June 21, 2026

x01 Archives

Blurb:

In an ongoing climate of political violence, you would think that the legacy nightly news would devote significant air time to a threat to assassinate a senior member of the Cabinet. But, alas, that did not happen. CBS and ABC both omitted the story from their evening newscasts.

NBC Nightly News was the only newscast to devote a story to this plot. Watch the report in its entirety as aired on Monday, October 27th, 2025:

TOM LLAMAS: Back here at home, the FBI arresting a man after a disturbing threat targeting Attorney General Pam Bondi. The suspect, in a TikTok post, offering $45,000 to have her killed. Here’s Kelly O’Donnell.

KELLY O’DONNELL: Tonight, a disturbing threat discovered by a scrolling tiktok user. A post that offered tens of thousands of dollars to kill Attorney General Pam Bondi. A 29-year-old Minnesota man, Tyler Maxon Avalos, now faces one federal charge for transmitting that threat that investigators tracked on social media. According to the FBI, a TikTok post linked to Avalos read in part: “Wanted. Pam Bondi, preferably dead,” and referred to a reward of $45,000. Court documents include an image which we are not showing, with a photo of Bondi with a sniper’s scope red dot on Bondi’s forehead. TikTok, Google and Comcast, parent company of NBC, helped the FBI trace the suspect, according to the affidavit, which also states Avalos has a criminal history, convicted of stalking and domestic battery. Bondi declined comment, but has pledged the DoJ will root out threats in this heated environment.

Blurb:

On Monday, Gov. Mike Braun called for a special session to redistrict Indiana’s nine congressional seats, two of which are held by Democrats in the Republican-supermajority state. His call is part of a nationwide effort to rebalance Congress after decades of heavily partisan redistricting everywhere Democrats hold state majorities, as well as congressional apportionment increasingly distorted by Democrat-encouraged mass illegal immigration.

“I am calling a special legislative session to protect Hoosiers from efforts in other states that seek to diminish their voice in Washington and ensure their representation in Congress is fair,” Braun said in a statement. “I am also asking the legislature to conform Indiana’s tax code with new federal tax provisions to ensure stability and certainty for taxpayers and tax preparers for 2026 filings.”

Blurb:

Muslim convert Alexander Scott Mercurio, from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, pleaded guilty to planning a series of terror attacks on local churches.

He planned to incapacitate people by beating them with a metal pipe, “slit their throats with a knife or machete” and then start fires inside the church, according to court records.

Where did he get these ideas? Is his mosque under investigation? What is being done to stop jihad recruiting in US mosques? And how did this so-called “misunderstanding” of Islam become so widespread? Why do hundreds of millions of Muslims understand Islam in this exact same way?

Right now, nothing is being done to stop jihad recruiting in US mosques.

Blurb:

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has pushed back against the media narrative surrounding the current government shutdown, telling ABC News that the American people are hostage to the poll numbers of Democratic leaders.

Host Martha Raddatz asked Bessent on ABC’s “This Week” program whether President Trump should meet with Democrats as federal workers are beginning to suffer under the shutdown.

Bessent responded, reminding Raddatz that Democratic leadership is dug in, telling her, “The American people are hostage to Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries’ poll numbers! 52 Republican senators have voted 11 times to reopen the government.”

Blurb:

Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg praised New York City socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani and attacked independent mayoral candidate and former New York Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a recent CNN interview.

Buttigieg lauded Mamdani for already taking “steps that are not just about winning but about trying to bring people together.”

“I don’t live in New York, but I think he has the capacity to be a great mayor,” Buttigieg said.

The potential 2028 Democrat presidential contender went on to criticize Cuomo over his sexual harassment allegations and COVID-era nursing home scandal, saying he “disqualified himself in so many ways, including morally.”

Blurb:

The lack of self-awareness has got to be intentional at this point.

According to New York Attorney General Letitia James, she has become the victim of “a justice system which has been weaponized.” And that’s funny because I don’t recall her ever having a problem about a weaponized justice system when she was the one weaponizing it.

James ran on the promise of going after Trump. So, it’s astonishing that she is now out there claiming that the DOJ “has been used as a tool of revenge.”

Blurb:

Already deadly as a tropical storm, Melissa rapidly intensified into a Category 3 hurricane late Saturday night, officially upgrading the system to major status to ratchet up forecasts for Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Cuba, with each nation potentially suffering life-threatening impacts. according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC).

Over the next few days, Melissa is forecasted to continue rapid intensification into a massive Category 5 hurricane, per the NHC.

Blurb:

The Democrats appear to be a never-ending source of pitiable entertainment these days. Last week, it was the pathetic “No Kings” (what some mischievous wag called “No Brains”) rallies across the country. Those 2,700 anti-Trump therapy sessions for aging, anencephalic boomers were funded to the tune of $294 million by such public-spirited individuals and entities as Arabella Advisors, the Tides Foundation, George Soros, and Warren Buffett. Such streams of cash funneled millions through dozens of left-leaning entities, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the National LGBTQ Task Force, the Sierra Club Foundation, the Democracy Forward Foundation, and other havens for the perpetually aggrieved.

It was a noisy but preposterous temper tantrum, full of sound and fury, signifying stupidity. The union of Kumbayah gestures with rage-filled pantomimes was both inadvertently comic and repellent, the odor of rotting pseudo-idealism wafting over the proceedings everywhere.

Blurb:

Lobbying in Washington is booming to record-high levels, and companies are rushing to hire Trump-allied firms in their efforts to influence the policy pronouncements spilling out of the White House. Overall, federal lobbying spending is up by 21% compared with last year, according to the Washington Post’s tally of expenditures through the third quarter of 2025. In the surge, the firm of Trump campaign fundraiser Brian Ballard has become the highest-paid lobbying shop, and other Trump-aligned firms are seeing an influx of clients as trade and tariff policies churn.

The pharmaceutical industry has juiced its lobbying spending: heavyweight PhRMA is certain to blow past its record high in lobbying spending set last year. The nearly $29.7 million the drugmakers’ group has spent through Q3 approaches the amount that it spent in all of 2024. Health industry lobbyists are weighing in on moves by the Trump administration and the GOP-led Congress to cut Medicaid funding and fire staffers in the overhaul of the Robert F. Kennedy Jr.-led Department of Health and Human Services.

Blurb:

U.S. states are warning food aid recipients their benefits may not be distributed beginning Saturday if the federal government shutdown stretches into its fourth week.

Warnings issued on at least two dozen state websites flag the potential for an unprecedented benefit gap in November for Americans who get aid from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps, and the nearly seven million who receive aid from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC).

The shutdown, which began Oct. 1, is now the second-longest on record.

Blurb:

Prime Minister Mark Carney plans to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping while the pair are at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum later this week in South Korea.

The meeting will come seven months after then-foreign affairs minister Melanie Joly confirmed in March that four Canadians holding dual Chinese citizenship were given the death penalty in China.

At the time, Joly said the federal government “strongly condemns” the actions by China over what they called “drug-related crimes.”

Carney said he and Xi will discuss “a broad range of issues, both in terms of the commercial relationship as well as the evolution of the global system.”

The planned meeting comes on the heels of Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand’s visit to Beijing, where she met with her counterpart, Wang Yi.