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May 2022

The Great Betrayal of American Democracy The American people will have their chance to hold Joe Biden and his party accountable in November. By Christopher Schorr

https://amgreatness.com/2022/05/05/the-great-betrayal-of-american-democracy/

The Biden Administration is aiding and abetting an invasion of the United States.

Let’s review the facts. As a candidate, Biden precipitated the crisis with several campaign promises: 

Amnesty and citizenship 
Halting construction of the southern border wall 
Suspending deportations
Abandoning successful asylum fraud prevention efforts like the “Remain in Mexico” policy and “safe third country” agreements with Central American nations. 

Upon taking office, Biden swiftly implemented these promises, escalating the crisis. He reinstituted the Obama-era policy of releasing migrants apprehended at the border into the interior of the country, pending hearings they often skip. His Department of Homeland Security secretly transported migrants across the country in the dead of night to avoid public scrutiny. Confronted with a court order to reinstate the “Remain in Mexico” policy, Biden passively refused to comply. 

In March, monthly border encounters hit a new record of 221,303, beating the previous record (also set by Biden) of 213,953 in July. Biden has funneled 1 million illegal aliens into the United States in just over a year. 

Last month, Biden announced his plan to end Title 42, a public health authority under which 1.8 million migrants have been turned away at the border. By the administration’s own estimates, this could swell border incursions to 18,000 per day. Ending Title 42 eliminates the last vestige of American control over the southern border. With 19 months remaining before the 2024 election, Biden could add another 10 million illegal aliens to the United States. The number could be lower—the planet might run out of economic migrants posing as asylum seekers—or it could be much higher. In any event, American law would no longer govern entry into the United States. 

The Politics of Dismantling U.S. Sovereignty 

Biden has determined that displacing Americans with foreigners is in the long-term interest of his party. No other explanation makes sense. 

Consider the invasion’s short-term politics. Americans disapprove of Biden’s handling of immigration by 57-35 percent. By 51-34 percent, most Americans believe that Biden is “purposefully encouraging illegal immigration.” Facing a midterm rout, vulnerable Democrats are rebelling, but Biden seems intent on punishing his party and the voters it claims to represent: low-wage earners, blacks, and Latinos.

A humanitarian crisis did not necessitate Biden’s invasion, but it has caused several, including:

A migrant rape crisis. Human traffickers reportedly rape 60-80 percent of migrant women and girls. This is the true face of open borders: Central American parents giving their pre-teen daughters birth control, expecting the worst.
Making Cartels Great Again. Biden’s invasion enriches Mexican drug cartels, fueling violence and corruption in Mexico.
China’s new Opium War against the American people. Mexican cartels funnel Chinese fentanyl through border security gaps they create by tying down U.S. Border Patrol with migrants. Fentanyl is the leading cause of death for Americans ages 18 to 45. 
American families under siege. Cartels (and migrants) destroy property, threaten families, and burn homes to the ground. 

These are some of the invasion’s costs. What are its benefits? 

Hail to The Donald-The Ultimate Contrarian Salvatore Babones

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2022/04/hail-to-the-donald/

Why was Donald Trump such a remarkably successful president, both in politics and in policy? Anyone who doubts his success in politics, or thinks he bought his way to office, need only look to the unsuccessful presidential campaigns of Nelson Rockefeller, Ross Perot, Steve Forbes, Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer. And anyone who doubts his success in policy need only look to his record: tax cuts, regulatory reform, a four-year pause in illegal immigration, Arab-Israeli peace, the US-Mexico-Canada agreement, and the building of a Western consensus against China. Even his coronavirus performance was a toss-up: most of America’s excess deaths are attributable to the incompetence of Democratic governors, and Trump can rightly take credit for the push to develop vaccines in record time. About the worst that can reasonably said about President Trump is that his Tweets were impolite—and he was extraordinarily ungracious in defeat.

So how did the Donald do it? We’ve all heard lots of opinion from academics, journalists and just plain philistines, but Richard Alston in Donald Trump: The Ultimate Contrarian writes from the perspective of a practical politician and policy-maker. A former senator, cabinet minister and president of the Liberal Party, Alston writes that Trump’s

…genius was to discern what no one else understood—that the political establishment and its acolytes had gone off the rails and were much more interested in media-driven priorities … than bread-and-butter issues.

Once elected, he was then naive enough to actually keep his political promises. The result was that, through the unlikely avatar of a New York property developer, middle America took control of the White House. Commonsense (seat-of-the-pants?) politics and policies trumped the refined civilities of the professional political class. Alston calls it “democracy’s finest hour”.

Alston writes of Trump that “the seeds of his triumph and Hillary Clinton’s defeat lay in the creeping atrophy of politics … in recent decades”:

Has The Metropolitan Opera Violated Anti-Discrimination Laws by Firing a Russian Singer? by Alan M. Dershowitz

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18505/metropolitan-opera-discrimination

The law of New York and many other jurisdictions prohibits employment discrimination based on national origin. Anna Netrebko’s firing would seem on its face illegal. Had she been born in the Donbas region of Ukraine instead of across the border in Russia, she would not have been fired even if she had refused to condemn the war or Putin.

She did condemn the war but refused to condemn Putin personally. If she had, she would be endangering her family, friends and her own ability to ever return safely to her homeland.

Netrebko is an Austrian citizen, but her country of origin is Russia.

“Forcing artists, or any public figure, to voice their political opinions in public and to denounce their homeland is not right…. I am not a political person…. I am an artist and my purpose is to unite people across political divides.” — Anna Netrebko, quoted in The New York Times, March 2, 2022.

“She’s damned if she does, and damned if she doesn’t.” — Simon Morrison, Princeton Professor of Music, The New York Times, April 1, 2022.

[W]e want artists to speak out — when we agree with what they are saying. But in this age of quickly changing criteria for cancellation….

I had planned to see the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Turandot staring Anna Netrebko. But the Met fired her on the ground that she is Russian and did not sufficiently condemn Vladimir Putin for waging war in Ukraine. She did condemn the war, but refused to condemn Putin personally. If she had, she would be endangering her family, friends and her own ability to ever return safely to her homeland. Netrebko is an Austrian citizen, but her country of origin is Russia.

Russia and China: The Worst Moment in History Coming Soon by Gordon G. Chang

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18506/russia-china-nuclear-escalation

Russia has a nuclear doctrine known as “escalate to deescalate” or, more accurately, “escalate to win,” which contemplates threatening or using nuclear weapons early in a conventional conflict.

It cannot be a good sign that Russia, China, and North Korea at the same time are threatening to launch the world’s most destructive weaponry.

Because the Western democracies have largely stood down and are clearly not fighting in Ukraine, Beijing and Pyongyang want similar successes.

“Like Vladimir Putin, the Communist Party of China has lost its fear of American power… China’s nuclear threats expose… perceived American weakness, expose the risk of the lack of a U.S. regional nuclear deterrent, and expose the inadequacy of U.S. leadership.” — Richard Fisher of the Virginia-based International Assessment and Strategy Center, to the author, March 2022.

Whatever the reason for the threats, Putin and Xi have told everyone what they intend to do. Unfortunately, Western leaders are determined not to believe them.

In response to Russian threats, President Joe Biden on February 28 said the American people should not worry about nuclear war. On the contrary, there is every reason to worry.

In line with Western thinking, presidents and prime ministers have almost always ignored nuclear threats, hoping not to dignify them. Unfortunately, this posture has only emboldened the threat-makers to make more threats. The later the international community confronts belligerent Russians, Chinese, and North Koreans, the more dangerous the confrontations will be.

The world, therefore, looks like it is fast approaching the worst moment in history.

On May 1, on Russian TV, the media executive often called “Putin’s mouthpiece” urged the Russian president to launch a Poseidon underwater drone with a “warhead of up to 100 megatons.” The detonation, said Dmitry Kiselyov, would create a 1,640-foot tidal wave that would “plunge Britain to the depths of the ocean.” The wave would reach halfway up England’s tallest peak, Scafell Pike.

“This tidal wave is also a carrier of extremely high doses of radiation,” Kiselyov pointed out. “Surging over Britain, it will turn whatever is left of them into radioactive desert, unusable for anything. How do you like this prospect?

A shadowy left-wing group operating under the moniker ‘Ruth Sent Us’ is asking activists to target Supreme Court justices at their homes. Tristan Justice

https://thefederalist.com/2022/05/05/meet-the-shady-left-wing-group-targeting-scotus-justices-and-their-families/

A shadowy left-wing group operating under the moniker “Ruth Sent Us” is asking activists to target Supreme Court justices who may overturn Roe v. Wade with demonstrations at their private homes.

On Thursday, the group published the alleged home locations of the six conservative justices who heard Mississippi’s request to return the abortion debate to the states by overturning the 1973 decision. A February draft opinion leaked to Politico on Monday revealed five out of the six, Justices Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, and Neil Gorsuch, were planning to vote to overturn the Roe decision with Chief Justice John Roberts remaining undecided. Each of their homes is targeted for protests between now and Wednesday.

“Our 6-3 extremist Supreme Court routinely issues rulings that hurt women, racial minorities, LGBTQ+ and immigrant rights,” reads the group’s website. “We must rise up to force accountability using a diversity of tactics.”

Stipends are being offered to artists who join the march. Payment and compensation were also offered to protesters who came to Washington to disrupt the constitutional proceedings at the Senate to confirm Brett Kavanaugh in 2018.

The organizing group’s leadership remains concealed on its website, even though it uses a .us URL. Websites with a .us URL are unusual, and according to Wired in 2005, new registrants could not include privacy protection in .us domain name purchases. RuthSent.us, however, redacted information related to its owners’ purchase. Another online domain tool, “WHOIS,” revealed the name Sam Spiegel as its registrant along with a P.O. box.

Durham Scores Huge Victory Against Hillary Camp and Fusion GPS By Matt Margolis

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2022/05/05/durham-scores-huge-victory-against-hillary-camp-and-fusion-gps-n1595364

The trial of former Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann will take place soon, and on Wednesday, special counsel John Durham scored a huge pre-trial victory.

Sussmann’s lawyers fought Durham’s efforts to secure documents from the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign that they claimed were protected by attorney-client privilege. Durham argued that the Clinton campaign couldn’t shield materials based on attorney-client privilege when the materials they were trying to hide were widely distributed to third parties.

A federal judge in Washington, D.C. agreed with Durham and has decided to compel the production of the documents in question.

Durham had accused the Democratic National Committee, Hillary for America, and Fusion GPS of withholding and/or redacting documents and communications that incriminate Sussmann.

Roe Ruling: Making Protest Lawful Again Will pro-abortion protesters who disrupt the Senate be charged with felony obstruction?  By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2022/05/05/roe-ruling-making-protest-lawful-again/

On Wednesday, Matthew Graves, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, announced criminal charges against another American related to the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Joshua Colgan of Maine entered a set of open doors that afternoon and walked around the building; he exited shortly thereafter. Capitol Police officers standing near the entrance did not attempt to block or arrest Colgan or hundreds of other protesters at the time who were unaware they were committing any crime.

Nonetheless, Graves charged Colgan with four misdemeanors including “parading” in the Capitol building. Graves’ office is in the process of prosecuting at least 800 people and counting for their involvement in the four-hour disturbance that occurred 16 months ago.

After he took over the office last fall, Graves changed the official name of the investigation from “Capitol breach” to “Capitol siege.” His prosecutors routinely request—and receive—prison sentences for those who plead guilty to the “parading” charge, a petty offense never before applied on such a broad scale.

As Graves presumably cheered his success in rounding up yet another Trump supporter, his wife was leading a rally outside the Supreme Court to protest the draft ruling that would overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide. Fatima Goss Graves, head of the far-left National Women’s Law Center based in D.C., told a group of pro-abortion demonstrators on Wedneday afternoon that “abortion care is a matter of equality, dignity, and freedom in this country and that will never change.”

The night before, Graves, who has a history of making anti-Trump, anti-Republican remarks, participated in an emergency conference call with other activist groups and warned they must “engage in ways that we may not have thought we would have had to in our lives.” In a tweet that same evening, Graves called the draft ruling a “shameful and insidious attack on those who face discrimination” and insisted she would “not let up.”

Biden: ‘So Many Muslims Are Targeted With Violence’ and ‘Oppressed for Their Religious Beliefs’ Complaining about fake violence against Muslims while ignoring real violence by Muslims. Raymond Ibrahim

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/05/biden-so-many-muslims-are-targeted-violence-and-raymond-ibrahim/

Day by day, it seems that the ruling class and their media mouthpiece are dedicated to one principle: find problems where none exist and ignore real problems that are in desperate need of attention.

Consider the words of U.S. President Joe Biden, spoken during Eid al-Fitr with Muslims at the White House on May 2. He said:

[T]oday, around the world, we’re seeing so many Muslims being targeted with violence. No one, no one should discriminate against oppressed or be oppressed for their religious beliefs…. Muslims make our nation stronger every single day, even as they still face real challenges and threats in our society, including targeted violence and Islamophobia that exists.

Now, let’s briefly parse these surreal claims:

[T]oday, around the world, we’re seeing so many Muslims being targeted with violence.

Where are the statistics for this claim? Rather, what we’re used to seeing is Muslims targeting non-Muslims with violence. According to one tally, for example, during just this last Ramadan, or basically the month of April 2022, Muslims launched 177 terror attacks “in the name of Islam” that murdered 1,086 people. Again, that’s just during one month—Islam’s “holiest” month. The same tally finds that there were zero attacks and zero deaths by non-Muslims operating under the name of their religions.

No one, no one should discriminate against oppressed or be oppressed for their religious beliefs.

Of course, everyone agrees with this—except, apparently, the one group that Biden was speaking to and presenting as “oppressed,” namely, Muslims: systematic discrimination and oppression are endemic to the Muslim world, and that’s because systematic discrimination and oppression are integral parts of the religion of Islam and codified in sharia.

FDA Limits Use of Johnson & Johnson Covid Vaccine

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/fda-limits-use-of-johnson-johnson-covid-vaccine/

The Food and Drug Administration limited its emergency authorization of Johnson & Johnson’s Covid vaccine because of the risk of blood clots, the agency said on Thursday.

The risk of “rare and potentially life-threatening blood clots” following use of the vaccine “warrants limiting the authorized use of the vaccine,” the FDA said in a statement.

“The FDA has determined that the reporting rate of [blood clots] is 3.23 per million doses of vaccine administered and the reporting rate of TTS deaths is 0.48 per million doses of vaccine administered,” the agency said.

However, the agency determined that the benefits of the vaccine “outweigh the known and potential risks” for adults who either cannot receive Pfizer or Moderna vaccines or who refuse to take any Covid vaccine except Johnson & Johnson’s. This means that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is authorized only for individuals who cannot receive an mRNA vaccine or refuse to do so.

“Today’s action demonstrates the robustness of our safety surveillance systems and our commitment to ensuring that science and data guide our decisions,” Dr. Peter Marks, head of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said in a statement. Marks added that the FDA “will continue to monitor the safety” of all Covid vaccines authorized in the U.S.

Israeli ‘unity’ lies in Zionism By Ruthie Blum

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/culture/article-705999

Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel Independence Day, is always marked by a mixture of joy and reflection. This year is no different, though a touch of malaise is putting a damper on the former, while taking the latter in the wrong direction.

Among the minority currently in power are members of the Left, who have always held Israel accountable for the plight of Palestinian Authority denizens and for international condemnation. This group still blames the entire Right for the 1995 murder of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin. Neither nationwide horror surrounding that unprecedented event, nor the fact that assassin Yigal Amir has been sitting in prison since then, has made a dent in the Left’s view that anti-Rabin incitement from the opposition — led at the time, as today, by Benjamin Netanyahu — was directly responsible.

That Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s family recently received threatening letters with live bullets in them has brought the old accusations to the fore, providing the “anybody but Bibi” crowd with proverbial ammunition.

The above camp’s go-to position whenever Arab terrorism spikes, as it is currently doing, is the one that was voiced ad nauseam by gung-ho supporters of the disastrous Oslo Accords: that we cannot allow the “enemies of peace” to win.

This bloc, which now has important ministerial portfolios, contains politicians who call for Israeli “soul-searching” at every opportunity, including during Holocaust Remembrance Day and Yom Hazikaron, our Memorial Day for fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism. Their message is that if Israel isn’t careful, it will become like Nazi Germany.