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The Truth About Watergate

Last week, Bill Murray was on the Joe Rogan Experience. Their conversation eventually wended to Murray’s departed friend and Saturday Night Live co-star John Belushi. Murray discussed Bob Woodward’s book about Belushi — Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi — and said it was a tsunami of fabrications. Murray even posited that since Bob Woodward’s journalism played an integral role in the demise of the Richard Nixon administration, it’s entirely possible that unseen forces were at work to depose Nixon.

I wrote a book about Watergate — The Truth About Watergate: A Tale of Extraordinary Lies and Liars — in which I demonstrate that the Tom Brady of journalism, Bob Woodward, is an unabashed liar and ethical eunuch. If he were Pinocchio, his nose would have a length that rivaled the elevation of the Chrysler Building.

Woodward was born in 1943, and he came of age in Wheaton, Illinois, a conservative, prosperous, and pious enclave on the outskirts of Chicago. Wheaton was a W.A.S.P. Xanadu: 94 percent of its denizens were white and Protestant churches were generously sprinkled throughout the hamlet. Republicans also outnumbered Democrats by a margin of four to one. Woodward’s father was a talented trial lawyer, who would be awarded a county circuit judgeship.

Outwardly, Woodward grew up in an idyllic environment. “Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril,” Oscar Wilde said of art, and Wilde’s statement was equally applicable to the Woodward household: His mother had an affair with a Sears’ executive, which ruptured the family. Twelve-year-old Woodward was the eldest of three siblings when his father was awarded custody of the three children. His father remarried a divorcee who had three children, and the couple eventually had a daughter. So the Woodward household mutated from Father Knows Best into The Brady Bunch. 

Woodward has depicted himself as an outsider of sorts throughout his high school years. But he was elected class president during his sophomore year, and he was one of four commencement speakers for his graduating class. He followed in the conservative wake of his father, and his commencement speech was gleaned from The Conscience of a Conservative, a book written by ultra conservative Barry Goldwater.

After Woodward graduated from Wheaton Community High School, he skipped into Yale University on a Navy R.O.T.C. scholarship. He doubled down on his dedication to the status quo when he entered Book and Snake, one of Yale’s secret societies. At Yale, Woodward majored in English and history. A Yale history professor described his conservative bent as “crypto-fascist.” 

Though Woodward eschewed the peace, love, and brown rice of the 1960s, he revealed in an interview after his celebrity that he had become disenchanted with the Vietnam War and thought of seeking sanctuary in Canada. But Woodward’s recollections about his collegiate misgivings on Vietnam diverge from the memories of his high school sweetheart and first wife: When the authors of Silent Coup inquired if Woodward had ever talked about evading his R.O.T.C. commitment to the Navy in Canada, she responded with a resounding, “Heavens no!” She also depicted him as “ruthless” and “extremely ambitious.”

Following Woodward’s graduation from Yale, his R.O.T.C. scholarship mandated a six-year hitch in the Navy — four years of active duty and two years in the naval reserve. He was a communications officer who had a “top-secret crypto” security clearance when he served on the USS Wright and then the USS Fox.

After his four-year tenure in the Navy, he was assigned to the Pentagon, where he served a fifth year of active duty, working for the Chief of Naval Operations. His responsibilities included briefing Alexander Haig. The official Watergate narrative, sanctified by the government, ablates Woodward briefing Haig at the White House in 1969 and 1970. And Woodward’s Big Lie throughout Watergate was that he didn’t meet Alexander Haig until 1973. But his Big Lie is trumped by three sources who maintain that he had, indeed, briefed Haig: The Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Thomas Moorer, Nixon’s Secretary of Defense, and also an aide to the Secretary of Defense. Woodward’s Big Lie has seismic implications, which are discussed in The Truth About Watergate.

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Judge who allegedly had a relationship with an accused child predator and let him out on bail is now accused of similar crimes

A Utah judge was put on unpaid leave after police accused him of committing several sex crimes involving children. The next day, a former fire chief from the same locality was charged with similar crimes. But court documents revealed an even deeper connection between the two men.

According to court documents obtained by KSL, a local NBC affiliate, Ned Brady Hansen, 54, was charged on Tuesday with eight counts of aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor. When Hansen was first arrested on Jan. 27 — when he was still Tremonton’s fire chief — investigators working his case asked a judge to hold him in custody without bail due to the nature of his alleged crimes.

That judge, Kevin Christensen, 64, let Hansen go free.

On Monday, Christensen was charged with seven felony sex crimes involving children and obstructing justice. And according to an affidavit for Hansen’s arrest, the two men had been engaged in a “sexual relationship,” KSL reported.

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New Mexico Senate Passes Bill To Create Psilocybin Therapy Program

The New Mexico Senate has passed a bill to establish a therapeutic psilocybin program in the state.

After clearing three separate committees over the past month, the legislation from Sen. Jeff Steinborn (D) was approved by the full chamber in a 33-4 vote on Wednesday, sending it to the House of Representatives.

If enacted, the Medical Psilocybin Act would allow patients with certain qualifying conditions to access the psychedelic and use it under the guidance of a licensed healthcare provider.

“I have come to know and become friends with combat veterans, physicians, providers and even practitioners who serve patients dealing with end-of-life anxiety,” Steinborn said on the floor. “This bill seeks to create a carefully calculated, thoughtful and patient program that would be developed by the Department of Health…to allow patients in a medical setting.”

“This is very different from cannabis. It could only be administered in a medical setting by licensed providers,” he said. “Sometimes it can be as effective as one treatment, and people can have long-term relief from that that they’re dealing with.”

The sponsor added that “we recognize the important need of continuing to do research, so we have the best program here, where the Department of Health is making the best available science decisions on medical setting, dosage, et cetera.”

Sen. Jay Block (R), a veteran himself, said that while he was initially “adamantly opposed” to the proposed reform, he has come to better understand the issue as a “right to try” policy for those with serious mental health conditions. He teared up during the Senate debate, recognizing veterans and others who he’s since learned benefitted from the psychedelic.

An amendment from Sen. Katy Huhigg (D) was adopted on the floor to clarify that the use of federally approved psilocybin would be allowed under the state law, but that such products would not be further regulated by the state.

The amendment would also remove a requirement that the department develop “qualifying conditions” for producers and clinicians, add a health care provider to the advisory board that would be created by the bill and strike language the sponsor described as “redundant.”

The measure says its purpose “is to allow the beneficial use of psilocybin in a regulated system for alleviating qualified medical conditions,” including major treatment-resistant depression, PTSD, substance use disorders and end-of-life care. The state Department of Health would be able to approve additional conditions.

Therapy would consist of a preparation session, an administration session and a follow-up integration session.

The state health department would be responsible for establishing guidelines around training for clinicians and producers, including dosage, approved settings for administration, production and storage protocols and other best practices. State officials would also license producers to grow mushrooms and process psilocybin.

Synthetic psilocybin and synthetic analogs of the substance would not be allowed under the proposal.

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Mel Gibson Controversy Highlights a Bigger Scandal: Many Americans Lose Their Gun Rights for No Good Reason

Elizabeth Oyer, a former public defender who was appointed as the Justice Department’s pardon attorney in April 2022, says she was fired last Friday because she refused to sign off on a recommendation to restore Mel Gibson’s gun rights. The movie star and director, who supported Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election and was recently designated as one of the administration’s three “ambassadors” to Hollywood along with Jon Voight and Sylvester Stallone, lost the right to own firearms because of a misdemeanor domestic violence conviction.

Oyer presents the episode as a conflict between public safety and political favoritism, and The New York Times framed the story the same way. But the incident also illustrates how difficult it is for people who have lost their Second Amendment rights as a result of criminal convictions—a category that includes the president himself—to regain those rights, even when there are no grounds to think they pose a threat to public safety.

In March 2011, Gibson pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor battery charge involving his girlfriend, and Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Stephanie Sautner sentenced him to 36 months of probation. Although Gibson’s deal with prosecutors allowed him to avoid jail time, his plea triggered an ancillary penalty under 18 USC 922(g)(9), which makes it a felony for anyone who “has been convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence” to receive or possess a firearm. Another provision of the same law, Section 922(g)(1), sweeps more broadly, imposing the same lifelong disability on anyone who has been convicted of a crime punishable by more than a year of incarceration, no matter how long ago it was committed and whether or not it involved violence.

As Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett noted in an opinion she wrote as an appeals court judge, the constitutionality of the latter prohibition is doubtful. Barrett dissented from a 2019 decision in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit upheld the application of Section 922(g)(1) to a manufacturer of therapeutic shoes and footwear inserts who had pleaded guilty to mail fraud. History “demonstrates that legislatures have the power to prohibit dangerous people from possessing guns,” she wrote. “But that power extends only to people who are dangerous.”

The Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen added heft to that argument by clarifying that gun control laws must be “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation” when they impinge on conduct covered by the “plain text” of the Second Amendment. In 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit ruled that Section 922(g)(1) failed that test as applied to Bryan Range, a Pennsylvania man who had pleaded guilty to food stamp fraud, a state misdemeanor that was notionally punishable by up to five years in prison. Based on similar reasoning, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit last year overturned the Section 992(g)(1) conviction of Steven Duarte, a California man who had lost his gun rights because of a nonviolent criminal record.

Without such judicial intervention, “prohibited persons” like Range and Duarte have little recourse. Under 18 USC 925(c), they theoretically can ask the attorney general to restore their Second Amendment rights. The attorney general has the discretion to do that based on a determination that “the circumstances regarding the disability, and the applicant’s record and reputation, are such that the applicant will not be likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety and that the granting of the relief would not be contrary to the public interest.” But that responsibility has been delegated to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), which Congress has barred from considering such applications.

“Although federal law provides a means for the relief of firearms disabilities,” the agency explains, “ATF’s annual appropriation since October 1992 has prohibited the expending of any funds to investigate or act upon applications for relief from federal firearms disabilities submitted by individuals. As long as this provision is included in current ATF appropriations, ATF cannot act upon applications for relief from federal firearms disabilities submitted by individuals.”

If the ATF cannot act on such applications, can people with disqualifying criminal records seek relief in federal court? No, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled in the 2002 case United States v. Bean.

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Newsom Accused of Secretly Funding His Own Tribute in City Hall: Report

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) allegedly orchestrated the funding of a bronze bust of himself inside San Francisco City Hall while serving as mayor, using money from companies he controlled, according to a newly released book.

The book claims that while Newsom played a key role in securing funds, he later distanced himself from the process, portraying himself as unaware of who had financed the monument.

In “Fool’s Gold: The Radicals, Con Artists, and Traitors Who Killed the California Dream and Now Threaten Us All,” authors Susan Crabtree and Jedd McFatter detail how Newsom allegedly used a system of “behested payments” to channel money toward the project. In California politics, behested payments allow elected officials to request private donations for causes, but they have drawn criticism when the contributions appear to benefit the official making the request, according to Breitbart.

A review of Newsom’s behested payments shows that between late 2015 and early 2016, three private entities donated money to the nonprofit Community Initiatives, designating the funds for the “Mayoral Bust at San Francisco City Hall.” Two of these entities—Balboa Cafe Partners and PlumpJack Management Group—were owned by Newsom, with each contributing $5,000 to the project.

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Missouri Senators Approve Bill To Legalize Psilocybin Therapy For Veterans And Sex Trafficking Survivors

Missouri senators have advanced a bill to allow military veterans and survivors of sex trafficking who have certain mental health conditions to legally access psilocybin therapy.

The Senate Families, Seniors and Health Committee approved the legislation from Sen. Stephen Webber (D) on Wednesday. A similar House bill focused on the psychedelic moved through a separate panel earlier this month.

In addition to being 21 or older, a military veteran or sex trafficking survivor and enrolled in a clinical trial, participants in the proposed program would need to have PTSD, major depressive disorder, a substance use disorder or be in end-of-life care.

They would also need to provide documentation to the state Department of Mental Health about the treating physician, facilitator and location and time of use.

Further, use of psilocybin would be limited to 150 mg during a 12-month period.

The bill also authorizes the state Department of Health to provide up to $3 million worth of grants to support research on the therapeutic potential of psilocybin.

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WA state city council appoints trans OnlyFans content creator with cannibalism fetish to fill vacant seat

A transgender OnlyFans adult content creator, who has a cannibalism fetish, was unanimously appointed to fill a vacant seat on the Lynnwood City Council in Washington state.Jessica Ann Roberts, 32, born Neil Vincent Roberts, has posted on social media about having an uncontrollable desire to impregnate women and eat them.

On Monday, the Democratic-run council selected Roberts over Army combat veteran and Amazon program manager, Robert Leutwyler, to fill the vacancy. The Lynnwood Times was the first to report about Roberts’ history as a sex worker.

Roberts had an OnlyFans account under the username @jaroberts1501, which included 12 videos and 63 photographs of sexually explicit content. According to the account bio, Roberts is described as “a bisexual transwoman with itty bitty titties and a big girl cock.

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Professor at Center of Columbia University Deportation Scandal is Former Israeli Spy

The professor at the center of the Columbia University deportation scandal is a former Israeli intelligence official, MintPress News can reveal.

Mahmoud Khalil, a recent graduate of the university’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), was abducted by Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) Saturday for his role in organizing protests last year against Israel’s attack on Gaza. Khalil’s dean, Dr. Keren Yarhi-Milo, head of the School of International and Public Affairs, is a former Israeli military intelligence officer and official at Israel’s Mission to the United Nations. Yarhi-Milo played a significant role in drumming up public concern about a supposed wave of intolerable anti-Semitism sweeping over the campus, thereby laying the groundwork for the extensive crackdown on civil liberties that has followed the protests.

Spooks in Our Midst

Before entering academia, Dr. Yarhi-Milo served as an officer and an intelligence analyst with the Israeli Defense Forces. Given that she was recruited into the intelligence services because of her ability to speak Arabic fluently, her job likely entailed surveilling the Arab population.

After leaving the world of intelligence, she worked for Israel’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York. While there, she met and married her husband, Israel’s official United Nations spokesperson.

Although she is now an academic, she has never left the world of international security, making the subject her area of expertise. She has made a point of trying to lift women’s voices in the field. One of these was the then-U.S. Director of National Security, Avril Haines, whom she spoke with in 2023. But even though Khalil was a student in her school, she had nothing to say about his arrest. Indeed, rather than speak out on the issue (as activists have demanded), she instead chose this week to invite Naftali Bennett, prime minister of Israel from 2021 to 2022, to speak at Columbia. Students protesting Tuesday’s event were condemned by university authorities for “harassing” Yarhi-Milo.

Unprecedented Protests, Unprecedented Repression

Columbia was the epicenter of a massive protest movement across university campuses nationwide last year. It is estimated that at least eight percent of all American college students participated in demonstrations denouncing the genocidal attack on Gaza and calling on educational institutions to divest from Israel. The response was equally vast in its scale. Well over 3,000 protestors were arrested, including faculty members themselves.

The nationwide movement began at Columbia on April 17, when a modest Gaza solidarity encampment was established. Protestors were shocked when university president Minouche Shafik immediately called in the New York Police Department – the first time the university had allowed police to suppress dissent on campus since the famous 1968 demonstrations against the Vietnam War.

Mahmoud Khalil was among the leaders of the movement. The Syrian-born Palestinian refugee was willing to speak calmly and cogently to the press about the protest’s goals. A permanent resident of the United States, he was abducted by ICE on Saturday.

“ICE proudly apprehended and detained Mahmoud Khalil, a radical foreign pro-Hamas student on the campus of Columbia University. This is the first arrest of many to come,” President Trump stated. Secretary of State Marco Rubio echoed Trump’s ominous threat, announcing, “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.” In another clear threat, the Trump administration moved to cancel $400 million in funding to Columbia University, citing the institution’s failure to sufficiently crack down on “antisemitic” incidents on campus.

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Listen to leaked audio of DEI activist SHARING air traffic controller exam answers with minority candidates

A top ‘DEI’ activist is caught on voicemail allegedly offering minority air traffic controller candidates the chance to cheat in a make-or-break entry exam.

Shelton Snow, a powerful figure in the National Black Coalition of Federal Aviation Employees (NBCFAE), can be heard promising advance access to test answers in a shocking audio clip obtained by DailyMail.com.

‘There are some valuable pieces of information that I have taken a screenshot of and I am going to send that to you via email,’ says Snow, an air traffic operations supervisor based out of New York.

‘I am about 99.99 percent sure that it is exactly how you need to answer each question.’

The inside info was made available in 2014 to African Americans, females, and other minority candidates – but whites were left out of the loop to ‘minimize competition’.

Exactly how many applicants were able to capitalize on Snow’s brazen offer to secure coveted controller jobs responsible for the safety of millions of fliers remains a mystery.

But one former NBCFAE member, Matthew Douglas, told DailyMail.com: ‘I know several people who cheated and I know several people who are controlling planes as we speak.’

The voicemail comes to light as President Donald Trump vows to purge DEI – diversity, equity and inclusion – from US aviation, among other federal agencies, in the wake of the deadly midair collision at Reagan National airport in January that claimed 67 lives.

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Canadian man sentenced to 25 years for attack on Keystone XL Pipeline, US energy infrastructure

A Canadian man has been sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for attacking energy infrastructure in the United States, causing $1.7 million in damages. A judge ruled that his crimes met the legal definition of terrorism.

Cameron Smith, 50, originally from the Toronto area but living in Astoria, Oregon, was sentenced on Monday. In addition to prison time, he was ordered to pay over $2.1 million in restitution and $250,000 in fines. Smith also faces deportation upon his release.

Smith pleaded guilty in September to charges of destroying energy facilities. The attacks occurred in 2022 near Carpenter, South Dakota, and in 2023 near Ray, North Dakota. US District Judge Daniel Traynor handed down two consecutive 12-year-and-6-month sentences—far exceeding the federal guideline range of 3.5 to 4.25 years per count.

“Smith also admitted to damaging a transformer and pumpstation of the Keystone Pipeline located near Carpenter, South Dakota, in an amount exceeding $100,000, in July 2022. Smith damaged the Wheelock substation and the Keystone Pipeline equipment by firing multiple rounds from a high-power rifle into the equipment resulting in disruption of electric services to the North Dakota customers and resulting in disruption of the Keystone Pipeline in South Dakota,” the Justice Department says.

Prosecutor David Hagler defended the stiff sentence, arguing that Smith’s actions fit the definition of terrorism by “attempting to intimidate or coerce a civilian population.”

Smith’s defense attorney, Douglas Passon, pushed back, describing his client as a “hyper-aware individual wanting to create awareness about climate change” who intentionally chose remote locations to prevent harm to people.

In the South Dakota case, Smith’s attack led to the shutdown of a Keystone XL Pipeline pump station, causing a leak that damaged surrounding land. In North Dakota, he damaged transformers and infrastructure at an electrical substation, leading to power outages for 243 customers.

During sentencing, Smith told the court he had resorted to direct action out of frustration after years of attempting to raise awareness about climate change through legal channels. He pleaded for a lesser sentence, citing his autism and Crohn’s disease, said the Justice Department in a release.

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