The Whole Story

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Yesterday Caroline Glick posted an article in Newsweek about the current war between Israel and the Palestinians. It’s a rather detailed article, so please follow the link above and read the entire article. I will try to summarize some of the important points.

The article reports:

There are two sources of the violence. The first is Palestinian incitement. The second is the support the Palestinians receive from the Biden administration.

Several weeks before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan began four weeks ago, the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority (PA) launched a campaign of incitement across its media organs.

Israel, Fatah and the PA claimed, was defiling and threatening the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. The Temple Mount is the site where both the Jewish Temples stood. It is the single holiest site in Judaism, and it is also the third-holiest site in Islam.

Fatah’s incitement campaign served two purposes. First, it deflected public attention away from PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s decision to cancel the recent elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) and to the PA presidency. Abbas is now in the 16th year of his four-year term—the last PLC elections were held in January 2006. Pressured by the public, Abbas had announced that elections would finally be held beginning this month. But since all the opinion polls since 2006 have shown that Hamas will win any new PA election, Abbas set out to find a way to blame Israel for his refusal to hold elections. He insisted that Israel agree to permit Jerusalem Arabs to vote in Jerusalem itself. Israel refused, maintaining that Jerusalem Arabs could vote in either the PA-controlled areas or online. Abbas then canceled the elections and promptly blamed Israel.

The cancelled elections are actually one of the main roots of the current problem–the attacks on Israel and the Israeli response are a very effective distraction from the fact that Abbas is now in the 16th year of his four-year term.

The article also explains the issue of Sheikh Jarrah:

At the same time, Abbas began stirring up passions by disseminating lies about alleged Israeli encroachments on Al-Aqsa and inciting terrorism. By doing so, Abbas was able to ratchet up his standing with the broader Palestinian public.

Hamas, for its part, wasn’t going to abandon the incitement stage to Fatah. So it joined in the incitement about Al-Aqsa and then opened a new incitement front pertaining to a 50-year property dispute in Sheikh Jarrah, a neighborhood in northeastern Jerusalem.

In 1875, the chief rabbis of Jerusalem purchased buildings in the neighborhood and registered their purchase with the Ottoman—and later, British—authorities. In 1948, with the Jordanian conquest of the neighborhood, the buildings were listed under Jordan’s “Register of Enemy Property” and leased to local Arabs. After Israel liberated and unified Jerusalem in 1967, the Jewish landowners registered their buildings again with the Israel Land Authority and began a process that has dragged on ever since of attempting to restore sovereign control over their properties. The Arab tenants, for their part, recognized the Israeli Jewish ownership of the buildings in a 1982 lawsuit. But in the ensuing 39 years, they have appealed every court ruling requiring them to vacate the premises.

In February, the Jerusalem District Court upheld a lower court ruling that required the Arab tenants to vacate the premises and the properties to be transferred to the Jewish owners. The Arabs appealed to the Supreme Court of Israel, which was initially set to hear the appeal last week.

The article concludes:

In a stunning statement Tuesday, as Hamas rained down rockets on Israeli civilian targets and the Israeli military responded with surgical air strikes against Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad targets in Gaza, State Department Spokesman Ned Price drew a moral equivalence between Israel and the Palestinians. Price said: “Israel has the right to defend itself and respond to rocket attacks. The Palestinian people also have the right to safety and security, just as Israelis do.”

The message Price sent to Hamas, Fatah and the Israeli Arabs assaulting Israeli Jews is that the U.S. is on their side. They can attack Jews and blame Israel and the Jews for their aggression, and the Biden administration will fund them, defend them and even adopt their anti-Semitic narratives. Palestinians are now certain they will be rewarded, not punished, for their aggression.

So long as this remains the Biden administration’s position, we can expect the latest Palestinian war against Israel to continue. Indeed, so long as this remains the administration’s policy, the danger that the Palestinian war will escalate into a regional onslaught against Israel by Iran’s proxies across Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen will only increase.

Unfortunately the election of Joe Biden as President did not bring us closer to peace and normalcy as some people had expected. It has brought national and international turmoil.

An Upside Down Department Of Justice

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Yesterday The Washington Times posted an article about the priorities of the Department of Justice under Attorney General Merrick Garland.

The article reports:

Attorney General Merrick Garland acknowledged Wednesday that the Justice Department is prioritizing prosecuting those who participated in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol over those who rioted and looted during last summer’s social justice demonstrations.

“I think it’s fair to say in my career as a judge and in law enforcement, I have not seen a more dangerous threat to democracy than the invasion of the Capitol,” Mr. Garland said in testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee. “There was an attempt to interfere with the fundamental element of our democracy — the peaceful transfer of power.

“If there has to be a hierarchy of things that we prioritize, this would be the one we would prioritize because it is the most dangerous threat to our democracy,” he continued.

It should be noted that on April 15th, MSN reported:

Federal prosecutors in Portland, Ore., have moved to dismiss almost half the cases they charged in connection with violence accompanying last year’s protests over racial injustice, as authorities grapple with how to tamp down politically motivated unrest that has arisen since then.

Of 96 cases the U.S. attorney’s office in Portland filed last year charging protesters with federal crimes, including assaulting federal officers, civil disorder, and failing to obey, prosecutors have dropped 47 of them, government documents show. Ten people have pleaded guilty to related charges and two were ordered detained pending trial. None have gone to trial.

The penalties levied so far against any federal defendants, most of whom were arrested in clashes around federal buildings in Portland including the courthouse, have largely consisted of community service, such as working in a food bank or encouraging people to vote.

On January 3rd, The Daily Caller reported:

  • At least $4 million in physical damage was done to businesses downtown during the first month of protests, according to the Portland Business Alliance.
  • The riots cost downtown Portland another $18 million in revenue, according to the PBA.

I think it’s time for the Attorney General to re-examine his priorities. Those who participated in the riot at the Capitol deserve to be punished, but none of the rioters had weapons and the only person killed was killed by the Capitol Police. The destruction and threats to human life in Portland were far more serious. The only reason for the priorities the Attorney General is stating is political bias. No wonder many Americans have lost faith in the legal system in our country.

Speaking Up For A Tradition

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On May 1st, I posted an article about the pentagon cancelling the permit for the rallying point for Rolling Thunder. The excuse used was the risk of Covid-19. Since we know that outdoor transmission of the virus is almost non-existent, that seemed like a rather lame excuse.

Yesterday Fox News reported that California Representative Darrell Issa has introduced a bill in the House of Representatives to allow Rolling Thunder to have their annual event.

The article reports:

Issa joined Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., and other House Republicans to request President Biden override the Pentagon’s decision on Rolling to Remember, formally known as “Rolling Thunder,” in a letter sent Tuesday morning. Pentagon Special Events confirmed veterans group AMVETS’ permit for the Rolling to Remember motorcycle rally on March 11 but later reversed its decision. The Pentagon said it looks forward to working with AMVETS in the future “if COVID-19 conditions permit.”

“If I thought there was any credence or fairness to their refusal, I would have asked differently,” Issa told Fox News. “It’s very clear that someone with a unique political bent said no, and we’re going to get to the bottom of who that is.”

Issa’s bill, the “Let Veterans Honor the Fallen Act,” would codify the Rolling to Remember Memorial Day motorcycle rally’s ability to stage each year in the Pentagon parking lot as long as its host organization submits a notification of use to the Secretary of Defense by Jan. 31 of the year the event will take place.

“It’s narrow but it’s efficient. It simply authorizes what has been a 30-year tradition,” Issa said. “This is the equivalent of the president saying he wouldn’t throw out a baseball at a home opener.”

Issa cast doubt on the Pentagon’s reasoning for rescinding the permit and pointed to reports that the risk of outdoor coronavirus transmission has been greatly exaggerated.

“This is a boldfaced lie,” he said. “Ten thousand people are going to descend … in Washington, D.C. That they do so safely and they do so on vehicles that separate the family units by design, and they’re going to say that’s not acceptable. Unfortunately, this is an administration that if they called it a peaceful protest, even if they destroyed the city, would be allowed to do it.”

Representative Issa noted that the bill may not be passed in time to make it to President Biden’s desk to be signed into law, but Representative Issa is hopeful that the passage of the bill will cause the decision to be reversed.

Discovering The Financial Ties

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The Epoch Times is reporting today that Senators have introduced a bill that would force American colleges to disclose their financial ties with the Chinese regime, including its Confucius Institutes, in order to qualify to receive international students. In view of recent arrests of college professors who were working for the Communist Chinese government, I think this is probably a good idea.

The article reports:

The bill comes amid heightened scrutiny on the Chinese regime’s influence on American campuses. A 2020 investigation by the Department of Education found that universities received almost $1.5 billion in contracts and gifts from China from 2014 to 2020.

“The communist regime poses a serious threat to U.S. research as well as undue influence on our college campuses,” Grassley said in a May 5 statement.

One of the vehicles of Beijing’s influence is Confucius Institutes. Billed as Chinese language and culture centers, the institutes have been sharply criticized for promoting Beijing’s propaganda and suppressing academic freedom in universities across the country.

From 2006 to 2019, the Chinese regime poured more than $158 million to about 100 U.S. universities through Confucius Institutes, according to a 2019 U.S. Senate subcommittee on investigations report (pdf). There are currently 47 Confucius Institutes in the country, according to the National Association of Scholars (NAS).

“This legislation will shine a light on any funny business that the Chinese government is trying to play on our campuses under the guise of Confucius Institutes and any financial ties between our educational institutions and the communist regime,” Grassley said in the statement.

The proposed legislation would effectively codify a Trump-era policy proposal that was automatically rescinded when President Joe Biden took office because the proposed rule not been formalized through regulatory processes before the end of former President Donald Trump’s term.

The article concludes:

The Senate in March passed a bill that would force host universities to take full control of Confucius Institutes or lose their federal funding.

In the past few years, dozens of Confucius Institutes have closed down around the country. But in their place, many universities have simply entered into new rebranded partnerships with the Chinese regime under a different name, according to the NAS.

This bill is definitely needed.

Limiting Voting To Legal Voters

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The idea of only American citizens being allowed to vote in American elections is pretty basic. You wouldn’t think there would be a lot of room for discussion (or lawsuits). You would be wrong.

Yesterday Breitbart reported that the Fourth Circuit federal appeals court has ruled against the North Carolina State Board of Elections, vacating a lower court’s decision blocking the inspection of the state’s voter rolls for non-citizen registrations and voting.

The article reports:

“North Carolina had tried to prevent the public from inspecting records related to noncitizens registering and voting in our elections,” PILF (Public Interest Legal Foundation) President J. Christian Adams said in a statement.

“Federal law presumes that election records are public,” Adams said. “The Fourth Circuit vacated the lower court’s dismissal of the case. This is an important win because it means that the public’s right to know about election vulnerabilities has been vindicated.”

The Richmond-based appeals court concluded “that the Board’s efforts in the present case to identify non-citizen registrants qualify as a ‘program’ or ‘activity’ to ensure an accurate list of eligible voters.”

In June 2019, PILF filed the lawsuit against North Carolina election officials after they failed to disclose voter roll records showing non-citizen registrations and voting. A lower court, though, dismissed PILF’s lawsuit claiming such records could not be disclosed to the public.

The article concludes:

While PILF will now go back to court to negotiate over the records, this is the third win for PILF on protecting the right to inspect state voter rolls for non-citizen registrations and voting since 2019.

In March 2019, a Texas court ruled that PILF could move forward with seeking non-citizen voting records in Harris County, Texas. Then, in December 2019, a federal court similarly ruled that PILF could continue seeking non-citizen voting records in Pennsylvania.

North Carolina has a history of concealing non-citizen voting. In November 2019, for instance, Gov. Roy Cooper (D) vetoed legislation that would have purged self-admitted non-citizen voters from the state’s voter rolls ahead of the 2020 presidential election.

The case is Public Interest Legal Foundation v. North Carolina State Board of Elections, 19-2265 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

Every American should support the idea of only legal voters voting. Every illegal vote cancels out the vote of a legal voter.

Who Paid For The Rockets?

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The Post Millennial posted an article today about the ongoing rocket attacks on Israel.

The article reports:

Just over a month ago, the Biden administration announced $235 million in US aid to Palestinians, and on Tuesday, Hamas launched a heavy rocket attack on Israel.

…The White House issued a milquetoast response to Tuesday’s violence. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that “Jerusalem, a city of such importance to people of faith around the world, must be a place of coexistence.”

Has the White House noticed that when Jerusalem is under Israel’s control, Christians, Muslims, and Jews all have access to their religion’s holy sites? When Jerusalem is under Muslim control, only Muslims have access to their religious sites.

The article notes:

The funding authorized by Biden called for “$150 million through the United Nations relief agency UNRWA, $75 million in US economic and development assistance and $10 million for peace-building programs,” Blinken said in a statement regarding the reversal of Trump’s funding cuts.

UNWRA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) “provides aid and relief services to around 5.7 million registered Palestinian refugees in the occupied West Bank, Gaza Strip and across the Middle East.”

Biden administration spokesperson Edward Price said in April when the funding was restored that funding Palestinians supports “Israeli Palestinian understanding,” and that it “aligns with the interests of the United States.”

Let’s quickly examine the problems with a two-state solution. In 2012 I posted an article that included the following picture of a kindergarten graduation ceremony in Gaza.

These children are being taught that it is their duty to become martyrs and free Jerusalem from Jewish control. As long as those concepts are being taught in Arab schools, there can be no two-state solution. It is foolishness to negotiate with people who want to kill you and take over your country.

The article concludes:

The Biden administration in April also “signaled that they want to re-establish the goal of a negotiated two-state solution as a priority in US policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” Reuters reported.

On Tuesday, Blinken reflected that sentiment, saying that “Israelis and Palestinians need to be able to live in safety and security, as well as enjoy equal measures of freedom, security, prosperity, and democracy.”

Trump in 2018 had blocked almost all of the aid that Biden has now restored, and halted all ties with the Palestinian Authority. Trump’s decision was preceded by Palestinian leaders refusing to work with the Trump administration’s Middle East peace efforts after the US moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv, which suffered under Hamas assault on Tuesday, to Jerusalem.

The people currently raining rockets down on Israel do not want peace. They want the destruction of Israel so that they can claim Israeli land as their own.

This Is Not Acceptable

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On Sunday Breitbart reported that five migrant children had been abandoned on a Texas farm Saturday night.

The article reports:

A Texas rancher living north of Eagle Pass discovered five unaccompanied migrant children abandoned by smugglers on their farmland Saturday night. The five small girls, ranging in ages from one to six years old, were led across the Rio Grande River and abandoned the evening before. The human smugglers left them with no food, water, or any adults to care for them throughout the night.

The article concludes:

This incident comes as the Biden Administration opens additional Health and Human Services (HHS) Intake Sites to accommodate a surge in unaccompanied migrant children being smuggled into the United States. The children’s parents are sending the children alone to avoid immediate expulsion under the CDC Title 42 emergency order if crossing as a family unit. According to a law enforcement source, the parents or other relatives illegally enter the United States afterward to claim the children to avoid deportation once the children are freed by HHS.

This is only one example that illustrates why we need to finish the wall and secure the border. What is happening on our southern border is inhumane. We are empowering and enriching the drug cartels and human traffickers who have not regard for the lives of the people trying to come into America. We need to go back to the policy of remain in Mexico until your asylum case is heard. We also need to secure the border. Those children are very fortunate to be alive. Others are not so fortunate. Meanwhile we have people coming into our country illegally who do not have the best interests of America in mind.

The situation at our southern border is totally avoidable. We need someone in Washington to stand up and make the changes needed to secure the border, secure the safety of Americans in border states, and prevent small children from being abandoned in the desert.

 

 

The Fourth Amendment Matters

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The article below was written by a friend with a background in the intelligence community.

The Fourth Amendment

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

This is the text of your fourth amendment rights as written in the Constitution. This is an important right – this was created because King George of England did not give people due process and just went on searches to find evidence. This short amendment has kept our justice system working – no evidence not obtained through legal means has been admitted into the court and the government MUST have evidence to search your home, your computer, your phone, your car, or anything. The government may NOT just come up and say let me see because I suspect you of something. No the government, in this case the police, FBI, or any investigative agency, must go before a court and present evidence gathered through OPEN means that makes you a suspect in criminal activity and the court must agree that there is sufficient means to search your private property by issuing a warrant stating the suspicions, exactly what must be searched, and tell you of your rights. The only exception to this is the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) where evidence still must be presented against you, you are just not told of the searches being conducted – the searches are allowed to be in secret.

Why this back ground? President Biden is now considering the hiring of private investigators to gather evidence for the government. Go back and read the text of our fourth amendment. Does it state how the evidence can be gathered? No it simply states the government to prove the searches are needed – how is irrelevant.

Another reason this is important. The government continually is using the FISC  more and more to gather evidence. They gathered evidence to search Giuliani’s iCloud through this means. When they searched his apartment based on the secret search, the FBI took Giuliani’s word as to what was on computers and hard drives. Seriously – you are going to take a suspect’s word? But they did. They are looking for evidence still to convict Donald Trump of a crime. This would be considered unreasonable. The government does not have the right to turn your life upside down to find something to put you in jail over or to break you. That would also be considered unreasonable.

My concern – if they, the government that we elected, is going to do this to people they don’t like openly and play games to violate our fourth amendment rights – when do they come after each of us if we disagree with a government statement? For example, we disagree with keeping the 2nd amendment? Or we disagree with the wearing of masks? People have asked what do we do, how do we fight it. First, we stand and we say no. Then we remain standing and firmly repeat we said no more. We do it for everyone – no one should have this happen to them – no one. We are our brother’s keeper. We now must keep our brother’s rights as spelled out by our Founding Fathers and we must loudly state it and remain standing no matter how hard it gets. We also must pray – God is this something to stand firm on and listen to Him – He will provide us the strength to remain standing and He alone.

Some Background On A Story That Is Generally Being Misreported

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Right now the media is reporting that the Palestinian residents in Sheikh Jarrah are being evicted. Somehow the media is not explaining the history and background of this eviction.

 

The Kohelet Policy Forum provides the background on the situation:

The current dispute in Sheikh Jarrah involves several properties with tenants whose leases have expired, and in a few cases squatters with no tenancy rights at all,against owner–landlords who have successfully won court orders evicting the squatters and overstaying tenants. The litigation has taken several years, and the owners have won at every step. The squatters and overstaying tenants have appealed against the eviction orders to the Supreme Court. The only decision that stands before the Israeli government is whether to honor the courts’ decisions and enforce the eviction orders if affirmed by the Supreme Court, or whether to defy court orders and deny the property owners their legal rights.

 Fox News did not accurately report on the situation:

…Trey Yingst’s May 8 report, which aired on FOX at about 1:57 PM Eastern time. Yingst claimed that the court decision to evict certain residents of that neighborhood was based on “an obscure Israeli law.” Yingst also quoted the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs claiming that the residents are at risk “if the [Israeli] Supreme Court sets a new standard.” Of course, there is nothing “obscure” about the requirement that tenants pay rent, nor is it a “new standard.”
 
NGO Monitor reports that, “according to a 1989 High Court decision, and re-affirmed repeatedly in subsequent cases, as in the case of any tenant living on someone else’s property, residents … were required to pay rent to the organizations that owned the properties. Their failure to do so, along with instances of illegal building and illegally renting properties to others, resulted in the current legal proceedings against them, culminating in the District Court decision.”
 
And the Kohelet Policy forum explains, “the leasehold and trespass legal issues at stake are similar to those found throughout the world, other than the unusually strong rent control and tenant protections given to the protected tenants (Palestinian Arabs in this dispute).”
 
While Yingst interviewed two residents of the neighborhood on camera, he did not interview anyone who could reliably give an accurate legal perspective.
 
While a decision on the case has now been postponed for up to a month, the violence that it has spurred continues to escalate, so it’s important for journalists and the public to understand the facts. Moreover, as described below, Yingst’s reporting on continuing events also adds new errors.  

Be aware that the media often reports on events in Israel without knowing or including the background information that explains what is happening.

 

An Heroic Policewoman

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Yesterday The Daily Wire posted an article about the shooting in New York City’s Times Square on Saturday.

The article reports:

Footage of the Times Square shooting on Saturday, when three innocent bystanders were shot, including a four-year-old girl, shows a heroic female member of the NYPD running through the chaos that erupted, carrying the little girl in her arms to safety.

NYPD Deputy Commissioner John Miller tweeted, “Whether [officers are] rushing toward the danger to help save a little girl or rushing home to family after their tour this #MothersDay — the dedication of NY’s Finest knows no bounds.”

Please follow the link to the article to see the video of the policewoman’s actions.

The article notes:

“Police did not recover a gun at the scene, but three shell casings from a .25 caliber were found on West 45th Street,” PIX 11 reported. NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea, deeply upset, ripped New York City’s softened criminal justice policy, including ending cash bail, ending “broken windows” policing, and various police reforms, snapping, “How many kids have to be shot before we take this seriously?” Fox News reported.

The New York Post reported on Sunday that a suspect has been identified in the shooting and that he was reportedly attempting to shoot his brother when the three bystanders were shot. “Farrakhan Muhammad, a 31-year-old CD peddler, was identified as the alleged shooter in Saturday’s horror,” the Post reported, adding, “Two sergeants with the Manhattan South Detective Bureau were then working a fatal overnight stabbing at a West 31st Street single-room-occupancy hotel when they spotted a man who looked almost identical to the alleged shooter, even down to his clothes, hanging around, sources said.”

When the police queried the man, he claimed that his brother had aimed for him. “The suspect has been busted before, including last year for allegedly assaulting a random passerby who tried to intervene when Muhammad started hassling a couple on the street, sources said,” the Post noted.

All of us need to remember that our police are there to help and do a good job of keeping order and helping people. It’s time we weeded out the bad apples in the profession and praised the heroes who are policemen who go to work every day to maintain law and order.

Who Is Coming To America?

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On Friday, The Daily Signal posted an article about what is happening at America’s southern border. The article includes interviews of the people who live and work in the border states.

The article reports:

A fourth-generation rancher, Ladd told me that the full truth about President Joe Biden’s border policies is rarely reported. “The caliber of people that are coming now are criminals, what we are getting are not maids and gardeners, these people are working for the cartel,” he said in an interview with me.

Ladd has been reliably informed by contacts with multiple law enforcement agencies, including the Southeastern Arizona Border Region Enforcement team of the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office. “The illegals crossing now are in full camo. They pay $6,000 to get here, which only VIPs working with the cartel can afford … We got bad guys coming here.”

Law enforcement of all levels in areas around the border have been directed to release illegal immigrants seeking asylum and human traffickers into American communities under the Biden administration.

One southwestern border sheriff, who has a contract with the U.S. Marshals Service to hold illegal immigrants who are criminals in his jail for an indeterminate amount of time, told me, “The U.S. marshals usually come to pick them up at some point, but not this time. We’ve been told to give them a bus ticket to wherever they choose in the U.S. and let them go.”

When asked if the destination communities to which the criminal illegal immigrants are traveling must be notified, he solemnly shakes his head and says, “No.”   

Another law enforcement officer I spoke with—a veteran Department of Homeland Security officer with border experience—remarked that under the Biden administration, felons who cross the border are no longer detained.

In a particular instance, an aggravated felon crossed into the U.S. through Mexico with a substantial weight of opioids. Typically, DHS would issue a detainer notice for the felon, who would be taken into custody as soon as he was released from court. However, under the Biden administration, detainers are not allowed, and the felon was released into the U.S.  

Please follow the link to read the entire article. This is a disgrace. The first job of government is to protect its citizens. Obviously the Biden administration has chosen not to do that. In a sane world, what is being allowed to happen at our southern border would be an impeachable offense.

Mislabeled

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On May 3rd, The Bulletin (an Oregon newspaper) reported the following:

A Bend Police Department officer will be investigated for allegedly violating policy by wearing a keychain connected to a far-right group while in uniform on Saturday.

Bend Chief Mike Krantz did not identify the employee, though Cpl. Josh Spano is the officer seen in a photograph circulating on Reddit and Facebook. Attached to the front of Spano’s service vest is an item reading “molon labe” in Greek lettering, a phrase associated with the far-right Three Percenters militia.

The “molon labe” item and its letters appear to be larger than Spano’s name tag on his vest.

First of all, “molon labe” translates as “come and take [them].” The expression is used in reference to the government attempting to take guns away from citizens who have a lawful right to own them. Secondly, the Three Percenters is neither far-right or a militia group.

According to a 2018 article in USA Today:

It’s a diffuse, bottom-up militia, according to a Politico profile, with the group itself claiming inspiration from the “rough estimate” that only 3% of American colonists took up arms against the British forces. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, calls Three Percenters an “anti-government” group with chapters claimed nationwide. 

A statement explaining the movement claims it’s “not a militia” and “not anti-government,” but exists to “to reign in an overreaching government and push back against tyranny.”

Again, there is no militia made up of Three Percenters. I would not consider Politco an objective source.  I am afraid we have reached the point where supporting the Second Amendment makes you far-right.

The officer was wearing a keychain attached to his service vest with the slogan on it. I suppose that might be enough to investigate him, but this seems like more of the cancel culture to me.

We Might Want To Consider This As We Negotiate With Iran

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Just the News is reporting today that the U.S. Navy has seized a vessel in the North Arabian Sea carrying a cache of weapons.

The article reports:

“The cache of weapons included dozens of advanced Russian-made anti-tank guided missiles, thousands of Chinese Type 56 assault rifles, and hundreds of PKM machine guns, sniper rifles and rocket-propelled grenades launchers. Other weapon components included advanced optical sights,” according to the Navy.

“USS Monterey and its embarked U.S. Coast Guard Advanced Interdiction Team (AIT) discovered the illicit cargo during a routine flag verification boarding conducted in international water in accordance with customary international law,” the Navy noted. “The original source and intended destination of the materiel is currently under investigation.”

The article notes that a U.S. Defense official noted that the weapons seized were similar to weapons seized in the past that were traveling from Iran to Yemen.

Details to follow as they become available.

Questionable Numbers

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Yesterday The American Thinker posted an article about some numbers from the recent census data that cast doubt on the vote count of the 2020 election.

The article reports:

According to a website called The Election Wizard, newly released Census data contains an “anomaly” when it comes to squaring it with the reported electoral results:

US Census data released last week called into question the official vote tally from the 2020 election. As part of the Census, the government collects data on citizens who self-report as having voted in presidential elections. The collected data shows an unusual anomaly in the reported results.

According to the Census, the recorded number of people voting in 2020 was tallied at 154,628,000. On the other hand, official results place the number of actual ballots cast slightly north of 158 million. That’s a discrepancy of nearly four million votes.

The article notes:

Speaking to pollster Richard Baris during an episode of “Inside the Numbers,” lawyer Robert Barnes said historically, the Census tends to “pin on the nose” the recorded vote numbers with the actual results. In other words, often the two data sets reasonably match.

Barnes is right. For example, the bureau was nearly spot-on in 2008, slightly under-reporting that 131,100,000 voted, while the official results showed 131,300,000 ballots cast.

Of course, sometimes the Census has missed the mark. But for decades, in almost every case where the Census grossly botched the results, it was because the bureau over-recorded the number of those who voted.

…Barnes pointed out the Census data also calls into question a number of contested states too.

For example, in Georgia, the bureau recorded roughly 4.8 million voting, while official results show slightly less than 5 million. Barnes said the discrepancy is consistent with claims that there were roughly 100k questionable ballots cast in Georgia.

Please follow the link above to the article–it includes a video of a discussion of these numbers. It does take something of a leap of faith to believe that Joe Biden received more votes in 2020 than Barack Obama received in 2008.

How Freedom Of Speech Dies

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On Friday Newt Gingrich posted an article illustrating the discrepancies in the censorship policies of Facebook.

The article reports:

The hypocrisy of Facebook’s so called internal “supreme court” decision to uphold former President Donald Trump’s ban from the platform is astounding. However, this decision will ultimately help President Trump because it makes him a martyr for standing in defense of constitutional American freedoms.

Every American should take note of this decision. If the Facebook oligarchs can silence someone who served as President of the United States and received nearly 75 million votes, then they can silence anyone.

But to understand the depth of the hypocrisy and anti-Americanism of the Facebook elites, it is more revealing to look at who they are not removing from the platform.

The article lists the people who have not been removed from Facebook:

Let’s start with the Chinese Communist totalitarian dictatorship. Xinhua News Agency– a state-run propaganda outlet – has 90.2 million followers on Facebook. The People’s Daily and the Global Times, which are Chinese Communist Party propaganda outlets, have 86.5 million and 62.9 million followers, respectively. The state-run television network, China Central Television, and its international arm, China Global Television Network, have 49.8 and 116.8 million followers. All of these organizations have been designated by the U.S. State Department as foreign missions.

To Facebook, a former American president is more dangerous than the Chinese Communist dictatorship, which is actively committing genocide and religious persecution, has taken over Hong Kong and threatened Taiwan, and openly says it intends to be the world’s dominant superpower by 2049.

The article notes that The “Movement in Support of Vladimir Putin” page has 3.1 million followers.

The list continues:

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, representing a country where its Congress openly chants “death to America,” has 883,829 Facebook followers. The corrupt Venezuelan dictator, President Nicolás Maduro, has 1.2 million followers on Facebook. Raul Castro’s replacement as the leader of Cuban Communist Party, President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermudez, has 24,261 Facebook followers.

The article concludes:

This is just a sample. It is disgusting that Mark Zuckerberg – who was made a billionaire by the freedom found in the United States, who has relied on the stature of this country, and whose business exists because of the freedom of speech – would preside over this phony, dishonest process in order to keep President Trump off of Facebook, while allowing real dictators to post freely.

This should be a national scandal. Zuckerberg and the Facebook oligarchs have violated fundamental American freedoms and betrayed their own country.

The Silicon Valley is looking a lot more like the Silicon Swamp—hostile to Americans and friendly to dictatorships.

One wonders if those responsible for making decisions on banning people from Facebook have thought through the implications of those decisions.

When Science Goes Political

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Yesterday Just the News posted an article about a spending program by the Biden administration that will award grants through the National Science Foundation to address what it calls “systemic racism” in the country and to advance “racial equity” in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education.

This is getting ridiculous.

The article reports:

“Persistent racial injustices and inequalities in the United States have led to renewed concern and interest in addressing systemic racism,” reads a synopsis of the Racial Equity in STEM Education Program on the NSF website. “The National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR) seeks to support bold, groundbreaking and potentially transformative projects addressing systemic racism in STEM.”

Although these grants are funded by the federal government’s primary source of support for basic science research, the agency emphasizes that proposals are to be developed by and reflect the perspective of aggrieved groups and individuals who perceive themselves as victims of undefined “inequities” assumed in advance to be caused by “systemic racism.”

We are moving farther and farther away from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, statement, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

The article notes:

The NSF stipulates that research funded by these grants should be designed to produce predetermined outcomes that benefit those engaged to conduct the research.

“The proposed work should provide positive outcomes for the individuals and communities engaged and should recognize peoples’ humanity, experiences, and resilience,” according to the program description.

The grant work should also consider systemic barriers to opportunities and benefits and show how these barriers impact access to and success in STEM education and research.

A synopsis on the government’s grants.gov website shows $30 million will be awarded to an expected 45 grantees beginning in July.

Since Biden took office, the NSF has awarded millions in grants related to equity, diversity and inclusion, a review of government spending by Just the News showed.

This is government-subsidized racism.

China And The Paris

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On April 2nd, The New York Post reported:

Chinese President Xi Jinping vowed in the 2016 Paris accords to bring his country’s climate-warming greenhouse-gas emissions to a peak before 2030 and make China “carbon-neutral” by 2060, but reality tells the opposite story.

A new study shows that the People’s Republic generated over half of the world’s coal-fired power in 2020, up nine points (to 53 percent) from 2015 — the year before Xi made his pledge.

And China actually opened more coal plants in 2020 than it had in the prior three years combined — three times as many new coal plants as the entire rest of the world.

On February 19th, CBS News reported:

When the U.S. signed the agreement in 2016, its first NDC target was to get “in the range” of an economy-wide 17% drop below 2005 greenhouse gas levels by 2020. It also aimed to achieve a subsequent decrease of 9-11% of 2005 levels by 2025, meaning the U.S. would reduce greenhouse emissions by 26%-28% in the first ten years of the Paris Agreement.

So China gets to increase greenhouse gases until 2030 while we have to drop our greenhouse gas levels by 2025. Has anyone thought through the economic implications of this for each country?

Yesterday the U.K. Daily Mail reported that China released a greater volume of greenhouse gases into Earth’s atmosphere in 2019 than all of the world’s developed nations put together.

The article reports:

The analysis considered six greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulphur hexafluoride. 

Global emissions have risen 11.4 per cent in the last decade to reach 52 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2019, with China responsible for 27 per cent of this.

The second-worst emitter was the US — accounting for 11 per cent of the total — with India edging out the EU for the first time to come in third at 6.6 per cent.

The article at the U.K. Daily Mail paints a sympathetic picture of China’s increase in greenhouse emissions, stating that since greenhouse gases linger, other civilized nations have been contributing to the total for many more years than China. That still does not change the fact that the Paris climate accord ties the hands of the United States economy while giving China a free ride.

Where Is America Headed?

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Victor Davis Hanson posted an article at The Daily Signal yesterday titled, “Are Americans Becoming Sovietized?” In the article, he lists ten traits of the Soviet Union that seem to have found their way into America. Please follow the link above to read the entire article, I am only going to list the ten things. The article contains the details of each.

These are the ten symptoms of Sovietism:

1. There was no escape from ideological indoctrination—anywhere.

2. The Soviets fused their press with the government. 

3. The Soviet surveillance state enlisted apparatchiks and lackeys to ferret out ideological dissidents.

4. The Soviet educational system sought not to enlighten but to indoctrinate young minds in proper government-approved thought.

5. The Soviet Union was run by a pampered elite, exempt from the ramifications of their own radical ideologies.

6. The Soviets mastered Trotskyization, or the rewriting and airbrushing away of history to fabricate present reality.

7. The Soviets created a climate of fear and rewarded stool pigeons for rooting out all potential enemies of the people.

8. Soviet prosecutors and courts were weaponized according to ideology.

9. The Soviets doled out prizes on the basis of correct Soviet thought.

10. The Soviets offered no apologies for extinguishing freedom.

The parallels are frightening.

Economic Growth Is Not Responding In A Positive Way To President Biden’s Economic Plans

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Breitbart is reporting today that the number of jobs added to the American economy in April was far below expectations.

The article reports:

The U.S. economy added just 266,000  jobs in April and the unemployment rate ticked up to 6.1 percent, the Labor Department said in its monthly labor assessment Friday, smashing expectations.

This was far below expectations. Analysts surveyed by Econoday had predicted Friday’s report would show between 755,000 and 1.25 million workers added to payrolls in April. The median forecast was for 938,000 and an unemployment rate of 5.8 percent.

The news is not all bad–it’s just not what the economists wanted. They were hoping that the Biden administration would continue the good news of the Trump administration. Based on the policies espoused by the Biden administration, that is a false hope. The unemployment rate in March was 6 percent, so unemployment only went up slightly (not down as predicted). There is, however, another figure that needs to be looked at–the workforce participation rate. The workforce participation rate is the section of working population in the age group of 16-64 in the economy currently employed or seeking employment. That number was 61.5 in March and 61.7 in April. Changes in that number occur gradually, and an upward trend is a good thing.

The article concludes:

In April, 18.3 percent of workers performed their jobs remotely because of the coronavirus pandemic, down from 21.0 percent in the prior month.

The number of people saying they had been unable to work because their employer closed or lost business due to the pandemic declined to 9.2 million, from 11.4 million in the previous month. Among those who reported in April that they were unable to work because of pandemic-related closures or lost business, 9.3 percent received at least some pay from their employer for the hours not worked, little changed
from the previous month.

Among those not in the labor force in April, 2.8 million persons were prevented from looking for work due to the pandemic. This measure is down from 3.7 million the month before.

We are actually moving slowly in a good direction. The question is whether or not that positive economic momentum will continue under President Biden’s economic policies.

Not Surprising

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The Washington Examiner reported yesterday that President Biden has received less negative press coverage than any president in the past thirty years. Obviously he has gotten some negative coverage from conservative news sources, but the mainstream media has chosen to ignore the crisis at the southern border, the increasingly frequent senior moments, and the outright lies in the stories told and the credit claimed for the coronavirus vaccine and its rollout.

The article reports:

The study found that about 19% of the coverage of Biden’s fir 60 days days has been negative over the first 60 days of his administration, which ranked best among presidents of the last three decades. Former Presidents Bill Clinton (28%), George W. Bush (28%), Barack Obama (20%), and Donald Trump (62%) all saw more negative coverage than Biden.

“While the media landscape has changed dramatically since Clinton’s presidential inauguration, the Center has been able to conduct a long-term comparison for each of the recent administrations across a smaller subset of outlets and variables,” Pew Research Center wrote of its findings.

The difference in coverage between the early days of Trump’s presidency compared to Biden’s was particularly stark, with negative stories about Trump outnumbering positive ones by a “four-to-one” ratio.

The article notes an interesting difference in how President Trump and President Biden were covered by the media:

“Another stark difference in the early coverage of the Biden and Trump administrations was in how stories were framed,” Pew wrote. “About two-thirds of Biden stories (65%) were framed around ideology and agenda, while about one-third (35%) focused on leadership and character. With Trump, the numbers were roughly reversed, with 74% framed around leadership and character and 26% around policy and ideology.”

Unfortunately Americans will be reaping the results of the Biden agenda in the near future. I don’t think it will be fun.

What Are They Afraid Of?

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Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse reported that the Department of Justice is attempting to get involved in the ballot audit that is currently taking place in Maricopa County, Arizona.

The article reports:

Last week a group of Lawfare activists [SEE HERE], including New York University Law School – which leads to Andrew Weissmann, asked the DOJ to get involved.

The ridiculous letter from the Biden DOJ goes on to cite media reports from the Washington Post as evidence to justify their involvement.

Remember, previously the DOJ narrative was that each state makes up its own election rules.  Now the DOJ is saying, falsely, that Arizona might be breaking federal laws.

Their first concern [as predicted] centers around ballot security.  Again, remember, the Maricopa County election board would not let the auditors use the county tabulation center [SEE HERE] so the ballots and equipment had to be moved to Veterans Memorial Coliseum (AZ State Fairgrounds).   Now the DOJ is citing that move as a potential issue for the security of the ballots and auditing procedures.

It is interesting that the same names keep coming up.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. It includes the letter written to the Arizona State Senate. If the election was without fraud, why not let the audit continue? The only logical conclusion is that the Department of Justice (currently a political organization) is concerned about what might be uncovered.

Preparing The Way For “The Ministry Of Truth”

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One America News posted an article today with the following headline, “White House supports social media’s ability to silence ‘misinformation.'”

The article reports:

According to the White House, social media companies have the responsibility of shutting down misinformation. During a press conference Wednesday, Press Secretary Jen Psaki was asked about Facebook’s decision to uphold its ban of President Trump.

The obvious question here is, “Who decides exactly what is misinformation?”

The article continues:

Specifically, she was asked if Big Tech oligarchs can muzzle a former president, what’s to stop them from silencing anyone? Psaki said she had no comment on Trump, but said Joe Biden’s view is that the major platforms have the job to stop amplifying “untrustworthy content.”

“His view is that there’s more that needs to be done to ensure that this type of misinformation, disinformation, damaging, sometimes life threatening information is not going out to the American public,” stated the press secretary.

Remember–this is the same press secretary that has stated that President Biden is simply cleaning up the mess at the southern border that President Trump created. Has anyone bothered to censor her misinformation?

 

Something Isn’t Quite Right

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Hot Air posted an article today about some rather mundane fact-checking done by the U.K. Daily Mail. What they fact-checked was somewhat insignificant, but maybe it wasn’t.

Hot Air reports:

This may not be the biggest breaking political news story of the year, but it’s certainly a strange tale that might give you pause when it comes to the question of precisely how well President Joe Biden’s memory is doing these days. The Daily Mail was among several outlets that decided to do some fact-checking of a speech that Uncle Joe gave in Philadelphia last Friday. They weren’t looking at any of his policy claims regarding the border crisis or the pandemic or anything else that’s been occupying our attention lately, however. Biden regaled the audience with one of his famous anecdotes from his long political career. As we all know, Biden prided himself on his regular train trips back and forth between Delaware and Washington, mixing in with the common folk and being a regular guy taking public transit. But in this story, Biden gave some specifics. He talked about a time during his fourth or fifth year as Vice President when a train conductor congratulated him on reaching 1.5 million miles on Amtrak while he was traveling to visit his sick mother. It’s one of those heartwarming stories of a regular American guy doing regular American things. But there were two problems with his story. First of all, the conductor he named had retired twenty years before that and his mother had passed away at least four years earlier.

The article concludes:

Just how well is Joe Biden holding it all together these days? He rarely holds any lengthy Q&A sessions with the press or publicly engages in unscripted exchanges on camera. He generally sticks to prepared speeches and has a lengthy set of notes on the lectern when making public addresses. How is he doing when he’s in private meetings or on phone calls with foreign leaders or the top ranks of our military?

I’m not saying this is some sort of end of the world scenario. After all, we made it through Ronald Reagan’s second term without even learning that he was fighting Alzheimer’s at the time. As long as Joe Biden has trusted staffers at his side at all times I suppose things will work out in the end. But these traits should really be taken into consideration before Joe Biden makes a decision about possibly running for a second term. We’ve still got more than three and a half years to go on this term and it could turn out to be a bumpy ride.

At this point, many of us are wondering who is actually running the country.

An Interesting Perspective

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John Hinderaker has a very interesting perspective on the Covid-19 epidemic. He posted an article at Power Line Blog that explains his theory that Covid is now saving lives.

The article reports:

More precisely, fewer Americans are now dying than would be the case if the Wuhan virus did not exist. Total mortality in the U.S., per this CDC chart, is sinking like a stone and is now below demographic projections:

This is the chart:

So what in the world is happening?

The article explains:

The last two weeks of data are incomplete, but the point is obvious. A large majority of “covid deaths” were people who were both elderly and already very sick. My own review of data from thousands of death certificates in Minnesota confirms that in most cases, given the number of severe conditions itemized as contributors to a “covid death”–i.e, one in which the word “covid” appears on the death certificate–it seems remarkable that the person was still alive at all.

I think the mortality statistics over the next couple of years will confirm that in most cases, people who died with “covid” on their death certificates would have died, in any event, in a matter of months or perhaps a year or two. This is why we are now seeing mortality dip below demographic norms: people who otherwise would have died in April 2021 died in, say, October 2020 instead. If this is the case, it will expose the irrationality of devastating the lives of younger and healthy people through shutdowns, school closings and mask mandates, while those who were at meaningful risk were almost exclusively those who, as one doctor put it, had one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel.

The truth will eventually come out.