polecat news and views

Friday, April 24, 2026

On CNN, Democrat 'Election Deniers' Get a Pass

On CNN, Democrat 'Election Deniers' Get a Pass

CNN's Jake Tapper recently denounced Trump administration judicial nominees because, at their confirmation hearing, they refused to say "yes" when asked, "Did Biden win the 2020 election?" Instead, the nominees replied, "Biden was CERTIFIED as the winner."

For Tapper, this was an unacceptable dodge. He said, "What oath is going to be administered in those judges' courtrooms? Will it be, 'Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God... unless they are truths that offend Donald Trump?'"

On MS Now, co-host Michael Steele, the former head of the Republican National Committee, argued the nominees' failure to answer "yes" disqualified them from serving. He said: "If you cannot ask a fundamental question, right, this is a civics test, did the president of the United States lose the election in 2020, and if you do that kind of an answer, then you are not fit to serve in government, period. Because no matter what else you say or do after that, it exposes who you are, and it exposes how you will lead."

Let's set aside questions about the 2020 election integrity in Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. California took away attorney John Eastman's license to practice law because Eastman represented Donald Trump and raised factual and legal questions about the 2020 election. If you consider Eastman's objections and legal arguments devoid of merit, please watch Eastman's American Freedom Alliance speech on Rumble.

Did Tapper or any other CNN "reporters" ask former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former President Jimmy Carter, former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe or former Vice President Kamala Harris — to name a few "election-denying" Democrats — "Did Donald Trump win the 2016 election?"

About the 2016 election, former Obama Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson testified that, while the Russians tried to manipulate voting machines, there is no evidence that a single vote tally was changed. Not one. Yet, a 2018 YouGov poll found 66 percent of Democrats believe Russia "changed vote tallies to elect Trump in 2016."

CNN politics editor Chris Cillizza wrote: "76% of self-identified Republicans in a new national Quinnipiac University poll. That's the number of Republicans who said they believe there was 'widespread fraud in the 2020 election.'" But what about Democrats and their concern about the integrity of the 2016 election?

A 2018 Gallup poll found 78 percent of Democrats believe that Russian interference in 2016 "changed the outcome of the election" in favor of Trump. Never mind that Johnson testified there's no way of knowing whether the interference altered the outcome. And a New York University study on the effect of Russian interference found "no measurable changes in attitudes, polarization, or voting behavior among those exposed to this foreign influence campaign."

The bottom line is that comparable or higher percentages of Democrats expressed doubts about the legitimacy of Trump's 2016 win compared to Republican doubts about 2020. Furthermore, House Democrats have disputed the certification of EVERY Republican presidential victory since 2000.

In January 2001, nearly a dozen black House Democrats voted against certifying the election results of 2000. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) said in a joint session of Congress: "The objection is in writing, and I do not care that it is not signed by a member of the Senate (as is necessary to force a Senate vote on the challenge.)"

As for the 2004 election, Jan. 6 Committee Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) in January 2005 joined 30 other House Democrats and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) to object to the certification of Ohio's presidential election results, claiming "voter suppression."

As for 2016, Hillary Clinton consistently called the presidential election "stolen" and described President Trump as "illegitimate." Jimmy Carter, in 2019, said: "I think a full investigation would show that Trump didn't actually win the election in 2016. He lost the election, and he was put into office because the Russians interfered on his behalf." New York Attorney General Letitia James said she "will never be afraid to challenge this illegitimate president."

One more thing about "election interference." There are polling data suggesting the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story — in which CNN, particularly Brian Stelter, whom you rehired, was complicit — may have changed the outcome of the 2020 election.

All of this makes Tapper look like fake news, a hypocrite and a partisan.

https://townhall.com/columnists/larryelder/2026/04/23/on-cnn-democrat-election-deniers-get-a-pass-n2674918?utm_source=thdailyvip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&utm_content=ncl-jbmc7FrEGA&utm_term=&_nlid=jbmc7FrEGA&_nhids=nc8vlsZgs1mvls

What This Dem Operative Just Said Only Reinforces the Push to Nuke the Filibuster

What This Dem Operative Just Said Only Reinforces the Push to Nuke the Filibuster

Matt Vespa

What This Dem Operative Just Said Only Reinforces the Push to Nuke the Filibuster — *AP Photo/Lynne Sladky*

We cannot collaborate with Democrats. Period. They’re insane, motivated by the overeducated, wealthy, white, nose-pierced, and blue-haired radicals that form the core of their political base. They’re held hostage by activist crazies. That’s why we need to eliminate the filibuster in the Senate and accomplish as much as possible, give our members something to energize their supporters at home, and stop the Democrats’ use of illegal aliens to boost their political power. We need to pass the Save America Act.

At the very least, we can ensure that only Americans vote in our elections. Plus, whatever economic action items that were deemed DOA due to the 60-vote threshold.

If we don’t act and Democrats retake Congress, the list of atrocious policy points here is staggering. Look, not everything will get passed, but imagine the disastrous Biden agenda on steroids. Here’s what the Left is cooking up, based on what Democratic operative James Carville said on the Policon podcast.

Grant statehood to Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico, so that the Democrats can unlock 4 extra seats in the Senate.
Pack the U.S. Supreme Court from 9 Justices up to 13 Justices, adding another 4 Left-wing Justices to the court.
Reopen the U.S.-Mexico border and grant mass-amnesty to every single alien currently inside of the United States.
His advice to Democrat politicians: “Don’t run on it. Don’t talk about it. Just do it.”

They know the census is approaching. They see how blue states may lose electoral votes, and the possible weakening of the Voting Rights Act could significantly advantage Republicans.

Being the better person doesn’t score us brownie points. Nuke the filibuster, John Thune. Look what’s coming if we lose.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2026/04/20/what-this-dem-operative-just-said-only-reinforces-the-push-to-nuke-the-filibuster-n2674733?utm_source=thdailyvip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&utm_content=ncl-DJhM76HVJZ&utm_term=&_nlid=DJhM76HVJZ&_nhids=nc1pYumZCz4kls

DEI Over Duty: How the Secret Service Put Identity Politics Above Operational Competence

DEI Over Duty: How the Secret Service Put Identity Politics Above Operational Competence

Jay Rogers

DEI Over Duty: How the Secret Service Put Identity Politics Above Operational Competence — *AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar*

The United States Secret Service was built on one standard: keep the president alive. That standard was forged after the 1901 assassination of William McKinley through grueling weapons qualifications, obstacle courses, and psychological evaluations calibrated to eliminate anyone who might hesitate when lives were on the line. The underlying logic was simple: in a protective detail, the only relevant variable is demonstrable competence. Everything else is noise. The Biden administration decided to run a different experiment, and the record since 2024 is the result.

In 2023, then-Director Kimberly Cheatle publicly committed to the 30x30 Initiative, targeting women at 30 percent of Secret Service recruits by 2030. The agency's strategic plan called it "excellence through talent, technology, and diversity." Once you add demographic targets to any hiring rubric for a life-safety role, you have changed the rubric. Competence and representation are not the same variable. Mistaking one for the other carries operational consequences, not administrative ones.

On July 13, 2024, Thomas Matthew Crooks climbed a rooftop 130 yards from the stage where former President Trump was speaking and fired. The shot grazed Trump's ear, killed retired fire chief Corey Comperatore, and wounded two others. Site agent Myosoty "Miyo" Perez was responsible for security and failed to place any asset on the rooftop despite its direct line of sight to the stage. Six agents received suspensions of 10 to 42 days. Not a single one was fired.

By March 2026, Perez had collected three suspensions in 18 months. The latest came after she secretly married a Brazilian foreign national in April 2025 and withheld the marriage from the agency until January 2026, a nine-month gap that violated mandatory clearance protocols. The agency issued a "Do Not Admit" notice and opened an investigation into whether her spouse had overstayed a visa. My family has a history of military service, and a clearance disclosure failure of that kind was a career-ending event. Standards were non-negotiable precisely because the consequences were not hypothetical.

Senator Rand Paul's final report on Butler, released in July 2025, confirmed the pattern. The Secret Service denied at least ten resource requests from Trump's detail during the 2024 campaign. Local officers flagged a suspicious individual with a rangefinder 25 minutes before shots were fired, an alert that never reached agents positioned to act. Cheatle testified to Congress that no asset requests were denied. Documentary evidence contradicted her. Paul called it a "cultural cover-up."

In January 2026, James O'Keefe's team released undercover footage of Agent Tomas Escotto, on Vance's detail, disclosing protective formations, travel plans, and real-time locations to a woman he believed was a Tinder date. He sent photographs from aboard Air Force Two. The agency suspended him, revoked his clearance, and ordered agency-wide anti-espionage retraining. On March 27, 2026, a separate agent on Jill Biden's detail negligently discharged his weapon inside a government vehicle at Philadelphia International Airport. I coached football and rugby for years. Fundamental breakdowns are not random — they are the downstream product of degraded training culture and reduced accountability.

Congress should prohibit identity-based quotas in hiring, promotion, and assignment across all federal protective agencies. Fitness, marksmanship, and psychological standards must be calibrated to the job, not to political optics. Annual audits of hiring metrics and disciplinary records would supply the oversight structure that voluntary self-correction has failed to produce. The Perez case — three suspensions in 18 months, still on the rolls — illustrates the stakes.

This is not an argument against any category of agent. It is an argument against substituting demographic targets for competence in an institution where the margin for error is measured in seconds. When a site agent leaves a rooftop unsecured, when a detail agent broadcasts a vice president's travel schedule on a dating app, when a protective agent shoots himself in a government vehicle — all in the same agency, within 18 months — the republic is owed a serious accounting. Competence is not a partisan value. It is the only standard that has ever kept presidents alive.

https://townhall.com/columnists/jay-rogers/2026/04/19/dei-over-duty-how-the-secret-service-put-identity-politics-above-operational-competence-n2674609?utm_source=thdailypmvip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

Can This Demographic Save the Senate for the GOP?

Can This Demographic Save the Senate for the GOP?

Matt Margolis

This year’s midterm environment is brutal for the GOP. History alone suggests it will be a bad year. But for the longest time, the Senate seemed safe. Now, it’s more of a coin flip, which is a troubling scenario considering what that could mean about potential Supreme Court vacancies. But there's a stubborn data point sitting in the middle of all this doom-and-gloom coverage that keeps Republican strategists from hitting the panic button. It has everything to do with who actually shows up to vote, and that could make the difference in November.

CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten looked at the data this week, and couldn’t hide the fact that there is some really good news for the GOP.

On the surface, things don’t look great. Trump's approval rating currently stands at 38% in the latest Quinnipiac poll, with other surveys showing numbers in the same range or slightly lower. Independents are moving away, and the president has taken hits on taxes and immigration. So why hasn't the floor caved in entirely? According to Enten, the answer is senior citizens.

"President Trump is more than holding his own amongst a very large portion of the electorate, a very reliable voting bloc, and that is senior citizens," Enten said.

Trump's approval rating among voters 65 and older has barely budged. It sat at 46% in March 2025 and now stands at 44% — essentially flat, while the rest of his coalition appears to be wearing down.

Allegedly, anyway.

And as Enten pointed out, the "young people matter" narrative that Democrats have been riding for years runs headlong into a basic political reality: older voters show up in far greater numbers than younger ones.

ICYMI: Is This the Worst News About the Supreme Court We've Gotten Yet?

The historical context makes this even more interesting. When you stack Trump's senior approval at this stage of a second term against every other 21st-century two-term president, he comes out on top. Obama was at 39% with seniors at this same point. George W. Bush sat at a dismal 34% — a collapse Enten tied directly to Bush's push to reform Social Security, the so-called third rail of American politics. Trump, by contrast, is beating both of them.

"Donald Trump is beating other presidents this century at this point in their second term, beating all of them," Enten said.

Now translate that into what actually matters in Nov. 2026. Republicans in the House face a genuinely tough environment. The generic congressional ballot among seniors shows Democrats ahead by three points — a shift from Trump winning that group by one point in Nov. 2024. It's a small move, but Enten acknowledged it could be enough to cost Republicans the House majority. That's a real concern.

The Senate, however, is a different calculation entirely. The map, the math, and now the data all point in the GOP's direction. When the most reliable voting bloc in America is only moving slightly — and Republicans are largely holding their own — the catastrophic wipeout scenario falls apart.

Florida crystallizes the point.

"Florida, a state with a lot of seniors, looks like Republicans are holding their own there," Enten said. "Donald Trump holding his own with seniors. And that's a key reason why the bottom hasn't fallen out, and Republicans have a fighting chance heading into this midterm election."

The media will keep running the "Republican collapse" headlines, because that's the narrative they've pre-written. But when you look at the voters who reliably cast ballots, the picture looks a lot less dire for the GOP. Senior citizens aren't abandoning this president — and in a midterm year, that might be all the margin Republicans need to keep the Senate red.

https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2026/04/18/can-this-demographic-save-the-senate-for-the-gop-n4951942?utm_source=pjmediavip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm

Thursday, April 23, 2026

Stefanik Shreds Liberal Media Host in Heated Exchange Over 'Genocide' in Iran and Viral Trump Post

Stefanik Shreds Liberal Media Host in Heated Exchange Over 'Genocide' in Iran and Viral Trump Post

By Nick Arama

How long has the media been trying to get President Donald Trump... 10 years now?

They've failed countless times.

Yet they're still at it. What's that they say about doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result? They keep trying anyway.

On Sunday, CNN's Jake Tapper had his head handed to him by Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik (NY-21) during an interview on "State of the Union."

Tapper claimed that Trump's comment on April 7 about dealing with the Iranian regime, that their "whole civilization will die," was the same thing as "genocide."

TAPPER: Call for genocide on a college campus and a call for genocide made by the president of the United States, like, they're both bad, right?
STEFANIK: President Trump didn't call for genocide, Jake. You were putting those words in his mouth. He is engaging in diplomatic back and forth!
TAPPER: Your entire civilization will die?
STEFANIK: It's the terrorist regime, Jake. He's targeting the terrorist regime. You're adding genocide. That's NOT what he's stated! He wasn't calling for genocide. It was targeted towards the Iranian terrorist regime. It was targeted towards the Iranian terrorist regime.
TAPPER: Agree to disagree (smirking).

Typical CNN Tapper. Stefanik chided him. "If you want to prop up the Iranian terrorist regime, that’s on you," she said.

Trump was using harsh language to reach a terrorist regime, talking in words that would move them, to get them to the negotiating table. That succeeded, as Stefanik noted. The regime believed him; they believed they were in deep trouble; they even deployed "human shields" out to bridges and power plants. Without that threat, he might not have gotten them to the table.

What Jake leaves out, too, is the context of his comments in that same tweet. Trump followed the "civilization" comment by talking about the regime's "47 years of extortion, corruption, and death will finally end," and "God bless the Great People of Iran!" So obviously, he was talking about taking out the regime, the evil "civilization" they had imposed on the people, and helping the people in so doing, just as Stefanik said.

Trump had also spent much of the day before talking passionately about the people of Iran and all they had gone through, so that also put paid to Tapper's assertion. He's spoken repeatedly about the bravery of the Iranian people who resist the regime.

Trump Wrecks a PBS Reporter Over Question About Bombing Iran

If Trump had wanted to commit "genocide," he wouldn't have spent all this time trying to push the regime to a deal.

But it is a common thing with media like CNN to strip away the context and spin. We've seen it over and over again against Trump for 10 years - and counting.

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2026/04/19/stefanik-remarks-to-jake-tapper-n2201468?utm_source=rsmorningbriefingvip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

Whaddya Know — Republicans Can Play Legal Hardball Too

Whaddya Know — Republicans Can Play Legal Hardball Too

Stephen Kruiser

AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein

Top O' the Briefing

Happy Thursday, dear Kruiser Morning Briefing friends. The Sine Qua Non Sequitur is spending the day enjoying vodka-infused chocolate nonpareils at the quarterly gathering of the Marisa Tomei Adulation Society.

Like it or not, we've gotten a little too used to all sorts of legal wrangling and interference in our politics. That's on the Democrats, of course. They can't beat President Donald Trump in elections, so they have been relentless in trying to ruin him personally and thwart his agenda via various lawsuits, judges, and prosecutors. Nobody sane wants to live in a permanently litigious society, but sometimes we have to get down in the mud to fight the people who have been trying to drag us down there.

Republicans are mixing it up legally, and the Democrats are none too thrilled. Let's start with some interesting news from yesterday. This is from Catherine:

A circuit court in Virginia just ruled that the newly passed but incredibly biased gerrymandered congressional map is unconstitutional.
Former Virginia attorney general and Homeland Security official Ken Cuccinelli II posted on X Wednesday about the gerrymandered map, "UPDATE on referendum lawsuits: The Tazewell Circuit Court just ruled the referendum unconstitutional. The Judge entered an injunction blocking certification of the election & denied a motion to stay pending appeal. A final order will be entered once drafted, & it will be immediately appealed."

What's rich about this is that the Democrats immediately began whining about an "activist judge." Their entire strategy to fight anything that President Trump and his administration do is built around activist judges; without them, the party is nothing. They haven't had the greatest luck with them so far, mostly because their activist judges tend to overreach and/or ignore the law. Let's hope this one is based on stronger legal grounds and sticks. If not, bye-bye, Virginia.

I don't know if the judge involved in the Virginia decision is actually a Republican or not, but there is a much bigger story about the GOP fighting back legally. We discussed in Monday's Briefing the hit piece on FBI Director Kash Patel that The Atlantic published. Patel followed it up with a swift lawsuit. That story got a lot juicier yesterday, and it's tangled up with the recent Department of Justice indictment against the thoroughly vile Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

It would appear that the hit piece was a preemptive strike intended to discredit Patel and the DOJ ahead of the announcement of the indictment. This is from my HotAir colleague David Strom:

Laurene Powell Jobs owns The Atlantic. Well, guess what? The SPLC is Laurene Powell Jobs' favorite charity. In fact, the very first one she gave money to. It is the only charity she talks about supporting publicly.

In the immortal words of Alice as things got ever trippier in Wonderland: "Curiouser and curiouser."

This is the kind of thing that we are constantly up against when battling the left. They may be reeling over there in the last year and a half, but they are all still working together. Democratic politicians, the mainstream legacy media hacks, and radical activist organizations are all coordinating their efforts in an attempt to return to power.

As I've written many times, President Trump is teaching Republicans how to fight. Coming from the high-stakes corporate world, he doesn't hesitate to unleash the lawyers. It's what they do in the private sector. Trump has gone after the enemy-of-the-people media outlets ABC and CBS in court and won settlements from both.

Ten years ago, I wouldn't have defaulted to "Sue everybody," and I suspect most of my regulars here wouldn't have either. Yet here we are. These corrupt media outlets have been doing the Democrats' dirty work for far too long. I hope Trump and his people keep burying them in lawsuits to the point where they just might pause before launching another character assassination attempt against a Republican. If that doesn't work, make them keep taking financial hits. Sure, they're acting like it's no big deal right now, but this is new territory for them. The second, third, or fourth trip to court will start to wear them down.

So, yeah, sue everybody.

https://pjmedia.com/stephen-kruiser/2026/04/23/the-morning-briefing-whaddya-know-republicans-can-play-legal-hardball-too-n4952074

The Great Replacement Chronicles: The Sheepening

The Great Replacement Chronicles: The Sheepening

Benjamin Bartee

AP Photo/Jerry Harmer

Archiving the “strange death of Europe,” as Douglas Murray put it, and the West more broadly, at the hands of the neoliberal technocracy.

Reaching back in time to the days of Ottoman plunder of Europe and the kidnapping of its women to add to the harem, the military-age single migrant male preference for mating partner has always been for European women.

Unfortunately, as has been demonstrated by empirical study funded by the European Union to figure out why they won’t cooperate with the program, the modern native women of Europe aren’t statistically interested in consensual relations with migrant men.

The next best thing, therefore, is rape.

And, boy, does the migrant love going to town on the natives — like a cock in the henhouse.

The cherry on top is that they are virtually immune from prosecution and enjoy rhetorical cover from state media, giving them de facto free rein to ravish at will.

Alas, when there are no women or passed-out teenagers on public transportation immediately available to rape, they’ll settle for livestock.

Noticing patterns is obviously a thought crime in our Brave New World, yet I can’t help but shake the impression that Third World migrants from a certain region of the world seem to love raping farm animals (in addition to white people).

Anecdotal evidence supports this conclusion.

Via Remix News (emphasis added):
A 19-year-old Afghan national has been arrested and charged following a series of brutal sexual attacks on goats and sheep in Pennes-Mirabeau, a municipality in Bouches-du-Rhône, near Marseille.
The suspect was taken into custody by the anti-crime brigade (BAC) on the night of April 9-10, 2026, after local sheep and goat owners alerted police. Since early 2026, several owners had discovered their animals injured, with incidents reported in both February and March. The animals had their legs tied and showed clear signs of rape, according to French newspaper La Provence.
After multiple similar episodes, the owners installed motion-sensor cameras on their properties in an attempt to identify the perpetrator. The footage revealed the silhouette of a young man visiting their livestock at night, and the images were handed over to police, who were eventually able to identify a matching suspect.

It’s not just the sheep without a shepherd — literal or metaphorical — on duty to protect them.

The ponies also get it.

Continuing:

Last year in Germany, a shocking case has emerged from the beautiful town of Oberneufnach in Bavaria, which involved a 52-year-old Turkish asylum seeker allegedly breaking into a stable and sexually abusing ponies.
The man, who is from a refugee shelter in the nearby town of Anhofen, was arrested after he was caught on surveillance video.
The man broke into the horse farm at 6:45 p.m. while the family was having dinner. They heard the dog barking and then looked on surveillance monitors, where they saw the man in the stable with his pants down on top of one of the animals.
The boyfriend then ran to the stables to chase down the man, but he had already fled the scene. He continued his pursuit of the suspect though and eventually caught him. Police arrived and placed the man under arrest.
In 2023, a 27-year-old suspect was arrested after he was caught on a surveillance camera raping a pony at a stable south of Hamburg. The 18-year-old pony, which is named “Carrie,” was abused by the man at 1 a.m., with footage showing the man calmly walking onto the property and starting to attack the defenseless animal…
Even the petting zoo at the park has not been safe. In 2017, a Syrian migrant raped a pony there in front of children.
“My babysitter was out with our son in Görlitzer Park. They witnessed the man sexually assault the pony,” one woman told Berliner Morgenpost at the time. The babysitter took a photo of the man as he raped the pony and provided it to police. The migrant was banned from the petting zoo in response, but it is unclear if he was ever charged by police.

Curiously enough, try as I might, I have not been able to find any denunciation of the migrant rape of farm animal phenomenon in Europe by PETA, the world’s preeminent animal rights organization.

Surely that oversight can’t have been a political calculation.

Surely?

https://pjmedia.com/benbartee/2026/04/19/the-great-replacement-chronicles-the-sheepening-n4951949?utm_source=pjmediavip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm