Fox Commits Suicide

BY ROBERT SPENCER

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2023/04/fox-commits-suicide;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

Why would a network fire its top-rated show host? New in FrontPage:

Fox News intensified its spiral into irrelevance on Monday when it fired Tucker Carlson, the top-rated host on network television and a key figure of the resistance against the Leftist political and media establishment. On Wednesday, Carlson released a video explaining what happened. Without naming Fox, he explained what could possibly lead what is supposed to be a profit-making enterprise to cut off its chief source of profits.

Carlson began on an encouraging note: “One of the first things you realize, when you step outside the noise for a few days, is how many genuinely nice people there are in this country. Kind and decent people—people who really care about what’s true. And a bunch of hilarious people, also. A lot of those. It’s gotta be the majority of the population, even now. So that’s heartening.” Carlson didn’t say it directly, but this seemed to suggest that there are a lot of people out there who don’t buy the Left’s increasingly nonsensical view of the world and refuse to be intimidated into silence. That would be heartening indeed.

That said, Carlson noted that the really important things that are happening in the U.S. today are going virtually unnoticed and undiscussed amid a general fascination with minutiae and trivia: “The other thing you notice when you take a little time off is how unbelievably stupid most of the debates you see on television are. They’re completely irrelevant. They mean nothing. In five years, we won’t even remember that we had them. Trust me, as someone who has participated. And then at the same time, and this is the amazing thing, the undeniably big topics, the ones that will define our future, get virtually no discussion at all. War. Civil liberties. Emerging science. Demographic change. Corporate power. Natural resources. When was the last time you heard a legitimate debate about any of those issues? It’s been a long time. Debates like that are not permitted in American media.”

Indeed they aren’t, and yet the country is being transformed before our eyes, with most people still not realizing exactly what is happening. Carlson suggested that this was by design: “Both political parties, and their donors, have reached consensus on what benefits them, and they actively collude to shut down any conversation about it. Suddenly, the United States looks very much like a one-party state. That’s a depressing realization, but it’s not permanent. Our current orthodoxies won’t last. They’re brain-dead. Nobody actually believes them. Hardly anyone’s life is improved by them. This moment is too inherently ridiculous to continue. And so it won’t.”

Carlson still hadn’t mentioned Fox or his firing, but this was coming close. “Suddenly, the United States looks very much like a one-party state” carried the implication that Fox was falling into line with the rest of the establishment media, and silencing voices that spoke about the deeper and more important issues the nation faces today. As Carlson continued, this implication became stronger: “The people in charge know this; that’s why they’re hysterical and aggressive. They’re afraid. They’ve given up persuasion. They’re resorting to force. But it won’t work. When honest people say what’s true, calmly and without embarrassment, they become powerful. At the same time, the liars, who have been trying to silence them, shrink and they become weaker. That’s the iron law of the universe. True things prevail. Where can you still find Americans saying true things? There aren’t many places left, but there are some. And that’s enough. As long as you can hear the words, there is hope. See you soon.”

Fox has indeed begun to shrink and become weaker. Fox lost $800 million in market value after firing Carlson. If it continues to drift into becoming a pale copy of CNN or MSNBC, it will continue to hemorrhage viewers. Carlson, meanwhile, is being inundated with offers and will certainly make good on his promise to “see you soon.” While his firing at Fox was a setback for patriots and a victory for the Left, as he himself emphasized in his statement, the game isn’t over. The firing itself appears to have backfired. Carlson’s firing has awakened numerous people who were previously unaware of how much the media endeavors to control what we see and hear so that we only think that thoughts that they consider permissible.

Tucker Carlson has been fighting against that effort for years and will continue to do so. Fox, on the other hand, if it becomes just another establishment voice, will fade into oblivion.

Bill Clinton’s Commie Secretary of Labor Says Trump Must Be Barred From Running Again

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CENSORED, BUT YOU CAN READ IT HERE:

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2023/04/28/bill-clintons-commie-secretary-of-labor-says-trump-must-be-barred-from-running-again-n1691277

QUOTE:

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

"Robert B. Reich was Bill Clinton’s labor secretary; since then he has been keeping busy teaching at Berkeley and gracing us all with his punditry on Twitter, where he has a million and a half followers. Reich has become notorious for his unhinged far-Left rants; on Monday, he showed yet again why he has gained a reputation as an upscale Keith Olbermann. In the UK’s neo-Stalinist Guardian, Reich called for Donald Trump to be barred from running for president again — to preserve what Leftists love to call “our democracy,” by which they mean their hegemony.

Why should the current Republican front-runner be barred from running? Reich says it’s because he “committed treason just over two years ago.” Reich complains that Trump is “running for re-election, despite the explicit language of section three of the 14th amendment to the constitution, which prohibits anyone who has held public office and who has engaged in insurrection against the United States from ever again serving in public office.”

The Fourteenth Amendment does indeed bar from the presidency, as well as from Congress, anyone who has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” It was adopted in the aftermath of the Civil War, so as to prevent Southern states from sending former Confederates to represent them in Washington, and has become quite popular among Democrats today as a means they have tried to use to disqualify Republicans who don’t think the 2020 election was entirely free of chicanery."

Biden Establishes ‘Interagency Task Force With Senior Government Officials’ to Stop ‘Islamophobia’

Biden Establishes 'Interagency Task Force With Senior Government Officials’ to Stop ‘Islamophobia’

BY ROBERT SPENCER

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2023/04/23/biden-establishes-interagency-task-force-with-senior-government-officials-to-stop-islamophobia-n1689691;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

Old Joe Biden’s ghostwriters issued a statement Thursday to congratulate Muslims on Eid al-Fitr, the feast marking the end of the fasting-by-day-and-gorging-by-night month of Ramadan. Predictably, it was anodyne and obsequious in the extreme, with Biden celebrating how Muslims “decorate their homes, give gifts to loved ones, wear new clothes, and visit family and friends.” The faux president is made to add: “I am moved by the generosity that is shown by families that can provide food and give charity to those in need through Zakat-al-Fitr.” In the course of all this flattery, Biden’s writer drops in a serious note: there is now a U.S. government task force dedicated to fighting “Islamophobia.”

The statement quickly shifts from telling us how wonderful it is that Muslims wear new clothes and visit family and friends to depicting Muslims as victims: “Eid al-Fitr marks the completion of a holy month dedicated to devotion, charity, and reflection—a time when we also remember Muslim communities around the world that are enduring conflict, poverty, hunger, and disease and those that are displaced from their homes.” That served to set up the big announcement. Biden’s ghostwriter continued: “As we celebrate our blessings this Eid, let us also recommit ourselves to the tireless work of building peace and standing up for the rights and dignity of all people.” When the White House writers start depicting Old Joe babbling about peace and human rights, you know something bad is coming.

Doing this work for peace and human dignity will apparently require new restrictions on speech: “My Administration is also committed to addressing all forms of hate, including Islamophobia. This is why I established an interagency task force with senior government officials to tackle this and related challenges and encourage every American to build a more inclusive nation.” Good because Lord knows we aren’t “inclusive” enough yet. Every last person in the world doesn’t live here on the taxpayer dime yet, so there is a long way to go.

Meanwhile, exactly what pressing need is this interagency task force designed to address? Are Muslims in the U.S. really subjected to such widespread discrimination and harassment that the feds need to step in? The record shows otherwise. FBI hate crime statistics show that Muslims are rarely targeted in hate crimes, which far more often victimize Jews and others. In fact, anti-Muslim hate crimes actually declined by 42% from 2020 to 2021. But those facts don’t fit the narrative that Muslims face widespread discrimination and harassment in the United States, and so the facts have to take a back seat.

And how is the new “interagency task force with senior government officials” going to “tackle” “Islamophobia”? No doubt we will now be inundated with taxpayer-funded material about how wonderful Islam is. In the nature of things, however, there will still be human disputes, and some of them will involve Muslims. Now that “Islamophobia” has been established as targeted by the government, these disputes will all be ascribed to “Islamophobia” and offered as evidence of how urgently needed this “interagency task force” really is. The “Islamophobia” task force will therefore likely enjoy ever-increasing budgets. That’s how government agencies work: they have to justify their existence, so they keep having to find more and more of the thing they’re supposed to be stamping out.

Related: Ilhan Omar Takes Aim at the REAL Problem Facing America Today

Most importantly, since the Biden regime is now officially committed to efforts to convince us of the wonderfulness of Islam, it is not likely to look kindly upon critics of the religion, including opponents of jihad violence and Sharia oppression of women. Will the interagency task force make any efforts to protect the right of Americans to oppose jihad terror and Sharia oppression? Will it be careful to distinguish such criticism from the alleged hatred that this task force is supposed to be combating, or will it act upon the assumption that any and all criticism of Islam, and even of jihad terror, subjects Muslims to “hate” and must accordingly be silenced?

Since the Left has been insisting that opposition to jihad violence is “hate” ever since 9/11, my money is on the latter. But this is a preposterous claim that, if followed logically (which of course it never will be, as this “Islamophobia” business is fundamentally illogical), would preclude any criticism of anything as possibly leading to “hate” and violence. In practice, it will preclude all criticism of anything the Left favors. And the freedom of speech will be eroded even further.

Biden Regime Obstructing Afghan Investigation On All Fronts

BY DANIEL GREENFIELD

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2023/04/biden-regime-obstructing-afghan-investigation-on-all-fronts;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

These are serious grounds for impeachment.

Nearly a year after I wrote this, House hearings made it clear that the Biden administration is still illegally obstructing the Afghanistan watchdog.

In June, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction’s office (SIGAR), dispatched letters to Secretary of State Blinken and Samantha Power complaining that the State Department and USAID were stonewalling its investigation of waste, corruption and terror cash.

“Two SIGAR audits are also being hindered by a lack of cooperation from State and USAID. The first evaluates your agencies’ compliance with the laws and regulations prohibiting transfers of funds to members of the Taliban and the Haqqani Network,” the letter to Power complained.

Instead of turning over the information, Blinken and Power’s people have lawyered up.

“A State official has informed SIGAR that department staff have received internal direction to not engage with or speak to SIGAR without prior clearance from State legal counsel,” the open letter that was also sent to members of Congress revealed.

Illegally refusing to cooperate with an inspector general and then using State Department lawyers to impede any investigation in a matter involving possible terrorist financing is shocking.

Fast forward to late April 2023 and SIGAR is still being illegally obstructed by the Biden regime.

Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko told the House Oversight Committee. “Unfortunately, as I sit here today, I cannot assure this committee or the American taxpayer we are not currently funding the Taliban.”

“I don’t trust the Taliban as far as you can throw them. And the information we’re getting … is that the Taliban are already diverting funds,” Sopko told lawmakers. “I haven’t seen a starving Taliban fighter on TV. They all seem to be fat, dumb and happy. I see a lot of starving Afghan children on TV, so I’m wondering where all this funding is going.”

Sopko said the problems with oversight are exacerbated by the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) “failure to fully cooperate” with SIGAR audits and other inquiries.

“The lack of cooperation by State … and to a lesser extent USAID, is unprecedented in the nearly 12 years that I have been the SIGAR,” said Sopko, who was appointed to his role in 2012 under the Obama administration.

He said the agency’s refusal to fully cooperate has led to a significant portion of the watchdog’s work, including five reports for the Oversight Committee, being “hindered and delayed.”

In addition to obstructing the Afghanistan watchdog, the Biden administration has decided to also obstruct Congress.

The State Department on Wednesday violated a congressional Republican subpoena to hand over a sensitive diplomatic cable about the U.S. exit from Afghanistan.

The subpoena was issued late last month by chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) and is part of Republican efforts to investigate the Biden administration over the chaotic and deadly pullout from Afghanistan at the end of August 2021.

State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel said in a statement to The Hill that, “​​Discussions with the committee about next steps are ongoing,” and said Secretary of State Antony Blinken offered to brief the chairman and the committee next week on the contents of the dissent cable without providing the actual document.

Discussions are ongoing.

Trump was impeached the first time for a whole lot less than this. We’ve had a lot of talk about impeaching Biden. But these are actually serious grounds for impeachment. The entire Afghanistan mess isn’t behind us, it’s still ongoing and so is the cover-up. Terrorism financing is a serious business and should be taken seriously.

Italy declares state of emergency amid migrant invasion

BY CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2023/04/italy-declares-state-of-emergency-amid-migrant-invasion;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

Italy needs to do what Hungary has done: shut the door to illegal migration. It makes a mockery of a country’s immigration system, sending an open invitation to jump the queue, inviting in the worst criminal and jihadist elements, and is economically unsustainable in the long run. Italy’s problem is longstanding. In 2021, nonstop Muslim migrant landings in Lampedusa became a “situation is out of control.” Lampedusa remains the problem area, as well as the entire South coast of Sicily.

Ignoring the problem has not made it go away, and now Italy is under a state of emergency in hopes of stopping the hijrah.

“Italy declares state of emergency amid migration influx,” by Federica Pascale, EURACTIV, April 12, 2023:

Italy declared a nationwide state of emergency on Tuesday for the next six months following the exceptional increase in migrants continuously arriving via the Mediterranean routes.

On Tuesday, the Council of Ministers led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni (FDI/ECR) declared a national state of emergency on immigration after the Civil Protection and Sea Policies Minister Nello Musumeci proposed it. The decision also comes after a meeting between Musumeci and Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi.

The state of emergency will be financed with an initial €5 million in funding.

“Let’s be clear. The problem is not solved, the solution to which is linked only to a conscious and responsible intervention by the European Union”, Musumeci said after the government decided on the state of emergency.

“There is a condition of absolute emergency. It is not a new fact (…) It is a problem destined not to be exhausted for at least the next ten years”, the minister told Radio Anch’io, stressing the need to “neutralise the mafia of the scapegoats”.

Last February, the Italian parliament approved the so-called ‘Code of Conduct for NGOs’ – a government decree establishing a code of conduct for ships intervening to rescue migrants – despite criticism from the UN and humanitarian groups.

Migration flows in recent months have strained State structures, according to Musumeci, who called for a “responsible approach” towards migrants and their rights.

In particular, the minister highlighted the difficulty in managing the flows arriving at the islands – Lampedusa and the entire southern coast of Sicily – areas where first reception hotspots are constantly collapsing.

The Easter weekend was busy for national authorities, with boats breaking down and migrants at sea whereby about 2,000 people were rescued….

MONICA CROWLEY: What are the dangers of a digital dollar?~A threat to all our freedoms!

‘The Monica Crowley’ podcast host Monica Crowley warns about the push to adopt a digital currency across the western world on ‘Kudlow.’

President Trump Responds to Arraignment in Historic Mar-a-Lago Speech

President Trump Responds to Arraignment in Historic Mar-a-Lago Speech

FULL BUT SHORTER VIDEO:

VIDEO LEADING UP TO SPEECH

SEE: https://abcnews.go.com/US/york-ag-letitia-james-files-250m-lawsuit-trump/story?id=90240332

'Trump makes us energized': supporters outside Mar-a-Lago react to Donald Trump's speech

Trump Felony Charges Explained By Former Trump Attorney

LEGAL ANALYSIS BY ALAN DERSHOWITZ

BY MATT MARGOLIS

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2023/04/04/president-trump-gives-historic-speech-at-mar-a-lago-after-arraignment-n1684433;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

On Tuesday afternoon, Donald Trump was formally arraigned on 34 charges in what many believe to be a politically motivated prosecution by a George Soros-funded district attorney who campaigned on the promise that he would get Trump.

Though he was expected to speak to the media at the courthouse, Trump entered and exited quietly, saving his first public comments for an address at Mar-a-Lago Tuesday evening. During his speech, which included elements of his standard campaign stump speech, he discussed the events that led up to his arraignment.

“I never thought anything like this could happen in America,” he began. “I never thought it could happen. The only crime that I’ve committed is to fearlessly defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it.”

He then recalled how Democrats spied on his campaign and launched fraudulent investigations against him, including the Russian collusion investigation and two partisan impeachment trials. He also accused the FBI and DOJ of relentlessly pursuing Republicans, while protecting Hunter Biden.

“And now this massive election interference at a scale never seen before in our country,” he continued. “Beginning with the radical left to George Soros-backed prosecutor Alvin Bragg of New York, who campaigned on the fact that he would get President Trump, ‘I gotta get him. I’m gonna get him.'”

Trump noted how experts on both sides of the aisle “say there is no crime and that [the indictment] should never have been brought.”

“Everybody—even people that aren’t big fans—have said that this is not the right thing to do. It’s an insult to our country as the world is already laughing at us.”

Related: Why the Trump Indictment Is Worse Than We Thought

He’s right. We’ve covered this many times here at PJ Media, and we’ll continue to do so with your help. You can support us by becoming a PJ Media VIP member and helping us uncover the left’s abuse of the justice system to target Trump. Use the promo code WITCHHUNT to take advantage of a 50% discount on your membership.

Trump also spoke of the other efforts by Democrats to target him, including the “racist Democrat district attorney” in Atlanta [Fani Willis], who he said is “doing everything in her power to indict me over an absolutely perfect phone call—even more perfect than the one I made with the president of Ukraine.”

He also spoke of the ongoing case regarding the classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, noting that “there is no criminality under the Presidential Records Act.” Yet Biden took classified documents as vice president when he had no power to declassify them.

Biden “doesn’t come under the non-criminal Presidential Records Act,” Trump pointed out. “He comes under the very criminal Federal Records Act, unfortunately for him. But it’s not going to matter because they don’t follow the law, which has very severe penalties. He had classified documents that he took while he was a senator, which is absolutely inexcusable, and other senators, including Democrats, are outraged.”

“But he’s not being harassed and hounded like the people who work for me are,” Trump pointed out. “In fact, they seem to have forgotten about his documents entirely.”

When he pivoted back to Bragg’s case, he noted the many experts who agree there is no case. “They kept saying there’s no case—virtually everyone, but it’s far worse than that because he knew there was no case. That’s why last week he delayed for a month and then immediately took that back and threw this ridiculous indictment together, which came out today. Everybody said this is not really an indictment. There’s nothing here. I learned this came to me and they said, ‘There’s nothing here. They’re not even saying what you did.’ The criminal is the district attorney because he illegally leaked massive amounts of grand jury information for which he should be prosecuted, or at a minimum, he should resign.”

Toward the end of the speech, Trump spoke of how the United States is declining rapidly under Joe Biden.

“If you took the five worst presidents in the history of the United States and added them up, they would not have done near the destruction to our country as Joe Biden and the Biden administration have done.”

Related: Are You Ready for the Knock on Your Door?

“Incredibly, we are now a failing nation. We are a nation in decline. And now these radical-left lunatics want to interfere with our elections by using law enforcement. We can’t let that happen. With all of this being said, and with a very dark cloud over our beloved country, I have no doubt, nevertheless, that we will make America great again.”

However you feel about Trump, this is a historic time and a watershed moment in our country. The radical left, thanks to Bragg, is now further emboldened to use the justice system to target political enemies. The witch hunt against Republicans will not stop with Trump. If they can go after him, they can go after you.

Judge Moves to Force Trump to Stop Talking About His Case

NYC Judge Reportedly Set to Slap a Gag Order on Trump

NYC Judge Reportedly Set to Slap a Gag Order on Trump

BY ROBERT SPENCER

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2023/04/03/shut-up-donald-federal-judge-to-place-gag-order-on-trump-ahead-of-arrest-n1684022;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

Ever since the news broke about his indictment, Donald Trump has been rising in the polls and getting a big boost in campaign donations, demonstrating that the whole banana-republic endeavor is backfiring spectacularly on the Leftist establishment that is determined to find something, anything, it can use to destroy Trump. So now a federal judge is moving to put an end to the Trump momentum by slapping a gag order on the candidate ahead of his anticipated arrest on Tuesday. Is a silent Trump a neutralized Trump? We shall see. And is such a gag order even legal? What do the Leftist elites care about that anymore, if they ever did?

The UK’s Daily Mail on Sunday quoted an anonymous source saying: “The Trump legal team now thinks that the Manhattan judge will take the unprecedented step of silencing the presidential frontrunner with an unconstitutional gag order tomorrow.” Trump’s team is not taking this lying down: “The Trump legal team is considering adding a First Amendment lawyer to the effort to combat this and will fight it all the way.” If the gag order is put in place, Trump could incur a fine and a prison sentence of up to a month for violating it.

The gag order looms after Trump has made numerous comments about the case against him, including this one: “The Corrupt D.A. has no case. What he does have is a venue where it is IMPOSSIBLE for me to get a Fair Trial (it must be changed!), and a Trump-Hating Judge, hand selected by the Soros backed D.A. (he must be changed!). Also has the DOJ working in the D.A.’s Office – Unprecedented!”

And: “I want to thank everybody for the tremendous support you have given me against this assault on our Nation. Our once beautiful USA is now a Nation in Decline. Radical Left Thugs & Insurrectionists have taken over our Country, & are rapidly destroying it. They are using the levers of Law Enforcement, and have completely Weaponized the FBI & DOJ to Interfere with, Rigg, and Steal our once SACRED ELECTIONS. We are now living in a THIRD WORLD COUNTRY, but we will Come Back & MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Why, we can’t have the man going on about how the FBI and the “Justice” Department have been weaponized against America-First patriots, can we? Gag him!

Most recently, Trump wrote simply, and in all caps: “ELECTION INTERFERENCE!!!” This sort of thing will never do: exposing the Left’s hypocrisy about elections in the context of commenting on the political persecution of the chief opposition candidate. This man must be silenced, pronto, or people are going to start to get the idea that everything is not on the up-and-up with the Leftist establishment!

Trump has also noted the bias of the judge who is now poised to slap the gag order upon him: “The Judge ‘assigned’ to my Witch Hunt Case, a ‘Case’ that has NEVER BEEN CHARGED BEFORE, HATES ME. His name is Juan Manuel Marchan, was hand-picked by Bragg & the Prosecutors, & is the same person who ‘railroaded’ my 75-year-old former CFO, Allen Weisselberg, to take a ‘plea’ deal (Plead GUILTY, even if you are not, 90 DAYS, fight us in Court, 10 years (life!) in jail. He strong-armed Allen, which a judge is not allowed to do, & treated my companies, which didn’t ‘plead,’ VICIOUSLY. APPEALING!” Like all Leftists, Marchan clearly hates criticism and dissent. Hence the gag order. Only the point of view of Marchan and Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg should be heard.

Related: This Is Alvin Bragg: Charges Man With Attempted Murder for Shooting Back at Thief Who Shot Him

The Daily Mail added that “Trump’s campaign announced that the former president would make a speech at his Mar-a-Lago home on Tuesday evening after returning from New York. That could now be in doubt.” He is going to New York to be arrested, as he himself noted: “I will be leaving Mar-a-Lago on Monday at 12 noon, heading to Trump Tower in New York. On Tuesday morning I will be going to, believe it or not, the Courthouse. America was not supposed to be this way!” That’s right, but that’s what America is now, and even if Trump’s case is quickly dismissed, as his lawyers are working to bring about, a dangerous precedent has been set.

The Left is avid to crush dissent and make America a one-party state or a two-party state in which its opposition is made up of good and faithful servants of the Left such as Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, and Adam Kinzinger. Trump is standing in the way. Trying to force him to be silent is completely consistent with everything else the Left is doing to him and to the rest of us.

House GOP May Stop New FBI HEADQUARTERS Over Agency’s Politicization~Now That the FBI Is Just the Left’s Enforcement Arm, House GOP Threatens to Hold up Funding for Its Massive New HQ

Now That the FBI Is Just the Left’s Enforcement Arm, House GOP Threatens to Hold up Funding for Its Massive New HQ

BY ROBERT SPENCER

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2023/03/29/now-that-the-fbi-is-just-the-lefts-enforcement-arm-house-gop-threatens-to-hold-up-funding-for-its-massive-new-hq-n1682576;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

You can see it in the classic movie The Godfather: the Mafia chieftain, Don Corleone, reluctantly agrees to meet with his chief enforcer, Luca Brasi, because he is aware of a cardinal law of the underworld: keep your muscle happy, or your muscle could turn on you. In the same spirit, the Biden regime is planning to reward the corrupt and sinister enforcers of its far-Left agenda, the FBI, with an elephantine new headquarters building that will make the Pentagon look like your tool shed out back. The FBI has gone so far, however, in shedding its former squeaky-clean image and becoming the Left’s Luca Brasi that now the House GOP is talking about putting a kibosh on the fancy new headquarters plan. They should do more than just talk.

Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Monday: “The FBI…they have their eye on a really fancy, very expensive new headquarters. Well, you know, do they deserve that if they can’t follow the basic tenets of the Constitution? I’m not sure that Congress should empower that.” You said it, Mike! But is this going to be just more empty virtue-signaling, or will the House take real action to make sure that the FBI doesn’t get its enormous new Ministry of Truth building? It would be hard to find a more vivid illustration of America’s slide from a free republic to a Leftist police state than the staggeringly large new FBI headquarters, and if there are any patriots in Congress, they should put a stop to it.

Right now, however, the Republicans are talking, talking up a storm: “On Tuesday of last week, we set a record, all-time, in Congress,” Johnson said proudly. “We had 42 hearings in the House in one day. Most of those were devoted to oversight. So this is going to continue.” That’s wonderful and certainly vastly preferable to the record of the last Congress, but will it result in real action to cut off FBI funding for the new building or even (oh dream of dreams!) for the agency itself?

Johnson added: “What we’ve seen now, particularly over the last two years, and we know this to be objectively true, is that some of the agencies that were designed to serve and protect the American people have been weaponized and used against them.” That’s an understatement. The Federal Bureau of Investigation was once one of the most trusted institutions in the nation. FBI agents had the image of being honest, upright, patriotic, and not only not corrupt, but not corruptible. Beginning late in the Obama administration and accelerating sharply during the misrule of Old Joe Biden, however, the FBI took its sterling reputation, stomped on it with muddy shoes, tossed it in the dumpster, took it out, set fire to it, and threw the smoldering remainder into a vat of raw sewage.

Related: FBI Whistleblower Claims FBI Is Now a ‘Weaponized Apparatchik’ of the Biden Administration

The survey site Statista reported in August 2022 that “Where 57 percent of U.S. adults said that the FBI was doing either an ‘excellent’ or a ‘good’ job in 2019, this fell to 44 percent in 2021.” If it isn’t lower now, much lower, it’s only because most Americans aren’t aware of how far the FBI has fallen. The FBI has, in these dark days of Biden’s handlers’ regime, become synonymous with corruption, partisanship, and dirty dealing. Nor is there any relief in sight; instead, it’s likely to get worse: not only do Biden’s handlers have no intention of reining in today’s rogue FBI, but they’re rewarding it with the sumptuous new headquarters.

Why does the FBI need all this space? Hey, it needs room to track down all the people whose lives it plans to make miserable if they happened to have been in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. It desperately needs new offices so that it can expand its operations to hound and surveil parents who are angry because their children have been subjected to drag queen performances and critical race theory in primary school. The feds need extra room for their efforts to harass and terrorize pro-life activists. It takes a huge amount of office space to manufacturing “white supremacist terrorists” so as to justify the bureau’s ridiculous claims about what constitutes the largest terror threat the nation faces today. Then there is all the space the Brave New FBI needs to coordinate election crimes and stamp out “disinformation,” that is, news that deviates from the Democrat Party line.

We can only hope that this new FBI complex will indeed be relegated to the dustbin of history and that the FBI itself will follow soon afterward.

Arizona Supreme Court Finally Hands Kari Lake a Win, but the Media Doesn’t Want You to Know About It

Arizona Supreme Court Finally Hands Kari Lake a Win, but the Media Doesn't Want You to Know About It

BY KEVIN DOWNEY, JR

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/kevindowneyjr/2023/03/23/arizona-supreme-court-finally-hands-kari-lake-a-win-but-the-media-doesnt-want-you-to-know-about-it-n1680767;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

The Arizona Supreme Court handed GOP 2022 gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake a win and is forcing a lower court to look at voter signature verification issues.

The decision is a huge win for Lake, who has all but declared war on those she believes are involved in shady Arizona elections.

What does this decision mean?

Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Brutinel wrote that the court would decide whether or not Lake could prove her claim — that Maricopa County did not comply with Arizona election law regarding ballot tabulation. Lake must also prove that there were enough potentially fraudulent votes to affect the outcome of the election based on a “competent mathematical basis to conclude that the outcome would plausibly have been different, not simply an untethered assertion of uncertainty.”

Lake announced in January that she had three whistleblowers who claim 130,000 votes had been rejected because of bogus signatures, but “higher-ups” insisted they be counted.

These 130,000 votes are key because Democrat Katie Hobbs “won” by only 17,000 votes. If Lake can prove electoral skullduggery — which she claims she can — this may turn Arizona upside down, and will likely give credence to the “conspiracy theory” of election fraud in Arizona during the 2020 elections.

FACT-O-RAMA! Most of the Arizona election “problems” — such as malfunctioning voting machines — took place in Maricopa County, considered a Republican stronghold.

As expected, lefty Pravda news outlets are downplaying Lake’s victory.

Knowing full well that many people only read headlines, the liberal spin game is on. Left-wing websites are pushing the narrative that most of Lake’s lawsuit was dismissed. While true, they all “forgot” to mention the all-important decision that Lake now has a chance to put her money where her mouth is and prove mass voter fraud involving ballots with bogus signatures.

Let’s look at some lefty headlines:

Politico: Arizona court declines most of Kari Lake’s appeal over governor’s race

Time Magazine: Arizona Court Declines Most of Kari Lake’s Appeal Over Governor’s Race

L.A. Times: Arizona high court declines most of Kari Lake’s appeal over her loss in governor’s race

What happens if Lake can prove she was cheated? That remains a mystery. Hobbs has been in the governor’s seat for three months.

FREUDIAN SLIP-O-RAMA! Look at the “mistake” Newsweek made in its reporting about two LOWER courts decisions: 

Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law Professor Paul Bender told Newsweek that there is little chance Lake will be successful in taking over the governor’s mansion. If nothing else, a Lake victory will show the nation that elections can be and are being stolen from We the People, even though the left has bent over backward to suggest that elections — at least after 2016 — are fraud-free.

FACT-O-RAMA! Liberals screeched that the 2016 election was stolen from them by “Trump-Russia collusion” but swear the elections in 2020 were the “most secure ever.” Then why did the Democrats fight to stop investigations into 2020 election fraud nationwide?

O.J. Simpson wasn’t convicted of stabbing two people to death, but at the end of the trial, we all knew he was a murderer.

FLORIDA GOVERNOR DeSantis Strips Liquor License From Hotel That Held Drag Show with Kids Present

DeSantis Strips! — the Liquor License From Hotel That Held Drag Show with Kids Present

BY ROBERT SPENCER

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2023/03/15/desantis-strips-the-liquor-license-from-hotel-that-held-drag-show-with-kids-present-n1678567;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

Aside from some grumbling from social conservatives, the Hyatt Regency Miami likely never dreamed it would suffer any consequences for hosting “A Drag Queen Christmas.” The sexually explicit celebration of our current societal obsessions took to the stage last December — with children present. After all, the big corporations have thoroughly internalized the principle that it is Leftists they must never offend, while they can infuriate patriots all day long. That’s why they’ve all gone woke.

But now, for the first time, Ron DeSantis is making sure that these Leftist corporate behemoths will pay a price for pandering to today’s cultural saboteurs. The Hyatt Regency Miami is losing its liquor license.

Fox News reported Tuesday that “the DeSantis administration is moving to strip a major Miami hotel of its liquor license after hosting a Christmas-themed drag queen show in December with children present despite warnings.” With this and DeSantis’ earlier actions against the woke propagandists of Disney, we have done nothing less than enter into a new world. For the first time, corporations are seeing that they might suffer the adverse effects of tilting far to the Left and outraging the sensibilities of their customers who still retain a modicum of decency and sanity.

The Hyatt Regency Miami can’t say that it didn’t see it coming. The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation issued a warning to the luxurious hotel against hosting a “sexually explicit show with children present,” but the hotel ignored the warning. Now it is discovered that the warning was not just empty verbiage. The Department explained that as a result of the hotel’s hosting the show in defiance of the warnings, it was “revoking the venue’s license for the sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages.” It added that “sexually explicit content is not appropriate to display to children and doing so violates Florida law. Governor DeSantis stands up for the innocence of children in the classroom and throughout Florida.”

There was abundant reason for this action. According to a complaint filed by the same Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation, at the “Drag Queen Christmas” event, which had been advertised as suitable for all ages, “performers showed their prosthetic breasts and genitals, rubbed their prosthetic female breasts on the faces and mouths of audience members, intentionally exposed their rears, were ‘simulating masturbation’ and had ‘graphic depictions of childbirth and/or abortion.’”

Even all that wasn’t enough. Behind the performers, videos were shown on screens, displaying “exposed female breasts with less than a fully opaque covering, portrayals of simulated masturbation, and other sexually explicit content.” The show also featured “perverted versions of popular children’s Christmas songs,” including a version of “All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth” that featured a “portrayal of oral fellatio” and the words “I’ll sit on his lap, he can put his milk and cookies all between my gap.” All this went on as children gawked, having been brought to the event by some who thought they were going to get a benign Christmas presentation.

They thought so because the event “was initially promoted by the hotel with Christmas-themed materials that did not warn of sexually explicit content and included the words ‘all ages welcome.’” Of course, all ages were welcome. How can you ensure that little kids will be watching all this if you warn the prospective audience that you’re going to be rubbing their faces in the worst of twenty-first-century America’s obsession with sexual deviancy and perversion?

Related: Readin’, ‘Ritin, and Rainbow Madness: Drag Queen Forces 11-Year-Old to Leave Class for Denying 73 Genders

The hotel did update the promotional material after it received its initial warning from the state. The new ads noted that the show was “recommended for audiences 18+,” but according to Fox, “the admission policies still allowed for children to attend if accompanied by an adult.” The state’s complaint against the hotel thus states: “As a result, minors attended and were knowingly admitted. During the Show and in the presence of persons less than 16 years of age, performers appeared on stage wearing sexually suggestive clothing and prosthetic female genitalia.”

Hyatt Regency Miami’s general manager, Amir Blattner, said that the venue was actually managed by a third party. Maybe so, but it clearly went on under the hotel’s auspices, and I myself can recall having patriotic and anti-jihad terror events canceled from other Hyatts, so I suspect it would be hard for the hotel to sustain the claim that it is viewpoint-neutral.

DeSantis’ action is on the right track. The more the woke corporations come to see that there is a downside to wokeness, the more they’ll swing back to treating all groups equally. How refreshingly American that would be.

Biden To Sign Anti-2A Executive Order TODAY!

https://www.ammoland.com/2023/03/nssf-reaction-to-presidents-gun-control-executive-order/

FOX NEWS GOES LIBERAL & ANTI-GUN: 

"What Biden's executive order on gun control means" TO LIBERALS!

Michael Lawlor, associate professor of Criminal Justice at the University of New Haven in Connecticut, discusses how Biden's executive order is not new legislation, but rather works to enforce existing gun laws.

New Executive Action Against Gun Rights

Biden Sabotaging U.S. Energy Grid, Warns Expert

The Biden administration’s energy and climate policies are devastating American energy infrastructure and hurting U.S. consumers and the broader economy while doing nothing beneficial for the environment, explained President Frank Lasee of Truth in Energy and Climate in this interview with The New American magazine’s Alex Newman. Lasee, who served in the administration of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and also as president of the Heartland Institute, sounded the alarm about wind and solar “energy,” as well as the electric cars being forced on America by government policy. It does help Communist China, which is a major threat to America, and greedy cronies getting rich off the schemes, though, Lasee said. There are also many useful idiots who treat “green” as a sort of religion. Finally, Lasee breaks down some of the most outrageous propaganda and disinformation being put out by the government and amplified by establishment media.

Biden Limits Arctic Oil Drilling Project

Biden Limits Arctic Oil Drilling Project

BY DAVID KELLY

SEE: https://thenewamerican.com/biden-limits-arctic-oil-drilling-project/;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

President Biden approved a controversial oil project today in a compromise, a multistep decision affecting the Willow Master Development Plan in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A). The decision reduced the ConocoPhillips Willow project’s drill pads by 40 percent, while also “protecting” up to 16 million acres of land and sea in the U.S. Arctic Ocean from any future oil and gas leasing. 

Since before Biden took office, he has been at war with the oil and coal industries, seeking to reduce if not end their operations in the United States in deference to clean “green energy” wind and solar resources. Today’s decision supposedly was balanced to provide job opportunities and infrastructure for the nearby communities while protecting wildlife and the region’s unspoiled natural environment. It also helped to avoid a potential lawsuit over federal leases that ConocoPhillips has controlled on the NPR-A since 1999. 

The Willow project covers an area roughly the size of the state of Indiana. AP reported:

The project could produce up to 180,000 barrels of oil a day, according to the company — about 1.5% of total U.S. oil production. The project is the largest proposed oil drilling on U.S. public land and the biggest oil field in Alaska in decades. Alaska Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan said the development could be “one of the biggest, most important resource development projects in our state’s history.”

Today, following Biden’s announcement, the Interior Department (DOI) issued a Record of Decision substantially reducing the size of the Willow project by denying two of the five drill sites proposed by ConocoPhillips, including relinquishing “rights to approximately 68,000 acres of its existing leases in the NPR-A, including approximately 60,000 acres in the Teshekpuk Lake Special Area.” The agreement also “reduces the project’s freshwater use and eliminates all infrastructure related to the two rejected drill sites, including approximately 11 miles of roads, 20 miles of pipelines, and 133 acres of gravel, all of which reduces potential impacts to caribou migration and subsistence users.” 

 

BLM.gov

Biden will still have to face the music over the new drilling agreement, as net-zero greenhouse-gas zealots will be greatly disappointed to learn the administration gave in to oil giant ConocoPhillips. “Extracting and using the oil from Willow would produce the equivalent of more than 278 million tons (306 million short tons) of greenhouse gases over the project’s 30-year life, roughly equal to the combined emissions from 2 million passenger cars over the same time period,” AP reported

The Willow agreement didn’t stop the administration from moving forward with their climate-change activism by taking important steps to limit future industrial development in the Beaufort Sea and NPR-A, securing indefinite “protection” to the area. The DOI has proposed a rule, which will be available for public comment in the coming months, to consider additional protections for the more than 13 million acres designated as “Special Areas” in the region. The land was recognized for its importance to wildlife and subsistence users.  

A DOI press release stated: “The rule would limit future oil and gas leasing and industrial development in the Teshekpuk Lake, Utukok Uplands, Colville River, Kasegaluk Lagoon, and Peard Bay Special Areas — places collectively known for their globally significant intact habitat for wildlife, including grizzly and polar bears, caribou, and hundreds of thousands of migratory birds.”  

Adding to the Willow project agreement, the DOI in another announcement said that “the Biden-Harris administration is taking sweeping action to complete protections of the entire U.S. Arctic Ocean from any future oil and gas leasing.” This includes the DOI “preparing new rules to provide maximum protection to millions of acres of lands in the western Arctic….”

 

BLM.gov

In today’s action, according to the DOI, Biden, using his authority under Section 12(a) of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, made approximately 2.8 million acres of the Beaufort Sea in the Arctic Ocean nearshore in NPR-A indefinitely off limits for future oil and gas leasing. “Today’s withdrawal ensures this important habitat for whales, seals, polar bears, as well as for subsistence purposes, will be protected in perpetuity from extractive development.” 

These announcements and impending actions on controlling oil and gas leasing in the Arctic comprise yet another step in Biden’s goal of adhering to the UN’s Agenda 2030.

To prove Biden’s success in his ongoing climate-change agenda, the DOI closed its press release by stating, “With these actions, President Biden continues to deliver on the most aggressive climate agenda in American history. He has made the United States a magnet for clean energy manufacturing and jobs. He secured record investments in climate resilience and environmental justice. And his economic agenda has put the United States back on track to reach its climate goals for 2030 and 2050, all while reducing America’s reliance on oil and protecting American families from the impact of Putin’s war on global energy markets.” 

They Never Give Up: Washington State Bill Would Destroy Free Speech and Criminalize Opposing the Left

BY ROBERT SPENCER

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2023/03/09/they-never-give-up-washington-state-bill-would-destroy-free-speech-and-criminalize-opposing-the-left-n1676936;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

Leftists hate dissent. Every far-Left regime that has ever held power, from Paris to Moscow to Phnom Penh, has cracked down, and cracked down hard, on those who dared to hold views that opposed those of the ruling elites. Leftists in America are no different. The hard-Left Biden regime tried last year to silence dissidents with its ill-fated Disinformation Governance Board, and while that initiative failed, the Left has not recovered any appreciation for the freedom of speech. A new bill in Washington state would establish a mini-Disinformation Governance Board in that state, criminalizing speech that opposed the Leftist establishment’s line.

Such a board would most certainly be in violation of the First Amendment, but when have Leftists ever cared about observing the niceties of the Constitution? Liv Finne, director for education at the Washington Policy Center, said of the proposed Washington state measure: “This bill will create a two-tiered justice system where some people have free speech and others don’t, and that is a dangerous path for us to be set upon.” Indeed.

This sinister bill is based on the recommendations of a report last year about how to prevent “domestic terrorism” from the office of Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson. In the report, Ferguson claims that “domestic violent extremism encompasses various forms of extremist and political violence like threats, coercion, and intimidation, online disinformation, extremist recruitment and government infiltration efforts, and the general spread of extreme white supremacism and anti-government ideologies.”

The implication is clear: what Ferguson and his cohorts consider to be “online disinformation” must be shut down so as to stop “domestic violent extremism.” As the judgment of what constitutes “disinformation” will be left to Washington state’s far-Left authorities, this will inevitably translate to the forcible silencing of voices that oppose those of the Left.

The report makes this even clearer when it calls for “innovative thinking on community-based efforts to prevent domestic terrorism and inoculate against disinformation.” State funds are to be used to carry out this “inoculation” so that when a luckless Washingtonian happens upon the writing of some patriot, he or she or xe will recognize it immediately as that “disinformation” that the good and selfless state authorities have been warning about and turn away from it without a second thought.

It may not be so easy as all that, however, as the Soviets and Communist Chinese and all the rest found out in due course. Fox News noted Thursday that “specifics on how the state might prevent radicalization and extremism are scarce in both the bill and the attorney general’s report.” Nonetheless, Finne notes that while the bill “itself would not criminalize any speech or association,” doing just that “is the natural next step of the commission, which is supposed to identify existing legal options and potentially new legislation for addressing extremism.”

Related: The Left Doesn’t Value Free Speech, and That’s a Problem

The “extremism” about which the report is concerned is not coming from Antifa and Black Lives Matter; the report “cautions against implementing any laws that could be ‘disproportionately used against BIPOC’ communities or other marginalized groups.” Of course! We can’t have any more “systemic racism.” And so “the attorney general’s report singles out online disinformation, anti-government ideologies and the ‘general spread of extreme white supremacism’ as examples of domestic violent extremism.”

So here again we see the claim that “white supremacism” constitutes a major terror threat, which is something that Old Joe Biden, Merrick Garland, Christopher Wray, and other key figures of the current regime in Washington, D.C., have repeatedly claimed. The only thing lacking is the actual “white supremacists,” so law-abiding, non-racist, but non-Leftist Americans will be forced to play the role.

Finne makes the agenda clear: “It’s obvious that this is targeting certain groups in our society without basis. Speech is not violence. Violence is violence. To equate the two is outrageous and wrong.” Yes, but equating conservative speech with violence is one of the foremost strategies of the contemporary Left. The report and bill in Washington state is a prototype of what Leftists would like to roll out all over the country and impose on a federal level as well.

The First Amendment constitutes a formidable obstacle to their plans but only as long as there remain five Supreme Court Justices to uphold it and not nuance it away. Already Leftists parrot the claim that “hate speech is not free speech,” a neat propaganda slogan that has no basis in either logic or law but which makes it clear that more assaults on the First Amendment are in the offing. Patriots should be aware and resolute.

Successful Suppression of Students’ Free Speech in Connecticut

Even universities that proclaim their commitment to free speech do not protect it.

The Greatest Lie Ever Told: George Floyd & the Rise of BLM | OFFICIAL TRAILER

Owens details shocking documentary exposing Black Lives Matter funding

BY JAY BERGMAN

SEE: https://www.frontpagemag.com/successful-suppression-of-students-free-speech-in-connecticut/;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

Last week the student chapter of Turning Point USA at Central Connecticut State University (CCSU) attempted to show on campus a film, “The Greatest Lie Ever Sold: George Floyd and the Rise of BLM,” produced by The Daily Wire and narrated by Candace Owens.

Fifteen minutes into the film, before an audience of approximately fifty students and others intrigued by the title of the film and curious about its contents, roughly the same number of students, at least one faculty member, and possibly others unaffiliated with the university stormed onto the stage, screaming that the film was “racist” and holding signs proclaiming it “hate speech.” By doing so, they prevented the audience from watching it.

To his credit, Dr. Craig Wright, CCSU’s Vice President for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, implored the protestors to disperse and continue their protest outside.  Reluctantly, they did so.

But by beating drums and screaming loudly enough, the protestors made it impossible for the audience inside to hear the movie. Periodically, protestors embedded in the audience screamed slogans and stormed the stage, preventing the movie from being seen.

In response the campus police at the event did nothing.  Finally, the president of the TPUSA chapter had no choice but to stop the film, before the audience had any real idea of its contents.

In the end, the protestors won.

The arrogance of the protestors and their enablers on the CCSU faculty is staggering.  They clearly believe they can silence anyone whose opinions are different from their own, and that they will not be held liable for their thuggish behavior.

This past November CCSU formally upheld the same TPUSA students’ right to show a film critical of transgender surgery and the sterilization of children this sometimes entails.  But it did so with obvious reluctance, citing legal obligations rather than any awareness of how essential free expression is to the university’s foundational commitment to the production and dissemination of knowledge.

After the more recent event, CCSU Associate Vice President of Communications and Media Jodi Latina stated publicly that suppression of speech will not be tolerated.  But in the absence of any punishment, or even a reprimand, of the offending students, her promise rings hollow.

What happened at CCSU is not unique.  Suppression of opinions students find “offensive” is so pervasive in America’s colleges and universities that according to a recent nationwide poll of 45,000 students conducted by the Foundation of Individual Rights and Expression, 61% of those polled said they would feel “uncomfortable” expressing an unpopular opinion to fellow students on social media. When asked which opinions should be barred from expression on their campus, 73% agreed that speakers calling Black Lives Matter a “hate group” should be prohibited, while 60% felt the same concerning the immorality of all abortions.  Even worse, only 37% of the students polled believe that shouting down a speaker at a university is never acceptable, while 22% said there were circumstances in which violence would be justified in silencing a speaker they disagreed with.

The enforcement of a left-wing ideological orthodoxy on issues such as abortion, race, and transgenderism is not only contrary to the very purpose of a university.  It also reveals the “diversity” to which university administrators are so loudly committed to being in fact its exact opposite: a racially and ethnically heterogenous student body that nonetheless thinks the same things and is entitled to silence with impunity any opinion it finds objectionable.

The justification several of the CCSU protestors offered for their authoritarianism is that the expression of certain ideas, even absent any exhortation to violence, can somehow jeopardize a person’s physical safety, and for that reason alone can be prohibited.  But they cited no evidence to substantiate their concern.  Not once in the over three decades on which I have served on the CCSU faculty has the expression of an idea, whether in a film or by a speaker on campus, led to violence or to any physical altercation.

Unless universities are what John Stuart Mill famously termed “a free marketplace of ideas,” in which ideas are like the products in stores consumers evaluate freely before purchasing them, they are mere engines of ideological indoctrination.  As such, they are no different from universities in the Soviet Union, Communist China, and North Korea.

But there is cause for hope.  Aware of the likely result, the TPUSA students at CCSU persevered, and by asserting their own right to free expression, they affirmed the right of all students to free expression.  For their courage and commitment to principle, they deserve the respect and gratitude of everyone.

 

Biden’s Woke Military Brass Prevented a Sniper Team From Taking Out the Jihad Bomber Who Killed 13 Americans

Biden’s Woke Military Brass Prevented a Sniper Team From Taking Out the Jihad Bomber Who Killed 13 Americans

The Untold Truth of America's Disastrous Withdrawal from Afghanistan

‘We Were IGNORED’: Weeping US Marine Recalls Taliban Suicide Bomber

‘The Five’: Biden’s botched Afghanistan withdrawal is worse than we thought

BY ROBERT SPENCER

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2023/03/08/bidens-woke-military-brass-prevented-a-sniper-team-from-taking-out-the-jihad-bomber-who-killed-13-americans-n1676674;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

Some details of how Old Joe Biden’s Potemkin military, distracted by wokeness, catastrophically bungled our withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 are well known: a government watchdog has just confirmed in a new report that Old Joe’s diverse and vaccinated military brass left behind $7.2 BILLION in weapons and aircraft for the Taliban, but that was already widely known. Less well known, however, is the information that Marine Sergeant Tyler Vargas-Andrews revealed Wednesday: American snipers could have taken out the jihad bomber who killed 13 Americans at Kabul airport on Aug. 26, 2021, but their superiors ordered them to stand down.

Vargas-Andrews, who was on the scene in Kabul on that fateful day, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that his team of crack snipers had been given precise information about the jihad bomber before he committed his murderous act, including an accurate physical description. Vargas-Andrews recounted, “I asked the intel guys why he wasn’t apprehended sooner, since we had a full description. I was told the asset could not be compromised.” So apparently, if American forces had stopped this jihadi, the person who had provided us with all this detailed info about him would have been able to be identified and killed. That’s plausible, but what happened next is not.

Not long after they received the information about the bomber, Vargas-Andrews, and his crew spotted him, but their commanding officer told them not to take any action. Vargas-Andrews recalled that they explained to the commander that it wouldn’t be difficult to take out the bomber: “We reassured him of the ease of fire on the suicide bomber. Pointedly, we asked him for engagement authority and permission. We asked him if we could shoot. Our battalion commander said, and I quote, ‘I don’t know.'” Vargas-Andrews concluded, “Plain and simple, we were ignored. Our expertise was disregarded. No one was held accountable for our safety.”

The commanding officer’s uncertainty may have been related to the rules of engagement by which U.S. troops in Afghanistan had to abide. For many years, these were a cause of considerable vexation to the troops on the ground, as they hamstrung their efforts to strike a serious blow against the Taliban. Back in 2010, a Marine commander in Afghanistan stated, after two Americans were killed by remote-controlled bombs: “It causes a lot of frustration. My men want revenge – that is only natural. But I keep telling them that the rules are the rules for a reason. If we simply go crazy and start shooting at everything, in the long run, we will lose this war because we will lose the support of the population.”

That Marine commander added that the Taliban jihadis “know we can’t shoot them if they don’t carry guns or without positive identification. They are fighting us at another level now.” After one Taliban attack, another Marine said, “We were attacked treacherously. We came under fire from everywhere, but the rules of engagement prevent me from doing my job.” Did they prevent Sergeant Vargas-Andrews’ commanding officer from allowing him to take out the jihadi before he killed thirteen Americans? The possibility should not be dismissed out of hand, but Biden’s woke Pentagon is almost certain not to conduct any investigation.

Related: Report on Afghan Withdrawal Details the Spectacular Failings of the Biden Administration

Not long after Vargas-Andrews was not given permission to shoot the bomber, the bomber struck, setting off what Vargas-Andrews described as “a massive wave of pressure. I’m thrown 12 feet onto the ground but instantly knew what had happened. I opened my eyes to Marines dead or unconscious lying around me.” According to the Washington Free Beacon, Vargas-Andrews “lost multiple organs and two of his limbs. He has had 44 surgeries to date as a result of the attack.”

Even after that, Vargas-Andrews continued, “no one wanted my report post-blast. Even [the Naval Criminal Investigative Service] and the FBI failed to interview me.” He concluded that the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan was “a catastrophe and there was an inexcusable lack of accountability and negligence.” That’s right. Biden’s military leaders were too busy implementing critical race theory and making sure the troops were vaccinated to bother paying any attention to trivial matters such as how to get American civilians and military personnel safely out of Afghanistan. Their misplaced priorities are still in place and are likely to lead to more disasters in the future before the woke brass is decisively repudiated.

‘1984’ Is Now, as Britain Outlaws Thinking the Wrong Thoughts

'1984' Is Now as Britain Outlaws Thinking the Wrong Thoughts

UK Passes Law BANNING Silent Prayer

BY ROBERT SPENCER

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2023/03/08/1984-is-now-as-britain-outlaws-thinking-the-wrong-thoughts-n1676571;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

Yes, it has come to this. By a resounding vote of 299 to 116, the UK’s House of Commons on Wednesday outlawed thinking the wrong thoughts in the wrong place. According to the Catholic Herald, MPs including the Conservative government’s Home Secretary Suella Braverman and Attorney General Victoria Prentis rejected an amendment that would have protected “private prayer and consensual conversations within any ‘censorship’ zone.” “Censorship” zones are areas around abortion centers.

The vote comes just a day after a pro-life activist, Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, was arrested for the second time in several weeks for praying silently outside one of the centers for sacrifices to Moloch. “I’m not protesting,” Vaughan-Spruce explained. “I’m not engaging in any of the activities prohibited.” But she was thinking the wrong thoughts and thus had to face what British authorities call “justice” in these dark days.

Jeremiah Igunnubole, who is legal counsel for a firm that has represented people who have been arrested for thought crimes outside of abortion centers, observed that the vote was a “watershed moment for fundamental rights and freedoms in our country.” Yes, indeed. In fact, it is a signpost of the end of freedom in Britain.

Igunnubole continued: “Parliament had an opportunity to reject the criminalization of free thought, which is an absolute right, and embrace individual liberty for all. Instead, Parliament chose to endorse censorship and criminalize peaceful activities such as silent prayer and consensual conversation.” And of course, an extremely dangerous precedent has been set: “Today it’s abortion. Tomorrow it could be another contested matter of political debate.”

According to the Herald, the new law criminalizes “any form of ‘influence’ outside of all abortion facilities, including silent prayer.” Offenders will be fined £100 ($118) the first time they are arrested for wrongthink; if court proceedings are deemed necessary, the fines could increase to £1,000 ($1,183). Amid the debate over this measure, a Conservative MP, Andrew Lewer, injected a note of sanity: “Police shouldn’t be asking ‘What are you thinking about?’” Indeed. And what if the person praying denies the offense? The World Economic Forum has been touting brain implants, and it’s easy to see how handy they’ll be for British police: the bobbies (do they still call these sinister Orwellian figures “bobbies”?) will simply be able to consult a readout of your thoughts, and if prayer shows up, you’ll have to pony up.

Lewer continued to point out what should have been obvious to everyone and prevented even a single MP from voting for this measure: “Censorship of this sort is a notoriously slippery slope. It might not be your thoughts that are criminalized today, but I think we should all be careful not to open the door to that tomorrow about some other opinions that people may hold about something else.” Now that the door has indeed been opened, Conservative MP Sir John Hayes spelled out the implications: “We now have people arrested for praying, interrogated by the police, asked what they’re praying about, what they’re thinking. This is dystopian. It’s like a mix of Huxley, Philip Dick, and all that.” Quite right, old fellow, and don’t forget that Orwell chap, eh wot?

Related: The Church of England May Go Gender-Neutral

There are, meanwhile, a few more important matters that British police could be doing instead of spending their time arresting people for thinking the wrong thoughts. Another MP, Eddie Hughes, pointed out that “Given the other crimes that were going on in Birmingham at that time,” that is, the time that Isabel Vaughan-Spruce was arrested for praying silently, “it is important to see that the police had clearly determined that the most important thing they had to do at that particular time was not to deal with knife crime or with people stealing tools out of other people’s vans to stop them earning a living but to arrest and interrogate a woman who was silently praying outside a clinic that was closed. Surely that shows a sense of complete disproportionality on the part of the police.” Yes, it does, and it’s going to get worse.

MP Ian Paisley (not to be confused with the late Northern Irish preacher) added: “Despite the level of crime across this society—I think there were over 500 knife crimes last year—are we actually going to ask the police to get engaged and be detained in questioning people about what they are thinking in certain parts of the United Kingdom? That is a complete waste of police resources and police time, and it should not be done.” It should not, but now it will be. And the Biden regime, no friend of the freedom of speech itself, is watching and (silently) taking notes.

Biden’s Handlers Back Jihad Terrorists, ‘Cancel’ Israel

BY DANIEL GREENFIELD

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2023/03/bidens-handlers-back-jihad-terrorists-cancel-israel;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

“A radio network run by the Islamic Jihad”

The Biden administration is once again attacking Israel while providing support to terrorists.

As Caroline Glick notes at JNS, “On Feb. 27, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) wrote a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken demanding the suspension of a U.S. State Department grant that was awarded to Fares Al Arab for Development and Charity Works in Gaza due to the group’s ties to Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist organizations.”

“The State Department gave Fares Al Arab a $41,213 grant for “Developing Palestinian Journalists’ English Skills.” But as The Washington Free Beacon reported, Fares Al Arab issued a grant “to a radio network run by the Islamic Jihad … , honored a self-described journalist who belonged to the PFLP, hosted a press freedom event that featured a spokesman for the Islamic Jihad, and co-led a human rights training course with a convicted terrorist.”

“Issa demanded that by March 10, the State Department explain if it “knew the history of the group’s ties to terrorism,” “why the grant was provided if the history was known” and provide a complete accounting for the State Department’s decision to award Fares Al Arab the grant.”

While the Biden administration does this, it’s constantly attacking Israel’s new government and has seemingly moved to boycott Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and other members of the government even while it continues to meet with terrorists like PA leader Mahmoud Abbas.

On Friday, Channel 12 reported that the Biden administration will boycott Smotrich when he visits Washington to speak at an Israel Bonds conference taking place from March 12 to 14.

“If Smotrich was persona non grata before that statement, now after this debacle he is persona non grata on steroids,” Channel 12 quoted a senior U.S. source as saying. “No American official will meet with Smotrich. After he said these things, the phones in the offices in Jerusalem did not stop ringing,” he added.

U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price earlier this week described Smotrich’s remarks as “disgusting,” and called on Israel’s government to repudiate them.

No call on the PA leader to repudiate this.

Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the Palestinian Authority, the guy who’s frequently touted by both left- and right-leaning politicos as a moderate who wants nothing but peace with Israel, went on an shocking rant against the Jewish state and the United States in recent public remarks, ultimately unleashing a curse on President Donald Trump that went like this: “May your house be destroyed.”

But it’s not just the Biden administration that is trying to isolate Israel’s government. ZOA leader Morton Klein described a Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations meeting that failed to include Smotritch.

It is painful for me to report that the Conference’s directors violated the leadership mission’s purpose, by refusing to give podiums to the major elected ministers and Israeli leaders who are in the forefront of promoting Israel’s judicial, anti-terror and other reforms: Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, and MK Simcha Rothman, chair of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee.

The Conference’s directors’ refusal to have a session with these important current leaders on such critical issues – a form of “cancel culture” – was an enormous missed opportunity to learn from, ask challenging questions to, and exchange views with the judicial and anti-terror reforms’ originators.

In a published interview, the CEO of Jewish News Syndicate (JNS) Alex Traiman asked William Daroff, CEO of the Conference, why he refused to provide access to Smotrich, Ben-Gvir and Rothman “even though they are directly relevant to the issues the Conference is sure to address.”

Daroff gave another irrelevant response, that the Conference mission did not meet with “other party leaders” such as Benny Gantz, Gideon Sa’ar and Merav Michaeli. But none of those other party leaders is leading reform efforts, and none of them is in the present coalition government that overwhelmingly supports the reforms.

That boycott allows the opponents of judicial reform to continue misrepresenting it without allowing members of Israel’s government at the heart of the effort to properly counter it.

PNC Bank Abruptly Ends Business Relationship with Don Trump Jr.’s News App

PNC Bank Abruptly Ends Business Relationship with Don Trump Jr.’s News App

BY CATHERINE SALGADO

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/catherinesalgado/2023/03/03/pnc-bank-abruptly-ends-business-relationship-with-don-trump-jr-s-news-app-n1675297;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

In another huge instance of financial censorship, PNC Financial Services Group Inc. suddenly ended its business relationship with MxM, Donald Trump Jr.’s news aggregation app company. The app was designed to be a more balanced alternative to the likes of Apple and Google News, according to Fox News Digital. As Trump Jr. explained, he wants to help create a “parallel economy” to the woke-enslaved major corporations, including Big Media. PNC Bank doesn’t seem to agree with that vision.

MxM News, launched in 2022 by Don Jr. and former Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich, is owned by ROCDIGITAL, LLC. The company insists this is more woke financial censorship targeting conservative entities. Budowich told Fox Digital he only discovered their company account with PNC had been terminated when he tried to pay vendor invoices at a Florida branch office. He explained, “The teller said he was unable to complete the transfers as the account had been closed and the balance had been zeroed out.”

Budowich continued, “After being told to call a generic helpline, I was informed by the PNC representative that per the terms and conditions, PNC reserves the right to re-evaluate their business relationships at any time and terminate accounts without cause.” The phrase “without cause” seems significant—it indicates that PNC itself knows there was no reason to terminate the account. “Woke corporations are using their terms and conditions like a guillotine over the head of every conservative entrepreneur,” Budowich concluded.

Don Jr. explained that MxM was created to “provide curated stories that are being silenced and or suppressed by big tech and the mainstream media.” The app is set to expand to include more localized news, too, per Fox. MxM includes articles from more mainstream or left-leaning sources such as ABC, NPR, and AP, along with conservative sites such as The Daily Caller, Just the News, and The Washington Free Beacon.

”However, as this shows, it’s not just the media that’s become plagued by the woke agenda,” Trump Jr. told Fox Digital. “It’s banks, it’s entire corporate America.” He called the PNC account termination “a minor setback for MxM News that we were able to quickly resolve.” Still, he added, “But what about every other start-up or small business that wants to pursue a values-based company? This should be investigated, and it should be illegal to discriminate based on political affiliation.”

PNC claimed to Fox that account closures have nothing to do with political affiliation. “As a national bank, we recognize and respect that our customers and our employees hold a wide range of political beliefs,” PNC said. PNC has not explained why it did end the account, however.

Banks have drawn criticism for closing a number of conservative accounts in the last few years, Fox Digital said. A Florida bank closed Donald Trump’s account in January 2021, for instance, and MyPillow CEO and Trump ally Mike Lindell had two banks cut ties with him in January 2022.

Hence, Donald Trump Jr. insisted to Fox Digital, “We need a patriot economy. We need a parallel economy to fight back.”

Trump Jr. is set to speak at CPAC 2023 on Friday.

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