Thursday August 28th, 2025
- "It Is Not A Question of Who Is Right Or Wrong But What Is Right Or Wrong That Counts."
- --Geoff Metcalf
- Providing an on line Triage of the news since 1998
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World & Nation
Russian
ballistic missiles hit Kyiv in large-scale attack, killing at least 17
as Zelensky calls for ‘new, tough sanctions’ against Putin
Russia
unleashed a sweeping aerial assault across Ukraine late Wednesday,
pounding Kyiv with ballistic missiles and swarms of drones — killing at
least 17 people, including four children, and injuring dozens more.
“Many people
are under the rubble, [including] children,” Andriy Yermak, top advisor
to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, told The Post.
The barrage
began around 9:30 p.m., setting off air raid sirens and prompting
urgent shelter notification warnings in nearly every region nationwide.
Russia unleashed a sweeping aerial assault across Ukraine late Wednesday.
DC Mayor Bowser reverses course, admits Trump's federal crime crackdown is working
Mayor Muriel Bowser cited a 87% reduction in carjackings during the 20-day federal law enforcement deployment
Washington,
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser initially expressed fear of President Donald
Trump’s plan to crack down on crime in the nation’s capital, but its
clear success made her change her mind.
After Trump
announced his plans to deploy National Guard troops and assume
oversight of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) to tackle rising
crime in Washington, D.C., Bowser warned such a crackdown would be
"unsettling and unprecedented."
However, the
mayor admitted at a press conference on Wednesday that the federal
surge has made a noticeable impact on one of America's most famously
dangerous cities.
At the
briefing, Bowser displayed a chart crediting the influx of FBI, DEA,
ATF, U.S. Park Police and Capitol Police with bolstering MPD’s efforts
and declared, "We greatly appreciate the surge of officers that enhance
what MPD has been able to do in this city."
Guns used by Minneapolis church school shooter Robin Westman were purchased legally, police say
Robin Westman used three lawfully purchased weapons to kill two students and injure 17 others, according to police
The weapons
that Minneapolis church shooter Robin Westman used to kill two Catholic
school students and injure 17 others were "lawfully purchased," the
city’s police chief revealed.
Minneapolis
Police Chief Brian O'Hara identified the 23-year-old as the "coward"
who opened fire Wednesday during a Mass welcoming students to the first
week of classes at the Annunciation Catholic School.
"As to the
weapons used to perpetrate this horrific attack, there was a rifle, a
shotgun and a pistol. All three had been lawfully purchased by the
shooter," O’Hara said. "At this stage, we believe that the shooter had
acted alone. There is no indication of other suspects directly involved
in carrying out this attack."
When asked by a
reporter about where Westman obtained the weapons, O’Hara only said, "I
can tell you they were purchased recently."
Minneapolis Shooter Was 'Tired of Being Trans'
The 23-year-old
transgender shooter who killed two children and wounded 17 others at a
Minneapolis Catholic school Wednesday, reportedly left behind a
handwritten journal in which he expressed regret over his sex change.
"I only keep
[the long hair] because it is pretty much my last shred of being trans.
I am tired of being trans, I wish I never brain-washed myself," the
shooter wrote, according to the New York Post's translation of the
manifesto.
The suicidal
and homicidal shooter, 23, who was found dead in the school parking lot
from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, wanted to be known as
Robin Westman after being born a boy called Robert.
CDC Director Susan Monarez refuses to be fired as other officials call it quits
Head
of CDC's National Centers for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Disease
tendered his resignation hours after news of Monarez's ouster
Longtime
government scientist Susan Monarez is refusing to leave her position as
director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) after
the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced she had
been removed from the role less than a month after she was sworn in.
Attorneys Mark
Zaid and Abbe Lowell said they are representing Monarez and claimed she
"has neither resigned nor yet been fired."
The attorneys
released a statement on social media, claiming HHS and Secretary Robert
F. Kennedy Jr. are weaponizing public health for political gain and
putting millions of American lives at risk.
"When CDC
Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless
directives and fire dedicated health experts, she chose protecting the
public over serving a political agenda," the statement said. "For that,
she has been targeted. Dr. Monarez has neither resigned nor received
notification from the White House that she has been fired, and as a
person of integrity and devoted to science, she will not resign."
Fed Governor Cook sues Trump after he attempted to fire her
Federal Reserve
Governor Lisa Cook filed a lawsuit on Thursday claiming U.S. President
Donald Trump has no power to remove her from office, setting up a legal
battle that could reset long-established norms for the U.S. central
bank's independence.
Cook's lawsuit
said Trump, a Republican, violated a federal law allowing the president
to remove a Fed governor only for cause when he took the unprecedented
step on August 25 of announcing he would fire her. The Republican
president has accused Cook of committing mortgage fraud in 2021, a year
before she joined the Fed's governing body.
The case is
likely headed to the Supreme Court, where a conservative majority has
at least tentatively allowed Trump to fire officials from other
agencies but recently signaled that the Fed may qualify for a rare
exception from direct control by the president.
The Fed Just Flagged Its First Interest Rate Cut Since December 2024, and It Could Be Bad News for the Stock Market
The Consumer
Price Index (CPI) measure of inflation increased by 8% in 2022, which
was a 40-year high and significantly above the Federal Reserve's target
annual increase of 2%. High inflation can be devastating for the
economy because it erodes consumers' spending power, and it squeezes
profit margins for businesses.
The Fed
responded by aggressively hiking the federal funds rate (overnight
interest rate), taking it from its pandemic low range of 0% to 0.25% to
a two-decade high of 5.25% to 5.5% over an 18-month period, which ended
in August 2023. The goal was to slow the economy down, which, in turn,
would cool inflation.
Thankfully, it
worked. The CPI increased at a much slower rate during 2024, which gave
the Fed enough confidence to cut interest rates three times between
September and December. After keeping policy on hold during 2025 so
far, a further rate cut might be on the table at the central bank's
next two-day meeting, which will be held on Sept. 16 and 17.
Air Force Grants Military Funeral Honors to Ashli Babbitt
The Air Force
is granting full military funeral honors for Ashli Babbitt, an Air
Force veteran who was shot to death by police on Jan. 6, 2021, during
the Capitol protest.
Judicial Watch,
which had petitioned Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in July to grant
the honor, released a letter from Air Force Undersecretary Matthew
Lohmeier dated Aug. 15 reversing the Biden administration's denial of a
military funeral.
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"I understand
that the family's initial request was denied by Air Force leadership in
a letter dated February 9, 2021," Lohmeier wrote in the letter.
"However, after reviewing the circumstances of Ashli's death, and
considering the information that has come forward since then, I am
persuaded that the previous determination was incorrect."
Pritzker says 'action will be met with a response' after Trump threatens to send National Guard to Chicago
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker says the state will not let the federal government 'intimidate Chicagoans'
Illinois'
Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker said the state "will not stand idly by" if
President Donald Trump makes good on his threat to deploy the National
Guard to Chicago to respond to crime in the Windy City.
"Unlike Donald
Trump, we keep our promises," the governor wrote Wednesday on X. "We
will not stand idly by if he decides to send the National Guard to
intimidate Chicagoans."
"Action will be met with a response," he continued.
Last week, the
governor said there is no crime emergency in Chicago and Trump is
"attempting to manufacture a crisis, politicize Americans who serve in
uniform, and continue abusing his power to distract from the pain he is
causing working families."
Trump: Hit Soros With RICO Charges for 'Support' of Protests
Going beyond
allegations of sowing discord in America and funding Democrats,
President Donald Trump is now calling for billionaire George Soros and
his liberal financier network, led by his "radical left son," to face
federal racketeering charges.
"George Soros,
and his wonderful radical left son, should be charged with RICO because
of their support of violent protests, and much more, all throughout the
United States of America," Trump wrote Wednesday morning on Truth
Social. "We're not going to allow these lunatics to rip apart America
any more, never giving it so much as a chance to 'BREATHE,' and be FREE.
"Soros, and his group of psychopaths, have caused great damage to our country! That includes his crazy West Coast friends.
Israel Strikes Near Damascus During Syria Security Talks
Israeli forces
carried out a series of strikes and raids near Damascus on Tuesday and
Wednesday, according to reports in Syrian and Arab media.
The Syrian Arab
News Agency (SANA), which is affiliated with the regime, said that army
personnel on a field tour near Jabal Manea, outside the town of
al-Kiswah – about 10 kilometers (about 6 miles) south of the Damascus
International Exhibition – discovered monitoring devices allegedly
placed there by Israeli forces.
The Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) and SANA both reported that at
least three Israeli aircraft struck Syrian military positions, followed
by reports of helicopters operating in the area. Syrian media said the
initial strikes killed at least eight soldiers from the army's 44th
Division.
Deadly Minnesota school shooting reflects tragic cost of a disordered society — including Dem leaders who lost the plot
If ever there
were an example of the perils of the Democrat approach to crime and
social disorder, it is Minneapolis, ground zero of the George
Floyd/defund-the-police movement that roiled the country five years
ago, and a “sanctuary transgender state.”
The deadly mass
shooting of small children at Mass at Annunciation Catholic School
Wednesday brings home the tragic cost of a disordered society, where
evil rampages unchecked and those who would protect the vulnerable are
handcuffed and pushed away.
It’s too early
to say exactly how, or even if, the tragedy could have been prevented.
Yet Minnesota Democrats already have reached for their lazy gun-control
mantra, in a state that has among the strictest gun laws in the country.
Of course, they
remain silent about the anti-Christian radical gender ideology that
appears to have driven the latest spate of school shootings, from the
murders at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tenn., in November 2023,
and at the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wis., in December
2024, to Wednesday’s rampage.
MORNING GLORY: President Trump and the Posse Comitatus Act
The
president’s deployment of the National Guard in roles usually reserved
for local police summons up a thousand references to a nearly 150-year
old statute
The Posse
Comitatus Act of 1878, as amended, provides that "Whoever, except in
cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution
or an Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army, the Navy,
the Marine Corps, the Air Force, or the Space Force as a posse
comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this
title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."
No one has ever been prosecuted under the act, and it has rarely been the subject of comment by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Brennan
Center for Justice, a non-partisan, but decidedly liberal law and
policy center, noted that the law has "ignominious origins" in the
collapse of Reconstruction.
The return to
power of white Southern Democrats in federal and state offices after
Reconstruction ended in 1877-1878 led to the rapid introduction and
enforcement of Jim Crow laws over the shattered Confederacy as Union
troops were withdrawn over the defeated areas of rebellion. (The last
federal troops of the Reconstruction Era were withdrawn on April 24,
1877, on orders from President Rutherford B. Hayes from the state house
in Louisiana — the last federally defended state house in the South.)
The presence and power of the Union troops were reviled by the defeated
partisans of the Confederacy and the military governments whose will
they enforced proved ineffective in reforming the law and practices of
the Old South. Following the Compromise of 1876, some Republicans of
that era joined Democrats to pass the statute to assure that military
government would not return to the South.
