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‘Hit Squad’: The Dawn Sturgess Inquiry Coverup

On December 4th, a long-running Inquiry into the mysterious July 2018 death of Dawn Sturgess delivered its final report. To the surprise of surely no one, it concluded Sturgess was contaminated with Novichok as a result of the attempted assassination of GRU defector Sergei Skripal in Salisbury by Russian intelligence operatives, directed by Vladimir Putin, four months earlier. While the mainstream media unquestioningly accepted the findings as unchallengeable gospel, evidence heard and produced throughout the Inquiry raised considerably more questions than it provided answers.

Sturgess’ death, many miles away from Salisbury, was a puzzling coda to the already enigmatic poisonings of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in March 2018. She is the only person in history known to have died from coming into contact with Novichok, despite the substance being the most lethal nerve agent known to man, and Russian intelligence repeatedly using it to strike targets – purportedly. Her boyfriend Charlie Rowley allegedly gifted her a bottle of Novichok disguised as perfume, which he found – when and where, he seemingly doesn’t know.

Despite apparently spraying the substance on his hands, then wiping it on his jeans, Rowley didn’t die. He was hospitalised unconscious on June 30th 2018, hours after Sturgess collapsed, having unwittingly contaminated herself with Novichok. Or so British authorities would have us believe. Rowley awoke on July 10th, two days after Sturgess’ death. Inexplicably, he was one of many absolutely key witnesses the Inquiry neglected to call to testify. Then again, the process was a flagrant whitewash farce from start to finish.

Under English law, a coroner’s inquest should typically be completed within six to nine months of an individual’s passing. However, as independent journalist John Helmer has extensively documented, British authorities were suspiciously resistant to convening one for Sturgess. It was only after intense legal battles between Sturgess’ family and the government that an Inquiry was instituted. Unlike inquests, which have sweeping legal powers, inquiries are little more than flaccid public relations exercises. Those interviewed and evidence considered was strictly limited, by state decree.

This fudge conveniently prevented British intelligence agencies from scrutiny – an astonishing shortfall, given much of the Inquiry focused on the supposed link between the poisonings of the Skripals and Sturgess’ death. Inquiry chief Anthony Hughes, a former Supreme Court judge, concluded the Skripals’ alleged GRU assassins, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, “brought with them to Salisbury” Novichok secreted in a perfume bottle. He added, “it was probably [emphasis added] this bottle that they used to apply poison to the door handle of Sergei Skripal’s house”.

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Trump’s big, bad battleship will fail

President Trump announced on December 22 that the Navy would build a new Trump-class of “battleships.” The new ships will dwarf existing surface combatant ships. The first of these planned ships, the expected USS Defiant, would be more than three times the size of an existing Arleigh Burke-class destroyer.

Predictably, a major selling point for the new ships is that they will be packed full of all the latest technology. These massive new battleships will be armed with the most sophisticated guns and missiles, to include hypersonics and eventually nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. The ships will also be festooned with lasers and will incorporate the latest AI technology.

If you think you have heard this story before, you would be right. This will be the fourth time this century that the national security establishment has attempted to build a new surface combatant ship for the Navy. For those of you who may not be keeping score, the previous three attempts have been horrendous failures.

Just to refresh everyone’s memory, the Navy already attempted to build a modern version of the battleship in the early 2000’s. That was the Zumwalt-class destroyer program. Navy leaders wanted to build 32 such ships that would be armed with a futuristic gun system to support Marine amphibious assaults. The gun could never be built in a cost effective way so it was cancelled. That left the ship without a clear mission and the entire program was stopped after only three ships had been built. Each of those ships still don’t have a clear mission and now exist as $8 billion anchors around the Navy’s neck.

Less than a month before the president announced this latest shipbuilding program, the Secretary of the Navy cancelled the Constellation-class frigate program after Navy leaders sunk nearly $9 billion into it and before a single hull had been commissioned. That announcement was shocking because the Constellation frigates were intended to be a low risk replacement for the earlier, failed Littoral Combat Ship program.

The Littoral Combat Ships were supposed to be the Navy’s workhorse ships that would hunt mines and submarines, fight other surface ships, and provide security for the rest of the fleet. They were originally to employ a complicated modular design that would see each ship have mission systems swapped out in port to give them the specialized capabilities for their next deployment. The scheme failed spectacularly when modules didn’t work and cost soared. The ships also proved to be quite fractious and suffered several embarrassing mechanical breakdowns. Several Littoral Combat Ships had to be rescued at sea and towed back to port.

The Littoral Combat Ship program was expected to help the Navy increase the size of the fleet because each ship was supposed to cost a mere $220 million when the program began in 2002. By the time Navy officials gave up on the program 15 years later, the cost of each hull had grown to over $600 million.

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The New York Times ignores an essential part of the Jeffrey Epstein story — Israel

If you want to understand why conspiracy theories about Jeffrey Epstein flourish, then you must read the interminable investigation the New York Times published, purporting to explain how Jeffrey Epstein clawed himself to the pinnacle of the financial/political/social world. “The Untold Story of How Jeffrey Epstein Got Rich” concludes that Epstein was the greatest conman and swindler that ever lived, and charmed the pants off of every powerful man he met. Some of his marks still curse Epstein for fleecing them. But the paradigm of the article is the execs at Bear Stearns back in the 70s who found out that the former math teacher at Dalton School had invented college degrees from “two California universities” but didn’t fire him because they wanted to give a humble kid from the outer boros a second chance. 

“You lied about your education,” [senior exec Michael] Tennenbaum said.

“Yes, I know,” Epstein calmly replied. He had never graduated from college. Tennenbaum recalls being disarmed by the admission. Decades later, he would regard it as an example of Epstein’s ability to manipulate his marks — in this case, him.

“Why did you do it?” Tennenbaum stammered.

Without an impressive degree or two, Epstein said, “I knew nobody would give me a chance.”

This resonated with Tennenbaum.

That’s a great story, and there is great reporting in this article. But the premise of the article is a stupid myth the NYT wants to believe– That Epstein was just the canniest, boldest con man that ever lived, and he left everybody swooning. The talented Mr Ripley. 

It’s a myth not because Epstein was not a bold and crafty con man – no doubt he was. But even a conman can have an ethos. Look at Gatsby, a mobster with romance. Look at Trump’s fascistic populism. And Jeffrey Epstein had an ethos that he played on over and over again as his racket grew; and that ethos was the love of Israel in the rising Jewish meritocratic establishment of the 70s. 

Almost every player in the Times story is a Jewish success story who lobbied for Israel in prestigious circles, from Dershowitz to Larry Summers, Leon Black, Lynn Forester de Rothschild, and Epstein’s most famous associations, Robert Maxwell and Les Wexner.  

Love of Israel was a lead criterion for inclusion in Epstein’s circle. I don’t think Epstein’s “marks” were even fooled by him. They knew he was a conman who played fast and loose. But they also knew that the Israel lobby has a need for charmers who break the rules, so they looked the other way.   

Epstein did numerous chores for Israel that investigative sites have documented and the Times does not touch: he helped Israel broker financial deals with neighbors, he had an Israeli spy living in his house for a time, and he had a close relationship with former Israeli PM Ehud Barak that included business ventures and politics in Israel.

“It’s well past time to ask questions about the billionaire pedophile’s links to Israel,” Jacobin says. 

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Judge Finally Allows Access to Fulton County 2020 Physical Ballots and Related Documents

It has been 1,071 days since the Georgia Supreme Court remanded the VoterGA.org lawsuit back to the lower courts after determining Garland Favorito’s voter integrity group did, in fact, have standing.  That lawsuit was asking the court to unseal the physical paper ballots and allow inspection.

Last year, the Georgia State Election Board also sought to unseal the physical paper ballots when it issued a subpoena to Fulton County demanding the ballots, ballot stubs, envelopes, and digital images.  Fulton County’s Board of Registration and Elections, without a vote from the board, filed a lawsuit challenging that subpoena.

Today, Judge Robert McBurney granted the State Election Board access to the physical ballots and related documents; however, the Board would be on the hook for the estimated $400,000 in “document costs,” as estimated by the county.

Fulton County has until January 7th to provide the State Election Board with the estimated costs.

Fox 5 Atlanta reported:

As 2025 draws to a close, there is no end in sight to the prolonged legal challenges surrounding Fulton County’s 2020 presidential election.

Last year, the Republican-led Georgia Election Board reopened an investigation into Fulton County’s handling of the 2020 election.

On Friday, they scored a court victory.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney’s decision grants the election board access to Fulton County’s 2020 ballots and related documents.

Fulton County Chairman Rob Pitts seemed irritated with the decision, telling FOX 5, “This nonsense has to stop at some point.  I assured the public then, reassure the public today, those elections are open and fair and transparent, and every vote was counted.”

This decision from Judge McBurney comes as Fulton County admitted to the State Election Board that it was missing signatures from poll managers on poll tapes for more than 315,000 ballots.

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DOJ scrambles to find VOLUNTEERS to help redact new Epstein files after sleuths used simple method to crack censored documents

The Justice Department is seeking volunteers to help redact more Epstein files over the ‘next several days,’ it has emerged.

A supervising prosecutor announced an ’emergency request’ from the DOJ to help with ‘remote document review and redactions related to the Epstein files,’ according to an internal email sent to the Southern District of Florida‘s US Attorney’s Office.

The email, which was reviewed by CNN, suggests the DOJ will release more files related to pedophile Jeffrey Epstein over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. 

‘I am aware that the timing could not be worse,’ the official reportedly wrote in Tuesday’s email asking career prosecutors for assistance. ‘For some the holidays are about to begin, but I know that for others the holidays are coming to an end.’ 

The supervising prosecutor cited how officials have an ‘obligation to the public to release’ the files but in order to do so must make ‘certain redactions’ to ‘protect the identity of the victims, among other things.’

The DOJ has released a massive trove of Epstein files already, but there are many more to come with officials noting that overall there are hundreds of thousands of documents set to be released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

Some of the files released by the DOJ were improperly redacted, allowing sleuths to easily reveal the censored information by copying and pasting blacked-out text into a word processing document, the New York Times reported.

The hack allowed viewers to reveal previously withheld names and entities. It also revealed additional details of Epstein’s alleged abuse – which the Daily Mail has opted not to publish – and money concealment tactics.

The Daily Mail understands the redactions that sleuths were able to hack through were applied by various courts, whose documents were then handed over to the DOJ and published in the Epstein files. Files redacted by the DOJ and FBI were unaffected.

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Far-Left Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey Says ICE Agents May Get “Killed” if They Continue Raids in His City

Minnesota Democrats are lashing out at the Trump Administration for surging the state with ICE agents.

Failed Governor Tim Walz, radical Marxist Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and others gathered at the Shiloh Temple this week to defend the illegal aliens in their state living off the largess of the taxpayers.

Walz accused federal agents of political theater.

“When law enforcement is driven by profiling or intimidation, it undermines all the trust in the community. It makes us less safe, and it pulls resources away from doing the real work of crime,” Governor Tim Walz said.

“Minnesota is not going to play along with their strategy. We will not allow our communities to be used as political theater for their personal benefit,” Walz added.

Far-left Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey is under fire for saying ICE agents may die if they continue to conduct immigration raids in his city.

“I am increasingly concerned because of the chaos that is being caused by these ICE agents that somebody is going to get seriously injured or killed,” Jacob Frey said.

“Somebody is going to get seriously injured or killed, and whether that is an ICE agent or a community member, we all know the tinder box that could explode because of it,” he added.

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Brown University Replaces DEI Campus Security Chief with Former Providence Police Chief

The Gateway Pundit reported that Brown University placed their DEI campus security chief Rodney Chatman on leave following the deadly shooting on campus that killed two people and wounded nine others.

Brown President Christina Paxson announced on Monday that Hugh Clements, a former Providence police chief, will serve as the interim head of Public Safety at Brown.

WPRI reports:

Clements retired from Providence police in January 2023 after serving nearly 40 years in uniform. He was colonel of the department for 12 years.

**********

After leaving Providence, Clements was named director of the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) for the U.S. Department of Justice. He stepped down earlier this year and has been working as a security consultant.

Clements is a widely respected law enforcement leader and was contacted by the university days after the shooting, Target 12 has learned.

Paxon noted that Clements would report directly to her.

Under Chatman’s leadership, there are many unanswered questions about how the shooter so easily gained access to the building where the shootings occurred.

A janitor at the school has come forward saying he warned school authorities about a strange figure who turned out to be the shooter, days before the incident.

The New York Post notes that Chatman has been the subject of two no-confidence votes since arriving at Brown in 2021, “with the measures expressing ‘deep concern’ about Chatman’s ability to lead the Brown Police Department.”

The Brown Daily Herald reported that in January 2025, he faced allegations from one departing officer who claimed the workplace was a “toxic,” “vindictive” “s—tshow.”

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Wilkes-Barre, PA man arrested on terrorism-related charges after bomb-making materials found at his home

A Pennsylvania man was arrested in Wilkes-Barre after a counterterrorism investigation determined him to be attempting to possess or manufacture weapons of mass destruction.

24-year-old Saleh Edwards was arrested and charged with criminal attempt to possess or manufacture weapons of mass destruction. The investigation was launched by city police and the FBI after a report of suspicious activity.

According to a report by WNEP, investigators executed a court-authorized search of Edwards’ home on Sunday. Court documents related to the case remain sealed, leaving limited public information about what authorities allegedly discovered during the search. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for January 6, when additional details may be released. 

Luzerne County District Attorney Sam Sanguedolce told the outlet that a motive has not been identified and authorities do not yet know what Edwards allegedly planned to do with the explosive device. He said the investigation began after a neighbor raised concerns about suspicious activity at the residence.

During the search, Saint Clair Street was blocked off as police, county detectives, and FBI special agents searched the home. Sanguedolce described the case as a “joint counterterrorism investigation” involving multiple agencies.

Edwards was arraigned on Sunday and denied bail by Judge Donald L. Whittaker, who cited concerns about public safety. Edwards is currently being held at a county jail.

The arrest comes months after a separate, unrelated incident in Pennsylvania, in which a man who brought firearms to a “No Kings” protest in Chester County later pleaded guilty after explosive devices were found at his residence.

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Gavin Newsom Now Vowing to Eradicate Homelessness in California for the 100th Time

Gavin Newsom has been vowing to end homelessness in California for years. It all began way back when he was the mayor of San Francisco. Now he is the governor of California and he is still doing it.

The only thing that has changed in California over the years is the number of homeless people, which just keeps going up.

And of course, the only reason he is doing this now is because he is planning to run for president in 2028, not because he actually cares about the people of California.

The folks at RedState are skeptical:

You know, if California voters had a dollar for every time Gavin Newsom had pledged to eradicate homelessness in his state over the nearly three decades he’s been in elected office, they’d be rich instead of struggling to make ends meet due to the high cost of living and anti-capitalist environment in the Democrat-run Golden State…

The rampant homeless problems there have been well-documented here at RedState and elsewhere, with even prominent Democrat figures in California at various points acknowledging in so many words that the issue exists primarily in big cities run by other Democrats, like Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Predictably, Newsom has in recent months worked to give off the (false) impression that he is the “do something” governor, partly to beef up his purported 2028 bona fides and also to try to combat President Trump’s legitimate criticisms of things like the state’s soft-on-crime policies, which has played a big part in the exodus of residents over the last several years to red states like Texas and Florida.

But homelessness is where Newsom continues to demonstrate that talk is cheap, with the people ending up paying the steep price that the cost of failed leadership brings.

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