Question the Narrative of the Ruling Party

If the bipartisan ruling elite has the truth and facts on their side, 

why do they resort to censorship and threats of prosecution?

by Ned Ryun for American Greatness

If nothing else, the entire Afghanistan debacle playing out in real-time has shown that the administration of Joe Biden and his band of misfit wokesters is a joke. Except this joke isn’t funny.

This incompetent regime couldn’t execute a war and withdrawal against real terrorists in Afghanistan, handing over billions of dollars in weapons to them. But it thinks that people who question arbitrary mask mandates, potential vaccine passports, and have legitimate questions about the 2020 elections are the real terrorists.

The latest Department of Homeland Security bulletin is a prime example of how this administration twists the thoughts and fears of half of the U.S. population into a warning of potential violence. Conveniently, they neglected to mention any heightened threats of violence as a result of actions taken by organizations like Black Lives Matter and Antifa. No, the real threat is people who are tired of wearing masks and question the legitimacy of an extremely suspect presidential election. 

The last line in the DHS bulletin warns readers: “Such threats are also exacerbated by impacts of the ongoing global pandemic, including grievances over public health safety measures and perceived government restrictions.”

Let’s be clear: the DHS bulletin wasn’t a bulletin; it was a threat, as in a read-between-the-lines threat. If you’re a conservative and have the wrong political beliefs, you might be taken to be a terrorist. If you don’t line up with everything this administration and administrative state experts tell you, you might be a terrorist. So shut up.

We’ve come to the point where daring to question the narrative of the ruling party, in classic fascist style, is verboten.

The elites deeply resent questions about their legitimacy or competence. They consider it dangerous to question, but it also shows they feel threatened by transparency. But if they have the truth and facts on their side, why do they fear questions? I’d really love to know what the real mortality rate is for COVID-19 for anyone under 75 who doesn’t have a serious comorbidity or underlying condition. I’d love to know why the Biden Justice Department feels so threatened by election audits in the various states. 

But their response to questions like these is not honesty or transparency but aggressive authoritarian threats. 

This is all somewhat inevitable. Authoritarianism has always been the ultimate end of progressivism which is, in its essence, a form of statism. And as with all authoritarianism, our current version of “woke” progressivism is arbitrary. Now we just have the added flavor of a twisted worldview that holds biological men can have babies, there’s an unlimited number of genders, white guilt is deserved, and open borders are the only way to make the country worthy of praise. 

The problem with an arbitrary worldview is that it rings hollow when tested; there’s no real truth to it so it begins to erode, and eventually, it will collapse in the face of real truth and absolutes. That is why we are seeing the aggressive responses to anything that questions progressive ideas: if you believe that the state is the vehicle by which progress is made, filled with its so-called experts (really a credentialed idiocracy) then any who dare question their gospel are apostates and must be made to comply and submit. Those who won’t comply must be punished.

As this regime continues to implode in front of our eyes, consider what a real administration should be doing. It should not be labeling half the country as domestic terrorists but instead should be focusing on our collapsing southern border which, by the way, the Taliban is certainly doing. Releasing ISIS and al-Qaeda prisoners is not a great dynamic to pair with our porous southern border. Or perhaps the administration should be dealing with inflation. Or taking responsibility for this disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. 

Americans should be outraged by everything that is taking place in this country. But more importantly, they should resist authoritarianism at every turn. If they won’t, maybe they should just go ahead and surrender right now.

X22, Stew Peters show, and more-August 24

 

 

Well Happy Tuesday, folks. Here's tonight's lineup of news from the 'fighting off evil' side:

Biden’s Weakness Will Result In….

 Biden’s Weakness Will Result In Aggression. Here Are 4 Likely Foreign Policy Scenarios

Weakness invites aggression, so we should prepare for a tumultuous fall on the world stage. Here’s what to watch for.

Morgan Wirthlin for The Federalist

Even prior to the stunning display of American failure in Afghanistan, President Biden appeared slow-witted and spineless on crucial U.S. national security matters.

For example, Biden handed Russia’s Vladimir Putin gift after gift: extending the START Treaty, lifting Nord Stream 2 pipeline sanctions despite bipartisan legislation and essentially surrendering Ukraine to Russia. During the Biden-Putin summit in Geneva, Biden was tougherwith an American journalist than with Putin. After Biden’s advisers and the first lady told the press how extensively he prepared for the meeting, he cut it short.

Biden also responded to the several major cyberattacks traced to Russia—including the meat processor JBS and the Colonial pipeline—by handing Putin a list of critical infrastructure that was “off limits.” Biden claimedPutin would change his behavior if his standing was diminished in the world, showing a fundamental lack of understanding Putin’s motivations.

Rejoining the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran has been Biden’s top priority since taking office, and he was willing to offer Tehran almost anything for it. Tehran refused to negotiate with the United States directly, and operates with impunity in the Middle East.

In July, Iranian intelligence attempted to kidnap Masih Alinejad, an Iranian journalist, from American soil. In August, an Iranian drone attacked an Israeli merchant ship, killing two crew members. Iranian proxies targeted Americas in Syria and Iraq, and Hezbollah increased rocket attacks on Israel. It also appears Tehran attempted to close the Strait of Hormuz using sea mines.

In June, Biden proclaimed “America is back” with “renewed commitment to our allies and partners.” But North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies with troops on the ground in Afghanistan disagree as they scramble to get out their people out due to America’s hasty withdrawal. British paratroopers, prepared for face-to-face combat, have descended on Kabul to rescue British citizens.

Weakness invites aggression, so we should prepare for a tumultuous fall on the world stage. Here’s what to watch for.

1. An American Hostage Situation in Afghanistan

The Biden administration is not even aware of how many Americans are left in Afghanistan. It could be as many as 15,000. The administration canceled a Trump-era bureau overseeing protection and evacuation for American citizens in Afghanistan. Now Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin says the U.S. military does not have the capability to “go in and collect large numbers of people.”

President Obama ensured the Taliban understood the value of American hostages. In 2014, Obama released five Taliban commanders—one of whom is currently among Taliban leadership in Kabul—for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who later pled guilty to desertion and was dishonorably discharged. The abandoned Americans may be used for leverage, either by the Taliban or other extremist groups. What is unfolding in Afghanistan may make the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis may look tame by comparison.

2. A Fresh Terror Attack on 9/11

Jihadists are relishing the idea that the United States weak and can be defeated. The anniversary of the 9/11 attacks has always posed heightened risk of terrorism. On September 11, 2012, jihadists attacked a U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, killing Ambassador Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. On August 13, DHS warned of a heightened risk from al-Qaeda, which released a new issue of its propaganda magazine Inspire for the first time in four years. The massive intelligence failure in Afghanistan does not inspire confidence in this administration’s ability to keep tabs on foreign terrorists.

The administration also appears utterly incapable of stopping foreign threats. The U.S. southern border is wide open. The president claimsclimate change is the greatest national security threat. Attorney General Merrick Garland says white supremacy is the greatest domestic threat.

The Justice Department has called the Capitol riot investigation one of the largest in American history, even as a Reuters report claims the FBI does not believe the riot was a conspiracy to overthrow the government. Still, those who did not engage in violence or destruction have been held in isolation for six months.

It is clear the Biden administration is distracted and incapable, making deterrence and prevention that much less likely.

3. A Possible Russian Offensive in Ukraine

As Center Senior Analyst Andrei Illarionov wrote in April, Putin was not ready for a large-scale invasion of Ukraine in the spring, but he would be ready by September. Putin may be able to extract concessions from Ukrainian President Zelensky that would negate need for an invasion.

If Putin decides to invade, however, it will likely be after the Zapad-2021military exercises in mid-September. Military exercises can mask offensive operations, and Putin has used the tactic before.

4. Increased Chinese Pressure on Taiwan

Chinese state media taunted Taiwan after the fall of Kabul, claiming the United States would not come to Taiwan’s aid. Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen responded by saying: “Taiwan’s only option is to grow stronger and become more united, strengthening our determination to protect ourselves.” On August 17, China held live-fire air and sea exercises near Taiwan, and sent 11 war planes into Taiwanese airspace.

In March, America’s top military officer in the Indo-Pacific told Congress China could invade Taiwan in the next six years. The Washington establishment is confident the idea of an imminent risk to Taiwan is overblown, but as Center for Security Policy analyst Grant Newsham pointed out in June, the Chinese military regularly increases capabilities faster and better than western analysts assume.

In the wake of Afghanistan, Newsham wrote, Beijing is likely to challenge the United States in multiple ways. This could include confronting U.S. forces in the South China Sea, establishing bases in Africa and South America, intensify the assault on the U.S. dollar, and intensifying nuclear weapons buildup, to name a few.

In the non-Western world, might makes right. Biden’s rhetoric and proclaimed compassion is meaningless, as bad actors pay attention to action. Biden’s incompetence has made the world a more dangerous place.

Morgan Wirthlin is the chief of staff at the Center for Security Policy, a national security think-tank in Washington, D.C. Follow her @morganwirthlin on Twitter.

Reject Federal Takeover of Elections—Again

Nancy Pelosi wants to force California's absurd 

and corrupt voting system on the rest of the nation.

by Rick Manning for American Greatness

Yogi Berra once said, “It’s déjà vu all over again.”

That is exactly how Americans must feel as they learn that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is trying to ram through another bill orchestrating a federal takeover of elections, despite the previous failed attempt in the Senate.

The bill, H.R. 4, is expected to come up in the House of Representatives this week, and it is stunning in its breadth. In short, Pelosi would give broad, sweeping powers to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division to rewrite every state and local election law in the country.

This desperate attempt to preserve Pelosi’s razor-thin congressional majority became even more frenzied after the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 30 ruling in Brnovich v. DNC. In Brnovich, the court decided 6-3 that Arizona did not have discriminatory intent, nor did its policy of disqualifying votes cast outside of a person’s precinct and the prohibition on ballot harvesting have a disproportionate impact on racial minorities.

The court tapped the brakes on Democrats’ attempts to institutionalize ballot harvesting, a corrupt voting process that allows nongovernmental officials to collect and turn in ballots. The court’s limited ruling did not overturn California’s Wild West voting system, where ballots are collected on street corners by political operatives who may or may not submit them to county officials for counting, but only affirmed that other states are not required to to permit this dubious practice in their states.

And that has Pelosi’s Democrats steaming mad.

Their response is H.R. 4, which sets up a convoluted and very easy to reach set of criteria for the U.S. Justice Department to take over state and local elections.

This is not a passive review of local laws, but quite literally a takeover. It would end simple reforms like commonsense voter identification laws under the guise that they are somehow racist. Among other absurdities, Justice Department attorneys would also be able to move the locations of every polling place and dictate locations for nonsecure ballot drop boxes.

It’s easy to imagine California’s system of mailing ballots to every registered voter would be pressed on the rest of the nation. Remember, a 2019 Judicial Watch lawsuit compelled Los Angeles County to purge 1.5 million inactive voters from the voting roster after the completion of two federal elections. Before that purge could occur, these inactive voters received 1.5 million ballots mailed to apartment complexes and other locations where many of these inactive voters no longer lived.

What could go wrong?

Well, the 2020 presidential General Election in Los Angeles County produced a miracle.

As difficult as it may be to believe, Los Angeles County reports that an astonishing 94.8 percent of eligible persons in the county were registered to vote, and of these 5.8 million registered voters, 4.3 million voted. 

With 1.5 million people historically inactive and yet to be purged from the rolls, the amazing people of the L.A. County registrar’s office somehow got everyone else who were previously active or newly registered voters to vote—78 percent of them by mail.

If you believe that such an outcome is legitimate, you probably think Joe Biden is doing a bang-up job in Afghanistan. 

Yet Pelosi, who represents San Francisco, wants to pass H.R. 4 in order to force this slipshod, fraud-ridden system on the rest of the country. No voter ID, just an old-fashioned Tammany Hall vote collection system where everyone gets a vote so long as they vote the way they are told. 

Just because California’s system effectively has ended the principle of “one person, one vote” thanks to ballot harvesting does not mean the rest of the country should be compelled by Congress to do the same.

Let’s continue to allow the people of West Virginia, Arizona, Utah, Alaska, and other states to determine whether they want ballot harvesting or voter identification laws rather than having California’s corrupt system jammed down their throats by the Justice Department.

The one thing keeping Biden in office

 The one thing keeping Biden in office

by John Kass

Watching President Joe Biden on Sunday struggle to spin away from his disastrous and inept withdrawal from Afghanistan—leaving thousands of Americans on the ground at the mercy of the Taliban—what worried me most isn’t what he said.

What he says isn’t believable. He’s known to all in Washington, even to the Democratic Media Complex that protects him, as a fabulist bag of wind. And on Afghanistan, the president has flip-flopped and lied far too often for anyone to believe anything he says.

What worries me in addition to his incompetence is his style, the way he presents the presidency to the world, with those watery and unfocused blue eyes, Biden babbling softly while reading his teleprompter in the White House.

Such is the President of the United States of America.

It was like watching some foreign film actor who can’t speak a word of English reciting his lines phonetically for Hollywood, issuing pleasant sounds devoid of meaning in place of cold, hard ideas and realities.

Bela Lugosi, the Hungarian refugee who became world-famous as “Dracula” knew no English when he arrived in America. According to his son, Lugosi memorized his lines phonetically in the Broadway play “The Red Poppy” to rave reviews.

And Yoko Shimada, the accomplished and lovely Japanese actress who starred in the old mini-series “Shogun” was another, making sounds without knowing exactly what they were saying. There have been other such actors speaking phonetically to their audience.

But none of these were President of the United States.

To some of you, Biden’s soft-throated teleprompter speech may have sounded soothing. But I doubt it. It’s clear now that most other Americans are rightly, and acutely concerned, perhaps frightened. Many of us hope that our president stays strong. And count me in on that because Joe Biden is my president, too.

Yet now, as the congenital liars and Kemalist toads among the military brass and federal bureaucracy point fingers at the unmoored Biden/Harris White House—after they themselves lied and lied about Afghanistan to the American people for 20 years—the inevitable is happening.

Many professional Democrats are weighing whether to walk away or distance themselves from the president as the 2022 mid-term Congressional elections approach, as his approval ratings drop, and Americans wonder if he’s competent and focused enough for the job.

And to predatory nations like China, Russia, and Iran, the sound of Biden reading his teleprompter must be delicious, like the painful bleating of a damaged antelope having just escaped the mouth of a crocodile at the waterhole. It limps away, with the hyenas trotting behind.

After Sunday’s robotic teleprompter address, Biden stumbled through a short mini-news conference and took a handful of questions.

“Let’s be clear,” said Biden, who wasn’t, “the evacuation of thousands of people from Kabul is going to be hard and painful no matter when it started and when we began…. We have a long way to go, and a lot could still go wrong.”

Clearly.

The useful idiots among the president’s media supporters willingly devour the road apples that the Biden White House throws in their path—that Biden was bound to withdraw from Afghanistan in a rush because of a negotiated settlement with the Taliban by former President Donald Trump.

Lefist pundits are welcome to eat as many road apples as they wish. The spirit animal and mascot of the Democratic Party is a jackass, after all, and so there is an endless supply of such treats. But they demand their readers, viewers and listening audience also eat them too.

A question: Since when has Biden been obligated to follow Trump policy?

Never.

Biden switched Trump policy on Iran. He ended Trump policy on what is now a wide-open Southern border, allowing who knows how many hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants to waltz into America, many who are sick with Covid.

And how many among them will be Afghan Taliban fighters?

Former President George W. Bush sent Americans to war in Afghanistan after terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Bush allowed himself to become captive to the neoconservative “endless wars” and “nation building” wing of the Republican Party, that led us to more war in Iraq and destabilized the Middle East.

Bush’s successor, former President Barack Obama was in office when the terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden was killed, though it was Obama’s then vice president, Joe Biden, who opposed taking out Bin Laden.

And it was President Biden who pushed this catastrophic and hurried withdrawal from Afghanistan so he could score political points on the 20^th anniversary of Sept. 11. He put American lives, and those of our allies in jeopardy, to satisfy his desire for political glory.

As I wrote just days ago, this catastrophic withdrawal is Biden’s disaster.

He owns it.

I support withdrawing American troops from the endless wars hatched by the neoconservatives, Republicans and Washington insiders of all parties, including among them the generals with visions of defense contractor sugarplums dancing in their heads as reward for their lies about Afghanistan, that victory and stability were within reach.

 But it was Biden, not Trump, who closed the Bagram airfield first, though it could have been used to evacuate thousands of Americans and other allies the president left behind. They are now forced to make it past Taliban checkpoints to the airport in Kabul, making them, in effect, Taliban hostages.

Biden has always been a fabulist. On the campaign trail, he boasted of his epic battles as a pool lifeguard with the mythical thug “Corn Pop” who was a “bad dude.”

And he bragged repeatedly of being arrested when he tried to visit Nelson Mandela in prison. That too, was a lie.

But now the images coming out of Afghanistan undercut Mr. Biden’s fantasies. Americans see the panic on the streets of Kabul on TV.

They see the Taliban mocking America in what has been reported to be a propaganda photo, Taliban fighters in American battle gear raising the Taliban flag in the way U.S. Marines raised the American flag on Mount Suribachi after the Battle of Iwo Jima.

Even pollsters are now asking openly, publicly if Americans consider the president to be competent and focused enough for the job. Asked about it Sunday, the president tried to laugh it off, as noted by Miranda Devine in The New York Post.

But there is one thing that keeps Biden afloat. It isn’t his political donors on Wall Street, or titans of leftist corporate America who have become partners with the Democrats and Big Government. What keeps Biden afloat isn’t the teachers unions or Democratic politicians playing race cards.

And it’s not Dr. Jill playing the role of Edith Wilson in the Biden White House.

What keeps Joe Biden afloat for now, is that the American people understand who would replace him:

President Kamala Harris

(Copyright 2021 John Kass)

Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts dies at 80

 

Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts, who helped them become one of the greatest bands in rock 'n' roll, has died at the age of 80.

"It is with immense sadness that we announce the death of our beloved Charlie Watts," a statement said.

"He passed away peacefully in a London hospital earlier today surrounded by his family."

It said he was "a cherished husband, father and grandfather" and "one of the greatest drummers of his generation".

 

 

The statement added: "We kindly request that the privacy of his family, band members and close friends is respected at this difficult time."

The news comes weeks after it was announced that Watts would miss the band's US tour dates to recover from an unspecified medical procedure. Watts was previously treated for throat cancer in 2004.

He had been a member of the Stones since January 1963, when he joined Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Brian Jones in their fledgling group.

A jazz aficionado at heart, Watts helped them become, with The Beatles, one of the bands who took rock 'n' roll to the masses in the 60s with classics like (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, Jumpin' Jack Flash, Get Off My Cloud and Sympathy for the Devil.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-58316842 

 

 

 

 

The Talking Points Go Forth on Biden's Afghanistan Disaster

Bonchie reporting for RedState

One of the oddest things about the last couple of weeks has been the realization by some in the news media that they are supposed to actually be journalists. After eight months of knee bending to the Biden administration, the chaos and death following the Afghanistan withdrawal had finally encouraged them to actually do, you know, their jobs. CNN, of all places, had one of the best on the ground reporters in Clarissa Ward directly countering the White House’s false narrative.

But as I warned earlier this morning, with the pullout of those journalists giving direct reports (Ward evacuated over the weekend), the administration has newfound room to obfuscate, and it’s just a matter of time before the media get on board.

Well, I didn’t have to wait long. White House Chief of Staff Ronald Klain, who spent the last week retweeting Joy Reid and Jennifer Rubin, has sent out the latest talking points. And like clockwork, they are being repeated by the usual suspects.

Klain’s brag, repeated by Biden stenographer John Harwood, completely absconds from the fact that this disaster was preventable. You don’t get to set the house on fire, call the firefighters, and then brag about how good they are at putting the fire out. Biden’s senile and incoherent decision-making led to this situation, which now entails thousands of trapped Americans who can’t even get to the airport to evacuate.

Further, notice what’s not in either of those statements and that Harwood inexcusably doesn’t point out in his squee-session — how many of those 37,000 were Americans?

Remember, there were over (perhaps way over) 10,000 Americans stuck behind enemy lines, not just in Kabul, but throughout Afghanistan at the beginning of the collapse. How many have been rescued? We can actually get a decent idea given that last week the Pentagon announced 6,000 people had been airlifted out on one day. Of those 6,000, only a “couple of hundred” were Americans. Given those ratios, it’s safe to say that thousands upon thousands of Americans are still in harm’s way.

Lastly, let’s talk about how gross it is that Harwood notes there have been no US casualties while not bothering to mention that dozens of people have still been killed around the airport. In fact, thousands of American allies have likely been killed as well as the Taliban have advanced. Whether actual American citizens have been killed or not is something we won’t find out for some time. There’s too much of a blind spot on the ground as far as intelligence goes right now. It’s almost certain we’ll be facing a hostage crisis soon, though.

For the White House to send out talking points as if this is all going well is obscene, yet completely expected. The myth of Biden being a bastion of empathy has been fully exposed. He’s a sick old man who simply doesn’t care what’s happening. In fact, he and his administration are naive enough to think this will just all blow over. But I’ve got bad news for them: People aren’t going to forget this.

The Only Way Back To Deterrence Is…

 The Only Way Back To Deterrence Is Firing Biden’s Entire National Security Team

America needs experts who can reverse the damage Biden is doing to our national security and will stand up to future unsound and dangerous decisions.

Fred Fleitz for The Federalist

The Taliban’s seizure of Afghanistan — emboldened by President Joe Biden’s senseless decision to rush U.S troops out of the country without a plan — blindsided the Afghan government, the Afghan military, and America’s allies. This reckless decision has led to bipartisan criticism in the United States and from our global allies, and ridicule by America’s adversaries.

Biden’s attempts to blame everyone but himself for this fiasco, his refusal to take press questions for nearly a week (except from sycophantic George Stephanopoulos), and his decision to hide at Camp David while these events unfolded have only intensified criticism.

As commander-in-chief, Biden is at fault for this disaster. But his senior national security advisers also bear responsibility for implementing his irresponsible Afghanistan policies instead of resigning and reporting them to Congress.

It’s important to stress that Biden had bad instincts on national security when he was a younger man. Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wrote that Biden “has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”

Now that Biden appears to be suffering from mental decline, he is making national security decisions that are irrational and dangerous. This extends beyond Afghanistan, to nuclear talks with Iran and failing to secure our southern border.

If Biden Can’t Be Replaced Now, Replace His Yes-Men

In a perfect world, Biden would immediately resign, be impeached, or be removed from office under the 25th Amendment for this unprecedented incompetence and dereliction of duty.

To remove the president under the 25th Amendment, the vice president and the majority of the cabinet would need to determine that Biden is unfit for office. Congress would then need to approve that process by a two-thirds vote in both chambers. It is hard to see how a majority of Biden’s cabinet or two-thirds of the Democrat-controlled Congress would agree to such action.

Impeachment would require passage of articles of impeachment by a majority of the House and conviction and removal by a two-thirds vote in the Senate. Democrats will not permit this now, but it might be possible in early 2023 if Republicans take control of Congress in the 2022 midterm elections.

Since removing Biden from office is not possible right now, other action must be taken: replacing his top national security advisers with experts who have the experience, principles, and gravitas to reverse the damage Biden is doing to our national security and will stand up to future unsound and dangerous decisions by this president.

It is pointless now for National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley to claim or leak to the press that they opposed Biden’s decision to rapidly withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan. They knew this decision was wrong and dangerous. They were duty-bound to resign and report Biden’s reckless decision to Congress.

Making this worse, most of Biden’s senior national security advisers are unqualified yes-men. Putting aside buffoonish Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan are third-stringers out of their league. And Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin apparently has so little influence with Biden that the president forgot his name at a press conference.

Bring In More Competent People

Blinken, Sullivan, and Austin (as well as Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas) must go and be replaced with more experienced and competent experts. Democrats Sen. Chris Coons, former Rep. Jane Harman, former Rep. Eliot Engel, former Secretary of the Navy Sen. Jim Webb, or defense expert Michèle Flournoy would do a far better job. Deputy secretaries and other lower-level national security officials also should be replaced with more competent experts.

Biden should make CIA Director William Burns – his only competent cabinet-level national security official – national security advisor or secretary of state.

Is there a chance Biden would ever make such moves? There might be, because replacing his national security team would be seen as taking bold and decisive action in response to outrage over his Afghanistan policy and questions about his leadership.

Biden and congressional Democrats also might support this course of action because it would allow Biden to shift the blame for his Afghanistan policy onto others. Although this would be highly unfair and dishonorable, it may be necessary to convince Biden to name some highly qualified and principled people as his top national security advisers.

Biden’s senseless Afghanistan policy and unmistakable signs of his mental decline strongly suggest he is not capable of serving as commander-in-chief. Democrats almost certainly will not agree to remove him, so their Republican colleagues must pressure them to pursue the next best option: surrounding Biden with highly qualified and principled national security experts who will not tolerate more irrational national security decisions.

To safeguard America’s national security and global leadership, we need bipartisan action now to compel President Biden to take this action.

Fred Fleitz is president and CEO of the Center for Security Policy. He served in 2018 as deputy assistant to the president and chief of staff of the National Security Council. Fleitz held national security jobs for 25 years with the CIA, DIA, Department of State, and the House Intelligence Committee staff. Twitter: @fredfleitz

Feds Lower Expectations for January 6 Probe

It’s clear the Justice Department won’t be able to prove its case; 

last week’s revelation is just the start of walking back their tough talk.

Julie Kelly reporting for American Greatness

The FBI continues to hunt down Americans even for minor involvement in the breach of the Capitol on January 6. Four Ohio residents were arrested last week and charged with common misdemeanors. It appears the group was inside the building for about 15 minutes and committed no violent crimes.

It’s the latest example of the absurdity of the Capitol breach probe; rather than pursue the handful of violent offenders, Joe Biden’s Justice Department is rounding up alleged trespassers. And it would be laughable if this eight-month manhunt to punish Trump supporters wasn’t destroying lives and tearing families apart in the process.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the insurrection gulag; the overwhelming number of cases consist only of low-level offenses. That is not what Michael Sherwin, the head prosecutor handling the first few months of the Capitol breach probe, promised one week after the protest. “The initial charges we’re filing, these misdemeanors, these are only the beginning,” Sherwin said at a January 12 press conference. “We’re looking at serious felony cases tied to sedition and conspiracy.” 

Yet, in spite of Twitter’s best efforts, no one so far has been charged with insurrection or sedition; the best the government can do is file hard-to-prove charges of obstruction of an official proceeding or conspiracy, both felonies.

The Justice Department set expectations extremely high early on. Revenge against Americans who dared to protest the election of Joe Biden would come fast and fierce, the public was assured. Attorney General Merrick Garland promised the investigation into January 6, which he compares to the Oklahoma City bombing, would be his top priority. And when FBI Director Chris Wray designated January 6 an act of “domestic terrorism,” Trump haters smelled blood in the water.

No Evidence of Serious Plans

The Justice Department now seems to be prepping the ground for a major letdown. “The FBI has found scant evidence that the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was the result of an organized plot to overturn the presidential election result,” Reuters reported August 20. Nearly all of the cases, four former and current law enforcement officials said, are “one-offs” while roughly five percent are associated with so-called militia groups.

“FBI investigators did find that cells of protesters, including followers of the far-right Oath Keepers and Proud Boys groups, had aimed to break into the Capitol. But they found no evidence that the groups had serious plans about what to do if they made it inside,” the unnamed sources told Reuters.

Of course, raiding people’s homes and concocting ludicrous charges such as “parading, picketing, or demonstrating” in the Capitol is the easy part. Proving these cases in court is much more difficult, even as Obama-appointed Beltway judges who have shown no mercy for the accused sit in judgment.

The Oath Keepers case is facing serious headwinds. Seventeen Oath Keepers (or alleged members) are charged with conspiracy along with numerous nonviolent crimes. It’s an ridiculous case; the group entered the building—by all accounts through an open entryway—in a so-called “stack formation” while wearing military garb.

No one carried a weapon or assaulted a police officer. No one vandalized property. Screenshots of surveillance video released last week shows a few Oath Keepers just standing in the Rotunda doing nothing wrong. They took selfies and exited the building less than 20 minutes later.

The first trial is scheduled to begin January 31, 2022. Judge Amit Mehta is dividing up the defendants; the January trial will include Oath Keepers who’ve been behind bars under pre-trial detention orders. By that time, a few will have been incarcerated for nearly a year awaiting trial. (On Monday, Metha approved the release of Joseph Hackett, an Oath Keeper who has been incarcerated in the D.C. jail since June.)

Troubling Delays

The government does not appear ready to go to trial. After a prosecutor admitted during a separate status hearing in July that the Justice Department wouldn’t have its discovery obligations fulfilled until early 2022 at the earliest, Mehta asked for a discovery update in the Oath Keepers case. He called the delays “troubling.” 

The lead prosecutor told Mehta the defendants would have all the material related to their case by early September. (The government still does not have a workable platform to share massive amounts of digital evidence, including tens of thousands of hours of video, with defense counsel.) That timeline, however, turned out to be inaccurate.

In a filing last week by Channing Phillips, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, the office handling every January 6 prosecution, informed Mehta discovery in the Oath Keepers won’t be ready until early October.

And that’s not the only looming obstacle. Next month, Mehta will consider a change of motion filed in July by one of the defense attorneys and subsequently joined by all the defendants. Pointing to the fact that only five percent of D.C. residents voted for Donald Trump in 2020, David Fischer, lawyer for Thomas Caldwell, one of the first alleged Oath Keepers arrested in January, wrote that “the overwhelming majority of District residents despised Caldwell and his co-defendants before January 6th.”

Fischer ticked off a long list of biased local and national news coverage as well as inflammatory comments made by “the President, Attorney General, Speaker of the House, prominent politicians, and media personalities,” related to the case.

He reminded the court that President Trump and Republicans were routinely harassed in D.C. for four years. “District residents . . . have hectored Trump-supporting Members of Congress, surrounded them in restaurants (e.g., Ted Cruz), congregated around their homes (e.g., Lindsey Graham, Josh Hawley), aggressively confronted them on the street (e.g., Rand Paul), and engaged in incessant “protests” around former Majority Leader McConnell’s home,” Fischer wrote. “District protesters attempted to burn down historic St. John’s church, vandalized millions of dollars of statues and other property, and surrounded the White House in an illegal assemblage during BLM and anti-Trump protests. An anti-Trump zealot shot up a softball practice just across the Potomac in Alexandria, nearly killing Majority Whip Steve Scalise. The level of antipathy towards Trump and his supporters in the District is off the charts and makes it impossible to find an impartial jury.”

The trial should be moved to the western district of Virginia where Caldwell lives, Fischer argued, noting that “many acts that Caldwell engaged in occurred in the [western district].”

A “Constitutional Vagueness Problem”

Fischer also asked Mehta to dismiss the obstruction felony against his client based on the fact the electoral college certification was not a legal or judicial proceeding, which the law was designed to protect from interference. (Every Oath Keeper also is charged with obstruction of an official proceeding.) “On January 6th, sworn testimony was not being taken, witnesses were not summoned, and documents were not subpoenaed,” Fischer wrote in a separate motion filed last week.

Other defense attorneys also are pushing back on the government’s obstruction charges, levied against at least 200 defendants.

Earlier this month, Judge Randolph Moss warned prosecutors they faced a “constitutional vagueness problem” in applying the obstruction charge to January 6. Moss asked how the obstruction felony, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, is different from the other misdemeanor charges that only allow for up to six months in jail. “Unless we can tell the public where that line is, there’s a problem.”

The Oath Keepers is the government’s marquee case to show the public that white supremacist militia groups loyal to Donald Trump organized a pre-planned attack on the Capitol on January 6 to overthrow the government. It’s clear the Justice Department won’t be able to prove its case; last week’s revelation is just the start of walking back their tough talk.