MMN Editor

Iconic Ghirardelli Chocolate Company closed its flagship retail store in San Francisco as part of a union contract dispute work stoppage.The chocolate candy company closed its Original Ghirardelli Chocolate and Ice Cream Shop at 900 North Point at Ghirardelli Square on July 30 during a three-day strike over a union contract dispute related to healthcare insurance, according to SFGate.The Ghirardelli workers’ union, Unite Here Local 2, has been in contract negotiations for over a year with the company and accused it of bargaining in bad faith by not providing information related to a healthcare surcharge customers must pay on purchases. The union wants to know how much of the surcharge actually is paid toward covering employees’ health insurance.

Ghirardelli Chocolate and Ice Cream Shop workers declared a three-day strike.Prasit photo / Getty Images

Employees launch three-day strikeWorkers set up a picket line outside the store until it closed on July 30, then moved the picketing operations outside two other of the company’s Ghirardelli Square candy shops.The union claims that Ghirardelli is proposing an alternative health insurance plan that would provide less coverage for health costs than the current union-backed health insurance plan.Healthcare costs for union employees could rise significantly, union spokesperson Sonja Karabel told SFGate.An employee who relies on the healthcare plan regularly was concerned with the changes.”I need it to maintain my medicine every day,” worker Leah Urbana said.Workers picket for good health insurance”They’re fighting to preserve their good health insurance, and they’re fighting against a plan that could leave them with thousands of dollars in medical bills or worse,” according to Karabel.The work stoppage is the first time since 1984 that all of the shop’s workers have gone on strike, Karabel said.A spokesperson for Ghirardelli did not immediately respond to a request for comment from TheStreet.Company generates $1 billion in revenueGhirardelli hit a milestone in 2025, as it for the first time generated over $1 billion in net trade sales revenue for the year, according to a LinkedIn post by CEO Justin Reese.Ghirardelli, founded in 1852 in San Francisco, operates 19 Ghirardelli Chocolate and Ice Cream Shops across the country. The company has candy stores at tourist destinations, such as the Empire State Building in New York, Disney’s California Adventure in Anaheim, Calif.; Disney Studio Store in Hollywood, Calif.; Disney Springs in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.; and on The Strip in Las Vegas.The historic chocolate company was acquired by Swiss chocolate manufacturer Lindt & Sprungli in 1998. Lindt’s other brands include Russell Stover, Caffarel, and Hofbauer/Kufferle.Despite Ghirardelli’s success, other candy companies have faced declining revenues that have led to bankruptcy filings.Another candy maker’s declining revenueNot every candy company is enjoying Ghirardelli’s success. Other candy manufacturers, such as private brand maker Candy Sense Inc., needed to restructure their business in a bankruptcy filing after facing declining revenues over the last two years.Economic issues affected some companies in the candy sector as consumer attitudes toward buying candy and inflation were identified as the main culprits in 2025 by the National Confectioners Association’s State of Treating 2026 report.“Finances played an overriding role in confectionery purchase decisions last year, particularly for households that were carefully monitoring finances. Inflation boosted dollar sales in 2025, while unit and volume sales struggled,” according to the National Confectioners Association.Related: Iconic supermarket chain closes more stores and facilities

S. Korea’s opposition accused the governing party of seeking to eliminate prosecutors’ investigative powers to protect President from criminal trials.

The O’Keefe Media Group on Friday dropped part two of the latest sting, dubbed, “Fraud Is The New Dope.”
Bodegas in New York City were caught on hidden camera selling beer using SNAP and EBT benefits.
Via OMG:
Not only did we expose EBT benefits being used to buy drugs, like ‘kratom’, we also revealed the bodegas across New York City selling us beer with EBT cards.
In Queens, we asked him to run the beer as “food.” He agreed and we walked out with beer purchased using an EBT card.
Federal law is clear: SNAP benefits are for eligible food items only under the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 and 7 CFR 271.2. Alcohol cannot legally be purchased with SNAP benefits. These NYC retailers who intentionally process alcohol as food are violating federal SNAP regulations, subject to disqualification from SNAP participation, civil penalties under 7 CFR 278.6,New York State Crime S 110, and their USDA Retailer Agreement.
We also uncovered another loophole at a Harlem bodega. After manipulating an EBT transaction, a clerk converted taxpayer-funded benefits into cash. Minutes later, that same cash was used to purchase beer. According to our investigation, this violates federal law 7 C.F.R. § 278.2(a), which prohibits SNAP benefits from being exchanged for cash except as limited change in an eligible transaction.
If taxpayer-funded benefits can be converted into cash and immediately spent on alcohol, how often is this happening without anyone noticing?
When we confronted one of the clerks who had just spoken with us in English, he suddenly claimed he couldn’t understand English at all. This is where your taxpayer dollars are going. Remember, there is money in fraud. There’s no money in exposing the fraud.
WATCH:

FRAUD IS THE NEW DOPE PART 2: NYC Bodegas Caught Undercover Selling Alcohol Using SNAP & EBT Benefits
“Do you have beer?” “Yes.”
“He’s paying with the EBT card?” “Oh, yes.”
“If you put it as food, they don’t know it’s beer.” “Uh-huh.” pic.twitter.com/paBV7Q9Yz4
— James O’Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) July 31, 2026

The O’Keefe Media Group on Wednesday released undercover video showing smoke shops and bodegas across New York City processing EBT cards for drugs and alcohol.
NYC clerks were caught swiping the EBT card for illicit substances.
“Store after store attempted to process EBT cards for kratom, a psychoactive substance that is not eligible for purchase with SNAP or EBT benefits. One clerk attempted to process the purchase as “EBT Cash.” Another processed it as “EBT Food”, treating kratom as if it were groceries,” O’Keefe said.
“Federal law 7 CFR 278 and 7 U.S.C 2012 prohibits retailers from accepting SNAP or EBT benefits for non-food items, including drugs, alcohol, and tobacco. According to the investigation, these transactions may violate federal SNAP regulations, New York State regulations, and the USDA SNAP Retailer Agreement,” O’Keefe said.

FRAUD IS THE NEW DOPE PART 1: NYC Clerks Caught Undercover Processing EBT Cards For Drug & Alcohol Purchases As “EBT Cash” & “EBT Food”
“The [EBT] Cash Can Use it. 100%.”
“I did EBT Food.”
“You’re gonna be chilling with the aliens [Getting So High].” pic.twitter.com/RLaeLCBVYb
— James O’Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) July 29, 2026

The post O’Keefe Media Group Drops Part 2 NYC Fraud: NYC Bodegas Caught Selling Alcohol Using SNAP and EBT Benefits (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

MS NOW/SnapStream

On Thursday’s The Moment with fill-in host Jonathan Lemire, MS NOW justice and intelligence reporter Ken Dilanian downplayed the threat of left-wing extremism in a segment that fearmongered over changes to counterterrorism agencies. He called the shifted focus an “obsession with left-wing terrorism,” even with assassination attempts against conservative figures in recent years, including the three against President Trump.The segment was focused on an online MS NOW article by Dilanian titled, “Trump has been dismantling post-9/11 counterterrorism protections, Senate report says.”Dilanian detailed some of his report to Lemire, as he said, ”what the Trump Administration has done is dismantled that counterterrorism infrastructure that was built up right after 9/11 and then sort of honed and perfected over the last 25 years.” On Thursday’s The Moment, MS NOW Justice and Intelligence Reporter Ken Dilanian completely downplayed left-wing extremism and said counterterrorism agencies have shifted their focus to an “obsession with left-wing terrorism (…).” pic.twitter.com/hFfqgw4K6K— Nick (@nspin310) July 30, 2026 He complained about firings, especially from the DOJ’s National Security Division, which he made sure to mention included “worked on cases like the classified documents case.”But then Dilanain turned to whine about a newfound focus on left-wing extremism, and scoffed, “They’ve also sort of shifted the focus to this obsession with left-wing terrorism, when actually in recent years, far right extremists have been a serious threat.”It was not exactly an unfounded “obsession,” especially after the assassination of Charlie Kirk and three known assassination attempts against Trump, most notably in Butler during the 2024 campaign. Dilanian also has defended the FBI for initially ruling the 2017 congressional baseball shooting a suicide by cop scenario instead of an obvious example of left-wing violence.Dilanian seemed to have an obsession of his own over the shifted focus on the left-wing extremists, as the second paragraph of his written online story read, “The 37-page report also accuses the administration of skewing its focus on domestic terrorism almost exclusively to left-wing groups, ignoring significant threats from far-right and white supremacist extremists.“ MS NOW analyst Michael Fienberg agreed with Dilanain and went further to say “the threat from right-wing domestic terrorism is a much more salient one in this day and age than left-wing domestic terrorism” before he feared “come 2028, we might have a crisis on our hands.” pic.twitter.com/K7QpoKWT5E— Nick (@nspin310) July 30, 2026 After Dilanian was done, MS NOW national security and intelligence analyst Michael Feinberg agreed with Dilanian as he called the alleged changes to counterterrorism “fairly dangerous.”Feinberg then joined Dilanian’s comments in minimization of left-wing terrorism: “And Ken’s also right, the threat from right-wing domestic terrorism is a much more salient one in this day and age than left-wing domestic terrorism. And that’s not a judgment on political ideologies in general. These things switch. There have been periods where it’s the opposite”He arguably went further than Dilanian as he feared the possibility another January 6th riot due to the focus shift on left-wing extremists: “And what I fear is happening is that by refusing to admit that that might be a problem in the future, they’re not being monitored or investigated now, which means they’re going to have a good four years to regroup in a way that the January 6th investigations prevented.”Feinberg closed with an ultimate fearmonger, “And it’s almost guaranteeing that, you know, come 2028, we might have a crisis on our hands.” The term “obsession” might be a better fit for Dilanian and Feinberg’s comments.The transcript is below. Click “expand”:MS NOW’s The MomentJuly 30, 20262:2:12 PM Eastern(…)KEN DILANIAN: You know, we’ve been reporting on this as kind of a slow-rolling disaster, but what this report by the Homeland Security Democrats does is it puts it all together and says, look, what the Trump Administration has done is dismantled that counterterrorism infrastructure that was built up right after 9/11 and then sort of honed and perfected over the last 25 years. And there’s a number of elements to this. The biggest thing is they’ve just downsized the FBI counterterrorism division and the Justice Department’s National Security Division, and they’ve gotten rid of a lot of the most the foremost experts in terrorism, including people that worked on cases like the classified documents case, because that was a national security case, right? So, they’ve rid the government of fundamental expertise. They’ve also sort of shifted the focus to this obsession with left-wing terrorism, when actually in recent years, far-right extremists have been a serious threat. And Chris Wray, the former FBI director, used to talk about that all the time. They don’t even pay attention to that. The far-right extremists are not even mentioned in their counterterrorism strategy. So, you have downsizing, shifting of priorities.(…)2:23:41 PM EasternJONATHAN LEMIRE: So, Michael, let’s go to you now. What is your verdict? How – I mean, how much less safe? I mean, how dangerous is these cutbacks?MICHAEL FEINBERG: I think they’re fairly dangerous because the threat landscape facing the United States from external enemies has not really changed. If anything, it’s probably a little bit heightened because of the war we started with Iran. But at the same time, as Ken noted, we have been de-prioritizing counterterrorism investigations, maybe not overtly, but by moving resources and personnel away from them. And Ken’s also right, the threat from right-wing domestic terrorism is a much more salient one in this day and age than left-wing domestic terrorism. And that’s not a judgment on political ideologies in general. These things switch. There have been periods where it’s the opposite. But January 6th and the subsequent pardons of everybody convicted for the actions there really emboldened the right-wing domestic terrorist sphere.And what I fear is happening is that by refusing to admit that that might be a problem in the future, they’re not being monitored or investigated now, which means they’re going to have a good four years to regroup in a way that the January 6th investigations prevented. And we know what happens when these people are upset with the results of elections. And it’s almost guaranteeing that, you know, come 2028, we might have a crisis on our hands.(…)

Image

Entertainment Tonight

CBS’s popular summer reality/game show Big Brother is famous for the phrase, “expect the unexpected.” But season 28’s surprise didn’t come in the form of a shocking rule change or last-minute twist. Instead, it happened off-air during the show’s 24/7-hour live feeds when contestant Kamuela “Kamu” Kirk, an MMA fighter, dared to proclaim he doesn’t want to dress in women’s clothing, leading some to call him “homophobic” and demand he be removed from the show. An “insider” claims CBS is “monitoring” him “closely.”The 32-year-old Phoenix man was chatting (off-camera) with fellow BB houseguest and former Survivor contestant Rick Devens (on-camera) about another male contestant, Drew Campbell, wearing unicorn-themed pajamas that belonged to a female player. It’s worth noting Jason De Puy, a two-time former contestant on RuPaul’s Drag Race (as Selina EsTitties), is also on the current season, though the other players aren’t aware he was on the drag show. After Devens pointed out Campbell wearing female pajamas, Kirk said they tried to get him to wear them earlier. “Miss me with the drag stuff,” Kirk stated. “I’m still an MMA guy, and I have an image to uphold.”

That was it. No slurs. No attacks on the actual drag queen in the house. No hate. Just a grown man saying what he personally prefers. Even though the video was titled, “Homophobic,” several comments, including those from LGBTQ people, defended Kirk.Former Big Brother contestant, far-left gay activist, and brother of singer Ariana Grande Franke Grande, however, took to X to slam Kirk and demand he be removed from the show “IMMEDIATELY.”  Um. What the fuck is this horseshit?! Get these homophobic bigots out of the fucking house IMMEDIATELY. Both of them. Ew this conversation makes me sick to my stomach. I’m disgusted. This better be the biggest thing ever when I wake up tomorrow or I’m flipping a table… fuck. Ew.… https://t.co/qnYNLIxXd9— Frankie James Grande (@FrankieJGrande) July 18, 2026 Grande apparently had a change of heart later… about Devens. He still had zero grace for Kirk. Ok. I concede there is not enough info in the clip to understand Deven’s motivations. Hopefully he was just taping into Kamu’s energy for game reasons. Regardless, men behaving in a repulsed or shocked way when a man dresses feminine or in women’s clothing is homophobic. Period.— Frankie James Grande (@FrankieJGrande) July 18, 2026 Imagined victimhood at its finest. In the real world, most straight men, and even many gay ones, have zero interest in donning sequins, heels, or unicorn pajamas. That’s preference, not prejudice. Drag is performance, not a mandatory loyalty test. Treating ordinary masculine boundaries as bigotry is actual intolerance on display. The “love wins” mob decided to dig into Kirk’s social media to find proof he hates gay people. What they found was evidence he’s likely a conservative Christian which means he probably doesn’t agree with homosexuality but doesn’t necessarily hate or look down on anyone. Of course, to those determined to hate him, it was surefire proof he’s a hateful bigot.According to an insider who spoke to The U.S. Sun, CBS said they’re “not happy” about the social media activity or the live feed comments but are just “monitoring Kamu more closely” for now. In a poll in the article, 61.6% of readers voted Kirk should stay, 25.6% want him evicted, and 12.8% are undecided, proving the most outspoken are in the vocal minority.Interestingly, in episode 11, the houseguests were forced to wear tutus as part of a competition, which Grande raved about and others called “karma” for Kirk:  Obsessed with Big Brother for this! 😂👏🏳️‍🌈🙏🩰 https://t.co/8MC5XawKug— Frankie James Grande (@FrankieJGrande) July 25, 2026 No word on whether or not CBS had the players dress up in tutus because of the drag controversy, but the show has a long history of forcing players to wear ridiculous costumes so, it was likely preplanned. (One other contestant was forced to wear a large, cumbersome egg costume as a punishment this season.) Regardless, being a good sport and following the rules of a game, even when it includes wearing a tutu, is very different from voluntarily dressing in female clothing in someone’s free time. An MMA fighter prefering not to wear a woman’s unicorn pajamas isn’t “hate.” It’s the kind of ordinary masculine boundary most men have held for centuries without apology. Grande’s immediate demand for Kirk’s eviction, the frantic digging into Kirk’s social media history, and the manufactured victimhood that followed only prove how desperate the outrage machine is to invent enemies. Here’s hoping Kirk wins the entire season to make up for this mistreatment.

Federal officials released an updated framework for the Colorado River, requiring three states to significantly reduce their water use.

China-Focused Influence Program Courted Senior US Media Figures With Sponsor-Paid Trips

Authored by Arthur Zhang via The Epoch Times,

A journalist’s review of Committee of 100 (C100) records has renewed scrutiny of sponsor-paid trips that brought senior figures from major U.S. news organizations to China and recorded changes in their views and professional plans.
A tour guide stands near a display showing images of people at locations described as vocational training centers in southern Xinjiang at the Exhibition of the Fight Against Terrorism and Extremism in Urumqi in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China on April 21, 2021. Mark Schiefelbein/AP Photo

In response to questions from The Epoch Times, C100 confirmed that it covered travel costs, selected the participants, set their itineraries, and chose whom they met.

The organization rejected journalist and media host Natalie Winters’s description of the trips as “pay-for-play,” saying no coverage was exchanged for the travel and participants retained editorial independence.

Winters published her review on Substack on July 28, characterizing the multiyear journalist delegation program as a “propaganda pipeline.” Her report drew attention to documents posted on C100’s website.

A 2012 trip report on the website marked “Internal Use” placed the cost of a nine-day delegation for five journalists at approximately $60,000.

The report said the program sought to improve perceptions of China and encourage participants to share their experiences with professional peers.

The five journalists represented The New York Times, The Atlantic, the Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, and WNYC. A page about the delegation on the C100 website says they traveled through Beijing, Shanghai, and Hangzhou from Nov. 25 through Dec. 3, 2012.

The trip report described lodging, meals, transportation, sightseeing, corporate and cultural visits, and about 20 arranged meetings with Chinese officials, academics, media representatives, students, and business executives.

C100 Recorded Changes in Views

Winnie O’Kelley, then-deputy business editor at The New York Times, said she would return from the trip with several story ideas and “shape my staff across Asia in some different ways,” according to the report.

Gary Silverman, then-U.S. news editor and deputy managing editor at the Financial Times, said he would not again “think or write about China” without reflecting on what he had learned.

WNYC host Brian Lehrer was described as saying his perception of China had changed “in 100 ways.”

Jonathan Tepperman, then-managing editor of Foreign Affairs, said the trip had given him a “much deeper, more subtle and more nuanced” sense of China and elite opinion in the country.

He said he had made contacts he intended to continue consulting and called it the best press trip he had attended.

Clive Crook, then-senior editor at The Atlantic, said the visit reinforced his view of China as a “huge and fascinating story” and told organizers to “keep it up.”

C100’s report highlighted two articles Crook published after the trip: “Why China and the U.S. Can Be Capitalist Comrades” and “China’s Ghost Towns Won’t Have a Hard Landing.”

C100’s delegation page links to those articles, another Crook article, three Lehrer broadcasts, and a Silverman column. The page says the visit gave participants information and perspectives for their later reporting.

Shen Dingli, a professor at Fudan University in Shanghai who met the delegation, responded to the participants’ assessments with a remark recorded in the trip report.

“You made the change!” Shen said.

Participants From Major Newsrooms

C100 began its journalist-delegation program in 2007 and told The Epoch Times that it continued through 2014.

Over that period, C100 records identify participants from The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, PBS, Politico, Time, Newsweek, The Atlantic, the Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, WNYC, The New Yorker, USA Today, and other outlets.

A C100 account of a gathering of 2011 and 2012 delegates described the program as an opportunity for American thought leaders to witness China’s development and challenges and meet officials, experts, journalists, businesspeople, artists, and students.

The 2012 trip report said the program sought to improve perceptions of China and expected participants to share their experiences with professional peers.

In a December 2012 message, then-C100 Executive Director Angie Tang wrote that the journalist and civic-leader delegations were “shaping the U.S.-China dialogue on the frontlines.”

The 2012 delegation met Cui Tiankai, then-Chinese vice foreign minister; CCTV executive producer Cheng Yue; Sinopec Chairman Fu Chengyu; Shanghai financial official Fang Xinghai; and academics, corporate leaders, students, and local journalists.

C100 also held discussions with Chinese officials during the same period.

Its account of those meetings says C100 leaders met Chinese Culture Minister Cai Wu, Hong Kong Chief Executive-Elect Leung Chun-ying, and C.H. Tung, chairman of the China-U.S. Exchange Foundation, a Hong Kong organization established in 2008.

C100 leaders also discussed possible collaboration on the organization’s teacher and journalist delegations to China with He Yafei, then-deputy director of the State Council’s Overseas Chinese Affairs Office.

C100 Defends the Program

“Committee of 100’s journalist delegation program was an open professional exchange that last ran in 2014, during a period when the two economies were rapidly integrating [and] expanded U.S.-China engagement was the stated policy of both American political parties,” C100 said in a statement to The Epoch Times.

The organization said the program was intended to give American editors direct exposure to a country often covered from a distance.

“The program’s purpose, described openly for years, was understanding through direct experience,” the statement said. “Participants disclosed their trips and retained full editorial independence. Nothing in the record shows anyone wrote or edited a story at anyone’s direction.”

C100 also confirmed that it independently selected the participants, set their itineraries, chose whom they met, and covered travel costs.

The organization did not respond to follow-up questions asking whether the claimed disclosures were made to employers, audiences, or both; requesting examples of those disclosures; and asking whether participants and their employers received advance materials describing the program’s aim of improving perceptions of China.

Newsrooms Asked About Approval, Disclosure

The New York Times, The Atlantic, the Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, and WNYC were asked by The Epoch Times whether they approved the 2012 travel, whether they paid or reimbursed any expenses, and what sponsored-travel and disclosure policies applied at the time.

They were also asked whether C100’s sponsorship was disclosed to readers or listeners in work connected to the trip.

O’Kelley, Silverman, Lehrer, Tepperman, and Crook were separately asked to verify the statements attributed to them and explain whether the trip affected any reporting, editing, staffing, sourcing, or broadcasting decision.

None of the participants or news organizations responded by publication time.

Arranged Access, Restricted Reporting

C100’s program emerged during an era when engagement with Beijing was mainstream U.S. policy. Chinese authorities, however, had long treated exchanges, hospitality, and managed access as tools for shaping foreign perceptions – a practice that continues even as U.S. policy toward Beijing has hardened.

On July 27, 19 media workers from Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, and Bangladesh began a six-day visit to Baoshan in Yunnan Province under the guidance of the CCP’s Baoshan Municipal Propaganda Department, according to a Xinhua report.

The itinerary directed participants toward coffee production, historic towns, traditional crafts, cultural heritage, agriculture, tourism, and local-development projects.

Five days earlier, a Baoshan government account said authorities in Tengchong had trained more than 300 elementary school guides and university volunteers as local narrators tasked with carrying CCP theories and approved local accounts into communities and households.

Foreign correspondents trying to report outside official programs described a different experience in the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China’s (FCCC’s) 2025 media-freedom report, titled “The New Abnormal.”

The survey found that 94 percent of respondents said reporting conditions in China did not usually, or almost never, meet international standards. Some 64 percent reported interference, harassment, or obstruction while reporting, while 77 percent said sources had declined or canceled interviews or required permission before speaking to foreign media.

Most respondents to the FCCC survey declined to be identified because they feared retaliation against themselves or their news organizations.

One unnamed European journalist said a Chinese Embassy invited the reporter on a government-organized trip to Xinjiang. After returning, the journalist was summoned by the Chinese Foreign Ministry and warned that subsequent reporting would be monitored to ensure it was “unbiased.”

Another unnamed European journalist said police surrounded a reporting team investigating detention sites and prisons in Xinjiang, examined its cameras and phones, copied footage, and deleted material.

The FCCC said government-organized tours were occasionally offered in Tibet, but journalists who joined them reported having no opportunity to work independently. No surveyed correspondent received permission to enter the Tibet Autonomous Region independently in 2025.

The survey also found that 40 percent of respondents said their Chinese colleagues had faced pressure, harassment, or intimidation from officials or while assisting with field reporting.

C100 said the journalists on its delegations disclosed their trips, but it did not provide examples or specify whether readers and listeners were told who financed the travel.
Chinese police detain a journalist at a checkpoint on the road to the riot-affected Uyghur town of Lukqun, Xinjiang Province, China, on June 28, 2013. Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images
Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/31/2026 – 19:15

The Justice Department on Friday dismissed the Lincoln Reflecting Pool vandalism case against former Olympian David Hearn.
David Hearn, the former Olympian who was arrested and charged with a misdemeanor for destruction of property for vandalizing the Lincoln Reflecting Pool last month, was indicted by a grand jury on felony charges earlier this month.
Hearn is a three-time Olympic canoeist.
David Hearn denied any wrongdoing.
Hearn was charged with felony destruction of government property. He was facing 10 years in prison.
A grand jury in the DC Superior Court returned the indictment.
During a press conference earlier this month, US Attorney for DC Jeanine Pirro said Hearn “violently and forcefully” ripped up the sealant.
WATCH:

WATCH LIVE: U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro updates Reflecting Pool case https://t.co/rZQTZ8vZsm
— Fox News (@FoxNews) July 2, 2026

However, on Friday, Pirro said the damage to the Lincoln Reflecting Pool was the result of “flawed installation by the contractor.”
“It was not until after the return of the indictment [of Hearn], that the [Department of Interior] provided additional documents to the [US Attorney’s Office in DC] indicating that damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in June 2026 was the result of flawed installation by the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings, and the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration in the weeks surrounding Independence Day 2026,” Pirro’s office wrote.
Hearn’s attorneys said in a statement to CNN reacting to the decision:
“The Trump administration’s case against David Hearn should never have been brought.
Its dismissal today does not erase the abuse of government power in arresting and charging a patriotic American who did nothing wrong.
The government’s approach was ready, fire, aim. The administration owes Mr. Hearn an apology.”

The post BREAKING: Pirro Dismisses Lincoln Reflecting Pool Vandalism Criminal Case Against Former Olympian David Hearn appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal senior contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos.
One of the things that is perplexing and often a topic of conversation is this new American-Western European alliance or absorption of Islam and Marxism-socialism-communism. In other words, people who identify as radical Muslims, often in their alliance, include people who are traditional Western Marxists, and it doesn’t seem possible for a variety of ways.
There’s a lot of antitheses. Do we really believe that these upscale people in blue enclaves in the United States who declare themselves socialist and are voting for people like Zohran Mamdani, or Ilhan Omar, or Rashida Tlaib, who are proud, and active, and often fervent Muslims, tolerate gays? Do you really believe if you said, “I am gay, and I’m proud of it, and I want to announce that in Saudi Arabia,” you wouldn’t be in trouble?
Do you really believe that if you went to Iran and said, “I want to repeal all the sodomy laws,” you wouldn’t be in trouble?
Or if you went, let’s say, to Egypt and you said, “I wanna have a trans, sexual support group,” you wouldn’t be in trouble? Do you really believe that upscale, independent women in Western cities, maybe unmarried, professional, doesn’t that bother them a little bit when they ally themselves with radical Muslims who tell them that, as far as men go, their dream is going to an Islamic heaven and having the sexual use as if they’re almost tools of 72 virgins?
Does that go well with a book editor in Manhattan or the head of an NGO in Denver? I don’t think so.
Another thing that’s quite different is Islam believes in Allah, and that’s it. All other people who are non-believers are doomed to hell, and the duty is to spread worship, loyalty, fealty to the Muslim Allah.
But throughout the history of socialism and Marxism and communism, all of them agree on one thing, that religion is really the opiate of the masses. They feel that class struggle is harmed or negated by people who believe in a God. In the Christian sense, they feel that, blessed are the meek, blessed are the poor.
That Sermon on the Mount doesn’t do anything. It basically says there will be social justice in heaven, but not here. If you’re poor, you go to heaven by being morally better than the rich man. Remember, it’s harder for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than a rich man, Jesus says, to go to heaven.
So, the message for believers is that there is social justice in heaven. The message for a socialist, communist, Marxist is it’s right now. There is no heaven. There is no God. We have to get social justice now.
Another thing that’s very different is Marxists believe in the state control of the means of production, and socialists believe that this—there can be private property, but mostly the utilities, the railroads, the steel companies, most all of the muscles of a society are owned also by the state.
But they believe in a commission, a committee, a chairman. They don’t believe that one exercises power through royalty or succession, although most communist and Marxist states, which we see in North Korea and we see in Iran, they’re very similar in some ways. But, in the Arab world, monarchy is pretty much de rigueur, as we see in the Gulf states.
But Marxism says, “No, we don’t believe in kings. We overthrow them.” That was what the revolutions of 1848 were about. That’s what the French Revolution was about. That’s basically what the Bolsheviks were trying to get rid of an imperial dynastic tsar. So, that’s another antithesis.
Another thing is the Arab world is based on tribalism, that your first loyalty goes to people who look like you, speak a dialect of Arabic like you, and have a local or regional affinity, a proximity to you.
That’s always been the challenge of the modern Arab nation or state. How do you include people from seven, 10, 15, 20 different tribes who have fought each other for centuries and only come together when coerced to, for example, under the Ottoman Empire?
But Marxism is very different. Your first allegiance is not to people who look like you.
It’s to the global proletariat, the oppressed, the Comintern. Socialists believe that they have more in common with people in Europe who are fellow socialists than they do with rich people or, or people who are devoutly religious in their own country.
So tribalism is part of Islam’s foundation. Globalism is central to the socialist or the communist or the Marxist.
However, all of that said, someone’s going to say, “Well, Victor, they’re alike. They have a coalition. Zohran Mamdani is a hardcore Marxist, and he’s a hardcore Islamicist, and so is Ilhan Omar, and so are almost all the people in Dearborn, Michigan, it seems like, and so are these new socialist candidates that are popping up like flowers everywhere in blue cities and urban areas.”
So, what’s the similarities? One, they hate Western civilization. They can’t stand the values of Western civilization, free speech, religious opportunity, market capitalism, etc. They both hate that and Islam has been, has been at war with the West since the seventh century, and it’s fought Westerners not just in the Crusades, but all through the history of the Byzantine Empire, all through the history of Europe and North Africa.
And when [Osama] bin Laden said the great tragedy was that Islam lost its hold in Europe, what he was basically talking about was the Battle of Tours and the stopping of the Islamic movement northward into Europe. They, of course, have, in the Quran and its related apocrypha, there’s a lot of hatred of Jews.
They hate Israel with a passion. So do Marxists, socialists. I’m not sure why they do, given the creation of Israel was based on a kibbutz system, which is socialistic in nature, and many of the original generation who settled in Israel even before World War II came there as dissidents from Eastern Europe and Russia, and they believed in a socialist future.
But that’s all ancient history now. As of now, what draws Muslims to the new left-wing hardcore socialist and communist, and what draws them to include rather antithetical Muslims into their movement, they hate Israel with a passion, and they hate Jews.
There’s another, similarity. They hate capitalism.
They do not believe that a person should have freedom of opportunity to start his own business, to make a profit. In the Islamic world, interest is frowned upon officially. Not that the Gulf states are run … The Gulf states are run on hypercapitalism, but officially they find, euphemisms and mechanisms to get around prohibitions in the Quran for hypercapitalism or laissez-faire capitalism.
And of course, capitalism is the main enemy of Zohran Mamdani and others who feel it’s unfair, it doesn’t share the wealth. They believe in the message not of the Americans, “Give me liberty or give me death,” a revolution to ensure political freedom, but a holistic, totalitarian, three-hundred-and-sixty-degree revolution of fraternity egalitarianism.
In other words, we’re not just going to give people freedom to speak. We don’t want them to have freedom to speak. We want to make them equal on the back end by the use of government coercion.
Both of them hate democracy then. They don’t like the people voting because, in the Arab world or the Muslim world, there will be people who object to the role of women, especially in the modern age, or the role that intolerance for sexual minorities or the intolerance shown Christians.
And so, they will object, and they wouldn’t want to express that objection. That’s taboo. And we know from the history of socialism, they say they believe in free speech, but very quickly socialists try to outlaw it, and when they become communists, they kill for it
That’s another difference. And both of them justify violence.
They believe the violent method is necessary for the, desired end. And so you see people who are committing … Who are the people that commit violence? Who was the person just this week in New York that stabbed somebody? Who was the person in Europe that tried to run over people at a gay party?
Who are the people protesting ICE? Who are the people on the campus protesting violently? They are either radical Islamicist or they’re radical socialist communist Antifa types, or often they’re mixed together in the same demonstration.
Finally, remember that Hitler himself said he was a national socialist.
Yes, he made deals with crony capitalism, but even though he said he despised Bolshevism, he said after he was looking back in his final days that he admired Joseph Stalin’s communism, and he said that if he had defeated the United States and Russia, he would have executed American leaders, but welcomed Stalin in kind of a genteel captivity.
And by the same token, Hitler said that he preferred Islam to Christianity. He had a great deal of admiration for the Grand Mufti. There was an alliance of radical Islam with national socialists. They both hated capitalism, and they hated the same thing as we’ve just reviewed, and they liked many of the same things.
Hitler was not a hypercapitalist. He was a socialist, a national socialist. And in some ways, even though he said he despised Bolsheviks, they had a lot in common.
So, remember, next time you see this bizarre, weird, surreal alliances or people shouting Allah Akbar or, power to the people, spread the word. They’re not as different as you think.
[Editor’s note: This column originally was published by The Daily Signal.]

Argentina’s Milei Borrows Warren Buffett’s Idea To Punish Deficit-Spending Politicians

More than two years after campaigning to “blow up” Argentina’s central bank, President Javier Milei has announced his “Fiscal Shackle” bill – a permanent rule aimed at preventing Argentina from approving or maintaining budgets with fiscal deficits that could have consequences for politicians.

On Thursday, in a speech recorded at the Casa Rosada and broadcast nationwide, Milei proposed an overhaul that would restore the Central Bank of Argentina’s sole mandate of preserving the currency’s value, stop direct and indirect financing of the Treasury, provinces, and municipalities, and expose officials who violate the rules to criminal charges. “It will be considered fraud and illicit association,” he explained.

Milei said this is the “most important set of structural reforms in the last 91 years,” taking the year of the Central Bank’s founding, 1935, as the starting point for that period. He argued that the central bank has functioned as “a tool for theft” and indicated that his reform proposal seeks “to put an end to the scam of counterfeiting money to finance high-level politics, whose most evident manifestation is the inflation rate.”

The plan would also strengthen independence of central bank officials, making them more difficult for future administrations to remove. Milei said the reforms were an effort to end decades of deficit monetization, the primary source of Argentina’s recurring inflation and currency crises.

He said the “Fiscal Shackle” bill would impose an automatic shutdown mechanism if public accounts remain in deficit and Congress fails to restore balance. Nonessential government functions would halt, while new spending, hiring, and discretionary provincial transfers would be frozen. Top political officials would stop receiving salaries, although pensions, family benefits, unemployment insurance, health care, and security services would remain protected.

“The results of the Central Bank’s portfolio can only be transferred to the Treasury for debt cancellation. The scam of the Non-Transferable Letters will be eliminated… This will include the Fiscal Shackle: it will ensure that Argentina cannot sustain a deficit budget,” Milei said.

Remember, the Oracle of Omaha told CNBC’s Becky Quick in a 2011 interview that he “could end the deficit in five minutes.”

Warren Buffett explained, “You just pass a law that says that any time there’s a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election.”

Tyler Durden
Fri, 07/31/2026 – 18:50