Rep. Ruben Gallego (D., Ariz.) accused Tanya Contreras Wheeless, a Hispanic woman running for Congress in Arizona’s fourth district as a Republican, of not being authentically Latina because she took her husband’s last name.
Gallego suggested that Wheeless deliberately “hid” her Hispanic identity before running for office to avoid discrimination. “If you were Latino in Arizona around 2010 people were telling us to go back to Mexico,” he said, “you would hear I am not voting for a ‘spic.’”
“Tanya is Latina,” Gallego tweeted, “cuando le conviene,” meaning, “when it suits her.”
Following Republican Mayra Flores’s upset victory this year in Texas’s 34th Congressional District, which had traditionally been a Democratic stronghold, liberal pundits have smeared conservative Latinas. CNN said the conservative Hispanic women running for Congress were “not the ‘real deal,’” whereas the New York Timesreferred to the “Rise of the Far-Right Latina.”
Democrats have sought to mend their faltering ties with the Latino community ahead of the 2022 election. Some of those gestures have fallen flat. First Lady Jill Biden, for instance, received backlash for suggesting that Hispanics are “as unique as … breakfast tacos” at a Latinx IncluXion Luncheon in San Antonio.
Wheeless hit back at Gallego in a statement by pointing out that “many women change their name when they get married, but that doesn’t change who they are or where they came from.” She called the jab “sexist and racist” and bemoaned how common attacks like Gallego’s have become.
Gallego’s ex-wife Kate Gallego, formerly Kate Widland, kept the influential congressman’s last name following their divorce in 2017 and subsequently was elected mayor of Phoenix. She is the daughter of white Jewish attorneys from Chicago.
Lawyer accused of killing wife and son contributed maximum sum to Biden’s 2020 campaign
A South Carolina lawyer who helped finance resident Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign was charged Thursday with killing his wife and son on the family’s rural hunting estate.
Federal campaign records show that Alex Murdaugh, 54, made a maximum contribution of $2,800 to Biden’s campaign in April 2020, several weeks after the Democrat’s victory in the South Carolina primary.
Prosecutors allege that Murdaugh fatally shot his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul, in June 2021. Their deaths remained unsolved for more than a year as authorities investigated. Murdaugh, the scion of a prominent legal dynasty, was already facing a slew of other charges involving financial fraud, money laundering, and the illicit sale of oxycodone.
The lawyer was also charged in 2021 for enlisting his cousin, Curtis Edward Smith, to kill him in a botched murder-for-hire scheme designed to ensure that Murdaugh’s other son, Buster, would collect on the family life insurance policy. Murdaugh was wounded but not seriously hurt after Smith shot him on the side of the road.
The suspicious deaths of Murdaugh’s wife and son prompted police to reinvestigate several other mysterious deaths that occurred on or near his property between 2015 and 2018. The New York Times reports:
The killings immediately put scrutiny on the Murdaugh family and the deaths of several people associated with them. The police began to re-examine the 2015 death of Stephen Smith, a 19-year-old man who was found along a road about 10 miles from the Murdaugh’s home and who was thought to have been hit by a truck, as well as the death of Gloria Satterfield in 2018, a housekeeper who worked for the Murdaugh family who died after falling on their house’s front steps.
At the time of his death, Paul Murdaugh had been facing charges of drunkenly crashing a boat carrying several of his friends, killing a 19-year-old passenger, Mallory Beach.
Soon after the 2021 killings, Alex Murdaugh’s life began to unravel as those around him began to accuse him of years of financial corruption. The law firm where he worked, which was founded by his great-grandfather more than a century ago, said in September that Mr. Murdaugh had stolen millions of dollars from the firm.
The disgraced attorney admitted last month to stealing $4.3 million worth of settlement funds owed to Satterfield’s children as part of a wrongful death lawsuit over her fall at the family’s home. He has been in jail since October 2021 awaiting trial on charges related to that case.
Murdaugh is far from the only prominent Democratic Party supporter to run afoul of the law in recent years. Ghislaine Maxwell, a Democratic donor and longtime associate of former president Bill Clinton, was sentenced last month to 20 years in prison for sex trafficking underage girls. Last week, Biden campaign surrogate and Cheer star Jerry Harris received a 12-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy.
Herschel Walker is demanding network and cable TV stations pull advertisement that claims he ‘lied’ to vets
Herschel Walker, the Georgia Republican Senate candidate, is threatening to take legal action against a $1.5 million TV attack ad campaign by a liberal group that his lawyers claim is “defamatory” and promotes “false allegations” about Walker’s veterans’ advocacy work.
Walker’s legal team is demanding that network and cable TV stations in Georgia pull the advertisement by left-leaning political action committee VoteVets, according to a letter to the stations obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. The VoteVets ad, which features a Purple Heart recipient, claims Walker “lied” to veterans by promoting a health services program that was linked to allegations of fraud.
The news comes as Democrats are working to hit Walker on character issues, following recent reports that he had three children out of wedlock while criticizing absentee fathers. Walker’s allies are slamming VoteVet’s latest campaign as “gutter politics,” and the letter from his lawyers indicates he is ready to fight back hard against what he perceives as unfair attacks on his background and integrity.
“The advertisement shows zero evidence to substantiate the claim that Herschel Walker lied to veterans,” said Walker attorney Stefan Passantino in the letter. “To construe this as lying to veterans is defamation in its clearest form.”
The VoteVets ad takes aim at Walker’s work for Patriot Support, a health services program for veterans run by Universal Health Services, one of the largest hospital chains in the country. UHS hired Walker as a spokesman for the veterans’ outreach program more than a decade ago, and he left the position last year.
UHS has faced allegations of fraud at some of its facilities. The Department of Justice charged the hospital group with falsifying medical records and billing for unnecessary treatments, in an effort to defraud the government. UHS settled the case for $122 million in 2020, without directly admitting to the claims.
While the VoteVets ad attempted to tie Walker to the malpractice, citing an Associated Press story on the controversy, the AP report said there was “no suggestion [Walker] was directly involved in any wrongdoing at the hospitals.”
Passantino asked that the advertisement “be removed from your airwaves immediately” and warned that the candidate and former NFL star would consider legal action.
“Should such false and defamatory publication occur after receiving information in advance of publication of its falsehood, it can only be undertaken with actual malice and reckless disregard for the truth,” Passantino added. “In that instance, we will act accordingly to protect our clients’ interests.”
This isn’t the first time VoteVets has been hit with pushback against its ads. Fox News and Clear Channel declined to run some of the group’s commercials in past years, with Fox reportedly calling one ad confusing and Clear Channel saying it would conflict with its programming.
VoteVets is spending nearly $1.5 million on the anti-Walker campaign, which is set to run through July 23 across Georgia, including the Atlanta and Savannah markets. The group did not respond to a request for comment.
The Georgia Senate election, which could determine party control of the U.S. Senate next year, is expected to be one of the most contentious races of the midterms. Outside groups are already pouring tens of millions of dollars into the contest, which pits Walker against Democratic senator Raphael Warnock, who won the seat in a special election in 2020.
Walker’s campaign spokeswoman Mallory Blount blasted VoteVets as a “front organization for Chuck Schumer’s left-wing, dark money network” and called the attack ad a “bad faith and a shameful attempt to cover Senator Warnock’s horrible record on veterans.” Blount noted that Warnock was heavily criticized during his 2020 campaign for claiming that “nobody can serve God and the military” at the same time.
Michael Dane Steele, a retired Army colonel who says he has known Walker for over 40 years, dismissed the VoteVets campaign as “nothing but bald-faced lies and gutter politics, made by [Walker’s] opponents.”
“The truth is that over the years Herschel has visited thousands and thousands of our young soldiers to encourage and support them,” Steele told the Free Beacon. “I always know when he’s visited a new installation because I’m inundated with emails, texts, and phone calls from excited troops, who want to express their sincere gratitude that Herschel will take the opportunity to spend time with them.”
Swing-district candidate Greg Landsman owes thousands in federal loans
The state of Ohio is going after a tax-happy Democratic candidate for unpaid business taxes, according to court documents.
The state in March filed a tax lien against Greg Landsman, a Cincinnati councilman and Democratic candidate for a competitive House race, ordering him to pay interest on unpaid taxes he owes through his firm Landsman & Associates. But while Landsman struggles with tax delinquency, he voted over a four-year span on the Cincinnati City Council to raise taxes and fees at least eight times—even as he acknowledged that Ohio families were “struggling” with taxes.
The state taxes are not the only debt Landsman owes the government. His business in 2020 received a $16,647 Paycheck Protection Program loan that has not been paid or forgiven. The firm is owned entirely by Landsman and listed only one employee on its loan application. The loan went entirely to payroll, according to data provided by the Small Business Administration.
Landsman helped pass seven tax and fee increases in June 2018 alone, even though he acknowledged at the time that “the average homeowner is really struggling with their property taxes.” The city councilman voted five months earlier to hike property taxes for city residents, citing the city’s multimillion-dollar budget shortfalls. Landsman’s Republican colleagues warned against the tax hike, which brought in $7 million for the city.
“We can’t ask working-class families to keep footing the bill. They can’t afford it,” Councilman Jeff Pastor (R.) told the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Dan Lusheck, a spokesman for the Ohio GOP, said Landsman’s financial malfeasance would make him a perfect fit with Democrats in Washington, D.C.
“Greg Landsman, who has proven incapable of managing his own finances, would only perpetuate the economic disaster caused by Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden’s inability to govern,” Lusheck told the Washington Free Beacon.
As Democrats confront an unfavorable midterm election cycle, Landsman’s history of left-wing proposals could be a liability for his campaign to win Ohio’s First Congressional District. After national Democrats tapped the city councilman last year to challenge Rep. Steve Chabot (R.), Landsman has faced criticism over his proposals to eliminate cash bail and defund the city’s police department budget in the wake of George Floyd’s death. The Democrat’s proposals came amid a surge of violent crime in the city.
The tax lien against Landsman & Associates is for $656 with an interest rate of 3 percent. Landsman’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee listed Ohio’s First Congressional District as a top target in the midterms. Landsman, who ran uncontested in the state’s May primary election, will face off against Chabot in November.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on July 13 said he’d favor former President Donald Trump over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis if both run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.
“I like Ron DeSantis, but I know what I’m getting with Trump. The good and the bad and everything in between,” Graham said on Fox News.
“Trump sounds pretty good to me right now,” he added.
No candidates have formally announced bids for the next presidential race but Trump, 76, has repeatedly hinted he will be running for a third time, but will not make an announcement until after the upcoming midterm elections.
Trump won the 2016 election and lost the 2020 election. In both races, he earned the Republican nomination.
DeSantis, 43, a former U.S. congressman who is up for reelection this year, has said he’s focused on Florida, but some Republicans hope he’ll launch a presidential campaign.
Trump supporters like Graham point to his accomplishments during his one term, including securing deals in the Middle East, cutting down on illegal immigration, and getting a slew of originalist judges on federal courts.
Many DeSantis supporters say Trump’s actions leading up to, on, and after Jan. 6 showed he shouldn’t be president again. Some take issue with Trump’s continued promotion of COVID-19 vaccines and other stances. A number still support Trump but would prefer DeSantis over him.
Graham said little about DeSantis while comparing Trump to resident Joe Biden, 79, who took office in January 2021 and who has said he will run for a second term despite questions about his fitness.
Graham knocked Biden for the surge in illegal immigration that has occurred during his administration, joking that California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a rumored Democrat presidential candidate, “may be the only guy” Biden “is willing to deport.”
“Compare Biden to Trump when it comes to the mid-East. Biden’s begging the Iranians to get back in a deal that’s terrible for the Israelis and the Arabs. Biden is going to go to East Jerusalem to undercut the Trump policy of making Jerusalem the undivided capital of Israel. I’ve never seen a president tour the mid-East in a more weakened condition than resident Biden, and I say that with sadness,” Graham said. “Trump looks pretty damn good to me when you look at the issues we’re facing as a nation and as a world.”
Biden, meanwhile, while in Israel, was asked about potentially facing Trump again in 2024.
“I’m not predicting it, but I would not be disappointed,” he told Israeli broadcaster N12.
The January 6 hearings just keep grabbing headlines across the nation. Democrats are hoping to prove former President Donald Trump had a hand in the J6 uprisings in Washington D.C.
However, one of their key witnesses has run into several roadblocks recently. Cassidy Hutchinson made some bold claims about Trump’s actions on that day, but her reliability is now in question.
It doesn’t help that she apparently asked Trump senior officials for assistance after getting subpoenaed by the committee.
This is one of several new pieces of information that the prosecution doesn’t want to see. In this case, it appears that Hutchinson sent an email to one former Trump official saying she needed some legal help.
This email, revealed by The Daily Caller, explains that she was unemployed at the time and living with her aunt and uncle.
Because money was tight, she wanted the Trump official to put her in contact with fundraising organizations or lawyers who might be able to lend a hand. She added that she was “primarily seeking financial assistance.”
Here’s part of the letter:
I was subpoenaed by the 1/6 Committee on November 9, 2020 [sic 2021], but was not formally served until Wednesday, January 26, 2021 [sic 2022].
I’ve had difficulty securing a legal team, and was hoping you may be able to put me in contact with any fundraising organizations and/or attorneys that are involved in this process.
Afterward, numerous senior Trump officials said that former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows refused to answer Hutchinson’s calls after she’d been summoned by the committee.
Apparently, he didn’t want to seem as if he was influencing her testimony in any way.
Then, a person with “first-hand knowledge” of the matter clarified that Hutchinson was begging “people in the Trump world” for financial aid, claiming her family couldn’t even afford food at the time.
The interesting part about this is that a few of those Trump officials were sympathetic and offered to help.
Trump’s PAC agreed to help her out financially and even gave her a few names of attorneys that she could speak to. Additionally, Hutchinson allegedly “made derogatory comments about the Jan. 6 committee.”
And as the world knows now, Hutchinson then went in front of the committee and testified that Trump had tried to wrench the steering wheel away from a Secret Service agent on Jan. 6.
That was just one of several eye-opening claims she made — and all this after getting assistance from Trump’s people.
This is likely to cast another shadow on Hutchinson’s testimony and many people will start wondering about her true motives. Trump himself has denied all of Hutchinsons claims and allegations.
The former President also released a 12-page document defending his actions on Jan. 6.
But right now, the spotlight is back on Cassidy Hutchinson, and whether or not she really told “the whole truth” on the stand.
Key Takeaways:
J6 Committee witness Cassidy Hutchinson reportedly begged senior Trump officials for help before testifying.
She claimed to need financial and legal assistance, and Trump’s PAC gave her that help.
They also say Hutchinson “made derogatory comments about the committee,” which seems to clash with her testimony on the stand.
Resident Joe Biden is losing support from some of his biggest backers.
Bill Kristol, who founded and edited the neoconservative magazine The Weekly Standard, became a fierce critic of Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign and led the NeverTrump movement.
In 2018, Kristol co-founded The Bulwark, whose coverage is largely centered around criticism of Trump.
Two years later, he endorsed Biden in the Democratic primary, calling it a “simple choice,” and in the general election.
On Wednesday, however, Kristol argued that Biden should announce he won’t run for re-election.
He said on Twitter that a retirement announcement by Biden would bolster the Democrats’ chances in the 2022 midterm elections and lead to a Democratic victory in the 2024 presidential race.
Straightforward from here:
1. Biden announces not running again.
2. 2022 focus turns to R extremism, Ds do well in Nov.
3. Inflation subsides, Ukraine defeats Russia, Biden is successful 1-term president.
4. Younger moderate D defeats Trump or Trumpist in ’24.
As the president’s popularity drops further and further amid historic inflation and other crises, even liberals are increasingly giving him the cold shoulder.
A recent New York Times/Siena College poll indicated that 64 percent of Democratic voters want someone else than the incumbent as their nominee for president in 2024.
Biden snapped at a reporter who asked him about the poll at a White House event Tuesday.
“Read the polls, jack! You guys are all the same,” he said.
“What’s your message to Democrats who don’t want you to run again?”
At the now-defunct Weekly Standard, the neoconservative ideologue became a crucial proponent of President George W. Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq.
The invasion has since become regarded as one of the worst foreign policy disasters in U.S. history.
Kristol reinvented himself by aligning with progressive Democrats as a Trump critic after the 2016 GOP primary, establishing himself as a mainstay on liberal cable channels such as CNN and MSNBC.
A Democrat U.S. senator locked in one of the nation’s tightest reelection campaigns is now the target of a Federal Election Commission complaint for using campaign funds to pay for decades-old personal lawsuits. (RELATED: Raphael Warnock Used Millions in Federal Cash to Dismantle Atlanta Jail)
The National Republican Senatorial Committee filed the complaint against U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) over Warnock’s use of campaign funds to defend himself in a personal lawsuit over allegations that took place 15 years ago.
Atlanta-area resident Melvin Robertson filed the suit against Warnock in 2019, claiming in 2005 and 2008 that Warnock, in his role as a pastor and over a decade before he was elected to the Senate, enlisted homeless people to conspire against him.
The suit was quickly dismissed. Warnock used campaign funds to pay the Elias Law Group, a top Democratic law firm, $66,000 to fight the case, and an additional $1,183 to another law firm.
Elected officials and political candidates can use campaign funds to defend themselves in lawsuits, but only if the lawsuit “arose directly from campaign activity or the candidate’s status as a candidate.”
The NRSC argues Warnock cannot use campaign funds to pay for the suit “because the conduct that gave rise to the lawsuit occurred long before Warnock was a candidate for federal office, the conduct had nothing to do with Warnock’s now-status as a candidate and officeholder.” (RELATED: Are These 5 Senate Seats Likely to Flip in November?)
“If Warnock is using campaign money to pay for a lawsuit that predates his running for office, then by definition it existed irrespective of his candidacy and would be impermissible to use campaign funds on,” Charlie Spies, who previously served as counsel to Mitt Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign and to the Republican National Committee, told Politico.
“Like a true Washington politician, Raphael Warnock is using the trappings of his office to fund his personal lifestyle. Senator Warnock clearly violated FEC rules and used his campaign account on personal expenses,” said NRSC chairman Sen. Rick Scott.
“The NRSC will continue to hold Senator Warnock accountable, not only for his flagrant abuse of his office, but also for his continued support of Joe Biden’s agenda that is crushing Georgia families with record-high gas and grocery prices,” added Scott.
Warnock faces former NFL player and Republican nominee Herschel Walker in a closely-watched November race. Polls show the race is a virtual tie and too close to call.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
FORKED RIVER, N.J.—Founders of New Jersey’s fledging Moderate Party are vowing to continue their efforts toward ending the state’s century-old ban on “fusion voting” after their petition to place a candidate already endorsed by one of the two major parties under their banner as well on November’s ballot was rejected in early June.
That candidate, two-term U.S. Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.), is being challenged by Republican Thomas Kean Jr., in a rematch of their 2020 7th Congressional District (CD 7) race decided by 5,329 votes, or less than 1 percent, in one of the nation’s most-watched elections.
In a July 6 New York Times guest essay titled “A Viable Third Party Is Coming, and It’s Starting With a New Jersey Lawsuit,” Malinowski wrote that there is momentum across the country for centrist alternatives that would “empower swing voters to save our democracy from toxic polarization” engendered by Democratic and Republican parties hijacked by extremists on the left and the right.
But five weeks after state Secretary of State Tahesha Way rejected the nascent Moderate Party’s petition to place Malinowski as its 7th District candidate on the Nov. 8 ballot, time is running out for legal action to produce a decision before vote-by-mail ballots must be dispatched on Sept. 24.
Inaction over a vowed lawsuit has fostered ridicule from Republicans and the Kean campaign who see the newly minted party as a stunt designed to distract voters from the fact that Malinowski is a Democrat who supports Biden administration policies that they say have failed and are out-of-step with the district’s voters.
“Fusion voting” isn’t the same as voting for “third party” hopefuls placed on ballots against candidates sponsored by the two major parties. Under this system, multiple parties can nominate the same candidate, who can appear more than once on the ballot, and their vote totals are combined.
Fusion voting is standard in Europe, where multiple parties form alliances and coalitions to cross-nominate common candidates in national and European Union elections. In May, a constellation of minor parties and independents in Australia banded together to elect Labor leader Anthony Albanese as prime minister.
Fusion voting was common in the United States from the 1800s until the 1920s when, under pressure from the two major parties, more than 40 states banned candidates from being placed more than once on the same ballot.
Only eight states now allow “fusion voting”: Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Mississippi, Oregon, South Carolina, Vermont, and New York.
“Fusion voters” have affected numerous races in these states. In the 2010 Connecticut governor’s race, Democrat Dannel Malloy, who was also listed on the Working Families Party ballot line, garnered an additional 26,000 votes, which proved to be the key to his victory.
Fusion voters are a crucial constituency in New York, where the two largest “third parties” don’t usually run their own entries but can influence what candidates are nominated by the two major parties by placing them on the ballot under their banner as well.
New York’s Working Families Party usually aligns with Democrats, and the state’s Conservative Party usually supports Republicans. These cross-nominations can significantly influence success in general elections.
Legal efforts to eliminate bans on fusion voting have been thwarted over the last 30 years by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allows states to ban the practice, and in state court rulings that upheld prohibitions on cross-party nominations.
In 1994, the Twin Cities Area New Party petitioned the Minnesota Secretary of State’s Office to allow a state House candidate who was running on the Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party line as the New Party’s candidate.
The party sued when the petition was denied, claiming the prohibition violated First and 14th Amendment free association rights. After a district court ruled in favor of Minnesota, the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision, which the state appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled 6–3 in favor of Minnesota, finding in Timmons v. Twin Cities Area New Party that the ban on fusion voting didn’t unduly burden the free association rights of citizens.
“We conclude that the burdens Minnesota’s fusion ban imposes on the New Party’s associational rights are justified by ‘correspondingly weighty’ valid state interests in ballot integrity and political stability,” the majority opinion written by Chief Justice William Rehnquist stated.
The ruling offered “no views … concerning the wisdom of fusion,” the opinion said. “It may well be that, as support for new political parties increases, these arguments will carry the day in some States’ legislatures. But the Constitution does not require Minnesota, and the approximately 40 other states that do not permit fusion, to allow it.”
It is, the court ruled, a state matter. In a 2019 challenge to Pennsylvania’s fusion ban, the Working Families Party sued after its petition to cross-nominate a Democratic Party candidate was denied. The state’s Supreme Court upheld the prohibition in a 4–3 ruling.
Amid polarization where increasingly a significant component of voters registered with the two major parties are unhappy with what they perceive to be extreme ideological drifts—and the number of independent voters unaffiliated with either continues to grow nationwide—the idea of fusion voting and coalition-building is gaining traction as an alternative to simply voting for a third-party candidate who usually has little chance to win.
In Utah, for instance, Evan McMullin is running against incumbent GOP Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) as a center-right independent endorsed by the Utah Democratic Party, which isn’t fielding its own candidate in the race in the deep-red state.
The former chief policy director for the House Republican Conference is a coalition candidate backed by divergent groups fused to halt the rightward shift of the Republican Party.
Meanwhile, New Jersey’s Moderate Party claims in a statement to have been “formed by a group of New Jersey Republicans, Independents, and Democrats turned off by both major parties’ drift to ideological extremes” and says it will appeal to “pragmatic, middle-of-the-road voters committed to protecting our democratic institutions.”
The party’s co-founders include prominent Republicans such as former East Amwell Mayor Richard Wolfe and former Alexandria Mayor Michelle Garay, and an array of mostly Democratic-leaning nonprofits, including Protect Democracy, the New America Foundation, and the New Jersey Working Families Alliance.
It’s the nation’s only formally registered Moderate Party. The Moderate Party of Rhode Island was recognized as a “ballot-qualified political party” in that state between 2009 and 2018 but failed to qualify in 2019 or since.
A Moderate Party candidate could, however, appear as a multi-party endorsed entry in at least one state—New York—where it’s not even a recognized party.
Among Democrats vying for their party’s nomination in New York’s 21st Congressional District on Aug. 23, Matthew Castelli also has filed as the Moderate Party candidate and will appear as such on the November ballot.
New York’s election laws permit candidates to devise their own party names when they petition to be placed on ballots if they collect enough voter signatures to qualify. Castelli said in a statement that he presented more than 6,500 signatures on his Moderate Party petition from 21st District voters “with the help of over 250 Democratic, Republican. and independent volunteers.”
The winner of the Democratic CD 21 primary will face incumbent Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), who will appear on the ballot under the Republican and Conservative party lines. She faces no opposition in either party’s primaries.
Castelli said voters signed the petition because they want a lawmaker who will focus on the issues they are concerned with rather than be paralyzed by partisan ideology.
His campaign will continue “in building the broad coalition of volunteers and voters,” he said, “because this broad coalition of voters is how we will defeat Congresswoman Elise Stefanik.”
Rep. Tim Ryan (D., Ohio) calls himself a “relentless advocate for Ohio’s working families,” but his nearly two-decade stretch in Washington, D.C., has resulted in passing just four bills, according to a Washington Free Beacon review of his sponsored legislation.
Of those laws, three of them were to rename federal buildings, including a post office in Tallmadge, Ohio. The fourth bill transferred the ownership of a Ravenna, Ohio, building from the federal government to the Ohio government.
Ryan, who is running for Ohio’s open Senate seat in November, first entered Congress in 2003 after serving a half term in the Ohio Senate. He claims on his campaign website that he has spent his time in Washington, D.C., working on, among other things, bipartisan legislation to solve the opioid crisis, strengthen entitlements, and bring jobs back from overseas. “Tim has spent his career fighting for Ohio workers,” Ryan’s campaign website reads.
But none of that rhetoric has translated into bills signed into law and raises questions about Ryan’s central campaign pitch: That he’s a bipartisan dealmaker looking to overcome partisan divides. Generally, incumbents try to sell voters on their record. In Ryan’s case, he speaks about what is possible if Democrats maintain control of the Senate—rather than what he has accomplished.
“So we have to invest into our people. Into child care. Into our families. Into our kids. Into shop class,” Ryan said at a recent campaign stop. “Into building resiliency for our kids, so that they have the grit and the determination to go out in this world that’s crazy as can be.”
Ryan’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
The last bill that Ryan sponsored that was signed into law was in January 2021. That law renamed a Department of Veterans Affairs outpatient clinic. Before then, Ryan had not seen any of his bills signed into law since 2014.
“Career politician Tim Ryan has cheated Mahoning Valley working families,” said Ohio Republican Party chairman Bob Paduchik. “Ryan’s record of failure is obvious, but if you want a post office named then he is your man.”
Despite his odes to bipartisanship, Ryan has a voting record in Congress indistinguishable from the most partisan Democrats. According to a “Biden Score” tracker from FiveThirtyEight, Ryan votes with resident Joe Biden 100 percent of the time—more than Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.).
Ryan’s attempt to overcome the perception that he is another vote for Biden—who has the lowest job approval rating of any president in the history of modern polling—in a state former president Donald Trump won by 8 points in 2020 has resulted in some awkwardness.
Earlier this month, he was one of the only major Ohio Democrats who did not attend Biden’s speech in Cleveland. Ryan’s campaign said his absence was due to a scheduling conflict.
On the campaign trail, Ryan steers away from the Democratic Party label as much as possible. In one instance, Ryan seemingly lifted his anti-opioid proposal from a bill by Rep. Lauren Boebert (R., Colo.).
Ryan will face off against Republican J.D. Vance for the Senate seat held by retiring Republican senator Rob Portman. Vance is a heavy favorite in the race. A June poll conducted by USA Today/Suffolk University found Ryan trailing Vance by 3 points.
Senate candidate Alex Lasry spent weeks blasting Sen. Ron Johnson for participating in a congressional delegation to Russia
Wisconsin Democratic Senate candidate Alex Lasry—who has spent the past few weeks slamming Sen. Ron Johnson (R.) for traveling four years ago on a congressional delegation to Moscow—visited Russia himself shortly after President Vladimir Putin’s controversial election in 2012, according to a now-deleted post on Lasry’s Facebook page.
Lasry, the son of a hedge fund billionaire, posted a photo of himself posing on a gold-carved, red velvet throne while dining at a luxury tourist restaurant inside an imperial palace in Saint Petersburg, Russia, according to a copy of the June 17, 2012, post obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
“Oh I just can’t wait to be king,” wrote Lasry in the caption for the photo, in which he is holding a red crystal goblet.
The picture could complicate Lasry’s attempts to contrast himself with Johnson, whom Lasry has blasted as a “Putin apologist” who “would rather spend the Fourth of July in Moscow than Wisconsin.” It could also play into criticism from Lasry’s Democratic primary opponents, who argue that his massive family wealth has left him out of touch with voters.
The restaurant, Russian Ampir, is a popular site with tourists, according to TripAdvisor, which says the hotspot gives diners an “acquaintance with the cuisine of Russian aristocracy in the days of the imperial St. Petersburg.”
“Even the most exacting audience will be fascinated by the view of tables served with 24-karat gold flatware, exclusive porcelain of 18th century, crystal wares encrusted with gold,” said the travel guide.
Lasry, who is polling in a dead heat against fellow Democrat and Wisconsin lieutenant governor Mandela Barnes in the party’s Senate primary, has been running ads criticizing Johnson over the Russia trip, saying Wisconsinites can’t count on the senator to “represent our values of freedom and democracy.” Johnson in July 2018 traveled to Moscow on an eight-member Republican congressional delegation led by then-Senate Appropriations Committee chairman Richard Shelby (R., Ala.). The Kremlin later barred Johnson and several other senators from visiting on a bipartisan delegation trip in 2019, reportedly in retaliation for their support of U.S. sanctions against Russia.
“I’ll always represent you, as a Wisconsinite and as an American,” said Lasry in the ad.
Lasry’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment about the nature of the trip. At the time, Lasry had just finished a three-year stint as an aide in the Obama administration. He went on to attend graduate school at the New York University Stern School of Business.
Lasry’s trip took place amid global outcry and massive protests against Putin’s 2012 election, which many pro-democracy activists said was fraudulent, and as U.S.-Russian relations were growing increasingly rocky.
One year after Lasry’s Russia trip, Lasry’s father, hedge fund billionaire and Democratic donor Marc Lasry, was dropped from consideration as the Obama administration’s ambassador to France due to alleged involvement with an illegal high-stakes poker ring and reported ties to a Russian mobster. The poker game later became the focus of the film Molly’s Game.
The younger Lasry went on to work as an executive for the Milwaukee Bucks, which is co-owned by his father.
One of Lasry’s far-left Democratic primary opponents, Tom Nelson, during a party forum last week slammed him as an “out-of-state billionaire,” citing the candidate’s wealth and East Coast upbringing. The Democratic primary is scheduled for Aug. 9.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate slams Abbott over electrical grid strain
Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke supports green energy, but that didn’t stop him from attacking Gov. Greg Abbott over potential blackouts tied to the state’s reliance on wind power.
With temperatures forecast to be well over 100 degrees in Texas on July 11, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) issued a conservation appeal to the public.
ERCOT, which is in charge of the Texas electrical grid, asked residents and businesses to voluntarily conserve electricity on July 11 between 2-8 p.m., when a reserve capacity shortage was predicted.
Wind turbines were projected to produce less than 10 percent of their capacity, according to the agency.
The decrease in wind production combined with extreme heat and record demand prompted the call for Texans to cut back on electricity use. The agency stated that no widespread outages were expected.
Then Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks after former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) endorsed him at a campaign rally in Dallas on March 2, 2020. (Richard Rodriguez/AP Photo)
O’Rourke, who has vowed to fight climate change by working to remove all emissions from the oil and gas industry, wasted no time in blaming Abbott for the strain on the Texas electrical grid, which is unique in its independence from the rest of the United States.
“We can’t rely on the grid when it’s hot. We can’t rely on the grid when it’s cold,” O’Rourke posted on Twitter. “We can’t rely on Greg Abbott. It’s time to vote him out and fix the grid.”
Abbott’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
However, he supports oil and gas production in Texas along with its jobs. He has vowed to protect the industry from federal government climate overreach.
O’Rouke supports the Texas Climate Jobs Project, which is akin to the Green New Deal. The project wants to transition oil and gas jobs into green energy jobs and eliminate dependence on fossil fuels.
He also wants to rid Texas’ reliance on its own grid. Instead, he wants Texas to connect to the national grid “to draw down power when needed.”
Pursuing green energy would only make matters worse for the Texas grid, according to some.
David Blackmon, an independent energy analyst and consultant based in Mansfield, Texas, told The Epoch Times the national grids have their own problems with demand.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott at a press conference at the Capitol in Austin, Texas, on June 8, 2021. (Montinique Monroe/Getty Images)
“I laugh when I hear that,” he said, adding Texas’ problem comes from relying on unreliable energy such as wind.
Democratic policies that have stifled oil and gas production would only exasperate Texas’ grid problems, Blackmon said.
Texas state Rep. Briscoe Cain (R) told The Epoch Times in a text that a plan is afoot for the next legislative session to look at building more natural gas plants in Texas.
The Lone Star State produces the most natural gas in the United States and holds vast oil and gas reserves.
“Wind farms are a scam,” Cain texted.
So how did Texas, with its energy might, get to the point of begging for its citizens to conserve energy?
Incentives for developing more wind power have increased, but the same can’t be said of thermal-power generators that typically use natural gas.
Cain noted that federal production tax credits made wind farms too lucrative not to build.
Pike Electric service trucks line up after a snow storm in Fort Worth, Texas, on Feb. 16, 2021. (Ron Jenkins/Getty Images)
The Texas grid is powered mainly by natural gas.
In 2020, it generated 46 percent of the state’s electricity. But the grid’s share of renewable power has been increasing over the past decade with wind power now accounting for about 23 percent—surpassing coal (18 percent), nuclear (11 percent), and the remainder comes from solar and other sources.
Blackmon said the legislature wanted to add more gas-powered plants after Winter Storm Uri brought death and destruction to Texas in February of 2021. But that provision from the bill that ended up passing, he said.
“Gov. Abbott—I don’t know what he’s thinking,” Blackmon said. “We’re making the same mistake California did. Wind gives you nothing.”
Aspen Institute asks, ‘(How) should ESG leaders support democracy?’
The Aspen Institute is holding an invitation-only event, the “Aspen ESG Summit,” at a time when rising energy prices, novel climate mandates, and growing global instability have made environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) a subject of controversy.
Speakers on the three-day summit’s agenda include Securities and Exchange Commissioner Allison Herren Lee, who recently voted for sweeping new climate disclosure requirements for public companies.
Headquartered in the upscale mountain resort town of Aspen, Colorado, the Aspen Institute aims to “turn ideas into action and impact for individuals and society,” according to its mission statement.
In 2020 alone, the Aspen Institute received funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, BlackRock, the Crown family, the Ford Foundation, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and the Bloomberg Family Foundation, among other billionaires and billionaire-founded non-profits.
It also received at least a million or more dollars from the U.S. Department of State and Walmart, respectively.
The Aspen Institute describes itself as values-based but non-partisan. It does not fund political candidates or parties.
“We do not engage in electoral politics or any activity that would require registration under the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995, and do not engage staff or contractors as ‘lobbyists’ as defined by the Act,” it states on its website.
Some sources have characterized the organization as left-leaning. In 2019, The Economist described it as “the mountain retreat for the liberal elite.”
Data from Open Secrets show that individuals employed by or closely connected with the Aspen Institute have donated overwhelmingly to Democrats in recent election cycles.
During the 2022 cycle, for example, 98.26 percent of the money that those individuals donated to federal candidates went to Democrats. During the 2018 cycle, all of their money went to Democrats.
Fox News’ Tucker Carlson has also taken aim at the Aspen Institute. In his current Twitter bio, he sarcastically calls himself a “frequent visitor to the Aspen Inst.”
In an April monologue, Carlson alluded to its influence when criticizing former President Barack Obama’s Stanford University speech on disinformation.
“So me and my friends at the Aspen Institute need to be in complete control of every word uttered, or else it’s not democracy,” he opined.
Team Aspen Rules on What’s ‘Valuable’ for Democracy
ESG was recently slammed by Elon Musk, who described it as a “scam” after the S&P Global Index removed his pioneering electric car company, Tesla Motors, from its ESG Index.
Representatives of the United States’ largest banks and other companies are also slated to talk at the Aspen Institute’s summit, which lasts from July 11 until July 14.
Those speakers include individuals affiliated with Citi, Microsoft, Starbucks, Putnam Investments, Prudential, GE, and Danone.
One “dialogue stream” at the event is titled, “(How) Should ESG Leaders Support Democracy?”
“Threats to democracy have upended business as usual domestically and abroad. Why should ESG leaders care? Are ESG leaders playing a role in operationalizing the pro-democracy commitments their firms have made—or how might they, while still doing their day job?” the agenda states.
In a 2021 set of “Predictions for Business and Society in 2022,” the Aspen Institute’s Judy Samuelson gave praise to employees who, “in the wake of January 6th” were the ones to connect their “company’s PAC [political action committee] to support of elected officials engaged in anti-democratic behavior.”
“As we move toward midterms, concern for our democracy will only grow—and businesses, particularly those that are active in the pay-to-[play] system that dominates our political system—will again be under the microscope of employees,” she wrote at the time.
The Aspen Institute did not respond to The Epoch Times’ requests for comment or footage of the event.
Elon Musk has taken to Twitter after former U.S. President Donald Trump criticized the Tesla CEO at a rally over the weekend.
Trump called Musk “another bull [expletive] artist,” saying that Musk had once told him privately he had won Musk’s vote in 2016, which would conflict with Musk’s public statement in mid-June about having just voted Republican for the first time in the midterm primaries.
“You know what he said the other day? ‘Oh, I’ve never voted for a Republican,’” Trump said to a full house at the Alaska Airlines Center on Saturday. “I said, ‘I didn’t know that.’ He told me he voted for me. So he’s another bull [expletive] artist.”
Trump made the comments as a side note while talking about Musk’s recent decision to not acquire Twitter.
“I don’t hate the man, but it’s time for Trump to hang up his hat & sail into the sunset,” Musk wrote on Monday night in response to a video of Trump’s comments. “[Democrats] should also call off the attack—don’t make it so that Trump’s only way to survive is to regain the Presidency.”
Trump–DeSantis Ticket
On the same night, Musk shared his thoughts about a potential Trump–DeSantis ticket in 2024.
“Trump would be 82 at end of term, which is too old to be chief executive of anything, let alone the United States of America,” Musk wrote in another post, replying to a suggestion from another Twitter user about a potential Trump-DeSantis run in 2024 and two terms of DeSantis presidency in 2028 and 2032.
But on a potential DeSantis 2024 run, Musk echoed his earlier comments that he would lean towards supporting the Florida governor.
“If DeSantis runs against Biden in 2024, then DeSantis will easily win—he doesn’t even need to campaign.” the billionaire said.
Musk’s Monday comments continue a series of high-profile political statements the billionaire has made in 2022, which included describing the Democratic Party as the party of “division & hate” and identifying himself as a part of a “massive red wave in 2022” by revealing his vote for Republican candidate Mayra Flores (R-Texas).
Trump: ‘I Think I Would Win’
While Trump has not explicitly announced his intention to run for commander-in-chief in 2024, he has teased it enough for spectators—including Musk—to consider it a serious prospect.
“I ran twice, I won twice … And now with the approval of the great people of Alaska, we may have to do it again,” Trump said over the weekend in Alaska, claiming that he received “many millions more votes” in 2020 than he did in 2016 when he defeated Hillary Clinton.
When asked about how well he would perform against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in a presidential race, the former president was confident.
“I don’t know if Ron is running, and I don’t ask him. It’s his prerogative … I think I would win.” Trump told The New Yorker in June. He told Newsmax later in the month that he would not rule out DeSantis as a running mate while saying that he “was very responsible for [DeSantis’s] success.”
Meanwhile, Republican figures have been positive that Trump’s political influence in the GOP is nothing close to insignificant.
“I don’t delude myself into thinking I have a big swath of the Republican Party,” Trump critic Mitt Romney (R-Utah) told Politico in May about his thoughts on Trump. “It’s hard to imagine anything that would derail his support.”
“So if he wants to become the nominee in [2024], I think he’s very likely to achieve that,” Romney said.
With Joe Biden unlikely to make it to 2024, Democrats are fearing a Kamala candidacy. Chances are, the woman will run—common sense be damned.
But she isn’t doing herself any favors. While speaking about the historic overturning of Roe v. Wade, she stumbled over her own comments.
Yikes, what did I just watch?
Kamala Harris was asked about her views on the recent overturning of Roe. It appears the woman, who seems to care more about appearances than substance, tried to look concerned and grave.
Oh, yes. The end of federalized abortion is so terrible. Any reasonable Democrat has to look very solemn when talking about it.
(Because their Planned Parenthood business is probably going to take a big hit.)
But when she opens her mouth, nothing remotely grave or solemn comes out. She claims that abortion was “settled.”
Not sure what she meant by that, considering millions upon millions of Americans have protested every year over it since 1974.
But then she goes on and says it’s “unsettled.” Uh… what?
What is this woman talking about? Can’t anyone within the Biden administration talk like rational humans?
It’s bad enough that Biden is reading “repeat quote” off a teleprompter. Does his “vice president” have to sound just as confusing as he does?
Harris has long been mocked over her “word salads.” But that is being too charitable. From all appearances, she looks and sounds like a child pretending to be a politician.
Nothing about her appears authentic. She is trying to imitate real leaders, hoping people are dumb enough to believe her.
Hey, Kamala! Guess what we aren’t.
Key Takeaways:
Kamala Harris made another confusing statement during an interview.
She contradicted herself while discussing the overturning of Roe.
Harris has as bad of a reputation speaking as Joe Biden.
Gubernatorial candidate Nikki Fried has promised to legalize marijuana
The Florida Democrat who promised to “legalize weed” if elected governor owns a stake in a marijuana dispensary worth thousands of dollars.
Florida commissioner of agriculture Nikki Fried holds more than $130,000 of stock in cannabis dispensary Harvest Health and Recreation Inc., according to her most recent financial disclosure. The dispensary was acquired in October 2021 by Trulieve, the nation’s most profitable medical marijuana company, which sells cannabis in 117 locations in Florida. Fried confirmed her stake in the cannabis dispensary during a June 2021 interview, shortly after launching her gubernatorial campaign. At the time, Fried denied that her dispensary holdings posed a conflict of interest, since her office did not “regulate [the] marijuana space.”
Fried, a former medical marijuana lobbyist, has fought to advance marijuana interests throughout her career. Fried’s pro-pot platform helped her win the agriculture commissioner’s seat in 2018. The following year, her office lobbied for a bill legalizing hemp, a cannabis plant stripped of the majority of its psychoactive component. Fried handed out nearly 800 hemp cultivation licenses, including at least one to a firm that counted her former fiancée as an investor.
Florida legalized medical marijuana in 2015. Fried, who holds a medical marijuana card herself, championed the cause. She continues to advocate for legal recreational marijuana for all adults. Florida lawmakers have attempted a variety of recreational marijuana legalization efforts, including a bill proposed by state house Democrats to legalize recreational marijuana, which died in March. The state Supreme Court in 2021 rejected two proposed ballot amendments to the state constitution aimed at expanding marijuana access.
Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R., Fla.) campaign spokeswoman Lindsey Curnutte said Fried is “pushing her own interests ahead of what’s best for the people of Florida.”
“This is a classic example of Democrat disingenuousness,” Curnutte told the Washington Free Beacon. “It has nothing to do with freedom or democracy, but rather it’s all personal and political.”
Fried is vying for the Democratic nomination against former Florida governor Charlie Crist (D.), who shares her stance on marijuana legalization. Fried is trailing Crist by a large margin, according to St. Pete Polls’s latest survey. Whichever candidate emerges from the Aug. 23 primary will face DeSantis in November. A Real Clear Politics average of polls suggests DeSantis would prevail over either Democratic challenger.
This is not the first time Fried’s business interests have gotten her in hot water. In 2021, the Florida Commission on Ethics reprimanded Fried for failing to disclose $400,000 in lobbying income.
Fried is set to release her Fiscal Year 2021 financial disclosures by Sept. 1. Her campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Senate candidate Mike Franken: ‘I did not serve my nation for’ anti-Biden Iowan
Iowa Democratic Senate candidate and military veteran Mike Franken says he fought to defend Americans’ right to freedom of speech—unless that freedom is used to criticize resident Joe Biden.
Franken during a June campaign stop said he had requested the mayor of Sumner, Iowa, to take down a “Let’s Go Brandon, F— Biden” flag outside a resident’s house downtown. The Iowa Democratic nominee, who served as a Navy vice admiral, claimed he spoke for all veterans when he said he “did not serve” for a citizen to fly such a flag.
“Mayor, what the hell? … I speak for all veterans, categorically speaking, not for that person,” Franken said he wrote in a letter to the mayor. “I did not serve my nation for him, or her, whoever lives there. Shame on, shame on your town for that. I was gonna stop at your VFW [Veterans of Foreign Wars], and I said, ‘I’ll keep on riding,’ because I probably would have lost my cool.”
“Republicans are attacking the basic pillars of civic authority—they’ve taken away all norms of that activity, where you’ve got an F— Biden sign on Main Street,” Franken said. “It’s not civil.”
Franken, who is running against Republican incumbent senator Chuck Grassley, saw his campaign manager resign on Wednesday because the Iowa Democrat is reportedly too difficult of a boss to work for. His appeal to civility came moments after he accused Republicans of leading a capitalist-evangelical cabal to “dumb down” youth through “a war on education.”
This is not the first time Franken has supported using the power of government to chill speech. In January 2021, the retired Navy vice admiral took credit for banning Fox News from broadcasting to American troops stationed in East Africa.
“As the commander of military forces in E Africa, I asked the American Forces Network (TV) to replace Fox News during meal hours,” Franken said. “Why? Because they were inimical to America’s outreach overseas. Put troops in jeopardy. Made my job harder. … I pulled the plug.”
Republican lawmakers like Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.), an Army veteran, said Franken’s remarks demonstrate “how far out of step Iowa Democrats have gotten from Iowa voters.”
“This is the kind of liberal with stars on their shoulders who turns off America’s young men and women from joining our military,” Cotton said last week at an event in Iowa for Republican congressional hopeful Zach Nunn. “Mike Franken speaks for himself—and only himself. He does not speak for America’s veterans.”
Sen. Joni Ernst (R., Iowa), the first female combat veteran to serve in the Senate, said Franken “should know better than to attack an Iowan for exercising his or her First Amendment rights.”
“The military oath of office requires service members to protect and defend the Constitution,” Ernst said in a statement with Grassley. “Mike Franken’s claim to speak on behalf of ‘all veterans’ while he attempts to silence a fellow Iowan’s right to free speech is appalling and un-American. … All Americans have the right to express their political viewpoints however they see fit.”
The mayor of Sumner said he would not remove the “Let’s Go Brandon” flag, according to Franken. Sumner’s mayor and Franken’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment. Franken campaign manager Julie Stauch apparently resumed her role the day after she resigned, according to the Iowa Field Report, telling the outlet she and the campaign had reached an agreement.
National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman Sen. Rick Scott (R., Fla.) said Franken’s comments make him “unfit for office.”
“As a veteran, I am disgusted that Mike Franken claimed he served in the military only for people who held the same beliefs as him,” Scott said in a statement. “I applaud Senator Grassley for keeping his commitment to meet with voters, whoever they vote for, every year through his annual 99 county meetings and other events he hosts in Iowa. Iowa families deserve a senator who is willing to serve them, even when they may have different views on issues.”
Update 10:21 a.m.: This piece has been updated to note Franken campaign manager Julie Stauch resumed her role after having resigned.
Oath Keepers founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes III is challenging the House Jan. 6 Select Committee to let him testify on a live broadcast so he can pit the truth as he sees it against the committee’s “pack of lies.”
“Public televised testimony, that’s the only condition,” Rhodes said.
“If I were given a chance to give an opening statement, I’m writing up what I would give them,” Rhodes told The Epoch Times on July 10. “If they decline to accept my offer, I’m going to go ahead and publish my opening statement.”
Rhodes said he does not expect the committee to accept his offer because his appearance would be a free-wheeling discussion, not a scripted presentation.
“They should jump at the opportunity, but they won’t because they don’t want that,” he said. “What they want is what you’ve seen, which is just a scripted, controlled, pre-screened show trial. They’re only going to put people in front of the public that they know are going to say what they want them to say.”
“I want to push back,” Rhodes said. “I want to cut back against this false narrative. They don’t want the truth. That’s why they won’t let me just get up there, unscreened, uncoached, and just answer[ing] questions because they don’t want the truth out.
“If they were concerned with the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, they would welcome the opportunity to talk to me because I pled the Fifth on everything from election time on back in February. I answered no questions about anything after election night.”
‘Waive My Fifth Amendment Rights’
The Select Committee next meets on July 12 in Washington D.C.
The panel might hold a prime-time hearing on July 14. It plans to cover the issue of domestic extremism and the roles allegedly played by the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys on Jan. 6, 2021.
Unlike his previous appearance before the committee, Rhodes said he would drop his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and answer questions, but only if the hearing is on a live broadcast.
“So I’m going to do it now and waive my Fifth Amendment rights and do that in front of the public,” Rhodes said in a call from the Alexandria City Detention Center in Virginia, where he is being held pending trial. He is charged with seditious conspiracy and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, among other counts.
Rhodes was first charged in a superseding indictment on Jan. 12, more than a year after the unrest at the Capitol. He, six other Oath Keepers, and one associate were charged in a new superseding indictment (pdf) on June 22.
Prosecutors say the Oath Keepers conspired to “oppose the lawful transfer of presidential power by force” by “breaching and attempting to take control of the Capitol grounds and building” to prevent, hinder or delay certification of Electoral College votes by a joint session of Congress.
Oath Keepers and their attorneys say the seditious conspiracy charge was concocted out of whole cloth by misreading and twisting messenger chats, phone calls, and online meetings. They say the Oath Keepers were in Washington D.C. that day to provide security for conservative VIPs speakers at events supporting President Donald Trump.
Their transportation of weapons to nearby Virginia was part of the group’s preparations for what they believed could be the situation where the president invoked the Insurrection Act due to an Antifa attack on the White House, Rhodes said.
Incomplete Narratives
Rhodes said the committee has already shown deception when discussing the Oath Keepers. He pointed to a hearing when a still image of him was shown in a Washington, D.C., parking garage with former Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio on Jan. 5, 2021. Had the committee shown the full video of the event, it would have been clear that the so-called meeting between the men was a mere handshake with no discussion, Rhodes said.
“They showed a still photo of me talking to Enrique Tarrio instead of the video, which has me walking up and saying hello and walking away because it wasn’t my meeting; it was somebody else’s meeting,” Rhodes said.
The video shows that the contact between Tarrio and Rhodes lasted less than 30 seconds, although it has been described in prosecution documents as a 30-minute meeting.
Rhodes said Tarrio was in the garage to speak with Bianca Gracia of Latinos for Trump and attorney Kellye SoRelle. They wanted to ensure he had legal representation after his arrest for setting fire to a Black Lives Matter banner in Washington D.C. in December 2020.
Enrique Tarrio, Chairman of the Proud Boys, and Stewart Rhodes, founder of the Oath Keepers, in a garage in Washington, in a still image taken from a Jan. 5, 2021, video. (Saboteur Media/Handout via REUTERS)
Rhodes said he was part of SoRelle’s three-man security detail. SoRelle, who also serves as general counsel for the Oath Keepers and Latinos for Trump, had received death threats, Rhodes said.
“It was their conversation, so I stepped down,” Rhodes said. “I was there for security only for Kellye SoRelle.”
Rhodes said part of his motivation to speak out publicly was the recent indictment of Michael Greene, a friend who ran security operations for the Oath Keepers in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6. Greene, 39, of Indianapolis, was charged with conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and three other counts.
According to FBI summaries of those meetings, Greene’s interviews with FBI agents in May 2021 contradict many of the accusations against the Oath Keepers.
Oath Keepers founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes III said the group was doing event and personal security on Jan. 6, 2021; not plotting to attack the Capitol as alleged by federal prosecutors. (Epoch TV)
“He is a totally innocent man who was operations lead that day; a friend of mine, straight up, excellent, awesome Army veteran and ex-cop,” Rhodes said. “A totally innocent man. They’re just persecuting him.”
Greene had every right to be at the Capitol on Jan. 6 because the Oath Keepers were providing security for a “Stop the Steal” rally in Area 8 on the Capitol lawn and for a Latinos for Trump event two blocks away. Stop the Steal founder Ali Alexander had a permit for the Capitol rally and for the erection of a stage.
“He (Greene) was supposed to be on Capitol grounds. He’s supposed to be right there in Area 8, which is on Capitol grounds,” Rhodes said. “That’s where he was supposed to be, to go and protect the venue that Ali Alexander had reserved there. So he was supposed to be on Capitol grounds. And now they’re indicting him for trespass. It’s just ridiculous.”
Event Security, Not Conspiracy
Rhodes said the Oath Keepers presence in Washington D.C. that day was no different than for what they had done for pro-Trump rallies in November and December 2020.
“Our guys dressed the same and did the same thing,” he said. “The difference is that two of our team leaders decided to take their people inside the Capitol of their own volition. That’s the only difference. Their behavior and ambition was the same, to protect people at events in Washington D.C., which they did.”
Oath Keepers provided security in the VIP area at the Ellipse where Trump spoke on Jan. 6. They were then tasked with escorting Alexander and speakers, including Roger Stone, from the Ellipse to the Capitol for an event that was on the calendar well before the president’s speech was booked, Rhodes said.
Two groups of Oath Keepers did enter the Capitol.
Prosecutors claim they were searching for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Rhodes said there was no plan for anyone to go into the Capitol. One of the groups intervened between an armed U.S. Capitol Police officer and an angry crowd, de-escalating the situation, he said.
Rhodes ridiculed the charge by prosecutors that the Oath Keepers used a military “stack formation” to ascend the east steps of the Capitol. Oath Keepers have been shown on video walking with hands on each other’s shoulders in a line.
“That formation going up the steps is not a military formation. I was an infantry man, airborne infantry,” Rhodes said. “That’s not a military formation. That’s a PSD (personal security detail) technique to get through a crowd.”
The Oath Keepers have used the technique at other crowded venues to move their protectees through masses of people, he said, including an event in Atlanta in 2020.
“They use the loaded term of ‘military stack.’ No, it’s a PSD detail. You don’t go through a crowd like that if you’re in the military.”
Preparations Were for Antifa, Not to ‘Attack the Capitol’
The Oath Keepers did have weapons and ammunition stockpiled in Virginia and had “Quick Reaction Forces” (QRF) on standby. Prosecutors claim the QRFs were to attack the Capitol. Rhodes said the Oath Keepers in the QRFs were available to extract other Oath Keepers or protectees from Washington if there was a large attack by Antifa.
The weapons were there only if Trump invoked the Insurrection Act and called up militias to defend the White House, Rhodes said. Antifa had made threats to assault the White House and eject Trump by force, he said.
“We’re gonna have well-trained Oath Keeper combat vets with their weapons outside D.C. but ready in case the President invokes the Insurrection Act and calls us up as the militia, which completely lawful,” Rhodes said.
Plea Deals and Coercion
The three Oath Keepers who took plea deals and are cooperating with prosecutors were coerced with threats of long prison sentences, he said.
A letter sent to defendants and their attorneys in May by prosecutors Kathryn Rakoczy and Justin Sher said that if Oath Keepers defendants are convicted at trial, they could face life in prison under sentencing guidelines related to terrorism. A copy of the letter was obtained by The Epoch Times. The letter also set the deadline for accepting plea-agreement offers.
Noted defense attorney and Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz said the attempt to link seditious conspiracy to sentencing guidelines for treason “is absurd.”
Rhodes said in at least one of the three plea deals, the defendant had told family members he was terrified of the prospect of life in prison. The seditious conspiracy charge includes a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.
“They scared the [expletive] out of these guys and coerced them into pleading for something they didn’t do,” Rhodes said. “There’s no [expletive] conspiracy. Did he go into the Capitol? Yes, like a dumb ass, he went into the Capitol. But there was no conspiracy.”
Rhodes said the Select Committee is making it nearly impossible for any of the Oath Keepers to get a fair trial. Recently U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta rejected a motion by Oath Keepers defendants to move their trials from D.C. to Virginia.
“The only way we can get any possibility of a fair trial in this country is if we are out of D.C.,” Rhodes said. “I think it’s a foregone conclusion.
“A D.C. jury is going to vote along political lines,” he said. “We walk in there, we’ve got horns, demon tails, already, the ‘evil Oath Keepers.’ They’ve been conditioned over 13 years in the leftist media to hate us. And these are all inside-the-beltway Democrats.”
Overtly Anti-Racist
Rhodes said he would like to address what he called the defamatory smear of the Oath Keepers by Select Committee Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who called the group “white supremacists.” Rhodes said that the Oath Keepers’ rules ban any racial discrimination and that he does not tolerate such attitudes in the group.
On Jan. 6, 2021, the Oath Keepers vice president was a black police officer, he said. Greene, the former police officer who ran Oath Keepers security in D.C. on Jan. 6, is also black.
“We’re overtly anti-racist, and they have to know that. They’ve defamed us on purpose,” Rhodes said. “So since that moment on, there has just been a relentless campaign of defamation, mischaracterization of Oath Keepers—even demonization.”
Rhodes said that he believes the Select Committee’s true goal is to see former President Trump indicted for Jan. 6. The committee and the Department of Justice will work on that goal together, he said.
“They work hand in glove like two different fingers on the same iron fist,” he said.
Americans’ confidence in major U.S. institutions—including government and the media—is in a state of collapse, falling to an average of just 27 percent across all categories, according to the latest national poll released by the Gallup Organization.
Only the military and small businesses still enjoy the confidence of a majority of Americans.
Although public belief in institutions has been weak for most of the past 15 years, the 27 percent average for all categories is the lowest recorded by Gallup.
The company began measuring confidence in institutions in 1973 and has done so each year since 1993.
The survey figures came after Gallup delivered sobering news on June 22. At that time the company said confidence in the overall direction of the country fell to 13 percent that month, down 3 percentage points from May and 11 points since March when the figure was 24 percent.
It also reported at that time that despite ongoing economic malaise, resident Joe Biden’s job approval rating held steady at 41 percent between May and June.
Gallup’s finding on the issue was called into question by the Civiqs Poll’s daily tracking survey of registered voters which found Biden’s approval rating has sunk to a new record low of just 30 percent, the New York Post reported July 9.
Only in two states, the Democratic strongholds of Vermont and Hawaii, are the president’s supporters more numerous than his detractors.
Gallup also reported on June 29 that although 96 percent of U.S. adults expressed pride in varying degrees about being American, that figure includes a record low of 38 percent who consider themselves “extremely proud” to be Americans, the lowest figure for that description since the company began tracking the issue in 2001.
Another 27 percent of Americans said they were “very proud,” while 22 percent said they were “moderately proud,” and 9 percent described themselves as “only a little proud.”
Four percent said they were “not at all” proud to be Americans.
In the new Gallup survey, Americans expressed less confidence in institutions than they did a year ago, with significant declines in 11 of the 16 examined—and no improvements for any of the institutions.
The biggest drops were regarding the presidency as an institution—as opposed to the job performance of the current president—and the Supreme Court.
Confidence in the presidency is now at 23 percent, which is 15 percentage points lower than 2021.
The Supreme Court came in at 25 percent, down 11 points since 2021. The survey was completed before the court rendered landmark rulings on gun rights and abortion, decisions that have proven controversial.
Confidence in Congress came in at just 7 percent, down from 12 percent a year ago.
The figures for the presidency, Congress, and the Supreme Court were record Gallup lows.
Five other institutions’ ratings plunged to record lows.
The church and organized religion weighed in at 31 percent, down from 37 percent. Newspapers scored 16 percent, falling from 21 percent. The criminal justice system got 14 percent, after rating 20 percent. Big business came in at 14 percent, falling from 18 percent. The police garnered 45 percent after the 51 percent figure a year ago.
Large technology companies weighed in at 26 percent, down from 29 percent. Gallup has only been measuring confidence in the category for three years.
Small business and the military still enjoy the confidence of a majority of Americans, despite slipping support. Small business came in at 68 percent, down from 70 percent in 2021. The military had a confidence level of 64 percent, which is lower than the previous 69 percent figure.
Confidence in the medical system is at 38 percent, down from 44 percent. The figure for public schools is 28 percent, down from 32 percent. Banks scored 27 percent, a drop from 33 percent. Confidence in organized labor remained steady at 28 percent.
Confidence in television news is down to 11 percent from 16 percent in the 2021 survey.
The new annual survey was carried out by telephone in the first three weeks of June. The respondents were 1,015 adults in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Jan. 6 prisoner’s fiancé recalls: ‘We were covered head to toe from all directions with red laser dots from their assault rifles’
At a June 15 press conference in Washington, three GOP representatives joined forces with the Patriot Freedom Project and family members of Jan. 6 prisoners to call out the injustice and denial of due process rights for those incarcerated. According to Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), the “violations of American rights” is “mind-blowing.”
“We are extremely concerned to see a Department of Justice, not about justice,” Gohmert said at the press conference. “It’s about vengeance. It’s about intimidation and the tactics that we’ve been seeing from this DOJ and the disregard for rights coming out of investigations showing the FBI lied, intel lied. The DOJ lies. It ought to concern every single American.”
Rep. Troy Edwin Nehls (R-Texas), Patriot Freedom Project Founder Cynthia Hughes, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas). (Courtesy of Cynthia Hughes)
“As a former felony judge and chief justice, it’s particularly mind-blowing for me during a time when we should have the most fair courts in our history. We have more violations of American’s rights than even under the Hoover FBI,” Gohmert told The Epoch Times in a June 22 interview. “It’s just incredible. People that have been nominated and confirmed by the Senate as federal judges, granting warrants that don’t specify with any particularity—as the Constitution requires—what they’re for. What’s worse, when they find out they were lied to under oath by DOJ. But they’re not really bothered. They don’t do anything about it. For heaven’s sake. Have respect for your position if you have no respect for yourself.”
Also in attendance were Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.).
Reps. Troy Edwin Nehls (R-Texas), Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), and Cynthia Hughes, founder of the Patriot Freedom Project. (Courtesy of Cynthia Hughes)
According to Cynthia Hughes, founder of the Patriot Freedom Project, the press conference was “a great day.”
“We finally got some support from people in congress, which we needed,” Hughes told The Epoch Times. “We are feeling powerful and strong.”
Hughes also said she was glad to finally have the opportunity to “personally call out [Rep.] Liz Cheney and know that she could possibly hear about that.”
“Things are finally moving,” Hughes said. “I think we moved the needle. I just looked at representatives and the incredible women around me and I think we felt more hope than we ever have in almost 18 months now. It was a good thing.”
Family Members Speak
Following the press conference, The Epoch Times was able to speak with each of the family members to learn the stories of their loved ones they say the rest of the media refuses to tell. They want the American people to learn about the citizens their government has locked away in prison.
Sharon Caldwell of Berry Hill, Virginia, said she is grateful for Cynthia Hughes and the Patriot Freedom Project for the opportunity to have a press conference where she and the wives, mothers, and family members of Jan. 6 prisoners could speak about what they are going through.
Sharon and Thomas Caldwell at the Peace Monument in Washington, during the Jan. 6, 2021, protest. (Courtesy of Sharon Caldwell)
“Some of us have done interviews on the news but we never really had the support of Congress people,” Caldwell told The Epoch Times. “I felt like we had that [at the press conference] with three GOP representatives. It was awesome.”
Sharon’s husband, Thomas Caldwell, has been charged with “Seditious Conspiracy Conspiracy to Obstruct an Official Proceeding Obstruction of an Official Proceeding and Aiding and Abetting Conspiracy to Prevent an Officer From Discharging Any Duties Tampering with Documents or Proceedings and Aiding and Abetting” (pdf).
According to the Save Our Farm website, “the DOJ has falsely claimed that [Thomas] commanded a group called the ‘Oath Keepers’ to overthrow the U.S. government. The allegations are ridiculous and outrageous.”
Sharon and her husband Thomas Caldwell, enjoy an outdoor concert. (Courtesy of Sharon Caldwell.)
According to Save Our Farm, the government has already been forced to admit several mistakes in its investigation:
Tom was NEVER “Commander” of a group called the “Oath Keepers”, nor was he ever a “Leader” or a “member” of this group.
Tom did NOT enter the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Tom did NOT commit any acts of violence, damage any property, or threaten anyone, including law enforcement.
Tom did NOT participate in a plan to enter the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
But since his incarceration, he has been “subjected to solitary confinement, physical and mental abuse, and denial of medical care, including life-sustaining prescription medications.”
The cost of his defense is about to cost the family the historic family farm he has lived on since he was a child. They have a donation website for those who want to help.
“I think that’s something the American people need to hear because I think they’re not hearing it,” Sharon said. “Our loved ones are not being viewed as human beings. I think I can safely say this for most of us, I feel we and our loved ones are being treated like political pawns and not as actual people. They’re undergoing character assassination and there is so much good in these people who are rotting in these jails who have no criminal history, not even a traffic ticket in many cases and they’re being held in pre-trial detention for over a year, 17 months in some cases. It’s crazy.”
Marine veteran and Jan. 6 prisoner Ryan Nichols holds his son. (Courtesy of Bonnie Nichols)
Bonnie Nichols said her husband Ryan has been “incarcerated in the D.C. gulag” for 514 days, “in prolonged solitary confinement under torturous conditions.” From his four years as a Marine, Bonnie said Ryan suffers from PTSD and the prolonged solitary confinement only exacerbates his condition. Ryan faces 11 charges, including multiple infractions with the words “Deadly or Dangerous Weapon,” attached. Lesser charges include “Parading, Demonstrating, or Picketing in a Capitol Building.”
“He has been denied access to due process rights, access to his discovery to defend his case, and he has been denied access to nutritional food and sunlight for months,” she asserted. “The narrative they are painting of my husband isn’t accurate. He’s not an insurrectionist.”
According to Bonnie, Ryan owns a nonprofit called Rescue The Universe. He goes around the country rescuing people and animals during natural disasters like hurricanes, floods, and tornados. In 2018, Ryan was seen on multiple news outlets rescuing six dogs abandoned by their owner in a locked chain-link cage in Leland, North Carolina.
“He’s a hero in his community,” Bonnie said. “He just went to the Capitol to peacefully protest. I never thought in a million years this would be happening to our family.”
Bonnie and Ryan have two children, ages five and eight. A few months ago, she said the youngest told his dad he didn’t think he was ever going to see his daddy again. He doesn’t even remember what daddy looks like.
“It was heartbreaking,” Bonnie said. “My family is suffering. He was the breadwinner in the family and I just can’t believe that a Marine who served his country would be treated this way in America. It’s unjust. It’s unconstitutional. It’s wrong.”
Bonnie and Ryan Nichols with their sons. (Courtesy of Bonnie Nichols)
Like many other Jan. 6 prisoners, defendants, and their family members, Bonnie is convinced “there’s no way we’re going to get a fair trial in D.C. with the narrative the January 6 Committee and the DOJ are painting in the media. The committee and the media have edited video footage and shared it with the public, specific parts have been cropped out of that footage. It was done to strategically push a one-sided narrative. America deserves the truth.
“So I have decided to stand up and share my story to awaken America to the truth about what’s happening in our country so people can do their research and realize there’s more than one side to the story. Our Constitutional Rights, our freedom of speech is under attack. We need to come together and agree that this justice system is abusing their powers. Families have been tortured over this.”
As Bonnie explained, they have received hate mail. They had to shut down their business for several months due to hate mail, harassment, and attacks from news media stations like CNN and other people on the left just because of what they’ve heard on the news.
“Something needs to be done about it,” Bonnie demanded. “For those in Congress, who swore an oath to defend the Constitution, it’s time for them to do their jobs and to fight for these families. No American should be treated this way. Death row inmates, prisoners at Guantanamo Bay get treated better. They have rights. We are supposed to have rights here in America and were aren’t getting them an no one is doing a damn thing about it.” They have a GiveSendGo account established for those who want to help with Ryan’s ongoing legal expenses.
Angela Morss said her son, Robert, is a good man. He is a former Army Ranger who loves his country. He has no criminal history and he “treats others with respect.” He is also known as “Lego Man.”
Jan. 6 prisoner Robert Morss, also known as “The Lego Man,” faces multiple charges related to his presence in Washington during the Jan. 6, 2021 protests. (Courtesy of his mother, Angela Morss.)
“He has loved Legos since he was a little boy,” Angela reminisced. “He has thousands and thousands of them and he always had these massive containers of Legos, which I had to move.”
In fact, Angela said her son has so many giant containers of Legos, she had to move them to a storage unit.
“When he was arrested they said he had a Capitol Building in his home built out of Legos,” Angela noted. “He did not. The FBI is trying to make this huge deal out of him having a Capitol Building built out of Legos but they just had the box and that’s what they have a picture of. But it did get him the nickname of Lego Man, which he’s actually proud of.”
“Robert wants people to know he is political prisoner,” Angela said, ” and he doesn’t want people to forget about him or the other political prisoners, because if we forget about them it would be a devastating thing for our country.”
When Robert was arrested on July 11 at his home in Pennsylvania, Angela was at her home in Nevada. He has now been incarcerated for over a year. His attorney has made several unsuccessful efforts to have him released on bond. She said one of the main reasons why they have refused to allow him bond “is because of his elite soldier status. The government recruited him and trained him and now they are using that against him. He spent the first several months of his incarceration at the D.C. gulag where the conditions are just horrifying. He’s no longer in D.C. because he was assaulted by five guards. It was in retaliation for a meeting he had with his attorney. It was after the meeting with his attorney, as Robert was strip-searched, that the assault took place. There were sexual components to it,” Angela added.
January 6 prisoner Robert Morss, also known as “Lego Man,” pictured during his graduation. (Courtesy of his mother, Angela Morss.)
After that, they went to court and Robert was immediately transferred to Northern Neck Regional Jail, which is “dorm style.”
When Robert gets out, Angela said they both want to do something “that would make life in prison not so horrible.” The idea came to him when he received a birthday card that prison officials destroyed. “The googly eyes had been ripped off and the little noise things that were in it had been ripped out, too.” She and Robert want to work with someone like the online card company Day Spring, in order “to make cards that speak to people who are incarcerated” and reflect themes only they would find the humor in.
“For example, they eat a lot of sardines,” Angela said. “There are so many funny things you say about sardines and being in prison that other people wouldn’t understand. To find a birthday card for someone who is in prison is very difficult. I just want to make some communication that would be positive and I hope someone will reach out and want to do that with me.” Angela has set up a GiveSendGo account to help cover her son’s ongoing legal expenses.
Haley McLean said the “shock and awe campaign” the government is conducting against Jan. 6 protesters and their families “is totally unnecessary.”
Her fiancé, Jack Wade Whitton, is faced with 22 charges (pdf), including multiple counts of violent entry with a deadly or dangerous weapon, those being “a baton, a flag pole, and crutch.”
Jack Wade Whitton. (Courtesy of Haley McLean)
“I would say it’s a form of bullying,” Haley told The Epoch Times. “When they arrested my husband it was two months after they first called him. The FBI called him in February of 2021 and he had a lawyer call to speak to them on his behalf. At the time he didn’t have charges against him but they advised that if they file charges he would be able to turn himself in. We never heard back from them until they showed up at their house just before 7 a.m.”
According to Haley, a flood of people came into their driveway and surrounded their home. There was a Humvee there with a battering ram. There were men in paramilitary gear surrounding the house. Conservatively, she said Jack estimated there to be around 40 agents.
Jack Wade Whitton and Haley McLean. (Courtesy of Haley McLean)
“We were covered head to toe from all directions with red laser dots from their assault rifles,” Haley reflected. “I felt that would be the last day I ever saw Jack. I thought they were going to kill him. When he went outside, they screamed for him to put his hands up. They kept screaming for him to freeze and put his hands up but he was doing that. He did exactly what they said but they acted like he wasn’t doing it. He was cooperating. It kept escalating and they kept repeating themselves and I thought they were going to kill him. But they didn’t, and when they took him away it was the last time I saw him.”
A message received by Haley McLean on April 13, 2021, from Jack Wade Whitton from prison, revealing he had planned to propose “that weekend.” (Courtesy of Haley McLean)
“My home hasn’t been the same,” Haley said, crying. “They just took away any sense of peace, any sense of hope. He’s been denied bond. He has no criminal history. He owned and operated a fencing company that has folded in his absence. We’ve lost everything.”
Geri Perna of Port Charlotte, Florida, is the aunt of Matthew Perna.
“My nephew walked through the Capitol on January 6 and he went through an open door, ushered in by Capitol Police, took pictures with his cell phone, and chanted, ‘USA, USA,”‘ Geri told The Epoch Times. “He later found out that his picture was on the FBI’s website and he turned himself in immediately. He was never jailed. He was released and he obtained a lawyer.”
Matthew Perna holds the little boy he met during a mission trip to Haiti. At first, the boy would not smile or talk. They bonded, and a week later he was attached to Matthew. (Courtesy of Matthew’s aunt, Geri Perna)
According to the Criminal Complaint (pdf), Matthew was charged with “Obstruction of an Official Proceeding, Aiding and Abetting, Entering and Remaining in a Restricted Building or Grounds, Disorderly and Disruptive Conduct in a Restricted Building or Grounds and Disorderly Conduct in a Capitol Building.”
Initially, Geri said Matthew was charged with misdemeanors. But later they added the felony charges of obstruction of Congress.
“It became a nightmare for Matt,” Geri recalled. “It was a year of constant delays and postponements for his hearings and he got to the point where it was mentally exhausting.”
In order for the ordeal to end sooner, Geri said Matthew’s attorney advised him to plead guilty. So he plead guilty. About a week before his sentencing Matthew found out the government was planning to add a terrorist enhancement, which would have increased his sentence drastically from six to 12 months to five to six years.
“That Friday night [on Feb. 25] at 5:30, he went into his garage and he hung himself,” Geri said tearfully. “He could not handle this anymore. He was a wonderful man, 37 years old. He had a great living. He traveled world wide. He didn’t have a hateful bone in his body.”
While on a mission trip to Haiti, Geri said Matthew met a little boy who “wouldn’t smile or talk” when they first met. “He bonded with this boy, and by the end of the week he was attached to Matt.”
He didn’t commit any acts of violence while in the Capitol. He didn’t touch anything. He didn’t break anything, steal anything, or have any altercations with anybody at all. He simply exercised his freedom of speech.”
Like the others, Geri said the whole ordeal has been a nightmare. In the wake of Matthew’s suicide, family and friends were forced to pick up the pieces and move on.
Matthew Perna attended the protest at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Due to his fear of being incarcerated for up to six years, he hung himself on Feb. 25, 2022. (Courtesy of Geri Perna)
“So many people have no clue of how January Sixers are being treated,” she said. “They have no clue that they are sitting in jails and haven’t been convicted of a crime. They are clueless because of the media and our government and I am fighting for the justice Matthew did not receive while he was alive.”
To retain an attorney to fight for what happened to her nephew and to provide assistance to other Jan. 6 prisoner families, Geri has set up a website called Justice For Matthew.
The press conference proved to be a bittersweet day for Geri. While she is grateful they all had an opportunity to tell their stories, she said they all have one thing she doesn’t have.
“Hope,” she said, her voice breaking with emotion. “They still have hope. I have no hope left. My nephew is gone. There is no hope of him ever coming back. Unless people wake up and unless there are more than three Republican Congress people speaking out for these J-6ers, there will be more death. There will be more people who do what Matt did because they are tormenting them mentally. The human spirit can only take so much. I miss my nephew terribly and the world lost a wonderful human being. They are all human beings but our Department of Justice is not treating them as such and it’s a shame. It’s a tragedy of epic proportions. Never had a speeding ticket. Never had a parking ticket or a DUI. Now suddenly he was facing a lengthy prison term and he was terrified, and rightfully so, because the way these J-Sixers are being treated in prison is unconstitutional. It’s inhumane, and my nephew was terrified to be in that position and he took his own life. Not because he was a coward, but because they broke him.”
Former White House adviser Steve Bannon agreed on July 10 to testify in front of the House Jan. 6 Committee after he received a letter from former President Donald Trump telling him that Trump will waive executive privilege.
Bannon, who’s slated to go on trial for criminal contempt charges in July for defying a previous subpoena by the panel, said he wanted to testify in public, according to a letter from his lawyer, Bob Costello.
“While Mr. Bannon has been steadfast in his convictions, circumstances have now changed,” Costello wrote in the letter, according to numerous media outlets. “Mr. Bannon is willing to, and indeed prefers, to testify at your public hearing.”
Trump told Bannon that he would waive his executive privilege. Previously, Bannon’s lawyers have said that he wouldn’t respond to the panel’s subpoenas because of the privilege.
“When you first received the Subpoena to testify and provide documents, I invoked Executive Privilege. However, I watched how unfairly you and others have been treated, having to spend vast amounts of money on legal fees, and all of the trauma you must be going through for the love of your Country, and out of respect for the Office of the President,” Trump wrote in his letter.
“Therefore, if you reach an agreement on a time and place for your testimony, I will waive Executive Privilege for you, which allows you to go in and testify truthfully and fairly.”
A member of the House panel, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), told CNN on July 10 that the committee received Bannon’s letter. But Lofgren suggested that the panel won’t have Bannon testify in public.
“Ordinarily, we do depositions. This goes on for hour after hour after hour. We want to get all our questions answered. And you can’t do that in a live format,” Lofgren said.
For not complying with Congress’s subpoenas, Bannon—the former editor-in-chief of Breitbart News—faced two contempt charges. Federal prosecutors have denied his argument that he has executive privilege and said Bannon wasn’t working for the White House during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach.
Both counts are misdemeanors and carry a minimum of 30 days to a maximum of 1 year in jail, as well as fines of $100 to $1,000, according to the Department of Justice.
In November, Bannon surrendered to the FBI and told reporters at the scene: “We’re taking down the Biden regime. … I want you guys to stay focused, stay on message. Remember signal, not noise.”
His trial is scheduled to start on July 18.
Representatives from Bannon’s team didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time.
Texas Republican Party delegates—who last month approved a resolution rejecting Joe Biden as a legitimately elected president—adopted a sweeping new platform with a big focus on election integrity.
The state’s GOP released the results of its 2022 platform vote this week. Two of the measures seek fair elections free of illegal voting practices and updated voter registration rolls to combat fraud.
Among provisions for fair elections, Republicans want to limit mail-in ballots to those who can’t physically appear in person, and prohibit internet voting for public office, mandate full signature verification for mail-in ballots, require voter photo ID, and deter counterfeiting by using sequential ballots.
On voter rolls, Republicans want voters to re-register if they haven’t voted in five years. Voter requirements include proof of residency, citizenship, and a photo ID. They also approved compiling a list of certified deaths so the Texas secretary of state’s office can remove deceased persons from voter rolls. They also want to repeal all motor voter laws.
The platform reflects concerns raised in the resolution rejecting the certified results of the 2020 presidential election. In June, nearly 5,000 delegates at the Texas Republican Convention voted on the resolution and platform.
The resolution declared that the 2020 election violated the Constitution by allowing secretaries of state to circumvent their state legislatures illegally. It asserted that “substantial election fraud” had occurred in key metropolitan areas, affecting the results in five states to Biden’s favor.
Matt Rinaldi, chairman of the Republican Party of Texas, said in a statement that the Texas GOP was raising funds for election integrity, which is a top priority to ensure that Texas never goes down the same path as Pennsylvania, Georgia, or Arizona.
“Texas Republicans rightly have no faith in the 2020 election results, and we don’t care how many times the elites tell us we have to. We refuse to let Democrats rig the elections in 2022 or 2024,” he said.
Democrats have long dismissed the idea of significant voter fraud swaying the outcome of the 2020 election, calling it misinformation perpetuated by former President Donald Trump in his effort to overturn a legitimate election.
A misinformation newsstand aiming to educate news consumers about the dangers of disinformation, or fake news, in the lead-up to the U.S. midterm elections, in midtown Manhattan on Oct. 30, 2018. (Angela Weiss/Getty Images)
Texas Republicans also made election integrity a top legislative priority for the 2023 session. Delegates want to restore felony penalties and enact civil penalties for election code violations. They want to restrict the distribution of mail-in ballots, limit early voting, and close Republican primaries.
The Republicans also called for legislation allowing the state’s attorney general to have the authority to prosecute election fraud, after the all-Republican Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled the state’s attorney general couldn’t unilaterally do so in December 2021.
James Wesolek, a media spokesman for the Republican Party of Texas, told The Epoch Times that the vast majority of the 274 planks of the platform passed with 80 percent or more support. Five items had less than 80 percent, but none came in less than 70 percent of the vote. The platform covers a wide range of topics, including border security, medical freedom, pro-life issues, constitutional rights, and even Texas secession.
THE NEW DATA WILL SEND SHIVERS UP THE SPINES OF ELECTION FRAUDSTERS.
plurality of Americans believe the upcoming midterm elections will experience fraud, according to a new poll by Rasmussen Reports sponsored by The National Pulse. The poll also revealed the stunning evidence that a clear majority of Americans believe the result of the 2020 election was blighted by cheating.
Fifty percent of likely U.S. voters feel that there will be “widespread cheating that will affect the outcome of this fall’s congressional elections,” including 24 percent of people who believe the prospect is very likely. Just 22 percent of voters think cheating is not at all likely to affect the November midterms, the poll reveals.
Asked, “Which is more important – Making it easier for everybody to vote, or making sure there is no cheating in elections?” just 38 percent answered they prefer to make it easier for everyone to vote, with an overwhelming 59 percent saying they would prefer to focus on no cheating in elections.
The news comes as Democrats attempt to make universal, unverified voting a key part of their platform, while Republicans urge more safety measures. The 2020 election results continue to be hotly disputed after the injection of private, corporate cash and the introduction of unsecured and unmanned mail-in “drop boxes”.
Rasmussen data shows 52 percent of likely U.S. voters maintain that it is at least somewhat likely cheating influenced the 2020 presidential election, with 36 percent of people polled believing it is very likely. Much of the distrust in elections appears to stem from concerns surrounding the integrity of the aforementioned mail-in ballots, with 58 percent of voters believing it is at least somewhat likely that broadening the use of mail-in ballots will result in more cheating in elections. Thirty-nine percent of voters felt that this was very likely.
Just 16 percent – or fewer than one in five voters – believe that mail-in voting will not lead to more cheating.
The figures, which reveal a sizable distrust in America’s election systems, follow substantial evidence from the 2020 election that mail-in ballots and far-left activist groups were used to secure a victory for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
In addition to a host of mysterious, late-night ballot dumps, left-wing groups associated with individuals including George Soros and Mark Zuckerberg influenced election rules and officials to boost turnout in Democratic districts. Many of these groups have rebranded following intense scrutiny in the aftermath of the 2020 election but appear to be engaging in similar efforts.
Establishment media outlets, social media platforms, and Democratic politicians have set out to silence individuals discussing voter fraud, despite peddling similar claims about Russian election influence throughout 2016 and the entirety of Donald Trump’s presidency. Under resident Biden, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has also targeted officials and activists fighting for election integrity by threatening criminal prosecution.
Law enforcement aware large crowds would be travelling to Capitol from the Ellipse, documents show
The man whose posting on social media warned authorities that agent provocateurs from Antifa and Black Lives Matter would be at the U.S. Capitol dressed as Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, is a self-described government informant tied to former deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein.
Rosenstein warned about a “soft coup” against then-President Donald Trump in fall 2020.
On Jan. 4, 2021, an account under the name @JohnHereToHelp posted on Twitter that Antifa and BLM agitators were being bussed from Baltimore to Washington to cause trouble at the Capitol on the day of Trump’s speech at the Ellipse.
“Pantifa/BLM, Balt./DC branches, are already bussing people in to disturb Jan. 6,” the post read. “Orders [were] given to dress like ‘MAGA,’ blend in [and] cause trouble, especially around cameras. At night, arson has been ordered. All to be blamed on Trump supporters attending. Please be careful.”
The post caught the attention of an assistant commander in the Intelligence and Counterterrorism Branch of the United States Park Police, who forwarded it to officials at the U.S. Capitol Police, the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and other agencies.
The now-suspended Twitter account belonged to Ryan Dark White, also known as Jon McGreevey.
McGreevey has described himself in court papers and interviews as a former Department of Justice informant who supplied information on corruption in the federal government, law enforcement, and the Trump administration.
He once used the name Ryan White as a cover but now identifies as McGreevey. He is running for federal office in Maryland.
JohnHereToHelp’s original post was shared more than 6,000 times before it hit the radar of the Park Police.
At the time, McGreevey had more than 120,000 followers on Twitter, according to an archived version of his page stored at the Wayback Machine.
Twitter later suspended his account.
“There are multiple replies to this comment that says BLM/Antifa will wear MAGA hats backwards, wear camo, and attempt to blend in with MAGA crowd,” the Park Police official wrote to his colleagues on January 5, 2021.
The Wayback Machine archive of White’s post shows nearly 600 replies, but the replies are not visible from links on the website.
Infiltrator Warning
The emails, part of a trove of documents obtained in 2021 through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by Judicial Watch, show that federal law enforcement knew that infiltrators could be among the crowds at the Capitol.
They also back up anecdotal reports of BLM and Antifa activists from Oregon, Maryland, and other states causing disruption and committing vandalism on Jan. 6.
Trump supporters tangled with alleged Antifa provocateurs in several spots on Jan. 6, including the Lower West Terrace of the Capitol.
Victoria White of Rochester, Minnesota, scuffled with a man attempting to break an arched window adjacent to the Capitol’s tunnel entrance.
As the tightly-packed crowd chanted “[expletive] Antifa,” White wrestled for control of the red wooden club wielded by the man, who wore a green helmet with Trump stickers.
“I’m like, ‘We don’t do that. We don’t do that. Trump supporters, we don’t do that,’” White told The Epoch Times in an interview for an upcoming documentary, “The Real Story of January 6,” on Epoch TV.
“And then there’s other people [who said] ‘No, we’re all on the same team.’ I’m like, ‘No. No, we’re not.’
Victoria White lunged to grab a club from a protester as the crowd shouted “[expletive] Antifa!” at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (Screenshot via The Epoch Times)
“Who brings something like that to a Trump rally, let alone to break out the Capitol windows?” White said. “That’s not us. That’s not what patriot Americans do. We don’t do that stuff.”
After another man got control of the club and began smashing the window, White helped pull him down before she was pulled away by other bystanders.
Members of the crowd vented anger at the vandals. “We are not Antifa!” one protester shouted. A man with a green stocking cap pulled over his MAGA hat pulled what appeared to be a stereo speaker from a backpack, spurring more howls of protest from the crowd.
At the same window, the crowd shouted at a man dressed all in black. “No, no, Antifa!” a woman yelled from the crowd. “Antifa’s breaking the windows! Antifa’s breaking the windows!”
While conducting a live stream on January 6, independent journalist Tayler Hansen recognized a protester in a gas mask from her appearance at riots in Portland, Oregon.
“I recognize you from Portland,” Hansen told the woman as she quickly turned away from the camera.
“So you’ve got Antifa here, too. You have Antifa and Trump supporters within the same vicinity here for the same thing. This is absolutely [expletive] crazy.”
The documents obtained by Judicial Watch include other disclosures that run counter to the prevailing Jan. 6 narrative that a mob incited by Trump rampaged to the Capitol to storm the building and upend the counting of Electoral College votes.
A “Daily Operational Snapshot” circulated by U.S. Park Police on Jan. 5 noted multiple events planned for the area around the Capitol.
“Large crowds expected to gather at and travel between the Ellipse and the U.S. Capitol,” the document said.
This map shows the multiple events planned at or near the Capitol on January 6. (Wayback Machine/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)
Other scheduled events included a Freedom Rally, Jericho March, the March for Trump, and the “Wild Protest.”
A MAGA Rally Map Guide said of the Wild Protest: “We the people must take to the U.S. Capitol lawn and steps and tell Congress #DoNot Certify on #Jan6!” U.S. Park Police circulated a copy of the map to other agencies.
The WildProtest.com website said, “The Congress cannot certify this fraudulent Electoral College. Our presence in Washington D.C. will let Members of Congress know that we stand with Rep. Mo Brooks and his colleagues in the House of Representatives who will bravely object to the certification of the Electoral College.”
The activist group ShutDownDC circulated a statement asking people to call hotels and demand they cancel reservations of “people coming to town to undermine democracy on Jan. 6.”
Whistleblower Role?
McGreevey posted on social media and his own website that he was a longtime informant for the Department of Justice.
He said he worked under Rosenstein, who became a central figure in the Trump Russiagate scandal.
According to McGreevey, Rosenstein ran what was nicknamed the “Dirty Tricks Squad” out of the Baltimore office of the U.S. Attorney.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington did not respond to a request from The Epoch Times for comment on McGreevey’s warning about Antifa or his allegations about Rosenstein and the Department of Justice.
McGreevey accused the federal government of conducting illegal surveillance on journalists, federal judges, political rivals, and other Americans, planting evidence in criminal cases, and other criminal acts.
In August 2020, he warned of a “covert coup” to be carried out by Democrats via the forthcoming presidential election.
McGreevey also made other explosive allegations in 2021 court papers, accusing Vice President Mike Pence, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, and others of sexual impropriety.
McGreevey said the DOJ had scrubbed online and offline records of his academic achievements and military service.
He is one of 10 Republicans on the ballot in the primary for the U.S. Senate in Maryland. The primary will be July 19.
State senator Tiara Mack says she’s shaking her butt for ‘black girl magic’
Democratic Rhode Island state senator Tiara Mack on Thursday posted a series of flyers saying she will “twerk for trans rights,” among other reasons.
Mack was responding to a video posted on Monday by influential Twitter account “Libs of TikTok” that shows the state senator “twerking”—dancing in a provocative manner that involves shaking her butt and thrusting her hips. Mack in response blasted “the media” for “trying not to cover the real issues.”
“Not on MY watch,” she wrote. “I #TwerkFor joy, abortion justice, body autonomy, trans rights, and intersex rights.” She then posted the flyers.
While Mack will likely win reelection in her heavily Democratic state Senate district, Democrats face a surprisingly tough race in one of the deep-blue state’s congressional districts. Republican Allan Fung is polling ahead of all potential Democratic nominees in Rhode Island’s Second Congressional District, a seat the GOP has not held for 30 years. The Rhode Island Republican Party is using the Mack controversy to fundraise.
Other causes for which Mack shakes her butt include “the human right to safe housing” and “black girl magic.”
Links to donate to Mack’s reelection campaign accompany the flyers.
Mack faced extensive backlash for the twerking video, with user @nikki_1968, who describes herself as “an admirer of Michelle and Barack,” writing, “I’m not a conservative and I’m disappointed. Where do we draw the line on the behavior of public figures?”
“Girl,” Mack responded. “I have an Ivy League degree and am a state senator.”
This is not the first time the senator has tried to combine politics and sex. Mack, who calls herself a “Queer Educator,” this year pushed a state bill to teach 11-year-olds about “pleasure-based sexual relations.” Rhode Island parents spoke in “overwhelming opposition” to the bill, which one mother told the Providence Journal was “disgusting and inappropriate.”
A key lawyer for President Donald Trump who helped draft memos that sought to investigate claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election told The Epoch Times that he backs the charges by a recent committee witness that the January 6 committee lied to the American people.
Witness and former Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney Ken Klukowski, who testified before the committee last week, said in a statement provided to The Federalist over the July 4 weekend, “The January 6 Committee falsely accused me on Thursday of being a go-between in a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election. That accusation is false both in its broad outlines and its details.”
In an exclusive interview with The Epoch Times, former Trump lawyer John Eastman said he supports Klukowski’s claims.
Trump critic and committee member Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wy.) said that the testimony only shows that Klukowski was appointed to his DOJ position under the influence of Eastman—a claim that both deny.
Cheney’s Claims
Cheney claimed that together, they proposed to “overturn the election”—failing to mention this was only possible if they could prove any significant allegations of elections fraud—with the cooperation of Jeff Clark, a former assistant attorney general at the DOJ.
While it’s true that Clark drafted a letter that his bosses felt was inappropriate for the DOJ to present to the states over the election, according to the testimony presented in The Federalist, the connection between Clark, Eastman, and Klukowski to that letter is tenuous, according to Klukowski’s statement in the Federalist and Eastman’s account of his relationship with Klukowski.
According to Eastman, while Klukowski had worked with him on a memo that asked the state of Pennsylvania to grant the Trump campaign time to investigate claims of election fraud, he was also in quarantine for three weeks after catching COVID-19.
“At some point, Ken stopped working on this stuff because he had a government job and got appointed [to the DOJ position],” Eastman told The Epoch Times of their collaboration.
“The notion that I somehow placed him in the Department of Justice is just laughable,” he said.
Klukowski explained in his statement to the Federalist that he provided to the committee the September 2020 date he requested the transfer from the Office of Management and Budget to the DOJ.
“I also suggested the committee review our email exchanges confirming my testimony, since they clearly had access to that information,” Klukowski said.
A former White House staffer who coordinated DOJ appointments previously confirmed to the Federalist that the Klukowski move to the DOJ had started months before any calls to independently investigate allegations of election fraud and had nothing to do with the election.
“Ken’s transfer had nothing to do with the election,” said White House staffing coordinator Andrew Kloster.
‘Dishonest’ Narrative
The statement is part of a “dishonest … narrative that there was no basis for [these memos calling for independent investigations that we wrote] and that therefore, we knew what we were doing was illegal,” Eastman told The Epoch Times. “That’s just false.”
Eastman said that the committee is specifically lying in three different ways to advance the notion that what they did was illegal.
“Every time they use the word ‘baseless’ as describing our allegations of illegality and or fraud, that’s a lie,” Eastman said.
In fact, even before the election was held, some media outlets were claiming that any allegations of voter fraud were “baseless.”
An NPR news story published nearly a month before Election Day claimed, “In reality, voter fraud is extremely rare, though President Trump has repeated baseless claims about it being widespread.”
Eastman said that his legal argument to allow states to send alternate electors if voter fraud is proven isn’t novel, nor is his argument that there is ambiguity on the question of whether the vice president may delay the appointment of electors.
The idea that the vice president had the authority to nullify state electors had been out there “for decades, including by a lot of leftist professors, after the Bush versus Gore campaign,” he said.
Eastman pointed to an article in The Atlantic in September 2020 where legal scholars, including a group convened by UC Irvine, made the point that there is still a lot of legal ambiguity surrounding the vice president’s authority over accepting electors.
At the time, The Atlantic seemed to be worried that Vice President Pence could use his authority to slow down the counting of the electoral vote.
In reality, what the Trump campaign was trying to do was gain time for there to be a legitimate investigation of the vote totals in places like Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Georgia, Eastman said.
“We were seeking to have an investigation to see if the illegality affected the outcome of the election,” Eastman told The Epoch Times, stressing that there was no intention to illegally keep Trump in office.
Eastman also rejected the notion he said has been put forth by the January 6 committee that he ever asked Vice President Michael Pence to reject the electors outright and just declare Trump president.
“That’s not true,” he told The Epoch Times. “There are numerous examples of me saying exactly the opposite. There were others that urged that that be the outcome, but it wasn’t me.”
Presidential Pardon
The media has used Eastman’s request for a presidential pardon as an admission of guilt, saying that he knew his legal representation of Trump was advancing a crime. He said that such logic is a fallacy.
Eastman said he only sought to be on a potential presidential pardon list after Jan. 6, 2021, because of commentary that his speech had been an incitement for the crowd to riot.
On that day, Eastman appeared at the Trump rally and told the crowd that they should demand Vice President Pence delay the acceptance of electors and investigate claims of election fraud.
“All we are demanding of Vice President Pence is this afternoon at 1 o’clock, he let the legislatures of the state look into this [allegations of fraud] so that we get to the bottom of it, and the American people know whether we have control of the direction of our government,” he said in his speech.
When jokingly approached initially by Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani about appearing on a pardon list, Eastman at first refused.
But then, after “five days of lies that my short, 3-minute speech had incited the violence,” and that Jan. 6 was an “insurrection,” he understood that whatever played out in the investigation wouldn’t be controlled by legalities, but politics.
“It was explicitly tied to the lies about my speech, and had absolutely nothing to do with my legal representation of President Trump or the efforts regarding state legislative authority,” he said of the potential presidential pardon.
The Epoch Times has reached out to Trump, Giuliani, Cheney, the January 6 committee, Clark, and Klukowski for comment.
Paging Elon Musk! Wishful thinking and a proposed $44 billion buyout won’t fix Twitter’s extreme bias against conservatives. The corrupt social media platform continues to suppress conservative thought and opinion — big time — and I have the screenshots to prove it.
After quitting the social media platform in January 2021 in protest of its rampant censorship of conservatives, myself included, I decided to give it another try this week to see if the billionaire entrepreneur’s laudable support for free speech and moves to acquire the network have improved its liberal bias. Not a chance! It turns out the far-left activists that run Twitter and its secretive algorithms are still rigging the platform in the Democratic Party’s favor — in plain view — by pushing users to follow liberal lawmakers, media outlets and other lefty accounts versus conservative ones.
When rejoining Twitter this week, it asked me to select topics I’m interested in. I chose “outdoors” and “business/finance.” Then it made suggestions of who to follow. Get ready to cringe …
One of its recommendations was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a “Russia Hoax” conspiracy theorist and known misinformation peddler who led the charge on former President Donald Trump’s impeachment and currently sits on the slanted Jan. 6 House Committee trying to drum up evidence to indict the 45th president to stop him from running again in 2024.
What the heck does that liberal lawmaker — and rabid Trump hater — have to do with my preferred topics of interest? Zero.
Twitter also suggested I follow dozens of other liberal lawmakers, including resident Joe Biden’s two accounts, first lady Jill Biden, the White House, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — a radical left-wing socialist who supports abolishing police despite New York’s high crime rate — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Vice President Kamala Harris and Beto O’Rourke, who’s running against Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. Of course, Twitter didn’t suggest I also follow Abbott, the elected incumbent, as that would be fair and balanced, something the “woke” activists at Twitter care little about.
The platform also encouraged me to follow Alexander Vindman, the former director of European Affairs at the National Security Council, whose 2019 Congressional testimony contributed to Trump’s impeachment. Again, what on earth does that Trump hater have to do with my interests in finance and the great outdoors?
Twitter also recommended I follow Vermont socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, who never met a tax hike he didn’t like, Democrat Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Ed Markey, Chris Murphy and Cory Booker, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and his spouse, Chasten. Add Reps. Ted Lieu and Katie Porter, Hillary Clinton, far-left “Squad” member Rep. Ayanna Pressley, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Stacey Abrams and former Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy III.
But that’s not all. It also suggested I follow Bill Clinton, his daughter Chelsea and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, currently running for governor, who, in response to the riots and nationwide destruction following the death of George Floyd in 2020, told attendees at a Boston Chamber of Commerce event, “Yes, America is burning, but that’s how forests grow.”
Twitter didn’t suggest I follow any Republican lawmakers in Washington. Not one!
Talk about rigged! The shocking reality is Twitter may be steering potentially millions of users, otherwise known as voters, to follow influential liberal lawmakers and others in media and beyond to sway public opinion and control the political narrative to tilt elections in Democrats’ favor.
Paging the U.S. Department of Justice; that’s what real collusion and election-meddling look like.
The only Republican official Twitter did recommend I follow was Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, a known RINO (Republican In Name Only) who never missed an opportunity to bash Trump while in office.
But wait, there’s more. Here’s a snippet of media outlets and so-called journalists Twitter suggested I follow. You’ll notice the vast majority have one thing in common; they all loathe Trump and his “deplorable” supporters.
The New York Times, The Washington Post, Boston Globe, Associated Press, The New Yorker, CNN’s Jake Tapper, Jim Acosta, David Axelrod, Maggie Haberman, Kaitlan Collins, Paul Krugman, MSNBC hosts Rachel Maddow, Joe Scarborough, Andrea Mitchell, Ari Melber, Lawrence O’Donnell, Chris Hayes, Joy Reid and Nicole Wallace.
Add NPR, Yamiche Alcindor, “The View’s” Ana Navarro-Cardenas, former CIA spook John O. Brennan, Lincoln Project loons George Conway and Rick Wilson, Laurence Tribe, Dan Rather, Biden White House press secretaries Jen Psaki and Karine Jean-Pierre, NBC’s Katy Tur and Chuck Todd, The Atlantic writer Molly Jong-Fast, “The Daily Show,” Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart and countless Hollywood leftists, including Stephen King and Rob Reiner — just to name a few.
Twitter didn’t recommend I follow top-rated Fox News or any of its hosts, despite the outlet consistently crushing its cable news rivals for decades. Nor did it suggest I follow the highly respected New York Post — founded by Alexander Hamilton — or any other right-leaning news outlets or conservative voices across the media spectrum. After scores of liberal accounts Twitter wanted me to follow, Donald Trump Jr.’s name appeared far down the list.
Gee, thanks!
As you can see, Twitter is stacked against conservatives and, with few exceptions, is acting as the de facto publicity arm of the Democratic National Committee. The powerful social media behemoth is effectively making undeclared in-kind donations to the DNC by actively directing its users — including voters — to follow liberal accounts so Democrats can spread their political ideology and narrative du jour while simultaneously suppressing conservative viewpoints, including elected GOP lawmakers who represent millions of citizens.
If that isn’t interfering in U.S. elections, what is exactly?
Senator Raphael Warnock might have broken campaign finance rules
Democratic Georgia senator Raphael Warnock might have violated federal law by paying campaign lawyers to represent him in a personal lawsuit, Politicoreported Wednesday.
Warnock last year paid his campaign’s lawyers, the Elias Law Group, to represent him in a personal lawsuit involving actions before he became a senator. That decision might have breached federal election law, experts say.
This is far from the first time Warnock, who this year will square off against Republican challenger Herschel Walker in a closely watched campaign, has faced legal trouble. Warnock’s ex-wife says the Georgia senator harassed her and neglected their children. As the senior pastor of a Maryland church in 2002, Warnock repeatedly disrupted an investigation into child abuse at a church-sponsored summer camp, leading to his arrest.
Democratic superlawyer Marc Elias, whose law firm represents Warnock’s campaign and received the campaign funds, called the payment “completely legal,” saying the FEC has ruled that spending campaign money on personal expenses is permissible.
None of the FEC rulings that Elias cited, however, says anything about lawsuits in which the events occurred before the officeholder held office, Politico found.
Political law attorney Charlie Spies, a Republican, disagrees with Elias.
“If Warnock is using campaign money to pay for a lawsuit that predates his running for office,” Spies told Politico, “then by definition it existed irrespective of his candidacy and would be impermissible to use campaign funds on.”
“I don’t think his donors are giving for him to fund personal lawsuits,” Spies said.
California Democratic governor Gavin Newsom reinforced his trend of violating his own restrictions by vacationing with his family this week in a state he placed on a no-travel list last year, CalMattersreported on Tuesday.
Newsom in July 2021 barred state-funded travel to 20 states including Montana, citing laws in the states that prohibit biological males from competing in girl’s school sports. Newsom spokesman Anthony York said the vacation to an in-law’s ranch was not state-funded but did not comment on whether a security detail joined the governor’s family.
Newsom has a history of flouting restrictions he has imposed as governor. He attended a birthday party with a dozen unmasked people in November 2020, even as he urged Californians to stay home to stop the spread of COVID-19. Newsom said in March 2021 he could relate to parents with children in virtual school, while his own kids had returned to private school for in-person learning. Last summer, the governor sent his son to basketball camp maskless, though state rules required face coverings in “youth settings.”
California first restricted state-funded travel for states with “discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation” in 2016 under former Democratic governor Jerry Brown. Newsom added Montana, Arkansas, Florida, North Dakota, and West Virginia in 2021. California attorney general Rob Bonta (D.) has since added four more—Arizona, Indiana, Louisiana, and Utah—last week.
Newsom has hinted at a potential presidential bid in 2024, running ads in Florida against Gov. Ron DeSantis (R., Fla.), a potential presidential frontrunner, that urged Sunshine State residents to pack their bags and head for the Golden State.
Rep. Sharice Davids ditches $17,000 of energy stocks ahead of tough reelection bid
Rep. Sharice Davids (D., Kan.) quietly dumped her stock portfolio one day after the Washington Free Beaconreported she owned shares in green energy companies that regularly lobby Congress for subsidies.
Davids liquidated her portfolio on June 21, according to a disclosure filed with the House Ethics Committee on Friday. Davids’s investments in three green energy companies—FuelCell Energy, Maxeon Solar Technologies, and SunPower Corporation—posed a potential conflict of interest because of her position on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Davids said after joining the committee she would use her position to explore investments in green infrastructure projects. The committee has helped shape the Biden administration’s green-friendly infrastructure spending initiatives.
Davids owned up to $17,000 in shares of the three companies, along with a biotech firm, Organovo, and International Game Technology, a slot machine maker. She had owned shares in FuelCell and SunPower since at least 2018, according to previous financial disclosures.
Davids’s investments conflicted with her support for legislation that would ban members of Congress from owning or trading shares of public companies. She and her cosponsors said stock ownership creates a “serious conflict of interest” for members conducting oversight of publicly traded companies. Davids said the ban was needed to “improve transparency and accountability” for members of Congress following several investigations into lawmakers’ questionable stock transactions.
The National Republican Congressional Committee following the Free Beacon report blasted Davids over her stock holdings. “Kansas voters can’t trust a thing Sharice Davids says,” said Maggie Abboud, the spokeswoman for the House Republican campaign arm.
Davids faces a tough reelection bid in November after losing Democrat-leaning portions of her Kansas City suburban district through redistricting. She has cited “the ongoing public health emergency” to justify skipping out on in-person votes in Washington, D.C., often to attend fundraisers and other campaign events. Davids claimed the pandemic kept her from a vote last August, a day after she attended a Napa Valley fundraiser hosted by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.). She missed another in-person vote on Nov. 18, two days after attending a fundraiser in Palm Springs, Calif. Davids’s campaign has spent more than $20,000 this election cycle on out-of-state lodging, including a $4,447 stay in March at the Waldorf Astoria in Beverly Hills.
Davids’s office did not respond to requests for comment for this story or last month’s report.
THE NEW DATA WILL SEND SHIVERS UP THE SPINES OF ELECTION FRAUDSTERS.
A plurality of Americans believe the upcoming midterm elections will experience fraud, according to a new poll by Rasmussen Reports sponsored by The National Pulse. The poll also revealed the stunning evidence that a clear majority of Americans believe the result of the 2020 election was blighted by cheating.
Fifty percent of likely U.S. voters feel that there will be “widespread cheating that will affect the outcome of this fall’s congressional elections,” including 24 percent of people who believe the prospect is very likely. Just 22 percent of voters think cheating is not at all likely to affect the November midterms, the poll reveals.
Asked, “Which is more important – Making it easier for everybody to vote, or making sure there is no cheating in elections?” just 38 percent answered they prefer to make it easier for everyone to vote, with an overwhelming 59 percent saying they would prefer to focus on no cheating in elections.
The news comes as Democrats attempt to make universal, unverified voting a key part of their platform, while Republicans urge more safety measures. The 2020 election results continue to be hotly disputed after the injection of private, corporate cash and the introduction of unsecured and unmanned mail-in “drop boxes”.
Rasmussen data shows 52 percent of likely U.S. voters maintain that it is at least somewhat likely cheating influenced the 2020 presidential election, with 36 percent of people polled believing it is very likely. Much of the distrust in elections appears to stem from concerns surrounding the integrity of the aforementioned mail-in ballots, with 58 percent of voters believing it is at least somewhat likely that broadening the use of mail-in ballots will result in more cheating in elections. Thirty-nine percent of voters felt that this was very likely.
Just 16 percent – or fewer than one in five voters – believe that mail-in voting will not lead to more cheating.
The figures, which reveal a sizable distrust in America’s election systems, follow substantial evidence from the 2020 election that mail-in ballots and far-left activist groups were used to secure a victory for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
In addition to a host of mysterious, late-night ballot dumps, left-wing groups associated with individuals including George Soros and Mark Zuckerberg influenced election rules and officials to boost turnout in Democratic districts. Many of these groups have rebranded following intense scrutiny in the aftermath of the 2020 election but appear to be engaging in similar efforts.
Establishment media outlets, social media platforms, and Democratic politicians have set out to silence individuals discussing voter fraud, despite peddling similar claims about Russian election influence throughout 2016 and the entirety of Donald Trump’s presidency. Under resident Biden, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has also targeted officials and activists fighting for election integrity by threatening criminal prosecution.
Conservative leaders in Georgia and Ohio are spearheading calls for Republicans to close their state primaries and allow only voters registered with their parties to participate in inter-party preliminary elections.
Atlanta Tea Party co-founder and President Debbie Dooley and Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Jim Renacci both told The Epoch Times that Democrats are “weaponizing” crossover voting to skew outcomes in key GOP primaries across the country either to ensure the election of moderates or to nominate candidates unlikely to be successful in a general election.
Dooley, Renacci, and other conservatives are calling on Republican lawmakers in their states to close primaries to only those registered with parties.
They join the leaders of conservative groups and GOP legislators in at least seven other states—including Alabama, Montana, Missouri, Tennessee, New Hampshire, Wyoming, and Texas—who are lobbying for more restrictive primary elections before the 2024 election cycle.
Tide of ‘Crossovers’
“Democrats did mischief” in Georgia, Dooley said, citing analyses from The Associated Press and Landmark Communications that estimate anywhere from 67,000 to 85,000 voters who cast ballots in the state’s 2020 Democratic primaries voted in Republican primaries on May 24, 2022.
The analyses confirmed conservatives’ contention that a Democrat-orchestrated tide of “crossover” votes proved decisive as Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger garnered the required 50 percent in the GOP primary to avoid a runoff against Trump-backed challenger Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.).
Dooley, the national coordinator of Tea Party Patriots, said that unless Georgia tightens its primary rules, Democrats will continue to meddle in GOP primaries, especially to undermine candidates backed by former President Donald Trump.
“In 2024, if he is on the ballot, [Democrats] could use this as a weapon to stop Trump in the GOP primary,” she said.
Dooley said she has drafted a petition that calls for the state to revise its primary rules to require participants be registered with a party for 60 days prior to participating in a primary.
The petition alleges: “There were a minimum of 300,000 Democrats that crossed over and voted in the Republican Primary. Just in South Cobb, DeKalb, and South Fulton [counties], there were 118,000 reliable Democrat voters identified that voted in the Republican primary.”
Dooley’s proposed change is simple.
“Whatever primary you vote in, you are going to need to be a registered voter in that party,” she said. Such legislation “is sorely needed” to ensure voters don’t cast primary ballots for candidates “they have no plans to vote for in the general election.”
While Dooley has drafted the petition, she hasn’t aggressively circulated it because two state lawmakers have said they will sponsor 2023 bills essentially calling for the same revisions.
State Rep. David Clark (R-Buford) and Sen. Colton Moore (R-Trenton) in a June 6 press conference said they would introduce legislation “in the name of election integrity” to close the state’s primaries.
Freedom to Associate
“So all we’re asking is that the parties have the freedom to associate with their base, with their voters who are interested in their morals and their principles,” Moore said. “We’re trying to make the primary pure, and that’s election integrity.”
Georgia is one of 15 states with open primaries. In these states, registered voters of any affiliation may vote in any party primary they choose. Voters can’t vote in the primary election of more than one party each election, but open primaries are most likely to induce “crossover” voting.
Georgia House Speaker David Ralston (R-Blue Ridge) has already said he wouldn’t support such legislation, saying in a statement that there’s “no need to change” the state’s open primary system.
That isn’t surprising, Dooley said.
“The establishment” of both parties doesn’t want to change Georgia’s primary system because “that way, it can be used as a weapon against us,” that is, against conservatives demanding a change from the status quo, Dooley said.
Renacci agrees, noting Democrats and independent voters essentiality took over the May 3 Ohio Republican gubernatorial contest, collectively casting 56 percent of 1.08 million ballots cast.
Unless the state legislature closes primaries to only voters registered with the party, “it always guarantees that conservative candidates have a hard time winning because you are always going to get the liberals, the Democrats, to cross over,” Renacci said.
Ohio is one of six states that has a partially open primary system where voters can cross party lines and request either a Republican or Democratic primary ballot if they do so within deadlines that vary by state.
Democrats Respond
Renacci cited two 2022 Ohio GOP races influenced by crossover Democrats—J.D. Vance’s victory in the Republican U.S. Senate primary and his own defeat in the party’s gubernatorial primary.
“There wasn’t even a majority of Republicans” voting in those two Republican primaries and others on the May 3 slate, he said.
Republican Gov. Mike DeWine won the party’s gubernatorial nod with 48 percent, or nearly 519,600 votes. Renacci finished second at 28 percent, nearly 302,500 votes, and fellow conservative Joe Blystone was third with 21.8 percent, or nearly 235,600 ballots.
Renacci said that during the spring Democratic groups sent emails “that said to ‘stop the radical right from taking the governor seat, the Senate seat,’ to go to the polls to vote for DeWine and [Matt] Dolan” in the GOP U.S. Senate primary.
And Democrats responded.
Of ballots cast in Ohio’s Republican primaries, only “44 percent were actual Republicans” with more than 233,000 of the 1 million votes coming from unaffiliated voters and at least 160,000 “pure” Democrats crossing over to disrupt the parties’ elections, Renacci said.
As a result, Vance, with just 32 percent of the tally, emerged from a crowded field to win the party’s nod and in November will take on U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), who easily won his party’s contest.
In the GOP primary, Vance topped Josh Mandel, a former state treasurer who was supported by most conservative groups, investment banker Mike Gibbons, former state Republican Party Chair Jane Timken, and state Sen. Matt Dolan.
Talk With Legislators
Renacci said Democrats joined the race on behalf of Dolan, “a moderate at best” who had been consistently polling in surveys of “likely Republican voters” at less than 8 percent but scored more than 23 percent in the primary, only 6,000 votes behind Mandel.
With more than 230,000 non-Republicans casting ballots in the Republican gubernatorial election, Renacci said those votes were essentially the difference in ensuring DeWine would be on the ballot in November.
“If you would have removed the Democrats and independents, these votes would have all changed,” he said.
Renacci said he expects a bill seeking to close the state’s primaries to be introduced for Ohio’s 2023 legislative session.
“We are starting to talk with legislators,” he said.
Renacci also expects resistance from “establishment Republicans” and “moderate Democrats,” who “like the way” the state’s primary system is currently.
When asked if he includes DeWine among those “moderate Democrats” who like the state’s primary system the way it is, he chuckled, “You said that. I didn’t.”
Renacci’s campaign website has posted a poll that asks: “In Ohio’s primaries, should pre-registered Republicans vote on Republican Candidates and should pre-registered Democrats vote on Democrat Candidates in a closed primary system, similar to Florida and other states?”
“When you ask Republicans, should only Republicans be voting in Republican primaries, 96 percent say Republicans should be voting for Republicans, Democrats for Democrats, and independents should be registered prior to primary with either party if they want to vote in the party election,” he said.
That poll will be cited when 2023 bills seeking to close primaries are introduced, Renacci said. “Conservative legislators believe it should be done. We’re going to continue to push this.”
Cheney in Wyoming
Similar proposals to close primaries are being discussed in other open-primary states like Georgia, such as Alabama, Montana, Missouri, Texas, and New Hampshire, as well as in states with partially open primaries like Ohio’s, such as Tennessee and Wyoming.
The potential impact of crossover voting in Wyoming’s Aug. 16 Republican primary, where Trump-backed attorney Harriet Hageman is challenging Trump critic and three-term incumbent U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), is of particular concern.
“Don’t let the Democrats do what they did in another state last week,” Trump told Hageman supporters in Casper, Wyoming, on May 28, days after the Georgia primary, calling on Republicans to not “allow Democrats to vote in a Republican primary.”
How much influence Wyoming’s Democrats can have in a deep red state where they’re outnumbered 4-to-1 is debatable, but some analyses suggest crossover voters benefited Gov. Mark Gordon in his 2018 GOP primary victory over a field of Republican rivals which included Hageman.
Cheney, who trails Hageman by as much as 28 to 30 percent in various polls, had claimed in interviews through winter and spring with various media that she wouldn’t solicit Democrats to cross party lines and vote for her on Aug. 16.
That assurance ended in June when registered Democrats across the state began receiving direct mail from Cheney’s campaign with instructions on how to switch parties to vote for her in the GOP primary.
Cheney’s campaign website, which touts her as the best candidate to “represent all Wyomingites,” also includes “learn how to vote for Liz” with instructions for Democrats and independents to cast ballots in the Republican primary.
‘We should commit ourselves to doing everything we can do to repair the harm,’ says Mandela Barnes
Wisconsin Democratic Senate candidate Mandela Barnes called the founding of the United States “awful” and said the country must take steps to “repair the harm” through education, according to a video of his comments.
“Things were bad. Things were terrible. The founding of this nation? Awful,” said Barnes in a video clip of his remarks from a question-and-answer session in Portage, Wis., on August 19, 2021. “The impacts are felt today; they’re going to continue to be felt unless we address it in a meaningful way.”
The comments, which Wisconsin radio host Dan O’Donnell first reported on Sunday, could fuel concerns about the candidate’s history of controversial statements and far-left policy positions.
Barnes, who serves as Wisconsin lieutenant governor and is locked in a competitive primary race against hedge fund billionaire Alex Lasry and state treasurer Sarah Godlewski, has struggled to distance himself from some of the more radical policies on the left.
He has faced criticism for posing with a T-shirt that called for abolishing immigration enforcement, sponsoring a bill that would eliminate cash bail, and partnering and fundraising with “Defund the Police” groups.
Barnes made the comments about the U.S. founding during a national debate last summer over critical race theory in K-12 schools. Critical race theory argues the United States is systemically bigoted and teaches subjects such as math, reading, and history through the lenses of race and racism.
Many parents have called for banning critical race theory from public schools. Barnes in his speech appeared to defend the curriculum.
“Imagine being so ashamed of how we got to this place in America that you outlaw teaching,” he said.
While the founding of the United States was “awful,” he added, “We are here now, and we should commit ourselves to doing everything we can do to repair the harm, because it still exists today—the harm, the damage. Whether it was colonization, or whether it was slavery.”
This isn’t the first time Barnes appeared to stand up for critical race theory. Last June, he argued that it was no worse than tax dollars going to fund religious education.
“Many of the same people rallying against critical race theory on the basis of ‘indoctrination’ are totally cool with tax dollars going towards religious education,” he wrote on Twitter. “Make it make sense.”
Barnes’s campaign in a statement to the Washington Free Beacon defended his remarks.
“Painting the Lt. Governor’s comment as anything other than a condemnation of slavery is a sad GOP attempt to distract from Ron Johnson trying to literally overthrow the government of this country and strip reproductive rights from millions of Americans,” said spokeswoman Maddy McDaniel.
A Marquette poll in June showed Barnes and Lasry virtually tied in the race, with Godlewski a distant third.
The winner of the Democratic primary, which is scheduled for August 9, will face off against Sen. Ron Johnson (R.) in one of the most competitive Senate races of the midterm elections.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) in a recent fundraising email lied about election forecaster FiveThirtyEight‘s predictions in multiple Senate races, FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver said Tuesday.
“Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight just announced that Democrats are poised to win SIX Senate seats this November,” Pelosi wrote in the email, incorrectly saying the site predicts Democratic victories in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, and Ohio.
“This is straight-up misinformation,” Silver tweeted in response. “We have Democrats as heavy underdogs in Florida and Ohio.”
Pelosi, who routinely sends out emotionally charged campaign emails, has a long history of making false or misleading statements. Pelosi recently attempted to justify skyrocketing inflation under President Joe Biden by saying that “when unemployment goes down, inflation goes up,” a claim that PolitiFact rated mostly false, and blaming Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Inflation started surging under Biden months before Russia’s invasion, the Washington Free Beacon has reported.
Silver’s FiveThirtyEight model projects that Republicans have a 54 percent chance of winning the Senate. The model rates Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Nevada as tossups. The election forecaster says that Republicans have a 90 percent chance of victory in Ohio and a 94 percent chance in Florida. Of the states Pelosi mentioned in her email, New Hampshire is the only one that FiveThirtyEight predicts will stay blue.
Silver’s model for the House predicts that Pelosi will lose her job as speaker, forecasting that Republicans have an 87 percent chance of retaking the chamber.
Senate candidate Tim Ryan doesn’t want to attend event with historically unpopular Joe Biden
President Joe Biden will tout his economic record during a Wednesday speech in Ohio, but one of the most prominent Democrats in the state says he has better things to do than attend.
Rep. Tim Ryan, Ohio’s Democratic Senate nominee, won’t attend Biden’s scheduled speech in Cleveland, his campaign told the Washington Free Beacon. Biden plans to use the speech to go on the offensive and deliver remarks on his “economic agenda” and plans for “building an economy from the bottom up and the middle out,” according to the White House. It’s Biden’s second visit to the city this year, as he tries to win back support from Rust Belt voters.
Ryan’s campaign said he will instead be campaigning in the southeast part of the state. Ryan is running against Republican J.D. Vance for the open seat held by the retiring Sen. Rob Portman (R.).
Democrats around the country who face tough elections in November are trying to distance themselves from the president. Ryan is attempting to portray himself as a moderate in a state that former Republican president Donald Trump won in 2020 by more than 8 points. The move is a bold one considering Ryan’s record of voting 100 percent of the time with Biden’s position.
The strategy is already facing headwinds. As Biden finds himself with the worst presidential poll numbers in nearly 100 years, he is desperate to convince voters who are paying all-time-high gas and grocery prices that the economy is stable.
When Biden travels the country and gives speeches in swing states such as Ohio, his fellow Democrats view him more as an albatross than an asset. Already, Democrats have spent as much time attacking their own party as attacking their Republican opponents. From Mandela Barnes (D., Wis.) calling the Senate an “out-of-touch millionaire’s club” to Catherine Cortez Masto (D., Nev.) saying she’s running against “dysfunction in Washington,” Democrats want voters to forget who has controlled Congress for the last two years.
Ryan is no exception. In ad buys throughout the state, Ryan does not mention his votes on such controversial bills as the $2 trillion American Rescue Plan, which many economists blame for contributing to skyrocketing inflation. In a new ad called “Neighborhood,” Ryan calls for tax cuts and does not use the word “Democrat” a single time.
“I don’t answer to any political party,” he says. “I answer to the folks I grew up with and the families like yours all across Ohio.”
Biden this year has made several trips to the Buckeye State, and Ryan each time has made alternative plans. When Biden visited Cincinnati in May, for example, the White House said the two were “in close touch” even though Ryan decided not to show.
Republicans, however, will not make it easy for Democrats to shake their connection to Biden.
“Ryan talks tough when he visits Ohio. He tries to sound like some renegade, and some populist who advocates for working people,” Vance wrote in an op-ed published last month. “His radical record reveals the truth of a corporatist lackey who dutifully gets behind Biden in every single vote.”
So far, there is little evidence Ryan’s strategy is working for him. Although polling in the state is sparse, a USA Today-Suffolk University survey released shortly after the May primary found Vance leading Ryan by 2 points.
Specter of Democratic interference raises concerns of voter fraud
Republicans in Texas and elsewhere are considering closing primaries to limit what they say is Democratic meddling.
One of the Texas GOP’s top legislative priorities includes closing primaries to stop Democrat interference. It is part of a sweeping measure calling on the state legislature to enhance election integrity while combating voter fraud.
The idea also appears in a platform “plank” to prevent liberal Democrats crossing over so they can “move the Republican Party to the left.”
Some Republicans point to stories of Democrats playing spoiler in Texas primaries as a concern.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott shows off Senate Bill 1, also known as the election integrity bill, after he signed it into law in Tyler, Texas, on Sept. 7, 2021. (LM Otero/AP Photo)
In February, an Austin woman quoted in a Texas Public Radio story admitted she and others crossed over to vote in the Republican primary to cause chaos.
“Let’s get these guys to a primary runoff. Let’s make them burn their war chest money before they face Democrats in November,” K. Monroe told Texas Public Radio.
In other states such as Colorado, Democrats ran ads for MAGA candidates, hoping to knock out more moderate Republicans during primary races.
Republicans in Georgia are talking about closing their primary because more than 80,000 people who voted Democratic in the past voted in their primary.
In Texas, State Rep. Cecil Bell (R-Magnolia), who serves parts of Montgomery and Waller counties outside of Houston, told The Epoch Times crossover voting isn’t an issue in his district. But that doesn’t mean it hasn’t caused problems in larger metropolitan areas.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger speaks during a news conference in Atlanta, Ga., on Nov. 11, 2020. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
“I know there are people who are very concerned about closing our primaries,” Bell said. “Election integrity is a high priority to all Texans and Americans.”
Cal Jillson, professor of political science at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, told The Epoch Times that registered voters may cast a vote in a Republican or Democratic Texas primary.
However, voters must stick with the party they selected. If someone voted in the Democratic primary race, that person couldn’t switch back and vote in a Republican primary runoff, for example.
Jillson said the idea behind Republicans closing their primary would be limiting “Republicans In Name Only” candidates and ensuring office-seekers are true to Republican values. But he pointed out that cross-voting may be more of a perceived threat than an actual one.
Republicans are unlikely to go through with closing their primary at this point because they dominate statewide elections.
“The Republicans haven’t lost a statewide race in Texas since 1994,” Jillson said.” When you’re winning, why would you change the game?”
Using definitions developed by Ballotpedia and the National Confederation of State Legislatures, Texas and 14 other states have open primaries. Nine have closed ones, and the remainder falls somewhere in between.
Open primaries are where registered voters of any affiliation may vote in any party primary they choose. They cannot vote in more than one party’s primary each election.
Mark Rountree—founder and president of Landmark Communications, a Georgia firm that conducts political analysis—told The Epoch Times that crossover voting changed the outcome of Georgia’s Republican primary.
His firm’s research shows that 85,019 or 7.6 percent of voters in the Georgia Republican primary had voted Democratic in either 2018 or 2020.
That leads him to believe it impacted the primary in the case of Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the incumbent who faced Trump-backed candidate Rep. Jody Hice.
Raffensperger finished with 52.3 percent of the vote, or 2.3 percent above the majority threshold that would have prompted a runoff.
“Raffensberger got nominated simply because a lot of Democrats switched over,” Rountree said.
However, he said that doesn’t mean Democrats switched over to stop Trump-backed candidates from winning in the Georgia Republican primary.
It appears that some people are “Republicats,” meaning they are swing-voters who vote Democratic or Republican depending on the race in years past, he said.
Bee Nguyen called immigration enforcement agency ‘rogue,’ ‘cruel’
A Georgia Democratic nominee repeatedly called to abolish U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and argued that carrying out the country’s immigration laws is rooted in “white supremacy” and “xenophobia.”
Bee Nguyen, Georgia Democrats’ nominee for secretary of state, has a long history of anti-ICE rhetoric. From September to October 2020, Nguyen called to abolish ICE on fiveseparateoccasions—in one instance, the Democrat called to “shutdown the detention centers,” where illegal immigrants—many of whom have a criminal record—are housed ahead of removal proceedings. In another, Nguyen called ICE “rogue” and “cruel” and contended that illegal immigrant enforcement is conducted “in the name of power, white supremacy, money, xenophobia, and political pandering.” Roughly 30 percent of ICE agents are Latino.
Nguyen’s calls to abolish ICE continued into January 2021, when resident Joe Biden took office. The United States went on to experience a surge in illegal immigrant encounters. In 2021, for example, the country hit a record-high 1.73 million illegal immigrant apprehensions. That number is on pace to exceed 2 million this year.
Nguyen’s anti-ICE activism could prompt political peril as voters sour on Democrats’ immigration policies, which critics say have emboldened cartel-connected smugglers. On Tuesday, police arrested two illegal immigrants over their alleged role in the deaths of more than 50 migrants in San Antonio, which marked the worst migrant death incident ever recorded in the United States. Those Mexican nationals never left the country after their travel visa expired and possessed an assault-style rifle, multiple handguns, and a shotgun.
According to a July 2021 Federation for American Immigration Reform poll, 61 percent of Georgia voters hold the Biden administration responsible for the ongoing “border crisis,” while 54 percent say that mass amnesty proposals pushed by Democrats would “encourage more people to enter the country illegally and make an already difficult situation worse.” Roughly 50 percent of respondents, meanwhile, said they would be less likely to vote for Georgia’s Democratic senators should they support mass amnesty.
Nguyen’s campaign did not return a request for comment.
In addition to Nguyen’s abolish ICE push, the Democrat vocally opposed the 287 (g) program, which enables state and local law enforcement to assist federal immigration authorities. Atlanta’s Gwinnett County participated in the program for years but ended its involvement after Democrats won the county’s sheriff race. The program has allowed local law enforcement to take violent criminals off the streets—in 2020, for example, the Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Office encountered a Guatemalan national charged with felony murder and a Mexican national charged with rape and aggravated child molestation, according to ICE reports.
Nguyen’s statewide run in Georgia comes roughly five years after the Democrat joined the state legislature, replacing Stacey Abrams, who resigned in favor of a failed gubernatorial campaign. Nguyen won a primary runoff by 54 points in late June and will face Republican incumbent Brad Raffensperger in November. Her candidacy is backed by both Abrams and Rep. Hank Johnson (D., Ga.), who has compared Jewish settlers to termites and expressed concern that stationing thousands of Marines on the island of Guam would cause it to “tip over and capsize.”
The DMED, one of the best databases in the world, shows a disturbing trend with post-COVID jabs – dramatic increases in medical visits for malignancies, neurological and autoimmune diseases, and infertility. But after being exposed, DMED was shut down and its data spikes washed clean.
In the wake of the COVID jab rollout and additional boosters, a number of health conditions are on the rise, including cancer, most notably cancers of the uterus, endometrial cancers, and very aggressive blood and brain cancers
Cancer has been on the rise for decades, thanks to dietary factors, but the COVID jabs appear to dramatically accelerate the disease process. Many doctors report cancer patients with stable disease, and those who have been in remission for years, will suddenly and rapidly develop Stage 4 disease
A military whistleblower has come forward with data from the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED) database showing dramatic increases in medical visits for cancers and other conditions, post-jab
For neurological side effects of the shot, four remedies that can be very helpful are fluvoxamine (an antidepressant that blocks cytokine production in neural tissues), pharmaceutical grade methylene blue (improves mitochondrial respiration and repair), near-infrared light (triggers production of melatonin in your mitochondria) and hyperbaric oxygen therapy (boosts mitochondrial function, decreases inflammation and much more)
The COVID jabs also downregulate toll-like receptors 7 and 8, which allows latent viruses such as herpes EBV4 — Epstein-Barr, aka, mononucleosis — to flourish that would otherwise have been kept in check
Dr. Ryan Cole, an anatomic clinical pathologist with a subspecialty in skin pathology and postgraduate Ph.D. training in immunology, has been on the frontlines exposing the fraudulent COVID narrative.
Since 2004, he’s been operating his own business, a pathology laboratory, which gives him rare freedom and flexibility to comment on what he’s seeing. Most others would lose their jobs for speaking out the way Cole has.
Truth Telling Is a Risky Business
That doesn’t mean he hasn’t paid a price for speaking out about and defending real science though. He’s triple board certified and has 12 state licenses, and because of his stance against COVID recommendations, some of the credentialing organizations have taken action against him.
“I’ve seen 500,000 patients diagnostically in my career through the microscope. So, I have a long track record of diagnostics. I have not had a patient care complaint against me in 26 years of being a physician,” he says. “I still don’t, and this is what’s fascinating.
Of those 12 licenses, four were under attack, three are still under attack — in Washington, Arizona and Minnesota — [yet there’s] not a single patient care complaint. All the attacks against me have been political complaints to boards of medicine, which is not legal for them to do. Not a single one of those complaints is from a patient.
And then — really the most egregious thing — was ex parte, without me being present, without even sending a certified letter, the College of American Pathologists removed my fellowship status, which is defamatory.
I went back and found their complaint and looked at what they did, and I actually have a wonderful defamation lawsuit against them, because everything they did was anti-scientific. So, they can either restore [my fellowship] now, or just pay me a big check down the road. One or the other.”
He’s also lost about half of his business, as two insurance companies canceled him for “unprofessional behavior,” i.e., for sharing and discussing the science of COVID, and one of his best friends, whom he’s worked with for 12 years, canceled their business relationship as he didn’t want Cole’s outspokenness to affect his business. “All because of the defamation by the media, so to tell the truth in this day and age is a dangerous thing,” he says.
Suspicions Arose Early On
From his Ph.D. work in immunology, Cole was very aware of SARS-CoV-1 and MERS, having studied both, so when the warp speed program to develop a pandemic SARS-CoV-2 vaccine was announced, he became immediately suspicious.
“I thought, wait a minute, you can’t vaccinate against corona viruses!” he says. “This family of viruses is not amenable to vaccination, based on mutation rates. So, my concern was very high, early on.”
Cole’s lab ramped up PCR testing, using a cycle threshold (CT) of 35, rather than the recommended 40 to 45, as he knew that high a CT would result in 98% false positives. On a side note, pathologists not only assess tissue samples and biopsies, they’re also in charge of testing. The head of every major clinical lab is a pathologist. They’re basically in charge of quality control.
“As pathologist, we’re constantly looking at patterns, be it under the microscope or be it in lab data. We’re looking at blood reports. We’re looking at what’s out of range on blood reports. We’re looking at microbiology. We’re looking at molecular biology. We’re looking at cultures. We’re looking at pap smears. We’re looking, across the board, at those clinical parameters in addition to tissue biopsies,” he explains.
“I have 70 employees, and if there’s a blood smear that looks unusual, they bring it to me. If there are parameters on a test that look widely out of range, they bring it to me. And I call and talk to the clinician — [I’m the] doctor to the doctor. We have a consultation practice with the clinicians so I can help them understand what’s happening with their patient, and then they can make clinical decisions going forward.”
Post-Jab Cancer Explosion
One of the apparent side effects of the COVID jab that Cole has been warning and talking about is cancer. He explains:
“Obviously, during COVID, we saw some parameters change in blood tests. There was a concern about clotting. We saw elevated clotting factors. We know that the early variants were pretty severe in terms of inducing clotting, which was a shame because the whole world should have been simply using anti-inflammatories, steroids and anti-clotting agents, and so many more people would’ve lived.
My colleague, Dr. [Shankara] Chetty in South Africa, was having phenomenal success with antihistamine steroids and anti-clotting agents. So anyway, that first year, we saw drops in white blood cell counts, we saw decreases in certain subsets of T-cells. But when the shots rolled out, things changed.
At first I noticed kind of an innocuous little bump that we see usually in children. It’s a little virus called molluscum contagiosum [that causes] a little white bump.
Usually, by the time you’re a tween or early teen, you’ve built immunity to that and you never get them again, or rarely get them again. But after the shots rolled out, all of a sudden, in 80-year-olds, 70-year-olds, 60-year-olds, 50-year-olds, I started seeing literally a 20-fold increase in this little innocuous viral bump. And I thought, ‘Uh oh, this means they’ve lost immune memory’ …
Those subsets of T-cells that keep viruses in check are very important for keeping cancer in check. And this is where immunology jumps into the picture. All of us have some atypical cells, and we have the ‘Marines’ of our immune system, our natural killer (NK) cells. They’re on the frontline circulating. We have about 30 billion T-cells circulating in our blood, many of which are killer cells and NK cells.
Our other innate cells are our macrophages, monocytes and dendritic cells. They’re on that frontline. They’re shaking hands with every cell in your body all day long saying, ‘Friend or foe? Friend or foe? Oh gosh, this one has some mutations, it’s now a foe.’ They’ll poke a little hole in it, throw in a little enzyme called a grandzyme — a ‘hand grenade’ — blow up that cell, and we’re good.
But what happened after these shots rolled out is that many of those cell subsets started decreasing in number. The first cancer I saw uptick was cancers of the uterus, endometrial cancers. Usually, I would see maybe two endometrial cancers a month. All of a sudden, a few months after the rollout of the shots, I was seeing two or three a week.
Another subspecialty area of focus for me is melanoma. And I started seeing melanomas, not only in younger patients, as the shots dropped down in age cohort, but they were thicker. The other fascinating thing was they’re more aggressive in terms of how many dividing cells was present in each tumor. I’m still seeing this.
Beyond that … I’ve been traveling the country and the world quite a bit … and wherever I go now, I have doctors and nurses approach me saying, ‘What you’re saying, we’ve been seeing.’
I was having a conversation with a chair of a large oncology department in Tallahassee, and he said, ‘I usually see an aggressive brain cancer in a young patient maybe every decade.’ After the boosters rolled out, he saw five astrocytomas, five aggressive brain cancers, in one month.
Then, I’m in Jacksonville the next day, having a conversation with a family doctor. He said, ‘Gosh, it’s strange, I usually see a kidney cancer in a young patient every decade or so. I’ve seen five in the last month.’
Then I was in the UK a couple weeks ago. I had a doctor from Ireland who’s been a practicing family doc, GP, for 36 years, and he said, ‘I have seen more cancer in my young patients ever since the shots rolled out, and the booster, than I have ever seen in my entire career.’
Same thing, a nurse that works emergency department in the UK, [said she’s seen] not only the heart inflammation in young children, but cancers in young patients and aggressive leukemias. So everywhere I go, I have doctors confirming my observations … I’ve had many of them approach me and say, ‘Hey look, I’m seeing what you’re saying, but I can’t say it because I’ll get fired.’”
Cancer Spike Is Being Covered Up
Aside from what Cole has seen in his own lab, a military whistleblower has also come forward with data from the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED) database showing dramatic increases in medical visits for cancer, neurological diseases, infertility, autoimmune diseases and several other conditions, post-jab.1
The DMED is one of the best databases in the world, as the Department of Defense keeps very close tabs on what’s happening with our troops. This DMED data was presented during a hearing led by Sen. Ron Johnson. A week after that hearing, the DoD froze access to the DMED, and when it reopened a week later, the data were all changed to eliminate the data spikes.
“That’s what was really shocking,” Cole says. “I think this is basically fraud to the level of Watergate, in terms of [there being] somebody behind the scenes, and then the private company that actually manages that database … manipulated it.”
The DoD has tried to explain this suspicious activity claiming a “bug” in the system had resulted in underreporting of medical conditions in the five years prior to 2021. The number of cancers and other health problems were actually higher in 2015 through 2020 than initially indicated, they said.
However, how can a program error cause data corruption for five consecutive years and then self-correct, resulting in perfect numbers for 2021? And how did they not notice the error earlier? Again, this is one of the best-kept databases in the world. And how come this “bug” only affected conditions that also just so happen to be known and/or suspected side effects of the jab?
Future Prognostication
Clearly, cancer has been on the rise for decades, thanks to dietary factors, but the COVID jabs appear to dramatically accelerate the disease process. There are no published studies to help us foretell the future, but based on what Cole has found so far, how long does he think it’ll be before conditions like cancer spiral out of control?
“That’s a great question,” he says. “One of the important findings I’ve heard from many of these clinicians is that many of their patients who have been cancer-free for three, four, five years, their PET scan looks great, no detectable disease, and after that second or third shot, all of a sudden there’s Stage 4 disease. It’s like wildfire.
And this goes back to immune suppressive mechanisms, the damage that the persistent spike protein and the persistent modified RNA (mRNA) cause. So, aggressive cancers arising very quickly are one thing we’re seeing. Because it’s a dose-dependent poisoning curve — in terms of the more spike you have circulating, the worse your immune system seems to be doing — the No. 1 thing is, don’t get another shot.
Because it is causing that immune suppression that’s allowing those cancer mechanisms. Over time … I would say we’re going to see a consistent twofold to threefold increase in certain cancers, endometrial cancers, breast cancers, cancers of the prostate, cancers that are testicular or ovarian, neurologic cancers.
This spike protein has a propensity to cross the blood brain barrier and invade neural tissues. We know what it does to mitochondrial activity in terms of inhibiting it, blocking it, ruining cytochrome C oxidase systems, decreasing ATP.
Cancer is a hypoxic state. When you don’t have good cellular activity and cellular respiration and hypo-oxygenation, you end up with mechanisms that can induce more aggressive cancer. So, I think, at a minimum, [there’ll be a] two- to threefold [increase] … over the next year or two.
We can only hope that the immune system can normalize and we come up with enough interventions and treatments that will reverse some of this, what some people call spikeopathy, or the different diseases that are being caused by this persistent spike. ‘I don’t know’ is the honest answer, but that would be my projection based on I’ve seen.”
Excess Mortality Has Dramatically Increased
Abnormal blood clotting is another commonly reported side effect of the jabs. Post-mortem investigations have revealed thick, extremely long rubbery clots, including in the arteries, which is rare. The longest Cole has seen was about two feet. We’re also seeing a lot of micro-clotting, heart inflammation (myocarditis), strokes and heart attacks — all of which can have lethal consequences.
It’s highly concerning that we have regulatory agencies allowing the most dangerous medical product ever released on humanity to persist in the marketplace.
— Ryan Cole, dr
In early January 2022, OneAmerica, a national mutual life insurance company, announced2 the death rate of working-age Americans (18 to 64), in the third quarter of 2021, was 40% higher than prepandemic levels. And this excess mortality was not due to COVID infection. Many of those deaths were in fact cardiac deaths and strokes, which fits the injury profile of the COVID shots.
“After they came forward, additional insurance companies said, ‘We’re seeing anywhere from 30% to 50% increase in claims as well.’ They have no horse in the race. They’re just observing. And I say that as a pathologist too. Look, I don’t create disease. I don’t prevent disease. I’m a reporter at the scene of the crash.
My job is simply to report patterns, and then we can scientifically confirm those data patterns. And the all-cause death is increased in those who’ve gotten two, three shots. Again, it’s a dose-dependent curve. The more spike your body is making, the worse people tend to do over time.
Even Walgreens came out a couple weeks ago and showed their data. Individuals that got shots are getting COVID at higher rates. Even the mainstream media finally, last week — I think it was Good Morning America — said, ‘It’s looking like the boosters are a bad idea because it’s immune suppressing people.’
So, we’re finally making some progress and getting traction in the mainstream where at least the narrative is cracking. There’s a crack in the dam and it’s starting to leak. Hopefully it’ll rush forward and people will go, ‘Whoa, this was a bad idea. Let’s stop this chaos.’ But the FDA is trying to roll it out on [infants] of all things now … It’s really tragic.”
Why Was the Most Toxic Part of the Virus Chosen?
Considering autopsies have shown spike protein is still present at least four months after their last shot, it seems reasonable to assume that severe health problems can arise months or even years down the road. In fact, we still don’t know if the body ever stops producing spike protein once this genetically modified mRNA is injected.
“We know the spike is the inflammatory aspect of the virus, and our cells are made into spike toxin factories,” Cole says. “Studies out of the Salk Institute show that the spike is the cytotoxic aspect of [COVID-19], so we’re giving a shot that makes the toxic part of the virus, and it’s persisting.
That’s why I think we’re going to see this consistent elevation of different diseases related to the spike, be it cardiac, strokes, chronic clotting conditions, individuals dying from pulmonary emboli … It’s highly concerning that we have regulatory agencies allowing the most dangerous medical product ever released on humanity to persist in the marketplace.”
Strokes in young people and children are also on the rise. Media are now trying to convince you that this is “normal,” but it is anything but. Historically, children and teens do not die from strokes. This is a brand-new phenomenon, courtesy of the COVID jabs.
Microvascular clots (microvascular infarcts) are also a known contributing factor, in the long term, to early onset dementia. So, that’s yet another potential health avalanche in the making.
Four Helpful Remedies
I’ve quickly become a fan of pharmaceutical grade methylene blue, as it’s been shown to improve mitochondrial respiration and aid in mitochondrial repair. At 15 to 20 milligrams a day, it could potentially go a long way toward resolving some of the fatigue many suffer post-jab and post-COVID. It may also be helpful in acute strokes. The primary contraindication is if you have a G6PD deficiency (a hereditary genetic condition), in which case you should not use methylene blue at all.
Another important remedy is near-infrared light. It triggers production of melatonin in your mitochondria3 where you need it most. By mopping up reactive oxygen species, it too helps improve mitochondrial function and repair. Natural sunlight is 54.3% near-infrared radiation,4 so this treatment is available for free.
For neurological side effects of the shot, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressant called fluvoxamine may be helpful. Cole explains the mechanism behind it:
“[Fluvoxamine] upregulates a receptor called sigma-1, which blocks another receptor called inositol-requiring enzyme 1, which is a precursor for cytokines. So, fluvoxamine will block cytokine production in neural tissues. And that’s why [it works]. It’s not because of its antidepressant effects. It’s a cytokine precursor blocker. So, you actually are decreasing a cytokine storm in neural tissues.
This is why one uses fluvoxamine. There are other SSRIs, but this mechanism is very specific to fluvoxamine. It’s a tough to tolerate drug for some people. It makes some people anxious and agitated, but if you can tolerate it for two weeks, you can really turn down those inflammatory pathways in many patients. I’m not going to say everybody, but I’ve seen it work in many patients.”
A fourth treatment suggestion is hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT). This too can be phenomenally helpful for strokes, heart attacks, autoimmune diseases and neurodegenerative disorders. To learn more, see “Hyperbaric Therapy — A Vastly Underused Treatment Modality.”
IMPORTANT: COVID Shots Are Not Pharmaceutical Grade
Seneff also warned about potential unknowns arising from fragmented mRNA and impurities, as tests have shown these jabs really are NOT pharmaceutical grade, as you’d expect. Cole comments:
“These aren’t pure products, and I think this is a very important point. When Pfizer submitted vials to the European Medicines Agency to look at purity … they were in the 50% range … The TGA in Australia looked at it and said, ‘Look, these are only about 60% pure.’
This means you have a lot of fragmented sequences of mRNA that don’t have a stop or a start code on. They’re not coding for what you think they’re coding for. They’re coding for other tinier, shorter fragments. Are those mitogenic? Probably, but we don’t know. Can those reverse transcribe into our own DNA? Studies out of Sweden … show yes, they can …
And then, when they manufacture, they can’t spin and agitate these, so you get all these lipids that collect at the top of these big vats. So now you get some batches that are hyperconcentrated and some are hypoconcentrated. It appears about 5% of the batches are responsible for about 80% of the harms.”
Autoimmune Diseases of All Kinds Are To Be Expected
As explained by Cole in the interview, there’s a reason there’s never been a successful mRNA gene therapy product brought to market, despite 20 years of research effort. The persistence of synthetic mRNA with pseudouridine always caused too many problems in the animal trials to move into human trials. It caused autoimmune disease. It caused mutations. The manufacturers don’t even know if the nanolipid used to protect the mRNA is safe in humans.
“Based on the animal trials, we know there were problems and we can only predict that that’s going to happen in humanity. I want to be wrong, but from a basic immunology point of view, I don’t think I am,” Cole says.
“The nanolipid particles vary in size, interestingly. I’ve looked at some under the microscope. Some of them congeal and some of them stay tiny. But because of the fatty nature of them, they will carry their little mRNA and fractionated mRNA package to any cell in the body. And that’s the biggest concern. Now it has turned any cell in your body to a potential target [for your immune system].
An important paper came out in the European Journal of Immunology just about a month ago by Dr. Hagemann. There’s a condition called antibody dependent cellular cytotoxicity. What that means is that [the mRNA] sequence gets into your cell [and] that cell now becomes the spike factory.
That spike is on the surface of your cell. Now your NK cells that I talked about earlier say, ‘We better blow that cell up.’ So now, because there’s that spike on the surface, your immune system will destroy your own cells. This is another one of the detrimental effects.”
Pipeline Now Filled With Risky mRNA Shots
Making matters worse, even though the COVID shots have been shown to be a complete disaster, the drug industry is already working on dozens of different mRNA “vaccines,” thinking they now have carte blanche to put out whatever they want using this platform.
And the reason for this continued insanity is because our health and regulatory authorities are corrupted to the core. They are completely dishonest. They’re covering up the shocking harms, and unless something radically changes, they will allow dozens of equally dangerous mRNA gene transfer injections to be put out.
Reactivation of Latent Viruses
The COVID jabs also downregulate pattern receptors in your body called toll-like receptors. Specifically, toll-like receptors 7 and 8 are downregulated by the mRNA and pseudouridine in these shots. What does that do? It allows latent viruses to flourish that would otherwise have been kept in check.
“We’ve seen a big uptick in herpes family viruses, especially herpes EBV4, which is Epstein-Barr virus [aka] mononucleosis,” Cole says. So, for those with post-COVID or post-jab fatigue, long-COVID and those with MS-like symptoms, he recommends checking for Epstein-Barr.
About 80% of MS patients have high Epstein-Barr titers. “You will find that a lot of these individuals will have reactivated mono,” he says. For reactivated mono, methylene blue, HBOT and nebulized peroxide would all be indicated.
Fertility Under Attack
In the interview, Cole also reviews the potential impacts of the COVID jabs on the reproductive system. Menstrual dysregulation appears extremely common, as is the inability to become pregnant, despite trying for months, and spontaneous abortions are off the charts. The DMED database also showed a strong signal for fetal malformation before it was frozen and altered.
“What we’re doing to society and humanity with a previously never before used modality and product is causing horrendous harm to the human race, with no regard for science, with no regard for scientific integrity. It’s a machine gone amuck,” Cole says.
“There are darker forces behind it. A lot of people are making billions, but they’re killing people to do it. And it’s just so unethical what we’re experiencing societally. Yes, we’re causing infertility. Yes, we’re causing mutations in cancers. Yes, we’re causing heart attacks and strokes. Yes, we’re destroying the longevity of a younger generation. It is horrendous.
There’s no justification for any doctor who can look themselves in the mirror and say, ‘I feel comfortable giving this experimental product to my patients all day long.’ They need to reflect and realize they’ve lost their mind, [their] critical thinking skills.”
More Information
Sadly, almost everyone who’s credible and trustworthy has been censored and deplatformed at this point, so finding them can be a challenge. To follow Cole’s work, be sure to bookmark his website, RColeMD.com. You can also find him on the GlobalCovidSummit.org forum.
If you are vaccine injured, the Global COVID Summit has a blockchain-based forum where you can share your experience and it will never be taken down. You can’t be censored or deplatformed. Cole is available to answer questions in that forum.
They’re also starting up another website to compete with WebMD and similar pharma-run medical sites. It will eventually be available on DMED.com, which stands for “decentralized medicine.” This site is not yet live, but you can try it later. Cole will have a page there as well.
Other thought leaders worth tracking down and following include Dr. Peter McCullough, Dr. Robert Malone, Dr. Pierre Kory, Dr. Paul Marik, Dr. Richard Urso, Dr. Paul Alexander, and Dr. Kirk A. Milhoan, a pediatric cardiologist, and his wife, Dr. Kim Milhoan, just to name a few.
“These have been wonderful leaders in this movement for truth and sharing science,” Cole says. “All of us are part of the Global COVID Summit. We are 17,000 doctors strong and it’s very important that people understand that.
I mean, that’s more doctors than they have at the CDC or the FDA or the NIH. This is a group of critical thinking people standing up for your health, your freedom and your right to your own bodily autonomy.
I think, going forward, as people are starting to wake up and part of this narrative is cracking, let’s come back together, let’s communicate, let’s be kind, let’s help each other get back to a more loving, peaceful, communicative society. I think if we can forgive — obviously, there are things we don’t want to forget, because we don’t want this to happen again — but try to forgive people and try to help people ‘come to’ again.
Just come back together in community. I think it’s important that we really try to circle the wagons again as humanity, and hopefully come back to our senses. That’s a hopeful message I would like to share.”
I vividly remember the day in October 1991 when the Senate voted to confirm then-U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Clarence Thomas as the next associate justice of the Supreme Court. Following a bitter confirmation battle, Thomas had won confirmation by a 52-48 margin.
Following Thomas’ nomination by then-President George Bush, allegations were leaked to the press that he had sexually harassed a female subordinate, lawyer Anita Hill, during his service as Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and prior to that time, as the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education. (Yes, Hill followed Thomas to the EEOC.)
Although Thomas strenuously denied the allegations, the Senate confirmation hearings — presided over by then-Sen. Joe Biden, who chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee — turned into a public spectacle rivaled only by the brutal hearings that preceded Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s ascent to the Court in 2018. The brutality and the injustice of the Democrats’ treatment of Thomas cannot be overstated.
Two years after his tumultuous confirmation process, The New York Times writer Neil Lewis published an article entitled “2 Years After His Bruising Hearing, Justice Thomas Can Rarely Be Heard.” The piece essentially said Thomas was still angry over the experience and that he was “no longer gregarious.”
“Last year, his second full year on the Court, Justice Thomas began inviting clerks from other justices’ chambers to meet with him, sometimes over lunch. A clerk who went to one meeting recalled how everybody had an unspoken understanding that they would not say anything referring even remotely to the confirmation battle,” Lewis wrote.
“But several said they were stunned when Justice Thomas brought it up himself. And he did so in a way that sought to elicit sympathy, even indignation, at his ordeal.”
One of the clerks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told Lewis, “[Thomas] clearly wanted to talk about what happened. He wants some kind of vindication. He really wants people to agree with him that something outrageous happened.”
Another said, “Many of us were quite uncomfortable.”
Thomas warned them never to subject themselves to a Senate hearing, according to the clerks.
Lewis wrote that “at a few public appearances, he [Thomas] has disputed the notion that he is an angry man, and some of his friends concur that he is not.”
The article cites Thomas’ longtime friend, Clint Bolick, who said, “There’s no question that for the first year he was angry over what happened and did not have a chance to catch his breath before he assumed his new position. But to a large extent, he has moved beyond that, and I think a sense of optimism and ebullience has returned. He’s really gregarious again.”
“It’s clear he has not been permanently scarred by the Hill incident,” Bolick added.
Lewis was not quite convinced. He pointed to a conversation Thomas had had with two of his law clerks. He told them he planned to retire in 2034.
Asked why, Thomas, who was 43-years-old at the time of his confirmation, replied that by then, he will have served a 43-year term. According to the clerk, Thomas said, “The liberals made my life miserable for 43 years, and I’m going to make their lives miserable for 43 years.”
Lewis is probably right that Thomas was still angry in 1993. And, although the rage he felt at the time of the hearings has dissipated, I would bet that deep resentment continues to reside not too far beneath the surface. The abusive treatment he endured at the hands of Biden and his Democratic colleagues on the Judiciary Committee would take an average person a lifetime to get over.
In the video below, Thomas addresses the committee members. He equates the hearings to a “high-tech lynching for uppity blacks.”
“This is a circus. It’s a national disgrace,” he said. “And from my standpoint, as a black American, as far as I’m concerned, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas. And it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured, by a committee of the U.S. Senate, rather than hung from a tree.”
Powerful as his remarks were, the spectacle on Capitol Hill continued.
While President Biden’s foolish rebuke of the Supreme Court from overseas last week may have reopened those old wounds, Thomas’ future court rulings won’t come from a place of anger.
His decisions will come, as they always have, from his conservative beliefs and his interpretation of one of the finest documents ever written, the U.S. Constitution.
We are currently in an information war with the mainstream media. In order for the truth to come to light, we the people must be the voice for all J6ers who are being silenced and slandered. We want to appeal to Big conservative media hosts and journalists to report and help bring awareness to this cause. Fill out the form below to receive more information on how you can help get the truth out!
January 6th Truth & Light Freedom Festival
America has forgotten what Independence Day is all about! Unbeknownst to many, we have political prisoners in the United States and their constitutional rights are being severely violated! We truly have a two-tiered justice system where American citizens are being persecuted based on their political beliefs. Some are still unjustly and cruelly incarcerated, on home arrest awaiting trial, pushed to take an unfair plea deal, subjected to a sham of a trial in the DC swamp. The families and loved ones of these politically persecuted patriots are suffering after losing, in many cases their primary source of income. Many of those who are not incarcerated, have nevertheless lost their jobs or businesses. YOU cannot let these wonderful American patriots be forgotten! We are holding a festival/retreat in Missouri July 2-3, 2022 to raise awareness for the January 6th Political Prisoners as well as provide a retreat for January 6th Patriots and their loved ones.
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson signed a new election law on Wednesday that will require a voter to show a photo ID to vote in the coming general election.
The new law, House Bill 1878, requires voters to show one of the following photo IDs at polling sites: nonexpired Missouri driver’s license, nonexpired state nondriver’s license, other documents issued by the state or federal government with a photo and recent confirmable signature, or photo identification issued by the Missouri National Guard, U.S. Armed Forces, or U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs.
A voter who comes to the polling sites without the required photo ID can cast a provisional ballot with a signature on the ballot envelope and a sworn affidavit.
However, the election judges will mark the ballot envelope to indicate that the voter’s identity was not verified.
The voter can either come back to the polling site with a photo ID on the same day or allow the election authority to determine if the ballot is effective by comparing the voter’s signature with one on file with the election agency.
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson listens to a media question during a press conference in Jefferson City, Mo., on May 29, 2019. (Jacob Moscovitch/Getty Images)
The bill was sponsored by state Rep. John Simmons, a Republican, and passed in the Missouri House and Senate early this year.
It also bans the use of drop boxes to collect absentee ballots, mandates cybersecurity reviews, and prohibits private donations for elections unless it’s personal protective equipment, water, or food for election workers.
“No absentee ballot shall be delivered through a drop box and no election authority shall establish or use a drop box for the purpose of collecting absentee ballots,” read the text of the legislation (pdf).
The law will take effect on Aug. 28, 2022.
It comes amid a renewed national emphasis on election laws. Democrats in many states have sought to expand voter access following widespread mail-in voting during the pandemic-affected 2020 elections, while many Republicans have pursued new election integrity measures that they contend would cut down on the potential for fraud.
Missouri’s measure was backed by Republican Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, who called it “one of the strongest election laws in the country.”
“It makes sure that it’s easy to vote, it’s harder to cheat, and the people can have trust in the results,” Ashcroft said.
Ashcroft rejected assertions that the photo ID mandate harms minority voters.
“It seems pretty racist to me to say that the color of skin determines whether or not someone knows how to get an ID,” Ashcroft said Wednesday.
Seventeen states besides Missouri had voter photo identification laws in effect as of this spring, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, and 19 states had identification laws that accepted proof other than photos.
Missouri Republicans have sought for years to impose photo ID requirements but have been rebuffed by courts. The state first adopted a photo ID requirement in 2006 that was ruled unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court.
In 2016, Republican lawmakers put on the ballot a constitutional amendment authorizing photo ID that was approved by 63 percent of voters. But lower courts placed a hold on the accompanying law enacting the actual photo ID requirement. In January 2020, the state Supreme Court struck down a “misleading” and “contradictory” provision requiring a sworn statement for voters without a photo ID to cast a regular ballot.
Blue states believe their abortion policies can bring companies back
Amidst predictions of a political “red wave” in the upcoming mid-term elections, an economic wave has been building for years with no end in sight as companies flood out of blue states and into red states.
And as a result of its political divisions, America appears to now be dividing itself into prosperous, high-growth states and states that are suffering a chronic decline. But Democrat-run states believe their abortion policies could be a key factor in attracting companies back.
Caterpillar and Citadel, which in June announced their exit out of Illinois, are only the latest firms to leave high-tax, high-regulation states. Tesla, Hewlett Packard, Oracle, and Remington are also among the hundreds of companies flocking out of California, Illinois, New York, and New Jersey to business-friendly places like Texas, Florida, Arizona, and Tennessee. Relocating companies have spanned industries including tech, finance, media, heavy manufacturing, autos, and firearms.
“There is a great migration going on, and I expect it to accelerate,” Glen Hamer, president of the Texas Association of Business, told The Epoch Times. “When the Caterpillars and the Elon Musks relocate, it’s an advertisement to the entire country and the entire world that something positive is going on in that state. And there is a multiplier effect.”
According to a 2022 survey of 700 CEOs, the top states for business were Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Arizona, and North Carolina. The worst were California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, and Washington.
Even companies like Apple, which did not move its headquarters to Texas, chose to establish its second-largest campus for employees there. Amazon selected Houston as one of its prime hubs. Ford, Volkswagen, and Nissan chose Tennessee as the location for major new manufacturing facilities. And in some cases, entire industries like firearms, which are being targeted by legislation and lawsuits in blue states, are moving south.
The skyline of Miami, Fla., on Sept. 29, 2021. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
“It’s a broader trend that we’ve been tracking for the last 15 years,” Lee Schalk, Vice President of Policy at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), told The Epoch Times. ALEC tracks state economic trends in their annual report, “Rich States Poor States.”
“You won’t see companies moving to states like New York, California, and New Jersey,” Schalk said. “They’ll be moving out of those states into neighboring states, where the policies are a little bit better, or they’ll be making the big move to places like Texas, Florida, North Carolina.”
“Texas was one of the first states to recover all the jobs it lost during the pandemic,” Hamer said. “Now we have a workforce that is at an all-time high, and the economy has diversity and strength. Whether it’s energy, manufacturing, health care, technology, finance, you name it, the Texas economy is firing on all cylinders.” Texas has attracted 250 new corporate headquarters since 2015, Hamer said.
When jobs leave, people leave with them. According to the U.S. Census, Democrat-run states California, New York, New Jersey, Michigan, and Illinois together lost 4 million people between 2010 and 2019, the so-called “leftugees.” During the same period, the states with the greatest influx of people were Florida, Texas, Tennessee, Ohio, and Arizona.
States have been able to attract companies by cutting taxes, reducing red tape, and establishing right-to-work policies. In 2013, North Carolina passed a landmark tax reform package to cut corporate and personal income taxes. The business income tax there is now 2.5 percent and will be phased out entirely over the next several years.
Contrary to expectations that states would bankrupt themselves by cutting taxes, an influx of companies and new residents often boosts state revenues from property taxes, sales taxes, and personal income taxes, even when the percentages are reduced. Florida attracted 624,000 new residents in 2020, along with more than $40 billion in income, equating to an estimated $23.7 billion in new tax income. Florida has enjoyed two decades of net in-migration, amounting to a total income gain of $197 billion.
North Carolina’s latest budget included a deal to phase out corporate income taxes while also giving teachers a raise and even padding its “rainy day fund,” Schalk said. “North Carolina has been able to do that because not only have they been bold on lowering taxes, but they’ve also gotten the spending side under control.” And when companies move in, they bring intangible benefits with them as well.
“Any sort of civic organization loves it when they hear that a blue chip company like Caterpillar is relocating to our state,” Hamer said. “It means these executives are going to be serving on all sorts of different boards of directors, the local art museum, opera, or the chamber of commerce. When companies relocate their individuals, they become deeply ingrained in the community. They contribute time and treasure to activities that make the community more vibrant.”
The reverse is also true for states that are losing businesses and population, creating a vicious circle where continuously hiking taxes fails to bring in more revenue because the tax base gets depleted and quality of life suffers. According to a report based on IRS data by Wirepoints, an Illinois-based economic research organization, the cost of losing companies and people is stark for states like Illinois, which has lost population for 21 straight years.
Since 2020, that state has lost a total of $535 billion in income that moved away, which equates to about $25 billion in lost tax revenue during that period, and $4 billion in 2020 alone. Illinois’ problems include a loss of 114,000 residents in 2021, a string of 21 consecutive years of state budget deficits, a $313 billion deficit in public pensions, and the second-highest property tax rates in the country.
“Illinois is stuck in a vicious downward spiral it can’t hope to escape from without fundamentally changing how it governs,” the Wirepoints report states. “Structural property tax reform, reductions in pension debt, slashing units of local government—the state needs to do all these things if it wants to convince Illinoisans to stay and persuade other Americans to move in.”
Reducing violent crime would also help. Escalating crime was reportedly a factor, one among many, in Citadel’s decision to leave Chicago for Miami. Ken Griffin, the hedge fund’s CEO, had been one of Illinois’ richest residents and had given more than $600 million in charitable donations to educational, cultural, medical, and civic causes in the state.
Ken Griffin, Founder and CEO, Citadel, speaks during the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, Calif., on May 2, 2022. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images)
“It’s the beauty of the 50 laboratories of our democracy,” Schalk said. “We’re able to quickly see what’s working and what’s not working across all issue areas. Unfortunately, I don’t see the high tax and high spend states changing their ways.”
“We can see an acceleration of hostile business policies in states like California, Illinois, and New York,” Hamer said. “It’s a race to increase taxes, increase regulation, and make it more difficult for people to live their lives. When you contrast that with states like Texas and Arizona, the gap is just widening and we’re seeing the great migration as a result.”
Republican Representatives in Washington are attempting to grant even more economic power to states in energy production. The GOP introduced the Federal Land Freedom Act last year, which would take authority to approve oil leases and permits away from the federal government and “give each state the right to develop all of the energy resources on the federal lands located within that state’s borders.”
Recently, however, blue states appear to be waking up and looking for ways to boost their competitiveness. California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently stated, “some businesses may have left the state, come on back! It’s a point of pride that we welcome you back.”
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy sent personal letters to more than 50 companies in red states, appealing for them to come to New Jersey. Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont made a similar attempt. These governors are highlighting one regulatory advantage that they believe will give them an edge over conservative states: their permissive policies toward abortion.
Murphy’s letter to companies in Georgia stated that “The overturning of a woman’s right to bodily autonomy—and the chilling effect this decision will have on your ability to attract and retain top female talent by being located in a state which has refused to recognize women’s reproductive freedom—cannot be ignored.”
Alyana Alfaro Post, Murphy’s press secretary, said, “Governor Murphy encourages businesses looking to stand with their employees to look at New Jersey, a state where they can be confident that the rights of women, the LGBTQIA+ community, and voters will always be protected.”
“We’re a family-friendly state that respects women,” Lamont stated in a video pitch. “I know some of you are in states like Texas, which are outlawing a woman’s right to choose. We have codified, we are protecting a woman’s right to choose … any of you business owners thinking about making a move, give me a call. I’d love to hear from you.”
Iowa’s Mike Franken says cabal will use schools to win elections for Republicans
Iowa Democratic Senate candidate Mike Franken says there’s a Republican-led, capitalist-evangelical plot to “dumb down” youth through “a war on education,” designed to gain an electoral advantage in the years to come.
During a campaign event in Red Oak last week, Franken told voters Republicans are uniting “the über-capitalists … and the ultra-right evangelicals” on educational issues to “make people dumb and lemmings.”
“Is this what Newt Gingrich wanted everybody to do in the ’90s?” Franken said, according to a video of the event obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. “Dumb down America as much as we can because the demographics are working against the Republican Party? It’s true. It appears so.”
Former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich told the Free Beacon he found Franken’s remarks “laughable” and that the Senate candidate “is falling for the teachers’ union line.”
“As a Ph.D. in European history and author of more than 40 books, I find it laughable that Franken thinks I could be anti-learning. I participated in the launch of President Reagan’s dramatic report A Nation at Risk in 1983,” Gingrich said. “The teachers’ unions and their Democratic Party loyalists have fought against reform every step of the way. Children should not be trapped in terrible schools that cripple their future. Parents have the right to know what is being taught to their children.”
Franken did not respond to a request for comment.
The retired Navy vice admiral, who served under former president Barack Obama and as a military adviser to former senator Ted Kennedy (D., Mass.), has no stance on public education listed on his campaign website. He has, however, taken strong stances on increasing abortion access, expanding Medicare, and combating climate change. The Iowa Unity Coalition, which has endorsed Franken, supports tuition-free college education for all state residents. A Harvard University study in 2014 found that a Massachusetts tuition-free program lessened students’ college completion rate.
Republicans have made education a significant election issue, as parents have expressed concerns over a public education system they believe has abandoned the teaching of core academic subjects and doubled down on racially divisive rhetoric and courses. The Republican National Committee in 2021 adopted a resolution that condemned critical race theory and “antiracist” school curricula. Congressional Republicans in January put forth as part of their midterm platform a Parents’ Bill of Rights, which would publicly disclose state education budgets and curricula.
Franken did not elaborate on his opposition to Republicans’ education platform, which could potentially alienate some Iowa voters concerned with radical teachings about America’s history in schools. The state House in 2021 entertained a bill that would have banned the New York Times‘s 1619 Project from public education.
Franken’s Democratic nomination this year was unexpected. In 2020, he lost a primary race to Theresa Greenfield, who would go on to lose her election to Sen. Joni Ernst (R.). Franken in June bested Democratic candidate Abby Finkenauer to win the party’s nomination for 2022.
Having raised nearly $3 million thus far for his campaign, Franken will face Sen. Chuck Grassley (R.) in November.
A Grassley campaign spokeswoman said Franken’s comments were “lockstep with the Biden White House,” which in 2021 “orchestrated a memo from the National School Board Association in an effort to intimidate parents by unleashing federal antiterrorism surveillance tools on them at school board meetings.”
“Mike Franken didn’t read the memo from last November’s gubernatorial election in Virginia, the near upset gubernatorial race in New Jersey or the school board recall election in his dream state of California,” Michaela Sundermann told the Free Beacon. “Waging a war on parents is not a winning strategy. Chuck Grassley fights for the fundamental right of parents to have a say in their child’s education.”
The ‘independent state legislature doctrine’ is a longtime favorite of conservative legal thinkers and Republicans
The Supreme Court decided on June 30 to hear an important new case that Republicans hope will re-empower state legislatures to make rules for redistricting and governing congressional and presidential elections.
Republicans say the U.S. Constitution has always directly authorized state legislatures to make rules for the conduct of elections, including presidential elections. Democrats say this idea, encompassed by the Independent State Legislature Doctrine, is a fringe conservative legal theory that could endanger voting rights. The Supreme Court has reportedly never ruled on the doctrine.
The doctrine, if endorsed by the high court, could allow state legislatures to select presidential electors in disputed elections, something critics decry as a threat to democracy.
Election law expert J. Christian Adams, a former U.S. Department of Justice civil rights attorney who now heads the Public Interest Legal Foundation, an election integrity group, praised the Supreme Court for granting the case, which he said was “very important.”
“It means that the Court may take up all the nonsense that has been occurring over the last 10 years,” Adams told The Epoch Times by email.
In a series of Twitter posts, Democratic Party attorney and election law activist Marc Elias denounced the court’s decision to hear the case.
“The Supreme Court will hear a case next term that may validate the dangerous independent state legislature theory,” Elias wrote.
“Congress must enact comprehensive voting rights and anti-subversion legislation before it’s too late,” he wrote, adding “the future of our democracy is on the docket.”
The doctrine has been in the news because conservative Republican activist Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, sent emails to 29 Republican state lawmakers in Arizona urging them to choose the state’s presidential electors despite the disputed popular vote tallies showing Democrat Joe Biden had won the state, The Washington Post reported June 10.
The emails were sent Nov. 9, 2020, after media outlets had called the Arizona race for Biden. The efforts by Republicans to change the result in Arizona were unsuccessful and ultimately the state’s 11 votes in the Electoral College were awarded to Biden.
In her emails, Ginni Thomas, a supporter of then-President Donald Trump, asked Arizona legislators to “stand strong in the face of political and media pressure” and asserted that the responsibility to select electors was “yours and yours alone.” Lawmakers, she wrote, had the “power to fight back against fraud” and “ensure that a clean slate of Electors is chosen.”
The emails attracted the attention of the U.S. House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, security breach at the U.S. Capitol that delayed official congressional certification of the 2020 presidential election by several hours. Democrats also say there is a conflict of interest because Justice Thomas will participate in the court case about the independent state legislature doctrine. Through her lawyers, Ginni Thomas is resisting committee demands that she testify in the ongoing probe that many Republicans, including Trump, say is a sham.
Tim Moore, a Republican who is the speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, explained why he supports the doctrine.
“The U.S. Constitution is crystal clear: state legislatures are responsible for drawing congressional maps, not state court judges, and certainly not with the aid of partisan political operatives,” Moore said in March when he launched an appeal of the Supreme Court of North Carolina’s order redrawing the state’s electoral map against the wishes of the state’s GOP-majority legislature.
“We are hopeful that the Supreme Court will reaffirm this basic principle and will throw out the illegal map imposed on the people of North Carolina by its highest court. It is time to settle the elections clause question once and for all.”
The elections clause in Article 1 states: “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof.”
The presidential electors clause in Article 2 states gives each state the power to appoint presidential electors “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.”
Three Supreme Court justices have said the doctrine applied in the Bush v. Gore case that resolved the disputed 2000 presidential election.
In an unsigned order issued on June 30, in Moore v. Harper, court file 21-1271, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. The justices did not explain why they decided to hear the case, which is their usual practice when deciding which appeals to take on. For such a petition to be granted, at least four of the nine justices must agree. The case is expected to proceed to oral argument in the court’s upcoming term that begins in October.
Moore filed his petition (pdf) with the court on March 17.
It was preceded by an emergency application seeking to stay a Feb. 14 ruling by the Supreme Court of North Carolina that required the state to modify its existing congressional election districts for the 2022 primary and general elections. Respondent Rebecca Harper is one member of a group of 25 individual North Carolina voters.
On March 7, the Supreme Court turned away (pdf) the stay application. In an opinion concurring in the denial of the stay, Justice Brett Kavanaugh invoked the so-called Purcell principle, writing that the high court “has repeatedly ruled that federal courts ordinarily should not alter state election laws in the period close to an election.”
AS NEW CALLS TO BAN CHINA-OWNED TIKTOK FROM AMERICAN APP STORES EMERGE FROM THE FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION, THE OLD REASONS TO BAN THE APP STILL HOLD TRUE.
As new calls to ban the China-owned TikTok from American app stores emerge from the Federal Communications Commission, older reasons to ban the app also continue to hold true. The National Pulse has compiled our historical reporting on the subject, below.
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioner Brendan Carr recently called on Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their respective app stores, citing national security and data privacy concerns. Carr described TikTok’s parent company ByteDance as “beholden” to the Chinese government in his letter, noting that, as a result, the app is “required by law to comply with [Chinese government] surveillance demands.”
Carr’s request renews a Trump-era initiative to ban the app from American phones due to similar concerns given the app’s well-documented links to the Chinese Communist Party. Since the initial effort was launched, even more evidence and financial ties have been unearthed, demonstrating TikTok’s intimate relationship with the Chinese Communist Party.
Beyond national security fears concerning TikTok, the app has repeatedly been used to sow discord in the U.S. and parrot Chinese Communist Party propaganda. TikTok has also expanded its influence over American “fact-checkers,” which are often used by social media platforms to silence conservative voices and stories critical of the Chinese Communist Party, by funding one of Facebook’s leading “fact-checking” partners, Lead Stories.
The stories below, published by The National Pulse, outline the well-documented case for banning TikTok once and for all.
One of the key reasons TikTok has been able to escape a ban – which has been executed in countries including India – is due to the fact that the app has hired an extensive team of American lobbyists with deep ties to the Democratic Party.
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) recently joined the platform and has even seen far-left activists use the platform to target voters.
Many swing-district House Democrats are distancing themselves from Joe Biden as they face difficult reelection bids. The task won’t be easy—those same Democrats have voted with the president 100 percent of the time.
During a Tuesday Fox News appearance, Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D., Va.) said she does not want Biden to join her on the campaign trail and would rather “do the campaigning myself.” Just months ago, however, Spanberger—who votes with Biden 100 percent of the time—said she “welcome[d] the opportunity” to bring Biden to her district when the president visited Virginia in February.
Rep. Kim Schrier (D., Wash.), meanwhile, in a new ad touted “taking on the Biden administration to suspend the gas tax.” The Democrat’s claim is a bizarre one, considering that Biden supports the policy—he called on Congress to suspend the gas tax two days before Schrier released the spot. Schrier has also voted with Biden 100 percent of the time, and she was photographed in April holding hands with the president when he visited Seattle.
Spanberger and Schrier’s newfound attempts to break away from Biden show how vulnerable House Democrats are fighting for their political lives in a midterm environment that is extremely unfavorable to their party. While Biden won both Virginia and Washington by double digits, his approval rating is 26 and 10 points underwater in the two states, respectively, according to Civiqs. Biden’s freefall comes as the country experiences record-high inflation, an issue some House Democrats have used to criticize Biden despite voting for his multitrillion-dollar stimulus packages.
Rep. Chris Pappas (D., N.H.), for example, in early June criticized Biden on the economy, saying the Democrat’s administration “took their eye off the ball when it came to inflation.” But Pappas regularly touts his vote for Biden’s $2 trillion stimulus package, the American Rescue Plan, which liberal economists say drove the nation’s inflation surge. Pappas also votes with Biden 100 percent of the time, including on the president’s Build Back Better Act, which called for more than $2 trillion in additional spending at a time of record-high inflation. Rep. Susan Wild (D., Pa.) also voted for the bill just weeks after questioning how Biden would pay for the pricey package.
Spanberger, Schrier, Pappas, and Wild did not return requests for comment. In addition to their 100 percent Biden scores, all four endorsed Biden in 2020, and Spanberger, Schrier, and Wild said in the past they were “proud” and “honored” to earn his endorsement.
“Having the endorsement of a man who knows the struggles and priorities of Pennsylvania speaks volumes,” Wild said in September 2020. “I look forward to working with a White House that not only understands the needs of the seventh district, but is also committed to producing real solutions for the people back home.”
Even with Democrats’ best efforts, Republicans won’t make it easy for frontline members to disassociate themselves from the president given their voting records. The National Republican Congressional Committee has already labeled Spanberger one of Biden’s “loyal cronies,” and the group hammered Schrier in April for being “all smiles with Joe Biden while Washington State families struggle under Democrats’ failed agenda.”
Not every vulnerable House Democrat is bucking Biden. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Ohio)—whose new district in 2020 narrowly voted for former president Donald Trump—continues to heap praise on the Delaware Democrat, calling his first year in office “outstanding” during a February event. Still, even Kaptur is trying to distance herself from the national Democratic Party. Her first general election ad rails against “people in Washington” who “care only about the coasts”—Kaptur has been in Congress since 1983 and votes with Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) 100 percent and 99 percent of the time, respectively.
‘This is what you have when vindictive leftists get in charge of major parts of the government’: Rep. Gohmert
Just when the wife of one incarcerated Jan. 6 prisoner believed things couldn’t get worse, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) informed her they are going to suspend all of her husband’s benefits. According to United States Representative Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), “this is what you have when vindictive leftists get in charge of major parts of the government.”
In an unsigned letter from the VA—dated June 13 and appearing to originate from the “Director Regional Office,”—Angel and Kenneth Harrelson were notified that the administration “received information from the United States Department of Justice” that Kenneth had been “indicted and charged with Seditious Conspiracy (18 U.S.C 2384).”
Page 1 of the unsigned letter received by Angel and Kenneth Harrelson from the “Director Regional Office” “informing them that their Veterans Benefits are being suspended due to 38 U.S. Code § 6105 – Forfeiture for subversive activities, which requires that an individual be “convicted” of a listed crime, not “indicted.” (Courtesy of Angel Harrelson)
The letter further noted that: “Pursuant to 38 U.S. Code § 6105(a)”—Forfeiture for subversive activities—”after receiving notice of an indictment for the above offense” the “VA must suspend payment of gratuitous benefits pending disposition of the criminal proceedings. If convicted, gratuitous benefits are forfeited, automatically, from and after the date of the offense.”
The “date of the offense” is Jan. 6, 2021.
“Based on the information above,” the VA further informed the Harrelsons that they “propose to suspend” their “compensation benefit payments effective September 1, 2022, which is the first day of the month following a 60-day due process period.”
“If you are subsequently acquitted of this charge, payments can be resumed from the date of suspension, if otherwise in order. If you are convicted, benefits will be retroactively terminated effective January 5, 2021, the date proceeding the offense, or from the date your award commenced, whichever is later.”
Kenneth Harrelson taking photographs inside the Rotunda inside the Capitol Building on Jan. 6, 2021. (FBI Criminal Complaint)
“Any individual who is CONVICTED after September 1, 1959, of any offense listed in subsection (b) of this section shall, from and after the date of commission of such offense, have no right to gratuitous benefits (including the right to burial in a national cemetery) under laws administered by the Secretary based on periods of military, naval, air, or space service commencing before the date of the commission of such offense and no other person shall be entitled to such benefits on account of such individual.”
According to the 18-page criminal complaint (pdf), Kenneth Harrelson was charged with Conspiracy (1) Obstruction of an Official Proceeding and Aiding and Abetting (2) Destruction of Government Property and Aiding and Abetting (3) Entering and Remaining in a Restricted Building or Grounds (4) Tampering with Documents or Proceedings (5). According to the Arrest Warrant (pdf), Kenneth was arrested at his home in Titusville, Florida, on March 10, 2021. According to the Criminal Docket, the seditious conspiracy charge was added with several others on Jan. 12, 2022.
Kenneth is currently being held in the Correctional Treatment Facility in southeast Washington and has been incarcerated, without a trial and without being convicted of any crime, for over 475 days.
Page two of the letter explains that: “if convicted,” the change in his benefits “may mean” the VA had paid “too much,” in which case they will send another letter letting them “know if the changes go through.” If so, the “VA’s Debt Management Center will send a letter explaining how much” they’ve “been overpaid, as well as how to repay this debt.”
Page 2 of the unsigned June 13, 2022 letter received by Angel and Kenneth Harrelson from the “Director Regional Office” “informing them that their Veterans Benefits are being suspended due to 38 U.S. Code § 6105 – Forfeiture for subversive activities and that they may have “been overpaid, as well as how to repay this debt.” (Courtesy of Angel Harrelson)
Page three of the letter advises the Harrelsons how to obtain representation.
Page 3 of the unsigned June 13, 2022 letter received by Angel and Kenneth Harrelson from the “Director Regional Office” “informing them that their Veterans Benefits are being suspended due to 38 U.S. Code § 6105 and advises the Harrelsons how to obtain representation. (Courtesy of Angel Harrelson)
Page four provides clarification of what VA.gov is and provides information on how “enrolling in VA.gov is easy.”
Page 4, the signature page, of the unsigned June 13, 2022 letter received by Angel and Kenneth Harrelson from the “Director Regional Office” providing clarification of “what” VA.gov “is” and provides information on how “enrolling in VA.gov is easy.” (Courtesy of Angel Harrelson)
“This is what you have when vindictive leftists get in charge of major parts of the government,” Gohmert told The Epoch Times. “What we’re seeing is when immoral, mean-spirited, leftist people take over the government, they use every aspect of the government in order to try to inflict their hatred on people with whom they disagree. Even after most of the Democrats in the House of Representatives obstructed an official session of Congress back in June 2016, at that time, none of us were saying these people have got to be put in jail. We just wanted to be able to go back into session as the majority. But when they have power, obstructing an official session of Congress—which is the worst charge many of the January Sixers were charged with—we see the left wanting to bury them, take away any benefit, destroy their lives and not only their lives they want to destroy their homes, destroy their children’s lives. This is an evil, toxic atmosphere when these types of people are in control of so much of the federal government.”
Following the June 12 shooting at Pulse Night Club in Orlando, Florida, members of the House Democratic Caucus staged a pre-planned and well-organized protest sit-in on the House floor just after the House convened on June 22, 2016. They demanded that then-House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) allow a vote on gun control. Through the day and into the next morning, they obstructed proceedings, chanted “no bill, no break,” and sang “We shall overcome.”
According to The Guardian, Gohmert “stood toe to toe” with then United States Representative Corrine Brown (D-Fla.) “in a confrontation that looked set to spiral out of control” until Rep. John Lewis (D-Pa.) and others intervened. Gohmert said he was angered by the disrespect shown by Democrats for the sanctity of the House chamber, which he called a “last bastion of civility.” He was also angered by the disrespect shown to the 49 victims of the shooting. “I’m amazed here on the House floor that to them [Democrats] it’s all about guns,” he said. On May 19, the Internal Revenue Service announced Brown “pleaded guilty to engaging in a corrupt endeavor to obstruct and impede the due administration of the internal revenue laws” and was “ordered to pay $62,650.99 in restitution.”
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) (2nd L) speaks as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) (R), Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) (3rd L), and Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) (L) listen during a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on July 29, 2021. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
“I do not, will not, and have not advocated for violence,” Gohmert said. “But we do need to stand up for our rights and we do need to call this what it is. It’s evil. It’s abuse of the federal government and its an effort to hurt people and their children simply because of political disagreements. Hopefully we can, by example, show how this is not the way to go. But we’ve been using that example for 60 years. If these leftists have not figured that out and still think that abusing their positions in the federal government, so they appear like the Ministry of Love in Orwell’s 1984 which used torture and horrific conditions like we’ve seen in the D.C. jail, then we have got to have people peacefully rise up and make clear that we need to change the law so we can find people who are abusing their positions in the government.”
As Gohmert explained, laws were changed that allowed for the firing of people within the VA who were abusing their positions. The Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act of 2017 makes it easier to demote, suspend and even fire senior executives and other employees for misconduct or poor performance.
Likewise, Gohmert said, “we’re seeing a need to do that in other federal places as well so we can get rid of the mean, evil vindictive people who are abusing their federal employment.”
The envelope shows the letter originated from the “Evidence Intake Center” (EIC) at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Envelope containing a four-page letter informing Kenneth and Angel Harreslson that, because of information sent to them from the Department of Justice, the Veterans Administration has decided to suspend all of Kenneth’s veterans benefits and of September 1, 2022. (Photo Courtesy of Angel Harrelson, graphically enhanced by Patricia Tolson/The Epoch Times)
According to the VA website, “The Department of Veterans Affairs has implemented centralized mail processing (CM) for compensation claims to reduce incoming paper handling and shipping requirements.”
According to Hill & Ponton Disability Attorneys, “The EIC only handles compensation related claims.” However, this is not regarding a claim. It’s a notice that Harrelsons’ benefits are being suspended entirely and that, if convicted, the Harrelsons will be expected to reimburse the VA for the amount they deem as “overpaid.”
In stark contradiction to the notice of benefits suspension and the threat of having to repay everything Kenneth has received, a May 2021 email from Jeremy Van Cleave, Veterans’ Services Counselor at the Brevard County Government Center in Viera, Florida to Angel Harrelson, Van Cleave said he “wanted to clarify something.”
Screenshot of May 19, 2021 email from Jeremy Van Cleave, Veterans’ Service Counselor at the Brevard County Government Center in Viera, Florida, to inform Angel and Kenneth Harrelson of “information on appointment and information on incarcerated veterans.” (Courtesy of Angel Harrelson)
“As long as your husband is not convicted, your benefits will continue to be paid. If your husband is convicted, and he has to serve greater than 60 days, then his benefit will be reduced to 10%. I am sorry if I did not communicate that correctly. So, right now you will continue to receive funds pending the outcome of the trial.”
Van Cleave included a link in his correspondence for further reassurance that her husband’s benefits were not lost. The link took her to a page on the VA website that explained what happens when a veteran is incarcerated.
“VA disability compensation payments are reduced if a Veteran is convicted of a felony and imprisoned for more than 60 days. Veterans rated 20 percent or more are limited to the 10 percent disability rate. For a Veteran whose disability rating is 10 percent, the payment is reduced by one-half. Once a Veteran is released from prison, compensation payments may be reinstated based upon the severity of the service connected disability(ies) at that time.”
The Epoch Times reached out to Van Cleave for clarification of the glaring contradictions in his email and the unsigned June 13 letter.
“Right now it’s a lot of emailing,” Angel told The Epoch Times. “Me trying to get someone at the VA to give me that letter that DOJ sent them.”
So far, she has received no response. The next step is a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request. If that fails, she plans to sue for the information.
“I have asked so many of the other veterans who are in prison from January 6 and no one else has received this, not even the others on the Oath Keepers case,” Angel revealed. “Ken is the only one. That’s why I want this to go public because we are being targeted. Probably because I won’t shut up.”
According to court documents (pdf), there are 10 individuals cited in the Oath Keepers case, including Kenneth Harrelson.
As The Epoch Times reported on March 11, Angel is convinced that the Democrats in power are intentionally targeting Jan. 6 participants just because they are Trump supporters. She also believes it’s all about “revenge.”
“That’s how I feel,” she reiterated Tuesday. “We are being targeted because I am going out there in public and I won’t shut up about any of this, and what’s the one way to get someone to shut up? Take everything from them.”
Asked what she was going to do now, Angel didn’t hesitate.
“Be louder,” she said.
In the meantime, she has less than 60 days to make a plan.
Kenneth and Angel Harrelson at Cape Canaveral in 2017, just before Angel’s mother passed away. (Courtesy of Angel Harrelson)
“I’m going to call the real estate agent. I have no choice I have to put this house up for sale,” she lamented. “We don’t want it to go into foreclosure because that will ruin our credit. We’ll be able to do something later. I’m going to have to pay for another storage unit because the one I have isn’t going to be big enough. I will probably lose his truck. There’s nothing I can do about that, because if I don’t sell it, we’ll end up being homeless.”
Angel said moving in with family isn’t an option. She has three children as well. The homes family members live in are already filled to capacity as all of them have children as well. Due to “Biden’s inflation,” Angel said families are already consolidating, moving in together to get by. With parents on both sides deceased, there is just no place else to go.
Angel and Kenneth Harrelson’s children, Aimes, Nate, and Trey on Christmas day 2021. (Courtesy of Angel Harrelson)
“I have friends,” Angel said. “But going to my friends, I would feel like a big burden.”
Joseph McBride, an attorney for several other Jan. 6 prisoners and defendants, says this latest effort to punish the “political prisoners” and their families is “disgusting.”
“I heard about this. That’s a big story,” McBride told The Epoch Times. “This is disgusting. It’s completely [expletive] up. Kenny Harrelson is entitled to his benefits. He’s merely been accused of a crime and the idea he is going to be stripped of his military medical benefits is without question a violation of his due process rights. That’s crazy. It’s a disgrace. It’s an absolute disgrace. He’s accused and presumed innocent until proven guilty and his family is certainly innocent. All of this is absolutely horrific.”
Cynthia Hughes of the Patriot Freedom Project agrees.
“This is a woman who has three children. Her husband is medically disabled and she relies on that,” Hughes told The Epoch Times. “Her husband is in jail. The government refuses to let him have a bond. He can’t be home preparing for his trial with his wife. He can’t meet with his own attorney and this is all she has to keep her family in that house. What is she supposed to do now? Some people will say she needs to run out and get a job but it’s just not that simple. I think the government is doing everything it can to a Trump supporter that is going to create the most hardship … and here it is. Here’s the harm. They don’t care about the collateral damage and the collateral damage in this are women and children. It’s truly disgusting. This government should be ashamed of themselves. I can tell you this, we will make sure the Patriot Freedom Project helps the Harrelson family as much as it can.”
In closing the interview, Gohmert made note of how the letter from the VA was unsigned.
“Somebody knew what they were doing when they sent that letter without a signature, without a name,” Gohmert posited. “That’s the kind of hiding behind a federal position you get when you have evil, abusive, vindictive people in federal employment. They knew what they were doing when they sent that without a signature and without their name on it. That should make them feel a little more Kafkaesque, just anonymously charging people. Hopefully, we can clean up the government and get rid of people who are abusing their positions and doing so vindictively, like whoever sent this letter. They weren’t even following the law. They’re abusing the law, abusing their position, and hiding behind anonymity. These are the kinds of people who need to be gone from the federal employment.”
The Epoch Times reached out to the DOJ, the VA, and specifically to Jeremy Van Cleave but received no response.
Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) is a debilitating disease that disconnects the afflicted from reality. Although most are either born with or have developed a natural immunity to this sickness, there are still those who attempt to spread the infection.
It now appears that Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in the Trump administration, has come down with an acute case of TDS. The only cure might just be some time in jail.
Rep. Liz Cheney displayed a handwritten note at Tuesday’s Jan. 6 committee hearing that Hutchinson testified she wrote after Mark Meadows handed her a note card and pen to take his dictation, according to ABC News. Eric Herschmann, a former Trump White House lawyer, claims the note was written by him.
Hutchinson, testifying about the note, said, “That’s a note that I wrote at the direction of the chief of staff on Jan. 6, likely around 3 o’clock.”
“And it’s written on the chief of staff note card, but that’s your handwriting, Ms. Hutchinson?” Rep. Liz Cheney then asked.
“That’s my handwriting,” Hutchinson answered.
A spokesperson for Herschmann told ABC News on Tuesday evening, “The handwritten note that Cassidy Hutchinson testified was written by her was in fact written by Eric Herschmann on Jan. 6, 2021. All sources with direct knowledge and law enforcement have and will confirm that it was written by Mr. Herschmann,” the representative said.
Hmmm. Who to believe?
Hutchinson also testified that Tony Ornato, former Trump Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, told her that former President Donald Trump repeatedly demanded that the Secret Service take him to the Capitol on Jan. 6, according to FOX News.
Hutchinson also said that Ornato told her that Trump lunged at a Secret Service agent and tried to grab the wheel of the presidential SUV.
Ornato, on the other hand, says he did not brief Hutchinson. A source close to Ornato told Fox News that Ornato watched the hearing and was distraught when Hutchinson made the allegation about the steering wheel. To top it off, Ornato wasn’t even in the presidential SUV when the alleged incident was supposed to have happened.
Both Bobby Engel, the top agent on Trump’s Secret Service detail — who was in the SUV — and Ornato testified to the Jan. 6 Committee in private over the past year, according to Fox.
Neither Engel nor Ornato brought up anything about a steering wheel. Both are willing to testify that Trump did not grab or try to grab the wheel. The unnamed driver of the SUV will also cooperate with the committee if asked.
Judging by the Jan. 6 Committee’s refusal to have witnesses cross-examined by reputable Republicans like Jim Jordan and Jim Banks — who were not allowed on the committee — it’s doubtful that Ornato and others who dispute Hutchinson’s claims will be called by the committee. It wouldn’t suit their tendentious tactics.
It’s also doubtful that Hutchinson will be charged with lying to Congress under oath. Her testimony is, at best, hearsay. She claims that she was relating what she had heard from someone else. In other words, she didn’t actually witness anything at all.
Nevertheless, U.S. Code sections 1621 of Title 18 stipulate that anyone who “willfully and contrary to such oath states or subscribes any material matter which he does not believe to be true” is guilty of perjury and shall be fined or imprisoned up to five years, or both.
Section 1001 stipulated that “whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the government of the United States, knowingly and willfully” falsifies or conceals information before a congressional committee may be fined or imprisoned up to five years.
Why would Hutchinson lie and in doing so risk jail time? Who knows? TDS comes with strange symptoms.
Take Liz Cheney for example. She recently reached out to Democratic voters in Wyoming asking them to register as Republicans to vote for her in the upcoming primary election. Surely some Dems in Wyoming have TDS, but not enough to stop Republican Harriet Hageman from handily winning the election.
Why would Cheney bother with such a futile move? It’s embarrassing.
Why would the Jan. 6 Committee commit to humiliating itself time and again on national television? Due process has been blatantly thrown out the door. Propping up young witnesses like Cassidy Hutchinson to be chopped down by the facts and witnesses waiting just outside the committee doors disintegrates any inkling of legitimacy the committee crazily believes they possess.
TDS can’t run its course soon enough. Some, like Liz Cheney and Adam Schiff, will probably never recover from it. But they, too, must pass. It’s actually sad to watch.
It’s almost as if the Jan. 6 Committee is chock-full of masochists.
Dozens of progressive prosecutors, many of them funded by left-wing billionaire George Soros, have signed onto an open letter signaling their intention to defy state laws that would impose limits on abortion.
Since Friday, 87 prosecutors have signed a letter published by Fair and Just Prosecution, a Soros-funded progressive legal nonprofit, stating that they will “decline to use our offices’ resources to criminalize reproductive health decisions and commit to exercise our wellsettled discretion and refrain from prosecuting those who seek, provide, or support abortions.” Twenty-eight of the document’s 87 signatories, roughly a third, have ties to Soros, per the Washington Free Beacon‘s analysis, having either received direct contributions from the billionaire or been championed by his network of political organizations.
Soros has spent tens of millions of dollars over the past decade to get candidates aligned with him elected as top prosecutors. The Free Beaconreported that Soros has helped elect prosecutors in half of the United States’ largest legal jurisdictions. Many of the areas where Soros-backed candidates have won now face issues with rising crime.
The prosecutors who signed the letter hail from 30 states and the District of Columbia, with millions of Americans under their jurisdiction.
“Enforcing abortion bans runs counter to the obligations and interests we are sworn to uphold,” the letter reads. “It will erode trust in the legal system, hinder our ability to hold perpetrators accountable, take resources away from the enforcement of serious crime, and inevitably lead to the retraumatization and criminalization of victims of sexual violence.”
Prosecuting violations of abortion laws represents a “mockery of justice” that “prosecutors should not be part of,” the letter concludes.
Many of the prosecutors who signed the letter have taken fire for being soft on crime and letting free offenders who went on to commit grievous crimes. Los Angeles County district attorney George Gascón lessened penalties for repeat offenders within his jurisdiction and was later sued by the union representing the county’s deputy district attorneys over the policy changes. San Francisco district attorney Chesa Boudin is also a signatory of the letter. Boudin was defeated in a recall election earlier this month after critics accused him of being too soft on crime.
Soros darling prosecutors in Northern Virginia also featured among the letter’s signatories. Constituents have launched recall campaigns against county prosecutors Steve Descano, Buta Biberaj, and Parisa Dehghani-Tafti for mishandling cases and letting serial offenders back on the streets.
Senate hopeful peddles dangerous stereotype, shows no remorse
Vanity Fair, the magazine that launched Beto O’Rourke’s failed 2020 presidential campaign, has published a profile of Rep. Val Demings (D., Fla.), the frontrunner to win her party’s nomination and lose to Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) in the state’s election for the Senate.
The article opens with an outrageous anecdote that no legitimate opponent of racism could read without literally shaking. Demings was caught red-handed peddling a racist stereotype, which as we all know is indistinguishable from physical violence. The candidate’s praise for the story suggests she has absolutely no remorse for her destructive actions.
The racist incident took place at a diner in Lake County, where Demings “milled about with twinkling eyes” before being approached by “a white man with sparse grays and a stubbly beard [who] grabbed her right hand.” Here is reporter Rita Omokha’s chilling account of the racist act:
“Miss Demings?” he said, locking eyes.
“Yes?”
Her staffers stood more erect.
“I want to ask you—” the man began.
More stares.
“Can I pray for you?” the man asked, his voice soft, his gaze on Demings as he cradled her hands.
Her staffers’ shoulders dropped in relief. In a town where Confederate flags fly freely, in a state that increasingly restricts LGBTQ+, reproductive, and voting rights, and bans history books while its Republican officials call a mob attack on the Capitol legitimate political discourse, their fear of the worst-case scenario was no exaggeration.
The sweet old man bowed his head and closed his eyes. He proceeded to pray, unfazed by the bigoted assault on his white body. “God, I ask that you watch over Miss Demings as she rides her motorcycle. That you keep your hand of protection on her, guide her, and encourage her. We bless your name. In Jesus’s name. Amen.”
Demings “dwelled on that encounter” hours later during a debrief with campaign staffers and “reflected on how stereotypes can creep in unexpectedly, even when we know better.” She appeared to accept at least some responsibility for her actions, but resisted a deep reckoning with the harm she had inflicted on an innocent man. “What I felt, it wasn’t him, it was me,” she said. “I looked at him and thought about the people that broke into the Capitol.”
The reporter didn’t bother to examine the pain that sweet old man must have felt after being racially victimized by an elected official. All he wanted to do was pray, but Demings couldn’t see past his white skin. In the courtroom of her racist mind, he was just another QAnon Shaman fomenting insurrection, presumed guilty of a treasonous crime along with every other white man.
That’s unacceptable. The citizens of Florida deserve better.
The U.S. Senate sergeant-at-arms who oversaw Senate security during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol incursion died Monday at 71.
News of former U.S. Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Michael Stenger’s death was first reported by Politico.
Stenger, a veteran of the Marine corps, had served for 35 years in the Secret Service before joining the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms team in 2011, according to Politico.
During his time with the SAA team, Stenger had worked on matters related to security and continuity before his promotion as former Sergeant-at-Arms Drew Willison’s deputy. In 2018, Stenger became Sergeant-at-Arms.
Stenger helped ensure the smooth functioning of the Senate during the last three years of former President Donald Trump’s administration.
His responsibilities ranged from overseeing the technological needs of the upper chamber of Congress and also serving as its chief law enforcement officer tasked with managing its security.
Stenger resigned from his duties as Sergeant-at-Arms a day after Jan. 6, 2021, Daily Mail reported.
During the time of his resignation, Stenger faced criticism over how he managed the situation during the time of the incursion, according to the outlet.
When the New York Post had reached out to Stenger’s home in Falls Church, Virginia, on Tuesday morning, a woman answered the call.
“The family is not here, it’s nobody’s business,” the lady said, refusing the Post’s request for comment on Stenger’s death. “It has nothing to do with Jan. 6 at all.”
Stenger’s death came a day before the Jan. 6 Committee’s Tuesday surprise witness hearing, where the committee heard Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, testify.
During the hearing, Hutchinson, among her other claims, alleged that Trump knew that some among the crowd at the Capitol were calling for former Vice President Mike Pence to be hanged, according to reporting from NPR.
Hutchinson claimed that she heard Meadows respond to reports of the crowd calling for violence against Pence by saying that Trump thought Pence deserved it.
Other allegations Hutchinson made included claims that Trump grabbed the steering vehicle of the presidential limousine and demanded that he be taken to the Capitol when the incursion was occurring, NPR reported.
Stenger had also testified before Congress on the events that transpired on Jan. 6, 2021.
During a February 2021 hearing with the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Stenger had called for the investigation of the role of “professional agitators” during the incursion, Daily Mail reported.
“There is an opportunity to learn lessons from the events of Jan. 6,” Stenger told the committee, according to the outlet.
“Investigations should be considered as to funding and travel of what appears to be professional agitators,” Stenger said.
“First Amendment rights should always be considered in conjunction with professional investigations.”
Feds claim Harvard-educated lawyer and former attorney general of Michigan was ignorant of law that prohibits federal employees from political activity
The U.S. Office of Special Counsel says Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm violated the Hatch Act when she participated in an interview with a Democratic billionaire’s daughter and implored viewers to vote for Democrats.
The government investigation found that Granholm “engaged in activity directed at the success of the Democratic Party” during the interview, which was first identified as a potential Hatch Act violation by the WashingtonFree Beacon last October. The Hatch Act forbids federal employees from participating in political campaigns. In the interview for Marie Claire magazine with Emily Tisch Sussman—the daughter of billionaire political donor Donald Sussman—Granholm said the most important thing viewers could do is vote for Democrats.
“I am using Democrats as a substitute for the policies that you believe in, the policies that you would like to see happen,” Granholm said. “And what I say to people all the time is the most important thing you can do is make your voice heard. Vote!”
Though the government investigation found Granholm guilty of violating the Hatch Act, it said it chose not to levy any punishment because the Biden administration had failed to train Granholm on the Hatch Act, the letter explains.
“Although the [Office of Special Counsel] concluded Secretary Granholm violated the Hatch Act, the evidence gathered during our investigation does not support the conclusion that it was a knowing violation,” the letter states. “Specifically, OSC learned that, before the interview, she had not received significant training about the Hatch Act’s use of official authority prohibition.”
Erica Hamrick, deputy chief of the Special Counsel’s Hatch Act Unit and author of the letter on Granholm’s violation, did not respond to an inquiry on Granholm’s ignorance of the law.
It is unclear how it was determined that Granholm was unaware of the prohibition on using her official position on electioneering. Granholm is a lawyer and has significant legal experience—she has a law degree from Harvard Law School, was a clerk for a U.S. Court of Appeals judge, and worked as an assistant U.S. Attorney before she served as Michigan’s attorney general.
Granholm, in fact, referenced the Hatch Act during the interview in which she violated the act, saying that it prohibited her from making explicitly political statements during the interview.
“I’m subject to something called the Hatch Act, which means I can’t advocate for people to call their Members of Congress,” Granholm said. “If I weren’t subject to the Hatch Act, I’m sure you know I would be, but I am so I can’t do that.”
Hamrick says in the letter that Granholm has “received comprehensive Hatch Act training” since her Marie Claire interview.
The initial complaint against Granholm was filed by the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, which cited the Free Beacon‘s reporting in its call for an investigation.
A South Carolina state lawmaker who was on the June 28 ballot in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary runoff has been heard in leaked audio strategizing on how to utilize Democratic “sleepers” to run as Republicans in local elections, as well as requesting drug money from a state prison inmate.
Project Veritas, the watchdog organization that obtained the recording, confirmed to The Epoch Times that it verified state Rep. Krystle Matthews was the person speaking with Perry Correctional Institution inmate David Solomon Ballard.
“When we get enough of us in there, we can wreak havoc for real from the inside out,” Matthews is heard saying in the recording, dated Feb. 15.
Inmate phone calls are recorded, and those making the call are notified by an operator that calls are recorded.
It’s unclear what the relationship is between Matthews and Ballard, who in 2018 began a four-year sentence for threatening the life and family of a public official, and a 10-year sentence for resisting arrest and assaulting an officer, with multiple disciplinary actions taken against him since his incarceration. He also has an extensive arrest record.
Ballard had been jailed for threatening the life of Aiken County Sheriff Mike Hunt and his family, according to The State.
While in custody at the Aiken County Department of Public Safety, Ballard then assaulted a State Law Enforcement Division agent.
‘Secret Sleepers’
Matthews was elected to state office in 2018 as a representative of District 117.
“We need some secret sleepers,” she is heard saying. “Like, you need, we need them to run as the other side, even though they for our side, and we need them to win.
“We need people to run as Republicans in these local elections.”
Ballard agrees, saying, “Right, right.”
After discussing how sleepers could “change the dynamics in South Carolina,” Matthews goes on to complain about raising money for her campaign, saying she doesn’t care if she obtains “dope money.”
“Gimmie that dope boy money,” Matthews says, before telling Ballard to find her someone from his family to donate money to her campaign in their name.
Matthews then alluded to types “of black people.”
“I don’t recognize these black people,” Matthews said, and referred to herself as “a [racial slur] at heart.”
Matthews also said there needs to be people who can take yard signs down at night while people are sleeping.
Matthews didn’t respond to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.
A New York Supreme Court judge ruled on June 27 that a recently passed New York City law that extends voting rights in municipal elections to noncitizens is unconstitutional.
In December 2021, the New York City Council passed the “Our City, Our Vote” measure in a 33–14 vote. It was signed into law by then-Mayor Bill de Blasio and took effect in January, allowing foreign nationals who legally reside and work in the city to register to vote at the municipal level. The law doesn’t apply to state or federal elections.
The measure effectively created more than 800,000 new voters who would have been able to cast ballots in next year’s city council election.
A coalition of mostly Republican voters and elected officials challenged the law in court shortly after its enactment. Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella, a Republican endorsed by former President Donald Trump, argued in the complaint that the law is in conflict with New York state’s own constitution.
The case was heard earlier this month by state Supreme Court Justice Ralph Porzio. In his June 27 ruling, Porzio sided with the plaintiffs, stressing that U.S. citizenship is a prerequisite to being able to vote in New York.
“The New York State Constitution expressly states that citizens meeting the age and residency requirements are entitled to register and vote in elections,” Porzio wrote, emphasizing the word “citizens.”
“Though voting is a right so many citizens take for granted, the City of New York cannot obviate the restrictions imposed by the Constitution.”
In the complaint, the plaintiffs argued that the law would “dilute” the power of citizens’ votes and force elected officials to change the way they campaign and could possibly hurt their chances of winning future elections. Porzio found these arguments plausible.
“The weight of the citizens’ vote will be diluted by municipal voters and candidates and political parties alike will need to reconfigure their campaigns,” the justice wrote. “Though Plaintiffs have not suffered harm today, the harm they will suffer is imminent.”
New York City Council Minority Leader Joseph Borelli, a Republican representing Staten Island’s South Shore, applauded the ruling.
“Today’s decision validates those of us who can read the plain English words of our state constitution and state statutes: Noncitizen voting in New York is illegal, and shame on those who thought they could skirt the law for political gain,” he said in a statement.
“Opposition to this measure was bipartisan and cut across countless neighborhood and ethnic lines, yet progressives chose to ignore both our constitution and public sentiment in order to suit their aims. I commend the court in recognizing reality and reminding New York’s professional protestor class that the rule of law matters.”
‘We can’t have secret units doing secret surveillance of people that have committed no crime, no probable cause of a crime. Just getting blanket surveillance.’
As previously reported in an exclusive June 20 report, evidence proves that “plainclothes” members of a special Electronic Surveillance Unit (ESU) were embedded among Jan. 6, 2021, protesters for the purposes of conducting video surveillance. According to experts, one believes the activity itself may have been against the law. The other contends it was done for the purpose of entrapment.
Against the Law?
Speaking as a former prosecutor and three-term District Judge, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) told The Epoch Times, “if you’re going to have electronic surveillance of people there has to be warrants.”
As Gohmert explained, “FISA courts have granted warrants,” with “no particular clarity” and “no probable cause that a crime’s been committed or that this person engaged in a crime.”
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) was established under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). “Pursuant to FISA,” the FISC website explains, “the Court entertains applications submitted by the United States Government for approval of electronic surveillance, physical search, and other investigative actions for foreign intelligence purposes.”
Regarding domestic electronic surveillance, the Department of Justice (DOJ) website, “Because of the well-recognized intrusive nature of many types of electronic surveillance, especially wiretaps and ‘bugs,’ and the Fourth Amendment implications of the government’s use of these devices in the course of its investigations, the relevant statutes (and related Department of Justice guidelines) provide restrictions on the use of most electronic surveillance, including the requirement that a high-level Department official specifically approve the use of many of these types of electronic surveillance prior to an Assistant United States Attorney obtaining a court order authorizing interception.”
Furthermore, “when court authorization for video surveillance is deemed necessary, it should be obtained by way of an application and order predicated on Fed. R. Crim. P. 41(b) and the All Writs Act (28 U.S.C. § 1651). The application and order should be based on an affidavit that establishes probable cause to believe that evidence of a Federal crime will be obtained by the surveillance. In addition, the affidavit should comply with certain provisions of the Federal electronic surveillance statutes.”
Gohmert surmised: “When you see confirmed judges are just willing to completely abrogate the U.S. Constitution because they’re the star chamber of the secret court, and they figure nobody will ever find out what they’re doing, then you know when you see there’s an Electronic Surveillance Unit, well, something’s not right.”
Gohmert’s concerns with the ESU surveillance are two-fold:
Were the legally required warrants obtained?
If so, how could a judge approve a warrant for surveillance before a crime has been committed and with no probable cause?
“We can’t have secret units doing secret surveillance of people that have committed no crime, no probable cause of a crime. Just getting blanket surveillance,” Gohmert asserted. “We don’t know what kind of warrant they had or even if they had warrants. But to deploy Electronic Surveillance Units tells us there’s a lot more here that we need to find out about and obviously it’s not going to be uncovered at least for another six months.”
But Gohmert added that “there is also more information we haven’t gotten and information that continues to leak out drip by drip.”
“Like this in [article] The Epoch Times,” Gohmert noted, “pointing out how until the deployment of munitions, the crowd was peaceful. I had heard from people and seen people interviewed saying there wasn’t any violence out there. ‘We were just mulling around, chanting stuff from time to time, then they started firing on us with tear gas and provoked the crowd.’ They created chaos, and you just wonder what was going on.”
The Evidence
Evidence of the embedded ESU members was discovered in a Jan. 3, 2021, First Amendment Demonstrations report, issued by Chief of Police Robert Contee of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), Homeland Security Bureau, Special Operations Division, obtained exclusively by The Epoch Times. While it is unclear who the MPD ESU “members” were, the report stated they wore a specific “bracelet on their left wrist identifying them as MPD personnel” among the protesters. Of the 37 “Specialized Units” listed as part of the MPD, an ESU is not among them.
Photo of bracelet worn by plainclothes members of the Metropolitan Police Department’s Electronic Surveillance Unit, embedded in the crowds on Jan. 6, 2021 to “document the actions of the demonstrators and MPD’s response to any civil disobedience or criminal activity.” (Metropolitan Police Department First Amendment Demonstrations report.)
Also in the report, revealed now for the first time, was the advisory that the Special Operations Division “will have personnel to assist with this detail and will assist with any demonstration.” Among them were Domestic Security Officers, or DSOs.
Under the heading of “Special Operations Division — Deployment Requirements,” the report said “the Incident Commander” shall ensure that specific objectives were “adhered to.” Among those is the order that “Long Range Acoustical Device (LRAD) – The LRAD along with the warning sheets shall be deployed by the DSO members along with the munitions load out and arrest kits.”
Domestic Security Officers (pdf) are also part of Homeland Security’s Special Operations Division.
According to The Focus, the DSO “can be heard shouted on audio recordings of the Capitol siege, when law enforcement officers needed additional support against the oncoming masses.”
“DSOs are primarily used as riot police, to dole out such crowd control measures as tear gas, pepper spray, batons and rubber bullets intended to disperse rioters. Their weapons can be lethal and are only to be used in the most extreme circumstances.”
Video evidence shows an unidentified individual handing weapons to people through a window from inside the Capitol building.
Joseph McBride, an attorney for multiple January 6 prisoners and defendants identified a man tagged by “Sedition Hunters” as “Red-Faced 45.” The man McBride says is “clearly law enforcement,” was dressed in red from head to toe—with even his face painted red. He appears in a video engaging in continuous dialogue with others whom McBride also insists are agents embedded in the crowd.
“He passes out weapons, sledgehammers, poles, mace. Some of those things come in contact with some of the other protesters who have subsequently been charged with possessing dangerous weapons and are using dangerous weapons at the Capitol. That is clearly entrapment.
That is clearly the government creating conditions of dangerousness and entrapping members of the crowd to possess weapons and possibly use them for reasons that we cannot comprehend.”
According to a 140-page report issued by then-Capitol Police Inspector General Michael Bolton—”Review of the Events Surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, Takeover of the U.S. Capitol”—Capitol Police’s Civil Disturbance Unit was ordered by supervisors not to use the department’s most powerful tools, like stun guns. Also, “heavier, less-lethal weapons,” including stun grenades, “were not used that day because of orders from leadership.”
However, the “UNITED STATES CAPITOL POLICE TIMELINE OF EVENTS FOR JANUARY 6, 2021 ATTACK,” also obtained by The Epoch Times, says “Less lethal munitions” were “deployed to Center Steps” at 1:59 p.m. after “Insurrectionists breach Inauguration Stage and begin tearing things down” and “breach barrier at the north side of the plaza.”
It does not specify if these munitions were “flash bangs” or “tear gas.”
Screenshot from UNITED STATES CAPITOL POLICE TIMELINE OF EVENTS FOR JANUARY 6, 2021 ATTACK showing the moment “less lethal munitions” were “deployed to center steps.” (Obtained by The Epoch Times)
Prior to the deployment of munitions, a video shown on Red Voice Media shows that at 1:05 p.m., an unnamed officer is repeatedly encouraging people to climb onto the bleachers of the inaugural stage.
Tear gas fired into the crowd of pro-Trump protesters well before the violence began on Jan. 6, 2021. Even with the tear gas, the crowd remained orderly. (Courtesy of J. Michael Waller)
From multiple eyewitness accounts and video evidence, the crowds were relatively peaceful and calm until after munitions were launched and rubber bullets were fired into the crowd.
Video footage shows flash grenades being launched into a group of protesters, consisting of women, children, and elderly people, who were standing peacefully behind barriers. According to American Greatness, Capitol Police were also firing on the crowd with rubber bullets. The approximate time of the confrontation was around 1:36 p.m.
A gallery slideshow from TMZ, reporting damage “after Capitol riots” shows damage only to the fabric, not the bleachers themselves.
The evidence raises the questions:
Are the DSOs, rather than Capitol Hill police or the MPD, the ones who launched flash bangs into the crowd?
Are DSOs the ones seen in videos doling out weapons to people in the crowd?
What about the LRAD?
According to Acentech, a company with 70 years of acoustic expertise, “LRAD systems are a type of Acoustic Hailing Device (AHD), used to send messages over long distances. LRAD systems produce much higher sound levels (volume) than normal loudspeakers or megaphones.”
Over shorter distances, LRAD signals are loud enough to cause pain in the ears of people in their path. LRAD systems have recently been used by police as “sonic weapons” to break up crowds. At first blush, the use of noise rather than physical force might seem like a safe, non-lethal way to move and direct crowds, but if used improperly they can cause permanent hearing damage.
There does not appear to be any evidence that the LRAD was deployed.
Outrageous Government Conduct
According to Joseph McBride, the attorney for several Jan. 6 prisoners and defendants, “if they had memos that preexisted January 6, that the D.C. Police and/or the FBI or the CIA or anybody else had the time to organize and send operatives or undercovers into the crowd whether it was to collect evidence or to videotape or for any other legitimate or illegitimate purpose, this, by definition would be they had foreknowledge of what was going to happen.”
McBride added that “they could have and should have and most likely didn’t, share that information with the relative authorities.”
By comparison to the ill-prepared CDU and unused National Guard during Jan. 6, in anticipation of violent protests regarding the leaked Supreme revealing the likely overturn of Roe v. Wade, McBride noted how security was heightened and law enforcement was quick to fortify the Supreme Court building with tall fencing.
U.S. Capitol Police guard a security fence surrounding the Supreme Court in Washington on June 8, 2022. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)
“They did not do that on January 6,” Mc Bride said.” The question is—Why?”
To McBride, Jan. 6 easily clears the high bar set to prove the rare defense known as “outrageous government conduct.”
“In most cases,” Doug Murphy Law explains on its website, “the courts presume that the government is acting reasonably when they pursue criminal charges against an individual.”
“As long as the federal government’s intentions are good, the courts will not prevent a case from moving forward. However, some conduct by the federal government is so outrageous that moving forward with a criminal prosecution violates a defendant’s due process rights. This is a high bar to prove, as it must involve acts so fundamentally unfair that justice would prevent a criminal prosecution.”
“In layman’s terms,” McBride said “it has to do with when the government behaves in a way that’s so outrageous and so out of bounds of what is decent and normal that, but for their participation, things would have happened differently that day.”
Considering the mounting evidence from eyewitness accounts that law enforcement was directly involved in encouraging, inviting, provoking, instigating, participating, and trying to cover up the truth about the origins of the violence on Jan. 6, it becomes a legitimate defense to anyone who may be charged with crimes related to Jan. 6 “because the government was engaged in a bunch of things that rose to the level of being outrageous,” McBride asserted.
“Their job is to prevent things from happening. What happened was they participated in making things happen, with advanced knowledge, and therefore, they themselves are on the hook. You can’t say John Doe and Jane Doe are going to be charged with January 6-related crimes But officer X and Officer Y, who did the same thing, are going to get a pass because they are with the government. That [expletive] doesn’t fly.”
Entrapment
“My Spidey senses tell me they used the documentation of things through surveillance was for the purposes of entrapment. The idea of an Electronic Surveillance Unit roaming through a crown is highly dubious. The only time I have ever seen law enforcement do this, they have almost always been accused of doing this to rile up the crowd,” said McBride.
Julie Kelly—a political consultant in Illinois and senior contributor for American Greatness—described Jan. 6, 2021, as “an inside job” and “something Democrats and some Republicans and federal agencies put together to entice” and “entrap” people who went to hear former President Donald Trump’s speech. She further noted that the FBI used agents to try to infiltrate the so-called militia groups. Jeremy Brown exposed a video of FBI Terrorist Task Force agents attempting to recruit him to spy on fellow Oath Keepers.
McBride described first-hand how he saw people in the crowd “at the tunnel entrance” on Jan. 6 “videotaping all over the place.”
“They were cops, clearly,” he insisted.” They were working in concert with other people in the crowd who were causing discord, using hand signals. There were people there causing the fights and there were people videoing it. The job of a police officer is to prevent crime. It’s not to record it. If something is happening, you prevent it from happening. The fact that they let it happen and sowed up only to record it, it has entrapment written all over it.”
2022 Elections
Despite what Gohmert sees as lies, injustice, and mounting unanswered questions surrounding Jan. 6, he believes the turning of the tide is dependent upon who comes out of the 2022 primary elections with control of the House and Senate, and until Congress can “properly addresses the unconstitutionality of federal judges granting warrants that never should have been granted,” Gohmert said, “this kind of stuff is going to go on.”
“If Republicans get the majority back we have got to get to the bottom of these matters,” Gohmert vowed. “There won’t be any way to undo the jail sentences of these people who were illegally entrapped. But there will be a way to put people in jail that committed crimes in order to create the chaos.”
Still, there is one of the questions that nags Gohmert.
“Since we know there were provocations on January 6 and we know that there were people that were provided weapons from people that may have been planted by the federal government, you can’t help but wonder, how many Democrats if any, who are making the most noise now about the horrors of January 6, knew that this was a setup?”
The Epoch Times reached out to the MPD for comment.
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.
May 2021 interviews with Indiana leader say there was no plan to attack U.S. Capitol or interfere with transfer of power
An Indiana Oath Keepers leader who was in charge of security operations for the group in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, was indicted by a federal grand jury on June 24 on five counts related to violence at the U.S. Capitol.
Michael Greene, 39, of Indianapolis, was arrested in Indiana on a warrant from Washington. An indictment unsealed June 24 charges Greene with conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an official proceeding (aiding and abetting), conspiracy to prevent an officer from discharging any duties, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, and tampering with documents or proceedings (aiding and abetting).
Greene was added to a superseding indictment against seven other Oath Keepers, including Donovan Crowl, Sandra Parker, Bennie Parker, Laura Steele, Connie Meggs, William Isaacs, and James Beeks.
Greene, who also goes by the name Michael Simmons, is not accused of seditious conspiracy, a charge leveled in a different indictment against nine Oath Keepers, including the group’s founder, Elmer Stewart Rhodes III.
Rhodes and his eight co-defendants were named in the latest 13-count superseding indictment unsealed in Washington, also on June 24. The other defendants in the seditious conspiracy case include Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson, Jessica Watkins, Roberto Minuta, Joseph Hackett, David Moerschel, Thomas Caldwell, and Edward Vallejo.
The overarching cases against the Oath Keepers allege the group conspired to prevent the counting of Electoral College votes by a joint session of the U.S. Congress at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The goal, according to federal prosecutors, was to keep then-President Donald J. Trump in office and prevent Joseph R. Biden Jr. from assuming the presidency.
All of the current 17 Oath Keepers defendants have pleaded not guilty to all charges. Defense attorneys say the indictments are a vast misreading and twisting of communications between group members who came to Washington to do nothing more than keep event participants safe from attacks by Antifa radicals.
“At 1:42 p.m. on January 6, Greene sent a text message to an acquaintance stating, ‘Storming the capital’ (sic) along with a photograph that depicted the advancing mob on the west side of the Capitol grounds,” the Department of Justice stated in a news release. “Greene communicated with Rhodes and others during the afternoon. At about 3:09 p.m., Greene texted an acquaintance, ‘Congress evacuated.’”
FBI Notes Contradict Indictments
Greene’s indictment surprised some case observers, coming nearly 13 months after he was interviewed by FBI agents regarding his participation with the Oath Keepers at events in various cities. As a key leader at the D.C. events on Jan. 6, his input cited in the FBI reports contradicts much of what is alleged against Rhodes and other Oath Keepers defendants.
According to the FBI’s case notes from interviews with Greene on May 4 and May 25, 2021, he told agents there was no Oath Keepers plan to attack the U.S. Capitol. His role on Jan. 6 was to oversee security for speakers at various events at or near the Capitol, he said. Oath Keepers who entered the Capitol building did not do so at his instruction or that of Rhodes, he told agents.
Greene, who was identified in the redacted FBI notes as “Person 10,” told agents his job “was providing VIP security at select stages … where ‘protectees’ would be giving speeches.”
“The security detail encompassed stage security and the protection of those individuals as they returned to their vehicles,” the FBI report said. “Person 10 cited the need for this protection after the Trump rally in December [2020] when individuals had been attacked by Antifa as they were leaving the rally.”
Greene was standing with Rhodes near a downed fence on the northeast side of the Capitol during part of the afternoon of Jan. 6, the report said. “Person 10 learned afterwards OKs had entered the U.S. Capitol, however, advised no plan by the OKs included anyone going inside the U.S. Capitol.”
In his FBI interviews, Greene said the message he sent out stating “they have taken ground at the capital (sic)” was an effort to get the Oath Keepers to regroup and leave the area of the Capitol building.
An Oath Keepers member gets in between a protester and a Capitol Police officer during a tense exchange in the Small House Rotunda on Jan. 6, 2021. (Stephen Horn/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)
Greene also told FBI agents that no Oath Keepers assaulted any law enforcement personnel or forced their way into the Capitol. “Person 10 heard the door was open and the group walked in,” the FBI report said.
One group of Oath Keepers climbed the east steps of the Capitol below the historic Columbus Doors and went inside the Rotunda. Some of those Oath Keepers intervened in a potentially deadly standoff between a U.S. Capitol Police officer and a group of angry protesters inside the Small House Rotunda, witnesses reported.
Oath Keepers Prevent Shooting?
“Meggs allegedly told Person 10 that Meggs entered the U.S. Capitol to assist police, and those OKs who went inside assisted a police officer who was being surrounded by the crowd,” the FBI report said.
Video shot by independent journalist Stephen Horn shows Oath Keepers standing between the police officer and protesters. During the chaotic scene, a man was heard saying, “Kill everybody, right?” A female voice responded shortly after, “We don’t want to kill anybody. We want answers. We don’t want to kill anybody. We just want answers.”
In an interview with The Epoch Times in March, Rhodes said Meggs reported the Capitol Police officer was in a shooting stance and likely mere seconds away from firing on protesters in the small rotunda.
Another group of Oath Keepers ascended the east Capitol steps on Jan. 6 at the request of U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Tarik Johnson, who asked them to help rescue a group of officers trapped in the Capitol. The Oath Keepers later emerged and escorted 16 officers in riot gear out of the Capitol. The rescue operation was documented by amateur filmmaker Rico La Starza.
Capitol Police Lt. Tarik Johnson and two members of the Oath Keepers enter the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to rescue 17 trapped police officers. (Rico La Starza, Archive.org/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)
Prosecutors allege in the Oath Keepers indictments that a group of Oath Keepers remained on standby in Virginia as a “Quick Reaction Force” (QRF) to assist with an attack on the Capitol. Greene told FBI agents, however, that was not the purpose of the QRF.
“Person 10 advised if utilized, the purpose of the QRF would have been to evacuate ‘protectees,’ the injured and/or assist in the extraction of OKs if attacked by Antifa or others,” the report said.
Greene said neither he nor Rhodes mentioned bringing weapons into Washington or using boats in a Quick Reaction Force operation. No Oath Keepers are charged with possessing firearms at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
According to the report, Greene told FBI agents there was never an Oath Keepers discussion to take violent action on Jan. 6 or later if the presidential election “did not produce the desired result.”
Greene said there was no planning for Oath Keepers to incite rioting or forcibly enter the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. There was also no planning to disrupt the transition of the presidency from Trump to Biden, Greene said, according to the report.
I thank God that Roe v Wade and Planned Parenthood v Casey were overturned this morning.
Those decisions were disastrous for America and led to the slaughter of over 60 million American babies.
America is one of only four countries in the world that have allowed for barbaric late-term abortion laws, and the company we’ve kept over these last few decades is embarrassing. The other three countries are Canada, North Korea and China.
That says enough.
While six bold justices overturned Roe, our fight is just beginning, and we have to fill the ranks of Congress and our state legislatures with men and women who value life and are strong enough to stand up to the unhinged Left as they go on the attack.
I am one of those fighters who stands for LIFE, and I will NEVER back down from that position.
As a woman, my “reproductive rights” are not infringed by this decision as the Left wants us to believe. It’s pretty damn simple . . . if a woman doesn’t want a child, don’t engage in activities that will get you pregnant!
The feminists on the Left are filled with hate and rage, but there’s a reason for that. There’s a saying that when a person does not have the courage to face their shame, that shame turns to anger.
Advocating for the murder of children is shameful. And the Left will never face their shame.
The Left dehumanizes children by promoting abortion on demand, while at the same time having the audacity to advocate for unconstitutional gun control laws, by invoking the names and faces of children killed in school shootings.
Make no mistake . . . the LEFT loves dead kids and loves killing children, because without dead kids, the Democrat Party knows that law-abiding Americans would never buy into their radical, unconstitutional, and pro-death legislation which includes stripping Americans of their Second Amendment rights, and legalizing late-term abortion.
The Democrat Party pretends that late-term abortions don’t occur, and they lie and say that children in the womb cannot feel pain as their bodies are ripped apart, limb-by-limb.
A retired Texas couple said FBI agents busted through the gate of their rural home, threw flashbangs, handcuffed them, and trained lasers on them before searching their home for evidence connected to the Jan. 6 breach of the Capitol.
Lora DeWolfe and Darrel Kennemer, who live on seven acres near San Marcos, Texas, told The Epoch Times they attended the Jan. 6 rally at the Capitol but did nothing wrong. They believe the FBI mistakenly identified Kennemer as someone else.
The FBI didn’t arrest them, they said. Agents eventually produced a search warrant saying Kennemer was suspected of “assaulting, resisting or impeding” officers and “entering restricted building or grounds.”
Both said they went no further than the Capitol steps on Jan. 6 and did not harm anyone or damage anything. They said the allegation of assault was false, and the FBI kept showing Kennemer a blurry photo of a man who looked similar but wasn’t Kennemer.
Darrel Kennemer speaks to an officer on Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington D.C. (Photo courtesy of Lora DeWolfe)
“I vacillate between feeling mad and helpless,” DeWolfe said. “I was really sad. We just wanted an honest election.”
“They’re corrupt, and they’re trying to scare us,” Kennemer said, adding he feels the FBI targeted him for just being at the rally.
Raid Before Dawn
Their ordeal began when their gate alarm woke them up in the pre-dawn hours of June 22, DeWolfe said. At first, they thought a deer had tripped the alarm, but DeWolfe got up and saw a white car. Kennemer got his AR-15 rifle and went outside, not knowing what to expect, she said.
“I’m seeing one single white vehicle moving pretty fast, and I was thinking someone’s going to die,” Kennemer said.
FBI officers got out of the white vehicle and told Kennemer, who had his rifle up in the air, to drop his weapon. He kept his rifle and asked the FBI to show him a warrant. Kennemer said someone threw a flash-bang at him repeatedly because he wouldn’t drop his weapon at first.
Darrel Kennemer holds a flash-bang he said the FBI threw at him during a raid on his home near San Marcus, Texas, June 22, 2022. The FBI searched his home in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol breach. (Photo courtesy of Lora DeWolfe)
DeWolfe said he put the gun down when she came out of the house. She noticed red laser sights trained on both of them.
“There was a drone flying around and an aircraft,” she said. “They never showed a warrant until the end.”
DeWolfe then tried calling a neighbor before the FBI told them to drop their phones, which ended up recording the first few minutes of the raid.
Agents entered the house and threw a flash-bang that frightened their dogs, causing one to run away, DeWolfe said.
Agents split them up and began questioning them. They showed Kennemer a blurry photo of a man at the Capitol with facial hair similar to his, according to Kennemer. They asked him about breaking a window, which he denied as well.
Lora DeWolfe said FBI agents threw a flash-bang into her house near her dogs on June 22, 2022, in San Marcus, Texas. (Photo courtesy of Lora DeWolfe)
Hours later, the agents came out with a black coat, a dark Trump beanie, and a scarf. They also took the couple’s phones, which had photos from Jan. 6. Luckily, DeWolf said she had some of them printed.
Daughter’s Response
Later that day, DeWolf was able to call her daughter, Ricci Bratton, to tell her what happened. Bratton, who served in the U.S. Airforce, said her mom called her around 1 p.m
“You want to talk about surreal—my first instinct was you’re kidding. There’s no way,” Bratton told The Epoch Times.
Bratton said she thought her mother was in shock but was trying to remain calm.
“It wasn’t a knock at the door. That’s for sure,” Bratton said. “I can’t believe this is happening. You don’t believe it’s happening to your family.”
The FBI did not immediately return a call seeking comment Friday.
Federal agents raided the home of former Department of Justice official Jeffrey Clark on Wednesday morning, sources familiar said.
While it was not clear which agency the agents belonged to, a neighbor spotted officials entering and leaving Clark’s Lorton, Virginia, home, according to ABC News.
From 2018 to 2021, Clark served under the Trump administration as Assistant Attorney General for the DOJ’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.
After the 2020 presidential elections, Clark actively supported former President Donald Trump’s voter fraud claims.
Clark had been accused of being part of a plot to remove then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen from his position.
As per the plot, once Rosen was out, Clark would replace him and then force Georgia state lawmakers to overturn the results of the presidential elections, the New York Times reported.
Former DOJ officials, including Rosen and his deputy Richard Donoghue, had testified that Trump indeed sought to replace Rosen with Clark during the twilight days of his term as president, Politico reported.
Clark, however, denied involvement in such a plot, according to the Times.
ABC News reported that a spokesman with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., confirmed “there was law enforcement activity in that area” on Wednesday.
The spokesperson, however, refused to specify who that “law enforcement activity” targeted, according to the outlet.
Clark’s employer, The Center for Renewing America, confirmed the news of the raid, CNN reported.
“The new era of criminalizing politics is worsening in the U.S. Yesterday more than a dozen DOJ law enforcement officials searched Jeff Clark’s house in a pre-dawn raid, put him in the streets in his pajamas and took his electronic devices,” Center President Russ Vought said.
All because Jeff saw fit to investigate voter fraud. This is not America, folks. The weaponization of govt must end. Let me be very clear. We stand by Jeff and so must all patriots in this country. 2/2
“All because Jeff saw fit to investigate voter fraud. This is not America, folks. The weaponization of government must end. Let me be very clear. We stand by Jeff, and so must all patriots in this country,” Vought added.
“Absolutely disgusting. And it is even worse that they’re clearly working in conjunction with the Stalinist J6 Committee for maximum public relations,” Editor-in-Chief for the Federalist Mollie Hemmingway said of the Wednesday raid.
Absolutely disgusting. And it is even worse that they’re clearly working in conjunction with the Stalinist J6 Committee for maximum public relations. Just awful. Horrifying that this Soviet-style approach is happening here. https://t.co/61zA9VawY0
“Just awful. Horrifying that this Soviet-style approach is happening here,” Hemmingway added.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton slammed the raid as a political attack.
UPDATE: Rule of law at Biden DOJ has completely collapsed — mass targeting and abuse of political opponents for daring to question his controversial election. This is KGB-style “justice.” https://t.co/L1SEOutcky
“Rule of law at Biden DOJ has completely collapsed — mass targeting and abuse of political opponents for daring to question his controversial election,” Fitton wrote on Twitter. “This is KGB-style ‘justice.’”
Senator Patty Murray called a gas tax suspension a ‘bad idea.’ Now, she’s on board.
During a non-election year, Washington Democratic senator Patty Murray called a federal gas tax holiday a “bad idea” that may not lower prices at the pump. Now that she’s up for reelection, she’s on board with the plan.
Murray—who is expected to face Republican triage nurse Tiffany Smiley in November—quietly signed on to Senate Democrats’ gas tax suspension bill in late April, more than two months after it was introduced. But in 2008, when Murray was not embroiled in a reelection fight, the Democrat called the policy a “bad idea” that would “deteriorate highway funding.”
“She has a firsthand look at what’s going on with our transportation systems, our roads and our bridges, and from her perspective, this is a bad idea,” then-Murray spokeswoman Alex Glass told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer at the time. “There’s no guarantee that the plan would result in lower gas prices, but it would deteriorate highway funding.”
Murray is far from the only prominent Democrat to express past disapproval toward a gas tax suspension, which resident Joe Biden says would “bring down the price of gas and give families just a little bit of relief.” In 2008, then-senator Barack Obama—Biden’s self-described “best friend”—called the move a politically motivated “gimmick.” Many congressional Democrats agree. Oregon congressman Peter DeFazio, for example, said a gas tax holiday would not “give consumers significant relief—if any at all” and would instead “blow a $26 billion hole in the highway trust fund” and kill “tens of thousands of jobs.”
Murray has not explicitly touted her decision to sign on to Democrats’ gas tax suspension bill. Instead, she vaguely claims to be “fighting to deliver results” at the gas pump. Murray has, however, stressed the need to “modernize” Washington’s roads and fund electric vehicles. The Democrat did not return a request for comment.
Gas prices have more than doubled since Biden took office. The national average price for a gallon of gas was $2.39 in January 2021. Now, it’s $4.90, according to AAA. Should Biden convince Congress to enact a gas tax holiday, the move would hardly help American consumers. The president’s plan would suspend the 18-cent federal gas tax on each gallon of gasoline, saving the average consumer roughly $5 a month, according to GasBuddy. That move would cost roughly $3.3 billion a month, the White House claims.
Murray joined the Senate in 1993 and has not faced a competitive reelection bid in more than a decade. That could change this year as Democrats navigate a difficult political climate under Biden. Just 40 percent of Washington voters approve of the president, compared with 49 percent who disapprove. Biden won the state by nearly 20 points in 2020.
The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 on June 23 that North Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature must be allowed to step in to advocate for a heavily litigated voter ID law in court because Josh Stein, the state’s Democratic attorney general, allegedly isn’t doing enough to defend the statute.
Republican lawmakers have long complained that Stein’s advocacy has been half-hearted and has focused on technical issues instead of countering the oft-repeated left-wing claim that voter ID laws are racially discriminatory. Republicans generally favor strengthening election integrity measures, such as requiring photo identification by voters. Democrats generally oppose photo IDs, saying that the requirement is burdensome and disenfranchises voters.
In 2018, North Carolina voters approved by 55.5 to 44.5 percent a state constitutional amendment requiring voters to present photo ID and directing the North Carolina General Assembly to develop legislation to enforce this requirement. The legislature soon approved Senate Bill 824, which Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, vetoed. The legislature overrode his veto.
Lower federal courts sided with Stein.
On June 7, 2021, a divided U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit rejected the request from the legislature to take over the defense of the law from Stein. In dissent, Judge Harvie Wilkinson, a Reagan appointee, suggested that Stein may have a conflict of interest.
“When a challenge is brought to an unpopular or controversial state law, an attorney general’s defense of the law may be less than wholehearted,” Wilkinson wrote. “If the plaintiffs in the case are politically influential, the temptation to pull punches becomes even stronger. It casts no aspersions on anyone to note the obvious: North Carolina’s voter photo ID law is a very controversial statute.”
Separately, a divided state court in North Carolina struck down the law on Sept. 17, 2021, finding in Holmes v. Moore that it “was motivated at least in part by an unconstitutional intent to target African American voters.”
The case at hand is Berger v. North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, court file 21-248, an appeal from a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit. The lead petitioner Phil Berger, a Republican, is president pro tempore of the North Carolina Senate. Tim Moore, also a Republican and Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, is also a petitioner. The lead respondent, the NAACP, is the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
The case has drawn comparisons to Cameron v. EMW Women’s Surgical Center, in which the Supreme Court ruled—also by 8-1—on March 3 that Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, a Republican, should be allowed to defend a state law restricting abortion after the state’s Democratic governor, Andy Beshear, refused to do so. The Epoch Times reported on the ruling at the time.
Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the court’s opinion (pdf) in the North Carolina case, which was joined by five conservative justices and two liberal justices. The sole dissenter was liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
“[T]he merits of that dispute are not before us, only an antecedent question of civil procedure: Are two leaders of North Carolina’s state legislature entitled to participate in the case under the terms of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 24(a)(2)?”
“Within wide constitutional bounds, States are free to structure themselves as they wish. Often, they choose to conduct their affairs through a variety of branches, agencies, and elected and appointed officials. These constituent pieces sometimes work together to achieve shared goals; other times they reach very different judgments about important policy questions and act accordingly. This diffusion of governmental powers within and across institutions may be an everyday feature of American life. But it can also pose its difficulties when a State’s laws or policies are challenged in federal court.”
North Carolina has selected multiple officials to defend its interests in some cases, authorizing its attorney general, who is elected independently by state voters, to represent individual official defendants in federal litigation, Gorsuch wrote. At the same time, its General Assembly has also empowered the leaders of its two legislative chambers to participate in litigation on the state’s behalf under certain circumstances and with counsel of their own choosing, he added.
Because “the people of North Carolina have authorized the leaders of their legislature to defend duly enacted state statutes against constitutional challenge,” the state’s “legislative leaders are entitled to intervene in this litigation,” Gorsuch wrote, reversing the judgment of the 4th Circuit.
In her dissenting opinion, Sotomayor noted that under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure a federal court is not authorized to grant a motion if an existing party to the case is adequately representing the movant’s interests.
Stein is “already ably” representing the state’s interests, she wrote.
Val Demings hopes ‘Gamers for Demings’ posts on Chinese app TikTok will take down Marco Rubio
Florida Democratic Senate hopeful Val Demings is promoting a popular “children’s game with a sex problem” to court voters in her race against Republican incumbent Marco Rubio.
Demings in March used Chinese app TikTok to share the first installment of her “Gamers for Demings” series, which used the children’s game Roblox to depict a virtual version of the Democrat running through Florida. The post came just weeks after the BBC highlighted the game’s “sex problem.” Roblox—which two-thirds of U.S. children between the ages of 9 and 12 reportedly have played as of 2020—came under fire for hosting user-generated sex games known as “condos,” where gamers’ avatars can have virtual sex. In one instance, the BBC reported, a “naked man, wearing just a dog collar” and a leash, was “led across the floor by a woman in a bondage outfit” as a man “wearing a Nazi uniform” looked on.
Demings’s decision to use Roblox and TikTok to promote her campaign shows how Democrats are widening their political strategy to use unorthodox means of communication. Demings is far from the only Democrat on TikTok, a Chinese-owned app that has sparked bipartisan security concerns. Fellow Democratic Senate candidate Tim Ryan (Ohio) has posted videos of himself lip-syncing on the platform, and Sens. Jon Ossoff (D., Ga.) and Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) are also active users. In February, resident Joe Biden moved to address TikTok’s security risks—but he’s also used influencers on the app to sway public opinion, even inviting some to film in the White House.
After Demings’s first Roblox-themed TikTok post, a popular Roblox news account on Twitter praised the Democrat, asking if a “Robloxian” could “be Florida’s next senator.” Demings’s communications director responded to say the campaign was “proud to launch Gamers for Demings,” and the Democrat went on to share two more Roblox posts in the following months. One, which Demings posted in April, shows her blasting off into space on a virtual rocket. Another, shared on June 11, depicts a virtual Demings dancing with LGBTQ flags under a “Happy Pride Month” banner. That post includes the hashtags “PrideMonth,” “roblox,” “LGBTQ,” “foryourpride,” “fyp,” and “valdemings.”
It’s unclear how Demings expects to use a game most popular with preteens to attract voters. Her campaign did not return a request for comment.
In addition to concerns over Roblox’s sex problem, the game has faced criticism for exploiting child labor. Roblox allows its users to create, share, and play their own games within the Roblox platform. As a result, the Guardian reported in January, Roblox has made millions off of the work of children with no formal contracts in place.
Demings is widely favored to face Rubio in November but will first have to emerge from an August primary race. Neither candidate has a strong financial advantage—both Demings and Rubio have raised roughly $30 million and hold roughly $13 million on hand as of March 31. Rubio is polling at 49 percent, 9 points better than Demings’s 40 percent, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average.
The Democrat-controlled Illinois legislature is requiring grocery stores and gas stations to post signs that give lawmakers credit for suspending the state’s annual gas-tax increase. In reality, lawmakers just put off the tax hike until after this year’s midterms.
The law forces grocery stores and gas stations to post signs that say the state has “suspended the inflation adjustment to the motor fuel tax through December 31, 2022″—one month after the midterm elections. “The price on this pump should reflect the suspension of the tax increase,” the signs conclude. The state will fine gas stations $500 per day for not posting the signage, the Center Squarereported.
The move comes as Democrats worry that record-setting inflation will hurt their electoral chances even in solidly blue states. The Democratic Party may suffer a “greater-than-average” loss in the 2022 midterms, according to a Gallup poll released last week, as Americans consider inflation under the Biden administration to be the nation’s greatest challenge.
The reason for the signs is to make sure Illinoisans notice the legislature’s tax delay, Democratic state representative Mike Zalewski said.
“I think people that are pumping gas, and are looking at the price, their gaze will fix upon the pump and maybe they’ll read about the good things that we did,” Zalewski said at an April committee hearing.
The legislature’s delay is not a tax cut, Illinois Fuel and Retail Association CEO Josh Sharp told the Center Square, but rather a misleading appeal to voters.
“The gasoline tax in the state of Illinois is staying exactly the same on July 1 as it was the year before and now they’re going to raise it twice in 2023,” Sharp said. “They’re just putting off that tax increase until after an election.”
The Prairie State already has one of the highest gas taxes in the country, Forbesfound. Multibillionaire Democratic governor J.B. Pritzker and lawmakers have doubled the tax since 2019, a move widely supported by unions.
The Illinois Fuel and Retail Association sued over the requirement, calling it forced political speech that violates the First Amendment. The association is issuing a sticker for gas stations and grocery stores that contains “the truth about gas prices lawmakers hope drivers will forget” alongside the required statement.
Fresh off a string of embarrassing defeats in court, the Democrat superlawyer revealed Wednesday that he is representing Andrew Gillum, the Democratic Florida gubernatorial nominee who lost to Gov. Ron DeSantis (R.) in 2018. Gillum faces a 21-count indictment for conspiracy, fraud, and making false statements, supported by detailed financial records and testimony from undercover agents.
Gillum withdrew from politics after police found him intoxicated in a hotel room full of drugs.
Like other Democrats Elias represents, Gillum is accused of shameless and long-running corruption. The disgraced ex-pol allegedly siphoned political contributions into his personal accounts, accepted unreported gifts, and worked with donors to conceal top-dollar contributions. Gillum may have defrauded liberal moneyman George Soros of up to $137,000. Nonprofit organizations also number among Gillum’s supposed victims.
Elias is a strange choice for Gillum’s legal team. Unless being friends with the Clintons counts, Elias has little apparent experience with federal criminal defense. Authorities unsealed the indictment on Wednesday, which is supported by reams of bank records and informant testimony.
The indictment generally paints a picture of a political circle built on looting and fraud. In a particularly jarring accusation, prosecutors accused Gillum and a top aide, Sharon Lettman-Hicks, of ransacking Gillum’s gubernatorial campaign for cash after DeSantis won the 2018 race. Gillum and Lettman-Hicks allegedly funneled $60,000 from the campaign to an entity they controlled, “P&P,” as “reimbursement” for a fake get-out-the-vote effort. The pair are accused of splitting that money between themselves.
It’s the same tactic the two allegedly deployed against an unnamed donor, who appears to be George Soros. The donor gave $250,000 to Gillum’s campaign, according to the indictment. Soros contributed exactly that sum to Gillum in spring 2018. Lettman-Hicks put $100,000 from that contribution toward Forward Florida, a pro-Gillum super PAC. The remaining funds were directed to P&P and allegedly disbursed to Gillum and Lettman-Hicks.
That accusation is especially awkward for Elias, because Soros is a longtime ally. The reclusive billionaire funded a multi-state challenge to voter ID laws in 2016 which Elias oversaw as general counsel for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. After former president Donald Trump beat Clinton, Elias joined the board of a powerful, Soros-funded super PAC.
Apart from allegedly bilking his own campaign for cash, Gillum is accused of pocketing a portion of $200,000 in contributions he finagled out of two nonprofits. The nonprofits are not named in the indictment. The donations were supposed to support the Gillum-backed Campaign to Defend Local Solutions. Lettman-Hicks is accused of ripping $50,000 from that contribution and paying it out to Gillum as a salary from P&P.
The National Black Justice Coalition acted as fiscal sponsor for the Campaign to Defend Local Solutions.
Other allegations detail alleged favor-trading and attempts to hide massive campaign contributions. Gillum and his aides allegedly talked with undercover federal agents for months about a six-figure donation to Forward Florida, the pro-Gillum PAC. The agents posed as developers interested in purchasing property in the Tallahassee area. The group discussed how they might conceal the source of the donations. And Gillum promised to look favorably on their development proposals, the indictment alleges.
Those same undercover agents hosted Gillum in New York City in 2016, where they provided accommodations, a private boat tour of the city harbor, and tickets to the Broadway musical Hamilton. And on a separate occasion, one of the agents picked up a $4,000 dinner tab for the mayor and his supporters. None of those gifts were disclosed on ethics forms or campaign reports.
The indictment further claims that Gillum lied about his conversations with the undercover agents when questioned by federal authorities.
After losing to DeSantis, Gillum joined CNN as a paid contributor. He is the latest ex-CNN fixture to wind up in a federal courtroom. Anti-Trump lawyer Michael Avenatti, who appeared on the little-watched network over 120 times according to a Fox News tally, is serving a five-year prison sentence for convictions in New York State court and is awaiting sentencing on federal convictions for embezzlement, fraud, and obstructing investigations.
Notwithstanding detailed evidence from financial records and testimony from undercover agents, Elias is sure the government’s indictment is all wrong.
“The government got it wrong today. The evidence in this case is clear and will show that Mr. Gillum is innocent of all charges. We look forward to putting this case to rest and giving Andrew and his family peace of mind once and for all,” Elias said in a statement.
Marginalized for far too long, attractive young women are finally getting the representation they deserve
Truth bomb: Representation matters in American politics. For too long, attractive young women and other marginalized groups have been excluded from the halls of power. Katie Britt is trying to change that.
The former chief of staff to Sen. Richard Shelby (R., Ala.) on Tuesday represented the march of history when she comfortably defeated right-wing challenger Mo Brooks in the race to succeed her old boss. Britt’s victory in the deep-red state’s Republican primary means that, in all likelihood, she will be the next U.S. senator from Alabama.
It was a landmark moment. Britt is sure to be far more than another vote protecting the American people from resident Joe Biden’s radical and unpopular agenda. She will bring much-needed diversity to the Senate, where she will embody the hopes and dreams of a community that for decades has been systematically denied the representation it deserves.
Britt, 40, would be the youngest (and arguably most attractive) woman ever elected to the esteemed deliberative body, where the median age is 65 and the median level of physical attractiveness is merely adequate. The only senator with similar attributes is Kyrsten Sinema, the 45-year-old nominal Democrat from Arizona with a well-earned reputation for being a saucy vixen who derives pleasure from owning the libs.
If Britt wins the general election in November, there will be an attractive woman under the age of 50 representing each of the major political parties in the Senate for the first time in American history. They won’t just be representing their parties, of course. Britt and Sinema will represent the millions of attractive young women throughout this great country who feel disenfranchised by a federal government dominated by ugly old men (and women). We need more diversity and inclusion.
Britt’s youth and good looks are hardly the only reasons why she will be a welcome addition to the Senate. She did not attend an Ivy League school or an overpriced private university, for example, and was actually born and raised in the state she is running to represent. Britt received her bachelor’s degree and a law degree from the University of Alabama, which is also where she met her enormous husband, Wesley Britt, a 6-foot-8-inch offensive tackle who played for the New England Patriots.
Last year, the Britts hung out with music legend Kid Rock at Talladega Superspeedway, which is more than can be said of most of the boring nerds elected to Congress.
Some crucial context regarding Britt’s attractive youth: When she was born in 1982, Joe Biden was 39 years old. She is 12 years younger than Hunter Biden, the president’s crackhead son. She is going to be a fabulous addition to the Senate, where she will serve in a Republican majority dedicated to opposing the radical Democratic agenda for the remainder of Biden’s first and only term in office. Congrats!
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.
Spot fails to mention star witness’s work for radical group that wants to defund police, teach CRT
A new Chuck Schumer ad uses a “former Republican” to attack Nevada’s Republican U.S. Senate nominee Adam Laxalt. Unmentioned is the star witness’s work for a far-left group that supports Laxalt’s opponent and wants to defund police.
In the ad, Schumer’s Senate Majority PAC features testimony from “Patty,” a “business owner” and “former Republican” who slams Laxalt as “wrong for Nevada.” The ad does not reveal that “Patty” is former Nevada state senator Patricia Farley, who began caucusing with Democrats more than five years ago in 2016. Two years later, Farley joined Battle Born Progress, a liberal nonprofit that works closely with Laxalt’s opponent, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D.). The group under Farley has taken a number of radical liberal positions on hot-button issues—a far cry from Schumer’s portrayal of Farley as a disillusioned conservative entrepreneur.
In July 2020, for example, Battle Born Progress called to end the “school-to-prison pipeline” and “save money” by “defunding school police.” One year later, group executive director Annette Magnus said Nevada “should be teaching” critical race theory in its public schools because “young people need to know this information.” Battle Born Progress also opposes voter ID requirements and supports late-term abortion. Cortez Masto said in November that she was “so glad” to speak at the group’s annual fundraising event.
Schumer’s willingness to omit Farley’s status as a liberal activist—and his decision to criticize Laxalt using a “Republican” figure—suggests the Democratic leader is concerned by Cortez Masto’s reelection chances. Resident Joe Biden won Nevada by 3 points in 2020, but his political standing has since deteriorated in the Silver State as Democrats navigate record-high inflation, gas prices, and illegal immigrant encounters. Fifty-six percent of Nevada voters disapprove of Biden, compared with 32 percent who approve, according to Civiqs.
Senate Majority PAC spokeswoman Veronica Yoo told the Washington Free Beacon the ad identifies Farley “as a local business owner and former Republican because those are the facts.” Yoo did not answer questions about Farley’s work with Battle Born Progress.
Farley in 2014 ran for state Senate as a Republican, receiving 57 percent of the vote. Two years later, she announced she would change her party affiliation to nonpartisan and caucus with Democrats, a decision she said stemmed from her disappointment with “party politics.” Farley’s subsequent political contributions and employment history, however, tell a different story.
In May 2018, just months after declining to run for reelection, Farley made her first federal political contribution—to failed Democratic congressional candidate Pat Spearman. Three months later, Farley donated to Nevada Democratic senator Jacky Rosen.
In October 2018—one month before leaving the state Senate—Farley joined Battle Born Progress as the president of its state PAC, Nevada Values. The group quickly launched a six-figure ad attacking Republican state Senate leader Michael Roberson. Roughly one year later, in December 2019, Farley endorsed Pete Buttigieg for president, saying the former South Bend, Ind., mayor “is offering bold solutions to our nation’s biggest problems.” She went on to contribute $1,500 to Buttigieg’s PAC, and has not contributed to a Republican at the federal level.
Still, Farley told the Free Beacon she is a “current independent” who is “not interested in pushing partisan political agendas” and “only care[s] about giving Nevadans the facts they need to make an informed decision.” While Farley also claims in the ad that she “used to work with Adam Laxalt in the state government,” she later told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that she had “few personal interactions” with the Republican.
Farley still serves as president of Nevada Values as of February 2022, the PAC’s latest campaign finance disclosure states. Nevada Values is registered as a Battle Born Progress affiliate and uses the same mailing address, email address, and phone number as the liberal nonprofit.
Both Laxalt and Cortez Masto cruised to victory in Nevada’s June 14 primary elections, and the pair will now face off in November. Cortez Masto holds a strong financial advantage—she has $9 million on hand to Laxalt’s roughly $2.1 million.
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.
Ohio Democrat takes page from GOP firebrand Lauren Boebert in attempt to distance himself from party
What do you do when running for office as a Democrat in resident Joe Biden’s America? Talk like a Republican—at least if you’re one Ohio Senate candidate.
From praising former president Donald Trump on trade to sounding the alarm about the southern border, Rep. Tim Ryan (D., Ohio) is trying his hardest to avoid being lumped in with the rest of the Democratic Party. Earlier this month, Ryan proposed a House resolution that would designate fentanyl a “weapon of mass destruction.” That resolution appears to be lifted from a bill proposed the day before by one of the most right-wing members of the House, Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert (Colo.), who also called fentanyl “a weapon of mass destruction that is destroying our nation.”
Ryan, who will face against Republican nominee J.D. Vance in November, is considered a long shot by political analysts. Trump won Ohio by more than 8 points in 2020 and the seat Ryan is running for is occupied by a Republican, the retiring Sen. Rob Portman.
His strategy highlights the difficulty for Democratic candidates trying to pitch themselves as moderates in the current political environment. Biden is the most unpopular president at this point in his term in almost a century, according to the polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight, a fact largely driven by skyrocketing inflation. For Ryan, executing this strategy could prove difficult: FiveThirtyEight also found that Ryan votes in line with Biden’s position 100 percent of the time.
“Any Democrat running this November is gonna have a tough time running with Biden as president,” said Democratic political consultant Dick Harpootlian, a longtime friend of Biden, when asked about Ryan’s conservative messaging. “Biden is beset by huge issues and problems that are not playing well in America right now. I mean, we saw it in 1994 after [former president Bill] Clinton did well in 1992.”
At campaign stops around Ohio, Ryan seeks to distance himself from the Democratic Party by offering a moderate and pragmatic message. In May, Ryan was conspicuously absent from a Cincinnati event where Biden spoke about the necessity of passing a domestic manufacturing bill. The White House later said Biden and Ryan were “in close touch.”
“We’ve got to get away from the Democrat-Republican thing, all these stupid fights,” Ryan said at a campaign event last month. “And we can only do that by being Americans first. China and Russia, they want us to keep fighting with each other. And to me, it’s playing right into their hands.”
Ryan’s rebrand attempt began in April when he released an ad claiming he has spent his entire political life “sounding the alarm on China” and voting “against bad trade deals.” That ad backfired after left-wing Democrats accused him of xenophobia against Chinese Americans.
Following the Biden administration’s announcement that it would end Title 42 restrictions on the southern border—a federal power first used by Trump that gives law enforcement the ability to rapidly deport migrants—Ryan called the decision “wrong and reckless,” breaking with top Democrats such as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.).
“Prematurely ending this policy without a path forward does nothing to keep Americans safe, support our Border Patrol agents, protect asylum-seekers, or bring about the comprehensive fix our immigration system needs,” Ryan said at the time. He has also called a “strong border” a “basic American value,” a stark contrast to his rhetoric in 2018 when he said Trump’s “zero-tolerance immigration policy” showed he didn’t have an “ounce of humanity.”
His change of heart could be a product of problems on the minds of Ohio voters. As one of the states hardest hit by the opioid crisis, many voters in Ohio blame the Biden administration’s lax border policies for the influx of fentanyl there. Ryan’s rhetoric on the issues, however, hasn’t been followed by action in the House. Although Ryan introduced a fentanyl resolution nearly identical to Boebert’s Republican proposal, for example, he has yet to cosponsor her bill—a move that would increase its likelihood of passing.
Ryan’s office did not respond to a request for comment asking whether he plans on cosponsoring the Republican bill.
Shortly after Vance clinched the Ohio Republican Senate nomination in May, Ryan offered praise for Trump—who endorsed Vance in the Republican primary.
“I agreed with Trump on trade,” Ryan says in an ad that debuted earlier this month. “I voted against outsourcing every single time. We’ve gotta get tough on China. Let’s make things in Ohio again.”
Ryan sent a letter on June 10 to Biden demanding the White House not lift any tariffs against China, alleging that such a move would “strip the U.S. of leverage in negotiations” and “inundate American companies with a slew of imports they may not be able to withstand.” He implored Biden to “prioritize American workers and American manufacturing companies.” The letter came after reports that Biden was considering lifting many of the tariffs in an effort to lower inflation.
As the midterms approach, Ryan seems to have pivoted on trade issues as well. During the Trump administration, Ryan called the China tariffs just a way for Trump to “look tough.” In an interview with the Washington Post, he called Trump’s actions “abominable and must be revised immediately.”
“[Trump’s tariffs are] designed to inflict maximum damage on the U.S. economy, for minimal gain,” Ryan tweeted in July 2018.
Vance has labeled Ryan an opportunist and dishonest. Ryan has responded by saying he is happy to talk about his past comments on a variety of issues, including trade.
“My record is very, very clear,” Ryan said last week. “We can squabble about some of the details of it, how things are implemented and all the Washington stuff in the details we have to deal with. But my record is very, very clear on this.”
Update, June 21, 11:15 a.m.: This piece was updated with additional information on Ryan’s voting record.
They are not just desperate. Remember from, their standpoint, all the issues that really matter doesn’t matter what Biden is doing. They are desperate to guarantee the right to have a tax paid abortion on the last day of the birth. They’re desperate to impose radical values in second and 3rd grade. They are desperate to keep the border open. I mean, this is a very issue oriented rather than personality oriented movement. And they look at the Republican’ potential victory and it scares them. Because the Republicans are going to stand for less government. Less inflation. Controlling the border. Locking up criminals, a tragic story we just heard a few minutes ago. I think on the left, there is a sense that this could be the moment they really do start getting defeated as a force in America.
NEWT:
Politics is a tough business. People are allowed to do anything they can to win. Within the law. And, if you figure out that you can help nominate somebody that’s easier to beat, that’s, you know, that’s your right. But it’s very dangerous. Because, in fact, in a lot of these cases, they are going to nominate people who they really deeply dislike but who are going to win. And they are going to govern based on their values not based on money from the democratic party. So, I have a hunch that whether it’s Dr. Oz winning in Pennsylvania or J.D. Vance winning in Ohio, there are a whole number of places people who are really populist and really against socialist big government are going to come out on top this fall. And the left sitting there thinking what happened? How can could this have happened?
NEWT:
Well, I think they are in a different position. Every week that goes by, Donald Trump’s presidency looks better. Look at his inflation rate, look at the price of gasoline when Trump was president. People find his I think his personality too aggressive and at times too annoying. But his policies certainly had turned America around. And in Biden’s case, he doesn’t just fall off his bicycle, he takes the country him with him. And you look at Biden’s inflation record which is worse than Jimmy Carter. Look at Biden’s open door policy in the southern border. Biden’s allies releasing murderers. A lot of reasons why the country on policy grounds would favor Trump over Biden and the latest poll I link was like 6 or 8 points.
Texas Republicans passed a resolution on June 18 stating that resident Joe Biden was “not legitimately elected,” and that “substantial” election fraud in key metropolitan areas influenced the results of the 2020 presidential election in favor of Biden.
“We believe that the 2020 election violated Article 1 and 2 of the US Constitution, that various secretaries of state illegally circumvented their state legislatures in conducting their elections in multiple ways, including by allowing ballots to be received after November 3, 2020,” stated a resolution passed on Saturday, the last day of a three-day biennial Texas GOP convention held in Houston, the Texas Tribune reported.
“We believe that substantial election fraud in key metropolitan areas significantly affected the results in five key states in favor of Joseph Robinette Biden Jr,” the resolution continued.
“We reject the certified results of the 2020 Presidential election, and we hold that acting resident Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was not legitimately elected by the people of the United States,” it added.
The state’s GOP, the largest in the nation, passed the resolution after delegates sat through a Thursday screening of “2000 Mules,” a documentary directed by conservative author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza.
The movie features the undercover investigative work of David Lara, a citizen investigator, and Arizona State Senate candidate Gary Snyder, as well as investigations conducted by the election integrity organization “True The Vote” on an alleged coordinated ballot trafficking operation during the 2020 election.
Described as an exposé of “widespread, coordinated voter fraud in the 2020 election,” the movie draws on cell phone location data paired with video surveillance footage that allegedly showed a cohort of people dropping ballots off at drop boxes situated outdoors on average more than 20 times each. Those people were dubbed by the investigators as “mules.”
While some states allow people to gather ballots from certain people and drop them off, the volume of ballots inserted into the boxes, and the fact that the people went to multiple boxes to drop ballots off, showed what happened was illegal, filmmakers say.
Filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza in Washington on Aug. 1, 2018. (Shannon Finney/Getty Images)
“The mules are instructed to do three votes over here or five votes over there, 10 votes over here, they spread it around so as not to raise eyebrows and not to raise suspicion,” D’Souza previously said on EpochTV’s “Crossroads.”The scale of the operation was enough to tip the 2020 election, he added.
The Texas GOP passed the resolution on Saturday afternoon during a voting session on the party’s platform and legislative priorities.
The approved platform also recommends numerous measures to bolster election integrity, including by implementing voter photo ID and in-person voting, and tightening the voter registration process.
Other issues endorsed in the state Republican’s latest platform include a call to abolish abortion, preserve gun rights, remove Marxist ideology and critical race theory from schools, and ban gender modification of children.
James Wesolek, communication director for the Republican Party of Texas, told The Epoch Times that 5,500 delegates attended the convention, which offers Republicans an opportunity to set priorities for the next legislative session in 2023 and elect party leaders.
“Remember, the Republican Party of Texas is a grassroots party,” Matt Rinaldi, chairman of the Republican Party of Texas, told attendees of the contention, Houston Public Media reported. “It doesn’t belong to me, the governor, or senators or congressmen, or any elected official. This is your party.”
According to the U.S. National Archives, Joe Biden received 306 electoral votes in the 2020 election and Donald Trump received 232 electoral votes. Trump and conservative figures across the country have alleged since then that substantial fraud influenced the 2020 election results. Democrats and mainstream media have vociferously denied such allegations, claiming them to be unfounded.
The Texas GOP, in the resolution, called on voting conservatives in the state to work to “overwhelm” any possibility of voter fraud.
“We strongly urge all Republicans to work to ensure election integrity and to show up to vote in November of 2022, bring your friends and family, volunteer for your local Republicans, and overwhelm any possible fraud,” the resolution stated.
The Epoch Times has reached out to the White House for comment.
Zachary Stieber and Darlene McCormick Sanchez contributed to this report.
Livingston County, Michigan, this week became the latest jurisdiction in the country and the first in its state to ban the private funding of the administration of elections.
The move came after good-government advocates became incensed that a Mark Zuckerberg-funded activist group, the left-wing Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL), flooded election offices in Democratic Party strongholds in Michigan with millions of dollars in an apparent effort to drive up voter turnout for that party in 2020.
Critics say Zuckerberg, the billionaire Facebook founder and Democrat activist, along his wife Priscilla Chan, gave the money in an effort to influence the 2020 election.
According to critics, the grants accomplished Zuckerberg’s goal.
In 2016, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, a Republican, beat Democrat Hillary Clinton in Michigan by 10,704 votes. But in 2020, Democrat Joe Biden beat Trump in the state by 154,188 votes, according to official results as reported by Ballotpedia.
Critics claim the assistance provided by CTCL to Detroit, Benton Harbor, Muskegon and other heavily Democratic jurisdictions in the state may have put Biden over the top.
On June 13, the Livingston County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to ban the acceptance of unregulated monies for funding elections, a move that lawyer Erick Kaardal said will enhance election integrity.
Kaardal, a special counsel for the Thomas More Society, a nationwide public interest law firm that protects religious freedom and maintains an election integrity practice, said he provided the commissioners with an analysis of the resolution before they voted on it.
Livingston County is between Detroit and the state capital Lansing.
The commission’s vote pushes Michigan closer toward a national movement to banish “dark money,” or political spending meant to influence voters, where the donor is not disclosed, and the source of the money is unknown, he said.
Walworth County in nearby Wisconsin became the first local government in that state to ban the acceptance of private monies or grants for use in the administration of elections, as The Epoch Times reported.
“In the last 18 months, 20 states have enacted laws banning private money to administer public elections,” Kaardal said in a statement in which he identified Texas, Florida, Ohio, and Arizona, as among those now with such laws in effect.
He added that legislatures in another six states have passed such legislation but governors vetoed it.
“This is a win for the voters of Livingston County and will hopefully lead the way for other local governments to optimize election integrity in their regions,” Kaardal said.
“When there is an absence of any insistence on election integrity from the top, it is incumbent upon counties and municipalities to protect the right of voters entrusted to them.”
“Because Michigan’s executive branch has been unwilling to bar private money from entering the elections, the burden has fallen upon cities and counties to protect themselves from outside interference by illegal money sources,” Kaardal said.
“The people understand that the right to vote is a cornerstone of a free society and that the biased intervention of those who influence the outcome with their dirty dollars is not to be tolerated.”
The Epoch Times reached out for comment to CTCL but had not received a reply as of press time.
A superior court judge rejected the Arizona attorney general’s request to revamp election rules for the 2022 election cycle, citing timing as the reason for the rejection.
Yavapai County Superior Court Judge John Napper denied Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich’s request to ask Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs to improve the election procedure manual for the 2022 elections on Friday.
“At this point in the game, there is no mechanism for the Court to assist the parties in constructing an EMP which complies with [the law] within the timelines of the statute,” Napper wrote in Friday’s ruling, reported The Associated Press. “The Complaint was filed far too late for this to occur without disrupting elections that have already begun.”
The judge’s rejection marked the end of the AG’s complaint first filed against Hobbs in April, in which he alleged that Hobbs refused to make changes in the elections procedures manual and did not provide him with a “legally-compliant” election procedures manual by Oct. 1, 2021, as required by Arizona state law.
“This case is about the Secretary’s ongoing violation of her mandatory statutory duty to promulgate an Elections Procedures Manual (“EPM”) for the 2022 election cycle,” reads Brnovich’s court filing dated April 21. “To cure that ongoing violation, Plaintiffs are entitled to special action relief ordering the Secretary to comply with the mandatory requirement of providing a legally-compliant EPM to the AG and Governor for approval.”
Brnovich asked that the court order Hobbs to amend the election procedures manual by adding election integrity measures, including prohibiting unstaffed drop boxes, requiring signature verification for non-mailed early ballots, and preserving the requirement that voters vote in their precinct, according to a June 10 statement on the AG’s website.
He called the situation especially “problematic” because the election procedure manual has the “force of law.”
“Regardless of individual politics or party, everyone should understand the importance of maintaining public confidence in our elections,” Brnovich said. “I brought suit to support confidence in the integrity of our elections and accuracy of the results.”
Arizona is becoming a focal point for election integrity issues as the 2022 midterms approach. Earlier this month, the state’s Senate and House lawmakers heard evidence and allegations from election integrity organization “True the Vote” pertaining to a statewide ballot harvesting campaign during the 2020 presidential election.
The hearing presented evidence of cellphone tracking data showing that more than 200 devices had visited ballot drop boxes in two of the state’s largest counties no less than 5,700 times during the 2020 election.
Catherine Engelbrecht, founder and president of True The Vote, said the group’s investigators settled on 10 visits as “outlier behavior” on the side of too many visits to the ballot box. In Arizona, however, they found that each alleged ballot harvester went an average of 21 times each. She called it “extreme outlier behavior.”
Two days after the hearing, the AG concluded the prosecution of Guillermina Fuentes, former mayor of an Arizona county, for voter fraud charges. Fuentes pleaded guilty to using her position in the Democratic Party to illegally harvest ballots in a ballot abuse scheme.
“Based on our research, the ‘Arizona model’ is one that is followed across the country, and it involves national organizations,” Engelbrecht told The Epoch Times earlier this month, referring to alleged widespread ballot harvesting.
“So we, the American people, need to continue the pressure on to continue investigations moving forward to get to the bottom of what’s happening, not just in Yuma County, Arizona, but in many counties across this country.”
Peter Navarro, a White House adviser during the Trump administration, pleaded not guilty on June 17 to contempt of Congress charges.
Navarro was hit with the misdemeanor charges earlier in June, after declining to cooperate with the House of Representatives panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol, citing executive privilege due to his former position at the White House.
Navarro had been representing himself before the issue turned into a criminal one.
“Obviously being put in leg irons and having people want to put me in prison have changed matters,” Navarro told reporters outside the federal courthouse in Washington.
Navarro has also said he was denied a call to a lawyer after being arrested, which prosecutors have denied.
During Friday’s hearing, Navarro’s attorneys asked for the trial to take place in 2023 so that constitutional questions surrounding the privilege invocation could be resolved, WUSA-TV reported.
They also said Navarro plans to go on a tour beginning in September promoting his new book, “Taking Back Trump’s America: Why We Lost the White House and How We’ll Win it Back.”
Prosecutors said the government was ready to start the trial sooner.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta set the start of the trial for Nov. 17, but indicated that might not be the final trial date.
Navarro is the second former Trump adviser charged for refusing to cooperate with the House Jan. 6 panel.
Steve Bannon, who has also cited privilege, was the first.
Bannon’s motion to dismiss the charges was rejected by U.S. District Court Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, this week.
Bannon’s attempts to subpoena House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)—who appointed every member of the panel—and members of the panel, have not yet been ruled upon.
Two other former Trump aides who have resisted working with the panel have not been charged.
The Department of Justice reportedly made the decision not to prosecute the former White House employees, Dan Scavino and Mark Meadows, despite exhortations from the panel that the men be prosecuted.
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the panel, and Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), chairwoman of the panel, said in a recent joint statement that they were puzzled by the move.
Thompson has said that Navarro’s testimony was being sought, as well as records he possessed, because he appeared to have information “directly relevant to the Select Committee’s investigation into the causes of the January 6th attack on the Capitol.”
A California doctor has been sentenced to two months in prison for being involved in the Jan. 6 breach of the Capitol and stepping inside the restricted premises along with her co-defendant John Strand.
Dr. Simone Melissa Gold was initially charged with entering a restricted building or grounds, violent entry, and disorderly conduct, and arrested on Jan. 18, 2021. She spent two days in custody. On March 3, 2022, she pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor charge of illegally entering the restricted building. Gold was sentenced June 16 to serve 60 days in jail, one year of supervised release, pay a $9,500 fine, and $500 restitution.
Gold is the founder of America’s Frontline Doctors (AFLDS), a nonprofit that has spoken out against the emergency use authorization of COVID-19 vaccines and promoted the use of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine during the initial days of the pandemic.
While inside the building, Gold delivered a speech through a megaphone to a crowd gathered in Statuary Hall, where she stated her opposition to the COVID-19 vaccine mandates and government-imposed lockdowns.
Gold expressed regret for entry into the Capitol building in a Jan. 12 interview with The Washington Post. “During the same interview Strand stated that he was also inside the U.S. Capitol with Gold and was there to protect Gold,” according to an official statement.
“I was misguided. I should not have entered,” Gold said. “Everything I did on January 6, misguided or not, was consistent with my effort to do my best for people.” She sounded emotional when she told Cooper that she was “shocked” the prosecutors believed she was not remorseful and did not intend to take part “in a situation that was so destructive to our nation.”
Strand—the communication director at AFLDS and Gold’s boyfriend—has been charged along with Gold. He has pleaded not guilty and rejected an offer for a plea agreement. Strand’s trial is scheduled for July 18.
Regarding Gold’s sentencing, an AFLDS press release on Thursday said, “Like most January 6 defendants, she is a victim of selective prosecution—the defining feature of corrupted governments.”
The Epoch Times has reached out to AFLDS for comment.
However, district Judge Christopher Cooper, a Barack Obama appointee, said that AFLDS was “leaving people with the misimpression that this is a political prosecution or that it’s about free speech,” as he delivered the sentence.
“January 6 was about a lot of things, but it wasn’t about the First Amendment or COVID vaccinations … the only reason you are here is where and when and how you chose to express your view,” Cooper said.
Gold had raised over $400,000 for her and the organization’s legal issues. Cooper said that the funds were a “disservice to the true victims that day.”
Gold’s attorney Dickson Young asked for a sentence of community medical service, stating that his client did not commit or incite violence.
“The loss of our country’s freedoms,” said Gold in a tweet on Friday regarding the sentencing.
Over 800 people have been charged with federal crimes over the breach on Jan. 6, with 300 pleading guilty and nearly 200 sentenced.
If you’ve recently wondered what former President Barack Obama has been up to, do I have news for you.
In between throwing lavish parties for his friends, Obama has been producing and starring in a Netflix series with Hollywood actor Adam Connover of the popular internet series, Adam Ruins Everything.
It appears that Obama’s publicists are trying to rebuild his public image after the many failures of his presidency, such as arming the Mexican drug cartels through Operation Fast and Furious, accidently bombing civilian weddings abroad with drone strikes, and vastly growing the size of the federal government.
The series, The G Word with Adam Connover, is a tribute to big government. In the opening scene, Obama is having a conversation with Adam while doing his own taxes in his home office (as if the former president actually files his own taxes). In a condescending tone, he says that he “likes doing his own taxes” and that “taxes are the price we pay to live in a civilized society”.
The episode blames capitalism and limited government for various societal issues, blatantly disregarding the fact that it is almost always big-government bureaucrats who are to blame. They go so far as to praise the USDA’s stranglehold on meat processing facilities across the country as a benefit to society.
However, at the very end of the series, in the very last episode, Obama gets it right. He confidently makes the point that the local level is where individuals can make the most impact. He even illustrates that point by describing how easy it is to take over district attorney elections in small communities to support a Marxist agenda.
In one of the last scenes, Adam is at a ‘Resist’ Rally in Philadelphia.
Adam highlights two young men who worked on the Bernie Sanders for President campaign who are now both members of the Pennsylvania legislature and deciding Pennsylvania state laws!
These radicals talk about all of the changes they are able to make on the local level. They learned how to engage in the political process with tactics like canvassing and door knocking on the Bernie Sanders for President campaign, and now they have taken over Pennsylvania State House seats.
The point Obama is making, and the point politicians like him have proven, is that state legislatures are where individuals can make a real impact – and Obama is right!
If the era of pandemic tyranny has shown us anything, it is that our local leaders – often state-level leaders – are the people who imposed these oppressive restrictions like banning worship, preventing Americans from being able to work, and instituting intrusive mask and vaccine mandates. You and I realized this early on. That is why Young Americans for Liberty started Operation Win at the Door in 2018 with the express purpose of electing 250 liberty legislators across the country by the end of 2022 – this year.
Click on the link above to see the real impact you and I are creating across the country.
Through this program, YAL-recruited activists knock doors for principled, liberty candidates across the country who are set on limiting the size and scope of government. To date, YAL activists have elected 174 liberty candidates to state legislatures across the country and this year alone have knocked doors for 55 additional candidates who won their primaries with safe general election races.
This year our trained activists are knocking on over 2 million doors in key districts across the country. We have a once in a generation opportunity to radically shift the direction of our country.
Now, more than ever, you and I can’t let up.
Consider supporting our crucial effort as our trained activists knock on over 2 million doors to turn out the vote this year.
Former U.S. Attorney General William Barr bolstered the Jan. 6 House committee’s case that the 2020 presidential election was the “most secure in history.”
He also did his best to debunk former President Donald Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him, the Trump-appointed Republican testified in a recorded deposition that aired nationwide on June 13.
He told the committee he hadn’t seen any evidence of voter fraud on a scale that could have affected the outcome of the presidential election.
Documentary filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza couldn’t disagree more.
D’Souza’s latest movie, “2000 Mules,” contains detailed evidence of an organized illegal vote-harvesting scheme operated in Democratic-dominated cities in key swing states in the weeks leading up to the 2020 election—a crime that many voters and the Trump campaign want independently investigated to determine if it could have altered the result.
Teaming with True the Vote, a public interest election watchdog organization, D’Souza and a squad of investigators purchased 10 trillion cellphone pings (unique identity signals) to reconstruct the movements of suspected ballot traffickers.
Filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza in Washington on Aug. 1, 2018. (Shannon Finney/Getty Images)
The states included in the study were Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Texas.
The group also obtained and reviewed thousands of hours of government surveillance tape of the drop boxes where the alleged traffickers, whom they called “mules,” could be seen depositing multiple ballots on multiple occasions.
Four million minutes of drop box video were reviewed in Georgia alone.
The painstaking and costly 15-month study was funded by donations from the human rights organization First Freedoms.
The video review was part of the process the group used—along with personal interviews with traffickers and information from tipsters—to estimate the number of fraudulent absentee ballots that were likely deposited in the drop boxes.
True the Vote cyber-expert Gregg Phillips estimates that 4.8 million votes were trafficked nationally in 2020.
During his deposition, Barr laughed as he mentioned “2000 Mules.” He said the film’s cellphone tracking investigation and photographic evidence were “unimpressive,” and that its conclusions were “indefensible.”
According to Barr, the documentary “didn’t establish widespread illegal harvesting.”
True the Vote spokesperson Catherine Engelbrecht told The Epoch Times, “Over 80 percent of Americans are concerned about election integrity.
“Bill Barr took some cheap shots with his fellow Beltway buddies, but America isn’t laughing.”
Engelbrecht said the Department of Justice under Barr did very little to investigate the 2020 election.
“Instead, he mocked President Trump and disregarded nationwide entreaties for help.
“Now, he’s supporting the January 6 Committee and their use of cellphone data—so reliable they rush to jail Americans without trial.
“Yet, when the same data is used to expose patterns of drop box abuse and election fraud, he is totally disinterested,” Engelbrecht said.
On Twitter, D’Souza challenged Barr to a public debate on election fraud, writing, “What do you say, Barr? Do you dare back up your belly laughs with arguments that can withstand rebuttal and cross-examination?”
Engelbrecht told The Epoch Times: “We have not been asked to present our findings to the committee, nor will we be. They will never risk giving us that platform.
“Their interest is not in getting to the truth. Never has been.”
D’Souza told The Epoch Times, “The hearings are one-sided propaganda, not an attempt to get to the truth.”
He has repeatedly said that the evidence presented in “2000 Mules” is “indisputable,” and invites people to judge for themselves.
True the Vote founder and President Catherine Engelbrecht makes a point during a presentation on ballot trafficking at the Arizona statehouse on May 31, 2022. Seated next to her is True the Vote data investigator Gregg Phillips. (Allan Stein/The Epoch Times)
Trump responded quickly to the June 13 hearing, firing off a 12-page rebuttal.
He wrote that the Democrats “are desperate to change the narrative of a failing nation. … They own this disaster. They are hoping that these hearings will somehow alter their failing prospects.”
Michigan grassroots conservative activist Robert Gelt told The Epoch Times, “Jan. 6 would never have taken place if it wasn’t for the adamant refusal of the primary law enforcement officer of our federal government, Bill Barr, to get the Department of Justice involved in investigating the Nov. 3, 2020, election.”
In the race to become the top prosecutor in Maine’s largest county, George Soros-backed candidate Jacqueline Sartoris defeated incumbent Jonathan Sahrbeck.
With 94 percent of precincts counted, Sartoris collected 15,209 votes, or 65 percent, to Sahrbeck’s 8,069 votes in the June 14 Democratic primary, according to local radio station WMTM. Since they were the only two candidates seeking the office, Sartoris is expected to be elected as Cumberland County’s district attorney in the November general election.
The billionaire Soros is known for his efforts to bankroll the campaigns of progressive state and local prosecutor candidates across the country.
In the month before the primary, a Soros-backed super-PAC spent nearly $384,000 opposing Sahrbeck and supporting Sartoris, a whopping amount that’s almost five times the combined total spent by both candidates and unheard of in local prosecutor races.
While both candidates are registered Democrats, they hold different views on top priorities.
Sahrbeck, a career prosecutor, said most crimes in the county are fueled by either drug addiction or mental health issues, so he wanted to leverage the criminal justice system in a way to get more people into court-ordered treatment programs, according to a virtual candidate forum hosted by Portland Center for Restorative Justice.
To Sartoris, an environmental-lawyer-turned prosecutor, a district attorney’s top job is to set prosecution policies. Her vision is to reduce jail and prison populations through office-wide policies that set when to charge crimes, what charges to file, and how to resolve the charges, according to the same forum.
“People are mostly unaware that prosecutors have an incredible amount of power in the system. We, in fact, have the greatest power in the criminal justice system,” she said at the forum.
In contrast, Sahrbeck disagrees that the top prosecutor is a “policy position.”
He said prosecutors should judge every case on its own merits (such as the crime committed, the history of the offender, and the victim,) and make a prosecutorial decision that’s best in the interest of justice, which includes the interests of offenders, victims, and the broader community, according to the candidate forum.
However, about a month before the primary, the Soros-backed Democracy PAC II poured $300,000 into the newly formed Maine Justice and Public Safety PAC. The latter ended up spending $383,945 on mailers and digital ads opposing Sahrbeck and supporting Sartoris, according to data by Maine Ethics Commission.
Soros is the principal donor to the Democracy PAC II in this election cycle, contributing $125 million, or 99 percent of the total, according to finance data published by Federal Election Commission.
Super PACs such as Maine Justice and Public Safety can raise and spend unlimited money on communications opposing or supporting candidates under the protection of free speech. But they can’t communicate directly with candidates and must follow certain finance disclosure rules.
For more than two decades, Republican Stephanie Anderson held the top prosecutor job in Cumberland County, which includes Maine’s largest city, Portland.
After Anderson announced her retirement in 2018, Sahrbeck, a Republican-turned-independent candidate at the time, was to face Jon Gale, a Democrat, in the general election.
However, just a week before the election, Gale dropped out of the race over sexual misconduct allegations.
Last September, Sahrbeck changed his party registration again, this time to Democrat. He said his record as a district attorney reflects the Democratic values of addressing root causes of crime, according to the above candidate forum.
While in office, Sahrbeck created a diversion program, a veterans treatment court, and a community network called the Cumberland County Coalition on Substance Use Prevention.
Virginia Democratic congresswoman Elaine Luria said every staffer in her office makes a “living wage.” She lied, House disbursement records show.
Luria paid staff assistant Madeleine Gagne $8,311.10 from January through March, the Democrat’s latest expense disclosures show. That pay rate marks a yearly salary of just $33,244.40, which is thousands of dollars less than the $40,362 an adult with no children must earn to make a living wage in Virginia, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s living wage calculator.
Luria says she believes “that everyone deserves a living wage to raise a family in the community.” But Gagne is not the first staffer in the Democrat’s office who earns less than the income required to reach a living wage in the Old Dominion.
As a staff assistant, Jacob Olander—who left Luria’s office in April—earned a yearly salary of $33,588. Fellow staff assistant Nolan Brown—who also left Luria’s office last year—made even less, earning a yearly salary of just $31,769. When the Washington Free Beacon in March approached Luria’s office with that information, Communications Director Jayce Genco did not comment on past staffers but said that every Luria aide now “makes a living wage.” Just weeks later, Luria filed her statement of disbursements from January to March, which proved Genco wrong.
Luria’s living wage hypocrisy could spark the ire of progressive Democrats, a voting bloc Luria will need to win as she navigates a difficult reelection campaign. Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin (R.) won Luria’s Second Congressional District by 12 points last November, just one year after President Joe Biden won it by 2 points—a colossal 14-point swing. That result has Republicans confident they can beat Luria—a top Republican target since she joined Congress three years ago—in 2022.
Luria, whose office did not return a request for comment, will have to overcome Biden’s dismal political standing in Virginia to overcome that challenge. As record-high gas prices and inflation sweep the nation, just 33 percent of Virginians approve of the president, compared with 55 percent who disapprove, according to Civiqs. MIT’s living wage calculator reflects those issues—in March, the database placed the pre-tax salary required to earn a living wage in Virginia at $34,552. Just months later, that number rose by 17 percent.
This is not the first time Luria has flip-flopped on a wage issue. The Democrat as a candidate in 2018 came out against a $15 nationwide minimum wage, arguing that lawmakers should instead enact a wage hike “based off of different areas of the country that have different costs of living.” As a small business owner, Luria said she understood the economic risk of a one-size-fits-all minimum wage, which would “cause risk to my business and other businesses,” she said.
Years later, however, Luria sold her small business—and ditched her opposition to a $15 federal minimum wage. In July 2019, Luria sold her design-your-own craft shop, the Mermaid Factory. Within days, the Democrat voted for the Raise the Wage Act, a Nancy Pelosi-backed bill that would raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour regardless of local economic conditions.
Luria does not face a primary opponent this year—Navy veteran Neil Smith planned to challenge the Democrat but withdrew his candidacy. Voters will choose Luria’s Republican opponent on Tuesday. State senator Jennifer Kiggans leads that race’s fundraising battle, having raised $1.3 million as of June 1.
As parents across the nation fight to have a say in their children’s public education, more are taking things into their own hands: running for local school boards.
Sean Kaufman in Woodstock, Georgia, is one of them. And his journey began with a school assignment on the American dream.
Before that, he never felt any reason to question what schools were teaching his children, and he would always check on whether his kids had done what their teachers had asked them to do.
“It was this ultimate trust [in the school system],” said the father of three, a small business owner and part-time professor at a local university.
During the pandemic, however, the virtual learning in public schools allowed him a closer look at what his children were learning.
In November 2020, his middle child Aiden, then a junior at the Woodstock High School, got an assignment in his advanced placement (AP) English class to write a paper on whether the American dream was dead or alive. He was also assigned to peer review two other students’ essays.
“Every single child wrote the American dream was dead. And that really bothered me,” Kaufman told The Epoch Times about the three papers he read.
While Aiden wrote that the American dream was “dwindling” and “unable to be fulfilled by the current American society,” his classmates described the ideal in their essays as a “delusion,” “fallacy,” and a “broken dream.”
One cited George Floyd’s death as the reason the American dream was “an illusion” and “broken.” The 46-year-old black man died after a police officer held his knee on Floyd’s back and neck while pinned to the ground in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in May 2020. His death prompted mass demonstrations across the globe as protestors called for racial justice.
Kaufman asked his son why wrote the essay in that way.
“Dad, it’s easier,” replied Aiden. “They [the teacher] give you argumentative papers [papers provided for background]. Three say the American dream is dead, and one says it’s kind of alive.” And according to Aiden, if he “went along” with the main theme that the American dream was dead, the teacher wouldn’t ask him to defend his position.
Sean Kaufman (2nd R) with wife Jacqueline and sons Sean Patrick (L) and Aiden, and daughter Jamielynn (Courtesy of Sean Kaufman)
Kaufman thought his public health students at the Kennesaw State University might know more than high schoolers.
During the same week, he conducted an ad hoc survey in class, “How many of you believe the American dream is dead?” He asked his class of about 25 students.
“Ninety percent raised their hands,” said Kaufman. “I was just blown away.”
He asked his college students what the American dream was. Not getting an answer, he defined it for them, “The American dream is, in this country, if you work hard, you sacrifice, and you never quit, you will find some type of success in your life.”
After giving the students his definition, he tried again, “How many of you still believe the American dream is dead?”
Still, 90 percent raised their hands.
“If you believe the American dream is dead in this country, why are you sitting in a college classroom?” he asked. The class was silent. Students looked shocked, and one said he hadn’t thought about that.
To Kaufman, associating the death of George Floyd with the end of the American dream reflects a tenet of critical race theory (CRT). “CRT believes that everywhere you are, the system is rigged against persons of color.”
CRT is a quasi-Marxist framework that argues that America is systematically racist. Supporters say it’s a college-level theory course not taught in K-12 public schools, yet critics beg to differ.
Kaufman is not alone in Georgia in believing in the American dream.
In a June 2021 poll, eighty-one percent of voters in Georgia agreed with the following statement: “Children should never be taught that their destiny and inherent value depends on their skin color. Instead, American schools should be teaching American children about the American Dream that is available to them.” The Georgia statewide survey was conducted by Heritage Action for America, the grassroots and advocacy arm of the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation.
The percentages of agreement in Democrat, independent, and Republican groups were 62, 85, and 97, respectively. The survey’s sample size was 600, with 38 percent Democrats, 15 percent independents, and 41 percent Republicans.
Running for School Board and Raising Awareness
Fast forward to this February, an 11th-grade English language arts class assignment prompted Kaufman to file a formal lesson challenge and speak at the Cherokee County School Board meeting.
The assignment asked students to read the book “Desiree’s Baby” by 19th-century American author Kate Chopin and write an extended ending. Students should “stay true to the tenet of the literary period” and write in the original third-person point of view or as any of the characters.
In the short story written in 1893, Desiree, abandoned as a baby and raised by a wealthy family in Louisiana, married Armond, a son of a plantation owner. When it turned out that their baby’s skin was black, Armond blamed Desiree for being part black and drove her away. However, when burning Desiree’s belongings, he came across a letter between his parents that revealed the secret they kept from him: he was the one who was part black.
Many students wrote from the perspective of Armond, according to Kaufman.
He quoted one such writing during his speech at the February school board meeting, “Surrounding me were the negroes fueling the fire, their skin now a reminder that I was part of who they were. I felt a horrid disgust inside of me. Oh, how I wished my skin would melt from my bones; I could never be one of them.”
“What benefit is there, in my opinion, to make a child write as though he is a racist, bigoted slave owner hundreds of years later?” asked Kaufman.
In response to his challenge, the school’s English department formed a review committee with members from the administration, professional learning community, and instruction personnel. A month later, the committee recommended the continuation of the assignment because students could choose any character’s point of view for their writing. It also suggested offering alternative assignments and hiding students’ names on papers during peer review at parents’ request.
Kaufman didn’t think alternative assignments were the solution. And he didn’t believe the school board listened. Hence, he decided to run for the school board to become a voice for change.
And no surprise, CRT is front and center in his first attempt at public service.
Unlike in most states, some of Georgia’s school board elections are partisan. Kaufman was up against two other Republican candidates, Erin Ragsdale and Eric Richards, in the primary on May 24. The Republican incumbent didn’t run this time. None of the candidates got over half of the votes. Therefore, a runoff was scheduled for June 21, with early voting between June 13 and 17. The runoff winner will face the Democrat primary winner on Nov. 8.
Kaufman finished second at the primary last month, earning him a seat in the runoff. A total of 6,493 votes were cast in the Republican primary, compared to 1,392 votes in the Democrat primary with only one candidate.
Kaufman’s opponent Ragsdale, a pediatric speech-language pathologist, runs on “making the best [school district] even better.” She promised “continued support” of the district’s decision to ban CRT on her website.
In May 2021, the county school district passed a resolution prohibiting the implementation of CRT. Kaufman said that many voters were thus confused and didn’t know that, although banned, CRT had been integrated into the schools’ teaching.
“You integrate theory into class; you don’t teach the theory,” he said. “When people say, ‘CRT is not being taught,’ it’s a lie.”
He said Democrats voted for his opponent because she wouldn’t change the status quo much. Primaries are open in Georgia, meaning voters can cross party lines to vote. The Epoch Times has reached out to Ragsdale for comment.
“I love our children. Our children are born the way that they are born, and the way they are born is beautiful. They are perfect,” he said, explaining his determination to get CRT out of the county schools. “And to tell a child that the way they are born and the color of their skin dictates who they will be in this life, whether they will be an oppressed or an oppressor?
“It breaks my heart.”
After the primary, Richards, who ranked last, endorsed Kaufman. He had run his race on similar stances. If Kaufman can get the votes that previously supported Richards, he may reach the majority and defeat Ragsdale in the runoff. To achieve that, he has continued to post videos on social media, go door to door, and send mailers and text messages.
“Every vote in runoff counts. Every vote,” he said. “It’s going to be decided very very closely. And I’m praying that Eric Richards’ voters get behind me.”
However, losing the runoff wouldn’t mean the end of his efforts. He said he wanted to be the voice that brought about the change, “I have raised awareness in over 2,000 people in my community.”
“That’s 2,000 people that believe and have been wakened and will continue to fight beside me as we continue to try and increase awareness about what’s happening in our community,” he added.
Sean Kaufman (L) with his son Aiden (Courtesy of Sean Kaufman)
‘Are You For or Against CRT?’
While the outcome of Kaufman’s runoff has still to be decided, halfway across the nation in the south, Stephanie Elad has won her seat in the Frisco Independent School District (Frisco ISD), an area about 30 miles north of Dallas, Texas. It was an open seat as the incumbent didn’t seek re-election. She campaigned on academic excellence and teacher retention, and ran as a conservative in the non-partisan race.
Although she didn’t run with CRT as her number one issue or mention the term CRT much, it was the number one question she was asked during door-knocking on Republican-leaning voters. The first question they often asked her was, “Are you for or against CRT?”
“Ninety-five percent of them wanted me just to say I’m against it,” she told The Epoch Times. “I would say I’m against it. And then my next statement was, ‘And we do have it here in Frisco.’”
Some people said they knew, but most were surprised. Then, Elad would provide examples of what she believed to be “CRT inspired.” “One of our high schools did a ‘privilege walk’ last fall. All you had to do is to tell people about that, and they were horrified.”
In a privilege walk, students usually stand in a straight line and step forward if they have certain privileges, such as being white and a male. It’s an activity stemming from the viewpoint that society doesn’t offer equal access to opportunities.
The school board seat is Elad’s first public service job. Her journey began in April 2021 at a school board meeting. She had signed up for public comment to talk about mask mandates but decided to change her topic after the then-board president Chad Rudy told the audience: “Please keep the discussion down. We’re trying to get through our meeting tonight. This is our discussion.”
“There was a comment made that this was your meeting. I think this is our meeting,” she told trustees on the school board. The audience applauded.
“I think the parents and the taxpayers deserve a little more respect,” she added. “This is our meeting.” The audience cheered again.
Stephanie Elad (R) with Marvin Lowe, another conservative who also won a seat on the school board of the Frisco Independent School District in Texas. (Courtesy of Stephanie Elad)
After that, people told her she should run for the school board. And she did. She announced the campaign in January and decided to “lean in” her conservative identity.
She avoided getting into the debate whether CRT was or was not taught in Frisco schools but focused on the outcomes, such as sliding academic standards. For example, to her, the Integrated Language Arts (ILA) pilot program introduced in the 2021-21 school year that combined on-level and advanced-level learning into the same classroom to promote equity and inclusivity was an outcome of a CRT-inspired approach.
The Frisco ISD serves 66,000 students and spans over two counties: Collin and Denton, which is more conservative than Collin. And all board seats are at-large, meaning they represent the entire ISD. This year’s school board election saw a big turnout of around 15,000, compared to 8,000 a year ago.
Elad said everyone told her that, like many conservative municipal candidates before her, she would lose Collin and win Denton and that she needed to make sure the margin in Denton would compensate the loss in Collin. On the contrary, she defeated the runner-up—Dustin Paschal who identified student mental health issues as the biggest challenge—by 400 in Collin County and about 800 votes in Denton.
“I have Democrats donate to me because they hate this [ILA pilot] program so much. Their kids are in it. Some of them have advanced kids, and some don’t,” she told The Epoch Times. “They just don’t like the program and the concept behind it. And they are concerned that it can spread to other subjects.”
‘Fight like Hell with a Smile on Our Faces’
While both Kaufman and Elad run for an open seat, many candidates run against incumbents.
“School boards incumbents lost at nearly twice the historical average,” Ballotpedia, a website that tracks election results, reported at the end of May. The finding was based on candidates who ran on at least one of the three “conflict issues”—identified as race in education, COVID-19 responses, or sex and gender in schools—in 141 school districts in Missouri, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin’s school board elections held on April 5. And the sample size involved 334 seats in those 141 districts.
“I think this might be the first time that people are actually paying attention to school board elections,” Virginia Beach City school board member Victoria Manning told The Epoch Times.
“Often, people go to the polls, and we’re passing out our literature, and I say, ‘Do you know whom you’re voting for school board?’ And they look at me, dazed and confused, ‘What’s that?’”
Manning, a realtor, won her election in 2016 and was re-elected in 2020.
All three issues—race, COVID-19, and sex education—boiled down to parental rights to her. “Ultimately, it boils down to parents having to be the ultimate decision-makers, parents and guardians.”
According to Tiffany Justice, co-founder of advocacy group Moms for Liberty (M4L), parents are “acting preemptively at their local level” to protect their children and not waiting to fight against “harms that they see coming down the pipe.”
Founded in January 2021, M4L now has over 90,000 members in 195 chapters across 37 states, Justice said. A third of the total membership has been new since November. Hawaii, Louisiana, and Connecticut are the latest states with new chapters.
Justice said that her organization continues to grow across the country, focusing on “unifying, educating, and empowering parents to defend or protect their parental rights at all levels of government.”
The battles were not all victories. M4L supported or endorsed over 40 school board candidates who won in the state of New York but also saw losses. For example, in Dutchess County, every candidate the organization endorsed lost.
Justice described the journey as a “long road:” “We didn’t get to this place in America overnight, and it’s going to take time. But we have found that America’s government does not work without us involved.”
Moms are getting creative, she said. She gave an example: at a chapter chair meeting in mid-May, one of the mothers said she got a meeting with the superintendent in her school district. Although angry, she made sure to sandwich her concerns with positive things she could say about the school district. And slowly, she found that the division leadership began addressing her concerns.
“Our moms and dads know that we are fighting for the survival of America,” Justice told The Epoch Times. “There’s no greater national security threat to the United States than having a generation of children who are not able to read or discern [right from wrong] for themselves.”
Her and M4L members’ responses? “Fight like hell with a smile on our faces. Get as many people out and encourage many parents to go out and vote to have their voices heard.”
Elon Musk on June 15 said he is leaning toward voting for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for president in the 2024 election and predicted that a “red wave” is coming in 2022.
In response to a question from a popular Tesla fan account on Twitter, Musk said it remains to be determined whether he will vote for a Republican for president. When asked who he is leaning toward, Musk replied, “DeSantis.”
DeSantis, a Republican, has not said he will run for president in 2024. Former President Donald Trump is widely expected to run again.
At a press conference later on Wednesday, DeSantis said he is focused on his gubernatorial reelection bid in November 2022.
“I’m focused on 2022,” the governor said. “But always appreciate the support from African Americans!”
The brief exchange was part of a conversation on Twitter that Musk started by revealing that he had cast the first vote for a Republican in his life in the special election in the 34th Congressional District in Texas. Musk voted for Mayra Flores, who won the election in the heavily-Hispanic district which has voted for Democrats for decades.
“I voted for Mayra Flores – first time I ever voted Republican,” Musk said. “Massive red wave in 2022.”
Mayra Flores (R) speaks to supporters after winning the Texas 34th Congressional District special election on June 14, 2022, in San Benito, Texas. (Bobby Sanchez for The Epoch Times)
With more than 95 percent of the votes counted at 11:09 p.m. ET on June 14, Flores received 51 percent of the vote in the special election, according to Decision Desk HQ. Democrat rival Dan Sanchez received 43.3 percent of the vote.
Flores will serve the remainder of the term in the seat vacated by former Rep. Filemon Vela (D-Texas), who resigned this spring to work for Akin Gump, a Washington law and lobbying firm.
“I’m forever grateful,” Flores said in a victory speech on June 14. “For 100 years we have been taken for granted.”
Republicans at the national level have committed money and effort to the Flores race, believing that South Texas Latinos share conservatives’ concerns about border security and the economy.
The opportunity to break the South Texas blue barrier has emboldened Republicans, who aim to flip the region red and regain control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Musk first revealed that he is planning to vote Republican in a Twitter post last month.
“In the past I voted Democrat, because they were (mostly) the kindness party,” Musk wrote on May 18. “But they have become the party of division & hate, so I can no longer support them and will vote Republican.”
Musk is in the process of acquiring Twitter and taking the company private.
The billionaire further revealed that he supported Democrat Andrew Yang for president in the 2020 election.
“I supported Yang last time, but DeSantis has a better chance of winning,” Musk wrote in a Twitter post.
Minority voters have turned on Joe Biden, Quinnipiac also finds
Fewer Americans support a ban on so-called assault weapons than Quinnipiac has ever recorded, the pollster reported on June 8.
Americans are about evenly divided on whether the government should ban assault weapons, the poll found, the lowest show of support for such a ban since February 2013, when Quinnipiac first started asking about it.
These results come even as mainstream media outlets and Democratic politicians, including resident Joe Biden, have ramped up calls for an assault-weapon ban in light of recent mass shootings and ahead of this year’s midterm elections.
A plurality of respondents, including most Republicans and independents and 31 percent of Democrats, told Quinnipiac that mental health issues are the main cause of mass shootings committed by young people. Only 19 percent of all respondents say “the availability of guns” is the main cause. A majority of Americans, meanwhile, oppose any efforts to limit the number of firearms in the country.
Only 32 percent of respondents approve of how Biden has handled gun violence, just one aspect of Biden’s dismal approval ratings. Only 33 percent of Americans approve of the president’s performance, while 55 percent disapprove. A wide majority of independents—61 percent—frown on what the president’s doing.
Minority voters have turned on the president, the poll found, in line with previouspolling. Nearly 60 percent of Hispanics disapprove of the president. Biden’s approval among blacks, meanwhile, cratered from 63 percent in May to just 49 percent this month.
A plurality of voters told Quinnipiac that they want to see the Republican Party retake control of Congress this year.
Georgia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams sits on the board of a foundation that funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to an anti-Israel activist who has praised terrorists and encouraged violence against Jews.
Abrams joined the Marguerite Casey Foundation board in May 2021, business filings show. Roughly six months later, the foundation announced its 2021 cohort of “Freedom Scholars,” a group of “leading thinkers and scholars … in critical fields including abolitionist, Black, feminist, queer, radical, and anti-colonialist studies.” Included in the group was UCLA professor Robin D.G. Kelley, a leading Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) activist who works with groups that collaborate with Palestinian terrorists.
Kelley, who received $250,000 through the program, praised the Palestine Liberation Organization—a U.S.-designated terror group—as “revolutionary combatants” and “models for those of us dedicated to Black liberation and socialism” in a 2016 article. Three years prior, Kelley encouraged Palestinians to use violence against Israelis, calling the notion that Palestinians should only protest non-violently a “bludgeon to beat down Palestinian organizations.” Kelley also advisesthe U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, a group that operates to advance the BDS movement on college campuses. The campaign’s fiscal sponsor, Al-Awda, works with Palestinian terrorist organizations such as Hamas to grow BDS and routinely hosts convicted Islamic jihadists at its events, the Jerusalem Post reported in 2019.
Abrams’s role in funding Kelley provides a startling window into how the Democrat could handle the BDS movement and larger issues of anti-Semitism on Georgia’s college campuses should she defeat Gov. Brian Kemp (R.) in November. As governor, Abrams would appoint members to the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia, which oversees the state’s public colleges and universities. Georgia legislators passed a law in 2016 that forbids the state from contracting a person or company that promotes a boycott of Israel, but a federal judge struck that law down in May 2021. Abrams opposed the law as a state representative and reportedly refused to meet with pro-Israel activists at the time.
It is unclear whether Abrams was directly involved with the grant to Kelley. When she joined the foundation’s board in 2021, she emphasized that a major part of her role would be determining “how the philanthropic network targets its contributions.” Neither Abrams nor the foundation responded to inquiries on her involvement with the Freedom Scholars program. Abrams has earned more than $52,000 from the foundation since 2020, her financial disclosures show.
In addition to Kelley’s anti-Israel activism, the professor has called himself a “communist for life” and argued that capitalism is inherently racist. The Marguerite Casey Foundation also awarded $250,000 to a pair of academics—Angelica Chazaro and Ananya Roy—who advocate for the abolition of prisons and private property, respectively.
In May 2021, the foundation launched its “Answer the Uprising” initiative, which aims to fund groups working to “transform, defund, [and] abolish” police. The initiative was “fully supported by Marguerite Casey Foundation’s Board of Directors, which recently named seven new changemakers to the Board, including Stacey Abrams,” the foundation said in a press release. One year before Abrams decided to join the group’s board, the foundation gave $200,000 to the Louisville Community Bail Fund, which later paid $100,000 to free Quintez Brown, an anti-police activist charged with the attempted murder of a Jewish mayoral candidate.
Abrams ran unopposed in Georgia’s May primary election and will face Kemp in November after the Republican defeated Trump-backed challenger and former senator David Perdue by 52 points in his own primary bid. Her campaign against Kemp is not her first—the Democrat lost to Kemp by roughly 2 points in 2018 but never conceded defeat, instead arguing the election was “stolen” due to “voter suppression.” After her loss, Abrams launched a nonprofit “voting rights” group that sued Georgia’s secretary of state to challenge the validity of the election. That lawsuit blasted the state’s use of “unreliable” voting machines and even alleged the machines “switched” votes from Abrams to Kemp.
The objective, as outlined in his email to supporters, is two-fold:
Fight to protect and secure our cherished, constitutionally guaranteed 2nd Amendment right to keep & bear arms, AND
Support the brave men and women of Law Enforcement who risk their lives daily to serve and protect our families.
Radical leftists in Congress are fighting to undermine both, buoyed by progressive activists. They are determined to see gun control signed into law before a potential red tsunami crashes into Washington.
Republicans may have the edge in the race to reclaim the Legislative Branch. However, Democrats are relying on a tried and true strategy to cling to power.
Divide and conquer.
Their tactics come straight from the Saul Alinsky playbook “Rules for Radicals.”
While speaking on Saturday, gun control advocate David Hogg claimed putting more police officers in schools poses a risk to non-white children.
“Realize that putting more cops in schools actually may be a form of endangering our students as well — for the students that don’t have the privilege of having my skin color, or the fact that I am an American citizen,” Hogg proclaimed, in a lecture to the audience.
The Democratic-ruled U.S. House has already passed a bloated gun omnibus bill containing six proposals that would not have stopped the Uvalde massacre.
Although the Protecting Our Kids Act faces daunting odds in the U.S. Senate, the left maintains constant pressure on Republican senators by utilizing ridicule, conflict, power and fear — all of which have a greater impact than ideas on people.
For the left, politics is a full-time profession. Make no mistake, their campaign to create a new system won’t end on Election Day 2022. Even if the GOP cruises to victory on Nov. 8.
Fortunately, Sheriff Clarke and The League know the most important lesson for fighting back: playing offense.
The League’s ads counterattacking the radical left are running on Fox News and Newsmax to act as a clarion call. Ultimately, complacency is the biggest threat right now to the conservative movement.
Resident Biden knows this. Motivating his base is the only strategy left that might save his party from a midterm thumping. That’s why he’s telling gun control advocates to keep marching. It’s also why the White House refused to condemn protests outside conservative Supreme Court justices’ homes, despite its blatant illegality — and the foreseeable assassination attempt against Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Biden understands that Democrats can still win this election. If they do, the far-left will continue to push for outlawing and confiscating firearms from law-abiding Americans under the guise of doing anything to protect innocent children. (RELATED: Biden’s Rhetoric on Guns is Far From ‘Reasonable’)
“They’re using … Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas, to disarm responsible gun owners like me and you,” Sheriff Clarke warned American Liberty News.
“I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that this is a fight we cannot afford to lose,” he stressed.
The Democrats’ war on cops and brazen disregard for the Bill of Rights may seem routine. But the reality of two more years of unchecked Democratic rule would be untenable.
And as Clarke asked in an ad for The League, “If voters don’t hold Democrats responsible for their disastrous policies, who will?”
Expect Clarke and The League’s vocal opposition to the leftist agenda to intensify through Election Day. And their commitment to liberty and law and order to continue long after.
The only question is: will you join them?
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
Members of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol say they have enough evidence to indict former President Donald Trump.
“I would like to see the Justice Department investigate any credible allegation of criminal activity on the part of Donald Trump,” said committee member Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).
“The evidence is very powerful that Donald Trump … began telling this big lie even before the elections, that he was saying that any ballots counted after Election Day were going to be inherently suspect,” Schiff told moderator Martha Raddatz on ABC’s “This Week.”
Since its first public hearing last week, the committee has argued that Trump fueled the anger that day that resulted in violence, threats to lawmakers, the injury of dozens of police officers and the death of Ashli Babbitt.
Schiff also said that there is enough evidence that links Trump with white nationalist groups before the riot, adding that the connection will be a clear focus of their investigation.
“Let me ask you, is there an actual conversation between people in Trump’s orbit and Proud Boys, Oathkeepers?” Raddatz asked Schiff.
“Well, you know, as I think the committee already disclosed and has been publicly reported, of course, there are connections between these white nationalist groups and some in Trump’s orbit,” Schiff exclaimed, although he added that he wouldn’t get into specifics until the hearings got to that point.
Committee members were tight-lipped on other Sunday news shows about what viewers can expect at this week’s hearings. However, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) agreed with Schiff that there is “overwhelming” evidence Trump participated in a “criminal conspiracy.”
The announcements have prompted speculation that the Jan. 6 committee is paving the way for U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to indict Trump on criminal conspiracy charges.
Others were decidedly more skeptical.
Anyone expecting Merrick Garland to indict Donald Trump for felony sedition or conspiracy might consider that he was unwilling to charge either Mark Meadows or Dan Scavino with misdemeanor contempt.June 4, 2022
The first hearing claimed that multiple congressmen asked for pardons following the Capitol riot, but only named one, Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.).
Members of the committee, including Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) said they believed the request for pardons showed Perry and others knew they had done something illegal.
Perry has vigorously denied ever asking Trump for a pardon.
Three days of hearings have been scheduled for the coming week, on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday.
Monday’s hearing is slated to begin at 10 a.m. ET. The committee is expected to focus on Trump’s misinformation campaign and the lack of evidence supporting allegations of election fraud.
The worker says the ongoing investigation is targeting US non-profits she believes are ‘political advocacy groups’
In an exclusive interview given to The Epoch Times, the recorder at the Yuma County Sheriff’s Office offered more insights into the risks of fraudulent registration forms leading up to the 2022 Primary Election and the efforts she and her team are working on to improve the process.
“Our primary is Aug. 2. We have received registration forms that are fraudulently completed,” Yuma County recorder Robyn Stallworth Pouquette, who provides oversight into the county’s voter registration and early voting, told The Epoch Times in an interview on June 7. “It’s been a prevalent problem in Yuma County, and it’s very unfortunate.”
Pouquette’s allegations come in addition to other witness reports and allegations of voting fraud that are the subject of 16 open investigations at the sheriff’s office.
The observed “pattern of fraudulent voter registration forms,” according to a May 11 statement made by the sheriff’s office, includes alleged impersonation fraud, false registrations, duplicate voting, and fraudulent use of absentee ballots.
While Pouquette could not provide any names because the investigation is ongoing, she confirmed to The Epoch Times that many of the anomalous cases pertain to non-profits operating on a national scale, which she believes to be “political advocacy groups.”
“We are extremely encouraged that the Yuma County Sheriff’s Office and Recorder’s Office are now working together to investigate individuals involved in the subversion of elections,” Catherine Engelbrecht, founder of election integrity group True The Vote, told The Epoch Times in a statement in May. “We’ve spent concentrated time in Yuma County and have provided significant information to both state and federal authorities. What has been happening in Yuma County is happening across the country. The targeting of vulnerable communities and voter abuse must be stopped.”
“It is very difficult to identify who is submitting these fraudulent forms. But I am aware of activities of third-party groups and I shared that information with the sheriff’s office,” Pouquette said of what she’s witnessed.
Unusual Signs
Pouquette said that while third-party organizations who solicit voter registrations serve an important role in assisting voters, they are also a point of vulnerability in the election process if the ballots they help voters submit are fraudulent—due to intentional or unintentional misrepresentation of a voter’s wishes.
“I believe it’s a vulnerability of the system, in the sense that fraudulent voter registrations can disrupt the legitimate active registration of an eligible voter,” she said. “It is a very disruptive process for the office when we should be focusing on audits and making sure that we’re auditing our records prior to the distribution of ballots.”
“I am very passionate about it because there is no regulation that precludes voter registration activities [by] third-party groups,” Pouquette said. “I feel that voter registration solicitors should be held accountable to a higher standard.”
After these third-party organizations drop the voter registration forms they’ve collected at the recorder’s office, Pouquette and her team would run them through a statewide database to cross-check the identifying information on each form to the voter.
However, Pouquette said she’s noticed unusual signs with some of the forms she’s received.
“I could immediately see that there were individual names in those forms that were people that I knew were already registered. But they were utilizing real people’s names with fake addresses and fake dates of birth,” she said. “One of them was our pediatrician. One of them was a local attorney who I had been an acquaintance of and has passed away for some time. One was a minor that I believe was around the age of 14 … So it just became very clear that there was a problem.
“And then, we’re getting five, six registration forms for the same person. As you can imagine, that’s where we feel that there’s an intentional effort to disrupt the system and identify vulnerabilities,” Pouquette added.
Pouquette said they’ve noticed over 100 such anomalies in the registration process leading up to the 2022 primaries and have sent letters to each of the addresses indicated on the registration forms as required by law.
“I simply find it unfortunate that it is a requirement because we know that we’re sending them to people that we have a strong belief to be nonexistent,” she said. “We should be working on credible, real registrations that we have in our county, as opposed to spending any time or resources—which is actually significant time and resources—on this type of activity.”
New Law Proposed
Pouquette added that after she noticed a pattern of fraudulent registration in 2016, she and her team began to work with the Arizona legislature to develop new laws to “define parameters for regulation of voter registration solicitation.” However, she said the efforts have been largely unsuccessful.
She and her team, through the Flinn-Brown Fellowship, put together provisions that Arizona Senate Republicans included in a bill introduced in February 2022, SB1629, which would hold third-party registration solicitors accountable.
“[The bill] required that third-party registration solicitors turn in the forms within five days so that there’s a timeframe on accountability and any fraudulent form be subjected to a class-6 felony,” Pouquette said. “And as you can imagine, it was very controversial.”
The bill also requires anyone collecting more than 25 voter registration forms to identify themselves with the Secretary of State’s office so the recorder’s office would have the ability to contact them for any issues with the forms they turned in. The bill failed its third reading in March and is set to be reconsidered for another reading in the Senate.
“We don’t want to diminish the work that third-party groups do … to solicit voter registration. I believe that that’s important and we should have groups that are able to do that. I just simply feel that we should place accountability measures that … professionalize the process to provide that trust to the community. I simply felt that it was a step in the right direction for accountability,” she said of the bill.
“And I do believe that, again, the work that’s put in—to make every single effort to not allow these [fraudulent] registrations to turn into ballots—is complicated and time-consuming, very, very straining on resources,” she added. “And these are the staff and election officials that should diligently be working on administering a secure election and not dealing with criminal activity like that.”
‘A Few Bad Actors’
Pouquette hoped to clarify that not all third-party groups that register voters are disruptive to the election process.
“So even a few bad actors, as you can imagine, contribute such a negative light on the process overall, which affects my office and the public trust in the electoral process … the other third-party groups that are making significant efforts to engage with voters and assist in, you know, the democratic process.”
“I always tell people they should be very proud to vote in Arizona, regardless of the negativity swirling around elections, because we work really hard. So I invite people in to see the process here from their ground floor to really understand what we do to verify and over verify and verify third time and audit. Those are just regular practices happening on a daily basis during the cycle here,” Pouquette said.
“I just really feel that that gets overlooked; you know, how bold election officials are, how brave they are, and doing this kind of work every single day, despite the critical response.”
FBI agents, just weeks before the 2016 election, opened an investigation into allegations of a secret communication channel between Donald Trump and Russia. The bureau closed the probe after several months but did not make public that it had dismissed the claims, which came from Hillary Clinton’s campaign and a group of researchers.
The white paper and data handed over to the FBI by Sussmann on Sept. 19, 2016, asserted there was a “secret email server” used by the Trump Organization that was communicating with Alfa Bank in Moscow through “another unusually-configured server” at Spectrum Health in Michigan.
“These servers are configured for direct communications between the Trump organization and Alfa Bank to the exclusion of all other systems,” researchers wrote. “The only plausible reason,” they claimed, “is to hide the considerably recent email traffic occurring between the Trump organization and Alfa Bank.”
Scott Hellman, an agent who specializes in investigating cyber crimes, took the first crack at the allegations with Nathan Batty, a colleague. The pair spent inside of a day examining the data, and quickly concluded that whoever penned the white paper “had jumped to some conclusions that were not supported by the technical data,” Hellman testified.
The allegations were based on purported “look-ups,” or Domain Name System requests, between mail1.trump-email.com, the server allegedly controlled by Trump’s business, and servers belonging to the Russian bank. DNS lookups are a way for a computer to find another computer’s Internet Protocol address (IP address), a unique number needed for communication between computers.
The researchers said they tried to connect with the Trump server and that the server would not accept mail from their IP address, or returned what was essentially an error message, Hellman said. The researchers used that, among other data, to suggest the Trump server would only communicate with certain devices, such as those linked to Alfa Bank.
“That didn’t make sense to me. It was sort of like if I knocked on your door, and you told me to go away—I don’t want to talk to you—I’m then going to assume that you’re only willing to talk to other people. I can’t make that assumption. I don’t know if you’re willing to talk to anybody. But that’s what they had done,” he said. “When they received an error message, they assumed that that computer wasn’t willing to talk to them, but it was willing to talk to others, and there was no evidence to suggest that. So assumptions like that is what I was referring to.”
Hellman and Batty wrote in their assessment that they found it suspicious that the activity the researchers highlighted began just three weeks before the researchers began their investigation. They called it “abnormal” that Trump would name the supposed secret server a name that included his name, use a domain registered to his own business, and communicate directly to Alfa Bank’s IP address as opposed to masking the communications.
They also said that Russia’s state-sponsored technical abilities “exceed the [operations] of that suggested in the report.”
Hellman, who is still with the FBI, said in a chat message at the time that the paper “feels a little 5150ish.” He said he meant that “perhaps the person who had drafted this document was suffering from some mental disability.”
Batty wrote that the data was “intended to overwhelm and confuse the reader.” “We think it’s a setup,” he later told Dan Wierzbicki, an FBI supervisor.
‘No Evidence’
Under pressure from then-FBI Director James Comey and other senior officials, a hybrid cyber-counterintelligence team based in Chicago took control of the data and opened a full investigation, the most serious step the FBI could have taken.
Thumb drives containing the white paper and the underlying data outlined the conclusions reached by the researchers and some of the data they used, but that was just a “snapshot,” forcing FBI investigators to “create the whole picture from scratch,” Allison Sands, the agent who led the investigation, said on the stand.
Sands, now with Roku, compared it to trying to assemble a puzzle without the benefit of having a box at which to look.
The Trump domain was on a server in Pennsylvania owned by a company named Listrak, an internet server provider. The domain was registered to a company named Central Dynamics, which is based in Florida. The domain was being leased from GoDaddy.
Agents reached out to the companies for data and answers. Listrak confirmed that the server was only configured to send emails, not receive any. It also provided some 135,000 records. Central Dynamics provided closer to 500,000 records and GoDaddy handed over a similar amount.
The Chicago team determined that the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank servers “almost certainly did not communicate intentionally or covertly,” according to a heavily redacted assessment dated Oct. 3, 2016.
The determination was based on an examination of the allegations conducted on behalf of Alfa Bank. The examination concluded the Alfa Bank servers may have conducted the DNS lookups in response to spam emails sent by Listrak or Central Dynamics.
“Alfa Bank’s conclusions corroborate current FBI investigative activity, which has not identified any evidence to support the whitepaper’s hypothesis that Alfa-Bank and Trump Organization servers intentionally, covertly communicated via DNS channels,” the document stated.
It was learned that Central Dynamics established the domain in partnership with the Trump Organization in 2009 but the company never used the domain, which had only received about 14 emails, all of which were blocked as spam or malware.
“It was largely dormant for the lifespan of its life, was currently inactive, and that it was entirely a ‘from’ email address, so it only sent outbound messages,” Sands explained.
Additionally, the FBI saw that in logs from Listrak, the server had sent emails to over 30,000 domains in 107 countries, none of which were affiliated with Alfa Bank, according to the document on the closing of the investigation.
“From all of the U.S. companies we had spoken to, of the logs that we had looked at, as well as the Mandiant report from the Alfa Bank servers, there was no evidence that this covert communication channel existed,” Sands said.
“Our investigation was unable to substantiate any of the allegations in the white paper,” said Curtis Heide, another FBI agent involved in the probe.
Listrak and Central Dynamics did not respond to requests for comment. Rodney Joffe, another client of Sussmann; his business associate April Lorenzen; and Georgia Institute of Technology professors David Dagon and Manos Antonakikis, who created the white paper and compiled the data, did not respond to inquiries. Several of the researchers were poised to testify, but were not called after they said they would plead the Fifth Amendment.
‘Did Not Pass Analytical Muster’
The other piece of the allegations involved Spectrum. Researchers said the nonprofit healthcare company was essentially being utilized as an intermediary between Trump’s business and Alfa Bank, through a The Onion Router (TOR) node, a technology designed by the U.S. government that enables anonymity.
FBI investigators went to a website, TORproject.org, to see if any of Spectrum’s servers were or had ever been used as a TOR node, and found that they had not.
The agents also received logs and records from Spectrum, and “did not see any unusual activity,” Sands said.
That part of the allegations “did not pass analytical muster,” Ryan Gaynor, an agent monitoring the investigation for senior leaders from the Washington area, testified. “It didn’t have merit.”
“In 2016, media coverage alleged internet traffic between a computer server affiliated with the Trump organization and the computer servers of Alfa Bank (a Russian bank) and Spectrum Health. Spectrum Health does not and never has had any relationship with Alfa Bank or any of the Trump organizations,” a Spectrum spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email.
“As we have previously stated, we concluded a rigorous review with both our internal IT security specialists and expert cyber security firms. That review’s detailed analysis of the alleged internet traffic did not find any evidence of any actual communications (no emails, chat, text, etc.) between Spectrum Health and Alfa Bank or any of the Trump organizations. While we did find a small number of incoming spam marketing emails, they originated from a third party,” the spokesperson added.
CIA Conclusions
According to special counsel John Durham’s team, which prosecuted Sussmann—the lawyer who was acquitted—the CIA also analyzed the allegations, and concluded they were not only not true, but were not plausible.
Sussmann went to the CIA in early 2017, apparently frustrated by the FBI’s investigation. He met with a retired agent first, then with two agents on Feb. 9, 2017.
Sussmann handed over white papers and underlying data purportedly supporting documents, which included allegations involving Trump’s business and Alfa Bank and allegations concerning Russian-made phones, according to a memorandum of the meeting and testimony by one of the agents.
In court papers, prosecutors referred to the CIA as “Agency-2.” They said that CIA analysts believed the data from the researchers was fabricated.
“While the FBI did not reach an ultimate conclusion regarding the data’s accuracy or whether it might have been in whole or in part genuine, spoofed, altered, or fabricated, Agency-2 concluded in early 2017 that the Russian Bank-1 data and Russian Phone Provider-1 data was not ‘technically plausible,’ did not ‘withstand technical scrutiny,’ ‘contained gaps,’ ‘conflicted with [itself],’ and was ‘user created and not machine/tool generated.’” prosecutors said in a filing before the trial.
Little was said on the subject during the trial because U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, an Obama appointee, ruled that prosecutors could not broach the possibility of the data being spoofed unless the defense did. Defense lawyers did not bring it up.
There were several moments, however, when statements slipped through.
When presented with an email Joffe sent to his group just five days before Sussmann gave the data to the FBI, Heide said that “it appears, from this email, that this report may have been fabricated.”
Cooper also ordered redacted a portion of the report authored by Hellman and Batty that said the data “might have been intentionally generated and might have been fabricated,” according to Andrew DeFilippis, one of the prosecutors.
“I will not allow [Hellman] to talk about whether it’s fabricated or spoofed,” Cooper said, adding that doing so would encroach on his order.
Ankura, a Washington-based consultancy hired by Alfa Bank, said in a previous report (pdf) obtained by Just the News that its analysis of records and the timing of the allegations suggested that somebody mimicked the Central Dynamic servers to send fabricated emails, or “inauthentic DNS queries, ” to Alfa Bank “to create a connection between Alfa-Bank and the Trump Organization.”
The CIA didn’t respond to an inquiry. The Epoch Times has filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the CIA documents.
Years of Speculation
Speculation about the nefarious activity alleged in the white paper continued for years as the FBI and CIA remained silent about their findings.
The first stories about a possible secret link between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank ran in Slate and the New York Times on Oct. 31, 2016—just one week before the presidential election.
The logs the researchers studied “suggested that Trump and Alfa had configured something like a digital hotline connecting the two entities, shutting out the rest of the world, and designed to obscure its own existence,” Slate reporter Franklin Foer wrote in his article. “We don’t yet know what this server was for, but it deserves further explanation,” he added later.
Foer was one of multiple reporters in communication with Fusion GPS, the firm hired by the Clinton campaign that conducted opposition research on Trump, before his article was published.
The New York Times said the FBI was investigating the purported link but “ultimately concluded that there could be an innocuous explanation, like a marketing email or spam, for the computer contacts.”
In March 2017, CNN reported, citing anonymous sources, that the FBI investigation into the matter was still ongoing. That was false, according to the trial documents and testimony.
The New Yorker, in late 2018, published a lengthy article suggesting there was a secret channel between Trump’s business and the Russian bank.
Only Slate’s article has been corrected, and not since a day after publication. Some of the stories still contain false information; all have outdated details. Spokespersons for the publications did not respond to requests for comment.
The allegations divided technology experts when first promoted, but reporters found a number willing to make comments supporting the researchers’ theories.
“The parties were communicating in a secretive fashion. The operative word is secretive. This is more akin to what criminal syndicates do if they are putting together a project,” Paul Vixie, the CEO of Farsight Security, told Slate. Richard Clayton, of the University of Cambridge, told the New Yorker he believed the server connections signaled times when Trump Organization and Alfa Bank officials wanted to talk.
Of the eight researchers mentioned or quoted in the pieces as suggesting the allegations made sense, none were willing to talk on the record about what they think now based on the newly emerged information.
“Thanks for reaching out, but I’m not interested,” Vixie, now with Amazon Web Services, told The Epoch Times in a LinkedIn message. “I know nothing of how they came to their conclusions,” Clayton added via email, referring to the FBI and the CIA. Of the Sussmann trial, he said, “I haven’t been following that.”
Steven Bellovin, a professor at Columbia University, referred a request for comment to his lawyer. “We are not going to comment on the matter,” the lawyer said.
Some outlets did publish articles portraying the allegations as unreliable, including The Intercept and the Washington Post. And some experts cast doubt on the claims, including Robert Graham, a cybersecurity specialist, who wrote that the allegations were “nonsense.”
“While I of course think the DNS logs were nonsense, I’m still not sure how [t]he FBI came to that conclusion,” Graham told The Epoch Times in a Twitter message. “I think the basic issue is that it looks like an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory, and that this is why they didn’t do more.”
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) lied when she claimed during a June 9 House of Representatives panel hearing that Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) sought a presidential pardon after the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol, Perry says.
“The notion that I ever sought a Presidential pardon for myself or other Members of Congress is an absolute, shameless, and soulless lie,” Perry said on Twitter on June 10, a day after the hearing held by the House panel investigating Jan. 6.
During the hearing, Cheney alleged that Perry “contacted the White House in the weeks after Jan. 6 to seek a presidential pardon.”
“Multiple other Republican congressmen also sought presidential pardons for their roles in attempting to overturn the 2020 election,” she added.
She provided no evidence for the claims, and did not identify any other members of Congress other than Perry, who was one of the members who voted against the certification of electoral results from Arizona and Pennsylvania.
Perry said on a podcast that he did not do anything wrong on Jan. 6.
“No, of course not. I was in the Capitol doing my legislative duties,” he said.
Perry also said that the Jan. 6 panel was a “sham committee,” referring to how the panel only has members picked by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) because Pelosi rejected choices put forth by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
Cheney’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
The fervent critic of former President Donald Trump is the vice chair of the House panel, which has tried to compel Perry and four other Republicans to appear to testify, but all five have so far refused, calling the attempts unconstitutional.
Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) speaks to reporters in Washington on Feb. 28, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the chairman of the committee, told CNN that “we have documentation” of Republicans who asked Trump for pardons.
“That will come out in our hearings,” Thompson said.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a member of the panel, said of the purported pardon requests that “It’s hard to find a more explicit statement of consciousness of guilt than looking for a pardon for actions you’ve just taken, assisting in a plan to overthrow the results of a presidential election.”
No Republican members of Congress have been charged with crimes related to Jan. 6.
The votes against certifying electoral results from several states were legal under congressional rules.
Raskin voted in January 2017 to object to electoral results from Florida, which had voted for Trump.
Unlike in 2021, the effort received no support from a senator, so it did not move forward.
The votes in 2021 failed because a majority in each chamber rejected the effort.
Five-term Rep. Tom Rice (R-S.C.) insists there is one way he would consider voting for Donald Trump if the former president runs in 2024.
“If he came out and said, ‘I’m sorry I made a huge mistake on Jan. 6,’ then I might consider it,” Rice said in an interview with ABC News “This Week” on June 5.
The June 14 primary for South Carolina’s 7th Congressional District is a few days away, and Rice is doubling down on his criticism of Trump in a district that backed the former president with 58 percent of the vote in 2016 and 58.8 percent in 2020.
Rice was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for allegedly inciting the Jan. 6 incident at the U.S. Capitol.
In the interview on “This Week,” Rice called his decision “the conservative vote” and said, “I did it then. And I would do it again tomorrow.”
Trump opened himself to impeachment for possibly endangering former vice president Mike Pence and his family, and not being responsive enough to stop the riot, Rice explained.
“When he watched the Capitol, the ‘People’s House,’ being sacked, when he watched the Capitol Police officers being beaten for three or four hours and lifted not one thing … to stop it—I was livid then and I’m livid today about it,” Rice said. “And it was very clear to me I took an oath to protect the Constitution.”
South Carolina’s 7th Congressional District includes the Grand Strand tourist area that surrounds Myrtle Beach and stretches inland northwest, containing a vast portion of the impoverished Pee Dee region.
State Rep. Russell Fry is endorsed by Donald Trump in South Carolina’s 7th Congressional District GOP primary. (Courtesy of Fry for Congress).
Rice was first elected in 2012 and faces a crowded field of six challengers, including Trump-endorsed state Rep. Russell Fry, who has led in multiple polls.
According to two internal polls from Fry’s campaign in May, and a Trafalgar Group survey conducted between May 26 and May 29, Fry occupies the top spot with Rice in second.
The Trafalgar Group poll, which included 572 responses from likely GOP primary voters, asked, “If the Republican primary for Congress were held today, for whom would you most likely vote?”
Fry was first with 42.2 percent followed by Rice (24.9 percent), Barbara Arthur (9.8 percent), Ken Richardson (9.6 percent), Garrett Barton (2.9 percent), Spencer Morris (2.1 percent), and Mark McBride (1.5 percent) with 7 percent undecided.
An internal survey conducted by Rice’s polling team between May 25 and May 26 found that Rice has 38 percent support from likely Republican primary voters followed by Fry (21 percent) and Arthur (19 percent).
Rice’s internal study featured 400 respondents and had a margin of effort of plus or minus 5.2 percentage points.
In South Carolina, the top two candidates meet in a head-to-head runoff if the leading candidate does not get more than 50 percent of the primary votes. If the polls are accurate, Fry and Rice will appear in a runoff on June 28.
Rice has criticized Fry for voting for the gas tax in South Carolina and has accused the state’s Chief Majority Whip of frequently missing votes on the House floor.
During a debate and in a television ad, Rice targeted Fry about those claims.
“There are no excused absences in Congress,” Rice said in a statement about the ad. “My opponents want a full-time job that requires you to make sacrifices. Russell Fry missed the vote for the largest tax cut in South Carolina history because he decided a trip to Florida was more important.
“The irony is, he managed to be present the day he voted to raise our gas taxes,” Rice added. “I take my job serving the 7th District seriously and will always put the best interests of my constituents first.”
Fry defended himself by calling Rice a liar and presenting a document from South Carolina House Clerk Charles Reid that shows he has been absent six days over the seven years he has held office.
Some of Fry’s critics have said that, according to legislative records, he has missed 640 votes during his time as a state representative.
State Rep. Heather Ammons Crawford (R) told the Palmetto Post, a conservative blog based in Myrtle Beach, that the attacks about Fry’s attendance and voting records are “baseless.”
“I sit next to Russell Fry in the S.C. House and he doesn’t miss work,” Crawford said. “I know when he gets to Washington, he will display a strong work ethic and defend our conservative values just as he has done in Columbia.”
Audrey Hudson, who covered Congress as a former national desk reporter for the Washington Times, is the founder of the Palmetto Post and closely follows GOP politics in the 7th Congressional District.
“Fry didn’t miss all these votes, he recused himself from those votes and Rice knew that when he launched his debate attack and began flooding the airwaves across the Grand Strand and Pee Dee region in an expensive TV ad buy that only Rice could afford,” Hudson wrote.
“South Carolina requires state elected officials to recuse themselves from voting on any spending bills or legislation that does, or could pose, a conflict of interest with the lawmaker’s job or business, or any member of their family’s business,” Hudson continued.
“He did not miss more than 600 votes. Fry, like every member of the General Assembly, recuses himself from numerous votes a year because he was advised by the Ethics Committee to avoid those votes out of an abundance of caution that it might constitute a conflict of interest.”
Former U.S. Speaker of the House Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) (L), Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar (2L), then-president Donald Trump (C), former U.S. vice president Mike Pence (@R), and U.S. Rep. Peter King (R-NY) walk down the House steps at the Capitol after the Friends of Ireland luncheon on Capitol Hill in Washington, on March 15, 2018. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
At a recent luncheon attended by Rice supporters, former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R) pointed to Georgia, where Trump-endorsed candidates David Perdue (governor) and U.S. Rep. Jody Hice (secretary of state) lost their respective Republican primaries to incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp and incumbent Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
“The Georgia voters just told us they want honest conservatives who are focused on their problems, not someone’s vendetta,” Ryan said, indicating that same story could unfold with Rice winning in South Carolina.
“The more he keeps endorsing people, and those other people don’t win, the faster our party gets back to being a party based on policies and principles and not a person.”
Rice told reporters at the luncheon he is “pleased” that Kemp and Raffensperger prevailed last month.
“Gov. Kemp has delivered for the voters of Georgia, and they repaid him. I think Raffensperger delivered for the voters of Georgia, and they repaid him for that,” Rice said. “I’m hopeful that the people in this district feel the same.”
Trump has a different opinion, and he is determined to see that Rice is defeated.
“Right here, in the 7th District, Tom Rice, a disaster,” Trump said at a rally in March. “He’s respected by no one, he’s laughed at in Washington.”
In response to that comment, Rice said, “If I am a ‘disaster’ and a ‘total fool,’ and I voted with him 169 times out of 184, what does that make him? I was following his lead.”
Trump’s 76th birthday is on June 14, the same date as South Carolina’s primary.
Earlier this week, he asked South Carolina voters to give him “a beautiful, beautiful birthday present” of defeats for Rice in the 7th Congressional District and Rep. Nancy Mace in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District.
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.
Horry County is part of the 7th Congressional District. The county seat is Conway, which is located around 14 miles northwest of Myrtle Beach. County Republican Party chairman Roger Slagle told reporters that Trump’s endorsement is impactful and that voters in the region respect him.
“Donald Trump is very much alive, well, and very much controlling the narrative of the Republican Party in the United States. That is a no-brainer to me,” Slagle said.
That won’t automatically translate to a victory for Fry on June 14, Slagle added.
“They [voters] look at it and say, ‘Well, that’s great. Does Donald Trump really know all the nuances of what’s going on here in Horry County, South Carolina, or District 7?’” Slagle said. “I think you will see people that will still be as loyal to Donald Trump who end up rejecting his endorsed candidate.”
Conway, S.C. native Daryl Scott is unopposed in the Democratic primary. Libertarian candidates Keenan Dunham and Larry Guy Hammond are also on the Nov. 8 general election ballot.
Whether Rice, Fry or another candidate wins the June 14 primary, chances are a Republican will occupy the 7th Congressional District seat in January, 2023.
The Cook Political Report, Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales, and Larry J. Sabato’s Crystal Ball rate the district as “Solid Republican” or “Safe Republican.”
During a June 9 primetime hearing disclosing its findings after a nearly yearlong investigation, the Democrat-dominated panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol showed a series of videos and tweets that had been selectively trimmed or edited to bolster their claims that President Donald Trump was responsible for the breach.
“Jan. 6 was the culmination of an attempted coup,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the committee, during the hearing in Washington. “A brazen attempt … to overthrow the government. Violence was no accident.”
Those “who stormed the Capitol and occupied the Capitol,” Thompson said later, were “domestic enemies of the Constitution.”
The commission’s decision to selectively edit an array of videos and tweets to back up the claims, however, has drawn criticism.
Edited Video Implies Trump Applauded Violence at the Capitol
In one example, the commission placed comments made by Trump in an interview over video showing the Capitol breach, edited in such a way as to make it appear that Trump was applauding the genuine acts of violence that unfolded at the Capitol.
“They were peaceful people. These were great people,” Trump said in a July 11, 2021 interview with Fox News. “The crowd was unbelievable. And I mentioned the word love. The love—the love in the air, I have never seen anything like it.”
While Trump was in fact referring to the vast majority of protestors who gathered peacefully to hear him speak on Jan. 6, 2021, the commission video leaves the impression that Trump is referencing those who became violent.
On Jan. 6, Trump spoke before a massive crowd that had come to Washington to peacefully encourage Congress to hold off on certification of the electoral slates in states with major concerns of voter fraud.
It was this crowd that Trump was referring to in the out-of-context comments presented by the January 6 panel.
In the full, uncut version of the statement during an interview with Fox New’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” Trump said: “So, there was a big rally called. And, actually, when I say big, who knew? But there was a rally called.
“And a tremendous number of people, the largest [rally] I have ever spoken [at] before, is called by people, by patriots. And they asked me if I’d speak. And I did. And it was a very mild-mannered speech, as I think has been—in fact, they just came out with a report in Congress, and they didn’t mention my name, literally.
“But what they were complaining about and the reason, in my opinion, you had over a million people there, which the press doesn’t like to report at all, because it shows too much—too much activity, too much—too much spirit and faith and love. There was such love at that rally.
“You had over a million people there. They were there for one reason, the rigged election. They felt the election was rigged. That’s why they were there. And they were peaceful people. These were great people.
“The crowd was unbelievable. And I mentioned the word love. The love—the love in the air, I have never seen anything like it.
“And that’s why they went to Washington.”
Bodies of Ashli Babbitt, Roseanne Boyland Left Out of Public Footage
In another instance, British filmmaker Nick Quested, who was present at the Capitol that day, presented video that he shot of the Jan. 6 rally.
However, selectively left out of the video was footage Quested shot showing the dead bodies of two Trump supporters—Ashli Babbitt and Roseanne Boyland.
Babbitt, an unarmed Air Force Veteran, was shot by Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd; Boyland was killed after being crushed under a sea of protesters retreating from police who had fired tear gas and was then brutally beaten by a DC Metropolitan police officer while she was still unconscious.
Quested’s graphic footage shows Capitol Police, moments after shooting Babbitt point-blank and killing her, carrying her body down a flight of stairs.
It also shows Boyland unconscious, her face swollen and bruised, receiving desperate attention from other Trump supporters at the rally that day. Boyland was eventually brought into the Capitol, where police began to attempt to revive her using CPR and, videos indicate, a defibrillator. Boyland finally arrived at a hospital nearly two hours later, where she was pronounced dead.
In a past statement to the Epoch Times, Boyland’s father said that while Boyland’s exact time of death is uncertain, they suspect it happened in the timeframe that Quested’s video captured.
Joseph McBride, a top attorney for Jan. 6 defendants, blasted the commission’s selective editing of the video in a June 10 tweet.
“The @January6thCmte edited @nickquested’s footage deliberately to deceive the American public,” McBride wrote. “Footage of protestors trying to save Roseanne Boyland’s life and of their scolding the police for murdering Ashli Babbitt was removed because it doesn’t support the official narrative.”
Cheney Presents Incomplete Trump Text, Says He ‘Did Not Condemn the Attack’
On another occasion, Ranking Member Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.)—one of only two Republicans on the committee who are both virulent Trump critics—referenced a tweet Trump made on Jan. 6.
“These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so viciously and unceremoniously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long,” Cheney read.
However, she omitted the crucial end of the tweet, when Trump told his supporters, “Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”
Key Exchange Cut from Recorded Testimony, Former Trump Aide Says
Cheney also misrepresented video testimony from GETTER CEO and former Trump adviser Jason Miller, according to Miller.
“In this clip, Miller describes a call between the Trump campaign’s internal data expert and President Trump a few days after the 2020 election,” Cheney said shortly before playing a video clip showing Miller’s testimony before the panel.
“I was in the Oval Office,” Miller said. “And at some point in the conversation, Matt Oczkowski, who was the lead data person, was brought on, and I remember he delivered to the president in pretty blunt terms that he was going to lose.”
“And that was based, Mr. Miller, on Matt and the data team’s assessment of the sort of county by county state by state results as reported?” investigators asked Miller.
“Correct,” Miller said.
However, Miller said, the video is cut early before Miller begins to explain his reasons for disagreeing with Oczkowski.
In a June 9 Twitter thread, Miller revealed the next moments of the video that were not presented to the public.
“Here’s what came next in my testimony, which Liz Cheney failed to play,” Miller wrote.
“Q: Okay. And what was the President’s reaction then when Matt said to him, ‘Hey, we’ve looked at the numbers, you’re going to lose’? A: I think it’s safe to say he disagreed with Matt’s analysis.”
“2/ Q: On what basis? Did he give a basis? A: He believed that Matt was not looking at the prospect of legal challenges going our way and that Matt was looking at purely from what those numbers were showing as opposed to broader things to include legality and election integrity … issues which, as a data guy, he may not have been monitoring.”
These instances are not the first time that the controversial January 6 panel—which, aside from Cheney has only one other Republican, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.)—has been caught misrepresenting, cutting, or even doctoring evidence to bolster its claims.
In one of the boldest examples of misrepresentation, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.)—who in the past has “leaked” faked emails by Donald Trump, Jr. and fabricated a 2019 transcript between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy—was caught presenting doctored text messages.
The messages, exchanged between Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, were shortened and had context cut out to make it appear as if Jordan had tersely instructed Meadows to ask Vice President Mike Pence not to certify electoral slates from states thought to have had potential voter fraud.
Because of its track record of misrepresenting data, its tendency to target Trump allies, and the lack of any real opposition on the committee, Republicans have long accused the commission of being little more than a “partisan witch hunt.”
The January 6 commission is expected to have several more public hearings moving forward as it continues to try to make the case that Trump indeed attempted to mount an insurrection against the U.S. government.
CBS opted to bump a Young Sheldon rerun from its 8 p.m. primetime slot in favor of the Jan 6th committee hearing on Thursday evening. The decision backfired.
Just 3.24 million people watched the network’s “Capitol Assault Hearings” coverage Thursday night, according to the TV Ratings Guide. Exactly one week prior, 3.86 million people tuned into CBS to watch a Young Sheldon rerun, meaning an old episode of the coming-of-age sitcom garnered roughly 600,000 more viewers than the inaugural hearing.
That gap is even more pronounced for new Young Sheldon episodes. More than seven million people, for example, watched the show’s season five finale, titled “A Clogged Pore, a Little Spanish, and the Future,” during CBS’s 8 p.m. slot on Thursday, May 19. Three weeks earlier, 6.9 million people watched a new episode titled, “Uncle Sheldon and a Hormonal Firecracker.”
The revelation suggests that Democrats will struggle to use the hearings to attract voters ahead of the November midterm elections, particularly as Americans experience record-high inflation and gas prices. Just hours after the hearing’s conclusion, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that inflation rose 8.6 percent in May, the fastest rate in more than four decades.
Republicans pointed to that announcement Friday morning to argue that Democrats are not prioritizing issues that are important to voters. Google trend data show midterm voters have “very low interest” in the January 6 riots compared to issues including jobs, taxes, and inflation, according to Axios.
“While resident Biden and Nancy Pelosi are detached from reality and focused on their political smokescreen January 6 hearings, Kansas families are struggling just to make ends meet each day as they deal with a level of inflation many of them have never seen in their lifetimes,” Sen. Roger Marshall (R., Kan.) said in a statement. “I call on Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats to hold a prime-time hearing on the out-of-control inflation their policies have created,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy added in a Friday morning tweet.
Thursday night’s hearing is not the last for the Jan. 6th committee, which will meet three more times next week alone. Those hearings, however, will almost certainly get fewer viewers—none are scheduled to air during primetime.
The Jan. 6 select committee launched a full-frontal assault on former President Donald J. Trump and his “riotous mob” of supporters on June 9, claiming Trump orchestrated the violence at the Capitol in early 2021 as part of a “coup” to remain in power and nullify the 2020 election results.
The two top officials on the nine-member panel described Trump as so unstable after Jan. 6 that staff openly discussed the possibility of him being removed from office using the 25th Amendment.
In the first of a series of public hearings to detail findings from its nearly year-long investigation, the committee issued blistering statements and accusations that sounded like the foundation for possible criminal charges against the 45th president of the United States.
“Jan. 6 was the culmination of an attempted coup,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chairman of the committee, during a livestream broadcast from Washington D.C. “A brazen attempt … to overthrow the government. Violence was no accident.”
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), chair of the Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol, joined by fellow committee members, delivers opening remarks during a hearing on the Jan. 6 investigation at Capitol Hill in Washington on June 9, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
The first 60 minutes of the hearing was everything expected: hyper-partisan, with strong anti-Trump rhetoric, accented by video clips that were short on context and long on emotion. A Capitol police officer and a filmmaker testified in the second hour of the hearing.
If anyone expected a detached, academic review of alleged evidence to support what appears to be the committee’s foregone conclusion, they were left in shock.
Anyone who looked for acknowledgment of the killing of Ashli Babbitt by Capitol Police, the police beating and death of Rosanne Boyland, or any of the myriad examples of excessive force by police, was sorely disappointed.
There was no balance on this night.
Repeats False Claim that Police Were Killed
Testimony from Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards gave the appearance of linking the Jan. 7 death of police officer Brian Sicknick to her colleague being sprayed with mace at the Capitol on Jan. 6.
The D.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ruled Sicknick’s death was from natural causes, caused by a stroke. Sicknick was hospitalized the night of Jan. 6 after witnesses at the Capitol noticed him exhibiting possible signs of a stroke.
Thompson reinforced the point after a break in testimony, saying the audience included “some of the family members, friends, and widows of the officers who lost their lives as the result of the attack.”
Four people died at the Capitol on Jan. 6. All were Trump supporters. Babbitt, 35, an Air Force veteran, was shot to death by Lt. Michael Byrd. Boyland, 34, was crushed in a stampede after police unleashed gas in the Lower West Terrace tunnel.
Kevin Greeson, 55, died of a heart attack, although a witness said he was struck by a projectile when a police grenade or other munition exploded near him. Benjamin Phillips, 50, had a stroke. None of those names was mentioned at the hearing.
The Democrat-heavy committee wrapped its work in patriotic language and spoke of its support for the Constitution against the domestic enemies of America.
Comments from Thompson and Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) ridiculed the notion of fraud in the 2020 presidential election. They quoted former Republican Attorney Gen. William Barr, who called the idea “[expletive].”
Thompson referred to the nation as a “shining city on a hill,” borrowing language and sentiments from former Republican President Ronald Reagan’s 1988 State of the Union address.
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It was not the America that came to Washington to protest on Jan. 6 that was being spoken of, but the nation that is prosecuting those whom they claim tried to overthrow the government and quash the 2020 election results.
“It was domestic enemies of the Constitution who stormed the Capitol and occupied the Capitol,” Thompson declared.
Blame on Proud Boys, Oath Keepers
The hearing made clear the committee lays blame for the alleged “insurrection” at the feet of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, two pro-Trump groups charged by federal prosecutors with seditious conspiracy to obstruct the counting of Electoral College votes by a joint session of Congress. Thompson referred to the groups as racist, anti-government militias—terms the groups reject.
“This was like in the Soviet Union: show me the man and I’ll show you the crime,” Oath Keepers founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes told The Epoch Times from the Virginia City Jail, where he is being held without bond. “Now they’re going to gather what they think is going to be damning evidence.”
Rhodes said the “big tell” from the hearing came when they showed a still image of him with former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio in a D.C. parking garage on Jan. 5, 2021. The inference was that the men were having a meeting. “That’s an absolute lie,” Rhodes said.
The committee presentation did not include full video evidence showing that the “meeting” lasted fewer than 10 seconds and consisted of a handshake and brief pleasantries.
Video distributed by criminal defense attorneys shows that Rhodes made no reference to the Capitol or events happening in Washington. Chairman Thompson referred to a Department of Justice claim that “someone” in the parking garage made reference to the word “Capitol.” Whomever that was, it was not spoken between Rhodes and Tarrio, the video shows.
The committee showed a video clip of a group of Oath Keepers walking in a military-style “stack formation” up the east steps of the Capitol on Jan. 6. Prosecutors have said one of the Oath Keepers’s goals was to search for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cali.). Oath Keepers have said that is not true.
An Oath Keepers member gets in between a protester and a Capitol Police officer during a tense exchange in the Small House Rotunda on Jan. 6, 2021. (Stephen Horn/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)
What was not shown is how the Oath Keepers a short time later intervened in a volatile standoff between a Capitol Police officer armed with a rifle and angry protesters in the Small House Rotunda.
According to several Oath Keepers and video evidence from journalist Stephen Horn and other sources, the group got in between the potential combatants and calmed the situation. Rhodes said one of the Oath Keepers on scene told him the situation was about to go critical, given the officer’s demeanor.
Trump Tweet Started it All?
Meanwhile, Cheney said the upcoming committee hearings will detail a “sophisticated seven-part plan” that Trump devised to keep himself in power. Part of the effort involved a “massive effort to spread false information” about the 2020 election.
She said that a post Trump made on Twitter asking people to come to Washington for a rally that’s “gonna be wild” was the catalyst for the Proud Boys to allegedly plan an “invasion of the Capitol.”
One of the hearings will feature former White House aides, one of whom resigned due to Trump refusing to tell the mob to leave the Capitol, Cheney said. The White House chief counsel threatened to quit several times, she said.
After lashing out at Trump for most of her speech, Cheney warned her colleagues of lasting damage to those who supported the 45th president.
“There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain,” she said.
Rhodes has predicted for months that the Jan. 6 committee’s top goal is to keep Trump off the ballot in 2024 by criminalizing free speech, concocting alleged conspiracies, and tying him to everything bad that happened that day.
“They’re just strapping all of it together as though Trump planned it from the very beginning,” Rhodes said.
Anyone wanting to understand the effort to oust Trump from the public square should read Rep. Thompson’s February 2021 federal civil lawsuit against Trump, his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, the Proud Boys, and the Oath Keepers, Rhodes said. It contains the blueprint for the actions and strategy that the Jan. 6 Select Committee is now using against Trump and his supporters, he said.
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.
Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.), who is likely to become chairman of the House Administration Committee in 2023 if Republicans regain the majority in the chamber in November, demanded in a letter on June 9 to Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the chairman of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th breach of the U.S. Capitol, that the panel preserve all its records.
The letter from Davis, the current ranking GOP member of the Administration Committee, came just hours before the Jan. 6 panel’s first primetime hearing. An unnamed aide reportedly told journalists earlier in the day that evidence would be presented showing that then-President Donald Trump was “at the center” of an effort to prevent the transfer of power from him to incoming President Joe Biden.
In an unusually detailed and lengthy preservation demand, Davis told Thompson: “I write today to demand your cooperation in preserving all records produced by or in the possession of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (Select Committee).
“Given the on-going questions concerning the Select Committee’s compliance with federal law and House Rules, it is vital that the Select Committee preserve these records so that effective oversight may be undertaken.
“Please preserve in complete, un-redacted form all information in possession of the Select Committee or reasonably available to the Select Committee, including, but not limited to, all written correspondence and memoranda; emails; calendar entries; to-do list entries; telephone system records, logs, and transcripts, including for all cell phones, pagers, landlines, and other electronic devices; voicemails; text messages; instant messages; postings on social media, blogs, and other Internet sites; message board and chat room transcripts …”
Davis continued, demanding that Thompson also preserve “audio recordings, including, but not limited to, radio transmissions; video recordings, including, but not limited to, security camera footage; captured still images; electronically accessible or stored files, documents, or other papers containing such information; presentations; such information stored on any and all media or storage devices, including, but not limited to, optical discs, hard drives, solid state drives, portable storage, and remote or ‘cloud’ storage; all versions or copies of any record; and any other information relating to the Select Committee’s activities, no matter how stored.”
The Jan. 6 panel has been a center of controversy almost to the day it was announced in 2021 by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who appointed all of its current members after unilaterally barring two Republicans—Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana—from serving on it, despite their having been named for the appointment by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
Banks told reporters during a Jan. 6, 2022, House GOP news conference that the Democrats who control the Jan. 6 panel “aren’t investigating January 6, that is already abundantly clear … they are trying to use this select committee as a Trojan Horse to abolish the Electoral College, to intimidate President Trump’s aides, to block him from ever appearing on the ballot again, and to prevent his supporters from participating in American democracy.”
Banks also declared that Pelosi has yet to explain why she didn’t request the National Guard troops made available by Trump two days prior to the protest at the U.S. Capitol that resulted in one death and hundreds of injuries to law enforcement officers and protesters.
The Jan. 6 panel has issued hundreds of subpoenas and interviewed nearly 1,000 individuals in connection with the Capitol breach. Republicans question the panel’s legitimacy because it was authorized in a House vote to five GOP members appointed by McCarthy.
But after rejecting Banks and Jordan, Pelosi selected Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), who both voted to impeach Trump. Long-established congressional procedures require the leader of the minority party to determine which members of his or her caucus serve on committees.
Davis’s preservation demand letter also directed Thompson to preserve a lengthy list of other documents, including draft and final versions of all committee memoranda, whether completed or not, all threat assessments or other intelligence reports given to the committee, all social media posts made by members and staff through the committee’s servers and network and those made through other servers and networks, memoranda of agreement with all witnesses, and a complete list of all committee staffers, detailees, interns, contractors and consultants “as of July 1, 2021, and as of June 8, 2022.”
Copies of the letter were delivered to Pelosi, all other members of the Jan. 6 panel, and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), the current head of the House Administration Committee.
A spokesman for the select committee couldn’t be reached by press time for comment on Davis’s letter.
According to a White House statement, President Biden so far has appointed more federal judges than any president since John F. Kennedy.
Last year, Biden surpassed the most judicial confirmations in the last 40 years. A recent wave of confirmations means he’s appointed the most judges at this point in a president’s second year in office—the highest in nearly 60 years. To date, the Senate has confirmed nearly 70 Biden appointees to the federal bench.
For people of faith worried about religious freedom, they should not only pay attention to how many, but also the ideology of the judges being confirmed. They must know this: President Biden’s record on judges is alarming. The nominees he’s put forward have raised serious red flags when it comes to religious liberty.
First on the list is Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who will replace Justice Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court at the end of the current term. First Liberty thoroughly reviewed Jackson’s record and our analysis revealed significant concerns about her judicial philosophy. Multiple red flags in the record suggest she could be hostile to religious liberty.
For example, Jackson was one of the most frequently reversed judges on the D.C. federal district court. The high rate at which appellate courts have overturned her decisions signals that Jackson frequently engages in judicial activism—intervening where she should not—and gets the law wrong on constitutional matters. Jackson has been endorsed by virtually every liberal activist group in America, receiving praise from Planned Parenthood, Center for Reproductive Rights, American Civil Liberties Union, American Atheists, Human Rights Campaign, Demand Justice, and other radical organizations.
But the Supreme Court is not the only place where Biden has put forth a radical nominee.
We cannot ignore those picked for the federal district and circuit courts. Remember, these courts have immense influence in protecting our freedoms—including religious liberty. The Supreme Court only takes about 65 cases each year, which means lower court judges decide a vast majority of cases.
Of the 66 Biden nominees confirmed so far, 16 have been confirmed to appeals courts, just one level below the Supreme Court. Biden is surpassing many of his recent predecessors. Only President Trump appointed more circuit court judges at this point in his presidency:
First Liberty reviewed the record and background of several Biden nominees to important vacancies on appellate courts. We uncovered that while in private practice, many of these judicial picks—who are now sitting on the federal bench for life—have expressly worked against Americans’ First Freedom.
Similar to Judge Jackson, Biden has selected nominees whose resumés show they’ve worked for radical activist organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the discredited Southern Poverty Law Center, the latter being infamous for labeling political opponents as “hate groups” or “extremists.”
It does not appear Biden’s momentum is slowing down any time soon. More nominees could be confirmed in the coming weeks and months. Just this week, two appellate court nominees advanced to the full Senate for a final vote. About 20 total are waiting for a Senate vote. Slightly more than a dozen are pending a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing or vote.
In the most recent wave of nominations, President Biden announced three picks for appellate court judgeships on the Sixth Circuit, Seventh Circuit and the influential D.C. Circuit—often referred to as the “second highest” court in country. Approximately 50 district and appellate court vacancies still do not have a nominee.
Religious Americans alarmed about the judges being confirmed need to look at the bigger picture, however. Biden has been able to effectuate some change. But it does not mean he’s completely overhauled the composition of the judiciary.
Biden judges currently comprise less than 10% of the judiciary. If he filled every vacancy right now, there would be 140 total Biden judges. That’s still only about 16% of all district and appellate courts. If we compare this to his predecessors, Biden would be the president with the lowest total number of confirmations dating back to Gerald Ford.
Because federal judges make critical legal decisions about your religious liberty, First Liberty’s team of experts continues to keep a close eye on judicial vacancies and remains committed to our work of analyzing and evaluating the records of the nominees to America’s federal courts.
If our legal experts uncover any nominees who have a radical or unacceptable record on religious freedom, we will provide the facts and information to prevent those nominees from being on the federal bench for life.
As economic worries loom large before the midterms, self-described socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) says Democrats should push for trillions of dollars in social spending to court voters.
Sanders on Tuesday toldPolitico Democrats should “raise the minimum wage,” “deal with Medicare,” and “deal with climate,” in order to keep Republicans from winning a legislative majority in November. By the senator’s own estimate on the 2020 campaign trail, Medicare for All could cost up to $40 trillion. And Sanders’s Green New Deal would cost at least $16 trillion. All told, his legislative proposals would total nearly double the current national debt.
The suggestion flies in the face of recent polls, which reveal voters greatest concerns involve the economy. Four in five Americans said inflation is the greatest concern determining their vote this November, a ABC News/Ipsos poll found this week.
After having passed resident Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan last year, Democrats are being blamed for contributing to record inflation, which is at a 40-year high. Liberal economists predicted the injection of federal stimulus would worsen the post-pandemic economy, with Obama advisers Steve Rattner and Larry Summers claiming Biden should now take responsibility for contributing to rising prices.
A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday found Biden’s approval rating is at 33 percent, the same as the lowest number recorded for former president Donald Trump. A majority of Americans also disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy, according to the ABC/Ipsos poll.
Sanders said Democratic leadership should call out Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D., Ariz.) and Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) for holding up passage of larger spending bills, referring to them as “two corporate Democrats.” He added that “Republicans stand an excellent chance of gaining control of the House and quite possibly the Senate” due to legislative gridlock and Democrats’ insistence on playing up rhetoric about Trump and the 2020 election.
“You really can’t win an election with a bumper sticker that says: ‘Well, we can’t do much, but the other side is worse.’”
Pennsylvania Democratic congresswoman Chrissy Houlahan has attributed her past electoral success to her focus on “civility” and “unity.” Now, she says the Republican Party is “diseased” and must be “cleansed.”
Houlahan’s comments came during a May 27 appearance on the Daily Beast‘s The New Abnormal podcast, which saw the congresswoman disparage Republicans as deplorable and anti-democratic.
“This is, in my opinion, a diseased Republican Party. And it needs to be cured and cleansed,” Houlahan said. “So the stakes of having a Republican, as an example, in my seat are more than just policy differences. They are democracy, in my opinion.”
Houlahan’s rhetoric is a far cry from 2020, when the Democrat credited her political success to her message of “civility,” “decency,” “unity,” and “empathy.” “People ask me constantly how I flipped a seat in a competitive district. One of the reasons is that I made civility and decency a core of my campaign,” Houlahan said at the time. “Pennsylvanians want unity. They want leaders who rise above the fray and lead with kindness and empathy towards all Americans.”
If Houlahan’s assessment is correct, the congresswoman could very well see her seat flip back to red come November. With Democrats in control of the House, Senate, and White House, Pennsylvanians have experienced record-high inflation and gas prices—on Wednesday, the average cost of a gallon of gas in the Keystone State hit $5.03, an all-time record. Those issues have tanked resident Joe Biden’s standing in Pennsylvania, a state the Democrat narrowly won in 2020. Just 35 percent of voters in the state approve of Biden, while 54 percent disapprove, according to Civiqs.
Houlahan’s campaign did not return a request for comment. The Democrat’s decision to abandon her message of unity in favor of more inflammatory rhetoric toward Republicans closely resembles Biden’s track record. After promising “unity” on the 2020 campaign trail, the president went on to equate Republican senators to segregationists during a January speech, a move that drew criticism from some fellow Democrats. Biden has since centered his midterm election strategy on labeling Republicans “ultra MAGA,” a term that reflects the GOP’s “extremism,” according to the White House.
“Civility and decency are solely needed to heal this country. Biden has that,” Houlahan said before the 2020 election. Just one year prior, the congresswoman compared President Donald Trump to a terrorist.
Prior to joining Congress in 2019, Houlahan served as COO at sportswear company AND1, a position her campaign site touts. During her time at AND1, the company was implicated in a National Labor Committee watchdog report that accused AND1 of working with Chinese “sweatshops” where workers are “in a trap” and “stripped of their rights.”
Houlahan ran unopposed in Pennsylvania’s Sixth Congressional District Democratic primary and will face former Chester County Chamber of Business and Industry president Guy Ciarrocchi in November.
‘Tonight, they’re going to scream their lie loudly and often with much Hollywood drama. They hope you will buy it as truth. Do not be deceived.’
Ahead of the first of six televised House committee hearings related to the protests that took place at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021, a Jan. 6 prisoner has issued a warning to the American people regarding the “farce” they are about to witness.
On the evening of June 8, The Epoch Times received an audio recording from Jeremy Brown, which he addresses to the American people. The transcript of the recording can be found here.
“I am coming to you today on the 253rd day of my illegal, unconstitutional imprisonment to advise and warn the American people that what you are about to see is part of this compromised government’s well-orchestrated, highly-produced lie, meant to target the minds and perception of the uninformed and misinformed masses with the intent to demonize and dehumanize their opposition,” Brown begins.
He also advises that “their opponents are anyone who disagrees or even asks questions about their false authority and their anti-American and anti-liberty agenda.” He says “their goal is to take down America and ‘Build Back Better’ in a form suitable to their authoritarian utopia dreamland, also known as the Great Reset.”
Brown is a 20-year United States Special Services Master Sergeant and combat veteran. Brown is also a candidate for the Florida House of Representatives, District 62. As a self-described “January 6 political prisoner of war,” Brown is currently being held in the Pinellas County Jail in Clearwater, Florida, where he is awaiting trial for two misdemeanor charges related to the Jan. 6, 2021 protest in Washington: entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds and disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds.
The publicly available photo included in the FBI complaint against Jeremy Brown, who is shown here dressed in tactical gear in Washington on Jan. 5, 2021, the day before the Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” rally. (U.S. Department of Corrections)
However, Brown contends he is being held, not because of what the government claims he did, but because the FBI and Department of Justice are aware that he knows “the truth” about what they did. In an alleged effort to keep him from exposing that truth, they have denied him access to any evidence in his case for over eight months. He also reminds Americans that the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force already attempted to recruit him “to be part of their fraud.”
“But I turned them down,” he said, noting that he even recorded the encounter in order to expose them, and it was after that recording got out that they had him arrested “and planted evidence” in order to keep him incarcerated.
In an open letter titled, ‘”Don’t Do Nothing,” exposed in an exclusive story by The Epoch Times on April 13, Brown outlined how the government is trying to take control over the American people through intimidation and fear and to silence those who dare to take a stand. The entire letter is available here. The actual recording of the agents attempting to recruit Brown is available at the Gateway Pundit and at JeremyBrownDefense.com.
“They’ve had me locked away for 253 days in hopes of shutting me up,” Brown insisted, saying that will never happen “because they are sloppy.”
He predicts he will soon be free. But after that, “they will manufacture a new reason” to put him back in jail or to silence him “in other ways.”
“But even in death,” he vowed, “I have a plan to expose the truth.”
“Just look round,” Brown challenged, noting how “bodies of unelected, global elites like the World Economic Forum, the World Health Organization, the United Nations, and many others” are simultaneously and systematically destroying every aspect of what has made America “the most free and powerful nation on earth.”
“Their goal is to convince us that we are global citizens, not Americans,” Brown said, suggesting they are using a strategy of chaos in an effort to divide Americans by race, gender, medical mandates, the education of America’s children, “and even the weather” in order to turn them against each other.
“They need us to blame each other so we don’t blame and hold them accountable,” He asserted, adding that “their gloves are off and they’ve crossed the Rubicon.”
“Their fake cultural revolution has been building for decades,” Brown said, with the caveat that it is now “out in the open for all to see and that those who seek to rule over [Americans] must seize total control before [Americans] recognize what is going on.
“But will you recognize it?” he asks rhetorically, and he dares Americans to look at the condition of their country, at what is going on with their children, in their workplace, in their communities, and in their culture. He challenges them to look at the empty supermarket shelves, the cost of gas, and the evaporation of their life’s savings. “Do you see it?” he asks, inquiring further that with all of the current problems, why are gun control and domestic terrorism “the D.C. topics of the day?”
“At a time when violent crime and property crime are skyrocketing faster than inflation and gas prices, your government wants you disarmed,” he noted.
In the wake of the tragedy in Uvalde, Texas, House Democrats passed the FY2022 National Defense Authorization Act to enact Red flag laws, which will ultimately enable the government, through law enforcement and the courts, to target law-abiding gun owners by stripping away their Second Amendment rights based on allegations that lack due process, reasonable suspicion, and probable cause.
Brown further notes that while the government is using American tax dollars to arm Ukraine, they are actively seeking to take away guns from the American people. Why?
“Think about this statement,” Brown challenged. “When politicians want to take away your guns, that is exactly when you need your guns, and the Founding Fathers knew and lived through this. These criminals know the people are waking up to their corruption and when the lights come on they’ll be the rats and roaches running to hide. What you’re going to see tonight is their attempt to fortify their false narrative and they hope to see this as their final justification to pass laws making all of us domestic terrorists.”
After the National School Board Association sent a now-scrubbed letter (pdf) to President Joe Biden asking him to label parents who showed up to school board meetings to express their anger over mask mandates and critical race theory as a form of “domestic terrorism” and to use the Patriot Act against them, an Oct. 4, 2021 memorandum from United States Attorney General Merrick Garland to the FBI says the bureau was using a “threat tag” system to track and access those “threats” and that “the Department will announce a series of measures designed to address the rise in criminal conduct directed toward school personnel.”
“Tonight, they’re going to scream their lie loudly and often with much Hollywood drama,” Brown predicted. “They hope you will buy it as truth. Do not be deceived.”
He said the American people must watch the investigative hearings and realize that what they are watching “is a farce.”
Stewart Rhodes, the founder of Oath Keepers, also recorded a message to the American people, which was also obtained by The Epoch Times. The transcript of the recording can be found here. Rhodes, charged with seditious conspiracy and “other charges,” is being held in a jail in Virginia. Like many other Jan. 6 defendants, Rhodes is being held without a trial.
In this file image from video, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes talks to The Epoch Times. (The Epoch Times)
Rhodes also contends the hearings are nothing more than “a war against the entire MAGA movement” and an effort to destroy it. He said they are using the manufactured narrative created by “someone who rolled over and agreed to test a lie, to falsely testify, bear false witness” and they are trying to use “this grand lie” that Jan. 6 was a “planned conspiracy” in order to “stick that to President Trump” and to destroy “the two groups they hate the most, the Oath Keepers and everyone who is part of the MAGA movement.
“So just understand that,” Rhodes warned. “God bless everybody, take care.”
Brown tells the American people to learn his story. Then compare his account of what happened on Jan. 6 “to what you hear and see from the politicians that are responsible for most of the problems in this county and lie to your face for a living.”
“Judge for yourself what rings true to you,” he said, adding that he isn’t running for office from jail “to win.” He’s “running to warn.”
“Tonight, gather your family and friends and watch what is going on,” he admonished, advising them to “watch with a discerning eye and listen closely to their words.”
Ask yourself tough questions and then seek the truth on your own. Once you find the truth, don’t do nothing because today America needs us to be Americans. Today, it’s time for patriots not politicians, warriors not wimps, leaders not leaches, champions not cowards. It is time for winter soldiers to defend our republic, not sunshine patriots who profit from its destruction. Evil tells you who they are and we must believe them. My name is Jeremy Brown, imamate 1875858, and this is my warning to America.
“God bless your families and the truth seekers,” Brown concluded. “May God hear our prayers and cries for liberty and justice to be restored. De oppresso liber. Liberty or death.”
Joe Hanneman and Joseph Lord contributed to this report.
Michigan voters are challenging Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson for allegedly breaking state laws and corrupting the 2020 elections by allowing left-wing billionaire Mark Zuckerberg to use his social media fortune to dictate how the elections would be administered.
In official results, Democrat Joe Biden prevailed over incumbent Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election in Michigan, winning 2,804,040 popular votes compared with Trump’s 2,649,852, or 50.6 percent to 47.8 percent, according to Ballotpedia. In 2016 in the state, Trump secured 2,279,543 votes to Democrat Hillary Clinton’s 2,268,839, or 47.5 percent to 47.3 percent.
As Michigan secretary of state, Benson, a Democrat, is responsible for overseeing state elections and making sure they’re carried out in accordance with the constitutions of Michigan and the United States, as well as various state laws.
But Facebook founder Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, flooded election offices across the country in the 2020 election cycle with hundreds of millions of dollars in grants in order to influence elections. The couple made $419.5 million in donations to nonprofits—“Zuckerbucks” or “Zuckbucks,” as some have called the money—$350 million of which went to the Safe Elections Project of the left-wing Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL). The other $69.5 million went to the Center for Election Innovation and Research. The CTCL reportedly distributed grants to more than 2,500 election offices.
The CTCL distributed grants to local election officials and required they spend the money to boost voting by promoting mail-in voting and depositing ballots at unattended ballot boxes.
“Of the almost $17 million CTCL spent in Michigan, the vast majority (at least 84 percent, and likely more) was expressly earmarked for urban jurisdictions that historically cast ballots for Democrats by a wide margin over Republicans,” the voters state in an appeal (pdf) in Ryan v. Benson that was filed with Michigan’s Court of Appeals on June 7. A lower court had recently ruled that the voters in the suit lacked standing to sue Benson.
The funds were allocated to “predominantly Democratic urban jurisdictions including the cities of Detroit and Flint.” Zuckerberg’s money “was also used to buy remote unattended ballot drop-boxes that were used for allegedly illegal ballot harvesting.”
The voters “seek to hold Secretary Benson accountable as the person responsible for safeguarding their constitutional and statutory election rights, because she allowed the Michigan election process to be corrupted by an influx of private money selectively intended to promote voting among urban, Democrat-leaning voters, with a consequent dilution of the votes of rural, Republican-leaning voters,” according to the filing.
“In doing so, she violated the Michigan Constitution and the Michigan Election Code.”
The voters say evidence establishes that Benson encouraged local election administrators to participate in the scheme and that—contrary to expectations—only a small fraction of the grants was spent on COVID-19-related personal protective equipment.
“COVID was used as pretext to run a Democratic get-out-the-vote campaign funded with tens of millions of dollars of ‘dark money,’” attorney Thor Hearne, a special counsel for the Thomas More Society, a national public interest law firm representing the voters, said in a statement.
“This money was not reported to any Michigan or federal campaign reporting authority. Mark Zuckerberg is not stupid. He did not spend more than $400 million nationally—and close to $20 million in Michigan—to buy hand sanitizer and face masks. Zuckerberg and those involved in this scheme wanted to influence the outcome of the presidential election in battleground states like Michigan by increasing mail-in voting and ballot harvesting in predominantly urban Democratic jurisdictions to the detriment of Michigan voters who live in suburban and rural jurisdictions.
“Because these funds were channeled through the Center for Tech and Civic Life, a so-called ‘charity,’ and characterized as ‘grants,’ Zuckerberg’s ‘donations’ were not covered by campaign finance laws. Instead, they were unlimited and unregulated ‘dark money.’”
An analysis of data CTCL provided to the IRS and other public records demonstrated “that this scheme was designed to favor urban Democratic voters and disadvantage Michigan voters in more politically conservative rural and suburban areas.”
“This case is not about relitigating the 2020 election,” said Hearne. “Rather, it is about making sure that these unfair and illegal activities cannot happen in any future election in Michigan.”
Benson’s office declined to comment on the appeal.
“We do not comment on ongoing litigation,” Tracy Wimmer, Benson’s director of media relations, told The Epoch Times by email.
