Perspectives; Thoughts; Comments; Opinions; Discussions


Reported By Cristina Laila | Published January 13, 2021

Finally!

In October Project Veritas released a bombshell undercover video of a Texas “Republican” consultant violating both Texas and federal laws.

Raquel Rodriguez, a consultant for GOP House candidate Mauro Garza was caught on camera coercing and bribing voters into voting Democrat. Rodriguez is seen on camera taking the ballot from the voter and helping her fill it out. Later on, Rodriguez admits that what she is doing is illegal and brags about giving the elderly voter a pretty shawl as a gift for her Democrat vote!

“That’s illegal. I could go to jail,” Rodriguez tells a Project Veritas undercover journalist. “If I go to prison, I do not look cute in stripes…I will hate you forever.”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton immediately got to work investigating Rodriguez after Project Veritas released damning video of her ballot chasing operation. On Wednesday, Ken Paxton announced Raquel Rodriguez was arrested for election fraud, illegal voting, unlawfully assisting people voting by mail, and unlawfully possessing an official ballot.

“Each charge constitutes a felony under the Texas Election Code,” Paxton said.

Rodriguez faces up to 20 years in prison.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Fighting Words

Trump-Derangement-Syndrome has driven Pelosi, the Democrats, and some RINOS to going for impeachment #2.

Trump 2nd ImpeachmentPolitical cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2021.
Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated – $1.00 –  $5.00 –  $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 –  it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!

A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and shared by President Donald Trump.


Reported by COLLEEN LONG, MICHAEL BALSAMO and MICHAEL KUNZELMAN | AP | January 12, 2021

WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI is warning of plans for armed protests at all 50 state capitals and in Washington, D.C., in the days leading up to President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration, stoking fears of more bloodshed after last week’s deadly siege at the U.S. Capitol.

An internal FBI bulletin warned, as of Sunday, that the nationwide protests may start later this week and extend through Biden’s Jan. 20 inauguration, according to two law enforcement officials who read details of the memo to The Associated Press. Investigators believe some of the people are members of extremist groups, the officials said. The bulletin was first reported by ABC.

“Armed protests are being planned at all 50 state capitols from 16 January through at least 20 January, and at the U.S. Capitol from 17 January through 20 January,” the bulletin said, according to one official. The officials were not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

The FBI issued at least one other bulletin — they go out to law enforcement nationwide on the topic — before the riots last week. On Dec. 29, it warned of the potential for armed demonstrators targeting legislatures, the second official said.

“While our standard practice is to not comment on specific intelligence products, the FBI is supporting our state, local, and federal law enforcement partners with maintaining public safety in the communities we serve,” the bureau said in a statement. “Our efforts are focused on identifying, investigating, and disrupting individuals that are inciting violence and engaging in criminal activity.”

The FBI said it wasn’t focused on peaceful protests but “on those threatening their safety and the safety of other citizens with violence and destruction of property.”

Army Gen. Daniel Hokanson, chief of the National Guard Bureau, told reporters Monday that the Guard is also looking at any issues across the country,

“We’re keeping a look across the entire country to make sure that we’re monitoring, and that our Guards in every state are in close coordination with their local law enforcement agencies to provide any support requested,” he said.

The riots followed weeks of online calls for violence in the nation’s capital in the waning days of Donald Trump’s presidency. There have been several arrests, and at least two Capitol police officers, one who took a selfie with rioters, and another who put on a Make America Great Again hat, were suspended. At least a dozen more are under investigation, according to lawmakers.

A tweet in which Trump promised that last Wednesday’s event in Washington, D.C., “will be wild” fueled a “month-long frenzy of incitements, strategizing, and embrace of violence against lawmakers,” according to a research group that tracks online extremism activity, In a report issued Saturday, the SITE Intelligence Group also warned that the Capitol attack has emboldened Trump-supporting extremists.

“No matter how all this plays out, its only the beginning,” posted a user on TheDonald message board, according to the report.

Mark Pitcavage, a senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, said authorities in state capitals and other major cities besides Washington should prepare for the possibility of violent protests next week.

A lot of people were energized by what happened last week,” he said. “State capitals are a natural place where people might want to show up, especially assuming that they think there might be a huge presence of police and military in D.C. because of what happened last week.”

Pitcavage tracks militia, white supremacists and other far-right extremists, but he said the Capitol siege demonstrated the emergence of a new movement of ”Trumpist extremists, so caught up in the cult of personality around Trump that they may be willing to break the law or engage in violence purely in support of Trump and whatever he wants.”

The talk of armed marches next week isn’t limited to “radicalized” Trump supporters. State capital events on Jan. 17 appear to be promoted by supporters of the anti-government, pro-gun “boogaloo” movement. Boogaloo followers advocate for a second civil war or the collapse of society, and they don’t adhere to a coherent political philosophy.

Posts on social media sites also have promoted a “Million Militia March” on the day of Biden’s inauguration. Pitcavage said the event, apparently organized by a promoter of the pro-Trump “QAnon” conspiracy theory, appears unlikely to draw a massive crowd.

Javed Ali, a former FBI senior intelligence officer who teaches courses in counterterrorism at the University of Michigan, said it can be challenging for law enforcement to identify the line between people exercising their constitutionally protected rights to bear arms and free speech and those who pose “a real operational threat.”

“The FBI just can’t passively sit in websites and forums and social media platforms, waiting to see who’s going to present a direct threat versus just someone who is being highly radicalized,” he said. “There has to be an investigative predicate for the FBI to then start even the lowest form of an investigation.”

David Deitch, an attorney who was a prosecutor in the Justice Department’s counterterrorism section from 2003 to 2007, said law enforcement must recognize a “tenuous balance” between protected free speech and speech that intends to incites violence.

“It’s a very fact-based, case-by-case determination,” he said. “There’s no one factor that’s going to determine all of it. It’s certainly going to be a judgment call on the part of law enforcement about whether and when to intervene.”


Reported By Jim Hoft | Published January 12, 2021

Trump campaign advisor, Jason Miller, said on Monday that he was barred from entering a Washington DC studio for an interview with FOX Business personality Charles Payne. LiveShots Studio in Washington DC refused him entry because he “is on a list.”

The Democrat-Marxists cheer these totalitarian tactics.

They steal an election then crush their opposition.
Where have we seen this before?

The Epoch Times reported:

Jason Miller, a Trump campaign adviser, on Monday said that he was barred from entering a Washington, D.C.-based studio for an interview with Fox Business’s Charles Payne, as he has been put on a “list.”

“Wow – the anti-Trump censorship/deplatforming is out of control,” he wrote on Twitter. “Just went to the LiveShots studio in DC to join @cvpayne on @FoxBusiness, and the LiveShots employees told me I’m not allowed to use their studios because ‘I’m on a list.’”

Miller said that when he asked what sort of list he’s on, and why the studio accepted the booking in the first place, he was told by Liveshots D.C. employees that the list was for “health reasons.”

Liveshots D.C. is located across the street from the U.S. Capitol, and is in the same building as CSPAN, Fox, and MSNBC, according to its website. It describes itself as the capital’s “premier liveshot facility.”

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“I inquired a little more, since I haven’t been around anyone with COVID[-19], and I was told they have a ‘list’ of people they won’t allow in, ‘because of, like, who you’ve been around, at the White House and stuff… and it’s, um, because of health reasons,’” he recalled.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

LeeAnn Miller would like an explanation from Facebook after the ad account for her business was disabled by the tech giant seemingly for no other reason than being patriotic. Miller, 50, is a wife, mother, and a business owner. In 2019, when her youngest son, Hollis, started college, she decided that after spending many wonderful years as a stay-at-home mom raising children, she would like to get back to work and help contribute to the financial stability of her family. That year, Miller had an idea. Holding the conviction that there is no better place on Earth than the United States, and desiring to give back to her country, she founded PatrioticMe, an online retailer that sells various clothing items.

“It took about a year to get things exactly the way I wanted them, the products and the website,” Miller told TheBlaze in an interview.

The apparel sold by PatrioticMe has, well, an obvious patriotic flair. These are shirts adorned with red, white, and blue or an outline of the United States. Hoodies with the American flag. Hats you could proudly wear to your Fourth of July cookout and every other day too, just because you love America. And the business, which launched on Sept. 11, 2020, to honor the heroic American first responders of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, was a success at first.

“I had been a stay-at-home mom for years, and I was glad to be back in the workforce doing a little something to contribute to my family’s income and future,” Miller said. “I believe in my product, I have a great product, I love the shirts, they’re comfortable. We get great reviews on them from the people who have bought them. And I really felt like I was doing something good for the country, to promote patriotism.”

A portion of every sale is donated to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, a charity founded to honor the sacrifice of New York City firefighter Stephen Siller, who gave his life to save others as a first responder on Sept. 11, 2001. Tunnel to Towers provides mortgage-free smart homes to veterans or first responders with catastrophic injuries suffered in the line of duty or to gold star families with surviving spouses and young children.

“I chose from the very beginning not to be partisan, at all,” she explained, noting that her products are for every American. “I feel like that is so important. I want everybody to be patriotic.”

The trouble with Facebook began the day after the election.

Miller, in partnership with Quantify, a business development firm, had advertised her products on Facebook. PatrioticMe’s advertisement was simple. It was made to look like a Facebook post with text before pictures featuring models wearing items for sale.

The text stated:

Loving your country shouldn’t be hidden.

Check out our new line of long sleeve shirts!

We have an attractive range of patriotic clothes to show that love off! 10% off on your order for a limited time!

Every time you purchase, We donate a portion of it to the tunnel to the tower foundation.

Miller provided a screenshot of her advertisement to TheBlaze:

On Nov. 4, 2020, she received an email from the Facebook Ads Team informing her that her advertisements did not comply with Facebook’s advertising policies or other standards.

“Ad Account Disabled for Policy Violation,” declared the subject line of the email, which was provided to TheBlaze.

“It appears your ad account was used to create one or more ads that don’t comply with our Advertising Policies or other standards,” the email stated.

“Our policies and standards help keep Facebook safe and welcoming for everyone. We use either technology or a review team to remove anything that doesn’t comply with our policies or standards as quickly as possible,” Facebook told Miller.

Instead of providing her with guidance as to which policies PatrioticMe’s ad violated, the email provided Miller with a link to the page outlining the entirety of Facebook’s advertising policies. She was also given two options: To take an “e-learning Blueprint course” called “Ad Policies for Content, Creative, and Targeting” to learn about the entirety of Facebook’s advertising policies, or to request a review of her ad account if she believed it shouldn’t be disabled.

The notice came as a shock.

“My shirts say, ‘U.S.A’, or ‘America’, or have the flag or outline the country. They’re all very benign,” Miller said.

Believing her advertisements were disabled in error, she contacted Facebook requesting a review of PatrioticMe’s account that very day. In response, she received a second email from Facebook, nearly identical to the first. After three requests for review, the Facebook Ads Team sent Miller a final notice on Nov. 24 that her restricted account would not be re-enabled.

“All ad accounts are evaluated for policy compliance and quality of ad content. Due to your ad account consistently promoting ads that don’t comply with our Advertising Policies or other standards, the ad account has been disabled,” the Facebook Ads Team told her.

Particularly frustrating for Miller is that throughout the review process, she was unable to speak with a live human being even once about why her ads were disabled.

“They never give anything other than kind of a canned response,” Miller told TheBlaze.

“We’ve never been able to get in touch with a live human. I have tried, and Quantify has tried on my behalf, and we have never been able to talk to a live human being about the problem and what we can do to fix it.”

Facebook’s final decision is that PatrioticMe can no longer advertise with its ad account and all of its advertisements and assets on Facebook will remain disabled.

It’s a decision that Miller said has cost PatrioticMe 94% of its traffic.

“I’ve hardly had any sales” since the ban, Miller explained. “What Facebook gave me the ability to do was to promote my business to people that I don’t know around the country, what I would call an ‘organic sale,’ somebody that saw my product, liked my product, and bought it and did not have a personal relationship with me.”

Without Facebook ads, PatrioticMe is having trouble reaching out beyond Miller’s immediate friends and family.

Upon review of Facebook’s advertisements policy and community standards, TheBlaze could not identify what content in Miller’s ad would violate either set of its policies. TheBlaze reached out to Facebook for clarification and for comment, but the company did not respond before this article was published.

Asked why she thinks her ads were disabled, Miller could only speculate that Facebook took issue with her products’ patriotic message.

“I have to believe that in the current climate they were taken down because a lot of people think patriotism is bad. A lot of people think the American flag scares people. It’s really hard for me to understand, but the only thing I really have to go on is what that first email said, that I violated the policy of, you know, Facebook providing a safe and welcoming environment,” she suggested.

“And to me, that’s absurd, that anybody in this country, even people that immigrate here, they come here for what that flag stands for: Freedom and prosperity, and everything that that flag has to offer, and that’s what that flag represents to me anyway. And it’s really hard for me to imagine that it scares people or makes people feel unwelcome.”

Miller wishes that a live human being representing Facebook would communicate with her business and say specifically what is wrong with her ads.

“Please show me the ads that are offensive and please tell me specifically what is offensive about them, and what would meet your community standards. What would I need to do to change my ads to make them acceptable for Facebook?”

“You can report Facebook ads if you think they are offensive. So I’m not really sure if somebody reported my ad, or if some bot picked it up and flagged it, or if an employee of Facebook did that,” she added.

For now, Miller says she is working with her business development partner Quantify to find new ways to advertise and expand PatrioticMe’s reach. But she still wonders why Facebook has rejected her business

“Here I am willing to pay them money to run ads, have they gotten so big that they don’t even care about making money?”

https://patrioticme.com/


Parler, the social media alternative to Twitter, has reportedly found web hosting refuge after the platform was booted from Amazon’s web hosting services.

After the deadly riots at the U.S. Capitol last Wednesday, Parler became a central target of Big Tech over allegations that it was hosting content that helped incite the violence. Parler was eventually kicked from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, meaning the app is unavailable for download on the two most widely used smartphone operating systems. Amazon Web Services then suspended web hosting service Sunday. All three companies claimed Parler did not sufficiently moderate content posted to its platform.

Parler CEO John Matze denounced the decisions as a “coordinated attack by the tech giants to kill competition in the market place.”

‘We are the closest thing to competition Facebook or Twitter has seen in many years. I believe Amazon, Google, Apple worked together to try and ensure they don’t have competition,” he said on Parler late Saturday.

Although Parler is not yet back online, the company registered its domain and server with internet solutions company Epik, which Vice described as the “the internet savior of the far-right” because it also hosts Gab, another alternative to social media platforms operated by Big Tech.

After news broke that Parler had registered with Epik, the company released a statement saying that it has “had no contact or discussions with Parler in any form regarding our organization becoming their registrar or hosting provider.”

“From our understanding, Parler was working on satisfying the requested terms placed upon them by various elements of their supply chain, and to date, no communication has been received by them for discussion of future service provision,” Robert Davis, senior vice president of communications at Epik, said in a lengthy statement.

Reading between the lines, it appears that Parler purchased services from Epik — which WHOIS data confirms — like any marketplace customer can do, not that either company entered into an agreement to host Parler’s platform.

Epik’s statement defended Parler, echoing Matze’s assertion that Parler has been unfairly targeted.

[W]hen it comes to Parler, it is clear that there is an artificial standard that many now want to apply. The staggering size of Twitter and Facebook alone, have made real change or accountability almost impossible, as the political interests and objectives of their own executives end up creating an undeniable double standard for both policing and enforcement. Over the last year, the effects of this were felt by millions of people, already kept in fear, as our nation was met by unprecedented waves of violence on life and property.

While it’s not yet clear when Parler will be operational again, the company announced Monday that it is suing Amazon for antitrust violations, breach of contract, and unlawful business interference. The company is also asking that a judge require Amazon to reinstate Parler’s service as the litigation makes its way through the court system.


A.F. Branco Cartoon – Shark Bait

Big tech smells blood in the water and is going after opposing views with all-out censorship.

High-Tech Sharks Attack LibertiesPolitical cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2021
Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated – $1.00 –  $5.00 –  $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 –  it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!

A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and shared by President Donald Trump.


The Trump Purge Makes Living In America More Like Living In China 

After the terrifying ransack of the U.S. capitol Wednesday during a Donald Trump “stop the steal” rally, big tech companies are joining leftist elites in the media and government in their effort to squash the Trump movement once and for all. Seizing on the backlash from the riot, they have seamlessly banned President Trump from TwitterFacebook, Instagram, and Snapchat.

What happened at the capitol was an embarrassment for our country. Now, the hypocritical outcries from Democrats, who proudly condoned left-wing Antifa and Black Lives Matter rioters as they terrorized American cities all summer, are ushering in a great reckoning.

The Jan. 6 demonstrators, the vast majority of whom were peaceful, were there to protest legitimate claims of election irregularities and voter fraud. But Google-owned YouTube doesn’t want you to know that. They announced Thursday that they will ban all videos about voter fraud in the 2020 election.

The one free speech haven, Parler, Apple is keying up to ban from its app store and bar from iOS devices, claiming content on the website contributed to the capitol unrest. Google has already jumped the gun, banning Parler yesterday.

Every corner of the Trump movement is being publicly purged from the internet. Thursday, Shopify stripped all online stores for President Trump, including the Trump Organization and Trump’s affiliated campaign account.

Anyone who has supported the president is in for it, as well. Rick Klein, the political director at ABC News, in a now-deleted tweet said that getting rid of Trump is “the easy part.” The more difficult task will be “cleansing the movement he commands.” Democrats have already created a “Trump Accountability Project,” an enemies list to ban, cancel, or fire anyone who staffed, donated to, endorsed, or supported President Trump and his administration.

Trump subverted the elites who run our country. He took on big pharma and China. He negotiated, renegotiated, and destroyed trade deals in his mission to put America and American workers first. He went to war with critical race theory institutionalized in our schools and in government.

He stood for things that those who run our biggest corporations and hold our highest government positions detest. For virtually his entire presidency, they tried everything to delegitimize his administration, beginning with the now-debunked Russiagate. Trump showed their corruption, and now he will pay.

The man, the administration, and his supporters will likely go down in history books as delusional and dangerous. Why? Because the left has a monopoly on power, so they can control what people see and therefore think.

As the left’s arbiters of “truth,” big tech has been banning users they don’t agree with and suppressing stories like The New York Post’s blockbuster investigation into Hunter Biden‘s laptop and sketchy deals with foreign governments and companies with ties to the Communist Chinese government. With the help of their partisan “independent fact checkers,” big tech and the media made sure average Americans never knew about this before they went to the polls.

Following the riot among Trump supporters in the capitol, Facebook removed President Trump’s video calling for peace and rule of law, claiming it instigated violence. Then Facebook de-platformed him. Trump’s speech didn’t fit the narrative that he was a pro-violence, lawlessness insurrectionist.

This disturbing reality we live in, where one political party now has the power to control the narrative in all aspects of our lives — school, work, social media, and government — might make us feel eerie echoes of living under Chinese Communist Party influence instead of in the United States of America.

Perhaps what’s most troubling, and something that we might not have even considered in the chaos of the last few days, is the long-term impact this will have on American children. Generation Z or Zoomers, aged 13 to 21, may be one of the first generations that is more influenced by what they see and read on social media and the internet than what they hear at the dinner table from mom and dad.

A Business Insider’s poll found that 59 percent of Zoomers listed social media as their top news source. While technology used to serve as a way to make information accessible, a way to have the world at your fingertips with just a quick search, it has become something much different. It is teaching the youngest and most impressionable among us that suppression is normal and personal censorship is an important survival mechanism.

Children are being taught to watch what they say and think, lest they be labeled a racist, white supremacist, homophobe, or xenophobe. Indeed, making a pro-Trump TikTok video can get your college admission rescinded and subject you to intense personal harassment. A three-second insensitive or politically incorrect Snapchat video from 2016 can get you featured in a New York Times article and your college admission rescinded, and subject you to bitter bullying.

For young people today, it’s becoming normal to see political leaders in our country deemed “dangerous” to be ousted from public platforms and ostracized from society. They watch their parents self-censor at work, fearful of backlash from employees or coworkers that could get them fired.

Americans used to support the right of people to hold and express opinions others disagree with. Yet the newest generation believes feelings are more valuable than freedom. Study after study finds that younger people are more supportive of limiting speech than are older generations.

A recent survey found that an overwhelming majority of students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison think the government should be able to punish “hate speech.” Of course, “hate speech” is simply the left’s ambiguous term for anything veering from the leftist orthodoxy on issues such as abortion, sex, race, and immigration.

Silicon Valley oligarchs have an agenda. They aren’t platforms, they are publishers, which should nullify the privileges they enjoy under Section 230. Will the Democrats who are now running our government do anything to stop big tech tyranny? Of course not.

This problem is not going away. America’s ethos of free speech and expression is going extinct at the hands of big tech and the leftists controlling media and government.

The U.S. Capitol riots are over, thanks to law enforcement. However, the censorship that followed has created a dangerous precedent.

For young people, their “normal” is beginning to feel increasingly like it’s heading towards life in China. It’s less free and tolerant than the America their parents grew up in. Imagine how much worse things will be when today’s youths are running the country.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Evita Duffy is an intern at The Federalist and a junior at the University of Chicago, where she studies American History. She loves the Midwest, lumberjack sports, writing, & her family. Follow her on Twitter at @evitaduffy_1

JANUARY 9, 2021 By 

Twitter Is The Enemy Of The American People

On Oct. 18, 2020, Twitter banned the account of Dr. Scott Atlas for defending President Donald Trump’s position on mask mandates. In his tweet, he cited scientific studies, and the tweet contained absolutely no false information.

Also in October, Twitter banned the account of The New York Post for accurately reporting on a story about Hunter Biden’s laptop. Today we know these were just the first salvos in this evil company’s assault on American liberty.

For all its talk about safety, community, and the health of discourse, we see today that Twitter acts in favor of one interest and one interest alone: its own, even when it means destabilizing the American people. On Friday, the company permanently banned Trump from its platform and began a purge of conservative voices. They claim this is needed to protect America from a coup. That is a farcical lie. They did it because their political enemies such as Trump and Sen. Josh Hawley are now out of power, and they mean to keep it way.

As a private company, Twitter is free to do as it pleases. And I am free to call them what they are: a shill for communist China that seeks the destruction of America. Do you doubt that? Then explain why Iran can call for Jews to be killed on Twitter’s platform and China can spread propaganda about how rounding up Uyghur men and forced sterilization of Uyghur women is actually good, but Donald Trump can’t tweet. It is evil. And anyone defending Jack Dorsey’s death machine is complicit.

We live in two Americas right now. In Republican-led Florida and Texas, economies are open, people go to restaurants and movies, small businesses can prosper. In Democrat-led New York and California, lockdowns are crushing the people. They are not allowed to gather in person, only on big tech platforms. Guess which outcome Twitter prefers?

Now compare the effects of COVID on these two Americas. There is no rational way to argue that the lockdowns led to better results.

I want to put this as clearly as possible. Twitter attempted and largely succeeded in silencing dissent to policies that were against its own interests. They don’t care about the suicides, overdoses, missed cancer screenings, or poverty caused by these actions, they only care about money and power. Blood is dripping from Jack Dorsey’s hands across the globe and here at home as he counts his billions.

Feckless Democrats and faux conservatives applaud or look the other way at Twitter’s actions because it serves their purposes; the poor, blind fools have no idea that they will be next. This has nothing to do with the Constitution, or laws, this has to do with Dorsey being a liar who orchestrates mass disinformation campaigns on the American people. Twitter’s safety guidelines have nothing to do with safety, they have to do with profit.

I am not writing here about Section 230, or legislative approaches to rein in Big Tech. That can come later. I am writing to make it clear that Twitter has played a central role in destroying Americans’ lives through lockdowns, lying to them about Hunter Biden to win an election, and enabling the world’s most brutal regime to practice genocide in peace.

Twitter doesn’t want to serve you; it wants to rule you. And it is well on its way.

Now Big Tech is seeking to deplatform Twitter’s competitor, Parler. Politicians and journalists are cheering for censorship and suggesting that cable operators should ban conservative news outlets. You see, these people know what is good for you and what isn’t. They just want to protect you from dangerous information. To them, you are a child and they are your parents, the only difference being that you pay them an allowance.

Now we Americans have no choice. Now we must convene our secret meetings in person, far from the peering eyes of Big Tech and its Chinese overlords, for whom it will do anything. Consider the fact that in many places in America meetings are literally illegal right now. Everything changed on Friday. The cards all stare up at us from the table now. Twitter’s goal is to create for our children an America our parents would not recognize.

Twitter is the enemy of freedom, the enemy of liberty, and the enemy of the American people. It must be treated as such.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
David Marcus is the Federalist’s New York Correspondent. Follow him on Twitter, @BlueBoxDave.

Reported By Jim Hoft | Published January 11, 2021

Earlier this week CNN interviewed John Sullivan from Utah after the shooting death of Ashli Babbit by Capitol Hill police. John Sullivan, a noted leftist leader from Utah, stormed the US Capitol with fellow activists on Wednesday. John Sullivan is a Black Lives Matter goon from Utah who was flown into DC during the planned “Stop the Steal” rally.

In August John Sullivan threatened to “rip President Trump from the White House” during violence in Washington DC. Sullivan was flown to DC for the protests. At the time John Sullivan was described as a Black Lives Matter leader from Utah.

From our earlier report:

John Sullivan stormed the US Capitol on Wednesday. He was near Ashli Babbit when she was killed by Capitol police.

Amy Mek at RAIR Foundation reported:

 

So what was John Sullivan was caught on camera in the US Capitol?

 

On Friday investigative journalist Millie Weaver ran into John Sullivan in Washington DC.

She overheard him say he was not being charged.

 

As we reported earlier — and from Millie Weaver — John Sullivan organized a BLM-Antifa event at the Washington Memorial on Wednesday, January 6th.

— then he was seen storming the US Capitol!
How many of his Antifa buddies were with him?

Raheem

 

And now there are reports that the flash bangs started going off at the US Capitol before President Trump was finished with his speech at the Ellipse.

A vast majority of patriots left the Ellipse and went home after President Trump finished his speech.
It was bitterly cold in Washington DC that day.

 

 

CNN even admitted that flashbangs were going off at 1 PM.
President Trump was still speaking at 1 PM!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Commentary by Shane Idleman, CP Guest Contributor

“The wicked freely parade and prance about while evil is praised throughout the land” (Psalm 12:8).

Photo: Shane Idleman

Almost a year ago, I wrote an article with a similar title when the so-called Reproductive Health Act passed in New York with thunderous applause in the state Senate chamber. I could not believe what I was reading: People actually applauded the slaughtering of children. Was I having a dream . . . a nightmare? Was this real?

Regardless of your political views, we should all be heartbroken at the state of our nation today. For example, by supporting certain candidates, many are cheering that healthy 9-month-old babies can be removed limb-by-limb. You may say, “But I’m not cheering abortion.” If you support those who support it, you are — let that sink in.

You’re also cheering that children can be influenced by transgenderism and be encouraged to change their sex (which is not possible by the way). Cheering that Congress will attempt to remove all male pronouns. The list of insanity that you’re supporting is endless.

Granted, these issues have been in America for years, but there is a huge difference between a politician who encourages perversion and murder, and one who fights against it. And I’m getting very frustrated at those who say, “But the Republicans haven’t done much to stop abortion either.” The reason is that adversaries in the House and Senate have fought for abortion rights. The enemy of our soul has done a great job preventing the shutting down of abortion mills and silencing churches via silent pastors. The view that Republicans haven’t done much is really just an excuse and a straw man argument.

I’m not writing this from a political party standpoint — I’m writing this from a God-fearing standpoint. When human life is devalued, atrocities such as the Holocaust, slavery, sex-trafficking, and abortion occur. God help us when we ignore our calling to confront evil. But how did we get here and what can we do?

The Church Must Be Revived

As I said in my recent sermon and article, both titled, The Great Reset of the Church: In the same way that Jesus warned the lukewarm church in Laodicea, He warns us today: “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot . . . So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.” (See Revelation 3:15-17.)

I believe that the church in America resembles the Laodicean church more than at any other time in our history. Sadly, conviction is replaced with complacency, and God’s glory is often replaced with gimmicks and marketing ploys. Just look at the top sermons viewed on social media today. The preachers are motivational speakers, not voices “crying in the wilderness.” It’s about being bigger and better instead of holier and humble. 

Like many today, the Laodiceans thought that they were in the center of God’s will. They were large, wealthy, and involved in the community. They looked at numbers, but Jesus looked at the heart and said that they were “wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.” His strong words were meant to convict and challenge, not coddle and comfort. In order to confront the massive cultural shift mentioned above, the church must be revived: “Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?” (Psalm 85:6).

Two Primary Areas of Ungodly Influence

How did we get here? A deathlike, deep slumber, has overtaken the church and God has allowed the complete breakdown of society. The beacon of light has faded, the salt has lost its savor, and the message of the cross has been edited out of most sermons. We have lost our fervor for the truth. Consider the following and how they may have played a role in where we are today — applauding murder and perversion:

The media is influencing the church. The politically correct police are on high alert. You can mention God as long as you don’t mention His absolute truth. You can mention Jesus as long as He was just a good teacher. And you can embrace religion as long as it’s all-inclusive. Pastors are required to be politically correct rather than biblically correct to be accepted. The trend in churches is to be welcoming, but primarily affirming. Sermons are designed to tickle the ear but not convict the heart. God help us.

Additionally, many Christians enjoy programs about the occult, vampires, witches, zombies, illicit sex, and other perversions of the truth. A Christian should not be entertained by darkness. If we are, our heart needs spiritual resuscitation. “If your sinful nature controls your mind, there is death. But if the Holy Spirit controls your mind, there is life and peace” (Romans 8:6).

The church cannot be political . . . unless it’s “politically correct.” I’m often reminded of God’s words to Jeremiah, “I have not sent these pastors but they ran. I have not spoken to them but they spoke. But had they truly stood in My counsel, they would have turned the people from their evil ways” (paraphrasing Jeremiah 23:21). I agree with Leonard Ravenhill here: “We need more prophets in our pulpits and less puppets.” God uses true prophetic voices to confront and convict.

I make no apologies for the controversial content of this article. When we fail to confront, we confirm. When we fail to confront destructive ideas and philosophies, we are, in essence, confirming them. To state the obvious, we become part of the problem. We cannot change what we will not confront.

As I often say, This battle is for the very soul of our nation. It’s our choice — stand or fall. Watch the video on defending the faith here.

Shane Idleman is the founder and lead pastor of Westside Christian Fellowship in Lancaster, California, just North of Los Angeles. Shane’s sermons, articles, books, and radio program can all be found at shaneidleman.com or wcfav.org. He is the author of Feasting & FastingIf My PeopleDesperate for More of God, and Help! I’m Addicted. Follow him on Facebook at: facebook.com/confusedchurch. You can also follow Pastor Shane on the new free speech platform Parler https://parler.com/profile/ShaneIdleman/posts.


An unlawful assembly was declared in San Diego on Saturday after violence sprang up when a mob of Antifa and Black Lives Matter protesters clashed with Trump supporters during the group’s “Patriot March” in southern California. KSWB-TV photojournalist Paul Makarushka captured the moment when a horde of apparent Antifa members, at least one wielding a baseball bat, converged upon a handful of conservatives.

“[T]rump supporters clash with BLM and antifa on the boardwalk in PB,” Makarushka tweeted. “Heavy police presence some fights and scuffles. Pepper spray etc (not from pd).”

Left Coast Right Watch, a self-described “CA-based news site covering right-wing extremism,” was documenting the chaos on Twitter and gleefully wrote, “Oooooh some Nazis got beat.”

Patrick T. Fallon, staff photojournalist for AFP, documented some of the images of the violent Saturday in San Diego. A shirtless man has an open wound on his face and blood on his shoulder as a group of black bloc comrades are seen in the background. One member of the gang is seen spraying an unidentified liquid from a water gun into the faces of two men. One man was seen with a knife in his hand, “which apparently led to counter-protesters using the bear spray/pepper spray.”

A mob was seen waving an “Antifascist Action” flag and holding a sign that read: “ASHLI BABBITT DESERVED IT.” Ashli Babbitt was the Trump supporter and 14-year Air Force veteran from San Diego who stormed the Capitol building last week and was fatally shot.

There were also many people dressed in all-black waving Black Lives Matter flags.

“Lots of confrontation, pepper spray, chanting, and folks just going to the beach as counter protesters faced off with pro-Trump ‘Patriot March’ demonstrators in #PacificBeach #SanDiego today,” Fallon wrote on Twitter.

Dozens of police officers dressed in riot gear were dispatched to the Pacific Beach boardwalk to stop the unrest.

At around 5:30 p.m., an unlawful assembly was declared by the San Diego Police “due to acts of: Violence.” The San Diego Police Department reported that rioters threw glass bottles, rocks eggs, and other objects at officers. Dissenters also used pepper spray on the cops.

A little after 9 p.m., authorities announced that “All the groups have left the area.” The SDPD has not yet announced any arrests stemming from Saturday’s disorder.

In September, President-elect Joe Biden infamously declared, “Antifa’s an idea.”


Reported by MARY MARGARET OLOHAN, SOCIAL ISSUES REPORTER | January 11, 2021

Read more at https://dailycaller.com/2021/01/11/melania-trump-breaks-silence-capitol-riot/

First Lady Melania Trump broke her silence Monday after the Capitol riot, condemning violence and urging Americans to “listen to one another, focus on what unites us, and rise above what divides us.”

Rioters supporting President Donald Trump stormed the United States capitol Wednesday, committing acts of vandalism and postponing the certification process as members of Congress were forced to evacuate the building. Melania Trump did not comment on these events until Monday when she issued a statement that began by emphasizing how the coronavirus pandemic has wreaked havoc on American lifestyles.

“I am disappointed and disheartened with what happened last week,” she said. “I find it shameful that surrounding these tragic events there has been salacious gossip, unwarranted personal attacks, and false misleading accusations on me – from people who are looking to be relevant and have an agenda. This time is solely about healing our country and its citizens. It should not be used for personal gain.”

“I pray for their families comfort and strength during this difficult time,” she said. (RELATED: Twitter Follows Trump Suspension With Massive ‘Purge’ Of Conservative Accounts)

“I implore people to stop the violence, never make assumptions based on the color of a person’s skin or use differing political ideologies as a basis for aggression and viciousness,” she said. “We must listen to one another, focus on what unites us, and rise above what divides us.”

Melania Trump said it is “inspiring” to see so many Americans show “passion and enthusiasm in participating in an election,”  but urged Americans not to “allow that passion to turn to violence.”

“Our path forward is to come together, find our commonalities, and be the kind and strong people that I know we are,” she said. (RELATED: Five People Died In The Capitol Riot. Here’s What We Know About Them)

“It has been the honor of my lifetime to serve as your First Lady,” she said, nodding to her upcoming departure from the White House. “I want to thank the millions of Americans who supported my husband and me over the past 4 years and shown the incredible impact of the American spirit. I am grateful to you all for letting me serve you on platforms which are dear to me.”

 


House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was confronted Sunday over her efforts to block coronavirus relief last year after she recently attempted to blame Republicans for holding up a second economic relief bill for millions of Americans whose sources of income have been cut by lockdowns and other COVID-related restrictions.

During an interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” Lesley Stahl noted that because Democrats lost so many seats in the House during the last election, Joe Biden’s victory was not a signal that Americans want the Democratic agenda — they simply sought a new president.

In response, Pelosi claimed the election was a mandate that Americans want both the Democratic agenda and a new tone in the White House, adding that she tells Democrats they “have a responsibility to find common ground” with Republicans.

That’s when Stahl confronted Pelosi.

“You yourself are not known as a person who compromises,” Stahl said.

“No, I am. I compromise. We want to get the job done,” Pelosi responded. “I’m mischaracterized by the Republicans that way, but that’s a tactic that they use, but we know we want results for the American people.”

“What about the COVID relief package that was held up for eight months?” Stahl fired back.

“No. But that was their obstruction,” Pelosi claimed.

After more back-and-forth, in which Stahl continued to push back against Pelosi’s claims that Republicans were “obstructing” COVID relief last year, Pelosi eventually admitted that Democrats indeed blocked COVID relief — but bashed Republicans in the process.

“You held out for eight months,” Stahl pointed out.

“No, we held it up,” Pelosi admitted, “because there was no respect for our heroes, our state and local health care workers, police and fire, our first responders, our sanitation, transportation, food workers, our teachers, our teachers, our teachers. They would not go down that path.”

After quickly passing an economic relief package when the pandemic struck last spring, lawmakers were unable to agree on a second bill. House Democrats actually passed a second package in May, but it was summarily rejected by Republicans because it was the most expensive bill in American history. The legislation, which totaled more than $3 trillion, was created without consultation with Republicans and was crammed full of items completely unrelated to the pandemic but that served to advance the Democratic agenda. As the summer wore on the White House, and Republicans in general, tried negotiating with Democrats, but Pelosi refused to make concessions. In fact, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows revealed in October that the White House had compromised so much with Pelosi that the Trump administration actually had agreed to a $1.9 trillion relief package, which never came to fruition.

CNN anchor Jake Tapper confronted Pelosi in October over her obstruction, telling Pelosi matter-of-factly, “I’m looking at all the things that the White House is moving forward to your position on. And it seems like you could take yes for an answer.”

Then, after Biden won the election, Pelosi said she was happy to negotiate a smaller COVID relief bill because a Democrat would soon be in the White House.


A.F. Branco Cartoon – Hang Em’ High-Tech

Google, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, and Apple all are out to destroy the opposition’s freedom of speech in America.

Ending Free SpeechPolitical cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2020.
Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated – $1.00 –  $5.00 –  $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 –  it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!

A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and shared by President Donald Trump.



Written by John Daniel Davidson  JANUARY 8, 2021

Media Outrage Over Capitol Riot Isn’t About Defending Democracy, It’s About Wielding Power

After the pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Twitter blue-checks, politicians, and elite corporate journalists wailed and rent their garments in outrage. But they weren’t really outraged.

Yes, the breach of the capitol was appalling and disturbing. Most people didn’t see it coming and were understandably shocked when images of MAGA bros fighting capitol police began popping up on social media (although the authorities should have been better prepared, most of all D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, who had earlier rejected offers of additional law enforcement.) There’s no question the protesters who decided to riot should be prosecuted, as all rioters everywhere should be.

But elite outrage is not really about what happened at the capitol—about the “sacred citadel of our democracy being defiled” and so on. The outrage, like almost all expressions of righteous indignation from our elites in the Trump era, is performative. It is in service of a larger purpose that has nothing to do with the peaceful transfer of power and everything to do with the wielding of power.

Specifically, it’s about punishing supporters of President Trump. If the pro-Trump mob can be depicted as “terrorists” and “traitors,” then there’s almost nothing we shouldn’t do to silence them. Right? Rick Klein, the political director at ABC News, said the quiet part out loud on Thursday when he mused (in a now-deleted tweet) that getting rid of Trump is “the easy part” and the more difficult task will be “cleansing the movement he commands.”

That’s not the kind of language you use when you’re in the business of reporting the news. It’s the kind of language you use when you’re in the business of social control.

A lot of people on the right have noted the supposed hypocrisy of media elites like Klein, but it’s not really hypocrisy because Klein and his comrades don’t really have a problem with violent mobs storming into buildings and smashing windows, so long as they agree with the mob’s agenda. That’s why corporate media was so tolerant of much larger and more dangerous mobs destroying American cities for months on end last year. When Black Lives Matter rioters stormed city halls and police stations, burned down churches, and ransacked shopping districts in major U.S. cities, killing dozens and destroying livelihoods, the media offered support for the rioters’ cause, which they invoked time and again to justify their criminal acts.

That’s why CNN’s Chris Cuomo said, “Please, show me where it says protesters are supposed to be polite and peaceful.” That’s why his colleague, Don Lemon, compared the riots to the Boston Tea Party, saying, “This is how our country started.”

That’s why Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez argued “the whole point of protesting is to make ppl uncomfortable.” That’s why incoming Vice President Kamala Harris urged her supporters to contribute to a fund to pay bail for militant anarchists who set fire to Minneapolis. That’s why reporters at MSNBC and CNN described fiery, riotous scenes as “mostly peaceful protests”—sometimes while buildings and cars burned in the background.

As my colleague Tristan Justice recently chronicled, this default posture of support for the riots was pervasive in the media. GQ, Slate, Mother Jones, Time Magazine, Vox, The New York Times, NPR—all of them ran news stories, analyses, and columns justifying the violence, praising the rioters, and mulling over the deeper meaning of it all. Condemnations were few and attenuated.

They won’t do that about the pro-Trump rioters at the capitol. In his monologue Wednesday night, Tucker Carlson made the good point that we have to find a way through our political divisions and this moment of crisis. Above all, we have to learn to live together.

There’s no option to peacefully divide and go our separate ways, so if we want to fix this, he said, we need to try to understand why Ashli Babbitt, the woman who was shot and killed in the capitol, was there in the first place. What was she doing there?

Our elites—in the media, in corporate America, in politics—have no interest in that question. They don’t want to understand people like Babbitt because they don’t actually want to share a republic with them. To paraphrase Rick Klein of ABC News, they want to cleanse the country of Trump supporters, period.

It won’t be easy. Trump’s supporters aren’t just going to disappear because Anderson Cooper thinks they’re gross. Plenty of media people, along with plenty of Democratic leaders, spent Wednesday and Thursday arguing that Trump gave the protesters the idea to storm the capitol, that he egged them on and incited them.

But the media, which sowed the wind all year long with loose talk about riots, did far more to bring down the whirlwind on Wednesday than Trump did. When you argue for months and months that there’s nothing wrong with rioting or mob action or fighting with the police, and that we have to try to understand the rioters and their complaints, don’t be surprised if a certain segment of the population takes you at your word.

None of this is to excuse or defend the people who stormed the capitol. Like the mobs that stormed through American cities this spring and summer, they should have been stopped—by force, if necessary. Turns out Sen. Tom Cotton was right all along.

But it is to say that both groups were motivated by strongly held beliefs that, in their minds, justified rioting. In the case of Black Lives Matter and Antifa, it was the belief that America is in the throes of white supremacy and systemic racism, and that police kill disproportionate numbers of black people. In the case of the pro-Trump mob at the capitol, it was the belief that the election was stolen, rigged, fraudulent, and that no one would listen to them or take them seriously.

I happen to think both these sets of claims, on the BLM side and the Trump side, are misguided and wrong. But not our media elites. They are squarely on the side of the BLM mob and against the pro-Trump mob, and they have zero interest in trying to understand why all those people showed up at the Capitol on a Wednesday in January.

They do, however, have a keen interest in cracking down on the wrong kind of mob. Their outrage isn’t just a performance or a pose. It’s also a mask hiding something worse than hypocrisy: anticipation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
John is the Political Editor at The Federalist. Follow him on Twitter.
Photo Emily Jashinsky

Wednesday afternoon, angry, unarmed, mostly peaceful protesters stormed the Capitol. They caused hundreds of dollars in damages to “The People’s House,” the taxpayer-funded building where elected lawmakers work.

They took pictures seated at Nancy Pelosi’s desk. They shoved furniture out of place. They pushed their way past unprepared and overwhelmed law enforcement. They shattered a window or two.

If not for police shooting and killing an unarmed, female 14-year Air Force veteran, the protest staged by Trump supporters would have more in common with a 1950s fraternity panty raid than political riot.

Here, I guess, I should apologize for not joining the rest of the media in feigning outrage and calling for the trespassers to be tried for treason. But I’m neither outraged nor feeling vengeful because of their act of civil disobedience.

I understand it. It was an inevitable repercussion from 2020 and what we’ve all witnessed the last decade. It was Sir Isaac Newton’s third law come to life.

“For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

For four years now, the billionaire and millionaire elites who control academia, the mainstream media, politics, popular culture, and the sports world have framed Trump supporters as racist deplorables worthy of elimination from society.

These same elites spent the past decade elevating Michael Brown, George Floyd, Jacob Blake, Rayshard Brooks, Eric Garner, and other resisting criminal suspects to icon status while simultaneously raising bail money for protesters willing to riot, loot, burn, and vandalize in the name of racial justice.

This blatant hypocrisy will not go unchallenged. You cannot ignore the desires, concerns and feelings of 74 million citizens. You cannot write them off as Nazis and answer all their complaints with allegations of racism or sexism. That’s fascism.

At this point, the Deplorables should be commended for their restraint. Antifa and Black Lives Matter search, burn, and destroy well into the wee hours. The Deplorables returned to their hotel rooms by nightfall and watched our lawmakers return to work inside the Capitol by 8 p.m.

The critics say President Trump provoked Wednesday’s political “violence.” His refusal to concede a corrupt election baited his followers to overrun the Capitol with flags, put Ashli Babbitt in harm’s way, and do enough property damage to delay the Electoral College confirmation three or four hours.

Fine. Guilty as charged.

But our president for the next two weeks was not Lee Harvey Oswald, a lone provocateur. He had plenty of collaborators. They work on all the major and cable news and sports networks. They play in the NFL and NBA. They represent both political parties, hold high positions in Hollywood, at Netflix, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

The people wagging their fingers the hardest at Trump and the Deplorables sanctioned, financed, and promoted political violence throughout all of 2020 and for much of the past decade.

Ashli Babbitt’s blood is on the hands of Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg as much as, if not more than, on President Trump’s. That’s why Dorsey and Zuckerberg rushed to silence Trump on their respective platforms, Twitter and Facebook.

Political tension and violence are fomented, planned, and monetized on Silicon Valley’s social media platforms. Wednesday’s “violence” hit the wrong target. The Capitol is where global elites exchange cash for influence and privilege. It’s where $150,000-a-year politicians become multimillionaires building cozy relationships with Big Tech lobbyists and American corporations looking to curry favor with China.

The Capitol is sacred ground for elites. The way you might revere a church edifice is the way millionaires and billionaires revere the Capitol.

The NBA multimillionaires said they played with “heavy hearts” Wednesday night after seeing the Capitol desecrated. They made twisted, illogical analogies between nonviolent civil disobedience and the rioting, looting, and violence that occurred in Minneapolis, Atlanta, Kenosha, and across this country all summer.

“It reminds me of what Dr. Martin Luther King has said, that there’s two split different Americas,” Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown told reporters. “In one America, you get killed by sleeping in your car, selling cigarettes or playing in your backyard. And then in another America, you get to storm the Capitol and no tear gas, no massive arrests, none of that.”

Brown is right. There are two different American realities. There’s the false reality world created by and for elites and their groupies. In this world, progressive elites feign concern for poor black people by championing the cause of a tiny handful of black resisting criminal suspects harmed by white police officers tasked with subduing them. The elites have no interest in the thousands of black men and boys killed annually due to random gang, street, and drug violence. Those black lives do not matter. Progressive elites live inside a social media matrix where they call the Crips and the Bloods to protect them from the police.

The rest of America lives in an alternate universe driven, at least partially, by reality, facts, and common sense. We don’t see the norms of Western Civilization as the root of all evil. We have no interest in disrupting the nuclear family. We don’t think the storming of the Capitol is analogous to the months of looting, arson, shooting, rioting, and anarchy we watched throughout 2020.

Philadelphia 76ers coach Doc Rivers, a man I greatly respect, lives in a different reality than I do. His interpretation of Wednesday’s chaos baffles me.

“No police dogs turned on people, no billy clubs hitting people. People peacefully being escorted out of the Capitol,” Rivers told reporters Wednesday. “So it shows you can peacefully disperse a crowd. It basically proves a point about a privileged life in a lot of ways. I will say it, because I don’t think a lot of people want to: Can you imagine [Wednesday], if those were all black people storming the Capitol, and what would have happened? That, to me, is a picture worth a thousand words for all of us to see, and probably something for us to reckon with again.”

What is he talking about? We’ve watched buildings burned to the ground this summer. We’ve seen “protesters” prowling the streets of Atlanta with semi-automatic weapons. We’ve seen protesters berate and spit on police officers. David Dorn, a 77-year-old, black retired cop, was assassinated. Parts of Portland have been under attack from Antifa and Black Lives Matter for months.

There have been no dogs, no billy clubs.

We don’t have to imagine how law enforcement would react to black, lawless protesters. It has aired on CNN, MSNBC, and FOX News all summer. The police have been remarkably restrained.

The media, athletes, and celebrities have treated black protesters as heroes. Politicians have taken knees and worn kente cloth to show allegiance with black protesters. Every national sportscaster and head coach has gone along with the facade that police pose a greater threat to black men than black men. We’re inundated with television commercials promoting Black Lives Matter. The NFL has celebrated criminals involved in drive-by shootings. A laundry list of media personalities have taken turns rationalizing every violent, lawless action taken by Antifa or Black Lives Matter. No one cares that George Floyd stuck a gun in a pregnant black woman’s belly or that Jacob Blake sexually assaulted a black woman. The New York Times commissioned a group of black female reporters to rewrite American history to fit the narrative of the critical race theory taught at our academic institutions.

The concerns propagandized by the ministers of black victimhood are a high priority in American society. Sinners are excommunicated from their employment. There is so much money, fame, and adulation from joining the Church of Black Victimization that white people such as Shaun King and Rachel Dolezal have disavowed their natural heritage to identify as black.

A Trump supporter? He or she is an American pariah. A racist. A coon. An idiot. A sellout. Someone to be silenced or ignored.

Trump supporters will not go away quietly or peacefully. It’s their country, too. Their concerns are legitimate. The lawmakers they chased to the basement of the Capitol sold out the American working-class man and woman.

They sold out my mom and dad and the way of life that allowed me to rise from poverty to a life of comfort and privilege. My dad was a small businessman in Indianapolis who owned a tavern that catered to hourly, union factory workers. My mother was a factory worker in Indianapolis and Kansas City.

The black people I grew up with, the ones who frequented the Masterpiece Lounge and went on bowling trips with my mom, were not global citizens. They were hardworking high school graduates who wanted their kids to move up the economic and social ladder.

They had a lot in common with Trump supporters. We can’t see that common ground now because the mainstream media and social media have us so irrationally polarized that we think skin color explains everything.

Skin color does not explain the Trump phenomenon, the passion of his followers. Trumpism is rooted in a rejection of the elitism, idolatry, and secularism pervasive in modern American culture.

In September 1620 — four hundred years ago — 102 passengers boarded the Mayflower, fleeing southern England and the elitist society constructed there. They were the original Trumpers, the dregs of European society in search of freedom of religion and expression.

Trumpism is the cry of American citizens uninterested in adopting the cultures and customs of France, China, Italy, Cuba, Venezuela, Canada, or any of the other places global elites romanticize. Trumpism is the cry of the working class who believe the Big Tech billionaires are building an America that cuts them out of the American Dream. Trumpism is the cry of Americans who value authenticity over the fraudulence of political correctness.

The price of ignoring their cries will be war, a civil war.


Reported By EMILY CRANE and LAUREN FRUEN FOR DAILYMAIL.COM | 

Read more at https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9127013/Senate-balcony-swinging-MAGA-mob-rioter-begs-forgiveness.html

The MAGA mob rioter who was pictured swinging from the Senate balcony is now begging for forgiveness because he just got ‘caught up in the moment’, while a data-analytics CEO arrested for his involvement says it was the ‘single worst’ decision of his life.

Several Trump supporters who stormed the US Capitol on Wednesday are now expressing their regret as authorities continue to arrest those involved in the rampage that lawmakers have branded a ‘terrorist attack’.

More than 80 have been arrested so far but dozens of those involved, who were labeled as ‘great patriots by Trump, are yet to be identified. The FBI is asking for help in trying to track them down.

Josiah Colt, a 34-year-old who runs his own digital marketing firm in Boise, Idaho, is among those who have apologized in the wake of the violent siege after he was identified as the rioter hanging from the balcony. He was not among those arrested as of Friday morning.

The infamous image of him dangling from the balcony after Trump supporters forced their way into the Capitol quickly went viral around the world as the chaotic scenes unfolded.

Colt, who bragged on social media after the rampage saying ‘I’m all over the news now’, says he didn’t cause any damage and claims he told other protesters that the chamber was ‘a sacred place’.

Josiah Colt, a 34-year-old from Boise, Idaho, has been identified as the Trump supporter who was pictured swinging from the Senate balcony.  He is among those who have since apologized in the wake of the violent siege

Josiah Colt, a 34-year-old from Boise, Idaho, has been identified as the Trump supporter who was pictured swinging from the Senate balcony.  He is among those who have since apologized in the wake of the violent siege

Colt is pictured here after jumping down from the balcony onto the floor of the Senate chamber. Colt has not been arrested over the siege but said he is speaking with an attorney

Colt is pictured here after jumping down from the balcony onto the floor of the Senate chamber. Colt has not been arrested over the siege but said he is speaking with an attorney

Soon after he jumped from the balcony onto the Senate floor, Colt was pictured standing on the dais inside the Senate chamber where witnesses say he screamed: ‘Trump won that election!’

‘I love America, I love the people, I didn’t hurt anyone and I didn’t cause any damage in the Chamber,’ Colt said in a statement obtained by CBS2 News.

‘I got caught up in the moment and when I saw the door to to the Chamber open, I walked in, hopped down, and sat on the chair. I said my peace then I helped a gentlemen get to safety that was injured then left.

‘While in the Chamber I told the other protesters that this is a sacred place and not to not do any damage. Some of them wanted to trash the place and steal stuff but I told them not to and to leave everything in it’s place. We’re still on sacred ground.

‘And sincerely apologize to the American people. I recognize my actions that have brought shame upon myself, my family, my friends, and my beautiful country. In the moment I thought I was doing the right thing.

‘I realize now that my actions were in appropriate and I beg for forgiveness from America and my home state of Idaho. My intention wasn’t to put a stain on our great Country’s Democratic process.’

Colt has not been arrested over the siege but said he is speaking with an attorney.

Soon after he jumped from the balcony onto the Senate floor, Colt was pictured standing on the dais inside the Senate chamber where witnesses say he screamed: 'Trump won that election!'

Soon after he jumped from the balcony onto the Senate floor, Colt was pictured standing on the dais inside the Senate chamber where witnesses say he screamed: ‘Trump won that election!’

Colt bragged on social media after the rampage saying 'I'm all over the news now'

He has since said he didn't cause any damage and claims he told other protesters that the chamber was 'a sacred place

Colt, who bragged on social media after the rampage saying ‘I’m all over the news now’ (pictured above), says he didn’t cause any damage and claims he told other protesters that the chamber was ‘a sacred place

Bradley Rukstales, who is the CEO of a Chicago-based data analytics firm called Cogensia, is among the rioters who have been arrested by Capitol Police.

The 52-year-old said he regrets his involvement and described it as the ‘single worst personal decision of my life’.

He has since said he had followed hundreds of Trump supporters through the ‘open doors’ of the Capitol to see what was taking place inside.

Bradley Rukstales, who is the CEO of a Chicago-based data analytics firm called Cogensia, is among the rioters who have been arrested by Capitol Police. The 52-year-old said he regrets his involvement and described it as the 'single worst personal decision of my life'

Bradley Rukstales, who is the CEO of a Chicago-based data analytics firm called Cogensia, is among the rioters who have been arrested by Capitol Police. The 52-year-old said he regrets his involvement and described it as the ‘single worst personal decision of my life’

‘In a moment of extremely poor judgment following the January 6 rally in Washington, I followed hundreds of others through an open set of doors to the Capitol building to see what was taking place inside,’ Rukstales said in a statement.

‘I was arrested for the first time in my life and charged with unlawful entry.

‘My decision to enter the Capitol was wrong, and I am deeply regretful to have done so. Without qualification and as a peaceful and law-abiding citizen, I condemn the violence and destruction that took place in Washington.

‘I offer my sincere apologies for my indiscretion, and I deeply regret that my actions have brought embarrassment to my family, colleagues, friends and fellow countrymen.

‘It was the single worst personal decision of my life; I have no excuse for my actions and wish that I could take them back.’

His company, Cogensia, tweeted a statement after Rukstales’ involvement in the siege became known, saying he had been placed on leave.

‘Our CEO, Brad Rukstales participated in the recent Washington DC protests. Those actions were his own and not acting on behalf Cogensia nor do his actions in any way reflect the policies or values of our firm. He has been placed on leave of absence while we assess further.’

Another rioter, who was among those leading the charge up the stairs inside the Capitol, has been identified as Iowa native Doug Jensen.

He was pictured inside the Capitol in a stand-off with police during the siege. Jensen was identified as a person of interest by the Metropolitan Police Department.

Another rioter, who was among those leading the charge up the stairs inside the Capitol, has been identified as Iowa native Doug Jensen. He was pictured inside the Capitol in a stand-off with police during the siege. Jensen was identified as a person of interest by the Metropolitan Police Department

Another rioter, who was among those leading the charge up the stairs inside the Capitol, has been identified as Iowa native Doug Jensen. He was pictured inside the Capitol in a stand-off with police during the siege. Jensen was identified as a person of interest by the Metropolitan Police Department

It comes as the FBI on Friday released a new wanted poster of at least 10 additional MAGA mob rioters they are hunting down.

Federal authorities are seeking the public’s help in tracking down those pictured for making ‘unlawful entry’ into the Capitol building.

The most recent wanted poster is in addition to the dozens the FBI have already said they are trying to track down.

Authorities have already arrested more than 80 rioters who breached the Capitol building, scaled the Senate and House Chambers, vandalized statues, fired tear gas and defaced property.

Fifty-five are being pursued on federal charges, authorities say.

The FBI has released new photos of at least 10 additional MAGA mob rioters they are hunting down after they stormed the US Capitol in the violent siege that left five dead

The FBI has released new photos of at least 10 additional MAGA mob rioters they are hunting down after they stormed the US Capitol in the violent siege that left five dead

The most recent wanted poster is in addition to the dozens the FBI have already said they are trying to track down

The most recent wanted poster is in addition to the dozens the FBI have already said they are trying to track down

Here DailyMail.com breaks down the others who have already been identified:

The ‘QAnon Shaman’ – Jake Angeli

The heavily-tattooed Trump supporter who sported horns, a fur hat and face paint and occupied the Senate dais moments after Vice President Mike Pence delivered his rebuke to Donald Trump has been revealed to be an Arizona-based QAnon believer who used to promote himself as a singer and actor.

Jake Angeli, 32, often known as the QAnon Shaman, has become a fixture at recent right-wing rallies while decked out in his signature attire.

One of his tattoos is said to show the symbol of Wotanism, an acronym for ‘Will of the Aryan Nation.’

Dr Adam Rutherford tweeted: ‘I know this jamiroquoi wannabe muthaf***a is kinda funny but his tattoo is the symbol of Wotanism, which is a Nazi/Odin occult that believes Jews control the government, the Holocaust is exaggerated and champions the 14/88 slogan. He’s a real card-carrying Nazi.’

Angeli was at the front of a group of agitators who broke into the Capitol and faced off with DC police who desperately tried in vain to protect the establishment.

He then made his way into the Senate chamber where he was seen shouting and posing for photos.

Angeli flexed his left arm as he stood behind the dais in the Senate chamber where just moments earlier Vice President Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi had stood.

He was flanked by an American flag and his fellow rioters took photos of him on their smartphones.

The heavily-tattooed Trump supporter, who has become a fixture at recent right-wing rallies decked out in his signature attire, has been identified as Jake Angeli

The heavily-tattooed Trump supporter, who has become a fixture at recent right-wing rallies decked out in his signature attire, has been identified as Jake Angeli

The ‘Qanon Shaman’ was also seen screaming in the chamber and clutching a megaphone.

Angeli has become a prominent figure at pro-Trump rallies, always sporting his signature outfit of fur, horns, face paint and bare chest, where he has spouted off about QAnon conspiracy theories.

Most recently he has been active at Arizona rallies calling for the results of the presidential election to be overturned, after Trump has refused to concede and pushed unfounded claims of voter fraud ever since he lost to Joe Biden.

Angeli has previously admitted his belief in QAnon started after reading conspiracy theories on the internet

 Angeli has previously admitted his belief in QAnon started after reading conspiracy theories on the internet

At a pro-Trump rally at the Arizona State Capitol in February, he held aloft a banner reading ‘Q Sent Me’ in reference to QAnon.

He was also seen at reopen Arizona rallies protesting against lockdowns put in place to slow the spread of COVID-19.

In one photo posted on his Facebook account in November, where he calls himself Yellowstone Wolf, Angeli is seen shaking hands with Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney – who hours before the violence kicked off encouraged supporters to pursue a ‘trial by combat’.

He has also posted about numerous conspiracy theories including a video claiming there is a ‘globalist plot for world domination thru the plandemic & its numerous different agendas’.

Angeli has previously admitted his belief in QAnon started after reading conspiracy theories on the internet.

‘At a certain point, it all clicked in a way,’ he said in an interview in February, reported AZCentral.

‘Oh, my God. I see now the reality of what’s going on.’

QAnon is the debunked extreme right wing conspiracy theory that claims Satan-worshipping pedophiles are plotting against Trump and are running a global child sex trafficking ring.

An undated profile for Angeli on Backstage.com shows the 32-year-old was a singer, screenwriter and actor.

Barnett has also bought into Trump’s unfounded claims that the election has been ‘stolen’ from him and has been spotted at other Stop The Steal rallies including one in Bentonville in November.

The longtime Arizona QAnon supporter dressed in fur and a horned helmet, was among the violent mob of Donald Trump supporters who stormed the US Capitol Wednesday

The longtime Arizona QAnon supporter dressed in fur and a horned helmet, was among the violent mob of Donald Trump supporters who stormed the US Capitol Wednesday

Florida firefighter – Andy Williams

Andy Williams was identified among the MAGA mob after a photo posted on social media showed him posing below a sign for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office. 

He wore a trucker cap emblazoned with Trump’s campaign logo, along with a hydration backpack and a mask pushed under his chin. 

Williams has served as a firefighter in Sanford, Florida, since 2016, department spokesperson Bianca Gillett confirmed.

He has been placed on leave pending an investigation by the city, Gillett said.

Andy Williams was identified among the MAGA mob after a photo posted on social media showed him posing below a sign for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office

Andy Williams was identified among the MAGA mob after a photo posted on social media showed him posing below a sign for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office

‘Baby Lives Matter’ founder Tayler Hansen

Tayler Hansen, who founded an anti-abortion group called Baby Lives Matter, identifies himself as an independent journalist.

He was linked to Wednesday’s turmoil after posted a graphic video on Instagram which showed the aftermath of a shooting that left female protester Ashli Babbit of San Diego dead.

Babbit, 35, was reportedly shot by Capitol Police as she tried to climb through a window protesters had broken in an effort to get inside congressional chambers.

Hansen posted on Twitter Wednesday night: ‘After Ashli was killed outside the chamber doors— Our elected officials went back to work hours later as if it were nothing, these people don’t represent us. They are EVIL. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you’ll realize how much trouble our Country is in.’

Tayler Hansen, who founded an anti-abortion group called Baby Lives Matter, identifies himself as an independent journalist

He was linked to Wednesday's turmoil after posted a graphic video on Instagram which showed the aftermath of a shooting that left female protester Ashli Babbit of San Diego dead

Tayler Hansen, who founded an anti-abortion group called Baby Lives Matter, identifies himself as an independent journalist. He was linked to Wednesday’s turmoil after posted a graphic video on Instagram which showed the aftermath of a shooting that left female protester Ashli Babbit of San Diego dead

Adam Johnson – The stay-at-home dad who stole Pelosi’s lectern

The looter who smiled for a photo as he made off with a lectern has been identified as Adam Johnson – a psychology graduate turned furniture maker from Bradenton, Florida.

He is a stay-at-home dad to five children; his wife is a doctor, according to The Bradenton Herald. He has previously faced possession of marijuana and violation of probation charges, the paper reports.

Photos on his now-deleted social media accounts show him posing next to a sign reading ‘closed to all tours’ inside the building.

Johnson, 36, who was pictured inside the Capitol making off with a lectern, appears to have removed his social media platforms in the aftermath of the siege.

Another looter who smiled for a photo as he made off with a lectern has been named as Adam Johnson - a psychology graduate from Bradenton, Florida

Another looter who smiled for a photo as he made off with a lectern has been named as Adam Johnson – a psychology graduate from Bradenton, Florida

Photos on his now-deleted social media accounts show him posing next to a sign reading 'closed to all tours' inside the building

Photos on his now-deleted social media accounts show him posing next to a sign reading ‘closed to all tours’ inside the building

Johnson, who was pictured inside the Capitol making off with a lectern, appears to have removed his social media platforms in the aftermath of the siege

Johnson, who was pictured inside the Capitol making off with a lectern, appears to have removed his social media platforms in the aftermath of the siege

Johnson shared images of himself sporting MAGA hats and sinking beers as he wrote that he had 'made it to DC' Tuesday - the day before the siege

Johnson shared images of himself sporting MAGA hats and sinking beers as he wrote that he had ‘made it to DC’ Tuesday – the day before the siege

Brooklyn Supreme Court judge’s son – Aaron Mostofsky

Aaron Mostofsky was pictured Wednesday walking down the stairs outside the Senate Chamber dressed in fur pelts and a bullet proof vest and carrying a wooden walking stick. 

He is the son of Shlomo Mostofsky, a Brooklyn Supreme Court judge, Gothamist reports. 

Mostofsky was seen walking just ahead of a man carrying the confederate flag. He told The New York Post: ‘The election was stolen.’ He had refused to give the paper his name but said he found the riot shield on the floor. 

His brother, Nachman Mostofsky, who also attended the rally but said he did not enter the Capitol building said his brother ‘did nothing illegal’ and ‘was pushed inside’. 

Aaron Mostofsky was pictured Wednesday walking down the stairs outside the Senate Chamber dressed in fur pelts and a bullet proof vest and carrying a wooden walking stick

Aaron Mostofsky was pictured Wednesday walking down the stairs outside the Senate Chamber dressed in fur pelts and a bullet proof vest and carrying a wooden walking stick

Organizer of a Trump boat parade – Kristina Malimon

The organizer of a Trump boat parade was also named as one of those arrested Wednesday. 

Kristina Malimon, 28, was arrested along with her mother, 54-year-old Yevgeniya Malimon. They both now face charges of unlawful entry and violating curfew, Buzzfeed reports. 

The younger Malimon helped to organize the event in Portland Oregon in August which resulted in a boat sinking.

She is also affiliated with the Young Republicans of Oregon and Turning Point USA.  

Kristina Malimon, 28, was arrested along with her mother, 54-year-old Yevgeniya Malimon, according to reports

Kristina Malimon, 28, was arrested along with her mother, 54-year-old Yevgeniya Malimon, according to reports

Kristina Malimon, 28, was arrested Wednesday

The younger Malimon helped to organize the event in Portland Oregon in August which resulted in a boat sinking. She is also affiliated with the Young Republicans of Oregon and Turning Point USA

Kristina Malimon, 28, was arrested along with her mother, 54-year-old Yevgeniya Malimon. They both now face charges of unlawful entry and violating curfew, Buzzfeed reports. The younger Malimon helped to organize the event in Portland Oregon in August which resulted in a boat sinking. She is also affiliated with the Young Republicans of Oregon and Turning Point USA.

Navistar Direct Marketing employee

A Maryland marketing company on Thursday fired a pro Trump rioter who was seen walking through the Capitol with his work pass hanging around his neck.

Navistar Direct Marketing issued a statement Thursday which read: ‘Navistar Direct Marketing was made aware that a man wearing a Navistar company badge was seen inside the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 during the security breach.

‘After review of the photographic evidence the employee in question has been terminated for cause.’

The unidentified employee was pictured inside the Capitol building Wednesday.

‘While we support all employee’s right to peaceful, lawful exercise of free speech, any employee demonstrating dangerous conduct that endangers the health and safety of others will no longer have an employment opportunity with Navistar Direct Marketing,’ the company added.

Several images of the worker show him alongside Angeli.

A Maryland marketing company has fired a pro Trump rioter who walked through the Capitol with his work pass hanging around his neck on Wednesday

A Maryland marketing company has fired a pro Trump rioter who walked through the Capitol with his work pass hanging around his neck on Wednesday

Angeli leads a mob of supporters breaking into the Capitol Wednesday night causing lawmakers to evacuate the chambers

Angeli leads a mob of supporters breaking into the Capitol Wednesday night causing lawmakers to evacuate the chambers

Richard ‘Bigo’ Barnett 

Meanwhile, the insurrectionist who brazenly put his feet on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk in her office is now known to be a 60-year-old Arkansas man who claims he will run for Arkansas governor in 2022 and describes himself as a white nationalist online.

Richard ‘Bigo’ Barnett boasted outside the Capitol following the siege that he ‘wrote [Pelosi] a nasty note, put my feet up on her desk and scratched my balls’.

A photo from Pelosi’s office showed another threatening note on her desk reading ‘we will not back down’.

Meanwhile, in Pelosi’s office, Barnett posed for a photo reclining in the House Speaker’s chair before he later returned to the crowd of supporters outside and flashed a hand-written envelope he had looted.

It later emerged Barnett is an independent contractor and was the recipient of a $9,300 PPP loan as part of a COVID relief package, The Daily Dot reports.

In Pelosi's office, 60-year-old Barnett posed for a photo reclining in the House Speaker's chair before he later returned to the crowd of supporters outside and flashed a hand-written envelope he had looted

In Pelosi’s office, 60-year-old Barnett posed for a photo reclining in the House Speaker’s chair before he later returned to the crowd of supporters outside and flashed a hand-written envelope he had looted

Barnett has also bought into Trump's unfounded claims that the election has been 'stole' from him and has been spotted at other Stop The Steal rallies including one in Bentonville in November

In one selfie on his Facebook page, Barnett is seen posing with a semi-automatic rifle

In one selfie on his Facebook page, Barnett is seen posing with a semi-automatic rifle

Barnett later told the New York Times reporter Matthew Rosenberg he ‘fell’ into Pelosi’s office as he showed off the personalized envelope which was addressed to The Honorable Billy Long and had Pelosi’s signature on it.

‘I didn’t steal it,’ he claimed, saying he ‘left a quarter on her desk’.

‘And I left her a note on her desk that says ‘Nancy Bigo was here you b**ch’.’

He also denied storming her office, claiming he politely knocked on her office door and was pushed in by other protesters.

‘I’ll probably be telling them this is what happened all the way to the DC jail,’ he said.

In a November post on Facebook, where he goes by the alias George Reincarnated Patton, Barnett claimed he will run for governor of Arkansas in 2022 saying he will ‘be running on the COMMON SENSE platform’.

He has also shared images of the Gadsden flag snake – which is regarded as a racist symbol – and boasts of being a white nationalist.

In several photos, he is seen posing with semi-automatic rifles.

Baked Alaska, real name Tim Gionet 

Another of the mob was Tim Gionet, an online personality known as Baked Alaska who is described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a white nationalist who was involved in the far-right Charlottesville rally in 2017.

Gionet posted video that showed Trump supporters in ‘Make America Great Again’ and ‘God Bless Trump’ hats milling around and taking selfies with officers who calmly asked them to leave the premises.

The Trump supporters talked among themselves, laughed, and told the officers and each other: ‘This is only the beginning.’

Gionet, who had his YouTube channel banned in 2020, is said to have attended the rally Wednesday after telling followers on January 4 that he had testing positive for COVID-19, The Daily Dot reports. He can be seen in pictures without a mask.

It is not clear when he tested positive for the virus or if he was tested before the rally.

Another of the mob was Tim Gionet, an online personality known as Baked Alaska who is described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a white nationalist who was involved in the far-right Charlottesville rally in 2017

Another of the mob was Tim Gionet, an online personality known as Baked Alaska who is described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a white nationalist who was involved in the far-right Charlottesville rally in 2017

Donald Trump signs the tattooed arm of Tim Gionet, an online personality known as Baked Alaska, in 2016

Donald Trump signs the tattooed arm of Tim Gionet, an online personality known as Baked Alaska, in 2016

Rick Saccone, former state lawmaker in Pennsylvania

Even elected politicians were part of the mob.

Rick Saccone, who ran for a U.S. House seat in 2018 and was once a state lawmaker in Pennsylvania, bragged on Facebook that ‘we are storming the Capitol’ and that ‘our vanguard has broken through the barricades’.

Saccone also told his followers: ‘We are trying to run out all the evil people and RINOs that have betrayed our president. We are going to run them out of their offices.’

He later deleted that post but not before it was seen by his followers, CBS reports.

He added: ‘Hello Mr. President, we love you. Keep doing what you’re doing. We’re with you. Until next time, in God we trust.’

Rick Saccone, who ran for a U.S. House seat in 2018 and was once a se lawmaker in Pennsylvania, posted this picture

Even elected politicians were part of the mob. Rick Saccone, who ran for a U.S. House seat in 2018 and was once a state lawmaker in Pennsylvania, bragged on Facebook that 'we are storming the Capitol'

Even elected politicians were part of the mob. Rick Saccone, who ran for a U.S. House seat in 2018 and was once a state lawmaker in Pennsylvania, bragged on Facebook that ‘we are storming the Capitol’

In a later Facebook post Saccone said: ‘I see some people are twisting the peaceful protest into something else. Everyone from our group was involved in peaceful, first amendment assembly. It was part of the metaphor to storm the castle so to speak.

‘People that I heard breached some barricades to reach the steps to wave flags. Some carried a huge American flag up the steps which drew a loud roar of approval from the crowd. No one I no of intended or condones any violence unlike those on the left. Did not see any violence but did see some smoke what some said was tear gas being sprayed at people.

‘I cannot imagine anyone being shot for a trespass. The punishment for trespass is not death. My heart goes out to the young lady who was shot. Again, these were hundreds of thousands of peaceful protestors, especially those from Pa. What do you think?’

Derrick Evans 

Derrick Evans, a member of West Virginia's House of Delegates, streamed live footage from the Capitol Wednesday

Derrick Evans, a member of West Virginia’s House of Delegates, streamed live footage from the Capitol Wednesday

Derrick Evans, a member of West Virginia’s House of Delegates, streamed live footage from the Capitol as he joined in the march. He later claimed he was ‘simply there as an independent member of the media’.

Evans, who calls himself an activist online, later deleted the footage showing him rushing inside with the mob.

Paul Davis livestreamed from outside the Capitol; he was later fired from his job

Paul Davis livestreamed from outside the Capitol; he was later fired from his job

‘We’re going in,’ he tells followers.

In other clips he could be heard chanting ‘stop the steal’, The New York Times reports.

Joshua Pruitt, Proud Boy 

Joshua Pruitt is the only person arrested on a felony charge of violating the Riot Act so far, according to the city’s arrest sheet.

The 39-year-old was taken into custody at the Capitol building.

He is reported to have links to the Proud Boy movement, CNN states.

Paul Davis, lawyer fired from his job 

Paul Davis livestreamed from outside the Capitol to his followers online.

He is understood to have been fired from his job at Goosehead Insurance as a result.

A spokesman for the company told DailyMail.com: ‘His actions are not a representation of or supported by Goosehead in any way.

‘He is no longer employed by Goosehead, An official statement will be released.’

Davis later posted to Instagram saying: ‘For those of you claiming I was trying to ‘storm the Capitol,’ it’s obvious from my entire story that I was peacefully demonstrating. They gassed the entire crowd that was standing there with me. I was not trying to break in. Was just talking to the police officers and praying over them.’

Jon Schaffer, heavy metal musician

Jon Schaffer, the guitarist in heavy metal band Iced Earth was also pictured breaching the Capitol Wednesday, LouderSound.com reports. 

Schaffer, 52, warned in an interview last year: ‘They will go down. They’re messing with the wrong people, believe me.’

Jon Schaffer, the guitarist in heavy metal band Iced Earth, was also said to have been pictured breaching the Capitol, right in the blue sweatshirt

Jon Schaffer, the guitarist in heavy metal band Iced Earth, was also said to have been pictured breaching the Capitol, right in the blue sweatshirt

Leigh Ann Luck 

Outside the chaos in the capitol, another vocal Trump supporter Leigh Ann Luck, dressed up as the Statue of Liberty as she shouted in protest against Biden’s victory.  

Outside the chaos in the capitol, another vocal Trump supporter Leigh Ann Luck, dressed up as the Statue of Liberty as she shouted in protest against Biden's victory

Outside the chaos in the capitol, another vocal Trump supporter Leigh Ann Luck, dressed up as the Statue of Liberty as she shouted in protest against Biden’s victory

Leigh Ann Luck dressed up as Statue of Liberty poses for a picture as supporters of Donald Trump protested Biden's victory

Leigh Ann Luck dressed up as Statue of Liberty poses for a picture as supporters of Donald Trump protested Biden’s victory


Reported By Cristina Laila | Published January 8, 2021

The FBI arrested a West Virginia lawmaker on Friday for entering the Capitol building on Wednesday. West Virginia Delegate Derrick Evans was taken into federal custody on Friday and charged with entering a restricted area of the US Capitol after he livestreamed himself running into the building.

According to WSLS, Evans’s lawyer says the lawmaker has not yet resigned, however Democrats and Republicans are calling for him to be expelled.

Derrick Evans was seen getting cuffed and being escorted by FBI agents from a home in West Virginia.

WATCH:

The FBI wasted no time hunting down Trump supporters and others who entered the Capitol building this week. The FBI compiled a MAGA most wanted list and unleashed the might of the nation’s premiere law enforcement agencies to arrest and charge them.

The man who was photographed with his feet on Speaker Pelosi’s desk was arrested in Arkansas on Friday.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Reported By Joe Hoft | Published January 7, 2021

Trump Supporters at the Capitol yesterday’s event in Washington DC told people to stop damaging property. For some reason Big Media doesn’t want to report this.

Yesterday after the President spoke in Washington, the million or so followers of the President marched to the Capitol.  This is when some individuals in the crowd started damaging the Capitol building. When this occurred, the Trump supporters in the crowd starting yelling at them and telling them to stop. Former New York City Police Chief noted this in a tweet:

Trump supporter Melissa Tate also reported this event:

Big Media won’t report on this but it is the truth.  They have been trying to align the Trump team with violence and facists since the future President came down the escalator in 2015.  This never was true.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Commentary by EDITORIAL BOARD, CONTRIBUTOR | January 06, 2021

Read more at https://dailycaller.com/2021/01/06/editorial-board-patriots-do-not-storm-their-nations-capitol/

Patriots do not storm their own Capitol over a lost election. They do not bum rush members of Congress. They do not assault strangers. They do not push and shove police officers and trash federal buildings. These are things criminals do, and criminals of any political stripe deserve one thing: the rule of law.

As this summer’s political protests escalated into rioting and lawlessness, many of us pointed out how unacceptable that was for any reason. This situation is no different. Every single one of the people who stormed that building and participated in that rank, un-American lawlessness should be in jail. There are prodigious photos and video evidence. Law enforcement officials should find them and prosecute them, all of them, no exceptions.

The left excused this summer’s rioting as “mostly peaceful.” The same could be said of the events in Washington. It’s irrelevant. “Mostly” is not the standard to which we should aspire. Political violence is wrong. Period. This was true in 2016 when the #NotMyPresident rioters disrupted the Trump Inaugural and it’s true today. Rule of law is an essential element of our peaceful transition of power. The people who stormed that building do not represent the vast majority of America.


Reported by DAVID KRAYDEN, OTTAWA BUREAU CHIEF | January 07, 2021

Read more at https://dailycaller.com/2021/01/07/not-sure-trey-gowdy-not-certain-republican-party-stands-for-riot/

Former Republican South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy said Thursday that he’s “not real sure anymore” what the Republican Party “stands for” as he blamed President Donald Trump for the Capitol riot Wednesday.

“If you really wanted to ask me a tough question, ask me what the Republican Party stands for,” Gowdy told Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom.”

“It used to be law and order, it used to be things I could rattle off for you. I’m not real sure anymore.” (RELATED: Jonathan Turley Says Removing Trump With The 25th Amendment Is ‘Extremely Unlikely’ But ‘Can Happen’)

Gowdy said he did not know what role, if any, Trump would continue to play in the Republican Party but suggested the president incited the riot.

“Did you listen to the president’s speech yesterday?” Gowdy asked Fox News host Sandra Smith.

“Then you tell me. Who said that? Who said go fight? Who blamed Mike Pence and blamed Republicans and said the election was stolen?” Gowdy asked.

Gowdy joins other prominent Republicans who have chastised Trump for the destruction and violence. There have been calls to impeach Trump after rioters stormed the Capitol building, bringing chaos and violence to the Electoral College vote certification proceedings.

Former Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie suggested Trump was to blame for the riots by encouraging his supporters to reject the results of the 2020 presidential election. Republican Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney claimed Trump “lit the flame” of the riot.

Gowdy said people should not blame the police for not reacting swiftly enough to the threat.

“I don’t know how reasonably foreseeable it should be for cops that tens of thousands of people are going to be told to go fight, that an election was stolen from them, to go fight, to blame [Vice President] Mike Pence … and other Republicans,” he said. (RELATED: ‘I’m Distraught’: Freshman GOP Rep Nancy Mace Says Trump’s Legacy Has Been ‘Wiped Out’)

“I can’t tell you what was on the president’s mind. I can tell you that he said ‘let’s march together to the capitol,’” Gowdy continued. “So I don’t blame the cops when tens of thousands of people are told an election was stolen from them and then they decide to scale the walls of the people’s house. I don’t blame the cops for that. I blame the people who did it.”

JANUARY 05, 2021 | JUDICIAL WATCH

Read more at https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-releases/ca-ccp-byd-masks/

‘Our normal procurement process has been deviated from given the exigency of the situation’

‘We could open champagne tomorrow morning at our conference call’

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it received 848 pages of documents revealing the contract materials and communications related to a $1 billion contract for face masks between the California Office of Emergency Services and the Chinese Communist Party linked BYDBYD reportedly has been barred by law from some federal contracts for providing faulty electric vehicles and lithium batteries to American buyers.

The documents reveal that the Office of Emergency Services Assistant Chief Counsel admits that they deviated from their normal procurement process for this contract. Additionally, in the contract between Office of Emergency Services and BYD, BYD uses a different name, Global Healthcare Product Solutions, LLC., and BYD provides no liability or warranty for the masks if they are faulty.

The records were produced in response to a Judicial Watch California Public Records request sent to the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services for all records and communications related to the state’s contract for masks with BYD.

The records include an April 7, 2020, email from the Office of Emergency Services Assistant Chief Counsel Jennifer Bollinger to Oscar Su, Senior Director of BYD America, in which Bollinger states, “Our normal procurement process has been deviated from given the exigency of the situation.”

In an April 6, 2020, email Stella Lu, the president of BYD Motors (the guarantor of the masks) tells Mark Ghilarducci, the director of the Office of Emergency Services that they should, “open champagne tomorrow morning at our conference call,” where they will finalize the purchase by California of $1 billion worth of BYD masks. 

On April 7, John Zhuang, counsel for BYD and BYD’s lead negotiator, sent the finalized contracts to Bollinger, who led the negotiations for the Office of Emergency Services. Bollinger replied, “This is very exciting!!! We will circle back today with the signature as soon as we can.”

In an amendment to the master agreement, BYD had to refund $247 million to California of the $495 million down payment they had received apparently because they weren’t able to meet the deadline of receiving National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) certification for their N95 masks. The certification deadline was extended from April 30, 2020, to May 31, 2020.

On March 28, 2020, Brian Stansbury, a member of the board of the San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System, emailed Grady Joseph of the CA Office of Emergency Services and Paul Teng of Himalaya Capital in order to introduce Joseph to Teng, saying, “Grady as we discussed the pension system for the City of San Francisco – the San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System (SFERS) – reached out to our investment partners to see how they can help in the fight against COVID-19.

Teng responded, offering to assist with the procurement of N95 masks: “Paul I would like to introduce Grady Joseph Assistant Director of Recovery Operations for Cal OES from the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services. We know Grady is in good hands and want to thank you for your partnership.”

Teng later responds, “Hi Grady, nice to meet you through email though I wish it was under better circumstances. We have a deep relationship with BYD which is now the largest mask maker in the world capable of producing 10MM masks a day. I have just facilitated an order between BYD [redacted] to procure 4 MM in N95 masks and 3 MM surgical masks that will be delivered over the next three weeks or so in batches. Happy to make the same connection as well. My number is below if you need to reach me.”  

Brian Stansbury, a member of the board of San Francisco Employees Retirement System (SFERS), introduced Paul Teng of Himalaya Capital (with whom SFERS reportedly had invested $200 million and which Stansbury calls their “investment partners”), to Grady Joseph, Office of Emergency Services Asst. Director Of Recovery Operations to help in the procurement of face masks. Teng tells Joseph that Himalaya has a “deep relationship” with BYD, which he claims, “is now the largest mask maker in the world.” Oscar Su, a BYD executive introduced by Teng to Joseph and another Office of Emergency Services official, responds, “Thanks Paul for the introduction.”

According to the “Equipment Master Supply Purchase Order Agreement” effective April 7, 2020, BYD lists the “Seller” to the State of California as a Wilmington, DE-based company called Global Healthcare Product Solutions, LLC. The contract states that the “Buyer will support the Seller’s efforts to obtain the National Institute for Occupation Safety and Health (“NIOSH”) certification for the N95 masks purchased under this Agreement.” A provision of the contract calls for BYD Motors, a subsidiary of BYD Co, Ltd, to be the Guarantor of the contract, in the event the Seller breached the “Guaranteed Material Obligation” of the contract.

Pursuant to a “Sweatfree Code of Conduct” provision of the contract, the Seller guarantees that no material furnished to the Buyer “have been produced in whole or in part by sweatshop labor, forced labor, convict labor, indentured labor under penal sanction, abusive forms of child labor or exploitation of children in sweatshop labor…” In a “Nondiscrimination” clause of the contract, the Seller agrees to not “unlawfully discriminate” against any employee based on “ancestry” or “religious creed.” The provision also calls for the Seller to adhere to the “Fair Employment and Housing Act.”

California’s Office of Emergency Services had to provide a 50% down payment totaling $495 million (one-half of the total $990 million contract) under the payment terms of the contract.

According to a purchase order, Global Healthcare Product Solutions (the Seller) is a subsidiary of BYD International Development based in Los Angeles. BYD was to supply 300 million N95 masks at a unit price of $3.30 each.

In an April 3, 2020, email exchange between Bollinger and BYD’s counsel, Zhuang, Bollinger asks Zhuang why BYD is using a company called “Global Healthcare Product Solutions, LLC” as the “contracting entity” for the masks. She notes that “I understood this to be a contract directly with BYD North America.” Zhuang then responds, saying, “BYD’s contract manufacturing division started Global Healthcare Product Solutions earlier this year to sell healthcare products in the US … They picked the name because they wanted folks to recognize it as a business that sold healthcare products, not to be conflated with the EV [Electric Vehicle] / clean energy business.”  

In the master agreement, under “Limits of Liability” section, the contract notes that “In no event shall Seller be liable for any consequential, special, incidental, indirect or punitive damages …” In the contract provision titled “Limits on Warranty,” the contract notes that Seller … makes no warranties or representations … as to the Equipment … provided for under this Agreement …” The contract contains a provision that “Seller warrants that no gratuities … were offered or given by the Seller, or any agent or representative of the Seller, to any officer or employee of the Buyer with a view toward securing the Agreement …”

California purchased a total of 300 million N95 masks from BYD for $990 million on April 7, 2020.

In an April 2, 2020, email, Trevor Houser of “Frontline Support” connects multiple BYD and the Office of Emergency Services representatives. Frontline Support shares the same address in Oakland, CA, as Rhodium Group, where Trevor Houser is listed as a partner. Rhodium describes itself as “an independent research provider” combining “economic data and policy insight to analyze global trends.”

In an April 24, 2020, email, Shige Honjo from “Frontline Support” provided advice/directives to BYD on quality control measures for the masks that were to be provided to the Office of Emergency Services, describing various metrics that BYD should supply to ensure that the masks being provided met certain standards. These metrics included, “Product cleanliness spec – number and size of particles allowed, blemish, etc.” and “Reliability specs – when does filtration become no good, how many times can the straps be stretched out, etc.”

The BYD representative in charge of handling shipments of the masks to the Office of Emergency Services is Sean Li, Procurement and Logistic Supervisor of BYD Coach and Bus LLC.

In an email on March 21, 2020, a California lobbyist named Mark Weideman sent Gov. Newsom’s Chief of Staff, Ann O’Leary, a copy of an article about BYD titled “A Chinese Electric Car Maker Backed by Warren Buffett Re-Tooled to Make Face Masks When Covid-19 Hit – Now It Says It’s the World’s Largest Mask Factory.” Weideman says in his email that BYD was willing to “donate” 50,000 masks to California, along with hand sanitizer, and asked if someone could “notify GGN” [presumably Governor Gavin Newsom] so they could “hopefully execute on BYD’s offer to help California, a place they and their unionized workforce call home for their North American operations.” Abby Browning of the Office of Emergency Services responds to Weideman, noting she’d been forwarded his email from O’Leary, and said, “I am happy to help you facilitate this donation.” Weideman replies to Browning, “Yes, address and receiving information would be great. I am copying Frank Girardot and Nancy Liu with BYD who can help coordinate logistics.”

In an April 24, 2020, email exchange among the Office of Emergency Services officials handling delivery of 3.4 million masks from BYD, CA Office of Emergency Services Dep. Director Mitchell Medigovich notes that “The physical count will be at the airport and upon movement into the warehouse for inventory and QC [quality control], we will notify receipt and if there are any deficiencies. We are only checking 1% due to volume.”

“The documents show how a well-connected and controversial Chinese firm was able to get a leg up on a billion-dollar mask contract with California politicians,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.  


Tucker Warns: Do Not Ignore Why Yesterday Happened

Source: AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

Fox News host and longtime journalist Tucker Carlson is roundly condemning violence at the U.S. Capitol Wednesday, but warns the reason behind what happened should not be ignored. 

“Political violence begets political violence. That is always true. It is an iron law, it never changes and we have to be against that. No matter who commits the violence or under what pretext. No matter how many self interested demagogues tell us the violence is justified or necessary as they have been assuring us, lying to us, for the past six months. We have a duty to oppose all of it. Not simply because political violence kills other people’s children, which it does, but because in the end it doesn’t work,” Carlson said. “Our only option as a practical matter is to fix what is causing this in the first place. We don’t have a choice.”

“As horrifying as this moment is, we have no option but to make it better. To gut it out,” he continued. “Why were any of them there today? We ought to think about that. If you want to fix it, you have to think about that. The only reason this country is rich and successful is because for hundreds of years we’ve enjoyed a stable is because it’s democracy. It responds to voters. Democracy is our pressure relief valve. As long as people sincerely believe they can change things by voting, they stay calm. They don’t storm the Bastille, they don’t burst into the House chamber. They talk and they organize and they vote. But the opposite is also true. If people begin to belief that their democracy is fraudulent. If they conclude that voting is a charade, that the system is rigged, that it’s run in secret by a small group of powerful dishonest people that are acting in their own interests, then God knows what could happen. Actually, we do know what could happen. It’s happening right now.”

Watch below:


Commentary by Ann CoulterAnn Coulter | Posted: Jan 06, 2021

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.
The Election Is Over. Here’s the Truth About Trump.

Source: AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

Now that the Georgia runoffs are over, let’s talk about Donald Trump.

When we really needed all hands on deck in Georgia, Trump was a wrecking ball. He went down to Georgia and insulted everyone, refusing to talk about anything but himself. Based on his rally speech this week, Trump apparently thinks he won the November election because there was a red wave for everyone except him. How else could all those Republicans win congressional seats on his “coattails,” while he lost?

There are other ways to interpret the election results, such as that Trump didn’t have any “coattails.” In Texas, for example, Trump won, but Sen. John Cornyn got more votes — the first time a Texas senator has bested a Republican president in a couple of decades.

Maybe Americans are terrified of the Democrats, but also sick of Trump.

From the moment the election was over, Democrats were single-mindedly focused on winning the Georgia runoffs. By contrast, Republicans indulged in their usual circular firing squads, while Trump kept the base distracted with his petulance about the November election. (Yes, the Democrats cheated. They always cheat. Maybe somebody should have done something about it before the election.)

With Republicans facing these two crucial runoffs, Trump was too narcissistic to care about anything but his personal issues, and he busily set landmine after landmine for the candidates. After Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue had triumphantly voted for the coronavirus relief bill, Trump began attacking it as a “disgrace” and ridiculing the paltry $600 individual payments.

Let’s see, who had negotiated this “disgrace” again? Trump’s own Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin. But Trump was too busy denouncing the November election to pay attention to the negotiations. For a week, Trump pretended he wasn’t going to sign the bill. In the end, he signed it, but waited so long to do so that instead of Georgia voters receiving their checks days before the runoff, they’ll be getting their checks sometime later this week.

Fantastic.

Then Trump launched vicious attacks on the (admittedly ridiculous) Georgia governor and secretary of state, blaming them for his loss in the state. Republicans needed every vote in this election, and surely there are some Georgians who prefer those guys to Trump. But Trump forced Loeffler and Perdue to choose between him and their own elected Republican leaders.

It also didn’t help that we’re in the middle of another COVID surge. You can’t blame Trump for the coronavirus, a gift from China to the entire world. Trump did better than most world leaders, especially with Operation Warp Speed. The usual problem with Trump is that he’s all talk, no action. He talked about the massive fraud that would ensue with mail-in ballots … but did nothing. He talked about “LAW & ORDER” as cities burned to the ground … but did nothing. He talked about the wall … but built only about dozen miles of it.

With COVID, it was the reverse. Trump did the right things, but wouldn’t shut up. Worst of all, he talked to Bob Woodward. To Woodward: I could curl your toes with some of the stories about this virus! See, I get these briefings every morning … An hour later to the public: It’s gonna be great. This will be over by Easter.

That’s not a strong leader rallying the country. It’s a con artist telling you to put all your money on a stock that’s about to tank. Worst of all, it shows you who he is that Trump so desperately wanted Woodward to like him and was stupid enough to think he could win him over. For all that, Trump had it all! He won the presidency by running on wildly popular issues that no other candidate would touch. He had devoted followers. For the first two years of his presidency, he had a Republican House and Senate.

     Oh grief that Earth’s best hopes rest all with Thee!

Trump could have been a massively popular president and won reelection comfortably, if only he’d kept faith with his voters. Even people who abhorred him would have had to say, I thought he was a coarse vulgarian, but he was right about China ripping us off, he was right about the border, and he was right about standing up to crazy woke culture.

The 2020 election should have been like Ronald Reagan’s 1984 reelection (49-state landslide). Like Trump, Reagan ran on popular issues left on the ground by other candidates — primarily his vow to destroy the Soviet Union and reignite the economy by slashing government. But — and here’s the big difference — Reagan kept his promises.

Not Trump! Instead — in the greatest bait-and-switch in American history — he promptly turned his presidency over to nimrods Jared and Ivanka, while he watched TV and tweeted. Suddenly, the populist hero was replaced with two idiots, who were all about being friends with the Kardashians and sucking up to Goldman Sachs.

Why don’t we have a wall? Why didn’t Trump impose a tax on remittances to make Mexico pay for it? Why are American workers still training their cheap labor replacements? Answer: Stephen Miller, Trump’s crucial immigration aide during the 2016 campaign, survived his first year in the White House only by convincing Ivanka he was working on “Women’s Issues.” He spent his remaining three years with his nose up Jared’s butt.

We knew about the hucksterism. There was no warning about the kids.

The Republican Party’s only hope is to become a populist party, but without a shallow, narcissistic ignoramus as its head. What is the point of being slavishly loyal to a person who is loyal to no one (except his numbskull kids)? Trump has sold out everyone who was ever faithful to him — Jeff Sessions, Kris Kobach, Chris Christie, Milo Yiannopoulos, Gavin McInnes, the Proud Boys, Corey Lewandowski, Steve Bannon, Rudy Giuliani, and, of course, his own voters. Half of the betrayed are still desperately seeking Trump’s favor by signing onto the futile “Stop the Steal” effort. Not good enough for the administration! But good enough to humiliate themselves in Trump’s final days in office. At the first Stop the Steal rally in Washington, Trump didn’t even show up. He went golfing.

Give up the cult of personality, Trumpsters, or at least find someone with a better personality.


Your daily update of new content from The Federalist
Be lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray
01/07/2021
The Capitol Riot Will Hurt The People Who Were Already Hurting Most
Emily Jashinsky
The Capitol riot will hurt the people who were already hurting most, the decent rally goers continually ignored and smeared, now saddled with the baggage of violence they did not commit.
Georgia Confirms The Pre-Trump GOP Is Dead And Gone
John Daniel Davidson
Trump leaves his party in better shape than his previous two predecessors left theirs, but the GOP is still at war with itself.
If West Point Tolerates Cheating, It Violates Its Own Honor Code
James McDonough
It appears that the belief in widespread dishonesty among American youth has become an excuse to lower standards for the presumed gradual ‘development’ of more recently joined cadets.
28 Times Media And Democrats Excused Or Endorsed Violence Committed By Left-Wing Activists
Tristan Justice
After excusing and ignoring riots from leftists all year, Democrats and their allies in the media are ready to condemn riots now that the turmoil has shifted to fit their narrative.
Spare Me. Biden And Democrats Never Cared About Law And Order
Evita Duffy
What happened Wednesday at the U.S. Capitol was horrifying — but so was Kenosha, Minneapolis, Chaz, and Portland. Joe Biden only denounces violence when it serves him politically.
The Republican Party Must Return To Being The Party America Needs It To Be
Joshua Lawson
The Republican Party of the future cannot — not in the slightest, not tacitly, not cloyingly — encourage grievance or stoke anger.
Capitol Breach ‘Stole From The Hundreds Of Thousands’ Of Peaceful Protesters Concerned About Election Integrity
The Federalist Staff
‘Groups that attacked police officers and [perpetrated] riots and burned buildings have their own park named after them right in front of the White House.’
Capitol Riots Prove Lauren Boebert Is Exactly Right To Carry In Congress
Tristan Justice
The security failures on Capitol Hill served as powerful vindication for Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert pledging to carry her gun to Congress.
Months After Meltdown Over Tom Cotton ‘Send In The Troops’ Op-Ed, New York Times Condemns Capitol Riot
Jordan Davidson
After going to bat for leftist rioters, multiple Times journalists condemned Trump supporter riots and President Trump for not calling in federal law enforcement or condemning the violence fast enough.
What U.S. Nerd Entertainment Must Learn From Japanese Comics And ‘The Mandalorian’
Peter Pischke
2020 was a horrible year, but it did one useful thing. It showed us ‘Get woke, Go Broke’ isn’t just a meme, it’s almost a law of nature.
Washington D.C. Chaos: Where Do We Go From Here?
On this episode of The Federalist Radio Hour, Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky and Western…
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Reported by  

An image is going viral of a gang of left-wing rioters hanging up a Somali flag over a gas station in Minneapolis over the weekend, in what could be considered a symbol of conquest. The flag replaced what was formerly an American flag, with the rioters enshrining their true allegiances.

The image can be seen here:

It has been well documented how the city of Minneapolis has descended into a hell scape since last summer’s orgy of destruction prompted by the death of serial felon crackhead George Floyd after a police encounter. Riots emerged again over the weekend, after an armed felon was shot and killed by Minneapolis Police after resisting arrest.

The murder rate rose by 72.3 percent from 2019 and 2020, as the ends of the Black Lives Matter terror movement against the Bill of Rights and Constitution are achieved:

Journalist Michael Tracey catalogued the horrors in the wake of the BLM riots over the summer, which was entirely glossed over by the fake news media:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Big League Politics has reported on how Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and her constituent base have demonstrated what happens in such circumstances.

Minneapolis police are asking their City Council to fund 14 more officers to deal with a crime wave, as mobs of roving young men are regularly targeting drunk men for vicious gang beat-downs.

Law enforcement are requesting three more investigators, eight additional neighborhood outreach officers, and three more traffic enforcement personnel. Mayor Jacob Frey is standing with Police Chief Medaria Arradondo, arguing that more officers are necessary to deal with this growing problem.

Business owners have complained about the gang beat-downs, which may be racially motivated. One recent instance occurred at Target Field Plaza and happened in broad daylight. It involved a group of African-American men targeting a lone Caucasian individual, knocking him unconscious, stomping his body, throwing a potted plant on him, and then crushing him with a bicycle during a robbery…

“I don’t think I have ever seen anything like what I saw at Target Field,” said Ken Sherman, who owns 7 Steakhouse and Sushi.

“Look, stealing is one thing. But the level of viciousness goes far beyond I think anything any of us who are civil people imagine,” Sherman added.

There is a 53 percent increase in robberies year-to-year in Minneapolis since 2018. Mayor Frey believes a greater police presence would help send the message that this type of behavior will not be tolerated.

“We want officers out there on the street walking the beat, preventing some of these serious crimes before they take place to begin with,” Frey said.

He is not getting much support from the city council, as there are several councilmembers who are happy to keep the status quo in place.

“I want to tie our investments to structural change that improves the performance of the police department,” councilman Steve Fletcher said.

“Then we do need to careful about who we’re targeting. Because you’re basically criminalizing standing on the street,” Fletcher added.

Sherman believes that the city is suffering because of the soft-on-crime policies pushed by liberal public officials.

“I think the core of the problem is a city council that is more concerned about being politically correct than making people safe,” Sherman said.

Left-wing politics and third-world economic migration are a dangerous combination, and the city of Minneapolis is learning that the hard way.


Reported By Samuel Smith, U.S. Editor 

World Food Programme Executive Director David M. Beasley (middle) and U.S. Ambassador Kip Tom visit South Sudan on July 23, 2019. WFP/Giulio d’Adamo

The head of the World Food Program believes that 2021 could see “famines of biblical proportions” as the economic struggles of COVID-19 may hamper global responses to food shortages caused by military conflicts, the rise of Islamic extremism and locust infestations. 

In an interview late last year with The Christian Post during a visit to Washington, D.C., WFP Executive Director David Beasley, a former Republican governor of South Carolina, expressed concern for the funding problems that could be in store for 2021. Despite receiving historic levels of funding and leading the food-assistance branch of the United Nations to a Nobel Peace Prize since he took the helm in April 2017, the 63-year-old Beasley warned the fiscal realities of the COVID-19 pandemic could lead to a decrease in funding at a time when as many as 270 million could be pushed to the brink of starvation.

“When I joined the WFP, the number of people on the brink of starvation versus general hunger was 80 million people,” he explained. “There is a technical term for that. But it was 80 million marching toward starvation. That number spiked, went up to 135 million at the end of [2019] primarily because of manmade conflict, compounded on top of that with climate extremes and destabilized or fragile governments. On top of that, COVID comes and the number we anticipated based upon economic deterioration and because of COVID decisions is now 270 million people that are marching to the brink of starvation.”

Last April as governments worldwide were enacting policies to respond to the pandemic, Beasley told the U.N. Security Council that funding shortfalls caused by the pandemic could cause “multiple famines of biblical proportions within a short few months.”

“I think it could be much bigger. It depends on how you define biblical proportions,” Beasley told CP. “In the generic sense, 2021 is going to be catastrophic unless we receive extraordinary financial support. I made a comment back in late 2019 that 2020 was going to be the worst humanitarian year since World War II. I would lay out the reasons why. Then before 2020 hit, desert locusts came on top of that, and then COVID came into the scene.”

“If we did not get the support we need and certain international actions were not taken, there would be famines of biblical proportions and destabilization and migration,” he added. “The international community responded very significantly in 2020. That has been very good and we have been able to avert famine this year.”

The director stressed that the problem for 2021 lies in the fact that government budgets for 2020 were largely set in 2019 based on strong economic indicators before the pandemic hit. WFP receives its funding in contributions from world governments as well as individual donations. In 2019, it assisted over 97 million people in 88 countries.

“With strong economic outlooks, great performance indicators, we had good budgeting,” he said. “That was good news. Then, COVID hits. The wealthy nations passed economic stimulus packages — between $11 and $17 trillion worth economic stimulus packages — to help jumpstart the economy and keep things going without having a major economic depression because of the lockdowns and shutdowns.” 

Beasley said he was concerned by some of the decisions some governments were making in response to COVID.

“[L]eaders at that time were making decisions about COVID in a vacuum, not understanding the economic ripple effect when you just lock things down, without understanding the supply logistics and all these different dynamics,” he said.

You cannot make decisions about COVID in a vacuum. We have to work it together and we can minimize death and destabilization and migration.”

In November, Beasley met with U.S. lawmakers, White House and State Department officials about the global situation, saying that “there is a lot of bad stuff out there right now.”

“In spite of what you might read in the press about the U.S. backing down of its multilateral commitment, as to the World Food Program, the United States is stepping up in a big way,” Beasley assured. “When you turn on the television and read any news, it appears that the Republicans and Democrats are fighting over anything and everything. But when I come to town and ask to meet, they lay down their differences and their guns and they make peace on this issue. I call it the miracle … because the Republicans and the Democrats come together.”

The former lawmaker said that Jesus used food as a “weapon of peace in a lot of different contexts.”

“We say we use food as a weapon of peace around the world and we have even used food in Washington,” he said. “If it works here, it will work everywhere.” 

When Beasley took the job in 2017, the annual budget for the agency was about $5.9 billion, with just less than $2 billion coming from the U.S. According to Beasley, the WFP raised upwards of $8.4 billion in 2019, with about $3.5 billion coming from the U.S.

“I was also able to get funding up from Germany, the U.K. and others,” he said.

After assisting nearly 100 million people suffering from acute food insecurity and hunger in 2019, the WFP was the recipient of the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts to combat hunger and generate better conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas. According to The Norwegian Nobel Committee, the WFP acts “as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict.” Beasley recalled the day he was informed the WFP won the Nobel Prize.

“Very rarely am I speechless. That was one of the few moments,” he said. “I was in Niger that day. We had just been in the field out in a pretty rough area with extremist groups on all sides. We were working on access issues. When we don’t have access, they use food as a weapon of recruitment. Somebody comes busting in the door and says ‘We won!’ I was like, ‘You got to be kidding me.’”

As hunger is often used as a weapon of war, Beasley believes that  “we can end hunger” if “we can end the wars.”

Another major driver of hunger in 2020 has been a record infestation of crop-destroying desert locusts across several countries in East Africa and the Middle East. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization warned last month that “new locust swarms are already forming and threatening to re-invade northern Kenya” while “breeding is also underway on both sides of the Red Sea, posing a new threat to Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, and Yemen.”

“We have done a lot of work and a lot of work to be done. There is a lot of distraction because of obvious things. We are making headway but we are not out of the woodwork yet,” Beasley said of the WFP’s locust response. “COVID has really [delayed] that progress. All the money we were going to put into desert locusts, you can imagine, everyone is fighting for every dollar now. But the locusts are not resolved and the locusts are moving.” 

With millions on the brink of starvation, Beasley cited the “least of these” passage from Matthew 25 to state that “Jesus is making a clear point here.”

“Every human being is made in the image of God. Every human being is created in the image of the Almighty,” he said. “But when we deny that human support and love, then we are denying the Almighty. I look at everybody being equal and everybody is the same. Everybody on Earth has a right to [eat].” 


As the dust settles from Georgia’s monumental Senate runoff elections, Democrats are making very clear what agenda they will pursue now that they will likely control the White House and both chambers of Congress.

As of Wednesday morning, Raphael Warnock (D) is the projected winner over Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R), and it appears that Jon Ossoff (D) will defeat Sen. David Purdue (R). If these results stand, the Senate will be split 50-50, giving Democrats control of the upper chamber because Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will serve as a tie-breaking vote.

What do Democrats plan to do?

Taking control of Congress and the White House is a significant feat, and it allows one party to advance its agenda without much resistance.

Now, Democrats will have the opportunity to advance their policies, many of which have been blocked by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) for the last six years.

Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) revealed Tuesday exactly what Democrats can do with their newfound power by passing legislation blocked by McConnell.

  • Stimulus Checks: House Democrats passed a bill that would provide Americans with $2,000 stimulus checks after President Donald Trump asked for stimulus checks greater than $600. The Republican-controlled Senate, however, squashed the effort.
  • The Equality Act“The Equality Act would would provide consistent and explicit anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ people across key areas of life, including employment, housing, credit, education, public spaces and services, federally funded programs, and jury service.”
  • The DREAM Act: A bill introduced to Congress nearly a dozen times over the last two decades, often with bipartisan sponsors, it would “pathway to legal status for undocumented youth who came to this country as children,” according to American Immigration Council.
  • Voting Rights Act: Democrats have attempted to legislatively restore a part of the Voting Rights Act that was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2013. With McConnell in charge of the Senate, Democrats have been unsuccessful in their endeavors.

Pappas said Democrats can also make headway on “infrastructure,” giving states and local governments more funding, likely referring to coronavirus-related aid, and “climate action.” It was not clear whether Pappas was referring to the far-left Green New Deal.

Other Democrats were more explicit.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said Democrats can now pursue “student loan cancellation,” the end of the death penalty, and “climate justice.”

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said Democrats can increase the minimum wage, advance “guaranteed health care,” promote “repro justice,” likely a reference to wider abortion access, and fight for “racial justice.”

“VICTORY in Georgia must lead to transformative change across America! Recurring survival checks, union jobs that pay a living wage, guaranteed health care, racial justice, voting rights, immigration reform, climate action, repro justice, education, and MUCH more. It can’t wait!” she said.

Brian Fallon, who served as a senior member of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, added that Democrats can now “eliminate the filibuster” and “reform the courts,” a likely allusion to packing the federal courts with liberal justices.

This power shift in Washington, D.C., is significant particularly because it happened so quickly.

Over the span of just two years, the Republican Party, under Trump’s leadership, lost the House (in the 2018 midterms), the White House, and now the Senate.


UPDATE (Jan. 6, 3:50 p.m.):

Supporters of President Trump continued to make their way through the halls of the U.S. Capitol after breaching security Wednesday afternoon. One broke into Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office and kicked up his boots on her desk.

UPDATE (Jan. 6, 3:42 p.m.):

President Trump once again called for an end to the violence at the U.S. Capitol as the situation has progressively worsened.

He was joined by Vice President Mike Pence, who tweeted that the “violence and destruction taking place at the US Capitol Must Stop and it Must Stop Now.”

UPDATE (Jan. 6, 3:32 p.m.):

One person has reportedly been shot inside the Capitol Building. Based on video of the incident, a young woman appears to have been seriously injured in the neck. Warning: The video is extremely graphic and may be upsetting to some viewers.

UPDATE (Jan. 6, 3:24 p.m.):

There is currently some confusion over whether additional law enforcement are on their way to protect the U.S. Capitol as protesters have breached the building with the full Congress present.

NBC News reported that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser requested National Guard troops to come and clear rioters, but others have reported that the request has either been denied or not yet granted.

UPDATE (Jan. 6, 3:10 p.m.):

Vice President Mike Pence has reportedly been evacuated from the U.S. Capitol amid the escalating situation, as some individuals protesting the 2020 election results breached security and entered the House and Senate chambers.

Video from within the House chamber showed that lawmakers had been cleared from the room and protesters were inside. One protester appeared to be engaged in a standoff with police.

UPDATE (Jan. 6, 2:58 p.m.):

President Trump called on supporters protesting outside the U.S. Capitol to respect law enforcement and “stay peaceful,” as reports surfaced showing groups of protesters fighting with police and inside the Capitol Building.

UPDATE (Jan. 6, 2:30 p.m.):

Both chambers of Congress went into recess and the U.S. Capitol was reportedly placed on lockdown Wednesday afternoon as Trump supporters reportedly breached security and entered the Capitol Building.

BlazeTV reporter Elijah Schaffer posted video showing a small group of individuals fighting with police inside the building. At one point, some were right outside the Senate chamber as lawmakers convened inside.

“Full anarchy at this ‘mostly peaceful’ demonstration,” Schaffer wrote. “The people have pushed through & are storming to main chambers.”

Original story below

Hundreds of Trump supporters breached security barricades and stormed up to the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., as both chambers of Congress convened to affirm the Electoral College votes cast in the 2020 election Wednesday afternoon. Thousands had traveled from out of state to gather in Washington in protest of the election, which President Trump and his allies have maintained was fraudulent.

Things appeared to carry on peacefully earlier in the day, but as the joint session of Congress kicked off in the early afternoon, a large group of individuals appeared to storm through outer barricades surrounding the Capitol building, where lawmakers deliberated inside.

Video posted to Twitter by Washington Post reporter Rebecca Tan showed Trump supporters approaching the rear of the building.

Then, BlazeTV reporter Elijah Schaeffer posted video as the group reached the outside of the building and were confronted by police.

“Trump supporters have breached the Capitol building, tearing down 4 layers of security fencing and are attempting to occupy the building — fighting federal police who are overrun,” he tweeted. “This is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Thousands, police can’t stop them.”

(Content Warning: Video contains vulgar language)

More video from the scene posted on social media showed a large group of individuals continuing to wrestle with law enforcement outside the U.S. Capitol.

Politico’s Melanie Zanona reported that the Madison building on Capitol Hill was evacuated as a result of the increasingly hostile protests.

It is unclear at this point whether the storming of the Capitol was a coordinated or impromptu event. Interestingly, a paper notice found in the National Mall indicated that “a national militia” was being organized to “defend the Constitution and the Republic.” However, there is no evidence connecting the movement from the crowd with the notice.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.


Reported BRIANNA LYMAN, REPORTER | January 06, 2021

Read more at https://dailycaller.com/2021/01/06/capitol-building-riot-donald-trump-election/

HuffPost’s Matt Fuller tweeted that guns have been drawn in the chamber as hundreds of rioters storm the Capitol, tearing down four layers of security fencing and breaching the building.

Meanwhile other rioters engaged in an all-out brawl with police as officers struggle to keep up with the mass rioting.

Earlier video shows rioters smashing through glass doors at the Capitol Building as hundreds of rioters descend upon the capitol.

 

The Madison building on Capitol Hill was evacuated minutes after the breach, Politico reporter Melanie Zanona said on Twitter. Zanona followed her tweet up noting the Capitol is on complete lockdown and tear has has been dispersed after those on the floor of the House were told to “get down on your chairs if necessary.”

 

Other videos posted to Twitter shows a small group of rioters, some donned in red “Make America Great Again” hats, standing together as one protester begins spraying a fire extinguisher in the building as smoke billows up. (RELATED: Pence Breaks From Trump – Tells Congress He Won’t Try To Overturn Election Results)

Steven Nelson of the New York Post reports that there are other protesters in the building as well taking cover from the select few who discharged the fire extinguisher.


Web version

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Right Side Broadcasting is live streaming today’s events in Washington DC. https://youtu.be/HrGJfQzUrnY RSB has three teams at today’s events in Washington DC.  One of their… Read more…

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Shots have been fired in the US Senate chamber during an armed standoff between police and patriots attempting to breach the room, according to reports…. Read more…

The Next 24 Hours May Be the Most Important in US History – Will The US Remain Free Or Fall to Corruption and Communism? Soon We Will Know
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Commentary by Joshua Lawson JANUARY 5, 2021

Even before the horrible year that was 2020, New Year’s Eve celebrations have long been filled with the near-certain expectation that things will definitely get better. Generally speaking, it’s a fine sentiment. Optimism is good; hope is good; and striving to improve the future from where we are today led us from the cave to the fields, across vast oceans, and into the limitless of outer space.

But nothing magical happens when the calendar year flips over. There’s no unexplained scientific phenomenon that shifts the incalculable number of atoms in our known universe into undaunted forces for good simply because we’ve reached the conclusion of this year’s cycle through the Gregorian calendar. Instead, history tells us things can always get worse.

After the stock market crashed in 1929, the Great Depression didn’t reach its darkest days until 1933. The 1938 Nazi annexation of Austria was followed by the invasion of Poland in 1939, then the steamrolling of France and near-defeat of Britain in 1940.

Yet while there’s no iron-clad guarantee that 2021 will be great, every one of us can contribute to the effort to make a redemptive year a reality.

No government action will make 2021 better than what we just went through in 2020. As with most positive change, any meaningful, lasting shifts in the trajectory of our towns and our nation will stem from individuals choosing to do good.

World events of a grand nature will remain outside our ability to master. Pandemics, wildfires, and — unless you live in one of a handful of swing states — presidential elections involving more than 158 million votes are things almost entirely beyond our control. Yet, even in the worst of times, we can control how we interact with our fellow Americans, and a shift in the right direction in this regard is one of the simplest — albeit difficult — steps we can take.

It’s within the grasp of each of us, as individuals, to decide if what we both consume and contribute is life-affirming or malevolent, restorative or toxic. In our workplaces, online using social media, with our families, and interacting with total strangers, we are responsible for how we live amongst one another.

In our current rancorous political environment, we’ll have a chance at a better year if we realize most genuine conversations or debates aren’t best served in a tit-for-tat on Facebook or Twitter but in person over coffee, lunch, or a drink after work. This doesn’t mean surrendering our principles or allowing ourselves to be walked over. It does, however, require we prudently recognize whose minds are open to change, and those who refuse to be unconvinced of what they believe; which arguments may bear fruitful discussion, and those that will only lead to more frustration and anger this country can do without.

Regardless of one’s faith, there is wisdom in the instructions given in the Bible’s 2 Timothy:

Again I say, don’t get involved in foolish, ignorant arguments that only start fights. A servant of the Lord must not quarrel but must be kind to everyone, be able to teach, and be patient with difficult people. (2 Timothy 2:23)

As the author of the epistle to Timothy later notes, being honest doesn’t mean being needlessly hurtful or tactless, and he reminds us to “Gently instruct those who oppose the truth.” There’s an Aristotelian golden mean between failing to state a necessary truth and being an overly blunt jerk about it.

Similar valuable cautions are given in Titus 3:2 not to slander, to “avoid quarreling,” and to “show true humility to everyone.” Later in the chapter, we’re also reminded it may be best to walk away from those who continue to engage in foolish controversies:

If people are causing divisions among you, give a first and second warning. After that, have nothing more to do with them. (Titus 3:10)

Admittedly, it’s hard to do, especially in a climate that often mistakenly views the last person who responded in a Facebook fight as “the winner” or politeness as a sign of “weakness.” Even so, it’s one of the few ways to lower the temperature to the point where authentic, amiable exchanges and healthy debates are possible. We’ll be a better nation in 2021 if Americans take time to ask and reflect, “Will this truly make things better?” before acting.

Furthermore, giving 2021 a fighting chance will involve constantly “checking one’s priors” at the door. Or, as Jordan Peterson has phrased it, we’d do well to “Assume that the person you are listening to might know something that you don’t.”

As more Americans limit their media consumption to voices and opinions they already agree with, ideological and philosophical blind spots pose an increasingly higher risk. Yet rarely are things as simple as either the “left” or “right” (antiquated terms to begin with) being absolutely correct or absolutely wrong.

Taking in the views of only a small territory of the political spectrum is one of the contributing factors that led us to a place, never more evident than in 2020, where one half of the country can’t even stand being in line next to the other half — six feet apart, no less. We don’t have to agree, but we have to be able to at least relate to where those we disagree with are coming from. This begins with the humility to acknowledge we may be wrong about something, or, at least, not as correct as we think we are.

“Genuine conversation is exploration, articulation, and strategizing,” Peterson writes, “When you’re involved in a genuine conversation, you’re listening.” This may also require mingling outside a safe, “bubbled,” friend group, especially if that group is comprised of similarly like-minded folks.

It means not assuming to know the totality of someone’s beliefs and values based on their stance on a single issue. It means being OK with someone thinking, even acting, in a way we personally disagree with (as long as it doesn’t directly infringe on anyone’s rights to life, liberty, or pursuit of happiness). A tolerance of true intellectual diversity will be a key factor in helping 2021 rebound after the past year.

In what could be the most important New Year’s resolution we make, by exercising humility, patience, and grace, we can each take responsibility in helping make 2021 the year we all need it to be, one individual choice at a time.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Joshua Lawson is managing editor of The Federalist. He is a graduate of Queen’s University as well as Hillsdale College where he received a master’s degree in American politics and political philosophy. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaMLawson.

Reported By Leah MarieAnn Klett, Christian Post Reporter 

Read more at https://www.christianpost.com/news/sadie-robertson-huff-warns-of-elevating-social-media-over-jesus.html?uid=03bea79789

Sadie Robertson Huff speaks at the Passion 2021 Conference on December 31, 2020. | Screenshot: Passion Conference

Sadie Robertson Huff warned that today’s generation “looks more like Instagram influencers than Jesus Christ” and urged young people to find their identity and strength not in social media, but in God.

“We have a generation waiting to feel a sense of love … waiting to feel wanted by people gathering up to them instead of just gathering behind the King of kings and knowing that you’re wanted, knowing that you’re loved, knowing that you’re accepted because of what He’s already done for you,” Huff, 23, told some 500,000 people who joined the Passion 2021 Conference virtually on Thursday. 

“We got to stop obsessing over who is following us and obsessing over the one that we’re following.”

But in a social media-obsessed culture, people will “follow anybody if it’s their 15 minutes of fame,” the speaker and author contended, from the Tik Tok star to the Instagram “it” couple.

“If you’re following somebody, they are influencing you one way or another,” she stressed. “And that’s why we have a generation that looks more like the Instagram influencers than Jesus Christ because we’re following them first instead of Jesus Christ first.”

“I don’t have interest in following anybody who’s not leading me in the direction I want to go. And we need to take that really seriously.”

Jesus, and not social media, is the “only way to the Father,” Huff said, adding: “It would be a shame if we spent more time thinking about when our 15 minutes of fame will hit than where we will spend eternity, and we spent more time following people leading us in paths that we did not have any interest in going down than following the Word of God.”

Huff acknowledged that during His time on earth, Jesus Himself was a “famous” person, adding that there’s “nothing wrong with being known.”

“[But] we’re not actually meant to get the glory,” she contended. “Jesus should be famous. He deserves the glory. We’re not created for glory. We’re created to give glory to our Creator.”

The soon-to-be-mother cited Matthew 16:24, where Jesus says, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

She urged listeners to “stop following the pattern of this world” and instead “follow Jesus Christ.”

“I just want to say to y’all as a generation … I want us to stop that search [for fame] and just start following God because if we need anything after this year, we need a Savior,” she declared. 

“We can’t save ourselves. We can’t put our hope in ourselves. We can’t put our faith in ourselves. You don’t want to do that because you know at the end of the day, you need something greater to put your hope in, something greater to put your faith in, something greater who can actually save you, who can actually give you hope beyond this world.”

A 2018 report from the Pew Research Center found that even teens think they have a social media problem.  According to the study, 60% of teens between the ages of 13 to 17 say that spending too much time online is a “major” problem facing their age group. More than half of teens (54%) say they spend too much time on their cellphones, and 41% say they overdo it on social media.

During the conference, evangelist Christine Caine also weighed in on the dangers of social media, warning that many teens are more concerned about receiving a “blue check” — referring to the “verified” symbol on Instagram, Twitter, and other social media platforms — than undergoing a “heart check.”

“Christianity is not about a font or filter,” she said. “We think all the issues of life flow out of our social media feed. No, it comes out of the heart. How about we stop yearning for the blue check and we start allowing the Holy Spirit to do a deep heart check from the inside out?”

The annual Passion Conference, held virtually this year, is geared toward young adults between the ages of 18–25. Founded by Louie Giglio, the event aims to “glorify God by uniting students in worship, prayer and justice for spiritual awakening in this generation.”


Reported By Jackson Elliott, Christian Post Reporter

A man observes damaged property following a Fulani herdsmen attack in Nigeria. | ECCVN

The combination of COVID-19 and the rise in terrorist activity in Nigeria has left Christians in that country in peril, said Nigerian human rights group leader Dalyop Solomon.

“Life became very, very brutish. You will wish you had not been born in this part of the world. There was no way out. There was no way out,” the CEO of the Emancipation Centre for Crisis Victims in Nigeria told The Christian Post. “Behind us are the Egyptians, in front of us is the Red Sea.”

Nigeria’s government has advised Christians to stay in their homes to avoid COVID-19, said Solomon. But if they remain locked down at home, they cannot escape when groups of terrorists attack them. The government fails to respond to these attacks, which have increased in frequency across Nigeria. In 2020, human rights groups estimated that over 2,200 Christians were murdered by radical Islamist militants.

“Prior to this time, the attacks were only concentrated in a few communities, but we can see now it has become very pervasive. Only a few states were not touched by terror attacks. They have expanded the attacks to become land grabs,” he said.

The attacks during the pandemic are also having long-term consequences. Many Nigerians rely on farming to survive. Since radical Fulani militants often destroy or plunder crops when they attack, farmers’ livelihoods are destroyed, said Solomon. COVID-19 restrictions prevent them from leaving their homes to plant new crops.

“Both two seasonal farming’s we have in Nigeria have been aggravated by the actions of Fulani hitmen grazing [cattle] into farm crops that are about to be harvested,” he said. “Having expended the little an individual has for harvest for the family, just overnight all those dreams are shattered by the barbaric activities of the herders. There won’t be food for the families, and government is not providing food security.”

Between COVID-19 and Fulani raids on crops, it’s likely only one in five Nigerian farms harvested what it planted this year, Solomon explained. The nation has never seen such widespread destruction of crops, and Nigerians will likely face famine in 2021.

Other news outlets have also reported about the concerns over the potential for famine. When Islamists kill farmers, people fear to go out and plant their fields.

Starvation drives people to despair, Solomon said. People turn to robbery, prostitution and selling children into slavery to survive.

“A single pandemic ought to have made us united to see how we can survive this tragic development. But it’s rather turned out to be that COVID-19 has unleashed terror attacks,” he said.

The United States added Nigeria to its list of countries that have engaged in or tolerated ongoing egregious religious persecution. Government inaction suggests that Nigeria’s pandemic response has hidden motives, Solomon believes.

Nigerians hold a sign urging for an end to killings. | ECCVN

“It appears to be politically framed,” he said of the pandemic in Nigeria, which has affected around 90,000 people and led to 1,311 deaths. “People affected began to wonder whether it is true that COVID-19 is as real as the way it has been globally reported, or if it is a ploy to instill fears in the minds of the people so militias will have a soft target to unleash hideous crimes on unsuspecting individuals.”

Farmers who report attacks by Islamists don’t receive justice from the government, Solomon said. Instead, they single themselves out for attacks by the terrorists.

“Unless the Nigerian government is purposeful in its approach and its action to tread the path of justice so every individual is treated equally as a member of the human family, I have not seen the prospect of having a secure nation. I have not seen the prospect of having a nation run right. I have not seen the prospect of having a country that will thrive economically,” he said.

After receiving death threats from Islamist terrorists for his human rights work, Solomon spent most of the Christmas season in hiding. He said the threats make him feel more sad than afraid.

“That one has to go hide out simply because of telling the truth, it’s quite a sad experience,” he said. “This is not the intention of God for man. The truth is God Himself, and one cannot speak God in a situation because some individuals fear that their hideous activities will be exposed.”

Solomon asked for Christians around the world to put pressure on the Nigerian government to do justice.

“Please, as a matter of conscience, faith and love for people under persecution I ask for an intervention and provision of relief materials. Christians in Nigeria need humanitarian aid to cushion the impact of alarming destruction that has been meted out on Christendom as a whole,” he said.


posted by Hannity Staff | January 5, 2021

Read more at https://hannity.com/media-room/ossoff-in-ga-if-democrats-win-the-senate-we-will-pass-a-new-civil-rights-and-voting-act/

Progressive Senatorial candidate Jon Ossoff spoke with supporters in Georgia Tuesday as millions of voters head to the polls; saying a Democrat controlled Senate will pass a new “Civil Rights and Voting Act” if elected.

“When we win both of these Senate races, we will pass a new Civil Rights Act and a new Voting Rights Act,” said the 33-year-old.

 

“This is a historic moment in Georgia,” he added.

Watch Ossoff’s comments above.


We are being told that our liberties must be suspended in order to keep hospitals from reaching apocalyptic levels. But what if those levels are just above normal and not anywhere near apocalyptic levels? And what if these lockdown measures do nothing to keep the levels down anyway?

Well, if there is anywhere we can cross-check this hypothesis, it would be in Florida, where there is no lockdown or mask mandate. In fact, people are flocking there from out of state to enjoy vacations and host conferences and even to live. Naturally, we’d expect hospital levels to be bursting at the seams if they rise and fall with lockdowns and masks, right?

Well, actually, you can barely see an increase in the hospitalization level in the Sunshine State from previous years, and the current level appears to be on par with the 2018 flu season, which was more of a pandemic flu than other flus in recent years. And in 2018, we did nothing as a nation to suspend liberties.

There is much debate over how to count a COVID hospitalization given the rampant and unprecedented testing of people relative to past flus. But one easy way to observe an apples-to-apples comparison to past flu seasons is to compare the overall average daily census of hospitalizations now to previous years and adjust those numbers per capita to existing population. In other words, if all of the COVID patients are legitimately there because of COVID, we would see an enormous excess in the total number of people in the hospital at any given moment for any ailment. Florida is simply not seeing a gigantic increase.

Here is how the math works: HHS tracks total daily hospital levels in all the states dating back to Jan. 1, 2020. If you take the average daily total hospitalization levels in Florida for the fourth quarter of 2020, you will find an average (some days are more, some are less) of 43,150.

Naturally, I wondered what the levels were in previous years, because the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration publishes quarterly data of hospital censuses for several recent years. I started with the first quarter of 2018, which included the harshest flu season we had in a decade. If you average the total hospital census over the 90 days from Jan. 1 to March 31, it works out to 41,094 people in the hospital on an average day. Adjusting for the population at the time, that would be 1,972 hospitalizations per 1 million people. That is compared to 1,998 per 1 million for this past quarter of 2020 with COVID as the predominant illness.

As you can see, although the hospital numbers for the fourth quarter of 2020 were about 6%-8% higher than in the fourth quarter of the previous two years, it was barely higher than the first quarters of every year. The reason it is fair to compare to the worst months of previous years is because it has become clear that the flu is gone for this year and that COVID-19 is this year’s version of the flu. Thus, with flu cases down 98.8%, it is reasonable to assume that the January census will not grow as it typically does during peak flu season.

In other states, lockdown proponents can theoretically suggest that the reason the hospital numbers aren’t worse is because of the measures they are taking. However, Florida serves as the perfect control group, given that there is no lockdown and there have been no statewide restrictions in place for several months.

It’s also important to remember that as a nation we have thrown hundreds of billions of dollars at hospitals to treat this virus as compared to past flu seasons. So, the level of hospitalization we are equipped to deal with is much higher than in the past.

Off the bat, the numbers for this past quarter are inflated because on Oct. 6, HHS updated its guidance requiring hospitals to include those in “observations beds” as part of the census. Any data from past years did not include observations beds, only inpatient beds where people stayed for over 24 hours.

Also, because the nation is panicked over this virus, unlike during the 2018 flu season, the threshold for people going to the hospital is likely much lower than in past flu seasons. While there are definitely some people who are gravely ill with this virus, we have decided to treat this virus in the hospital much more liberally than any other virus. Hospitals receive higher reimbursement rates for treating COVID-19 patients. However, many of the cases are not necessarily clinical level.

As I noted in November, hospitalization is required in order to treat someone with Remdesivir, the only FDA-approved drug, which was approved on Oct. 22. It’s very likely that a certain percentage of those people are not sicker than a typical flu patient who would be treated outpatient, but the Remdesivir necessitates admission to the hospital.

Taking all these factors in totality, especially in a state like Florida with no lockdown, it has become clear that the entire pretext for shutting down our liberties is built upon misinformation and lack of context. In other words, those 900,000 projected excess deaths due to unemployment from lockdowns are all for nothing.


A.F. Branco Cartoon – Royal Sham

Many hypocritical blue state Governors are all about rules for thee but not for me, policies.

Blue State Hypocrite GovernorsPolitical cartoon by A.F. Branco Cartoon ©2021.
Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated – $1.00 –  $5.00 –  $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 –  it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!

A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and shared by President Donald Trump.


Democrats Attempt To Erase The Words ‘He,’ ‘She,’ ‘Mother,’ And ‘Father’ From The House

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is attempting to excise all references to either sex in House business to “honor all gender identities” and “promote inclusion and diversity.” On Monday, the House of Representatives is set to vote on a Rules Package for the 117th Congress, which Pelosi and Rules Committee Chairman James McGovern promise will be “the most inclusive in history.”

Congress is following in the illustrious example of companies like Twitter and educational institutions such as the University of Michigan in removing language that recognizes the two sexes from their work product and interpersonal communications.

This would mean replacing any instance of “he or she” with the grammatically incorrect colloquialism of “they” as a singular, or the unnecessarily long “such Member, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner.” Further, “himself” or “herself” becomes “themself,” a word not recognized by several dictionaries, and acknowledged by the New Oxford Dictionary as “not widely accepted in standard English.”

Words such as “mother” and “father” would be replaced with “parent,” “aunt” and “uncle” with the awkward “parent’s sibling,” and “grandmother” and “grandfather” becomes “grandparent.” I wonder if Pelosi will bring her commitment to language policing to Twitter and remove “mother, grandmother” from her bio.

The insanity spread to the opening prayer, where Missouri Rep. Emanuel Cleaver ended the opening prayer with “Amen and A-women.” Amen does not refer to males at all. It is a word from biblical Hebrew meaning “so be it.” It appears Cleaver,  in the middle of praying to a pantheistic or syncretistic god, didn’t have the cultural literacy to have ever understood the meaning of this basic word from context.

Democrats haven’t said whether references to “congressmen” and “congresswomen” will similarly be removed, nor if Pelosi will continue to be referred to as “Madam Speaker.”

The resolution deserves at least some credit for following its own ridiculous proposed rules, as any instance of singular personal pronoun use was replaced with “they” or “their,” shown under whistleblower protections.

The same bill promises to “give priority consideration to including in the plan a discussion of how the committee’s work will address issues of inequities on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, age, or national origin.” How can Congress be expected to legislate “sex, sexual orientation, gender identity,” as the new rules require, when they are not permitted to write in terms of sex?

These rules are not helping anyone, but are harming the specificity of language and the unique experiences and basic reality of the sexes in the name of inclusion.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Paulina Enck is an intern at the Federalist and current student at Georgetown University in the School of Foreign Service. Follow her on Twitter at @itspaulinaenck

Commentary By Michael Brown, CP Op-Ed Contributor

In case you haven’t heard, House Democrats want to remove all gendered language from their legislation, while the prayer to open the 117th Congress ended with, “Amen and A-woman.” I kid you not. Who would make up something so insane?

Michael Brown holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from New York University and has served as a professor at a number of seminaries. He is the author of 25 books and hosts the nationally syndicated, daily talk radio show, the Line of Fire.

Let’s start with the PC prayer, which has to be seen to be believed. It is offered in “the name of the monotheistic God, Brahma, and ‘god’ known by many names by many different faiths.” And it concludes with, “Amen and A-woman,” as if the “men” of “Amen” was somehow a gendered term. How patriarchal and bigoted to use the “men” word in prayer!

Of course, “Amen” comes from the common Semitic root ’-m-n, with the word itself meaning, “So be it.” And it is used in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic liturgy, being found in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Arabic (along with English and many other languages).

But who said being PC had anything to do with truth or reality? To the contrary, it is quite often based on the denial of reality, or, in this case, complete ignorance of a common word.

Following the logic of this prayer, we would have to learn new phrases like, “making awomends,” since “making amends” contains the dreaded m- word. Or, we would have to learn to be “awomenable,” lest we allow a male-dominated word like “amenable” to remain on the books. (Go ahead and make up your own list of words containing “men.” This is madness.)

Not to be outdone, though, House Democrats have revealed their new, “future-focused” rules, which include the following: “In clause 8(c)(3) of rule XXIII, gendered terms, such as ‘father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, first cousin, nephew, niece, husband, wife, father-in-law, mother-in-law, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, stepfather, stepmother, stepson, stepdaughter, stepbrother, stepsister, half brother, half sister, grandson, or granddaughter’ will be removed.

“In their place, terms such as ‘parent, child, sibling, parent’s sibling, first cousin, sibling’s child, spouse, parent-in-law, child-in-law, sibling-in-law, stepparent, stepchild, stepsibling, half-sibling, or grandchild’ will be used, instead.”

So, this is what the future looks like? This is what it means to be inclusive?

A particular highlight of the new rules is this: “The Office of the Whistleblower Ombudsman, for instance, is renamed in the rules to the ‘Office of the Whistleblower Ombuds.’”

How can you not love this? How creative! How futuristic! How absurd!

The best response was that of the House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy who tweeted, “This is stupid.

“Signed,

“- A father, son, and brother.”

Well said. Stupid it is.

For others, however, these were bold and commendable reforms. As expressed by Rep. Ilhan Omar (with reference to the entire rules package, in particular, with regard to Medicare), “End of Nov, the Progressive Caucus decided on a set of progressive rules reform priorities: Paygo reform and MTR reform ranked high on that list.

“So grateful to Chairman @RepMcGovern for helping us secure these reforms and setting the stage for us to push for bolder agenda.”

But as easy as it is to poke fun at this ridiculous proposal, it is highly significant when one of our major government institutions wants to remove all gendered language. As the saying goes, this does not end well.

Looking to Canada as a case in point, the Religious Tolerance website reported that, “The Ontario Court of Appeals issued a decision on 2003-JUN-10 requiring the province of Ontario to provide marriage licenses to, and to register the marriages of, same-sex couples. However 73 pieces of existing legislation in the province violated this court ruling by referring to wife, husband, widow, widower, and similar sex-related terms. In order to bring the legislation in synchronism with the court decision which legalized SSM [same-sex marriage], each of these laws had to be amended to include gender-neutral language.”

You might say, “So, what’s the big deal. This is just technical, legal language. It hardly affects the person on the street.”

Not so. This reflects both a mindset and a legal logic, and these things reflect where a culture is headed.

Consequently, over time, these things do trickle down, especially in the wake of the wave of transgender activism, where the war on gender-specific language becomes more pitched.

That’s why, in 2016, Canada passed Bill C-16, which critics claim was all about compelled speech, specifically with regard to charges of hate speech for failure to comply with transgender preferences.

The most famous critic was Prof. Jordan Peterson who rose to international fame when he said in an October 2016 interview, “If they fine me, I won’t pay it. If they put me in jail, I’ll go on a hunger strike. I’m not doing this. I’m not using the words that other people require me to use. Especially if they’re made up by radical left-wing ideologues.”

Having studied the methods of totalitarian regimes for many years, Peterson drew the line when it came to compelled speech. He knew all that it implied.

As to where this kind of legislation can go, in 2019, I spoke face to face with a Canadian man involved in a legal dispute over his daughter’s desire to transition to male. Not only did the court rule that he could not interfere with her getting hormone treatments, but he was forbidden to call his own daughter by her given, female name or to use female pronouns with reference to her, even in private, under penalty of immediate arrest.

And we have recently documented the new “hate speech” laws in Norway.

So, as laughable as the “A-woman” prayer might be, and as absurd as the House’s “gender-inclusive” rules might be, we should take both with complete seriousness and say, “Not on my watch.”

We can be compassionate to people in their struggles without engaging in gender madness.

Dr. Michael Brown (www.askdrbrown.org) is the host of the nationally syndicated Line of Fire radio program. His latest book is Evangelicals at the Crossroads: Will We Pass the Trump Test? Connect with him on FacebookTwitter, or YouTube.


Reported By  Daily Wire News |  | DailyWire.com

Jon Ossoff, U.S. Democratic Senate candidate, speaks during a 'Get Out The Vote' campaign event in Garden City, Georgia, U.S., on Sunday, Jan. 3, 2021. Georgia has two runoff elections on Tuesday that will decide control of the U.S. Senate and have a decisive influence on the ability of President-elect Joe Biden to advance his legislative agenda.
Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg via Getty Images

CNN host Jake Tapper called out Democratic Senate candidate Jon Ossoff on Sunday for his false attacks on incumbent Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who is running against Democrat candidate Raphael Warnock.

Ossoff’s attacks on Loeffler, falsely claiming that she has been “campaigning” with a member of the Ku Klux Klan, was so categorically false that left-leaning CNN ran a fact-check report on the claim last week.

“This is false,” CNN ruled. “A former member of the KKK took a photo with Loeffler while she was campaigning earlier this month. Loeffler’s campaign said the senator did not know who the man was and would have removed him from the event had she known. This is not, at all, the same as ‘campaigning with a klansman,’ as Ossoff claimed. Politicians often take pictures with people they don’t know.”

CNN noted that there was “no evidence” that Loeffler recognized or sought the support of the man in the picture. Loeffler’s campaign condemned the man, saying, “Kelly had no idea who that was, and if she had she would have kicked him out immediately because we condemn in the most vociferous terms everything that he stands for.”

Tapper pressed Ossoff about the claim during an interview on Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” which comes just two days before election day in Georgia.

Transcript of the exchange below:

JAKE TAPPER: You attacked Senator Loeffler this week, Loeffler, who is running against Democrat Raphael Warnock. You said that, quote, “Kelly Loeffler been campaigning with a Klansman” — unquote.

That’s not true. I mean, there — it is true that a former member of the Klan took a photo with Senator Loeffler at a campaign event. Her campaign says she didn’t know who he was at the time, and she has condemned him.

I’m sure you have taken photos with thousands of strangers. Isn’t it important for candidates to tell the truth?

JON OSSOFF: It is. And it’s even more distressing that this isn’t an isolated incident. Kelly Loeffler has repeatedly posed for photographs and been seen campaigning alongside radical white supremacists.

And I believe they’re drawn to her campaign, because her campaign has consisted almost entirely of racist attacks on the Black Lives Matter movement and on the black church. And so the fact that these elements continue to be drawn to her, to support her, to campaign alongside her, to appear in photos next to her is deeply distressing. And it’s happening at the same time that Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue and Georgia Republicans are mounting a vicious assault on voting rights in Georgia, lawsuit after lawsuit to disenfranchise black voters, purge the rolls, remove ballot drop boxes.

And I believe that one of the reasons we’re seeing such record-shattering turnout in Georgia right now is that Georgians are defying those efforts to rip away their voting rights and standing up and saying, we’re going to make our voices heard.

TAPPER: All right. But, just to be clear, she was not campaigning with a Klansman. That wasn’t true, what you said.

WATCH:


A top United States official said recently that the “most credible” theory for how the coronavirus pandemic started is that the pathogen escaped from a Chinese laboratory. U.S. deputy national security adviser Matthew Pottinger told British parliamentarians last week that even Chinese leaders have started to acknowledge that the virus did not originate in the Wuhan wet market as initially reported. Instead, he said, it likely escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology located just 11 miles away.

“There is a growing body of evidence that the lab is likely the most credible source of the virus,” Pottinger said during a Zoom conference about China, according to the Daily Mail. “Even establishment figures in Beijing have openly dismissed the wet market story.”

Whether the virus escaped by “leak or accident,” he could not confirm.

The theory has been widely disseminated since earlier this year, when citizen investigators used publicly available information to make the case.

Reporters noticed all-too-coincidental job openings posted by the lab in November and December 2019 — right as mysterious pneumonia-like cases were popping up in Wuhan — which requested scientists to come “research the relationship between the coronavirus and bats” and indicated that help was needed to handle a dangerous leak.

That is not to mention the fact that the lab was the first in all of China to achieve BSL-4 clearance, or the level of bioresearch safety required to study the world’s most dangerous pathogens. Though some thought that clearance was granted prematurely.

Shortly after the discovery of the job postings, a pair of leaked State Department cables from 2018 found that U.S. officials visiting the lab were so concerned about its “serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators” in concert with its study of “SARS-like coronaviruses in bats” that they felt the need to notify the U.S. government.

According to the Daily Mail, Pottinger’s confidence in the theory comes as a result of conversations the U.S. has had with a whistleblower from the Wuhan lab.

“I was told the US have an ex-scientist from the laboratory in America at the moment,” said former Tory Party leader Iain Duncan Smith, who attended the meeting. “That was what I heard a few weeks ago.”

“I was led to believe this is how they have been able to stiffen up their position on how this outbreak originated,” he added.

Pottinger’s comments come as a team of experts from the World Health Organization prepare to travel to Wuhan to investigate the pandemic’s origins, though some critics fear the investigation won’t reveal anything given the organization’s coziness with China.



Reported By Brock Simmons | Published December 31, 2020

Yes, Virginia, Portland is continuing to slide further and further into 3rd world status. If you can believe it, the situation is actually getting worse, as we bring you the latest in Portland s***hole news.

The city is set to the the year with nearly 900 shootings. Yes, 900. Out of those, 225 people were hit, 53 ended up as homicides. In many other instances people were taken to hospitals, yet some didn’t want to cooperate with police. In other incidents there only reports of shots fired and shells found on the ground, yet no victims. This is despite the state legislature passing several new gun control laws in recent years, including “universal background checks”, “red flag laws”, and others. This goes along with nearly 70 stabbings on the year. This is the worst crime the city has seen since the early 90’s crime peak.

KOIN 6 reports:

Portland had logged about 900 shootings, compared to 393 shootings in all of 2019. On Monday, Portland police identified 33-year-old Jaron Weeks as the city’s 53rd homicide victim this year — the highest number of homicides in Portland since a wave of gang violence in the early 1990s.

Weeks was killed Christmas morning in an apartment building in the Lloyd District. A second shooting victim at the scene was hospitalized.

Two people were hospitalized in multiple shootings across Portland on Saturday night, police said. A truck rammed a patrol car, putting a Portland police officer in the hospital with a broken pelvis.The driver of the truck has not been found.

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It’s not just gun violence that has rocked the city. Trendlon Brewer, 53, was arrested last week for a series of random attacks on people with a baseball bat.

The article ends on a common theme; More police officers fleeing the city:

The PPB also faces a wave of retirements and resignations. Since the protests and riots started in June, 74 officers have left the bureau and another 25-32 are expected to leave by the end of January.

That’s out of 1,001 positions for sworn officers in Portland, and that’s on top of the already existing 100 some-odd vacancies. The bureau might be down 20% of its normal force.

48 cops retired just in the month of August.

KOIN6/Portland Tribune reveal how dire the situation is in another article:

In an unprecedented situation for Portland, a racially diverse and experienced group of police officers is taking pay cuts to get away from the city, while citing poor working conditions here.

And the city’s police recruiter tasked with boosting bureau diversity isn’t looking for replacements — because that person is gone, too.

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Chief Chuck Lovell recently announced that the Portland Police Bureau would be moving the vast majority of traffic cops and all its K-9 officers to respond to 911 calls. The goal: to deal with a wave of retirements and resignations and combat historically low response times this past year.

What Lovell didn’t say is that for the first time that anyone can remember, the number of people resigning has outstripped retirements.

While 14 officers have filed papers to retire by the end of January, nine officers have resigned since November, and seven more have filed to resign shortly.

And the number of imminent resignations may be far more. Based on requests from police departments seeking particular officers’ personnel records, “we have around 25 people that may be in the process of trying to get hired in other places,” said Assistant Chief Michael Frome, who oversees the bureau’s Human Resources Department.

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Police officers often leave smaller departments to go to places like Portland for higher pay. In this case they are leaving Portland for places like Beaverton, Bend, Hillsboro, Tigard and Boise, Idaho — where they will receive less pay.

In Boise, for instance, Chief Ryan Lee — a former assistant chief in Portland — has hired four Portland officers away from his old bureau so far. They’ll lose not only pay, but service time towards their eventual retirement.

Frome, for his part, said he doesn’t have numbers, but did say the confirmed departures constitute a racially diverse group with at least one multi-lingual officer, and he’d hire them all back if he could.

Complicating things is that the bureau has no plans to hire new officers anytime soon — so much so that it’s done away with the recruiter position that spearheads efforts to diversify the force and attract quality candidates.

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In part, that’s a result of how the bureau has shifted resources to cope with the Black Lives Matter protests that broke out in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

So why are people leaving? Frome said it’s a mix of reasons. One officer cited a desire to be near family. “Other ones say ‘I just don’t like working in Portland anymore, because the job just doesn’t make me happy,’” Frome said. “You get some (who) throw shade and say, ‘the City Council has created this horrible place for us.’ But you don’t see that from everybody.”

In general, he said, “They’re leaving because they just don’t enjoy working here anymore.”

Asked about the trend, Brian Hunzeker, the new president of the Portland Police Association, said he suspects other cities are seeing officers leave in mid-career as well. He said it’s not surprising officers are unhappy given Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty’s claim in July that police were setting fires to blame them on protesters, as well as District Attorney Mike Schmidt’s decisions not to file charges against numerous people the police arrested after declaring that protests had become riots.

Oh the irony of the DiVeRSiTy recruiter position being eliminated due to budget cuts rammed through by the city council who tout DiVeRSiTy as one of their top priorities.

Some now former Portland Police officers have penned letters citing their grievances, most of which has to do with the city council. In fact, treatment by the city council is one of the major reasons why officers are leaving, while vichy “mayor” Ted Wheeler and the now-infamous councilwoman JoAnn Hardesty politispeak their way through all the excuses and bloviations you can dream up.

Deputy Chief Chris Davis, who has facilitated the rioters, and has recently tried to bail from the sinking ship by applying for open Chief positions in Fresno and Milwaukee (he didn’t get either job) took to YouTube to explain the “staffing” situation a few months ago:

In one horrifying story, neighbors had to band together to track a stalker/peeping Tom that had been sneaking into little girls’ rooms at night. Police didn’t have the resources or manpower to respond. Portland police could only spare one detective to handle all robbery cases during the summer-into-fall riots. The neighbors eventually ID’ed the perp and he was arrested. The suspect in that case, Brandon Pirkey, was currently on release facing charges in other case. Predictably, Multnomah County Sheriff Mike Reese let him go again.

 

Perhaps they had the wrong guy. Or perhaps DA Mike Schmidt declined to press charges, because there are no charges from the March incident in Pirkey’s court records.

MEANWHILE, local alt rag Willamette Week has accidentally published the news, as they tell the story of one man who was trapped within the recent Red House occupation zone:

They blocked the alleys and they blocked the side street of my house. They wouldn’t allow us to move our cars because they had fully barricaded us in. They said they had basically claimed the area and we weren’t able to leave.

On Saturday last week, an individual went around and broke the Ring cameras off of people’s front doors, on their doorbells, with a crowbar.

They had sentries, essentially, that are posted up there. They had an individual with an assault rifle positioned right next to our driveway. They have people regularly back at their station, but they also patrol around the block with weapons and tactical gear and bulletproof vests. They watch us, you know, and they’re regularly standing around as we move in and out of our backyard.

I could go out front on foot, but there were several people outside, and they were armed and they would watch us. They’d follow us around the block. And they were very suspicious that we were coordinating with the police. Like I said, they had guns up front, too, in addition to everyone inside of the zone.

Generally, they didn’t say much to us. They knew we weren’t happy that they were there, but basically we had kind of cut a deal with them that they needed to keep some distance from our property and not trespass or create fire risks and hazards next to it. And, in exchange, we were leaving them alone. That was kind of the truce that we had.

Everyone thought the cops were going to come down, so they were prepping for that. The side streets were lined with tires and wood that they were soaking in gasoline and lighter fluid in anticipation that, when the police would come, they were going to light it on fire and create a big flaming barricade to prevent them from coming in.

They had bonfires on and adjacent to our property next to the gasoline-soaked tires. We were asking them to put it out—and they refused to do so and would yell at us.

They got really hostile and told me to fuck off and that we were part of the problem, or that we were just another gentrifier. We were scared they were going to attack us in our house.

If you had a problem, or you were scared for your safety or that you were going to be attacked, you had to negotiate with the individuals or the leaders themselves, because the police would not come out proactively because of concerns about security and the situation escalating. If you wanted them to stop, you had to go down and negotiate with them yourselves.

Everyone who was directly surrounded by this was really, really scared and nervous. And people kept their mouths shut because they were worried about their safety and protecting their homes.

If you want the city to do things, you either have to get a bunch of guns and take over a neighborhood and threaten violence, or you go find Wheeler in real life or Commissioner Dan Ryan or whoever else and you surround their home and you scream at them and harass them until they give you what you want. Otherwise, they hide from you. It’s incredibly disappointing and unfortunate that that’s what the city’s decision-making has come to.

That’s right, police just stand aside and let antifa take over parts of the city, terrorizing neighborhoods, threatening citizens, and essentially holding people and houses hostage.

Oh and we haven’t even touched on the continuing homeless epidemic yet. The latest is that the city and county are working together to distribute $500 debit cards to 4,000 houseless individuals in Portland. This is your money, as it comes from the federal CARES act.

And what will they be doing with that $500? Buying new “camping” gear because they keep lighting their’s on fire. FOX 12 reports:

Portland Fire & Rescue says they have seen a huge increase in tent fires among the city’s homeless population this year.

PF&R told FOX 12 they are responding to about 10 to 11 tent fires every day.

With temperatures dipping into the low 30s, and sometimes upper 20s, it is increasingly tough for the homeless to stay warm – and sadly, two weeks ago a tent fire became deadly.

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PF&R says a lit candle caused a fire in a tent by the Interstate 405 on-ramp near Legacy Emanuel Hospital. Two people were inside the tent. One person escaped, but firefighters say a woman died after suffering burns over 75 percent of her body.

“The candle in her tent knocked over while she was sleeping,” said Scott Kerman, executive director at Blanchet House. “And we know that the people we serve who live on the streets or in tents will use candles and small fires for a lot of different reasons – for warmth and for cooking maybe. But also for light.”

Yeah, you have to wonder what they are “cooking” with candles.

Don’t let your city turn into Portland. Never elect these lunatics to power.


Reported By Jim Hoft | Published December 31, 2020

Here is a final report on the press conference last night in Phoenix, Arizona by Citizens Investigation that uncovered thousands of illegal votes in the state.

Mathematician Bobby Piton supplied Liz Harris, the Director of Citizens Investigation, and We The People AZ Alliance, a random sample of 3,900 questionable AZ voter names to check for residency from the latest election in Arizona. This list represented all 5 categories of voters (Republican, Democrat, etc.).

Bobby Piton testified in the AZ State hearing in late November about ghost voters and other anomalies. He was banned by Twitter during his compelling testimony. He has spent over 400 hours researching abnormalities with voter names and registrations.

Liz Harris then rounded up several hundred patriot volunteers who knocked on these doors looking to find what Piton calls phantom sleeper and suspicious Undefined or “U” voters. They are not eligible to vote for a variety of reasons. He estimated there are 160,000 to 400,000 of these illegal voters in Arizona. The team were able to visit 1,000 of the addresses in person and were often harassed or threatened by the residents. They found 539 voters DID NOT LIVE at these addresses. Additional results are below.

Investigation Finds Votes Cast by:

  • Voters that are dead, verified no longer at that address

  • Several with the actual name “Unknown Voter”

  • Registered at commercial addresses, especially Church’s Chicken

  • Non-U.S. Citizens who denied voting

  • Felons who stated they can’t vote, others in jail for years

  • Out of State residents who just don’t live in Arizona

  • Registered using Schools, car lots, and sports arena’s addresses

  • 65 using the AZ Tabulation Center & Recorders Office as their address

  • Vacant lots at elderly villages (55 & over) and undeveloped properties

  • Wilderness addresses on Bureau of Land Management & State Trust land

  • Abandoned homes completely unlivable or boarded up

  • Street names that just do not exist in any Arizona records

Citizens Investigation held a Live press conference on Dec. 30th at the AZ State Capitol to release some findings and solicit more help (To volunteer just text 480-313-3924).

They found most AZ residents are horrified that a stranger or strangers have registered to vote using their home address. Several homeowners received multiple ballots (3, 4, 5), with one who received 20 ballots at their home. One business address received 200 ballots and another AZ address is used by 2,012 people who registered to vote. Within the first few days the Citizens Investigation had a couple hundred affidavits that 2020 votes were not associated with their registered address. Among other things, Piton found one corner lot has 1,500 registered voters and the lot next to it has 1,000. It’s beyond suspicious that 2,500 voters are registered to such a small area of land.

TheDonald.win reported on the press conference results.

The AZ voter address verification project presented their findings last night. They worked in groups of two. Each pair that presented last night checked a list of between 100 and 200 names/addresses. Many addresses didn’t exist, were businesses, schools, or churches. Five college campuses were checked, 60% or more did not even attend the college listed as the address. Many voters that could not be verified were listed at the same address. This means the 30% is not even accurate. More than 30% of addresses that were boots-on-the-ground verified by sworn affidavit were fraudulent! This is one project in one state. All swing states need to be verified!

THE NAME GAME:

The door-knocking investigation confirms what Bobby Piton has claimed about names that have increased the voter rolls beyond the actual growth of Arizona’s new residents. They found people voting who are only registered with initials, like “D.E.” for a first and last name, or “J.B.B” that cast votes. They are seeing registrations that switch up the first and middle names, or use a combination of initials, first or middle names to produce multiple registrations. These are all the same person but use birth dates only a few months apart to avoid detection.

They’ve also found an unusual amount of voters tied to the same phone number. In one instance of a verified phantom voter, one cell phone number was registered to 19 registered voters, all with different addresses. They then picked one of those 19 voters and found that home phone is the same as 15 other registered voters, none living in the same home, all with different names. This spider web verifies a mess of fraudulent registrations and votes.

ASSISTED LIVING PRECINCT:

They looked at facilities in certain precincts that could not be visited before the election because of Covid restrictions. They looked at 110 voter profiles and a strange pattern emerged. Each person had more than one tag for “Already Voted”. They were all the same dates of Oct. 15th, 20th, and the 23rd. Records then show they requested a ballot on October 29th, after already voting several times. They were then tagged again as “Already Voted” on November 25th, twenty two days after the election. Nov. 25th is coincidentally the same day the 65 voters who registered using the Maricopa County Tabulation Center address and County Recorders address are documented as requesting ballots. This is the same time Maricopa county was dragging out the counting of votes.

COLLEGE RESIDENTS:

A list of voter registration for 5 Arizona colleges that provide on campus student living were compiled. Each school happily complied with help in cleaning up these voter lists. Each college reviewed the lists and responded. It showed that 60% (or higher) of the registered voters were not residents of student housing, nor were they students of that school. This evidence has turned into a larger project that will encompass all of the AZ colleges and is ongoing.

THE CANVASSERS SPEAK:

Two female volunteers said:  “The two of us canvassed 119 addresses so far. We found 29 people who had moved. We were unable to locate a new address for them. Almost all of these voters were unknown to those living at the residence. We talked to one person who was not a U.S. citizen and said they didn’t vote, yet someone cast a ballot in their name and address. We had 3 people whose relatives voted for them and signed the voter form for them. We found 5 people who moved out of State who voted in AZ, or someone voted for them. 4 people stated they did not vote, one said she was in Covid isolation – yet votes were cast for these people. One we talked with decided to vote in person at the precinct. She was told she already voted and was offered a provisional ballot, which she completed. She has no idea which ballot was counted. To recap, there were 25 voters that we could not verify any information at all on these people, even after multiple attempts to find them. 48 locations had problems that we could verify, meaning almost half of the addresses had issues.”

Another canvasser said: “I visited 326 addresses. I spoke with an actual person at 195 locations and have written 60 affidavits with voter discrepancies. One Homeowner stated she received 4 ballots in her name for this last election. There were 4 addresses with deceased people, a daughter showed the canvasser her dead fathers ballot that came in the mail. Yet a vote was still cast in her dead Father’s name. 13 addresses were vacant lots or abandoned homes. At 27 addresses the current residents said: “I’ve never heard of that person”. There were 24 names associated with one address, which was an apartment complex, but no apartment number. The complex management said if USPS can’t determine the correct apartments mail slot, the mail is supposed to be returned to sender. 11 locations had voter names of “Unknown Voter”. “

Two male canvassers said: “Over 5 days we visited 122 homes in the East valley. We completed 43 affidavits that represent 31 locations where no such person lived there.”

VOLUNTEER or HELP: To help in Arizona with voter integrity canvassing of addresses just text 480-313-3924. Training is held daily at 7AM, 11AM, and 7PM. To help fund Bobby Pitons research visit his GoFundMe page.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

A.F. Branco Cartoon – The Good Old Days

If you think 2020 was bad, 2021 may be much worse with Biden and the Democrats in charge.

New Years 2021Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2020.
Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated – $1.00 –  $5.00 –  $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 –  it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!

A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and shared by President Donald Trump.


Commentary by Ann Coulter Ann Coulter | Posted: Dec 30, 2020 3:35 PM

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.
Happy Kwanzaa! The Holiday Brought to You by the FBI

Source: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Pool

Vice President-elect Kamala Harris recently tweeted:

“Our Kwanzaa celebrations are one of my favorite childhood memories. The whole family would gather around across multiple generations and we’d tell stories and light the candles. Whether you’re celebrating this year with those you live with or over Zoom, happy Kwanzaa!”

Post some pictures, Kamala! We’d love to see your Brahmin and Jamaican grandparents sitting around the Kwanzaa candles recalling celebrations way back when they were three or four years younger. (Would that The Washington Post’s “Fact Checker” would start counting Kamala’s lies!)

Kwanzaa, celebrated exclusively by white liberals, is a fake holiday invented in 1966 (when Kamala was 2 years old) by black radical/FBI stooge Ron Karenga — aka Dr. Maulana Karenga, founder of United Slaves, the violent nationalist rival to the Black Panthers. Liberals have become so mesmerized by multicultural gibberish that they have forgotten the real history of Kwanzaa and Karenga’s United Slaves.

In what was ultimately a foolish gambit, during the madness of the ’60s, the FBI encouraged the most extreme black nationalist organizations in order to discredit and split the left. The more preposterous the group, the better. (It’s the same function MSNBC serves today.)

By that criterion, Karenga’s United Slaves was perfect.

Despite modern perceptions that blend all the black activists of the ’60s, the Black Panthers did not hate whites. Although some of their most high-profile leaders were drug dealers and murderers, they did not seek armed revolution.

Those were the precepts of Karenga’s United Slaves. The United Slaves were proto-fascists, walking around in dashikis, gunning down Black Panthers and adopting invented “African” names. (I will not be shooting any Black Panthers this week because I am Kwanzaa-reform, and we are not that observant.)

It’s as if David Duke invented a holiday called “Anglika,” which he based on the philosophy of “Mein Kampf” — and clueless public school teachers began celebrating the made-up, racist holiday.

In the category of the-gentleman-doth-protest-too-much, back in the ’70s, Karenga was quick to criticize Nigerian newspapers that claimed that certain American black radicals were CIA operatives.

Now we know the truth: The FBI fueled the bloody rivalry between the Panthers and United Slaves. In the annals of the American ’60s, Karenga was the Father Gapon, stooge of the czarist police. Whether Karenga was a willing FBI dupe, or just a dupe, remains unclear. The left has forgotten the FBI’s tacit encouragement of this murderous black nationalist cult founded by the father of Kwanzaa.

In one barbarous outburst, Karenga’s United Slaves shot two Black Panthers to death on the UCLA campus: Al “Bunchy” Carter and John Huggins. Karenga himself served time, a useful stepping-stone for his current position as the chair of the Africana Studies Department at California State University at Long Beach.

(Speaking of which, the cheap labor lobby certainly was right about how the GOP could easily win over “natural conservative” Hispanics. Look at how California has swung decisively to the right since Hispanics became the largest ethnic group there! Good luck winning California now, Democrats!)

The esteemed Cal State professor Karenga’s invented holiday is a nutty blend of schmaltzy ’60s rhetoric, black racism and Marxism. The seven principles of Kwanzaa are the very same seven principles of the Symbionese Liberation Army, another invention of The Worst Generation.

In 1974, Patty Hearst, kidnap victim-cum-SLA revolutionary, famously posed next to the banner of her alleged captors, a seven-headed cobra. Each snakehead stood for one of the SLA’s revolutionary principles: Umoja, Kujichagulia, Ujima, Ujamaa, Nia, Kuumba and Imani. These are the exact same seven “principles” of Kwanzaa.

Kwanzaa praises collectivism in every possible area of life. It takes a village to raise a police snitch!

When Karenga was asked to distinguish Kawaida, the philosophy underlying Kwanzaa, from “classical Marxism,” he essentially said that, under Kawaida, we also hate whites. (And here’s something interesting: Kawaida, Kwanzaa and Kuumba are also the only three Kardashian sisters not to have their own shows on the E! network.)

While taking the “best of early Chinese and Cuban socialism” (Is that the mass murder or the seizure of private property?), Karenga said Kawaida practitioners believe one’s racial identity “determines life conditions, life chances and self-understanding.”

There’s an inclusive philosophy for you!

Sing to “Jingle Bells”:

Kwanzaa bells, dashikis sell

          Whitey has to pay;

          Burning, shooting, oh what fun

          On this made-up holiday!

Kwanzaa emerged not from Africa, but from the FBI’s COINTELPRO. It is a holiday celebrated exclusively by idiot white liberals. Black people celebrate Christmas.


Commentary By Wallace B. Henley, Exclusive Columnist 

Wallace Henley, former Senior Associate Pastor of 2nd Baptist Church in Houston, Texas. | Photo by Scott Belin

Against the backdrop of current events — especially the increasingly frenzied preoccupation with the “reset” of the global order — a sometimes puzzling statement of Jesus becomes clearer: “And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has been treated violently, and violent men take it by force.” (Matthew 11:12 NASB)

The Message paraphrase brings out an important nuance: “For a long time now people have tried to force themselves into God’s Kingdom.”

We are living through an era when people under secular banners are trying to force the coming of the benefits of Christ’s Kingdom and conformity to its high values of love, equality, respect for those unlike us, and caring for the disenfranchised and victims of discrimination.

What’s wrong with this? The answer: Without Christ and the Holy Spirit it is fleshly striving that deteriorates into judgmentalism, legalism, and terrorism.

The violence sparked by agitators, the “cancellation” of resistant people and institutions, the passion of destroyers to kill and maim in the name of their self-sanctified causes we have seen before, many times in history.

This we do not need again.

It is not revolution we need, but transformation. Revolution is force from outside-in, and transitory, requiring armies of czars to sustain it. Few phenomena reveal this as glaringly as the 18th century French Revolution, or China’s 1960s Red Guard movement.

Transformation, however, works from inward to outward. “Conversion,” an inner change of heart, is vital to the movement Christ brings to the world.  It is wrought neither by sword nor czar, but by the continuing work of the Holy Spirit within the person. For radical transformation we must have the whole of the Trinity: The heart of the Father, the mind of the Son, and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.

Hardly anyone understood this better than Salvation Army founder William Booth, who spoke prophetically in the 19th century when he said,

The chief danger that confronts the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, heaven without hell.

There may be much disagreement about a reset to a globalist vision and policy initiatives, but General Booth described a “reset” that is urgently needed.

In Part 1 of this series on the radical church we noted that the word “radical” refers to “roots.” Thus, the reset needed now in churches everywhere is back to their New Testament roots and recovery of their true identity.

I use here the term, “churches” rather than the The Church to stress the importance of locality in God’s vision for His gathered people. In the Old Testament God instructs Moses in the construction of the Ark of the Covenant and calls the lid the “Mercy Seat.” “There I will meet with you,” says the Lord. (Exodus 25:22, emphasis added)

God is omnipresent but humans are limited to the strictures of time and space. Therefore, the Omnipresent One must establish a localized point spatially and temporally where He can interact with beings bound to the local. Centuries later the Lord will show Solomon how to construct and order the Temple, and tells him, “I have consecrated this house which you have built, by putting My name there forever, and My eyes and My heart will be there always.” (1 Kings 9:3 NLT)

But Nebuchadnezzar destroys the Temple in 587 BC, it is rebuilt under Herod and dedicated in 164 BC, then demolished under Roman leaders Titus and Pompey in 70 AD.

Where, then, are God’s eyes and heart focused now?

Jesus Christ is born into the world as the Focal Point for God’s engagement with His creation and the beings made in His image that He sovereignly places there. Jesus Christ is the continuation of the Temple ministry. He is the “There” where humans trapped in locality can meet and interact with the Most High God.

Jesus Himself says as much when He is chastised by religious authorities for cleansing the Temple. “Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up,” He says. “

What?” they ask in surprise. “It took us forty-six years to build this temple, and you will raise it up in three days?”

“But when Jesus said, ‘this temple’, He meant His own body,” explains John 2:21-22 (NLT and paraphrase).

Suddenly John 1:14 jumps into view: “The Word became flesh and dwelt (‘tabernacled,’ or ‘pitched His tent’) among us.” And as God’s intense holiness and glory were manifested in the Holy of Holies within the Temple, so, says John, “and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”

John had also witnessed Christ’s transfiguration, when the outer shell of His human body was temporarily dimmed so that His core disciples could see Him as He really was and is, in the full splendor of His Being.

Jesus Christ is the continuing “meeting place” between God and humans, the “locality” during His incarnation where God’s eyes and heart are continually focused.

Now Jesus’s statement to Simon Peter at Caesarea Philippi becomes clearer, when He gives to the church represented in Peter and all others who make the confession, “You are the Christ (the Messiah), the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:16)

The “keys” signify the authority given to Christ’s church to stand against the powers of “Hades,” or Hell. This is a transmission of the same authority that had been localized in the Jerusalem Temple, then localized in the incarnate Christ, then localized and globalized in the worldwide church.

Therefore, churches now must undergo a reset that begins with the ontological and proceeds to the functional.

More about this in Part 3 of this series.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Wallace Henley is a former pastor, White House and congressional aide, and author of more than 25 books. His newest is Two Men From Babylon: Nebuchadnezzar, Trump, and the Lord of Historypublished by Thomas Nelson.

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