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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION

50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

Anti-Trump Legal Expert Reveals Real Motives in Mar-a-Lago Case: It’s a Dynamite Story Conrad Black

https://www.theepochtimes.com/anti-trump-legal-expert-reveals-real-motives-in-mar-a-lago-case-its-a-dynamite-story_4754384.html?utm_source=epochHG&utm_campaign=rcp

It’s with regret and some trepidation that I take issue on a legal matter with someone whom I like and respect as much as I do Andy McCarthy, the prominent legal affairs commentator and contributor to many publications, websites, and television programs. But like many other intelligent and otherwise convivial people I know, he’s unfortunately incapable of speaking or writing rationally about Donald Trump.

McCarthy has a particularly baneful influence on the discussion of Trump-related issues because he naturally brings to it the gravitas of his legal expertise and apparently authoritative articulation. But this is the same McCarthy who wrote to me five years ago that he had taken a “deep dive” into a lot of confidential material and concluded that Trump was guilty of serious misdeeds in his relations with the Russians.

And, as with other intelligent and otherwise likable people partly propelled through each day by an almost pathological hatred of the former president, when the Russian argument evaporated without a trace, not a word of remorse, embarrassment, or even inferable acknowledgment of a mistake followed. It was briskly on to the next conjuration of Trumpian outrages and delicts.

On the National Review website on Sept. 24, McCarthy fired the most unrigorous and imprecisely directed broadside that I have seen from him on this subject. He wrote that Trump was obviously guilty of an indictable offense in the document controversy that led to the FBI’s ransacking of his Palm Beach home.

It wasn’t precisely stated what offense he committed, but it seemed to be willful noncompliance with a subpoena requiring the production of certain documents that had been wrongfully removed and about which the former president was allegedly trying to clear himself from such a charge by a defense imputed to him by McCarthy of determining in his own mind that the relevant material was declassified because he wished it so and in accordance with a doctrine of automatic declassification of certain matters that he had promulgated among his staff but of which staff members were, according to McCarthy, unaware.

Judge Orders FBI to Produce Information From Seth Rich’s Laptop Zachary Stieber

https://www.theepochtimes.com/judge-orders-fbi-to-produce-information-from-seth-richs-laptop_4763994.html?utm_source=

The FBI must produce information from Seth Rich’s laptop computer to a Texas man, a federal judge ruled on Sept. 29.

The bureau improperly withheld the information from Brian Huddleston, the Texas man, according to a 53-page ruling from U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant.

Rich was a Democratic National Committee staffer who was murdered around 4:20 a.m. in July 2016 in Washington. Officials have claimed the killing was done as part of a botched robbery.

The FBI has acknowledged it has files from Rich’s computer but tried withholding them from Huddleston, citing a portion of federal law that enables agencies to withhold information that would be a clear invasion of privacy interests when the interests are not outweighed by the public interest.

The bureau said that Rich’s family members have a privacy interest in preventing the release of the information that outweighs the public interest, but Mazzant, an Obama appointee, rejected the argument.

“The Court is not persuaded by the FBI’s argument that Seth Rich’s survivors have a privacy interest in withholding the entirety of the information contained on Seth Rich’s laptop,” he said.

“Pointedly, the FBI cites to no case law for the proposition that survivors of the deceased have a privacy interest in information related to the deceased’s favorite music or relationship history,” he added.

Previous rulings in other cases have found that loved ones of dead people have a substantial privacy interest in preventing the disclosure of autopsies, death scene photographs, and other materials from a person’s final moments. Those rulings don’t apply to this case, Mazzant said.

He ordered the FBI to produce the information to Huddleston within 14 days.

The grotesque politicization of Hurricane Ian By Brad Polumbo

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/courage-strength-optimism/the-grotesque-politicization-of-hurricane-ian

Hurricane Ian ravaged Florida this week and caused enormous suffering. Hundreds have possibly died, a tragic toll that will most likely continue to grow. Millions are without power. The scope and scale of property destruction are impossible to put into words. And while many are stepping up to provide aid and support charitable efforts , much of the country is descending into political squabbles and partisan combat over it all.

The grotesque politicization of Hurricane Ian has come in two primary forms.

The first is a concentrated effort to exploit the natural disaster to push a Green-New-Deal-esque climate change agenda. The most prominent example of this blatant politicization is a now-viral interview in which CNN host Don Lemon repeatedly attempts to get an expert to blame Hurricane Ian on climate change.

When the expert calmly explains that no single disaster can be directly blamed on climate change, Lemon doesn’t accept this answer and asks again. (Now, another guest will apparently be going on to provide a more politically satisfying version of the “science.”)

Why Ray Epps Matters Like Alger Hiss before him, Epps has come to bear the weight of a powerful narrative. By Jack Cashill

https://amgreatness.com/2022/09/28/why-ray-epps-matters/

For those who do not know who Ray Epps is and why he matters—and this includes most Democrats and many journalists—U.S. Representative Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) served up a handy reference guide last week. Gosar did this in the form of a resolution of inquiry (ROI) directing Attorney General Merrick Garland to hand over all documents relevant to the Epps case within 14 days. 

“Multiple videos show Ray Epps repeatedly urging crowds of people in Washington, D.C. on January 5 and January 6, 2021, to go to the United States Capitol and breach the building,“ Gosar explained. “Epps is the one person seen on video directing people towards the Capitol seconds before violence broke out, yet he has never been arrested or charged with any crime while more than 800 others have and countless more remained jailed.”

During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday of last week, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) went into more detail, showing numerous video clips and citing Epps’ own admission, captured on video, “I’ll probably go to jail for this. I’ll probably be arrested.” 

Epps had good reason to worry. In his red Trump hat and camo gear, a head taller than those around him, Epps was the most conspicuous of all the January 6 protestors. In fact, he was the only one caught on camera urging others to “go in to the Capitol,” which he did repeatedly on January 5. So suspicious was his behavior that his fellow protestors chanted “no, no, no” and “Fed, Fed, Fed,” over one of his many exhortations.

One video from January 6 shows Epps telling a protester, “When we go in, leave this here. We don’t need to get shot.” The unseen “this” was likely a weapon, perhaps a gun. More damning still, another video captures Epps whispering into the ear of a protester seconds before the young man helped make the first breach of the Capitol Police’s inept defenses.

The Thinnest Veneer of Civilization We are in a great experiment in which regressive progressivism discounts all the institutions and methodologies of the past that have guaranteed a safe, affluent, well-fed and sheltered America.  By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2022/09/28/the-thinnest-veneer-of-civilization/

Civilization is fragile. It hinges on ensuring the stuff of life. 

To be able to eat, to move about, to have shelter, to be free from state or tribal coercion, to be secure abroad, and safe at home—only that allows cultures to be freed from the daily drudgery of mere survival.  

Civilization alone permits humans to pursue sophisticated scientific research, the arts, and the finer aspects of culture. 

So, the great achievement of Western civilization—consensual government, individual freedom, rationalism in partnership with religious belief, free market economics, and constant self-critique and audit—was to liberate people from daily worry over state violence, random crime, famine, and an often-unforgiving nature. 

But so often the resulting leisure and affluence instead deluded arrogant Western societies into thinking that modern man no longer needed to worry about the fruits of civilization he took to be his elemental birthright. 

As a result, the once prosperous Greek city-state, Roman Empire, Renaissance republics, and European democracies of the 1930s imploded—as civilization went headlong in reverse.  

We in the modern Western world are now facing just such a crisis. 

We talk grandly about the globalized Great Reset. We blindly accept the faddish New Green Deal. We virtue signal about defunding the police. We merely shrug at open borders. And we brag about banning fertilizers and pesticides, outlawing the internal combustion engine, and discounting Armageddon in the nuclear age—as if on autopilot we have already reached utopia. 

But meanwhile Westerners are systematically destroying the very elements of our civilization that permitted such fantasies in the first place.  

Will Biden Get Bailed Out On, ‘She Was 12, & I Was 30?’ Why, exactly, did the crowd laugh? by Kevin McCullough

https://www.frontpagemag.com/will-biden-get-bailed-out-on-she-was-12-i-was-30/

You saw the creepy video right?

It muddied up social media feeds all weekend. People that have never expressed a single political viewpoint to me reacted with gross abhorrence to what Joe Biden appeared to seemingly imply.

As he wraps up some remarks in the video he spots someone in the crowd and in typical Biden stream of consciousness he abruptly changes subjects. Looking directly at the woman he has just spotted he bluntly instructs, “(You) gotta say ‘Hi’ to me.”

Then to the watching crowd he states, “We go back a long way, she was 12 and I was 30 but anyway…”

The crowd belly laughs.

Understanding that legitimate sexual misconduct claims abound all throughout the Biden family I began to ponder how this video—that went everywhere—can be dealt with.

In older chapters of Joe Biden’s life no one cares that Jill Biden was married when she first met Joe. They don’t much seem to care that she was still married when they began to date in March of 1975.

That Hunter Biden took up with his deceased brother’s wife also didn’t seem to matter.

Formal accusations of sexual misconduct by non-family members didn’t phase anyone. And the literally hundreds of  images of Joe Biden, touching, kissing, refusing to let go of, and of course sniffing bother some. He’s done it to women of all ages-school aged little girls all the way up to whatever age Hillary Clinton purports to be.

Yet in recent years there has been a bit of out-sized interest in some of the misconduct alleged of he and his family members.

WHEN GOVERNMENT IS ALLOWED TO SPEND IN SECRET, YOUR TAX DOLLARS ARE AT RISK.

We have one single goal: to capture government spending and show you how your tax dollars are being “invested.” Remember, it’s YOUR money!

After a dogfight lasting a decade, OpenTheBooks:

successfully opened up the California state checkbook for the first time in history;
uncovered $300+ million in third-party royalty payments to the National Institutes of Health, its leaders and 2,250 of its scientists;
Not to mention being canceled by Forbes after we published investigations on the highest paid federal employee, Dr. Anthony Fauci.

But those are just a few things we’ve done this year. And we aren’t stopping…

Learn more. Last weekend, our CEO and founder, Adam Andrzejewski, presented to the Road To Freedom Seminar at the Reagan Ranch in Santa Barbara hosted by Young America’s Foundation.

JORDAN PETERSON: Back Off, Oh “Masters of the Universe” VIDEO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–QS_UyW2SY

Own goal: Biden’s bid to discredit Trump with Mar-a-Lago raid has only made Trump more popular —I&I/TIPP poll By Monica Showalter

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/09/own_goal_bidens_bid_to_discredit_trump_with_maralago_raid_has_only_made_him_more_popular_iitipp_poll.html

If Joe Biden and his ruling Democrats had intended to discredit President Trump through their showy Mar-a-Lago raid, a new poll suggests they have failed miserably.

They’ve actually accomplished the opposite of what they set out to do.

According to the highly reputable and accurate I&I/TIPP, Trump has lost not a whit of popularity with Republican voters since the FBI raid.

In fact, he’s actually gained.

What do the numbers say about Trump, who, between those two polls, endured the FBI’s raid, which has no precedent in U.S. history?

In August, 53% of Republicans said they would vote for Trump. In September, that number rose to 54%, a small gain. But Trump has a majority of his party, while Biden barely ekes out a third of the Democrats.

And, the important point, he lost nothing from the Mar-A-Lago raid. If anything, he gained support, while other potential challengers slipped.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who received 17% in the August poll, dipped to 15% in September, while former Vice President Mike Pence dropped from 10% to 8%. No other GOP challenger received more than 2% in September.

Trump has the support of more than half his party with that 54% popularity figure commonly characterized as landslide territory.

Biden by contrast has the support of only one out of three Democrat voters, and though the numbers show that Biden’s “popularity” rose from 30% to 34% among Democrats, that’s a chump-change figure, given that so few of them support him at all.

It looks as though that broad effort to smear, criminalize, and discredit President Trump through the Mar-a-Lago FBI raid has actually backfired badly on Democrats.  They’ve actually made him more popular.

Soros-Backed Prosecutors Face Backlash In Virginia By Andrew Abbott

https://amac.us/soros-backed-prosecutors-face-backlash-in-virginia/

In what has become a disturbing and alarming pattern in Fairfax County, Virginia, a defendant charged with sexually assaulting a minor walked free with only misdemeanor charges last week following a mishandling of the case by Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano, one of nearly 100 Democrat prosecutors funded by far-left billionaire George Soros. Now, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin and Attorney General Jason Miyares are ramping up pressure on Descano as well as the Old Dominion’s other radical prosecutors to enforce the law, just the latest example of widespread backlash against Soros-backed prosecutors’ radical criminal justice “reform” agenda.

In the case that concluded last week and drew considerable public outrage, 36-year-old Ronnie Reel, who was originally arrested in July of 2021 on charges of forcible sodomy and aggravated sexual battery against an 11-year-old boy, was released on time served. According to the victim’s mother, Reel “was confessing every little detail that he did, and it was making me sick to my stomach…It was horrible. He literally confessed to me why he did it.”

The case seemed like a slam dunk, and a successful conviction likely would have led to the offender receiving life in prison. But when the case came to trial, the Judge ruled that most of the evidence, including the criminal’s confession, was inadmissible in court due to Descano’s office missing a filing deadline. The case then fell on the shoulders of the 11-year-old victim, who was forced to testify to the assault. Without the corroborating evidence, it was clear that the sex offender would be found not guilty. Descano ultimately offered the sex offender a deal in which he needed only to plead guilty to Misdemeanor Assault and Battery. Notably, the charges Reel pled guilty to do not require him to register as a sex offender, and he is not on supervised probation.

Descano has denied any responsibility for the failure, and incredibly seemed to blame the adolescent victim, saying in a statement that “young victims often have difficulty recalling the details of such significant trauma – which is why prosecuting these crimes is uniquely challenging.”