In a Wall Street Journal story about Joe Biden’s alleged Catholicism, one can see a photograph of Biden greeting Pope Francis, as his controversial son Hunter, who was discharged from the Navy after he failed a drug test, is in the background. The headline highlighted “Biden’s Catholicism” when it should have referred to Biden’s pseudo-Catholicism. Biden is pro-abortion and pro-homosexual marriage, in contradiction to church teaching.
In the Tuesday night presidential debate, Biden talked about the importance of the Supreme Court, saying, “The point is that the President also is opposed to Roe v. Wade. That’s on the ballot as well and the court…and so that’s also at stake right now.” It was clear from the context that Biden was making a pitch for the votes of those who support abortion on demand, made legal by the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. When President Trump disputed that it was on the ballot and currently before the Court, moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News said, “we’ll come back to Roe v. Wade,” but he never did.
Roe v. Wade has led to more than 60 million abortions in America since 1973. Biden wants to “codify” the ruling so the Court cannot overturn its previous decision. Dennis Howard of the Movement for a Better America has described the death toll from abortion in terms of the equivalent of a nuclear war on U.S. soil.
The Journal reporters, John McCormick, and Ken Thomas failed to mention that the church teaches that abortion is a moral evil. They admitted that, “Until this campaign, he tried to maintain a middle-of-the-road position on abortion rights. Then in June 2019, amid a competitive primary, he said he no longer supported a measure banning federal funding for most abortions, known as the Hyde Amendment.”
A “competitive primary” means that he sold out to the Marxist wing of the Democratic Party, as Biden declared that, “As president, I will codify Roe v. Wade and my Justice Department will do everything in its power to stop the rash of state laws that so blatantly violate a woman’s protected, constitutional right to choose.”
The Journal also mentioned in passing that a Catholic priest in South Carolina, Rev. Robert Morey, refused to give Biden communion over his pro-abortion stance.
“Throughout his career,” the Journal said, “Mr. Biden has said that while his faith informs his beliefs, he has separated it from his duties in public life.” A skeptic might say he does not practice what he preaches, and that he does not take his religion seriously. It is old-fashioned hypocrisy.
The Journal writers did not mention that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a document stating that, “The threat of abortion remains our preeminent priority because it directly attacks life itself because it takes place within the sanctuary of the family, and because of the number of lives destroyed.” This document, “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” is described as a Catholic “teaching document on the political responsibility of Catholics.”
While “Catholics for Biden” gets media attention, as if they are legitimate, the group Democrats for Life is ignored and had to pay for a full-page September 20 ad in the New York Times rejecting the extremism on the issue of abortion by the Biden campaign and the Democratic Party.
We are seeing a replay of the coverage of the 2016 campaign when Hillary Clinton escaped serious scrutiny over her extreme position that prohibited any restrictions on the abortion procedure. Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party were given a free ride by the press for a policy that suppresses the scientific and medical evidence of the humanity of the unborn child.
This year, however, Biden, the “Irish-Catholic,” as he called himself, openly defies church teachings on abortion and pleads for the votes of those who want to continue the carnage.
He actually said during the debate that people like Trump “look down their nose on people like Irish Catholics, like me, who grow up in Scranton. They look down on people who don’t have money. They look down on people who are of a different faith.”
Trump’s wife Melania is a Catholic who has reportedly promoted Catholic teachings on life from within the White House.
Chris Wallace didn’t want to talk about it, but it’s clear that unborn Americans in Joe Biden’s America will continue to be assigned to destruction. It’s no wonder that Trump, the most pro-life president in American history, would erupt in disgust over how the Bidens are treated favorably by the media.
Cliff Kincaid is president of America’s Survival, Inc. usasurvival.org.
Hat tip to Sean Davis for his assessment, which has been reviewed and declassified by DNI John Ratcliffe. At some point, one of the debates will include this and then we will have fireworks. Frankly, this may not have been exclusively Hillary, you know she had help from say, Sid Blumenthal, John Podesta, or Strobe Talbot. More to come for sure, as there are more hearings in the Senate.
BREAKING: On July 26, 2016, U.S. intel authorities learned that Russian intel knew of Hillary Clinton’s plans to cook up a scandal alleging that Trump was working with Russia. Obama was personally briefed on Russia’s knowledge of Clinton’s plans.
On September 7, 2016, U.S. intel officials sent an investigative referral to James Comey and Peter Strzok about Clinton’s election interference plan–and Russia’s knowledge of it. We now know the Steele dossier was entirely a product of Russian agents and intel officials.
Christopher Steele, the Clinton campaign subcontractor who compiled the dossier, was working for a sanctioned Russian oligarch. So was Fusion GPS. And we learned this week that the dossier’s “primary sub-source” was a Russian intel asset who was deemed a national security threat.
Today’s declassification confirms that from the beginning, the FBI knew its anti-Trump investigation was based entirely on Russian disinformation. Brennan and Comey were personally warned. They responded by fabricating evidence and defrauding the courts.
President Barack Obama announced Vice President Joe Biden will oversee the Administration’s implementation of the Recovery Act’s provisions and the appointment of Earl Devaney as Chair of the Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board in a meeting with the Nation’s Governors this morning. The Vice President will meet regularly with key members of the Cabinet, Governors, and Mayors to make sure their efforts are speedy and effective. He will also make regular, public reports to the President on implementation and those will be posted on Recovery.gov. The Chair of the Transparency and Accountability Board Earl Devaney will report to the Vice President.
“Beginning this week, Vice President Biden will meet regularly with key members of my cabinet to make sure our efforts are not just swift, but efficient and effective. He’ll also work closely with our nation’s Governors, and our Mayors, and everyone else involved in this effort, to keep things on track. The fact that I am asking the Vice President to personally lead this effort shows how important it is for our country and our future to get this right, and I thank him for his willingness to take on this critical task,” President Obama told a group of Governors this morning. “I am also proud to announce the appointment of Earl Devaney as Chair of the Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board. For nearly a decade as Inspector General at the Interior Department, Earl has doggedly pursued waste, fraud, and mismanagement, and Joe and I can’t think of a more tenacious and efficient guardian of the hard-earned tax dollars the American people have entrusted us to wisely invest.”
Last week, the Treasury Department inspector general found that the tax police have failed to prevent fraud in the stimulus law’s energy tax credit program. Some $6 billion in stimulus energy credits for homeowners have been claimed — but the inspector general’s audit found that 30 percent of credit-claimers had no record of homeownership. The recipients included prisoners and minors. “I am troubled by the IRS’s continued failure to develop appropriate verification methods for distributing Recovery Act credits,” the Treasury Inspector watchdog said. Moreover, when the IRS wasn’t falling down on its job policing outside fraud, its own workers were committing their own stimulus fraud — by cheating the system and claiming a first-time homebuyer tax credit included in the 2008 and 2009 economic stimulus packages. At least 128 IRS employees claimed the credit, according to a recent Treasury Department audit, yet weren’t first-time buyers or violated other basic eligibility criteria.
Moreover, the stimulus package has also “redistributed wealth to prison inmates, flaky researchers, social justice boondoggles, infrastructure to nowhere, foreign companies, dead people and ghost congressional districts — not to mention $20 million in chump change to pay for campaign-style stimulus-hyping road signs across the country emblazoned with the shovel-ready logo.” Only a small fraction of the stimulus package went to infrastructure spending, and maintenance-of-effort provisions elsewhere in the stimulus package required states to maintain or increase welfare spending, resulting in cash-strapped states cutting back their own spending on useful things like transportation. As a result, Investor’s Business Daily noted, economists “found that despite the influx of all that federal money, highway construction jobs actually plunged by nearly 70,000 between 2008 and 2010.” The $800 billion stimulus package was purged of most investments in roads and bridges, and filled instead with welfare and social spending, out of political correctness, after feminist leaders complained that building and repairing roads and bridges would put unemployed blue-collar men to work, rather than women. “A recent Associated Press story reports: ‘Stimulus Funds Go to Social Programs Over ‘Shovel-ready’ Projects.’ A team of six AP reporters who have been tracking the funds finds that the $300 billion sent to the states is being used mainly for health care, education, unemployment benefits, food stamps, and other social services.” Or, as another AP report put it, “Stimulus Aid Favors Welfare, Not Work, Programs.” Two economics professors recently estimated that the stimulus had actually wiped out 550,000 jobs. The stimulus package also repealed welfare reform, as Slate’s Mickey Kaus and the Heritage Foundation have noted. Obama ran campaign ads claiming to support welfare reform, even though he had actually fought against meaningful welfare reform as an Illinois legislator. This claim was as dishonest as his claim that he would enact a “net spending cut” (which he flouted as soon as he took office) and that America would undergo an “irreversible decline” if the stimulus package wasn’t enacted (when even the CBO admitted that the stimulus will actually shrink the economy over the long run).
Then in 2012:
According to Investor’s Business Daily this week, a new analysis by Ohio State University economics professor Bill Dupor reported that “(m)ore than three-quarters of the jobs created or saved by President Obama’s economic stimulus in the first year were in government.”
Dupor and another colleague had earlier concluded that the Porkulus was a predictable jobs-killer that crowded out non-government jobs with make-work public jobs and programs. Indeed, the massive wealth redistribution scheme “destroyed/forestalled roughly one million private sector jobs” by siphoning tax dollars “to offset state revenue shortfalls and Medicaid increases rather than boost private sector employment.”
Will this Keynesian wreckage come up during Thursday night’s vice presidential debate? It should be a centerpiece of domestic policy discussion. Nowhere is the gulf between Obama/Biden rhetoric and reality on jobs wider.
Remember: Obama’s Ivy League eggheads behind the stimulus promised that “(m)ore than 90 percent of the jobs created are likely to be in the private sector.” These are the same feckless economic advisers who infamously vowed that the stimulus would keep unemployment below 8 percent — and that unemployment would drop below 6 percent some time this year.
Sheriff Joe rebuked the “naysayers” who decried the behemoth stimulus program’s waste, fraud, and abuse. “You know what? They were wrong,” he crowed.
But Biden was radio silent about the nearly 4,000 stimulus recipients who received $24 billion in Recovery Act funds — while owing more than $750 million in unpaid corporate, payroll, and other taxes. (Cash for Tax Cheats, anyone?)
He had nothing to say about the $6 billion in stimulus energy credits for homeowners that went to nearly a third of credit-claimers who had no record of homeownership, including minors and prisoners.
And the $530 million dumped into the profligate Detroit public schools for laptops and other computer equipment that have had little if any, measurable academic benefits.
And the whopping $6.7 million cost per job under the $50 billion stimulus-funded green energy loan program — which funded politically connected but now-bankrupt solar firms Solyndra ($535 million), Abound Solar ($400 million), Beacon Power ($43 million), A123 ($250 million) and Ener1 ($119 million). (The con game of just Solyndra for extra credit reading)
And the $1 million in stimulus cash that went to Big Bird and Sesame Street “to promote healthy eating,” which created a theoretical “1.47” jobs. (As Sean Higgins of The Examiner noted, “(T)hat comes out to about $726,000 per job created.”)
And the hundreds of millions in stimulus money steered to General Services Administration’s junkets in Las Vegas and Hawaii, ghost congressional districts, dead people, infrastructure to nowhere, and ubiquitous stimulus propaganda road signs stamped with the shovel-ready logo.
Of course, there’s no example of unfettered stimulus squandering more fitting than the one named after Keystone Fiscal Kop Joe Biden himself. Government-funded Amtrak’s Wilmington, Del., station raked in $20 million in “recovery” money after heavy personal lobbying by the state’s most prominent customer and cheerleader. In return, the station (which came in $6 million over budget, according to The Washington Times) renamed its facility after Biden.
Bloated costs. Crony political narcissism. Glaring conflicts of interest. Monumental waste. This is the Obama/Biden stimulus legacy bequeathed to our children and their grandchildren. Sheriff Joe and his plundering boss need to be run out of town on a rail. More here.
Primer: President Trump called on the U.S. attorney in Minnesota to investigate a report of alleged illegal ballot harvesting by supporters of Rep. Ilhan Omar in Minnesota.
Project Veritas, an investigative reporting project that uses undercover journalists, released a report on Sunday night that claimed Omar’s supporters in Minneapolis were illegally collecting blank ballots and bragging about it on social media. Trump condemned the actions depicted in the video in a tweet posted on Sunday night.
“This is totally illegal. Hope that the U.S. Attorney in Minnesota has this, and other of her many misdeeds, under serious review??? If not, why not??? We will win Minnesota because of her, and law enforcement. Saved Minneapolis & Iron O Range!” Trump wrote.
The report focuses on ballot harvesting, a practice Trump and other Republicans have condemned for years. Ballot harvesting is when a third party, often volunteers or campaign staff, collects ballots directly from the homes of voters to deliver them to polling stations. The third-party harvesters can be paid hourly for their work.
Most states that allow voters to have a third party deliver their ballots have a limit on the number of ballots that can be collected by an individual. California is the exception, which allows unlimited ballot collection so long as the harvesters are paid hourly and not per ballot. Full article here.
Ballot Harvester Liban Mohamed: “Money is Everything. Money is the King in this World. If You Got No Money, You Should Not Be Here, Period. You Know What I am Saying? Money is Everything and a Campaign is Managed By Money.”
Mohamed: “Numbers Do Not Lie. Numbers Do Not Lie. You Can See My Car is Full. All These Here Are Absentee Ballots. Can’t You See? Look at All These, My Car is Full.”
Paid Voter: “When We Sign The Voting Document and They Fill It Out Is When They Give Us The Money,”… “The Minute We Signed The Thing [Ballot] For The Election. That’s When We Get paid.”
Ballot Harvesting Triangle: River Plaza Apartments, Horn Towers seniors Community and 980 Hennepin Polling Site All Subject to Fraud
Minneapolis Somali Community Insider: “It’s an Open Secret” … “She [Ilhan Omar] Will Do Anything That She Can Do To Get Elected and She [Omar] Has Hundreds of People on The Streets Doing That.”
Seniors at Horn Towers Ballots Compromised; Harvester: We “Request” Ballots For The Seniors and Then Take Them Away.
[Minneapolis–Sept. 27, 2020] Project Veritas investigators revealed a ballot harvesting scheme here involving clan and political allies and associates of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D.-Minn.) in the first of a series of reports.
“Numbers don’t lie. Numbers don’t lie. You can see my car is full. All these here are absentees’ ballots. Can’t you see? Look at all these, my car is full. All these are for Jamal Osman… We got 300 today for Jamal Osman only,” said Liban Mohamed in a series of Snapchat videos posted July 1 and July 2 on his own Snapchat profile.
Mohamed said he was collecting the ballots to help his brother win the city’s Aug. 11 special election for a vacant Ward 6 city council race—which was held the same day as the primary for Omar’s MN-05 congressional seat. Ward 6 is the heart of the city’s Somali community and Omar’s political base.
James O’Keefe, the founder and CEO of Project Veritas, said: “Ballot harvesting is real and it has become big business. Our investigation into this ballot harvesting ring demonstrates clearly how these unscrupulous operators exploit the elderly and immigrant communities—and have turned the sacred ballot box into a commodities trading desk.”
O’Keefe said, “We are showing Americans what is really going on in one of our great cities—but, it’s not me saying—we have the operators on tape saying it all themselves.”
Our investigation found that among three locations inside Ward 6, a ballot harvesting triangle, where the scheme operates: the Riverside Plaza apartments, the senior citizen community at Horn Towers, and the Minneapolis Elections and Voter Services office at 980 E. Hennepin Ave., which also functions as a voting location and ballot drop-off site.
Mohamed continued: “Money is everything. Money is the king in this world. If you got no money, you should not be here period. You know what I am saying.”
Mohamed said that his political methods are interwoven with money. “Money is everything and a campaign is managed by money. You cannot campaign with $200 or $100 you got from your grandmother or grandfather. You cannot campaign with that. You gotta have an investment to campaign. You gotta have fundraisers.”
Hennepin County Attorney Jeff Wojciechowski told a Project Veritas journalist on a recorded line the ballot harvesting conduct described to him was: “Illegal, and we will be investigating.”
Somali insider stepped forward to expose election corruption in Minneapolis
Central to the Project Veritas investigation was Omar Jamal, a political insider active in the city’s Somali community. Jamal works with the Ramsey County Sheriff Department and is the chairman of the Somali Watchdog Group. “I have been involved in the community for the last 20 years.”
“Omar Jamal is the latest brave Project Veritas Insider to come forward and expose a voter fraud scheme in Minnesota that will shock you,” said O’Keefe. “When we spoke with Omar Jamal, he actually repeated part of our PV Insider motto: ‘Do Something.’”
Jamal said he was motivated to reach out to Project Veritas, because he wants to eliminate the corruption that weakens his community, such as the ballot harvesting practiced by Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, in which Ilhan Omar has emerged as a rising power broker.
“It’s an open secret,” he said. “she [Omar] will do anything that she can do to get elected and she has hundreds of people on the streets doing that.”
The political insider said he hopes there is still time to clean up elections in the country.
“If American people don’t pay attention to what’s happening, the country will collapse,” he said.
“The regulations, if you ignore that and you let corruption and fraud become a daily business and then tough luck, the country will not exist as they [Americans] know it,” Jamal said.
“I’m afraid it’s already too big to stop, you know, maybe it’s too late. Maybe it’s already too big to stop,” he said. “There’s a lot of people invested in this, you know, and they don’t care how they did it: ‘We win,’ and that’s it.”
Ballot Harvester described how his own ballot was harvested by Omar operatives
Jamal, as part of his participation in the investigation, interviewed a Somali-American who functions as a ballot harvester his community. In the interview, the harvester described how he was paid to vote in the Aug. 11 special election and primary, along with a Project Veritas undercover journalist.
The harvester said Somali-American vote-buying operatives from the Omar machine came to his apartment building to oversee the voter filling out the paperwork.
Omar operatives request the ballots and fill them out for the voters, he said.
“They come to us. They came to our homes. They said: ‘This year, you will vote for Ilhan,’” he said. “They said: ‘We will make the absentee ballots. We will fill out the forms for you and when you get them back, we will again fill it out and send it.”
There was no need to go to the voting site because the Omar operatives told him: “You stay home and you will not go to the place.”
After the ballots are signed and documented the harvester said he got paid.
“When we sign the voting document and they fill it out is when they give us the money,” he said. “The minute we signed the thing [ballot] for the election. That’s when we get paid.”
Ballot harvester describes how he targets elderly voters
Omar Jamal: So they [ballot harvesters] will request it [the ballot] for the elderly?
Ballot harvester: Yes. They [ballot harvesters] request [the ballot] for them [the elderly].
Omar Jamal: And it [the ballot] is taken away from them [elderly]?
Ballot Harvester: Yes. It [the ballot] is taken away from them [elderly].
DFL operative describes why he did not speak up about the election corruption
A political operative, known as Jamal, for Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, which functions as the state’s official chapter of the national Democratic Party, told a Project Veritas undercover journalist he was afraid to speak up when he saw abuses of the voting system.
“They fight you if you speak up,” Jamal said. “Like what? Like what can I do? Like get jumped? Hell no. They ain’t got—no, no, I’m good.”
The DFL operative said he also saw Mohamed’s Snapchat videos. “I was looking at them and they were not filled. They were blank.”
“Liban didn’t get it in a unique way,” he said. “He just gets them the way that everybody before him, or even, maybe even after him will do, which is go to the elders, maybe bait them and collect and help to them and he’s helping them–so, I think that’s the process of collecting from the seniors, from their buildings.”
The Insider said another corrupting effect is the miseducation of the city’s new immigrants.
“We have to understand that the immigrants mostly, here now, are first-generation immigrants,” he said.
“Through no fault of their own the new immigrants are learning about democracy from the ballot harvesters,” he said. “When they get here, because of that ignorance, not knowing how this, all things work. Sometimes they even think it’s legal.” – he said.
Documented ballot harvesting, vote-buying violates federal and state law
Jered Ede, the chief legal officer for Project Veritas, said Mohamed and his confederates may have violated both state and federal election laws, some carrying a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment.
“The federal laws, 18 USC §597 and 52 U.S.C. §10307(c) are quite clear,” he said. “In the case of 18 USC §597, it is punishable by up to two years in prison and in the case of 52 USC §10307 it’s punishable by up to $10,000 in fines and up to five years in prison.”
The Minnesota statute, 211B.13(1) prohibits paying a person or receiving money to register to vote or to vote, he said. “This is a state felony punishable by more than one-year imprisonment.”
Beyond paying voters, there are also state and federal laws regarding the intimidation of voters, he said.
“The federal laws 52 USC §20511, 18 USC §594 and 52 USC §10307(b) and the Minnesota statue 211B.07 law prohibit anyone from using undue influence threats intimidation or fraud to influence a person’s vote or to influence them to vote at all,” he said.
It’s also a violation of federal law for anyone who votes for others illegally:
“The punishment under 52 USC §10307(e) also goes up to five years’ incarceration and a $10,000 fine,” he said.
“In addition to those statutes, Minnesota has another statute, 211B.11(3), which makes it a misdemeanor to induce or persuade a voter to vote for or against a candidate, while transporting the voter to the polls,” he said.
Former campaign worker comes forward
One Minneapolis-based source, who is a former political worker, told Project Veritas journalists on the night of the Aug. 11 special election and primary that Omar’s campaign manager Ali Isse Gainey is a key player in the ballot harvesting scheme.
The source said, “[Gainey], who’s working in Ilhan’s campaign is the one who is managing the voting place. They bring them. They line them. They put the open ballots in there and then they take them in and say, ‘Here,’ and the people mark [the ballots].”
The practice is pervasive she said.
“They’re accepting temporary addresses; they’re accepting all kinds of shenanigans,” she said.
“People that are showing their ID: ‘I moved 30 days ago, my ID’s not come back.’ ‘OK, just give us the last four of your social and tell us the address,’ and then somebody else will say ‘Yeah.’ They will send people who are helping them vote and saying: ‘Yeah, I can vouch for this madness,’” she said.
The former campaign worker said Isse and the Omar-connected political machine have turned voter fraud into an organized process for application, registering, and tracking the harvested ballots from collection to delivering to polls.
“They have perfected this system,” she said. “This is what they do. They will tell you we are applying for your ballot. They take a picture of your social security and your driver’s license. They have a database. When the ballot comes, they track it, sometimes, they make fake emails. They track the ballot. Then, they come and pick up the ballot—unopened,” she said.
“So, there is a vested interest, but we are victims of the system,” she said. “They [the Omar political machine] don’t give a shit about any Somali.”
Our source was disgusted by the exploitation of her vulnerable community.
“No, and the ones that didn’t vote on ballots, the young people, and the women and stuff, they were paying cash, cash, cash,” she said. “They were carrying bags of money. And when you vote and they mark you off, then you get in the van, they give you the cash.”
Primer: With U.S.-China relations taking on increasing importance in all spheres of life — economic, geopolitical, cultural — it becomes vital to enhance the dialogue between our countries and build lasting, direct, and informative ties between our peoples. The Young Leaders Forum (YLF), now in its second decade, does just that.
Each year, YLF holds a four-day retreat to which a select group of exceptional American and Chinese young professionals are invited. Together, participants explore substantive issues, identify commonalities, and develop enduring friendships and partnerships in a casual, intimate environment.
Comprised of influencers and change-makers, the accomplished group of YLF fellows works in a variety of fields. Fellows include government officials and politicians, authors, university leaders, entrepreneurs, musicians, and artists. Attention is given to geographic, gender, and ethnic diversity.
The Forum’s location alternates each year between the United States and China. Each Forum is packed with interesting, provocative cross-cultural conversation and activity.
The National Committee, the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs (CPIFA), and the Forum’s U.S. sponsors—led in 2019 by Chubb and Xcoal—cover all lodging, food, and program costs of the YLF retreat for the first two years of our fellows’ participation, allowing them to attend one Forum in the United States and one in China. Participants are asked to pay their own travel expenses to and from the venue, but some full or partial subsidies are available.
And maybe there are some others that we need to question on membership or participation:
George Stephanopoulos moderates a national webcast discussion on U.S.-China relations with experts Stephen Orlins, Melanie Hart, Yasheng Huang, and Ely Ratner. The panelists address a range of current topics, from the trade war to protests in Hong Kong, from visa restrictions to the NBA. This webcast is part of the thirteenth annual CHINA Town Hall, held at 80+ venues across the United States and China on November 18, 2019.
(Someone needs to be sure that the Republican Senator Martha McSally knows the details.)
Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly
Yuichiro Kakutani – September 28, 2020, 5:00 AM
FB: The Chinese government invited then-astronaut Mark Kelly, now an Arizona Democratic Senate candidate, to an all-expenses-paid retreat at a countryside resort in 2003. He left China five days later not only with a future spouse, former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D., Ariz.) but also with lucrative regime business contacts.
Kelly attended the annual Young Leaders Forum, a five-day junket co-hosted by the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs, which is “under the leadership of the Communist Party of China.” The conference allowed Kelly an opportunity to mingle with high-profile Communist Party officials and rising stars in Chinese society. Attendees included Cui Tiankai, now Chinese ambassador to the United States; Fang Xinghai, former director of the CCP’s top committee on the economy; and Zhou Mingwei, the party’s former top foreign propaganda honcho.
China analyst Gordon G. Chang said that party connections—such as those Kelly fostered—are “absolutely essential” for securing Chinese business deals.
“The Communist Party tries to control everything, whether it’s a state enterprise or a private company,” he said. “And so it’s extremely important to have Communist Party contacts [to do business].”
Kelly has also had extensive ties with China since becoming a civilian. World View Enterprise, an aerospace company he co-founded and in which he still holds investments, received funding from Chinese tech giant Tencent, which censors the internet for Beijing. As the Washington Free Beacon reported, he also held a financial stake in a Colorado company that courted investments from a Chinese state-funded tech enterprise.
He now has assets worth up to $27 million, according to his financial disclosure.
A Kelly campaign spokesman said that the former aviator’s participation was “coordinated by NASA,” but did not answer questions about whether the Democrat used any of the contacts he met on the YLF trip for his business ventures. Instead, the campaign said that prominent Republicans also participated in the campaign.
Kelly and Giffords told multiple media outlets that they met during the Young Leaders Forum, without mentioning the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs. The retreat took place in a luxury hotel in the scenic Chinese countryside, where attendees went on pleasure cruise rides in between their panel discussions. Kelly gave a one-hour speech about his space experience, while Giffords participated in a panel discussion with Chinese politicos.
Kelly would participate in the 2004 and 2005 conferences as well. He called the experience “one of the absolute highlights of my life, second only to flying in space,” and even took a Forum banner into space in 2006.
Kelly’s campaign has been trying to deflect concerns about the candidate’s business ties by emphasizing his military service and calling China a “threat to American interests.” Nevertheless, they have remained contentious in the race, with Republicans spending millions on ads accusing him of dependence on China. He holds a 5.5 point lead against Republican incumbent Martha McSally, according to RealClearPolitics.
California Democrat Sen. and 2020 VP nominee on the “Harris-Biden” ticket Kamala Harris,, fresh from her epic character assassination attempt during the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, seems to have been designated the lead in trying to derail the Supreme Court nomination of 7th Circuit Judge Amy Coney Barrett. Harris’ partner in crime on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Maize Hirono of Hawaii, who plans to make her home visits by taxi after the Green New Deal kills airline travel, has said she will not meet with Barrett, lest her limited intellect be confused with the facts and she is unable to face the object of her anti-Catholic bigotry.
One of the talking points for this mob-in-waiting is Barrett’s membership in a Catholic lay group called People of Praise. Democrats call it a cult, but then that’s what many of them call the Catholic Church itself. Wherever two or more gather together in His name, many Democrats see a cult to be feared and hated.
But before they hated People of Praise, Democrats Harris and Hirono used a judicial confirmation hearing to attack another “cult” people might be more familiar with – namely the Knights of Columbus — Catholics are the sole remaining group that it is politically correct to slander and denigrate and nowhere is that clearer than in the consideration of nominees for court vacancies.
In the true spirit of the holiday season, Senators Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Mazie Hirono (D-HI) showed their true colors of bigotry and bias against Catholicism in a recent judicial confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill….
Buescher is also a long-time member of the Knights of Columbus, an iconic service group of nearly two million Catholics, worldwide, that recruits members for volunteer work and fundraising for charitable causes….
Originally founded in 1882, the Knights of Columbus started as a society benefitting poverty-stricken Catholic immigrants; now, the organization donates nearly 200 million dollars per year from approximately 15,000 chapters across twelve countries….
“Sen. Harris described the Knights as “an all-male society and asked if Buescher was aware that the Knights of Columbus “opposed a woman’s right to choose” and were against “marriage equality” when he joined,” the Catholic News Agency reported.
Of course, he is as is the Catholic Church… the Knights of Columbus were formed to serve in its religious and charitable functions. It is ironic that as the nation observed the birth of Jesus Christ, Democrats in the Senate were busy attacking the tenets of the church He founded, that life begins at conception, as did the life of Jesus, and ends at natural death and that marriage is a union of one man and one woman. But then it is typical of Democrats to respect lifestyles and not religious liberty and not believe that personal religious beliefs, as Buescher testified, can be kept separate from court decisions:
In response to a written question, per CNA, Buescher defended his judicial impartiality:
“…there is a difference between taking political positions as a candidate for elective office and serving as a federal judge. I believe a judge’s role and obligation is to apply the law without regard to any personal beliefs regarding the law.”
We saw the Democrats’ anti-Catholic bigotry on full display earlier with the confirmation hearing of Justice Amy Coney Barrett of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. Just as John F. Kennedy was said by some to be a stalking horse for the Vatican who would clear each major decision with the Pope, Barrett a practicing Catholic who actually gets it right was charged with embracing Catholic dogma so tight that there was no room left for the Constitution and those “emanations from a penumbra” that sanctified Roe vs. Wade. Catholic League President Bill Donahue addressed the issue on The Ingraham Angle on Fox:
Senate Democrats grilled Barrett over how her Catholic faith would affect her views on court precedents concerning abortion cases during her confirmation process after Trump nominated her as a circuit judge in 2017.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), in particular, showed what Catholic League President Bill Donahue called anti-religion “animus” during their questioning of her religious beliefs….
“Let’s remember … the seminal statement by Sen. Feinstein — she said the dogma screams loudly in you,” Donahue told Ingraham. “That’s coming awfully close to establishing a religious test.”
Feinstein received intense backlash after she told Barrett during her confirmation hearing, “Dogma and law are two different things. And, I think whatever a religion is, it has its own dogma. The law is totally different. And I think in your case, professor, when you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you.”
Let us hope so. The Bible, the same one liberals are waving lately, says Christians, and Catholics, are the light of the world and are to place their light, not under a bushel, but on a nightstand where the light can lead all to the ultimate truth. It is unlikely Feinstein would tell a Muslim nominee, “The Sharia dogma lives loudly within you.”
Note the use of the word “dogma” in a pejorative sense, as if the Catholic Church was a cult like the Druids chanting around a fire waiting for the human sacrifice to arrive. In fact, Barrett has in fact been slandered as a member of a cult which is in fact a legitimate Catholic faith group:
Ingraham agreed that she saw “a very strong anti-Catholic bias running through all of this” outrage against Barrett’s Catholicism and her membership in the conservative Christian People of Praise enclave.
Donahue replied, “I think I know what a cult is. This certainly is not a cult. It’s a charismatic renewal group, which is a family-oriented Catholic organization. And in fact, the pope — who’s hardly considered a man of the Right — welcomed them just last year at the Vatican.”
The Catholic Church is not a cult and neither is the Knights of Columbus a collection of all-male bigots despite the attempts by Harris, Hirono, Feinstein, Durbin, et al to portray them as such. The views and actions of the Knights of Columbus and non-cafeteria Catholics are no different than that of the twelve Apostles chosen by Jesus Christ to lead His ministry in the Catholic Church He founded despite the attempts of Democrats in the Senate to slander them and their adherents:
“This isn’t just about the Knights of Columbus or Catholics, this is an ongoing attack from the extremist left of the Democratic Party to silence people of faith and run them out of engaging in public service based on their religious beliefs,” Penny Nance, the president of Concerned Women for America, a Christian women’s activist group, said in a written statement.
“It is pure and simple religious bigotry,” Nance added….
“This is the kind of thuggish behavior we expect from third world dictators, not United States Senators,” Ken Blackwell, a former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, said in a statement. “That this attack on Catholics comes from the party of John F. Kennedy, who was proudly a Knight of Columbus, is particularly shocking and egregious. There should be no religious test in America, and I call on my Democratic friends to end this tactic of engaging in religious discrimination to destroy people nominated for public office.”
Sens. Mazie Hirono and Kamala Harris, in written questions to District Court judge nominee Brian Buescher, challenged his suitability for the bench because he belongs to this charitable Catholic group. Hirono claimed that the Knights have taken “extreme positions” such as affirming Catholic belief in traditional marriage and even asked Buescher, “If confirmed, do you intend to end your membership with this organization to avoid any appearance of bias?” In today’s Democratic Party, the new McCarthyism asks, “Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Knights of Columbus?”
The Catholic Church and its doctrine, which dates back to the first Christmas, are “extreme?” The Knights of Columbus, known to conduct those conspiratorial conclaves known as pancake breakfasts, were founded in response to bigotry similar to that of Harris and Hirono.
“Our country’s sad history of anti-Catholic bigotry contributed to the founding of the Knights of Columbus, and we are proud of the many Catholics who overcame this hurdle to contribute so greatly to our country,” she told the CNA.
Catholics like John F. Kennedy, a member of the Knights of Columbus. He would be ashamed of his party.
Watch out for Kamala Harris who, during the Kavanaugh hearings produced a doctored tape meant to make Kavanaugh look like a fool and a hypocrite and to slander his stellar reputation for integrity and honesty. She will say and do anything to derail Barrett just as she tried to derail Kavanaugh. As Breitbart reported:
Sen. Kamala Harris of California is being condemned for leading an attempt to smear Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh – this time with a deceptively edited video of a portion of his Senate confirmation hearings. The California Democrat tweeted an edited video of Kavanaugh’s response to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s questions about the judge’s 2015 dissent from denial of hearing en banc in the case of Priests for Life v. HHS…
However, Harris’s video was a sliced-and-diced version of Kavanaugh’s response to Cruz – which made it appear the nominee himself views contraceptives as “abortion-inducing drugs.”
“Kavanaugh chooses his words very carefully, and this is a dog whistle for going after birth control,” she posted. “He was nominated for the purpose of taking away a woman’s constitutionally protected right to make her own health care decisions. Make no mistake – this is about punishing women.”
As Carrie Severino, chief counsel and policy director to the Judicial Crisis Network, wrote at National Review:
“It’s clear that in his testimony to Senator Cruz, Kavanaugh was repeating the words that the plaintiffs had used in their own briefs. To say that because Kavanaugh accurately characterized the plaintiffs’ position he himself believes that contraceptives are abortion-inducing drugs demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of the Priests for Life litigation, as well as Kavanaugh’s testimony yesterday.”
The Democrats are coming with the ultimate affirmation of their bigotry – are you now or have you ever been a Catholic?
*Daniel John Sobieski is a freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in Investor’s Business Daily, Human Events, Reason Magazine, and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications.
One would have to look far and wide to see where the media reported this. But Planned Parenthood did respond.
Washington, D.C. — Today, the Clergy Advocacy Board of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America issued the following statement on Donald Trump’s new executive order, which he announced earlier this week at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast and released last night:
“As clergy, people invite us into their lives when the unexpected arises. But in these times of overheated political rhetoric, we must clarify: politicians are creating a false narrative to score political points. We are clergy to people facing real-life health crises and we know this is not how medical care works. The situation this executive order pretends to address simply does not happen, but the cruel stigma it creates for those seeking abortions is very real.
“Our experience teaches, first and foremost, to avoid judging those who would seek an abortion, no matter the reason. When we are called upon to provide prayer, counsel, and support, we see that every pregnancy is different, and that pregnancy must not be taken for granted, especially in those circumstances when something goes horribly wrong.
“We realize that many people’s faith will influence their decisions. We underscore the importance of allowing people to honor their differing faith teachings and personal conscience in these most trying and intimate moments of life. We respect these heartfelt personal decisions.
“Meanwhile, we acknowledge that people disagree about abortion. Yet we underscore the importance of ensuring that everyone has access to high quality health care throughout their pregnancy. Health care providers and their patients need all of their options.
“As religious leaders, we believe that God created human beings with the capacity to make wise decisions that direct their personal, private lives. We believe that each person deserves access to quality health care and must be spared from unwanted interference by politicians and hostile rhetoric.
“We walk in no one’s shoes but our own, and we would all be wise to react with compassion for every pregnant person and their loved ones who face such an exceptional and sorrowful situation.”
Background on the Planned Parenthood Federation of America Clergy Advocacy Board:
Building on the long history of faith leaders taking an active role in supporting reproductive health care, the Clergy Advocacy Board has been working with Planned Parenthood at the national and state levels to further the goal of full reproductive rights and freedom for all people for more than two decades. Its members, who are dedicated clergy and faith leaders from different denominations and communities throughout the U.S., lead a national effort to increase public awareness of the theological and moral basis for advocating reproductive health.
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section1. Purpose. Every infant born alive, no matter the circumstances of his or her birth, has the same dignity and the same rights as every other individual and is entitled to the same protections under Federal law. Such laws include the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), 42 U.S.C. 1395dd, which guarantees, in hospitals that have an emergency department, each individual’s right to an appropriate medical screening examination and to either stabilizing treatment or an appropriate transfer. They also include section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (Rehab Act), 29 U.S.C. 794, which prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities by programs and activities receiving Federal funding. In addition, the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, 1 U.S.C. 8, makes clear that all infants born alive are individuals for purposes of these and other Federal laws and are therefore afforded the same legal protections as any other person. Together, these laws help protect infants born alive from discrimination in the provision of medical treatment, including infants who require emergency medical treatment, who are premature, or who are born with disabilities. Such infants are entitled to meaningful and non-discriminatory access to medical examination and services, with the consent of a parent or guardian, when they present at hospitals receiving Federal funds.
Despite these laws, some hospitals refuse the required medical screening examination and stabilizing treatment or otherwise do not provide potentially lifesaving medical treatment to extremely premature or disabled infants, even when parents plead for such treatment. Hospitals might refuse to provide treatment to extremely premature infants — born alive before 24 weeks of gestation — because they believe these infants may not survive, may have to live with long-term disabilities, or may have a quality-of-life deemed to be inadequate. Active treatment of extremely premature infants has, however, been shown to improve their survival rates. And the denial of such treatment, or discouragement of parents from seeking such treatment for their children, devalues the lives of these children and may violate Federal law.
Sec. 2. Policy. It is the policy of the United States to recognize the human dignity and inherent worth of every newborn or other infant child, regardless of prematurity or disability, and to ensure for each child due protection under the law.
Sec. 3. (a) The Secretary of Health and Human Services (Secretary) shall ensure that individuals responsible for all programs and activities under his jurisdiction that receive Federal funding are aware of their obligations toward infants, including premature infants or infants with disabilities, who have an emergency medical condition in need of stabilizing treatment, under EMTALA and section 504 of the Rehab Act, as interpreted consistent with the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act. In particular, the Secretary shall ensure that individuals responsible for such programs and activities are aware that they are not excused from complying with these obligations, including the obligation to provide an appropriate medical screening examination and stabilizing treatment or transfer, when extremely premature infants are born alive or infants are born with disabilities. The Secretary shall also ensure that individuals responsible for such programs and activities are aware that they may not unlawfully discourage parents from seeking medical treatment for their infant child solely because of their infant child’s disability. The Secretary shall further ensure that individuals responsible for such programs and activities are aware of their obligations to provide stabilizing treatment that will allow the infant patients to be transferred to a more suitable facility if appropriate treatment is not possible at the initial location.
(b) The Secretary shall, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, ensure that Federal funding disbursed by the Department of Health and Human Services is expended in full compliance with EMTALA and section 504 of the Rehab Act, as interpreted consistent with the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, as reflected in the policy set forth in section 2 of this order.
(i) The Secretary shall, as appropriate and to the fullest extent permitted by law, investigate complaints of violations of applicable Federal laws with respect to infants born alive, including infants who have an emergency medical condition in need of stabilizing treatment or infants with disabilities whose parents seek medical treatment for their infants. The Secretary shall also clarify, in an easily understandable format, the process by which parents and hospital staff may submit such complaints for investigation under applicable Federal laws.
(ii) The Secretary shall take all appropriate enforcement action against individuals and organizations found through investigation to have violated applicable Federal laws, up to and including terminating Federal funding for non-compliant programs and activities.
(c) The Secretary shall, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, prioritize the allocation of Department of Health and Human Services discretionary grant funding and National Institutes of Health research dollars for programs and activities conducting research to develop treatments that may improve survival — especially survival without impairment — of infants born alive, including premature infants or infants with disabilities, who have an emergency medical condition in need of stabilizing treatment.
(d) The Secretary shall, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, prioritize the allocation of Department of Health and Human Services discretionary grant funding to programs and activities, including hospitals, that provide training to medical personnel regarding the provision of life-saving medical treatment to all infants born alive, including premature infants or infants with disabilities, who have an emergency medical condition in need of stabilizing treatment.
(e) The Secretary shall, as necessary and consistent with applicable law, issue such regulations or guidance as may be necessary to implement this order.
Sec. 4. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
CNBC has been a good source for stock market updates and “Shark Tank” programs about new products. Its daytime schedule is best known for the antics of Jim Cramer, a booster of pot stocks who also provides an analysis of financial markets. On Wednesday, however, former Fox News gay anchor Shepard Smith begins hosting his own Trump-bashing program on CNBC. This marks a definite turn to the left for the business channel.
Dozens of ads have been appearing, trying to convince the CNBC audience that he will provide just the “facts,” even the “truth.” CNBC describes the program as the channel’s nightly newscast “providing deep, non-partisan coverage and perspective on the day’s most important stories.”
But the commentator is best known for his disgust for those who reject his liberal opinions masquerading as news.
One of the major homosexual power players in the media, Smith was a closeted gay early in his career but then began to talk openly about his lifestyle choices and attended a National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association event in 2014 with other Fox News employees. It later became the Association of LGBTQ Journalists.
But he left Fox News in a controversy as the audience rejected his heavy-handed approach and his ratings lagged far behind the conservative news channel anchors. Described as “often” critical of President Donald Trump, he had completely dropped any pretense of objectivity on his show.
When the far-left Huffington Post in 2016 proclaimed Smith as “the future” of Fox News, many conservatives started looking elsewhere for news and information. However, Smith left Fox News in 2019, having achieved notoriety as the only gay anchor at the channel. His poor ratings took their toll.
Later, he emerged from obscurity and donated $500,000 to the Committee to Protect Journalists, in order to protest criticism of the media. “Intimidation and vilification of the press is now a global phenomenon,” Smith said. “We don’t have to look far for evidence of that.”
Hence, Smith apparently believes it is improper for Trump to defend his administration against unfair press criticism by activists posing as journalists.
His decision to join CNBC, a sister network of Trump-hating MSNBC, is regarded as an attempt to inject more bias into a channel the normal CNBC business-oriented audience might not expect or anticipate. It’s comparable to making ESPN, once known for sports, into an arm of Black Lives Matter.
Indeed, the debut of the Shepard Smith show, just weeks before the election, is apparently designed to add one more anti-Trump commentator to the cacophony of anti-Trump voices already in the media, and therefore sway some votes against the president on November 3. The danger for CNBC is that it will lose its edge as a business channel giving objective analysis of the financial markets, driving members of its business audience away.
“Haters are going to hate” is how Shepard Smith, then with Fox News, referred to supporters of Christian clerk Kim Davis when she opposed gay marriage. It was perhaps the most notorious example of his disgust for those rejecting his lifestyle choices.
In fact, Fox News, CNBC, and scores of media organizations have served as sponsors of the Association of LGBTQ Journalists. This is the group that dictates, through an actual “stylebook,” on how to use “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender & queer terminology.” Sponsors of the group’s upcoming convention include AARP, CNN, CBS News, Bloomberg, Fox, the Google News Lab, the Democracy Fund, McClatchy, the Facebook Journalism Project, and NBCUniversal, parent of CNBC.
But in addition to attacking Christians as “haters,” Smith had complained on the air on Fox News that those turning out in support of Christian clerk Kim Davis and her stand against gay marriage were being “divisive.” He said Davis was surrounded by “grandstanders,” such as the “ridiculous” Mike Huckabee, a presidential candidate and former governor of Arkansas who served as a host of a talk show on the Fox News Channel. His daughter later served as Trump’s press secretary.
On his show about Davis, Smith had mocked her for having been married several times and having kids out of wedlock, not mentioning her religious conversion to Christianity that turned her life around and led to her take a stand against signing the gay marriage licenses. Smith said, “Ms. Davis apparently believes in the sanctity of marriage to the degree that she’s been married a total of four times. In fact, she got pregnant with her third husband’s children while married to her first husband. But fear not: her second husband adopted them.”
Davis was the target of this venom because she had objected on religious liberty grounds to putting her name and government title on licenses for homosexual marriages. She spent six days in jail. Later, she met with Pope Francis during his trip to the United States, a visit arranged by his ambassador to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Vigano. Francis removed Vigano, a traditionalist, from his post and Vigano has emerged as a fierce critic of Francis, declaring in letters that a Deep State with secular and demonic spiritual elements and a “Deep Church” are trying to destroy the Donald J. Trump presidency.
He says, “Presidential elections in November represent an epochal challenge, a biblical challenge, the outcome of which will be decisive not only for the United States of America but for the whole world.”
CNBC enters into this conflict with a noted proponent of the gay lifestyle who also wants to take down Trump. CNBC has taken sides. This can only hurt ratings.
*Cliff Kincaid is president of America’s Survival, Inc. www.usasurvival.org.
The Wall Street Journal column, “Colorado’s Cory Gardner Struggles to Survive the Trump Effect,” tries to pin the blame on the president for the Republican Senator in Colorado consistently running behind his opponent in his race for reelection. The author, Jillian Kay Melchior, never once mentions that Gardner has been a booster of Colorado’s lethal dope industry and is losing conservative support because of it.
Recognizing that he is losing conservative votes, Gardner has now come out in favor of a quick vote on President Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court. “He Found His Spine,” proclaimed the conservative website Big League Politics.
Senator Lindsey Graham, often labeled a RINO (Republican in Name Only), is also in jeopardy. He is reportedly leading Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison in the South Carolina Senate race by only one point, 46-45 percent.
The explanation is Graham’s weak conservative credentials. Morning Consult finds that “While Trump has support from 93 percent of Republicans, Graham has support from 84 percent in the same poll — making him one of the worst-performing GOP incumbents up for re-election this cycle among voters from his own party.”
But the problem is not confined to Gardner and Graham. Other Republicans in Senate contests polling behind Trump are Joni Ernst in Iowa, Steve Daines in Montana, Thom Tillis in North Carolina, and Martha McSally in Arizona.
Contrary to what the Journal’s Melchior says, the “Trump Effect” helps candidates.
In her column on Gardner, published before Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away, the Journal’s Melchior wrote that “Mr. Trump, who lost Colorado by five points, has alienated many suburban women and independents,” but Gardner has alienated conservatives opposed to Colorado becoming the headquarters of national marijuana drug trafficking. Gardner has been in the back pocket of the dope business, earning him the label of “pot whore.”
On Facebook, the Melchior column was described as documenting how “Trump’s unpopularity is dragging down his [Gardner’s] re-election effort…” This is nonsense. Gardner is losing not because of Trump but because he, too, is a Republican in Name Only (RINO) taking the “progressive” line on legalization of dope, making him indistinguishable from his Democratic Party opponent, former Governor John Hickenlooper.
Ignoring all of this, she claims that Gardner “is a good candidate and an incumbent with a solid track record” and that “His struggle shows the peril of being a swing-state Republican in the age of Trump.” His problems are of his own making and have nothing to do with Trump. No Republican in good conscience could vote for him. Some might do so, only to say they voted against the Democrat, but Gardner is not a “common-sense conservative,” as he likes to describe himself. Common sense does not drive somebody to be a shill for what is now being called “Big Marijuana.” It is Big Tobacco with the replacement of nicotine by THC’s mind-altering qualities.
Jillian Kay Melchior, an editorial page writer at The Wall Street Journal, was a graduate of Hillsdale College and worked for several conservative publications and organizations. But she ignores the social issues that motivate many voters.
Dozens of new anti-drug groups have emerged in recent years. One of them, Smart Colorado, reports, “Since Colorado voters legalized recreational marijuana with Amendment 64 in 2012, Colorado’s youth have served as guinea pigs in a risky experiment,” and that recent data show that “Colorado now ranks first in the nation for past month marijuana use by those 12-17 years old…”
The group warns, “We never foresaw how aggressive and powerful the financial interests behind this new billion-dollar industry would become.” Yet, Gardner is happy with this outcome.
Attorney David Evans, Senior Counsel to Cannabis Industry Victims Educating Litigators (CIVEL), has called Gardner “a pot whore.”
Democrats only need to win four seats to take back the majority in the Senate, and Gardner is a likely goner.
Tragically, Ms. Melchior isn’t alone is being a source of erroneous information.
In his Wall Street Journal column, “GOP Senate Hopefuls Try to Outrun Trump,” GOP “strategist” Karl Rove calls Gardner one of several superior GOP candidates running “energetic, nearly textbook-perfect campaigns.” He, too, ignores Gardner’s debt to the dope lobby.
Gardner gave an interview to a stoner publication, Marijuana Moment, and called marijuana legalization a “significant success.”
Here’s what their “success” looks like, according to the Rocky Mountain High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (RMHIDTA) program:
Since recreational marijuana was legalized, traffic deaths in which drivers tested positive for marijuana increased 109 percent while all Colorado traffic deaths increased 31 percent.
The yearly number of emergency department visits related to marijuana increased 54 percent after the legalization of recreational marijuana (2013 compared to 2017).
Seizures of Colorado marijuana in the U.S. mail system have increased 1,042 percent from an average of 52 parcels (2009-2012) to an average of 594 parcels (2013-2017) during the time recreational marijuana has been legal.
The argument was that legal dope would replace black market activity. But an investigation by public broadcasting found strong evidence of Colorado marijuana products “being exported to other states,” with law enforcement trying “to keep up with the burgeoning black market.”
If Gardner and the RINOS win, it’s because Trump will pull them across the finish line after they decided to vote for Trump nominee Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. The “Trump Effect” is their only hope.
Eric Ciaramella, the National Security Council Director for Ukraine, is widely assumed to be Rep. Adam Schiff’s so-called whistleblower regarding President Trump’s July 25, 2019 phone call (a call that Ciaramella was not even on) with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. That “whistleblower” complaint began a series of events leading to President Trump’s impeachment and acquittal in late 2019 and early 2020.
It so happens that Ciaramella chaired a series of meetings at the White House and Old Executive Office Building, many with links to the radical leftist billionaire, George Soros, whose fingerprints can be found on everything from the collapse of national currencies to the election of equally radical prosecutors across the U.S. who are allowing our cities to be destroyed right before our eyes, and to the repeated efforts to remove the duly elected President Trump from office.
Criminal or unethical intent of the meeting attendees described below are in no way assumed or implied, but investigating Eric Ciaramella’s perhaps operational activities while a member of the otherwise think tank-like National Security Council is worthwhile.
During the first week of December 2015, Donald Trump began to establish a substantial lead over his Republican primary opponents.
Vice President Joseph Biden traveled to Ukraine to announce, on December 7th, a $190 million program to “fight corruption in law enforcement and reform the justice sector,” but behind the scenes, there was an apparent explicit link between a $1 billion loan guarantee and the firing of Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who had been investigating the energy company Burisma, which had as a paid board member Biden’s son Hunter.
At the time, the problem raised about the alleged Latvia-Ukraine-Cyprus money-laundering investigation, which had been ongoing up until December 2015, was that it would potentially involve the Bidens.
It is not unreasonable to assume that a decision was taken to shift the emphasis of the investigation away from the Bidens and in the direction of Paul Manafort and the Trump campaign.
According to White House visitor logs, on January 19, 2016, Eric Ciaramella chaired a meeting of FBI, Department of Justice, and Department of State personnel, which reportedly had two main objectives:
To coerce the Ukrainians to drop the Burisma probe, which involved Vice President Joseph Biden’s son Hunter, and allow the FBI to take over the investigation.
To reopen a closed 2014 FBI investigation that focused heavily on GOP lobbyist Paul Manafort, whose firm had long been tied to Trump through his partner and Trump pal, Roger Stone.
The obvious purpose was to contain the investigation of Biden’s son and ramp up the investigation of Paul Manafort.
Again, according to White House logs, the attendees at the January 19, 2016 meeting in Room 230A of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building were:
Eric Ciaramella – National Security Council Director for Ukraine
Liz Zentos – National Security Council Director for Eastern Europe
David G. Sakvarelidze – Deputy General Prosecutor of Ukraine
Anna E. Iemelianova (Yemelianova) – Legal Specialist, US Embassy Kyiv, and US Department of Justice’s Anti-Corruption Program.
Nazar A. Kholodnitsky, Ukraine’s chief anti-corruption prosecutor
Catherine L. Newcombe – an attorney in the Criminal Division, Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, with the U.S. Department of Justice
Svitlana V. Pardus – Operations, Department of Justice, U.S. Embassy, Ukraine.
Artem S. Sytnyk – Director of the National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine
Andriy G. Telizhenko, a political officer in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington DC
Jeffrey W. Cole – Resident Legal Advisor at U.S. Embassy Ukraine, presumed to be FBI
Just two weeks after that meeting, on February 2, 2016, according to White House logs, Eric Ciaramella chaired a meeting in Room 374 of the Eisenhower Executive Office, which seems to be a planning session to re-open an investigation of Paul Manafort (Note: one of the crimes of which Manafort was accused was money laundering, an area normally covered by the Department of the Treasury). The attendees were:
Jose Borrayo – Acting Section Chief, Office of Special Measures, U.S. Department of the Treasury, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
Julia Friedlander – Senior Policy Advisor for Europe, Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, U.S. Department of the Treasury.
Michael Lieberman – Deputy Assistant Secretary, Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, U.S. Department of the Treasury.
Scott Rembrandt – Anti-Money Laundering Task Force, Assistant Director/Director, Office of Strategic Policy, Department of the Treasury.
Justin Rowland – Special Agent (financial crimes), Federal Bureau of Investigation.
It appears that Paul Manafort became a vehicle by which the Obama Deep State operatives could link Trump to nefarious activities involving Russians, which eventually evolved into the Trump-Russia collusion hoax.
It is also no secret that George Soros operates through Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) to influence national policies throughout the world.
It may be that Eric Ciaramella was acting as a coordinator of some Soros-linked efforts in Ukraine in parallel with U.S. government activities, in particular through the State Department’s U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
On March 16, 2016, Eric Ciaramella chaired a meeting of the following interconnected individuals and groups in Room 230B of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
Gina Lentine, Program Associate, Europe & Eurasia at Freedom House ( reportedly Soros-funded), where she was responsible for media support and civil society programming in Ukraine. Prior to that, Lentine was Program Coordinator, Eurasia Program for Soros’ Open Society Foundations, where she monitored civil society and NGO development in Ukraine.
Alim Aliiev, a Ukrainian and program director of Crimean House, was a co-founder of the Crimean Tatar Cultural Center in Lviv, which was funded by the Soros-funded International Renaissance Foundation.
Florian Irminger, from Switzerland, was Head of Advocacy at Human Rights House. He was also Treasurer for the Centre for Civil and Political Rights, which had a partnership with Soros’ Open Society Foundation and ran the joint “Conference on Corruption and its Impact on Human Rights in the Post-Soviet World” in Bern, Switzerland, 26-27 November 2014. On October 31, 2019, Irminger received a Soros Open Societies Foundation New Executives Fund grant ($25,000 to $250,000).
Zoryan Kis, a Project Coordinator at Freedom House in Ukraine, received a $113,000 Soros grant to support LGBT activities.
Tetiana Pechonchyk is chairperson of the ZMINA Human Rights Centre in Ukraine. ZMINA is funded by the Soros-funded International Renaissance Foundation and Freedom House (listed on the ZMINA website). Pechonchyk is connected to the Human Rights House.
Matthew Schaaf is Freedom House’s Project Director Ukraine and writes for the Soros-funded Open Democracy.
Olga Skrypnyk is a member of the Crimean Human Rights Group and ZMINA, the latter which is funded by Soros and Freedom House.
March 30, 2016 – Eric Ciaramella met David K. Meyer, Foreign Service Officer specializing in relationships with strategic partners including foreign government representatives, domestic and international non-governmental organizations (NGO). The meeting took place in the White House Situation Room suggesting a requirement for secrecy.
April 11, 2016 – Eric Ciaramella met with:
Zselyke Csaky, Freedom House, Research Director for Europe and Eurasia and works on Nations in Transit, Freedom House’s annual survey of democracy from Central Europe to Central Asia.
Robert G. Herman, Non-Resident Senior Democracy Fellow at Freedom House specializing in emergency assistance to frontline activists and organizations that have come under threat, and multilateral initiatives.
Nate Schenkkan, Director for Special Research at Freedom House.
April 15, 2016 – Eric Ciaramella met Sara E. Silverstein, assistant professor of history and human rights (for migrants) at the University of Connecticut, and Timothy D. Snyder, a historian specializing in the history of Central and Eastern Europe at Yale University.
May 6, 2016 – Eric Ciaramella met among others:
Benjamin L. Schmitt, European Energy Security Advisor, U.S. Department of State.
Marguerite B. Rivard, Joint Duty Assignment as EUCOM Branch Chief at US Department of Defense, Office of the Under Secretary for Defense Intelligence (Russian, Ukrainian linguist).
Nathan F. Peeters, Department of Homeland Security
The meeting took place in the White House Situation Room suggesting a requirement for secrecy.
June 1, 2016 – Victoria Nuland has a telephone conversation with George Soros and Yevhen Bystrystky, CEO of the International Renaissance Foundation, a Ukrainian NGO founded by George Soros.
June 2, 2016 – Eric Ciaramella met Yevhen Bystrystky, CEO of the Soros-funded International Renaissance Foundation, and Jeffrey L. Goldstein, senior policy analyst for Eurasia at George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
June 9, 2016 – Eric Ciaramella met, among others:
Matthew Q. Edwards, Department of Commerce.
Alex J. Grohovsky International Economist, Department of the Treasury conducted political and economic analysis on a portfolio covering Ukraine.
Jonathan Katz, Director for Ukraine, USAID.
Michael A. Lally, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), Department of Commerce.
Matthew A. Murray, Senior Advisor, Governance and Rule of Law, USAID, who implemented development assistance programs to address risks posed by systemic corruption in critical nations and conflict zones.
Elizabeth I. Urbanas, Director Europe and Eurasia, Department of Energy.
John Vansandt, Senior Policy Advisor and Crisis Coordinator, USAID.
The meeting took place in the White House Situation Room suggesting a requirement for secrecy.
June 17, 2016 – Eric Ciaramella meets Victoria Nuland, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, and Geoffrey R. Pyatt, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine. The meeting took place in the White House Situation Room suggesting a requirement for secrecy.
July 5, 2016 – Eric Ciaramella met Jonathan Katz, Director for Ukraine, USAID.
July 13, 2016 – Eric Ciaramella met Jonathan Katz, Director for Ukraine, USAID.
August 16, 2016 – Eric Ciaramella met Jonathan Katz, Director for Ukraine, USAID.
There are several peculiar aspects to a meeting chaired by Eric Ciaramella on September 7, 2016, in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. All seven invitees signed in between 1:14-1:17 PM for a scheduled 1:30 PM start. Based on the attendees’ expertise, the meeting’s topic was likely Ukraine.
The meeting appears to have involved at least three employees of the National Security Agency, the intelligence organization responsible for gathering and analyzing electronic surveillance. This meeting occurred over a month before the first FBI-initiated, Trump-Russia collusion hoax FISA warrant was issued.
The presence of one attendee, the Executive Director of a Soros-funded entity, raises suspicions as to the intended courses of action arising from the meeting, given Eric Ciaramella’s previous meetings with Soros-connected individuals.
It appears that three attendees were signed-in under names other than their own. The names seem to be altered in roughly the same fashion, in such a way suggesting a deliberate intent to deceive. Based on the type of alteration, it gives the impression that the individuals were either instructed to do so or the logs were changed.
According to White House visitor logs, the names of those at Ciaramella’s meeting are listed as: Michael D. Jarvis, Natalia O. Lassowsky, Bailey S. Holladay, Stefanie L. Stagg, Thomas W. Pucci, Donald M. Camp, and Jessica M. Gray.
Based on available public information, the professional roles of the attendees have been analyzed.
Michael D. Jarvis became Executive Director of the Soros-funded Transparency and Accountability Initiative in June 2016. He was previously with the World Bank Group working on corporate responsibility issues, anti-corruption, private sector roles in development, and multi-stakeholder governance. Jarvis is a specialist in the oil, gas, and mining sectors. George Soros is said to have “extensive business interests in Ukraine,” a country with large oil and gas industries.
Natalia O. Lassowsky is believed to be of Ukrainian extraction and was an employee of the National Security Agency, with whom she holds a patent.
Bailey S. Holladay is a U.S. Air Force-trained, likely Russian, linguist, and presumably, an analyst for the National Security Agency, based on her published associates and areas of expertise.
Stafanie L. Stagg is a name that appears in the Washington DC area, but her affiliation is yet undetermined, presumed to have been with the National Security Agency or an intelligence-related organization in some way dealing with Ukraine, based on the nature of Ciaramella’s meeting. A request for verification has not been answered.
“Thomas W. Pucci” appears to be Thomas J. Pucciarella, presumed National Security Agency employee and son of Donna M. Pucciarella, former head of the Office of Personnel Security at the National Security Agency. He now works in the private sector.
“Donald M. Camp” is likely LTG (ret) Donald M. Campbell, former commander of USA EUR during the Ukraine-Russia conflict and the seizure of Crimea. He also has a background in Cyber and is now an independent consultant for Blackwater Agency/Protection, according to his LinkedIn resume.
“Jessica M. Gray” seems to be Jessica K. Graybill, Associate Professor of Geography and Russian and Eurasian Studies; Director, Russian & Eurasian Studies Program, Colgate University.
Ciaramella’s September 7, 2016, Soros-connected meeting follows two of his previous Soros-connected meetings, according to White House visitor logs.
On December 9, 2015, Ciaramella held a meeting in Room 236 of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building with Daria Kaleniuk, executive director of the Ukrainian Anti-Corruption Action Center, which was 59%-funded by Barack Obama’s State Department and the International Renaissance Foundation, a George Soros organization.
Also attending that meeting was Catherine Newcombe, an attorney in the Criminal Division, Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, with the U.S. Department of Justice, where, among other duties, she oversaw the Department’s legal assistance programs to Ukraine. The other meeting took place on March 16, 2016, and described above.
With John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the Russia-collusion hoax apparently nearing an end, and the report released this week by Senators Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley into Hunter and Joe Biden’s potential conflicts of interest regarding Ukraine, Russia, and China, these meetings involving Eric Ciaramella take on new meaning in the ongoing Deep State efforts to overturn the last election. If Joe Biden becomes President and the Democrats take control of the Senate, investigations into how these stories overlap and relate to each other will come to an end.
In Memoriam
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