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August 2022

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

FBI Unit Leading Mar-a-Lago Probe Earlier Ran Discredited Trump-Russia Investigation By Paul Sperry

By on August 18th, 2022

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2022/08/18/fbi_unit_leading_mar-a-lago_probe_previously_led_russiagate_hoax_848582.html

The FBI division overseeing the investigation of former President Trump’s handling of classified material at his Mar-a-Lago residence is also a focus of Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation of the bureau’s alleged abuses of power and political bias during its years-long Russiagate probe of Trump.

The FBI’s nine-hour, 30-agent raid of the former president’s Florida estate is part of a counterintelligence case run out of Washington – not Miami, as has been widely reported – according to FBI case documents and sources with knowledge of the matter. The bureau’s counterintelligence division led the 2016-2017 Russia “collusion” investigation of Trump, codenamed “Crossfire Hurricane.”

Although the former head of Crossfire Hurricane, Peter Strzok, was fired after the disclosure of his vitriolic anti-Trump tweets, several members of his team remain working in the counterintelligence unit, the sources say, even though they are under active investigation by both Durham and the bureau’s disciplinary arm, the Office of Professional Responsibility. The FBI declined to respond to questions about any role they may be taking in the Mar-a-Lago case.

In addition, a key member of the Crossfire team – Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten – has continued to be involved in politically sensitive investigations, including the ongoing federal probe of potentially incriminating content found on the abandoned laptop of President Biden’s son Hunter Biden, according to recent correspondence between the Senate Judiciary Committee and FBI Director Christopher Wray. FBI whistleblowers have alleged that Auten tried to falsely discredit derogatory evidence against Hunter Biden during the 2020 campaign by labeling it Russian “disinformation,” an assessment that caused investigative activity to cease.

Auten has been allowed to work on sensitive cases even though he has been under internal investigation since 2019, when Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz referred him for disciplinary review for his role in vetting a Hillary Clinton campaign-funded dossier used by the FBI to obtain a series of wiretap warrants to spy on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Horowitz singled out Auten for cutting a number of corners in the verification process and even allowing information he knew to be incorrect slip into warrant affidavits and mislead the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The biggest threat to American support for Israel comes from the left “Top Story” with Jonathan Tobin and Matthew Continetti

By on August 18th, 2022

https://www.jns.org/the-biggest-threat-to-american-support-for-israel-comes-from-the-left/?utm_source=Old+Daily+Syndicate&utm_

So long as liberals and their corporate media cheerleaders continue to treat conservatives as illegitimate “deplorables,” the polarization of American politics and public discourse will continue, says JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin. That’s why a dispassionate history and analysis of the conservative movement is important, he argues.

Speaking with Matthew Continetti, author of “The Right: The Hundred Year War for American Conservatism,” the two discussed how the rise of former President Donald Trump and his populist approach to politics can be traced to trends that have always been part of the arguments on the right dating back decades. As Continetti noted, “the leadership of a movement matters just as much, if not more, than what that movement stands for.”

They also discussed the role that conspiracy theories and anti-Semitism play in American politics.

“One of the strengths of American conservative thought in the 20th century was that the facts were on its side,” argues Continetti. He also notes that being supportive of Israel was a key part of Trump’s ability to win the GOP presidential nomination in 2016. That was, he says, “more of the party bringing Trump along than it was Trump moving the party. … The evangelical Christian community has been the bulwark of support for Israel in this country for about 40 years.”

According to Continetti, “The biggest threat to American support for Israel, to Israel’s legitimacy and I think to the success of the American Jewish community does come from the left today and not from the right.”

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Biden Administration and Iran Empowering Rushdie’s Attackers by Khaled Abu Toameh

By on August 18th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18812/biden-iran-rushdie

“Whenever they (Islamists) disagree with a woman, they accuse her of treason, threaten her with rape and torture, and bully her family.” — Ghada Oueiss, Lebanese journalist, to Lebanese television presenter Dima Sadek’s 1.1 million followers on Twitter, after she received death threats for criticizing the stabbing of author Salman Rushdie; Twitter, August 14, 2022.

“Get out of the Middle Ages and learn how to live with other people’s opinions.” — Antoine Haddad, Lebanese academic, to people threatening Sadek, Twitter, August 14, 2022.

Sadek has good reason to be worried for her life. Most of the threats she received came from supporters of Hezbollah, the terrorist group that effectively controls Lebanon and reports directly to the mullahs in Iran.

On the same day that Sadek was receiving threats of murder and rape, Taliban militiamen in Kabul beat women protesters and fired into the air. The women [were] chanting “Bread, work and freedom….”

It is the mullahs of Iran, whose media has welcomed and praised the stabbing attack on Rushdie, that are inspiring, funding and arming Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Houthis (in Yemen) and other Islamist terrorist groups around the world.

In July, Iran executed at least 71 prisoners, including four women, according to the Iran Human Rights Monitor. Most of the women executed in Iran are themselves victims of domestic violence and commit murder in self-defense, the group noted.

Without the Biden administration’s support for the mullahs, these groups would not be threatening to rape and kill women. Without the Biden Administration’s support for of the mullahs, these groups would not be launching drone and missile attacks on America’s allies.

These are the same mullahs who are now hoping that the Biden administration will reward them with hundreds of billions of dollars as part of a new nuclear deal between Iran and the Western powers.

The mullahs will undoubtedly use the money to continue their campaign of murder and intimidation. They will also use the money to consolidate their occupation of four Arab countries – Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen – and continue their savage persecution not only of their own people, but also of women and journalists such as Dima Sadek and Hasan Shaaban.

Iran’s proxies and loyalists are threatening to murder renowned Lebanese media personality Dima Sadek because she dared to criticize the stabbing of Indian-born British-American novelist Salman Rushdie in Chautauqua, New York last week.

Since the stabbing attack, Sadek has been subjected to a campaign of incitement and threats of murder and rape through social media posts and text messages sent to her personal phone number.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

10 Similarities Between The FBI’s Mar-A-Lago Raid And Spygate By: Margot Cleveland

By on August 18th, 2022

https://thefederalist.com/2022/08/17/in-latest-anti-trump-operation-doj-and-media-deploy-same-old-russiagate-tricks/

The DOJ and FBI think they can execute the same game plan they did for the last six years without the public noticing. They can’t.

The FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago reveals the deep-state cabal and their corrupt media partners deployed no fewer than 10 of the same tradecrafts used to push the Russia-collusion hoax. And with that, history is repeating itself with the same corrupt plot.

1. A Shocking Storyline of Trump Putting America at Risk

With the Russia-collusion hoax, Democrats and a complicit media cartel warned the country that Trump’s relationship with Russia presented a clear and present danger to America. While the reporting oscillated from Trump being too pally with Vladimir Putin to Putin having leverage over Trump, to Trump being a Russian agent, the narrative underlying the hoax was one that, if true, presented the public with a serious national security concern.

Similarly, the hoax surrounding the search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home rests on claimed misconduct which, if true, raises concerns of a dire national security crisis. Like having a Russian stooge or agent in the White House, Trump keeping supposedly top-secret documents unsecured in his Florida home suggests a serious threat to our national security. 

In both cases, the seriousness of the supposed threat to America’s national security seeks to justify the government’s extreme measures to target Trump.

2. The Building of a Narrative

To support the idea that Trump’s supposed misconduct created a serious risk to America, both the Biden administration and the press quickly converged on the “classified materials” narrative. But none of the crimes on which the Mar-a-Lago search warrant was premised involved crimes related to the illegal possession or storage of “classified materials.” Nonetheless, the media coverage immediately framed the raid as based on the presence of “classified” and even “top secret” materials. Supposed government sources even went so far as to claim the material kept at Trump’s home related to nuclear secrets. 

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Bogus Lawsuit against Ron DeSantis for Removing a Rogue Prosecutor By Dan McLaughlin

By on August 18th, 2022

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-bogus-lawsuit-against-ron-desantis-for-removing-a-rogue-prosecutor/

Florida governor Ron DeSantis suspended Hillsborough County state attorney Andrew Warren for announcing his refusal to prosecute entire categories of cases. Warren, a Democrat, is angry and suing the Republican governor to get his job back. But DeSantis is on solid legal ground.

Warren’s effort faces three problems, which I have explained at length. One, Florida’s constitution gives DeSantis the explicit power to suspend a state attorney. Two, the permitted grounds for doing so include “neglect of duty,” and the Florida supreme court has construed that phrase broadly as far back as 1937 to include failure to prosecute classes of cases, and confirmed the breadth of that power as recently as a 2019 decision upholding a DeSantis suspension of a sheriff. Three, the Florida Supreme Court has also recognized since that 1937 case that all the governor has to do is announce legitimate grounds for suspension; by the explicit division of authority in the Florida constitution, deciding whether the facts support the governor’s conclusion is up to the state senate, not the courts. Florida’s Republican-run state senate is unlikely to sympathize with Warren.

Warren has filed suit seeking a writ of quo warranto under Florida law, the same remedy the courts denied in those previous cases. In an attempt to get around the clear Florida caselaw, however, Warren filed his suit in federal court, and tacked on a First Amendment claim. It won’t help him. Warren’s complaint and his press conference announcing it were full of florid rhetoric about how DeSantis is supposedly trying to “toss out the results of an election” by exercising a constitutional power of oversight, and this bit of nonsense: “Warren brings this lawsuit to confirm that the First Amendment still applies even though DeSantis is the Governor of Florida and that the Constitution of the State of Florida means what the courts say it means, not whatever DeSantis needs it to mean to silence his critics, promote his loyalists, and subvert the will of the voters.” Critics of DeSantis who call his move “fascist” and a sign of “autocracy” and ask,  “Since when does the governor have veto power over the people’s choice?” should probably have read the Florida constitution and the cases. So should Warren and his lawyers at Perkins Coie before filing this stunt lawsuit.

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MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

A moral call to arms about the transgender revolution By Andrea Widburg

By on August 18th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/08/a_moral_call_to_arms_about_the_transgender_revolution.html

People who do not follow conservative news are unaware that our entire medical system has joined teachers in embracing the fantasy of transgenderism, and this is true whether the people involved are true believers, power junkies, or enthralled by the possibility of the millions of dollars tied to drugging and surgically mutilating children. Whatever the motives, it’s time for ordinary people to push back very hard.

I have Libs of Tik Tok on my daily reading list. I go there regularly because it helps me remember why, sometimes at great personal cost, I don’t retire to knitting and travel but, instead, spend most of my waking hours thinking about politics and trying to persuade people to see politics as I do. The importance of Libs of Tik Tok is that she travels through the internet looking at what leftists are proud enough to boast about—and then exposes those boasts to a larger audience than the leftists intended.

A significant portion of the leftists whom Libs of Tik Tok exposes are members of the LGBTQ+++ community or their “allies.” Over the past few years, these people have been increasingly vocal about the goal of “transing” kids. Teachers boast about bringing pronouns to kindergarteners and making sure that their students know that the teachers, with their transgender grooming, are the students’ “real” parents. Crazed parents boast about raising gender-neutral children or realizing that, when their two-year-old son said, “I like pink,” he was desperately saying that he’s really a girl.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Status of Global War against Terrorism by Pete Hoekstra

By on August 18th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18811/war-against-terrorism

Many of us have never been fans of the term “War on Terrorism” — it is difficult to articulate a war against a tactic.

The successful surgical strike that killed Zawahiri, the successor to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden… and the drone strike and military operation that took out two ISIS leaders, demonstrated the resolve of the Biden Administration to keep a focus on terrorist groups…. These actions send a strong message to terrorist organizations, their supporters and our allies that the U.S. still considers fighting this threat a significant priority.

On the flip side of this record is the growing apprehension that the U.S. withdrawal once again has made Afghanistan a safe haven for radical terrorist groups to plan and train for attacks against the U.S. and the West.

Another major concern as we evaluate the war on terrorism is the porous southern border of the United States…. We are gambling with American lives by allowing millions of poorly- or unvetted aliens to come into the country: the open border crisis is a preventable national security threat.

The open border has been bonanza for the cartels who control human trafficking, often increasing America’s unacknowledged slave trade, as well as importing lethal drugs that, in 2021 alone, killed more than 100,000 people. Reports estimate that the cartels take in between $5 billion and $19 billion a year.

Lastly, distraction has become a major problem in the fight against overseas terrorist threats. Rather than prioritize the jihadist groups abroad who want to kill us, the Biden-led U.S. government has made the threat from supposed “domestic terrorists” a priority.

Federal law enforcement personnel have been pressured to regard “right wing” groups and hate crimes as priorities. In June 2021, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the first “National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism.” This document was developed through the coordination of multiple departments, including Defense, Homeland Security and State. To many, the document signaled the redirection of limited resources to an ill-defined threat that smacked more of politics than as a true threat assessment.

[D]evelopments in Afghanistan, along the southern border, and the redirection and prioritization for law enforcement towards alleged domestic threats should be cause for major concern…. [A] major attack against the homeland is the aspirational goal of transnational terrorist groups. I still believe this is the real goal for those who hate America…. [W]e may be entering a phase of vulnerability not seen since 9/11/2001. This, as we near the 21st anniversary of that tragic day, should alarm everyone.

As we approach 21st anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, one year since Joe Biden’s disastrous and deadly withdrawal from Afghanistan, and following shortly after a drone strike that killed al-Qaeda terrorist leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, it makes sense to ask: What is the status of the global war on terror that started in the immediate aftermath of 9/11? Is this so-called war over, and is the United States safe?

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Calling for the Death of Jews on Campus Israel-hating activists justify and valorize terrorism. Richard L. Cravatts

By on August 18th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/08/calling-death-jews-campus-richard-l-cravatts/

Anti-Semitism, disguised as anti-Zionism, is still Jew-hatred.

In their zeal to create “safe” campus environments, universities have attempted to create an educational environment where students from approved victim groups are coddled, nurtured, and shielded from any criticism or intellectual or emotional challenges.

So-called hate speech—which now includes any expression that contradicts the prevailing progressive orthodoxy on campuses—is said to be harmful, even violent, by those forced to listen to others’ ideas.

Not content with simply acknowledging disparities between races, the orthodoxy on campuses now forces everyone to confront racism—including their own—with talk of implicit bias, invisible racism, “white privilege,” and microaggressions, together with a consequential battery of programs and initiatives to protect minority students from this alleged bigotry: mandatory sensitivity training for all faculty and students, publicly announced, school-wide solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, and campus-wide initiatives to increase the recruitment of minority students and faculty. Anyone who questions or challenges these sweeping, unproved allegations of systemic racism can be accused of white supremacy and the promotion of injurious hate speech which further marginalizes and harms a victim group.

Conservative speakers or faculty who challenge issues such as illegal immigration, abortion, gay rights, race-based admissions quotas, or even radical Islam can find themselves vilified, shouted down at lectures, censured and denounced by their academic departments or the university administration, or even purged from campus—all as a result of the belief that chosen student victim groups—LGBTQs, Hispanics, Muslims, blacks—have to be shielded from any critique and that anyone who “harms” these groups with alleged hate speech is unwelcome at the university.

There is, however, one victim group that is rarely protected from vilification and ideological assault, namely, Jewish students who are supporters of Israel.

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Defense, Diversity, and the China Threat How “woke” experiments endanger our Armed Forces. William Kilpatrick

By on August 18th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/08/defense-diversity-and-china-threat-william-kilpatrick/

The FBI raid on Donald Trump’s estate has temporarily pushed the China threat out of the headlines.  But, of course, the threat is still there and so is the question of how to respond to it.

Teddy Roosevelt said that when dealing with hostile foreign powers one should “speak softly and carry a big stick.”  In other words, don’t provoke your enemies, but let them know that you possess sufficient fire power and personnel to handle any situation that may arise.

Roosevelt decidedly did not say, “shout loudly and carry a small twig.”  But there is a danger that some people, both in and out of government, may fall into the trap of thinking that tough talk by itself is a sufficient response.

Of course, I exaggerate when I use the term “a small twig.”  The U.S. still possesses a formidable military.  But there is evidence that, in comparison to China, it is no longer as formidable as it once was.

An article on missile defense systems in the March issue of National Defense outlines the problem.  It points out that in 2020, the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) began fielding hypersonic weapon systems “with a high level of maneuverability” that makes it difficult for traditional missiles to defend against them.

Moreover, the PLA strategy “focuses on using offensive strikes to gain a military advantage at the beginning of a conflict.”  According to Timothy Walton, a fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology, “they [the PLA] talk about conducting preventative attacks…and preemptive attacks of various kinds.”

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‘Civil War’ Porn Those who warn most of some mythical civil war are those most likely to incite one. By Victor Davis Hanson

By on August 18th, 2022

https://amgreatness.com/2022/08/17/civil-war-porn/

As Joe Biden’s polls stagnate and the midterms approach, we are now serially treated to yet another progressive melodrama about the dangers of a supposed impending radical right-wing violent takeover. 

This time the alleged threat is a Neanderthal desire for a “civil war.”  

The FBI raid on Donald Trump’s Florida home, the dubious rationale for such a historic swoop, and the popular pushback at the FBI and Department of Justice from roughly half the country have further fueled these giddy “civil war” conjectures. 

Recently “presidential historian” Michael Beschloss speculated about the parameters of such an envisioned civil war.

Beschloss is an ironic source. Just days earlier, he had tweeted references to the executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who passed U.S. nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union in the 1950s, in connection with the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago.  

That was a lunatic insinuation that Trump might justly suffer the same lethal fate due to supposedly mishandling of “nuclear secrets.” Unhinged former CIA Director Michael Hayden picked up on Beschloss death-penalty prompt, adding that it “sounds about right.”                                                                                                       

Hayden had gained recent notoriety for comparing Trump’s continuance of the Obama Administration’s border detention facilities to Hitler’s death camps. And he had assured the public that Hunter Biden’s lost and incriminating laptop was likely “Russian disinformation”. 

So, like the earlier “Russian collusion” hoax, and the January 6 “insurrection,” the supposed right-wing inspired civil war is the latest shrill warning from the Left about how “democracy dies in darkness” and the impending end of progressive control of Congress in a few months. 

On cue, Hollywood now joins the civil war bandwagon. It has issued a few bad, grade-C movies. They focus on deranged white “insurrectionists” who seek to take over the United States in hopes of driving out or killing off various “marginalized” peoples. 

Pentagon grandees promise to learn about “white rage” in the military and to root it out. But never do they offer any hard data to suggest white males express any greater degree of racial or ethnic chauvinism than any other demographic.

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