January 6 Committee Ignores Key Questions About FBI

Jeffrey Rosen and current DOJ officials do not want Americans to know about the agency’s deep involvement in the events of January 6.

by Julie Kelly for American Greatness

The final set of witnesses testifying before the January 6 select committee had the potential to shed more light on the government’s foreknowledge of the protest on Capitol Hill that day. Jeffrey Rosen, appointed by Donald Trump on Christmas Eve in 2020 to replace departing Attorney General William Barr, and two of his deputies gave opening statements and fielded questions for more than two hours last week.

None of it had anything to do with the events of January 6, 2021.

Instead, Rosen—the deputy transportation secretary under Elaine Chao, wife of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), before he was promoted in May 2019 to serve as Barr’s deputy—spent his time explaining how the former president pushed the Justice Department to investigate election fraud in numerous states after it failed to do so. Rosen recounted multiple requests by Trump, including the appointment of a special counsel. 

“I will say that the Justice Department declined all of those requests that I was just referencing because we did not think they were appropriate based on the facts and the law as we understood them,” Rosen told committee members on June 23.

Most of the hearing focused on what happened the weekend before the Capitol protest; Rosen vehemently opposed signing a letter authored by Jeffery Clark, the acting assistant attorney general at the time, that urged Georgia officials to call a special session to examine evidence of voter fraud in that state. Rosen, along with his chiefs and dozens of federal prosecutors, threatened to resign if Trump replaced Rosen with Clark. (Sadly, Trump did not take up Rosen’s threat.)

But an offhand comment by Richard Donoghue, Rosen’s ex-deputy, went unnoticed and unexplored by the committee. Donoghue explained that on the afternoon of January 3, 2021, Justice Department leadership met to discuss “preparations” for January 6.

That disclosure gave committee members the ideal opening to question Rosen about the Justice Department’s activities days before the protest. Who attended that meeting? What plans were in place to protect the Capitol and lawmakers if violence erupted? What intelligence did the department, particularly the FBI, receive in advance of January 6?

Committee members asked none of those questions, of course—and the explanation is clear: Rosen, as well as current Justice Department officials, do not want the American people to know about the agency’s deep involvement in the events of January 6. 

If Representative Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) truly meant her stated goal of exposing the “truth” about January 6, she would have asked about a January 2022 bombshell in Newsweek that revealed how Rosen summoned elite “commando” agents to Quantico that very same weekend to make plans for January 6. The article detailed how, contrary to the perception Rosen and his colleagues including FBI Director Chris Wray have successfully fostered, the Justice Department was not caught off-guard and flat-footed on January 6.

“Rosen made a unilateral decision to take the preparatory steps to deploy Justice Department and so-called ‘national’ forces,’” Newsweek reporter William Arkin wrote. “There was no formal request from the U.S. Capitol Police, the Secret Service, or the Metropolitan Police Department—in fact, no external request from any agency. The leadership in Justice and the FBI anticipated the worst and decided to act independently, the special operations forces lurking behind the scenes.”

The specialized units included the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team, a SWAT team, and agents from the U.S. Marshal’s Service and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Snipers were staged near congressional buildings and given “shoot-to-kill” authority. All of the agents were deployed downtown Washington on the morning of January 6, not in the afternoon as the chaos unfolded, a claim Rosen himself has made under oath.

According to Newsweek, “FBI tactical teams arrived on Capitol Hill early in the day to assist in the collection of evidence at sites—including the Republican and Democratic party national headquarters—where explosive devices were found.”

Ah, the long-forgotten “pipe bomb” threat! Not only has that story disappeared from media coverage, it has been completely ignored by the January 6 committee.

Nearly 18 months later, the “pipe bomb” aspect of the January 6 narrative remains one of the murkier events of the day. A hefty reward to find the bomber, who allegedly planted the explosives the night before, remains unclaimed. FBI officials immediately said the agency would conduct an investigation into what they described as “viable devices that could have been detonated, resulting in serious injury or death,” but no report has been released.

And in the oddest angle of all, Politico reported last year that Kamala Harris was inside the Democratic National Committee headquarters when the bomb was located outside the building, raising questions as to how her Secret Service detail overlooked the device during a security sweep before she arrived around 11:30 a.m. on January 6. 

Now, one would think Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), who publicly cried about the violence that happened that day, would pound the podium demanding an update into a lethal threat that could have taken the life of the incoming vice president and others nearby, or at least asked for specifics as to how Rosen’s department initially handled the devices.

But that did not happen. Readers of American Greatness know why—the pipe bomb scare looks like another FBI hoax, complete with characters tied to the agency.

Speaking of January 6 characters tied to the FBI, the committee has not addressed an issue of great interest to most Americans and some congressional Republicans: the involvement of FBI informants or undercover agents in the Capitol protest. Attorney General Merrick Garland last year refused to tell Rep. Tom Massie (R-Ky.) how many federal assets participated in the Capitol protest, if any encouraged others to enter the building, and whether any agents did. “I’m not gonna violate this norm of, uh, of, of, uh the rule of law and I’m not gonna comment on an investigation that’s ongoing,” Garland said.

Republican senators have also received the silent treatment from the FBI. Jill Sanborn, executive director of the FBI’s national security branch, stonewallednumerous inquiries by Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) as to the number of agents and informants who “actively participated” in the events of January 6. Sanborn also refused to say how many FBI assets may have “incited crimes of violence” that day.

The presence of federal infiltrators is not speculation. The New York Timesreported in September that at least two informants infiltrated the Proud Boys and helped breach the Capitol perimeter on January 6. Defense attorneys have disclosed the presence of undercover FBI agents in the vicinity of their clients during the protest; further, dozens of agitators, including Ray Epps, inexplicably have not been charged for their clear role in stoking the chaos that day.

And one only has to look as far as the FBI-concocted hoax to “kidnap” Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020 to understand just how far the agency will go to damage Republicans, especially Donald Trump. (Sanborn was a top official at the FBI’s counterrorism division at the same time the Whitmer “kidnapping” plot was devised.)

It’s unclear whether the committee has even bothered to interview Christopher Wray. Documenting Wray’s knowledge and actions related to January 6 would seem an essential part of the committee’s official record; selectively ignoring his role, and that of his agency on January 6, points to a cover-up.

X22 and Stew Peters Show- June 28

 

Once again, with there being 7 primaries in states today, I say good luck to all conservatives out there! :)

Here's tonight's news:

The Groomer ‘Panic’ Is a Hill Worth Dying On

We are at the bottom, or close to it, anyway, of the “slippery slope” that progressives told us does not exist.

by Matthew Boose for American Greatness

Joe Biden commemorated Pride Month by promising to take the fight for equality to the next level. Gay marriage was yesterday’s battle. The issue of the day is making sure that children with gender dysphoria—or “trans youth,” as Biden called them—have uninhibited access to “gender-affirming care.” By this, Biden meant often irreversible medical interventions such as puberty blockers and sexual reassignemt surgery. 

Further, he promised to shield these kids from a “hateful” right-wing backlash and to crack down on  supposedly “discredited” conversion therapy that would encourage them to accept their natural selves. According to Biden, who is Catholic, “trans youth” are “made in the image of God” and deserve the unswerving support of the federal government in their quest for autonomy. 

Those who voted for Biden expecting a “moderate” agenda may have been surprised by these radical remarks. But Biden’s position has entered the Democratic Party mainstream. While the Left denounces the term “groomer” as a reactionary slander, it’s hard to deny at this point that the sexual “liberation” of children is the “Pride” movement’s new focus.

What other conclusion can we draw from the recent “Drag Your Kids to Pride” event in Dallas, where children handed dollar bills to men dancing sexually in front of a neon sign that read, “It’s not going to lick itself?” Progressives have defended this obscenity, calling the backlash overblown. It’s a pattern we have seen a lot lately. The Left blew a gasket when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed an unobjectionable bill, incongruously labeled by them the “Don’t Say Gay” law, that simply bans teachers from talking about sex to kindergarteners.

Who could have imagined 10, even five years ago, that the country would be caught up in a “debate” about whether it is proper to sexualize 5-year-olds? Well, some did imagine it but they were mocked and dismissed as alarmists and bigots. Now, just seven years after gay marriage became the law of the land, they have been vindicated.

We were told that “love is love.” We were asked to tolerate what “consenting adults” do in the privacy of their own bedrooms, and assured that the change would stop there. We are now paying the price for our goodwill. 

“Pride” has become a state ideology, with its own liturgy and an entire month of near-compulsory observance. This creed must be affirmed and celebrated in every aspect of society, from school to the workplace to church. The governor of New York has ordered a “human rights” investigation into a local library on Long Island that offended the state ideology by removing Pride-themed books from its children’s section. Biden is withholding money for school lunches to enforce the dogma. 

We should beware not to concede an undeserved intellectual weight to this agenda, but it has a twisted logic, the consequences of which call for public attention. The basic idea behind this movement is that children are autonomous beings and should be treated as such. The notion that children are autonomous is just the thing that a pedophile might want to see normalized. If children are autonomous, if they are “free” to “transition” without parental consent, then we don’t have to travel very far before the question arises whether a child can consent to having sex with adults. 

Since children are not, in fact, autonomous beings, once separated from the family they naturally will gravitate to some other authority for guidance and protection: the state. With the “trans youth” craze, a predatory state sees a new frontier in its generations-long effort to expand itself by smashing family bonds and grafting the broken human beings left behind to itself. The greater the number of confused, isolated, dysfunctional people who will depend on the state for support and “gender-affirming care,” the better for the state.

The “Pride” state justifies its grooming as a mission to “liberate” children to become their “true selves,” but what we are really witnessing is not the spontaneous awakening of repressed “identities” but an exploitative and insidious form of social contagion. Impressionable, otherwise normal and healthy kids are being purposely alienated from their families, manipulated, indoctrinated, and molded, mind and body, in a certain direction by ideologues with an agenda. These ideologues won’t allow kids to grow up to be happy, normal adults. That is called oppressive, and these people seek to disrupt that process. 

Seattle: A group of nude adults was part of the @OurSeattlePride event today attended by families and young children. Video by @TPostMillennial reporter @KatieDaviscourt: pic.twitter.com/51l0TDb99d

— Andy Ngô 🏳️‍🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) June 26, 2022

In practice, this means exposing children as early and as often as possible to devious, inappropriate teachings about sex and “gender identity.” There have been reports of children being coached by teachers to “transition” without the knowledge or consent of their parents. 

If that is not grooming, the word has no meaning. 

But the Biden-groomer state has no qualms, either, about asserting public ownership over kids and ordering their parents to “affirm” their dysphoria. Families have no place disabusing their kids of the gender confusion planted in their heads by ideologically-driven teachers, politicians, and mass media. That’s “Pride.”

We are at the bottom, or close to it, anyway, of the “slippery slope” that progressives told us did not exist. Just how far have we traveled? Apologists for the groomer phenomenon such as Andrew Sullivan, an instrumental figure in the gay marriage revolution, are clutching pearls over a distinction between drag performances for kids which are and are not sexual. If we allow these kinds of arbitrary distractions to control public dialogue, then we will be at a loss to stop the mainstreaming of pedophilia in its tracks.

Some moral “panics,” like a body’s immune response to disease, are a sign of vitality. The groomer “panic” is one of them. There can be no reasoned argument with those seeking to exploit and indoctrinate children. We need more laws like the “Don’t Say Gay” law, and corporations that try to sexualize kids, like Disney, should be punished by any legal means possible. 

For too long, mainstream society has been walking on eggshells around an aggrieved, pathological minority that has been empowered to dictate social norms for ordinary people. This has led to such absurdities as men competing in women’s sports, and pressure on the remainder of the population to adopt tortured, dehumanizing language like “pregnant people” or frivolous ”pronouns.” 

Up to a point, we could call this trend unreasonable, bothersome, or unfair. Now, it is a danger to the innocence and well-being of a generation. It’s time for those in the mainstream, those with an actual stake in the future, to assert their place in society and stop appeasing an extreme fringe.

Justice Thomas vs. The Media

Sarah Lee reporting for RedState 

Fresh off of shoring up the 2nd Amendment and playing boogeyman to the left on abortion (hoo boy, the racism from the left was something to behold), Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has now indicated he may want to tackle revisiting a case he holds in special regard (or disregard): NYT vs. Sullivan, a ruling that makes it difficult for people in the public eye — including politicians — to sue media outlets for defamation.

This is the third time since 2019 that Thomas — occasionally joined by Justice Gorsuch — has challenged the idea of “actual malice” as the standard for when a public figure can sue a media outlet. Or, said another way:

“The result [of Sullivan] is that public figures can only win a libel case if they can prove not only that a statement is false and defamatory, but that a defendant intentionally lied or acted with reckless disregard for the truth–a high burden.”

What that means in practice is that news outlets can “print”, without liability, pretty much anything a source may tell them about a public person, even something defamatory, as long as the source is the one saying it and not the media outlet. The source can be found liable for defamation under the usual terms; the media outlet, unless it showed “actual malice” toward the public figure, can not. In 2021, Thomas and Gorsuch challenged the standard set forth in Sullivan as needing to be updated to meet the realities of the digital age, and to better reflect the original, Consitutional meaning of the 1st Amendment.

The Supreme Court has recently been barraged with bids to overrule the landmark press-freedom precedent, which established the requirement that public figures show “actual malice” to succeed on a defamation claim. In a sort of temporal pincer movement, critics of the decision maintain both that the rule is inconsistent with the original understanding of the Constitution and that it needs updating in light of the dynamics of online media. Last year, dissenting from the denial of certiorari in a case called Berisha v. Lawson, Justice Neil Gorsuch invoked “momentous changes in the Nation’s media landscape since 1964” as his reason to revisit Sullivan, while Justice Clarence Thomas pointed to the ease with which the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory spread online.

The latest petition before the Court, Coral Ridge Ministries Media v. Southern Poverty Law Center, retreads that ground in a case involving a Christian ministry that objected to its placement on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “Hate Map,” which tracks hate groups across the country. Relying heavily on Justices Gorsuch and Thomas’s separate opinions, as well as a law review article that then-Professor Elena Kagan wrote in 1993 that expressed misgivings about Sullivan’s effects on press norms, the petition hopes to count to four where nearly identical appeals have, at least so far, fallen short.

Prior to that, in 2019’s Bill Cosby case — specifically an appeal by an accuser the court declined to hear — Thomas wrote a concurring opinon in which he again brought up his concerns about Sullivan.

Justice Thomas’ comments came in a concurring opinion after the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal by one of Bill Cosby’s accusers, Katherine McKee. In her suit, McGee alleged Cosby, through his attorney, defamed her after sending a letter to news outlets attacking her credibility and personal affairs. The First Circuit dismissed McKee’s lawsuit finding she voluntarily “thrusted” herself into the public eye, becoming a limited purpose public figure and inviting public scrutiny to the credibility of her allegations. Absent a showing of actual malice—that is with knowledge that the statement is false or with reckless disregard of whether it is false or not—by clear and convincing evidence, a limited purpose public figure cannot recover under a defamation claim, applying the New York Times standard.

Justice Thomas described the New York Times standard as “almost impossible” to satisfy as it relates to the classification of limited purpose public figures and public figures. Specifically, reevaluating the First and Fourteenth Amendment, Justice Thomas argues, “If the Constitution does not require public figures to satisfy an actual-malice standard in state-law defamation suits, then neither should we.” He further contends that the rule defined in New York Times is “largely a judge-made rule of law” citing Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc., 466 U. S. 485, 501–502 (1984).

Now Thomas is using the Coral Ridge/SPLC case as another opportunity to highlight what he thinks of the “actual malice” standard. And his argument, as usual, is sound.

Thomas dissented from the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the lawsuit, which had been dismissed by lower courts for failing to overcome the decades-old legal standard, established in the landmark 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan decision, that public figures who sue for defamation must not only prove defendants made defamatory statements, but that those statements were made with “actual malice.”

“This case is one of many showing how New York Times and its progeny have allowed media organizations and interest groups ‘to cast false aspersions on public figures with near impunity,’” Thomas wrote.

“SPLC’s ‘hate group’ designation lumped Coral Ridge’s Christian ministry with groups like the Ku Klux Klan and Neo-Nazis,” the justice added. “It placed Coral Ridge on an interactive, online ‘Hate Map’ and caused Coral Ridge concrete financial injury by excluding it from the AmazonSmile donation program. Nonetheless, unable to satisfy the ‘almost impossible’ actual-malice standard this Court has imposed, Coral Ridge could not hold SPLC to account for what it maintains is a blatant falsehood.”

The media’s roughshod reporting of anything that “bleeds” (as the saying goes) without consequence is arguably one of the reasons politics has been getting increasingly uglier since 1964 when Sullivan was decided. If Thomas has his way, public figures will have further recourse to sue those who would defame them — and media outlets would likely start tightening up what they report, making sure the information is accurate rather than simply running with slander just because a high-placed source said it.

Someone ought to tell progressive legislators like Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot that Justice Thomas — at least as far as Sullivan is concerned — is not their enemy.

Democrats Signal Their Preparation For Abandoning Democracy

Eddie Scarry reporting for The Federalist

All it took for the left to give up their “I’m afraid for our democracy!” charade was a single court ruling. They’ve gone from swearing only they can protect the rule of law to openly wondering what laws are even good for.

The New York Times on Monday published a column by Peter Coy bemoaning the erosion of public trust in our judicial system. That’s not a particularly offensive or even new concept, but what is new is this thing Coy and other liberals are doing now where they profess ignorance of how laws are executed.

“All the Supreme Court really has to go on is the public’s acceptance of its rulings as legitimate,” he wrote. Coy also quoted Washington University law professor Daniel Epps saying, “The Supreme Court has no power to enforce its decisions. It doesn’t have an army. The only thing it has power to do is write PDFs and put them up on its website.”

Maybe we need that nerdy little CNN “fact check” guy to come on and explain how our government and the separation of powers work. True, the Supreme Court doesn’t have an army. Neither does Congress. But what they have is an executive branch charged with faithfully executing the laws they interpret and pass.

To suggest that the word of the Supreme Court has no real mechanism for enforcement is to suggest that the president and every governor are bound by nothing to execute that word.

But, as fate would have it, they are bound by something. The c-word. (Constitution.)

Article II, Section 3: The president “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.”

Aside from making it clear that they’re ready to abandon American democracy because of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, it’s somewhat of a mystery as to why liberals are even talking about this.

The Court’s decision doesn’t mandate anything. There’s nothing really to enforce, per se. Abortion remains legal, though all 50 states now reserve the right to regulate it any which way their legislatures see fit. If the threat is to ignore the Supreme Court’s ruling, it’s not much of a threat. Regulate or don’t. It’s up to the states and yes, they do have ways to ensure that their laws are followed.

But the larger implication is noted. Democrats don’t care about our democracy.

A Combative Interview Between Bret Baier and Arizona Governor Candidate Kari Lake, Video

Fox News propagandist Bret Baier continues his devolution into the external appearance of a human Cabbage Patch doll, while intellectually his leftist DNA has won the battle for his frontal cortex.  After delivering a love-fest interview for establishment GOP candidate Karrin Taylor Robinson last week, Baier sharpened the knives for MAGA candidate Kari Lake.

Within the interview [Direct Rumble Link Here} Brett Baier accused Kari Lake of throwing transgender parties at her home and participating in drag queen sex shows.  Mrs. Lake was furious at the outlandish claims by Fox News, and then things got ugly.   WATCH:

Fox News is well positioned to hire Adam Kinzinger as a host next to Trey Gowdy. 

The Arizona state Primary Election will be held on Tuesday, August 2, 2022.

Democrats Have Become A Serious Threat To The Republic

For the left, ‘democracy’ is no longer just a euphemism for ‘policies I want,’ it’s a belief in a system that exists outside the Constitution.

by David Harsanyi for The Federalist

Those who seek to destroy or delegitimize the Supreme Court for upholding the Constitution are no better than those who desire to overturn or delegitimize presidential elections. In fact, they probably pose a greater long-term threat to American “democracy.”

Now, if you believe the above contention is hyperbole, consider that many leftists aren’t merely advocating for court-packing or nullification of the Dobbs decision; they justify those attacks with a litany of other grievances about the constitutional order.

Even as the Supreme Court relinquished its power, and threw the abortion issue–unmentioned anywhere in the Constitution–back to the voters, a horde of j-school graduates and politicians, either ignorant of basic civics or contemptuous of them, descended with panic-stricken warnings about the demise of “democracy.” Almost none of their objections were grounded in any sort of legal arguments about the alleged constitutionality of terminating unwanted human beings. Instead, their case centered around the specious idea that the court had undermined the will of voters by no longer dictating abortion policy by judicial fiat.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who, at this point, sounds virtually indistinguishable from Senate leadership or the authoritarians writing at The Washington Post, points out that seven of the nine justices on the court “were appointed by a party that hasn’t won a popular vote more than once in 30 years,” that one of their seats “was stolen,” and that “several lied to Congress to secure their appointment…”

None of those contentions are true. Every single justice on the court, including the ones Democrats preemptively smeared as deviants to undermine the legitimacy of the court, was nominated using the prescribed constitutional method that is used by every party. And every senator who voted to confirm those justices did so using the only legal process available to them. The “popular vote” is not a real thing.

When Democrats win both the Senate and the White House, they have the power to nominate and confirm any justice they desire. But they also seem to be under the impression that when they win only the White House, they’re still authorized to dictate whom Republicans are allowed to confirm (as was the case with Merrick Garland). And when they are completely out of national power, they simply reject the legitimacy of justices who do not meet their invented, evolving, extraconstitutional standards. Democrats treat every victory of the opposition as dubiously attained.

“The Founding Fathers wrote a constitution designed to prevent a tyranny of the majority,” says former Barack Obama adviser David Axelrod. “But what happens when you have a tyranny of the minority, gaming the system to promote a radical agenda that flouts the will of the majority under the guise of constitutionalism?” Similar assertions were repeated across the left-wing punditsphere this weekend.

Axelrod, in true Obama fashion, begs the question. But the fact that the Electoral College doesn’t align with the “popular vote” isn’t a disqualifying aspect of American politics, it is the very point. If the Electoral College always synchronized with the outcome of the nonexistent direct democratic national tallies, it wouldn’t need to exist. It isn’t a loophole; it is a deliberately created mechanism that stops a handful of states from dominating policy. (Not only is the national vote immaterial, but we really have no idea what one would look like because (winning) candidates do not run up scores in big states, they campaign nationally.)

Though I do wonder what remedy Axelrod or Ocasio-Cortez have in mind for this supposed problem? Should the GOP abdicate the presidency to a Democrat every time it fails to win the nonexistent “popular vote”? Should Republican senators from smaller states ignore their constituents and ask Elizabeth Warren for permission to support judicial nominees? Sounds like one-party rule.  

None of this is to even mention that a lack of national legislation on an issue isn’t a “tyranny of the minority.” It’s federalism. There is no other way to keep a sprawling, geographically, ethnically, culturally, religiously diverse nation free and self-governing. That’s why enumerated powers exist. And that’s also why the increasingly radical progressive left is obsessed with getting rid of the filibuster, the only thing preserving some semblance of legislative limitation on federal power. The only people who refer to federalism as “minority rule” are people who believe that Americans need to be “ruled” over in the first place. Indeed, the court did not stop Illinois from making its own abortion policies. It’s Axelrod who wants the court to compel, by edict, abortion policy in states like Mississippi.

Democrats want the Supreme Court, created to adjudicate the constitutionality of laws free from political pressures, to follow public opinion polls. The only way we can truly know how voters feel about abortion is by subjecting the issue to the democratic process. Whether Roe, a legal decision, is popular is irrelevant–though it’s unsurprising the majority of Americans, after decades of media championing abortion, know little about it. Because, at some point, voters will decide if the Democratic Party’s new position, government-funded abortion on demand until crowning, or the position of states like Mississippi, 15 weeks bans, are more “radical.”  

When the Supreme Court concocted the constitutional “right” to abortion in 1973, the pro-life movement didn’t promise to dismantle the system; rather it spent 50 years creating an intellectual and political movement that would begin to restore proper constitutional limits. They voted for presidents who promised to put textualists on the bench and elected senators who would confirm them. If you’re unhappy with those rules, you are free to amend the Constitution. But, for the contemporary left, “democracy” isn’t just a euphemism for “policies we support” anymore, it’s a pernicious belief that Republicans have a responsibility to live in a political system that exists outside of the Constitution. And a system with two sets of rules is untenable.

The Real Reason Democrats so Mad About Dobbs, Roe, and Abortion

Joe Cunningham reporting for RedState 

On Friday, the Supreme Court handed down its biggest decision in decades when it ruled in Dobbs v. Jacksons Women’s Health that there was no constitutional right to an abortion. The resulting backlash from the media and the Democrats, as well as violent and chaotic protests, was to be expected.

But amid all the anger and fervor in the protests, the Democrats have let it slip that this is not just about Roe v. Wade and the right to their most holiest of sacraments, abortion.

With Dobbs the Court held that “The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.” The “right” to an abortion does not exist in the Constitution, in other words, and the matter should be left up to the states and, in particular, the voters.

But, when you look at the Democrats’ track record since the Obama years, you realize that the Democratic party has seen a pretty major collapse at the state level across the country. The New York Times’  has a breakdown of the states that currently have abortion bans and those that soon will. In total, it’s 21 states – nine with bans that had trigger laws in place banning abortion upon the overturning of Roe and 12 more that have laws on the way. The Times has also pointed out nine more states that have lawmakers who are interested in abortion restrictions.

So there are 30 total states restricting abortion or working on it, and Republicans have partial or total control over all of them. That’s over half the country, and there are some states, the Times graphic shows, that Republicans have full or partial control over that aren’t pursuing abortion restrictions.

In my state, Louisiana, Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards signed a full abortion ban, citing his pro-life stance. Meanwhile, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is calling for any Democrat who is not pro-choice to be expelled from the party and public office.

Edwards likely would not have won the governor’s mansion is deep red Louisiana if he had not run on some conservative values like being pro-life. But Ocasio-Cortez does not think that he should be in elected office because of his stance.

But that’s where the Democrats are struggling, and most of them who are angry about the Dobbs decision are angry because they know that, as much as their prospects at the federal level are fading, they are struggling to win elections at the state level. To chase out those who have been successful in purple and red states is political suicide.

In the weeks leading up to the Dobbs ruling, Chuck Schumer twice put an extreme abortion bill up for a vote. That bill, which would have codified Roe and legalized abortion up to the child fully exiting the birth canal, goes far beyond what most polling shows where public opinion on abortion actually is.

The Democrats like to point to polls that show a majority of Americans support access to abortion. But what they fail time after time to tell you is that when you dig into the data, the vast majority of those voters only support it early in the pregnancy. Beyond the first trimester, support drops significantly, and late-term abortion support is almost negligible.

But while voters have routinely shown that they don’t support extreme politics and policy, the Democrats have doubled down on the extremes. They are either voting to kill a fully developed child as late as during delivery or they, like Stacey Abrams, are refusing to say anything, afraid to let voters know they support it so late in the pregnancy.

It’s because they are so scared of crossing the very loud activists in the base, who they listen to more than regular, less-online voters. But as they continue to embrace the farthest of the far left in their rhetoric, they push the rest of the voters towards the middle and make it more likely that those voters switch to the Republican Party.

The Democrats are furious because of a position they have put themselves in. Even in elections where they’ve made gains, they haven’t made any gains significant enough to start making headway against the Republican Party. In 2018, their wave was more of a ripple, and while they were fairly successful at the federal level, they still lost at the state level in Florida and Georgia – two states they were certain they would flip.

This isn’t about the legitimacy of the Supreme Court, though that’s what they’ll claim. They don’t like that abortion is now a state issue because they are absolutely floundering at the state level. And they will continue to do so as long as they keep embracing the extremes and ignore/reject the more moderate positions a lot of their voters and most independent voters are looking for.

French President Macron Wants Sanctioned Oil from Iran and Venezuela to Replace Russian Oil, Willfully Blind Joe Biden Likely to Agree

Sundance reporting for Conservative Treehouse 

It is quite remarkable to consider that almost 100% of these global issues could immediately disappear if the far-left ideologues behind Joe Biden would just unleash the American energy sector.  Alas, the seemingly religious cult of climate ideology will not allow it…. therefore we get these bizarre outcomes.

The U.S. has economic sanctions against oil exports from Iran, Venezuela and now Russia.  The EU is economically collapsing under their inability to power their economies without energy products, a specific outcome of the latest NATO and EU sanctions against Russia.

The green energy programs in the EU cannot sustain the needs of the population.  As a result, German Chancellor Olaf Schultz and French President Emmanuel Macron are asking Joe Biden to lift sanctions against Iran and Venezuela and let Iranian and Venezuelan oil replace the missing Russian oil.  Again, none of this would be needed if the U.S. just developed more oil and gas domestically; but Biden won’t change policy.

(Reuters) – The international community should explore all options to alleviate a Russian squeeze of energy supplies that has spiked prices, including talks with producing nations like Iran and Venezuela, a French presidency official said on Monday.

Venezuela has been under U.S. oil sanctions since 2019, and could reroute crude if those restrictions were lifted.  Indirect talks between Iran and the United States to revive a nuclear deal that could see sanctions on Tehran lifted and its oil exports resume have been on hold since March, but are due to resume in Doha soon.

“There are resources elsewhere that need to be explored,” a French official said on the sidelines of a G7 summit in Germany, when asked about how to alleviate high oil prices.

The outstanding issue between Iran and the United States was no longer linked to the nuclear dossier but to U.S. terrorism sanctions, he said.

“So there is a knot that needs to be untied if applicable… to get Iranian oil back on the market,” the official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We have Venezuelan oil that also needs to come back to the market.”

A second official said all options need to be explored given the stakes, including those involving Iran and Venezuela.

The first official called for a temporary increase in production from oil-producing nations, and said there would be an effort to try and convince them to do so.

[…] French President Emmanuel Macron was caught by Reuters TV rushing to tell Biden that he had spoken to United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan (MbZ), who had told him that the UAE and Saudi Arabia could barely increase oil production. (read more)

Apparently, when you overlay the geopolitical western chase for climate change ideology, some sanctions become less important than others.

Saudi Arabia cannot replace Russian, American, Iranian and Venezuelan oil for the western governments; it would simply be too high of a production demand for Saudi Arabia to accomplish.   The western industrialized nations know this reality, although they keep pretending publicly that some alternative solution is possible, and they are now flummoxed about how to remove former ideological sanctions against Iran and Venezuela without exposing the insanity of their geopolitics.

All of this is only happening because the western alliance is chasing the pipe dream theory behind “Build Back Better.”   The supposed “green energy” programs can never compensate for the efficient use of oil and gas, yet they must pretend not to admit this reality in order to sustain the decades of lies behind their climate change claims.

It’s creating a hot mess that one would hope the world will eventually notice.