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FBI Director Patel challenged on handling of the Epstein files during oversight hearing

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House Democrats drilled down on FBI Director Kash Patel’s handling of the Epstein files during an FBI oversight hearing Wednesday, after their counterparts in the Senate focused many of their questions on Patel’s “politicization” of the agency.

Several times on Wednesday, Democrats showed footage of comments Patel made about the case files of disgraced financier and child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein before Patel became FBI director.

In 2023, Patel appeared on The Benny Show, a politics podcast hosted by conservative commentator Benny Johnson, where Johnson asked him why the FBI hadn’t released the alleged Epstein client list.

“They’re sitting on it….. That seems like an evil thing to do, regardless of who may be embarrassed in the release of that list. Why is the FBI protecting the greatest pederast, the largest-scale pederast in human history?” Johnson asked.

“Simple, because of who’s on that list,” Patel replied.

“Put on your big boy pants and let us know who the pedophiles are,” Patel said to Johnson in another clip, referring to the FBI.

Patel also spoke to Glenn Beck, former Fox News show host and founder of Blaze Media, about the Epstein files in December 2023.

“Who has Jeffrey Epstein’s…” Beck started.

“Black book?” Patel asked. “The FBI.”

“But who?” Beck prodded.

“That’s under direct control of the director of the FBI,” Patel quickly responded.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., used Patel’s prior comments to challenge how the FBI has handled the files thus far under his leadership.

“You were sworn in as director more than 200 days ago. Now the black book is under your direct control. So why haven’t you released the names of Epstein’s co-conspirators in the rape and sex trafficking of young women and girls?” Raskin pressed.

Patel said the “Rolodex” had been released. Raskin challenged Patel further.

“Oh, no. You’re talking about what the journalist got five years ago? No, that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about what you were talking about there: the black book under the direct control of the FBI director,” Raskin said.

Patel responded by highlighting that the FBI under his direction has released more material than prior administrations that had access to the same information.

“We have released more material than anyone else before. The Biden administration, the Obama administration had the exact opportunities to release this material. They never did,” Patel argued.

So far, Patel’s FBI has provided more than 33,000 pages pursuant to requests from Congress, according to Patel, including what has “got to be thousands” of pages of the Epstein files. His predecessor, Chris Wray, provided less than half that many in seven years of heading the FBI compared to Patel’s seven months, Patel said.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Patel repeatedly said that the FBI had released everything credible that they are legally permitted to share. He has claimed that court orders stand in the way of releasing more.

Later, Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., who, like Patel, has a legal background, accused the director of gatekeeping files that court orders don’t prohibit the FBI from disclosing.

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US Eating Canada’s Lunch While Liberals Stall – Trump Admin Announces Record-Shattering Energy Report

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Audrey Streb

The Department of Energy (DOE) touted a report on Wednesday which states that America broke records in liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports.

The U.S. became the first country to export over 10 million metric tonnes of LNG in one month in October, Reuters reported on Monday, citing preliminary data from the financial firm LSEG. The DOE posted on X on Wednesday that “there are big opportunities ahead for U.S. natural gas” and has consistently championed LNG in a sharp departure from former President Joe Biden’s crackdown on the resource.

“The fact that America’s oil and gas industry was able to pass this stunning milestone is impressive considering all the roadblocks to progress which were thrown up by the Biden administration,” David Blackmon, an energy and policy writer who spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “It is a testament to both the resilience and innovative mindset of the industry and to the phenomenal wealth of America’s natural gas resource.”

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Two facilities in Louisiana and Texas are responsible for the LNG export surge, according to Reuters. The U.S. LNG industry emerged as an energy sector giant in recent decades, with America now leading the world in LNG exports after being projected to be a net importer as late as 2010, according to S&P Global.

The Biden administration enacted a freeze on new LNG export permits and “intentionally buried a lot of data and released a skewed study to discredit the benefits of American LNG,” the DCNF previously reported. The environmental lobby applauded Biden’s January 2024 freeze on new LNG export terminals, though critics argued that the policy stalled investment, would not reduce emissions and undermined America’s global strategic interests.

In contrast, President Donald Trump sought opportunities to bolster LNG and reversed the new permit pause through a day-one executive order. Some energy policy experts told the DCNF that the reported milestone highlights the resiliency of the industry and the benefit of Trump’s “American energy dominance” agenda.

“By expediting LNG terminal expansion and signing off on export agreements, the Trump administration is rapidly powering the world while simultaneously keeping his commitment for U.S. energy dominance,” Sterling Burnett, director of the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy at The Heartland Institute, told the DCNF. “The world wants U.S. gas, and under Trump they are getting it, in the process showing the world what a market economy can do when unfettered by unnecessary, duplicative, regulations that stifle growth.”
“The only thing that has held the U.S. economy and our energy independence and dominance back over the decades is Democratic administration’s pushing inane, futile, climate policies, restricting fossil fuel use,” Burnett continued. “New LNG export data shows those days are over and what America can accomplish for itself and the world, when a President puts America first.”
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International

The capital of capitalism elects a socialist mayor

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New York City — the beating heart of American capitalism — has handed the keys to a socialist. Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old Democratic Socialist assemblyman from Queens, captured City Hall on Tuesday night, defeating former Governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa in a bitterly fought three-way contest that upended the city’s political order. The Associated Press called the race less than an hour after polls closed, projecting Mamdani at 50.4% to Cuomo’s 41.3%, with Sliwa finishing a distant third at 7.5%. Mamdani, born in Uganda and raised on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, will become the city’s first Muslim and first openly socialist mayor.

Mamdani’s win marks a generational and ideological break from the city’s past, one that rattled Wall Street, alarmed business leaders, and divided Democrats. A proud member of the Democratic Socialists of America, Mamdani ran as a firebrand reformer promising to “tax the rich” and dismantle the influence of corporate money in city politics — proposals that critics said would cripple New York’s fragile economy. His campaign drew widespread scrutiny for his prior calls to “defund the police” and his harsh criticism of Israel, which led to accusations of antisemitism.

Cuomo’s attempt at a political resurrection fell flat. Despite spending more than $12 million on his independent campaign and receiving support from super PACs pouring in roughly $55 million, the former governor could not overcome the wave of progressive enthusiasm that propelled Mamdani from longshot to frontrunner. In a last-ditch effort to stave off defeat, Cuomo earned late backing from President Trump, outgoing Mayor Eric Adams and a handful of moderate Republicans, including Rep. Mike Lawler, who labeled him “the lesser of two evils.” Even that wasn’t enough.

The election itself was the city’s first serious three-way showdown in decades. Mamdani, Cuomo, and Sliwa clashed repeatedly over crime, affordability, and the future of policing. Cuomo leaned on his executive record and cast himself as a pragmatic problem solver, while Mamdani framed the race as a moral reckoning for a city that, in his words, “forgot who it’s supposed to serve.” His online following, slick digital outreach, and constant street presence helped galvanize younger voters, particularly in Brooklyn and Queens, where turnout surged. Meanwhile, Sliwa — the perennial GOP candidate — failed to broaden his appeal beyond his Guardian Angels base.

As he prepares to take office on January 1, 2026, Mamdani faces steep headwinds. His tax-and-spend agenda will require approval from state lawmakers and Governor Kathy Hochul, who has already rejected the idea of raising taxes. Still, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins have signaled they’ll work with him to advance portions of his sweeping platform. The victory, however, sends a message beyond policy: the city that built capitalism has now chosen a mayor who wants to dismantle it. Whether Zohran Mamdani’s socialist experiment reinvents or wrecks New York will soon be tested in the only arena that matters — reality.

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