Sunday, May 31, 2026
Mamdani spin doc accused of threatening Platner ex-staffer who blew whistle on sexting
Mayor Mamdani’s whiz-kid spin doctor has been accused of pressuring Maine Senate hopeful Graham Platner’s ex political director to lie about the horny oyster farmer’s sexting scandal — and threatened her if she didn’t.
Morris Katz, the 27-year-old hot-shot strategist who helped catapult Mamdani to Gracie Mansion, allegedly pressed former Platner campaign staffer Genevieve McDonald to deny the sexting scandal to the press.
“Just want to be clear on where we are right now,” Katz wrote to McDonald through a third party, according to messages reported by Bangor Daily News.
“If the story goes in its current iteration, we’ll communicate directly on the record, and by name, that Genevieve violated the personal trust of Amy and Graham and shared explicit falsehoods to sabotage the campaign.”
Katz, who owns the firm Fight Agency, is working for Platner — who is the de facto Dem nominee for Maine’s Senate race.
The 27-year-old strategist’s warning was relayed through an adviser to Maine congressional hopeful Jordan Wood, according to docs obtained by BDN.
McDonald had worked on Wood’s campaign until Saturday.
She was one of three officials who quit Platner’s campaign last fall after wild details about his past emerged.
Katz had been incensed after the Platner campaign caught wind of a forthcoming Wall Street Journal story about Platner sexting up to a dozen women after marrying his wife in 2023.
The Katz demanded that McDonald call up the Wall Street Journal to deny the sexting scandal to the outlet and record herself doing that so she could send it to the campaign, BDN reported.
But McDonald didn’t take kindly to being threatened and instead went on the record with the New York Times, which confirmed the bombshell story shortly after the Wall Street Journal reported it.
The outlet reported that Platner had sexted as many as a dozen women, though his campaign claimed it was only six.
McDonald recounted how Platner’s wife informed her that she discovered her husband had sent sexually explicit images to various women while the campaign was doing internal opposition research to prepare for potential dirt his rivals might be able to dig up.
Katz had raged against McDonald on social media.
“It’s no one’s f—ing business what happened in Graham & Amy’s marriage before he was ever a candidate for office,” he fumed. “There should be no place in our politics for incompetent, opportunistic operatives who violate privacy, betray trust, and prioritize vengeance over decency.”
The Post contacted the Platner campaign and attempted to reach Katz for comment.
Platner, 41, shied away from the media during his campaign event Sunday, and his team’s main response to the bombshell stories came from his wife, who cut a 5-minute video addressing the controversy by scolding the media and McDonald — although not by name.
The Marine veteran has faced a myriad of controversies, including Reddit posts downplaying sexual assault, defending soldiers urinating on dead Taliban soldiers, musing about graffiti of men’s genitalia, calling war “the most enjoyable experience,” contending that white Americans “actually are” racist and stupid, among others.
Recently, it emerged that he mocked a Purple Heart soldier who captured wild helmet footage of himself moving into the open to steer Taliban fire away from his fellow soldiers.
Perhaps most infamous of all, Platner is revealed to have had a tattoo on his chest resembling a Totenkopf or “death’s head” symbol used by the Nazi SS. The oyster farmer claims to have gotten that tattoo in Croatia while drunk in 2007 and denied advanced knowledge of its Nazi links.
Since then, he has inked over it with what he has described as a “Celtic knot with some imagery around dogs.”
Platner has a 7.8 percentage point polling edge over incumbent Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), according to the latest RealClearPolitics aggregate of polls. Collins has a history of dramatically overperforming the RCP aggregate in past races, particularly her 2020 reelection.
Cal. Chemical Tank Emergency At F-35 Supplier Comes Amid Far-Left Campaign Against Defense Firms
By the end of last week, dozens of lawsuits had been filed against GKN Aerospace after a tank explosion risk at its Garden Grove, California, facility forced 40,000 residents to evacuate the area over Memorial Day weekend.
An apparent malfunctioning storage tank containing methyl methacrylate, a volatile, flammable chemical, sparked fears of an explosion across Garden Grove, Anaheim, Stanton, Buena Park, Cypress, and Westminster.
Local authorities lifted the final evacuation orders last Tuesday after pressure inside the tank stabilized and officials ruled out the worst-case explosion scenario.
While much of this has already been reported, what has not been widely discussed is that GKN Aerospace's Garden Grove facility is part of the critical supply chain that manufactures components for the F-35 stealth fighter jet. This comes as far-left Marxist groups, under the guise of 'Palestine,' have targeted critical nodes of the F-35 supply chain across the West.
See here:
GKN's own website states that its Garden Grove production line manufactures the "world-leading F-35 canopy," as well as other advanced military and commercial aircraft transparency systems. This makes the facility deeply embedded in the F-35 supply chain.
This all matters because the chemical emergency at the Garden Grove facility was not just an industrial incident. It may have a profound impact on canopy production for the world's most advanced stealth fighter jet program, while orders for the jet ramp up among U.S. allies.
In recent weeks, Canary Mission claimed on X that Palestine Action and its U.S.-based network, Unity of Fields, had circulated a target map containing personal information and civilian addresses allegedly tied to Israel's defense-industrial base in the US.
InfluenceWatch describes Unity of Fields as the former Palestine Action U.S. and says its US branch is focused on "their goal is to dismantle the ability for the Israeli state to carry out its foreign policy objectives by obstructing the facilities that produce arms for Israel."
InfluenceWatch has also reported that Marxist James "Fergie" Chambers, an heir to the Cox Enterprises family fortune, has provided financial support for Palestine Action members.
InfluenceWatch noted, "Palestine Action was created in July 2020. Its opening act was to vandalize the U.K. headquarters of defense contractor Elbit Systems, which conducts business with the State of Israel."
The Garden Grove tank failure has reportedly been blamed on a faulty valve in the cooling system. While that suggests an industrial malfunction, the timing cannot be ignored. Radical left networks have increasingly targeted the F-35 supply chain and defense contractors, placing facilities like GKN's Garden Grove site in the crosshairs of left-wing pro-terror groups.
While no direct link has been established - the incident is likely to be a wake-up call for US defense firms.
Unions in New York now squeeze the public worse than any other mafia — with politicians’ help
Mafia-like unions are pummeling New York — and the political elites are in league with them.
The obscene new contract for 22,000 unionized city hotel workers will give housekeepers a $77,113 starting salary, higher than cops or teachers.
The Hotel Association deal with the powerful Hotel and Gaming Trades Council averted a strike threat that had already spooked visitors who were thinking of coming here for America 250 celebrations and the FIFA World Cup.
The hotel owners could afford it because they’ve worked with the unions to get politicians like City Council Speaker Julie Menin to hamstring any competition from new hotels, non-union ones and Airbnb — all of which reduces tourism, undercutting the rest of the city economy.
Last month, 3,500 unionized Long Island Rail Road employees held an entire region hostage with a three-day strike that ended with some of the nation’s highest-paid public employees winning even higher pay without any reform of the obscenely generous work rules that rob the public blind.
On the state level, Gov. Kathy Hochul caved to unions by rolling back Tier 6 reforms that had reduced taxpayer pension-funding costs for public employees hired after 2012, a multibillion-dollar giveaway to well-paid workers who’d happily taken jobs with less-generous benefits.
Time and again, regular folks lose as these labor mobs feast, because elected “public servants” work against the public interest.
Forget about Hochul’s claim that she stood up against the LIRR unions’ blackmail — in the end they got most of what they wanted.
And in an indictment of the state of the Republican Party, only Long island Assemblyman Michael Fitzpatrick voiced opposition to the Tier 6 pension giveaway.
Hochul’s GOP challenger, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, was largely silent — that is, when he wasn’t shilling for the LIRR union goons.
And Menin and the rest of the council leap to please the hotel workers union.
The unions offer campaign cash, endorsements and well-paid volunteers to canvass for the politicians who carry their water.
Once a drive for social justice, the labor movement has become a corrupt special interest that drives ever-growing injustice — a cancer on society.
The End Of Digital Trust: How Quantum Computing Could Upend Security, Business, & Global Stability
by Julio Rivera via American Greatness,
The scariest technology threats are usually the boring ones. Not the giant killer robots. Not the science fiction stuff. Not the dramatic movie scenes where somebody in sunglasses launches cyberattacks from a glowing underground bunker while alarms blare in the background. The truly dangerous threats arrive quietly. Q-Day falls squarely into that category.
To most people, the phrase sounds like something Netflix would slap on a conspiracy thriller thumbnail. In reality, it refers to the moment quantum computers become powerful enough to break the encryption systems that protect modern digital life. And when cybersecurity experts talk about this possibility, they don’t sound excited. No, they sound exhausted—because they know how unprepared much of the world still is.
Encryption is the invisible architecture underneath almost everything people interact with daily. Online banking. Cloud storage. Corporate systems. Government communications. Military operations. Healthcare records. Financial transactions. Satellites. Power infrastructure. Nearly every digital system that matters relies on cryptographic protections developed for a pre-quantum world.
That world is running out of time. Experts increasingly warn that quantum computing breakthroughs are advancing faster than expected, while organizations remain painfully slow to adapt. And corporate leadership still doesn’t fully grasp the seriousness of what’s coming.
A lot of companies approach cybersecurity the way people approach oil changes. They know they’re supposed to deal with it eventually, but they’d rather postpone the expense until smoke starts coming out of something important. Meanwhile, cybercriminals and hostile governments are operating several moves ahead.
The phrase “harvest now, decrypt later” has become one of the most alarming concepts in modern cybersecurity. Adversaries are already stealing encrypted information today with the expectation that future quantum systems will eventually crack the protections surrounding it.
That means the threat isn’t waiting for some future technological milestone. The threat has already started. And the scope of what’s potentially vulnerable is staggering. Intellectual property. Trade secrets. Proprietary AI systems. Pharmaceutical research. Defense communications. Infrastructure schematics. Diplomatic cables. Financial data. Internal corporate strategy. Decades of archived encrypted communications that organizations assumed would remain secure indefinitely.
A lot of executives still imagine cyberattacks as noisy smash-and-grab operations. Ransom notes. Locked systems. Flashing warnings. But some of the most effective compromises are almost embarrassingly subtle.
“Stealer” malware remains devastatingly efficient in the current cyber landscape, quietly extracting passwords, session cookies, authentication credentials, browser data, crypto wallets, and sensitive company access without triggering major alarms. Fake file deletion warnings and fraudulent system compromise messages still trick countless ordinary users into handing over access voluntarily. Some of the oldest scams in the book continue working because panic overrides common sense faster than any firewall can react.
Quantum computing doesn’t replace those existing threats; it magnifies them. And the implications extend far beyond corporate cybersecurity budgets.
If hostile governments achieve practical quantum decryption capabilities before widespread migration to post-quantum cryptography occurs, global security dynamics could shift dramatically overnight. Military communications, intelligence systems, satellite infrastructure, weapons logistics, and secure diplomatic channels all potentially become vulnerable in ways modern governments have never fully experienced before.
That kind of uncertainty changes how nations behave. Secure communications aren’t just a convenience for modern governments; they are foundational to deterrence, alliances, military coordination, intelligence operations, and geopolitical stability itself. Once nations begin doubting the integrity of those systems, mistrust escalates rapidly.
Which is why the recent diplomatic summit between China and the United States should have produced far more discussion about continuing to modernize the increasingly outdated 1979 science and technology agreement between the two countries. That framework belongs to an era before cyber warfare, before AI competition, before semiconductor dependency battles, and certainly before the looming quantum race currently shaping long-term national security strategy.
The technological relationship between global superpowers is no longer some side issue tucked away in academic policy circles. It is the policy circle.
And while governments maneuver strategically, private industry continues lagging dangerously behind. Many companies still rely on fragmented security practices, aging infrastructure, weak endpoint protection, and reactive cyber strategies designed for a threat environment that no longer exists. The time to improve cyber resilience started long ago.
The timeline problem makes everything worse. Migrating critical systems toward quantum-resistant cryptography takes years. Large enterprises often don’t even have complete inventories of where vulnerable encryption exists across their networks.
So, while the public still treats quantum computing like futuristic science fiction, cybersecurity professionals are staring at calendars.
Because unlike Y2K, there may not be one dramatic moment where everybody suddenly realizes the danger has arrived.
Instead, the erosion could happen gradually.
Silent infiltration. Invisible interception.
Archived communications quietly unlocked years later. Competitive advantages disappearing without obvious explanation. State actors obtaining access to sensitive information nobody ever imagined could be exposed.
That’s the nightmare scenario. Not chaos. Not collapse. Simply the slow realization that the digital locks humanity built around its most sensitive information no longer work the way everyone assumed they did.
Israel Seizes Crusader Beaufort Castle, Marking Deepest Plunge Into Lebanon In Decades
Fresh Sunday reports say that Israel's military has made its deepest plunge into Lebanon in nearly three decades, having captured a strategic crusader castle site and UNESCO World Heritage Landmark, Beaufort castle.
It was last captured in 1982, when the IDF later pushed all the way north to occupy portions of Beirut. The army posted photographic proof via its Arabic spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, who issued an image on X showing Israeli troops walking outside the castle. An Israeli flag has also been raised over the stone fortress complex.
The castile overlooks the Litani River, which Israeli forces have been pushing north of, and has stood for nearly 1,000 years - and was at various times used by Crusader knights, Saladin’s Jerusalem army, the Mamlukes, and Ottomans. In the 1980s, fighters from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) even occupied it for a time. The name Beaufort is Old French for "beautiful fortress."
Soon the heels of the historic site's capture, the IDF repeated a warning to everyone south of the Zahrani, saying they must evacuate or else face the possibility of coming under attack and thus death or injury.
"Anyone present near Hezbollah elements, facilities or means of combat endangers their life," an IDF spokesman said. The castle appears to have been shelled by the IDF before the final ground assault.
According to more details via The Times of Israel:
Troops took over territory in the Beaufort Ridge and Wadi Saluki stream area and expanded strikes north of the Litani River after the Hezbollah terror group fired multiple rockets and drones at Israel on Saturday afternoon and evening, forcing schools near the border with Lebanon to close on Sunday.
Footage from Sunday morning showed Israeli and IDF flags flying over the citadel, a strategic medieval Crusader-built fortress with symbolic importance in the history of Israel’s military entanglements in Lebanon. Shelling was audible and smoke rose from the surrounding area.
The fortress, also known as Qalaat al-Shakif, commands sweeping views of the Galilee Panhandle in northern Israel, as well as the Nabatieh area in southern Lebanon, making it a position of considerable strategic value.
Footage of IDF forces taking Beaufort Castle in southern Lebanon. pic.twitter.com/D8Vr0qVfQH
— Amit Segal (@AmitSegal) May 31, 2026
The day prior to the takeover, northern Israel had come under heavy Hezbollah rocket and drone attack. These rocket waves have been stepped up as it's become clear the Lebanon ceasefire has effectively collapsed.
The past week has seen hundreds of projectiles fired on southern Lebanon. Gong back to early March, over 3,180 Lebanese have been killed, with more than 9,000 wounded - according to Lebanese health officials. The figures do not distinguish between armed combatants or civilians.
Critics of Israel have warned that Netanyahu is trying to sabotage Trump's efforts to find a final peace deal with Iran. The Israelis have long worried that Washington could in the end settle for a 'bad deal' - or one that doesn't ensure the complete destruction of Iran's nuclear program and highly enriched uranium.
Lebanon’s LBCI airs footage of the flags of Israel and Sayeret Golani flying over Beaufort Castle in southern Lebanon, north of the Litani River. pic.twitter.com/wCsqvQ6Ue1
— Ariel Oseran أريئل أوسيران (@ariel_oseran) May 31, 2026
The US-mediated truce was really only something that was meant to prevent Israel from bombing Beirut and other government centers once again.
Washington has been trying to put the pressure on the Lebanese government and national army to finally disarm Hezbollah - but this has remained unrealistic as the army is weak and underfunded (ironically in part due to limitations imposed by the US).
Entertainers don't entertain anymore
Many years ago—I can’t recall exactly when—I tuned in to The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. His guest was Tom Selleck, a hot property due to his role in Magnum PI. Carson asked Selleck a question about one of the political controversies of the day. I don’t remember what that was either, but Selleck replied that he was an actor who played people he was not. His job was to do that as well as possible, so he couldn’t imagine why anyone would care about what he said about politics.
I’ve bought every one of his DVDs since.
One would hope every entertainer would demonstrate such humility, self-awareness and responsibility rather than becoming full of themselves and thinking everyone has a right to their political opinion and an obligation to slavishly praise it. That would be entertainers like Bruce Springsteen:
Graphic: X Post
No, Bruce. That’s not why they’re there. Sure, some in his audiences are present because they share his politics, but many, perhaps most, attend concerts for the music and the shared experience. They’re there because the music has touched them, perhaps even inspired them. They’re there to once again, for a few hours, feel those days of rock and roll and teenage angst, confusion, intense but often dopey feelings, and rebellion. And when that’s over, they can go safely back to their responsible adult lives.
Yes, there are plenty of wastrels and lost souls at such events, people still trying to live those teenage days in a drug-induced haze, but thankfully, that’s not most of America. And even those people somehow manage to have enough money to gain admittance to a Springsteen concert, and it’s leftist hectoring:
There was a bit of sticker shock for some when they logged into Ticketmaster over the weekend and were put into queues that sometimes backed up to over 100,000 wanna-be ticket buyers at a time, with a message to study on the app while they waited: “Tickets for this event have been priced in advance by the tour from $84.55 – $3,007.20, including service fees.”
Three thousand dollars to be told how awful America is? No thanks. I’ll just buy the Greatest Hits CD and skip the political nonsense altogether. I’ve always liked Born to Run, Springsteen’s attempt to write the classic rock song, at least in part for Clarence Clemons’ classic sax solo, but I like my music, rock or classical, without politics of any kind, thank you.
The same goes for other entertainment, like movies. I watch very little TV. While the small screen tends to be more leftist politically these days, the big screen seems to be relentlessly woke--or insulting, sometimes both.
Consider the debacle of Snow White, whose star, Rachel Zegler, was not only woke, but petulant, insulting potential audiences before and after the movie was released for their lack of appreciation of her and the production. The result of her juvenile tantrums was one of history’s biggest flops. Milly Alcock, the new Supergirl, before its release, is also insulting the potential audience and blaming them—specifically Christian dads--for not seeing her movie. She apparently didn’t learn from Zegler, or she knows the film is a bomb because she’s seen it. One suspects Christian dads aren’t going to be taking their daughters to that film.
Supergirl is a DC property, and that company has always had difficulty competing with Marvel, which mostly stuck with non-overtly political entertainment, until it was bought by Disney. Disney, which used to know how to entertain people, is now among the wokest companies ever and quickly tanked the Marvel Universe, but Disney’s real achievement was obliterating, with few cinematic exceptions, the Star Wars franchise.
They did it the old-fashioned way. They abandoned good writing, admirable characters, and all the epic literary elements that made Star Wars one of the most successful franchises in history. Just to make certain they’d driven it into the ground, various stars, directors, and producers insulted audiences for refusing to praise their bad offerings and toxic politics.
Disney also damaged Marvel and Star Wars by insisting on inserting gay and trans characters, and by such innovations as lesbian space witches, an underserved minority audiences really didn't want to see get their 15 minutes of fame.
We occasionally see something like Top Gun: Maverick prioritize exciting entertainment over contemporary politics. Despite the financial rewards of giving audiences what they’ve always wanted, companies like Disney don’t care. In an industry that used to relentlessly copy what works, they’re apparently in business to be original and lose money.
And so, Springsteen hectors at exorbitant prices, and people continue to pay for that privilege. But fewer people are willing to pay less exorbitant prices for that dubious privilege in movie houses.
In the meantime, I have a Tom Selleck DVD to watch—Quigley Down Under, perhaps?
Become a subscriber and get our weekly Friday newsletter with unique content from our editors. These essays alone are worth the cost of the subscription.
Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer, and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/05/entertainers_don_t_entertain_anymore.html