Everything ‘Demolition Man’ Got Right about the 21st Century—so Far

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The 1993 film Demolition Man saw some parts of our future clearly—and reminds us there are many shades of dystopia.

I haven’t thought about the movie Demolition Man in a long time, but this changed recently when it was brought to my attention that the film is now nearly 30 years old.

Made by filmmaker Marco Brambilla in his directorial debut, Demolition Man is one of those movies that manages to be simultaneously campy and ingenious. Featuring a star-studded lineup that included Sylvester Stallone, Wesley Snipes, and Sandra Bullock—not to mention up-and-comers like Denis Leary and Benjamin Bratt, as well as stage actor Nigel Hawthorne and the guy who played the warden in Shawshank Redemption (Bob Gunton)—the movie was a hit, raking in $159 million worldwide.

The movie has a delicious if ludicrous plot. Stallone plays John Spartan, a Dirty Harry-style police officer whose life takes a sudden turn when his attempt to rescue a bunch of hostages goes awry. When all the hostages are found dead following an explosion, Spartan, along with the criminal he was trying to stop, Simon Phoenix (Snipes), is sentenced to be cryogenically frozen.

Both Spartan and Phoenix are unthawed in 2032—36 years after being frozen—in a world that looks much different.

I had to rewatch Demolition Man after the release of an Out of Frame short that explored all the ways Demolition Man predicted the future. The movie was even campier than I remembered, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t also impressed by just how much of our future Demolition Man got right.

Self-driving electric cars? Check.

Humans using computers to increase their self esteem? Check.

Zoom meetings? Check.

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s entry into politics? Check.

Attention spans the length of goldfish? Check.

Voice-activated search in homes? Check.

Digital currency? Check.

Tablets? Check.

Portable phones that access the internet? Check.

Anti-smoking laws, language police, germaphobia, and gun control? Check. Check. Check. Check.

This list is by no means exhaustive, mind you. And as impressive as it is, the list doesn’t include what is in my opinion the most prophetic (and best) part of Demolition Man: Edgard Friendly’s soliloquy on why he’s living as a criminal underground (literally in the ground) rather than on the surface.

Friendly (portrayed by Leary), explains to Spartan why he’s viewed as the enemy by Dr. Raymond Cocteau, one of the creators of the CryoPrison and an architect of the paternalistic society.

See, according to Cocteau’s plan, I’m the enemy. Cause I like to think, I like to read. I’m into freedom of speech and freedom of choice. I’m the kind of guy who wants to sit in a greasy spoon and think, “Gee, should I have the T-bone steak or the jumbo rack of barbecued ribs with the side order of gravy fries?” I want high cholesterol. I want to eat bacon, butter and buckets of cheese, okay? I want to smoke a Cuban cigar the size of Cincinnati in a non-smoking section. I wanna run through the streets naked with green Jell-O all over my body reading Playboy magazine. Why? Because I suddenly might feel the need to. Okay, pal? I’ve seen the future, you know what it is? It’s a 47-year-old virgin sittin’ around in his beige pajamas, drinking a banana-broccoli shake singing “I’m an Oscar-Meyer Wiener”.

Friendly, Spartan discovers, isn’t a master criminal. He just wants to think for himself, live as he wishes, and be left alone—and that’s something he can’t do on the surface.

“You wanna live on top, you gotta live Cocteau’s way. What he wants, when he wants, how he wants,” he explains. “Your other choice: come down here, maybe starve to death.”

Friendly’s speech invites an important question: If dystopia arrives, what will it look like?

Oftentimes dystopia is depicted as malevolent and totalitarian, like in Orwell’s Nineteen-Eighty Four. Sometimes it’s a desolate wasteland of violence, like in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road or Mad Max. But sometimes, like in Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave New World, on which Demolition Man is very loosely based, dystopia is soft, prosperous, and caring—but just as sinister.

The Christian philosopher C.S. Lewis once wrote that of all the tyrannies on earth, none was as oppressive as that which was exercised for the benefit of its victims.

“It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies,” Lewis observed. “The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

This was the tyranny Edgard Friendly couldn’t stomach. It wasn’t Big Brother that drove Edgar Friendly underground, it was something closer to the Nanny State.

And if we’re being honest, many of Friendly’s grievances speak to our world today. When he says he’s the kind of guy “who wants to sit in a greasy spoon and think, ‘Gee, should I have the T-bone steak or the jumbo rack of barbecued ribs,’” I don’t think he was referring to the synthetic beef Bill Gates wants to shift the world to to save the planet.

When Friendly talks about free speech, it’s hard not to think about the growing hostility to free expression on social media, university campuses, and in corporate workplaces. When he says he’s into freedom of choice, the last two years of the pandemic loom large, as the Cocteaus in our world made decisions for billions of people. Wear the mask. Stay home. Get the shot. And do not complain or protest; because we’re all in this together.

Demolition Man is a reminder that there are many shades of dystopia. It’s not always about the stuff you have or don’t have. It’s much more about freedom. And if, like Edgard Friendly, you’re living in a place that wants to use coercion to control what you say, think, and eat, you might be living in a dystopia without even knowing it.

AUTHOR

Jon Miltimore

Jonathan Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. His writing/reporting has been the subject of articles in TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, and the Star Tribune. Bylines: Newsweek, The Washington Times, MSN.com, The Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, the Epoch Times.

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

TX Gov. Abbott to NYC’s Adams: ‘Go Ahead Mayor, Make My Day’

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Wednesday on FNC’s The Faulkner Focus, Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) said that New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ threat to bring buses of New Yorkers to campaign against him would “make his day.”

Tuesday, while responding to Abbott busing migrants from Texas to New York City, Adams said, “I already called all of my friends in Texas and told them how to on cast their vote. And I am deeply contemplating taking a busload of New Yorkers to go to Texas and do some good old-fashioned door knocking. For the good of America, we need to get him out of office.”

Host Harris Faulkner said, “Your reaction to that latest threat from Mayor Adams in New York City?”

Abbott said, “I kind of feel like Clint Eastwood. Go ahead, Mayor, make my day. There could hardly be anything better to aid my campaign against [gun confiscation enthusiast Robert Francis] ‘Beto’ O’Rourke than to have Beto O’Rourke’s campaign aided by a bunch of New Yorkers. That will not be viewed very positively in the state of Texas.”

He added, “This race is about Texans, and Texans are fed up with what the Biden administration has done on our border, the chaos that it’s has caused, the damage that it’s caused in the state of Texas, and that is exactly why we’re sending these illegal immigrants to places like Washington, D.C. and New York City.”

Eric Adams

10 Known Connections

During a press conference in late July 2022, Adams told his constituents that it was their civic duty to welcome the fact that their schools, hospitals, roads, and neighborhoods were being inundated with the many illegal aliens who were settling in New York City, as in many other cities, during the Biden administration. Among the mayor’s remarks were the following:

  • “Number one, this is an opportunity for New Yorkers to move away from ‘Not In My Backyard.’ We all must share the crisis. Our approach has been to divide up the homeless issue even prior to the asylum seekers by councilmanic districts. Now with this influx of people seeking asylum and support, now we have to go beyond that. We’re looking at the potential for emergency shelters in hotels and other facilities … If there was ever an all-hands-on-deck moment, this is it … [O]ur system was inundated with those who were seeking shelter because of the callousness of those other states that were pushing them out.”
  • “We’re here, we’re receiving them, and everyone is going to have to be on board. And we can’t have the historical ‘I believe people should be housed but just don’t house them on my block.’ Everyone’s block is going to be impacted by this. And so we have to add our advocacy with our ability to help our neighbors. We need everyone on board with this.”
  • “As I said last week, our schools are going to be impacted, our healthcare system is going to be impacted, our infrastructure is going to be impacted … we’re going to need all New Yorkers to be with us on this.”

To learn more about Eric Adams, click here.

EDITORS NOTE: This Discover the Networks column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Judge Orders DOJ to Respond to Judicial Watch’s Motion to Unseal Mar-a-Lago Search Warrant Materials by 5p.m. EST on August 15

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(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart has ordered the U.S. Department of Justice to file a response to Judicial Watch’s Motion to Unseal the warrant and supporting materials behind the FBI raid of President Donald Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago by 5p.m. on August 15, 2022.

The order notes that, “The response may be filed ex parte and under seal as necessary to avoid disclosing matters already under seal. In that event, the Government shall file a redacted Response in the public record.”

On August 9, Judicial Watch filed its motion asking the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida to unseal as soon as possible the search warrant materials used by the FBI to raid President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida (U.S. v. Sealed Search Warrant (Case No. 9:22-mj-08332)).

The Albany Times Union and the New York Times have joined Judicial Watch in filing for the unsealing of the warrant by filing an amicus letter and motion respectively.

Due to multiple organizations filing to unseal the warrant, Judge Reinhart further ordered that, “To avoid the need for individualized orders on any future motion(s) to unseal, it is ORDERED that the Government shall file an omnibus response to all motions to unseal on or before 5:00 p.m. Eastern time on August 15, 2022.”

According to media reports, the warrant relates to an alleged dispute over the Presidential Records Act.

In its motion Judicial Watch states:

Judicial Watch is investigating the potential politicization of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Justice and whether the FBI and the Justice Department are abusing their law enforcement powers to harass a likely future political opponent of President Biden.

[ *** ]

The public has an urgent and substantial interest in understanding the predicate for the execution of the unprecedented search warrant of the private residence of a former president and likely future political opponent…. [N]o official explanation or information has been released about the search. As of the filing of this motion, the public record consists solely of speculation and inuendo. In short, the historical presumption of access to warrant materials vastly outweighs any interest the government may have in keeping the materials under seal.

[ *** ]

Given the political context, and the highly unusual action of executing a search warrant at the residence of a former President and likely future political opponent, it is essential that the public understands as soon as possible the basis for the government’s action. Any government interest in securing the identities of witnesses and confidential sources, if any, may be addressed by appropriate redactions from the search warrant affidavit.

As Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said when the motion was filed, “The Biden administration’s raid on President Trump’s home is an outrageous, reckless and unprecedented abuse of power. And the American people have an urgent right to know how it happened and who is responsible.”

RELATED ARTICLES:

DOJ Official Declares Mar-a-Lago Raid ‘A Spectacular Backfire’: Report

Eric Trump Gives Inside Look at What the FBI Outrageously Did During KGB-Style Raid: It’s Worse Than You Think

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

For the rule of law to reign, the Bureau must be destroyed

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The FBI cannot be saved. It must be rendered into component parts and distributed to the four winds.

From the time I was 7-years-old until I was about 20, I was in love with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In second grade, while other kids wanted to be firemen, I wanted to be a special agent (and I could have told you what one was, what they did, and what the requirements were to become one). In the early 1990s, my favorite show was “FBI: The Untold Stories,” and if we were not home from Cub Scouts in time for it to air, there was a tantrum on the way. I did a book report on a J. Edgar Hoover biography in middle school.

My zeal mellowed as I grew older but never entirely disappeared. As I began my career looking at counterterrorism policy, I meticulously studied the FBI’s extensive investigation of the Holy Land Foundation, the largest Islamic charity in the country, which was successfully convicted of financing the terror group Hamas after more than a decade of FBI investigation (I’ve written two short monographs about aspects of the case).

Later I had the pleasure of providing a three-hour briefing on the ideology of Islamist terrorists for an FBI-led group of Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF) agents, which included one of the agents who worked the Holy Land Foundation case. Several of my colleagues have signed certifications from the FBI in recognition of their work in counterterrorism education.

I say all this to establish that I am not some dyed-in-the-wool civil libertarian who has always had it in for federal law enforcement. I have spent most of my adult life trying to educate people about the serious national security threats this country faces. The United States has very real enemies, both foreign and domestic, and it requires defending.

Nevertheless, the FBI must be abolished.

The solution to the abuses we now endure is not just to subject the FBI to another fruitless inspector general investigation but to dismantle it completely. The bureau cannot be the focus of yet another congressional hearing. FBI Director Christopher Wray, like his predecessors, is more than happy to sit smirking while a handful of grandstanding congressmen and senators pound the table and yell on C-SPAN. Then he’ll jet off for a holiday vacation on a taxpayer-funded private jet while the same congressmen vote to increase his budget. Again.

No, the FBI must be rendered into component parts and distributed to the four winds.

The bureau has always had its problems and its detractors. Since the days of J. Edgar Hoover keeping his own “private” files on elected politicians and famous persons, the FBI has had a political streak. As an agency it has always been savvy about its reputation, bureaucratically out-dueling federal departments that sought to infringe on the bureau’s perceived preeminence in the fields of federal law enforcement and counterintelligence. But most of the FBI’s politicization had to do with maintaining its own administrative superiority and independence, not serving as muscle for a particular political party.

That’s no longer the case.

The FBI’s actions over the past six years make perfectly clear that the FBI is more than willing to serve as the enforcement arm of the Democratic Party. It serves as its patron’s shield in matters large and small. It exonerated Hillary Clinton for her illicit server. It raided James O’Keefe and Project Veritas when Joe Biden’s daughter lost her diary. It eliminated investigation into Black Lives Matter and other black identity extremists because those pursuits annoyed the Democrats’ Congressional Black Caucus. It refuses even to utter the word “Antifa” while churches and pregnancy centers are fire-bombed. It continues to cover up for Hunter Biden’s corrupt dealings with enemy nations, along with his indulgence in criminal prostitution and drug abuse.

But the FBI has also served as the Democrats’ sword as well. It knowingly laundered the Russian collusion hoax, lying in order to secure FISA warrants. It ambushed the president’s sitting national security advisor in a nonsense perjury trap. The FBI hunts down January 6 protesters while dodging congressional inquiries about the role of federal agents in provoking the incident. The FBI ginned up a fake kidnapping plot in Michigan to instill fear of right-wing terrorism, manhandled the former president’s lawyer, and shackled one of his former high-level aides.

And it has now raided the former president’s home under a mere pretext, while the Democrats openly crow on cable news about using a political prosecution to prevent Trump from ever again being able to serve in office.

Other attempts to rein in the FBI short of its abolition have failed. The FBI shows nothing but contempt for those authorized to oversee it. It routinely ignores inspector general investigations. It fails to prosecute or punish those who overtly violate established policies. It refuses to answer legitimate questions from Republican committee members. It doesn’t even respond to congressional letters of inquiry. It punishes FBI whistleblowers and seeks to purge from its midst those agents who aren’t in lockstep with its new praetorian guard role.

Break It Up Responsibly

Assuming the political will existed to do so, how might the FBI be dismembered in a way that would not expose the country to unnecessary security risks?

Begin by separating out the FBI’s component parts. The FBI’s crime lab, statistical services, and National Crime Information Center service could be pulled out and left as independent agencies with the sole job of supporting other federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies with their scientific and data capabilities.

Parcel out the FBI’s criminal justice division and its tasks to the various state-level bureaus of investigation. Provide direct federal funding to compensate for the extra workload. Let them primarily make state-level cases, in state court, for the crimes committed within the physical boundaries of their states. It’s not as though kidnapping, bank robbery, drug dealing, or racketeering went unpunished before the FBI came along. White collar, financial, and cybercrimes can be handled by the U.S. Secret Service. Federal crimes whose perpetrators directly cross state lines can be given to the U.S. Marshals Service to track down. Unlike the FBI, the U.S. Marshals are largely scandal-free, and have a long history of cooperating successfully with state and local law enforcement.

For the disgraced national security division, divide up the FBI’s counterterrorism portfolio among the remaining federal law enforcement and homeland security agencies with a role to play, and the various state and regional JTTFs.

Who Has the Stomach for This Work?

The FBI’s stranglehold on counterintelligence is perhaps the most important to break. It is within this division that the FBI spied on the Trump campaign at the behest of the Democratic Party.

Even before it willingly embraced the role of partisan opposition researcher, FBI counterintelligence had few memorable successes (Anna Chapman and Operation Ghost Stories being a recent one) but multiple crushing failures, the most notable of which was Robert Hanssen. The struggle to conduct professional counterintelligence has always been driven by a tension between the FBI’s responsibility as a law enforcement agency with the intent and the authority to jail citizens for crimes, and the practice of counterintelligence, a discipline that requires strategic patience and analysis.

The FBI’s responsibility for counterintelligence should be taken away and vested in the National Counterintelligence Executive (NCIX). Its mandate should not be targeting American citizens (especially elected officials!), but rather policing the intelligence services themselves, rooting out evidence of foreign penetration within their ranks, exploiting and manipulating foreign intelligence services for American national security interests. They do not need law enforcement powers or wide-ranging FISA Court warrants for this job.

Admittedly, a GOP-majority Congress may not have the stomach for even the lightest pushback against the bureau. Expect even the promise of ineffectual hearings to fade as soon as the midterm elections are over. After all, few congressmen are as popular with their voters as Donald Trump is with his base, and if the FBI can slander and investigate a sitting president, what couldn’t it do to a freshman congressman?

But imagine how the walls of the deep state might begin to show cracks were Congress to hold fast and declare at the outset, one way or the other, the FBI is finished, with no quarter given. Then you might see bureaucrats looking for soft landings, crawling out of the woodwork with tales about FBI bad behavior and who to hold responsible. You might have a few good apples stand up and speak out if they knew with certainty that their superiors would no longer hold the keys to some future employment. Indeed, there may be any number of agents in far-flung field offices across the country who might rejoice to see themselves rehired by another law enforcement agency that actually cares about enforcing the law. But the FBI itself, as an institution, cannot be saved.

To save the rule of law, the bureau must be destroyed.

Originally published by American Greatness

AUTHOR

Kyle Shideler

Director and Senior Analyst for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism.

EDITORS NOTE: This Center for Security Policy column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Republicans Are Violent and I’m the Tooth Fairy

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“Social media platforms lit up with right-wing speculation, militant rhetoric and political fundraising after former President Donald Trump announced that his Mar-a-Lago home had been searched by the FBI.”  This is how NPR frames the issue and is conditioning you to think about the raid on Mar-a-Lago.  And their evidence for such a grand conclusion?

Subjective conclusory declarations, like this one: “It’s been a lot of very hot talk and sometimes quite violent sounding.”

Then an immediate change of subject, a detour to social media posts after the 2020 elections.

Then an assertion “elected officials and high-profile media personalities” are using civil war language without giving a single piece of documentation.

Then resort to mischaracterizing reaction to the raid as conspiracy theory and false narrative.  But what are people looking for a reason for the raid supposed to do when the FBI and Justice Department refuse to explain themselves and won’t release the warrant?

Then it’s back to “increasingly violent rhetoric from prominent figures” without a shred of documentation.  Not a single example of violence cited in NPR’s story, not one.

Not much evidence, and this is what passes for news on NPR.  I can’t tell if this was deliberate propaganda or these people live in a bubble and don’t know any Republicans.  Either way, an unfortunate pattern is developing.  Here, NPR is trying to make you afraid of everyone on the Right, calling them violent without any evidence.  This fits a recent pattern in the liberal media and broader Left’s coverage of election integrity issues. There, Republicans and election integrity activists are being painted as conspiracy theorists and violent provocateurs.  The Washington Post had a story about proposed legislation to “increase protection of election workers and officials against harassment and violence.”  The left-wing group the Scrutineers is training its people that GOP poll workers are saboteurs and violent.  “The same people who pushed The Big Lie about the 2020 election are threatening to disrupt the midterms,” their July 26th mailing said.  The left-wing Brennan Center proclaims Republican conspiracy theorists make elections officials feel unsafe. Merrick Garland’s left-wing Justice Department has started a task force to “address threats of violence against election workers.”   That’s not all.  I’ve seen countless stories, now, discrediting people working for fair and honest elections as racist conspiracy nuts, or far-right kooks who are chasing unicorns – never mind that voter ID laws get upheld by just about every court that looks at them.

Telling members that outsiders are violent and not to be trusted is a cult technique.  To make this believable, cult leaders control the information environment and disparage outside sources of information as fascistic, reactionary, and not credible.  I’ve even had a Leftist tell me the Wall Street Journal is not a credible source of information.  Poppycock!  Cult leaders shut off contrary information and give their members slogans to chant instead, like ‘Republicans are violent’ and that chant is growing louder even though it’s pure malarkey.

It’s all psychological manipulation.  This is what cults do.  The NPR story is a good example of cult techniques in action.

Left-wing media outlets like NPR smear because they don’t want you to know the real issues at stake.  Real reporting on Mar-a-Lago would have covered Donald Trump’s extensive previous cooperation with the FBI and Justice Department about White House records over many months. [more here]  Real reporters would have asked whether the judge who granted the warrant was informed of that history.  Real journalism would have reported the fact that a watchdog group has now sued to make public the warrant.   Doesn’t sound violent to me unless, of course, you think the Democrats calling the raid an abuse of power are violent, too.

NPR got one part of the story right. Trump is raising record amounts of money off the raid.  That doesn’t sound violent to me, either.  ‘Republicans are violent’ – what a bunch of horse hockey.  Once again, I remind you of Wright’s Law: everything that comes out of the mouth of the Left can be deconstructed because everything that comes out of the mouth of the Left is garbage.

Visit The Daily Skirmish and Watch Eagle Headline News – 7:30am ET Weekdays

©Christopher Wright. All rights reserved.

CBS Censors It’s Own ‘Arming Ukraine’ Documentary — Here is the ORIGINAL

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Why Did CBS News Censor Its Own Documentary Exposing How 70% of US Funding for Ukraine is Wasted

CBS News has sensationally censored its own documentary after the film exposed that only 30% of weapons funding provided by the U.S. makes it to the front lines.

A tweet posted by CBS on Friday promoted its new film ‘Arming Ukraine’ by explaining that the documentary “explores why much of the billions of dollars of military aid that the U.S. is sending to Ukraine doesn’t make it to the front lines: “Like 30% of it reaches its final destination.”

In the documentary, experts told CBS they had no idea where most of the weaponry was going.

Republican lawmakers explained how they felt vindicated by the revelation, having previously opposed a $40 billion Ukraine aid package.

“This [is] one of the reasons I voted ‘no,’” U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) tweeted in response to the CBS report.

“Flooding a country with advanced weapons can have grave consequences, even when done with the best of intentions,” CBS’s documentary description reads. “This CBS Reports documentary goes inside Ukraine to get a firsthand look at how military aid gets from the border to frontline soldiers and explores the difficulties of getting the aid to the fighters who need it.”

However, the film has now been completely removed from the CBS website, with a ‘page not found’ label in its place.

Read the full story.

EDITORS NOTE: This Vlad Tepes Blog post by is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Increasing Inflation to Fight Inflation?

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My wife just came back from a routine grocery store run. She said, “These people are destroying the country.” She wasn’t talking about the store—she was talking about our elite political class that are spending our country into high inflation. And now they are poised to spend even more.

They have just passed a bill touted as something to “reduce inflation,” but critics note it could only increase it.

These days, you can tell that whenever the left wants to deceive their way into passing a bill, they provide an Orwellian name for the exact opposite effect.

This inflation-promoting bill is labeled “the Inflation Reduction Act.” Obamacare, which has proved quite unaffordable for many, was passed as “the Affordable Care Act.” The left tried to pass the “For the People Act,” which would have unconstitutionally taken election control from the states (where the Constitution puts it) and benefitted the politicians already in office.

This new $750 billion bill delivers a wish come true for those who believe that man’s activities can control the weather—in other words, our activities exacerbate climate change.

An article in Breitbart.com notes, “Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) detailed the 50 most radical policies in the Inflation Reduction Act.” It is a wish list for every leftwing scheme imaginable, including funding abortion at taxpayers expense. But it will not do what it is touted to do—reduce inflation.

The article adds, “Banks emphasized that the legislation would not reinvigorate the economy, as the Penn Wharton Budget Model found that the bill would not curb inflation. ‘That’s reason enough to vote against the package,’ Banks remarked.”

Where does all the money for the new spending comes from? From we the people. Government has no money of its own. It confiscates it from we the people.

The Gateway Pundit reports: “The majority of new revenue from IRS audits and scrutiny will come from those making less than $200,000 a year, according to a study from the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation.”

Furthermore, Ted Cruz notes that this bill will expand the IRS by 87,000 new agents. He adds, “The Democrats are making the IRS bigger than the Pentagon, plus the Department of State, plus the FBI, plus the Border Patrol combined. This is a massive power grab.”

In his 2021 book, Beyond Biden, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich explains how there really is an American majority that is not being represented by the left today. For example, Gingrich said that 75% of Americas support income tax cuts, not increases.

The founders of America believed in sound fiscal policy.

Thomas Jefferson once said, “To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, ‘the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, & the fruits acquired by it.’”

As to government debt, Jefferson once noted: “I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in our comforts, in our labor and in our amusements. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.”

I remember hearing President Ronald Reagan say in 1984 that the Congress was spending money like drunken sailors. Then he added that he must apologize to the Navy men because at least the sailors were spending their own money. How much worse in 2022.

When you have debt that gets into the trillions of dollars, then the situation is totally out of control. Somebody once gave this illustration to help grasp how much a trillion is, say, in comparison with a million:

  • If I owed you $100 and said I’d pay you in a million seconds, when would I pay you? In 12 days.
  • If I owed you $100 and said I’d pay you in a billion seconds, when would I pay you? In 32 years.
  • If I owed you $100 and said I’d pay you in a trillion seconds, when would I pay you? In 32,000 years.

Reagan once quipped that the closest thing to eternal life on this earth is a government program. Yet this “Reduce Inflation Act” will add more government programs. So the chance of stopping all the reckless government spending is an uphill battle. But it’s a battle worth fighting—for the sake of our country and our children and children’s children.

©Jerry Newcombe, D.Min. All rights reserved.

FBI searched Melania’s wardrobe, spent hours in Trump’s private office during Mar-a-Lago raid

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No lawyers to observe, refused access. Illegal search and seizure. G-d knows what they may have planted.

FBI searched Melania’s wardrobe, spent hours in Trump’s private office during Mar-a-Lago raid

By: NY Post, August 9, 2022:

FBI agents scoured Melania Trump’s wardrobe and spent several hours combing through Donald Trump’s private office, breaking open his safe and rifling through drawers when they raided the former First Family’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida Monday morning.

The Post has learned that the search warrant used by the FBI to enter the palatial Palm Beach property focused solely on presidential records and evidence of classified information being stored there.

A source close to the former president expressed concern that FBI agents or DOJ lawyers conducting the search could have “planted stuff” because they would not allow Trump’s attorneys inside the 128-room building to observe the operation, which lasted more than nine hours.

The raid by over 30 plain clothes agents from the Southern District of Florida and the FBI’s Washington Field Office extended through the Trump family’s entire 3,000-square-foot private quarters, as well as to a separate office and safe, and a locked basement storage room in which 15 cardboard boxes of material from the White House were stored.

Feds arrived at 9 a.m. and didn’t leave until 6:30 p.m.

[ … ]

In June, Corcoran granted access into Mar-a-Lago’s windowless storage room to FBI agents who spent several hours searching through the boxes. Trump stopped by the basement to say hello at one point, says someone who was there.

(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com …

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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

Here’s The List of Tax Hikes in Democrat Inflationary Tax and Spend Bill

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Open a vein and drain.

The Democrats tax and spend bill contains $80 billion in funding for the Internal Revenue Service to hire a mind-blowing 87,000 new agents to target middle class and poor Americans (you don’t need 87,700 new enforcers to audit 614 billionaires – the actual number of billionaires in the US). The allocation is a 600 percent increase over the agency’s 2021 budget. ” It gives the IRS $80 billion in new funding. Russia’s entire military budget is only $66 billion. Think about that.

The Washington Free Beacon reports that the new hires will make the IRS workforce larger than the combined number of employees of the Pentagon, State Department, FBI, and Border Patrol. They write:

That [the Inflation Reduction Act] would make the IRS one of the largest federal agencies. The Pentagon houses roughly 27,000 employees, according to the Defense Department, while a human resources fact sheet says the State Department employs just over 77,243 staff. The FBI employs approximately 35,000 people, according to the agency’s website, and Customs and Border Protection says it employs 19,536 Border Patrol agents.

List of Tax Hikes in Democrat Reconciliation Bill

$6.5 Billion Natural Gas Tax Which Will Increase Household Energy Bills       

The bill imposes a regressive tax on American oil and gas development. The tax will drive up the cost of household energy bills. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the natural gas tax will increase taxes by $6.5 billion.

The tax hike violates President Biden’s tax pledge to any American making less than $400,000 per year. Biden administration officials have repeatedly admitted taxes that raise consumer energy prices are in violation of President Biden’s $400,000 tax pledge.

A letter to Congress from the American Gas Association warned that the methane tax would amount to a 17% increase on an average family’s natural gas bill. Democrats have included a tax in the bill despite retail prices for energy surpassing multi-year highs in the United States.

$12 Billion Crude Oil Tax Which Will Increase Household Costs

With gas averaging more than $4.00  per gallon across the country and only weeks removed from record-high prices, Democrats have included a 16.4 cents-per-barrel tax on crude oil and imported petroleum products that will be passed on to consumers in the form of higher gas prices.

The tax hike violates President Biden’s tax pledge to any American making less than $400,000 per year.

As noted above, Biden administration officials have repeatedly admitted taxes that raise consumer energy prices are in violation of President Biden’s $400,000 tax pledge.

As if it weren’t bad enough, Democrats have pegged their oil tax increase to inflation. As inflation increases, so will the level of tax.

The non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimates the provision will raise $12 billion in taxes.

$1.2 Billion Coal Tax Which Will Increase Household Energy Bills

The bill would more than double current excise taxes on coal production. Under the Democrat proposal, the tax rate on coal from subsurface mining would increase from $0.50 per ton to $1.10 per ton while the tax rate on coal from surface mining would increase from $0.25 per ton to $0.55 per ton.

JCT estimates that this will raise $1.2 billion in taxes that will be passed on to consumers in the form of higher electricity bills.

$225 Billion Corporate Income Tax Hike Which Will Be Passed on to Households

Democrats imposed a 15 percent corporate alternative minimum tax on the financial statement income of American businesses reporting $1 billion in profits for the past three years. These American companies employ millions of Americans.

The cost of this tax increase will be borne by working families in the form of higher prices, fewer jobs, and lower wages.

A Tax Foundation report from last December found a 15 percent book tax would reduce GDP by 0.1 percent and kill 27,000 jobs.

Preliminary cost estimates from the Congressional Budget Office found the provision would increase taxes by more than $225 billion.

According to JCT’s analysis, 49.7 percent of the tax would be borne by the manufacturing industry at a time when manufacturers are already struggling with supply-chain disruptions.

Tax Foundation also warned that current supply chain issues could be worsened by the book tax’s disproportionate burden on key industries. The report concluded that “the coal industry faces the heaviest burden of the book minimum tax, facing a net tax hike of 7.2 percent of its pretax book income, followed by automobile and truck manufacturing, which faces a 5.1 percent tax hike.”

$74 Billion Stock Tax Which Will Hit Your Nest Egg — 401(k)s, IRAs and Pension Plans

When Americans choose to sell shares of stock back to a company, Democrats will impose a new federal excise tax which will reduce the value of household nest eggs. Raising taxes and restricting stock buybacks harms the retirement savings of any individual with a 401(k), IRA or pension plan.

Union retirement plans will also be hit.

The tax will put U.S. employers at a competitive disadvantage with China, which does not have such a tax.

Stock buybacks help grow retirement accounts. Raising taxes and restricting buybacks would harm the 58 percent of Americans who own stock and more than 60 million workers invested in a 401(k). An additional 14.83 million Americans are invested in 529 education savings accounts.

Retirement accounts hold the largest share of corporate stocks, accounting for roughly 37 percent of the outstanding $22.8 trillion in U.S. corporate stock, according to the Tax Foundation.

In 2017, corporate-sponsored funds made up $4.45 trillion in market value; union-sponsored funds accounted for $409 billion; and public-sponsored funds, which benefit teachers and police officers, added up to $4.25 trillion.

When companies perform stock buybacks, these investors are the ones who benefit. A tax on buybacks could dissuade companies from conducting this action and negatively impact retirement savings.

95% Federal Excise Tax on American Pharmaceutical Manufacturers

Democrats would impose a 95 percent excise tax on prescription drugs unless drug manufacturers accept government price controls.

In reality, all drug manufacturers would accept the price controls or stop selling the drug in the U.S. market entirely rather than pay the 95 percent tax.

This provision would restrict U.S. medical innovation and limit the supply of new medicines.

Price controls never work because they cause supply shortages. CBO warned the reduction in manufacturers’ revenue could be as high as $1 trillion over the next ten years and would “lower spending on research and development and thus reduce the introduction of new drugs.”

The CBO further stresses the “uncertainty” in assessing the number of new medicines that would be prevented from coming to market. The agency already revised its original assessment to increase the number of drugs prevented from being introduced by 50 percent.

$52 Billion Income Tax Hike on Mid-Sized & Family Businesses

Just as the U.S. economy slides into a recession, Democrats are including a tax hike on passthrough businesses with declared losses. This provision widens the net of taxable income. Preliminary cost estimates from the Joint Committee on Taxation show the provision will increase taxes by $52 billion.

Senate Democrats passed an amendment to the bill before final passage that created a two-year extension on loss limitations of noncorporate taxpayers if the amount of the loss is in excess of $250,000 ($500,000 in the case of a joint return). This provision was scheduled to sunset in 2026 under current law.

This provision would raise taxes on a manufacturer, retailer or other capital-intensive business that sees significant business losses in any year due to the cost of wages, rent, new equipment, inventory, and interest payments.

The loss limitation was originally created by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed by Congressional Republicans but was used to offset the creation of the 20 percent deduction for passthrough businesses, resulting in a net tax cut for these businesses. Senate Democrats have now extended this loss limitation for two additional years to pay for their reckless tax and spend spree. They did not extend the 20 percent deduction for passthrough businesses.

This provision violates President Biden’s campaign pledge to small businesses: “Taxes on small businesses won’t go up.” 

Supersizing the IRS to Increase Audits – $204 Billion

The bill would spend $80 billion to supersize IRS with 87,000 new agents and auditors and ramp up audits on working households and small businesses. The IRS would perform an additional 1.2 million annual audits under the plan. Democrats claim the increased spending on enforcement would net $124 billion.

The bill spends 14 times as much money for “enforcement” — such as small business audits — than for “taxpayer services” — such as answering the phone. IRS employees only answer the phone “19 or 20 percent” of the time.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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

The Truth: Putin’s Socialist Revolution in America

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The month of August is a very troubling reminder of human tragedies: WWI started in August 1914. After the Soviet/German Pact was signed by Molotov/Ribbentrop in August 1939, WWII started September 1, 1939. Nobody knows the actual consequences of the Pelosi visit to Taiwan in August 2022, but the Chinese Military has already started massive military drills across Taiwan as a response to Pelosi visit. It is typical aggressive Communist behavior to intimidate the people of democratic-Taiwan and force the American President to react. After the lesson in Ukraine, knowing the Communist behavior, the White House needs to provide Taiwan with defensive missiles to prevent the war. We have time to do that—China is not ready to occupy Taiwan in 2022. But time is short, we should act promptly.

WWIII is also going on in America in August 2022—The FBI has raided Mar-A-Lago on August 8, 2022! It is unprecedented! History of the American republic doesn’t know anything more dangerous and un-American than the dramatic event by the FBI on August 8, 2022. No comments from the FBI and DOJ. The American public and pundits have been shocked, they have no idea where it is coming from. They don’t know Socialist abusive and corrupt systems and its modus operandi: lies, deceit, and fraud. In fact, Biden’s White House is in the process of demolishing capitalism and implementing socialism in America. What do you think eighty seven thousand additional IRS armed agents are going to do in America?

I know socialism and constantly have been sharing knowledge with you—it is again Russia… Terrorizing political opponents is the KGB Mafia/Army vocation activities, I’ve warned you for the last several decades. The Democrat’s leadership has conspired with weaponized law-enforcement and DOJ to entrap Trump and the White House was totally informed. Discussing the event on all channels, yet nobody presents it as an International precedent, like I do. I don’t trust Biden’s theatrical performances, reading on prompter what has been written by his staff. The policy of open borders intertwined with Putin’s KGB Mafia/Army that executed invasion to America from 160 countries. The surging crime on the streets has started by Democrats states in 2020 and continues. Read my column about Russian Socialist Revolution 1917 and you will be struck by the resemblances of the two events…

Yes, we are witnessing The Global Spy Ring run by Vladimir Putin, described in my column under that title. A member of a legal community at the time of the KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov 1967-1980, I learned a lot about the KGB in Russia. Responsible for designing a protocol of America’s infiltration, Andropov spaced it as a simultaneous intrusion of the American Security Apparatuses and media. You can read the details in my columns and books. It was shocking to watch America in the last thirty years. We still don’t know Russia and her Intel. Putin is the next generation of Stalin/Andropov’s devoted disciples. Seven years of Hoaxes aimed at Trump were Putin’s KGB Mafia/Army production. I recognized the familiar handwriting of corruption, fabrication, provocation, deceit, and fraud…

As a matter of fact, Biden’s White House created authoritarian paradigms in America. Glenn Beck is right “the Democrat Party is historically un-democratic and now they find a new way to do that ” June 2, 22. I would add “the Democrat Party is a Party of Socialist Charlatans.” I have been writing about that new way for over thirty years. Interview with the Democrat Sen. Mark Warner in Cavuto on August 6, 2022 illustrates the inability of the Republicans to rebuttal the Socialist Charlatans. I purposely introduced the term. Some Republicans don’t know the Socialist modus operandi: lies, deceit, and fraud. They also can’t perceive the fact that the KGB mafia/Army was overturning the Democrat Party to Socialist Party. The collaboration was going on for decades under the nose of incompetent leadership of the CIA and FBI. The result you see in the states run by the Democrats. Read my book Socialist Revolution in America, XLIBRIS, 2021.

Pay attention to Biden and his White House team. Something strange is happening in the American Kingdom—it self-divides itself. The executive branch battles the US Supreme Court and doesn’t communicate with Pelosi’s legislature on Taiwan, at the time when crime is sinking the American republic and Fentanyl is killing thousands of our citizens.  It is even worse: Stalinist aggressive twins-brother Putin, Chairman Xi and the “Axis of Evil” under the Russian umbrella are at the attack against Western civilization. The Republicans don’t know the major Russian agency that manages The Global Spy Ring–The KGB Mafia/Army. Read here my column under that title.

Nefarious Russian Crimes that Escaped American Minds

“America is like a healthy body and its resistance is Threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual Life. If you can undermine these three areas, America will Collapse from within.” — Joseph Stalin

The FBI Director and a majority of political commentators will tell you that China’s military is the most dangerous force for our future. I agree. When it comes to domestic prosperity and national security today, I disagree. According to his vision of American Collapse, Stalin left his ideology as a protocol-legacy to several generations of Russian people. His KGB Mafia/Army has been operating on our soil promoting it through Socialist Charlatans like Soros and Sanders since the 20th century. All strata of our society had been infiltrated: the government, courts, business, sports, the educational system, etc. The KGB mafia/Army had been present in the Clinton and Obama White Houses and it is now in the Biden White House to complete the agenda, to demolish American capitalism and implement Socialism, Stalinist Soviet Socialism…

The Truth sooner or later will surface. The source of my constant concern is Russia and its KGB Mafia/Army aimed at the destruction of the American Constitutional republic. I had been a witness of Stalinist Soviet Socialism under his ideology. I know the aggressive force, a product of one-party system that implements Stalinist Soviet Socialism across the world: the KGB Mafia/Army. Awareness of that force is a must, as it is inextricably tied to the recent crises in America and the world. Though I reported thousands of the KGB dirty tricks implemented in the world, its strategy, tactics, and methods to extinguish American Capitalism, I have to return to major KGB crimes still unknown to humanity. There is a list of them and chronologically the Soviet law of 1955 is the first on the list.

Read the Soviet document of 1955, a document by the Soviet Defense Council, the first formal Soviet decision to launch narcotics trafficking against the Bourgeoisie and especially against American capitalists:

“Soviet strategy for revolutionary war is a global strategy… narcotics strategy is a sub-component of this global strategy. …First was the increased training of leaders for the revolutionary movements—the civilian, military, and intelligence cadres.”

You can read the details about this law in my books and columns. It is a spectacular document, which reveals the real face of our nefarious foremost enemy, destroying us from within… You will now know who is responsible for the death of 1.000 000 Americans in 2021, let alone the other crimes against the American republic.….

Second: “Stalin married the Communist Ideology with Islam” and Islamic Jihad was born. You can read the details in my writings about Bin-Laden, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, and many other terrorists working with the Russian Intel. Yes, Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri was killed in Drone strike, but there is a New Reports on foreign spies across America: July 30, 2022 – News 5 min. read American Briefing, Leftist Group Used by Russian Operative to Spread Propaganda:

“A Russian operative backed by the Kremlin was charged with conspiring to have U.S. citizen act as illegal agents of the Russian government, and at least one of the three groups alleged to have “co-conspired” with the agent is a self-described socialist party.” All my writings are dedicated to exposing the Russian Intel, which is demolishing the American Constitutional republic from within. By the way, the attacks on 9/11 had been executed under the supervision of the Russian Intel. The CIA and FBI leadership don’t know the Russian Intel and are unable to protect the country and the American people. Read my book: What is Happening to America published in 2022.

Third: The Stalinist story of the children from foreign countries should be known to the public. The thousands of children organized by Putin’s KGB Mafia/Army in several Caravans are now under American jurisdiction and have been spread across the country. Considering the information in two preceding paragraphs, I am submitting the following:

Child trafficking started by Stalin after the Spanish Civil War 1936-1939. He brought several thousand Spanish children to Russia, placed them in a dormitory under strict control of the KGB that was training them for 10-12 years. After that the Spanish speaking young men and women had been sent to Mexico and Central America—the variety of different gangs had been established in the 1950-1960th there. The drug trafficking gangs bring enormous wealth to the coffer of The KGB Mafia/Army. All gangs continued old Soviet operations: human-sex trafficking that has started in Europe under the Warsaw Pact countries in the 1950th. For your information, all issues regarding perverted sex is the main operations of the KGB Mafia/Army. Just look at the contemporary American educational system with new language of “birthing people” and alike. Doesn’t it remind you Stalinist Political Correctness?

All crimes of drugs trafficking by Russia have been handed over to China lately. Read about the Soviet Decision of 1955 to wage the war against Western civilization, where the drugs war was a sub-component of the global war. Remember, we are dealing with the “Axis of Evil” under the Russian umbrella… Also remember the formula of the WWIII against the American capitalism: “Recruitment, Infiltration, Drugs, and Assassinations…”  To perceive the scale of the Russian infiltration in the midst of our country, recall Jeffrey Epstein, his International Empire was a small part of the Kremlin Kingdom…

My fellow Americans! Knowledge is Power to save the American Constitutional republic and our freedom. That is the reason the FBI has submitted my name to the FISA Court and Court made me a foreign agent in 2002—my writings had been banned. Educate yourself, try to find my columns and read them for free.

To be continued www.drrichswier.com/author/spipko/ and ​https://www.simonapipko.com

©Simona Pipko. All rights reserved.

Economic Justice Agenda Created with La Raza Group’s Help Gets $113 Mil from HUD

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An Economic Justice Agenda designed with the help of a leftist La Raza group is getting $113 million from the Biden administration to bridge the racial wealth gap by helping low-income renters achieve homeownership. The taxpayer dollars will flow through the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which is committed to expanding asset building polices for renters as a reparative tool for economic justice. “We’re looking at everything through a lens of equity and how we address systemic racism,” HUD Secretary Marcia L. Fudge said in a statement announcing the nine-figure allocation. “We’re giving people who have historically been left out and underserved the resources to take a chance on their futures – to improve their credit, save resources for homeownership and other needs, and build wealth. That’s what this is all about.”

The HUD initiative receiving the sizable allotment is officially known as the Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS) program and it aims to help those already receiving government assistance increase earned income and improve financial stability. It is part of an agency wide plan for economic justice that outlines actions to help low-income renters build assets. A 13-page document titled “Bridging the Wealth Gap: An Agenda for Economic Justice and Asset Building for Renters” outlines how the administration plans to accomplish it. Many of the ideas in the extensive HUD racial agenda were concocted with the help of an influential open borders group, National Council of La Raza, which changed its name to a less divisive UnidosUS a few years ago. Biden administration officials convened with the national open borders organization throughout the summer and fall of 2021, according to the agenda, which claims to provide a “cohesive framework to guide both internal policy creation and external stakeholder engagement.”

The HUD plan aims to bridge the wealth gap by focusing on asset building through increased savings, banking, and credit history improvement for the poor. “Unequal access to savings, positive credit history, and banking is a national problem that especially impacts renters and contributes to the racial wealth gap,” the agency writes in its economic justice agenda. The government must intervene, according to the initiative, because many hard-working families and individuals earn low incomes due to persistent and systemic inequality. “This agenda recognizes the role that government programs can play in perpetuating those inequalities and is an effort to break down some of the barriers within federal programs that can erode progress towards financial stability,” the plan states, adding that “asset building policies have the potential to move federal assistance programs in a more equitable direction and facilitate economic justice for millions of Americans.”

The backbone of the agenda is homeownership because it is a pillar of wealth building and is critical to creating a source of wealth that can be passed down to future generations, HUD asserts. “Therefore it needs to be attainable for more families, especially families of color,” the agency writes, adding that “racial disparities in homeownership remain significant” in the U.S. In fact, the agenda says, “recent research shows that in 2020, the Black-White homeownership gap reached 31 percentage points, the greatest gap in decades.” Part of the problem is that poor credit prevents minorities—especially blacks—from qualifying for home loans. HUD refers to this as “credit invisible” and reveals that black people have the lowest credit scores in the country, followed by Hispanics. The agency does not offer specific details on how to correct this pervasive issue in communities of color but does blame “wage gaps along racial and educational divides” as a big contributing factor to the crisis. “Families looking to increase their wages face numerous additional barriers such as racism, discrimination, and lack of accommodations for certain people such as parents who need childcare,” according to HUD.

Even in instances when black people attain the American dream of home ownership the properties are often “appraised at lower values and home value can depreciate over time,” HUD’s agenda claims. To correct the problem, Secretary Fudge launched an Interagency Task Force on Property Appraisal and Value Equity (PAVE) to “root out racial and ethnic bias in home valuation.” The federal agency charged with creating inclusive communities and affordable homes also writes in its economic justice agenda that homeownership is not enough to help the nation’s black population, though it “is a critical part of closing the racial wealth gap.” HUD points out that there are also racial differences in other mechanisms for generating wealth such as stock ownership that make the racial wealth gap difficult to close. It is not clear if the housing agency plans to launch a stock ownership plan for poor minorities.

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

August 15th, 2022: 926th Anniversary of the 1st Crusade to take Holy Land from Islamic rule…Time to do it Again?

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The First Crusade, 15 August 1096 – 12 August 1099, was the first of a series of religious wars, or Crusades, initiated, supported and at times directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The objective was the recovery of the Holy Land from Islamic rule. — Wikipedia

We have been writing about the Middle East for decades. It appears we are now at a tipping point where Jews, Christians, Muslims and the state of Israel are under siege. What we are facing is a global war against those who do not follow the teachings of Mohammed.

On August 10th, 2022 The Daily Caller’s Shelby Talcott reported,

Iranian operative Shahram Poursafi has been charged in an alleged plot to kill former National Security Adviser John Bolton, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Wednesday.

The DOJ noted in a press release that Poursafi was a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and an Iranian national. The 45-year-old is accused of attempting “to arrange the murder of” Bolton, “likely in retaliation for the January 2020 death of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — Qods Force … commander Qasem Soleimani,” according to the department.

Read the full article.

In March 10th, 2022 related Daily Caller article Michael Ginsberg reported,

The Biden administration has forged ahead in negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program despite reports that the country’s top leaders have ordered the assassinations of John Bolton and Mike Pompeo.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khameni considers former national security adviser Bolton and ex-Secretary of State Pompeo responsible for the assassination of Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani, the Washington Examiner first reported. As a result, he reportedly ordered Soleimani’s successor, Esmail Qaani, to avenge the dead general.

Both Pompeo and Bolton have had their Secret Service protections extended by Congress over the threats, despite their returns to private life. Agents in marked vehicles were seen by neighbors outside of Bolton’s suburban Maryland home in late January. Prosecutors reportedly have enough evidence to bring charges against conspirators, but no arrests have been made.

Read the full article.

The Center for Security Policy (CFSP) believes Biden and Iran may be close to sealing new nuclear deal. On August 10th, 2022 CFSP’s Senior Editor Dalia Al-Aqidi wrote:

The escalation of global tensions as a result of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, China-Taiwan stand-off, the medical and economic crises, and the exchanges between the Israeli state and the militant Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement has overshadowed the Iran nuclear deal talks.

Is reviving the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action still on the table? Maybe it is no longer a breaking news story, but the Iranian regime and the US administration are definitely still trying to resurrect the 2015 agreement. On Thursday, a sudden call was made to all the international negotiating parties to resume the nuclear talks with Iran.

In fact, the indirect Vienna talks between Tehran and Washington had already begun, with a meeting between Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani and the EU’s European External Action Service Deputy Secretary-General Enrique Mora. The latter returned to his shuttling between Bagheri Kani and US special envoy to Iran Robert Malley.

In an op-ed published by the Financial Times late last month, EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell revealed that he had presented a new framework to relaunch the JCPOA.

It may indeed be the happy ending that the leaders of Iran and the US wish for if what the BBC published is proven true. It reported that an anonymous European official stated that Tehran’s demand for Washington to remove the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from its official blacklist of “foreign terrorist organizations” had been dropped from the discussions and would instead be dealt with “in the future.” The source also revealed to the BBC that Washington would guarantee that no future US president could withdraw from the new deal.

However, the government in Tehran must realize that the US is a democratic country whose president is elected by its citizens. Therefore, no law obliges any future president not to cancel any agreement reached by a former leader.

The Iranians are clever enough to be well aware of this fact, but it does not matter what happens in the future, as long as it receives billions of dollars once the sanctions against this rogue state are lifted. As long as the Democrats are in power, nothing terrible will ever happen to them.

In the meantime, Tehran would be able to equip the IRGC to become the most significant force in the region, which would destabilize the already fragile security of some of Washington’s major allies.

During a meeting in Tehran on Saturday, IRGC head Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami told Ziad Nakhaleh, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s general-secretary, that his country was committed to supporting the movement until the end. Salami said that “all the anti-Zionist” capabilities “are on the scene in a united formation working to liberate Jerusalem and uphold the rights of the Palestinian people.”

Read more.

It is time that the United States and its allies recognize the global red-green alliance threats and take proper action.

It is time for yet another Crusade to liberate the oppressed in the Middle Eastern dictatorships starting with Iran.

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

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Trans: A threat to my daughter, my family, and women’s healthcare

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“Not only has trans ideology taken my daughter, but now it is threatening my vocation and sense of self as a provider of women’s healthcare.”

“We will be examining our gendered naming conventions including the Women’s Clinics and Mother Baby Clinics in order to be inclusive of those who do not identify as women.”

As the Executive Medical Director for Women’s Services for my organization, the email landed like a punch to the gut.

I am an OBGYN and leader in my organization, where we take great pride in the respectful, high-quality care we provide patients.  We are especially proud of our partnership with community organizations in our efforts towards reducing disparities in birth outcomes.  Our efforts towards inclusivity include sensitivity to different family configurations and use of pronouns with our patients.  But now—will we no longer be identified as caring for women or mothers?

My sensitivity to issues involving transgender individuals started as these issues began to seep into the media. I wondered: Why are people fussing over what bathroom is used?  Don’t they have something more important to think about?  If a child’s path to self-acceptance is through transition to the other gender, why would we object? After all, it’s a rare situation.

This all changed when the gender storm hit my family.  My daughter was bright, and social with adults from an early age. She had always been a typical girl.  Her friends were virtually all girls. She begged for Cinderella dresses and preferred to wear purple and pink.  She ignored her older brother’s books and toys, instead preferring crafty activities. She never asked to wear his hand-me-downs.  In early high school, she started going by a gender-neutral name.  I laughed when I started receiving emails addressed to the mother of “X”.  I assumed it was just another one of my independent daughter’s quirky pranks.

This was followed by her hair getting shorter and shorter, finally culminating in a shaved head.   I know now that is a typical foreshadowing of what was to come but, at the time, I was naïve. It simply never occurred to me that this was anything beyond a teenager trying on different styles.  A year into the pandemic, her mental health deteriorated.  She would fly into rages easily, and became intolerant of any request or slightly negative comment. It became more difficult for her to attend on-line classes and she began missing commitments.  Finally came the statement: “Mom, I am a boy.”

My first response was a deep sigh as I braced myself for a shared struggle to figure this out. I took responsibility for communicating this news with my family. I reiterated my support for my daughter. Despite my initial affirming response, her anger at me only grew.

My husband and I met with an on-line support group for families of trans-identified kids.  There we heard similar stories of previously gender-conforming girls whose declining mental health was not reversed when they began testosterone.  One family of a 5-year-old natal male shared, “We are a gender expansive family.  We asked our child if they are a boy or a girl.  She said a girl and we are here to learn how to support her.” This announcement was met with accolades from the group. My husband and I got off the call and turned to each other.  What on earth is happening?  Are they really willing to engage in this social experiment with their child?

The 14 months since then have been a whirlwind of learning and crisis.  I have since immersed myself in understanding the literature as it relates to the care of gender dysphoric children and young adults. I now know the science doesn’t support transition as a path to well-being. I recognize the steps of my daughter’s journey into the cult of transgender ideology.  I see how her middle-school body dysmorphia and conflicted relationship with her dad set her up for this.  While I spent those years watching for signs of an eating disorder, I now see that I should have been on the lookout for the “new anorexia”, gender dysphoria.  As things became even stormier at home during these months after her announcement, my daughter moved out and into the home of a friend.  She has since graduated from high school, started college, dropped out of college and spent three weeks in a psychiatric facility.  I have periodically raged at her, raged at the world and always raged at myself.

My grief has been dominated by a deep fear for her future.  The 60 Minutes segment featuring detransitioners was aired in the same month she shared her news with me.  The tragedy of the detransitioners’ regret has always been front and center for me.  I grieve the loss of the beautiful young woman with a passion for singing that my daughter used to be, now replaced by this unkempt, angry, gravelly-voiced stranger.  Grief has often been mixed with self-hatred.  Why didn’t I catch this sooner?  How did I not protect her from the harm that put her at risk?  What kind of a woman am I that my daughter would want to be a man?  My grief has been tinged with a deep sense of betrayal.  How can you just quit the team?

Through all the turmoil and my great despair, I have had great support.  My husband is a rock.  My family has wrapped their arms around me and are bravely, persistently positive to my daughter.

And I have taken tremendous refuge in work.  As I berate myself for my apparent failure parenting a daughter, I take comfort that I am contributing to an organization that provides for women.  I take joy in the work, knowing that we support women as they grow into young adults, as some of them become mothers and throughout their lifespans.

Many times, in the depths of my anguish over my daughter’s wellbeing and our damaged relationship, I had been pulled into a position of equanimity by the sense of accomplishment or good that had been done as part of the woman’s health team I work with.

The afternoon the email arrived I had left the office for a haircut.  As I waited in the lobby, I quickly checked my phone for any needs that had arisen in the past hour, and my heart started pounding as I digested the message.  When my hairdresser called me back and I laid my head back into the sink, the shock of the email washed over me. Tears crept out of the corners of my eyes and mixed with the soapy water.  By the time I returned to my inbox, several colleagues had responded to the email with messages of support for the effort. I felt alienated from the team with whom I work so closely. I spent the evening in a new state of grief—not only has trans ideology taken my daughter, but now it is threatening my vocation and sense of self as a provider of women’s healthcare.

Subsequently, the team acquiesced to my plea that the needs of women to have sex-specific medical care should not be subjugated to the needs of men, even when those “men” have female reproductive parts. We are setting aside renaming our services for now and are instead considering sensitivity training to ensure our staff are well prepared to accommodate transmen in our care settings.

I was able to influence the direction for two reasons only: 1. I have a position of power and 2. my colleagues know the situation my daughter is in and are trying to treat me gently. But I have only kicked the can down the road.  Either I will ultimately decide I am not the right leader for the organization at this moment in time or, hopefully, others will see the pendulum has swung too far and attitudes will settle into a more moderate position. For the sake of the women we serve, I desperately wish for the latter.

This article first appeared on the blog of Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans (PITT) and has been republished with permission.

AUTHOR

In exceptional circumstances, MercatorNet allows contributors to publish articles anonymously. Sometimes the author’s privacy or safety might be at risk. More by Anonymous author

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Reproductive choice is a choice to have children. Anything else is a fraud. Period.

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The most underreported story of the last 50 years.

Recently both Pope Francis and Elon Musk have warned of depopulation.

Speaking of the declining birth rate in Italy, the Pontiff said:

“This is a new poverty that scares me. It is the generative poverty of those who discount the desire for happiness in their hearts, of those who resign themselves to watering down their greatest aspirations [family], of those who are content with little and stop hoping for something great.”

And here’s billionaire Musk on Twitter: “A collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces by far.”

As expected, PC corporate media pushed back against both the pro-natalist Pontiff and the flaky father-of-nine world’s richest man.

In the midst of this comes yet another survey on the opinions of Americans about having children. The study in the journal Scientific Reports, “Prevalence, age of decision, and interpersonal warmth judgements of childfree adults,” is authored by Michigan State University professors Zachary P. Neal and Jennifer Watling Neal. It grabbed headlines.

The headline? “More than 1 in 5 US adults don’t want children.”

As the authors more accurately explain:

In a 2022 study of 1,500 adults in Michigan, we found that 21.64% of adults do not want to have children and therefore are choosing to be childfree. While our survey wasn’t nationally representative, the 2021 Census showed that Michigan is demographically similar to the United States in terms of age, race, education and income. If the pattern we have observed in Michigan reflects national trends, it would mean 50 million to 60 million American adults are childfree.

Given the times, this is not surprising. In many quarters it is considered thoroughly modern, environmentally conscious, and propitiously PC to foreswear progeny. While Pope Francis and Elon Musk see it differently, what do they know? (Sarcasm, OK?)

The authors describe those not wanting to have children as “childfree” and those unable to have children as “childless.” The semantic implications are obvious. Being “free” of something, as in debt-free or disease-free, is considered positive. “Childfree” carries a similar semantic connotation.

Some say that willfully not having children – aka “childfree” – is exercising “reproductive freedom.” The American Civil Liberties Union defines reproductive freedom as the right that “every person can make the best decision for themselves and their family about whether and when to have a child without undue political interference.”

Reproductive freedom is the right to have children. Let’s talk about that.

The globalist establishment’s colossal cash cow, the American middle class, is being milked dry. For generations the American family has been under all-out attack. Debased entertainment, a debilitating social welfare system, callous manipulation by big business, big government (including education) and big media are bad enough. Then there is “pride” propaganda celebrating practically any social arrangement other than the loving traditional nuclear family.

America’s families are ensnared in a real-life Big Squeeze: besieged by woke anti-family propaganda on one side and an exploitive, corrupt crony capitalism masquerading as a “free market economy” on the other. Brainwashed up-and-comers believe such a regime is “the free enterprise system.” In their blind naivety they happily condone wage slavery as vociferously as they would condemn chattel slavery.

Reproductive freedom? The problem is a profound one of social priorities. The family is no longer the focal point of life in America. Money and lifestyle are. Family values are supplanted by hedonism and greed, those glittering globalist assault weapons pounding the American family.

The family is by far the most battle-scarred victim of globalism’s fanatical philarguria (that’s Biblical Greek for greed on steroids). The days when a middle-class parent could stay home and care for children are long gone. Think that affects reproductive freedom?

Women may enjoy their work but work they must. Fine – but safeguard their reproductive freedom by not making it professionally ruinous to bring a child into this world.

Then there are the usual family pressures, such as the ever-present specter of unemployment, escalating debt and the demand for employee fealty to the point where supervisors come before spouses. Talk about skewed priorities! Any wonder that broken homes, broken lives, drug addiction and other social pathologies increase? How does that impact reproductive freedom?

Bottom line: Where do families most feel the pinch? They are being denied their reproductive freedom. The pernicious reality is that there is no specific law prohibiting procreation, but rather the circumstantial deprivation of that basic human right by a thousand cuts, driven by a fashionably materialistic anti-natalist worldview.

How so? Having children is (1) unaffordable — not enough money and (2) struggling to make ends meet, so not enough time for children. Plus, the relentless tsunami of PC negativity about our heritage, “antiracist” guilt propaganda, environmental scaremongering, etc. discourages legions of impressionable young people from aspiring to have a family.

Multitudes have borne the sadness and loss of being unable to have the children they desire – a wholesale robbery of reproductive freedom. That is the biggest and most underreported story of the last 50 years.

Pope Francis and Elon Musk understand this.

So the next time you hear folks yapping about reproductive freedom, remember that means the right to have children, and the deprivation of that basic human right in any way is viciously anti-family. Period.

We need to call a halt to this madness.

AUTHOR

Louis T. March has a background in government, business and philanthropy. A former talk show host, author and public speaker, he is a dedicated student of history and genealogy. Louis lives with his family… More by Louis T. March

RELATED ARTICLE: Fact-check: abortions bans in US will NOT increase maternal mortality

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The Forgotten Epidemic: How Meth Addiction is Spreading Across America

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The meth epidemic is normally described as the concentrated spread of methamphetamine throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. But because of the advent of OxyContin in 1996, the opioid epidemic soon took a front seat in the discussion of drugs in America. It is common to assume that America has transitioned from a meth problem, then to an opioid problem, and now to a benzo problem. But did the meth epidemic ever go away? Here’s what you need to know about this forgotten epidemic and how meth addiction continues to spread across America.

Developed, Modified, and Regulated

The evolution of meth might have a deeper history than you think. Amphetamine was originally developed in Japan and used to heighten the alert of military soldiers. By the 1960s this drug found its way into widespread use across the globe and grew in popularity for another two decades. At that point, the problem exploded in size, as the chemical process to create meth from amphetamines was discovered. With this backdrop, the highly potent new drug was ready to hit the ground running, producing what is known as the meth epidemic between the 20th and 21st centuries.

Since then, regulations over the last two decades can attribute to the downward trend of meth. However, worldwide meth statistics show that this drug is anything but ‘old news’. It is a difficult battle to shut down a drug that is made from cold medicines found over the counter. In places like Mississippi, the plan of attack has been to require a prescription for the purchase of cold medicines containing pseudoephedrine, the key ingredient to cook meth. While this has been an effective way to curb the spread of meth, that regulation in Mississippi was reversed just this month. Many are worried that this will rewind the clock of progress for meth decline in Mississippi, and across the country as new production sites begin to pop up again.

Epidemic 2.0

Despite the bad news that potential meth labs now have a strong footing to take hold of America and make up for lost time in places like Mississippi, there remains another important piece of information that signals a growing threat. One DEA chemist involved in numerous meth takedown operations around the world has noted that the chemical structure of meth today has changed from the last few decades. Now, chemists involved in black market meth production have found a way to make the drug more potent and decrease some of the adverse side effects.  However, this does not change the effects of meth as a deadly neurotoxin. In fact, some producers are moving away from ephedrine and using harsh chemicals such as those used in tanning oils, perfumes, and even racing fuels. But when people can get their hands on a drug that produces an intense high with less negative experience during the high, such as heart palpitations, they will likely not be concerning about what the ingredients are.

The silencing of such warning signs from our body only makes overdoses that much more likely. Many deaths attributed to meth overdose occur when people’s hearts suddently stop beating, but this normally occurs after users experience the repeated warning signs from the body that an overdose has occured. When these more potent forms of meth are taken, the intensity of the high and the silence of the body’s warning signs creates a fine line between drug use and drug overdose.

The Way Forward

Unfortunately, overdose rates are increasing severely, with recent numbers showing a 180% increased fatality rate from 2015-2019. The drug is also spreading at an alarming rate among Alaskan Native, African American and Native American communities. And while this can relate to the more potent form of meth being made, it also speaks to the growing problem of drug cutting. There is an ever-growing list of illicit drugs being cut with the deadly opioid fentanyl, and meth is no exception. Fentanyl is a deadly drug on its own because of its high potency and risk of overdose. But fentanyl (an opioid) mixed with meth (a stimulant) creates a perfect storm of destruction on the body, and this deadly mixture is being found more and more in the bodies of those dying from an overdose.

Meth use has not gone away. With new production innovations and varieties of the drug, meth is as dangerous and as accessible as ever. Drug cartels and dealers are not going to give up such a profitable industry, despite what laws and restrictions are in place. The way forward starts at the ground level. It starts with informing those who are interested in the drug about the widespread dangers and high potential for meth addiction. But it also starts with encouraging meth users to seek dedicated treatment, designed to help them get through the detoxing process in a safe and effective way. The day that this epidemic goes away will not come until enough people decide that the risk is not worth the fleeting reward.

As with anything you read on the internet, this article should not be construed as medical advice; please talk to your doctor or primary care provider before making any changes to your wellness routine.

Materials provided by:

Delphi Health Group. (n.d.). Opioid Addiction and Treatment. Retrieved https://delphihealthgroup.com/opioids/

Delphi Health Group. (n.d.). Mixing Benzos and Opiates. Is it Safe? Retrieved https://delphihealthgroup.com/benzodiazepines/and-opiates/

PBS. (n.d.). Meth Timeline. Retrieved https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/meth/etc/cron.html

Delphi Health Group. (n.d.). Comparing Meth and Adderall: What’s the Difference? Retrieved https://delphihealthgroup.com/methamphetamine/and-adderall/

National Institute on Drug Abuse (2019, October). What is Methamphetamine? Retrieved https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/methamphetamine/what-methamphetamine

Delphi Health Group. (n.d.). Meth Use Statistics Around the World (2019). Retrieved https://delphihealthgroup.com/stimulants/methamphetamine/global-use-statistics/

Delphi Health Group. (n.d.). Meth Addiction Signs and Treatment. Retrieved https://delphihealthgroup.com/stimulants/methamphetamine/

WCBI. (2021, October 18). The Main Ingredient for Meth will be More Accessible in January 2022. Retrieved https://www.wcbi.com/the-main-ingredient-for-meth-will-be-more-accessible-in-january-2022/

The Atlantic. (2021, October, 18). A New, Cheaper Form of Meth is Wreaking Havoc on America. Retrieved https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/the-new-meth/620174/

The Guardian. (2022, January 23). ‘The Deadliest Drug We’ve Ever Known’: Author Sam Quinones on How Fentanyl Saturated the US. Retrieved https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jan/22/fentanyl-methamphetamine-drugs-epidemic-us

Delphi Health Group. (n.d.). Quickly Recognize a Meth Overdose (Quality, Dosage & More). Retrieved https://delphihealthgroup.com/drugs-and-sleep/meth/

NPR. (2021, September 22). Methamphetamine Deaths Soar, Hitting Black And Native Americans Especially Hard. Retrieved https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/09/22/1039094566/methamphetamine-opioids-overdose-deaths-black-native-american

Delphi Health Group. (n.d.). How Addictive is Meth Really? (And Why). Retrieved https://delphihealthgroup.com/stimulants/methamphetamine/how-addictive/

Rockefeller Institute. (2020, July, 28). The Second Wave of the Methamphetamine Epidemic. Retrieved: https://rockinst.org/blog/the-second-wave-of-the-methamphetamine-epidemic/

Delphi Health Group. (n.d.). Stimulant Addiction. Retrieved https://delphihealthgroup.com/stimulants/

EDITORS NOTE: This Delphi Behavioral Health Group column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.