Tag: politics

NJ Gubernatorial Candidate Needs To Tell The Truth About Her Cheating Scandal

Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat congresswoman and candidate in the competitive race for the New Jersey governorship, is under fire for serious ethical lapses. One of those is her still unexplained but suspicious involvement in a widespread cheating scandal at the U.S. Naval Academy (USNA). She still refuses to provide a full public accounting by stonewalling any release of USNA’s disciplinary records that would show the nature and extent of both her and her husband’s involvement in the cheating scandal.

Sherrill’s continued cover-up raises even more questions that only she can clear up.

A Stolen Exam and the Investigation

The cheating in which Sherrill was implicated occurred in December 1992. As The Baltimore Sun has reported, a master copy of the final exam for the electrical engineering course (EE 311) was stolen days before the exam was scheduled. Copies of the stolen exam were then circulated and even sold to some midshipmen, not all of whom have ever been identified. According to The Sun, “more than 130 midshipmen were implicated by the Navy’s inspector general in the theft and distribution of the exam.”

After several midshipmen sent emails to faculty the day of the exam, telling them that the exam had been compromised, the Navy inspector general launched a formal investigation.

The investigation was complicated and lengthened by the decisions of many midshipmen not to cooperate and even to lie to investigators. It concluded on Jan. 20, 1994, with a 30-page report of investigation. The report notes numerous instances where midshipmen refused to answer questions either because they wanted to protect themselves or because they did not want to “bilge” their classmates by giving truthful answers about the cheating.

Sherrill was interviewed, but the record of her interview is still being withheld.

The IG’s report details how some midshipmen lied repeatedly to investigators, even when under oath. Others retained attorneys who advised them to “plead the Fifth” by refusing to answer questions, even after the academy superintendent dropped a criminal investigation and granted them immunity from criminal charges. The IG also found “much evidence that midshipmen conspired to conceal their involvement” in the cheating scandal, including efforts “to coordinate and perfect the testimony they would give.”

All of this hindered the search for the truth.

The report was finalized and approved by the secretary of the Navy just weeks before the 1994 graduation. His final disciplinary decisions included 29 expulsions and other punishments for 42 others.

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Local Democrat Party To Host ‘Solidarity’ Fundraiser With Jay Jones After Assassination Fantasies Scandal

A local Democrat Party in Virginia is slated to host a fundraiser featuring attorney general candidate Jay Jones after reported text messages and phone calls showed the Democrat fantasizing about assassinating a Republican lawmaker and wishing death on his children.

According to the event calendar on its website, the Stafford Democratic Committee (SDC) is scheduled to hold a “Defending Democracy” fundraiser in neighboring Fredericksburg, Virginia, on Friday, Oct. 17. The gathering — in which “[a]ttendees will be treated to a buffet dinner” — is expected to include three featured guests: U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., Rep. Eugene Vindman, D-Va., and Jones.

The event post includes an RSVP link that takes users to a donations page hosted by ActBlue, a Democrat-aligned fundraising platform currently under investigation by Congress and the Trump administration over allegations related to illegal “straw” donations and foreign contributions in U.S. elections.

“Our democracy is under attack and the more that Trump chips away at our rights and freedoms at the national level, the more emboldened others will become at the state and local levels. The Stafford Democratic Committee supports candidates and causes that will prevent those threats from becoming a reality here in Stafford,” reads an excerpt on the SDC’s ActBlue donations page for the event.

The SDC also posted a flyer for the scheduled event on its Facebook page earlier this month, which includes a QR code that takes users to the aforementioned donations page. The document also boasts a statement that reads, “The Stafford Democrats invite you out for a night of music, movement, and solidarity.”

The event flyer was posted to the SDC’s Facebook page hours before National Review reported a series of 2022 text messages sent by Jones to a GOP state lawmaker, in which he fantasized about killing then-state House Speaker Todd Gilbert, a Republican. As The Federalist’s Breccan Thies summarized, “Jones … presented a hypothetical … where he had only two bullets and three options to kill people: violent Cambodian dictator Pol Pot, responsible for millions of deaths; Adolf Hitler, another violent dictator responsible for millions of deaths; or Gilbert, a Republican who served in the state House for nearly 20 years.”

“Gilbert gets two bullets to the head,” Jones wrote in the text messages. “Spoiler: put Gilbert in the crew with the two worst people you know and he receives both bullets every time.”

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Democrats Hold Socialist Zohran Mamdani At Arms Length After He Declared Victory Over Party’s ‘Soul’

Avowed socialist Zohran Mamdani says his mayoral campaign has put progressives in the driver’s seat of the Democratic Party — but establishment Democrats are not ready to take their hands off the wheel. 

Mamdani, 33, the party’s nominee in the New York City mayoral race, declared Monday that his proudly socialist campaign “won the battle over the soul of the Democratic Party” before a rally of 3,000 supporters on Monday evening. The Daily Caller News Foundation asked 11 Senate Democrats about Mamdani’s remarks and they all either sought to distance themselves from the socialist candidate or declined to comment on his place within the party.

“I tend to focus on Michigan and not on Manhattan politics,” Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a rising star among Democrats, told the DCNF when asked if she agreed that Mamdani’s campaign won the “soul” of the party. 

“I just think New York politics are different from Kansas politics, which are different than Michigan politics,” Slotkin added. 

“It’s [New York City] not the rest of the country,” Slotkin’s retiring Michigan colleague, Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, told the DCNF.

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‘I love Hitler’: Leaked messages expose Young Republicans’ racist chat

Leaders of Young Republican groups throughout the country worried what would happen if their Telegram chat ever got leaked, but they kept typing anyway.

They referred to Black people as monkeys and “the watermelon people” and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies and driving them to suicide and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.

William Hendrix, the Kansas Young Republicans’ vice chair, used the words “n–ga” and “n–guh,” variations of a racial slur, more than a dozen times in the chat. Bobby Walker, the vice chair of the New York State Young Republicans at the time, referred to rape as “epic.” Peter Giunta, who at the time was chair of the same organization, wrote in a message sent in June that “everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber.”

Giunta was referring to an upcoming vote on whether he should become chair of the Young Republican National Federation, the GOP’s 15,000-member political organization for Republicans between 18 and 40 years old.

“Im going to create some of the greatest physiological torture methods known to man. We only want true believers,” he continued.

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Unprecedented Times: “It’s Hard To Keep Up, Even By Experienced Folks”

That we are living in unprecedented times was borne out by events in the last couple of days again. Indeed, it is probably hard to keep up, even by experienced folks.

The London silver market saw the spot price of silver pushing above $51 per troy ounce on Friday (and higher again this morning) due to a short squeeze and shortage of silver in London vaults. Some say the situation now, in particular the lack of liquidity, is comparable or even worse than in the early 1980s when the famous Hunt brothers tried to corner the market (after which silver crashed).

Meanwhile, crypto markets saw on Friday what data tracker Coinglass dubbed the “largest liquidation in history”, leading to hefty declines in cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin. But significant losses were also recorded in global equity markets, with the S&P500 down 2.7% and investors seeking refuge in ‘safe-haven’ bond markets (10Y USTs -11bp, German Bunds -6bp).

That volatility was clearly driven by the strong-worded warnings by President Trump at the address of China (more on that below), although there were other factors at play, including (geo)political instability. Indeed, just name me one country where the political situation is stable, where there is no ‘polarization’ of society and where policy making is ‘boring’… Still thinking?

In France, newly appointed PM Lecornu, who threw in the towel last week after trying to glue together a group of parties able to steer a budget through parliament was re-appointed by President Macron, again with the same task: …to glue together a group of parties able to steer a budget through parliament. On Sunday President Macron announced the new cabinet, headed by Lecornu.

The turn of events, including Lecornu’s conclusion that it should be possible to reach a deal on the 2026 budget, supported French bonds on Friday. But we think there is not much scope for a further rally in the near term. In fact, as we pointed out last week, we think there is not much scope for a further rally in the near term. Political risks remain until the budget negations are concluded. Both key parties on the far left and right have already indicated they will not support this cabinet and so Lecornu will need all the support he can get elsewhere. It is not to be excluded that he will be toppled again in a no-confidence vote this week. But if he stays, negotiations are likely to remain tough. Most parties underscore the need for a budget, but they will undoubtedly demand (further) concessions, which may weaken fiscal consolidation. In the longer run, that leaves the French curve more vulnerable to future fiscal setbacks.

However, the political focus shifted back to Japan last Friday as the long-standing LDP-Komeito coalition collapsed following Sanae Takaichi’s election as LDP leader. She was set to become Japan’s first female Prime Minister after Shigeru Ishiba stepped down, but Komeito withdrew support over disagreements, particularly on stricter party funding rules. While Takaichi’s leadership is now uncertain, she may still retain power if she can secure backing from parts of the fragmented opposition. Otherwise, snap elections are a real possibility.

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The Green Party’s war on women

Zack Polanski is no stranger to magical thinking. Back in 2013, long before he became leader of the Green party, he claimed that hypnosis could increase breast cup size. He later apologised, admitting he had failed to recognise “that issues of misogyny and women’s body confidence exist in society”. But that magical thinking — the feeling that the world can be reshaped if you only say the right words — has lingered. In him. And through his Party.

Polanski insists his party is inclusive. Only the other week he declared it a “broad church”— though he did add, with a telling caveat, that “even churches have walls”. He might have thought he was being artful, but the soundbite was revealing. There’s a darker story currently playing out within the Green church: there are views that are tolerated, and views that aren’t. Indeed, over the past five years, the Greens have built walls high enough to shut out dozens of their own members — many of them women — whose only crime was to hold gender-critical views.

This week, Polanski is trumpeting a triumphant conference: “It’s exceeded my expectations,” he said, counting all his new members. Presumably, though, this doesn’t include those his party has cancelled, including the women’s rights group Green Women’s Declaration (GWD) who were turned away at the door. Their booking for a conference stall was cancelled, something that has been described as undemocratic and discriminatory — as well as being anti-women. But little of this makes it into the public realm.

My investigation tells the story of those people: the women who joined the Greens to fight for a “fairer greener future”, only to find themselves denounced, gagged and expelled. I have discovered an atmosphere of intimidation where safeguarding failures are ignored and political heresies are punished.

What emerges from it all is a portrait of a party in the grip of magical thinking. The Green Party still claims to be the radical conscience of British politics. But for many of those it has expelled, the truth is far more troubling.

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‘ThisB***hNeedsToDie’: Another Lib Caught Wishing Death Upon a Conservative in NJ School Board Race

Enough. I’m tired of being told to turn down the rhetoric when we did nothing wrong. Second, the very people making those claims are wishing death upon us behind our backs. It’s nothing new, but just a reminder for everyone to hit the mute button when some self-righteous liberal says that in your presence. 

Your people are shooting ICE facilities and conservative activists. Liberals are children who need a belt to the face, especially this liberal in a local New Jersey school board race who’s been busted sending graphic texts about his conservative opponent. And yes, he’s wished death upon her. He’s since dropped out of the race (via NY Post): 

A New Jersey school board candidate was caught red-handed sending vicious, sexual messages about a conservative female board member in a group chat labeled “ThisB***hNeedsToDie.” 

Photos of Scott Semaya’s vile texts about Danielle Bellomo at a July school board meeting leaked this week on social media — and the widening scandal is now being investigated by local cops and roiling the affluent suburb of Marlboro. 

“Bellomo must be cold — her nips could cut glass right n” read one text, allegedly captured on camera while Semaya’s fingers typed an “o.” 

Outrage was immediate, and Semaya this week dropped out of the race for the Marlboro Board of Education, followed by his running mate Melissa Goldberg. 

[…] 

Semaya, 38, an accountant who has voiced progressive liberal views, was one of five candidates running for three open seats on the Marlboro Board of Education. He cited only “family circumstances” in announcing his exit from the race. He did not return multiple messages seeking comment. 

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New York City Mayor Candidate Zohran Kwame Mamdani Loves Crime

Zohran Kwame Mamdani, running for New York City mayor on the Democratic ticket, is also a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), whose platform calls for slashing arrests, cutting prosecutors’ budgets, abolishing cash bail and pre-trial detention, scrapping electronic monitoring, and ending imprisonment for parole violations.

Although Mamdani has since walked back his earlier comments about defunding the police, his policies would effectively do just that. His plan would shift much of the NYPD’s patrol work to a newly created Department of Community Safety, restrict police authority, downgrade serious crimes, and discourage enforcement of misdemeanors, all consistent with the DSA’s broader push to weaken law enforcement and dismantle public safety.

In August 2020, when asked if prisons were obsolete, Mamdani replied, “I think that frankly, I mean, what purpose do they serve, right? I think we have to ask ourselves that… I think a lot of people who defend the carceral state, that defend the idea of it and the way it makes them feel, they’re not defending the reality of it and the practices that are part and parcel of it.”

Then, at a 2021 protest outside the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, he went even further, declaring, “What violent crime is, is defined by the state. Violence is an artificial construction.”

Mamdani has criticized the Adams administration for increasing the number of inmates on Rikers Island by roughly a thousand, claiming the population could be reduced to fewer than four thousand. Since Rikers averages about seven thousand inmates, that would mean cutting the prison population nearly in half, by around 3,300 people, or 47 percent. Supporters of Mamdani insist that overall crime is down, but those claims rely on deceptive statistics.

For example, in 2023, New York City saw roughly 1,000 felony reports for every 380 arrests. Of those arrests, prosecutors declined to press charges in 42 cases, and 200 more were dismissed. Ultimately, only 123 of the original 1,000 felony complaints led to any conviction, with just 32 resulting in felony convictions, and fewer than 40 offenders serving additional jail or prison time. New York City’s conviction rate is now 39 percent lower than in 2019 and 52 percent lower than in the rest of the state. Prosecutors are declining more cases than ever, and dismissals have skyrocketed.

Meanwhile, total reported crimes, including 188,418 felonies, 299,929 misdemeanors, and 88,761 violations in 2024, show that violence remains a serious problem. Assaults, both felony and misdemeanor, have climbed steadily since 2008 and reached their highest levels since 1998. Subway assaults have tripled since 2009. Despite these facts, Mamdani and his supporters use manipulated crime statistics to claim too many people are imprisoned, when in reality, fewer criminals are being prosecuted, convicted, or incarcerated than ever before.

One of Mamdani’s socialist proposals is to make public transportation free. A trial program was conducted and quickly declared a success by Democrats, though their definition of success was simply that people used the free routes. They ignored the fact that most of the ridership had merely been diverted from nearby fare-paying lines, reducing the city’s overall revenue. Even more importantly, they overlooked a basic truth: nothing is free. The cost of these “free” rides was merely shifted to taxpayers, many of whom drive or walk and therefore received no benefit from the program.

Supporters also claimed the project reduced transit crime, citing a 38.9 percent drop in assaults on bus operators along the free routes. Even if that number is accurate—which is doubtful, given the way Democrat jurisdictions often downgrade crimes—the logic behind it is absurd. Should the public really have to be bribed not to attack bus drivers? Do airline pilots get assaulted because passengers pay for tickets?

If paying a fare provokes someone to violence, that person is not a victim of the system but someone unfit for civil society, because the next time they’re asked to follow a rule, they’ll attack someone else.

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Gavin Newsom Handed $53 Million in State Contracts to His Biggest Donors

California has become a case study in how political connections translate directly into profit. 

For Gov. Gavin Newsom’s wealthiest supporters, campaign contributions appear to double as investments—ones that yield lucrative state contracts, taxpayer-funded benefits, and prestigious appointments.

Since Newsom entered office in 2019, records show that California has steered more than $53 million in state contracts to companies owned or managed by his top donors. 

These contracts have covered everything from wildfire prevention and emergency response to public health services. 

The overlap between political contributions and state spending highlights an entrenched culture where those with financial ties to the governor reap disproportionate rewards.

Donors have also secured massive tax breaks and credits. 

California’s climate initiatives, energy projects, and green subsidy programs have disproportionately benefited firms connected to Newsom’s political backers. 

These arrangements not only raise ethical questions but also distort the competitive landscape, favoring politically connected companies over those competing on merit.

The pattern extends beyond financial contracts. 

Newsom’s allies have gained placement in elite academic circles, including appointments to university boards and advisory positions. 

Such appointments provide not only prestige but also influence over education policy and access to state resources. 

For major donors, the returns extend far beyond dollars and cents—they reach into the very institutions that shape California’s future.

The controversy has grown more prominent as Newsom positions himself on the national stage. 

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Gavin Newsom’s Wife Pocketed $300K a Year from Political Insiders

California’s “First Partner,” Jennifer Siebel Newsom, has built a business empire that thrives on political connections. 

Public records reveal that the wife of Gov. Gavin Newsom runs companies filled with her husband’s former Democrat aides and confidants. 

At the same time, she collects hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments from the state and lobbyists.

Siebel Newsom, a documentary filmmaker and activist, operates The Representation Project, a nonprofit that pushes progressive messaging in schools and public institutions. 

That nonprofit has accepted donations from corporations actively lobbying Gavin Newsom’s administration, raising serious concerns about influence peddling. 

Her companies and foundations have also benefited from the support of the governor’s political allies, creating a direct overlap between California’s government apparatus and the Newsom family’s personal ventures.

The financial entanglements are wide-ranging. 

In recent years, her nonprofit has received state contracts and corporate donations that coincide with policy interests before her husband’s office. 

Lobbyists and politically active firms saw their contributions rewarded with access to California’s decision-making machine. 

At the same time, Siebel Newsom’s family charity, the Siebel Family Charitable Foundation, directed tens of thousands of dollars back into her nonprofit, further blurring the line between charitable activity and personal enrichment.

This network of organizations and donors has allowed the Newsoms to advance a politicized agenda in California schools while financially benefiting from it. 

The Representation Project has been at the center of programs that promote progressive identity politics and diversity initiatives, often funded with taxpayer dollars. 

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