Time for Republicans to Confront January 6 Lead Prosecutor

The Biden regime’s double standard of justice runs right through Matthew Graves’ office.

by Julie Kelly for American Greatness

During the 2020 presidential election cycle, Matthew M. Graves donated $2,000 to the Biden-Harris campaign. The modest contribution was a no-brainer for Graves. Not only was he a domestic policy advisor for the campaign, he worked at the time for the same white-shoe law firm as Douglas Emhoff, Kamala Harris’ husband.

Graves’ kowtowing paid off. In November 2021, Graves took the helm of one of the most politically-charged U.S. attorneys office’s in the country: the District of Columbia. 

Since then, Graves has escalated the pace and nature of the ongoing investigation into the events of January 6. His fixation on a four-hour disturbance that occurred more than 28 months ago has nothing to do with law and order and everything to do with using the full weight of the federal government to punish Americans who protested Biden’s election that afternoon.

At the same time, Graves, who is in the unique position of prosecuting both local and federal crimes in the nation’s capital, has allowed D.C. to descend into violent chaos.

Gun crimes and carjackings are skyrocketing: homicides are up nine percent over last year. Graves is under fire from community groups, police, and government leaders.

The House Oversight Committee will hear from Graves on Tuesday morning. Finally. Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) threatened to issue a subpoena after the Justice Department first refused to make Graves available for questions. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, departing D.C. Metropolitan Police Chief Robert Contee, and city administrator Kevin Donahue also are expected to testify.

But rather than press D.C. officials responsible for the lawlessness rampant in their city—important as that is—Republicans should instead use their time to confront Graves about his selective prosecution of January 6 defendants and force him to account for his actions publicly. The Biden regime’s double standard of justice runs directly through Graves’ office.

Here is a partial list of questions for committee members to consider:

1) Mr. Graves, the Washington Post recently reported that you have one of the highest, if not the highest, declination rates in the country. According to one site that tracks crime data in D.C., you have refused to prosecute two-thirds of all criminal cases brought to you by police—double what it was in 2015. You blame a lack of resources for refusing to prosecute repeat, violent offenders who threaten the security of the nation’s capital.

How many January 6 cases brought to you by the FBI over the past 28 months have you declined to prosecute?

2) Not only are you proceeding at full steam with January 6 cases, you told the Washington Post last year you planned to double the current caseload—currently more than 1,000 cases—to at least 2,000. What percentage of your office’s time is spent on January 6 cases versus the prosecution of local criminal cases?

3) In court documents, your office repeatedly refers to January 6 as a domestic terror attack. In some cases, you are asking for domestic terror enhancements at sentencing.

Terror attacks always involve the killing of innocent individuals. Mr. Graves, how many January 6 defendants are charged with murder? To continue that inquiry, how many are charged with using a firearm or bringing a firearm inside the building?

Explosives also are a common feature of terror attacks. Do you have an update on the pipe bombs found at the headquarters of both the RNC and DNC on January 6, which prompted the evacuation of adjacent House buildings and diverted law enforcement away from the Capitol?

4) In fact, Mr. Graves, most of the charges against Capitol protesters are misdemeanors, correct? According to your latest Capitol “attack” update, 80 percent of the plea deals you’ve extracted from January 6 defendants are for misdemeanor offenses.

The most common charge is “parading or picketing” in the Capitol, a petty offense almost always handled in the D.C. Superior Court that results in a ticket and minimal fine. But your office is asking for prison time from between 14 days and six months for plea deals or convictions for parading. Could you explain why you are departing from precedent?

5) Mayor Bowser said last week that she would propose legislation to reform the city’s pretrial detention policies for repeat offenders arrested for new crimes. In response, you said recent dialogue related to pretrial detention—meaning denied bail—“has been over how can we have more people released because they have not been convicted.”

But that isn’t the standard your office applies for those charged in the January 6 investigation, is it? You’ve demanded pretrial detention for dozens of Capitol protesters, the overwhelming majority of whom have no criminal record and some accused of committing no violent crime on January 6. A handful were in custody for nearly two years awaiting trials your office continued to delay.

How many January 6 defendants are currently behind bars under pretrial detention orders sought by your office?

6) On that note, you seek excessive prison sentences for January 6 defendants. For example, Thomas Caldwell is a decorated and disabled Navy veteran with no criminal history.

Mr. Caldwell was not charged with any violent crime on January 6. In fact, he never entered the Capitol Building. Nevertheless, you added a seditious conspiracy charge to his case shortly after taking office.

After a jury trial, Caldwell was convicted of one obstruction count and one count of tampering with evidence. Yet you’re asking the judge to sentence Mr. Caldwell, who’s nearly 70 years old, to 14 years in prison, a sentence usually reserved for violent criminals who harm other people.

Could you explain why you believe Thomas Caldwell deserves to die in jail?

7) In May and June 2020, rioters vandalized federal property and assaulted federal officers in Lafayette Square, a federal park across the street from the White House. According to the inspector general’s report, U.S. Park Police “reported that some protesters threw projectiles, such as bricks, rocks, caustic liquids, frozen water bottles, glass bottles, lit flares, rental scooters, and fireworks, at law enforcement officials. Overall, 49 Park Police officers were injured. The Secret Service also reported injuries to their personnel.”

The violence was so bad it prompted the lockdown of the White House.

Mr. Graves, are you still investigating damage to federal property and assaults on federal officers related to the riot at Lafayette Square? When was the last time your office charged a 2020 rioter for similar if not worse conduct than that of January 6 protesters?

8) In the statement furnished to the Senate prior to your confirmation, you disclosed pro bono work for a group called the National Women’s Law Center, a left-wing nonprofit based in D.C. The head of that group is Fatima Goss Graves. She is your wife, correct?

In addition to promoting issues aligned with the Democratic Party, your wife is part of the current crusade against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Last month, she participated in a press conference on Capitol Hill to demand Justice Thomas’ resignation.

Right before the 2020 election, her group donated $5,000 to the Women’s March to protest the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett and the reelection of Donald Trump.

After the election, she said this of the 55 percent of white women who voted for Trump: “White women who support Trump are not blindly voting against their own self-interest. These Trump supporters, aided by a toxic mix of racism and disinformation, seem to be consciously supporting what they believe to be their own group interest, putting them on the same team as the White men society has been largely built to benefit.”

Do you view your wife’s activism on behalf of the Democratic Party and disparaging comments about Trump supporters as a conflict of interest as you continue to use your office to charge and prosecute Trump supporters?

Four months after taking control of the House, Republicans are overdue in holding Biden officials publicly accountable for the most political and vengeful use of the Justice Department in history. Tuesday’s hearing is a ripe opportunity to turn the tables on Graves. Let’s hope they do. 

X22, Christian Patriot News, and more- May 15

 

Been going through anything that may help, and there's 2 things that just may help if an interview this week doesn't mention Hetty:

Before the episode started, the last 2 flashbacks were not only Hetty related, but also referenced these 2 things: Doing whatever it took to come home, and Hetty always being able to pull a rabbit out of her hat' in the most unlikely scenarios. That sounds an awful lot like foreshadowing n the direction I want!

In 1 of the final sneak peaks released by CBS today when Callen is telling Anna that he wants to elope, she asks this: 'What about Hetty and Sam?' Then he responds: 'You tell them if you want. Everyone else will show up.'. That, might just sound an awful like 'She's already home and he might somehow know about it!'

1 or another, this ain't over just yet! 😁 Wish #1 is still in the game!

Here's my review from earlier: https://wwwp-lives.blogspot.com/2023/05/ncis-la-series-finale-part-1-review.html

Fox News Can’t Be Serious

The network’s executives passed up a golden opportunity for some compelling counterpunching on the public’s behalf.

by Bob Maistros for American Greatness

Your correspondent claims no inside sources to add to the many conflicting explanations of Fox News’ twin thunderbolts a couple weeks back: the massive Dominion Voting Systems settlement and the Tucker Carlson debacle. But this commentator is a four-decade veteran of the spin game. 

And a dozen-plus spins of the news cycle later, Fox’s handling of these developments and of Carlson’s equally shocking move to Twitter leave one thing clear: someone’s imbibing megadoses of stupid pills at the once-leading cable news network.

The first clue was the message sent by the $747 billion settlement of the Dominion Voting Systems defamation suit. Yes, Fox’s surrender statement included noble references to “the highest journalistic standards” while allowing “the country to move forward from [the] issues” at stake.

But the unmistakable message conveyed to competing media and the public was that Fox News parent NewsCorp was putting disruptions behind its entrenched, embarrassed board and management. The good of the country had nothing to do with it.

Specifically, avoiding further Brobdingnagian dishings of delicious dirt as on-air stars and executives all the way up to Rupert Murdoch would be confronted at trial with crass communications laying bare their feelings about the case, public figures—and most important—each other.

Seeking closure is a sentiment this PR guy has expressed in many a corporate client’s release. But Fox News is no run-of-the-mill corporation manufacturing gizmos, mining gems, or moving goods. 

It’s supposedly a journalistic enterprise charged with informing and empowering citizens by reporting the news, as it used to say, “fair, balanced, and unafraid.”  And, buttressed by the First Amendment, to represent the reporter’s right to present both facts and perspectives of front-page figures, no matter how controversial. 

In fact, in going pure rope-a-dope as Dominion ferociously flailed about in dark corners of Murdoch’s empire, the network’s suits passed up a golden opportunity for some compelling counterpunching on the public’s behalf.

To wit: a chance to poke into the shadowy chambers of “some of the murkiest and inscrutable firms in the civilian private sector,” per Politico, three of which control 90 percent of the market; nether regions mined by progressives including Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar.

Fox couldn’t relitigate the trial judge’s previous factual findings. Still, some fascinating topics might have been plumbed germane to the integrity of the voting process, the “issue” at the heart of the allegedly defamatory statements. 

Who are Dominion’s private-equity investors? How underinvested, and thus out-of-date and vulnerable to hacking, is a business termed “congenitally incapable of innovation” and alleged by Warren to have “long skimped on security in favor of convenience?” How compliant is Dominion with election laws and regulations? Why does the cost of similar voting equipment vary so much among jurisdictions? And why must the industry engage in anti-competitive practices like suing customers who switch vendors?

All “issues” that might have made Dominion executives equally squirmy on the stand, yet from which Fox is so “amicably . . . allow[ing] the country to move forward.”

Meanwhile, Fox’s terse announcement about Tucker Carlson opened with a brazen insult to the intelligence of his core audience, Donald Trump’s “forgotten Americans.”

“Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have mutually agreed to part ways,” read Fox host Harris Faulkner.

This said of a host who had uttered the previous Friday his routine promise to return Monday? And who was reliably reported to have been working on that day’s show? 

Puh-leeze.

“We thank him for his service . . . ” From the network that days later demonstrated its appreciation, leaking a supposedly “racist” email its board evidently feared would come out at trial, to slime Carlson?

Uh-huh.

The suits were fairly shouting: we’re racing, full-speed, not just from Carlson but from his anti-ruling class, pro-middle class narrative. And from others he offered a platform, in the best journalistic tradition, to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”

People like Julie Kelly, intrepidly unveiling a weaponized federal judicial system’s relentless tracking, torment, and outright torture of January 6 “insurrectionists.”

Or Alex Berenson, disdained and de-platformed in standing up to misrule and misrepresentations by COVID pooh-bahs and profiteers.

Or Christopher Rufo, questioner of critical race theory and decrier of LGBTQ infiltration into corporate America and schools, and his Manhattan Institute colleague, law enforcement defender and DEI-doubter Heather Mac Donald.

Plus numerous voices lamenting the military’s incompetence and wokeness, and trillions of dollars devoted to propping up an antiquated NATO and, now, a corrupt Ukraine regime.

The pièce de resistance? When asked for comment on Carlson’s Twitter announcement, the network pointed back to its initial arrogant, dismissive nonstatement. 

In short: “Talk to the hand,” Tucker fans.

The C-suiters may conclude that surviving the departures of heavy hitters Bill O’Reilly and Megyn Kelly means they can cast aside any talent—and their audience. But Carlson is qualitatively different than entertainer O’Reilly and telegenic Kelly. He’s the voice and beating heart of a movement, one whose adherents feel betrayed and abandoned by his ex-employer’s recent actions.

If Rupert Murdoch’s big thinkers believe they can emerge from these scandals with their credibility and heretofore loyal audience intact—then the stupid pills apparently being inhaled on Sixth Avenue are more potent than even this commentator imagined.

Durham Report Released

Durham was “authorized to investigate whether any federal official, employee, or any other person or entity violated the law in connection with the intelligence, counter-intelligence, or law-enforcement activities directed at the 2016 presidential campaigns, individuals associated with those campaigns, and individuals associated with the administration of President Donald J. Trump, including but not limited to Crossfire Hurricane and the investigation of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller, III.”

As They Attempt to Deny Their Trespass, Let Us NEVER FORGET – “The Unvaccinated Are Scum”, Compilation Video

As the politicians and their pretorian guard media attempt desperately to rewrite COVID-19 history (more coming on this issue) it is worth remembering exactly what the situation was in the prior two years.

This excellent compilation video from Tom Elliot reminds us who they were, and how significant the hatred was.  WATCH and share:

In Tour Promoting New Rule, Bureau Of Land Management Ignores GOP Mountain States It Would Hurt Most

The Bureau of Land Management doesn’t seem very interested in hearing from constituents who live near public land.

Tristan Justice reporting for The Federalist

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) doesn’t seem very interested in hearing from constituents who live near public land.

On Wednesday, the agency released its schedule for a tour of Western high mountain states during which BLM officials will present sweeping new regulations on public lands. The proposed Public Lands Rule, published at the end of March, threatens to undermine the multiple use mandate and jeopardizes grazing rights for ranchers. The bureau, which manages 245 million acres primarily across 12 Western states, is preparing to implement conservation leasing and cut off ranchers’ access to public lands.

The states to entertain a visit from BLM officials include Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada. Each state is represented by two Democrats in the Senate along with majority-Democrat House delegations. Not listed are Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and Utah, where only one out of 16 members of their collective representation in Congress is an elected Democrat. Arizona also remains absent from the lineup, with six out of nine House members Republican.

With more than 90 percent of federal lands located west of the Mississippi River, the new rules will have the most impact in Western states, whose interests are often in conflict with those of Beltway bureaucrats. Recognizing where the BLM primarily manages land, the Trump administration moved the agency to Grand Junction, Colorado in 2020. President Joe Biden’s Interior secretary, Deb Haaland, moved offices of the bureau’s senior leadership back to Washington D.C. last summer.

Even though the BLM still maintains the Grand Junction office as an outpost, located on Colorado’s Western Slope, the agency meetings about its proposed public lands rule will be held in the suburbs of Denver. The state capital is much further from neighboring Utah. In fact, each of the three meetings will be held in urban areas, far away from the ranchers most likely to be impacted.

In Nevada, BLM officials will hold their meeting at a convention center in Reno on the westernmost edge of the state, instead of Las Vegas on the southern tip next to Arizona and Utah. In New Mexico, leaders will meet in Albuquerque.

The five states omitted from the lineup collectively possess more than 150 million acres of federal land, compared to the 105 million acres located in Nevada, New Mexico, and Colorado.

Idaho’s four-member congressional delegation sent a letter to BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning on Thursday demanding the agency recalculate its schedule.

“As the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) considers a major shift in the longstanding and well understood multiple-use approach of federal land management, we are discouraged to see Idaho was not listed as one of the sites for in-person public meetings,” they wrote. “Further, we were disappointed to see not only was Idaho not included, but the in-person locations are geographically concentrated away from many of BLM’s constituents.”

The closest meeting for Idaho residents, lawmakers noted, “is Reno, Nevada, a trip that can take anywhere between five and fourteen hours by car.”

The BLM director was among President Biden’s most controversial nominees in 2021 and was confirmed in a partisan vote.

While most objections to her nomination focused on her past connections to ecoterrorism, Stone-Manning’s 1992 graduate thesis promoted ads critical of grazing on public lands.

“It is overgrazed. Most likely, the grasses won’t grow back, because the topsoil took flight,” Stone-Manning wrote. “Worse still, the government encourages this destruction. It charges ranchers under $2 a month to graze each cow and its calf on public land — your land.”

Stone-Manning now heads the nation’s preeminent land agency overseeing 155 million acres of grazing land for livestock, about the size of Arizona and New Mexico. New rules proposed under her leadership to ban grazing are now coming straight from her 1992 playbook.

[READ: Biden Land Management Nominee Is An Ecoterrorist Who Demanded China-Style Child Cap]

EPA Bureaucrats Attempt To Upend Energy Industry, Ignoring SCOTUS Decision That Says They Can’t

The new rules come after the Supreme Court struck down the agency’s unilateral rule-making authority to reshape the power grid.

Tristan Justice reporting for The Federalist

The Environmental Protection Agency announced new rules this week to regulate the fossil fuel industry out of business.

New carbon pollution standards for coal and natural gas-fired power plants unveiled Thursday demand plants reduce their emissions by a staggering 90 percent within two decades or face closure. The new rules come less than a year after the Supreme Court struck down the agency’s unilateral rule-making authority to implement emissions limits on existing power plants in West Virginia v. EPA.

“By proposing new standards for fossil fuel-fired power plants, EPA is delivering on its mission to reduce harmful pollution that threatens people’s health and wellbeing,” said EPA Administrator Michael Regan in a press release. “EPA’s proposal relies on proven, readily available technologies to limit carbon pollution and seizes the momentum already underway in the power sector to move toward a cleaner future.”

Compliance with the agency’s mandatory targets, however, would require the deployment of innovative carbon capture technologies not in use at a single U.S. power plant. The new rules will push utilities to retire aging coal plants while the administration creates an artificial market for energy generation by wind and solar through generous subsidies. The EPA regulations coincide with $370 billion from the misleadingly named Inflation Reduction Act to promote Democrats’ preferred energy sources.

Tom Pyle, the president of the American Energy Alliance, told The Federalist the environmental regulations threaten to undermine the power grid if the proposed rules make it past the courts.

“If this regulation survives a court challenge, which is very much in doubt,” Pyle said, “It will lead to more blackouts and higher electricity prices.”

“But the real point of the regulation is to immediately make it more difficult to invest in natural gas and coal-fired power plants,” he added. The administrative obstacle to investment in the fossil fuel industry gives “woke Wall Street financiers like Larry Fink another excuse to justify [Environmental, Social, and Governance]-related lending and borrowing decisions at the same time.”

In June, the Supreme Court overruled the EPA’s authority to singlehandedly restructure the U.S. power grid without congressional approval. The challenge rose over President Barack Obama’s effort to bypass Congress and impose the Clean Power Plan through the administrative state. David Bernhardt, a long-time administrator who previously served as secretary of the Interior under President Donald Trump, outlined the consequences of the decision in a new book out this week.

“The bottom line,” Bernhardt wrote, “is that if the federal judiciary pays homage to the West Virginia decision, it will likely mean that the people will make the rules through their elected representatives — not federal bureaucrats.”

Since the EPA’s draft rule relies on new and unproven technologies to meet agency requirements, the new regulations present a sweeping transformation of the power grid. While ultimately up to the courts to decide, the broad impact of the proposal goes well beyond the scope of EPA authority that was narrowed by the high bench last summer.

“Capping carbon dioxide emissions at a level that will force a nationwide transition away from the use of coal to generate electricity may be a sensible ‘solution to the crisis of the day,'” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion of West Virginia v. EPA. “But it is not plausible that Congress gave EPA the authority to adopt on its own such a regulatory scheme. … A decision of such magnitude and consequence rests with Congress itself, or an agency acting pursuant to a clear delegation from that representative body.”

Chris Murphy Goes Full Insurrectionist, Predicts 'Popular Revolt' to Force America to Accept Gun Control

streiff reporting for RedState 

Connecticut Democrat Senator Chris Murphy took a hard left turn into insurrectionism on Sunday. Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Murphy declared that if the Supreme Court continued to recognize the Second Amendment as a fundamental Constitutional right, then, you know, there might be a “popular revolt.”

According to Murphy, the Supreme Court is illegitimate, district court judges enforcing Supreme Court decisions are just awful people, and unless the Supreme Court backs off and lets fascists at all levels of government do their thing, some bad sh** might happen.

The video is cued to the transcript segment.

CHUCK TODD: I want to talk about the issue of guns. And, look, this has been something that you’ve been working on for quite some time, trying to find small increases in gun regulations or big ones. We saw another court ruling that essentially invoked and said, “Hey there’s just not much you can do because of the Second Amendment, this absolutist version and, and interpretation of the Second Amendment.” Given that we have a court system that this is what it’s going to be, how do you tackle gun regulation under this environment? Do you go for a new consti – a new constitutional amendment or do you just hope judges’ philosophies change over the next generation?

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY: Right now, the Supreme Court has made it clear, under Heller Decision, which still controls, they say there is a right to private gun ownership, but there is also an ability for Congress to regulate who owns weapons and what kind of weapons are owned. I think we have to continue to operate under that construct. And I’m – and I really see progress, right? We broke a 30-year log jam last year by passing the first major gun safety initiative. You have seen Republican states like Tennessee looking at red flag laws, Texas considering raising the age to buy assault weapons. I think our movement is in a position to win. Does it worry me, what some of these district courts are doing? Absolutely. But right now, I think our focus is about – has got to be about growing the movement and continuing to capitalize on the progress of last year.

CHUCK TODD: But it does sound like you’ve got to do it within the construct of, “Look. You’re probably not going to be able to regulate much having to do with access to the gun by anybody over 18.”

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY: Well, listen, if the Supreme Court eventually says that states or the Congress can’t pass universal background checks or can’t take these weapons off the streets, I think there’s going to be a popular revolt over that policy. A court that’s already pretty illegitimate is going to be in full crisis mode.

The reason that Murphy and other clowns like David Hogg and Fred Gutenberg are in a panic is high tide in gun control was reached in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook and Parkland shootings. Most states (27) no longer require permits for concealed carry. Polling shows that support for banning modern sporting rifles has decreased. According to an ABC News poll, 51% of Americans oppose banning modern sporting rifles. Yes, the Supreme Court and lower court rulings eradicating overreach by the gun-grabbers have been critical. Still, the rulings show that the courts, for once, are in step with mainstream America and progressives are left flailing about to create an imaginary world where sane people buy their ideas. The “red flag” law pushed through the Congress by Democrats may keep Murphy warm at night, but it hasn’t hit the federal courts yet and had its patently un-Constitutional and anti-freedom provisions challenged.

Some of that may be due to federal and state response to the COVID “pandemic” and everyone getting a close and personal look at what government tyranny looks like and seeing how quickly it happens. Part is due to the nature of the left. They are prisoners are their own intersectional rhetoric. When transgender shooters blast away in a Christian elementary school, the story goes away nearly overnight (Nashville Shooter Identified as Transgender Man Named Audrey Hale). When a deranged leftist shoots up his former place of employment to protest lax gun laws (The Media Will Forget the Louisville Shooting Because It Doesn’t Support the Gun Control Narrative), the story goes away. The stories go away when mass shootings happen in Alabama and Texas, and the shooters are Black or illegal aliens (Five Killed in Texas Shooting, Police Are Searching for the Shooter, and the Gun Grabbers for a Reason to Look Away). No one cares about the carnage in Chicago or Washington, DC, because to protest the murders means spotlighting the perpetrators. The left was so hard up for a shooting they could use to further their agenda that the Hispanic who shot up a mall in Allen, TX, has been rebranded as a “white” Hispanic (shades of George Zimmerman) who is a neo-Nazi who hates Hispanics and immigrants.

Faced with the electorate’s mood in what will be an unfavorable climate for the 2024 election, Chris Murphy is falling back on the spiritual ancestors of the progressives and gun-grabbers, segregationists. When the Supreme Court ruled “separate but equal” unconstitutional, segregationists tried to motivate their adherents to disobey the law. It played out in Little Rock, Arkansas, with the 101st Airborne eventually being used to open schools there. In Virginia, the “massive resistance” strategy was devised and not definitively peter out until the late 1960s.

Murphy being an idiot doesn’t make him less of an insurrectionist. By declaring the Supreme Court illegitimate and hinting that violent methods may be necessary to stop further limits on illegal gun control legislation, he’s clearly violating his oath of office. Moreover, just like a psycho Bernie Sanders fanboi took Sanders’ socialist rhetoric to heart and tried to decapitate the House GOP caucus, one or more anti-gun nutters will be provoked to commit violent acts by Murphy’s call to arms. You can count on it.

Macron, Musk meet in Paris to discuss investment projects

 

Paris (AFP) – President Emmanuel Macron met billionaire businessman Elon Musk on Monday to discuss future investment projects, as the French leader hosts a conference aimed at persuading business leaders to put their money in France.

Macron hosted the world's second richest man, who is the chef executive of electic car firm Tesla, social media company Twitter and cosmic exploration outfit SpaceX, six months after their last encounter in the United States, his office said.

They met at the Elysee Palace before both head to Versailles for the latest edition of the president's Choose France conference where Macron seeks to drum up investment in the country.

The two men were to talk about the "attractiveness of France and its industries", Macron's office announced. Musk smiled and waved at reporters as the meeting got underway but made no comment.

Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told the BFMTV broadcaster that "negotiations are ongoing" with the magnate.

Le Maire gave no details of Monday's talks with Musk, saying simply that "all of today's investments are the fruit of months or even years of negotiations  

During a US trip in December, Macron held an unannounced face-to-face meeting with Musk, saying later the two had had a "clear and honest" discussion during an hour-long meeting, including on electric cars and batteries.

He had also conveyed to Musk his -- and Europe's -- concerns about content moderation on Twitter since Musk bought the influential platform.

"Transparent user policies, significant reinforcement of content moderation and protection of freedom of speech: efforts have to be made by Twitter to comply with European regulations," Macron tweeted after that meeting.  

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230515-macron-musk-meet-in-paris-to-discuss-investment-projects   

RNC Launches New Year-Round Election Integrity Department Ahead Of 2024

The new internal infrastructure will bring on year-round staff operating new technology designed to facilitate recruitment and litigation.

Tristan Justice reporting for The Federalist

The Republican National Committee (RNC) is gearing up for next year’s presidential race with the launch of a new department dedicated solely to election integrity.

The new internal infrastructure will bring on year-round staff operating new technology designed to facilitate recruitment and litigation, according to a 35-page report shared exclusively with The Federalist.

“The RNC built a historic election integrity program in 2022: we put 80,000 volunteers on the ground, secured key legal victories, and learned how we can grow even stronger in the future,” RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel told The Federalist. “As we prepare for 2024, the RNC will establish a full-time permanent Election Integrity Department that will combine our existing tools to build on our unprecedented progress.”

The report sent to RNC members Thursday details the party’s plans to transform the GOP’s election integrity efforts from pop-up operations into year-round initiatives that remain ongoing immediately after each election. Prior to 2021, the national Republican Party was restricted from engaging in electoral oversight, such as hiring poll watchers over a 1981 consent decree. That meant any initiatives designed to maintain integrity in American elections were patchwork efforts coordinated by independent campaigns with the support of the GOP congressional campaign committees. The decades-long order was lifted in 2018 after more than three decades, and the party officially resumed efforts on poll watching and voter fraud in the 2021-2022 election cycle.

“The need for the RNC to be the permanent and year-round home for the Republican [Election Integrity Operations] is glaringly obvious, and the party is fortunate that we now have that,” the report reads. “For the past two years, the RNC has worked tirelessly as a bridge among those groups with unprecedented cooperation.”

The RNC is now preparing to hire an army to the tune of “tens of thousands” of attorneys and poll watchers with an aggressive litigation strategy to ensure a free and fair election next year.

“Beginning with the successful 2021 operations in Virginia and New Jersey, the RNC established a multifaceted [Election Integrity Operations] program in partnership with the NRSC and NRCC that resulted in dozens of lawsuits,” wrote Ashley MacLeay and Art Wittich, who chaired the RNC committee behind the report.

The fallout from the 2020 election, wherein Democrats exploited lockdown-era protocols to radically expand unsupervised access to the ballot box, has led the GOP to prioritize election integrity as a pillar of the RNC’s 2024 campaign strategy.

Three years ago, Democrat operatives through Facebook’s Center for Tech and Civic Life took over the administration of elections and erected ballot boxes in liberal strongholds to gin up turnout. Mark Zuckerberg’s project gave more than $400 million to the effort, with only a small fraction of the “Zuckbucks” spent in areas won by President Donald Trump.

Other efforts by Democrats to rig the 2020 contest included turning election day into election season, with voters able to cast ballots weeks before November, absent of the typical safeguards that protect against fraud. All happened while Big Tech conspired with the corporate press and even federal intelligence agencies to manipulate public opinion throughout the process.

While Republicans are limited with what they can do to confront the corporate collusion, the new RNC department marks an effort to master the mechanics of modern elections. The GOP is also planning to jump in the ballot harvesting game in states with loose restrictions. The party largely refrained from participating in the mass collection of ballots three years ago to the detriment of Republican candidates who faced Democrat opponents eager to exploit relaxed protocols.

Last fall, the RNC took a two-pronged approach to ballot harvesting: GOP attorneys fought to ban the practice in states such as Arizona, where attorneys were successful, while party workers took advantage of harvesting in states where efforts failed to rein in the rules.

[RELATED: Conservatives, Get Busy Ballot Harvesting Or Get Busy Losing]

“The RNC ballot harvested where the law allowed it in 2022, helping to secure key congressional wins that flipped the House,” McDaniel told The Federalist. “We will build on and expand those efforts in 2024 where legal while still holding Democrats accountable for bad laws that undermine election integrity.”