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June 2023

Mrs. Obama — we’re looking for the Fast & Furious files By Silvio Canto, Jr.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/06/mrs_obama__were_looking_for_the_fast__furious_files.html

Whether you love or hate Trump, no one should be happy with the weaponization of justice.

We’ve crossed two dangerous lines in the last year.  First, the FBI showed up at Mr. Trump’s home looking for files.  Second, a Special Counsel followed up with an indictment about those files.

Why hadn’t this happened before?  Maybe it’s because the people who came before us were smart enough to know that political passions go both ways.  What happens if a future GOP AG gets a search warrant to look for those Fast and Furious Files at Obama’s home?

“Good morning Mr. President Obama, where are your presidential files?”

Before Trump, no one would have dared consider that.  After Trump, anything can happen and probably will.

This is why I believe that this indictment against President Trump is going to backfire. Yes, Trump, like Biden, made mistakes. However, an indictment is over the top. This is to going to blow up in their faces.  I agree with TippInsights:

Jack Smith said in his address to the media, “Our nation’s commitment to the rule of law sets an example for the world. We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone.” 

The problem with this assertion is that the world has seen how the Deep State has gone after Trump, often putting him below the law. 

Socialism Versus Nature Who actually cares more about the environment? by John Stossel

https://www.frontpagemag.com/socialism-versus-nature/

“Greed of the fossil fuel industry” is “destroying our planet,” says Sen. Bernie Sanders. Young people agree. Their solution? Socialism.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says socialism creates “an environment that provides for all people, not just the privileged few.”

“Nonsense,” says Tom Palmer of the Atlas Network in my new video.

Palmer, unlike Ocasio-Cortez and most of us, spent lots of time in socialist countries. He once smuggled books into the Soviet Union.

What he’s seen convinces him that environmental-movement socialists are wrong about what’s “green.”

“We tried socialism,” says Palmer. “We ran the experiment. It was a catastrophe. Worst environmental record on the planet.”

In China, when socialist leaders noticed that sparrows ate valuable grain, they encouraged people to kill sparrows.

“Billions of birds were killed,” says Palmer.

Government officials shot birds. People without guns banged pans and blew horns, scaring sparrows into staying aloft for longer than they could tolerate.

Burisma Founder Who Allegedly Bribed Joe and Hunter Biden Is a Russian Asset By Paula Bolyard

https://pjmedia.com/columns/paula-bolyard/2023/06/13/report-burisma-founder-who-allegedly-bribed-joe-and-hunter-biden-is-an-russian-asset-n1702735

Jennifer Van Laar, at our sister site RedState, just dropped a bombshell exclusive report about the founder of Bursima:

Burisma Holdings founder Mykola Zlochevsky, who allegedly paid a total of $10 million in bribes to Joe and Hunter Biden in 2015 and 2016 in exchange for then-Vice President Joe Biden’s assistance in getting Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin fired, is believed to be an asset of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) by the United States intelligence community, according to a national security source speaking to RedState on condition of anonymity.

The anonymous source told RedState, “The US intelligence community has a high degree of confidence in their assessment of Zlochevsky as SVR. This is not a new assessment; the intelligence community under Obama knew this, and Obama was briefed on it. Joe Biden and Victoria Nuland were briefed as well.”

RedState also pointed to a tweet from Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on Monday, claiming that the foreign national who allegedly bribed the Bidens has audio recordings of his conversations with Joe and Hunter Biden. He kept the recordings “as a sort of insurance policy,” according to the senator.

Headlines We’re Never Going To See In Our Lifetime

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/06/13/headlines-were-never-going-to-see-in-our-lifetime/

They say that fiction writers have it tough these days because no matter how imaginative they try to be, tomorrow’s headlines will top whatever they come up with today. We politely disagree. There are some headlines that we are 100% certain will never appear in print or online in any “mainstream” publication. Here’s a sampling. Feel free to use the comment section below to suggest others we missed. We’ll post the ones we agree will never see the light of day.

“Scientists Blame Climate Crisis For Unusually Mild Weather“
“Washington Post Wins Pulitzer for Exposing Biden Corruption“
“Transgender Woman Charged With Hate Crime in Men’s Room Mass Shooting“
“Sloth and Gluttony Added to Months Celebrating Cardinal Sins“
“D.C. Memorial to 45th and 47th President Set to Open Next Week“
“Berkeley Suspends Students for Disrupting Conservative Speaker“
“Teachers Union Announces It Will No Longer Donate to Political Candidates“
“MSNBC Documentary About EVs — ‘Rape of the Planet’ — To Air Next Week“

Russia, China and Iran in America’s Backyard These adversaries threaten the U.S. with their moves into Latin America.Walter Russell Mead

https://www.wsj.com/articles/adversaries-in-americas-backyard-china-russia-cuba-spy-base-iran-monroe-9504c189?mod=opinion_featst_pos1

The news from Latin America is grim. The reaction from the Biden administration is a yawn.

To reports in this newspaper that China is offering Cuba billions of dollars in exchange for the construction of a sophisticated intelligence facility to be used against the U.S., the White House responded with a classic nondenial denial. The report was “not accurate,” a spokesperson said, which translated from Washingtonese means that the story was largely correct, but it would be politically inconvenient to say so.

By Saturday the White House was into stage 2 of nondenial. Well, the White House conceded, perhaps there is such a facility, and perhaps China and Cuba are collaborating to upgrade it, but it’s all the previous administration’s fault, and in any case the current administration is addressing any and all relevant issues through diplomatic channels.

Nothing to see here, folks, move along.

But Cuba is the tip of the iceberg. From Tijuana to Tierra del Fuego, American interests are under threat as virtually every country in Latin America suffers from major and growing social, political and economic distress. Narcotrafficking cartels have tightened their grip across much of Central America and into the Caribbean. Law and order is collapsing in Ecuador, while political instability seethes across countries like Bolivia and Peru. Argentina is again reaping the catastrophic results of populist Peronist economic policy. The Venezuelan dictatorship continues to tighten its grip as it sucks the remaining wealth from what ought to be one of the richest nations in the hemisphere. Haiti no longer has even the ghost of a government. In Brazil neither the right-populist shenanigans of the Bolsonaro government nor the left-populist quack remedies of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s Workers’ Party offer much hope to a stagnant, rapidly deindustrializing economy.

Another Biden Defense Rep. Raskin peddles a dubious claim. By James Freeman

https://www.wsj.com/articles/another-biden-defense-5914ec5e?mod=opinion_lead_pos11

Just like everyone else, President Joe Biden deserves the presumption of innocence when it comes to the latest allegations related to his family’s prolific collection of cash from foreign oligarchs. But given the highly consequential falsehoods he and his allies have told about lucrative Biden family engagements for which the family appeared manifestly unqualified, healthy skepticism is in order. And now there’s another highly dubious claim coming from Mr. Biden’s defenders.

As for the latest twist in the story of the Bidens and overseas oligarchs, the Journal’s William McGurn wrote last week:

“House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer subpoenaed a Federal Bureau of Investigation form he says outlines details of a $5 million bribe allegedly paid to Joe Biden while he was vice president. Until last week, the FBI wouldn’t even concede the document existed… But after Mr. Comer and Sen. Chuck Grassley told [FBI Director Christopher Wray] in a phone call last Wednesday that they’d already seen the document, pretending it doesn’t exist was no longer an option. Now that the FBI says there’s an investigation, there is a campaign to discredit the charges before the public can see them.
The first salvo came from CNN last Wednesday. Quoting “people briefed on the matter,” the network said the document had its “origins in a tranche of documents that Rudy Giuliani provided to the Justice Department in 2020.” This is what Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the Oversight Committee, is relying on to say the charges have been looked into and there’s nothing there.
Remember when the New York Post on Oct. 14, 2020, first published some of the incriminating emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop? The paper’s reporting was not only ignored but also suppressed—with the active assistance of the FBI. In its original story, the Post reported that “Hunter Biden’s lawyer refused to comment on the specifics but instead attacked Giuliani.” Some things never change.”

They sure don’t. Mr. McGurn had more on the allegations contained in an FBI form called an FD-1023, used to record information from a confidential human source:

After Monday’s meeting with the FBI, Mr. Raskin emerged to say that Trump-appointed officials including Attorney General William Barr and U.S. Attorney Scott Brady assessed the allegations against Mr. Biden and agreed not to take the investigation any further. But he didn’t say precisely which allegations were assessed—and especially if they were based on the specific information on that FD-1023 from that trusted source. Mr. Comer said the FBI told him the information in the FD-1023 is being used in an ongoing investigation and hasn’t been disproved.

Silvio Berlusconi, Ex-Italian Prime Minister and Media Magnate, Dies at 86 His outsize personality, wealth and news platform helped him control the conservative wing, but subsequent legal and sex scandals eroded his standing

https://www.wsj.com/articles/silvio-berlusconi-media-magnate-who-dominated-italian-politics-for-years-dies-at-86-98c096be?mod=hp_lead_pos3

Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s longest-serving postwar prime minister, a conservative who swept into power on a popular antigraft platform and stayed there for two decades with the help of his big personality, vast wealth and a powerful media empire before falling to a raft of scandals, has died. He was 86.

An extraordinarily divisive figure in Italy and often a target of ridicule abroad for his ribald jokes, sex scandals and overlapping political and business interests, Berlusconi conditioned Italian politics and embodied its conservative movement during and after his tenure as Italy’s leader.

His death was confirmed by an official from his political party. Berlusconi was in the hospital for more than a month in April and May with a chronic form of leukemia. His state funeral in Milan’s cathedral will take place on Wednesday.

Early on in his political career, Berlusconi brought a breath of fresh air to corruption-plagued politics. The persona he cultivated of a self-made man struck a chord with millions of Italians fed up with a political class tainted by corruption, patronage and infighting.

Can Trump Clean The Augean Stables on the Potomac? Joe Biden’s Department of Justice is as corrupt as Hunter Biden’s laptop. Few people of either party trust it, nor should they.  By Roger Kimball

https://amgreatness.com/2023/06/10/can-trump-clean-the-augean-stables-on-the-potomac/

There is a reason that, since before the time of the emperor Tiberius, treason trials have been a favorite tool of totalitarians. Such proceedings allow them to get rid of nearly anyone they dislike. Successfully brand someone a “traitor,” an “enemy of the state,” and, bang, into the oubliette they go.

I think the treason trial is the appropriate heuristic for what is happening, and what has been happening to Donald Trump ever since 2015 when he descended the escalator.

The charge that Trump was “Putin’s poodle,” a “Russian asset,” etc., during the Russia collusion hoax was a sort of treason trial. And remember how elaborate it all was, a veritable glass onion, thanks in large part to Hillary Clinton, whose campaign concocted, paid for, and disseminated the infamous fantasy “dossier” fabricated by former MI6 spook Christopher Steele. And it was Hillary, remember, who first broadcast the charge that servers in Trump Tower were secretly communicating with Russia’s Alfa Bank. The Justice Department, the FBI, the intelligence services—all were in on that game.

Trump’s two impeachments were episodes in the long-running treason trial, as was Liz Cheney’s January 6 show trial, as are the still unfolding series of indictments that have dogged his footsteps with increasing ferocity as the 2024 election looms and Trump’s poll numbers stubbornly refuse to recede.

A lot of legal hermeneutical ingenuity has been lavished on the current criminal indictment, a 37-count blockbuster revolving around charges that Trump mishandled classified documents he had stuffed away at his Mar-a-Lago mansion in Palm Beach. I think those analyses are mostly beside the point, so much wasted foolscap. The indictment, which histrionically relies heavily on the 1917 Espionage Act, is, when looked at with a sufficiently jaundiced eye, an amusing performance. Macbeth would have said it was a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

3 Potential Scandals Plaguing The FBI-Biden Bribe Saga By: Ben Weingarten

 https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/12/biden-bribe-scheme-is-a-three-part-scandal-saga/

The recent and credible bribe allegations against the president could reveal the truth about the ties between the Biden family and the FBI.

FBI Director Christopher Wray narrowly avoided contempt of Congress proceedings last week over his refusal to provide the House Oversight Committee with an unclassified document memorializing a trusted informant’s allegation that then-Vice President Joe Biden accepted a $5 million bribe from Ukrainian energy oligarch Burisma.

Dramatic as the near-rebuke may have appeared, and as explosive as the contents of the FBI’s concealed FD-1023 form seem to be, the trio of apparent scandals this saga touches on transcends its immediate significance.

Influence Peddling

The first scandal — hiding in plain sight for years yet never fully exposed, let alone prosecuted — concerns the Biden family’s potentially criminal, national security-imperiling, public trust-eroding influence peddling. The reality of this influence peddling makes the stunning allegation of a Joe Biden bribe seem infinitely more plausible than it might otherwise appear.

The House Oversight Committee’s recent review of thousands of records from subpoenas to four banks — which preceded its pursuit of the FD-1023 — shows that “Biden family members and business associates created a web of over 20 companies,” the majority of which were formed during Biden’s vice presidency. Through this web, “the Biden family, their business associates, and their companies received over $10 million from foreign nationals’ and their related companies” [emphasis original] during and after the then-vice president’s tenure.

Israel and the “Kissinger Era” — A Zionist response This is the man who said: “The best result [of the Yom Kippur War] would be if Israel came out a little ahead but got bloodied in the process.” Op-ed. Moshe Phillips

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/372627

A military historian and author recently asked me for comment on Israel and the “Kissinger era” (as he put it) for an essay he was working on marking the occasion of Henry Kissinger’s 100th birthday—he had read several of my op-eds about Kissinger.

I believe my response to him is worth sharing with a wider audience.The “Kissinger Era” in Middle East diplomacy refers to the years when the secretary of state brokered agreements based on the idea that Israel should give up tangible assets in exchange for something less than actual peace. Thus in 1975 he pressured Israel into surrendering the Mitla and Giddi passes in the Sinai and the Abu Rodeis oil fields there in exchange for a brief “non-belligerency” pledge from Egypt.

After Kissinger left office, the dynamics of Arab-Israeli diplomacy changed, in ways that Kissinger–for all his reputed brilliance–never expected. Egypt’s Sadat realized the only way to get back the entire Sinai was to sign a peace treaty with Israel, and so he did. Yasser Arafat realized the only way to get an almost-sovereign territory and a de-facto army was to sign a peace agreement with Israel, so he did. Jordan, and then more recently several Gulf kingdoms, decided it was more advantageous to them to sign peace treaties with Israel, so they did.

But two essential problems haunt both the Kissinger Era agreements and the post Kissinger agreements. The first is that a treaty signed with a dictator can be tossed out at any moment, for any reason. That happened during the brief rise to power of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. It also happened when Israel agreed to give Gaza to the PA, and then shortly afterwards Hamas took over.

But the second, and also a very serious problem, is that not a single of the aforementioned Arab regimes has undertaken genuine peace education. They have not taught their citizens to embrace peace and coexistence with Israel. They have likewise made no effort to teach their children in this regard. So anti-Semitic and pro-terrorist hatred still simmers just below the surface among the Arab masses in all of those countries, ready to explode. Thus the extraordinary concessions Israel made for each of those treaties, in the end, secured for the Jewish State what are little more than ceasefire agreements.