Friday, October 2, 2026

Priorities: Mamdani Abandons Homeless Vets Rather Than ‘Excluding Transgender Veterans’

Priorities: Mamdani Abandons Homeless Vets Rather Than ‘Excluding Transgender Veterans’

Priorities: Mamdani Abandons Homeless Vets Rather Than ‘Excluding Transgender Veterans’
AP Photo/Ryan Murphy

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration is walking away from a federal program that houses homeless veterans rather than accept grant terms the city says would mean “excluding transgender veterans” from VA-funded beds.

The Department of Homeless Services (DHS) is exiting the VA’s Grant and Per Diem program as of October 1 after the award required compliance with Trump administration orders barring “gender ideology," according to The City Reporter.

City officials also complain the VA offered only a fraction of prior funding.

“The agency did apply for the grant, but the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs only awarded a small portion of the previous awards while requiring that the agency discriminate against certain veterans by excluding transgender veterans from seeking shelter in VA-funded beds,” a DHS spokesperson told the outlet. 

“As a right-to-shelter city, we decided it was in the best interest of the veterans we serve to ensure access to shelter for all veterans experiencing homelessness."

The Borden Avenue Veterans Residence in Long Island City houses more than 200 veterans and was slated to keep 125 to 150 of those beds thanks to around $4 million in annual funding from the VA’s Grant and Per Diem.

To demonstrate how absurd the decision is, based on trying to protect woke gender ideology, let's run the numbers.

HUD’s (the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) own count puts transgender veterans at about 0.3 percent of the homeless veteran population — roughly 110 people nationwide on a given night. At a 200-bed Queens shelter, that works out to maybe one resident, and Mamdani just walked away from 125 to 150 federally funded beds rather than risk “excluding” that one person — and he did it as the city heads into winter.

City Councilmember Joann Ariola (R-Queens) argued withdrawal from the grant program is unnecessary.

“This should not be an either-or choice,” Ariola told The City Reporter. “We can make sure transgender veterans have a place to stay without walking away from millions of dollars that could help other veterans in need.”

NYC, after all, is a right-to-shelter city. That one transgender individual would still presumably be entitled to that right.

The VA has countered city officials' claims, saying New York voluntarily withdrew after being told it would get less money and calling the discrimination claim “false.”

“VA has limited resources and distributes these awards based on past performance, demonstrated need and ability to provide high-quality service to veterans,” press secretary Quinn Slaven said. “With these factors in mind, VA evaluated the Borden Avenue facility and determined that it could not justify a larger award.”

The DHS spokesperson did acknowledge the funding cuts in their statement. So why argue it's about "excluding transgender veterans" other than to give a wink and a nod to the administration's woke base? Playing silly games while homeless veterans suffer seems reprehensible.

https://redstate.com/rusty-weiss/2026/09/29/priorities-mamdani-abandons-homeless-vets-rather-than-excluding-transgender-veterans-n2207506?utm_source=rsmorningbriefingvip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

AOC Goes Off the Deep End With Unhinged ICE Remarks at NY Town Hall

AOC Goes Off the Deep End With Unhinged ICE Remarks at NY Town Hall

AOC Goes Off the Deep End With Unhinged ICE Remarks at NY Town Hall
AP Photo/Heather Khalifa

Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14) has been out testing the waters to decide if she's going to make a Senate bid or a bid for the presidential nomination in 2028. 

I think many are hoping she chooses the presidential nomination, because that's likely to be a crash-and-burn for her "career." If she picks the Senate option, she might actually stand a chance in the primary against Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) because there is so much leftist angst against him. 

On Sunday, Ocasio-Cortez attended an event labeled "Students vs. Billionaires" at Cornell University, organized by their Young Democratic Socialists of America group. 

She had immediate problems because they led a chant of the slogan "from the river to the sea," which many regard as antisemitic and anti-Israel. The group's president, Mina Petrova, and co-Chair Zoe Reisman led the crowd in the chant. 

"Cornell is fundamentally a capitalist institution that prioritizes billionaires and profit over students and community and is controlled by CEO trustees that are profiting off of genocide and war," Petrova told the crowd at one point, triggering applause.

"Here we stand as anti-imperialists and believe that nobody is disposable. We have a responsibility to stand in solidarity with oppressed peoples everywhere," Reisman said. "Student activism is not dead. Long live student resistance, and long live the student intifada."

But they didn't just talk about Israel. When AOC spoke, she lit into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).  This is a twisted, nutty take. 

“We must abolish ICE. This is not an extremist position," AOC claimed. 

Yes, it is. 

Then she bizarrely claimed that it was "not structured as any sort of a recognizable law enforcement agency even if they are labeled as such." This is a common leftist fiction to try to invalidate the agency. It's been a law enforcement agency, started in 2003, established by Congress itself to enforce the laws. So what is she even talking about? 

Plus, there was the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) before ICE, doing the same work of detaining and deporting people before that. All of this through multiple Democrat administrations. 

AOC also attacked the private businesses involved in the detention centers. But that's also not new, having existed for at least 40 years. So acting like this is all new and evil is just ridiculous nonsense. 

But she topped even that twisted take with this one. Listen to how she stokes the fear. 

"They are a new agency created in the surveillance state establishment after 9/11. ICE is Palantir. ICE is AI. ICE is facial recognition. ICE is surveillance. And ICE is coming after you, regardless of your status."

Yeah, no. ICE is not "coming after you" — unless you are here illegally. She's trying to hoodwink these students who may have little understanding of history and immigration enforcement, who may believe what she's trying to sell. She doesn't want the law to be enforced. 

Now, she's pitching a new fear. I thought, according to her, we were all supposed to be dead from the climate change disaster? Somehow I missed the world imploding. Yet they're the ones who want to control you by pitching fear — rather than freedom.

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2026/09/28/aoc-remarks-on-ice-at-ny-town-hall-n2207491?utm_source=rsmorningbriefingvip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

This Is the Perfect Metaphor for the Democrats' Hasan Piker Problem

This Is the Perfect Metaphor for the Democrats' Hasan Piker Problem

This Is the Perfect Metaphor for the Democrats' Hasan Piker Problem
AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson

Establishment Democrats are desperate to put a whole bunch of daylight between their party and Hasan Piker, the far-left Twitch streamer who has become a major headache with the midterms just weeks away.

"Let me just say that I think it's absolutely disgusting and deplorable the things that Hasan Piker has said," DNC Chairman Ken Martin said last week. "But he does not represent the Democratic Party, and he certainly doesn't represent the viewpoints of almost every one of our candidates and our elected officials."

That’s debatable. Still, it’s kind of funny that even while condemning Piker, Martin couldn't bring himself to vouch for the whole party.

Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) ran out of patience even sooner. Back in August, she was furious when a reporter asked her about Piker yet again.

"I am done, so don’t any reporter ask me again about Hasan Piker," Dingell said. "It’s not what November is about. Republicans are trying to make it. They’re trying to divide us, and we got to stop letting them try to divide us. I don’t agree with Hasan Piker on a lot of stuff, and I really don’t agree with him on some of the woman things he said. And I’m still trying to figure out, is it the reason he exercises and looks buff is why he has so many followers."

Blaming Republicans for this mess is rich, too. Republicans didn’t make Hasan Piker an influential figure in the Democrat Party.

ICYMI: Republicans Need to Put This in a National Ad Right Now

Of course, for every Democrat trying to wriggle free of Piker, plenty of others can't and won't shake him. Democrats want it both ways. Fox News host Greg Gutfeld offered the perfect metaphor for this mess during a discussion on The Five. The panel discussed the Democrats' sudden rush to disown the streamer.

"The only reason why they're shutting Piker down now is because he amplified the Democrat Party's worst talking points at the worst time: A midterm," Gutfeld said on The Five. "It wouldn't have mattered if this was a year ago, but it's now. ‘Can't you just shut up Piker just for another few months?’"

Gutfeld noted that the positions Piker pushes, from calling the police racist to branding capitalism as evil, have been party staples for years.

"The Dems have been saying that forever, they just didn't want that amplified as people go to vote," he explained.

Then came the metaphor.

"They're like the progressive couple on your block that invites a homeless methhead to stay the night because they want to show their compassion. Then they wake up there's a meth lab in the living room and the dog is dead," Gutfeld continued. "The party only deals with bad people when it's costing them something, and that is during the midterm elections."

He also compared Piker to a black sheep relative, saying he's "like your colorful uncle that you find amusing until your wedding comes up, and you just don't want him at the reception, you know what I mean?"

That's the whole story in one sentence. The Democrats invited Piker in, enjoyed the attention, and are only now noticing the damage because voters are paying attention. The ideas Martin calls "disgusting and deplorable" were just as radical a year ago, and the party's leadership wasn't lining up to denounce him then.

And you can bet after the midterms are over, they’ll stop denouncing him.

https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2026/09/27/this-is-the-perfect-metaphor-for-the-democrats-hasan-piker-problem-n4957705

Thursday, October 1, 2026

Some Thoughts on How to Handle the Awful White House Press Corps

Some Thoughts on How to Handle the Awful White House Press Corps

Some Thoughts on How to Handle the Awful White House Press Corps
AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

I get why President Trump hates certain media outlets. Honestly, I think his list is far too small and should, honestly, involve every single one of them. Not because they’re nasty in their coverage of him, though many are, but because they all really, really suck at their jobs.

First off, let me just say that the idea of an “objective” media is a myth. It’s a modern-day concept that never actually existed on any sort of scale. Look back to the founding of the country, and you will find newspapers with the names of political parties in their names. That wasn’t a coincidence, and the parties did not take their names from the newspapers; it was the other way around.

The media were always cheerleaders for one side or another.

It wasn’t until World War II and the Cold War, when the sides were unambiguously good and evil, that the idea of objectivity came into fashion. Not out of professionalism, but because the American public would not patronize any news outlet extolling the virtues of the Nazis or the communists. Faced with that, they claimed objectivity – which also, by the way, allowed them to cover enemies of this country in as fair a way as the public would accept, particularly during the Cold War.

The correct way to think about the press is not objective, but adversarial. The press, in an ideal world, would be adversarial to every politician, no matter the party. Every politician has things they’d rather not talk about or not be asked about. Those are, more often than not, the questions that should be asked.

That’s not what is happening with Donald Trump. With President Trump, all they focus on is the negative, to the exclusion of everything else. I get why he hates them; I hate them too.

The better way to handle the press, in my opinion, is not to ban any of them, but to call a small group, along with the pool cameras, into the Oval Office for reasons you do not tell them, then rip apart whichever one of them did something egregious in their story on that day. “Reporter X from this outlet reported this. It is not true. Here is Secretary so-and-so to tell you what the truth is. We were not contacted. Their sources are anonymous; we’re here right now to say they are lying. Here are documents and others associated with the story to point out other things that are wrong in the story. Any questions?”

Rip a couple of reporters apart for their hackery and you will soon have a press corps worried that they’ll be next if they get something wrong. Fear and shame are great motivators, much more effective than banning.

Then freeze them out – meaning no one (LITERALLY no one) talks with them, no matter what position they hold. Don’t feed the animals, and the animals get very hungry and change their behavior.

I love watching airheads from CNN or MSNOW get chewed out for their networks’ biased coverage, but I’d love more for them to be treated like Fox or James Rosen and simply be treated like they do not exist. There is nothing like a giant dose of your own medicine to send the message of just how awful a doctor you are.

They’re never, ever going to be fair; don’t waste your time treating them like they are. With all the resources of the White House, there is no way each egregious story could not be so thoroughly researched and dissected from the podium or the Resolute Desk that even the most committed leftist would turn red in the face.

Add in a dash of history of how those very same organizations, and even some of those exact people, sucked up to Barack Obama and Joe Biden and you’ve got the makings of an educational opportunity for the ages.

With the influence of social media, there is an even better chance to circumvent the leftist media completely while using them to educate the public about just how awful they are.

I despise these people, mostly because they don’t do their jobs in any way that is effective in educating the public about the doings of their government. They live in fear of Republicans, especially those named Trump, and kiss the colons of Democrats. Use them against themselves and humiliate them in the process. How much fun would that be?

https://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2026/09/28/some-thoughts-on-how-to-handle-the-awful-white-house-press-corps-n2683667?utm_source=thdailyvip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&utm_content=ncl-ue7wDfVNPf&utm_term=&_nlid=ue7wDfVNPf&_nhids=ncqWjHPQixj1ls

We Are So Tired of the Loudmouth Quitters

We Are So Tired of the Loudmouth Quitters
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

Every election cycle we hear the same stupid spiel from a certain band of pseudo-conservative quitters: “Oh no, I’m not getting my way. I’ve got no reason to vote. I’m not going to vote. The Republicans aren’t conservative enough, so I’m just going to let the communist pervert Democrats win. Waa, waa, waa.” I don’t know whether this is tactical stupidity or a cry for attention — maybe it’s both — but it’s exhausting. Boss, I’m tired. Tired of the ostentatiously blackpilling pundits and posers who think electing Democrats by sitting out the election is the way to morph the Republican Party from a bunch of crony codgers managing America’s decline like gentlemen into a party that’s making America great again. It’s not. You never win by losing. And in fact, we’ve been winning. If you’re mad because you think Donald Trump hasn’t performed, you’re not thinking at all. The only question is whether that’s because you can’t or you’ve chosen not to.

“But Kurt, we’ve got to teach the Republicans a lesson!” Yeah, we do. Do you think the Republicans haven’t learned anything? What’s Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) going to be doing after January? The answer is nothing. He’s not going to be doing anything because, after he voted for gun control and hinted at support for amnesty even as he awkwardly donned a Stetson to fool the Lone Star rubes, the Texas GOP decisively fired him. Ask tofu-spined Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) what he’s going to be doing. Again, nothing. The squish got squashed. How about the ridiculous Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC)? He didn’t even bother running because he knew he'd get drop-kicked into oblivion in the North Carolina primary. Oh, and of course there’s that fake-libertarian doofus Republican Rep. Thomas Massie (KY-4), whom most of these dim doomers probably adore, who got his walking papers in the primary. Now he’ll have time to finally get around to disclosing that Epstein list he keeps running his fool mouth about — that is, when he’s not blaming all his problems on the Jews.

The fact is that we are getting rid of the deadweight. We are making progress. The Republicans are learning their lesson. That’s what primaries are for. That’s what the primaries have done. But what the general election is for is stopping the communists. This is when it counts. This is when it matters. Yet a bunch of prima donnas — mostly on social media, because I haven’t actually met any of them in real life — are announcing they’re going to be AWOL because they didn’t get their way. They want to quit while we’re ahead.

Yeah, I know gas is too expensive. Get over it. Yeah, I know Donald Trump is fighting a war that we should’ve won 30 years ago and that bothers some people. But defeating a generational enemy and preventing it from being able to drop a hot rock on New York — again, a lot of these doomers probably wouldn’t mind the mullahs nuking Tel Aviv because, you know, the Jews — is a good thing. Donald Trump knew he was risking his majority and did what he had to do anyway. We should be proud of him, not act like whiny little teenage girls, pouting in our rooms and desperately scribbling our gripes and complaints in our figurative dream journals.

I just can’t deal with people who are so dumb, or so disingenuous, that they would actually argue that we must protest the Republicans not being conservative and populist enough by electing a bunch of perverted communist weirdos who want to castrate kids, throw open the penitentiaries, invite in the entire Third World, and persecute anybody to the right of Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14). Burn it all down? It’s our house! We’ve got all three branches of government. Did we get everything we wanted from Congress? No. And you know what? We’re never going to get everything we want from Congress. We’re never going to get everything we want from any institution. Because we’re adults — at least some of us — we understand that you don’t always get what you want.

But we have gotten a lot, all of which this nonsense strategy of sitting out the midterms puts at risk. See the border? It’s closed. What kind of idiot would think it’s a great idea to give power to the people who want open borders in order to protest Donald Trump not deporting quite enough illegal aliens so far? And you’re mad about gas prices? Do you think the party that hates fossil fuels, that wants us riding buses with homicidal hobos or pedaling bicycles like ponytailed gender-studies TAs, is going to make for lower gas prices? They’re going to shut down our entire petroleum industry. Do you think that’s going to make gas cheaper, Einstein? In what universe do you live? Did you think this through?

Once again, we’re faced with the classic “stupid or thinks you are stupid” conundrum: Are they really dumb enough to think that’s a good plan, or do they just think you’re dumb enough to think that’s a good plan? Be mad – good, you should be. But be smart.

Like I said, we get the same ostentatious opt-out announcements every cycle. Once upon a time, I would try to gently reason with people like this. I would provide them evidence and facts showing that choosing defeat was not the best path to victory, either short-term or long-term. But cycle after cycle, we get the same loud, stupid people on social media who stand up and advocate failure as the key to success. You can’t argue with an idiot because he’s an idiot. And you can’t argue with somebody whose purpose is only to draw attention to himself. I don’t want to put these people in the spotlight; they’re political narcissists who want us to beg them for their support. I guess it gives them some sort of meaning, and the attention gives them the false impression that they matter.

There are demoralized Republicans out there, so there’s a market for dooming. It’s easier to exploit them than to energize them. Sadly, social media pays a premium to loudmouth posers who try to draw attention to themselves by taking obnoxious positions, like not voting in the general, as some sort of dimwitted protest. You just need a relatively small slice of the media pie to be successful, and the slice these guys are aiming to claim is topped with a heaping dollop of strategic stupidity.

“But Kurt, Congress hasn’t done anything!” Yes, it has. Putting the Big Beautiful Bill, a bunch of judges, and things like the Laken Riley Act aside, it has stopped all sorts of horrific Democrat initiatives. “But Kurt, we haven’t jailed all the Obama/Biden crooks, we haven’t deported every single illegal alien, and we aren’t guaranteed ponies at Christmas!” All true. In any human endeavor, you don’t get everything you want all at once. You make compromises. You set priorities. You win some, and you lose some.

Don’t be mad at me for telling you that — be mad at whoever told you differently, because they lied to you. So grow the hell up and stop acting like a bunch of sissies.

Now, I’m going to get a lot of grief about this column because I’m allegedly not taking legit complaints and dissatisfaction seriously enough. What they’re really mad about is that I’m not sufficiently catering to their caterwauling because they have to pay another buck at the gas pump to make sure we all don’t glow in the dark. Oh, do they need a hug? Well, this isn’t the time for hugging. This is the time for voting. This is the time for doing what you have to do to win in the long run. No, gritting your teeth and marching forward doesn’t provide the giddy emotional satisfaction of a temper tantrum. But then, adults aren’t out for emotional satisfaction. They’re out for victory. And the only way we’re going to have any chance of winning our country back is by defeating the communists who want to destroy what’s left of it.

So to those of you who want me to beg you for your support, here’s some sand. Feel free to pound it. I’m not going to pretend that anybody out there urging us not to do everything we can to win this midterm election — one where the deck is already historically stacked against us — is anything but a clown.

Life is hard. So is ensuring our freedom. Get over it and get to work.

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2026/09/28/we-are-so-tired-of-the-loudmouth-quitters-n2683651?utm_source=pjmediambvip&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm