Sacking the ESG End Run Attempt

/in , , , , , , , , , , /by

Limited government is essential to American freedom.

We are protected by a fundamental system of constitutional checks and balances.

When giant financial corporations try to use their power to force Woke-Left ideology such as ESG, or “Environmental, Social, Governance,” on the rest of us, it is an attempt at an end run around our constitutional defenses that must be brought down.

Take a look at my article in Issues and Insights.  The push to sack ESG is on, and state and local officials, angry shareholders and freedom-oriented organizations like CFACT are leading the way.

I quote Florida Governor Ron Desantis who said, “Who do these people think they are? That they govern our society? Nobody voted for [BlackRock CEO Larry Fink]. So our mantra in Florida is, no economic or social transformation without representation. These are policies that could not win at the ballot box, so they’re trying to do through corporate America what they can’t do in the electoral process.”

CFACT has been actively participating in corposrate shareholder meetings and those of us engaged are having an impact.

As I explain in the article, “a number of free-market representatives and corporate shareholders have taken part in BlackRock, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, and other annual shareholder meetings to raise a fuss. They vote on various matters, put up some of their own proposals, and ask the CEOs uncomfortable questions about their involvement in ESG activities… The CEOs are not accustomed to such pushback from conservatives. They dodge, weave and filibuster evasively and defensively. They have no answers. Their reputations have been challenged.”

ESG proponents won’t go down easily, but we are already having success.  A number of Attorneys General have initiated legal action leading to 15 of 31 companies leaving the Net-Zero Insurance Alliance, whose original members collectively controlled more than $3 trillion in assets.  Shareholders are rejecting radical ESG proposals when they come up for a vote.

As my article concludes:

“The American people are showing they will not stomach the woke agenda these wealthy, powerful, unelected ESG promoters are imposing on them. We the People and our elected representatives have a right and duty to confront and, hopefully, put a stop to them.”

RELATED ARTICLES:

The End of ESG? LBS professor offers a balanced view of ESG and its significance

Are we Finally Heading Toward ESG sanity?

RELATED VIDEO: The Bidenomics FAILURE

RELATED TWEET: 

EDITORS NOTE: This CFACT column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Federal Judge Denies Biden Admin’s Request To Keep Coordinating With Big Tech To Censor Americans

/in , , , , , , , , , /by

A federal judge denied the Biden administration’s attempt to pause an injunction that bars federal officials from communicating with social media companies for the purposes of censoring protected speech on Monday.

The Biden administration appealed Western District of Louisiana Judge Terry A. Doughty’s July 4 injunction on Wednesday, also requesting an emergency order to pause the injunction while the appeal is pending on Thursday night. Doughty denied the administration’s emergency order Monday, finding that plaintiffs would likely succeed in proving the government colluded with social media companies “to engage in viewpoint-based suppression of protected free speech.”

“Although this Preliminary Injunction involves numerous agencies, it is not as broad as it appears,” Doughty wrote. “It only prohibits something the Defendants have no legal right to do—contacting social media companies for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner, the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech posted on social-media platforms. It also contains numerous exceptions.”

Doughty highlighted multiple examples of alleged censorship, such as Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials providing examples of misinformation topics to Facebook, the FBI’s refusal to tell Facebook whether the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) holding recurring meetings with social media platforms on “misinformation, disinformation, and/or censorship of protected free speech on social media.”

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey and Louisiana Attorney General Jeffrey Landry opposed the Biden administration’s attempt to stop the injunction in a court filing Sunday, writing the administration was essentially asking to “continue violating the First Amendment.”

“In essence, Defendants argue that the injunction should be stayed because it might interfere with the Government’s ability to continue working with social-media companies to censor Americans’ core political speech on the basis of viewpoint,” they wrote in the court filing. “In other words, the Government seeks a stay of the injunction so that it can continue violating the First Amendment.”

AUTHOR

KATELYNN RICHARDSON

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLES:

FBI Director Admits Censorship Scheme Was Halted by Federal Judge

Old yeller: Biden’s private fury

‘A Great Deal Of Unlawful Conduct’: States Slam Biden Admin For Trying To Stop Judge’s Injunction Against Gov Censorship Activities

Unpopularity Behind Elite Demands For Warrantless Spying And Censorship

JOSH HAMMER: Democrats Cry Crocodile Tears About ‘Our Democracy’ While Trying To Tear It Down

Biden AI Chair Champions Regulation And Mandated Gov Intervention For ‘Inclusivity’

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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.

Court Rejects Satanic Temple’s Abortion Petition

/in , , , , , , , , /by

A federal court is rejecting the Satanic Temple’s petition to protect abortion as a religious ritual. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas threw out a complaint earlier this week filed by the Satanic Temple back in 2021 and amended last year after Roe v. Wade was overturned. The complaint argued that pro-life laws in Texas infringed on the religious liberty of practicing Satanists, as abortions (especially first-trimester abortions) are a religious ritual in the Satanic Temple. The court determined that the Satanic Temple doesn’t have standing to file the complaint.

The Satanic Temple filed the initial complaint in 2021 in the wake of Texas’s heartbeat bill, citing a violation of freedom of speech and freedom of religion. After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the Satanic Temple amended its complaint, explicating Texas’ pro-life trigger laws prevent Satanists from practicing abortion “rituals.” Lawyers for the Satanic Temple cited the Temple’s “tenets,” one of which proclaims, “One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone,” a variation of the common, “My body, my choice” slogan often used by pro-abortion activists.

“The Satanic Temple considers it a victory when they can undermine sincerely held religious beliefs by pretending their legal complaints based on ‘religious freedom’ are legitimate and deserve the same consideration given to religions like Christianity,” Arielle Del Turco, director at Family Research Council’s Center for Religious Liberty, told The Washington Stand. “It’s good to see that the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas rejected The Satanic Temple’s lawsuit. People know this is a stunt, and we shouldn’t get caught up in their game.”

The Satanic Temple has long been an advocate of abortion and also filed suits against pro-life laws in Missouri, Idaho, and Indiana. After Roe was overturned, the Temple announced it would open an abortion facility selling abortifacient drugs and named “Samuel Alito’s Mom’s Satanic Abortion Clinic,” mockingly named after the Catholic Supreme Court Justice who wrote the opinion overturning Roe. On its website, the Satanic Temple states, “Consistent with our tenets that call for bodily autonomy and acting in accordance with best scientific evidence, The Satanic Temple religiously objects to many of the restrictions that states have enacted that interfere with abortion access.”

In 2020, a Satanic Temple spokesperson explained, “We’re objecting to the regulations that are not actually necessary for the abortion and do not offer better outcomes. [It] would be unconstitutional to require a waiting period before receiving Holy Communion. … So we expect the same rights as any other religious organization.” Perhaps somewhat ironically, the Catholic Church itself requires a sort of waiting period before receiving Holy Communion, demanding that Catholic confess their sins and receive absolution before presenting themselves to receive Communion.

Del Turco summarized the situation by noting, “[P]rogressive ideologues self-identifying as Satanists are literally going to court to defend abortion not on a scientific basis, but by claiming abortion is one of their religious ‘rituals.’ And while this is gross and shocking enough to make headlines, it just confirms what Christians have always known — that the religious fervor demonstrated by pro-abortion activists is not just political, it’s spiritual.”

No court judgment has yet been issued addressing the Satanic Temple’s lawsuits in Missouri, Idaho, and Indiana. The dismissal in Texas does not take into account the merits of the case, only the lack of standing of the plaintiff identified as “Jane Doe.”

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

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.

The Faults in ‘No-Fault’ Divorce

/in , , , , , , , /by

Jesus rejoiced in the institution of marriage. “He Who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matthew 19:4-6).

Note the phrases: “hold fast … one flesh … what God has joined … not separate.” Marriage is, in God’s good plan, unitive and permanent, a covenant made to last. While Jesus made an exception for infidelity, God’s word makes clear that marriage is composed of a relationship that is to be as secure as our salvation in Christ. Indeed, marriage is a picture of the union of Christ and His church (Ephesians 5:22-33).

In our culture, this beautiful union has been tarnished by the availability of penalty-free dissolution. On July 6, 1969, the state of California enacted the nation’s first “no-fault” divorce law. As the state’s judicial branch website explains, this means “no one has to prove someone did something wrong to cause the divorce (this is called no fault divorce). You can get a divorce even if the other person doesn’t want one.” This measure became law under the signature of then-governor Ronald Reagan, who later told his son Michael that signing it was “one of the worst mistakes of his political career.”

In 2010, New York became the last state to enact a no-fault divorce law; today, all 50 have some form of the law on the books. Making no-fault divorce available and inexpensive is like offering a child an endless supply of ice cream and soda: Given human fallenness, something accessible that is also seen as desirable will be common. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2021 there were 1,985,000 marriages in the United States and almost 690,000 divorces — almost exactly 35% of those who tied the knot.

In total, about half of first-time marriages end in divorce; subsequent marriages end at an even higher percentage. While the causes vary widely, ultimately no-fault divorce is a precipitating factor.

It has also become common. As National Review journalist Madeleine Kearns observes, we now have “widespread acceptance of ‘no fault divorce,’ the idea that marriage, like a car, sometimes spontaneously breaks down, becoming more hassle than it’s worth.” A disturbing but accurate metaphor. “The nation saw a spike in divorce rates following the enactment of no-fault divorce laws,” writes The Daily Signal’s Daniel Davis. “Between 1960 and 1980, the divorce rate more than doubled and remained relatively steady into the 1990s.”

At the same time, consider research by the University of Virginia’s Dr. Bradford Wilcox, who heads the National Marriage Project, that “active conservative Protestants,” or Evangelicals, “who attend church regularly are actually 35% less likely to divorce than those who have no religious preferences.” Also, in 2018, Harvard’s Human Flourishing Program published research collected over 14 years showing that “regular religious service attendance is associated with 50% lower divorce rates in later life.” So, while it’s good news that among regular churchgoers the divorce rate is lower, it is still high. And the costs of divorce for the couples involved, their children, and the culture at large are wide and deep. The scars left, especially on children, are large and enduring.

Christians need to pursue Christ-honoring marriages and there are many resources to help them; some can be found at FRC.org. With that said, while personal character is not the province of government, both Scripture and the Constitution emphasize the need to restrain the excesses of human fallenness. Penalizing adverse and destructive behavior is necessary for individuals and communities, even nations, to enjoy a high measure of stability and security. Along with this, nothing strengthens the foundation of any society more than healthy, robust families. So, what can government do, for the good of everyone, to create a cultural environment in which faithful marriage is encouraged?

Policies that bolster marriage are helpful. For example, the home mortgage deduction, the adoption tax credit, and the charitable tax deduction are among those that enable families to better pay their bills. But things like the so-called “Respect for Marriage Act,” which essentially said that marriage is whatever any state says it is, and no-fault divorce take away from whatever else government gives.

What is not helpful is a national policy in which divorce-at-will, or with modest qualifications, is now more the norm than not. Revising state divorce policy is a tough challenge; model legislation (which includes exceptions for such things as spousal abuse and abandonment) provides guidance but has yet to be enacted. It’s hard to curb people’s desire for an easy-out.

Perhaps the most effective remedy is for believers to model the kinds of marriages Jesus envisioned. As Christian men and women demonstrate the beauty of the lifelong, exclusive, covenantal commitment He taught, the attractiveness of the one-flesh union might well make marriage more attractive.

A final note: Theologically, there’s no such thing as a no-fault divorce. There is always at least one party morally responsible for violating something God never intended to be dissolved.

AUTHOR

Rob Schwarzwalder

Rob Schwarzwalder is Senior Lecturer in Regent University’s Honors College.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

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.

NY Abortionists Kill Girls as Young as 13, but Democratic Gov Cracks Down on Pro-Life Centers

/in , , , , , , , , , , /by

As the state’s leaders crack down on pro-life pregnancy resource centers, New York Democrats fund abortionists who have killed dozens of women. At least 38 women and girls, as young as 13, have lost their lives during “safe and legal” abortions carried out by the state’s private abortionists, according to a private research report furnished to The Washington Stand.

Yet that greatly undercounts the number of total abortion deaths in the state, because these numbers do not include the harms caused by the nation’s largest abortion franchise, Planned Parenthood. Then-New York City Health Commissioner Stephen Joseph noted in a June 1987 memo, “During the period between 1981 and 1984, there were 30 legal abortion-related deaths in New York City.”

“Abortion is the original quackery. Abortion is a mercenary industry preying on women in crisis for profit and power,” Rev. Jim Harden, CEO of CompassCare, a New York-based coalition of pregnancy resource centers, told The Washington Stand. “I have said for years that the abortion industry represents serial medical malpractice.”

Despite these gruesome results, New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D) and other Democrats have supported abortion businesses while trying to bring the full force of the law to bear against pregnancy resource centers. Last May, Hochul gave abortionists $35 million in taxpayer funding in the name of advancing “human rights.” Abortion activists firebombed Harden’s pro-life medical network last June 7; six days later, Hochul signed a bill authorizing the state health commissioner to investigate so-called “limited service pregnancy centers,” which do not take part in abortions.

At the national level, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has introduced the “Stop Anti-Abortion Disinformation” (SAD) Act to essentially fine pro-life women’s centers out of existence, asserting pro-life centers “wish [pregnant women] harm.” And abortion advocates have called efforts to hold abortionists accountable for killing mothers a “modern-day lynching.”

“Far from just turning a blind eye, pro-abortion politicians like New York Governor Hochul insist upon promoting, paying for, and protecting abortionists from criminal liability through taxpayer funds and legislation,” Harden told TWS. “Meanwhile, they generate a propaganda smokescreen for their pet industry by vilifying their only competition: peaceful, pro-life pregnancy centers.”

Killing Mothers with their Babies

New York state became an abortion pioneer three years before Roe v. Wade, when Governor Nelson Rockefeller — a three-time Republican presidential hopeful who likely died while committing adultery — signed the most lax abortion law in the nation on April 11, 1970. The state’s history of killing women began a year later, when 25-year-old Margaret Louise Smith, who traveled to the state from Michigan, bled to death on June 16, 1971. Abortionist Jesse Ketchum was convicted of negligent homicide two years later. Thus began the abortion industry’s long history of mingling the blood of mothers with their children.

At least 38 women, as young as 13 and as old as 40, have died at the hands of abortionists, according to the research report, and hundreds of documents attesting its veracity, reviewed by this author. Women died when abortionists left aborted babies’ body parts inside the woman, perforated the mother’s uterus, failed to monitor vital signs, overdosed the patient on anesthesia, or oversaw a deficient abortion procedure that sent a woman into a death-inducing coma. One 31-year-old woman died from the side effects of the early abortion pill, prostaglandin, in 1984.

The mothers killed by New York abortionists hailed from Haiti, Jamaica, Honduras, Ghana, and multiple states.

Teenagers, including those well below the state’s age of consent, have died during abortions. Dawn Ravenall, the 13-year-old daughter of two black Pentecostal preachers and an honors student, died in February 1985 when abortionist Allen Kline left her unattended in New York City’s Eastern Women’s Center after the child suffered a massive heart attack.

Sometimes, deaths come amid a series of other abuses. State health officials took no action against abortionist Abu Hayat after he perforated the uterus of 17-year-old Sophie McCoy of Brooklyn during an abortion on September 18, 1990. One year later, a baby named Ana Rodriguez was born alive, but with one arm, following a botched, third-trimester abortion at Hayat’s hands. “After Hayat’s arrest, 15 women contacted the New York County district attorney in Manhattan, and another 19 contacted the New York Police Department to register complaints that Hayat sexually abused them, botched their abortions, or mistreated them in some other way,” the report states. Hayat lost his license in 1992 — two years too late for McCoy or Rodriguez.

At other times, it is the abortionist’s indifference to life and lack of familiarity with life-saving medicine that snuffed out women’s lives too early. An abortionist named Elyas Bonrouhi, who changed his name to David Benjamin, killed a 33-year-old immigrant from Honduras and mother of four, Guadalupe Negrón, during an abortion at the Metro Women’s Center in Queens on July 9, 1993. Bonrouhi left her to bleed after he lacerated her uterus and cervix during a procedure The New York Times described as a “complicated late-term abortion” at 19 weeks. One of the paramedics said the abortionist or personnel at the facility — which one juror described as “disgusting” and “very unsanitary” — stuffed a breathing tube down the deceased mother’s esophagus instead of her trachea, causing her oxygen mask to fill up with the contents of her stomach, which she then inhaled.

“The cause of death, determined by the medical examiner, was the same as that commonly associated with back-alley butchers in the days of illegal abortion: a perforated cervix,” noted Amy Pagnozzi in the New York Daily News. State officials said the abortionist showed “depraved indifference to human life,” of the mother. Jurors agreed after just two hours’ deliberation.

The death-dealing procedure would never have taken place without the leniency of New York state officials. “New York State Department of Health officials had revoked Benjamin’s/Bonrouhi’s license in June 1993 for ‘gross incompetence and negligence’ for perforating five other women’s uteruses,” states the report. Yet officials allowed the abortionist, who had a history of shoddy work dating back to 1980, to continue working while he contested the ruling. It was their second act of grace. In 1986, “State Department of Health officials ordered an emergency revocation of his license, but Board of Regents officials overruled them and instead merely suspended his license for three months,” the report notes.

Abandoning patients becomes a recurring theme in the report. A 26-year-old immigrant from Ghana died after being foresaken by an abortionist who first practiced in the former Soviet city of Leningrad. Eurice Agbagaa passed away in January 1989, eight days after abortionist Abram Zelikman perforated her uterus, told an unlicensed employee to administer anesthesia, then left.

Similarly, Jamie Lee Morales bled to death on July 9, 2016 — 23 years to the day Negrón died — hours after abortionist Robert Rho carried out an abortion. During the late-term procedure — Morales was 24-26 weeks pregnant, possibly past the 24 weeks then allowed under state law — Rho lacerated one of her uterine arteries. When her sister arrived at his Liberty Women’s Health Care, in Flushing, Queens, Rho merely released Morales to her sister, who later took her to a hospital. Rho would plead guilty to negligent homicide two years later.

The abortionist’s attorney, Jeffrey Lichtman, called the case a “modern-day lynching.”

Harden says lynching better describes the treatment New York state is inflicting on life-saving pro-life women’s centers. “Never once has a pregnancy center sent a woman to the morgue,” Harden told TWS. “Compare that to the abortion industry in New York.”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.

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.

Zuckerberg Spent $43 Million on Security, but $5.5 Million to Back Defund the Police

/in , , , , , , , /by

Safety for me but not for thee.

Zuckerberg Spent $43 Million on Security, but $5.5 Million to Back Defund the Police

By Eric Mack | Saturday, 08 July 2023:

Facebook has spent $43.4 million on Mark Zuckerberg’s private security in just three years, but that reportedly has come as the family’s foundation is pumping millions into activist groups to support the defunding of police.

Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) has donated at least $5.5 million to liberal activist organizations that are tied to defunding, if not calling for the abolishment, of police, the New York Post reported.

Among the CZI donations to anti-policing activist groups, according to the report, are:

  • $3 million to PolicyLink, the organization behind DefundPolice.org, which seeks to “diminish the role of policing in communities and empower alternative visions for public safety.”
  • $2.5 million to Solidaire, which seeks to defund the police through its “Anti-Police Terror Project” and boasts it helped strip $18 million out of the Oakland Police Department’s budget.

Solidaire funds the Movement for Black Lives, a coalition of 150 activist groups, which said in a press release: “[T]he police do not keep us safe, and they do not prevent nor stop crime.

“Pouring more money into the system of policing only threatens the very lives they’re purported to protect.”

Meta/Facebook representatives and CZI did not respond to the Post’s requests for comment.

Meanwhile, Zuckerberg’s Meta is raising its private security spending pre-tax from $10 million for the past few years to $14 million in 2023, according to the report, citing February company filings.

The Zuckerberg-Chan family, which includes three daughters, planned $27 million for their “overall security program” in 2021, the Post reported.

Anti-police protests and riots roiled American cities and culture before the 2020 presidential election, in which Republican Donald Trump, who in June 2020 referred to himself as the “president of law and order,” was running against Democrat Joe Biden.

That year, Zuckerberg’s Center for Tech and Civic Life reportedly donated $350 million to 2,500 election departments in 47 states, as reported by National Review.

Keep reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

EXCLUSIVE: 217 Pages Reveal Obama Admin’s Building of Trump-Russia Narrative

/in , , , , , , , /by

Heavily redacted documents from the National Security Agency tell at least part of the story of a final-month rush by the outgoing Obama administration to torpedo the incoming presidency of Donald Trump.

The Daily Signal obtained 217 pages of documents from the NSA through a Freedom of Information Act request. The documents reveal that Obama administration officials, from Vice President Joe Biden down to several ambassadors and many officials in the Treasury and Energy departments, gained access to secret information about President-elect Trump’s incoming national security adviser, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.



FOIA-unmasking-Gen-FlynnDownload

The documents obtained by The Daily Signal include raw information of requests and other messages from these officials to the National Security Agency in late November 2016 through early January 2017, as well as emails among NSA officials explaining why the information was shared.

Trump, a Republican, took over the presidency from Barack Obama on Jan. 20, 2017, after defeating Obama’s former secretary of state, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, in the November election.

In May 2020, then-acting Director of National Intelligence Rick Grenell declassified information and provided Congress with a list of names involved in the Obama administration’s “unmasking” of Flynn, Trump’s original pick for national security adviser. Senate Republicans Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin released the list.

“Unmasking” is the practice of disclosing to political appointees the identities of U.S. citizens referenced or recorded in intelligence surveillance of foreign nationals. Names of citizens typically are redacted, or obscured, from such reports, unless a specific request is made to “unmask” those citizens.

NSA emails about most such requests regarding Flynn bear this message: “The identities of the named U.S. persons and organizations is required for full understanding of the intelligence in the report.”

Several of the NSA documents note Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights, including the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” The amendment to the Constitution also requires warrants “upon probable cause.”

Through the Freedom of Information Act, The Daily Signal sought records of requests by top Obama administration officials to “unmask” Flynn—that is, to disclose that the incoming national security adviser is a person mentioned in reports of foreign surveillance.

Flynn was the American whose phone conversation with the Russian ambassador between Trump’s November 2016 election and January 2017 inauguration had been intercepted by intelligence officials in the Obama administration.

The Daily Signal formally requested the National Security Agency documents in March 2021, two months after Biden’s inauguration as president; the NSA’s response, dated June 22, arrived June 30—more than two years later.

In its response, the NSA said The Daily Signal’s request for public records overlapped with other FOIA requests already being processed because of litigation from other parties.

Three top Obama administration officials who gained access to the Flynn information are now high-ranking officials in the Biden administration.

Denis McDonough, Obama’s chief of staff for his entire second term, is now secretary of veterans affairs under Biden.

Samantha Power, Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations, made numerous requests for information on Flynn. In the Biden administration, Power is administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

And Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, deputy secretary at Obama’s Energy Department, has been Biden’s homeland security adviser since he took office.

The Flynn-related requests from Obama administration officials were all made during late November and December of 2016.

Trump chose Flynn to be his first national security adviser. Flynn’s “unmasking” at the request of some of outgoing President Barack Obama’s closest advisers set in motion events that led to Flynn’s resignation after only 23 days in office during the new Trump administration. It was also a key factor of the since discredited investigation of Trump-Russia collusion to win the 2016 presidential election.

Trump pardoned Flynn in late 2020, and a federal judge soon dropped charges alleging Flynn made false statements to the FBI in the early days of the Trump administration.

The documents obtained by The Daily Signal also show that at least seven U.S. officials working with NATO were provided with information on Flynn, including then-NATO Ambassador Douglas Lute.

John Tefft, then U.S. ambassador to Russia, as well as several members of his staff whose names were redacted, also sought and got information on Flynn.

Obama’s ambassador to Turkey, John Bass, obtained information on Flynn. NSA’s internal emails say the information was provided to Bass so he could “better understand and assess the foreign intelligence information contained therein.”

The NSA email goes on to say: “No further action may be taken on nor dissemination be made of this information [on Flynn] without prior approval of NSA.”

The FBI investigated Trump’s Russian ties and Flynn had done lobbying work for Turkey, which helps explain the involvement of those two ambassadors.

Obama’s ambassador to Italy, John Phillips, also gained access to information about Flynn, as did his top staff.

National security and law enforcement officials in the Obama administration—including FBI Director James Comey, CIA Director John Brennan, and National Intelligence Director James Clapper—might be expected to have access.

Others who had access to the intelligence on Flynn are surprising, however.

Sherwood-Randall, then deputy energy secretary, got access. The NSA email on the requests by the Energy Department notes: “This information is crucial, as the Deputy Secretary of Energy continues to oversee the transition of the Department to the incoming administration.”

Also privy to the unmasking of Flynn was then-Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, along with other Treasury Department officials including Deputy Treasury Secretary Sarah Raskin, wife of Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md.

In a joint session of Congress in January 2017, Jamie Raskin voted against certifying Trump’s Electoral College victory. The Maryland Democrat later would lead House lawmakers named as “managers” of Trump’s second impeachment in 2021.

One requestor granted access to the Flynn information is listed only as the deputy assistant director of NEMC. Although four federal agencies might use this acronym, it seems likely to refer either to the Army’s Network of Enabled Mission Command, since Flynn was an Army lieutenant general, or the National Election Monitoring Committee, since the outgoing Obama administration officials prepared to push the narrative of Trump-Russia collusion.

The name of the NEMC deputy assistant director is redacted in the documents provided to The Daily Signal, which would indicate a military affiliation. The NSA’s justification for granting this request was that the records are “to be used to better understand and assess the foreign intelligence information contained therein.”

CNN reported Friday that special counsel Jack Smith, who is investigating Trump’s possession of classified documents after he left the White House, is looking into a December 2020 meeting in the Oval Office.

That meeting, CNN reported, included Flynn, Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, and former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne, and the topic was challenging Trump’s election loss.

Participants allegedly discussed the options to impose martial law and seize voting machines to prevent Biden’s inauguration as president.

AUTHOR

Fred Lucas

Fred Lucas is chief news correspondent and manager of the Investigative Reporting Project for The Daily Signal. Lucas is also the author of “The Myth of Voter Suppression: The Left’s Assault on Clean Elections.” Send an email to Fred.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the url or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

A Constitution -The ‘excuse du jour’

/in , , , , , , , /by

The raising of the issue of a constitution as a potential way out of the political impasse over the future of Israel’s legal system is nothing but a red herring on the part of the opponents of judicial reform.

I don’t think it is right for the Supreme Court to change fundamental things in accordance with what it refers to as the judgment of ‘the reasonable person.’ That’s an amorphous and completely subjective definition that the Knesset never introduced to the legal code –Yair Lapid, articulating his opposition to the reasonableness clause.

If the reasonableness clause is abolished, all lines will have been crossed. It will demolish the authority of the Supreme Court and our democratic structure—Yair Lapid, articulating his support for the reasonableness clause.

As the obsessive, borderline-maniacal Bibi-phobic opponents of judicial reform continue with their destructive and lawless demonstrations-cum-riots across the streets of Israel, protesting all—and any—government decisions of which they disapprove—whether major changes in the judicial system, minor changes in the judicial system, the dismissal of elected ministers or appointed bureaucrats—a new demand is emerging as a panacea-like balm for the nation’s tribulations.  This is the idea of a Constitution for Israel. Usually touted as to be based on Israel’s Declaration of Independence, it is suggested that the formulation of such a constitution would placate the demonstrators opposing the coalition’s legislative initiatives.

Seductive & deceptive

A constitution for Israel is a seductive idea and gives the impression of adopting the example of the USA, the leader of the democratic world. But it is also a highly deceptive notion—being far more declarative than substantive in terms of being an effective template that determines the functioning of the political system.

For, the existence of a constitution is no guarantee of individual rights or civil liberties or any of the enlightened goals that the opponents of judicial reform profess to cherish. Indeed, a brief jaunt through Google would reveal that countries such as the USSR (and later, Russia), North Korea, and Upper Volta (later Burkina Faso) all boast constitutions that include(d) an array of lofty human rights. Yet the demonstrators are very unlikely to endorse any of these states as a model democracy for Israel to emulate. Thus, it should be clear to any serious student of political science that an authentically substantive constitution cannot, in and of itself, create societal values. On the contrary, it can only reflect them. For if it does not, it will remain nothing more than a worthless piece of paper, bearing meaningless words and empty promises.

Reflective not creative

Just how irrelevant the text of a constitution can be, when it does not rest on values a society embodies, is vividly portrayed by the words of the 1991 Rwandan Constitution, formulated just three years prior to the brutal genocide that ripped through that luckless country. It read: “The National Council for Development, meeting as Constituent Assembly …Faithful to democratic principles and concerned about ensuring the protection of human rights and promoting respect for fundamental freedoms, in accordance with the ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’… Does establish and adopt this Constitution for the Republic of Rwanda…”

Of course, the terrible carnage that followed soon after the instatement of the constitution served to underscore the staggering distance that can separate noble words and benign intentions from the gory realities in several “constitutional democracies.”

To illustrate the point, consider Article 31, of Burkina Faso’s 2015 Constitution, which proclaims that “Burkina Faso is a democratic, unitary and secular State. Faso is the republican form of the State.” Yet, describing realities on the ground, Human Rights Watch paints a dour picture: “Burkina Faso’s human rights situation seriously deteriorated in 2022 as deadly attacks by Islamist armed groups against civilians surged, military forces and pro-government militias committed violations during counterterrorism operations, and political instability deepened as a result of two military coups.”

Accordingly, with religious radicalism, government abuses, and military rebellion, so much for a “democratic”, “unitary” and “secular” State as optimistically set out in the Constitution.

Structure vs. substance

This all goes to underscore the vast potential disconnect between the formal structure of a national polity and the mode of its substantive political routine.

Take Pakistan for example. The formal structure of the Pakistani political system has many similarities with that of the US.

Like the US, Pakistan has a bicameral legislature, a federal system of government, a president elected separately from parliament, and a constitution, which purports to ensure civil rights. Yet Pakistan is only in the 102nd place (out of a total of 164 counties) in the 2023 Democratic Index Rankings. Significantly, the US ranks 26th, below Israel in 23rd place! (This finding is not a quirk of this particular ranking system. Indeed, very similar results emerge from an alternative 2023 assessment, with Israel surpassing the US democracy score, while Pakistan—despite its president, bicameral legislature, federal system, and constitution—ranks far lower than both.)

Of course, the converse is no less telling. Just as a formal constitution is no guarantee of substantively democratic governance, so the lack of a formal constitution does not necessarily mean the lack of democratic governance. Thus, eminently democratic countries such as New Zealand, Britain, and Canada—like Israel—do not have a formal constitution. Yet this has not prevented them from providing their citizens with political freedoms and human rights that are among the most comprehensive on the face of the globe.

Constitution: Nothing but a red herring

Of course, the raising of the issue of a constitution as a potential way out of the political impasse over the future of Israel’s legal system is nothing but a red herring on the part of the opponents of judicial reform. A constitution has been an elusive ideal of Israel, literally from its very inception. Indeed, the Declaration of Independence, Israel’s founding document, stipulates that a constitution should be drawn up by October 1948—yet for three-quarters of a century it has not been formulated because of hitherto unbridgeable fissures in Israeli society.

However, despite not having a formal constitution, Israel has for almost eight decades, developed, progressed, prospered, and withstood changes of government, political assassination, grave external threats, and internal unrest, while managing to provide its citizens with domestic freedoms and material welfare among the highest in the world.

So while, in principle, a formal constitution may be a worthy objective, its absence has hardly precluded democratic governance or economic development. Moreover, the opponents of judicial reform know full well that just as no agreement could be reached with them on the reforms, no agreement with them will be possible on the content of an overarching constitution for the country, which would go well beyond the scope of the judicial system and extend to many other walks of life in Israel, over which there are also deep divides.

Accordingly, the offer of the advancement of a formal constitution for Israel in exchange for dialing down the maliciously and mendaciously choreographed protests against judicial reform is nothing but a devious deception to delay the advancement of the reform. Indeed it is an offer that those proposing it cannot deliver on—nor do they wish to.

As such it, should be robustly rebuffed.

©2023. Dr. Martin Sherman. All rights reserved.

Narrative Collapse: Tucker Carlson Says Capitol Police Chief Admitted ‘Jan 6 Crowd Was Filled With Feds’

/in , , , , , , , , , /by

It is increasingly clear, the coup took place long before the 2020 election. Obama put the subversives in place. By the time the 2020 election rolled around the coup was complete.

Capitol Police Chief told Tucker that Jan 6 crowd was filled With federal agents.. Tucker was NOT able to air this on Fox.

Narrative Collapse: Tucker Carlson Says Capitol Police Chief Admitted ‘Jan6 Crowd Was Filled With Feds’

By Tyler Durden, Jul 07, 2023:

Did the establishment’s Jan 6 ‘Insurrection’ narrative just go the way of Keyser Soze?

In his first public interview since being fired from Fox News, Tucker Carlson sat down with none other than Russell Brand (on Rumble).

“I’m not working for Elon Musk… what he’s done is offered me is what he’s offered every other user at Twitter which is a chance to broadcast your views without a gatekeeper”

The whole interview is fascinating, but one section in particular is key, when discussed the events of January 6th.

As a reminder, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy had released 40,000 hours of video footage from the riot – which Carlson had begun airing on Fox News – much of which suggested a different narrative than the craven mob of killers the Democrats (and the media) have maintained was unleashed on the Capitol by Trump’s words and actions.

Admitting he was “appalled” by some of the events of that day, the former Fox News anchor said the reason he “got involved in commenting on it” was because “the lying about it was immediate: ‘This was a racist, white-supremacist insurrection.’”

“I interviewed the chief of the Capitol Police, Steven Sund, in an interview that was never aired on Fox, by the way — I was fired before it could air, I’m gonna interview him again,” Carlson said.

“But Steven Sund was the totally non-political, worked for Nancy Pelosi, I mean, this was not some right-wing activist. He was the chief of Capitol Police on January 6, and he said, ‘Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that crowd was filled with federal agents.’ What? ‘Yes.’ Well he would know, of course, because he was in charge of security at the site.”

“So, the more time has passed… it becomes really obvious that core claims they made about January 6 were lies,” Carlson explained.

“The amount of lying around January 6, and it was obvious in the tapes that I showed, is really distressing.”

Watch the clip below:

Carlson’s comments fit with whistleblower and witness statements on the day.

Carlson’s comments fit with whistleblower and witness statements on the day.

As The Daily Caller reports, defendant Dominic Pezzola’s lawyer, Roger Roots, argued there were “at least 40” undercover informants at the riot. Roots alleged there were eight FBI human sources embedded among the Proud Boys on Jan. 6, along with 13 undercover plain-clothes DC Metro Police agents. FBI whistleblower George Hill alleged during a February interview with the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government that the field office in Washington may have had “undercover officers” and “confidential human sources” inside the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Carlson also discussed his views on Donald Trump:

“I think looking back on this ten years from now, assuming we’re still around, I think we’re going to see Trump’s emergence as the most significant thing that happened in American politics in 100 years, because he reoriented the Republican Party against the wishes of Republican leaders.”

“I’m struck by his foreign policy views. You know Trump is the only person with stature in the Republican Party really who is saying wait a second why are we sending an endless war in Ukraine. Leaving aside whether Trump is going to get the nomination or get elected President or would be a good President, I can’t even asses that, all I can at this point is I’m so grateful he has that position. He’s right and everyone in Washington is wrong, everyone. And Trump is right on that question and it’s a big question. That war is reshaping the world. It’s reshaping the economy of the world. It’s reshaping populations.“

“Europe will never be the same because of this war and it really matters, and Trump alone among popular figures in both parties understands that and I’m grateful for that.”

“Whether he gets the nomination or gets elected, words really matter. Saying something true out loud matters, and he is saying true things about Ukraine and God bless him. That’s how I feel.

Watch the full interview with Russell Brand below:

Read more.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLES:

Obama Holdovers at DOJ Still Run the Show

Obama’s DOJ Sharia Offensive: Seeks to Criminalize Free Speech on Social Media

“Obama has Violated His Oath of Office” in Racist Dept of Justice Decision to Drop New Black Panther Party Voter Intimidation Case and Mandate DOJ Policy: “No Voter Intimidation Cases Will Brought Against Black Defendent Where the Victim is White”

DOJ Voting Rights attorney resigns over Obama’s  Prosecution Scandal

RELATED TWEETS:

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

War Crimes: Biden Regime Sending ‘Cluster Bombs’ to Ukraine Despite Previously Stating Using Them Is a ‘War Crime’

/in , , , , , , , , /by

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said on Friday that Washington is giving Ukraine a new $800 million military aid package, including cluster munitions.

The Biden Administration is on record (Jen Psaki) stating that the use of cluster bombs should be considered a war crime.

What the hell are we doing in Ukraine? I do not recognize my country. We should have negotiated for peace, it would have been easy. Instead we are marching to WWIII.

Biden Once Opposed Cluster Bombs when Israel Used Them; Now Ships to Ukraine

By: Breitbart News, July 8, 2023:

President Joe Biden will be sending cluster bombs to Ukraine to use in its war against Russia, the White House confirmed Friday. But he has opposed their use in the past, especially by Israel in the Lebanon War in 1982.

The Washington Post recalled Biden’s “complicated history” — i.e. flip-flopping — on the issue of cluster bombs, which are larger bombs that release many bomblets. Some remain unexploded and can threaten civilians.

The Post noted that Biden offered stern criticism of then-Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, in an episode often cited by pro-Israel critics of Biden as evidence that he has never been as supportive of Israel as he claims.

At the time, Israel was fighting Palestinian guerillas in Lebanon, who had been shelling communities in northern Israel for years. Israel’s invasion drew sharp international criticism, as well as domestic protest.

The Post recalled:

Amid reports that Israel had used cluster bombs in its invasion of Lebanon, some Democrats went so far as to push for cutting off aid to Israel.

According to a contemporary UPI report, Biden said that if those reports were accurate, then Israel was clearly in violation. He said the United States should respond by “cutting off the ability to get access to that kind of weaponry in the future.” But he cautioned against making a “final judgment” and again called for hearings on the subject.

Democrats also expressed such concerns during what the New York Times labeled “a highly emotional confrontation” on Capitol Hill with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in June 1982. Sen. Paul Tsongas (D-Mass.) highlighted the cluster bomb reports while saying he had “never seen such an angry session with a foreign head of state.”

The latter argument reportedly concerned Israeli settlements, not cluster bombs. During the Second Lebanon War in 2006, when Israel was again accused of using cluster bombs (this time against Hezbollah guerillas), then-Sen. Biden (D-DE) opposed a bill that would ban the use of cluster munitions in populated areas.

Read more

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLE: Munitions proving a cluster headache for Biden administration

RELATED TWEET:

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Delusional Sycophants of the FBI Retired Agents’ Association: A ‘Fire in the Attic?’

/in , , , , , , /by

An April 11, 2023 written report by the Executive Director  of the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI (SOFSA), Nancy Savage, reflected that on that date, several Society Chapter Chairs from around the country visited the FBI Academy at Quantico, Virginia. Savage and SOFSA President Dennis Lormel were also present. They attended a New Agents Graduating class and also met with FBI Director Christopher Wray.

Wray claimed that much of what was being written about the Bureau were opinions and not facts. He asserted that “the FBI brand is strong around the country,” that it is important to do the job with honesty and integrity, and “acknowledged that the FBI receives political fallout from Congress at times.”

The takeaway from the written report of the event was that all is A-OK with the FBI. This is, however, contrary to fact. There were evidently no hard questions posed to Wray from this “diverse” group. It was not evident that any of these subject were discussed: FBI whistleblowers; the Crossfire Hurricane corruption hoax; the Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Inspector General (OIG) report; the Democrat Party/DOJ/FBI Reichstag Fire-style railroading of patriotic American citizens known as the J6 “insurrection”; the FBI collusion with Twitter to affect a Presidential election; the successful social engineering of the Bureau; or anything concerning Hunter Biden. Are we, then, to conclude that SOFSA is all in with the FBI being used as the enforcement arm of an anti-American political party?

The FBI is the “tip of the spear,” as one might conclude here, for government wide corruption. An apparently oblivious or delusional FBI Director meets with apparently equally oblivious or delusional retired agents and delivers the usual pablum to these gullible agents, who willingly lapped it up. But hey, they each received a Training Division Challenge Coin.

The SOFSA website states here that the organization was founded in 1937 to “preserve the mutuality of interests of the Agents, the memories of pleasures enjoyed and adversities shared. It was formed as a fraternal, educational, and community minded organization composed of former FBI Special Agents who had served with fidelity, bravery, and integrity in the defense of America.” They would also like you to know that they are “inclusive.” Forgive me if I suspect that the word “inclusive” was not in the original founding document(s).

It became evident to me over the last ten years or so that many of my retired colleagues took an oath to an agency instead of to the U. S. Constitution. The motto “protect the Bureau at all costs” is apparently alive and well.

Except for a handful of retired agents, no organization of FBI agents has come out in support of the recent FBI whistleblowers, three of whom have testified before Congress. SOFSA is crickets, which tells me that they apparently are O.K. with the Stasi/KGB tactics that the Bureau is employing against them, as is highlighted here.

Yet further evidence has surfaced of the FBI targeting Catholics, as reported here. Communism and other evil forces target religion. “Satan will deceive nations; he will viciously persecute believers.” Here is an article published at the New English Review, in which I allege that Communism has indeed affected and influenced the FBI.

More evidence of subversion can be found here and here. These Bureau agents are obliviously joining in solidarity with Communism, a Communist cop killer, the Defund the Police effort, and jihadis, including the kidnappers of one of their own. I set forth the following to a separate group of retired agents last year to make the aforementioned point:

  1. Black Lives Matter (BLM) has Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ties. Its leaders are self-professed Marxists. Co-founder Patrisse Cullors has praised cop killer Joanne Chesimard, aka Assata Shakur, of Black Liberation Army (BLA) 1970’s fame. Being Marxists, they are behind the Defund the Police effort.
  2. The Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation FBI case, and is an outgrowth of the Muslim Brotherhood, a self-proclaimed enemy of Western civilization. CAIR stands with BLM. “Black Lives Matter is our campaign.”
  3. In 2015, the Iranian mullahs voiced support for BLM to Mandela Barnes, Democrat candidate for U. S. Senate in Wisconsin. This would be the same regime that is suspected of the kidnapping of former FBI Agent Robert Levinson.

Likewise, the FBI Agents Association (FBIAA), an organization of active-duty agents, of which incidentally I was once a Chapter Chair, reportedly rewarded the agents $100.00 each for their alleged “professional judgement.”

Here and here is more of that strong FBI brand that Wray must be talking about, and below is the same FBI executive, then a Special Agent in Charge (SAC), aiding and abetting jihadis and jihad sympathizers.

Apparently SOFSA is A-OK with all of this, too?

I recall as a young agent reading several items that circulated among the agent ranks comparing the Bureau to the KGB. I recall them being tongue-in-cheek write-ups; at least that is the way I took them. Maybe the FBI agent author(s) knew more then than I and others had ever imagined. And just maybe I was delusional about what I thought the FBI was or was supposed to be.

After that April meeting with Wray, I feel confident that there will be a smiling photograph of the attendees with Wray in their monthly publication, the Grapevine. Why not? After all, James Comey, an admitted Communist, had his smiling picture on the cover after he was rightly fired by Donald Trump.

A Max Frisch play entitled The Firebugs (Herr Biedermann und die Brandstifter) here, is about arsonists who disguise themselves as traveling salesmen, gain entry to homes from unsuspecting homeowners, and proceed to burn the houses down. Biedermann reads about them in a local paper, and just then his doorbell rings; two traveling salesmen are at his door asking if they can spend the night. He has just read about the ploy, but allows them in anyway, and gives them a place to stay in his attic. Of course, they proceed to set fire to his attic and the whole town burns down.  The evidence was right there staring Biedermann in the face, yet he failed to see it.

Both the FBI’s attic and SOFSA’s attics are on fire, but they apparently choose to look the other way and ignore the flames.

Does the “enemy within” now include by their silence the FBI retired Agents Association? Maybe Lormel will consider this another one of those “unfounded and reckless” attacks on the FBI?

AUTHOR

DAVID J. BALDOVIN

David J. Baldovin is a retired FBI agent who served from 1969 to 2000, including 25 years in SWAT.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Hamas-linked CAIR chief rebuts Psaki’s claim that GOP is manipulating Muslim parents: We’re not ‘political puppets’

Megyn Kelly blasts Jen Psaki for accusing GOP of ‘manipulating’ Muslims in transgender debate

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Twitter To Sue Facebook (Meta) Over Its Twitter Clone ‘Threads’

/in , , , , , , , /by

Zuckerberg Stole It All From Musk’s Twitter.

Zuckerberg steals. It’s what he does. From the Winklevoss twins (Facebook) to Instagram, Zuck is infamous in this. He doesn’t invent, he doesn’t create, he either steals or buys other people’s ideas. Musk ain’t haven’t it.

Twitter threatens legal action over Meta’s Threads app

Meta, which also owns Instagram and Facebook, debuted Threads on Wednesday.

By Ben Whedon, Just the News, July 6, 2023:

Social media platform Twitter warned rival Meta that intended to protect its intellectual property rights following the latter’s debut of a Threads, a Twitter competitor that is linked to Meta’s other platforms.

Twitter has raised concerns that Meta may have improperly used its intellectual property and issued the firm a cease-and-desist letter on Thursday.

“Twitter has serious concerns that Meta Platforms (‘Meta’) has engaged in systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property,” the letter reads. Twitter went on to note that Meta had hired many of the company’s former employees and tasked them with creating the “copycat” threads app.

“Twitter intends to strictly enforce its intellectual property rights, and demands that Meta take immediate steps to stop using any Twitter trade secrets or other highly confidential information,” it warned.

Meta, which also owns Instagram and Facebook, debuted Threads on Wednesday. The microblogging platform is comparable to Twitter but offers users a larger character limit.

Upon taking over Twitter, Musk implemented dramatic staffing cuts and upended the company’s content moderation policies to permit the posting of previously disfavored content. He has since made many technical changes to the app, prompting mixed responses.

Meta’s launch of Threads appeared to be an attempt to capitalize on user frustrations with Twitter.

Musk and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who controls Meta, have openly clashed in recent weeks, with the pair seemingly agreeing to a cage match that may or may not actually take place.

Read more.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLE: The Infantalism Of Totalitarianism

RELATED TWEETS:

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

Left: Preventing the Government from Censoring Free Speech is Censorship

/in , , , , , , , , , /by

The “clear message is to have this sort of chilling effect on communication between the government and platforms.”

After a federal judge issued a ruling ordering the federal government to stop “specifically flagging content or posts on social-media platforms and/or forwarding such to social-media companies urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner for removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”

The lefty censorship lobby responded with pages of unhinged hysteria that failed to address the issue.

Conservatives were repeatedly accused of trafficking in false conspiracy theories to achieve this outcome. But if so, then why worry about the verdict? If the Biden administration isn’t actively urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing social media firms in any manner for removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech, what could the problem possibly be?

Secondly, lefties and their media claimed that barring the government from advocating censorship was interfering in its free speech.

Here’s the government-funded NPR complaining that, “the government’s ability to fight disinformation online has suffered a legal setback that experts say will have a chilling effect on communications between federal agencies and social media companies.”

A chilling effect generally applies to government suppression of speech, not the suppression of government censorship.

“It’s hard to think of a more sweeping ruling,” says Evelyn Douek, an expert on the regulation of online speech and a professor at Stanford Law School.

“The injunction enjoins tens of thousands, maybe hundred [of] thousands of federal government employees from having almost any kind of communication with private platforms about content on their services,” Douek tells NPR. She notes that while there are exceptions for certain types of criminal content, overall, the “clear message is to have this sort of chilling effect on communication between the government and platforms.”

Actually, it’s pretty clear about what government employees can and can’t do. They can do most things like send a pineapple to Facebook by courier or ask it to remove pro-ISIS propaganda, what they can’t do is “specifically flagging content or posts on social-media platforms and/or forwarding such to social-media companies urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner for removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”

Pretty clear.

The term ‘Orwellian’ gets thrown around far too much but here the Left has decided to argue that preventing government employees from censoring people has a chilling effect on their speech. One wonders what the old ACLU or any 1960s liberal would have made of that argument.

Big Tech used a variation of this argument to Florida bans on internet censorship, but the government doesn’t even have a platform. It and its allies are fighting for the right to go censoring.

AUTHOR

DANIEL GREENFIELD

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

U.S. officials warn of ‘another 9/11’ after Biden regime releases illegal migrant on terror watchlist into the country

/in , , , , , , , , /by

“Bungled release”? Maybe. Or maybe it went just the way the political elites wanted it to go.

Law enforcement experts warn of ‘another 9-11’ after bungled release of migrant tied to terrorism

by Natalia Mittelstadt, Just the News, July 5, 2023:

Former law enforcement officials are warning of potential terrorist attacks and a repeat of 9/11 following a Homeland Security Department watchdog report that exposed government bungling that allowed an illegal immigrant on the terrorist watchlist to be released into the U.S. and roam free for two weeks before he was apprehended.

According to a report released by the DHS’s Office of Inspector General, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released an illegal immigrant on the terrorist watchlist last year, and due to a lack of coordination, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) took more than two weeks to arrest the individual.

The report, which was completed last week, found that after apprehending the illegal immigrant in Arizona in April 2022, the CBP released them “without providing information requested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Terrorist Screening Center (TSC) that would have confirmed the migrant was a positive match with the Terrorist Screening Data Set (Terrorist Watchlist).”

The illegal immigrant wasn’t arrested by ICE until May 6, 2022 due to “challenges transferring documentation while planning to arrest the migrant and obtaining GPS data while conducting the arrest,” the DHS watchdog wrote.

Former CBP Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan told the John Solomon Reports podcast in an episode to be aired Thursday that the OIG report “is a huge black eye” for U.S. counterterrorism officials.

However, he noted that under the Biden administration, the job of Border Patrol agents “is not to secure the border, your job is to process and release illegal aliens as fast as possible.”

Morgan speculated that many possible terrorists already could be in the U.S. among the estimated 1.7 million illegal immigrants who entered the country under the Biden administration without being apprehended by law enforcement.

“[W]e know they’ve encountered an unprecedented number, hundreds of illegal aliens that are on the terrorist screening database,” Morgan said. “Think about how many potential, would-be illegal aliens that could serve as a potential national security threat are among the 1.7 million. We literally could have the next terrorist sleeper cell in United States planning the next terrorist attack, and we would have no idea. That’s fact, it’s not hyperbole.”

According to the most recent CBP numbers, the agency has apprehended 464 known or suspected terrorists during fiscal year 2023, which ends on Sept. 30. Last fiscal year, CBP apprehended 478 known or suspected terrorists. During the prior fiscal year, which was partly under the Trump administration, there were 173….

Read more.

AUTHOR

ROBERT SPENCER

RELATED ARTICLES:

US and Israel Pressure Palestinian Authority to Crack Down on Terrorists

Jihad group says it will attack Christians and churches in Pakistan in revenge for Qur’an-burning in Sweden

We Can’t See Full Report on Afghanistan Withdrawal to Protect It From ‘Adversaries’

Stories from Israel Not Covered in the Mainstream Media

Afghanistan: Taliban kills farmer for not paying zakat

RELATED TWEET:

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

VIDEO: Whistleblower-In-Hiding Comes in From the Cold: Details High Crimes by Biden & his Family

/in , , , , , /by

The testimony of the witness in hiding in the Biden corruption investigation, Dr. Gal Luft, co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS), presents an appalling description of high crimes by the Biden crime family.  This should be the biggest story in the world instead the enemedia is trying to drown it out with the cocaine story. There is no free press anymore, no media just a wing of the Democrat party.

Luft was a direct witness to the Chinese bribery scheme between Chinese companies (CFC) and the Biden family.

Here is a man with an impeccable CV and no political agenda who comes forward with evidence of incredible Biden corruption that impacts national security (and an upcoming election) and is rewarded for honor and integrity with multiple indictments for crimes that never happened, make no sense and force him and his family into hiding.

The DOJ and the FBI are rotten to their core. Irretrievably broken. It’s very scary, The sheer level of corruption at the three letter agencies alone is gut wrenching and indicative of the pure rot that’s been festering in Washington far too long.

I can’t imagine anyone in their right mind coming forward as a whistleblower or with any incriminating information. Its results in a life sentence of persecution and prosecution. It’s unfathomably corrupt.

Kamekoa opines:

Israeli professor Dr. Gal Luft, the “missing witness” in the Biden corruption investigation, accuses the Bidens of receiving bribes from individuals linked to Chinese military intelligence and using an FBI mole named “One Eye” to share classified information with CEFC China Energy.

In an exclusive video obtained by Miranda Devine at The Post, Luft claims that he provided incriminating evidence to six officials from the FBI and the Department of Justice during a secret meeting in Brussels in March 2019, but he alleges that it was covered up.

According to Luft, he voluntarily informed the US government about a potential security breach and compromising information regarding Joe Biden, who was vying to be the next president at the time.

However, instead of being recognized as a whistleblower, he claims to have now become the target of the very same people he informed.

Luft asserts that his recent arrest in Cyprus was an attempt to prevent him from testifying to the House Oversight Committee about the Biden family’s alleged corruption.

Luft denies being an arm dealer stating that he “has never traded a bullet in his entire life.”

He further states that “nowhere in my indictment has the DOJ claimed or presented evidence that I bought, sold shipped or financed any weapons.”

Luft alleges that Joe Biden, shortly after his vice presidential term, attended a meeting at the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington, DC, with his son Hunter and officials from CEFC.

Luft claims that his account of the meeting was later corroborated when the famous laptop belonging to Hunter Biden, which contained all the emails and receipts, was handed to the FBI.

According to Luft, CEFC was paying Hunter $100,000 a month and his uncle Jim Biden $65,000 in exchange for their connections and the use of the Biden name to promote China’s Belt and Road Initiative globally.

Luft denies operating as an unregistered foreign agent and questions why he is being indicted for ghostwriting an innocuous article for which he received no payment when the Bidens’ influence-peddling on behalf of foreign governments goes unpunished.

“Why does the mother of all FARA cases which is the Biden’s systemic influence peddling on behalf of foreign governments for which they raked in millions go unpunished?”

Luft challenges the government to release the minutes of the Brussels meeting and make public the evidence against him.

Media silence on key would-be witness Gal Luft’s Biden revelations speaks volumes

By NY Post Editorial Board, July 6, 2023:

The drip-drip-drip of evidence detailing the Biden family criminal enterprise has turned into a torrent.

And the sudden quiet from our most strident “democracy defenders” has grown deafening.

Case in point: the silence around revelations contained in a video exclusively obtained by The Post from Gal Luft, a key would-be witness on Biden family corruption.

Luft alleges that he provided evidence of Biden family misdeeds to the FBI in 2019.

He claims too that his own 2023 arrest was meant to stop him from testifying before the House Oversight Committee that:

  • Joe Biden, along with Hunter, met with reps of the Chinese-government-linked energy conglomerate CEFC at the Four Seasons hotel in Washington, DC right after leaving the vice presidency — an allegation independently confirmed.
  • CEFC was paying huge sums to Hunter and uncle Jim ($100,000 and $65,000 a month) in exchange for use of their family name in promoting China’s interests.
  • Hunter had a pet mole within the FBI, who provided tipoffs to CEFC honchos about incoming heat.
  • The prosecutors trying CEFC big Patrick Ho for bribery in 2017 forbade him from so much as mentioning the name Biden, despite Ho having paid Hunter $1 million as a “legal retainer.”
  • So what, exactly, will it take to get liberal media activated on the Biden Mafia? A videotape of Joe himself accepting a suitcase of cash? Even then, seems our in-the-tank press would find a way to run interference. Especially now that the ugly collusion between the feds and Big Tech that silenced our initial Hunter reporting has broken apart.

Remember: The New York Times, The Washington Post and other marquee media spent years hyping up the flimsy, fabricated claims of the Steele Dossier and other Russiagate nonsense.

Now that a genuine presidential corruption scandal has broken out — and it has, despite the best media efforts — our fearless journos display only utter disinterest.

No reporters truly digging deep into the complicated web of Biden business entities.

No pressure on Hunter, Jim or Joe Biden himself — despite the abundance of pointers directly implicating him.

Read more.

Here is the full transcript of Professor Luft’s remarks:

Day. My name is Dr. Gal Luft. For the past 20 years, I’ve been the co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, a Washington based think tank focused on energy security. For the past 15 years, I’ve been a resident of Israel. And for four years, I was senior advisor to the China energy company CFC, at the same time of its dealings with the Biden family.

Under normal circumstances, I would be testifying before Congress about my experience with CFC. Sadly, due to circumstances I shall describe here in this video, I am forced to tell you this story via video.

My ordeal goes back to a fatal decision I made in March of 2019 to share with the US government my knowledge about the Biden family’s relations with CFC. As I said it was in March of 2019 in a two day session at the US Embassy in Brussels. I insisted that the meeting take place in March because at the time there were rumors that Joe Biden was planning to run for president.

I saw it as my civic duty to alert the government beforehand and given enough time to probe the issue. I want to be clear, I’m not a Republican. I’m not a Democrat. I have no political motive or agenda. I did it out of deep concern, that if the Biden’s were to come to power, the country would be facing the same dramatic Russia collusion scandal. Only this time was China. Sadly, because of the DOJ is cover up. This is exactly what happened.

The DOJ sent to Brussels a delegation of six people, two prosecutors from the Southern District of New York by the names of Daniel reichental, and Catherine Ghosh. And for FBI agents. One of them was Special Agent Joshua Wilson from the Baltimore Field Office, which also happens to cover the state of Delaware. Or you want to ask yourself, why did the government dispatch to Europe so many people? Why six? Why not to? The answer is that they knew very well that I’m a credible witness. And I have insider knowledge about the group and the individuals that enrich the Biden family.

Over an intensive to you to the meeting, I shared my information about the Biden family’s financial transactions with CFC, including specific dollar figures. I also provided the name of ROB Walker, who later became known as Hunter Biden’s bagman yet as we now know today from the whistleblower testimony. Gary Shapley, it took the DOJ whole 21 months to probe the issue and to actually talk to Walker. But perhaps the most alarming information I revealed was of a mole within the DOJ who shared classified information with Hunter Biden and his Chinese partners.

I told the DOJ that Hunter was closely associated with a very senior retired, retired FBI official who had distinct physical characteristic. He had one eye one of the FBI agents at the time, even told me, you know, that would be very easy for us to find there aren’t that many one eyed people in the bureau. information I provided the FBI in March of 2019 was fully corroborated nine months later, when the famous laptop belonging to Hunter Biden which contained all the emails and receipts was handed to the FBI. And guess who seized the laptop from the computer repair shop. It was special agent Joshua Wilson, who was with me in Brussels earlier.

In other words, the FBI knew about from me about Biden’s CFC deals before they got ahold of the laptop way before they had enough time to investigate the issue. But they did after Brussels, I never heard back from DOJ. But instead of showing appreciation for my whistleblowing I became public enemy number one.

Over the past four years that followed me, my family, my friends, my associates, were all harassed, intimidated and finally, I was prosecuted. Despite all that, on the eve of the 2020 elections, I sent my lawyer to Washington to meet with them. Acting Deputy Attorney General Mr. Richard Donahue to ensure he was informed about the information I had given his department in Brussels 19 months earlier, and also to warn him that there may still be a mole within the DOJ. Mr. Donohue confirmed to my lawyer that he was aware of my claims, but now we learn from the IRS whistleblower that it was reached on are you himself who suspended the investigation few weeks earlier, on September 4 2020. On the grounds that it was, quote, too close to the elections.

Finally in February, this year, I was arrested in Cyprus on an extradition request from the Southern District of New York. The very same office that met with me in Brussels. Seven count indictment said I violated the export arms export control act.
If I convicted I would face up to 100 years in prison.

While I was detained in Cyprus I was portrayed in the international media is an arms dealer even though I never treated the bullet in my entire life. In fact, nowhere in my indictment the DOJ claimed or presented evidence that I bought sold shipped or financed any weapons.

I was also charged with acting as an unregistered agent of CFC which is a far violation the DOJ says that I caused the payment of $6,000 a month to former CIA director James Woolsey in order to put his name on an article I had ghostwritten for the China Daily newspaper nor in the indictment the DOJ mentioned the well known fact that Mr. Woolsey had been an adviser to my Think Tank since 2002. And that there was nothing in the article that represented Chinese interest of the country the notion that I got a lift, spoon fed a CIA director with policy proposals on China. treating him like a useful idiot is not only an insult to the intelligence community, it is an insult to the intelligence of every American.

The US government claims that I acted on behalf of CFC and therefore I’m a foreign agent, but let me tell you a little secret. The same CFC that the US government claims was associated with a Chinese intelligence and quote, an international criminal organization was a 501 C three charitable organization registered in the state of Virginia and approved by the IRS. The same organization was also a major donor to the Clinton Foundation and Columbia University. Needless to say that none of their executives were charged for any wrongdoing.

If CFC was indeed a foreign entity, tied so closely to the PRC, why was it allowed to operate freely as a public charity? Why did the government expose taxpayers to the risk of funding an entity knew at the time was so compromised? Why did the did they not warn anybody? Is it the role of government to protect its people? I’m also being charged for making a false statement in Brussels. But why was I in Brussels to begin with? What was I there to eat belgian waffles?

The DOJ charged me for making a statement in a voluntary meeting that would have never come to bear if not for my good citizenship. So let me propose an idea. Why would the DOJ make my indictment public? Do it? Make my day and put it on your website so that every American can see the nature of the allegations against me? The quality of the evidence and the length the government is willing to go to weaponize the justice system to punish whistleblowers like me.

I have another idea. Why won’t the FBI submit to Congress the minutes from the Brussels meeting? Let everybody see what happened in Brussels. Why not? Are you trying to protect anything? Are you trying to protect anybody?

I also hope that the DOJ can explain why they targeted me in Cyprus and not in my home country of Israel where I reside most of the time. After all, the US shares a bilateral extradition treaty with Israel. So if any of my crimes are real and serious, and this is not just political prosecution, why did the US need to sneak up on me during a short visit to Cyprus? Do they now trust the Israeli judicial system to judge this issue on its merits? What’s going on here?

Also, why did the DOJ wait six whole years? well beyond the statute of limitation to indict me. And why did the DOJ choose to unseal to the indictment on November 1 2022? The very same week of the midterm elections. Could this have anything to do with the fact of the fear that once Republicans gain control over Congress and begin to investigate their cover up would be in full display?

And perhaps the biggest question of all why am I being indicted for FARA for ghostwriting an innocuous article, which I receive no payment, let alone from a foreign government? When the mother of all  FARA cases the Biden’s systemic influence peddling on behalf of foreign governments for which they raked millions, goes unpunished. This is in a nutshell, why I decided to act the way I did. Because I do not have faith that I would receive a fair trial in a New York court. Let me tell you why. CFC Secretary General Dr. Patrick Ho, who paid Hunter Biden a million dollars for god knows what was not allowed to mention the word Biden before the jury when he was tried in New York in 2018. The very same prosecutor who is now after me, Daniel Richenthal. told the judge at the time that mentioning the name Biden would “add a political dimension to the case” and the judge agreed with me that if I ever brought before us court, I would not be allowed to utter the word Brussels or Biden.

And the real context of my arrest, me being patient zero of the Biden family investigation would be hidden from the jury. Let it sink in. I, who volunteered to inform the US government about potential security breach, and about compromising information about a man vying to be the next president, am now being hunted by the very same people whom I informed and may have to live on the run for the rest of my life. I warn the government about potential risks to the integrity of the 2020 elections. If convicted, by a US court would never be able to vote again in the US elections. Just think about it, and ask yourself, who’s the real criminal in this story?

Thank you for listening.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED TWEET:

RELATED ARTICLES:

Secret Service Confirms Cocaine Found In White House Following Hunter Biden Visit

Biden DOJ Edited Footage from January 6th in Order to Falsely Convict Oath Keepers Members

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.