A judge declined Friday to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from the case against former President Donald Trump.
Judge Scott McAfee found that the defendants had “failed to meet their burden of proving that the District Attorney acquired an actual conflict of interest in this case through her personal relationship and recurring travels with her lead prosecutor.” However, he said that the record “highlights a significant appearance of impropriety that infects the current structure of the prosecution team,” stating that Nathan Wade must either withdraw or Willis and her whole office can choose to step aside to solve the problem.
McAfee wrote that disqualifying Willis was not necessary “when a less drastic and sufficiently remedial option is available.”
So, if I have this right, Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee decided to pull a James Comey, Robert Mueller, and Robert Hur:
Write a ruling saying Fani Willis and Nathan Wade are guilty as hell, have no ethics, and aren't good role models….BUT Fani can stay
“The Court therefore concludes that the prosecution of this case cannot proceed until the State selects one of two options,” he wrote. “The District Attorney may choose to step aside, along with the whole of her office, and refer the prosecution to the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council for reassignment. See O.C.G.A. § 15-18-5. Alternatively, SADA Wade can withdraw, allowing the District Attorney, the Defendants, and the public to move forward without his presence or remuneration distracting from and potentially compromising the merits of this case.”
Trump co-defendant Michael Roman alleged in a Jan. 8 motion that Willis financially benefited from awarding her romantic partner Nathan Wade a lucrative contract to work as special prosecutor on the case when he took her on vacations using money earned from his position.
Willis and Wade both denied the relationship began before he was hired, though a long-time friend of Willis, Robin Yeartie, testified that it began in 2019. They claimed the expenses were split roughly equally, with Willis paying him back in cash.
McAfee wrote that an “odor of mendacity remains” about the testimony of Willis and Wade.
“The Court is not under an obligation to ferret out every instance of potential dishonesty from each witness or defendant ever presented in open court,” he wrote. “Yet reasonable questions about whether the District Attorney and her hand-selected lead SADA testified untruthfully about the timing of their relationship further underpin the finding of an appearance of impropriety and the need to make proportional efforts to cure it.”
BREAKING: Judge McAFEE has *rejected* a motion to disqualiy Fani WIllis, saying Trump et al failed to prove an *actual* conflict of interest.
Steve Sadow, Trump’s lead defense counsel, said in a statement that they will “use all legal options available as we continue to fight to end this case, which should never have been brought in the first place.”
“While respecting the Court’s decision, we believe that the Court did not afford appropriate significance to the prosecutorial misconduct of Willis and Wade, including the financial benefits, testifying untruthfully about when their personal relationship began, as well as Willis’ extrajudicial MLK ‘church speech,’ where she played the race card and falsely accused the defendants and their counsel of racism,” Sadow said.
McAfee’s ruling addressed other grounds defendants used to call for disqualification, including Willis’ failure to disclose gifts from Wade on her financial disclosures and a church speech she gave in January blaming the allegations on race.
He called the speech “legally improper,” noting that this kind of public comment “creates dangerous waters for the District Attorney to wade further into.”
“The time may well have arrived for an order preventing the State from mentioning the case in any public forum to prevent prejudicial pretrial publicity, but that is not the motion presently before the Court,” he wrote.
As for witnesses, McAfee found Yeartie’s testimony raised doubts about the testimony of Willis and Wade but “lacked context and detail.” He found that he could not “place any stock in the testimony of Terrance Bradley,” Wade’s former law partner.
Texts revealed Bradley, who said on the witness stand that he “could not recall” details about their relationship, shared many details with defense attorney Ashleigh Merchant, even suggesting witnesses she could subpoena to confirm them.
“His inconsistencies, demeanor, and generally non-responsive answers left far too brittle a foundation upon which to build any conclusions,” McAfee wrote.
McAfee issued a ruling Wednesday dismissing six of the counts in the indictment that did not offer defendants “enough information to prepare their defenses intelligently.”
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Callerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Caller2024-03-15 12:14:322024-03-15 12:19:04Judge Says Fani Willis Must Ditch Nathan Wade Or Step Aside From Trump Case
Research shows high-schoolers encounter hate both in person and online.
BBYO has released the results of a new survey of 1,989 Jewish students conducted from Jan. 23 to Feb. 5.
The researchers found that 71% had experienced antisemitic hate or discrimination. Those who have faced it in person numbered 61% while 46% saw it online, and 36% had experienced both forms. Of those who had experienced in-person hate, 46% said it occurred at school and 45% chose not to report the incident.
For the teens who encountered online anti-Jewish hate, they reported that the most common platforms were Instagram (33%), TikTok (23%) and Snapchat (17%).
Matt Grossman, CEO of BBYO, called the survey “a critical wake-up call, revealing the stark reality that Jewish teens are enduring.”
The Jewish youth organization said in a statement that “the data indicates that the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas and the subsequent spread of misinformation and antisemitic rhetoric and violence have had a traumatic impact on Jewish high school students’ safety, well-being, and mental health.”
According to the report, 74% of BBYO members have seen more discrimination since Oct. 7.
Grossman emphasized that “every Jewish teen deserves to feel safe and supported, and it is incumbent upon us to ensure they have those safe spaces, as well as the tools and assistance they need, to navigate these turbulent times with strength and pride. We are so proud and grateful that involvement with BBYO has played such a significant role in helping teens cope with elevated levels of stress and anxiety.”
The uptick in antisemitic incidents and even hate crimes on college campuses has also come to play an important role this year for 64% of respondents in deciding which school to attend.
BBYO is the leading pluralistic teen movement aspiring to involve more Jewish teens in more meaningful Jewish experiences. For over 95 years, BBYO has provided exceptional identity enrichment and leadership development experiences for hundreds of thousands of Jewish teens.
For nearly a century, BBYO‘s leadership programs, the Aleph Zadik Aleph (AZA, high school fraternity) and the B’nai B’rith Girls (BBG, high school sorority) have been providing exceptional leadership programs and identity enrichment experiences, shaping the confidence and character of more than 350,000 alumni who are among the most prominent figures in business, politics, academia, the arts, and Jewish communal life. Now, BBYO’s network of teens, alumni, parents, volunteers, and philanthropists serves as the Jewish community’s most valuable platform for delivering to the post Bar/Bat Mitzvah audience fun, meaningful, and affordable experiences that inspire a lasting connection to the Jewish people.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00NEWSRAEL Telling the Israeli Storyhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngNEWSRAEL Telling the Israeli Story2024-03-15 06:28:022024-03-15 06:28:02BBYO Survey Reports that 71% of Jewish Teens Have Experienced Anti-Semitism
“Israelis are notoriously outspoken and have a vibrant democracy. In the middle of a war the very last thing they need is for a Democratic Party politician to elevate his own party’s electoral needs over Israeli national security and over Israeli democracy. This speech, coming after the Vice President’s, appears to signal a continuing campaign against Netanyahu. It’s a shameful and unprecedented way to treat an ally, and an unconscionable interference in the internal politics of another democracy.” — Elliot Abrams on Chuck Schumer speech.
Another self-loathing Jews stabbing our people in the back.
Early in his political career, Schumer pretended to be religious in order to get elected. He’s the lowest of the low.
Just to be clear: the Jewish people support Netanyahu so Schumer is attacking the Jewish people.
Self-hating Jews have long been a pox on the Jewish people.
US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer gave a speech on “a pathway to peace and achieving a two-state solution” today (Thursday).
In his remarks, Schumer called for the holding of new elections in Israel, saying that “Netanyahu has lost his way.” He further called the Israeli Prime Minister an “obstacle to peace.”
According to Schumer, Netanyahu is one of four obstacles to peace, the others being Hamas, “radical Israelis,” and Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
Schumer’s criticism of Netanyahu centered on the prime minister’s “outright” rejection of the idea of the creation of a Palestinian state in the aftermath of October 7.
“The Netanyahu coalition no longer fits the needs of Israel,” he said. “The Israeli people are being stifled right now by a governing vision that is stuck in the past.”
“This is a grave mistake for Israel, for Palestinians, for the region, and for the world,” he claimed. “The only real and sustainable solution to this decades-old conflict is a negotiated two-state solution.”
According to Schumer, Netanyahu has “dangerous and inflammatory policies that test existing U.S. standards for assistance.”
“If Prime Minister Netanyahu’s current coalition remains in power after the war begins to wind down, and continues to pursue dangerous and inflammatory policies that test existing US standards for assistance, then the United States will have no choice but to play a more active role in shaping Israeli policy by using our leverage to change the present course,” he said.
New Direct Polls poll for @Now14Israel shows @netanyahu leading @gantzbe by 10 points, 47-37%. Likud is leading Gantz's party 25 to 22. The right-religious bloc has a 62-seat majority to 48 seats for the leftist bloc. Biden's fight with Netanyahu strengthened the PM. Does the…
Jews like Schumer, traitors, have plagued my people since time immemorial.. The same traitors who built and worshiped a golden calf when Moses went up the mountain to receive the tablets (Jewish law), the same Jews (of the ‘Twelve Spies) who were dispatched by Moses to scout out the Land of Canaan (Israel) for 40 days as a future home for the Jewish people, during the time when the Israelites were in the wilderness following their Exodus from Ancient Egypt. .Ten of the twelve spies (the same ratio of Democrat Jew to Republican Jew) they slandered the land of milk and honey. As a result, the entire nation was made to wander in the desert for 40 years.
Chuck Schumer is a total disgrace. Not only isn't the man who says that Prime Minister Netanyahu isn't fit to lead Israel not fit to lead the Senate. He isn't fit to lead a synagogue's Men's Club. He deserves to be primaried by AOC. She's a more convincing anti-Semite.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Geller Reporthttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Geller Report2024-03-15 05:29:172024-03-15 12:04:33Self-Hating Jew Chuck Schumer Blames Netanyahu, Turns Gun on the Jewish People
On November 30, 2020, and again nearly a year later, I was privileged to coordinate a Public Joint Legislative Hearing in Phoenix then Oro Valley, Arizona put together by then Arizona State Representative Mark Finchem, Chairman of the House Federal Relations Committee where Mayor Guiliani and a team of subject-matter specialists came to testify about evidence demonstrating the multiple security breaches and issues of fraud in the recent national and state elections. The legislative hearings, were not sanctioned by Speaker of the House Russell “Rusty” Bowers, who did all he could to discourage and ridicule the hearings, were televised nationally. The evidence, forensic and otherwise, was remarkable and did show reasonable suspicion justifying a deeper investigation by the State Senate and the Arizona Attorney General.
Fifteen days after the November 30th Hearing, the Senate Judiciary Committee issued subpoenas to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors. That triggered the discovery of additional evidence of election tampering, which in turn, elevated the investigative profile of matters to a legal standard of Probable Cause. In the fullness of time, a massive and fully designed cover-up took place among elected and the Dominion officials responsible for the actual machines used to receive and count votes. Arizona led the way for an additional six states to initiate investigations.
For the past three and a half years, more concerns, evidence, witnesses, and discoveries have shown a well-planned and executed process to interfere with the election of November 7, 2020, and then again in the 2022 election, at least within Arizona. Almost the entire legal system either denied such, would not hear such, or would not rule on such even after compelling evidence and testimony were presented. People directly involved lost jobs, income, and positions in the community fighting the good fight to restore election integrity and security. Many elected officials could not be bothered to tackle such controversy and “conspiracy-minded” stuff. The cost to those who continued to fight the good fight for election integrity has been quite real, quite heavy – emotionally, as well as financially. To this day, I periodically meet someone who doesn’t hesitate to tell me it was all a conspiracy and political theatre.
As running mates, Mark Finchem and Kari Lake filed in U.S. District Court, Arizona, an action requesting a temporary restraining order, alleging such egregious acts and violations of integrity in the electoral process. Today a Writ of Certiorari (cause to re-examine) is being submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court given the copious and prodigious amounts of evidence not allowed into lower courts but have now become painfully evident that such should have occurred. The gravity of the evidence from 2020 and continuing to present, is alarming and quite sobering. Then I received the 19-page report below dated March 19th, 2023, wherein Dominion admitted their voting software was defective, had “design flaws,” and “serious bugs.”
Let us pray that the U.S. Supreme Court accepts the petition to re-examine, people are held accountable, and face consequences; and our electoral process takes a giant step forward toward returning to a transparent, secure, and integrity restored, so we all can trust again. The link below takes you to the 19-page Dominion report and confession.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Lyle J. Rapacki, Ph.D.http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngLyle J. Rapacki, Ph.D.2024-03-15 05:16:292024-03-15 05:17:32Dominion Admitted Their Software Was Defective Three Days After The 2020 Election
Republicans are walking a tightrope heading into the 2024 election.
They must show their base that they are fighting hard on the issue of election integrity, which many conservatives believe cost former President Donald Trump his 2020 re-election bid.
Simultaneously, they must operate in the reality that they now live in the world of ballot harvesting and drop-boxes.
That dichotomy is why the Republican National Committee (RNC) told the Daily Caller they are committed to prioritizing election integrity efforts between now and November. They are waging lawsuits on issues ranging from ballot access to voting rules. Yet the party is also heavily pushing its “Bank Your Vote” initiative, encouraging Republicans to vote early.
Other elements of the party seem more resigned to playing by Democrats’ rules rather than trying to change them. The Caller also reached out to the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), which the RNC said is helping bankroll the party’s legal fights.
After sending the Daily Caller a link to an Axios article about get out the vote efforts, and then ignoring multiple follow-up requests for an interview about election integrity, NRCC spokesperson Will Reinert sent the Caller the following: “We’ve complained about your coverage several times to editors, so to tell you the truth, we really don’t care to engage on pieces we don’t care about to help you guys out.”
A prominent conservative pundit read the Reinert email and told the Daily Caller, “‘pieces we don’t care about’ is the giveaway. They’re mailing it in on election prep, in other words.”
Election integrity is, however, an issue Republican voters care deeply about: coming out of the last presidential election, nearly two-thirds of Republicans and Trump voters said they had little faith votes were counted accurately, according to one poll.
In 2020, a number of election laws were changed, and others were straight up ignored, in key states due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In swing states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Arizona, voters had expanded access to methods of voting including ballot drop-boxes, mail-in voting and early voting thanks to Democratic Party legal efforts led by Marc Elias.
Elias is a high-powered attorney who has played a leading role in hundreds of lawsuits seeking to make it easier to vote and undo Republican efforts to make elections more secure.
A Daily Caller review of current election laws found that the situation on the ground remains dire for election integrity hawks. A number of key battleground states, including those that delivered Biden the presidency, are still slated to use many of the election procedures in 2024 that outraged Republicans in 2020.
At least seven are slated to deploy ballot drop-boxes. Nearly all are likely to have no-excuse absentee voting. Five are on track to have more than two weeks of early voting, and Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and North Carolina will mail out absentee ballots more than six weeks before election day.
“As we’ve talked about, the damage done by Democrats to change laws during COVID was unprecedented. There’s still a lot of work to do, not everything is where we want to be right now. But that’s why we’re scaling up this massive program and filing all this litigation because we’re actively trying to fix it up,” an RNC official told the Daily Caller. “We understand that there are still issues, especially in swing states with key stuff we need to fix. That’s why this exists.”
There is still time for some of these laws to change before election day, but the clock is ticking for Republicans to make inroads toward changing them.
After media outlets began calling the election for President Joe Biden in 2020, Republicans across the spectrum of the party concluded that those changes to how America votes played at least some role in his loss. Certain conservatives will tell you it was the single biggest factor in President Joe Biden’s victory.
Tucker on the 2020 election: “It was 100% stolen. Are you joking? They completely change the way people vote right before the election on the basis of COVID? And then you censor the information people are allowed to get?”pic.twitter.com/PHzBP9Jruz
With eight months to go, Republicans are mobilizing operatives across the country and spending millions of dollars to avoid a lawfare wipeout akin to what they suffered in 2020 — but the climb is uphill, and progress has been marginal.
Now, heading into 2024, some conservatives find themselves concerned about the state of the election and whether the party is doing enough to ensure that history doesn’t repeat itself.
“I have no idea what the Republicans are doing. But I can tell you what we did in 2020 when we were watching the Republicans stay on the sidelines,” Catherine Engelbrecht, founder of True The Vote, told the Daily Caller.
I’ve seem no evidence that the Trump campaign and RNC are more prepared for 2024 hijinks than they were in 2020. (Remember it was ME going on about ballot harvesting and being ignored.)
But I’m not fake religious guy.
You go to the election with the guy on the ballot.
The Daily Caller began its investigation into Republicans’ election integrity efforts at the beginning of 2024, conducting an interview with members of the RNC’s election integrity staff in the beginning of February.
Since the interview, new leadership has taken over at the RNC and the Trump campaign has merged with the organization and made several staff shakeups.
National Review reported that the election integrity department had been a part of widespread layoffs that saw dozens of RNC staffers cast aside. However, an RNC official with direct knowledge told the Caller that reports the election integrity staff were asked to re-apply for their jobs was false. A source with the Trump campaign confirmed the same reality, stating that the staffers had not been let go.
Christina Bobb, a former Trump administration staffer who went on to be Trump’s attorney and a One America News Network anchor, has been appointed as the RNC’s election integrity senior counsel, a source told the Daily Caller. The Trump campaign source said the previous election integrity staff at the RNC would be sitting down with Bobb in the future.
When it comes to election integrity, the RNC and its partners are working, but they are playing catch up to Democrats’ nearly 40-year head start. The RNC was subjected to a consent decree in 1982 after a Democratic National Committee (DNC) lawsuit, neutering the party’s ability to engage in election integrity lawsuits until the decree was lifted in 2018.
The DNC sued the RNC in the 1980s, alleging that the party had sought to discourage African-Americans from voting through targeted mailings warning about penalties for violating election laws. The consent decree largely limited how the RNC could participate in election lawsuits.
“Early voting and GOTV effort is like the Space Race or the Arms Race of the Cold War. We defeated the Russians essentially by spending them into oblivion,” Andrew Kolvet, a spokesperson for Turning Point USA, told the Daily Caller. “The Democrats are spending us into oblivion. They are miles ahead. They’ve already landed on the moon a few times and we haven’t even gotten the ship off the ground.”
The RNC told the Daily Caller that the party first dove into the election integrity sphere in 2022. It was the first time the RNC had the opportunity to work with other campaign committees, including the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) and the NRCC. The effort was “loose,” a member of the RNC’s election integrity department told the Daily Caller.
The party did not offer clarification on the timeline of its election integrity efforts prior to 2022 after the Daily Caller followed up.
Following the 2022 election, then-RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel moved to make the RNC’s election integrity efforts an actual department of the party. That allowed the operation to pull resources from all departments such as communications, politics and legal.
Now, in addition to its legal department, the RNC has three election integrity counsels based at its headquarters and 13 election integrity counsels in key states including Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, New York, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
“These counsels work around the clock to identify and act on opportunities for election integrity litigation, in addition to coordinating with local law firms and stakeholders in their respective states,” Josh Helton, an RNC election integrity official, told the Daily Caller.
By the end of February, the RNC told the Daily Caller that it planned to have deputy election integrity directors in each of the 13 states where it has an election integrity counsel. Regional directors will also join the election integrity effort to oversee a specific geographic territory and oversee how the party liaised with stakeholders in the area.
In addition to the legal counsels, the RNC has “boots on the ground” as a part of their “recruitment training and shifting of poll workers and poll watchers.”
“These are folks that are going to be in those in those polling locations and they’re going to be our eyes and ears on the ground. That will be reporting back to our our election day headquarters, which happens all during early voting and Election Day,” Helton told the Daily Caller.
“Where we have volunteer and paid attorneys they are going to be taking in those calls triaging the information that comes in and taking the appropriate action,” Helton continued.
With 79 election integrity lawsuits filed in 23 states ahead of the 2024 election, the RNC told the Daily Caller that it has plans to reach at least 100. The party is also in “constant contact” with all 56 Republican state and territory parties to collaborate on election integrity litigation — even transferring money to them as needed, the RNC told the Daily Caller.
“The RNC from what I’ve seen, is is an intervener you know, it’s liberal groups that file these lawsuits. In some some of these cases, the RNC is intervening to try to help defend the state statute. That’s basically what’s going on all across the country,” Hans Von Spakovsky, the manager of the Heritage Foundation’s Election Law Reform Initiative, told the Daily Caller. Von Spakovsky added that he thought the state of election integrity was in a better position than 2020, and does not expect a repeat of 2024.
Others disagreed.
“From what I have seen and what I haven’t, we definitely are,” conservative attorney and pundit Kurt Schlicter said about whether he thought the GOP would end up in a similar situation to 2020.
“And I would love to be wrong. I hear ‘we’ve filed 78 lawsuits’ that’s like saying if I’m a commander, ‘oh I’ve fired 78 shells,’” Schlicter added.
“They should be getting insurance. They should be filing lawsuits, and getting injunctions in place to make sure that all the state legislatures, election rules are being followed strictly. And that they’re not being waived because of COVID or Chinese flu or Chinese pneumonia or whatever the next bullshit pandemic is going to be,” Mike Davis, a former law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch and founder of the Article 3 Project, told the Daily Caller.
“You need to get injunctions early so the Democrats can’t change the rules at the last minute. If they change the rules, they’ll be in contempt of court,” Davis continued.
Count Marc Elias himself among those who are skeptical of Republican efforts. For years, dating back to 2009, Elias was the lawyer for the Democratic party. Elias is most prominently known for his work during the 2020 presidential election cycle, when he spearheaded the Democratic Party’s efforts to expand voting access and loosen election integrity provisions.
“It seems nearly certain that Republicans at all levels will continue to file frivolous post-election lawsuits and will suffer similar results in 2024,” Elias wrote in a recent report.
Ahead of the election, Elias has begun to track his own and other “pro-voting” suits. Over the last year, Elias and other “pro-voting” lawsuits saw 83 victories for voters across 26 states, according to his report.
According to Elias’ report, Republican and their election integrity forces prevailed a mere 20% of the time in 2022 and 27% of the time in 2023. The same report noted that there were 51 “pro-voting” lawsuits in 2023 to just 22 election integrity lawsuits.
Despite the improvement, Elias has predicted that Republicans will once again watch the rug be pulled out from underneath them and suffer the same fate as 2020.
For their part, the RNC dismissed Elias’ claims that 2024 will be a repeat of 2020.
The Daily Caller provided the RNC with the same report and cited specific stats from it, asking for a response to Elias’ data which portrays Republicans as behind in its legal fight. The RNC dismissed Elias’ report and concerns entirely.
“We don’t put much stock into how Elias tracks lawsuits,” an RNC spokesperson told the Daily Caller.
Results have been mixed so far for the RNC — the organization sent the Caller a list of 17 “selected litigation wins” from 2022 until now. Some were significant, such as protecting New Hampshire’s voter ID requirement or banning expanded ballot harvesting in Arizona. In Florida, the RNC strengthened Florida’s voter ID requirements.
But others were cases still in progress, or only resulted in marginal changes unlikely to significantly affect the election.
There are notable instances were Republican lawfare has failed. In 2020, ballot curing was a key issue in Pennsylvania. The state secretary of state’s office issued guidance right before election day telling counties they could inform voters of improperly filled out absentee ballots, allowing them to turn in a provisional ballot on election day to ensure they got counted.
But a number of Republican-leaning counties ignored this guidance, believing it to be a violation of state law. The Trump campaign sued after the election to discount the cured ballots from Democratic-leaning counties, but lost at the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, 7-0.
Republicans, including the RNC, have since sued again to overturn the ballot curing rules. But those efforts culminated last year with a state judge dismissing the RNC’s lawsuit, leaving in place the patchwork set of ballot curing policies from county to county.
The RNC’s election integrity blitz has also seemingly left party allies, as well as most voters, in the dark.
“The first thing I look for is a chain of command. I’m just a military guy. Who is the person whose lapels I grab, look in the eye and say, what is going on? And there isn’t one, to my knowledge,” Schlicter said. “I don’t see the kind of coordinated planned operation that I would look for that would memorialize best practices.”
McDaniel sat down at the end of February with the head of the RNC’s election integrity project for her podcast “Real America.”
The RNC’s Election Integrity Twitter account tweeted out a clip of the podcast to its less than 2,000 followers. The pair talked about the GOP’s efforts to make elections “FAST – Fair, Accurate, Secure, and Transparent” ahead of November.
By the party’s own measures of success, the interview was a failure — because hardly anyone actually saw it. Just over 12,000 people viewed the video where McDaniel touted their efforts to recruit poll watchers, use volunteer lawyers and the building of a war room.
Just 37 social media users liked the tweet. The podcast currently has 1,200 views on YouTube. Comments are turned off on the video.
“When I go and speak to folks around the country, a lot of folks after I do my presentation, they said ‘we didn’t know the RNC was doing all that. We had no idea.’ If people don’t know, if the tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, like if people don’t know how hard the RNC and the NRSC and NRCC are fighting to secure these elections, we’re not gonna accomplish one of our primary goals, which is to restore that faith and confidence in the electoral process,” Helton said.
The RNC isn’t working alone. It’s partnering with the NRCC and the NRSC to equally fund the election integrity operation.
After the NRCC ignored multiple interview requests from the Caller to talk about this issue, the Caller told Reinert his initial one-sentence response with an Axios link was some of the “laziest shit [I’d] ever seen,” prompting Reinert’s reply that the organization doesn’t care about this election integrity story.
Jack Pandol, NRCC communications director, followed up with the Daily Caller about the interaction with Reinert, telling the outlet that the parties were making a historic committee investment, funding the RNC’s election integrity program and “getting better at it than the Democrats.”
Pandol added that the NRCC’s legal teams are in regular communication with the RNC and NRSC as they work “jointly on the project.”
During the NRCC’s brief interaction with the Daily Caller, Pandol noted that the party’s legal team was in regular communication with the RNC. Despite the frequent conversation, however, the NRCC was unable to explain which election integrity organizations have been in communication with the RNC to work on litigation ahead of the election.
“I have no idea what local groups have or haven’t heard from the RNC, I’m not a spokesman for them so I’d suggest you talk to them about it,” Pandol told the Daily Caller.
The NRSC, the other arm of Republicans election integrity effort, painted a more candid picture about the party’s coordination with other election integrity focused groups.
“We’re getting our ass kicked in that realm. Excuse my language but like, the Dems have the Arabella, that whole network. They have so much more money than us. You haven’t seen an equivalent on our side,” a member of the NRSC election integrity effort told the Caller.
“RITE has been involved somewhat. You see a funding discrepancy across the board, not just with legal right-wing. They have more money than we do. That’s kind of the problem,” they added.
Outside of the official party apparatus, independent organizations focused on election integrity are bustling.
Some, such as Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections (RITE), have had the opportunity to work hand-in-hand with the RNC in a battle for election integrity.
“The main thing that we see is, first of all, wherever Marc Elias has been active and running, everywhere he is, the ecosystem of the election integrity world is there to meet him and confront him,” Derek Lyons, the president of RITE, told the Daily Caller. Because of how the election integrity ecosystem has confronted Elias, Lyons told the Daily Caller that the democratic lawyer has not had much success.
It is evident from dozens of operatives working on election integrity within the Republican sphere that there is no Marc Elias of the right. The effort appears more balkanized than that of the Democrats, for better or worse.
RITE is currently involved in 17 states such as Colorado, Ohio, Montana, Kansas and Florida where the organization is working to protect drop box safe guards, mail-in ballot rules, signature matching, voter identification and ballot harvesting rules, the organization told the Daily Caller.
In New York, Georgia, Arizona and Vermont, the group is going “on offense” and trying to enact laws around citizenship requirements, no-excuse absentee voting, invalid signature matching and double voting.
Other election integrity organizations are non-partisan, which prohibits them from working with political organizations such as the RNC. But for the Public Legal Interest Foundation (PLIF), the group finds its non-partisan nature more beneficial than if it was to work with the GOP.
“When Republicans file cases, they run into a buzzsaw,” J. Christian Adams, the president of PLIF, told the Daily Caller.
“To go on offense, you really needed to do it last year. And instead of suing on behalf of Republicans, we’re suing on behalf of a county election official who has to accept the balance,” he continued.
“You see the difference? Because if you bring a case under the brand Republican versus I’m just this poor schlub, who has to make a decision, the courts are more likely to rule in favor of the poor schlub than they are in favor of a Republican Party,” Adams added.
But within what the RNC described as a “robust” ecosystem, some groups have felt abandoned. True the Vote, one of the many nonprofit, nonpartisan organizations working within the election integrity sphere, noted that they had no clue what the GOP was doing legally ahead of the election.
“We just won a huge legal victory in Georgia against Stacey Abrams. That’s a great example of a place that the RNC or NRCC or so many that claim that they’re supportive of election integrity, could have made some kind of an overture. We fought that alone for three years and I think speaks to the distance,” Engelbrecht told the Daily Caller.
“They’re going to do what they’re going to do. We’re here on the ground, seeing things fall apart and knowing that action needs to be taken and we just are assuming that we’ll do what we can and pray that others join in the fight,” she continued.
The RNC noted to the Daily Caller that the party never heard from True the Vote regarding any possible assistance in its legal battle.
“One thing you want to avoid is doing duplicative work. So if like there’s one group, that is you know, deep in the trenches on specific Georgia litigation, maybe that frees us up to get really into a court battle in Arizona, so on and so forth,” the RNC told the Daily Caller, adding that the party has to be very careful with how it works with and communicates with nonprofits.
True the Vote later told the Daily Caller that they cannot reach out to the RNC because of their nonpartisan nature, but expressed optimism that the party would engage in their litigation in the future.
“True the Vote is very happy to hear about the RNC’s election integrity efforts. Must be a stealth campaign,” Engelbrecht hit back.
The landscape could shift with former President Donald Trump securing the GOP nomination for 2024 and integrating his campaign with the RNC.
“Securing our elections is a top priority,” Chris LaCivita, a Trump campaign senior adviser told the Daily Caller in a statement. “Across the country, we will be aggressive in addressing issues related to the way elections are conducted because we must restore the integrity of the election process and Republican voters’ trust in the system. Otherwise, we risk losing future elections and losing our country.
With the new leadership in place, some organizations previously snubbed out of partnership have already seen improvement. Turning Point Action, a 501(c)4 partner of Turning Point USA, is one of those groups that has felt an increase of optimism as it has begun its “Chase the Vote” effort.
“Before with the old leadership, we heard nothing. There was no willingness or coordination to work with us.” Kolvet told the Caller. “With the new leadership we are very hopeful. We are very optimistic, there is a new vibe.”
Still, no centralized agenda seems to exist. And in the meantime, some Republicans are focused not on overturning Democrats’ election rules, but simply beating them at their own game.
To some degree, that includes the RNC itself, which is putting major juice behind its “Bank Your Vote” initiative encouraging conservatives to vote early in 2024.
Turning Point Action’s “Chase the Vote” initiative focuses on getting in touch with voters who have received mail-in ballots and encouraging them to fill it out and cast their vote. The initiative currently focuses on Arizona and Wisconsin where the organization plans to hire hundreds of full-time staffers devoted to the effort, Kolvet told the Daily Caller.
“Our ultimate goal is, I don’t think that we’re looking to set a blanket regime of election laws across the country. I don’t think that that’s realistic. We as conservatives and Republicans have a very strong belief that elections are to be left to the states to make up their minds on how to run those,” Helton said.
Regardless, time remains, and the parties leading the effort are remaining optimistic about their chances.
“You asked the question, are we in this position where we’re going to be told it’s too late to challenge things, like again in 2020. Hopefully not,” Lyons told the Daily Caller.
🚨New RNC Co-Chair @LaraLeaTrump says Republicans will start registering voters at MASSIVE events like the NRA Convention, UFC Fights, the Daytona 500 and Country Music Concerts pic.twitter.com/lVk9Guf46H
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Callerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Caller2024-03-15 04:52:582024-03-17 07:41:13‘They Are Miles Ahead’: Despite ‘Election Integrity’ Hype, GOP Could Be Walking Into 2024 Legal Buzzsaw
Using duplicity, deception and secret alliances, the U.K.’s inner circle of top elites led by Nathaniel Rothschild, King Edward VII, and Lord Alfred Milner backed the German Kaiser into a corner and intentionally set the Germans up to blame them for starting the First World War, when in fact it was the British who provoked the Germans to the point where war was the only option.
German generals were caught strategizing several weeks ago on how to bomb Russia’s main bridge to Crimea. This would be an act of aggression that Russian President Vladimir Putin described as guaranteed to draw a harsh military response from Russia, possibly even including a nuclear strike against Berlin.
And that has led to an admission by German officials that their military is woefully unprepared to take on Russia. If German generals and politicians truly want to provoke a war with Russia, they had better slow down and wait for their military to catch up to the political rhetoric coming out of Berlin.
A March 14 article by John Cody at Remix News shows that the German Army lacks the personnel, equipment and infrastructure to wage a major war of any kind, let alone with a nuclear-armed military superpower like Russia.
“Germany’s own military and government are painting such a dire picture of the armed forces that there are now calls from some of the most powerful politicians in the country to reinstate mandatory military service,” Cody writes.
Yes, a military draft.
A video produced by Remix News details testimony provided by Eva Högl, German Parliamentary Commissioner for the Armed Forces, who provided catastrophic details about the state of the German military. It is shocking in terms of its candor regarding the current state of the German armed forces.
NEW: 🇩🇪 Germany may bring back the DRAFT.
The country's army is falling apart, and the government now openly admits it. pic.twitter.com/KxwKPwDdSd
She finds it “really impressive” that Germany has emptied out its military defense stocks by handing it over to Ukraine to be wasted in a losing war with Russia. That sounds like an admission of treason in the wide open.
But wait. There’s more.
Germany knows it is incapable of taking on Russia so it is negotiating a secret deal with the insane leaders of two other European countries, France and Poland, for the very purpose of sending troops into Ukraine separate from NATO, although I do not believe this could truly be done without the acquiescence of Washington and London.
An organization called the Weimar Triangle – composed of France, Germany and Poland – has been in existence since 1991 at the fall of the Soviet Union.
The stated purpose of the Weimar Triangle was to assist Poland’s emergence from Communist rule. It’s strange that it still exists but it may have found a new purpose – instigating World War III with Russia.
According to Wikipedia, “the Weimar Triangle exists mostly in the form of summit meetings between the leaders of the three countries and of their foreign ministers. The collaboration between member states includes inter-parliamentary contacts, military, scientific and cultural co-operation. The most recent summit of leaders occurred in Paris on June 12, 2023.” (Emphasis mine)
There’s been almost no media coverage of it, but Reuters reported yesterday, March 13, that the three nations of the Weimar Triangle are meeting Friday, March 15, in “hastily arranged talks” regarding how to move forward in aiding Ukraine in its war against Russia. This meeting may produce an agreement, possibly secretive, to build up their military personnel using conscription and other means for the purpose of ultimately inserting some combination of French, German and/or Polish troops into the Ukrainian battlefield against Russia.
Russia has won phase one of this war and the NATO nations are having to get creative if they want to continue the fight. And there is absolutely no question in my mind that they do want to continue the war against Russia. Why? Because Russia, even more than China, is the focal point of the BRICS coalition of nations that are challenging the U.S.-led world economic order which is tied to the U.S. petro dollar and U.S. military supremacy.
All of the military experts I’ve been listening to over the past two years seem to miss the economic reasons for why the war will widen beyond Russia and Ukraine. It was never about Russia and Ukraine. It was about challenges and shifting realities related to the global economic order.
Military analysts have talked in terms of Ukraine or Russia winning or losing the war but few, if any, have really seriously considered the possibility of a third outcome – that neither Ukraine or Russia will “win” this war because the real war is not between Ukraine and Russia. It is between NATO and its allies and Russia and its allies. Ukraine is just a proxy and it’s about to be forced to limp off the battlefield. If a new influx of troops doesn’t come from somewhere, the war is over and Russia wins. But because of the economic reasons stated above and other reasons related to the West’s liberal social agenda that is at odds with Russia’s more conservative culture, NATO won’t let that happen.
Take for example, the “husband” of the U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, leading a group of children in a “Pledge of Allegiance to the Rainbow.” This would never be welcomed or allowed in Russia.
Chasten Buttigieg, the male partner of @SecretaryPete, leads young children in an LGBTQ pledge of allegiance "to the rainbow."
So, if NATO can figure out a way to insert troops into Ukraine now that Ukraine has lost the war, and do it under the auspices of it being “separate from NATO,” then look for them to do exactly that.
The question is, will Putin buy the phony excuse that NATO has nothing to do with the fact that he’s now got Polish, German and French troops to fight in his back yard? When troops arrive in Ukraine from France, Germany and Poland, will he play along and say, oh, this is a separate endeavor and not really NATO, even though all three countries are NATO members? I don’t think so. But, this is exactly what NATO wants. It’s hoping to trick Putin into invading a NATO country.
The lie works something like this: French, German and Poland troops fighting in Ukraine are not doing so as part of NATO, but if Putin responds to this provocation by launching any direct attacks on cities or infrastructure in France, Germany or Poland, then he has “attacked” a NATO country and all of NATO now has the legal pretense to invade Russia.
I know it sounds crazy but look who is in charge of these NATO countries. They are all madmen and puppets of the World Economic Forum, the United Nations, the British Royal Family and the intel agencies in Washington and London.
Even though France, Germany and Poland would be fighting Russian soldiers in Ukraine under the guise of the “Weimar Triangle” there is no denying the fact that they are also members of NATO and NATO’s defensive mechanism would be triggered if Putin strikes back at any of these three countries. Then you have full-on World War III, which is apparently just what the U.S./U.K./NATO are looking to start. But before they can launch World War III against Russia they must position themselves as the “victim” by tricking Russia into attacking one of their NATO members. The Western media will be fully on board with this international chicanery and will intensify its propaganda war against Russia, characterizing that country and its leader as the “aggressor.” They will continue with the big lie about Putin wanting to “re-establish the old Soviet Empire.” Even though they have zero evidence of that, they will treat it like a foregone conclusion. They say it so it must be true.
History repeating itself?
This is where the Weimar Triangle comes into play in my hypothetical scenario, which I think is a very plausible scenario to watch for over the next six to 12 months. It will likely take about a year for the Weimar Triangle nations to build up their military prowess through forced conscription and converting to a wartime economy.
It sounds like treachery because it is. And it’s not without precedent. If you doubt that the Western powers are capable of such treachery, I recommend the excellent book, Hidden History: The Secret Origins of the First World War, by Gerry Docherty and Jim Macgregor.
According to the book’s thesis, the U.K.’s inner circle of top elites led by Nathaniel Rothschild, King Edward VII, and Lord Alfred Milner, used duplicity, deception, a propaganda campaign, and secret alliances to back the German Kaiser into a corner and intentionally set a trap for war. The Secret Elites used the bought-and-paid-for British press to whip up hatred against the Germans and then later to blame them for starting the First World War, when in fact it was the British who provoked the entire conflagration. Wars start when powerful money elites take away all options for peace.
The U.K. leadership of both the Conservative and Liberal parties feared Germany was rising and about to overtake Britain in terms of its economic output and potential military might. They had to be stopped, but in a way that made the U.K. and its allies look like the victims of an aggressive Germany, when in fact Germany had no desire for war, it just wanted to grow its economy.
To this day, every student in the West is taught that Germany started World War I. When it comes to war, the victor writes the history. And in this case it’s a false history, which is now on the verge of repeating itself.
World War III appears to be taking shape in very similar fashion to World War I, only instead of the Germans being the object of the West’s obsession, this time it’s the Russians and by extension the Chinese. These two nations and their leadership in developing the BRICS coalition of nations pose a threat to U.S. global economic dominance. They must be dealt with and dealt with harshly. You can already see the narrative building in the Western media. If you insert “World War III starts in Ukraine” into your favorite search engine, you will find articles galore on how “Russia wants to start World War III.”
Keep in mind we are talking about the same group of people fomenting this narrative who mandated toxic, genetically modifying jabs on their own militaries and their own civilian populations. Their consciences have been seared and they are about to fall in the grandest of fashion. Yes, a fall is coming. Pride goes before a fall, and you can see how pride is leading the West to believe it can defeat Russia in a war, which is an impossible feat. If NATO and Russia go head to head, there will be no winners. Nations that place their military leadership in the hands of women and transgenders have no future as a superpower and no ability to win a war against Russia or China. And yet, this is the very same feminized leadership that seeks to provoke war with Russia and China. All I can say is, good luck with that.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Leo Hohmannhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngLeo Hohmann2024-03-15 04:40:552024-03-15 04:44:16How NATO’s Using The U.K.’s World War I Model To Lure Russia Into The Next Global War
During a heated congressional hearing on Capitol Hill Tuesday, Special Counsel Robert Hur testified that his February report on President Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified documents “did not exonerate” the president of a potential crime, despite the fact that Hur’s report did not recommend criminal charges against Biden. Legal experts say the hearing further confirmed a series of illegal actions that Biden allegedly took while in public office.
“[Hur’s] testimony is devastating for President Biden,” Mike Davis told “Washington Watch” guest host and former Congressman Jody Hice on Tuesday. “President Biden knowingly, willfully retained classified documents illegally. He shared those classified documents with his ghostwriter. When they got caught and a special counsel was appointed, the ghostwriter deleted that classified recording of then Vice President Joe Biden. Sharing these classified records with his ghostwriter — that’s espionage. That’s obstruction of justice. Robert Hur acknowledged that President Biden lied to the American people when he [stated] he didn’t share this classified information with his ghostwriter.”
A National Review report further noted the fact that the White House attempted to tone down Hur’s report before it was released. When House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) asked Hur if the White House had tried to “get the report changed,” he admitted, “They did request certain edits and changes to the draft report.”
Davis, an attorney and the founder of the Article III Project, went on to provide insight as to why Hur did not end up recommending charges against Biden.
“Remember, Robert Hur is James Comey’s protégé, and James Comey did the same thing with Hillary Clinton’s illegal home server with our nation’s most classified secrets,” he pointed out. “Comey came out and said, ‘Yeah, Hillary essentially violated the Espionage Act, but no reasonable jury would find her guilty of that.’ So it’s the same game that Robert Hur is playing here. … I would say that there is a slam dunk case of Espionage Act violations against President Biden, and Robert Hur did Biden a huge favor by not recommending that there is a criminal indictment against Biden when he leaves office.”
Davis, who previously served as chief counsel for nominations to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), also emphasized that the Democrats’ insistence that Hur unfairly targeted Biden’s poor memory could backfire.
“If Biden and his allies think that Robert Hur was wrong and [Biden] does have the mental capacity to stand trial, then [if] Trump [is elected in November, his] Justice Department can bring Espionage Act charges against President Biden after January 20, 2025,” he explained. “Now remember, Merrick Garland is the person who made the decision to bring the unprecedented charges against President Trump for the non-crime of a former president having his presidential records in the office of former president, which is allowed by the Presidential Records Act. The former president’s office is guarded by the Secret Service. He gets federally-funded staff. They have security clearances. Contrast that with Biden, who had at least five stashes — maybe six — of stolen classified records from his time as vice president, even his time as a senator, meaning he had to have stolen these classified records out of the Senate. Schiff and Merrick Garland did not bring charges against his boss, Joe Biden.”
During Tuesday’s hearing, Chairman Jordan brought up further details based on Hur’s report that shed light on why Biden, who was “deeply familiar” with laws surrounding classified documents, would knowingly take them unlawfully — likely in order to provide material to write a book for the purpose of fulfilling a book deal.
Davis echoed Jordan’s observation. “Joe Biden [stole] classified records he had as senator and vice president, stolen classified records that he used for his financial advantage,” he asserted. “He got an $8 million advance to write his book. That’s why he had some of these stolen classified records. The New York Post’s Miranda Devine also reported that Hunter Biden almost certainly used stolen classified records to write a 23-paragraph geopolitics memo to Burisma to secure millions of dollars in corrupt funding to the Bidens. The Bidens stole classified records and used them for their financial gain.”
Davis concluded by predicting that the Democrats’ attempts to paint former President Trump as a criminal during Tuesday’s hearing in order to distract from the case against Biden will backfire.
“[T]he American people are waking up to this,” he contended. “This lawfare and election interference is going to end on November 5th, 2024, when the American people say, ‘We get to decide who’s the president of the United States, not Democrat prosecutors and Democrat judges and Democrat juries. … We get to decide the American election.’ And it’s not going to go well for the Democrats.”
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Family Research Councilhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFamily Research Council2024-03-14 13:16:362024-03-14 14:27:10‘Devastating’: Hur’s Testimony Confirms Biden Committed Espionage, Says Legal Expert
President Joe Biden released his proposed 2025 budget on Monday. “As the president is fond of saying, a budget is a reflection of our values,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) at Senate hearings on the multi-trillion-dollar proposal. But Biden’s proposed budget would:
Place transgender-identifying minors into the foster care facilities of the opposite sex, a policy that has led to sexual abuse and human trafficking;
Deny most Americans, especially Christians, the right to participate in foster care for certain children unless they agree to subject those minors to transgender medical interventions, such as puberty blockers and cross-sex hormone injections;
Seek to expand abortion;
Overturn laws that punish prostitutes for knowingly infecting others with HIV/AIDS;
Eliminate abstinence-based sex education;
Spike funding for Title X, a program that encourages doctors to give contraception to underage minors without parental knowledge and conceal children’s sexual activity from their parents;
Entrust government-funded workers with raising children beginning at the age of three; and
Increase funding for controversial, United Nations population programs.
Below is an overview of the budget’s most controversial features in his 2025 budget, which would raise taxes by more than $5 trillion, spend more than $8.6 trillion, enact a constitutionally-dubious wealth tax, implement a global minimum tax, and add $16.3 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years.
Promoting Extreme Transgender Ideology
Joe Biden has repeatedly committed his administration to promoting the LGBTQ agenda. The Biden administration’s proposed 2025 budget intends to make the LGBTQ revolution permanent by placing children in sex-segregated group homes of the opposite sex, and by denying Christians the right to participate in aspects of foster care.
Buried in Table S-6, on page 153 of the budget (page 157 of the PDF), is a line item committing to “[p]revent and combat religious, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or sex discrimination in the child welfare system.”
That apparently refers to a proposed rule the Biden administration issued last September requiring the foster care system to place LGBTQ-identifying children with “safe and appropriate” homes — homes that agree to facilitate a child’s social and medical “gender transition.” The rule would “require specific steps before the placement of transgender, intersex, and gender non-conforming children in sex-segregated child-care institutions (CCIs),” specifically that they place children and teens in foster care facilities according to their gender identity. That is, the Biden administration intends to place children who say they identify as transgender into sex-segregated foster care facilities of the opposite sex. Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.), chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, pointed out this would open the beds and showers of female foster homes to teenage boys.
Such a policy has already led to tragic results. In Virginia, a 14-year-old girl named Sage began to identify as a boy. Police found the teen after she ran away and got sexually trafficked, but instead of returning her to her home, a judge accused her custodial grandparents of “emotional and physical abuse” by “misgendering” her. Sage was placed in the male section of a foster home, where she was beaten and given drugs. She then ran away again, where she was apprehended by a human trafficking ring in Texas, where she was “drugged, raped, beaten, and exploited.”
The definition of “safe and appropriate” also excludes anyone who expresses skepticism about exposing children to transgender procedures. Christians and anyone who shows “hostility” toward the LGBTQ agenda would be deemed unsafe to foster children who identify as transgender. Similar policies have already denied Christians the right to care for children in Oregon and Massachusetts. This issue stood at the heart of a 2021 Supreme Court ruling, Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, which ruled the city’s policy against contracting with Catholic Social Services because of their religious beliefs “violates the First Amendment,” specifically the Free Exercise Clause. The rule attempts to sidestep this concern by saying Christians can still care for foster children, just not those who identify as LGBTQ.
Multiple U.S. senators expressed concerns with the language of the rule at the time. “We are fighting back against the Biden Administration’s woke gender ideology and pronoun politics,” said Senator Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) “Their new proposed rule aims to exclude faith-based foster care providers from helping children in need.” A coalition of 19 state attorneys general also raised alarms about the policy’s unconstitutional, and religiously discriminatory, language.
To justify these policies, the Biden rule falsely asserts, “when a LGBTQI+ child has their identity respected and supported by the caregivers in their life, their risks of attempted suicide decrease dramatically.” Yet a host of studies, from around the world over multiple decades, have found that transgender procedures do not help, and may harm, those who undergo them. A 2021 study in the Journal of Urology found, “The overall rates of suicide attempts doubled” among trans-identifying men “after vaginoplasty,” commonly referred to as “bottom surgery.” The budget indicates Biden is doubling down on this rule and its flawed methodology.
Abortion
In releasing the 2025 proposed budget, the “Biden-Harris [a]dministration has taken action to protect and expand access to reproductive health care, including abortion and contraception,” said HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, “in every way possible.”
The budget spreads misinformation while announcing the administration’s intention to expand abortion in all 50 states. “Twenty-seven million women of reproductive age — more than one in three — live in one of the 21 [s]tates with an abortion ban currently in effect. In the last year, women have been denied medical care needed to preserve their health and save their lives,” the budget asserts. In fact, no state bans abortion if the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother. Pro-life advocates say doctors may have been confused specifically because abortion industry lobbyists have repeatedly claimed “miscarriage care” is illegal.
After touting Biden’s actions on behalf of the abortion industry, the budget states, “The [a]dministration continues to call on the Congress to pass legislation restoring the protections of Roe v. Wade in [f]ederal law.” The Biden administration endorses the so-called Women’s Health Protection Act, which goes well beyond Roe.
In concrete terms, the budget proposes giving $390 million to the “family planning” services of Title X, a 36% hike. As this author exposed, training sessions funded by the Biden administration encourage Title X providers to talk about sex with minors behind parents’ backs, hide minor children’s sexual activity from parents both during live conversations and in medical records, and even to have vans roam neighborhoods giving minors federally funded contraceptives.
The budget also “provides $594 million, an increase of $37 million above the 2023 level, for USAID directed high-impact and lifesaving voluntary family planning and reproductive health programs and America’s voluntary contribution to the United Nations Population Fund,” the budget states. UNFPA was long complicit in forced abortions necessitated by China’s one-child policy and remains tied to controversial population control efforts worldwide.
The abortion lobby said the proposed budget proved the Democratic administration is enacting their values. “The Biden-Harris administration is fighting by our side,” said Mini Timmaraju, CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All (formerly NARAL). “[T]his budget is proof. We look forward to partnering with our allies in the White House and Congress to pass a budget where our values are reflected.” Planned Parenthood also greeted the budget as “an encouraging sign of their continued support for sexual and reproductive health care.”
Universal Pre-K
As he did in last year’s $6.9 trillion budget proposal, Joe Biden proposed offering “free” preschool to children beginning at age four and “charting a path” to expanding the program to three-year-olds. The program is a longstanding item on the Left’s wish list, constituting a part of Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, mentioned in Barack Obama’s 2013 State of the Union address, and referenced in Obama’s 2010 report to the UN Human Rights Council. Yet children being raised by daycare are associated with a panoply of negative outcomes for children and, polls show, is unwanted by parents, especially mothers.
Fighting Laws against Spreading AIDS, Combatting ‘Hate Crimes’
The 2025 proposed budget continues President Joe Biden’s fixation on overturning state laws designed to prevent AIDS-infected prostitutes from spreading HIV. “The Budget further supports State and local efforts to promote equity and protect civil rights by including $10 million for a new initiative to modernize outdated criminal statutes with a discriminatory impact on HIV-positive individuals … and $50 million for programs to combat hate crimes.”
The Biden administration sued the state of Tennessee over its aggravated prostitution law (§ 39-13-516), which charges anyone who knowingly sells sex while HIV-positive with a felony. The lawsuit came as the administration is negotiating the World Health Organization’s Pandemic Agreement. In January, WHO Secretary-General Tedros Ghebreyesus instructed “[p]olitical leaders at all levels” to “counteract conservative opposition” and “enact progressive laws” championing “sexual rights.” Specifically, “Countries must repeal laws that criminalize homosexuality, sex work and HIV transmission.”
Ending Abstinence-Based Education
The Biden budget would end funding for the Sexual Risk Abstinence Education program. Instead, he would give $101 million for the Teen Pregnancy Prevention program, despite a 2015 survey which found 40% of teenagers said these classes made them feel pressured to have sex. The Department of Health and Human Services lists eight regional Planned Parenthood alliances among the current Teen Pregnancy Prevention grant recipients.
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Family Research Councilhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFamily Research Council2024-03-14 13:02:472024-03-15 04:31:14How Biden’s 2025 Proposed Budget Impacts Values Issues
It’s bad enough that the Biden administration refuses to secure our border and is allowing millions of people into the U.S. despite knowing almost nothing about most of them. We see the impact in big cities and small towns across the nation. Do you see it where you live?
Well, apparently Biden is not content only to welcome millions of illegals coming by foot. He’s also flying hundreds of thousands of them into the country – at least 320,000 last year alone.
Infuriatingly, this is all currently legal. In early 2023, Biden announced unilateral policy changes that allow 30,000 people per month to apply for asylum from a smartphone app. But as a Freedom of Information request from the Center for Immigration Studies confirms, the applicants had no legal justification for entering the nation.
It doesn’t end there. Despite the Freedom of Information request, the government still refuses to reveal the 43 different airports to which they secretly flew these migrants in the United States.
Sara sees this all the time. Every time she’s at the airport in Texas, Chicago, and almost any other city, she sees illegals and their manila envelopes trying to figure out how to get to their destinations. Today, she explains exactly what Biden is doing, how it works, and how it impacts you.
We are being invaded. The invasion is aided and abetted by our government. And the American people need to take their government back before it’s too late.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2024-03-14 12:53:222024-03-14 12:53:34VIDEO: EXPOSED — How Biden Is Flying Illegal Immigrants Into Your City
After viewing the Oscar winning best picture “Oppenheimer” I was struck by the similarities between what J. Robert Oppenheimer went thru in 1954 and what President Donald J. Trump is now going thru, 70 years later, in 2024.
Dr. Oppenheimer, born in New York, NY, was a well respected theoretical physicist. Dr. Oppenheimer because of his expertise was chosen to lead the Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb. Dr. Oppenheimer built what has become the Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico.
Donald J. Trump, born in New York, NY, is a highly successful real estate developer and businessman who owned, managed, or licensed his name to hotels, casinos, golf courses, resorts, and residential properties in the New York City area and around the world. Mr. Trump was elected as the 45th President of the United States.
On December 21, 1953, Dr. Oppenheimer was notified of a military security report unfavourable to him and was accused of having associated with communists in the past, of delaying the naming of Soviet agents, and of opposing the building of the hydrogen bomb.
In 2016 members of President Donald J. Trump staff were accused by the Department of Justice of cooperating with Russia. The Robert Mueller special counsel investigation was conducted by special prosecutor Robert Mueller from May 2017 to March 2019. The investigation resulted in roughly three dozen criminal charges, including convictions of a half-dozen Trump associates, and concluded that Russia intervened on the Trump campaign’s behalf and that the campaign welcomed the help [These charges were based upon the Steel Dossier that has be debunked]. The investigation resulted in charges against 34 individuals and 3 companies, 8 guilty pleas, and a conviction at trial. John Durham, the former U.S. Attorney in Connecticut, was appointed in 2019 by then-Attorney General William Barr to lead a review of the genesis of the investigation into connections between the Trump campaign and Russia. The investigation became a criminal investigation, though only three people faced criminal action.
In 1954 a security hearing declared Dr. Oppenheimer not guilty of treason but ruled that he should not have access to military secrets. As a result, his contract as adviser to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission was canceled. The Federation of American Scientists immediately came to his defense with a protest against the trial. Oppenheimer was made the worldwide symbol of the scientist who, while trying to resolve the moral problems that arise from scientific discovery, becomes the victim of a witch hunt. He spent the last years of his life working out ideas on the relationship between science and society.
President Donald J. Trump in a 306-page Mueller final report, the Department of Justice concluded that the FBI did not have enough intelligence to merit a full Trump-Russia investigation. However, Former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida was raided by the FBI on August 8, 2022, as part of an investigation into whether he took classified documents with him when he left the White House.
In December 2022, the January 6 committee referred Trump to the Justice Department and recommended four charges: obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the U.S., inciting an insurrection and conspiracy to make false statements. This is the first time in history members of Congress have recommended a president for criminal prosecution.
Criminal Charges Against Trump
Special Counsel Prosecutor Jack Smith Jan 6 Insurrection Case; Judge Tanya Chutkan; U.S. District Court for D.C.
Special Counsel Prosecutor Jack Smith Mar-a-Lago Confidential Docs Case; Judge Aileen Cannon, U.S. District Court for Southern District of FL
DA Alvin Bragg’s New York Case on Falsifying Business Records; Juan Marchan, New York Supreme Court
Fulton County GA DA Fanni Willis Case Conspiracy to engage in racketeering, etc.; Judge Scott McAfee, Fulton City Superior Judge
NOTE: Smith, Bragg, and Willis are all on record as Trump haters.
Civil Charges Against Trump
AG NY Letitia James Case on Defrauding NY Lenders, Insurers; Arthur Engoron, NY State Supreme Court (already found Trump Liable – fined $355 M and Prohibited from doing business in NY for 3 years; must post bond of $355 M to Appeal. Note: James is on record as Trump hater.
Prosecutor Amit Prlyavadan Mehte, US District Court to D.C.; Causing physical and emotional harm to Capitol Police and Lawmakers by inciting riot on Jan 6th in D.C.
Judge Lewis Kaplan, U.S. District Court for Southern District of New York Jean Carroll Defamation Case; (already found Trump Liable despite rape case dismissal) – ordered to pay $83 M to Plaintiff E. Jean Carroll who Trump stated he never met.
NOTE: It is likely that these charges upon appeal will likely be overturned.
It’s ironic how both Dr. Oppenheimer and President Donald J. Trump have suffered under a corrupt and politically motived legal witch hunts.
Final Note
In 1963 U.S. Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson presented Oppenheimer with the Enrico Fermi Award of the Atomic Energy Commission. Oppenheimer retired from the Institute for Advanced Study in 1966 and died of throat cancer the following year.
In 2024, President Donald J. Trump is now the GOP nominee for a second term in the White House. As Trump said, “Winning is my revenge.”
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2024-03-14 07:11:332024-03-14 11:12:02After watching ‘Oppenheimer’ I realized that what he went thru in 1954 is what Trump is going thru in 2024
“Fight against those do not believe in Allah or the last day, and do not forbid what Allah and his messenger have forbidden, and do not follow the religion of truth, even if they are among the people of the book, until they pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued.” — Qur’an 9:29
Paying the jizya.
Iran funds and trains Hamas. Iran is Hezb’allah. Iran backs the Houthis.
Sanctions waiver unlocks upward of $10 billion for Tehran
By: Adam Kredo, Washington Free Beacon, March 12, 2024
The Biden administration is poised to issue a fresh sanctions waiver for Iran that will grant the country access to upward of $10 billion in frozen assets, providing Tehran with “a financial lifeline” as it foments terrorism across the Middle East, according to a group of GOP lawmakers.
In November, shortly after Hamas’s attack on Israel, the State Department signed off on a sanctions waiver that permits Iraq to transfer multibillion-dollar electricity payments to Iran. The waiver, which grants Tehran access to around $10 billion in frozen funds, is set to expire this month unless the Biden administration renews it.
A group of Republican lawmakers is concerned that the sanctions waiver will be approved, according to a letter sent late Monday to the Treasury and State Departments and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. The lawmakers ask the Biden administration to provide information on how much cash Iran has been able to access in the months since sanctions were lifted.
The sanctions waiver decision comes as Iran and its regional terror proxies—which include Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthi rebels in Yemen—foment chaos across the Middle East, including a series of missile attacks that killed 3 American military members and wounded more than 40. Critics of the sanctions waiver say it will enable Iran to continue funding its terrorist allies amid the worst spate of violence in the Middle East in years.
“Given the Biden Administration’s posture on the last waiver we presume that the Biden Administration will renew the waiver again to continue to allow for the transfer of funds from Iraq to Oman,” four Republican lawmakers, led by Rep. Bill Huizenga (Mich.), wrote in the letter. “By waiving the application of sanctions, the Administration is maintaining a financial lifeline for the Iranian regime, even as it continues to support terrorist organizations around the world.”
The waiver allows Iraq to transfer payments for electricity imports from Iran into accounts outside the country that can be used by Tehran. The State Department maintains these funds can only be used for humanitarian purposes, such as food and medicine, but critics note that money is fungible and that Tehran can allocate resources into its terrorism enterprise if granted access to aid dollars.
It is highly inappropriate and simply wrong for Senator Schumer to be calling for new elections in Israel.
We need to stand strong with Israel, but the White House and Senate Democrats are seemingly standing with and supporting Iran and its proxies instead. pic.twitter.com/5NGJifz0GO
BREAKING INSIDE THE PENTAGON:Associate Director in the Office of the Secretary of Defense says, “Why not just have an open border?” “Tear down the wall.”
“I think we should repeal the Second Amendment and take the guns all away!” says Jason Beck, who has a classified security clearance and works for the Department of Defense. Beck, who uses a fake name Aidan Grey in his meetings with a disguised James O’Keefe, describes his extremist policies, including “mobilizing the national guard” to confiscate guns from people’s homes. Beck says he wants a “monopoly on state violence,” a concept he describes as “‘We [the government], are the only ones with guns.”
Jason Beck works in Total Force Requirements & Sourcing Policy in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense. This office oversees the Department of Defense and acts as the principal defense policy maker and adviser to the President of the United States. Beck says he helps “writes answers for testimony” of “the department’s senior leadership – basically they go over to the Hill for hearings on the department’s posture.”
In this shocking footage we get an INSIDE look as Jason Beck tells James O’Keefe: “we need to pack the Supreme Court,” ban the United States Senate, and abolish the electoral college. He also discusses his “bottom surgery’ being painful and the changes to his plumbing.
OMG got a concerning peek under the lid of Pentagon policymaking when James O’Keefe went undercover to have dinner with Jason Beck, the Associate Director in Total Force Requirements & Sourcing Policy for the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Headquartered in the Pentagon, the Secretary of Defense oversees the Department of Defense (DoD) and acts as the principal defense policy maker and adviser to the President of the United States. The mission of the Department of Defense is to provide the military forces needed to deter war and ensure our nation’s security.
Oddly enough and never explained, Beck introduced himself to O’Keefe as Aidan Grey. His name was not the only thing Beck was confused about as he detailed his bottom surgery to change his sex, explaining to desired love match O’Keefe: “The plumbing is different.” It is in this mind frame Beck, who has classified security clearance, conducts his work. Beck stated that he helps write answers for senior DoD officials for their testimony before Congress in Posture hearings, is “trying to get policies in place” to revise DoD policies for issues including contracts with private military contractors like former CEO of Blackwater Erik Prince, and implements DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) initiatives throughout the DoD, the nation’s largest government agency. When O’Keefe asked about the recent controversy surrounding Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin hiding his health condition and surgery from the White House, Beck admitted “the way they hid it was really strange um, nobody knew?”
The most disturbing aspect of OMG’s undercover footage of Beck was how he harbored views not only antithetical to the mission of the agency for which he works but also to the very tenets of our government. Beck expressed how he wanted to work on the State’s Monopoly on Violence – the idea that government is “the only legitimate purveyor of violence and enforcement of force, so, we [the government] are the only ones with guns” – something our Founders knew inevitably leads to government tyranny. Nonetheless, Beck advocated for the repeal of the Second Amendment and for the National Guard “to take them [guns] all away,” similar to the forced integration of schools in Little Rock, Arkansas. To ensure individuals within the National Guard followed orders to confiscate Americans’ constitutional right to bear arms, Beck justified packing the United States Supreme Court with a leftist majority so legislation banning all guns could not be overturned as unconstitutional.
Addressing border security, which ensures the security of our nation – the very mission of the DoD, Beck harbored extremist views entirely out of line with the majority of Americans. He claimed the recent immigration bill was “really racist” and wanted to “tear down the wall” even when public health emergencies would allow for the removal of illegal immigrants under Title 42. Instead, Beck demanded: “Why not just have an OPEN BORDER.” He maintained the border is “not a security crisis” and any belief dangerous individuals are coming across the border are “just made up.” It was apparent Beck had not seen OMG’s ongoing border coverage exposing piles of discarded ID cards from China, Venezuela, Cuba, Turkey, Syria, and Egypt found by OMG Citizen Journalists or OMG’s exposé on No Mas Muertas where OMG’s undercover immigrant was held at gun point by Spanish-speaking men who looked and acted like cartel members. Thus, perhaps the only thing more disturbing than Beck’s hatred of Constitutional rights was his ignorance of documented facts and current events. In fact, DoD officials testified before the House Armed Services Committee this week acknowledging concern about an anticipated mass migration into the United States from an incredibly dangerous and unstable Haiti.
The power wielded by Beck influencing DoD policy according to extremist anti-Constitutional views and IRS officials like Alex Mena unconstitutionally using AI to view the contents of our private bank accounts reveals a modern federal bureaucracy that is dangerously unaccountable. We can only hope that OMG and its army of Citizen Journalists continue to expose government corruption and turn the tide.
POST ON X:
The Great Replacement in action.
Tyson Foods is firing American workers and replacing them with illegals.
Adding insult to injury, Tyson Foods will also provide lawyers to help with "immigration" hearings.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00O'Keefe Media Grouphttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngO'Keefe Media Group2024-03-14 04:58:512024-03-15 12:24:25VIDEO EXPOSÈ: Secretary of Defense Personnel, “Why Not Just Have An Open Border?”
The House of Representatives passed legislation on Wednesday that would force Chinese company ByteDance to sell TikTok in order for the social media app to be allowed to operate in the U.S.
The Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act advanced from the House Energy and Commerce Committee by a unanimous vote on March 7. The legislation, which would allow the Beijing-based company roughly five months to sell TikTok, passed with a bipartisan 352 to 65 floor vote, sending the bill to the Senate.
President Joe Biden has signaled he would sign the legislation if it clears the upper chamber.
Critics of the social media app warn of the potential national security threats of its association with the Chinese Communist Party and what they view to be harmful effects on American youth. Others argue that banning the social media app is a violation of First Amendment rights and free enterprise.
TikTok has been critical of the legislation, which it called “an outright ban” in an X statement on March 5. The social media app encouraged its children and teenaged users to call congressional offices and complain about the bill.
“This legislation will trample the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and deprive 5 million small businesses of a platform they rely on to grow and create jobs,” TikTok wrote.
Former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, appeared to voice opposition to the legislation despite previously attempting to ban the app. Trump’s 2020 ban faced legal challenges, and was eventually repealed by the Biden administration in 2021.
“If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “I don’t want Facebook, who cheated in the last Election, doing better. They are a true Enemy of the People!”
Wealthy businessman Kevin O’Leary has expressed interest in purchasing the app if the legislation goes into effect.“It’s not going to get banned because I’m going to buy it,” the Shark Tank co-star told Fox News on Friday. “Somebody’s going to buy it. It won’t be Meta and it won’t be Google because a regulator will stop that. A syndicate will be formed. I would like to be involved, obviously.”
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Callerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Caller2024-03-13 14:13:372024-03-13 14:15:19House Passes Bill That Forces Chinese Parent Company To Sell TikTok
As Israel approaches its sixth month at war with Hamas in Gaza, and likely nears another war on its northern border with Hezballah, the Biden administration continues to pursue a radically transformative regional agenda to seek rapprochement and strategic condominium with Iran and establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. The main obstacle to this agenda, according to administration strategists, is not its dissonance with reality, but the irresponsibility and intransigence of Israel’s government. To overcome this obstacle, thus, the administration has resumed interfering in domestic Israeli politics and intensified its efforts to destabilize an Israeli government it believes most threatens its ideological quest regionally.
The administration seeks this ambitious agenda despite the attacks of October 7, which did little to dissuade it from its faith in the two anchoring objectives. It does so because the events reinforced its view of the importance of its informing paradigm — a truly post-colonial agenda animated by a progressive narrative (contrition over both the “interference” in Iranian affairs throughout the last century and over the dispossession of the Palestinian people as part of a larger global European oppression). Applying that self-excoriating paradigm, the administration’s cognoscente believe, will finally address the underlying grievances driving regional rage and resentment, and thus replace them with a condition of mutual strategic deference and respect between Washington and Tehran, both of whom tightly control their proxies.
The Gaza war did nothing to dilute the administration’s obsession with this vision. Indeed, if anything, it reinforced the imperative, feasibility and urgency of advancing its two key mechanisms of its realization – establishing a Palestinian state and rapprochement with Iran’s Islamic regime.
Added to this urgency is that progressives have influenced and radicalized not only the administration’s policy, but also its domestic political understanding, strategy and operations. Progressives have intentionally peddled a climate of political despair for the entire Democratic party – without any real evidence — that is miraculously resolvable only by pandering to the most radical pro-Palestinian elements in Michigan in the run-up to the 2024 elections.
The main obstacle they see to surmounting this electoral despair and attaining the messianic vision whose implementation would reunite the party with its progressive base, in their view, is the current obstinacy of the Israeli government. And as a result of this conceptual box within which the administration has locked itself, the already-prioritized objective of ousting the Likud government in Israel has now intensified and risen to a perfect storm injected with steroids.
The problem is, the further this administration’s effort deepens, the more detrimental the immediate application of its ideological mission is to ousting the current government and then swaying Israeli politics in the longer term after the war.
The greatest influence which the United States exercises over Israel is the political woes of the left side of Israel’s spectrum. Ever since the election of Menachem Begin and his Likud party in 1977 — resulting from a tectonic realignment of Israeli politics crystallizing all the “outsiders” against the ossifying elite that had dominated the state since its founding – Israel’s left-leaning, Ashkenazi (European) -hyper-secular elites and the parties through which they exercise political power have faced declining prospects for electoral victories. In the last two decades, the only ability of the left to gain power was to align behind right-wing parties that bolted from personal loyalty to the current leader of the Likud, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israeli structures in all sectors thus became increasingly distorted. Specifically, the more left-leaning elites have tried to reinforce their control over non-elected structures governing the state and society (military, judicial, financial, high-tech, societal, academic, press), as well as sought to expand the power of these structures over every aspect of life in order to maintain their control and “ownership” of Zionism. The judicial reform upheaval that tore Israel to shreds in the year before the Gaza war erupted was a battle between the proponents of that long-term effort and the resulting backlash that had developed. And the post-war debate over the responsibility for the catastrophic failure of the war’s surprise, especially delineating who is to blame between the political (which was a right-leaning coalition) and military leadership and security elites (retired “LeSheavarim” or “formers” and current), almost immediately started fracturing along the same schism. The intensity of these debates marked just how far the right would go to finally challenge those structures and how far the left would go, even to the mat, to protect those institutions and its grip over them.
Enter the American angle. Institutions, no matter how elite and entrenched, ultimately begin to yield to the pressure of aligning with the society from which they derive their power. Left isolated, thus, the distortion of Israeli institutions would eventually align with the society in which it operates. But the left in Israel is deeply invested in another layer of resilience. It has successfully leveraged Israel’s international allies, and in particular the American relationship, to domestically overpower their more street-popular opposition.
The Israeli left has been able to do this largely because in as much as the international community had intervened in Israel traditionally, it was to advance a more left-leaning agenda. In the marketplace of politics in Israel, the world had the left’s back.
But this whole structure is anchored ultimately to U.S. influence and dominance on both practical and intellectual levels. And it is also anchored to an international community – especially an American foreign policy establishment – that is largely homogenous in its outlook in viewing Israel’s left as more amenable to the pursuit of its agenda. As such, Israel’s left became not only increasingly reliant on American support but also increasingly subordinate to American demands. When administrations defined the U.S. national interest in ways roughly aligned with the interests as conceived by Israel’s left – even if it bent Israel to be dangerously dependent and more flexible than wise in things it normally would rather not be — that remained a powerful and even insurmountable alliance. But if Washington departed from the interests of Israel’s left – especially under administrations that leaned more right – that investment drifted from essential to either useless or even detrimental.
Back to the present. Over time, the memory seared into the Israeli psyche on October 7 will melt into resumption of “normal” politics in Israel, and when that happens, some of the fissures in Israeli politics which raged before the war will return. But the administration fails to grasp that moment is not yet here; the war in Gaza has not yet ended and the war in the north has not begun or even begun to be resolved. And in this, the administration is essentially trying to prod Israel back to its pre-October 7 political atmosphere, crack the unity government and leverage the power of Israeli institutions to shift the political direction of Israeli society.
Moreover, even when the guns fall silent, there is no going back to October 6. Israeli society has changed, and while polls suggest it holds the right-leaning government that was in power on October 7 responsible along with the military leadership, policy issues polls also suggest that the population has shifted sharply rightward. And the Israeli center-left – which had been aligned with Washington’s preferences for the last 30 years – has also shifted rightward as a result of the war at the same time this administration – under the sway of a radicalizing progressive agenda – has drifted leftward and is sharply abandoning its more liberal pro-Israeli agenda. The gap then between Israel’s center-left and the Biden administration – which the latter fails to observe — is vast and growing.
This leads us to the current moment. For over a week, the Biden administration has encouraged the idea in Western press that this is “Netanyahu’s” war, that Israel cannot be allowed to enter the final towns and areas in Gaza still under Hamas control (Rafiah and the Philadelphia corridor), that a ceasefire and Palestinian statehood are both unattainable as long as the Likud prime minister remains in office and that absent a ceasefire the danger of escalation with Iran grows and the aspiration for regional stability through a rapprochement and strategic condominium with Tehran recedes. So Netanyahu must go – and the chattering class of Washington has responded to echo that sentiment quickly.
The problem is that over the last week, it is clear this is not “Netanyahu’s” war. Israeli polls for example note that 73 % of Israelis support the IDF entering Rafiah and the Philadelphia corridor in Gaza, even if it means conflict with Egypt and the U.S. administration. Similar majorities want to continue fighting and reject a ceasefire until Israel has achieved full victory and destroyed all of Hamas in Gaza and brought the area under full Israeli control for the near term. Similarly, most Israelis see little hope in avoiding escalation against Hizballah in order to prevent the communities of the north becoming the next victims of an even more deadly repetition of the October 7 attacks as afflicted Israel in the south. And there is no measurable block of Israelis that holds any hope of coming to terms in any way, even in terms of a proper deterrence relationship, with Iran.
In short, the Israeli people now see the Biden team’s self-assigned transformative regional mission to be existentially threatening and a grave danger to the very survival of the state and the safety of its citizens. Moreover, it is clear the center-left in Israel is aligned with the comparable polling blocks on these issues. While there may be some marginal far-left parties and politicians that still cling to these views, the core of the center-left in Israel was sobered by the horrors of October 7 no less than the right of the spectrum. As such, for example, despite the idea that PM Netanyahu is driving Israel to enter Rafiah, Benjamin Gantz, who leads the center-left party announced that there is no conceivable way in which Israel can avoid entering Rafiah and taking the rest of Gaza, nor is any currently floated form of a ceasefire agreement draft anything but a “non-starter.”
Added to this is that every public indicator also suggests that Israelis apportion the greatest blame for the national calamity which befell them on October 7 not only to specific parties or figures, but to the overall climate of fractionalization and bitterness that rendered Israeli society over the last year. National unity at this moment is considered to be synonymous with national survival, and any actor disrupting consensus or issue dividing the nation’s unity is rejected as a subject of address at this time. It is not an ideological view, but a practical one as well: the nation as a whole through mass mobilization of reserves is fighting, not just its regular army. To raise issues or trigger debate that can divide tank crews, elite units, combat squads and platoons, directly undermines the ability of the IDF to perform. To break the nation’s unity and force through controversial “day after” policies and new elections now would be catastrophic in this regard.
In that context, any “day after” scenario such as Palestinian statehood, the splitting of the national unity government and the holding of elections, or even the idea of trying to leverage the desperate concern for the fate of the hostages against the imperative of absolute victory over Hamas is with disdain, disgust and determination profoundly rejected in public opinion.
The Biden administration thus is making a parade of mistakes to emphasize its messianic progressive agenda now, in believing it has any Israeli following for its agenda, and in trying to split Israeli politics and use Israel’s dependence on American aid to oust the current government and stand up a new, more pliable one. The administration is banking on its influence to cause a rift with Israel – with every day unveiling yet another form of crisis and break with Israel — in hopes it strengthens the left, weakens the prime minister and forces a new elections and government.
Instead, with every new crisis, and with every indication that the administration does not appreciate the deep wound suffered in the Israeli psyche to its very confidence of existence resulting from October 7, the Biden administration fails further. Indeed, it is squandering immense credit it built in Israeli society after October 7 in its quest for a ceasefire, for protecting inflated forms of Palestinian humanitarian interests, for rejecting a war plan over which there is roughly a national consensus rather than nurturing its credit over the long run to further leverage it to seek a more modest vision in the post-war atmosphere.
In the end, the very crises the administration embraces to try to weaken and oust the current government, the more the administration causes the U.S. to lose influence over Israel and erode the respect it holds within Israeli society.
In the end, the administration will defeat itself.
Dr. David Wurmser, is a Senior Analyst for Middle East Affairs at the Center for Security Policy, as well as a Fellow at the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy. He also is the executive and founding member of the Delphi Global Analysis Group, LLC – a firm specializing in geopolitical risk analysis and mitigation for infrastructure, high-tech, defense and financial firms from the United States, Japan and India navigating in Israel — since its founding in 2007. From December 2018 until September 2019, Dr. Wurmser also served as senior advisor to the U.S. National Security Advisor, Ambassador John Bolton.
Prior to this, Dr. Wurmser was the senior advisor from 2003-2007 to the U.S. Vice President Cheney on Middle East, proliferation and strategic affairs. Before becoming the senior advisor for the Vice President in 2003, Dr. Wurmser was the senior advisor to Under Secretary of State John Bolton at the State Department.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Center For Security Policyhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngCenter For Security Policy2024-03-13 12:38:572024-03-13 14:01:06Plunge Faster Into The Abyss
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would defy President Joe Biden’s “red line” on a potential Rafah invasion as tensions between the two leaders continue to escalate, according to Axel Springer, the parent company of Politico.
After announcing additional humanitarian aid to Gaza during his State of the Union address, Biden told MSNBC that if Israel was to invade Rafah, a city in Gaza holding displaced Palestinians, it would be a “red line.” Netanyahu, however, indicated in an interview with Axel Springer that he would be ignoring Biden’s warning on a potential invasion of Rafah.
“We’ll go there. We’re not going to leave them. You know, I have a red line. You know what the red line is? That October 7 doesn’t happen again. Never happens again,” Netanyahu told the outlet.
Netanyahu added that he had the support of some anonymous Arab leaders on his potential military move as Israel battles the terrorist organization Hamas in its war, Axel Springer reported.
“They understand that, and even agree with it quietly,” Netanyahu told the outlet. “They understand Hamas is part of the Iranian terror axis.”
Though the latest public dispute between Netanyahu and Biden adds to growing tension between the leaders, White House officials told Politico Playbook they are allowing Netanyahu to “vent.” They believe, the White House officials told Politico Playbook, that the criticism is about applying pressure on Hamas to strike a hostage deal, rather than embarrassing Biden.
As war in the Middle East has dragged on, Netanyahu and Biden have reportedly had several disagreements. Biden hung up on Netanyahu in December after a heated phone call about the Palestinian tax revenue dispute, sources told Axios. The president has reportedly called Netanyahu an “asshole” in at least three different incidents, three people familiar with the president’s comments told NBC News in February. Following the reports, a National Security Council spokesperson told NBC News that Biden and Netanyahu have a “respectful relationship,” though the president lets the prime minister know when he disagrees.
The president reportedly voiced criticism of Netanyahu in January during an event, a supporter who was present at the event told NBC News.
“He did say Bibi started off great, but ‘he’s been a pain in my ass lately’ or ‘he’s been killing me lately’ — one of those things,” the person who was present for Biden’s comments told NBC News. “He goes, ‘But he’s doing a disservice … of late.’”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country's forces plan to invade the city of Rafah in southern Gaza despite President Joe Biden claiming that doing so would be crossing "a red line." https://t.co/7ZU9igX8Xe
‘Joe Biden is desperate now’@COLRICHARDKEMP analyzes President Biden's statement on the Rafah operation as a 'red line' and his announcement regarding the construction of a new pier in Gaza pic.twitter.com/v0UzzQbYUe