Newsom's Book Sales Get A Closer Look California Gov. Gavin Newsom is under fresh scrutiny after campaign finance filings showed his political action committee spent more than $1.5 million buying copies of his new memoir, Young Man in a Hurry. Fox News reported that those purchases made up about two-thirds of all copies sold nationwide. That is one way to climb a bestseller list. It is also a reminder that in politics, the line between popularity and procurement can get blurry fast. A book can look like a hit when the same circle is doing the buying. The headline writes itself, which is usually a warning sign. Bulk Orders Make Nice Headlines Supporters may call the move smart promotion, but the setup looks less like broad demand and more like a carefully staged sales boost. PAC money is supposed to help a political effort, not act like a private shopping budget for a memoir. Still, the public gets a neat headline and a shiny chart, and the details can be filed away where most spin lives, next to the corporate apology and the campaign promise that somehow expires after election day. If voters are meant to admire the numbers, they…

Amanpour Takes Aim at HegsethChristiane Amanpour used X to criticize Secretary of War Pete Hegseth after his remarks at the Pentagon, calling his biblical language wrong and unprecedented. She then said she had once been listed as a major on her Gulf War dog tags, which was meant to land as a jab. Instead, it raised a basic question: since when does a press credential count as military service? In Washington, the answer is usually found in a memo nobody reads and everyone misquotes.https://twitter.com/amanpour/status/2045178770756190419?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw What the 'Major' Tag Actually MeantDuring the Gulf War, some reporters embedded with U.S. forces were given administrative tags or badges that used military-style ranks for access, housing, and movement. That label was a practical fix, not an actual commission, promotion, or record of service. It was paperwork, not a battlefield award. The system did what systems do best: it created a technical detail and then let people pretend the technical detail meant something bigger. A war zone is not exactly the place for branding exercises, but bureaucracy never met a label it could not overwork.Veterans Push BackRetired Lt. Col. Robert "Buzz" Patterson, a former Air Force pilot and author, said Amanpour’s comparison showed deep ignorance…