Stephanie Diller, the widow of a New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer who was murdered, delivered a eulogy Saturday as thousands of people attended the funeral.
NYPD officer Jonathan Diller was allegedly shot dead Monday by Guy Rivera during a traffic stop in Queens. Diller’s widow remembered him fondly among a large audience, saying he was a “fierce protector” who was her “absolute greatest confidant.”
JUST IN: Widow of slain NYPD officer Jonathan Diller delivers emotional speech, blasts New York City for not protecting the police.
Diller’s wife Stephanie says her husband died a hero and lived as one too.
“My husband died a hero, but he always lived as one.”
“Thank you all for the support this week,” Stephanie Diller began. “The outpouring of love our family has received has been overwhelming, and we’re forever thankful to everyone.”
“With every hug that I’ve received, I just picture each one is from Jonathan. I wish Jonathan were here to see the incredible kindness and generosity that has been shown to our family, but I know in his own way, he is here watching over us,” she continued. “I am so proud that thousands of people across the country are calling Jonathan a hero, but the truth is, he has always been a hero to Ryan and me. The rest of the world is just catching up.”
Stephanie Diller said she also wanted to “honor Jonathan for who he was out of the uniform” after emphasizing that he was “beyond proud” to be part of the NYPD. Diller’s widow described her deceased husband as a “connector” and a “friend to everyone.” She called his death “devasting” and “senseless,” according to the New York Post.
“My husband died a hero, but he always lived as one,” Stephanie Diller said, according to the outlet.
Rivera was charged with murder of a police office, attempted murder and criminal possession of a weapon Thursday, the outlet noted, the same day former President Donald Trump attended the slain NYPD officer’s wake.
Today’s cover: Young widow of slain NYPD Detective Jonathan Diller rips elected officials for allowing NYC crime to spiral during devastating eulogy https://t.co/moge5Ydzdmpic.twitter.com/vCKdzbsKKk
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The prevailing perceptions are wrong, and the truth is frightening. The U.S. immigration system isn’t simply broken. It’s an unmitigated train wreck, all cars off the rails spewing poison into the nation’s atmosphere, but not by the people or for the reasons most people think.
The Democrats’ unrelenting focus on immigration, particularly the issue of uncontrolled immigration, is cause for concern that goes beyond mere debate and speculation. Beneath the surface, posturing lies a deception that extends beyond the mere games of representation and power in the United States.
The Democrats’ emphasis on immigration is not a mere coincidence or a short-term political maneuver. Rather, it is deeply rooted in their long-term vision of reshaping the demographic and political landscape of the United States. By advocating for more inclusive immigration policies, the Democrats aim to solidify their support base and gain a strategic advantage in future elections.
Shaping the Electorate: The Democrats recognize that the changing demographics of the United States will profoundly impact its electoral landscape. By supporting policies that are perceived as welcoming to immigrants, the party aims to cultivate support among minority communities who are more likely to vote Democrat. Additionally, the party seeks to appeal to younger voters who are generally more open to immigration and diversity.
Expanding Political Influence: The Democrats’ immigration strategy is also intricately linked to increasing their political influence. By advocating for pathways to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, the party aims to tap into a potential pool of future voters who may be more inclined to support Democrat candidates in gratitude for their efforts toward legalization. This strategy could have significant implications in swing states with substantial immigrant populations.
Addressing Social Justice Concerns: The Democrats’ emphasis on immigration is not solely driven by electoral considerations; it also aligns with their commitment to social justice and human rights. The party champions the idea of America as a nation built on immigration, where diversity and inclusivity are celebrated. By championing comprehensive immigration reform, the Democrats aim to address the plight of undocumented immigrants, promote family reunification, and provide opportunities for economic mobility.
Countering Republican Narratives: The Democrats’ focus on immigration also serves as a counter-narrative to the Republican party’s stance on the issue. By presenting themselves as advocates for immigrant rights, the Democrats aim to differentiate themselves from their conservative counterparts and appeal to moderate voters who may have concerns about the Republican party’s strict immigration policies.
The upcoming census, slated for 2030, looms large in the political landscape. This decennial event isn’t just a tally of citizens; it encompasses every individual residing within the country’s borders, irrespective of legal status. Here lies the crux of the Democrats’ strategic calculus.
Illegal immigrants, who often gravitate towards urban centers, play a pivotal role in this strategy. As they settle predominantly in cities, they significantly influence the population count in these areas. The ramifications of this extend far beyond mere statistics.
At the heart of the matter is the allocation of seats in the House of Representatives. Representation in the House is determined by population size, as derived from the census. By bolstering the urban population through immigration, particularly illegal immigration, Democrats strategically tilt the scales in their favor.
The consequence? Cities, which traditionally lean Democrat, gain disproportionate representation in Congress. Even if surrounding rural areas maintain conservative leanings, their voices are diluted by the overwhelming weight of urban populations.
This grand strategy isn’t solely about the present moment but has implications for years to come. By strategically harnessing immigration, Democrats aim to solidify their political stronghold in key urban centers, thereby exerting significant influence on national politics.
However, every strategy has its counter play. The specter of mass deportations emerges as the flip side of the immigration coin. Mass deportations, if implemented over the next five years, could potentially disrupt this carefully constructed strategy.
Yet, the Democrats’ focus remains resolute. They recognize the long-term implications of immigration on political power dynamics and are keenly positioning themselves to leverage this demographic shift to their advantage.
By prioritizing immigration and advocating for more inclusive policies, the Democrats aim to shape or rather reshape the electorate. Therefore, it’s crucial to understand the underlying motivations and strategies at play. For the Democrats, the focus on uncontrolled immigration isn’t merely about humanitarian concerns or ideological stances – it’s a calculated move in a larger game of political chess, one that seeks to shape the very landscape of American governance for years to come.
The Democrats have unleashed a terrible evil on this country that is now beyond their control. There is no closing of the proverbial stable door after the horse has bolted.
A far left star-studded Bien fundraiser hosted in New York City was interrupted multiple times by violent protesters inside the event, as well as outside, as rioters clashed with New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers on Thursday evening.
The protest, which migrated along Sixth Avenue and Avenue of the Americas in Midtown Manhattan, took place outside of Radio City Music Hall.
WATCH:
Last night NYC the Anti-Israel cult stalked a young Jewish woman after the Biden event aggressively screaming in her face:
“F*cking murderous k*ke.” “F*cking die.” “Keep it moving b*tch.”
#NOW Man is grabbed and shoved by protesters after he tried to cross through Pro-palestine march outside of Radio City Music Hall where Biden is holding a fundraiser. pic.twitter.com/Z701XaiveN
— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) March 28, 2024
Chaos as protesters paying up to $500K a ticket heckle Biden, Obama and Clinton at Radio City: Demonstrator tells presidents ‘you are out of your f***ing minds’ on Russia and Palestinian supporters says they have blood on their hands | Daily Mail Online https://t.co/aW7lq4h1BS
“I’m going to my dying mother” – Man is grabbed and shoved by protesters after he tried to push through Pro-palestine march outside of Radio City Music Hall where Biden is holding a fundraiser #NYCpic.twitter.com/Z701XaiveN
— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) March 29, 2024
Several waves of protesters disrupted President Biden’s grandiose fundraiser Thursday at Radio City Music Hall, where he kicked it with former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton to raise cash and enthusiasm for his 2024 re-election bid.
One demonstrator, a woman blowing a whistle, holding a “War pig” sign and warning of “nuclear war with Russia,” was removed from the lavish New York City event, dubbed a “grassroots fundraiser” by the 81-year-old president.
The first interruption was quickly followed by booing and whistling and two other waves of protests related to Biden’s support for Israel’s war against Hamas.
“Shame on you, Joe Biden,” one of the anti-Israel demonstrators shouted.
Multiple people yelled, “Blood on your hands.”
The president asked that the demonstrators being ushered out by security be “let go.”
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2024-03-30 14:51:362024-03-30 14:51:36Anti-Israel pro-Hamas protesters heckle Biden during lavish, $500K-a-ticket NYC fundraiser with Obama, Clinton
A freelance photographer for The Associated Press (AP) won an award for his photo of a naked, mutilated woman who was murdered by Islamic terror group Hamas.
The AP and Ali Mahmud received first place in the “Team Picture Story of the Year” contest for his photo of the deceased Shani Louk, according to the contest’s website. Louk was shown half-naked in the hands of Hamas terrorists on the back of a truck before they drove away with her body during the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks against Israel.
The family of Shani Louk asked the world to honor her memory by only sharing photos of her smiling.
Instead, the Associated Press have been profiting off an image of her mutilated body.
The AP photo of Hamas sitting on her mutilated body in the back of a pick up truck has… pic.twitter.com/TVHY10orv7
The category Mahmud won in the “Pictures of the Year” program “recognizes the collaborative effort of a photography staff covering a single topic or news story,” according to the contest’s website. Winning photos capture “a narrative picture story that consists of images taken as part of a team effort to cover a single issue or news story.” Shani Louk’s name is included in the caption on the website.
“Pictures of the Year” also posted the winning photo on Instagram, according to The Jerusalem Post. They reportedly received criticism online for doing so. The account appears to have deleted the post.
Photographers for the AP have already been rebuked for their alleged ties to Hamas, Ynet reported. The National Jewish Advocacy Center (NJAC) reportedly sued the AP on behalf of survivors of the terror attack, saying the outlet “knew, or at the very least should have known” that some of its freelance photographers allegedly “participated in the October 7 massacre.”
The Israeli government confirmed Louk’s death on Oct. 30, three weeks following the kidnapping of the German-Israeli. Louk’s mother, Ricarda, also confirmed her daughter’s death to German media after previously expressing hope that she was still alive, the BBC reported.
This is how Shani Louk’s family asked for her to be remembered. Smiling and alive.
The biggest photojournalism competition in the world decided to trample on the family’s wishes in favor of giving a photo of Shani’s mutilated body a prestigious award. She wasn’t even named in… pic.twitter.com/y4L4R35bdA
Remember, this wasn’t just a few terrorists. You can parade the body of a dead Jewish girl in the streets and the residents of Gaza would come out and cheer. The West can call for ceasefires, Israel won’t forget Shani Louk or what it’s facing. https://t.co/bVlq1QRxnU
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2024-03-30 13:51:142024-03-30 13:51:14AP Wins Award For Photo Of Naked, Mutilated Woman Shani Louk Murdered By Hamas
Republicans are walking a tightrope heading into the 2024 election.
They must show their base that they are fighting hard on the issue of election integrity, which many conservatives believe cost former President Donald Trump his 2020 re-election bid.
Simultaneously, they must operate in the reality that they now live in the world of ballot harvesting and drop-boxes.
That dichotomy is why the Republican National Committee (RNC) told the Daily Caller they are committed to prioritizing election integrity efforts between now and November. They are waging lawsuits on issues ranging from ballot access to voting rules. Yet the party is also heavily pushing its “Bank Your Vote” initiative, encouraging Republicans to vote early.
Other elements of the party seem more resigned to playing by Democrats’ rules rather than trying to change them. The Caller also reached out to the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), which the RNC said is helping bankroll the party’s legal fights.
After sending the Daily Caller a link to an Axios article about get out the vote efforts, and then ignoring multiple follow-up requests for an interview about election integrity, NRCC spokesperson Will Reinert sent the Caller the following: “We’ve complained about your coverage several times to editors, so to tell you the truth, we really don’t care to engage on pieces we don’t care about to help you guys out.”
A prominent conservative pundit read the Reinert email and told the Daily Caller, “‘pieces we don’t care about’ is the giveaway. They’re mailing it in on election prep, in other words.”
Election integrity is, however, an issue Republican voters care deeply about: coming out of the last presidential election, nearly two-thirds of Republicans and Trump voters said they had little faith votes were counted accurately, according to one poll.
In 2020, a number of election laws were changed, and others were straight up ignored, in key states due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In swing states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Arizona, voters had expanded access to methods of voting including ballot drop-boxes, mail-in voting and early voting thanks to Democratic Party legal efforts led by Marc Elias. (RELATED: Key Swing State Election Laws Under Fire Over Voter Integrity Provisions)
Elias is a high-powered attorney who has played a leading role in hundreds of lawsuits seeking to make it easier to vote and undo Republican efforts to make elections more secure.
A Daily Caller review of current election laws found that the situation on the ground remains dire for election integrity hawks. A number of key battleground states, including those that delivered Biden the presidency, are still slated to use many of the election procedures in 2024 that outraged Republicans in 2020.
At least seven are slated to deploy ballot drop-boxes. Nearly all are likely to have no-excuse absentee voting. Five are on track to have more than two weeks of early voting, and Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and North Carolina will mail out absentee ballots more than six weeks before election day.
“As we’ve talked about, the damage done by Democrats to change laws during COVID was unprecedented. There’s still a lot of work to do, not everything is where we want to be right now. But that’s why we’re scaling up this massive program and filing all this litigation because we’re actively trying to fix it up,” an RNC official told the Daily Caller. “We understand that there are still issues, especially in swing states with key stuff we need to fix. That’s why this exists.”
There is still time for some of these laws to change before election day, but the clock is ticking for Republicans to make inroads toward changing them.
After media outlets began calling the election for President Joe Biden in 2020, Republicans across the spectrum of the party concluded that those changes to how America votes played at least some role in his loss. Certain conservatives will tell you it was the single biggest factor in President Joe Biden’s victory.
With eight months to go, Republicans are mobilizing operatives across the country and spending millions of dollars to avoid a lawfare wipeout akin to what they suffered in 2020 — but the climb is uphill, and progress has been marginal.
“I have no idea what the Republicans are doing. But I can tell you what we did in 2020 when we were watching the Republicans stay on the sidelines,” Catherine Engelbrecht, founder of True The Vote, told the Daily Caller.
The Daily Caller began its investigation into Republicans’ election integrity efforts at the beginning of 2024, conducting an interview with members of the RNC’s election integrity staff in the beginning of February.
Since the interview, new leadership has taken over at the RNC and the Trump campaign has merged with the organization and made several staff shakeups.
National Review reported that the election integrity department had been a part of widespread layoffs that saw dozens of RNC staffers cast aside. However, an RNC official with direct knowledge told the Caller that reports the election integrity staff were asked to re-apply for their jobs was false. A source with the Trump campaign confirmed the same reality, stating that the staffers had not been let go.
Christina Bobb, a former Trump administration staffer who went on to be Trump’s attorney and a One America News Network anchor, has been appointed as the RNC’s election integrity senior counsel, a source told the Daily Caller. The Trump campaign source said the previous election integrity staff at the RNC would be sitting down with Bobb in the future.
When it comes to election integrity, the RNC and its partners are working, but they are playing catch up to Democrats’ nearly 40-year head start. The RNC was subjected to a consent decree in 1982 after a Democratic National Committee (DNC) lawsuit, neutering the party’s ability to engage in election integrity lawsuits until the decree was lifted in 2018.
The DNC sued the RNC in the 1980s, alleging that the party had sought to discourage African-Americans from voting through targeted mailings warning about penalties for violating election laws. The consent decree largely limited how the RNC could participate in election lawsuits.
“Early voting and GOTV effort is like the Space Race or the Arms Race of the Cold War. We defeated the Russians essentially by spending them into oblivion,” Andrew Kolvet, a spokesperson for Turning Point USA, told the Daily Caller. “The Democrats are spending us into oblivion. They are miles ahead. They’ve already landed on the moon a few times and we haven’t even gotten the ship off the ground.”
The RNC told the Daily Caller that the party first dove into the election integrity sphere in 2022. It was the first time the RNC had the opportunity to work with other campaign committees, including the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) and the NRCC. The effort was “loose,” a member of the RNC’s election integrity department told the Daily Caller.
The party did not offer clarification on the timeline of its election integrity efforts prior to 2022 after the Daily Caller followed up.
Following the 2022 election, then-RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel moved to make the RNC’s election integrity efforts an actual department of the party. That allowed the operation to pull resources from all departments such as communications, politics and legal.
Now, in addition to its legal department, the RNC has three election integrity counsels based at its headquarters and 13 election integrity counsels in key states including Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia,Michigan, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, New York, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
“These counsels work around the clock to identify and act on opportunities for election integrity litigation, in addition to coordinating with local law firms and stakeholders in their respective states,” Josh Helton, an RNC election integrity official, told the Daily Caller.
By the end of February, the RNC told the Daily Caller that it planned to have deputy election integrity directors in each of the 13 states where it has an election integrity counsel. Regional directors will also join the election integrity effort to oversee a specific geographic territory and oversee how the party liaised with stakeholders in the area.
In addition to the legal counsels, the RNC has “boots on the ground” as a part of their “recruitment training and shifting of poll workers and poll watchers.”
“These are folks that are going to be in those in those polling locations and they’re going to be our eyes and ears on the ground. That will be reporting back to our our election day headquarters, which happens all during early voting and Election Day,” Helton told the Daily Caller.
“Where we have volunteer and paid attorneys they are going to be taking in those calls triaging the information that comes in and taking the appropriate action,” Helton continued.
With 79 election integrity lawsuits filed in 23 states ahead of the 2024 election, the RNC told the Daily Caller that it has plans to reach at least 100. The party is also in “constant contact” with all 56 Republican state and territory parties to collaborate on election integrity litigation — even transferring money to them as needed, the RNC told the Daily Caller.
“The RNC from what I’ve seen, is an intervener you know, it’s liberal groups that file these lawsuits. In some some of these cases, the RNC is intervening to try to help defend the state statute. That’s basically what’s going on all across the country,” Hans Von Spakovsky, the manager of the Heritage Foundation’s Election Law Reform Initiative, told the Daily Caller. Von Spakovsky added that he thought the state of election integrity was in a better position than 2020, and does not expect a repeat of 2024.
Others disagreed.
“From what I have seen and what I haven’t, we definitely are,” conservative attorney and pundit Kurt Schlicter said about whether he thought the GOP would end up in a similar situation to 2020.
“And I would love to be wrong. I hear ‘we’ve filed 78 lawsuits’ that’s like saying if I’m a commander, ‘oh I’ve fired 78 shells,’” Schlicter added.
“They should be getting insurance. They should be filing lawsuits, and getting injunctions in place to make sure that all the state legislatures, election rules are being followed strictly. And that they’re not being waived because of COVID or Chinese flu or Chinese pneumonia or whatever the next bullshit pandemic is going to be,” Mike Davis, a former law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and founder of the Article 3 Project, told the Daily Caller.
“You need to get injunctions early so the Democrats can’t change the rules at the last minute. If they change the rules, they’ll be in contempt of court,” Davis continued.
Count Marc Elias himself among those who are skeptical of Republican efforts. For years, dating back to 2009, Elias was the lawyer for the Democratic party. Elias is most prominently known for his work during the 2020 presidential election cycle, when he spearheaded the Democratic Party’s efforts to expand voting access and loosen election integrity provisions.
“It seems nearly certain that Republicans at all levels will continue to file frivolous post-election lawsuits and will suffer similar results in 2024,” Elias wrote in a recent report.
Ahead of the election, Elias has begun to track his own and other “pro-voting” suits. Over the last year, Elias and other “pro-voting” lawsuits saw 83 victories for voters across 26 states, according to his report.
According to Elias’ report, Republican and their election integrity forces prevailed a mere 20% of the time in 2022 and 27% of the time in 2023. The same report noted that there were 51 “pro-voting” lawsuits in 2023 to just 22 election integrity lawsuits.
Despite the improvement, Elias has predicted that Republicans will once again watch the rug be pulled out from underneath them and suffer the same fate as 2020.
For their part, the RNC dismissed Elias’ claims that 2024 will be a repeat of 2020.
The Daily Caller provided the RNC with the same report and cited specific stats from it, asking for a response to Elias’ data which portrays Republicans as behind in its legal fight. The RNC dismissed Elias’ report and concerns entirely.
“We don’t put much stock into how Elias tracks lawsuits,” an RNC spokesperson told the Daily Caller.
Results have been mixed so far for the RNC — the organization sent the Caller a list of 17 “selected litigation wins” from 2022 until now. Some were significant, such as protecting New Hampshire’s voter ID requirement or banning expanded ballot harvesting in Arizona. In Florida, the RNC strengthened Florida’s voter ID requirements.
But others were cases still in progress, or only resulted in marginal changes unlikely to significantly affect the election.
There are notable instances were Republican lawfare has failed. In 2020, ballot curing was a key issue in Pennsylvania. The state secretary of state’s office issued guidance right before election day telling counties they could inform voters of improperly filled out absentee ballots, allowing them to turn in a provisional ballot on election day to ensure they got counted.
But a number of Republican-leaning counties ignored this guidance, believing it to be a violation of state law. The Trump campaign sued after the election to discount the cured ballots from Democratic-leaning counties, but lost at the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, 7-0.
Republicans, including the RNC, have since sued again to overturn the ballot curing rules. But those efforts culminated last year with a state judge dismissing the RNC’s lawsuit, leaving in place the patchwork set of ballot curing policies from county to county.
The RNC’s election integrity blitz has also seemingly left party allies, as well as most voters, in the dark.
“The first thing I look for is a chain of command. I’m just a military guy. Who is the person whose lapels I grab, look in the eye and say, what is going on? And there isn’t one, to my knowledge,” Schlicter said. “I don’t see the kind of coordinated planned operation that I would look for that would memorialize best practices.”
McDaniel sat down at the end of February with the head of the RNC’s election integrity project for her podcast “Real America.”
The RNC’s Election Integrity Twitter account tweeted out a clip of the podcast to its less than 2,000 followers. The pair talked about the GOP’s efforts to make elections “FAST – Fair, Accurate, Secure, and Transparent” ahead of November.
By the party’s own measures of success, the interview was a failure — because hardly anyone actually saw it. Just over 12,000 people viewed the video where McDaniel touted their efforts to recruit poll watchers, use volunteer lawyers and the building of a war room.
Just 37 social media users liked the tweet. The podcast currently has 1,200 views on YouTube. Comments are turned off on the video.
“When I go and speak to folks around the country, a lot of folks after I do my presentation, they said ‘we didn’t know the RNC was doing all that. We had no idea.’ If people don’t know, if the tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, like if people don’t know how hard the RNC and the NRSC and NRCC are fighting to secure these elections, we’re not gonna accomplish one of our primary goals, which is to restore that faith and confidence in the electoral process,” Helton said. (RELATED: Daily Caller Columnist Mary Rooke Explains Why ‘Rigged’ Is Essential To Voters Understanding Elections)
The RNC isn’t working alone. It’s partnering with the NRCC and the NRSC to equally fund the election integrity operation.
After the NRCC ignored multiple interview requests from the Caller to talk about this issue, the Caller told Reinert his initial one-sentence response with an Axios link was some of the “laziest shit [I’d] ever seen,” prompting Reinert’s reply that the organization doesn’t care about this election integrity story.
Jack Pandol, NRCC communications director, followed up with the Daily Caller about the interaction with Reinert, telling the outlet that the parties were making a historic committee investment, funding the RNC’s election integrity program and “getting better at it than the Democrats.”
Pandol added that the NRCC’s legal teams are in regular communication with the RNC and NRSC as they work “jointly on the project.”
During the NRCC’s brief interaction with the Daily Caller, Pandol noted that the party’s legal team was in regular communication with the RNC. Despite the frequent conversation, however, the NRCC was unable to explain which election integrity organizations have been in communication with the RNC to work on litigation ahead of the election.
“I have no idea what local groups have or haven’t heard from the RNC, I’m not a spokesman for them so I’d suggest you talk to them about it,” Pandol told the Daily Caller.
The NRSC, the other arm of Republicans election integrity effort, painted a more candid picture about the party’s coordination with other election integrity focused groups.
“We’re getting our ass kicked in that realm. Excuse my language but like, the Dems have the Arabella, that whole network. They have so much more money than us. You haven’t seen an equivalent on our side,” a member of the NRSC election integrity effort told the Caller.
“RITE has been involved somewhat. You see a funding discrepancy across the board, not just with legal right-wing. They have more money than we do. That’s kind of the problem,” they added.
Outside of the official party apparatus, independent organizations focused on election integrity are bustling.
Some, such as Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections (RITE), have had the opportunity to work hand-in-hand with the RNC in a battle for election integrity.
“The main thing that we see is, first of all, wherever Marc Elias has been active and running, everywhere he is, the ecosystem of the election integrity world is there to meet him and confront him,” Derek Lyons, the president of RITE, told the Daily Caller. Because of how the election integrity ecosystem has confronted Elias, Lyons told the Daily Caller that the democratic lawyer has not had much success.
It is evident from dozens of operatives working on election integrity within the Republican sphere that there is no Marc Elias of the right. The effort appears more balkanized than that of the Democrats, for better or worse.
RITE is currently involved in 17 states such as Colorado, Ohio, Montana, Kansas and Florida where the organization is working to protect drop box safe guards, mail-in ballot rules, signature matching, voter identification and ballot harvesting rules, the organization told the Daily Caller.
In New York, Georgia, Arizona and Vermont, the group is going “on offense” and trying to enact laws around citizenship requirements, no-excuse absentee voting, invalid signature matching and double voting.
Other election integrity organizations are non-partisan, which prohibits them from working with political organizations such as the RNC. But for the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), the group finds its non-partisan nature more beneficial than if it was to work with the GOP.
“When Republicans file cases, they run into a buzzsaw,” J. Christian Adams, the president of PILF, told the Daily Caller.
“To go on offense, you really needed to do it last year. And instead of suing on behalf of Republicans, we’re suing on behalf of a county election official who has to accept the ballots,” he continued.
“You see the difference? Because if you bring a case under the brand Republican versus I’m just this poor schlub, who has to make a decision, the courts are more likely to rule in favor of the poor schlub than they are in favor of a Republican Party,” Adams added.
But within what the RNC described as a “robust” ecosystem, some groups have felt abandoned. True the Vote, one of the many nonprofit, nonpartisan organizations working within the election integrity sphere, noted that they had no clue what the GOP was doing legally ahead of the election.
“We just won a huge legal victory in Georgia against Stacey Abrams. That’s a great example of a place that the RNC or NRCC or so many that claim that they’re supportive of election integrity, could have made some kind of an overture. We fought that alone for three years and I think speaks to the distance,” Engelbrecht told the Daily Caller. (RELATED: Stacey Abrams’ Nonprofit Implodes After Shelling Out Millions In Failed Election Fights)
“They’re going to do what they’re going to do. We’re here on the ground, seeing things fall apart and knowing that action needs to be taken and we just are assuming that we’ll do what we can and pray that others join in the fight,” she continued.
The RNC noted to the Daily Caller that the party never heard from True the Vote regarding any possible assistance in its legal battle.
“One thing you want to avoid is doing duplicative work. So if like there’s one group, that is you know, deep in the trenches on specific Georgia litigation, maybe that frees us up to get really into a court battle in Arizona, so on and so forth,” the RNC told the Daily Caller, adding that the party has to be very careful with how it works with and communicates with nonprofits.
True the Vote later told the Daily Caller that they cannot reach out to the RNC because of their nonpartisan nature, but expressed optimism that the party would engage in their litigation in the future.
“True the Vote is very happy to hear about the RNC’s election integrity efforts. Must be a stealth campaign,” Engelbrecht hit back.
The landscape could shift with former President Donald Trumpsecuring the GOP nomination for 2024 and integrating his campaign with the RNC.
“Securing our elections is a top priority,” Chris LaCivita, a Trump campaign senior adviser told the Daily Caller in a statement. “Across the country, we will be aggressive in addressing issues related to the way elections are conducted because we must restore the integrity of the election process and Republican voters’ trust in the system. Otherwise, we risk losing future elections and losing our country.
With the new leadership in place, some organizations previously snubbed out of partnership have already seen improvement. Turning Point Action, a 501(c)4 partner of Turning Point USA, is one of those groups that has felt an increase of optimism as it has begun its “Chase the Vote” effort.
“Before with the old leadership, we heard nothing. There was no willingness or coordination to work with us.” Kolvet told the Caller. “With the new leadership we are very hopeful. We are very optimistic, there is a new vibe.”
Still, no centralized agenda seems to exist. And in the meantime, some Republicans are focused not on overturning Democrats’ election rules, but simply beating them at their own game.
To some degree, that includes the RNC itself, which is putting major juice behind its “Bank Your Vote” initiative encouraging conservatives to vote early in 2024.
Turning Point Action’s “Chase the Vote” initiative focuses on getting in touch with voters who have received mail-in ballots and encouraging them to fill it out and cast their vote. The initiative currently focuses on Arizona and Wisconsin where the organization plans to hire hundreds of full-time staffers devoted to the effort, Kolvet told the Daily Caller.
“Our ultimate goal is, I don’t think that we’re looking to set a blanket regime of election laws across the country. I don’t think that that’s realistic. We as conservatives and Republicans have a very strong belief that elections are to be left to the states to make up their minds on how to run those,” Helton said.
Regardless, time remains, and the parties leading the effort are remaining optimistic about their chances.
“You asked the question, are we in this position where we’re going to be told it’s too late to challenge things, like again in 2020. Hopefully not,” Lyons told the Daily Caller.
The Prickly Pear’s TAKE ACTION focus this year is to help achieve a winning 2024 national and state November 5th election with the removal of the Biden/Obama leftist executive branch disaster, win one U.S. Senate seat, maintain and win strong majorities in all Arizona state offices on the ballot and to insure that unrestricted abortion is not constitutionally embedded in our laws and culture.
Please click the TAKE ACTION link to learn to do’s and don’ts for voting in 2024. Our state and national elections are at great risk from the very aggressive and radical leftist Democrat operatives with documented rigging, mail-in voter fraud and illegals voting across the country (yes, with illegals voting across the country) in the last several election cycles.
Read Part 1 and Part 2 of The Prickly Pear essays entitled How NOT to Vote in the November 5, 2024 Election in Arizona to be well informed of the above issues and to vote in a way to ensure the most likely chance your vote will be counted and counted as you intend.
Please click the following link to learn more.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2024-03-30 02:30:002024-03-30 02:30:00Weekend Read: ‘They Are Miles Ahead’: Despite ‘Election Integrity’ Hype, GOP Could Be Walking Into 2024 Legal Buzzsaw
Winning requires first acknowledging past and existing problems.
The Republican National Committee (RNC) is reportedly asking prospective employees what they think about the 2020 election — as they should.
Citing unnamed sources, The Washington Post reported that job applicants at the RNC have been asked about whether they believe the 2020 election was “stolen,” although the Post acknowledged the questions were “open-ended.”
The Post tried to spin the story as the RNC “demanding fealty” to former President Donald Trump, using the words of President Joe Biden’s rapid response director. But beating Democrats — who showed in 2020 that they are willing to ignore the rule of law in order to change how elections are fundamentally run, to their advantage — starts by acknowledging what happened in 2020.
“Potential staffers who worked on the front line in battleground states or are currently in states where fraud allegations have been prevalent were asked about their work experience,” RNC and Trump spokeswoman Danielle Alvarez said in a statement to The Federalist. “We want experienced staff with meaningful views on how elections are won and lost and real experience-based opinions about what happens in the trenches.”
For one, unelected officials usurped the authority of the legislature to unilaterally change election laws and fundamentally alter the electoral process.
Then-Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar serves as a prime example, having bucked not only the legislature but guidance from the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court declined to expedite Pennsylvania Republicans’ challenge to a state supreme court order that permitted ballots that were postmarked by Election Day but received during the three days following Election Day — and also ballots lacking a postmark but received during the same period — to be counted, based on the understanding that Boockvar would segregate ballots received during the three day extension.
Republicans argued the state supreme court’s decision violated state law that stipulates ballots must arrive by Election Day. Any move to extend the deadline for accepting ballots, they contended, should belong to lawmakers.
Boockvar initially issued guidance on Oct. 28 ordering all ballots received after Election Day be kept separate in the event the high court ruled the ballot extension unconstitutional. Justice Samuel Alito noted that guidance the same day, in a statement on the court’s decision not to take the case. But just days before the election, Boockvar issued updated guidance ordering the segregated late ballots be counted “as soon as possible upon receipt of the ballots.”
Boockvar was later rebuked by a state court for additional guidance she put out that allowed voters missing proof of identification to “cure” their mail-in ballots until Nov. 12, nine days after the election. Trump’s campaign and the RNC argued Boockvar lacked the authority to change the law and only the legislature had power to legislate election changes.
“[T]he Court concludes that Respondent Kathy Boockvar, in her official capacity as Secretary of the Commonwealth, lacked statutory authority to issue the November 1, 2020, guidance to Respondents County Boards of Elections insofar as that guidance purported to change the deadline … for certain electors to verify proof of identification,” Judge Mary Hannah Leavitt wrote.
Other battleground states had issues that undoubtedly affected the election, such as Georgia, which saw Democrats sneak in a major change to mail-in voting months before Election Day. As part of an agreement with the Georgia Democratic Party, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, state election officials agreed to permit “ballot curing.”
Ballot curing allows voters whose ballots were rejected a chance to “cure” or correct the issue on their absentee ballot so that it can be counted. But as The Federalist’s John Davidson pointed out, there was a less-publicized provision of the agreement that had consequences for the election. Prior to the agreement, the signature on an absentee ballot had to match the signature in Georgia’s voter registration database. Ballots were rejected if the signatures did not match.
But the new agreement made sure that an absentee ballot signature simply had to match the signature on the absentee ballot application. This means if someone filled out an application fraudulently, that same person could then sign the ballot itself and both signatures would match.
Or take a state like Wisconsin, where two years after Trump lost by roughly 20,000 votes, the state Supreme Court ruled unelected officials did not have authority to usurp the legislature the way it did when it issued guidance permitting the use of ballot drop boxes in direct contradiction of state law. Milwaukee, like other left-leaning cities in the state, had more than a dozen of these illegal drop boxes. President Joe Biden beat Trump by more than 100,000 votes in the city.
Unlawful changes to election laws were only one of the ways the 2020 election was rigged — or “fortified,” as leftists would say. From Big Tech censorship of conservative speech and bombshell news (like the Hunter Biden laptop story), to media interference, to the infiltration of election offices by private donors via “Zuckbucks,” the 2020 election was rife with alarming issues that Republicans would be foolish not to learn from.
“Allowing just one of these attacks to infect our electoral system would be a crisis,” Federalist Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingwaytoldthe House Administration Committee last month. “Allowing all of them at the same time is an existential threat to our system of self-government.”
The Prickly Pear’s TAKE ACTION focus this year is to help achieve a winning 2024 national and state November 5th election with the removal of the Biden/Obama leftist executive branch disaster, win one U.S. Senate seat, maintain and win strong majorities in all Arizona state offices on the ballot and to insure that unrestricted abortion is not constitutionally embedded in our laws and culture.
Please click the TAKE ACTION link to learn to do’s and don’ts for voting in 2024. Our state and national elections are at great risk from the very aggressive and radical leftist Democrat operatives with documented rigging, mail-in voter fraud and illegals voting across the country (yes, with illegals voting across the country) in the last several election cycles.
Read Part 1 and Part 2 of The Prickly Pear essays entitled How NOT to Vote in the November 5, 2024 Election in Arizona to be well informed of the above issues and to vote in a way to ensure the most likely chance your vote will be counted and counted as you intend.
Please click the following link to learn more.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2024-03-30 02:28:002024-03-30 02:28:00The RNC Is Right: Anyone Who Can’t Recognize Flaws In 2020 Is Unfit To Help Republicans Win
Below is from a friend of a friend which I totally agree with. Once again Biden shows up in a dark, blood red stage at NYC’s glitzy Radio City with his Marxist buddy Barack Obama and pedophile/rapist buddy Bill Clinton as the three of them were lifted up on stage from the hell on earth they occupy. Who were their fund raising audience?
Elitists and fellow narcissists, a personality disorder is found more commonly in men like Clinton, Obama and Biden. All three are rich, true believers of the “Great Reset”, globalists, and Democrats with no core values other than Marxism who donated up to $500,000 each.
Meanwhile, not that far away in Queens, President Donald J. Trump attended a funeral for a young slain New York City police officer Jonathan Diller who murdered at a traffic stop in Queens by a criminal with 21 charges set free by a woke, leftist judge.
President Trump was there to comfort the officer’s young wife, her child and family, and re-commit to supporting Law Enforcement and the rule of law.
This is an objective big Democrat run sanctuary cities like NYC, Chicago, LA, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland and other big Democrat controlled cities don’t support.
I don’t normally show photos but yesterday was simply too easy.
Joe, Bill and Barry “glitzed” it all up to raise $25 million for Joe’s campaign while Trump went to a FUNERAL.
Yep, The FAMILY of this week’s slain NYC Police Officer invited Donald to the “wake” for the slain officer while JOE, BILL & BARRY whooped it up at RADIO CITY in NYC…Yep, take a very good look at both images and you will get the REAL PICTURE…The DEMOCRATIC PARTY is all about MONEY and absolute detachment from the REALTY of DEAD POLICE OFFICERS…Think carefully about that divide the next time you think about taking a subway…or walking at night on a dark street in most major cities all run by Democrats.
LA is the city of the HOMELESS…NYC has become the city of DEAD COPS. Oh, and the NYC Police Union told Joe, DO NOT SHOW UP AT THE FUNERAL…YOU ARE NOT INVITED. Think about that. They have told the President of the United States to STAY HOME!
In San Francisco you are permitted to steal up to a $1000 off the shelves of stores and NOT FACE JAIL TIME. Macy’s in San Francisco has announced they are closing. For you who were never in SF in the 60’s/70’s and 80s…That Macy’s was the most prominent store in UNION SQUARE. That Macy’s was very different from any other Macy’s in the country. They had their own buyers. They were very UPSCALE.
It was like a BLOOMINGDALES…and now it is closing…Why? Try homeless in UNION SQUARE try being allowed to STEAL $1000 in goods off the shelves…The new mayor of Houston just announced that HOUSTON is now broke officially. The rest of TX is fine but Houston has been run by Democrats…and it is now broke…OH…least we forget…CA has a $70+ Billion deficit for the coming fiscal year…Does all this sound weird?
JUST LOOK AT THE PICTURES AGAIN…The 3 YOYOS are celebrating…What in the hell are they celebrating?..6 million illegal migrants crossing the border…dead cops…homeless LA…and they are CELEBRATING…”LOOK WHAT WE HAVE DONE!…Never mind 2 WARS and all the dead. Well, all I can say is..do exactly what they tell you to do…”LOOK WHAT WE HAVE DONE”…Yep, look carefully.. It is NOT a very good picture.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2024-03-30 00:52:102024-03-30 00:52:10March 28th, 2024 Said Everything About Biden vs. Trump … Everything!
With the FBI’s political censorship of social media exposed, proponents of weaponized government are using a different tool: Biden’s Federal Communications Commission.
Recovering from the spook revelations in the Twitter Files, the central government is increasingly marginalizing, censoring and silencing the free speech of Americans who express views that unaccountable bureaucrats believe should not be permitted.
We all know the pattern now. Anonymous officials brand unapproved facts, even when true, as disinformation. They dismiss unapproved opinions as conspiracy theories.Last year, a federal court issued a scathing judgment against the administration, showing that some of those supposed “conspiracy theories” were true all along. That ruling, in the Missouri v Biden case, showed that the central machine engaged in “coerced censorship” with social media companies to silence citizens with the wrong views.
“The United States Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth’” from the novel 1984, Judge Terry Doughty said in his ruling.
Team Biden appealed in Murthy v Missouri, a case argued last week before the Supreme Court. The administration admitted it seeks to “coerce” certain forms of censorship. It complained that victims and individual states were using the courts “to audit all of the executive branch’s communications with and about social media platforms.”
Translation: The central government wants to deny American citizens the right to identify precisely who in the administrative state is responsible for censoring them. Remember that.
The case has documented a ghoulish strategy behind this. All in the name of “national security,” healthcare, and, of course, fighting “disinformation.”
At the same time, the harmless-looking FCC is making two power grabs aimed at Internet Service Providers. ISPs, as they are known – the companies that own and run the infrastructure that provides access to the Internet.
We can thank dissident FCC commissioner Brendan Carr for sounding the alarm. The FCC agenda goes far beyond the FBI’s comparatively narrow suppression of individual accounts that the Twitter Files revealed.
Carr warns that the FCC’s power grab will allow the agency to grant privileges to politically compliant ISPs, and to punish the politically noncompliant.
“President Biden gave the FCC its marching orders,” Carr explained last October. “The President called on the FCC to implement a one-page section of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (Infrastructure Act) by adopting new rules of breathtaking scope, all in the name of ‘digital equity.’”
This digital equity central planning, “for the first time ever,” Carr said, “would give the federal government a roving mandate to micromanage nearly every aspect of how the Internet functions—from how ISPs allocate capital and where they build, to the services that consumers can purchase; from the profits that ISPs can realize and how they market and advertise services, to the discounts and promotions that consumers can receive.”
In the age of DEI, the Biden-FCC initiative can dictate terms to ISPs according to the racial, social and economic profiles of their customers.
As if this is not enough, the FCC is placing net neutrality regulations on ISPs to classify them as public utilities subject to rate regulation. If the government can control what you offer and how much you can charge, it all but owns you. With such a powerful government looming over their every decision, what ISP could not be made to bend to the will of the administrative state?
This massive accumulation of central government power is where the threat of lawless censorship comes in.
With such power, what could political operatives in Washington quietly coerce ISPs to do behind the scenes? What independent or conservative news and opinion platforms might be slowed, shadowbanned or deplatformed if a nameless bureaucrat or some leftist activist group falsely labels them purveyors of disinformation or hate speech?
We have seen the evidence of what the government will do in secret to censor or suppress information with the powers it already has. Just think what it would do if given vastly greater power over private communications platforms.
And since some ISPs own separate news, online media and entertainment platforms, consider what the FCC’s massive, indirect control of their platform could have on information and messaging of those subsidiaries.
The Draconian policy is all wrapped up in nice consumer-friendly language. But as Carr explained, it “was never about improving your online experience – that was just the sheep’s clothing. It was always about control.”
“The plan,” he said, “is motivated by an ideology of government control that is not compatible with the fundamental precepts of free market capitalism.”
More dangerous than the FBI’s abuses. With powers to censor us all.
J. Michael Waller is Senior Analyst for Strategy at the Center for Security Policy.
His academic and professional areas of concentration are foreign propaganda, political warfare, psychological warfare, and subversion.
He is the former Walter and Leonore Annenberg Professor of International Communication at the Institute of World Politics, a graduate school in Washington, DC.
He has been an instructor with the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, and at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg. He has guest lectured at the FBI Academy, George C. Marshall Center, Marine Corps University, National Defense University, National Intelligence University, and other military schools and combatant commands.
Dr. Waller holds a Ph.D. in international security affairs from the University Professors Program at Boston University. His award-winning doctoral dissertation, written in 1993 and published as Secret Empire: The KGB In Russia Today (Westview, 1994), foresaw the rise of a KGB officer to seize political control of Russia. He received his military training as an insurgent with the Nicaraguan contras.
He has written for American Greatness, the American Mind, the Daily Beast, Daily Caller, The Federalist, Forbes, Insight, Investor’s Business Daily, Kyiv Post, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Post, New York Times, Reader’s Digest, Real Clear Politics, USA Today, the Washington Examiner, the Washington Times, and the Wall Street Journal. See his page on Authory.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2024-03-30 00:52:082024-03-30 00:52:08You’ve heard about weaponization of the FBI and CIA; now they’re weaponizing the internet
by Joseph Wilkes and James Liddell, Mirror, March 28, 2024:
Islamist terror group ISIS has called for lone wolves to engage in a Ramadan massacre of Christians and Jews across the US, Europe and Israel.
Abu Hudhaifa al-Ansari, spokesperson for the evil extremists also known as Islamic State, sickeningly praised the horrendous Moscow terror attack that killed 140 people in Russia last week. On Thursday, the jihadist took to encrypted messaging app Telegram to call on “lone wolves” to target Christians and Jewish people, especially in US, Europe, and Israel during the holy month of Ramadan.
The spokesperson also claimed that the presence of American troops in Iraq will “lead to more attacks from group”. It comes as he commemorates the 10-year anniversary of ISIS’ declaration of a caliphate in Iraq and Syria in 2014.
In an audio speech, he highlighted the global expansion of Islamic State. al-Ansar also terror organization Al-Qaeda for straying from their so-called ‘path’, before claiming that Ramadan was the month of jihad.
The spokesperson also called on ‘members’ in Mozambique to “double attacks” and militants in Philippines to “move operations into major cities”, in a chilling and worrying sign. He calls on the Mujahidin – those who engage in Jihad – and media leaders to obey their elders, and disseminate Islamic State’s message.
He concluded: “By Allah, this matter will be made possible.”…
⚠️ BREAKING:. Three Jews have been injured after Arab terrorists opened fire at an Israeli school bus carrying children and vehicles on Route 90 in the Jordan Valley.
30-year-old man is in moderate-to-serious condition after being shot, another man in his 20s is lightly hurt,… pic.twitter.com/iIPHVfwgYg
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2024-03-29 12:51:152024-03-29 12:51:15ISIS calls for Muslim ‘lone wolves’ to carry out Ramadan massacres of Christians and Jews in the United States, Europe and Israel
“Police are the greatest people we have…there is nothing, and nobody like them…this should never happen…” — President Donald J. Trump
The Police Union told the politicians of NYC that they weren’t welcome to attend the funeral of NYPD Officer Jonathan Diller. They reached out to Donald Trump and formally invited him.
President Trump speaks at the wake of NYPD Officer Jonathan Diller, who was shot and killed in the line of duty by a career criminal.
Suspect accused of killing NYPD officer has 21 prior arrests
A community in Queens, the NYPD, and a young family are all mourning the loss of Officer Jonathan Diller, who was fatally shot during a traffic stop in Queens.
Diller, 31, who lived in Massapequa Park with his wife Stephanie and nearly 1-year-old son, joined the NYPD in February 2021.
Authorities say Diller and another officer were conducting the traffic stop on Mott Avenue at around 5:45 p.m. Monday. The NYPD Critical Response Team has been focusing on cars with fake plates, illegal tints or other quality-of-life issues.
NYPD officials say the officers stopped the vehicle, which had two men inside, because it was parked at a bus stop illegally. When officers asked the individuals to step out of the vehicle, the suspect in the passenger’s seat refused, and pointed a gun at the officers.
Guy Rivera, 34, is accused of shooting Diller, who was struck in the torso, just below his bullet-resistant vest. Officials say Diller’s partner then fired at Rivera, striking him in the back.
Diller was rushed to Jamaica Hospital in critical condition and later died.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2024-03-29 11:51:562024-03-29 11:51:56WATCH: President Trump speaks at the wake of NYPD Officer Jonathan Diller
Since Donald Trump’s rise within Republican ranks, conservatives have divided into two competing foreign policy camps. One contends that Trump’s approach suits the world in which we live and supersedes previous GOP national security and foreign affairs outlooks. A smaller contingent contends that Ronald Reagan’s understanding of America and his conduct of diplomacy remain the gold standard for U.S. foreign policy.
Atlantic Council colleagues Matthew Kroenig (also a Georgetown professor of government and international relations) and Dan Negrea contend that considerably more agreement about foreign affairs prevails among conservatives than they themselves realize. When fleshed out, a Trump-Reagan fusion represents, they persuasively maintain in their new book, “the foreign policy synthesis around which the Republican Party can coalesce.”
Taking their title from Ronald Reagan’s succinct 1977 statement of his stance toward the Cold War, Kroenig and Negrea argue in “We Win, They Lose: Republican Foreign Policy and the New Cold War” (the acknowledgements thank me although I contributed at most encouragement), that the United States has been thrust into the New Cold War by the People’s Republic of China. Trump administration veterans – Kroenig in the Defense Department and Negrea in the State Department – the authors maintain that Trump’s 2017 National Security Strategy rightly recognized that America had already entered an era of great-power competition with Russia as well as with China.
Notwithstanding “real divisions within the party,” argue Kroenig and Negrea, recognition of “[t]he existential threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)” provides conservatives “a central, unifying theme.” By combining Reagan’s characteristic “commitment to individual liberty, free markets, and a strong national defense” with Trump’s emphasis “on the interests of all Americans and confronting countries, such as China, whose economic policies harm American interests,” Kroenig and Negrea contend, conservatives can fashion a strategy for winning the New Cold War.
The authors start from the basics. Foreign policy, they argue, stems from fundamental views about human beings, political life, and the world. Following the late Harvard professor Samuel Huntington, Kroenig and Negrea state that conservatives typically see the world as dangerous, respect tradition, recognize religion as an essential social bond, appreciate that political communities inevitably contain a hierarchical dimension, and grasp that peoples and nations tend to regard their shared values and beliefs as superior to those of others.
Progressives place the emphasis elsewhere. They focus on opportunities for collaboration across communities, nations, and civilizations. They often believe that science and reason should liberate individuals from backward tradition and benighted faith. They seek to level hierarchies at home and abroad while stressing the equal worth of all peoples’ and nations’ values (with the exception, among woke progressives, of America’s and the West’s characteristic principles, which they deem inferior to the rest).
These divergent ideas about individuals, society, and international relations produce different opinions about the goal and conduct of foreign affairs. For most conservatives – true of both Reagan and Trump – U.S. foreign policy’s primary purpose is to secure American freedom and prosperity. Conservatives see international conflict as rooted in competing interests and clashing goals. Accordingly, they believe that hard power plays an ineliminable role in world affairs. While appreciating that international institutions can serve the nation’s interests, conservatives prefer U.S. global leadership because they think that America’s dedication to individual freedom and equality under law distinguishes it from other peoples and nations.
In contrast, the progressive outlook organizes foreign policy around the betterment of humanity. Progressives typically see conflict among nations as springing from misunderstandings. Hence, they downplay the need for hard power, even as a last resort, and often suppose that all major differences among nations can be overcome through dialogue, diplomacy, transnational courts, and international organizations. Assuming that America is no better than any other country and worse than many, progressives frequently favor the transfer of authority from sovereign nation-states, including the United States, to multilateral institutions and the United Nations…..
The Prickly Pear’s TAKE ACTION focus this year is to help achieve a winning 2024 national and state November 5th election with the removal of the Biden/Obama leftist executive branch disaster, win one U.S. Senate seat, maintain and win strong majorities in all Arizona state offices on the ballot and to insure that unrestricted abortion is not constitutionally embedded in our laws and culture.
Please click the TAKE ACTION link to learn to do’s and don’ts for voting in 2024. Our state and national elections are at great risk from the very aggressive and radical leftist Democrat operatives with documented rigging, mail-in voter fraud and illegals voting across the country (yes, with illegals voting across the country) in the last several election cycles.
Read Part 1 and Part 2 of The Prickly Pear essays entitled How NOT to Vote in the November 5, 2024 Election in Arizona to be well informed of the above issues and to vote in a way to ensure the most likely chance your vote will be counted and counted as you intend.
Please click the following link to learn more.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2024-03-29 02:30:002024-03-29 02:30:00Trump-Reagan Fusion Can Win the New Cold War
Not so long ago, commentators across the political spectrum were warning us that China’s economy was set to surpass America’s. The United States needed, one Senator claimed, “a 21st -century pro-American industrial policy,” to ward off this existential threat.
Such rhetoric was reminiscent of the late-1980s, when a slew of books appeared to warn Americans that, unless the United States adopted Japanese-like industrial policy (government intervention that shifts resources toward a particular sector or industry), it was doomed to be economically dwarfed by a country which America had militarily crushed four decades earlier.
Yet in 1990, Japan’s economy began entering its “Lost Decade” of stagnation. While that owed much to seriously flawed monetary policy, it also resulted from extensive government interventions into the Japanese economy via industrial policy: a point conceded by no less than Japan’s finance ministry in 2002.
Similar patterns may be manifesting themselves in China today. The shine is definitely off China’s economy, and many of Beijing’s economic dilemmas have resulted from the Communist regime’s dirigiste policies.
The biggest time-bomb confronting Beijing is its self-inflicted demographic disaster. Thanks to the one-child policy pursued between 1980 and 2016, China now faces all the complications associated with an upside-down demographic pyramid, in which an increasingly elderly population is supported by a shrinking pool of younger people.
That means ever-accelerating spending on pensions, welfare, and healthcare which will steadily crowd out investment in things like research and development, infrastructure, and defense. No wonder Beijing is now urging families to have three children. The trouble is that once demographic patterns are set in place, they are hard to shift. Consequently, as the foreign policy scholar Ryan Hass notes, China is now “at risk of growing old before it grows rich.”
Dismal demographics aren’t the only challenge with which China must grapple. The country is reaping the whirlwind of conscious decisions on Beijing’s part over the past 15 years to embrace more state-centric economic policies.
Take, for instance, China’s much-touted Belt-and-Road Initiative (BRI). Since 2013, Beijing has sought to systematically promote and invest in infrastructure projects around the world, particularly in countries China considers geopolitically significant.
From its beginning, however, BRI has been characterized by runaway costs: so much so that, as early as 2015, state-run Chinese banks started reducing their exposure to BRI while Chinese commercial banks began trying to avoid it altogether. There is also evidence that BRI has long been marred by corruption on the part of those Chinese officials responsible for directing it.
Such problems, however, are to be expected when the government plays a heavy-handed role in directing investment — a process which steadily accelerated in China after Xi Jinping came to power in 2012. This has produced widespread misallocations of capital across the economy as a result of state-controlled banks lending to inefficient and zombie state enterprises.
Chinese state officials have even acknowledged that Beijing wasted at least $6 trillion on unsuccessful investments between 2009 and 2014. That makes it unsurprising that the IMF’s 2021 Article IV Consultation report on China concluded that Chinese state-owned businesses were, on average, only eighty percent as productive as private companies. This, the IMF report stated, had played a significant part in China’s ongoing productivity decline since the late-2000s.
A related problem is China’s aggressive use of industrial policy, especially since the early-2010s, in the form of subsidies, direct state investments, and cheap loans. The goal has been to try to bolster growth in sectors like advanced manufacturing, technology, the service sector, infrastructure, and agriculture.
Naturally if you throw enough money at any given economic sector, you will get some results. But Scott Lincicome and Huan Zhu’s extensive analysis of industrial policy in China shows massive failures in areas like semiconductors, 3G mobile technologies, domestic aircraft, and automotive manufacturing. The same policies have also contributed to growing corruption in many economic sectors, including China’s highly subsidized R&D sector.
These and other trends are making foreign investors nervous. This brings us to yet another problem facing China’s economic policymakers.
Inbound foreign direct investment in China has been falling now for two straight years. It is now at its lowest level since 1993. This development reflects a complex relationship, from trade tensions to unease about Beijing’s intentions vis-à-vis Taiwan.
Decreasing confidence among foreign business leaders about China’s future economic prospects also underlies this foreign investment downturn. The European Union Chamber of Commerce in China’s 2023 Business Confidence Survey, for instance, reported “a significant deterioration of business sentiment.” More specifically, “64 percent of respondents reported that doing business in China became more difficult in the past year, the highest on record;” “11 percent of respondents have shifted existing investments out of China;” “8 percent have taken the decision to move future investments previously planned for China elsewhere;” and “one in ten report they have already shifted, or plan to shift, their Asia headquarters (HQ) or business unit HQ out of Mainland China.”
“Uncertainties in China’s policy environment,” according to the Survey, were central to this deteriorating confidence. Foreign businesses are anxious about growing ambiguity concerning what Beijing will allow foreign businesses to do in China. This uncertainty has surely been exacerbated by the fact that China’s National Bureau of Statistics is becoming progressively more selective about what economic data it releases, and regularly delays the release of other relevant data. In August 2023, China simply stopped releasing information about its youth unemployment rate.
Do these trends indicate that China is about to lapse into Japanese-style 1990s stagnation? It is far too early to tell. They do, however, indicate that American policymakers — whether their focus is national security or trade — should recalibrate their approach to Beijing and avoid getting locked into a narrative which assumes that China is an unstoppable economic colossus. Put simply, the evidence suggests that it is not.
*****
This article was published by AIER, and is reproduced with permission.
TAKE ACTION
The Prickly Pear’s TAKE ACTION focus this year is to help achieve a winning 2024 national and state November 5th election with the removal of the Biden/Obama leftist executive branch disaster, win one U.S. Senate seat, maintain and win strong majorities in all Arizona state offices on the ballot and to insure that unrestricted abortion is not constitutionally embedded in our laws and culture.
Please click the TAKE ACTION link to learn to do’s and don’ts for voting in 2024. Our state and national elections are at great risk from the very aggressive and radical leftist Democrat operatives with documented rigging, mail-in voter fraud and illegals voting across the country (yes, with illegals voting across the country) in the last several election cycles.
Read Part 1 and Part 2 of The Prickly Pear essays entitled How NOT to Vote in the November 5, 2024 Election in Arizona to be well informed of the above issues and to vote in a way to ensure the most likely chance your vote will be counted and counted as you intend.
Please click the following link to learn more.
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Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban’s Supreme Leader in Afghanistan, says women will soon be stoned to death for adultery. ‘We will flog women in public, we will stone them to death in public,’ he said in an audio message broadcast on Afghan state television. pic.twitter.com/wiU7zDE24r
Stoning adulterers is not “extremist”; it is Islamic law. The caliph Umar, one of Muhammad’s closest companions, supposedly even maintained that it was originally in the Qur’an:
‘Umar said, “I am afraid that after a long time has passed, people may say, “We do not find the Verses of the Rajam (stoning to death) in the Holy Book,” and consequently they may go astray by leaving an obligation that Allah has revealed. Lo! I confirm that the penalty of Rajam be inflicted on him who commits illegal sexual intercourse, if he is already married and the crime is proved by witnesses or pregnancy or confession.” Sufyan added, “I have memorized this narration in this way.” ‘Umar added, “Surely Allah’s Apostle carried out the penalty of Rajam, and so did we after him.” (Bukhari, vol. 8, bk. 82, no. 816)
“Allah’s Apostle” is, of course, Muhammad, who according to canonical ahadith did indeed carry out stonings. Here is the hadith in which he challenges the rabbis about stoning, and in which there is amidst the barbarism and brutality a final act of love and compassion:
The Jews came to Allah’s Apostle and told him that a man and a woman from amongst them had committed illegal sexual intercourse. Allah’s Apostle said to them, “What do you find in the Torah (old Testament) about the legal punishment of Ar-Rajm (stoning)?” They replied, (But) we announce their crime and lash them.” Abdullah bin Salam said, “You are telling a lie; Torah contains the order of Rajm.” They brought and opened the Torah and one of them solaced his hand on the Verse of Rajm and read the verses preceding and following it. Abdullah bin Salam said to him, “Lift your hand.” When he lifted his hand, the Verse of Rajm was written there. They said, “Muhammad has told the truth; the Torah has the Verse of Rajm. The Prophet then gave the order that both of them should be stoned to death. (‘Abdullah bin ‘Umar said, “I saw the man leaning over the woman to shelter her from the stones.” (Bukhari, vol. 4, bk. 56, no. 829)
Even the monkeys practiced stoning, according to another hadith:
During the pre-lslamic period of ignorance I saw a she-monkey surrounded by a number of monkeys. They were all stoning it, because it had committed illegal sexual intercourse. I too, stoned it along with them. (Bukhari, vol. 5, bk. 58, no. 188)
Muhammad’s example is, of course, normative for Islamic behavior: “Indeed in the messenger of Allah you have an excellent example for him who looks to Allah and the last day, and remembers Allah a great deal.” (Qur’an 33:21)
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While it’s cold comfort in a chamber controlled by the farthest of leftists, a new study should give conservatives some hope in a Congress that hasn’t accomplished all that much for Republicans. There’s a major shift underway in the U.S. Senate, CPAC Foundation’s Center for Legislative Accountability says, and the GOP may be an election away from reaping the benefits. According to research, this body of Republican senators is far more conservative than their predecessors — and becoming more so every November.
Looking back on recent Senate votes, the foundation estimates that Republicans took the conservative position 80% of the time. And while that’s a “far cry” from Democrats (who cozied up to the extreme Left 98% of the time), the GOP’s stat is greatly improved from even a few Congresses ago. Their loyalty to conservatism was helped along by a few key replacements: Katie Britt for Richard Shelby in Alabama, Eric Schmitt for Roy Blunt in Missouri, Ted Budd for Richard Burr in North Carolina, and J.D. Vance for Rob Portman in Ohio. In every instance, a more moderate Republican was replaced by a small government, social conservative.
Making matters more interesting, the least conservative members include the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell (Ky.), who ranks as the fourth most moderate Republican, behind Mitt Romney (R-Utah) at 59%, Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) at 55%, and the most liberal GOP senator of all, Susan Collins (R-Maine) — who can barely bring herself to vote conservative half the time (54%).
As The Daily Wire’s Luke Rosiak points out, that gap means Republican leaders are “increasingly out of step with the members it represents,” and “will continue to be” based on the people throwing their hat in the ring to replace McConnell. Neither Senator John Thune (R-S.D.) nor John Cornyn (R-Texas) cracked even 80% on the conservative scale, coming in at 71% and 79%, respectively. (If Republicans want a true conservative, they’d need the one man who scored a perfect 100% on the foundation’s metric: Utah’s Mike Lee.)
This may also explain why Senate leaders are so quick to “compromise with Democrats,” as Americans watched with horror in the most recent round of spending bills. After all, in Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) party, there are no legitimate “moderates,” the study’s authors point out. The highest scoring Democrat in the Senate — Joe Manchin (W.Va.) — only voted conservative 30% of the time, whereas Collins voted with her caucus 46%. Essentially, the report points out, there are no “moderates” in the Democratic Party.
Republican leaders have been much more comfortable giving away the farm in negotiations, as frustrated conservatives like Rick Scott (R-Fla.) have pointed out. “McConnell and Schumer have been up here forever, right?” he vented on “Washington Watch” after the Kentuckian announced his retirement. “When they came up here, the debt was less than $5 trillion. Now we have $30 — almost $35 — trillion. We’ve got high inflation. We’re spending more [paying off the debt’s interest] than we are on the defense budget.” And yet, he said, “… We have a majority in the House. … So shouldn’t we take their lead instead of taking Chuck Schumer’s lead? But what Mitch McConnell has been doing is he’s on Chuck Schumer side. So he’ll organize whatever votes it takes to do whatever Chuck Schumer wants to get done. And so that’s how we get the debt, how we get no border security.”
But that’s about to change, many believe. This election cycle, Democrats have the unenviable job of defending 23 of the 34 seats up for grabs at a time when the leader of their party — Joe Biden — is swimming in disapproval polls. At least five of those races could be possible flips for the GOP, especially in key swing states like Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. A number of others will be highly competitive, leaving Schumer’s hold on the majority tenuous at best.
For now, Family Research Council’s Quena Gonzalez said, these numbers should be “an encouragement to conservatives and a wake-up call to those running to lead the Senate Republican Conference.” FRC Action Director Matt Carpenter, agreed. “In recent years, the U.S. Senate has not been favorable terrain for conservative policy priorities. Voters are smart. They understand the work of a legislative body requires give and take and compromise, but all too often common sense conservative policies have been shut out of final negotiations. As the Senate GOP becomes more conservative, it will likely be more willing to go to bat for their conservative base on the issues they care about.”
At the end of the day, FRC President Tony Perkins pointed out in a conversation with Indiana Senator Mike Braun (R) earlier this month, “Elections matter. And this is a message that conservatives [shouldn’t] give up. We’re close to a tipping point. We’ve just got to keep voting and get those conservative, constitutionally-minded senators where we can hold the line…”
The Hoosier agreed, admitting that a lot of the news coming out of Congress lately seems “pretty dismal.” “But in [a] little over five years, I can see that we’ve made progress on changing the composition of the Republican Senate caucus. In other words, it’s going more to faith, family, freedom. Don’t borrow money from your kids and grandkids. What could be simpler if you’re a conservative. We need to keep [fighting],” he said on Super Tuesday. “Tonight is the beginning of 2024. We do well on the Senate races … then we’re there.”
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
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The Eighth Amendment of the Constitution bans. That amendment says “excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” Why hasn’t New York Judge Arthur Engoron been sanctioned?
The massive reduction in the unprecedented half a billion dollar judgment against President Trump (the first of that size against an individual) for a non-existent crime is empirical evidence of how wrong this relentless prosecution Trump is. There are ninety two baseless, invented cases brought by Democrat DAs across the country. The outrageous is normal.
The reduction was a win but it should not move toward normalizing outrageous bonds in a total warping of the law. It’s still naked tyranny and yet people didn’t seem to care because it was Trump or Giuliani or some other political opponent. So yes, it’s a win. The whole thing stinks. But it’s a win.
This is all part of President Biden’s weaponized lawfare attack against Mr. Trump in order to stop him from becoming President again.
The Biden White House has orchestrated a massive lawfare campaign that aims to put Mr. Trump in jail for over 700 years, and take away all his cash, and his businesses.
Let me say iconic businesses, in New York, Florida, Scotland, and elsewhere. Mr. Trump remade the skyline of New York City. He rebuilt the Wolman skating rink, and on and on.
And here comes the New York State attorney general, Letitia James, running a scam that respected constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley calls “selective prosecution” and “mob justice.”
Take a listen to Ms. James running against Mr. Trump in her 2018 election: “No one is above the law, including this illegitimate president, so I look forward to going into the office of the AG every day, suing him, defending your rights, and then going home.”
Fox News legal expert Gregg Jarrett says, though, that Mr. Trump could file a petition in federal court regarding the 8th amendment. The Federal court would have to act quickly to issue a stay. But it may be Mr. Trump’s best strategy.
The 8th amendment says: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”
And of course the $464 million penalty is supposed to bear some relation to harm done but there was never any harm done, because there were no victims and all the lenders to the Trump business empire made tons of profits.
So I believe as a non-lawyer that Alan Dershowitz and Gregg Jarrett are both correct in advising Mr. Trump to go for an 8th amendment constitutional appeal.
That would be a fitting end to this soviet-style New York sham lawfare battle against Mr. Trump who by the way is leading in all the swing state polls on the way to a potential victory in November despite what the Democratic crazies are trying to do to him.
How Donald Trump’s Volcanic Clash With Judge Engoron Unfolded
In light of the record $465 million judgment issued by New York Judge Arthur Engoron against President Trump and the Trump Organization, we present an important question: whether that judgment violates the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment….
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Almost since the beginning of recorded history, men have sought power: Caesars and shahs, kings and sultans, princes and khans, presidents and prime ministers, emperors and generals. Kingdoms and empires, dynasties and nations have risen and fallen, memorialized in poems and art and the annals of history. Some dominated entire generations, others sprawled across centuries. Only one has stood the test of time, covering every continent and thriving over 2,000 years: Christianity.
Over the weekend, this well-chronicled historical fact became a subject of discontent and dispute for the armchair philosophers and amateur pundits of social media — many of them self-professed conservatives and even Christians. According to these self-appointed arbiters of theological, historical, and social truth, the admission “Christ is King” is clearly a hateful, anti-Semitic slur. That is to say, claiming that the Messiah foretold by centuries of Jewish prophets, born to a humble Jewish carpenter and his wife, who illuminated and fulfilled the Jewish Scriptures, could be the King of the world is … hateful towards Jews. Luckily for Christians, nearly two millennia ago, a Jew famous for prosecuting and executing Christians actually addressed this argument:
“Because of this, God greatly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9-11).
The chief argument against “Christ is King” is that the proclamation of the fact is offensive to those of the Jewish faith, and thus anti-Semitic, a slur against a race of persons. As for the racial component of this argument, Christianity necessarily holds that God does not create anything evil — evil is, rather, an absence or a perversion of good in something — and, since every person is not only made by God but is in fact made in His image and likeness (Genesis 1:27), no human can be created evil.
It is for this reason that Christianity has, from the beginning, served as the driving force of civilization. It was St. Patrick, himself sold as a slave in his boyhood, who first condemned the slave trade, some 1,400 years before the American Civil War was fought. It was St. Remigius of Reims who, after the fall of Rome, baptized Franks, Goths, Galls, and Celts, giving those who the Romans derided as “barbarians” a new name, “brother in Christ.” It was Christian missionaries who brought the gospel to Africa, Asia, and South America, establishing peace in regions which had previously been dominated by tribal and racial wars, often culminating in slavery and human sacrifice.
History baldly contradicts the argument that Christianity condemns any particular race, but especially the Jewish race. Christ Himself was ethnically Jewish, and his earthly father, Joseph, was descended from the line of the great King David, as affirmed by the Gospels of both Luke and Matthew. Declaring then that a humble carpenter’s son of the Jewish race is, in fact, the King of the entire world hardly seems to be a means of deriding the Jewish race. The first Christians were Jewish fishermen, so devoted to Christ and the gospel that, with the exception of John the Evangelist, they all willingly died for their faith. The first act of the apostles was to evangelize the Jews, to welcome thousands into the church, to call their own people to recognize the kingship of Christ.
By its very nature, Christianity demonstrably rebuffs the claim that Christ’s kingship — and its proclamation — is somehow an instrument of violence, hatred, or oppression towards any people, but especially the Jews. The fact that some vocal pundits and influencers have attempted to affix the phrase with their racially-charged messages does not alter or mitigate the truth that Christ is King, and it does not warrant the broad effort to suppress proclaiming Christ’s Kingship regardless of intent. Instead, the real case against “Christ is King” is a theological one.
Christ did not come to end the Mosaic covenant, but to fulfill it. He Himself said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill” (Matthew 5:17). In other words, He came that He might be the continuation of that covenant: not its death, but its fruition. The prophets of old predicted that a Messiah would come to save the world from its sins and eternal damnation. Christ is that Messiah. There is no longer the promise of a Messiah, there is not some other savior waiting in the wings like an understudy. This does not abolish the Mosaic covenant, but continues it, rather as a young boy maturing into a man does not kill the boy, but fulfills the promise of his youth. There is not now, though, the same boy running about playing while the grown man works and weds and raises his own children. Just so, there are not two extant covenants: an old one and a new one. Rather, the old covenant was made to mature into Christ, who is Himself the new covenant, just as the boy was made to mature into the man.
This point is an important one to understand, for if Christ’s birth, life, death, and resurrection were merely offering an alternative covenant to the Mosaic covenant, then what would be the point? If the Mosaic law were sufficient for one to attain Heaven and eternal salvation, perfect and beatific communion with God, then God becoming man, taking on the form of a mere creature, suffering an excruciating and ignominious death, and then conquering the grave would be rather superfluous.
Very well, but what if the Mosaic covenant was for the Jews and the new covenant established in Christ is for the Gentiles? Then Christ’s ministry, carried out entirely within the Jewish community, would have been fruitless. Christ was not born in Rome, fulfilling prophesies written hundreds of years before in Jupiter’s temples. He was not born in Athens, claiming to be the son of Kronos. He was not raised studying the sacred texts of the Persians or the Babylonians. He was born in Bethlehem to a Jewish carpenter whose royal lineage would mean nothing to a Gentile, He grew up studying the Jewish Scriptures, and He called Himself the Son of God. But He was rejected by those who, for centuries, awaited His coming.
Christ Himself acknowledges this throughout the gospels. In one instance, He tells a parable to the Pharisees and Jewish priests and leaders, of a landowner who leases his vineyard to tenants and sends numerous servants to ask them for his vintage. After the tenants beat and kill the servants and messengers, the vineyard owner sends his son. When he arrives, Christ says, “But when the tenants saw the son, they said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and acquire his inheritance.’ They seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him” (Matthew 21:33-39).
Christ rarely explained His parables to anyone other than the Apostles, but He did explain this one to the Pharisees and priests:
“Did you never read in the scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; by the Lord has this been done, and it is wonderful in our eyes’? Therefore, I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that will produce its fruit” (Matthew 21:42-43).
Matthew records, “When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they knew that he was speaking about them” (Matthew 21:45). Christ also knew the thoughts of the Pharisees and priests (Luke 5:22-23), which makes His summary of the tenants’ thoughts all the more damning. He knew, of course, that He would be rejected, and He knew why. Christ did not reject the Jews and God did not replace them with Christians. Rather, Christ brought the promise of the Mosaic covenant to fruition through His life, death, and resurrection, calling His chosen people to enter into the covenant which He Himself is.
The conclusion this argument against “Christ is King” reaches is, essentially, that Christ is not King. If He were King, of course, then there would be no harm in declaring Him thus — but if He is not, then boldly and proudly proclaiming His Kingship would be a sort of spiritual colonization of those who do not call Him a King, especially the Jews, since Christ claimed to be the Messiah their Scriptures prophesied. Instead, if this argument is accepted, Christ is relegated to merely one king among many. In short, the argument’s conclusion is that there are multiple avenues to what Christ offers: eternal salvation. Christians, of course, recognize that this is patently false.
Once again, Christ Himself declares, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, then you will also know my Father” (John 14:6-7). There is no other way, there is no other savior, there is no one else whose blood might wash away sin and whose life might conquer death itself. As St. John Chrysostom asks, “Could I produce a witness more trustworthy than the Son of God?” The campaign against Christ’s Kingship is nothing short of an overture to pantheism, an effort to declare that Christ is not only not King, but is not the way or the truth or the life.
Atheism is given pride of place among the social, political, and academic elites of the West: the declaration “God is dead” is met with smiles or applause and is ingratiated into Western nomenclature. The violent religion of Islam is endorsed and promulgated, with even those whom Muslims would deride as “infidels” serving as some of Islam’s most ardent evangelists. Judaism used to be more vigorously defended, with any critique of the religion instantly labeled racism and anti-Semitism. But the Kingship of Christ is denied, spurned, and rejected. The only One who truly is the way, the truth, and the life is silenced, as He was silenced upon a cross nearly 2,000 years ago.
Christians have a responsibility, a solemn commission, to proclaim that Christ is King. It is not anti-Semitic, it is not a slur, it is not a “dialectical trap,” as some have called it. It is a crucial tenet of the Christian faith. Our King commanded us not to shirk and shrink from name-calling, but to “make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19), reminding us that the world will hate us for declaring that Christ is King, just as it first hated Christ our King (John 15:18-19).
Over the centuries, Christian martyrs have faced far worse than criticism, accusations of racism, and social ostracization in their efforts to preach the gospel and expand Christ’s kingdom. Let us not cower before the self-negating arguments of pantheism nor allow any smear to keep us from courageously proclaiming that truth in which both Heaven and earth rejoice: Christ is King.
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
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Biggest Price Drops from 2022 Peak: San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Denver, Phoenix, Dallas, Las Vegas
20-City Index drops for 3rd month in a row, forming Double Top. Only Washington DC sets a new all-time high.
The home price index for the 20 metros that the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Index covers declined by 0.1% from the prior month, the third month in a row of declines. Year-over-year, the index was up 6.6%.
Year-over-year, wait a minute… today’s “January” 2024 reading is three months off the October 2023 peak, while January 2023 was seven months off the June 2022 peak. Year-over-year comparisons are meaningful when the index is very seasonal, and comparisons match the high in the current year to the high in the prior year, and the low in the current year to the low in the prior year. But this is not the case here. The highs are in different seasons (June v. October), because they were caused by factors other than the slight (if any) seasonality of the Case-Shiller index.
So the year-over-year change (+6.6%) compares today’s “January” reading which is three months off the October peak to January 2023 which was seven months off the June peak and was the bottom of a non-seasonal trough. For that same reason, the year-over-year changes will diminish over the next few months.
Today’s S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Index for “January” is a three-month moving average of home prices whose sales were entered into public records in November, December, and January. The fact that it is a three-month moving average irons out some of the seasonality.
The index uses the “sales-pairs method,” comparing the sales price of the same house over time, thereby eliminating the issues – including seasonality due to the seasonal change in mix – associated with median prices (see “Methodology” toward the end of the article).
The long view of the 20-Cities Index shows the mind-blowing surge over the past few years; and it shows a bizarre non-seasonal double top that has never occurred in the history of the index, with the first top in June 2022 and the second top in October 2023.
You can also see that there is little seasonality in the index going back over 20 years:
To qualify for the Most Splendid Housing Bubbles, the metro must have experienced home-price inflation since 2000 of at least 180%. The indices were set at 100 for the year 2000. Today’s index value for Miami, which we’ll get to in a moment, of 429 is up 329% since 2000, making Miami the most splendid housing bubble on this list.
Home-Price Inflation. By measuring how many dollars it takes to buy the same house over time via the “sales pairs” method, the Case-Shiller index is a measure of home-price inflation. So Miami had 329% home price inflation since 2000. By comparison, consumer price inflation, as measured by CPI, was 83% over the same period.
Prices were below their 2022 peaks in 9 metros of the 20 metros in the Case-Shiller index (% from their respective peak in 2022, month of peak):
The Prickly Pear’s TAKE ACTION focus this year is to help achieve a winning 2024 national and state November 5th election with the removal of the Biden/Obama leftist executive branch disaster, win one U.S. Senate seat, maintain and win strong majorities in all Arizona state offices on the ballot and to insure that unrestricted abortion is not constitutionally embedded in our laws and culture.
Please click the TAKE ACTION link to learn to do’s and don’ts for voting in 2024. Our state and national elections are at great risk from the very aggressive and radical leftist Democrat operatives with documented rigging, mail-in voter fraud and illegals voting across the country (yes, with illegals voting across the country) in the last several election cycles.
Read Part 1 and Part 2 of The Prickly Pear essays entitled How NOT to Vote in the November 5, 2024 Election in Arizona to be well informed of the above issues and to vote in a way to ensure the most likely chance your vote will be counted and counted as you intend.
Please click the following link to learn more.
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Rather than asking why NBC decided to hire McDaniel, we should ask why McDaniel wanted to join such an obviously corrupted institution.
The recent announcement that former Republican National Committee Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel will join NBC News as a contributor has brought much controversy, much of it misplaced. Rather than asking why NBC News decided to hire McDaniel — the question the corporate media hyperventilated about over the weekend and into Monday — people should instead ask why McDaniel wanted to join such an obviously corrupted institution.
The media outrage demonstrates that Romney will get no respect or plaudits from the mainstream elite. So why do she and others sign contracts at places like NBC, and allow themselves to get played by a media that just wants a few “token” conservatives on the air to disguise their cultural Marxism?
Racist Quotas and Woke Bias
Just over a year ago, I wrote that the RNC should decline to have the major networks participate in the party’s debates for presidential candidates, because of their woke, and likely unconstitutional, “diversity” metrics that categorize employees by gender and skin color. Among that group, NBC News seems particularly objectionable, given that Chairman Cesar Conde publicly called for a quota of making half of the division’s employees nonwhite and half female.
Of course, these same media executives looking to check every racial, ethnic, and gender box care little about their employees’ political bias, which NBC and othermediainstitutions somehow “forgot” to include in their diversity reports. Instead of making an effort to hire conservatives, or at minimum ideological centrists, at every level of the organization — reporters, editors, producers, directors, and the like — the networks just pick off a few prominent conservative personalities to put on camera, and trot them out to make their overwhelmingly leftist organizations appear more “balanced.”
It’s a trick that raises echoes of half a century ago, when some corporate boards made mere token attempts to hire women or African Americans. The question is why the commentators in question seem so desperate for cash, attention, or “mainstream” credibility that they continue to engage in this charade.
Selective Outrage
The level of amnesia on display by NBC anchor Chuck Todd in criticizing the hiring of McDaniel amazes and astounds.Todd, who himself started out interning for a Democrat, then-Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, somehow “forgot” all the former politcos who moved into broadcast media. (Politico’s media columnist helpfully compiled a list.) Several of them, including his late NBC colleague Tim Russert and ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, migrated to the news side of television after having served for Democrats, as opposed to McDaniel, who will appear as a political commentator rather than in a journalism role.
Did Todd express outrage at any of these moves? For that matter, did he say a word when NBC News hired the sitting White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, to her current post as an MSNBC anchor?
Speaking of Psaki and her former gig, Todd on Sunday accused McDaniel of “gaslighting” the public during her tenure as RNC Chair. But as I noted two years ago, Psaki waved around a binder supposedly of Covid spending requests, claimed to the press that “we’ll make copies for you,” and then refused to make copies for the one reporter who asked for the information, instead giving the reporter a single hour to review nearly 400 pages of documents in a conference room.
Did Todd call out this gaslighting by Psaki — either then, or now? For that matter, has he criticized his colleague Kristen Welker, Todd’s successor as host of “Meet the Press,” and a White House correspondent at the time of Psaki’s remarks, for Welker’s own incompetence, as she failed to follow up and call out Psaki’s false claims?
And when it comes to “gaslighting,” has NBC News ever provided a public explanation as to why it retracted elements of a story about the attack on Paul Pelosi, other than the generic statement that “the piece should not have aired because it did not meet NBC News reporting standards?” If Todd wants to attack “gaslighting,” shouldn’t he demand that his own employer provide more accountability to their audience about what exactly caused the errors in this story?
Corrupt Corporate Press
I also don’t recall hearing Welker, Todd, or any of the other well-compensated NBC News hosts complaining about how the network recently terminated several journalists, or offering to give up some of their salaries so that NBC could hire and/or retain more reporters. Isn’t it funny how all these anchors’ supposed principles about “saving democracy” and the vital work of the press run hollow when it could jeopardize their own beaucoup bucks?
In that sense, perhaps Romney, who will reportedly make nearly $300,000 a year on her new contract, is made for an institution like NBC. She apparently is willing to play the media game to “make coin” and stay relevant, just like the self-righteousness of Todd and Welker dare not extend to criticizing anything that could jeopardize their cushy jobs. If not exactly a match made in heaven, these characters seem made for each other in a corrupt and craven town like Washington, D.C.
The Prickly Pear’s TAKE ACTION focus this year is to help achieve a winning 2024 national and state November 5th election with the removal of the Biden/Obama leftist executive branch disaster, win one U.S. Senate seat, maintain and win strong majorities in all Arizona state offices on the ballot and to insure that unrestricted abortion is not constitutionally embedded in our laws and culture.
Please click the TAKE ACTION link to learn to do’s and don’ts for voting in 2024. Our state and national elections are at great risk from the very aggressive and radical leftist Democrat operatives with documented rigging, mail-in voter fraud and illegals voting across the country (yes, with illegals voting across the country) in the last several election cycles.
Read Part 1 and Part 2 of The Prickly Pear essays entitled How NOT to Vote in the November 5, 2024 Election in Arizona to be well informed of the above issues and to vote in a way to ensure the most likely chance your vote will be counted and counted as you intend.
Please click the following link to learn more.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00ThePricklyPear.orghttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngThePricklyPear.org2024-03-28 02:28:002024-03-28 02:28:00The Real Ronna McDaniel Controversy: Why Does The Former RNC Chair Want To Join Corrupt Corporate Media?
A squatter in Georgia recently demanded $190,000 from a landowner in response to eviction attempts.
On Wednesday, David Morris, an Atlanta property owner, said on Fox & Friends that before the COVID-19 pandemic, he ran a non-profit and allowed squatters to live on his nine acres of land for free, but he recently attempted to have these individuals evicted.
[ … ]
Morris said that he’s spent $10,000 on cleanup crews across his property as he continues his eviction attempts.
Well this won’t fly in the Free State of Florida. Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation on March 27th that ends this scam and protects homeowners and their property.
WATCH:
Governor Ron DeSantis Signs Legislation to End the Squatters Scam & Protect Homeowners https://t.co/MjqOKiAHPZ
Where these laws allow squatters to occupy houses without the owner’s consent, they qualify as takings of private property that require payment of compensation under the Fifth Amendment.
In recent weeks, there has been a lot of media coverage of squatters’ rights laws that sometimes have the effect of blocking property owners from removing trespassers who occupy their houses without the owners’ permission. Newsweek describes some highly publicized recent cases:
A recent string of incidents in Georgia, New York and Washington has brought squatting, the practice of occupying someone else’s property without their consent, into the spotlight.
In Washington, a squatter named Sang Kim made headlines after preventing Jaskaran Singh, a landlord, from possessing his $2 million property following Kim’s refusal to pay rent for two years.
Earlier in March, a New York property owner was arrested over unlawful eviction after confronting a group of alleged squatters who had taken over her deceased parents’ home in Flushing, Queens, ABC 7 reported. While the woman held the property’s deed, one man said he was on a lease for the house—which meant the property owner was barred from kicking him out [he, in fact, did not actually have a lease].
That same month, David Morris, a landlord in Atlanta, told Fox 5 of a group of squatters who were preventing him from building affordable housing on his nine-acre land and whom he was unable to remove because of a moratorium on evictions.
Morris told the outlet he had agreed to let four people stay on the land without paying rent about 10 years ago, but that he found the number of people occupying the property had grown to about “30 campers.” Though the squatters were taken away from the land, Morris said he spent $10,000 to clean up their garbage.
John Stossel of Reason made a video focusing on the New York case.
As often happens when an issue attracts media attention, it is hard to tell from early reports how widespread the issue actually is. But even a few cases of successful squatting may be problematic, because they could incentivize imitation. Media attention could accelerate that process.
Ideally, state and local governments should make it easy for property owners to swiftly remove squatters, and should subject the trespassers to civil and criminal sanctions. But where they instead facilitate this violation of property rights, the laws that do so violate the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, which requires payment of “just compensation” whenever the government takes “private property.”
This illegal practice is spreading in blue states and in blue areas in red states.
We the people cannot stand by and see our families, our property, and our freedoms taken away from us by squatters, some of whom are illegal aliens.
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2024-03-27 21:52:082024-03-27 21:52:08FLORIDA: Governor Ron DeSantis Signs Legislation to End the Squatters Scam & Protect Homeowners
The Eighth Amendment of the Constitution bans. That amendment says “excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” Why hasn’t New York Judge Arthur Engoron been sanctioned?
The massive reduction in the unprecedented half a billion dollar judgment against President Trump (the first of that size against an individual) for a non-existent crime is empirical evidence of how wrong this relentless prosecution Trump is. There are ninety two baseless, invented cases brought by Democrat DAs across the country. The outrageous is normal.
The reduction was a win but it should not move toward normalizing outrageous bonds in a total warping of the law. It’s still naked tyranny and yet people didn’t seem to care because it was Trump or Giuliani or some other political opponent. So yes, it’s a win. The whole thing stinks. But it’s a win.
This is all part of President Biden’s weaponized lawfare attack against Mr. Trump in order to stop him from becoming President again.
The Biden White House has orchestrated a massive lawfare campaign that aims to put Mr. Trump in jail for over 700 years, and take away all his cash, and his businesses.
Let me say iconic businesses, in New York, Florida, Scotland, and elsewhere. Mr. Trump remade the skyline of New York City. He rebuilt the Wolman skating rink, and on and on.
And here comes the New York State attorney general, Letitia James, running a scam that respected constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley calls “selective prosecution” and “mob justice.”
Take a listen to Ms. James running against Mr. Trump in her 2018 election: “No one is above the law, including this illegitimate president, so I look forward to going into the office of the AG every day, suing him, defending your rights, and then going home.”
Fox News legal expert Gregg Jarrett says, though, that Mr. Trump could file a petition in federal court regarding the 8th amendment. The Federal court would have to act quickly to issue a stay. But it may be Mr. Trump’s best strategy.
The 8th amendment says: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”
And of course the $464 million penalty is supposed to bear some relation to harm done but there was never any harm done, because there were no victims and all the lenders to the Trump business empire made tons of profits.
So I believe as a non-lawyer that Alan Dershowitz and Gregg Jarrett are both correct in advising Mr. Trump to go for an 8th amendment constitutional appeal.
That would be a fitting end to this soviet-style New York sham lawfare battle against Mr. Trump who by the way is leading in all the swing state polls on the way to a potential victory in November despite what the Democratic crazies are trying to do to him.
How Donald Trump’s Volcanic Clash With Judge Engoron Unfolded
In light of the record $465 million judgment issued by New York Judge Arthur Engoron against President Trump and the Trump Organization, we present an important question: whether that judgment violates the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment….
https://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.png00DrRichSwier.comhttps://libertyfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/logo_v6_225x110.pngDrRichSwier.com2024-03-27 09:51:382024-03-27 09:51:38President Trump, the Eight Amendment, And The Gross Miscarriage of Justice
