"The great English writer Samuel Johnson once told a friend, 'Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.'

The quote came to mind after reading the response of Abbe Lowell, legal counsel for Hunter Biden, to the issuance of subpoenas for Hunter and other family members by the House Oversight Committee. Lowell said that 'Hunter is eager to have the opportunity, in a public forum' -- but premised that on the condition that it be 'the right time' for Hunter to speak. He also dismissed the committee investigation as a 'political stunt.'

It appears that further concentration is warranted. A congressional subpoena is really not an invitation for a sit-down at a convenient time. Hunter has spent years relying on denial and delay to fend off inquiries. With this subpoena, he will now have to choose between cooperation or contempt ... on the committee's schedule."

Read the entire article here.

"Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) has clearly been positioning himself to run for president in 2028, if not in 2024 as a backup in case President Joe Biden drops out of the race. But Newsom's future political aspirations are running into an issue: California is poorly managed, and Californians are starting to sour on him.

"Newsom's approval rating has hit an all-time low, according to a poll from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies. Newsom has an approval of just 44%, with his disapproval at 49%. It's the first time his approval rating has been underwater since early 2021, when the recall election against him went forward. His approval rating has dropped 11 points since February.

"There isn't any one culprit either in California's demographics. According to the Los Angeles Times, 'Newsom's decline in popularity spans nearly every major voter category and includes significant drops among his Democratic base and voters who aren't affiliated with either party.' His approval rating has dropped 16 points among California Democrats and 12 points from independents.

"Much of it likely has to do with Newsom giving little focus to his state as he campaigns for Biden (and positions himself as Biden's backup) across the country. On top of that, Newsom went on an international work vacation to China to cozy up to the Chinese Communist Party and pretend he was making progress on climate change. Meanwhile, all of California's problems remain problems, from homelessness and the country's worst poverty rate to the rising cost of living and the fact that the state is being forced into budget cuts as residents flee for greener pastures."

Read the entire article here.

"House lawmakers on Tuesday censured Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the sole Palestinian American in Congress, over her remarks and actions in response to the Israel-Hamas war.

"The censure resolution, authored by Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., passed 234 to 188, with 22 Democrats voting for it and four Republicans opposing the measure. A censure vote only requires a simple majority to pass.

"The resolution censures Tlaib, D-Mich., for 'promoting false narratives regarding the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and for calling for the destruction of the state of Israel.'

"'It is a sad fact, but this type of antisemitic hate is being promoted by a small group of members in this body, chiefly Rep. Tlaib,' McCormick said on the House floor before the vote. 'We must hold her accountable.'"

Read the entire article here.

"Activists organizing pro-Palestinian protests across the United States in the wake of the Hamas attacks against Israel share various deep affiliations with designated terrorist factions, all while quietly receiving checks from anonymous sources, records show.

"The streets of Washington, D.C., were flooded Saturday with tens of thousands of activists demanding a ceasefire in Gaza and for the U.S. to choke off aid to Israel, where more than 1,400 civilians and soldiers have been killed by Islamic terrorists since Oct. 7, the deadliest attack against the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Groups behind the increasing number of anti-Israel protests and the recent one in the nation's capital that spurred vandalism maintain particularly opaque dark money funding structures and have also faced scrutiny over the years for their ties to terror, a Washington Examiner investigation found."

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"A new primary election has been ordered by a Connecticut state court amid alleged fraud, while Democrats in Massachusetts and New Jersey are also accused of or charged with election fraud. This brings the total of election-related criminal cases across the country to at least three.

"Democrats in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Jersey are facing various allegations of election fraud, as two instances are related to this year's elections while two more are with regard to prior elections.

"On Wednesday, Bridgeport Superior Court Judge William Clark overturned the results of a Democratic mayoral primary and ordered a new election in connection to allegations of absentee ballot abuse."

Read the entire article here.

"This weekend, hundreds of millions of Americans will dutifully set their clocks back one hour, convincing themselves that they've 'gained an hour -- despite spending at least part of it resetting all their timepieces.

"Americans should instead refuse to play along. Few government mandates combine such utter pointlessness and serious public health harms than the twice-a-year switch on and off Daylight Saving Time. It's time to end the madness.

"First, despite its label, 'Daylight Saving Time' does not save daylight. It doesn't even save energy. Two studies looked at energy use before and after changes in DST laws. Indiana went on daylight saving time statewide for the first time in 2006, and in 2007 when President George W. Bush's godawful energy bill started DST three weeks earlier.

"Both found no energy savings. Energy use in Indiana actually went up when it went on DST. So if switching back and forth each year doesn't save energy, what does it do?"

Read the entire article here.

"Top Hamas official Ghazi Hamad couldn't be more clear: If the terror group isn't completely wiped out, it'll repeat its horrific Oct. 7 savagery against innocent Israelis 'again and again' -- until the Jewish state is completely destroyed.

"That plainly leaves Israel no choice but to ensure that doesn't happen -- by eliminating Hamas completely.

"Hamad made the threat explicit last week in an interview republished Wednesday: Hamas' Oct. 7 bloodletting 'is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth, because we have the determination, the resolve and the capabilities to fight,' he vowed. 'We will do this again and again.'"

Read the entire article here.

"A U.S. jury on Tuesday found the National Association of Realtors and some residential brokerages, including units of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, liable to pay $1.78 billion in damages for conspiring to artificially inflate commissions for home sales.

"The verdict by a federal jury in Kansas City, Missouri, could upend decades-old practices that have allowed real estate agents to boost commissions as home prices and mortgage rates rise, hurting consumers by making housing transactions more expensive.

"Plaintiffs in the class action included sellers of more than 260,000 homes in Missouri, Kansas and Illinois between 2015 and 2022, who objected to the commissions they were obligated to pay buyers' brokers.

"The verdict followed a two-week trial, and the damages award can be tripled under U.S. antitrust law to more than $5.3 billion."

Read the entire article here.

"The National Archives' stunning admission that it has located 82,000 pages of potentially government-related emails from Joe Biden's pseudonymous private accounts not only threatens to supplant Hillary Clinton in the annals of email scandals, it could also provide a boon to the ongoing federal and congressional investigations into the Biden family. ...

"The admission came out Monday as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit brought by the non-profit Southeastern Legal Foundation. ...

"Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who first raised questions about President Biden's use of private email years ago, said the discovery of the emails should be combed for potential evidence by every investigator from Congress to the Justice Department.

"'It's stunning, but when you consider the lawlessness of this administration, I guess it's not surprising,' Johnson told the 'Just the News, No Noise.' television show Monday evening just hours after word of the email discovery broke."

Read the entire article here.

"President Joe Biden killed the Keystone XL pipeline with a pen stroke on his first day in office. Thousands of American jobs were killed from the comfort of his desk using a 23KT gold-plated pen. Now with another pen he has committed your tax dollars to deploy 20,000 young political "climate activists.

"This is a make-work program for political progressives at the expense of working households. We pay for it.

"An official White House statement said the 'Climate Corps' will 'train young people' to 'advance environmental justice' while 'tackling climate change.'

"Mm-Hmm.

"No law from Congress was enacted to authorize this Green New Deal youth patrol. Biden simply decreed it. And he refuses to state how much of your tax dollars he is spending on these busybody hall monitors."

Read the entire article here.