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Jan. 6 Committee Avoids Probing Security Failures as Hearing Finally Covers Capitol Riot

REPORTED BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | JULY 13, 2022

Why is the Jan. 6 committee soliciting testimony from former D.C. government employees instead of the Capitol Police Intelligence Unit?

Author Tristan Justice profile

TRISTAN JUSTICE

VISIT ON TWITTER@JUSTICETRISTAN

The House Select Committee on Jan. 6 finally devoted a major portion of a hearing in its summer show trial series to the violence at the Capitol. After again re-establishing that members of the Trump White House were divided over the Republican president’s challenges to the 2020 election, lawmakers spent the second half of Tuesday’s hearing on the turmoil from more than 18 months ago.

“We settle our differences at the ballot box,” Committee Chair Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said during his opening of proceedings in which a fellow panel member, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-M.d., led the questioning of two repentant rioters who illegally entered the Capitol. Just five years ago, Raskin spearheaded efforts to overturn the 2016 election results as one of his first actions in Congress, objecting to the certification over made-up narratives of Trump-Russia collusion.

Over the course of Tuesday’s hearing, lawmakers sought to paint former President Donald Trump as guilty of coordinating an assault on the Capitol, which began well before he had finished his speech at the White House. At one point, the panel featured an unsent tweet from the president urging supporters to “March to the Capitol,” as incriminating evidence. The post loses its shock value, however, when one acknowledges that Trump said plainly to those gathered at the Ellipse to head toward the Capitol and protest “peacefully.” Quite the bombshell.

Jan. 6 cmte showing a drafted, unsent Trump tweet promoting his address at the Ellipse and a subsequent “March to the Capitol” pic.twitter.com/AOocxQc0hW
— Mica Soellner (@MicaSoellnerDC) July 12, 2022

“I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard,” Trump said.

For all its redundancy in its desperate attempt to smear political dissidents as violent “insurrectionists” ahead of the fall midterms, the Jan. 6 Committee’s latest hearing offered the most information yet about the telegraphing and public planning in the run-up to the Capitol riot. The proceedings, on the other hand, came complete not with testimony from senior officials in charge of Capitol security, but instead from an anonymous Twitter employee and former D.C. Chief of Homeland Security and Intelligence Donell Harvin.

In a pre-recorded clip played during the hearing, Harvin told lawmakers his division received information “suggesting that some very, very violent individuals were organizing to come to D.C. and not only were they organizing to come to D.C., but these groups, these nonaligned groups, were aligning. All the red flags went up at that point.”
“When you have armed militia collaborating with white supremacy groups collaborating with conspiracy theory groups online all towards a common goal, you start seeing what we call in terrorism, ‘a blended ideology,’” Harvin added. “And that’s a very, very bad sign.”

Harvin said groups went beyond casual chatter and began coordinating specifics.

The committee’s anonymous Twitter employee, meanwhile, testified that the company was concerned about the potential for violence on Jan. 6.

“I don’t know that I slept that night [Jan. 5, 2021] to be honest with you,” the employee said. “I was on pins and needles, because again, for months, I had been begging and anticipating and attempting to raise the reality that, if we made no intervention into what I saw occurring, people were going to die.”

Twitter fostered the same type of user riot planning that Silicon Valley tech giants cited to justify their collective purge of rival app Parler from their online services shortly after the riot.

Tuesday’s testimony raised more questions than answers and reinforced existing questions about the Capitol security failures under the leadership of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who six times turned down requests for the deployment of the National Guard, according to former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund.

Why didn’t Pelosi’s House Sergeant at Arms approve requests for National Guard assistance? According to The Washington Post, “Harvin’s team set up a call with analysts at the Capitol Police.” Why did the U.S. Capitol Police Intelligence Unit “not warn its officers or law enforcement partners of the gravity of the threat” as outlined by a Senate report last summer? Why didn’t the Jan. 6 Committee ask Harvin about the Capitol Police’s failure to heed his warnings? And why is the committee soliciting testimony from former D.C. government employees instead of the Capitol Police Intelligence Unit? We all know the answer to the last two.

Devoid of opposition, the committee is operating for the sole purpose of expunging its political enemies from public life, and that means doing everything in its power to present a curated narrative. Panel member Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., admitted that much on CNN on Sunday when she said on national television that the committee was uninterested in corroborating blockbuster claims left unverified at best.

“We never call in witnesses to corroborate other witnesses or to give their reaction to other witnesses,” Lofgren said.

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com.

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Will The U.S. Fall Just as Rome Did?

BY: SPENCER KLAVAN | JULY 12, 2022

When will we — or did we — pass the point of no return? Should we expect our own Julius Caesar? Rome’s example can furnish some guidance.

Author Spencer Klavan profile

SPENCER KLAVAN

When exactly was Rome’s republic doomed? That ancient question has a special urgency now, as our American republic seems to be flirting with its own downfall. When will we — or did we — pass the point of no return? Maybe Rome’s example can furnish some guidance.

By the time Julius Caesar rose to prominence in Rome, the republic was so warped that few informed observers expected it to last the century. Rome’s borders had exploded outward during the 200s and 100s B.C. Legislators had devised a plan to distribute newly acquired land more or less equally among the citizenry, making room for an expanding population and a healthy middle class. But wealthy patricians, exploiting loopholes in the system, sucked up vast tracts and cultivated them with imported slave labor. Soldiers who fought to capture new territory found themselves dispossessed of it upon their return home.

Eventually a charismatic nobleman, Tiberius Gracchus, gave eloquent voice to the common people’s discontent, earning election as their official representative — a tribune of the plebs. In “Life of Gracchus,” the biographer Plutarch attributes to Tiberius a memorable policy speech in which he lamented that “men who fight and die for Italy enjoy shared access to air and sunlight—but nothing else.” His proposed solution was a land redistribution scheme, which met with furious opposition from those who stood to lose property.

Debates Settled by Sword

In hot pursuit of his aims and convinced of their virtue, Tiberius bent the rules of Roman politics almost to the breaking point. He ejected a fellow tribune from office and ran for what was probably an illegal second term as tribune. Things turned violent in the summer of 133 B.C., when Tiberius was clubbed to death by his senatorial detractors in a riot over the reelection campaign.

Until then, it had been understood that debates were not to be settled at sword-point. “There was no civil slaughter in Rome until Tiberius Gracchus became the first victim,” writes the Greek historian Appian in “Civil Wars.” Looking back, Tiberius’s death seemed like the beginning of the end. His brother Gaius proposed still more aggressive land reforms, which amounted, in the words of the great historian Theodor Mommsen in “History of Rome,” to “nothing other than an entirely new constitution.” When Gaius died in another political melee, a true crisis was underway.

The old constitutional system was hemorrhaging public trust, yet proposals for a new one only seemed to make things worse. Attempts to reimpose order through unilateral rule, most notably by the general Lucius Cornelius Sulla, ended in more bloodshed and recrimination. By the 50s B.C., bribery and threats of violence were standard electoral operating procedures. Corruption, always a feature of republican politics, became its essence. “Intelligent men,” wrote Plutarch in “Life of Caesar,” “would be happy if nothing worse than a monarchy resulted from this deranged state of affairs.” In the chaos, it was clear that a daring statesman — if he combined the popularity of a Gracchus with the military ruthlessness of a Sulla — stood a chance of seizing total control.

Rise of Julius Caesar

That statesman was Julius Caesar. As governor of the Gallic provinces, Caesar was granted authority by appointment to wage war in the regions north and west of a little stream called the Rubicon. Up there, for nearly ten years, he performed spectacular feats of domination and amassed an unstoppable fighting force. Then, in the winter of 49 B.C., the conquering hero returned to seek election as consul, the city’s highest office. He brought his army with him.

It was a severe breach of Roman law for anyone but an elected magistrate to lead military operations in Italy proper. But that is what Caesar now threatened to do, in part because his only remaining rival, Pompey the Great, stood at the head of his own army. The senate, acting collectively as a rather feckless middleman in this standoff between two giants, demanded that Caesar dismiss his troops before entering Italy and face trial for prior breaches of protocol. Caesar suspected this was a ruse designed by Pompey to strip him of his power — as he put it to his soldiers, “Pompey had been led astray by Caesar’s enemies through envy.” When negotiations collapsed, Caesar gathered his troops and marched across the Rubicon.

It is at this point that Caesar is supposed to have quoted the Greek playwright Menander: anerriphthō kubos, “let the die be cast.” Or, in the more famous Latin version recorded by the imperial court historian Suetonius in “Lives of the Caesars,” iacta alea est. The dice are rolled, and the rest is up to fate. But Caesar himself left behind no written record of any such momentous proclamation. The Rubicon moment only took on its quasi-legendary status years later, after Pompey lost the war and Caesar was named “dictator for life.” His heir Octavian would still have to fight another civil war to become Rome’s first emperor. But in retrospect, it came to look as if that one fateful river crossing sealed Rome’s fate.

Destined to Decay?

Did it? Or was the fall already foreordained long before Caesar? To many ancient philosophers, it seemed that governments inevitably declined and passed away in a process called anacyclosis — the cycle of regimes. This was a tragic view of life, informed as much by playwrights like Aeschylus as by historians like Herodotus. These observers saw arrogance and self-interest as fatal human flaws that consigned even the greatest civilizations to eventual replacement. “Everything that exists falls victim to decadence and change,” wrote the historian Polybius in “Histories,” his comprehensive account of anacyclosis.

Both Rome’s republic and ours were intended to forestall such decay by balancing the strengths and weaknesses of the three basic forms of government — monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy — against one another. An executive (for us, the president) leads his country as a monarch might, especially in times of war. Yet his power is restrained by a chosen few, the legislators, who are in turn accountable to the people — theoretically.

Our Oligarchs Bidding for Control?

But republics have their own vulnerabilities, one of which is despotic ambition among the rich and powerful. As Machiavelli observed, the “corrupt and insolent behavior” of those “undertaking to retain power” can be fatal to a republic’s legitimacy. When state authority becomes a mere pretext for class hierarchy, as the Gracchi suggested it had in Rome, the system starts to look like a sham.

Some would argue that this is exactly our situation. The ideological capture of major corporations and media outlets, the relentless exportation of American jobs and importation of foreign labor, the pretextual use of Covid-19 to transform election procedures, leaving them highly vulnerable to fraud — all these trends, and others besides, indicate that our elites are making a bid for oligarchic control.

Perhaps Donald Trump, then, was a kind of Gracchus — giving voice to justified populist frustration, encountering relentless subversion by entrenched state actors, then getting both implicated and defeated in a disastrous season of politics by riot. If so, then is our Caesar next? “We think we’re in a democracy; we’re actually in an oligarchy,” said the provocative theorist Curtis Yarvin recently. “The only thing that you’re left with, if you don’t like the way this oligarchy is trending, is…monarchy.”

Our Rubicon Moment

And yet… even in late stages of decline there is still that Rubicon moment, the moment before the end is set in stone. Both Suetonius and the last great republican, Cicero, suggested that Caesar might not have been destined to deal the republic its death blow. It was a choice he made, dictated more by ambition than by necessity. For there was another snatch of verse that shaped his career, besides Menander’s words of resignation. Apparently, Caesar never forgot the moment in Euripides’ tragedy, “Phoinissai,” when the would-be autocrat Eteocles says: “if we must ever do wrong, it is best to do it for the throne.” Like Eteocles, Caesar chose power over what was right.

He could have chosen otherwise, and so can we. Our own national lore begins with the inverse of that Rubicon story — with a man who led an army but foreswore a crown. George Washington is the foundational American hero because he surrendered sovereignty to the people when he could almost certainly have seized it for himself. The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health shows that this American spirit is still alive in some corners of our government. In Roe v. Wade, the Court unjustly usurped the prerogative to legislate about abortion. But Dobbs returned that prerogative to elected representatives. It is still possible to resist the will to power in the name of the common good.

And so, the most important line in “Phoinissai”for usis not the one Caesar kept close to his heart. A few lines later there comes a response from Eteocles’s mother Jocasta, who presents her son with a choice: “do you wish to rule your city or save it?” That is the choice each of us must face, in whatever sphere of influence is ours, if we hope to remain Americans. From the statesman to the average voter, from the Rubicon to Washington, D.C., nothing is written in the stars until it happens. We can still choose to live free.

Spencer A. Klavan is features editor of The American Mind, associate editor of the The Claremont Review of Books, and host of the Young Heretics podcast podcast. His book, “How to Save the West”, is available for pre-order on Amazon.

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Looking Like Trump Was Right: Report Says Hunter Biden Under Fed Surveillance for China Ties

Reported By Abby Liebing | July 6, 2022

As the drama around Hunter Biden continues to unfold, it has come to light that he has been under federal surveillance for ties with Chinese figures, according to a recent report. Paul Sperry, a reporter for Real Clear Investigations, tweeted U.S. counterintelligence officials told him about Biden coming under surveillance and looking into his contacts and deals in China.

https://twitter.com/PaulSperry30/status/1544156629905686528?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1544156629905686528%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.westernjournal.com%2Flooking-like-trump-right-report-says-hunter-biden-fed-surveillance-china-ties%2F

https://twitter.com/PaulSperry30/status/1544160254883151874?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1544160254883151874%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.westernjournal.com%2Flooking-like-trump-right-report-says-hunter-biden-fed-surveillance-china-ties%2F

This is not the first time that the issue of Hunter Biden and his connections to China have made headlines. Former President Donald Trump actually claimed that the Biden family had suspicious ties to China in 2019, Reuters reported.

Trump particularly accused Hunter Biden of using his position of influence to secure the financial backing of China for his investments. But at the time Trump provided little evidence of his claims about Biden, and many dismissed it. But since the contents of Biden’s laptop have been discovered by the New York Post, the connection between Biden and China has some real evidence behind it now. It has become clearer that the Biden family has strong ties to China and Chinese business and have profited from the connection.

“The Biden family has done five deals in China totaling some $31 million arranged by individuals with direct ties to Chinese intelligence — some reaching the very top of China’s spy agency,” the New York Post reported in January.
“Indeed, every known deal that the Biden family enjoyed with Beijing was reached courtesy of individuals with spy ties. And Joe Biden personally benefited from his family’s foreign deals,” the Post continued.

These deals have been going on for years it appears. When President Joe Biden was vice president under Barack Obama, Hunter Biden tagged along with him on a trip to China in 2013. While the older Biden was working on the tensions in the South China Sea, Hunter Biden paid a visit to Jonathan Li, a Chinese financier who ran the private-equity fund Bohai Capital, the New York Post reported.

“Ten days later the Chinese business license for Bohai Harvest — a new company which would invest Chinese cash in projects outside the country that Hunter Biden had been trying to launch for more than a year — was approved by Chinese officials,” the New York Post reported.

As more and more of these connections between Hunter Biden and China have been examined, there seem to be clear indication that the Biden family has immensely profited from their business deals in China.

Hunter Biden’s laptop continues to provide evidence of the connections in China that have helped along the way.

“Hunter Biden’s hard drive contained an enviable lineup of contacts for top US officials tasked with overseeing the US-China relationship, and at least 10 senior Google executives — raising new questions about the extent to which Joe Biden’s well-connected son could have leveraged his connections for personal profit,” the New York Post reported.

But now it has landed Hunter Biden in a tough spot as the security concerns surrounding his connections and business practices are raising questions.

Abby Liebing

Associate Reporter

Abby Liebing is a Hillsdale College graduate with a degree in history. She has written for various outlets and enjoys covering foreign policy issues and culture.

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Secret Service agent and former White House official willing to testify that false claims were made at Jan. 6 hearing about Trump

Reported by CARLOS GARCIA | June 28, 2022

A former White House official and a Secret Service agent said they were willing to testify in the Jan. 6 hearings in order to contradict claims that former President Donald Trump got into an altercation while trying to make his way to the Capitol rioting. The claims were made by Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, on Tuesday. Hutchinson said that she heard from Tony Ornato, then-White House deputy chief of staff, that the former president became incensed when he wasn’t allowed to go to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. He is alleged to have grabbed at the steering wheel of the vehicle and then lunged at the agent who was preventing him from leaving.

Later on Tuesday, that Secret Secret agent reportedly said he was willing to testify that this account was false. Ornato also indicated the same willingness to testify contrary to the story. Both Ornato and Robert Engel, the agent, had previously testified for the Jan. 6 Committee behind closed doors about what they witnessed on that day.

A spokesperson for the committee released a short statement about the development.

“The Committee trusts the credibility of a witness who was willing to testify under oath & in public but is also willing to hear any information that others may have that would aid in their investigation,” read the statement.

Among the other shocking claims from Hutchinson, she stated that Trump allegedly said that Vice President Mike Pence deserved to be hanged by the crowd of people rioting at the U.S. Capitol. The former president took to social media to deny some of the claims and to lambast Hutchinson as a person that he hardly knew except for his having heard terrible things about her.

In response to the day’s testimony, Fox News host Bret Baier said the claims were “stunning” and “compelling” because of Hutchinson’s proximity to power.

Here’s more about the claims made in the hearing:

Bret Baier: This is stunning www.youtube.com

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Republicans Snag Over 1 Million Voters From Dems In Past Year: AP

Reported by GABE KAMINSKY, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER | June 27, 2022

GERMANY-G7-SUMMIT — **(Photo by LUKAS BARTH / POOL / AFP) (Photo by LUKAS BARTH/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)**

Over 1 million U.S. voters in 43 states have fled the Democratic Party since 2021 and registered as Republicans, according to a new report. Republicans have gained major ground in suburban counties, according to the voter registration data examined by The Associated Press, as well as “in virtually every region of the country.” The findings come almost four months before the midterm elections in November, which a bipartisan swath of pundits has deemed a probable “red wave” in part due to messaging failures among the left.

“While Democrats may see a slight enthusiasm bump following the Supreme Court’s decision on abortion, it’s highly unlikely they’ll be able to sustain that for the next five months,” Andy Surabian, a Republican strategist, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Data for roughly 1.7 million voters who switched political parties was analyzed by the AP. The data, which according to the outlet comes from the political firm L2, reportedly shows that around two-thirds of the 1.7 million voters became Republicans — while only about 630,000 voters became Democrats.

Biden’s support in the suburbs has been widely credited as the reason for his success in the 2020 presidential election. While these areas “have tended to show a net advantage to Republicans,” Biden “registered a net Democratic advantage for the first time since Barack Obama’s victory in 2008,” Brookings Institution, a left-leaning think tank, said in a November 2020 report.

However, suburban counties near large cities like Denver, Atlanta and Pittsburgh, as well as near smaller cities like Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and Des Moines, Iowa, have garnered Republican support, the AP reported. (RELATED: ANALYSIS: We Just Got The Latest Indication Red Waves In Blue Cities Could Become A Reality)

CLEVELAND, OH – JULY 21: Balloons and confetti are seen at the end of the fourth day of the Republican National Convention on July 21, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump received the number of votes needed to secure the party’s nomination. An estimated 50,000 people are expected in Cleveland, including hundreds of protesters and members of the media. The four-day Republican National Convention kicked off on July 18. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

“Biden and Democrats are woefully out of touch with the American people, and that’s why voters are flocking to the Republican Party in droves,” Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel told the AP.

The data showing more registered Republicans comes after Democrats lost in droves across states last fall. In Virginia, Republicans swept statewide, notably taking the gubernatorial race with the election of Glenn Youngkin.

Republicans also won big recently in Texas, where Mayra Flores flipped a blue district in June with the support of Latino voters. The Democratic National Committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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The Jan. 6 Democrats Have A Point About Trump (If You Simply Ignore Facts)

REPORTED BY: EDDIE SCARRY | JUNE 14, 2022

If it were in fact a ‘lie’ to charge that an election had been unfair, even stolen, we’re going to need a few more special committees just for Hillary Clinton.

Author Eddie Scarry profile

EDDIE SCARRY

VISIT ON TWITTER@ESCARRY

So the slam-dunk argument congressional Democrats have so far made during their obscenely boring Jan. 6 hearings is that Donald Trump not only lied about voter fraud in the 2020 election but that he knew he lied. How can we as a nation look at ourselves in the mirror ever again after that shock revelation?

Maryland Democrat Rep. Jamie Raskin, who sits on the Jan. 6 committee, summarized the conclusion on Sunday. “I think we can prove to any reasonable, open-minded person that Donald Trump absolutely knew because he was surrounded by lawyers,” he said on CNN.

There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Trump must have been willfully dishonest when he said over and over again that he lost the election because it was rigged and fixed to ensure his defeat. After all, his lawyers had told him it was a lie!

The only problem with that open-and-shut case, to the extent that it’s supposed to mean anything to anyone, is that it ignores the lawyers and aides who were telling Trump the opposite, plus the all-too-likely possibility that Trump simply didn’t believe anyone who was telling him he had lost.

None of this is new. Trump White House assistant Peter Navarro was telling the president he had won the election, even publishing a three-part report making the case that the race was stolen. Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani was telling him he had won. Plenty of others inside and outside the administration were also arguing that state election laws had been illegally altered by lower courts, giving Democrats an unfair advantage.

It was supposedly “devastating testimony” (at least according to CNN’s Jake Tapper) by former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr on Monday (previously recorded) when he recalled telling Trump in person that the Justice Department was unable to substantiate any widespread fraud that would have changed the outcome of the election. That story is three months old. Barr recounted it first in the Wall Street Journal during which he said he told the president he found no evidence of fraud and that the president was resistant: “There is a mountain of evidence,” Trump said, according to Barr.

But people told Trump he lost! So he knew he was lying!

That’s not how lying works. The Justice Department swears at this very moment that “white supremacy” is our greatest domestic threat. I say it’s not and I can tell you why I disagree. That doesn’t make me a liar. And if it were in fact a “lie” to charge that an election had been unfair, even stolen, we’re going to need a few more special committees just for Hillary Clinton.

A subsequent point Democrats are aiming for is that Trump had also stated even before the election that his loss could only occur if Democrats cheated, thus he must have had a diabolical plan all along. But guess who made the same assertion? Democrats!

Back in August 2020, CNN hosted a segment with fire-breathing liberal Ana Navarro, Democrat Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, and Democrat former Sen. Barbara Boxer of California. Here’s what each of them said in the span of five minutes:

“The only way he feels now he can win this against the Biden-Harris ticket is to straight out steal it, and he’s doing it in plain sight, and we cannot let it happen.”— Boxer

“This man is not going to win fairly. So why are we supporting crooked activity?”— Clyburn (Yes, the James Clyburn who is credited with having “saved” Biden’s campaign.)

“[H]e’s going to find every single way he can to steal this election, to rig this election in his favor.”— Navarro

Is it only worth an investigation when Republicans do it or…?

I get that Democrats are trying to make a broader case that Trump’s election claims were part of a conspiracy that ultimately led to the riot in the Capitol in 2021, but if reaching that point first requires that they ignore the gaping holes in the fundamental assertion that Trump purposefully lied to the public, the committee hearings are basically just re-runs of Lawrence O’Donnell’s programming of the past year.

And we haven’t even gotten started on the role that the pandemic hysteria and Black Lives Matter violence, intentionally instigated and exacerbated by Democrats, played in the lead-up to Jan. 6. I’m sure the committee will use at least one day to get into that. Surely!

Eddie Scarry is the D.C. columnist at The Federalist and author of “Privileged Victims: How America’s Culture Fascists Hijacked the Country and Elevated Its Worst People.”

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The J6 Inquisition Is An Obvious Soviet-Style Show Trial

REPORTED BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | JUNE 10, 2022

As during Communist control of Soviet Russia, the Jan. 6 Committee’s purpose is to prop up a dying, corrupt regime.

Author Tristan Justice profile

TRISTAN JUSTICE

VISIT ON TWITTER@JUSTICETRISTAN

The House Select Committee on Jan. 6 launched the public phase of its proceedings Thursday night in a prime-time hearing with all the fanfare of a Soviet show trial, complete with production assistance from a former president of ABC News.

Just as the communists gathered in Moscow between 1936 and 1938 to purge their political opponents in public show trials, nine members of the lower chamber filed into the Cannon House Office Building to demonize their political opponents as domestic enemies.

“I’m from a part of the country where people justify the actions of slavery, Ku Klux Klan, and lynching,” Chairman Bennie Thompson of Mississippi said in his opening. “I’m reminded of that dark history as I hear voices today try and justify the actions of the insurrectionists on January 6th, 2021.”

Thompson went on the brand today’s political opposition as modern-day Confederates and “domestic enemies of the Constitution,” cloaking his own authoritarian admonishment under the moral righteousness of preserving American democracy.

“The world is watching what we do here,” Thompson said. “America has long been expected to be shining city on the hill, a beacon of hope and freedom, a model for others when we are at our best.”

The hearing, however, possessed all the signature hallmarks of the infamous Moscow Trials nearly 100 years ago, in which opponents to Joseph Stalin’s regime were hauled before the public and charged with treason and sedition. And those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 are far from the only targets of the witch hunt spearheaded by Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney and Rep. Thompson.

Legitimate political opposition on Thursday was absent from the hearings. No counternarrative was allowed by the regime, which barred the opposing party’s selected representatives as every cable network except Fox News carried the programming live. Members conducting the show trial accused their opponents of conspiracy to topple the U.S. government, just as the Soviets accused Old Bolshevik leaders of plans to terminate Stalin. Never mind that American institutions held on Jan. 6, and the federal government came nowhere close to collapse when congressional proceedings were interrupted.

The trials in Moscow culminated in the “Great Purge” of dissidents to the incumbent regime, with defendants given death sentences. The Jan. 6 proceedings are aimed at the ultimate purge of former President Donald Trump and his supporters, albeit through societal exile and jail sentences as opposed to execution. According to whistleblowers in the FBI, a purge within the federal law enforcement agency has already begun.

On Tuesday, Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray detailing allegations of multiple whistleblowers who reported they were terminated for their dissident (conservative) views from the agency.

“[He is a] decorated Iraqi War veteran being run out of the FBI,” Jordan said on Fox News Tuesday night of one whistleblower. “His allegiance to the country is being questioned because he had the gall to say something that offended the FBI leadership about the Jan. 6 investigation.”
The other [individual] is also having the same thing happen to them simply because, on an anonymous questionnaire, they said something that the leadership disagreed with them about Jan. 6.

Six in total have come forward, Jordan told Fox News’s Laura Ingraham.

Meanwhile, the Jan. 6 Committee’s prime targets have included prominent members of the prior administration, just as Stalin’s deputies prosecuted leaders of the old regime. On Friday, former Trump Trade Advisor Peter Navarro was taken by the FBI in handcuffs and charged with crimes stemming from the committee’s work. On Thursday morning, hours before the Jan. 6 Committee’s prime-time show trial, lead Michigan GOP gubernatorial candidate Ryan Kelley was arrested by the same agency.

Of the more than 100 subpoenas issued by the Select Committee ostensibly established to probe the Capitol riot, less than 10 percent, according to a Federalist analysis, have targeted individuals directly involved in the chaos. The rest have gone after Americans who committed the now-apparent crime of holding a peaceful demonstration at the White House and espoused unacceptable views in the eyes of the incumbent regime.

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com.

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Biden Admin Plans To Roll Back Trump-Era Free Speech Protections In Education

REPORTED BY KENDALL TIETZ, EDUCATION REPORTER | May 17, 2022

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos makes remarks during a major policy address on Title IX enforcement, which in college covers sexual harassment, rape and assault, at George Mason University, in Arlington, Virginia, U.S., September 7, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Theiler — **REUTERS/Mike Theiler**

President Joe Biden’s administration is planning to roll back current Title IX regulations, which experts argue will revoke protections for both the accuser and the accused in sexual assault cases and threaten freedom of speech at federally funded schools.
“It ultimately returns Title IX back to a guilty until proven innocent standard,” Sarah Perry, a senior legal fellow for the Heritage Foundation said.
“Any changes could put students’ free speech rights at risk and will only exacerbate the problem of self-censorship that has been plaguing our campuses,” Speech First executive director Cherise Trump said.

President Joe Biden’s Department of Education (DOE) is planning to roll back Title IX due process regulations implemented by former President Donald Trump’s administration, which experts argue will revoke protections for both the accuser and the accused in sexual assault cases and threaten freedom of speech.

The Office of Civil Rights (OCR) is planning to rewrite the rules outlined in Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments that set sexual harassment standards at federally funded schools. The Biden administration’s changes would reverse 2020 due process protections that require federal K-12 and higher education schools to investigate Title IX violations in a fair and unbiased manner, which includes the right to be represented by counsel, the presumption of innocence, the ability to cross examine and to introduce witnesses, experts told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Proponents of the current standards argue they fixed problems created by former President Barack Obama’s Education Department; before the 2020 changes, instances of sexual assault and harassment were only recognized as instances of unlawful sex discrimination through regulations that were not legally binding. However, under the current standards, school districts, colleges and universities have a legal obligation to respond to such cases in a fair and unbiased manner.

Under the Trump administration’s standards, instances of sexual assault at federal schools are handled more like “quasi-judicial proceedings,” Sarah Perry, a senior legal fellow for the Heritage Foundation, told TheDCNF.

“It ultimately returns Title IX back to a guilty until proven innocent standard … as opposed to leaving it to one Title IX investigator to determine who was right and who was wrong, in a ‘he said, she said’ proceeding,” Perry said.

A student walks near Royce Hall on the campus of UCLA on April 23, 2012 in Los Angeles, California. According to reports, half of recent college graduates with bachelor's degrees are finding themselves underemployed or jobless. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

A student walks near Royce Hall on the campus of UCLA on April 23, 2012 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

Speech First executive director Cherise Trump told TheDCNF that the rules changes will likely be weaponized against constitutionally protected speech, which could make students subject to “harassment” for their personal or political stances.

The current Title IX regulations that were implemented in 2020 are consistent with a Supreme Court precedent known as the Davis Standard, which concluded that “student-on-student harassment must be so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it can be said to deprive its victims of access to a school’s educational programs or activities,” Trump explained. (RELATED: Republicans Say They Have Proof FBI Targeted Concerned Parents, Despite Garland Denials)
“This is a pretty high threshold that protects students from being accused of harassment for simply voicing their opinions and possibly offending someone with their ideas,” Trump said. In response, universities frequently manipulate Title IX language to fit a more “broad-sweeping definition” such as “severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive…” to “severe, pervasive, or objectively offensive,” she explained.

The small change in wording allows school administrators to restrict and punish speech they believe is “offensive,” “unwanted” or “problematic,” but would not be considered harassment under current Title IX rules, she said.

“Previously, the process for adjudicating serious harassment allegations on campus had been plagued by bias, vagueness, and overreach,” Trump added. “Any changes could put students’ free speech rights at risk and will only exacerbate the problem of self-censorship that has been plaguing our campuses.”

A Republican coalition of 15 state attorneys general have expressed legal concern about the DOE’s plans to roll back the “historic” move that codified sexual harassment regulations under Title IX into law, arguing the previous standards were unworkable and unfair.

“Hundreds of successful lawsuits against schools for denying basic due process and widespread criticism from across the ideological spectrum arose from the Obama-era rules“, the statement said. “The rules also resulted in a disproportionate number of expulsions and scholarship losses for Black male students.”

The Department of Education did not respond to TheDCNF’s request for comment.

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Poll: Democratic Party Has Lowest Net Favorability Rating Compared to Eight Other Political Figures and Institutions

REPORTED BY KAY SMYTHE, REPORTER | May 16, 2022

San,Francisco,,Ca,-,August,23,,2019:,Speaker,Of,The — **Shutterstock/DemocraticParty**

The Democratic Party has the lowest net favorability rating when compared to eight other political figures and institutions, according to an NBC News poll released Monday. Fifty percent of adult respondents to the NBC News poll reported having negative feelings about the Democratic Party, with only 31% saying they have positive feelings — a 19 percentage point net-negative rating. Just above the Democratic Party, with 48% total negative feelings, was Vice President Kamala Harris, according to the poll. (RELATED: Pelosi Says Biden Polls Poorly Because Americans Simply Don’t Know How Good He’s Been)

The new NBC News poll measured 9 different political figures and institutions.

The most unpopular — in terms of net fav/unfav? The Democratic Party https://t.co/oIDoPoqmyw pic.twitter.com/uGhMBFl0nA
— Mark Murray (@mmurraypolitics) May 16, 2022

Almost 80% of the poll respondents were registered voters, which NBC stated is another warning sign for the Democrats as they head into the 2022 midterm elections. The results are the highest net-negative rating the Democratic Party has seen in 30 years of the survey being conducted, NBC reported.

The Democratic Party and Harris were ranked alongside Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Disney, Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the Supreme Court, the Republican Party, and former Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump, respectively. One thousand adults took part in the May poll, with 750 respondents being interviewed by cell phone. The margin of error is + or – 3.10%. The poll was conducted by Hart Research Associates/Public Opinion Strategies.

Americans Aren’t Buying Biden’s Tale Of Economic Recovery https://t.co/jOZJmn48A3
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) April 28, 2022

The poll also revealed that cost of living, jobs and the economy are the top concerns for Americans. Another poll found in March that Latino support for the Democratic Party was failing as inflation and the economy became a core concern for the demographic.

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EXCLUSIVE: No, Jen Psaki, Trump Didn’t Start the DHS ‘Truth Ministry.’ That’s Literal Disinformation

REPORTED BY DIANA GLEBOVA, ASSOCIATE EDITOR | May 13, 2022

Jen Psaki Delivers Daily White House Briefing — **(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)**

White House press secretary Jen Psaki has spread disinformation repeatedly from the podium while speaking about the Disinformation Governance Board, claiming its “work” was present under the Trump administration.

Psaki’s go-to defense of the establishment of the board under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is a continuation “of disinformation-related work that began under the prior administration.” One of the key bodies countering disinformation founded under former President Donald Trump, the Countering Foreign Influence Task Force (CFITF), was renamed by the Biden administration when he came into office the Mis-, Dis-, and Malinformation (MDM) and was modified to focus on domestic rather than foreign threats, two Trump DHS officials told the Daily Caller.

“The CFITF was focused on foreign influence – particularly as it related to elections. The current MDM description from DHS takes the word ‘foreign’ out of the title. It’s clear that MDM, as it’s currently defined, is also looking at domestic communication,” Chad Wolf, former acting secretary of the DHS, told the Daily Caller.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), was created in 2018 under Trump to counter cybersecurity threats. In May of 2018, “a Countering Foreign Influence Task Force (CFITF) was established within CISA’s predecessor agency,” according to CISA’s website, and was tasked with “helping the American people understand the risks from” MDM.

CFITF was modified by the Biden administration in 2021 to officially change its name to MDM, and its “mission evolved to reflect the changing information environment,” according to its website.

The Biden-era DHS, its assistant press secretary and the CFITF did not respond to several requests from the Daily Caller to say why the name change was necessary, and what the new “mission” of the MDM is.

The MDM is now “charged with building national resilience to MDM and foreign influence activities,” the website reads. It also mentions that MDM campaigns are waged by both “foreign and domestic threat actors.”

A “Disinformation Stops With You” resource listed on the website states disinformation can be spread by “foreign states, scammers and extremist groups.” An election MDM resource states “Russian, Chinese, and Iranian state-sponsored elements, as well as domestic extremist groups,” are the primary culprits of spreading MDM.

President Joe Biden stated May 4 the “MAGA crowd is really the most extreme political organization that’s existed in American history, in recent American history.”

“When it comes to disinformation, it’s clear that DHS, under President Biden, is making this a core responsibility – to include in the domestic context. They are also politicizing the issue as they have established a Disinformation Governance Board in the Secretary’s office. They have taken control of combating foreign influence away from operating components, where decisions were largely made from career civil servants, and moved that power to the Secretary’s office. On top of that, they have appointed a highly controversial and partisan individual to head that board Nina Jankowicz,” Wolf continued.

WASHINGTON, DC – MAY 04: U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas arrives to testify before a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, on Capitol Hill on May 04, 2022 in Washington, DC. Mayorkas will address the budget request for fiscal year 2023 for the Department of Homeland Security. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the Disinformation Governance Board, which he first mentioned April 27 in a Senate hearing, wants to “develop guidelines, standards, guardrails to ensure that the work that has been ongoing for nearly 10 years does not infringe on people’s free speech rights, rights of privacy, civil rights and civil liberties.” He echoed Psaki in saying that the “work” was being done under Trump, and claimed that the board will focus on foreign surveillance, not domestic.

A DHS spokesperson told the Daily Caller “the Disinformation Governance Board is an internal working group that was established with the explicit goal of ensuring … Americans’ freedom of speech, civil rights, civil liberties, and privacy,” noting that the group has no “operational authority or capability” and that Psaki has said the DHS has worked to address disinformation “for years and throughout multiple administrations.”

Acting Deputy Chief of Staff for the DHS under Trump, Lora Ries, told the Daily Caller that the Biden administration’s DHS focuses on “content” rather than harmful “foreign adversaries,” and that Trump would have never started a Disinformation Governance Board.

Former Deputy DHS Secretary Ken Cuccinelli told the Daily Caller that the board “is an entirely new creation of their own making,” called it the “Ministry of Truth,” and said there is “no way” the Democrats will operate the board “well.” “It is one of the most philosophically alarming things produced by this administration,” he added.

“The Biden Administration has changed the focus from foreign adversaries seeking to harm American cybersecurity and infrastructure to focus on content. This paved the way for this Disinformation Governance Board that will surely be weaponized against Americans. The government should not be the arbiter of truth or ‘misinformation.’ We Americans have learned the hard way that ‘misinformation’ is often just information the left doesn’t like,” Ries said.

“Instead of focusing on foreign terror threats and securing the homeland, particularly the border to prevent such threats from entering the U.S., the Biden Administration appears more interested in using the national security state to target concerned parents at school board meetings and Americans rightly skeptical about government’s own coronavirus disinformation. This administration prioritizes the wrong things. Secretary Mayorkas, like the Biden Administration, has turned inward – away from foreign threats and against Americans, in particular political opponents, who they label as ‘extremists,’” she concluded.

The newly appointed leader of the Disinformation Governance Board, Jankowicz, who will be in charge of determining what disinformation is, has been criticized for spreading disinformation about Hunter Biden’s laptop. She also supported the Steele Dossier, which Daniel Hoffman, a former CIA officer, said was possibly “part of a Russian espionage disinformation plot.”

Mayorkas and Psaki have defended Jankowicz, calling her an “expert” in disinformation.

Republican senators have questioned Mayorkas, exposing that he did not know about Jankowicz’s TikTok videos, nor about her Hunter Biden claims before she was appointed. (RELATED: Disinformation And Wizard Rock: Meet Biden’s New ‘Minister Of Truth’ At DHS)

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This Insane 2020 Time Magazine Article Explains Exactly Why the Left Fears Losing Twitter

REPORTED BY: DAN O’DONNELL | APRIL 28, 2022

An astonishing but largely forgotten story in Time Magazine explains why there is so much leftist concern today about Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter.

DAN O’DONNELL

Of all the hysterical leftist reactions to Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter on Monday, MSNBC host Ari Melber’s was easily the most revealing.

“If you own all of Twitter or Facebook or what have you, you don’t have to explain yourself,” he gravely intoned during his show Monday evening. “You don’t even have to be transparent. You could secretly ban one party’s candidate or all of its candidates, all of its nominees, or you could just secretly turn down the reach of their stuff and turn up the reach of something else, and the rest of us might not even find out about it ‘til after the election.”

You don’t say. This was in fact the way the left used social media to win the 2020 presidential election. They even admitted it openly in a stunning yet largely forgotten February 2021 article in Time magazine entitled “The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign that Saved the 2020 Election.”

“For more than a year, a loosely organized coalition of operatives scrambled to shore up America’s institutions as they came under simultaneous attack from a remorseless pandemic and an autocratically inclined President,” wrote reporter Molly Ball. “Their work touched every aspect of the election.”
And they wanted credit for it, Ball continued, “even though it sounds like a paranoid fever dream — a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information.”
Their aim, they insisted, wasn’t to rig the election but to “fortify” it against then-President Donald Trump and his allies, whom they believed to be a threat to democracy itself.
“Their work touched every aspect of the election. They got states to change voting systems and laws and helped secure hundreds of millions in public and private funding. They fended off voter-suppression lawsuits, recruited armies of poll workers and got millions of people to vote by mail for the first time. They successfully pressured social media companies to take a harder line against disinformation and used data-driven strategies to fight viral smears.”

The final piece was critical, especially in the waning days of the campaign, when an October surprise in the form of Hunter Biden’s laptop threatened to derail his father’s candidacy and undo the organized left’s hard work.

The New York Post’s exclusive story dropped like a grenade less than a month before Election Day, providing “smoking-gun emails” showing that the younger Biden introduced his father “to a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm less than a year before the elder Biden pressured government officials in Ukraine into firing a prosecutor who was investigating the company.”

The emails, the Post explained, were obtained from a computer dropped off and apparently forgotten at a repair shop in Delaware. Under the terms of the repair agreement, the store’s owner took possession of the laptop when it was deemed to be abandoned. Twitter and Facebook, though, determined without any evidence that the emails were actually “hacked materials” and thus distributed in violation of their terms of use agreements.

Facebook quickly acted to limit the reach of the story, while Twitter took the extraordinary step of locking the Post’s account and preventing other users from sharing its story or even pictures from it. Neither Hunter Biden nor the Joe Biden presidential campaign denied that the laptop was Hunter’s, and the younger Biden’s business partner, Tony Bobulinski, went on the record a few days later with documents that confirmed the Post’s reporting, which seemed to uncover an international bribery scheme.

It didn’t matter. Once 50 obviously partisan intelligence officials issued an evidence-free statement calling the laptop materials “Russian disinformation,” it was determined that they would be censored in both legacy and social media.

Of course, more than a year after Biden was safely elected, both The New York Times and Washington Post confirmed that the laptop was genuine, but the censorship did its job: A Media Research Center poll of swing state voters confirmed that 16 percent of Biden supporters would have changed their votes had they heard of the laptop story, including 4 percent who would have switched their vote to Trump. This obviously would have swung the entire election to Trump, but that would have been an unacceptable result for the leftist cabal intent on “fortifying” democracy by stacking the deck against him. In light of the Media Research Center’s findings, social media censorship was very possibly the most effective way they did it. And naturally they had to brag about it in Time.

“Trump’s lies and conspiracy theories, the viral force of social media and the involvement of foreign meddlers made disinformation a broader, deeper threat to the 2020 vote,” Ball reported. “Laura Quinn, a veteran progressive operative who co-founded Catalist, began studying this problem a few years ago. She piloted a nameless, secret project, which she has never before publicly discussed, that tracked disinformation online and tried to figure out how to combat it.”
She ultimately concluded that engaging with this supposedly “toxic content” or trying to debunk it was ineffective, so “the solution, she concluded, was to pressure platforms to enforce their rules, both by removing content or accounts that spread disinformation and by more aggressively policing it in the first place.”

This research armed liberal activists to pressure social media companies like Twitter and Facebook to far more aggressively and creatively enforce their rules, prompting a crackdown on “disinformation” that was in fact completely accurate. Because it was harmful to the effort to “save democracy” and defeat the “autocratic” Trump, it was censored.

“Democracy won in the end,” Ball concluded. “The will of the people prevailed. But it’s crazy, in retrospect, that this is what it took to put on an election in the United States of America.”

This reveals the real threat of Musk’s Twitter takeover: If it is no longer possible to suppress factual information in the name of rescuing democracy from its alleged enemies, then those enemies (read: Republicans) might start winning more elections. And that is simply unacceptable.

Dan O’Donnell is a talk show host with News/Talk 1130 WISN in Milwaukee, Wis. and 1310 WIBA in Madison, Wis., and a columnist for the John K. MacIver Institute.

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Thousands of ‘Ballot Mules’ Delivered Tens of Thousands of Votes for Biden? NY Post Publishes Devastating Claims

Reported By Jack Davis | April 25, 2022

A new report that analyzed the forthcoming movie from conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza warns that based on the 2020 election, Democrats have a “cunning plan” for the future.

After previewing the documentary “2,000 Mules,” New York Post columnist Miranda Devine wrote that “pesky evidence is starting to emerge of systematic schemes to subvert the electoral process — which must not be allowed to happen again if we are to restore faith in elections.”

Devine called the movie — which debuts next month — “the most compelling evidence to date” concerning the race between then-President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden and said research conducted by the election integrity group True the Vote reveals what appears to be “suspicious ballot harvesting.”

The Western Journal reached out to the Biden White House for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

The research Devine cited relied on sophisticated tracking and surveillance video to reach its conclusions.

True the Vote acquired 3 trillion geo-location signals from cellphones that were near ballot drop boxes and election nonprofits in the weeks leading up to the Nov. 3, 2020 vote.

“Then they went searching for ‘mules,’ operatives who picked up ballots from election NGOs — such as Stacey Abrams’ outfit, ‘Fair Fight Action’ — and then carried them to different drop boxes, depositing between three to 10 ballots in each box before moving to the next,” Devine wrote.

Catherine Engelbrecht, founder of True the Vote, said she chose the term “mule” for the people involved in the operation because “it felt a lot like a cartel, it felt like trafficking … This is in its essence ballot trafficking … You have the collectors. You have the stash houses, which are the nonprofits. And then you have the mules that are doing the drops.”

Devine wrote that the network included individuals in battleground states who collected ballots from organizations that were ostensibly out to help everybody vote and then put them in drop boxes, a few at a time.

“The extent of the operation is jaw-dropping,” she said.

“When a mule is matched with video, you can see the scheme come to life,” she wrote.

Devine noted one snippet from the film.

“A car pulls up at a drop box after midnight. A man gets out, looks around surreptitiously, approaches the box, stuffs in a handful of ballots and hightails it out of there. Then he goes to the next box, again and again,” she wrote.

D’Souza said the efforts of the mules could have swung the election based on his contention that at least 380,000 potentially fraudulent votes were tracked by the project.

“Shockingly, even this narrow way of looking at just our 2,000 mules in these swing states gives Trump the win with 279 electoral votes to Biden’s 259,” he said.

Devine said that’s hard to prove. “There is no way to scrutinize those ballots now and see if they are fraudulent but if we must have drop boxes at election time, they need to be secure and under 24/7 surveillance,” she said.

From ⁦@mirandadevine⁩ at the New York Post—the newspaper that broke the Hunter Biden story—comes a detailed preview of the evidence in “2000 Mules.” Fasten your seatbelt! ⁦⁦@nypost⁩ https://t.co/bCAtlcD5zN
— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) April 25, 2022

She said Republicans cannot spend all of their time on the 2020 election because it “makes them look like sore losers.”

However, she also noted an interview with Trump in which he compared the election to a diamond theft at Tiffany’s.

“There’s no getting the diamonds back now. But we can stop the store being robbed again,” Devine wrote.

Jack Davis

Contributor, News

Jack Davis is a freelance writer who joined The Western Journal in July 2015 and chronicled the campaign that saw President Donald Trump elected. Since then, he has written extensively for The Western Journal on the Trump administration as well as foreign policy and military issues.

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Focusing On Russia Instead of China Would Be the United States’s Biggest Foreign Policy Mistake Ever

REPORTED BY: SUMANTRA MAITRA | APRIL 04, 2022

As we reach a month of the Ukrainian war amid talks of possible peace, a strategic appraisal is in order. It appears the Russians thought the war would be easy and fast, the Ukrainians would simply roll over and surrender, and the common people would rise up to greet Russians as liberators. Russian strategic decision-making, worsened by ideological bubbles, turned out to be as haunting as British and American misadventures in Iraq and Libya.

The Russian officer attrition in this war is on a level rarely observed in any recent conflict, partially because this level of high-intensity, state versus state, multi-domain total war hasn’t occurred in the last few decades. Russia did not foresee that its old-fashioned special operations tactics are obsolete satellites and drones track their movements. The fact that Moscow did not calculate this in their battle plans is a sign of decline, a far cry from its prestigious officer corps training during the Soviet era. The bulk of the Russian navy and air force are still bafflingly underused and functionally unavailable given the intensity of the conflict, giving rise to the suspicion that the Russians are preserving their top-tier weaponry and platforms in case the war spirals to a continental conflict.

But, somehow, they are still grinding on. If their objective was to stop Ukraine, Georgia, and Belarus from joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), they have achieved it already. They have also managed to cut off the entire east and south of Ukraine. Russia might still win the war and achieve Ukrainian zonal neutrality, given Russia’s sheer weight.

The Russian rhetorical “denazification” was also recently dropped quietly from the rhetoric. But the demand for Ukrainian neutrality remains and will remain. It was the single major Russian demand. All the other demands were maximalist and malleable, aimed towards negotiation. Ukraine should have taken the opportunity to do a Cold War-era, Austrian-style “neutralitätserklärung,” which would have resulted in the country constitutionally turning neutral, in order to get funding from the European Union and NATO and flourish. Ukrainians have also swallowed their non-achievable EU and NATO membership dream and are currently just as ideologically inflexible and rigid about compromise as Russia.

Long-Term Ramifications

Unfortunately, the long-term ramifications of this war, for the west, are also bleak. Every single conservative restraint and realist gain from the last few years risks being reversed if realists continue to play defense on the rhetorical field of “values” instead of focusing on a narrow, populist interest.

The absolutely mindless idea of a no-fly zone in an active warzone with a nuclear great power was narrowly avoided by 78 experts writing an open letter against it. Incidentally, support for a no-fly zone declines among Americans the moment it is explained.

But the war hysteria in the first few weeks of the campaign, aided by the usual suspects, demonstrated just how close to power and catastrophe these ideologues were. When a former deputy assistant secretary of defense and a former supreme allied commander of NATO argue for a no-fly zone, one needs to remember they are one step away from real advisory power and might be so again in the future.

A conservative realist grand strategy that focuses on America’s southern borders and argues for Europeans to pay for European defense first needs a realist rhetoric and public relations strategy. It must discuss the public interest, in a language common people will understand and appreciate. Pursuing such a strategy would require a total clean-up of the administrative state and Obama-era holdovers next time Republicans are in power. The hold-outs of liberal internationalism are deeply embedded within the ever-expansive national security bureaucracy.

War Is Burying Liberal Internationalism

Rampant war hysteria has resulted in limited diplomatic maneuverability, a realization that is slowly emerging. As the Financial Times noted, “since Feb 24, the west has been galvanized into more unity than it has shown in years. Yet most of the world is on the side lines waiting to see which way it goes. Not for the first time, the west risks mistaking itself for global consensus.”

No matter how many times fanatical liberal internationalists cry about this war suddenly rejuvenating liberalism, the reality cannot be further from truth. The war proves great powers can deter other great powers and are the only actors that matter, that nationalism is the strongest social force, that interests trump values, norms, and laws. Thus, the war is quite clearly not saving “liberal internationalism” but burying it.

Two of the largest non-western powers are either neutral or tacitly supporting Russia, simply because of the idea that great powers should have their own spheres of influence. The balancing powers in Europe also argued against NATO being a co-belligerent.

Realism Isn’t Isolationism At All

Anglo-American foreign policy realists are not pacifists or isolationists. They simply prioritize a greater strategic threat in China. Wars have their own momentum. The chance of a great power being dragged into war due to foolish or overzealous mistakes of smaller peripheral allies is a far bigger threat, as the current world is functionally similar to a multipolar system prior to the First World War than a relatively binary and Manichean conflict of the Second.

Russia, bogged down in Ukraine already, is not a hegemonic threat comparable to Nazi Germany. The EU’s total population is around 450 million, more than the United States (339 million) and much more than Russia (144 million). The EU’s gross domestic product also dwarfs Russia’s, and just the top four European defense budgets combined are larger than Russia’s. Yet, instead of an actual material pivot to Asia, the United States currently has more than 100,000 troops deployed in Europe.

Globally, the biggest future rival is China. China is almost incomparable in size and power next to previous rivals such as Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and even the USSR. There is nothing they would prefer more than the United States being dragged back to Europe. Ultimately, the U.S. objective should be not to prolong the war, but to focus on China as a rising threat. Ukrainian neutrality would have sorted the issue for good. But Russia has already been pushed into the arms of the Chinese due to the war.

By not allowing an amoral balance of power, wherein we let Russia have a small sphere of influence as a grand bargain instead of being over-committed to Europe, Washington risks undercutting its long-term strategic interests by unknowingly accelerating China’s. In a twist of fate, President Joe Biden is now mirroring former President Donald Trump.

Biden’s old Cold War equilibrium instinct is under siege by his own activist administration, determined to defeat Russian “reactionary imperial patriarchy” and defend foreign borders, statues, and churches — instincts they would never allow at home. The almost theological focus on being a part of a conflict in the far corners of Eastern Europe to ensure the continuation of a liberal democratic revolution is fundamentally undercutting American grand strategy, which historically tried to split Russia and China. Ultimately, pushing Russia to be a Chinese satellite might turn out to be our greatest historic blunder.

Dr. Sumantra Maitra is a national-security fellow at The Center for the National Interest; a non-resident fellow at the James G Martin Center; and an elected early career historian member at the Royal Historical Society. He is a senior contributor to The Federalist, and can be reached on Twitter @MrMaitra.

Author Sumantra Maitra profile

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DirecTV’s Attempt to Cancel Right-Leaning News Network OAN Provokes Lawsuit

REPORTED BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | MARCH 16, 2022

DirecTV announced in January the digital satellite service would no longer carry One America News Network (OAN), owned by Herring Networks. The decision prompted a lawsuit by OAN in response Tuesday, arguing that DirecTV’s refusal to carry OAN could shut it down entirely.

“We informed Herring Networks that, following a routine internal review, we do not plan to enter into a new contract when our current agreement expires,” the company told USA Today two months ago, without expanding on its definition of an “internal review.”

The decision to drop the channel by OAN’s largest distributor is expected to take OAN off DirecTV airwaves by the end of April and threatens the outlet’s ability to operate in a crowded media environment. It’s essentially canceling the network from cable. Six Republican attorneys general last week issued a letter asking DirecTV to reverse its decision to cancel OAN.

The move also signals a sharp escalation of the weaponizing private market power to silence political dissidents. Silicon Valley has already engaged in rampant censorship, complete with a routine purge of those who don’t propagate the party lines.

Former President Donald Trump, who was banned from Twitter and Facebook at the end of his presidency while the Kremlin remains active on both, condemned the corporate censorship on Monday after calling for a boycott of DirectTV last month if the company owned by AT&T follows through on its decision.

“Time Warner, the owner of Fake News CNN, has just announced that they will be terminating a very popular and wonderful news network (OAN),” Trump said in a statement. “Between heavily indebted Time Warner, and Radical Left comcast, which runs Xfinity, there is a virtual monopoly on news, thereby making what you hear from the LameStream Media largely FAKE, hence the name FAKE NEWS!”

Trump may have confused Time Warner and DirecTV. While DirecTV made its plans clear, no reporting as of this writing suggests Time Warner is planning to follow suit. Neither Time Warner nor representatives for OAN responded to The Federalist’s inquiries.

Corporate collusion to strip a network off the airwaves, beginning with DirecTV’s crusade against OAN, would set a dangerous precedent. The left’s strategy to ban its way to a monopoly on discourse includes opposition silencing and self-righteous fact-checking. Never mind strict standards of censoring disinformation would have kicked every leftist news network off air years ago from endless amplification of the Russian collusion hoax alone.

Today it’s OAN. Tomorrow it could be Newsmax, and eventually Fox News, a more likely predicament if the network didn’t make satellite distributors so much money.

But what’s behind DirecTV’s decision to target OAN? As of now, its rival conservative networks remain untouched.

The move ostensibly comes from sealed findings in the corporate powerhouse’s “internal review” of its relationship with OAN. A spokesperson told NPR in January rising programming costs was driving the decision. The review is likely a smokescreen for executives dissatisfied with the network’s narratives, especially its reporting on the 2020 election.

Three days after Election Day in 2020, AT&T, the majority owner of DirecTV, announced that William Kennard, an alum of both the Clinton and Obama administrations, would chair AT&T’s board of directors. Kennard is also listed as an executive board member of the global equity firm Staple Street Capital. In 2018, Staple Street Capital acquired Dominion Voting Systems, the electoral tabulation company that came under fire after the 2020 election.

Fox News and Newsmax retracted their networks’ reporting on Dominion Voting Systems in the aftermath of the 2020 contest. OAN has not.

Is DirecTV’s move to cancel OAN a business decision for the satellite provider? Or is it a political decision? Regardless, the cancellation of entire news networks by satellite providers is a new level of private censorship against non-leftist views.

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com.

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FLASHBACK: Trump Warned UN About Relying on Russian Oil, Was Laughed At By German Delegation

Reported by BRIANNA LYMAN | REPORTER | March 07, 2022

Former President Donald Trump speaks at the 2018 UN General Assembly [PBS News Hour screenshot] — **[PBS News Hour screenshot]**

The German delegation appeared to laugh at former President Donald Trump during a 2018 United Nations (U.N.) speech in which the president warned about relying on Russian oil. While speaking at the 73rd U.N. General Assembly, Trump criticized Germany for relying on Russian oil exports.

“Reliance on a single foreign supplier can leave a nation vulnerable to extortion and intimidation. That is why we congratulate European states, such as Poland, for leading the construction of a Baltic pipeline so that nations are not dependent on Russia to meet their energy needs,” Trump said. “Germany will become totally dependent on Russian energy if it does not immediately change course.”

“Here in the Western Hemisphere, we are committed to maintaining our independence from the encroachment of expansionist foreign powers,” Trump continued as the camera then panned to the German delegation, who appeared to be laughing. (RELATED: Former Top Trump Official Argues Biden’s Russia Sanctions Are ‘Half Measures,’ Contain Loopholes)

Trump made similar comments warning about Germany’s energy dependence during a 2018 meeting with German and NATO leaders.

“It’s very sad when Germany makes a massive oil and gas deal with Russia,” Trump said. “Where, you’re supposed to be guarding against Russia and Germany goes out and pays billions and billions of dollars a year to Russia. So, we’re supposed to protect you against Russia, but they’re paying billions of dollars to Russia, and I think that’s very inappropriate.”
“Germany is totally controlled by Russia because they will be getting 60-70% of their energy from Russia and a new pipeline, and you tell me if that’s appropriate, and I think it’s not,” he said while addressing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

Trump approved sanctions to deter the completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would allow Russia to bypass Ukraine to get gas to Europe and served as a major geopolitical win for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Upon taking office, President Joe Biden revoked the sanctions, only recently putting them back in place following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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Today’s TWO Politically INCORRECT Cartoons by A.F. Branco

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Reminiscing

A.F. BRANCO | on February 26, 2022 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-reminiscing/

Now that Biden has all but destroyed the country it’s nice to look back on better days with Trump as President.

Trump Gave Us better Days — **Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2021.**

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Back to the Future

A.F. BRANCO | on February 28, 2022 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-back-to-the-future/

Obama ridiculed Romney’s Russia warning in 2012 during their presidential debate, and now?

Romney 80s Foreign policy — **Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2022.**

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.

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Hillary Clinton takes shot at Trump, GOP over Russia — and even invokes treason clause in Constitution

Reported by CHRIS ENLOE | February 25, 2022

Hillary Clinton just cannot resist.

The twice-failed presidential candidate made reference to the Constitution’s treason clause on Friday while implicitly condemning former President Donald Trump and parts of the Republican Party that she alleged have emboldened Russia’s aggression.

During a radio interview this week, Trump described Russian President Vladimir Putin as “very savvy.” He also described Putin’s decision to declare the independence of two Ukrainian regions as “genius.” And regarding the “peacekeepers” — which were Russian soldiers — that Putin sent into those eastern Ukrainian regions, Trump said, “we could use that on our southern border.” Meanwhile, Russian-state media have reportedly used comments from former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Fox News host Tucker Carlson for their propaganda purposes.

Speaking on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Clinton referred to Trump’s comments and said that any American who parrots talking points worthy of being broadcast by Russian propaganda outlets must be called out.

“We have to also make sure that within our own country we are calling out those people who are giving aid and comfort to Vladimir Putin, who are talking about what a genius he is, what a smart move it is, who are unfortunately being broadcast by Russian media, not only inside Russia, but in Europe to demonstrate the division within our own country,” Clinton said.

Clinton’s comments implicitly invoked the Constitution’s “treason clause,” which is found in Article III, Section 3:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.
The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted.

Hillary Clinton: What’s Left Of The GOP Must Stand Against Those Giving ‘Aid’ To Putin www.youtube.com

Later in the interview, Clinton described rhetoric from Trump and other Republican figureheads as “heartbreaking” and “dangerous,” and she repeated the accusation that they are giving “aid and comfort” to Putin.

“I think it’s time for what’s left of the Republican Party that has any common sense not just to say, ‘OK, go help defend Ukraine against Putin,’ but to stand against those people in politics and government, in the media and elsewhere in our own country who are literally giving aid and comfort to an enemy of freedom and democracy,” Clinton said.

Such rhetoric, Clinton claimed, emboldens not only Putin, but also Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“It can’t continue because it plays right into the ambitions of not just Putin, but also President Xi of China to undermine democracy, to literally divide and conquer the West without ever invading us, but by setting us against each other,” Clinton said.

Clinton attributed the development of the problem that she identified as happening because “starting with ascent of Trump, there has been, sadly, a total loss of spine and conscience of too many Republicans.”

“There is also another element. These people are naive in such a dangerous way,” Clinton continued. “I think the naiveté that we saw starting with Trump, but which has now been accelerated, is really hard to understand. But we have to deal with it, and we have to call it out.”

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Why Tech Totalitarianism Threatens To Turn America into Canada or China Unless We Stop It

REPORTED BY: KARA FREDERICK | FEBRUARY 23, 2022

Portions of this article were adapted from the author’s recently published paper at The Heritage Foundation, “Combating Big Tech’s Totalitarianism: A Road Map.”

Last week, our Canadian neighbors mobilized their national security apparatus against working-class citizens protesting government overreach. The Biden administration is no doubt taking notes. In fact, the contours of a similar strategy are already emerging in the United States. First, the FBI reportedly tagged parents opposed to critical race theory with a “terrorism” label under the direction of Biden’s Department of Justice. Then, the DOJ revealed plans to stand up a domestic terror unit fixated on “anti-government or anti-authority” ideologies. Now, a new Department of Homeland Security terrorism bulletin classifies Americans as potential violent extremists if they question the administration’s Covid-19 policies or election integrity narrative by spreading “mis- dis- and mal-information” on social media. This should send a chill up Americans’ spines.

The willingness of the U.S. government to classify movements to the right of leftist ideology as “domestic extremism” lays the groundwork for the purging of these citizens from digital platforms — and all of digital life. We are entering a reality in which tech companies target average conservative organizations, users, and speech as part of this push. Just after Donald Trump’s election in 2016, Google co-founder Sergey Brin referred to Trump voters as “extremists” and suggested using Google’s tech incubator, Jigsaw, to shape their opinions. In July 2021, Facebook began testing “extremism” warnings on users who engaged with popular, mainstream conservative accounts. This problem is a small outgrowth of a broader one shaping the new digital atmosphere: the efforts of companies such as Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, and TikTok to skew the political and cultural environment of this nation and its inheritors.

These corporations interfere in our elections, actively undermine our First Amendment freedoms by silencing speech they don’t like, work together to disadvantage or destroy existing or potential competitors, and partner with government actors to intimidate, surveil, and silence Americans. They’re even purposefully poisoning the next generation, targeting American youth with highly addictive content that has been shown to do legitimate harm.

Governments are not the only actors capable of encroaching on Americans’ individual liberties. Private, monopolistic corporations should be held accountable if they violate these liberties to the degree Big Tech has in the past two years alone. Efforts to rein them in should reflect an imperative to protect Americans’ natural rights against abuses flowing from the consolidation of power — whether by the government, private corporations, or a combination of the two. Big Tech’s willingness to shut off direct access to digital information, their demonstrated pattern of information manipulation, and their effect on America’s culture of free speech have decisive political and cultural ramifications.

Censorship against viewpoints to the right of center runs across platforms and is pervasive and accelerating. The Media Research Center found in September 2021 that Twitter and Facebook censor Republican members of Congress at a rate of 53-to-1 compared to Democrat lawmakers. By its own admission, Facebook created two internal tools in the aftermath of Trump’s 2016 victory that suppressed “very conservative” media reach on its platform. Google stifled conservative-leaning outlets such as The Daily Caller, Breitbart, and this publication during the 2020 election season, with Breitbart’s Google search visibility reportedly shrinking by 99 percent compared to the 2016 election cycle. Finally, at least 17 digital platforms banned Trump or affiliated accounts within a two-week span in early January 2021 — all while Chinese Communist Party, Iranian, and Taliban spokesmen enjoy a voice on these American-owned platforms.

To contest this imbalance, conservatives attempted to take matters into their own hands and “build their own” digital platform. Yet when such a company, Parler, developed an app that reached the top of the Apple store in the early days of January 2021, Apple, Google, and Amazon Web Services acted within approximately 48 hrs of each other to vanquish it. Parler has yet to recover a fraction of the users it gained during January 2021. The “build your own” argument wilted in the face of concerted opposition by these entrenched juggernauts.

Further, the distinction between the coercive power of the government and that of a private company is negated when they work hand-in-glove to achieve the government’s ends. Jen Psaki admitted from the White House podium in July that the government was “flagging problematic posts” for Facebook to censor. Within a month, the accounts she and the surgeon general surfaced were removed from Facebook. And that’s just what the two Biden officials admitted out loud. In fact, Psaki again took to the podium in February 2022 to declare that media app Spotify could do more regarding comedian Joe Rogan, intimating the private company should expand its censorship of the podcasting star for platforming views that buck the administration’s Covid narrative.

Less than a month earlier, Biden had called on tech companies to police Covid-related speech. Even at the state level, at least one lawsuit alleges that the Office of the Secretary of State for California worked directly with Twitter to flag and scrutinize a conservative commentator over his election skepticism, ultimately resulting in his suspension in February 2021.

Suppression of conservative speech as a response to political pressure is not limited to social media alone. Online payment processors and fundraising platforms, email delivery services, and web hosting services are all taking their cues from and following in Big Tech’s footsteps. What happens in the future when your individual environmental, social, and governance score or level of climate change compliance is unsatisfactory for every online banking service intent on staying in the good graces of the government? In effect, our country is sleepwalking into a CCP-style social credit system.

This type of control also tears at the cultural underpinnings of our society. The disposition toward freedom of expression is central to the American way of life. Supporting an unpopular opinion in the digital public square or donating to political causes should not mean risking your livelihood. These practices erode our culture of free speech, chill open discourse, and engender self-censorship. In a more concrete sense, Big Tech’s practices result in measurable, destructive effects on the next generation of young citizens. Author Abigail Shrier documents social media’s influence on social contagions of the moment, stating that these sites offer an “endless supply of mentors” to fan the flames of gender dissatisfaction among teen girls.

According to Facebook’s own research, 6 percent of teen Instagram users who reported suicidal thoughts traced their emergence directly to Instagram. Teenage girls in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia are likely developing verbal and physical tics by watching influencers on TikTok who exhibit the same habits, in addition to being fed eating-disorder videos, according to The Wall Street Journal. (As of early 2021, 25 percent of TikTok users in America were teenagers or younger.)

Big Tech companies have proven themselves irresponsible stewards of their government-enhanced power. A recalibration of their relationship to the American people is warranted. The answer exists in solutions that promote human flourishing and arrest the infringement of God-given rights by private entities, such as freedom of speech. American policymakers and representatives should take on Big Tech as uniquely deleterious to a healthy body politic and invest in a diversity of tactics to meet the moment. The aggregate effect of these measures should be far more scrutiny, pressure, and oversight over Big Tech companies.

A comprehensive agenda to end Big Tech’s undue influence over Americans’ daily lives and subversion of their rights is necessary. Measures should confront legitimate anti-competitive behavior by these global oligopolies by enforcing antitrust laws and reforming them where necessary. Lawmakers must also ensure that the government does not continue to use tech companies as their agents to chill speech. The deployment of Big Tech’s ad-tech models — the heart of what allows these companies to manipulate and exploit the data of Americans — merits particular congressional scrutiny.

Additionally, Big Tech executives should be held civilly liable for legitimate instances of fraud and breach of contract, just as GoFundMe’s decision to refund the Freedom Convoy donations instead of dispensing them to charities of their choice was likely influenced by threats of a fraud investigation.

Transparency in content moderation practices, algorithmic impacts, and data use should be non-negotiable for these companies. Americans have a right to know how their data is collected, stored, and shared in plain English. Data privacy and a national data protection framework are also critical to righting Big Tech’s wrongs.

In tandem, Americans should be given new ways to fight back when their rights are infringed upon, as well as obtain prompt and meaningful recourse from Big Tech companies. All companies and tech founders should institute expanded user control mechanisms and design privacy-preserving technologies from the outset in their products.

And finally, these tech companies should no longer be permitted to work directly with our adversaries such as the Chinese Communist Party.

Sovereign citizens of the United States do not exist solely to serve the economy or maximize gross domestic product. Despite their success in the stock market, Big Tech companies are actively eroding citizens’ ability to maintain a self-governing republic. Absent drastic measures to arrest the progress of this march toward totalitarianism with a tech face, we risk the welfare of a nation. It must end here.

Kara Frederick is a Research Fellow in the Center for Technology Policy at The Heritage Foundation. Her research focuses on Big Tech and emerging technology policy. She helped create and lead Facebook’s Global Security Counterterrorism Analysis Program and was the team lead for Facebook Headquarters’ Regional Intelligence Team. Prior to Facebook, she was a Senior Intelligence Analyst for a U.S. Naval Special Warfare Command and spent six years as a counterterrorism analyst at the Department of Defense.

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Christians Stand Trial in Finland Today for Affirming Men and Women Are Different

REPORTED BY: JOY PULLMANN | JANUARY 24, 2022

Paive Rasanen of Finland reading the Bible

Today in Finland, two Christians will stand trial for publicly stating the theological and scientific truth that men and women are different. Finnish Member of Parliament Paivi Rasanen and Lutheran Bishop Juhana Pohjola stand accused of “hate crimes” for affirming basic Christian theology and natural reality concerning the sexual differences between men and women. One of the three charges against Rasanen includes a count against her for tweeting a picture of a Bible verse in challenging the state church of Finland’s decision to sponsor an LGBT parade. Another charge attempts to criminalize her participation in a 2019 public debate.

If the court finds them guilty, Rasanen and Pohjola could face fines or up to two years in prison. It would also set the precedent of making quoting the Bible a criminal offense in Western countries.

In November, human rights lawyer Paul Coleman told The Federalist that these cases in Finland are a “canary in the coalmine” for freedom of speech in the Western world. Coleman works for Alliance Defending Freedom International, which is assisting the two Finns’ lawyers. “Part of the scary thing about what’s happening in Finland is that it could happen anywhere else,” Coleman said Jan. 23 on the British show GBNews. Many countries have similar hate speech laws, including states and cities in the United States.

While accused of hate crimes, Rasanen and Pohjola emphatically affirm their love for all people as beautifully created in God’s image and deeply loved by a God who sent his own Son to die an excruciating death to atone for every sin, including all sexual sins. Their aim is not hate but love, they say, another core teaching of Christianity, which also commands its adherents to “love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.”

Both are also charged for a booklet Rasanen wrote and Pohjola published in 2004. Pohjola told The Federalist in an exclusive in-person interview in November 2021 that he asked Rasanen to write the booklet because she was qualified, as a medical doctor and the wife of a pastor. That booklet affirms the classic understanding of sex as reserved solely for marriage, and marriage as comprising one man committed to one woman for life. In spring 2019, the two were suddenly served with criminal charges for writing and publishing this booklet decades ago, well before Finland passed its hate crimes laws on behalf of powerful special interests who dispute the differences between the sexes and their role in procreation. Rasanen and Pohjola have been summoned several times by Finnish police to be interrogated separately for hours about intricate details of their theology.

In their interrogations, the police demanded that Rasanen and Pohjola recant their beliefs. Both refused. Both have also noted the contrast between their country’s claim to be a free and modern democracy that allows for full and open debate and the way they have been treated, as thought criminals.

“If I’m convicted, I think that the worst consequence would not be the fine against me, or even the prison sentence, it would be the censorship,” Rasanen said in a statement ahead of her trial. “I will continue to stand for what I believe and what I have written. And I will speak and write about these things, because they are a matter of conviction, not only an opinion. I trust that we still live in a democracy, and we have our constitution and international agreements that guarantee our freedom of speech and religion,”

Christians all over the world are praying for Pojhola and Rasanen, including corporately in their churches. On Jan. 23, free speech supporters rallied in front of the Finnish embassy in Oslo, Norway, to show support for Rasanen and Pohjola. Several of the protesters filling the street carried signs that said “Finland: Freedom of speech?”

Several members of the U.S. Congress led by Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said in a public letter that the Finnish government’s prosecutions of these Christians for their religious beliefs “raise serious questions regarding the extent of Finland’s commitment to protect religious freedom for its citizens.” Roy’s office is closely watching the trial, as are many other U.S. and international human rights organizations.

Pohjola was recently elected the bishop of the Lutheran non-state church in Finland. He was kicked out of the state church approximately a decade ago for upholding Christian teachings on the differences between the sexes. The small non-state church in Finland is growing, while the large state church is shrinking.

The Federalist is monitoring the trial today and will be covering its outcome.

Joy Pullmann is executive editor of The Federalist, a happy wife, and the mother of six children. Her bestselling ebook is “Classic Books for Young Children.” Sign up here to get early access to her next book, “How To Control The Internet So It Doesn’t Control You.” Mrs. Pullmann identifies as native American and gender natural. She is also the author of “The Education Invasion: How Common Core Fights Parents for Control of American Kids,” from Encounter Books. In 2013-14 she won a Robert Novak journalism fellowship for in-depth reporting on Common Core national education mandates. Joy is a grateful graduate of the Hillsdale College honors and journalism programs.

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Only 10 Percent of J6 Committee Subpoenas Relate to the Capitol Riot

REPORTED BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | JANUARY 20, 2022

The House Select Committee established to probe the Capitol riot is not interested in probing the Capitol riot. According to a Federalist analysis of the 84 subpoenas publicly issued by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Select Committee on Jan. 6, only 8 have targeted individuals or groups with any connection to the Capitol riot. The rest have taken aim at former government officials and private citizens in a smear campaign for exercising their constitutional right to protest.

The 84 subpoenas do not include the more than 100 seeking the telephone records of individuals whose identities remain under seal, both from the public and from those whose privacy the committee seeks to violate.

“Every member of this committee is dedicated to conducting a non-partisan, professional, and thorough investigation of all the relevant facts regarding January 6th,” said Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney upon accepting Pelosi’s appointment as vice chair. “We owe it to the American people to investigate everything that led up to and transpired on January 6th.”

Except the committee absent of Republican-appointments at Pelosi’s direction is far from non-partisan, and the probe’s investigation is far from focused on the security failures at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Born in the ashes of a 9/11-style commission blocked by Republicans when Democrats refused a genuine investigation of violence on Capitol Hill, Pelosi’s Select Committee on Jan. 6 has remained faithful to its central purpose. That purpose is seeking retribution against political dissidents while offering a smokescreen to Pelosi’s own culpability in her failures to reinforce Capitol security. Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., made that much clear last summer in an interview with CNN.

“If you look at the charge that we have in the resolution, it says the facts and circumstances around January 6. I don’t see the speaker being part and parcel to that,” Thompson said.

According to Thompson, Pelosi’s apparent refusal to approve activation of the National Guard not once, but six times, according to testimony from former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, fails to fall under the umbrella of “facts and circumstances around January 6.”

Meanwhile, federal agencies run by Democrats have colluded with Pelosi’s deputies in the House to block a genuine investigation of the security failures at the Capitol by Republican lawmakers kicked from the speaker’s select panel.

Earlier this month, House Republicans penned a letter to Pelosi outlining at least four times last year the speaker’s deputies denied to provide records shedding light on the security decisions of Jan. 6.

“There is irony in the fact that the same time House Democrats are holding witnesses in criminal contempt of Congress for raising genuine questions of legal privilege,” wrote Illinois Rep. Rodney Davis, “you continue to obstruct Republican access to House records relating to the security preparedness of the Capitol complex.”

In October, the FBI similarly stonewalled GOP lawmakers who requested the same briefing given to members of the Select Committee.

Out of the 84 subpoenas issued by the panel, for which its authority remains questionable after Pelosi barred GOP appointments, at least one targeted a private citizen with no connection to any of the events on Jan. 6, whether it be the turmoil at the Capitol or the Trump rally at the White House.

Andrew Surabian, a Republican operative working to unseat Cheney in Wyoming, was subpoenaed by the lawmaker’s committee last week.

“During the time period that the rally was being organized, Mr. Surabian was overseeing a Super PAC in support of Republican Senate candidates in Georgia,” Surabian attorney Daniel Bean said in a statement. “Mr. Surabian is a close friend to Donald Trump Jr. and is running a Super PAC that opposes the reelection of one of the members of the committee. Accordingly, we believe this is nothing more than harassment of the Committee’s political opponents and is un-American to the core.”

Eight subpoenas from the committee have sought information more directly related to the Capitol unrest, including subpoenas to three right-wing groups and their leaders. Proud Boys International LLC, Oath Keepers, 1st Amendment Praetorian, and each of their chairmen have been summoned by the probe.

On Wednesday, Nicholas Fuentes and Patrick Casey of the America First Movement were handed subpoenas based on the committee’s suspicions of involvement in the chaos that unfolded at the Capitol.

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com.

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Disgraced FBI No. 2 Andrew McCabe Calls for Feds to Treat ‘Mainstream’ Conservatives Like Domestic Terrorists

Reported BY: EVITA DUFFY | JANUARY 10, 2022

Have you ever wondered what disgraced former deputy FBI directors do after trying to stage a coup and lying under oath? Apparently, they give talks about “protecting democracy” at top-rated institutions of higher learning. Indeed, this last Thursday the University of Chicago invited former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe to join a panel of partisans to discuss the Jan 6 “insurrection.”

McCabe was fired as the deputy FBI director for leaking sensitive information about an investigation into the Clinton Foundation and then lying about it under oath. He also took part in spying on the Donald Trump campaign through a secret warrant granted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court.

The dossier he used to obtain the surveillance warrant was funded by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and, in an ironic twist, was itself the product of Russian disinformation. McCabe and his allies in corporate media justified all sorts of similar illegal and undemocratic tactics to discredit and attempt to unseat President Trump.

Of course, neither the University of Chicago nor McCabe acknowledged the irony in him discussing the integrity of “democracy” in America on Thursday evening. In fact, what McCabe said at the University of Chicago event on Jan. 6, 2022 is even more shocking than his invitation to speak in the first place. Below are four of the most appalling assertions and policy proposals McCabe made at the public event.

1. Conservatives Are in The Same Category As Islamic Terrorists

McCabe likened conservatives to members of the Islamic Caliphate: “I can tell you from my perspective of spending a lot of time focused on the radicalization of international terrorists and Islamic extremist and extremists of all stripes… is that this group shares many of the same characteristics of those groups that we’ve seen radicalized along entirely different ideological lines,” he said.

McCabe went on to describe the rise of the Islamic caliphate in Syria and how Islamic extremists were radicalized across socioeconomic, educational, and racial lines, likening it to the “mass radicalization” of the political right across demographics. That’s right, according to McCabe a grandma who shares a Federalist article on Facebook and your uncle with a “Let’s Go Brandon” coffee mug are in the same category as a jihadist who killed 49 people at an Orlando nightclub.

2. Parents at School Board Meetings Pose A ‘Threat To National Security’

“Political violence [is] not just confined to the Capitol,” McCabe asserted. “It’s going on in school boards around the country. It’s going on in local elections. It’s happening, you know, even to health-care workers.” According to this politically protected former FBI no. 2, the “political violence” occurring recently at school board meetings and during local elections is a “very diverse and challenging threat picture.”

If you haven’t heard already, Democrats are branding parents who oppose child mask mandates and racist critical race theory indoctrination as “domestic terrorists.”

McCabe said moms and dads who stand up for their children’s health and education at school board meetings in ways Democrats disagree with are very dangerous. So dangerous that it is actually “essential” we have a “rapid and complete response by law enforcement at the state, local and federal level to this sort of political violence…”

Holding America’s parents “accountable” is not enough for McCabe. He wants to make sure that federal agencies also put “out that message that this sort of conduct that both horribly victimizes individuals, but also serves to undermine our democratic process” is “considered a threat to national security [that is] not tolerated.”

3. McCabe Wants More Surveillance of ‘Mainstream’ Conservatives

“I’m fairly confident,” McCabe said, “[that] the FBI [and other agencies] have reallocated resources and repositioned some of their counterterrorism focus to increase their focus on right-wing extremism and domestic violent extremists. And I think that’s obviously a good idea.”

But McCabe wants more. McCabe asserted that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and FBI need to stop merely focusing on the “fringes of the right-wing movement,” in order to “catch this threat” of the “right.”

“Are you going to catch this threat if your focus is only on the traditional, right-wing extremist, those groups that we know about, the quote-unquote, fringes of the right-wing movement?” asked McCabe. “And I think the answer to that is no.”
“It’s entirely possible that when the intelligence community and the law enforcement community looks out across this mainstream,” McCabe continued, “they didn’t assume [on January 6] that that group of people — business owners, white people from the suburbs, educated, employed — presented a threat of violence, and now we know very clearly that they do.”

McCabe wants to get around constitutional obstacles that restrict the abuses of federal agencies. He explained that the path to granting the feds more power to spy on and punish “extremists,” a.k.a. conservatives, is by implementing federal penalties against “domestic terrorism.”

A measure like this would grant domestic agencies the intelligence capabilities of the international terrorism-focused National Counterterrorism Center. It would, McCabe says, “give investigators the ability to begin investigating when folks are plotting or planning or organizing to use violence for the purpose of coercing the population or influencing government…”

Joshua Geltzer, President Joe Biden’s advisor on “countering domestic violent extremism,” made the same proposal in a 2019 hearing before a subcommittee of the House Oversight Committee. In his proposal, Geltzer suggested that we need to “polic[e] [tech company] platforms to remove not just incitement to violence, but also, the ideological foundations that spawn such violence.”

McCabe claims these proposed federal laws against domestic terrorism can be implemented without infringing on Americans’ First Amendment right to free speech. That seems quite impossible, however, given Geltzer is proposing government oversight of social media, for example. It is even more difficult to believe when you consider that Democrats are not going after real domestic terrorists and have literally defined parents speaking out at school board meetings as national security threats. As McCabe said himself, to Democrats, the extreme right is the mainstream right.

4. McCabe Believes No One Is Above The Law (Except Himself)

Ironically, one of McCabe’s last remarks was a proclamation of equality under the law. “Whether you are a Trump supporter or a Biden supporter, right, left, or otherwise, we should all be able to agree on the principle that no one is above the law,” stated McCabe.

“… [F]rom the lowliest trespasser on January 6, up to the highest-ranking government officials who may have been aware of a plan that would ultimately lead to violence in the Capitol––those people should be held accountable, period,” he announced. “And if we can’t do that, that is just another sign that we are becoming a non-functioning democracy.”

Ironically, McCabe’s firing for repeatedly breaking the law was expunged from the record only because he settled with a partisan Biden Department of Justice. If no one is above the law, as McCabe claims to support, then he would be in jail. Of course, McCabe is above the law. Only dissenting conservatives, in his view, deserve the suspicion and wrath of unelected federal agencies.

Disturbingly, the University of Chicago does not care about national introspection post-January 6, 2021. If it did, it would not have invited McCabe, of all people, to speak about “protecting democracy.”

UChicago allowed McCabe to spin lies about what truly happened one year ago and filtered student questions via Zoom, refusing to ask him any tough questions. Consequently, McCabe was given a platform to teach young, impressionable college students without question that the federal government should be weaponized against fellow Americans whom leftists brand as “extremists.”

To the elites in America — Democrats like McCabe, university administrators, and professors – January 6 is the key to labeling their political opponents as dangerous, “white supremacist extremists” and enacting new policy accordingly. America’s universities are now indoctrination machines that shape the minds of the next generation. Academia openly exploits its power and rewrite history to serve their illiberal agenda.

Sadly, McCabe’s dishonest version of January 6 is happily accepted by the academic elites who invited him Thursday night. His frighteningly despotic views and policy prescriptions will likely be accepted and implemented by his young listeners.

This story was originally published in the Chicago Thinker.

Evita Duffy is a senior contributor to The Federalist, co-founder of the Chicago Thinker, and a senior 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 or contact her at evitapduffy@uchicago.edu

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Randy DeSoto Op-ed: Adam Schiff Gets Verbally KO-ed on Air When Fed-Up Interviewer Finally Nails Him

Commentary By Randy DeSoto | November 9, 2021

Former Trump administration State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus clearly made House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff uncomfortable when she pressed him on Tuesday about his promotion of the debunked Steele dossier.

Last week, special counsel John Durham charged Igor Danchenko with five counts of lying to the FBI. Danchenko is a Russian national who worked at the liberal Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., and is believed to be a primary source of information contained in the infamous anti-Trump dossier compiled by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele. That document was paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee and was used to help launch the Russia probe in search of ties between the 2016 Donald Trump presidential campaign and Russia.

Ortagus, who was a guest-hosting ABC’s “The View” on Tuesday, questioned Schiff about his promotion of the Steele dossier and the false narrative underlying it.

“You’ve been really prolific over the past few years being the head of the Intel Committee. You defended, promoted, you even read into the Congressional Record the Steele dossier,” Ortagus said.
“And we know last week the main source of the dossier was indicted by the FBI for lying about most of the key claims in that dossier. Do you have any reflections on your role in promoting this to the American people?” she asked.

https://youtu.be/UWSdiJJ8pPU

Schiff first responded in a reasonable fashion, saying any who lied to the FBI should be prosecuted.

He then defended his conduct.

“We couldn’t have known, for example, people were lying to Christopher Steele. So it was proper to investigate them,” Schiff said.

The congressman added that one benefit of the investigation was learning that Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort had given polling data to Russian intelligence. Schiff was playing pretty fast and loose with the facts. According to The Associated Press, Manafort gave polling data to Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian and Ukrainian political consultant, who allegedly passed it along to Russian intelligence.

“But Mueller’s team said it couldn’t ‘reliably determine’ Manafort’s purpose in sharing it, nor assess what Kilimnik may have done with it,” the AP reported.

That sort of exaggeration by Schiff was typical throughout the Russia probe.

Ortagus reminded Schiff that Manafort was removed from the campaign in the summer of 2016 when questions arose regarding his past lobbying work for pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarchs. Further, it should be noted that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team, though filled with Democratic investigators, “did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated” with Russia, according to the Justice Department’s Mueller report.

Ortagus then brought the conversation back to Schiff’s role in promoting the whole collusion false narrative and the dossier.

“You may have helped spread Russian disinformation yourself for years by promoting this. I think that’s what Republicans and what people who entrusted you as the Intel Committee chair are so confused about your culpability in all of this,” Ortagus said.

“Well, I completely disagree with your premise,” Schiff responded. “It’s one thing to say allegations should be investigated, and they were. It’s another to say that we should have foreseen in advance that some people were lying to Christopher Steele, which is impossible of course to do.”

The Californian sells himself short. He was constantly out in front of the cameras claiming he was privy to intelligence that he could not share with the public validating the collusion charge. For example in March 2017, NBC “Meet The Press” host Chuck Todd asked Schiff if there was anything beyond circumstantial evidence suggesting the Trump campaign’s connection to Russia.

“I can tell you that the case is more than that and I can’t go into the particulars, but there is more than circumstantial evidence now,” Schiff said.
Further questioned whether he had seen direct evidence, the representative responded, “I don’t want to get into specifics but I will say that there is evidence that is not circumstantial and is very much worthy of an investigation.”

.@RepAdamSchiff on Trump/Russia connection: "There is more than circumstantial evidence now…and is very much worthy of investigation." pic.twitter.com/qvw7drsqQX
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) March 22, 2017

Despite making claims like that for many months, Schiff never came forward with such evidence, even after Mueller issued his report.

On Tuesday’s showing of “The View,” the Democrat pivoted away from discussing the dossier to raising the issue of the 2019 House Democratic impeachment of Trump and the Capitol incursion to prove investigating him was justified.

You’ll recall it was during the impeachment hearing that Schiff famously made up his own fanciful version of Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to build his case that the American leader conducted a shakedown to secure an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden’s shady dealings in Ukraine. This performance was even after Zelensky himself said he felt no pressure from Trump’s call and his country launched no investigation into the Bidens.

Schiff told Ortagus, “None of that is undercut. None of that serious misconduct is in any way diminished by the fact that people lied to Christopher Steele.”

“No. I think just your credibility is,” Ortagus shot back.

Schiff then opted for the verbal attack of a schoolboy, saying, “I think the credibility of your question is in doubt.”

Having boasted about so much with so little pushback from the media, it was refreshing to see his feet actually held to the fire for once.

Randy DeSoto, Senior Staff Writer

Randy DeSoto has written more than 2,000 articles for The Western Journal since he joined the company in 2015. He is a graduate of West Point and Regent University School of Law. He is the author of the book “We Hold These Truths” and screenwriter of the political documentary “I Want Your Money.”@RandyDeSoto

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DURHAM ARRESTS STEELE’S TOP SOURCE

Reported by MICHAEL GINSBERG | CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER | November 04, 2021

BRITAIN-RUSSIA-US-MEDIA-STEELE — **(Photo by TOLGA AKMEN/AFP via Getty Images)**

Federal agents arrested Igor Danchenko, the primary researcher of a dossier compiled by ex-British spy Christopher Steele, as part of Special Counsel John Durham’s probe into the origins of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation into former President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Danchenko was taken into custody on Thursday, the New York Times (NYT) first reported. He was employed by Steele’s firm, Orbis Business International, but was previously investigated during the Obama administration as part of a probe into suspected Russian intelligence officers operating in Washington, DC. Before his time at Orbis, Danchenko worked as a Russia analyst at the liberal Brookings Institute, where he became known for accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of plagiarizing his economics dissertation.

Danchenko is charged with five counts of making false statements to investigators.

As part of his work on the Steele dossier, Danchenko claimed to have interviewed six individuals with knowledge of alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. However, during a 2017 FBI interview, Danchenko contradicted many of the dossier’s key assertions. As a result, the FBI concluded that “the reliability of the dossier was completely destroyed,” according to Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Danchenko has defended his work on the Steele dossier, describing it as “raw intelligence from credible sources” in a 2020 interview with NYT. The dossier served as primary evidence for the FBI’s Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) warrant request for Trump campaign aide Carter Page, a Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General report found.

As part of his investigation into the origins of the DOJ probe into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government, Durham has targeted the production and dissemination of the Steele dossier. He indicted former Perkins Coie and Democratic National Committee attorney Michael Sussmann in September for lying to the FBI’s top attorney during a meeting in which Sussmann passed along allegations against the Trump campaign.

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Photo: Marine Vet Gets Award for Stopping Robbery, But His Anti-Biden Shirt Steals the Show

Reported By Randy DeSoto | October 27, 2021

U.S. Marine veteran James Kilcer, who thwarted an attempted robbery in an Arizona convenience store last week, received an award Tuesday from the Yuma County Sheriff’s Office while wearing a “Let’s Go Brandon” T-shirt. He was also sporting a red “Make America Great Again” hat, apparently in support of former President Donald Trump.

Sheriff Leon Wilmot presented Kilcer with the YCSO Citizen’s Valor Award, “For extraordinary heroism and exceptional courage while voluntarily coming to the aid of another citizen during an incident involving criminal activity at extreme, life threatening, personal risk in an attempt to save or protect human life,” the sheriff’s office said in a news release.
“The YCSO Citizen’s Valor Award is the highest award for citizens whose actions warrant recognition.”

Surveillance video of Kilcer stopping the robbery at the Chevron convenience store early in the morning on Oct. 20 went viral. The now-U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground employee had just purchased some Gatorades and other items and was talking to the clerk when the suspects came in, Kilcer told the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service.

“I heard the door start opening forcefully and my ‘Spidey senses’ or whatever kind of tingling, and I turn around and saw they were coming in real quick,” he said.

The veteran turned around and his military training kicked in as he sought to disarm the robber.

“I was ready: I saw it coming,” Kilcer said. “The minute my hands closed around it, I never lost contact with the gun. And I pulled him down.”

ZERO FEAR:
When this Yuma, AZ veteran saw some criminals pop in guns high — he didn't wait for things to potentially go south.

“The Marine Corp taught me not to [mess] around,” he later said.

'The few, the proud' for a reason.
More on the story on @ABC15 at 10. pic.twitter.com/fGjKthcXvO
— Zach Crenshaw (@ZachCrenshaw) October 21, 2021

He held the suspect down until law enforcement arrived. The person arrested was a 14-year-old juvenile who has now been charged with one count of armed robbery and one count of aggravated assault.

“Kilcer served as a tactical air operations technician in the Marine Corps and was deployed to Afghanistan during his time in the military. He credits his actions to his Marine Corps basic training and mindset,” DVIDS reported.
“I guess I was just in the right place at the right time,’’ Kilcer said. “I was doing what needed to be done.”Advertisement – story continues below

While appearing on Fox News on Friday, the Arizonan also waded into the political when he ended the segment, saying with a smile to host Dana Perino, “And remember, [Jeffrey] Epstein didn’t kill himself.”

The Marine who stopped the corner store robbery in the viral video was just on Fox News.

He ended his interview saying "Epstein didn't kill himself" haha. pic.twitter.com/NUkZaow09j
— Kassy Dillon (@KassyDillon) October 22, 2021

“OK, got it,” said Perino, who laughed and added, “Very clever.”

Randy DeSoto, Senior Staff Writer

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C. Douglas Golden Op-ed: The Truth About Democrats’ Tax Bill Revealed, Middle-Class Americans Are in for a Nasty Surprise

Commentary By C. Douglas Golden | September 29, 2021

President Joe Biden, left, meets with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and committee chairs to discuss the coronavirus relief legislation in the Oval Office at the White House on Feb. 5, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (Stefani Reynolds – Pool / Getty Images)

President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda is supposed to tax the wealthy to help the middle class. If you don’t believe me, just ask Biden, who’s more than willing to tell you about it on his Twitter account.

To be fair, I’m assuming the messages aren’t written by Biden himself, a man who seems like his relationship with technology involves yelling at his phone, either asking Siri to find his slippers or telling Scotty to beam him up. However, whoever tweets for him stays on message when it comes to the president’s tax-and-spend plan.

“We’re going to pass a historic middle class tax cut — and we’ll do it by making those at the top pay their fair share,” one tweet from Sunday read. “I know the crowd on Park Ave might not like it, but it’s time we give people in towns like Scranton — the folks I grew up with — a break for a change.”

“From health care to child care, my Build Back Better Agenda will lower everyday costs for middle class Americans,” a tweet from this Monday read.

“I’m not looking to punish anyone, I just think it’s only fair that the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share once again. Then, we’ll use that money to invest in the middle class,” a tweet from last week reads.

“For me it’s pretty simple: It’s about time working people got the tax breaks in this country,” a tweet from the day before that read. “That’s the Build Back Better Agenda.”

From health care to child care, my Build Back Better Agenda will lower everyday costs for middle class Americans. pic.twitter.com/eqzWKmw1wy
— President Biden (@POTUS) September 28, 2021

I’m not looking to punish anyone, I just think it’s only fair that the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share once again. Then, we’ll use that money to invest in the middle class. pic.twitter.com/xZYMMUo5yi
— President Biden (@POTUS) September 20, 2021

If someone has to repeat themselves this much, it’s usually because they’re lying — and, lo and behold, the Joint Committee on Taxation seems to have confirmed that.

According to a media release from the Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday, the Joint Committee on Taxation — a non-partisan congressional tax scorekeeper — found that almost every income level below the threshold the Biden administration said would be immune would take a hit.

Furthermore, the committee’s analysis found the vast majority of taxpayers would see no benefit from the plan in its current form.

According to the analysis, by the calendar year 2023, nearly 5 percent of those making between $40,000 and $50,000 would see a tax increase. Nine percent of those making between $50,000 and $75,000 would see an increase, 18 percent earning between $75,000 and $100,000 would see their taxes go up and 35 percent of those earning between $100,000 and $200,000 would be subject to a hike.

The media release also noted that the benefit most people see will pretty much be nil.

In 2023, two-thirds of all taxpayers won’t get see any kind of real benefit from the legislation, either seeing their tax bill changed by less than $100 or getting a tax increase.

By 2027, this number would balloon to 85.5 percent, with huge swaths of the middle class seeing a sizable tax increase; these numbers are projected to stay mostly steady until 2031.

Meanwhile, the Joint Committee on Taxation also found that hiking corporate taxes would hit middle-class Americans hard, too.

“Within 10 years of a corporate tax increase from 21 percent to 25 percent, 66.3 percent of the corporate tax burden would be borne by lower- and middle-income taxpayers with income well below $500,000,” an August media release from the Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee read.

“This statistic becomes only more striking in absolute number of taxpayers. Of the more than 172 million taxpayers who would bear the burden of the increased corporate tax rate, 98.4 percent, or about 169 million, have incomes under $500,000.”

Of course, the charge from the left would be that this doesn’t take into account what the spending these tax hikes will pay for is going to buy for the middle class. Beyond the fact these “investments” never bring back the kind of returns that are promised, Biden promised a middle-class tax cut. At least in the plan’s current form, it doesn’t look like it’ll end up delivering — no matter what the president says.

Do you know who did lower taxes on the middle class? Former President Donald Trump.

Joe Biden may have spent much of the campaign whining about Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which slashed taxes across the board. Most of the outrage focused on the fact he didn’t soak the rich: “Tax experts estimate that over the long run, 83% of Trump’s tax giveaway will flow to the top 1% of earners in this country,” Biden’s campaign website read.

And yet, in March of 2020, MarketWatch reported that “Americans paid almost $64 billion less in federal income taxes during the first year under the Republican tax overhaul signed into law in late 2017 by President Donald Trump, with some of the sharpest drops clustered among taxpayers earning between $25,000 and $100,000 a year, even as the overall number of refunds dropped during a turbulent tax season” in 2019.

Biden plans on taking that away. In return, he’s offered nothing of substance — except, as promised, he’s soaking the rich. And the upper-middle class. And some people in the middle class, too. But mainly the rich. See, priorities!

Biden may not be giving people in towns like Scranton — the folks he grew up with — a break the same way Trump did. But at least they can watch as his administration takes (and then squanders) Park Avenue’s money. He’ll be squandering Scranton’s money, too, but at least they get the joy of class-based schadenfreude out of the deal.

C. Douglas Golden, Contributor

C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he’s written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014.

@CillianZeal Facebook

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Report: Milley Promised To Warn Chinese About US Military Operations

Reported by Joseph Simonson | September 14, 2021

U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, holds a press briefing about the U.S. military drawdown in Afghanistan, at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., September 1, 2021. / Getty Images

Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Mark Milley secretly promised to warn the head of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army before the United States would carry out any “attack or conduct any kinetic operations against you.”

The shocking anecdote is described in a new book by Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, which discloses the extent to which the Pentagon worked to subvert former president Donald Trump’s foreign policy goals. Trump’s rhetoric toward China, according to a Washington Post summary, increasingly alarmed Milley, who suspected the president might order a surprise strike.

“I want to assure you that the American government is stable and everything is going to be okay,” Milley reportedly told Gen. Li Zoucheng, on Oct. 30, 2020. Milley went on to highlight the close relationship between the two men, saying, “If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time. It’s not going to be a surprise.”

Milley never informed the president of the conversation. He called Li again on Jan. 8, 2021 to “address Chinese fears about the events of Jan. 6,” according to the Washington Post.

“We are 100 percent steady. Everything’s fine,” Milley told Li. “But democracy can be sloppy sometimes.”

Milley’s fears—which later proved erroneous as there is no evidence Trump attempted to, or even considered a strike against China during his last days in office—were in part prompted by the then-president signing an order to withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan by Jan. 15, 2021. That order never went through, but, according to a summary of the book by CNN, “Milley could not forget that Trump had done an end run around his top military advisers.”

A spokeswoman for the Joint Chiefs declined to comment.

Out of fear that China could “lash out” against the United States, Milley sought to unilaterally defuse tensions between the two countries on Jan. 8, 2021. He called the chief Navy official in charge of America’s Indo-Pacific Command and told him to postpone scheduled military exercises. That same day, Milley spoke with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), who grew concerned Trump might order a nuclear strike.

“What I’m saying to you is that if they couldn’t even stop him from an assault on the Capitol, who even knows what else he may do? And is there anybody in charge at the White House who was doing anything but kissing his fat butt all over this?” Pelosi said, adding that Trump has “been crazy for a long time.”

Milley responded by saying, “I agree with you on everything,” and assured her that the military would not authorize any military strikes, which, according to Costa and Woodward, meant he “was overseeing the mobilization of America’s national security state without the knowledge of the American people or the rest of the world.”

According to the book’s authors, Milley considered President Joe Biden’s “50 years” of experience in politics as reason to “always give him decision space,” even as the White House agreed with the previous administration on a full withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan.

“Here’s a couple of rules of the road here that we’re going to follow,” Milley said in private remarks to the Joint Chiefs. “One is you never, ever, ever box in a president of the United States.”

Milley’s comments during a June congressional hearing, in which he defended the teaching of critical race theory in the armed services, sparked outrage and accusations that he was overseeing a politicization of the military.

“I want to understand white rage, and I’m white,” Milley said in his testimony. “I have read Mao Zedong, I’ve read Karl Marx, I’ve read Lenin—that doesn’t make me a communist. So what is wrong with having some situational understanding about the country for which we are here to defend?”

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Wasn’t Trump Impeached Over a Call? Biden Coerced Afghan Pres to Lie About Taliban Winning in Leaked Call: Report

By Taylor Penley | September 1, 2021

Remember when House Democrats accused former President Donald Trump of pressuring Ukraine to investigate then-candidate Joe Biden while leveraging military aid as collateral during a phone call with Ukraine’s president in 2019? I do. The accusation prompted Trump’s first impeachment on the grounds of “abuse of power” and “obstruction of Congress” that December, according to the U.S. Sun.

Now, two years later, it’s President Joe Biden who’s responsible for talks with world leaders, talks like the one House Democrats used to attack Trump. And, to afford Biden similar scrutiny to what Trump received, one particular aspect of Biden’s last call with now-former Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani seems especially interesting.

Biden’s final call with Ghani came on July 23 — three weeks before Kabul fell to Taliban forces and Islamic extremism toppled 20 years of democratic progress in the country. The two discussed “military aid, political strategy and messaging” for approximately 14 minutes, Reuters reported on Tuesday after reviewing what it said was a transcript and audio of the exchange provided by an anonymous source. One particular aspect of the leaked transcript appears especially damning for Biden, as the New York Post pointed out.

The Post noted the transcript shows Biden “pressured” Ghani to “‘create the perception’ that the Taliban weren’t winning, ‘whether it is true or not.’”
“I need not tell you the perception around the world and in parts of Afghanistan, I believe, is that things are not going well in terms of the fight against the Taliban,” Biden said during the call, according to Reuters.
“And there is a need, whether it is true or not, there is a need to project a different picture.”

Biden’s pressuring went a step further, however, according to Reuters.

If Ghani could successfully fool the public into thinking the Afghan government had plans to control what Reuters called the “spiraling situation” of the Taliban’s resurgence, Biden would offer aid.

“We will continue to provide close air support, if we know what the plan is,” Biden said, according to Reuters.

The outlet added that, just days before the call, the U.S. supported Afghan security forces with air strikes against the Taliban. The Taliban maintained that these air strikes violated the Doha peace agreement signed under the Trump administration.

To provide some context, the Taliban had already advanced into approximately half of Afghanistan’s district centers at the time of the phone call, the Post noted. Just three weeks later, the nation’s capital would be directly threatened by Taliban forces. Ghani fled just before the city fell. But before that would happen, Biden advised Ghani during their exchange to employ prominent Afghan political and military figures — including former Afghan President Hamid Karzai — to further generate the sense of security, the Post added.

“That will change perception, and that will change an awful lot, I think,” Biden said, according to Reuters.

At another point in the conversation, Biden said a change in the Afghan government’s strategy would do more than help “on the ground,” Reuters reported. It would generate support for the Ghani regime internationally.

“I’m not a military guy, so I’m not telling you what that plan should precisely look like, you’re going to get not only more help, but you’re going to get a perception that is going to change,” he said, according to Reuters.

It was never OK to give Afghans or our allies a false sense of security in light of the danger steadily progressing across the country.

Afghan civilians and U.S. allies alike (particularly those in Europe) have since succumbed to a grim reality in one way or another — either being forced to flee their homes, scramble to return to their home countries (if residing there on behalf of another nation) or stay behind in the Taliban’s wake.

And it makes our president look like a liar.

Now, as September begins, the aftermath of the U.S.’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan seems clearer every day.

Our allies are furious with us, Gold Star families mourn the loss of our 13 heroes killed in action during an ISIS suicide bombing outside of Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport and several Americans and U.S. allies have since been left behind in the region.

We can only expect things to get worse from here.

Amid the bombshell leaked transcript of Biden and Ghani’s exchange that’s likely to make headway in the news, it’s reasonable to wonder whether Biden’s coercion and deception will stick to his image or roll off his shoulders as if he’s covered in Teflon.

Considering the establishment media’s — and our elected officials’ — histories of handling Biden with kid gloves, the likely answer is already clear.

Taylor Penley, Contributor

Taylor Penley is a political commentator residing in Northwest Georgia. She holds a BA in English with minors in rhetoric/writing and global studies from Dalton State College. As a student, she worked in government relations and interned for Georgia’s 14th congressional district. She previously published an article with Future Female Leaders and published her rhetorical analysis of President Reagan’s Berlin Wall Speech in a collegiate journal. She seeks to study journalism or communication in graduate school.

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Senate Passes The Largest Infrastructure Package In Decades, Over A Dozen Republicans Vote In Favor

Reported by ANDREW TRUNSKY | POLITICAL REPORTER | August 10, 2021

Lawmakers Continue To Work On Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal On Capitol Hill — (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

The Senate on Tuesday passed its bipartisan infrastructure bill, moving what would be the largest public works package in decades one step closer to becoming law months after negotiations first began. The bill, which advocates praised as the largest investment in America’s infrastructure since the construction of the interstate highway system in the 1950s, passed 69-30. Nineteen Republicans joined every Democrat in voting for the package.

The legislation, titled the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), was on a glide path to passage after beating a Senate filibuster Sunday night, when 68 senators voted to end debate.

Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the bill’s lead Democratic negotiator, said Monday on the Senate floor that the bill would “make America stronger and safer, create good-paying jobs and expand economic opportunities across the country,” and praised her colleagues for their commitment to reaching an agreement. “This is what it looks like when elected leaders take a step toward healing our country’s divisions rather than feeding [them],” she added.

The IIJA costs $1.2 trillion over eight years, $550 billion of which is new government spending, and puts hundreds of billions of federal dollars toward roads, bridges, ports, broadband and more. It was led by Ohio Sen. Rob Portman on the Republican side, and was the product of negotiations among 22 senators and President Joe Biden.

“[This is] landmark and needed legislation in fixing our roads, railroads, our ports, electrical grid and more,” Portman said on the floor. “I’m proud of what was done on that … It will improve the lives of all Americans. It’s long-term spending to repair and replace and build assets that will last for decades.”

Talks first began with West Virginia Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, but collapsed after she and the White House could not agree on the overall size and scope of the bill. Negotiations then shifted to the bipartisan group, but remained precarious for weeks as they struggled to compromise on how to finance the new spending and what it should cover.

It was late July when Portman announced that the group had reached agreement on the “major issues,” and that Republicans were ready to move forward.

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema speaks after the bipartisan bill cleared its first procedural vote in July. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

The bill cleared its first procedural vote hours later with the support of 17 Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a clear indication that it had the necessary support to beat a filibuster and pass. Two days later, 16 Republicans joined Democrats in officially voting to begin debate.

Senators originally sought to pass the bill last week or over the weekend, but were blocked from doing so by Tennessee Republican Sen. Bill Hagerty, who refused to forgo hours of scheduled debate. He cited the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate that the bill would add $256 billion to the deficit over the next 10 years, arguing that the legislation was not fully paid for, unlike what its negotiators previously said.

Hagerty’s delays earned praise from former President Donald Trump on Sunday, who had repeatedly tried to intimidate Republicans into opposing the package. In multiple email statements he disparaged McConnell for supporting the bill, calling it a “disgrace” and the “beginning of the Green New Deal,” and floated backing primary challengers against other Republicans who backed it.

With the IIJA’s passing, senators are now set to take up their budget resolution, keeping them in Washington for another marathon session with dozens of politically tricky amendment votes and eating into their prized August recess. The mammoth resolution, unveiled by Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday, addresses priorities omitted from the infrastructure bill including health care, climate change and immigration and as outlined costs $3.5 trillion.

“This legislation in so many ways begins to address the working families of our country,” Sanders said on the Senate floor Monday. “But in one important way, maybe the most important, is as we address the needs of our people in health care and education and climate, we are going to create many millions of good-paying jobs that the American people desperately need.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders authored Democrats' $3.5 trillion budget, which he has acknowledged will likely pass on party lines. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Sen. Bernie Sanders authored Democrats’ $3.5 trillion budget, which he has acknowledged will likely pass on party lines. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

While Republicans unanimously oppose the reconciliation package, Senate rules allow for Democrats to pass it with just a simple majority vote, meaning that it could pass strictly along party lines if their caucus all votes for it.

McConnell on Tuesday accused Democrats of playing “Russian roulette with our country” and said the budget would be the “largest peacetime tax hike on record.”

“This new reckless taxing and spending spree will fall like a hammer blow on workers and middle-class families,” McConnell said. “If all 50 Democrats want to help [Budget Committee] Chairman Sanders hurt middle-class families … well, that’s their prerogative, but we’re going to argue it out right here on the floor at some length.”

Several progressives, however, have sought to tie the bipartisan bill with the reconciliation package, with some in the House hinging their support for the former on Senate Democrats passing the latter. In an attempt to hold her narrow majority together, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said that she will not bring the bipartisan bill up for a vote until the Senate passes the reconciliation package as well, despite moderates urging her to bring up the infrastructure package as soon as possible.

Others have also been critical of the infrastructure bill, which was adopted as a substitute for the $715 billion surface transportation bill that the House passed in July, arguing that it inadequately invests in climate, housing, child care and more.

Oregon Democratic Rep. Peter DeFazio, the chair of the House Transportation Committee, reportedly called the bill “crap” after a deal was reached, lamenting the fact that it omitted large swaths of the transportation bill he authored and disregarding the White House’s endorsement of it.

“I could give a damn about the White House. We’re an independent branch of government,” he told reporters in July. “They cut this deal. I didn’t sign off on it.”

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Capitol Rioter Sentenced To 8 Months In Prison In First Felony Case

Reported by ANDREW TRUNSKY, POLITICAL REPORTER for DailyCaller.com | July 19, 2021

Congress Holds Joint Session To Ratify 2020 Presidential Election — (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

A Florida man who breached the Senate floor on Jan. 6 while carrying a Trump flag was the first Capitol rioter sentenced with a felony offense.

Prosecutors are seeking a minimum 18-month sentence for Paul Allard Hodgkins. In a July 14 court filing, they alleged that he, “like each rioter, contributed to the collective threat to democracy” as they forced lawmakers, reporters, staff and Vice President Mike Pence into hiding as they convened to certify President Joe Biden’s victory.

He was sentenced to eight months in prison.

Video footage described in the report shows Hodgkins, 38, sporting a Trump T-shirt and flag on the Senate floor. At one point he took a selfie with the self-described shaman, who is also awaiting trial for participating in the riot.

Rioters enter the Senate Chamber on January 6. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Lawyers for Hodgkins had argued that the court of public opinion was enough punishment to avoid a prison sentence.

“Whatever punishment this court may provide will pale in comparison to the scarlet letter Mr. Hodgkins will wear for the rest of his life,” his lawyer, Patrick N. Leduc, wrote in a filing on July 12.

That filing likens Hodgkins’ actions to those of Anna Lloyd Morgan, a 49-year-old from Indiana who was the first of hundreds to be sentenced. She pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct in June and was given three years of probation.

Hundreds of rioters stormed the Capitol as Congress sought to certify President Joe Biden’s victory. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

Though Hodgkins was never accused of assaulting anyone or damaging property, prosecutors noted that when he boarded a bus from Tampa, Florida, to D.C. he had rope, protective goggles and latex gloves, and said that demonstrated that he was prepared for violence.

Prosecutors also said, however, that Hodgkins deserved leniency for immediately coming forward and pleading guilty to his obstruction charge, which carries a maximum sentence of two decades. But they noted that “time and time again, rather than turn around and retreat, he pressed forward.”

“When a mob is prepared to attack the Capitol to prevent elected officials from both parties from performing their constitutional and statutory duty, democracy is in trouble,” Federal District Judge Randolph Moss said Monday. “The damage that they caused that day is way beyond the delays that day. It is a damage that will persist in this country for decades.”

Leduc argued in his filing that Hodgkins was “a man who for just one hour on one day lost his bearings” and “made a fateful decision to follow the crowd.” It also noted former President Abraham Lincoln’s attempt to reconcile immediately after the Civil War.

“The court has a chance to emulate Lincoln,” Leduc wrote.

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Breaking: AZ Auditors Reveal Massively Disturbing Results in 2020 Election

Reported by Michael Austin July 15, 2021

On Thursday, Arizona Republicans issued a major announcement related to the audit of Maricopa County’s 2020 general election results. During the proceedings, Arizona state Senate President Karen Fann, along with state Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Warren Petersen, gave the floor to auditors who announced that as many as 74,000 absentee ballot mail-in records are missing in addition to a great many vote irregularities found by the audit.

“… as many as 74,000 absentee ballot mail-in records are missing in addition to a great many vote irregularities found by the audit.“

Fann began the hearing by introducing three individuals who played key roles in the state audit.

Lead auditor Doug Logan first introduced a video clip that detailed the process and emphasized the security measures that were taken to ensure the audit could proceed safely.

Former Arizona Secretary of State and Arizona Senate liaison Ken Bennett then provided specifics of the audit, including how many ballots were received and examined, how data was collected and examined from voting equipment and which security protocols were enforced while the audit took place.

The liaison noted that the examination of duplicate ballots was a particularly strenuous process. Duplicate ballots are typically produced when a ballot becomes damaged or is improperly marked.

“It has created great difficulty to try to match up a duplicated ballot to its duplicate,” Bennett said, noting that some serial numbers were completely missing from duplicated ballots, ……….. READ THE REST OF THIS IMPORTANT REPORT AT https://www.westernjournal.com/breaking-az-auditors-reveal-massively-disturbing-results-2020-election/

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Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer Weighs In On His Potential Retirement

Reported by ANDREW TRUNSKY, POLITICAL REPORTER | July 15, 2021

Justice Stephen Breyer participates in a panel at Georgetown University Law Center on April 21, 2014 (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) — Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer said that he was undecided on his retirement in a new interview. Speaking with CNN in an interview published Thursday, the 83-year-old Breyer answered “no” when asked if he knew when he would retire. He gave two reasons that would contribute to an eventual decision: “Primarily, of course, health,” Breyer said. “Second, the court.”

Liberals have urged Breyer to step down at the end of the court’s current term so that President Joe Biden can name a younger, liberal justice to the bench while Democrats hold a Senate majority. But Breyer told CNN that he was happy as the court’s highest-ranking liberal, saying that it had “made a difference” to him.

The nine Supreme Court justices in April, 2021. Breyer sits in the front row, second from the right. (ERIN SCHAFF/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Breyer has played a central role in several recent high-profile cases, from rejecting a third attempt to kill the Affordable Care Act to safeguarding student speech rights.

He has also warned against packing the Supreme Court, warning in April that doing so could further erode Americans’ trust in it. He defended the court’s refusal to hear former President Donald Trump’s challenges to the 2020 election, noting that the “court is guided by legal principle, not politics.”

Breyer has been on the court since 1994, longer than any justice except for Clarence Thomas, who was confirmed in 1991.

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Ban On Goods Made With Forced Labor Slows Clothing Imports

Reported by KENDALL TIETZ, CONTRIBUTOR | June 28, 2021

Uyghur Women Getty — (Photo by PETER PARKS/AFP via Getty Images)

Increased enforcement of a ban on imported products made with forced labor has led to cargo stoppages and complaints from importers, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers are charged with enforcing the ban on goods, such a cotton and tomato products from the Xinjiang region of China, where Uyghurs are detained in forced labor camps. The bans were first put in place during the Trump administration in an effort to remove forced labor from import supply chains, the WSJ reported.

The ban on cotton from the region has had an impact on retailers who rely heavily on the commodity and must prove their supply chains don’t rely on slave labor, the WSJ reported. Importers have three months from the time of detainment to prove products pass CBP standards, if not, cargoes will be exported or abandoned.

Retailer Uniqlo Co, had a shipment of men’s shirts detained in January at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach because customs officers suspected it violated the December ban on Xinjiang cotton, according to internal CBP documents, the WSJ reported.

This photo taken on June 2, 2019 shows buildings at the Artux City Vocational Skills Education Training Service Center, believed to be a re-education camp where mostly Muslim ethnic minorities are detained, north of Kashgar in China's northwestern Xinjiang region. (Photo by GREG BAKER/AFP via Getty Images)

This photo taken on June 2, 2019 shows buildings at the Artux City Vocational Skills Education Training Service Center, believed to be a re-education camp where mostly Muslim ethnic minorities are detained, north of Kashgar in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region. (Photo by GREG BAKER/AFP via Getty Images)

Uniqlo objected, providing documents that showed the cotton came from Australia, Brazil and the U.S., the WSJ reported. But CBP still did not release the cargo, citing that the company was unable to prove the shirts weren’t made using forced labor.

Representatives for the retail industry say the burden of proof is too high and that expectations are unclear, the WSJ reported.

“It turns U.S. jurisprudence on its head. As opposed to innocent until proven guilty, it is now guilty until proven innocent,” said Nate Herman, senior vice president of policy at American Apparel & Footwear Association, the WSJ reported. ”Companies don’t know what they are trying to prove because they don’t know what part of the shipment triggered the detention or why it was in violation.”

One possible factor for the lack of transparency and stalled imports could be a shortage of CBP staff, which “limits its ability to pursue forced labor investigations,” a Government Accountability Office report said in October.

Trade lawyers and business groups said they expect more import bans and disputed shipments, due to an increasing focus on human rights, the WSJ reported.

“As President Biden made clear at the recent G7 summit, the United States will not tolerate modern-day slavery in our supply chains,” said Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro N. Mayorkas in a press release Thursday. “This Withhold Release Order demonstrates we continue to protect human rights and international labor standards and promote a more fair and competitive global marketplace by fulfilling the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to ending forced labor.”

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Georgia Poll Manager: There Were ‘Pristine’ Biden Ballots That Looked Like They’d Been Xeroxed

Reported by Taylor Penley June 8, 2021 at 4:21pm

Suzi Voyles is no stranger to elections. And after monitoring voting in Atlanta-area Fulton County, Georgia, for two decades, Voyles said that the highly contentious 2020 election proved to be unlike any other. Voyles testified that as she thumbed through a stack of mail-in ballots last November, strangely “pristine” ballots printed on stock paper different from the others seized her attention.

What did these ballots have in common?

Voyles testified that each ballot contained uniformly filled-in ovals, and every one presented an identical crescent-shaped “void” inside them — indicating the ballots weren’t filled in with pencil or pen, but rather by toner ink.

“Every single ballot was absolutely identical and they appeared to be printed with some sort of marking device,” Voyles said. “And the fact that there was a little eclipse in an oval that was void in exactly the same spot in all these ballots, we didn’t see any differentiation — even when it came to the Senate candidates or when it came to some of the referendums on the back.”

“Everything was precisely the same. I’ve never seen that before in 20 years,” Voyles said. She added that these suspicious ballots had no creases or folds indicative of other mail-in ballots extracted from envelopes.

Voyles wasn’t alone in her testimony.

According to RealClear Investigations, at least three other Fulton County poll workers reported that they encountered the same enigma in other stacks of absentee ballots and have joined Voyles in “swearing under penalty of perjury that [the ballots] looked fake.”

Eight months later, we see the same suspicion resurging in the Republican stronghold that unexpectedly flipped blue for the first time since 1992. Using affidavits to convince a state judge to warrant a closer inspection of ballots for potential illicit election activity, election integrity advocates assert that Biden’s late surge of 12,000 votes was manufactured — and for good reason.

“We have what is almost surely major absentee-ballot fraud in Fulton County involving 10,000 to 20,000 probably false ballots,” Garland Favorito, poll watcher and a lead petitioner in the case against fraudulent ballots, told RealClear Investigations.
“We have confirmed that there are five pallets of shrink-wrapped ballots in a county warehouse,” he added, reiterating his claim.

As questions surrounding the legitimacy of the 2020 election outcome continued in Georgia, as well as other states, Superior Court Judge Brian Amero ordered on May 21 that 147,000 ballots be unsealed and asked that officials guard the warehouse containing these ballots until an inspection date could be set, according to the report. Unfortunately, the warehouse’s security was breached only eight days later. According to Favorito, “The front door was [found] unlocked and wide open in violation of the court order.”

County officials did confirm that security motion detectors were triggered shortly after deputies left the premises, but said the room containing the ballots was “never breached or compromised.”

Still, Favorito — and likely many others — would not be convinced and Favorito seeks to obtain security footage to supplement the investigation, the report states.

Still, all of the contention brewing in the Peach State appears to reaffirm many suspicions that have arisen since Nov. 3 — and may validate Voyle’s bombshell claims. We can’t allow our officials to ignore their obligation to ensure fair, ethical elections for all Americans.

If we do, we have surrendered the most integral aspect of our republic.

Taylor Penley, Contributor, Commentary

Taylor Penley is a government relations intern and student studying English, rhetoric and global studies. She plans to graduate in May 2021 and begin a master of arts program in political science this fall.

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‘Their Legacy Is Immortal’: Trump Delivers Stirring Memorial Day Statement

Reported by Dillon Burroughs | May 31, 2021

In contrast with brief comments from President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris prior to Memorial Day, former President Donald Trump released a statement on Monday to remind Americans of the reasons behind the holiday.

“On this Memorial Day, we remember the fallen heroes who took their last breaths in defense of our Nation, our families, our citizens, and our sacred freedoms,” Trump wrote in a statement.
“The depth of their devotion, the steel of their resolve, and the purity of their patriotism has no equal in human history. On distant battlefields, in far-off oceans, and high in the skies above, they faced down our enemies and gave their lives so that America would prevail,” the former president added.

Trump also highlighted the “supreme sacrifice” given by many armed forces personnel who have served the nation.

“They made the supreme sacrifice so that our people can live in safety and our Nation can thrive in peace. It is because of their gallantry that we can together, as one people, continue our pursuit of America’s glorious destiny,” he said.

Trump referred to the service of America’s fallen heroes as “immortal,” highlighting loyalty to those who have paid the ultimate price with their lives on the battlefield.

“We owe all that we are, and everything we ever hope to be, to these unrivaled heroes. Their memory and their legacy is immortal. Our loyalty to them and to their families is eternal and everlasting,” he said.

In contrast to the “woke” promotions highlighted in recent military ads, Trump referred to the nation’s military personnel as warriors.

“America’s warriors are the single greatest force for justice, peace, liberty, and security among all the nations ever to exist on earth. God bless our fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Coast Guardsmen, Airmen, and Marines. We honor them today, forever, and always,” Trump said.

The former president’s statement serves as a follow-up to his Thursday attacks on the Biden administration before Memorial Day.

“With Memorial Day Weekend coming up, tomorrow people start driving in the biggest automobile days of the year,” Trump said in the statement.
“I’m sorry to say the gasoline prices that you will be confronted with are far higher than they were just a short number of months ago where we had gasoline under $2 a gallon.”

Trump’s statement also strongly contrasted Twitter posts by both Biden and Harris entering the holiday weekend.

Biden tweeted, “Stay cool this weekend, folks.” He later added a more traditional Memorial Day statement.

Harris simply posted Friday, “Enjoy the long weekend.”

The vice president’s initial post angered many on social media who found her whimsical words offensive, as Memorial Day commemorates Americans who have died in the armed forces.

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Today’s THREE Politically INCORRECT Cartoon’s by A.F. Branco

A.F. Branco – RIP Rush Limbaugh

A.F. BRANCO | on February 17, 2021 at 7:10 pm | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-rip-rush-limbaugh/

RIP Rush Limbaugh the GOAT of talk radio has passed away today Feb 17, 2021, at 70.

A.F. Branco Cartoon – On Loan From God

A.F. BRANCO | on February 18, 2021 at 8:45 am | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-on-loan-from-god/

Rush Limbaugh has passed on but is important that we keep his legacy alive by spreading the Truth.

A.F. Branco Cartoon – A Pain in the Burro

A.F. BRANCO | on February 19, 2021 at 8:45 am | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-a-pain-in-the-burro/

Trump found a new place to set up his new office of Former President, rent Free.

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!

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Ex-FBI Lawyer Receives Probation For Altering Email About Carter Page

Reported by CHUCK ROSS, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER | January 29, 2021

U.S. Attorney John Durham (Youtube screen capture/Fox News)

Former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith was sentenced to probation on Friday for altering an email about former Trump aide Carter Page’s relationship with the CIA. District Court Judge James Boasberg ordered Clinesmith to receive 12 months of probation and perform 400 hours of community service, a sentence far more lenient than the three to six months in prison sought by John Durham, the U.S. Attorney for Connecticut.

Clinesmith, who was an assistant general counsel in the FBI’s cyber law branch, pleaded guilty on Aug. 19, 2020 to altering a June 2017 email he received from a CIA employee regarding Page. The CIA employee wrote that Page had been “a source” for the spy agency through 2013. Clinesmith forwarded the email to FBI colleagues but altered the document to say that Page was “not a source.” (RELATED: Carter Page Wants A Say At Kevin Clinesmith’s Hearing)

Clinesmith helped the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane team, which investigated possible links between the Russian government and Trump campaign, draft applications for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants on Page. He later joined the special counsel’s team, but was removed after the Justice Department inspector general found that he sent text messages criticizing President Trump following the 2016 election.

WASHINGTON, DC – NOVEMBER 02: Carter Page, former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, speaks to the media after testifying before the House Intelligence Committee on November 2, 2017 in Washington, DC. The committee is conducting an investigation into Russia’s tampering in the 2016 election. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Boasberg said that Clinesmith’s actions “undermined the integrity of the FISA process,” but that he believed that Clinesmith was remorseful and did not alter the email to harm Page. Boasberg said that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court’s “reputation has suffered from this incident.”

The IG blasted the FBI for providing misleading information to the FISA Court in order to obtain warrants on Page, a former Navy officer who joined the Trump campaign in March 2016. The Crossfire Hurricane team relied heavily on unverified and since-debunked allegations from Christopher Steele, a former British spy who investigated the Trump campaign on behalf of the Clinton campaign and DNC. Prosecutors asserted that Clinesmith had not taken full responsibility for his actions. They noted that he has claimed that he believed the alteration to be accurate at the time.

Anthony Scarpelli, an assistant U.S. attorney, said during the hearing that Clinesmith’s lies about Carter Page were “more egregious” than those told by George Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign aide who pleaded guilty in October 2017 to making false statements to the FBI. Speaking at Clinesmith’s hearing, Page said that the “manufactured scandal and associated lies caused me to adopt the lifestyle of an international fugitive for years.”

“I often have felt as if I had been left with no life at all. Each member of my family was severely impacted.”

Page has sued the Justice Department, FBI, Clinesmith and other current and former FBI employees over the inaccurate FISA applications.

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McConnell Votes In Favor Of Rand Paul’s Motion To Dismiss Trump’s Impeachment Trial, Five GOP Senators Opposed

Reported by HENRY RODGERS, SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT | January 26, 2021

Photo by Samuel Corum: Getty Images 12121121111

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and a majority of Republicans voted Tuesday in favor of Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul’s motion to dismiss the impeachment trial against former President Donald Trump. As senators prepared for the impeachment trial, Paul introduced a motion arguing that the trial is unconstitutional since Trump is now a private citizen and exempt from facing removal from office. However, five Republican senators and every Senate Democrat voted to table the motion, pushing Trump’s impeachment trial forward.

THESE FIVE GOP SENATORS VOTED TO TABLE THE MOTION:

Maine Sen. Collins
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski
Utah Sen. Mitt Romney
Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse
Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) heads to the Senate floor before being called into session on January 26, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

“I think there will be enough support on it to show there’s no chance they can impeach the president,” Paul told reporters before the vote. “If 34 people support my resolution that this is an unconstitutional proceeding, it shows they don’t have the votes and we’re basically wasting our time.” (RELATED: Rand Paul Will Force Vote On The Constitutionality Of Trump’s Upcoming Senate Trial)

In order to convict Trump in the Senate, Democrats will need 17 Republican senators to side with every Democrat. (RELATED: Schumer Says Impeachment Trial Will Move Quickly, Won’t Need A Lot Of Witnesses)

Members were sworn in for trial on Tuesday. The arguments will start the week of Feb. 8, Schumer announced.

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Trump issues wave of pardons in final hours as president

Reported by W. James Antle III | Washington Examiner | January 20, 2021

President Trump issued 73 pardons and commuted the federal sentences of 70 other people in the final hours of his administration, headlined by former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon. Trump also granted relief to rappers Lil Wayne and Kodak Black, who were convicted on weapons charges, as well as to former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. Kilpatrick, a Democrat, was convicted of mail fraud, wire fraud, and racketeering. He was serving a 28-year sentence. Trump through the White House press secretary cited Diamond and Silk and Pastor Paula White, strong supporters of his, as backers of commuting Kilpatrick’s sentence.

Elliott Broidy, the former deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee, received a full presidential pardon. He was convicted on one count of conspiracy to serve as an unregistered agent of a foreign principal. Trump invoked Rep. Devin Nunes of California and Ambassador Richard Grenell, among other friends of the White House, as supporters of the pardon.

The last-minute acts of clemency cap four years of controversial pardons of supporters and allies, including former 2016 campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Republican operative Roger Stone, former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, former campaign aide George Papadopoulos, former Reps. Duncan Hunter and Chris Collins, and Charles Kushner, father of the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner.

Other recipients of Trump pardons who raised eyebrows included former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat, four Iraq War veterans convicted in a Blackwater shooting, former New York City Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik, conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza, and Scooter Libby, who had served as chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. Trump pardoned Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, two former border patrol agents whose cases had long been championed by immigration hawks.

Trump has also occasionally issued pardons to further the goals of criminal justice reform, such as when he granted clemency to Alice Marie Johnson, a first-time nonviolent drug offender who spent 21 years in prison. “That means you can do whatever you want in life,” Trump told her in the Oval Office earlier this year. He had previously commuted her life sentence in 2018.

Death Row Records co-founder Michael “Harry O” Harris was granted early release from prison, where he had served three decades for attempted murder and cocaine trafficking. Rapper Snoop Dogg praised the move. These acts of clemency have generally received more positive reviews than Trump’s pardons of political supporters and personal associates, rekindling the former reality TV star’s once-chummy relationship with Hollywood.

Kim Kardashian West has visited the White House to advise Trump on less famous people who could benefit from pardons and commutations. Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, tweeted Wednesday night that he was “more interested” in seeing Trump’s pardons than President-elect Joe Biden’s Cabinet nominees.

A number low-level drug offenders were included in the current Trump list. Some supporters had hoped he would strike against the “deep state” by pardoning WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and whistleblower Edward Snowden, who leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency while a federal contractor. They were not on the pardons list.

Trump has also used the pardon power to strike back at the investigation conducted by special counsel Robert Mueller, which the president has regularly described as the “Russia hoax.” This led to the pardons of Manafort, Stone, Papadopoulos, and, to a lesser extent, Flynn. Trump repeated the phrase “Russian collusion hoax” in announcing a full pardon for Paul Erickson. Mueller’s final report did not establish the Trump campaign colluded with Russia in the 2016 presidential election.

Bannon was charged with defrauding donors who hoped to help privately fund the construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border, a key Trump campaign promise. Bannon, a staunch proponent of the president’s populist and nationalist variant of conservatism both before and after serving in the White House, has denied the allegations. He had yet to stand trial.

In the days leading up to the final pardons, there was rampant speculation that Trump might pardon family members or even himself. Acts of clemency for Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, or Ivanka Trump, three of the president’s adult children, were thought to complicate any political future they or their spouses might be entertaining. The constitutionality of a presidential self-pardon has been debated by legal scholars.

Trump was reportedly warned by top aides not to pardon anyone involved in the “Stop the Steal” rally prior to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by die-hard supporters of the president who were protesting the certification of Biden’s Electoral College victory. The House voted to impeach Trump for inciting the riot, and a Senate trial will follow after he leaves office, potentially paving the way for legislation to prevent him from running again in 2024. Five people died in the riots.

Trump has steadfastly maintained the election was stolen due to widespread voter fraud, though he has in recent days acknowledged “a new administration” will be taking power at the conclusion of his term. The slew of pardons beginning in December were also seen as a concession that his time in the White House was coming to a close.

Read the full article: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/politics/trump-issues-final-pardons

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Nolte: Donald Trump Leaves Office with 51% Approval Rating

Reported by JOHN NOLTE | 19 Jan 2021

US President Donald Trump gestures during a Keep America Great Rally at Kellogg Arena December 18, 2019, in Battle Creek, Michigan. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP) (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

On his last full day in office, President Donald Trump enjoys a 51 percent approval rating, according to Rasmussen Reports, one of only about three polling firms that have a proven track record for legitimacy and accuracy. Most of the other polls are crap. Rigged. Fake. Not worthy of anyone’s time.

Trump’s disapproval rating sits at just 48 percent.

There are a lot of media polls that show Trump’s approval rating in the low forties, and even in the thirties. But, over the course of the last few election cycles, we have learned that these are almost all fake polls, rigged polls, polls that in no way reflect reality. And we know this because when the ultimate poll is taken on Election Day, the media polls are all wrong. The whole point of media polls is to mislead, demoralize, and deceive the American people into believing Trump is less popular than he really is.

Time and again, Rasmussen has proven to be reliable and accurate, which tells us the insanity of the Capitol Hill riot and the corporate media’s determination to blame the president for it — even though he expressly called on that crowd to be respectful and peaceful, even though he almost immediately called for the anarchy to stop once it began (which is more than any Democrat has ever done) — is not penetrating into the electorate at large.

People don’t trust the media and are not listening to the media, and why should they? The media have lied about everything for nearly a decade now.

So basically, all this unfounded left-wing hysteria is affecting absolutely nothing outside the corporate media bubble, even though the hysteria has gone so far that we now have to look at the kabuki theater of the military shutting down Washington, D.C., which includes fences covered in razor wire. This is all being done in an effort to fool people into believing Trump supporters are some sort of danger to His Fraudulency Joe Biden’s inauguration.

Oh, and did you know there is no evidence of any threats against His Fraudulency? That’s right, none.

What’s more, in this particular poll, Trump’s job approval rating has actually INCREASED since the Capitol Hill riot. What had been a 47 percent approval rating on January 7 is now a 51 percent approval rating, a bump of four points in approval.

Because Wednesday is Trump’s last full day in office, this will be Rasmussen’s final tracking of his daily approval numbers.

I do hope that those of you still naïve enough to be fooled by the fake news media pay attention to this poll. One trick the fake media are quite good at is delivering the impression they can still shape public opinion and move that needle. But what more proof do you need of how impotent the modern-day media are than this poll?

For two weeks the public have been gaslit by every corner of the dominant culture into believing Trump called for a riot and that Washington, D.C., is under imminent threat of attack by Trump supporters (when the truth is that there’s zero evidence of any kind of attack). To back up this nonsense, His Fraudulency and Capitol Hill Democrats have basically declared martial law around the White House, and what’s the result…

Trump’s approval rating has INCREASED and he leaves office with a perfectly respectable 51 percent.

Don’t let the media grifters and liars fool you. The only power they have left is to gin up violence in Democrat-run cities.

No one else is paying attention.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.

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Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Team-Work

A.F. BRANCO | on January 15, 2021 at 8:45 am | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-team-work/

RINOs join the left to impeach trump again on totally ridiculous frivolous charges.

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Donald Trump to Supporters: ‘NO Violence, NO Lawbreaking, and NO Vandalism’

Reported by CHARLIE SPIERING | 13 Jan 2021
Read more at https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/01/13/donald-trump-to-supporters-no-violence-no-lawbreaking-and-no-vandalism/

President Donald Trump called for his supporters to remain peaceful during the transition of power during the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden in a statement released on Wednesday.

“In light of reports of more demonstrations, I urge that there must be NO violence, NO lawbreaking, and NO vandalism of any kind,” the president said in a statement to reporters that was first published by Fox News.

Trump reminded his supporters that he did not stand for violent protests amid reports that there were other uprisings planned around the country.

“That is not what I stand for, and it is not what America stands for,” he said. “I call on ALL Americans to help ease tensions and calm tempers.”

Trump’s message was released Wednesday afternoon as the House of Representatives, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, moved to impeach the president on the basis that he incited the mob of his supporters to attack Capitol Hill.

A senior Trump adviser told Fox News that the president wanted Big Tech companies to “join with him” to secure a peaceful transition of power.

“This is a critical time in our nation’s history and surely we can all come together to deliver this important message and not continue to play partisan politics,” the adviser told Fox News.

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Jim Jordan Calls Out Democrats’ ‘Double Standard’ In Fiery Speech During Impeachment Proceedings

Reported By Jack Davis | Published January 13, 2021 at 12:00pm

Denouncing partisan hypocrisy, Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio slammed Democrats on Wednesday for their use of a double standard when it comes to objecting to an election.

Jordan spoke as the House moved forward with the process of impeaching President Donald Trump, citing last week’s Capitol incursion and Trump’s words and action before, during and after the violence. Jordan is among the Republicans opposing impeachment, which is likely to pass the House. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said impeachment is unlikely to make it on the Senate calendar until after Trump’s term in office has ended.

Jordan said that Republicans who last week wanted to voice objections to the Electoral College vote that gave President-elect Joe Biden his victory were only doing something Democrats have done before.

“In his opening remarks, the Democrat chair of the Rules Committee said that Republicans last week voted to overturn the results of an election. Guess who the first objector was on Jan. 6, 2017? First objector: the Democrat chairman of the Rules Committee,” Jordan said, referring to Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts.

“And guess which state he objected to? Alabama. The very first state called. Alabama. President Trump, I think, won Alabama by like 80 points,” Jordan said, before consulting notes and saying that Trump in fact won the state by 30 points.

READ THE BALENCE OF THIS REPORT AT https://www.westernjournal.com/jim-jordan-calls-democrats-double-standard-fiery-speech-impeachment-proceedings/

Jack Davis

Contributor, News

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Twitter Is The Enemy Of The American People

JANUARY 9, 2021 By David Marcus

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.

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First Lady Melania Trump Breaks Silence On Capitol Riot

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

(Photo credit should read NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images)

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.”

WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 06: Pro-Trump supporters storm the U.S. Capitol following a rally with President Donald Trump on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

The First Lady said that her heart “goes out to” those who died during the riots, naming Air Force Veteran Ashli Babbit, who was shot by a police officer in the United States Capitol, as well as Benjamin Philips, Kevin Greeson, Rosanne Boyland, and Capitol Police Officers, Brian Sicknick and Howard Liebengood.

“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.”

“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.”

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Editorial Board: Patriots Do Not Storm Their Nation’s Capitol

Commentary by EDITORIAL BOARD, CONTRIBUTOR | January 06, 2021

Rioters sing National Anthem / Richie McGinniss / Daily Caller

Patriots enlist and defend their country. They work hard, do their best, raise good families. They help their neighbors. They perform civic duties. They grit their teeth and pay their taxes. Then they show up and vote. They compete, they win or lose, but they do both with grace. These are some of the things patriots do.

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.

Pro-Trump supporters storm the U.S. Capitol following a rally with President Donald Trump on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC. Trump supporters gathered in the nation’s capital today to protest the ratification of President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory over President Trump in the 2020 election. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

While Congress convened Jan. 6, 2020, to certify the electoral votes for President Elect-Joe Biden — an act that has been performed, for the most part throughout history, peacefully and without incident — the city outside swelled as tens of thousands of protestors whipped themselves into a #stopthesteal frenzy. Eventually, many of them descended on the Capitol building, hellbent on disrupting the American constitutional process. (RELATED: GOP Congressman: ‘This Is A Coup Attempt’)

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.

Protesters gather on the U.S. Capitol Building on January 06, 2021 in Washington, DC. Pro-Trump protesters entered the U.S. Capitol building after mass demonstrations in the nation’s capital during a joint session Congress to ratify President-elect Joe Biden’s 306-232 Electoral College win over President Donald Trump. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

The reason why is simple: The peaceful transfer of power is a hallmark of western democracy. It is the cornerstone of everything we love. It is apple pie. It’s lining up and shaking hands when the clock hits zero. We have ways to resolve political disputes, including election disputes. What happened in Washington is not on the list. If we want to end the cycle of political violence — and it has become a cycle — now is the time to set the precedent. (RELATED: ‘Tried To Disrupt Our Democracy, They Failed’ — McConnell Slams Rioters Who Stormed Capitol Building)

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.

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‘Did You Listen To The President’s Speech?’: Trey Gowdy Throws Question Back At Fox News Anchor, Says He’s ‘Not Real Sure’ What Republican Party Stands For

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

Fox News host Sandra Smith talks to former Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) about Wednesday’s Capitol Hill 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’)

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 06: Police officers in riot gear walks towards the U.S. Capitol as protesters enter the building on January 06, 2021 in Washington, DC. Trump supporters gathered in the nation's capital today to protest the ratification of President-elect Joe Biden's Electoral College victory over President Trump in the 2020 election. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

Police officers in riot gear walks towards the U.S. Capitol as protesters enter the building on Jan. 06, 2021 in Washington, DC. Trump supporters gathered in the nation’s capital today to protest the ratification of President-elect Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory over President Trump in the 2020 election. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

Gowdy said he did not want to speculate if Trump was determined to start a riot.

“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.”

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Police Draw Weapons As Pro-Trump Rioters Break Down Glass Door Of Capitol Building, Brawl With Officers

Reported BRIANNA LYMAN, REPORTER | January 06, 2021

Rioters brawl with police officers after storming the Capitol Building (Screenshot/Twitter Elijah Schaffer)

Chaos is erupting in the Capitol Building as police officers whip out guns while rioters supporting President Donald Trump storm the building.

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.

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President Donald Trump’s Campaign Makes Last Ditch Effort To Toss Out 50,000 Ballots In Wisconsin

Reported by BRIANNA LYMAN, REPORTER | December 29, 2020

US-politics-DEMONSTRATION-TRUMP / Photo by JOSE LUIS MAGANA/AFP via Getty Images)

President Donald Trump appealed his recent loss in the Wisconsin Supreme Court to the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, seeking to toss out 50,000 votes and possibly change the election outcome in the state. The campaign is arguing that 50,000 ballots were counted despite the fact that they were allegedly invalid. The campaign says more than 28,000 votes were counted from people who didn’t provide identification and instead used the state’s “indefinitely confined” status to vote. The campaign also alleged some 6,000 ballots were incomplete or altered which is forbidden by state law.

The campaign is seeking an expedited review of the case ahead of Jan. 6 Congressional review of the Electoral College votes. Jim Troupis, the president’s lead attorney in Wisconsin, said that the Wisconsin Supreme Court didn’t address the merits of their claims in an official statement. (RELATED: Trump Demands ‘List’ Of Republicans In Congress Who Say Biden Won)

STERLING, VA – DECEMBER 13: Supporters gather outside Trump National Golf Club as U.S. President Donald Trump departs following a round of golf on December 13, 2020 in Sterling, Virginia. (Photo by Al Drago/Getty Images)

“Regrettably, the Wisconsin Supreme Court, in their 4-3 decision, refused to address the merits of our claim. This ‘Cert Petition’ asks them to address our claims, which, if allowed, would change the outcome of the election in Wisconsin.”

“Three members of the Wisconsin State Supreme Court, including the Chief Justice, agreed with many of the President’s claims in written dissents from that court’s December 14 order,” he continued.

Trump lost the state to President-elect Joe Biden by roughly 21,000 votes. Trump’s campaign filed a suit that sought to invalidate more than 221,000 absentee ballots in Dane and Milwaukee counties for purportedly failing to meet requirements to obtain an absentee ballot. The suit also requested the Republican-led state legislature to appoint pro-Trump electors to the Electoral College.

However, the state Supreme Court rejected the suit, ruling the claims were filed too late and one claim lacked merit. However, three dissenting conservative justices argued that the lateness was moot, and the questions about the legality of the votes demands an answer.

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Kylee Zempel Op-ed: To Democrats, ‘Unity’ Means Doing Everything They Want And Shutting Up About It

The only thing worse than listening to a screaming toddler is seeing his smug, tear-stained but smiling face after his parent gives in to his irreverent outburst and rewards him for his tantrum. That’s all I could think about as I walked the streets of Madison, Wisconsin, Saturday night after several news outlets called the presidential race for Joe Biden.

A hopeful energy pulsed through State Street, the bustling pedestrian mall of restaurants and storefronts bookended by the university and the Capitol. I walked past business after business boarded up tight in anticipation of a fiery post-election purge, but instead, front doors were propped open on the uncharacteristically warm November night as groups of friends chattered and shopped and drank in merriment. No sirens or chanting interrupted my pleasant patio dinner date.

I breathed easier than I would have under different circumstances, I’ll admit. Had the media called the race differently, I likely wouldn’t have left the apartment and I certainly wouldn’t have neared downtown. Underneath that peaceful veneer, however, remains the gross reality that things are calm only because the snotty toddler got his way.

Unity Is a Joke

These are the infantile adults that were told “no” in 2016 by the half of the country they most despised and spent the next four years screaming that everything was unfair and that those who disagreed with them were racists, sexists, bigots, and homophobes. Instead of biting and hitting, they looted and vandalized, and the equally childish media covered for them.

They promised to “impeach the motherf-cker,” canceled dissenters, and maligned anyone who wanted to “Make America Great Again.” They smeared mask rebels and churchgoers as grandma-killers and squawked in our faces that boys are girls, silence is violence, and all women are inherently trustworthy, straight white men be damned. Only now that they think they’ve won do they have any interest in faux “unity.”

In a recent editorial, the Washington Examiner posited, “Biden has a historic opportunity to heal the country’s wounds, and if he wants an admired legacy, he will start now to fulfill the promise of his Delaware speech and bring uniter’s, not dividers, into his administration.” Conservatives who fall for this “unity” schtick are hopelessly naïve.

While things might be quiet now, all hell is sure to break loose again the moment things don’t go in the way of the tantrum-throwers. This is because the wrong side won — or at least the fact that they believe they did proves the point. The toddlers got what they wanted. Their abhorrent behavior was reinforced with their most prized reward: the end of the Trump presidency.

Now rather than watching the thugs tear down and set ablaze our livelihoods, we’re stuck looking at their smug faces instead. It was always going to be one or the other: Elect us and we’ll destroy the country, or elect Trump and we’ll destroy your property.

For this reason, the relative peace in our cities now is a bad omen. This cultural calm is a reminder that, like the short-sighted parent capitulating to her toddler, the electorate traded long-term stability for short-term quiet. We didn’t bring an end to the fearmongering and the incivility; we put the uncivil fearmongers in power, and they have sinister plans for their political opponents.

Political Religion Makes All of Life a Holy War

This all goes back to the infantilization of the left, and it’s not surprising. There’s a reason shop-owners were afraid of spurned Biden supporters but relaxed when they remembered the frustrated Trumpsters had no intention of acting out.

When Trump supporters heard the unwelcome news that Biden would ostensibly be the president-elect, they were bummed. Some were mad, others were suspicious, and others felt defeated and discouraged — but they dutifully returned to their daily grinds, clocking in for work, caring for their families, and carrying on their commitments to their churches. That’s because, for so many on the right, politics is an add-on. Family and faith, however imperfectly, inform civic values, but politics is no replacement for those superior institutions.

For many on the left, that isn’t the case. For those who have chosen to worship at the feet of progressivism as religion, this election was life or death because it was central to everything else.

For a population who has pushed off marriage, disposed of its children, abandoned church, and relinquished its independence to the nanny state and its individualism to identity politics, to lose an election is to lose it all. All battles therefore become moral, meaning victory by any means necessary — including stealing and destroying and sometimes even killing — is justified.

Don’t Let the Leftist Toddlers Get Their Way

That leaves us quite a divided America. How can we ever hope for unity when one side holds theother hostage? Give us what we want, or else. That’s no way to start a mutually beneficial negotiation.

So conservatives are left with a choice. Will we continue caving in to the boisterous toddler until it becomes an unruly and insufferable adult? Or will stand our ground and endure the tantrums until the left tuckers itself out on its own fickle rhetoric and runs its own cities into the soil? Don’t relish the present quiet; realize what it stands for.

Presidents come and go, and if Trump does finally lose re-election after all the legal battles run their course, so be it. The worst thing for our country isn’t a Biden presidency. It’s giving the leftist toddlers what they want.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Kylee Zempel is an assistant editor at The Federalist. Follow her on Twitter @kyleezempel.

Photo Fibonacci Blue/Wikimedia Commons

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Mitch McConnell Urges Senate To Override Trump’s NDAA Veto

Reported by ANDERS HAGSTROM, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT | December 29, 2020

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell urged his colleagues to vote to override President Donald Trump’s veto of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on Tuesday.

Trump vetoed the NDAA last week, and the House of Representatives has already voted to override the veto with a two-thirds majority, making the Senate the final hurdle for approving the funding. The NDAA passed the Senate originally with a 84-13 majority on December 11, but the grounds have shifted somewhat.

Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has vowed to filibuster any attempt at an override on the NDAA bill until McConnell allows a vote on the $2,000 COVID-19 direct relief payments. Trump called for the increase from $600 to $2,000 last week, a proposition Democrats have endorsed but many Republicans have not. (RELATED: The Numbers In Georgia Point To Two Tossup Races)

“McConnell and the Senate want to expedite the override vote and I understand that,” Sanders told reporters Monday evening. “But I’m not going to allow that to happen unless there is a vote, no matter how long that takes, on the $2,000 direct payment.”

The House voted in favor of the increase to $2,000 on Monday, leaving McConnell and the Senate as the final obstacle. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer attempted to pass the $2,000 increase by unanimous consent during Tuesday session, but McConnell blocked the move.

Trump originally objected to the NDAA because Congress refused to include provisions in the bill that would dismantle Section 230, the law that governs how internet companies moderate third-party content. Trump also objected to provisions in the bill seeking to rename military bases currently named after Confederate figures.

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REPORTED BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | JULY 13, 2022

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BY: SPENCER KLAVAN | JULY 12, 2022

Debates Settled by Sword

Rise of Julius Caesar

Destined to Decay?

Our Oligarchs Bidding for Control?

Our Rubicon Moment

Spencer A. Klavan is features editor of The American Mind, associate editor of the The Claremont Review of Books, and host of the Young Heretics podcast podcast. His book, “How to Save the West”, is available for pre-order on Amazon.

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Reported By Abby Liebing | July 6, 2022

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Reported by CARLOS GARCIA | June 28, 2022

Here’s more about the claims made in the hearing:

Bret Baier: This is stunning www.youtube.com

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Reported by GABE KAMINSKY, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER | June 27, 2022

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REPORTED BY: EDDIE SCARRY | JUNE 14, 2022

Eddie Scarry is the D.C. columnist at The Federalist and author of “Privileged Victims: How America’s Culture Fascists Hijacked the Country and Elevated Its Worst People.”

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REPORTED BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | JUNE 10, 2022

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REPORTED BY KENDALL TIETZ, EDUCATION REPORTER | May 17, 2022

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REPORTED BY KAY SMYTHE, REPORTER | May 16, 2022

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REPORTED BY DIANA GLEBOVA, ASSOCIATE EDITOR | May 13, 2022

White House press secretary Jen Psaki has spread disinformation repeatedly from the podium while speaking about the Disinformation Governance Board, claiming its “work” was present under the Trump administration.

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REPORTED BY: DAN O’DONNELL | APRIL 28, 2022

Dan O’Donnell is a talk show host with News/Talk 1130 WISN in Milwaukee, Wis. and 1310 WIBA in Madison, Wis., and a columnist for the John K. MacIver Institute.

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Reported By Jack Davis | April 25, 2022

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REPORTED BY: SUMANTRA MAITRA | APRIL 04, 2022

Long-Term Ramifications

War Is Burying Liberal Internationalism

Realism Isn’t Isolationism At All

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REPORTED BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | MARCH 16, 2022

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Reported by BRIANNA LYMAN | REPORTER | March 07, 2022

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A.F. Branco Cartoon – Reminiscing

A.F. Branco Cartoon – Back to the Future

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Reported by CHRIS ENLOE | February 25, 2022

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REPORTED BY: KARA FREDERICK | FEBRUARY 23, 2022

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REPORTED BY: JOY PULLMANN | JANUARY 24, 2022

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REPORTED BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | JANUARY 20, 2022

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Reported BY: EVITA DUFFY | JANUARY 10, 2022

1. Conservatives Are in The Same Category As Islamic Terrorists

2. Parents at School Board Meetings Pose A ‘Threat To National Security’

3. McCabe Wants More Surveillance of ‘Mainstream’ Conservatives

4. McCabe Believes No One Is Above The Law (Except Himself)

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Commentary By Randy DeSoto | November 9, 2021

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Reported by MICHAEL GINSBERG | CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER | November 04, 2021

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Reported By Randy DeSoto | October 27, 2021

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Commentary By C. Douglas Golden | September 29, 2021

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Reported by Joseph Simonson | September 14, 2021

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By Taylor Penley | September 1, 2021

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Reported by ANDREW TRUNSKY | POLITICAL REPORTER | August 10, 2021

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Reported by ANDREW TRUNSKY, POLITICAL REPORTER for DailyCaller.com | July 19, 2021

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Reported by Michael Austin July 15, 2021