Double Standard of Justice Could ‘Crumble the Entire System’: Former FBI Agent

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If the election is a choice between democracy and chaos (as Joe Biden insists), then the president isn’t making a very compelling case. The man who claims his biggest competition is “sowing lawlessness and disorder” didn’t have to look very far to find it at his own gates. And yet, unlike 1,100 Americans caught up in the Justice Department’s January 6 crackdown, this mob faced no consequences.

The crowds attempting to break down the White House fence on Saturday — tens of thousands deep, according to the modest estimates — “lit flares, graffitied public property, and threw ‘bloody baby dolls’” into Biden’s lawn. The demonstrators were threatening enough to draw out the Secret Service in riot gear. Capitol Police Chief Pamela Smith told reporters later that while the right to peacefully protest “is one of the cornerstones of our democracy,” “violence, destructive behavior, and criminal activities are not tolerated.”

Or are they? According to Smith herself, “there were instances of illegal and destructive behavior in Lafayette Park, including items being thrown at our officers,” yet no arrests (apart from one possibly unrelated incident near 14th Street) have been reported. It’s an astounding contrast to how even peaceful January 6 participants were treated. Just this month, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that protestors from that day didn’t need to act “disorderly” or “disruptive” to be found guilty of “disorderly conduct.”

“It is well-established that whether conduct qualifies as disorderly depends on the surrounding circumstances,” the judges wrote. “Courts consistently observe that ‘whether a given act provokes a breach of the peace depends upon the accompanying circumstances,’ making it ‘essential that the setting be considered.’” Surely an attempted breach of the White House fence qualifies as a disturbance of that peace?

If the court believes that “even passive, quiet and nonviolent conduct can be disorderly”— language they used to convict the most docile of marchers — then what of people yelling “Break it down!” as they dislodge the White House barriers? What of a crowd so menacing that the president’s home had to be partially evacuated? “In determining whether an act is disorderly,” the judges said, “the act cannot be divorced from the circumstances in which it takes place.” Unless, apparently, the people responsible are allies of the Left.

What we’re witnessing is a double standard in the way lawlessness and violence are treated in this country, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins argued. And it’s at the highest levels, Jonathan Gilliam, a former FBI agent and Navy SEAL, agreed. “… [L]ook at how it’s treated in the media,” he urged on Tuesday’s “Washington Watch.” “[L]ook at the fact that they’re, in some cases, not arresting people,” Gilliam urged. “Are they not being allowed to arrest people?” he wondered.

D.C., as a city, Gilliam observed, is “a far-leftist community.” “And the best example is this biased law enforcement atmosphere.” He pointed to the frustration of conservatives who “get together because of the breakdown of government and because government’s not doing their job well.” Those people are “looked at, in some cases, as terrorist[s] just for saying those things,” he pointed out. “But yet you can go join up with a group that has been considered a terrorist organization [like Hamas] that took responsibility for killing over a thousand people and slaughtering babies in Israel, and you’re going to be treated as though you have every right to be out there when even the things that they’re talking about have nothing to do with this nation.”

Of course, as Perkins pointed out, this isn’t necessarily a reflection on the “rank-and-file men and women who serve.” It starts at the top. “And it’s not just that they’re a mayor or a governor, which is the case in Illinois, but they’re also, prosecutors, they’re chiefs of police, or they’re high-ranking officials in the police department.” They’re bringing their activism to work, Gilliam warned, and then they “stack the ranks” with radicals like them. Ultimately, “what ends up happening is that first off, you have a breakdown in policy, then you have a changing of the laws where law enforcement can’t even do their job.”

But, he pointed out, “here’s where they get us [in] the long term, and where they do affect the rank and file. [It wasn’t that] long ago, especially in the federal government, they started changing how they recruit, who they recruit, the way the commercials are aimed. And so the people that you have now in the rank and file are a mix of good Americans who want to serve their country and then activists who serve an ideology. And that’s the scary part…”

We’re seeing the same thing in the military, Perkins said. “It’s very similar to this. At a certain point when you hit a tipping point, then you have widespread lawlessness, which then leads to tyranny.”

And it happens “very quickly,” Gilliam emphasized. “I mean, the build-up has been very slow. But … people have to realize that the individuals that showed up against that fence are American citizens, and they’re interspersed with some professional activists. … These aren’t minorities that came over the border and all of the sudden became activists. Some of them may be, but you’re looking at people right there that are Americans who grew up in a neighborhood [here], in a home [here]. And on the other side of that fence, you have people making policy that are allowing these people to do these things and get away with it.”

Meanwhile, men and women with no ill intent walked into the Capitol on January 6 and were arrested for trespassing. “But here you have people trying to scale the fences, injuring police officers, and it’s crickets,” Perkins pointed out.

We’re in a perilous situation as a nation, Gilliam wanted people to know. This will eventually get to a point “in which it will crumble the entire system of justice.” “I think we’re very close to that now, where … justice just becomes blind as it has with Trump. I think it’ll be that way for all of us.”

“And that’s something,” Perkins insisted, “that we need to be praying about, and voting about, and standing for.”

If the election is a choice between democracy and chaos (as Joe Biden insists), then the president isn’t making a very compelling case. The man who claims his biggest competition is “sowing lawlessness and disorder” didn’t have to look very far to find it at his own gates. And yet, unlike 1,100 Americans caught up in the Justice Department’s January 6 crackdown, this mob faced no consequences.

The crowds attempting to break down the White House fence on Saturday — tens of thousands deep, according to the modest estimates — “lit flares, graffitied public property, and threw ‘bloody baby dolls’” into Biden’s lawn. The demonstrators were threatening enough to draw out the Secret Service in riot gear. Capitol Police Chief Pamela Smith told reporters later that while the right to peacefully protest “is one of the cornerstones of our democracy,” “violence, destructive behavior, and criminal activities are not tolerated.”

Or are they? According to Smith herself, “there were instances of illegal and destructive behavior in Lafayette Park, including items being thrown at our officers,” yet no arrests (apart from one possibly unrelated incident near 14th Street) have been reported. It’s an astounding contrast to how even peaceful January 6 participants were treated. Just this month, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that protestors from that day didn’t need to act “disorderly” or “disruptive” to be found guilty of “disorderly conduct.”

“It is well-established that whether conduct qualifies as disorderly depends on the surrounding circumstances,” the judges wrote. “Courts consistently observe that ‘whether a given act provokes a breach of the peace depends upon the accompanying circumstances,’ making it ‘essential that the setting be considered.’” Surely an attempted breach of the White House fence qualifies as a disturbance of that peace?

If the court believes that “even passive, quiet and nonviolent conduct can be disorderly”— language they used to convict the most docile of marchers — then what of people yelling “Break it down!” as they dislodge the White House barriers? What of a crowd so menacing that the president’s home had to be partially evacuated? “In determining whether an act is disorderly,” the judges said, “the act cannot be divorced from the circumstances in which it takes place.” Unless, apparently, the people responsible are allies of the Left.

What we’re witnessing is a double standard in the way lawlessness and violence are treated in this country, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins argued. And it’s at the highest levels, Jonathan Gilliam, a former FBI agent and Navy SEAL, agreed. “… [L]ook at how it’s treated in the media,” he urged on Tuesday’s “Washington Watch.” “[L]ook at the fact that they’re, in some cases, not arresting people,” Gilliam urged. “Are they not being allowed to arrest people?” he wondered.

D.C., as a city, Gilliam observed, is “a far-leftist community.” “And the best example is this biased law enforcement atmosphere.” He pointed to the frustration of conservatives who “get together because of the breakdown of government and because government’s not doing their job well.” Those people are “looked at, in some cases, as terrorist[s] just for saying those things,” he pointed out. “But yet you can go join up with a group that has been considered a terrorist organization [like Hamas] that took responsibility for killing over a thousand people and slaughtering babies in Israel, and you’re going to be treated as though you have every right to be out there when even the things that they’re talking about have nothing to do with this nation.”

Of course, as Perkins pointed out, this isn’t necessarily a reflection on the “rank-and-file men and women who serve.” It starts at the top. “And it’s not just that they’re a mayor or a governor, which is the case in Illinois, but they’re also, prosecutors, they’re chiefs of police, or they’re high-ranking officials in the police department.” They’re bringing their activism to work, Gilliam warned, and then they “stack the ranks” with radicals like them. Ultimately, “what ends up happening is that first off, you have a breakdown in policy, then you have a changing of the laws where law enforcement can’t even do their job.”

But, he pointed out, “here’s where they get us [in] the long term, and where they do affect the rank and file. [It wasn’t that] long ago, especially in the federal government, they started changing how they recruit, who they recruit, the way the commercials are aimed. And so the people that you have now in the rank and file are a mix of good Americans who want to serve their country and then activists who serve an ideology. And that’s the scary part…”

We’re seeing the same thing in the military, Perkins said. “It’s very similar to this. At a certain point when you hit a tipping point, then you have widespread lawlessness, which then leads to tyranny.”

And it happens “very quickly,” Gilliam emphasized. “I mean, the build-up has been very slow. But … people have to realize that the individuals that showed up against that fence are American citizens, and they’re interspersed with some professional activists. … These aren’t minorities that came over the border and all of the sudden became activists. Some of them may be, but you’re looking at people right there that are Americans who grew up in a neighborhood [here], in a home [here]. And on the other side of that fence, you have people making policy that are allowing these people to do these things and get away with it.”

Meanwhile, men and women with no ill intent walked into the Capitol on January 6 and were arrested for trespassing. “But here you have people trying to scale the fences, injuring police officers, and it’s crickets,” Perkins pointed out.

We’re in a perilous situation as a nation, Gilliam wanted people to know. This will eventually get to a point “in which it will crumble the entire system of justice.” “I think we’re very close to that now, where … justice just becomes blind as it has with Trump. I think it’ll be that way for all of us.”

“And that’s something,” Perkins insisted, “that we need to be praying about, and voting about, and standing for.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 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 Lost Boys’: Documentary Looks at Impact of Transgenderism on Young Men

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A new documentary is exposing the horrors that the transgender movement wreaks upon men, as well as the social and medical-industrial conditions that have led to those horrors. The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network released “The Lost Boys: Searching for Manhood” this week, featuring interviews with numerous men in both the U.S. and the U.K. who have undergone gender transition procedures, in addition to leading psychologists in the field of gender dysphoria.

The documentary examines the key common factors that lead young men to question their biological sex and seek gender transitions — namely, pornography, grooming, and the latent cultural detritus of feminism. It also explores how the medical industry promotes transgenderism, and how the young men wounded by transgenderism seek recovery and healing.

Some young men begin to question their biological sex during puberty, according to the documentary. One of the chief reasons behind this is the socially prevalent claim that men are inherently dangerous or toxic. “I think the messaging these boys have heard throughout their childhoods about ‘toxic masculinity’ has instilled a sense of shame, shame about being male,” explained clinical psychotherapist Dr. Joe Burgo. “And when puberty hits, that shame is deeply intensified because they don’t know how to process this sexual drive that they’ve got, which is often — I wouldn’t say ‘violent,’ but forceful. It’s fueled also by pornography that’s online.”

Pornography seemed to be a key factor for the young men interviewed in “The Lost Boys.” A man named Brian explained that he discovered pornography at a very young age and quickly became addicted, progressing from gay porn to transgender to what he called “this bizarre subgenre of pornography called sissy hypnosis porn.” Brian said, “I was able to sort of keep a lid on it while I was going to college. When I graduated college, that’s when I spiraled out of control.”

Another young man, Ritchie, explained that he became heavily involved in online forums, where he was groomed by older men in transgender chat rooms. He said he went to these websites seeking answers and advice from men who he presumed had transitioned genders. Most of those men turned out to be homosexual, not transgender, and convinced Ritchie to self-manufacture and distribute child pornography. Other men told Ritchie how freeing and liberating it was to transition and encouraged him to start. “The way I see it specifically in the actual sense of grooming is, say, a trans-identified boy has assignations online with older men who encourage him to dress up in female clothing and they give him lots of praise,” Burgo commented. “They’re predatory men, there’s no other word for them. There’s a whole predatory group of men out there who are exploiting the insecurities and the shame of these young men.”

Ritchie also explained that he was told by older men online that his testosterone made him “toxic.” He said he was told that “testosterone is poison.” Another young man interviewed, Torren, also talked of the influence that social media and online chat rooms had on him. “I keep hearing the messages, from media, reddit and Instagram being big things, and you see all of these people transitioning and they just seem happy. You see them on social media, they seem like they’re just saying like it solved all their problems,” he said. “I think I knew that it was too good to be true, but I struggled with it.”

Graham Linehan, an Irish comedy writer who was largely blackballed for speaking out against the transgender agenda, stated, “There is obviously a problem with young men.” He explained, “Part of the problem is that they are — the things they naturally find funny, the things they naturally find interesting, the things they naturally find sexy have all been problematized — they’re being made to feel like there’s something wrong with all these things, these very natural things they’re feeling.” Linehan added, “On top of that, you have an increasingly censorious kind of atmosphere where they really can’t say what they want to say.”

Burgo agreed, saying, “Pretty much all the messaging they’ve been given — during grade school and growing up, in media, from their families, from their teachers, everywhere — is that men, traditional men are really bad and that men need to be more like women.” He further noted, “I mean, if you look at the American Psychological Association’s guidelines for working with men and boys, they basically pathologize traditional masculinity. These boys grow up feeling like being a man is awful.”

Dr. Az Hakeem, who is billed as the U.K.’s top gender expert, explained that another key factor is mental health conditions that pro-transgenderism medical professionals often overlook. He stated that all of the male patients he has worked with over the past 23 years have been on the autism spectrum. “The thing about the autistic mind is it’s very ‘black and white,’ it loves categories, it loves rules,” Hazeem said. “And what I was hearing from my male patients were, ‘Well, to be male you have to be like this, this, this, and this. I’m not like this, therefore I’m other, I’m non-male, therefore I must be female.’” Burgo explained that young men on the autism spectrum tend to be “very dissociated from and uncomfortable with their bodies and the sensory world, they don’t like touch. And the emergence of sexuality and all the sensations it’s provoked is deeply disturbing and often dissociative.”

Yet medical professionals don’t seek to help autistic young men uncomfortable in their bodies find ways to fit in and accept themselves as they are: they rush to promote gender transition procedures without even diagnosing any other condition. Ritchie described how he was put on a regimen of hormone drugs, approved by Britain’s National Health Service (NHS), and began seeing a “gender therapist.” He said, “The first question I got asked by the NHS psychiatrist was, ‘Do you want genital reassignment surgery?’ And that was my very first psychiatric session at the NHS and I was like, ‘I don’t think so. I think I want therapy to be honest…’”

But his doctor kept asking Ritchie if he wanted surgery. “It was just all the time, constant, constant, constant, ‘Do you want surgery? Do you want surgery? Do you want surgery?” he said. Ritchie responded that he wanted to know what the risks are and wanted to give the procedure careful thought, afraid that he might regret it. He even brought his mother with him to the doctor, and she expressed concern over how the estrogen drugs he was taking were reacting with his antidepressants and how surgery might affect that. Ritchie said the doctor “did his best to shut my mother down and make her believe that if she said anything else [against surgery] it would drive us to suicide.”

A young Norwegian man, Alexander, explained that psychotherapy in Norway is rare, and very serious conditions must be met before an individual may be assigned a therapist. So Alexander “exaggerated” and pretended to be suicidal in order to get an appointment with a therapist who would prescribe him estrogen drugs. After beginning his hormone battery, Alexander talked to his therapist only three times before being given a letter of recommendation for genital surgery. “How can you come to a conclusion that this kind of surgery, life-changing surgery, is the best choice for the patient after talking to the patient three times?” he asked.

All of the young men interviewed talked about the effects estrogen had on them, particularly noting a “brain fog” resulting from the drug. “I never really felt suicidal or anything until I took estrogen. It didn’t make my life any better — in fact, it made my life worse, because I started to feel really depressed,” Brian explained. Estrogen decreases testosterone, and as testosterone decreases in men, they become depressed, lethargic, and unmotivated. As estrogen increases in men, it worsens those issues, impairs memory and attention span, and clouds reasoning and judgement. Both Ritchie and Alexander explained that they likely would have decided against surgery if they hadn’t been placed on estrogen.

“Medical professionals really led me astray with this,” Brian said. “Some people are now messed up for life — I’ll never be able to have kids, my rugged masculinity is never gonna come back. It’s all patient-led, it’s patient-led. ‘I wanna do hormones and I wanna have this surgery.’” He explained, “A good therapist, I think, would have said, ‘Well, maybe you’re transgender, who knows? But let’s get sober for a while and then let’s revisit this topic.’ But that’s not what happened.” Hakeem added, “Parents have bought into it, they’re being fed all this propaganda, like if you don’t let your child do this they’ll kill themselves. There’s no evidence to suggest that’s true.”

By the documentary’s end, everyone agreed that men cannot become women — that the chief claim of transgenderism is a lie. “Gender ideology does not believe that there’s biological sex, it believes that ‘felt gender’ has replaced biological sex, it believes that there are a hundred genders. And I think it’s nonsense. There’s biological sex. You’re male, you’re female, and a very tiny proportion of the people are intersex,” Hakeem explained. Burgo said, “I do not believe that anyone is born in the wrong body nor do I believe that anyone has an innate ‘gender identity’ that might be out of alignment with their sexed body. We are lying to children, I think we need to stop lying to children.”

Ritchie said he started a recovery group for young men who have gone through gender transition procedures. “We’ve all opted for something we call ‘recovery’ rather than ‘detransition,’” he explained. “Because there was no transition, I never went to female, and I’m not going back to male. I never left.” Alexander said, “I’m at peace that I’m a man, that I cannot change that, and I think of it as a biological reality. In Norway we don’t have a word for ‘detransitioner.’ We have a word that can be loosely translated to ‘a regretter.’” Torren stated that he has accepted who he is, saying, “I … realized that all these steps that I was taking to try to somehow ‘be my true self’ were actually taking me away from my true self, were actually taking me away from who I was.”

“The Lost Boys” is currently available for free on YouTube.

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

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

RELATED ARTICLE: Christian Teachers Reinstated as Lawsuit over Transgender Policy Continues

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 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.

Judge Schedules Hearing To Consider Fani Willis’ Alleged ‘Improper’ Relationship With Special Prosecutor

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The judge overseeing the state racketeering case against former President Donald Trump scheduled a hearing for Feb. 15 to consider allegations about District Attorney Fani Willis’ relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, The Washington Post reported.

Trump co-defendant Michael Roman filed a motion last week asking to disqualify Willis and dismiss the case, alleging Wade is her romantic partner and that she benefited from awarding him a “lucrative” contract because he took her on trips and cruises using the money he earned from his position. Judge Scott McAfee set a hearing to consider the allegations for Feb. 15 at 9:30 a.m. and required the state to file a response to Roman’s motion by Feb. 2, according to the Post.

Willis spoke Sunday for the first time after the allegations came out, stating that she paid all three special counsels on the Trump case the same hourly rate and claiming one special counsel, an indirect reference to Wade, was only being attacked because of his race. However, billing statements obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation revealed that her office paid John Floyd, who is considered Georgia’s top racketeering expert, only $200 an hour as recently as May 2023, while Wade was earning $250 an hour.

The motion did not contain hard evidence of the pair’s relationship but said that “sources close to both the special prosecutor and the district attorney have confirmed they had an ongoing, personal relationship.” Wade filed for divorce from his wife on Nov. 2, 2021, the day after his contract to work under Willis began.

Wade’s firm has received nearly $654,000 from the Fulton County District Attorney’s office since 2022, according to county records.

AUTHOR

KATELYNN RICHARDSON

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: EXCLUSIVE: Fani Willis Falsely Claimed She Paid Her Alleged Lover The Same As Other Lawyers On Trump Case

RELATED VIDEO: FITTON: “Hunter is a Potential Witness AGAINST Joe Biden!”

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.

Inflation Under Biden Hiked The Massive National Debt In A New Way In 2023, Experts Say

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Interest rate hikes to combat sky-high inflation under President Joe Biden have led the Federal Reserve to run over a hundred billion dollar deficit, adding to the national debt, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The Federal Reserve in past years has operated a net surplus, remitting those excess earnings to the Treasury to pay off the national debt, according to a press release from the Fed. In 2023, following an inflation-driven increase to the federal funds rate, the interest rate that the central bank has to pay to commercial banks that are holding excess cash overnight, the Fed began losing money, which the Treasury has to issue debt to pay, according to experts who spoke to the DCNF.

“The Fed’s losses do contribute to the deficit,” George Selgin, director emeritus of the Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives at the Cato Institute, told the DCNF. “Normally, the Fed saves the government money by sending most of the interest it earns on its securities back to the U.S. Treasury. But because the Fed now pays interest on banks’ reserves, when the rate it pays goes up, its remittances to the Treasury go down, and lately the rate it pays has risen so much that this past year alone it owed banks more than $100 billion more than it earned. Until it makes up for this loss and also for losses from the previous few years, which could take a long time, it won’t be sending anything to the Treasury.”

The Fed was able to remit around $79 billion to the Treasury in 2022 before having to take out $16.6 billion in debt by the end of the year as rising interest rates took hold, later losing $114.3 billion in 2023, according to the Fed press release. The Treasury received $109 billion, $86 billion, $54.9 billion and $62.1 billion from the Fed in 2021, 2020, 2019 and 2018, respectively.

The rates that the Federal Reserve pays on the overnight reserve balances held by commercial banks have risen in accordance with hikes in the federal funds rate, which the Fed has put in a range of 5.25% and 5.50%, the highest rate in 22 years, in response to high inflation that peaked at 9.1% in June 2022 under Biden. Inflation has since moderated to 3.4% as of December — still not at the Fed’s 2% target, but enough to prompt a median of Fed governors to predict three rate cuts before the end of 2024.

“The Fed’s rate hikes are supposed to counter inflation by raising the cost of borrowing, which is supposed in turn to cause people to borrow and spend less,” Selgin told the DCNF. “But the same hikes add to the government’s deficit, by reducing the Fed’s Treasury remittances, but mainly by raising the interest the Treasury has to pay on its shorter-term obligations. So unless the government cuts spending, the rate hikes can fail to counter inflation, and might even aggravate it, and the public bears the double burden of higher rates and high, if not higher inflation.”

Many economists point to high-spending policies for a portion of the inflation that has plagued Americans under Biden. Biden signed the American Rescue Plan in March 2021 and the Inflation Reduction Act in August 2022, authorizing $1.9 trillion and $750 billion in new spending, respectively.

The U.S. national debt exceeded $34 trillion for the first time in the country’s history on Dec. 29, 2023, with around $27 trillion being held by the public and the other more than $7 trillion being intergovernmentally held. For Fiscal Year 2023, the federal government ran a budget deficit of around $2 trillion when the president’s failed student loan forgiveness plan is properly accounted for, compared to $1 trillion in the previous fiscal year.

“The reason it has losses is that the Fed printed money to buy federal debt,” Richard Stern, director of the Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget at the Heritage Foundation, told the DCNF. “Then, when it stopped printing money to buy more debt, new federal deficits fell onto the private money markets. This triggered crowding out and the ensuing interest rate surges we’ve seen. Then the interest rate spike reduced the market value of the existing debt that the Fed is holding — that’s what the losses are.”

Net interest payments on the national debt have also increased rapidly as rates have risen, with any new Treasury debt issued having to be at a much higher interest rate, costing more to maintain and hold. In the first quarter of 2021, when Biden first took office, interest payments totaled around $535 billion, which has grown to more than $980 billion as of the third quarter of 2023, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

“I’d say that the losses are indicative of the inflationary money printing used to cover Biden’s spending and just one more example of where the government is using inflation and interest rate manipulation to cheat bondholders and steal from hard-working Americans,” Stern told the DCNF.

The White House did not respond to a request to comment from the DCNF.

AUTHOR

WILL KESSLER

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: Dem Demands On Automakers Could Backfire On Their Own Climate Agenda And Americans’ Wallets, Experts Say

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.

How Biden’s Policies Triggered a 7,300% Increase in Illegal Immigration from Venezuela, Endangering U.S. Security

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Washington, D.C. — A new report by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) examines the direct links between Biden administration policies and the astounding 7,300 percent spike in illegal immigration from Venezuela. In FY 2020, the last full year before President Biden took office, 4,520 Venezuelan nationals were encountered by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at America’s borders. By FY 2023, the number of such encounters had ballooned to 334,914. Venezuelans are now the second most commonly encountered nationality at the border, trailing only Mexican nationals.

The rocket-fueled surge of illegal aliens from Venezuela is not due to significantly worsening conditions in that country. Rather, Biden administration policies that virtually assure that all Venezuelan illegal aliens arriving in the U.S. will be released and allowed stay have driven the growth of illegal immigration from that nation, the report concludes. Moreover, a large percentage of Venezuelan illegal immigrants had already been safely settled in other countries for years.

The breathtaking increase in illegal immigration from Venezuela also poses serious national security concerns for the United States. Venezuela’s Marxist dictator, Nicolas Maduro, maintains close relationships with some of America’s most implacable enemies and adversaries, including Iran, Russia and China. Venezuela’s government is known to issue travel documents to individuals linked to terrorism and has been accused of allowing terrorists to operate with relative impunity.

In recent years, the Maduro regime has strengthened its ties with the Islamic Republic of Iran, the world’s most notorious state sponsor of terrorism, which has made overt terror threats against the United States. These are not idle threats, as recent attacks on Americans by the Yemen-based Houthis, an Iranian proxy group, clearly demonstrate.

“The surge in Venezuelan illegal immigration since January 20, 2021 represents a case study in how the ‘pull factors’ of the Biden administration’s disastrous immigration policies have led to the largest and most sustained wave of illegal immigration in American history,” noted Dan Stein, president of FAIR. “Venezuela has been an economic and political basket case for a quarter of a century. What has changed over the past three years are the policies of this country that have sent a clear message to people all around the world that illegal immigration will not only be tolerated, but rewarded.

“Aside from the crippling costs and social disruption caused by unprecedented illegal immigration that we see playing out in New York City and other cities around the country, our open borders also constitute a grave national security threat. The dramatic growth of illegal immigration from Venezuela is a prime example. In an increasingly dangerous world, in which the threats of terror attacks have never been higher in the estimation of FBI Director Christopher Wray, the Biden administration is playing Russian Roulette with the security of the American people,” concluded Stein.

Among the key findings of the report:

  • Venezuelans are now the second most encountered nationality of illegal aliens at the border.
  • More than half a million Venezuelan illegal aliens have been encountered since January 2021.
  • The number of Venezuelan nationals encountered increased 77 percent between Fiscal Years 2022-2023. Since FY 2020, the increase in Venezuelan illegal immigration has been 7,309 percent.
  • Executive Branch policies – especially parole, Temporary Protected Status and the mass release of migrants into the U.S.- have driven the dramatic increase in Venezuelan illegal immigration.
  • The Biden administration’s parole program allows Venezuelans and dual nationals of Venezuela to enter the U.S., even with an expired passport, with little or no vetting.
  • Venezuela’s government has supplied genuine Venezuelan travel documents to non-Venezuelans, including potential national security threats from countries like Iran. This is especially concerning given Venezuela’s ties to state sponsors of terrorism.

The full report can be found here.

To download the PDF of this report, click here

For the executive summary of this report, click here

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EDITORS NOTE: This FAIR report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

MSNBC and CNN REFUSE to Air Trump’s Victory Speech in Iowa

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Press protections must be revoked and removed from left-wing propaganda outlets.

They’ve destroyed the Republic.

Maddow’s Meltdown When Trump Won the Iowa Caucuses Exposed Media’s Path Forward

KAREN TOWNSEND

Something happened when Trump won the Iowa caucuses Monday night and the time came for him to deliver a victory speech. MSNBC and other media outlets decided to not air the speech.

It is not breaking news that MSNBC is anti-Trump. It is unusual for a progressive activist who plays a political show host on MSNBC to level with the audience about its political bias. Maddow explained that Trump won in Iowa and he was beginning to speak. She went on to say MSNBC and other news outlets have stopped airing his speeches live because they don’t air “untrue things.”

RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC: I just have to get to business just for a second. At this point in the evening the projected winner of the Iowa caucuses has just started giving his victory speech. We will keep an eye on that as it happens, we will let you know if there is any news made in that speech, anything noteworthy, something substantive and important.

The reason why I am saying this is, of course, there is a reason that we and other news organizations have generally stopped giving an unfiltered, live platform to remarks by former President Trump. It’s not out of spite, it is not a decision that we relish, it is a decision that we regularly revisit and, honestly, earnestly, it is not an easy decision. But there is a cost to us, as a news organization, of knowingly broadcasting untrue things. And that is a fundamental truth of our business and who we are. So his remarks, tonight, will not air here live. We will monitor them and let you know about any news that he makes.

This is ridiculous, of course, because they air Joe Biden all the time. Biden is a serial liar. But, he’s one of them so it’s not a big deal. What about partisan hacks like Rep. Adam Schiff who told lie after lie on cable news networks about his alleged information on the hoax of Russia, Russia, Russia against Trump. What about the sham impeachment against Trump that MSNBC and other networks carried with bated breath?

Read more.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLE: BLOW-OUT: Trump STORMS To Historic Victory in Iowa

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

New Labor Edict From Biden Regime Declares War On Independent Workers

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Biden declares war on the so-called gig economy and countless companies that use freelancers. “(Biden) Admin proving it’s an equal-opportunity jobs killer.”

The labor market is cooling while more Americans are using side hustles like driving for Uber to cope with rising prices.

Yet now the Biden Administration is declaring war on the so-called gig economy and countless companies that utilize freelancers. (WSJ)

Biden’s Independent-Contracting Rule Destroys Worker Independence

By F. VINCENT VERNUCCIO

A recent regulatory change by the Biden administration is so poorly designed, there’s no telling exactly how many workers will be hurt.

But now, as many as 73 million Americans who are independent contractors could lose that freedom. So may every American who might have pursued this path in the future.

On January 10, President Biden’s Labor Department issued a new rule that will gut independent contracting nationwide. While the department and much of the media are framing the rule as a win for workers, it’s anything but.

The Biden administration, which claims the rule will make it easier for workers to get employment benefits, overtime pay, and minimum wage, is really looking out for the interests of labor unions, which have struggled to organize independent contractors and find it much easier to go after traditional employees. There’s nothing pro-worker about stifling workers in favor of special interests.

[ … ]

Over the past four years, I’ve spoken with workers around the country who depend on independent contracting. Shelby Givan told me she became a freelance online educator so she could continue teaching while caring for her infant son. Karen Anderson built a 25-year career as a writer, editor, and photographer, taking jobs she liked instead of working for a firm. Kim Kavin did the same thing, choosing independent writing after a ten-year career in the struggling yet demanding news-and-magazine business.

From actors and designers to truckers and construction workers, I’ve heard the same thing over and over. Independent contracting gives workers…

Read more.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED VIDEO: “Bidenomics” Exposed In Hilarious Viral Video

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

LOS ANGELES, CA: Pro-Hamas savages spray ‘Free Gaza’ and ‘Intifada’ at Veteran’s National Cemetery, chant genocidal anti-Jewish slogan

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Erasing Israel “from the river to the sea” would mean its total eradication and the deaths of millions of Jews.

Anti-Israel protesters vandalize LA’s National Cemetery, where 90,000 veterans are buried

by Melissa Koenig, New York Post, January 10, 2024:

Anti-Israel protesters vandalized and defaced the Los Angeles National Cemetery, where nearly 90,000 veterans who served the country from World War I through Vietnam are buried.

Video posted online showed a demonstrator spray-painting “Free Gaza” with an upside-down red triangle on the entrance to the National Cemetery as a protest shut down a major boulevard outside the US Federal Building on Saturday.

Demonstrators wearing traditional Palestinian keffiyehs were seen waving Palestinian flags and holding signs accusing President Biden of being an enabler of genocide and Zionists of being Nazis.

They chanted, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” a slogan that the Anti-Defamation League has labeled antisemitic, saying it calls for the elimination of the state of Israel.

Protesters also shouted “Long live Palestine,” “Long live intifada” and “Biden, Biden you’re a liar, we demand a cease-fire.”

The word “intifada” was also spray-painted on the Los Angeles National Cemetery sign, as photos taken in the aftermath showed.

The original intifada was a Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip beginning in 1987.

It is unclear whether any arrests were made for the vandalism at the national cemetery. The Post has reached out to the Los Angeles Police Department for more information….

Read more.

AUTHOR

ROBERT SPENCER

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

‘Break It Down’: No Consequences for Pro-Terrorism Protestors Assaulting White House

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Ten weeks ago, I wrote of a November 4 protest at the White House in which a pro-Hamas mob “cursed the U.S. president, waved the flag of a foreign adversary, and endeavored to breach the White House compound.” No one was held accountable for that vile display of hate and anti-Semitism, even from the president ostensibly committed to the extermination of these evils. So, in the least surprising development ever, the pro-terrorism protest happened again this Saturday, only bigger and bolder — and again with no consequences.

This weekend’s protest imitated the earlier one in many respects: a large crowd assembled in Freedom Plaza before moving over to the White House and attempting to scale the fence. Again, rallygoers — including not only Arabs, but white college students, black race activists, and red communists — donned the black-and-white Palestinian keffiyeh scarf. Again, they left behind a mess of trash and graffiti in Lafayette Park. Again, they chanted curses at an absent president, as well as subtle endorsements of genocide, such as “Free Palestine.” Again, they flew the flags of foreign powers inside the White House’s protective fence.

And again, all who committed lawlessness at the protest got away with it. “During the demonstration near the White House complex Jan. 13, a portion of the anti-scale fencing that was erected for the event sustained temporary damage. The issues were promptly repaired on site by U.S. Secret Service support teams,” said the Secret Service, adding that they made no arrests.

D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith told reporters, “a majority of today’s demonstration remained peaceful,” but “there were instances of illegal and destructive behavior in Lafayette Park, including items being thrown at our officers.” Her statement did not indicate that D.C. police had made any arrests. Conservative reporter Julio Rosas, who was on the scene, posted on X/Twitter, “I did not personally see anyone get arrested outside the White House tonight.”

The sizable crowd — reported at anywhere from “tens of thousands” to “400,000” — overflowed Freedom Plaza, east of the White House, as buses arrived from 20 states to swell the crowd for the post-lunch rally. Organizers pompously dubbed the gathering, “The March on Washington for Gaza,” a nod to the famous Civil Rights-era event during which — unlike Saturday’s protest — the attendees actually marched to Washington on their own two legs. At around 2 p.m., an Islamic call to prayer, in Arabic, was played over loudspeakers at the park, which sits on Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and the Capitol.

Attendees smothered the event in hundreds of Palestinian flags, including one apparently larger than my house. Other flags spotted at the event include the Islamic Jihadist flag, used by U.S.-designated foreign terrorists organizations, and the national flags of Egypt (the Gaza Strip’s other neighbor), Yemen (where the Iran-backed Houthis are based), South Africa (which, despite its own history of apartheid, accused Israel of genocide before the International Court of Justice), and Tunisia (which recently considered a bill to criminalize normalizing relations with Israel).

Of course, the Progress Pride flag flew there, too, right under the flag of Palestine, where the powers that be would likely kill and torture anyone who identified as any sort of LGBTQ identity. Meanwhile, the Party for Socialism and Liberation (a communist party) sponsored a banner that read, “End all U.S. funding for Israeli apartheid.”

Just before 3 p.m., the crowd began to assemble for a march on 14th Street NW, exiting Freedom Plaza from its northwest corner. At 4 p.m., the protestors began a half-circuit of the White House complex, heading north on 14th Street NW, then west on K Street NW, then south on 17th Street NW, before finally arriving at the northeast corner of the White House complex around 4:50 p.m. A large number of protestors eventually filled Pennsylvania Avenue and the adjacent Lafayette Square.

The only known arrest associated with Saturday’s demonstration occurred along the march route. On 14th Street NW, between H Street and I Street, a man brandished a knife at the head of the march. One protestor quickly disarmed him, and police took him into custody. It seems implausible that the knife-wielding man was present to attend the protest. The man’s attire (bright orange jacket and dayglow-yellow hat and gloves) and his behavior are more consistent with a mentally unstable member of D.C.’s population, many of whom congregate in Franklin Park, a block from the incident. If so, then his arrest was a sad, bizarre intrusion of D.C.’s ordinary affairs into this national protest.

Ironically, the protestors had no problem with D.C. police closing the route of their march to vehicular traffic. Thousands of protestors walked right past scores of uniformed officers without so much as an insult. Yet after hours of such peaceful cooperation — or at least co-existence — within 15 minutes of arriving at the White House, the protestors were attempting to break through barricades.

By 5:02 p.m., conservative journalist Wid Lyman reported, “Protestors are shaking the outer fence at the White House.” At 5:16 — when it was still not quite dark — Rosas concurred, “Palestinian protesters aggressively shake and hit the security fence outside the White House.”

During the next half hour, the number of protestors swelled as more marchers completed their trek. Protestors lit flares in the colors of the Palestinian flag, draped Palestinian flags and keffiyehs on the statues of Lafayette Square, graffitied public property, and threw “bloody baby dolls” over the White House fence. They began throwing other items, too: water bottles, rocks, even staves broken off from the flags they carried.

As protestors continued to hit and rattle the security fence, they took to chanting, “Break it down!” Now, both their actions and their words declared their desire to breach the White House’s perimeter. Rosas reported at 6:13, “Palestinian protesters have shaken the fence so hard that they have moved portions of it back.” In an improvement upon the previous protest, this time the Secret Service had installed a second, temporary fence, comprised of heavy metal screens that locked together. Unlike the permanent fence, this one was not anchored to the ground.

The tensest moment came around 6:45 p.m., when protestors shook the fence so violently that they managed to partially dis-attach one section of the temporary fence at the top. As the crowd chanted, “Free Palestine” and rattled the fence in a terrible clanging, another conservative journalist, Mark Naughton, captured the moment on video in real-time, from the thick of the fray.

Secret Service agents — who had already donned riot gear — rushed to repair the fence. Protestors predicted they were about to be pepper-sprayed as officers shook up cans in preparation. At least one officer had to climb a ladder by the wildly swinging fence to secure it. “Police were not able to fix the broken fence and had to attach makeshift clamps,” reported Lyman. As officers reattached the fence, the crowd booed and began shouting, “Shame on you!”

Although the situation was quickly resolved, it did alarm the Secret Service, prompting them to order a partial evacuation of the White House. “As a precaution, some members of the media and staff in proximity to Pennsylvania Avenue were temporarily relocated while the issue was being addressed,” said the Secret Service.

The near-breach in the security perimeter might have prompted Secret Service to call in reinforcements. About 15 minutes later, more police officers appeared and dispersed the crowd. By 7:43, all that was left were the items thrown from the crowd.

The massive protest received strikingly light media attention. “I saw no obvious MSM yesterday in DC covering the massive protest,” wrote Naughton. “Some well equipped media maybe MSM (no affiliation hats or jackets) at the literal start line of the March but by the second block, all were gone. When some protesters became aggressive at the White House, only @Julio_Rosas11 and @Wid_Lyman and a few unknown media remained.”

Rosas echoed the sentiment, describing the media’s response as “passive coverage, instead of an outrage cycle.”

There were a couple stories, such as this one by PBS, but they contain little firsthand reporting of the actual riot. This, despite the fact that White House reporters were evacuated when the fence was breached; the mainstream media was situated inside the barricades, not in the crowd.

Two conversations captured during the fracas demonstrate that the protestors themselves knew that their actions were 1) not peaceful and 2) not going to change anyone’s mind. Unfortunately, some of the exchange was inaudible, but the rest is a profound denunciation of the protestors’ tactics and motivations.

In one exchange, a protestor standing by the fence asked the one standing next to him, who was shaking it with all his might, “What is the point of this [rattling fence]? [inaudible] for our point to get across?” “Yes, yes,” the other replied. “Honestly, how old are you? What’s going to happen? Do you think now he’s [Biden] going to change his mind, because you’ve proved to him that Palestine is [inaudible]?”

Afterward, another protestor exhorted those shaking the fence, “Why are we doing this? Let’s do this s*** right, bro.” Someone asked him, “Okay, what is ‘right’?” He replied, “‘Right’ is doing it peacefully, singing our songs, and doing our dances.” Those around him called him a crude name and then ignored his advice.

The fringe-left street activists aren’t alone. Employees of as many as 22 federal agencies, including the Executive Office of the President, the National Security Agency, the Departments of State, Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the Naval Research Laboratory, planned to participate in an illegal strike on Tuesday, organized by an anonymous group calling itself “Feds United for Peace.” They planned to observe a “Day of Mourning,” as Tuesday is the 100th day since Hamas’s terror attack. However, their plans came to nothing, as all federal offices in the D.C. area were closed anyway due to a winter storm.

Somehow — does it have to do with the dissidents within the system? — the Left’s constant pressure on Biden is having an effect on his foreign policy. Although the majority of Americans supports Israel and is disgusted by the Left’s uncivilized street demonstrations, the Biden administration is heeding its warnings, ratcheting up pressure on Israel as the radical Left turns up the heat on the White House. “The president’s patience is running out” on Israel’s war in Gaza, an anonymous official told Axios on Sunday. Several weeks ago, Biden abruptly hung up on Netanyahu after a tense exchange.

After his administration has done everything possible to slow down Israel’s war and making its task harder, Biden is now annoyed with Israel that it hasn’t won yet. Or, perhaps more correctly, Biden is channeling the anger of those who are annoyed that Israel fought back at all after Hamas’s October 7 terror attack. Meanwhile, Israel’s surrounding enemies have no desire for peace and continue to attack, with a Hezbollah rocket attack killing more Israelis on Tuesday.

In addition, the U.S. military’s passive response to provocations have emboldened other Iranian proxies in the Middle East to conduct bolder attacks. As of Thursday, the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen had launched 27 attacks on vessels in the Red Sea, in addition to a number of missiles aimed at Israel. On January 9, they escalated the situation even further by directly attacking U.S. military ships. “These attacks have endangered U.S. personnel, civilian mariners, and our partners, jeopardized trade, and threatened freedom of navigation,” complained Biden. “More than 2,000 ships have been forced to divert thousands of miles to avoid the Red Sea — which can cause weeks of delays in product shipping times.”

In response, the U.S. finally launched retaliatory strikes against the Houthis on Thursday and Friday.

The pro-terrorism protestors outside the White House had this message for American forces trying to keep the world’s most important shipping lane open for business: “Hands off Yemen.” Wouldn’t that be nice, if we could do so?

On Sunday, the Houthis launched an anti-ship cruise missile towards a U.S. Navy ship it was capable of sinking. Fortunately, the ship survived, but the terrorist group has now made its intentions to kill U.S. servicemembers plain. The U.S. responded with a third strike against Yemeni targets on Tuesday. Meanwhile, on Thursday U.S. Navy SEALs captured a small boat that was smuggling missile parts from Iran to Yemen. Two men went missing during that mission, possibly drowned.

In light of these tense and dangerous developments in the Middle East, why would President Biden listen to the opinions of a fringe element that embraces anti-Semitism, alienates the public, and obviously hates America? Perhaps it’s because he needs their votes in November. Biden’s approval rating sank to an all-time low of 33%, while 58% disapprove in a recent ABC News/IPSOS poll. Biden now has the lowest approval rating of any president since George W. Bush in 2006-2008. So, the radical Left can continue their pro-terrorism protests, rattling Biden’s cage in the most literal sense, and expect no consequences.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand. All rights reserved.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 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.

‘I Would Love It’: Judge Threatens To Kick Trump Out Of Court In E. Jean Carroll Trial

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Judge Lewis Kaplan threatened to remove former President Donald Trump from a New York courtroom Wednesday if he continued to be “disruptive” during the E. Jean Carroll defamation trial, according to CNN.

Shawn Crowley, Carrol’s lawyer, complained to Kaplan that Trump could be heard saying, “it is a witch hunt,” and, “it really is a con job” in the courtroom during testimony, according to CNN. Kaplan told Crowley that while Trump had the “right” to be at the trial, he would remove him if he continued to be disruptive.

“Mr. Trump has the right to be present here,” Kaplan said before directing his comments to Trump. “That right can be forfeited and it can be forfeited if he is disruptive, which what has been reported to me consists of. And if he disregards court orders, Mr. Trump, I hope I don’t have to consider excluding you from the trial.”

Trump threw up his hands at the judge’s comment, according to CNN, and Kaplan replied by saying, “I understand you’re probably eager for me to do that.”

“I would love it,” Trump reportedly replied.

“I know you would,” Kaplan said, according to CNN, before the court was dismissed for lunch. “You just can’t control yourself in this circumstance apparently.”

Earlier this month, Kaplan denied Trump’s legal team from presenting any arguments involving Carroll’s rape claims for the defamation trial, saying the the results of that previous trial “has nothing to do with injury inflicted on her by the defamatory statements.”

AUTHOR

KATE ANDERSON

Contributor.

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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.

House Committee Concludes Mayorkas Investigation, Schedules Impeachment Hearings

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Late last month, the House Homeland Security Committee released its fifth and final interim report in its five-phase investigation into Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The final installment focuses on Secretary Mayorkas’ misuse of taxpayer funds throughout the border crisis. Building on evidence compiled in the investigation, the Committee is set to begin impeachment hearings against Mayorkas this week.

Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.) officially moved to begin the process last week.  In a statement, Green said that, “For almost three years, the American people have demanded an end to the unprecedented crisis at the Southwest border, and they have also rightly called for Congress to hold accountable those responsible…Our investigation made clear that this crisis finds its foundation in Secretary Mayorkas’ decision-making and refusal to enforce the laws passed by Congress, and that his failure to fulfill his oath of office demands accountability.” Impeachment proceedings will begin this Wednesday, January 10, in a hearing entitled, “Havoc in the Heartland: How Secretary Mayorkas’ Failed Leadership has Impacted the States.”

The Committee’s final report helps round out the congressional record for the impeachment hearings. The report hones in on Mayorkas’ “failure to detain illegal aliens and use Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention resources in accordance with their intended purpose, and the Biden administration’s decision to halt construction of the border wall system that had already been bought and paid for by taxpayers—a move Secretary Mayorkas has publicly stated he stood behind.”

One of the main examples highlighted by the Committee was the border wall.  At the start of the Biden Administration, around $1.9 billion of funds congressionally appropriated to DHS were designated for border wall construction, and $5 billion of Department of Defense (DOD) funds, remained unused. Biden, however, immediately moved to suspend construction and Mayorkas has led efforts to block border wall construction, costing taxpayers roughly $2 billion in broken contracts and allowing millions of illegal aliens into the country. Although the Biden Administration quietly directed the construction of 20 miles of border wall in the Rio Grande Valley this June, it has consistently stood by its anti-wall messaging, doing the bare minimum needed to skirt the law.

In addition, under Mayorkas’ watch, detention beds have gone empty as the Biden Administration implemented a mass catch-and-release policy.  Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 set a record with over 3.2 million illegal aliens encountered at our nation’s borders. However, DHS only requested 25,000 detention beds in its FY24 budget, a sharp decrease from the 45,000 in FY19. Instead, states are being forced to expend additional taxpayer dollars towards sheltering aliens as Mayorkas releases them into the country. According to the report, costs to house aliens in hotels and shelters are significantly higher than simply utilizing ICE facilities. In New York, the cost per day in family shelters is around $339, while those for single adults cost $184. By comparison, an ICE detention bed costs $142.44 or less.

As previously detailed by FAIR, Mayorkas has set a series of records that no one should be proud of, leading to record profits for drug traffickers and human smugglers. In just three years, more than 8 million illegal aliens have been apprehended at our borders, and at least another 1.7 million “gotaways” have evaded Border Patrol. Likewise, FY23 saw nearly 30,000 pounds of fentanyl seized at the border and 172 illegal aliens on the FBI’s terrorist watchlist attempting to cross the borders illegally. The daily and monthly apprehension records were also both broken multiple times in the last year, with more than 341,000 aliens apprehended in September and more than 12,600 apprehended on a single day in December. Speaking at a press conference in Eagle Pass, Texas, last Wednesday, Chairman Mark Green called Mayorkas the “greatest domestic threat to the national security and the safety of the American people.”

The details gathered throughout the five-phase investigation combined with record apprehension numbers and drug seizures all point to Mayorkas’ dereliction of duty. The Secretary’s tenure has been characterized by one failure after another, as he continues to disregard the law and put American lives in jeopardy. The American people, and enforcement of our immigration laws, have become an afterthought with Mayorkas at the helm. When the Committee moves into impeachment proceedings this week, they’ll have more than enough evidence to clearly show the Secretary’s role in undermining the rule of law and facilitating the border crisis.

To learn more about the case against Secretary Mayorkas, click here.

AUTHOR

Kari Jacobson

Kari joined FAIR in June 2023 after graduating from the College of the Holy Cross with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, and a concentration in Peace and Conflict Studies. She has spent time working in local, state and federal politics, the most notable being her work on a gubernatorial campaign, and with a U.S. Senator. As FAIR’s Government Relations Associate, Kari uses her prior experience to establish and maintain effective working relationships with congressional offices, federal agency personnel, and coalition members. She also plays a role in complex research and writing assignments on immigration-related topics.

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

VIDEO: Illegal Immigrant Released Into U.S. Thanks Biden, Says He Fears Trump

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A Venezuelan man recently released into the country thanked President Joe Biden and expressed fear over a possible Donald Trump presidency in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation at the Houston airport.

The immigrant, who said that he crossed the southern border into the U.S. illegally, thanked Biden as he waited with a group of migrants  from Venezuela and Guinea in the airport. Border Patrol has recorded record illegal immigration at the southern border under the Biden administration, with more than 2.2 million encounters in fiscal year 2022 and more than 2 million encounters in fiscal year 2023, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

”Honestly, thank you for this opportunity … without your help we wouldn’t be here so that means a lot, that means a lot for me and that means a lot for all of us. I have many friends who crossed the border and they’re grateful [now that they have] a good financial situation. They help their family from Venezuela as well, they try to bring them and I think that’s awesome,”  the migrant, who withheld his name and said he lost his passport and used his paperwork from Border Patrol to travel, told the DCNF.

He also said he feared deportation if Trump wins the 2024 presidential election. Trump took home a win at the Iowa caucus on Monday night and promised the largest deportation “since Dwight Eisenhower” in his victory speech.

The Biden administration announced in October the start of deportation flights to Venezuela to address the surge.

Fiscal year 2024 has already seen a record month in December with more than 300,000 migrant encounters, according to Fox News, which cited internal government sources.

The Venezuelan migrant said he crossed into Eagle Pass, Texas, days before where the state and federal authorities have recently been feuding over border enforcement powers. The Texas Department of Public Safety seized control of city property in Eagle Pass in early January.

The migrant joins a backlog of roughly 3 million cases in the immigration court systems, as previously reported by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC). He said he’s confident his case will be accepted.

”I will stay here in Houston and I’ll go to my brother’s house and hopefully get a job and help my family,” he said.

“I want to work here,” he said, adding “I asked for asylum and they gave me one year so I have to fight for my case.”

AUTHOR

JENNIE TAER

Investigative reporter.

RELATED ARTICLE: Border Patrol Agents Quietly Support Texas’ Move To Seize Area Of Border

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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.

Department Of Justice Acknowledges Hunter Biden Laptop Content Is Legitimate For First Time

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The Department of Justice (DOJ) has acknowledged the legitimacy of Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop data for the first time in a new court filing.

In a Tuesday court filing from DOJ prosecutors, which came in response to Biden’s request to have his federal firearm charges dismissed, investigators acknowledge the legitimacy of data found on Biden’s laptop prior to the 2020 election. The court filings described how IRS and FBI investigators had obtained a search warrant for tax violations on Biden, leading them to “various” backup data accounts.

The documents additionally note that investigators later came into “possession” of the laptop that Biden had previously “left at a computer store,” emphasizing that investigators had “already obtained” a large portion of the data from Apple.

“In August 2019, IRS and FBI investigators obtained a search warrant for tax violations for the defendant’s Apple iCloud account. In response to that warrant, in September 2019, Apple produced backups of data from various of the defendant’s electronic devices that he had backed up to his iCloud account,” the court documents stated.

“Investigators also later came into possession of the defendant’s Apple MacBook Pro, which he had left at a computer store. A search warrant was also obtained for his laptop and the results of the search were largely duplicative of information investigators had already obtained from Apple.”

Following the initial report on Biden’s laptop from the New York Post, backlash from Democratic officials, various media outlets and social media platforms ensued. Democratic operatives and their allies attempted to cast the findings from the laptop as “Russian disinformation” and alleged that reporting on it was a form of pro-Trump election interference.

A letter was soon released by 51 former intelligence officials who falsely claimed that the content on Biden’s laptop was a “Russian information operation.”

The “Russian disinformation” narrative pushed by officials then led to both Facebook and Twitter censoring the NY Post’s reporting, with sites like Politico claiming the story was false by using the former intel officials’ letter. President Joe Biden called the laptop contents “Russia disinformation” during his 2020 campaign, also using the intelligence officials’ letter as support.

However, while the rumors of Russia interference circled, the FBI reportedly knew that the contents within Biden’s laptop were real due to an interview with Biden’s former business associate, Tony Bobulinski. The  agency had previously interviewed Bobulinski on Oct. 23, 2020, after the report broke, in which he confirmed the authenticity of the laptop’s contents, noting that he had additional records on multiple cell phones.

The DOJ and FBI have since shied away from Biden’s laptop contents, with IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley confirming the authenticity of the laptop during testimony to Congress in June 2023, according to the New York Post.

The new filings come as a response to Biden’s investigation for gun charges which his legal team attempted to argue in December should be dismissed. Biden was indicted in September of 2023 on three federal gun charges after he had allegedly illegally purchased a revolver as he was battling a drug addiction.

While Hunter Biden pleaded not guilty to the charges in October of 2023, he could potentially face up to 25 years in prison.

AUTHOR

HAILEY GOMEZ

General assignment reporter.

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Federal Judges Slam Colleagues For Not Considering Trump’s ‘Executive Privilege’ In Twitter Search Warrant

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Four judges on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rebuked their colleagues Tuesday for rubber-stamping special counsel Jack Smith’s request to search former President Donald Trump’s Twitter account.

Smith obtained a search warrant in January 2023 granting him access to a wide range of data from Trump’s Twitter account, such as draft tweets and direct messages, along with a nondisclosure order barring Twitter from informing the former president. The full D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals declined Tuesday to rehear en banc Twitter’s appeal of a panel decision upholding the nondisclosure order, which Judge Naomi Rao, a Trump appointee, wrote in a statement Tuesday joined by three other judges that the court “should not have endorsed.”

“The Special Counsel’s approach obscured and bypassed any assertion of executive privilege and dodged the careful balance Congress struck in the Presidential Records Act,” Rao wrote. “The district court and this court permitted this arrangement without any consideration of the consequential executive privilege issues raised by this unprecedented search.”

Judges Karen Henderson, a George H. W. Bush appointee, along with Trump-appointed Judges Gregory Katsas and Justin Walker joined Rao’s statement.

“The district court afforded no opportunity for the former President to invoke executive privilege before disclosure, and this court made no mention of the privilege concerns entangled in a third-party search of a President’s social media account,” Rao wrote. “This approach directly contravenes the principles and procedures long used to adjudicate claims of executive privilege.”

District Court Judge Beryl Howell first approved the warrant in a decision a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit, which included Obama-appointed Judge Cornelia Pillard and Biden-appointed Judges Michelle Childs and Florence Pan, later affirmed on appeal.

AUTHOR

KATELYNN RICHARDSON

Contributor.

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What About The October 7 Pro-Hamas Insurrectionists?

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On Sunday, I reported the massive pro-terrorist rally in DC was a real insurrection.

Here Victor Davis Hanson elaborates:

What About The October 7 pro-Hamas Insurrectionists?

Victor Davis Hanson

The pro-Hamas, anti-Israeli, and anti-Semitic protests grow stronger, more frequent, and more surreal each week.

Now demonstrators in New York are condemning the U.S. for protecting global transport in the sea-lanes of the Red Sea. In other words, they sympathize with the terrorist Houthis of Yemen who have been currently preemptively trying to kill Americans.

Now there are promises from federal workers to strike soon on behalf of Hamas’s demands for a ceasefire. Is their insurrectionary aim to shut down the federal government?

So is there any outrageous act that the pro-Hamas throng will not consider?

Defacing the national cemetery of American war dead in Los Angeles? Defiling the Lincoln Memorial? Disrupting Christmas services in New York? Shutting down major freeways? Causing commute traffic to halt on the Manhattan and Golden Gate Bridges? Cornering and confronting Jewish students on campus? Chanting for the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people?

In her early response to questions about the growing anti-Semitism, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre infamously snarked, “We have not seen any credible threats, I know there’s always questions about credible threats, and so I just want to make sure that’s out there. But look, Muslim and those perceived to be Muslim have endured a disproportionate number of hate-fueled attacks, and certainly President Biden understands that many of our Muslim, Arab, Arab-American and Palestinian-American loved ones and neighbors are worried about the hate being directed at their communities.”

What message did that send to the pro-Hamas mobs, even when she later claimed she “misheard” the question?

Joe Biden has been absolutely quiet about the expanding anti-Israel/anti-Jewish protests, even when they have become violent. Instead, he becomes briefly animated not by pro-Hamas, anti-American violence, but only by the “semi-fascist” and “ultra-MAGA” nearly half of the country who voted against him in 2020.

So he, talks endlessly of the January 6th “insurrection”, a protest that for a few hundred descended into a buffoonish riot, but nothing comparable, for example, in terms of deaths, destruction, looting, and attacks on an iconic federal courthouse, police precinct, historic church, or the White House grounds to the 120 days of rioting of summer 2020.

Of those violent days, Kamala Harris bragged they would not cease even as she rooted on the “protests”. (“But they’re not gonna stop. They’re not gonna stop, and this is a movement, I’m telling you. They’re not gonna stop, and everyone beware, because they’re not gonna stop… they’re not going to let up — and they should not. And we should not.”)

In his recent Phantom of the Opera 2.0 Ultra-Maga harangue at Valley Forge, Joe Biden seemed also to praise the BLM/Antifa glory days of 2020 as “the historic movement for justice in the summer of 2020”.

More recently, pro-Hamas protestors have trumped January 6th by both the duration and intensity of their increasingly violent demonstrations. As for an “insurrection”, pro-Hamas protestors stormed the Capitol rotunda, in aims to disrupt Congress. Will they face years of imprisonment for “illegal parading” and imperiling congressional business?

In California, the first day of the legislature was cancelled after pro-Hamas demonstrators took over the chambers and prevented the proceedings to continue. Insurrectionary?

We can expect four themes in 2024: 1) Biden will step up pressure on Israel to pull out of Gaza and to refrain from going after terrorist leaders; 2) there will be a lot more, and increasingly more violent, pro-Hamas, anti-Israel, and anti-Semitic protests; 3) the 2024 election-mode White House will respond by ignoring anti-Jewish protests and exaggerating rare anti-Islamic incidents; and 4) it will continue to beat the dead January 6 horse, even as it increasingly canonizes the street and downtown take-over violence of 2020.

Common denominator to the madness?

At home, Biden is worried about even small defections in Michigan, Virginia, and Pennsylvania of traditionally Arab-American Democrat constituencies, and he is increasingly terrified of larger apostasies among black voters. In contrast, he feel that Jewish voters will either not really defect or their numbers are concentrated in mostly blue, taken-for-granted states like New York and California.

Abroad, an appeasing Biden is terrified that his laxity and erosion of U.S. deterrence prompted Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis to act—and that they will further become emboldened to the point of waging multifront attacks later in the year‚ right around election time.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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