Longtime Daily Wire readers are no doubt familiar with Xi Van Fleet — an activist, scholar, and survivor of Mao&#8217;s Cultural Revolution. Xi has done more than most to shed light on the horrors of Chinese communism and to sound the alarm about the rising threat of socialism in the United States. We were proud to publish her <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/i-lived-in-the-communist-world-zohran-mamdani-dreams-of-its-worse-than-you-could-imagine">scathing portrait</a> of Zohran Mamdani and her <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/erasing-history-the-real-cultural-marxism?author=Xi+Van+Fleet+and+Sasha+Gong&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Erasing+History%3A+The+Real+Cultural+Marxism">five-part series</a> “American Maoists: Warnings From The Cultural Revolution.”
Today, we&#8217;re honored to bring you an exclusive excerpt from her forthcoming book “Made in America: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Enabled Communist China and Created Our Greatest Threat.” Co-authored with Chinese dissident Yu Jie, the book explores how American academics, writers, and politicians helped Communist China become a global superpower.
In the excerpt below, Xi and Yu examine three little-known American journalists who helped sell Mao&#8217;s lies to the world — and warn that Xi Jinping is working to do the same with American journalists today. — Tim Rice
***
Edgar Snow, Agnes Smedley, and Anna Louise Strong — three Americans from the Midwest — were collectively known in China as the “Three S’s,” the leading Western journalists who made an immeasurable contribution to the Chinese communist cause, with Snow regarded as the most influential of the trio.
In 1984, the Smedley-Strong-Snow Society of China was established under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences to honor their contributions. The society organizes commemorative events, preserves archives, and promotes research on their roles in advancing the Chinese Communist movement. And all three of the S’s were individually featured on postage stamps issued in China.
Because Smedley and Strong were openly Communist and connected to the Communist International, their work was often dismissed in the West due to its overt ideological slant. Snow, by contrast, was seen as an independent voice. This perceived neutrality gave his work greater credibility in the West, making it arguably more deceptive and dangerous.
Today, the CCP is actively seeking new “Snows” for Xi Jinping’s “new era,” those who can fulfill a similar role as Edgar Snow in promoting China’s narrative on the global stage. In 2021, the CCP media outlet China Daily launched the Edgar Snow Newsroom, aimed at recruiting foreign reporters to engage in propaganda work for the CCP. Evidently, there is no shortage of candidates for the CCP to choose from.
The widespread popularity of the work of the Three S’s can be attributed to the historical context of the 1930s. During this time, the United States was still recovering from the Great Depression, which had deeply shaken confidence in capitalism. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal introduced socialist policies, reflecting a broader leftward shift in American society.
Interestingly, Edgar Snow noted in Red Star Over China that Mao Zedong held a favorable view of President Roosevelt, even expressing interest in learning about FDR’s New Deal. Mao was likely inspired by FDR’s large-scale government initiatives aimed at rapid economic transformation.
In this historic environment, writings that glorified and promoted Chinese Communism unsurprisingly found a receptive audience among American readers, who were increasingly exploring alternative economic and political ideologies.
Later, Edgar Snow’s 1936 visit to China and extensive interviews conducted with Mao Zedong  marked the beginning of the CCP’s campaign to cultivate allies among American influencers, particularly journalists and writers. From there, the party steadily expanded its network of “old friends” to encompass government officials, military leaders, politicians, policymakers, and, eventually, the upper ranks of major corporations and business elites.
One might argue that these influencers were merely deceived by the Chinese Communists. But the truth is far less forgiving: they were deceived because they wanted to be. They saw not what was real but what they longed to see. They heard not the truth but what confirmed their ideals and fed their convictions.
Though they came from diverse backgrounds, they shared one defining trait: a left-leaning political orientation, ranging from liberal sympathizers like Edgar Snow to committed communists like Agnes Smedley and Anna Louise Strong. History has shown, time and again, that the ideological leap from liberalism to communism is often alarmingly short.
These bleeding-heart liberals helped legitimize and elevate a regime that would go on to unleash unimaginable human suffering. Safely removed from the consequences, they never lived under the tyranny they helped glorify. Many never paused to reflect on the reality that every word they wrote in praise of the Communist Party came at the cost of real human lives — millions of them.
Words can kill, and the pen can be as deadly as any bullet. This tragic chapter of history must not be forgotten.
***
Xi Van Fleet and Yu Jie are authors of the forthcoming <a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/xi-van-fleet/made-in-america/9781546009368/?lens=center-street__;!!PxibshUo2Yr_Ta5B!1EyvEl-uC7TIK0rLvarrOO6odKbstFnL9S29IBgVjHSqp0YOI8tvg6cjDHu8PbAkTnVdBtVmyN0Y7CGdUt-84os$" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/xi-van-fleet/made-in-america/9781546009368/?lens%3Dcenter-street__;!!PxibshUo2Yr_Ta5B!1EyvEl-uC7TIK0rLvarrOO6odKbstFnL9S29IBgVjHSqp0YOI8tvg6cjDHu8PbAkTnVdBtVmyN0Y7CGdUt-84os$&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1769179679063000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3JTdRuew3QefD102CqMml8">book</a> “Made in America: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Enabled Communist China and Created Our Greatest Threat.”
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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The Three American Journalists Who Fueled The CCP’s Rise 

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Chinese Communist Party

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Leftism

Xi Jinping

A federal judge temporarily blocked the Justice Department from searching Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson&#8217;s devices, which were <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/fbi-searches-washington-post-reporters-home-in-classified-docs-probe-leaker-behind-bars">confiscated</a> under an FBI search warrant last week as part of a federal investigation into leaked classified materials.
U.S. Magistrate Judge William Porter said on Wednesday that federal prosecutors cannot search Natanson&#8217;s devices as he weighs whether the government must turn the devices back over to the reporter, Reuters <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/us-judge-temporarily-blocks-review-material-seized-washington-post-reporter-2026-01-21/">reported</a>. Natanson and the Post argue that the FBI&#8217;s seizure of Natanson&#8217;s devices violate the First Amendment.
Porter said that Natanson and the Post “demonstrated good cause in their filings to maintain the status quo” until he can fully review the case. The judge also ordered the government to respond to the Post&#8217;s legal filing by January 28, with a hearing scheduled for early next month, the Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/01/21/washington-post-hannah-natanson-search-court-filing/">reported</a>.
Journalists who publish classified information are protected under U.S. law, provided they obtained the classified material without coercion and did not ask anyone to break the law.
The FBI seized two laptops, a phone, and a Garmin watch from Natanson as part of an investigation into a government contractor accused of leaking classified government materials. Natanson is not the target of the investigation, which is focused on Aurelio Perez-Lugones, a contractor with top-secret security clearance who allegedly took classified intelligence reports to his home.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said last week that Natanson was reporting on classified information that was “illegally leaked” by a “Pentagon contractor.” Bondi added that the accused leaker, whom she did not publicly identify, is in jail.
Natanson focuses on “covering the Trump administration’s reshaping of the government&#8221; and was part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team at the Post. She has described herself as “the federal government whisperer” and wrote in an article published last month that she connected with more than 1,000 sources within the Trump administration after posting her phone number to an online forum for federal government employees. She said federal workers who reached out to her often expressed frustration with the administration.
The Washington Post condemned the federal government&#8217;s search of Natanson&#8217;s home and seizure of her devices.
“The outrageous seizure of our reporter’s confidential newsgathering materials chills speech, cripples reporting, and inflicts irreparable harm every day the government keeps its hands on these materials,&#8221; the Post said.
Last year, Bondi ended a policy implemented under former President Joe Biden that prohibited federal agencies from searching reporters’ devices to identify a leaker. Bondi said that under her leadership, federal authorities would search reporters’ devices and records only when necessary and after all other investigative avenues had been exhausted.

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Federal Judge Blocks DOJ From Searching Washington Post Reporter’s Devices In Classified Docs Probe

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CBS News anchor Tony Dokoupil delivered a New Year&#8217;s Day message promising changes in coverage at the legacy media network, at least as far as he is concerned. Dokoupil, who will helm the outlet&#8217;s iconic &#8220;CBS Evening News,&#8221; said he was ready to pull out all the stops to make viewers trust the news again.
Dokoupil, who appeared regularly on &#8220;CBS Mornings&#8221; alongside hosts Gayle King and former pro-footballer Nate Burleson, is making the move to primetime amid other changes being made by new Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss. He delivered a statement promising to do better via a video posted Thursday to X.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
&#8220;On too many stories, the press has missed the story. Because we&#8217;ve taken into account the perspective of advocates and not the average American. Or we put too much weight in the analysis of academics or elites, and not enough on you.&#8221;
That changes now. The new CBS Evening News… <a href="https://t.co/NKdvRJjYCS">pic.twitter.com/NKdvRJjYCS</a>
— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) <a href="https://twitter.com/CBSEveningNews/status/2006696909235171821?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 1, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;A lot has changed since the first person sat in this chair,&#8221; Dokoupil observed. &#8220;But for me, the biggest difference is people do not trust us like they used to. And it&#8217;s not just us. It&#8217;s all of legacy media. And I get it. I get it because I&#8217;ve been hearing about it from just about everybody for more than 20 years as I&#8217;ve traveled America on this assignment or that.&#8221;
Dokoupil went on to list a number of stories with which people on one side of the aisle or the other had taken issue: from COVID lockdowns and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton&#8217;s emails to Hunter Biden&#8217;s laptop, the Iraq War, and former President Joe Biden&#8217;s fitness for office — and he said that he understood why people were so upset.
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&#8220;On too many stories, the press has missed the story. Because we&#8217;ve taken into account the perspective of advocates and not the average American. Or we put too much weight in the analysis of academics or elites, and not enough on you,&#8221; he conceded. &#8220;And I know this because, at certain points, I have been you. I have felt this way, too. I have felt like what I was seeing and hearing on the news didn&#8217;t reflect what I was seeing and hearing in my own life — and that the most urgent questions simply weren&#8217;t being asked.&#8221;
&#8220;So here&#8217;s my promise to you,&#8221; Dokoupil declared. &#8220;You come first. Not advertisers, not politicians, not corporate interests. And yes, that does include the corporate owners of CBS. I report for you — which means I tell you what I know, when I know it, and how I know it. And when I get it wrong, I&#8217;ll tell you that, too.&#8221;
He said that also meant he would hold everyone &#8220;to the very same standard&#8221; and dig in to &#8220;what works in this country and what doesn&#8217;t — and not only what should change, but the good ideas that should never change. I think telling the truth is one of them.&#8221;

CBS Mornings

CBS News Anchor Announces New Direction For 2026: Actual Journalism

Bari Weiss

CBS News

Legacy Media

Media

Politics

A lengthy exposé highlighting the negative effects DEI has had on white males, in particular millennials, has gone mega viral on social media.
The Compact <a href="https://www.compactmag.com/article/the-lost-generation/">piece</a> “The Lost Generation” by Jacob Savage goes into detail about how white men have been discriminated against over the past decade, especially in the fields of entertainment and academia. The statistical truths laid out plainly have struck a chord with the general public, leading to the article being viewed on X more than 11 million times.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Beginning in 2014, prestige industries decided they urgently needed to diversify. They didn’t purge established Boomers. Instead, they did everything possible to avoid hiring white millennial men.
This is the story of a generation derailed by DEI. <a href="https://t.co/kUfmpHfaMH">https://t.co/kUfmpHfaMH</a>
— Matthew Schmitz (@matthewschmitz) <a href="https://twitter.com/matthewschmitz/status/2000556991375409159?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 15, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Savage, who tried to make it as a Hollywood writer, reported that in 2011, “white men were 48 percent of lower-level TV writers; by 2024, they accounted for just 11.9 percent.” He further noted that The Atlantic’s editorial staff “went from 53 percent male and 89 percent white in 2013 to 36 percent male and 66 percent white in 2024.” Also, “white men fell from 39 percent of tenure-track positions in the humanities at Harvard in 2014 to 18 percent in 2023.”
The author points to the death of George Floyd as a major turning point for industries that were already trying to “diversify.”
“In 2021, new hires at Condé Nast were just 25 percent male and 49 percent white; at the California Times, parent company of The Los Angeles Times and The San Diego Union-Tribune, they were just 39 percent male and 31 percent white. That year ProPublica hired 66 percent women and 58 percent people of color; at NPR, 78 percent of new hires were people of color,” he wrote.
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A hiring manager told Savage, “For a typical job we’d get a couple hundred applications, probably at least 80 from white guys. It was a given that we weren’t gonna hire the best person. … It was jarring how we would talk about excluding white guys.”
White male writers have been kept out of other major outlets, too, including The New York Times and Buzzfeed. The article noted that Vox Media was 82 percent male and 88 percent white in 2013. By 2022, the company was just 37 percent male and 59 percent white, and by 2025 leadership was 73 percent female.
Savage said while the problem looks less stark in academia, he believes that Boomers are occupying all the tenure positions at elite institutions while millennial white men are being ignored for jobs they’re qualified for.
One notable statistic Savage found was that since 2022, Brown University “has hired forty-five tenure track professors in the humanities and social sciences. Just three were white American men (6.7 percent).”
The article points out similar situations in other industries, such as tech, publishing, and management. Savage notes how white men were pushed to crypto, podcasting, and Substack because “institutional barriers to entry didn’t exist” there.
His exposé was met with support and commiseration on social media.
“The phenomenon of white male dispossession strikes at the core of what’s been going on over the last decade,” one commenter <a href="https://x.com/l0m3z/status/2000976625585021212?s=43">wrote</a>. “Any politician, anyone with any ambition to influence, must take on this fight. The time is now.”
“Truly extraordinary,” <a href="https://x.com/l0m3z/status/2000976625585021212?s=43">said</a> another. “Impossible to fathom all that&#8217;s been lost.”
Some argued that Savage’s piece didn’t go far enough and that it placed too much blame on the established Boomers who were also subject to discrimination.
“People complaining about the rise of radicalism need to realize the number one thing they could do to contain it is to speak up,” political commentator Jeremy Carl <a href="https://x.com/realJeremyCarl/status/2000933766118957247">wrote</a>.

Man is standing

Exposé On Discrimination Against White Millennial Men Goes Viral, Inspires Outrage

Business

Discrimination

Social Issues

Twitter

U.S.

White Men

For all the hysterical claims that President Donald Trump is some sort of First Amendment supervillain, the reality is precisely the opposite. Trump has done more to defend constitutionally protected speech and to dismantle the most coordinated censorship regime in modern American history than any president in living memory.
But don’t tell that to the New York Times, NPR, or the ladies at The View. According to them, Trump is basically moments away from burning the Bill of Rights on live TV.
Why the disconnect? The modern Left has confused breaking norms with breaking laws, and those are two very different things.
Norms are unwritten rules, handshake agreements shaped by cultural institutions. Over decades, those institutions shifted left and rewrote the norms to ensure that public policy always bends in their direction. One glaring example is the “norm” that government spending must increase every year at rates higher than inflation, substantially higher.
Laws, by contrast, are enforceable with financial penalties or jail time.
Trump breaks norms. The Left breaks laws and then screams “authoritarian!” when someone tries to enforce those laws. That, in a nutshell, is the dynamic between Trump and the Democrat Party today.
To understand the elitist media’s role in all this, start with the epic collapse of journalism. The press still loves calling itself the “Fourth Estate,” bravely speaking truth to power. That may have been true once, back when reporters described reality instead of trying to socially engineer it. But over time, journalism mutated, first through ideologically uniform J-schools, then through newsroom monocultures, into something far more partisan.
Post-Watergate hero fantasies turned reporters into crusaders. Conservative viewpoints disappeared. Elitists replaced objectivity with “moral clarity” — their euphemism for political activism.
This has led to the death of journalism. The vapors emanating from its stinking corpse have made it nearly impossible for so-called “reporters” to understand basic constitutional law. So let’s clarify.
The First Amendment protects a broad range of speech, but not all speech. Speech in service of a crime? Not protected. Offer a bribe and try claiming “free speech.” See how that goes. Defamation? Also not protected. And when you take a government handout, whether as a defense contractor or a publicly funded media broadcaster, you accept the regulatory conditions that come with it.
NPR and PBS assumed otherwise. They took billions from taxpayers while repeatedly violating the law that required them to “ensure strict adherence to objectivity and balance.” They assumed the norm, that they’d always get our money through Congressional earmarks, even while breaking the law.
Trump did what no other president has ever done: he broke that norm and enforced the law. His Federal Communications Commission Chairman, Brendan Carr, has done something similar with broadcasters. That’s not censorship. That’s accountability.
The same principle applies to universities. For years, the norm was that campuses would tolerate and even encourage criminal behavior under the guise of “social activism.” Blocking highways, occupying buildings, vandalizing property, and assaulting students was perfectly fine, as long as the rioters chanted the right slogans. But the First Amendment doesn’t magically convert crime into protected speech. Trump ended that law-breaking norm, too.
None of this alone makes Trump the “greatest defender of free speech.” His words and his deeds earn him that gold model.
Just before taking the oath of office for the second time, Trump laid down the truth long forgotten by the left: “If we don’t have free speech, then we just don’t have a free country. … If this most fundamental right is allowed to perish, then the rest of our rights and liberties will topple, just like dominoes.” 
Trump’s actions followed suit. He and his administration have eviscerated the sprawling censorship apparatus built by President Joe Biden.
MRC Free Speech America has shown how the Biden administration operated the <a href="https://mrcfreespeechamerica.org/biden-censorship-initiatives-tracker">most expansive government-driven censorship system in U.S. history</a>. Not metaphorically. Literally.
A few &#8220;lowlights” from the Biden censorship regime include: federal agencies pressuring social media platforms to suppress lawful political speech; agencies partnering with private entities to provide “plausible deniability” while carrying out government censorship goals, and government “switchboards” funneling thousands of takedown demands, creating lists of posts to hide, throttle, or erase.
Biden’s objective wasn’t about fighting “misinformation,” as he has claimed. It was about controlling and shaping narratives before an election. This was speech policing.
This was government censorship.
This was illegal.
Trump tore it apart.
Through executive orders, personnel changes, and directives barring government censorship, Trump dismantled Biden’s censorship machine. Platforms can no longer hide behind federal pressure, and bureaucrats can no longer run secret speech-surveillance pipelines.
That is what defending the First Amendment looks like. Not symbolic gestures. Not pretty rhetoric. Real action. Real results. Restoring the foundational principle that in America, the government does not decide which opinions are allowed.
No other president has done more to defend the First Amendment. Trump truly has made free speech great again.
* * *
Dan Schneider is Vice President for Free Speech at the Media Research Center.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
* * *
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TOPSHOT-US-POLITICS-TRUMP

By Dismantling Biden’s Censorship Machine, Trump Made Free Speech Great Again

Biden Administration

Donald Trump

First Amendment

Free Speech

Media Research Center

Opinion

President Trump

Social Media Bias

Social Media Censorship

Many people blame the troubles of the world on the news media. Many say that journalists have become out-of-touch elites, so committed to the destructive lies of leftism that their minds have become gnarled and pocked with hatred of those everyday Americans whose better values threaten to expose journalists to themselves as Gollum-like creatures eaten away by their own corruption until they look into the mirrors of their imaginations and see horrific images of their bodies riddled with leprous decay as a physical representation of the spiritual degeneracy that clearly foreshadows an eternity of desolation in bleak and endless severance from the God who created them and who now, even in his omniscience, himself turns to alternative forms of media in the hopes of getting some honest news once in a while.
Of course, many people still trust the news media and softly murmur to themselves that Walter Cronkite seems awfully nice, before they retreat into a corner of the assisted care facility and stare at the blank wall with rheumy eyes, fondly watching a parade of misty memories from a distant past that now seems much better than it really was.
Recently, unseemly revelations have detracted even more from the news media’s reputation so that trust in the honesty of journalists has now sunk to just 28% of journalists, and they’re journalists, so they’re obviously lying and don’t trust journalists any more than the rest of us do.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974735 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now-1024x171.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now-1024x171.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now-300x50.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now-768x128.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now-1536x256.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Klavan-watch-now.jpg 1800w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
In formerly Great Britain, for instance, the British Broadcasting Corporation has recently become mired in scandal. The once-respected news organization, often affectionately referred to as “Auntie,” because it reminds viewers of the sort of grey-haired old lady whose silhouette can sometimes be seen at the second story window of a gothic mansion while her delusional, hectoring high-pitched rants drift down to the desolate motel below until, in the last reel, we find out the silhouette is really Norman Bates in a dress and a wig, and the real Auntie is the rotten corpse of a once respected news organization…
What was I talking about? Oh yeah…
Recently, the BBC was exposed for deceptively editing a speech by Donald Trump for a 2024 report that was clearly meant to influence American voters against Trump’s re-election. In Trump’s original speech, delivered to a group of protestors on January 6th after Trump’s 2021 election loss, Trump said, “God bless America, land that I love, stand beside her, and guide her through the night with a light from above.” In the BBC version, Trump said, “Kill them all! Storm the Capitol and kill them all! Kill, Kill, Kill! Insurrection now! Destroy Democracy and kill them all!”
BBC President Cor Blimey issued a statement saying that the minor discrepancy was the result of an innocent mistake in which producers confused the Trump speech with the film “Starship Troopers” because they think of Americans as just so many gigantic alien bugs.
To be fair, not all news organizations have sunk out of sight into the BBC’s tarpit of disgrace, shame, corruption, decadence, degradation, and vice. With some outlets, you can still just see the tops of their heads for a few final moments before the tar closes over them. 
For example, the New York Times, a former newspaper, was recently awarded the Pulitzer Prize for linking Donald Trump’s name to Jeffrey Epstein’s name a record number of times, without once explaining that no one has ever plausibly accused Trump of doing anything wrong with Epstein. The Pulitzer Committee says it hopes the Times prize for irrelevantly linking Trump and Epstein will encourage other former news outlets to distract people from the fact that Trump has closed the border, brought peace to the Middle East, drawn in trillions of dollars of new investment to the U.S., lowered inflation and bettered our trading deals in ways that promise to cut the deficit, not to mention the fact that he barred Epstein from Mar-a-Lago for being a creep while sleazy journalists like George Stephanopoulos and Katie Couric were still attending dinners in Epstein’s honor.
In a statement carved into the clay of a goat-headed idol, the Pulitzer Committee said it would continue to give news outlets like the Times awards for what they do best, namely, lie.
* * *
This excerpt is taken from the opening satirical monologue of “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Andrew Klavan Show</a>.”
Andrew Klavan is the host of “The Andrew Klavan Show” at The Daily Wire. Klavan is the bestselling author of numerous books, including the Cameron Winter Mystery series. The fifth installment, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/After-That-Cameron-Winter-Mysteries/dp/1613166869/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3EGZUC370LG46&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Y_NI0mDOKeowShheDQTVx5NH-fAeimJoCD56_T0Acpl8C0mup7uJf-nGGSRLEItaaekoDnvS2vWLMa4Zd2UBXQ8Y-g-P502jOWz-Y8IX3ZQsdlO7WMLrg1xIhNoKmjCorSWUR4C2l_RbiZ7apJ1MfPzGOrrEf7AdAXX6xwnJRVP_XqUfWuMuVthTWscaU3P4vgmS86-96n-721enHfX12CFQWTajqFbVnrsDkexfUf4.6_gTH6h1Bb9Pn375QdF_VAVZSayDvjQBBKGXE-MTiFo&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=klavan&amp;qid=1754049918&amp;sprefix=%2Caps%2C80&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">After That, The Dark,</a> is NOW AVAILABLE. Follow him on X: <a href="https://x.com/andrewklavan" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@andrewklavan</a>
The views expressed in this satirical piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
* * *
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New York Times

NY Times Wins Pulitzer For Linking Words ‘Trump’ And ‘Epstein’ Record Number Of Times

NY Times Wins Pulitzer For Linking Words 'Trump' And 'Epstein' Record Number Of Times

Andrew Klavan

Humor

Satire

The New York Times

Four staffers who recorded themselves confronting the head of Human Resources at Condé Nast over recent layoffs at Teen Vogue have been fired.
The clips were filmed on Wednesday outside HR exec Stan Duncan’s office at One World Trade Center in New York City. In the awkward clip, a crowd of employees stand outside Duncan’s office and badger him about the layoffs, prompting him to repeatedly tell them to “go back to the workplace.”
Four of those employees were later fired for &#8220;extreme misconduct,” per <a href="https://deadline.com/2025/11/conde-nast-fires-staffers-teen-vogue-1236609695/">Deadline</a>.
Those individuals included Jasper Lo from the New Yorker, Jake Lahut from Wired, Alma Avalle from Bon Appétit, and Ben Dewey from Condé Nast Entertainment.
In the video, Duncan can be heard telling employees to refrain from “congregating” outside his office.
“What counts as congregating?” Lahut said. “What’s your definition of congregating?”
“We’d appreciate if you would go back to the workplace, to your workplace assignments,” Duncan responded.
“Is there a place that you’d be able to speak to us?” Avalle said to Duncan. “Do you think we’re not worth speaking to, Stan?”
“Those are your words, not mine,” Duncan said.
“But they might be your beliefs!” Avalle replied.
“They’re not my beliefs,” Duncan can be heard saying.
“Well, we have some quick questions. If you answered them, we’d be happy to go back to our desks,” Avalle tried again.
“Are you running away from us?” Avalle said incredulously as Duncan started leading the group away from his office.
“We’re concerned about our colleagues,” a person off-camera said.
 “We’d like you to answer questions,” Avalle said. “We’d love to move forward.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
The most brutally awkward thing you&#8217;ll see today: Condé Nast staffers confront head of HR Stan Duncan over layoffs outside his 34th-floor office.
Four of the employees featured in this exclusive video from the confrontation were then fired for &#8220;extreme misconduct.&#8221;
The whole… <a href="https://t.co/Ze6Vmyz0iI">pic.twitter.com/Ze6Vmyz0iI</a>
— TheWrap (@TheWrap) <a href="https://twitter.com/TheWrap/status/1986555099469230496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 6, 2025</a></blockquote>
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In a statement, Condé Nast said that “extreme misconduct is unacceptable in any professional setting. This includes aggressive, disruptive and threatening behavior of any kind.”
“We remain committed to working constructively with the union and all of our employees.”
The media giant also said they have filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board against the News Guild of New York “for their repeated and egregious disregard of our collective bargaining agreement.”
Meanwhile, the guild took the side of the fired employees, <a href="https://www.nyguild.org/post/statement-from-the-newsguild-of-new-york-and-conde-united-on-illegal-firing-of-four-union-leaders-who-demanded-answers-about-thi">writing</a>, “These terminations are a flagrant breach of the Just Cause terms of our contract and an unprecedented violation of their federally protected rights as union members to participate in collective action.”
Avalle, a transgender-identifying employee who was one of those participating in the incident, wrote about it on X.
“I love my job, I love my coworkers, and I love my union. I’m devastated the company made this move. There are so few trans women in media at all — particularly ones who aren’t confined to ‘Queer Media’ — and I was incredibly proud of what my position at Bon Appétit meant at large,” the post <a href="https://x.com/GoodbyeAlma/status/1986505896068063351">said</a>.
“More important to me than my identity, I am also the Vice President of the NewsGuild of New York, and targeting me with a blatantly retaliatory termination like this feels like an egregious shot against our union and against media workers as a whole.”

Conde Nast building

Condé Nast Fires Four Employees For Confronting HR Exec Outside His Office

Condé Nast Fired Four Employees For Confronting HR Exec Outside His Office

Entertainment

layoffs

magazine

Unions

A clip from Sydney Sweeney’s interview with GQ has gone viral on social media, with most viewers applauding her refusal to take the virtue signaling bait.
In the clip, interviewer Kat Stoeffel scrunched up her face and pressed Sweeney on her viral American Eagle ad campaign. Stoeffel tried a variety of different tactics to get the actress to apologize and denounce white supremacy. Commenters praised Sweeney for remaining cool and collected.
“This is the slimiest journalist I’ve ever seen. This entire &#8216;interview&#8217; is a bad faith gotcha where she’s trying to trap Sydney into admitting she’s conservative lol what a psychopath,” TP USA podcast host Alex Clark <a href="https://x.com/yoalexrapz/status/1986703753605751061?s=43">wrote</a> in response to the clip.
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This is the slimiest journalist I’ve ever seen. This entire “interview” is a bad faith gotcha where she’s trying to trap Sydney into admitting she’s conservative lol what a psychopath <a href="https://t.co/xX8HU7I0Ox">https://t.co/xX8HU7I0Ox</a>
— Alex Clark (@yoalexrapz) <a href="https://twitter.com/yoalexrapz/status/1986703753605751061?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 7, 2025</a></blockquote>
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“GQ Reporter: why aren’t you ashamed that people will think you’re a conservative? You should be. Sydney Sweeney: Next question,” Jennifer Sey, founder of XX-XY Athletics <a href="https://x.com/jennifersey/status/1986556246627897714?s=43">wrote</a>. 
“To me, the most interesting aspect of this conversation is the smug progressive woman who lives in a bubble and says stupid stuff because it seems to her like the most natural thing in the world,” Dinesh D’Souza <a href="https://x.com/dineshdsouza/status/1986563463695515781?s=43">shared</a>. “I’m sure she’s still wondering why Sydney Sweeney didn’t go along.”
Another commenter pointed out that liberals don’t expect conservatives to be real people, but instead assume they are just caricatures as the media portrays them.
“The thing you have to remember about this woman and those like her is that she genuinely doesn’t know that anyone disagrees with her basic worldview. She doesn’t even see it as a worldview. It’s just the obvious truth,” Hunter Ash on X <a href="https://x.com/artemisconsort/status/1986551356673687697?s=43">observed</a>.
“Of course she knows abstractly that half the country voted for Trump. But those aren’t people. Those are cartoon characters. They’re either fat slobbering rednecks in klan hoods, or mustache-twirling robber barons manipulating the rednecks for profit,” Ash continued. “Anyone she might actually sit down and talk to is, of course, a person, and therefore agrees with The Obvious Truth. It is inconceivable to her that anyone capable of being a pleasant dinner party guest would not share her basic beliefs and values.”
The commenter argued that the question wasn’t meant to be a “gotcha” but rather came from the interviewer assuming that Sweeney “got mixed up in the whole jeans/genes fiasco by mistake.”
At another point in the interview, the actress was asked what it was like when President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance weighed in on the campaign. Sweeney gave a one-word answer: “Surreal.”
Controversy erupted over the summer over an ad spot featuring Sweeney in various seductive poses while saying she had “good jeans.” The double entendre with the word “genes” made leftists deem the ad racist, noting that Sweeney is white with blond hair and blue eyes.
In one of the ads, Sweeney says, “Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color. My jeans are blue.”
American Eagle responded to the backlash by issuing a simple statement: “&#8217;Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans&#8217; is and always was about the jeans. Her jeans. Her story. We’ll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way. Great jeans look good on everyone.”

Sydney Sweeney

Sydney Sweeney Praised For Keeping Her Cool As GQ Reporter Tries To Shame Her

advertising

Celebrities

Liberals

Thanks to valiant efforts from on-air personalities Kasie Hunt and Kaitlan Collins, CNN managed to deliver two acts of actual journalism in the same 24-hour period — on two different topics.
The first came on Monday evening from Collins, who was discussing the political hot topics of the day with Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) on &#8220;The Source&#8221; and took a moment to fact-check the Texas Democrat when she played fast and loose with the context of a statement made earlier in the day by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Jasmine Crockett immediately runs the debunked &#8220;Trump’s main priority is the ballroom” hoax on her CNN hit.
The lie is so egregious, she actually gets fact-checked by Kaitlan Collins. <a href="https://t.co/HRfeoTZ3ys">https://t.co/HRfeoTZ3ys</a> <a href="https://t.co/lvdp4gkuGu">pic.twitter.com/lvdp4gkuGu</a>
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) <a href="https://twitter.com/WesternLensman/status/1982988988072722491?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 28, 2025</a></blockquote>
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When asked whether she thought the ongoing government shutdown was likely to end any time soon, Crockett attempted to make it look like President Donald Trump was going out of his way to prioritize other things.
&#8220;The president has time to do everything but what he needs to focus on. In fact, we heard the press secretary say his main priority is the ballroom — the ballroom that no one asked for. The ballroom that requires him to destroy historic pieces of the White House. And so it doesn’t seem like he’s interested [in the shutdown],&#8221; Crockett claimed.
Join us now during our exclusive Deal of the Decade. Get everything for $7 a month. Not as fans. As fighters. Go to <a href="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">DailyWire.com/Subscribe</a> to join now.
Collins pushed back immediately, noting that Leavitt had said the ballroom was the president&#8217;s top priority — but that she had been specifically referring to construction and renovation projects at the White House.
&#8220;Yeah, and that context of the comment from Karoline Leavitt, she was asked if the president was working on any other renovations when it came to the White House, and she was saying his focus was the ballroom,&#8221; Collins said.
WATCH:
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Karoline Leavitt was asked if &#8220;the president is looking at any other renovations&#8221; at the White House?
Karoline answered: &#8220;At this moment in time of course, the ballroom is really the president&#8217;s main priority.&#8221;
This is how easily Democrats lie about stupid stuff. <a href="https://t.co/qGuZkvYYPV">https://t.co/qGuZkvYYPV</a> <a href="https://t.co/1fBzh8sdRN">pic.twitter.com/1fBzh8sdRN</a>
— Andrew Kolvet (@AndrewKolvet) <a href="https://twitter.com/AndrewKolvet/status/1981491616591597662?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 23, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Less than 24 hours later, Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) joined host Kasie Hunt to discuss the ongoing shutdown — and she pressed him repeatedly on his party&#8217;s evolving position on keeping the government shuttered in order to leverage political gains.
WATCH:
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Ruben Gallego just got wrecked on CNN for his hypocritical stance on shutdowns reverting to a &#8220;BUT TRUMP&#8221; response:
Host: &#8220;Why is it suddenly right to do it this way?&#8221;
Gallego: &#8220;It&#8217;s DONALD TRUMP &#8230; it&#8217;s all out the window Casey.&#8221;
There is nothing that Democrats have aside… <a href="https://t.co/sZKARGLRKA">pic.twitter.com/sZKARGLRKA</a>
— Andrew Kolvet (@AndrewKolvet) <a href="https://twitter.com/AndrewKolvet/status/1983278331157196951?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 28, 2025</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;So I think my question is this, I mean, I take your point about these millions of people, the cost of living is incredibly high, but also Republicans control the White House, they control the Senate, they control the House, and in the past, Democrats, when Republicans have tried to do something like this, Democrats have argued that the norms of our government should be that you negotiate policy outside of a government shutdown,&#8221; Hunt confronted Gallego right from the start. &#8220;I mean, over many years covering Washington, people have said that over and over and over again.&#8221;
&#8220;Now I have neighbors in the D.C. area who are both employed by the federal government who are having to use food banks. We are heading into Thanksgiving. Why is it suddenly right to do it this way and to do it for this long when it didn’t used to be the right way in Democrats&#8217; view?&#8221; Hunt asked directly.
&#8220;Oh, that’s an easy answer. It’s Donald Trump,&#8221; Gallego replied, spinning quickly to change the topic. &#8220;You’re talking about norms in the time of Donald Trump? It’s also normal not for you to tear down the East Wing.&#8221;
Hunt did not budge: &#8220;Right, but Democrats have spent so much time arguing about how maintaining those norms is actually incredibly important in the face of Donald Trump.&#8221;
&#8220;It doesn’t. It’s all out the window. It is all out of the window, Kasie,&#8221; Gallego insisted, arguing that because he and Democrats did not like what Trump was doing, they were justified in breaking rules in order to level the playing field. &#8220;No. When you’re doing this time with Donald Trump, this is the man that is extorting people. He’s literally breaking every rule. We’re not going to go back and play by the norms when we know that&#8217;s what’s on the line. What’s on the line is 24 million people are going to have their insurance rates premiums doubled. That’s a new thing, by the way. And the fact is the president and everyone expects us to play by these old norms.&#8221;
&#8220;But didn’t Democrats kind of set that up in the bill that you passed, though, that these subsidies were going to expire?&#8221; Hunt was clearly not convinced.
Gallego admitted that Hunt was, in fact, correct — but once again attempted to spin, blaming Republicans for not wanting to pony up billions of taxpayer dollars to fund endless subsidies, all just to rescue the Affordable Care Act they hadn&#8217;t supported in the first place.
&#8220;When we passed the bills and back in the day, as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, of course we were trying to maybe hope for the best that this country and our Republican colleagues would understand that raising insurance rates on people is a bad thing. I’m sorry they don’t see it that way, but it’s also not my job to make their job easier,&#8221; he said. &#8220;My job is to make sure that the premiums of 24 million Americans does not double overnight. And if it makes it harder on the Republicans that we’re putting them in a very difficult position, then they have to answer for that &#8230; But I’m not gonna abide by old norms, especially when you’re dealing with this presidency, this administration, and how the Republicans themselves have been acting.&#8221;

2024 Republican National Convention: Day 1

PLOT TWIST: CNN Commits Two Acts Of Journalism In The Same Day

CNN Commits Two Acts Of Journalism In The Same Day

Kaitlan Collins

Karoline Leavitt

Kasie Hunt

The Italian journalist under fire online for a controversial #MeToo and Black Lives Matter question at the Venice Film Festival is now defending herself.
Federica Polidoro sat down with “After the Hunt” stars Julia Roberts, Andrew Garfield, and Ayo Edebiri for an interview to promote the project. One moment from the conversation, posted to the ArtsLifeTV YouTube channel, has gone viral, with critics accusing Polidoro of being “racist” for directing one of her questions specifically to Roberts and Garfield, who are white, while being accused of excluding Edebiri, who is black.
“Now that the #MeToo era and the Black Lives Matter are done, what do we have to expect in Hollywood and what we lost, we lost something with the politically correct era?” she asked.
Despite the question not being directed at her, Edebiri jumped in to answer it.
“I know that that’s not for me, and I don’t know if it’s purposeful that it’s not for me, but I just am curious,” the star of “The Bear” said.
She went on, “I don’t think it’s done. I don’t think it’s done at all,” as Roberts chimed in with her agreement.
Edebiri went on: “I think maybe hashtags might not be used as much, but I do think that there’s work being done by activists, by people, every day, that’s beautiful, important work that’s not finished, that’s really, really, really active for a reason, because this world is really charged. And that work isn’t finished at all. Maybe if there’s not, like, mainstream coverage in the way that there might have been, daily headlines in the way that it might have been eight or so years ago, but I don’t think it means that the work is done. That’s what I would say.”
Garfield chimed in, agreeing that the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements “are still absolutely alive, as you say, just maybe not as labeled or covered or magnified as much.”
The exchange triggered widespread backlash online, with many commenters accusing Polidoro of asking an insensitive question while being dismissive of the only black actor participating in the interview.
Following the resulting backlash, Polidoro took to Instagram to defend herself in a lengthy post.
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“I am not aware of any protocol that dictates the order in which questions must be asked in an interview,” the journalist wrote in part. “Censoring or delegitimizing questions considered ‘uncomfortable’ does not fall within the practice of democracy.”
“To those who unjustly accuse me of racism, I would like to clarify that in my work I have interviewed people of every background and ethnicity, and my own family is multi-ethnic, matriarchal, and feminist, with a significant history of immigration,” she continued. 
“I have collaborated for over 20 years with numerous national and international publications of all political orientations, always approaching my work with openness and professional rigor. In my view, the real racists are those who see racism everywhere and seek to muzzle journalism, limiting freedom of analysis, critical thinking and the plurality of perspectives.”
“After the Hunt” is a psychological thriller about a college professor (Roberts) whose student (Edebiri) makes an accusation against one of her colleagues (Garfield). The film’s tagline is, “Not everything is supposed to make you uncomfortable.”

Julia Roberts, Andrew Garfield, and Ayo Edebiri

Reporter Under Fire For Directing BLM Question Only To White Actors Says Backlash Is Censorship

Black Lives Matter

Hollywood

MeToo

Racism

World

As anti-ICE rioters began to swarm Los Angeles on Friday, former PragerU personality-turned-independent-journalist Aldo Buttazzoni was right there to greet them.
Buttazzoni captured the escalating situation with photos and video footage, dedicated to painting a more accurate picture of the riots than he knew the mainstream media would. He documented the activity on his X <a href="https://x.com/AldoButtazzoni">feed</a>, where hundreds of users have shared his photos, including tech titan Elon Musk.
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This is my photo! Thank you for sharing Elon! <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@elonmusk</a>
&mdash; Aldo 🌞 (@AldoButtazzoni) <a href="https://twitter.com/AldoButtazzoni/status/1931900528390492556?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 9, 2025</a></blockquote>
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“I love independent journalism,” Buttazzoni told The Daily Wire. “I was in Houston after the Uvalde shooting. I was in D.C. right after the overturning of Roe v. Wade. When there’s stuff going on, I like to be there because I know how much disinformation there is. To be quite honest, I trust myself to get that news out and get the stuff that other people might not.”
<a href="https://get.dailywire.com/gift/?utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=wisepops&amp;utm_campaign=dad&amp;utm_content=fathersdaygiftpopups" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gift Dad an All Access Membership. Use code DAD40 at checkout to save 40%!</a>
Protests clashed with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers on Friday, June 6, The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/anti-ice-activist-run-over-as-protests-over-raids-get-ugly?author=Virginia+Kruta&amp;category=undefined&amp;elementPosition=81&amp;row=3&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+News&amp;rowType=Vertical+Carousel&amp;title=Anti-ICE+Activist+Run+Over+As+Protests+Over+Raids+Get+Ugly">reported</a>. Many hardline Democrats sided with the protestors, with Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass saying she was “deeply angered” by the ICE raids.
On Saturday, Buttazzoni spent the entire day in Paramount, which is on the border of Compton, and said that was the first day the rioting started.
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NOW: Current scene in Paramount, CA between protestors &amp; LAPD <a href="https://t.co/Mo9IwTGlbE">pic.twitter.com/Mo9IwTGlbE</a>
&mdash; Aldo 🌞 (@AldoButtazzoni) <a href="https://twitter.com/AldoButtazzoni/status/1931480149209559506?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 7, 2025</a></blockquote>
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“We have good gear, so I personally don’t feel like I’m in imminent danger, but it is scary,” he admitted. “It’s definitely jarring when there’s explosions going off next to your ear. [As] a public figure, the most dangerous and scariest part is having your face out there. On Friday, before things even got really bad, I was surrounded by a mob of protestors and assaulted.”
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NOW: Anti-ICE protestors surrounded me &amp; attempted to grab my belongings while documenting the protests. 
They accused me of being an agitator &amp; “infiltrator” despite me wearing a name tag. I never hide who I am when filming protests like I have done countless times. <a href="https://t.co/vST8pLdOls">pic.twitter.com/vST8pLdOls</a>
&mdash; Aldo 🌞 (@AldoButtazzoni) <a href="https://twitter.com/AldoButtazzoni/status/1931198649008054755?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 7, 2025</a></blockquote>
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“[Saturday was] when I really saw the damage. The street was damaged, dumpster fires, empty lots caught on fire, graffiti, vandalism. … I would say the mile-radius of immediate damage was Hill Street to Temple to Central Avenue. It was relatively small, but that doesn’t discount the amount of damage they were able to do in such a small area.”
Buttazzoni said personal politics should not matter in situations where the law must be enforced, especially when violence is involved.
“President Trump is not taking over. He’s doing the bare minimum job that the citizens elect people to do, which is to keep their cities safe. … On Sunday, I witnessed rioters tearing up sidewalks and hurling twenty to thirty pound rocks off an overpass while shouting, ‘Aim for the heads, aim for the heads!’ That’s all that needs to be said. There was violent intent, not just violent outcomes.”
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🚨BREAKING: Rioters are tearing up the side walk &amp; collecting ROCKS to throw at law enforcement. LAPD continues to show incredible restraint despite multiple of their vehicles being destroyed.
Graffiti &amp; destruction is widespread with no sign of stopping. <a href="https://t.co/igkbnVrzdw">pic.twitter.com/igkbnVrzdw</a>
&mdash; Aldo 🌞 (@AldoButtazzoni) <a href="https://twitter.com/AldoButtazzoni/status/1931897508185416123?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 9, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Despite having documented multiple protests and riots, Buttazzoni said these are the worst he’s ever seen and that the rioters&#8217; brazenness is the most disturbing part of it.
“The protests and the riots I’ve been to, there’s always a sense of fear. Or, at least, there’s a sense that people are on alert that they’re going to get caught. On Sunday, I don’t think I’ve ever seen protestors act with such impunity and such confidence that law enforcement was going to do nothing — or could do nothing.”
Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA) has come under fire for his mishandling of the riots, yet refuses to take responsibility, blaming President Donald Trump for escalating the situation by sending in the National Guard.
“Donald Trump has manufactured a crisis and is inflaming conditions,” Newsom said in an X <a href="https://x.com/GavinNewsom/status/1931916595628237077">post</a>.
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Donald Trump has manufactured a crisis and is inflaming conditions.
If he can’t solve it, we will.
To the bad actors — Violent acts will not be tolerated. You will be arrested. You will be prosecuted. You are doing more than just damage to buildings and property. You are… <a href="https://t.co/VMLqdUDS56">pic.twitter.com/VMLqdUDS56</a>
&mdash; Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) <a href="https://twitter.com/GavinNewsom/status/1931916595628237077?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 9, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Buttazzoni disagrees, saying the National Guard “absolutely needed to come in.”
“I want to stress this — yesterday was the least violent of all of the three days, and I think a big reason for that was because the National Guard was deployed. They were stationed at the Federal Building very early on in the day, and what we saw throughout the day was a significantly increased presence of LAPD on the street.”
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This is the least violent / least amount of altercations of the last 3 days (so far). Possibly due to it being the work week &amp; increased media presence.
&mdash; Aldo 🌞 (@AldoButtazzoni) <a href="https://twitter.com/AldoButtazzoni/status/1932247654584684967?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 10, 2025</a></blockquote>
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According to Buttazzoni, on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, LAPD presence on the street lasted only until nightfall because they did not have the manpower to protect the federal buildings at the same time. He said that when the National Guard came in, LAPD made more arrests than the prior three days combined.
“They corralled a big group of rioters. Maybe 150 people were in that group. I was detained, but that large scale arrest was the first I had seen of the last four days.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
All is well. LAPD detained &amp; released me after verifying my information.
Thank you for the well wishes. <a href="https://t.co/f1xRjO1jYV">https://t.co/f1xRjO1jYV</a>
— Aldo 🌞 (@AldoButtazzoni) <a href="https://twitter.com/AldoButtazzoni/status/1932293485325078763?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 10, 2025</a></blockquote>
Buttazzoni went on to criticize the higher-ups for choosing to complain about President Trump’s involvement instead of welcoming it.
“When you’re the governor of a state and the downtown area is being destroyed — people are losing businesses and people are getting injured and the taxpayer is going to have to foot the bill for this. So, for them to not do their job and then get upset at a person higher than them saying they’re going to do their job for them … it’s ridiculous.”
As an independent journalist, Buttazzoni pays for much of his own expenses and is <a href="https://tr.ee/MitolNAC3K">accepting donations</a> toward his continued activity.

LA Riots

Independent Journo Documents Carnage In Los Angeles: ‘I Was Surrounded By A Mob’

Gavin Newsom

Los Angeles

Organized crime

PragerU

Riots

A German-language daily newspaper that caught heat for publishing a birthday tribute to Clint Eastwood that included decades-old quotes has issued a statement after it was accused of being fake news. 
The controversy kicked off earlier this week when Eastwood, 95, referred to the article in Kurier as false. The actor released a statement to <a href="https://deadline.com/2025/06/clint-eastwood-assails-austrian-interview-in-austrian-kurier-entirely-phony-1236420771/">Deadline</a> to “set the record straight” and asserted that he “never gave an interview to an Austrian publication called Kurier, or any other writer in recent weeks, and that the interview is entirely phony.”
In the statement, the outlet noted that the writer they contracted for the piece, Elisabeth Sereda, used old quotes from Eastwood that created the perception that she had just interviewed the iconic film legend. In reality, Sereda used a mashup of quotes from Eastwood lifted from different interviews dating back to 1976.  
“There was no immediate reason to doubt that she had interviewed Eastwood,” a translated version of the Kurier statement <a href="https://kurier.at/kultur/medien/clint-eastwood-interview-hollywood-kurier-in-eigener-sache/403047088">said</a>. Outlet reps noted how Sereda had a long history of interviewing celebrities and was a member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
The statement went on to note that Sereda had spoken to Eastwood 18 times during roundtable discussions and that none of the quotes were altered. However, the outlet admitted that framing the article as an interview rather than a tribute did mislead audiences. 
“Even though no quote is fabricated, the interviews are documented, and the allegation of falsification can be refuted, we will no longer work with the author in the future because transparency and our strict editorial standards are paramount to us,” the statement concluded.
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The outlet has since removed the interview from its website. 
Sereda defended her actions in a statement to <a href="https://variety.com/2025/film/news/is-clint-eastwood-interview-real-old-quotes-1236417323/">Variety</a>, again claiming it was enough that only real quotes were used.
“Quotes from Mr. Eastwood cited in the story are culled from several of those 14 press conferences I attended and covered,” Sereda told the outlet.
The original birthday tribute, which appeared on Kurier, got the most attention for being critical of remakes and franchises. 
“I long for the good old days when screenwriters wrote movies like ‘Casablanca’ in small bungalows on the studio lot. When everyone had a new idea,” Eastwood is quoted as saying. “We live in an era of remakes and franchises. I’ve shot sequels three times, but I haven’t been interested in that for a long while. My philosophy is: do something new or stay at home.”
Variety noted that this particular quote might have come from the mid-1980s. 
Eastwood is also quoted as saying he didn’t plan on retiring “for a long time,” despite being five years shy of triple digits.
Eastwood has established a reputation in Hollywood as a conservative and supporter of GOP politicians, including presidential candidates Mitt Romney and the late John McCain. In 2012, he made an appearance at the Republican National Convention, where he made headlines for addressing an empty chair that represented then-President Barack Obama.

Clint Eastwood

Clint Eastwood Calls Out ‘Entirely Phony’ Article About Him; Writer Responds

Clint Eastwood Calls Out 'Entirely Phony' Article About Him; Writer Responds

Germany

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