From my friends at Townhall:
Monthly Archives: February 2024
So What Do We Do Now?
The courts seem to move slowly. Most of the time that’s not an issue, but we have a court case right now where the timing matters. It will be interesting to see what the next step is. Also, at what point is Congress required to follow the U.S. Constitution and what are the consequences when they don’t?
On Tuesday, Just the News reported:
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Tuesday secured a major victory in his challenge to the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending package passed in 2022, with a court declaring that the bill was approved unconstitutionally.
President Joe Biden signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 in December of the prior year. The measure effectively set the federal budget for the year by wrapping the 12 annual appropriations bills into a single piece of legislation. Paxton, however, had argued that the House’s passage of the measure was unconstitutional as less than half of the lower chamber’s members were physically present to vote on it. Many lawmakers who were not present voted by proxy. Paxton had specifically challenged stipulations in the bill that affect his state.
“Like many constitutional challenges, Texas asserts that this provision is unenforceable against it because Congress violated the Constitution in passing the law. In response, the defendants claim, among other things, that this Court has no power to address the issue because it cannot look to extrinsic evidence to question whether a bill became law,” the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Lubbock Division wrote. “But because the Court is interpreting and enforcing the Constitution—rather than second-guessing a vote count—the Court disagrees. The Court concludes that, by including members who were indisputably absent in the quorum count, the Act at issue passed in violation of the Constitution’s Quorum Clause.”
So what happens now? Does this matter?
The article concludes:
The Texas Public Policy Foundation served as co-counsel in the case.
“The Court correctly concluded that the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 violated the Quorum Clause of the U.S. Constitution because a majority of House members was not physically present when the $1.7 trillion spending bill was passed. Proxy voting is unconstitutional,” TPPF senior attorney Matt Miller said.
Finally!
On Wednesday, The New York Post reported that Mitch McConnell will step down as Republican leader in the Senate in November. He became a Senator in 1985. It was not mentioned in the article, but I suspect Senator John Thune will be selected by the uni-party to replace Mitch McConnell as the Republican leader.
There have been a few problems with Senator McConnell–mainly the fact that his wife is part of one of Communist China’s richest families (they are involved in the shipping industry). Obviously, you don’t get rich in Communist China without the approval of the government. To me that is an uncomfortable connection.
The article at The New York Post reports:
He noted that when he arrived in the Senate, “I was just happy if anybody remembered my name.” During his campaign in 1984, when Reagan was visiting Kentucky, the president called him “Mitch O’Donnell.”
McConnell endorsed Reagan’s view of America’s role in the world and the senator has persisted in face of opposition, including from Trump, that Congress should include a foreign assistance package that includes $60 billion for Ukraine.
…Trump has pulled the party hard to the ideological right, questioning longtime military alliances such as NATO, international trade agreements and pushing for a severe crackdown on immigration, all the while clinging to the falsehood that the election was stolen from him in 2020.
McConnell and Trump had worked together in Trump’s first term, remaking the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary in a far more conservative image, and on tax legislation. But there was also friction from the start, with Trump frequently sniping at the senator.
Their relationship has essentially been over since Trump refused to accept the results of the Electoral College. But the rupture deepened dramatically after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. McConnell assigned blame and responsibility to Trump and said that he should be held to account through the criminal justice system for his actions.
President Trump has not pulled the party hard right–he has pulled it back to where it was before the days on George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. President Trump seems hard right because the uni-party, the press and the culture have moved so far left.
Peter Schweizer Has A New Book Out
Peter Schweizer is one of the few investigative reporters left. He has a new book out, Blood Money: Why the Powerful Turn a Blind Eye While China Kills Americans. The book is carefully researched and footnoted. It’s available on Amazon and other places. On Tuesday, Breitbart posted an article about the book.
The article reports:
The Biden family bagged $5 million from the business partner of the “White Wolf,” a Chinese criminal gang leader who helped create the fentanyl pipeline now decimating the United States, Peter Schweizer detailed in his new book, Blood Money: Why the Powerful Turn a Blind Eye While China Kills Americans.
While Joe Biden was vice president, the Bidens developed a business partnership with a Chinese tycoon named Ye Jianming, the chairman of CEFC China Energy Co., which had strong ties to the Chinese Communist Party. Throughout Ye’s relationship with the Bidens, he “showered” some members of the Biden family with money, Schweizer reported. Hunter Biden received a three-carat diamond worth $80,000; and in July 2017, Ye’s company gave the Bidens a $5 million, interest-free, forgivable loan.
Schweizer previously detailed the $5 million in his book Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win, as reported by Kristina Wong:
Furthermore, by July 2017, CEFC began making interest-free, forgivable loans to the Biden family. CEFC executive Zhao Running wrote that $5 million was intended as money lent to “the BD family,” not just Hunter Biden.
“This $5 million loan to the BD [Biden] family is interest free,” Zhao wrote.
Schweizer notes that “interest-free loans provide tremendous leverage because the lender can demand its money back if it is displeased by any action.”
Hunter spoke to Ye on a “regular basis” and Ye helped Hunter “on a number of his personal issues” including unspecified “sensitive things,” Hunter explained in emails. Joe Biden also attended a meeting with Hunter, additional business partners, and Ye, Hunter’s business partner Rob Walker told U.S. House of Representative investigators in 2023. “I don’t remember the exact time, but I remember being in Washington, DC, and the former vice president stopped by. We were having lunch,” Walker testified.
But Ye also enjoyed a partnership with the former leader of a Chinese triad called the United Bamboo Gang (UBG), Schweizer detailed in Blood Money. Ye’s partner’s name was Zhang Anle or, as he is commonly known, the “White Wolf.”
This is a very interesting book.
Why Should They Listen To The Voters?
On Saturday, John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line Blog about one possible outcome of the 2024 election. It is becoming very obvious that as the powers that be work harder and harder to make sure that President Trump does not get a second term, more and more voters are deciding to support him–just to have their voices heard. This is going to make for a very interesting year.
The article reports:
In 2001, 2005 and 2017, some Democrat House members objected to the certification of electoral votes for the winning Republican presidential candidate. Those objections, while “denialist,” were only symbolic. But Democrat leaders in the House are now suggesting that if they control that body following November’s election–as they well might–they may refuse to allow a victorious Donald Trump to take office.
Notice that the objects to the electoral votes were not allowed in 2020–they were pre-empted by the events outside the Capitol and a parliamentary procedure was used to block them when the House reconvened.
The article concludes:
The Democrats have become so insane on the subject of Donald Trump that it is hard to know which of their mutterings to take seriously. But if Trump wins the election and a Democrat-controlled House refuses to certify his election on the ground that he is an “insurrectionist” under the 14th Amendment, we will be past the point of a constitutional crisis. If that happens, the only realistic path forward will be disunion, possibly accompanied by civil war, but preferably not.
This is one reason why the Supreme Court should put the 14th Amendment theory out of its misery, once and for all. It is obvious that the drafters of that amendment meant the just-concluded Civil War, in which 600,000 Americans lost their lives, when they referred to “insurrection or rebellion” against the United States. In contrast, the January 6 protest was not one of the 50 most destructive riots of the last few years, and the only person killed was Ashli Babbitt. Not a single participant in the protest was arrested in possession of a firearm. Some insurrection!
In the interest of preserving the Republic, the Supreme Court should rule definitively that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment does not apply to Donald Trump.
Stay tuned.
When WOKE Takes Over
On Monday, Hot Air posted an article about a change in the information collected by the government from broadcasters.
The article reports:
The Biden Administration is so concerned about preserving democracy and the norms that underlie it that they are, once again, ignoring Supreme Court precedents in order to do the right thing no matter how many Constitutional limits they have to blow through.
…This time the issue is collecting DEI information from broadcasters, which has been tried before and found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court–twice.
We have this story via an FCC commissioner who dissented from the decision. He was previously the General Counsel of the FCC, so he knows of what he speaks better than almost anybody.
…There is one and only one reason for the FCC to require broadcasters to publish their DEI-related employment stats, and it has everything to do with making broadcasters vulnerable to pressure from activist groups pushing them to change the racial and gender balance of their employees.
The point is to outsource what the government can’t do to pressure groups: impose de facto quotas.
The Court has twice rejected similar attempts by the FCC, but they seem to believe that in this case, the third time is the charm.
The FCC claims that there is no evidence that forcing broadcasters to disclose this presumptively private information will have any impact.
The article concludes:
Government grants go to nonprofits with Left-wing agendas, pushing for things the government cannot. It is the outsourcing of the cultural revolution in the way that post-9/11 intelligence and even military operations were outsourced to private contractors.
It’s legally dubious, morally wrong, and over the long term it has been pretty damn effective.
There is no plausible reason for forcing companies to release private employment data legally protected under privacy provisions except to give ammunition to outside pressure groups.
Unfortunately, it’s no surprise that our benevolent betters are fine with tearing up the Constitution. They have been working at it for years now.
I remember what happened in California when names of donors to a conservative cause were released–their homes were picketed and some were put out of business. The requesting of this information by the FCC is illegal and needs to end immediately.
When Those Who Are Supposed To Enforce The Law Break The Law
On February 21, The Houston Chronicle reported the following:
A Houston college student prosecuted for his participation in the Jan. 6 insurrection was one of people robbed by a Houston-based FBI agent, according to newly released court records.
Alexander Fan’s complaint about missing cash and silver helped lead to the January indictment of FBI agent Nicholas Anthony Williams, according to court records.
Fan, 27, was sentenced to 12 months probation in connection to the riot. Fan was found guilty of entering and remaining a room in the Capitol building. He was accused of climbing into an office through a broken window after his entry was blocked by a closed door.
The article continues:
Fan’s home was searched on the day he was arrested and the next day he reported to the FBI that items, including $2,500 and silvers bars, were missing from his bedroom. The items were not seized as part of the warrant served on his home, according to court records.
Months later, the FBI announced that one of its own agents, Nicholas Anthony Williams, had been indicted on theft charges, over accusations he stole money and property while executing search warrants between March 2022 and July 2023.
One of the three charges related to thefts is over the missing items at Fan’s home.
Remember when the FBI was the gold standard of law enforcement agencies? Evidently their recruiting standards are not what they used to be.
That Ship Already Sailed
On Monday, The Daily Caller posted an article about some concerns in the intelligence community.
The article reports:
The intelligence community is warning that key agencies may be politicized under a second Trump administration as the 2024 election approaches after it tried to discredit the Hunter Biden laptop story and pushed a now-debunked dossier about the former president, Politico reported on Monday.
Former President Donald Trump could politicize the intelligence community through who he appoints and removes as well as demanding adherence to his agenda, the 18 former Trump officials and analysts claimed to Politico. The FBI welcomed the now-discredited Steele Dossier alleging Trump had ties to Russia and 51 former intelligence officials signed onto a letter saying Hunter Biden’s now-authenticated laptop was Russian disinformation shortly before the 2020 presidential election.
I think a more accurate story would be that the intelligence community is concerned that a second term of President Trump might force them to be neutral and obey the Constitution. He might also hold them accountable for the times they broke the law. I suspect he might even change the personnel to make the agencies politically neutral. Oh horrors.
The article concludes:
However, Trump’s campaign cited the examples of the Steele Dossier and Hunter Biden laptop letter among examples of intelligence community weaponization against the former president.
“President Trump has been under assault ever since he announced his campaign in 2016,” Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung told the DCNF. “From spying on his campaign, Russiagate, the Russia collusion hoax, the debunked Steele dossier, and the 51 intelligence officials wrongly ignoring Hunter Biden’s laptop from Hell, the establishment has been trying to meddle in elections because they simply can’t stand voters choosing a candidate who puts America First.”
Trump is currently leading Biden by 2.1 points in a RealClearPolitics national average of polls.
The FBI insisted that the intelligence community incorporate the Steele Dossier in a report of foreign meddling in the 2016 election, according to Politico.
Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio hinted Wednesday that the Department of Justice is operating under a double standard after it indicted an FBI informant who allegedly provided false evidence of corruption involving Biden, while letting Christopher Steele, a former operative of the Secret Intelligence Service, off the hook for his dossier that was used to try and remove Trump from office.
The FBI “dug their own grave” by promoting the Steele Dossier, one former intelligence official told Politico.
I pray for an honest election without interference from the intelligence community or the deep state.
Does The New York Legal System Recognize The Eighth Amendment?
The Eighth Amendment states:
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
On February 27th, The American Thinker posted an article explaining how that amendment applies to the New York judgement against President Trump.
The article reports:
On February 16, 2024, a judge in New York State imposed fines totaling just over $360 million on former president Donald J. Trump, The Trump Organization, and several related Trump companies and trusts in the civil case brought by the New York attorney general. President Trump’s sons Donald Trump, Jr. and Eric Trump were fined just over $4 million each. The court imposed additional sanctions, including injunctions against former president Trump; Donald Trump, Jr.; and Eric Trump from serving as officers or directors in New York corporations for specified numbers of years, among other sanctions.
The media reporting on the court’s decision has been massive since the decision was rendered. However, little or no reporting focused on the constitutionality of the fines under the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. President Trump and his co-defendants all have substantial 8th Amendment “excessive fine” challenges to raise. In fact, a review of the facts and applicable law reveal that this decision is simply more election interference.
The article concludes:
Applying these factors to the New York court’s decision reveals that the fines are clearly excessive. There are no victims in the Trump case. No one was harmed. Each and every financial institution involved was fully repaid and made money on its loans. Further, a review of case law in New York demonstrates that there simply are no cases ordering a defendant to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in disgorgement without any victim being deprived of anything. Finally, just how “reprehensible” is it to obtain loans and credit facilities and then pay the lenders back, in full, on time, in compliance with the agreement? The answer is, not very.
Once again, a court in New York issued yet another political decision masquerading as justice. The fines imposed by this New York court on former President Trump and his sons and businesses are grossly and unconstitutionally excessive. While President Trump and his co-defendants undoubtedly have many defenses to the claims to raise on appeal, chief among them should be a constitutional challenge to these grossly excessive fines.
The U.S. Constitution is an amazing document. It is impartial when followed. My hope is that it will be followed in this case.
Is The U.S. Constitution Relevant In America?
On February 27th, Issues and Insights posted an article about a recent statement by President Biden.
The article reports:
The Supreme Court told President Joe Biden that he didn’t have the authority to forgive student loan debt. But he did anyway, bragging that the Court “didn’t stop me.” So why do we even have a legislative branch and a high court if the president is going to make law as if he were a king?
Does Congress have the intestinal fortitude to insist that the President abide by the Constitution? Frankly, I doubt it.
The article continues:
It’s Biden’s party, and its activist media, that has been carping for years about losing “our democracy.” Yet when a Democratic president bypasses the checks and balances that are the backbone of our republic, the three co-equal branches framework of government that is intended to guard against descending into a dictatorship, they celebrate rather than condemn.
Maybe it’s because they care about the integrity of our system of government only when it’s making policies they want.
In June 2023, the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, struck down the Biden administration’s plan to cancel up to $400 billion in student loans, which it had announced in August 2022. In her concurring opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett noted that “when it comes to” national policy, “the Constitution gives Congress the reins — a point of context that no reasonable interpreter could ignore.”
But high court rulings apparently don’t apply when a Democratic president decides they don’t. Last week, the White House played the role of unreasonable interpreter and announced “$1.2 billion in student debt cancellation for almost 153,000 borrowers.”
“The Biden-Harris administration has now approved nearly $138 billion in student debt cancellation for almost 3.9 million borrowers through more than two dozen executive actions,” according to a White House fact sheet.
Biden acknowledged last week that “my MAGA Republican friends in the Congress, elected officials, and special interests stepped in and sued us,” and that “the Supreme Court blocked it.”
The government does not have the power to step between a lender and a borrower. That is a private contract and should not be interfered with by the government. How would you feel if the government stepped in and forgave your neighbor’s mortgage while requiring you to pay off your mortgage? That is what the Biden administration is trying to do.
Inflation Isn’t Over, And The Damage Will Continue
No one who has bought groceries recently or filled up their gas tank believes inflation is over. Yet recently economist Paul Krugman declared, “Inflation is over. We won.” I guess he doesn’t do the grocery shopping in his family. Yes, inflation has slowed. However, we are still dealing with the price increases that occurred in the past three years. If the baseline is where we were when President Biden took office, the inflation rate is somewhere over 15 percent. If we are talking about the past few months, the number is much lower. However, that number is in addition to the 15 percent that we have already been dealing with.
On Saturday, Real Clear Politics posted a commentary about the damage the Biden administration has done to the economy.
The commentary notes:
The truth is that the wild inflation, high interest rates, bank failures, and other economic harms of the last three years were all entirely avoidable and all entirely caused by President Biden and the Democrats’ arrogant and unwise policies.
This is not “Monday morning quarterbacking.” Some of us were saying this well before the fact. My May 7, 2021 column (“Joe Biden, Economy Killer”) accurately forecast the inflation, rising interest rates, and rising government debt service long before the Biden administration even acknowledged the risks were real.
The U.S. economy did not need another giant stimulus plan when Biden and the Democrats took control in 2021. The U.S. gross domestic product, knocked down by the COVID shutdown in the first half of 2020, had jumped up by a record 33% in the third quarter of 2020 and by another 4% in the fourth quarter, all before Biden took office. The S&P stock market had risen 16.3% in 2020. Employers were waiting for workers to come back to work, and another stimulus package had been passed with bipartisan support in the last quarter of 2020. Happily, the inflation rate was only 1.4% as 2020 ended, with a one-year Treasury rate of just 0.10% and a 10-year Treasury rate of just 0.95%
The commentary concludes:
The Congressional Budget Office last week revised its government deficit estimates upward, expecting $48.3 trillion of government debt by 2034. Interest expense on the federal debt this year has already jumped up to $870 billion, which is larger than the defense budget. Additionally, Biden’s higher interest rates will continue to increase debt service costs as old government debt rolls off and is replaced at higher costs. The risk is stark: a 3% higher interest rate on even the existing $33 trillion level of federal debt equates to $1 trillion of extra federal interest expense each and every year, on top of the already giant existing debt service number.
There is no painless way to pay down this deficit or cover this extra annual government interest cost. The need for billions and billions of extra tax money or budget cuts will fuel fierce political fights, populist divisions, and national anger for years to come. All this public unrest will also be the legacy of the bad Democratic economic policies since 2021. Professor Krugman, when it comes to Bidenomics, “We lost.”
I believe we can turn this around, but it will take an administration that includes people who have worked in the private sector and run businesses. Whatever administration is elected in November needs to include people hired for their qualifications and experience–not for any other reason.
Standing Up to the Climate Hoax
Author: R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D
It is becoming increasing apparent that not only is there no scientific evidence that manmade CO2 emissions are causing climate change, but that this hoax is being used by the Democrat Marxists to control us and limit our freedoms. It is also being used to enrich the elite at the expense the taxpayers and to raise energy bills dramatically higher.
A recent article in the Epoch Times revealed that the United Nation’s Convention on Climate Change deliberately altered their report so that any observed climate change would be falsely blamed on mankind’s burning of fossil fuels. Several scientists who objected to this unsubstantiated claim were ostracized and removed from the committee. World renowned physicist, Frederick Seitz, wrote in an article that he had never in his extensive career, including as President of the National Academy of Sciences, ever seen such corruption in the scientific review process and that no study to date has demonstrated that climate change is due to mankind’s use of fossil fuels. Recent reports by qualified experts have reported that rising CO2 levels are offset by increased plant growth and that CO2 levels do not increate warming, but rather the opposite. That is, rising climate temperature cycles caused by factors such as solar activity, produce an increase in CO2 and not the reverse.
So where does all this bring us? The only rational conclusion (in spite of what the environmental extremists and those making a huge profit from solar and wind farms) is that there is absolutely no need to restrict the use of fossil fuels. It is estimated that that the current effort to replace fossil fuels is costing the average American over $2,000 per year and rising. This will devastate our economy for absolutely no valid reason.
Here in North Carolina, we can fight back against this leftist agenda in at least two ways. First, repeal HB 951 passed into law in 2021 that requires electricity generating power plants to reduce their carbon emissions by 70% by 2030 and achieve carbon emission neutrality by 2050. Second, pass a law prohibiting the construction of offshore wind farms near Kitty Hawk and Bald Head Island that is being pushed by Governor Cooper. It should be noted, that solar and wind farm components are obtained from China while they continue to construct coal burning plants at an alarming rate.
The Republican controlled General Assembly needs to step up to the plate and stop this disastrous program before it is too late. Any candidate for office who does not recognize the danger posed by the Left’s extremist environmental program and is not willing to stand up against it does not deserve our support.
What Our College Students Are Studying
On Sunday, The American Thinker reported that the University of North Carolina has decided to cut many areas of their curriculum.
The article reports:
One of the schools in the UNC system, UNC-Greensboro, is in the news these days because of a decision by Chancellor Franklin D. Gilliam Jr. to cut undergraduate and/or graduate programs in physics, mathematics, computer science, anthropology and nursing, citing “university direction, enrollment patterns, prioritizing faculty time and expertise, and growth opportunities.”
Reaction to the decision to cancel STEM was swift.
Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Charles Bolton resigned in protest of the cuts and the way Gilliam handled communication.
Slated for elimination are undergraduate programs in
-
- Geography (just Google everything, right?),
- Anthropology (that’s about, you know, old stuff), and
- Physics (Newton and Einstein are dead white males),
as well as graduate programs in:
-
- Nursing (hospitals and doctors might disagree),
- Geography (of course),
- Mathematics (WaPo’s Travis Meier is applauding this one), and
- Computational mathematics (calculators from Walmart will do the trick.)
Some of the courses that remain:
- African-American and African Diaspora Studies (cutting them would lead to “mostly peaceful” Antifa/BLM demonstrations),
- Media Studies (better to help Democrats win elections),
- Communication Studies (“failure to communicate” caused problems in Cool Hand Luke),
- Peace and Conflict Studies (to help Hamas, Hezbollah … um, negotiate),
- Liberal and Interdisciplinary Studies (of course), and, your favorite and mine,
- Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies.
Tuition at UNC Chapel Hill is $8,989 for North Carolina residents and $37,550 for out-of-state students. Admittedly that’s a deal if you are a North Carolina resident, but do you really want to pay that much for a degree that probably isn’t marketable?
The Hazards Of Using Ecology-Friendly Weapons
On Friday, rt.com posted an article about the use of eco-friendly weapons in Ukraine.
The article reports:
Some of the military hardware supplied to Ukraine by the West has become inoperable after being damaged by rodents, Le Figaro has reported, citing a French fighter in the ranks of Kiev’s forces.
Eco-friendly weapons provided to the Ukrainian military by the country’s foreign backers are “sometimes unsuitable for the realities of the front” and “don’t come out well” in an actual conflict, the reported in an article on Thursday.
As proof of its claim, Le Figaro provided an account by an unnamed French fighter, who complained that “rodents ate the cables on some of the vehicles” used by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
“Some of the protective sheaths of electrical wires [in the Western-supplied hardware] are made of corn fiber,” which attracts mice and rats, he said.
Le Figaro stressed that “the phenomenon is marginal, but it tells the story of the confrontation of the Western military equipment with reality.”
“Western vehicles were designed as a technological showcase. But, in the mud and cold, they don’t always work,” the French fighter is cited as saying.
“Luckily, the Ukrainians still had a few crusts” in their arsenal, he added, referring to the old Soviet-made hardware.
There have been many jokes about having to plug electric tanks in to recharge them before battle, but this is the first article I have read about mice and rats eating the sheaths that are supposed to protect wires. I have, however, seen examples of rodents eating gas lines in vehicles parked near cornfields. Making protective sheaths out of material that is edible to rodents in a place where food is probably scarce does not seem like a good idea.
Lady Justice Has Totally Lost Her Blindfold
On Friday, Issues & Insights posted an article about the lawfare that has been aimed at President Trump.
The article reports:
Was the $355 million fine against Donald Trump, for a “crime” that even the judge issuing the ruling admitted hurt no one, a bridge too far?
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul seems to think so, which is why she rushed out to say that other people doing business in New York have nothing to fear: “Law-abiding and rule-following New Yorkers who are businesspeople have nothing to worry about because they’re very different than Donald Trump and his behavior.”
What she should have said is: “if they are different from Donald Trump and his political views.”
Because nothing about this case, or the multitude of other unprecedented legal attacks against the former president — the attempts to kick him off ballots, the two bogus impeachments, the Russia hoax, the endless stream of media mis-reporting — has anything even remotely to do with “upholding the law” or “protecting Democracy.”
These attacks are all a message to anyone who would dare to run as a conservative. Do so, and we will stop at nothing to destroy you.
Because there was no actual ‘victim’ in this ‘crime,’ the money collected will go to the State of New York. Isn’t that special? A state struggling with expenses can simply take money away from one of its leading businessmen.
The article concludes:
What’s been happening since has been a public display of the left’s new, scorched-earth strategy for dealing with the political opposition. It started in the run-up to the 2020 election. As Time magazine so glowingly reported in early 2021, there was a “cross-partisan campaign” to defeat Trump, or as Time put it, “protect the election.”
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. They executed national public-awareness campaigns that helped Americans understand how the vote count would unfold over days or weeks, preventing Trump’s conspiracy theories and false claims of victory from getting more traction.
Since then, the left has added lawfare to its arsenal, which has now reached peak absurdity for the simple reason that Trump refuses to give in. But make no mistake, scalping Trump will only whet the left’s appetite for more scalps.
And who will be there to stop them?
This is where we are:
First They Came by
Pastor Martin Niemoller
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me.
Are We Living In A Police State?
News organizations are firing employees because of law ratings. CNN, BuzzFeed, and Vice Media have all recently announced layoffs. CBS is also firing reporters.
On Thursday (updated Friday), The New York Post reported the following:
The acclaimed CBS reporter who was investigating the Hunter Biden laptop scandal before she was fired last week had her personal files seized by the network in an “unprecedented” move, sources told The Post on Thursday.
Catherine Herridge — who is the middle of a First Amendment case being closely watched by journalists nationwide — was among 20 CBS News staffers let go as part of a larger purge of hundreds of employees at parent company Paramount Global.
Her firing had stunned co-workers, but the network’s decision to hold on to her personal materials, along with her work laptop where she may have other confidential info, has left many staffers shaken, according to insiders.
“It’s so extraordinary,” a source familiar with the situation told The Post, noting that the files — which are presumptively now the property of CBS News — most likely contain confidential material from Herridge’s stints at both Fox and CBS.
The source said the network boxed up all her personal belongings except for Herridge’s notes and files and informed her that it would decide what — if anything — would be returned to her.
“They never seize documents [when you’re let go],” a second source close to the network said.
Brit Hume posted the following on Twitter:
This is just one more step in the direction of a police state where the media is controlled by the people in power.
The article at The New York Post concludes:
Jonathan Turley — a legal scholar and a former CBS legal analyst who first broke the news of Herridge’s documents being seized in an opinion piece for The Hill — said the timing of the journalist’s termination raised suspicions.
“She was pursuing stories that were unwelcomed by the Biden White House and many Democratic powerhouses, including the Hur report on Joe Biden’s diminished mental capacity, the Biden corruption scandal and the Hunter Biden laptop,” Turley wrote.
Under normal circumstances, journalists are entitled to their notes and make available the files if needed in future ligation, but leaving sensitive documents in the hands of unnamed CBS officials, could compromise Herridge’s numerous other confidential sources.
It also potentially violates HIPAA laws, as her files may also contain personal and family medical records.
Turley said CBS’ “heavy-handed approach” to the files” is “dead wrong” and that it had “sent a chilling signal in the ranks” of the network.
SAG-AFTRA, the union which represents CBS staffers, condemned the network for seizing Herridge’s notes and research from her office.
“This action is deeply concerning concerning to the union because it sets a dangerous precedent for all media professionals and threatens the very foundation of the First Amendment,” the union said in a statement to The Post.
The union added it has been in touch with CBS News and is hopeful the matter “will be resolved shortly.”
We are in a dangerous place.
From my friends at Power Line Blog:
When Facts Contradict The Narrative
On Thursday, The Federalist posted an article about the crisis at our southern border. For more than three years, President Biden has been complaining that he can’t do anything about the border unless Congress passes bills that fund Ukraine. He chooses to overlook the fact that on his first day in office he overturned the Executive Orders passed by President Trump that sealed the border. He also chooses to overlook the fact that he not only refused to build the wall–he sold the parts to build it for pennies on the dollar. (article here)
The Federalist reports:
President Joe Biden has vehemently denied any blame for the years-long U.S. southern border invasion with claims that Congress, not the president, must act to defend the nation.
“I’ve done all I can do,” Biden said last month on the White House lawn. “Just give me the power.”
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the same thing two weeks ago. “There is no executive action that the president can take,” she said, to reinforce the border.
But now Politico is reporting that the president does, in fact, recognize the authority at his disposal to address the border crisis. On Wednesday, the paper reported the administration is “considering a string of new executive actions and federal regulations in an effort to curb migration at the U.S. southern border.”
“Among the ideas under discussion include using a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act to bar migrants from seeking asylum in between U.S. ports of entry,” the report read. “The administration is also discussing tying that directive to a trigger — meaning that it would only come into effect after a certain number of illegal crossings took place.”
The article concludes:
Lies about presidential powerlessness, however, have become the standard response from Democrats on the border. The number of illegal crossings has approximately doubled under President Biden, with 1.7 million “gotaways” evading capture over the three years he’s been in office. Last week, House Republicans formally impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for failing to keep U.S. borders secure.
“It certainly is a crisis,” Mayorkas said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” earlier this month, “But fundamentally, Congress is the only one who can fix it.”
Biden’s allies on Capitol Hill have made the same arguments. New York Rep. Dan Goldman called the House impeachment of Secretary Mayorkas an example of “taking the scalp” for “the MAGA base” to scapegoat blame for a crisis which can “only be addressed by legislation.”
While Democrats continue to say this on TV, Politico reports more executive orders for border action are in the pipeline, indicating the White House believes it can indeed address the border without the need for action from Congress.
The border remains open because country-club Republicans want cheap labor and Democrats want future voters. Meanwhile, Americans are being denied benefits and being forced out of jobs by illegal immigrants who are working outside the system. We need to close the border, and we need to enforce e-verify.
When Things Just Don’t Add Up
One of the problems with the Republican party is that they react–they don’t seem to be able to anticipate the shenanigans of the Democrats. I firmly believe that the events of January 6th were planned well in advance of the events. I also believe that the lawfare against President Trump was planned well in advance of its execution. Because they don’t anticipate the shenanigans on steroids of the Democrats, the Republicans are constantly playing defense. If America is to survive as a country with two political parties, that needs to change. It is also a good idea to revisit some of the events we didn’t question at the time they happened but we need to question now.
On Thursday, PJ Media posted an article about the pipe bomb discovered on January 6th near the Republican National Committee headquarters.
The article reports:
The director of security for the Republican National Committee recently called into question the official explanation of the pipe bomb that was discovered on Jan. 6, 2021, saying that it “makes no sense whatsoever.” Let’s be real: not much that happened that day makes sense. The official narrative of events has proven to be less than accurate.
The article quotes the Daily Wire:
Kenneth Capolino, a former Capitol Police officer who went on to work as the RNC’s director of security, was the man who personally alerted Capitol Police to the bomb near the RNC and managed the emergency response.
Capolino told The Daily Wire, in his first public remarks on the incident, that it looked like a stereotypical IED, or improvised explosive device, that is used by law enforcement in training sessions. “Any of the IED awareness training I’ve been to with law enforcement, that’s like the quintessential training device,” he told The Daily Wire. “That’s exactly what it looks like.”
His firsthand account adds to questions about the purported pipe bombs, which went undetected for a long period of time outside both the RNC and its Democrat counterpart, the Democratic National Committee. The bomb plot is by far the most dramatic part of January 6, but the FBI has made no progress in determining who planted them — and Democrats investigating the plot appear to have gone out of their way to avoid mentioning their existence since.
Please follow the link above to read the entire story. As more information comes out, my suspicions that January 6th was a false flag operation are being confirmed.
Is This Legal?
Campaign finance laws require the candidates to list the names of their donors. Generally that works, although not all candidates follow the law. On Wednesday, The Daily Caller reported the following:
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, who is overseeing the case against former President Donald Trump, made a small donation of $150 to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ campaign prior to his appointment.
McAfee, who was sworn in on Feb. 1, 2023 after being appointed by Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, made his donation in June 2020 while still working as an assistant U.S. Attorney for the Department of Justice (DOJ), according to financial disclosures. He will soon have to decide whether Willis should be disqualified over allegations that she financially benefited from appointing her romantic partner, Nathan Wade, to work on the Trump case.
McAfee also formerly worked under Fani Willis when she led the complex trial division in the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office, according to the New York Times.
Atlanta-based criminal defense attorney and legal analyst Philip Holloway told the Daily Caller News Foundation McAfee’s donation was “nominal,” but said it should still have been disclosed to the defendants so they could determine “whether they believed that amounted to a conflict of interest on the part of the judge.”
I agree that the judge should be able to donate whatever amount is legal to whatever candidate he chooses. However, I also agree that the defendants in this case should have been informed of his donations. Logically, they could have asked for a different judge.
From what I have seen of the legal cases against President Trump, I am not convinced of the honesty, integrity or intelligence of those bringing the cases. All of them are fraught with problems on the part of those pursuing them. In Georgia, Fani Willis is going to have her hands full with her own legal issues. In New York, the law was changed to allow Jean Carroll to bring her suit against President Trump. That seems questionable. And also in New York, major business leaders are pulling out of the State, and truckers are refusing to make deliveries there. I don’t think any of these lawsuits are going to have the desired impact and there may be some serious unintended consequences along the way.
Red Laws And Blue Laws
On Thursday, Victor Davis Hanson posted an article at American Greatness about the use of the law as a political instrument. The contrasts how the law was applied in similar cases based on the politics of the person involved.
The article reports:
One state prosecutor and one civilian plaintiff have already won huge fines and damages from Donald Trump that may, with legal costs, exceed $500 million.
Trump awaits further civil and criminal liability in three other federal, state, and local indictments.
There are eerie commonalities in all these five court cases involving plaintiff E. Jean Carroll, Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, New York Attorney General Letitia James, federal special counsel Jack Smith, and Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis.
One, they are either unapologetically left-wing or associated with liberal causes. They filed their legal writs in big-city, left-wing America—Atlanta, New York, Washington—where liberal judges and jury pools predominate in a manner not characteristic of the country at large.
Two, they are overtly political. Bragg, James, and Willis have either campaigned for office or raised campaign funds by promising to get or even destroy Donald Trump.
The article notes:
Three, there would not be any of these cases had Donald Trump not run for the presidency or not been a conservative.
Carroll’s suit bypassed statute of limitation restrictions by prompting the intervention of a left-wing New York legislator. He passed a special bill, allowing a one-year window to waive the statute of limitations for sexual assault claims from decades past.
Until Trump, no New York prosecutor like James had ever filed a civil suit against a business for allegedly overvaluing real estate assets to obtain loans that bank auditors approved and were paid back in full, on time, and with sizable interest profits to the lending institutions.
Alvin Bragg bootstrapped a Trump private non-disclosure agreement into a federal campaign violation in a desperate effort to find something on Trump.
Smith is also charging Trump with insurrectionary activity. But Trump had never been so charged with insurrection, much less convicted of it.
Willis strained to find a way to criminalize Trump’s complaints about his loss of Georgia in the 2020 national election. She finally came up with a racketeering charge, usually more applicable to mafiosi and drug cartels.
Four, in all these cases, the charges could have been equally applicable to fellow left-wing public figures and officials.
Please follow the link to the article to read the entire article. What has happened to our justice department in recent years reads more like Soviet justice than American justice.
From my friends at Townhall:
The Perversion Of Justice Continues
When something is called a crime but has no victim and the people who were supposedly injured by the ‘crime’ say that they were not injured, what is the appropriate punishment? In New York the punishment is to destroy the person who didn’t commit the crime because you dislike his politics and he might become President.
On Tuesday, Ed Morrissey at Hot Air posted the following screenshot and commentary:
So this is a pre-emptive penalty because no actual fraud occurred?
This quirk in New York’s appellate procedure certainly offers one explanation. Engoron and AG Letitia James want to use the process as the punishment, and want to denude Trump of his legitimate wealth right in the middle of a political campaign they oppose. The massive fine will force Trump to either leverage these properties — and with banks outside of New York, thanks to Engoron — or to sell them off and put a large chunk of his wealth into the hands of New York for years.
Did Engoron deliberately scale up the judgment to put Trump in this position? Let’s just say that New York’s system incentivizes it — and based on his deportment in the trial, it’s a reasonable conclusion.
It’s tough to overstate the absurdity of this situation. Appellate courts exist to allow citizens to seek redress for injustices in trials, both criminal and civil, that would result in ruination otherwise. This stands that process on its head. To seek redress for an injustice in a New York courtroom, the citizen must participate in his ruination just to knock on the door — even if an injustice has truly occurred.
Please follow the link to the article to see exactly what is going on. I firmly believe that this verdict will have a chilling effect on business growth in New York in the coming years.
Government Intrusion Into The Election Process
On Tuesday, The Daily Signal posted an article about the collaboration between the federal government and left-leaning get-out-the-vote organizations.
The article reports:
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is working with a left-wing advocacy group to boost voter turnout as part of President Joe Biden’s executive order directing federal agencies to get involved in elections.
The USDA worked directly with Demos, a New York-based group that helped draft Biden’s Executive Order 14019, according to records obtained by The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project. (The Daily Signal is Heritage’s news outlet.)
Biden signed his order on agencies and voter registration in March 2021. On Aug. 9, 2021, Demos’ Adam Lioz emailed USDA officials, many in the office of Secretary Tom Vilsack, under the subject line: “Demos Meeting on Voting Rights EO.”
“Team USDA, with apologies for the delay, I wanted to follow up and thank you all for all your time and a productive conversation,” wrote Lioz, who was Demos’ senior counsel and political director before departing in September 2021. “As we noted, we’ll have our ‘best practices’ slides ready in the next 1-2 weeks and in the meantime, y’all had asked for data on voter registration at the state level, which I’ve pasted below.”
Just for the record, the Hatch Act of 1939 prohibits civil servants in the Executive Branch of government (except the President and Vice-President) from engaging in some forms of political activity. The goal of the law is to stop the federal government from affecting elections or going about its activities in a partisan manner.
The article concludes:
Biden’s initiative includes the Department of Homeland Security’s registration of voters during naturalization ceremonies, the Department of Education’s promotion of voting at high schools and colleges, and agencies’ work with private, nonprofit organizations to increase voter turnout.
Many congressional Republicans have joined government watchdog groups in expressing concern about agencies’ engaging in partisan political activity under Biden’s executive order, in violation of laws such as the Hatch Act.
The records obtained by Heritage’s Oversight Project include the USDA’s directions to employees on how to avoid violating the Hatch Act.
Neither the Department of Agriculture nor Demos responded to inquiries from The Daily Signal before publication of this report.
The effort to steal the 2024 election has already begun.