TikTok is advertising job openings in Moscow, just months after the Chinese-owned social media platform said it suspended its Russia operations amid a mass corporate exodus from the country.
TikTok’s corporate website lists more than a dozen job postings in Moscow, including revenue planning managers, industry analysts, and monetization strategists. While TikTok often stresses its independence from its Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance, several of the Russian job ads request Mandarin Chinese speakers, with one stating that “fluency in Mandarin would be [a] distinct advantage” for candidates.
The TikTok job listings suggest the company has no plans to exit Moscow, even as hundreds of companies, including McDonalds, Starbucks, and Ikea, have pulled out of the Russian market since President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
The hiring activity comes amid growing concerns from U.S. lawmakers about TikTok’s relationships with adversarial countries, and more than a year after the Biden administration promised to conduct a national security review of the platform. ByteDance has accessed private U.S. consumer data collected by the social media site, BuzzFeedreported in June. U.S. senators are also investigating the flood of Russian state-sponsored propaganda on the platform.
In March, TikTok banned Russian users from live-streaming and posting new content in response to the Kremlin’s “fake news” law, which prohibited people from spreading anti-government information. The platform also blocked Russians from viewing content from outside the country.
Some news outlets depicted TikTok’s announcement as part of the worldwide corporate withdrawal from Russia, with CNN reporting that it joined a “long list of companies boycotting the country over its war in Ukraine.”
But the company’s decision was actually a benefit to the Russian government, according to the Washington Post, which reported in June that TikTok selectively enforced its policies and allowed Russian state-run outlets to continue to post propaganda while censoring outside information.
Republican senators slammed the policy in a letter to TikTok’s CEO last week.
“We are deeply concerned that … TikTok is enabling the spread of pro-war propaganda to the Russian public, which risks adding to an already devastating human toll for both Ukrainians and Russians,” said the letter, which was led by Sens. James Lankford (R., Okla.) and Steve Daines (R., Mont.).
Another group of Senate Republicans on Friday pressed the Biden administration for an update on its promised national security review of TikTok, after reports of a Chinese data breach at the company. While TikTok says it stores private American user data in the United States for security, engineers at ByteDance have routinely accessed this data, according to company audio recordings published earlier this month by BuzzFeed.
Lawmakers, former officials say change will let Iranian terrorists come to US
The Biden administration altered federal law to make it easier for individuals who have worked with designated terrorist groups to legally enter the United States.
The State and Homeland Security Departments last week amended federal immigration laws to allow foreigners who provided “insignificant material support” to designated terror groups to receive “immigration benefits or other status,” according to the policy published in the Federal Register. Examples of individuals who would fall into the new category, according to the announcement, include individuals who provided “humanitarian assistance” or “routine commercial transactions” to terror groups.
The policy shift is fueling concerns that the Biden administration wants to make it easier for individuals who work with or for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), the country’s paramilitary fighting force that has killed hundreds of Americans, to enter the country. Notice of the change came several days before the Biden administration and hardline Iranian government resumed talks aimed at securing a revamped version of the 2015 nuclear deal.
A State Department spokesman said the law was amended to help vulnerable Afghans, who might have inadvertently worked with terror groups, gain refuge in the United States following the Biden administration’s bungled withdrawal that left the Taliban in power. Lawmakers and former U.S. officials, however, say the new regulations are so broadly written that they would apply to organizations like al Qaeda and the IRGC. The policy change is also raising red flags as U.S. officials, including former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, face credible death threats from Iran.
The rule does not specifically mention Afghanistan but is written to cover all U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations, such as the IRGC and al Qaeda, experts told the Free Beacon. The Taliban is not designated as a foreign terrorist organization, leaving lawmakers and former U.S. officials concerned the changes extend far beyond vulnerable Afghans and cover those tied to some of the globe’s most violent terror groups.
Gabriel Noronha, a State Department special adviser for Iran during the Trump administration, said that “the Biden administration is claiming this regulation is all about Afghanistan, but they didn’t even mention Afghanistan once in their action, and have made no serious attempt to limit the scope to the situation there.”
“Instead,” said Noronha, who is a fellow with the Jewish Institute for National Security of America think tank, “this looks like a massive watering down of our immigration restrictions against members of terrorist organizations.”
The State Department says the changes are limited to Afghanistan, but would not say why the country is not mentioned once in the new order.
The changes “are an effort to address issues related to Afghanistan,” a State Department spokesman, speaking only on background, told the Free Beacon. “The circumstances between Afghanistan and Iran are very different.” The new rules “are not applicable to people who have received military-type training from [foreign terrorist organizations], including IRGC conscripts.” Rather, the administration is trying to make it easier for those tangentially tied to terrorism to legally enter the country, the official maintained.
When the Free Beacon requested additional information and an explanation as to why the IRGC or similar groups would not be covered by the changes, the State Department declined to answer, saying, “We have no further information or comments to share.” This lack of clarity is fueling concerns about the policy change.
Noronha and others who spoke to the Free Beacon say the broad reference to “foreign terrorist organizations” leaves open the possibility that groups like the IRGC and al Qaeda would benefit from the relaxed immigration guidelines. The revamped guidelines do not specifically include restrictions on either of these groups. “At best this is a horribly written regulation. At worst, it’s an attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of Congress and the American people and make it easier for terrorists to come to America,” Noronha said.
Richard Goldberg, who under Trump served on the White House National Security Council as the director for countering Iranian weapons of mass destruction, said that any effort to loosen restrictions on terror-tied individuals is worrying amid Iran’s threats to kill U.S. leaders.
“Given Iran is actively plotting to kill former American officials, the administration should carefully explain if and how this [rule] might apply to a potential affiliate of the IRGC, and provide a high-level commitment to take all necessary steps to bar any potential IRGC associate from admission to the United States,” Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, told the Free Beacon.
Republican lawmakers agree with this assessment. Five Republican foreign policy leaders who spoke to the Free Beacon expressed concerns the administration is trying to quietly grant concessions to Iran as it reenters nuclear talks.
“It’s outrageous that the Biden administration is lifting the blanket ban on individuals who have provided support to terrorists from entering the United States,” Rep. Joe Wilson (R., S.C.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Free Beacon. “The timing raises concerns coming just a few days before the latest round of Iran talks. Resident Biden should end these failed negotiations once and for all and return to a policy of maximum pressure, rather than continuing to make concessions to the terrorist regime in Iran.”
Rep. Jim Banks (R., Ind.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said he and his colleagues worry the Biden administration is attempting to grant concessions to Iran via backdoor changes to American laws.
“What do Americans gain by letting members of Iran’s terrorist army cross our borders?” Banks asked.
Rep. Mike Waltz (R., Fla.), a combat veteran and also a member of the Armed Services Committee, said the change is purely about “appeasing terrorist groups—whether it’s the IRGC, Houthis, or Taliban.”
Reps. Lisa McClain (R., Mich.) and Pat Fallon (R., Texas), both Armed Services Committee members, expressed shock at how broadly written the new regulations are.
“In what world is it an acceptable decision to allow terrorists into our country?” Fallon asked the Free Beacon. “Instead of ending the nuclear talks with Iran all together, Joe Biden has decided to bend over backwards to the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism. Before it is too late, I urge them to immediately reconsider this foolish decision.”
Update June 29, 3:31 p.m.: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that the Biden administration made no formal announcement of the policy change.
THE LATEST GRIFT FROM THE ECOHEALTH CHIEF INVOLVES A NUMBER OF KREMLIN-LINKED RESEARCHERS.
Peter Daszak – a controversial U.S-based researcher whose collaborations on coronavirus research with a Chinese laboratory were funded by Anthony Fauci – isolated Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus strains in Russia using funds from the Russian government in a recently published research paper, The National Pulse can reveal.
Daszak, 49, appeared to play a critical role in the origins of COVID-19, as his organization, the ‘EcoHealth Alliance’, facilitated a “longtime” joint research effort with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is believed to be the source of the virus. Throughout the pandemic, Daszak also featured prominently in promoting the “natural origins” theory while simultaneously discrediting supporters of the “lab leak” theory, most notably in the role of the World Health Organization (WHO) COVID-19 investigator.
His latest study appears to be yet another controversy. Daszak, who is originally British, is listed as the sole U.S. researcher on the paper: “Identification and Genetic Characterization of MERS-Related Coronavirus Isolated from Nathusius’ Pipistrelle Near Zvenigorod (Moscow Region, Russia).”
DASZAK’S LATEST GRIFT.
The paper was published on June 10th 2022 and counted an additional 11 Russian researchers from Kremlin-run facilities including the Federal Service on Consumers’ Rights Protection and Human Well-Being Surveillance and Moscow State University.
The study was funded by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, the national science funding body of the Russian government, and the state-run Russian Science Foundation.
Researchers conducted “analyses of bat viromes,” which “have been used to identify novel viruses with potential to cause human infection.”
“We characterized the fecal virome of 26 samples collected from six bat species captured during 2015 in Moscow Region. Of these 13/26 (50%) samples were found to be coronavirus positive,” continued researchers.
“We sequenced and assembled the complete genome of a novel MERS-related Betacoronavirus from Pipistrellus nathusii, named MOW-BatCoV strain 15-22.”
The capture and sampling of bats were carried out by Moscow State University researchers in the summer of 2015.
Appearing to use similar tactics as researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the Russian scientists and Daszak focused on the spike protein. The spike protein allows viruses to penetrate host cells and cause infection and is believed to have been manipulated by researchers in Wuhan to become more lethal to humans.
“To predict and analyze the interaction of MOW-BatCoV Spike glycoprotein with DPP4 receptors of the different mammalian species, the three-dimensional structures of these proteins were obtained by homologous modeling. The DPP4 proteins of two bats (Myotis brandtii and Pipistrellus kuhlii), the hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus), domestic cat (Felix catus) and mouse (Mus musculus) were used for analysis,” explains the paper.
Analysis of the complete genomes the novel coronavirus discovered in the paper shows that it “falls into clade of human/camel’s MERS viruses together with a few bat viruses.”
A U.S. Customs and Border Patrol report has revealed that criminal organizations smuggling illegal aliens into America have been relying on social media platforms to recruit minors to carry out their operations.
The report from Texas’ Rio Grande Valley Sector (RGV) Border Patrol notes a “trend of Transnational Criminal Organization’s (TCO) using social media to recruit minors for their smuggling operations.”
The agency links the reliance on social media to the record-breaking numbers of migrants attempting to enter the U.S. illegally under resident Joe Biden. “RGV agents have encountered more than 137K migrants between Oct. 1, to Dec. 31, 2021, which is a 163 percent increase over the same reporting period of the previous year,” revealed the agency.
“With an increase in illicit activity, TCOs require more manpower to carry out their operations. Social media has become an avenue for human smugglers to target juvenile drivers. TCOs are luring minors to smuggle migrants across border towns in the Rio Grande Valley and into the U.S. interior with the promise of fast cash,” explained Customs and Border Patrol.
“TCOs convince juvenile drivers that they will not face the same consequences as adults if apprehended or that law enforcement will disengage a pursuit if dangerous conditions are present,” adds the report.
Authorities have arrested drivers working on behalf of TCOs as young as 13-years-old.
RGV Chief Patrol Agent Brian S. Hastings stated: “This is an alarming trend, because many of these teenagers underestimate the severity of the crime. Not only can they be prosecuted and sent to jail, but they also endanger lives through their actions. I encourage parents to talk to their children and educate them on the potential consequences and dangers of this trend.”
The intersection between social media and illegal border crossing follows reports that platforms such as China’sTikTok and Facebook were allowing content from human traffickers on their platforms.
Rep. Michael Guest (R-Miss.), a lawmaker who voted in favor of forming the Jan. 6 Committee, has entered the final stretch before a June 28 runoff election against U.S. Navy veteran Michael Cassidy.
The congressman from Mississippi’s 3rd District actually lost the initial June 7 primary election to Cassidy, receiving just 46.9 percent of the vote to Cassidy’s 47.5 percent.
Runoffs are triggered in Mississippi primary elections if no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote.
In addition to warring over Guest’s support for the Jan. 6 Committee, the two candidates have sparred over Cassidy’s alleged economic views.
An attack ad against Cassidy accused him of backing an “extreme socialist agenda” that would have added $48 trillion in social spending, as reported by Mississippi Today. That ad was funded by the Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF), a national super PAC supported by current House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.),
Mississippi Today based the $48 trillion figure on proposals from the candidate’s website, including one that appeared to mirror some Democrats’ vision of “Medicare for All.” Those policy ideas were subsequently taken down.
In a June 24 interview with The Epoch Times, Cassidy acknowledged the proposals were on his website, but claims the assertion that he supports broad new health care spending for Americans is “a complete lie and misrepresentation.”
“The truth is, before I began campaigning, I did a stupid thing,” he said. “And that was to brainstorm policy ideas on my website.”
Cassidy claimed that while he initially hoped that more Americans could access the caliber of health plan that he has through the U.S. Navy, he quickly realized that such a vision was too expensive.
He took issue with the CLF’s efforts to defeat him. OpenSecrets shows that it has spent $448,783 to oppose Cassidy’s candidacy.
According to that same website, top donors to the CLF in the 2022 cycle include Koch Industries and Dan Crenshaw for Congress.
“[CLF] spent half a million dollars in money that should be spent to get Democrats out of office and Republicans in,” he said, stressing his opposition to red flag laws and funding for Planned Parenthood.
The Epoch Times has reached out to CLF for comment, using an email address found in a Federal Election Commission filing.
Cassidy praised the Supreme Court’s June 24 Dobbs v. Jackson decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade and returned abortion law-making to the states.
Pro-abortion protests in Washington and elsewhere in the country followed the decision’s release, continuing a pattern that started when a draft of the decision was leaked through Politico in May.
The leaker of that draft hasn’t yet been identified.
When asked what he would do to address what he sees as overreach by the Department of Justice and other agencies, Cassidy cited Congress’s power of the purse.
Republicans will have more leverage over spending if they take the House, Senate, or both in November’s midterm election.
“In the military and so much government, if you don’t fund something, it can’t be done,” he said.
Cassidy said fighting federal abuses of power would take effective organization—a perennial challenge for many Republicans.
“Republicans have got to be energetic about it. They have to do the hard work,” he said.
Guest declined an interview opportunity with The Epoch Times.
The lessons for America from Germany’s ‘Energiewende’
American Founding Father Benjamin Franklin once said that “experience is an expensive school but fools will learn in no other.” Germany’s green energy policy, launched in the year 2000, could have been a cheap lesson for America today.
The Biden administration has chosen to follow Germany, providing heavy subsidies for wind and solar, while suppressing industries that could reliably meet America’s energy needs and even reduce its carbon footprint. In January, the administration announced that it had “pulled every lever to position America to scale up clean energy … the Biden-Harris Administration has readied offshore areas to harness power from wind, approved new solar projects on public lands, and passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to build thousands of miles of transmission lines that deliver clean energy.”
On June 6, the Biden Administration invoked the Defense Production Act to increase the production of green energy and to replace the use of fossil fuels. While the legality of this move is questionable, it established the U.S. government as a major controlling party in America’s heretofore private energy industry. But like most grand government adventures into industrial policy, the push for renewables is already revealing itself to be enormously wasteful and counterproductive.
Twenty-two years ago, Germany stepped into the forefront of the green energy movement, implementing its “Energiewende,” an ambitious program of subsidies for solar panels and wind turbines, coupled with a reduction in coal, oil, and natural gas. After the 2011 nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, Germany decided to also close its nuclear plants.
In 2000, less than 7 percent of Germany’s electricity came from so-called renewables. By 2021, that share exceeded 40 percent of the country’s electricity generation and about 20 percent of its total energy consumption, including electric vehicles (EVs).
By the end of 2021, before the Ukraine war drove prices even higher, German households paid 32 cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity. The rate in France, which kept its nuclear industry intact, was 23 cents. Americans paid an average price of 11 cents for electricity at that time—about a third of what Germans paid. Twenty percent of Germans’ electric bills went to a “renewables surcharge” to subsidize wind and solar.
Germany had spent heavily to increase its renewable energy capacity, but in the case of wind and solar, capacity never delivered the promised output. According to a 2020 report from the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Germany’s electricity output in 2000 was 54 percent of its total capacity, also known as the “capacity factor.” Unused capacity is the norm for power grids because the demand for electricity varies significantly depending on the time of day, the season, and the weather. By 2019, however, while Germany’s total electricity capacity had risen dramatically thanks to a sharp increase in renewables, its capacity factor had fallen to just 20 percent, largely because wind and solar generators were less productive than fossil fuels or nuclear.
The capacity factor for solar energy was just 10 percent because much of the country is often overcast. Wind energy was also producing well below capacity because wind turbines produced no energy on calm days and had to shut down on particularly gusty days to prevent turbine blades from being damaged. Even within those limits, the amount of energy produced by wind turbines was hugely variable depending on how hard the wind was blowing.
“It costs Germany a great deal to maintain such an excess of installed power,” the IEEE report stated. “The average cost of electricity for German households has doubled since 2000.”
A major problem with wind and solar is not only that they are unreliable, but also that they tend to generate the most power when people need it least. The peak seasons for wind generation tend to be fall and spring, but the peak demand for energy occurs in summer and winter when people need to heat or cool homes and offices.
An electricity grid must manage huge variability in demand. It must have enough capacity to cover peak demand, for example during the hottest hours of summer, but also have the flexibility to reduce power during early morning hours or springtime days when demand falls considerably. Because renewables are unpredictable in terms of how much energy they will produce, and when, they add substantial variability to the supply side of the equation as well.
Wind turbines in Papalote, Texas, on June 15, 2021. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
“The whole idea that you would take something as complicated as an electric system, one of the most complicated things people have invented to date, and choose what to put on that system and how to run it by a popularity contest, to me that’s nuts and it’s going to end in tears,” Peter Hartley, Professor of Energy Economics at Rice University, told The Epoch Times. “Trying to run that system with politics is not a very smart thing to do.”
Germany’s energy sector had a difficult year in 2021 because the winds were calm. Even as demand surged, wind output fell by a quarter in 2021. The capacity factor for solar also fell because it was not a particularly sunny year.
After a sharp drop in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Germany’s CO2 emissions increased by 31 million tons in 2021. A significant portion of this increase was due to the failure of renewables to produce, which forced Germany to lean more heavily on fossil fuels, including coal, to keep its electric grid going. And while shutting down its own nuclear plants, Germany also bought nuclear-generated electricity from France.
The surplus periods for wind and solar brought problems as well. When the weather cooperates and wind and solar produce at peak capacity, they often generate more power than consumers want. This leaves power companies with the choice of either trying to store excess energy, which is technologically problematic, or trying to offload it at deep discounts. This left Germany in a position of importing energy when prices were high and attempting to dump excess energy on a saturated market when prices were low.
The same thing happens in the United States. In Texas, for example, wind farms have been known to even pay grid operators to take their excess output. America’s wind farms receive government subsidies based on the amount of power they sell to utilities. This means that they can pay grid operators to take their excess energy and still make a profit as long as the amount they pay is less than what the government pays them in subsidies.
This market distortion from government intervention comes at a price, however. In America, traditional energy producers that don’t get subsidies, such as natural gas, struggle to make a profit when prices are artificially depressed, and this means that more reliable energy producers are crowded out of the market and, in many cases, are shut down. Nuclear energy, a reliable, relatively inexpensive, carbon-free producer, suffers the most because of how costly it is to cycle nuclear plants up and down.
“By having governments force intermittent renewables into the system through industrial policy,” Hartley said, “You’re actually penalizing nuclear, which might be the best long-run solution.”
There is an ongoing debate about how much and how fast CO2 emissions are changing the earth’s climate. However, if reducing carbon emissions is the ultimate goal, nuclear is probably the best means of achieving it. It emits far less CO2 than renewable energies, when mining and construction are taken into account; it is scalable; it is steady, reliable, and not subject to wild variations due to the weather; and it builds energy independence.
“Two of the most successful mass displacement of fossil fuels in the world are the nuclear programs in France and Sweden,” Hartley said. Nuclear is by far the most energy-dense technology, producing 10,000 times the amount of energy per kilogram that diesel fuel produces. It also takes up less space than solar panels and requires far less mining, with all the collateral damage that comes with that.
The downsides of nuclear are well known: nuclear waste and the possibility of catastrophic accidents such as Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima. However, new innovations in nuclear energy have made the technology safer, cleaner, more flexible, and more scalable. Downsized nuclear plants called Small Modular Reactors can be built closer to industrial users, reducing the cost of building lengthy transmission networks.
While Germany appears to have closed the door on nuclear energy, the European Union is reportedly drawing up plans to reclassify natural gas and nuclear energy as “green.”
According to Jessica Johnson, communications director for Nucleareurope, “We’re starting to see member states recognize that in order to have a stable supply of low carbon electricity, nuclear needs to be part of the mix.”
Europe has set ambitious targets to “decarbonize our economy completely by 2050,” Johnson said. If nuclear energy is excluded, “we can forget those targets.”
Currently, about 25 percent of Europe’s electricity is generated by nuclear power, as well as half of Europe’s “low-carbon” electricity. Belgium is rethinking its program to phase out its nuclear plants, Johnson said. France has proposed ambitious plans for building up to six new nuclear plants, and “a couple of weeks ago, in a manifesto, the Finnish Green Party made a clear statement in support of nuclear.”
‘Carbon Debt’
Germany’s Energiewende has succeeded in reducing its national carbon footprint substantially, but it only measures emissions within its own borders. Had it measured its actual global footprint, it would have discovered that the batteries, solar panels, and EVs that it was importing were increasing CO2 emissions substantially.
EVs come with a “carbon debt.” This refers to the fact that manufacturing electric batteries, an industry projected to grow to $100 billion by 2025, is highly pollutive. A 2018 report by the International Council on Clean Transportation, a green energy advocate, noted that the production of EV batteries in China, where more than half of the world’s lithium-ion batteries are made, generated 60 percent more CO2 than building traditional gasoline-powered engines.
A report by the World Economic Forum, another renewables advocate, stated that the amount of fossil fuel required to build EVs exceeds that for gas-fired cars to such an extent that “in Germany, a mid-sized electric car must be driven for 125,000 km, on average, to break even with a diesel car [in terms of CO2 emissions], and 60,000 km compared to a petrol car. It takes nine years for an electric car to be greener than a diesel car.” EV batteries last between 10 and 20 years.
Rare earth minerals essential to the production of solar panels, wind turbines, and EV batteries include lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese, and graphite, among others. Copper is also essential for building extended power lines to connect grids to distant renewable sources, such as offshore wind farms and remote solar fields.
According to a report by the International Energy Agency (IEA), in order to meet the climate goals of the Paris Agreement, the production of these minerals would have to increase by six times over what it is today, by 2040. Furthermore, “The production of many energy transition materials is more concentrated than that of oil or natural gas … the world’s top three producing nations control over three-quarters of global output.”
The dominant players in this market are the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and China, which together control a majority of the production of many essential renewable-energy minerals. “China’s share of refining is around 35% for nickel, 50-70% for lithium and cobalt, and nearly 90% for rare earth elements,” the report states.
The mining of these materials is energy-intensive and can be devastating to local environments. Lithium, for example, comprises only about one percent of the rock from which it is mined, causing the destruction of large swathes of land in the mining process in order to extract it. Lithium and copper mining also require huge amounts of water, straining natural resources. Cobalt is often mined by child slave labor in Africa. And the refining process releases toxic heavy metals and other pollutants into the soil and water.
The installation of solar panels requires taking large plots of land and displacing wildlife. Wind turbines kill birds and bats. And the disposal of these often toxic minerals, once batteries, turbines, and solar panels reach the end of their productive use, has yet to be resolved.
‘Conditions of Genocide’
Germany struggled with the moral consequences of its Energiewende. The German parliament determined that the solar panels it was buying from China were being manufactured under “conditions of genocide” and slave labor.
“People think they’re very virtuous with these wind, solar, electric vehicles and so forth,” Hartley said. “But when you look into the background of these things, it’s pretty dicey stuff from a human rights point of view, let alone the strategic issues.”
Workers install solar panels at the construction site of 40MW photovoltaic on-grid power project in Huai an, China, on June 11, 2018. (VCG/VCG via Getty Images)
In February, these strategic issues came to the fore when Russia invaded Ukraine, and Germany discovered how dependent it had become on unfriendly foreign suppliers. Wind and solar, upon which it had bet so heavily, proved incapable of filling the gaps its energy policies had created, and the embargo of Russian exports, together with counter-threats from Russia to cut off vital energy supplies to the West, hit Germany hard.
In May, Germany’s producer prices jumped 33.6 percent in annualized terms, the largest increase since data collection began in 1949, largely due to escalating energy costs. Energy prices shot up 87.3 percent from a year earlier; natural gas prices were up 154.8 percent.
A German federal audit in March warned of energy shortages and blackouts across Germany and power rationing between consumers and industry. With the sharp increase in the cost of inputs, the report said “there is a risk of losing Germany’s competitiveness and acceptance of the energy transition.” Last week, Germany raised its gas risk level to “alarm,” the second-highest level before “emergency.”
The German government could soon be in a position of choosing which companies are more essential than others when allocating scarce energy supplies. As is often the case with government industrial policies, the Energiewende could end up harming the industry to such an extent that the only solution would be more government intervention to save it.
Throughout Europe, some companies began shutting down in June, unable to compete with foreign firms whose energy costs were much lower. One country that is not transitioning to renewables is China.
A June Foreign Policy report stated that, while China is rapidly building out its battery manufacturing industry for export, “the country continues doubling down on coal” for its domestic energy. China expanded its coal mining operations by 300 million metric tons in 2022, “almost the annual production of the entire European Union.” The report notes that China is prioritizing energy stability and cost competitiveness, while “China’s main competitor, the United States, now experiences increasingly frequent supply disruptions as it works to transition its electric system, the world’s second largest, toward renewable energy.”
The strategic risks of Biden’s green gamble go beyond consumers and industry to include our military. Access to energy often proves to be decisive in military conflicts. One of the reasons that Germany and Japan were defeated in the Second World War was their inability to acquire fuel for their ships, planes, and tanks. Today, while America’s submarines and aircraft carriers are nuclear powered, most of our military still runs on oil derivatives; diesel for tanks and ships and jet fuel for aircraft.
China is not a significant producer of oil, which has been its strategic Achilles heel. Transitioning from fossil fuels to wind and solar, however, reverses this equation, making American industry dependent on China for the raw materials of renewable energy, when we have fossil fuels in abundance.
The lesson that the Biden administration could have learned from Germany is that wind and solar are inferior technologies that are inefficient, unreliable, polluting, and create a dangerous dependence on foreign countries that are not always your friends. Apparently, they weren’t paying attention.
USAF pilot Lt. John Bowes dreamt of flying and protecting the country his entire life—since he was a child.
He is heartbroken now that he had to put his religious faith over his dream due to the COVID vaccine mandates within the U.S. military, but believes that God is helping him get through the tribulation and that he has a duty to speak up.
The 24-year-old was an F-16 student pilot but was taken out of training and prevented from flying since September of last year when he first submitted his religious accommodation.
“I exercised my constitutional and statutory right to receive a religious accommodation. And then I was, as a direct consequence of doing that, removed from training to fly the F-16. I personally believe that is religious discrimination,” Bowes told The Epoch Times.
He made clear that his views are not representative of the USAF.
“Now that my religious accommodation is denied, I have been formally removed from training. I’ve received a letter of reprimand, which is a disciplinary action that goes on my record as an officer. And I’ve been told that I’ll be processed for discharge here pretty soon,” he said.
Bowes says that nine months ago he filed an equal opportunity complaint with the Air Force Equal Opportunity office, but has not heard back from them so far.
“I’m absolutely heartbroken,” Bowes said, “it’s sad to see that my dream is at risk over something like the COVID vaccine, which doesn’t stop you from getting or spreading COVID.”
The Epoch Times reached out to the USAF for comment.
What’s more, cases of myocarditis—inflammation of the heart muscle—and pericarditis—inflammation of the lining outside the heart—have spiked dramatically since the COVID vaccines started being administered worldwide.
“My faith is what gets me through it because I know that God has called me to speak up about these mandates, and God has called me to stand up for the beliefs that I have—that he gave me, and I’m risking my dream and my career and my future and my financial stability, and my honor as an officer, which is being tainted by these disciplinary actions. All because of my oath to my faith, my oath to God which got me here in the first place, as well as my oath to the Constitution of the United States, which all officers take,” Bowes said.
“And so I’m not here to be rebellious. I’m not here to stick it to the man and so many service members aren’t here to do that, either. We’re simply doing what we swore to do. And standing up for our religious beliefs.”
Lt. John Bowes (Courtesy of John Bowes)
As the June 30 deadline nears for compliance with the U.S. military’s COVID-19vaccine mandate, U.S. Army officials publicly claim a very small percentage of its members are unvaccinated, reporting 96 percent or more of its members are fully vaccinated.
However, the Army’s vaccination rate could be far lower than 96 percent, an anonymous active-duty senior Army official told The Defender.
Sanctity of Life
As a Catholic, Bowes believes in the sanctity of human life and doesn’t want to use the COVID vaccines because aborted fetal cell lines are involved in either the production or the testing of these.
“That action, the use of that vaccine is not in line with my belief that all human life is sacred and ordained by God to exist on this earth. And the use of abortion, in order to accomplish the production of these vaccines, is just morally abhorrent to me,” Bowes said.
Disclosed CDC emails show that they have been producing and culturing human stem cell lines.
Bowes added that he knows “a lot of service members” whose primary argument in their religious accommodations is the sanctity of their genetic material and not wanting to be forced into having it altered.
According to official data from the Air Force, over 9,500 religious accommodations requests had been denied approval as of June 14.
This is despite Archbishop for the Military Service Timothy Broglio saying in October 2021 that: “The denial of religious accommodations, or punitive or adverse personnel actions taken against those who raise earnest, conscience-based objections, would be contrary to federal law and morally reprehensible.”
Bowes personally knows a few pilots who “developed myocarditis from the vaccine, and they don’t fly anymore.”
Pilot Shortage
The Air Force has been struggling with pilot shortages for years now.
Former Air Force Chief of Staff General David Goldfein testified before congress in 2017 about a shortage of aviators, writing in 2016 that the situation was a “quiet crisis.”
A DoD report (pdf) from 2019 noted that by the end of FY 2018, the Air Force was “short 2,000 pilots out of a total inventory of 18,400.”
“I know of personally more than 700 pilots who are actively unvaccinated and have filed a religious accommodation or have filed for a medical exemption or something of the sort,” Bowes said.
A letter from November 2021 (pdf) from DoD pilots submitting religious accommodation for vaccination to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees details the impacts based on an analysis of a group of 357 pilots that did not want to take the COVID vaccines.
Their estimated value was totaled at $7.8 billion tax dollars, 4,842 years of cumulative service, and 14 years of service on average.
Nineteen percent of them support the mission of nuclear deterrence, 69 percent are instructors, and nine percent are Air Force Weapons Instructors or Navy TOPGUN graduates.
“The implications of 700 pilots is pretty extreme,” Bowes said in an interview with LifeSite news.
Attorneys and doctors have also charged that the FAA is violating its own rule that pilots should not fly after having taken medications that have been approved for less than a year.
An advocacy group called Freedom Flyers is assisting pilots to come forward and speak out about their conditions.
“Many of these pilots are afraid to come forward because if they come forward they lose their flight physical, they lose their flight medical. So they’re continuing to fly. We have a lot of pilots that are flying with chest pain and neurological conditions, because if they come forward they lose their careers,” Josh Yoder, a spokesperson for Freedom Flyers told The Epoch Times.
Congressional Democrats killed legislation that would bar American military academies from teaching critical race theory and other anti-American curricula.
Rep. Michael Waltz (R., Fla.), a combat veteran and member of the House Armed Services Committee, on Wednesday introduced a measure that would prohibit the teaching of critical race theory at military academies and K-12 schools run by the Department of Defense. Democrats, who are in control of the committee, swatted down the measure.
The introduction of critical race theory, which critics see as motivated by anti-American bias, is part of a larger push by the American military to position itself as more inclusive to minorities and the LGBT community. The Washington Free Beaconreported Monday that the Navy is teaching sailors to use proper gender pronouns to help create “safe spaces” in the service. The Army also instructs soldiers on the best time to offer sex changes to service members.
Critical race theory is another part of the effort to make the military more welcoming. Cadets at West Point, for instance, last year attended a seminar titled “Understanding Whiteness and White Rage.” Other courses at West Point teach cadets how to address their “whiteness,” according to recently leaked documents.
“We know that the indoctrination of Critical Race Theory is occurring at one of our most prestigious military academies,” Waltz told the Free Beacon. “These teachings are not only divisive but teach our future military leaders who swore an oath to protect and defend the United States that our country is fundamentally racist, misogynist, and colonialist. On the battlefield, the only color that matters is camouflage and the enemy’s bullets certainly don’t care about race.”
“Once Republicans take back Congress,” Waltz said, “we are going to investigate this further and put an end to this indoctrination.”
Retired U.S. Army Major General Paul Vallely is vigorously sounding the alarm against a potential communist takeover of the country and is also very concerned about the mandatory COVID vaccination of all members of the military.
“The mandatory vaccines and boosters … under Department of Defense guidance and directives to the commands throughout the Armed Forces have caused a great deal of controversy. Number one: those that declined mandatory vaccination under the First Amendment religious rights,” Vallely told The Epoch Times.
He believes that there is no need to force COVID vaccines on them, as “these are the healthiest men and women we have in the country.”
“They can take [the vaccines] as an option, but we’ve got to stop this mandatory vaccination. It’s hurting the armed forces. And of course, our enemies see that—the Russians, the Chinese, the cartels. And then [there’s] the wokeism, the teaching of critical race theory. So there are a lot of things going on that are affecting the status and the readiness of our forces right now. I’m very worried about that.”
According to U.S. Army Public Affairs, 97 percent of the active army and 88 percent of the army reserve is completely vaccinated. It also states that 2,846 exemption requests have been refused and there have been 3,330 official reprimands, as of April 13. However, an anonymous whistleblower told The Defender that the actual vaccination rates may be significantly lower.
The Army had separated 669 soldiers “for refusing the lawful order to receive the COVID-19 vaccine,” as of May 19.
Vallely served for 31 years in the U.S. Army and retired in 1992 as the deputy commanding general for the U.S. Army Pacific in Honolulu, Hawaii. He has over 15 years of experience in special operations, psychological operations, and civil-military operations.
He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and earned his commission in the Army in 1961, at the height of the Vietnam war.
After serving two combat tours in Vietnam, Vallely also served in several other overseas theaters in Europe and Pacific Rim countries. Vallely also served on U.S. security assistance missions and civilian–military relations tours all over the world.
Paul E. Vallely MG U.S. Army (Ret). (Courtesy of Paul E. Vallely)
Time Spent on CRT and Communist Ideology Could Be Used for Gun Training
“I think the Russians and the cartels and the Chinese, they’re letting us destroy ourselves from within. They don’t have to even do anything. It’s self-destruction within our own government. They see that, and of course, that makes us very, very vulnerable when we have critical race theory and ideology and what we call indoctrination, rather than putting forth the training and education that has to go on within our military,” Vallely said.
He believes that there “absolutely” is an agenda to transform the republic, that the country is being dismantled from within, and that a socialist takeover has already made substantial progress.
“When you take away to teach a critical race theory and communist ideology, you’re taking away from the time that could be used for learning how to shoot better, how to operate airplanes better, take care of airplanes through maintenance; and even within the medical corps of the armed forces, it has affected many the doctors and nurses. So it’s a terrible thing. They need to stop it right now. They need to stop enforcing the mandates,” he stated.
“This is terrible tyranny that’s going on.”
How to Stop a Communist Takeover
Despite the gloomy prospects, Vallely keeps a positive spirit and thinks that if the country is to be preserved, Americans need to awaken and act, starting at the local level—and quickly turn the tides before it’s too late.
“We have to have the sheriffs and the governors enforcing the 10th Amendment. We need to have that happen. I’m not sure that the elections are going to be fair in November.
“People have to stand up before we are led into a really bloody civil war. And that’s what it’s looking like.”
Vallely further asserted that there are “high-tech oligarchs” that, behind the scenes, want to “change the direction of this country, and they’re doing it. They’re dismantling this country. They don’t believe in our Constitution, for example they don’t care about the First Amendment or Second Amendment. They want to completely dominate the society culturally.”
“2022 is the awakening of America. We need to wake up to see what’s happening to our country and to our government—the demolishing of our Constitution, increased burglaries, crime, and deaths within our cities. We got to enforce the law. These are all things that are on the table that must be done to turn the country around. If not, we’ll be destroyed,” Vallely concluded.
Communist China is getting more totalitarian – even with foreign investment fund management firms operating on its soil. The Chinese regime is now requiring all foreign firms – including American ones – to set up an internal unit for surveillance and supervision by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Other Chinese national laws require all companies in the country, including foreign firms, to establish internal CCP organizations. However, those laws have been largely symbolic.
Until now.
Ignites Asia — an extension of Financial Times — first reported that in May, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) implemented new changes to its industry rules governing publicly offered securities investment funds.
This week it reported that one of the provisions in the new CSRC rules requires that these companies establish a CCP organ within their companies.
According to a translation by Ignites Asia, the provision states:
Fund management companies shall, in accordance with the provisions of the Articles of Association of the Communist Party of China, establish party organizations, carry out party activities, and provide necessary conditions for the activities of party organizations.
State-owned fund management companies shall, in accordance with relevant regulations, integrate party leadership into all aspects of corporate governance, and include party building work requirements into the company’s articles of association, so as to implement the legal status of party organizations in the corporate governance structure.
Logan Wright – leader of China Markets Research for the Rhodium Group – told Ignites Asia that “It’s another small signal that China’s system is increasingly diverging from global business practices and norms, rather than converging with them over time.”
Wright added that the requirement for foreign businesses to accept a CCP unit within their structure will “add to the perceived political risks associated with deepening foreign investment in China.”
Coincidentally, the new rules specifically governing fund companies come as major U.S. and international investment firms are working to bring branches of their business to China.
A Shanghai-based lawyer who works with foreign business managers told Ignites Asia that this rule is the first explicit “party organization” requirement for the public fund industry. The lawyer, who declined to be named due to the political sensitivity of the matter, told Ignites Asia the new rule applies to foreign-Chinese joint ventures and the Chinese subsidiaries of wholly foreign-owned companies working in China. U.S. multinational firms like BlackRock, Fidelity, and Neuberger Berman are among these entities expanding into the Chinese market.
Maybe it’s time these huge American investment businesses stop ‘trading with the enemy’ and focus their powerful financial efforts elsewhere.
Desertions have exploded within the United States Navy since President Joe Biden’s inauguration.
More than twice as many sailors deserted their Navy posts in 2021 than in 2019, according to Task and Purpose.
157 sailors deserted in 2021, a hefty increase on the 98 who abandoned their posts in 2020. 63 sailors deserted in 2019.
A poor quality of life for enlisted sailors has fueled the Navy’s desertion crisis.
Sailors stationed at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center revealed they were billeted without hot water and air conditioning for months to the Navy Times earlier this year.
Five sailors stationed aboard an aircraft carrier under constant construction committed suicide in a time span of ten months, according to Military.com.
Living had become mentally arduous on board the ship due to constant noise and the havoc of endless construction.
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy Russell Smith had dismissed sailors’ concerns in a visit to the George Washington, insisting that they persevere in a living situation that had already driven members of the crew to suicide.
Three Navy commanders were relieved of command in one week in June alone.
Those fired included the captain responsible for the Navy’s only basic training installation.
The Navy said “lost confidence” caused the firings, falling back on a term often used to justify the firings of military officers without revealing a specific reason.
Senior Navy leaders testified to Congress on quality of life issues within the branch earlier this year, with lawmakers questioning the treatment and living standards afforded to junior enlisted sailors.
As the effects of a mental health crisis and desertion spree plague the Navy, the Biden administration has doubled down on new programs to promote critical race theory and gender ideology within the branch.
A Navy video on using the correct progressive gender pronouns was distributed within the branch in June.
The Western world’s “total failure of deterrence” is largely to blame for Russian president Vladimir Putin’s ongoing war in Ukraine, former ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said in a foreign policy speech Wednesday in London.
The West’s decades-long failure to confront Putin and other malign regimes like China and Iran should serve as a warning that prompts a “fundamental shift in how the West approaches our enemies,” Haley said, according to an early transcript of her remarks obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. She said it is time for the Western world to cut economic ties with Russia and China to send a message to these regimes that their subversion of the international order will no longer be tolerated.
Haley, who is positioning herself as a Republican prospect for the 2024 presidential election, previewed how a future Republican administration would handle the globe’s most pressing foreign policy matters. She harshly criticized the Biden administration’s appeasement of countries like Iran but also said Europe shares blame for the world’s instability—criticism that is usually expressed behind closed doors when a foreign leader travels abroad.
“It was Western weakness that convinced Putin he could get away with attempting to swallow Ukraine,” Haley said. “He saw America as too internally divided and distracted, and Europe as too bureaucratic and soft to stop him. And sadly, I have to say he wasn’t wrong.”
Decades of appeasement—and fears about directly confronting the Russia-China-Iran axis—led to the worst European war in nearly 80 years.
“We should have made crystal clear to Putin the full implications of his actions ahead of time. We didn’t,” Haley said. “And now we have the worst war in Europe since the Second World War. This dereliction of duty was years in the making. For too long, the West wrongly feared provoking Putin, instead of taking the steps needed to prevent him from starting a war in the first place.”
The Biden administration’s recent foreign policy blunders, primarily the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, provided the fuel that sparked Putin’s war machine, Haley said.
“It pains me to say it, but if there had been no Afghanistan disaster, there would likely have been no Ukraine invasion,” she said. “Putin saw our lack of resolve in Kabul and assumed nothing meaningful would happen once his tanks rolled into Kyiv.”
But the conditions that led to Putin’s war weren’t created overnight. The United States and Europe spent decades trying to integrate Russia and China into the global economy while ignoring their totalitarian tendencies and mass military buildup.
“The West’s foolishness was boundless,” Haley said. “Whenever Russia tested us, the West shrugged off the necessary strong response, fearing it would do more harm than good.”
“It is critical that we all understand this central point: Appeasement never satisfies the appetites of tyrants. It only makes them want more,” Haley said. “Trying to be ‘inoffensive’ only emboldens our enemies. It leads to wars—like the one we are now witnessing right now in Ukraine.”
Russia is not the world’s most present threat, however, according to Haley. That distinction goes to China.
There can be “no doubt that China is the biggest national security threat the world faces,” she said.
There is only one solution to reassert Western dominance, Haley said. “We must economically detach from our enemies and rely more heavily on ourselves and our friends.”
“That means breaking the Western addiction to Russian energy,” Haley said. “It means securing strategic supply chains completely free of Chinese control or leverage. It means expecting our businesses to do their part to uphold our interests rather than those of our enemies.”
The belief that “economic interdependence with hostile regimes” would dampen their worst tendencies has been “painfully disproven,” according to Haley. If the West does not abandon these foolish ambitions, “our pain and vulnerability will only increase.”
The Western world stands at an “inflection point,” facing a “set of powerful and fanatical dictators with dreams of conquest. Imperial Russia, Communist China, and Jihadist Iran pose existential threats to us and to free peoples all over the world,” Haley said. “The Western way of life depends on deterring these threats.”
A stalemate, she said, “is not good enough. Victory is required.”
In a stirring and spot-on campaign email, Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis declares war on the Far Left calling it a “Radical Vigilante Woke Mob.”
While I’ve seen my share of them over the years and sent out a few myself, campaign fundraising emails are notorious for appealing to the hard-core base of both parties.
So, most of them are taken with a grain of salt by political observers.
However, the email I just received from the DeSantis re-election campaign really hit home. It accurately defined and summarized the aggressive domestic threat posed by the extreme Left to our nation’s very core:
Our country is currently facing a great threat. A new enemy has emerged from the shadows that seeks to destroy and intimidate their way to a transformed state, and country, that you and I would hardly recognize.
This enemy is the radical vigilante woke mob that will steamroll anything and anyone in their way. Their blatant attacks on the American way of life are clear and intensifying: stifling dissent, public shaming, rampant violence, and a perverted version of history.
A group that will, literally, tear down monuments and buildings but — perhaps in an even more sinister way — tear down the American spirit itself. They go after the family unit, parental rights, traditional moral values, the church, and fact-based education.
Over the past few years, we’ve watched horrified as this group has attempted to brainwash our children into thinking we live in an evil, racist, irredeemable country.
We listened to them deny science and data to exert political theater all the while trampling over personal liberties enshrined in the Constitution.
We saw them take to the streets for an entire summer like outlaws burning, looting, and destroying everything in sight while being told they were “mostly peaceful” and “passionate.”
DeSantis omitted the LGBTQ brainwashing of our young children and the collusion of major woke companies like Disney in doing so, but he has been at the forefront of battling both these evils in Florida.
The DeSantis campaign continues, noting something that impacted me directly on the huge social media platform LinkedIn: “We watched Big Tech moguls in Silicon Valley be the arbiters of truth – deciding who gets to speak and who gets silenced through the digital public square.”
And of course, the last piece of the massive leftist effort: “We listened to the legacy media muffle legitimately verifiable news stories that didn’t align with their preferred narrative, only to watch the truth trickle out months later at a more politically expedient time.”
Referring to himself as the “Governor of the Free State of Florida,” DeSantis then goes on to make his pitch for how he will fight this grave threat to America, at least in Florida, with “faith, with reason, and with freedom.”
And of course, he asks for our financial support.
In my view, this email accurately and effectively summarizes the threat we face from the extreme Left in America today. DeSantis is on the front lines of this battle in Florida, but he also seems to be preparing to take the fight nationally as well.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
Columnist Naomi Wolf, author of “The Bodies of Others: The New Authoritarians, COVID-19 and the War Against the Human,” asserts that after two years of pandemic policies, people in free societies are behaving more like those in authoritarian societies.
Wolf maintains that America is now less free, and becoming almost unrecognizable.
“A handful of bad actors” including the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Big Tech, and the World Economic Forum (WEF) used the pandemic to “exploit the crisis in such a way as to reengineer our free democratic open societies, especially in the West, especially in the United States, into a post-free society, a post-humane society,” said Wolf during a recent interview on EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders.”
The Biden administration in April extended the 2-year-old coronavirus public health emergency for another 90 days.
Wolf said, based on history, the ongoing lockdowns and extension of the public health emergency indicate society is in the last phase of a tyrannical takeover, because with emergency powers, laws protecting liberty can be suspended.
According to Wolf, there are 10 steps every tyrannical government has followed. We are now at step 10, said Wolf. Some of the other steps include demonizing whistleblowers and critics, calling dissent “treason,” “espionage,” or “subversion,” and controlling the media narrative.
During the last two years of lockdowns and mandates, Big Tech and the elites have profited while the average Americans have seen the American Dream slowly “closing” on them, she said.
“And so often, when a democracy is dying, or a regime is turning the screws on freedoms to create an established new form of tyranny, it happens intentionally in a very incremental way,” said Wolf. “And you really see this from 1930 to 1933 in Germany.”
She said humanity is witnessing the formation of a two-tier society of the vaccinated versus the unvaccinated, in which people who would never discriminate against others based on categories of race and sex are now discriminating against the unvaccinated.
“Suddenly, they’re happily embracing a discrimination society in which some people are cast as clean and valuable members of society and other people are ostracized and marginalized and ‘othered’ and described as sort of dirty and causing infection to others,” said Wolf.
She argues that big tech companies had an active role in creating these perceptions and in “shaping legislation and certainly in presenting the drama of COVID and lockdowns to us, and then the vaccine rollout, in such a way as to change human behavior and to change human society,” said Wolf.
Wolf cited the emails between Dr. Anthony Fauci and Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg discussing Facebook’s role in getting the right public health “messages out” during the lockdowns.
Mark Zuckerberg (L) and Dr. Anthony Fauci. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images; Greg Nash/Getty Images)
People had no choice but to rely on tech platforms while they were locked down, and Big Tech used that to manipulate the public, said Wolf.
“What I do trace in the book is how there was a vast profit that tech companies made by suppressing human assembly, by helping to message that it was unsafe or unlawful to gather in person,” she said. “And when you understand that big tech companies are competing with human beings gathering in human spaces, you understand why there was a vested interest in suppressing human assembly.”
Wolf thinks big tech companies will not stop at just harvesting data on the computer, but that they want to dominate peoples’ bodily autonomy with vaccine passports.
“What these companies want more than anything is to leave the parameters of your computer and to colonize other currently non-colonized spaces, notably the human body,” said Wolf.
This would give these companies and governments the ability to switch off peoples’ access to commerce, travel, and other goods and services if they did not comply with a particular mandate, Wolf added.
Some forms of digital tracking and surveilling are already here in the United States, she said.
“You’re now expected to swipe these QR codes just to see the menu, or just to get in. And the QR code uploads your data to a central database,” she said, adding that she’s seen the software “that maps the relationships of everyone sitting at that table, and then builds databases and networks of relationships.”
This illustration photo shows a person looking at the app for the New York State Excelsior Pass, which provides digital proof of a Covid-19 vaccination, in Los Angeles on April 6, 2021 (Chris Delmas/AFP via Getty Images)
Wolf said that on a scale of one to 10 on the Chinese social credit system, the United States is currently at a three.
“There’s a change that’s happened in American cities in the last two years,” she said.
Because most people around the world, particularly in U.S. cities, use digital apps to travel, do banking, and shop, a digital social credit system similar to China’s is imminent, she said.
Our data is being harvested and used by the “global technocratic elite” to control human behavior, said Wolf.
“We’ve assumed that the worst it can be is data are harvested from us with everything that we choose to do using our free will as human beings,” said Wolf.
“But what I’ve seen is that digital technology has its own logic, and it isn’t restricted by what human beings want to do. So once digital platforms and their oligarchical masters can figure out how to change people’s behavior to suit technology, there’s nothing, moral or ethical, that will keep them from changing people’s behavior to suit their technology, and to suit their business plans,” she added.
The pandemic has revealed how this type of digital control is playing out, because humans, before the prevalence of digital technology, did not choose to “socially distance” to fight pandemics, said Wolf.
“The dream of our digital overlords is for technology to tell humans what to do, and that’s exactly where we’re at,” said Wolf.
While some people might label her a conspiracy theorist, her opinions are based on a long career as a journalist, political consultant, and now tech CEO, Wolf said. Furthermore, she has witnessed firsthand the powerful elites making historical decisions under the radar, she said.
Wolf was well acquainted with this group of powerful people until recently when she was ejected from their circles for writing oppositional pieces on lockdowns.
“But it’s really true that the global technocratic elite have more in common with each other than they do with their fellow Germans or Americans or Russians or Chinese, and they now are able to align above the level of nation-states,” she said.
The panel ‘Leaders for Europe’s Digital Decade’ at the 2022 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, on May 25, 2022. The yearly meeting takes place from May 22 to 26 with heads of governments and economic leaders. (Eric Lalmand/AFP via Getty Images)
For example, one of the WEF’s goals is to make nation-level decision-making less and less important, and the World Health Organization’s goal is to make public health decisions on a global scale, bypassing countries’ own authorities via the pandemic treaty, said Wolf.
“These technocratic elites really do believe that they can order the world better than you and I and that they have the right to,” she said. “That’s really scary.”
Little by little, humanity’s tolerance for cruelty and authoritarianism has grown.
“The war wasn’t just on us as a political entity, the war was on American culture, and is on American culture,” she said. “And they’ve succeeded largely, unless we wake up, because we were a kind, decent, inclusive culture that respected other people’s boundaries and freedoms. … And now a CCP-style cruelty is something that we tolerate.”
What people believe is largely determined by the news they consume, said Wolf, and many people only watch news outlets that give a skewed picture of pandemic treatments and policies, largely funded by wealthy people like Bill Gates.
“I do trace in ‘The Bodies of Others’ how millions of dollars flowed and are flowing from entities like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to the BBC and the Guardian and NPR and other formerly very credible, objective news outlets.”
Because most people get slanted news coverage, the country is more divided and many people on the left refuse to consider any other narrative or look at primary source documents, because they believe only government sources are giving them “scientific” information, said Wolf.
This skewed messaging has been able to convince people that the mandates and lockdowns are more American and important than liberty or critical thinking.
Wolf said the most brilliant aspect of the pandemic messaging was that it was framed altruistically.
“You know, ‘You’ve got to exclude those people for the good of the community,’ or ‘You’ve got to mask yourself and your child to save your child,’” said Wolf. “This really brilliantly upended American culture because it cast freedom as selfish.”
Now that those in power have effectively conditioned people to be fearful and submissive, they can keep reinstituting emergency powers, she argued.
“That’s what emergency law means,” she said. “They can do whatever they want, basically. It’s a weaponization of boards of health, it’s a weaponization of the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and the [Department of Health and Human Services].”
Wolf said although the situation is dire, people can do something to push back against this tyranny by being informed about what is really going on in the country, assembling in groups, and getting involved politically on the local level.
As it stands now, “I will say that each side is being fed narratives and stereotypes about the other that would persuade each side that the other is absolutely insane and dangerous, dangerously insane,” said Wolf.
“I get that conservatives think, ‘liberals don’t know what a woman is.’ That is not actually literally true, and liberals think ‘conservatives all want to torch our democratic processes, storm the Capitol, and are misogynist, racist thugs who are trigger happy,” said Wolf.
The last two years have conditioned people to fear each other and so the conversations that would have normally occurred when people gathered are not happening and keeping the country divided, said Wolf. She said she will gladly talk to people on the right.
Communist Party cadres hang a placard on the neck of a Chinese man during the Cultural Revolution in 1966. The words on the placard state the man’s name and accuse him of being a member of the “black class.” (Public Domain)
“People I love think I’m doing something wrong in even talking to conservatives and libertarians. That’s very dangerous. The left, especially, has decided that you’re morally complicit if you have a conversation across the aisle,” Wolf said. “That is censorship, that is cancel culture, that’s un-American, that is an importation from Communism.”
She urges people to remember what makes America unique and a beacon to other nations: to remember we are the great experiment where neighbors talked to each other, listened, and didn’t “rat” each other out if they did not agree with each other, Wolf said.
100% waste of time spent on the one percenters [US Patriot]
The Navy is training its members to create a “safe space” by using proper gender pronouns in a new instructional video modeled after a children’s show.
“Hi! My name is Jony, and I use he/him pronouns,” Naval Undersea Warfare Center engineer Jony Rozon, who sports a rainbow-colored t-shirt, states in the video’s opening.
The official training video is meant to emphasize “the importance of using correct pronouns as well as polite etiquette when you may not be sure of someone’s pronouns,” according to the Navy, which late last month published the video online. The Defense Visual Information Distribution Service touts the video as an “official U.S. Navy video” posted by Air Force staff sergeant John Vannucci.
The video is the latest bid by the military to foster a more sensitive environment for its members and staff. The Army mandates similar gender identity training and trains officers on when to offer subordinates gender-transition surgery, the Washington Free Beaconreported in March. These programs are part of a larger push by the Biden administration to make the military more welcoming to transgender individuals.
The nearly four-minute Navy video emphasizes how members can create “a safe space” for their colleagues by using “inclusive language” that signals they are “allies” who “accept everybody.” Service members must take these steps to ensure they do not “misgender someone.” The Navy also warns staff against pressuring an individual to disclose his or her gender pronouns, saying that colleagues may still be in “the process of discovery” and not yet ready to provide this information.
“A pronoun is how we identify ourselves apart from our name, and it’s also how people refer to us in conversations,” notes engineer Conchy Vasquez, who hosts the video along with Rozon.
“Using the right pronouns is a really simple way to affirm someone’s identity. It is a signal of acceptance and respect,” adds Rozon.
The hosts go on to discuss how Navy members can create “a safe space for everybody” through the use of proper gender pronouns.
“Instead of saying something like ‘Hey guys,’ you can say, ‘Hey everyone,’ or ‘Hey team,'” Rozon says.
“Another way that we could show that we’re allies and that we accept everybody is to maybe include our pronouns in our emails or, like we just did, introduce ourselves using our pronouns,” Vasquez says.
Navy members are warned against pressuring colleagues to provide their gender pronouns.
“Some people may be going through the process of discovery, and they are not ready yet to tell you what their pronouns are, and that’s OK,” Vasquez says. If a colleague does not want to disclose gender pronouns, Navy members should “continue to use general-neutral language.”
The video also addresses what should be done when a person “misgender[s] someone.”
“I think the first thing to recognize is that it’s not the end of the world. You correct yourself and move on, or you accept the correction and move on,” Vasquez says. “The most important thing I can tell you is do not put the burden of making you feel good about your mistake on the person that you just misgendered.”
Service members are instructed to practice memorizing a person’s gender pronouns by going “through a progression of three good things about the person using their pronouns.”
“Let’s say the person chooses to use ‘they,'” Vasquez says. “Then you will in your mind go, ‘They have a nice shirt. They have a nice smile. They are really smart.’ So that kinda sticks in your brain.”
Fox Business host Larry Kudlow didn’t hold back on a recent segment of his show and told his audience the full extent of the Biden Administration’s failing economic policies.
In part of the segment, Kudlow gives an insight into the latest Fox News poll numbers which show waning confidence in the President’s ability to lead an economic recovery.
He also refuted a common talking point the left often uses about wealthy individuals and major corporations not paying their fair share of taxes.
Notably, Kudlow actually agreed on a few observations recently made by resident Biden about issues plaguing the nation – before highlighting the fact that Biden’s own policies have led to the problems he wants to solve.
A U.S. senator Friday spoke out against the “woke” policies implemented by the military, which has become especially apparent during LGBT Pride Month of June.
“The United States military should be focused on one objective – creating the most lethal fighting force on planet Earth,” Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) told The TennesseeStar. “Instead, Joe Biden’s military leaders are secretly attempting to turn our brave warfighters into social justice warriors. Communist China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea do not care how woke our military is or what our soldiers’ pronouns are.“
She echoed a similar sentiment on Twitter.
“The Biden Defense Department should focus energy on combatting our adversaries — not wokeism,” she said.
Communist China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea do not care what our soldiers’ pronouns are.
The U.S. Air Force celebrated Pride Month with a message of its own on Twitter.
“Pride in all who serve,” the military branch said, attaching a photo of its members running alongside a pride flag.
Many Twitter users were quick to criticize the Air Force for the post, noting that there is not an American flag in the photo.
The Department of Defense’s Inspector General’s [DOGIG] office celebrated Pride Month on Friday, too.
“The [DODIG] recognizes June 2022 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ+) Pride Month. During Pride Month, we commemorate the achievements and contributions of the LGBTQ+ community, to include service in defense of our Nation,” that office said.
The @DoD_IG recognizes June 2022 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ+) Pride Month. During Pride Month, we commemorate the achievements and contributions of the LGBTQ+ community, to include service in defense of our Nation. pic.twitter.com/K69xtRi6EM— DoD Inspector General (@DoD_IG) June 17, 2022
The Department of Defense (DOD) itself, the parent organization of America’s military branches, sent out a June 7 press release officially recognizing Pride Month.
“DOD is committed to ensuring and promoting an atmosphere of dignity and respect for all civilian and military personnel,” Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen H. Hicks said. “We strive to make the Department of Defense a workplace of choice for all Americans willing and qualified to serve. In doing so, we set a bedrock foundation where all personnel are valued and given an equal opportunity to succeed.”
Strong, virtuous fathers are the foundations of close-knit families and a better world. While households the world over are preparing to celebrate Father’s Day, honoring their share of the protective fatherly love in their lives, let’s not forget the brave dads who are being persecuted in communist China, either for their faith or for defending human rights.
Here are some of these soul-stirring life stories—which will forever be listed in the darkest chapters of human history—revealing how communist ideologies are anti-divine, and a threat to humanity and world peace.
‘My Father Believes This Is God’s Message, and I Believe My Father’
It has been almost 1,770 days since the prominent Chinese human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng went missing on Aug. 13, 2017. Gao has been nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize.
A devoted Christian and known as the “Conscience of China,” Gao was on good terms with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) until he stood up to defend members of persecuted faith groups: Christian family churches and Falun Gong practitioners. He had been repeatedly arrested and tortured over the years and was formally arrested in 2006 after he wrote open letters to the top Chinese leadership condemning the suppression of faith.
When in prison, Gao was subjected to brutal torture, such as being shocked with electric batons, having his teeth knocked loose, and even having toothpicks stabbed into his genitals. Gao was under house arrest for years before suddenly disappearing on Aug. 13, 2017; the family hasn’t heard anything about him since.
Missing human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng. (The Epoch Times)Grace Geng, Gao Zhisheng’s daughter, holds a copy of Gao’s book, “Year 2017: Stand Up China,” at the book-launch ceremony in Hong Kong on June 16, 2016. (Stone Poon/The Epoch Times)
Gao’s wife, Geng He, and his two children, who had faced constant harassment from the police, escaped to the United States in 2009 with the help of underground faith groups. Residing in a free country this past decade, Gao’s family has never stopped speaking out and worrying about his whereabouts.
His daughter, Grace Geng, believes that her dad’s book, the Chinese title of which translates to “Year 2017: Stand Up China,” has an unwavering message for the world—that the CCP will soon collapse. “My father believes this is God’s message, and I believe my father,” Grace said during the launch ceremony of the book in Hong Kong on June 16, 2016.
‘My Family is Just One Example Out of Thousands’
A 22-year-old student at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, has been advocating for his parents’ release. His father—a “rare talent” and renowned professional in the petroleum industry—was accused of sending informational text messages about the persecuted spiritual practice of Falun Gong via Bluetooth at a subway in Beijing.
Jack Zhiyuan Liu’s parents, both former engineers at the China National Petroleum Corporation, had faced imprisonment and persecution for their faith years ago. And on Nov. 19, 2021, they were arrested once again, according to Minghui.org—a U.S.-based website dedicated to reporting on the persecution of Falun Gong in China. His mother, Cao Wenbei, was released a month later, but his father, Liu Zhoubo, is still detained at Beijing No. 3 Detention Center.
“The CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong is destroying lives and families,” Jack told the Chinese edition of The Epoch Times. “What had happened to my family is just one example out of thousands.”
Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa) is an ancient self-cultivation discipline based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. The atheistic communist regime has been violently persecuting the spiritual practice since July 1999. The CCP-led campaign of persecution that ensued 23 years ago has left numerous adherents detained, arrested, and subjected to extreme torture, including having their organs forcibly harvested for profit.
Jack Zhiyuan Liu calls for the release of his father, Liu Zhoubo, and other Falun Gong practitioners, at a rally held in Ottawa on April 22, 2022. (Ren Qiaosheng/The Epoch Times)
In the past, Jack’s parents, grandmother, and uncle had been imprisoned for 1 1/2 years for practicing Falun Gong. His father had also been sentenced to 9 years in prison before being released in 2010—a period that Jack described as “hell” for his father, as the elderly man was subjected to torture, starvation, and death threats in prison.
‘I Have Been Trying to Do Anything That Could Possibly Help My Father’
On Feb. 2, 2013, Jewher Ilham was supposed to accompany her father, Ilham Tohti, a Uyghur economics professor in China, to Indiana University for a month as a visiting scholar. However, when the Chinese authorities restricted her dad from leaving the country, she ended up taking a flight alone from Beijing to the United States.
That fateful day at the airport would become the last time she’d see her dad, to this day. Jewher’s father was arrested and later sentenced to life imprisonment on charges of inciting separatism—a charge that she said was unfounded. “He had never mentioned a word about separating the country,” Jewher told China Uncensored.
Jewher has been increasingly worrying about her dad since 2017—the year when the world came to know about the Xinjiang re-education and internment camps; her family in China had lost contact with her father that same year.
Ilham Tohti, a Uyghur professor of economics, delivers his lecture under a security surveillance camera mounted above the teacher’s podium in a classroom in Beijing on June 12, 2010. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)Jewher Ilham, daughter of Ilham Tohti, holds a portrait of her father during the award ceremony for his 2019 European Parliament’s Sakharov human rights prize at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, eastern France, on Dec. 18, 2019. (Frederick Florin/AFP via Getty Images)
To seek her father’s release, the young daughter has been advocating for him.
“I have been trying to do anything that could possibly help my father and my community. I don’t know if it’s helping, I don’t know if anything would help. I just don’t want to regret,” she said.
Jewher had also met the then-President Donald Trump at the White House in July 2019, together with other survivors of religious persecution, and spoke at the UN General Assembly. In December 2019, she accepted the 2019 Sakharov Prize from the European Parliament on her father’s behalf for the defense of human rights.
‘I Dream One Day We Can Be Together Again’
A young Chinese refugee, Eric Jia, had a happy family, which became nonexistent the day his dad was arrested; he was only 3 years old at that time.
Eric’s father, Ye Jia, was also arrested for practicing Falun Gong. Like his father, Eric’s close relatives, including his grandmother and aunties, had also been arrested several times for the same reason and had been subjected to different forms of torture while imprisoned.
For instance, in April 2013, when Eric’s father was in jail for an eight-year sentence, guards tortured him by pouring pungent liquid into his nose while hanging him upside down; the guards refused to allow him to seek treatment when he vomited blood for months later.
“He was locked in a small room for six years, with two to three prison guards watching him every day,” he told The Epoch Times in a previous interview.
Eric Jia with his mother, Li Liu, at a rally in Martin Place, Sydney, Australia, on July 20, 2015. (He Wei/The Epoch Times)
Eric’s father was last arrested in September 2017 and released three months later in December after Australian Greens Senator for Victoria Janet Rice sent a letter to the mayor of Xi’an, China, in November 2017, urging him to release Ye Jia “immediately and unconditionally.” Eric’s story mirrors that of many other overseas Chinese Falun Gong practitioners whose families are still being persecuted by the CCP in mainland China. Eric fled to Australia with his mother in 2012 and has been raising awareness of the persecution.
“There is nothing wrong to have faith in Falun Dafa. The CCP used all kinds of means to make us give up our beliefs,” Eric said to a crowd that had gathered at Martin Place in Sydney in 2018 to commemorate the lives lost at the hands of the CCP.
“I dream one day that they can be free and we can be together again.”
No Hope for Reunion
While many families are waiting anxiously for the day they can reunite with their fathers, for countless others, this reunion day would never arrive.
For instance, 20-year-old Xu Xinyang lost her dad in the brutal persecution.
“In my memory, most of my childhood was spent in fear and horror,” said Xu Xinyang at a forum on Dec. 4, 2018, on Capitol Hill to highlight the deteriorating human rights situation in China.
Xinyang’s parents, both Falun Gong practitioners, were arrested by the Chinese regime for printing materials to expose the persecution of their faith. Her father was sentenced to eight years in prison when her mother was pregnant with her. Xinyang’s father died 13 days after he was released.
Xu Xinyang (R) and her mother, Chi Lihua, hold pictures of her late father, Xu Dawei. Xu was sentenced to eight years for practicing Falun Gong. He died just 13 days after he was released. (Jennifer Zeng/The Epoch Times)
Due to the brutality of the persecution, Xinyang never saw her dad until she was 8 years old, she told the audience at the forum.
“He wanted to hold me, but I was scared and hid behind my mom. I refused to let him hold me because I never had a chance to know him,” she said. “This became my lifelong regret.”
Even after her father was persecuted to death, Xinyang and her mother were not spared. The police even arrested her school principal and some of her teachers, all of whom were Falun Gong practitioners. Xinyang was wanted by the police. Fortunately, she managed to flee to Thailand with her mother when she was 12 and arrived in the United States in 2017.
JOHANNESBURG—South Africans are clamouring for guns in the midst of soaring violent crime, while their government tries to pass legislation to outlaw ownership of firearms for self-defense.
“A government is supposed to protect its people. A government is supposed to care about the welfare of citizens,” said Dave Alfonso, outside a firearms dealership in Johannesburg, minutes after his purchase of a 9mm pistol.
“Here we have a government which has established one of the most useless police forces in the world, and under whose watch we are now one of the most dangerous countries on the planet. A government that says South Africa will be safer when private citizens are not allowed to own guns!”
There are no official statistics indicating the recent rise in gun demand, but the police confirm burgeoning demand for firearm licenses.
A young gang member shows a gun and ammunition, in in Cape Town, in file photo from 2012. Cape Town’s murder rate is 62 in every 100,000 people, the highest in the world. (Rodger Bosch/AFP via Getty Images)
Weapons dealerships across South Africa report rising trade since the events of last July, when mobs rampaged across several cities, destroying property, looting stores and private homes and attacking people.
Hundreds lost their lives. Law enforcement agencies faced extreme public backlash for their initial slow reaction to the violence, with citizens forced to form vigilante militias to defend their families and property.
“I think that opened a lot of eyes as to what this country could look like in the not-too-distant future, and people have been rushing to arm themselves,” said Nick Yale, who’s been selling firearms in Johannesburg for almost 40 years.
“The last time I saw demand like this was between 1990 and 1994.”
Thousands were killed in the period that Yale mentions, as a South Africa transitioning from apartheid to democracy teetered on the brink of civil war, with assassinations, security force massacres of protesters and bombings by far-Right groups.
South Africa remains one of the most dangerous places on earth, constantly rated as such by global violence and crime watchdog groups.
The World Atlas, for example, collates crime data from around the world, and places South Africa 9th on its list of countries with the most murders, with 36 per 100,000 people. But that ranking springs from data before 2020.
Given that murders have increased exponentially since then, say crime analysts, South Africa’s murders per 100,000 people are now closer to 40, enough to put it on par with Lesotho, the tiny kingdom surrounded by South Africa, and ranked 5th on the World Atlas list.
Several violence monitoring organizations rank South African cities among the most dangerous, with Cape Town’s homicide rate—currently measured at 62.22 people murdered per 100,000 based on 2021 police statistics—being the highest in the world.
The country’s main firearms rights group, Gun Owners of South Africa (GOSA), says weapons sales and license applications spiked again after police released crime statistics in January, numbers that showed increases in all violent crimes, including murder, armed robbery, and rape.
The data showed almost 7,000 murders in the last three months of 2021, an increase of almost 9 percent compared to a year earlier.
Fresh police information indicates almost 6,100 people murdered between January and March 2022, an increase of 22 percent compared to the same period last year.
Almost 11,000 rapes were reported during this period, and almost 14,000 attempted murders.
“We don’t need [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to invade us and bomb us; South Africa is at war with itself. I’m struggling to decide which place is safer at the moment, South Africa or Ukraine,” said member of parliament for the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), Ockert Terblanche.
A riot police officers points his shot gun at protesters during clashes in October 2016 in Johannesburg. In July 2021 July, mobs rampaged across several South African cities, destroying property, looting stores and private homes, and attacking people. (Mujahid Safodien/AFP via Getty Images)
As flippant as his comment appears to be, a comparison of the numbers of murder victims in South Africa with official civilian deaths in Ukraine gives insight into the scale of horror Africa’s most industrialized economy is enduring.
In early May, the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said 3,381 civilians had been killed in the first 70 days of the Russian invasion.
So, said Terblanche, the civilian death toll in a “full-scale war isn’t too different from the death toll of South Africans murdered over a similar period of time, in a so-called peaceful country.”
GOSA chairman Paul Oxley told The Epoch Times: “In this context, it’s understandable and fair that sensible people want to arm themselves. What’s not understandable is that the government wants to remove citizens’ rights to defend themselves from criminals.”
In May last year, the African National Congress (ANC) government moved to amend the Firearms Control Act. The change, if approved in parliament, would prohibit the issuing of licenses for firearms bought for self-defense.
Following a public outcry and court action, the proposed bill is on hold, but police minister Bheki Cele told The Epoch Times the ANC “remains resolute” in making the amendment, “because it will make South Africa a safer place.”
He explained further: “Our data shows that the majority of gun crimes are committed by criminals in possession of weapons stolen from private citizens.”
The country’s biggest anti-firearms lobby group, Gun-Free South Africa (GFSA), says reducing the numbers of firearms will mean less violent crime.
“We need non-proliferation, in line with international norms and standards. There are too many guns in the country,” said GFSA director Adele Kirsten.
According to international weapons monitoring group, the Small Arms Survey, there are 5.4 million privately held firearms in the country with a population of roughly 60 million.
That’s enough to place South Africa 20th on its list of nations with the most private guns in circulation, but very far away from the 120.5 firearms for every 100 residents in the United States.
An armed South African police officer responds to a shooting of two alleged gang members in Manenberg on October 18, 2017 in Cape Town. (Pieter Bauermeister/AFP via Getty Images)
Oxley points out that the 5.4 million private guns in South Africa are “legal, and registered by responsible people who have to undergo strict competency training and background checks before they’re permitted to take possession of firearms.”
He said the government should not be trying to limit ownership of legal guns, but should focus instead on seizing the many thousands of illicit weapons left over from the apartheid era.
During apartheid, black people were prohibited from owning firearms. In contrast, the Nationalist government made it relatively easy for whites to get guns, arguing they needed to protect themselves from “communist liberation movements” like the ANC.
But the Soviet Union provided thousands of AK47 assault rifles and Makarov pistols to the ANC’s armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, or “Spear of the Nation.” These were smuggled into South Africa through neighbouring countries, especially Mozambique.
Kirsten said she’d provided the government with “tons” of research showing that limiting legal gun ownership “will lower levels of gun violence and can only do good.”
Rubbish, is Oxley’s response.
“None of what GFSA presents as credible research is applicable to South Africa. It applies to countries in Europe, which don’t have the levels of violent crime that we have here. Europeans don’t have to defend themselves against the kind and scale of threats that are normal in a traumatized, violent nation such as South Africa.
“Our constitution guarantees us the right to life, and if we have that right, then we surely also have the right to protect our lives and to defend the lives of our loved ones.
“Until someone, somewhere, comes up with a better way then the best way to do that is by using firearms, responsibly and safely, but using them when necessary and without hesitation when life is threatened.”
That’s exactly what Ronald Naidoo said he did when he and colleagues from a neighbourhood watch group fought off a crowd of people trying to enter the suburb of Phoenix in the city of Durban last July.
He told The Epoch Times: “If we didn’t have our firearms, I don’t think I’d be standing here right now. The only reason these guys did not invade our area was because we stood guard at all entrances with firearms. When they approached, we shot over their heads and they turned back.”
The body of a gang member in Cape Town during a period of violent gang battles in May 2022. (Rodger Bosch/AFP via Getty Images)
GOSA says if weapons for personal protection are banned, it’s going to make South Africa even more dangerous than it already is.
“Go into any suburb now and you’ll see that it’s protected by private security officers, not the police, because our police service is broken by corruption, mismanagement, lack of training, and lack of funding,” said Oxley.
“Likewise poor townships, that are often protected by private self-defence units. The new bill, if it becomes law, will mean it’s illegal for private security officers and these units to own firearms.
“It’ll be party-time for the criminals.”
But Cele maintains the self-defence clause must be removed from the Firearms Control Act as soon as possible.
“It’s too easy to abuse. Almost everyone registering a gun says they want it for self-defence. We only want police in this country to have guns.”
GOSA says if parliament passes the law, it’ll challenge it in South Africa’s Constitutional Court, the highest in the land.
“It can’t be that only police have the right to self-defence using firearms,” said Oxley. “What must citizens use to defend themselves against rampant criminality? Knives? Karate?”
CCP boosts ties with Russia amid Taiwan invasion fears
Congressional Republicans are spearheading an effort to fast-track U.S. weapons shipments to Taiwan amid growing concerns Communist China is planning to start “a war of aggression,” Rep. Jim Banks (R., Ind.) told the Washington Free Beacon.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has emboldened the CCP, which took steps earlier this week to strengthen bilateral ties with Moscow to help it combat Western economic sanctions. With the two malign regimes displaying a united front, Republican lawmakers want to send a clear message that America will come to Taiwan’s aid if Beijing launches an invasion.
The Biden administration also is closely monitoring the situation, with a State Department official telling the Free Beacon on Thursday that U.S. officials remain “concerned about China’s alignment with Russia.”
Banks, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said the Biden administration was caught off guard by Russia’s incursion, proving that “you can’t deter an invasion after it happens.” China is learning lessons from its Russian ally, fueling concerns that Beijing will make good on its threats to invade Taiwan sooner rather than later. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin raised the prospect of a Chinese attack on Taiwan during a speech over the weekend, saying, “We will defend our interests without flinching.”
“China breached Taiwan’s airspace a record number of times in 2021,” Banks told the Free Beacon. “House Republicans can’t let Joe Biden repeat the same mistakes he made in Ukraine. You can’t deter an invasion after it happens and Congress and the Biden administration should be entirely unified around the need to send Taiwan defensive weaponry to dissuade Xi from starting a war of aggression.”
Banks, who has repeatedly pressed the Biden administration in multiple forums to “unequivocally and publicly” commit to defending Taiwan in the event of an invasion, said the Taiwan Weapons Exports Act would serve as a central legislative vehicle to deter Beijing.
It would boost Taiwan’s trade standing to make it a central U.S. ally in the same way that NATO members like Japan and South Korea are, according to a full copy of the bill provided to the Free Beacon. It also would expedite licensing approval for weapons shipments to Taiwan and remove other administrative barriers that could slow the process. The measure also cuts in half the amount of time these types of weapons deals are reviewed by Congress, making it easier for military equipment to actually arrive in Taiwan.
A Senate companion version of the bill is being spearheaded by Sen. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.).
The Republican Study Committee, which is helmed by Banks, also is using its 2023 budget proposal to increase U.S. commitments to Taiwan. Under the RSC’s proposal, the U.S. would accelerate lethal aid to Taiwan, including stinger missiles, naval strike missiles, and quick strike air-dropped sea mine—all of which could be used if China launches an attack.
Russian president Vladimir Putin and Chinese president Xi Jinping spoke by phone on Wednesday to reaffirm relations in the face of Western sanctions. Xi reportedly “noted the legitimacy” of Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, claiming that Moscow is protecting its “fundamental national interests in the face of challenges to its security created by external forces.”
Russia and China inked a cooperation agreement in February and both countries have said the deal contains “no limits” on their partnership.
The State Department says it sees through China’s claims of neutrality on the Russian war.
The U.S. and European partners have already “warned China against providing Russia military assistance” and continue to closely monitor Beijing’s actions, according to the State Department.
“More than three months into Russia’s brutal invasion, China is still standing by Russia,” the official said. “It is still echoing Russian propaganda around the world. It is still shielding Russia in international organizations, shirking its responsibilities as a P5 member. And it is still denying Russia’s atrocities in Ukraine by suggesting instead that they were staged.”
Both countries are believed to be boosting their economic infrastructure to “bypass SWIFT,” the international banking system, as well as “U.S. and European sanctions,” according to the official. These efforts have been accompanied by military drills, most recently a joint bomber patrol in East Asia.
“Nations that side with Vladimir Putin will inevitably find themselves on the wrong side of history,” the State Department official said. “This is not a moment for equivocation or hiding or waiting to see what happens next. It is already clear what is happening.”
The U.S. Navy announced that it fired five officers in the span of only a few days, with the most recent termination occurring on Tuesday.
Commodore of Destroyer Squadron 23 Capt. Patrick O’Mahoney confirmed that Cmdr. Peter Lesaca was fired on Tuesday, with O’Mahoney saying that he lost confidence in Lesaca’s ability to lead the USS Preble. It’s not clear why the Navy lost confidence in his capability to lead.
Capt. Larry Repass, the deputy commodore of Destroyer Squadron 23, took over as commanding officer of the USS Preble until a permanent one is named, according to a news release from the Navy. It’s not clear what will happen to Lesaca, and no other details were provided.
“Navy commanding officers are held to high standards of personal and professional conduct. They are expected to uphold the highest standards of responsibility, reliability, and leadership, and the Navy holds them accountable when they fall short of those standards,” the release stated.
Over the past weekend, it was announced that three other naval leaders, including commanding officer Cmdr. Devine Johnson and Command Master Chief Petty Officer Earl Sanders with the USS Bulkeley, were removed last week.
Johnson and Sanders will be temporarily reassigned to a department within the Naval Surface Force Atlantic, the Navy said.
“There is no impact to the command’s mission or schedule due to this relief,” the statement said.
And Capt. Jeffry Sandin was removed as the head of Recruit Training Command in Great Lakes, Illinois, on Saturday, the Navy said.
Days before that, on June 8, the Navy removed Cmdr. Matthew McCormick was commanding officer of a Growler squadron that was sent to the Mediterranean Sea as part of a strike group associated with the USS Harry S. Truman carrier, according to the service.
In each of the four additional cases, the Navy cited a “loss of confidence.” However, no details were provided.
On May 31, the Navy also removed several officers leading the Naval Justice School in Newport, Rhode Island. They include Capt. Amy Larson, the commanding officer, and Marine Corps Lt. Col. Bret Swaim, the executive officer, according to the Navy, citing a loss of confidence. No details were provided, either.
Since the rollout of the U.S. military’s mandatory COVID-19 vaccine regime last year, thousands of service members have been discharged. It’s not confirmed if the recent firings were related to the vaccine mandate.
In December and January, the Navy similarly removed several officers from their leadership positions over the span of about four weeks, according to the military news website Task & Purpose.
Qatar quashes free speech. Tamara Cofman Wittes praised it as a “global gathering place for dialogue.”
Resident Joe Biden’s nominee for a top role at the U.S. Agency for International Development has a long history of praising Qatar, the oppressive Gulf state with a shoddy human rights record that includes restrictions on free expression and the criminalization of same-sex sexual conduct.
Tamara Cofman Wittes is slated to appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday, where the panel will consider her nomination to be an assistant administrator of USAID. If confirmed, she would be responsible for distributing billions of American aid dollars throughout the Middle East.
As a Middle East policy fellow at the Brookings Institution, where she worked first from 2003 to 2009 and then from 2012 until earlier this month, Wittes lavished praise on Qatar, a repressive nation that discriminates against gays, lesbians, and transgender individuals. Wittes described Qatar’s capital city Doha as a “global gathering place for dialogue” and amplified Qatari leaders’ claims that they support human rights and oppose “extremists who exploit religion to incite violence.”
The Brookings Institution was at the time raking in millions from Qatar—its “Doha Center,” renamed after the organization came under scrutiny for the partnership, had a controversial 14-year run. Wittes’s confirmation hearing comes as the Brookings Institution faces renewed scrutiny over its foreign financial ties. The think tank’s president, retired general John Allen, resigned on Sunday amid news that he is under federal investigation for his alleged role in illegally lobbying for Qatar.
While the Brookings Institution took money from several foreign governments over the past decade, Qatar appears to be its most significant foreign donor, pouring at least $22 million into the think tank between 2013 and 2021, according to congressional financial disclosures and the organization’s annual donor reports.
Wittes’s record, laid out in her writing and prolific tweets that are now shielded from public view, also includes criticism of U.S.-brokered deals normalizing relations between Israel and Arab governments and of Israel’s pushback on activists calling for an economic boycott of the Jewish State. It may be an obstacle as she looks to win Republican support ahead of her confirmation hearing. It is unclear, for example, how Republican lawmakers will respond to her amplification of a tweet suggesting that Trump supporters should be subject to the same process of “denazification” that sought to rid Germany and Austria of Nazi ideology after World War II.
Congressional Republicans voiced concern about her criticism of the Abraham Accords, an agreement that normalized ties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, among others.
“Wittes was one of the most bitter opponents of the Abraham Accords. She trashed everyone involved, including and especially Israel,” a senior Republican congressional aide told the Washington Free Beacon.
Wittes quoted articles decrying the deal as misogynistic, a “new Naksa”—referring to the Palestinian word for “setback”—and as a “triumph for authoritarianism.”
“If I were an Arab leader weighing ties with Israel, I would have 2 things in mind,” Wittes wrote on Twitter in September 2020. “1) A promise from [Trump adviser Jared] Kushner now isn’t worth much. Why not wait until after Nov elections? 2) Bibi’s backtracked on his commitments to UAE; his promises aren’t worth much either. Let’s wait & see.”
Wittes argued that the several Gulf states taking steps toward normalization with Israel were engaged in a “betrayal of Palestinian interests” and the agreement would make it more difficult to extract Israeli concessions in return for a peace deal with the Palestinians.
“This is not Middle East peace. It’s certainly not Middle East peace when there are horrific civil wars going on in the region,” Wittes said of the accords. “That’s where I think it’s been oversold.”
She went so far as to blame Gulf states that joined the Abraham Accords with Israel for the May 2021 war between Hamas and Israel.
“The risk now is that Arab states that normalised with Israel bought this mess and now have to live with it,” she told the Independent.
Notwithstanding her extensive writing and tweeting on the subject, Wittes told the Washington Free Beacon days before her confirmation hearing that she supports the Abraham Accords.
“I have never expressed ‘strong opposition to the Abraham Accords,’” Wittes said. “I support the Accords and the profound transformation they have wrought.”
“When the Accords were announced in September 2020, I told the New York Times that ‘Abu Dhabi and Jerusalem each had their own good reasons for finding a way to open the door to formal relations,’” Wittes said.
She also noted that her last column for the Brookings Institution said that the Accords “strengthened the pro-American coalition in the region and created opportunities for Arab states and Israel to pursue mutually advantageous security, economic, and social projects.”
The Abraham Accords also happened to draw opposition from Qatar, whose funding for Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood has put it at odds with both the Jewish state and the United Arab Emirates.
Wittes also highlighted claims that the Qatari government — which has been accused of widespread human rights violations, including jailing protesters and maintaining abusive workplace conditions for migrant workers – supports human rights and tolerance.
“Qatar deputy PM says Islam, like West, embraces human rights because they’re to benefit of all, esp non-Muslim minorities in Muslim World,” Wittes wrote in 2013.
“Doha’s become global gathering place for dialogue!” she wrote in one 2012 post, adding that Brookings “has partnered w/ Qatar many years.”
The Brookings Institution said Qatar’s donations in 2020 and 2021 were the final payments from a prior fundraising pledge. “Qatar will not be listed as a financial supporter in the 2022 annual report,” a Brookings Institution spokeswoman told the Free Beacon.
Jihadist militants imprisoned in the United States are receiving cash and legal assistance from a website similar to Facebook that connects them with terrorist sympathizers and publicizes their location, including “GPS-coordinated satellite imagery of the facilities at which the inmates are held,” according to a watchdog group.
“At least two incarcerated ISIS operatives maintain registered profiles on the website, suggesting the accounts were generated by the operatives themselves,” according to a new investigation by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a watchdog group that tracks jihadist behavior online. “Online ISIS supporters have raised awareness about ISIS operatives’ profiles on the website, raising potential security risks.” MEMRI is withholding the website’s direct address to avoid aiding in its recruitment.
ISIS uses social media and the internet as a recruitment tool, and its online efforts to assist convicted terrorists in American prisons raise domestic “security risks,” according to MEMRI. ISIS wants to establish a direct line between imprisoned terrorists and their supporters across the globe, allowing them to exchange information and potentially plot attacks. The prisoners are also receiving monetary support from the website, raising concerns that these funds are coming directly from ISIS affiliates.
The website allows these convicted terrorists to connect with other militants and ISIS sympathizers who can provide them with monetary assistance and legal help, according to the report. In-depth information about the federal detention centers where these inmates are held also is available on the site, making these locations vulnerable to a possible attack or other ISIS-backed operation.
“Chatter in pro-ISIS chat rooms about the website may raise security concerns for the facilities where the operatives are held,” according to MEMRI. “The website provides addresses and GPS-coordinated satellite imagery of the facilities at which the inmates are held.”
Inmates who join the site can “claim their criminal records” by providing photographic documentation and verifying their identity. Entries include contact information, links to similar websites, writings from these terrorists, and other information about their crimes.
The website works similarly to Facebook: It “generates a profile based on the incarcerated individual’s criminal record, which includes a profile photo and name; a Federal Bureau of Prisons identification number; demographic information; the district of arrest; a mailing address; the location of detainment (including GPS coordinates); [and] contact information for the federal detention facility.”
There also is a “fund transfer option” that facilitates payments via MoneyGram, the mail, and Western Union directly to the prisoner’s commissary account.
ISIS supporters online have been promoting the website, raising another security risk, according to MEMRI. Earlier this month, an ISIS-run chat server linked to the website, prompting users to seek additional information and ask about contacting the incarcerated terrorists.
Researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology isolated new strains of a virus that is “closely related” to Monkeypox in a recently published study.
The unearthed paper follows The National Pulse unearthing another study published by the controversial Chinese lab that detailed the assembly of new monkeypox virus strains in February 2022. The work came just months before the latest international outbreak of monkeypox cases which appear to have now reached the United States.
Eleven researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology authored the newly uncovered paper “Identification, Isolation, and Characterization of an Ectromelia Virus New Strain from an Experimental Mouse,” originally published on July 21st, 2020. It was later included in the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s scientific journal Virologica Sinica in 2021.
The study describes the “isolation” of a new strain of Ectromelia Virus (ECTV) – “ECTV-WH” – from an experimental mouse brain. The strain was flagged as potentially having “higher replication efficiency in vivo and higher transmitting efficiency to cause respiratory infection in mice.”
The Wuhan Institute of Virology researchers also warn that ECTV is highly similar to Monkeypox:
“ECTV is closely related to Variola virus, the causative agent of smallpox, and Monkeypox virus, the causative agent of a severe zoonosis. It is an attractive virus model for study of poxvirus pathogenesis, viral immune and inflammatory responses, and could be used for antiviral and vaccine tests.”
At the time of the study’s publication, the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s ECTV strain was “preserved in the National Virus Resource Center.” Additionally, researchers noted it “could be provided as an important virus resource for study on poxvirus.”
The study was supported by several Chinese Communist Party-run scientific groups including the Chinese Academy of Sciences and military-linked entities including the National Natural Science Foundation of China.
The unearthed study follows the Wuhan Institute of Virology conducting similar research into strains of bat coronaviruses that could infect humans while admitting its facilities lacked proper laboratory safety protocols.
The head of the Brookings Institution resigned in the midst of a federal investigation into whether he lobbied the U.S. government on behalf of Qatar, according to a letter released on June 12.
Retired Marine Gen. John Allen, chief of the influential Washington-based think tank, wrote in his letter (pdf), “While I leave the institution with a heavy heart, I know it is best for all concerned at this moment.”
Allen didn’t provide a direct explanation as to why he was leaving the organization.
A former four-star general who helped lead U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, Allen’s letter comes about a week after new court filings show that the FBI seized his electronic data in the midst of an investigation.
“In all this, I was particularly grateful for the opportunity to lead Brookings as its focus shifted to include an institutional commitment to race, social justice, and equity,” he said, without elaborating.
The Brookings Institution released a June 12 statement thanking Allen for “his contributions to Brookings, including his leadership in successfully guiding the institution during the pandemic, as well as his many years of service and sacrifice for our country,” confirming his resignation.
“Ted Gayer will continue to serve as acting president until his previously announced departure later this summer. Information about arrangements for ongoing interim management—as well as the search for a new president—will be forthcoming,” the group said in its statement.
The think tank also didn’t provide a reason for Allen’s departure.
Court filings allege that Allen engaged in efforts to help the Qatari government influence U.S. policy in 2017 amid a diplomatic crisis between the Gulf monarchy and neighboring countries. An FBI agent wrote in an affidavit in support of a search warrant that there was “substantial evidence” that Allen knew he broke a foreign lobbying law and made false statements.
Allen hasn’t been charged with a crime, and he has previously denied any wrongdoing. He has declined to comment on the recent court filings to The Associated Press and other media outlets.
A spokesperson for Allen, Beau Phillips, told AP that Allen “voluntarily cooperated with the government’s investigation into this matter.”
The recent affidavit alleges that Allen; Richard Olson, former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates; Imaad Zuberi, a U.S. businessman; and Ahmed Al-Rumaihi, a high-ranking Qatari government official set up a plan to “convince the United States to intervene, defuse the possibility of sanctions, and negotiate a resolution favorable to Qatar” amid a diplomatic row between the country, the United Arab Emirates, and other Gulf states after they accused Qatar’s government of allegedly supporting Iran in June 2017.
At about the same time, then-President Donald Trump had posted his support for the other states’ actions against Qatar: “During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology. Leaders pointed to Qatar—look!”
Specifically, federal officials say Allen lobbied then-national security adviser H.R. McMaster to have the White House adopt a more Qatar-friendly position. Allen allegedly wrote in a June 9, 2017, email to McMaster that the Qatari government was“asking for some help” and wanted either the Trump administration or State Department to issue a statement to call on other Gulf countries to act in a more restrained manner, AP reported.
Allen didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time.
“Who was the Tolstoy of the Zulus?” Saul Bellow is alleged to have quipped some time in the early ’90s. Deploying what in today’s meme-ified political culture would probably be described as a clap back, the sportswriter and essayist Ralph Wiley responded: “Tolstoy is the Tolstoy of the Zulus. Unless you find a profit in fencing off universal properties of mankind into exclusive tribal ownership.”
Bellow would later plead the defense of journalistic misunderstanding and misrepresentation. But let’s—for the sake of argument—stick to the oversimplified, if rather unfair, version of the story: Wiley schools grumpy old reactionary. Viewed from 2022, the interesting thing about the exchange is Wiley’s appeal to universalism. Today, such an approach to culture has become passé in fashionable left-wing circles. To be woke is to espouse the importance of “lived experience,” to indulge in the very “fencing off” that Wiley denounced, and to obsess over the differences, say, between the Zulus and the Russians, rather than claim that a book could transcend them. In other words, to the in crowd of elite progressives, sticking up for a great work of European literature and what it offers to whoever might pick it up—whether they happen to be in St Petersburg or Soweto—is more than a little “problematic.”
What happened? When did the tables turn? And why do those of us who still believe in that universalism suddenly find ourselves out of step with the ideas that seem to dominate public life? More broadly, why is the West beset by a sometimes paralyzing self-loathing? These are some of the questions Douglas Murray answers in The War on the West, a book he describes in its introduction as being “about what happens when one side in a cold war—the side of democracy, reason, rights, and universal principles—prematurely surrenders.”
In his previous works, Murray, a British author now based in America, has tackled questions of cultural and identity politics on both sides of the Atlantic as well as immigration and radical Islam in Europe. The War on the West is designed for readers who, though they may see a great deal of folly in the woke reckoning that has become increasingly hard to ignore in recent years, might see it as an unserious sideshow. Murray urges readers to avoid the temptation to dismiss debates about race, history, and identity as “fringe” or trivial “culture wars.” To do so, he argues, is to “misinterpret the aims of the participants or downplay the role it will have in the lives of future generations.” At stake, he argues, is whether the West will be crippled by self-hatred and kill the goose that lays the golden egg, or whether we appreciate the West’s intellectual and cultural inheritance and use its strengths to our advantage.
The aggressors in Murray’s war come from within, and the battleground is all around us: everywhere from the pre-school classroom to the art gallery. Murray details the woke assault on a series of overlapping fronts—race, religion, history, and culture—and is at his best when picking apart the inconsistencies, fallacies, and hypocrisies in the assailants’ arguments.
Whether its the feted Ibram X. Kendi’s tautological definition of racism or the embarrassing historical ignorance of many of those put forward to argue for a statue to be brought down or a building to be renamed, there is very little there when the woke warriors’ arguments are subjected to a light grilling. As Murray demonstrates, the aggressors are also far more parochial than they think they are. Western history is, in their view, indelibly stained by racism. The rest of the world? Less so. “If other countries do have any racism, it must be because the West exported the vice to them,” says Murray, paraphrasing the argument.
Often, the mindlessness of the cultural and historical vandalism is so self-evident that Murray need do little more than lay out his opponents’ views. One of the dreariest scenes in The War on the West is a discussion at Cambridge University’s Churchill College on the “Racial Consequences of Churchill.” The panel was historian-free, and the participating academics were liberated to make all manner of ridiculous claims, recounted by Murray: The British Empire was “far worse than the Nazis” argued one; another argued that victory over the Nazis wasn’t a big deal given that “all we really did was we shifted from an old version of white supremacy to a new version of white supremacy”; a third snarkily pointed out that, actually, Churchill was at home, not on the front lines, during the Second World War. (The great wartime leader was in his late 60s when he became prime minister and, as Murray points out, saw action on four continents as a young man.)
A panel discussion at a Cambridge college is, of course, a fairly low-stakes affair in the grand scheme of things, but it is illustrative of the offensively ahistorical arguments that are tolerated if they are in keeping with the vogue for wokeness. Elsewhere, a more serious and sustained attack on Churchill and his legacy is underway. Once a universally admired national hero, the great statesman now faces a reckoning. It is an illustrative example for the British author (and this British reviewer), for, as Murray puts it: “If what Churchill did in his life doesn’t count for anything, then it is hard to see how any human action counts for anything. If Churchill’s good points cannot outweigh any bad points, then no one can ever do enough good in their lives.”
But that, of course, is the point. The bold choice of target reveals the scale of the assailants’ ambitions: “Perhaps more than any other single figure, he has been seen as an example of a great man—and a great man produced by the West.” If Churchill can be toppled, “anything might be forced upon a people so subjected and demoralized.”
Many of these arguments will be familiar to readers, but the value of The War on the West is in the shocking effect of the full battle report. Murray successfully conveys just how comprehensive the attack on Western values, culture, and history really is. The effect is energizing: a warning against the complacent eye-roll that is so tempting when faced with the latest woke insanity.
Applying present-day standards to historical figures is a fruitless pursuit no matter the target, but, as Murray identifies, it is the unevenness with which these tests are applied that gives the game away. Karl Marx’s racism and anti-Semitism, for example, has not led to the kind of reassessment that great Western leaders have been subjected to.
The War on the West will leave those who recognize the threat it identifies hungry for more. Murray fights back against the iconoclasts with vigor. But if, as Murray correctly identifies, wokeness resembles a godless religion—filling a need for cosmic meaning and its dogma trotted out unquestioningly—then there will be limits to the success of such appeals to reason. Here, Murray risks falling into the same trap as the New Atheists, who sometimes appeared to think that an especially witty enough debate-hall zinger would be enough to bring thousands of years of monotheism tumbling to the ground.
But where The War on The West is most valuable is in explaining the importance of the clash in question. A culture that finds it hard to say anything nice about itself is not one with a bright future. Does that mean the West is perfect? Of course not. But, as we are discovering, self-loathing is not a foundation on which to build a healthy society.
The War on the West by Douglas Murray Broadside Books, 308 pp., $27.99
Oliver Wiseman is deputy editor of The Spectator World, the U.S. edition of the world’s oldest magazine.
The June 14 Republican primary in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District pits incumbent Rep. Nancy Mace, a candidate Donald Trump supported in 2020, against former state Rep. Katie Arrington, who has the former president’s endorsement.
Republicans are focused on regaining control of the House by flipping seats, but the party’s faction that embraces Trump’s “America First” platform is committed to replacing representatives whose track record is not friendly to the former president.
From 2016 to 2018, Arrington represented South Carolina’s 94th House District.
In 2018, she defeated sitting congressman and former governor Mark Sanford in the Republican primary before losing in the general election to Democratic Rep. Joe Cunningham. It was the first time a Democratic U.S. House candidate prevailed in the district since 1978.
Bolstered by Trump’s support, Mace unseated Cunningham in 2020. Mace voted to certify Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election and has frequently blamed Trump for the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol events.
This led Trump to give Arrington his stamp of approval to unseat Mace.
“She turned her back on [former] president Trump, and that is not what a conservative does,” Arrington said at a May 23 debate. “She read the room wrong. She thought this district was a moderate district, and we are not.”
Through May 25, which was the deadline to submit pre-primary fundraising reports, Mace raised more than $4.1 million in contributions and had $1.4 million cash on hand.
Federal filings showed Arrington with more than $909,000, including a personal loan of $525,000. As of May 25, she had $607,000 cash on hand.
Mace served as a state representative in South Carolina’s House of Representatives from 2018 to 2020 before earning her current seat in the 1st Congressional District. She is endorsed by former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, U.S. House minority leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) along with the National Rifle Association, and Club for Growth.
Mace claims that Arrington is not electable. She points to 2018, when Arrington upset Sanford in the Republican primary but lost to Cunningham.
“I’m the only candidate up here who knows how to beat a Democrat in this day and age in this district,” Mace said in a statement. “I promised that I would work hard, I promised to be an independent voice, and I promised not to tow the party line when they taxed too much and spent too much in this country.”
Former state Rep. Katie Arrington is running against incumbent Rep. Nancy Mace in the South Carolina GOP 1st Congressional District primary. (Courtesy of Katie Arrington for Congress).
The 1st Congressional District Republican primary featured three candidates until the debate on May 23.
While answering the opening question, Lynz Piper-Loomis expressed her support for Arrington, removed her microphone, and exited the stage and the race.
Arrington is a cybersecurity expert who served as the Pentagon’s chief information security officer in the acquisition and sustainment office during the Trump administration.
Through comments and the ad, Mace has hammered Arrington about the Pentagon suspending her security clearance in 2021 because of accusations that she disclosed classified information.
“If our military doesn’t trust Katie Arrington, neither can we,” the narrator says in Mace’s attack ad.
Arrington defended herself against the allegations.
“Ladies and gentlemen, just shows you how low Nancy Mace will go,” she said during the debate. “I was a victim of a political hit job, point blank. I proudly serve my nation.”
During campaign stops, Arrington talks about her opposition to critical race theory being taught in classrooms and calls out schools “indoctrinating” children with a transgender agenda. She supports eliminating the U.S. Department of Education.
Mace has “flip-flopped” on multiple issues since taking office, Arrington contends, including transgender advocacy in the military.
The 1st Congressional District is home to Marine Corps Recruit Depot at Parris Island, and the Marine Corps Air Station in Beaufort.
“In 2020, Nancy Mace released an ad attacking Joe Cunningham over his support for transgender advocacy in the military,” Arrington said in a statement.
“Interestingly enough, she co-sponsored with a progressive Democrat from Hawaii to create with our tax dollars a special office for transgenders in the VA (Veterans Affairs).
“This is just one of many flip-flops Nancy has made throughout her short time in D.C.,” Arrington added. “Nancy Mace is not a conservative. Since day one, she has compromised our values to advance her own career. We cannot afford another term of her self-serving agenda.”
Arrington is confident that redistricting adjustments will help her in the primary and, if she wins on June 14, the general election.
The 1st Congressional District’s new map now extends further inland to the north, which has created a district where Republicans have a 17-point advantage, up from a 14-point advantage on the old map, according to FiveThirtyEight.
A Trafalgar Group poll conducted from May 26 to May 29 and released on June 2 showed that Mace led with 46.4 percent while Arrington received 40.5 percent with 13.1 percent undecided. The survey included 556 likely Republican primary voters and had a margin of error of four percentage points.
Arrington believes her campaign is gaining momentum at the right time, pointing to a Charleston County GOP straw poll that showed her with 86 percent support compared to Mace’s 14 percent. Arrington reported similar lopsided results in straw polls conducted in Berkeley and Beaufort counties.
“Voters are tired of swamp sellout Nancy Mace, and despite her lies, her campaign is in a downward spiral,” Arrington said in a statement. “The people of SC-1 want a pro-Trump America First conservative, not a RINO [Republican in Name Only] who votes with AOC [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] 45 percent of the time.”
Mace or Arrington will face Dr. Annie Andrews, a pediatrician, in the general election. Andrews is unopposed in the Democrat primary.
The Cook Political Report, Sabato’s Crystal Ball, and Inside Elections have rated South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District as a solid/safe Republican seat, so the winner of the GOP primary will be heavily favored in November.
Congressional Republicans want to slash funding to the United Nations, Lebanon, and Iraq, and cut off funds that allow the Biden administration to implement a new nuclear deal with Iran.
The Republican Study Committee, Congress’s largest conservative caucus, unveiled on Thursday its fiscal year 2023 budget proposal, a portion of which was exclusively obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. The Republican budget proposal’s national security section includes landmark provisions that would significantly reshape U.S. foreign policy by nixing millions of dollars in spending in the region.
In addition to cutting foreign aid projects that Republican lawmakers say benefit Iranian-controlled militants such as Hezbollah, the RSC is moving to codify legislation that would bar the Biden administration from spending taxpayer dollars to implement a new nuclear deal with Tehran—effectively killing the deal the moment it is signed. At the same time, the budget would increase U.S. funding to Israel so that it can counter Iran and its regional terrorist proxies.
While Democrats are likely to oppose a majority of the proposals, the budget is meant to send a message to the White House that if they take a majority after the November elections, Republicans will work to undermine the administration’s foreign policy agenda.
“After two years of Joe Biden, the world is more chaotic and dangerous than ever before,” said Rep. Jim Banks (R., Ind.), RSC chair and a member of the House Armed Services Committee. “But one thing hasn’t changed since Trump was in the White House: a strong America will always make the world safer. RSC’s budget provides a blueprint for taking on Iran’s terrorist regime, Putin’s aggression, and the new threat of jihadist terrorists in Afghanistan.”
The RSC wants to slash U.S. aid to “Iranian puppet regimes in the Middle East,” particularly Lebanon, which is controlled by Iran’s terror proxy, Hezbollah. The United States has long propped-up the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), despite overwhelming evidence they are loyal to Hezbollah.
The Biden administration announced earlier this year it is repurposing some $67 million in aid to the LAF and giving another $16.5 to the country’s Internal Security Forces. Republicans say this tranche of cash serves as “a slush fund in a country where Hezbollah’s economic presence is endemic.”
“In countering Iran, it is vital that we prohibit U.S. aid from going to Iranian puppet regimes in the Middle East,” the budget states. “Lebanon’s government has come fully under Hezbollah’s control as the terrorist group has a monopoly on the use of force in the country. Accordingly, the RSC Budget supports cutting off aid for the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF).”
American aid to Iraq also is on the line in the Republican proposal.
The RSC wants to cut taxpayer aid to Iraq’s Ministry of Interior and its Ministry of Defense, which both work closely with militant groups tied to Iran. These are the same groups that have claimed responsibility for attacks on U.S. forces and outposts in the country, including the 2019 strike on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad.
“Iran and Iran-aligned militias continue to have strong ties to some elements of Iraq’s traditional security forces,” the Pentagon disclosed in February as part of an inspector general report that is fueling the Republican bid to stop funding these entities.
American aid to the United Nations is also on the chopping block. Republicans want to cut funding for U.N.-operated programs in areas of Syria that are controlled by dictator Bashar al-Assad.
“Even former Obama administration ambassador to Syria Robert Ford has admitted this aid has been diverted to directly fund the brutal Assad regime, Iran’s main ally in the region,” the RSC writes in its budget.
The budget proposal also includes a package of Iran sanctions that lawmakers are touting as the toughest in history. These provisions are meant to send a signal to both the Biden administration and Iran that any sanctions relief granted as part of a nuclear deal will not survive a Republican Congress.
Israel would receive a boost in U.S. funding under the RSC budget—an effort that pro-Israel Democrats are likely to support.
In order to counter Iranian terrorist groups and other Jew-hating militants, Congress would allocate increased assistance to Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, which destroys incoming rockets before they touch land.
“Israel continues to face threats to its existence from an emboldened Iran that continues to support Hezbollah and Hamas terrorists on its doorstep,” the RSC states in the budget.
Column: Biden must abandon his quest for a nuclear deal
As if we didn’t have enough to worry about: This week Iran escalated its war against the West.
On June 8 the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) passed a resolution calling on Iran to explain traces of uranium that it found at three undisclosed sites of nuclear activity. Hours before the IAEA vote, Iran disconnected security cameras from one of its declared nuclear sites. Then Iran began taking down IAEA cameras throughout its territory. The world’s nuclear watchdog is flying blind. “When we lose this,” IAEA director Rafael Mariano Grossi told reporters, “then it’s anybody’s guess” what Iran is doing.
But we know what Iran is doing. Iran is playing hardball. For over a year now, the Biden administration and its European partners have attempted to lure Iran back into the 2015 nuclear deal, a.k.a. the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Those negotiations have failed. Iran keeps upping the ante. It wants Biden to drop sanctions on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, its terrorist army, and to guarantee that future presidents won’t back out of the deal. The first demand is harmful to national security and a political hot potato. The second is impossible. Result: deadlock.
Deadlock that favors Iran. The mullahs have used the months of jaw-jaw to prepare for war-war. Ayatollah Khamenei has placed radicals in top positions, including the presidency. His proxy forces have spread violence in Iraq, Yemen, and throughout the Greater Middle East. He has plotted to assassinate U.S. officials. He has evaded sanctions. And he has built up his stockpile of nuclear fuel.
Iran has enough enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon. Last week, David Albright and Sarah Burkhard of the Institute for Science and International Security (the good ISIS) wrote that “Iran’s breakout timeline is now at zero.”
Swell. How does resident Biden respond? He says there is still time to make a deal that even his lead negotiator, State Department official Robert Malley, admits is “tenuous at best.”
The complacency is maddening. The other day, when a reporter asked National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan for his thoughts on Iran’s dispute with the IAEA, Sullivan said, “From our perspective, we have to view these on separate tracks, and that’s how we’re going to proceed.” Translation: We won’t let Iran’s hostile behavior get in the way of appeasement.
On June 9, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Iran’s moves against the IAEA are “counterproductive and further complicate our efforts to return to full implementation of the JCPOA.” Also, the sky is blue. What’s Blinken going to do about it? “We continue to press Iran to choose diplomacy and de-escalation instead,” he said.
This is willful blindness. Iran made its choice. It rejected diplomacy and de-escalation. It opted for confrontation and resistance.
Yet America is too preoccupied, too distracted, too overwhelmed to act accordingly. Inflation, crime, the border, guns, abortion, and Ukraine command the public’s attention. The growing danger from Iran does not. Meanwhile, the secretary of defense is a background player. The secretary of state and the national security adviser are staffers, not independent leaders. The president is 79 years old and not good at his job. This moment demands confidence, willfulness, boldness, imagination, and risk. What we get are odd ramblings from Biden on Kimmel.
Things must change. Iran policy is a good—and urgent—place to start. Step one is to face reality. Close the open hand that the ayatollah has spat upon. Demand enactment of snap-back sanctions. Adopt the bipartisan Senate bill that would integrate air and missile defenses in the Greater Middle East. Call for a massive defense buildup. Ease restrictions, limits, and delays on lend-lease to Ukraine, then take the same approach to arming Israel and our Gulf partners (as well as Taiwan). Recognize the importance of the Abraham Accords as the foundation for regional stability. And revive the military option to demonstrate our seriousness.
The drift toward global disorder began after former president Obama decided not to enforce his red line against chemical weapons in Syria. That was almost a decade ago. One way to repair the jagged breach in American credibility and American deterrence would be to make good on our longstanding promise that Iran won’t obtain the world’s most terrible weapon.
The current path leads to a world where America is ignored, where Israel’s existence is threatened, and where the risk of nuclear war is greater than it is even today. We’ve been telling ourselves for a while that such a world would be unacceptable. Let’s act like it.
SPECIAL REPORT – The totalitarian Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is not only engaged in global and national influence campaigns, but its corrupting tentacles also reach even down to American state and local politics. (RELATED: China’s Draconian Policies Show What Many Democrats Want for US)
Over the past 15 years, U.S. officials at local, state and federal levels have received pressure through visits, emails and phone calls from Chinese officials intent on pushing their policies in China’s favor.
As I have written about here, here and here, the CCP tends to focus its corrupting influences on currently powerful, as well as up-and-coming Democrat politicians, most vulnerable to their pitch.
However, a recent report in The Epoch Times (ET) shows how the CCP’s tentacles extend down to the state level and also target Republicans.
Usually, these efforts take the form of promoting apparently benign resolutions of friendship between U.S. states and China, or statements in support of Chinese policies.
In one specific case, writes The Times in “late February 2020, as the pandemic was heating up in the United States, when a request from China caught Wisconsin state Sen. Roger Roth’s attention.”
Roth is a Republican, and the request came via email from Wu Ting, wife of the Chinese consul general in Chicago. Wu wanted Roth to help pass a resolution “in support of China’s fight against the novel coronavirus.”
Once Roth realized the email was legitimate, he became “downright angry.”
“I dictated a one-word response to them, and I said: Dear Consul General, Nuts. Signed respectfully, Roger Roth,” he said. “Not only do we respond to them with the word ‘nuts,’ we even drafted our own resolution on the Communist Party of China, exposing who they really are.”
That one-word reply, a nod to Brig. Gen. Anthony McAuliffe’s famous response to a German surrender ultimatum during World War II, was the last communication Roth had with the Chinese consulate in Chicago. Wu later wrote an email expressing shock at his response, which he never replied to. But that interaction pushed him onto the offensive in Wisconsin.
States which have not been so staunch in their response to Chinese influence efforts include, most egregiously, the New York Senate resolution that was approved in June 2019, which appears to be the nation’s first official gesture to commemorate Oct. 1, marking the CCP’s official violent takeover of China.
The resolution’s lead sponsor, state Sen. James Sanders, didn’t respond to inquiries from The Epoch Times about whether the consulate had any role in the resolution’s eventual adoption.
As ET notes though, these aren’t the only states where Beijing has tried to exert influence:
Around the same period as the emails to Roth, the state of Utah was approving a resolution expressing solidarity with the Chinese people. In language similar to what Wu had put forward, the resolution noted “a friendly relationship and strong economic, cultural, and people-to-people ties” that Utah and China share, and “the unique, 14-year legislative relationship between Utah and Liaoning.”
That Feb. 25, 2020, resolution also urged against virus restrictions that “unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade and raise fear and stigma.” At the time, the Trump administration had imposed a flight ban to and from China in response to the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, a move that initially sparked condemnation from the Chinese regime and the World Health Organization…
States like Utah that passed such resolutions didn’t know “what was really happening and how they were being used as pawns,” Roth said.
Georgia and New York also have passed a “China Day” resolution.
The Georgia version, passed in 2020, intended to “commend the special friendship between Georgia and the People’s Republic of China” and to “recognize the Consul General Cai Wei of the Consulate General of China in Houston.”
So, what else can be done about this massive Chinese effort to corrupt our state politicians and institutions?
Roth, the Wisconsin senator, has some excellent ideas.
Since his encounter with the Chinese, reports The Times, he has proposed a series of measures aimed at curtailing Chinese influence in his state.
These include barring Chinese military members from working in the University of Wisconsin system and curbing Chinese recruitment or propaganda programs within the university system.
As Roth stated in The Epoch Times: “As lawmakers all over the country, everything we do plays into a larger narrative,” he said. And we have an opportunity, though it be limited … we have an opportunity to make a stand for freedom, and to make a stand for the freedom-loving peoples of China right now, or who are held hostage by this brutal regime.” ALD
The FBI is investigating the president of the Brookings Institution for secretly lobbying for the government of Qatar, court documents show.
FBI agents last month executed a search warrant for the email account of John R. Allen, according to documents released Tuesday. Allen, a retired four-star general, in 2017 allegedly lobbied the Trump White House and Congress on behalf of Qatar, an oil-rich Middle Eastern country that has been accused of sponsoring terrorist groups. According to an FBI affidavit, Allen in a 2020 interview lied to the bureau about the nature of his work and failed to turn over “incriminating” emails to investigators, including one where he asked for a “speakers fee” to meet with Qatari officials to discuss their strategy to influence the Trump administration.
According to the FBI affidavit, investigators have “substantial evidence” that Allen and his colleagues intentionally violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act, a law that requires lobbyists to disclose their work for foreign governments.
Brookings announced Wednesday that it had placed Allen on administrative leave.
The investigation marks a stunning development for Allen and Brookings, one of the world’s most influential think tanks. Brookings has long been accused of operating as a shill for Qatar and other foreign governments that fund the think tank. The embassy of Qatar donates hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to Brookings. The Qatari government in 2014 pledged $14.8 million to Brookings to build a satellite campus in Doha.
Allen, who oversaw NATO forces in Afghanistan, was a senior fellow at Brookings at the time of his alleged work for Qatar. He was tapped in October 2017 to lead the think tank.
Details of Allen’s work have become public through a case against Richard G. Olson, who served as ambassador to Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates under former president Barack Obama. Olson pleaded guilty to making false statements in federal ethics paperwork and to illegal lobbying. Court documents show Olson began cooperating with federal prosecutors on August 31, 2020, “with the express goal of assisting them in bringing criminal charges against General Allen.” Allen and Olson worked on behalf of Qatar with Imaad Zuberi, a Pakistani-American businessman convicted in a separate illegal lobbying scheme.
Allen has not been charged in the case. His spokesman said Allen has “voluntarily cooperated” with federal prosecutors.
Allen, who in 2015 retired from the military, played a major role in shaping the Trump White House’s views toward Qatar during a tense 2017 standoff with neighboring Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, the FBI alleges. Allen on June 9, 2017, asked then-national security adviser H.R. McMaster to issue a statement calling on the nations to ease a blockade against Qatar. Then-secretary of state Rex Tillerson later that day issued a statement along those lines.
In a meeting on June 10, 2017, Allen allegedly advised the Qataris how to influence the White House, as well as how to “own the narrative” in the United States about the blockade. According to notes Olson took in the meeting, Allen told the Qataris they could “shape” then-president Donald Trump’s opinion through McMaster. He also suggested using Al-Udeid Air Base in Doha as “leverage” to force the administration to take a friendly position toward Qatar. Olson’s notes also show Allen suggested that Qatar use “the full spectrum of info. ops,” including “black and white” operations, to advance its messages in the United States. Black ops commonly refer to illegal hacking activity.
Allen received $20,000 to meet with Qatari officials in Doha. He was pursuing business deals in Qatar at the same time on behalf of Spark Cognition, an artificial intelligence company at which he served as a director.
Update 5:31 p.m.: This piece has been updated to note that Brookings has placed John Allen on leave.
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HOMELAND SECURITY
GOOD OR BAD IDEA? Senator wants to ‘mobilize’ military veterans to guard schools. In the wake of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is calling to “mobilize” military veterans to serve as security officers at schools around the country.
Beyond weapons: Time for a new US strategy on Taiwan. Enlarging Taipei’s military cooperation throughout the Indo-Pacific is today potentially the most effective way to break Beijing’s heavy-handed efforts to quarantine Taiwan politically. Deciding what military assets America should provide Taiwan is crucial, but the bigger picture is to interweave Taiwan into the emerging alliances and coalitions forming to deal with the Chinese threat.
ESCALATION OR MORE OF THE SAME? – Putin threatens new targets if Ukraine gets longer-range rockets; missiles hit Kyiv. In a television interview with state media that was recorded Friday and aired Sunday, Putin said he considered the medium-range missiles Biden promised last month to be replacements for similar artillery that Ukraine has lost in the fighting. But should longer-range systems arrive, Putin said, his military would begin hitting targets it has so far avoided. He offered no specifics.
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 103. A Russian state media journalist reported Moscow’s Major General Roman Kutuzov was killed in eastern Ukraine, adding to the string of high-ranking military casualties sustained by Moscow. Ukraine has reversed a Russian advance in Severodonetsk and recaptured about 20 percent of the strategic eastern city, meaning Ukraine now controls half, the governor of Luhansk said.
LET THE NORDIC GAMES BEGIN – Major Baltic Sea exercise kicks off as Swedish, Finnish NATO bids wait on Turkey. The NATO exercise BALTOPS – to be held on the Baltic Sea next week – is the latest showing of unity and military strength as Sweden and Finland trade neutrality for NATO’s embrace in the wake of Russia’s three-month-old invasion of Ukraine.
OVERDUE – US, S Korean navies end key exercise amid N Korea tension. The three-day exercise that began Thursday in international waters off Okinawa was apparently the allies’ first joint drill involving a U.S. aircraft carrier since November 2017.
YES, NORTH KOREA – WE HAVE MISSILES TOO – US and South Korea respond to North Korean launch with 8 missiles of their own. U.S. Forces Korea and the South Korean military fired one U.S. missile and seven South Korean missiles eastward into the sea to demonstrate the countries’ ability to “respond quickly to crisis events,” the U.S. military said Monday.
US excludes Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua from Americas summit. The decision, which followed weeks of intense deliberations, risks an embarrassing boycott of the U.S.-hosted gathering this week in Los Angeles if Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and some other leaders choose not to show up.
GUARDIANS ALERT – How the US Space Force plans to police outer space. Outer space is getting crowded, with both commercial endeavors and secretive military projects. And it’s going to be up to the newest United States military branch, the Space Force, to protect American interests there.
REAL ISSUE – OR EASY FIX? Military families not having enough food is a national security issue, report says. The key factors that make up military life were found to be significant contributors to food insecurity for military families and could hinder the ability of the armed forces to recruit and retain troops if it isn’t addressed, according to two reports released this week.
It’s time for a comprehensive fact-check on the origins and purposes of the Ukrainian war.
The underlying issue is the ultimate disposition of the 14 republics apart from Russia that seceded from and produced the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1991. Russia has never acknowledged the legitimacy of those secessions, and they were accomplished abruptly by the governments and legislatures of the jurisdictions involved, without the formality and legitimacy the break-up of countries requires.
As the Soviet Union fell like a soufflé without a shot being fired (after a Cold War in which there were routine reciprocal threats of nuclear annihilation), many promises were made by the major powers, including Russia and the United States, and none of them was kept. When the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, acceded to the reunification of Germany, then-Secretary of State James Baker assured him that NATO would not advance “one inch” to the east of Germany. The president whom he served, George H. W. Bush, famously gave what Nixon speechwriter William Safire called the “Chicken Kiev speech” to the Ukrainian parliament recommending that it remain in union with Russia, in 1991. All of the major powers, including Russia and the United States, promised Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, that their borders would be respected, in exchange for the renunciation in 1994 of the nuclear weapons that they had inherited from the Soviet Union.
Needless to say, all of these solemn promises were forgotten almost as soon as they were made. In the next several years, NATO accepted as members Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria; and Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, which had been constituent republics of the Soviet Union and had been fully integrated into Russia for more than 200 years prior to the end of World War I in 1918. President George W. Bush advocated the eventual admission to NATO of Ukraine and Georgia in 2008, but this was deferred as Russia invaded two largely Russian-speaking provinces of Georgia and intervened heavy-handedly in Ukrainian affairs. Russian meddling enabled the election of an outright puppet of the Kremlin in Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovich, in 2010, and Western counter-meddling achieved his ouster and replacement by Petro Poroshenko in 2014.
It must be admitted that Ukraine has never shown the slightest aptitude for successful self-government until its inspiring performance following the Russian invasion of Ukraine three months ago. It’s an ethnic hodgepodge of Russians, Lithuanians, Poles, and Tatars, and approximately one-sixth of its population of over 40 million is Russian-speaking.
The likeliest explanation for what brought on the present war is that the on-again, off-again Western enticement of NATO membership for Ukraine collided with the ambition of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russia’s most purposeful leader since Leonid Brezhnev, to assert Russia’s partial authority over its former fellow republics of the USSR.
It isn’t surprising that Putin thought that this was the time to act: The unimaginable shambles of the American flight from Afghanistan and the complete failure of the United States to enunciate any consistent policy about the former Soviet Union could well have convinced him that this was his chance to begin reassembling the involuntary Confederation of ethnicities put together over more than 250 years by Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, some lesser Czars, and Joseph Stalin.
Many readers will remember the inanity of President George W. Bush’s assertions that he looked Putin in the eye, and the reassuring importance that Putin attaches to his cross. President Barack Obama appeased Putin by withholding the promised anti-missile defenses for Poland and the Czech Republic, as if such defensive weapons could remotely be considered a provocation to Russia. The Pentagon has contributed to the present confusion by taking the immense budget granted it by President Donald Trump and failing to keep pace with Russia and China in hypersonic weapons, in providing adequate antimissile defenses for America’s Nimitz class aircraft carriers, and possibly in some areas of artillery as well. This may explain why the United States and NATO generally have been clearly intimidated by Putin’s nonsensical threats to resort to nuclear weapons.
Because of this saber-rattling, which is much less believable and nerve-racking than the antics of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in the 1950s, President Joe Biden allowed the Pentagon to repudiate Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s public pledge to facilitate the transfer of Polish warplanes to Ukraine as “escalatory” (what was the Russian invasion?), and has declined to provide high-altitude anti-aircraft missiles and any Ukrainian capability to reply with offensive weapons that would reach inside Russia as a response to the relentless Russian aerial assault on Ukraine’s civil population.
Apart from the Ukrainian government, which has played its hand, militarily and in public relations terms, brilliantly, almost every conceivable blunder has been made by both sides in the present conflict. It’s inconceivable how Putin and his advisers imagined that they could, with only 150,000 trigger-pullers, overrun a country of over 40 million people defended by a trained army and reserve of half a million well-armed men. Ukraine possesses the possibility of a high manpower advantage unless Russia conducts a general mobilization, which would be extremely unpopular, and hideously expensive for a country with a smaller GDP than Canada. Ukraine has the advantage of having most of its war effort paid for by rich NATO countries; in that sense only is there any truth in the Russian government’s claim, echoed by a number of conservative isolationist American commentators, that Russia is at war with all NATO.
But there’s no truth to the claim of those American commentators that Ukraine is of no strategic value to the West. It’s making a bona fide effort to make democracy work and it’s the subject of a brutal and completely illegal and unprovoked attack. The consequence of permitting Russia to succeed in this criminal enterprise would be to provide convincing evidence that the United States is in inexorable decline and that it’s open season on the crumbling Western alliance as the Kremlin took a giant leap toward undoing the West’s epochal strategic victory in the Cold War.
Readers will painfully recall the total defeatism of Biden and the joint chiefs at the outset of the Ukrainian war, when Kyiv was expected to be occupied within a few days and Biden offered to evacuate president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his family, and made sophomoric comments about the Russian ruble becoming “rubble” and the strength of sanctions, which since they’re being ignored by 155 countries in the world are a gigantic Swiss cheese. When the strength of Ukrainian resistance became clear, Biden spoke of Putin being mad and sick and a “war criminal” and that regime change was necessary, even as he backed down before Putin’s juvenile nuclear threats. There has been no clarification of Western war aims and a large quantum of aid is to some extent a substitute for giving Ukraine the weapons they need to provide the Russians an incentive to end the war.
As I have written since before the start of this war, we have the ability in the West to ensure that Ukraine is recognized as a sovereign state as long as we provide the Russians with some recognition of their traditional status in that country—assumedly the autonomy under Russian suzerainty of the Russian-speaking sections of the country but with an iron-clad Russia-NATO guarantee of the security of Ukraine’s modified borders. Zelenskyy cannot expect more; the geopolitical reality is that Putin doesn’t have to settle for less; American isolationists should be given a brief tutorial in geopolitical realities; the entire senior level of the Pentagon should be sacked; and NATO-U.S. will have to provide the weapons necessary to bring the war to a negotiated end. As long as the Russians can kill and terrorize Ukraine’s civilian population from the air with impunity, the war will go on and the tragedy will become greater.
As the U.S. military rolls out its new Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT), which imposes different physical standards and requirements for men and women, longtime defense analysts and observers say that the military’s push for diversity and inclusion—a trend that accelerated under President Barack Obama and that the Biden administration aggressively carries forward—undermines combat training and readiness.
“The Biden administration has assigned priority to diversity, inclusion, and equity as the primary criteria. That is a key decision and from it flows everything else that is problematic” in the military today, said Elaine Donnelly, founder and president of the Center for Military Readiness, a public policy organization in Livonia, Michigan.
Donnelly views the Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan 2021 released by the United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM) as providing a good measure of the new priorities. The plan’s “Strategic Objective 2” is “Educate USSOCOM professionals and leaders to help facilitate and sustain a diverse and inclusive culture.” Another of its goals is to “Increase hiring rates of diverse applicants.”
The plan sets forth a far-reaching plan “to address and remediate bias” and calls diversity and inclusion “a strategic imperative” numerous times in the course of just 20 pages, Donnelly noted.
Members of the 182d Infantry Regiment load their weapons with live ammunition before heading into the field to train, firing on targets out in the field and working in concert with other squads, for deployment to the Middle East during live fire weapons training at US Fort Dix in New Jersey on May 16, 2022. (Joseph Prezioso /AFP via Getty Images)
Biden Follows Obama
Under Biden, the military has pushed a wide range of imperatives and priorities that have little to do with the traditional function of training soldiers to be as effective in combat as possible and to minimize U.S. casualties, observers say. But it would be a mistake to think that the current administration has taken a new direction when it is carrying on and expanding directives, policies, and programs that flourished under Obama.
“It seems like a third term for Obama on this score. We have a president who says that climate change is the greatest threat to U.S. security, who has reversed President Trump’s executive order banning reaching service members racially divisive concepts that sometimes go by the name ‘critical race theory,’ and who has lifted all restrictions on service by transgender persons (and promised to fit the bill for transitions),” said Kingsley Browne, a law professor Wayne State University and the author of the book “Co-Ed Combat: The New Evidence That Women Shouldn’t Fight the Nation’s Wars.”
Browne sees the policy and cultural shifts within the military as not just the work of one president or cabinet official bent on promoting a “woke” agenda, but as an agenda that many military officials at different levels of command have endorsed, whether because they believe in it or because they are conscious of the impact that their stance on these issues will have on their career.
“We have a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who talks about ‘white rage’ and a Special Operations Command that has declared that ‘diversity and inclusion are operational imperatives.’ Consistent with past practice, commanders are routinely evaluated by how well they satisfy diversity imperatives, even if those imperatives diminish readiness,” Browne said.
President Barack Obama sits alongside Vice President Joe Biden at Joint Base Myers-Henderson Hall in Arlington, Va., on Jan. 4, 2017. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
Abandoning Traditional Requirements
The new ACFT is undergoing implementation just as controversy develops around gender-integrated training in another area of the services, namely the Air Force. An unnamed female trainee who recently left the Air Force’s Combat Control School reportedly wrote in an April 2021 memo that instructors lowered fitness standards to accommodate her.
The new ACFT, which has lower physical standards than its predecessors—requiring the ability to do nine push-ups instead of 10—and different requirements for men and women in categories such as strength, endurance, and running speed, did not come into being overnight. Rather it is the end result of a long-running effort to scrap standards and expectations that men were likelier to be able to meet, observers say.
In December 2015, then-Defense Secretary Ashton Carter ordered the opening of all combat roles in the military to women within 30 days, denying a request from the Marine Corps for a partial exemption from the order for certain roles such as infantry and fire support reconnaissance. By the end of the 30-day period, all branches of the armed forces had to present Carter with their implementation plans for gender integration.
“Fully integrating women into all military positions will make the U.S. armed forces better and stronger,” Carter stated at the time, though he acknowledged that “there will be problems to fix and challenges to overcome.”
The official response to those who expressed concern about the realism of Carter’s plan was to offer assurances that standards for physical fitness and ability were and would remain gender-neutral, Browne said. But physical differences between the genders, in areas such as upper-body strength and stature, meant that things did not always play out as the advocates of diversity hoped.
“Use of gender-neutral standards creates a dilemma. You can adopt standards that are challenging for men, in which case few if any women will pass, or you can adopt standards that reasonable numbers of women can pass which will be a walk in the park for men,” Browne said.
“The choice made after 2015 was to try to thread the needle between these two options—to make it not too hard but not too soft. But even with that compromise you still had a disproportionate number of women who failed the test,” he recalled.
Faced with these difficulties in bringing about the complete gender integration ordered by Carter, lawmakers in Congress commissioned a RAND Corporation study, which set out to address the question of whether soldiers of all ages and genders should be subject to the same standards of physical fitness. The study came to the conclusion that a gender-normed Army fitness test would “ensure parity in pass rates between groups, but it would also require the Army to accept differences in potential combat readiness among soldiers who are held to different testing standards.”
The new ACFT that the Army is now in the process of implementing does not impose standards that anyone hoping to be a soldier must meet, as in the past, but instead sets forth varying standards for men and women and for people of different ages, Browne noted. Browne sees the name of the test as something of a misnomer given that it does not really seek to gauge how well people can perform on combat tasks, but rather to measure general physical fitness. It sets maximum and minimum scores on the basis of percentiles within the category or “cohort” in question. It sets a passing score at the fifth percentile for an age and sex cohort, which Browne considers a low bar, and the maximum score at the 96th percentile.
US soldiers walk in Poland near the border with Ukraine, on March 3, 2022. (Wojtek Radwanski/AFP via Getty Images)
One illustration of the problems inherent in the new test, in Browne’s view, is the “sprint-drag-carry” test, which purports to measure not just a single aptitude but strength, agility, endurance, and aerobic maneuvering. The test allows an 18-year-old woman to pass with a time of three minutes and 15 seconds, but a man must take no longer than two minutes and 28 seconds to pass.
On a battlefield, heavy ordnance or the body of a wounded soldier that has to be moved under fire to safety does not make allowances based on the gender of the soldier who has to perform the task. In light of this reality, army officials have not explained how the test is useful or relevant.
“Who do you want to be trying to extract you and move you to safety if you’re wounded? I guess the Army’s answer is that it doesn’t matter, because both potential rescuers are equally ‘fit,’” Browne said.
The new norms are not the only impediment to readiness in a military where officers face intense political pressures to pass women, Browne and others believe.
“Even without gender-norming of the physical tests referred to above and using the same standards for men and women, it is still possible to cheat. There is a widespread belief that women are often given extra chances to pass training, especially in the Special Operations Forces,” Browne said.
In corroboration of this view, journalist and defense analyst Susan Katz Keating wrote an exposé for People magazine in 2015 reporting her findings that two women who passed the Army’s elite Ranger School at Fort Benning, Georgia, received special treatment and instructors gave them a pass even after infractions for which male trainees were disqualified. This expose came on the heels of People’s reporting that Rep. Steve Russell, then a Republican congressman for Oklahoma, had become concerned about reports of a gender-based double standard in Ranger training and had asked the Department of Defense for documents relating to the two female candidates, Kristen Griest and Shaye Haver.
Double Standards
Among Keating’s findings were that Griest and Haver were able to take a special preparatory two-week pre-training course that male trainees were not able to take; that they received direct personal counseling and encouragement from an experienced Ranger that was not available to their male peers; that they were allowed to repeat patrols after making mistakes that disqualified male candidates; and that Griest herself expressed surprise that she and Haver passed the course after failing a key segment of training at Fort Benning not once but twice.
Keating agrees with Browne that the changes pushed heavily under the Obama administration have grown even more pronounced under Biden.
“The Biden administration has taken previous policies and amplified them. For example, soon after Biden came into office, he reversed the existing policy on transgender troops, opening the door for them to serve openly, and also to go through the transition process, including surgery, on the public’s dime,” Keating said.
Keating also sees relatively little dissent in the services over the change in course.
“From what I’ve seen in several branches, the service members disagree with many of the policies, but are keenly aware that they are working within a command structure that doesn’t ask them to vote on policies. When it comes to policies, the services don’t ask, they tell,” Keating said.
The New Priorities
Besides the effects on what happens during training and the standards and requirements involved, the cultural shift within the military in favor of diversity, inclusiveness, and equity has caused far-reaching changes in how candidates for military service spend their time. In Browne’s view, the time that trainees spend learning about critical race theory, implicit bias, politically correct pronouns, and micro-aggressions—instead of traditional things like firing with precision or scaling obstacles with full-body gear—comes with a steep price.
“Any time that personnel are diverted away from training aimed at making the military more combat-effective has a cost. I think that a lot of people who are unfamiliar with the military assume that when personnel are not deployed, they are just sitting around with nothing to do. Under this view, giving them some extra training in how to be a social-justice warrior is relatively costless. In fact, however, time and resources spent on such matters is time and resources not spent on enhancing combat effectiveness,” Browne said.
When the inculcation of critical race theory, a Marxist-rooted framework that views the United States as a systematic “oppressor” of ethnic minorities, and new doctrines are priorities, Browne also sees a severe effect on morale and cohesion within military units. While the goal of training in the past has been to promote unity, doctrines that divide trainees into categories of oppressed and oppressors are unlikely to foster a sense of shared purpose, he said.
“Similarly, the message that male personnel often receive—that their female colleagues are more highly valued—creates resentment and is similarly destructive to cohesion,” Browne added.
The Epoch Times has reached out to the Department of Defense for comment.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs denied a life-saving lung transplant to U.S. Army veteran because he is not vaccinated against COVID-19.
James Jooyandeh’s requests for both a referral for the transplant and a religious exemption from the vaccine were recently denied by the Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital in Wisconsin where Jooyandeh has been treated for the past several years.
Jooyandeh, a former tank commander for the U.S. military, suffers from advanced stages of pulmonary fibrosis.
“Unfortunately, we are unable to offer lung transplant as a treatment option for you due to your unwillingness to receive recommended routine health maintenance, including your vaccinations, which is an absolute contraindication to lung transplantation at our center,” wrote Jooyandeh’s primary care physician Dr. Samir Sultan, a transplant pulmonologist with the VA hospital in Wisconsin, and Dr. James Maloney, chief of surgical services at the Veterans Hospital.
In an exclusive interview with The EpochTimes, Jooyandeh and wife Deborah told The Epoch Times they are both against the COVID-19 vaccine because fetal cell lines were used in the development and testing of the vaccine and because of the vaccine’s potential health risks.
“One of the side effects that was just released was interstitial lung disease and that’s what we have,” Deborah Jooyandeh told The Epoch Times, “so why would he take a vaccine that causes what’s killing him.”
Jooyandeh said he is also feeling “slighted” by the very administration he for so long served. Following a 13-year tour in the U.S. Army, Jooyaneh served eight years in the National Guard and five years in the Army Reserve.
Now 52, as a civilian he worked as a merchandiser for Nestle and does not have the means to afford a lung transplant out of pocket. His only choice is to use his VA benefits.
In order to do that, a VA doctor must write a referral to a facility since VA hospitals do not perform transplants themselves. The VA mostly refers veterans in need of transplants to Vanderbilt University Hospital in Tennessee.
Vanderbilt does not require the COVID-19 vaccine for transplant patients, but Sultan, as records show, still refused to make the referral.
Both he and Maloney acknowledged in their letter that Jooyandeh “is significantly impaired due to his lung condition,” but refused to reconsider their decision.
They also refused to consider Jooyandeh’s request for a religious exemption.
What remains unclear is what VA policy Sultan and Maloney are following in refusing to give Jooyandeh a referral for his much needed lung transplant.
In a letter preceding their denial of Jooyandeh’s request for a referral, John Rohrer, director of the Transplant and Surgical Service Department of Veterans Affairs in Wisconsin stated in a letter that he had confirmed from the hospital’s “coordinator” that the COVID-19 vaccine is required “per current Lung Transplant program guidelines.”
However a spokesman for the VA was unable to provide The Epoch Times with the VA’s policy on referring veterans who are not vaccinated against COVID-19 for a transplant.
Rohrer also did not respond to inquiries by The Epoch Times asking him to clarify what guidelines he was referring to.
Sultan and Maloney, who adid not respond to inquiries from The Epoch Times, cited the recommendations of the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) as a basis for their decision.
In March, The Epoch Times reported that Pfizer is one of UNOS corporate sponsors. Private hospitals who have denied unvaccinated patients transplants have too cited UNOS policies for their position. In response, UNOS issued a statement to The Epoch Times emphasizing their recommendations are not mandates and hospitals are free to make their own decisions regarding transplants for unvaccinated patients.
Last month, the Liberty Counsel sent the VA a formal request for an emergency referral on behalf of Jooyandeh, but according to Deborah Catalano, senior counsel for the civil rights organization, the VA has yet to respond to her April 15 request.
“We are talking about a man who served his country and probably saved lives and now the very administration he served under is willing to let him die,” she told The Epoch Times.
Jooyandeh’s lung condition may stem from his military service. While he admitted he smoked, Jooyandeh also was part of an Army unit tasked with burning spent ammo and other munitions in an open pit.
Jooyandeh, who has no other comorbidities, told The Epoch Times he believes Sultan is operating on his own personal beliefs and has “blacklisted him to a point where no one else will override him.”
He even wrote a negative report about Jooyandeh refusing to take medication, even though his medical records show he had an adverse reaction to it.
“He’s continuously standing in our way,” said Jooyandeh, “it’s like he’s bruising my records to make me look uncooperative.”
Catalano said she questions why the VA would even care if Jooyandeh is vaccinated since none of their hospitals would be performing the transplant.
“The VA is denying their access to health care, nobody is asking the VA to perform it,” she said “it should grant the religious exemption or just let them go to Vanderbilt and pay for it.”
Catalano pointed to a recent study that shows the VA is in the minority when it comes to refusing to make referrals for unvaccinated patients in need of a major organ transplant.
According to the study, which was conducted by the American Journal of Transplantation, out of 141 U.S. transplants centers surveyed, 60.7 percent reported that the COVID vaccination was not required in order to receive a transplant.
GENEVA (Reuters)—North Korea, which is under sanctions for developing nuclear weapons in defiance of United Nations Security Council Resolutions, has taken over as head of a U.N. body aimed at striking disarmament deals amid scorn from critics.
This year North Korea has tested a flurry of ballistic missiles – also banned by UNSC resolutions – and appears to be preparing to conduct a new nuclear test for the first time since 2017.
It gained the presidency of the Conference on Disarmament because it rotates alphabetically among its 65 members.
“The DPRK remains committed to contributing to global peace and disarmament and attaches importance to the work of the conference,” Ambassador Han Tae Song told the Geneva meeting, saying it was an “honour and a privilege” to hold the role.
The nuclear-armed state fired several missiles last week, including one thought to be its largest intercontinental ballistic missile.
Western envoys took turns to condemn Pyongyang’s actions on Thursday, with Australia describing them as “destabilising”.
However, they did not heed a call to walk-out of the meeting as requested by dozens of NGOs, witnesses said. Instead, some diplomatic missions sent lower-level representatives than the ambassadors who would typically be expected to attend.
The overall reaction from the floor was seen by observers as mild compared to the reaction to Syria’s presidency of the same body in 2018. During that meeting, Canada read out the testimonies of Syrian chemical attack survivors’ accounts in protest.
Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, which monitors the performance of the global body, saidNorth Korea‘s chairmanship would “seriously undermine the image and credibility of the United Nations”.
Expectations for this series of meetings under Pyongyang’s presidency were in any case low. The Conference on Disarmament — the world’s only multilateral forum for disarmament — has not reached a deal since the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1996.
“This can only highlight the irrelevance of the CD in the current context,” said Marc Finaud, an expert at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, said of North Korea‘s role.
(Reporting by Emma Farge; Additional reporting by Josh Smith in Seoul; Editing by Alison Williams)
Thirty Chinese People’s Liberation Army warplanes on Monday entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, representing a major escalation in China-Taiwan tensions, the island democracy’s defense ministry reported.
The ministry said the planes, two-thirds of which were fighters, entered the southwestern corner of the zone. While the air defense identification zone is outside Taiwan’s airspace, Taiwanese air traffic controllers ask planes in the zone to identify themselves, Republic Worldreported.
The incursion was the largest since Beijing in January sent 39 planes into the zone. The Chinese Communist regime has increased its aggressive actions toward Taiwan since Russian president Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine.
The Monday incursion came one week after the White House walked back President Joe Biden’s comment that the United States would “get involved militarily to defend Taiwan” in case of a Chinese attack.
Our country is currently facing a great threat. A new enemy has emerged from the shadows that seeks to destroy and intimidate their way to a transformed state, and country, that you and I would hardly recognize.
This enemy is the radical vigilante woke mob that will steamroll anything and anyone in their way. Their blatant attacks on the American way of life are clear and intensifying: stifling dissent, public shaming, rampant violence, and a perverted version of history.
A group that will, literally, tear down monuments and buildings but — perhaps in an even more sinister way — tear down the American spirit itself. They go after the family unit, parental rights, traditional moral values, the church, and fact-based education.
Over the past few years, we’ve watched horrified as this group has attempted to brainwash our children into thinking we live in an evil, racist, irredeemable country.
We listened to them deny science and data to exert political theater all the while trampling over personal liberties enshrined in the Constitution.
We saw them take to the streets for an entire summer like outlaws burning, looting, and destroying everything in sight while being told they were “mostly peaceful” and “passionate.”
We watched Big Tech moguls in Silicon Valley be the arbiters of truth – deciding who gets to speak and who gets silenced through the digital public square.
We listened to the legacy media muffle legitimately verifiable news stories that didn’t align with their preferred narrative, only to watch the truth trickle out months later at a more politically expedient time.
Well, friend, the time for listening and watching from the sidelines is over.
This enemy has taken over media, educational institutions, corporate boards, professional sports, foundations, and professional institutions. They have left no corner of our lives untouched. But all hope is not lost.
We The People still have a say. We know the truth, you and I, about America and the country she is and can be. We must fight to defeat these false pretenses and predetermined narratives.
I am choosing to counter this enemy with faith, with reason, and with freedom. As Governor of the Free State of Florida, I have chosen to lead with a vision that builds America up rather than tears it down.
Together we can ensure that our children are raised to know they live in the greatest state in the nation, the greatest country in the world and that they have an opportunity to continue making them even greater.
Military service demands sacrifice. Members must accept time away from family, discomfort during training and active duty, and they must have a willingness to give their all; lay down their life.
But since 2021, military members who refused to take the COVID-19 shot for religious reasons have been told that they must also sacrifice either their faith or their career, discharge reputation, and any future benefits they may have been banking on.
In the waning days of the pandemic, all branches of the U.S. military are still denying religious exemptions that would allow those who object to the shots for religious reasons to continue to serve. More than 24,000 service members have filed a Religious Accommodation Request and have been denied, according to the Liberty Counsel, which is pushing forward with a class certification for a lawsuit that will include members of all six military branches, including the Space Force.
There are at least nine suits across the nation attempting to help the unvaccinated faithful keep their jobs.
“It is abusive. It is inhumane. It is an intentional purge of people of faith from the military by the Biden administration,” Mat Staver, attorney and chairman of the Liberty Counsel, told The Epoch Times. He notes numerous ways the military has relaxed its COVID mitigation, such as housing Marines at the Parris Island barracks who are COVID negative and COVID positive together. “We know across the board that you’re having various platoons that are being dismantled and are not being rebuilt because they don’t have people to staff. We know that recruitment is down. People are not coming into the military because the morale is at an all-time low. So that’s why I say in light of all of this, why are [there] still mandates?”
In response to the Jan. 6, 2021 rally at the U.S. Capitol that has been characterized as an insurrection of extremists, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, in February 2021, directed military leaders to address extremism within the troops. Austin’s office did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
“He wanted to purge the military. He was referring to people like those coming out of Jan. 6, but I think his definition is broader than that,” Staver said. He believes people of faith are also being targeted.
It has caused some military members to reevaluate who the enemy is.
“We’ve had high ranking people tell us, ‘We were prepared to fight the enemy. We were not prepared to fight our own government over this issue of religious exemptions.’”
Staver says those seeking religious exemption from the shot are facing immense pressure.
One client, a one-star brigadier general who has served more than 20 years, wasn’t ready to retire, but she could. She doesn’t want the shot for religious reasons. Instead of letting her retire with honor now, she must first take the shot. No shot would mean dishonorable discharge and a loss of benefits.
“We have people that are deployed in Korea or Japan,” Staver said. “We have many of these stories. One was sent to Korea for a year on a company deployment. He was supposed to come home in December of 2021. But because he asked for a religious exemption, they’ve frozen him in Korea. They won’t let him come back to see his wife and his 10-month-old son.” He’s never seen his son who was born while he served far from home. “His wife is very distraught. He tells us there’s no end in sight for him to be able to come home. They’re saying, ‘You’re not going to be able to leave and go home until you take the shot.’ And they’re doing that all over the world. I can tell you story after story after story.”
Staver knows of unvaccinated people who are kicked out of the barracks. They are not getting reimbursed for housing. Some are living in their cars.
And he tells of the military moving people’s belongings to the opposite coast as they were being redeployed to a different part of the country. Their furniture and other belongings end up frozen in the wrong place.
“This is the kind of pressure that they’re applying,” Staver said. “What the chaplains continue to say is they’ve never seen this kind of abuse and mistreatment of service members.”
He says morale is at an all-time low, and many who have spent their life serving have told him they would no longer recommend a military career to young people.
“At a time when we need the military at its strongest, Biden has weakened it. People who have been around for 18, 20, 25 years—you can’t replace those people very easily. Some of them are just irreplaceable. And they’re willing to kick them out.”
While the decision to decline the shot is personal, those who are asking for exemptions from the shot want Americans to understand their fight is a matter of liberty for all.
“These guys are metaphorically in a trench fighting to preserve the freedoms of being able to live out our convictions,” Megan, an Air Force wife at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, Nebraska, told The Epoch Times. Her last name is being withheld as they are trying to keep her husband’s job. “These guys want to live out their convictions and still be able to do their job. Why is it a mutually exclusive thing? You can no longer serve God and your country? How did this happen? How did we get here?”
The mullahs in Tehran are now only weeks away from producing weapons grade uranium as Iran’s proxies menace our Middle Eastern allies.
A hearing with the Biden administration’s special envoy for Iran, Rob Malley, shed light this week on how we’ve arrived here. In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday, Malley’s exchanges with lawmakers made clear that while the Treasury Department has sanctioned individuals and entities for a variety of bad behavior, it has not enforced so-called secondary sanctions—which remain in force—against China, the largest purchaser of Iranian oil, allowing money to continue to flow into the mullahs’ coffers.
Iran can survive without access to the U.S. economy, but China would never take that risk: A U.S. crackdown would compel swift compliance by the Chinese. The Trump administration weighed this get-out-of-jail free card for China and decided against it. The Biden administration has taken a different tack: That’s why, in April, as Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Menendez pointed out, Iran sold on average 650,000 barrels of oil to China per day. The result, he said, has been “a flood of cash for the regime—tens of millions of dollars a day.”
But Malley is passing the buck. He would like Congress to believe that Iran’s predations are the result of the Trump’s administration and its policy of “maximum pressure.”
“Rather than compelling Iran to make concessions, the prior administration’s maximum-pressure campaign resulted in Iran’s maximum non-nuclear violations,” Malley said this week, referring to the spike in Iranian-orchestrated attacks on oil tankers, Saudi infrastructure, and U.S. bases that began a year after Trump withdrew the United States from Obama’s nuclear deal.
What he left out is that those operations largely stopped after Trump ordered the killing of Iran’s top general, Qassem Soleimani, in 2020, and that Iran only began the process of producing the highly enriched uranium suitable for a weapon after Biden assumed office in 2021. The mullahs also withdrew from an agreement with the United Nations’ atomic watchdog to allow full access for the agency’s inspectors to its program, fired ballistic missiles dangerously close to the U.S. consulate in northern Iraq, and dropped a drone on a U.S. outpost in Syria.
Meanwhile, as Malley and company desperately try to revive the Obama administration’s failed nuclear deal, it’s no mystery why the Iranians refuse even to meet the American delegation. Why would they? Biden won’t enforce the sanctions meant to pressure them to comply with the 2015 agreement.
Call it minimum pressure. The only silver lining is that, as Malley told the Senate panel, he is “not particularly optimistic” that the Biden administration can salvage the deal.
That’s no surprise, given that the Biden administration stopped enforcing the most crippling sanctions before the negotiations even started, and should Israel fail to halt Iran’s march to a nuclear bomb, Malley’s fingerprints—and Joe Biden’s—will be on the fuse.
Senior Obama administration officials engaged in a secret meeting with Iran in 2018 as part of an effort to undermine the Trump administration’s diplomatic push to isolate the hardline regime, according to an internal State Department document.
As the Trump administration worked to increase economic pressure on Iran in 2018, a delegation of “U.S. former ambassadors held a secret, “off-the-record” meeting with former Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif at his residence in New York City, according to a State Department memo unearthed this week as part of a lawsuit brought to compel the release of this information. The meeting took place around the same time John Kerry was reported to be working behind-the-scenes with Iranian officials to salvage the 2015 nuclear accord.
The internal memo, which is marked unclassified, details how these former U.S. ambassadors conducted shadow diplomacy with Iran’s top envoy surrounding “nuclear weapons, potential prisoner swaps, [the] Afghanistan withdrawal, and negotiations with the Taliban,” according to the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), a legal advocacy group that sued the State Department to obtain the internal memo.
The document is the firmest proof to date that Obama-era officials were engaged in back-channel efforts to keep negotiations with Iran alive, even as former president Donald Trump and his administration worked to isolate the regime, former secretary of state Mike Pompeo told the Free Beacon in exclusive remarks. Pompeo, who was not aware of these meetings while leading the State Department, said the memo corroborates reports from the time about Kerry’s efforts to salvage the 2015 nuclear deal through back-channel powwows with Iranian officials.
“This memo reflects even more than we already knew about former State Department officials continuing on as if they were still in office,” said Pompeo, who is now senior counsel for global affairs at the ACLJ. “Trying, at every turn, to work with the foreign minister for a terrorist regime, Iran, to undermine the very sanctions put in place by America. It’s worse than not knowing when to get off stage. Actively seeking to protect the terrible deal they struck, these former officials—two years after Obama left office—were signaling that Iran should stand firm against America.”
Pompeo said it is startling to learn that members of a former U.S. administration attempted to handicap a sitting president’s policies, describing the disclosure as “bad stuff, dangerous stuff, un-American stuff.” These former officials, he said, “should be ashamed of themselves. Working against their own nation’s policies alongside such a brutal regime.”
The seven-page memo was assembled during the meeting with Zarif, which came just days after reports emerged that Kerry was seeking to salvage the Iran nuclear agreement after Trump nixed it earlier that year. The document was produced after the ACLJ sued the State Department for records about any secret meetings between Zarif, Kerry, current U.S. Iran-Envoy Robert Malley, and former Obama secretary of energy Ernest Moniz.
During the meeting, Zarif claimed that Trump’s policies have fomented anti-U.S. fervor in Iran and pointed to the popularity of Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) leader Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated by Trump two years later in a drone strike.
“I was as popular as Soleimani, but now I am at 47 percent and his is up,” Zarif said, according to the memo. “He is closer to 80 percent. People of Iran once preferred engagement, now opted for resistance as the only reality. That is what the polls are telling us now and it is the reality of the region.”
Zarif also said his government would never give up its missile program or stop enriching uranium, the key component in a nuclear weapon and one of the conditions Trump placed on a potential new deal with Iran that never materialized.
“The U.S. says no peace deal and the U.S. will reimpose sanctions, but the condition is zero missiles, zero nuclear enrichment. This what [John] Bolton wants,” Zarif said, referring to Trump’s national security adviser. “I know Bolton and negotiated with him years ago. His views are so radical, that we could not reach an agreement. Absolute impossibility to reach an agreement with John Bolton unless you ask him to sit down and read at dictation speed what he wants and then you sign it. He is incapable of compromise.”
Zarif also discussed his views on Iraq, potential prisoner swaps with the United States, and Iranian support for terror groups like Hezbollah and the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
As part of the ACLJ’s effort to force the release of further information on these back-channel talks with Iran, it received a series of internal State Department emails showing that after Kerry left office, he used State Department staffers to send correspondence to Zarif.
Ben Sisney, ACLJ’s senior litigation counsel, said the organization’s legal efforts prove that “there were even more secret meetings happening behind the Trump administration’s back than had been previously reported.”
But Sisney said it also raises further questions: “How did this memo of ‘former’ U.S. officials meeting with Zarif get into the State Department’s hands? Was someone at the State Department there? Did the State Department send an informal liaison?”
Update 7:35 p.m.: This piece has been updated to clarify Kerry’s role in the diplomacy with Iran.
Column: The president’s budget doesn’t match U.S. commitments
War was in the background of President Biden’s trip to Asia last week. He redeployed U.S. forces to Somalia before he left. He signed into law $40 billion in financial and military assistance to Ukraine during his visit to South Korea. Then, in Japan, a reporter asked Biden if he was prepared to “get involved militarily to defend Taiwan.” Biden’s answer was succinct. “Yes,” he said.
Forget the clumsy White House reaction to Biden’s moment of lucidity. Leave aside the question of whether the United States should move from a policy of strategic ambiguity, where our response to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is left undefined, to a policy of strategic clarity where we let China know the direct consequences of such an attack.
Consider instead the following: Does the Pentagon have the resources to defend democracies from autocrats in two hemispheres?
Afraid not. The Pentagon ditched the “two-front” war preparedness strategy under Barack Obama. Meanwhile U.S. defense spending as a percentage of the economy has been in decline for decades. Biden has shown little interest in changing its downward course. Indeed, the one place where he’s been reluctant to spend money is national defense.
Biden’s fiscal year 2022 request of $715 billion was too small even for the Democratic Congress. It ended up authorizing $728.5 billion. Biden’s fiscal year 2023 request is for $773 billion. Maybe that seems like a hefty sum. It’s not. Biden’s defense budget is meager compared with the tasks the president has set out.
Why? Part of the reason is inflation. The Biden budget request paints a rosy—and inaccurate—scenario. My American Enterprise Institute colleague Mackenzie Eaglen has run the numbers. She begins with the $773 billion marked for the Pentagon. “Using a more honest 7.46 percent CPI [Consumer Price Index] estimate (the FY22 average so far) for military personnel raises the topline to $794.5 billion needed next year,” she writes.
That still isn’t enough, however. “$846 billion in FY 2023 is a more realistic down payment on matching defense investments against national security threats,” Eaglen concludes, “and should be the starting point as Congress builds a more accurate defense budget.” In other words, Eaglen recommends a 9 percent increase in the Biden administration’s topline before Congress and its appropriators become involved. Her proposal makes sense. It’s necessary. And it won’t happen.
It won’t happen for several reasons. The first is inertia. None of the threats we encountered or fear we might encounter in the post-Cold War world have provoked the people’s representatives to increase defense spending to Reagan-era levels. The political willpower doesn’t exist. Entitlements and interest on the debt act as additional constraints. We’ve muddled through for 30 years, this thinking goes. No need to stop now.
The second brake on defense spending is the Progressive bias against hard power. By the 2024 election, America will have been governed by presidents skeptical of defense spending and the military for 12 of the past 16 years. Such leadership has an effect not only on materiel but also on the culture of the national security establishment. Progressives under Obama and Biden see the Pentagon more as a vehicle for social policy and geopolitical featherbedding than as an instrument of deterrence and the national interest. Left-wing taboos against nuclear weapons, nuclear power, oil and gas, and the warrior mindset take precedent over military readiness and lethality. The president overrules the secretary of defense and joint chiefs. America grows weaker even as its leader calls for greater global activism.
Noninterventionism and restraint on the foreign policy right creates a bipartisan reluctance to spend more on defense. President Trump increased defense spending, but not by enough. His administration was filled with skeptics of American engagement and foreign intervention who wanted to reduce not only the Pentagon’s budget but also its influence throughout the world. Republican voices in Congress promote an “America First” foreign policy that would constrict U.S. deployments, aid, and partnerships.
About a quarter of the House GOP and a fifth of the Senate GOP, for example, voted against the latest aid package to Ukraine. Granted, this batch of aid seemed designed to split conservatives, who have a longstanding aversion to unconditional economic assistance. The vote stands as a warning for both liberal and conservative internationalists, nonetheless. The bipartisan consensus over Ukraine may not survive a prolonged war of attrition.
You correct a mismatch between resources and commitments by increasing resources or decreasing commitments. President Biden resists increasing resources for national defense, while powerful elements of both left and right work to reduce American commitments. Neither strategy makes America safer. Someone needs to make the case for a major U.S. defense buildup in response to the challenges of China, Russia, and Iran. And they need to do it soon.
When Jennifer-Ruth Green, a black woman, won an overwhelming victory in Indiana’s 1st Congressional District Republican primary this month, she helped improve the chances that the GOP would take the once-reliable Democrat district in the general election.
Not only did Green, a political newcomer, beat an accomplished politician, Blair Milo, who served as mayor of LaPorte Indiana and is currently in the administration of Indiana’s Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb, she also won by a comfortable margin.
In a race that included Green, Milo, and another conservative campaigner who got 15 percent of the vote, Green very nearly go a majority of the vote, winning 49.2 percent of the Republican primary voters, according to the final vote totals at Ballotopedia. Milo won 18 percent of the vote.
Such a blowout win against an establishment candidate may have embarrassed big wigs in Indiana like former vice president and former Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, his brother Rep. Greg Pence (R-Ind.), and Holcomb.
The state GOP, however, seems solidly behind her candidacy.
“Jennifer-Ruth Green is an incredible candidate who will motivate and inspire not only Republicans, but northwest Indiana voters across the political spectrum,” Luke Thomas, press secretary and digital director at the Indiana GOP, told The Epoch Times in an email.
With the support of the GOP in the most important race in the state, Green could upset incumbent Democrat Frank Mrvan, who is running for re-election for the first time, just as she surprised insiders in the GOP.
“She’s a newcomer, but she’s a polished campaigner,” Adam Wren, publisher of Importantville, a subscription newsletter that covers Indiana politics at the micro-level, told The Epoch Times, while refusing to handicap the race for any candidate.
Then- Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at the Grand Park Events Center in Westfield, Indiana, on July 12, 2016. (Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images)
Back to Importantville
“Importantville,” many might remember, is how then-candidate for president Donald Trump described Indiana, as he campaigned in the state for the final 57 GOP delegates he needed to clinch the nomination
“Now Indiana is becoming very important … you folks belong where you belong; it’s called Importantville right? I love it,” Trump said about Indiana while campaigning there in 2016, according to ABCNews.
It’s appropriate because Green campaigned as a strong supporter of Trump, releasing a 30- second ad that attacked her GOP opponent as a “Never Trump Republican.”
“Don’t be fooled. Milo refused to support Trump,” said the Green ad, claiming that Milo wouldn’t support Trump’s nomination or his immigration policies.
Such an ad could have rankled the Pence brothers, one of whom has feuded with Trump since the 2020 election was final, but those close to the campaign say no.
“Jennifer-Ruth is a battle-proven leader and she has just the skillset to turn Indiana’s 1st District red and defeat Rep. Frank Mrvan and his 100 percent support for the failed Biden-Pelosi agenda,” said GOP state party press secretary Thomas.
Indiana’s 1st Congressional District, which used to reliably give Democrats 60 percent or more of the vote in general elections, is only leaning Democrat by 4 percent, according to a 2021 analysis by the Cook Political Report.
But that was before the tough year Democrats have had under President Joe Biden.
Inflation, a struggling economy and a Democrat Party that seems out of touch with voters has the GOP poised for some upsets, according to the latest AP polls, which show Biden under a 40 percent approval rating nationwide.
Most alarming for liberals is the sagging approval rating Biden has been given by Democrats.
After enjoying a positive bounce subsequent to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Biden’s approval rating has plunged nearly ten points among Democrats, according to the AP poll, to a lowest-ever for his presidency, at 73 percent.
It’s an ominous sign for Democrats in competitive House districts, such as Indiana’s 1st, “with deepening pessimism emerging among members of his own Democratic Party,” said the AP.
And that gives Green a legitimate shot to be the only black woman to represent the GOP in the House next year, and wrestle one of two congressional districts out of seven away from the Democrats in Indiana.
This is especially true when one reckons that Indiana, as a whole, is one of the more reliable partisan Republican states in the country, according to FiveThirtyEight.
Incumbent Democrat Frank Mrvan has all but tied his fate to that of Biden’s after waiting around to shake the president’s hand at the conclusion of the State of the Union speech this year.
It wasn’t just a photo-op for Mrvan either. He stopped to thank Biden for signing a massive spending bill that critics say may have helped lead to the worst inflation in 40 years.
“I’m Frank Mrvan, I represent Gary, Indiana, I’m co-chair of the Steel Caucus, and I want to thank you for the infrastructure bill for our district and also for the steel industry, and what that will do for Northwest Indiana’s economy,” Mrvan told Biden, according to Mrvan’s campaign Facebook site.
Jennifer-Ruth Green served in the Air Force and is currently a reservist. (Courtesy of Green’s campaign)
Green: ‘Mrvan Owns Biden’s Failures’
Green countered by telling The Epoch Times that Mrvan voted with “Biden and Pelosi” 100 percent of the time.
“Frank Mrvan owns all of Biden’s failures from inflation to gas prices to food prices to the baby formula shortage to surging crime, border chaos and woke attacks on Hoosier families,” Green told The Epoch Times, while emphasizing that she’s pro-America and pro-military.
Despite coming from the same congressional district where Biden’s Secretary of Transportation, progressive Pete Buttigieg, was mayor, Green refused to be labeled the ‘anti-Buttigieg’ candidate, pushing back against contrasting her conservative credentials to former Mayor Buttigieg’s progressive stances.
“I’m pro-America, pro-family, pro-national defense. I’m not anti-anybody. I wish that Biden was pro-economy,” Green said.
When asked if the racial diversity training pushed in the U.S. military under Biden had affected the readiness of the armed services, Green, a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, who still serves as a reservist, was direct.
Green said that, of course, historically there have been some real injustices racially and that some of the discrimination issues “are worth fighting for.”
“But there’s been an overreach,” on this subject by the Biden administration that “could impact our readiness.”
A Serious Campaign
Green served as a mission commander for counterintelligence activities in Baghdad and later as a deputy chief for a nuclear command post, according to her campaign biography.
But she’s not running on her military laurels, but as an unapologetic conservative backed up by political savvy.
“She has one of the best political operatives in the state working for her, so the campaign is very serious,” Wren, the political analyst, said.
Wren is referring to Tim Edison at FP1 Strategies who helped Josh Hawley win his Senate race in Missouri in 2018, and who, according to The New York Times, is promoting a more diverse GOP, one that seeks to make black men and black women more welcome.
Green emphasized that seeing more people like themselves in positions of leadership means that more black people will vote for the GOP and more black people will run for office as conservatives.
She said that meeting one of the Tuskegee airmen—a famed group of African American pilots and support staff who fought in WWII—for example, gave her the courage to become a pilot for the Air Force.
Mrvan won the district in 2020 with 57 percent of the vote. But more Democrats showed up in the 2022 primary than did Republicans, which could be problematic.
Still, if given the funding and whole-hearted party support in one of the legitimate places that the GOP is competitive, Green has a chance to take a House seat from the Democrats.
And that victory could bring Republicans a black woman and veteran to the House, willing to battle for the constituencies that the GOP claims are the key to the party’s future.
The Epoch Times has reached out to the White House and Mvran’s office for comment.
The Biden administration is illegally withholding information about its bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan, including information that could show senior U.S. officials knew prior to the withdrawal that the Taliban would quickly rise to power and trap scores of Americans, according to a nonpartisan advocacy group focused on U.S. national security issues.
The Center to Advance Security in America (CASA) is petitioning a district court in Washington, D.C., to force the State Department to release communications records related to the 2021 Afghanistan evacuation. This would include information “related [to the] vetting of Afghan refugees, and the number of U.S. citizens and lawful residents that were or were not evacuated from Afghanistan,” according to a copy of the lawsuit obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
The Biden administration has yet to provide the American public with a full accounting of those who were left behind in Afghanistan once the Taliban took over and American troops left the country, including the exact number of U.S. citizens and Afghans who aided the American government during the 20-year war. U.S. officials also have evaded congressional investigations into the matter and misled lawmakers for months about the number of Americans trapped in the country once the Taliban cut off access to airports. The Biden administration has thus far rebuffed congressional efforts and those from outside groups to determine how it is vetting scores of Afghan refugees that have been brought into the United States since the withdrawal, including how these individuals are being screened for terrorism ties.
CASA, which attempted to obtain these documents through Freedom of Information Act requests filed in January 2022, argues that “without litigation, [the State Department] will not produce the requested documents,” which are likely to shed light on the chaos that played out behind closed doors within the administration as the evacuation effort spiraled out of control. The State Department “wrongfully withheld agency records requested by CASA by failing to comply with the statutory time limits for making a determination on these FOIA requests, and by withholding from disclosure records responsive to CASA’s FOIA requests to DOS,” the group maintains.
The group wants the State Department to turn over all of the requested documents and stop stonewalling CASA’s FOIA requests, which have sat in administrative limbo for months. In addition to information about vetting and those trapped in Afghanistan, CASA wants the State Department to provide it with internal communications that could detail the administration’s efforts to downplay security concerns.
“The criminal and terrorist networks in Afghanistan are real and they are extensive,” CASA said in a statement about its lawsuit. “Americans have a right to know the people being brought to our country are not tied to them. Yet the U.S. government continues to hide the records surrounding the vetting process of refugees from the country who were admitted to the United States. Nor is State willing to reveal the real number of Americans left behind or if legitimate warnings were brushed aside.”
During and after the evacuation, Biden administration officials claimed for months that the number of Americans stranded behind enemy lines in the country was around 100. Lawmakers from both parties, however, disputed that number and disclosed that they were in contact with thousands who had trouble getting help from the State Department. To this day, it is unclear how many Americans were left behind and if any remain trapped in the country. Nonprofit organizations say at least 78,000 Afghans who worked with the United States were left behind.
The evacuation, CASA argues in the suit, was “conducted in a country controlled by a hostile government previously overthrown by U.S. forces, [and] was marked by chaos and ambiguity regarding who was, and who was not, being evacuated. That ambiguity extended to, for example, how many [U.S.-aligned Afghans]—at risk due to their support of the U.S.— were evacuated; furthermore, it was unclear whether the U.S. was vetting Afghan evacuees to ensure that they did not pose a national security, or other, risk to the U.S.”
Internal communications between the State Department and other agencies are likely to corroborate reports that the Biden administration ordered evacuation flights to be packed with unvetted Afghans.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.), disclosed in October 2021 that an internal Biden administration directive ordered officials to overfill flights. “Total inflow to the U.S. must exceed the number of seats available. Err on the side of excess,” an Aug. 16 email stated. “This guidance provides clear discretion and direction to fill seats and to provide special consideration for women and children when we have seats.”
CASA argues in the suit that the State Department has “wrongfully withheld agency records” related to its screening process and failed “to comply with the statutory time limits” for providing the requested documents.
“Americans witnessed the mismanagement and chaos of the withdrawal from Afghanistan,” CASA director Adam Turner said in a statement on the suit. “Yet the State Department is unwilling to reveal what happened around this humiliating episode—were warnings of Afghanistan’s rapid collapse ignored, how many Americans and others we had committed to evacuate were left behind, were those admitted to the United States properly vetted? Americans deserve the answers to these and other questions. State’s lack of transparency is gravely concerning.”
Both U.S. congressional chambers in May passeda bill allocating $40 billion for Ukraine.
See how each member voted below.
Senate (86-11)
Senators who voted for the bill:
Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash) Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) Sen. Jon Ossoff (R-Ga.) Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho) Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.)
Senators who voted against the bill:
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.) Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.)
Senators who did not vote:
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.)
House (368-57)
Members who voted for the bill:
Rep. Alma Adams (D-N.C.) Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.) Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) Rep. Rick Allen (R-Ga.) Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas) Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.) Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.) Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.) Rep. Cynthia Axne (D-Iowa) Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) Rep. Jim Baird (R-Ind.) Rep. Troy Balderson (R-Ohio) Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) Rep. Nanette Diaz Barragán (D-Calif.) Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) Rep. Cliff Bentz (R-Ore.) Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.) Rep. Donald Beyer (D-Va.) Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.) Rep. Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.) Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.) Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) Rep. Mike Bost (R-Ill.) Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux (D-Ga.) Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) Rep. Anthony Brown (D-Md.) Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Ohio) Rep. Julia Brownley (D-Calif.) Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) Rep. Larry Bucshon (R-Ind.) Rep. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.) Rep. George Butterfield (D-N.C.) Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Calif.) Rep. Tony Cárdenas (D-Calif.) Rep. Mike Carey (R-Ohio) Rep. Jerry Carl (R-Ala.) Rep. Andrew Carson (D-Ind.) Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) Rep. Troy Carter (D-La.) Rep. John Carter (R-Texas) Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.) Rep. Ed Case (D-Hawaii) Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.) Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-Fla.) Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) Rep. Ben Cline (R-Va.) Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-Va.) Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) Rep. Lou Correa (D-Calif.) Rep. Jim Costa (D-Calif.) Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.) Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Ark.) Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) Rep. Charlie Crist (D-Fla.) Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah) Rep. Sharice Davids (D-Kan.) Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.) Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.) Rep. Antonio Delgado (D-N.Y.) Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.) Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (D-Calif.) Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-Fla.) Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) Rep. Michael Doyle (D-Pa.) Rep. Neal Dunn (R-Fla.) Rep. Jake Ellzey (R-Texas) Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) Rep. Dwight Evans (D-Pa.) Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas) Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-Iowa) Rep. Drew Ferguson (R-Ga.) Rep. Michelle Fischbach (R-Minn.) Rep. Scott Fitzgerald (R-Wis.) Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) Rep. Lizzie Fletcher (D-Texas) Rep. Bill Foster (D-Ill.) Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) Rep. Lois Frankel (D-Fla.) Rep. Scott Franklin (R-Fla.) Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.) Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Calif.) Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas) Rep. Jesus Garcia (D-Ill.) Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.) Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (R-Ohio) Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas) Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas) Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas) Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.) Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.) Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) Rep. Michael Guest (R-Miss.) Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) Rep. Josh Harder (D-Calif.) Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-Calif.) Rep. Jamie Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.) Rep. Brian Higgins (D-N.Y.) Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.) Rep. James Himes (D-Conn.) Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa) Rep. Trey Hollingsworth (R-Ind.) Rep. Steve Horsford (D-Nev.) Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.) Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.) Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) Rep. Chris Jacobs (R-N.Y.) Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) Rep. Eddie Johnson (D-Texas) Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio) Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.) Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio) Rep. John Joyce (R-Pa.) Rep. Kaiali’i Kahele (D-Hawaii) Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.) Rep. William Keating (D-Mass.) Rep. Fred Keller (R-Pa.) Rep. Robin Kelly (D-Ill.) Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) Rep. Trent Kelly (R-Miss.) Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) Rep. Daniel Kildee (D-Mich.) Rep. Derek Kilmer (D-Wash.) Rep. Young Kim (R-Calif.) Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.) Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick (D-Ariz.) Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) Rep. Ann Kuster (D-N.J.) Rep. David Kustoff (R-Tenn.) Rep. Darin LaHood (R-Ill.) Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Calif.) Rep. Conor Lamb (D-Pa.) Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) Rep. Jim Langevin (D-R.I.) Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Wash.) Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) Rep. Robert Latta (R-Ohio) Rep. Jacob LaTurner (R-Kan.) Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-Mich.) Rep. Al Lawson (D-Fla.) Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) Rep. Susie Lee (D-Nev.) Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-N.M.) Rep. Julia Letlow (R-La.) Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.) Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga) Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.) Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.) Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.) Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.) Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) Rep. Sean Maloney (D-N.Y.) Rep. Kathy Manning (D-N.C.) Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Calif.) Rep. Lucy McBath (D-Ga.) Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) Rep. Riordan McClain (R-Ohio) Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) Rep. Donald McEachin (D-Va.) Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.) Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) Rep. Peter Meijer (R-Mich.) Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.) Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.) Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-Md.) Rep. Carol Miller (R-W.Va.) Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) Rep. Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.) Rep. Blake Moore (R-Utah) Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) Rep. Joseph Morelle (D-N.Y.) Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) Rep. Frank Mrvan (D-Ind.) Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.) Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.) Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) Rep. Grace Napolitano (D-Calif.) Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.) Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.) Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) Rep. Marie Newman (D-Ill.) Rep. Donald Norcross (D-N.J.) Rep. Tom O’Halleran (D-Ariz.) Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.) Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah) Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-Miss.) Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.) Rep. Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.) Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) Rep. Donald Payne (D-N.J.) Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) Rep. Greg Pence (R-Ind.) Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.) Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas) Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) Rep. Bill Posey (R-Fla.) Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) Rep. David Price (D-N.C.) Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pa.) Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.) Rep. Tom Rice (R-S.C.) Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) Rep. Deborah Ross (D-Calif.) Rep. David Rouzer (R-N.C.) Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.) Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.) Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.) Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) Rep. John Rutherford (R-Fla.) Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.) Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.) Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) Rep. Mary Scanlon (D-Pa.) Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) Rep. Adam Schiff (D-N.Y.) Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.) Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.) Rep. Kim Schrier (D-Wash.) Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.) Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.) Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.) Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.) Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) Rep. Albio Sires (D-N.J.) Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.) Rep. Adrian Smith (R-Neb.) Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R-Pa.) Rep. Darren Soto (D-Fla.) Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) Rep. Greg Stanton (D-Ariz.) Rep. Pete Stauber (R-Minn.) Rep. Michelle Steel (R-Calif.) Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) Rep. Thomas Suozzi (D-N.Y.) Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) Rep. Van Taylor (R-Texas) Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.) Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-Pa.) Rep. William Timmons (R-S.C.) Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) Rep. Norma Torres (D-Calif.) Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.) Rep. David Trone (D-Md.) Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio) Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.) Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) Rep. David Valadao (R-Calif.) Rep. Juan Vargas (D-Calif.) Rep. Marc Veasey (D-Texas) Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-N.Y.) Rep. Ann Wagner (R-Mo.) Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.) Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.) Rep. Randy Weber (R-Texas) Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.) Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-Va.) Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.) Rep. Nikema Williams (D-Ga.) Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.) Rep. Robert Wittman (R-Va.) Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.)
Members who voted against the bill:
Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas) Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.) Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas) Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.) Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) Rep. Ron Estes (R-Kan.) Rep. Russ Fulcher (R-Idaho) Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) Rep. Bob Gibbs (R-Ohio) Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.) Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-Tenn.) Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.) Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) Rep. Yvette Herrell (R-N.M.) Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.) Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.) Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.) Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.) Rep. Tracey Mann (R-Kan.) Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.) Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.) Rep. Barry Moore (R-Ala.) Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) Rep. John Rose (R-Tenn.) Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.) Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.) Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R-Texas) Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) Rep. Roger Williams (R-Texas)
Members who didn’t vote:
Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.) Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.) Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) Rep. Marilyn Strickland (D-Wash.) Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.)
Policy change makes it difficult for military spouses to maintain federal employment
The State Department is making it more difficult for federal employees who travel overseas with their military spouses to keep their jobs.
Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R., Tenn.) and Maggie Hassan (D., N.H.) say a recent change to the State Department’s employment policies make it difficult—if not impossible—for federal workers who accompany their military spouse overseas to maintain their jobs while abroad. The change also affects the federally employed spouses of government workers assigned to overseas posts.
Blackburn and Hassan are investigating the State Department over the policy shift, which was issued in a little-noticed change to the agency’s employment guidelines. It is unclear why the State Department tightened restrictions on those trying to work overseas, particularly in light of the coronavirus pandemic, which massively affected the State Department’s workforce.
The lawmakers allege the Biden administration is essentially denying “all telework requests for federal employees assigned to or near military installations.” They wrote to Secretary of State Antony Blinken requesting the State Department provide a host of documents related to the policy change.
“These recent changes to the policy guidance have had a negative impact on federally employed spouses who are accompanying their spouse on government assignment or military orders overseas,” the lawmakers wrote, saying that they are in touch with government workers who have been told their work-abroad agreements are “at risk of being revoked” due to the policy change. Others, they say, have been placed on extended leave with pay pending a review of their requests, while still others “have been denied approval entirely” despite having an approved telework agreement.
The shift in policy comes at a delicate time for federal workers as coronavirus restrictions wane and employees return to their offices. The federal government faces employee shortages and other complications as a result of the COVID vaccine mandate, to which an unknown number of federal employees have objected. Those who are unvaccinated have been barred from their offices in some cases and forced to take leaves of absence.
The Domestic Employees Teleworking Overseas program (DETO), which has historically accommodated those who must travel overseas and want to maintain their job, is particularly important for the federally employed spouses of American military members. Preventing these individuals from continuing their work overseas is expected to impact recruiting and retention for the U.S. military, which also is facing staffing issues due to the COVID vaccine mandate. Around 40,000 active service members in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines face expulsion for challenging the vaccine mandate, though the official number is unknown, according to estimates by congressional investigators.
Though teleworking agreements are rare in the federal government due to the associated costs, Blackburn and Hassan want to know why the program has been scaled down.
“As continued affects [sic] from COVID-19 remain ongoing, has the Department of State looked into potentially raising any numerical caps to allow federally employed trailing spouses, including military spouses, to continue to use, and expand the use, of DETO agreements?” they ask Blinken in their letter.
They also want to know what prompted the policy change. The lawmakers asked for information on how many federal employees are currently on leave or leave without pay due to a pending telework agreement request. This also includes the number of applications that have been outright denied.
A Utah garbage collector who once served in the U.S. Marine Corps was caught on camera rescuing an American flag from the trash, to fold it and treat it with the honor it deserves.
Mom of two Brooke Cowley, 35, didn’t know Huntington sanitation worker Don Gardner before witnessing his patriotic act. But thinking the sight was a “good teaching moment” for her family, she soon got to know him.
“It was April 19,” Brooke told The Epoch Times. “The night or the weekend before that we had a severe windstorm. It actually destroyed our shed on the side of our house, and it spilled some of our garbage, and that’s when it broke our flag.”
She added, “I was cleaning up our yard and trying to pick up all of the debris, and I picked up the flag and the pole, wasn’t thinking, and threw it in the trash.”
After coming home from school, Brooke’s children began their homework at the dinner table; Don’s activity on the street outside their house piqued their interest.
“They asked what the garbage man was doing,” said Brooke. “I looked out the window and he had gotten out of his garbage truck, he was taking our flag off of the flagpole, and then he started to fold it.
“It took him over 10 minutes to fold that flag. He did something that he didn’t have to do, and he did it when [he thought] nobody else was watching.”
(Left) Don Gardner folds an American flag along his route in Emery County; (Right) Brooke with her husband and children. (Courtesy of Brooke Cowley)
Brooke’s shock and embarrassment turned to admiration when she realized what Don was doing. The former Marine, who’s collected trash in Emery County for 11 years, was retiring the flag in honorable fashion. Tossing the flag was a mistake, she admits, so she filmed his dutiful act to share on social media as a lesson for others.
“It was an accident that I threw it in the trash, because my husband is a veteran; he actually has spoken at flag retirement ceremonies, so I know how to properly retire the flag,” Brooke said. “I just was not thinking in that moment when I was cleaning everything up.”
Touched, Brooke’s kids wanted to repay the patriotic garbage man. Online, they ordered him a “challenge coin” — a popular collectors’ item among veterans.
Don Gardner’s patriotic act caught on camera outside Brooke’s house. (Courtesy of Brooke Cowley)
“Military people collect these if they go over to different countries or different troops,” Brooke explained. “The coin we got him, on one side it says, ‘Thank you for your service,’ and on the other side it says, ‘Your country salutes you.’”
Brooke’s kids presented him the coin and a handwritten thank-you card. They also apologized for their honest mistake. Don understood.
“He did say he knew it was a mistake for us, but he said a lot of people don’t make that mistake, they just throw it away and trash the flag and it makes him really mad,” Brooke said.
Don told Fox News, “I took an oath once to defend this country and our flag, and I still do.”
The challenge coin given to Don by the Cowleys. (Courtesy of Brooke Cowley)
He has volunteered to retire any discarded flags on his route, and advises others: old flags can be properly burned, buried, or recycled by the American Legion or Boy and Girl Scout groups in flag retirement ceremonies.
Since sharing her run-in with her dutiful sanitation worker on Facebook, Brooke was contacted by both veterans and patriots who acknowledged her admitting her mistake. Don also got the recognition he deserves.
“A lot of people, especially military members, have reached out,” Brooke said. “It’s been really nice to see how he’s touched a lot of lives because of what he’s done.
“He did it just out of respect for our flag; what he’s done for our nation, he should be respected for that … it really touched our family.”
The Senate on May 16 decided in a bipartisan vote to advance a $40 billion military aid package to Ukraine, invoking cloture on debate over the objections of Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).
The 80–11 vote included the support of vast swaths of both parties; 11 Republicans voted against invoking cloture. The bill will now await a final vote in the Senate, which may come as early as May 18.
In comments on the Senate floor, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) decried Paul’s effort last week to block the legislation.
“Senator Paul’s obstruction of Ukraine funding is unacceptable, and only serves to strengthen Putin’s hand in the long run,” Schumer said.
“I would urge the senator from Kentucky to reconsider his objection,” Senate president pro tempore Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said later.
The bill, the latest in a series of billion-dollar aid packages to the European nation, was blocked by Paul on May 11, even though House and Senate leaders were unanimous in their agreement to proceed with passing the package.
Paul refused to advance the bill until changes were made to the legislation that would ensure an inspector general could monitor exactly how the billions of dollars were being spent. Ultimately, the Senate invoked cloture without making any changes to the final draft of the bill.
“My oath of office is to the U.S. Constitution, not to any foreign nation, and no matter how sympathetic the cause, my oath of office is to the national security of the United States of America,” Paul said on the Senate floor on May 12.
“We cannot save Ukraine by dooming the U.S. economy. … Gasoline alone is up 48 percent, and energy prices are up 32 percent over the last year. Food prices have increased by nearly 9 percent. Used vehicle prices are up 35 percent for the year, and new vehicle prices have increased 12 percent or more,” he continued.
Paul noted that inflation “doesn’t just come out of nowhere” while pointing to deficit spending, noting that the United States spent almost $5 trillion on “COVID-19 bailouts” which have led to sky-high inflation.
“Americans are feeling the pain, and Congress seems intent only on adding to that pain by shoveling more money out the door as fast as they can,” Paul said.
Following Paul’s successful effort to temporarily halt the bill, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) promised Ukrainian leaders during a weekend visit to Kyiv that the bill would still pass with the support of an “overwhelming majority of Republicans in Congress.”
Paul’s lone objection to the bill in the Senate was only the latest in a series of complications that have stalled its progress.
President Joe Biden originally requested a much smaller aid package on April 28.
Biden’s request included $20.4 billion in military assistance along with $8.5 billion in economic assistance. The package also included $3 billion in humanitarian assistance to address food shortages around the globe. Ultimately, the bill would have cost American taxpayers about $33 billion.
“The cost of this fight is not cheap, but caving to aggression is going to be more costly if we allow it to happen,” Biden said during a live address on April 28. “We either back the Ukrainian people as they defend their country, or we stand by as the Russians continue their atrocities and aggression in Ukraine.”
Later, lawmakers added about $3.4 billion to the humanitarian and military aid components of the bill, but the legislation quickly got bogged down in partisan disputes.
Some Democrats hoped for the addition of about $10 billion in domestic COVID relief funding, which was opposed by Republicans, who cited billions of dollars of previously-allocated relief funds that had not been used.
On the other side, some Republicans pushed for an amendment to overturn Biden’s plan to end Title 42, a Trump-era COVID emergency policy allowing Border Patrol agents to turn back many of the illegal immigrants apprehended at the border.
Still, after a period of stalling, the $40 billion taxpayer-funded relief bill is expected to head to Biden’s desk by the end of the week.
The Palestinian Authority allocates hundreds of millions of dollars to terrorists and their families even as the Biden administration pumps U.S. taxpayer funds into the Palestinian government, according to a non-public State Department report issued to Congress and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
The report, published on May 10, details how the Palestinian government runs afoul of a U.S. law that bars it from receiving American aid dollars until these terror payments, known as the “pay-to-slay program,” are stopped. The PA in 2019, the most recent reporting period available, allocated over $150 million to convicted terrorists. Another $191 million was paid to the families of terrorists who were “martyred” while conducting attacks against Israelis and Americans. There is no sign these payments will end, with Palestinian leaders voicing support on the international stage for the program.
“The PA has not terminated payments for acts of terrorism against Israeli and U.S. citizens to any individual, after being fairly tried, who has been imprisoned for such acts of terrorism and to any individual who died committing such acts of terrorism, including to a family member of such individuals,” the State Department concluded. The PA makes these payments in cash as part of an effort to obfuscate its actions and stop the international community from holding it accountable for awarding terrorists and their families, according to the State Department’s findings.
The report comes as the Biden administration pushes to increase U.S. aid dollars to the PA, which were terminated during the Trump administration as a result of the “pay-to-slay” program. More than $360 million in U.S. funding was given to the PA in 2021, potentially in violation of a bipartisan law known as the Taylor Force Act, which prohibits the American government from giving the Palestinians aid as long as they pay terrorists. The Biden administration maintains that the aid programs do not violate the law, though it is unclear what safeguards have been put on the funding to ensure it is not used to pay terrorists and their families. The State Department confirmed that no “economic support funds” were withheld as a result of restrictions in the Taylor Force Act.
“The Biden administration is strongly opposed to the prisoner payment system and has consistently engaged the Palestinian Authority to end this practice,” a State Department spokesman told the Free Beacon. The U.S. Agency for International Development’s “assistance in the West Bank and Gaza is implemented consistent with U.S. law.”
Republicans in Congress disagree with this assessment. Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), for example, says the Biden administration cannot guarantee that the PA is not using U.S. funds as part of its terror financing program. Since the PA moved to a cash system, it is even harder to track which tranches of money are being used to fund “pay to slay.”
“The Biden administration is ideologically committed to elevating the Palestinian government and pouring money into Palestinian territories,” Cruz told the Free Beacon. “They’ve been doing this while they clearly knew that the same Palestinian government was inciting terrorism and using fungible money to reward terrorism against Israelis and Americans. It’s disgraceful and unacceptable.”
The PA “now makes the payments in cash and known recipients are unable to deposit the funds in bank accounts in the West Bank and Gaza” due to Israeli laws that bar financial institutions from supporting the program, according to the State Department’s findings.
Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas and prime minister Mohammed Shtayyeh endorse the “pay-to-slay” program and say they will not give in to the international community’s pressure to end it. Both officials “reaffirmed the PA’s commitment to continuing the payments for prisoners, including those convicted of acts of terrorism,” according to the report.
In March 2021, for instance, Shtayyeh “publicly pledged his commitment to continue financial allowances to Palestinian prisoners and ‘martyrs’ even if Israel continues to deduct these amounts from the PA’s tax revenues,” the report notes.
Abbas in a September speech before the United Nations pledged his support to terrorists and their families: “Why should we have to clarify and justify providing assistance to families of prisoners and ‘martyrs,’ who are the victims of the occupation and its oppressive policies? We cannot abandon our people and we will continue striving to free all our prisoners.”
The State Department also concluded that the Palestinian government still teaches violence to its children as part of official school curriculums. While portions of this agenda have been reformed, “some incitement to and glorification of violence or terrorism still exist in school textbooks.” Efforts to reform the PA do not include plans to reduce incitement against Israel.
The State Department told lawmakers in its latest report that the administration “at all levels … continues to privately engage the PA to end this abhorrent practice.”
Former First Lady Melania Trump gave her first interview since leaving the White House, providing a hint that her husband may be seeking another term in office and saying “it’s sad to see” the state of the country under the current administration.
“I think we achieved a lot in four years of the Trump administration,” Melania told Fox News in a Sunday interview, adding that “never say never” when asked about whether she could be again living inside the White House.
“I like Washington, D.C. I know it operates completely different than any other city, but I really like it there. And I enjoyed living in the White House. To be first lady of the United States was my greatest honor. I think we achieved a lot in the four years of Trump administration. I enjoyed taking care of the White House. It was my home for a while. I understood it is people’s house. And it was, it was a privilege to live there,” she continued to say.
When asked by Fox host Pete Hegseth about former first ladies Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton appearing on the cover of Vogue, Melania, a former model, criticized the magazine. Melania appeared on the cover of Vogue in 2005 when she was photographed alongside former President Donald Trump in her wedding dress.
“They’re biased and they have likes and dislikes, and it’s so obvious. And I think American people and everyone sees it. It was their decision, and I have much more important things to do—and I did in the White House—than being on the cover of Vogue,” Melania told the broadcaster.
The former first lady, a native of Slovenia, weighed in on the state of the United States under the Biden administration.
“I think it’s sad to see what’s going on, if you really look deeply into it,” Melania said, adding: “I think a lot of people are struggling and suffering and what is going on around the world as well. So it’s very sad to see and I hope it changes fast,” Melania added.
Donald Trump has not definitively said whether he will run for reelection, although he has suggested in interviews that he might.
Last month, Trump, 75, told the Washington Post that his health could play a role in whether he decides to run or not. In 2024, Trump will turn 78, and should he run—and win—the presidency, he’ll be 82 when he departs. President Joe Biden is slated to turn 80 this November.
“You always have to talk about health. You look like you’re in good health, but tomorrow, you get a letter from a doctor saying come see me again,” he told the outlet in April. ‘That’s not good when they use the word ‘again,’” Trump added, saying he is currently in good health.
A Russian lawmaker has issued a fiery warning that Warsaw is next in line for “de-nazification” after Poland’s Prime Minister penned an op-ed calling Russia’s imperialist “Russkiy Mir” ideology a “cancer” consuming Russian society and a “deadly threat” to other countries.
Oleg Morozov, chairman of Russia’s State Duma Committee on Control, wrote in a message on Telegram on Friday that the Polish leader’s comments have essentially made Poland a target.
In his remarks, Morozov resorted to the Kremlin’s rhetoric in its military operation in Ukraine of so-called “de-Nazification,” a label Moscow has used to vilify its geopolitical adversaries and justify the war.
“With its statements about Russia as a ‘cancer’ and about the ‘indemnity’ that we must pay to Ukraine, Poland encourages us to put it in first place in the queue for de-Nazification after Ukraine,” Morozov wrote, according to a translation of his statement.
Morozov’s remarks were prompted by statements made by Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Polish President Andrzej Duda, who have both been highly critical of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Duda has said Russia should be forced to pay compensation to Ukraine for war damages while Morawiecki said Russian President Vladimir Putin is “more dangerous” than both Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin because he has nuclear weapons and a massive propaganda machine at his disposal.
Morawiecki wrote in a column in the British newspaper The Telegraph that “the cursed phantoms of the 20th century have risen again over Ukraine,” alleging that Russia’s invasion of its neighbor bears the hallmarks of fascism, “has already opened the gates to genocide,” and is driven by a “monstrous new ideology” that he called “Russkiy Mir.”
Morawiecki alleged that in the name of this ideology, Putin and his military entourage have ordered Russian forces into war, “convinced them of their superiority, and encouraged them to commit inhuman war crimes—the murder, rape, and torture of innocent civilians.”
“Putin’s ‘Russkiy Mir’ ideology is the equivalent of 20th-century communism and Nazism,” Morawiecki wrote, calling it a “cancer which is consuming not only the majority of Russian society, but also poses a deadly threat to the whole of Europe.”
It’s not enough to help Ukraine fend off Russia’s attack, Morawiecki argued, “we must root out this monstrous new ideology entirely.”
“Just as Germany was once subject to denazification, today the only chance for Russia and the civilised world is ‘deputinisation.’ If we do not engage in this task immediately, we will not only lose Ukraine, we will lose our soul and our freedom and sovereignty,” the Polish leader wrote.
Morawiecki argued that, unless it is opposed, Russia will not stop at Kyiv but will continue on a “long march towards the West.”
The Kremlin has denied it has any intentions of invading other countries. Putin has claimed that what he describes as a “special military operation” in Ukraine comes in response to attempts by Western powers to establish a bulwark in Ukraine that threatens Moscow’s security.
In particular, Putin has long said that NATO is trying to expand its borders to pressure Russia militarily, claims the defensive alliance has rejected as unfounded.
Another of the Kremlin’s key justifications for its operation in Ukraine has been to allege that the Russian-speaking population in the separatist-controlled Donbass and Luhansk region were being subjected to repression and what Putin has described as “genocide.”
A long list of scholars and academics has denounced Russia’s claims of genocide and “de-Nazification” of Ukraine as a false pretext meant to justify “unprovoked aggression” against its southern neighbor.
Press Secretary Jen Psaki leaves the Biden White House today after more than a year overseeing a dishonest operation that helped a partisan and malleable press keep the American public in the dark.
Dishonesty was a calling card at Psaki’s briefings. As President Joe Biden hid from the press in an unprecedented fashion, Psaki asserted, “It’s just not accurate to suggest that he isn’t accessible or doesn’t answer questions.” And while pledging to fight “disinformation,” she used her bully pulpit to spoonfeed it to the national media.
She was dishonest as the Biden administration grappled with the pandemic. She pushed for masks in schools amid a growing consensus that it harmed children. She obfuscated the administration’s school reopening strategy, flip-flopping on how much in-person learning would constitute a “reopening.” In March, Psaki claimed “we don’t know” whether COVID is less dangerous to children, even though there has been plenty of evidence it is.
In recent days, Psaki suggested no one could have predicted inflation would soar to record highs, even as liberal economists warned Biden’s policies would create that exact problem. And she claimed the Biden administration had the situation at the southern border under control amid horrific reports of children trapped in facilities at 1600 percent capacity.
But the worst of her deceits came during the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal. Psaki served as the stonewaller-in-chief and shared blatantly dishonest assessments. She waved away criticisms from her own party, claiming the administration had the situation under control as American evacuees were trapped in enemy territory due to a lack of intel.
When journalists asked how many Americans the Biden administration left behind Taliban lines, Psaki leaned on her trademark condescension, dismissing as preposterous the idea that the administration could keep tabs on every American overseas.
Psaki treated Fox News’s Peter Doocy, one of the few White House reporters to challenge her, with hostility and contempt. She wrote off his legitimate questions, likened him to Russian and Chinese propagandists, and said he sounded like “a stupid son of a bitch.”
DOOCY: “Does the White House think 16 cents off a bbq has more of an impact on people’s lives than gas being a dollar more?@PressSec: “I would say if you don’t like hot dogs, you might not care about the reduction of cost.” pic.twitter.com/WYmxekL5FS
Psaki once argued anyone banned from one social media platform for spreading “misinformation” should be banned from all other platforms. Some would see this as a call for Big Tech censorship. But not the media, who fawned over and adored Psaki. Poynter, the media research group that runs PolitiFact, called her “one of the best press secretaries ever.” Our rating: pants on fire.
In her penultimate briefing, Psaki slammed as a “conspiracy theory” the Washington Free Beacon‘s report that the Biden administration was funding a $30 million harm-reduction program that will fund the distribution of free crack pipes in “safe-smoking kits.” With one quip, Psaki insulted a journalist and dismissed deeply sourced reporting that exposed inconvenient facts.
In that respect, her outburst serves as a perfect capstone to her tenure—one that was condescending and dishonest, hostile to the truth and those seeking it.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Thursday delayed the Senate’s vote to pass a nearly $40 billion aid package for Ukraine that would provide the nation with further military and economic assistance amid its ongoing conflict with Russia.
While leaders were unanimous in their agreement to proceed with passing the package this week, Paul refused to do so until changes are made to the legislation that will ensure an inspector general can monitor exactly how the billions of dollars are being spent.
The legislation has been approved by the House and has strong bipartisan support in the Senate, and is still likely to pass.
However, Paul’s objection signified a departure from the overwhelmingly supportive stance that Congress and the Biden administration have so far shown for Ukraine as Russian President Vladimir Putin continues with his “special military operation.”
The GOP senator, a libertarian who often opposes U.S. intervention abroad, argued that the extra spending outweighed that which the United States currently spends on multiple domestic programs, and raised concerns over how it could potentially further exacerbate federal deficits and inflation in the country, which currently stands at a 40-year-high.
“My oath of office is to the U.S. Constitution, not to any foreign nation, and no matter how sympathetic the cause, my oath of office is to the national security of the United States of America,” Paul said on the floor on Thursday.
“We cannot save Ukraine by dooming the U.S. economy … gasoline alone is up 48 percent, and energy prices are up 32 percent over the last year. Food prices have increased by nearly 9 percent. Used vehicle prices are up 35 percent for the year, and new vehicle prices have increased 12 percent or more,” he continued.
Paul noted that inflation “doesn’t just come out of nowhere” while pointing to deficit spending, noting that the United States spent almost $5 trillion on “COVID-19 bailouts” which have led to sky-high levels of inflation.
“Americans are feeling the pain, and Congress seems intent only on adding to that pain by shoveling more money out the door as fast as they can,” the Republican said.
The approximately $39.8 billion package for Ukraine includes $6 billion for security assistance to its military and national security forces and $8.7 billion to replenish stocks of U.S. equipment sent to the country.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meets U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi during a visit by a U.S. congressional delegation in Kyiv, Ukraine, on April 30, 2022. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office/Handout via Getty Images)President Joe Biden signs the Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022 in the Oval Office of the White House, on May 9, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
It also contains $3.9 billion for European Command operations and would also authorize an additional $11 billion in Presidential Drawdown Authority, which would allow Biden to authorize the transfer of articles and services from U.S. stocks without congressional approval in response to an emergency. Biden had asked for $5 billion.
Another $4 billion would go to Foreign Military Financing, providing Ukraine and other countries with additional support to build and update their capabilities.
If approved, it would bring U.S. support for Ukraine since Russia invaded to nearly $54 billion, on top of the $13.6 billion in support that Congress passed in March.
Paul noted that the United States has provided more than $6 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since 2014, and said that if the latest amount is passed, it would see total aid equaling the entire military budget of Russia.
“And it is not as if we have that money lying around. We will have to borrow that money from China to send it to Ukraine,” he said. “The cost of this package we are voting on today is more than the U.S. spent during the first year of the U.S. conflict in Afghanistan.”
The senator also noted that the billions of dollars in funding towers in comparison to what the United States spends on cancer research annually—$6 billion—and is more than the government collects in gas taxes each year to build roads and bridges. It nearly equals the entire State Department budget, he said, and exceeds the budget for the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Energy.
Specifically, Paul asked that a special inspector general be created to oversee how the military aid to Ukraine is spent.
But Democrats objected to Paul’s plan because it would expand the powers of an existing inspector general whose current purview is limited to Afghanistan.
“Congress should evaluate the cost of going down this path,” the senator said, adding that, “the biggest threat to the United States today is debt and inflation and the destruction of the dollar” and that “we cannot save Ukraine by killing our economic strength.
“So I act to modify the bill to allow for a special inspector general. This would be the inspector general that’s been overseeing the waste in Afghanistan and has done a great job.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and other Democrats opposed Paul’s push to change the language and instead offered to have a vote on it, but that offer was rejected.
That means lawmakers will now vote on the passage of the measure again next week in hopes of advancing it.
“It’s clear from the junior senator from Kentucky’s remarks, he doesn’t want to aid Ukraine,” said Schumer on Thursday. “All he will accomplish with his actions here today is to delay that aid, not to stop it.”
The Epoch Times has contacted Paul’s office for comment.
The Army officer who was found guilty of disobeying COVID-19 rules says he tried to communicate concerns regarding COVID-19 vaccines but was instead court-martialed.
“I will always take responsibility for my words and actions,” First Lt. Mark Bashaw, formerly the commander of the Army Public Health Center at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, told The Epoch Times in an email.
“I have a Duty and an Oath. I take those very serious[ly]. I also have core values in the Army which I also try to emulate: Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, and Personal Courage,” he added.
Bashaw was convicted for not working remotely and reporting to his office without presenting a negative COVID-19 test, in addition to not wearing a mask indoors as required.
Following the conviction, Judge Robert Cohen, who was overseeing the case, declined to hand down a punishment.
Bashaw says he tried to raise concerns regarding COVID-19 vaccines and tests, as well as masks.
A whistleblower declaration dated March 3 that he submitted to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who has investigated COVID-19 products, says that Bashaw, as part of his duties as a preventive medicine officer, began researching the products.
He became concerned after reviewing reports submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), which shows some vaccine recipients have experienced side effects.
U.S. health authorities say the vaccines are safe and effective, though they have acknowledged serious side effects.
Bashaw later reviewed data from the military’s Defense Medical Epidemiological Database (DMED), which indicated that disease rates among service members spiked following the imposition of the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
The military has said the data in the system was “incorrect” and that it is fixing it.
Underpinning the concerns is how the vaccines and treatments were available under emergency use authorization (EUA), which has a lower bar for clearance than approval. Some of the items have since been approved, though not all approved versions are available.
Bashaw says he raised his concerns with the Army Public Health Center, asking authorities to update certain documents, including one about communicating vaccination risks.
“I did my best to communicate this to leadership in an attempt to change the risk communication to service members. Instead, I was ignored and got court-martialed for not participating with said experimental EUA products,” Bashaw told The Epoch Times. “The echo chamber of ‘safe and effective’ doesn’t align with the VAERS data, DMED Data, and now the FDA released documents relating to these experimental ‘vaccines.’”
Bashaw’s lawyer, David Willson, tried convincing Cohen, the judge, that the orders Bashaw was court-martialed for disobeying weren’t lawful because of the law governing EUA.
“The judge ruled that they were, and we obviously disagree. The primary issue was whether ‘Informed Consent’ which includes the ‘right to refuse’ is automatic when a product, mask, test, or vaccine, is declared an EUA. We argued, and believe soundly, that informed consent is a natural part of the law. No one argued the products, like masks and tests were not EUA, but the govt argued that informed consent did not apply,” Willson told The Epoch Times in an email.
“The judge said he agreed with the govt argument, but from our perspective and reading of the law, it was a misreading of the law based on the word ‘may.’ ‘May’ in a law means there is discretionary authority while ‘shall’ means there is no discretion allowed. 21 USC 360bbb-3, the EUA law, clearly says that informed consent and the right to refuse ‘shall’ be given as required conditions of EUA. The judge misinterpreted these requirements as discretionary. The judge believes his ruling will be upheld but we believe it was a stretch to make that finding.”
Bashaw may appeal his ruling, but has not decided yet. He is waiting for the commanding general to approve the findings in the case.
An Aberdeen spokesperson has not responded to requests for comment.
The future of Bashaw’s service is uncertain. He remains in his position, but submitted a request for a religious exemption to the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Many such requests are denied, as are appeals of the denials.
“[I’m] assuming they’ll deny it and then I’ll cross that bridge,” Bashaw said.
As the U.S. government diverts military equipment and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, the famine in Afghanistan has become so dire that some people are engaging in organ harvesting and human trafficking to survive, according to the latest quarterly report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR).
The number of people in need of humanitarian assistance increased to 24.4 million this year from 18.4 million a year ago, the April 30 SIGAR report stated.
The United Nations declared a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan last December. The SIGAR report concurred, adding that the crisis is worsening.
“NGOs have reported some families resorting to selling kidneys or other organs, and even selling their children to survive,” SIGAR said. “Media reports indicate that organ sales have become particularly widespread in Afghanistan, with the price of a human kidney dropping by over half due to high supply since the Taliban seized power.”
The SIGAR report attributed some of the increase in starvation to a historically severe drought.
“The onset of spring traditionally brings relief from food shortages; however, with Afghanistan in the grips of the worst drought in three decades, below-average winter precipitation means the spring harvest is unlikely to improve food security for vulnerable families,” the report said.
SIGAR also partly attributed the war in Ukraine to the worsening crisis in Afghanistan.
“The spillover effects of the war in Ukraine threaten to worsen the crisis in Afghanistan, as food and fuel prices surge and supply chains falter,” the report said. “These disruptions drove a 9-percent increase in the price of fuel in the second week of March alone.”
Additionally, the report said that some humanitarian assistance is being sent to Ukraine instead of Afghanistan.
SIGAR noted that the United Nations requested international donors representing 41 countries to contribute $4.4 billion to Afghanistan, but the U.N. received only $2.44 billion—which included a $204 million pledge from the United States.
“While it is not unusual for donor pledges to fall short of humanitarian appeals, Western officials noted that donor interest at this conference may have been diverted by the war in Ukraine and dampened by distaste for the Taliban’s increasing repression,” the report said.
SIGAR further reported that the Pentagon is taking military equipment initially intended for Afghanistan and rerouting it to Ukraine.
The report said the Department of Defense (DOD) exercised its “dispositional authority” last December to reappropriate equipment that had belonged to the now-defunct Afghan security force, which collapsed last August as the U.S. military withdrew from the country.
In January, the Pentagon developed plans to transfer five former Afghan Mi-17 helicopters that had been undergoing maintenance in Ukraine to the Ukrainian government, the SIGAR report said. Ukraine’s government accepted the transfer in March, the report said.
Additionally, the report said the Biden administration promised last month to send Ukraine 11 additional helicopters originally intended for Afghanistan.
“DOD also transferred 16 million rounds of varied nonstandard munitions, originally procured for Afghanistan, to Ukraine,” the report said.
The United States is losing the race to remain on top as China and Russia develop hypersonic weapons, according to a top Space Force commander.
“We’re not as advanced as the Chinese or the Russians in terms of hypersonic programs,” Gen. David Thompson, vice chief of space operations, said Saturday during an appearance at the Halifax International Security Forum, according to Politico.
Noting that China recently had a successful hypersonic weapons test and Russia recently launched its version of a hypersonic missile, he said the United States has “catching up to do very quickly.”
Hypersonic vehicles travel at Mach 5, five times the speed of sound, or faster, but also have advanced maneuverability capability that allows them to dodge existing weapons systems and radar.
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall earlier this fall warned that China now had the “potential for global strikes … from space,” according to Air Force Magazine.
Current plans call for the U.S. to have an Army hypersonic missile in 2024 and a Navy one in 2025, according to Politico.
“It should be no surprise to anyone that China is developing capabilities that would be viewed negatively by like-minded allies and partners,” Navy Adm. John Aquilino told reporters at the Halifax forum.
The U.S. Space Force is working to “figure out the type of satellite constellation that we need” to track other countries’ missiles, Thompson said.
“It’s a new challenge, but it’s not that we don’t have an answer to this challenge. We just have to understand it, fully design it, and fly it,” he said.
While Thompson noted that there is no timeline for when those satellites will be operational, he said that’s a changing process and “we’re evolving our approach and our timelines rapidly.”
A senior US General has sounded the alarm on Beijing’s recent hypersonic missile test, warning that China might be able to launch a surprise nuclear attack on America one day. China’s hypersonic advancemennts already overshadow the US. @MollyGambhir tells you more pic.twitter.com/2Fz1hIpnkq
The U.S. Space Force, the country’s newest branch of the armed forces, was created in 2019 under then-President Donald Trump.
Thompson, who was confirmed in his current position by the Senate in September 2020 after being nominated by Trump a month earlier, said although China can push forward with new weapons, red tape hobbles the U.S.
Are rival countries’ hypersonic weapons programs a major threat to the United States?
“The bureaucracy that we’ve built into our defense and acquisition enterprise, not just in space but in other areas, has slowed us down in many areas,” Thompson said.
“The fact that we have not needed to move quickly for a couple of decades — in the sense of a strategic competitor with these capabilities — has not driven us or required us to move quickly.”
U.S. ‘not as advanced’ as China and Russia on hypersonic tech, Space Force general warns While the Pentagon has pushed the development of new hypersonic missiles, the Army isn’t slated to field its first missile until 2024.https://t.co/KaiH77unAN
For the past decade, while the U.S. and other world powers have been embroiled in the Middle East, China has been largely diplomatically neutral and militarily absent.
But this spring, the U.S. learned that China was building a suspected military facility port in the United Arab Emirates, The Wall Street Journal reported today.
The UAE is one of the U.S.’s closest Middle Eastern allies, so when this Chinese action was discovered, the Biden administration warned the Emiratis that this could threaten ties between the UAE and the U.S.
After meetings and visits from U.S. officials, construction was stopped, according to the Wall Street Journal’s sources.
There have been suspicions over the years that China would eventually try to assert power in the Middle Eastern region. Many expected it would happen in the Persian Gulf.
“For the past half-century, the United States has essentially dominated international waters in the Persian Gulf uncontested by any Great Power. As in the South China Sea and in the Bab el-Mandeb, however, [Chinese President] Xi may have ambitions to challenge the United States and assert its military influence over yet another strategic chokepoint,” the American Enterprise Institute said in 2020.
The U.S. has also normally made the assumption that the Gulf Cooperation Council would follow its lead, as America has relied on close alliance of the U.S. and the GCC.
“Too often, the State Department has assumed that where it leads, Gulf Cooperation Council members would follow. Arab Gulf states might be frustrated with Washington, but they understood the threat from Tehran meant they had little choice but to grin and bear American arrogance,” AEI said.
But over the past year few years, tensions have arisen between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, the real powerhouse and leader of the GCC and much of the Arab world.
Should Middle Eastern countries be forging ties with China?
When Biden came into office, he had harsh words for Saudi Arabia, particularly over the crisis in Yemen and the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
So at this opportune moment, China appears to be reaching into the region.
Sources told The Wall Street Journal that the Emirati government did not appear to be aware of the military nature of China’s construction activity. But China’s actions are still concerning.
http://Emirates”China’s effort to establish what U.S. officials believe would be a military foothold in the UAE—and the Biden administration’s push to persuade the Emiratis to stop the base from being built—reflect the challenges the administration faces in attempting to compete with Beijing globally,” Wall Street Journal reported.
Many are predicting that this is just one more move in the growing competition between China and the U.S. The Middle East is now the regional stage on which this showdown is taking place.
The halt in the construction in the UAE did seem to put the American-Emirati relationship back in a good place, but Emiratis are worried over the fact that they are getting caught in the middle as tension mounts between the U.S. and China.
“We’re all worried, very much, by a looming Cold War,” Anwar Gargash, a UAE presidential adviser, said at an Oct. 2 conference, according to the Wall Street Journal. “That is bad news for all of us because the idea of choosing is problematic in the international system.”
The former ambassador to Afghanistan under President Barack Obama testified virtually during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Wednesday, calling President Joe Biden’s military withdrawal from the country a “stain” on our national honor.
Ryan Crocker now serves as a non-resident senior fellow of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“We have accrued a great debt there that extends also to the thousands of Afghans who helped us in their mission. The [special immigrant visa] process has let them down,” Crocker testified.
Ryan Crocker, ambassador to Afghanistan under Obama, calls Biden’s disastrous troop withdrawal “a stain…on our national honor.” pic.twitter.com/cv9JTDoBi0
“A member of the advisory committee for a group called No One Left Behind that has for years sought to move interpreters to safety [said] we left thousands behind. And that I think is a stain, again, on our national honor,” he added.
“So we need to figure out ways to go ahead. It won’t be easy. We gave up the leverage we had. We cannot give up the fight.”
“The list of damage to our national security and our values is long. We have allowed the Taliban and al-Qaida to reunite. The threat this poses to our own security is not theoretical — 9/11 actually happened, brought to us from Afghanistan by these same actors,” he wrote.
“At the same time, our complete withdrawal has degraded our intelligence capabilities. The strike in Kabul on what was supposed to be an Islamic State target but wasn’t foreshadows the future,” he added.
Crocker also said Afghan women and girls will “pay the price” for America’s failures in Afghanistan.
“We urged Afghan women and girls to step forward, into parliament, private enterprise, the classroom and the military. They did. And now they will pay the price for our lack of strategic patience,” he said.
“That has already started. Afghan interpreters and others provided direct assistance to our military and civilian personnel. They were critical to our efforts, and put their lives and those of their families at risk by working with us. … We left thousands behind.”
The former ambassador concluded with a shocking story that encapsulated the changes in Afghanistan under the Taliban.
“One of the projects that had the greatest impact in Afghanistan cost the least amount of money. It was the reconstruction of Ghazi Stadium in Kabul to FIFA standards, meaning that it could host World Cup matches,” he said. “For a soccer mad country, this was huge. But there was a deeper meaning.”
The stadium is now used by the Taliban to “carry out public punishments after Friday prayers, including beheadings and the stoning of women.”
Event will feature Chinese military contractors behind hypersonic missile test
A scion of the Bush family is lending his influence and family name to boost a Chinese government contractor blacklisted by the U.S. government for its links to the Chinese military.
Neil Bush, the son of President George H.W. Bush, is a cosponsor of the International Symposium on the Peaceful Use of Space Technology that begins Nov. 18 in Beijing. Three co-chairmen of the forum are executives with the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), a state-controlled contractor that builds China’s military and space equipment. A subsidiary of CASC reportedly developed a hypersonic missile that the Chinese military tested in August. American officials called the nuclear-capable missile a “national security crisis” because of its ability to evade detection.
Bush’s sponsorship of the space symposium adds a veneer of respectability to the event amid growing concerns about China’s increasingly aggressive military and space activities. The Trump and Biden administrations have prohibited American companies from doing business with CASC because of its position in the Chinese military-industrial apparatus. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute, which tracks China’s military activities, rates CASC a “very high risk” to foreign nations’ security because of its links to China’s military and intelligence services.
Bush has extensive business ties in China and has worked closely with some of the country’s propaganda organizations. He chairs the George H.W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations, which is cosponsoring the space symposium. The Bush Foundation received $5 million in funding in 2019 from the China-United States Exchange Foundation, a leading think tank in the Communist Party’s propaganda network. Bush’s business partner, the Chinese real estate investor Wang Tianyi, is executive chairman of the space symposium.
“Bush is basically a power broker. He’s an access point for the Chinese to leverage,” said Brandon Weichert, a space security analyst and author of the book Winning Space.
Weichert said the space symposium follows “the classic Chinese model” of using academic and business forums to recruit experts and investors in the West.
“One of their big missions is to get Western talent and investment to come to China to do cutting-edge research and development,” Weichert told the Washington Free Beacon.
A spokeswoman for the Bush-China Foundation said they are not concerned by CASC’s links to the Chinese military, saying that the symposium will focus on the development of space technology for use in the health care industry.
“We are not concerned because it is not relevant to the content of this particular conference, which is unrelated to China’s military and is instead focused on global space technological advancements and rules-setting,” said Leslie Reagan, the communications director for the Bush-China Foundation.
Reagan said that Bush does not have a financial interest in the space symposium and that neither he nor the foundation are paid to take part in the event.
Bush is also linked to China-focused think tanks with ties to business leaders and the Biden administration. In 2019, Bush served as an honorary vice chairman of the annual gala for the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, a think tank that facilitates dialogue between American and Chinese leaders. High-level Biden officials—including CIA director William Burns, National Security Council official Kurt Campbell, Ambassador Nicholas Burns, climate envoy John Kerry, and State Department deputy secretary Wendy Sherman—served as vice chairs for the gala alongside Bush.
American policymakers disagree about whether the United States should collaborate with China on space exploration, with critics expressing concern that China would steal technology from their American counterparts. Some in President Joe Biden’s orbit have urged cooperation between the United States and China on space research, including NASA administrator Bill Nelson.
“We should collaborate, no doubt about it,” Bush said about the space symposium in a recent interview with the Center for China and Globalization, a Communist Party-linked think tank.
There is some indication that the organizers of the space symposium concealed the CASC officials’ links to the organization. An itinerary for the symposium lists the officials’ affiliations with various international space organizations. But a review conducted by the Free Beacon shows the officials—Wu Yansheng, Yuan Jie, and Yang Baohua—serve as chairman, president, and vice president of CASC, respectively.
The China Academy of Aerospace Aerodynamics, a CASC subsidiary, reportedly launched a hypersonic missile in August, the Financial Timesreported. Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the test “very concerning” and said it shows China is “expanding rapidly in space, in cyber and then in the traditional domains of land, sea and air.” The Chinese missile, which surpasses American technology, cannot be detected by radar. It has raised concerns in some circles that China is developing war plans, or may use its military might to invade Taiwan.
“We do not have at present either the capability to reliably track that attack or to put up a reliable defense against a Chinese hypersonic attack,” Weichert, the space security expert, told the Free Beacon.
In addition to his business interests in China, Bush has been one of Beijing’s biggest defenders against allegations of human rights abuses. Chinese state-controlled media have used some of his remarks in their propaganda efforts, such as his criticism in 2019 of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests. Bush dismissed protesters’ complaints about a Communist Party-backed national security law and questioned whether the U.S. government was propping up pro-democracy demonstrations. The Chinese government has since used the law to arrest dissenters and shut down news organizations that criticize it.
An organizer for the event did not respond to questions.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, anti-Israel activist and terrorist lawyer Huwaida Arraf has launched her campaign running for Congress as a Democrat in Michigan’s 10th District. Incumbent congresswoman, Rep. Lisa McClain (R.), told the Free Beacon that “Huwaida Arraf is a Bernie Sanders-style socialist who does not share the views of Michigan’s 10th Congressional District,” adding that “the last thing we need in Congress is another member of the Squad, and that’s exactly who she would align with if elected.”
Arraf has a long and proud history of coming to the aid of anti-Semitic terrorists, including those who have committed vicious acts of terrorism. She has repeatedly used her status as an American citizen to try to protect Palestinian terrorists. In the infamous 2010 Gaza flotilla, “which was aimed at forcing Israel to drop its blockade of goods to the terrorist-controlled Palestinian territory,” Arraf explained that her role was “to put herself forward as an American citizen to dissuade Israeli security from using force to block the ships,” which were loaded with weapons for Hamas, by repeatedly stating that she was aboard an “American flag vessel.”
The Free Beacon notes that Arraf served on the legal team for Palestinian terrorist Rasmea Odeh who planned a terrorist attack in Jerusalem in 1969 that killed two and injured several others. Arraf helped Odeh fight to maintain her U.S. citizenship, which she received after being released in a prisoner exchange in 1980, but Odeh was deported in 2017. Arraf also aided “armed terrorists who sieged a historic church in Bethlehem and murdered at least one civilian” in 2002. Eager to “shield” the terrorists from the Israeli military, Arraf had her group of “activists” enter the church, and brought the “holed-up” terrorists food and water.
Arraf is the cofounder of the International Solidarity Movement, “which encourages anti-Israel activists to ‘direct action’ to force confrontations with Israeli forces.” According to the Free Beacon, Arraf justifies Palestinian terrorism, and wrote in a 2002 article, “Palestinian resistance must take on a variety of characteristics, both non-violent and violent.”
In her tweet launching her campaign, Arraf references her history of being “beaten, shot at, imprisoned, and hijacked at sea standing up to injustice on the global stage,” and adds that she is not afraid to fight. She might not be afraid, but with that introduction and her record, Americans should be.
Writing for RealClearPolitics, Professor Andrew E. Busch of Claremont McKenna College finds that “one reason for Americans’ increasing political discomfort—the feeling that politics has become a blood sport in which traditional protections and safety nets are no longer present—is that the nonpartisan insulation protecting the rule of law and consent of the governed has frayed. There is a broad pattern of offices that require political neutrality being converted into offices that are genuinely partisan in their operation.”
What, I wonder, was his first clue?
Understandably, Busch concentrates on the most recent examples of this creeping partisanship in places that are supposed to be non-partisan, since the Biden administration represents a quantum leap in the politicization of everything, but especially of the law.
Attorney General Merrick Garland, he writes, “has already used the Justice Department to advance his own party’s version of the stolen-election story by suing to stop state legislative efforts to enhance ballot security, then threatening to sic the FBI on parents who complain to their local school boards about left-wing political indoctrination in the classroom.”
By contrast, Busch praises the non-partisan spirit of former Attorney General William Barr for resigning rather than supporting President Trump’s demand for a thorough investigation of election irregularities.
But then he can’t help noticing the concerted legal efforts by Democratic Attorneys General in swing states last year to change voting laws in order to create those irregularities—and, with them, the opportunities for cheating.
You can see why Busch wants to be even-handed and pretend that the partisan takeover of supposedly non-partisan institutions is coming from both sides, but he can’t quite obscure the fact that the overwhelmingly majority of these efforts have been made—and successfully made, thanks to the compliant media—on behalf of Democrats.
There is nothing like a Republican equivalent, for example, of the partisan takeover of the FBI under James Comey. “The course of the Russia investigation,” writes Busch, “complete with the obvious biases of Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, and Lisa Page, implied that the bureau had picked sides.”
Implied? Can there be any doubt about which side these and others in the bureau were on? Or which side Robert Mueller and his team were on? If there were any doubt about it, it must have been dispelled by the recent revelations, and indictments, coming out of the John Durham investigation.
Busch might also have mentioned the disparity in federal law-enforcement’s treatment of the Capitol rioters of Jan. 6 as constituting an “insurrection” and its almost complete lack of interest in the hundreds of riots, the billions of dollars in property damage and the many deaths that took place around the country last summer.
You don’t have to be particularly good at spotting “implied” biases to tell that the difference between the two was that the first was in support of Donald Trump, the others opposed to him. And, violently, opposed to the police. But why would we expect the federal police, ostensibly there to uphold the rule of law, to care about that?
Also, as I pointed out last summer in these pages, General Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the nation’s armed forces, traditionally our number one non-partisan institution, along with the judiciary, testified before Congress on behalf of the Democratic talking point by asserting on the basis of zero evidence that the Capitol riot was motivated by “white rage.”
Milley is also charged with weeding out of the services those identified by the extreme left as members of the “extremist right.”
But the perspicacious could have picked up hints of the erosion of the “nonpartisan insulation” of key institutions long before 2016.
The politicization of the judiciary, I would argue, began at least as far back as 1987 when a certain Joseph R. Biden, newly appointed chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, put the kibosh on President Reagan’s nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court for transparently political reasons.
Chief Justice John Roberts, who once said of his fellow judges that “we don’t work as Democrats or Republicans,” has gone to heroic lengths to keep up the pretense of non-partisanship in the judiciary, but then he is also the man who, apparently without irony, once called the U.S. Senate “the world’s greatest deliberative body.”
The politicization of the armed services began even earlier. As the late Colin Powell cheerfully put it in 2007, presumably with reference to his own military career, which started in the Vietnam era, “Anybody who becomes a senior officer had better have some political instincts or you’re going to get ground up. We are a political nation. It is not a dirty word.”
What he meant to say, perhaps, was that it is only a dirty word when applied to constitutionally non-political institutions. Like the military.
I understand that he was talking about the internal politics that are inevitable in any large organization, but in the military, whose most senior officers are appointed by civilian (and political) authority, those politics are always bound up with the other kind.
Under President George W. Bush we learned, at least if we were paying attention, of the politicization of the CIA, which regularly briefed the media (anonymously, of course) against their ostensible commander-in-chief.
Under President Barack Obama we learned, even if we weren’t paying much attention, of the politicization of the Department of Justice and the IRS.
And, as everyone now knows, under President Donald Trump we learned of the politicization not only of the FBI and (again) the Justice Department but also of the State Department. All three, while ostensibly serving the President, were actually undermining him.
It should not be necessary to point out that all of these encroachments of the political onto officially non-political territory have been in one direction and one direction only—leftwards. It’s as if there were some law of political inertia analogous to Robert Conquest’s Second Law of Politics: “Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.”
Maybe this is what the progressives mean by saying that they are “on the right side of history,” If so, it means that the rest of us, who still treasure what we think is our right to be non-political, must be on the wrong side of history.
KINNEY COUNTY, Texas—Charging an illegal immigrant with a misdemeanor such as criminal trespass sounds simple enough.
But throw 1,008 cases at a small county with a jail that has 14 spaces and a court system that usually handles six or seven cases per month—using Microsoft Word—and the wheels start to fall off.
On June 10, when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott directed state troopers to start arresting illegal aliens—on charges including trespass, criminal mischief, and evading on foot—officials in Kinney County jumped on the idea.
County Sheriff Brad Coe was keen to stick illegal immigrants with any charges he could to deter them from coming to his county.
“We’re going to try to hold these people accountable,” Coe said. He also wanted to get them in the system because the illegal aliens captured in Kinney County have evaded Border Patrol, so they’re unknown.
Since January, ranchers and local law enforcement had seen an unprecedented increase in the number of illegal aliens traversing the county, and they’d given up on expecting federal solutions. Local ranchers, tired of cut fences and property damage, signed affidavits allowing the sheriff and the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) to press charges on their behalf.
Although Abbott announced the Operation Lone Star border security initiative in June, it took almost two months to secure enough jail space and for the DPS to work out the process. The state set up a temporary 100-bed detention center in neighboring Val Verde County and cleared out the 1,000-bed Briscoe Unit in Dilley.
Meanwhile, in July, almost 10,000 illegal aliens evaded Border Patrol in the Del Rio Sector, according to preliminary Customs and Border Protection numbers.
By August, DPS was ready to start the initiative in Val Verde and Kinney counties. In Kinney, DPS assigned a small team to work the brush near the U.S.–Mexico border in areas of high foot traffic. The officers quickly started arresting an average of 25 illegal aliens per day from private ranches, often at night.
At the sheriff’s office, state troopers and local jail staff took about two hours to complete the paperwork and magistrate seven Mexicans who were arrested late on Aug. 7. They’d been walking for two days before being caught on a ranch.
Texas State Troopers complete paperwork after arresting illegal immigrants for criminal trespass on a local ranch, at the Kinney County Sheriff’s Office in Brackettville, Texas, on Aug. 8, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
Two said they had already tried crossing a month ago but got caught by Border Patrol and expelled. Another man, who said he was aiming to get to New York, said this was his third time trying to get through. He said his cousin intended to pay the $4,000 smuggling fee upon his delivery to New York.
Several said they’ll probably try again, while others weren’t as enthusiastic. They all said a “travel agent” on the Mexican side of the border directed them on where to cross, gave directions of where to walk, and had planned to coordinate a vehicle pick-up for them.
At first, Kinney County Justice of the Peace Narce Villarreal came down to the sheriff’s office in the middle of the night to magistrate the groups before DPS transported them the 30 miles to the Val Verde facility. But the hours became untenable and the sheriff’s office parking lot was overwhelmed with detainees, so the whole process was moved to Val Verde.
From Val Verde, the illegal aliens would eventually be transported 126 miles to the Briscoe Unit in Dilley while they waited for their court hearing. Subsequently, some were then transported another 200 miles to the Segovia jail facility in Edinburgh.
Illegal immigrants wait to be magistrated on trespassing charges in Kinney County outside the Sheriff’s Office in Brackettville, Texas, on Aug. 6, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
The Prosecution
Meanwhile, Kinney County Attorney Brent Smith was scrambling to take up the flood of new cases. He had started the job in January and was building the backend process on the fly. He had to go to the county commissioners to request a software system that would streamline the paperwork on the cases—Word documents had become too unwieldy under the volume. He contacted two other county attorneys to double-check that his complaints were solid.
Smith said he’s filed around 900 charges for criminal trespass since August, with more pending, and has had to rely heavily on Mason District Attorney Tonya Ahlschwede, who is part of Texas’s border prosecution unit, to keep up.
Former chief of the Del Rio Border Patrol Sector Austin Skero, who retired at the end of July, also joined the unit as an investigator.
After a misdemeanor arrest, Smith examines the evidence in the case file from the sheriff’s office or DPS. If it’s determined that trespass occurred, he’ll file a complaint against the individual for trespassing, which is a Class B misdemeanor. The charge is elevated if the individual has a deadly weapon, is found more than 100 feet past the property line on agricultural land, or if the alleged crime took place during a disaster (the county has been in a perpetual state of disaster since April).
Once charged, the suspect will make a plea, and if he pleads guilty, he’ll most likely get time served and be turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
It’s not a hefty penalty, but “we’re hoping they avoid our county,” Smith said.
The maximum punishment for a Class B misdemeanor in Texas is 180 days in jail and a $2,000 fine, whereas a Class A is one year in jail and a $4,000 fine.
Recent trail camera photos of illegal aliens provided by ranchers in Kinney County, Texas. (Courtesy of ranchers)
As the cases have piled up, it has become a race against time for Smith.
“If they don’t make bail, they’re in jail the whole time until trial,” he said. From the time of the arrest, he has 30 days to file a Class A misdemeanor complaint against a detained individual before the habeas corpus statute requires a personal recognizance (PR) bond to be set and the individual released.
In some cases, Smith received the arrest files from DPS on day 29, or even beyond day 30. In other cases, the complaints were filed within the 30 days, but the inmate had bonded out of jail and was nowhere to be found.
Logistics and lack of manpower were the bottlenecks, he said.
“Because what the state did, when they planned on this process, they got the jails set up, they got defense attorneys funded, but not one prosecutor was there to get the prosecution set up for this,” he said.
“So we’re playing catch up, trying to get the resources at the same time to do everything—versus the defense had everything set up from the very beginning.”
On Oct. 14, Abbott announced $36.4 million in grant funding toward border prosecutions and 12 border counties, including more than $3.1 million in grant money to Kinney County, as part of Operation Lone Star.
But the money doesn’t just appear in the county bank account. It’s grant money that requires an application process, and the county must carry the costs in the meantime.
Smith has already spent more than his annual office supplies budget (about $1,200) on file folders for the trespass cases.
Court Proceedings
The first of Kinney County’s cases came up on the court docket during the last week of October. They were conducted over video conference with retired judges coming in to fill the gaps.
On Oct. 26, Judge Vivian Torres sat on the virtual bench. The cases proceeded slowly, with frequent pauses for the translator to ensure the defendant understood the goings-on.
Defense lawyer Sylvia Delgado had arranged a plea deal for several defendants that reduced their charge from a Class A to a Class B misdemeanor and a sentence of “time served,” with court costs being waived.
The defendants pleaded guilty, and the judge agreed to the plea deal terms, which included a 72-day sentence, which had been served.
Delgado said she’s been assigned about 190 cases so far by the Lubbock Public Defenders’ Office and has been focusing on getting the first ones out of jail because they’d been detained so long.
She said she meets her clients via Zoom video conference. “And I tell them specifically: ‘You have not been forgotten. I’m your attorney, I’m going to work to get you out,’” Delgado told The Epoch Times on Oct. 28.
Delgado said she lets them know that she’ll attempt to get them released on a no-fee PR bond, try to get charges reduced, and, if they want to plead guilty, ask for time served.
“And then, unfortunately, when I go back to see them before docket, a lot of them are gone,” she said. Of her 18 clients for the Nov. 2 court docket, she has only been able to follow up with the six who are still in jail.
“I met with Joselito, and Joselito had told me, ‘Well, Ms. Delgado, I just want to plead guilty and get sent back to Mexico. I just want to go back to Mexico.’
“So I was looking for Joselito. And he’s nowhere to be found.”
She was told by the other inmates that Joselito was transferred to ICE, while others had returned to Mexico after bonding out.
Defense lawyer Sylvia Delgado (bottom-right) speaks during an arraignment hearing for an illegal alien charged with criminal trespass in Kinney County, on Oct. 28, 2021. (Screenshot/The Epoch Times)
Other defense attorneys have also said they had no idea where their clients were after they bonded out.
The region’s district attorney, Suzanne West, told The Epoch Times that she believes inmates who bond out are released to ICE.
ICE didn’t confirm that it was taking custody of the inmates, or what happened next. A spokesperson said the agency is following the enforcement priorities set out by the Biden administration.
“In Texas and elsewhere, ICE conducts an individualized determination in each case to assess whether arrest and removal is warranted. This determination includes an assessment of aggravating and mitigating factors, as well as a determination of whether the person is removable under the law,” ICE spokesperson Monica Yoas stated in an email to The Epoch Times.
“ICE fully respects the civil rights and liberties of all people when conducting this assessment.”
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which operates the Briscoe and Segovia jails, said that as of Oct. 29, the Briscoe unit held 654 illegal alien inmates, with 536 from Kinney County, 105 from Val Verde, 10 from Zavala, and three from Frio County. In Segovia, all 291 illegal alien inmates are from Kinney County.
Delgado said she has asked for an investigator to help on the ground to find the missing people and has meanwhile obtained a continuance in court for their hearing dates.
“If they’re truly lost, like we don’t ever hear from them again, we don’t know what happened. If I can’t really find out, then they’re probably just going to keep getting reset,” she said.
“So I suppose a warrant may issue, but we’re not there yet. We’re just not there in that system yet.”
Most of the defendants on the next several dockets, totaling about 60 cases, had their cases dismissed because defense lawyers argued that the complaints were deficient as they lacked the landowner’s name.
Smith later said he was disappointed that the name of the ranch wasn’t sufficient for the court, as he was hoping to avoid naming the landowner in public records. The landowner’s name is usually included in the arrest file, which the lawyer can access.
“A lot of ranchers are concerned about cartel retribution, possibly, if their name comes up in complaint after complaint after complaint” he said.
“So we can still refile it and prosecute once we correct that information. But you know, they’re not going to show up.”
Smith’s office scrambled to amend the 900 complaints already filed to include the landowner name and the GPS location of the alleged offense.
A total of 52 illegal immigrants from Mexico and Honduras wait to be booked for criminal trespass after being arrested by Texas State Troopers on local ranches, at the Kinney County Sheriffs Office in Brackettville, Texas, on Aug. 8, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
Defense lawyers appeared to change tack on the Nov. 2 docket and entered “not guilty” pleas for all their clients who were still present.
The judge subsequently ordered the release of each defendant on a no-fee PR bond and set a pre-trial hearing for Nov. 18.
Ahlschwede, from the border prosecution unit, told the court on Nov. 2 that several illegal aliens who had been released from jail after paying a cash bond have since been arrested again for criminal trespass in Kinney County.
Smith said one man was released after paying a $4,000 cash bond. “Then we re-arrested him 10 days ago. And despite it being a multiple offense, they gave a $500 bond. Well, we filed the motion to revoke [the bond] once we got the case file—which was 10 days after it occurred,” Smith said.
The man had been released three days prior to receiving the motion.
“By the time we got the file, he was already gone. Who knows where he’s at now,” Smith said.
Coe said his office has been juggling a steady stream of people coming in to pay cash bonds with wads of crisp $100 bills.
“Some of them are $5,000. Where are they getting the money?” he said. At one point, he had more than half a million dollars in cash sitting in his vault.
“I’d bet there’s a 99 percent chance that they don’t show up [to court],” Coe said of the released illegal alien defendants.
“They’ll probably end up in places like Michigan, Missouri, West Virginia, Washington—we’ll never see them again. So are we doing this all in vain? I mean, it’s doable. It’s very, very new. It’s just getting the mechanism rolling.”
Kinney County Sheriff Brad Coe sets up a pop-up vehicle checkpoint near Brackettville, Texas, on Aug. 16, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
Impact
Coe said he hoped the convictions might be a roadblock for illegal aliens if they ever tried to file for some type of assistance or become U.S. citizens.
“That’d be a check mark against them. Some type of consequence has to be there,” he said.
However, in reality, having a trespass conviction on record will act more like a speedbump, according to former immigration judge Andrew Arthur, who is now a resident fellow in law and policy for the Center for Immigration Studies.
“Generally, this isn’t going to have any effect on them from an immigration standpoint, but again, sleeping in a room with 30 guys for six months really does have a way of concentrating one’s attention,” Arthur told The Epoch Times on Oct. 27.
Even if the Texas legislature passes a bill that would enhance punishment to a third-degree felony for illegal alien trespassers, the impact on future immigration status would be negligible, Arthur said.
“But again, anything that impedes people’s ability to enter the United States, anything that’s going to require them to be detained pretrial, or imprisoned post-trial, is going to be a deterrent,” he said.
“Now, how strong a deterrent effect that is remains to be seen.”
Arthur said the deterrent effect was worth the taxpayer dollars spent on the trespass prosecutions.
“The problem is that Texas is doing the job that the federal government should be doing.”
Volume
The majority of Border Patrol apprehensions along the southwest border occur in Texas. Of the more than 1.6 million illegal alien apprehensions in fiscal year 2021, Border Patrol apprehended almost 958,000, or 58 percent, crossing into Texas.
Customs and Border Protection doesn’t publish the number of illegal aliens that Border Patrol agents have detected but who subsequently evade apprehension, but the internal numbers have sat at around 50,000 per month this year, according to an inside source. It’s impossible to estimate the number of those who aren’t detected at all.
Within the Operation Lone Star border effort, the DPS had made 7,744 criminal arrests as of Oct. 14, including 1,300 for criminal trespass and 6,339 on felony charges. State troopers had been involved in 822 vehicle pursuits, mostly chasing smugglers who were transporting illegal aliens.
Kinney County has charged significantly more illegal aliens with trespass than Val Verde County so far, which started the initiative at the same time. Other counties, such as Frio and Zavala started prosecuting more recently, while Uvalde and Brooks counties are considering getting started but are strapped with the same lack of resources that Kinney County has experienced.
Smith said the volume of prosecutions coming from Kinney County were a result of the county officials caring about the issue.
“They want to do something more about it than just close your eyes and not watch what’s happening to your county,” he said.
Smith said he’s been accused by a defense lawyer of being racist for prosecuting illegal aliens.
“The criminal complaints make no mention of immigration status or hinge on race. If you come down to Kinney County and trespass on private property, we’ll arrest you too,” he said in a statement on Oct. 26.
Delgado, the defense lawyer, said she hadn’t seen any malfeasance, despite the scramble to pull everything together.
“It’s a big ship and it’s making a large turn in a small canal. And so we are all working really hard to get things moving. And I believe it is starting to unclog,” she said.
Smith predicted that the system will be much more robust within a couple of months.
“What we’re working on right now is tweaking the language of the complaints, researching everything, making sure there’s nothing else they [the defense] can pick at,” he said.
“Now, will this Operation Lone Star continue for the next three years? Probably so. Unless the federal government decides to actually follow the laws passed by Congress—which at the moment they’re not doing.
“The only realistic solution to this crisis will require deploying all of the Texas military on the border and actually prevent the illegal entries from occurring. Right now, it’s like trying to build a dam after the flood gates have already been opened.”
FREDERICK COUNTY, Va.—Veterans Day is a “very special day” for Austin Riddell, a fourth-grader at Redbud Run Elementary School in Winchester, Virginia.
“It’s a day set aside to recognize bravery, courage, selflessness, a day to show our military veterans that our country loves them,” the 8-year-old said.
To pay tribute to this, Austin organized an event on Nov. 11 to push the local school board to observe Veterans Day as a school holiday.
“I could never get away with an event like this in North Korea, China, lots of other places; only in America are we this free,” Austin said during his opening speech at the event, held at the football field across from the school. “And it’s all because of our courageous veterans who gave me a voice to go in front of the Board of Education, to go in front of the Board of Supervisors to change the world starting right here in Winchester.”
As a boy born into a family with four generations serving in the Army, Austin said he never had perfect attendance, because he doesn’t go to school on Veterans Day. On Aug. 10 and Nov. 3, he urged the Frederick County School Board to make the day a school holiday. The board has yet to take any action.
“Apple Blossom Festival is a day off at the schools, but Veterans Day isn’t. That made me mad,” Austin told The Epoch Times.
Austin’s mother, Priscilla Bellido, thanked the local community for making the event happen. “We started with 35 flyers when he said he wanted to put together today’s tribute. Mama ran off 35 flyers, passed them out. And then it just spread like wildfire,” Bellido said at the event.
Several veterans spoke at the event, and Lt. Governor-Elect Winsome Sears was also present. A former Marine and Jamaican born, she lives with her family in Winchester.
Austin Riddell, a fourth-grader at Redbud Run Elementary School, gives an American flag to Virginia Lt. Governor-Elect Winsome Sears at a Veterans Day event in Winchester, Va., on Nov. 11, 2021. (Terri Wu/The Epoch Times)
“I’m always amazed that someone so young is so driven. And you wonder what is it, and can we bottle that and sell it? Clearly, this young man is destined for greatness. He’s already shown true leadership. And he recognizes sacrifice and love of country,” Sears told The Epoch Times.
“It is always good when a nation honors its veterans knowing that they could have died in service to them,” she said. “And we want to encourage our young people to continue to serve their country because America is worth fighting for, worth dying for.”
Virginia Lt. Governor-Elect Winsome Sears at a Veterans Day event in Winchester, Va., on Nov. 11, 2021. (Courtesy of Pegah Fowler)
Describing himself as “an 8-year-old boy not only with dreams, but with plans to lead our country and represent our great Americans” to the county school board, Austin said he wants to be a U.S. senator. His goal is to run in 2052 when he turns 40.
Austin decided to become a U.S. senator at about 2 years old, his mother said. She said she was switching TV channels when Austin asked her to “go back” to C-SPAN. He asked her: “Who are those people? What are they doing?” After she explained to him about what was being displayed, a congressional hearing, he said, “I want to be one of those when I grow up.”
Asked if she gave Austin any help writing his speeches at the school board meetings, she said she only helped with punctuation and “removing curse words.” Bellido said the 8-year-old missed his iPad time and bedtime to come up with his speeches.
Miles Adkins, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and Frederick County School Board member-elect, presented a Certificate of Appreciation to Austin Riddell (L) on behalf of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, at a Veterans Day event in Winchester, Va., on Nov. 11, 2021. (Terri Wu/The Epoch Times)
President Joe Biden’s appeasement is getting its usual payback.
An Iranian-backed militant group the Biden administration removed from a designated list of foreign terrorist organizations right after assuming power has stormed the shuttered U.S. Embassy in Yemen, making hostages of Yemenis who worked at the facility, The Washington Free Beacon reported Thursday.
And making fools, once again, of the Biden administration and its foreign policy.
BREAKING: Iran-Backed Militants Storm US Embassy in Yemen, Seize Hostages and Equipment — State Dept tells me it is ‘concerned about the breach of the compound,’ demands release of hostages & equipment https://t.co/vA8sQc35mt
According to the Free Beacon, the Houthi rebels, who’ve been fighting a proxy war on Iran’s behalf against the government on the tip of the Arabian Peninsula, took over the compound in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa on Wednesday, leaving it to Biden’s beleaguered State Department to try to negotiate for the release of the employees.
“The United States has been unceasing in its diplomatic efforts to secure their release,” a State Department spokesman said, according to the Free Beacon. “The majority of the detained have been released, but the Houthis continue to detain additional Yemeni employees of the embassy.”
To be clear, the embassy has been closed since 2015, when the Obama administration and the State Department under then-Secretary of State John Kerry decided the situation amid the violence was untenable, as Fox News reported at the time. No Americans are among the Yemeni hostages.
Still, Yemen has remained a simmering cauldron on the world stage, breaking into the news periodically with reports of yet more Houthi savagery, the involvement of the Iranian government in that savagery, or the Democratic congressional effort to end U.S. support for the government fighting to defeat that savagery. (For nearly half a century, or roughly the entirety of Joe Biden’s political career, his party has been on exactly the wrong side when it came to fighting Islamic fascism. That’s probably not a coincidence.)
But there’s no way to safely ignore the role of Iran in the unrest.
Is the possibility of war greater with Joe Biden in the White House than it was with Donald Trump as president?
The world’s No. 1 state sponsor of terrorism, where “Death to America” is practically the national motto, just proved once again that it has zero respect for a Biden administration that has projected nothing but weakness on the international stage since coming to power.
To Americans of a certain age, this all might sound familiar: Abroad, chaos with Iran playing a starring role, the storming of a U.S. embassy; at home, a weak Democrat in the White House and raging inflation, among other problems.
Welcome to the 1970s — an abysmal decade that isn’t looking any better with time.
As a National Review article pointed out, the raid on the embassy comes 10 months after the Biden administration, hoping to curry favor with the Iranian mullahs, overturned a decision made in the final days of the Trump administration to designate the Houthis as a terrorist organization.
At the time, according to ABC News, Biden Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the decision was “a recognition of the dire humanitarian situation in Yemen.”
It was also, according to the Free Beacon, “seen as a goodwill gesture” toward the murderous mullahs of Tehran, in hopes of restarting talks on the Iran nuclear deal.
Well, it’s a good bet that Yemen’s “dire humanitarian situation” is no better now than it was back in February. And it’s an obvious conclusion that the “goodwill gesture” toward Tehran has paid off in the usual way such gestures do when dealing with the Islamist dictatorship: more aggression, more provocation, more terrorism.
In short, it’s an utter failure – one more humiliation for the United States to add to the Biden humiliation in Afghanistan, and one more sign that the Biden White House can’t truly be trusted by anyone except the country’s bitterest enemies — and then, only to do exactly the wrong thing.
In Yemen, even now, Yemeni nationals are in the hands of the Islamist terrorist group that, among other things, has staged missile attacks against Saudi Arabia, a country that, whatever its obvious faults, is a U.S. ally in the region.
And it’s one more example of how far the United States’ image has fallen since President Donald Trump left the White House.
Where Trump walked away from the Obama-era nuclear deal because it amounted to a blank check for the mullahs to obtain a nuclear weapon in the future, Team Biden is abasing itself and the country to try to get Iran back to the table.
Where Trump met Iranian provocation and intransigence with strength (see Soleimani, Qassim: Death of), his successor has established a record of weakness that gives confidence to the country’s enemies and anxiety to its friends.
And most importantly, where the Trump administration fostered peace or the potential for peace between Israel and its Arab foes in the region through a series of deals, Biden brings chaos and the potential for ever more war, with the deaths of innocents that inevitably come with it.
It’s appeasement that’s getting its usual payback.
Unfortunately, the country is likely to see a lot more of it in the next three years.
Each year we tell the world of our gratitude for the sacrifices of those who keep us free. But our gratitude is not enough.
In America, it’s Veteran’s Day. Across the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth, it is Remembrance Day. In New Zealand, France, and Belgium it is Armistice Day, and in Poland, it is National Independence Day.
And it is an especially hard day in 2021, considering the sacrifices made by those who came before us, and the circumstances we have allowed to develop in their absence.
The fourth verse of For the Fallen by Laurence Binyon is the traditional Remembrance Day poem in the United Kingdom. Few have not heard it, even of younger generations:
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
But the first verse perhaps should give us more pause, this year:
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.
And whether you are from England, American, Australia, Canada, France, Belgium, Poland, New Zealand, or otherwise, those final words should resonate.
“Fallen in the cause of the free.”
The people the world remembers today were not fighting for a political party, nor for an oligarchy. They were fighting for something we have let too easily slip through our fingers. Basic freedoms. Freedoms, in fact, from oppressive, overbearing governments with little regard for life, and only regard for ideological or partisan compliance.
And today’s services of remembrance sting that little bit more knowing what hell the West hath wrought in our decades-long foreign wars that have left so many without full lives or full families.
The draw down in Afghanistan just three months ago served as a reminder – which of course most have now already forgotten – of the fragility of Western military might. And indeed the futility of our abilities to project values in places where they bear no weight.
That very point separates the hills of Kandahar from the Flanders Fields, not that the sharpest minds in foreign policy and military strategy seem to recognize it.
But then again, they’ve been very wrong, for so very long. As Peter Hitchens noted in pre-COVID 2018:
It has also struck me, since I am so often told that those who fought in 1914 did so for our freedom, that we are far less free as a people, from all kinds of government interference, than we were before that war. It was 1914 that began the era of heavy taxation, surveillance, regulation and general snooping and bureaucracy which now stifle us.
It was also 1914 that swept away the restrained and quiet world of yesterday, and the great, stuffy cumbersome empires of Austria, Germany and Russia, replacing them with the slick murderous modern empires of the Nazis and the Bolsheviks. Was this progress?
It wasn’t progress. And no “progress” has been made since the world removed those evils it installed in place of the empires that came before them. In reality, all we’ve achieved in 100+ years besides the good technological advancements that came from some relatively free enterprises using capital to lift people from poverty is cementing the dark specter of centralization as a means of governance. Today, we reap what has been sown.
“Fallen in the cause of the free”?
We do little to prove we ever deserved their sacrifices.
The other night I had a brief but remarkable dream. I was speaking out against a proud propaganda artist regarding a poster he intended to give out to his fellows. He was peddling the sort of agitprop that one would expect to find in our fallen world and I wasn’t having any of it.
Now normally I would remain silent on such matters in the waking world, but in the dream I was boldly speaking out against the worldly misinformation.
I was ruminating on this dream for the greater portion of the morning, and while being careful not to read too much into it, I started thumbing my woolen knots in order to calm my spirit and try to discern which prayerful meditation may have inspired these feelings of mutebreak within me. Then it hit me, these words from my newly discovered patron that I chanced upon in an icon:
“Brothers: it is later than you think. Hasten, therefore, to do the work of God.” – Fr. Seraphim Rose
What explicit conviction these words bring to the humbled heart! Too careful I have been in the past few years of wavering unbelief to speak out against anything. -Lord have mercy-
Despite an entire lifetime spent in the shade of the shadow of the cross, I could not make declarations outside of echo chambers for fear of being wrong, cancelled or sounding a neophyte. -Lord have mercy-
The wanderings through culture secular and sanctified, all to sound well-read and enlightened, and yet I was fooled by a prelest-like false peace. -Lord have mercy-
No more. And so here we are, how can I begin to describe the wellspring from which words become intelligible and articulated again. This much I can relate: it is not for me to boast.
Those familiar with the epic animated film “The Prince of Egypt” 1998, will remember a particular scene that can make a man cry. From the Burning Bush, the LORD answers a shying Moses thusly:
“…Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the Lord? 12 Now therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say.” Exodus 4:11-12 NKJV
Moses has been thought to have had a stutter or some other sort of speech impediment, more reason to have been reluctant than I. Yet by heeding the voice of God he went on to become one of the most important figures of the faith, remembered and venerated for generations after.
What is the point of saying all of this at all? Why speak up now, after years of suppression in a feigned humility? In my zigzagging back towards the light, I have remembered what is truly essential to be spoken and shared, more so than any political opinion, any scientific declaration, any sign or wisdom or identity or nationality: “We preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness” 1 Cor 1:23 NKJV.
This, the entire reason behind the repetitions ’round my rope (Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have mercy on me, a sinner), the one thing so worth saying that it has reignited the logos within me.
This supreme truth, from which all other conversations and creations may follow, and by which I would have a solid foundation to begin again using my talents, is the essence of what is at all worth saying, or gabbing.
In this little dark age we have all been living through, let all of us who have been called and gifted with the ability to speak, write or sing, do so.
May we use our God-given talents to build for the Kingdom of God by participating in the re-creation of our fallen world remade in the image of His Son Jesus Christ.
I pray that this short post becomes a sort of rallying cry for all of the “little-c” creators out there and I can assure you that there will be much more to come on this subject. That thrilling adventure of the escape from stagnation and silence and towards a pursuance of beauty & truth, or, a craving of the cup.
How much longer can this go on? As we head into the second year of the President Joe Biden “administration,” with the country in a shambles and heading no place good but full speed ahead, it’s time for all real Americans to take stock of our situation and formulate an emergency plan, with no time to spare.
Back in March, I wrote in these pages: “Biden’s Presidency Seems Ready to End.” In fact, Biden’s sham presidency never really began and whatever there was to it is now long over.
But then Brandon—excuse me! Biden!—isn’t really the president, simply the President in Name Only. Sure, he dutifully signs whatever executive order—increasingly authoritarian and blatantly unconstitutional—is put under his nose, which, at least until the next election, has the force of law until a federal court says otherwise. Even should a court block its implementation, as happened over the weekend with the illegal vaccine mandate being imposed on private industries by the Nixon-era excrescence of OSHA, the White House’s advice is to ignore it.
Biden also makes pro forma appearances on the international stage, including a mysteriously long audience with the former Cardinal Bergoglio (who’s every bit as much a pope as Biden is a president) that instantly gave rise to embarrassing rumors. And from time to time he even makes the short walk from West Wing to the Old Executive Office Building in order to stage something for the cameras in a studio-set version of the Oval Office.
But everybody in Washington knows the puppet presidency has no agency of its own, but is instead controlled from Kalorama by Barack Obama and his minions, including Ron Klain, who now serves as Biden’s chief of staff.
Meanwhile, the country he ostensibly leads is going to hell. We’ve gone from energy independence to passing the gasoline begging bowl, even as the forces behind Biden are busy choking off the domestic energy industry. Perhaps you’ve noticed the effects of this malicious policy at the gas pump.
Our long-neglected infrastructure, which is properly defined as roads, bridges, and buildings, remains a national disgrace, and the recent passage of a pork-laden $1.2 trillion “infrastructure” bill—with turncoat Republican help—not only won’t help a bit but will be paid for with imaginary money.
Overseas, right in Biden’s vaunted “foreign policy” wheelhouse, the Chinese are testing advanced missiles and expanding their fleet of aircraft carriers while what’s left of our Defense Department celebrates awarding four stars to a man in a skirt and hailing him as a “historic” female admiral.
A Navy sub’s trio of commanders was recently cashiered when the USS Connecticut struck an underseas mountain its crack officer corps somehow didn’t notice, while in San Diego the amphibious assault ship, Bonhomme Richard, was destroyed by an arsonist and a crew too incompetent to put out the blaze.
Oh yes, and the Marines recently got their tails kicked by the British in a desert-warfare exercise at their base at Twenty-Nine Palms in southern California. (The woke Marine Corps, of course, denies it.)
But the void in the White House is really the least of our problems, most of which we have brought upon ourselves. You get what you vote for and the American people, in rejecting Donald Trump, have voted for anarchy. As former New York City mayor Ed Koch said after being defeated for re-election in 1989, “the people have spoken, and they must be punished.”
Punishment is coming from every angle, principally from the criminal organization masquerading as a political party known as the Democrats. We now know that the vindictive but cunning loser Hillary Clinton set in motion the entire “Russian collusion”—in part with the collaboration of the Russophile leftist think tank, the Brookings Institution, and in part through the medium of a British spy channeling deliberate Soviet-style disinformation.
From the jump, it was obvious that the “Steele dossier” was a farrago of standard ex-KGB dirty tricks—in Russia and in Eastern Europe I’d seen this movie a dozen times—and I said so publicly at the time, practically from the day Buzzfeed published the “dossier.”
The American media deliberately weaponized this disinformation—which they knew at the time was false—against the lawfully elected president of the United States and crippled his presidency over it. And then they awarded themselves Pulitzer Prizes for their “reporting” of something that never happened.
Par for the course for the American version of Pravda. If you don’t think the New York Times hasn’t been in love with its Russian socialist confreres—and often actually been in bed with the KGB, its forebears, and its descendants—for the bulk of the 20th century, you need to wake up. Until the power of the Times is broken, the American Republic-as-founded will never have a moment’s peace.
But the weaponization didn’t and doesn’t stop there. “Former” members of the intelligence community now lie brazenly and openly on some of the “news channels,” such as CNN: the spooks are out of the shadows and in your living room.
The FBI is now investigating the alleged theft of Joe Biden’s daughter’s diary—a document that if genuine offers even more repellent insights into this stunningly dysfunctional family. How this is a federal matter is beyond me, unless the FBI has now become the Biden family’s private police force with a mandate to suppress bad news about the family. And if you don’t believe me, ask Hunter Biden.
Americans, quite properly, sense there’s something “off” about Biden and his crew, which is why his approval ratings continue to crater. But as long as the radical Left holds the media high ground, it’s hard for most people not obsessed by politics to grasp just how malignant these people are. For decades, they’ve made no bones about their desire to replace the United States of the founding with something “progressive.”
They’ve overtly collaborated with the Soviets, infiltrated the civil-rights movement, absorbed the legacy media, corrupted the lawmakers, overpowered academe, seized hold of the education of our children and now, in their moment of triumph, are forcing us to live in a fantasy world of their own psycho-sexual device, while their pet shrinks tell us that we’re the crazy bigots, via the media.
In the wake of the accelerated withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in September, Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) introduced the Secure America Act on Oct. 13 to stop Afghan refugees from being granted “parole status” into the United States with “zero vetting whatsoever.”
In an interview with NTD’s “Capitol Report,” Rosendale said the Biden administration’s accelerated withdrawal from Afghanistan has in fact created “an excuse to bring hundreds of thousands of refugees” into the United States.
In response, the Secure America Act was introduced to let Congress “reclaim authority to how many refugees will come into our country on any given year,” he said.
Furthermore, if refugees are to be sent to specific states, the governor of such a state will direct “Homeland Security and the FBI to create a good, new, thorough vetting system.”
Under the new act, the executive branch will no longer be able to grant refugees entry and the ability to “travel freely” within the country with “zero vetting.”
Rosendale said the new bill ensures “anyone who comes in is vetted for criminal activity.”
The vetting process will also involve checking that incoming refugees do not have “deeply held beliefs or practices that are at odds with our Constitution.”
“That way, we can be assured that they’re going to embrace our culture and our way of life and and contribute to the American dream,” said Rosendale.
Rep. Yvette Herrell (R-N.M.) also warned of a “flawed” Afghan refugee vetting process in an interview with Fox News on Oct. 7.
“We already know there’s weakness in the vetting process and the screenings, and we want to make sure as this continues, we can make sure the American people can feel safe and secure about the entire process,” Herrell said.
Herrell gave the interview shortly after visiting Fort Bliss, Texas, where a female soldier reported being attacked by Afghan refugees.
“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,” Lt. Col. Allie Payne, director of public affairs for Fort Bliss and the 1st Armored Division, told ABC7.
“We take the allegation seriously and appropriately referred the matter to the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Payne added.
While Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in early September confirmed that people on U.S. watch lists were among the tens of thousands of people airlifted out of Kabul, he denied any allegations of ISIS members making it into the country as Afghan refugees.
“We have a multilayered, multiagency screening and vetting process to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Mayorkas said, according to the The Washington Times.
An official within the Biden administration stated during a Sept. 14 briefing that the government has put in measures to “enhance the screening and vetting operations” without compromising national security.
“The U.S. government’s work includes ensuring evacuees are thoroughly and appropriately vetted prior to arrival in the U.S.,” the official said. “We’ve also made sure that evacuees are thoroughly screened at ports of entry and tested for COVID upon arrival, with less than a 1 percent positive rate thus far.”
This eBook released exclusively by The National Pulse in 2020 is now available for free.
Many got The Russia Lie wrong. Far from a hoax sourced in Russian disinformation, it was a political hit involving Fiona Hill, The Brookings Institution, the Atlantic Council, the DNC, the FBI, the CIA, the Clintons, foreign intelligence services, Fusion GPS, CrowdStrike, Perkins Coie, top-Republicans, and the extreme naivety of those who trust sclerotic institutions.
We described it for you in this short ebook published in September 2020. Now that U.S. Attorney John Durham has indicted a Brookings Institution researcher, we wanted to remove this book from the paywall and offer it for free, so we could say, “told you so.”
You may not have heard this version because the news is often written by Washington insiders who were okay with using invasive tools designed to fight the Cold War to “Get Trump” — vindicating President Eisenhower’s warning about the “military industrial complex,” which has only become more bold in the Biden regime.
Those who follow The National Pulse know that what we publish in January usually becomes a headline everywhere else in March. We were first to Fauci, Wuhan, and gain-of-function. We published “The Insurrection Lie” on January 13, 2021. Durham is showing that our unique take on The Russia Lie nailed it.
If you want to see where Durham may go next, read this first. Enjoy (and share)! This round’s on us.
Finally!! Someone else seconds my view of the current administration: Idiocracy, the movie, embodied!! [US Patriot]
The heroic sacrifices of U.S. soldiers are being shelved in an effort to erase our humiliating defeat in Afghanistan — a defeat caused by politicians and generals, not the soldiers themselves.
An enormous collection of Afghanistan War footage has been removed from the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service by the Pentagon, according to a report in Task and Purpose. More than 120,000 photos and 17,000 videos have been removed from the DVIDS official record.
Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said the images that were archived, so Afghans who helped the U.S. in the war will not be put in danger. The problem? A large number of the archived images do not show any Afghan soldiers or civilians.
If you feel like you’re living in “Idiocracy,” you’re not alone.
A significant percent of the archived images are portraits of U.S. service members on patrol and in combat.
In one example, photos showing U.S. Army soldiers in the Kandahar province are no longer on the DVIDS, though they remain in outlets such as the Los Angeles Times. A significant number of the archived images can still be found online.
The DVIDS houses a prodigious amount of public domain material available to the public and the press. It is the place reporters, historians and other interested parties go to to help them construct reliable narratives concerning the Afghan war.
Is the Biden administration attempting to create a reality based on false narratives?
The Taliban, since their victory in August, has targeted and brutalized Afghans, from those who participated in the former government, to female judges to the families of Afghans who worked for the U.S. government. There are many in Afghanistan facing grave danger to this day.
The Defense Department began archiving the imagery in August and September as it was working to get Afghans out of the country, according to Kirby. Are they so foolish as to believe that most if not all relevant DVIDS images of men and women who helped the U.S. in the war had previously been downloaded and stored elsewhere?
And what about all the archived images of U.S. Service members, many of them presumably dead or severely wounded in the war, that have compromised a total of zero Afghan soldiers or civilians? Why are they now missing from the DVIDS?
Kirby claimed his decision was not prompted by a specific security threat but said there was ample reason for the move. He also claimed the archived images will be republished at the “right time.” He didn’t give a hint as to when.
No specific threat? No timeline to republish? Is this just one more colossal blunder of a incredibly inept administration?
Many people wonder if the abrupt and disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan was due to gross negligence. How about erasing American soldiers from the official historical record in an attempt to rewrite a history more favorable to the administration? Is this gross negligence or is it hubris?
It’s not wise to attempt to fool reality by creating false narratives, and there’s far too much of it going on these days. Reality always wins in the end. Always. Count on it.
The Biden administration’s reckless withdrawal from Afghanistan will never be forgotten, no matter what lengths they may go too to erase it.
Men are not gods who can create reality to their liking. To try to do so is an act of hubris.
In a representative republic, elected officials must negotiate reality to the best of their ability, not for themselves, but in the best interest of their constituents.
The U.S. troops who served bravely and with honor in Afghanistan were and are American citizens. They will not be forgotten.
Coalition of GOP leaders say Biden admin’s singular focus on nuke deal endangers American troops
Republicans in Congress are renewing pressure on the Biden administration to abandon its diplomacy with Iran following Tehran’s recent drone strike on a U.S. military outpost in Syria, according to a letter sent Thursday to the White House.
Seventeen Republican members of Congress, led by Rep. Bryan Steil (Wis.), accused the Biden administration of ignoring Iran’s increasingly aggressive attacks on the United States and its allies in the Middle East to secure a revamped version of the 2015 nuclear accord. As negotiations between Iran and U.S. diplomats stall amid Tehran’s demands for full-scale relief from economic sanctions, the Islamic Republic has stepped up its regional terrorist enterprise.
“During a time of heightened tensions in the Middle East, it sends a dangerous message to our friends and adversaries that we continue to lift sanctions and negotiate with the largest state sponsor of terrorism as they attack us,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter, which was obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. “This attack is yet another reminder that your administration is setting the wrong priorities by working to re-enter the Iran nuclear deal. If Iran is willing to engage in this kind of behavior while negotiations are still ongoing, imagine the respect they will have for any agreement once the ink is dry.”
U.S. military officials say Iran was behind a “complex, coordinated and deliberate attack” late last month on an American military outpost in Syria, where U.S. troops are stationed. Several drones carrying explosives struck the military site, though no casualties were reported. Iran has been behind a string of drone strikes on American, Israeli, and other allied positions in the region.
The Biden administration did not publicly respond to the strike or announce any operations aimed at countering Iranian aggression. The administration’s decision to avoid agitating Iran in the wake of the strike has prompted accusations that the United States is looking the other way as it scrambles to ink a nuclear deal with Tehran. As Biden’s diplomats promise to waive crippling economic sanctions on the country—including those that target Iran’s support for terrorist proxy groups—Republicans are increasingly concerned the Islamic Republic will become more emboldened.
In addition to Steil, the letter was signed by Republican representatives Dan Crenshaw (Texas), Randy Weber (Texas), Brian Babin (Texas), Doug Lamborn (Colo.), Tracey Mann (Kan.), and Vicky Hartzler (Mo.), among others.
The drone strike came just weeks before Iran sent several drones toward a U.S. naval vessel that was operating in the Persian Gulf. Iran says it prevented the United States from interfering in its seizure of an oil tanker.
“We have continued to watch Iran attack U.S. troops and our allies in the Middle East, while increasing its nuclear activities,” the lawmakers wrote. “These threats are ongoing, and your administration continues to weaken our ability to combat the Iranian regime by lifting U.S. sanctions.”
Steil, speaking to the Free Beacon about the letter, said the Biden administration’s singular focus on its diplomacy with Iran sets “the wrong priorities” for America.
“This administration is weakening our ability to combat the regime, and is increasing already heightened tensions in the Middle East,” Steil said. “We must hold Iran accountable, and ensure we are protecting Americans, our troops, and civilians in the region.”
A seasoned boxer senses weakness in an opponent and quickly seeks advantage. China senses weakness in the U.S., because it’s plain to see, and has already begun taking advantage.
Hours after Biden cowered in front of the world at the UN Climate Change Conference — stating he wants competition, not conflict, with China — the Pentagon warned that China could have “at least” 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030. China will also expand their number of silos capable of launching rockets, as reported by the Daily Mail.
“I’ve made it clear, this is competition. It does not have to be conflict,” Biden said at a news conference in Glasgow, Scotland. Does Biden want to seek a nuclear arms race with China? If so, it looks like China is game.
The international stage would have been an ideal place for Biden to shame China about human rights violations concerning the Uyghurs, aggression against Taiwan or unleashing COVID on the world. Instead, he complained about China’s lack of attendance and repeated, “There is no reason there needs to be conflict,” and that he expects Xi to play by the rules.
Or else what? China looks like they are playing smash-mouth football and are willing to do what is necessary to dominate the globe.
Competition is a type of conflict — unless you give blue ribbons to everybody that participates in the game, that is. China does not appear to be interested in a game that encourages mediocrity. They are looking to win.
According to the 2021 DOD Military and Security Report on China, the “PRC’s strategy aims to achieve ‘the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation’ by 2049 to match or surpass U.S. global influence and power, displace U.S. alliances and security partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region and revise the international order to be more advantageous to Beijing’s authoritarian system and national interests.”
While the Biden administration focuses on COVID mandates, transgender admirals, trillion-dollar socialist tax-and-spend packages and threatening angry parents who call out the wickedness in Critical Race Theory with domestic terrorism, China’s National Radio and Television Administration recently instituted new measures to keep “effeminate” men off Chinese screens, according to The Daily Wire.
Is China poised to dominate America?
Chinese regulators push programming to “vigorously promote excellent Chinese traditional culture, revolutionary culture, and advanced socialist culture” on television and the internet to realize President Xi Jinping’s plans for “national rejuvenation” by creating a more “patriotic atmosphere” for viewers.
Back in the U.S.A? Domestic terrorism is a top concern. The January 6 riot is amped up into an “insurrection,” though the only person who was shot was unarmed Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt. CRT’s sole purpose seems to be to engender hatred and suspicion among American citizens based on the color of someone’s skin.
And the list goes on: Down with the patriarchy. Systemic racism. Down with the police. Blah, blah, blah. Are leftists competing with China on who can be the better Marxist by undermining Western traditional culture? To make way for what? An authoritarian political scheme?
Instead of patriotism and unity, leftists promote confusion, intolerance, division and hatred.
Our Founders realized that disunity at home would allow hostile foreign governments to further sow the seeds of discontent and pluck American sovereignty from the withering tree of democracy.
Make no mistake, China senses the Biden administration’s weakness. They’ll do their best to take advantage of it.
China’s intentions to build a massive nuclear arsenal meshes with the fact they successfully tested an orbital, hypersonic delivery system in the last several weeks. This means that China has one of the most sophisticated delivery systems on Earth, if not the most advanced. Now, they’re going to make the nukes to arm it.
The intelligence community (IC) recently declassified the detail backing its predictably inconclusive, highly equivocal analysis of the Chinese coronavirus’s origin. Remarkably, the sole point on which intelligence officials seem confident—that COVID-19 was not a bioweapon, the most disturbing theory of all—is the one on which they provide the thinnest, weakest, and most oddly-approached argument. To point this out is not to endorse the bioweapon theory, but to call into question the rigor of the intelligence community’s (IC) analysis.
According to the newly-released analysis, the “IC assesses China did not develop SARS-CoV-2 as a biological weapon.” It provides one bullet-point to justify this position, claiming that bioweapon allegations are rooted in “scientifically invalid claims,” and that proponents lack “direct access to the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” or “are suspected of spreading disinformation.”
Two of these three points do not actually refute the claim. They merely call into question the credibility of the claimants. One only counters the claim vaguely.
The IC points readers to an annex for further reading wherein the IC, in an apparent bid to bolster its case, combats the argument of a single unnamed Hong Kong virologist, who worked in a WHO-affiliated lab. Said virologist, presumably Dr. Li-meng Yan, contends that the coronavirus was a bioweapon created by Beijing and intentionally released by researchers. Analysts write that this doctor’s view is: “inconsistent with available technical information on coronaviruses … [and] that … [her] articles contain several technical inaccuracies and omit key data points …. The scientific community did not peer review these articles and some publicly rejected the articles’ claims as scientifically unsound.”
This is the entirety of the IC’s public case against the bioweapon theory.
Now, all else being equal, the inherent riskiness and unpredictability of a bioweapon gambit logically would make it an unlikely explanation.
And those U.S. government officials with even the most hardened and cynical view of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have never marshaled evidence for it. Perhaps the closest the federal government has ever come to implying that there might be anything malicious behind the coronavirus’s origin was a portion of the Trump State Department’s January 2021 fact sheet. It raised the point that “Secret military activity” at the Wuhan Institute of Virology merited greater scrutiny, invoking “concerns about China’s past biological weapons work,” and noting that WIV had “collaborated on publications and secret projects with China’s military.” This work included engaging in classified research on behalf of the Chinese military since at least 2017, some of which involved laboratory animal experiments.
It may well be that the evidence of the Chinese coronavirus’s natural origin or lab leak is far more compelling.
It may well be that the IC’s summary statement that most analysts assess that the Chinese coronavirus was not genetically engineered, and that “Chinese officials probably did not have foreknowledge” that it existed before its outbreak, indicate the bioweapon theory is bunk..
But the IC does not state it explicitly. It is silent on the points raised by the Trump State Department. It does not rule out the bioweapon theory by addressing the basic questions it ought to have considered such as:
Do Chinese authorities have the will and capability to develop and deploy a bioweapon akin to the Chinese coronavirus?
Would they have had a motive to develop and deploy one in late 2019?
What would the cost-benefit analysis have looked like in the eyes of the ruling communist regime?
What direct evidence is there, if any, to suggest or dispel the idea China intentionally created and/or released the coronavirus?
Maybe the IC is sitting on a much deeper analysis eliminating the most malicious theory. But if so, it has not shown it to the world.
It may well be that the IC believes that the bioweapon theory is so far-fetched and outlandish on its face that it is not even worth legitimizing or entertaining. Prior to its 90-day review back in May, it had already prejudged that the two most plausible theories were lab leak or natural occurrence, and it clearly directed its focus to those two theories.
This may all be reasonable.
But it is also reasonable to ask why it chose to make the case against the bioweapon theory in such an indirect, and therefore unpersuasive fashion.
Combined with other intelligence failures on measures large and small, and former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe’s assessment that the IC had taken a politicized approach to China on another sensitive issue, the IC’s analysis becomes more questionable. One would think it would have wanted to have more persuasively dispelled this theory given the disinformation concern it raised.
U.S. “Climate Czar” John Kerry has a long history of supporting communist states, including the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Kerry could not have been happy with the disclosure last week that he has invested $1 million in a Chinese private equity firm, which has “invested in a tech company blacklisted for human rights abuses but is also a major shareholder in a solar panel company linked to labor abuses of the Uyghurs,” according to The Washington Free Beacon.
This embarrassing news could not have come at a worse time for the itinerant purveyor of all things green for the Biden administration, as Kerry plays a prominent role in the 26th U.N. Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) held in Glasgow, Scotland, from Oct. 31 to Nov. 12.
As a reminder, Kerry is a former Democrat U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, a Democrat presidential candidate in 2004, and served as the 68th secretary of state from 2013 to 2017, during Barack Obama’s second term.
Kerry has supported the causes of foreign communists and enemies of America during his long public career. Let us examine the record.
Vietnam Era (1966–1978)
Kerry first achieved notoriety as a controversial naval reserve officer during the Vietnam War, a collaborator with the communist North Vietnamese, and a war protestor. There is much controversy about his naval service and medals awarded, as well as his anti-war protests and phony war crimes charges, as was made public by the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth in 2004, during Kerry’s presidential campaign.
Kerry colluded with the communist North Vietnamese during the Paris Peace Accords in 1970, when he was still technically a naval reserve officer. That meeting was a direct violation of U.S. code 18 U.S.C. 953, for which he was never held accountable. Kerry later even bragged about his Paris meetings with the communists in testimony before Congress: “I have been to Paris. I have talked with both delegations at the peace talks, that is to say the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government.” A court martial would very likely have nipped Kerry’s pro-communist political career in the bud, but then-Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird ultimately declined two Navy requests to court martial Kerry for this and other anti-war activities.
US Senator (1984–2012)
During his Senate career, Kerry opposed every Reagan Cold War policy aimed at deterring the Soviets. And he even advocated on behalf of the communist Sandinistas in Nicaragua in the 1980s, as noted by the Los Angeles Times:
“Many leaders had a hand in Washington’s Cold War triumph, but Ronald Reagan‘s contributions were pivotal, and Kerry opposed every one of them. … He opposed our support for guerrillas in Nicaragua as vociferously as anyone in the Senate, even traveling to Managua to try to cut a deal with Sandinista strongman Daniel Ortega to thwart Reagan’s policy.”
The then U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry shakes hands with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People at the end of the eight round of U.S.-China strategic and economic dialogues in Beijing, China, on June 7, 2016. Kerry was in China for talks on a variety of issues including seeking diplomatic solutions for the South China Sea. (Nicolas Asfouri/Pool/Getty Images)
Secretary of State (2013–2016)
Kerry replaced Hillary Clinton as President Obama’s secretary of state in 2013. Throughout his tenure, Kerry supported normalization of relations with communist Cuba, and he made it a priority to break with past U.S. policy by pushing to open a U.S. Embassy in Cuba. Obama shared his vision, and thus Kerry was able to make his triumphant visit to reopen the U.S. Embassy in Havana in 2015, much to the chagrin of American anticommunists, and especially Cuban-Americans, who fully understood the evils of the communist regime in Cuba.
Kerry also played a significant role in helping Obama negotiate the flawed “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” (JCPOA, the “nuclear deal”) with the terror-supporting Islamic Republic of Iran, which was never ratified by the U.S. Senate.
Iran is fast becoming a major economic and political ally of the Chinese regime. China and Iran have recently signed an agreement that involves “Chinese investment of $400 billon in Iran over a 25-year period in return for lower Iranian petroleum export prices,” according to the Center for Strategic & International Studies.
Some have argued that, due to stunning concessions in the deal to the Chinese, Iran is becoming a de facto Chinese colony. “A secret element of the agreement has a military dimension: China will deploy 5,000 members of its security forces on the ground in Iran,” according to the Gatestone Institute. And Kerry helped lay the groundwork for China’s People’s Liberation Army to establish a foothold in Iran.
Out of Government (2017–2020)
Kerry continued to negotiate with the Iranians and Europeans in order to prop up the JCPOA after he was out of government, as well as directly undermine official U.S. policy, as then-President Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement and reimposed sanctions on Iran.
Kerry almost certainly violated the Logan Act by conducting unauthorized negotiations as a private citizen with foreign government representatives, as noted by Kerry’s hometown newspaper, The Boston Globe: “[Kerry] sat down at the United Nations with Foreign Minister Javad Zarif to discuss ways of preserving the pact limiting Iran’s nuclear weapons program. It was the second time in about two months that the two had met to strategize over salvaging a deal they spent years negotiating during the Obama administration.”
As noted above, keeping the JCPOA in place was, and is, an objective that directly aids the Chinese regime’s geopolitical objectives in Iran and the Arabian Gulf region in general.
Climate Czar (2021–Present)
It was a natural act for President Joe Biden to appoint his long-time political ally Kerry as the first U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate.
In an early act of perfidy, The New York Times has noted that Kerry disclosed over 200 Israeli covert operations in Syria with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, according to audio tape excerpts. Was classified information disclosed with Zarif in discussing those covert operations? And who but America’s potential adversaries—including Russia and China—benefitted by these disclosures?
Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden (right) campaigns with former Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in Elkader, Iowa, on Dec. 6, 2019. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Back in April, Kerry facilitated a joint U.S.-China statement on the “climate crisis.” His portfolio includes pushing for green technology in the United States and overseas, and his investment in a major shareholder of a Chinese solar panel company would appear to be a clear conflict of interest. As China is the top supplier of solar panels in the world, Kerry well understands the personal business potential resulting from the Democratic Party’s inexorable push for implementing the “Green New Deal” in America. This is a conflict of interest, which provides economic benefits to a communist-run country.
Just as Kerry and Biden were long-time friends and allies, Kerry’s stepson, Chris Heinz, partnered with Biden’s son, Hunter, in 2009 to create a small international private equity firm, which was backed by the Heinz family’s “alternative investment fund, Rosemont Capital,” according to a report by the New York Post.
That small firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners, was later merged with Bohai Capital, a Chinese firm controlled by the Bank of China, to form a new joint venture called Bohai Harvest Investment (BHR). BHR was able to secure a $1.5 billion business loan from the Bank of China. Part of that loan was used to invest in the automotive subsidiary of Aviation Industry Corporation of China, which is “a major Chinese military contractor accused of frequently stealing U.S. military technology,” according to The Western Journal.
Political connections and corruption are the only explanations for how such business transactions happen. And who benefits? The CCP, the Chinese military, and the sons of two top Democrats.
John and Chris, and Joe and Hunter—the parallels are remarkable, but not surprising. And the “Climate Czar” has extended his investments to Uyghur genocide-linked Chinese entities now, too. Just the latest in Kerry’s political history that is replete with pro-communist activities.
Stealthy underwater explosions, drone fighter jets, and military AI reveal the CCP’s technological aggression
The Chinese military is unveiling a range of sophisticated military technologies, from underwater stealth attacks against foreign ports, to drone fighters and military artificial intelligence (AI).
China’s military is testing stealthy underwater explosions for purposes of the destruction of foreign ports, according to the Global Times, an ultra-nationalist news outlet controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
“If we can use stealthy ways, like underwater explosions to destroy the ports, we can kill off the enemy’s war potential,” Captain Zhao Pengduo, the deputy director of the Naval Port Demolition Test Program, said on a China Central Television (CCTV) program.
Just in case the West missed it, the Global Times translated the comments and published them on Oct. 25. The testing and its publication, in English, could be an attempt to prove the credibility of China’s naval threat to the United States as tensions rise over Taiwan, the South China Sea, and Japan’s Senkaku Islands, all of which Beijing claims as its territory. The CCP thus reveals that its intentions are not honorable.
Scientific sensors were placed on the small wharf for the test prior to its destruction. Chinese state media reported that “as the explosion took place, nearly 1,000 pieces of data were gathered, which were then analyzed to accurately evaluate how the wharf was damaged … noting that this will provide scientific support to attack hostile ports in a real war.”
According to a Beijing military expert quoted by the Global Times, “This tactic can play a significant role in many combat scenarios, including countering the US’ naval warfare aimed at China.”
The expert continued, “Since the US now understands its large vessels like aircraft carriers and large military facilities near China are vulnerable to attacks, it is scattering its forces to … smaller locations.”
The expert claimed that the scattering of the U.S. Navy would make logistics, command, and communications more difficult, presumably forcing U.S. ships to rely on numerous regional ports that are vulnerable to China’s stealthy underwater explosions. Beijing’s military strategy is apparently to force the failure of port-based logistics chains upon which the U.S. and allied navies rely.
Stealthy underwater explosions could be facilitated by AI enabled drones. So as concerning is a new report from Georgetown University that claims the Chinese military could be spending more on AI than the United States.
A truck loaded with the Chinese made drone, the ASN-207, takes part in a military parade in Beijing on Oct. 1, 2009. (Vincent Thian/AP)
Based on publicly-available Chinese military procurement records, the Georgetown researchers conclude that the Chinese military spends between $1.6 billion and $2.7 billion annually on AI; while the United States only spent from $800 million to $1.3 billion last year. The Chinese military’s primary source of AI technology may be the United States, according to the report.
Georgetown researcher Ryan Fedasiuk, who coauthored the report, claims that the Chinese military bought AI systems “designed to identify undersea vehicles, wargame Taiwan operations, track U.S. Navy ships, and deploy electronic countermeasures.”
AI will be critical to the future of air combat as well. Simulations over the past couple of years have shown that AI-enabled fighter jets often out-compete their human-only cousins.
The South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported on Oct. 29 that China’s air force could test the world’s first two-seat stealth fighter within the next two weeks. One of the pilots would operate the plane, a variation of the J-20 Weilong Mighty Dragon, and the other will operate AI-enabled “loyal wingman” drones that accompany the J-20 into battle.
“Experts said the variant showed China had beaten the US and other competitors,” according to the SCMP, which is owned by China’s Alibaba Group. Development of the J-20 variant “was an attempt to prove that the US concept of next generation air dominance (NGAD) could be successfully applied in Chinese aircraft technology,” the report said.
Prior news of China’s hypersonic missile development, and installation of hundreds of intercontinental ballistic missile silos in the Xinjiang region, add to more recent concerns of underwater explosion tests, AI progress, and stealth fighter jet development to paint a dim picture of the CCP’s intentions and willingness to execute goals such as the invasion of Taiwan.
U.S. lawmakers and regulators recently responded to Beijing’s increasingly threatening behavior, including through the essential disruption of China’s theft of American intellectual property that fuels the Chinese military-industrial complex. One effective way to approach this is by clamping down on some of China’s most important technology companies.
On Oct. 26, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) appealed to national security considerations in the revocation of a China Telecom subsidiary’s authorization to operate in the United States.
The U.S. Senate voted unanimously on Oct. 28 for legislation that prevents U.S. regulators from granting new equipment licenses to five companies designated on the FCC’s “Covered Equipment or Services List.” The companies include Huawei, ZTE, Hytera, Hikvision, and Zhejiang Dahua, all of which are considered to be security threats.
In a vote of 420 to 4, the House had previously approved the law. The majority is veto proof in both houses, so President Joe Biden will likely sign the bill into law shortly.
But restrictions on Beijing’s ability to steal American technology are entirely inadequate to date. The Georgetown study found that the U.S. Commerce Department only restricts 22 of 273 firms that supply the Chinese military. Fedasiuk wrote in a tweet, “Almost none are subject to financial sanctions.”
The United States must get much more serious about defeating Beijing’s plans to steal American technology and use it to build the CCP’s economic and military strength against democracy and human rights on a global scale. More subsidies of American technology, before stopping the technology leakage problem, could only make it worse. The $250 billion U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, for example, is currently held up in the House. It includes massive technology subsidies geared for the competition with China, and should be revised to ensure that the CCP does not thereby benefit more than America.
Iran’s worst nightmare just appeared over the Persian Gulf, and it’s not a threat that any missile can break.
The most terrifying thing for the rogue nation wasn’t the American B-1B Lancer bomber that flew over the gulf Saturday, nor was it the plane’s fighter jet escorts.
Rather, it was the origin of these warplanes that sent chills down the Ayatollah’s spine.
According to Politico, fighter escorts from Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt flew alongside the American bomber.
The true terror for Iran lies in this cooperation: Here are nations that should be at each other’s throats over religious, political and cultural divides, yet they are all unified to send an unmistakable message to the quasi-nuclear menace.
“We are stronger together,” Gen. Frank McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command, said in a statement.
“Military readiness for any contingency or mission — from crisis response to multilateral exercises to one-day presence patrols like this — depend on reliable partnerships.”
While the United States Air Force has celebrated the joint flight, Iran has been largely silent on the matter.
The warplanes’ path took them over the Strait of Hormuz, a geographical choke point leading out of the gulf and a critical avenue for Iran’s oil trade. Military action here would certainly bring the country’s economy to a virtual halt.
Will countries continue to cooperate against Iran?
With no money and no way to move oil, things would quickly fall apart for the Islamic republic.
It’s clear why these countries are putting aside their differences to confront the largest regional threat.
Iran has rattled its saber for decades, threatening annihilation to neighbors and countries a hemisphere away. Now, the Islamic republic is getting a look at what it could face if tensions eventually boil over.
While the rogue nation was kept in check with punishing sanctions from former President Donald Trump, developments under the current U.S. administration have created better conditions for the radical country.
Iran announced earlier this year that President Joe Biden agreed to lift Trump’s sanctions, giving the struggling country money and goods needed to continue building a powerful military.
Potentially, the flow of resources would also allow the Islamic republic to pursue a nuclear weapons program. Although Iran claims its nuclear ambitions are purely for peaceful purposes, not everyone is willing to take the nation at its word.
It’s not hard to see why countries that were at war in the 20th Century are now jointly sending Iran a warning. Such an unstable country armed with even a single nuclear weapon can throw an entire region into chaos and conflict.
To see a Star of David flying alongside roundels of Muslim nations might have been unthinkable in the past, but this is the reality of the Middle East we now live with.
The chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan seems to be the gift that just keeps on giving.
In the midst of the destruction and Taliban takeover, it is actually the Islamic State that is now benefiting greatly from President Joe Biden’s poor planning, and the U.S. is the loser in the grand scheme of it all.
During all the years that the U.S. was present in the country, they were training elite Afghan military units. Now, some of those U.S.-trained officers are joining the Islamic State-Khorasan in defiance of the Taliban.
The Taliban and ISIS-K are bitter enemies, and the war between them in Afghanistan has never ceased. In fact, when the Taliban took over the country, the fighting increased as the groups began targeting each other’s fighters and leaders. But now, ISIS-K could gain the upper hand as they gain elite Afghan officers.
According to an exclusive report from The Wall Street Journal, the group of Afghan defectors to ISIS-K is still small but may be growing.
“Importantly, these new recruits bring to Islamic State critical expertise in intelligence-gathering and warfare techniques, potentially strengthening the extremist organization’s ability to contest Taliban supremacy,” the WSJ reported.
Various Afghan officials told the paper of previous members of the Afghan military and intelligence branches who disappeared and then reappeared as fighters for the Islamic State.
“In some areas, ISIS has become very attractive,” said Rahmatullah Nabil, a former head of Afghanistan’s spy agency, the National Directorate of Security.
Though ISIS-K may appall many, it does make sense that Afghan officers would be joining its ranks. After years of working with Americans to stave off the Taliban, it’s logical that they would then join the only real organized resistance to the Taliban.
Should the U.S. work with the Taliban to fight ISIS-K?
No matter what else ISIS-K is embroiled in or planning, it has set itself up as the main opponent of the Taliban.
Besides just being the resistance to the Taliban, ISIS-K could also provide protection to Afghan officers who previously were allied with the United States. The Taliban promised amnesty to those who worked with Americans, but there seems to be little trust in this promise.
“Hundreds of thousands of former Afghan republic intelligence officers, soldiers and police personnel are unemployed and afraid for their lives despite pledges of amnesty from the Taliban,” The Wall Street Journal reported.
Along with protection from the Taliban, the WSJ also heard reports that ISIS-K is offering significant compensation to new members in Afghanistan.
This whole development is deeply concerning to the U.S., and rightly so. Not only has the government inadvertently funded ISIS-K terrorism as Afghan officers they trained are joining the organization, but the terror of the Islamic State will eventually be directed at America. In a way, the U.S. may have funded an attack against itself.
While ISIS-K may not have the ability to launch an attack on the U.S. immediately, senior Pentagon official Colin Kahl said recently, “We could see ISIS-K generate that capability in somewhere between six or 12 months,” CNN reported.
Originally, it might have been assumed that the Taliban would be able to curb ISIS-K, but Kahl clarified that, though the Taliban are highly motivated to beat down the Islamic State, “their ability to do so, I think, is to be determined,” according to Middle Eastern news site Gandhara.
ISIS-K seems to be showcasing its new surge of power and has already been responsible for several bombings in Afghanistan just in the last few weeks, Human Rights Watch reported.
So it is certainly not helping that now, U.S. trained Afghan officers are strengthening ISIS-K against the Taliban.
In this violent fight between the Taliban and ISIS-K, the U.S. is caught in the middle with hostility coming from both sides. There are simply no winners in this triangle of conflict, and the Biden administration’s decision to withdraw American troops simply brought everything to a head.
Former President Donald Trump released a statement Monday blasting President Joe Biden over his failures in Afghanistan and beyond, claiming world leaders are “laughing at Biden.”
The statement was released following videos of Biden apparently falling asleep during Monday’s COP26 conference in Scotland and later apologizing to world leaders over America leaving the Paris Accord, blaming Trump for “putting us behind the eight ball.”
“It is very interesting that Afghanistan, and our horrible and incompetent withdrawal, losing soldiers and leaving $Billions of military equipment, was when people really began to realize how horrible this Socialism/Communism direction for America has become,” Trump said.
NEW!
“It is very interesting that Afghanistan, and our horrible and incompetent withdrawal, losing soldiers and leaving $Billions of military equipment, was when people really began to realize how horrible this Socialism/Communism direction for America has become… pic.twitter.com/NgFjuHxwT7
Trump also said Biden is being laughed at by world leaders during his time in Europe.
“We have never been thought of so poorly as we are right now, including the fact that the leaders of foreign countries, all of whom are at the top of their game, are laughing at Biden as he makes the rounds in Europe,” the former president said.
“So low and so bad for America,” Trump added. “There has never been a time like it!”
“There has never been a time like it!” – President Donald J. Trump
Biden was criticized across social media after apparently falling asleep during the COP26 Climate Summit opening speeches, closing his eyes at one point for approximately 20 seconds.
Biden traveled to the United Nations climate conference on Monday to support a new legislative framework destined to become the largest in America’s history to address climate change.
As the speaker said, “You are in a position of extraordinary power,” Biden’s eyes closed, with his arms folded while sitting upright in a chair among other attendees.
After the video plays for almost a full minute, an assistant appears at the president’s side to wake him with what was apparently an important message. The speech then ends with Biden and the audience applauding.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…
— Declaration of Independence, 1776
The promise of the United States has always been about more than itself. In recognizing that all human beings are created equal, and in defending individual liberty, the United States has demonstrated that self-government is possible.
It has done so while making steady progress toward realizing its ideals so that anyone—regardless of what race they are, whether they are male or female, or where they come from—may pursue his or her idea of happiness.
This has unleashed energy and creativity. America has achieved unheard of levels of abundance and has been a fount of invention, enriching all of humanity.
America’s first settlers traveled here to gain the freedom to worship as they chose, and the United States has all along recognized the importance of “in God we trust.” It has protected spiritual life in order to give its citizens the conditions needed to flourish.
But forces inside and outside the United States now threaten to undo America’s promise.
With the American Promise initiative, The Epoch Times seeks to revitalize America’s principles and traditions while contributing to our nation’s quest to perfect itself.
Main Challenges To The American Promise
Marxist Ideology Challenges America
When KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov spoke of America’s decline, he spoke of a gradual “demoralization” of the nation driven by Marxist-Leninist ideology. While faced with this domestic ideological crisis, America is also facing the threat of China’s ruling Communist Party, which for decades has infiltrated nearly every aspect of our society, in the fields of education, entertainment, politics, and business, among others. Exposing these threats and educating people about them is now, we believe, a critical element of allowing America to realize its promise.
Traditions Under Assault
Our founders believed that our form of self-government was created for a moral people. Traditions have allowed nations to flourish for thousands of years. How do we return ourselves to a path of tradition and righteous principles?
Ideological Education
Our education system is a cornerstone of society. Over the years, however, the idea of striving for excellence has been challenged by post-modernist ideology. If we want our nation to flourish, our children should be well-educated, moral beings.
Constitutional Rights Challenged
Our education system is a cornerstone of society. Over the years, however, the idea of striving for excellence has been challenged by post-modernist ideology. If we want our nation to flourish, our children should be well-educated, moral beings.
President Joe Biden’s administration is withholding information about Afghanistan, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko said during a speech on Friday.
As an example, Sopko said, the Department of Defense (DoD) withheld information on the performance of Afghan security forces, including unit strength, training deficiencies, and casualty data, or, “in essence, nearly all the information you needed to know to determine whether the Afghan security forces were a real fighting force or a house of cards waiting to fall.”
“In light of recent events, it is not surprising that the Afghan government, and likely some in DoD, wanted to keep that information under lock and key,” he added.
Sopko said he was forced to relegate the information into classified appendices of a recent report his office released detailing flaws in the United States’ 20-year war in Afghanistan.
“This information almost certainly would have benefited Congress and the public in assessing whether progress was being made in Afghanistan and, more importantly, whether we should have ended our efforts there earlier,” he said.
“DoD is well aware of the Special Investigator for Afghanistan Reconstruction’s recent report. Its assertions that DoD deliberately withheld information on the Afghan Security Forces lacks context as the department took significant effort to ensure that the availability of data on Afghan forces was treated similarly to how DOD would manage such data on U.S. forces,” Major. Rob Lodewick, a Pentagon spokesman, told The Epoch Times in an email.
The Pentagon maintains that the Afghan government wanted to classify the data and that it recommended against it but “abided by the decision of the original classification authority.” Overall, the department says it has cooperated with SIGAR since the office was created by Congress.
The State Department, meanwhile, wrote to Sopko shortly after U.S.-backed Afghan forces were routed by the Taliban terrorist group as the U.S. moved to fully withdraw from the country.
“Shortly after the fall of Kabul, the State Department wrote to me and other oversight agencies requesting to ‘temporarily suspend access’ to all ‘audit, inspection, and financial audit … reports’ on our website because the Department was afraid that information included in those reports could put Afghan allies at risk,” Sopko said.
While the watchdog believes Afghans at risk should be protected, the State Department was never able to describe any specific threats nor could they explain how removing the reports “could possibly protect anyone since many were years old and already extensively disseminated worldwide.”
Sopko complied reluctantly with the request but became more puzzled when the agency reached out asking for redacting roughly 2,400 items in the reports, including the name of former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. A review found all but four requests “without merit.”
“In my opinion, the full picture of what happened in August—and all the warning signs that could have predicted the outcome—will only be revealed if the information that the Departments of Defense and State have already restricted from public release is made available,” said Sopko.
The speech was delivered to a conference in Arlington, Virginia.
A State Department spokesperson said in an email that the agency has worked to address challenges SIGAR identified in its report and recognizes the importance of the watchdog’s work.
“Due to safety and security concerns regarding our ongoing evacuation efforts, we requested some reports be temporarily removed to redact identifying information from public records and protect the identities of Afghans and Afghan partner organizations. SIGAR has the authority to restore the reports when it deems appropriate,” the spokesperson said.
“To protect the identities of Afghans and Afghan implementing partner organizations, the Department of State has worked to remove identifying information from multiple public records. The identifying information are the only details intended to be shielded. Because of the volume of information, some entities temporarily removed reports or full datasets,” they added.
Drones, towers, license plate readers, and other surveillance tools comprise a “digital border wall” that threatens privacy and civil liberties, according to a new report from three immigration advocacy groups.
The Deadly Digital Border Wall report criticizes law enforcement’s surveillance of the U.S.-Mexico border, but the tools described in the report could be—and have been—used against all American residents as the government ramps up programs to counter domestic extremism.
The report—published by Mijente, Just Futures Law, and the Rio Grande Valley No Border Wall Coalition—details two main tools law enforcement uses to track migrations: drones and towers. Additionally, the government uses a wide array of surveillance systems and databases to track all people who cross U.S. borders—illegally or otherwise.
According to the report, there are at least 55 surveillance towers along with Southwest border. These structures are 80 to 140 feet tall and are equipped with day and night cameras and a radar that can identify people six miles away, the report said.
There are also more than 360 remote video surveillance systems—smaller, relocatable surveillance towers—and dozens of mobile surveillance systems. Each mobile system consists of a truck with telescoping poles in the bed that extend up to 35 feet in the air, outfitted with thermal and video cameras and a laser illuminator, the report explained.
Meanwhile, the government is rolling out its newest surveillance tool: an autonomous tower powered by artificial intelligence, which can be used without the direct control of a human operator, the report said.
“The relocatable towers are 33 feet tall and suited to work in remote environments with little maintenance, since they operate off the grid and around the clock, using solar panels for energy,” the report said, adding that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) plans on installing 200 of them by fiscal year 2022.
The growing number of towers is complemented by a fleet of drones along the border in the Southwest. The report said CBP has more than 135 drones, with plans to procure another 460.
“Nearly 600 operators were trained to fly them, and the agency aimed to double that number in 2021 with a training program in West Virginia,” the report said, adding, “Since 2016, CBP has expressed interest in developing drones with facial recognition capabilities.”
While the abovementioned tools are ostensibly designed to track illegal border crossings, the report also details numerous surveillance tools used to track all travelers crossing U.S. borders.
For instance, the report raised concerns about the forthcoming Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology System (HART), which the Department of Homeland Security is implementing to replace a legacy system.
“Hosted by Amazon Web Services, the new system will aggregate, link, and compare facial recognition images, DNA profiles, iris scans, digital fingerprints, and voice prints on unique profiles of hundreds of millions of people,” the report said.
“The planned database will collect this invasive personal data from diverse federal agencies like ICE, CBP, FBI, and the Department of Defense, as well as from local and state law enforcement, and from foreign governments including Mexico, the Northern Triangle countries of Central America, and the Five Eyes alliance.”
Another surveillance tool that has come under scrutiny is the automated license plate reader, which tracks plate numbers, precise dates and times, images, geolocation information, and other data.
“This data can be used to determine the travel patterns of individual drivers,” the report said. “Most importantly, the plate data can be matched with a car’s owner to track their movement, and stored and shared among different law enforcement agencies.”
Along with documenting the methods and tools used by the government, the report also tracks the private contractors that have been profiting off the growing surveillance state.
According to the report, Motorola Solutions has a $54.6 million contract with CBP for license plate reader technology, while ICE is paying Thomson Reuters $22.8 million for similar services through 2026. Israeli military contractor Elbit Systems, meanwhile, has a $239 million contract with CBP for surveillance tower development and maintenance, and General Dynamics has been awarded $153 million through 2023 to expand the system, according to the report.
The most expensive system in the report is the HART biometric database system at an estimated $4.3 billion. Military contractor Northrop Grumman has been awarded a $143 million contract to develop the first increment of this system, the report noted.
According to the report, government and big tech are becoming increasingly intertwined when it comes to border surveillance.
“The digital wall relies on cutting-edge, for-profit surveillance technologies developed by military contractors, big tech companies, and Silicon Valley start-ups,” the report said.
“As border enforcement agencies become increasingly reliant on technology to monitor, detain, and deport immigrants, multi-million-dollar contracts are being signed to develop tools for the region.”
Lest people think that these tools are solely being used to curtail illegal immigration, the report explained that entire populations are being swept up in the surveillance dragnet.
In 2017, for instance, CBP stationed a tower in San Diego to monitor a protest, according to the report. Last year, CBP drones were deployed on Black Lives Matter protestors in at least 12 cities, the report added.
“Border communities feel the impact of this surveillance acutely. The surveillance towers above their towns don’t just monitor the border, they monitor their backyards too. The drones flying overhead are an ever-present eye in the sky, watching people as they walk, bike, and drive in their neighborhoods,” the report said.
A recent lawsuit from the ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation further backs the report’s claims, at least when it comes to license plate readers. The lawsuit revealed that one law enforcement department shared such information with more than 600 other agencies.
“Specifically, the sheriff’s office shares and transfers ALPR information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), 18 other federal agencies, and 424 out-of-state law enforcement agencies,” the lawsuit says. “This includes law enforcement agencies located as far afield as Enfield, Connecticut; St. Louis, Missouri; Lafayette, Louisiana; and Newton County, Georgia.”
The report warned that border surveillance is just a taste of what could come for the rest of the country.
“The proliferation of checkpoints is a constant reminder that the entire border region is, in the eyes of DHS, a warzone. Border communities have become a legitimate target for surveillance and enforcement—a taste of what may await the rest of the country as these technologies are rolled out nationwide.”
As the supply chain crisis continues in the United States, one Republican congressman’s car dealership is serving as an important anecdotal example of just how bad things are.
The Committee to Unleash Prosperity, a conservative economic group, revealed photos of Texas Republican Rep. Roger Williams’ auto dealership in Weatherford, Texas, before and after the current crisis.
In the first photo from July 2019, under the Trump administration, the Williams Chrysler Dodge Jeep dealership can be seen full of automobiles ready for sale.
The report from the committee then contrasts the image with one from recent days, which shows a seemingly empty lot.
Williams told the group that he normally has 500 to 1,000 cars and trucks on its lots but said that they now have only 14 for sale.
He also suggested that because of the supply chain woes, along with the computer chip shortage, people are not able to get good deals on automobiles.
“We don’t sell anything below sticker price today,” he told the committee, which was co-founded by economists Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore, who served as an adviser to former President Donald Trump.
According to Cars.com, there are actually 81 vehicles for sale at the dealership as of Thursday.
The dealership’s website says there is a combined total of 111 new and used cars for sale at the Weatherford location.
Have you experienced shortages or delays?
The Western Journal is awaiting comment from the dealership in order to get an exact number, which would still be significantly below the 500-1,000 figure that Williams considers normal.
This report is only one example of the issues happening across the United States and around the world that are deeply hurting the consumer economy.
Stores throughout the country are running low on merchandise, largely because of the cargo ship backlog in the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
Inflation was already driving prices higher, but the low supply will cause prices to surge even higher, making for a tough holiday season for millions of Americans.
There are concerns that President Joe Biden’s agenda, including a coronavirus vaccine mandate for federal contractors and his spending plan, will only make the situation worse, according to CNN.
Raytheon CEO Gregory Hayes said Tuesday on a conference call that the mandate will make matters worse for his company, which is responsible for manufacturing tools for both the private and defense sector.
“We certainly expect that there will be some disruption in both the supply chain and with our customers as a result of this,” he said. “But we’re going to work our way through it.”
Most of the economic problems we’re facing (inflation, supply chains, etc.) are high class problems. We wouldn’t have had them if the unemployment rate was still 10 percent. We would instead have had a much worse problem.
While liberal economists and the Biden administration would like to dismiss the economic concerns of Americans, this is undoubtedly impacting everything from grocers to car dealerships and yes, even the military-industrial complex.
Good! Bumbling Biden’s Build Back Better budget bill has imploded.
After renegotiation by the Democrats behind closed doors, all that remains is their “Weaker Woker Worsen” program.
It’s still a wasteful trillion-dollar socialist welfare wish list authorizing massive new spending of money we don’t have and levying taxes that will stall the economy amid the new hyperinflation eating away personal savings and threatening household independence.
The Democrats’ reckless budget must be defunded and defeated.
America must get back to work and concentrate on making money rather than just spending it. America’s exceptionalism will reappear when Americans’ work ethic, damaged by Biden’s $1.9 trillion handouts last March, is restored.
In only nine months, the Biden administration has demoralized a great nation. Its most spectacular failure — the dishonorable exit from Afghanistan — has made America weaker and our enemies stronger. Weakness is dangerous: It invites disaster.
Instead of designing “social infrastructure,” the real urgency is to reform defense leadership and restore respect and morale for American forces at home and abroad.
Will the Democrats’ radical agenda be defeated?
Our enemies must be made wary of harming any Americans anywhere ever again.
“On the day that we were sworn in together, the Vice President toppled a barrier to women’s participation that had stood for more than 200 years. Our Cabinet and senior staff are the most diverse and genderbalanced in history.”
Just as Nero fiddled while Rome burned, an old madness has taken hold — a U.S. president smiles vacuously and proffers feeble jokes in answer to serious questions; his vice president cackles inanely over grave border violations in the south.
The sovereignty of the United States of America is crumbling while the Biden administration is focused on novelties and distractions, e.g. the Department of Justice initiative to investigate “domestic terrorist” parents who resist woke ideology threatening their children.
Right now Biden is preening himself for the leader’s mantle at a gigantic “the end is nigh” alarmism conference in Glasgow. He hopes to launch a lavish spendathon nationally and internationally on Green New Deal fantasies. Supposedly a huge number of U.S. jobs and industries must be sacrificed to avert the apocalypse of climate change, which Biden says is an “existential threat.”
Meanwhile, he studiously ignores real and present dangers — the rise of China with its nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles; and here at home the worsening economic outlook — runaway inflation, growing fuel dependency on unfriendly nations, skyrocketing food prices, empty shelves, rising energy prices.
Dems Want a United States Socialist Republic – A New USSR?
The Dems’ radical revolutionary policies were never honestly explained before the election.
In a constitutional republic, responsible voting takes place only after careful consideration of specified policies presented upfront before Election Day and spelled out and explained honestly by candidates.
Emotional voting — hyped up by social media — turned the 2020 election into a noisily contested popularity poll. The election did not allow voters the opportunity to make a fully informed decision primarily because the alarming extent of the policies being revealed only now in the Build Back Better bill were withheld from the people.
The extreme changes proposed in this bill were never fully publicized, nor were they seriously evaluated before the election. They were never the electoral choice of informed voters. The details, even now, are being decided behind closed doors.
The 2020 election was orchestrated into an election of opposing personalities that distracted voters from examining opposing policies. Personalities, not policies, dominated social media. This diversion from the real issues at stake was set up and executed deftly by an amalgamation of the leftist-dominated media, academia and the entertainment industry.
Big Tech moguls, backing Biden, manipulated the messaging and vetted the messengers allowed to post. There was a steady drumbeat of woke groups threatening riots, arson and looting should the Dems not win.
The election was won by a wafer-thin majority of rattled Democratic and independent voters who mostly voted against Trump personally and not for the Dems’ policies, which remained interred with Biden in his bunker throughout the lead-up to the election.
Dems Presented a Pig-in-a-Poke Election
The Dems’ plan for a radical transformation of the whole nation and their ambitions to halt the natural tides of climate change that have benefited our world for eons would have been too large for voters to take in before the election.
We would not find out what we voted for until after the Dems won. Only then did they draw up their massive 2,465-page bill to transform our constitutional republic into a socialist republic ruled by big government. As Speaker Pelosi said once of another bill, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.”
But genuine democratic elections are about controversy — about opposing sets of policies. That’s how a true democracy works. Informed, responsible voting is every American’s duty.
Regrettably, the Dems’ radical-left tax-and-spend agenda was not raised in any clear way until after the election. Nor were voters given any real understanding of the Dems’ planned redistribution of not just wealth but of people — some 1.7 million illegal aliens exploiting an open-borders policy.
It was a pig-in-a-poke election. It was a largely superficial choice of president between two flawed men — not a truly democratic choice between substantially different policy initiatives.
Elections must never again be reduced to mere rallying cries and political propaganda that hustle Americans to vote against the incumbent president portrayed as an enemy of the people. The real achievements of the Trump presidency were disparaged.
Slightly more than half of the American voters swallowed the lie that a Biden win would return the nation to a pre-Trump era “stability.”
Indeed, the radical left wing of the Democratic Party secured a coup — an “Animal Farm” revolution:
“Four legs good, two legs bad.”
Biden-Harris good, Trump bad.
How Democracies Die
In genuine democracies, those elected to power must be held to their pre-election programs. The American people, perhaps distracted by COVID, should not have been tempted back to the follies exercised of old in the making of kings.
Once crowned, kings were awarded divine rights to implement any and every law they could imagine or desire. Kings weren’t obliged to give their people any prior knowledge of or require any “people’s consent” to their autocratic plans and policies — no matter how radical.
The divine right of kings was the kind of government that the American revolutionaries so bravely fought against and won.
Elections in the democratic republic set up in the U.S. Constitution do not award any party a blank check to introduce trillion-dollar bills to transform the republic into a socialist, big-government, one-party dictatorship.
In a genuine democratic republic, the contestants must bring a plan — an accurate layout of what they will establish, what they will maintain and what they will change, and an honest estimate of how much it will all cost and how it will be funded.
Good old American know-how must prevail once more. Americans’ famous bulldust meters must begin to work again. And the real goodness deep down in the hearts of all decent Americans of all colors, sizes, faiths and family histories must rise up and shine so that God will bless America, to become once again one of the finest countries on earth, the land of the free and the home of the brave.
BRACKETTVILLE, Texas—Days after a militia made its presence known in a rural Texas town, the county sheriff said he received a call from a Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) official who threatened to pull all its resources from the county.
Kinney County Sheriff Brad Coe said that during the call, the official said they “didn’t know who these people were” who were wanting to come help on the border.
“He basically said, ‘I’ll pull all my resources out,’” Coe said.
Coe said he understood the call to mean that all state troopers assigned to the county would be relocated, and other resources including jail space could be made unavailable to Kinney County if militia personnel were operating in the county, even on private ranches.
“I said, ‘They’re not working for me. They’re not deputized. They’re just here on their own accord. And they have that right to be here,’” Coe told The Epoch Times.
Sam Hall, leader of the militia Patriots for America, said the group planned to operate as a deterrent in areas of high traffic.
“As a militia, we can’t detain or arrest people. We can disrupt and frustrate until the county or DPS can get there,” Hall told The Epoch Times.
Border Patrol agents recorded almost 4,000 illegal aliens who evaded capture in the Del Rio Sector in the seven days from Oct. 18, according to provisional Customs and Border Protection numbers provided to The Epoch Times. Most have to pass through Kinney County to get from the border cities of Del Rio and Eagle Pass to San Antonio.
“What we’ve seen is an invasion of this county,” Hall said during a county commissioner’s meeting on Oct. 18. “What we’ve seen is residents that are scared to death right now, and they don’t feel like they have support from the state.”
Coe said he had spoken to Hall and requested to know where they’d be operating, for safety purposes. The sheriff said he understood the concerns DPS might have of a “friendly fire” incident if they don’t know where people are working.
DPS has had a significant impact in Kinney County since the governor’s Operation Lone Star border enforcement effort began in March, especially with the extra state troopers on the roads arresting human smugglers and on the ranches apprehending illegal aliens for trespassing.
DPS didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Members of the Patriots for America militia in Kinney County, Texas, in Oct. 2021. (Courtesy of Sam Hall)
Possible Kidnapping Charge
It’s not the first time DPS has threatened to pull back.
Rancher Cole Hill figured he was being proactive when he invited four men onto his ranch to help guard the property against trespassers one night in September. He was fed up with the constant illegal alien traffic, damage to his property, and slow (or no) response from overwhelmed law enforcement agencies.
The men ended up detaining a group of seven illegal alien men for DPS to subsequently pick up and charge with trespassing.
The next day, Hill told The Epoch Times, he received a phone call from DPS.
“Almost verbatim it was, ‘Look, you can’t do that. That’s not even legal what you guys did. That’s technically kidnapping. You cannot do anything to impede the travel of any other human being. And if you do so, if you try to detain somebody against their will, that is kidnapping, and you can be charged with kidnap for that,’” he said.
Hill said the DPS officer told him that they will no longer come to his ranch to pick up detained illegal aliens because it would reflect badly on the agency to transport illegal aliens that had been “technically kidnapped.”
Recent trail camera photos of illegal aliens provided by ranchers in Kinney County, Texas. (Courtesy of ranchers)
Hill’s ranch sits about 35 miles from the U.S.–Mexico border on a main thoroughfare for illegal immigrants who have evaded Border Patrol and are traversing his land on foot to skirt a highway checkpoint. The usual plan is to then be picked up by a smuggler who will drive them to a big city, often San Antonio.
Hill said he’s dealt with illegal aliens traversing his land for years, but only about 25 people a year, on average; sometimes months would go by with no activity.
Until January.
Since then, he’s had men in full camouflage clothing on his front porch; a group surrounding his house, banging on the walls and peering in the windows; his ranch worker house broken into; and his truck ignition destroyed during a theft attempt.
Kinney County Sheriffs deputies search a vehicle after arresting a U.S. citizen smuggler who was transporting four illegal aliens to San Antonio, in Kinney County, Texas, on Oct. 20, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
The damage to his property is also increasing. In the past few months, he’s had his perimeter fence cut seven times, most of the time from top to bottom, and in three cases, an entire section was pulled out.
“Sure, there’s probably some good apples in there as well. But I don’t think the good apples are 35 miles off the river trying to evade every law enforcement they can as aggressively as they are,” Hill said.
He said he’s lost count of the number of confrontations he’s had with groups of five or six men while working alone on his ranch. The idea of having a group of men out on security one night seemed appealing.
“All they were doing was giving me a better night’s sleep,” he said.
He was shocked to get the call from DPS.
Texas State Troopers arrest two U.S. citizens who were transporting three illegal aliens to San Antonio, in Kinney County, Texas, on Oct. 20, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
Kinney County Attorney Brent Smith said ranchers have been detaining illegal aliens for years for Border Patrol and the sheriff’s office to pick up.
“No one’s ever brought this issue up until now with DPS,” Smith told The Epoch Times.
“Any citizen can arrest someone, or detain them, for breach of peace or a felony committed in their presence. And trespassing has been found to be a breach of peace before.”
Smith said that most of the time when a group of illegal aliens is walking through a ranch, one of them is the guide, or coyote, which constitutes a felony.
“So one of those guys is committing a felony. Can you detain all 10 of them until you find out who that one is? How do you know which one the guide is unless you detain them?” he said.
DPS didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment by The Epoch Times about this incident and about whether the agency has warned other ranchers in Texas that they could be charged with kidnapping.
U.S. Marine veteran James Kilcer, who thwarted an attempted robbery in an Arizona convenience store last week, received an award Tuesday from the Yuma County Sheriff’s Office while wearing a “Let’s Go Brandon” T-shirt.
He was also sporting a red “Make America Great Again” hat, apparently in support of former President Donald Trump.
Sheriff Leon Wilmot presented Kilcer with the YCSO Citizen’s Valor Award, “For extraordinary heroism and exceptional courage while voluntarily coming to the aid of another citizen during an incident involving criminal activity at extreme, life threatening, personal risk in an attempt to save or protect human life,” the sheriff’s office said in a news release.
“The YCSO Citizen’s Valor Award is the highest award for citizens whose actions warrant recognition.”
Surveillance video of Kilcer stopping the robbery at the Chevron convenience store early in the morning on Oct. 20 went viral.
The now-U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground employee had just purchased some Gatorades and other items and was talking to the clerk when the suspects came in, Kilcer told the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service.
“I heard the door start opening forcefully and my ‘Spidey senses’ or whatever kind of tingling, and I turn around and saw they were coming in real quick,” he said.
The veteran turned around and his military training kicked in as he sought to disarm the robber.
“I was ready: I saw it coming,” Kilcer said. “The minute my hands closed around it, I never lost contact with the gun. And I pulled him down.”
ZERO FEAR: When this Yuma, AZ veteran saw some criminals pop in guns high — he didn’t wait for things to potentially go south.
“The Marine Corp taught me not to [mess] around,” he later said.
“Kilcer served as a tactical air operations technician in the Marine Corps and was deployed to Afghanistan during his time in the military. He credits his actions to his Marine Corps basic training and mindset,” DVIDS reported.
“I guess I was just in the right place at the right time,’’ Kilcer said. “I was doing what needed to be done.”
While appearing on Fox News on Friday, the Arizonan also waded into the political when he ended the segment, saying with a smile to host Dana Perino, “And remember, [Jeffrey] Epstein didn’t kill himself.”
The Marine who stopped the corner store robbery in the viral video was just on Fox News.
Three people at a military base were injected with the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine in what the military is framing as some sort of accident.
The incident took place at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state, but the military is keeping most of the details under wraps.
“Joint Base Lewis-McChord is aware three people were inadvertently administered the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine instead of another vaccine at the Lewis Main Exchange,” said Army Col. Joey Sullinger, I Corps public affairs officer, according to KOMO-TV.
“Positive corrective action has been taken at this vaccination site to prevent such errors from happening again. Army medical professionals are notifying and ensuring the health and welfare of those affected. This incident is under investigation.”
The names of those accidentally injected, what vaccine they were supposed to be given, and how exactly the wrong shots were given were not disclosed.
The incident was noted by a Twitter account with the name Terminal CWO that claims it offers “Exposés on the dirt that doesn’t get discussed in our ranks.” CWO is an acronym that commonly stands for Chief Warrant Officer. The account’s posts cannot be verified.
JBLM had a flu shot tent set up and injected “a lot” of people with the Covid vaccine “accidentally” according to a reliable source. So now we’re not only incapable of distinguishing between FDA approved and EUA, but apparently we can’t even get the correct drug either.
The base is currently only giving out the Pfizer vaccine and is also currently offering flu shots, according to the New York Post.
Has the COVID vaccine program been mismanaged?
Joint Base Lewis-McChord is home to the I Corps and 62nd Airlift Wing.
Vaccination errors have cropped up across the nation at a time when pharmacies are giving out COVID-19 shots at the same time as traditional flu shots.
As noted by CNN, mistakes can have serious consequences.
Earlier this month, Joshua and Alexandra Price took their children Sophia, 5, and Lukas, 4, to a Walgreens in Evansville, Indiana, for their annual flu shots.
They said they all were mistakenly injected with the adult version of the COVID-19 vaccine.
“When they called us and told us that they had made a mistake and had given us the wrong shot, I was just in shock,” Alexandra Price said. “All I could say to them was, ‘What does this mean for my kids?’”
“Lukas started feeling sick before we even got home from Walgreens,” Alexandra Price said.
“He was feeling yucky, lethargic, and already had begun a fever,” Joshua Price said.
This was not a simple post-vaccination illness.
“The children have experienced a number of adverse effects since receiving the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. Fever, body aches, cough, headaches, and nausea are among the symptoms the children are experiencing,” according to a statement released by the Prices’ attorney, Dan Tuley.
“The 4- and 5-year-old are also under treatment of a pediatric cardiologist for tachycardia and elevated blood pressure, respectively.”
Alexandra Price said that Lukas has improved but Sophia has not.
“Her blood pressure is in the 98th percentile and she continues to have no energy,” she said.
Joshua Price is also feeling the impact of the mistake.
“It’s been well over a week and I still have high blood pressure and chest pain,” he said.
Biden’s promises to get Americans out of Afghanistan are proving to be empty lies. Now, a disabled American citizen from Liberty, Kentucky, is finding this out the hard way.
“Any American who wants to come home, we will get you home,” Biden said back in August, according to NPR.
Abdul Samad and his family are desperately wanting to come home, but they can’t. They are in extreme danger, but due to the incompetence that led the American withdrawal, the Samad family is having to hide and beg the American government to bring them home.
Samad is originally from Afghanistan, but after losing his hands and left eye in a landmine explosion when he was a teenager, he came to the United States. The founders of Galilean Children’s Home took Samad in, and he became a citizen, building a life in Kentucky.
In August, however, Samad, along with his wife, four children, and mother-in-law, went back to Afghanistan to visit a sick relative. Then devastation struck when the American troops suddenly withdrew and left Samad behind. Samad’s wife and children are also American citizens, and his mother-in-law has a green card.
“I’m really confused because I don’t know what to do because the airport is closed and the border with Pakistan is closed. So I don’t know how to get out,” Samad told Lex18 News.
It’s been nearly two weeks since Samad has heard from the American embassy. He has twice filled out the re-repatriation request form they asked for, but still has no way out. He has kept his family on the move continually, and they are afraid to sleep in the same place.
“I’ve been moving with family members from place to place to stay with them, so people will not notice we are from the United States,” Samad said.
Should we still have troop in Afghanistan?
The government has miserably failed their own citizens and has put them in harm’s way.
“We are in a very helpless situation because we cannot really say much and we cannot do much unless we found a way that we can really get out safely,” Samad said.
Sadly, Samad’s story of helplessness is just one more piece of incriminating evidence against Biden’s absolute failure in Afghanistan.
Thanks to Biden’s hasty decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, Samad is now having to hide from the Taliban. Just about two months ago he and his family were peacefully living in Kentucky; now, they are suffering for Biden’s foolishness. It is the height of injustice, and Biden is to blame.
Biden’s ample lip-service to the idea of American safety has done nothing.
“The United States stands by its commitment that we’ve made to these people,” Biden said, according to NPR.
Then why is Samad stranded?
When people were hanging from plane wings and nearly killing each other to get on the leaving American planes, Biden acted like it was just business as usual.
“There’s no way we would have been able to leave Afghanistan without there being some of what you’re seeing now,” he said, CNBC reported.
Of course withdrawals are messy. But that doesn’t mean it’s simply fine to ignore the pleas of citizens that are trapped. Biden made promises.
But now Samad is hiding helplessly, and his pleas seem to be falling on deaf ears.
Biden should be utterly appalled and sick that he has done this to Samad — and so many other American citizens.
China continues to race ahead of the United States on the sea, in the air, and now in space.
China launched a new satellite Sunday that can be deployed as a weapon capable crippling American satellites, according to The Washington Times.
General James Dickinson, commander of the U.S. Space Command, warned Congress in April that the Shijian-21 satellite is part of an effort by China to seek superiority in space.
According to the Times, the satellite was sent into space atop a rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, in southwest China, with the task of cleaning “space debris” — or at least that was the claim of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp., a state-run company.
However, according to the Times, the satellite is “said to be capable of maneuvering close to orbiting satellites and grabbing or crushing the spacecraft.”
If weaponized, such a machine would be potentially capable of destroying communications and surveillance capabilities in American satellites, leaving the nation’s military deaf, dumb and blind in the case of an attack. In an era where military movement depends on technological communications, that could mean the Chinese government has just launched the world’s deadliest weapon.
Over four dozen Chinese military aircraft flew into Taiwan’s air defense zone recently, the Post reported Oct. 4, in yet another round of provocation.
It doesn’t end there. According to CNN, China also has the world’s largest Navy. In fact, China has the largest military on the planet, according to the data collection corporation Statista.
Is the Biden administration allowing China to move into a position of world dominance?
Get the picture?
The Biden administration, on the other hand, is obsessing over the alleged enemy within. The FBI has claimed that domestic terrorism is “metastasizing” in the U.S., according to a recent headline in The New York Times. The article also implied that the shadowy group QAnon is a real threat to the country.
Let’s not forget the supposed white supremacists. They must take lessons from QAnon on getting maximum publicity with minimal actual appearances.
Very few of them are ever seen or heard from, but they must be legion, considering the amount of attention they get from liberals and the mainstream media. There’s no other way to account for their being at the top of the domestic terrorist list, again according to The New York Times. See the pattern?
Now, parents who resist the iron will of leftist schoolboards pushing critical race theory are suspected of domestic terrorism by federal law enforcement agencies.
Don’t worry, though, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has alerted federal law enforcement agencies.
Garland quickly ordered the FBI to coordinate with 14,oo school districts after receiving a request from the National School Board Association asking to be protected from parents sending letters and emails. The NSBA claimed the parents were an “imminent threat” to school officials and likened their activities to “domestic terrorism.”
Insurrection by the unarmed on Jan. 6. Shadowy QAnon figures lurking in dark alleys waiting to pounce. Crazed parents shielding their children from racist indoctrination. America is a dangerous place about to implode in a fiery cloud of violence. That’s what the leftists want you to think.
Meanwhile, China continues unfolding its plan to bring about a globalist utopia with, of course, the Chinese Communist Party in charge. There is little resistance. I am reminded of the Borg on Star Trek, “You will assimilate. Resistance is futile.”
https://youtube.com/watch?v=WZEJ4OJTgg8
Either key members of the Biden administration are in cahoots with China or they are dangerously incompetent. Or maybe they have come to believe their own propaganda and are blind to reality. It is difficult to say.
Whatever the case, reality will prevail in the end. It always does. It always will. But at what cost?
Resistance is not futile. It is the natural disposition of a free people.
President Joe Biden has just been hit with impeachment paper and, in the charges, he has been accused of “treason.”
The Articles of Impeachment were introduced on Friday by Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
“I have introduced House Res. 57, these are Articles of Impeachment on President Biden,” the representative said. “For abuse of power in regards to his willingness to use his position of power to aid his son Hunter Biden in his business dealings.”
“I have also introduced another Article of Impeachment on President Biden, which is H. Res 597,” she said. “This has to do with the national security crisis that President Biden has created with regards to the extreme threat at the southern border.”
“I have introduced House Res. 598, Articles of Impeachment on President Biden in regards to the failure in Afghanistan,” the firebrand representative said. “And I have introduced House Res. 596, Articles of Impeachment on President Biden for the Covid eviction moratorium and his willingness to use his position to try to do what he shouldn’t be doing. We have three branches of power.”
“Joe Biden swore an oath, he said ‘I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States and I will to the best of my ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States’ and he is failing to uphold his oath,” she said.
“Joe Biden is failing the American people by refusing to uphold the law and the Constitution,” the representative said. “But Afghanistan is where it really hurt. You see, Article III, Section 3, Joe Biden could be guilty of treason.”
“Our law says that levying war against the U.S., adhering to the enemies of the U.S., and giving ‘aid and comfort’ is treason,” she said. “President Biden did that by arming the Taliban with our taxpayer-funded U.S. equipment and weapons. He abandoned Americans in Afghanistan and seems to have no interest in getting them back.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene: “I have introduced House Res. 57. These are articles of impeachment on President Joe Biden for abuse of power in regards to his willingness to use his position of power to aid his son Hunter Biden.” pic.twitter.com/KXQPAg3ayQ
In a House of Representatives controlled by Democrats and led by House Speaker and California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the impeachment is not likely to go anywhere.
It is not the first time Articles of Impeachment were filed against Biden, as another Republican representative filed them for the crisis at the United States and Mexico Border in September.
Ohio Republican Rep. Bob Gibbs introduced articles of impeachment against President Joe Biden on Tuesday, citing his handling of the U.S.-Mexico border situation, attempt to expand the federal moratorium on evictions, and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.
Republican Reps. Andy Biggs of Arizona and Brian Babin and Randy Weber of Texas signed on as co-sponsors of the impeachment resolution.
“I take this seriously. I don’t think it’s haphazard. I’m not trying to get media attention for myself,” Gibbs told the Washington Examiner. “He’s done so much damage to this country in less than nine months, which is really scary.
“He’s not capable of being commander in chief, and that’s obvious by the actions since Day One when he took the presidency back in January,” Gibbs added. “Maybe something like this makes the White House think twice before they do some of this nonsense.”
Gibbs said that he and his colleagues began working on the articles of impeachment even before Biden’s rushed, manic, deadly withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“We actually started working before the Afghanistan debacle because I was so upset” about what is going on along the border, as well as the president ignoring the Supreme Court’s opposition to extending an eviction moratorium.
“Obviously, it’s not going to go anywhere with Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi,” Gibbs said, acknowledging the political reality that Democrats currently are in the majority in the House and Senate. Nevertheless, “it shows that there are some Republicans that think that this president needs to be impeached, he needs to be removed from office one way or another,” he added.
“At some point, they’re gonna be held accountable for their actions, and this is kind of putting them on notice,” Gibbs said.
Republican and Democrat presidents alike typically get criticized for the amount of time they spend on vacation or the golf course.
Yet say what you will about Presidents Barak Obama and Donald Trump, if they were ever asked publicly about why they hadn’t made a visit to the scene of say, a mass humanitarian crisis of their own making, there was good chance they would have had a lightning-quick answer that could pass for something resembling a valid excuse.
Not so much for President Joe Biden, bless his heart.
No, even when pressed on his failings by CNN’s kid gloves, he couldn’t come up with a reason why he hasn’t made the short trip down south to visit the border where there is, in fact, a mass humanitarian crisis of his own making. He could only come up with the hollow excuse that he’s been “busy.”
Thursday night’s town hall with Anderson Cooper was the predictable fiasco for the awkwardly incoherent Biden, who struggled with a number of issues, such as completing sentences, remembering what he was doing, and standing like a normal human being.
Meanwhile, when Biden was asked about whether he has plans to visit the southern border, which has been experiencing an influx of migrants throughout the whole of his presidency, the president, unsurprisingly, floundered.
“I’ve been there before, I haven’t, I mean, uh, I know it well,” he articulately began.
“I guess I should go down,” he continued (ya think?), “but the whole point of it is I haven’t had a whole hell of a lot of time to get down.”
“I’ve been spending time going around looking at the $900 billion damage done by hurricanes and floods and weather and traveling around the world,” he attempted.
BIDEN ON THE BORDER: “I guess I should go down, but the whole point of it is I haven’t had a whole hell of a lot of time to get down. I’ve been spending time going around looking at the $900 billion damage done by hurricanes and floods and weather and traveling around the world.” pic.twitter.com/mgWLxvf36d
“Now my wife Jill has been down,” Biden continued, brightening. He then gave a general description of Dr. Jill Biden’s visit to the border. FLOTUS saves the day yet again.
Ironically, Biden continued to claim that “you’re not seeing kids with what look like tarps over them,” a rather ironic possible reference to the notorious “kids in cages” photo that lit social media aflame back in 2018, which turned out to have been taken during the Obama — not Trump — administration.
That is, the administration in which Biden served as Vice President.
Is Biden blatantly lying about how he spends his time?
“But there’s much more to be done,” he continued, circling back to the whole reason that he was being asked about the dang border in the first place. Yes, thank you, Mr. President, that’s sort of what the country is looking to you for, and why the guy with the microphone on the stage with the bright lights was asking you about when you’re going to visit said border.
This is, in short, pathetic. A flight to El Paso, Texas, from Washington, D.C., is roughly four hours — not even half a day.
It would take Biden, like, one single day to travel down to a border town, make some comments with local politicians whose name he’d assuredly forget, visit a shelter, talk to reporters for the five seconds his handlers give him to field questions and go home.
He’s the President of the United States, and the crisis is mounting to the point that the mainstream media doesn’t even seem to be willing to cover for him anymore, even with all their fabricated outrage over border agents “whipping” migrants.
Biden doesn’t even have a smart-sounding reason for why he’s supposedly been so busy.
He might have cited his work on the economy, the ongoing negotiations over his Build Back Better agenda or the crisis in Afghanistan, of course, but in perhaps one of the few instances of quick thinking that Biden displayed during the town hall, Biden cited the only examples of work he’s been doing that didn’t draw to mind even more failings on his part.
Here’s the thing: Biden has puttered around the country a bit and has taken exactly one whole entire trip abroad to attend a meeting of the G7 nations in the United Kingdom — where he said he didn’t want to go home when he arrived, mind you — but he’s taken 25 trips to his home in Delaware since taking office.
This is in addition to several vacations.
And yet we’re supposed to believe he’s just entirely too busy to virtue signal interest in the raging border crisis?
According to a Wikipedia list of all of his presidential trips, President Biden has been to California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Texas once each; Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana and Wisconsin twice each; New York and Ohio each three times; Michigan four times and Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, respectively, six, nine and ten times.
His home in Delaware by far takes the cake, as NPR noted in August, before he observed the fall of Kabul from his vacation at Camp David.
In June, Biden skipped out on work on a Wednesday to enjoy some time off at his Rehoboth Beach estate, despite ongoing negotiations over the infrastructure bill back in the capital.
“Of the first 29 weekends of his presidency, Biden spent just six at the White House,” NPR reported at the time, explaining that Delaware is where the president feels “grounded,” pointing to his famous daily trips back to his home during his time in the Senate to be with his sons following the tragic death of his wife and daughter in a car accident in 1972.
The outlet noted that Delaware was also where he was headed for his vacation that month — go figure.
Later in the month, he would be criticized for remaining at Camp David as Kabul fell to the Taliban, briefly heading back to Washington D.C. to address the nation and then going back to Camp David before finally cutting his vacation short because — sigh — national crisis and all.
In September, as Americans were still trapped in Afghanistan following the full withdrawal of U.S. troops from the nation, which was completed on Aug. 30, Biden was — where else? — back on vacation in Delaware yet again.
NPR compared Biden’s Delaware weekends to Presidents Bush and Reagan spending time on their Texas and California ranches to unwind from the duties of the presidency.
To be fair, it’s certainly understandable that the president would need to unwind, assuming he does so at a better time than in the midst of a national crisis.
However, in Biden’s case, his penchant for unwinding so frequently gets rather problematic. Even beyond the terrible timing of his vacations, their frequency proves that he is not only perfectly capable of and accustomed to regular travel, but he has had plenty of free time to do so since taking office.
When it comes to giving the impression that he’s been working hard, President Biden has quite an uphill battle to face.
He is regularly shuffled around by his staffers, who angrily shoo away reporters so they can set him up in front of a teleprompter so he can halfway attempt to get through a speech without fumbling or forgetting where he is.
The work being done by Biden’s administration has indeed been fraught with failure, and it’s not just the border crisis: It’s Afghanistan, climbing gas prices and overreaching, authoritarian and dubiously constitutional vaccine mandates that are alienating and demoralizing the American workforce.
Yet we’re supposed to believe that the president who takes weekends off from his job and always seems to have time for a vacation, even in the middle of a complete and utter disaster like the fall of Afghanistan, doesn’t have time to visit the border?
It’s certainly not time that Biden is lacking. It’s the willingness to do his job.
Republicans on the House Committee on Natural Resources held a forum Oct. 22 to discuss how President Biden’s exit from Afghanistan left massive, untapped reserves of rare-earth metals, lithium, and other vital minerals in Taliban hands, potentially opening them up to exploitation by China.
Speakers said the Biden administration has simultaneously worked to hinder key mining projects in the United States, such as Minnesota’s Twin Metals copper-nickel project and Arizona’s Resolution copper mine, which would allow the United States to produce many of those minerals at home, thereby avoiding dependence on the Taliban or the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
“It’s almost like it’s intentional, to stop U.S. production of these critical minerals and elements,” said Ranking Member Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.).
Westerman’s remarks were later echoed by Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wis.), who said that some of the environmentalist groups fighting mining “we think are getting money from Russia, China, and other countries that are foes of ours.”
Rep. Pete Stauber (R-Minn.), whose district would include the proposed Twin Metals mine, spoke at length about the economic and security costs of relying on key minerals from abroad.
“For fifteen years, scientists from the USGS [U.S. Geological Survey], at a taxpayer cost of right around $81 million, found [in Afghanistan] massive amounts of lithium, gold, platinum, iron, coal, uranium, and more,” said Stauber.
“We know what happens next. The Taliban’s neighbor to the east, China, will swoop in and shortly thereafter control all of these mineral resources. There is no doubt at our current pace, the United States will have to purchase those minerals from China for our electric cars, our windmills, our iPhones, and our solar panels,” Stauber continued.
“Northern Minnesota has these minerals. We could look to union miners to supply them from my district. We have 95 [percent] of America’s nickel, 88 [percent] of America’s cobalt, and over one-third of America’s copper. It should be easy.”
Discussing the possibility of the imminent Chinese mineral exploitation in Afghanistan, Joe Felter of the Hoover Institute said it was plausible, though not certain.
“It depends. The challenges and calculated risks of mining rare earths and other minerals are significant in Afghanistan, and they could outweigh the opportunities in the near- and medium-term. One notable exception, I think, is China’s interest in getting increased access to lithium,” said Felter, who served in the Pentagon under Trump.
Felter recommended that the United States reduce its reliance on Chinese or Chinese-dominated supply chains.
Pressed by Stauber on where else the United States could source minerals, Felter responded that “almost any other country than China would be a better alternative” before noting that Australia was a U.S. ally with significant mining capacity.
Mary Hutzler, a distinguished fellow at the Institute for Energy Research, described the scale of the United States’ dependence on Chinese mineral resources for its renewable energy infrastructure, which dwarfs our past reliance on foreign oil before the United States achieved energy independence under President Trump.
“Our reliance on China is about 80 [percent] for these minerals right now, where the high for us in 2001 on oil from the Middle East was 23 [percent],” she said. “We’re going to be four times as dependent on China as we were on the Middle East.”
According to Hutzler, China’s competitive advantage in mineral processing and refinement stems in part from its reliance on cheap coal energy, which it is expected to expand.
Hutzler also stated that environmental permitting has stymied many recent mining projects in the United States, with the second proposed lithium mine in the United States, Nevada’s Thacker Pass, currently delayed by lawsuits.
In response to questioning from Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), Hutzler said that Europe’s present reliance on Chinese magnesium for automobile manufacturing offers a cautionary tale.
“With China’s crunch recently, they have closed 35 of their 50 magnesium plants. As a result, they are not exporting magnesium to Europe. Europe has only stockpiles to go through November. As a result, what’s going to happen is their automobile industry will become a standstill industry. That could happen to us because of our dependence on China,” said Hutzler.
Tiffany was among those who focused on the human rights abuses accepted by those who rely on minerals mined or processed in China.
He has introduced legislation aimed at preventing goods made with forced Uyghur labor from entering the U.S. market.
“We [Americans] are freedom-loving people. We do not accept that the Uyghurs should be enslaved,” he said.
“We shouldn’t expect anything different from China than their track record suggests—and it’s a pretty poor track record,” said Felter.
“When you’ve got these foreign-owned businesses run by the state that don’t have the same labor requirements we do, don’t have the same health and safety and environmental requirements, really, the only way I see you stop that is to penalize those imports coming into our country,” said Westerman.
Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) closed the forum by urging members to support his proposed legislation, the Stopping Terrorist Mineral Trade Act, which would prevent the importation of minerals, or mineral-derived products, originating in Afghanistan.
“I know that my colleagues at this forum wish this important topic was something we could approach on a bipartisan basis, grounded in factual discussions focused on solutions. Unfortunately, our Democratic colleagues see all American mining as unnecessary, and are hellbent on seeing that it doesn’t happen,” said Gosar.
“For some reason, they never can see the right mine or the right place in America for mining,” he added.
This might be brutal, but it’s 10000% true – can’t wait for Joe to see it
There’s a hero Republican politician in York County, PA who is putting his money where his mouth is, and he’s doing so by placing some very damning billboards up featuring Joe Biden, all over the county.
ABC 27 News covered the story and said the following: If you’ve driven along Interstate 83 in York County lately, chances are you’ve seen a giant billboard that features President Joe Biden in a military outfit along with the phrase “Making the Taliban Great Again.”
The billboard is operated by advertising company Trone Outdoor Advertising, which provides billboard advertising in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware. The company is responsible for operating and organizing advertisements, but it is not responsible for what is included in the advertisements that are displayed.
“The individual that is responsible for the billboard is (former Pennsylvania State Senator) Scott Wagner. He gave us permission to make it known that he was responsible for the billboard,” Vice President of Trone Outdoor Brian Scott said.
Scott Wagner had one term as Pennsylvania State Senator, elected in 2014. He represented the 28th district in the state, which is a large portion of York County. He resigned in June of 2018 to run for Governor as the Republican nominee, a race in which he lost to Governor Tom Wolf.
“I saw the image (of Joe Biden), I got it from a friend a few weeks ago. The picture tells the story. We pulled out of Afghanistan too quickly, and we left so much of American equipment. Joe Biden has made us look like a fool. I feel so bad, words can’t describe what I would say to someone who was wounded or someone’s family who had a soldier pass away in the country after all this happened,” Scott Wagner said when asked for a comment.
Gee, between this and the F Joe Biden stuff, I don’t think ol’ Bumbling Joe is gonna wanna leave the basement ever again.
And truthfully, that’d be a good thing for the entire country.
That’s been the motto of former U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Tom West with each pound of roasted coffee he’s bagged and sold as founder and president of Operation Transition Outside the Wire.
Based in Williams, Arizona, the new nonprofit launched in August. Its main purpose is to help struggling veterans stay off the streets and move on to better things.
Selling coffee is but a means to helping veterans reach their destination, he said.
“It’s really tough. Once you’re out on the streets,” West told The Epoch Times, the challenge is to “get yourself back off the streets.”
According to endhomelessness.org, 37,252 veterans were experiencing homelessness in 2020 amid the pandemic caused by the CCP virus. Half of them were living outside of shelters, while the vast majority—more than 90 percent—were men.
Shannon Francis of Operation Transition Outside the Wire in Williams, Arizona, shows a one-pound bag of branded coffee ready to go on sale. (Allan Stein/Epoch Times)
West and his partner in the nonprofit, Shannon Francis, both have witnessed first hand the plight of homeless veterans in California, as each morning the veterans would gather outside of their coffee shop in Long Beach.
They’d be given a free cup of coffee and any other help they needed. This continued until early 2020 when the shop was forced to close due to the pandemic.
“We got rid of our coffee shop at the end of March and we got rid of everything,” West said. “The pandemic just wiped us out.”
West said he got to know many of the homeless veterans personally. It often began with a friendly: “Hey, brother. Can you spare a free cup of coffee?”
Other veterans, however, were too proud to accept the couple’s help, because “the military teaches you to be tough,” he said.
“I was 17 when I went in. We see things we shouldn’t have to. We see death. When we get back to civilian life, it’s the inverse of that. We have to figure things out for ourselves.”
Brendan Bosley, formerly of Michigan, served in the Air Force until his honorable discharge in late August, and soon he fell upon hard times. He and other local veterans receive critical support through Operation Transition Outside the Wire in Williams, Arizona, on Oct. 20. (Allan Stein/Epoch Times)
West and Francis eventually decided to leave California for Williams, Arizona, known for supporting veterans. The town’s iconic Route 66 downtown district seemed the perfect spot to launch a nonprofit like Operation Transition, he said.
The organization is currently undergoing major expansion on to a 130-acre ranch, situated on the outskirts of town.
Once it’s completed, the working ranch will host 25 large safari-style tents that will serve as homes for veterans and their families.
There will also be a coffee roasting and distribution facility located on site, a mess hall, educational labs, and a ministry setup, all nestled within a safe, structured environment.
Operation Transition currently produces around 8,000 pounds of prime roasted Guatemalan coffee—whole bean or ground—per month at the location. The organization ships to nine states.
West said the goal is to increase production to 15,000 pounds of roasted coffee per month and boost membership subscriptions to increase revenues.
All proceeds go to support transitional programs and other forms of assistance for veterans, he said.
West said each one-pound bag of coffee comes with an ornamental dog tag and logo for easy identification in participating stores. The price per bag is a $20 donation.
Right now, Operation Transition is helping three local veterans and their families move from service to civilian life.
Brendan Bosley of Owosso, Michigan, is among those receiving crucial support.
Bosley joined the Air Force in January of 2019. He served as an analyst while stationed in Alaska, he told The Epoch Times.
But when the number of analysts exceeded the demand, he found himself in a situation known as “overmand.”
With a heartfelt “Thank you for your service—see you later,” he was offered, and accepted, an honorable discharge in late August.
His situation has been dire ever since.
The 29-year-old veteran said he is almost out of money, living out of a hotel room in Williams accompanied by his fiancée, his terminally ill mother, and two children from a previous marriage.
His hope is to stabilize his situation and then look for a job.
“In my personal situation, I’ve got a lot of needs and everything is important,” Bosley said. “In my situation, I still need help.”
One day, Bosley noticed the big mural sign over the Operation Transition building that read “Freedom Is Not Free.”
Something told him to go inside.
Operation Transition Outside the Wire Founder and President Tom West, a former Marine, explains how the nonprofit produces ground coffee using the Bellwether Coffee Roaster machine on Oct. 20. (Allan Stein/Epoch Times)
There, he met West, who explained the many programs and services available for veterans.
Bosley is now getting the help he needs and is slowly putting his life back together thanks to Operation Transition.
“Coming to this town was the best thing I could have ever done. It has literally been a life-saver,” he said.
West and Francis said Operation Transition seeks to address the dual problem of veteran homeless and suicide on a personal and local level.
They see the crisis only getting worse as thousands of veterans face dishonorable discharge for refusing to comply with the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
Hopefully, the government will wake up and smell the coffee, and do more to help out these men and women who have served their country, Francis said.
West said more than 27 veterans commit suicide in America every day on a battlefield of homelessness and despair.
“In the military there is a saying ‘no man left behind’ and in these days some men get left behind.”
“We are trying to prevent them from going down the wrong road. We are stepping up in the right way,” giving veterans a sense of purpose, because “having purpose is a big thing in the military.”
The Biden Administration has been caught red handed flying illegal immigrants across the country in the dead of night, and should this behavior continue over the next three and half years, it will fundamentally alter the course of this country, as well as what it believes and of course, how it votes. Plus, Meghan McCain is speaking out about the ‘toxic’ behavior she received on the set of the view, but was she a part of the problem? Also, Trump has a new social media platform coming out, but will it be ‘the truth’ – or just another conservative echo chamber that lies to the fanbase?
Those who control our institutions and both parties, the commanding heights of the economy, politics, and culture, comprise an elite with shared values, beliefs, attitudes, and power. They dominate universities, media, education, big business, big sport, and Hollywood.
Some scholars such as Charles Murray and political commentators such as Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson have come to use the term “ruling class” or “new ruling class” of this pan-institutional and bipartisan elite. They define class as a matter of power and attitudes, differences in access to government and education, habits, and tastes. In contrast, Marxists saw the central divide as one between owners of capital and those who worked for them—capitalists and wage-workers or, in previous class societies, between slaves and slave-owners, or feudal lords and serfs.
America’s Ruling Class
The political philosopher, former senior intelligence official, and critic of the main schools of foreign policy Angelo Codevilla died in a traffic accident on Sept. 21, 2021. In addition to his books, articles, and speeches on statecraft and the foreign policy establishment, Codevilla provided an influential conservative analysis of the central class divide in the United States. He published a brilliant and prescient essay (and later book) in 2010 that laid out his view of America’s ruling class.
Codevilla emphasizes the power and attitude of the new ruling class—its conviction of its own moral and intellectual superiority and its utter contempt for the rest of society.
The ruling class, so understood, is not defined by its ownership of capital or wealth. “What really distinguishes these privileged people demographically is that whether in government directly or as officers in companies, their careers and fortunes depend on government,” he wrote. They vote Democrat and “draw their money and orientation from the same sources as the millions of teachers, consultants, and government employees in the middle ranks who aspire” to be members of the ruling class and identify with what they take to be the grievances of the oppressed.
Party and Class
Democrats are the party of the ruling class, Codevilla argues, and the Republicans are their junior partner. Writing in 2010, he sees the mass of voters as unrepresented and voiceless. Most Democrat voters see their party as representing them well, but that’s true of only a minority of Republican voters. There’s no party that represents and defends the views and values of the majority—patriotic, putting the United States first in global economic and political matters, avoiding unnecessary and unwinnable wars, with a foreign policy that strengthens our friends and weakens our adversaries rather than the reverse, and that’s consistently supportive of family, faith, and tradition.
As Codevilla put it in 2010: “In short, the ruling class has a party, the Democrats. But some two-thirds of Americans—a few Democratic voters, most Republican voters, and all independents—lack a vehicle in electoral politics.”
This divide and party difference persist in 2021, as reflected in the growing distrust of legacy media and other institutions. Only 6 percent of Republicans, and 16 percent of all Americans trust TV news, according to a July Gallup poll. About one in five trusts newspapers. Relentless and gratuitous hostility towards President Donald Trump contrasted with sycophantic coverage or suppression of negative news about his successor in the White House (as in the Hunter Biden laptop scandal) no doubt account for much of this suspicion by Republicans and independents. Except for high bipartisan trust in the military and small businesses, the parties differ markedly on other institutions. Republicans have much more trust in the church and police.
The election of Trump in 2016 suggested the possibility of weakening the Establishment Republicans and turning the party into one that puts the country’s national interests first (as other countries do) and is socially conservative.
Moving the party and country in a direction that reflected the views and values of most Americans ran, as expected, into fierce and unrelenting hostility within the administrative state, the media, the rest of the ruling class, and not least, from Establishment Republicans.
There are formidable obstacles to sustaining a third party in the American system, so conservative Republicans focus today on maintaining the support of working people, not least that of black and Latino families. Part of the task is to hold off attempts of the globalist and socially liberal old guard to regain control of the party. If those attempts fail, some former party leaders and Never Trumpers aim to sabotage the Republican Party’s electoral efforts, supporting the Democrats or a third party in order to teach ordinary people a lesson.
Attitude
The ruling class, Codevilla argues, “grew and set itself apart from the rest of us by connection with ever bigger government, and above all by a certain attitude.”
As he says, “Whether formally in government, out of it, or halfway, America’s ruling class speaks the language and has the tastes, habits, and tools of bureaucrats. It rules uneasily over the majority of Americans not oriented to government.”
In terms of education, cultural tastes, and disdain for ordinary people (the working class who, in Obama’s memorable phrase, “cling to guns or religion”), the “educated” class is less diverse than ever. It aims to improve society, not by empowering ordinary people, but by managing them in their own best interests. This typically requires ever more centralized control of the state, with new or expanded programs and regulations.
The recent threat by Attorney General Merrick Garland to use the FBI against concerned parents who challenge school boards is just one of several examples of recent abuse of federal power in ways not envisaged by the original legislation and that seem to contravene the Constitution.
The Potter and the Clay
In short, the attitude of the ruling class to those outside it is essentially that of potter to clay. But the potter in this case disdains and despises the clay even as it seeks to shape and control it to conform to its own desires.
This attitude, seeking to limit democracy and to enhance instead the rule of experts and professionals, was common to the Progressives in the last century. As Woodrow Wilson, president of Princeton and then of the United States, put it, “I have often said that the use of a university is to make young gentlemen as unlike their fathers as possible.”
The current administration’s method illustrates this attitude. By using regulations and massive programs of increased debt and spending, the ruling class reserves to itself control over the economy and increasingly over more and more areas of everyday life.
In off-the-record call with congressional staff, Biden admin says nearly 400 still stranded
The Biden administration is in touch with nearly 400 Americans who are stranded in Afghanistan, a figure that far exceeds the administration’s claims that about 100 Americans were left in the nation following the United States’ hurried exit from Kabul, according to a senior congressional source who was briefed Thursday by the State Department.
With Afghanistan in the administration’s rear-view mirror, U.S. officials are providing exact figures on the number of Americans who are still stranded and want to leave—although they are doing so in private, off-the-record forums—according to two senior congressional aides, who relayed the contents of the non-public call to the Washington Free Beacon.
The United States is in touch with 363 Americans who are stuck in war-torn Afghanistan and around 176 U.S. permanent residents who are asking to be evacuated immediately, Biden administration officials said on the call with congressional staff, according to the source, who requested anonymity to discuss non-public information. These figures demonstrate that senior Biden administration officials routinely misrepresented the number of stranded Americans to the public and Congress for nearly two months.
The State Department further claims to have airlifted 218 U.S. citizens and 131 long-term permanent residents out of Afghanistan since Aug. 31, when senior Biden administration officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and White House press secretary Jen Psaki, were publicly claiming that “around 100” Americans were still stuck in the nation. Psaki, for instance, said last month that only “a handful of American citizens” were trying to leave Afghanistan after the United States pulled its forces. The figures presented in Thursday’s briefing indicate the administration was citing the “around 100” talking point while privately being aware of nearly 600 Americans still inside Afghanistan.
The information presented in the call stunned participants and fueled accusations that the Biden administration lied about the dire situation in order to avoid public scrutiny of its rushed evacuation from Afghanistan that was widely seen as disastrous and ill-prepared.
“We now know this administration repeatedly lied to the world about the citizens of our country it abandoned in Afghanistan,” Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), whose office has paved the way for several families to come home, told the Free Beacon. “But it did something even worse: It broke a sacred bond of trust between Americans and their government. This isn’t close to over.”
While members of Congress often challenged the “around 100” figure, the administration stuck to the number and attempted to downplay criticism of its botched retreat.
“Everyone who has said these numbers make no sense got told we were lying, got told we were crazy, got told we were not on the ground,” said a second senior congressional source working on the issue. “The White House has said on the record that they’re turning the page and it becomes clearer all the time why: Every new detail that we find out about the reckless Biden policy in Afghanistan produces only more proof that they lied from day one.”
The State Department did not provide congressional staff with information about how it is coordinating with outside groups to fly trapped Americans out of Afghanistan. Many charter flights have been prevented by the Taliban from leaving Afghanistan. The State Department said it “didn’t have good guidance there for how to get a flight in and out of the country.” There were also “no clear answers” about how Americans board a private flight out of Kabul, where the Taliban controls who gets in and out of the city.
The United States has established a “technical channel” with the Taliban passport office to help stranded Americans get the paperwork needed to flee the country, according to the source who was on the call.
Meanwhile, U.S. lawmakers, including Issa, were informed last week by American military officials that nearly 20 percent of the Afghan evacuees who were brought to the United States—around 12,000 in total—arrived with no paperwork, no identification, and no visa, as the Free Beaconfirst reported.
The Biden administration additionally blocked Issa and other lawmakers from accessing a U.S. holding facility located near Doha, Qatar, where Afghan evacuees are being held prior to being flown into America.
The State Department did not respond to a request for comment on the call or its contents.
For al-Qaida, the war with the West is far from over. The Biden administration has invited the terrorist organization to America and they’re all too happy to take up the offer. Al-Qaida is picking up where they left off, and according to a new report, they could be headed to a neighborhood near you.
Panama Foreign Affairs Minister Erika Mouynes reportedly told Texas GOP Rep. Tony Gonzalez that over 100,000 migrants had crossed through her country on the way to the United States. That’s not the worst of it. Mouynes also told Gonzalez that Panama had apprehended 52 people associated with al-Qaida.
“I asked her one specific question: ‘Have you caught anybody on the terrorist watch list?’” Gonzalez related in an interview on the Real America podcast with Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. “She goes, ‘Funny you ask that, Tony, because in Panama we do biometrics and we have apprehended 52 people that are associated with al-Qaida.’”
People have speculated about al-Qaida’s eagerness to exploit Biden’s border policy, but Mouynes is the first government official to go on the record saying this is happening in real-time.
Panama uses biometrics to identify possible threats. When asked if she had reported this real threat to the Biden administration, Mouynes reportedly told Gonzalez, “There’s no one home. I’m here talking to you because the administration is absent.”
In January and March, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents arrested two Yemeni men on a terror watch list as they crossed the border illegally, according to Reuters.
Are Biden’s policies inviting terrorists into the U.S.?
It doesn’t take a lot of terrorists to commit a horrendous amount of murder and mayhem. The tragedy of 9/11 was committed by 19 al-Qaida militants who hijacked four airplanes and killed 2,996 people.
An immigration expert noted that “the reason Haitian migrants discard their Chilean and Brazilian ID cards over here on the Mex side is to obscure from asylum reviewers that they were already safely and prosperously situated for years and years before coming for the American upgrade,” according to The Post Millennial.
If this is true of prosperous migrants, what lengths might terrorists go to carry out jihad against their sworn and lifelong enemy?
In July alone, 213,000 illegal immigrants were apprehended crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. It is estimated that another 1,000 illegal immigrants evaded capture every day, according to The Epoch Times.
By the same formula, over 500 migrants passing through Panama probably went undetected. How many of these were potential al-Qaida operatives, let alone other radicals who seek the ruin of the West?
Nevertheless, that some terrorists are entering the U.S. undetected and with malicious intent is highly probable. In all likelihood, considering the influx of illegal immigrants at the porous southern border, it is more than 19.
Former President Donald Trump has long warned Americans of the dangers of open-border policies, which serve to make the land of the free particularly susceptible to terrorism.
“We have them all the time; we have terrorists from the Middle East coming through our country through the southern border. That was before [the construction of the border wall] … Removing any of these measures would hamstring our workers, endanger our country, and cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars a year,” Trump said in a January speech.
Why is the Biden admiration bent on an open border? Do they, too, seek the demise of the West as they dream of a global utopia?
It is difficult to say. Whatever the case, the Biden administration’s blatant disregard for border security cannot be attributed solely to incompetence, though there is a lot of that going around.
It becomes clearer and clearer each day: Where the border cannot hold, things fall apart. In a fallen world, utopia cannot be created by human means.
Where globalists lead, all hell is sure to follow.
The right has long been accusing now-President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden of engaging in criminal corruption and influence peddling, and these accusations have certainly not ceased since the former entered office as the nation’s 46th president.
So, it’s not particularly remarkable to see right-leaning outlets slam the notorious father and son now that Hunter Biden has entered the art world and is selling his amateur work for tens of thousands of dollars and we’re expected to believe that these price tags genuinely reflect the talent of the artist.
What is noteworthy, however, is that the former ethics chief to President Barack Obama is rebuking the White House in no uncertain terms for the appearance of wild impropriety — and for behaving as though the public has no right to know more.
Last week, White House press secretary Jen Psaki grew rather huffy when confronted by a New York Post reporter about the identity of prospective buyers of Hunter Biden’s artwork — which is, according to art critics, nothing short of entirely mediocre at best.
Biden launched his art career earlier this year about five minutes after supposedly kicking his longstanding crack cocaine addiction, with which he was still struggling while his father was running for president last year.
The White House previously insisted that everything was kosher because, don’t worry, neither Hunter Biden nor any other member of the American public will actually know the identity of the buyers and the gallery owner will absolutely make sure it’s all on the up and up.
Psaki doubled down on this position when confronted by the Post last week following reports that Hunter Biden’s work garnered a total of $375,000 in sales at a Los Angeles art gallery earlier this month — with the paintings being sold at $75,000 a pop.
“It still is the purview of the gallerist. We still do not know and will not know who purchases any paintings. And the president remains proud of his son,” the press secretary stated.
When pushed, she interrupted the reporter, asking in her usual strained and sassy manner, “Did you have another question on something else? Otherwise, we’re going to move on to some other topics, there’s a lot going on in the world.”
Do you think Hunter’s art career is suspicious?
I’m sorry, does the press secretary get to dictate what the members of the free media ought to ask her about during her briefings?
Absolutely not, as bluntly stated by Obama-era director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, Walter Shaub, in response.
“These are legitimate questions,” the former official wrote on Twitter at the beginning of a lengthy thread rebuking Psaki. “It’s disappointing to hear @jrpsaki send a message that the WH thinks the public has no right to ask about ethics. After the last 4 years, these questions have never been more important. I know this isn’t a popular opinion, but this stuff matters.”
“There is no ethics program in the world that can be built around the head of state’s staff working with a dealer to keep the public in the dark about the identities of individuals who pay vast sums to the leader’s family member for subjectively priced items of no intrinsic value,” he continued.
“If this were Trump, Xi or Putin, you’d have no doubt whatsoever that this creates a vehicle for funneling cash to the first family in exchange for access or favors. Nor would you doubt that the appearance of monetizing the presidency was outrageous,” he continued, referencing Presidents Xi Jinping of China and Vladimir Putin of Russia.
These are legitimate questions. It’s disappointing to hear @jrpsaki send a message that the WH thinks the public has no right to ask about ethics. After the last 4 years, these questions have never been more important. I know this isn’t a popular opinion, but this stuff matters. https://t.co/fnGmbkLQZU
If this were Trump, Xi or Putin, you’d have no doubt whatsoever that this creates a vehicle for funneling cash to the first family in exchange for access or favors. Nor would you doubt that the appearance of monetizing the presidency was outrageous.
“It doesn’t matter that Trump was worse,” Shaub, who often criticized former President Donald Trump, continued. “What matters is that this sets a low bar for ethics. It embraces the mentality that ‘if it’s legal, it’s fine to do.’ It creates doubt that the difference in administrations is one of nature instead of merely degree.”
“It’s all the worse because Biden ran as the antidote to Trump,” he said. “So the message is that this is not just better than Trump, which is far too low a standard, but that this is the opposite of Trump, which is even worse.”
It doesn’t matter that Trump was worse. What matters is that this sets a low bar for ethics. It embraces the mentality that “if it’s legal, it’s fine to do.” It creates doubt that the difference in administrations is one of nature instead of merely degree.
It’s all the worse because Biden ran as the antidote to Trump. So the message is that this is not just better than Trump, which is far too low a standard, but that this is the opposite of Trump, which is even worse.
And that’s exactly right. To vehement Trump critics like Shaub who dare to be consistent, nothing could be more sickeningly hypocritical on the part of the Biden administration than to brush off ethics concerns as though they’re unimportant to the American people.
Shaub had a similarly scathing take in July on the White House’s “absolutely appalling” decision to trust a Manhattan gallery owner to ensure the office of the presidency was safely guarded against any ethical concerns surrounding the first son’s art career.
“So instead of disclosing who is paying outrageous sums for Hunter Biden’s artwork so that we could monitor whether the purchasers are gaining access to government, the WH tried to make sure we will never know who they are. That’s very disappointing,” Shaub tweeted at the time.
“The idea’s that even Hunter won’t know, but the WH has outsourced government ethics to a private art dealer,” he continued. “We’re supposed to trust a merchant in an industry that’s fertile ground for money laundering, as well as unknown buyers who could tell Hunter or WH officials? No thanks.”
This had come in response to a report from The Washington Post detailing the incredibly shady arrangement.
“White House officials have helped craft an agreement under which purchases of Hunter Biden’s artwork — which could be listed at prices as high as $500,000 — will be kept confidential from even the artist himself, in an attempt to avoid ethical issues that could arise as a presidential family member tries to sell a product with a highly subjective value,” the newspaper reported.
“Under an arrangement negotiated in recent months, a New York gallery owner is planning to set prices for the art and will withhold all records, including potential bidders and final buyers. The owner, Georges Bergès, has also agreed to reject any offer that he deems suspicious or that comes in over the asking price, according to people familiar with the agreement,” it explained.
It was remarkable at the time that a former Obama administration official was so pointed in his criticism of the outrageously terrible arrangement, as it is today that he’s calling out Psaki for behaving as though it’s absurd for a reporter to press her on it now that Hunter’s artwork has brought in so much cold, hard cash from an art show.
This isn’t even as bad as it gets — the George Bergès Gallery in Manhattan, you know, the Manhattan gallery which the White House has trusted with ensuring Hunter’s art dealings stay legit — received a suspiciously massive federal loan for COVID-19 disaster relief that was approved in July, the same month in which the Post reported the gallery had reached an arrangement with the White House to keep the first son’s art buyers confidential.
Now, this could certainly be a big coincidence but boy, it sure doesn’t look good all things considered.
We don’t need Obama’s former ethics chief to tell us that all of this stinks to high heavens, but it certainly is remarkable that a member of that ethically dubious administration is speaking out in such distinct terms speaks volumes.
And he’s absolutely correct, too. It’s already insane on its face that the White House is so shamelessly insisting that keeping Hunter Biden’s art buyers confidential, as opposed to public and well-documented so there’s no question of ethical concerns, is a believable safeguard against influence peddling.
Especially when you consider that Hunter and dad have been accused of high-priced influence peddling for years.
Yet for Psaki to actually mock a reporter for pressing her on the dubious arrangement is outrageous and incredibly insulting to the American people as a whole.
When Trump was in office, we were routinely reminded that a free press was the ultimate safeguard against corruption in the upper echelons of our federal government and, for all their self-aggrandizing and terrible, wildly biased reporting on his presidency, they certainly weren’t wrong on this count.
Ours is a government of the people and by the people and it is beyond disgusting for the White House press secretary to tell a reporter that there are other things she should be asked about.
She should be asked about whatever the American people see fit to ask her about, especially when ethics concerns are so massive that they’re being called out by a member of the president’s own party and former administration.
The ominous ripple effects of President Joe Biden’s Afghanistan disaster affirm that his incompetent leadership has emboldened and incentivized more terrorism in the Middle East. This not only jeopardizes the unstable region, but is a direct threat to U.S. national security.
The Taliban’s acting interior minister, Sirajuddin Haqqani, gleefully offered money and plots of land to the relatives of jihadi suicide bombers, according to Twitter photos posted by Qari Saeed Khosty, the spokesman for Afghanistan’s Ministry of Interior Affairs.
Many of the victims of these attacks during the past 20 years have been American soldiers, who have been injured, maimed or murdered by jihadis.
Khosty said Haqqani met with the family members of fallen “fidayeen,” or jihadis who sacrificed their lives to advance radical Islamic terrorism.
He posted photos of the convocation on Twitter, where the Taliban and other terrorists are allowed to maintain massive accounts while former U.S. President Donald Trump is banned.
“Yesterday, H.E Interior Minister Alhaj Mullah Khalifa Sirajuddin Haqqani met the family members of martyred Fidayeen at the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul,” Khosty tweeted Tuesday.
2/3- In his speech, the Interior Minister praised the jihad & sacrifices of Mujahideen & martyrs. He called them heroes of Islam & the country.
H.E told everyone about the memories of the martyred (Fidayeen) their piety & deeds. He called them heroes of the believing nation. pic.twitter.com/Td9Y52kbr0
Haqqani praised the jihadis as valiant martyrs who are the backbone of “the Islamic system,” Khosty tweeted.
Is Biden a bigger threat to national security than the Taliban?
“In his speech, the Interior Minister praised the jihad & sacrifices of Mujahideen & martyrs. He called them heroes of Islam & the country.
“H.E told everyone about the memories of the martyred (Fidayeen) their piety & deeds. He called them heroes of the believing nation.”
At the end of the meeting, according to The Associated Press, Haqqani rewarded the families of the suicide bombers by giving them 10,000 AFN (Afghan afghani, which is roughly $111), clothes and promised a plot of land to the families of every fallen jihadi.
He also exhorted them to “refrain from betraying the aspirations of our martyrs.” Essentially, this means that the jihad must continue unabated.
3/3- H.E Haqqani added: “Now you & I must refrain from betraying the aspirations of our martyrs.”
One Twitter photo showed Haqqani embracing an attendee in a packed auditorium. In a slap in the face to America, his security detail wore what appeared to be U.S. military garb.
At the end of the meeting, he distributed 10,000 AFN & clothes to the families of the martyred Fidayeen & promised a plot for each (martyr’s) family. pic.twitter.com/CBEaW4SACp
The sickening public spectacle of a terrorist organization rewarding suicide bombings underscores that Biden’s chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal has encouraged more radical Islamic terrorism in the already-unstable Middle East.
As we’ve already seen, this terrorism does not contain itself geographically and has spread around the world. Just look at the countless jihadi attacks that have roiled Western Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia and the United States.
While the Biden administration has praised the Taliban as “businesslike and professional,” the terrorist group said it won’t help America defeat ISIS-K, which claimed responsibility for killing 13 U.S. soldiers during a suicide bombing in August.
While the Taliban refuses to cooperate with the United States, the Biden administration is handing out exorbitant amounts of taxpayer money to help Afghanistan.
The U.S. has given $330 million to Afghanistan this fiscal year alone while taking in tens of thousands of Afghan refugees — all while Americans struggle with rocketing consumer prices and a sputtering economy.
