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The "Sesame Street" figure wants more cookies per dollar, while the snacker-in-chief bemoaned the loss of potato chips per package.Beloved "Sesame Street" figure Cookie Monster lashed out at companies hawking their food wares at the same price but with less actual product — a practice known as “shrinkflation." “Me hate shrinkflation!” the “Sesame Street” character told his 626,000 fans on X, the platform that used to be known as Twitter, on Monday. “Me cookies are getting smaller.” It was a sentiment shared by the White House, which responded Monday, "C is for consumers getting ripped off." And then President Joe...

The scandal of the century is unfolding at this very moment, leaving political onlookers wondering: Did Joe Biden collude with the Cookie Monster? I know it seems like I'm joking, but only half so. There's reason to believe that the President of the United States improperly gave money to "Sesame Street" only for the show's characters to begin repeating White House talking points. Here's the post that started all this. Cookie Monster @MeCookieMonster Me hate shrinkflation! Me cookies are getting smaller. Sesame Street’s foray into the "shrinkflation" debate could raise questions about whether the White House and Sesame Street coordinated...

The Capitol Police officer assigned to the protective detail of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on January 6, 2021, appears to have given false testimony about his whereabouts during a key encounter with members of the Oath Keepers, according to an examination of Capitol closed-circuit TV video obtained by Blaze Media. One of the most important federal trials in America in 2022 was barely a blip on the average U.S. citizen’s radar. The first of three January 6 trials bringing seditious conspiracy charges against members of a quasi-militia group known as the Oath Keepers began in late September and concluded...

Denver will pay $4.7 million to settle a class action lawsuit that alleged that protesters were unjustly targeted for violating the city’s curfew during demonstrations over the killing of George Floyd in 2020. City councilors unanimously agreed to the deal Monday without any debate. The lawsuit alleged that the city directed police to only enforce the emergency 8 p.m. curfew against protesters, violating their free speech rights, even though the curfew applied to all people in any public place. It also said that over 300 protesters were taken to jail in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic rather than...

NEW YORK (AP) — A former White House aide to President Donald Trump who became a prominent congressional witness against him and his allies in the wake of the Jan. 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol has a book deal. Cassidy Hutchinson’s “Enough” will be released Sept. 26 by Simon & Schuster. “With ‘Enough,’ she provides a riveting account of her extraordinary experiences as an idealistic young woman thrust into the middle of a national crisis,” according to the publisher’s announcement. “She risked everything to tell the truth about some of the most powerful people in Washington and some of...

Dr. Anthony Fauci has landed a job at Georgetown University where he will serve as a “distinguished university professor” in the school’s infectious disease division. “We are deeply honored to welcome Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, a dedicated public servant, humanitarian and visionary global health leader, to Georgetown,” Georgetown President John J. DeGioia said on Monday. “Dr. Fauci has embodied the Jesuit value of being in service to others throughout his career, and we are grateful to have his expertise, strong leadership and commitment to guiding the next generation of leaders to meet the pressing issues of our time.” Fauci, 82,...

San Bernardino County paid a $1.1 million ransom to hackers who infiltrated the Sheriff's Department computers, officials acknowledged Friday. Last month, the department admitted a hack encrypted many of its files, disrupting systems and blocking access to data. County officials told ABC News on Friday that the county carries insurance for such attacks and its share of the ransom came out to just over $511,000. After negotiating with the hackers, the insurance company and county agreed to pay to restore the system to its full functionality and secure data.

Several top Republican lawmakers and energy industry groups blasted the Biden administration Wednesday after it announced aggressive regulations cracking down on gas-powered car emissions. Critics of the sweeping emissions standards, unveiled Wednesday morning by the White House and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), argued the announcement revealed President Biden is seeking to effectively ban traditional gas cars in favor of electric vehicles (EV). The White House said the rules would "accelerate the clean vehicle transition" and reduce pollution by nearly 10 billion tons by 2055.

Prince Charles personally accepted suitcases and shopping bags stuffed with millions of dollars’ worth of cash from a controversial Qatari politician between 2011 and 2015, according to an explosive new report. “Everyone felt very uncomfortable about the situation,” a former adviser to the Prince of Wales told the Sunday Times of London. The “only thing we could do was to count the money and make a mutual record of what we’d done,” the source said. “And then call the bank.” Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, the former prime minister of Qatar, bestowed the big bucks on the...

The D.C. National Guard’s commanding general was directed twice by Pentagon leadership to send in troops as violence engulfed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, according to a newly released investigation that appears to undercut the now-retired general’s claim that he would have responded to the riot more quickly if Trump administration officials had allowed. Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy first notified Maj. Gen. William Walker by phone at 4:35 p.m. that Walker was authorized to send troops to Capitol Hill, and then called the general again “to reissue the deployment order” about 30 minutes after McCarthy “originally conveyed it,” an...

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Hillary Clinton was on television Sunday promoting her new political thriller State of Terror -- which she admitted is based on her 2016 rival, former President Donald Trump. In her third interview this month, the former first lady accused Trump of 'masterminding' the January 6 Capitol riot and said he was a 'danger' to the country. Her recent media blitz has fueled rumors that Clinton is testing the waters for her own re-election bid after repeatedly calling a potential Trump 2024 ticket a threat to democracy. This morning, CNN host Fareed Zakaria asked about claims her new novel is a...

Democrats have tucked a lucrative $2.5 billion tax break inside President Biden’s multitrillion-dollar social welfare bill that would benefit the trial lawyers lobby, spurring Republican accusations of political backscratching. The tax break allows trial lawyers working on a contingency basis, meaning they are paid only if a case is settled in their favor, to deduct expenses immediately. Such expenses include hourly labor fees and the expenses associated with waging a lawsuit, such as filing and deposition costs. On average, according to the American Bar Association, the fixed rate for contingency cases is anywhere between 33% and 40% of the total...

President Joe Biden’s $1.85 trillion social spending bill includes a provision that, if it becomes law, would mark the first time the federal government has offered targeted support in response to the decline of local news. The help would come in the form of a payroll tax credit for companies that employ eligible local journalists. The measure would allow newspapers, digital news outlets, and radio and television stations to claim a tax credit of $25,000 the first year and $15,000 the next four years for up to 1,500 journalists. -snip- But the credit, which would cost $1.67 billion over the...

Leading journalists acknowledge that it's awkward to receive financial assistance from a government they cover independently. President Biden's $1.85 trillion social spending bill includes a provision that, if it becomes law, would mark the first time the federal government has offered targeted support in response to the decline of local news. The help would come in the form of a payroll tax credit for companies that employ eligible local journalists. The measure would allow newspapers, digital news outlets and radio and television stations to claim a tax credit of $25,000 the first year and $15,000 the next four years for...

Tucked into President Joe Biden’s proposed nearly $2 trillion social spending bill is a provision to boost local media through tax incentives meant to help an industry battered by the COVID-19 virus. The Local Journalism Sustainability Act (LJSA), first introduced in July, would provide a local media advertising credit of up to $5,000 in the first year and up to $2,500 in the next four years, covering 80% of advertising costs in the first year and 50% in the following four years. Other elements of the bill would provide a federal tax credit to local media outlets that hire local...

President Biden is proposing to give a major tax break to local media outlets as part of the $1.85 trillion reconciliation being considered by Congress. The tax break would allow eligible local media organizations, including newspapers, digital news websites and television stations to receive a tax credit of $25,000 per journalist they employ, and $15,000 for the following four years. The tax break can be claimed for up to 1,500 journalists. While the measure is aimed at helping smaller local news outlets, bigger media organizations like Gannett will benefit from the tax break and could receive as much as $127.5...

The President takes care of a key constituency. In a Friday letter to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) and Vice President Kamala Harris in her capacity as President of the Senate, Mr. Biden announced that he was invoking his legal authority under “national emergency or serious economic conditions affecting the general welfare” to increase salaries for roughly two million members of the federal civilian workforce. Yes, after creating the veritable model of incompetent governance recently witnessed by horrified Americans and allies around the world, Mr. Biden has decided this is the moment to declare a swamp-wide pay...

Shortly after Islamists attacked America on 9/11, then-Senator Joe Biden demanded that the United States should send a taxpayer-funded, "no strings attached" gift of $200 million to the Islamic Republic of Iran, a bombshell report has revealed. In the weeks following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Biden reportedly said that "this would be a good time" to hand over a huge chunk of tax dollars to the Iranian regime while America was in mourning.

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced Melissa R. Hodgman, currently an Associate Director in the Commission’s Division of Enforcement, has been named Acting Director of the Division of Enforcement. “Melissa’s dedication to investor protection, broad experience in the Division, and proven track record of collaboration and creative problem solving make her ideally suited to this role,” said SEC Acting Chair Allison Herren Lee. “As Associate Director, Melissa has overseen a wide range of complex and programmatically important matters, and has been a leading voice in the Division on critical issues of diversity, hiring, and labor-management relations. She is highly...