(AP Photo/Montevideo American-News, Jeremy Jones, File)
We haven’t heard all that much from the so-called “sovereign citizens” lately, but that changed over the weekend. California Sheriff’s Department deputies in San Bernadino made what they thought was a routine traffic stop on Saturday after seeing a Ford Taurus that appeared to have windows that were blacked out more than current vehicle codes allow. The incident took place near Joshua Tree National Park. But upon further inspection, there was more going on than a simple case of overly tinted windows. Deputies found that the car contained a significant amount of black powder, live ammunition, and a “military-grade” improvised explosive device. A further search of the men’s residence turned up a third person along with firearms and more explosives. David and Jeffrey Russel were taken into custody, along with Venus Mooney, the woman who apparently shared the residence. They identified themselves to authorities as sovereign citizens. (NBC News)
Three people claiming to be “sovereign citizens” were arrested Saturday morning after live ammunition and explosives were found in a vehicle they were driving and at their remote compound, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.
Deputies had conducted a traffic stop for suspected vehicle code violations Saturday just after 10 a.m. PT on a Ford Taurus near Joshua Tree National Park, a press release from the sheriff’s department said. Inside the car were David Russell, 50, and Jeffery Russell, 46, who identified themselves as sovereign citizens. Sovereign citizens are a fringe group whose members consider themselves exempt from U.S. law and who sometimes use violent tactics to justify their beliefs, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Before anyone starts protesting the arrests or the confiscations, keep in mind that the deputies clearly appeared to have just cause. While the suspects’ prior records weren’t immediately released, they were listed as being forbidden to possess firearms, so they must have done something to get on that list. Also, even if they hadn’t lost their gun rights, making your own explosive devices is still out of bounds under the law.
There’s no indication that the men were on their way to commit some specific crime, but the raw firepower they were carrying in the vehicle and storing at their residence was alarming. And any group – even a very small one – that’s in the business of building IEDs in a residential area obviously merits an investigation.
I’ll freely confess that I’ve never really understood the entire “sovereign citizen” movement and I’ve never had cause to cover them very much here. The FBI has investigated them extensively, though they tend to be loosely affiliated groups with no central controlling authority.
These groups make claims that simply fly in the face of the United States Constitution. Though they live in the United States, they claim to not be subject to any laws imposed by the government and are, therefore “sovereign” in their own right. So they refuse to pay taxes, obey laws they disagree with and refuse to recognize the authority of law enforcement officials or the courts. And they far too often wind up engaging in acts of violence.
The concept of sovereign citizenry is an interesting one in theory and can make for some spirited debates between constitutional legal scholars. And I’m sure that many of us admire the spirit of people who are independent in nature and stand up for their own rights. But that doesn’t describe these groups. They go many steps too far beyond that. And when you cross the line between standing up for your rights and inventing new “rights” out of whole cloth – particularly when you endanger or injure others – that’s not admirable at all.
Normally, when leftists want you to avoid something they don’t like, they simply ignore it. They make sure the press doesn’t mention it, and they all yell as loudly as possible about anything else they can think of. Not so with Donald Trump.
Leftists think the hatred they have stoked against Donald Trump is the best idea they ever came up with. They can make a lot of people angry about anything, but anger is hard to sustain — it’s tiring. Hatred, however…now there’s a keeper. It lives a life of its own; it can’t be killed. The left jumped on that horse and now it has to ride it to the end — and the horse isn’t paying attention to the rider.
The left can’t stop the sequence of events it has begun. This is partly because it really wasn’t the idea of the useful idiots carrying this plan out; it was all part of the Great Reset, and leftists didn’t get that. Lefties look at goals within arm’s reach, such as getting friends to like them, injecting meaning into a life without religion or belief of any kind, or getting re-elected.
So how did all this hate business start?
This hatred push was really only part of a plan. When you look at this from 20,000 feet, the global plan included the removal of strong leaders. It is much more difficult to lead while being positive than to simply lash out against “the other.” Skilled and principled leaders who have a positive goal are dangerous to the Soros-Schwab-Davos-Bilderberg crowd because they can’t be controlled. This is especially true if a leader’s positive goal is based on nationalism. Nationalism is kryptonite to the Great Reset’s Superman.
In 2016, the left brought out the big guns right away. The plan was well underway; leftists only needed President Hillary to complete the wreckage of the United States, and the Great Resetters were golden. Incredibly (to them), this didn’t work, and Trump was elected. Uh-oh. Unlike with other countries, their large number of moles in the U.S. government were unable to stop Trump from being successful, let alone dump him. They just exhausted themselves trying.
These Great Reset bigwigs are not dumb; after all, they came up with a plan to take over the world, and it’s working. Trump was in their way, and they were in a hurry. For one thing, the people running the Great Reset are old, ugly, and nasty — they know they can’t run for office, and they are faced with the fact that they have emasculated almost everyone they control. So what to do with Trump?
They were going to have to kill him, which would make him a martyr, or make people hate him personally. They needed to make it so no one would have anything to do with him.
So on went the green light for any expression of hatred at any level. Leading lefties had been fine-tuning these skills for some time. Celebrities were trying hard to out-insult each other. Trump wasn’t doing anything wrong, so they went for the personal angle. Nancy Pelosi called him “morbidly obese.” Steven Colbert said on his show that Trump’s mouth was good only “as a holder for Putin’s c—.” Nothing was or is beneath them.
All these people live in their own world and don’t get America. Americans don’t all hate on command. Some of us actually think. None of us thinks as highly of celebrities and politicians as celebrities and politicians do of themselves.
The thing about hatred is that although it doesn’t die, it can be turned. We saw what Donald Trump was doing, and we liked it. His enemies will never convince us that he is worthy of this hatred, and they will never convince us that he was not re-elected. A plurality of Americans don’t hate him, and even if they don’t like his style, they want him back.
There are other leaders around. Unlike old Democrat war horses, Republicans haven’t killed everyone on the bench just to stay in power. There are several non-lefties who could make a good president. There are tons of people who would make great and effective Cabinet members. The Democrats seem to be unable to find even one.
The left has gone too far this time. Leftists always said, “If we controlled everything, we would implement our ideas, and things will be so great that everyone will forget there was ever credible opposition.” Like the dog that chased the bus and caught it, they have a problem. Of course their ideas don’t work; they never have — ever. Your average lefty is either in denial or in shock at the outcome of his leaders’ results. Who knew?
The Great Resetters knew, and they are pleased; their plan was to destroy America, and it is proceeding apace.
Normal or even good leadership skills cannot deal with the havoc that a mere two years of lefty control has brought upon us, nor can they blunt the momentum of the Great Reset. The biggest unintended consequence of trying to turn the world against Donald Trump by constantly dwelling on him is that he is the only one whose name everyone in the world knows. They also know a little about him. They also look back, now that he is out of office, and see what he did — and they want him back. They might say they want someone like him, but nicer. But who else can do what he can?
Who else can say these things and be believed?
Restart every fuel pipeline that has been stopped, including Keystone, and do it now.
Drill, baby, drill
Secure the border.
China, if you attack Taiwan, you will be destroyed. You are vulnerable on many fronts to an opponent with the will.
Russia, if you don’t stop emptying your arsenals on innocent Ukrainians, you will never be in a position to bomb anyone again — ever.
Mexico and Central America, stop these migrants, or there will be no money transfers out of the U.S. to your countries — at any level.
I know a “protest” when I see one, and this ain’t it. There will be no burning of businesses and no picketing of judges at their homes.
Using dope in public will result in detention.
Selling fentanyl is a death penalty offense; possessing it will result in immediate and lengthy detention.
Any new president would be tested for some time before he could make any statements like this. Trump would be expected to make them. His biggest problem would be if he didn’t. Americans are so tired of watching the death of the country they love that they would impeach any other politician who fights him.
Trump can do this, and if we can get him in office, he will. The first two on this list can be done on day one, which will stop the bleeding. The others will take a little preparation but are doable. Trump knows the ropes, will have competent help, and has nothing to lose.
It is a big leap to give someone this much power, so why would we? Because there is something else Trump has that lefties just can’t see. Unlike Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Mitch McConnell, Merrick Garland, Susan Rice, and their ilk, Donald Trump loves America. Today, he is the only one who can fix it quickly.
Unfortunately, our system is such that we can’t put him in place for two more years. I pray we have the time. Keep safe, Mr. President.
President Donald Trump, while meeting with a group of military leaders in the White House in 2017, cryptically warned of “the calm before the storm.” When asked by reporters what he meant he simply replied, “You’ll find out.”
There has been much speculation as to what “storm” Trump was referring to, ranging from overturning a fraudulent election to devolution. While his comments from five years ago remain inscrutable, today a real storm is on the horizon, plain to any American consumer. This storm is economic, perhaps a hurricane, as JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon described it, the likes of which may be terrifying and life-changing to those caught in the maelstrom.
Before I am accused of hyperbole, several financial gurus have likened current economic conditions to a storm, as I chronicled in a recent article. An SMU professor agrees, “We’re seeing these massive dark clouds on the horizon.” A coming storm is an apt description.
Was the Trump presidency, with $2 gas, low unemployment and inflation, peace and prosperity, the calm before the current economic storm? Did Trump know what lay ahead, teasing out a prediction? Regardless of what President Trump was alluding to, an economic storm is definitely coming, not just on the horizon but already taking its toll on hard-working Americans.
Inflation is at 8.6 percent, the official government number for the CPI. This is based on a basket of goods and depending on what is measured and how it is weighted, may misrepresent the inflation rate facing consumers on a daily basis. For example, the Truflation Dashboard reports inflation at 13.2 percent, with food costs up 26.5 percent.
The producer price index rose 10.8 percent in May, foretelling higher consumer prices soon reaching store shelves. Small business optimism fell to a new 48 year low. Pessimistic business owners will not be hiring new employees or expanding their businesses. Many may close up shop instead.
Anyone visiting a gas station sees the price over $5.00 a gallon, more than twice what it was a few years ago. As most goods and services require transportation costs, meaning fuel, expect to see this price increase passed along to consumers through higher prices.
The stock market is down bigly from the Trump days and is now officially in a bear market, meaning markets are down 20 percent or more from their most recent all-time high. Despite the unemployment rate hovering at 3.6 percent, this represents only those actively seeking employment, not those who have given up looking for work.
The labor force participation rate, a better measure of who is working and who is not, dropped to 62.3 percent, the lowest level since the mid-1970s, excluding the months during the COVID shutdowns. What are President Biden and his economic wizards doing to alleviate this?
Inflation is too much money chasing too few goods, a remnant of irresponsible government policy and leadership going back decades. This was exacerbated by copious COVID relief money, paying Americans to stay home and not work or produce. As COVID is waning, the Biden administration, rather than taking its foot off the stimulus accelerator, is continuing to create money and spend like a drunken sailor.
Boneheaded energy policy, reversing Trump era energy independence, has restricted energy production to the point that we are begging the Saudis for oil. Higher energy costs mean inflation and less production as it costs more to work and produce goods and services.
To combat inflation, the Fed must raise interest rates, ideally to above the inflation rate, in order to break the cycle of easy money chasing scarce goods. Last week the Fed hiked its benchmark interest rate by 0.75 percentage point, the largest increase since 1994. This translates to higher borrowing costs for home mortgages, business loans, and credit card balances, throwing cold water on the economy. Mortgage rates have topped 6 percent, the highest since 2008, which will chill the housing market and hurt borrowers who have adjustable rate mortgages.
As the economy slows, we inch closer to a recession. One more quarter of negative GDP places us in a recession, hitting the trifecta along with a bear market and runaway inflation. Is this what Biden and his handlers meant by “Build Back Better”?
Speaking of Biden, his “approval rating fell to 39 percent in its third straight weekly decline, approaching the lowest level of his presidency, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll.” Rasmussen Reports confirms, showing Biden at about 40 percent approval, almost 10 points lower than Trump at similar points in their presidencies. Despite the hot air emanating from the White House, Americans recognize the coming economic storm.
Consumer sentiment plunged to the lowest level ever measured by the University of Michigan since 1952. Biden’s disapproval of his job on inflation is 71 percent, topping Jimmy Carter’s 66 percent disapproval in 1978. President Biden has “never been more optimistic” about the economy, but perhaps he is the only one. His recent fall off his bicycle is a metaphor for his presidency.
Some Americans are calling it quits, “California exodus continues, now to Mexico to escape high prices, rising crime rates.” Imagine finding drug cartel and crime-infested Mexico preferable to California.
What if the Fed rate hike is too little too late? Will there be additional interest rate increases, further increasing the cost of borrowing and producing, worsening the overall economy? As the CPI rises, government benefit programs indexed to the CPI will also pay out more money. Where does the government get this additional money aside from simply printing it, worsening the inflation they are trying to fight?
What happens when consumers stop purchasing non-necessities since they have little money left over after purchasing food and fuel? What does that mean for the rest of the economy, from travel and leisure to nonessential consumer goods?
The axiom of stopping digging when in a hole is not something the Biden administration is capable of understanding. Where does this go? Economist Herbert Stein wisely observed, “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” That includes the U.S. economy and assumed prosperity that virtually all Americans have become accustomed to.
Internet entrepreneur Kim Dot Com recently posted a Twitter thread about the world being on the brink of a major economic collapse, not because of Putin or Russia, but because America and much of the first world has been spending money they don’t have. Is that the coming storm? Is it already here?
What are those in charge doing about it? Investigating January 6, promoting drag queens in elementary school classrooms, and trying to neuter the Second Amendment, making it difficult for the American people to defend the rest of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. None of these will help the economy.
Where are Republicans? Are they pushing back and offering a new pathway out of this economic storm? Or they busy cozying up to Democrats and the corporate media, trying to gut the Second Amendment? Where are the warriors when we need them?
Was this the storm Trump was referring to? Whether it was an economic storm or not, buckle up as the American house of cards is wobbly and may collapse in the months ahead.
Brian C. Joondeph, M.D., is a physician and writer. Follow me on Twitter @retinaldoctor. And on Truth Social @BrianJoondeph.
Biden and Oil: Destroy America in Order to Save It
Our current oil shortage did not arise from a foreign war or tsunami, but from a deliberate policy to curtail oil production to force a more rapid transition to battery-powered transportation.
Try to follow the Joe Biden energy plan of frantically trying to get his hands on more of something that his own party despises.
During the Democratic primaries, Biden ran on the premise that he would end all fossil fuels during his tenure. In 2019-2020 that bluster seemed easy demagoguery at a time of near-record low gas and diesel prices. The American people shrugged at such utopianism since they often were filling up their cars for less than $50.
Biden’s video clips from the primary campaign now seem surreal, as he tried to out-green Bernie Sanders in boasting about what has now become his own self-created energy disaster.
Biden monotonously promised at rallies, such as they were, that he would cancel pipelines, stop new federal leasing to oil and gas companies, persuade lenders to restrict loans to them, put the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve off limits, and embrace the green new deal. Those were certainly campaign boasts that he has followed up on.
His environmental czar John Kerry has just insulted Americans by lecturing them that there is no need to pump more gas and oil to reduce gas prices that are well over $6 a gallon in many of the Western states. The billionaire Kerry exudes Antoinette disdain for the muscular classes, a hubris that now characterizes the elite rich leadership of the Left in general.
Kerry and his progressive ilk make no effort to disguise that they feel the credentialed such as themselves, the wealthy, and the progressive enjoy the birthright to fly private, to be limousined, and to bounce between multiple energy-hungry mansions. Those compensations are all necessary, to allow them to focus on the divine task of directing and herding the unthinking and blinkered chumps, dregs, crazies and clingers to do what is for their own good—now most recently defined as paying more than $6 a gallon for gas.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also reassures the country that there is no reason to pump more oil and gas. Instead, she says, we just need to refine more. At her press conferences, she reads all her answers from prepared notes. But apparently Jean-Pierre’s twenty-something press preppers were oblivious that the United States, thanks to hard-left green opposition, has not built a major refinery since 1976, back when there were 110 million fewer Americans.
Jean-Pierre has no idea why she cannot now and will never in the future answer a question about fossil fuels honestly. She knows that Left for now got what it wanted. Since January 2021 it has all but destroyed the idea of American energy self-sufficiency.
Think of the mindset: the Left for decades deliberately restricts refinery capacity; then when the public demands it increase oil production that it has curtailed, it complains that increased pumping would do no good because—there is not enough refinery capacity. Yet Biden remains shocked that his long-sought victory to make fossil fuels unaffordable is despised by the American people, whose votes he now needs to stay in power.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg talks of abortion, racist freeway overpasses, mass transit—almost anything other than strapped commuters on clogged roads watching their livelihoods melt away by staggering fuel and energy costs.
Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm calls “hilarious” any suggestion she might think out of the box to find ways to encourage more energy production. Granholm is right only in that she could not say or do a thing that any CEO or foreign head of state would take seriously.
So, her administration is panicking that its prior arrogance has insulted, enraged, and alienated 60-70 percent of the country. But political reality to such ideologues does not mean that they will pump or refine more oil. We all know they prefer high gas prices and only object to politically damaging steep climbs before midterm or general elections—rather than, say, continuous dollar-a-gallon increases every six months to a year.
So how does Biden square his circle of continuing or accelerating policies that ensure high gas prices while trying desperately to lower fuel prices before elections?
The Biden people have three strategies.
One is denial and a resort to the blame game. Vladimir Putin supposedly caused the American gas crisis. Take away the Ukraine war, and gas would be what it was during the Trump Administration. But that is not even half-true given the fact that gas and diesel prices had already reached $4.60 a gallon in California, for example, before the Russo-Ukrainian war had begun.
No matter. The Biden finger-pointing strategy is a shotgun approach with many targets other than the president’s own deliberate efforts to raise fuel prices. Besides the “Putin price hike,” Biden blasts “greedy” oil companies that are price-gouging Americans.
Perhaps. But if so, why were they not doing that before Biden entered office? Did corporate CEOs love Donald Trump and hate Joe Biden?
Why do some other corporations, for example the Left’s beloved Apple, earn higher profit margins on their sales than do the large oil companies?
OK—if Putin and rapacious CEOs are not to blame for the Biden fuel disaster, then how about “refiners”?
These villains supposedly have all the oil they need, but they strangely refuse to speed up turning crude into gasoline. Again, the Left wants something now that, for political purposes, it had sought to destroy in the past for political purposes.
To learn why there are now supposedly too few refineries, just review clips from the 2020 Democratic primary debates in which a dozen candidates attacked one another for supposedly appeasing the oil companies that were producing too much fossil fuels.
The second Biden strategy is to talk green, but to find ways other than pumping more oil to reduce gas prices before the midterms. Biden has announced that Vladimir Putin is a thug, a killer, and should be removed. But his hostility never stopped him earlier from beseeching Putin to pump more oil that he is now currently selling for nearly two-thirds below market prices to China and India.
Biden has in the recent past blasted the Saudi royal family for its illiberality. Yet now he is begging another former favorite target Mohammed bin Salman to help his administration by driving down the price of American gasoline down before the midterms.
Biden perhaps feels more comfortable similarly supplicating the nightmarish and failed nations of Venezuela and Iran. He is perfectly willing through such appeasement to lose any deterrent leverage over such odious regimes for the short-term gain of avoiding a November electoral disaster.
Yet do Biden and his EPA experts believe that Iran or Russia are better stewards of Mother Earth than are U.S. oil companies subject to the Environmental Protection Agency? In our shared global village do they really believe that a fungible barrel of oil is pumped and refined under greener protocols in Iran or Russia than in Texas or North Dakota?
But this second strategy of having others produce oil that we will not is also doomed for failure. Follow the Biden logic, incoherent as it is:
I, Joe Biden, hate Russia and Saudi Arabia. Some in my government tell me I am supposed to despise Iran and Venezuela. But I want all four nations as a favor to me personally to increase their dirty fossil fuel production that I certainly don’t wish to stoop to do here in my own country—all in order to keep my presidency temporarily viable, by appeasing the gas-guzzling mindless middle class while bowing to my hallowed green base.
That smug incoherence is welcome schadenfreude to all our enemies.
The third Biden strategy has now turned to the strategic petroleum reserve.
When oil was cheap, Trump—to much criticism—tried to top the reserve off with cheap petroleum.
And for the most part, he did.
Now Biden is draining the reserve in order to lower prices for a crisis that he created in large part by reducing U.S. production and eliminating any chances to expand it over his tenure.
Again, consider the twisted logic: the administration does not wish to increase the supply of hated petroleum, but needs more of it. So apparently if nearly 700 million barrels of oil have already been pumped out of the earth and back into four vast underground caverns near the Gulf, then repumping the black goo back out is not the same sin as pumping fresh goo from underground.
The idea of the strategic petroleum reserve grew out of the Arab boycotts of the United States in the early ’70s and the anti-Western power of the OPEC cartel. The reserve was an effort to ensure that foreign entities during crises could not blackmail or leverage the United States for political concessions. It was also designed to offer a temporary buffer in times of natural or manmade crises such as war or devastating earthquakes, fires, or storms.
But Biden’s policies have ensured that bad foreign actors will and can hold the United States over the proverbial oil barrel and receive concessions in the bargain. And our current oil shortage did not arise from a foreign war or tsunami, but from a deliberate policy to curtail oil production to force a more rapid transition to battery-powered transportation and mass transit.
So, Biden is tapping a public reserve to aid his own private political survival, not as a result of a collective assault on U.S. energy independence. In other words, he is putting America at risk to drain a reserve intended for purposes other than his own reelection efforts.
All these unhinged and desperate measures will fail.
So, what will end the Biden-created oil crisis? Only one consideration, and it is a medicine worse than the disease: the Biden-created recession or depression.
That is, Biden’s hyperinflation and ensuing stagflation are already beginning to result in reduced spending, as his printed money runs out and spiraling prices are beginning to exceed even the 2021-22 infusion of new trillions of dollars. No wonder we are currently in an era of negative economic growth.
But given Biden’s discouragement of productive industries, subsidies for labor nonparticipation, quantitative easing, historic low-interest rates, and a growing global recession we are likely to see continued negative economic growth, higher unemployment, and closed businesses.
In other words, 1970s-style stagflation will radically curb consumer demand as the targeted middle class has less to spend, and, of course, drives less. Eventually stagflation will lead to severe recession and ultimately to crashes in current prices.
The Left’s reaction to that national tragedy will be interesting since it seemed to love the COVID lockdown, and not just because the devastating quarantine sparked radical changes in voting laws and an aggrandizement of government power, as well as the end of Donald Trump.
The shelter-in-place mandates bridled the middle class and slowed the economy—and thus gave us desirable reduced carbon emissions.
For the left-wing green ideologue, a recession in the age of oil is as welcome as $7 a gallon gas. Or perhaps economic stagnation of the middle class is more fortuitous, a “never let a crisis go to waste,” since it will mean a general reduction in fossil-fuel energy use well beyond transportation as millions of Americans become inert.
We have covered the FBI’s investigation of the case of Ashley Biden’s diary in a series of 17 posts under the heading of “The O’Keefe Project.” This is the eighteenth. I don’t think anyone has devoted as much attention to the story as we have. The collaboration of the FBI with the New York Times attracted my interest, but my judgment is that every aspect of the story merits attention. Something’s happening here.
Tucker Carlson opened his FOX News show on Friday evening with an 18-minute segment on Ashley Biden’s diary. I have posted video of the segment at the bottom. As he formulated questions for reporters to pose to President Biden about the diary, Tucker drew on a variety of synonyms for the adverse effect of Biden’s showering with Ashley (his daughter) at an early but unspecified age.
The contents of Ashley Biden’s diary are old news. Garish excerpts were posted online by National File before the 2020 election (original story here). If Biden were a Republican, the diary would have been authenticated and we would have been tortured with the contents in loving detail before voters went to the polls in 2020. As it turns out, the FBI investigation and the Times’s coverage have inadvertently authenticated the diary after the fact.
Contrary to the allegations on which the FBI procured the search warrants it executed on James O’Keefe et al., the Daily Mail reports that Ashley Biden diary’s was not stolen from Ashley Biden. Rather, she abandoned it in a halfway house — the Daily Mail describes it as “a Palm Beach home often used by recovering addicts” — where Aimee Harris found it under a mattress. According to the Daily Mail, Harris is being investigated for selling the diary to Project Veritas for $40,000.
What is the FBI doing? What makes this a federal case? Who inside the government is collaborating with the New York Times to publicize the case? It is disgusting and terrifying. The Times, by the way, hasn’t returned to the story since March (search here), when Michael Schmidt and Adam Goldman wrote about the government’s surveillance of Project Veritas. Schmidt and Goldman have served as the public relations arm of the national security establishment, as they did in the Times’s Pulitzer Award-winning performance in the Russia hoax.
It has seemed to me that the government is out to get O’Keefe, but it hasn’t panned out. In the clip below from the segment, Harmeet Dhillon addresses this aspect of the case.
In her June 18/19 column at the Wall Street Journal, Ms. Noonan takes Hillary Clinton’s “deplorables” slap at Trump voters and goes one — nay, two better. She refers to voters who question the results of the 2020 presidential election as “kooks, crooks, and freaks” and then smears the citizens who went to Washington, D.C. January 6, 2021, as “[t]hose poor stupid people.”
What is the basis for this criticism, which, arguably, is less ad hominem and, more accurately, descriptive of her mindset?
Perhaps Ms. Noonan has not read Margot Cleveland’s analysis in The Federalist showing how Georgia election officials failed to enforce the state’s election laws in 2020. More likely she would dismiss this persuasive article out of hand, as Georgia officials refused to apply the state’s election laws, accepting ballots that, arguably, were invalid.
The Cleveland article, quite a good one, is titled “Jan. 6 Committee Ignores Clear Evidence of Broken Election Laws.” This should come as no surprise. After all, this select committee, for partisan purposes, ignored its own rules, going rogue in zealous pursuit of Donald J. Trump. A lesson is suggested — for the Deep State, opposed by Mr. Trump for its stranglehold on the country, the rules are whatever Deep Staters say they are. That is to say, the rules are there only for the subjects of the Deep State to follow. As Rep. Jim Banks indicated in a recent letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, under Deep State hegemony, the Biden administration (as a current instrument of the Deep State) applies a “two-tiered system of justice.” And Deep State propagandists like Ms. Noonan are always eager to demonstrate fidelity to the reigning aggrandizers.
The gist of her column was to advise Mr. Trump’s voters to abandon him in 2024 because he “would surely lose.” How could she write otherwise of this public servant committed to ending the power — the anti-democracy power — of the Deep State? To support her call to abandon Mr. Trump, Ms. Noonan writes: “He lost in 2020 by seven million votes with a growing economy and no inflation[.]” That is a lie, a falsehood, a baseless assertion. The anti-Trump propaganda in 2020 falsely accused President Trump of responsibility for COVID-19 and the terrible loss of life that ensued. Assisting the false anti-Trump propaganda was a certain Dr. Fauci, who stood by silently as the left falsely blamed Mr. Trump for the pandemic, as it maliciously blamed Mr. Trump for colluding with Putin, falsely claimed he let Russia pay bounties for U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan. The mendacity of the left is almost limitless when it comes to excoriating Donald J. Trump, with Peggy Noonan a leading mud-thrower.
Ms. Noonan offers, perhaps, an update on the saying “the wish is father to the thought.” For Peggy Noonan, and her propagandizing colleagues throughout the media, the anti-Trump wish is proof of the anti-Trump accusation. And the rules are irrelevant — for election officials; for Nancy Pelosi and her “Jan. 6” committee; for Peggy Noonan, who concluded her column by warning “Trump voters” that Mr. Trump is an “anvil” who “will sink you to the bottom of the sea.” Truth is, the bottom of the sea is where the Deep State wants to sink The People.
If I were pro-abortion, that is what I would say to the demonstrators who showed up outside Justice Amy Barrett’s house earlier today. Here they are marching through her neighborhood. Of course, there weren’t many of them:
Here they have arrived in front of her house:
What is extremely weird about this particular protest is that the women have smeared fake blood over their pants and are carrying dolls meant to represent babies. I really don’t get that. Hasn’t showing pictures of aborted babies always been an anti-abortion tactic? How can reminding people of babies possibly help the pro-abortion cause?
More:
These demonstrations outside justices’ homes have never been popular, as I noted here (16% approval, 76% disapproval). Moreover, they are illegal under federal law. Don’t hold your breath waiting for Merrick Garland to enforce that particular statute, as selective enforcement is the rule in Democratic Departments of Justice.
Still, in this case, if I were Garland I would consider making an exception to the Democrats’ laws-are-enforced-only-against-conservatives principle. There is no way these bizarre demonstrators are helping the Democrats’ case.
Moreover, far-left pro-abortion groups are planning domestic terrorism if the Dobbs decision comes down as expected (“We need to get angry. We need the state to feel our full wrath.”) But some pro-abortion activists haven’t waited for the Dobbs decision, as numerous pro-life organizations and pregnancy centers have been vandalized or burned.
Nearly four months into the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian army is reportedly in rough shape. They have been sustaining withering losses on the battlefield and the military is struggling to find replacements for losses that now number in the tens of thousands. Vladimir Putin has been offering all sorts of incentives to get more people into uniform, but they are still operating under “peacetime” military rules and it hasn’t proven easy. The campaign in the Donbas region is definitely going better than the disastrous attempt to take Kyiv did and the Russians have focused on moving more slowly, using artillery and missile strikes to “soften up areas” before moving in. But the Ukrainians continue to fight gamely and the flow of Russian soldiers back to their home towns in coffins has continued. So what will Russia do to replace its depleted ranks? (Wall Street Journal)
Since the beginning of what the Kremlin calls its special military operation, it has tried to pursue its campaign with an army at peacetime strength. The results have been mixed. Though Russian forces have made gains in the east and south of the country, they sustained crushing losses in Moscow’s initial attempt to seize Kyiv, by some counts losing as many soldiers as the old Soviet Union did in Afghanistan.
Yet Russia’s leadership has been reluctant to take the step of declaring war, which would allow it to order a full mobilization of fighting-age men. That, analysts say, would tie Russian President Vladimir Putin’s own fate too closely to the outcome.
Instead, Moscow has introduced a number of stopgap measures to reinforce its battle-depleted ranks, from offering lucrative short-term contracts to allowing over-40s to sign up, potentially making tens of thousands more soldiers available.
British intelligence reports suggest that morale among the Russian troops is at a very low level, leading to stories of “desertion and rebellion.” Unfortunately the same is being said about Ukraine’s troops, which are already severely depleted. Many of them are fearing that there is no end in sight.
Putin could forcibly move a lot more fighting-age men into the military under current Russian law if he declared war on Ukraine. But that would require abandoning his consistent position and force him to retract his ludicrous claims that this is a “special military operation” rather than a “war.” (Whatever that means.) Putin’s pride may be what is standing between him and the chance to beef up his military. You can lose a war, while you can choose to “end” a “special military operation.” And Putin doesn’t want to be remembered as the guy who managed to lose a war against Ukraine.
Russia has already raised the maximum enlistment age, hoping to tempt more mature men into the force. They’ve also announced enhanced cash bonuses for those who sign up. But there haven’t been nearly as many takers as they need. While Russians may still not be allowed to speak truthfully about the war in public, it sounds as if many still hold private misgivings and don’t believe that this is something worth laying down their lives over. This war may drag on for a very long time at this rate.
On top of all of this, a British military commander recently told his troops to “prepare for a land war in Europe.”
General Sir Patrick Sanders, the British Army’s newly appointed overall commander, is said to have told his troops to prepare for potential deployment in Europe in order to counter the threat of Russia.
According to a report by the Daily Mail, General Sanders — who only assumed full command of the UK’s army last week — told his troops that they are now facing the possibility of having to fight a war on the European continent, an eventuality that they now have to be prepared for.
“I am the first Chief of the General Staff since 1941 to take command of the Army in the shadow of a land war in Europe involving a continental power,” the senior army officer reportedly wrote.
I don’t know if General Sanders knows something our own intelligence analysts don’t or whether he’s just trying to fire up the troops. But a “land war in Europe” sounds like a lot more than just the current conflict in the Donbas. It sounds to me as if they’re preparing to fight the Russian army on the soil of other European countries. But unless Ukraine miraculously gains rapid entry into either the EU or NATO (neither of which looks likely at the point), a land war in Europe should still be theoretically off the table, right? Unless that is, Mad Vlad goes fully off his rocker and launches a second front in the war against another allied partner.
(Note from Glenn….I used to teach Russian in the 1960s and 1970s. I chose to learn the language in the 1950s assuming that I could serve my country well in case a Russian War might eventually occur outside its borders.
One of the greatest experiences of my life has been that month late summer in 1966 when I was allowed visiting a number of standard fascist Soviet cities, and yet meet countless numbers of civilized citizens on street or usually in parks each time without police interference for an hour or two until crowds gathered by the hundreds.)
The fundamental problem with wind and solar power is that they don’t work. Both generate electricity less than half the time, and this isn’t a question of improving technology, it is inherent in obsolete systems that depend on the weather. As a result, the ballyhooed “green revolution” has fizzled. The Germans, formerly committed to a “green” makeover, are starting to face reality, even if their politicians aren’t quite there yet:
A paltry two percentage points increase in an entire decade: In 2020, only 12.6 percent of global energy demand was met by renewable energies. In 2009, the figure was 10.6 percent. This is the conclusion drawn by the think tank REN21 in a report presented by energy experts on Wednesday.
According to the report, progress is being made in the expansion of power plants that produce renewable electricity, i.e. solar plants, wind turbines, hydroelectric power plants – but fossil capacities are not being reduced. Instead, energy demand continues to grow, eating up the renewables successes.
A two percent increase in a decade, despite trillions of dollars invested, is hardly a “success.” Die Welt has more:
The fact that the share of renewable energy is not growing is bad enough from a climate protection perspective. It is also sobering that the 12.6 percent share of eco-energy is largely attributable to the burning of biomass, i.e., to a type of energy generation that is the subject of much environmental criticism.
“Biomass” is a joke. It largely consists of shipping millions of tons of low-quality trees from the American South to Europe, where they are burned. A great medieval technology.
The second-largest share, 3.9 percent, comes from hydroelectric plants – such as large dams – which are also highly controversial among environmentalists. In the REN21 report, solar and wind power, which are the focus of attention in Germany, together with geothermal energy, are estimated to account for only 2.8 percent of global energy production and are subcategorized under ‘other’.
After decades of hype and trillions in wasted ratepayer and taxpayer dollars, wind and solar can’t satisfy three percent of the world’s energy needs. Nor can they prevent the blackouts that are inexorably making they way toward our communities.
MN Prager Discussion Group 
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