Tag Archives: David Strom

Not Surprising, But Sad

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On Friday, David Strom at Hot Air posted an article about the latest awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize. Not surprisingly, it didn’t go to President Trump. I would like to point out that the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to President Obama when he had been in office for less than a year and had done nothing to earn it. It seems that the prestige of the Prize has been definitely diminished in recent years. This year’s Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Navi Pillay.

The article reports:

So who is this outstanding exemplar of human rights advocacy? Why, she’s a South African judge who put together the case for prosecuting Israel at The Hague, of course. She’s the first nonwhite woman on South Africa’s High Court, and later a judge on the ICC Appeals Chamber from 2003–2008. After that, she served as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014. In 2021, she chaired the UNHRC’s open-ended Commission of Inquiry on the occupied Palestinian territory.

It all sounds so NGO-y, doesn’t it? There are all the right words, and all the proper saccharine sentimentality that works perfectly to launder the raw hatred for Jews that lies just underneath the surface. 

It was all a sham, and we can know that her role at the “Commission of Inquiry on the occupied Palestinian territory” was a sham because, before she was appointed, she had already rendered her opinion. Before taking the chair in July 2021, Pillay signed a June 2020 manifesto calling on governments to “Sanction Apartheid Israel” and a June 2021 letter urging Biden to punish Israel. She took the supposedly impartial job a month later.

It is amazing to me how some people can look at Israel, a country about the size of New Jersey, and blame it for any unrest in the Middle East. You really have to overlook a lot of basic facts to do that.

It’s interesting to me that she is a black woman from South Africa. South Africa right now is not a poster child for equal rights or peace. The testimonies of the white farmers who simply inherited their farms and became a target for murder and property theft in South Africa are frightening. Pillay needs to clean up her own back yard before she accepts a prize for promoting peace.

The Less Obvious Money That Influences Policies

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On Tuesday, David Strom at Hot Air posted an article about the ways that some millionaires use their wealth to influence government policies in various levels of government.

The article notes:

One such program, funded by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, placed and paid the salaries of “government employees” strategically inserted into Attorney General offices in Blue states, funding regulations and lawsuits aimed at targets that Bloomberg’s NYU-based NGO program identified as vulnerable to its pressure. The goal was, of course, fighting climate change.

The article includes a picture of an X post citing an article from The Washington Free Beacon:

“A group housed at the New York University School of Law and backed by billionaire climate activist Michael Bloomberg quietly closed its doors in late August amid congressional scrutiny into its funding and operations. The so-called State Energy and Environmental Impact Center’s signature initiative involved placing paid, climate-focused “fellows” in Democrat-controlled state attorney general offices nationwide as those offices sued the oil industry and other energy providers.”

…Think of it as a cousin to “Zuckerbucks,” where a private entity funds a program that places people in government offices as either quasi- or fully government employees, with a mandate to pursue the NGO’s agenda. The same sort of thing happens with grants to news organizations, where an outside group pays for employees or “coverage” of specific issues, and the stories are still technically the product of the news organization, but the content is directed at producing the results desired by the people who cut the checks.

…James Comer opened an investigation into the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center, and out of the blue, it closed. He sought documents from it, and “poof!” It’s gone.

As these organizations are being investigated, they magically disappear.

The article concludes:

The system goes like this:

  • Private money pays for an official function voters did not appropriate.
  • The host office gets free (or cheap) labor and a national network.
  • The donor gets a docket — climate litigation, election administration, progressive prosecution — that would be harder to pass as statute.

Democrats always criticize Republicans when we talk about privatizing some government function to improve efficiency. Their preferred strategy is to privatize government by paying for people to do their bidding using the compulsory powers of government to achieve their own ends. 

I assume that the concept is legal, since it has been happening for a while. But I also assume that much of the stuff that we never see and that gets buried in internal documents in the NGOs is sketchy or illegal, which is why the NYU center suddenly closed down with no notice. 

Next time you hear a liberal talk about “preserving democracy,” this is what they really mean. A government that can be bought for the right price. 

Please follow the link to read the entire article.

Not Surprising Crime Statistics

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On Monday, David Strom at Hot Air posted an article about crime statistics in Denmark. The unlimited migration into European countries from countries that do not share western culture and values has been a disaster.

The article reports:

For years now, Danish crime statistics tell us what we already can intuit from the data we do have: migrants from Muslim countries commit crimes at a vastly higher rate than native-born Europeans, and the statistics indicate that the rates aren’t even close. They are especially represented in the sexual crime statistics, but in just about every category, the differences are remarkable. 

But what most people who support mass migration might be surprised to learn is this: their male descendants are even more likely to commit crimes and are often more likely to be Islamist extremists than their parents. Again, the statistics show the differences aren’t even close. 

The article includes the following:

This is not a good place to be. Countries need to welcome immigrants who want to assimilate into their countries–not change them or ignore their laws. If you look at pictures of Beirut, Lebanon, and Tehran, Iran, from the 1960’s, you realize how quickly a country’s culture can be taken over. Those two cities used to be places flight attendants loved to travel. Now they are places where women are not allowed to leave the house without a male relative. That is what the Islamists want for Europe and eventually America. That is the reason we need to control our immigration and only allow people into America who want to become Americans.

A Very Good Question

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On Saturday, Legal Insurrection posted the following headline:

If Illegals Aren’t Receiving Federal Medicaid Benefits, Why Are Blue States Suing to Protect Their Data?

The article reports:

Democrats have consistently maintained that while some illegal immigrants receive state-level Medicaid benefits, they do not receive federal Medicaid benefits. If that’s true, then why are Democratic attorneys general from blue states suing the federal government to prevent Medicaid data from being used for immigration enforcement? Are they genuinely concerned about potential violations of privacy laws, or more likely, are they attempting to protect those undocumented immigrants who may, in fact, be enrolled in federal Medicaid programs?

Led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, 20 blue states have filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California alleging that the Trump administration “violated federal privacy laws when it turned over Medicaid data on millions of enrollees to deportation officials last month.”

Among the plaintiffs in the case are Illinois, New York, Minnesota, and Massachusetts, along with fifteen other states. Defendants include Health and Human Services Department Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

The article quotes an article at Hot Air:

HotAir’s David Strom states it plainly:

Democrats are playing a verbal shell game, pointing to federal law to say that Medicaid dollars can’t legally go to illegal aliens, so there is no money to be saved by cutting those funds off. At the same time, they are suing to hide the legal status of recipients to prevent them from facing ICE deportations–in other words, they are illegally spending Medicaid dollars for illegals and want to hide them from the feds.

The narratives don’t have to be consistent, right?

If you were to sit down and analyze what Democrats say to make their arguments on various issues, you would see narrative fails like this all the time. But because the issues are discussed in different contexts, the contradictions don’t stand out to many people.

Viewed from another perspective, if Medicaid benefits for undocumented immigrants are truly only a state issue, then why did this become a matter for the Senate Parliamentarian during consideration of a major federal spending bill? And why was it included in the Senate’s vote-a-rama on Monday, as I discussed here?

As Strom concludes, “The story is always changing to fit the desired result.”

It doesn’t have to make sense. Because they’re Democrats.

Whatever happens with this lawsuit, deportations of illegal criminals will save American taxpayers money.

As Nobel prize-winning economist Milton Friedman once stated, “It’s just obvious you can’t have free immigration and a welfare state.”

Forgetting Their Oath

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According to chron.com:

The CIA oath reads: “I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.” Schooled CIA employees know that the Constitution also defines the role of federal employees: “To establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty.”

On Friday, David Strom posed the following question at Hot Air:

Did the CIA work to rig the 2020 election?

The article notes that there are many ways to rig an election–illegal voters, fraudulent ballots, faulty voting machines, etc., but there is also the matter of spreading disinformation.

The article reports:

I couldn’t say if the 2020 election was stolen–there certainly were irregularities as there always are in elections–because any vote changes or illegal ballots have to be in the right place in the right numbers, and no evidence has been accepted by courts indicating that enough illegal votes to change the results were cast.

But certainly, the election was rigged. Lots of illegal changes to election laws were made without legislative approval, Big Tech censored conservatives based on phony claims, and the media colluded with outside groups to distort the truth or deny facts.

Among the riggers was the CIA, apparently. Not just former CIA agents, about which we already knew, but the CIA as an organization.

At least that is what has been asserted by Judicial Watch, and the evidence on its face supports that conclusion. So Judicial Watch is suing the CIA to force them to divulge what ought to be public information about events near the end of the campaign.

Note the statement “no evidence has been accepted by courts.” This may be the Achilles Heel in the indictments against President Trump. He may force that evidence to be heard in court.

The article concludes:

It issue is that letter that gave cover to Joe Biden when the Hunter Biden laptop, where 50 former intelligence officials claimed that the Hunter Biden laptop “had all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation.”

However deceptive this letter was, in itself, it was perfectly legal and I would oppose censoring it once it was published. It was a low-down dirty trick and it worked, but low-down dirty tricks are generally legal. Of course, media outlets should not have taken their claims at face value in the middle of a campaign, but that is a separate issue.

However, the wrinkle is this: because of the high rank these officials had the CIA had to preapprove the publication of the letter, and the CIA almost certainly knew the laptop was real (as the FBI also did, having had it a year). Further, there is substantial evidence that the CIA helped recruit further signatories for the letter, which would be a definite no-no. The CIA isn’t even supposed to be involved domestically, and certainly shouldn’t get involved in political campaigns.

Did those in the CIA violate their Oath of Office?

Tell Us How You Really Feel

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David Strom posted an article at Hot Air on Thursday titled, “Christopher Wray is a low-down dirty liar and should be gone.” Wow. That’s a strong statement.

The article explains the reason for the headline:

FBI Director Christopher Wray has a habit of lying before Congress.

This is in addition to his running the FBI like a secret police force determined to take down anybody the current regime dislikes.

Last month, during hearings about the government’s surveillance of Catholic Churches in America, Christopher Wray claimed that Richmond memo which called for the surveillance of Catholic Churches was the result of a rogue set of FBI agents who worked alone and didn’t represent a larger movement within the FBI to go after political conservatives. Wray assured us that he was deeply concerned about this and was investigating how it happened. It turns out that his statement was totally false.

The article reports:

That investigation, by the way, was his excuse for withholding information from the committee, including redacting documents and not allowing the agents involved to speak to the committee. In itself, this is a bizarre standard, as there are no criminal charges involved and the Congress is charged with oversight of the Executive Branch. Is it now the case that any time the FBI or any other agency wants to hide information from Congress they can just claim they are “investigating” the matter and will tell Congress nothing?

…So what did Wray lie about specifically?

On July 25 the FBI finally provided the committee with a less-redacted version of that Richmond document. The report says that its information on Catholics was “primarily derived” from an “FBI Richmond contact”; an “FBI Portland liaison contact” who informed on a subject who “gravitated to” traditionalist catholicism; and an “FBI Undercover Employee” who reported on a subject who attended a Catholic church in California.

It also says the FBI’s Los Angeles field office “initiated an investigation” into a subject, and that the Richmond office “[c]oordinated with” FBI Portland to prepare the field report. In other words, this was a widespread bureau effort. Why was this suspicion about religion so widespread at the FBI?

Also troubling is the FBI’s decision to redact the Portland and Los Angeles roles from the original version of the Richmond document it provided Congress in March. In a letter with the less-redacted version, acting assistant FBI director Christopher Dunham said the redactions had been necessary to protect “information specific to ongoing criminal investigations.”

It may be time to scrap the current FBI and start from scratch!

Looking At The Big Picture

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On Wednesday, Hot Air posted an article about the efforts to put President Trump behind bars.

The article is titled:

Why are so many people determined to defend Donald Trump, including me?

The author of the article, David Strom, admits that he does not like President Trump and thinks he is a bad human being, but still defends him.

The article explains a few of the reasons for this:

I ran across a reminder of why I reflexively defend Donald Trump against his critics, despite not liking the guy.

The answer is simple: the people going after him are tyrannical liars, or at the very least so blinded by their hatred that they have abandoned reason. And because they hate Trump with a white-hot passion that outshines the sun they are willing to destroy America.

Donald Trump is their Great Orange Whale, and they are determined to kill him whatever it takes. Law, truth and reason all must bend or be broken if the destruction of Trump is the end result.

The article cites an article by Max Boot titled, “Donald Trump Is Guilty, The only remaining question is what exactly he’s guilty of.” Compare that with the way the political left is reacting to the mounting evidence against President Biden.

The article notes:

Who thinks like that?

Totalitarians, like Soviet Secret Policeman Lavrentiy Beria, who famously said “Show me the man and I will show you the crime” do.

That Max Boot, a prominent neoconservative, could become so twisted that his hatred of Trump that he became a distorted version of a Soviet secret policeman should be amazing, but it is actually quite a common occurrence in the annals of Trump hatred.

Totalitarianism is a small price to pay if Donald Trump is put behind bars.

…What they all have in common is a blindness or indifference to the facts: Donald Trump is many things, but a traitor or insurrectionist he is not.

Moreover, he actually abused his power as president less than most. Perhaps this is so because he was less sophisticated in the ways of Washington than his cosmopolitan predecessor and successor, but the reality is that both Obama and Biden abused the intelligence and justice systems and turned them into their personal Stasi, while Trump did not.

Trump never sent the FBI to raid Hillary Clinton’s or Joe Biden’s house. Guess who did?

Trump SAID “Lock her up,” but left her alone. Biden is actually trying to lock up Trump and has turned the Justice Department into his family’s legal team. His Justice Department just tried to give a plenary “get out of jail free” card to his son by deceiving a judge. Imagine if Trump did such a thing.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It illustrates how warped our media, justice system, and political system has become in recent years.