Tuesday, July 13, 2021

Texas State House Votes to Arrest Fleeing Democrats...

Texas State Senate Holds Legislative Session

With Enough Dems for Quorum

The Texas State House of Representatives has voted to arrest the Democrat members who fled to Washington DC in an effort to block quorum for a legislative session containing bills they do not like. According to the WSJ, “Texas state House members voted 76-4 to send law enforcement to find and return absent Democrats “under warrant of arrest, if necessary.”

However, the Texas State Senate has enough remaining Democrats to conduct legislative business. “A Democratic senator who spoke on condition of anonymity said four Democrats plan to remain in Texas. With 21 senators needed to make quorum, and 18 Republicans in the upper chamber, that would provide more than enough senators to conduct business.” (link)

Meanwhile the fleeing Texas Democrats hold a presser from DC. WATCH:

Biden Allies and DNC Instructing Cell Phone Carriers to Filter and Censor Text Message Content

All Your Communication Are Belong to Us

Buried in a Politico article about the White House and Biden Regime planning to aggressively confront anyone who attempts to counter their demands of vaccination, including direct confrontation toward any media outlet that would distribute any counter message conflicting the regime narrative, there is this little alarming notation (emphasis mine):

Politico […] …”Biden allied groups, including the Democratic National Committee, are also planning to engage fact-checkers more aggressively and work with SMS carriers to dispel misinformation about vaccines that is sent over social media and text messages. The goal is to ensure that people who may have difficulty getting a vaccination because of issues like transportation see those barriers lessened or removed entirely.”.. (link)

Yes, you read that correctly. Fact checking your SMS text messages through your carrier, your cell phone or internet provider.

This is a rather remarkable escalation in totalitarian censorship instruction. Not only will Big Tech social media networks (Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter) censor, delete, and look into any content placed in their “private sector” domain, but the implication is now that AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, T-Mobile etc. etc. will deploy monitors and fact-checkers to control what you are allowed to say in text messages to your friends and family.

We have noted in past discussion that ISP providers have been enlisted to use their control nodules to steer and restrict internet travel; even placing landing warnings on websites that are arbitrarily deemed dangerous to approved government messaging. However, taking the leap to control the content of all communication platforms is another level entirely.

Another aspect to this is how the Intelligence Branch is closely connected to the private-public partnership. None of these control mechanisms would work if the corporate private sector was not willingly going along with the demands of intrusive government.

Conserving Collapse

The Republican Old Guard needs to adopt new tactics

to deal with a rapidly changing society.

by Zaid Jalani for the American Mind

Over the past few months, it finally feels like America’s conservative movement has some wind in its sails. As state legislatures and other governing bodies move to prohibit the promotion of critical race theory in the public schools, liberals appear to be on the defensive for once.

Panicked left-leaning news segments and defensive statements from the nation’s teachers unions suggest that the push to prohibit the teaching of woke racial ideas has progressives feeling the heat.

Conservatives have the upper hand in this fight because they have chosen a favorable playing field. While cultural progressives dominate most institutions in America—media, the arts, the universities, and, increasingly, corporate America—Republicans retain a majority in state legislatures.

These legislatures have every right to regulate what goes on in schools that they fund, oversee, and require students to attend. While the details of individual bills deserve scrutiny, there is no credible argument against providing democratic oversight over the ideas that children are taught in public schools; public institutions must be accountable to the public, and elected legislatures are one of the primary vehicles for seeking accountability.

Yet Republicans did not adopt this strategy until the past year, when journalist-turned-advocate Christopher Rufo dug deep into America’s burgeoning anti-racism industrial-complex and unearthed instructional material that was being used in various large institutions to portray whites as oppressors and non-whites as victims. He met with think tanks and lawmakers, and even found an ally in President Trump, who banned woke trainings across the federal government before President Biden changed course.

It is an indictment of what you could call Conservatism, Inc.—the constellation of think tanks, right-leaning publications, consultants, and lawmakers—that it fell to Rufo, a documentarian who only recently began to move to the right (he did not vote for President Trump in 2016) to design their pushback against wokeness.

For too long, Conservativism, Inc. has simply failed to generate any new ideas to tackle the problems of an evolving country. Since the Reagan years, conservatives have coalesced around a narrow set of solutions to every: cut taxes and shrink the size of government. These are certainly important policy goals, but they are not a substitute for a comprehensive worldview and holistic agenda.

In 2017, when conservatives who had spent more than half a decade complaining about the Affordable Care Act were finally in a position to do something about it, it emerged they had no viable alternative to replace it with. South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham admitted as much during the process. “You’ve been working to overhaul this for seven years. Why is this so hard?” a reporter asked him.

“Well, I’ve been doing it for about a month. I thought everybody else knew what the hell they were talking about, but apparently not,” Graham replied.

Even when the Republican Party changes leadership, it appears to have little thirst for changing its ideas. When Wyoming representative Liz Cheney was removed from her leadership post in the House Republican Caucus, New York’s Elise Stefanik took her place. Stefanik, who has one of the more heterodox voting records among House Republicans, offered an opportunity for some policy innovation, yet her elevation to leadership appears to have done little to alter her party’s approach. “Republicans are going to focus on economic growth and focus on how we are the party of tax cuts and not tax hikes,” she recently told Fox Business, laying out the party’s economic approach. There’s nothing there that wouldn’t have been said during the party’s campaigns in 1986, 1996, or 2006.

Yet the world has changed since those days. The growing fault line in American politics is a college education, with Democrats increasingly becoming the college-educated party and the GOP becoming the party of people with a high school diploma. As the economist Thomas Picketty has found, in 2016 and 2020, the “top 10 percent earners became more likely to vote for the Democratic Party for the first time since World War II.”

This new class divide should reshape the political landscape, but the Republican Party is fixated on the same old agenda, which is cutting taxes on some of the same massively rich individuals and corporations who oppose their values and loathe their voters. They are doing this despite the desires of their own base. A Reuters/Ipsos poll taken last year found that 53 percent of Republicans say that the “very rich should contribute an extra share of their total wealth each year to support public programs.”

There are some signs that some in the party want to change course and come up with new solutions. Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri has introduced a range of legislation that would tackle big social and economic problems with new solutions like breaking up large monopolies in Big Tech. Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton has introduced legislation that would levy a wealth tax on large college endowments, striking at the heart of an elite, progressive power base. But Republican leadership has not endorsed these or most other new solutions to new problems.

Some argue that conservativism should stick to traditional solutions because, unlike progressivism, it does not seek to remake the world along a radical vision. But cleaving to such a narrow path only works when the world is not already changing around you. Who really thinks that cutting corporate taxes is the solution to the collapse of the American family?

Chris Rufo and others in his vein have given conservatives hope because they offered them new solutions to deal with new problems. If Conservatism, Inc. wants to regain its relevance, it must start innovating again and end its reliance on outdated ideas.

France's Macron Orders All Health Workers to Get Vaccinated

French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday ordered all French health care workers to get virus vaccine shots by Sept. 15 and urged all of his compatriots to get vaccinated as soon as possible, to fight resurgent infections that are threatening the country’s economic recovery.

In a televised address, Macron also mandated special COVID-19 passes for anyone who wants to go to a restaurant, shopping mall or hospital or get on a train or plane. To get a pass, people must have proof they’re fully vaccinated, or recently recovered from the virus, or have taken a fresh negative virus test.

The delta variant is driving France’s virus infections back up again, just as the country kicked off summer vacation season after a long-awaited reopening. Some 40% of France’s population is fully inoculated.

“Get vaccinated!" was the president's overall message. He even tweeted a GIF of himself repeating the phrase.

Most European governments have shied away from mandating vaccinations. But after tens of thousands of people with the virus died in French nursing home s, Macron said vaccination is essential for all workers in health care facilities or nursing homes, and all workers or volunteers who care for the elderly or ailing at home. Those who don’t get vaccinated by Sept. 15 will face potential sanctions or fines, he said.

“The country is facing a strong resumption of the epidemic touching all our territory,” Macron said, speaking against the backdrop of the Eiffel Tower. Warning of a new wave of potential hospitalizations in August, he said, “The equation is simple. The more we vaccinate, the less space we leave this virus to circulate.”

But he stopped short of any new lockdown measures, saying “We have to learn to live with the virus.”

Macron said the government would declare a medical state of emergency again starting Tuesday, which allows authorities more freedom to impose virus restrictions.

Greece announced Monday that health care workers will be suspended if they refuse to get vaccinated. Italy made the coronavirus vaccination obligatory for health care workers and pharmacists, and those who opt out risk suspension from their jobs or a salary cut.

In Denmark, restaurants and public events require a digital pass showing you’ve been fully vaccinated or have a recent negative test. Some German states require the same for restaurants, though suggestions of making vaccines obligatory have prompted widespread unease.

France's Macron Orders All Health Workers to Get Vaccinated

“Get vaccinated!" was the president's overall message. He even tweeted a GIF of himself repeating the phrase.

But he stopped short of any new lockdown measures, saying “We have to learn to live with the virus.”

Macron said the government would declare a medical state of emergency again starting Tuesday, which allows authorities more freedom to impose virus restrictions.

In France, vaccines are widely available for anyone 12 and over. But interest has ebbed in recent weeks because of vaccine hesitancy, a sense that the virus is no longer a threat, and because some people put off their shots until after their summer vacation. Demand started rising again over the weekend as people braced for Macron’s announcements.

Macron also declared Monday that France will start charging money for some virus tests, which up to now have all been free for anyone on French territory.

Meanwhile, French restaurants and bars are thriving again, the Tour de France cycling race is drawing tightly packed crowds across the country, and Hollywood stars are posing arm-in-arm and mask-free on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival. Cheek kisses are making a comeback.

After staying shuttered for nine months since the pandemic began, Paris restaurant owners expressed worry about the challenges of enforcing the new requirements.

“Our job used to be to make sure that our guests had a great time while they were with us. Now, we spend our time reprimanding them. We weren’t trained for this,” said the manager of the Parisian restaurant Bancs Public, Louis le Mahieu. He said he would observe any new health rules, but warned the new measures would likely incur new costs and lower returns.

For Gauthier Max, whose bar Mama Kin was slapped with a nine-day closure for violating COVID-19 measures, restaurants and bars are no longer places of leisure but have become spaces of constraints and restrictions.

“We’ve effectively become policemen,” he told The Associated Press.

France’s virus infections started rising again two weeks ago. The number of people in French hospitals and intensive care units has been declining for weeks, but doctors predict it too will rise when the increase in delta variant infections hits vulnerable populations, as it has in Britain and Spain.

Meanwhile, Macron also met with car industry figures Monday as he tried to combine his virus warnings with a message of hope for one of the world’s biggest economies. New infections are threatening France’s all-important tourism industry and Macron’s ambitious economic recovery plan — just nine months before the next presidential election in which he is expected to run.

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/virus-outbreak-france/2021/07/12/id/1028360/

The Democrats’ Topsy-Turvy Spin Machine

The media can’t cover for Joe Biden’s

“Gong Show” administration indefinitely.

by Conrad Black for American Greatness

The guessing game of how long the levitation of the Biden presidency can be taken seriously seems to be entering a new phase. The deluge of illegal entries into the United States at the southern border is now running at a rate of closer to 3 million than 2 million a year and yet we still see and hear the bobbling talking head of the Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas assuring us, “The southern border is closed.”

The media has provided almost no coverage of this calamitous invasion. A recent Trafalgar poll found that 56 percent of Americans don’t think Joe Biden is “fully executing the duties of his office,” yet the docile White House press corps continues to ask him about his ice cream and other such probing questions of national interest. Apart from a rising stock market and a quieter atmosphere, the record of the new administration is one of almost complete failure.

The oceanic influx of unskilled labor at the southern border cannot fail to aggravate unemployment and depress the incomes for the vulnerable sectors of what, under President Trump, was a fully employed workforce. The administration has reduced domestic oil production and squandered the country’s status as an energy self-sufficient state. These are all familiar issues to those who follow public affairs, but the 95 percent Democratic-supporting media preserve the cocoon of a fairyland Biden presidency, whose bumbling chief flatters himself with comparisons to Franklin D. Roosevelt.

This regime has embraced the most hair-raising, unproven, terroristic versions of the climate change issue, and it’s only answer to surging increases in violent crime is the tired Democratic mantra about gun control. The firearms don’t discharge themselves and are now mainly used for self-defense and deterrence. It is legally and politically impossible to reduce significantly the immense number of firearms in the country and the sophistry about what constitutes an “assault weapon” will not achieve anything. Attempts to reduce the supply of ammunition will just increase the supply of illegally manufactured or imported ammunition.

If strict gun controls that already exist were properly enforced in the most crime-ridden areas of the country, the effect would be benign. But there is no sign that the Democratic administrations in the crime-swarmed cities have the will to undertake such a controversial act in the “defund-the-police” era, or that Washington will encourage such measures.

Only an unrepresentative method of calculating the rate of inflation keeps it beneath the level of eight to nine percent, which is an accurate rate for most members of the public affected by the cost of gasoline, home fuel, and building materials.

The great Democratic effort to seize permanent control of elections by dispensing with any voter-verification system, replace references to the courts with a partisan election commission, and encourage ballot-harvesting (in addition to admitting masses of illegals and directing their votes) is not going to be adopted. The Democrats suddenly have discovered that voter identification is not a bad idea after all, but the media will not be holding their feet to the fire because until last week voter ID was “Jim Crow 2.0.”

The media still locks arms to deny that there is any taint or question about the 2020 presidential election. The Wall Street Journal’s John Bussey gave their civilized anti-Trump conservative line on Fox News on Sunday: the variants will bring back COVID (meaning the Fauci Terror will reign again) and that will be “a headwind” for Trump, whose argument against the integrity of 2020 election was “unfounded.” Bussey uttered this with catechetical conviction, but of course, it is not unfounded and concern about it is ineradicable.

Only the continuing momentum of Trump-hate still prevents the media from reporting seriously about this ramshackle regime led by someone who can scarcely utter an English sentence and a vice president who responds to all questions with a stream of monosyllables followed by gales of demented laughter.

Comedian Jon Stewart has gently and humorously pointed out that the coronavirus probably did escape from the Wuhan Virological Institute in China; Bill Maher has warned his leftist comrades of the dangers of “progressophobia.” America’s anti-Trump sweetheart, Peggy Noonan, advised her readers in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend that the Left has gone too far. Having written that less than a year after the Democrats’ BLM ally incinerated much of urban America in “peaceful demonstrations,” buyers’ remorse cannot be too far off. Noonan was one of the huge wave of people who placed their dislike of Trump above the aggregation of almost every serious policy issue.

The issue isn’t really that the Left has only now gone too far—they were even more sociopathically extreme in the five months preceding the election, and promised to “burn down this system” if they didn’t get everything they wanted at once (according to New York BLM co-founder Hawk Newsome).

The Democrats promised open borders, massive spending, and were neutral about police funding with a lot of fatuous bunk about sending out psychologists and social workers on 911 calls. Biden was clear about returning to the Paris Climate Accord, the World Health Organization, and the Iran nuclear deal. It isn’t that the Left is overplaying its hand; it is that the snobbery of the American minority triumphed over rational analysis of public policy options.

A very questionable result emerged. The judiciary abdicated from the supreme responsibility of assuring an honest election of the country’s highest office-holders, and the entire media establishment tried to stamp out the dirty public secret that the vote was tampered with in quantities adequate to flip the result in several of the six swing states where miraculous complexities arose, including lop-sided vote-drops in Mark Zuckerberg’s infamous dropboxes at 4 a.m. and other efforts to “fortify” the result.

As the otherwise sane enablers and cheerleaders for the victory of this hollow administration blinkingly begin to see the result of their work, the default fantasyland of Trumpism without Trump arises. But it does not exist, never did, and is unlikely to come to life now.

Trump did not give a particularly good address to CPAC in Dallas on Sunday: there was too much blustering and vague accusations, even for him. But he again made the points that the election was probably stolen and the Biden Administration is a disaster mitigated only by the quieter political atmosphere that has naturally resulted from replacing a deafening human tornado with a waxworks dummy.

Trump predicted a total failure in Afghanistan, and blasted the military for extravagance. He showed considerable forbearance in not focusing on the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Mark Milley. Milley’s performance in denouncing the president’s walk to St. John’s Church across from the White House, which rioters had tried to burn down, in a gesture of the administration’s refusal to tolerate mob rule, was a disgrace. There is a rising sentiment in the country that for all the indulgence they have received, the Pentagon has failed to protect America’s Nimitz-class aircraft carriers and principal bases against hypersonic Chinese and Russian missiles, and there is increased skepticism that they did the best possible in the 20 years they were in Afghanistan.

Everything appears to be topsy-turvy: the chairman of the joint chiefs and the chairman of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, made almost identical statements about critical race theory. The Democrats now claim the Republicans are the ones who wished to defund the police, and now they suddenly have discovered the virtue of voter identification, which, up until yesterday, they had been shrieking from the roof-tops was tantamount to the restoration of slavery. Apparently, it’s not Jim Crow after all.

The media are so absurdly partisan they will try to allow the Democrats a free pass across the barricades on those issues. But the accumulating disasters for the Biden Administration will not be entirely absorbed by the (agonizingly slow) return to work of Americans after COVID and the miracle of the Warp Speed vaccine development, (for which Trump must receive no credit). The media can’t cover for this “Gong Show” administration indefinitely, but I must admit they have lasted longer than I expected, given their invertebrate response to almost everything else.

Part 4 – The Fourth Branch of Government, The Intelligence Branch

Part 4 of a series by Sundance at Conservative Treehouse

As our understanding of The Fourth Branch expands, it is important to pause and reflect upon a specific ‘check and balance‘ within the system before finishing with the final two chapters.

The modern system to ‘check’ the executive branch was the creation of the legislative “Gang of Eight,” a legislative oversight mechanism intended to provide a bridge of oversight between the authority of the intelligence community within the executive branch.

The Go8 construct was designed to allow the President authority to carry out intelligence operations and provide the most sensitive notifications to a select group within Congress.

The Go8 oversight is directed to the position, not the person, and consists of: (1) The Speaker of the House; (2) The Minority Leader of the House; (3) The Chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, HPSCI; (4) The Ranking Member (minority) of the HPSCI; (5) The Leader of the Senate; (6) The Minority Leader of the Senate; (7) The Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, SSCI; and finally (8) the Vice-Chair of the SSCI.

Example: When the Chief Executive (the President) initiates an intelligence operation on behalf of the United States, the President triggers a “finding memo.” In essence the instruction to the intel agency or agencies to authorize a covert operation. When that process takes place, the Go8 are the first people notified. Depending on the sensitivity of the operation, sometimes the G08 are notified immediately after the operation is conducted. The notification can be a phone call or an in-person briefing.

Because of the sensitivity of their intelligence information, the Gang of Eight hold security clearances that permit them to receive and review all intelligence operations. The intelligence community are also responsible for briefing the Go8 with the same information they use to brief the President.

~ 2021 Gang of Eight ~

The Go8 design is intended to put intelligence oversight upon both political parties in Congress; it is designed that way by informing the minority leaders of both the House and Senate as well as the ranking minority members of the SSCI and HPSCI. Under the concept, the President cannot conduct an intelligence operation; and the intelligence community cannot carry out intelligence gathering operations without the majority and minority parties knowing about it.

The modern design of this oversight system was done to keep rogue and/or corrupt intelligence operations from happening. However, as we shared in the preview to this entire discussion, the process was usurped during the Obama era. {GO DEEP}

Former FBI Director James Comey openly admitted to Congress on March 20, 2017, that the FBI, FBI Counterintelligence Division, DOJ and DOJ-National Security Division, together with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the CIA, had been conducting independent investigations of Donald Trump for over a year without informing the Go8. Comey justified the lack of informing Go8 oversight by saying “because of the sensitivity of the matter.”

Stupidly, Congress never pressed James Comey on that issue. The arrogance was astounding, and the acceptance by Congress was infuriating. However, that specific example highlighted just how politically corrupt the system had become. In essence, Team Obama usurped the entire design of congressional oversight…. and Congress just brushed it off.

Keep in mind, Comey did not say the White House was unaware; in fact he said exactly the opposite, he said “the White House was informed through the National Security Council,” (the NSC). The implication, the very direct and specific implication; the unavoidable implication and James Comey admission that everyone just brushed aside; was that President Obama’s National Security Advisor, Susan Rice, was totally informed of the intelligence operation(s) against Donald Trump. After all, the NSC reports to the National Security Advisor.

Does the January 20, 2017, Susan Rice memo look different now?

Again, no-one saw the immediate issue. What Comey just described on that March day in 2017 was the total usurpation of the entire reason the Gang of Eight exists; to eliminate the potential for political weaponization of the Intelligence Community by the executive branch. The G08 notifications to the majority and minority are specifically designed to make sure what James Comey admitted to doing was never supposed to happen.

Team Obama carried out a political operation using the intelligence community and the checks-and-balances in the system were intentionally usurped. This is an indisputable fact.

Worse still, the entire legislative branch of Congress, which specifically includes the Republicans that now controlled the House and Senate, did nothing. They just ignored what was admitted. The usurpation was willfully ignored….. The mechanism of the G08 was bypassed without a twitch of condemnation or investigation…. because the common enemy was Donald Trump.

This example highlights the collapse of the system. Obama, the executive branch, collapsed the system by usurping the process; in essence the process became the bigger issue and the lack of immediate legislative branch reaction became evidence of open acceptance. The outcomes of the usurpation played out over the next four years, Donald J Trump was kneecapped and lost his presidency because of it. However, the bigger issue of the collapse still exists.

The downstream consequence of the legislative branch accepting the executive branch usurpation meant both intelligence committees were compromised. Additionally, the leadership of both the House and Senate were complicit. Think about this carefully. The legislative branch allowance of the intelligence usurpation meant the legislative branch was now subservient to the Intelligence Branch.

That’s where we are.

Right now.

That’s where we are.

Term-3 Obama is now back in the White House with Joe Biden.

Term-1 and Term-2 Obama usurped the ‘check and balance‘ within the system and weaponized the intelligence apparatus. During Trump’s term that weaponization was covered up by a compliant congress, and not a single member of the oversight called it out. Now, Term-3 Obama steps back-in to continue the cover-up and continue the weaponization.

Hopefully, you can now see the scale of the problem that surrounds us with specific citation for what has taken place. What I just explained to you above is not conspiracy theory, it is admitted fact that anyone can look upon. Yet….

Have you seen this mentioned anywhere?

Have you seen this called out by anyone in Congress?

Have you seen anyone in media (ally or adversary) call this out?

Have you seen any member of the judicial branch stand up and say wait, what is taking place is not okay?

Have you seen a single candidate for elected office point this out?

Have you seen anyone advising a candidate point this out?

This is our current status.

It is not deniable.

It is.

Yet, not a single person, no-one, will say openly what has taken place. It is right there in front of our face. The words, actions and activities of those who participated in this process are not deniable.

♦ Last point. There are only two members of the Gang of Eight who have existed in place from January 2007 (the real beginning of Obama’s term, two years before he took office when the Congress flipped). Only two members of the G08 have been consistently in place from January of 2007 to right now, today. All the others came and went but two members of the Gang of Eight have been part of that failed and collapsed oversight throughout the past 15 years.

…Who are they?

Any questions?