I’m thinking Don Henley was onto something when he described Shannon Bream’s reporting in 1982.

Giving reasonable discussion to the DSA co-chair from New York, Ms. Bream debates the value and benefit of the DSA platform for American civics.  WATCH:

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The relationship between George Clooney and Barack Obama is well known and well documented.  However, there are some interesting aspects that fill in a story and highlight how the constructs of U.S. political circles are always managed.

The origin of Clooney’s intersection with the Chicago machine likely begins during his time as an actor playing the role of Dr. Doug Ross in the TV series ER (circa mid 1990’s).  The show was based in Chicago.

Fast forward a few years, and Clooney was considered an alternate fellow traveler for potential as an insurance policy during the 2012 reelection of Obama.

There was always a problem for George Clooney in the political world which centered around his intelligence.

Clooney is not a smart fellow, and efforts to educate him on matters of strategic politics were doomed to failure. He was not competent as lead; the male AOC of his time.

However, in 2012 those who control the mechanisms of Democrat politics were worried about the reelection of Obama when contrast with the chaos created by the Arab Spring, which he purposefully triggered.

Enter Amal Alamuddin, an international “human rights” lawyer with significant leftist bona-fides.  Amal Alamuddin was Lebanese and British. In/around mid-2012, Clooney was told by his lawyer that Amal was coming to his home on the Amalfi coast of Italy; the lawyer said, “This is the woman you need to marry.”

Given the frustration of Clooney’s intellectual challenges, the objective was to immerse Clooney in competency and see if it would rub off.  Controlled leftism is always following a similar playbook (again, see AOC as a reference).

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The suspect who drove a van into a crowded gay-pride celebration was shot and killed by police following a manhunt. Abdul Ballout, a German citizen with Lebanese roots, was killed following a search that lasted nearly 24 hours after the attack in downtown Berlin. {SOURCE}

KNOWN WOLF -The background of 21-year-old terrorist Abdul Ballout is a case study in failure by European authorities.  Ballout previously travelled to Lebanon in 2025 to join ISIS in Syria.  He was identified by German authorities as an ISIS terrorist and arrested in Lebanon where he served three months in prison and was returned to Germany.

Abdul Ballout was arrested at the Berlin airport upon return and was convicted in May of this year for preparing a serious act of violence endangering the state, as well as publishing Islamic State propaganda on his Instagram account and other charges.  He was sentenced to 1 year, 10-months in prison but the sentence was suspended for time served; he was released from custody.

(Via Associated Press) – BERLIN (AP) — The suspect in the deadly Berlin Pride attack that left one person dead and 29 injured was shot and killed by police during a confrontation on Sunday in a suburb of the city, authorities said.

Abdul Ballout, a German citizen with Lebanese roots, was killed following a search that lasted nearly 24 hours after the attack in downtown Berlin. Berlin prosecutors said the suspect had previously sought to join the militant Islamic State group. (read more)

The ironic aspect to this particular attack is the cultural sensitivity of his victims.  Abdul Ballout killed the same people who march in the streets to protect Islamists from the consequences of their ideology.

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In an effort to keep the Daily Open Thread a little more open topic we are going to start a new daily thread for “Presidential Politics”. Please use this thread to post anything relating to the Donald Trump Administration and Presidency.

This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.

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Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.

For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †

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A white van drove into a crowd of the alphabet supporters at the big gay pride event in Berlin, Germany.  At least one person is killed with many more reported as injured.  Police are looking for the suspect who drove away.

Berlin AP — A van slammed into people gathered for Berlin’s famed LGBTQ+ event on Saturday, killing one person, injuring at least 15 others and prompting police to call off the celebrations and a concert in the German capital hours after they had begun.

Police said some of the victims had life-threatening injuries. Firefighters, ambulances and event emergency staffers were attending to the victims.

In a post on X, police called on everyone to leave the site of the event immediately. According to police, a white van had driven into the Tiergarten park, which is next to the route that the pride march had passed along earlier, and hit several people before colliding with a tree. Police could not say how many officers had been deployed to the scene but that it was “definitely a lot of police.” (read more)

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If you thought Ukraine was busy defending itself and launching counterattacks against Russia, think again.

Apparently, unbeknownst to the rest of the world Ukraine was launching geo-synchronous satellites over the Middle East, deploying proprietary signals intelligence intercepts between Russia and Iran, and conducting covert surveillance operations, in addition to weaving sweaters for homeless kittens from Zelenskyy’s hair… or something.

But seriously, read this:

[SOURCE]

Isn’t he just the most magnanimous little fella?  Not only is he singlehandedly going to win a war against Russia, but he’s going to take a few minutes break and win the war against Iran for everyone.  What a guy.

The last few weeks have been a tidal wave of weird and sketchy stuff that indicates some form of NATO intelligence operation is underway.

This round of sketchy started with that trip to London to meet the coalition of the willing and King Charles; followed two days later with the surprising “drone” attack on the Dormition Cathedral of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, which bore all the same hallmarks as the Nordstream pipeline attack, which was immediately before the G7 meeting in Paris and perfectly set up the horrible Russia theme for the summit.

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The contractor responsible for the software used by the New Jersey Dept of Motor Vehicles to uplink voter registration to the state elections office is now saying their software did not cause 6,600 illegal aliens to be registered voters.

Someone in New Jersey government had to create that link to register the voters.

The USA Today has responses from IDEMIA, a France-based company that provides technology for issuing identity documents also used by 36 different states.

[…] IDEMIA spokeswoman Lisa Shoemaker told USA TODAY on July 23 that “the characterization that a glitch occurred is not accurate.”

”There was no glitch or software error,” said Shoemaker, whose firm also handles a wide array of federal contracts, including TSA Pre-Check at airports and “biometric and secure identity solutions” at the Pentagon.

[…] IDEMIA, which says it produces the majority of drivers’ licenses in the United States, has contracts with motor vehicle departments in 36 states.

Shoemaker told USA TODAY the firm followed the written specifications issued by New Jersey in 2023, when it won a contract to collect self-attested responses, including a box to check about interest in registering to vote for people applying for or renewing a driver’s license or state-issued identification card.

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A Canadian intern at NATO military headquarters in Belgium was arrested for espionage.  The name of the intern is Chinese, but to protect the Canadian government from embarrassment the nation the woman was spying for remains undisclosed.  Go figure.

The Chinese influence operations within Canadian government and politics is a subject that has been disclosed over the past few years with a great deal of consternation inside Canada.   The intern was within the SHAPE operation.

SHAPE is a strategic headquarters. Its role is to prepare, plan, conduct and execute NATO military operations, missions and tasks in order to achieve the strategic objectives of the Alliance. {Source}

SHAPE is the tip of the NATO spear on what’s called Forward Land Forces (FLF), currently operating in Eastern Europe on a mission to support the Ukraine military objectives. {SOURCE}

So, this Chinese spy from Canada was operating inside the NATO military operation that was supporting the weapon supply system for Ukraine.

(NYT) – The authorities in Belgium said on Saturday that a Canadian intern at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s military headquarters had been arrested on suspicion of spying for another country.

The Belgian Federal Prosecutor’s Office said the woman was “of Chinese origin” and was arrested on Friday. “She is suspected of spying on behalf of a third country and of being a member of a criminal organization,” it said in a statement, which did not identify the country or the criminal organization.

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Most casual EU observers have missed the connection between President Trump eliminating the U.S-Europe Marshall Plan via entirely new trade and tariff policies, and the aggregate financial collapse of the European Union.

Over four years (1948-1952), the United States provided $13.3 billion (equivalent to approximately $137 billion in 2025) directly to 17 Western European countries, including the United Kingdom, France, West Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. The intent was to rebuild Europe after World War II. However, included in the plan was a later system of one-way tariffs, where EU Countries would high-tariff U.S. goods and the U.S. would not tariff EU goods imported.

The direct funding ended in 1952, but the indirect funding via tariffs never ended until President Donald J Trump triggered reciprocal tariffs against Europe thereby removing the one-way benefit. This created an immediate and growing problem for Europe – particularly noted in the EU industrial base.

Simultaneous to this EU tariff reset, President Trump levied tariffs against China. To offset the possibility of economic losses, and specifically to fund Beijing’s subsidies to impacted Chinese manufacturing, China stopped purchasing European industrial machines. [That’s the source of the picture above at the G7 in Canada]

This trade and tariff approach hit Europe twice as hard. First from American tariffs and second from diminished Chinese industrial purchasing. Immediately, Europe started looking for alternate sources of funds. That’s where the idea to tax American tech companies entered the discussion in Brussels. Today, President Trump addressed this directly.

TRUTH SOCIAL – “The European Union is at it again and, as usual, taking direct aim at GREAT American Companies! After having fined Apple, for no reason at all, 15 Billion Dollars, Meta, 3 Billion Dollars, Amazon 2.5 Billion Dollars, and many others, we have just been informed that Google, a truly advanced and amazing group, has been fined yet another 1 Billion Dollars, without explanation. This brings the Google total to over 18 Billion Dollars!

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