‘My Grammar’s Not Always Correct’: Fact-Checking Harris and Walz’s CNN Interview thumbnail

‘My Grammar’s Not Always Correct’: Fact-Checking Harris and Walz’s CNN Interview

/in , , , , , , /by

By Family Research Council

A full 39 days after being anointed the Democratic Party’s presumptive leader, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris sat down for her first in-depth interview. As CNN’s Dana Bash rattled off numerous flip-flops and apparent lies, Harris said her “values have not changed,” that she is “very proud” of her record on inflation and illegal immigration, and that she has no regrets over describing Joe Biden’s mental health as “strong” in late June. Meanwhile, vice presidential candidate Tim Walz blamed his misstatements about serving “in war” on poor grammar and before pivoting to an alleged “national abortion ban.”

Unlike most presidential candidates, who are elected in primaries and vetted by voters, Kamala Harris — who received the nomination through a virtual roll call 27 days ago — has yet to hold an extended in-person interview. To date, she has not held an in-depth interview or press conference on her own, opting to have Walz at her side throughout the process.

Word Salad

The interview got off to a rocky start. When asked what she would do on day one, Harris replied she would “do what we can to support and strengthen the middle class,” to “look at the aspirations, the goals, the ambitions of the American people,” and provide “a new way forward” filled with “hope and optimism.”

“So, what would you do day one?” Bash repeated.

Twice, Harris said she represents “a new way forward” from polarization “dividing our nation,” because “the last decade … I believe has been contrary to where the spirit of our country really lies.” Bash pointed out Harris has served as vice president for 40% of the last decade.

In a question about her apparently evolving views on fracking and climate change (see below), Harris said: “I believe it is very important that we take seriously what we must do to guard against what is a clear crisis in terms of the climate. And to do that, we can do what we have accomplished thus far.”

Harris also received mockery for saying, since “the climate crisis is real, that it is an urgent matter,” the U.S. government “should apply metrics that include holding ourselves to deadlines around time.”

Perhaps the most memorable comments of the interview came, not from Harris, but from Walz, when he tried to explain allegations of stolen valor.

Walz Blames ‘Stolen Valor’ Claim on Poor Grammar

Tim Walz has stated he carried “weapons of war … in war,” allowed others to say he served in active combat zones during the War on Terror without correction, and claimed for two decades to have retired from the National Guard at a higher rank than he earned. Critics accuse him of stolen valor, which is viewed as perhaps the most shameful activity among veterans. The Harris-Walz campaign claimed the Minnesota governor “misspoke” in his remarks.

In his CNN interview, Walz blamed poor English skills.

“You said that you were in war,” pressed Bash. “Did you misspeak, as the campaign has said?”

“Yeah,” replied Walz. “My wife the English teacher told me my grammar’s not always correct.”

Walz taught English during a stint in the People’s Republic of China, leading to a long series of trips to the communist nation.

Walz’s explanation was “hilarious,” said former collegiate athlete Riley Gaines, scoffing at the notion that falsely “claiming you fought in war is just a silly grammar mistake.”

“I certainly own my mistakes when I make them,” claimed Walz, moments after replying he made counter-factual statements, because “I speak like” the American people.

Bash also asked about Walz’s erroneous remarks that he conceived through IVF. Walz replied his comments cut “quite a contrast [against] folks that are trying to take those rights away from us.” Ultimately, Walz refused to offer any remorse for his statements, saying, “I won’t apologize for speaking passionately, whether it’s guns in schools or protection of reproductive rights.”

Walz then pivoted to a hypothetical “abortion ban.” Most Americans, he said, are not splitting “hairs on IVF or IUI. I think what they’re cutting hairs on is an abortion ban and the ability to be able to deny families the chance to have a beautiful child.”

Donald Trump — who has repeatedly announced he opposes any abortion ban at the federal level during his second term — earlier in the day announced during a rally in Potterville, Michigan, that “under the Trump administration, your government will pay for, or your insurance company will be mandated to pay for, all costs associated with IVF treatment, fertilization for women.” During an unscripted interview, he also implied he would vote for Florida’s Amendment 4 to institute an on-demand abortion regime in Florida before his campaign released a statement walking his remarks back.

‘My Values Have Not Changed’ about Fracking, et. al.

Faced with a series reversals and flip-flops from her previous policy proposals, Harris repeated a variation of the phrase “My values have not changed” three times.

“Let’s be clear. My values have not changed” on “the Green New Deal,” which she supported as a 2020 presidential candidate and co-sponsored as a U.S. senator. “I have always believed and I have worked on it, that the climate crisis is real,” she said. She repeated the phrase on her anti-fracking stance.

Harris forcefully rejected the notion that she had changed her mind on fracking, despite recordings showing her saying there is “no question” fracking should be banned.

“No, and I made that clear on the debate stage in 2020, that I would not ban fracking,” answered Harris. “In 2020 I made very clear where I stand. We are in 2024, and I have not changed that position, nor will I going forward. I kept my word, and I will keep my word.”

Harris appears to be referring to her debate with then-Vice President Mike Pence at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City on October 7, 2020. Yet she did not say she opposed a fracking ban during the debate — commenting only that Pennsylvania native Joe Biden did.

“Joe Biden will not end fracking,” said Harris in 2020. Later, she repeated, “Joe Biden will not ban fracking. That is a fact. That is a fact.”

“Nowhere in there does she make clear that she had abandoned her previous support for a fracking ban,” noted CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale about an hour after the interview. “Rather, she repeated that Joe Biden, the head of the Democratic ticket at the time, would himself not ban fracking.”

During the campaign, Harris had endorsed a fracking ban. At a 2019 town hall meeting, a participant asked Harris, “Will you commit to implementing a federal ban on fracking your first day in office, adding the United States [to] the list of countries [that] have banned this devastating practice.”

“There’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking. Yes,” replied Harris.

“It makes perfect sense that at the time she was speaking on behalf of Biden, the president, not the vice president,” said Dale. “I certainly did not hear anywhere in there Kamala Harris saying she personally had abandoned her 2019 view rather she was speaking for Joe Biden.”

Did Kamala Harris Reduce Illegal Immigration?

Harris defended her record on illegal immigration, as well.

“Why did the Biden-Harris administration wait three and a half years to implement sweeping asylum restrictions?” asked Bash.

“Thee root causes work that I did as vice president, that I was asked to do by the president has actually resulted in a number of benefits,” replied Harris. “The number of immigrants coming from that region has actually reduced since we’ve began that work.”

It’s not clear that is correct. After being appointed Border Czar by Joe Biden, Harris raced to pare down the job, saying she merely examined the “root causes” of “migration” from the three countries in Central America that had historically provided the largest share of illegal immigrants aside from Mexico: the “Northern Triangle” nations of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.

The number of apprehensions at the southern border fell from 684,000 in fiscal year 2021 to 447,000 in 2023. But experts say those statistics alone do not tell the full story.

The number of illegal immigrants from the Northern Triangle processed for removal under Title 8 exploded from 177,000 in fiscal year 2022 to more than 309,000 in 2023, and the Border Patrol is “on track to make about 418,600 Title 8 apprehensions by September 30,” reported the Center for Immigration Studies. At the same time, illegal entrants from the region who were denied admission at ports of entry steadily rose from about 17,000 in fiscal year 2021, to 21,000 in the following year, to about 48,000 in fiscal year 2023. “In other words, while total apprehensions FY2022-24 (projected) declined by roughly 20 percent, apprehensions under Title 8 grew by 138 percent over the same time period,” states CIS.

In raw numbers, Title 8 expulsions rose by 241,000 in just one year of the Biden-Harris administration, not including other illegal entries. Nor does this include Biden-Harris programs to expedite the legal entry of putative “refugees” from these and other countries.

There are two additional reasons to question the relevance of the statement: While most illegal immigration has come from Mexico and the Northern Triangle, “in December 2023, 54% of encounters involved citizens of countries other than these four nations,” according to the Pew Research Center. And the number of illegal immigrants has broken historic records each consecutive year since Joe Biden and Kamala Harris took office.

No Regrets about Telling Americans Joe Biden Is ‘Extraordinarily Strong’

“Right after the debate, you insisted that President Biden is extraordinarily strong. Given where we are now, do you have any regrets about what you told the American people?” Bash asked.

“No, not at all,” replied Harris, reiterating, “Not at all.”

A mere 63 days earlier, Harris not only described Joe Biden as the picture of health but placed an onus on those who questioned his acuity. Moments after Biden’s disastrous June 27 debate with former President Donald Trump, Harris told ABC News Biden had “a slow start, but a strong finish.”

“Joe Biden is extraordinarily strong, and that cannot be debated,” she quipped.

The legacy media have revealed it was precisely the threat of a cognitive test that helped force Biden out of the presidential race. The New York Times reported that, according to two attendees of a July 11 meeting between Biden and U.S. senators, Senator Jack Reed (D-R.I.) issued an ultimatum (in the Times’ words): “If Mr. Biden wanted to stay in the race after a disastrous debate performance that underscored concerns about his condition and mental acuity, he should submit to examination by two independent neurologists who were willing to report their findings at a news conference.”

Harris ‘Very Proud’ of Bidenomics

“You have been vice president for three and a half years. The steps that you’re talking about now, why haven’t you done them already?” Bash asked Harris.

“I’m very proud of the work that we have done that has brought inflation down to less than 3%,” the vice president responded.

“So, you maintain Bidenomics is a success?” asked Bash.

After rattling off a list of the administration’s putative accomplishments, Harris concluded, “I’ll say that that’s good work. There’s more to do, but that’s good work.”

Inflation for 2023 stood at 4.1%, a marked increase from the 1.2% the Biden-Harris administration inherited. Wages have barely kept pace with inflation, as groceries, gasoline, and other household staples have increased by double digits — the highest inflation level in 40 years.

Despite pressing for clear answers from the pair, many observers faulted Bash for not following up on key assertions made by both Harris and Walz, as well as her question choice. Megyn Kelly noted Bash asked “not a single Q on the Emotional Support Governor’s radical trans policies.”

CNN also appeared to make a few misstatements about the interview. Although the network prerecorded the interview, the network’s feed claimed it was aired “live.” After the interview, anchor Abby Phillip referred to the closed-doors segment as a “town hall” event.

Despite reports that CNN would not offer a transcript of the interview, CNN has issued its official transcript of the historic interview.

Kamala Harris will debate former President Donald Trump on ABC News September 10 at 9 p.m.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Voters Are Increasingly Ditching The Democratic Party For The GOP In Crucial Swing State

How Liberal Pollsters Are Recreating The 2016 Wave Of Silent Trump Voters

Tim Walz’s Political Origin Story Is Reportedly Full Of Holes

‘You’re A Huge Liar’: Bill Maher Pans Walz, Harris For ‘Insulting My Intelligence’ During CNN Interview

Video Shows Police Take Down Man Allegedly Attempting To Breach Trump Rally’s Media Area

RELATED VIDEOS:

WATCH: Kamala Harris vows to create a ‘pathway to citizenship’ for illegal aliens

WOW! Kalamity Kamala actually speaks the truth about the failed American economy

Tim Walz thanks Nancy Pelosi 2007 when she said ‘we appreciate his service on the battlefield’

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

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.

Federal Agency Trolling Social Media, Reporting ‘Domestic Violent Extremism’ thumbnail

Federal Agency Trolling Social Media, Reporting ‘Domestic Violent Extremism’

/in , , , /by

By Judicial Watch

Here’s an inside peek at how the Deep State is monitoring the free speech of people with whom it disagrees.

We received five pages of documents from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA – a component of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS))  – revealing that CISA is trolling on social media and reporting on alleged “domestic violent extremism” (DVE).

We received these documents through a December 28, 2022, FOIA request for reports or communications from January 1, 2020, to the present regarding:

  1. Credible or specific plans to attack electricity infrastructure.
  1. Information or intelligence communicated with the private sector and state and local partners, regarding threats to electricity infrastructure.
  1. Communications or briefings provided to the Electricity Sub-Sector Coordinating Council Charter regarding threats to electricity infrastructure.
  1. Confirmed attacks on any electricity infrastructure by any person or group labeled as “domestic extremists” or “domestic terrorists.”

According to the documents, on December 31, 2020, CISA Central sent an email to NRMC-iRAC (National Risk Management Center [NRMC]) and a host of redacted email addresses, “Subject:…Threats to Electricity Industry”…The email is marked UNCLASSIFIED – FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY with the caveat (TLP:GREEN), meaning the information has limited dissemination and should not be disseminated outside the recipient’s organization without permission. The salutation of the email is to NRMC and CISA Intel. The email states:

CISA Central respectfully requests your assistance with answering the below request for information…Response requested NL T 1200 ET on 04 January 2021.

Requested Information:

  • Credible intelligence regarding threats or risks to the electricity industry in connection with 5G (including 5G conspiracy-related theories).
  • In preparation for the upcoming Electoral College count on January 6 in Washington DC, is there any credible intelligence regarding threats or risks to the electricity industry, including any DVE threats to the power grid or assets in/around the DC area.

A second email is predicated on the email above, dated December 31, 2020, from (redacted) sent to CISA Central and a host of redacted emails, with the Subject: RFI – DHS/CISA. The email states:

In light of both recent and upcoming events, the E-ISAC requests any unclassified information from DHS CISA that can be shared with utility members in the U.S. and Canada, on the following questions:

  • As a follow-up to the recent incident in Nashville, do you have any credible intelligence regarding threats or risks to the electricity industry in connection with 5G (including 5G conspiracy-related theories)?
  • In preparation for the upcoming Electoral College count on January 6 in Washington DC, do you have any credible intelligence regarding threats or risks to the electricity industry, including any DVE threats to the power grid or assets in/around the DC area?

Timeline: If any information is available and can be shared, a response by this Monday, January 4, 2021, would be greatly appreciated.

The email’s signature block is partially redacted, with the unredacted portion reading, “Principal Analyst, Physical Security, Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center (NERC), North American Electric Reliability Corporation.”

On February 24, 2021, CISA Central sent an email to CISA-Intel and a host of redacted email recipients with the Subject: …Threats to the Power Grid – Nationwide….The email is marked UNCLASSIFIED – FOR OFFICIAL USE ONL:

CISA Intel and NRMC, CISA Central respectfully requests your assistance with answering the below requested for information….

Response requested NL T 1700 ET on 26 Feb.

Requested Information: The E-ISAC requesting any information about increases in threats toward the North American power grid, or any intelligence about credible threats to the power grid.

Background Information: The E-ISAC discovered social media posts containing threatening information directed at the power grid.  The E-ISAC is requesting any information about increases in threats toward the North American power grid, or any intelligence about credible threats to the power grid?

Threat 1: Sadako Poker (https://twitter[.]com/SadakoPoker) – Use of SILO is recommended for all defanged links. Also, be advised links contain offensive material.

  • Individual describes themselves as an “armchair revolutionary.” A scan of their twitter page found the following two threads which contained threatening information. I was not able to determine Sadako Poker’s exact philosophy or affiliation, they referenced arguing with racists, but also shared potentially racist memes.
  • Thread A: Retweeted another person’s thread (Bleppyman), that thread is also attached and described more before. But, essentially points out that bringing down 9 substations would cause society to collapse.
  • Thread B: Mentioned taking down the power grid and blaming Antifa as a false flag operation. It is unclear on behalf of whom, but I take this to mean they are not Antifa aligned. Thread also seems specifically anti-government, and possibly pro-white race.

Individual 2: Bleppyman (https://twitter[.]com/bleppyman)

  • Not sure exactly individuals’ philosophical affiliation, perhaps acerbic skeptic, seems to dislike left and right. Seems to spend a fair amount of time on race.
  • There was one main thread, which split into two parts, which different people commented on, so I labeled those A and B and numbered them in order, since they wouldn’t fit on one page.
  • Thread A: Responding to a video describing the grid as very fragile, aging infrastructure and citing a 2014 FERG study saying taking out 9 substations could cause nationwide blackout (see: https://www.utilitydive.com/news/could-terrorists-really-black-out-thepower-grid/241192/ ). Then ties that to Metcalf. People pointed out that this is akin to terrorism talk, threat of arrest. Noted a historic attack on French Nuclear facility (1982, communist group attacked plant in construction with 5 anti-tank rockets. Article in screenshot: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/215/4533/641.1 ). Note that all electrical grids are unprotected and that comms are also vulnerable. Vague threat against 9 substations, couched as a joke. A couple supportive comments: “Based, death to America.” “Stop giving me ideas LOL” “Whitepilled again” [Note: not a racial reference, apparently reference to hope and optimism]
  • Thread B: Focusing on how to damage substations. Identifies coolant system on transformers, and suggests rifles (using euphemisms for rifles). Same reference to Metcalf as above. 1984 reference (picture). Discussion on euphemisms for rifles.

These documents are an example of how the Deep State CISA agency trolls social media to snoop on Americans. The woke protocol sweeping the federal bureaucracies allows CISA snoopers to target individuals who are supposedly sharing First Amendment-protected content.

(We have been in the forefront of uncovering government efforts to censor free speech and suppress opposition.

In June, we uncovered heavily redacted records from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in a FOIA lawsuit showing state election officials in the days before and after the 2020 election flagging online content deemed “misinformation” and sending it to the Center for Internet Security (CIS), a DHS-funded nonprofit, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), and others. These records detail federal-state censorship coordination in the 2020 Election.

In December 2023, we received records from DHS that showed a close collaboration between CISA and the leftist Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) to engage in “real-time narrative tracking” on all major social media platforms in the days leading up to the 2020 election.

In November 2023, we obtained records from DHS showing that CISA communicated during the 2020 election campaign with the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), which was created to flag online election content for censorship and suppression.

In May 2022, YouTube censored our video about Biden corruption and election integrity issues in the 2020 election. The video, titled “Impeach? Biden Corruption Threatens National Security,” was falsely determined to be “election misinformation” and removed by YouTube, and our YouTube account was suspended for a week. The video featured an interview with me. We continue to post its video content on our Rumble channel (https://rumble.com/vz7aof-fitton-impeach-biden-corruption-threatens-national-security.html).

In July 2021, we uncovered records from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which revealed that Facebook coordinated closely with the CDC to control the Covid narrative and “misinformation” and that over $3.5 million in free advertising given to the CDC by social media companies.

In May 2021, we revealed documents showing that Iowa state officials pressured social media companies Twitter and Facebook to censor posts about the 2020 election.

In April 2021, we published documents revealing how California state officials pressured social media companies (Twitter, Facebook, Google (YouTube)) to censor posts about the 2020 election.

We have produced a four-part documentary, “Censored and Controlled,” that details the coordinated effort by the FBI and other government agencies and Big Tech to censor and suppress information on topics such as Hunter Biden’s laptop, Covid-19, and election debates.)

Judicial Watch Sues for Biden Climate Czar John Podesta’s Records

The Harris/Biden administration is in cover-up mode on all types of matters.

We were forced to file a FOIA lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Energy for records regarding Joe Biden’s Climate Czar John Podesta and/or his brother Tony Podesta that are tied to the lobbying firm Podesta.com (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Energy (No. 1:24-cv-02174)).

We sued after the Energy Department failed to respond to an April 3, 2024, FOIA request for access to:

  1. All emails between any official or employee of the Department of Energy and any email address terminating in the domain “Podesta.com.”
  1. All agendas, briefing materials, notes, or other records created in preparation for, during, or pursuant to any meeting between any official or employee of the Department of Energy and Anthony Podesta and/or Helen Hagerty. For purposes of clarification, Hagerty is a lobbyist with the firm Podesta.com.

John Podesta in March replaced John Kerry as Joe Biden’s U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate (Climate Czar), overseeing the implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act, which has been called “the largest green slush fund in American history,” and coordinating interagency efforts to advance the Biden administration’s climate agenda. Specifically, Podesta is in charge of allocating funds for clean energy projects and ensuring that they align with the administration’s goals of reducing carbon emissions and transitioning to renewable energy sources, including major infrastructure projects related to the energy grid.

Concerns have been raised by The Washington Free Beacon about potential conflicts of interest arising from John Podesta advising the Biden administration on climate policy while having close ties to Podesta.com, a lobbying firm co-founded by his brother, Tony Podesta:

His [John’s] brother Tony Podesta could reap the benefits as a longtime lobbyist for foreign Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) companies—including one founded by a Russian energy oligarch.

[ *** ]

“It’s no secret that John Podesta is the person behind this moratorium … Congress should take a very hard look at the fact that his own brother stands to financially benefit from a restriction of U.S. LNG on the global market, whether it be from his past work with the Qataris or current reported work with Russian-backed entities with interest in LNG.”

Simply put, John Podesta and the Biden-Harris administration can’t be trusted. That the Biden-Harris ‘Energy’ Department is hiding documents in violation of FOIA about John Podesta is all you need to know.

We have been relentless in using FOIA to uncover the covered-up bribery and influence peddling.

In October 2024, we published an Investigative Bulletin titled “John Podesta: The Scandal Master Returns,” which recounts:

Students of scandal took note when President Biden announced the appointment of one of the dirtiest figures in presidential politics as his clean energy czar. John Podesta, the White House said, would step in as “Senior Adviser to the President for Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation,” overseeing the new Inflation Reduction Act’s “expansive” energy and climate provisions. Expansive it is, Podesta is now in charge of a $370 billion pot of federal cash and incentives approved under the new law. History suggests he will not be shy in deploying the federal funds to reward Democratic Party allies, punish opponents, and protect Joe Biden.

On March 8, 2024, we published a Corruption Chronicles article examining how a Chinese Mining Co. that was sold to a Swiss firm hired Biden’s new Clean Energy Czar John Podesta’s brother Tony to Lobby the United States Government.

In May 2018, we released State Department records showing the Podesta Group working on behalf of the pro-Russia Ukrainian political group “Party of Regions.” The records also showed longtime Obama and Clinton counselor John Podesta lobbying on behalf of his brother’s firm.

I’ll be sure to report back to you if and when we are able to extract any documents on this latest Clinton-ally cover-up!

Criminal Aliens “Committing Crimes Against Americans at An Alarming Rate”

Being out and about in our cities is becoming increasingly dangerous, thanks to the Biden-Harris border invasion. Our Corruption Chronicles blog reports.

Of the millions of illegal immigrants who have entered the United States under the Biden administration’s radical open border policies, over 617,000 have criminal records and they are victimizing Americans and terrorizing communities throughout the nation. “The consequences are dire, with illegal aliens committing crimes against Americans at an alarming rate,” according to a report published by the House Judiciary Committee. “The Biden-Harris Administration’s radical policies ensure that criminal illegal aliens can remain in the United States indefinitely, even after they have committed a crime.” The document focuses on the cases of four illegal immigrants from Venezuela who viciously attacked a man on a Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) train earlier this year. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released one of the men inside the U.S. in 2022 and the other three in 2023 after crossing the Mexican border. Three of the men were on pretrial release after shoplifting arrests when they committed their most recent crime in the Windy City.

In February, the Venezuelan migrants—Yonnier Jose Guasamucare-Garcia, Carlos Luis Carreno-Carreno, Johandry Fernando Loyo-Rodriguez, and Wilker Miguel Gutierrez Sierra—were arrested in connection with a “violent knifepoint attack” on a 49-year-old man riding a CTA train on a Saturday afternoon. The victim was put into a “vicious chokehold” that left him unconscious and was robbed of money and a cellphone. The four illegal aliens listed their home address as state-funded migrant shelters when they got arrested. A local news station reported that the perpetrators were 18 to 22 years old and quoted a public defender confirming that at the time they were “all staying in area shelters.” One of the Venezuelans entered the U.S. under a special program for Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) that has welcomed nearly half a million migrants under the age of 18 in the last few years. As of July 2, 2024, three of the Venezuelan criminals remained in the custody of Chicago law enforcement officials, but one was released with an electronic monitoring device.

Files obtained by federal lawmakers reveal that Guasamucare-Garcia entered the U.S. in Eagle Pass, Texas on September 18, 2022, as a UAC and claimed to have an uncle in Houston. He was released to a sponsor and about a year later was arrested in Chicago for retail theft. Less than a year later Carreno-Carreno also crossed into the U.S. in the Eagle Pass area and “claimed a credible fear of return to his home country.” He was released on his own recognizance with a Notice to Appear (NTA) in Chicago immigration court on May 20, 2026. A few months later he was arrested in Chicago for shoplifting. Loyo-Rodriguez also entered the U.S. near Eagle Pass in July 2023, the records show. He voluntarily walked back to Mexico after a U.S. asylum officer told him about a special parole program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans that required him to leave and apply via the CBP One app, though he never did and instead about a month later crossed the border near El Paso. His file says that Border Patrol determined he was “likely to abscond,” but the agency released him into the country anyway. A few months later Loyo-Rodriguez was arrested in Chicago for shoplifting. Gutierrez Sierra was encountered by Border Patrol near El Paso in late September of 2023. He was released inside the country “due to lack of space” and was given an NTA in a Houston immigration court on January 24, 2024.

The Venezuelans’ case helps illustrate the real-world consequences for American citizens of the Biden-Harris immigration policies, the House Judiciary Committee points out, adding that the effect of those polices will be felt for years to come. “For more than three-and-a-half years, President Joe Biden and “border czar” Vice President Kamala Harris have orchestrated the largest mass release of illegal aliens into the country in American history,” the congressional panel writes. “Well over 7 million illegal aliens are now in the United States because of the Biden-Harris Administration’s radical immigration policies. The results are all too predictable: cities overwhelmed, public services crushed, and communities shattered by the criminality of some illegal aliens.”

©2024. Judicial Watch. All rights reserved.

JNS poll: Israelis like Kamala Harris less than they liked Joe Biden thumbnail

JNS poll: Israelis like Kamala Harris less than they liked Joe Biden

/in , , , , /by

By Center For Security Policy

In a JNS/Direct Polls survey of Israelis conducted on Aug. 19 regarding their view of the presidential race that pits Vice President Kamala Harris against former President Donald Trump, Harris enjoys the support of a 28% of Israelis to Trump’s 64%, with 9% of Israelis professing to have no opinion.

In a JNS/Direct Polls survey of Israelis carried out on July 9, 34% of respondents supported Biden to 55% for Donald Trump and 11% had no opinion.

In this week’s poll, Harris has virtually no support among Israelis aged 18-29; 93% support Trump compared to a 7% for the vice president. All age groups support Trump against Harris by well over 50 points except seniors. Israelis 65 and over are tied with 43% supporting each candidate and 14% undecided.

With the U.S. pushing Israel to avoid taking action against Iran or Hezbollah in Lebanon that risks intensifying the regional war, JNS/Direct Polls asked Israelis a series of questions about how they assess the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to Israel’s security and how they feel about defying the administration’s wishes on a series of pressing issues.

When asked to what extent they believed Biden and Harris when they declare their commitment to Israel’s security, 38% of respondents said that they have great faith in the U.S. leaders’ commitments to Israel’s security. Twenty-one percent said they somewhat believed them, 22% said they had little faith in their commitment, and 19% said they have no faith in the U.S. leaders’ commitment to Israel’s security.

On the other hand, only 34% of Israelis believe that Biden and Harris are committed to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Sixty percent do not believe them. And 6% have no opinion.

Fifty percent of Israelis believe that following the events of Oct. 7, Israel should give less consideration to the U.S. administration’s positions on foreign affairs and national security issues. Twenty-three percent believed that Israel’s position should be unchanged from what it was on Oct. 6, and 22% said Israel should give greater consideration to the U.S. position.

Read more.

AUTHOR

Caroline Glick

Caroline B. Glick is a Senior Fellow with the Center for Security Policy. She is a senior columnist at Israel Hayom and the author of The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East, (Crown Forum, 2014). From 1994 to 1996, she served as a core member of Israel’s negotiating team with the Palestine Liberation Organization.

RELATED VIDEO: Waller on the 3 year anniversary of the United States’ chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan

EDITORS NOTE: This Center for Security Policy column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

‘Spies and Journalists: A Very Special Relationship’ thumbnail

‘Spies and Journalists: A Very Special Relationship’

/in , , , /by

By Center For Security Policy

An excerpt from Against the Corporate Media, coming Sept. 10 from Bombardier Books. “Spies and Journalists: A Very Special Relationship,” by Kyle Shideler. 

It’s hard to understate the irony of [Carl] Bernstein’s complaining about journalists collaborating with intelligence officials when he had served as the unquestioning recipient of leaks by Mark Felt, the onetime head of FBI counterintelligence, motivated by Felt’s bureaucratic beef against the elected president of the United States. Bernstein’s relationship with Felt can be thought of as the alternative model of intelligence-journalist cooperation, where the eyes of the intelligence services are not on foreign foes, but domestic political and bureaucratic opponents.

Even in exposing the CIA’s relationship with journalists, Bernstein was likely little more than a patsy. As the late Angelo Codevilla observed from his time as a staffer on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, a leftwing faction of the intelligence services used the Church Committee and other revelations of bad behavior, not to clean up shop but to target internal opponents—and to establish a dominance over the security organs which has never since been challenged. Instead of journalists being the eyes and ears of American spies, it’s now the spies who observe and report to their journalist assets, not to relay facts, but to spread narratives that serve the opaque purposes of the government mandarins.

Journalists seeking to remain in the good graces of the intelligence community have returned the favor by pre-emptively tailoring their reporting to the needs of the spies. The Intercept has reported how CIA favorite Ken Dilanian, first of the Los Angeles Times and later of the Associated Press, was one of several journalists who routinely gave the Agency preclearance of stories to ensure that the coverage portrayed the CIA in a positive light.

Coziness between spies and journalists has grown exponentially worse as society has progressed further into the digital era. Media outlets have closed foreign news bureaus and sent veteran foreign correspondents into retirement. In their place have settled swarms of young, eager J-school grads, some responsible for writing as many as a half dozen articles a day, with no requirement for multiple sources and no fact checking, posted to news websites where the ability to stealth-edit an error has replaced pro-active high-quality and knowledgeable editors. Eventually even writing articles became too time consuming, and journalists now rush to scoop each other on  social media, hammering out 140-character pieces for the benefit of their Twitter (now X) followers, who sometimes outnumber the total official subscribers of the outlets where they are employed.

These are the twenty-seven-year-olds who “literally know nothing” as former Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes once pointed out. Rhodes was describing the method by which, as an official in the Obama administration, he built a foreign policy “echo chamber” that would successfully spin a narrative to justify a nuclear deal with Iran. Rhodes’s partner in the scheme was a CIA officer seconded to the National Security Council, Ned Price. Price and Rhodes realized that reporters who lacked worldly experience or access to foreign correspondents of their own were completely reliant on intelligence officials in Washington to tell them what’s really going on.

What little HUMINT capability the intelligence agencies had was decimated in the 1970s, thanks in part to Bernstein and company. So today the intelligence doyens of D.C. don’t really have any better understanding of the ways of the wider world than do the know-nothing journalists to whom they leak. But what the intelligence services do have is extensive electronic surveillance. And this tool also has been turned inward, in attempts to produce more goodies to leak to their aligned journalists.

Accompanying Rhodes’s narrative-shaping was the tactic of unmasking identities of Americans caught in electronic surveillance, which began with congressional opponents of the Iran nuclear deal who were surveilled while they spoke with Israeli officials also opposed to the deal. As Lee Smith, author of The Plot Against the President has pointed out, the Iran deal surveillance was a dry run for the “Russian collusion” hoax launched against Donald Trump. The plot contained all the same elements: eavesdropping on political opponents engaged in conversations with foreigners—whether those conversations were legitimate, or the result of foreign assets being introduced by the services to justify surveillance—and using targeted leaks to favored reporters to create a false but prevalent narrative which in turn justified more extensive surveillance.

Ironically, central to the scheme was the use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court, which had been instituted as a post-Church Committee reform, sold as an effort to rein in the intelligence community. Instead, provided they can sell their story to the court, the spies have carte blanche to indulge in bad behavior with a judicially clear conscience. Exactly as Codevilla had repeatedly warned would happen. Like Bernstein with Felt, journalists are perfectly comfortable being the patsies of deep-throated spies if the target is a Republican, and not some foreign foe.

Originally published by The Pipeline

AUTHOR

Kyle Shideler

Kyle Shideler is the Director and Senior Analyst for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism at the Center for Security Policy where he conducts research and analysis on domestic threats to the US homeland with an emphasis on the doctrines which fuel terrorism and shape the variety of kinetic and non-kinetic threats to America’s security.

He has briefed senior US Government personnel, Members of Congress, Federal, State and Local law enforcement officers, and testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on the Constitution, and the Canadian Senate Standing Committee on National Security and Defense.

He is the author of Understanding Black Identity Extremism: Considerations for Law Enforcement (2023), Editor of Unmasking Antifa: Five Perspectives on a Growing Threat (2020), and a contributing author to Saudi Arabia and the Global Islamic Terrorist Network (Palgrave, 2011). His writing has appeared at The Federalist, The Hill, FoxNews.com, and the Claremont Review of Books, among others. He has appeared on Fox News Business, Newsmax, NTD News, and One America News. He is a graduate of Boston University and was a Lincoln Fellow with the Claremont Institute.

RELATED ARTICLE: JNS poll: Israelis like Kamala Harris less than they liked Joe Biden

EDITORS NOTE: This Center for Security Policy column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Here’s The Real Story Of How America’s Squatter Epidemic All Began thumbnail

Here’s The Real Story Of How America’s Squatter Epidemic All Began

/in , , /by

By The Daily Caller

Most people think of squatter’s rights as a modern liberal experiment: the government has to get involved in every aspect of our lives, even deciding who has a right to live on our property.

But as the Daily Caller’s new documentary, “American Squatter,” shows, squatter’s rights are about as old as America itself — and they once served a noble purpose. Just like everything that once made America great, liberals have perverted them to their own nefarious ends.

“American Squatter” is available exclusively for Patriots subscribers. Catch a first glimpse below.

There’s a squatter epidemic taking place in cities across America. With lax eviction laws and back-logged court systems, blue cities have empowered a whole cottage industry of housing crime.

Professional squatters use fake leases to turn nice properties into trap houses. Often, they turn to violence to keep the owners off “their” property. And good luck getting an eviction, which can take years to rule on let alone enforce. If squatters can show they’ve resided in a property for as little as 30 days, it’s almost impossible to get them out. From the smallest apartment to the grandest estate, no one is immune.

How did we get here? The Daily Caller’s investigative team traveled around the country to figure it out.

“Squatter’s rights has been around for many, many years,” real estate investor David Phelps told the Daily Caller.

“It’s kind of how the whole U.S. was settled,” added realtor Lori Greymont. “People would go out to the West and they [would] take ownership of the land, but it wasn’t meant to transfer ownership from people who really cared about their homes.”

Originally, squatter’s rights only applied to people who “took over a property for the long haul,” Phelps continued. It applied to “abandoned land,” or property “on the outskirts” that “nobody was really looking after.”

If someone “took possession of the property, fixed it up . . . maybe turned on utilities or added improvements or maybe even took care of the property taxes,” then that person became entitled to squatter’s rights to “actually gain ownership.

But the process had to occur over a “long period of time,” Phelps added: “seven years, ten years, fifteen years, depending on the state.”

The original squatter’s rights were born from America’s founding spirit: the spirit of frontier, of rugged individualism, and to man’s entitlement to the fruit of his labor.

If you poured your blood, sweat and tears into building on land that had never been owned, or restoring a property whose rightful owner had long since abandoned it, then you were entitled to that property as your own.

This is a fundamentally conservative value. The government does not just have the right to come in and take what you have built and give it to someone else. But the modern liberal era flipped this logic on its head.

Modern squatter’s rights are built on the idea of taking property from a responsible, tax-paying citizen and giving it to someone “less fortunate.”

As always with the left, it’s about “power.” You see, you, the land owner, have power. You built something, you have land of your own. You’re presumed to be relatively well off compared to the person squatting in your home. He’s just down on his luck — and our corrupt eviction system says it’s your responsibility to help him.

In this corrupt system, your “power” makes you the bad guy by default. Never mind that professional squatters purposefully take advantage of your kindness and generosity to weaponize legal loopholes against you. The squatter can’t be the bad guy; he’s just a victim of “the system” doing what he must to get by. So liberals built a new system to make sure you don’t “oppress” him more.

This is the way the liberal mind works, and it’s the reason they built a system to protect criminal squatters. The truth is, liberals don’t care about the little guy — they just hate you. Giving squatters legal power over your property is just another part of their plan to destroy the middle class and build the socialist utopia they’ve always dreamed of.

Watch “American Squatter” today to learn more about how liberals have perverted squatter’s rights, and how you can protect your property rights from a system that wants to destroy them.

The Daily Caller’s documentary productions are made possible by our faithful Patriots members, and we wouldn’t be able to do it without them. To watch “American Squatter,” and to help support future investigative documentaries, please consider subscribing.

AUTHOR

Gage Klipper

Commentary and analysis writer.

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Tim Walz’s Lies: The Top 7 thumbnail

Tim Walz’s Lies: The Top 7

/in , , , , , , , /by

By Family Research Council

CNN thinks it understands what sets Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz apart from the average politician: honesty. “[W]hat Walz has — and it’s rare in politics these days — is that he’s totally comfortable in his own skin. He knows who he is. He’s authentic. And he doesn’t try to be someone else,” said CNN’s Chris Cillizza.

Yet Walz stands accused of purveying a string of lies, errors, and prevarications stretching back to his earliest days in politics, fibbing about everything from his military service to whether he won an obscure award from the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce as a 29-year-old man. Here is a far-from-exhaustive list of the mistruths Walz has communicated.

1. Stolen Valor #1: Serving in War

Tim Walz served 24 years in the National Guard, an honorable action worthy of praise in its own right. During his National Guard service, Walz was stationed in Norway and, when a different unit deployed to Afghanistan, he took their place in Vicenza, Italy from August 3, 2003, until 2004, according to NPR. Walz retired in 2005, as the unit he led was about to be deployed to Iraq.

Yet over the years, he has implied he faced combat during the War on Terror, as well as allowing others to repeat the claim without correction. In a video clip the Harris-Walz campaign shared of a 2018 event calling for gun control legislation against law-abiding citizens in violation of the Second Amendment, Walz said, “We can make sure those weapons of war, that I carried in war, is the only place where those weapons are at.”

The campaign muddied the waters, telling CNN, “In his 24 years of service, the [g]overnor carried, fired and trained others to use weapons of war innumerable times. Governor Walz would never insult or undermine any American’s service to this country.” A Harris-Walz campaign spokesperson, Lauren Hitt, later claimed Walz “misspoke.”

Yet the errors had piled up for years. A 2006 article in The Atlantic claimed Walz faced a hostile interrogation at a George W. Bush rally after security saw evidence that Walz supported 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry:

“His challenge prompted a KGB-style interrogation that was sadly characteristic of Bush campaign events. Do you support the president? Walz refused to answer. Do you oppose the president? Walz replied that it was no one’s business but his own. (He later learned that his wife was informed that the Secret Service might arrest him.) Walz thought for a moment and asked the Bush staffers if they really wanted to arrest a command sergeant major who’d just returned from fighting the war on terrorism.”

Numerous video clips have shown figures, including then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), claiming Walz served in combat, without any correction, provoking charges that Walz engaged in “stolen valor.”

A group of 50 military veterans in Congress wrote a letter to Walz expressing their “grave concern” over the fact that Walz may be “a heartbeat away from becoming the Commander-In-Chief. You’ve already demonstrated your unwillingness to lead in time of war and a lack of honor through your blatant misrepresentations exploiting and co-opting the experiences of America’s combat veterans for personal gain.”

The lead author of the letter — Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.) — lost both legs while serving in Afghanistan.

“America’s veterans and servicemembers are rightfully concerned about what would happen to them should you ascend to the Presidency. When America asked you to lead your troops into War, you turned your back on your troops.”

“Until you admit you lied to them, there is no way you can be trusted to serve as Vice President,” they wrote.

Those who served in uniform seem the most upset.

Vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance, who escaped Appalachian poverty first by enlisting in the Marine Corps, before enrolling in Ohio State University and Yale, said when his country “asked me to go to Iraq to serve my country, I did it. I did what they asked me to do, and I did it honorably. When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, you know what he did? He dropped out of the Army and allowed his unit to go without him, a fact that he’s been criticized for aggressively by a lot of the people that he served with.”

“For 20 years, they let this guy go by with a lie that he deployed to Iraq, which he didn’t, and that he retired as a command sergeant major, which he did not. I mean, that’s just blatant lies,” said Hung Cao, a retired Navy captain and Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Virginia.

“I served in the Minnesota National Guard with him. He literally abandoned us when we were about to be deployed to Iraq. He’s a coward and should be treated as such,” stated J.R. Salzman. Multiple members of Walz’s unit, including a chaplain, have spoken out against Walz’s misrepresentation of his military record.

Legacy media outlets, so quick to pounce or artifice any misstatement from President Donald Trump, have proven remarkably understanding about Walz’s erroneous comments. The New York Times ran an article “Explaining Claims About Tim Walz’s Military Service,” which noted that four veterans “do not believe the governor is guilty of ‘stolen valor,’ but that he did misrepresent his record at times.” Some seemingly confessed that they have concerns over the political impact of Walz’s claims, which legacy media fact-checkers minimize or otherwise spin. “False and misleading claims of such a trivial nature might not seem particularly harmful, but a deluge of them could easily add up to real damage at the polls, according to experts. This is especially true when they go after a figure such as Walz, who is still relatively unknown on the national stage,” admitted CBS News.

Yet a few have corrected the record. “There is no evidence that at any time Governor Walz was in the position of being shot at, and some of his language could easily be seen to suggest that he was. So that is absolutely false when he said that about gun rights out there,” said CNN correspondent Tim Foreman. More recently, USA Today columnist Ingrid Jacques referred to Walz’s “disturbing record” as “a bit of a fabulist.”

2. Stolen Valor #2: ‘Retired Command Sergeant Major’

Walz has repeatedly referred to his rank as “retired command sergeant major,” including in the official Walz-Harris campaign biography. Yet Walz actually retired as a master sergeant, because he failed to complete required coursework at the U.S. Sergeants Major Academy when he quit his unit in 2005 to run for U.S. Congress.

“You have stated that you are ‘damn proud’ of your service, and like any American veteran, you should be. But there is no honor in lying about the nature of your service,” stated a letter from 50 veterans serving in Congress. “Repeatedly claiming to be a ‘Retired Command Sergeant Major’ when you did not complete the requirements was not honorable. Nor was it honorable to claim to carry weapons ‘in war’ when you had not served in war, and abandoning the men and women under your leadership just as they were getting ready to deploy was certainly not honorable either.”

Eventually, the Harris-Walz campaign website stealth edited Walz’s biography. Yet in an official video shown on the third night of the 2024 Democratic National Convention before his vice presidential acceptance speech, said that Walz “served 24 years in the National Guard, rising to Command Sergeant Major.”

3. Walz Claimed His Wife Conceived through IVF

The Democratic Party has repeatedly claimed the 2022 Dobbs decision, overturning Roe v. Wade, has unleashed a torrent of pro-life laws that threaten everything from miscarriage care to in vitro fertilization (IVF). Tim Walz claimed to have a very “personal” connection to IVF, claiming he and his wife, Gwen, owe their two children to IVF.

In fact, Walz invoked the Lord’s divine providence for the controversial procedure. “Thank God for IVF, my wife and I have two beautiful children,” Walz told MSNBC in July. Walz weaponized the issue against J.D. Vance in August, alleging, “If it was up to him, I wouldn’t have a family because of IVF.” (Vance has spoken in favor of IVF, a controversial procedure in which nine out of 10 children are never born and unknown millions have been “discarded,” aborted, or abandoned.)

But in an August 19 interview with Walz’s wife, Gwen, Glamour magazine reported that the couple did not conceive via IVF at all. The Walzes participated in a different fertility procedure, known as intrauterine insemination (IUI), in which sperm are injected into the uterus. Gwen Walz thanked a nurse in her neighborhood who assisted her “with the shots I needed as part of the IUI process.”

The Harris-Walz campaign attempted to defend Walz’s misleading IVF statements. “Governor Walz talks how normal people talk,” said Mia Ehrenberg, a campaign spokeswoman. “He was using commonly understood shorthand for fertility treatments.”

Despite Democratic claims to the contrary, IVF was never threatened by an 8-1 Alabama Supreme Court ruling which allowed the parents of children negligently destroyed in IVF clinics to file a civil case under the state’s 1872 Wrongful Death of a Minor Act.

4. Walz Misled about His 1995 DUI

As a candidate for Congress in 2006, Tim Walz apparently misled voters about his 1995 arrest for driving under the influence. Walz had claimed the entire arrest was a misunderstanding, based on hearing loss from his valorous military service. But CNN reported:

“According to court and policerecords connected to the incident, Walz admitted in court that he had been drinking when he was pulled over for driving 96 mph in a 55 mph zone in Nebraska. Walz was then transported by a state trooper to a local hospital for a blood test, showing he had a blood alcohol level of .128, well above the state’s legal limit of 0.1 at the time.”

Walz accepted a plea deal, admitting that he put himself and others in danger by getting behind the wheel.

“It’s just a dangerous situation,” Walz said in a court transcript, which Alpha News, a conservative Minnesota outlet uncovered in 2022. “Not just to myself, but to others who aren’t even involved with it.”

5. ‘Outstanding Young Nebraskan’?

When Walz ran for the House of Representatives in 2006, his official campaign biography stated that in 1993, he “was named the Outstanding Young Nebraskan by the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce for his service in the education, military, and small business communities.” Yet he never won any such award.

“We researched this matter and can confirm that you have not been the recipient of any award from the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce,” wrote Barry Kennedy, then-president of the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce, in November 2006. “I am not going to draw a conclusion about your intentions by including this line in your biography. However, we respectfully request that you remove any reference to our organization as it could be considered an endorsement of your candidacy.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce endorsed Walz’s opponent, Gil Gutknecht, who told The Washington Free Beacon that the fabrication “fits a pattern of misleading and fabricated statements he has made throughout his political and personal life.”

Walz’s campaign later updated the biography, claiming he won an award from the “Nebraska Junior Chamber of Commerce.” His campaign manager waved off the controversy, telling local media the misstatement had been a “typographical error.”

6. Phony Headlines

Despite the Democratic Party’s continual warning about misinformation — something Tim Walz has erroneously said is not protected by the First Amendment — the Harris-Walz campaign has doctored headlines in its online advertisements.

The campaign reportedly spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on campaign ads that presented actual news stories from the Associated Press, USA Today, NPR, PBS, CNN, CBS News, and other outlets — but with glowing headlines written by campaign staffers. The intention is to convince readers the unbiased reporters heaped praise on the candidates.

Some of the website’s purveyors say the campaign’s actions have undermined their journalistic integrity. “They lied to every single person that saw that ad. It’s misleading, it’s dishonest, and it hurts us as the company, our news brand,” Steve Hallstrom, president and managing partner of Flag Family Media, told the Daily Caller in August.

7. ‘White Guy Tacos’

Tim Walz appears to have even misled the American people about his pallet. In an online video, he apparently stated that “black pepper” is the spiciest food he eats, although Walz has a taste for spicy food.

In the video, Walz gestures toward a table and tells Kamala Harris, “I have white guy tacos.”

“What does that mean? Like, mayonnaise and tuna? What are you doing?” replied Harris, repeating a racial stereotype.

“Pretty much ground beef and cheese,” explained Walz.

When Harris asks if he “put any flavor in it,” Walz said, “No,” because “black pepper is the top of the spice level in Minnesota.”

“Listen, I’m just not much of a spice guy,” said Walz, posting the clip on social media.

Yet in Minnesota, Walz is apparently known for enjoying spicy food. In January 2022, Walz referred to his “award-winning recipe for Turkey Taco Tot Hotdish” (which contains chiles and other peppers) online.

Rolling Stone magazine, which has a strained relationship with the truth, described Walz’s original comments as a “joke.”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

RELATED VIDEO: Comrade Kamala, “With a stroke of my pen I could have someone arrested.”

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

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.

Dem Defending Walz’s Military Record Has His Own History Of Claiming Honor He Never Earned thumbnail

Dem Defending Walz’s Military Record Has His Own History Of Claiming Honor He Never Earned

/in , , , /by

By The Daily Caller

Democratic Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland falsely claimed on an application to have been awarded a Bronze Star Medal for his Army service in Afghanistan in 2006, according to The New York Times.

Moore claimed to have received the honor on a White House fellowship application in 2006, and has failed to correct television hosts who have wrongly introduced him as a recipient of the award in the past, the New York Times reported. Moore, who has also defended Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz amid his accusations of stolen valor, called the discrepancy an “honest mistake” and expressed regret for not correcting his application, according to a statement from Thursday.

“I was encouraged to fill out an application for the White House Fellowship by my deputy brigade commander,” Moore said in a statement. “In fact, he helped me edit it before I sent it in. At the time, he had recommended me for the Bronze Star. He told me to include the Bronze Star award on my application after confirming with two other senior-level officers that they had also signed off on the commendation.”

“Still, I sincerely wish I had gone back to correct the note on my application,” Moore continued. “It was an honest mistake, and I regret not making that correction.”

Moore had not received either the Bronze Star or the Combat Army Badge at the time that he submitted his application in January of 2006, the New York Times confirmed. He was eventually awarded the Combat Army Badge in May 2006, but there is no record of him ever receiving a Bronze Star.

“Over the last few weeks, our country has grown used to seeing what it looks like when a veteran’s integrity is attacked for political gain,” Moore said in the statement. “But those who seek to cast doubt on our records misunderstand something fundamental about true patriots, who have put on the flag of our country and put everything on the line to be called Americans: We don’t get shaken. We put our heads down, and we do the work. And that is what I will continue to do.”

Moore also defended another prominent Democrat who had his military record questioned. Just days after Vice President Kamala Harris announced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, his statements about his military service in the National Guard were called into question.

Walz previously advocated for a ban on “weapons of war” that he said he “carried in war,” according to a video posted by Harris’ campaign on X. However, Walz never actually went into combat and reportedly retired from the Minnesota National Guard in 2005 shortly after he learned that his unit was being deployed to Iraq.

Republican Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, former President Donald Trump’s running mate, called out this discrepancy and claimed that Walz “abandoned” his unit.

“Well I wonder, Tim Walz, when were you ever in war?” Vance said during a campaign event. “What was this weapon that you carried into war given that you abandoned your unit right before they went to Iraq and he has not spent a day in a combat zone? What bothers me about Tim Walz is the stolen valor garbage.”

Moore responded to Vance and defended Walz in an August MSNBC interview, saying that anyone who has served the country “deserves our utmost respect.”

“You don’t get to sergeant major just because,” Moore said in the interview. “You get to sergeant major because you’ve served this country.”

AUTHOR

Rebeka Zeljko

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Tim Walz Appears To Ignore Shouted Questions About ‘Stolen Valor’ Accusation

Tim Walz Claimed He Has A Family ‘Because Of’ IVF — But His Wife Used A Different Fertility Treatment

Wealthy Donors Quietly Tell Harris To Throw Capital Gains Tax Policy Overboard

EXCLUSIVE: Jim Jordan Starts Inquiry Into Jack Smith’s Superseding Indictment Of Trump

RELATED VIDEO: Trump COMRADE KAMALA ad is absolute FIRE AND BRIMSTONE..

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Trump Pledges Foreign Policy Accountability, Rankling DC thumbnail

Trump Pledges Foreign Policy Accountability, Rankling DC

/in , , , /by

By Sumantra Maitra

State of the Union: Trump understands accountability. That is a danger to the national security bureaucracy.

Compared to recent policy-infused speeches, Donald Trump’s big foreign-policy address in North Carolina was strangely devoid of, well, policy. This was vintage Trump. Trump mentioned his advisers: “They always say, ‘Sir, please stick to policy. Don’t get personal,’ and yet they’re getting personal all night long, these people. Do I still have to stick to policy?”

In a way, he is correct. You cannot debate policy proposals if only one side is talking about policy. No one knows where Kamala Harris stands on foreign policy, although she gave, in her own words, the final word in Joe Biden’s ears regarding the Afghanistan withdrawal. (We hope J.D. Vance is taking notes on how the situation room works during momentous decisions.) But other than that, no one knows anything about a future Kamala Harris presidency, and her campaign wants to keep it that way, focusing instead on “Joy,” a pastiche, as your humble editor wrote, of an earlier, better campaign. The one thing she talked about, implementing price-controls, was so disastrous a proposal that her allies in the media had to bury the news and deal the campaign a rhetorical slap on the wrist.

So Trump didn’t have to mention anything specific in North Carolina, other than the classics—the Ukraine war will stop the moment Trump wins—Israel was attacked by Hamas but there was peace in the ME with Trump in power—China has a base in Afghanistan, which is the worst humiliation in American history. You get the idea.

ADVERTISEMENT

But he did mention something, unusual, that no one hears from any politician, much less a Republican. Trump attacked the military brass. After mentioning how the military has turned woke—“Our warriors should be focused on defeating America’s enemies, not figuring out their genders, by that time, hopefully they know their genders”—Trump added that he’d demand the resignations of “every single senior military official” involved in the planning of the Afghanistan withdrawal, which resulted in 13 American deaths.

It has always been my pet project to figure out which politician is interested in changing the national-security bureaucracy of this country—not superficial changes, but a wholesale restructuring. A true populist would have summarily fired the brass, who had three years to withdraw but slow-rolled it to the point of catastrophe, on camera, and then asked the military for a court-martial of those whose planning was responsible for the incompetence and loss of life.

For a man famous for firing people on camera, if he wins, this will be a true test of his character.

*****

This article was published by The American Conservative and is reproduced with permission.

Is it time to prepare for America’s growing migrant population to become more violent? Two incidents this week indicate the answer is YES! thumbnail

Is it time to prepare for America’s growing migrant population to become more violent? Two incidents this week indicate the answer is YES!

/in , , , , /by

By Leo Hohmann

Apartment complex in Colorado taken over by Venezuelan gang members, while two school buses in San Diego are disrupted by adult males who have no business being in this country.

Don’t look now but angry migrants, having reached a critical mass, are starting to flex their muscles against Americans and American cities.

First, we had reports about a violent Venezuelan gang taking over an apartment complex with rifles and handguns in Aurora, Colorado.

The group of men are shown on video entering the apartment complex in the Denver suburb and breaking into a unit, a clip obtained by KDVR shows.

Then, a San Diego, California, school district notified parents earlier this week that two bus routes were disrupted after attempted hijackings by illegal aliens while they were on the way to school this week. These were male adult foreign nationals forcing their way onto a school bus full of children. That could have ended badly were it not for alert bus drivers.

The two school bus incidents occurred on the A and B bus routes for the Jamul-Dulzura Union School District in San Diego County.

Families were informed by Superintendent Liz Bystedt who in an emailed notice dated Wednesday, August 28, wrote, “Earlier today I notified transportation families about two recent incidents involving our school buses on Highway 94. Both incidents involved people either trying to stop or board a bus at a bus stop.”

Here’s a report from Fox 5 San Diego.

Notice Fox 5 felt the need to interview Pedro Rios, director of the left-wing American Friends Service Committee, who tells us that “asylum is a human right.”

Well, guess what, here is what he didn’t tell us.

International asylum protocols require people who are legitimately seeking asylum to do it in the first country they come to after escaping their homeland, where they must prove they have a “well-founded fear” of persecution based on their political, religious or ethnic background.

That’s international law.

Not only are these thugs not coming here to escape persecution, but most of them are not coming from neighboring Mexico. They’re coming from countries farther away, so they are not legitimate asylum seekers no matter what the Biden administration and its liberal allies like Pedro Rios tell us.

Get ready people. Because this is just the beginning of what is coming down on America following Joe Biden’s open-borders experiment that has allowed anywhere from 10 million to 35 million illegal aliens to enter the U.S. in less than four years. Our government has no idea who these people are, or how many of them are dangerous. But I have a feeling we are going to find out soon enough.

©2024. Leo Hohmann. All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Illegals Attempt to Hijack Two SCHOOL BUSES in San Diego, California

RELATED VIDEOS: The 2024 presidential election is between communism and freedom.

FARRELL: New Documents Show Secret Service Prioritized DEI

Please visit Leo’s Newsletter Substack.

The Climate Scare and Complete Policy Collapse thumbnail

The Climate Scare and Complete Policy Collapse

/in , , , , , , /by

By Neland Nobel

Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

We are in the camp that argues climate is always changing, and that attempts to change the environment by government edict will fail, and that those bad policies will have major negative consequences elsewhere.

The science is not settled and it is not clear that C02 emissions are causing climate change.  Many independent variables, including the changing strength of the sun, solar storms, water vapor, the tilt of the earth, and volcanic activity both above the surface and below the ocean’s surface, change the environment.  There likely are other factors we don’t understand.

However, this had not stopped progressives from ginning up a crisis and proposing (you could predict this), that government control of the economy is the answer.  Back in the 1970s it was recognized that environmentalists were mostly watermelons: green on the outside but red on the inside.

ADVERTISEMENT

Just in the past few days a few news stories that on the surface appear somewhat independent of each other have broken, which should cause some serious rethinking about the progressive trend in environmental policy.

The first is Germany.  Germany has bought into the green agenda to such an extent, that they are wrecking the German economy, the powerhouse of Europe.  Some 40% of the German industry is considering relocating to another country, largely due to the soaring cost of electricity and heavy-handed environmental regulations.

Germany entered into a recession last year with GDP contracting at .2%.  There was an ever-so-slight recovery in early 2024, but the latest data estimate 2024 will see a contraction of 1.2%.  

Germany is considered the third-largest economy in the world and its problems are almost entirely self-inflicted.

As a byproduct of the slump, rather quietly the German Government said it would cut aid to Ukraine next year by about half.

They also have indicated a break with both Poland and Ukraine over the deliberate destruction of the key Nord Stream pipeline.  Recently, Germany issued arrest warrants for those responsible for the sabotage.  If Ukraine was behind the sabotage of a vital pipeline going to an ally, it would cause stress within the Western alliance.

ADVERTISEMENT

This story indicates that German economic woes can easily spill into the area of foreign policy.  Will the US taxpayer now have to pick up the slack for the reduction in German aid to Ukraine? What will happen to their commitment to beef up military spending for NATO?  If Donald Trump wins, will not the US be more insistent that Europeans pay for their own defense?

A nation’s military strength is largely supported by economic strength, and Germany is destroying its own economy.  This is a sober lesson for America to heed.

Another important story came from the magazine Science which published a major article on the failure of extremely expensive environmental policies to do anything to change the environment.  The study found that for all the trillions spent over the past 20 years, some 1500 programs from 41 countries, only about 4% of the programs showed any benefit.

Over all trends in emissions were not changed by this massive intervention.  Of some 1500 initiatives, only 63 had any effect at all.

Take a moment to take this in.  If this study is correct, words do not describe the level of failure. All the hysteria and the trillions of dollars spent, the disruption to our way of life, and the constant state of panic in our population about “the climate” led to policy decisions that have led to no discernable improvement in the very metrics the environmental whacko holds dear. 

These major environmental policy decisions now rival the COVID lockdown in their insanity and ineffectiveness.

In short, environmental policy has been a complete failure, even from those who support C02/global warming theory.

Considering Science has supported much of this nonsense over the years, publishing this article may mark a milestone in the policy argument.

While environmental policy has proven to be a complete bust, it has politically been quite successful.

Citizens throughout the West, are inculcated with anti-capitalistic propaganda that has become a state-sponsored religion.  The result has been the miseducation of several generations of school children to major corporations that constantly grovel before the alter of the sustainability god.

While a complete scientific failure, it has proven to be a great source of revenue for political causes.

Environmental policy can be viewed simply as a money laundering scheme on a grand scale.  State subsidies go to green companies, that kick back huge sums to green agenda politicians through campaign donations and tax-free foundations.  While failing to change the climate at all, it has reshaped politics all over the globe in favor of anti-free enterprise, interventionist, regulatory jihad political leaders.

This money laundering scheme also takes the form of massive grants from the government, given to rent-seeking scientists, who reliably create bogus research justifying more government intervention.  Tax dollars get recycled back not only to politicians but to the scientists giving the politicians political cover.

Such environmental propaganda even has had a significant impact on the birth rate. A 2021 study published in the journal Lancet Planet Health found that 36% of teens and young adults were hesitant to have children due to climate change. 

Much as it has with the medical establishment, the perversion of science for political causes has done grave damage to the reputation of scientists.  People still believe in science, but they don’t believe anymore in scientists and the establishment many seem to represent.

That is what is so significant about the recent piece in Science.  We are finally seeing a crack in the “science” of the green agenda.

In terms of having the taxpayer fund his destruction, however, nothing has been as successful as the “green movement.”

This new study perhaps will help stop the funding for these failing policies and indirectly, end or reduce this campaign finance fraud.

If the programs being pushed don’t even accomplish the goals of those who buy into the green agenda, what justification is there to continue them?

There has also been a flurry of stories of late about how billions have been spent to create about a half dozen charging stations, and how Ford and other auto companies are cutting back on EV production.  Despite the subsidies for EVs, these companies are losing billions of dollars, and shareholders and customers are squawking.  When Ford loses $130,000 per EV vehicle, common sense finally makes a breakthrough.

Washington keeps pushing EVs, but the public just is not buying them.

Finally, as pointed out in the Wall Street Journal recently by Holman Jenkins, Jr.:

“Mr. Biden’s green-energy strategy was wrongheaded by every bit of economic advice with nothing to show except billions added to the deficit and a budding disaster from forcing Detroit to build EVs the public doesn’t want.”

Mr. Trump and Vance would be well served to read this latest Science article and see if they can even get a confused response from Kamala Harris.

Meanwhile, the economic travails of Germany are also worth avoiding.  We do not want to emulate them.

Maybe between the collapse of EVs, the cratering of the German economy, and the Science article indicating 96% policy failure, the tide will turn against the green agenda.

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.

Weekend Read: How to Defeat the Censorship Industrial Complex thumbnail

Weekend Read: How to Defeat the Censorship Industrial Complex

/in , , , , , /by

By Bobbie Anne Flower Cox

Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

One of my colleagues, a medical doctor, that I often “tour” with on what many refer to as the “freedom” circuit, texted me a meme a while ago that I just love. Well, to be honest, I actually despise it because of what it symbolizes, which is the tremendous struggles we’ve endured the past four and a half years to get our voices heard by the masses. But part of me likes the meme because it completely embodies what life was like in 2020 for those of us who were speaking out almost from the moment the government said, “Lockdown! Just for 2 weeks to flatten the curve.”

Whilst my doctor (MD and PhD), academic, and economist colleagues were trying to warn people about the negative medical, mental, and economic consequences of locking down perfectly healthy people throughout the world for months on end, personally, I was shouting from the rooftops peering through my legal lens saying, “The government cannot do this, folks! Wake up!” But nobody was listening to me back then. Nobody was listening to any of us. And we didn’t know one another at that point. Nor did we know how to find one another, or even if each other existed at all! The censorship was so thick, you could cut it with a knife. (I’m not exactly sure that thickness has lessened any these past few years. It’s disputable, indeed, but that’s a story for another day).

Once my bold, vocal colleagues and I finally found each other through the fog of censorship, we shared our eerily similar stories about how mainstream media was boycotting us, our work and our “against the narrative” public speeches, and how Big Tech was silencing each and every one of us online. Facebook was sending us “warnings” for posting “misinformation” (whatever that means, because of course I challenged them constantly and asked who they thought they were to determine what was truth and what wasn’t – they responded to none of my challenges, since they clearly had no leg to stand on).

ADVERTISEMENT

Then there was their blatantly obvious shadowbanning us to the point where I’d post something and they’d only let 14 people see it. In the early days, I had a YouTube channel, but they tore down my videos within an hour or two of posting, and they threw me in YouTube jail so many times, I lost count. Some of my colleagues had tens of thousands of YouTube or Twitter followers, and then poof! One day they lost them all because the overlords cancelled their accounts.

Despite the ever-thickening wall of censorship, we continued speaking out – trying to get the masses to hear logic.“No! The government cannot lock you down for months on end when you are perfectly healthy. It defies our laws, our Constitution, and basic logic.” Yet, we all were facing resistance that was truly unbelievable. Still do today, to a large extent. (Note, I have only about 6,000 followers on Twitter). I personally kept hearing about how, “Jacobson allows the government to control us when there is a health emergency.” I heard a lot of Jacobson this and Jacobson that. My response? Put Jacobson to rest, people. It does not give the government (Trump’s, Biden’s or anyone else’s) the power to lock us down indefinitely. 

I stand by that still today. For anyone unaware of what “Jacobson” is, it was a 1905 US Supreme Court case called Jacobson v. Massachusetts, and it has been wildly twisted and distorted beyond belief during the years of the Covid pandemic. In almost all of my speeches over these past few years, I have tried to emphasize the fact that the Constitution does not have an emergency exemption. In other words, the Constitution is not invalid during times of emergency. In fact, it is during times of emergency that we need our Constitution most urgently, as that is the time when government will most likely overstep its bounds and violate our rights and freedoms (in the name of “public safety” of course).

ADVERTISEMENT

If you think about it, it was during a time of great turmoil that our Constitution was first written, and it was specifically composed to keep the government in check – not to keep We The People in check! I have written a couple of articles about this crucial fact, which you can find here and here.

Okay, so this is the meme my colleague sent me that captures well how we felt four years ago…

Defeating censorship the old-fashioned way!

ADVERTISEMENT

By mid-2020, I quickly realized social media was not going to be my friend. FB, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter…they were all controlled by the power lords. This has of course now been proven in an epic lawsuit known as Missouri v. Biden, which has not yet come to its final legal end, but nonetheless has proven the shameful and unconstitutional censorship collusion between the Biden/Harris administration and social media companies.

You can find out more on that in one of my recent articles, here, and you can also peruse the Congressional investigative report recently published, “THE CENSORSHIP-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX: HOW TOP BIDEN WHITE HOUSE OFFICIALS COERCED BIG TECH TO CENSOR AMERICANS, TRUE INFORMATION, AND CRITICS OF THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION.” Here’s just a snippet of that report so you can get a flavor for its findings:

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

“Just got off [an] hour long call with [Senior Advisor to President Biden] Andy Slavitt…[H]e was outraged – not too strong of a word to describe his reaction – that we did not remove this post…I countered that removing content like that would represent a significant incursion into traditional boundaries of free expression in the US but he replied that the post was directly comparing Covid vaccines to asbestos poisoning in a way which demonstrably inhibits confidence in Covid vaccines amongst those the Biden Administration is trying to reach.”

– Sir Nick Clegg, Meta’s President of Global Affairs, former Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, describing his efforts to explain the boundaries of the First Amendment to the Biden White House in April 2021.

I digress.

Returning to defeating the censorship industrial complex…With the social media giants and the mainstream media silencing me and my important legal messages to New Yorkers, what was my other option to help people understand that what was going on was not just wrong but illegal?

Good old-fashioned conversations!

Because my law practice had, for 20 years, been based in real estate law (property tax valuations and transactional deals), the CDC’s nationwide eviction moratorium (which began in the spring of 2020 and lasted a year and a half), unleashed a flurry of panic (rightfully so) which resulted in my phones, email, and snail mail exploding with landlords (aka small business owners) desperately looking for help.

They were going under fast, as the federal government (and then the State government here in New York) had effectively made it legal for tenants to not pay rent, not get evicted, and to abolish the private contracts they had signed with their landlords. This was not only unprecedented in our nation’s history, it was wildly unconstitutional. I was so overwhelmed with calls for help, I couldn’t assist everyone individually, so I knew I had to help everyone collectively. Or at least I had to try.

And so, the power of personal communication, on a mass scale, took over. I began doing radio and podcast interviews, writing articles, and doing legal analysis for Real America’s Voice TV, (this was an interview I did on the illegal CDC eviction moratorium topic). Then there are the in-person speaking events. Nothing beats the personal touch! So, for the past four years now, I have been crisscrossing New York state, giving speeches to civic organizations, citizen groups, activists, grassroots organizations, political groups, and so on, teaching them about their rights, the Constitution, and helping them understand what is going on around them.

That quickly expanded to surrounding states, and even states as far away as Texas and Florida. After a speech or conference event, people sometimes thank me, call me “brave” for standing up and helping others make sense of what was going on, especially after I won my quarantine camp lawsuit against New York’s Governor and her DOH. My response to them is usually, “Well I’m either really brave or really stupid to do what I’m doing.”  I jest because I gave up a lot in the past few years to speak out and fight for our rights against the ever-growing tyranny. I also lost (read was alienated by) many of my colleagues in the legal field, and friends, some of whom were dear to me.

Apparently, it’s part of the price you pay for speaking the truth and helping those who don’t know how to find their way out of this mess alone. In fact, we cannot get out of this mess alone. It’s impossible for one person to do it alone. We must all, every single one of us, pitch in and take action. Now! Before it is too late. And too late is fast approaching on November 5th.

That meme I shared above is starting to flip, as there are more and more free speech platforms and alternative media sources. Yet, the censorship industrial complex still exists today, and so we must keep pushing forward. We are in an information war. I think that is obvious. The mainstream media is no longer a reliable source of information. They only tell one side of the story. It’s not only pathetic, it’s dangerous.

It’s impossible to make informed decisions in your life if you are not hearing all the information, all the facts, all the possibilities. Freedom of speech is the bedrock of our free society. It was no mistake that our Founding Fathers listed it first in the Amendments to our Constitution, followed immediately thereafter by our right to bear arms! The Second Amendment protects the First, and all those that follow.

He who controls the narrative controls the people.

Just how dangerous can censorship be? I can tell you, from my own account, that I grew up during the Cold War, near its end, and as a competitive figure skater (a sport in which the Soviets absolutely dominated for decades), I had a number of friends from the Soviet Union. I can remember the stories their parents and grandparents would tell us about living in the USSR before they were able to “defect” and escape to the US. It seemed truly unbelievable to hear them talk about food shortages, bread lines, eating the same stale food for days in a row, sleeping in their coats because it was freezing outside and their apartment buildings didn’t have heat that worked.

It wasn’t because they were so poor. It was because it was all government-controlled. They explained how the radio only had a couple of stations, and those were government-controlled, so all day and night, all they really heard was propaganda. The Soviet people didn’t know they were being fed lies. How could they? There was no “dissent” allowed to be spoken. There was only ever one side. And so, they believed it.

If you want to understand just how dangerous that can be, I suggest reading the book, “Midnight in Chernobyl” by Adam Higginbotham. It is an absolutely fascinating read about the untold story of the cataclysmic Soviet nuclear power plant disaster that occurred in Chernobyl back in 1986, but the book is so much more than that. It gives you a phenomenal insight into how this utter catastrophe caused the Soviet government to lose control of its web of lies.

After the devastating meltdown of Reactor #4 at Chernobyl with all of the carnage and economic losses that it caused, the Soviet Union’s totalitarian censorship of information from its people was no longer sustainable. The Chernobyl disaster revealed to the Soviet people that their country was a state built upon a pillar of lies. Once the government lost its power to censor information from its people, the people regained their power! As a result, Chernobyl was a key event in the destruction of the Soviet Union.

How We Can Defeat the Censorship Industrial Complex

Turning to the “here and now,” the censorship that has been going on around us is simply stunning. Great example…In the beginning years of the Covid pandemic, you would hear reports or see videos of heartbreaking forced quarantines going on in China, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries, yet the dystopian “Isolation and Quarantine Procedures” regulation promulgated by New York’s Governor Hochul and her Department of Health (“DOH”) has been flying under the radar since day one. We’ve seen the complete and utter refusal by the mainstream media to cover the ghastly regulation.

One would think the story of a group of NYS legislators (Senator George Borello, Assemblyman Chris Tague, and Assemblyman [now Congressman] Mike Lawler) together with a citizens’ group, Uniting NYS, and backed by an Amicus Brief written by top-ranking NYS Assemblymen (Andy Goodell, Will Barclay, and Joseph Giglio), suing and defeating the Governor of New York over her ferociously unconstitutional regulation, would be front page news! Nope. The mainstream media still won’t report on it! Not a peep about the inhumane regulation, or how we sued the Governor and won, or how she and her DOH appealed the case to try to get the power back so they can lock you up (or lock you down) for however long they want, at whatever location they want, without any notice, without any right to an attorney, without any proof that you are actually sick, or how the appellate court shamefully dismissed our case for supposed lack of standing, and how I’ve been fighting to try to get our State’s highest court to hear the case…(Quarantine camp lawsuit update can be found here).

It’s truly a sin. The media is supposed to help We The People be watchdogs over our government to help ensure the greedy politicians and bureaucrats don’t overstep and harm us. Perhaps that was true some time ago, but today it is no longer.

*****

This article was published by The Brownstone Institute 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.

Harris Hiding from Far-Left Record by Plundering Trump Policies thumbnail

Harris Hiding from Far-Left Record by Plundering Trump Policies

/in , , , , , , , /by

By Family Research Council

Vice President Kamala Harris is trying to be unburdened by what has been — namely her far-left political record — by adopting MAGA policies. The latest instance of flip-flopping is Harris’s support for the border wall proposed by former President Donald Trump. According to Axios, the vice president is now pledging to spend an estimated $650 million to complete the border wall Trump started, despite having called the initiative “racist” and “un-American” during Trump’s White House tenure. Senator J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), Trump’s running mate, commented, “Kamala Harris is a fake. If she wants to build the border wall, she could start right now!”

In recent weeks, Harris has adopted a “tough” persona regarding border security, with immigration consistently ranking as one of the top two most pressing issues for voters ahead of November’s election. In fact, Harris’s latest campaign ad features images of the border wall while touting the Democrat’s past role as a “border-state prosecutor.” The ad claimed that Harris, if elected, would “hire thousands more border agents” and “crack down on fentanyl and human trafficking.” The ad concluded, “Fixing the border is tough. So is Kamala Harris.”

Yet the incumbent Biden-Harris administration is responsible for at least 10 million illegal immigrants crossing the southern border since taking office in January of 2021, including “at least 99” illegal immigrants on the U.S. terror watchlist, according to a congressional report released earlier this month.

“Americans are used to presidential candidates flip-flopping on unpopular positions they’ve taken in the past, that’s nothing new. But, the outright copying of major pieces of an opponent’s policy agenda in the middle of an election less than 70 days from election day certainly is unprecedented,” said FRC Action Director Matt Carpenter in comments to The Washington Stand. “I think it exposes the Harris-Walz campaign as being fundamentally insecure about the policies they’re offering the American people,” he added.

“This is further evidenced by the fact that their own campaign website is a policy desert, they have no policies listed on their campaign website, and they have only just recently announced the first sit down interview with their candidate on a major news outlet since becoming the presumptive nominee,” Carpenter continued. “To me, all of this suggests a campaign that is not confident in the abilities of their candidate and the appeal of her agenda.”

“Vice President Harris will say and do anything, and she will change her positions on policies like a chameleon … to get elected,” said former acting U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Mark Morgan in an interview. “They realize now that in every single poll, she’s upside down with respect to their border security policies. What [has] she [done]? A 180 degree-flip flop and now actually shows the picture … of the very tool and resource that she took away from the border control agents, making their job more difficult,” Morgan continued. He added, “Now all of the sudden, she’s acting like she’s for the wall. … I’m hoping the American people are going to see through this and they’re not going to buy this.”

Early in 2021, Harris was appointed “border czar” by President Joe Biden and was charged with stemming the flow of illegal immigration, while the administration dismantled many of the border security measures put in place by Trump. Her handling of the illegal immigration crisis has been described as “one of the most catastrophic failures in American history.” Numerous reports have exposed the “infighting” and “ineffectiveness” of the Biden-Harris administration’s treatment of the border.

The border wall isn’t the only Trump-team initiative that Harris has quickly adopted as her own. Earlier this month, Harris announced plans not to tax service industry workers’ tips, a plan originally devised by Trump and approved by many elected GOP officials. Just days ago, Harris also changed her tune on the Child Tax Credit (CTC). After attacking Vance for supporting the CTC, claiming that supporting and encouraging families is a means of declaring “war” against “childless people,” Harris reversed her position and proposed expanding the CTC, after Vance had already done the same.

While Harris herself has not formally or personally said anything on the subject, unnamed individuals in her campaign have reported that Harris is “changing her position” on several issues, including fracking, gun control programs, and the idea of a “single-payer health insurance program.” Harris has consistently endorsed far-left policies and positions throughout her career. During her tenure in the U.S. Senate, she maintained the furthest-left voting record of any Democrat. The Trump campaign recently released a new ad featuring side-by-side comparisons of Harris complaining about issues such as inflation and bragging about the Biden-Harris policies which have resulted in the issues Harris is complaining of.

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Bill That Would Give Illegal Immigrants Up To $150,000 To Buy Homes Heads To Gavin Newsom’s Desk

Here’s The Worst Possible Scenario For Kamala’s CNN Interview

Tim Walz Signed A Law Creating ‘Ethnic Studies’ Requirements Extending To Elementary School Students

Officer In Serious Condition After Kamala Harris And Tim Walz Motorcade Crash

‘She Can Go To Hell!’: JD Vance Blasts Kamala Harris Amid Attacks For Trump Attendance At Ceremony For Fallen Troops

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

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.

FBI releases first photos of weapons, attack plans of Trump’s would-be assassin thumbnail

FBI releases first photos of weapons, attack plans of Trump’s would-be assassin

/in , , , , /by

By NEWSRAEL Telling the Israeli Story

The FBI said Crooks ‘had a sustained detailed effort to plan an attack on some event, meaning he looked at any number of events or targets.’

The US Federal Bureau of Investigations on Thursday released photos of Thomas Matthew Crooks’s firearm he used to attempt to assassinate former president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, and details of his attack plans, which targeted both Trump and Biden and several events.

Crooks’ internet searches indicated he was planning the attack for a while and seemed to have been considering Joe Biden as a target as well as Trump.

Kevin Rojek, special agent in charge of the FBI Pittsburgh Field Office, said Crooks “had a sustained detailed effort to plan an attack on some event, meaning he looked at any number of events or targets.”

The 20-year-old attempted assassin “became hyper-focused” on Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and considered it a “target of opportunity.”

Butler, Pennsylvania, was ultimately the location of the attempted assassination attempt on July 12, during which a bullet from Crooks’ gun grazed Trump’s ear with a bullet that missed his brain by an inch.

The attack killed Corey Comperatore, a fireman, and Crooks’ was eliminated by law enforcement during the shooting.

Crooks “searched the former president’s campaign schedule and upcoming appearances in Pennsylvania for more than a month before the incident,” Rojek said.

Between April and July, Crooks sought speaking engagements in Pennsylvania for Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

The gunman didn’t express a political ideology that would have signaled a motive for the attack but made antisemitic and anti-immigrant posts on social media.

“The subject registered to attend the rally, and that same day he specifically searched for, ‘How far was Oswald from Kennedy?’ ‘Where will Trump speak from at Butler Farm Show,’ ‘Butler Farm show podium,’ and ‘Butler Farm show photos,’” Rojek explained.

“On July 8, the subject searched ‘AGR international.’ And on July 10, he searched ‘weather in Butler,’ and the 30 days prior to the attack, the subject conducted more than 60 searches related to President Biden and former President Trump.”

In early July, he searched, ”When is the DNC convention?’ and ‘When is the RNC in 2024?’”

RELATED VIDEOS:

FEARLESS: Trump leaves bulletproof glass to check on a supporter who passed out.

MUST WATCH: Butler Police officer on Body Cam video before Trump assassination attempt

EDITORS NOTE: This World Israel News column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

EXCLUSIVE: Gold Star Families Had Trouble Getting Trump Into Arlington Until House Speaker Intervened thumbnail

EXCLUSIVE: Gold Star Families Had Trouble Getting Trump Into Arlington Until House Speaker Intervened

/in , , , , /by

By The Daily Caller

Arlington National Cemetery told gold star families that they could only be there for a specific time that did not work for everyone’s schedule and were also told the president could not join them at their children’s gravesites, the family told the Caller.

Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Rep. Michael McCaul explained to the Caller that he was contacted by Gold Star parents Darin Hoover and Kelly Barnett, the parents of SSGT Taylor Hoover, who told him that Arlington Cemetery was giving them and some of the other parents of the U.S. servicemembers killed at Abbey Gate a hard time about coordinating a ceremony with Trump on the anniversary of their deaths. The Caller is told that the Cemetery said they could only be there for a specific time that did not work for everyone’s schedule and were also told the president could not join them at their children’s gravesites. McCaul immediately reached out to Johnson to ask for his assistance with the matter and the Caller is told he continued to track it until it was fixed.

“When Darin and Kelly contacted me, I was furious to hear their request to have President Trump join them to commemorate the anniversary of Taylor’s death was being stymied, along with several of the other family members of U.S. servicemembers killed at Abbey Gate. I immediately asked what I could do to help and reached out to Speaker Johnson to see what he could do. Thankfully, Speaker Johnson and his team acted quickly and were able to get the situation resolved. But something like this should never have happened. Gold Star families have already suffered enough,” McCaul told the Caller.

California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa has called on Biden to meet with these Gold Star families on multiple occasions, his office told the Caller. He was present for the ceremonies on Monday and had been in contact with Arlington National Cemetery leading up to the anniversary, his office said.

“This administration absolutely interfered with the tributes to the 13 fallen. In its war on Trump, it made the Gold Star families collateral damage,” Issa told the Caller.

“Our office worked with Arlington National Cemetery to move the time of the event, to a time that would accommodate the attendance of President Trump. That was done as a request by the families to this office, as they were not receiving that assistance from Arlington National Cemetery,” two sources close to the discussions told the Caller.

Another source familiar with the conversations between the Gold Star families and Arlington National Cemetery said that after Johnson’s phone call, the entire situation changed.

“The Speaker of the House had to get involved. Reps Issa, Mast, and Chairman Mike McCaul were instrumental in assisting in the Gold Star families. After the Speaker’s call, the situation shifted significantly. It was only three days before the ceremonies, and Arlington National Cemetery waited until the last minute to confirm key components of the event with the families.”

“Arlington Cemetery officials claimed the families didn’t want any media, photography, or videography at Section 60, contradicting what the families had actually requested. The families were fine with the media, designated by the Trump team, but Arlington kept pushing back, obstructing the process,” the source continued. “This would have not happened without Speaker Johnson.”

Hoover told the Caller in an emotional phone call that he and other Gold Star family members were the ones who called Trump and asked for him to show up and criticized the Biden administration for not contacting them for the past three years.

“We, WE extended the invitation to President Trump. We are the ones that asked him to come. We are the ones that asked him to assist in laying a wreath for our son, and for the shooting for, Sergeant Canals and for Cole. We’re the ones that asked that. President Trump didn’t come to us. His team didn’t come to us and say, hey, this would be good for business. Business? No. President Trump has stood by us from day one. He has been compassionate. He has been loving. He’s been understanding. He’s taking the mantle of our outrage a little bit. Because to be quite honest with you, being very frank, we haven’t heard diddly squat from the current administration in three years,” Hoover said.

The Caller reached out to the Biden White House for details on why these families were having trouble with Arlington National Cemetery on agreeing to terms with Trump present. The White House referred the Caller to Arlington National Cemetery, saying: “this is a matter between the Arlington National Cemetery and the Trump campaign, not a White House matter.”

The Caller also contacted Arlington National Cemetery about these claims. The cemetery did not immediately respond.

AUTHOR

Henry Rodgers

Chief national correspondent. Follow Henry Rodgers On Twitter

RELATED ARTICLE: US Military Probe Finds Kabul Airport Bombing Was ‘Not Preventable,’ Contradicting Marine’s Bombshell Testimony

RELATED VIDEOS:

JD Vance, Kamala can to “go to hell” for criticizing President Trump for honoring Gold Star families

NPR is DEFAMING President Trump

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

REPORT: Hamas’ leader Sinwar Has Surrounded Himself with 22 Handcuffed Hostages thumbnail

REPORT: Hamas’ leader Sinwar Has Surrounded Himself with 22 Handcuffed Hostages

/in , , , , , /by

By The Geller Report

The definition of evil.

Israel has had several opportunities to eliminate Hamas terrorist after locating his hiding tunnels. However, these attacks were not authorized due to the danger posed to the hostages.

Dressing as a woman, living like a cornered rat……hiding behind women and babies.

Hamas leader Sinwar, surrounded by 22 ‘handcuffed hostages’

Intelligence sources told the Jewish Chronicle that Israel has had several opportunities to eliminate Hamas terrorist after locating his hiding tunnels. However, these attacks were not authorized due to the danger posed to the hostages.

By ILH Staff, Israel Hayom, August 28, 2024;

The Jewish Chronicle reports that out of the 108 hostages believed to be still held in Gaza, only about 20 are alive and under Hamas’s control. These captives are reportedly being used to surround Sinwar, providing protection for the Hamas leader who remains in hiding underground.

Intelligence sources told the Jewish Chronicle that Israel has had several opportunities to eliminate Sinwar after locating his hiding tunnels. However, these attacks were not authorized due to the danger posed to the hostages.

The remaining captives, both living and dead, are believed to be in the hands of smaller terror groups, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Mujahideen Brigades, the al-Nasser Salah al-Deen Brigades, and the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades. These groups have reportedly cut off contact with Sinwar and are rebelling against his instructions.

Security sources cited by the Jewish Chronicle suggest that these smaller groups have been planning a coup for months due to disagreements with Sinwar over the identity and numbers of Palestinian prisoners to be released in any hostage deal. While Sinwar prioritizes the release of Hamas prisoners, these organizations demand representation for prisoners from their own ranks. The smaller groups are also taking a harder line in negotiations, insisting on the release of all terrorists from Israeli jails, including 1,236 convicted murderers serving life sentences. They also oppose Israel’s proposal to deport released prisoners from Gaza and the West Bank.

These internal Palestinian frictions have reportedly been a significant obstacle in reaching a hostage deal. The situation is further complicated by Sinwar’s reliance on the captives for his own safety. The Hamas leader, in hiding since October 7, has reportedly surrounded himself with 22 living, handcuffed hostages, using them as protection against potential elimination by Israel.

Sinwar’s main demands include ending the war, the withdrawal of the IDF from the entire Gaza Strip, and American guarantees that Israel will not continue the war after a hostage deal is completed. He is also seeking assurances that he will not be eliminated once the hostages in his possession are released.

Another point of contention in recent talks is the Philadelphi Corridor, a narrow strip of land between Gaza and Egypt used for smuggling. Hamas seeks control of this area to restore its military power, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposes this, even at the risk of derailing a potential deal. Talks in Cairo have resumed, but a breakthrough remains elusive. Israeli sources believe Sinwar may be stalling, hoping for a wider regional war that would divert the IDF’s attention from Gaza.

Meanwhile, Hamas is reportedly encouraging terrorist activity in the West Bank to further burden the Israeli army. Zaher Jabarin, a former prisoner released in the 2011 Gilad Shalit exchange, has been tasked with activating terrorists in the area, according to intelligence sources who spoke with the JC. Jabarin, currently operating from Turkey, is considered Hamas’s top financier and is believed to be transferring large amounts of funds received from Iran to fuel terror in the West Bank.

Continue reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLES:

Survey Shows Overwhelming Majority of Muslim College Students Hate Jews

Islamic Group Slaughters Over 400 DEAD, Hundreds Wounded in Burkina Faso

Migrant Charged in Brutal Beating of NYC Cops Had Been Caught at Border — and Released

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

On Gaza, Kamala Harris Ought to Clearly Choose a Side — The Right Side thumbnail

On Gaza, Kamala Harris Ought to Clearly Choose a Side — The Right Side

/in , , /by

By Jihad Watch

Kamala Harris’ attempt at the DNC to express “equal” sympathy for both sides — the Israelis and the Gazan Arabs — has not satisfied anyone. Political commentator Noah Rothman calls her remarks on Gaza “a lot of nothing.” More on his disappointment can be found here: “On the Gaza War, Kamala Harris Says a Lot of Nothing,” by Noah Rothman, National Review, August 23, 2024:

Why have “innocent lives” been lost in Gaza, and why are its people “desperate” and “hungry”? Because Hamas has abused the people over whom it presides. Their only value to Hamas is as sympathetic corpses. Why are they “fleeing to safety”? Because they are being evacuated via no-fire corridors by the IDF to temporary refugee cordons. Israelis do not oppose Palestinian self-determination….

“Innocent lives” have been lost in Gaza because Hamas deliberately embeds its men, weapons, and rocket launchers among civilians, in their schools, hospitals, mosques, and apartment houses. Hamas has a stake in maximizing civilian casualties; they are the central pillar in the terror group’s propaganda war. Israel, by contrast, tries always and everywhere to minimize civilian casualties, mainly by deploying an elaborate warning system, which by March had already included nine million dropped leaflets, fifteen million text messages, and sixteen million robocalls, all to warn Gazans away from areas, and buildings, about to be targeted. This warning system has allowed Israel to attain a ratio of civilians-to-combatants killed of 1:1, a result that no other army in the history of warfare has come close to achieving. Kamala Harris ought to ponder the significance of that achievement.

Harris could have told her adoring fans at the DNC that “as I speak, Israel has already accepted the deal for a ceasefire and a hostage-for-prisoner swap, but Hamas continues to refuse. In my administration, I will press hard for Hamas’ cooperation in relieving the suffering of people in Gaza.”

Harris did say: “I will never hesitate to take whatever action is necessary to defend our forces and our interests against Iran and Iran-backed terrorists.”

Harris will “defend our forces and our interests against Iran and Iran-backed terrorists”? Well, there is some unfinished business with Hezbollah and its killing of 241 Marines in their barracks in Beirut in 1983. Shouldn’t Harris want to “defend” our interests by showing Hezbollah that America has not forgotten that attack and will now pay back the terror group? And “our interests” certainly include guaranteeing the safety of our most loyal ally, the state of Israel, that now is faced with fighting a seven-front war, with Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, Assad’s army in Syria, the Kata’ib Hezbollah militia in Iraq, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the West Bank, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in Iran. Harris should have said something along the lines of “as Israel now faces a war on many fronts, we will supply our ally with all the weapons it needs not just to defend itself, but to bring the fight to the enemy so that it can end the threats to its existence rather than be forced to continually fend them off. Above all, with Israel’s help we need to ensure that Iran not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, which could set the entire Middle East ablaze.” But Harris did not even mention Iran’s nuclear threat.

If Harris is serious about opposing “Iran and Iran-backed terrorists,” should she become president, she must be prepared to provide Israel with bunker-buster bombs that will allow the IDF to take out the key nuclear facilities that Iran has built underground at Fordow.

Instead of trying to satisfy both sides, as she did in her brief remarks about Israel and Gaza at the DNC in Chicago, Harris ought to clearly choose a side – the right side. For the well-informed, the choice should be easy. The Jewish state is now fighting its fourth war for its survival — the others were in 1948, 1967, and 1973. It is fighting Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and their puppet-master in Iran. Hamas, with 3,000 of its operatives, smashed into Israel on October 7, where they proceeded to rape, torture, mutilate, and murder 1,200 Israelis and kidnap 251 others, who were taken back to Gaza is fighting to destroy the Jewish state. Its 1987 charter calls for that destruction. Hamas spokesmen such as Ghazi Hamad insist that the terror group will repeat the October 7 attacks “again and again and again.” For that is what the chant “From the river to the sea/Palestine will be free” means: Israel must disappear, to be replaced by a twenty-third Arab state. How hard is that for Kamala Harris to understand?

AUTHOR

Hugh Fitzgerald

RELATED ARTICLES:

Omar and AOC demand that Biden regime place arms embargo on Israel over nonexistent ‘genocide’

Hezbollah Still Can’t Quite Grasp What the IDF Did to It

France: Antisemitic incidents up 200% this year alone

The Graves of Academe (#666 in a series)

Survey Shows Majority of Muslim College Students Hate Jews

Migrant Charged in Brutal Beating of NYC Cops Had Been Caught at Border — and Released

Islamic Group Slaughters Over 400 DEAD, Hundreds Wounded in Burkina Faso

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Who Actually Runs the Biden-Harris Administration? thumbnail

Who Actually Runs the Biden-Harris Administration?

/in , , , , , , /by

By Bruce Bialosky

Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

Now that the physical and mental infirmity of Joe Biden has been admitted to by those who tried for years to hide the obvious from Americans, speculation still runs rampant about who is really running the country. Ms. Harris likes to claim she was “shoulder to shoulder” with Mr. Biden except when it would be considered ugly not to be in lockstep. Like with Afghanistan. We may not know exactly who was running the country, but we do know from where the direction came.

Mr. Biden made a deal with the Left after securing the 2020 nomination. He did not need to because he was the candidate of moderation. He promptly then decided to turn to the two most left-wing senators left in the U.S. Senate after selecting the one farthest Left as his V-P.

First, Biden-Harris adopted something known as MMT (Modern Monetary Theory). Biden took on Bernie Sanders’ advisor in this area, Stephanie Kelton, an economist at Stony Brook University. Ms. Kelton argues the essence of MMfT, which is that because the U.S. dollar is the world reserve currency, our government can borrow limitlessly with no economic risk. Otherwise, our government does not need to worry about the debt level because it can pay interest by printing money.

ADVERTISEMENT

Ms. Kelton and the adoption of the theory led to excessive spending beginning with the March 2021 needless $1.9 trillion bill that catapulted inflation to 9.1% and interest rates to 8%. This led to everyone’s shock when buying groceries, cars, or a home.

Elizabeth Warren’s influence on the Biden team makes Sanders look “minimal.” The recent appointment of Joe Donnenberg (her chief of staff) to be deputy director of the National Economic Council is simply the continuation of her coordination with Biden.

Her hand-picked ally, Rohit Chopra, now runs the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). This agency has control over many aspects of our economy but no control by our elected representatives after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowed funding through the Federal Reserve.

Then there is Bharat Ramamurti, Deputy Director of the National Economic Council (NEC), Julie Siegel who is the Treasury Deputy chief of staff, and Julie Morgan, a senior advisor at the Education Department. There is more control over the NEC with Sasha Baker, senior director of strategic planning, and Leandra English, who is the NEC Chief of Staff. Virtually all of the NEC is controlled by Lizzie Warren and her followers.

In addition, there is Adewale Adeyemo, who has worked with Warren since the formation of the CFPB and is now deputy Treasury secretary. Finally, we have Gary Gensler, recently appointed Securities and Exchange Commission chair, who is a longtime ally of Warren.

This is not necessarily a comprehensive list, but it shows that people aligned with Warren have a virtual stranglehold on the Biden-Harris administration’s economic policy. They are the people who crafted the policy that led to huge increases in debt and skyrocketing inflation.

ADVERTISEMENT

These types of people start working for an administration then get a bigger position in the next one and end up having appointments based on their resumes like Antony Blinken as Secretary of State. That is how it is done in Washington, and we know how that has worked out.

Harris is beginning to stack her campaign (and her desired administration) with refugees from Warrenland. And they are already making an impact.

Bharat Ramamurti has been picked to be her economic advisor. Ramamurti worked as senior counsel for banking and economic policy in the Senate office of Elizabeth Warren from 2013 to 2019. When Warren ran for president in 2020, he was her economic policy director.

It is clear where he would like to direct the economy by the panned economic proposals released August 16th. The Washington Post ran a column by its lead economic writer entitled When Your Opponent Calls You a Communist, Maybe Don’t Propose Price Controls. Catherine Rampell wrote, “It’s not hard to figure out where this proposal came from.” She is correct. It came from a 2020 Warren proposed bill co-sponsored by, yes — you guessed it, Harris. The column went on to say, “At best, this would lead to shortages, black markets and hoarding.” God only knows where we would be with Harris as president and her Lizzie-infused economic team led by Ramamurti.

The Peanut Gallery on X quickly saw the proposal to provide $25,000 for the downpayment on a home as nothing less than insipid. They overwhelmingly decided all it would do would increase the price of homes by $25,000. Maybe their college education did not go completely to waste. They probably likewise figured out all that free money for colleges did the same thing to the price of a college education as it has been inflated vastly higher than core inflation for decades by the federal money infusion.

This is a classic Democrat policy sequence. Screw something up like they have with housing by restrictions, delays, and excessive fees using home builders as a piggybank and then throw more money at the problem as the perceived solution while blaming private industry.

Ilan Goldenberg, another Warrenite, has been chosen by Harris as her main liaison with the Jewish Community. Other than being an Israeli who denounced his citizenship, you would think he was a former advisor to Yasser Arafat with the positions he has taken toward Israel. Another sure sign that if Harris is elected, she will be a true antagonist toward Israel. At least Biden actually likes Israel.

That is just a sample of the Warren-infused administration we are facing if, God forbid, Harris gets elected. Whereas Biden ran as a moderate and had some prior moderate positions, Harris has always been a Leftist and would be unbridled as such after Jan. 20, 2025.

If you had any doubt about who is running the Democrat party today, you don’t have to look to those rioting crowds. It is the Sanders-Warren branch of the party.

*****

This article was published by Flash Report and is reproduced with permission from the author.

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.

We Want To Be Heard:’ Angel Moms Describe Brutal Murders Of Daughters thumbnail

We Want To Be Heard:’ Angel Moms Describe Brutal Murders Of Daughters

/in , , /by

By Bethany Blankley

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

Family members of those killed by violent foreign nationals released into the U.S. by the Biden-Harris administration have endorsed President Donald Trump for president.

They joined Trump at a news conference in Montezuma Pass at the Arizona-Mexico border in Cochise County on Thursday, where Trump described the types of crimes being committed against Americans by what he described as some of the most dangerous people in the world.

“Biden-Harris unleased a deadly plague of migrant crime on our country” that “shattered so many families’ lives and stole so many incredible young lives,” Trump said.

ADVERTISEMENT

“We can’t let it happen to other people. We can’t let what you’re going through happen to other families,” he said to the Angel families joining him.

One was Patricia Moran, the mother of Maryland resident Rachel Moran, a mother of five, who was allegedly raped and murdered by a Venezuelan who illegally entered the country in California.

Rachel’s mother described her as a loving mother and small business owner who “worked very hard to support her family.” The trail she went running on where she was murdered is a public trail where “moms with baby carriages go.” Her body was found after she was “brutally beaten, raped and then stuffed into a drain pipe.”

“We’re 1,800 miles from the border and because of this open border we’ve had not just my daughter, but we’ve actually had two in the same county,” who were raped and murdered by illegal border crossers, Patricia Moran said.

“The reason why I came here today … is because I really want our words to be heard. I really want you to take to heart what we’re saying.

“We’re not here for a political stand, although we are. We’re here because we’re losing our moms, our daughters, our children to criminals, and that shouldn’t happen. We should be taking care of our country, our people. The only way I believe that’s going to happen is if President Trump is reelected as president.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Patricia Moran also said the best way to protect Americans was to “close up this border and put policies back into place that were there before instead of this open border.” If the border isn’t secure, she said, “We’re just going to end up being a third world country.

“I truly hope that you would just take my words to heart because it’s devastating to lose a child. But it’s even more devastating when you see the pictures, or you see the body, and you really understand what’s happened to that person.”

Another Angel mom who spoke was Alexis Nungaray, the mother of 12-year-old Jocelyn who was strangled to death allegedly by two Venezuelans illegally in the country. The Democratic district attorney who charged them said they shouldn’t have been in the country and endorsed Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz for Senate.

Angel mom Alexis Nungaray of Houston. Her 12-year-old daughter, Jocelyn, was murdered allegedly by two Venezuelan men illegally in the country.

Donald Trump campaign via X

“My daughter was just 12. She had dreams to be famous. She wanted to be a famous actor. She was so funny. She was her own personality and it’s been very hard. June 17th was the day her life was taken,” Alexis Nungaray said.

“She was left with no clothing from the waist down, was thrown in a Bayou, left strangled to death. We believe she was assaulted off of DNA kit. They had no reason to do anything that they did to Jocelyn.

“There was over 300 detention beds that they should have been at because they were detained and they were released,” she said, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities. “They shouldn’t have been released. One had an ankle monitor. That didn’t stop anything,” she said referring to Biden-Harris parole policies.

“Now I have to go through the rest of my life with my son always asking for his sister. I just really, really, really want everybody to please take into consideration how important border control is because we’re losing very innocent people to heinous crimes that shouldn’t be happening in the first place.”

Alexis Nungaray also endorsed Trump and his border policies.

“Please, please, I really hope everybody can hear my pain. Please, please he needs to be in office,” she said of Trump. “We need … better border control. We need to stop this. We need to stop losing our littles.”

The Angel families also said they have never heard from Biden or Harris even when Harris recently visited Houston after Jocelyn’s murder. Trump callws them and met with their families, they said.

*****

This article was published by The Center Square 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.

Harris Tough on Border Security? ‘That’s a Joke’ thumbnail

Harris Tough on Border Security? ‘That’s a Joke’

/in , , , , , /by

By Family Research Council

If you’re trying to follow along with the Democrats’ narrative on immigration, good luck. In the last several weeks, the media’s gone from disputing that Vice President Kamala Harris was ever “border czar” to the claim that she’s been “tough as nails” on border security. What used to be the “challenge” of millions of illegal migrants crossing into America is finally a “crisis,” according to even Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). And the man who hasn’t been in office for four years is somehow to blame for all of it.

Harris’s disinformation campaign continued at the Democratic National Convention, where she tried to talk Americans out of what they’ve seen since 2021. “Let me be clear,” she said. “After decades in law enforcement, I know the importance of safety and security, especially at our border.” This, despite the Harris-Biden plan of amnesty, which Republicans have warned will lead to absolute lawlessness.

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Government Oversight and Accountability Committee, called it laughable that anyone who’s lived through this administration would think this White House is tough on the border. “I mean, that’s a joke,” he told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on Saturday’s “This Week on the Hill.” “The Democrats are very good at theater. They’re always united. Whoever controls the Democratic Party — and … it’s definitely not Joe Biden, but whoever is in control — they coordinate with the mainstream media, and they always put together a good production. … [E]veryone’s obedient and they [stay on] message. Kamala Harris, thus far as a candidate, has been very disciplined. She sticks to the teleprompter, and she doesn’t deviate.”

But at the end of the day, Comer warned, “No matter how many times the dishonest politicians say the Democrats are tough on the border, or the dishonest media writes that the Democrats were tough on the border, I think every American knows that the Democrats have allowed the southern border to be wild, wide open, which has allowed for millions and millions of illegals to pour into this country, bringing with them fentanyl as well as a massive amount of human trafficking.”

And yet, as Perkins pointed out, Democrats — with the help of a compromised media — are trying very hard to flip the script that this administration had anything to do with the stampede of illegal immigrants. They can blame-shift all they want, Comer agreed, but “the president is the commander-in-chief. His sole responsibility is to protect the American people, [including] securing the southern border.”

As for these claims that Republicans sank the silver-bullet legislation Democrats pathetically offered as political cover, that’s baloney, Comer emphasized. Not only was the policy weak, but it was also unnecessary. “We never had to have a bill to protect the southern border when Donald Trump was president or when George W. Bush was president or even when Barack Obama was the president. That’s the job of the president and Homeland Security.”

The only reason the border is wide open, Comer continued, is because this White House wants it that way. “[This is] the policy position of the Biden-Harris administration. They want a border that’s wide open. They invite illegals to pour in across that border from all over the world. They want to get those people in this country, get them registered to vote, and get them to become active citizens in their communities.”

But the level of suffering caused by these policies, which he’s seen even in rural Kentucky, has been astounding. “You have no idea the amount of human trafficking cases that are popping up in communities in America that you would never expect. … And we’ve got to stop that. And the one way to stop that is to have a president that tells the Border Patrol, ‘Do your job. Don’t be doing administrative work. Don’t be changing diapers. Secure that border.’ And if the Border Patrol can’t do it, then allow the National Guard to do it. If the National Guard can’t do it, then focus the military there. … The number one priority for our national security right now, today should be securing that southern border. You don’t need a bill to do that. You’ve got the whole United States military, as well as the National Guard.”

As the FRC president pointed out, it isn’t that Biden or Harris have lacked the tools, it’s that they lack the “willpower and desire” to fix the problem they created.

To Democrats, this is the real area of vulnerability for Trump’s opponent. Publicly, they worry that the border is one issue where Harris can’t recast herself as moderate. Former Democratic Governor David Paterson of New York warned of this on Sunday. “She has got one real big problem: 72% percent of Americans think that the number of people crossing the border from the south is going to increase [under her]. Only 21% feel that it’s going to decrease if she is president.”

“It’s not about choice,” Paterson said, referring to the Harris campaign’s hyper-focus on abortion. “It’s not about minimum wage. … It’s about the border and, to some degree, it’s about the economy,” Paterson said.

On this, Comer agrees. “I certainly hope this is an election about the issues. And the two main issues right now are the massive inflation that’s a 100% result from the Biden-Harris big spending policies. … The second issue is … crime and the lack of southern border security. We’ve got a crime outbreak in America, especially in our big cities. And a lot of this is due to lax Democrat[ic] policies. Liberal Democrat prosecutors — like Kamala Harris when she was a prosecutor in San Francisco — [are] not securing the southern border. So I hope American people focus on that. And I hope the conservatives take this very seriously.”

And it doesn’t just matter who’s at the top of the ticket, Perkins warned, but in all the races down the ballot. The White House is important, he acknowledged, but “when you talk about the border, you look at what Texas has done to secure their border. You talk about the economy. We see some states with favorable tax policies that are growing [and] attracting jobs. And then, of course, there’s the social policy, which the Democrats have made really the top-tier issues for them: abortion [and] the transgendering of our children. A lot of these are decided by state legislatures, by attorneys generals, and Congress. So those are very important races that will be on the ballot this fall as well.”

We need a motivated conservative base, the Kentuckian insisted, “because this is going to be a close election and every vote is going to count.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLES:

A Tale of Two Presidents

California Democrats Passes Legislation Giving Illegals $150,000 in Taxpayer-Funded Loans to Buy Houses

RNC Lawsuit: Detroit Hired Seven Times More Democrat than Republican Poll Workers- 50 Reps vs 2,300 Dems

Jewish Democrats Had to Meet in Secret at DNC

Four Muslim Brothers Have Been Arrested In Brutal Stabbing Attack on Music Teacher in Germany

Democrat Party Sues Georgia Election Board to Block Election Integrity Measures

RELATED PODCAST: A Breakdown of the Democratic National Convention

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

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.

Expert: Biden-Harris Admin’s Weakness Has Compounded Israel-Hezbollah Crisis thumbnail

Expert: Biden-Harris Admin’s Weakness Has Compounded Israel-Hezbollah Crisis

/in , , , , /by

By Family Research Council

As the growing conflict between Israel and the Lebanon-based Islamist terrorist group Hezbollah reached an uneasy calm Sunday morning following a ferocious exchange of missile fire, a military expert is warning that the threat of a broader war breaking out at Israel’s northern border is due to the pattern of weakness shown by the Biden-Harris administration and the United Nations.

The looming danger of a full-blown war breaking out between Israel and Hezbollah — with Iran continuing its war drum beat — has been hanging over the Jewish state for weeks since senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr was killed in Beirut by an Israeli airstrike in July. On Sunday, around 100 Israeli warplanes struck targets in southern Lebanon in an attempt to minimize an impending Hezbollah attack. The terrorist group was reportedly still able to launch “hundreds of rockets and drones aimed at military bases and missile defense positions” in northern Israel. One Israeli soldier and three Hezbollah terrorists were killed in the exchange. An Israeli military spokesman stated that “very little damage” had occurred within Israel as a result of the Hezbollah attack.

It remains unclear if Sunday’s hostilities will lead to Israel being pulled into a full-scale war along its northern border in addition to its ongoing war in Gaza against Hamas. Since October 8 of last year, when Hezbollah began its campaign of rocket fire into Israel following Hamas’s October 7 surprise attack, 26 Israeli civilians and 23 soldiers have been killed in northern Israel, with responding Israeli airstrikes killing around 400 Hezbollah terrorists and approximately 100 civilians.

Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas), who served with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during his over 25 years in the U.S. Army before retiring as a lieutenant colonel, joined Monday’s “Washington Watch” to unpack the root causes of the ongoing conflict.

“What I see strategically happening [is that] Israel [is] deterring a major response both from Hezbollah and Iran,” he observed. “You’ll notice that Iran has not launched their response as well. So I believe that Israel has actually started their strategic surgical strike campaign against Hezbollah. They’re going after weapons systems. They’re going after the leaders. They’re going after the critical supplies. So I believe this is a long-term campaign that they are running with these surgical strikes — not all at once — timed against threats.”

Self, who deployed to Grenada, Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Qatar as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom, went on to contend that the weakness shown by the Biden-Harris administration, as well as the incompetence of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), has compounded the conflict.

“I blame a lot of this on the weakness of the Biden administration,” he underscored. “Why do we have a third of our Navy in the Middle East focused on Israel and Gaza and Hezbollah? It’s because the weakness of the Biden administration caused this. And so we’ve pulled naval assets out of the Pacific where our primary adversary is — China. So this is a disaster all the way around in the making. I hope that we can settle this fast. We can get Hezbollah to move north of the Litani River, which is where UNIFIL is supposed to keep them. Once again, we’re seeing the U.N. fail in their mission, just like they did in Gaza. UNIFIL is not keeping Hezbollah north of the Litani River to give that buffer zone to Israel. We need to establish that line at the Litani River. We need to use our assets to back up Israel and allow Israel to defend itself.”

Self concluded by arguing that a Harris-Walz administration would likely continue a hands-off approach to Iran, which launched an unprecedented missile and drone attack against the Jewish state in April and is the primary financial backer of the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist groups.

“The Biden-Harris administration has shown that it leans toward Iran,” he insisted. “It has coddled them, just like the Obama administration has given them billions of dollars. We don’t enforce the sanctions on their oil. We coddle Iran under the current administration. I have no doubt that the Harris administration, should it happen … will do that in spades. They will double down on that, because we have two truly committed socialist communists on the Democratic ticket today. Make no mistake about it. I take Harris at her word. I take Waltz at his word. They for years have established their bona fides, their credentials in socialist communist policies.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLES:

IDF’s Preemptive Strike a Complete Success

Extreme Rhetoric in New York Mosques as Imams Call for Destruction of Israel, Praise Hamas

Islamic scholar: Oct. 7 massacre ‘transformed our history,’ ‘children should be raised on love of jihad’

The IDF’s Preemptive Strike and Its Possible Effect on the Gaza Negotiations

IDF rescues Bedouin Arab Israeli taken hostage by Hamas after finding him alone in Gaza tunnel

Israel: Muslim doctor joins Islamic State after Oct. 7, found with instructions on preparing explosives and poisons

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

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.

STAY INFORMED

Receive regular news, commentary, and analysis straight to your inbox.

POWERED BY

DrRichSwier.com | ThePricklyPear.org

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.