Friday’s Final Word – HotAir

Everybody’s tabbing for the weekend (except NPR) …

On the one-year anniversary of Butler, I sat next to a real-life “ear truther” tonight on CNN. Wild. You won’t believe it 👀 pic.twitter.com/ycWewcflGQ

— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) July 18, 2025

Ed: This again? And the media wonder why Americans can’t trust them when it comes to reporting facts and news. Unfortunately, I can believe this all too well. 

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The Trump administration has been aggressively working to suffocate the wind and solar industry in the United States. Its latest action could do the trick.

As POLITICO first reported on Wednesday, the Interior Department issued a directive requiring Secretary Doug Burgum’s personal approval for even the most routine activities related to wind and solar projects on federal lands. The directive could have a much broader impact, affecting scores of projects on private land that must pass through or connect with projects on Interior-managed federal land, according to industry officials, financiers and lawyers.

Ed: I somehow doubt the lawyers are complaining. My position on wind and solar is that the government should be neutral on energy sources. If private owners want to build such facilities, then government shouldn’t throw obstacles at them beyond the regulations other energy sources deal with — but they shouldn’t throw money at them either. We need an all-of-the-above energy policy, but with a particular focus on scalable supply. Wind and solar aren’t scalable except by eating up more acreage. 

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No one made a better case for defunding NPR than its own CEO, Katherine Maher, who zeroed in on bias.

Of *course* NPR is biased. All outlets—and all humans—are. It will always fail that test.

Now imagine Fox News asking for taxpayer money. Would NPR tote-bag types go for that? https://t.co/wbz8FU9S9L

— Billy Binion (@billybinion) July 18, 2025

Ed: Heck, I wouldn’t go for that! There is no reason for the US to fund media outlets inside the country. We have a robust market for media outlets already, and the Center for Public Broadcasting turned itself into the propaganda arm of the Academia progressive elite. 

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Iran’s deeply buried nuclear enrichment plant at Fordo was badly damaged, and potentially destroyed, by the 12 massive bombs that U.S. Air Force B-2 bombers dropped on it last month, according to a new American intelligence assessment.

Two other nuclear sites targeted in the U.S. attacks were not as badly damaged, but facilities at the sites that would be key to fabricating a nuclear weapon were destroyed and could take years to rebuild, U.S. officials said.

A senior Israeli official said last week that the strikes most likely did not eliminate the stockpile of near-bomb-grade fuel that could be used to produce upward of 10 nuclear weapons. But without the facilities to manufacture a weapon, U.S. officials insist, the fuel would be of little use even if the Iranians can dig it out of the rubble.

Ed: Two days ago, NBC reported on the same assessment, but cast it in much less positive terms. Once again, I suspect that NBC led with a low-confidence assessment rather than the main assessment. 

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Last night, the Senate officially voted to end taxpayer funding for NPR.

To celebrate, we read some of the NPR CEO’s most deranged tweets.

Enjoy. pic.twitter.com/HkZibmJPMT

— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) July 17, 2025

Ed: This was from yesterday, but it will never grow old. However, Schmitt really missed an opportunity with the music. Why not a clarinet or oboe solo?

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Velasquez illegally entered the country in 2023 and released under the Biden administration. He was lawfully detained on June 2, 2025, and processed for expedited removal. Velasquez was placed into ICE’s male detention center in accordance with the President’s Executive Order and for the safety of women in ICE custody.

“Velasquez—a biological male—was placed in a men’s facility in alignment with the President’s Executive Order and for the safety of women in ICE custody. The President made it clear on Day One: DHS will not buy into radical gender ideology when detaining illegal aliens,” said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. “An immigration judge, not a district judge, has the authority to decide if Odalis Jhonatan Martinez-Velasquez should be released or detained. The activist judge is ignoring the biological reality of sex, undermining ICE’s commitment to promoting safe, secure, and humane environments for women in custody, and subverting the American people’s mandate to restore commonsense to our immigration system and reject extreme gender fanaticism.”

Ed: Judges are not bound by executive policy or by popular opinion, but they are supposed to be bound by the law. There is no law that requires DHS to put men into women’s custodial spaces, or vice versa. That judge is creating policy rather than following the law, and that should have consequences. 

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They notice Trump has a little swelling in the legs and discoloration on his hand, but they didn’t notice that Biden was literally a walking corpse.

You can not hate them enough. https://t.co/BpWDdSEJyf

— Phil Labonte (@philthatremains) July 18, 2025

Ed: I’m fine with the coverage on Trump’s swelling. The White House has been transparent about it, too. That’s far better than either the media or the White House performed in the last administration, though, and that is worth pointing out. 

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Hazell was discovered as a teen and became one of the “Page 3” girls, posing topless on the third page of England’s tabloids. She’s doing the interview years later because a former boyfriend leaked a sex tape to the media. She’s scrambling to repair her reputation. Part of the strategy was to record and release a pop song: “I’d just released my first single, ‘Voyeur,’ and a raunchy music video to go along with it. It makes me cringe greatly to write those words. I must confess, I have the musical talent of a slug and the singing voice of a drowning rabbit, and as for my dancing, well, I’ve often been asked by panicked friends if I’m okay. But I was severely desperate.” When asked by the interviewer about feminism, Hazell doesn’t even know the meaning of the word.

Curious, Hazell starts reading feminist authors. Suddenly she’s not just a stunner with great boobs, but a victim of the system. “I’m acutely aware that I am no different from the other girls I sat with on the wall in Grove Park,” she writes, “and yet, because I was born in a particular body at a specific time that society deemed my body and looks of value, I’ve led a very different life. Still, with its privilege came its limitations. Glamour modeling was just class oppression transmuted into sexual objectification. I just went from being a ‘chav’ to a ‘bimbo’ with money. And while money gave me freedom, access, and autonomy, it didn’t free me from judgment over the choices I made.”

Ed: Mark Judge has a very interesting take on Hazell, mainly positive, but he also notices that she seems to blame capitalism for choices she herself made. Maybe capitalism created those choices, but Hazell didn’t have to choose the options she did. Mark hits that nail on the head; it’s worth reading in full, but it does have adult language and themes, so NSFW, a bit, anyway. Speaking of choices …