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50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

Meet Ray Epps: The Fed-Protected Provocateur Who Appears To Have Led The Very First 1/6 Attack On The U.S. Capitol

https://www.revolver.news/2021/10/meet-ray-epps-the-fed-protected-provocateur-who-appears-to-have-led-the-very-first-1-6-attack-on-the-u-s-capitol/

In a House hearing on Thursday, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) questioned AG Merrick Garland about a mysterious man, Ray Epps, instructing protesters to enter the US Capitol building on January 5, and who later shepherded crowds towards the Capitol on January 6.

The story of the mystery man, Ray Epps, featured in Rep. Massie’s video above is in fact far more shocking than even the good Congressman implies in the hearing. It’s a story so strange, and so scandalous at every turn, that it threatens to shatter the entire official narrative of the “Capitol Breach” and expose yet another dimension of proactive federal involvement in the so-called “insurrection” of January 6th.

If Revolver News’s previous reporting points to a proactive role of the federal government in relation to the conspiracy cases against Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, the Ray Epps story that follows suggests a similar, yet more egregious, explicit, direct and immediate degree of federal involvement in the breach of the Capitol itself.

Here is a transcript of Thomas Massie’s exchange with the Attorney General, just in case you skipped past the video above.

Rep. Massie: As far as we can determine, the individual who was saying he’ll probably go to jail, he’ll probably be arrested, but they need to go into the Capitol the next day, is then directing people into the Capitol the next day, is then the next day directing people to the Capitol. And as far as we can find. You said this is one of the most sweeping in history. Have you seen that video, or those frames from that video?

AG Garland: So as I said at the outset, one of the norms of the Justice Department is to not comment on pending investigations, and particularly not to comment on particular scenes or particular individuals.

Rep. Massie: I was hoping today to give you an opportunity to put to rest the concerns that people have that there were federal agents or assets of the federal government present on January 5 and January 6. Can you tell us, without talking about particular incidents or particular videos, how many agents or assets of the federal government were present on January 6, whether they agitated to go into the Capitol, and if any of them did?

AG Garland: So I’m not going to violate this norm of, uh, of, of, of, the rule of law.

[Looks down and away]

I’m not going to comment on an investigation that’s ongoing.

There is good reason why AG Garland ran from Massie’s question faster than he could find words — and why he couldn’t even keep eye contact as he was dodging Massie’s gaze.

Biden FBI Joins Pelosi In Blocking GOP From Investigating January 6 by By Mollie Hemingway and Tristan Justice

https://thefederalist.com/2021/10/27/exclusive-biden-fbi-joins-pelosi-in-blocking-gop-from-investigating-january-

In the case of the House Committee on Jan. 6., Pelosi blocked minority party participation for the first time in House history to pursue a preferred political narrative.

The leading Republican tasked with his party’s investigation into the preparedness and response of the U.S. Capitol Police and other law enforcement agencies to the Capitol riot on January 6 is being blocked by President Joseph Biden’s FBI from gathering information, a new document reveals.

The FBI told Indiana Republican Rep. Jim Banks it would not provide Republicans the same information provided to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s hand-picked committee consisting only of Democrat-appointed members.

“We respectfully refer you to the Select Committee regarding issues of access to records and information,” the agency wrote in response to a Republican request for information, referring to the official House panel established by the speaker.

Pelosi took what she admitted was an “unprecedented” step of refusing the appointments made by Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, barring Navy officer and Afghanistan veteran Banks and Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, from participation. In a fiery denunciation of Pelosi’s politicization of the committee, McCarthy, R-Calif., publicly announced Banks would lead Republicans’ investigation despite Pelosi blowing up the committee.

Poor Bret Stephens reveals himself by sneering at Trump By David Zukerman

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/10/poor_bret_stephens_reveals_himself_by_sneering_at_trump.html

First, permit me to make this suggestion about the left’s aim on their mammoth spending bill: they always intended to pass a $1.5-trillion measure and started out at $3 trillion so as 1) to seem conciliatory by accepting reduction by half and 2) to appear as accommodating the wishes of stalking horse Joe (I don’t trust him to be a moderate) Manchin.

Now to comment on the weekly Bret (Stephens) and Gail (Collins) show on what used to be called the op-ed page of The New York Times — but, when they have their seemingly anodyne chats transcribed, becomes the paper’s weekly steno pad.

The Bret and Gail chat for October 26 began with expressions of sympathy for Republican turncoat Liz Cheney, from Republican turncoat Bret Stephens, who went over to the other side when he quit The Wall Street Journal for The New York Times at the time of Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign.

Stephens, in his opening remark, alluded to the “latest effort [of House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy] to make Liz Cheney’s life as unpleasant as possible.”  This is projection from Stephens, as it is Cheney who is intent on making the lives of true House Republicans “as unpleasant as possible” by her service as a Pelosi puppet on the January 6 “sham” (quoting Rep. Jim Banks, barred from the panel by Pelosi diktat) select committee.  I quickly add that Stephens did not elaborate on the alleged effort from Mr. McCarthy vis-à-vis turncoat Cheney.  Would that it were her ouster from the House Republican Conference.

Stephens went on, in response to a question from Collins, to shrug that Cheney’s quest for re-election is not likely to succeed, while at the same time he issued a statement despicable but expectable from the likes of leftist fanatics: “But I’m guessing that Cheney’s re-election chances aren’t great, either.  I think that, at best, she can lay down a marker for the future, proving that at least some Republicans refused to participate in the cult of Il Duce wannabes.”  It takes an apostate desperate for approval from his new masters to be so mendaciously malevolent.

Biden Makes the U.S. Energy-Dependent Again Begs OPEC for more oil as gas prices surge to a 7-year high. Joseph Klein

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/10/biden-makes-us-energy-dependent-again-joseph-klein/

President Biden was not done humiliating the United States with his disastrous withdrawal of all American troops from Afghanistan. Now he is literally begging Saudi Arabia and other OPEC cartel countries for more oil.

Gas prices at the pump are at a seven-year high. The average retail gasoline price is now more than one dollar per gallon higher than it was a year ago. Americans are feeling the pain every time they fill up their gas tanks.

During his softball CNN town hall on October 21st, Biden conceded that “we’re about $3.30 a gallon most places now,” noting that the price had previously been “down in the single digits — I mean single digits, a dollar-plus.”

What is Biden’s explanation for the incredible rise in gas prices over the last year? He blamed Americans’ plight on the supply of oil “being withheld by OPEC.”

Import petroleum prices have increased 70.5 percent from September 2020 to September 2021, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. There is no sign that this trend will be reversed anytime soon.

Thus, it is unsurprising that Biden admitted he doesn’t see gas prices coming down until “into next year, 2022,” at the earliest. “I don’t see anything that’s going to happen in the meantime that’s going to significantly reduce gas prices,” Biden said.

What Biden did not say, of course, is that his own war on fossil fuels largely caused this problem. Biden turned the clock back to the time when the United States was dependent on Middle East oil — before former President Donald Trump had managed to make the U.S. energy-independent.

“There’s a possibility to be able to bring it down, depends on — a little bit on Saudi Arabia and a few other things that are in the offing,” Biden said without specifying what those “few other things” are.

Trump had managed to wean the country off of dependence on Middle East oil. During the Trump administration, the United States became the number one producer of oil in the world while maintaining America’s position as the number one producer of natural gas. For the first time in nearly 70 years, the United States had become a net energy exporter.

Is the ‘National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality’ just a start for the Biden Administration? By Eric Utter

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/10/is_the_national_strategy_on_gender_equity_and_equality_just_a_start_for_the_biden_administration.html

Vice-President Kamala Harris proudly took to Twitter to announce that the White House has issued “the first ever National Gender Strategy.”

 No wonder she and President Biden haven’t had time to visit the border with Mexico.

The official document, adorned with a miniature White House under which the words “The White House” and “Washington” appear, is officially titled “National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality.”

Rumor has it that administration officials also considered naming the vital strategic document “National Strategy On Gender Equality And Equity” before opting for “National Strategy On Gender Equity And Equality.” One unnamed official reportedly said heated debate ran on for many hours between those who thought one or the other title was itself more equal and equitable.

In any case, Americans should thank God — well, actually, Uncle Sam — that their federal government now has an official Gender Strategy. And the administration isn’t expected to take much time to savor its accomplishment before attempting to put together a comprehensive blueprint for the consumption of baked goods. Insiders say a “National Strategy On Pastries And Bagel Eating” could be unveiled as early as next month. And that, they say, could be followed by a program detailing a national strategy for the advancement of origami.

Some “MAGA” types, and other opponents of the administration, have mocked the creation of a “national gender strategy,” and have suggested that a strategy for dealing with China, Russia, Iran or North Korea would have been more pertinent, timely, and beneficial. Other critics claim that many Americans would have preferred the rollout of programs for dealing with the border crisis, economy, national debt, and ongoing pandemic with the subsequent loss of their personal liberty.

What ‘wokeness’ really means By Jarrad Winter

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/10/what_wokeness_really_means.html

“I am an American. I have no skin color worthy of note, no particular geographical heritage I care to claim as my own. My race is called Freedom, my People come in every hue. I will stand with my brothers and sisters of all skin hues against every tyranny known to man. I will not back down. I refuse to be afraid. I’m an American, the most fearsome ethnicity ever devised.”

The tacit premise of Wokeness is that minorities are intellectually deficient and hopelessly oppressed by everything around them (thanks to the inherent racism of all White people and the irredeemably xenophobic the institutions that they created).

The problem with calling Wokeness an anti-racism movement is self-evident. Black, Brown, Red, and Yellow people are not dumber than White people. Some of my favorite brainy individuals could never be mistaken for a White Supremacists (except maybe by the delusional NPR).  Moreover, of all the minorities I’ve known and befriended during my lifetime, not a single one has ever expressed any belief that Whitey is on the hunt for them, rigging everything from Math to English against them. I’m the type to specifically ask questions like:

“Hey, Bro… with all the talk of racism everywhere, do you feel like your life is consumed by White folks oppressing you at every turn?”

The reason I’ve never received a “yes” answer to any such question is that I tend to have responsible friends — skin color in no way part of the equation. What Woke really rests on is people who don’t take personal responsibility, the victim mentality type.

John Durham’s Salad Shooter Knowingly concocting a fake narrative to fool the FBI and CIA is going to affect many Hillary Clinton campaign players, special counsel John Durham has let it be known in discovery. by George Parry

https://spectator.org/john-durhams-salad-shooter/

This is the sixth in a series of articles analyzing the federal grand jury indictment charging lawyer Michael Sussmann with making a materially false statement to the FBI’s General Counsel. The indictment spelled out Sussmann’s involvement in a thus-far uncharged conspiracy to create a false narrative that was calculated to demonstrate a secret channel of internet communications between the Trump Organization and the Russian Alfa-Bank.

Recently Sussmann’s lawyers moved for a bill of particulars alleging that the indictment lacks sufficient detail and clarity for their client to prepare his defense.

Special Counsel John Durham’s brief in opposition pointed out that the 27-page indictment amply satisfies the legal requirement that it need only include a plain, concise, and definitive written statement of the essential facts constituting the offense charged. Moreover, Durham’s opposing brief also points out that the prosecution has already provided the defense with ample clarification by way of expansive and massive discovery.

According to Durham, on October 7, the government “made its first production of discovery to the defense” which “included more than 6,000 documents, comprising approximately 81,000 pages.” The documents were “received in response to grand jury subpoenas issued to fifteen separate individuals, entities, and organizations — including among others, political organizations, a university, university researchers, an investigative firm, and numerous companies.”

The prosecution is also “working expeditiously to declassify large volumes of materials” which it expects to provide to the defense “[w]ithin approximately two weeks” which will include, “among other things,” the following:

More than 30 declassified reports of interviews conducted in the course of Durham’s investigation;
Emails and other documents shown to witnesses during the interviews;
Investigators’ notes taken during the interviews;
Transcripts of grand jury testimony for multiple witnesses;
The majority of the FBI’s electronic “case file” pertaining to its investigation of the now discredited Trump-Alfa Bank allegations which Sussmann is accused of presenting to the FBI’s General Counsel;
Emails, memoranda, reports, and other records obtained from “Agency-2” (identified elsewhere as the CIA), including “write-ups” of Sussmann’s meetings with CIA personnel in which Sussmann is accused of providing the false Trump-Alfa Bank allegations.

The slippery semantics of Anthony Fauci Fauci’s absolutist answer on gain-of-function research from May has proven to be false Stephen Miller

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/slippery-semantics-anthony-fauci-gain-function-coronavirus/

“I do not have any accounting of what the Chinese may have done, and I’m fully in favor of any further investigation of what went on in China. However, I will repeat again: the NIH and NIAID categorically has not funded ‘gain-of-function’ research to be conducted in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.” 

That was Dr Anthony Fauci during a May 2021 congressional hearing. It kicked off a months-long national media effort to frame questions around gain-of-function research and US-taxpayer-funded virus manipulation as a Royal Rumble between Fauci and Senator Rand Paul.

When he testifies or sits for friendly network interviews, Fauci depends on semantics. He relies on the naivety of the interviewer and the audience, employing terminology and definitions he believes only he understands.

But like the ponytailed Chad in Good Will Hunting attempting to flex his big brain, Fauci’s arguments fall apart in front of the initiated.

Last week, Lawrence Tabak, the principal deputy director of the NIH, sent a letter to Congress saying that EcoHealth Alliance failed to report certain aspects of the experimental work it had been conducting in China on bats and bat-borne viruses. Tabak pledged that the NIH and Fauci’s NIAID would take administrative action, but not much more than that.

So Fauci’s absolutist answer from May has proven to be false. At the very least, the doctor needs to answer directly why he chose to deflect questions on gain-of-function research, something his own agency is claiming it had no idea was happening. How could have Fauci have denied back in May something so “categorically” if EcoHealth Alliance, run by Fauci ally Peter Daszak, had failed to report the full extent of their experiments?

When Fauci sat for a cozy Sunday interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, he once again deployed his semantic game on the interviewer. Stephanopoulos framed the revealing letter from Tabak as “critics pouncing”:

“Some critics and analysts have seized on that to say you and others have misled the public about US funding of this so-called gain-of-function research. The NIH says that’s false.”

Joe from Scranton? More like Bogus Biden His presidency is a slap in the face to the working class Amber Athey

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/scranton-joe-bogus-biden-inauthentic-presidency/

During the 2020 election, Joe Biden positioned himself as the Democrat who could win the working class from President Donald Trump. “Joe from Scranton,” as the media affectionately calls him, was bringing normalcy back to the White House.

I wrote last September that this characterization of the Syracuse law grad and lifelong politician was a sham: “Biden has built his career on being dishonest to working-class Americans,” I warned.

Ten months into his presidency, and this has proven true. Trump may love a good show  —”stay tuned!” — but it is Joe Biden who oversees the most inauthentic administration, one that is shockingly divorced from the lives of everyday Americans.

The country is currently facing a massive breakdown in the global supply chain, leading to shortages of goods and increased prices for consumers. My local grocery store boasted large gaps on food shelves Thursday morning. A friend of mine was unable to buy a simple coffee from Starbucks. Others have stumbled across even worse examples of the burgeoning crisis.

Inflation and shortages are no joke for working class families, who spend a larger percentage of their paycheck trying to keep their pantries stocked. The White House’s response, however, has been to deflect from how to fix the breakdown and instead mock Americans who are concerned that Santa may not be stuffing himself down the chimney this Christmas.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki snarked during a briefing this week that the supply chain chaos can be summed up by “the tragedy of the treadmill that’s delayed.” Chief of staff Ron Klain asserted on Twitter that inflation and shortages are “high class problems.” Psaki previously insisted that families aren’t comparing the cost of goods to pre-pandemic prices, saying, “We all understand the American people are not looking at cost-to-cost comparisons from this year to two years ago; they’re looking at cost-to-cost comparisons to their checkbooks from eight months ago or 12 months ago.” She made a patently false claim that gas prices are “well in line” with recent decades.

Then there was the defensiveness with which the administration responded to backlash over transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg taking two months of “paternity leave” with his newly adopted children while ports are backed up with shipping containers. Those who rightfully pointed out that Buttigieg either should have come back to work early or that the White House should have installed a temporary replacement were accused of not supporting paid parental leave or of being homophobic.

Obama Gets Wrecked Over Lies About the ‘Culture Wars’ Katie Pavlich

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2021/10/25/obama-gets-wrecked-over-lies-about-virginia-governors-race-n2597954?utm_campaign=inarticle

Over the weekend, former President Barack Obama made a visit to Virginia and campaigned for flailing Democrat gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe. 

During a campaign stop in Richmond, Obama claimed Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin and conservative media are waging “phony” culture wars. 

Obama’s remarks came shortly after it was revealed a girl was raped at a Loudoun County school by a “gender fluid” boy wearing a skirt. The boy was then quietly moved to another school, where he allegedly assaulted another student. The Loudoun County school board, which has been pushing transgender policies onto children and parents, knew about the situation and covered it up. 

To say the least, Obama’s remarks were unwelcome, out-of-touch and quickly refuted.