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August 2025

MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

The End of Stephen Colbert’s Hate Disguised as Comedy By Rajan Laad

By on August 2nd, 2025

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/08/the_end_of_stephen_colbert_s_hate_disguised_as_comedy.html

The legacy of figures like Stephen Colbert is the sowing of division and hatred across the nation.

The CBS network recently announced that “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” would be concluding in May 2026. 

CBS claimed that the move was “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late-night [television]”; Colbert’s show lost more than $40 million of CBS’s annual investment of over $100 million.  

CBS also claimed that the move didn’t reflect “the show’s performance, content, or other matters.” This is a falsehood. The root cause behind financial losses is the lack of viewership, which leads to advertisers’ reluctance. 

So what drove CBS to cancel Colbert’s show?

A major factor is that contemporary viewers consume content online at their convenience, rather than watching it on television at a scheduled time. 

Another reason is that the very format of the late-night show, with the staged monologue, rehearsed bits, and contrived anecdotes from stars, has become stale.

Since the shows reflect current political events and stars promoting their latest products, they have short shelf life; thus little revenue is generated from retaining these shows for streaming sites. People may want to rewatch classic TV fictional series such as “Seinfeld,” but rewatching a week-old Colbert makes no sense. Sections of these late-night shows may become “viral,” but these clips are freely available on YouTube, hence little revenue is generated.

Once upon a time, the late-night shows were the primary place for stars to promote their products, where viewers learned about an upcoming movie, TV show, or music album. Today, promotions occur on podcasts and other web-based forums.

Now for the content.

Once upon a time, late-night giants such as Jay Leno and Johnny Carson strove to ensure that their political leanings weren’t reflected on their shows. Leno’s monologue was evenly poised, targeting both Democrats and Republicans. Leno’s jibes were jokes, not vicious personal attacks. Letterman was a liberal and occasionally displayed his bias. This explains why Leno dominated the ratings.

The late-night scene radically changed when Jon Stewart began hosting “The Daily Show” in 1998. Stewart’s goal wasn’t entertainment but rather to push the Democrat agenda. “The Daily Show” was no different from Democrat mouthpieces such as the NYT or MSNBC, except that Stewart’s masquerade was comedy.

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NATIONAL SECURITY AND DEFENSE Comments turned off

The Race Against China for Fusion Power: Whoever Controls It, Controls the Century by Lawrence Kadish

By on August 2nd, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21794/race-against-china-ai-fusion-power

Fusion energy is not only cheap, clean and limitless, it is also the “engine” that will drive the enormous increases in artificial intelligence (AI) that will be the ultimate super-weapon of this century. AI requires power — enormous amounts of it — that only fusion energy can provide.

If there were a formula for who will dominate the 21st century, it would be: Fusion Energy + AI = World Supremacy.

Our nation, however, is now faced with a new and dangerous 21st century threat.

China has been steamrolling ahead developing cheap, clean and limitless fusion energy to fuel the great new frontier of AI. Meanwhile, America appears stuck in the technology of soon-to-be-outdated fission energy.

AI, as President Donald J. Trump has stated, is what will determine which nation is the superpower of the 21st century. The Trump administration cannot allow China to leave America in the dust for want of energy to power America’s AI.

In this century, there will be two types of nations: the ones that conquered fusion energy and those that wish they had.

As China’s proficiency in fusion energy grows — the Chinese have already exported a fusion device to Thailand — the United States dangerously still appears to prefer the soon-to-be- outdated fission energy, associated with the catastrophes of Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and the fission reactors in Ukraine, if a Russian missile should hit one.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

As Europe and Canada Plan To Recognize Palestinian State, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas Release Videos of Israeli Hostages: ‘Starved, Tortured, and Abused’ Matthew Xiao

By on August 2nd, 2025

https://freebeacon.com/latest-news/as-europe-and-canada-plan-to-recognize-palestinian-state-palestinian-islamic-jihad-releases-video-of-israeli-hostage-thin-skin-and-bone-crying/

Rom Braslavski, 21, and Evyatar David, 24, were both abducted during the October 7 terrorist attack

The Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist groups on Thursday released videos of Israeli hostages Rom Braslavski and Evyantar David—both frail after 664 days in captivity—as Canada, the United Kingdom, and France have announced plans to recognize Palestinian statehood.

Braslavski, a 21-year-old kidnapped on Oct. 7, 2023, from the Nova music festival where he was working as a security guard, appeared extremely weak and pale in the six-minute video, the Times of Israel reported. The PIJ, an ally of Hamas, said the footage was filmed days before it and Hamas cut off all contact with mediators, leaving Braslavski’s fate unknown.

“They broke my child, I want him home, now!” Braslavski’s mother told Ynet. “I know how he was beaten. I know that Rom does not cry, and if he is crying, it is because he was tortured. Look at him, he is thin, skin and bone, crying. All his bones are visible.”

Hamas on Friday followed suit in releasing a video of 24-year-old hostage Evyatar David, another Israeli who was kidnapped from the Nova music festival during the October 7 attack.

The video shows David “looking almost like a skeleton,” wrote X user @VividProwess. “This is what real starvation looks like. The hostages are starved, tortured, and abused. Where is the world’s outrage for the hostages? Their silence is deafening.”

The chilling footage came a day after Canada joined France and the United Kingdom in backing Palestinian statehood. President Donald Trump and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu have condemned the endorsement, with Trump saying the recognition amounts to “rewarding” Palestinian terrorists.

The PIJ in April also issued a video of Braslavski, in which he appeared very ill. In that video, Braslavski said he was going through “hell” and appealed directly to Trump and Netanyahu to secure his release, the New York Post reported.

Hamas released a previous video of David as well.

Last week, Hamas rejected the latest U.S. ceasefire offer and refused to release the remaining Israeli hostages. The Trump administration in response recalled its diplomatic team from Qatar, ending two weeks of peace negotiations.

Israeli intelligence estimates that around 20 hostages are still alive in Gaza, along with the bodies of up to 50 others who died in captivity.

“The fastest way to end the Humanitarian Crises in Gaza is for Hamas to SURRENDER AND RELEASE THE HOSTAGES!!!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Thursday.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

This is the Hezbollah-linked activist behind lawfare on Israelis By Canaan Lidor and David Isaac

By on August 2nd, 2025

https://www.jns.org/this-is-the-hezbollah-linked-activist-behind-lawfare-on-israelis/

Long before he perfected the use of lawfare to hound Israelis abroad, Belgian-Lebanese anti-Israel activist Dyab Abou Jahjah was already seen as “one of the most dangerous figures” for modern European Jews, according to a community activist from Antwerp.

Versatile, charismatic and persistent, Abou Jahjah, a 54-year-old Hezbollah supporter, has a track record of making antisemitic statements and calls to violence. Last year, he founded the Hind Rajab Foundation in Brussels to mount legal action against Israelis on disputed war crimes charges.

A newcomer among anti-Israel NGOs, HRF has brought passionate intensity to its legal campaign against Israeli soldiers, bringing charges against them when they travel to foreign countries.

To many, the ability of Abou Jahjah to hijack justice authorities and achieve a celebrity status despite his record is symptomatic of a broader bias that’s turning Belgium—and Western Europe—increasingly inhospitable not only to Israelis, but to Jews in general.  

Over his 20-year career, Abou Jahjah has skillfully used the language of human rights and international law to cast himself as a modern-day Che Guevara to Western audiences. At the same time, he has employed antisemitic rhetoric and glorified violence to gain Muslim support.

Abou Jahjah’s rise reflects “the multiple failures that now threaten the future of Belgium’s Jewish community, as well as the fabric of its society,” said Michel Kotek, head of Belgium’s Jewish Information and Documentation Center.

An alleged ex-fighter for Hezbollah who has admitted lying to obtain Belgian citizenship, Abou Jahjah has become a media-savvy intellectual there while also working as a high school teacher.

So far, HRF, though reaping a public relations windfall, has not persuaded any country to charge an Israeli. HRF’s most recent achievement was getting Belgian federal prosecutors to have police question two Israelis at the Tomorrowland music festival last month. They were released without restrictions, but prosecutors referred their cases to the International Criminal Court, the Belgian media reported on Wednesday.

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HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

Microsoft and the DOD’s Digital Escort Service: How in the World Did This Happen? Chinese engineers accessed Pentagon systems via Microsoft’s cloud—raising alarms over Big Tech’s ties to America’s top adversary. By Thaddeus G. McCotter

By on August 2nd, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/08/02/microsoft-and-the-dods-digital-escort-service-how-in-the-world-did-this-happen/

“When it comes time to hang the capitalists, they will vie with each other for the rope contract.” While the statement has been variously (and erroneously) attributed to Lenin, Stalin, and Marx, the point remains as true today as it was yesterday and will be tomorrow—if there is a tomorrow for free people and free markets.

In the wake of a disturbing ProPublica investigation, Microsoft executives and the United States Department of Defense (DOD) bureaucrats are busy trying to cover their butts and close the barn door on potential Chinese espionage by fixing the digital escort program. As CNBC reports, “Microsoft on Friday revised its practices to ensure that engineers in China no longer provide technical support to U.S. defense clients using the company’s cloud services.”

While it is too early to determine whether communist China has penetrated the DOD’s classified information stored in its cloud, it is high time to ask, “How in the world did this happen?”

Sure, it is a rhetorical question, but it is helpful to review yet again how the cozy confluence of American multinational corporatists, bureaucrats, and Chinese communists triangulates to imperil our national security.

To begin, a cursory sketch of the digital escort program, per Breitbart:

The ProPublica report revealed that Chinese-based Microsoft engineers had been helping maintain Defense Department computer systems, potentially exposing sensitive military data to cybersecurity risks. The report revealed that Microsoft’s Chinese Azure engineers were overseen by “digital escorts” in the U.S., who typically had less technical expertise than the employees they managed overseas.

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ISRAEL, POLITICS Comments turned off

Democrats, Israel, and Trump Derangement Syndrome The left’s hatred of Trump—and now Israel—runs so deep, it’s willing to abandon decades of principle just to spite its enemies. By Stephen Soukup

By on August 2nd, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/08/02/democrats-israel-and-trump-derangement-syndrome/

A long time ago, long before he self-radicalized and became a parody of himself, Peter Beinart was the young liberal who wanted to save liberalism. Beinart was still in his twenties when he took the helm of the flagship journal of progressivism, The New Republic, and began speaking and writing about recreating the positive, muscular, America-loving liberalism of the post-war era. In 2004, Beinart penned a long essay for his magazine titled “A Fighting Faith,” in which he articulated the ideas that would become the foundation of the book, The Good Fight: Why Liberals—and Only Liberals—Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again.

Although most of Beinart’s case—in the article and the book—was based on what he saw as the inherent righteousness of American liberalism, the underlying premise was that “conservative” leaders simply couldn’t win the war. Part of this was a flaw in conservatism itself, its practices and tactics, but another part of it was the belief that the conservative administration of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney had squandered the world’s good faith and no longer possessed the moral authority necessary to shepherd the West to victory over the forces of radical Islam.

Although Beinart didn’t intend it as such, his case for liberal leadership in the War on Terror became a corollary to Charles Krauthammer’s theory of “Bush Derangement Syndrome.” The late, great Krauthammer described BDS as “the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency—nay—the very existence of George W. Bush,” and used it to explain how otherwise moderate or sane people (usually Democrats) came to detest everything George W. Bush said or did, even if they knew, in their heart of hearts, that he was right. Because BDS was especially prevalent in connection with the War on Terror, Beinart’s theory that only a “liberal” could win that war became something of a truism. The left and the media (I know, I know…) would never allow Bush—or any conservative—to win the war because of their irrational hatred of him (them). As a result, if the war were ever to be won, a liberal would have to do it.

In short, then, the unified Beinart-Krauthammer theory held—accurately and with little credible opposition—that leftist irrationality and hatred of George Bush made the War on Terror essentially unwinnable. The left’s hatred was more powerful than any instinct it might have to do the right thing.

It’s worth keeping all of this in mind today, as the Democratic Party slowly but surely abandons its support for the state of Israel.

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ANTI-SEMITISM, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Edinburgh’s shameful cancellation of Jewish comedians Rachel Creeger and Philip Simon were dropped by venues over ‘safety’ concerns and pro-Israel social-media posts. Nicole Lampert

By on August 1st, 2025

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/07/31/edinburghs-shameful-cancellation-of-jewish-comedians/

Two Jewish comedians, Rachel Creeger and Philip Simon, had their Edinburgh Fringe Festival slots cancelled last week thanks to alleged ‘safety concerns’. Simon was also dropped from a second venue in Edinburgh for his social-media posts calling, among other things, for the return of the Israeli hostages.

I wish I was making this up, but in 2025, being Jewish is considered a safety risk. Whistlebinkles, the venue that was slated to host Creeger and Simon’s gigs, decided to cancel the shows when bar staff expressed fears of feeling ‘unsafe’. These concerns were reportedly raised when the venue was told it would need extra police protection to guarantee the safety of Jewish acts.

Rachel is a friend of mine. I’ve seen her show, Ultimate Jewish Mother, and it mainly features laughs about motherhood and how to make good chicken soup. She is the only female Orthodox Jew on the comedy circuit and the only dangerous thing about her is that she may drown you in love and cuddles. Each year at the Edinburgh Fringe, she hosts Friday night dinners for other Jews and makes sure there is kosher food for everyone who needs it. It makes me sick to think her presence at a comedy venue might lead to anyone feeling ‘unsafe’.

Philip Simon was not only taken off the line-up at Whistlebinkles, he was then barred from the Banshee Labyrinth, too. The management cited its ‘duty of care to our customers and staff members’. Having monitored his social media, the venue said it was ‘inappropriate’ to host anyone whose ‘views and actions align with the rhetoric and symbology of groups associated with humanitarian violations’ – ie, Israel. The supposedly offending tweets included images from a vigil for Israeli hostages, a call to ‘stand strong against terror’ and a plea not to forget the rape victims of 7 October 2023. All demands for peace, in other words.

‘I am still processing the concept that in 2025 I can be cancelled just for being Jewish’, Simon said in a statement on Saturday. His and Creeger’s cancellations are the obvious, if alarming, outgrowth of the campaigns to cancel anyone with any connections to Israel.

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ISRAEL, MEDIA Comments turned off

The Truth Gets Its Shoes On Noah Rothman

By on August 1st, 2025

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-truth-gets-its-shoes-on/

Dozens of marginally curious media outlets and institutions had caught onto the lie promulgated by the New York Times long before the New York Times got around to acknowledging it.

Late Tuesday, the Times finally got around to clearing the caked and dried egg off its face.

NYTimes Communications@NYTimesPR

We have appended an Editors’ Note to a story about Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, a child in Gaza who was diagnosed with severe malnutrition. After publication, The Times learned that he also had pre-existing health problems. Read more below.

This was no minor error — a modest amendment to a fleeting aside in paragraph 25 of an otherwise airtight story. No, al-Mutawaq’s image was the feature art designed to illustrate the plight endured by all of Gaza’s 2 million people. It ran on the front page, stretching almost to the fold. And the Times wasn’t alone. This stricken child’s skeletal frame was picked up by the Times of London, The Guardian, the Daily Express, and more — all to morally blackmail Israel for pursuing its security priorities in Gaza, but not to pressure Hamas into surrendering in the war it launched and lost for the betterment of the people it supposedly serves.

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Jasmine Crockett, Genuine Counterfeit By Jeffrey Blehar

By on August 1st, 2025

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/jasmine-crockett-genuine-counterfeit/

Several months ago, I delivered what I still believe to be an accurate assessment of Dallas-area Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, the well-educated scion of a middle-class family turned camera-hungry vulgarian: She was a phony with a foreordained future, one I supported for very cynical reasons. Crockett’s relentless quest for notoriety seemed inevitably destined to come into conflict with the best interests of the Democrats as a party. Crockett can rise no higher in Texas politics — Texans are more likely to elect the ghost of Santa Anna as governor rather than a BLM activist turned progressive gadfly — so her career in Congress is reduced to that of a publicity-seeker, who can only succeed at the expense of greater party discipline and message control.

So far, so good for Jasmine. Spotting a market opening, she decided to make her national brand as a trash-talking gutter queen, the “sassy progressive black woman” analogue to Marjorie Taylor Greene’s “obstreperous MAGA populist lady.” (I use scare quotes around these characterizations because I very much believe both of them to be acts.) She has been successful at this. It is in fact fitting that she made her first big public splash by engaging in a classless congressional catfight with Greene, denouncing her “bleach-blonde bad-built butch body” in response to Greene’s equally trashy dig about Crockett’s false eyelashes.

Merely recounting the incident fills me with despair; John Fetterman disgustedly characterized it as akin to a taping of The Jerry Springer Show, providing the rare opportunity for a man who shows up for Senate business in a hoodie and shorts to raise a fair point about congressional decorum. Meanwhile, Crockett trademarked the phrase (she refers to it as “B6”) and sells it on shirts. Crockett, forever on the hunt for the next viral incident, topped herself a year later, in March 2025, when she gave a speech to the Human Rights Campaign in which she insulted Texas Governor Greg Abbott as “Governor Hot Wheels.” (Abbott is a paraplegic.)

It was then that I wrote the assessment mentioned above, with a fitting title: “Jasmine Crockett Is Tacky and Classless, and I Encourage This.” In response, I heard from some of the more predictable quarters of the left, which said that Crockett’s sass and combativeness was in fact quite appealing to them. (“She fights!”) I chuckled inwardly because, knowing who was saying this to me, I thought, “Well, of course you would. You are the target market. I am not.”

It seems that The Atlantic is aware of this phenomenon as well, and it recently published a wonderfully revealing in-depth profile of Crockett. The piece, by Elaine Godfrey, deserves to be read rather than summarized, because Crockett reveals a good deal about herself with her own words.

But I will say this: Boy, does this lady ever seem to believe in herself. We learn that Crockett spends most of her day monitoring her various social media accounts obsessively and dressing for “public performance” (including sporting fingernails painted “R E S I S T”). In a detail that speaks inadvertent volumes, we discover that, while the “lock screen” on your smartphone might be a picture of your partner or your kid, the one on Crockett’s is a glamour shot of herself.

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NATIONAL SECURITY AND DEFENSE Comments turned off

Senator Cotton’s Bold Plan to Reform an Overstaffed Intelligence Behemoth Senator Tom Cotton’s new bill takes a wrecking ball to the bloated, politicized ODNI—finally restoring its original mission after two decades of mission creep. By Fred Fleitz

By on August 1st, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/08/01/senator-cottons-bold-plan-to-reform-an-overstaffed-intelligence-behemoth/

On June 27, Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, introduced the Intelligence Community Efficiency and Effectiveness Act, a bill aimed at reforming and streamlining the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). Cotton’s bill is the most important legislation to reform U.S. intelligence in 20 years. It is intended to downsize the ODNI, depoliticize the organization, and return it to its original role of coordinating intelligence agencies rather than producing its own analysis.

Senator Cotton’s proposed reforms are long overdue and align with President Trump’s efforts to drain the U.S. government swamp.

A Bad Idea From the Beginning

The ODNI originated from a recommendation by the 9/11 Commission Report, issued in July 2004. However, it is a far cry from what the commission recommended.

Because of the failure of U.S. intelligence agencies to share critical information before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the final report of the 9/11 Commission recommended creating a new intelligence position, the National Intelligence Director, “to oversee national intelligence centers on specific subjects of interest across the U.S. government and (2) to manage the national intelligence program and oversee the agencies that contribute to it.”

The creation of a National Intelligence Director had nothing to do with the 9/11 commission’s mandate. It reflected an attempt by the commission to capitalize on a crisis to implement a flawed idea that had been repeatedly rejected in the past. Congress made this much worse when it passed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (IRTPA), which created both the Director and the Office of National Intelligence. As a result of the IRTPA, the ODNI became the 17th U.S. intelligence agency with a mandate that went considerably beyond what the 9/11 Commission intended.

The 9/11 Commission recommended that the National Intelligence Director’s office have “a relatively small staff of several hundred people, taking the place of the existing community management offices housed at the CIA.” Congress ignored this recommendation and mandated a large bureaucracy for the ODNI, making the DNI the president’s chief intelligence adviser and creating several intelligence centers within the ODNI. Today, according to Senator Cotton, the estimated size of the ODNI staff is between 1,800 and 1,900 employees.

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