There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. —Soren Kierkegaard. "…truth is true even if nobody believes it, and falsehood is false even if everybody believes it. That is why truth does not yield to opinion, fashion, numbers, office, or sincerity–it is simply true and that is the end of it" – Os Guinness, Time for Truth, pg.39. “He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God’s providence to lead him aright.” – Blaise Pascal. "There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily" – George Washington letter to Edmund Randolph — 1795. We live in a “post-truth” world. According to the dictionary, “post-truth” means, “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Simply put, we now live in a culture that seems to value experience and emotion more than truth. Truth will never go away no matter how hard one might wish. Going beyond the MSM idealogical opinion/bias and their low information tabloid reality show news with a distractional superficial focus on entertainment, sensationalism, emotionalism and activist reporting – this blogs goal is to, in some small way, put a plug in the broken dam of truth and save as many as possible from the consequences—temporal and eternal. "The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." – George Orwell “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” ― Soren Kierkegaard
The spread of Christ’s teaching among the Gentiles was rapid, especially at Antioch, the chief metropolis of Asia, where the converts were now for the first time called Christians. Many of the Jewish members of the Faith were inclined to protest against any association with the “uncircumcised” Greeks and Romans, but yielded upon Peter’s narrative of his vision. This fraternizing with outsiders made the new Church doubly obnoxious to other Jews, and the priesthood in Jerusalem began a second persecution, aided now and indeed headed by King Herod. He, to win favor with his Jewish subjects, cast Peter into prison, planning to deliver him into the hands of the priests at Easter. “And when Herod would have brought him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains: and the keepers before the door kept the prison.
“And, behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him, and a light sinned in the prison: and he smote Peter on the side, and raised him up, saying, Arise up quickly. And his chains fell off from his hands.”
As in a dream Peter followed the divine messenger. They passed one barrier after another, the soldiers lying in a stupor all around. So at length they passed the final gate out into the city. Its huge hinges swung noiselessly; and Peter was free.
It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. (Lamentations 3:27)
This is as good as a promise. It has been good, it is good, and it will be good for me to bear the yoke.
Early in life I had to feel the weight of conviction, and ever since it has proved a soul-enriching burden. Should I have loved the gospel so well had I not learned by deep experience the need of salvation by grace? Jabez was more honorable than his brethren because his mother bare him with sorrow, and those who suffer much in being born unto God make strong believers in sovereign grace.
The yoke of censure is an irksome one, but it prepares a man for future honor. He is not fit to be a leader who has not run the gauntlet of contempt. Praise intoxicates if it be not preceded by abuse. Men who rise to eminence without struggle usually fall into dishonor.
The yoke of affliction, disappointment, and excessive labor is by no means to be sought for; but when the Lord lays it on us in our youth, it frequently develops a character which glorifies God and blesses the church.
Come, my soul, bow thy neck; take up they cross. It was good for thee when young; it will not harm thee now. For Jesus’ sake, shoulder it carefully.
“I am leaving you with a gift – peace of mind and heart! And the peace I give isn’t fragile like the peace the world gives. So don’t be troubled or afraid” John 14:27
A stricken widow stood beside the coffin of her husband. She said to a friend, “There lies my only earthly support, my most faithful human friend, one who has never failed me; but I must not forget there lies also the will of God, and that will is perfect love.”
By faith, she saw good and blessing, remembering the promise of God,
“I know the plans that I have for you…plans for good...” (Jeremiah 29:11).
As the Prince of Peace, Jesus gives peace of heart and mind, truly one of the greatest and most remarkable gifts we can receive. In the midst of trial and testing, His perfect peace is a supernatural blessing far exceeding even such coveted gifts as good health, for with His inner peace we have everything we need.
How do we obtain that kind of peace?
First, it is the fruit of the Spirit. “Love, joy, peace…” As we are yielding to Him and controlled by the Holy Spirit, the fruit of peace is being cultivated in our lives moment by moment, day by day.
Second, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee” Isaiah 26:3, (KJV); “As he thinketh in his heart so is he“ Proverbs 23:7, (KJV). It is a fact of life that we become in our attitudes and actions like that which most dominates our thoughts. That explains the dramatic moral spiritual deterioration resulting from the influence of immoral television programming. When the Lord is given His proper priority in our lives, His perfect peace will reign in our hearts.
While it is true that all such blessings are a gift of God and cannot be earned or merited, it is equally true that we can deliberately choose to cooperate with God’s Holy Spirit by yielding ourselves to Him and thus cultivating the fruit of peace.
Bible Reading: Isaiah 26:1-5
By faith I shall claim God’s promised peace for today and every day. I shall ask the Holy Spirit to help me concentrate my heart’s gaze on the Lord Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, and I will encourage someone else to do the same.
Growing up, I was always told to dream big. Some days that meant being a successful entrepreneur. Other days, I aspired to be an award-winning actress. When I won first place at science fair, I was determined to find the cure for cancer.
My mother always nurtured my dreams and reminded me nothing is impossible with God. As I progressed through high school and college, I gained the tools necessary to reach my dreams. Friends called me Wonder Woman because they “knew” I would change the world. When I found success climbing the corporate latter, I believed they might actually be right.
After I got married and became a mother, however, the only thing I ever changed was diapers. My dreams didn’t line up with reality, and the only wonder in my life was about whether or not I still had value. I knew raising our children was the most important job in the world, so I never regretted staying home. But my sense of self-worth was non-existent.
One day I sat on the front step watching my three-year-old daughter play joyfully in our dandelion-covered yard. She knelt down, picked a blossom, and ran over to me. “It’s a flower,” she said, thrusting the yellow bud of a weed into my face. “I love you, Mommy.”
I saw weeds, but my daughter saw flowers. I saw disappointments, but God saw dreams.
I was a missionary in the land of motherhood, and I needed to appreciate the season God had given me. I realized that although I might not be able to change the world through my achievements, I could change it through my actions, by loving and serving others, just like Jesus.
When Jesus walked the earth, He focused on relationships.
He changed the world one heart at a time, and He still does today.
As my life transitioned from toddlers to teenagers, I enlarged my sphere of influence by forming relationships with elderly neighbors, forgotten friends, and unappreciated individuals. I found that a person’s true value lies in who she is, not in what she does. Freedom replaced frustration when I stopped thinking about how I was going to change the world and focused on how Jesus already did.
It took a long time to realize my discontentment was the result of an idol in my heart: the idol of the extraordinary—my mistaken belief that everything worthwhile had to be big. It was the small things in life—praying with a friend, inviting the grocery store clerk to church, or reading the Bible with my daughter—that made the biggest difference in my life.
The world’s oceans are the result of a thousand rivers and streams, and the mighty Himalayas are nothing more than one small stone upon another. We are the sum total of our experiences, and the most valuable experiences are relational.
Certainly, nothing is wrong with dreaming big, but dreaming small helps us remember Who is in charge of the big plan and the incredible opportunity we have to be a part of it. I may not be Wonder Woman, but I am a woman walking in wonder when I see how God allows me to influence the world for Him one life at a time.
When I surrendered my idol of the extraordinary, I was able to appreciate God’s hand in the small and the not-so-small moments of my life. Seeking God became more important than seeking goals. That’s what Jesus meant when he said, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:33 NIV). When we seek God first, He uses ordinary things in extraordinary ways. How is He using you?
The three men who sought Peter were messengers from Cornelius, a Roman Centurion of Cæsarea. Cornelius, a good and high-hearted man, had long prayed to God in ignorance, till at length an angel had come to him, revealing that this Peter, who was to be found in Joppa, would teach him all he desired to know of God. Hence Cornelius sent the messengers; and Peter by divine command went with them to Cæsarea. where the Centurion had gathered all his friends to listen to the promised revelation.
When Peter came, Cornelius would have worshipped him; but Peter checked him: “Stand up; I myself also am a man.” And now the meaning of his own vision became clear to Peter. The Jews had always despised other races as being “unclean”; yet since God had commanded Peter to come to these men, they could not be unclean; they also were “chosen of God.” At once the marvel of the future spread itself before the Apostle; he understood all the Faith would mean to the world. He taught these men and prayed with them; and as they prayed the Spirit descended upon Cornelius and his friends with the “gift of tongues,” even as it had descended upon the Apostles at the Pentecost.
18 fatalities, 36 missing after flash flood hits Qinghai, China The death toll from destructive flash flooding in northwest China’s Qinghai Province has reached 18 and there are 36 people still missing, local officials said late August 18 (LT). This is up from 4 fatalities and 27 missing reported earlier today.
The Darker It Gets, the Closer God Almighty Gets To Humanity The coming peak of the crescendo now hurtling our way will strike soon after the Labor Day long weekend; all of its horror purposely intended to kill off any hope for better days still held by the masses. It’s coming our way, and no one so far— including the GOP—has been able to come up with a way to stop it. So far it’s just talk, talk, talk.
Europe Dries Up ….”That particularly bold assessment, to be more precise, comes from senior researcher Andrea Toreti. “Just to give you an idea, the 2018 drought was so extreme that, looking back at least the last 500 years, there were no other events similar to the drought of 2018, but this year I think it is really worse than 2018.”
Dutch farmers plan fresh protests as nitrogen ‘science’ is called into question The Dutch farmers’ movement Agractie has called on its supporters to stage new protest actions. Erik Luiten, one of the leaders of the movement, said in a video message that such actions could include organizing standstills at busy places. The farmers’ movement is massively supported by citizens.
FDA Knew 44% of Pregnant Women in Pfizer Trial Suffered Miscarriages It is indisputable that neither Pfizer nor the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is at all concerned about adverse events related to Pfizer’s clinical trial data. After all, they sought to hide it from the general public for 75 years. While blatantly unacceptable, the fact both parties knew that 44 percent of pregnant women participating in the Pfizer mRNA COVID-19 “vaccine” trial suffered miscarriages is immoral and seems incredibly corrupt.
10,000 people A DAY being killed by covid vaccines; worldwide fatalities likely larger than the HOLOCAUST Covid vaccines are currently killing an estimated 10,000 people a day worldwide, with total fatalities likely in the 5 – 12 million range. These numbers come from rigorous analysis of mortality data (excess deaths) following the introduction of covid vaccines in early 2021. Because excess deaths are very difficult for governments to hide, these excess deaths are emerging as the smoking gun for overall vaccine deaths.
Yuval Noah Harari Confirms What We’ve Long Suspected, That The Global Elites Are Actively Working To Reduce The World Of “Useless” People • Now The End Begins One of the global elites that came out of the shadows in a stunning way is Yuval Noah Harari, an advisor to the Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum, and a major contributor to the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the Great Reset. Harari has said a great many things about humanity’s coming enslavement to technology, he’s 100% in favor of it, and not only that, he is a major proponent of eugenics and the New World Order. Oh, almost forgot, one more thing, he hates the LORD God of the Bible. Harari has famously said that ‘we don’t need some God in the clouds handing down tablets’ because we’ve created our own cloud and our own tablets. Wow, just wow.
Wired Promotes White Genocide, Fantasizes About ‘A Future Without White People’ Wired Magazine promoted White genocide in a recent article that fantasized about “a future without White people” while profiling a book titled “The Last White Man,” a fictional novel authored by a Pakistani author who enjoys British citizenship and was educated in the United States. The book, written by Mohsin Hamid, dreams of the disappearance of White people from planet earth.
FIRST READING: Canada is getting real comfortable with killing its disabled Only months after Ottawa greenlit one of the world’s most liberal euthanasia regimes, a series of controversial state-sanctioned deaths have attracted growing international criticism that the Canadian health system now seems to be actively killing its disabled patients.
Pfizer’s Clinical Trial Results suggest COVID Vaccination can cause Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome I have discovered some extremely concerning findings in the Pfizer Phase I-II-III clinical trial data. The Sepsis death rate in the 21,926 double vaccinated group of the Pfizer Phase III Clinical trial was twenty-one times higher than normal, and the Cardiovascular death rate was two times higher than normal.
Covid Related Pay-outs Almost Double In 2021 Across UK’s Insurance Industry The United Kingdom is one of the largest insurance markets in the world, being home to both a very large domestic market and many multinational insurers who provide insurance services around the world. As of 2019, the insurance industry of the United Kingdom was the largest in Europe based on total domestic insurance premiums written (direct premiums and reinsurance ceded). At the same time, the UK was ranked fifth by life and non-life direct premiums written globally – surpassed only by the US, China, Germany, and Japan.
Pope Francis’ Vatican Brothers In Harm ….No longer in the business of saving souls, both Pope and Vatican are out there trying to save a dying off, government-hyped pandemic deviously describing vaccine development and distribution as “an Act of Love”:
“The foundation of our Empire was not laid in the gloomy age of Ignorance and Superstition, but at an Epocha when the rights of mankind were better understood and more clearly defined, than at any former period.” —George Washington (1783)
The Democrats would love nothing more than a show of violence from the Right.
Douglas Andrews
It’s all they have.
Back in January, on the much-ballyhooed anniversary of the Capitol riot, we noted that J6 was all the Democrats have. We noted that somewhere down deep inside themselves, Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer and Liz Cheney knew they wouldn’t be able to run on their record and that they’d have to instead keep that sad event and its attendant violence alive if they had any hope of avoiding the midterm freight train off there in the distance. Yep, J6 was all they had.
And it’s still all they have. More than 14,000 hours have passed since those four regrettable hours some 19 months ago, and yet that’s all these people want to talk about.
Has there ever been a more backward-looking bunch as today’s Democrat Party?
Yes, just as surely as events have branded the Party of Joe Biden as the party of open borders, rampant crime, critical race theory, military wokeness, failed foreign policy, bone-crushing inflation, and a moribund economy, it’s trying to brand the Republicans as the party of January 6, as the party of violence. Indeed, as our Mark Alexander wrote in the wake of Scranton Joey Robinette Unitus Biden’s inauguration, these desperate Democrats are just “baiting and begging for more violence.”
As bait goes, last week’s unprecedented FBI raid on former (and perhaps future) President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home was good stuff. If anything could provoke the ire of the normally mild-mannered Right, it’d be just that sort of malign mistreatment of the man behind the America First agenda.
All it did, though, was galvanize support behind Donald Trump and drive the people’s opinion of our once-esteemed FBI even deeper into the ground. Who could’ve imagined a bureau so thoroughly politicized and so utterly corrupt at the top that it now conjures up (admittedly overwrought) comparisons to Hitler’s Gestapo?
Oh, and the Mar-a-Lago raid also brought out the Left’s “civil war” hysterians. By that we mean the leftist Chicken Littles who swear the Right is gearing up to start shelling Fort Sumter. In a column appropriately titled “‘Civil War’ Porn,” author and historian Victor Davis Hanson writes: “As President Joe Biden’s polls stagnate and the midterms approach, we are now serially treated to yet another progressive melodrama about the dangers of a supposed impending radical right-wing violent takeover. This time the alleged threat is a Neanderthal desire for a ‘civil war.’”
“FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago reignites conservative calls for a civil war in the US,” shrieks the headline of a piece written by someone named Camila DeChalus. “Your ‘We Are Headed Toward a Civil War’ Friend Has a Point,” caterwauls another headline. And we suppose congratulations are in order for The Atlantic, whose headline heralds, “The New Era of Political Violence Is Here,” but whose more subdued subhead reads, “The danger is not organized civil war but individual Americans with deep resentments and delusions.”
Ah, yes, delusions — like the one about Hunter Biden’s laptop being legit, and about Trump’s “collusion” with Russia being a hoax, and about Big Tech and Big Media rigging the 2020 election. Those delusions.
Hanson isn’t buying any of it. He continues:
The buffoonish January 6 riot at the Capitol is often cited as proof of the insurrectionary right-wing movement. But the one-day riotous embarrassment never turned up any armed revolutionaries or plots to overthrow the government.
What it did do was give the Left an excuse to weaponize the nation’s capital with barbed wire and thousands of federal troops, in the greatest militarization of Washington D.C. since the Civil War.
In contrast, Antifa and BLM rioters were no one-day buffoons. They systematically organized a series of destructive and deadly riots across the country for over four months in the summer of 2020. The lethal toll of their work was over 35 dead, $2 billion in property losses, and hundreds of police officers injured.
The Democrats are baiting us, begging those of us on the Right to resort to violence between now and the midterms. In doing so, they’re playing with fire, and they’re tipping their hand. “Historic overreach is insurrectionary,” Hanson rightly concludes. “And those who warn most of some mythical civil war are those most likely to incite one.”
Let’s be sure to remember that between now and November 8.
It’s never quite this simple, but the role of “sanctuary jurisdiction” has been taken up by the Biden administration.
Nate Jackson
It wasn’t long ago that the federal government under Donald Trump was actually making progress enforcing federal immigration law. One of the big hurdles at that time was so-called “sanctuary cities,” leftist jurisdictions where local officials refused to aid (and would sometimes actively thwart) federal enforcement efforts. As with so many other things, Joe Biden has turned all that on its head with his intentional invasion of the border.
Everyone knows The Babylon Bee is a satire site (well, maybe the “fact-checkers” aren’t quite so sure), but the same company runs a non-satire site called, fittingly, Not the Bee. It specializes in treating ridiculous news exactly as it deserves to be treated. Thus, the headline there says it all: “Texas National Guard locks border gate, Biden’s Border Patrol comes and unlocks the gate to allow illegal aliens to stream through.”
Literally, that’s what happened, and there’s video to prove it. “For the first time, we witnessed the TX National Guard close & lock a gate on private property at a major crossing area in Eagle Pass, denying entry to migrants who just crossed illegally & expected to be let in,” tweeted Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin, who captured the video. “Border Patrol then came w/ a key & let them in for processing.”
(The screenshot above is taken from Melugin’s Twitter video.)
“The landowner allows both TX DPS/National Guard and Border Patrol to work here,” Melugin reported. “The gate has always been left open in the past. TX is now closing it, & migrants have to wait for Border Patrol to be let in.”
Texas Governor Greg Abbott was incredulous. “Unbelievable,” Abbott tweeted. “While Texas secures the border, the federal government is enabling illegal immigration. Biden’s open border policies caused this crisis.”
In Arizona, the story isn’t all that different. The state is using storage containers to create its own wall in certain sectors. When some of those containers were later found dislodged and knocked over, some blamed … windy conditions.
Governor Doug Ducey’s office isn’t buying it. “The idea that it was a weather-related event seems unlikely,” said his communication director, C.J. Karamargin. “These things weigh 8,800 pounds. There were two of them together — 8,800 pounds is basically the weight of a Ford F-450. We have a lot of strong winds in Arizona. You don’t see a lot of Ford F-450s flying around when we have strong winds.”
Moreover, the containers were dented and punctured, which Karamargin suggested means “some sort of equipment was used to move them.”
Even the federal government isn’t helping the federal government enforce federal law anymore. “The U.S. Marshals Service is drafting a sanctuary policy that would limit the agency’s ability to hold illegal immigrants for pickup by ICE,” reports The Washington Times. “Once the Marshals Service is finished processing an immigrant for its custody purposes, the person is to be released even if ICE has asked for a hold.” The policy is still in draft form, but it wouldn’t surprise us if it becomes reality.
Meanwhile, fentanyl continues to flood across the border, with July seizures breaking April’s record by 60%, as well as tripling the June number. The number of Americans dying of drug overdoses has already surpassed 100,000 annually, and most of those deaths are due to fentanyl coming across Biden’s open border.
We have often called Biden’s border crisis an invasion. Even a recent NPR poll reveals that a majority of Americans — and a plurality of Democrats — agree. The taxpayer-funded Democrat propagandists at NPR are none too happy about that, and most of the article is a stern rebuke of “xenophobic” “rhetoric” and “misleading claims,” for which NPR readily blames all of us yahoos in conservative media.
Perhaps taxpayer dollars would be better spent demanding answers and action from the people who created a border crisis — the people elected to represent American citizens.
As for Joe Biden, he doesn’t care much for border walls, originally canceling funding for Trump’s wall before quietly approving construction of small portions of it. After all, in his heart of hearts, Biden knows barriers work. That’s why he’s building a $500,000 taxpayer-funded security fence around the perimeter of his multimillion-dollar Delaware beach mansion. Walls for me but not for thee.
Oil drilling lease reinstated, judge orders partial release of Trump raid affidavit, 20 people to be charged with voter fraud in Florida, and more.
Thomas Gallatin & Jordan Candler
Cross-Examination
Oil drilling lease reinstated: By signing the Inflation Reduction Act, Joe Biden reinstated Lease Sale 257, a massive 80.8 million-acre offshore area in the Gulf of Mexico that is the largest oil and gas lease in U.S. history. The lease had been derailed following a court order after lawsuits were raised by ecofascist groups claiming that evaluation of the climate impact wasn’t properly analyzed. The Biden administration conveniently chose not to fight back, but the lease will now be allowed to go forward. “The legislation is clear and mandatory,” observed National Ocean Industries Association President Erik Milito. “Congress has acted, the lease must be issued and the lawsuit must be dismissed.” Meanwhile, the reason behind Senator Joe Manchin’s about-face on the Inflation Reduction Act boondoggle appears to be an agreement that Democrats would agree to his demand for legislation reforming the permitting process for leasing federal lands. Ecofascist groups have time and time again successfully delayed and prevented fossil fuel companies from extracting on federal lands by abusing the National Environmental Policy Act. The question, however, is whether Manchin has any leverage anymore.
Judge orders partial release of Trump raid affidavit: Judge Bruce Reinhart on Thursday ordered a partial release of the Justice Department’s affidavit behind the FBI’s unprecedented raid on Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. In his ruling, Reinhart stated, “I find that on the present record the Government has not met its burden of showing that the entire affidavit should remain sealed.” He then ordered, “The Government shall file under seal its proposed redactions along with a legal memorandum setting forth the justification for the proposed redactions” by next week. Just what potential crime is the DOJ investigating Trump for? That will likely go unanswered even after the partial affidavit is released. This is due to the DOJ claiming that its investigation is still “open” and “in its early stages” and therefore most of the pertinent sensitive information will be redacted. Meanwhile, media outlets are arguing for full disclosure of the affidavit, contending that “the public interest could not be greater,” as raiding the home of a former president represents “one of the most significant events in the nation’s history.” The documents the FBI allegedly seized included several top secret, secret, and confidential documents. Trump claims that as president he had the authority to declassify documents and had given a “standing order” to do so. A statement from his team says the “documents removed from the Oval Office and taken to the residence were deemed to be declassified the moment he removed them.”
Twenty people to be charged with voter fraud in Florida: Highlighting his commitment to upholding election integrity, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced on Thursday that the state is charging 20 individuals, most of whom were in Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach Counties, with voter fraud. “These folks voted illegally. … They are disqualified from voting because they have been convicted of either murder or sexual assault,” DeSantis explained. “That is against the law and now they’re gonna pay the price for it.” Voter fraud is classified as a third-degree felony in Florida and holds a penalty of up to five years in prison. Earlier this year, DeSantis signed legislation that created an election fraud investigation unit, elevated ballot harvesting to a felony-level crime, and raised fines to $50,000 against political groups found guilty of violating election laws. Election integrity matters, and it’s good to see that DeSantis is taking it seriously.
Brian Stelter out at CNN after network cancels his show (Daily Wire)
Rainbow-colored fentanyl pills pouring over southern border hit American cities (Daily Wire)
No one left behind? 800 Americans evacuated from Afghanistan since Taliban takeover (Politico)
Judge blocks DeSantis’s “Stop WOKE Act,” says Florida feels like a “First Amendment upside down” (The Hill)
“No regard for American families”: Consumer group issues alert over BlackRock’s woke crusade (Fox Business) | BlackRock faces scrutiny from 19 state AGs over ESG investments (NY Post)
Red states giving the boot to woke firms seeking government business (Washington Times)
Oregon governor race moves to “toss-up,” pointing to possible historic GOP win (Daily Wire)
“Transgender” student Grant Sikes rejected from every University of Alabama sorority (NY Post)
After two years of lockdowns, masking, and related wrongs, many parents are awakening to the prospect of school choice.
Brian Mark Weber
It’s that time of year again.
As families return from vacations, they start thinking about sending their kids back to school (if they’re not back already). But in the post-pandemic era, there’s an increasing likelihood that some parents aren’t sending their children back to the same school. In particular, data suggest that many parents have had enough with public school education altogether.
“In the past two years, a mass exodus of over 1.2 million students has left the public school system as parents seek alternative education routes, such as public charter schools, private schools, and homeschooling,” writes Marjorie Jackson at The Daily Signal. Jackson adds that some parents “believed the school’s handling of the pandemic was unsatisfactory, due to lockdowns, which inconvenienced many families, as well as masking and vaccination policies. Others were unhappy after taking a closer look at their local public school curriculum and wanted more say in what their children were learning.”
Many parents who wanted their kids to learn how to read and write, not learn about critical race theory or gender theory, were targeted not only by the media and their school districts but by Attorney General Merrick Garland. In 2021, the National School Boards Association asked Garland to investigate parents who had the audacity to speak out at school board meetings (the NSBA later disavowed the letter).
Ideology aside, the evidence is crystal clear that school lockdowns harmed our children and had a detrimental impact on their education. Data show lower test scores across the board, especially for students in low-income areas, but many parents also observed depression and anxiety in their children due to extended periods of isolation from their friends and teachers.
“The decline in children’s well-being and mental health is reflected in recent studies,” reports the New York Post. “According to a recent survey from the Public Policy Institute of California, more than four in 10 parents say their children have fallen behind academically.”
Heading into the new academic year, many schools around the country are finally opening their doors, although, incredibly, some school districts are still mandating masks. But not everyone is ready to send their kids back to school. Despite the evidence showing online learning isn’t good for kids, 38 states have set up permanent virtual schools. That includes almost all of the 20 biggest school districts in the country.
For all these reasons, parents have had enough. Fortunately, something very good has emerged from a bad situation: school choice.
“Last year, 19 states enacted 32 new or expanded school choice policies, making 2021 ‘the year of school choice,’” the Washington Examiner reports. “Now, a total of 21 states and Washington, D.C., offer school choice programs that give parents financial assistance and private school options.”
The Examiner adds, “Momentum has grown, and in 2022, several states adopted policies that empowered parents to pull their children out of traditional public schools and weigh other options, such as charter schools (tuition-free public schools that are independently run), education savings accounts (state-supervised funds that parents can use to pay for a selection of education options), learning pods (a parent-organized small group of children who come together to learn and socialize), and open enrollment (allowing students to go to another school district if it has space).”
The State Policy Network outlines many positive changes regarding school choice in states around the country, including transparency in what schools are teaching, expanding charter school access, and even allowing parents to choose which public school they want their children to attend.
We’ve had a rough couple of years, and so have our kids. But there’s good news out there. The unintended consequence of COVID-19 is that parents are finally waking up and finding ways to give their kids a better education.
Federal prosecutors are having to wade through a deluge of fraud cases to get taxpayer money back.
Emmy Griffin
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government sent money to the American people using different pieces of legislation including the American Rescue Plan. This infusion of money into an economy that was put into an unnecessary coma was meant to avoid a long and painful recession. However, many people took advantage of the disorganized and unguarded free money from the government. Now the Department of Justice, the Department of Labor, and others have their hands full tracking down all the people who defrauded taxpayers. Some criminals took millions of dollars.
The scale of the fraudulent activity is massive. Federal prosecutors, the FBI, the Secret Service, the IRS, and even the Postal Service are sorting through the different fraud cases. The Justice Department has estimated that at least $6 billion of the relief money was defrauded, though The Washington Post reported that unemployment schemes may have allowed for up to $163 billion to be stolen.
According to The New York Times, “The federal government has already charged 1,500 people with defrauding pandemic-aid programs, and more than 450 people have been convicted so far.” There are so many fraud cases involving small business loans that investigators aren’t even going after people who stole “paltry” sums like $10,000. The Times article goes on to describe some of the criminals who were not subtle and incredibly greedy in their fraudulent schemes. What it neglects to cover is the insane amount of government workers who also took advantage of the pandemic cash flow.
People working in their state’s unemployment department stole identities and filed for unemployment assistance; Social Security workers got approved for government benefits using a similar trick; postal workers stole stimulus checks; and city workers charged for pandemic-related jobs they didn’t actually do.
On August 5, President Joe Biden sent a message to these fraudsters: “My message to those cheats out there is this: You can’t hide. We’re going to find you.” That same day, he signed a bill designed to help the federal government prosecute these crimes.
The president is joined by Pandemic Response Accountability Chairman Michael Horowitz, who said: “You can’t have a system where crime pays. It undercuts the entire system of justice. It undercuts people’s faith in these programs, in their government. You can’t have that.”
That is true, of course. If only that vision of justice and social order was carried out across the country, where violent criminals are allowed to go free thanks to district attorneys like George Gascon. Some lawyers for the pandemic-aid fraudsters are using that tact in their clients’ defense.
In the case of Richard Ayvazyan, his lawyer said that the government was asking for it by handing out money without safeguards in place. The government, he explained, was “handing out money with no checks, and a lot of people took advantage of that. It’s a honey trap. Richard Ayvazyan fell into that trap.”
This line of reasoning — which would likely have gotten Ayvazyan off with a Soros-backed DA — did not dissuade the judge from sentencing him to 17 years in prison. Ayvazyan chose to steal from the government; that’s on him. There is, however, a kernel of truth to the government making theft easy.
It’ll take years to sort out this mess. The hard truth is that the federal government should have had stricter guidelines for the dispersement of money. It shouldn’t have relied on the honor system. As British screenwriter Troy Kennedy Martin once said: “I trust everyone. I just don’t trust the devil inside them.”
Had the government simply taken a less trusting approach, many of these criminals would have been prevented from stealing money. It’s government inefficiency at its most galling. Now Big Brother has to spend thousands of man hours sorting through the mess it created. The very intention of dispersing that money was to prevent inflation. How’d that work out?
Democrats have a long history of lying to the American people via their dubiously named pieces of legislation.
Thomas Gallatin
What’s in a name? Well, when it comes from Democrat lawmakers, the answer would be everything, or nothing. Everything in that the names Democrats affix to their significant pieces of legislation are designed to sell them to the American people, and nothing when it comes to what’s actually in these bills related to the name.
Like a slick, fast-talking used car salesman, Democrats name their bills in order to deceive rather than inform the American public as to what their legislation actually does. The recently passed Inflation Reduction Act is just the latest example, albeit one of the more egregious, of the Democrats’ name game.
The bill is essentially a slimmed-down version of Joe Biden’s Build Back Better tax-and-spend boondoggle. That bill failed to pass, so what did the Democrats do? They cut some of the spending out of it, slapped a new name on it, and insisted, despite analysis from the Congressional Budge Office finding a “negligible” impact on inflation, that it would reduce the current 40-year-high inflation rate.
Well, now that the bill has been signed into law by Joe Biden, Democrats like West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin are tacitly admitting the obvious — the bill really won’t reduce inflation. “Well, immediately it’s not” going to reduce inflation, Manchin conceded when asked about the name and supposed purpose of the legislation. He then equivocated, “We’ve never [said] anything would happen immediately, like turn the switch on and off.”
Uh, Joe, the bill’s name basically makes that claim.
As noted above, this disingenuous naming of legislation is nothing new for Democrats. Think of the grossly misnamed Affordable Care Act that has done nothing but increase the price of healthcare and health insurance. There’s the $1.9 trillion spending boondoggle known as the American Rescue Plan, Biden’s first big bill passed in 2021 and the one responsible for putting the country into this current sky-high inflation mess. The only reason inflation needs reducing is that Democrats spent a bunch of money last year. Spending a bunch more this year is hardly the solution. Another recent example is the Respect for Marriage Act, which utterly destroys the historical definition of marriage. Some “respect.”
We could go on, but what makes this practice of deceitfully naming legislation all the more insidious is that while the Democrats and their cohorts in the Leftmedia and Big Tech are wringing their hands over the problem of “misinformation,” they drop some of the biggest misinformation bombs on the American people — at taxpayers’ expense. And the political establishment class wonders why so many people voted for Donald Trump. Well, government malpractice like this goes a long way toward answering that question.
Douglas Andrews: FBI’s Wray Ignores Senate Republicans — Senator Chuck Grassley says whistleblower allegations reveal a “deeply rooted political infection” within the bureau.
Ron Helle: Shallow Water — The pervasive biblical illiteracy in the Church in America has caused us to be weak and ineffective in impacting the society around us.
LGB Drop the T — The “T” in LGBT hitched a ride a few years back, and a growing number of homosexuals thinks it’s time for gender dysphoric people to get out.
“Communism never sleeps, never changes its objectives, nor must we. Our first duty to freedom is to defend our own. Then one day we might export a little to those peoples who have to live without it.” —Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013)
For the Record
“People say the federal government seems big, maybe bigger than ever. Well, it actually is the largest employer in the world. The federal government, nothing else comes close — not Google, not Amazon, not the Communist Party of China, nothing. How many people work for the United States government? Let’s put it this way. There are more than 100 countries around the world whose total populations (that is, every man, woman and child) are smaller than our federal workforce — entire countries, many of them. … So, what do all those people who work there do every day? You may be wondering that. Well, it’s a good question. Actually, nobody’s really sure, including many of the employees themselves. Fundamentally, the federal government is a mystery. Like the universe, it goes on forever. It makes you feel small thinking about it, which is probably the point.” —Tucker Carlson
“If a subsequent administration withdrew from the [Iran nuclear] deal, they’d have to pay damages to Iran. That’s been reported in the press in the past couple of weeks. … If the Biden administration negotiated those kinds of provisions to harm the United States of America if a future president withdrew from the deal, that verges on treasonous. It’s one thing to say we want to go into this deal and we hope future presidents stay. It’s another to impair the United States itself to reduce the possibility of leaving the deal.” —former National Security Adviser John Bolton
“If the Inflation Reduction Act truly reduces inflation, then we can start with a conversation about the nuts and bolts of the bill. But we’ve come to the point where nothing actually means what it says. And that gets us into an emperor’s new clothes kind of mentality, where it’s not one kid in the crowd going, ‘Hey, that guy’s naked.’ It’s the whole country going, ‘Wait. Again with this? Again with the name of a thing that doesn’t seem to reflect the thing?’” —television host Mike Rowe
The BIG Lie
“Democrats voted to cut the deficit to fight inflation by having the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share. Every single Republican opposed requiring big corporations to pay a minimum tax of 15%, instead of some getting away with paying $0 in federal income taxes.” —President Joe Biden
Non Compos Mentis Awards
“I’ve covered extremism and violent ideologies around the world over my career. Have never come across a political force more nihilistic, dangerous & contemptible than today’s Republicans. Nothing close.” —Financial Times Associate Editor Edward Luce | “I agree. And I was the CIA Director.” —General Michael Hayden
“Hunter Biden literally could have had the corpses of children in his basement. I would not have cared. … Whatever [the] scope of Joe Biden’s corruption is … it is infinitesimal compared to the corruption we know Trump is involved in. … Trump University, as a story, is worse than anything that could be in Hunter Biden’s laptop, in my view. Right? Now that doesn’t answer the people who say, ‘It’s still completely unfair to not have looked at the laptop in a timely way and to have shut down the New York Post’s Twitter account. Like … that’s a left-wing conspiracy to deny the presidency to Donald Trump.’ Absolutely it was. … But I think it was warranted.” —author Sam Harris
In case you missed it — editors’ picks for top analysis and quotes.
Publisher’s Note: For the next two weeks, under our daily Executive News Summary section, we will be posting “On This Date” analysis of events we posted a year ago, in chronological order, related to the most disgraceful military exfil in American history — Biden’s deadly surrender and retreat from Afghanistan.
Mark Alexander: “In what f***ing world was it a good idea to just hand over a country to these people?” asked former Navy Seal Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX). Anyone — ANYONE — who believes that the resurgence of the Taliban and their ISIS-K and al-Qa’ida thugs would have occurred under a second Donald Trump term is so deeply delusional as to be in a state of complete denial. Likewise, anyone who believes Vladimir Putin would have dared to invade Ukraine if Trump were still president is equally delusional. Every impenitent Biden/Harris supporter voted for the Taliban takeover and Putin’s invasion; voted for the terror that has besieged millions of Afghan and Ukrainian men, women, and children; and voted for the slaughter that continues. The blood of innocents is on your hands. … Images of desperate Afghan citizens clinging to the outside of C-17 transports and falling to their deaths as those planes departed should haunt Biden et al. for eternity.
Doug Andrews: Back in Wyoming, it was a crushing 37-point defeat for Cheney, as the Cowboy State’s discerning voters clearly weren’t swayed by the laughable claim leveled by her embittered dad in a last-minute advertising blitz: “In our nation’s 246-year history,” said former Vice President Dick Cheney, “there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump.” Yeah, right. As for Cheney’s soon-to-be-former congressional colleagues, we think New York’s Claudia Tenney summed things up well: “Breathtakingly arrogant speech by loser Liz Cheney,” she tweeted. “Orchestrating show trials contrary to safeguards guaranteed by the Bill of Rights is not Lincolnesque. On the contrary, Cheney’s actions mirror precisely the authoritarianism our founders fought valiantly against.”
Nate Jackson: We don’t trust Director Rochelle Walensky’s plan to correct pandemic mistakes. … This is not some incredible introspective admission of guilt and promise of change; this is about building an even bigger bureaucracy and accumulating more power for unaccountable hacks. The only “pivot” here is a power grab while pretending to fix a few incorrect incentives and bureaucratic errors with a smattering of false humility.
Emmy Griffin: Federal prosecutors are having to wade through a deluge of fraud cases to get taxpayer money back. Now Big Brother has to spend thousands of man hours sorting through the mess it created. The very intention of dispersing that money was to prevent inflation. How’d that work out?
Thomas Gallatin: Is a civil war brewing within the Rainbow Mafia over “transgenderism”? Try as one might, getting oil and water to mix simply doesn’t work. Yet despite that fact, the Rainbow Mafia has been trying to defy reality with its ever-expanding mix of sexual deviants, all held together under one common scrambled-alphabet banner. Lately, though, that banner has begun to fray as the obviously divergent groups are starting to chafe under an ideology that is attempting to hold together that which is a logical fallacy.
This week’s BIG Lie: “Democrats voted to cut the deficit to fight inflation by having the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share. Every single Republican opposed requiring big corporations to pay a minimum tax of 15%, instead of some getting away with paying $0 in federal income taxes.” —President Joe Biden
Grand delusions: “After four years of a president who relished creating chaos, Americans are seeing what it looks like to have a president and a Congress that’s focused on delivering results that make their lives better. Mr. President, you’ve restored dignity, respect, and a sense of action back to the Oval Office.” —Senate Democrat Leader Chuck Schumer
Non Compos Mentis Award: “Mother Earth gets angry from time to time, and this legislation will help us to address all of that.” —Nancy Pelosi on the so-called Inflation Reduction Act
Getting it right: “Isn’t it almost Orwellian? How can you call it the Inflation Reduction Act when the nonpartisan experts say it’s not gonna bring inflation down?” —ABC’s Jonathan Karl to Karine Jean-Pierre
Veep Thoughts With Kamala Harris: “Equity as a concept says recognize that everyone has the same capacity, but in order for them to have equal opportunity to reach that capacity, well, we must pay attention to this issue of equity.”
Reality check: “During the 2020 election, Starbucks ran ads encouraging Americans to vote by mail. Now, Starbucks is trying to suspend mail-in ballots in their nationwide union elections due to alleged misconduct in the voting process. You can’t make it up!” —Michael Seifert
Dumb and dumber: “I agree. And I was the CIA Director.” —Michael Hayden concurring with this extreme delusional assertion by Financial Times scribe Edward Luce: “I’ve covered extremism and violent ideologies around the world over my career. Have never come across a political force more nihilistic, dangerous & contemptible than today’s Republicans. Nothing close.”
From the leftist brain trust: “Hunter Biden literally could have had the corpses of children in his basement. I would not have cared. … Whatever [the] scope of Joe Biden’s corruption is … it is infinitesimal compared to the corruption we know Trump is involved in. … Trump University, as a story, is worse than anything that could be in Hunter Biden’s laptop, in my view. Right? Now that doesn’t answer the people who say, ‘It’s still completely unfair to not have looked at the laptop in a timely way and to have shut down the New York Post’s Twitter account. Like … that’s a left-wing conspiracy to deny the presidency to Donald Trump.’ Absolutely it was. … But I think it was warranted.” —author Sam Harris
This is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.
PART I (15:27 – 15:27) The Power of the Liberal Arts: The Promise of Understanding the World Around Us and the World Within Us — And How Modern Higher Education Has Lost Its Mind and Soul
PART II (19:54 – 19:54) What Should I Study to Prepare for Service to Christ for the Rest of My Life? — Dr. Mohler Responds to a Letter from a High School Student Listener of The Briefing
PART III (24:35 – 24:35) How Should I Manage My Time So That I Don’t Waste It? By the Way, Where Do I Find the Time to Sleep? — Dr. Mohler Responds to a Letter from a High School Student Listener of The Briefing
FOX Business host Stuart Varney argues CNN ‘were founding members of the Trump derangement club.’ … STUART VARNEY: CNN anchor, Brian Stelter is out. His show, “reliable sources,” canceled. CNN is “in transition!” It has new owners who want change.
ARRESTS AT THE US-MEXICO BORDER HAVING THE COUNTRY ON PACE TO SHATTER PREVIOUS APPREHENSION NUMBERS. MIGRANT CROSSINGS ARE HAPPENING WHILE BORDER STATE GOVERNORS CONTINUE TO TELL THE PRESIDENT’S ADMINISTRATION TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE CRISIS. FEDERAL JUDGE BRUCE REINHART HAS ORDERED THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT TO BRING FORTH PROPOSED REDACTIONS OF THE “PROBABLE CAUSE” AFFIDAVIT USED TO SEARCH FORMER PRESIDENT TRUMP’S MAR-A-LAGO HOME. BOSTON CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL IS UNDER FIRE AFTER A NOW DELETED VIDEO PROMOTING ‘GENDER AFFIRMING HYSTERECTOMIES’ FOR YOUNG GIRLS WAS POSTED TO THEIR WEBSITE. PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY CHAIRMAN MAHMOUD ABBAS IS WALKING BACK COMMENTS HE MADE ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST. GRAPES, OLIVES AND POMEGRANATES: THE HOLY LAND IS FILLED WITH FRUITS THAT ARE PROVEN TO PROMOTE GOOD HEALTH. NOW, AN ISRAELI COMPANY IS USING CUTTING- EDGE TECHNOLOGY TO EXTRACT THE GREATEST BENEFITS FROM THESE PLANTS…. AND PUT THEM IN PILL FORM. ANNE WILSON IS AN AWARD-WINNING RECORDING ARTIST WITH A BREAK- OUT HIT TITLED, “MY JESUS”. ANNE NEVER SET HER SIGHTS ON A MUSIC CAREER: SHE WANTED TO BE AN ASTRONAUT.
The FBI division overseeing the investigation of former President Trump’s handling of classified material at his Mar-a-Lago residence is also a focus of Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation of the bureau’s alleged abuses of power and political bias during its years-long Russiagate probe of Trump.
The FBI’s nine-hour, 30-agent raid of the former president’s Florida estate is part of a counterintelligence case run out of Washington – not Miami, as has been widely reported – according to FBI case documents and sources with knowledge of the matter. The bureau’s counterintelligence division led the 2016-2017 Russia “collusion” investigation of Trump, codenamed “Crossfire Hurricane.”
Although the former head of Crossfire Hurricane, Peter Strzok, was fired after the disclosure of his vitriolic anti-Trump tweets, several members of his team remain working in the counterintelligence unit, the sources say, even though they are under active investigation by both Durham and the bureau’s disciplinary arm, the Office of Professional Responsibility. The FBI declined to respond to questions about any role they may be taking in the Mar-a-Lago case.
In addition, a key member of the Crossfire team – Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten – has continued to be involved in politically sensitive investigations, including the ongoing federal probe of potentially incriminating content found on the abandoned laptop of President Biden’s son Hunter Biden, according to recent correspondence between the Senate Judiciary Committee and FBI Director Christopher Wray. FBI whistleblowers have alleged that Auten tried to falsely discredit derogatory evidence against Hunter Biden during the 2020 campaign by labeling it Russian “disinformation,” an assessment that caused investigative activity to cease.
Auten has been allowed to work on sensitive cases even though he has been under internal investigation since 2019, when Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz referred him for disciplinary review for his role in vetting a Hillary Clinton campaign-funded dossier used by the FBI to obtain a series of wiretap warrants to spy on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Horowitz singled out Auten for cutting a number of corners in the verification process and even allowing information he knew to be incorrect slip into warrant affidavits and mislead the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court.
In congressional testimony this month, Wray confirmed that “a number of” former Crossfire Hurricane team members are still employed at the bureau while undergoing disciplinary review. In the meantime, Wray has walled off the former Russiagate investigators only from participating in FISA wiretap applications, according to the sources.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has asked Wray for copies of recent case files and reports generated by Auten and whether he is included among the team the FBI has assembled to determine which of the seized Trump records fall within the scope of its counterespionage investigation and which fall outside of it.
Some former FBI officials worry that Auten, a top bureau expert on Russia and nuclear warfare, will have a hand in analyzing the boxes of documents agents seized from Trump’s home on Aug. 8 to help determine if any of the alleged Top Secret material he kept there might have been compromised, potentially putting national security at risk.
“It is a disgrace that Auten is still even employed by the bureau,” said 27-year FBI veteran Michael Biasello. “I would substitute other analysts and agents.”
An examination of the bureau agents involved in the Mar-a-Lago raid reveals other connections between them and FBI officials who played key roles in advancing the Russiagate hoax.
Sources told RealClearInvestigations that Jay Bratt, the top counterintelligence official in Justice’s national security division, who happens to be a Democratic National Committee donor, has been coordinating the Mar-a-Lago investigation with Alan Kohler, who heads the FBI’s counterintelligence division.
Kohler replaced Bill Priestap in that post after Priestap stepped down from the bureau amid criticism of his role in the Russiagate probe. Kohler had worked at FBI headquarters under Priestap, specializing in countering Russian intelligence threats.
Before that, he worked in London as the FBI’s liaison with British intelligence and law enforcement. The sources say Kohler was close to Stefan Halper, an academic and longtime FBI contractor whom the bureau ran as an informant in a failed effort to suborn Trump campaign officials. He also worked closely with Stephen Somma, a lead case agent in the Crossfire Hurricane probe whom Horowitz said was “primarily responsible” for some of the worst misconduct in the FISA warrant abuse scandal. Somma is a counterintelligence investigator in the FBI’s New York field office, where he has been reassigned to the China desk.
In 2019, Kohler was promoted to special agent in charge of the counterintelligence division at the FBI’s Washington field Office, where he worked alongside then-assistant agent-in-charge Timothy Thibault, who was reassigned by Wray just days prior to the Mar-a-Lago raid, after whistleblowers raised questions about political bias. They asserted that Thibault, who has taken aim at Trump and Republicans on social media, worked with Auten to falsely discredit evidence of alleged money laundering and other activities against Hunter Biden and prevent agents from investigating them.
The Washington field office’s counterintelligence division is now run by Anthony Riedlinger, who previously worked at FBI headquarters as a section chief under Priestap. Some of the agents involved in the raid on Trump’s home came from that Washington field office, according to the sources and FBI case documents.
Bratt, the top counterintelligence official at Justice, traveled to Mar-a-Lago in early June and personally inspected the storage facility while interacting with both Trump and one of his lawyers. Trump allowed the three FBI agents Bratt brought with him to open boxes in the storage room and look through them. They left with some documents. After leaving, Bratt made a request to Trump’s lawyer for increased security at the facility and asked to see surveillance footage from the security cameras. The lawyer complied with the requests. Months went by before the Justice Department took the politically explosive step of sending FBI agents unannounced to Trump’s home, seizing documents, photos, and other items not just from the storage facility but from multiple rooms on the property, including the former president’s office.
Former assistant FBI director Chris Swecker said the search warrant that agents obtained is quite wide-ranging. He pointed out that it authorized the seizure of any information in any form related to “national defense information,” which he said “does not necessarily include classified material.”
“This is a huge, broad search warrant and a huge, broad investigation leveled against the former president,” Swecker said.
What’s more, he said the physical search of the former president’s residence was far more sweeping than first reported and included unsupervised snooping in several dozen bedrooms, as well as numerous storage rooms and closets, including those of the former first lady. FBI agents took numerous boxes and containers of documents and other material, including several binders of photos and even three passports held by the former president.
Although Attorney General Merrick Garland has said that the DOJ seeks to “narrowly scope any search that is undertaken,” details of the warrant reveal agents had the authority to seize entire boxes of records – including those potentially covered by attorney-client privilege and executive privilege – if just a single document inside the container were marked with a classified marking.
Agents were allowed to also seize any containers or boxes “found together with” ones containing classified papers, according to ATTACHMENT B (“Property to be seized”) of the warrant. In addition, the FBI agents were given the authority to confiscate “any government and/or presidential records created between Jan. 20, 2017, and Jan. 20, 2021,” which covers Trump’s full term in office. That meant they were able to take any item related to the Trump administration.
All told, dozens of boxes and containers were removed from Trump’s residence, very few of which actually contained classified information, the sources said.
According to Federal Election Commission records, Bratt has given exclusively to Democrats, including at least $800 to the Democratic National Committee. The sources said he is close to David Laufman, whom he replaced as the top counterintelligence official at Justice. An Obama donor, Laufman helped oversee the Russiagate probe, as well as the Clinton email case, which also involved classified information.
A Senate investigator told RCI that Laufman was the “mastermind” behind the strategy to dust off and “weaponize” the rarely enforced statutory relic – the Foreign Agents Registration Act – against Trump campaign officials, a novel legal move that the investigator noted is similar to the department’s current attempts to enforce the Presidential Records Act against Trump – which is a civil, not a criminal, statute – by invoking the Espionage Act of 1917.
Laufman signed off on the wiretapping of Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, which the Department of Justice inspector general determined was conducted under false pretenses involving doctored email, suppression of exculpatory evidence, and other malfeasance.
Suddenly resurfacing as a media surrogate for the Justice Department defending the Mar-a-Lago raid, Laufman has been a key source for stories by the Washington Post, CNN, and other outlets.
On CNN, for instance, he claimed the documents seized from Trump’s storage were “particularly stunning and particularly egregious,” and their discovery “completely validates the government’s investigation” into the former president – though he quickly added, “Whether this investigation transforms into an outright criminal prosecution remains to be seen.”
Swecker said that there is strong reason to fear that the FBI’s counterintelligence division might politicize this case.
“For sure, the FBI has dug themselves into a huge hole because of how they handled the Clinton (email) case and then Crossfire Hurricane and Hunter Biden,” Swecker said. “Myself and many of my colleagues think they are treading on very thin ice here.”
“Unfortunately,” he added, “you can’t recuse an entire FBI division.”
Patel: ‘It’s Just Insane’ Former federal prosecutor and Trump administration official Kash Patel said the FBI may have a personal interest – and a potential conflict – in seizing the records stored by Trump.
He noted that Trump in October 2020 authorized the declassification of all the investigative records generated from the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane as well as the Clinton email investigation, codenamed “Midyear Exam,” and he said that the FBI may have confiscated some of those records in its raid, ensuring they won’t be made public. In addition, he said, the agency may be digging for other documents to try to justify, retroactively, their questionable, politically-tinged 2016 opening of the Trump-Russia “collusion” case, which came up embarrassingly short on evidence.
“Tragically, the same FBI characters that were involved in Russiagate are the same counterintel guys running this ‘national security investigation’ against Trump,” said Patel, who deposed Crossfire Hurricane team members as a former House Intelligence Committee investigator.
Patel noted that the Horowitz report indicated FBI analyst Auten hid exculpatory information about Trump’s adviser Page from other investigators and the FISA court, which should be more than enough to keep him at arm’s length from other investigations involving Trump.
“And to top it all off, this guy admits [to Horowitz’s investigators] he’s unrepentant about his role in making up the biggest hoax in election history, and Wray still lets him be a supervisor at the FBI,” he said. “It’s just insane.”
The Justice Department’s national security division has ultimate authority over the grand-jury probe of Trump for possible violations of the Espionage Act, including alleged mishandling of classified material – the same statutes invoked in the Clinton email investigation. (In that case, in contrast, the FBI never searched the former secretary of state’s Chappaqua, N.Y., mansion, where she set up an unsecured basement server to send and receive at least 110 classified emails and where she also received government documents by fax.)
Former FBI counterintelligence official and lawyer Mark Wauck said he is troubled by signs that the same cast of characters from the Russiagate scandal appears to be involved in the Mar-a-Lago investigation.
“If these people, who were part of a major hoax that involved criminal activity and displays of bias and seriously flawed judgment, are still involved, then that’s a major scandal,” he said in an interview.
This RealClearInvestigations article was republished by The Gateway Pundit with permission.
Paul Sperry is the former D.C. bureau chief for Investor’s Business Daily, Hoover Institution media fellow, author of several books, including bestseller INFILTRATION
According to a Rasmussen poll published on Thursday, 53% of voters now agree with the statement that there is “a group of politicized thugs at the top of the FBI who are using the FBI … as Joe Biden’s personal Gestapo.” The Gestapo were the official secret police of Nazi Germany.
The sentiment resonates with Republicans in particular, with 76% agreeing with the statement. Democrats, on the other hand, mainly (57%) disagree. Among those affiliated with either party, 49% agree with the characterization of the FBI as President Joe Biden’s “personal Gestapo” and 38% disagree.
The statement was originally made by Roger Stone, an adviser to former President Donald Trump, in an November 28, 2021 interview on John Catsimatidis’ WABC 770 AM radio show. In the interview, Stone criticized both the FBI’s raid on the home of James O’Keefe, Project Veritas founder (conducted as part of an investigation into reports of a stolen diary belonging to Biden’s daughter Ashley), and what he argued was “harassment” by the House committee investigating the January 6 Capitol Hill protests. Stone, himself, was subject to a pre-dawn FBI raid executed by over a dozen special agents in tactical gear in January 2019.
In the survey, questioners asked: “Did the FBI’s recent raid on the Florida home of former President Donald Trump make you trust the FBI more or trust the FBI less? Or did the Trump raid not make much difference in your trust in the FBI?”
While half of Democrat respondents said the Mar-a-Lago raid made them trust the FBI more, 70% of Republicans responded that the raid made them trust the FBI less. Nearly half (46%) of unaffiliated voters said the raid made them trust the FBI less, whereas only 18% said it improved their trust of the agency.
Perceived differences in treatment by the FBI of persons of interest, depending on their party affiliation, may be a factor in this skew. Republican Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio) raised the different approaches taken to Trump and Hunter Biden.
\u201cPresident Trump does nothing wrong. Has his house raided by the FBI. \n\nHunter Biden does everything wrong. And the FBI tries to shut down the case.\u201d
Concerning general approval of the FBI, 75% of Democrats hold a favorable opinion of the bureau. That’s a increase in support by 12 points since December 2021. Only 30% of Republicans hold a favorable impression of the FBI.
FBI Director Christopher Wray is regarded by 15% of voters to be better than those in the job before him, and is thought to be worst than most of his predecessors by twice as many voters (30%).Fox News’ Tucker Carlson recently suggested that beyond its raid on Mar-a-Lago, the FBI is undermining the public’s trust elsewhere, citing the bureau’s alleged role in the Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping plot.
\u201cThis week, thanks to testimony and cross-examination in the re-trial, we’re getting the actual story of how the FBI engineered the Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping plot. \n\nhttps://t.co/cAPFBhZisR\u201d
(Aaron Kliegman – Just the News) The Justice Department has come under intense scrutiny for allegedly weaponizing federal law enforcement to target allies of former President Donald Trump and critics of the Biden administration, stoking fears of a politicized, two-tiered justice system riddled with double standards.
In recent weeks, lawmakers, legal experts, and whistleblowers have decried the department for appearing to have an anti-conservative bias and using unnecessary, strong-arm tactics against those deemed political opponents.
The trend prompted longtime Republican David Bossie, the former deputy campaign manager to Trump, to declare Tuesday that it appeared America had another “enemies list” like the one made famous by Richard Nixon a half century ago. View article →
TODAY’S GUEST: Joel Veldkamp is the international communications officer for Christian Solidarity International. He was born and raised in Iowa, and currently lives in Geneva, Switzerland. He lived in Damascus, Syria, in 2010-2011 working as an English teacher, and thereafter worked for CSI for three years in Washington DC. He received his master’s degree in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Chicago in 2016, and his PhD in history in 2021, for a dissertation about the Christians of Aleppo under the French occupation (1920-1936). He has traveled on CSI project trips to Nigeria, South Sudan, Iraq, Egypt, and Armenia. He speaks Arabic, French, and some Armenian.
Founded over 40 years ago, CSI is an international Christian human rights organization, campaigning for religious liberty and human dignity, and assisting victims of religious persecution, victimized children and victims of catastrophe. CSI delivers emergency food assistance, medical treatment, and other lifesaving aid to victims of religious persecution and natural disasters in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Nigeria, South Sudan, Pakistan, and other hotspots around the globe. CSI is currently the only organization working to liberate Christians and other South Sudanese forced into slavery by government-backed forces during the Sudanese civil war.
At last week’s International Ministerial Conference on Freedom of Religion and Belief, Dr. Joel Veldkamp, International Communications Officer for Christian Solidarity International (CSI), presented first-hand evidence of anti-Christian sectarian violence in Nigeria after a recent fact-finding visit to the area. Fiona Bruce, the United Kingdom’s Special Envoy for Religious Freedom and Belief, expressed frustration…
“Rather than talk endlessly about what’s in the “secret affidavit,” we can reasonably conclude that the real reason the FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home is that Trump was in the process of proving in court that Hillary and the Democrats were behind Crossfire Hurricane. These documents in his home were part of the proof.”
(Cliff Kincaid – RenewAmerica) Professor Jonathan Turley was on Fox saying he had supported the confirmation of Merrick Garland as Attorney General but now says he is disappointed in Garland’s political pursuit of Trump. Turley still doesn’t get it. Garland is an agent of Barack Hussein Obama, who approved Hillary’s plan to launch the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation of Trump.
Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at The George Washington University Law School who once gave testimony denouncing “Eugene McCarthyism” before Congress. He was supposed to be an expert on “disinformation and extremism in the media.”
McCarthy’s first name was Joe, not Eugene. Eugene was a peacenik Democrat.
The Fox channel calls him a “constitutional scholar.” View article →
We saw Joe Biden for about 20 minutes on Tuesday when he signed the ‘Inflation Reduction Act.’
Biden looked totally clueless, mouth agape as he looked around and eventually handed a pen to Senator Manchin.
Joe Biden has been hiding for nearly ONE MONTH straight.
Biden tested positive for Covid for the first time on July 21.
After quarantining and hiding for over one week, Biden caught Covid a second time on July 30 and went into hiding AGAIN.
After hiding in Covid isolation for two weeks at the White House, Joe, his crackhead son Hunter and Jill took off for South Carolina for a weeklong beach vacation.
They’re going to try to hide Dementia Joe until the midterm elections.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — According to sources close to the Biden Administration, President Biden responded to seeing Trump’s jump in poll numbers by ordering the FBI to raid his house too.
These orders come at a time when Biden’s approval rating has reached record lows, due to 20 consecutive months of unfortunate disasters that allegedly had nothing to do with Biden or his policies, but were the fault of everyone else, especially Trump.
“Hey, FBI guys, I could use some of those higher poll numbers,” wrote President Biden on a piece of paper before shoving it under the basement door in hopes that one of his handlers on the outside would deliver it to an FBI guy. “P.S., I could use another diaper change right about now.”
At publishing time, Biden had instructed — via letters shoved under the door — that groundskeepers plant a few palm trees in the Rose Garden and that everyone call The White House by its new name, Mar-a-Lago, D.C.
A Babylon Bee subscriber contributed to this report. If you want to get involved with the staff writers at The Babylon Bee, check out our membership options here!
FBI agents Scoulder and Mully hold a press conference where they reveal the incriminating evidence found in Trump’s safe. This raid was definitely justified.
Thus far the preaching of the Faith had been wholly among Jews, either native born or proselytes from other races. Now began the impulse which was to make it a world-wide religion. Peter, remaining for a time in Joppa after the miracle wrought on Dorcas, had a strange vision warning him of the coming change.
He was dwelling in the house of “one Simon a tanner.” One day at noon he went up on the roof of the house to pray. He was an hungered, but while food was preparing for him he fell into a trance. A great sheet seemed to be borne down to him from Heaven, and within the sheet as in a vessel were all kinds of animals. A divine Voice bade him kill and eat of these. Now many of these beasts were forbidden as food by the Jewish Law because they were “common” and “unclean.” Hence Peter refused with horror to eat as he was bidden. The Voice reproved him, saying, “What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.”
Three times was the vision repeated; but Peter understood not its meaning, until presently the interpretation was made clear by other events. Three strangers came to the house of the tanner seeking the Apostle.
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