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50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

Pete Hegseth makes an example of Mark Milley for his arrogant defiance of the president By Susan Quinn

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/02/pete_hegseth_makes_an_example_of_mark_milley_for_his_arrogant_defiance_of_the_president.html

If President Trump had known in 2016 how arrogant a man Mark Milley was, he might never have appointed him to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Milley’s treasonous behavior, spectacular incompetence, and rebelliousness against the president justify the punishment he is being ordered.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the Pentagon’s inspector general to investigate the ‘conduct’ of retired Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley — who at times clashed with President Trump during his first term — and determine whether it’s appropriate he should be reduced in rank from his current four stars.

Hegseth also revoked Milley’s security detail and suspended his security clearance.

Even though Milley is retired, he had an ongoing security detail through the Army as a result of Iranian threats in the wake of the 2020 U.S. drone strike that killed Iranian [Revolutionary Guard Corps Gen. Qasem] Soleimani. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and then-National Security Adviser John Bolton recently lost their security details on orders from Trump, who clashed with them as well.

When Trump first appointed Milley, he seemed like a reasonable choice; however, Milley seemed to have an exaggerated understanding of the power he wielded, and when Trump “defied,” him, he was apparently insulted.

He frequently disagreed with Trump’s decisions, and proceeded to undermine him.

Milley opposed Trump’s interest in using military force to suppress protests following George Floyd’s death and later found himself at the center of controversy in 2021 for independently contacting his Chinese counterpart. Trump denounced the calls as treason, while Milley defended them as routine and within his duties as Joint Chiefs Chairman.

Schumer Under Investigation While Trump Reshapes Washington Schumer faces scrutiny over past threats to justices, while Trump dismantles DEI, deports migrants, and strikes ISIS, signaling a shift in Washington’s priorities. By Roger Kimball

https://amgreatness.com/2025/02/02/schumer-under-investigation-while-trump-reshapes-washington/

Senator Chuck Schumer is a lawyer, so presumably he is familiar with the provisions of 18 U.S. Code § 115. In case he has forgotten—after all, there are a lot of statutes to keep track of—Edward R. Martin, Jr., the Interim D.C. U.S. Attorney, is in the process of reminding him.

Among other things, that statute holds that anyone who threatens a federal government official or their family with the “intent to impede, intimidate, or interfere with such official, judge, or law enforcement officer while engaged in the performance of official duties, or with intent to retaliate against such official, judge, or law enforcement officer on account of the performance of official duties,” shall be punished with a term in the slammer, the length of the sentence being dependent on the actual harm caused.

When the Supreme Court was hearing an abortion case in March 2020, Schumer showed up at a protest rally in front of the Court and shouted, “I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh: You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price.”

Perhaps Nicholas John Roske had that speech in mind in June 2022. It was then that he traveled from California to Maryland to pay the Kavanaughs a visit. It was not intended to be a friendly visit. In the dead of night, he took a taxi to their home. According to the court filing, he carried a suitcase in which was a “black tactical chest rig and tactical knife, a Glock 17 pistol with two magazines and ammunition, pepper spray, zip ties, a hammer, screwdriver, nail punch, crowbar, pistol light, duct tape, hiking boots with padding on the outside of the soles, and other items.”

When apprehended, Roske admitted that he had come to kill Brett Kavanaugh. I wonder what Chuck Schumer thought of that. It looks like Edward Martin is going to find out. On Friday, Martin announced not only that he was firing more than two dozen federal prosecutors; he also announced that he was opening an investigation into Schumer for his threats against two U.S. Supreme Court justices. For most mortals, issuing such threats would earn one a visit from the authorities. As a paid-up member of the Washington elite, Senator Schumer doubtless thought he was exempt from all such rules. Until January 20, he probably was.

Trump’s assault on DEI will bring us closer to a post-racial America The biggest winners from an end to racial identity politics will be ethnic minorities themselves Joel Kotkin

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/01/30/trumps-assault-on-dei-will-bring-us-closer-to-a-post-racial-america/

It’s hard to picture Donald Trump as a civil-rights hero in the mould of Abraham Lincoln or even Lyndon Johnson. Yet through his orders to dismantle the ubiquitous regime of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), he may have accelerated America’s evolution into a post-racial society.

DEI ideology has been around for years, but it was given a significant boost after the police killing of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. In response, many government and business leaders chose to embrace DEI as means to placate those calling for a new American regime in which people would be divided and advantaged according to race.

But DEI initiatives have been flailing recently – even before Trump’s election. Indeed, think-tank research from last year showed that over half of company executives were already anticipating pushback against DEI initiatives. Among the firms to have recently stepped back from DEI are Boeing, John Deere, Harley-Davidson, Black + Decker, Target and, the biggest of all, Walmart. Over the past two years, corporate DEI departments have been slashed, with one third of DEI professionals losing their jobs in 2022 alone.

Trump’s dismantling of DEI in the federal government no doubt thrills the various factions who support him, from the libertarians to the traditionalist conservatives to the white-nationalist fringe. Yet over time, perhaps the biggest winner from the dethroning DEI may be ethnic minorities themselves.

Drawing in part on critical race theory, DEI advocates maintain that racial characteristics largely determine people’s lives in America. These new racialists claim that any shortfalls in income, status or professional credentials stem from racial discrimination. In response, they call for ‘people of colour’ to work together to relentlessly undermine so-called white privilege.

Rather than seek greater integration, as was the cause of the old civil-rights movement, these racialist radicals embrace a kind of re-segregation. This can be seen from their involvement in schools. There they advocate indoctrinating young children in DEI ideology. On occasions, they have been known to get third-graders (eight- to nine-year-olds) to separate themselves by race and ask them to rank their ‘privilege’.

In attacking DEI, Trump is taking a widely popular position. The idea that, say, President Obama’s children should be given an edge against someone from a poor Appalachian hollow seems unjust to the vast majority of Americans of all races.

In thrall to the racial identitarianism of the DEI crowd, Democrats hoped that working-class voters would turn their way as more became increasingly non-white. After all, minorities currently make up over 40 per cent of America’s working class and will likely constitute the majority by the next decade.

But many minorities, including the young, seem more concerned with their immediate economic prospects than gaining unearned advantages through DEI programmes. Indeed, minority and poor white Americans are mainly concerned about inflation, rising crime, poor schools and the threats to their livelihoods posed by draconian green policies. Little wonder nearly half of all Latinos voted for Trump, as did growing numbers of Muslims and black males. Asian voters’ support for Trump rose from 27 per cent in 2016 to roughly 40 per cent this year.

John Brennan’s Protests to President Trump Lifting his Security Clearances are Absurd John Brennan’s outrage over losing his security clearance is as hollow as the falsehoods he peddled to shield Biden in 2020. By Fred Fleitz

https://amgreatness.com/2025/01/31/john-brennans-protests-to-president-trump-lifting-his-security-clearances-are-absurd/

Former CIA Director John Brennan is angry that President Trump signed an executive order last week lifting his security clearances. The president took this action because Brennan was one of 51 former intelligence officers who meddled in the 2020 presidential election by signing a letter they knew falsely claimed a damaging press story about a laptop owned by President Biden’s son Hunter was Russian disinformation.

Brennan indignantly asserted in an MSNBC interview that President Trump’s action was “bizarre” and said he misrepresented the laptop letter, claiming that based on their intelligence experience, the signatories were “deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case.”

Brennan also said he needs to hold security clearances as a former intelligence officer so administration officials can consult with him on national security matters.

Brennan’s objections are absurd and justify the President’s executive order.

Brennan’s claims defending the laptop letter are patently false. The 51 former intelligence officers did not sign the letter as a well-intentioned initiative to warn the American people about a possible Russian attempt to influence the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. They knew this wasn’t true.

We know this because one of the principal organizers of the letter, former acting CIA Director Michael Morell, testified during an investigation by the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees about the letter’s purpose:

“There were two intents. One intent was to share our concern with the American people that the Russians were playing on this issue, and two, it was to help Vice President Biden.”

The House investigation also found that the letter signers were informed “of the intent of the statement prior to its publication, writing that the statement was meant to insulate Vice President Biden from serious electoral vulnerabilities created by his family’s influence peddling activities.”

FLASHBACK: Biden’s FAA Focused on Diversity, Hiring Workers With Severe Disabilities Matt Margolis

https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2025/01/30/flashback-bidens-faa-focused-on-diversity-hired-workers-with-severe-disabilities-n4936514

While we don’t know yet what caused the midair collision between the U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter and a civilian airliner in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday night, renewed attention is turning to Biden-era DEI initiatives at the FAA and whether they may have played a role.

“The Federal Aviation Administration is actively recruiting workers who suffer ‘severe intellectual’ disabilities, psychiatric problems and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative spelled out on the agency’s website,” the New York Post reported a year ago.

“Targeted disabilities are those disabilities that the Federal government, as a matter of policy, has identified for special emphasis in recruitment and hiring,” the FAA’s website stated. “They include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability, and dwarfism.”

The FAA’s website also noted that individuals with “severe” mental and physical disabilities are the most underrepresented group within the federal workforce.

“Because diversity is so critical, FAA actively supports and engages in a variety of associations, programs, coalitions, and initiatives to support and accommodate employees from diverse communities and backgrounds. Our people are our strength, and we take great care in investing in and valuing them as such,” the website stated.

Air Traffic Control and the DEI Debate By Dan McLaughlin

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/air-traffic-control-and-the-dei-debate/

After last night’s air disaster culminated a series of near-misses over the past four years, American air travel remains astonishingly safe, and the likelihood is that a full investigation will find that last night’s crash of an Army Blackhawk helicopter into a commercial airliner was (1) a total freak accident, (2) the result of a mechanical problem with the helicopter, and/or (3) human error by the helicopter pilot, perhaps compounded by poor air-traffic control. Efforts to blame this on Donald Trump, whose transportation secretary Sean Duffy only took office yesterday morning, say more about the people pointing fingers than about the actual causes of the tragedy.

All that being said, it’s worth noting here as the inevitable hurdy-gurdy cranks into gear that Trump has actually moved to fix a problem with how we hire air-traffic controllers, in order to reorient it toward hiring the best people in order to make air-traffic control safer. The Biden administration was sued last year over this:

From 1989 to 2013, the Collegiate Training Initiative program was a pipeline to a career in air traffic control. The program aimed to ensure future air traffic controllers had the skills and knowledge necessary to carry out the job. More than ten years ago, the Obama Administration scrapped 1000 qualified candidates. The administration’s justification was that the pool of applicants was not diverse enough, so they would be purged from consideration. Instead of hiring candidates with the most competency, individuals were elevated for hiring consideration based on their race…I, along with Mountain States Legal Foundation, am litigating a class action lawsuit on behalf of more than 900 prospective air traffic controllers who studied, took the pre-employment exam, and passed the test with flying colors but were dismissed because of their skin color. Our lawsuit seeks justice for all air traffic control candidates who chose this career, dedicated their lives and education to it, and were summarily denied a job for no reason other than the color of their skin. In a system with only 14,000 air traffic controllers, purging a thousand of the next generation’s best and brightest was irresponsible and unsustainable.

No J6er Got Justice in Biden’s D.C. By Jack Cashill

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2025/01/no_j6er_got_justice_in_biden_s_d_c.html

“I fear that you will get more violence,” said Sen. Lindsay Graham on “Meet the Press” this Sunday. “Pardoning the people who went into the Capitol and beat up a police officer violently I think it was a mistake.”

In so saying, Graham, like so many pundits on the Right, showed how little he knows about what transpired on January 6, 2021, and during the four years afterward. In truth, the one thing all J6ers have in common, including the allegedly violent ones, is that they had no more chance at securing justice in Joe Biden’s D.C. than the Scottsboro Boys had in Jim Crow Alabama.

In 2020, 95 percent of the D.C. citizens voted against Donald Trump. If this jury pool were not poisoned enough, the media lied relentlessly to potential jurors about the “insurrection,” about “white supremacist” mobs, about cops being “murdered” — pick a number of dead cops, 1 to 5.

A change of venue would seem to have been in order, but none was allowed, and the juries lived down to expectations. They acquitted not a single J6er. Knowing the odds against them, hundreds of defendants pleaded guilty to crimes they did not commit — including felony assault.

The Scottsboro Boys at least had the major media and the ACLU on their side, The J6ers had neither. On the first anniversary of January 6, for instance, all 51 ACLU chapters signed on to a letter drafted by the D.C. ACLU about “the white supremacists” that invaded the U.S. Capitol. The date was the only thing the ACLU got right:

“On January 6 of last year, the residents of D.C. were traumatized as an insurrectionist mob roamed our streets, harassed our neighbors, and violently broke into the Capitol Building, killing at least five people — all in an attempt to overthrow the counting of American citizens’ votes.”

What makes this letter doubly perverse is that the ACLU signees had a fresh memory of what an insurrectionist mob actually looked like. They saw elements of this mob in action over a three-week period that began on May 29, 2020.

On the night of May 29, rioters threw rocks, alcohol, and urine at the Secret Service agents guarding the White House, injuring more than 60 of them. On May 30, rioters defaced the Lincoln Memorial and the World War II Memorial. The next night they looted dozens of businesses and set St. John’s Episcopal Church on fire.

U.S. What we know about the midair collision between a passenger jet and Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River By Faris Tanyos, Jordan Freiman

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/crash-reagan-national-airport-washington-dc/

A passenger jet and a Black Hawk helicopter collided in midair Wednesday and crashed into the Potomac River near Reagan National Airport near Washington, D.C., officials said. 

The plane, American Eagle Flight No. 5342, a regional jetliner, was carrying 60 passengers and four crew members, CBS News learned. There were three soldiers aboard the Sikorsky H-60, a Defense Department official told CBS News.

At least 19 bodies had been recovered by 2:50 a.m. ET, a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation told CBS News.

Here’s what we know so far about the crash:
What we know about the victims and the search for survivors

As of 2:50 a.m. Thursday, an official said at least 19 bodies had been recovered from the river, which contained three debris fields. The official said no survivors had been found.

In a news briefing early Thursday, officials said that police boats and divers were conducting search and rescue in the Potomac River.

“It’s a highly complex operation, the conditions out there are extremely rough for the responders. It’s cold. They’re dealing with relatively windy conditions,” District of Columbia Fire and Emergency Medical Services Chief John Donnelly told reporters.    

Tal Fortgang Stopping Anti-Semitism Goes Hand-in-Hand with Stopping Crime Soft-on-crime policy is “kindness to the cruel.”

https://www.city-journal.org/article/jewish-anti-semitism-crime

Amid open support for terrorist groups on campuses and city streets, violence against Jews has risen once again. The latest piece of evidence is the New York Police Department’s 2024 hate crime data, which show a decline in prejudice-driven crimes overall but a seven-percentage-point increase in anti-Jewish crimes compared with 2023. While Anti-Jewish hate crimes had been a plurality in past years, in 2024 they were a majority, accounting for 345 of 641 total hate crimes. It’s no wonder that Jewish life in America is migrating away from the five boroughs and toward the friendlier climes of South Florida.

While it’s a tragedy that Jews are bearing the brunt of hate-motivated violence, anti-Semitism is rarely, if ever, about the relationship between Jews and their non-Jewish neighbors. Anti-Jewish violence is, fundamentally, an indication of a sick civilization. Activist harassment against Jews is incidental to widespread contempt for the West, the promises of which the Jews—economically mobile, academically high-achieving, and largely law-abiding—show are within reach. Street violence against Jews is an outgrowth of the sickness identified by Jewish sages two millennia ago: “Those who are kind to the cruel are destined to be cruel to the kind.”

The anti-Jewish crimes tend to consist of petty violence, such as assaults, harassment, thefts, and vandalism. They’re often perpetrated by individuals who know that Jews (especially easily identifiable Haredi Jews) are unlikely to defend themselves. Petty thieves make off with money taken from Jews they likely see as enriching themselves by exploiting hardworking people. More often, these acts are driven by inchoate resentment against a people who look funny, behave differently, do not act tough, and yet, on the whole, seem to succeed.

Bill Gates Angry at Elon Musk Is he joking or simply completely misinformed? by Victor Davis Hanson

https://www.frontpagemag.com/bill-gates-angry-at-elon-musk/

Bill Gates is angry that Elon Musk is editorializing on X about the internal politics of Europe, from the United Kingdom to Germany. The outraged Gates claims we don’t allow (hired) foreigners to interfere in our domestic politics and don’t do that to others.

Really?

Is he joking, or simply completely misinformed?

1. Does Gates remember Christopher Steele, the British subject and ex-spy who interfered in the 2016 presidential election by fabricating a venomous dossier to destroy the Trump campaign? Yes, it is illegal to hire foreign nationals to work in American presidential campaigns, but that stopped neither Hillary Clinton who used three paywalls to hide her payments to Steele nor the FBI who hired him as an informant and helped spread his salacious lies throughout the media and government.

2. Does Gates remember the British Labor callout to enlist British activists and financial support for them to swarm American swing states in service to the 2024 Kamala Harris campaign?

3. Closer to home, has Gates ever complained about Swiss national and multibillionaire Johann Georg Wyss, and his multimillionaire donations that have poured into Democratic coffers to sway our elections via his “Hub Project”? That long-standing interference makes Musk’s postings seem amateurish in comparison.

4. For that matter, surely Gates is familiar with the chronic efforts of both the Clinton administration (by its own admission) and Obama administration to interfere in elections in Israel over some 20 years in a serial effort to defeat Benjamin Netanyahu— that included inter alia funding with taxpayer monies anti-Netanyahu political groups.

So please, Mr. Gates, spare us you very selective outage about Mr. Musk, given your prior deafening silence on hired foreign interference here and Democratic efforts to interfere in the elections of others—including fueling the Ukrainian opposition in the 2014 Ukrainian election.