Pakistan’s support for the Taliban is not surprising. The international community needs to take stock of Pakistan’s moves in the Taliban-led Afghanistan, and to observe how the Pakistan-China nexus will be played out in the war-torn country.
The nexus is already taking root in Afghanistan as witnessed in the coordinated efforts between Islamabad, Beijing, and the Taliban. That is, while Pakistan called the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul “breaking the chains of slavery,” China has endorsed the new “interim government” of the Taliban by calling it a “necessary step” to restore order and “end anarchy.”
Furthermore, on Sept. 8, the Pakistani government led the initiative of organizing a foreign ministers’ meeting on the Afghan issue, which was attended by China, Iran, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. At the meeting, China announced that it would donate 200 million yuan ($31 million) worth of aid, including grains, winter supplies, and COVID-19 vaccines to Afghanistan. Speaking to the G20 foreign ministers via a video link, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi urged for humanitarian assistance to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan without any delay. Besides, Beijing has also expressed its interest in starting investment projects in Afghanistan when the situation becomes conducive.
While China has been quick to make its strategic moves in the war-torn country, it is still too early to gauge how China’s clout will play out in Afghanistan. However, what remains certain is that Afghanistan, under the Taliban, will become the new frontier of the Beijing-Islamabad nexus—further broadening the scope of the ties. This brings the “all-weather friendship” between China and Pakistan into perspective—India’s major concern.
India has always been wary over the “all-weather” ties between China and Pakistan. One of the key factors that bind Beijing and Islamabad is their common interest in the context of sovereignty and territorial dispute with India. This is exemplified by the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the flagship project of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, as known as “One Belt, One Road”) that connects the port city of Gwadar in the province of Balochistan with the Chinese city of Kashgar in the landlocked Xinjiang region. The CPEC violates India’s territorial sovereignty as it passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). However, Beijing dismisses New Delhi’s sovereignty concerns by arguing that the CPEC is an economic project and not aimed at any third country.
With the Taliban back in power in Afghanistan, India will have to face new dimensions of the so-called “two-front” scenario—the Taliban’s ties with China and Pakistan. This situation can be read in three ways. First, the extension of CPEC to Afghanistan will further add to India’s dilemma over Chinese intentions along India’s periphery. Second, China’s increasing affinity with the Taliban will provide a boost to Beijing’s interest to mediate between Afghanistan and Pakistan. And third, if Beijing succeeds in its role, it will try to export the “China model,” which will not be in India’s interest. While Pakistan has always been a concern for India regarding the Taliban, the added China factor will only make matters worse.
Therefore, India’s anxiety over Afghanistan is not just about the Taliban. To quell the risks, India held its first diplomatic talks with the Taliban this month and made it clear that “Afghanistan’s soil should not be used for anti-Indian activities and terrorism in any manner, according to the Ministry of Affairs.
As the uncertainties loom large, New Delhi would have to make difficult and uncomfortable decisions to secure its interests in the Taliban-led Afghanistan. And more specifically, to counter the “all-weather”ties between China and Pakistan as both countries’ interests in Afghanistan have an India quotient.
Chinese state propagandists have wormed their way onto Marxist political NYPD groups.
The New York Police Department’s newly launched hate crime review panel includes Fred Teng, who runs a Chinese Communist Party-linked influence group and has repeatedly praised regime leader Xi Jinping, The National Pulse can reveal.
Teng is one of the five members of the panel, which was inaugurated in April, and will advise the New York Police Department (NYPD) on which crimes should be classified as hate crimes. The group will also advise the District Attorney’s office on the hate crime classification.
Teng, who was born in Shanghai and now resides in New York, has several executives roles at Chinese Communist Party-linked groups including serving as the President of the America China Public Affairs Institute (ACPAI), a visiting professor at the Chinese government-run Sichuan University, and the senior U.S. representative of the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF).
Teng is also the former CEO of China Newsweek, a regime-controlled propaganda magazine based in Beijing under the control of the State Council. Teng has defended the spread of Chinese state-run media in the U.S. in a 2012 BBC article, insisting:
“I think they abide by journalistic guidelines and report their news according to their accuracy, timeliness, proximity and so forth.”
CUSEF was founded by C.H. Tung, the Vice-Chairman of the “highest-ranking entity overseeing” China’s United Front, which the U.S. government identifies as seeking to “to co-opt and neutralize sources of potential opposition to the policies and authority of its ruling Chinese Communist Party” and “influence foreign governments to take actions or adopt positions supportive of Beijing.”
Tung himself has spoken at a 2016 ACPAI event in addition to CUSEF Governor Ronnie Chan, who has spoken for the group three times. ACPAI has also hosted events featuring several Chinese Communist Party officials, Chinese state-run media hosts, and People’s Liberation Army (PLA) leaders
Teng has also met privately with Chinese Communist Party officials such as Consul General Luo Linquan.
In addition to running ACPAI and advising CUSEF, Teng frequently appears on Chinese state-run media outlets in favor of the Chinese Communist Party. In response to Xi’s removal of term limits, which allowed him to lead for life, Teng told China Global Television Network (CGTN) that “I think they are doing a critically good job right now” in reference to the regime.
“In order to carry out the agenda and the reform, we need a continuous leadership,” he added in defense of Xi’s move.
Teng has expressed similar sentiments on i24 News, where he insisted that “most of the people like it because he’s doing a good job” when asked about the cessation of term limits.
“I mean why change someone when they’re doing a good job?” he added in defense of Xi.
How do the Chinese view the plan for President Xi to stay in power indefinitely, @MichelleMakori asks Fred Teng, the president of the America China Public Affairs Institute pic.twitter.com/Dew7U4vEWm
Since the beginning of September, Senate Democrats have been trying to convince the Senate’s nonpartisan referee, the parliamentarian, to allow them to include amnesty for illegal aliens in their reconciliation bill. The parliamentarian shot down the first effort in mid-September; on Wednesday, Democrats were disappointed again after the parliamentarian denied their second push.
The blessing of the current parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, will be necessary because of the peculiar track Democrats are using in the hopes of passing their $3.5 trillion budget that has not received any Republican support.
Specifically, they are using the reconciliation process, a parliamentary procedure added to the Senate’s rule in the early 1970s. The process allows some types of budget bills to pass through the deliberative upper chamber with only a simple majority, bypassing filibuster by opponents altogether. Ultimately, what is allowed under this process is up to MacDonough, whose job it is to protect the rights of both parties.
At a press conference before the parliamentarian made her first ruling, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) indicated that Democrats “believe immigration is a critical element in reconciliation.”
“How many years have we all complained that the immigration system in America is broken and needs to be fixed?” he asked, adding that the last comprehensive immigration reform to come from Congress was passed 35 years ago, signed by President Ronald Reagan.
Under the standing rules of the reconciliation process, provisions in reconciliation bills must have an impact on the federal government’s spending and revenues that is more than “merely incidental.” Durbin argued that the immigration reform “does have a cost associated with it” and was applicable under reconciliation rules.
Democrats to Go to ‘Plan C’
The first effort by Democrats would have allowed around 8 million illegal aliens already in the country to be eligible for amnesty. This second effort was less lofty, and simply sought to change the date that illegal immigrants would be eligible for a pathway to citizenship.
This effort was again denied, a move in line with MacDonough’s track record. During her time in the position, MacDonough has not been shy to kill the priorities of either parties that she considered to be outside the scope of reconciliation.
For example, in 2017, Republicans tried to add a provision to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act—passed through the reconciliation process—that would have repealed restrictions on churches, charitable foundations, and universities that forbade such nonprofits from becoming politically involved or endorsing candidates.
After Democrats took back the majority, MacDonough also put restrictions on what they were permitted to do. In February, the parliamentarian ruled against including a $15 minimum wage in a CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus relief package proposed by President Joe Biden.
In both cases, the majority party tried to convince MacDonough that the provisions were budget-related to little avail.
Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), a proponent of using reconciliation to change immigration law, called MacDonough’s decision “unfortunate.” He explained, “I disagree with … the original principle she’s working from,” referencing her no-excuses attitude to reconciliation.
Still, Menendez indicated that despite the failure of their first two efforts, Democrats would still be making a third push and go to “plan C.” The senator was coy discussing the details, telling a reporter, “It’s for me to know and you to find out.”
Menendez did say, however, “if we don’t have any pathway to some form of status adjustment for the undocumented” that he wouldn’t support provisions designed to help businesses. “We’re not gonna take care of businesses and not take care of the 11 million,” Menendez said of groups of illegal immigrants, including former President Barack Obama’s “Dreamers,” temporary protected status (TPS) holders, agricultural laborers, and essential workers, among others..
But without the acquiescence of the parliamentarian, Menendez and his colleagues will have little choice, given MacDonough’s unilateral control over what is and is not acceptable for reconciliation.
A key immigration focus for Democrats in Congress and the president has been the status of so-called “Dreamers.” This group is comprised of people who entered the United States illegally as children and were granted amnesty under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) a controversial executive order signed by President Barack Obama. Under Democrats’ initial proposal to MacDonough, millions of Dreamers would have received a pathway to citizenship.
The Biden administration has signaled that this is still a key focus.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who runs the department tasked with combatting illegal immigration, said after the ruling, “The Biden-Harris Administration continues to take action to protect Dreamers and recognize their contributions to this country … only Congress can provide permanent protection. I support the inclusion of immigration reform in the reconciliation bill and urge Congress to act swiftly to provide Dreamers the legal status they need and deserve.”
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki also weighed in, saying, “We are committed to getting immigration reform done.” She added, “This, I expect, would renew a look for what the vehicles and options may be.”
Because reconciliation is one of the only ways to get legislation through the Senate on a simple majority, it is for Democrats the only chance to push forward their immigration agenda with no Republican support. Any other piece of legislation is subject to death by filibuster, which can only be ended by the vote of 60 senators.
The bill is currently set for a House vote on Thursday. With this setback, Democrats have mere hours to craft a new proposal if they hope to keep that deadline.
“Well, life is always full of tough choices in the relationship between nations,” saidJohn Kerry, responding to Bloomberg’s David Weston on Sept. 22. Weston had asked him, “What is the process by which one trades off climate against human rights?”
What is wrong with Kerry’s response? For one thing, such a trade-off violates the Genocide Convention of 1948, which requires signatories, such as the United States, to undertake “to prevent and to punish” acts of genocide. China is committing “genocide,” as defined in Article II of the Convention, against Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other Turkic minorities.
Second, Kerry, the U.S. special presidential envoy for climate, was going back on his word. In January, he said that climate was a “critical standalone issue” and promised that other matters “will never be traded for anything that has to do with climate.”
Third, Kerry should know by now that, as a practical matter, no trade-off is possible with a militant communist regime such as the one run by the Communist Party of China.
So why is Kerry now in favor of trade-offs? For one thing, Beijing had told the Biden administration that relations were all or nothing, that there could be no “stove piping” issues as American diplomats traditionally tried to do with their cooperate-where-we-can-and-oppose-where-we-must approach. Chinese leaders, knowing how much Biden wanted an enhanced climate deal, had said there would be no Chinese cooperation on climate without American cooperation across-the-board.
The critical question now is this: What, in addition to the human rights of China’s minorities, is the Biden administration willing to give up to get a climate deal with Beijing?
Democracies tend to deal with each other as Kerry evidently envisions, where cooperation on one issue can lead to warm relations and warm relations can lead to agreement in other areas.
Unfortunately, that is not the way communist states, especially China’s, operate. Kerry’s immediate predecessor as secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, found that out the hard way in February 2009. “We have to continue to press them,” she said in Seoul, before journeying to Beijing, referring to a list of disagreements with the Chinese leadership. “But our pressing on those issues can’t interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis, and the security crises. We have to have a dialogue that leads to an understanding and cooperation on each of those.”
As Laurence Brahm, a China-watcher with close connections then to Beijing, said at the time, China’s leaders were “ecstatic” when they heard Clinton’s words because they signaled that she would not be talking about human rights. Her concession, he said, was a confirmation that the United States “had finally succumbed to a full kowtow before the celestial emperor.”
China did not return Clinton’s gesture of cooperation. On the contrary, Beijing pressed the advantage and went on a bender. The following month, for instance, Chinese craft harassed the USNS Impeccable, an unarmed U.S. Navy reconnaissance vessel, in international waters in the South China Sea and even attacked it, trying to sever its towed sonar array. The Victorious, Impeccable’s sister ship, was subject to extreme harassment in March and May 2009 in the Yellow Sea.
The lesson is clear. Even if one does not care about human rights, it is not productive to ignore China’s atrocities. Although these rights may not be important to Clinton or Kerry, the issue is critically important to an insecure regime like China’s.
China puts its brightest diplomats to work on human rights issues precisely because it knows it has no defense, especially now when Beijing is committing not only genocide but also other crimes against humanity. Mass rape, slavery, torture, and killing of minorities are impossible to justify. When the Biden administration does not talk about these crimes, it relieves great pressure on the Chinese regime.
Ronald Reagan was right: the nature of these regimes does matter. Cooperation between China and the United States, whether over climate change or anything else, is not possible, especially in light of exceedingly belligerent Chinese behavior. We know from the comments of Renmin University’s Di Dongsheng in late November that, with President Donald Trump gone, China’s leaders now feel they can do whatever they want.
Kerry is reinforcing that dangerous Chinese mindset by not talking about human rights. He is surrendering the most important leverage the United States has over China. Even if he thinks he should try to obtain China’s cooperation on climate—a debatable goal—he is going about it the wrong way.
If you want to get Chinese communists to do something, you have to impose great costs. That gives them an incentive to do something to relieve the pain. Offers of cooperation never work for long. Unfortunately, Beijing believes signals of friendship show American weakness.
What makes the Chinese regime such a human rights abuser at home makes it an irresponsible power abroad. By defending the human rights of the Chinese people, Americans are, in a very real sense, also defending their national security.
Virginia’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe argued that parents should not tell schools what to teach, during the final debate before the upcoming Nov. 2 election.
The remark by McAuliffe, who served as governor of Virginia from 2014 to 2018, came after Republican candidate Glenn Youngkins said he believes that parents should be given more say in the decisions of local school districts, including what kind of books their children are exposed to at school.
“What we’ve seen over the course of this last 20 months is our school systems refusing to engage with parents,” Youngkin said. “In fact, in Fairfax County this past week, we watched parents so upset because there was such sexually explicit material in the library they had never seen, it was shocking.”
He then pointed out that McAuliffe in 2016 put down what was known as the “Beloved” bill, a measure that would have made Virginia the first state to require schools to warn parents of sexually explicit content in books, and allow parents to block their children from reading those books.
“You vetoed the bill that would have informed parents that they were there,” Youngkins said to the former governor. “You believe school systems should tell children what to do. I believe parents should be in charge of their kids’ education.”
In response, McAuliffe said that parents would have had the power to remove books from library shelves if the 2016 bill passed.
“It was not that the parents had the right to veto books … also take them off the shelves,” he said. “I’m not going to let parents come into schools and actually take books out and make their own decisions.”
“I stopped the bill and I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach,” McAuliffe added.
The candidates’ comments comes amid ongoing controversies around public education in Virginia, including the incorporation of critical race theory (CRT) in schools, and the Commonwealth’s new model policies encouraging school districts to allow transgender students to use restrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity.
McAuliffe during the first gubernatorial debate on Sept. 16 said individual school boards should be making their own decisions on whether to implement the model policies. Youngkin on Tuesday agreed with McAuliffe’s response, but added that parents should be included in the conversation, and that schools must consider “concepts of safety, privacy, and respect” when making decisions.
When it comes to CRT, McAuliffe reportedly dismissed the concerns as a “right-wing conspiracy” that was “totally made up by Donald Trump.” By contrast, Youngkin said the CRT is a real issue.
“Virginia schools are in a state of chaos because of the left-liberal, progressive agenda that is being ramrodded across the Commonwealth of Virginia,” Youngkin told The Epoch Times earlier this summer. “We kept our schools closed so unnecessarily, and damaged kids across Virginia. We have infused a political agenda of critical race theory into the curriculum, and we are seeing parents stand up across Virginia, and acutely in Loudon County.”
So happy someone else sees the Orwell and Animal Farm in The Woke Joke Making Us Broke [US Patriot]
“Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” — George Orwell, “Animal Farm”
What were we to make of multimillionaire Barack Obama’s 60th birthday bash at his Martha’s Vineyard estate, and the throng of the woke wealthy and their masked helot attendants?
Was socialist Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) suffering for the people when she wore a designer dress to the more than $30,000-a-ticket Met gala? Her entourage needs were certainly well-attended to by masked Morlock servants.
Did the leftist celebrities at the recent Emmy awards gather to discuss opening Malibu beaches to the homeless when the (unmasked) stars virtue-signaled their wokeness?
For answers about these hypocritical wokists, always turn first to George Orwell. In his brief allegorical novella, “Animal Farm,” an array of animal characters—led by the thinking pigs of the farm—staged a revolution, driving out their human overseers.
The anti-human animal comrades started out sounding like zealous Russian Bolsheviks (“four legs good, two legs bad”). But soon they ended up conned by a murderous cult of pigs under a Joseph Stalin-like leader. And so, the revolution became what it once had opposed (“four legs good, two legs better”).
Our own woke, year-zero revolution is now in its second year. Yet last year’s four-legged revolutionaries are already strutting on two legs. They are not just hobnobbing with the “white supremacists” and “capitalists,” but outdoing them in their revolutionary zeal for the rarified privileges of the material good life.
The Marxist co-founder of BLM, Patrisse Cullors, is now on her fourth woke home. She has moved on from the barricades to the security fences of her Topanga Canyon digs in a mostly all-white, all-rich rural paradise—the rewards for revolutionary service.
Professor Ibram X. Kendi has evolved from the edgy revolutionary work of flying all over the country, hawking his Orwellian message of “All racism bad! But some racism good!” Now he has mastered the art of zooming the wannabe woke for his $20,000 an hour avant-garde hectoring.
What of Colin Kaepernick, the mediocre second-string quarterback turned sudden firebrand? He refused to stand for the national anthem and spread his “take a knee” kitsch throughout professional sports.
Kaepernick became a boutique revolutionary multimillionaire. For $12 million a year, he pitches Nike sneakers, often made in Chinese forced-labor camps.
Woke NBA star LeBron James, from his $23 million Brentwood mansion, blasts America for its endless unfairness—in service to his totalitarian Chinese paymasters who will ensure his good life with an eventual lifetime $1 billion payout for hawking their goods.
Our other elite wokists navigating around the revolution are even more cynical. The corporate and Wall Street capitalists feel that a little virtue signaling, showy diversity coordinators, and woke advertising will more or less buy off the latest version of Al-Sharpton-like shake-down artists.
Then there are the trimmers and enablers. These are the wealthy, rich, and the professional classes. They feel—in abstract—absolutely terrible about inequality, but hardly enough in the concrete to mix with the unwashed.
For them, wokism is like party membership in the late ethically bankrupt Soviet Union. It is necessary for peace of mind and good income, but otherwise not an obstacle for the continuance of the privileged, comfortable life.
The more TV news hosts rant about “systemic” this and “supremacy” that, and the more college presidents write stern penance memos to their faculty about “that’s not who we are,” the more they feel not just good about themselves, but relieved of any real obligation to live and socialize with the Other.
As for the self-declared non-white Other, wokism is also a top-down revolution of celebrities, intellectuals, actors, activists, academics, grifters, lawyers, and the upper-middle class and rich. And they are not calling for a Marshall Plan to bring classical education to the inner city. They themselves have little desire to move in or spread their wealth. They rarely mentor others on their shrewd capitalist expertise that made themselves rich.
They are far more cynical than that. The regrettable violence of the street, the 120 days of 2020 looting, death and arson, are the levers of the woke professionals. They fight with the various tribes of the same class and mindset over the slices of the same coveted elite pies. But they bring to the scrap the unspoken cudgel that without greater non-white de facto quotas in comic books, TV commercials, Ivy League faculties and students, symphonies, and sit-coms, then “systemic racism” could once again ignite downtown Portland or Seattle or Baltimore.
Orwell would say of the woke Obamas, Nancy Pelosi, AOC, Bernie Sanders, LeBron James, or Ibram Kendi—and their supposedly unwoke, but similarly rich and privileged enemies—“It was impossible to say which was which.”
The following is an installment in a weekly series of commentary articles by Cameron Arcand, founder of the conservative commentary website Young Not Stupid and a contributor to The Western Journal.
From the moment I arrived at Arizona State University last month, the faculty stressed the importance of diversity and inclusion in the college community.
In fact, ASU’s charter says the school is “measured not by whom we exclude, but rather by whom we include and how they succeed.”
One of the oft-mentioned tenets of this creed is the need to respect others’ political affiliations, and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has given ASU a green light for its First Amendment policies.
But a recent incident shows that although the university promotes ideological diversity on paper, the student body still has work to do when it comes to political tolerance.
A viral video from the “multicultural space” on ASU’s Tempe campus features liberal students arguing with two conservative students.
A woman confronts the conservative men over a laptop sticker that says “Police Lives Matter.”
“What did I do wrong?” the student with the pro-police sticker asks.
“You’re offensive. Police lives matter?” the woman recording the scene says.
WARNING: The following video contains graphic language that some viewers will find offensive.
The argument continues, with the woman saying the men are “making the space uncomfortable.”
“But you’re white!” the woman says. “Do you understand what a multicultural space [is]? It means you’re not being centered.”
“White’s not a culture?” says one of the men, who is wearing a “Did Not Vote For Biden” T-shirt.
“No, it’s not a culture. White is not a culture,” the woman says. “This is the violence that ASU does and this is the type of people that they protect. OK? This white man thinks he can take up our space.”
When one of the students says he’s not racist, the woman responds, “You are racist. Your sticker’s racist.” When he apologizes and says he didn’t mean to offend anyone, another woman says, “But this offends us automatically because these people kill people like me and like us, right? So you’re promoting our murderers.”
In the full video, the two men eventually leave as the situation escalates.
ASU’s dean of students released a statement condemning the altercation.Does the left really value ideological diversity?Yes No Completing this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
“The Dean of Students Office is aware of the incident between a handful of students that was captured in a video circulated on social media. The Dean of Students Office will be discussing it with all involved,” the statement said.
“ASU is a community of more than 100,000 people from all 50 states and more than 150 countries. Differences of opinion are part of the university experience. The university expects respectful dialogue between students in all engagements.”
It’s clear that ASU’s administration is trying to attract and appease left-wing students and faculty, and will likely sweep this incident under the rug.
With that being said, it is undeniable that the university has a significant conservative plurality, making it more reflective of the nature of American politics than many schools.
Let’s be honest: ASU is no University of California, Berkeley, when it comes to leftist hostility.
But this video shows that its political climate leaves a lot to be desired. All students must do a better job respecting the ideological diversity the school claims to value.
The Department of Homeland Security is reportedly preparing for what could be the largest surge of migrants in the nation’s history if Title 42 COVID-19 restrictions are lifted.
DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas asked whether the department was ready for a worst-case scenario of 350,000 to 400,000 immigrants crossing the southern border in October, according to two DHS officials familiar with the conversation, NBC News reported on Thursday.
The number would be up to twice as high as the 200,000-plus illegal immigrants who crossed the southern border in both July and August.
The preparations are underway as a Trump-era policy called Title 42 faces a possible end this week. The rule has allowed Border Patrol to turn away illegal immigrants at the border due to their threat of spreading COVID-19.
On Sept. 16, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled the policy did not give the Biden administration authority to stop migrants from crossing the nation’s southern border. The policy was set to go into effect in 14 days on Sept. 30.
The ruling is under appeal and it is uncertain if it ruling will go into effect.
Concerns have grown as up to 15,000 mostly Haitian migrants gathered under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas, drawing a national spotlight on migrant caravans traveling to America.
In July, a charity in the border town of La Joya, Texas, reportedly rented an entire hotel to house illegal immigrants who tested positive for COVID-19, giving no notification to the local community.
Fox News State Department correspondent Rich Edson tweeted at the time, “Police in La Joya, TX, a Border town, announce a charity has rented an entire hotel here for COVID-positive migrants. They say they only found out when a family, showing symptoms and staying there, ate at a restaurant next door. A customer flagged down a police officer.”
Police in La Joya, TX, a Border town, announce a charity has rented an entire hotel here for COVID-positive migrants. They say they only found out when a family, showing symptoms and staying there, ate at a restaurant next door. A customer flagged down a police officer.
The Securing the Homeland from International Entrants with Life-threatening Diseases, or SHIELD, Act would continue the public health protections enacted in March 2020, according to Fox News.Does the Biden administration care about COVID-19 spreading among migrants?Yes No Completing this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Cruz said, “Title 42 has been an integral and extremely successful measure to protect America’s borders and our people during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
“If the Biden-Harris policy for open borders is intended to reverse the Trump administration’s success in securing our border, encourage illegal immigration and create an unprecedented crisis, it’s certainly working,” he added.
According to a June Axios report, the Biden administration originally wanted to eliminate Title 42 by the end of July.
The number of those apprehended crossing the southern border illegally during fiscal year 2021 that ends today exceeds the population of 11 American states.
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, so far there have been over 1.5 million encounters of people crossing the southwest border through August.
That number will go up by 200,000 or more when September’s encounters are included, if recent trends continue.
The current tally already exceeds the total populations of 11 states, according to 2019 figures, including Hawaii (population: about 1,416,000), New Hampshire, Maine, Montana, Rhode Island, Delaware, South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, Vermont and Wyoming (population: about 579,000).
By comparison, there were just 458,000 encounters in 2020.
CBP Encounters, Southwest Land Border. (Check out those 2021 ‘single adult’ numbers.)
No need to travel to see it ‘first hand’… It’s right there on the freaking website! pic.twitter.com/7G7q1sbaOn
Last week, 26 Republican governors — including border governors Doug Ducey of Arizona and Greg Abbott of Texas — sent an urgent letter to President Joe Biden seeking a meeting to discuss the border crisis within 15 days.
“As chief executives of our states, we request a meeting with you at The White House to bring an end to the national security crisis created by eight months of unenforced borders,” they wrote.Do you think Biden is derelict in his duty to secure the border?Yes No Completing this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
“The months-long surge in illegal crossings has instigated an international humanitarian crisis, spurred a spike in international criminal activity, and opened the floodgates to human traffickers and drug smugglers endangering public health and safety in our states. A crisis that began at our southern border now extends beyond to every state and requires immediate action before the situation worsens,” the governors added.
NEW 🚨 26 GOP Governors Demand Biden End The Border Crisis
“More fentanyl has been seized this fiscal year than the last three years combined—almost 10,500 pounds of fentanyl when only 2 milligrams prove fatal. This is enough to kill seven times the U.S. population,” they further noted.
The governors argued they are doing what they can to mitigate the situation, but that in the end, it is a federal issue.
‘[O]ur Constitution requires that the President must faithfully execute the immigration laws passed by Congress,” they wrote. “Not only has the federal government created a crisis, it has left our states to deal with challenges that only the federal government has a duty to solve.”
Last week, White House press secretary Jen Psakiaccused Republicans of being more interested in making speeches than solving the border crisis.
“There are a lot of Republicans out there giving speeches about how outraged they are about the situation at the border,” she said at Friday’s news briefing, according to a White House transcript. “Not many who are putting forward solutions or steps that we could take. So we’re a little tired of the speeches,” she said.
.@PressSec Jen Psaki: “There are a lot of Republicans out there giving speeches about how outraged they are about the situation at the border. Not many who are putting forward solutions or steps that we could take. So we’re a little tired of the speeches.” pic.twitter.com/ujqfcJOrOX
On Biden’s first day in office, he suspended construction of the border wall and ended former President Donald Trump’s “remain in Mexico” policy for those seeking asylum in the United States, which Republicans have argued triggered the 21-year high surge in border crossings.
In a Newsmax interview this week, James Carafano, a national security expert with the Heritage Foundation who rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel during a 25-year Army career, argued that what happened in Del Rio, Texas, this month with a massing of migrants on the border, has now become part of the playbook for illegal entry into the U.S.
“They’ll just throw a camp up on the border, put thousands of people there and then the Biden team will be so anxious to get it off of the news cycle, they’ll just take those people and ship them right into the interior,” Carafano said.
“Look, we’re going to wind up with not millions, but if we keep this up, ten of millions of people coming in,” he predicted.
Carafano argued that the Biden administration really wants open borders, despite anything officials might say to the contrary.
“They’d like to hide that fact as much as possible from the American people, but at the end of the day, when the open-borders people say, ‘Do this,’ they jump,” he said.
The former West Point professor contended that having an open border, in addition to the unsustainable flow of migrants into the U.S., imperils national security.
“The other key thing is, we have a wide open border. It’s more wide open than it was on 9/11,” he said near the end of the interview, pointing out that the terrorist group al Qaida is reconstituting in Afghanistan and looking to hit the U.S. again.
“So it’s all fun and games, my friends,” Carafano said. “It’s all a big laugh until more people die than died on 9/11, and that’s going to happen, if we don’t do something.”
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki has a habit of responding to difficult questions with sarcasm, condescension or downright snark. Earlier this week, she appeared to get so miffed by a press query that she forgot to mask up.
At the end of her Monday media briefing, Psaki was gathering up her notes to exit the White House briefing room when a reporter — as they are wont to do — shouted a parting question to her about President Joe Biden’s poll numbers.
“The president’s polling continues to collapse–” the reporter began, but Psaki quickly spoke over her.
“I know you like to shout at the end. Next time we’ll do it during the briefing,” she replied in a sarcastic, condescending tone.
Psaki then put on an artificial smile, walked off the stage, and in a voice still dripping with snark, repeated “thanks everyone,” and “thank you so much” before finally leaving the briefing room.
Psaki often appears to work hard to convey the kind of cool and in-control demeanor that made Trump supporters such big fans of White House press secretaries Sarah Sanders and Kayleigh McEnany, who expertly thwarted the attacks of the activist media on a routine basis without batting an eye.
Yet Psaki was clearly bothered by this comment, as she left the stage without obediently remasking as she was finished speaking, as per White House guidelines.
Lately, Psaki has typically paused when she is finished with her briefing to put her mask back on, during which time it is normal for reporters to shout out last-minute questions they’re hoping she’ll answer.Is this another case of Democrats’ double standards?Yes No Completing this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Reporters, of course, remain masked during the whole of the briefings as the White House requires. The guidelines were reimposed over the summer after a brief pause in the practice before the delta variant prompted a fresh wave of COVID scares.
At the time, as The New York Times reported, Psaki said she was prepared to wear masks again, although she does not appear to be required to do so while giving briefings.
When President Donald Trump was in office, he was roundly criticized both for his treatment of the establishment media and his own failure to wear a mask in public.
The Biden administration, for which Psaki is the chief spokeswoman, promised to be the administration that was going to play by the rules and respect our nation’s free press.
And here Psaki is, throwing shade at reporters and forsaking masks that she herself has insisted are necessary to save lives.
The Democrats seem to genuinely believe that what they expect of everyone else — particularly us plebs in the American public — doesn’t apply to them.
After all, during Monday’s briefing, Psaki had been pressed on a comment that Biden made Friday while meeting with Indian Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in which he’d disparaged the American press on a hot mic and suggested the Indian media was “better behaved.”
As the New York Post reported, several reporters had taken their grievances to Psaki immediately after Biden’s Oval Office meeting with Modi, and Psaki was then grilled about the incident on Monday.
Maybe this was why she was feeling so annoyed with the press pool and distracted to the point that she forgot to dutifully swath her face before leaving the podium.
She’d already fielded a question on why Biden would suggest that the American media is worse than the Indian media when the latter nation ranks 142nd in the world for press freedoms, so perhaps a question on the president’s dropping polling numbers was just too much for her to handle.
Yes, it certainly can’t be easy being the press secretary for the disastrous Biden administration and being expected to live up to all those lofty goals it set for itself by slandering and smearing the unwashed, unmasked masses who criticize the media.
Over the weekend, House Democrats reportedly snuck a provision into the controversial $3.5 trillion “reconciliation” bill that could raise the fines for violating the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate from $14,000 per violation to $70,000 per violation, and “willful” and “repeat” violations of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations could cost some businesses a shocking $700,000 per incident.
“Buried on page 168 of the House Democrats’ 2,465-page mega bill is a tenfold increase in fines for employers that ‘willfully,’ ‘repeatedly,’ or even seriously violate a section of labor law that deals with hazards, death, or serious physical harm to their employees,” Forbes reported Tuesday.
“The increased fines on employers could run as high as $70,000 for serious infractions, and $700,000 for willful or repeated violations—almost three-quarters of a million dollars for each fine,” the outlet noted, adding that if the provision is “enacted into law, vax enforcement could bankrupt non-compliant companies even more quickly than the $14,000 OSHA fine anticipated under Biden’s announced mandate.”
The Biden administration may have begun laying the groundwork for this change over the summer when OSHA “published an emergency Covid-19 rule in the Federal Register taking jurisdiction over and providing justification for Covid-19 being a workplace hazard for healthcare employment.” That jurisdiction currently covers “encouraging” vaccines.
Early in September, Biden announced his 100-or-more employee Covid-19 vaccine mandate and tasked OSHA with drafting an enforcement rule to exert emergency vaccine compliance authority over companies with 100 or more employees.
The legislative provision that passed the Budget Committee raises the OSHA fines for non-compliance 10 times higher – and up to $700,000 for each “willful” or “repeated” violation. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has not announced when the House will vote on the reconciliation bill that includes the new OSHA fines.
If the legislation is enacted, OSHA could levy draconian fines to enforce Biden’s vaccine mandate, a move that could rapidly bankrupt non-compliant companies. The Biden mandate affects employers collectively employing an estimated 80 millionworkers.
The new OSHA regulations are expected to build on the existing “general duty” requirements, which currently demand health care workplaces implement an “infection-control plan developed with worker participation” and mandate “the wearing of masks and respirators,” as well as “Covid-19 screenings at entry points. The current regulation “compels paid time off for employees to get vaccinated or recover from a shot’s side effects.”
OSHA has shown a willingness, particularly in the Biden administration to pursue “willful” violations of this clause. According to Bloomberg Law, “President Joe Biden‘s OSHA, which June 10 released an emergency rule limited to health-care employers, has used the general duty clause against several types of workplaces, from a mobile phone repair shop to a medical clinic. It twice has alleged willful violations, which carry a maximum fine of $136,532.”
The prosecutable “illful” violations included a workplace that specifically did not allow employees to wear masks, and one workplace where a health care provider allegedly continued to work after becoming infected with COVID-19, “passing the virus to co-workers.”
Congress has also been tasked with increasing OSHA’s capacity for enforcing its COVID-19 regulations: the administration’s Biden fiscal 2022 budget requests that “OSHA’s enforcement staff…grow to 1,545 positions in 2022, a 15% increase.”
Former President Barack Obama is getting sick of the Biden administration’s border crisis, even though he will not admit his former vice president is at fault.
In an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Obama called for the reform of the “dysfunctional” system that allows serious incidents like the one in Del Rio, Texas, to occur.
“It’s no secret that we don’t have that. It’s the reason I proposed comprehensive immigration reform. It’s the reason [President] Joe Biden proposed it during his administration, and it’s something that is long overdue,” he told anchor Robin Roberts on Tuesday.
Of course, he gave credit to Biden for his nearly nonexistent efforts to mitigate the crisis at the border, adding that it “is a painful reminder that we don’t have this right yet and we’ve got more work to do.”
“As big-hearted as he is, nobody understands that better than Joe Biden,” the former president said.
“And the question is now: Are we gonna get serious about dealing with this problem in a systemic way, as opposed to these one-offs where we’re constantly reacting to emergencies? And I think that that’s something that every American should wanna put an end to.”
“It is heartbreaking,” he continued, “and it is, I think, one of those situations in which if you have a system that overall is dysfunctional, you are going to get episodes in which what’s happening right in front of you is something that nobody wants.”
Obama said that the reason immigration reform is difficult to discuss is due to Americans’ predisposed compassion towards immigrants.
“Immigration is tough,” he said. “It always has been. Because, on the one hand, I think we are naturally a people that wants to help others.”
The most notable quote from the interview, and one that is sure to frustrate the far-left, was when Obama admitted a nation needs borders.
“At the same time, we’re a nation-state. We have borders. The idea that we can just have open borders is something that, I think, as a practical matter, is unsustainable. The way we solve this problem is to have a smarter, more efficient, more effective immigration system.”
Obama got a mix of issues right and wrong in the interview, and it’s all a result of partisan politics.
He was correct that the United States cannot have open borders, and that humane immigration reform is necessary.
What he got wrong, however, was his conviction that Biden is the right leader to be in charge as the border crisis rages on.
Biden repealed most Trump administration policies and efforts that were effective in deterring migrants from coming across the border illegally, including “Remain in Mexico” and the construction of the border wall.
Obama will never admit it has been the Biden White House’s poor leadership that has perpetuated the border crisis for several months.
Migrants interested in coming to the United States deserve better information and a clear-cut system to make a safe decision for themselves, and Americans are entitled to be in a country with a secure border.
They say when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. When it comes to Vice President Kamala Harris, she can count on energetic admirers in the press who take on the task of making lemonade out of her lemons.
Take Washington Post White House reporter Cleve Wootson Jr., who accentuated the positive in a Sunday story headlined “Handed a pile of no-win issues, Harris builds a network: Gains credit with liberals focused on migration, abortion and the vote.”
One would think that being handed “volatile social issues” such as illegal immigration, abortion and voting rights may be very damaging for Harris. But no! Wootson touted that, “behind the scenes, Harris has been quietly seizing the opportunity to build a liberal national network of dedicated activists that is convinced she embraces its causes.”
Wootson found delighted leftists who appreciate the allyship of Harris. “Advocates invited to the White House, or to Harris’s ceremonial office in the adjacent Eisenhower Executive Office Building, often express appreciation that their opinions and standing are being amplified by a political star.”
Is this reporting? Or merely advertising? Cuddly Cleve has a way with sweet talk.
The story began with Harris meeting with abortion advocate Amy Hagstrom Miller, founder of Whole Women’s Health in Austin, Texas. Miller said she appreciated how Harris would “talk straight to the extreme politicians in this country,” and she meant Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
That’s fascinating. The House of Representatives just passed a bill called the “Women’s Health Protection Act” with 218 of 219 Democrats that is so extreme on untrammeled abortion that it would require states to allow abortions of an unborn baby viable outside the womb if one physician can proclaim that an abortion would protect the woman’s health. An army of Gov. Ralph Northams could make post-birth abortions happen across America.
But sure, tag the anti-abortion Republicans as the “extreme politicians in this country.”
Liberal extremism is no vice in the pursuit of the presidency. Wootson added, “If Harris has a path to the presidency, it is likely to run through an energized liberal base — not, as it did for Biden, through blocs of centrist Democrats and moderate Republicans.”
Political scientist Matthew Wilson argued that Harris doesn’t need to be broadly popular to win the presidency, but can triumph as the “champion of a base cause.”
The Washington Post story noted Harris was “dogged” by Republicans on the issue of “irregular migration.” She was hounded as the “border czar” who wouldn’t go to the border. But when she (sort of) went there in June, to El Paso, it was a triumph with her base.
Fernando Garcia of the left-wing Border Network for Human Rights, a group bearing hashtags such as “#HugsNotWalls,” told Wootson, “I made remarks in regard to not forgetting our history — this border, the U.S.-Mexico border, is the new Ellis Island. And then when she went over and had a press conference at the hangar, she said the same thing.”
Wootson concluded the story by telling readers that an audience with Harris gives activists the proverbial “seat at the table,” and then they will feel they are heard and this will make them more open to “bring about a Harris administration,” whenever Joe Biden isn’t going to be president anymore.
“She’s breaking ground, and Black women will keep fighting and keep supporting her,” said Melanie Campbell of the Black Women’s Roundtable, another leftist collective.
Harris is not exactly holding a pile of press conferences, so almost no one can name her press secretary. But keep an eye out for Wootson. He’s making a good case for himself.
The CEO of Pfizer (market cap: $240.5 billion) is Albert Bourla (2020 compensation package: $21 million). Bourla and his colleagues want your kids to start getting jabbed with his company’s COVID vaccine by Thanksgiving. Triumphant after the Biden administration last week approved Pfizer’s COVID booster shots (estimated global sales: $26 billion), the company is touting study results (preliminary and non-peer-reviewed), which purportedly show “robust” antibody response and “favorable” safety outcomes for children ages 5-11 who received a two-dose combo in clinical trials.
Now, here are some facts all moms and dads must know about Pfizer before they allow their young daughters and sons to be guinea pigs of a profit-maximizing multinational corporation.
Twenty five years ago, Pfizer sent a team to Kano, Nigeria during a meningococcal meningitis outbreak. They conducted an “open label” (unblinded) clinical trial involving 200 children, half of whom were given Pfizer’s new antibiotic Trovan and half of whom received the gold standard treatment, ceftriaxone. Watchdogs noted that Pfizer used substantially lower doses of ceftriaxone to rig the trials in favor of Trovan.
At the time of the Kano trial, Pfizer was pushing for FDA approval of their latest potential billion-dollar cash cow for pediatric use. Eleven Nigerian children died: five after receiving Pfizer’s product and six after receiving lower-than-normal doses of the older drug.
Pay close attention, parents. A Washington Post investigation reported that one 10-year-old girl suffering from meningitis was not taken off experimental Trovan and given standard, proven treatments by Pfizer’s clinical trial operators–when it was clear that her condition was deteriorating. One of her eyes froze. She lost strength, then died. A Nigerian doctor who supervised the studies for Pfizer admitted that his office had “backdated an approval letter” for the human trials, which “may have been written a year after the study had taken place.” Informed consent was undermined by language and education barriers.
One outraged African newspaper demanded that the government “tell us whether our children were used as guinea pigs and, if so, who committed such criminality and who is liable.” After years of protracted litigation with the pharmaceutical behemoth, Nigerian families reached a $75 million out-of-court settlement sealed with a confidentiality clause.
A separate whistleblower lawsuit filed by Pfizer’s former associate medical director for central research and Yale pediatric infectious disease specialist, Juan Walterspiel, alleged that the company fired him in retaliation for warning before and after the deadly Kano fiasco that the study methods were “improper and unsafe.” Walterspiel further claimed that Pfizer had bribed Nigerian officials to continue the study and cut safety corners because “stock options and bonuses were at stake.”
Pfizer tried to suppress Walterspiel’s allegations, but was forced into a settlement after Wikileaks published diplomatic cables showing that Pfizer had attempted to dig up dirt on a Nigerian prosecutor to bully him into dropping lawsuits by state and federal authorities in Africa.
A secret internal Nigerian government report, leaked years after it had been written, concluded that Pfizer violated international law by conducting an “illegal trial of an unregistered drug” and failing to inform children’s parents that the meningitis treatment was experimental. The government panel called the Trovan tragedy a “clear case of exploitation of the ignorant.”
If you think this corruption was all an anomaly, or misunderstood altriuism, or “misinformation,” I encourage you to start doing your own homework before your child’s health and life become just another cost of doing Big Pharma Business.
Search the Internet and PubMed (while you still can) for “Pfizer,” “Celebrex,” “Bextra,” “Geodon,” “Zyvox,” “Lyrica,” and “Neurontin.”
Find out more about why Pfizer paid the largest fine for health care fraud in American history ($2.3 billion) in 2009 to resolve allegations that it illegally caused false claims to be submitted to the government and paid kickbacks to health care providers to induce them to prescribe their products.
Learn more about the nearly 3,000 people who developed suicidal thoughts and severe psychological disorders after taking Pfizer’s smoking cessation drug, Chantix. Pfizer paid out nearly $300 million to settle those cases. Or the nearly 10,000 women who won claims of nearly $1 billion after developing breast cancer linked to Pfizer’s Prempro hormone replacement therapy.
And just remember, parents, that the pandemic profiteers who stand to gain unprecedented, multi-billion-dollar windfalls from endless vaccine boosters administered cradle to grave around the world have the most terrifying man-made immunity ever created: immunity from liability for their corner-cutting, life-endangering business model.
Parents: Protect your children at all costs from Big Pharma so your children’s lives don’t become costs of Big Pharma doing business.
Isolation & Quarantine Team Consultants (PS2) – Non-Permanent – DOH5814
APPLYSalary $3,294.00 – $4,286.00 MonthlyLocation Lewis County – Centralia, WAJob TypeFull Time – Non-PermanentDepartmentDept. of HealthJob NumberDOH5814ClosingContinuous
Update 9/20/2021 – 4:45 pm: Additional information regarding the Isolation and Quarantine facility has been included.
Important Note: As stated in Governor’s Proclamation 21-14, all employees engaging in work for the Department of Health are required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 on or before October 18, 2021. Proof of vaccination will be verified by the Office of Human Resources after an employment offer has been extended and accepted. See vaccine requirement timeline. Please reach out to the Office of Human Resources at HR@doh.wa.gov if you need information on a medical or religious accommodation.Apply early! Application review will be ongoing. Initial review begins September 21, 2021. This recruitment is open and continuous. The hiring authority reserves the right to make a hiring decision and/or to close the recruitment at any time. The mission of the Department of Health (DOH) is to protect and improve the health of people in Washington. The division of Emergency Preparedness and Response (EPR) ensures the agency and its local health, tribal, and medical partners are better prepared to respond to and recover from public health emergencies, major disasters, and terrorist activities that affect the health of the people of Washington State.
The Isolation and Quarantine (I&Q) Section works to decompress hospitals by supporting local and state isolation and quarantine, Alternate Care Facility (ACF), and patient transport (EMS) by partnering with local governments (Tribes, Counties, Cities) and communities, state agencies, and other entities in the event of an emergency.
People who test positive for COVID-19 or who are exposed to someone who tests positive are asked to isolate or quarantine (I & Q) away from other people for 10 to 14 days in order to reduce risk of transmitting the virus to others. Most people are able to isolate or quarantine in their own homes. In Washington State, providing for I & Q is the responsibility of local jurisdictions.
The state Isolation and Quarantine facility was created for individuals who are not Washington residents but are traveling in our state and test positive for COVID-19 or who have been exposed to someone who tests positive and do not have a residence or other location in which to spend their 10-14 day isolation or quarantine period.
Our state facility operates from within a motel in Lewis County. Our team provide a number of different services for our guests. Team members provide transportation to and from the facility in vans that have been altered to separate air flow to protect the driver. There is a nurse on staff who checks guest vitals multiple times per day to ensure that guests whose condition worsens get timely transport to a medical facility for care. Another team member will accompany the nurse on their rounds and take notes for the nurse. Team members provide for all aspects of the guest’s stay to include providing laundry services, delivering hygiene products, delivering ready-made foods or microwaveable foods to the guests. Team members also answer phones, check inventory and keep track of supplies needed to safely operate the facility. Team members receive training in fit and use of personal protection equipment (PPE). In addition, team members may be asked to provide technical assistance to local health jurisdictions or tribal nations on facility operation and performance.
Learn more about Isolation and Quarantine for COVID-19 Under the direction of the Team Lead, these Program Specialist 2 (PS 2) positions are responsible for participating in program planning and evaluation of health service delivery products and identifying needs for personnel, supplies, and activities to support community and state response activities. These positions implement policies and procedures that guide the work of the team. This recruitment will be used to fill three (3) non-permanent full-time Program Specialist 2 positions located within the Division of Emergency Preparedness & Response. These Program Specialist 2 positions are anticipated to last twelve (12) months from date of hire. The duty station for this position is in Centralia, WA at our State Isolation and Quarantine Facility. The facility is staffed 24 hours per day and 7 days per week. Staff may work any or all of the three shifts and may work overtime as needed to ensure adequate staffing of the facility.
About the Department of Health The vision of the Washington State Department of Health (DOH) is equity and optimal health for all. Our mission is to work with others to protect and improve the health of all people in Washington state.
Our Values Good organizations know what they do and how they do it. Great organizations also understand why they do it. Our values are:
Human-centered: We see others as people who matter like we do and take into account their needs, challenges, contributions, and objectives.
Equity: We are committed to fairness and justice to ensure access to services, programs, opportunities, and information for all.
Collaboration: We seek partnership and collaboration to maximize our collective impact. We cannot achieve our vision alone.
Seven Generations: Inspired by Native American culture, we seek wisdom from those who came before us to ensure our current work protects those who will come after us.
Excellence: We strive to demonstrate best practices, high performance, and compelling value in our work every day.
Benefits of Working for DOH Washington is America’s Top State, according to U.S. News (2021), and provides one of the most competitive benefits packages in the nation.
We also offer:
Ahealthy life/work balance by offering flexible schedules and telework options for many positions.
Growth and development opportunities.
A wellness program that offers education, access to healthy food, and fitness classes.
Opportunities to serve your community through meaningful work.
A commitment to diversity and inclusion fosters an inclusive environment that encourages all employees to bring their authentic selves to work.
An Infant at Work Program based on the long-term health values of breastfeeding newborns and infant-parent bonding.
A modernized workplace.
Duties Include
Maintaining the readiness of the facility and equipment which includes ensuring contractors have cleaned the facility adequately. Staff may also be responsible for making beds, doing laundry, and restocking supplies.
Providing direct services to guests of the facility to include check-in, purchasing groceries and supplies for the site and guests, distributing microwavable/readymade meals and or sandwich fix and other resources, and ensuring all guests receive excellent customer service.
Assisting with inventory of resources: tracking PPE, food, and hygiene supplies. Notifying leadership of the need to order more supplies.
Assisting nurses on performing rounds by taking notes.
Maintaining facility cleanliness and processing guest laundry.
Providing guest transport to and from the facility.
Prepping the facility to receive guests, ensuring rooms are stocked and have been properly cleaned.
Providing outreach, education, and training to internal and external stakeholders.
What we’re looking for Our ideal candidate has a driving passion for the work, brings humility to their job and interactions, and understands how their actions affect others. They see the needs and objectives of others and take them into account while achieving their objectives, and they adapt their approach and expectations accordingly. Our ideal candidate is outward even when confronted with others that are not open or collaborative. They demonstrate resilience to model outward behaviors even when stressed or tired.
Required Qualifications
Option 1: Three (3) or more years of demonstrated experience working in public health, healthcare, hospitality, customer service, or a closely related field.
OR
Option 2: An Associate’s degree or higher in public health, healthcare, hospitality, customer service, or closely related field; AND one (1) or more years of experience working in public health, healthcare, hospitality, customer service, or closely related field.
OR
Option 3: A Bachelor’s Degree or higher in public health, healthcare, hospitality, customer service, or related field.
Desired Qualifications
Demonstrated experience dealing with institutional and jurisdictional problems and making independent decisions, as needed.
Knowledge of and experience with working in Emergency Operations Centers and under an ICS structure during actual emergencies, disasters and/or functional/full-scale exercises.
Community health experience.
Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) certification.
Experience as a Home Care Aide.
Application Process Intrigued? Click “Apply” to submit your detailed application profile along with the following:
A cover letter, describing how you meet the qualifications and why you are interested in this position.
A current resume.
Three (3) or more professional references, to be included in your profile. Please include at least one supervisor, peer, and (if you have supervised staff) someone you have supervised or led.
Important Note: Do not attach documents that contain a photo or private information (social security number, year of birth, transcripts, etc.) or documents that are password protected. These documents will not be reviewed and may cause errors within your application when downloaded.
Applicants wishing to claim Veterans Preference should attach a copy of their DD-214 (Member 4 copy), NGB 22, or signed verification of service letter from the United States Department of Veterans Affairs to their application. Please remove or cover any personally identifiable data such as social security numbers and year of birth.
The Washington State Department of Health (DOH) is an equal opportunity employer. DOH strives to create a working environment that is inclusive and respectful. We prohibit discrimination based on race, sex, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, veteran status, political affiliation, genetics, or disability.
This is a position covered by a bargaining unit for which the Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE) is the exclusive representative.
Conditions of Employment/Working Conditions With or without an accommodation, I am willing and able to:
Under the Governor’s Proclamation (21-14), agency employees are required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 on or before October 18, 2021. Proof of vaccination will be verified by the Office of Human Resources after an employment offer has been extended and accepted. Please reach out to the Office of Human Resources at HR@doh.wa.gov if you need information on a medical or religious accommodation.
Legally operate a state owned vehicle in a variety of weather conditions.
Work Sunday – Saturday (days off will vary).
Work weekends and shift work to include days, evenings, and night shift.
Occasionally work more than 40 hours per week and/or to adjust normally scheduled hours, which may include evening and weekends.
Travel as needed to transport guests to and from the facility.
Drive in heavy traffic, on interstate, highways, and within major metropolitan areas anywhere in Western Washington.
Work in a climate controlled I & Q facility office setting.
Work remaining stationary for extended periods of time, with repetitive motions.
Move and/or transport objects weighing up to 40 pounds.
Participate in emergency response activities and when the Agency Activation Center is activated.
Fit tested on N95 masks and wear Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) at all times while in the facility.
The duty station for this position is in Centralia, WA at our State Isolation and Quarantine Facility. The facility is staffed 24 hours per day and 7 days per week. Staff may work any or all of the three shifts and may work overtime as needed to ensure adequate staffing of the facility.
If you have questions, need alternative formats or other assistance please contact Recruitment@doh.wa.gov, or TDD Relay at 1-800-833-6384 or 7-1-1. Technical support is provided by NEOGOV, 855-524-5627 (can’t log in, password or email issues, error messages).
This recruitment may be used to fill other positions of the same job classification across the agency. Once all the position(s) from the recruitment are filled, the recruitment may only be used to fill additional open positions for the next sixty (60) days.
Only applicants who follow the directions and complete the Application Process in-full will have their responses reviewed for consideration.
Sen. Hagerty slams Biden for ignoring sanctions meant to halt pipeline
Sen. Bill Hagerty (R., Tenn.) said that a classified briefing on Wednesday about the contested Nord Stream 2 Russian energy pipeline renewed concerns that the Biden administration is bowing to Russia, which is completing a massive energy project that Republicans worry will solidify Moscow’s grip on Europe’s energy needs.
Hagerty, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told the Washington Free Beacon that information provided by U.S. officials in a classified setting confirmed the Biden administration will continue to ignore congressionally mandated sanctions meant to stymie the completion of Nord Stream 2. Congress, he said, will not sit by as the administration bucks the law.
“The Biden administration continues to ignore mandatory congressional sanctions that would significantly delay and even halt the Nord Stream 2 pipeline,” Hagerty said. “If the Biden administration will not enforce the law in good faith, Congress will need to act very soon to counter Vladimir Putin’s malign influence energy project.”
The Trump administration and Congress held up completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline with sanctions on the companies that were building it. The Biden administration has stopped enforcing the economic penalties, effectively allowing Russia to make the pipeline operational.
“If Putin’s pipeline ever goes online, Russia will further weaponize the flow of energy in Europe in order to coerce Ukraine and other European nations and reduce their sovereignty, and ultimately damage the security and prosperity of the United States and our partners,” Hagerty said, echoing concerns from many other Republicans in the Senate.
Reports indicate that Russia is taking advantage of a massive gas shortage in Europe to force the European Union to expedite approvals for Nord Stream 2. If the pipeline becomes fully active, Russia will essentially control a large portion of Europe’s energy, allowing it to hold supplies hostage to advance its foreign policy goals.
Hagerty also said that Wednesday’s classified briefing left him “with far more questions than answers about the Biden administration’s weak and submissive policy toward Vladimir Putin’s malign influence energy project.”
Nourhan Mesbah faces calls to resign from student Democrats across the country
A College Democrats of America leader is facing pressure to resign after her anti-Semitic tweets resurfaced.
Just one day before Nourhan Mesbah was elected vice president of the College Democrats’ executive board, the national student club’s Jewish Caucus released a screenshot of a 2016 tweet where she blamed Jews for sabotaging Hillary Clinton in a debate against Donald Trump.
“I blame this debate on the yahood,” Mesbah tweeted. “Yahood” is the Arabic word for Jews.
In her tweet, Mesbah tagged Dima Jubara, an acquaintance with a long history of anti-Semitic statements—including one 2016 tweet where she prayed that “God will kill the Jews.” The College Democrats of America Jewish Caucus called on Mesbah to drop out of the race and resign from the organization. College Democrats chapters at George Washington University and American University echoed calls for Mesbah’s resignation and threatened to withdraw from the national organization if it fails to address anti-Semitism within its ranks.
Anti-Semitism is on the rise in the Democratic Party. Reps. Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), and other left-wing members of the Democratic Party are quick to address instances of hatred toward minority groups but have largely ignored hate crimes against Jews, which far exceeded those against Asians, Muslims, and transgender people combined in 2020, according to FBI crime statistics released Sept. 27. House progressives earlier this month successfully lobbied to strip funding from Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system from a defense spending bill.
Mesbah issued an apology but denied her tweets stemmed from hatred toward Jews. She quickly turned to discussing her own experience with bigotry as a “Muslim, immigrant, woman of color.”
“While I take responsibility for my actions, I am hurt by the Islamophobia and xenophobia that continues to unfold,” Mesbah’s statement reads. “The harassment I have faced is never acceptable but unfortunately all too common for Muslim, immigrant women of color who often face bigoted targeting unique to our experience.”
Prior to her election, Mesbah served as College Democrats’ director of inclusivity, diversity, equity, and accountability. Mesbah would have been the first person alerted at the national level if anti-Semitic tweets from College Democrats leadership surfaced.
Mesbah’s predecessor, former College Democrats of America vice president Tasneem Ahmad Al-Michael, also tweeted racial slurs and anti-Semitic comments. In May, he tweeted, “I’m part of the ‘From the river to the sea’ group,” referencing an anti-Semitic phrase that calls for the elimination of the Jewish state.
Two members of College Democrats of America who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon on condition of anonymity said they believe the elected officials will pass anti-Israel resolutions and Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions measures.
“If we insist on zero tolerance for bigotry we have to mean it in every instance, not just when it’s convenient for our own political sensibilities,” one of those members told the Free Beacon. “As a party, Democrats must be clear in our opposition to anti-Semitism and our commitment to the State of Israel.”
League hopes to build ‘baseball ecosystem’ in China
Major League Baseball is expanding its partnership with the Chinese Communist Party, coming at the expense of U.S. jobs and growing Chinese influence over America’s pastime.
The country’s leading propaganda outlet China Daily on Aug. 20 touted the MLB’s attempts to build a “baseball ecosystem” within the country. The league has grown its network to more than 100 Chinese baseball teams in 20 cities, with a growing fanbase of millions. The league’s operations in cahoots with Beijing are not just limited to play—quality U.S. jobs are also at stake. Miken Sports, a baseball equipment brand that provides business to the league, folded a Minnesota production plant and moved its nearly 70 jobs to China.
The league’s interest in exporting jobs and resources to China is drawing fierce rebukes from lawmakers. Rep. Jim Hagedorn (R., Minn.), whose district includes the Miken plant, introduced a resolution on Wednesday obtained by the Washington Free Beacon blasting the MLB for taking away American jobs.
”Baseball is considered to be America’s national pastime, so it is completely outrageous that the MLB has decided to shut down the Miken Sports plant in Caledonia and outsource American jobs to communist China—directly defying the MLB’s position as an American sports league,” Hagedorn said. “Miken has been one of the largest employers in Caledonia for decades, and this community will face major hardships and job losses due to this closure. We are urging the MLB to reverse this decision, purchase products that are made in America, and work to keep these jobs at home.”
The MLB has also tapped savvy business professionals with deep ties to Chinese industry to oversee production. Tony Qi, the managing director of MLB China, leads the league’s operations in China. The MLB tapped Qi to grow activities in China in 2019, citing his work with Chinese state media, tech supergiant Tencent, and other Chinese conglomerates. In an August interview, Qi praised the Chinese government for its cooperation and assistance in establishing the MLB brand in China.
“Government policy is also a huge help,” Qi said. “China is now aiming to let the next generation enjoy various sports, and has implemented a series of preferential policies. So more and more baseball clubs are growing in China. … The baseball environment has changed dramatically since MLB entered the Chinese market.”
The MLB did not return a request for comment. The MLB Players Association did not return a request for comment.
Ambitious efforts from the league come shortly after the MLB appealed to Chinese tech giant Tencent—noted for its surveillance activities, human rights abuses, and ties to the military—to grow its brand. The league signed a three-year contract with the Chinese company in 2021 to stream games across Asia. Chinese state media framed the agreement as a step forward for Sino-American relations, even as the two countries feud over issues such as the genocide of Uyghur Muslims, economic espionage, and military buildup.
The MLB’s cooperation with the Chinese regime also comes amid Beijing’s criticism of American domestic political figures for alleged civil rights abuses. The league moved its All-Star Game from Atlanta to Denver in protest of a voting law signed by Gov. Brian Kemp (R., Ga.), citing the need for the league to express its “values.”
Michael Sobolik, a fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council, said the values expressed by the league more resemble a “cynical PR campaign” than a stand on principle.
“It’s telling that Major League Baseball pulled out of Georgia for the All-Star Game over concerns with voting legislation, but is entirely comfortable with operating in a nation with an ongoing genocide,” Sobolik said. “If your corporate values abroad don’t match your corporate values at home, you aren’t standing on principle; you’re just running a cynical PR campaign. The CCP routinely exploits this inconsistency in U.S. companies eager to access China’s market. Every time American businesses choose their own economic wealth over human rights, they write the Party’s propaganda for them.”
Rep. Drew Ferguson (R., Ga.) told the Free Beacon the MLB is another example of big business “playing politics” and caving to the “woke mob.”
“This year, the MLB along with CEOs from several Fortune 500 companies have decided to start playing politics, picking and choosing where they’ll do business according to the whims of the woke mob,” Ferguson said. “Unfortunately, when it comes to issues of real human rights and genocide, they fall silent. It’s time to hold American organizations and companies accountable for their roles in propping up communist China on the global stage. Congress must set aside partisan politics and stand united against the CCP’s malign influence and activities at home and abroad.”
Mandela Barnes hobnobs in Bay Area with liberal prosecutor Chesa Boudin, state lawmaker who wants to abolish ICE
A Wisconsin Democratic Senate frontrunner held a San Francisco fundraiser with the son of left-wing terrorists and a California state lawmaker who wants to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Mandela Barnes traveled to the Bay Area on Tuesday to hobnob with San Francisco district attorney Chesa Boudin and California state senator Scott Wiener, a photo shared by California Democratic Party vice chair David Campos shows. Boudin—the son of two Weather Underground terrorists who has ended cash bail and repeatedly declined to prosecute serial offenders—faces a recall effort sparked by a murder surge in his city. Wiener, meanwhile, has called for the abolition of ICE, because it is a “force of oppression” that makes “communities less safe.”
Barnes is running to succeed incumbent GOP senator Ron Johnson. While the San Francisco soirée may have helped his coffers, the guest list may not play well with local voters who have helped make him the frontrunner in a crowded primary. In an August Remington Research Group poll, Milwaukee County Democratic primary voters identified “lowering crime and increasing neighborhood safety” as their top issue. That same poll showed Barnes with a 24-point lead in the primary.
Republicans in the swing state have accused Barnes and the rest of the party of being soft on crime. Barnes referenced “overpoliced communities” and refused to distance himself from the “idea behind ‘defund the police'” in a TV Interview. Wisconsin Republicans have pointed to the clip to accuse Barnes of caring “more about appeasing the far left and violent criminals than standing up for public safety.”
Barnes did not return a request for comment.
In addition to Wiener’s efforts to abolish ICE, the Democrat in 2016 called for “[California] & other states to become sanctuary states.” Boudin also campaigned on his intention to hold “zero cooperation with ICE” and prosecute ICE agents. In 2019, he bragged he “helped pioneer San Francisco’s sanctuary city policy.”
Boudin, who served as a translator for the late Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez before taking office, has faced criticism for his failure to charge serial offenders who have gone on to commit heinous crimes.
In January, for example, police arrested 45-year-old Troy McAllister after the San Francisco resident hit and killed two women while drunkenly driving a stolen vehicle through a red light. Months before the tragedy, Boudin’s office offered McAllister a plea agreement for a robbery charge that kept him out of jail. Police went on to arrest McAllister on multiple occasions for drug and theft crimes, but prosecutors did not charge the career criminal.
After the January arrest, assistant district attorney Ryan Kao wrote in a court filing that McAllister’s “pattern of criminality has done nothing but increase over the years” and acknowledged Boudin’s office “missed defendant’s out-of-control spiral while on parole.” San Francisco police admonished Boudin over his role in the incident.
“Had the DA done their job, Mr. McAllister would’ve been in custody and you would not have grieving families,” San Francisco Police Officers Association president Tony Montoya said at the time.
Boudin in 2020 lobbied disgraced former New York governor Andrew Cuomo (D.) to grant clemency to his father, David Gilbert, who faced a 75-year sentence for second-degree murder over his role in a 1981 Brinks truck robbery, which left two police officers and a security guard dead. Boudin’s mother, Kathy Boudin, also participated in the deadly heist. Cuomo granted Gilbert clemency before resigning from office in August.
Barnes became lieutenant governor of Wisconsin in 2019 after serving as a state legislator for four years. While a September poll released by Barnes’s campaign shows him in a tie with Johnson, the Republican has not yet decided to run for reelection.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin should rally Virginia parents over Terry McAuliffe’s statement that teachers’ unions – not parents — have the final say on children’s education.
I think Terry McAuliffe made a huge error in last night’s debate when he asserted that parents really should have no influence on what is taught to their children. This race can break wide open if Glenn Youngkin can focus, in a disciplined way, on rallying every parent and grandparent in the state who believes that parents should have a role in their children’s education. Employing this tactic will drive home the point that the teachers’ unions own McAuliffe. For the Democrats, it is about control and power, not freedom and personal choice.
James O’Neill, previously tapped by Bill de Blasio for Police Commissioner of New York City and his current COVID-19 Senior Advisor, has repeatedly spoken at the America China Public Affairs Institute (ACPAI), which is closely tied to top Chinese Communist Party-linked influence groups seeking to “co-opt and neutralize opposition” to the regime.
O’Neill, who served as the 43rd Police Commissioner from 2016 to 2019, addressed the America China Public Affairs Institute (ACPAI) three times during his tenure, speaking at the “Police Commissioner Luncheon” in August 2016, September 2017, and November2018.
O’NEILL 2018 TWEET.
The ACPAI website reveals the group “strongly supports a Security Partnership between the United States of America and the People’s Republic of China” on areas including “law enforcement cooperation”, “military consultation”, and “pandemic disease control.” Similarly, ACPAI “strongly supports a Mutual Visa Waiver Program between the United States of America and the People’s Republic of China” along with free trade agreements between the two counties.
Fred Teng, the president of ACPAI, doubles as the senior U.S. representative of the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF).
CUSEF was founded by C.H. Tung, the Vice-Chairman of the “highest-ranking entity overseeing” China’s United Front, which the U.S. government identifies as seeking to “to co-opt and neutralize sources of potential opposition to the policies and authority of its ruling Chinese Communist Party” and “influence foreign governments to take actions or adopt positions supportive of Beijing.”
TUNG SPEAKING AT ACPAI.
Tung himself has spoken at a 2016 ACPAI event in addition to CUSEF Governor Ronnie Chan, who has spoken for the group three times. ACPAI has also hosted events featuring several Chinese Communist Party officials including United Nations Ambassadors, Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Vice Ministers, and the Consul General along with Chinese state-run media hosts.
The group has also hosted a “private breakfast forum with Dr. Yao Yunzhu,” who is a retired Major General of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) along with a “Security Partnership Symposium” hosted by the PLA Academy of Military Science.With the help of the aforementioned Chinese Communist Party apparatchiks, ACPAI seeks to “gather our expertise and our network of friends to facilitate a transformational United States-China relation,” according to its mission statement.
“For the twenty-first century, a cooperative partnership with the People’s Republic of China is important and necessary for the United States of America,” it continues.
Despite O’Neill affiliating with the group, de Blasio rehired the former Police Commissioner to serve as a COVID-19 Senior Advisor in April 2020.
“In this role, O’Neill will oversee the supply and distribution of personal protective and medical equipment within New York City hospitals as demand continues to surge due to the COVID-19 crisis. O’Neill will create, operationalize and manage a supply inspection regime within the hospitals to ensure the rapid turnaround of new supplies and verify each hospital is pushing needed equipment to frontline health care workers,” explained the Mayor’s office.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) says that many of the provisions in the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill will reward U.S. adversaries by increasing energy dependence on countries such as China and Russia.
“So, Democrats’ plans would have American families hurting badly. But it’s not even like all the sacrifice would buy some big national advantage. It’s just the opposite. Their proposals would be a huge gift, a huge gift, to adversaries like Russia and China,” McConnell said on the Senate floor on Sept. 28.
The Democrats are in the process of passing trillions of dollars of legislation to fund their climate change and green energy mandates, which would allocate billions for electric vehicles, refitting homes and offices with solar panels, and ending the use of U.S. fossil fuels.
“To give just one example, the Democrats are drafting blunt mandates for more solar panels. Somebody should tell our colleagues that China currently supplies about three-quarters of the world’s solar panels. They’ve also largely cornered the market on some of the necessary raw materials and critical minerals. So, look, if we’re going to borrow money from China to send a windfall right back to Chinese miners and manufacturers? Is that the master plan?”
Chinese coal-fired factories supply more than three-quarters of the world’s polysilicon, which is a key component in most solar panels. The Chinese regime has thousands of coal-burning power plants to meet the demands of the clean energy industries and demands for solar panels.
Chinese workers examine solar panels at a manufacturer of photovoltaic products in Huaibei in China’s Anhui Province, on March 21, 2012. (AP Photo/File)
Supporters of clean energy sources such as solar panels argue that even though panels are produced through the use of coal, emissions are reduced over time because solar panels don’t emit carbon and last almost 30 years.
According to a memorandum (pdf) sent to Democratic senators in August, the Senate Budget Committee recommended an allocation of $67 billion to the House Environment and Public Works Committee as their portion of the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package, to be used for the Clean Energy Technology Accelerator “that would fund low-income solar and other climate-friendly technologies.”
In addition, the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s portion of the budget is $198 billion and will help Democrats reach their climate goals, reaching net-zero emissions economy-wide by no later than 2050.
The $3.5 trillion package will invest “$27.5 billion in a Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund to support the rapid deployment of low- and zero-emission technologies. We also invest in electric vehicles, appliances, and building efficiency rebates, electric transmission, and low-income solar,” said Committee on Energy and Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone Jr. (pdf) during a markup of the bill.
“Also, on the environmental front, we provide $30 billion in funding to fulfill the President’s commitment to replace all lead service lines in drinking water systems, as well as $10 billion for Superfund cleanups, and $5 billion for environmental and climate justice block grants,” Pallone said.
“I’m thrilled by the historic investments we made to fight the climate crisis and create millions of new, good-paying clean energy and manufacturing jobs right here at home,” Pallone said in a statement after the passage of the bill in his committee.
However, Republicans don’t share the Democrats’ desire to replace fossil fuel sources, because they say it will kill U.S. energy independence and lead to higher energy costs for average Americans. They also argue that the United States has reduced its emissions significantly and continues to be a leader in producing clean energy, while countries such as China are one of the biggest carbon emitters.
Smoke billows from smokestacks and a coal-fired generator at a steel factory in China’s Hebei Province, on Nov. 19, 2015. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), the ranking Republican member on the Senate Energy and Natural Resource Committee (ENRC), opposes the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion budget and abrupt shift away from fossil fuels.
“Democrats are trying to jam through a scheme that would impose new costs on the natural gas and electricity that nearly every American family uses to heat and power their homes. This is a tax on all Americans. The House Democrats’ bill will wreak havoc on the nation’s economy, make energy less reliable, and cost thousands of workers—especially those in energy-producing states—their jobs. Congress should reject this dangerous proposal,” Barrasso said in a statement.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), chairman of the ENRC, is one of the only Democrats to argue that ending the use of fossil fuels in the United States will not solve climate problems, as most of the carbon emissions come from countries such as China.
“My concern [about the environment] is basically being realistic and being practical about what’s going on in the world. Within the next 10 years, 90 percent of pollution is going to come from one continent, Asia. And China is going to have 3,500 coal-fired plants. In America, they make you believe we only have 504. There’s 6,600 operating and they’re building another 1,063—none in America,” Manchin said in an August interview on “Face the Nation.”
The West Virginia senator argued that research and development is a more realistic and U.S.-friendly solution to lowering emissions and saving the environment.
“We have $12 billion for carbon capture sequestration. If you don’t do that, you’re not going to save the climate.”
Meanwhile, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told reporters during a Sept. 28 press briefing that there is broad public support and advocacy for the climate change provisions within the budget reconciliation package and President Joe Biden understands the urgency of the matter.
“It is clear the climate crisis is here, and it’s taking its toll. The recent IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] made clear we’ve faced code red for humanity because of the climate crisis. And that is why, inspired by the American people led by our climate champions and President Biden, our Democratic majorities in Congress are taking action,” said Pelosi.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) announce the Green New Deal outside the U.S. Capitol, on Feb. 7, 2019. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
Pelosi said the legislation will create jobs in the green technology sector.
“The president has made this very special to his agenda. He will go to Glasgow wanting to do so with legislation that has passed, that again confirms our commitment to the Paris Accords by honoring our commitment to first emission standards, and then the president, again, has the bill—this is today we’re telling you they’ll build back better for climate.”
However, McConnell said China will be glad the United States is relying on its energy.
“They’ll go roaring by, increasing their prosperity and emissions, no matter what we do. Hurt families helps China. A war on American energy just as the rest of the world is stealing for shortages. This is just one piece of the Democrats’ reckless taxing and spending spree, along with historic tax hikes,” McConnell said.
US Vice President Kamala Harris applauded a student who accused Israel of “ethnic genocide,” saying “your truth cannot be suppressed.”
During a discussion with students about National Voter Registration Day on Tuesday, US Vice President Kamala Harris did not challenge a comment by a student at George Mason University in Virginia who accused Israel of “ethnic genocide” and defended her right to say it.
The student, who identified herself as part-Yemeni, part-Iranian and “not an American,” also expressed outrage at US funding of the Iron Dome.
She said America affects her life “every day” due to military funding it gives to Saudi Arabia and Israel.
“You brought up how the power of the people and demonstrations and organizing is very valuable in America,” she said. “But I see that over the summer there have been protests and demonstrations in astronomical numbers standing with Palestine. But then just a few days ago, there were funds allocated to continue backing Israel, which hurts my heart because it’s ethnic genocide and displacement of people, the same that happened in America, and I’m sure you’re aware of this.”
The student questioned why money was going to Israel and Saudi Arabia instead of to social issues in America.“
The people have spoken very often of what they do need, and I feel like there’s a lack of listening, and I just feel like I need to bring this up because it affects my life and people I really care about’s [sic] life,” she said.
In response, Harris said she was “glad” the student spoke up.
“Your voice, your perspective, your experience, your truth cannot be suppressed, and it must be heard,” she said.
Harris said democracy is strongest when everyone participates and is weakest when anyone is left out.“
That’s not only about being physically present but that your voice is present,” she said. “Our goal should be unity, but not uniformity. Unity should never be at the expense of telling any one person, ‘For the sake of unity, oh you be quiet about that thing.’ That’s not unity. Then we see where that ends up in a healthy debate about the issue.”
Regarding the student’s reference to Middle East policy, Harris said: “We still have healthy debates in our country about what is the right path, and nobody’s voice should be suppressed on that.”
Former US ambassador to Israel David Friedman expressed outrage at Harris’s statements, tweeting: “Shameful. There is truth and there are lies. No one is entitled to their personal truth. This attack on Israel is simply a lie and VPOTUS should have called that out.”
Shameful. There is truth and their are lies. No one is entitled to their personal truth. This attack on Israel is simply a lie and VPOTUS should have called that out.
Harris has consistently expressed support for Israel, telling former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu the US is against the International Criminal Court’s investigation into alleged war crimes by Israel and supporting Israel’s right to defend itself against rockets from the Gaza Strip.In a call with President Isaac Herzog in August, Harris expressed a “strong commitment” to Israel’s security.
But for sheer disassociation from reality, for Biden-level oblivion to the obvious, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas has proved again that she’s difficult to beat.
Jackson, a Houston Democrat who’s spent a quarter-century in Congress — God help us — has a well-deserved reputation for spewing nonsense.
Her remarks can be merely stupid — like when she called for gun control while displaying her utter ignorance about what Democrats love to call “assault weapons.” They can be stupidly dangerous – like when she spread an unfounded story that a white man had murdered a young black girl in Houston two years ago.
But on Wednesday she veered into the land of lunacy during a House Judiciary Committee hearing, making a statement about the Biden administration’s border crisis that literally any thinking American knows to be flat false.
“Let me pronounce to my friends that the border is both sovereign and secure,” Jackson Lee said. “It is obviously subjected to biased and unfair narratives for political purposes.”
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee says that the southern border is actually “sovereign and secure,” claiming that it is “subjected to biased and unfair narratives for political purposes.” pic.twitter.com/QSVLccryFj
If Jackson Lee considers the southern border secure, it’s difficult to imagine what insecure would look like.Will the border disaster hurt Democrats in the 2022 midterms?Yes No Completing this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Would a secure border be witnessing month after month of record numbers of illegal crossings? (The year’s total is projected to be about 1.85 million, according to the Washington Examiner, eclipsing a 20-year record set in 2000.)
Would a secure border require a state government to begin building a wall to defend its own territory because the Democrat in the White House has abdicated his responsibility to the country?
Would a secure border see thousands of illegal immigrants camping out under a bridge until a politically impotent administration allows them into the country — with a wink and a nod and the legal fig leaf of a future court hearing that all parties know will likely be ignored?
More importantly, just about any American with a modicum of interest in the matter would be well aware of the conditions at the border. Just as any American interested in the truth of the matter would be well aware that if there’s anyone using the illegal immigration crisis for political purposes, it’s Jackson Lee’s own Democrats.
(Just ask the Border Patrol agents being railroaded for doing their jobs on spurious accusations of “racism.”)
Jackson Lee clearly doesn’t have much interest in the truth. But it’s entirely possible, given her long record of dubious statements, that she simply lacks the ability to grasp what the rest of the country is seeing.
Regardless, her comments were met with a blizzard of scorn on social media. Rarely has that kind of scorn been so well deserved.
It would be easy to just brand Jackson Lee a liar. After all, she’s a prominent member of a political party that has spent the entirety of the 21st century building its power on lies.
But her brand of untruth goes far beyond the usual Democratic dissembling to nearly being divorced from reality.
Baselessly accusing Border Patrol agents of “racism” is garden-variety leftist lying. It’s doubtful anyone truly believes it, but Democrats keep spitting it out and the establishment media keeps lapping it up. If some innocents happen to get hurt in the process, well, there’s a news cycle to “win.”
Claiming that a border plagued by chaos thanks to Biden’s embrace of illegal immigration is actually “sovereign and secure” is a distortion worthy of the doddering president himself.
A Democrat is going to be in the White House for the next three years. Fortunately, voters have a chance to kick Jackson Lee’s party out of power on Capitol Hill in next November’s midterms.
The entire border debacle — and Democratic lies and delusions about it — should be near the top of the list of targets for Republicans trying to retake Congress.
Jackson Lee’s seat is almost certainly safe, of course. She won re-election in 2020 with 73 percent of the vote. But it shouldn’t be.
Most of her Democratic colleagues aren’t nearly as safe. And they shouldn’t be, either.
Disgraced R&B artist faces life in prison for federal sex crimes
Rep. Danny Davis (D., Ill.) said on Tuesday that disgraced R&B artist R. Kelly, who faces 10 years to life in prison for federal sex crimes, deserves a “second chance” after serving his prison sentence.
“I think he’ll be welcomed back into Chicago as a person who can be redeemed,” Davis told TMZ. “I’m a big believer in what is called second chances.” Kelly was convicted on nine counts of federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges for recruiting women and underage girls for sex.
A Democratic primary challenger to Davis, Kina Collins, accused Davis of “undermining the broader fight for justice” by advocating for Kelly. She called the Illinois Democrat’s words “thoughtless, distasteful, and incredibly disappointing for a man charged with representing thousands of black women and girls in our district.”
Davis later clarified his comments to the Hill and said “Kelly has been accused of criminal acts, gone through a court of law, been convicted, and must serve whatever time the court decides.”
Davis has faced criticism for praising controversial figures before. In 2018, a pro-Israel group reconsidered its endorsement of Davis after the congressman said anti-Semitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan was an “outstanding human being.”
The congressman also urged Kelly to “find peace with his Maker and peace with himself” in prison and to “reconcile with the universe for the acts that he may have committed.”
Prince William County limits public comment amid debate over COVID, woke curricula
Parents are criticizing Virginia’s Prince William County School Board over a rule limiting public comment, a move community members say is an attempt to stifle debate around hot-button issues.
The school board approved changes to its “Citizen Participation” rule during a tumultuous Sept. 15 meeting. The updated rule limits time for public comment to one hour and prohibits attendees from bringing posters or signs into meetings without prior approval from the board.
The rule comes as Prince William County parents and teachers debate COVID-19 policies and “woke” curricula. The changes demonstrate the board’s apathy toward concerned parents and taxpayers, several attendees and concerned community members told the Washington Free Beacon.
“They don’t want to hear from the citizens. They don’t care what we have to say,” Carol Fox, a former Prince William County Public Schools teacher who attended the Sept. 15 meeting, said. “They’re going to run the school how they want to run it, and they don’t care.”
Prince William County is one of several Virginia counties where school board meetings grew contentious throughout the pandemic. Parents in some districts have organized to oust school board members who promote critical race theory or refuse to reopen schools. Fairfax County Public Schools officials cut off one mother from speaking after she began reading graphic material from a novel offered to high school students.
The Prince William County School Board was set to vote on a swath of measures during the Sept. 15 meeting, including changes to guidelines for public comment. While the board was in private session, parents on either side of the critical race theory debate began loudly taunting each other, one attendee told the Free Beacon. Security ended the meeting after local Democratic leader Tonya James began shouting “fuck you” at attendees.
William Deutsch, a former school board member who attended the meeting, said a select few attendees were allowed back into the meeting space for the board to vote on its agenda.
The newly passed rule only allows for one hour of public comment at school board meetings. Half of that time is dedicated to agenda items, leaving only 30 minutes for parents to discuss other issues. During that 30-minute period, only 10 attendees are permitted to speak for three minutes each.
The school board implemented the rule “in order to conduct its business in a timely and orderly fashion,” the final draft of the updated measure states. Those who are not able to speak at meetings due to the time limitation are encouraged to submit their concerns via video message or email.
Deutsch told the Free Beacon he thinks the rule change could give board members the opportunity to tee up a slate of friendly speakers and exclude dissenting voices.
Several attendees at the Sept. 15 meeting said they had gone to debate the district’s coronavirus mitigation strategies and its embrace of critical race theory. Though the school board denies using critical race theory in its curriculum, the district has adopted the Virginia Department of Education’s equity plan. The state’s “Road Map to Equity” cites controversial “antiracist” scholar Ibram X. Kendi and the educational arm of the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center.
Prince William County Public Schools’ equity statement commits district employees to “examine and interrupt beliefs, implicit and explicit biases, policies and/or practices that perpetuate systemic racism and discrimination.”
According to Deutsch, now is not the time for the school board to stifle public comment.
“We’re at a time when there is increasing polarization and division within our school system and it’s up to our leaders to lead by example and listen to the public,” Deutsch told the Free Beacon. “Sadly, the school board has made it clear that they are not willing to listen to the public and shut down viewpoints they disagree with.”
Psychological warfare. Public opinion warfare. Legal warfare.
Known as the “three warfares” doctrine and relatively unknown in the West, these concepts serve as key strategies guiding the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in its quest to win a war against the free world without firing a single shot.
Psychological warfare seeks to demoralize the enemy; public opinion warfare seeks to shape the hearts and minds of the masses; legal warfare seeks to use systems of law to deter enemy attacks.
This explanation was set out in a recently released 650-page report that provides a comprehensive illustration of the Chinese communist regime’s global influence operations. The French-language report was published by the Institute for Strategic Studies of Military Schools (IRSEM), an independent agency affiliated with the French Ministry of Armed Forces.
Combined with another key CCP doctrine called “United Front” work, these principles have undergirded a breathtaking campaign by the Chinese regime to expand its influence and infiltration into Western democracies, the report stated.
United Front, described by the CCP’s first leader Mao Zedong as a “magic weapon,” is a policy that, according to the report, involves the regime “eliminating its internal and external enemies, controlling groups that may challenge its authority, building a coalition around the Party to serve its interests, and projecting its influence abroad.”
The report comes amid rising pushback from the West against CCP aggressions, including its severe human rights abuses, rampant theft of intellectual property, economic coercion, and military assertiveness.
Sweeping Effort
Guided by such strategies, the Chinese regime has built a sprawling infrastructure with global reach consisting of a broad network of state and non-state actors to execute its plans.
According to IRSEM, Beijing’s influence operations abroad have two main objectives: “to seduce and subjugate foreign audiences by creating a positive narrative of China,” and “above all, to infiltrate and coerce.”
“Infiltration aims to slowly penetrate opposing societies in order to hinder any inclination to act against the interests of the Party,” the report stated.
“Coercion corresponds to the gradual expansion of ‘punitive’ or ‘coercive’ diplomacy to become a policy of systematic sanction against any state, organization, enterprise or individual threatening the interests of the Party.”
Targets of the CCP’s campaigns span the whole spectrum of society. Key battleground areas include education, media, politics, culture, and social media.
United Front Work in Action
Much of Beijing’s overseas United Front efforts are carried out through a “nebulous network of intermediaries” loosely coordinated by CCP bodies, including Chinese embassies and consulates, and the Party’s United Front Work Department, the report stated.
In a 2020 speech, then-Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific affairs David Stilwell said the CCP leverages thousands of overseas groups that carry out political influence operations, suppress dissident movements, gather intelligence, and facilitate the transfer of technology to China.
While some United Front organizations publicly state their affiliation with Beijing, “most try to present themselves as independent, grassroots-type NGOs, cultural-exchange forums, ‘friendship’ associations, chambers of commerce, media outlets, or academic groups,” Stilwell said at the time.
A 2020 investigation by Newsweek found about 600 such groups in the United States.
One of those groups highlighted in the report is the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF).
CUSEF is a Hong Kong-based nonprofit headed by billionaire and Chinese regime official Tung Chee-hwa that bills itself as an independent group working to provide U.S.–China dialogues and exchanges. But in reality, it “functions as a de facto front organization for the PRC [People’s Republic of China] government,” the report stated, citing the findings from a 2020 study by Jamestown Foundation, a Washington-based think tank. The group is also registered under the U.S. Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA).
The group has entered into a range of partnerships with a range of prestigious American think tanks and universities, which IRSEM characterized as a bid to “launder” its influence activities. Partners include Johns Hopkins University, the East-West Institute, the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, the Atlantic Council, and the Brookings Institution.
Earlier this year, CUSEF’s ties to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace came under the spotlight during the nomination hearing for CIA Director William Burns. Prior to his nomination, Burns served as president of the think tank. Facing criticism from Republican lawmakers, Burns told the Senate hearing that he had “inherited” Carnegie’s relationship with CUSEF but cut ties with the group “not long after” he began his tenure in 2015. Burns further said he was “increasingly worried about the expansion of Chinese influence operations.”
The group also sponsors many high-level dialogues between CCP officials and U.S. military and political figures, the report stated.
U.S. media have also been targeted by CUSEF. It has organized trips to China for more than 120 journalists from almost 50 U.S. media outlets since 2009, The Epoch Times previously reported.
From 2009 to 2017, CUSEF also hosted a range of dinners and meetings with executives and editors from 35 outlets, including Time magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The New York Times, The Associated Press, and Reuters. The group’s FARA filings described the dinners, hosted by CUSEF founder Tung, as “invaluable for their effectiveness in engaging support from the leaders of the news industry.”
The Epoch Times has reached out to CUSEF for comment.
Repression
Overseas ethnic Chinese populations, even those who aren’t Chinese citizens, find themselves as “priority targets” of Beijing’s influence operations, according to the report. One objective, according to IRSEM, is to control the diaspora such that “they do not represent a threat to power;” the other is to “mobilize them to serve its interests.”
Described by Freedom House as the world’s largest perpetrator of transnational repression, Beijing has targeted a range of overseas-based dissident groups, including Uyghur Muslims, rights activists, Hong Kong democracy proponents, and Falun Gong practitioners.
Victims face physical attacks, threats, surveillance, harassment, and intimidation by Chinese agents or their proxies, in person or online, the advocacy group stated in a February report.
In one extreme example, Freedom House noted the case of Sun Yi, a Falun Gong practitioner who survived imprisonment in the notorious Chinese labor camp Masanjia. Falun Gong is a spiritual practice that has been brutally persecuted by the CCP for more than two decades.
While he was detained, Sun snuck an SOS letter into a Halloween decoration for export. It was later found by an American woman in 2012. He filmed a documentary with undercover footage detailing his experiences and escaped to Indonesia.
In 2017, Sun died of sudden kidney failure. His family said Sun never had kidney problems, and the hospital didn’t give concrete details of his death and rushed to have his body cremated. No autopsy was performed. These circumstances have caused Sun’s supporters to suspect foul play.
PUNTA GORDA, Fla.—To address what Governor Ron DeSantis called a “brazen disregard for federal immigration law” an executive order was signed and a new public safety czar announced on Tuesday.
DeSantis addressed what he called the “Biden border crisis” with his executive order that prohibits state agencies from providing support for the “resettlement of illegal aliens” in Florida.
The governor initiated the order because he says that illegal immigration is taking its toll on taxpayer dollars and overwhelming state agencies.
“This executive order makes it clear that Florida resources will not be used to prop up the failed open border agenda enacted by this administration,” he said.
The executive order (21-223) addresses several things including directing the Department of Children and Families to refuse to renew licenses to facilities that house unaccompanied minors. Then it asks that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement conduct audits of companies in Florida to verify they do not employ illegal aliens.
The second half of the order requires the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to “lawfully gather information on the number and identities of illegal aliens being transported from the border to Florida.” It also encourages state law enforcement to “detain any vehicle transporting illegal aliens if there is reason, suspicions, it is being used for human or drug trafficking.”
The order additionally requests information from state officials “on the number of illegal aliens who are pending criminal prosecution or have been convicted of a crime.”
To ensure that the executive order is followed, DeSantis named Larry Keefe as public safety czar.
“Larry Keefe was nominated by President Trump in 2018 to serve as the United States attorney for the Northern District of Florida,” wrote DeSantis’ press secretary Christina Punshaw in a statement.
“He resigned in February 2021 after Biden took office. Mr. Keefe was a trial lawyer for more than 30 years, during which he has tried criminal and civil cases in federal and state courts.”
DeSantis told reporters during a press conference that Keefe’s appointment is part of the state’s efforts “to protect Florida taxpayers from bearing the burden of reckless immigration policies.”
“We will continue to hold the federal government accountable for refusing to enforce the immigration laws of this country,” he said.
Keefe will serve to ensure the actions directed by the executive order “are carried out.”
The former U.S. Attorney told the press conference that: “I saw illegal aliens that would get deported and come back, and then get deported and come back in an endless cycle.”
“The states, including Florida, bear the brunt of this cycle. Over the coming weeks and months, our state agencies will be addressing the impacts illegal immigration has had on our state,” he said.
Keefe said if “people are illegally in the state, and they have broken (state) laws” they will be punished.
He also made a promise to law enforcement.
“We will support them (law enforcement) when they are attacked,” Keefe said. “And they will be attacked for trying to do their jobs.”
Lee County Sheriff Carmine Mancino said that people come to Florida for the sun as well as other things.
“But they also know that this is a law-and-order state, we will deliver on our end,” he said.
This all follows a letter that DeSantis sent to the Biden administration on Aug. 26, as was reported by The Epoch Times, asking for a meeting seeking more transparency regarding illegals being resettled in Florida. That letter went unanswered, according to DeSantis, which prompted him to act.
Tucked deep into the massive $3.5 trillion spending bill that progressive Democrats hope to ram through Congress is a new plan to put what one writer calls “crippling” fines on businesses that fail to enforce vaccine mandates to the extent the Biden administration wants.
The spending proposal before Congress has the support of a majority of House Democrats, but has so far not won over enough Senate Democrats to allow for passage there, even under a procedural gimmick that would allow the bill to pass with all Republicans opposed.
Although most of the bill is focused on doling out dollars to social programs, on Saturday, a provision was added in a version of the bill that cleared the Budget Committee and went to the House floor, according to Forbes.
The bill now features, on page 168 of its more than 2,400 pages, a change in the schedule of “crippling” fines for employers who are adjudged to have put employees at risk jacks up financial penalties by up to 10 times the level in current law, Forbes’ Adam Andrzejewski wrote.
Instead of fines of up to $7,000 for a serious infraction, an employer could be hit with a fine of up to $70,000.
What the Occupational Health and Safety Administration concludes is a willful or repeated violation could now cost $700,000, up from $70,000.
Over the summer, OSHA issued an “emergency temporary standard” that classified COVID-19 as a workplace hazard for the health care sector, setting the stage for a similar ruling in all workplaces.
Some, like Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy, have already called for pushback against Biden’s rules.
Andrzejewski, a Forbes senior contributor, explained the bottom line.
“If the legislation is enacted, OSHA could levy draconian fines to enforce Biden’s vaccine mandate, a move that could rapidly bankrupt non-compliant companies,” he wrote.
‘The crippling change described on page 168 of the Democrats’ bill isn’t a typo or a clerical error. It was inserted by design and, likely, with the hope that no one would notice before Democrats ram the bill through Congress,” he wrote.
“If this OSHA change becomes law, the Biden administration will force American businesses to choose between vaccinating their employees, testing them weekly for Covid-19, or going bankrupt under crippling OSHA fines.”https://t.co/BFA8sf3bm5
“If enacted, it could bankrupt a whole host of companies that do not believe they should have to comply with the Biden administration’s mandate or harbor the cost of intrusive, weekly tests.”
He said if that provision becomes law, “the Biden administration may force American businesses to choose between vaccinating their employees, testing them weekly for Covid-19, or going bankrupt under crippling OSHA fines.”
If the Democrats in Washington, D.C., have their way, Sen. Rand Paul is going to be a busy man this holiday season.
The Kentucky Republican is famous for his “Festivus Report” every December in which the spending hawk airs his grievances regarding the most ridiculous items the federal government spent money on that year. Last year’s report included lizards on treadmills, studies on whether hot tubs lower stress and yacht subsidies.
Unfortunately, this year will find us with a Democratic president as well as Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate. We’ve already burned through trillions in spending and, if moderate Democrats don’t derail it, we’re about to sign on for $3.5 trillion more via this year’s bloated budget.
And, believe you me, there are some whopping grievances in there that need to be aired, at least if the bill passes in its current form.
It’d be difficult to go through all of the waste in the budget. Paste each sheet of paper from the 2,465-page bill on a wall, throw a dart at it and you’re more likely than not to hit some item of proposed governmental profligacy.
However, if you want some of the most ridiculous provisions of the bill, there are four preposterous uses of taxpayer money hidden in the budget that need to be seen to be believed.
1. “Tree equity”: $3 billion
Equity is every liberal’s favorite word these days. It’s a way of saying “equality of outcome” without the stigma attached to the concept. Any spending item with the term attached should raise a red flag, particularly if it involves trees.
According to Fox Business, the Agriculture Committee earmarked $3 billion to plant trees — but not just anywhere. Instead, the program promises “a priority for projects that increase tree equity.”
The term “tree equity” isn’t defined in the bill, because of course it isn’t. However, Fox Business noted the definition from conservation group American Forests, which says the concept “identifies the cities that can gain the most significant health, economic and climate benefits by increasing tree canopy in places of high need.”
Spending $3B on “tree equity” is the perfect encapsulation of Democrats in 2021. https://t.co/FWPDbd6z8F
There’s plenty of other wasteful environmental spending where that came from; for instance, there’s also a “Civilian Climate Corps” ($7.5 billion) and money for “climate justice” block grants ($5 billion). However, “tree equity” is a fair representation of how much woke spending we can expect.
2. Bias training in health care: $25 million
While not necessarily up there with “tree equity” in terms of the amount of money spent, the $25 million for “anti-discrimination and bias training” in health care is another sign of how misplaced the bill’s priorities are.
According to the New York Post, the budget calls for the Treasury to give the money to nonprofits in order “to develop, disseminate, review, research, and evaluate training for health professionals and all staff who interact with patients to reduce discrimination and bias in the provision of health care, with a focus on maternal health care.”
Wait, maternal? Maternity sounds like a loaded concept when it comes to gender. After all, not all mothers are women, according to the left. Shouldn’t it have been “a focus on health care for birthing persons?” Check your privilege, Democrats. Maybe you can cut off another $25 million to spend on bias training for members of the House of Representatives, because you clearly need it.
3. “High-performance green buildings”: $1 billion
When I first read reports about the budget and the pork that was squeezed into it, I had a strange image in my head of what constituted a “high-performance green building.” I was picturing a house with a huge biodiesel-powered V-8 out back. This, unsurprisingly, turned out to be incorrect.
A so-called high-performance green building is what it sounds like — a building designed to reduce energy consumption. The General Services Administration is getting $1 billion to convert its facilities to this standard, according to the U.K.’s Daily Mail. The process will reportedly take 10 years.
4. Tax enforcement: $78.94 billion
But remember, this whole thing is supposed to cost us nothing. President Joe Biden told us so, after all:
My Build Back Better Agenda costs zero dollars.
Instead of wasting money on tax breaks, loopholes, and tax evasion for big corporations and the wealthy, we can make a once-in-a-generation investment in working America.
So, how’s he going to do this? Not only does it involve raising taxes, it involves giving the Internal Revenue Service $78.94 billion to shake American taxpayers down.
According to Fox Business, among the most controversial outlays would be the nearly $80 billion the IRS would receive for tax enforcement. Because what every American said was that we needed the IRS to be more aggressive when it came to taking our tax dollars.
“Tree equity” is already a cinch for Paul’s Festivus list, assuming it becomes law. Everything else deserves to be, particularly the nearly $80 billion for America’s least-loved federal agency in order to make itself even less lovable. And these are just the worst offenders we’ve found so far. Considering the size of this bill, who knows what else is lurking in there?
YouTube is removing the channels of prominent anti-vaccine activists as part of its new policies to ban videos that claim approved vaccines are “ineffective or dangerous,” according to a new report.
“As part of a new set of policies aimed at cutting down on anti-vaccine content on the Google-owned site, YouTube will ban any videos that claim that commonly used vaccines approved by health authorities are ineffective or dangerous,” the Post reported.
“The company previously blocked videos that made those claims about coronavirus vaccines, but not ones for other vaccines like those for measles or chickenpox,” it added.
YouTube and other social media platforms banned “misinformation” related to COVID-19 during the early months of the coronavirus pandemic. The YouTube ban now extends to other vaccines, seeking to remove content that would increase vaccine hesitancy.
According to Axios, YouTube vice president of global trust and safety Matt Halprin said the video platform would allow personal testimony, such as parents describing their children’s experiences with vaccines, but there would be restrictions.
“If the speaker then goes on to generalize and make calls for all parents not to vaccinate or makes broad claims about vaccines not being safe or effective, that would be removed,” Halprin told Axios.Should Big Tech censor vaccine information?Yes No Completing this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
“In the weeks and months that followed the launch of the COVID-19 vaccine misinformation policy, we observed content and realized that there appeared to be an interaction between general vaccine hesitancy that was being promoted on the platform, and COVID-19 vaccine misinformation,” Halprin said. “We felt like we need to address both.”
YouTube, Facebook and Twitter initially banned certain videos that criticized the coronavirus vaccines in 2020 and YouTube pulled more than 130,000 videos with what it considered misinformation, according to the Post.
Wednesday’s report comes as vaccine requirements are causing widespread controversies across the nation. In the National Basketball Association, for instance, a debate continues regarding whether to impose a league-wide vaccine mandate.
Although league officials reportedly hope to ensure every member of the league receives a COVID vaccine, a strong coalition of NBA players — including many high-profile stars — are opposing any such mandatory requirements.
Among the stars leading the charge are Bradley Beal of the Washington Wizards, Andrew Wiggins of the Golden State Warriors, Jonathan Isaac of the Orlando Magic and, most notably, Kyrie Irving of the Brooklyn Nets.
According to Rolling Stone, many more professional athletes voiced their opinions during a recent annual players’ union summer meeting. The meeting was held to assess the upcoming season’s agenda. High on the list of items to be discussed was a “proposed mandate from the league office that 100 percent of players get vaccinated against COVID-19.”
For numerous players, the idea prompted one simple answer: “Non-starter.”
In addition, dozens of Massachusetts state troopers submitted their resignations to protest Republican Gov. Charlie Baker’s coronavirus vaccine mandate.
Michael Cherven is the president of the State Police Association of Massachusetts, a union that represents 1,800 members of the state police.
On Friday, his union issued a news release expressing disappointment after a judge denied the union’s request to delay the vaccine mandate until it can negotiate for reasonable accommodations, such as a weekly testing option or wearing a mask on the job.
“To date, dozens of troopers have already submitted their resignation paperwork, some of whom plan to return to other departments offering reasonable alternatives such as mask wearing and regular testing,” Cherven said.
“The State Police are already critically short-staffed and acknowledged this by the unprecedented moves which took troopers from specialty units that investigate homicides, terrorism, computer crimes, arsons, gangs, narcotics, and human trafficking, and returned them to uniformed patrol,” he wrote.
For those who think that election audits and integrity investigations are just for conspiracy theorists who still buy into the “big lie,” consider the situation in DeKalb County, Georgia.
DeKalb is the fourth-most populous county in the state and part of the Atlanta metropolitan area. It’s a Democratic stronghold that saw 83 percent of its voters go for Democrat Joe Biden in November. It also could have a serious chain-of-custody issue regarding mail-in ballots put in drop boxes — serious enough that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office has opened an investigation.
Journalist John Solomon, founder of the website Just the News, confirmed the probe on Tuesday, almost a month after the issue was first reported in the Georgia Star News, a local conservative publication. Earlier in September, the county’s elections director was put on an extended leave of absence from her job with no reason given, as The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
“The Secretary of State’s office has opened an investigation into the drop box chain of custody documentation for DeKalb County,” Raffensperger’s office said in a statement, Solomon reported.
“The investigation includes not only whether DeKalb County properly complied with the documentation required by the State Election Board but also whether the actual procedures used by DeKalb adequately protected chain of custody for ballots returned to drop boxes.”
Raffensperger told the Washington Examiner last week that he had opened an investigation into DeKalb County’s election integrity practices because “some information came to us that there was a question about chain of custody,” although this wouldn’t invalidate the votes from DeKalb.
In June, a similar investigation had been launched into Fulton County, home to Atlanta and the state’s most populous county.
On Aug. 30, the Georgia Star News first reported that nearly three-quarters of the absentee ballots retrieved from drop boxes during the 2020 election — 43,907 out of 61,731 — were counted despite violations of the state’s chain of custody rules.
“That rule states absentee ballots placed in drop boxes, ‘shall be immediately transported to the county registrar’ by the two person collection team, which is required to sign a ballot transfer form indicating the number of ballots picked up, the time the ballots were picked up, and the location of the drop box, and that, ‘The county registrar or a designee thereof shall sign the ballot transfer form upon receipt of the ballots from the collection team,’” the Georgia Star’s Laura Baigert reported. [Emphasis in the original.]Do you support election audits?Yes No Completing this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
According to records obtained by the publication, 46 percent of the ballots, totaling 28,194 votes, weren’t documented as being received by the elections registrar until the day after they were collected.
Another 26 percent of ballots, totaling 15,713 votes, had no timestamp at all, the Star News reported.
Raffensperger’s office said most Georgia counties didn’t submit their chain of custody forms for ballots put into drop boxes until January or February, Solomon reported. While it’s found issues with chain of custody documents in other counties, these were mostly rural.
“As we announced earlier this year, Coffee, Grady, and Taylor counties all failed to complete any ballot transfer documents,” Raffensperger’s office said, Solomon reported.
“They were referred for investigation. In Stephens County, the elections director emptied an absentee ballot drop box on her own instead of with the two people that the State Election Board rule required. Stephens County was referred to the Attorney General’s office by the State Election Board.”
Coffee, Grady, Stephens and Taylor counties combined have a little over 100,000 residents, according to demographic data compiled by Cubit. DeKalb, meanwhile, is home to almost 765,000.
There’s also the mysterious case of DeKalb elections director Erica Hamilton’s extended leave of absence. When Atlanta’s WXIA-TV reported on it Sept. 9, it claimed that DeKalb had “mostly avoided the kinds of missteps that made Fulton [County] the epicenter of election contests last year.”
At the time, however, Raffensperger wasn’t publicly investigating the county and the Georgia Star’s report had stayed under the radar.
Furthermore, if you either haven’t been paying attention or forgot about it, Raffensperger isn’t a close ally of former President Donald Trump; the two have attacked each other since the 2020 election, Trump over Raffensperger’s decision to certify the results and Raffensperger over Trump’s stance that the results were illegitimate.
During a rally in Georgia on Saturday, Trump attacked Raffensperger as “incompetent and strange” and said “there’s something wrong with this guy,” according to WXIA. Raffensperger, for his part, told the Washington Examiner Trump had “continued to promote the big lie” and said the former president “knows in his heart that he lost the election.”
In short, this is hardly about the “big lie.” Rather, it’s the fact that, from all appearances, two of Georgia’s biggest counties — Democrat strongholds both — apparently played fast and loose with Georgia law when it came to absentee ballots during the 2020 election.
This isn’t a smoking gun that says Trump won Georgia or that the two Senate seats the Democrats picked up in the state in January runoff elections were the result of election fraud. There’s no evidence that’s the case.
Instead, it’s yet another sign Democrats treat urban boards of election like their own private fiefdoms, playing by their own rules and expecting state officials to shrug off the sloppiness.
In a swing state that could have decided the presidency and definitely decided the balance of power in the Senate, that’s utterly unacceptable — and it’s why election integrity is so crucial.
America’s security agencies under President Joe Biden are opposing the blacklisting of a spin-off firm of the Chinese Communist Party-linked telecommunications firm Huawei.
‘Honor’ – which was sold by Huawei last November to skirt Trump-era sanctions – still retains links to the Chinese Communist Party, as the Shenzhen city government was one of several involved in the consortium that purchased the firm.
The primary purchaser in the $15 billion deal, Digital China, retains ties to Huawei through its partnerships with programs such as cloud computing.
Despite these ties, “key security agencies are divided over whether to place Huawei’s former smartphone company on an export blacklist,” reportsThe Washington Post.
The rift is between the Pentagon and Department of Energy, which support blacklisting the company, and the Commerce and State Department, which oppose it.
“They couldn’t agree on whether a business that Huawei sold last year posed a significant threat to U.S. national security.
Staff members at the Pentagon and Energy Department supported placing the company on the blacklist, while their counterparts at the Commerce Department and State Department opposed it, according to several people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the confidential process.”
Honor’s fate now rests in the hands of political appointees in the Biden regime and may reach the Cabinet level, according to The Washington Post:
“The issue has been appealed to the political-appointee level at the four agencies, according to people familiar with the matter. If they deadlock, the issue can be escalated to the Cabinet level. In the event of a tie there, President Biden would make the final decision.”
The Biden regime’s approach to Huawei is at odds with the Trump administration, which labeled the firm a “national security threat” and Chinese military collaborator. Trump’s State Department also noted Huawei is used as an “instrument not only for making money but also for pursuing the Party-State’s agenda and fulfilling its strategic objectives […] deeply enmeshed in Beijing’s system of oppression at home and its increasingly assertive strategic ambitions globally.”
DEL RIO, Texas—The largest caravan of illegal immigrants to date was, for them, successful. At its height, around Sept. 18, nearly 15,000 mostly Haitian nationals who had primarily been living in Chile or Brazil, were camped under an international bridge in Del Rio, Texas, that had been closed to legitimate trade and travel.
More than 12,400 of the aliens were ultimately released into the United States as the primitive camp was cleared and dismantled, according to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
The majority were given either a notice to appear, which is a date to appear in immigration court, or a notice to report, which is a request to check in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) within 60 days. None were tested for COVID-19.
About 2,000 Haitians were flown back to Haiti during the week, Mayorkas said on Sept. 24. He also said that Border Patrol had apprehended almost 30,000 illegal immigrants in Del Rio during the previous two weeks.
News spread swiftly among the Haitians in Del Rio, and when the first deportation flights landed in Haiti, many of those left under the bridge fled back across the Rio Grande to Acuña, Mexico, to wait out the uncertainty.
All of the Haitians that The Epoch Times spoke to had been living in Chile or Brazil for years before deciding to come to the United States. They all said it wasn’t an option for them to return to Haiti and that they were determined to get into the United States one way or another.
Illegal immigrants take supplies back and forth between Acuna, Mexico, and the United States (far side) across the Rio Grande, the international boundary with Mexico, in Acuna, Mexico, on Sept. 20, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
The southwest Mexican city of Tapachula is the common entry point of the well-worn route for Haitians making the trek north.
After passing through the treacherous Darien jungle from Colombia to Panama, they get help from the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration. Then, they make their way through Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala, before entering Mexico near Tapachula.
Haitians and African nationals have been gathering in Tapachula for years to wait for transit permits or to apply for asylum in Mexico.
In 2019, The Epoch Times reported that more than 5,000 Haitians and Africans were bottlenecked in Tapachula’s immigration center. At the time, it took more than one month to get the required documents, but no one wanted to be caught without legal documents and risk deportation at that stage, so they waited.
However, in mid-September this year, thousands of Haitians left Tapachula, some without legal documentation, and started making their way to the U.S. border, mostly by bus.
“The Mexican government has been very helpful,” Phanel, a Haitian national, told The Epoch Times on Sept. 21 in Acuña, Mexico.
“Legally, they are issuing permits, but some of us didn’t wait for it [in Tapachula]. But still they provided guidance on how to get here.”
Phanel said he had been living in Chile for three years before deciding to come to the United States. He had spent five nights under the bridge in Del Rio with his wife, son, and daughter, before crossing back to Mexico to retrieve groceries.
Another Haitian man who had been living in Chile for several years was looking for a hotel to stay at in Acuña to avoid deportation from the United States.
“I thought I was going to be let in [to the United States], be handed the notice to appear, and right away, look for a job so I can send money back to my family,” he said.
Traditionally, Haitians first made it to Puerto Rico, rather than take the overland route through Latin America. The second-busiest crossing point for Haitians had been the northern U.S. border (604 arrests in 12 years) and the southern border was third, with 473 arrests in 12 years.
But, in 2019, Border Patrol agents in Del Rio started apprehending upward of 1,000 Haitians within a few weeks.
This year, the number of Haitians crossing illegally into Del Rio has been on a sharp upward trend, especially since April, when agents apprehended 514 Haitians. The number grew tenfold to 5,196 in August. September is set to break all records.
Haitians, and others, who crossed the U.S. border illegally have been processed by Border Patrol and are dropped at local NGO Border Humanitarian Coalition to catch a bus to San Antonio or Houston, in Del Rio, Texas, on Sept. 22, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
Policy Incentives
On a policy level, the Biden administration has been lenient on illegal immigrants, including through policy changes that allow most to be released into the United States.
Mayorkas announced on May 22 an extension for Haitians currently eligible under the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program that was put in place after the 2010 earthquake. That allowed Haitians who were already in the United States before the earthquake to stay, as their country was deemed unsafe to return. TPS holders get work permits and are shielded from deportation.
The original 2010 designation was extended several times until the Trump administration announced in January 2018 that Haiti’s designation would end, effective July 22, 2019. Subsequent lawsuits allowed the designation to remain in effect.
On Aug. 3, Mayorkas dramatically increased the number of Haitians eligible for the program by announcing that all Haitians who had made it into the United States by July 29 this year, would now be eligible to apply for TPS.
Former President Barack Obama started the practice of redesignating TPS so people who arrived after the original designation were also covered, said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, a D.C.-based think tank that promotes legal immigration.
“Redesignating … does provide an incentive to get here and then take advantage. You can never be sure that that’s going to happen, but I think it was a reasonable expectation for people that if they got here, the Biden administration would eventually do it again,” Vaughan told The Epoch Times.
“I don’t think the migrants themselves always know the specific policies and what the eligibility criteria are … they just know that people are being allowed to enter and stay here for an indefinite period of time.”
Social media such as Facebook and messaging platforms such as WhatsApp contribute greatly to the rapid spread of information and organizing capacity of large groups of would-be illegal immigrants.
As many as 30,000 Haitians are currently on their way to the border, according to reports received by Del Rio Mayor Bruno Lozano last week.
Thousands of illegal immigrants, mostly Haitians, live in a primitive, makeshift camp under the international bridge that spans the Rio Grande between the U.S. and Mexico while waiting to be detained and processed by Border Patrol, in Del Rio, Texas, on Sept. 21, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
A Warning
Three months before the Haitian crisis, Jon Anfinsen, a Border Patrol agent and national union representative for Del Rio, said he warned the administration to prepare for an overwhelming influx of illegal immigrants. It was a warning cry he said was ignored.
“It was basically recommended that they should start building some kind of facility down here,” Anfinsen told The Epoch Times on Sept. 21.
Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council said, “Not only did they ignore him, they came back and said, ‘We have more efficient ways to handle it.’”
“Now we’re in this situation,” Judd said as he pointed to the squalid conditions under the bridge in Del Rio.
Judd said “there’s no way in the world” that the Department of Homeland Security didn’t know 15,000 Haitians were on their way to the U.S. border.
“We have a very robust intel department. There is no way in the world they could not have prepared. They just didn’t do it,” he said.
Speaking to the media at the White House on Sept. 24, Mayorkas said the situation in Del Rio was unprecedented.
“It is unprecedented for us to see that number of people arrive in one discrete point along the border in such a compacted period of time,” he said.
He reiterated that the criteria for asylum don’t include “economic need, flight from generalized violence” but rather “credible fear of persecution by reason of one’s membership in a particular social group.”
It’s unclear if Haitians who have safely lived in Chile or Brazil for years will be eligible for asylum.
Vice President Kamala Harris was tapped in March to address the border issue and has said her focus is on the “root causes” of illegal immigration.
Mayorkas’s three-part plan is to invest in the countries that people are leaving, to build “safe, orderly, and humane pathways” for migration, and rebuild the asylum system and refugee program.
Vaughan said Congress has been unable to address border security and immigration issues for years.
“Immigration law and policy has been abdicated by Congress, and is now in the hands of the courts and the executive branch,” she said.
The effects of huge numbers of illegal immigrants being released across America will put a “huge burden” on communities, she said.
“[The communities] are going to have to pick up the tab for it—to have these kids in school, for health care. They’re going to be occupying a lot of the affordable housing, they’re going to be trying to work off the books because they don’t have work permits. And they will eventually be accessing all kinds of public welfare programs.”
Haitians who crossed the U.S. border illegally have been processed by Border Patrol and are dropped at local NGO Border Humanitarian Coalition to catch a bus to San Antonio or Houston, in Del Rio, Texas, on Sept. 22, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
Off the Border
As the Haitian nationals poured across the border, Border Patrol was forced to close several highway checkpoints for more than a week in order to send agents to deal with the influx. That left Highway 90—a direct shot from Del Rio to San Antonio—open, as Texas state troopers also left the highways to guard the border.
On Sept. 24, before the checkpoint reopened, Highway 90 kept troopers and local law enforcement tied up with vehicle pursuits and smuggling arrests.
The driver of a stolen pickup truck out of Houston took state troopers and Kinney County deputies on a high-speed chase for several miles, before he careened off the road and smashed through a high game fence. Five illegal aliens were arrested near the truck and the remaining three were located and arrested with the help of the DPS helicopter. Border Patrol took all eight into custody.
The closed Border Patrol highway checkpoint on Highway 90 near Uvalde, Texas, on Sept. 17, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
Within hours of that stop, Kinney County Sheriff’s Deputy Danny Molinar stopped a vehicle suspected of carrying illegal aliens. The driver, a 15-year-old boy, had stolen the car from his father in Cedar Creek, Texas, and was smuggling four Mexican nationals.
The boy is currently in juvenile detention facing four felony counts of human smuggling. A recent law change in Texas has made it easier to prosecute human smugglers by removing the requirement to prove pecuniary gain, or payment, to the smuggler.
“When you look at the resources that are being pulled to the bridge to deal with this, it’s completely and totally depleted the field resources of not just DPS but the Border Patrol,” Judd said.
“And Del Rio, you’ve got close to 240 miles that just is being patrolled by an absolute skeleton crew. And, of course, the cartels are going to exploit that.”
Several days after the fall of Kabul on Aug. 15, President Joe Biden sat for an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. He insisted he had not been advised by his military to leave a small number of troops in Afghanistan to keep the country from falling to the Taliban.
“Your top military advisers warned against withdrawing on this timeline. They wanted you to keep about 2,500 troops,” Stephanopoulos said.
Biden abruptly cut him off. “No they didn’t. It was split. That wasn’t true. That wasn’t true.”
“They didn’t tell you that they wanted troops to stay?” Stephanopoulos asked.
“No, not in terms of whether we were going to get out — in a time frame — all troops. They didn’t argue against that,” the president said.
Stephanopoulos tried again. “Your military advisers did not tell you, ‘No, we should just keep 2,500 troops. It’s been a stable situation for the last several years. We can do that. We can continue to do that’?”
Biden answered: “No. No one said that to me that I can recall.”
FLASHBACK: In August, Biden insisted that “no, no one” advised against his withdrawal timeline.
Today under oath, Generals Milley & McKenzie confirmed they recommended against Biden’s withdrawal timeline and warned him about the impending collapse of the Afghan government. pic.twitter.com/HejzUb5FIf
In addition to the fact that Biden’s remarks didn’t sound particularly convincing, two of his top military advisers contradicted him in testimony before Senate lawmakers on Tuesday morning. And a third testified he was sure the president had “received this input.”
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley and Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, addressed members of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.
Both Milley and McKenzie said they had recommended leaving 2,500 troops in Afghanistan to prevent the Taliban from taking over the country, according to CNN.
Milley told lawmakers: “In the fall of 2020, my analysis was that an accelerated withdrawal without meeting specific and necessary conditions risks losing the substantial gains made in Afghanistan, damaging US worldwide credibility, and could precipitate a general collapse of the Afghan government, resulting in a complete Taliban takeover or general civil war.”
The Joint Chiefs Chair said his view all along was “that we should keep a steady state of 2,500 and it could bounce up to 3,500, maybe, something like that, in order to move toward a negotiated solution.”
McKenzie echoed Milley. According to Fox News, McKenzie told the committee, “I won’t share my personal recommendation to the president, but I will give you my honest opinion and my honest opinion and view shaped my recommendation. And I recommended that we maintain 2,500 troops in Afghanistan.”
“I also have a view that the withdrawal of those forces would lead inevitably to the collapse of the Afghan military forces and eventually the Afghan government,” he added.
To make things worse for the president, Austin was asked if he was certain Biden “received the input” from Milley and McKenzie. Austin replied, “Their input was received by the president and considered by the president for sure.”
It’s abundantly clear: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris ignored the advice from the military and mislead the American people.
Biden’s botched Afghan withdrawal could have been prevented and American lives could have been saved. https://t.co/wUCd3C0xt0
Milley also told the senators, “I think that our credibility with allies and partners around the world, and with adversaries, is being intensely reviewed by them to see which way this is going to go. And I think that ‘damage’ is one word that could be used.”
I think so too.
Notably, both Milley and Austin blamed the Doha agreement negotiated by the Trump administration with the Taliban in February 2020 for a precipitous drop in the morale and the performance of Afghan troops.
This issue was raised when senators questioned why the Biden administration didn’t have a better sense of the limitations of the Afghan forces, according to CNN.
“It’s my judgment that the Doha Agreement did negatively affect the performance of the Afghan forces in particular by some of the actions the government of Afghanistan was required to take as part of that agreement,” McKenzie said. “[The Doha deal] did affect the morale of the Afghan security forces.”
This is more an excuse for poor judgment than a cause of the debacle. Biden has repeatedly blamed the chaotic U.S. exit on the Trump administration’s peace deal with the Taliban.
In fact, The Associated Press explored the veracity of that claim days after the fall of Kabul and found it lacking in substance. Its fact check determined that Biden was not bound by the Doha, Qatar, agreement. The deal contained an “escape clause.”Do you believe that Biden is responsible for the disaster in Afghanistan?Yes No Completing this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
“The U.S. could have withdrawn from the accord if Afghan peace talks failed,” the AP wrote. “They did, but Biden chose to stay in it, although he delayed the complete pullout from May to September.”
Former President Donald Trump and his officials were realistic. In defense of the Trump administration’s efforts, it must be said that they were well aware of the forces they were dealing with. They were always clear that the Taliban would be monitored and “conditions on the ground” would determine the path forward.
All along, Trump warned of significant military retaliation if the Taliban reneged on its obligations.
His administration was criticized for giving legitimacy to a terrorist group, but the Taliban is such a dominant force in the country, how could it have been otherwise? The U.S. and the Afghan government could ignore the group at their peril.
Biden was so determined to get out of Afghanistan that he ignored the most important words in the Doha agreement: “conditions on the ground.”
The Doha deal had not been ratified by Congress and it could and should have been changed as conditions changed. Biden had no problem with changing any other policy and program implemented by the Trump administration.
Milley says putting a specific date on withdrawal went against his advice, says conditions-based approaches are superior.
The other excuse offered by the generals was that the collapse happened so quickly. What they believed would take months occurred over 11 days, they claimed.
The report lists the key events since U.S. Central Command began its formal military drawdown on May 1.
Here are the most relevant developments.
June 22: “Taliban seize Sher Khan border crossing to Tajikistan.”
June 23: “General Milley says 81 district centers are under Taliban control.”
Jun 25: “President Biden meets with President Ghani and High Council for National Reconciliation Chairman Abdullah in Washington, DC.”
July 8: “Taliban capture Islam Qala border crossing in Herat Province, key trade route to Iran.”
July 12: “General Austin Miller relinquishes command of U.S. Forces-Afghanistan and NATO Resolute Support Mission.”
July 12 – 15: “Four media outlets publish maps indicating Taliban control majority of Afghan districts, with many taken since May 1.”
July 14: “Taliban capture border crossing at Kandahar Province’s Spin Boldak, connecting Afghanistan and Pakistan.”
July 17: “High-level Afghan delegation meets with Taliban in Doha to expedite stalled peace talks.”
July 21: “General Milley says Taliban control more than 210 districts [out of a total of approximately 400].”
The report indicates the Taliban was executing a preplanned, systematic takeover of the country, that U.S. military leaders were well aware of it and allowed it to continue.
By June 23, 20 percent of the districts in the country were under Taliban control. Milley told Congress about it.
Exactly four weeks later, on July 21, 50 percent of the districts were held by the Taliban. They had also captured at least three border crossings.
It’s likely the Biden administration knew long before June 23 that the takeover had begun. I would be willing to bet the administration was aware of it in real-time.
But even giving them the benefit of the doubt, officials knew about it for nearly two months rather than the 11 days Milley referred to at the Senate hearing.
The bottom line is that contrary to what Biden told Stephanopoulos, his military advisers recommended that he leave 2,500 troops in Afghanistan. The Biden administration could have torn up the Doha agreement at any time. And Biden officials were aware that the Taliban was sweeping through the country, swallowing up districts for far longer than 11 days.
A lawsuit brought by bartender Dustin Hice alleging CNN anchor Don Lemon inappropriately touched him in a sexually charged assault more than three years ago is expected to make it to a courtroom early next year, according to a Fox News report.
It is the latest such headache for the network, as last week veteran television news producer Shelley Ross accused CNN host Chris Cuomo of sexually harassing her in 2005 when both worked for ABC News. The host of “Cuomo Prime Time” apologized at the time, according to Shelley, and reiterated his apology to The New York Times last week.
The assault and battery suit against Lemon, 55, who is openly gay, hasn’t made it before a judge due to a lengthy discovery process and the coronavirus pandemic, but Hice’s legal team told Fox News Digital it expects the suit to end up in court around January 2022.
Hice, 40, claims Lemon, anchor of “CNN Tonight,” rubbed his own genitals and then put his fingers into Hice’s face at Murf’s Backstreet Tavern in Sag Harbor, New York, in July 2018.
“At such time, Mr. Lemon, who was wearing a pair of shorts, sandals, and a t-shirt, put his hand down the front of his own shorts, and vigorously rubbed his genitalia, removed his hand and shoved his index and middle fingers into Plaintiff’s moustache under Plaintiff’s nose,” the complaint, filed in Suffolk County Court on Aug. 11, 2019, stated.
“Mr. Lemon intensely pushed his fingers against Plaintiff’s face under Plaintiff’s nose, forcing Plaintiff’s head to thrust backward as Defendant repeatedly asked Plaintiff ‘Do you like p**** or d***?’ While saying this, Mr. Lemon continued to shove his fingers into Plaintiff’s face with aggression and hostility.”
George Gounelas, Hice’s former boss, told Fox News last year he witnessed the incident, corroborating his onetime employee’s account of his encounter with Lemon.
“Dustin worked for me as a bartender [and] we went out after work one night. We were standing there and he said, ‘Hey, that’s Don Lemon,’” Gounelas said at the time.
After Lemon allegedly refused Hice’s attempt to get his attention and buy him a drink, Lemon approached Hice and Gounelas sometime later.Is CNN right to stand behind Don Lemon over this allegation?Yes No Completing this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
“Don Lemon has now come around the corner and is standing face to face with us. There is a beam, a pole, in the place. Don’s standing up against the pole, face to face with Dustin, I turn around and I’m standing right there between the two of them,” Gounelas said, noting the alleged incident occurred shortly after.
The complaint went on to note Hice stepped outside the bar after being “emotionally devasted by Mr. Lemon’s demeaning unprovoked and offensive assault. Plaintiff and Mr. Gounelas remained outside for approximately 5 to 10 minutes before Plaintiff was able to collect himself and return to Murf’s,” as the incident left Hice “shocked and humiliated.”
According to Hice, a proposed six-figure payment was offered by Lemon before talks broke down, resulting in the lodging of the formal complaint, the Daily Mail reported.
For his part, Lemon has been adamant he did nothing wrong.
On June 3, 2020, Lemon’s attorney, Caroline Polisi, wrote in a court document that her client is “often subjected to racist and homophobic harassment” and “strangers” often approach him in public, at “times intrusively and repeatedly,” as reported last year by Fox News.
She called Hice’s allegations “speculative, hypothetical, unsupported by any reasonably methodology” and “not cognizable as a matter of law.”
“The plaintiff in this lawsuit has previously displayed a pattern of contempt for CNN on his social media accounts,” a CNN spokesperson told Mediaite in 2019.
“This claim follows his unsuccessful threats and demands for an exorbitant amount of money from Don Lemon. Don categorically denies these claims and this matter does not merit any further comment at this time.”
An Instagram post from January 2017 allegedly posted by Hice and obtained by the news website showed him posing in front of CNN’s Atlanta headquarters with the caption, “touring the #CNN center today … or as #Trump would say ‘the home of Fake News’ lol.”
The allegations against Lemon and Cuomo follow on the heels of CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin returning to the network this summer, eight months after being suspended for exposing himself during a Zoom call with colleagues at The New Yorker, where he also worked.
The Biden administration’s repeated release of illegal immigrants has drawn a legal challenge from the state of Florida.
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, a Republican, sued the federal government over its “catch-and-release” policy, which has led to the freeing of over 225,000 illegal immigrants this year.
The lawsuit primarily concerns the treatment of immigrants seeking asylum, which is granted in cases where authorities rule they have a legitimate fear of persecution based on their race, religion, or several other reasons.
Federal law requires the government to detain the asylum seekers until authorities rule on their case. But under President Joe Biden, it has released at least 225,000 illegal immigrants, including asylum seekers, so far, according to Customs and Border Protection data.
“Releasing this many arriving aliens into the interior necessarily means that the government is violating congressional commands in the immigration laws,” the 23-page suit, filed in federal court in Pensacola, states.
“We are seeing dramatic effects at our border. It is an unmitigated crisis based on this president’s refusal to follow federal law. It’s in black and white folks, and it’s not a president’s responsibility to decide whether he agrees with the law. In fact, the head of an executive branch must follow the law,” Moody told reporters during a briefing in Lee County.
Florida has been negatively affected through elevated costs to hold illegal immigrants, officials say.
Florida is asking the court to find the Biden administration’s “catch-and-release” policy unlawful and require defendants to stop enforcing the policy while coming into alignment with requirements set by federal law.
The Biden administration did not respond to a request for comment.
Officials have defended the widespread release of illegal immigrants, claiming the law is being followed because they’re being given notices to appear in court or at an immigration office.
“We remain in touch with them. We monitor them to ensure their appearance in court at the designated time of appearance,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters in Washington last week after the administration released over 12,000 illegal immigrants who were clustered in Del Rio, Texas.
But fewer than 6 in 10 illegal immigrant asylum seekers show up in court, according to Department of Justice data.
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody is seen in a file photograph. (Patrick Semansky/AP Photo)
Florida officials say the Biden administration’s policies are designed to boost immigration numbers and illegal immigration has skyrocketed since the Democrat took office.
Todd Bensman, a senior national security fellow for the Center for Immigration Studies, said the Biden administration has been bypassing what previous administrations did, which was only releasing illegal immigrants when detention facilities were full.
One way the administration is doing that is by using its parole power, which was designed to be used for a small number of cases and only for “urgent humanitarian or significant public benefit.”
“The policy of releasing immigrants into the country on parole is vast, widespread, and historic in its scope,” Bensman told The Epoch Times.
The new suit asks the judge to stop the Biden administration from paroling immigrants without engaging in a case-by-case review.
Also on Tuesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, announced an executive order that bars all Florida agencies under his purview from facilitating illegal immigration and requires state officials to collect information on the costs and scope of illegal immigration in the state.
“Since President Biden took office—which has been less than one year—the Border Patrol has released nearly a quarter-million illegal aliens into the United States,” DeSantis said in a statement. “This executive order makes it clear that Florida resources will not be used to prop up the failed open border agenda enacted by this administration.”
Earlier this month, a 21-foot-tall bronze statue of Robert E. Lee—perhaps the most famous monument to the Confederate general—was removed from Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia. Supporters of the statue’s removal, including Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D), hailed the event as a triumph for racial justice.
The left has decided that Lee, the most recognized and celebrated figure of the Confederacy, is intolerable, a man who should be erased from American history. This maelstrom surrounding Lee has reached a fever pitch in recent years, as the woke movement has grown.
In short, anyone who dares mention Lee at all better demonize him as pure evil or else face the wrath of the progressive mob. This is retroactively imposing cancel culture on the past, while silencing free speech today.
In this context, Allen Guelzo’s newly released biography on the Confederate general, “Robert E. Lee: A Life,” is especially welcome and important.
We need to be able to study history in a mature and unsentimental manner, examining the past honestly and insightfully regardless of the subject matter. Guelzo does this with remarkable success in his new and engaging book.
Guelzo, an award-winning historian and best-selling author, is director of the James Madison Program Initiative on Politics and Statesmanship and senior research scholar in the Council of the Humanities at Princeton University. I had the pleasure to discuss Lee with him on the latest episode of my podcast, “Newt’s World.”
In his book, Guelzo has the audacity to look at Lee objectively, as a man of great consequence who is worth remembering. Yes, Lee committed treason and fought for the Confederacy, which wanted to uphold the institution of slavery. But it would be childish—and the height of folly—to use that as a reason not to study him. Yet, this is precisely what many people are advocating today.
Indeed, we’re witnessing an attack on history from the woke left. In recent years, we’ve seen a relentless effort by progressives not to reexamine America’s history honestly but instead to rewrite and even erase it. This is wrong.
Standing up for history doesn’t mean standing up for the values of Lee or any other flawed person. It means standing up for the fact that they are a significant part of American history and deserve to be studied as part of our nation’s past. And, in the case of Lee, studying the role of slavery and the Civil War helps us better understand America—our scars, where we come from, the ongoing fight for freedom, and how to learn from the past to create a better future.
As Guelzo explains, Lee was a complex figure who had to make tough decisions in situations not of his making. For example, his decision not to accept command of the American Army just before the outbreak of the Civil War was motivated by multiple complicated factors. And Lee didn’t just proceed to join the Confederacy overnight. In fact, he initially remained neutral and wanted to broker a peace settlement to reunite the country over time. He didn’t want secession.
These are important and fascinating bits of history that get lost amid the zealous attempts of the left to erase select aspects of our past.
Lee was also a brilliant military general, a master tactician on the battlefield and the only Confederate commander with a true strategic vision for victory. He’s certainly worth studying for this reason as well.
If we wish to unite as a country and alleviate some of the damaging political polarization that has taken hold, we need to understand who we are. That means Americans must be able to study, confront, and embrace our nation’s history—scars and all—not erase it. A good place to start would be to read Guelzo’s new biography on Robert E. Lee—not to endorse what Lee did, but to recognize he’s more than some caricature and worth remembering.
It would be difficult for the media to be more obsequious toward President Joe Biden, but he’d certainly like them to try.
On Friday, Biden met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House. As they sat down to face questions, the American president was caught on a hot mic giving his opinion of their respective countries’ media.
“I think what we’re going to do is bring in the press. The Indian press is much better behaved than the American press,” Biden said.
“I think, with your permission, you could not answer questions because they won’t ask any questions on point.”
WATCH: President Biden, during meeting with Indian PM Modi:
“The Indian press is much better behaved than the American press…I think, with your permission, you could not answer questions because they won’t ask any questions on point.” pic.twitter.com/VppL7973ma
The hot mic moment took place days after White House staff ordered journalists to leave a joint appearance between Biden and United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson despite the fact Johnson had agreed to take questions.
During a meeting between Biden and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, staff abruptly order journalists to leave. pic.twitter.com/kJ4itX2kU4
As Indian media watchdog Newslaundry pointed out, this probably wasn’t the kind of compliment he wanted to give.Does the media go easy on Biden?Yes No Completing this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
“Modi replied saying that he ‘completely agreed’ with Biden,” Newslaundry reported on Saturday. “It’s worth pointing out here that issues plaguing the freedom of the press under Modi have been well-documented. Since Modi came to power in 2014, he hasn’t held a single press conference except one in 2019 where he refused to answer any questions.”
Not well behaved enough for Modi, but just about right for Biden.
And keep in mind, this is a theme for Biden. Remember back in July, right before Independence Day, when the president was asked at a media briefing about Afghanistan? He literally told a reporter, “I want to talk about happy things, man!”
“Look, it’s Fourth of July. I’m concerned that you guys are asking me questions that I will answer next week, but it’s the holiday weekend,” Biden went on to say. “I’m going to celebrate it. Great things happening.”
Don’t ask Sloppy Joe about Afghanistan. “I want to talk about happy things, man. I’m not going to answer anymore on Afghanistan. It’s the Fourth of July.” pic.twitter.com/NaRhybwyVL
The next month, less-terrific things started happening — namely, the implosion of the Afghan government and the return of Taliban rule in Afghanistan.
On Monday, during a media briefing, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the issue is the media isn’t willing to talk about what Joe wants to talk about.
No, seriously.
Psaki was just confronted by two reporters about Biden asking Indian Prime Minister Modi to not take questions from the American press.
Psaki then embarrassingly justifies the remark by saying sometimes the Press doesn’t ask about what Biden wants to talk about.
“Well, I would note first that he took questions on Friday and he took questions again today. And I think what he said is that they’re not always on point,” Psaki said.
“Now I know that isn’t something that anyone wants to hear in here, but what I think he was conveying is, you know, today he might want to talk about COVID vaccines, some of the questions were about that … Some of the questions are not always about the topic he’s talking about in that day. I don’t think it was meant to be a hard cut at the members of the media, people he’s taken questions from today and on Friday as well.”
The problem is the on-point questions are the important ones, as evidenced by this exchange when Biden walked away from a question about Afghanistan in late August.
Following his remarks on Hurricane Ida, President Joe Biden refused to answer a Bloomberg reporter’s questions on the Afghanistan crisis after saying he would take questions. pic.twitter.com/TXFjedI6Ni
What’s an “on point” question supposed to look like? “Mr. President, what’s your favorite ice cream flavor?” “That’s better. Today, it’s chocolate-chocolate chip.”
But remember the words of White House communications director Kate Bedingfield after the Afghanistan debacle: “The president never shies away from taking questions.”
WH Comms Director Kate Bedingfield: “The president never shies away from taking questions.” pic.twitter.com/KNkSqyCgtU
Except if those questions aren’t “on point” or if you’re not talking “about happy things, man.”
So, media of America, heed Joe Biden’s call. Sure, you may have been scoring a 10-out-of-10 on obsequiousness so far. Remember, though, that Spinal Tap’s amps went up to 11. It’s time to step your game up.
After all, you don’t want to get beat out by India, do you?
Democrats are opening their bag of dirty tricks in a desperate effort to torpedo the candidacy of the Republican running for governor of Virginia, according to a new report.
Axios reported that a group that appears to be attacking Republican Glenn Youngkin from the right is actually bankrolled by Democrats.
Recent ads targeting conservative sections of the western part of the state claim that Youngkin is not a true champion of the Second Amendment.
Although ads from Democrat Terry McAuliffe portray Youngkin as too pro-gun, the ads taken out by the Accountability Virginia PAC use the fact that the National Rifle Association did not endorse Youngkin as fodder for criticism.
Axios found that ActBlue, a Democratic fundraising platform, actually hosts Accountability Virginia’s donation page.
From its bank to the company that makes its advertising buys, Axios found the common thread was that all parts of the PAC have Democratic connections.
The ads are “an attempt to undermine Youngkin’s support in western rural areas, where gun ownership is sacred and the Republican has a big lead — as all Republicans do these days,” said Larry Sabato, the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.
Currently, the Real Clear Politics average of polls shows McAuliffe with a 2.9 percentage point lead over Youngkin.
A month ago, however, McAuliffe had a 6 percentage point lead, according to the polling average.
Youngkin was endorsed by former President Donald Trump but has soft-pedaled that support in a state where he will need moderate votes to win.
Trump has said that Youngkin must stop walking that tightrope if he wants to win, according to The Washington Post.
“The only guys that win are the guys that embrace the MAGA movement,” Trump said on the “John Fredericks Radio Show” when speaking of Youngkin.
“When they try to go down a railroad track, you know, ‘Hey, oh yeah, sure, love it, love it. Oh, yeah, love Trump. Love Trump. OK, let’s go, next subject.’ When they do that, nobody, they don’t — they never win. They never win. They have to embrace it,” he said.
Career politician Joe Biden is an epic failure as U.S. president who has made the world a more dangerous place, as evidenced by the numerous domestic and international crises he has unleashed so far in his tenure.
That’s the somber assessment of Republican Rep. Chris Stewart of Utah, who enumerated eight major ways Biden has damaged the United States.
“Among America’s most important allies, there is no longer any trust that President Biden can be relied on as a serious partner,” Stewart wrote in a grim piece published Sunday by The Hill.
“Among America’s most competitive rivals, there is no longer any belief that President Biden can protect our interests. And among the American people, there is no longer any faith that President Biden can defend our most fundamental ideals.”
The 14-year Air Force veteran said Biden has emboldened America’s enemies, betrayed our allies and sold out the American people.
This multi-pronged collapse is a direct result of the 78-year-old Democrat’s toxic policies, which have done the following, according to Stewart:
Energized the Taliban and the terrorist group known ISIS-K.
Emboldened foreign adversaries to take advantage of Biden’s weakness.
Empowered communist China to begin assault drills near Taiwan.
Enabled Russia to ramp up cyberattacks against the U.S.
Obliterated American energy independence.
Ignited soaring inflation, hurting consumers and the economy.
Blamed fellow Americans for the ongoing COVID crisis.
Because of Biden’s botched troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, Stewart wrote, “the Taliban and ISIS-K are unnecessarily emboldened, enriched and energized.”
He continued: “Right now, they are arresting, torturing and killing Afghans who fought alongside American troops for years. The Biden administration has responded by calling these terrorists a ‘strategic partner.’”Should Biden be impeached for failing America?Yes No Completing this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
The congressman wrote that Biden’s Afghanistan debacle set in motion a dangerous cascade of other threats around the world.
“In the immediate wake of the disastrous withdrawal, China began performing assault drills near Taiwan,” Stewart noted. “Every indication is that China will only accelerate its efforts to reclaim the country.”
Stewart also pointed out that Russia increased its cyberattacks on the U.S. “the moment Biden stepped into office.”
“And how did President Biden respond? He cleared the way for a Russian pipeline that will boost our rival’s economy and enhance their ability to manipulate our partners in Western Europe,” Stewart wrote. “This is the type of decision-making that is hamstringing our own interests, both abroad and here at home.”
In contrast, Biden “began his term by going to war against American energy,” Stewart wrote. “He sabotaged the Keystone pipeline, canceled domestic oil and gas leases, rolled back restrictions on Iranian oil sales and more.
“Then, when the price of energy began to rise, as it inevitably would, he even went to our foreign competitors and asked them to increase their production to help cover his mistakes. These decisions destroyed American jobs and empowered our enemies,” Stewart added.
Biden’s reckless economic policies have also ignited “levels of inflation that we haven’t seen in decades,” Stewart wrote.
“The costs of housing, fuel, food and just about every other necessity in your life are all on the rise. This is effectively an additional tax on every American.”
As if that weren’t enough, Biden’s vaccine mandates and oppressive coronavirus restrictions have simply further divided the country.
“He inherited a ready-to-go vaccine program and an economy that was primed to take off,” Stewart wrote. “Still, he has lost the confidence of the American people with arbitrary, baseless, inconsistent guidance.”
The congressman pointed out that shortly before being installed in the White House, Biden insisted that he would not mandate vaccines.
“Now, he’s blaming his fellow Americans and political opponents for the surge of COVID-19 this summer and ordering them to be vaccinated or risk losing their jobs,” Stewart wrote. “President Biden has come a long way from his pledges to unify the country and defeat COVID-19.”
The disastrous past year confirms that Biden is simply not fit for office. He is failing America, damaging her alliances and empowering her enemies. And when the world’s most powerful country is damaged, the world becomes a more dangerous place.
Can the United States endure three more years of this chaos and devastation?
Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton said during an interview on Tuesday that the Democrats’ “reckless” spending bill is going to “cost all Americans,” in contrast with President Joe Biden’s promises to only tax the rich.
“This bill is going to cost all Americans,” Cotton said during a “Fox & Friends” interview regarding the Democrats’ plans to pass $5 trillion in legislation in two new bills.
“They’re going to raise taxes on all kinds of businesses, they’re going to raise taxes on savings, retirement.
“That means that people are going to have fewer jobs, they’re not going to get pay increases. They may not have enough money to put kids in college or to save for retirement,” Cotton added.
The increased costs will not only be for the wealthy but will impact many areas of American life.
“They’re even going to tax cigarettes, Dana, so if you want to pick up a pack of smokes on the way home from the job, you’re going to pay higher taxes on that as well,” Cotton said.
These increases are in addition to increased costs and inflation that have already taken place since Biden has entered office.Should Congress pass the Build Back Better spending bill?Yes No Completing this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
“The American people are already paying every day when they go to the grocery store or the gas pump for the rampant inflation that the reckless Democrats’ spending plans have caused,” Cotton added.
The senator also explained these increased costs are why Democrats are struggling to get the votes needed to pass the legislation.
“So that’s one reason why they’re struggling to find the votes is that they understand just how reckless these spending bills are and how much they’re going to pay for it in the election next year if they go forward with it,” Cotton said.
During the interview, the Arkansas senator also addressed the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that began Tuesday and will examine Biden’s failed withdrawal from Afghanistan. Gen. Mark Milley and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin are slated to testify.
“We also want to explore that terrible drone strike in which 10 innocent civilians were killed, because that reflects going forward in the future exactly how limited our options are for what President Biden calls a so-called over-the-horizon terrorist capability,” Cotton said.
“It should be called more along the lines of over-the-rainbow because our actions are so limited in Afghanistan to protect this country,” he added.
The hearing will address some of the controversies surrounding the departure from Afghanistan, especially regarding the 13 U.S. military personnel who died during a Kabul suicide bombing.
The panel will also more fully discuss the controversial drone strike Cotton mentioned that killed 10 civilians, including seven children.
On Jan. 24, just days after President Joe Biden took office, official CNN Democrat brown-noser Brian Stelter shared a chyron from his television show on Twitter.
“Psaki Promises to Share ‘Accurate Info’ (How Refreshing),” it read. The insinuation, of course, is that there wasn’t any accurate info from the Trump administration — but don’t worry, help was on the way!
Now, as it turns out, there’s a caveat to that refreshing promise: Psaki will be sharing “accurate info” (if often incomplete or misleading), but if President Joe Biden is going to be sharing information, your questions had better be “on point.”
If they’re on a topic he doesn’t like, he’s not going to answer. (Psaki herself will probably promise to “circle back” to whatever the question was at a later date.)
On Friday, Biden met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Before their meeting, however, the president badmouthed the U.S. media and counseled Modi not to take any questions.
“The Indian press is much better behaved than the American press,” Biden told Modi. “I think, with your permission, you could not answer questions because they won’t ask any questions on point.”
WATCH: President Biden, during meeting with Indian PM Modi:
“The Indian press is much better behaved than the American press…I think, with your permission, you could not answer questions because they won’t ask any questions on point.” pic.twitter.com/VppL7973ma
That didn’t seem quite so refreshing, particularly after an incident with U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson earlier in the week when Biden’s staff shooed away reporters in the Oval Office.
During a meeting between Biden and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, staff abruptly order journalists to leave. pic.twitter.com/kJ4itX2kU4
Psaki was called on the carpet by the Washington press corps on Monday, given that reporters weren’t happy at the president telling the Indian prime minister to avoid taking questions. The White House press secretary tried to recontextualize — and made the problem worse in the process.
“I think what he said is that they’re not always on point,” Psaki said.
“Now I know that isn’t something that anyone wants to hear in here, but what I think he was conveying is, today he might want to talk about COVID vaccines, some of the questions were about that,” she continued.
Psaki was just confronted by two reporters about Biden asking Indian Prime Minister Modi to not take questions from the American press.
Psaki then embarrassingly justifies the remark by saying sometimes the Press doesn’t ask about what Biden wants to talk about.
“Some of the questions are not always about the topic he’s talking about in that day. I don’t think it was meant to be a hard cut at the members of the media, people he’s taken questions from today and on Friday as well,” she added.
Another reporter — CBS News Radio’s Steven Portnoy — followed up, saying, “It happened that he was sitting next to prime minister of India, the world’s largest democracy, when he said that. It also followed the incident on Wednesday when he was sitting next to the prime minister of Great Britain. Is the president reticent to take questions when he’s sitting next to a foreign leader in the Oval Office? Can we expect him to do that in the future?”
“Steve, he took questions earlier that day on Friday. He’d already taken questions that day. I think that was the context of his comments,” Psaki said. “And he’s taken questions standing next to a foreign leader many, many times in the past, and will continue to.”
Good on @WSJ‘s @Catherine_Lucey & @CBSNewsRadio‘s @StevenPortnoy for repeatedly pressing Jen Psaki on the fact that Biden blew off the press last week with U.K. PM Boris Johnson & took a swipe at them last week behind their backs, telling Indian reporters not to ask questions. pic.twitter.com/dUS24W8X90
There was also one other problem with Biden’s remark, as Fox’s Jacqui Heinrich noted.
“The president said that the Indian press was better behaved than the U.S. press, but the Indian press is ranked 142nd in the world, according to Reporters Without Borders, for press freedoms,” she asked.
“How does he say that about the U.S. press compared to the Indian press?” she asked.
“Well, I would just say to you that, having now worked for the president, serving in this role for nine months, having seen that he’s taken questions from the press more than 140 times, including today and Friday, that he certainly respects the role of the press, the role of the freedom of free press,” Psaki said.
“We ensure that we have press with us, of course, when we travel, that we have press with us for sprays in foreign capitals, and we will continue to. I think that should speak to his commitment to freedom of press around the world.”
FTR, Fox’s @JacquiHeinrich also asked: “The President said that the Indian press was better behaved than the U.S. press, but the Indian presence ranked 142nd in the world, according to Reporters Without Borders for press freedoms. How does he say that about the U.S. press[?]” pic.twitter.com/mhNwt4OwSD
It’s worth noting that Psaki had all weekend to work on her answer to this. She knew full well this was going to be one of the things she had to answer when she walked into the Brady Press Briefing Room in the West Wing of the White House.
The best the press secretary and her team could come up with: You guys need to start asking the kinds of questions the president wants to hear. Talk about what he’s talking about. See, this is why he never takes questions from the press. Focus, people!
It was an embarrassment — to Psaki and the president. And even the shamelessly pro-Biden press corps had to know it.
For whatever reason, Brian Stelter hasn’t weighed in on how refreshing that answer was. Perhaps he missed it.
There are forces that wish to destroy America. Some of them are visible and some are stealth.
The visible forces include terrorists and certain nation states like Iran. Radical Islamic preachers cry “death to America” in their sermons, encouraging martyrdom through suicide bombings. Sept. 11 was their crowning achievement, so far. There will likely be other attacks. Some of our military leaders have so predicted. China might also make the list, if not as a destroyer, then as a nation that wants to supplant America as the world’s top economic and military power.
Those who would destroy by stealth include undocumented immigrants flowing across our southern border. Their intention may not be to destroy America, but that will be the effect if we don’t quickly stop the influx and discourage others from coming. It’s almost laughable to hear some in the liberal media claim we have a “moral obligation” to help immigrants when we are ignoring the plight of women in Afghanistan and so many other areas to which the word “moral” might rightly be attached.
Reaction to the open border has been as predictable as the coming of the fall season. Some Democrat progressives shout racism because the latest flood includes Haitians. Signs rapidly appear. Some say, “stop deportation now!” Where did the signs come from? Who are the people carrying them and where do they come from? Is someone paying them? The media never ask these questions.
Undocumented immigrants are not only attracted by low-paying jobs but by lots of free stuff, like access to healthcare and public schools, all paid for by American taxpayers. If a pregnant non-citizen gives birth on U.S. soil, her child instantly becomes a U.S. citizen with all the benefits of full citizenship.
One of the few political leaders responding to this crisis is Gov. Greg Abbott (R-Texas). Abbott has ordered state police to close off parts of the border because the migrants are violating Texas law. For this he is being pilloried and even sued by the Biden administration, though the White House announced just recently that it would swiftly begin to deport Haitian migrants flooding into Del Rio, Texas. But where’s Vice President Kamala Harris who was assigned to fix our border crisis?
In public schools and too many universities of what I would describe as “lower learning,” America’s history is being re-written to shame young people and load them aboard the progressive train wreck. There are many stories of students returning home and accusing their parents of racism, and worse. The stain of racism can never go away despite the money that has been spent and the programs enacted to help lift descendants of slaves out of poverty and into better lives.
Once more or less united, Americans are now fragmented into groups and those groups are pitted against each other as gladiators once were in the Roman Coliseum. Caesar, we who are about to die, salute you!
Seriously, can we go on like this and think we will pass down anything to succeeding generations that remotely resembles what we received from previous ones, especially those we have honored by calling them “the greatest generation”? What made them great and what makes us a small shadow standing in their historic presence?
Values, morals, and economic principles that transformed this nation from an agrarian society to an industrial powerhouse to now a leader in technology, are all threatened by those who breach our borders.
If we don’t find the national political leadership to do something about our steady decline and defend ourselves, as in warfare (because war is what it is, though it is being fought with different weapons), we are at risk of oblivion. Will we follow the path of other nations that no longer exist or have become shadows of their former selves?
The Republican National Committee is suing two cities in Vermont to stop non-citizens from voting in municipal elections.
The RNC is joined in the lawsuit by the Vermont Republican Party against the state capital of Montpelier and the city of Winooski, according to Fox News.
The two Vermont locations have amended their charters to allow non-citizens can now vote in municipal elections under a new state law passed in the spring.
The Republican National Committee news release called the action a “radical scheme passed by Vermont Democrats, to allow foreign citizens to decide American elections.”
The release also called the effort”a blatant attack on election integrity and violates the state constitution which requires Vermont voters to be U.S. citizens.”
The RNC and the VTGOP are today suing the cities of Montpelier and Winooski, Vermont over their new town charters that allow noncitizens to vote in their municipal elections.
This radical scheme passed by state Democrats is a blatant attack on election integrity. pic.twitter.com/YfU2ZLxw3D
RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel provided tough words in response to the new Vermont voting changes.
“Democrats are trying to dismantle the integrity of our elections. In addition to attacking widely supported safeguards like voter ID, Democrats also want foreign citizens to vote in American elections,” Ronna McDaniel said in the news release on Tuesday.
“Democrats are trying to dismantle the integrity of our elections. In addition to attacking widely supported safeguards like voter ID, Democrats also want foreign citizens to vote in American elections. Republicans are fighting back” –@GOPChairwomanhttps://t.co/enJeLwe3x5
“Republicans are fighting back on this far-left assault against election integrity — unlike radical Democrats, we believe that our elections should be decided solely by American citizens,” she added.
McDaniel also said the RNC will remain vigilant to address any state that attempts to allow non-citizens voting rights.
“This is a matter of principle and we will fight in all 50 states to ensure this remains the case,” she said.
The bill that would allow non-citizens to vote passed in the spring but was initially vetoed by Vermont’s Republican Gov. Phil Scott, Fox News reported.
“Allowing a highly variable town-by-town approach to municipal voting creates inconsistency in election policy, as well as separate and unequal classes of residents potentially eligible to vote on local issues,” Scott wrote in a May letter to legislators.
However, the governor’s veto was overridden by the state House and Senate in June, according to Fox.
When the bill was originally passed, Republican state Sen. Sen. Brian Collamore said, “I believe if someone wishes to be able to vote they should be a citizen.”
Collamore argued that the voting change was based on a person living in the U.S. on a “permanent basis.”
“The Montpelier bill allows what is defined as a legal resident of the United States to be able to vote in city elections. … If someone is here on a permanent basis, why would he or she not want to participate in the process to become a citizen?” Collamore added.
Big Government Socialism has been tried at the state level and it has failed spectacularly.
Stephen Moore, an economist working with the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, offered conclusive proof that Big Government Socialism is a disaster with real consequences for people and the economy in his remarkably useful newsletter “the Unleash Prosperity Hotline” (issue 374).
(UPH)
Moore compared states run by Republicans with states run by Democrats. The above chart from Moore’s newsletter proves the gap between Republican policies of jobs and economic growth and Democratic policies of big government, union domination, corruption, regulation, and an anti-business, anti-jobs attitude.
Note that the only non-red state in the top job creating list is Vermont—which has a Republican governor.
Callista and I recently had lunch with Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts. His state has the lowest unemployment rate in the country. Ricketts’ concern was that businesses in Nebraska were doing so well and growing so rapidly that they had a tremendous number of jobs they could not fill. Remarkably, he thought the real unemployment rate in Nebraska was actually below 2.2 percent.
The red states consistently have lower taxes, less government spending, less bureaucracy, and fewer regulations. Republican-run states also have a pattern of honoring businessmen and women, valuing entrepreneurship and hard work, and expecting people to do their share to create better lives and a better state.
In Omaha, they also have a deep tradition of enforcing the law. When the Black Lives Matter riots broke out, Omaha had an immediate and aggressive response to the violence and looting. By contrast, nearby Lincoln, Nebraska—which has a Big Government Socialist Democratic mayor—failed to enforce the law. While Lincoln is one-fourth the size of Omaha, it had 10 times as much damage from looting. In fact, the difference in law enforcement (and radical woke-think) led the long-time Democratic Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine to switch parties and become a Republican. As he said to me, “there are no moderate Democrats left.”
By contrast many of the highest unemployment blue states also have some of the highest murder rates. Crime, taxes, red tape, overbearing bureaucracy, and corruption all drive jobs out of a state. Those states are almost always run by Big Government Socialist Democrats.
The power of big government ideology, government employee unions (including the teachers), and the corruption and incompetence which metastasizes when governments outgrow the control of their citizens all lead to higher unemployment and slower job growth.
The amazing thing is that Moore’s chart, as definitive as it is, has almost no impact on Big Government Socialist mayors, city councils, state legislators, and governors.
And this kind of evidence seems to have no impact on the reporters and editorial boards in the states and cities which are being cheated by their politicians and bureaucracies.
When you realize that the Nevada, California, and New York unemployment rates are 3.4 times higher than Nebraska’s you would think that delegations would come from those states to try to understand the miracle happening in Missouri. Instead, what we get is scorn for “flyover country” from the supposedly sophisticated elites in New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco who are certain they know much more than non-coastal people.
Sadly for Americans, the Speaker of the House and the Vice President come from the state with the second highest unemployment while the Senate Majority Leader comes from the state with the third highest unemployment. They are working desperately to impose on the whole country the kind of Big Government Socialist bills that have given their states massive homelessness, huge unemployment, and frightening levels of violence and crime.
There is an old saying that misery loves company, but this is ridiculous.
Call your representative and senators and urge them to vote “no” on the Bernie Sanders Big Government Socialist bills which would cripple America economically and spiritually.
The Democrats’ “Build Back Better” agenda is proof that names can be deceptive.
Investigating the $4.5 trillion plan, the Texas Public Policy Foundation gave crucial economic estimates that reveal the damage that could be done by President Joe Biden and Democratic leaders in Congress.
The agenda is made up of two key pieces of legislation: a $3.5 trillion spending bill and a $1 trillion infrastructure bill.
Over the course of ten years, the foundation estimates that 5.3 million full-time jobs would be lost, $1.2 trillion in income would be lost, and the long-run GDP would lose $3.7 trillion.
Terrifying news: A dangerous contagion is sweeping across Washington. It’s a virus that specifically targets victims’ hippocampus, particularly impacting the area of the brain responsible for … basic math. See for yourself! pic.twitter.com/wdj5lbUhvk
When broken down even further, the report explains that median family income could drop by $12,000, and there could be a marginal tax rate increase of 13 percent for some.
As the economy is still in recovery mode following the COVID-19 pandemic, the Democrats’ plan would hinder development in the private sector and end up harming average Americans.
For example, the proposed corporate tax rate increase to 26.5 percent would have a harmful trickle-down effect even if it seems harmless on the surface.
If companies are paying more in taxes, that expense falls onto the consumer, who would see prices increase, and their employees, who would risk having their jobs cut.
That corporate tax rate would make the United States less competitive with other countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, because we would have the third-highest rate in the group, according to the Tax Foundation. America’s rate would even eclipse communist China’s.
Regardless, the Biden administration is touting public opinion polls that show a majority of Americans support “Build Back Better.”
I would be willing to bet that few Americans know the implications of passing the agenda because the establishment media has kept its negative effects quiet.
“Poll after poll makes it clear: The majority of Americans overwhelmingly support my Build Back Better Agenda,” the president tweeted Monday. “Let’s get it done and deliver for the American people.”
Poll after poll makes it clear: The majority of Americans overwhelmingly support my Build Back Better Agenda.
Democrats are scrambling to unite their caucus to get both bills past before the fiscal year ends on Thursday while trying to avert a looming government shutdown.
Fauci and Daszak continue their CCP collaborator road show.
nthony Fauci recently spoke to a conference sponsored by Wuhan lab collaborators, EcoHealth Alliance, The National Pulse can reveal.
Despite a preponderance of evidence of EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak’s role in the cover-up of COVID-19’s origins, Fauci addressed the event which also featured Daszak as a speaker.
The National Pulse can also reveal that the Fauci-led National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) sponsored the September 2021 event alongside other federal agencies including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
SPONSORS.
A longtime recipient of grants from Fauci’s National Institutes of Health (NIH) agency, Daszak controversially used the federal funds to pursue collaborative research on bat coronaviruses with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Daszak, who has hosted Fauci as a featured guest at several EcoHealth Alliance events, also spearheaded the fraudulent narrative that COVID-19 developed in a wet market in his roles on the Lancet COVID-19 committee and World Health Organization (WHO) COVID-19 origins investigation team.
Daszak was later recused from the Lancet task force due to his conflicts of interests exposed by The National Pulse.
Despite EcoHealth’s Chinese Communist Party collaboration and subsequent cover-up, Fauci appeared at a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) forum, “Toward a Post-Pandemic World,” alongside him. The event occurred September 21st through 24th, concluding one day before Daszak’s entire Lancet COVID task force was disbanded due to conflicts of interest.
A conference agenda seen by The National Pulse reveals that Daszak delivered the event’s welcome and closing addresses.
Similarly, on the final day of the event, Fauci delivered a pre-recorded “visionary statement” on “Pandemic Preparedness: The Biomedical Research Approach.”
AGENDA.
Despite Daszak’s repeated lies about COVID-19, the event seeks to mitigate the “impact of dis- and misinformation” in an effort to “maintain public trust and optimize adherence”;
“The impact of dis- and misinformation and how it can be managed to maintain public trust and optimize adherence to health behavioral guidance in a time of crisis.”
The September event was the complement to a forum convened in March 2021 by NASEM’S Forum on Microbial Threats, where Daszak serves as the Chair.
Brandon Schadt, Johnson & Johnson Regional Business Lead: “It’s a kid, you just don’t do that, you know? Not something that’s so unknown in terms of repercussions down the road, you know?”
Schadt: “Kids shouldn’t get a f*cking [COVID] vaccine.”
Schadt: “It’s a kid, it’s a f*cking kid, you know? They shouldn’t have to get a f*cking [COVID] vaccine, you know?”
Schadt: “J&J is like stepping in the best smelling pile of sh*t you could step in.”
Justin Durrant, Johnson & Johnson Scientist: “Don’t get the Johnson & Johnson [COVID vaccine], I didn’t tell you though.”
Durrant: “It wouldn’t make that much of a difference” if children are unvaccinated for COVID.
Durrant: “Inconvenience [the unvaccinated] to the point where it’s like, ‘I might as well just f*cking do it [and take the COVID vaccine],’ you know what I’m saying?”
Durrant: “It’s almost like — you’re almost like a second-grade citizen if you’re not vaccinated…you can’t do anything that a normal citizen can do.”
Durrant: “If you can’t work, I feel like that’s punishment enough…Only way people really act and comply is if it affects their pockets, like if you’re working for a big company and you’re going to lose your job, best believe you’ll be the first one in line [to take the COVID vaccine]…That’s what we’re doing.”
[NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – Sept. 27, 2021] Project Veritas released the third video of its COVID vaccine investigative series today exposing two Johnson & Johnson [J&J] officials, who argue children do not need to take the COVID vaccine in part because of the potential long-term side effects.
One of the exposed J&J employees, a scientist by the name of Justin Durrant, laughs about inconveniencing unvaccinated adults if they refuse to comply with mandates being imposed upon them:
Justin Durrant, Johnson & Johnson Scientist:“Inconvenience [the unvaccinated] to the point where it’s like, ‘I might as well just f*cking do it [and take the COVID vaccine],’ you know what I’m saying? Like ‘I can’t go out of state,’ I can’t – ‘my grandma’s in Canada and I can’t visit her,’ you know what I’m saying? You can’t go to France unless you’re vaccinated — you know you’ve just got to keep doing things like that where you’re almost like a second-grade citizen if you’re not vaccinated, but I know that’s awful.”
Veritas Journalist:“You’re almost what?”
Durrant:“Like a second-grade citizen, like you can’t do anything that a normal citizen can do.”
Veritas Journalist:“A second graded citizen?”
Durrant: “Yeah like top grade, like the ones that get it, and the ones that just like — then you can’t do sh*t.”
…
Veritas Journalist:“So then how do we punish [the unvaccinated]?”
Durrant:“I mean if you can’t work, I feel like that’s punishment enough.”
Veritas Journalist:“People what?”
Durrant:“Only way people really act and comply is if it affects their pockets, like if you’re working for a big company and you’re going to lose your job, best believe you’ll be the first one in line [to take the COVID vaccine].”
Veritas Journalist:“Right, so if you’re working for a big company and you’re about to lose your job, you’ll be the first one in line?”
Durrant:“Yeah.”
Veritas Journalist:“That’s so true. That’s smart, that’s what we need to do.”
Durrant:“That’s what we’re doing.”
Durrant said he does not recommend taking his own company’s vaccine. He asked the Veritas journalist to keep that information private.
“Don’t get the Johnson & Johnson [COVID vaccine], I didn’t tell you though,” he said.
Both Durrant and Brandon Schadt, J&J’s Regional Business Lead, said that applying the COVID vaccine on children would not move the needle in the battle against the pandemic.
“It wouldn’t make that much of a difference” if children are unvaccinated for COVID, Durrant said.
“It’s a kid, you just don’t do that, you know? Not something that’s so unknown in terms of repercussions down the road, you know?” Schadt said.
“It’s a kid, it’s a f*cking kid, you know? They shouldn’t have to get a f*cking [COVID] vaccine, you know?”
Schadt compared J&J’s COVID vaccine efficacy to the other pharmaceutical companies.
“J&J is like stepping in the best smelling pile of sh*t you could step in,” he said.
More footage exposing Big Pharma will be released by Project Veritas imminently. To receive these upcoming videos directly into your email inbox, click here.
About Project Veritas
James O’Keefe established Project Veritas in 2010 as a non-profit journalism enterprise to continue his undercover reporting work. Today, Project Veritas investigates and exposes corruption, dishonesty, self-dealing, waste, fraud, and other misconduct in both public and private institutions to achieve a more ethical and transparent society and to engage in litigation to: protect, defend and expand human and civil rights secured by law, specifically First Amendment rights including promoting the free exchange of ideas in a digital world; combat and defeat censorship of any ideology; promote truthful reporting; and defend freedom of speech and association issues including the right to anonymity. O’Keefe serves as the CEO and Chairman of the Board so that he can continue to lead and teach his fellow journalists, as well as protect and nurture the Project Veritas culture.
Project Veritas is a registered 501(c)3 organization. Project Veritas does not advocate specific resolutions to the issues raised through its investigations. Donate now to support our mission.
Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller, a 17-year veteran, risked his career and pension when he posted a scathing rebuke of the senior military leaders who failed US servicemen serving in Afghanistan.
Joe Biden’s incompetence and corruption led to the death of 13 US servicemen and 15 more were critically wounded in a blast by a suicide bomber in Kabul on Thursday.
“I want to say this very strongly. I have been fighting for 17 years. I am willing to throw it all away to say to my senior leaders: I demand accountability,” said Scheller.
“I’m not saying we’ve got to be in Afghanistan forever. But I am saying, did any of you throw your rank on the table and say, ‘Hey, it’s a bad idea to evacuate Bagram Airfield, a strategic airbase, before we evacuate everyone’? Did anyone do that? And when you didn’t think to do that, did anyone raise their hand and say, ‘We completely messed this up’?” Scheller added.
“I thought through, if I post this video, what might happen to me — especially if the video picks up traction, if I have the courage to post it,” he said. “But I think what you believe in can only be defined by what you’re willing to risk. If I’m willing to risk my current battalion seat, my retirement, my family’s stability to say some of the things I want to say, I think it gives me some moral high ground to demand the same honesty, integrity, and accountability from my senior leaders.”
Scheller is “currently in pre-trial confinement,” a spokesperson for Training and Education Command said of the officer’s status.
“The time, date, and location of the proceedings have not been determined. Lt. Col. Scheller will be afforded all due process,” the statement continued.
But the elder Scheller defended his son, arguing that he was only asking for “accountability” from the military’s top brass.
“He’s asking for the same accountability that is expected of him and his men,” he said.
“I’ve had Vietnam veterans contacting me applauding him for his courage because they too want to know: Was it all worth it?” he continued. “And by demanding accountability and honesty from his senior leaders, that’s all he was asking. And the way the Marine Corps has dealt with it: They have now put him in jail.”
According to a report from the Washington Times, a man who had been convicted of rape and deported from the U.S. was allowed to board an Afghan evacuation flight and reach the state of Idaho.
Ghader Heydari, a convicted rapist who was deported from the US in 2017, was arrested after catching an Ethiopian Airlines evacuation flight out of Kabul.
According to The Washington Times, Heydari came to the US as a refugee and was even granted a green card in 2000.
Heydari pleaded guilty to rape in Ada County, Idaho, in 2010, and he served more than five years in prison.
Roughly 400 Afghan refugees or more will resettle in Idaho in 2021 according to officials with the International Rescue Committee in Boise.
Over 50,000 Afghans are expected to be admitted to the United States this year under a program called “Operation Allies Welcome.”
The news comes as reports surface describing several attacks committed by the newly arrived Afghan refugees.
A female soldier was recently gang assaulted by several Afghan men brought over during the evacuation. Two other Afghan refugees have been arrested on charges of sexual assaults of minors, and the assault of another woman.
After a short stay at various processing centers, the more than 50,000 refugees will be resettled in states across the country.
According to reports, many of the refugees are being sent to Spokane, WA, Boise ID, Missoula, MT, and parts of Minnesota.
Local officials blame school cancellations on enhanced unemployment benefits
A top House Democrat promised his party’s $1.9 trillion stimulus bill would “get kids back in school” just months before a hiring shortage upended two school districts in his community—and local officials say enhanced unemployment benefits are to blame.
At least two school districts within Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney’s (D., N.Y.) 18th Congressional District boundaries have canceled or scaled back in-person classes due to a bus driver shortage, the Times Herald-Record reported in September. The New York School Bus Contractors Association (NYSBCA) attributed the problem in part to President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion “American Rescue Plan,” which Maloney said would “defeat the pandemic” and “get kids back in school.”
“Enhanced federal unemployment benefits and the child tax credit are compounding the problem,” NYSBCA executive director Tammy Mortier told the Times Union in August. “When unemployment runs out in September, we hope to see some of them coming back.”
Maloney, who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, has acknowledged that such hiring problems could spell trouble for his party in 2022. During a closed-door lunch in late July, Maloney told fellow House Democrats they were on track to lose the midterms thanks in part to “inflation and the hiring shortage affecting low-wage segments of the economy.”
Neither Maloney nor the DCCC returned requests for comment.
Maloney heaped praise on Biden’s stimulus bill before and after Democrats passed the $1.9 trillion piece of legislation. In February, Maloney said the bill would “honor the lives of every single American who has died from this pandemic.” He later called the legislation “a game changer” and said it Would “crush this virus,” “jump-start our economy,” and get America “back to normal.”
Mortier, however, is far from the only local leader to malign the bill’s expanded unemployment benefits and child tax credit payments. Swing-district House Democrats notably broke from Biden on the legislation after U.S. job openings reached a record high in April. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D., Mich.) admitted that the boosted payments were inhibiting business owners from filling vacancies.
“Every single business owner that I know that has reached out to me has talked about this as their number one issue,” Slotkin said in May after a constituent expressed concern over “boosted federal unemployment.” “They want to make money, they want to be open, but they’re having a problem getting people.” Rep. John Garamendi (D., Calif.) echoed her concerns, noting “there’s a lot of discussion among the business community that the unemployment insurance system is keeping people from wanting to go back to work.”
According to the Herald-Record, “many schools” in Maloney’s district are “dealing with bus delays, uncovered routes, a lack of monitors on vehicles for special needs students, [and] adjustments to sports and extra-curricular schedules.” The shortages prompted the Pine Bush Central School District to close for two days. The Newburgh Enlarged City School District, meanwhile, ordered its superintendent to craft a remote-learning option in response to busing issues. Both Pine Bush and Newburgh are located in Maloney’s district.
Neither school district returned requests for comment.
Maloney became DCCC chair in January, pledging to “work every day to … expand our majority.” But his tenure as House Democrats’ campaign chief has been defined by blunders.
In April, Maloney’s staff greenlit $5,000 wire transfers from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) to vulnerable House Democrats, some of whom returned the money over political concerns. Days later, Business Insiderreported Maloney failed to disclose more than $11,000 in stock sales from 2020. And in August, Maloney defied State Department guidelines to travel to France, where he partied maskless at a billionaire’s estate. The DCCC paid $813 for an Air France plane ticket just weeks before the trip.
Lawmakers say report could be used to target terror group’s funding channels
The Biden administration is withholding from Congress a legally mandated report on Hezbollah’s financial empire, information that lawmakers could use to increase pressure on the Iranian-backed terror group.
Congress ordered the State and Treasury Departments in early 2019 to produce a publicly available report on Hezbollah senior leadership’s funding channels as part of legislation known as the Hezbollah International Financing Prevention Amendments Act of 2018. The bill mandated a report be produced 180 days after it was passed, by April 2019. The Trump administration never produced a report and the Biden administration is withholding it too.
Republican lawmakers and congressional sources familiar with the matter say the report has become increasingly critical as the Biden administration considers lifting economic sanctions on Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon as the country grapples with a massive cash crunch. Both the State and Treasury Departments declined to provide the Washington Free Beacon with information about the report or answer questions about why they have failed to comply with the law.
Rep. Pat Fallon (R., Texas), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, told the Free Beacon the report could be used to target Hezbollah’s senior leadership and crack down on their efforts to steal cash and international aid meant for the Lebanese people. This information would also make it harder for the Biden administration to justify rolling back sanctions on Lebanon and providing the country with an economic bailout that could further enrich the terror group.
“I’m not surprised that after botching the retrograde in Afghanistan, the Biden administration is now not complying with reporting requirements stated in the Hezbollah International Financing Prevention Amendments Act of 2018,” Fallon said. “Additionally, the possibility that this administration will bailout and lift sanctions on Lebanon is a play straight out of the Neville Chamberlain foreign policy playbook. Hezbollah alone is responsible for Lebanon’s economic ruin.”
As part of that 2018 legislation, Congress mandated a public report on the estimated net worth of Hezbollah’s senior leaders, including Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and his closest associates. The report was also to include information of Hezbollah associates, including those working in Lebanon’s government, which continues to serve the Iranian-backed terror group.
Congressional sources say the Biden administration does not want to disclose the extent of Hezbollah’s financial empire as it considers going along with international plans to provide Lebanon with a cash bailout. The issue has received increased congressional scrutiny amid separate reports the Biden administration is prepared to waive economic sanctions on the Assad regime in Syria to facilitate an energy deal with Lebanon.
Congress decided “the unclassified portion of the report required … shall be made available to the public in precompressed, easily downloadable versions that are made available in all appropriate formats,” according to the legislation.
One senior congressional source who worked on drafting the original legislation told the Free Beacon that the report could help illustrate to the world and the Lebanese people how much money Hezbollah is stealing to fund its terrorism enterprise and stockpiling of weapons.
“Lebanon is collapsing because of Hezbollah’s corruption, that is why this report is so important,” said the source, who was not authorized to speak on record. “It is one of the few reports Congress ever designed on Hezbollah that we required to be publicly available on the internet for the world to see. The world deserves to see how much Hassan Nasrallah and his gang have stolen from their own people. Maybe instead of bailing out Hezbollah and lifting sanctions on the brutal Assad regime, the administration can concentrate more on stopping Hezbollah’s corruption. We shouldn’t reward Hezbollah and their buddy Assad for Hezbollah’s own corruption.”
Congressional Republicans also have been pushing a package of far-reaching new sanctions on Hezbollah that they say would cut off the group’s access to funding. The Hezbollah report’s findings would help lawmakers identify the funding channels that should be shut down.
Woke millionaire Kyrie Irving and other NBA players are stupid conspiracy theorists who literally want all of your family members to die. Rolling Stonereports there is significant opposition among NBA players to the league’s proposal to mandate the COVID-19 vaccine, considered by many to be a “non-starter.”
Irving, whose Instagram feed is filled with homages to Malcolm X and the Black Panther Party, has urged Americans to “do your own research”—not as it relates to the COVID-19 vaccine, but rather as to whether the Earth is round or flat. His views on the vaccine, however, can be extrapolated with a high degree of confidence.
For example, Irving has started liking Instagram posts from conspiracy theorists claiming that “secret societies” are using the vaccines to fulfill “a plan of Satan” by implanting black people with microchips connected to a master computer. Similar conspiracies have reportedly spread throughout the NBA.
Irving is a vice president on the executive committee of the NBA players’ union, which held its annual meeting last month to discuss vaccine mandates and other issues ahead of the upcoming season. According to the NBA’s most recent health and safety guidelines, the anti-vaccine players were successful in forcing the league to accept nearly all of their demands.
The league and the players’ union are still negotiating a number of contentious issues, such as “prohibitions on accessing indoor bars, clubs, and lounges.” NBA superstar LeBron James, who has repeatedly refused to discuss his vaccination status, violated the league’s health and safety protocols (but was not punished) earlier this year by attending an indoor tequila party with Drake and other celebs.
Weeks prior to the party, James’s former teammate Dennis Schröder told a German media outlet that “LeBron and I” were the only players for the Los Angeles Lakers yet to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. James has insisted that believing in science (or not) is “a private thing,” despite vowing to use his platform to speak out on “everything that’s going on around this country and around the world,” except for China.
Irving has also refused to comment on his vaccination status, but all evidence suggests he is not. His aunt, Tyki Irving, told Rolling Stone: “There are so many other players outside of him who are opting out, I would like to think they would make a way.”
The NBA may have caved to its anti-vaxx players, but some state and local governments have sought to impose their own vaccine requirements. New York City, where Irving plays for the Brooklyn Nets, will require athletes to show proof of at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose in order to play indoors.
On Monday, the Nets hosted a media day at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Irving, who would have had to present proof of vaccination to attend, wasn’t there. In a virtual interview, he once again refused to discuss his vaccination status. “I like to keep that stuff private,” Irving said. “I’m not able to present there today, but that doesn’t mean that I’m putting any limits on the future of me being able to join the team.”
It remains unknown why Irving, who took a two-week leave of absence to protest the riot at the U.S. Capitol, wants his fellow Americans to die as a result of his reckless behavior. For whatever reason, sanctimonious white liberals were significantly less vocal, if not completely silent, in response to the Rolling Stone report.
Shortly before the U.S. presidential election that Joe Biden won, the New York Post published a bombshell story based on emails from Biden’s son, Hunter, that indicated corruption by his father. The October 2020 story, neatly encapsulated by the quote, “ten percent for the big guy,” which the Bidens never denied, was castigated and largely ignored by the left mainstream media, and censored by Twitter. That left censorship might well have led to the election of Biden instead of Donald Trump. Apparently, getting Biden elected was more important to them than his alleged China-linked corruption. Now almost a year later, a Politico writer has finally confirmed the story.
This adds an additional confirmation to the Wall Street Journal’s corroboration and expansion of the Post story, through emails obtained from Hunter’s former business partner, Tony Bobulinski. “They showed that Hunter was seeking to cash in on his name via a business deal with a Shanghai-based company with ties to the Chinese government and military. One email noted that the deal envisioned ‘10 held by H for the big guy,’ whom Mr. Bobulinski identified as Joe Biden,” according to the Journal editors.
What might Beijing have gotten for its money? In May 2019, Biden was busy denying that China was a threat, against sentiment in both parties.
“China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man … they can’t even figure out how to deal with the fact that they have this great division between the China Sea and the mountains in the east, I mean in the west.” Biden continued, “They can’t figure out how they’re going to deal with the corruption that exists within the system. I mean, you know, they’re not bad folks, folks. But guess what, they’re not, they’re not competition for us.”
Not bad folks? The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) runs the country with an iron fist, to the point of a triple genocide against Uyghurs, Tibetans, and Falun Gong. The CCP has been capturing territory from neighboring governments since the 1930s, including all of China in 1949 and a claim to the entire South China Sea in 2009. Since 2016, the Xi Jinping regime has threatened war against the United States, Australia, Taiwan, and the Philippines.
Some of the 220 Chinese vessels are seen moored at Whitsun Reef, South China Sea, on March 7, 2021. (Philippine Coast Guard/National Task Force-West Philippine Sea via AP)
Even the leftist Washington Post news team, which edited out Biden’s east-west gaff, confessed that it was perplexed about which mountains the presidential hopeful referred to.
Then in February, Biden tried to divert concerns about China’s military competition with the United States, into a fear over infrastructure competition. He apparently did not want to significantly increase military spending to defend against China, so he tried to reframe the competition as one over infrastructure.
While the United States is busy building, say, $2 trillion worth of solar-lighted roads across the nation, with imported Chinese concrete, steel, and silicon, China would be using the money it made from us to build amphibious assault vehicles for an attack on Taiwan, and hundreds of silos for nuclear missiles that could reach the American mainland.
“If we don’t get moving, they are going to eat our lunch,” Biden said of China. “They’re investing billions of dollars dealing with a whole range of issues that relate to transportation, the environment and a whole range of other things. We just have to step up.”
The money that China was investing in the environment, at the time, was in coal-fired power plants. Was Biden trying to get America to compensate for China’s pollution by building costly solar farms at the expense of the American taxpayer?
Workers install solar panels at the construction site in Huai’an, China, on June 11, 2018. (VCG via Getty Images)
Biden had proposed, during the campaign, a $2 trillion infrastructure package to be spent over four years, including on jobs and clean energy. In 2017, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), which could be biased given their profession, estimated the existence of an “infrastructure gap” in the United States of $2 trillion. They claimed that the economy would lose twice that amount if these funds were not invested.
Be that as it may, the Wall Street Journal was the only mainstream news source that took Hunter’s emails seriously at the time of the election. They wrote of the New York Post’s vindication this month: “A press that was interested in telling the truth about both candidates would have pressed to confirm the Post’s story and examined the emails for themselves. Instead they rose nearly as one to denounce the Post and claim without evidence that the emails might have been Russian disinformation. That was a sorry repeat of the Russia collusion narrative from 2016, which the press flogged for more than two years but we now know was concocted by the Hillary Clinton campaign.”
In the same opinion, the Journal’s editors allege that the FBI colluded with Clinton’s campaign in 2016, which is “cause for even more Americans to assume that the U.S. intelligence community is a partisan interest group that can’t be trusted. This is damaging to those institutions and the country.”
The Hill’s John Solomon also argued that the FBI colluded with Democrats during the 2016 election. If true, this should be taken seriously. The FBI must maintain its neutrality between the parties in order to maintain its integrity and legitimacy in the eyes of the American citizen.
However, tendentious arguments to “abolish the FBI” go so far as to be ludicrous. The FBI serves critical counter-intelligence and law enforcement functions that maintain the stability of the world’s most powerful democracy. Such arguments may be taking an extreme position in order to get the attention of political leadership, but they are the height of irresponsibility, and play into the hands of the world’s most powerful dictators, including Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin.
But neither are Democrats blameless. They fuel such arguments by ignoring the FBI’s lapses, and claiming that evidence of Biden’s China corruption doesn’t matter. They deflect blame by pointing to President Trump’s own alleged transgressions, for example, payments by foreign governments to Trump-branded hospitality businesses.
The truth is that both parties compete so strenuously as to have a legalized corruption problem. To win elections, politicians need money and support, which they can seek from big corporations, government insiders, and powerful dictators, like Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin.
To fix the problem, we need bipartisan electoral reform, which removes the influence of foreign money and powerful interests from election campaigns of either party, including through American intermediaries. We need laws that forbid high government officials from using their office, and the revolving door between government and industry, to enrich themselves and their families.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, has asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to explain why prosecutors have dropped a series of cases connected with the Justice Department’s (DOJ) clampdown on Chinese espionage.
In July, federal prosecutors filed motions to dismiss charges against six Chinese researchers who had been accused of hiding their ties to Chinese institutions or the Chinese military. The DOJ said at the time that “recent developments” in those cases had prompted the department to “re-evaluate these prosecutions,” stating that the dismissals were made “in the interest of justice.”
However, other reports have suggested that the decision to drop the charges was due to other reasons, such as the FBI’s failure to properly inform the accused of their rights against self-incrimination, Jordan wrote to Garland in a joint letter (pdf) with Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) dated Sept. 27.
“It is not clear whether the Department dismissed these [charges] due to reported misconduct by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) or because the Department under your leadership is more invested in pursuing the far-left political goals of the Biden-Harris Administration than in protecting American national security interests,” the letter reads.
“These actions by the Department raise serious concerns about its commitment to confronting the national security threats posed by the People’s Republic of China.”
The letter comes days after the DOJ struck a deal with Huawei Chief Financial officer Meng Wanzhou allowing her to return to China, nearly three years after the executive was arrested in Canada at the request of U.S. prosecutors who had accused Meng of lying to HSBC, causing the bank to violate U.S. sanctions on Iran. The deal, which paved the way for the release of two Canadians held in China, has similarly prompted Republican lawmakers to question the Biden administration’s approach to confronting threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
In recent years, the DOJ has, under a project called the “China Initiative,” aggressively pursued cases targeting the CCP’s expansive campaign of economic espionage against the United States. Academics, in particular, for the first time found themselves in the crosshairs over allegedly hiding their funding ties to the Chinese regime.
In 2020, there were at least six prosecutions against alleged undercover Chinese military officers posing as researchers at U.S. universities. But the department moved to drop five of those cases in July.
One of the cases was against Tang Juan, a researcher at the University of California–Davis, who allegedly hid her affiliations with the Chinese military in her visa application. She was arrested in July 2020 after being harbored by the Chinese Consulate in San Franciso for one month, according to prosecutors.
In another dropped case, the researcher, according to prosecutors, admitted under questioning by federal agents that he was instructed by his supervisor, the director of an unnamed military university lab in China, to “observe the layout of the UCSF [University of California–San Franciso] lab and bring back information on how to replicate it in China.”
In the letter, Jordan and Biggs requested the attorney general to provide details by Oct. 11 on why the department decided to drop the cases. The lawmakers also asked for information on the China Initiative, including the project’s staffing and resources and whether the department has any plans to “reform, prioritize, or reinforce its duties and responsibilities.”
“Especially at a time when President Biden’s disastrous foreign policy in Afghanistan has alienated allies and alarmed Americans, our country cannot afford the threat to the United States posed by Chinese espionage,” the letter reads.
DOJ officials didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time.
An illegal immigrant teenager from Mexico was arrested for allegedly setting wildfires in California, said Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials.
Agents with the CBP’s El Centro Sector apprehended the illegal alien, who was not identified, and accused him of setting fires in the Jacumba Wilderness last week.
When Border Patrol agents responded, “they located an unknown individual in the vicinity of the reported fire, attempting to start another fire,” according to CBP in a news release. “Agents attempted to extinguish the second fire but had little success.”
Then, the Bureau of Land Management provided dispatched an aircraft with firefighting capabilities to stop the wildfire, and the “combined resources and firefighting efforts were able to control the fires” the next day, the agency said.
The accused arsonist was identified as an 18-year-old male Mexican national who was arrested for illegally entering the United States and was transported to the El Centro processing location. The teen was “caught in the act” of trying to start a wildfire, the agency said.
The Bureau of Land Management will now be investigating the wildfires as arson, according to the news release.
“Our environment and natural places are national interests that all Americans hold dear,” Chief Patrol Agent Gregory K. Bovino said in a statement. “I would like to thank our partners at Bureau of Land Management as they work tirelessly to conserve and protect the fragile Jacumba Mountains Wilderness area; the location where this undocumented migrant purposefully set fire to endangered Big Horn Sheep habitat.”
The Jacumba Wilderness, which spans about 31,000 acres and is managed by the bureau, is located in California’s Imperial County, which is located along a remote stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border.
In a release issued earlier this month, Border Patrol said that about 9,728 illegal immigrants with prior criminal convictions have been apprehended in the United States during the fiscal year 2021 to date. That represents a sharp increase over the past three years, while during the fiscal year 2020, only 2,438 illegals with criminal convictions were arrested.
The arrest of the alleged Mexican arsonist comes as the Biden administration faces criticism of how it struggled to contain a surge of Haitians who amassed underneath a bridge in Del Rio, Texas, prompting concerns of the spread of transmissible diseases.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Sunday said that some 12,000 of 17,000 Haitian illegal immigrants were effectively released into the interior U.S. in recent days with court dates.
“Approximately, I think it’s about 10,000 or so, 12,000,” Mayorkas told “Fox News Sunday” when asked how many have already been released.
Former President Donald Trump released a statement on Monday attacking the Biden administration for releasing “17,000 illegal immigrants” from Del Rio, Texas, into America as part of a twin debacle alongside failure in Afghanistan, arguing, “Our Country is being destroyed!”
“All 17,000 illegal immigrants who entered our Country from Haiti and other places unknown have now been released into our Country with no vetting, checking, or even minimal understanding of who they are,” Trump began in his statement posted to Twitter by spokeswoman Liz Harrington.
NEW!
President Donald J. Trump:
“All 17,000 illegal immigrants who entered our Country from Haiti and other places unknown have now been released into our Country with no vetting, checking, or even minimal understanding of who they are. pic.twitter.com/BiqEkdthNa
Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said in a briefing on Friday that approximately 30,000 mostly Haitian migrants had been encountered in Del Rio since Sept. 9, with only about 2,000 deported to Haiti.
Many were given a notice to appear for an asylum hearing and were released after being removed from a camp under the Del Rio International Bridge that included about 15,000 people at its height.
Trump also criticized the Biden administration for releasing the Haitian migrants without COVID-19 testing or other health checks.
“Some are very sick with extremely contagious diseases, even worse than the China Virus. They are not masked or mandated, but just let free to roam all over our Country and affect what was just a year ago, a great Nation,” he said in the statement.
“Some are very sick with extremely contagious diseases, even worse than the China Virus. They are not masked or mandated, but just let free to roam all over our Country and affect what was just a year ago, a great Nation.
The former president argued that the Biden administration’s open border policies have resulted in America being “humiliated like never before.”
In addition to the border crisis, he also noted President Joe Biden’s “embarrassing” withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“Now we are a Nation humiliated like never before, both with the historically embarrassing ‘withdrawal’ from Afghanistan, and our Border where millions of people are pouring in. Our Country is being destroyed!” Trump said.
“Now we are a Nation humiliated like never before, both with the historically embarrassing “withdrawal” from Afghanistan, and our Border where millions of people are pouring in. Our Country is being destroyed!”
The Biden administration withdrew all U.S. military personnel on Aug. 31, leaving hundreds of Americans behind under the rule of the Taliban.
In addition, the military departure included leaving behind vast amounts of military equipment, providing tremendous resources to arm the Islamic extremist group.
Further, 13 U.S. military personnel were killed during a suicide bombing in August outside the Kabul airport.Should Trump run for president in 2024?Yes No Completing this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
In response, the Biden administration authorized a drone strike, originally reported to have taken out an Islamic State group leader.
A later report revealed the drone strike accidentally hit an innocent target, killing 10 people, including seven children.
An unknown number of Americans and allies remain in Afghanistan nearly a month after the Biden administration’s military departure.
Surviving in President Joe Biden’s America is getting harder and harder for workers who find themselves falling behind as costs gobble more and more of their paychecks.
As noted by Trading Economics, inflation was at 1.4 percent when former President Donald Trump left office, then spiked rapidly during the first months of the Biden administration.
Although the Biden administration for months rejected claims that its spending was triggering inflation and tried to spin the rise in costs as a transitory blip, even the Federal Reserve now admits the inflation picture will not improve soon, according to KATV-TV.
On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the causes of inflation were “greater and longer-lasting than anticipated.”
The Fed, which in June said inflation for the year might hit 3 percent, adjusted its prediction to 3.7 percent, with a possible mark of 4.2 percent for the year when including rising energy and food costs. The translation for workers is that making more might not mean making enough.
“Some of the gains we had seen for workers in certain categories, the increases looked good, but not if you have 5 percent inflation,” said Jim Butkiewicz, an economist at the University of Delaware.
Recent Bureau of Labor Statistics figures showed that within the 5.3 percent overall increase in costs from a year ago, gasoline prices were up 42 percent, beef prices were up 14 percent, lumber prices were up 10 percent and egg prices were up 10 percent.
One of the factors driving price increases is that wages have increased as employers try to attract help, leading to a spiral in which wages and prices keep rising.
As the spiral continues, the National Association for Business Economists has reduced its forecast for Gross Domestic Product growth, according to CNN.
In May, the group’s economists projected 6.7 percent growth, but that is now down to 5.6 percent.
Growth in the third quarter of the year is now projected at an annualized pace of 4 percent, down from May’s estimate of 6.6 percent.
The group also upped its estimate of the toll inflation would take on workers, projecting consumer prices in the coming fourth quarter of the year will be 5.1 percent above last year’s levels, far above the prediction of 2.8 percent the group made in May.
In a statement, Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida said it’s no secret that the White House is to blame for inflation.
“Reckless government spending causes inflation. We’ve seen the disastrous consequences of the Democrats’ radical spending plans in consistently rising inflation month after month. We know Democrats won’t stand up and fight for American families. They only care about getting their liberal wish list, no matter the cost,” he said on Friday.
“There will be a day of reckoning for this, and unfortunately, American families will pay the price if Democrats have their way. It’s time to say enough. Republicans won’t raise the debt ceiling. We won’t cut Democrats another blank check and allow them to keep hurting families with insane spending and raging inflation. We won’t let the total lack of accountability in Congress continue.”
Republican Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana said the $3.5 trillion spending bill Democrats want to pass would only make inflation worse, according to Fox Business.
“President Biden’s agenda has dramatically increased inflation, and they’re trying to pour gasoline on that fire,” Scalise said.
“[Democrats are] seeing how families have tied the increase in spending in Washington to higher inflation, and if you add trillions in new spending as well as trillions in new taxes, you’re only going to make inflation worse.”
If our federal authorities are going to construct a prison-worthy surveillance state, can they at least buy American while they do it?
According to a report from Axios, federal law enforcement agencies — including the FBI and the Secret Service — have purchased drones from a Chinese company that was flagged by the Department of Defense as a national security threat.
The drones were purchased from Da Jiang Innovations, a company based in Shenzhen, China, that’s the biggest consumer drone manufacturer in the world.
“DJI makes an array of consumer products that are tremendously popular, including the Phantom and Mavic drone series, as well as the Osmo image-stabilization handle,” Axios reported.
“While the products are used for personal and commercial purposes, they also require the user to download proprietary DJI software, and to fly using mapping databases that have the potential to be monitored remotely.”
The FBI bought 19 of the drones for nearly $60,000 on July 20 and on July 26, the Secret Service purchased eight of the drones for over $12,000, according to records included in the Axios account. And yet, on July 23, the Pentagon warned in a news release that DJI’s drones “pose potential threats to national security.”
“Existing DOD policy and practices associated with the use of these systems by U.S. government entities and forces working with U.S. military services remain unchanged contrary to any written reports not approved for release by the DOD,” a release read.
“A recent report indicated that certain models of DJI systems had been found to be approved for procurement and operations for US government departments and agencies. This report was inaccurate and uncoordinated, and its unauthorized release is currently under review by the department.”
It was unclear what specific report the release was citing.Should the federal government be using Chinese drones?Yes No Completing this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Just over four years ago, in an August 2017 report, as Axios noted, the Department of Homeland Security said it had “moderate confidence” that DJI drones were “providing U.S. critical infrastructure and law enforcement data to the Chinese government.”
In 2019, according to a Wall Street Journal report Axios cited, the Interior Department grounded its entire drone fleet over national security concerns related to Chinese manufacturing.
However, Axios reported that efforts to rid government agencies of the drones have stalled due to red tape, partially due to what the outlet called the “cost and complexity of replacing the systems.”
The Secret Service said the drones will “supplement the agency’s existing fleet of small unmanned aircraft and improved [sic] mission support through the use of the most up-to-date equipment nd [sic] software,” according to purchasing records cited by Axios.
The FBI, in its purchasing records, said DJI’s Phantom 4 Pro was “the only commercially available consumer [drone] to combine all [its required] capabilities at an acceptable cost.”
A DJI representative told Axios there’s nothing to be concerned about and the company’s data won’t be transmitted to Chinese authorities.
“Claims that somehow DJI products are transmitting customer data back to China, or to DJI, or anywhere they’re not supposed to be … are just false,” DJI spokesman Adam Lisberg told the outlet. “No one has ever found a deliberate attempt to steal data, or any of the other fantasies promoted by some of our critics. It simply isn’t true.”
There’s also another potential explanation: That the FBI is securing the drones to study Chinese data mining and devise methods to counteract hacking attempts.
“If the federal government is purchasing DJI drones for counter-drone or other security research — fine,” American Enterprise Institute defense and cybersecurity expert Klon Kitchen told Axios via email.
“But otherwise, in a world where you have plenty of alternatives — including some U.S. alternatives that are very good — why would federal agencies assume the inherent risks of Chinese-made systems?”
Florida GOP Sen. Marco Rubio was similarly unimpressed, according to Axios.
“DJI’s cyber security vulnerabilities are well documented,” Rubio wrote in an email to the outlet.
“Given everything we know about the Chinese Communist Party and its companies, there is absolutely no excuse for any government agency to use DJI drones, or any other drones manufactured in countries identified as national security threats.”
And that’s the critical problem here — if these agencies aren’t using these drones as vehicles to study China’s data-collection efforts and hacking, this is handing Beijing the keys to our national security apparatus.
The fact that these off-the-shelf drones are in the fleets of our federal government is worrying enough as it is.
The Interior Department has already stopped using DJI drones, after all. If the FBI and Secret Service are using these drones, it’d be impossible to ensure complete sequestration between our systems and Chinese software.
We’d also be hard-pressed to stop them from seeing and hearing exactly what our federal law enforcement sees and hears — which is, by its very nature, sensitive data. No matter what role the unmanned vehicles are playing in either agency’s mission, I’m guessing it won’t just involve a dad playing with his son in the backyard, teaching him how to use the drone.
Say what you will about the necessity of our surveillance state and how invasive (or not) it is. If it’s going to exist and it’s going to be peeking into our backyards and up our streets with panopticon-like omniprescence, it would help if China isn’t seeing what the federal government sees, too.
Former acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Tom Homan blasted Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas during a “Fox & Friends First” interview on Monday, arguing that Mahorkas is misleading Americans regarding the border crisis.
On Sunday, Mayorkas faced questions from “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace about the mass of Haitian migrants on the U.S.-Mexico border at Del Rio, Texas, that have dominated the latest headlines about the Biden administration’s illegal immigration debacle.
And one particular aspect of Mayorkas’ answers stood out to him: That many of the migrants are in “immigration court proceedings.”
“When you say 12,000 are in immigration proceedings, they are not,” Homan said.
“That’s what the secretary leads you to believe, but many of them were released on notice to report. On the notice to report, it clearly says at the bottom of the form, ‘You are not in immigration proceedings. You will not be detained. ICE will not detain you for humanitarian reasons. You are released.’
So, they’re only going to be in immigration proceedings if they chose to voluntarily show up and turn themselves in, which most won’t. So the secretary is misleading on what he told Chris Wallace,” he added.
Homan also disputed claims that many Haitian migrants had returned to Mexico.
According to The Washington Times, Mayorkas’ DHS estimated on Friday that 8,000 Haitans had gone voluntarily back to Mexico.
“[Mayorkas] realizes they went one or two miles down the line and came into the United States because they surged so many resources to Del Rio that they left 224 miles of border unguarded,” Homan said.
“So those 8,000 didn’t just go to Mexico and they’re going to live there. They went down to cross illegally. Those a8,000 are now in the United States, you know, living here illegally,” he added.
The Biden administration has reported about 2,000 Haitians have been deported.
Approximately 30,000 Haitian migrants crossed at Del Rio in September, according to NPR.
Earlier in September, Sen. Ted Cruz visited Del Rio when more than 10,000 migrants were awaiting processingm and called the situation a “manmade disaster” due to President Joe Biden’s political decisions.
“Joe Biden’s policies are encouraging this staggering rush of illegal aliens,” the senator said on Twitter.
Joe Biden’s policies are encouraging this staggering rush of illegal aliens:
208,887 encountered in August including 103,129 single adults (up 134% from 2020), 18,847 unaccompanied children (up 507% from 2020), & 86,487 individuals in a family unit (up 3,086% from 2020).
“208,887 encountered in August including 103,129 single adults (up 134% from 2020), 18,847 unaccompanied children (up 507% from 2020), & 86,487 individuals in a family unit (up 3,086% from 2020),” Cruz added.
Kimberly Jenkins, a critical care nurse at Banner Health Center in Phoenix, Arizona, knows she could be out of a job soon—unless she complies with her employer’s COVID-19 vaccine program by Nov 1.
That’s just not going to happen, said Jenkins, who is pinning her hopes on a religious exemption to the shot.
“If it’s denied, I won’t be working for Banner any more,” she told The Epoch Times.
Dressed in hospital scrubs, Jenkins and several other nurses in hospital garb stood outside Arizona’s Senate Building on Sept. 24 to protest against the mandatory vaccines.
“I don’t care how I get a paycheck [but] I have to take a step back for my own mental health,” said Jenkins, holding a sign with a drawing of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, which causes COVID-19.
“It Appears To Be Mutating Into A Dictatorship,” the sign’s caption read.
Across the street from the Arizona Capitol, more than 1,000 people had gathered at a medical freedom rally sponsored by more than a dozen anti-COVID-19 vaccine organizations.
Among the sponsors were the Arizona Coalition for Medical Freedom, America’s Frontline Doctors, America’s Healthcare Workers for Medical Freedom, the Patriot Party of Arizona, and Arizona for Medical Freedom.
Jenkins, 41, shrugged when asked what she will do for work if and when she gets fired from her job. “Other organizations are hiring in Arizona. The biggest problem is staff, and having to deal with the fact that we will lose a lot of nurses” over the vaccine mandates, Jenkins said.
“So, you now have new graduates working in high-security areas [in place of seasoned nurses]. We don’t have the staff to train new nurses.”
Since the Biden Administration announced vaccine mandates for federal employees and companies with 100 employees or more, health-care facilities across the country have suffered losses.
Earlier this month, Novant Health Inc. announced 375 staffers had been suspended for their noncompliance with the company’s COVID-19 program.
Meanwhile, Lewis County General Hospital in Lowville, New York, this month shut down its maternity ward when dozens of employees chose to quit their jobs rather than take the injection.
And at Indiana University Health, 125 staffers resigned this month after they refused to get vaccinated.
While Jenkins said she isn’t sure how many nursing jobs are on the chopping block at her facility, “it’s enough to make a huge dent to do proper care.”
She said the standard of care in ICUs is three skilled nurses per patient. Now, it’s common to see two nurses for every critical care patient, she said.
“I don’t like it when science is ignored,” said another unvaccinated nurse at the Sep. 24 rally, who works at Common Spirit Health in Phoenix. “I’ve seen adverse [side effects] happen to co-workers of mine,” after they received the vaccine.
“The vaccine was completely rushed through. It was being rushed through even when we were in a pandemic state,” she told The Epoch Times.
The irony, she said, is that during the pandemic in 2020 “we were heroes. Now, we’re zeroes.” Regardless, she said, “I’m not quitting. I’m not worried about their timeline.”
Another registered nurse at the rally who also works at Common Spirit Health told The Epoch Times on condition of anonymity, “I wouldn’t say I’m fearful [about losing my job]. I would say it’s wrong what they’re doing.”
President Joe Biden’s administration on Monday unveiled a new rule aimed at protecting an Obama-era program that has shielded over 600,000 illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children.
The proposed rule (pdf) would “preserve and fortify” the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, by trying to respond to a court ruling that the program was illegally created.
Then-President Barack Obama ordered the deferred action policy through an executive order but Congress never provided the Executive Branch authorization to allow illegal immigrants to stay in the country, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen, a George W. Bush nominee, ruled in July.
Hanen halted the acceptance of any new applications made under the program and remanded to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) the memorandum that actually established the program for further consideration. That memo, filed in 2012 by Obama’s attorney general, Janet Napolitano, did not under proper notice and comment rulemaking, which violated federal law, according to the judge.
The new DHS proposal, which will formally be published on Tuesday, is a response to the ruling. It includes many of the same provisions as Napolitano’s memo, including eligibility requirements like living continuously in the United States since June 15, 200.
It would also make additions to the program—among them, letting applicants apply for deferred action from deportation without submitting forms for employment authorization.
People will have 60 days from Tuesday to comment on the proposed rule.
“The Biden-Harris administration continues to take action to protect dreamers and recognize their contributions to this country,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement. “This notice of proposed rulemaking is an important step to achieve that goal. However, only Congress can provide permanent protection. I support the inclusion of immigration reform in the reconciliation bill and urge Congress to act swiftly to provide dreamers the legal status they need and deserve.”
Immigration activists refer to the illegal immigrants brought to the United States when they were children as dreamers.
In response to the rule, NumbersUSA, a group that seeks to educate policymakers and other Americans on immigration legislation and policies and pushes for lower immigration levels, said on Twitter, “DACA is illegal and unconstitutional.”
Congress has considered but failed to pass legislation for years that would address the approximately 616,030 DACA recipients in the country. Democrats wanted to include a pathway to citizenship in their budget, which they’re seeking to ram through using a reconciliation process, but the Senate’s top rules expert said last week it could not be part of the process.
Let Muslim terrorists at Gitmo pray, but not American residents. “Democracy” [US Patriot]
A Colorado web site designer is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to accept her appeal of a lower court decision depriving her of the right to conduct her business according to her religious beliefs.
Attorneys for Lorie Smith, the owner and sole employee of 303 Creative, submitted a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court on Sept. 24, asking the justices to overturn a decision of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver that held Colorado officials can “force [Lorie] to create custom websites that [she] otherwise would not.”
The ADF has won 13 Supreme Court victories in recent years, including Masterpiece Cakeshop Ltd v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission in 2018, which upheld the right of another Colorado artist, Jack Phillips, to practice his faith in his business of making wedding cakes.
The writ described Smith as “a website designer who creates original, online content consistent with her faith. She plans to (1) design wedding websites promoting her understanding of marriage, and (2) post a statement explaining that she can only speak messages consistent with her faith.
“But the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA) requires her to create custom websites celebrating same-sex marriage and prohibits her statement—even though Colorado stipulates that she ‘work[s] with all people regardless of … sexual orientation.’ App.53a, 184a,” the writ continued.
“The Tenth Circuit applied strict scrutiny and astonishingly concluded that the government may, based on content and viewpoint, force Lorie to convey messages that violate her religious beliefs and restrict her from explaining her faith.”
The writ said two key questions are raised by the case, including “whether applying a public-accommodation law to compel an artist to speak or stay silent, contrary to the artist’s sincerely held religious beliefs, violates the Free Speech or Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment,” and “whether a public-accommodation law that authorizes secular but not religious exemptions is generally applicable under Smith, and if so, whether this Court should overrule Smith.”
Smith refers to the 1990 Supreme Court decision of Employment Division v. Smith that, according to the writ, Colorado officials cited as supporting the CADA, even though that state law “creates a ‘gerrymander’ where secular artists can decline to speak but religious artists cannot, meaning the government can compel its approved messages.”
Lorie Smith’s case challenges Aubrey Elenis, Director of the Colorado Civil Rights Division (CCRD), as well as each of the individual members, including Sergio Raudel Cordova, Charles Garcia, Richard Lee Lewis Jr., Ajay Menon, Cherylin Peniston, and Meremy Ross. Also challenged is Colorado’s Attorney General, Phil Weiser.
If the high court accepts the case, it would hear oral arguments next spring and could issue a decision as early as July 2022.
Given the Masterpiece Cakeshop decision, the Lorie Smith case could be viewed as a straight-forward opportunity for the Justices to remind lower courts and state officials that the First Amendment guarantees every individual American the right to practice and express their religion, or lack thereof, according to ADF General Counsel Kristen Waggoner.
“The government shouldn’t weaponize the law to force a web designer to speak messages that violate her beliefs. This case involves quintessential free speech and artistic freedom, which the 10th Circuit dangerously cast aside,” said Waggoner, who argued before the 10th Circuit on behalf of Smith.
“Colorado cake artist Jack Phillips has been harassed for years, and now Lorie Smith is being told that she must speak views she opposes and can’t post about her beliefs on her own business website. The 10th Circuit’s reasoning turns free-speech protections on their head by saying that the more ‘unique’ speech is, the more the government can compel it. That kind of dangerous, unconstitutional reasoning is why we have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take Lorie’s case.”
Waggoner was referring to actions taken by the CCRD against Phillips in the aftermath of the Masterpiece decision, including new charges of CADA violations that effectively forced him to retrace the same costly litigation path that resulted in the landmark 2018 decision.
The High Court could also be inclined to accept the Smith case because, according to the writ, the 10th Circuit’s decision “cements a three-way split over conflicts between free speech and laws like CADA, pitting the Tenth Circuit and several state courts of last resort against the Eighth and Eleventh Circuits and the Arizona Supreme Court.
“At the same time, the opinion contradicts this Court’s free-speech precedents, which have repeatedly declared as anathemas to the First Amendment all government attempts to compel speech, to regulate speech based on content, and to stamp out disfavored speech.”
Director of the Colorado Civil Rights Division Elenis has been emailed asking for comment.
Texas Attorney General Paxton announced on Sept. 20 that he is leading a coalition of 10 states in filing an amicus brief with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in support of Florida’s law that attempts to regulate censorship on Big Tech social media platforms.
Paxton signed on behalf of Texas, joining the states of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, and South Carolina who have also filled an amicus brief in support of Florida’s law.
“The regulation of big tech censorship will inevitably suppress the ideas and beliefs of millions of Americans,” Paxton said in a statement. “I will defend the First Amendment and ensure that conservative voices have the right to be heard. Big Tech does not have the authority to police the expressions of people whose political viewpoint they simply disagree with.”
Florida’s SB 7072 law allows Floridians to take legal action against Big Tech platforms if they censor a user’s content without consistent standards.
The new bill also prevents Big Tech from banning Floridian political candidates. Social media companies that deplatform candidates for statewide office will be fined $250,000 a day. The fine is $25,000 per day when deplatforming candidates for other offices.
Big Tech companies that violate the law can be brought to trial for monetary damage, and the state’s attorney general can litigate companies that don’t comply with the law under Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill into law in May but District Judge Robert Hinkle in June granted a temporary injunction preventing the governor from implementing the law after two Internet trade groups—NetChoice and the Computer and Communications Industry Association— filed a lawsuit.
The trade groups argued the law may violate the First Amendment by compelling social media platforms to host offensive speech they otherwise would not and by interfering with their editorial policies.
The coalition in its amicus brief said the district court’s First Amendment analysis is “riddled with errors.”
“It veered off course from the outset by concluding that S.B. 7072 regulates speech, when that law instead regulates conduct that is unprotected by the First Amendment: social media platforms’ arbitrary application of their content moderation policies,” the coalition wrote.
Earlier this month, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed Texas’s House Bill 20—similar to Florida’s law—which protects Texans from wrongful censorship on social media platforms.
House Bill 20 prevents social media companies with more than 50 million monthly users, such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, from banning users based on their political beliefs. The attorney general would also be able to take legal action on behalf of Texas residents that were banned or blocked by a platform due to such discrimination.
“We will always defend the freedom of speech in Texas,” Abbott said. “Social media websites have become our modern-day public square. They are a place for healthy public debate where information should be able to flow freely—but there is a dangerous movement by social media companies to silence conservative viewpoints and ideas. That is wrong, and we will not allow it in Texas. I thank Senator Bryan Hughes, Representative Briscoe Cain, and the Texas Legislature for ensuring that House Bill 20 reached my desk during the second special session.”
The Epoch Times sits down with Elbridge A. Colby, author of the new book “The Strategy of Denial: American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict,” to discuss America’s strategy for defeating China in a war over Taiwan.
China aims to replace the United States as the dominant power in Asia, and it is rapidly acquiring the means to achieve this goal. As a result, Beijing will soon be able to make a bid for regional military dominance, starting with an invasion of Taiwan. Absent an effective American response, Beijing could certainly achieve its aims.
This is the premise of a watershed new book, “The Strategy of Denial: America’s Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict,” by Elbridge A. Colby, the top Pentagon official who authored America’s 2018 National Security Strategy (NSS).
The 2018 NSS explicitly moved America away from terrorism and towards China and great power competition, a complex shift in mindset for many in the U.S. defence establishment.
“I absolutely experienced a lot of institutional pushbacks on it,” Colby told The Epoch Times in an interview. “And we’re still not there, there has been an enormous amount of foot-dragging, but there’s been a lot of progress too.”
Colby noted that it was not widely appreciated that China posed the greatest threat to U.S. security interests.
“That is one of the reasons I wrote this book, not just as a statement, but to lay out in a pretty clear and rigorous way why China is the primary threat and how do we deal with it in a military context,” he said.
The stakes could not be higher. Asia comprises 40 percent of global GDP and around two-thirds of global growth. Chinese dominance over Asia would, Colby observes in his book, give Beijing the power “to exclude the United States from reasonably free trade and access to these wealthy regions.”
Not only would China be a true peer competitor of the United States, but its advantageous position would also gravely weaken America. Eventually, China could consolidate to “project violent force elsewhere, including into North America.”
Colby clearly has no time in his book to discuss America’s destiny as the most powerful nation. While others continue to speak of the U.S. strategic objectives, Colby cuts to the chase stating clearly: “Denying China hegemony over Asia is the cardinal objective of U.S. grand strategy.”
Colby is also candid in his writing that America’s unipolar moment has passed.
The United States does not have the power to do everything everywhere and must make hard choices about aligning means to the ends. The sacrifices America must make in other parts of the world are real, and Colby does not shy away from these, calling them out by name.
Colby notes that the United States has made far-reaching pledges in Europe and the Middle East without appreciating China’s rise as a potential great power. Many fear that failing to follow through on these commitments will fatally weaken Washington’s credibility with allies in Asia.
Yet Colby presents a compelling counter-argument—that means and actions speak far louder than stated intentions. If the United States doubles down on rhetoric without responding to changing realities, then this undermines rather than supports America’s credibility.
This “differentiated credibility,” as Colby persuasively puts it, means jettisoning pledges that are of lesser importance, so that America may focus on its core interest in Asia. He argues it is this willingness to focus effort that will really determine whether Asian partners have confidence in their American ally.
Colby analysis of America’s comparative strengths and weaknesses, the optimal pathways available to each actor, combined with his ruthless honesty, is what makes this book a must-read for anyone with an interest in strategy or the post-pandemic world.
It’s also what gives his framework for U.S. success its own “credibility”—that to prevent Beijing’s dominance in Asia, an anti-hegemonic coalition must be able and willing to defeat China in a war over Taiwan. By carefully walking the reader through all the alternatives, the consequences for failure, and the means required for success, Colby demonstrates the inescapable truth through rationalised reason.
Colby observes that ordinary Americans seem to have a far greater appreciation for the true threat China poses than the political and foreign policy elite in Washington.
Asked by The Epoch Times why he thinks that is, he explains that the speed of China’s rise has escaped an enormous number of people, especially outside the economic sphere.
“In the military sphere, there hasn’t obviously been a major war so it hasn’t been put to the test, so lagging like this is not uncommon,” he said. “It doesn’t make it excusable or good, but it isn’t uncommon.”
Colby notes that those in the Midwest understand the China challenge in a more visceral and real way than others.
“I think we still are failing to appreciate the magnitude the China challenge,” he said
The framework Colby lays down for defeating China is one he knows, from first-hand experience in the Pentagon, will help policy-makers make sensible resource decisions.
“If you are to make intelligent decisions, you have to have a framework, and that framework should allow your military, your defence establishment, to understand what’s most important, how you deal with it and in what way,” he said. “My aspiration is to make it clear on what basis we need to focus our effort and what kind of military strategy we need…How many F35s do we have, how many ships we have in the navy, what kinds of things we do with different allies etcetera.”
Defeating China in a war over Taiwan requires robust preparation, and not only by the United States.
“Japan and Taiwan both need to dramatically increase defence spending,” says Colby, pointing to the fact Japan only spends 1 percent of GDP on defence.
“Japan needs to at least double its defence spending at a minimum. Taiwan needs to invest in the right kind of stuff to resist an invasion and be resilient to a blockade.”
Many American foreign policy experts speak in overtly ideological or universalist language, and the contrast with Colby’s realist tone is striking, yet he considers this a matter of approach.
“I am motivated by American values and my motivation is to preserve and promote them,” Colby tells The Epoch Times. “I think the way to do that is in a realistic fashion.”
Recently the world commemorated 20 years since 9/11. Reading through the book one cannot escape the sense that this level of analysis–rigorous, methodical, and serious-minded–has been sorely missing from American strategic policy during these past two decades.
Asked to rate American performance since 2001 Colby is scornful: “Quite poorly, honestly. Very poorly, especially until about 5 years ago.”
“We allowed China to more than steal a march. I mean, we allowed China to grow without being challenged, and not just grow but get closer to a position where it could bid for regional dominance, so we really need to do better,” Colby said.
While America experienced political paralysis over the so-called Russian influence at home, those in Asia have witnessed China’s expansionist ambition with increasing unease. Beijing is exerting dominance over the South China Sea, cracking down in Hong Kong, and deploying ever more numerous and advanced capabilities for seizing Taiwan.
Missing has been any plan from America to thwart Beijing’s goal of dominance.
Colby’s book arrests this danger in a direct way, laying down a believable framework for victory that will galvanise support, concentrate action and help decision-makers make correct choices in a hegemonic rivalry that will play out for decades to come.
Elbridge A. Colby’s “The Strategy for Denial: America’s Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict” is a must-read for every person who is concerned about China’s growing threat and how the world—and more importantly, America—should counter it.
Despite a federal judge’s ruling that the Deferred Action in Childhood Arrivals program was outside the law, the Biden administration is moving forward with its plan to make it permanent.
According to a report Monday in The Wall Street Journal, the Department of Homeland Security will publish a proposed regulation that will allow the illegal immigrants protected by DACA — known as “Dreamers” — to continue to be part of the program.
The proposal is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on Tuesday.
DACA allows illegal immigrants who entered the country as children to remain, as long as they meet certain conditions. The program was started through an executive order of then-President Barack Obama.
In July, a federal judge in Texas ruled that the program could not accept new applications but could continue for those already enrolled until the case eventually makes its way through the court system, according to CNN.
The description of the rule says, “On January 20, 2021, President Biden signed a Presidential Memorandum, Preserving and Fortifying Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), requiring DHS, in consultation with the Attorney General, to take all appropriate action to preserve and fortify DACA, consistent with applicable law. Consistent with the Presidential Memorandum, DHS intends to engage in notice-and-comment rulemaking to preserve and fortify DACA.”
The regulation was crafted, in part, to address concerns of the judge who put the brakes on DACA that there was no sound administrative rationale for the program Obama created with the stroke of a pen in 2012.Do you think DACA should continue?Yes No Completing this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Legislative efforts to make DACA part of federal law have failed. Last week, an attempt by Senate Democrats to create a path to citizenship for DACA recipients through the $3.5 trillion spending bill they hope to pass was dashed when the Senate’s parliamentarian said the proposal could not be part of the massive package.
After the DACA regulation is published, there will be a 60-day comment period for the public to weigh in.
As noted in the document, mail comments are not being accepted.
“You may submit comments on the entirety of this proposed rulemaking package, identified by DHS Docket No. 2021-0006, through the Federal eRulemaking Portal at https://www.regulations.gov. Follow the website instructions for submitting comments,” the document says.
As envisaged by the new rule, illegal immigrants covered by DACA would pay $495 for a two-year work permit and could come and go from the country as they pleased.
DACA recipients not interested in working could stay if they pay an $85 fee, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The DHS analysis of its DACA proposal says costs to local communities from the illegal immigrants it protects are “unlikely to be significant, and it may well have a positive net effect,” according to the report.
The rule says that “it is not generally the best use of those limited resources to remove productive young people to countries where they may not have lived since early childhood and whose languages they may not even speak.
“It recognizes that, as a general matter, DACA recipients, who came to this country many years ago as children, lacked the intent to violate the law, have not been convicted of any serious crimes, and remain valued members of our communities.
“It reflects the conclusion that, while they are in the United States, they should have access to a process that, operating on a case-by-case basis, may allow them to work to support themselves and their families, and to contribute to our economy in multiple ways.
“This proposed rule also accounts for the momentous decisions DACA recipients have made in ordering their lives in reliance on and as a result of this policy, and it seeks to continue the benefits that have accrued to DACA recipients, their families, their communities, and to the Department itself that have been made possible by the policy.”
The rule estimates that through this regulation, the DACA population will grow, reaching 956,863 by 2031.
A game that was purportedly being promoted by the Google Play Store featured a scene in players could undress a sleeping stepsister, according to video posted to the social media site TikTok.
The New York Post reported last week that the game, “LUV,” has been deleted from the store. However, before that, a parent from a now-deleted TikTok account documented the ad for the creepy game.
Ads for the deleted app would apparently appear to users playing other games. So-called “free” games typically display advertisements in between levels as a source of revenue.
Florida filmmaker Michael McWhorter saw the original video and made his own TikTok video complaining about “LUV.”
“Hey google, why is this in your play store?” the caption on McWhorter’s video reads.
The video advertisement features an illustration of a pink-haired woman in scanty clothing sleeping on a bed. A young man with a sexually suggestive T-shirt is shown saying, “My stepsister passed out after the party.”
The player, who’s supposed to be controlling the stepbrother, is given a choice: “Don’t disturb her” or “Help her undress.”
In the advertisement, if the player takes her top off and wakes her up, at first she’s scandalized — but then she bites her lower lip and smiles.
“The goal is to get her naked without waking her, but the message is, ‘if you do wake her, don’t worry, she’s into it,’” McWhorter said in his video. “Google, how the f*** is this game available in your app store?”Are Google’s values out of sync with America?Yes No Completing this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
“And then being advertised on other games — a game that my son could easily be playing,” he continued. “What do you think this teaches young preteen boys about how women should be valued and treated?”
According to U.K. Metro, the app held a 17+ “Mature” rating on the Google Play Store. However, the article also noted it was being advertised in other “free-to-play” games, which are popular among children since they don’t cost money to install and play.
WARNING: The following video contains language that some viewers will find offensive.
Here’s McWhorter’s video, which features footage from “LUV”:
The game has since been removed, although it’s unclear how it made it onto the store in the first place.
Consider Google’s Inappropriate Content policy, which bars “apps that contain or promote sexual content or profanity, including pornography, or any content or services intended to be sexually gratifying.”
“We don’t allow apps or app content that appear to promote a sexual act in exchange for compensation,” it continues. “Content that contains nudity may be allowed if the primary purpose is educational, documentary, scientific or artistic, and is not gratuitous.”
I’m operating under the assumption that “LUV” did not get a pass for artistic merit. The game, which boasted “addictive gameplay” and an “interactive story” according to Metro, in what the newspaper described as “a badly written blurb inviting players to get involved,” has since been deleted.
The app’s developer, Afivad Limited, didn’t have any other listed titles in the store. However, it’s worth noting that the Metro article contained a screenshot of a host of other soft-porn titles featuring similar themes in the Google Play Store. Whether any of those featured incest or sexual assault was unclear, as was whether they were being advertised on free-to-play titles.
Meanwhile, earlier this month, Google reportedly blocked the pro-life organization Live Action from running advertisements on its platform — while allowing pro-abortion organizations to run their ads without similar restrictions:
.@Google has also banned the promotion of our Baby Olivia video, a medically accurate (& accredited by OBGYNs), lifelike animation of human development in the womb, citing “unreliable claims.”
Google has also censored Project Veritas on their YouTube platform — in a video where the controversial group was exposing Google’s censorship of conservative sources.
But a game that advertised itself on free-to-play apps that children tend to use with a clip featuring incestuous sexual abuse? That, somehow, just happened to have slipped through the cracks.
Parents need to monitor what their kids do online, granted, and not just because of apps like “LUV.”
However, is it too much to hope for that one of big tech’s biggest companies couldn’t monitor games that advertise through its store for odious content like this?
For a guy with the support of billionaires, millionaires, China, Mainstream Media, and Social Media, his numbers are WAY worse than Trump ever [US Patriot]
President Joe Biden’s approval rating has hit a new record low at just 40 percent, according to a poll released on Monday by Rasmussen Reports.
The poll of likely U.S. voters also revealed 58 percent of likely voters disapprove of the president’s job performance.
Among those, 50 percent selected “Strongly Disapproved.”
In contrast, only 21 percent selected “Strongly Approve.”
The current approval rating places him below former President Donald Trump, who was at 43 percent approval at this point in his presidency, according to Rasmussen.
The daily poll has followed Biden’s approval rating since his first day in office.
He ranked as high as 55 percent approval on May 26. Since then, his approval has dropped by 15 percent.
According to a Rasmussen Reports Twitter post Monday, the majority of Americans oppose Biden’s $3.5 trillion spending bill, his plan to raise the debt ceiling and his pandemic restrictions.
Coming Up Today:@JoeBiden daily presidential job approval % is – now at a new record low.
– Majority Oppose $3.5 Trillion Spending Bill – Majority Against Raising Debt Ceiling – Majority Now Believe Pandemic A Trojan Horse For Permanent Socialism pic.twitter.com/XB2r7zFGQF
The Democratic spending bill will be a central focus this week as Speaker Nancy Pelosi seeks a House vote on Thursday. The California Democrat has claimed to have the votes to pass the bill, but some House members remain uncertain.
Biden’s recently announced vaccine mandates for federal workers and companies with 100 employees or more has also led to widespread frustration with many Americans. Several states have opposed the measure through letters and across social media.
Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem have both vowed to sue the Biden administration over the issue.
Daily tracking results for the daily poll are collected via telephone surveys of 500 likely voters per night and reported on a three-day rolling average basis, according to Rasmussen Reports.
The margin of sampling error for the full sample of 1,500 Likely Voters is plus or minus 2.5 percentage points with a 95 percent level of confidence.
A poll from Fox News last week showed Biden’s approval rating with independent voters had experienced a strong drop. Since January, his approval rating plummeted 24 points.
WATCH: Joe Biden’s approval rating collapses 24 points among independent voters. pic.twitter.com/a8YxNMmyQJ
The Taliban could gain control of nuclear weapons as a result of their lightning conquest of Afghanistan and the Biden administration’s hurried abandonment of the county, according to former National Security Advisor John Bolton.
“The Taliban in control of Afghanistan threatens the possibility of terrorists taking control in Pakistan too. … If the whole country gets taken over by terrorists, that means maybe 150 nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists,” Bolton told host John Catsimatidis a WABC-AM interview on Thursday.
Bolton elaborated upon the threat in an Op-Ed in The Washington Post last month in which he said that Pakistan could become an extremist country in the aftermath of the fall of Afghanistan.
“For decades, Islamabad has recklessly pursued nuclear weapons and aided Islamist terrorism — threats that U.S. policymakers have consistently underestimated or mishandled. With Kabul’s fall, the time for neglect or equivocation is over,” he wrote.
The Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan elevates the risk that Pakistani extremists will increase influence, or threaten to seize control. Pakistan could have well over 100 nuclear weapons, which in the hands of an extremist regime is an unthinkable threat. https://t.co/kueRiCB6zH
“The Taliban’s takeover next door immediately poses the sharply higher risk that Pakistani extremists will increase their already sizable influence in Islamabad, threatening at some point to seize full control,” he wrote.
Bolton said the nuclear threat could be even worse than that from Iran.
“While Iran still aspires only to nuclear weapons, Pakistan already has dozens, perhaps more than 150, according to public sources,” the former national security advisor wrote.Has Joe Biden set back hopes for world peace?Yes No Completing this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
“Such weapons in the hands of an extremist Pakistan would dramatically imperil India, raising tensions in the region to unprecedented levels, especially given China’s central role in Islamabad’s nuclear and ballistic-missile programs,” he said. “Moreover, the prospect that Pakistan could slip individual warheads to terrorist groups to detonate anywhere in the world would make a new 9/11 incomparably more deadly.”
Bolton said the United States must ensure Pakistan does not become either an ally or a client of the Taliban.
“Acknowledging the enormous uncertainty, given Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities, the United States must now come down hard on Islamabad if it continues supporting the Taliban and other terrorists,” he wrote.
America must also avert a potential disaster, Bolton said.
“Most important, we must devote maximum attention to Pakistan’s nuclear stockpiles and weapons-production facilities. If a future terrorist regime in Islamabad (or even today’s government or like-minded successors) appears ready to transfer nuclear capabilities to terrorists, we should take preventive action,” he wrote.
Bolton, who was national security advisor to former President Donald Trump from April 2018 to September 2019, said during his Sunday interview that President Joe Biden embarrassed himself and the nation with his bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Allies are “wondering if he has a grip on his own administration’s foreign policy,” Bolton said in the Aug. 23 Op-Ed.
He said China is more of a threat than the Biden administration seems to understand.
“China, which already has a lot of influence in Pakistan, is going to increase its influence and put more pressure on India. This is a big development in that part of the world,” Bolton wrote.
“I think the United States must look at China and the threat it poses across the board. They’ve been stealing our intellectual property for decades … They discriminate against foreign companies and investors. They manipulate the World Trade Organization. They are building up their military… And they are very aggressive politically,” he said.
“The United States needs to come to grips with this threat … and needs to be prepared for a long struggle across the full spectrum of potential power — economic, political and military. …
Washington, D.C. — Last night the U.S. House of Representatives voted 316-113, including 135 Republicans, to approve H.R. 4350, the FY2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), that requires young women to register with the Selective Service for a potential military draft. Democrats blocked House floor consideration of proposals to strike the provision from the bill. Action moves to the Senate where a similar provision reportedly was adopted by the Democrat-led committee in July.
“The House has capitulated to the Democrat’s radical social agenda for our military and forced our daughters to sign up for the draft. Shame on them. There is no justification for reversing established military policy that protects young women from gambling their lives on a Biden-declared national emergency.
“Concerned Women for America rejects the destructive lie that women’s equality means being the same as men and the left’s bankrupt ideology that erases the dignity and status of women entirely.
“We will not accept the ‘go along to get along’ attitude of elected leaders willing to sacrifice common sense and tie the hands of our military with costly mandates for social experiments in our armed forces.
“We will continue to reject cheap calls for ‘equality’ at the expense of young women’s lives and critical national security priorities.
“We call on the Senate to reject this reckless crusade to draft our daughters.”
While you were distracted with the Arizona Audit, Congress (including 135 Republicans) the House of Representatives just passed a new Red Flag Gun Confiscation law.
How did they do it?
With the help of 135 Republicans joining with the Democrats to pass something so clearly unconstitutional.
A provision in the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act would allow military courts to issue protective orders that include “Red Flag” gun confiscation, according to the more than 1,300-page bill.
In the legislation, those beholden to the United States Code of Military Justice could be issued a “military court protective order” by a military judge or magistrate, which would make “possessing, receiving, or otherwise accessing a firearm” illegal.
“A military court protective order issued on an ex parte basis shall restrain a person from possessing, receiving, or otherwise accessing a firearm; and a military court protective order issued after the person to be subject to the order has received notice and opportunity to be heard on the order, shall restrain such person from possessing, receiving, or otherwise accessing a firearm in accordance with section 922 of title 18,” SEC. 529 of H.R. 4350 states.
Additionally, military court protective orders issued on an emergency basis are exempted from providing the recipient with the standard “right to due process.” Instead, “notice and opportunity to be heard” must only be provided after an order was already issued.
“EMERGENCY ORDERS.—A protective order on an emergency basis may be issued on an ex parte basis under such rules and limitations as the President shall prescribe,” the section continues. “In the case of ex parte orders, notice and opportunity to be heard and to present evidence must be provided within a reasonable time not to exceed 30 calendar days after the date on which the order is issued, sufficient to protect the respondent’s due process rights.”
Gun Owners of America (GOA), a pro-Second Amendment gun rights advocacy group, warned the military gun confiscation orders could provide lawmakers with a precedent to extend the rule to the general population.
“Like the proverbial camel’s nose in the tent, allowing this provision to remain in a bill pertaining to the military will eventually work its way into legislation applying to the rest of the population,” GOA wrote. “That’s why we need to raise our voices in unison against these gun confiscation orders.”
Dan Crenshaw, Madison Cawthorn, Matt Gaetz and 132 other House Republicans voted with the Democrats to pass federal red flag gun laws. Why even bother having a Republican Party when they just vote with the Democrats anyway?
Madison Cawthorn appeared to panic when word got out he was one of the traitors….
He recorded this video in his car to do damage control:
Cawthorn hits the panic button tonight, firing off a video from his car. He has been getting called a traitor all day after voting for the “red flag” gun bill. “I have not betrayed anybody in the 2nd Amendment community. I will always have your back. I’m armed every single day.” pic.twitter.com/91yUw5GFGW
What do I know, but perhaps instead of relying on the Senate to do your job, maybe you and your 134 RINO buddies should have just fucking voted NO and sent it back to be deleted before it would get your vote.
I mean, I’m no “Congressman” or anything, but that’s what I’d do.
You piece of shit RINOS.
Even the ones we thought were good are selling us out.
Are people aware of what happens when someone triggers a red flag law?
They send armed police to your house. Armed police who have been told you are armed with a firearm and present a risk to yourself and others. And they attempt to retrieve your guns.
One hundred and thirty-five House Republicans have voted in favor of legislation that includes red flag gun confiscation provisions. “A provision in the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act would allow military courts to issue protective orders that include “Red Flag” gun confiscation.”
In the legislation, those beholden to the United States Code of Military Justice could be issued a “military court protective order” by a military judge or magistrate, which would make “possessing, receiving, or otherwise accessing a firearm” illegal.
You might say, well, that’s just people in the military. You mean people who swore to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States from all threats, foreign and domestic. Why would a Government want to disarm them, I wonder?
Having trained them to be efficient at war and most if not all forms of combat before any real leap toward a lasting despotism of the elite, it might not be a bad idea to deprive these potential irritants of their firearms. But not just them.
Gun Owners of America (GOA), a pro-Second Amendment gun rights advocacy group, warned the military gun confiscation orders could provide lawmakers with a precedent to extend the rule to the general population.
“Like the proverbial camel’s nose in the tent, allowing this provision to remain in a bill pertaining to the military will eventually work its way into legislation applying to the rest of the population,” GOA wrote. “That’s why we need to raise our voices in unison against these gun confiscation orders.”
Yes, it would set a precedent, and yes, the gun-grabbers would try to expand it at the earliest opportunity. They are not even shy about that. Their candidates for president run on it these days. So, you might also wonder, why would 135 Republicans vote for this? Folks like Dan Crenshaw, Matt Gaetz,
They either didn’t know it was in there, or they did, neither of which is acceptable.
This is a nationwide grant to confiscate firearms without concern for due process or property rights and an incremental assault on second, fourth, and fifth amendment rights.
From the moment of passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, Democrats from high tax states began to whine that the capping of the deduction for state and local taxes (SALT) at $10,000 was unfair and unwarranted. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) have been insistent that wealthy taxpayers are entitled to an unlimited federal tax deduction for high taxes these wealthy individuals pay in their home states.
The conversation regarding the appropriateness of an unlimited SALT deduction has continued unabated and is an item of controversy as Congress is discussing both the $1.5 trillion infrastructure bill and the $3.5 trillion “budget” proposal.
Apparently missing from this conversation are legislative actions that have already taken place in high tax states that will allow individuals with non-corporate business income to achieve unlimited SALT deductions beginning in their 2021 federal income tax returns. These already completed legislative actions will not cost the individual states passing such legislation a penny.
Legislation passed in 2021 in high tax states allowing unlimited SALT deduction on business income will likely cost the federal government as much as (a reasonable guess) $35 billion to $45 billion in 2021 and $175 billion to $220 billion over the next five years. The legislation would leave only employees and those with interest and dividend income limited to a $10,000 SALT deduction.
The often-published estimate of the cost of eliminating the $10,000 SALT cap for 2021 is $88.7 billion. This often-repeated estimate was made by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in December 2019 before any states passed legislation to allow individuals with business interests to deduct their SALT without limitation. All of this legislative action took place in 2021, more than a year after the CBO published its estimate of the cost of restoration of the SALT deduction as $88.7 billion. This $88.7 billion estimate for the cost of a restoration of an unlimited SALT is obsolete.
As the Trump administration wound down, in November 2020, the Treasury issued a notice stating that if a state taxed a business with more than one owner directly rather than through the owner’s individual tax return, the state taxes applicable to the business would be deductible against the income of the business without limitation. Over the next 10 months, legislatures (mostly Democratic legislatures in high tax states) trying to help their wealthiest residents avoid the $10,000 limitation for SALT gave them the opportunity to pay their state taxes applicable from their businesses through their businesses. This results in full deductibility on their individual federal tax returns. While costing the Treasury billions, these legislative actions did not cost these individual states one penny. In California, the legislation passed unanimously.
Like tax shelter salesmen of yesteryear, the state legislatures have referred to these new opportunities for more than single owner entities as “work-arounds.” The mere change in where an individual’s tax payment is mailed will reduce the federal tax on the individual. The combined impact of these states passing such legislation for their wealthy residents could be considered as the largest tax shelter program in the history of the United States.
There has been little, if any, mention of these state legislative actions that could cost the Treasury hundreds of billions of dollars over the next five years.
It appears unlikely that this loss of funds to the Treasury, which is already in place, is being considered in concert with the infrastructure and budget proposals. It’s sad, but possible, that a loss of hundreds of billions of dollars of federal tax revenues is of no interest in Congress.
The president and Congress each have choices with respect to both the unlimited SALT deduction and the recent legislative actions in high tax states. The president could direct the Treasury to withdraw Revenue Notice 2020-75, which resulted in the high tax states’ legislation and direct the IRS to challenge any individual taxpayer who deducts SALT beyond $10,000 regardless of whether the state taxes were paid through their businesses to state taxing authorities. Congress could include in either the infrastructure bill or the budget language to codify that the state taxes paid by individual businesses is limited to the $10,000 cap. Either of these actions would restore the $10,000 cap on SALT deductions.
With state legislative changes and what will probably be very aggressive use of the individual state legislation, the remaining number of individuals impacted by the SALT limitation will be composed almost solely of exceptionally highly paid employees. And this has the taint of being grossly unfair.
Congress could restore the unlimited SALT deduction. With existing state law, it would appear to be terribly unfair that individuals owning businesses can avoid the SALT limitation while employees would not be entitled to this opportunity. Steph Curry of the Golden State Warriors will earn $46 million in 2022. He will be limited to a $10,000 SALT deduction for his roughly $5.5 million of SALT. A hedge fund partner also making $46 million would be entitled to a $5.5 million SALT deduction, reducing his federal taxes by about $2.2 million relative to Curry. How can this be the goal of federal law?
Congress could restore the unlimited SALT deduction and increase tax rates to reflect this increase in SALT deductions for wealthy taxpayers. Note again, state legislatures have already passed legislation that will cost the Treasury in the neighborhood of $175 billion to $220 billion. If this is ignored, the deficit will increase by this amount.
Or Congress could ignore the issue and allow business owners a tax break while punishing high income employees, many of whom are high-profile athletes.
Evidence seized by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents in a warrantless vehicle search near the international border with Canada cannot be used in state prosecutions, a divided Vermont Supreme Court ruled on Sept. 24.
Vermont’s high court rebuked the CBP.
Article 11 of the Vermont Constitution, which “protects individuals from unreasonable searches or seizures ‘by any officer or messenger,’” guarantees “individuals the right to privacy in their vehicles and to containers within those vehicles,” Justice William D. Cohen wrote for the court in the 3–2 decision.
Justice Karen Carroll authored the dissenting opinion, which Justice Harold Eaton Jr. joined. They held that the court’s majority opinion conflicted with case law from Vermont and other jurisdictions.
Defendants Phillip Walker-Brazie and Brandi-Lena Butterfield were in a car on Aug. 12, 2018, driving to their home in Richford, Vermont, when a border patrol officer pulled the vehicle over in a remote area about 2 miles from the U.S.–Canada border, which is used to smuggle people and drugs. Such officers conducting roving patrols near the border are authorized by federal law to carry out warrantless searches, Cohen wrote in the court opinion.
The officer smelled a strong odor of marijuana coming from the car and thought the occupants seemed nervous. The defendants denied the officer permission to search the vehicle, but other border patrol agents subsequently searched the car. They discovered and seized marijuana and a bag of hallucinogenic mushrooms. The feds gave the evidence to the Vermont State Police, and the defendants were charged with drug possession in Orleans County in Vermont state court.
The defendants argued that this federal search authority isn’t consistent with Article 11 of the Vermont Constitution. That provision would have required a Vermont police officer to secure a warrant before searching the car without their consent.
“The search of defendants’ car was an unreasonable intrusion into this privacy interest, and we have previously determined that the appropriate remedy for such violation is exclusion of the evidence that was gathered. … The intrusion into defendants’ privacy was not somehow lessened because the search was conducted by a federal agent,” the court opinion states.
Excluding such evidence from state proceedings is essential, the opinion states, because “allowing the State to use evidence gathered in violation of the Vermont Constitution simply because it was gathered by federal law enforcement officers might implicitly encourage federal officers to engage in searches that Vermont officers cannot, so that Vermont officers will reciprocate by passing along information regarding immigration violations.”
Jay Diaz, general counsel of the ACLU Foundation of Vermont, which represented the defendants, hailed the court decision in a statement.
“This critically important ruling means that local police and prosecutors cannot use [the] Border Patrol to do an end run around Vermont’s Constitution. … The strong privacy and dignity protections embedded in our state constitution are a source of state pride and the Court’s decision reaffirms and expands those rights,” Diaz said.
Attorney General T. J. Donovan, a Democrat who filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the defendants, said in a statement: “I applaud the Court’s decision.
“The Vermont Constitution protects Vermonters regardless of federal government involvement.”
At the end of his magisterial book “How Rome Fell: Death of a Superpower,” Adrian Goldsworthy compares the fate of imperial Rome with contemporary America.
The dominance of a civilization, he notes, depends not only on resources and military prowess but also on “culture,” that hard-to-define yet palpable mixture of confidence, savoir-faire, and commitment to foundational principles beyond the calculus of individual profit or aggrandizement.
Beginning in the third century, Goldsworthy writes, Rome began to turn away from that cultural compact and decline wove itself into the sinews of Roman society.
“The rot,” Goldsworth observes, “began at the top, and in time a similar attitude pervaded the entire government and army high command.”
I predict that future historians, seeking to understand the decline of the United States, will settle on the annus horribilis of 2021 as the terminus a quo.
Immersed in the moment, it is often hard to disentangle the main story from the cacophony and chatter of mere events.
But can anyone who is not Jen Psaki contemplate America’s leadership and not discern the rot at the top?
Goldsworthy mentions the army high command. Take a look at the American high command, beginning with SecDef Lloyd “stand down” Austin and Mark “White Rage” Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
A lot of ink has been spilled trying to assess them both, their surrender to identity politics and to the corrosive sentimentality of political correctness.
General Milley’s treacherous effort to circumvent the chain of command and pretend that America’s military answered first of all to him, not the President, has attracted some measure of the obloquy it deserves, but he continues on in his position instead of being courtmartialed.
I doubt that he will be able to remain for long in the army—public sentiment against him is strong and growing—but I also doubt that he will be disciplined.
The rot that he himself embodies is too widespread to require it.
Indeed, “rot at the top” describes our situation to a T.
At the pinnacle we have an erratic practitioner of glossolalia whom everyone, friend and foe alike, understands is well on the road to senility.
Then cast your eye down the line of succession: Vice President Kamala Harris, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, President pro tempore of the Senate Patrick Leahy, Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellin, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
A depressing cavalcade, isn’t it?
But the rot is not confined to political figures.
What Robert Frost called “the slow smokeless burning of decay” has installed itself in the heart of many of our most cherished institutions.
I already mentioned the military. What about our intelligence and crime fighting institutions?
It must be dismantled, and not just the leadership “but the whole organization and everyone in it.”
With every passing week, its role in concocting and disseminating the whole “Russia Collusion” narrative against Donald Trump becomes more obvious and more disgusting.
And note well that its activities on that front are not done and over with.
Christopher Wray, the Director of the Bureau, is assiduously pursuing the successor to the Russia Collusion Narrative: the Jan. 6 insurrection hoax, according to which American citizens exercising their Constitutionally guaranteed right of free speech are branded as “domestic extremists” and hunted down.
The closer you look at that institution, the worse it looks.
Even the mild mannered Holman Jenkins, writing in The Wall Street Journal, argues that the Bureau “should be scrapped and something new built to replace it.”
And what about other institutions, higher education, for example? It speaks volumes, I think, that Harvard’s new chaplain, Greg Epstein, is a self-professed atheist.
Reflecting on the experience of Rome, Adrian Goldsworthy notes that when “governments or agencies forget what they are really for, then decline will occur.”
Moreover, he writes, “bureaucracies are stubborn” and “tend to expand on their own and develop their own agendas.”
The rot that was likely yesterday becomes inexorable tomorrow.
Can the trend be reversed? Maybe. But Goldsworthy is right. “If the trend is to be reversed, then this process needs to start at the very top.”
What do you suppose the prospects of that are?
Perhaps it is an illustration of Franz Kafka’s mordant observation that “there is hope, but not for us.”
A collection of Democrats, including Rep. Maxine Waters of California, want to ground America’s Space Force.
Democratic Rep. Jared Huffman of California said he is introducing a bill to abolish the military branch created by former President Donald Trump because its very existence disturbs the peaceful realm of space in which all earthlings are pals.
“The long-standing neutrality of space has fostered a competitive, non-militarized age of exploration every nation and generation has valued since the first days of space travel. But since its creation under the former Trump administration, the Space Force has threatened longstanding peace and flagrantly wasted billions of taxpayer dollars,” Huffman said in a statement on his website.
“Dems Plan To Scuttle Space Force” Of course they are. They’re against defense spending in general, but anything Trump did specifically.https://t.co/bvMnN2p3SL
“It’s time we turn our attention back to where it belongs: addressing urgent domestic and international priorities like battling COVID-19, climate change, and growing economic inequality. Our mission must be to support the American people, not spend billions on the militarization of space,” he said.
In addition to Waters, Huffman’s call to ground the Space Force is supported by Democratic Reps. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, Jesús García of Illinois and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.
Although President Joe Biden has trashed many of Trump’s initiatives since assuming office, the Space Force is not among them, according to Fox News.
Biden’s fiscal 2022 budget calls for $17.4 billion for the Space Force, up $2 billion from the current level.
But Huffman’s proposal is supported by liberal groups such as the anti-war organization Peace Action.
“Outer space must be de-militarized and kept as a realm strictly for peaceful exploration,” Kevin Martin, the president of Peace Action, said, according to Huffman’s website.
“Militarizing space is an unconscionable waste of billions of tax dollars, and it risks extending the worst mistakes of history to the final frontier by inviting conflict and escalation. Americans don’t want more wasteful military spending, which means Congress should pass the No Militarization of Space Act before the Space Force budget inevitably skyrockets,”said Sean Vitka, the senior policy counsel for Demand Progress.
“We are being more effectively challenged militarily than at any other time in our history.”@USAirForce Secretary Frank Kendall warned about #China’s increasing military threats, including those from space. https://t.co/UWIZvnNNel
In an Op-Ed published by the Washington Examiner, contributor Tom Rogan said the logic of the Democratic critics of the Space Force is deeply flawed.
“The Space Force exists for a simple reason: The security of the United States and its allies is increasingly dependent on space,” he wrote.
“The issue is Chinese and Russian efforts to deploy weapons and sensor systems (such as satellites) into Earth’s orbit so as to hold the U.S. at risk. The reality of space in 2021 is very different from the ‘neutrality of space’ fiction offered by Huffman,” he said.
Rogan said that to ignore the efforts of China and other nations to dominate space “would be to invite calamity. If adversaries are seizing the initiative to turn space to their own military advantages, the U.S. must do the same.”
“The establishment of the Space Force has allowed for a specific professional service dedicated to space,” he wrote. “This enables the more effective use of relevant capabilities and a more efficient means by which to serve government policy.”
California is a mess. But it doesn’t use the word “alien” in official state codes anymore.
The state is in the midst of a homelessness crisis. It has the highest gas prices in America. Its COVID lockdowns and mask restrictions have decimated small businesses. Its leaders don’t feel bound by it — least of all Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose infamous dinner at the French Laundry has become emblematic of how our ruling class doesn’t play by their own rules.
But at least it doesn’t use the word “alien” in state code anymore.
Last week, U.S. Labor Department data revealed unemployment claims in California had skyrocketed, reaching their highest level since April. The state is dealing with an epidemic of shoplifting thanks to a 2014 law that turned theft into a misdemeanor provided under $950 of items were stolen. The state is currently in the midst of a spate of wildfires which are threatening its sequoias.
But, thank heavens, they’re not using the word “alien” in state code anymore. I was getting worried there.
Proving that neither he nor the rest of California’s Democrats learned anything from the recall election other than he won by a sizable margin, Newsom signed legislation Friday which, yes, struck the word “alien” from the state’s code.
The bill, AB 1096, “removes the derogatory term ‘alien’ used to describe foreign-born individuals,” according to a media release from Newsom’s office.
“As the nation’s most diverse state, we are stronger and more vibrant because of our immigrant communities,” Newsom said in the statement.
“This important legislation removes the word ‘alien,’ which is not only an offensive term for a human being, but for far too long has fueled a divisive and hurtful narrative. By changing this term, we are ensuring California’s laws reflect our state’s values.”
Wait, how is widely accepted legal terminology “an offensive term for a human being”? Let Newsom’s office explain.
“The term ‘alien’ has been used to identify individuals who were not born in the United States by the federal government since 1798 and in California since 1937,” the statement read.
“In the 1990s, the word ‘alien’ began to be used as a political dog whistle to express bigotry and hatred without using traditionally racist language. By 2015, the term was officially replaced with ‘noncitizen,’ however ‘alien’ is still widely used in many aspects of California law.”
Ah, yes, the old “dog-whistle” feint. In case you haven’t encountered this liberal tactic, if the left wants to declare certain language off-limits, one easy way to do it is to call it a dog-whistle.
For instance, “undocumented migrant” sounds a lot nicer than “illegal alien.” The latter gets to the heart of the matter: It’s a foreign-born individual who’s not legally in this country. The former sounds almost like someone who lost a few immigration papers.Related:
Ergo, “alien” is a dog-whistle. No evidence needs to be presented. Just stop using it.
Even the media release demonstrated Newsom’s misplaced priorities. In addition to AB 1096, his office announced, he’d “signed a series of bills to protect the health and safety of immigrants, including legislation to clarify safety standards at detention facilities, ensure rights and protections for unaccompanied undocumented minors, and cement protection for immigrants under hate crime legislation.”
Each one of those is more substantive than removing the word “alien” from California’s state code. Whether or not you agree with those things is beside the point — they have a tangible effect.
What did Newsom’s office tout right at the top of the release? Extirpating a “dog-whistle” word from the books because it’s “fueled a divisive and hurtful narrative.”
Newsom may have won the recall election by a reasonable margin, but he still fails to understand why there was a recall in the first place — and why the polls were reasonably close until his campaign started raising and spending huge amounts of cash on the race.
California’s COVID policies paralyzed the state’s economy. The state remains as unaffordable as ever. Homelessness is rampant. Its leaders are hypocrites. The state is going to pot.
What needed fixing? That word, apparently.
California had its chance to stop this madness in 2021. It has another chance in 2022. If its citizens don’t avail themselves of the opportunity, they have only themselves to blame for their problems.
A former Alaska Airlines flight attendant is fighting back after being fired for wanted to have a dialogue over the company’s support the pro-LGBT Equality Act.
Lacey Smith responded to a notice on an internal company message board in which the company expressed its support for the bill, according to First Liberty Institute, which is representing Smith.
“As a company, do you think it’s possible to regulate morality?” she wrote, according to First Liberty’s website.
“I was shocked that the airline I loved working for fired me for asking a question about something the airline asked us to support,” Smith said, according to Newsweek.
“I thought my question would receive the same level of respect that I give to others. It’s frightening to think that Americans can lose their jobs for simply asking questions about important issues,” she said.
According to Newsweek, the bill, also known as H.R. 5, “prohibits discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation and gender identity in areas including public accommodations and facilities, education, federal funding, employment housing, credit and the jury system. It more specifically defines and includes sex, sexual orientation and gender identity among prohibited categories of discrimination and segregation.”
It passed in the Democratic-controlled House in February by a vote of 224-206. Its fate in the Senate has yet to be determined.
In August, First Liberty filed a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of Smith and another fired flight attendant, whose name was not released, according to Fox Business.
It announced the lawsuit in a Sept. 10 news release headlined “First Liberty Defends Christian Flight Attendant Fired for Questioning the Equality Act.”
In her EEO complaint, Smith said she was asking out of concern for how religious beliefs are treated in the workplace.
The airline, however, said her question was offensive and discriminatory by suggesting that gender orientation was a moral issue.
First Liberty noted that the issue is bigger than one employer.
“Lacey’s termination demonstrates the heavy hand woke corporate America wields over religious employees, as well as the devastating repercussions that can follow. The consequences for those who dare to violate the ‘acceptable’ speech codes set up by the corporate elite are extreme,” it wrote.Have too many companies gone full-blown woke?Yes No Completing this poll entitles you to The Western Journal news updates free of charge. You may opt out at anytime. You also agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
“This brave patriot has resolved to be the one to stand by her God-given rights to believe as her conscious and faith dictate, not the official ‘woke’ narrative from a corporation,” First Liberty wrote.
The second flight attendant, a woman who was otherwise unidentified in the complaint, went even further in her criticisms than Smith’s question. She said that the proposed law would end up endangering girls and women in places designed to ensure their safety.
“Does Alaska support: endangering the Church, encouraging suppression of religious freedom, obliterating women rights and parental rights? This act will force every American to agree with controversial government-imposed ideology or be treated as an outlaw,” the flight attendant wrote, according to the EOE complaint.
“The Equality act [Act] would affect everything from girls’ and women’s showers and locker rooms to women’s shelters and women’s prisons, endangering safety and diminishing privacy. Giving people blanket permission to enter private spaces for the opposite sex enables sexual predators to exploit the rules and gain easy access to victims. This is the Equality Act.”
She was immediately banned from the workplace and eventually fired, the complaint said.
“The corporate ‘canceling’ of our clients by Alaska Airlines makes a mockery of laws that protect religious Americans from employment discrimination,” David Hacker, director of litigation for First Liberty Institute, said Sept. 8, according to Fox Business.
“It is a blatant violation of state and federal civil rights laws to discriminate against someone in the workplace because of their religious beliefs and expression. Every American should be frightened if an employer can fire them for simply asking questions based on their religious beliefs about culturally important issues,” he said.
China has been credited with practicing “successful hostage diplomacy” in a deal that saw two Canadian citizens freed.
To make that happen, the Biden administration’s Justice Department cut a deal with Meng Wanzhou, 49, the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies, according to The Associated Press.
The fraud charges against Wanzhou will be officially dropped next year, and she was allowed to return to China. Meng had been held in Canada at the request of the U.S.
In the deal, Meng agreed to accept responsibility for misrepresenting Huawei’s business dealings in Iran.
As Meng returned home, Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor were being released to come back home as well.
The men were arrested in China in December 2018 on allegations of espionage, shortly after Canada arrested Meng. They landed Saturday in Calgary.
The Trump administration’s Justice Department had accused Huawei of stealing trade secrets and doing business with Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions by using a Hong Kong-based shell company. Meng was charged with fraud in connection with allegedly misleading the HSBC bank about Huawei’s dealings in Iran.
Brahma Chellaney, a geostrategist, said China conducted “successful hostage diplomacy.”
By letting Ms. Meng return to China, Biden has vindicated China’s holding of two innocent Canadians hostage since 2018. Canada had contended that its judicial system was insulated from any political influence. China’s successful hostage diplomacy is a real shot in the arm for Xi.
Some commentators said the incident was a cold, calculating action by China, which may have believed that if it took hostages, it could get its way, according to The New York Times.
“They’re not even making a pretense of a pretense that this was anything but a straight hostage situation,” said Donald C. Clarke, a law professor at George Washington University’s Law School specializing in China.
“In a sense, China has strengthened its bargaining position in future negotiations like this,” he said. “They’re saying, if you give them what they want, they will deliver as agreed.”
“When you look at this, it’s Beijing admitting that this was hostage diplomacy,” said Guy Saint-Jacques, Canada’s ambassador to China from 2012 to 2016, according to The Washington Post.
“They make no qualms about it. … I think the message to the world is, ‘Be careful, because we can go after your citizens if you cross us.’”
Lynette Ong, a political scientist at the University of Toronto, said China has left a stain on its relationships with other countries.
“Going forward, I don’t think Canada-China relations will be the same as they were 1,000 days ago,” she said. “It’s fundamentally at a different point. … I think China has underestimated the cost of playing this game of hostage diplomacy. Its reputation has been tarnished tremendously.”
Belligerent rhetoric flowed from China.
“This was the political persecution of a Chinese citizen with the goal of crushing a Chinese high-tech enterprise,” said Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman for the Chinese foreign ministry, according to the Times. “The actions by the United States and Canada were classic arbitrary detention.”
The United States officially praised the resolution to the long-running issue.
“The U.S. Government stands with the international community in welcoming the decision by People’s Republic of China authorities to release Canadian citizens Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig after more than two-and-a-half years of arbitrary detention,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement, according to the AP.
“We are pleased that they are returning home to Canada.”
Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said on Sept. 26 that a significant number of Haitian illegal immigrants who had amassed along the U.S.—Mexico border last week are being released into the United States.
About 12,400 of 17,000 Haitians are having their cases heard by immigration courts, Mayorkas said, adding that some 5,000 are being processed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Only about 3,000 are in detention, he said.
“Approximately, I think it’s about 10,000 or so, 12,000,” Mayorkas told “Fox News Sunday” when he was asked about the number of Haitian illegal aliens who have been released into the interior of the United States. The number could rise as 5,000 more cases are processed, he said.
Mayorkas said the number of those being released “could be even higher” and that the “number that are returned could be even higher.”
“What we do is we follow the law as Congress has passed it,” Mayorkas said, adding that the U.S. “immigration system is broken.”
“Legislative reform is needed.”
The Department of Justice estimated in 2017 that about 43 percent of illegal aliens released into the United States miss their immigration court hearings. When asked about what will happen to those of the 12,000 who were released in the past week and miss their hearings, Mayorkas said that “it is our intention to remove” those aliens.
“We have enforcement guidelines in place that provide that individuals who are recent border crossers who do not show up for their hearings are enforcement priorities, and will be removed,” he said.
Last week, more than 15,000 Haitians congregated underneath a bridge in Del Rio, Texas, and essentially constructed a shantytown before numerous local officials sounded the alarm that a humanitarian crisis was brewing.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas updates reporters in Washington on the effort to resettle vulnerable Afghans in the United States on Sept. 3, 2021. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo)
DHS officials, including Mayorkas, said on Sept. 24 that the encampment under the bridge had been cleared out. A day later, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said that the Texas border crossing will be partially reopened.
The agency also said it’s planning to continue flights to Haiti throughout the weekend, ignoring criticism from Democratic lawmakers and some progressive groups.
The number of people at the Del Rio encampment peaked last weekend, as migrants driven by confusion over the Biden administration’s policies and misinformation on social media converged at the border crossing. While Mayorkas and other White House officials have asserted that the border is closed, Republicans have said that the administration’s decision to rescind a number of Trump-era immigrant orders has triggered a surge of illegal immigration.
Mayorkas and other senior officials have also dedicated a significant amount of time in news conferences condemning some Border Patrol agents who were seen on horseback near Haitians who had crossed the border illegally. The photographer who shot those pictures last week said that the agents weren’t whipping the migrants, as some officials and Democratic lawmakers had claimed.
“Some of the Haitian men started running, trying to go around the horses,” photographer Paul Ratje told local station KTSM, explaining the situation on the ground.
“I’ve never seen them whip anyone. He was swinging it [the reins], but it can be misconstrued when you’re looking at the picture.”
If you think the establishment media doesn’t like the Democrats enough already, wait until the federal government is subsidizing it.
There’s plenty of objectionable waste in the $3.5 trillion spending bill the Democratic Party is pushing on Capitol Hill, but few giveaways hidden in the 881-page document are so blatant as a tax credit for “local news” outlets.
According to the Washington Times, the credit would allow the outlets to receive a quarterly tax credit “equal to 50%” of a journalist’s salary up to $12,500 a quarter.
Add that up and it’s a gift of $50,000 per year per journalist, courtesy of the Democrats and the federal government.
After the first year, the credit would decrease to 30 percent of a journalist’s salary. In five years, the program would sunset. Joint Committee on Taxation estimates say the program will cost over $1.3 billion between now and 2031.
“Think of it as a way to turn every news outlet in America into a version of NPR,” said Adam Guillette, president of conservative media watchdog Accuracy in Media, in a commentary piece for The Daily Signal.
“Let’s be clear: ‘Saving’ the media would destroy the media. How could we ever trust journalists to accurately cover the elected officials who voted against their funding?” he wrote in the Wednesday piece. “How can you ‘speak truth to power’ when you’re also pleading with that power for cash? Which news outlets would get the funding, and which would be snubbed?
“Any pretense of objectivity would be destroyed once the media is on the federal payroll,” he continued. “And if you think the media is already hostile to conservatives, libertarians, Christians, business leaders, southerners, and basically anyone who didn’t love Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s, D-N.Y., dress from the Met Gala, just imagine the disdain they’ll show us once they’re funded by tax dollars. Also imagine the press coverage of any politician that dares to oppose renewing — or increasing — their funding.”
In other words, don’t expect the tax credit to expire after the five-year sunset period — unless you want to see media outlets attacking the politicians who let it expire as enemies of democracy.
Wisconsin GOP Sen. Ron Johnson has called the “local news” bailout “media collusion.”
“Not only is this proposal a grotesque waste of taxpayer money,” Johnson said, “it would be a dangerous precedent of government collusion with the media. Biden’s collusion with the press has already caused enough damage to freedom of speech and freedom of the press.”
“Freedom of the press does not contemplate government funding of it,” Johnson added.
Let’s keep in mind, too, that the definition of a local news outlet in the bill’s language is promiscuous enough to cover some of the biggest names in media.
As the text crafted by the House Ways and Means Committee stands, it would benefit a “local newspaper publisher” that serves “the needs of a regional or local community and who employs no more than 750 employees.”
“The criteria are broad enough to cover major newspapers with a national reach,” the Times’ Haris Alric wrote in a Sept. 16 piece.
The language was introduced by Democrat Arizona Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, who’s introduced a similar local-news subsidization bill in previous Congresses.
“Local journalism is a bedrock pillar of communities across the United States,” Kirkpatrick said. “Unfortunately, journalistic endeavors throughout the country face major economic struggles that put the future of many publications in serious jeopardy.”
Yes, but the reason these papers “face major economic struggles” is because they’ve lost out to the competition, in no small part due to the built-in liberal bias in establishment media.
“In 2021, most Americans are getting their news from independent podcasts, blogs, social media sites, and more. They compensate these journalists using new payment services like Patreon, Buy Me a Coffee, and GoFundMe. Last year Patreon alone paid out roughly $1 billion to creators,” Accuracy in Media’s Guillette wrote.
“Rather than using politicians to shake down taxpayers, why don’t these desperate journalists try to collect money voluntarily on Patreon?”
The question answers itself: We wouldn’t give it to them, because we have choices. The journalists, in turn, think we shouldn’t have those choices because they’re bad for us.
Local establishment media in general — and newspapers in particular — still want to operate on a model that hasn’t existed for decades. Inside every dying newsroom in America, there’s a feeling readers and viewers would all be better served if we went back to the paternalistic model of half-a-century ago, where most cities had three TV stations and two newspapers, at best.
These outlets curated the news you could consume and shaped how you thought about it. One flavor of local news might be slightly different than another — this one a bit further to the left, this one skewing to the right — but if media outlets were restaurants, you’d still be eating at a burger joint every night.
We now live in a world where you can have Thai, poké bowls, Texas-style barbecue, quinoa wraps, cronuts and paleo. However, Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) are incensed that you just won’t just eat at the freaking burger joint like you used to. They love burger joints so much, in fact, they want to take your money to keep them running so that you’ll have a good place to chow down when you finally come to your senses.
Except the government already has its own burger joints. They’re called PBS and NPR, and if one wants to see how government-funded media institutions cover government — particularly when one party supports that government funding and the other doesn’t — all one needs to do is turn on “All Things Considered.”
The only positive development that can come out of this tax credit, if the spending bill ends up passing in its current form, is that it further delegitimizes ossified local media outlets. Everything else about this proposed $1.3 billion giveaway is rotten to the core.
Many conservative Americans are seething over President Joe Biden’s decision to remove singer Lee Greenwood from the National Council on the Arts.
The singer, whose signature song “God Bless the U.S.A.” has been played at patriotic events ever since Greenwood penned the anthem in 1984, said he was surprised that he was ousted from the panel, having been first appointed by former President George W. Bush
“So, hearing now under the Biden administration and he’s cleaned house and finally he’s fired a patriot. I was quite shocked to tell you the truth. I didn’t get a phone call or letter. It was just an email,” Greenwood said in a “Fox & Friends” interview Thursday.
Greenwood will be the subject of a tribute on Oct. 12 in Huntsville, Alabama.
Greenwood’s ouster irked Perry O. Hooper Jr., chairman of the Lee Greenwood VIP Dinner that will be held in conjunction with the tribute.
“I went from shock to anger,” Hooper said in a statement released Thursday. “I guess there is no room for a true American Patriot in Joe Biden’s world. From Woke Generals running the Military to the National Endowment of the Arts he wants to tear down the America we love.
“This is disgusting. Lee’s masterpiece ‘God Bless the USA’ has become a patriotic hymn behind only the National Anthem and God Bless America in importance to the soul of our great country,” the statement said.
Hooper said he believes the concert now takes on a new significance.
“Once the word of this firing gets out, this sold-out event will become standing room only as Alabamians show their support for an adopted favorite son, Lee Greenwood,” Hooper stated.
In an interview with Newsmax in May, Greenwood said the United States America is a very special place — and he wrote the song to reflect that.
”Everywhere I go, I see people who want to be just an American. They just want to have a great life and live every single day helping their neighbors and helping veterans,” he said.
“God Bless the U.S.A.,” Greenwood said, “reflects for me the freedom that I had to do, what I wanted to do to make my life fun and it is. I thank every single soldier, sailor, Marine, Coast Guard, Space X people that are doing their very best to make this country free.”
Biden’s nominations to the Council on the Arts were announced on June 23. Those severed from the council were not announced at the time.
According to the National Endowment for the Arts website, the National Council on the Arts includes 18 citizens members and six members of Congress, who serve in a non-voting capacity. Its citizen members are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate for six-year terms.
Greenwood was most recently appointed in 2014.
Biden’s nominees to the National Council on the Arts were: Huascar Medina, the poet laureate of Kansas; Fiona Prine president of Oh Boy Records; Kamilah Forbes, executive producer at the Apollo Theater and director of Broadway’s “Soul Train”; Jake Shimabukuro, international ukelele player;
Ismael Ahmed, co-founder of the Arab American National Museum of Dearborn, Michigan; Kinan Azmeh, clarinetist and director of the Damascus Festival Chamber Players; Christopher Morgan, Washington dance choreographer; Constance Williams, businesswoman, politician and chair of the board of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Since President Joe Biden took office, he and some congressional Democrats have pushed strongly for the creation of a New Deal-style initiative: the Civilian Climate Corps (CCC).
On Friday, congressional Democrats unveiled text from the more than 2,000-page reconciliation bill. Among its many appropriations, the new CCC will receive a substantial appropriation.
President, Progressives Have Long Fought for the Program
The broad strokes of the program were introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) when he unveiled his $3.5 trillion budget on the Senate floor in early 2021.
The CCC, Sanders said, would give young people the opportunity “to get decent pay and to roll up their sleeves … in order to combat climate change.” For Sanders, this program was only a part of a wide-ranging slew of policies “to combat climate change.” Since then, others have joined with Sanders in supporting the initiative.
Most significantly, the proposal got a green light from the White House. At his April address to congress, the commander-in-chief tied “meeting the climate crisis” to the creation of new jobs.
“For me, when I think climate change I think jobs,” the president explained.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) also put his weight behind the proposal, promising during a press conference to “fight to get the boldest CCC possible.”
Schumer was joined by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who drafted the controversial Green New Deal. The congresswoman took to the stage to defend the CCC.
“What if [the CCC] led to tens of thousands of new trails in our national forests and park service?” she asked rhetorically. Ocasio-Cortez continued, “This isn’t something we have to imagine doing—that was the record of the original [New Deal-created] Civilian Conservation Corps in 1938.”
The program, she asserted, “is not a pipe dream, and is not some big and progressive vision that is ‘unrealistic.’” Rather, “this is what we have already done.” The New Deal Civilian Conservation Corps, Ocasio-Cortez said “was the largest peacetime mobilization of young Americans in American history.”
Ocasio-Cortez, who holds considerable weight in the House progressive caucus, wants modern Democrats to challenge that ambitious record. Ocasio-Cortez argued that Democrats’ “mandate today is not just to revive some of the most ambitious programs and ideas, but so much of this is about how we go even bigger and better than we did originally.”
CCC Receives Billions in New Budget Bill
With the text of the budget finally released after weeks of negotiations between the House, Senate, and White House, the specific details of the program are clearer.
The program is delegated around $4.5 billion by the legislation, split into two separate appropriations for slightly different purposes. In fact, however, the program will indirectly receive much more, as the bill designates billions more in funding for specific projects to be undertaken by the CCC.
The first of these $2.25 billion appropriations, says the bill, is “to be used for staffing, salaries, and other workforce needs to support the development of a Civilian Climate Corps for the purposes of managing National Forest System land.” The legislation also guarantees that salaries for those who join the program will be at least double the federal poverty line.
The Secretary of Agriculture will help to manage the project.
The bill notes that “restoration” of public lands and forests is the program’s “primary purpose,” and orders the Secretary to give these initiatives priority. To help carry this out, the bill devotes billions more to specific projects.
One such project is a $10 billion appropriation to reduce the quantity of hazardous fuels in at-risk areas that are close to cities, a prescient concern for Democrats in the wake of deadly wildfires across the western U.S. The bill appropriates $4 billion more to the Secretary to be used for reducing hazardous fuels further away from major population centers.
A further $1 billion in the bill is dedicated to “vegetation management projects.” These projects, the bill notes, are restricted to National Forest System lands, woodlands protected and managed by the U.S. government. Another $500 million is dedicated to the same purpose, but specifically to be directed towards vegetation management that helps in separate watershed or water source protection plans. $500 million more is specifically dedicated to managing vegetation to reduce “uncharacteristically severe” wildfires.
The second $2.25 billion appropriation to the CCC in the bill is more streamlined. This funding, the bill says, is specifically slated for “rural and urban conservation and tree planting projects.”
This section of the bill incorporates both conservation projects and wildfire prevention projects, employing forces beyond the CCC to achieve this goal. It allots around $14 billion to this purpose, much of which can be received in grants by qualifying state, local, tribal, or private sector applicants who help in the project.
In total, the bill allots upwards of $35 billion to the CCC or adjacent projects. Its direct funding, $4.5 billion, falls short of Biden’s goal of $10 billion in funding.
Travelers on Jet Blue Flight 261 from Boston to San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Wednesday evening had a bit of a scare when fellow passenger, Khalil El Dahr, grew angry after a call he’d tried to make failed.
According to a subsequent FBI affidavit filed by a special agent, El Dahr left his seat about 45 minutes before the flight was scheduled to land in San Juan and ran toward the flight deck where he tried to force his way into the cockpit.
He was demanding to be shot in Spanish.
The affidavit said he was intercepted by a flight attendant and “corralled in the area before the galley” when a pilot opened the door to the cockpit to see what was going on in the plane.
At that moment, El Dahr grabbed the flight attendant’s “collar and tie with one hand while using his other hand to grab the overhead compartment to gain leverage to kick.”
He kicked the flight attendant in the chest.
In the meantime, El Dahr kept pulling the attendant’s tie even tighter. The attendant was having difficulty breathing.
Eventually, six or seven crew members were able to subdue the man, restraining him with flex cuffs.
However, El Dahr quickly snapped out of the first pair of cuffs which the FBI said forced the crew to resort to using multiple seatbelt extenders to form a makeshift straitjacket, while using another pair of cuffs and a flight attendant’s necktie to tie him to a seat.
He was held in the back of the plane until it landed in San Juan.
The FBI agent spoke to a second flight attendant who said El Dahr was speaking in both Spanish and Arabic. At one point, the report noted, he could be heard shouting “Allah.”
Upon landing, law enforcement boarded the plane and took over. El Dahr was charged with interfering with a flight crew, which is a felony.
#PUERTORICO: A man on board a JetBlue flight from Boston to San Juan on Wednesday allegedly assaulted crew members and tried to storm the cockpit, according to an FBI affidavit. pic.twitter.com/xizfnv7MqL
While we’ve heard quite a few stories about fights, and even some brawls, breaking out in airports and on airplanes over the last year or so, this incident is eerily reminiscent of the 9/11 hijacking of Flight 93.
A man trying to storm the cockpit while invoking Allah is very different from an individual who’s tired of wearing his mask.
Afghanistan’s justice system is returning to a pre-U.S. form of barbarism as suspected criminals are subject to being strung up in public spaces under the rule of the Taliban.
The Associated Press, citing a witness within the country, reported that in the major city of Herat in western Afghanistan, an alleged kidnapper was killed by gunfire and then hanged from a crane on Saturday.
A man who operates a pharmacy in the city told the AP that the Taliban was responsible for securing a man’s body to the crane and then displaying it in the city’s main square.
Wazir Ahmad Seddiqi said that four men were killed during an attempted kidnapping. He added that one of the men was hanged in the Herat main square.
The other bodies were dragged away to be displayed in other areas of the city, he said.
Such displays were once common under the Taliban’s previous rule over the country. But the 2001 U.S. ground invasion of Afghanistan put hard-line Islamists on the ropes.
Throughout the last two decades, many Afghans have enjoyed a relatively westernized system of justice. But Herat was taken by the Taliban in mid-August, as were many other areas.
With Sharia law in place across the country, or set to be enacted, public and brutal displays are resuming.
A high-ranking Taliban official and the enforcer of its view on justice told the AP on Friday that people accused of crimes will not be subject to a system of due process common in westernized countries.
Public executions, torture and amputations for shoplifters are going to be used, said Mullah Nooruddin Turabi.
Turabi carried out enforcement of the Taliban’s strict interpretation of Sharia law in the 1990s. He brushed off criticism about his use of public spaces to punish accused criminals in the past.
In the 1990s, he and others in power sometimes used a Kabul stadium for executions and amputations, the AP noted.
“Everyone criticized us for the punishments in the stadium, but we have never said anything about their laws and their punishments,” Turabi said during an interview with the AP. “No one will tell us what our laws should be. We will follow Islam and we will make our laws on the Quran.”
The man tasked with enforcing Sharia for the Taliban wants to take the country’s legal system back to where it was before 2001.
“Cutting off of hands is very necessary for security,” he said during his Friday interview. He and other Taliban leaders are currently working to adopt a policy with regard to handling public punishments.
Speaking on amputations in particular, Turabi touted them for their ability to deter crime.
The goal, per Turabi, is to bring back a system of strict punishment while keeping in place some social reforms accomplished during U.S. occupation of the country, such as having female judges.
The FBI has been called in to investigate an alleged assault of a female soldier by a group of Afghan refugees being held at Fort Bliss, Texas.
“We can confirm a female service member supporting Operation Allies Welcome reported being assaulted on Sept. 19 by a small group of male evacuees at the Doña Ana Complex in New Mexico,” said Lt. Col. Allie Payne, director of public affairs for Fort Bliss and the 1st Armored Division.
The service member was given medical care and counseling, Payne said, according to KVIA-TV.
“We take the allegation seriously and appropriately referred the matter to the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Payne added.
Jeanette Harper of the FBI’s El Paso division said “we received the referral from Fort Bliss and our office is investigating the allegation.”
“Task Force-Bliss is also implementing additional security measures to include increased health and safety patrols, additional lighting, and enforcement of the buddy system at the Dona Ana Complex,” a statement from the fort said, according to Fox News.
“We will cooperate fully with the FBI and will continue to ensure the service member reporting this assault is fully supported.”
Republican Rep. Yvette Herrell of New Mexico called the incident a “tragic failure.”
“My prayers are with the courageous soldier and her family. This is yet another tragic failure in the vetting process for Afghan nationals,” Herrell tweeted on Friday. “The American people deserve answers.”
My prayers are with the courageous soldier and her family. This is yet another tragic failure in the vetting process for Afghan nationals. The American people deserve answers.https://t.co/UB8ehTjCwO
Sen. James Lankford and four other Republican senators have demanded details from the Biden administration on how Afghan refugees are being vetted, according to Fox News.
“The Biden Administration has yet to provide my staff, members of Congress, or the public with basic answers about its vetting procedures for Afghan parolees or demographic information about the Afghan parolee population,” a letter from the senators said.
“How many Afghan nationals are waiting on background checks at a transit site? How many Afghan nationals have been paroled into the United States?”
“What specific categories, classes, or criteria constitute the Administration’s definition of ‘vulnerable Afghans’? How many individuals who have been paroled into the United States fall under each category, class, or criteria?” the letter said.
Lankford has said he has grave concerns.
“We already have reports of some of the locations where some Afghan parolees are being held that there’s been some sexual assaults that have happened in those locations, and we’re trying to get more information about that and to find out what happened to those individuals and where things go,” he said.
The Justice Department recently announced two unrelated indictments of Afghan refugees housed at Fort McCoy in Wisconsin.
Bahrullah Noori, 20, faces charges of attempting to engage in a sexual act with a minor using force against the victim, including three counts of engaging in a sexual act with a minor and one alleging the use of force.
Mohammad Haroon Imaad, 32, faces charges of assaulting his spouse by strangling and suffocating her.
There are days when one wonders why the Republican Party thinks they deserve the support of conservatives.
The Reagan revolution turned 40 this year. What do we have to show for it? Roe v. Wade hasn’t been overturned, although there’s a glimmer of hope on that front. There’s no hope on spending; Republican presidents and Congresses might slow the deluge a bit, but they’ve never managed to successfully turn off the debt spigot and have proved especially useless during the last three presidencies.
Our debt now stands at almost $29 trillion — but now the GOP is really putting their foot down on the debt ceiling. Seriously, guys, they mean it this time. It’s not like all of the other times where the Republican establishment has performatively held up passing a debt ceiling increase, only to capitulate shortly thereafter.
And, yes, anti-establishment conservatives have made inroads since 2016 and Donald Trump’s election. The establishment still remains standing, though, and it’s so thoroughly rotten that 134 GOP representatives voted to approve a defense spending bill that all but ensures women will be subject to the draft.
In fact, more Republicans voted for it than against it. The $778 billion National Defense Authorization Act for 2022 passed by a 316-113 vote on Thursday night, according to The Hill. Only 75 Republicans voted against it.
In fact, the only thing stopping the NDAA from passing smoothly was the House Freedom Caucus. The Washington Examiner noted that GOP Freedom Caucus member Rep. Chip Roy of Texas was the most vocal opponent of the bill, making a motion to adjourn the House during the debate in protest of Democratic leadership not allowing a vote on a proposed amendment to remove the draft provision. The motion forced the entire House to vote and delayed business in the lower chamber.
“I will always vote against any bill that permits the government to draft my daughter and I will not support any Republican who votes in favor of its final passage, regardless of excuse,” Roy said.
While we haven’t had a draft since the Vietnam War days, 18-year-old men still have to register with the Selective Service System. The NDAA removes the language specifying “male citizen” or “male person” when it comes to who needs to register, replacing it with “citizen” and “person,” respectively.
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First, this bill forces young women to register for the draft, which Rep. Roy has been against from the start.
That wasn’t the only woke provision of the NDAA, however. Roy’s office cataloged some of the other unpleasant changes wrought by the Democrats, including red-flag laws for summarily seizing the firearms of service members and a proposed Office of Countering Extremism which sounds every bit as Orwellian as the name implies.
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It also creates an “Office of Countering Extremism” which could expel troops who engage in so-called “extremist activities” or belong to an “extremist organization”
Given the rampant wokeism we’ve seen in Biden’s Pentagon, you know EXACTLY how this will be used. pic.twitter.com/8p84rkhE0k
There’s also language that stipulates “any new non-tactical Federal vehicle purchased by the Department of Defense for use outside of combat should, to the greatest extent practicable, be an electric or zero-emission vehicle.”
“Not later than September 30, 2022, the Secretary of Defense shall submit to Congress a plan to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of the Department of Defense, including Department of Defense functions that are performed by contractors, in line with science-based emissions targets,” the NDAA reads.
It also contains a “plant-based protein pilot program” which stipulates that the term indicates “edible products made to approximate the taste and texture of livestock-based protein, or vegan or vegetarian meat alternative product made using plant and other non-livestock-based proteins that are consistent with the nutritional properties of meat products.”
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And if electric military vehicles aren’t your thing, maybe we can interest you in some fake meat?
The NDAA directs the Navy to spend time on a pilot program to offer plant-based protein options at forward operating bases. pic.twitter.com/b3MO445bJS
A woke military that drafts our daughters, wastes resources on Green New Deal garbage, holds no one accountable for Afghanistan disaster, and prioritizes playing leftist politics over destroying our enemies.
If you want to find out if your representative voted for the NDAA, you can the roll call here. Keep in mind that it’s not just the list of the usual GOP disappointments who voted yea on this one. House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California voted for it, as did House Minority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Reps. Jim Banks of Indiana, Dan Crenshaw of Texas and Elise Stefanik of New York — usually names one would hope to see on the opposite side of the ledger.
Banks defended his position to the Washington Examiner by saying he didn’t want his daughters drafted either, but, you know, we’re going to keep on debating whether or not that happens.
“The NDAA is never perfect, and this is the case where the good far outweighs the bad,” Banks said. “I have daughters, I don’t want them drafted into the military. I want our military to be a volunteer force. But I think those debates are going to continue to occur even after the NDAA goes into effect.”
Not really, Rep. Banks. You just voted for an NDAA that ends that debate entirely. And, if your GOP brethren in the upper chamber have the same attitude, they’ll pass it, too.
GOP Rep. Brad Wenstrup of Ohio, meanwhile, said just because a woman is drafted doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be on the front lines.
“There are still physical requirements for certain jobs that you have to be able to perform and fulfill,” said Wenstrup, a former Army surgeon, to the Examiner. “It doesn’t mean that, you know, if there is a draft, a woman necessarily has to go be in the infantry.”
A draft implies a lack of choice in the matter, however — and whether or not a woman wants to serve in the military or whether they want to serve on the front lines has always been a choice.
For that matter, it’s been a voluntary matter for men since the Vietnam War, as well. However, the Selective Service requirements have always reflected a bedrock cultural value: that, if military conscription is required due to the exigencies of warfare, it’s a uniquely male responsibility to answer the call.
On Thursday, the House of Representatives voted to throw that shared value out the window.
It’s no surprise Democrats voted that way; the left currently seeks to eliminate any difference between male and female, no matter how glaringly biological or natural that difference may be. Protecting the right of women to stay out of the draft is less important than protecting the right to soy meat, as far as the Democrats are concerned. That 134 Republicans joined them in their delusions is a disgrace, however.
Congress is better in Republican hands than in Democrats, but there are days you wonder how much better.
Has the GOP earned your vote through their actions? Ask your daughter when she fills out her Selective Service card.
Once upon a time, not that long ago, we had something called reporters in the United States. Millennials and Gen-Z’ers may not believe this, but there were actually people employed by newspapers and television stations who would gather the news and then report on it without any overt political spin or coordinated narrative. Reporters have now largely vanished from the mainstream media landscape in favor of journalists, making it even more important to share episodes like “Why Does the IC Assessment Ignore Established Facts On COVID-19 Origins?” with people who still think outlets like CNN and the big three networks are just reporting the facts. Hans Mahncke and Jeff Carlson of “Truth Over News” are the real deal when it comes to reporting, and their continued coverage of the hunt to find the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
To be sure, our federal government doesn’t seem to be nearly as interested in where and how COVID-19 originated as Mahncke and Carlson. Having already done an episode on the two separate labs in Wuhan that could easily have been the source of the initial outbreak, they now turn their attention to the Intelligence Community assessment of COVID-19’s origins—at least the declassified portions. This is, of course, the report President Joe Biden ordered be compiled when his administration could no longer pretend an accidental lab leak wasn’t just as plausible an origin to the pandemic, if not more so, than the idea that the SARS-CoV-2 virus jumped from animals to humans. This assessment dropped at the tail end of our disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, and has received almost nothing in the way of media coverage. There have been plenty of print stories done, largely boiling down to the Intelligence Community thinking we’ll never know where it started, but televised coverage is almost nonexistent.
That’s what makes this episode important, as Mahncke and Carlson not only highlight various parts of the assessment, but give an analysis of how truthful or potentially misleading the assessment is. As Mahncke states at the outset of the episode, the IC assessment says a lot about the Biden administration’s desire to let China off the hook for unleashing the pandemic on the world, whether they intended to or not. Much of what they review seems to fall under the umbrella of plausible deniability while relying on the reader’s willful suspension of disbelief. Given how readily most of our government officials are to make a big show about vowing to get to the bottom of something, only to do little more than shake their fists and gnash their teeth, it seems unlikely that much more will come out of the Intelligence Community, which currently seems light on intelligence.
To illustrate this point, Carlson and Mahncke start out reviewing the very first paragraph of the “Key Takeaways” of the assessment, which in just a few sentences manages to be accurate, plausible, and misleading. The important thing to note is that what they consider misleading has to do with whether the virus was genetically engineered, as this term is used in the vaguest sense with no concrete definition. As Mahncke explains, Dr. Fauci has been hard to pin down, to say the least, on what he thinks qualifies genetic engineering. It’s a neat trick he’s used to try to claim the National Institute of Health never funded gain of function research (they did) and his dodginess surrounding genetic engineering gives the IC an out when making their assessment. Mahncke is not nearly so forgiving, pointing out the Wuhan Institute of Virology was genetically modifying bat viruses, and had been for more than a decade. He also explains the concept of conducting serial passage experiments, a process that is meant to alter the genes of a pathogen at an artificially increased rate of speed. This is the gain of function research Fauci insisted isn’t gain of function research, where scientists force a virus to go through multiple mutations that would typically take decades in a much shorter amount of time. Not calling this genetic engineering is the height of splitting hairs and doesn’t pass muster with Mahncke. The last sentence of the assessment’s opening paragraph claims that China had no foreknowledge of the virus before the outbreak, which Mahncke rates as poorly worded and mixed in its honesty. This claim hardly seems probable once Mahncke dismantles it with cold hard facts of information we do know—information that precedes the outbreak by a dozen years.
Carlson attacks the next portion of the assessment and the agencies’ agreement that it is as likely that the virus has natural origins as it is that it had manmade origins. Here the assessment is again splitting hairs, as Carlson points out that if exposure occurred due to contact with an infected animal, it hardly matters whether that contact happened accidentally inside a lab with poor safety controls in place or outside in a wet market. Either way, it could be considered a natural exposure because the infection came from an animal, rather than breaking a vial of the virus and inhaling it. It is yet another misleading statement meant to make it sound like the IC really did try to find the origins of this, even though they don’t seem to have tried very hard or put much logical thought into the matter. Carlson also has the receipts for their decision to call out this claim as intentionally non-specific.
Why Does the IC Assessment Ignore Established Facts On COVID-19 Origins? | Truth Over News [Full Episode]
Carlson moves onto the bullet points of the “Key Takeaways” and quickly blows up the idea that it’s most likely the SARS-CoV-2 virus had natural origins, dismissing the claim as illogical and inaccurate. He presents documented evidence contradicting the IC’s reasoning and their seeming desire to continue providing cover for China, in addition to highlighting that we’ve still not found the “missing link” animal that allowed COVID-19 to jump to humans if it did have a purely natural origin completely unrelated to any lab experiments. He reminds the viewer of the SARS outbreak in 2003, nearly 20 years ago, when we were able to determine the originating animal in just a couple of months. Why, with all the medical advances that have taken place since then, are we still unable to find not only the “bridge” animal but figure out exactly how this virus evolved to bind more perfectly to human cells than any animal cell we’ve tested, including the presumptive pangolin progenitor? It also has such a higher kill rate than other SARS viruses we’ve encountered that it seems even more unlikely to have developed without any human intervention.
Mahncke tackles more of the bullet points, assessing the claim that the virus probably escaped a laboratory after an accidental infection as accurate, even if only one IC agency found that to be the most likely origin. It’s astounding to anyone capable of deductive reasoning to think that just one agency came to this conclusion, but it’s fairly evident under our current administration that China must be protected from blame at all costs, even if it requires ignoring the documented safety hazards and risky nature of working with bat viruses at both labs operating in Wuhan. Even more unbelievable is that three additional IC agencies think both a lab leak and natural origins are equally possible. It is again a sign that when it comes to COVID-19, our Intelligence Community appears to have strapped on its dunce cap.
The final claim of the “Key Takeaways” is that there’s just no way to find out more about COVID’s origins and is assessed by Carlson and Mahncke as both inaccurate and misdirection. There are plenty of other scientists to ask questions about what they know, particularly in the West, including Anthony Fauci. Surely Fauci would be willing to turn over any and all information they have on the virus, wouldn’t he? At the same time, it’s ridiculous at this point to expect China to give any more information than they already have on just how this pandemic started, and it shouldn’t be necessary given how many independent researchers have been able to dig up information on their own.
This episode is crucial to view and share as we move ever closer to two years since this virus first appeared, particularly with the number of governments continuing to exploit the pandemic to wrestle freedom from their citizenry. The number of Americans who still believe the government has their best interests at heart when it comes to fighting COVID is truly frightening. Maybe if some of them watch this episode of “Truth Over Facts,” they’ll realize our current administration appears to care more about protecting China than protecting us.
Part 3 of the 3-part series ‘China’s Web of Geopolitical and Economic Goals and Objectives’
Since 2013, the Chinese communists under the leadership of Xi Jinping have been diligently pursuing two strategic initiatives focused on building a worldwide colonial empire and restoring China to world leadership: the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, also known as “One Belt, One Road”) and Made in China 2025.
In the wake of the economic devastation wrought on the world economy by the COVID-19 pandemic, Xi announced on Sept. 21 at the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly a third grandiose program—the so-called “Global Development Initiative (GDI)” that is intended to “steer global development toward a new stage of balanced, coordinated and inclusive growth.”
According to China Daily, Xi’s new initiative involves six areas: “prioritizing development, a people-centered approach, benefits for all, innovation-driven development, harmony between man and nature, and a commitment to results-oriented actions.” Apparently, the only standard Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda phrase missing from Xi’s announcement was the euphemism “toward a shared future,” which underscores all ChiCom “altruism” that has been trumpeted in recent months by the CCP’s media.
If Xi was truly serious about GDI and his vision for the future, he would have reined in the myriad of secondary initiatives and goals that the CCP apparatchiks have been relentlessly pursuing at the world’s expense over the past several years. A number of these were previously summarized in Part 1 and Part 2 of this series.
But maybe Xi merely “forgot” to mention that GDI, BRI, and those secondary initiatives and goals are meant to result in the world bowing to CCP leadership in all spheres of human endeavors because that is the ultimate objective of the sticky Spider Dragon web of ChiCom “benevolence” being offered to the world.
This third part of the series completes the exposure of the CCP’s secondary initiatives and goals and lays bare the ChiComs’ real intentions: to control all aspects of human endeavors. The scope and diabolical synergy across those initiatives is breathtaking.
Conquer Space
The goal is to dominate space in every way, but especially in military and economic domains. The Chinese missions to Mars and the moon are window dressing used to advertise ChiCom scientific prowess and leadership in advanced space technologies, as well as to masquerade the weaponization of space by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), as noted here.
A Long March-2F carrier rocket, carrying the Shenzhou-12 spacecraft and a crew of three astronauts to China’s new space station, lifts off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the Gobi desert, in northwest China on June 17, 2021. (Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images)
Win Without Fighting
The ChiComs seek to achieve all of their objectives, ultimately leading to economic and military global dominance, without the need for kinetic warfare. Rather, they exploit political and psychological warfare to achieve a fait accompli in the minds of their adversaries, mainly the United States and its allies.
Exploit the United Front Work Department to Win Overseas Friends
The United Front Work Department provides cover for intelligence agents (spies) operating under the Ministry of State Security and has tentacles reaching into the Confucius Institutes, Thousand Talents program, Chinese news services, Overseas Chinese Affairs Offices, and the Cyberspace Administration of China aimed at influencing foreign opinion and winning friends for ChiCom policies.
Oust the US From the Middle East
This objective is a “two-fer” for Beijing: destroy U.S. influence in the Middle East and gain access to massive supplies of oil and gas. Energy-poor China is investing billions under their BRI to develop the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor consisting of highways, rail lines, and pipelines from the port of Gwadar on the Indian Ocean to Xinjiang (East Turkestan). This corridor will be the transmission belt to China for Middle East oil, including oil from Iran, with whom the ChiComs have also established a strategic relationship, as noted here.
Exploit Merchant Seamen to Control the World’s Shipping
The goal here is to dramatically expand the number of qualified and experienced merchant seamen and subsidize their employment by other nations’ shipping industries in order to monitor, surveil, and influence shipping operations around the world.
Implement Global Ocean Governance
The CCP objective here is to substitute China’s standards, technology, and protocols for the international conventions such as UNCLOS that presently determine conduct, responsibilities, and maritime law on the seas of the world. The effort also involves developing a network of surveillance satellites capable of monitoring sea-going traffic around the world, as well as convincing other nations to use the Beidou Navigation Satellite System in lieu of other commercial satellite navigation systems.
A boy looks at the BeiDou Satellite Navigation System at an exhibition at the National Museum of China in Beijing on Feb. 27, 2019. (Wamg Zhao/AFP via Getty Images)
Collect and Exploit the World’s DNA
U.S. government advisers warned that the Chinese regime has been collecting genetic data in order to dominate global pharmaceuticals, and this effort could “potentially lead to genetically enhanced soldiers, or engineered pathogens to target the U.S. population or food supply,” according to a Reuters report.
Dominate the Indo-Pacific Region
This goal is to expand Chinese military bases throughout the region in order to counteract U.S. geopolitical dominance, as well as to place additional pressures on key U.S. allies in the region, including India, Australia, and Japan (which together with the United States comprise the Quad).
Replace US Brands With Chinese Labels
The ChiComs seek to displace U.S. brand names with Chinese labels. While this might seem to be simply standard competition, the issue is much more complex and important, as popular brands provide cultural and psychological influences that can be exploited because each one is linked with the country of origin.
Become the Dominant Producer of Industrial Goods in the World
Acknowledging the great strides made in recent decades toward this goal, Beijing’s mouthpiece People’s Daily crowed that “China is the world’s largest producer of over 220 types of industrial products.” Production leadership translates to geopolitical influence and leverage—the underlying objective.
Replace Western-Style Democracy With Chinese ‘Whole Democracy’
This is a ChiCom psychological play to leverage the West’s support for democracy, but with “Chinese characteristics” controlled by the CCP. The word “whole” implies that traditional Western democracy is somehow incomplete and deficient, and that the ChiCom version is better.
Control All Data and Information
The objective here is to limit the exchange of data and information among citizens and entities to that which is approved by the state—and only the state! In other words, George Orwell’s “1984” writ large on the rest of the world but with Chinese characteristics.
Convert the South China Sea Into a ‘Chinese Lake’
Beijing’s goal is to seize control of natural resources in the area and to simultaneously intimidate China’s neighbors. Chinese efforts involve sovereignty disputes and the building of artificial islands controlled by the People’s Liberation Army.
Chinese dredgers work on the construction of artificial islands on and around Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands of the South China Sea on May 2, 2015. (U.S. Navy)
Promote ‘Common Prosperity’ Through Total Control of the Private Sector
Common prosperity is another one of those meaningless Marxist euphemisms that sound good as they roll off the tongue but whose meaning is murky and obfuscated. The CCP has been using it to describe their domestic efforts to deliver improved living standards through the “wise leadership” of ChiCom collectivism.
Exploit the Natural Resources in the Deep Seabed
China has a stranglehold on rare earth element (REE) production and seeks to dominate new REE sources, including those in the deep seabed. Control of REE production provides considerable economic and geopolitical leverage with other industrial nations through “supply chain disruption,” particularly the REE-poor European Union nations.
Subvert International Green Advocates While Masking Domestic Economic Expansion
This goal is about reducing U.S. competitiveness while increasing China’s competitive advantage and expanding the world’s dependency on Chinese manufacturing and production—in this case for “green products” such as solar panels, electric vehicles, and batteries. Only the Western greenies believe ChiCom propaganda that China will achieve its publicly stated goal of “net zero emissions” by 2060. The rest of us know that it’s just another feint in the CCP’s scheming to achieve world economic dominance.
Achieve Information Dominance Around the World
China has invested enormous resources to gain total information dominance in the international arena in order to improve decision-making related to the achievement of all of its goals and objectives. Information dominance involves consuming and understanding all relevant data and information in order to support decision-making. This secondary objective is highly synergistic with all of Beijing’s other secondary objectives.
Foment Discord in the US
Fomenting discord and division in the United States—China’s main rival on the world stage—has been an ongoing ChiCom objective for decades, as reported here and here. Pitting Americans against each other, exploiting economic disparities and “unfairness,” and promoting cultural Marxism throughout American society have been continuing prongs in the relentless ChiCom attack on America.
Build the Infrastructure of a ChiCom World Empire Through Property Acquisition Overseas
Beijing has been making strategic investments in overseas property for years for a variety of purposes, including providing security for the BRI investments, constructing bases for China’s military and navy, acquiring natural resources for future exploitation, and intimidating and pressuring other nations to accommodate Chinese interests. All of those acquisitions over time will form the core infrastructure and network for a ChiCom “colonial world empire.”
A general view of the Trieste Old Port is seen in Trieste, Italy, on April 2, 2019. The historic city of Trieste is preparing to open its new port to China, with Italy becoming the first Group-of-Seven nation to sign on to China’s BRI infrastructure project. (Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images)
Implement the Dual Circulation Model
The objective is to make the Chinese economy less dependent on foreign advanced technologies and supply chains. Chinese companies would become independent of “foreign know-how” while creating domestically produced Chinese products that would be in demand around the world.
Monopolize and Control the World’s Energy Supply
The ChiComs understand that controlling the energy supplies of the future provides them with geopolitical leverage to achieve other objectives. That is why they are exploiting their competitive advantages to capture the energy production market around the world. Controlling the world’s energy resources means controlling the economies of the world.
Dominate the Small Nuclear Reactor Marketplace
Despite all the caterwauling about “green energy,” the only real energy production technology capable of achieving the carbon dioxide reductions desired by green energy advocates is nuclear power (refer to heat exchange ratio comparisons among green energy technologies and the laws of thermodynamics, as well as the German experience with wind and solar as described here). China is moving rapidly to corner the market on exportable nuclear energy capabilities that could be feasibly budgeted by many nations.
Control and Manipulate the World’s Strategic Commodities
Beijing has been successfully acquiring control of strategic commodities for years while building up strategic reserves as both an inflation hedge and also as a means of market manipulation to influence targeted countries. A strategic commodity is a raw material or agricultural product that is considered critical to a nation’s economy such that the economy would suffer significantly if that commodity’s trade and supply is interrupted in any way.
Control Foreign Narratives Through the Use of Artificial Intelligence and Fake Social Media
Beijing has been using aggressive information warfare tactics to influence foreign leaders, diplomats, and other key decision-makers in order to achieve CCP strategic goals and objectives. Part of their information warfare campaign involves the exploitation of social media and artificial intelligence technologies to create fake accounts, bots, and social networks aimed at influencing foreign decision-makers.
Conclusion
This series summarized 52 interlocking initiatives and goals being pursued by the CCP around the world. The ever-expanding Spider Dragon’s web aims to ultimately control and direct all human endeavors: economic, geopolitical, financial, legal, medical, security, travel, individual expression, culture, psychological, ideological, and much more. “Chinese benevolence” and “Chinese altruism”—as expressed by Xi Jinping and the CCP cadres—are oxymorons that camouflage their real objectives. Unbeknownst to many people, the world is meant to pay handsomely for that “benevolence” at the expense of personal and economic freedoms.
Hardly a day goes by when we are not assailed by claims of doom and gloom over “climate change,” with some well-known politicians warning us that our world will cease to exist as we know it by 2035 (a short 14 years from now!).
Just a few weeks ago, representatives of the government blamed the catastrophic flooding in New York and New Jersey in the aftermath of Ida on “climate change,” as did another member who earlier blamed another natural weather phenomenon on “climate change.” Apparently, neither understands the difference between “weather” (the cause of fires in California, hurricanes like Ida, tornadoes, etc.) and “climate” (longer-term swings in temperature, precipitation, etc.).
The fact is that, statistically, such “weather” events (e.g., tornadoes) are no more frequent or intense than they have been in the past. Accordingly, you should be excused for asking about the bases of these extravagant claims.
Do the claimants have a magical crystal ball with which they can see the future more clearly than the rest of us, or is it simply the blind leading the blind with some of the blind being more vocal than others? After all, paleontologists and earth scientists will tell you that Earth’s climate has been changing since time immemorial and it has changed drastically and cyclically during the approximately 2.5-million-year history of the human species.
However, at issue is a more subtle phenomenon related to changes induced by the human species themselves. Humankind has had that capacity for less than 300 years (since the start of the Industrial Revolution, from the mid-1700s).
But, you may say, 300 years is just a “blink of an eye” within typically climatic (not weather) cycles that occur over thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of years. For example, 300 years of CO2-producing industrialization represents just 0.3 percent of a 100,000-year ice-age cycle.
To provide the reader with some idea of the complexity of the climate issue, it is necessary to review a few basic facts upon which we can all agree. The major natural climate cycle is the ice ages (Milankovitch cycles) that are due to variations in the eccentricity of Earth’s orbit about the sun and which now appear every 100,000 years. Earth’s eccentricity, currently, is near its least elliptic (most circular) and is very slowly decreasing, in a cycle that spans about 100,000 years.
However, variation in the eccentricity of Earth’s orbit is considered to be a relatively minor contributor to long-term climate change. There are other factors that need to be considered, including the obliquity (the angle Earth’s axis is tilted with respect to Earth’s orbital plane) and the direction that Earth’s axis of rotation is pointed (“axial precession”).
For about a million years, the obliquity has varied between 22.1o and 24.5o perpendicular to Earth’s orbital plane. That is important because it determines the seasons, and those seasonal swings in temperature can be large (e.g., 80oF in Winnipeg, Manitoba). Currently, the angle (23.4o) is about midway between the extremes and is very slowly decreasing in a cycle of about 41,000 years.
As the angle decreases, the seasons become milder with increasingly warmer winters and cooler summers. Clearly, obliquity is an important contributor to “climate change”, but it is natural and is not induced by human activity.
Earth wobbles on its axis as it rotates (“axial precession”) due to the gravitational influences of the sun and the moon resulting in Earth bulging at the equator, which affects the ocean tides, for example. The axial precession has a cycle of about 25,772 years. This phenomenon also impacts the long-term cycles of the climate by making seasonal contrasts more extreme or less extreme in opposite hemispheres.
While a discussion of this topic is fascinating in its own right, my purpose of introducing it is to show that Earth’s climate is a superposition of at least three natural cycles related to the mechanics of the solar system. Because these cycles have different phases, it is possible that they could constructively or destructively interfere, resulting in extremes of temperature that have nothing to do with humans.
Now, superimposed upon these mechanical cycles, we have the impact of the biosphere (sans humans) with its own impact on the climate, including the CO2/O2 cycle of photosynthesis, water respiration, solar energy reflectance, turbulent atmosphere, ocean currents, variations in solar output, and a myriad of other factors.
My point is that the climate is an exceedingly complex physico-chemical system, and we must ask the question: Do climate models faithfully include each of these phenomena, in a deterministic manner with sufficient detail that they can be described by the relevant constitutive equations and natural law constraints in a form that renders the predictions reliable (see below)? Or are we again being led by the blind?
To be clear, my goal is not to pass judgment on any specific climate model, for that would entail a much deeper analysis than that which I present here. I simply wish to make the reader aware of the stringent conditions that must be met when modeling complex physico-chemical systems, such as our climate, the results of which may impact how future multi-trillion-dollar investments are made.
Hopefully, this discourse will prompt people to ask the right questions before approving such expenditures.
At the outset, it is important for the reader to note that science does not advance by consensus (universal agreement). If everyone agrees on something, it may simply mean that they are all wrong. Such is the case before all revolutionary changes in science (e.g., Einstein’s relativity revolution and Planck’s quantum revolution).
Accordingly, when I hear climate change proponents claim that 97 percent of scientists agree that human-induced climate change is real, I cannot help but think back to Albert Einstein and the other scientific revolutionaries and wonder what they might have thought of that pronouncement!
Likewise, science is based upon proof at the minute level of detail and not upon “belief,” which has no place in the scientific lexicon. When I hear someone proclaim “I believe in climate change,” I shudder and want to respond: “Well, prove it to me.”
Two great philosophies exist with respect to prediction: empiricism, which is the philosophy that everything that we can ever know we must have experienced; and determinism, which posits that we can predict the future from the past upon the basis of the known physical laws (“Laws of Nature”). Thus, all scientists collect data that are converted into knowledge, and that knowledge is eventually used to formulate the Laws of Nature that, unlike the Laws of Man, are inviolate and are true under all circumstances everywhere in the universe.
Indeed, I like to define “science” as the process of transitioning from empiricism (what we observe) to determinism (what we know and can predict) upon the formulation of the Natural Laws. Thus, the Natural Laws represent the condensation of all scientific experience so that when we invoke such a law it contains knowledge extending back thousands of years, to before Aristotle and Archimedes.
Impeding the transition from empiricism to determinism is “complexity.” Volumes have been written on complexity, and space does not allow even a cursory review of the subject here.
“Complexity” is like driving on a highway on a foggy night. The fog obscures your vision and allows you to see just a short distance along your path. Now you switch on your high beams, and lo and behold, you can see much farther. Thus, you have used an instrument (the high beams of your automobile) to allow you to see farther and with greater clarity.
So it is in science; in fact, it is fair to say that the digital computer (our “high beams”) has allowed us to advance science more over the past four decades than science had advanced throughout previous history. In other words, the computer has greatly extended our intellects, which is the role of models!
The development of models in human intellectual pursuits is a very complex subject that extends well beyond this op-ed, but an excellent, somewhat technical review is given by Frigg and Hartmann [1]. I will focus on deterministic models, as their predictive powers are so much greater than those of empirical models since “prediction” is the single most important attribute that climate models claim to possess.
All deterministic models have a common structure, either explicitly or implicitly. All deterministic models must have a theoretical basis that is, itself, based upon observation. These observations may be presented as postulates or assumptions, with postulates being based directly on observation.
Thus, it is important to note that a theory can be no more valid than the postulates and assumptions upon which it is based. Also, the postulates must not presuppose the output of the model; that is, the postulates must not accept as an empirical fact that human-induced global warming is occurring.
Thus, if one starts with a postulate that states that the climate is changing and that humans are responsible for that change, the chances are that the model will predict exactly that, but the prediction will be invalid because of the input of even unrecognized bias.
The prediction environment is also problematic, because what is sought is a reliable difference between two large, fluctuating numbers: the climate as we now know it (including human impact) and the unknown climate that might have existed were there no human impact. We can measure how the climate is changing in current time using a variety of techniques, but how do we measure the climate as it might have existed over the same period sans human impact? The short answer is that we cannot!
Unfortunately, only the former is commonly reported in newspapers, giving the impression to non-experts that it is all due to human impact. It is not, and the human impact component is normally only minor, but nevertheless, it is an important component. The headlines would not be as dramatic or fear-inducing if the readers were reminded that the human component is the difference between what we observe and what we model in the absence of human impact, and that is normally small.
Thus, we are concerned with changes in temperature due to human impact of a few tenths of a degree Celsius on a background that fluctuates several tens of degrees Celsius daily to monthly (due to the weather) and even more (typically 30 to 45oC) over the seasons of the year.
That is not to dismiss the possible seriousness of human-induced climate change if, in fact, it is actually occurring at the rate claimed by the doomsayers. That is the still unanswered challenge.
There is no question that climate change modeling exists at the very edge of feasible modeling, and it is for this reason that the nature of the models employed must be critically examined. You see, part of the problem is that the art and science of modeling is seldom taught in universities; somehow, students are expected to know how to model complex physico-chemical systems as though it was part of the human genome.
The author became so concerned with the lack of modeling skills among graduate students that he, while a Distinguished Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the Pennsylvania State University, taught a course titled “Theories and Models in Science and Engineering.” I don’t recall anyone involved in climate change taking the course.
I began this op-ed with the question “Can We Really Model Climate Change?” and I will end with a considered opinion. The answer is a qualified “yes,” but only, in my humble opinion, if the modelers adhere to certain rules. The modelers must:
Carefully describe the theoretical bases of the model, clearly state all postulates and assumptions, and demonstrate that they do not reflect any preconceived bias toward a certain result.
List and describe the constitutive equations and constraints, demonstrate that all equations are independent, and demonstrate that there are a sufficient number of equations to cover all unknowns.
Refrain from introducing “ad hoc” factors (“crook’s constant” in my student days) to make the model “work.”
Ensure that any calibrating data are known from independent experiment and are known to be true within well-established bounds.
Carefully define “success,” and ensure that the scientific method of prediction and assessment is strictly adhered to, including the rejection of the model if only one incorrect prediction is made that cannot be corrected by valid reassessment of model parameters and input data.
I emphasize that the “rules” of modeling outlined above have been established by numerous scientific philosophers over thousands of years of collective work and have been instilled into the transition from empiricism to determinism that I call “science.”
As the saying goes, “The devil is in the details.” The emphasis on the natural laws renders these rules in compliance with previous scientific experience and must be recognized in any attempt to model complex physico-chemical systems in a deterministic manner, including (and especially) Earth’s climate. To ignore them is to do so at your (and our) peril.
R. Frigg and S. Hartmann, “Models in Science,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
The above graphic was shared by Logan during the hearing.
Throughout the entire audit, The Western Journal has provided extensive, sometimes exclusive, coverage of the Maricopa County election audit.
In July, The Western Journal conducted an exclusive interview with Arizona Senate President Karen Fann, which included a number of exclusive revelations.
On Friday, Arizona state Republicans announced the findings of the Arizona Senate audit of the 2020 presidential election results in Maricopa County.
Among the audit’s many findings was that over 17,000 total duplicate ballots — meaning ballots submitted by individuals who voted more than once in the election — were found.
Dr. Shiva’s team identified 17,322 duplicate ballots — this finding is NOT in the audit report
As much was revealed by Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai, an expert in pattern recognition and classification of diverse signals and signatures who has four degrees from M.I.T.
The Arizona Republicans conducting the audit enlisted Ayyadurai and his team of experts to aid in the audit by investigating mail-in ballot envelopes used in the election.
The team reported it found 17,322 duplicate ballots in the election.
As noted by Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake on Twitter, Maricopa County itself had reported no duplicate ballots.
In what may be the most amusing development of the week, aside from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez crying on the House floor over American funding of Israeli defense capabilities (no tears over Haitian refugees, however), it turns out that Democratic political operatives think as little of Hunter Biden as you do.
According to the U.K. Daily Mail, citing a report from Insider, new emails between the younger Biden and two Democratic Party donors reveal that Hunter demanded $2 million in exchange for helping to unfreeze $30 billion in Libyan assets.
These assets had been frozen by the Obama administration during the rule of Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.
At the time, Joe Biden was serving as vice president of the United States with Hunter not far behind — a fact that is turning out to be the worst -kept secret in Democratic politics in spite of rousing efforts by the free press to keep it under wraps for their guy.
When will the media and Big Tech apologize for censoring the CONFIRMED Hunter Biden laptop story?
There are several things we learn from these emails that Americans aren’t supposed to know.
First, we learn what his business associates believed Hunter brought to the table (which, as it turns out, was not his high intelligence quotient, industriousness or sparkling smile).
As put by Sam Jauhari, one of the mid-level Democratic donors with whom Hunter was engaging in higher-level chicanery, Hunter was well-connected to the people who could unfreeze the Libyan assets — namely Barack Obama, Joe Biden and then-Secretary of State John Kerry.
“Since he travels with dad he is connected everywhere in Europe and Asia where [Gadhafi] and [the Libyan Investment Authority] had money frozen,” Jauhari wrote in an email dated Jan. 28, 2015.
He also argued that Hunter could provide valuable access to leaders in the Chinese government, which at the time was blocking $15 billion in Libyan assets at the behest of the Obama administration and with the intent to bolster its influence in Africa.
Second, we learn the risks posed by throwing your lot in with that of Hunter Biden.
“His negatives,” Jauhari continued, “are that he is alcoholic, drug addict – kicked [out] of U.S. Army for cocaine, chasing low class hookers, constantly needs money-liquidity problems and many more headaches.”
While it may be unwise to trust a man without vices, it takes a certain measure of courage to partner with one whose entire life is like the pictures from “The Hangover” credits.
Reportedly, 5 percent of any Libyan assets managed to be unfrozen would go to Jauhari and his fellow Democratic benefactor, Sheikh Mohammed al-Rahbani, both of whom were in league with the post-Gadhafi Libyan government.
For Hunter, the justification was the aforementioned $2 million, which, according to sources for Insider, was disguised in the emails as “$2 per year retainer +++ success fees” in an attempt to conceal the gravity of the correspondence.
The emails also show that, by February 2016, at least one member of the Obama administration was directly involved.
John Sandweg, who served as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, emailed Jauhari and al-Rahbani to brief them on his communications with Hunter.
“I spoke with HB’s team yesterday,” Sandweg explained. “They are interested in the project, but emphasized that for them to get involved, the team (lobbyists, lawyers and PR) would need to be a small group of folks they have a tight relationship with.”
With Joe Biden considering a run for the presidency at the time, Sandweg reiterated the Biden camp’s preference for secrecy: “They do not want a large group involved and they only want people with whom they have a close relationship with due to the sensitivities surrounding their involvement.”
While Jauhari ultimately hired neither Hunter nor Sandweg to assist in freeing the Libyan funds, these emails contribute to a litany of uncovered correspondence that continues to expose the Biden family for what it well appears to be.
Corrupt. Opportunistic. Non-transparent with the American public it supposedly spent the past half-century sacrificing in service of.
WATCH: Jen Psaki ignores question about Politico confirming reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop. pic.twitter.com/JekOdrZO9j
Most important, the Biden entourage is friend to the farthest reaches of the American political left, which explains our establishment media continuing to abstain from investigating a story that, if it pertained to the Trump administration, might carry award potential.
The penalty for lying to Congress is up to five years in prison.
And, according to a recent report, President Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan was guilty of as much in December 2017.
This revelation came out thanks to the indictment of Michael A. Sussmann, a partner at the law firm that represented Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.
As The Washington Post reported, special counsel John Durham indicted Sussmann on the charge of making false statements to the FBI regarding the motives of his clients when they planted the rumor that the Trump campaign had a secret server it was using to communicate with Russia’s Alfa Bank.
These claims were later investigated as part of the long-running Trump-Russia investigation that ended with the ruling that there had been no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
This initial rumor involving Alfa Bank originated with the opposition research firm Fusion GPS. It was then obtained by the Clinton campaign, who sent the false allegations forward to the FBI.
Here’s where the story ties back to Sullivan.
In December 2017, Sullivan told Congress that he had no idea that Fusion was involved in the Alfa Bank opposition research and “denied knowing anything about Fusion in 2016 or who was conducting the opposition research for the campaign,” according to Paul Sperry of Real Clear Investigations.
However, in Sussmann’s indictment, it was revealed that he, along with the cyber experts recruited to prove the Trump-Russia connection, “coordinated with representatives and agents of the Clinton campaign.”
Sperry further alleged that “sources close to the case confirmed” that Sullivan was among those campaign officials.
“They say [Sullivan] was briefed on the development of the opposition-research materials tying Trump to Alfa Bank, and was aware of the participants in the project,” he wrote.
In other words, Sullivan was a key player in the plot to spread a wild conspiracy theory involving Trump and Alfa Bank, a conspiracy theory he knew to be forwarded by an opposition research firm.
The very same conspiracy theory, in fact, that the Clinton campaign later fed to the FBI.
According to the report, Sullivan knew about the biased source of this information, despite telling Congress otherwise.
Gina Raimondo says ‘robust commercial engagement’ with Communist regime is ‘just an economic fact’
Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo called Friday for closer business ties with China even as Beijing increases its military muster.
“It’s just an economic fact” that the United States must trade with China, Raimondo told the Wall Street Journal. “I actually think robust commercial engagement will help to mitigate any potential tensions.”
Raimondo also said that climate-change cooperation with China may prove “fruitful” for the United States. Biden climate czar John Kerry, whom Chinese officials in September relegated to a Zoom conference as they met in person with Taliban leaders, has made similar comments. As commerce secretary, Raimondo plays a vital role in managing international trade, including with Chinese companies often flagged for national security concerns.
National security experts panned Raimondo’s call as out of touch with reality.
“The Commerce Department hasn’t adjusted to a world where China is a serious rival to the U.S. and is heading to a slow-motion clash with Congress,” said Derek Scissors, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
Raimondo’s call for increased cooperation with China comes as the Communist regime increases its aggressive military posturing. China on Thursday sent another 24 warplanes into Taiwanese airspace, one of the largest incursions in two years. Beijing has also significantly altered its messaging on Taiwan during the Biden administration. Chinese state media in September threatened “military measures” after reports broke that the United States would recognize the island democracy as “Taiwan” instead of “Taipei.”
Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou’s release a major priority for Beijing
The Biden administration is preparing to release the chief financial officer of Chinese spyware company Huawei in a deal brokered with Beijing, the Wall Street Journalreported Friday.
The Department of Justice negotiated the deal to release Meng Wanzhou, a Chinese national who was arrested by Canadian authorities upon American request in 2018. Federal courts charged Meng with financial fraud and trade espionage, which carries a prison sentence of up to 10 years.
China, however, continues to imprison two Canadian nationals—former diplomat Michael Kovrig and consultant Michael Spavor—whom Chinese authorities detained only days after Meng’s arrest in 2018. Experts have speculated that Beijing used the two Canadians as a potential bargaining chip for Meng’s release, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has so far ruled out any potential exchange involving Meng and the two citizens. Former secretary of state Mike Pompeo called China’s charges against Kovrig and Spavor “groundless” and “politically motivated.”
Meng was at the helm of Huawei, which has formed deep ties with the Chinese military and developed surveillance tools potentially used to spy on Uyghur Muslims, as it exploded in growth during the 2010s. Beijing summoned its American and Canadian ambassadors after Meng’s arrest, calling the charges “extremely vicious” and assuring “serious consequences” if Meng were not released.
Controversial left-wing activist the Rev. Al Sharpton has joined a chorus of people from across the political spectrum who are decrying President Joe Biden over broken campaign promises and chaotic policy.
Facing multiple crises both foreign and domestic, Biden is entrenched against conservative and independent Americans who perhaps hoped his calls for unity following the 2020 election would bring the country together.
Instead of pursuing unity, Biden has catered to the far left of his party as the country has faced destabilization at home and abroad. Aside from the border crisis, the country left Afghanistan last month with the stinging feeling of defeat.
In addition to those crises, prices for basic commodities are up for Americans of all stripes.
Biden is also facing hurdles with Democrats in Congress over the price of a $3.5 trillion spending proposal and he spent part of Friday threatening his country’s own border patrol agents:
“Those people will pay… there will be consequences” said President Joe Biden on Friday of mounted Border Patrol agents photographed confronting Haitian migrants. pic.twitter.com/cLMliFfJi9
If Biden was under the impression he still had the blind support of every loyal Democratic black voter, Sharpton on Thursday let it be known publicly that they, too, intend to hold the president to account.
Sharpton actually accused Biden of double-crossing minority voters who supported him last November in large numbers.
“[Biden] said on election night: Black America, you had my back, I’ll have yours,” Sharpton told The Washington Post on Thursday . “Well, we’re being stabbed in the back, Mr. President. We need you to stop the stabbing — from Haiti to Harlem.”
“He said on election night: Black America, you had my back, I’ll have yours,” Al Sharpton said in a Thursday phone interview. “Well, we’re being stabbed in the back, Mr. President. We need you to stop the stabbing — from Haiti to Harlem.”https://t.co/7e26CJ1JRY@washingtonpost
Sharpton, who visited the epicenter of a humanitarian crisis in Del Rio, Texas, on Thursday to call for an end to deportations of Haitian migrants, told the Post Biden could rectify his betrayal of black America by offering those Haitians residency.
The Post reported Sharpton said Biden faces a “defining moment,” and still has the opportunity to “rise to the occasion.”
That, Sharpton said, or the president could turn the knife and let down “those that helped you get there.”
Sharpton actually took to social media Thursday to unleash on the Biden administration to his 666,000 Twitter followers in a message directed at the Department of Homeland Security.
“The treatment of Haitians in Texas is unacceptable and a moral outrage,” Sharpton wrote. “DHS must meet immediately. This must be stopped!!!”
The treatment of Haitians in Texas is unacceptable and a moral outrage. DHS must meet immediately. This must be stopped!!!
The controversial political figure spoke briefly in Del Rio on Thursday, but his remarks — at least at one point — were drowned out by hecklers.
Sharpton and those hecklers do share some overlapping anger.
Biden, during the 2020 campaign, was accused of taking black votes for granted, and at times appeared as though he thought he was entitled to them.
Sharpton appears to have something in common with a majority of the country right now, according to polling: He has a bone to pick with the White House.
The tragic mess on the Texas border and the huge influx of Haitians (FYI: who aren’t fleeing Haiti; they left Haiti quite a while ago for Latin America) has created a dangerous and unhygienic situation that has been compared to the third world.
Events are moving so fast, it’s impossible for us to track them all in a newsletter, but here are some of the most recent reports from Fox News’ Bill Melugin.
Melugin is doing a great job of covering this story that the White House is outright lying about while much of the mainstream media studiously ignores it.
One of the more striking revelations is that despite the White House’s toothless claims that the border is closed and every illegal crosser will be sent home, Melugin reports that they’re actually being given “requests” (not orders) to appear at an ICE office within the next 60 days.
I’m sure they’ll all comply with those requests.
When called out in the Senate for his disastrous handling of the border, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas got snippy, and instead of answering the question, he snapped that he works 18 hours a day (imagine how bad the crisis would be if he worked 24/7 at it!).
His latest move that suggests a sleep-deprived mind is to take the mounted Border Patrol agents off their already impossible duty and put them on desk jobs, despite the woeful lack of personnel we’re already suffering and the fact that the wild accusation against them is both bogus and idiotic.
The left needs a constant stream of fake news to make their opponents look racist because otherwise, Americans might focus on real news and realize these people should never be trusted with any public office above the rank of assistant dog catcher.
The latest example is the continuing brouhaha over photos they claim showed the Border Patrol whipping Haitian illegal immigrants when those were actually their leather reins flying.
They don’t carry whips, and they didn’t strike anyone with their reins, which they spin to keep people back for their own safety and to prevent anyone from grabbing the reins and taking control of their horses.
This is standard procedure for cops on horseback.
But never mind that: Leftists who know even less about cowboy skills than they do about math skills are continuing their outrage fest even after the “whipping migrants” narrative was debunked all the way to the bunkhouse.
Leave it to Rep. Maxine Waters to have the craziest take on the story, not only accusing the agents of using (nonexistent) whips on migrants but saying, “What we witnessed was worse than what we witnessed in slavery.”
“I’m unhappy, and I’m not just unhappy with the cowboys who were running down Haitians and using their reins to whip them. I’m unhappy with this administration,” Rep. Maxine Waters says at a news conference on the situation at the U.S. southern border. https://t.co/tUeqoESHTPpic.twitter.com/BuWTMs8ilf
That’s as offensive as downplaying the Holocaust by claiming your political opponent is “literally Hitler,” which is also something the left does regularly. But supposedly more responsible officials were almost as bad.
Even the president and vice president, desperate for any distraction from their cascade of tragic disasters, pointed fingers at the Border Patrol cavalry, with Biden calling the (false) accusation disturbing, Jen Psaki declaring it “obviously horrific” and Kamala Harris saying it’s “horrible” and demanding a “thorough investigation.”
Uh, Vice President Harris? If you really want a thorough investigation of what’s happening on the border, might I suggest you start by actually going there?
A Cuomo brother has been accused of sexual harassment.
This time, however, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo isn’t the one under the gun.
Instead, in a Friday Op-Ed for The New York Times, veteran television journalist Shelley Ross revealed that Chris Cuomo — CNN anchor and brother of Andrew Cuomo — was the one who sexually harassed her.
Apparently, it runs in the family.
Ross was Cuomo’s boss at ABC News “nearly two decades ago” and, at a 2005 going-away party for an ABC colleague, she said he groped her.
“… [H]e walked toward me and greeted me with a strong bear hug while lowering one hand to firmly grab and squeeze the cheek of my buttock,” Ross wrote.
“‘I can do this now that you’re no longer my boss,’ he said to me with a kind of cocky arrogance. ‘No you can’t,’ I said, pushing him off me at the chest while stepping back, revealing my husband who had seen the entire episode at close range. We quickly left.”
It wasn’t too long after that Ross received an email from Cuomo with the subject line “Now that I think of it … I am ashamed.”
In the email, Cuomo profusely apologizes and attempts to play off the incident by painting it as merely a consequence of how happy he was to see Ross. Cuomo doesn’t take accountability for his actions; he merely creates excuses.
“though my hearty greeting was a function of being glad to see you,” he wrote, “christian slater got arrested for a (kind of) similar act (though bourne of an alleged negative intent, unlike my own) … and as a husband i can empathize with not liking to see my wife patted as such …”
“so pass along my apology to your very good and noble husband … and i apologize to you as well, for even putting you in such a position … next time, i will remember the lesson, no matter how happy i am to see you …”
You would think if Cuomo really cared so much, he wouldn’t be offering up so many excuses.
Also, if he cared so much, he’d probably be using proper punctuation and capitalization.
Ross sensed as much, noting in her Op-Ed that she’s “always seen” his written apology as “an attempt to provide himself with legal and moral coverage to evade accountability.”
