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50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

Is There No Cure For Democrats’ Derangement?

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/07/15/is-there-no-cure-for-democrats-derangement/

We’ve noted before that today’s Democrats are operating with a mental deficit. A new poll further confirms they are a broken people. While it’s good for a cheap laugh, because they are often smug, condescending and hateful to those who disagree with them, their fragile psychological state poses a threat to the republic.

A Rasmussen poll released Monday found that 60% of Democratic voters still believe “the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government to win the 2016 election.” As disturbing as that is, 69% of those who self-identify as “liberals” believe Donald Trump conspired with Moscow to beat Hillary Clinton.

The poll indicates that Trump Derangement Syndrome is not limited to the Democratic side: 45% of moderates also believe in the Russia hoax, while 27% of conservatives hold the same view. (Are there really that many Never Trumpers on the right?)

For the record, the Trump-Russia partnership was a fabrication set loose by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and a number of Democratic Party minions. More than two years ago, special counsel John Durham released a report, compiled over three years, that, according to CNN, “concluded that the FBI should never have launched a full investigation into connections between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia during the 2016 election.”

The FBI probe, said Durham, was based on “raw, unanalyzed and uncorroborated intelligence” and corrupted by “confirmation bias.”

In other words, there was nothing to investigate, because the entire rancid stew was concocted to drive Trump from the presidency. “President Obama” and then-CIA Director John Brennan “knew before the FBI opened up on that information that this was a dirty trick by Hillary Clinton,” says John Solomon, chief executive and editor in chief of Just the News.

The Devouring State When the State provides everything — education, healthcare, housing, income, identity — it inevitably feels entitled to control everything.Jafar Jalili

https://quadrant.org.au/news-opinions/qed/the-devouring-state/

There is a quiet but powerful assumption that underlies much of the modern political left: that people are fixed. You are who you are—because of your upbringing, your environment, your skin colour, your class, your chromosomes—and you are stuck that way. This is not a fringe belief. It is foundational. It determines how the left writes policy, how it talks about people, and ultimately how it justifies its own existence.

This deterministic worldview—where the future is something done to us, not something we build—is no minor quirk. It is the lifeblood of leftist politics. Without it, the left’s policies begin to unravel, its rhetoric loses force, and its claims to moral authority collapse. For if people are truly free—if they possess the capacity for self-betterment, resilience, and growth—then the left’s vast machinery of redistribution, intervention, and protection becomes unnecessary, or worse, infantilising.

To understand this dynamic, the work of Carl Jung provides a useful framework. His archetype of the devouring mother—the figure who smothers her children with care, robbing them of the challenges that build independence—is an apt metaphor for the modern welfare state. The devouring mother does not act out of cruelty but out of a pathological need to protect, to provide, and to be needed. She denies the child the trials that would make him strong—because his weakness justifies her role. This is exactly how many modern governments behave: offering more and more, doing more and more, until the individual no longer knows how to stand.

In psychological and behavioural literature, the case for agency is overwhelming. The belief that one’s actions matter—that personal responsibility and effort shape outcomes—is one of the most robust predictors of success across nearly every domain of life. Children raised to believe in their capacity to overcome hardship fare better academically, emotionally, and economically. Adults who take responsibility for their choices are healthier and more resilient. Communities that foster self-reliance tend to be safer, more cohesive, and more innovative.

But here lies the problem: individuals who believe they can lift themselves up don’t need bureaucrats to do it for them. Citizens who believe in their capacity to act don’t require constant intervention, assistance, or redistribution. And so, from the left’s perspective, this belief in human potential is not just inconvenient—it is dangerous. It threatens the very foundation of their legitimacy.

It is no accident that the Left tends to frame people as helpless victims, be it of capitalism, colonialism, patriarchal oppression, or genetics. These narratives are not just analytical tools; they are political necessities. They serve to delegitimise personal agency while legitimising the expansive role of the state. If individuals are seen as powerless it becomes the state’s sacred duty to rescue them. And just like the devouring mother, the State can feel morally righteous for doing so.

Former NY Governor Criticized Comrade Mamdani, and Then This Happened Robert Spencer

https://pjmedia.com/robert-spencer/2025/07/13/former-ny-governor-criticized-comrade-mamdani-and-then-this-happened-n4941716

David Paterson was the governor of New York from 2008 to 2010, when he was succeeded by Andrew Cuomo as the Democrats’ one-party rule of the state continued drearily on. Yet although he is another New York Democrat, Paterson is not thrilled with Zohran Mamdani, his fellow Democrat who stands on the brink of becoming the next mayor of New York City. 

Yet when he criticized Mamdani, Paterson found to his dismay that not only was he inundated with angry phone calls from the young Communist’s supporters, but his family was targeted as well. And so once again we see the new feature the left is intent on introducing into American politics: intimidation. 

Paterson said Sunday that after he said that either Andrew Cuomo or Eric Adams should drop out of the mayoral race so as to try to block Mamdani from winning, the reaction from those who see Mamdani as the Democrats’ new hope was swift and severe: “I got a whole lot of nasty, negative phone calls — really vitriolic — from Mamdani supporters,” Paterson recounted. The enraged Marxists “called my home. They called my wife. It was really kind of difficult for those 48 hours after the press conference.”

Paterson refuses to bow to intimidation, and restated his position: “If Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams both stay in the mayor’s race, it will be [an] open door for Zohran Mamdani to win the election in November for mayor. My proposal was that there be a way to make a decision [on] which of these two candidates should run against Mamdani.” 

All three of these candidates are Democrats, although Cuomo and Adams are running as independents, as Mamdani is the official Democrat nominee. There is a Republican in the race, Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa, but he doesn’t stand a chance: New York City is a one-party entity, to the degree that even if Adolf Hitler himself were running on the Democrat ticket and the Archangel Michael on the Republican, New Yorkers would still dutifully reject the GOP candidate and pull the lever for the man with a D behind his name. 

Three Democrats in the race, however, will just split the Democrat vote and likely hand the city to the candidate who is the official party nominee, and that’s Mamdani. Evidence of how deep the rot goes in the Democrat Party is the fact that Paterson’s problem with this Communist is not so much a matter of principle as simply that he is a young upstart who has not fully sketched out the details of how exactly he plans to destroy New York City. 

Zohran Mamdani’s ‘Enraging’ Anti-Cop Comments Leave Former Dem Advisor ‘Almost Speechless’ Liz Peek

https://lizpeek.com/news/zohran-mamdanis-enraging-anti-cop-comments-leave-former-dem-advisor-almost-speechless/?utm_source=newsletter.lizpeek.com&utm_

Former Democratic Party advisor Dan Turrentine has strongly criticized New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani for his resurfaced comments about law enforcement, calling them “enraging.” According to Fox News, Turrentine expressed concern over the potential impact of Mamdani’s comments on public safety and urged the Democratic Party to “condemn” them.

The controversy centers on remarks Mamdani made during a 2020 appearance on the “Immigrantly” podcast. In the interview, Mamdani argued that the history of the New York Police Department (NYPD) demonstrates a system that “functions in many ways to punish poor Black and Brown people.” He suggested that police often overstep their roles, including in situations involving homelessness and domestic violence. Mamdani suggested that many scenarios—such as handling a homeless person on a train or responding to domestic violence—would be better addressed by professionals other than armed police officers.

These comments have recently gone viral, drawing sharp criticism from both Republicans and Democrats. Turrentine, who previously worked for Hillary Clinton and Colorado Governor Jared Polis, voiced his frustration on “The Morning Meeting” podcast. He described Mamdani’s views as “crazy” and said he hoped the Democratic Party would condemn them. Turrentine emphasized the risks police face in New York City and argued that the NYPD has made significant progress in reducing crime, recalling the city’s transformation from a “hellhole” to a more stable environment in recent years.

“I’m almost speechless. Like, that is so enraging,” Turrentine said. “It’s crazy. I hope it hurts him. Like, when I hear that, and I try to have an open mind, hope that whoever our next mayor is makes this city a great place. I live [here]. We have children here. New York City police officers put themselves in such harm’s way. This city is full of crazy people on subways. I, our children go on it. The number of times that there are homeless people who are, like, out of their mind who come up to kids, who scream at them right near – to say the police are the [problem], I hope our party condemns him.”

Will John Brennan Ever Tell the Truth? John Brennan spent years lying to Congress, the press, and the public—yet now claims he’s “clueless” about a DOJ investigation. He’s only clueless about how not to lie. By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2025/07/14/will-john-brennan-ever-tell-the-truth/

When asked why the current Department of Justice might be investigating him, former CIA Director John Brennan answered, as was his wont, with a complete lie: “I am clueless about what it is exactly that they may be investigating me for.”

Clueless? Hardly. Brennan knows full well that his fingerprints are on some of the greatest scandals of the last decade. These machinations have threatened the very integrity of our institutions and elections.

He has a record of serially lying to Congress, the public, and the media, and doing so emphatically.

In 2011, as the government’s chief counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan absurdly insisted that the Obama administration’s drone strikes along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border had not killed a single civilian noncombatant. Yet multiple sources proved the claim was clearly false. In truth, the number of innocents killed was likely somewhere between 50 and 70.

In 2014, as director of the CIA, Brennan lied again, doubling down by denying that CIA operatives were hacking into U.S. Senate staffers’ computers.

“As far as the allegations of the CIA hacking into Senate computers, nothing could be further from the truth. . . . We wouldn’t do that. I mean, that’s just beyond the, you know, the scope of reason in terms of what we do.”

Here, too, he was caught lying and forced to apologize—but never charged with perjury.

But Brennan’s biggest fabrications came in 2017 when, as an ex-CIA director, he testified before a congressional committee that he neither knew who had commissioned the now-infamous bogus Steele dossier nor whether the CIA had relied on it for its intelligence assessments.

But Brennan knew well at the time that then NSA director Michael Rogers and James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, had both gone on record that the dossier did play a major role in the intelligence community’s interagency assessment. Indeed, the concocted dossier was delivered directly to President Obama. And John Brennan was one of its most ardent advocates, seeing in it a way to undermine the Trump campaign.

Trump Assassination Attempt: Major Failures, Token Punishment The corruption is still in place. by Robert Spencer

https://www.frontpagemag.com/trump-assassination-attempt-major-failures-token-punishment/

Sunday marks the first anniversary of the attempt on Donald Trump’s life at his campaign rally in Butler, Pa. To make the occasion, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has issued a report on the Secret Service errors and lapses of judgment that led to the shooter, Thomas Crooks, to be able to get Trump in his sights and have a clear, unobstructed, easy shot. If Trump hadn’t turned his head at the very moment of the shot, he would have been killed on that day. And as damning as the new report is, it demonstrates definitively that the corrupt system that made the assassination attempt possible is still very much in place.

Fox News reported Saturday that “ten days before the event, high-level Secret Service officials were briefed on a classified threat to Trump. ‘Once those officials reviewed the intelligence, they could have then requested that personnel within their chain of command be briefed on the specific information.’”

But they didn’t. “Officials failed to share this information, leaving federal and local law enforcement entities planning and staffing the event unaware of the active threat, including members of the Donald Trump Protective Division.”

The big question here is why the Secret Service decided to sit on this threat. What were the political views of the officials responsible for the decision not to brief others within the chain of command? Were they leftists? Did they want Trump dead? Were officials in the Biden White House and the Democrat Party questioned regarding any possible connection to concealing this information? These are the kinds of questions that a really useful report would be answering, although the GAO’s report is damning enough even despite its careful avoidance of such matters.

The people assigned to protect the once and future president, meanwhile, were green and untested: “The Secret Service agent who was responsible for ‘identif[ying] site vulnerabilities,’ was new to her role. The Butler event was ‘her first time planning and securing a large outdoor event as the site agent.’” What an amazing stroke of bad luck, that on her first day in this important role, there is an assassination attempt on a presidential candidate! Or was that day chosen for this shooting precisely because someone knew that Trump would be more vulnerable than he had been previously?

Mamdani Vs. The Billionaires

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/07/14/mamdani-vs-the-billionaires/

There are 123 billionaires living in New York City. Zohran Mamdani, the socially and economically advantaged socialist boy who’s apparently never held a real job and is busy stoking class warfare as he campaigns to be the city’s next mayor, says they shouldn’t exist. Voters need to know that their city can get along just fine without Mamdani. But it would fall into a raging hellhole without billionaires.

“I don’t think that we should have billionaires because, frankly, it is so much money in a moment of such inequality, and ultimately, what we need more of is equality across our city and across our state and across our country,” Mamdani said last month on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

The views of an imbecile, or of a performative politician feeding his ego and trying to make up for a life of mostly idleness, apparently appeal to Gotham voters. Mamdani easily won the Democratic primary and is, for now, the favorite to win the general election in the fall.

For those who aren’t familiar with Mamdani, or need a refresher, he is a Democratic Socialist with Marxist urges that he doesn’t try to hide. As we noted last week:

Like Karl Marx, the privileged Mamdani, who calls himself a ‘BMW Bolshevik,’ sees the world through the lens of class struggle. The platform of the Democratic Socialists of America, of which he is a member, ‘fights’ for ‘the abolition of capitalism‘ as well as the ‘social ownership of all major industry and infrastructure,’ two Marxist principles that Mamdani supports.

Mamdani is also promising ‘free stuff’ for New Yorkers, from bus trips to child care; proposes to freeze rents (to stick it to those greedy capitalist landlords, no doubt); wishes to ‘shift the tax burden … to more expensive homes in richer and whiter neighborhoods.’

A Cybersecurity Primer For Businesses In 2025 By Chuck Brooks,

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckbrooks/2025/07/13/a-cybersecurity-primer-for-businesses-in-2025/

Key perspectives and strategies to defend against the ever-growing tide of cyber risks.

Understanding the fundamentals of cybersecurity is increasingly important in our digital age. Cybersecurity, at its core, involves protecting computer systems, networks, and data from attacks, damage, or unauthorized access.

As society becomes increasingly reliant on technologies, the risks associated with cyberattacks grow exponentially. In today’s interconnected world, common threats such as malware, phishing, and ransomware have become more prevalent. Cybercriminals exploit vulnerabilities in software and human behavior to gain access to valuable data.

And cyber threats are not limited to high-profile incidents against government entities or large corporations; they pose a direct risk to small and medium companies, individuals, infrastructure, and the economy as a whole.

Cybersecurity is essential for the digital age: cybersecurity is not just a technological issue but a security problem. It is crucial for survival and thriving in the digital age, not just a business cost item.

Moreover, the implications of neglecting cybersecurity can be severe, affecting a company’s reputation, financial standing, and legal compliance. This reality makes it clear that a solid cybersecurity strategy is necessary for success.

Understanding The Rapidly Evolving Threat Landscape

The landscape of cybersecurity is a complex environment that is changing rapidly, driven by persistent threats like ransomware and state-sponsored cyber warfare. Ransomware attacks have surged, targeting organizations of all sizes. These attacks often involve encrypting critical data, rendering it inaccessible until a ransom is paid. The financial implications can be severe, forcing many companies to reconsider their cybersecurity strategies and invest in advanced protection measures.

Hackers’ use of AI tools has increased the risks that businesses face from cyberattacks. They use AI to create advanced malware and automated phishing efforts that may evade traditional security measures in order to create adaptable threats. Cybercriminals are currently employing AI to generate phony company profiles and counterfeit identities and using large language models to craft more convincing spear-phishing messages.

The proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices adds another layer of complexity to this threat landscape.

No List, No Revelations, No Plot—Just Epstein The only real mystery left in the Epstein saga is why so many refuse to believe there’s no mystery left. By Roger Kimball

https://amgreatness.com/2025/07/13/no-list-no-revelations-no-plot-just-epstein/

In the moderately large compendium of things I do not care about, details of the depravity of the late Jeffrey Epstein occupy a random page or two.

I had never heard of the “financier” and sex-trafficking impresario until shortly before his final encounters with the law in 2019. Like many, I received the news that he committed suicide in a New York jail in August of that year with a dollop of incredulity. Where were the jailers? Why was there a missing spot on the videotape just when the deed was done? Had Epstein threatened Hillary Clinton? What about that picture of Bill Clinton in a blue dress that was found in Epstein’s New York home?

There was plenty of food for doubt.

Unlike many, however, my incredulity was seasoned with indifference.

Okay, Epstein was a creep of the first order. He had attracted a bunch of famous men to his Caribbean island for sex romps with (mostly) underage girls. He apparently liked to videotape the proceedings. Why? In order to blackmail those stars of stage and screen was the consensus, natch. But did he?

I was glad that Epstein was nabbed by the law. I hoped his victims found recompense. But in the scheme of things, The Saga of Jeffrey Epstein was a narrative I was pleased to absorb in a highly distilled, cheat-sheet version. I’d lived through such entertainments as the anatomies of Bill Clinton’s odd taste in cigars. Epstein was worse, but from the point of view of the spectator’s interest, it seemed cut from the same bolt of cloth.

I understand that the public’s appetite for scandal is a hardy perennial. The story of who is doing what to whom—especially if the “who”s are celebrities—is calculated to give prurient interest the gratifying cover of “the public’s right to know,” not to mention an opportunity to indulge in a little tongue-clucking moral outrage.

Mark P. Mills Zohran Mamdani, AI, and the Job Apocalypse The disaffected laptop class fears the artificial intelligence revolution.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/zohran-mamdani-artificial-intelligence-jobs

Does Zohran Mamdani, an unapologetic socialist, owe his political rise as New York City’s leading mayoral candidate to artificial intelligence?

We’re not referring to whether Mamdani, a TikTok and Instagram virtuoso, used AI to help propel himself to victory in the primaries (he may have). Instead, consider the anxieties that AI is fueling in the demographic that voted for him. Ever since ChatGPT ignited the modern AI era, we’ve seen a stream of headlines and studies predicting that AI will soon perform virtually all knowledge work. Mamdani captured his big majorities among the laptop class of middle- and upper-middle income citizens, not in working-class neighborhoods. Socialism’s central nostrum—that well-intentioned experts and ruling elites should tame the predations of market and technology disruptions—becomes more appealing during periods of social and economic upheaval.

There is no shortage of reasons for anxiety and unhappiness today, not least the intensity of political and cultural debates over “woke” ideas, “social justice,” the impact of social media, natural disasters blamed on human behavior (the climate-disaster thesis), and ongoing wars. Now, added to this already turbulent backdrop, comes the fear of an AI-driven jobs apocalypse. Few concerns, aside from health issues, cause more stress than the threat or fact of job loss. A May 2025 survey by the American Psychological Association found that three-fourths of employees feel stressed over job insecurity.

These worries are not unfounded. Recently, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said that the company would hire 30 percent to 50 percent fewer people because of AI, while Amazon CEO Andy Jassy aroused employee ire for observing that, with AI, “we expect the total number of employees to decrease over the coming years.” Ford CEO Jim Farley asserted that AI “is going to replace literally half of all white-collar workers in the U.S.” A Wall Street Journal headline echoed the point: “CEOs Start Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud: AI Will Wipe Out Jobs.”