I began my journalism career at The Federalist, an outlet that was founded with only one official editorial position; ending the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. I agreed with it at the time, but having grown since, I now see the error of my ways and am calling to disband the entire White House Correspondents’ Association.  

On Saturday, April 26, in Washington, D.C., the WHCA held its annual dinner, once a time-honored tradition of the capital. Now it is a shell of itself that the president does not even attend, and an event for which the organization struggles to find a host who won’t perform a seizure of hatred toward President Donald Trump. 

Of course, this year the entire farce was held under the cloud of the liberal news organizations that cover the presidency having failed to report that President Joe Biden, as commander in chief, was not only not in charge, but often barely awake. 

Look at what WCHA President Eugene Daniels actually said in his opening remarks, I had to read it twice to believe it: ‘I know this has been an extremely difficult year for all of you. It’s been difficult for this association. We’ve been tested, attacked, but every single day our members get up, they run to the White House, plane, train, automobile with one mission, holding the powerful accountable.’ 

Holding the powerful accountable? Where was this H.L. Mencken attitude when Grandpa Joe was dithering away in the West Wing?  

Then there was journalist Alex Thompson, who mused the following, ‘President Biden’s decline and its cover-up by the people around him is a reminder that every White House, regardless of party, is capable of deception. … We, myself included, missed a lot of this story and some people trust us less because of it.’ 

This is the same Thompson hawking a book he wrote with CNN anchor Jake Tapper about the Biden administration. Jake Tapper! That guy not only ignored Biden’s obvious infirmity, he chided as crackpots anyone who did point it out. 

Thomspson, like a sweet, summer child, doesn’t get it, yet. It’s not that many Americans trust the news media ‘less,’ it’s that they don’t trust us at all, about anything.  

Not everything in life comes with second chances. These people covering Biden flat out blew it, and did incredible harm to the nation and the profession of journalism in the process. 

Covering Biden’s presidency for four years and not realizing or reporting that he was not all there is the journalism equivalent of an NFL team going winless all season. That’s something that five teams, starting with the 1960 Dallas Cowboys, have suffered through in the post-war era, but none of them ever threw themselves a party to celebrate their abject failure. 

We all know what happened over the past four years. The liberal media decided that Biden’s team, even if the old man was upstairs watching ‘Matlock’ and complaining his soup wasn’t hot enough, was better than electing Trump.  

With absolute shamelessness and disregard for the people, these charlatans with reporter’s notebooks allowed their hatred of Donald Trump, and his supporters, to drive their coverage. Nobody should ever come back from that. 

If there is still a legitimate purpose to the WHCA, it surely would have been to stand up to the Biden administration, to demand more access and evidence. 

Instead, this gaggle of fools just nodded along like morons while former Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed actual, unedited videos were ‘cheap fakes,’ an Orwellian nonsense term, and that they shouldn’t be shown. 

Traditions are good, they are important, and the WHCA, founded in 1914, has a rich tradition. But, traditions can also become mere trappings, a fancy symbolic set of clothes that bestows an appearance of honor on those who don it, deserved or not. 

Thankfully, the Trump White House has taken measures to rein in the WHCA’s monopoly on West Wing coverage, bringing in centrist and conservative new media members, and of course, the ‘professionals,’ are having a fit. 

But while The New York Times and others might mock press room queries from figures like Natalie Winters of ‘War Room,’ or podcasters like Tim Pool, those people are already doing a thousand times better covering Trump than the gentle treatment the venerated WHCA gave Biden. 

It’s always good to be wary of industries where their members heap endless praise on each other and constantly give themselves awards. Hollywood, for instance, and that is what much of journalism has become.  

‘Look at me!’ the establishment journalists all say, ‘I have an official WHCA membership card and a lanyard! So, obviously, I’m a brave warrior for the truth!’ 

Not everything in life comes with second chances. These people covering Biden flat out blew it, and did incredible harm to the nation and the profession of journalism in the process. 

Nobody is buying it anymore. 

Look, if the WHCA wants to continue, fine, it could have fancy lunches and lecture series, maybe get matching sweaters made. But in no way, shape or form should this organization play the slightest role in how the White House actually deals with the media. 

Far better would be to put this dinosaur of the legacy media down. Journalists don’t need a club. They simply need to tell the truth. 

The White House on Monday morning revealed that President Donald Trump wants to do ‘whatever it takes’ to bring Russian President Vladimir Putin to the table for peace talks with Ukraine, including slapping Russia with additional sanctions.

White House deputy chief of staff James Blair joined ‘Fox & Friends’ to discuss the latest on the Trump administration’s effort to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine, including the frustration that Trump is having with both sides. 

‘Obviously, the president feels like we are making progress, but he’s been frustrated at both sides, which he’s made clear,’ Blair said. ‘He said over the weekend that the Ukrainians should have signed the deal with us weeks ago, and he wants them to hurry up and get that done. And Putin, [Trump] is very displeased with the attacks on civilian areas last week, and [Trump’s] put on the table increasing sanctions, secondary tariffs on oil, whatever it takes to make sure that they hurry up and get to the table and create peace.’

Russia launched a deadly missile attack on Kyiv that killed at least 12 people and injured at least 90, including children, on April 24.

When asked whether Trump was angry at the idea that Putin may be stringing him along, Blair pointed to a statement the president posted on his TRUTH Social platform on Saturday. 

‘Well, look, he put out a statement, I think, two days ago on his TRUTH [Social account], where he said he does not want to be tapped along, he won’t accept it.’ Blair said. ‘He’s displeased, again, with the attacks on civilian areas, and the president said it makes him feel like maybe he doesn’t want peace as badly as he says he does. And the president’s not going to stand for that. If that means increasing sanctions, he’s obviously put that on the table.’

Blair spoke to Fox News about one hour before the Kremlin announced a three-day ceasefire with Ukraine from May 8 to May 10 to mark the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany during World War II. Kyiv did not immediately respond to the announcement.

Putin has previously said that he agrees in principle with a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire deal, though has so far refused to accept a complete unconditional ceasefire.

Over the weekend, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared to temper expectations for a major peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia, telling NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ that while progress has been made, a deal is ‘still not there.’

Rubio’s Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, told CBS’ ‘Face the Nation’ in a pre-recorded interview that aired Sunday that Russia won’t discuss any potential negotiations in public, though emphasized that Russia is ‘always available for a dialogue.’

Pakistan’s defense minister on Monday said he believes an incursion by India is ‘imminent’ as tensions remain heightened following a militant attack in India’s Kashmir region last week, which saw the killing of 26 people, first reported Reuters. 

India, which has not named any group it suspects of leading the attack but said it believes Pakistan to have backed the militants involved in the assault, has reportedly engaged in an aggressive hunt to find those involved in the deadliest attack in two decades. 

According to a BBC report, Indian authorities have used explosives to demolish properties allegedly linked to the suspects, more than 1,500 people have been detained for questioning and troops from both India and Pakistan have exchanged cross-border small arms fire.

‘We have reinforced our forces because it is something which is imminent now. So in that situation, some strategic decisions have to be taken, so those decisions have been taken,’ Pakistan Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif told Reuters on Monday from the capital city of Islamabad. 

Asif did not say why he thought a possible incursion from India was imminent, but noted that allies in the Gulf had been informed, who in turn had apparently communicated the situation on the ground with officials in China and the U.S.

The New York Times on Monday similarly reported that India appeared to be building its case for possible military intervention as Prime Minister Narendra Modi had been engaging in mass diplomatic outreach by speaking with more than a dozen world leaders about the situation.

The feud between India and Pakistan predates last week’s attack by nearly 80 years, following Britain’s decision to end its direct rule in the region following World War II and enact the 1947 Partition of British India, which essentially divided modern-day India and Pakistan based on Hindu and Muslim populations — though it caused massive unrest and displacement along religious lines.

The partition also gave the diverse Jammu and Kashmir region the ability to choose if it wanted to join either newly established nation. 

Ultimately, the conflict ongoing today stems from the previous monarch of the region’s initial attempt to seek independence, followed by its decision to join India in exchange for security against invading Pakistani militias.

India and Pakistan have engaged in several wars and cross-border skirmishes in the decades since. 

While President Donald Trump said last week that resolving the decades-old conflict was down to New Delhi and Islamabad to sort out, the State Department said it was working with both sides to encourage a ‘responsible solution.’

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., issued a ruling Monday to restore a lower court’s order barring the Trump administration’s planned mass layoffs at the Consumer Financial Protections Bureau (CFPB).

The court ruled 2-1 to restore an earlier ruling by federal Judge Amy Berman Jackson, an Obama appointee, which temporarily halted the Trump administration’s reductions in force (RIF) at CFPB, which would have cut the agency’s staff by 90 percent.

Before Jackson’s ruling, the agency was slated to carry out a reduction in force of roughly 1,400 employees, which would have left just several hundred in place. 

Following a legal challenge against the reduction filed in the D.C. district court in early February, Jackson issued a preliminary injunction in late March, finding that the plaintiffs would likely succeed on the merits.

The order directed the government to ‘rehire all terminated employees, reinstate all terminated contracts, and refrain from engaging in reductions-in-force or attempting to stop work through any means.’ 

Jackson then ordered another halt to plans earlier this month, shortly after an appeals court narrowed her earlier injunction. Jackson noted that within several days of an appeals order narrowing her initial injunction, CFPB employees were told the agency would do ‘exactly what it was told not to do,’ which was to carry out a RIF. 

Jackson blocked the administration from moving forward with any layoffs or from cutting off employees’ access to computers at the bureau until she had time to hear from the officials in question.

Jackson said she was ‘willing to resolve it quickly,’ but noted that she is ‘deeply concerned, given the scope and scope of action.’

Lawyers with the Justice Department sought to appeal Jackson’s order earlier this year, arguing in a filing that the injunction ‘improperly intrudes on the executive [branch’s] authority’ and goes ‘far beyond what is lawful.’

Jackson is set to hear testimony from officials slated to carry out the RIF procedures on Tuesday. 

Canada’s Liberal Party is projected to win the country’s federal election for the fourth consecutive time.

The Liberals are led by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who took over after Justin Trudeau resigned.

As of late Monday, the Liberal Party was also leading with 137 seats won in Parliament as opposed to the 98 seats held by the Conservative Party.

A party needs to win 172 seats in order to hold the majority.
 

This is a breaking news story. Check back for updates.