The post accurately predicted a Russian withdraw from Kyiv two days before it was announced.

The posts also included indications that they were being made from the base itself, with the poster informing users that he was preparing to enter a classified area known as a SCIF, or a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility.

 

Education Official Fired for Pushing Woke Books

Editor 5
-
0
Education Official Fired for Pushing Woke Books

(Headline USA)Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey on Friday fired her director of early childhood education over the use of a teacher training book that urged teachers to use woke concepts.

Barbara Cooper was fired after Ivey expressed concern over the distribution of the book to state-run pre-kindergartens. The books have been removed from the state classrooms.

“The education of Alabama’s children is my top priority as governor, and there is absolutely no room to distract or take away from this mission,” Ivey Said. “Let me be crystal clear: Woke concepts that have zero to do with a proper education and that are divisive at the core have no place in Alabama classrooms at any age level, let alone with our youngest learners.”

Ivey’s statement comes as conservative politicians have sought to defend America against false and woke accusations.

The governor’s office said Ivey first asked Cooper to “send a memo to disavow this book and to immediately discontinue its use.” Ivey’s office did not say how Cooper responded but that the governor made the decision to replace Cooper and accepted her resignation. Cooper could not immediately be reached for comment.

The book is a guide for early childhood educators.

The governor’s office, in a press release, cited two examples from the book — one discussing white privilege and that “the United States is built on systemic and structural racism” and another teaching LGBTQ+ inclusion to 4-year-olds.

The section on structural racism states that “systemic and structural racism … has permeated every institution and system through policies and practices that position people of color in oppressive, repressive, and menial positions. The early education system is not immune to these forces.” It says preschool is one place where children “begin to see how they are represented in society” and that the classroom should be a place of “affirmation and healing.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Biden Admin Releases Another Islamic Terrorist from Guantanamo Bay

Dmytro "Henry" Aleksandrov
-
0
Biden Admin Releases Another Islamic Terrorist from Guantanamo Bay

(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) The Biden administration decided to release and return Said bin Brahim bin Umran Bakush, a suspected Al Qaeda instructor, to Algeria on Thursday after holding him at Guantánamo Bay detention facility for two decades.

According to the Daily Caller, Bakush is one of the last 20 suspected low-level Islamist fighters to be released among a group that was captured in a 2002 raid on facilities U.S. and Pakistani authorities believed Al Qaeda was using as safe houses.

The statement said that the Department of Defense agreed with Algeria to transfer Bakush, originally thought to hail from Libya, subject to continued monitoring, travel restrictions and security conditions.

“The United States appreciates the willingness of the Government of Algeria and other partners to support ongoing U.S. efforts toward a deliberate and thorough process focused on responsibly reducing the detainee population and ultimately closing the Guantanamo Bay facility,” the Pentagon stated.

The news source reported that Bakush is the sixth Guantanamo prisoner released in the past six months. The reason why that happens is that the Biden administration seeks to reduce the population and eventually shut down the facility.

After Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin notified Congress of his intent to repatriate the detainee in February, a DOD review board determined Bakush was eligible for transfer on Apr. 13.

The Daily Caller added that all 20 operatives who swept up the raid on Faisalabad dwellings were detained in Guantanamo, but only one remains as of Bakush’s transfer.

While at Guantanamo Bay, Bakush was very reclusive as a prisoner. He was boycotting hearings to determine his suitability for release and, in 2017 or 2018, he refused to speak with his lawyer, H. Candace Gorman. He was spending most of his time in his cell at Camp 6, a building where more pliant detainees are permitted to eat, pray and watch TV together.

At his 2021 court appearance, U.S. intelligence agencies determined that he “probably attended basic and advanced training in Afghanistan and later served as an instructor at an extremist camp prior to his capture.”

Laxalt to Lead DeSantis PAC

Editor 5
-
0
Laxalt to Lead DeSantis PAC

(Headline USA) Former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, a longtime Donald Trump ally, will help lead a political action committee encouraging Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.

Laxalt, who roomed with DeSantis at the Naval Justice School, will serve as the chairman of the Never Back Down super PAC, the organization confirmed Saturday.

Laxalt chaired Trump’s campaign in Nevada in 2020 and has argued that Biden’s victory in the state was fraudulent. Laxalt was a public face of many of Trump campaign’s lawsuits in the swing state that challenged election rules and results. Trump endorsed Laxalt in the 2022 Senate race.

But Laxalt has remained a close friend of DeSantis, who is widely expected to announce a White House campaign soon. Both were Navy judge advocate generals and served in Iraq.

Never Back Down was started by Ken Cuccinelli, a former Virginia attorney general who had a high-ranking role in Trump’s Homeland Security Department. The political group has reported raising $30 million.

One wing of the group has been raising money that could be transferred to DeSantis should he get in the 2024 race. A different wing has begun running pro-DeSantis ads and pushing back aggressively against Trump in what’s increasingly become a bitter campaign.

Trump’s campaign on Friday criticized DeSantis’ management of the state where they both live, saying that “Florida continues to tumble into complete and total delinquency and destruction.” Never Back Down responded on Saturday by offering “financial assistance” for Trump to move to California.

Prominent Republican operative Jeff Roe, who worked on Laxalt’s unsuccessful campaigns in 2018 for governor and last year for Senate, began as an advisor to Never Back Down last month.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

New AP History Textbooks Brainwash Kids with Anti-Trump Propaganda

Dmytro "Henry" Aleksandrov
-
0
New AP History Textbooks Brainwash Kids with Anti-Trump Propaganda

(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) Advanced Placement U.S. History [APUSH] textbooks are indoctrinating children by spreading lies about President Donald Trump.

According to a new investigative report from conservative Greg Price, it was revealed that some of the country’s most-used history textbooks inaccurately cover Trump’s term in office.

Price revealed that “nearly all” of the textbooks he reviewed claimed that Trump won in 2016 only because Russia interfered in the election — a lie that was debunked many years ago, even by many leftists.

Unsurprisingly, the textbooks also leave out details about the Trump-Russia media narrative, the Steele Dossier and the FBI’s unprecedented FISA abuses.

“Nearly all of the textbooks claim ‘Russian meddling’ was responsible for the 2016 election of Donald Trump, despite that narrative being debunked through multiple studies and news reports,” he wrote.

“A New York University Center for Social Media and Politics study found that Russian Twitter accounts had no measurable impact on the 2016 election. Facebook’s internal investigation also found that 56% of the $100K worth of Facebook ads purchased by Russians in 2016 were viewed on the platform after the election was over.”

“They also leave out all the details of how the Trump/Russia media narrative unraveled,” he added.

“None of them mention the phony Steele Dossier, how the FBI abused FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) to spy on Trump, the illegal unmasking of Michael Flynn, how officials like John Brennan, James Clapper, and Rep. Adam Schiff lied to the public about Russian collusion, or the role Hillary Clinton’s campaign played in feeding false Trump/Russia stories to the press.”

Authors of one of the textbooks also spread another debunked lie about Trump refusing “in 2017 to condemn a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.”

“We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence, ” Trump said, according to Trending Politics.

He then issued a statement two days later.

“KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.”

Transgender Legislator Silenced for Throwing a Fit on Capitol Floor

Editor 5
-
0
Transgender Legislator Silenced for Throwing a Fit on Capitol Floor

(Headline USA) A Montana state representative that claims to be ‘transgender’ was silenced by Republican leaders for a second day Friday.

Rep. Zooey Zephyr, has refused to apologize for telling lawmakers they would have “blood on their hands” if they voted for a bill banning genital mutilation.

The measure has passed and is in the hands of the governor, who has indicated he will sign it.

Montana is among a wave of states passing legislation protecting Americans from gender mutilation.

Montana’s House speaker said he won’t let Zephyr speak on the chamber floor until she apologizes.

Last year, Zephyr became the first open transgender elected to the Montana Legislature.

The 34-year-old Democrat is from the left-leaning college town Missoula, where the transgender has been a staffer at the University of Montana. The tranny has spent much of their life advocating for radical leftism as it related to gender.

The transgender has been triggered upon being elected because Montana law makers have passed bills protecting children from gender mutilation and prohibited censoring Montanans from calling a person the name they were born with.

The triggered transgender screeched in an uncontrolled rage as lawmakers amended and passed a bill protecting children from gender mutilation.

“I hope the next time there’s an invocation, when you bow your heads in prayer, you see the blood on your hands,” Zephyr exploded.

House Majority Leader Sue Vinton, a Republican, immediately called Zephyr’s comments inappropriate and disrespectful. That evening, the Montana Freedom Caucus demanded that the uncontrolled transgender be censured.

Zephyr had upset legislative leaders with uncontrolled emotional outbursts before.

The transgender made a similar “blood on your hands” comment the first time the House heard the bill.

The Freedom Caucus members said Zephyr’s comments displayed a “hateful rhetoric” and called for a “commitment to civil discourse.”

Days after the outburst letter, Speaker Matt Regier refused to allow Zephyr to speak against a bill Thursday that would define gender. The transgender was blocked from speaking again Friday during discussion of a bill to prevent minors from seeing pornography online.

Regier said he silenced Zephyr after discussions with other lawmakers. Democrats objected, but the decision was upheld by the chamber.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Klaus Schwab Openly Pushes WEF Shill as Paraguay President

Dmytro "Henry" Aleksandrov
-
0
Klaus Schwab Openly Pushes WEF Shill as Paraguay President

(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) World Economic Forum leader and globalist Klaus Schwab openly promoted a leftist Paraguay’s presidential candidate — one of the WEF’s hand-picked “Young Global Leaders” — to replicate a Brazil-style pre-election “coup.”

According to National File, a team of Brazilian hackers tied to that country’s openly communist and narco-linked president are now under investigation in Paraguay. The news source stated that they intend to hack and rig the nation’s electronic election on behalf of the WEF ticket.

The Paraguayan campaign of Presidential nominee Efrain Alegre and Vice Presidential nominee Maria Soledad Nuñez Mendez of the Authentic Radical Liberal Party (PLRA) are backed by both Brazilian election hackers and the WEF, with Klaus Schwab as its leader.

National File was also able to obtain an email, in which Schwab openly supported Mendez and the PLRA’s left-wing ticket, which seeks to completely overhaul the nation of Paraguay, pushing it into the “Great Reset” while geopolitically moving it toward Communist China (CCP).

“Of course, we would be delighted if a YGL [Young Global Leader] would come out as a winner of the election,” Schwab wrote, adding that he’d also copied Marisol Argueta to the message chain, “who is our head of Regional Agenda for Latin America, to follow up.”

In another correspondence/address to Mendez, Schwab thanks Mendez for her attendance at the “13th World Economic Forum on Latin America held in Sao Paulo, Brazil,” before admitting that the World Economic Forum is using the nation of Paraguay to “lay the foundations” of the “Fourth Industrial Revolution.”

Schwab added in the letter that Paraguay and other nations will have to undergo “economic, political, and technological transformations” to get there. These “transformations” have been demonstrated in numerous countries that the WEF has involved itself. Among those “transformations” are the installation of left-wing governments and the destruction of civil liberties.

WATCH: Tucker Carlson Says He Applied to Work for the CIA

Ben Sellers
-
0
WATCH: Tucker Carlson Says He Applied to Work for the CIA

(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) Two of the most consequential events in modern American political history were set in motion in the third week of August, 1991.

The first of these was the collapse of the Soviet Union following an unsuccessful Aug. 18 coup attempt against then-Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.

The second was that 22-year-old Tucker Carlson finally got a job.

Carlson recounted the experience on Friday while addressing the Heritage Foundation’s 50th anniversary gala, capping off its two-day leadership summit that featured a speech earlier in the day from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

“I was leaving college without a degree or a job and attempting to marry my girlfriend… and ran into this giant roadblock in the form of her Episcopal priest father who said, ‘No, job first,'” Carlson began.

“And not only did I not have a job, I had no idea what I wanted to do,” he continued. “And so, I applied to a couple different places—the CIA, if you can imagine; some boarding school in Rabat because I thought, ‘You know, Morocco. Lower standards. Maybe they’ll hire me.’ No. And I wound at Heritage as a fact-checker/copy-editor at Policy Review, the quarterly magazine at the Heritage Foundation, and that job absolutely changed my life.”

Although he made only $14,000 annually, plus a $100 Christmas bonus, it sealed Carlson’s decision to become a journalist, and helped him get the girl as well. The rest is history.

Of course, nearly 32 years later, America is still fighting a de-facto cold war with Russia—only this time, the Marxists forces of the Evil Empire are on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

To many conservatives, Carlson is now the last, best hope in holding the line, using his nightly prime-time slot on Fox News to expose absurdity and corruption while validating viewpoints that were once normal but are now under vicious attack.

“It’s just so obvious—it’s completely obvious,” he said of the rational but unpopular opinions he and many of his guests share—some of which the federal government is now punishing, in spite of the First Amendment.

Carlson blamed the current situation, in part, on the loss of American identity that came with winning the Cold War, which had long helped to define our values as being the opposite of the anti-market, anti-Christian USSR.

But he also blamed the internet age for creating a society in which there is simultaneously an unprecedented access to information and a public so overwhelmed by the information glut that it now lacks the critical-thinking skills needed to process it.

“Polling suggests a lot of Americans—hundreds of millions of Americans—they don’t know the facts about things,” Carlson said, noting that the absence of an informed populus posed a fundamental challenge to democracy—perhaps greater than any threat the Soviets might have devised.

And the national intelligence apparatus that Carlson once aspired to join, the CIA, has played a role in controlling and manipulating the flow of information, making his pursuit of truth that much more complicated.

In the era of rampant gaslighting and mass formation psychosis—via the COVID-19 pandemic, Black Lives Matter riots, Ukraine conflict and more—Carlson said those who maintained their common-sense convictions and stood up for what they knew to be true had become unlikely heroes.

“The second you decide to tell the truth about something, you are filled with this power,” Carlson said. “… And, of course, the opposite is true: The more you lie, the weaker and more terrified you become.”

While we are primed from early on in life to value spontaneous acts of heroism, he said, such as rushing into a burning building to save a crying baby, and to reflect on whether we might have the fortitude to act when confronted in the moment, this new sort of heroism can be even more elusive.

“No one is trained to stand up in the middle of a DEI meeting at Citibank and say, ‘This is nonsense,'” Carlson mused.

However, the courage to do so is necessary, he added, because the stakes are far greater than they have ever been—theological, in fact.

“When the Treasury secretary stands up and says, ‘You know what you can do to help the economy? Get an abortion’—That’s like an Aztec principle basically,” Carlson said, making reference to the child-sacrifice rituals of ancient civilizations.

“… What you’re watching is not a political movement,” he continued. “It’s evil.”

In the same manner familiar to his 3.5 million nightly viewers, Carlson tempered his deep philosophical musings with self-effacing humor—including jokes about his Scandanavian roots and his upbringing in the Episcopal church—as well as sharing the wisdom gained from his time interviewing some of the world’s most brilliant luminaries.

One word of advice Carlson had was to hang onto one’s physical book collection, as well as anything tangible in a world dominated by digital ephemera.

“I’m not gonna tell you to go buy gold and ammo—although you should think about it,” Carlson noted. But constantly prepping for some future catastrophe risked missing out on the present joys—and olifactory experiences—that life has to offer.

“I’ve really gotten to the point where, if I can’t smell it, I’m not dealing with it,” he said.

Finally, Carlson—despite his Episcopalian upbringing—offered a Zen-like observation that the key to happiness was to recognize the impermanence of everything, and to value it accordingly.

“That’s the one thing that unites every single person is the certainty of death,” he said. “And reminding yourself of that every single day, paradoxically, brings you joy.”

Ben Sellers is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/realbensellers.

1...2,0402,0412,042...3,892Page 2,041 of 3,892