Hunter Biden trashes Dems, Obama bros, George Clooney for betraying his father
Former President Joe Biden's notoriously troubled second son sat for a wide-ranging three-hour interview with YouTuber Andrew Callaghan. And while their conversation about Hunter's struggles with alcohol and drugs will certainly be interesting to many people, it was Hunter's comments about the Democratic establishment that most struck me.
You see, Hunter is furious with the leaders of the Democratic Party for, in his view, betraying his dad. Here he was railing against Jon Favreau and the rest of the Obama bros at 'Pod Save America.'
'For some reason, the intelligentsia of the Democratic Party, with 2020 hindsight, believes that Joe Biden should have considered not running again, because of their perception that he was too old. And so then the drumbeat began. […] The New York Times, on a near daily basis, Anon by the 'Pod Save America' saviors of the Democratic Party — what, four white millionaires that are dining out on their association with Barack Obama from 16 years ago, living in Beverly f–king Hills telling the rest of the world what Black voters in South Carolina really want, or what the women, the waitress living outside of Green Bay, Wis., really believes.'
Hunter also addressed his father's bad debate performance, which effectively ended Joe Biden's campaign:
'And I'll tell ya wait, I know exactly what happened in that debate. He flew around the world basically — the mileage, that he could have flown around the world three times, he's 81 years old, he's tired as s–t, they give him Ambien to be able to sleep, he gets up on the stage and he looks like he's a deer in the headlights. And it feeds into every f–king story that anybody wants to tell.'
Ambien! He blamed Ambien!
I would just note that when Roseanne Barr sent that offensive tweet about Valerie Jarrett — the one that ended her career — she eventually explained that it was partly due to her taking Ambien. In response, the drug company that makes Ambien released a statement saying that Ambien does not cause racism. I can't wait for Ambien to put out a statement saying the drug doesn't transform you into a bad president either. But I digress.
Hunter Biden also railed against George Clooney, and implied that it was the actor's ego that prompted him to melt down and publish an op-ed in The New York Times encouraging Biden to get out of the race. Clooney was apparently offended that Biden didn't immediately recognize him at a fundraiser, a detail that was previously reported in 'Original Sin,' the Jake Tapper-Alex Thompson book.
'F–k George Clooney,' says Hunter in no uncertain terms.
Now, conservatives are certainly enjoying watching Hunter Biden rail against all these people that they too don't like: the Obama Bros, Nancy Pelosi, George Clooney, David Axelrod, and on and on and on. I too am amused by watching this man savage the Democratic intelligentsia. But we should also face facts: The Democratic Party betrayed Biden for good reason. Their only mistake was not doing so earlier. Love him or hate him, Biden was not capable of serving another term, and his inner circle tried to conceal that fact from the voters.
Hunter is loyal to his dad, and that's understandable. But the Biden family is simply delusional about this. There was no way that Biden was going to win the election, and there was no way he could continue to serve as president if he somehow did win. It's insulting to our intelligence to pretend otherwise. So while I appreciate Hunter's willingness to speak his mind, and his openness to challenging other authority figures in Democratic circles, he's dead wrong on the substance here.
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UPI
4 minutes ago
- UPI
State Department to burn birth control worth $9.7M meant for poor nations
The U.S. government plans to destroy $9.7 million of contraceptives for poor nations, mainly in Africa, after the nation "explored all possible options to prevent the destruction." UPI file photo | License Photo July 27 (UPI) -- The U.S. government plans to destroy a stockpile of contraceptives worth $9.7 million for poor nations, mainly in Africa, after the State Department "explored all possible options to prevent the destruction." The contraceptives include nearly 2 million doses of injectables, 900,000 implantable devices and more than 2 million oral packets, according to internal auditing in April obtained by The Washington Post. Chelsea Polis, a researcher with Guttsmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights, told the newspaper that the contraceptives could provide more than 650,000 women with pregnancy protection for up to one year and 950,000 women for three years. U.S. laws and rules prohibit sending U.S. aid to organizations that provide abortion services, counsel about the procedure or advocate for the right overseas. "The State Department confirms that a preliminary decision was made to destroy certain abortifacient birth control commodities from terminated Biden-era USAID contracts," a spokesperson said in a statement. "Only a limited number of commodities have been approved for disposal. No HIV medications or condoms are being destroyed." The destruction will cost $167,000, the spokesperson said. Most contraceptives have less than 70% of shelf life before expiration, the spokesperson said. The Guardian contacted an aide who visited the warehouse in Belgium and found the earliest expiration date was 2027. Two-thirds didn't have any labels. Belgium, the United Nations and humanitarian groups said they unsuccessfully stopped the destruction plans for the contraceptives. The U.S. Agency for International Development, which Trump disbanded and merged into the State Department, was to have distributed them. They are part of a $9.5 billion program over 10 years to provide aid to more than 40 nations. The government said it based its decision on a policy that restricts funding for reproductive-related actions in the Mexico City Policy and the Kemp-Kasten amendment. President Ronald Reagan instituted the policy in 1985 and it has become a political issue. It has rescinded by Democratic presidents and reinstated by Republicans several times, including by President Donald Trump when he returned to office in January. A bipartisan group of U.S. legislators doesn't want the contraceptives to be destroyed, including Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Democrats Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Brian Schatz of Hawaii. "This is a waste of U.S. taxpayer dollars and an abdication of U.S. global leadership in preventing unintended pregnancies, unsafe abortions and maternal deaths," said Shaheen, who in June sent a letter to the Secretary of State Marco Rubio about the matter. The U.N. Population Fund and the International Planned Parenthood Federation were interested in receiving the contraceptives. "UNFPA was in conversation with Chemonics about purchasing the contraceptives but didn't receive an answer from them," UNFPA spokesman Eddie Wright said. "It's the height of hypocrisy for a government to preach efficiency and cutting waste, only to turn around and recklessly destroy lifesaving supplies when the need has never been greater," Micah Grzywnowicz, regional director of the International Planned Parenthood Federation European Network, said in a statement MSI Reproductive Choices offered to pay for shipping and repackaging. MSI provides abortion services. "The complete dismantling of the world's largest donor for international family planning has been a catastrophe for the global supply chain of contraceptives," said Sarah Shaw, associate director of advocacy and for the organization. Sub-Saharan Africa has experienced an increase in teen births, according to a study at Columbia University in 2024. The number of births climbed from 4.5 million births in 2000 to 6.1 million in 2021as they decreased in the rest of the world. In Africa, 30% of all woman use birth control but more than half would use it if available, according to DebboAfrica, a healthcare company for African women. Worldwide, around half of women of reproductive age of 15-19 use some form of contraception, according to Focus2030. Foreign aid cuts could lead to more than 14 million additional deaths by 2023, including two-thirds children, according to a study published in Lancet earlier this month. Congress earlier this month passed legislation to remove $8 billion in foreign assistance. The Atlantic reported earlier this month that 551 tons of emergency food were expiring and will be incinerated rather than being fed to almost 1.5 million children in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Almost 800,000 Mpox vaccines to be sent to Africa also are not usable because they are past their expiration date, Politico reported earlier this month.
Miami Herald
22 minutes ago
- Miami Herald
A clash over a promotion puts Hegseth at odds with his generals
WASHINGTON - In the spring, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth decided not to promote a senior Army officer who had led troops over five tours in Afghanistan and Iraq because Hegseth suspected, without evidence, that the officer had leaked sensitive information to the news media, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. When Lt. Gen. Douglas A. Sims II was cleared of the allegations, Hegseth briefly agreed to promote him, only to change course again early this month, the officials said. This time, Hegseth maintained that the senior officer was too close to Gen. Mark Milley, a former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff whom President Donald Trump has accused of disloyalty. Hegseth's sudden reversal prompted a rare intervention from Gen. Dan Caine, the current chair of the Joint Chiefs. He urged Hegseth to reconsider, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Hegseth met with Sims one final time but refused to budge. Sims is expected to retire in the coming months after 34 years in the military, officials said. Through a spokesperson, Sims and Caine declined to comment. A Pentagon spokesperson declined to comment on Hegseth's role. The standoff over his promotion reflects an ongoing clash between Hegseth's highly partisan worldview, in which he has written that the Democratic Party 'really does hate America,' and the long-standing tradition of an apolitical military that pledges an oath to the Constitution. Hegseth's actions could shape the military's top ranks for years to come. His insistence on absolute loyalty, backed with repeated threats of polygraphs, also creates uncertainty and mistrust that threaten to undermine the readiness and effectiveness of the force, officials said. The tension between top military officers and their civilian leaders has been persistent since the earliest days of Trump's second term, when senior administration officials ordered the removal of Milley's portrait from a Pentagon hallway. Caine, who pressed Hegseth on Sims' behalf, got the job of Joint Chiefs chair after Hegseth and Trump fired Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., his predecessor. Hegseth accused Brown, who is Black, of prioritizing diversity over the combat effectiveness of the force. Also removed during the first months of the new administration were the first woman to command the Navy, Adm. Lisa Franchetti; the first woman to command the Coast Guard, Adm. Linda Fagan; Hegseth's senior military assistant, Lt. Gen. Jennifer Short; and the U.S. military representative to the NATO military committee, Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield. All were dismissed as part of a campaign to root out diversity, equity and inclusion from the military and restore what Hegseth has described as a 'warrior ethos.' Hegseth also recently withdrew the nomination of Rear Adm. Michael 'Buzz' Donnelly to lead the Navy's 7th Fleet in Japan -- its largest overseas force -- amid reports in conservative media that seven years earlier the admiral had allowed a drag performance to take place on the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan. The decision not to promote Sims, who is white, seems unrelated to any issues of race or gender. Rather, the general's career seems to have become tangled up in broader suspicions about leaks and a mistrust of senior military officers that have defined much of Hegseth's first six months on the job. Hegseth, a former Fox News host and an Iraq War veteran, came to the Pentagon with little managerial experience. Since his arrival, a series of firings and resignations in his inner circle have left him with only a skeleton staff of civilian aides to run his office. He has been without a permanent chief of staff since late April. Ricky Buria, a recently retired Marine colonel who has forged a close relationship with Hegseth, has been serving in the critical role. But White House officials, who have concerns about Buria's competence and qualifications, have blocked Hegseth from formally appointing him to the job, officials said. Buria, meanwhile, has clashed repeatedly with many of Hegseth's closest aides and some officers in the Pentagon. This spring, Eric Geressy, a retired sergeant major who served with Hegseth in Iraq and now advises him in the Pentagon, threatened to quit after an argument with Buria, according to people with knowledge of the situation. Around the same time, the White House directed Hegseth to cease using polygraph tests on his team, after one of his senior aides complained, a former Pentagon official said. The rift and the decision to stop the polygraph testing were reported earlier by The Washington Post. Geressy briefly went to his home in Florida before Hegseth persuaded him to return, officials said. Hegseth is also still contending with a review by the Pentagon's inspector general related to his disclosure on the Signal messaging app of the precise timing of U.S. fighter jets' airstrikes against the Iranian-backed Houthi militia in Yemen in March. The office has received evidence that the information that Hegseth put in the commercial chat app came from a classified Central Command document, according to two U.S. officials with knowledge of the review. The classified origins of the information were reported earlier by the Post. The infighting, investigations and personnel churn have strained Hegseth's ability to manage critical operations in the Pentagon. Hegseth found himself in the crosshairs this month after Democrats and Republicans in Congress blamed him for pausing critical shipments of interceptors and other arms to Ukraine without sufficiently consulting with the White House or the State Department. The suspension was particularly jarring because just days earlier Trump had said he was open to selling more weapons to Ukraine after meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines of a NATO meeting in The Hague. It also left the impression that Hegseth and his top aides had failed to keep the president and senior White House officials in the loop. As aides to Hegseth traded blame, and then tried to play down the impact of the pause, Trump dramatically overruled the Pentagon, saying he was unhappy with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. In a further twist, Trump endorsed a plan for NATO countries to send Patriot antimissile systems to Ukraine and replace them by purchasing new arms from the United States. It was an approach conceived by NATO countries. Hegseth has delegated responsibility for working out details of the arms transfers to senior U.S. military officers in Europe. The frustration with Hegseth is seeping out. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who cast the deciding vote to confirm Hegseth, this month called him ill-suited to lead the Pentagon. 'With the passing of time, I think it's clear he's out of his depth as a manager of a large, complex organization,' Tillis told CNN. For now, Hegseth's missteps do not seem to have hurt his standing with the person who matters most: Trump. Like Trump, Hegseth had a career in television before joining the administration and relishes the performative aspects of his job. As defense secretary, he regularly posts videos that show him exercising with troops. The photo ops -- known inside the Pentagon as 'troop touches' -- are a central part of almost all his public appearances, current and former aides said. Several officials have complained that the photos and videos -- including one that he posted from Omaha Beach in Normandy in which he joins Army Rangers carrying a soldier on a stretcher as part of D-Day remembrances -- are distractions that serve primarily to bolster his image. Anna Kelly, a White House spokesperson, said that Hegseth retained Trump's 'full confidence' and cited the 'critical role' he played 'in ensuring the flawless execution' of the strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in June. Current and former military officials said that Trump largely bypassed Hegseth in the days leading up to the strikes and instead relied on Caine and Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, the head of Central Command, for counsel. But officials with knowledge of the president's thinking said Trump especially admired his defense secretary's combative response at a news conference to reports questioning the effectiveness of the attack. Today Hegseth is managing the Pentagon with a smaller immediate staff than when he started in January. Several top aides were forced out or quit. In late April, three top aides were fired and escorted from the building. Hegseth has repeatedly accused them, without offering evidence, of leaking classified information to the media. The fired aides, who have not been charged with any wrongdoing, were recently told that an investigation into the allegations against them was in its final stages and would soon be shared with the Pentagon's senior leaders, officials said. In the wake of their dismissal and a series of negative stories about Hegseth's performance in the job, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, offered a window into how Hegseth views the department he now runs. 'This is what happens when the entire Pentagon is working against you and working against the monumental change you are trying to implement,' she said. That same spirit seems to animate the Pentagon today. Only a few months ago, Sims' promotion to four stars seemed to be a given. Of the last 21 officers to hold his current position, 19 were promoted to four-star rank. 'He's the type of person you would want your kids serving under -- extremely dedicated, selfless and loyal,' said Brynt Parmeter, who stepped down in June as the Pentagon's chief talent management officer and has known Sims for more than three decades. The Pentagon gave a more muted assessment. In a statement, Sean Parnell, the Pentagon's chief spokesperson, thanked Sims for his 'decades of service.' 'We wish him well in his future endeavors,' Parnell wrote. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Copyright 2025
Miami Herald
22 minutes ago
- Miami Herald
Calif., Illinois may fight new Texas congressional maps with their own
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More than a dozen Texas House members flew to Illinois and California -- two blue states -- on Friday for a meeting with California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzkeper, during which they revealed their intentions. 'Donald Trump called up Governor Abbott for one simple reason: to rig the 2026 elections. California's moral high ground means nothing if we're powerless because of it,' Newsom said after meeting with Democrats from the Texas House. 'This moment requires us to be prepared to fight fire with fire. Whether that's a special election, a ballot initiative, a bill, a fight in court. If they proceed in Texas, we will be ready.' 'This is not a bluff. This is real, and trust me, it's more real after listening to these leaders today, how existential this is,' Newsom said. As the most populous state in the nation, California has 43 Democratic members of the house and nine Republican members, while Illinois is represented by 14 Democrats and three Republicans. 'Everything is on the table,' Pritzer said. The Illinois governor said he doesn't want to redraw the maps but 'if they're going to take this drastic action, then we might also take drastic action to respond.' 'We want the country to understand [that] what's going on in Texas is a national battle,' State Rep. Richard Pena Raymond, a Democrat from Laredo, said. Raymond told Pritzner that redistricting is 'clearly aimed at affecting the entire country.' Responsibility for determining Congressional district maps differs from state to state. In California, an independent commission approved by voters in 2010 works on the maps. Illinois maps, on the other hand, are put together by the state lawmakers have been drawn strongly to favor the Democrat Party in the state. Newsom said he is considering having a referendum to change the rules before the 2026 election, unless the Legislature comes up with another solution, which would take two-thirds of legislators voting in favor of. 'We have to fight fire with fire,' Newsom said. Two other Democratic governors are considering new maps -- Phil Murphy in New Jersey and Kathy Hochul in New York. 'There's other states that are violating the rules,' Hochul said during a news conference on Thursday. 'I'm going to look at it closely with Hakeem Jeffries,' a New York member of the House, as well has House minority leader. In New York, Democrats have a 19-7 advantage as a result of their districting maps. 'It's deplorable,' Murphy said during an interview at the summer meeting of the bipartisan National Governors Association in Colorado Springs. 'If they're going to play these games, we're going to have to be just as aggressive. We can't bring a knife to a gunfight.' Democrats hold nine of the 12 seats in New Jersey. In Florida, the state Supreme Court on July 17 upheld its newest congressional map. He said he believes the state had been 'malappropriated' and redistricting 'would be appropriate' in a few years. Florida's congressional delegation is controlled by Republicans, 20-8. In Ohio, legislators are required to redraw maps before 2026. The GOP has 10 of the 15 seats. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis is against redistricting more frequently. The state's maps are overseen by an independent commission and it's eight U.S. House seats are evenly split 4-4. Texas last redrew its borders in mid-cycle in 2003 after the GOP gained control of both chambers for the first time since Reconstruction. In Texas, Abbott noted a July 7 letter from the Justice Department that said majority Black and Hispanic districts in Dallas need to be redrawn based on a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit last year. The DOJ said those districts are 'unconstitutional racial gerrymanders,' but Abbott argued the opposite in 2021. In federal court in El Paso, he argued race had not been taken into account there. 'We are no longer compelled to have coalition districts,' Abbott said in an interview with KDFW in Dallas. U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, a San Antonio Democrat, appeared at a state House hearing. 'That's what's at stake here, whether you all are going to work for the people of Texas, as we used to do, to try to do, or whether you take your commandments from Donald Trump and the White House,' Castro said. 'I hope that you all will choose to do the business of the people of Texas, as this body has a history of being independent from the federal government.' Copyright 2025 UPI News Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
