Presumptuous Politics

Monday, September 14, 2026

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Trump: 'Whoever Wins AI Wins'

WFLA NEWS on X: ""Whoever wins with AI wins," President Trump told  reporters during a weekend trip to Ireland. https://t.co/K08YTqacZS" / X

 President Donald Trump said on Sunday a lot of "very negative forces" are bringing things up about AI that won't happen and said that he wanted to make sure that the United States remains the industry leader.

"We're leading China ‌in AI. We're the most sophisticated country in the world, ​and frankly I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI wins," Trump, at his Ireland golf course, ⁠told reporters when asked if the AI industry should slow down or ​be more regulated.

"We could put guardrails. We can do this and ⁠that. But I think you have a lot of very negative forces that are bringing it up that shouldn't be bringing it up and they're bringing up things that won't ‌happen."

Trump has resisted stirring concerns about AI.

His latest comments come ​after a week ‌of concerns in the United States after two Anthropic researchers issued warnings that rapidly progressing artificial intelligence ‌could lead to the extinction of the human race in the not-too-distant future.

In his second term, Trump's administration has largely embraced AI firms. These ⁠AI leaders and other technology companies ‌have also supported Trump's ⁠initiatives.

Yet, the Pentagon earlier this year warned of risks from Anthropic's model.

After the researcher warnings, ⁠some ⁠AI CEOs are pushing for slowing advancement of the models.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on Saturday outlined a ‌three-step framework intended to pace development and create more time to manage its risks.

Jacob Coxon, one of the Anthropic researchers who resigned and then issued the warnings, ‌pushed for ​the U.S. to work ‌with other countries to ensure pace.

"I feel we need international coordination, or else we risk running the same race with China, which ​could be equally dangerous," Coxon said on NBC's Meet the Press.

© 2026 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.

New: Talarico Gets Nailed for Another Whopper About His Donations That Leaves Jaws Dropping

New: Talarico Gets Nailed for Another Whopper About His Donations That Leaves Jaws Dropping

Democrat Texas Senate nominee James Talarico has been slinging those whoppers this week. 

First, there was the lie that his interview with Jimmy Kimmel had somehow been "banned," when it was ABC's decision not to run it on the regular show because they didn't want to deal with the equal time rule.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) head, Brendan Carr,

It's the threats that are the point': How Brendan Carr exerts his FCC power  - POLITICO 

 called Talarico's claim out as a "hoax" to get "clicks and donations."

But Talarico wasn't done yet. 

You hear it all the time from leftist candidates. They're always attacking the "billionaires." As an adjunct to that, some play this "we are pure" game where they act like they aren't getting money from the billionaires. Talarico claimed when he won his primary in March, “We already know who we’re running against: The billionaire megadonors and their corrupt political system." 

Listen as Talarico again states that he doesn't take corporate PAC money and that "all his money comes from hard-working Texans." 

Except, as the tweet above notes, this claim isn't true; he was literally in California just days ago to do fundraising, as we previously reported. That's why he was able to be on Kimmel's show. 



Imagine calling either one of those people, Talarico or Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA), "visionaries." Tickets to the Hollywood event ranged in price from $1,000 to $27,000. 

It's just another false claim that he hasn't got money from people outside of Texas. And that fundraising trip wasn't even his only one to California; he had at least four in April, courting big Democrat donors with ties to the tech industry. 

He got nailed by a deluge of people calling this out on X. 

Can we also talk about the money Talarico got from billionaire Reid Hoffman, Jeffrey Epstein's buddy? 

Reid Hoffman, the LinkedIn co-founder and prominent billionaire venture capitalist, last month donated $10 million to the main super PAC supporting Democratic U.S. Senate nominee James Talarico, according to newly filed Federal Election Committee records.

While other donors chipped in five‑ and six‑figure sums, Hoffman’s contribution alone was nearly 80% of the second‑quarter haul reported by Lone Star Rising, which took in almost $13 million between April and June. That’s on top of Hoffman’s previous donations of $1 million in February and $500,000 in January.

That's a ton of money from a billionaire, and last I checked, Hoffman lived in California. You can see other billionaires and rich donors here.

He's literally the guy getting money from the coastal elite, as he tries to complain about Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the state's GOP Senate nominee. 

So Talarico's remarks with Kimmel take a special kind of gall. 

He's selling himself as something different. He's different, alright. Just not the "different" anyone would want in office. 

Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.

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Trump Savages AOC and Mamdani for Their Sick Laughter at 9/11 Ceremony

Trump Savages AOC and Mamdani for Their Sick Laughter at 9/11 Ceremony

The video showed a moment that no seasoned politician — or at least not one who loved America — would have let happen.

They would instinctively know that yucking it up at a somber ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of 9/11 would be the height of indecency and impropriety. Yet there they were, two prominent Democratic socialists, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14) and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, laughing and grinning as the names of the almost 3,000 victims killed by radical Islamic terrorists were read out loud.

As our Kyle Becker reported, it was a sick scene:

Listen, I’ve been at plenty of somber occasions, and it’s not unheard of to make a joke under your breath to lighten the tension. But if you’re a decent person, you do it quietly, respectfully, and you don’t start laughing during an emotionally charged portion of the event where they’re talking about the tragic deaths of innocent people.

You just don’t do it.

President Donald Trump, fresh off the GOP midterm convention where he blasted the extremist Democrats and socialists, noticed — and he was not impressed.

🚨 NOW: Donald Trump is FURIOUS after Ugandan Mayor Mamdani and AOC laughed while 9/11 victims names were read

“It’s TERRIBLE — the fact they laughed together in a VERY important part of the ceremony was inappropriate!”

Eric Daugherty, who has a large social media presence and is Chief Content Officer at Florida’s Voice, continued in the above tweet with his own conclusion:

I think Mamdani should resign. But we all know he will CLING to power and keep pushing his Islamist propaganda

New York is being overrun with foreign voters, which is the prime reason Mamdani got elected!

WAKE UP AND STOP FORGETTING 9/11 🙏🏻

As our Jennifer Oliver O’Connell wrote, the reactions to Mamdani and AOC’s antics were swift and brutal, as they should have been.

"As the names of Americans murdered on September 11th are read aloud at Ground Zero, AOC and Mamdani are laughing and smiling together," Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Texas, wrote on X.

"There is a time and a place for politics. This isn’t it. Ground Zero is sacred ground," Hunt added. "September 11 is not a photo op, it is not a networking event."

Of course, leftists close ranks when they are exposed, but the most laughable defense came, strangely, from Michael Ragusa, a former Republican candidate for New York City Council who once provided executive protection for former Mayor Rudy Giuliani. He said the viral moment never happened:

 

Sorry to burst your bubble, Michael, but the moment is on tape. You should know that just because you didn’t personally witness something doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

As The Byrds famously sang in 1965, there is a proper time for things:

A time to be born, a time to die

A time to plant, a time to reap

A time to kill, a time to heal

A time to laugh, a time to weep

The reading aloud of the names of the 9/11 victims was not the time to laugh; it was the time to weep. Leftists will insist that it was just a quick, misunderstood moment, but we know better.

AOC’s rapturous smile and Mamdani’s devious grin had no place in that time and place, and I don’t think it’s a bridge too far to say that it reveals everything we need to know about them.

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Don’t Believe the Hype About James Talarico

Don’t Believe the Hype About James Talarico

When Vice President JD Vance told the midterm convention audience that he had absolutely no desire to see James Talarico’s browser history, it got a good laugh. Talarico has that weird, smarmy creepiness thing going on, combined with casual blasphemy, a hatred of capitalism, and the sensibilities of a white-wine woman who works in HR and celebrates Kwanzaa. He’s a terrible fit for America, and an unimaginable fit for Texas.

But people are imagining it. They’re imagining it hard, especially people outside Texas. If you listen to the pollsters- and you should never listen to the pollsters- he’s either neck-and-neck with Ken Paxton or beating the TX AG handily. The smart set contends that Texas is about to tumble into the blue chasm at the hands of a guy who’s less Beto’s heir than Pete Buttigieg’s grinning Mini-Me. So, I decided, now that I’m back at my Texas house for the fall, to see for myself what’s really going on. Here’s what I found.

Not much. I am not seeing the Talaricomania.

I was here in Texas during Betomania, and the big difference is that Betomania existed. He excited people. He was young and cute, and they were willing to overlook his communism and his furry dalliance to surf his sporty vibe. You saw Beto signs everywhere, and you could also feel that people were interested in the guy. In the end, he came pretty close to beating Sen. Ted Cruz (T-TX). But close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and #MeToo allegations, which Talarico’s allies seem to have planted about him as part of a strategy of deception.

I drove about 1,000 miles through Texas on my trek from Los Angeles because Barkey and Bitey don’t fly, and the first Talarico sign I saw was in my left-leaning Houston neighborhood. Eight years ago, I would’ve seen a ton of Beto signs. They would’ve been everywhere. Is that proof of anything? After all, I didn’t see any Paxton signs either, but Paxton seems to have adopted a different strategy, one that doesn’t count on sending his party’s base into a frenzy of excitement. But Talarico desperately needs to generate a frenzy of excitement to win. So, where is it?

In my neighborhood, Talarico signs are out in front of a few houses, probably one or two per block, and they are on exactly the houses you would expect — the ones with the rainbow flags, the ones with the Ukrainian flags, the ones with the Priuses, the ones with the many, many cats. If you’re conservative around here, the way you show it is to hang a big American flag out front. That’s the first thing I do when I arrive in Texas after I slide a loaded 9mm into my belt. Every few houses has a big American flag out front, but none of them — zero, nil, the number of real girlfriends I believe Talarico ever had — has a Talarico sign. Of course, Talarico considers our flag a “complicated symbol.

The houses that do have Talarico signs often also have signs for other Democrats, indicating that it’s an activist who always posts a sign for whatever communist retread the Democrats want to sacrifice on the altar of turning Texas blue that cycle. In other words, Talaricomania hasn’t spread to the mainstream. It’s a bespoke pathology for the kind of activist-class malcontent who has time to go to No Kings rallies. 

Campaign signs aren’t determinative, but they’re not nothing. They are simply part of the body of evidence that I’m seeing here on the ground in the Lone Star State that this whole Talarico groundswell is a Potemkin campaign.

There are other indicators as well. There are a good number of Talarico media ads here in Houston, most accusing Ken Paxton of being super-corrupt. However, it’s not clear exactly what his alleged corruption actually is. I’m not sure that’s a great strategy to peel off queasy Republicans in an environment of super-partisanship where the Democrats want to take your guns, have perverts leer at your daughter in her locker room, and cut off your son’s penis if he glances in the direction of a Barbie doll. This is especially true when everybody thinks all politicians are corrupt anyway. The response of a rational voter (and I talked to a number of them) is, “Sure, he’s a crook, but he’s a crook who’s going to seal the borders, cut my taxes, and put criminals in jail.”

Talking to normal people about this race has been interesting; most reporters can’t be bothered to do it, or don’t want to, because they don’t want to report what they find. Here’s a lawyer's secret from a guy who has probably done a couple thousand depositions. When you talk to people to find out what they think, the key is not talking. Shut up and listen to them. So I did. These are regular folks, not activists. They’re not thrilled with Ken Paxton, but they find Talarico kind of weird. With a little bit of gentle probing, it’s clear most of them don’t know the full range of this guy’s bizarre woke beliefs, casual heresies, and general freakishness. They’re just not impressed by him or his ads, certainly not enough to reject their default GOP tendencies. But they will learn more, now that Ken Paxton is getting some money in — the Con Inc establishment hates that he dared to pick off Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and would’ve let him starve for money if it hadn’t been shamed into helping — and he’s going to be able to highlight all that glorious oppo.

That will be a real problem for Talarico. The Republicans have vaults of video clips of this guy saying the remarkably obnoxious things, and the worst of them are related to his much-vaunted pseudo-Christianity. Leftists have no understanding of Christianity. They think that they can pull the string on their little Charlie Anti-McCarthy and have their dummy babble about sandals-n’-socialism Jesus to fool the religious rubes. But southern Christians are actual Christians, and they are well aware of the false-prophet problem in Protestantism. They hear this guy babbling about how Jesus isn’t the only way to salvation; Allah is too, and that ain’t going to play.

Talarico already has a lot of problems among blacks, which his blasphemy is not going to help. He beat Jasmine Crockett, but she and her supporters think he stole the primary. The Texas Democrats are divided between affluent whites and traditional black voters, many of whom are going to take one look at this guy and shake their heads. They may not vote for Paxton, but they may just stay home and not vote for Satan’s little demon. Same with Latinos — the dude gives off vibes that are no bueno to these traditional, family-oriented, hard-working patriots.

 

I expect Jasmine Crockett to be paid off somehow and give him her tepid endorsement before this ends. I expect his campaign to invite Kamala Harris to town as well, and I’m eager for them to do so. On our side, I think John Cornyn will be browbeaten into endorsing Ken Paxton (after earning the contempt of so many Republicans, I reject the popular fantasy that Cornyn would be a shoo-in to win the general election), but that doesn’t really matter. This election isn’t about voting for Ken Paxton. The Republican is always the default choice for the majority of Texas voters, no matter how many allegedly Republican nobodies who haven’t voted for a Republican this century Talarico lists in his press releases. It’s about disqualifying Talarico, and it looks to me like he’s well on the way to disqualifying himself.

It also looks like that to conservative Texas observers. I talked to a lot of them, including Hot Air’s own Ed Morrissey (he’s been doing great work on this race), and none of them think Talarico is going to win — none of them. I don’t mean a few of them. I mean zero. My pal Jim Pikl, Texas superlawyer and GOP activist, points out that Paxton is popular among Republicans and has accomplished a lot for the cause. He expects GOP voters to do what GOP voters do – show up and vote GOP. But the conservative observers all concede that it’s not impossible for the imp to win. It’s just improbable. It’s going to take work, and it’s going to take money (and the big money is finally flowing in), but it always does. Yet the consensus among the people in the know is that this little homunculus won't pull off the Democrat dream of turning Texas blue in 2026.

With the regime media‘s help, though, his campaign is fronting as if everything is going great. But it seems like Talarico isn’t even trying to make a play outside of the blue metro areas. Morrissey pointed out that he hasn’t seen a Talarico ad in a long time.

Now, he doesn’t live in Houston; he’s out in the country with the longhorns, armadillos, and the folks who work in the energy industry that Talarico wants to eliminate because it’s a capitalist tool of white supremacy. Talarico has a ton of money, but he’s also spending a ton of money to make more money. Fundraising costs a lot, and so do ads. Maybe that’s why he’s focusing his ads on the big cities. But Texas is a lot more than the big cities, as Democrats keep finding out.

Outside observers agree with me, too. Columnist David Marcus has done great reporting here in Texas and elsewhere on these midterms, and he’s just not feeling it either. He told me he went to Talarico’s counterprogramming to the convention, which was a phony food drive, and there were about 19 people there with the candidate. Texas normals just aren’t buying what he’s selling.

Now, let’s talk about the pink elephant (donkey?) in the room. There are a lot of rumors out there that Talarico, a 37-year-old bachelor who still lives with his mom, likes men. I don’t know if he is or he isn’t gay. He hasn’t said, and the regime media certainly won’t ask him. Obviously, his campaign wants everyone to think he’s straight — that’s why we get the cringe girlfriend stories, including about the one who patronizes a gay bar. But if he isn’t straight, then he’s lying to the people of Texas by not telling them who he really is. Maybe he’s afraid his preference would lose him votes, though conservatives will crawl over broken glass to vote for Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent or Special Presidential Envoy for Special Missions Ric Grenell for anything from dog catcher to president. Frankly, it’s his preference for communism, wokeism, and heresy that’s much more relevant to most Texans. If he is hiding in the closet, he’s insulting the voters. He doesn’t trust them, and he doesn’t respect them, and you have to ask what else he’s lying about. That is, if he’s gay. According to his campaign, he’s had many, many girlfriends, which is ironically something he keeps giving Ken Paxton grief about.

In any case, we’re going to have to put a lot of effort into Texas, and we’re going to have to spend a lot of money, but there is no cause to panic. The fundamentals in Texas favor Republicans holding the seat. This whole race strikes me as one of those future morning-after moments where Democrats wake up hungover after a night in which the networks call it for Ken Paxton early and ask themselves, “We nominated a vegan, gun-grabbing, woke, anti-capitalist who wants to shut down the fossil-fuel industry and who talks about how God loves abortion and is non-binary, and we did it in Texas, and what the hell were we thinking?”

BIG NEWS! Kurt’s next action-packed conservative novel, “American Warlord,” is out for presale now! Read Kurt’s Kelly Turnbull/People’s Republic series, including the latest "Panama Red," and follow Kurt on X @KurtSchlichter!

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So, That's Why Randi Weingarten Is Getting Involved in This Lawsuits Involving Illegal CDL Drivers

So, That's Why Randi Weingarten Is Getting Involved in This Lawsuits Involving Illegal CDL Drivers

Unions were meant to protect working Americans. Later, they became tools of the Democrat Party, which you already know. This case brazenly exposes the naked political antics here. What the hell is the American Federation of Teachers doing getting involved in this lawsuit over illegal alien commercial driver’s licenses? Oh, we’ll get to that in a second. 

Aren’t these people supposed to be fighting for schools and their students? What do illegal-alien CDLs have to do with this? Also, after Joe Biden’s years of open-border invasion, the number of commercial drivers who don’t speak or understand English is astounding, and it’s shattered families. 

These policies, which allow anyone to get a CDL, among other things, have killed Americans. For others, they’ve left loved ones maimed. Marcus Coleman lives with the devastating aftermath of a crash caused by an illegal alien CDL driver in 2024. Coleman’s 5-year-old daughters sustained severe brain injuries as a result, and he testified to that before Congress earlier this month. Around that time, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy shut down scores of commercial trucking schools for abhorrent proficiency in English among their enrollees, which led to this baffling statement from AFT and its president, Randi Weingarten (via AFT) [emphasis mine]:

..[T]he AFT moved to join an ongoing lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Transportation, seeking to stop the agency from seizing the personal records of 17 million commercial driver’s license (CDL) holders from the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, the nonprofit that maintains the national database of driver records. The AFT is represented by Public Citizen Litigation Group and Murphy Anderson PLLC.

The AFT represents approximately 13,500 transportation workers, including school bus drivers and maintenance drivers, many of whom hold CDLs. The government’s demand puts their sensitive personal data—including names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, license numbers, and state of record—at risk of being collected, shared across agencies and used for purposes they never consented to. 

“Many AFT members require a CDL to work as school bus drivers or Department of Transportation employees—and we must protect them and their privacy against the vindictive nature of this president and his cronies,” said AFT President Randi Weingarten. “Just like we sued the Department of Government Efficiency for trying to mine personal information from millions of working-class Americans, today we intervene against the U.S. government’s attempt to strong-arm the AAMVA to turn over CDL holders’ private information. This illegal demand puts millions of people’s personal data up for grabs without their consent, people who had no choice but to provide their personal information to the states so they could simply work, and who have no way to remove it from the database.”

 

Oh, so that’s why, and it makes things worse: you’re going to protect people who shouldn’t be here, and who can’t read the traffic signals, drive our children around. Illinois is suing along with 21 other states because Democrats care more about illegal aliens than American citizens, and apparently, the safety of our children. 

So, I get it, Randi. You’re doing your part to protect a core Democrat Party interest, as she’s done with her anti-ICE antics over Target, and her numerous trips to Ukraine. Yes, there are international education reasons for these visits, whatever, but if I were a union member, I wouldn’t be happy that my dues were being wasted like this.

Protecting reckless bus drivers — that’s the AFT in 2026. 

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Charlie Kirk statue vandalized in Phoenix days after installation marking the 1-year anniversary of his assassination

Arizonans mourn Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk outside of the Turning Point USA headquarters on September 10, 2025 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)

A Charlie Kirk statue in Phoenix, Arizona, was vandalized just days after it was installed to mark the one-year anniversary of his assassination.

Red paint was smeared across the eight-foot-tall, bronze-colored statue, marking its neck, face and hand, with a frowning face on the torso. 

"Vandalism like this is not funny, it’s diabolical." A statue and memorial  honoring Charlie Kirk outside Turning Point USA's Phoenix headquarters are  vandalized just three days after the statue was ... 

Phoenix police confirmed to media outlets that they responded to calls about the defacement just after 8:00 a.m. on Sunday.

The sculpture was unveiled on Thursday, one year after 31-year-old Charlie, founder of Turning Point USA (TPUSA) was fatally shot during a speaking event at Utah Valley University (UVU).

 

Featuring the same T-shirt, which reads “FREEDOM,” that he wore on September 10, 2025, the statue also held a stack of hats in its left hand, with the right hand raised high. Charlie began that fateful event by throwing “Make America Great Again” caps with the TPUSA logo on the side into the crowd of students.

A nearby sign was also vandalized, with Charlie’s face crossed out and red paint sprawled over the word “Jesus.”

Erika Kirk, Charlie’s widow and CEO of TPUSA, responded to the vandalism in a Sunday social media post.

 

“They thought a bullet would silence my husband’s voice but it only made it louder. They think spray paint can obscure his legacy, but it will only spread it further. Every attempt to tear down what Charlie built makes us root deeper and work even harder,” she said.

“And if you think crossing out the name of Jesus Christ will silence Christians, history has already proved you wrong. We know what it costs to stand firm for Christ and we will stand anyway. God will not be mocked,” she went on.

Erika asserted that both the sign and the statue would be restored.

 

“We’ll put His name right back where it belongs, clean up the mess, restore Charlie’s statue, and keep building. We will never give up and never surrender,” she stated.

TPUSA also confirmed that the site would be cleaned, noting that an investigation was being made into who committed the act of vandalism.

 

“But vandalism like this is not funny, it’s diabolical. The incident happened in the middle of the night because evil never sleeps,” TPUSA said. “Beyond spray painting on the neck and face, they made the intentional decision to cross out the name of Jesus on a nearby sign.”

 

The organization went on to quote the Bible verse John 15:18, in which Jesus addressed his disciples: “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.”

Charlie once said we should be building two statues for every statue that they tear down. His instinct was always to build, not to destroy.

They thought a bullet would silence my husband’s voice but it only made it louder. They think spray paint can obscure his legacy, but it… https://t.co/nfMlpsSwKd

— Erika Kirk (@MrsErikaKirk) September 13, 2026

Credit:  oann.com

 

Craig Johnson, Pastor and Bank VP, Pleads Guilty to $9.4M Scam

Former bank VP, pastor pleads guilty to multi-million-dollar cattle  investment fraud scheme

The ugly truth in this case is simple: a trusted man used his title — both in a church and at a bank — to steal nearly $9.4 million from neighbors and a financial institution. Craig Johnson of Butler, Missouri, has pleaded guilty in federal court to wire fraud, bank fraud, aggravated identity theft, and making false statements to a bank. The facts laid out by prosecutors read like a bad country novel, only the victims aren’t fictional and the price of the plot was real money.

Guilty Plea Exposes $9.4M Cattle Investment Scam

Johnson admitted to defrauding people and Community First Bank of $9,395,882.22 by promising fast profits from cattle purchases. Instead of buying cows, prosecutors say he funneled loan proceeds and investor money into a personal investment account and traded risky small‑cap and micro‑cap stocks until the money was gone. He pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Fernando J. Gaitan, Jr., and now faces a sentencing process that will be shaped by a presentence report and federal guidelines.

How the Scheme Worked — Pastor, Banker, Troubling Trust

The scheme’s cruelty is in the details. Johnson worked as a vice president and loan officer at Community First Bank while also serving as a pastor — a position that naturally carries community trust. Prosecutors say he used that trust to solicit investments, arranged loans using bank tie‑ins, and even created loans in other people’s names to hide his tracks. He is listed as the loan officer on roughly 29 loans and lines of credit totaling about $4.48 million and allegedly shifted money from three big loans — roughly $1.447M, $1.5M, and $900K — into his own accounts instead of buying cattle.

Loans, Lies, and a Faked Bill of Sale

When the paper trail mattered most, it turned out to be fake. Prosecutors point to a phony bill of sale showing the purchase of 850 cow-and-calf pairs for $2.825 million from a Utah livestock company that says it never sold those cattle. Johnson then used new investor funds to make payments to earlier victims — a classic Ponzi move wrapped in a farming story. The FBI investigated and the U.S. Attorney’s Office prosecuted the case; those actions deserve credit, but that doesn’t undo the harm done to families and local trust.

What This Means: Enforcement, Accountability, and Better Controls

This guilty plea is more evidence that fraudsters will use any robe — clerical or corporate — to prey on trust. The Justice Department’s National Fraud Enforcement Division and the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, led by President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance, are getting results in cases like this. Still, Community First Bank and other small community banks need to answer how internal controls failed so badly that a loan officer could allegedly create loans in other people’s names. Victims deserve restitution, the bank must tighten safeguards, and judges should send a clear message: abusing trust to steal from neighbors will not be tolerated.

 

NBC10 Probe of Lone Clancy Juror Sparks Doxxing Debate

NBC10 Boston’s recent investigative piece on the lone holdout juror in the Lindsay Clancy trial landed like a Molotov cocktail on an already explosive story. The station reported alleged domestic-violence incidents, a restraining order that may have been active during jury service, and a landlord judgment for more than $12,000 in unpaid rent — all while jurors were deadlocked in one of the most tragic and closely watched cases in recent memory. Those are serious claims, and NBC10 deserves credit for digging. But digging and dragging are different things.

What NBC10 Found — and What It Didn’t Say

NBC10 reported that court and police records, plus family interviews, show a juror tied to a 2021 arrest that was later dismissed, a restraining order filed by a relative, and housing-court records showing a large unpaid-rent judgment and an eviction motion while jurors were deliberating. The station also notes the juror questionnaire should have asked about arrests and court orders, and legal analysts told NBC10 those are the kind of things that matter for jury service. The station says it could not confirm how the juror answered the questionnaire and wisely did not publish the juror’s name because the jury list was impounded. Still — these are explosive allegations that could affect whether a retrial is ever seen as fair.


Doxxing or Accountability? The Fine Line

Here’s where the room gets crowded: conservatives and free-speech advocates rightly warn that publicizing a juror’s messy personal life risks doxxing and chilling future jurors. NBC10 withheld a name, but airing allegations from family members and court records about a private citizen who served on a jury is precisely the kind of attention that can turn into harassment. That said, when a single juror’s conduct produces a mistrial in a case about the deaths of three children, the public has a legitimate interest in whether jury selection worked. The question is how to balance public oversight with basic fairness and safety for jurors.

Where the System Failed — Not Just the Media

Blame the media if you like; also point the flashlight at the courts. If juror questionnaires really ask about arrests, charges and court orders, how did potentially material information slip through? Defense lawyers tried to remove the holdout juror during deliberations and the request was denied — a decision with huge consequences. If a juror lied on a questionnaire, that’s a serious matter that could merit review; if the form wasn’t properly reviewed, that’s a procedural failure. Either way, this is a teachable moment: better juror vetting, clearer enforcement of disclosure rules, and perhaps penalties when people knowingly hide material facts. Otherwise we’ll keep getting drama instead of justice.

Bottom Line

NBC10’s reporting raises real questions about juror vetting and the integrity of the process in the Lindsay Clancy mistrial. But the station also walks a tightrope between necessary scrutiny and sensational exposure. The courts and prosecutors should review the jury questionnaire and the impounded records; journalists should remember that facts matter and so do reputations. We want transparency, not trial by tabloid. Call it common sense — and call it the sort of reform that might keep a mistrial from happening again. The public deserves answers, but nobody deserves a mob with a microphone.

Credit:  https://patriotpowerednetwork.com/

 

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