Joe Biden said the Declaration of Independence is “corny” last week. Shame on him! He’s lost sight of the basics and is taking an awful lot for granted.
The Declaration is a classical liberal document. Classical liberalism is the most coherent, humane, and sustainable political theory in the entire history of political theory. Classical liberalism provides civil liberties, the rule of law, limited government, and political and economic freedom. Abraham Lincoln wrote it is no accident we have freedom and prosperity in America. They have a “philosophical cause” – “the principle of ‘Liberty to all’ – the principle that clears the path for all–gives hope to all–and, by consequence, enterprise, and industry to all,” Lincoln wrote.
Where did Lincoln find these principles? In the Declaration of Independence, which states:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. – That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…
Unalienable rights – these are also called natural rights. Under the Declaration, you are born with these rights. They are not something the government gives you and government cannot take them away from you. In fact, the government’s job is to protect your rights. “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men.,” the Declaration says. This means government is supposed to protect your rights from, among other things, the tyranny of the majority. Political minorities are not supposed to be persecuted under our system, which is pretty important given the number of times political minorities have been trampled throughout human history.
Freedom, prosperity, and unalienable rights – Joe Biden calls these “corny”. Perhaps he would prefer tyranny, poverty, and misery. Limited government – maybe Joe would prefer the totalitarian governments of the 20th century, the ones that deliberately killed people by the tens of millions, just because they could and nobody had any rights.
One of the rights in the Declaration is the “pursuit of Happiness”. Joe Biden thinks its “corny” you should want to be happy. Alright, Joe, no more pizza and ice cream for you.
He also thinks it’s “corny” governments should have to derive their “just powers” from “the consent of the governed”. Joe Biden was in the Senate for 36 years. What did he think he was doing there if not providing consent of the governed? The Declaration goes on to list a “long train of abuses”. The King of England disbanded colonial legislatures when he felt like it, and proclaimed no laws could be passed in the colonies without his assent. What position would Senator Joe Biden have taken if the President disbanded the U.S. Senate? Or am I just being “corny”? The King also quartered soldiers in people’s homes, that was another of the long train of abuses. I hear there’s a nice beach house in Delaware just sitting there waiting for the military to take up residence. The King also put the English military over civilian authorities. Since the Declaration is “corny”, I propose we put Mark Milley and Lloyd Austin over Joe Biden. Joe won’t mind, will he?
Joe also said about the Declaration, “we’ve never lived up to it.” That may be true, but who has ever completely lived up to an ideal? Not on this planet. But the Declaration by declaring “all men are created equal” paved the way for getting rid of slavery. Blacks in America perfected the Founders’ vision of equality and justice for all. They saw the principles and rights enunciated in the Declaration and said ‘those principles apply to me, too.’ I doubt former slaves thought equality for all under the law and the pursuit of Happiness were “corny” ideas.
Finally, the ideas in the Declaration were implemented in the Constitution. One of those ideas is limited government, expressed in the Constitution in the office of the President as one of three co-equal branches of government, an office Joe Biden now holds. So, tell me Joe, is that a “corny” idea, too? You’ve said it is, so what are you still doing in the White House? So many pizzas, so little time.
What happens when a liberal Woke company runs into the consequences of liberal Woke policies? It flees, that’s what, and that ought to tell you something about liberal Woke policies and the stupid people pushing them.
Amazon is moving employees out of its office in downtown Seattle because violent crime has increased in the area. Seattle is the place, you will recall, where city officials never met a rioter they didn’t like. Seattle is also where the city council voted twice to defund the police, and the police can no longer chase criminals, thanks to Woke criminal justice reform.
Seattle isn’t the only Woke place suffering from high crime. A smash-and-grab gang robbed a jewelry store in the Sacramento area earlier this month, where all Democrats have to worry about is how big their majority in the state legislature will be. In St. Louis, the police budget was to be cut by $4 million and robbery victims now wait three hours to get through to 911. Austin, where voters refused to re-fund the police, shattered all records for the number of homicides in 2021 – 89 by one count, 101 by another – eclipsing the previous high of 59 in 1984. Woke Austinians are getting the government they deserve.
Woke criminal justice reform has been repudiated in some places, with some cities moving to re-fund the police. New York City Mayor Eric Adams also confessed error, moving to reinstate a plainclothes police unit that targets violent crime on the street.
The liberal Woke Brennan Center for Justice just issued a report claiming there is no clear connection between Woke bail reform and recent increases in crime in New York state. Statistics cited in the report prove otherwise. A review of 100,000 pretrial releases in a recent one-year period under the state’s cashless bail reform law showed 2 percent led to rearrests for violent felonies. Brennan concludes “relatively few people released under the new law went on to be rearrested for serious offenses.” That’s putting lipstick on a pig. The proper conclusion is that 2,000 more violent felonies occurred that would not have occurred but for Woke bail reform.
Brennan’s report doesn’t mention that former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio confessed error and admitted the Woke bail laws caused crime to go up. Brennan does mention that New York’s Governor Kathy Hochul wants the law changed back to allow bail to be set in more conditions, but Brennan misses the obvious point: this is another admission that Woke criminal justice reform just isn’t working.
Brennan’s report doesn’t even try to deal with the spectacular cases of repeat offenders being released in New York who went on to commit more crimes. A subway mugger was arrested 16 times in one day. It’s the same story elsewhere. The father of a 24-year-old graduate student who was murdered in L.A. blamed politicians who let criminals roam free on the streets. Also in L.A., a no-bail policy resulted in a car-theft suspect being re-arrested 13 times in 12 weeks.
So, nice try, Brennan Center, not even close. At this point, everybody knows defunding the police makes crime go up, and good luck calling 911. And everybody know no-cash bail lets repeat offenders commit more crimes. Woke criminal justice reform has completely failed, but now the Biden administration wants to hand out cash to drug addicts. The consequences are foreseeable to anyone with a lick of common sense and I can’t wait to write about them.
The partisan behavior of past and current leaders of the Intelligence Community is a rot that continues to expand.
Having spent 10 years on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, including more than six years as either the Chairman or Ranking Republican, I developed a deep appreciation for the work of what is often called the “Intelligence Community” (IC). I also was thoroughly impressed by the quality of the men and women who worked in the trenches, often in hostile and very dangerous locales. They were, and I suspect most still are, great patriots.
Sadly, that cannot be said about many of the higher-level professionals who lead the community as demonstrated by their actions over the last number of years. The Hunter Biden laptop episode is just the latest dagger in the side of the Intelligence Community, but it needs to be put into a larger context regarding the IC leadership’s shift in focus. The partisan behavior of so much of the past and current leadership of the Intelligence Community is so bad, it might be more accurate to call it the “Intelligence Cabal.” It is a rot that continues to expand.
Consider the unfortunate answer that the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper provided to Senator Wyden in a 2013. Asked the simple question of whether the IC was conducting mass surveillance of Americans, Clapper falsely answered, “No sir. Not wittingly.” As revealed a few months later, the National Security Agency had been collecting the metadata for nearly every call and text on American networks. While not necessarily partisan, this deceitful behavior by Clapper would become a disturbing pattern for him and other IC leaders.
In 2017, efforts clearly designed to undermine and perhaps collapse the administration of incoming President Donald Trump were executed by leading FBI and intelligence officials, including DNI Clapper, FBI Director James Comey, CIA Director John Brennan, and former CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden. They embraced the phony Steele Dossier and talked with the media to bolster its credibility and damage Trump. They pedaled this narrative until it collapsed under the weight of its own lies when a key Russian source of Christopher Steele was arrested and charged with lying to the FBI. It also was revealed the dossier had been a hoax bought and paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign, with Steele pocketing almost $170,000 from the campaign.But far from being chastened after promoting the politically funded lies of the Steele Dossier, the individuals continued their partisan behavior and attacks. In another blow to the credibility of these much-ballyhooed former IC leaders, The New York Times finally admitted the contents of the abandoned laptop of Hunter Biden first revealed by the New York Post in October of 2020 were real and had been authenticated by the paper.
This after discussion about the laptop had been banned from many social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook as being Russian misinformation or the result of a hack.
And after the mainstream media dismissed the New York Post’sreporting out-of-hand and even refused to look into it, dismissing it as a waste of time and not really a story.
And after these vaunted former intelligence officials, joined with 51 former IC colleagues and leaders, to write a letter stating:
“All of us have an understanding of the wide range of activities of Russian overt and covert activities that undermine U.S. national security … Perhaps most important, each of us believes deeply that American citizens should determine the outcome of elections, not foreign governments.”
“… has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
“If we are right, this is Russia trying to influence how Americans vote in this election, and we believe strongly Americans need to be aware of this.”
Well, they were wrong, and in an ironic twist, they were doing exactly what they accused Russia of doing—engaging in a classic partisan, political information campaign to influence the outcome of an election. They had, wittingly or not, made themselves tools of the Biden presidential campaign.
Signatories of the letter included many familiar and some not so familiar names: Clapper, Hayden, Brennan and David Buckley. Why do I mention Buckley? He was at one time staff director for the minority Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, and I know him and can attest that he is a personally nice guy.
So why bring up someone I like? It’s to demonstrate that the “Intelligence Cabal” never quits. They went after Trump before he assumed office, while he was in office, and during the 2020 election. Their ongoing information operation, that started with the Steele dossier, continues to today. The latest chapter, David Buckley, who signed the laptop letter, is now the staff director for the January 6 Committee.
Many of us have raised questions about the January 6 Committee, including its construct, its membership, and scope just mention a few. This latest revelation about the role of its staff director in influencing the 2020 election through a partisan disinformation campaign is the latest major red flag.
The questions that need to be asked now are: Who will investigate the 51 intelligence officials who signed the Hunter Biden laptop letter about what they knew when signing, and who will investigate whether this created any conflicts for the lead investigator of the January 6 Committee? The sorry thing is we all know the likely answer—no one will.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Center For Security Policyhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngCenter For Security Policy2022-03-28 13:15:102022-03-28 13:15:10Our once-stellar intelligence community has morphed into an intelligence cabal
Every rational and decent American must get behind the re-election of President Trump in 2024. America and the world will not be able to withstand a second term of the Biden Administration. #Trump2024!
The media tried downplay the huge crowd at Saturday’s Trump rally in Commerce, Georgia. They claimed that the crowd was small. That’s BS. There were thousands of people at the rally. How interesting that the media tries to downplay Trump’s rallies that draw thousands of people, when Joe Biden could not draw 100 people to his campaign rallies in 2020.
Trump returned to the battleground Peach State Saturday night, speaking just northeast of Atlanta at the NHRA International Dragway in Commerce, Georgia. The 45th president warned that the country is living in dangerous times, given the war in Ukraine and the threats being made by Russia, China, and North Korea….
Quick note: Tech giants are shutting us down. You know this. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Adsense, Pinterest permanently banned us. Facebook, Google search et al have shadow-banned, suspended and deleted us from your news feeds. They are disappearing us. But we are here. We will not waver. We will not tire. We will not falter, and we will not fail. Freedom will prevail.
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Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. flew to Europe and quickly made a fool of himself. But what is worse he made of fool of America and we have the fools that elected him to the White House to thank for him and his incompetence.
We have labeled those who elected Biden “the depraved electorate.” The depraved are the 87% of Democrats who give Biden and his administration, “positive marks for the job he is doing.” The “depraved electorate” are willfully ignorant of what is really happening around them.
Watch the prince of fools in action on the world stage:
President Biden on Thursday had a sharp response to a reporter who asked why he though[t] the latest sanctions would change Russian President Vladimir Putin’s behavior after previous steps did not stop Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine…
“Sanctions never deter — you keep talking about that — sanctions never deter…”
“That’s not what I said. You’re playing a game with me.”
The prince of fools showed Europe and the world that he’s not only inept but extremely dangerous. Remember Biden has the ability to launch a nuclear strike, and implied he would do so, panicking his staff.
And if he does what then?
This is why Russia invaded the Ukraine, China has become more aggressive in the Pacific theatre and Iran is very, very close to getting the nuclear weapons that it has been seeking for decades.
Our enemies are all taking advantage of this American fool while they can.
It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of a Biden presidency that to restore the necessary common sense and good judgement of this depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their leader.
The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Biden, who is a mere symptom of what ails America. Blaming the prince of fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince.
Here’s one of the fools that made Biden her prince, Nancy Pelosi, demeaning working class Americans. This video clip highlights a key aspect of Nancy Pelosi’s personality – she looks upon the average American with disdain.
The republic can survive a Biden, who is after all, merely a fool.
It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools, such as those who made and now defend him as their president!
Time to focus on the depraved electorate who defend, encourage and support Biden, the prince of fools.
Will November 2022 will be a reckoning? Will the electorate give us conservative majorities in the House and Senate?
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2022-03-28 06:55:482022-03-28 09:54:43Videos of Biden’s Cringe Fest in Europe — OMG, he really is the prince of fools?
A judge who does not believe in the Constitution, but believes in critical race theory, is unfit.
The existence of a speech by Biden’s Supreme Court nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson, praising Derrick Bell, the godfather of critical race theory, and citing his book, “Faces At the Bottom of a Well”, as an influence has been widely reported. Conservatives have covered Bell’s racist views, his praise for Farrakhan, his antisemitism, and attacks on America. Much of this was already hashed out during the exposure of the relationship between Barack Obama and Derrick Bell.
But it’s important to specifically focus on Jackson’s interest in “Faces At the Bottom of the Well.”
In her speech, Jackson mentions that Bell, whom along with his wife she praises throughout her speech, “wrote a book in the early 1990s about the persistence of racism in American life”.
The subtitle of the book, which few people have mentioned, is, “The Permanence Of Racism”.
Persistence and permanence are not the same thing. But this is another example of Jackson subtly distorting Bell and his book in order to make their extremism seem more moderate.
Jackson goes on to say that, “My parents had this book on their coffee table for many years, and I remember staring at the image on the cover when I was growing up; I found it difficult to reconcile the image of the person, who seemed to be smiling, with the depressing message that the title and subtitle conveyed. I thought about this book cover again for the first time in forty years when I started preparing for this speech.” That would have made her ten years old.
As others have pointed out, “Faces At the Bottom of the Well” was published when Jackson was in her early twenties during Bell’s tantrum against Harvard University. It’s unlikely that Biden’s Supreme Court nominee grew up with the hateful text, but it’s entirely plausible that she was influenced by the book which came out when she was at Harvard and then Harvard Law.
Since Bell began his racial strike against Harvard Law before she had completed her undergraduate degree, it’s unlikely that she had taken any of his classes, but the former member of the faculty was clearly an influence on her. Perhaps Jackson’s memory is faulty or she’s deliberately backdating the book’s influence to her childhood to make it seem more innocent. Surely no one could blame a ten year old for being attracted to a racialist text.
“Faces At the Bottom of the Well” is the sort of racist book that could conceivably appeal to a bright ten year old. Bell, despite his position, was never much of a legal or constitutional scholar, and Faces, like the preceding “And We Are Not Saved”, conveys its message that the constitution is just a facade for a white racist agenda through science fiction short stories.
Where “And We Are Not Saved” transports the protagonist back to the Constitutional Convention to denounce the Constitution, “Faces At the Bottom of the Well” indulges in more hyperbolic science fiction scenarios including the rise of a new continent of Afroatlantis and space aliens offering Americans profits in exchange for selling black people into space slavery.
While the scenarios are absurd, they’re there to illustrate Bell’s argument that the Constitution is nothing more than what benefits white people at any given time. This is the same argument that the godfather of critical race theory had repeatedly made throughout his career, contending, for example, that the ban on segregation was not a rejection of racism, only a ploy by white people to defeat the Soviet Union and Communism by showing that they weren’t racist.
(Likewise, Faces, along with a defense of Farrakhan and condemnation of Jews for opposing black antisemitism, portrays Jews as protesting against the plan to sell black people into slavery only because in the absence of blacks, “Jews could become the scapegoats”.)
Such racial conspiracy theories, ubiquitous in the work and thought of black nationalists and supremacists, who always begin and end with the premise of white evil, pervade Bell’s work.
“Faces At the Bottom of the Well” was a way to popularize and communicate this central idea at a level that even a child or a not particularly bright Harvard student, already nursing resentments, would be able to understand by depicting scenarios in which the white society and white people would cheerfully revamp the Constitution to bring back black slavery.
Thus near the end of the “Space Traders” story, Bell has the Supreme Court unanimously rule that, “if inducted in accordance with a constitutionally approved conscription provision, blacks would have no issues of individual rights for review” and tells us that, “By 70 percent to 30 percent, American citizens voted to ratify the constitutional amendment that provided a legal basis for acceptance of the Space Traders’ offer”. Behind the SciFi is the message that the majority of Americans, the Supreme Court, and the Constitution would allow black people to be enslaved again and that therefore black people should not rely on whites or the Constitution.
The Constitution, according to Bell, is merely the whim of a white agenda that serves its purposes. To the extent that the law has outlawed segregation and slavery, it did so only because it temporarily served white purposes and the moment that it would serve white purposes to enslave black people again, it would be done within the Constitution.
That is the message of “Faces At the Bottom of the Well”: the book that influenced Jackson.
Does Jackson believe that the Supreme Court would rule that black people could be sold into slavery? Like everything about her record, we know we can’t expect an honest answer.
And yet her speech, which touches not only on the racist rants of Bell and his wife, but on the 1619 Project, introduces the idea that our founding documents are racially untrustworthy.
Praising the racial revisionist history of the 1619 Project, Jackson touts Nikole Hannah-Jones’ “provocative thesis that the America that was born in 1776 was not the perfect union that it purported to be” and that only black civil rights activism made America “the free nation that the Framers initially touted.”
Much like the 1619 Project, this description is rife with historical anachronisms and fundamental inaccuracies that is even less befitting a Supreme Court justice than a New York Times hack, but also implicitly echoes the critical race theory understanding that the civil rights struggle was not about upholding the Constitution, but overcoming it, that America’s founding documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were racist and remain the enemy.
In the process of her lecture, Jackson invokes critical race theory, the pernicious concept of “white privilege”, and intersectionality.
The radicalism oozes around the edges of Ketanji Brown Jackson’s talk.
The Supreme Court nominee praises Gloria Richardson who, in Jackson’s words, “took part in several protests that ended in violent clashes with white residents” and “indirectly challenged SNCC’s non-violent ideology.” She quotes Richardson as saying, “[w]hen we were attacked at demonstrations, [we women] were the ones throwing stones back at the whites.”
Gloria Richardson was a wealthy leftist organizer with political connections during the Cambridge Riots who had contemptuously dismissed Martin Luther King and asserted, “We weren’t going to stop until we got it, and if violence occurred, then we would have to accept that.”
Black nationalists hail her because she’s seen as breaking the embargo on local nonviolence in protests. And Richardson had emphasized that to the extent to which she used nonviolence was as a “tactical device”. To Jackson, most of the law seems to likewise be a tactical device.
And that’s the problem.
Absorbing the paranoid racism of the godfather of critical race theory during her formative years at Harvard makes for a bad judge and a worse justice. Bell’s approach to the Constitution, like that of black nationalists, was that it was a trick to lure black people into lowering their guard.
White people, he believed, could never be trusted and all that mattered was seizing power.
Any laws or documents made by white people would only serve them. Only black people could secure the rights of black people. Like the Nazis, the ultimate truths were race and power.
Everything else was a distraction.
If that is Ketanji Brown Jackson’s worldview, she cannot be expected to come out and say it. But the highest court in the land is the last place for racial paranoia and nationalism. The Supreme Court is charged with upholding the Constitution. A judge who does not believe in the Constitution, but believes in critical race theory, the 1619 Project, and white privilege is manifestly unfit to decide the fate of a nation and its hundreds of millions of people.
Derrick Bell and his hateful ideology believed that white racism was the only abiding truth.
There’s no room for that kind of thinking on the Supreme Court.
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Jihad Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJihad Watch2022-03-27 05:54:462022-03-27 09:00:26Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Favorite Critical Race Theory Book Rejects the Constitution
Russia claims it was concerned with the U.S. funded biolabs that up until Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland acknowledged their existence was called “Russian disinformation” by the Democrat party of treason and their media ministry of propaganda.
Why were the Bidens and Obama ‘s DoD funding biolabs and bioweapons in Ukraine?
The U.S. Department of Defense’s Biological Threat Reduction Program collaborates with partner countries to counter the threat of outbreaks (deliberate, accidental, or natural) of the world’s most dangerous infectious diseases. The program accomplishes its bio-threat reduction mission through development of a bio-risk management culture; international research partnerships; and partner capacity for enhanced bio-security, bio-safety, and bio-surveillance measures. The Biological Threat Reduction Program’s priorities in Ukraine are to consolidate and secure pathogens and toxins of security concern and to continue to ensure Ukraine can detect and report outbreaks caused by dangerous pathogens before they pose security or stability threats.
Current executive agents of the Biological Threat Reduction Program in Ukraine are the Ministry of Health, the State Service of Ukraine for Food Safety and Consumer Protection, the National Academy of Agrarian Sciences, and the Ministry of Defense.
Ministry of Defense (MOD) COVID-19 Response Assistance
Sanitary-Epidemiological Department (SED) of the Medical Command of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense received four mobile laboratories from DTRA with the goal of reinforcing the system of epidemiological surveillance in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense received an official Order from the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine concerning the deployment of the mobile labs to the regions of Kyiv, Lviv and Eastern Ukraine to help with the COVID-19 response.
On April 11, 2020, President Zelenskyy visited the SED unit in Pokrovskoye City, Donetsk Oblast, and familiarized himself with the capabilities of the mobile laboratories to help military and civilian people during the COVID-19 epidemic. (News article)
Laboratory Construction
BTRP has upgraded many laboratories for the Ministry of Health and the State Food Safety and Consumer Protection Service of Ukraine, reaching Biosafety Level 2. In 2019, BTRP constructed two laboratories for the latter, one in Kyiv and one in Odesa.
The Science Writing Mentorship Program (SWMP) was initiated at the beginning of 2016. The overall focus of SWMP is to advance One Health initiatives and disease risk mitigation in Ukraine through effective dissemination of scientific findings at BTRP-supported laboratories. The program seeks to improve the science writing skills of participants to afford them the opportunity for publishing and obtaining grants for projects.
In addition, there is an annual Ukraine Regional One Health Research Symposium that features participants of SWMP and many others. In 2019, the Symposium had a total of 553 participants and 446 presentations.
Active Research Projects
BTRP supports many collaborative research projects through which Ukrainian and American scientists work together. A few recent examples are:
“Risk Assessment of Selected Avian EDPs Potentially Carried by Migratory Birds over Ukraine”
“Prevalence of Crimean Congo hemorrhagic fever virus and hantaviruses in Ukraine and the potential requirement for differential diagnosis of suspect leptospirosis patients”
“The Spread of African Swine Fever Virus (ASFV) in Domestic Pigs and Wild Boars in Ukraine – Building Capacity for Insight into the Transmission of ASFV through Characterization of Virus Isolates by Genome Sequencing and Phylogenetic Analysis”
“ASFBiosurveillance and ASF Regional Risk Assessment: A Field to Plate Survey”
Conferences
BTRP invites Ukrainian scientists to participate in scientific conferences worldwide where they have the opportunity to present their work and integrate into the international science community.
Biosurveillance Network of the Silk Road (BNSR)
In 2016 the Ministry of Health of Ukraine and the State Service of Ukraine on Food Safety and Consumer Protection signed a memorandum on joining a multi-national working group with the goal to strengthen global health security and create well-functioning disease surveillance networks in the Eastern European region that includes Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine.
These days all kinds of ridiculous things are said against America, the Pledge of Allegiance, the flag, and our history. Now, one leftist reporter calls the Constitution “trash.” It should be thrown away and replaced with something “more inclusive.”
Elie Mystal who is the “Justice correspondent” for The Nation, said on “The View” recently, “The Constitution is kind of trash.”
This was not a momentary aberration. On another outlet, a reporter asked him, “[A]re you arguing that the Constitution needs to be scrapped altogether?”
He replied:
“Sure…But, I don’t think that’s going to happen. Like, if we could throw that out and start over with a new document that was more inclusive of everybody, that was written by everybody—at no point have black people, brown people or women had a say in actually writing the Constitution or the amendments to that Constitution—if we could throw that out and have a delegation of all Americans to write a new one, I would be all for that.”
Mystal also tweeted that he was proud to trigger “white wing media this morning by noting that their slaver’s organizing document is trash.”
How is it that the most durable government document in history, producing the most freedom for the most people the world has ever seen, “trash”?
Millions of would-be refugees would love to come here to live in America, while many of our citizens exemplify what I have called “The Era of the Ungrateful American.”
Yet what sacrifices the founders made for us, their posterity’s sake. In the Declaration of Independence, upon which the Constitution is predicated, the founders declared their pledge, with the help of God, to commit “our “lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor” for the American cause.
I once interviewed the late Dr. Walter Williams, professor of economics at George Mason University and syndicated columnist, on America’s spiritual roots.
He told me, “The United States Constitution has been very valuable just considering the evidence. Number one, we still have the Constitution, although, it’s not obeyed all the time. But the Constitution has led to the richest and the most powerful nation on the face of this earth and the greatest amount of personal liberty that people enjoy. That is why people try to get to United States. People want to live in United States. They want to become American citizens, and the reason why is the liberty that we have.”
Williams added: “Slavery has been mankind’s standard fare throughout his entire history. Even the word, slave, in most languages is slav; that is because the Slavic people were among the first to be enslaved. And Africans were among the last to be enslaved. And the great thing about the Western world is that we spent many resources on eliminating slavery.”
Mystal claimed that the Constitution excludes him because he’s black. Williams, also African-American, did not agree with that. Of course, tragically, the promise of the Constitution was initially denied to blacks, and it is a blot on our nation’s history.
But it was in those founding documents where the seeds of freedom for all were sown, as acknowledged by Frederick Douglass and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who called America to honor the promises made in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Many of those who even risk their lives to come to America today include people of color.
Why has the Constitution proved so durable? Because it is based on a Biblical worldview. For example, the Bible recognizes that man are sinners. Therefore, we need government—to protect us from other sinners—but since sinners run the government, we need to be protected from the government as well. That is a summary of James Madison’s Federalist #51.
This is why the Constitution so meticulously works to separate powers from one branch from another. The abuse of power was the great concern.
My whole point is to not give up on the U. S. Constitution. It recognizes man’s true nature—which is sinful—and harnesses and limits that nature to maximize freedom. All the experiments in humanistic governments have proved to be disastrous for everyone. From the Soviet Union to Nazi Germany, from Castro’s Cuba to Chavez’s (and Maduro’s) Venezuela. And on it goes.
The founders were not all “slavers,” as Mystal ignorantly declares, as he ignores such anti-slavery giants as John Adams and Alexander Hamilton and Ben Franklin (president of a key anti-slavery society). And the founders built in the means by which slavery could one day be ended.
Every day, many on the left want to jettison some of what is best in America, in this case even the Constitution. They don’t want to admit that they benefit from the freedoms derived from that document—even the freedom to denounce it as “trash.”
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Jerry Newcombe, D. Min.http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJerry Newcombe, D. Min.2022-03-26 04:39:502022-03-26 04:46:44Responding to the Charge that the Constitution is ‘Trash’
We scored a significant victory for clean elections: the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County ruled in favor of our challenge to Maryland’s congressional redistricting plan. In its ruling, the court permanently barred Maryland’s use of its current plan.
We filed the lawsuit on behalf of 12 registered Maryland voters who object to Maryland’s 2021 congressional redistricting plan on the grounds that it is a partisan gerrymander that diminishes their rights to participate in free, fair elections for the U.S. Congress on an equal basis with other Maryland voters, in violation of the Maryland Constitution (Parrott et al. v Lamone et al. (No. C-02-CV-21-001773)). The trial also included plaintiffs from a separate lawsuit.
In June 2015, we filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Maryland’s gerrymandered congressional district map in federal court. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of voters in each of Maryland’s congressional districts—including Maryland Delegate Neil Parrott, who is also the lead plaintiff in this new state-court lawsuit. In December 2016, we filed a brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in response to Maryland’s attempt to retain the gerrymandered voter districting plan.
After conducting a trial last week in Annapolis, MD, the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County ruled:
With regard to Article 7 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights … the Plaintiffs, based upon the evidence adduced at trial, proved that the 2021 Plan was drawn with “partisanship as predominant intent, to the exclusion of traditional redistricting criteria” … by the party in power, to suppress the voice of Republican voters. The right for all [to] political participation in Congressional elections … was violated by the 2021 Plan …
[ *** ]
As result, this Court will enter declaratory judgment in favor of the Plaintiffs, declaring the 2021 Plan unconstitutional, and permanently enjoining its operation, and giving the General Assembly an opportunity to develop a new Congressional Plan that is constitutional. A separate declaratory judgment will be entered as of today’s date.
Maryland’s recent history of partisan gerrymandering is no secret. [its 2011] congressional district map … remains one of the most notorious partisan gerrymanders in U.S. history. A federal district judge openly doubted that it could provide “fair and effective representation for all citizens.” Another called it “absurd” to suggest ‘that there is a community of interest” in a district described as a “Rorschach-like eyesore.” [A federal appeals court] famously described the same district as “a broken-winged pterodactyl, lying prostrate across the center of the state.”
The lawsuit relates that a bipartisan commission recommended a map to Maryland Governor Larry Hogan on November 5 that he approved, but the legislature passed a different proposal in a straight party-line vote. On December 9, 2021, Hogan vetoed this proposal, and, the same day, the state legislature overrode his veto on another party-line vote.
Outside experts agreed that the plan was flawed, with the nonpartisan Princeton Gerrymandering Project giving it a grade of “F” for fairness and geographic compactness. In 2020, Republicans accounted for approximately 35% of Maryland’s congressional votes, but they’re unlikely to win even a single seat under this plan. This outcome wouldn’t be possible without political gerrymandering.
This key court victory against abusive partisan gerrymandering by Democrats in Maryland could set a national precedent.
In June 2015, we filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Maryland’s gerrymandered congressional district map in federal court. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of voters in each of Maryland’s congressional districts—including Maryland Delegate Neil Parrott, who is also the lead plaintiff in this new state-court lawsuit. In December 2016, we filed a brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in response to Maryland’s attempt to retain the gerrymandered voter districting plan.
Records Reveal Fauci Emails about Hydroxychloroquine and COVID
Dr. Fauci and his colleagues continue to dodge transparency, but we are systematically prying loose more details about their behind-the-curtain deliberations on Americans’ health. There’s more this week.
We received 199 pages of records from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that include emails between National Institutes of Health (NIH) then-Director Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci about hydroxychloroquine and COVID-19.
We obtained the records as the result of a FOIA lawsuit for Collins’ emails (Judicial Watch v U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (No. 1:21-cv-02302)). We sued after the Department of Health and Human Services failed to respond to a June 8, 2021, FOIA request for:
All emails sent to and from Director Francis Collins related to “gain of function”, “hydroxychloroquine”, “HCQ”, and/or “Wuhan Institute of Virology”
In a June 19, 2020, email current acting Director of the NIH Lawrence Tabak writes to NIH then-Director Francis Collins about an NIH-sponsored randomized control trial of the effectiveness of using hydroxychloroquine to treat patients hospitalized with COVID-19
Based on the recommendations from the DSMB [Data and Safety Monitoring Board of NIH] that met late today, NHLBI [National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute] is stopping … the randomized controlled trial comparing hydroxychloroquine vs. placebo/Standard of care in hospitalized patients with confirmed SARS-CoV2 infection. This was a scheduled interim analysis – actually the 4th in a series – looking at both safety and outcomes data. Bottom line: There was no harm signal. [Emphasis in original] However, based on the conditional power analysis there is less than a 1% probability that HCQ would prove more effective than standard of care even if we enrolled twice the number of patients. Therefore, we are concurring with the DSMB’s recommendation and stopping the trial in accordance with standard trial monitoring and oversight practices. The trial was almost completed (475 patients enrolled out of 510 target); however, based on these results there is no need to continue the study.
Collins replies on June 20, 2020, and copies Dr. Fauci: “Well, that fits with the outcome of the RECOVERY trial. [Emphasis in original] I hope NHLBI will quickly publish the results. Looping in Tony.”
Fauci responds the same day: “Thanks. Not unexpected, but good to have [t]o have solid evidence behind our recommendations. We now need results of the trials for prophylaxis.”
In May 2020, Nakela Cook authored an NIH report called, “Update on COVID-19 Initiatives and Request for Additional Funding.” According to Cook, a unit of NIH called the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) launched a large trial to study the effect of the use of Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) as a prophylactic treatment in healthcare workers (HCWs) against COVID-19. The study was called the “HERO [Healthcare Worker Exposure Response and Outcomes]-HCQ Trial.”
Cook claims that the study’s creators wanted to, “Create a community of healthcare workers (HCWs) who may be at risk of COVID-19 infection.” And then, “randomize 15,000 at-risk HCWs into a randomized clinical trial to evaluate the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) to prevent COVID-19 clinical infection in HCWs.”
According to Cook, secondary goals of the scientists include, “To evaluate the efficacy of HCQ to prevent viral shedding of SARS-CoV-2 among HCWs.” And “Evaluate safety and tolerability of HCQ.”
The records include a June 26, 2020, letter from a group of Democrat congressmen to then-HHS Secretary Alex Azar. The representatives write:
We write with strong concerns surrounding the Administration’s termination of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant to EcoHealth Alliance on April 24, 2020. In the letter communicating the grant’s termination, NIH Deputy Director for Extramural Research, Dr. Michael Lauer, wrote that “At this time, NIH does not believe the current project outcomes align with the program goals and agency priorities.” However, press reports indicate that the grant was canceled because a small portion of the funding was to be given to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for on-the-ground sample collection and analysis. Given the potential for this study to inform our knowledge of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) transmission, it is deeply concerning that it may have been canceled for political reasons in the midst of the current pandemic.
In a heavily redacted July 21, 2020, email exchange with the subject line “EcoHealth [EcoHealth Alliance] oversight response” Adrienne Hallett writes: “We are going to draft a response to the letter [redacted]. Mike [Lauer], can you help with the draft?”
Collins responds, “Sounds like a plan. [Redacted].”
Hallett’s response is completely redacted, then Lauer replies, “Thanks so much Adrienne! I’ll draft something today.”
Fauci’s agency is slow-rolling the release of documents about COVID, Wuhan, and gain-of-function research. At this rate, Fauci will be long retired before we get even a partial accounting for its activities. But Judicial Watch will keep on pushing for the full truth.
Judicial Watch Victory: Sixth Circuit Judicial Council Vacates Order Punishing Federal Judge Who Pushed for Timely Justice in Social Security Benefits Cases
As part of the settlement of a historic federal lawsuit, the federal Sixth Circuit Judicial Council is vacating an unprecedented and entirely unwarranted order by a disciplinary panel that found U.S. District Court Judge John R. Adams committed misconduct by objecting to undergoing a psychiatric examination and ordered him to submit to the examination.
In September 2017, Judicial Watch filed a federal lawsuit challenging the discipline on behalf of Akron, Ohio-based Judge Adams (The Hon. John R. Adams v. The Judicial Council of the Sixth Circuit, et al. (No. 17-1984)). The Sixth Circuit oversees and hears appeals from federal trial courts in Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, and Tennessee.
Here’s what happened.
On August 14, 2017, the Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability of the Judicial Conference of the United States upheld an administrative ruling by the Sixth Circuit Judicial Council finding that Judge Adams committed misconduct when he issued a show cause order to a magistrate judge who missed a deadline in a Social Security benefits case. Judge Adams had long been concerned about the efficient use and supervision of his court’s magistrates and the timeliness of magistrates’ decisions, particularly in Social Security cases. To reduce delays in such cases, he began issuing orders setting deadlines for magistrates’ “reports and recommendations” – analyses by magistrates on how a judge should rule.
The magistrates resisted Judge Adams’ efforts and, when one magistrate missed a deadline, Judge Adams issued the show cause order. After the magistrate explained that the missed deadline resulted from a simple calendaring error, Judge Adams accepted the explanation and placed both the order and the explanation under seal.
Some of Judge Adams’ colleagues on the Ohio Federal District Court filed an ethics complaint claiming that Judge Adams’ deadlines and show cause order caused the magistrates to give priority to his cases over theirs. As a result, Judge Adams was subjected to a years-long ethics investigation so vengeful and vitriolic that even his mental health was questioned. Despite the complete absence of any medical evidence suggesting he suffered from a mental disability, Judge Adams was ordered to undergo a psychiatric examination, including a three-hour battery of psychological testing. When he objected, he was accused of undermining the investigation.
In addition to his efforts to ensure timely processing of Social Security appeals, Judge Adams also has spoken out numerous times about the Ohio Federal District Court’s wasteful use of taxpayer dollars, such as the spending of thousands of dollars to purchase iPads for judges and other court staff while simultaneously threatening cutbacks and furloughs for essential staff, such as probation officers. He also questioned reimbursing judges for travel expenses incurred attending ceremonial portrait unveilings of their colleagues.
No case had ever decided whether a sitting federal judge can be compelled to undergo a psychiatric examination, but the Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability of the Judicial Conference of the United States held it was misconduct for Judge Adams to object to this unprecedented demand. It also ordered him to endure two years of monitoring by a judicial committee and threatened to reassign his current caseload and ban him from being assigned new cases.
After over four years of federal litigation, including an appeal, the Judicial Council agreed to finally vacate the unprecedented orders targeting Judge Adams.
The courts are not above the law. Judge Adams is a fine jurist committed to the highest standards of judicial ethics and has served with distinction for over 19 years. No other federal judge should ever have to go through what Judge Adams went through. That the bureaucracy of the federal judiciary retreated from its abuse of him is a remarkable victory for the rule of law and our constitutional system.
Judicial Watch Sues over COVID-19 Travel Exemptions for Biden Officials
Rules for thee, but not for me? Too often that’s the case in Washington. Now we want to know if government employees under the Biden administration enjoyed privileges withheld from ordinary Americans when it came to COVID-19 travel restrictions.
We filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA suit) against the State Department for all documents related to national interest travel exemptions from the Biden administration given to federal employees and their families related to the COVID-19 pandemic (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:22-cv-00736)).
Here’s the background. On January 25, 2021, President Joe Biden issued a presidential proclamation prohibiting the entry of non-residents to America if they have been in the Schengen Area, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Brazil, or the Republic of South Africa in the 14 days prior. The stated objective of this order was to “prevent further spread” of COVID-19. On April 30, 2021, President Biden extended this proclamation to cover those who had been in the Republic of India.
Although these directives would potentially cause Americans to be separated from loved ones abroad, federal employees could have potentially used their positions and connections to circumvent the travel bans by obtaining National Interest Exemptions (NIE).
Through this FOIA request, we hope to obtain information and statistics regarding the total number of NIE requests made during the public health emergency from federal and non-federal employees, as well as the number of rejections and approvals of these requests.
We sued after the State Department failed to respond to a September 21, 2021, FOIA request seeking:
All records of the number of applications, granted and denied, for a National Interest Exemption to any of the COVID-19 related travel restrictions implemented by the U.S. Government, including the restrictions announced, by President Biden on January 25, 2021 and April 30, 2021.
All records depicting the number of applications, granted or denied, to a family member of an employee of any office of the U.S. Government.
All records of communication between any official of the Department of State and any official of any other office of the U.S. Government regarding applications for exemptions made by family members.
All records of policies related to the processing of applications for a National Interest Exemptions.
COVID restrictions have been too often ignored by government officials, and Americans have a right to know if federal employees used their positions of power to see their families when others could not.
Judicial Watch Sues HHS for Communications about Vaccine Side Effects
The Centers for Disease Control is being scrutinized for being less than forthcoming about what it knows about the COVID-19 vaccines. Judicial Watch is pushing back on this lack of transparency with lawsuit after lawsuit to enforce Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) accountability.
We just filed a FOIA lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for communications related to adverse events caused by COVID-19 vaccines (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (No. 1:22-cv-00660)).
We sued after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) failed to respond to an August 30, 2021, FOIA request for:
All emails sent to and from members of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee regarding adverse events, deaths and/or injuries caused by investigatory vaccines for the prevention or treatment of SARS-CoV-2 and/or COVID-19 currently produced by Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna and/or Johnson & Johnson.
The Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee “reviews and evaluates data concerning the safety, effectiveness, and appropriate use of vaccines and related biological products which are intended for use in the prevention, treatment, or diagnosis of human diseases, and, as required, any other products for which the Food and Drug Administration has regulatory responsibility.”
Americans have a right to know about any and all safety issues tied to the COVID vaccines. The government’s unlawful stonewalling, which will now take a federal FOIA lawsuit to resolve, suggests that there is something to hide.
City Under Siege: Staggering New York Crime Wave Roils Politics
It’s been said that, “As goes New York, so goes the nation.” Unfortunately, that seems all too true regarding leftist leniency for criminals. However, as Micah Morrison, our chief investigative reporter, describes in Investigative Bulletin, even leftist politicians have been forced to take action.
The NYPD’s new anti-gun units hit the streets last week and not a moment too soon. New York City is in the midst of a staggering crime wave. Over the past weekend, 29 people were shot in 24 separate incidents, the Daily News reported. According to the latest NYPD statistics, major felonies in the city increased 58% in February 2022, in year over year comparisons to February 2021. Murders rose 10%. Felony assaults rose 22%. Rapes increased 35%. Robberies increased 56%. Hate crimes—largely against Jews and Asian-Americans—surged 189%. Crimes in the transit systems—mainly the subways—were up 73%.
New York is a city under siege. Every day brings a new horror story. A child is assaulted in Times Square. A young woman is stabbed to death in her Chinatown apartment. A senior citizen is hacked to death by a wheelchair-bound transgender two-time convicted murderer. A madman smears feces on a woman’s face in a subway station, is released on bail, and is arrested again after hurling a dumbbell through a window. A woman is shoved in front of a subway train and killed. Another woman is attacked with a hammer. A teen is shot to death in front of a Brooklyn high school. A baby is shot in the face in the Bronx. A teenage cashier at a Burger King in Manhattan is shot and killed during a robbery. Two police officers are killed by gunfire in Harlem.
At Judicial Watch, we warned for years that New York was slipping toward a crisis of crime and disorder. The reasons were not difficult to discern. Progressive policy makers were denigrating and defunding the police at every opportunity, dismantling successful policing units, decriminalizing quality-of-life crimes, emptying jails, and launching a disastrous program of bail reform.
Under Mayor Bill de Blasio, New York abandoned the successful policing strategy of enforcing quality-of-life laws. This was the “Broken Windows” theory of policing, a key factor in crime reduction during the mayoral tenure of Rudy Giuliani.
“Broken Windows” is a metaphor for urban decline. The building with an unrepaired broken window soon leads to the other windows being broken and more disorderly conduct. “A neighborhood where minor offenses go unchallenged soon becomes a breeding ground for more serious criminal activity and, ultimately, violence,” writes Giuliani police commissioner William Bratton and George Kelling, the father of Broken Windows theory.
New York decriminalized quality-of-life crimes under de Blasio. Public urination, public drinking, littering, and subway turnstile jumping were no longer illegal. Incidents of harassment, menacing, petty theft, public urination and public intoxication began to increase. That distant tremor in the urban air was the sound of windows breaking.
Meanwhile, progressives rammed through the state legislature in Albany a reform package that eliminated bail for a wide range of offenses—from assault, arson and child abuse to manslaughter, robbery and riot—and removed judicial discretion in holding suspects. The reform legislation took effect January 2020. Many more offenders walked. Some of them were poor first-time offenders on minor crimes who simply could not afford bail and deserved to walk; others were violent personalities or career criminals who did not. Crime rates jumped.
The public backlash was swift. In November 2021, New York elected a new mayor, a former police officer who had campaigned on a platform of public safety, Eric Adams. The new mayor’s plans include a refreshed version of the successful but controversial NYPD anti-crime unit, which was disbanded in 2020 in the midst of social justice protests. The new six-person anti-gun units, launched last week, will aggressively tackle gun crime in New York. About 170 police officers have been deployed so far, focusing on high crime areas, with 300 more to follow.
Adams also is advocating for reform of radical bail laws, tougher gun possession charges for youthful offenders, and a crackdown on transit crime with an increased police presence in the subways.
Initially stunned by the Adams electoral victory, New York’s powerful progressive factions have begun to push back hard on the new mayor. Adams’ appeal to Democratic leaders in Albany for bail reform—largely focused on giving judges more discretion to hold potentially violent offenders—was quickly shot down. Progressive politicians in New York argue that there is not a proven connection between the new bail laws and increased crime; conservatives disagree.
Adams, meanwhile, gained an important ally in the bail reform fight: New York Governor Kathy Hochul. The former lieutenant governor took over after Andrew Cuomo resigned. Last week, she sent the state legislature a “confidential” ten-point public safety plan that backed the Adams proposal to give judges more discretion in setting bail. The plan quickly leaked, infuriating the Left. Perhaps not coincidentally, Hochul will be asking the voters for a full term as governor in November.
Back in New York City, the new NYPD anti-gun teams acted quickly, making the first arrest just two hours into the first patrol—an alleged member of the Bloods crime gang with a loaded 9mm handgun. By the end of the first week, the anti-gun units had arrested thirty more suspects and taken ten illegal guns off the streets.
Public College Hosts Cop Killer, Calling Him a ‘Political Prisoner’
Our colleges have turned against the society that funds and protects them, bestowing honor on all manner of miscreants. Our Corruption Chronicles blog reports on the latest outrage.
In a scandalous example of leftwing dominance in higher education, a public university in New York will hold an event next month featuring a convicted cop killer promoted by the taxpayer-funded institution as a “political prisoner.” The April 6 event at State University of New York (SUNY) at Brockport is titled “History of Black Resistance, U.S. Political Prisoners & Genocide: A Conversation with Jalil Muntaqim” and the school’s announcement conveniently omits Muntaqim’s crimes, though it mentions he “was an avid educator” in prison. Formerly known as Anthony Bottom, Muntaqim was convicted for the murder of two New York Police Department (NYPD) officers in 1971. At the time he was a member of the radical Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army.
Muntaqim and two of his Black Liberation Army comrades ambushed and killed the officers, Waverly Jones, who was black, and Joseph Piagentini in Harlem. The officers were on foot patrol in a public housing complex. As they returned to their police vehicle, the three suspects attacked them from behind and shot them. Jones was killed instantly after getting shot in the back of the head. Piagentini was shot multiple times and died on the way to the hospital. One of the cop murderers died in prison, the other was granted parole in 2018 and Muntaqim was paroled in 2020, after being denied parole 11 times and serving nearly five decades. Piagentini’s widow was rightfully outraged that her husband’s murderer was freed, saying this in a local news report: “My husband, they shot him, there were 22 bullet holes in my husband, and Bottom [Muntaqim] just kept on shooting,” she said. “My husband looked at him, turned and said ‘I have a wife, I have children,’ but he continued to shoot.”
The media has downplayed Muntaqim’s crimes, instead celebrating him as an author, activist, and local civil rights organizer who is featured in a documentary released just weeks ago. In a review of the film, titled “Conversations: The Black Radical Tradition,” one media outlet describes the film as “first-hand accounts of Black resistance in America in the 20th and 21st centuries from more than a dozen activists, scholars, politicians, writers, and others involved in resistance and community-building movements.” In the article Muntaqim says “there has been an unbroken history of resistance against white supremacy, institutional racism, and capitalist exploitation of our communities, but the engagement in activism has at times gone dormant. So it’s important for us to understand the history and resurrect that tradition of resistance.” Another newspaper article describes the cop killer fondly: “During his incarceration, Muntaqim became a father, a grandfather, a great-grandfather, a mentor, a scholar, a several-times-over published author and a faith leader.”
SUNY Brockport was actually going to compensate the felon to appear at the upcoming event, but public outrage forced university officials to revoke the payment. They have, however, refused calls to cancel Muntaqim’s appearance, which is being billed by the school as an “intellectual conversation” about his time with the Black Panthers and as a political prisoner. In a letter published by a local news outlet in the aftermath of the public outrage, SUNY Brockport President Heidi Macpherson explains that Muntaqim was invited by a faculty member who was approved for a “Promoting Excellence in Diversity” grant. “We do not support the violence exhibited in Mr. Muntaqim’s previous crimes, and his presence on campus does not imply endorsement of his views or past actions,” Macpherson, writes, adding that his appearance will provide an opportunity to learn about his perspective and what may have contributed to his past experiences. Macpherson assures individuals will have the opportunity to ask difficult questions such as “why he chooses to identify as a former political prisoner.”
At least one New York state legislator blasted the university, issuing a statement saying that it is incredibly inappropriate and downright wrong to give Muntaqim a platform at a taxpayer-funded institution. “What type of message would we be sending to young college students to call someone who played a role in the assassination of two members of law enforcement a “political prisoner?” What message does it send to criminal justice majors on campus? What message does it send to our law enforcement?” Academic freedom and diversity are important, the lawmaker, Assemblyman Josh Jensen writes, but “granting this opportunity to a convicted cop killer is wholly misguided.” In its promotional material, the university portrays Muntaqim as a civil rights hero, stating that he was a teen activist for the NAACP and Black Panther Party at age 18. The school further describes him as a “grandfather, father, mentor to many, and loving human being.”
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Judicial Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJudicial Watch2022-03-26 04:22:222022-03-26 04:24:44PODCAST: Court Throws Out Democrat Election Scheme, New Fauci Emails, will the Senate Confirm Judge Jackson?
Spring Break 2022 ended in Miami Beach with a bang — or rather with a bunch of them. Multiple shootings along the beachfront Ocean Drive prompted city officials to announce a curfew for the rest of the week from midnight to 6 pm. “We can’t endure this anymore. We just simply can’t,” pleaded Mayor Dan Gelber. “This isn’t your mother and father’s spring break. This is something wholly different.”
It’s not just spring breakers letting off steam. Violent crimes of all varieties are increasing nationwide. Five people were shot in Baltimore last weekend. In Seattle, Amazon temporarily relocated 1,800 employees due to increased shootings near its facility. Armed robberies in Los Angeles are up 44 percent over the same period last year. In Atlanta, murder has risen 43 percent and rape has risen 236 percent over the same period last year. Pick any city, and you’ll likely find crime is up. These violent crimes continue to increase annually, even after the record 30 percent increase from 2019 to 2020.
What’s driving the rise in lawlessness? According to former law enforcement officer Jason Johnson, now Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund President, one factor is the “demoralization and disempowerment of police in the wake of what I think most people consider unfair criticism.” Police “will take their cues from the elected officials.” If they aren’t confident that their department will back them up, “they’ll be very hesitant to put themselves in that position.” Putting their safety on the line is part of the job, but when police feel they could lose their job — or even their retirement — for doing the right thing, that undermines their effectiveness.
While not calling to defund the police, President Biden “has embraced the idea of demoralizing and disempowering law enforcement,” said Johnson. In one unprecedented example, the Biden Justice Department refused to provide legal representation for four U.S. marshals facing lawsuits. Such an anti-police attitude will “result in an actual reduction in the professional standing of law enforcement officers,” said Johnson, which means “at some point these agencies will have to reduce their professional standards.” Insisting all police are bad apples draws relatively more bad apples into the bunch.
A second factor Johnson identified is “the election of ‘social justice’-oriented prosecutors” who “are averse to prosecuting criminals.” What rational officer will risk his neck to arrest a criminal when he knows the government officials will refuse to prosecute him? Criminals understand this as well as cops. “Therefore, there’s an atmosphere of permissiveness and lawlessness, that there won’t be any consequences or accountability,” Johnson explained.
A still more fundamental factor is a loss of national morality built upon religion, as 89 percent of “Washington Watch” listeners affirmed. America has lost its way ever since it kicked God out of the classrooms, but now even the morality built upon God’s Word isn’t tolerated. As President George Washington said in his farewell address, “of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.”
Finally, lawlessness is the fruit of bad leadership. When the people of Israel worshiped the golden calf at Mount Sinai, Moses wrote that “the people had broken loose (for Aaron had let them break loose, to the derision of their enemies)” (Exodus 32:25). To end the national disgrace, Moses had to restore order and carry out justice. This meant that wrongdoers had to face consequences. His actions serve as a model for any nation plagued by lawlessness. As Proverbs says, “Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law” (Proverbs 29:18).
As media coordinator, Joshua serves under the Vice President of Communications in a number of ways, including coordinating interview requests, editing op-eds and press releases, and assisting in various capacities with the Washington Watch radio show.
Joshua hails from Clemson, South Carolina, where he was homeschooled with his five siblings. He graduated from Patrick Henry College with a B.A. in Government and a special emphasis in American Politics and Policy. He later attended the Pepperdine University School of Public Policy and graduated as valedictorian with a Master’s in Public Policy, emphasizing Economics and American Policy. Before joining Family Research Council, Joshua also worked for the National Pro-Life Alliance and parentalrights.org, as well as interning in the White House Office of Speechwriting.
Joshua is passionate about policy research and analysis, specifically about developing innovative solutions to the day’s greatest policy challenges from a biblical perspective. He enjoys participating in the life of his local church and exploring a variety of nerdy hobbies ranging from strategy board games to sci-fi television and book series.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Family Research Councilhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFamily Research Council2022-03-25 05:22:322022-03-25 05:24:14PODCAST: Spring Breaks Miami in Shooting Wave
“Twitter has denied The Babylon Bee’s appeal. They wrote, ‘Our support team has determined that a violation did take place, and therefore we will not overturn our decision,’” Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon announced on Wednesday.
The Babylon Bee’s unforgivable offense was to post an article on Sunday mocking USA Today for recently declaring the biological male Rachel Levine a “woman of the year.”
“The Babylon Bee’s Man of the Year is Rachel Levine,” read the headline.
Twitter then locked the site’s account for 12 hours on the condition they delete the tweet, alleging it violates the platform’s “hateful conduct” policy.
“We’re told our account will be restored in 12 hours, but the countdown won’t begin until we delete the tweet that violates the Twitter Rules,” Dillon said at the time. “We’re not deleting anything. Truth is not hate speech. If the cost of telling the truth is the loss of our Twitter account, then so be it.”
Twitter also censored Fox News host Tucker Carlson for posting screenshots of tweets from the Babylon Bee calling Levine a man.
If you want to know who holds the power in a society, ask whom it is you are not allowed to criticize.
On February 25, 2021, Republican Senator Rand Paul, who is a physician by training, questioned Levine vis-à-vis her support for dangerous medical procedures for minors identifying as transgender – procedures designed to prevent the youngsters from going through what Levine called “the wrong puberty.” Specifically, Levine has advocated for allowing minors to receive hormone blockers as well as genital-mutilation surgeries whose physical effects are irreversible. After Paul pointed out that genital mutilation is viewed as “a violation of human rights” almost everywhere in the world, and that “80 to 95 percent of prepubertal children with gender dysphoria” snap out of it “by late adolescence” if left alone, he asked Levine: “Do you believe that minors are capable of making such a life-changing decision as changing one’s sex?” Levine replied evasively: “Well, Senator thank you for your interest in this question. Transgender medicine is a very complex and nuanced field with robust research and standards of care that have been developed. And if I am fortunate enough to be confirmed as the Assistant Secretary of Health, I will look forward to working with you and your office and coming to your office and discussing the particulars of the standards of care for transgender medicine.”
Senator Paul then tried again: “Do you support the government intervening to override the parent’s consent to give a child puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and/or amputation surgery of breasts and genitalia?” In reply, Levine repeated the obviously rehearsed “thank you for your interest” remarks almost verbatim.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Discover The Networkshttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDiscover The Networks2022-03-25 04:58:182022-03-25 04:58:18Twitter Denies Babylon Bee Appeal After Account Lockdown over Rachel Levine Joke
Senators have established that Ketanji Brown Jackson is unfit to serve on the Supreme Court. Will a majority of them now spare us the damage she would do there?
Under cross-examination, Judge Jackson has signaled that she has not merely a problematic judicial philosophy, but a radical ideological agenda. Her mask has slipped revealing: an admirer of the subversive Maoist divide-and-conquer strategy known as Critical Race Theory; a slavish devotee of leftist identity politics; and a reflexive advocate for even the most odious of criminals, namely terrorists and child sex offenders.
Some Republican Senators previously voted to put her on an appellate court bench. They are now on notice that she would not only be a hard leftist justice. It is predictable that, if confirmed, she will radicalize what is today a minority of the Court, but possibly a future majority.
This is Frank Gaffney.
The Secure Freedom Minute – the most interesting, informative and life-saving 60 seconds of your day.
BREAKING: DOJ Spied on Journalists’ Emails Via Sealed Search Warrants & Non-Disclosure Orders
Microsoft’s Legal Docs Reveal How DOJ Repeatedly Concealed Possession of Privileged Communications from Federal Judge#BidenDiarypic.twitter.com/9N4CW75jdK
After a U.S. District Court Judge rejected the DOJ’s argument to ignore Project Veritas’ “journalistic privileges,” the DOJ went behind the judge’s back to obtain an extension on two sealed non-disclosure orders from a magistrate judge to conceal the fact they already had unsupervised and unfettered access to Project Veritas’ journalists’ privileged emails and contacts.
Here are some of the highlights from today’s video:
Despite multiple opportunities to do so, the DOJ has not publicly disclosed the orders, warrants, or subpoenas to Judge Torres or Special Master Judge Barbara Jones – who was appointed by Judge Torres to protect Veritas’ “journalistic privileges” from potential DOJ overreach.
The DOJ has not sought Judge Jones’ approval to review Project Veritas’ materials seized from Microsoft. The documents uncover a sixteen-month clandestine campaign against journalists in which the DOJ obtained 7 secret orders, warrants and subpoenas from six magistrates within the Southern District of New York.
In a motion filed Tuesday, Paul Calli, an attorney for Project Veritas, fiercely opposed the actions from the DOJ which he called an act of “violence” to the First Amendment.
Based on preliminary research data, the SDNY appears to be in possession of nearly 150K documents they should not have. In addition to the emails, the SDNY obtained over one thousand contacts from journalists that they also failed to disclose to Judge Torres or to the Special Master.
Why did the Biden Administration’s Department of Justice seek voluminous amounts of journalists’ emails, including confidential sources and attorney-client privileged data from Microsoft despite vowing a year ago to protect press freedom?
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00O'Keefe Media Grouphttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngO'Keefe Media Group2022-03-24 07:27:442022-03-24 07:32:47Microsoft Corporation Legal Documents Show Biden DOJ Spying on Project Veritas Journalists
As the very proud friend and teacher of hundreds of Black females for numerous decades, I am appalled that the nominee for U.S. Supreme Court Justice has violated the most basic and precious norm of every Black female I have known – the ideal to protect children from harm. Throughout America’s history, the Black female has sacrificed immeasurably to protect her own children and others as well. The Black female has no history of condoning child molesting or child pornography.
To nominate a Black female to a position of esteem and honor when she has consistently betrayed the honorable hallmark of her peers is an outrageous insult to the fellow females I so admire, who believe to the depths of their souls that sexualized and victimized children are not and never to be objects of adult pleasure and entertainment.
The fates of these children are death by murder, disability, depression, drugs, suicide, and sexual slavery. Is their slavery any less hideous and heinous than the slavery this nation fought to abolish forevermore?
Children in chains, trapped and beaten, tortured to provide entertainment until their end. This is sexual slavery, which begins with child molesting and child pornography. Is this slavery any less hideous and heinous than the slavery Harriet Tubman risked her courageous life to cease for all times?
The current U.S. Supreme Court nominee is the antithesis of my role model, Harriet Tubman, since my earliest years.
EDITORS NOTE: On February 1, 2022 The Washington Post’sMarc A. Thiessen reported, “President Biden wants credit for nominating the first Black woman to the Supreme Court. But here is the shameful irony: As a senator, Biden warned President George W. Bush that if he nominated [Judge Janice Rogers Brown] the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court, he would filibuster and kill her nomination.”
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Beverly Newmanhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngBeverly Newman2022-03-24 06:09:502022-03-24 09:05:34Ketanji Brown Jackson: An Insult To Black Females
In a scandalous example of leftwing dominance in higher education, a public university in New York will hold an event next month featuring a convicted cop killer promoted by the taxpayer-funded institution as a “political prisoner.” The April 6 event at State University of New York (SUNY) at Brockport is titled “History of Black Resistance, U.S. Political Prisoners & Genocide: A Conversation with Jalil Muntaqim” and the school’s announcement conveniently omits Muntaqim’s crimes, though it mentions he “was an avid educator” in prison. Formerly known as Anthony Bottom, Muntaqim was convicted for the murder of two New York Police Department (NYPD) officers in 1971. At the time he was a member of the radical Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army.
Muntaqim and two of his Black Liberation Army comrades ambushed and killed the officers, Waverly Jones, who was black, and Joseph Piagentini in Harlem. The officers were on foot patrol in a public housing complex. As they returned to their police vehicle, the three suspects attacked them from behind and shot them. Jones was killed instantly after getting shot in the back of the head. Piagentini was shot multiple times and died on the way to the hospital. One of the cop murderers died in prison, the other was granted parole in 2018 and Muntaqim was paroled in 2020, after being denied parole 11 times and serving nearly five decades. Piagentini’s widow was rightfully outraged that her husband’s murderer was freed, saying this in a local news report: “My husband, they shot him, there were 22 bullet holes in my husband, and Bottom [Muntaqim] just kept on shooting,” she said. “My husband looked at him, turned and said ‘I have a wife, I have children,’ but he continued to shoot.”
The media has downplayed Muntaqim’s crimes, instead celebrating him as an author, activist, and local civil rights organizer who is featured in a documentary released just weeks ago. In a review of the film, titled “Conversations: The Black Radical Tradition,” one media outlet describes the film as “first-hand accounts of Black resistance in America in the 20th and 21st centuries from more than a dozen activists, scholars, politicians, writers, and others involved in resistance and community-building movements.” In the article Muntaqim says “there has been an unbroken history of resistance against white supremacy, institutional racism, and capitalist exploitation of our communities, but the engagement in activism has at times gone dormant. So it’s important for us to understand the history and resurrect that tradition of resistance.” Another newspaper article describes the cop killer fondly: “During his incarceration, Muntaqim became a father, a grandfather, a great-grandfather, a mentor, a scholar, a several-times-over published author and a faith leader.”
SUNY Brockport was actually going to compensate the felon to appear at the upcoming event, but public outrage forced university officials to revoke the payment. They have however, refused calls to cancel Muntaqim’s appearance, which is being billed by the school as an “intellectual conversation” about his time with the Black Panthers and as a political prisoner. In a letter published by a local news outlet in the aftermath of the public outrage, SUNY Brockport President Heidi Macpherson explains that Muntaqim was invited by a faculty member who was approved for a “Promoting Excellence in Diversity” grant. “We do not support the violence exhibited in Mr. Muntaqim’s previous crimes, and his presence on campus does not imply endorsement of his views or past actions,” Macpherson, writes, adding that his appearance will provide an opportunity to learn about his perspective and what may have contributed to his past experiences. Macpherson assures individuals will have the opportunity to ask difficult questions such as “why he chooses to identify as a former political prisoner.”
At least one New York state legislator blasted the university, issuing a statement saying that it is incredibly inappropriate and downright wrong to give Muntaqim a platform at a taxpayer-funded institution. “What type of message would we be sending to young college students to call someone who played a role in the assassination of two members of law enforcement a “political prisoner?” What message does it send to criminal justice majors on campus? What message does it send to our law enforcement?” Academic freedom and diversity are important, the lawmaker, Assemblyman Josh Jensen writes, but “granting this opportunity to a convicted cop killer is wholly misguided.” In its promotional material, the university portrays Muntaqim as a civil rights hero, stating that he was a teen activist for the NAACP and Black Panther Party at age 18. The school further describes him as a “grandfather, father, mentor to many, and loving human being.”
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Judicial Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJudicial Watch2022-03-24 05:52:242022-03-24 05:52:24Public College Hosts Cop Killer [‘Political Prisoner’] with Promoting Excellence in Diversity Grant
