The Manic Methods of Mad Democrats thumbnail

The Manic Methods of Mad Democrats

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By Victor Davis Hanson

We are faced with a revolutionary party well known from history that aims to change the nation into something unrecognizable by most Americans—and it feels that it has created the means to do it.

For all Joe Biden’s talk about “semi-fascist” and “un-American,” “ultra-MAGA” Republicans, it is the Democratic Party that has far more radically changed. It is descended into a woke, neo-socialist, radically green party. And it is committed, as Barack Obama once promised, to fundamentally transforming America. How it proceeds with that agenda is now as entirely predictable as it is creepy.

Election Warping
Before any presidential or midterm election, strict news suppression ensures that all bad news will follow, not precede, the voting. The Twitter files, Project Veritas ambush interviews, the Podesta emails, and occasional left-wing braggadocio like Molly Ball’s now infamous post-2020 election revelations in Time magazine, confirm the fusion between the media and the Democratic Party.

To the degree there is any independent journalistic inquiry about Biden—such as we are only now seeing with Biden’s security violations—it is likely only because the party wants the 80-year-old enfeebled Biden out of office.

The Democratic-media-deep-state nexus quashed all 2020 pre-election revelations about the embarrassing Hunter Biden laptop. Its contents more or less proved that the Biden family was corrupt.

Twitter and Facebook confessionals show how, in lapdog fashion, social media forbade coverage of the truth about the laptop. More than 50 former intelligence officers, organized by the confessed liars John Brennan and James Clapper—both of whom have admitted to deceiving Congress while under oath—used their former titles to fortify the pre-election lie that Hunter’s laptop was likely Russian disinformation.

A poll conducted after the election revealed that those voters who knew of the story might have changed their vote had they known the truth. Neither Clapper nor Brennan nor any of their subordinates has ever apologized. Their lack of contriteness recalls the late Senator Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) post-election brag about his effective pre-election lies concerning candidate Mitt Romney’s taxes: “Romney didn’t win, did he?”

Joe Biden, his lawyers, and the Justice Department likely knew that Biden had violated national security laws surrounding classified documents. Yet they suppressed that information until the 2022 midterms were over. The same is true of the pre-midterm news blackout of the massive fraud of mega-Democratic donor Sam Bankman-Fried. In close Senate races, where Democrats often referenced the Mar-a-Lago, it might well have mattered if they were confronted with Biden’s Garage-gate scandal, and the Madoff-like albatross of the obnoxious Bankman-Fried and his enabling family.

The list of 2022 pre-election gambits is endless. Biden offered amnesties for both student-loan debt payments and federal marijuana convictions. But perhaps the most flagrant Biden pre-midterm contortion was his sudden interest in flooding markets with oil and gas, hitherto reduced in supply within the United States due to his own green handlers.

Biden requested the Saudis to postpone OPEC cutbacks until after the election. Prior to the midterms, he begged illiberal regimes like Venezuela, Iran, and Russia to pump more oil as well. They were not keen to help him out, so, in the weeks leading up to the midterms, Biden began draining millions of barrels of oil from the strategic petroleum reserve to reduce gasoline prices, even as he lied that his own policies were bringing down oil and natural gas prices. Then shortly after the midterms, Biden announced he would cease drawing down the reserve that was banked at low prices under Trump and instead would buy a few million barrels at sky-high prices.

Since the election’s conclusion, he has been silent about concerns for the voter’s gasoline and natural gas price woes. Why the change?

Projection
The Democratic Left has mastered the art of projection. Most of their own nefarious activity (now soon to be revealed) will be recalibrated as the crimes of their opponents.

Hillary Clinton used three firewalls to conceal her employment of the fabulist Christopher Steele. He, in turn, never set foot in Russia to do any research. Instead, Steele, via money from the Clinton stream, enlisted a Moscow-based Clintonite Charles Dolan and Russian Brookings Institution analyst Igor Danchenko, either to invent fantasies, or pass on real Russian disinformation.

Clintonites in and out of government then released the resulting concocted “dossier” to the media on the eve of the 2016 election, supposedly proving that Trump was, as James Clapper would later lie again, “A Russian asset.”

In truth, Hillary was a colluding conduit for Russian disinformation and tried to warp the election by spreading Steele’s lies among top government officials to lend authority to preplanned media leaks, as the FBI deceived FISA court judges to spy on Clinton’s political opponents.

Then we come to election denialism, which began in earnest in 2000 when, almost immediately after the final Florida count, the Democratic National Committee pushed the lie that the Electoral College vote was illegitimate, and George W. Bush was “selected not elected.” In 2004 it was Senator Barbara Boxer’s (D-Calif.) turn. She, along with the recent chairman of the January 6 committee, U.S. Representative Benny Thompson (D-Miss.) and 31 other House members, voted to refuse to accept the Electoral College vote from Ohio.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton led the charge that Trump was “illegitimate” and had stolen the election. She never recanted and was soon joined by scores of Democratic officials, including perennial election-denier former President Jimmy Carter and Joe Biden. Her surrogates like Jill Stein sued to invalidate the election on the premise that computers were rigged, while has-been Hollywood actors peddled videos begging the electors to renounce their state popular vote tallies.

As a rule, leftists who most ardently denied the 2016 election—current House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) is the most notorious example—were the most vigorous in attacking conservatives for “denying” the 2020 election.

Stacey Abrams, who lost the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election by more than 50,000 votes but who described herself as the “real” governor, created a lucrative career barnstorming the country and lecturing Democratic audiences about how “voter suppression” had “robbed” her of the governorship.

Since 2000, as a general truism, the only presidential elections Democrats did not deny were those they won.

Suppression
We now know that prominent Democrats such as Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), along with the FBI, successfully used Twitter and Facebook to ban bothersome news stories and silence political opponents. The locus classicus of such efforts was the left-wing banning of the president of the United States from social media platforms while Iranian theocrats, ISIS, and the Taliban freely used them.

The reading public is only now learning through the Twitter disclosures of the accurate Nunes House Intelligence Committee majority memo, and the utterly fraudulent Schiff minority version—truth that was self-evident, but mostly suppressed by the media.

Again, Molly Ball outlined how Silicon Valley poured hundreds of millions into selected precincts to warp the voting turnout, how it suppressed unwelcome news, how the Democratic elite modulated the 2020 violent street demonstrations to fit Biden’s advantage, and how corporate America help to fund and advance what she called variously a “cabal” and a “conspiracy.”

Changing the Rules
It is hard to determine any major constitutional norms or long-held customs and traditions the new Jacobin Party has not sought to alter or junk to its own advantage. Remember there is no consistent policy concerning any of these proposed changes. Radical demands for reforms from the Left hinge only on their perceived short-term temporary political advantage.

In the House, Democrats destroyed the old idea that the minority leader was granted his own party’s selections to serve on congressional committees simply to stack the January 6 committee. They also recalibrated congressional House subpoenas as matters of criminality and staged performance-art arrests of anyone who resisted—the antithesis to the manner in which the subpoena denier and former Attorney General Eric Holder simply ignored all summons with impunity.

Jacobins normalized the idea of impeaching a first-term president the moment he lost the House, and to conduct such a proceeding without a special counsel’s report or serious cross examinations. They also introduced the new idea of impeaching a president twice, and then once he left office to try him as a private citizen in the Senate.

Thanks to Democrats, we have a new custom of raiding a former president’s private home in search of classified presidential papers, on the allegation that said president had not yet used his legal authority to declassify them.

The Democrats predictably want to end the filibuster and destroy the Electoral College—but predicated in the former case only on whether they currently enjoy a Senate majority, and in the latter only when it lost the Electoral College vote but won the popular balloting.

The Democrats wish to bring Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. into statehood. Were it a matter of adding new conservative states, and with them four additional conservative senators, they would abort the idea in its infancy.

They want to stack the court by enlarging it to 15 justices. Had any conservative voiced such “reforms” during the heyday of the Warren Court, he would have been denounced as an insurrectionist nut.

To ensure nationwide outlawing of voter IDs, Democrats tried to pass a national voting law to surpass the constitutional directive that the primary responsibility to establish voting laws remains with the states.

In just four years, the Left engineered the most radical changes in voting laws in U.S. history. The result was that in many states, under the excuse of COVID, some 70 percent of the electorate did not vote on Election Day—even as the rejection rate of improper non-Election Day balloting plunged.

The Left clamored for extended balloting because it had mastered the arts of mass-mailing absentee ballots, third-party ballot harvesting, ballot curing, and relaxing rules on authenticating addresses, and signatures, and matching ballots with registrars’ lists.

Asymmetries
One overriding principle of the new Democratic Party is asymmetry—or the notion that the Left’s moral superiority earns absolute exemption from the very methods they employ against their opponents.

Disproportionality explains why the historic Mar-a-Lago raid was constructed in bogus fashion as a legitimate search for “nuclear codes.” Yet it would have sparked outrage had the FBI, on rumors of Biden sloppiness, sent armed agents into Jill Biden’s underwear drawers looking for classified papers concerning Ukraine and Iran, or towed away Joe Biden’s Corvette to get access to a garage full of unlawfully stored classified papers, or strewn Biden’s papers across the floor for an FBI concocted photo-op.

The buffoonish protestors and rioters of January 6 were to be jailed for months without formal charges, put in solitary confinement, and often sentenced to the maximum punishment possible. But the rioters, shooters, and killers of 120 days of mayhem and violence during summer 2020 were calibrated as “summer of love” rowdies. Antifa and Black Lives Matter sort of, kind of got a little bit out of hand in torching a police precinct, a federal courthouse, and an iconic Washington, D.C. church, as well as trying to storm the White House grounds, sending the president into an underground bunker.

That Antifa and BLM plotted much of their anarchy and violence on social media unimpeded was unremarked upon. That fact mattered not at all in comparison to the illegal paraders and rioters of January 6. Police who shoot unarmed protestors usually have their identities immediately revealed; yet when they lethally shoot the likes of an Ashli Babbitt, their identities are suppressed, and their questionable conduct lauded.

The Left destroyed the southern border to attract 5 million illegal-alien and impoverished future constituents from Mexico and former Third World Latin American and Caribbean countries. Had conservatives fast-tracked a massive legal immigration program to attract 5 million skilled and degreed immigrants from Europe or the former British commonwealth, the Left would have gone berserk in their cries of “racist,” and their current “demography is destiny” boasts suddenly would be replaced by the slur of “Great Replacement Theory.”

Donald Trump was deemed crazy. A Yale physiatrist made the rounds on television and in Congress to claim he needed an intervention and straitjacket. The FBI and an interim attorney general discussed wearing a wire to entrap Donald Trump and convince his cabinet he was nuts. If the FBI and the Justice Department did the same to Joe Biden, the Left would have claimed a coup was in progress.

Ditto if a major former Bush official wrote, in Rosa Brooks fashion, 11 days after the inauguration of Joe Biden, that he should be removed by either the 25th Amendment, impeachment—or a military coup.

Would anything be comparable to the twisted genre of murderous fantasies among has-been politicians, Twitter creatures, and grade-C actors—competing to dream up how Biden should be torched, stabbed, decapitated, hanged, dismembered, and shot, in the manner of the four-year venom from Trump haters? Would the FBI investigate all that if there were?

What would the Left have done if a conservative version of Madonna had screamed on Inauguration Day that she dreamed of blowing up the White House, as rioters flooded D.C. streets?

Joe Biden daily forgets where he is and what he is doing. Someday historians will fault those who knowingly used a non compos mentis septuagenarian, without regard for the interests of the American people, to mask a radical neo-socialist agenda.

Biden shakes imaginary hands. He insists his son died in Iraq. In his mind, Brian Sicknick was murdered on January 6. In Walter Mitty-style, he brags that he has been a semi-truck driver, an arrested civil rights activist, a major college football prospect, a U.S. Naval Academy scholarship prospect, and on and on. If Biden was given the Montreal Cognitive Test, as was Trump, he would likely flunk it outright.

Conservatives should be aware that they are not dealing with the party of JFK and LBJ. The Democratic Party has nothing in common with the agendas of a slick Bill Clinton and is well beyond the “fundamental transformations” of arch-narcissist Barack Obama.

We are faced with a strictly disciplined, no-nonsense revolutionary party, well known from history that aims to change the nation into something unrecognizable by most Americans. And it feels that it has now created the means to do it.

*****
This article was published by American Greatness and is reproduced with permission.

IT WAS ALL PLANNED: Tactical Commander for US Capitol Police Admits Under Oath that “Agitators” Who Were “Highly Trained” Ripped Down Fencing Prior to Protest at US Capitol on Jan. 6 thumbnail

IT WAS ALL PLANNED: Tactical Commander for US Capitol Police Admits Under Oath that “Agitators” Who Were “Highly Trained” Ripped Down Fencing Prior to Protest at US Capitol on Jan. 6

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By Jim Hoft

We’ve known for two years numerous federal operatives were involved in the January 6, 2021 protests.

On Sunday night, Julie Kelly from American Greatness, along with several J6 prisoners, conservatives reporters, j6 family members, and even liberal trolls, joined in the “J6 Truth Exposed” Twitter Space hosted by The Gateway Pundit.

During the discussion author and investigative reporter Julie Kelly dropped a bomb from J-6 defendant Richard Barnett’s jury trial last week.

Julie discussed new evidence she wrote about in her latest column at American Greatness – Captain Carneysha Mendoza, a tactical commander for U.S. Capitol Police at the time, admitted under oath last week that a group of “agitators” who were “highly trained” destroyed security barriers and lured people to Capitol grounds that day.

This is something we reported on before. Who were the mysterious people who arrived early at the US Capitol and took down all of the fencing and barriers while President Donald Trump was still talking at the Ellipse a mile away?…..

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Continue reading this article at The Gateway Pundit.

Why Only 16% of Gen Z Are Proud to Be an American, and What We Should Do About It thumbnail

Why Only 16% of Gen Z Are Proud to Be an American, and What We Should Do About It

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By Jarrett Stepman

Only 16% of Gen Zers are “proud” to live in the United States.

That finding comes from a recent Morning Consult poll, which assessed generational attitudes about the United States. The poll shows that there has been roughly a 20-percentage-point drop of pride in country every generation since the Baby Boomers, 73% of whom express pride in the country.

Many on social media noted with exasperation that those who say they have no pride in country are in no hurry to move somewhere else.

It’s true, our success as a nation has apparently led to a great deal of ingratitude and navel-gazing. However, the poll points to a deeper problem.

Even if the poll is off or exaggerated, it’s hard to ignore the reality and the trend. With each passing generation, there’s less connection to country and less patriotism. With this comes enormous—and likely terrible—implications.

First, for those insistent on upholding the “liberal international order,” as some call it, that’s going to be hard to do when so few people are willing to support or defend even their own nation. It also should come as no surprise that the military is having a recruitment crisis. Could you imagine what would happen if we had to reinstate the draft?

Second, with less attachment to country, there will be fewer things to bind people together in a society that is now ruthlessly sorting out ideologically.

In earlier times, we could argue about issues and policies, but accept that our neighbor was still fundamentally American. But as the philosophical gaps among us widen, and political victories and defeats become a zero-sum game, there is less incentive to maintain and defend the rights of the other “tribe.”

President Donald Trump said in his inaugural address that “when you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice.” In a society devoid of patriotism, there will be a whole lot of room to hate.

So, the question is, why is this happening? To me, the answer seems clear.

We’ve failed to reinstitutionalize “informed patriotism” in this country. That’s what President Ronald Reagan called for in his farewell address in January 1989, and what was clearly most important to him. In the 1980s, the U.S. was riding high, the economy was booming, patriotism was returning, the Soviet Union—an evil empire, if there ever was one—was just a few years away from collapse. It was morning again in America.

However, Reagan warned that while the policy victories he achieved during his presidency were good, it wasn’t nearly enough.

Reagan said that “younger parents aren’t sure that an unambivalent appreciation of America is the right thing to teach modern children.” But it wasn’t just parents. For those who created popular culture, “well-grounded patriotism is no longer the style.”

He warned that while our “spirit” was back, we hadn’t “reinstitutionalized it.”

Reagan was right. Worse—as it’s now become quite clear—we have institutionalized something quite different from “informed patriotism” and love of country. We have institutionalized the ethos of the new left, of the woke, of the purveyors of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

Concepts such as critical race theory and radical gender theory are quite real, but they aren’t new. They’ve been floating around academia for more than half a century. What’s new is that these ideas have reached a critical mass, and they have pushed traditional American ideas out of every institution they’ve taken hold of.

Many Americans have no idea what the details of these concepts are, but they absorb and internalize them because they are continuously reinforced. The modern elite university is the temple of this new, dominant ideology, but its tentacles reach into everything, from colleges to K-12 schools (both public and private) to media and entertainment, to the corporate world, and certainly to government.

At one time, the managerial class merely promoted its interests; now, it promotes this quasi-religion, too.

To remain a member of the elite in good standing, you must acknowledge your faith in the new creed or risk losing your career, being canceled, and personally attacked.

Most comply. Those who don’t believe do so quietly, secretly for fear of risking their status and livelihood.

Is that freedom?

Reagan also said that every generation had to reaffirm our American principles, or we would someday have to tell our children what it was like when men were free. Have we not reached that point?

And if you tell your children about a time when Americans were freer in the past, can you do so without being called a racist?

Victory in the Cold War, a moment of triumph for the United States and the West worthy of celebration, nevertheless concealed the rot within.

In 2020, when mobs hit the streets and statues fell, the institutions of our country showed their true colors. They joined the mob and pulled down what the rabble missed. Jacobins in the street joined Jacobins in government agencies and air-conditioned boardrooms. The pride flag and the BLM flag replaced the American flag as the symbols of the new regime.

As Jeremy Carl wrote at The American Conservative, “the transgressive has become not just mainstream, but the establishment itself.”

So, for those who didn’t join the revolution, who may be dazed by, and disbelieving of, the transformation that’s taken place, we must acknowledge that our cause is currently one of dissenters. It’s the people versus the institutions, and many people now side with the institutions.

But if the Left can transform America from the inside out through a long march, so can the rest of us. It begins with informing ourselves and our children. It gets serious when we organize and use real political power to shape and change the institutions that have become corrupted.

When we look to Florida, we see a model of how to fight back and how to hit the radical left where it hurts the most. From going after woke indoctrination in K-12 schools to reintroducing instruction in American principles in those schools to changing school boards to getting DEI out of colleges and changing their boards of trustees, these are the kinds of institutional changes other Republican governors and other political leaders need to emulate.

The woke think they have the right to be the gatekeepers of all debate, speech, and pedagogy in this country. Let’s show them otherwise.

Mobs and unelected bureaucrats don’t have a right to rule; you do. If we go on the offensive, we will likely find that there is a whole lot more common sense in this country, even at this late hour, than one would think, given the slide of the past several decades.

To win this battle, to restore pride in country, and prevent the United States from slipping into a dark age of decline and possible dissolution, we must make a sustained effort to retake institutions now.

We must do this while there are still Americans left who know what it was like to live in freedom and who wish to hand that down to posterity.

*****
This article was published by The Daily Signal and is reproduced with permission.

5 Things to Know About Special Counsel Investigating Classified Documents Held by Biden thumbnail

5 Things to Know About Special Counsel Investigating Classified Documents Held by Biden

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By Fred Lucas

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a veteran federal prosecutor to investigate whether any laws were broken when President Joe Biden held on to classified documents from his eight years as vice president.

Robert K. Hur, the new special counsel, isn’t as widely known as past special prosecutors appointed to investigate presidents, among them former FBI Director Robert Mueller or former Solicitor General Ken Starr, appointed to investigate allegations against Presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, respectively.

“I will conduct the assigned investigation with fair, impartial, and dispassionate judgment ,” Hur said in a public statement. “I intend to follow the facts swiftly and thoroughly, without fear or favor, and will honor the trust placed in me to perform this service.”

Hur is likely to have a higher profile in the coming weeks and months. Here are five things to know about him.

1. Clerked for Chief Justice Rehnquist
Hur began his legal career as a Supreme Court clerk for Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who first was appointed to the high court by President Richard Nixon and named chief justice by President Ronald Reagan. Both presidents were Republicans.

Hur also clerked for Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. Reagan appointed Kozinski to the 9th Circuit.

Hur is a graduate of Stanford Law School, where he was executive editor of the Stanford Law Review. Hur also received an undergraduate degree from Harvard in English and American literature.

2. Replaced Rod Rosenstein
On Nov. 2, 2017, President Donald Trump nominated Hur to be U.S. attorney for the District of Maryland.

Interestingly, Trump named Hur to replace U.S. Attorney for Maryland Rod Rosenstein, whom the president had appointed as deputy attorney general. It was Rosenstein who later appointed Mueller as special counsel to investigate Trump over allegations of “collusion” with the Russian government.

The Senate unanimously confirmed Hur to the U.S. attorney post in March 2018 after Maryland’s two Democrat senators endorsed his nomination by Trump.

“Marylanders have been anxiously awaiting confirmation of our next U.S. attorney for the District of Maryland. I am pleased that the Senate has unanimously confirmed Robert Hur for this lynchpin law enforcement position, as we need our U.S. attorney on the job now, working as a strong partner with state and local officials to keep our communities safe and secure,” said Sen. Ben Cardin, Maryland’s senior U.S. senator. “I look forward to working with Mr. Hur and am confident that he will focus on protecting Marylanders across our state by reducing violent crime, breaking up gangs, fighting the drug epidemic, enforcing civil rights, and rooting out corruption.”

The state’s junior senator, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, concurred with Cardin.

“Robert Hur’s confirmation is critical to our state and I thank my colleagues for unanimously approving his nomination to be Maryland’s next U.S. attorney,” Van Hollen said. “Working together with local, state, and federal partners, I’m confident we can move forward on the pressing issues facing our state—from improving public safety, to fighting the opioid epidemic, to protecting the rights of all Marylanders. I look forward to working with him.”

In the position of U.S. attorney, Hur was Maryland’s chief federal prosecutor and supervised 88 assistant U.S. attorneys and 72 support personnel. Those prosecutors handle cases that include domestic and international terrorism, narcotics trafficking, organized crime, gang violence, public corruption, cybercrime, financial and health care fraud, and civil rights violations. He remained in the job until 2021, when Biden became president.

3. Prosecuted Public Corruption

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a veteran federal prosecutor to investigate whether any laws were broken when President Joe Biden held on to classified documents from his eight years as vice president.

Hur’s office prosecuted former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh, a Democrat, who was convicted of wire fraud conspiracy, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and two counts of tax evasion.

“Baltimore City faces many pressing issues, and we need our leaders to place the interests of the citizens above their own,” Hur said at the time of Pugh’s conviction, adding:

Catherine Pugh betrayed the public trust for her personal gain and now faces three years in federal prison, where there is no parole—ever. Law enforcement will remain vigilant to ensure that our citizens receive the honesty and professionalism they deserve from government officials and will prosecute officials who betray the public’s trust.

Hur’s office also oversaw the bribery prosecution and conviction of Maryland state Del. Cheryl Glenn, a Democrat, related to medical marijuana, opioid therapy clinics, and liquor licenses. Glenn solicited and accepted $33,000 in bribes, the Justice Department said.

“Cheryl Glenn solicited and accepted more than $33,000 in bribes in exchange for official actions instead of doing her duty and putting the interests of the public above her own,” Hur said after the July 2020 conviction. The U.S. attorney added:

We expect our elected officials to serve the public, not to use their positions of authority to line their own pockets. As this case demonstrates, we will work with our law enforcement partners to hold accountable those who betray the public trust. Cheryl Glenn will now pay the price for her greed by serving time in federal prison.

Hur’s office secured a conviction of former Maryland state Del. Tawanna Gaines, a Democrat, in October 2019 on charges that she illegally used campaign funds for personal profit.

Hur oversaw a case leading to the July 2018 conviction of former Maryland state Sen. Nathaniel Oaks, a Democrat, on wire fraud charges.

“Our democratic system relies on the integrity of our elected officials,” Hur said at the time. “Today’s sentence and our prosecution of former Maryland Sen. Nathaniel Oaks demonstrate that we will hold accountable those elected officials who use their offices to enrich themselves, rather than serve the interests of their constituents.”

Hur also oversaw cases against members of the Baltimore City Police Department in connection with a Gun Trace Task Force investigation and against corrections officers at numerous state prisons, including Eastern Correctional Institution, Jessup Correctional Institution, and Chesapeake Detention Facility.

4. Early Justice Department Career
During President George W. Bush’s administration, Hur went to work in a career position at the Justice Department as special assistant and later counsel to Christopher Wray, then the assistant attorney general in charge of the Criminal Division and now director of the FBI. There, Hur handled counterterrorism, corporate fraud, and appellate matters.

In 2007, Hur became an assistant U.S. attorney in Maryland, a position he held until 2014, over four years into the Obama administration.

As a career federal prosecutor in Maryland, Hur prosecuted gang violence, firearms offenses, and narcotics trafficking as well as white-collar offenses such as financial institutions fraud, public corruption, mortgage fraud, tax offenses, computer network intrusions, and intellectual property theft, according to the Justice Department.

5. After the Justice Department
After leaving the Justice Department in early 2021, Hur became a member of the University System of Maryland’s Board of Regents.

Hur went to work full time as a partner in the Washington office of the law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, which has offices across the United States. He is co-chairman of the firm’s crisis management practice group.

At the law firm, Hur has been involved in white-collar criminal matters, regulatory proceedings and enforcement actions, internal investigations, and related civil litigation. He is a member of the firm’s white-collar defense and investigations practice group and its national security practice group.

*****
This article was published by The Daily Signal and is reproduced with permission.

The Climate Money Monster Cabal may be starting to unravel… Vanguard flees GFANZ thumbnail

The Climate Money Monster Cabal may be starting to unravel… Vanguard flees GFANZ

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By Joanne Nova

Only a week after Ron de Santis pulled $2 billion in Florida funds from BlackRock, Vanguard, the second biggest asset manager in the world, has abruptly pulled out of GFANZ.

Vanguard has $7 trillion in assets under management, and GFANZ is a conglomerate cabal of bankers insurers and asset managers that has snowballed into a 550 member cabal with a jawdropping, obscene, 150 trillion in assets. Together, for a moment, they almost created the illusion of a One World Government by Bankers. After all, the GDP of the United States of America is only $23 trillion. So when an organization with six times the pulling power tells the world to go Net Zero, which company, which government would say “No”? Well, Ron de Santis did — and 18 other US states are working on it too.

The key weakness to the $150,000 billion dollar GFANZ monster is — as I said last week — that it’s an illusion. They are wielding other people’s money — using their clients own pension funds to indirectly punish their own clients, and the good guys […]

Good News: The best hope of unwinding the unholy alliance between Big-Money and Big-Government comes from the US States and they are starting to sink their teeth in.

BlackRock is the defacto Global Climate Police — but disguised as a monster investment fund. The way to break it is to expose that its primary interest is not in making money for its clients but as a Woke political tool.

BlackRock are able to intimidate most of the world with $10 trillion dollars in assets. They are effectively the third biggest “country” in the world by GDP. But it’s an illusion. They are wielding other people’s money — using their clients own pension funds to indirectly punish their own clients. And once those clients figure it out and pull their funds, BlackRock will become an empty shell. Couldn’t happen to a nicer company…

It’s a scam where BlackRock target legal corporations in states that voted to use fossil fuels to effectively undo what the voters wanted. A few months ago, 19 States in the USA started asking BlackRock and the US SEC some hot and hard legal questions. West Virginia announced they would boycott firms that boycott fossil fuels, and […]

*****
This article was published by CFACT and is reproduced with permission.

Biden’s mishandling of top secret documents is a symptom, not the real problem thumbnail

Biden’s mishandling of top secret documents is a symptom, not the real problem

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By Center For Security Policy

Official Washington is consumed with Joe Biden’s serial mishandling of classified documents. His partisans insist that it’s not as bad as what Donald Trump did. His critics correctly say illegal stashing of top secret material in Joe’s garage, a file marked “Personal” and an office paid for by anonymous Chinese donors is, indeed, far more serious.

That’s especially so since, unlike a vice president, President Trump actually had the authority to declassify the documents he stored in a padlocked room at Mara Lago with the blessing of the FBI.

The real problem is that Joe Biden’s conduct generally is a grave threat to the national security. For starters, he’s a “controlled asset” of Chinese intelligence. Then, there’s his: surrender of Afghanistan, hollowing out of the U.S. military and destruction of our energy security – among other betrayals.

It’s past time for Joe to go.

This is Frank Gaffney.

AUTHOR

Frank Gaffney, Jr.

Founder and Executive Chairman.

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

Migrant Encounters At The Southern Border Hit New All-Time Record thumbnail

Migrant Encounters At The Southern Border Hit New All-Time Record

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By The Daily Caller

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) migrant encounters at the southern border surpassed 250,000 for the month of December, the highest ever recorded, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) source, who requested anonymity as they weren’t authorized to speak publicly, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The new total surpasses May 2022’s more than 241,000 migrant encounters, which was the highest DHS ever recorded before December 2022. The total encounters include Border Patrol and Office of Field Operations encounters of migrants both at and between U.S. ports of entry.

Fox News first reported the new record.

In December, Republican states and the Biden administration fought over whether or not to scrap Title 42, the Trump-era public health order used to quickly expel illegal migrants to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Illegal immigration surged during that time period in places like El Paso, Texas, where hundreds of migrants crossed into the area in a matter of days in anticipation of Title 42 expiring on Dec. 21 due to a previous court ruling that the Supreme Court quickly paused.

The influx in El Paso drew the attention of President Joe Biden, who visited the area Jan. 8 in his first border visit.

Biden’s tenure in office has been marked by years of record migrant encounters. In fiscal year 2022, CBP encountered another record of more than 2.3 million at the southern border.

Biden announced Jan. 5 new efforts to expel illegal migrants from Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua to Mexico. The plan also means that migrants from those countries who don’t cross illegally will have the opportunity to apply for asylum at U.S. ports of entry if they have a U.S. sponsor.

CBP didn’t respond to a request for comment.

AUTHOR

JENNIE TAER

Investigative reporter.

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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.

Connecticut: Man converts to Islam, says ‘I need Islamic law,’ tries to join ISIS thumbnail

Connecticut: Man converts to Islam, says ‘I need Islamic law,’ tries to join ISIS

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By Jihad Watch

by Paul Best, Fox News, January 12, 2023:

A Connecticut man pleaded guilty on Thursday to attempting to travel to the Middle East to fight for the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), according to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut.

Kevin Iman McCormick, 29, was arrested in October 2019 at a private airport in Connecticut, where he was allegedly tried to board a flight to Canada and then to Amman, Jordan.

In the months leading up that arrest, McCormick pledged his allegiance to ISIS and its then-leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.

“I gotta fight bro, because those people, Abu Masa and ISIL, they fought for me bro, I know it, I can feel it, in my heart. So it’s my time to fight… It just is what it is bro, it’s just my – it’s just my time to go bro,” McCormick said in one conversation in October 2019, according to prosecutors.

McCormick later said that he wants to travel to Syria, or “whatever place I can get there the fastest, the quickest, the easiest, and where I can have a rifle and I can have some people.”

“I need Islamic law, I need, that’s what I need, because if I have these things, it’s gonna to be very hard to kill me,” McCormick said, according to prosecutors….

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Media Blackout Over Islamic Terror Attack At Vegas Solar Power Plant

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By The Geller Report

A Muslim is facing terror-related charges after police said he rammed his car through a gate at a solar plant outside Las Vegas and set his car on fire, disabling the huge facility, the 8 News Now Investigators have learned. Nothing to see here. No media coverage – even though it was a SOLAR plant.

Las Vegas Metro police responded to the solar plant on U.S. 93 north of the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, sources told the 8 News Now Investigators. Employees at the plant said they found a car smoldering in a generator pit. The Mega Solar Array facility provides energy to MGM properties but is run by a company called Invenergy.

The driver, later identified as Mohammad Mesmarian, 34, is accused of ramming through a fence and setting the car on fire. The car is registered out of Idaho, documents said.

Mesmarian faces charges of committing an act of terrorism, arson, destroying or injuring real or personal property…..

Media Blackout Over Terror Incident At Vegas Power Plant

by Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge, Jan 07, 2023:

The US power grid is under attack as extremists shoot, sabotage, and vandalize electrical equipment at power stations. One of the highest-profile attacks was when two men used guns to paralyze a substation in Washington state on Christmas Day, leaving thousands without electricity. The incident made national news, but strangely enough, another attack last week on the Las Vegas power grid went unnoticed by the national press.

Mohammad Mesmarian, 34, rammed his car through the gate of a solar power generation plant outside Las Vegas on Wednesday and set his car on fire, intending to damage a massive transformer, 8 News Now reported.

“Employees at the plant said they found a car smoldering in a generator pit,” 8 News Now said, adding the Mega Solar Array facility provides power to 13 properties on the Las Vegas Strip, all belonging to MGM Resorts.

Investigators believe Mesmarian “siphoned gasoline from his car to put on wires at the transformer,” 8 News Now said, citing documents from investigators.

“Mesmarian clarified he burned the Toyota Camry,” police said. “Mesmarian said he burned the vehicle at a Tesla solar plant and did it ‘for the future.’”

Here’s security camera footage of Mesmarian lighting his car on fire next to a giant transformer.

The US power grid is under attack as extremists shoot, sabotage, and vandalize electrical equipment at power stations. One of the highest-profile attacks was when two men used guns to paralyze a substation in Washington state on Christmas Day, leaving thousands without electricity. The incident made national news, but strangely enough, another attack last week on the Las Vegas power grid went unnoticed by the national press.

Mohammad Mesmarian, 34, rammed his car through the gate of a solar power generation plant outside Las Vegas on Wednesday and set his car on fire, intending to damage a massive transformer, 8 News Now reported.

Read more.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLE: Biden Regime Gives ‘Temporary’ Amnesty to Thousands of Somalis Living in U.S.

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

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Biden Tells Israel to Give Money to Terrorists, Not Terror Victims

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By Jihad Watch

The most anti-Israel administration stands with Islamic terrorists.

The Biden administration condemned Israel for giving $39 million in tax revenues to the victims of terrorism instead of the terrorists.

“It is morally just and important for the war against terror. There is no greater justice than using the funds for the victims of terror,” Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said of the move.

State Department spokesman Ned Price condemned Israel’s actions as a “unilateral response” that will “exacerbate tensions. and warned that the administration will raise the issue with Israel.

Price did not address whether the Palestinian Authority spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year to finance terrorist attacks against Israelis through the ‘Pay-to-Slay’ program raises any tensions. The ruling PLO body spending millions to kill Jews is not unilateral, but Israel refusing to finance the murder of its own citizens is a dangerous move that will make peace difficult.

Palestinian Authority PM Mohammad Shtayyeh claims that if Israel doesn’t give it $39 million, that “will promptly lead to its collapse.”

The terror organization has been claiming variations of the same thing for over two decades.

“Palestinian Authority Broke and In Disarray,” the media agonized in 2004. “Palestinians Threaten to Collapse the Palestinian Authority,” they clamored in 2009. “Suspended tax transfers leave Palestinian economy on the brink” came the warnings in 2015. “Palestinian finances near collapse as cuts deepen,” we were told in 2019.

The PLO’s terror infrastructure is always on the verge of collapse, but sadly never does.

“Israel sells us everything, including water treatment, electricity and drinking water, and in fact profits from all of this,” Shtayyeh whined.

Why after 30 years can’t the aspiring terror state do anything for itself? The “Palestinians” have received an estimated $40 billion in foreign aid. Other estimates have put it at $50 billion.

Over $14 billion of that money went directly to the Palestinian Authority. What did all that money buy apart from mansions for top terrorists?

Pinchas Rutenberg, who had unsuccessfully urged Russia’s liberal Kerensky government to execute Lenin and Trotsky before it was too late and fought to the last to defend the Winter Palace against the Bolsheviks, headed to Israel and began electrifying the country.

“No one doubts the duty of the British Empire to develop the Land of Israel, but who will be charged the financial burden? The British taxpayer? Or perhaps the Arab public that has lived in the country for hundreds of years and has not lifted a finger to develop it. True, Rutenberg is a Jew, and he recruited businessmen and Jewish capitalists to develop the natural resources of the Land of Israel and create jobs for its Arab residents, but is it therefore necessary to disqualify his vision?” Churchill opined.

In a matter of years, much of Israel was powered by the generators that Rutenberg had built.

And all of this happened over two decades before Israel even achieved independence.

Somehow Jewish refugees could do a better job of providing electricity in the 1920s after only a few years than the Palestinian Authority has managed in the 2020s after 30 years.

Churchill correctly observed that the Arab invaders and colonizers had lived there for “hundreds of years” yet had “lifted a finger to develop it.” The cost of developing the territories under PLO control has passed right back to the British taxpayer, the American taxpayer and the Israelis.

Every few years, Israel threatens to cut off the power unless the terrorists pay their debts. The last time around the debt had shot up to $500 million. Each time diplomats warn that if Israel cuts off the power, there will be a humanitarian crisis. But when isn’t there a crisis?

Biden directed over half-a-billion dollars to the terrorists since taking office. And yet the PLO claims that it’s still on the verge of collapse and Israel has to save it all over again.

“The PA must stop its involvement in terror if it wants to survive. As long as it continues to encourage terror, it is our enemy and as such, what interest do we have to help it?” Israeli Finance Minister Smotritch pointed out.

The Palestinian Authority has never run out of money to pay the terrorists, but it can’t manage to pay for its power bill or accomplish anything useful for its people.

Secretary of State Blinken and Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, are headed to Israel to scold the Jewish State for not giving money to the terrorists. The administration has used every possible forum to show contempt and undermine Israel: including a recent UN session denying Jews the right to visit the Temple Mount which is the holiest site in Judaism.

When National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir visited the Temple Mount, the Biden administration called it an “unacceptable” violation of the “historic status quo” that bans Jews.

And yet Ben-Gvir’s visit came and went.

Since then, he’s told the police to take down the terrorist flags of the PLO.

“It is inconceivable that lawbreakers will wave terror flags, incite and encourage terrorism,” Ben Gvir said. “I have issued instructions for the removal of the flags, which support terrorism, from the public space and to stop incitement against the State of Israel.”

The Biden administration, which funds terrorism and incitement against Israel through its foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority, is probably unhappy with this. Its spokesmen repeatedly accuse Israel of “unilateral” acts that increase “tensions”. Every time a Jewish person sneezes in Jerusalem, Ned Price appears at a State Department podium to intone about unilateral sneezing, raising tensions. And yet it’s the Biden administration that is conducting unilateral actions meant to undermine Israel’s status like its rogue diplomatic operation to the PLO.

The level of pettiness included stepping in when an Iron Age spoon was seized from the founder of Birthright Israel to “return” it to the Palestinian Authority even though the Arab Muslim colonists had invaded the area a thousand years later and have no claim to the ancient artifact.

The spoon was identified in the files as coming from the country of Israel, “from the Hebron area” that “is the area of the richest Iron age Jewish tombs (many royal).”

The pettiness of seizing an artifact that originated from an Israeli source and turning it over to the Arab Muslim terrorists who currently occupy parts of Hebron to make a point is emblematic of the Biden administration’s determination to undermine the Jewish People’s claim to its land.

The Biden administration and the media are furious that Israel’s new patriotic government is asserting its rights. It’s a belated act of self-defense that the media treats as an attack.

A hysterical AP news story denounces Netanyahu’s new government as “hard-line”,  “ultra-nationalist”, and the “most hard-line and religious government in Israel’s history” that is “shaking the foundations of Israel’s democracy”, “fomenting divisions” and “barreling toward conflict”.

And that’s just the first two paragraphs of a deranged screed masquerading as news coverage.

Israel’s new government is not “shaking the foundations of Israel’s democracy”, it’s restoring it after decades of hijacking by an activist judiciary by implementing a system of checks and balances to equalize its power with that of the legislature.

It is not “fomenting divisions”, it’s confronting divisions created by leftists and dealing with them. And it’s not “barreling toward conflict” but responding to the attacks against the Jewish State.

What has Israel’s “ultra-nationalist” and “hard-line” government done so far? It diverted money that will be used by terrorists to finance the murder of Jews to the victims of these attacks.

One of its cabinet members briefly visited the holiest site in Judaism. Another suggested that the terrorists need to choose between getting money through Israel and killing Jews.

All that outrage over basic acts of decency.

It’s hard to argue with any of these actions when they’re described objectively. That’s why shrill labels like “hard-line” and  “ultra-nationalist” are being used to silence any meaningful debate.

The media doesn’t want to talk about why Israel and the United States should be financing Islamic terrorism against Jews. Israel’s new government is determined to make that the issue.

Anyone in the Biden administration, the media and activists who scream about “unilateralism” and “ultra-nationalists” should be asked to put away their thesauruses and answer why money should go to terrorists not terror victims.

AUTHOR

DANIEL GREENFIELD

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

Untold Stories: Native American Indian Soldiers Who Shaped America’s History thumbnail

Untold Stories: Native American Indian Soldiers Who Shaped America’s History

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By Catherine Salgado

There are so many inspiring, beautiful stories about the great heroes of American history which are scarcely ever told. One happens on them accidentally—buried in a thick, out-of-print biography, in small print on a museum sign, casually and fleetingly mentioned in an obscure educational video. America cannot return to greatness in the future if we do not truly understand the greatness of our past. That is why I am writing an article series to tell a few of these little-known but moving or illustrative “untold stories” of American greatness.

Previous articles in this series have included the “Battle of Princeton” painting by America’s first deaf artist, William Mercer; how George Washington saved a slave family from being divided; how a former slave became ‘Aunt Jemima,’ the first living trademark; Fr. Capodanno, the “Grunt Padre” and Marine hero; the first Native American Indian university graduate, Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck; and Abraham Lincoln’s moving meeting with freed slaves in Richmond, VA. Today’s article is a collection of stories highlighting a few of the brave Native American Indian soldiers of the US Army and Marines who helped shape American history.

First is Sgt. William Alchesay (1853-1928), a U.S. Indian Scout during the Indian Wars:

“‘The Indian scouts have done most valuable service.’ -Report of Maj. Gen. Frederick Steele
William Alchesay, a White Mountain Apache, joined the Indian Scouts in 1872. He worked closely with Maj. Gen. George Crook, who preferred to use American Indian scouts along with his regular cavalry. Alchesay’s dedication and bravery was noted and he was cited for his ‘Gallant conduct during campaigns and engagements with Apaches.’ After his service, he became an advocate for his people, traveling to Washington, D.C., to meet President Grover Cleveland and President Theodore Roosevelt.”

Kayitah (1856-1934) was another U.S. Indian Scout during the Indian Wars:

“‘It does seem that a real injustice was done to these two old scouts.’ -O.M. Burgess, Bureau of Indian Affairs
Serving with the 6th Cavalry in 1886, Kayitah and another Indian Scout, Martine, delivered a critical message demanding surrender of Apache Chief Geronimo, who had fled to Mexico. Following the successful mission, both scouts were wrongly imprisoned for a year after being mistaken for hostile forces.”

But Kayitah would not allow this racist injustice to ruin his loyalty to the US Army.

“Kayitah stayed in the Army until being honorably discharged in 1914. In 1925, with assistance from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Kayitah received an increase in his pension after it was discovered that he wasn’t properly compensated for his service.”

Pvt. Richard Oskison (1878-1953) was a member of Teddy Roosevelt’s famous “Rough Riders” during the Spanish-American War:

“‘All. . .possessed in common the traits of hardihood and a thirst for adventure.’ -Lt. Col. Theodore Roosevelt
Oskison, a member of the Cherokee nation, mustered into the Army in May 1898. Less than two months later, he was fighting with Lt. Col. Theodore Roosevelt’s ‘Rough Riders’ in Cuba. The unit, comprised primarily of men from the western territories, was made famous in newspapers and became a symbol of American heroism. Oskison was injured on 1 July 1898 at the decisive Battle of San Juan Hill, the bloodiest battle of the war. After leaving the Army, Oskison stayed active in veteran groups until his death.”

Native American Indian “Code talkers” have been key in US military intelligence operations for over a hundred years. During World War I, the Choctaw language was used to transmit secret tactical messages, ultimately helping launch a successful surprise attack against the Germans. During World War II, Navajo recruits developed a practically unbreakable code and went down in history as the famed Navajo Code Talkers.

“[CIA.gov] The first 29 recruited Navajos (one dropped out) arrived at Camp Elliott near San Diego in May 1942. One of the first tasks for these recruits was to develop a Navajo code.

The Navajo language seemed to be the perfect option as a code because it is not written and very few people who aren’t of Navajo origin can speak it.

However, the Marine Corps took the code to the next level and made it virtually unbreakable by further encoding the language with word substitution.

During the course of the war, about 400 Navajos participated in the code talker program. . .A skeptical lieutenant decided to test their skills and the code before trusting them to deliver actual combat messages.

The Code Talkers successfully translated, transmitted and re-translated a test message in two and a half minutes. Without using the Navajo code, it could take hours for a soldier to complete the same task.

From then on, the Code Talkers were used in every major operation involving the Marines in the Pacific theater. Their primary job was to transmit tactical information over telephone and radio.

During the invasion of Iwo Jima, six Navajo Code Talkers were operating continuously. They sent more than 800 messages. All of the messages were transmitted without error.

The Navajo Code Talkers were treated with the utmost respect by their fellow marines. Major Howard Connor, who was the signal officer of the Navajos at Iwo Jima, said, ‘Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima.’”

Speaking of Iwo Jima, the Navajo Code Talkers weren’t the only Native American Indian soldiers who made history there. We all know the famous image of the Marines raising the American flag on the blood-soaked soil of Iwo Jima, but few people know who the Marines in that photo were.

Ira Hayes, Kayitah, Richard Oskison, William Alchesay, and the Choctaw and Navajo Code Talkers are only a few of the many Native American Indian soldiers whose stories may be little known, but the effects of whose heroism are still being enjoyed by Americans today.

*****
This article was published by Pro Deo et Libertate and is reproduced with permission.

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Biden Opens Door to China Sabotage in North Dakota

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By Gordon Chang

The Biden administration just cleared a Chinese company to own 370 acres of land within 12 miles of Grand Forks Air Force Base in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

As a result, China will be able to use a proposed $700 million corn milling plant on the site to spy on military communications and even disrupt them. In Beijing, they must be shaking their heads in disbelief at the inability of the U.S. to protect some of its most sensitive communications.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a Treasury Department-led interagency task force, decided that the purchase was not a “covered transaction” within the meaning of Section 721 of the Defense Production Act of 1950. Therefore, CFIUS, as the agency is known, decided it did not have jurisdiction to block the land purchase.

CFIUS is correct in its statutory reading. As trade and investment expert Alan Tonelson told Gatestone, the task force “did not need more than five minutes to determine that it did not have the authority to stop the sale.”

The Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act of 2018 authorized CFIUS to review, among other things, purchases by foreign parties of land close to “specific airports, maritime ports, or military installations.” Those military facilities are listed in an appendix to regulations.

“Grand Forks Air Force Base did not make the cut,” Tonelson, who blogs at RealityChek, said. “The decision of the Congressional authors of the recent CFIUS reform to permit any foreign purchase of any land near any U.S. military installation was a clear case of legislative malpractice.”

Moreover, the failure to include all military installations in the implementing regulations was a clear case of regulatory malpractice.

As a result of these enormous mistakes, Fufeng USA, a subsidiary of a Shandong province-based agribusiness giant, is, at least for the moment, free to build its wet corn milling and biofermentation plant in Grand Forks.

Fufeng USA said it was “pleased” with the decision. Chinese war planners must be ecstatic.

“The Chinese will now have the ability to conduct passive, persistent surveillance of both signals controlling experimental drones that are routinely tested at that USAF facility as well as signals that are routinely beamed to and from sensitive U.S. military satellites,” said Brandon Weichert, author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, to this publication.

Yet that is not all. “The worst-case scenario involves active sabotage of operations at the Grand Forks facility,” Weichert points out. “Should the U.S. and China end up in a shooting war over, say, Taiwan, Fufeng’s property near the Air Force base could be used to send malicious signals to jam passing satellites or disrupt the operation of drones. We have made ourselves vulnerable on our own territory.”

This is not just a theoretical concern. In the Chinese Communist Party’s top-down system, no Chinese entity or individual can resist one of its demands.

Moreover, Articles 7 and 14 of China’s National Intelligence Law of 2017 requires every Chinese party to spy upon receipt of an order to do so.

So, what to do?

“The fight is not over,” said Jodi Carlson, a Grand Forks resident, to Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, referring to the Fufeng plant.

President Joe Biden can use his authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 to block the sale of the Grand Forks land and the building of the milling facility.

For future cases, Tonelson says, “either the law needs to be rewritten immediately to bring such cases under CFIUS purview or the President should issue an executive order mandating this change.”

There is a larger issue. As Weichert asks, “What other purchases by foreigners have slipped through the cracks?”

“As long as we’re talking about fixing things, we ought to start with the most serious problem: The Committee is chaired by Treasury, which never saw a foreign investment it did not approve,” Frank Gaffney, vice chair of the Committee on the Present Danger: China, told Gatestone. “This means, as a practical matter, that an agency that basically doesn’t give a damn about national security is entrusted with running a process that supposedly evaluates and protects national security.”

Consequently, CFIUS rarely turns down foreign purchases, “precious few” as he says.

Gaffney believes the CFIUS mandate must be broadened “to include any foreign investment that threatens our national security interests or, for that matter, other vital interests, in the face of unrestricted and especially economic warfare.”

China’s regime, for instance, has for decades launched broad-based assaults on America, and the current CFIUS framework is inadequate to deal with such threats.

Yes, America is strong because of its open system, which has allowed foreign parties to invest and strengthen the American economy. Yet China’s regime, which has declared a “people’s war” on the U.S., uses investments to undermine America. In wartime — the Communist Party believes it is currently in such a struggle with America — Washington needs to prohibit all investments from China, especially ones near critical Air Force installations in North Dakota.

*****
This article was published by Gatestone Institute and is reproduced with permission.

Five Additional Pages Of Classified Documents Found At Biden’s Delaware Home thumbnail

Five Additional Pages Of Classified Documents Found At Biden’s Delaware Home

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By The Daily Caller

Five additional pages of classified documents were discovered in President Joe Biden’s home, his special counsel, Richard Sauber announced Saturday.

The pages were found by Sauber on Thursday in Wilmington, Delaware, as he was facilitating the delivery of another classified document found Wednesday to the Department of Justice (DOJ), Sauber said in a statement.

Statement from White House Counsel’s Office clarifying a prior statement, releasing additional information about the process, and stressing ongoing direct cooperation with DOJ and the Special Counsel: pic.twitter.com/OUffIVZ82H

— Ian Sams (@IanSams46) January 14, 2023

Biden’s lawyers were conducting a search of the president’s Delaware residences following the discovery of classified documents at Biden’s private office at the Penn Biden Center in November, and found classified documents in his garage on Dec. 20 and one additional document at his residence on Wednesday, the DOJ said on Thursday.

When the additional document was found Wednesday, Biden’s lawyers suspended their search of the immediate area and contacted the DOJ, because they didn’t have security clearances, Sauber said.

“I went to Wilmington Thursday evening to facilitate providing the document the President’s personal counsel found on Wednesday to the Justice Department. While I was transferring it to the DOJ officials who accompanied me, five additional pages with classification markings were discovered among the material with it, for a total of six pages. The DOJ officials with me immediately took possession of them,” Sauber added.

He stressed that Biden’s lawyers acted “immediately and voluntarily,” and that the administration is cooperating with the special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday.

The White House did not announce the discovery of the five additional documents on Thursday or Friday. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Thursday that the search by Biden’s lawyers is “clearly complete, and therefore we shared the information with all of you.”

AUTHOR

DIANA GLEBOVA

White House correspondent.

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

Biden promotes an ‘easier’ plan for migrants trying to enter America thumbnail

Biden promotes an ‘easier’ plan for migrants trying to enter America

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By Jihad Watch

A wide-open Southern border to allow anyone to enter America, unvetted, means little to Joe Biden. His concern is not with rule of law, the American economy, crime, or national security threats. It is only with bringing as many migrants into the country as possible, legally or illegally. So now he’s planning on an active outreach program to making entering the country even easier for the migrants than it already is.

Biden has abandoned Americans in pursuit of the migrant vote.

Biden professes not to see the difference between responsible immigration policies and his current reckless acts. First he creates a crisis, and then he invents a plan to make it easier on migrants, as well as to make it look as though he is solving the problem of illegal entries. Like many Leftists, he wrongly insists that those who oppose his disastrous immigration policies are xenophobic and oppose immigration as a whole.

Joe Biden Details ‘Easier’ Plan for Migrants Trying to Enter U.S.

by Charlie Spiering, Breitbart, January 10, 2023:

President Joe Biden promoted his plan Tuesday to make it easier for migrants to come to the United States after meeting with the leaders of Mexico and Canada.

“This has been the greatest migration in human history around the world as well as in this hemisphere,” Biden said, speaking about the ongoing migration crisis after meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador during a summit in Mexico City.

But the president did not appear troubled by the volume of border crossings and migrants flooding into local communities in the United States, placing a burden on U.S. citizens and legal residents.

He spoke about his administration’s plan for new ways to allow migrants claiming asylum to sign up, get background checks, get a sponsor, and get them examined, allowing them to go directly to a port of entry to make their case.

“We’re trying to make it easier for people to get here, opening up the capacity to get here,” Biden said.

He said that the majority of migrants were fleeing the countries of Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua and that his administration would reach out to them directly to get them to sign up for admission to the United States.

He suggested his new plan would cut down the number of immigrants crossing at the Southern border using cartels and coyotes and getting victimized to make the “god-awful” trip to the United States.

“Look, right now the cartels make a lot of money, which they use for drug trafficking as well,” he said.

He complained that Republicans and even some Democrats were reluctant to work with him on immigration reform, despite a long tradition of immigration to the United States…..

AUTHOR

CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS

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

UN Gives 100s of Millions of $ to Illegal Migrants Entering US thumbnail

UN Gives 100s of Millions of $ to Illegal Migrants Entering US

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By Catherine Salgado

The United Nations (UN) is not only keeping busy supporting terrorists and their propaganda campaigns, pandering to the genocidal Chinese Communist Party, and celebrating World Toilet Day. The UN is also apparently running a program that gives hundreds of millions of dollars away to illegal immigrants as they head to the US border to cross in illegally. Now not only is the US government rewarding law-breaking migrants while ignoring US citizens’ problems, but the UN is apparently paying migrants to enter America illegally. How does that not count as foreign funding of an invasion force?

There are, of course, tens of thousands of criminals and national security risks among the migrant flood at the southern US border. Furthermore, the criminal cartels entirely control which migrants make it to the US. How can we say with certainty that the UN is not indirectly, or even directly, funding criminals?

“[CIS, Jan. 9, Todd Bensman] The ‘Regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan’ for 2023-2024, coordinated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM), both of which receive substantial annual U.S. taxpayer contributions, calls for a quarter of the $1.72 billion it wants for 2023 — some $450 million — to go directly as cash or cash equivalents to ‘migrants and refugees’ on the move throughout Latin America.

All the planning and money handouts happen under the UN-coordinated ‘Inter-Agency Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants’, a network of some 228 non-profit entities and religious institutions established in 2018 that hands the money out or delivers other comforting, perhaps even enticing, services (p. 268 of the downloadable report lists the current participating organizations and their ‘financial requirements’).”

All this is not only unfair to American citizens but also to legal migrants. But the UN never does care about objective justice.

“‘Cash Working Groups’ made up of more than 50 of the non-profit migrant advocate organizations will distribute the $450 million as ‘Cash and Voucher Assistance’ (CVA) or ‘Multipurpose Cash Assistance’ (MCA) to those paused outside their home countries and contemplating journeys or actually moving already along the migrant trails in 17 countries from South America through Central America and Mexico, the planning document reveals.

The $450 million for 2023 is less than 2022’s $518 million. But its latest regional plan for Latin America still sees a heavy role for cash support this year and in 2024 because historic numbers of Latin Americans are migrating north, along with many other nationalities.”

You can read the full report at Center for Immigration Studies. It’s a sobering insight in just how committed the globalists are to destroying America and rewarding those who harm it.

*****
This article was published by Pro Deo et Libertate and is reproduced with permission.

U.S. Coast Guard Apparently Had Pre-Written Denials For Vaccine Exemption Requests, Docs Show thumbnail

U.S. Coast Guard Apparently Had Pre-Written Denials For Vaccine Exemption Requests, Docs Show

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By The Daily Caller

  • Coast Guard documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation appear to show canned justifications commanders can cut and paste into vaccine exemption requests, experts told the DCNF.
  • Existence of the statements suggests the Coast Guard may have violated requirements to consider the unique circumstances surrounding each request, experts said.
  • “It is very easy for a commander to have a closed mind when there is a pre-written language presented to them in draft form,” Dwight Stirling, former military attorney and founder of the Center for Law and Military Policy, explained to the DCNF.

The Coast Guard had pre-written justifications for denying COVID-19 vaccine exemption requests, according to documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Justifications in the document differ according to the position each Coast Guard member requesting an exemption occupied and where he or she was stationed, but each of the 30 listed follows a similar pattern of highlighting the operational requirements for each position and explaining why vaccination is necessary. The DCNF could not determine exactly how those in charge of deciding exemption cases applied each justification to individual requests, but the document indicates they failed to consider the unique circumstances of each applicant, a violation of Coast Guard policy and U.S. law, experts told the DCNF.

“All the commander needs to do is sign the memo and the matter is finished,” Dwight Stirling, former military attorney and founder of the Center for Law and Military Policy, explained to the DCNF.

Coast Guard policy aimed at protecting First Amendment rights requires leaders to individually review each vaccine exemption request, and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act says armed forces must demonstrate a “compelling interest” in overruling religious accommodations.

Mike Rose, general counsel for Stand Together Against Racism and Radicalism in the Services, said he could not confirm whether the document was used to help the Coast Guard violate policy. However, he agreed that it appears to contain pre-written statements “designed to be applied automatically to each individual Coast Guardsmen based on the nature of their assignment.”

“I also considered that you are assigned to an operational billet,” reads one of the justifications, directed at a cook aboard CGC Angela McShan. “Your duties as the senior Culinary Specialist requires frequent interactions with the entire crew in smaller, enclosed spaces that do not afford the opportunity to consistently social distance in accordance with the Center for Disease Control’s recommended guidelines.”

The document contains a separate section labeled “COVID-19 and Other Requests” with responses to multiple religious exemptions related to the COVID-19 vaccine listed below.

The first response addresses Coast Guard members’ request to be exempt from all future vaccines developed from mRNA or viral vector technology, which are used in the top COVID-19 vaccines.

“The Coast Guard cannot predict which vaccines in the future will be mandated and of those which will be developed with mRNA or viral vector technology. Therefore, because of the broad nature of your request, it is denied,” the document reads, with “it is denied” in boldface type.

The document also contains language for commanders denying religious exemptions to any COVID-19 vaccine: “I am the adjudication authority for religious accommodation requests pursuant to reference (d),” it reads.

“I have carefully reviewed your request in accordance with references (d)-(f). Your request is denied,” it concludes, also with the final sentence in boldface.

The document does not contain any language that would seem to approve an exemption request.

Of 1,350 religious accommodation requests received since the mandate came into effect in August 2021, the Coast Guard approved 12, along with eight permanent medical exemptions, a Coast Guard spokesperson told the DCNF.

“Giving commanders suggested reasons to consider that might justify denying an exemption from the vaccine in an individual case might not be wrong and could be justifiable legal advice,” Rose told the DCNF. “What would be wrong and impermissible would be to deny an exemption without regard to the individual circumstances and to use the pre canned statements to justify those denials.”

Military lawyers often cut and paste from memos or briefs, Stirling explained.

“While we don’t know whether the Coast Guard commanders pre-judged the exemption cases before them, it would not be shocking to learn that they did so,” he said. “From my experience, it is very easy for a commander to have a closed mind when there is a pre-written language presented to them in draft form.”

House Oversight Committee Republicans confirmed the document’s authenticity, saying they had obtained a similar document, but did not respond to further questioning about its contents. The document’s metadata says it was created in August 2022.

🚨@RepJamesComer, @Rep_Clyde & Oversight Republicans probe @USCG‘s failure to provide due process to members requesting religious exemptions to the COVID vaccine mandate.

They denied nearly every applicant seeking an exemption.

We need answers. https://t.co/3lbk9jVa6E

— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) October 18, 2022

The Coast Guard fell under scrutiny after an investigation by members of the Oversight Republicans found that the Coast Guard used a computer-based tool, consisting of drop-down menus with premade answers for sections of the appeal response form, to issue mass denials of religious accommodations, Fox News first reported.

However, lawmakers alleged that the Coast Guard deliberately stood up the exemption request review system “to reach predetermined conclusions with the goal of rejecting applications” in a letter to Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Linda Fagan.

“Every request received individualized review and analysis in accordance with law and Coast Guard policy,” a Coast Guard spokesperson told the DCNF.

The Department of Defense (DOD) officially nullified the military vaccine mandate Tuesday; while the Coast Guard operates under the Department of Homeland Security, it has followed DOD guidance related to COVID-19.

AUTHOR

MICAELA BURROW

Reporter.

RELATED ARTICLE: Court Decides Air Force ‘Wrongly’ Dismisses Religious Exemption Requests From Unvaxxed Airmen

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.

$7.2 Billion In U.S. Subsidies Can’t Keep Southwest In The Air For Christmas thumbnail

$7.2 Billion In U.S. Subsidies Can’t Keep Southwest In The Air For Christmas

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By Adam Andrzejewski

TOPLINE:

Southwest Airlines received $7.2 billion in federal subsidies for payroll and operations since 2020. However, the airline stranded tens of thousands of passengers around the country on the Christmas holiday when it canceled 5,400 flights in less than 48 hours. Our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com verified the federal aid using government disclosures.

WHAT HAPPENED:

Southwest is blaming the failure on a crash of its internal systems that schedule flight crews and pilots. A union for Southwest Airlines flight attendants attributed the meltdown to outdated scheduling systems that should have been upgraded years ago.

FEDS ANNOUNCE INVESTIGATION:

Late yesterday, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced that it opened a federal investigation into the airline. The USDOT cited concern about an “unacceptable rate of cancellations and delays and reports of lack of prompt customer service.”

Indeed. The Southwest mobile app, phone lines, and website were offline for much of yesterday afternoon and evening. In major hubs like Chicago Midway, some in-person customer service personnel walked off the job with hundreds of stranded passengers waiting to reschedule cancelled flights.

Once bags were checked, the bags flew to final destinations even though no flights were available for canceled passengers. Stranded passengers found this baggage policy completely unacceptable – passengers were not able to reclaim checked luggage after flights were cancelled.

It was absolute chaos for thousands and a logistical nightmare for the airline that won’t be solved for weeks.

GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIES SINCE 2020

Where could Southwest have found the money to upgrade their systems?

In September 2020, as part of massive COVID relief packages, Southwest received a $3.3 billion from the federal government. The government received stock agreements as a mechanism to partially recoup taxpayer money, however, those warrants are worth only a small fraction of the overall subsidy payments.

In April 2021, as a part of the American Rescue Plan Act and other subsidies, Southwest received another $3.8 billion, according to data on the federal transparency website and disclosed company 10-K reports to Wall Street…..

Continue reading this article at OpenTheBooksSubstack.

The Insurrection of General Milley thumbnail

The Insurrection of General Milley

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By Jihad Watch

“Okay, I get it, it’s illegal, it’s wrong.”

“The riots over the summer, you know, I could make a case that those riots were riots organic to an aggrieved community that perceived that they had various injustices throughout their life,” General Mark A Milley told the J6 Committee. “It was sheer, unmitigated anger that expressed itself in the form of mass violence and rioting. And, okay, I get it, it’s illegal, it’s wrong.”

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who had previously justified the study of “white rage”, went on to defend the riots and the double standard at the heart of the J6 Committee.

“I don’t think the intent of those riots was to overturn the United States Government and to destroy the Constitution of the United States of America,” he argued.

The mobs assaulting police officers, burning flags, attacking federal buildings in sieges, like the one in Portland, reminiscent of Fort Sumter, and calling for the destruction of America under the guidance of an organization of “trained Marxists” demonstrated that it was an insurrection.

And Gen. Milley’s testimony showed that he sympathized with the insurrectionists.

An account had described Milley pointing to a bust of Lincoln during the Black Lives Matter riots and telling Trump, “That guy had an insurrection. What we have, Mr. President, is a protest.”

The J6 testimony provided an opportunity to dig into Milley’s definition of an insurrection.

On the one hand, Gen. Milley conceded that, “All the President has to do is walk outside the White House and yell three times, you know, ‘Insurrectionists, disperse.’ And he just has to yell it, right? And then he can do it, according to the law of 1807 or whatever year it was, right?”

But Gen. Milley along with other woke brass did everything possible to dissuade Trump from doing so. Using a report assembled by his subordinates, he argued that an insurrection should have “significant national security implications”, which he claims that massive nationwide riots that included attacks on federal buildings and the White House somehow did not.

There, as so often, Gen. Milley contradicted himself, mentioning that, “I don’t want to go into anything classified, but there were other countries exploiting some of this stuff.”

A mass insurrection by Marxists, black nationalist secessionists and other domestic terror groups exploited by enemy nations is the definition of a national security threat. Gen. Milley knows this because Russian plans during the Cold War had included such scenarios.

Using his report, Gen. Milley contended that, “fifteen hundred people rioting in three or four cities of America at a moment in time” did not qualify as an insurrection, but somehow J6 did.

Gen. Milley’s definition of an insurrection involves scope and scale, but there’s no metric under which the Black Lives Matter riots at their peak were smaller in scope than J6.

And yet, Milley cheerfully told the J6 Committee that he began taking a step that he doesn’t appear to have taken during the BLM riots, that “immediately following the 6th, I knew the significance, and I asked my staff, freeze all your records, collate them, get them collected up.”

Why did records involving a riot need to be classified?

“The document — I classified the document at the beginning of this process by telling my staff to gather up all the documents, freeze-frame everything, notes, everything and, you know, classify it. And we actually classified it at a pretty high level, and we put it on JWICS, the top secret stuff. It’s not that the substance is classified. It was I wanted to make sure that this stuff was only going to go people who appropriately needed to see it, like yourselves,” Gen. Milley admitted.

On his own initiative, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs had classified documents involving a political incident, not because of any innate need, but to make sure that only the politically correct would gain access to them.

What’s in those documents? Whatever is there is meant ‘for leftist eyes only’.

Throughout his testimony, Gen. Milley insisted that he was only a public servant.

“I cannot issue orders in my name. That’s illegal,” he told the J6 Committee, describing his position as an.”advisory role, not in the chain of command, but, yes, in the chain of communication And that applies to everything, by the way. I know the Speaker Pelosi call and some other things came under a variety of criticism, but that’s all part of the role of the Chairman, is to be part of the chain of communication, not part of the chain of command.”

Gen. Milley was asked about the call involving Trump, during which Pelosi said, “‘You know he’s crazy, don’t you,’and she is reported to have said, General Milley, that you agreed with her.”

In his response, Gen. Milley appeared to confirm that he did so.

While the China phone call has been widely reported, Gen. Milley apparently placed “50 or 60” other phone calls to the Russians, the French, the Japanese and even the Islamic terror state of Qatar which is an ally of Iran and a key backer of the Muslim Brotherhood, to convey “stability”.

That is a very long chain of communication.

Gen. Milley claims to be deeply concerned about the Constitution and civilian control of the military, yet he repeatedly undermined the president, cabinet members and other civilian appointees for his own political agendas. Under the guise of being a good advisor, he initiated processes, like the political classification of materials, the double standard on riots or the phone calls that usurped the constitutional authority of the executive branch. And he’s still at it.

While belligerent in congressional hearings toward Republicans, Gen. Milley was pathetically eager to help along the J6 Committee right down to selectively classifying documents for political reasons. He decries the politicization of the military, yet everything he’s done has been to further shift the military leftward. His only resistance to leftist political pressure came when he tried to dissuade Rep. Schiff from proposals to recall and court martial General Flynn.

“I’ve become a lightning rod for the politicization of the military. And I am constantly strung out as an individual and also with Secretary Austin and others, the Chief of Naval Operations, the Sergeant Major of the Army. There’s a whole bunch of us that have been,” Gen. Milley complained.

Secretary of Defense Austin is a political appointee. Chief of Naval Operations Michael Gilday has been among the most aggressive in pushing racism and hatred for this country.

“Some of it is comments that I made in testimony about critical race theory and white rage,” Gen. Milley conceded. “Months of this constant drumbeat that is very damaging, in my view, personally, to the health of the Republic, because there is a deliberate attempt, in my view, to smear the general officer corps and the leaders of the military and to politicize the military… and I think that’s something that we need to avoid.”

Gen. Milley once again gets it backward. Military leaders like him have the obligation not to politicize the military. Civilians have a right to be critical of military leadership: especially when it stakes out political territory and takes sides.

Instead of acting to restore an apolitical military, Gen. Milley continues to help the Biden administration further politicize it while blaming retired officers and other critics of his actions.

“When 137 generals recently signed a letter that Secretary Austin and I are, you know, the worst thing since sliced bread and we’re lower than, you know, whale stuff and we should be court-martialed and treason and all that kind of stuff, all former retired flag officers — I will say, none of them were four-stars, though; we had a couple three-stars — that’s politicization,” he objected.

Retired officers are not politicizing the military when they express their opinions. Gen. Milley is politicizing the military when he states that, “if generals are out there writing editorials about politics, I think that’s an issue. If you want to be involved in politics as a general officer, retired general officer, or a retired commissioned officer, you ought to run for office.”

On Gen. Milley’s watch, active duty personnel have repeatedly been allowed to express leftist and even anti-American views, to clash with civilians on social media and berate journalists, even while any hint of criticism of the Biden administration has led to court martials.

Just compare the respective fates of Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller and Maj. Gen. Patrick Donahoe.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Milley has used his position to, at worst, conduct and, at best, sign off on an insurrection that threatens the constitutional order he swore an oath to protect. The insurrection is cloaked in bureaucratic shenanigans like the selective classification, in providing misleading advice, using double standards and initiating treasonous actions.

Any serious investigation of the crimes committed in 2020 needs to begin with Gen. Milley.

AUTHOR

DANIEL GREENFIELD

RELATED ARTICLE: New Israeli Government Bans PLO Flags, Transfers Terror Cash to Terror Victims

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

Does Trump Really Want to Be President Again? thumbnail

Does Trump Really Want to Be President Again?

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By Victor Davis Hanson

Team Trump sometimes has compared former President Donald Trump’s current quest for a non-sequential second term to two-term President Grover Cleveland’s similar three election bids.

Cleveland remains our only elected president (1884) to have lost a reelection bid (1888)—in a disputed vote—only to be reelected four years later in 1892.

Yet Trump seems determined instead to follow a different, and bullheaded, Teddy Roosevelt model.

Roosevelt left the presidency in 1908, sat out four years, and then lost a reelection bid in 1912, split and alienated the Republican Party, and ensured the election of the progressive Woodrow Wilson.

President Joe Biden’s first “corrective” two years have been an utter disaster.

Biden birthed hyperinflation. He destroyed a secure border and Trump’s energy self-sufficiency. Crime is now out of control. The United States was humiliated abroad in Afghanistan. Rising interest rates soon will spark a recession.

After promising to unite the country, Biden smeared half the voting population as “un-American” and “semi-fascist.”

In addition, almost all of Trump’s prior complaints, predictions, and assertions that the media dismissed as conspiratorial, or crackpot have proven eerily prescient.

Hunter Biden’s laptop was all too authentic.

The FBI was compromised and acted as an agent of the Democratic Party. Anthony Fauci proved to be a partisan.

Russian collusion was an utter hoax. It was engineered by Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee, and the FBI.

China’s Wuhan lab likely did birth the engineered COVID-19 virus. That possibility was covered up by the media and public health establishments.

Trump did not take “nuclear codes” to Mar-a-Lago. He did not plan on hawking his presidential papers for profit.

Germany did weaken NATO. Berlin was foolish to mortgage its future with energy dependency on a hostile Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Biden family was utterly corrupt. It was deeply involved in lucrative quid pro quo machinations abroad with China and a crooked Ukrainian government-related company.

John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Anthony Fauci, and Robert Mueller all either did mislead, feign amnesia, or lie either to Congress or while under oath.

Twitter was corrupt in asymmetrically banning the free expression of conservatives. Silicon Valley elites did conspire to sandbag Trump.

The media was a fake-news, corrupt enterprise, as we see from the new Twitter trove and the mass firings at CNN.

So given events since Trump’s departure, he should be in the driver’s seat. But he is not.

Why?

Rather than offering detailed correctives for Biden’s disastrous record, Trump is again dabbling in social media madness. He needlessly floated the absurd idea that constitutional norms might need to be changed to allow the disputed 2020 election result to be overturned.

He seems oblivious that the Left, not conservatives, talk of altering the Constitution. They call for the destruction of the Electoral College, and wish to dilute the Second Amendment and redefine the First.

Why did Trump need to descend into personal invective when prior to the midterms, many primary polls were confirming his front-runner status?

Why did he not remain magnanimous, unite the party, and focus on giving millions to his endorsed but endangered candidates such as Dr. Mehmet Oz, Blake Masters, and Herschel Walker?

Why did Trump bizarrely claim that possible rival presidential candidate Glenn Youngkin’s name sounded “Chinese”? What was the logic of attacking the wife of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in racialist terms?

Every elected public official or candidate—with the exception of former President Barack Obama, who once was photographed smiling with a grinning, Jewish-hating Louis Farrakhan—knows there is only one rule concerning antisemites: Go nowhere near them.

Yet Trump dined with two: the now unhinged Kanye West (“Ye”) and the 20-something crackpot Nick Fuentes.

Why would Trump all but announce before the midterms that after the election he would be a candidate?

Or why, right before the Nov. 8 election, did Trump attack Ron DeSantis (whom he calls “DeSanctimonious”), the miracle-worker Republican governor of Trump’s own Florida?

Did Trump wish to rile up left-wing Trump-haters to rush to the midterm polls, or to persuade miffed conservative DeSantis voters to stay home?

In the impending Trump-DeSantis collision, voters will be looking for the resolution of two respective unknowns.

One, will Trump run on his stellar record, avoid controversy, and stick to the issues? And will he thereby win back independent, swing voters on assurances that they could get more MAGA successes, but this time around without the insults and spats?

And two, could DeSantis assure Republicans of a fire-in-the belly, Trumpian zeal to take on the Left, while soberly promoting a MAGA agenda—and thus win over the hard-core Trump base?

So far, De Santis is reassuring donors and primary voters that he can be as tough as his record is impressive.

But Trump is not encouraging the donor class and independent voters that he has learned that melodramas and social media riffs are not his friends.

*****
This article was published by The Daily Signal and is reproduced with permission.

TWITTER FILES: Pfizer Pressured Twitter to Censor Tweets thumbnail

TWITTER FILES: Pfizer Pressured Twitter to Censor Tweets

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By The Geller Report

Pure evil.

Twitter was asked to censor tweets by Pfizer that questioned its efficacy.

By: Dr Panda, January 10, 2023:

Meet former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb. He is now a board member of Pfizer. He’s been busy getting tweets that challenge the ‘safe and effective’ narrative censored and removed. This is a recap of (part 1?) of the #FacuiFiles.

On August 27, 2021, former FDA Commissioner and current Pfizer Board Member Dr. Scott Gottlieb, emailed Twitter regarding a tweet sent out by Dr. Brett Giroir, which claimed that natural immunity was superior to vaccine immunity and there’s no scientific justification for the vaccine.

In Gottlieb’s email to Twitter, he called the tweet “corrosive” and worried the tweet would end up going “viral and driving news coverage.”

Dr. Girori is the Former Assistant Secretary for Health, Acting FDA Commissioner, WHO Board Member, and Admiral in the US Public Health Service. He also worked at DARPA and currently is the CEO of Altesa BioSciences which specializes in developing treatments for respiratory viruses and global viral threats.

Here is the tweet. It is labeled as “misleading” and cannot be replied to, shared or liked. This tweet was never misleading or factually inaccurate.

It’s now clear #COVID19 natural immunity is superior to #vaccine immunity, by ALOT. There’s no science justification for #vax proof if a person had prior infection. @CDCDirector @POTUS must follow the science. If no previous infection? Get vaccinated! https://t.co/jFc0yHpF2f

— Brett Giroir (@DrGiroir) August 28, 2021

Gottlieb’s email was forwarded from Todd O’Boyle, Twitter’s Manager of Public Policy at Twitter, to Twitter’s Strategic Response team. This team handles the company’s most important employees and users.

O’Boyle wrote to the team “Please see this report from the former FDA commissioner,” not mentioning Gottieb was a current Pfizer board member, the ones who make billions on the mRNA vaccines.

An analyst found that the tweet didn’t violate Twitter’s rules on false and misleading information but still slapped a “misleading” flag on it.

A week later Gottlieb was back at it, ferociously emailing O’Boyle about more tweets. This time it was Justin Hart, a fellow Substacker and COVID vaccine dissenter. His tweet (correctly) pointed out that children essentially have zero risk of dying from COVID-19. Why report this tweet? It’s easier to sell experimental mRNA if parents are terrified that their children will die.

Here is the Tweet Gottlieb reported:

Sticks and stones may break my bones but a viral pathogen with a child mortality rate of ~0% has cost our children nearly three years of schooling. 😡

— Justin Hart (@justin_hart) September 4, 2021

Once again O’Boyle forwarded Gottlieb’s email to the Strategic Response Team, again only referencing him as the former FDA commissioner. Twitter took no action.

Gottlieb responded on Twitter blocking all replies. It’s quite long. He complained to Twitter about being doxed and feared for his safety. He actually doxed himself in his own tweets for exposing his personal email (tweet 5,6&7). Around the same time, Gottlieb also went on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” saying “I’m unconcerned about debate being made. I’m concerned about physical threats being made for people’s safety.

🧵In the past, I’ve raised concerns with Twitter related to the safety of me and others, and threats being made on the platform. This included direct as well as specific threats. Sometimes it included statements that I believed were purposely false and inflammatory 👇

— Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) January 9, 2023

If the goal of TwitterFiles is transparency, here’s some of the private e-mails I had with Twitter, related to threats and safety, which weren’t released; and which I repeatedly highlighted in my communications with the platform. Safety remains an existential concern for Twitter:

— Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) January 9, 2023

pic.twitter.com/s9s1wfVwzF

— Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) January 9, 2023

pic.twitter.com/3HlxSLghpV

— Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) January 9, 2023

Dr. Brett Giroir also responded by saying Gottlieb’s behavior speaks for itself. He “put corporate interests first — not public health.” Calling for an “open, honest, uncensored debate.”

@ScottGottliebMD‘s behavior speaks for itself. A former @FDA commissioner (now @Pfizer board member) schemed with a lobbyist & @Twitter to apparently put corporate interests first — not public health. If anything, we need more open, honest, uncensored debate – not less. https://t.co/y0zRB8LpIH

— Brett Giroir (@DrGiroir) January 9, 2023

Last but not least Elon Musk, Owner and CEO of Twitter, chimed in saying “Some conspiracies are actually true.” This tweet has since been deleted.

Keep reading.

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

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