SHOW NOTES: Trump's Year; Gay's Plagiarism; Military Extremists

Welcome Back! I’m on the radio live today nationally from 12pm to 3pm ET and then on WSB Radio in Atlanta from 4pm to 7pm ET. You can listen to me live right here.

Also, I’m doing the whole thing today because Philip is out. If you are not a paid subscriber, you should be a paid subscriber to get this every day.

It’s All Coming Up Trump. Steve Scalise has endorsed him. Republican Senators are starting to fall in line. DeSantis and Haley have to change the dynamic quickly or else.

Haley’s Attack. Nikki Haley has started attacking Ron DeSantis pretty aggressively in Iowa. She’s three points behind him and has a new ad up attacking DeSantis’s ties to China. Ironically, it is a fight for second place. Neither has dented Trump’s lead.

More Copying. The drip, drip, drip about Claudine Gay continues to come out. Now past Christmas, as Harvard students were home and out of the echo chamber, new plagiarism reports continue. It is beginning to fracture the unity around her, which is the point.

2024 Begins As 2023 Ended. People still think Joe Biden sucks. Must see TV:

Now, to the bigger stories of the day.

Military Extremism

An independent report is out showing the military is not as extreme as others suggested. From the Wall Street Journal:

After reports that some service members participated in the Jan. 6 riot, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austinordered an independent study to get “greater fidelity” on extremism in the ranks. The think tank tasked with the report, the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), “found no evidence that the number of violent extremists in the military is disproportionate” to U.S. society. A review of Pentagon data suggested “fewer than 100 substantiated cases per year of extremist activity by members of the military in recent years,” the report says.

That figure could include a range of conduct and ideological bent, not simply the white supremacy floated in the press. Take court martials. Researchers found that “the prevalence of extremist and gang-related activity that are reflected in court-martial opinions is limited to fewer than 20 cases” since 2012. Gang activity isn’t typically political and, excluding those cases, the number falls to one a year.

Don’t expect the media to play this finding up, like the original reports suggesting a massive build up of extremism in the military. The facts are not as useful as the narrative.

The Left is Training Judges to Shut Down the Economy

This is a deeply disturbing story from Fox News. It will get a pass from much of the press, because the press is sympathetic to the global warming agenda of the left. But just ask yourself what the reaction would be if Republicans were doing something like this.

A group has been set up to train judges how to side with progressives on the climate agenda.

Since it was founded more than five years ago, the project has crafted 13 curriculum modules and hosted 42 events while more than 1,700 judges have participated in its activities. And multiple judges serve as advisers at CJP, potentially having an impact on its curriculum and modules.

For example, Ronald Robie, an associate justice for the Third District of the California Courts of Appeal, Judge Michael Simon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon, and David Tatel, the recently retired former senior judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, have all acted as advisers for the project.

And a review of an Environmental Law Institute policy brief summarizing past events indicates CJP has reached judges from across the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th federal circuits, some of which are based in New York City, Boston and Puerto Rico. The group further boasts that it hosted a plenary session with approximately 100 judges in attendance at the annual mid-winter meeting of the Ninth Federal Circuit in 2019.

China Descends

There are a series of stories out of China that suggest both President Xi is working hard to consolidate his power and also that it is backfiring. Caixin, an important press outlet in China, politely criticized China’s current operations and promptly got censored. China is trying to incentivize more children and women are refusing to get pregnant. Xi is also purging the military.

All these stories come as Xi declared for New Years that Taiwan and China will be reunited. He increasingly seems prepared to go to war, which might be the only thing to distract Chinese nationalists from the failures of his policies. 2024 could be a very dangerous year in Asia.

Biden Lied About the Spy Balloon

We arrive into 2024 just shy of a year from the Chinese spy balloon sailing over us. Now, NBC News is reporting much of what Biden told us turned out to be a lie. The balloon stopped transmitting, not because it was jammed, but because the Chinese stopped transmissions once it was discovered.

Likewise, the balloon was using American internet infrastructure to transmit highspeed bursts back to China. Most damning of all, the Biden Administration sought to hide the existence of the balloon from Congress, not just the public.

In Other News

• Anti-Israel rally at JFK Airport causes New Year’s Day nightmare on one of the busiest travel days of the year (NY Post)

• CNN Admits Red-State Governors Busing Migrants to Blue Cities 'Has Worked' Politically (NewsBusters)

• Covid Slashed Consumer Choices. This Is Why They Aren’t Coming Back. (WSJ)

• How the Biden campaign hopes to make 2024 less about Biden and more about a contrast with Trump (CNN)

• These Voters Will Decide the 2024 Election. They Don’t Like What They See. (WSJ)

• Passenger plane carrying hundreds bursts into flames on Tokyo runway (Axios)

• Terror attack coming when we 'least expect it' as migrant encounters shatter records, expert warns (Fox News)

• Russia bombards Ukraine’s largest cities after Putin vows intensified attacks (CNBC)

• The Debt Matters Again (NY Times)

• Church as Resistance (The Dispatch)

• AP Quietly Reveals Donation From Foreign Group That Trains Journalists as Climate Change ‘Activists’ (Free Beacon)

Now, If You’ve Made It This Far

Folks, I’m trying to grow my radio show this year. Below is a map of current locations. Notice that Texas does not have a single affiliate. Same for Virginia. In fact, Texas and the Washington, DC / Northern Virginia area are my two largest markets outside Georgia online.

So, if you live in Texas or Virginia, please consider calling your local Newstalk station and asking if they might put me on. You’ll need to tell them I’m syndicated with Compass Media Networks. You can find the stations here.

Look, it isn't helpful if you don’t listen to the local station or don’t live in the state. But having a local listener call and advocate for my show is far more helpful than anything else. I appreciate the help.