Will Jewish Voters Stop Voting For The Democrats Who Want To Kill Them?

posted by Kurt Schlichter at Townhall 

Jewish Americans are going to have to make a decision – the famously Democrat-leaning minority has a big problem because many of its fellow Democrats want them dead. That’s not an exaggeration – the chant of the Democrat’s left wing is not, “From the river to the sea, the Chosen People should be happy, safe, and free.” Kind of the exact opposite. These scumbag commies are so promiscuous with lies about the Jewish people like “apartheid” and “genocide” they ought to hand out rhetorical condoms on the many college quads these loathsome heirs of the Nazis have infested.

Yet Jews in America overwhelmingly vote Democrat. You know, this might be a good time to rethink their traditional leftist voting habits, but that conundrum represents a conflict in human nature – the conflict between self-preservation and self-identity. I don’t know which one is going to win out, but I know what’s going to happen if the Hamas-huggers win out.

I’m not in the business of telling any particular ethnic group how to vote, and I don’t think any particular ethnic group should vote in any particular way. The whole idea of ethnic voting is stupid. But other people seem to have other opinions. Some groups vote as a bloc. Black Americans almost always vote Democrat – something like 90%, though this time Donald Trump seems to be earning a better percentage. Similarly, Jewish Americans are famously liberal voters, with the vast majority supporting Democrats in the past. But things have changed. The position of the Democratic Party is aligned with the far left, which pretty much wants to kill all the Jews. And Biden really, really wants to win the states with large number of Muslims like the despicable Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, whose daughter/niece was recently suspended from the University of College for her hate crimes. The Democrats are not show about excommunicated groups they find to be no longer useful to their goal of attaining power. They famously dumped the white working class in recent decades. Guess we know who’s the next to get the boot.

Now the Democrats are siding with the people who not merely excuse but celebrate the murder of Jews, and who would not hesitate to bring October 7th here. I talk about that in my new book – these Gaza-loving geebos will be eager accomplices to the terrorist attack Biden’s weakness is inviting. Does that assessment sound harsh? Maybe, but it’s entirely true. They know it, we know it, and the only people who don’t know it are the people who don’t want to know it. You cannot look at these braying brown shirts with their stupid headgear and ubiquitous face masks and not see a pack of keffiyeh-clad Khmer Rouge wannabes unless you choose not to.

Now, they always tell you that they don’t really want to kill the Jews. They just want to kill the Zionists. Of course, all the Zionists happen to be Jews. They cheer for October 7th. They think it was great. They want more of these massacres. And they want to leverage other Democrats to stop Israel from stopping future murder sprees – sadly, Biden has capitulated to them and equally sadly, Israel refuses to tell the desiccated old pervert to pound sand and to glass over Rafah along with the Hamas rats hiding in its tunnels.

Jewish Democrat voters are going to need to make a choice, survival or the comfort of liberal illusions. For a long time, the reconcilable tension between the hard left and Jewish Democrats was suppressed – everyone knew it was there, but if they didn’t want to see it and wanted to keep voting for people like Joe Biden, they didn’t have to see it. Well, they are seeing it now. There’s no escaping it. Whether you’re stopped in traffic on a bridge or watching little snots rip hostage flyers off of streetlights or getting spat on and harassed on college campuses, if you’re Jewish, you’re now a target. 

It’s painful for an America soldier to write that Jews are targeted in America. What a disgrace. This is not what we served for. I cannot believe my country, whose heroic soldiers liberated Dachau (I’ve been there twice – every American must go see it), tolerates this disgusting anti-Semitism on the grounds of our allegedly prestigious institutions. Shameful. And there is just one party that lets it happen wherever it is in control – go try this in red Florida, Palesimpians. 

“Never again” has been replaced, among Democrats, by “Get over it.”

There’s always a common denominator among the people the scumbags hate – no matter who else they hate, they always hate the Jews most. And, of course, Jews are fulfilling their traditional function as the cultural canary in the coal mine – they get attacked before the rest of us do. Besides the moral obligation to defend Jews from hate and violence – I’d be siding with the Jews even if they weren’t God’s Chosen People – there’s the utilitarian interest in stopping these little bastards before the communists start turning on the rest of us. An attack on Jews is an attack on every civilized human being.

The Orthodox are already based, but is the rest of the Jewish community ready to abandon the people who have turned on them? Are the majority of liberal Jewish Americans going to wake up and stop voting for Democrats because Democrats allow this hate? Democrats control the blue cities where it happens. Democrats control the schools where it happens. Democrats control the regime media, where this stuff is tolerated and even celebrated. It’s not those mega MAGA extremists. It’s not Cletus out in Butthead County, Kentucky, doing the anti-Semitism. It’s other Democrats. Try that nonsense in Florida and Ron DeSantis will feed you to the gators.  

So, why aren’t American Jews as a whole saying, “The hell with this, I’ll take the mean tweets and the lack of pogroms?” You would think that would be a simple calculation, prioritizing personal survival, but there’s another interest at play. A lot of Jewish Americans are very invested in being liberal. That’s who they are. That’s not just a political affiliation but an identity. Imagine you’ve spent 65 years of your life voting for Democrats, and suddenly this happens. Are you ready to make a 180° turn? That’s hard. That’s hard for anybody. It’s human nature. Voting Dem is a habit mixed up with personal identity. That is tough to change, even then the face of indisputable and undeniable evidence like these sociopaths chanting “From the river to the sea.” So, my guess is we’re going to see some Jewish voters swinging to the Republicans, but not most – at least not in 2024. It’s hard to turn on a dime. But we are going to see some movement. It’s a start. The GOP must welcome them. I just hope it’s enough soon enough, because these communists really hate Jews, and they really hate the rest of us, too.

X22, On the Fringe, and more- April 25

 

Biden's 44.6 Percent Capital Gains Tax Proposal a 100-Year High

 

President Joe Biden's proposal to increase the top capital gains tax rate could be the highest such tax rate in over a century.

In his 2025 budget proposal, Biden outlined plans to elevate the top marginal rate on long-term capital gains and qualified dividends to 44.6%. This rate, if enacted, would surpass any seen in over a century, according to Americans for Tax Reform (ATR). 

Moreover, the combined federal-state rate could exceed 50% in several states when factoring in state capital gains taxes. For instance, California residents would potentially face a 59% rate, while those in New Jersey, Oregon, Minnesota, and New York could confront rates ranging from 53.4% to 55.3%, according to ATR.

Critics of the proposal argue that capital gains taxes, particularly when not indexed to inflation, impose a form of double taxation and disproportionately affect certain demographics. Small business owners, for example, may find themselves grappling with inflated tax liabilities on gains that are partly attributable to inflation rather than real profit.

Furthermore, comparisons with other nations highlight the potential ramifications of such a steep increase. China, for instance, maintains a capital gains tax rate of 20%, significantly lower than Biden's proposed rate. The prospect of imposing higher taxes than a major economic competitor raises concerns about the impact on investment and economic competitiveness.

The history of the capital gains tax underscores the magnitude of Biden's proposal. Initially introduced in 1922 at a rate of 12.5%, the tax has evolved over the decades but has never approached the proposed levels.

Additionally, Biden's plan includes measures to address tax implications upon inheritance, potentially adding further complexity to the tax code. The proposal to eliminate a stepped-up basis upon the transfer of assets upon death could result in a mandatory capital gains tax event, affecting families' financial planning and estate management.

"When someone dies, and the asset transfers to an heir, that transfer itself will be a taxable event, and the estate is required to pay taxes on the gains as if they sold the asset," said Howard Gleckman, senior fellow in the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, CNBC reported.

The budget proposal, which calls for approximately $5 trillion in tax increases over the next decade, has drawn mixed reactions from lawmakers and experts alike. While some argue that such measures are necessary to fund various social programs and infrastructure projects, others express concerns about the potential adverse effects on economic growth and investment.

And don’t forget to add the state capital gains tax: the Biden combined federal-state rate would exceed 50% in many states

Here is a direct quote from the Biden 2025 budget proposal: “Together, the proposals would increase the top marginal rate on long-term capital gains and qualified dividends to 44.6 percent.”

Yes, you read that correctly: A Biden top capital gains and dividends tax rate of 44.6%.

Under the Biden proposal, the combined federal-state capital gains tax exceeds 50% in many states. California will face a combined federal-state rate of 59%, New Jersey 55.3%, Oregon at 54.5%, Minnesota at 54.4%, and New York state at 53.4%.

Worse, capital gains are not indexed to inflation. So Americans already get stuck paying tax on some “gains” that are not real. It is a tax on inflation, something created by Washington and then taxed by Washington. Biden’s high inflation makes this especially painful.

Many hard working couples who started a small business at age 25 who now wish to sell the business at age 65 will face the Biden proposed 44.6% top rate, plus state capital gains taxes. And much of that “gain” isn’t real due to inflation. But they’ll owe tax on it.

Capital gains taxes are often a form of double taxation. When capital gains come from stocks, stock mutual funds, or stock ETFs, the capital gains tax is a cascaded second layer of tax on top of the current federal corporate income tax of 21%. (Biden has also proposed a corporate income tax hike to 28%).

Biden’s proposed capital gains tax hike will also hit many families when parents pass away. Biden has proposed adding a second Death Tax (separate from and in addition to the existing Death Tax) by taking away stepped-up basis when parents die. This would result in a mandatory capital gains tax at death — a forced realization event.

As previously reported by CNBC:

“When someone dies and the asset transfers to an heir, that transfer itself will be a taxable event, and the estate is required to pay taxes on the gains as if they sold the asset,” said Howard Gleckman, senior fellow in the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. 

Biden’s proposal to take away stepped-up basis has already been tried, and it failed: In 1976 congress eliminated stepped-up basis but it was so complicated and unworkable it was repealed before it took effect.

As noted in a July 3, 1979 New York Times article, it was “impossibly unworkable.”

NYT wrote:

“Almost immediately, however, the new law touched off a flood of complaints as unfair and impossibly unworkable. So many, in fact, that last year Congress retroactively delayed the law’s effective date until 1980 while it struggled again with the issue.“

As noted by the NYT, intense voter blowback ensued:

“Not only were there protests from people who expected the tax to fall on them — family businesses and farms, in particular — bankers and estate lawyers also complained that the rule was a nightmare of paperwork.“

Biden’s 2025 budget calls for about $5 trillion in tax increases over the next decade.

Follow the author on Twitter @JohnKartch

To learn more about Biden’s many tax increases, visit ATR.org/HighTaxJoe

Click here for a printable PDF of the Capital Gains Chart

SOURCES:  

AND: 

Obama Gets Around to Commenting on Hamas at Columbia

posted by Jack Cashill at American Thinker 

As Columbia University’s most prominent alum, former president Barack Obama would seem to have a moral obligation to speak about what is arguably the most visible outbreak of antisemitism on American soil in his lifetime.

I refer here to the occupation of Obama’s alma mater by Hamas-supporters who have been openly threatening Jewish students, chanting “Kill all Zionists,” and shouting racial slurs like “pig.”

As I sat down to write this, five days into the protest, Obama had said not a word.

By contrast, Obama was tweeting about the August 2017 Antifa/white nationalist brouhaha in Charlottesville, Virginia before the day was through.

“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion,” Obama tweeted in the evening of August 12. “People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”

At the time, this was the most “liked” tweet in Twitter (now X) history.

In the last five days, Obama tweeted about Earth Day twice, about a book on healthy lifestyles, and about the death of Florida politico Bob Graham. But not a word about Columbia, at least not until I started writing.

“One minute ago” — is the NSA that good? — Obama weighed in with a photo of himself and Michelle at a traditional seder meal from days gone by. In this tweet, marking the beginning of Passover, there is no talk of hate, no mention of Hamas, no reference to Columbia.

“And in a time when there’s been so much suffering and loss in Israel and Gaza,” he writes in his fortune cookie prose, “let’s reaffirm our commitment to the Jewish people, and people of all religions, who deserve to feel safe and secure wherever they live and practice their faith.”

That should rein in the little darlings at Columbia, no?

No, not at all.

Like all respectable Democrats, Obama is conflicted about the Hamas protests, only more so. As a fellow traveler in the world of Islam, Obama has had to work hard to keep his roots from showing. He has barely succeeded. In a lengthy statement in October, Obama made a few perfunctory remarks about the “unspeakable brutality” perpetrated by Hamas on October 7, but he reserved very nearly all his finger-wagging for Israel.

He called on Jews to acknowledge that many Palestinians “were not only displaced when Israel was formed but continue to be forcibly displaced by a settler movement that too often has received tacit or explicit support from the Israeli government.” He made the dubious claim as well that “Palestinian leaders who’ve been willing to make concessions for a two-state solution have too often had little to show for their efforts.” In short, he scolded Israelis for wanting to defend themselves against people who like to brag on video about their “unspeakable brutality.”

From the beginning, the media have allowed Obama to conceal his easy tolerance of antisemitism. One journalist who came to Obama’s aid, unapologetically at that, was photographer and occasional National Public Radio (NPR) commentator Askia Muhammad.

In January 2018, as a way of promoting his new book, Muhammad shared with the world a photo he had taken in 2005 at a Black Congressional Caucus event. In the center of the photo is a smiling Barack Obama. Standing right next to him, also smiling broadly, is Nation of Islam honcho Louis Farrakhan. Sensing what might generously be called “bad optics,” a Black Caucus member stopped Muhammad even before he left the building.

“I gave the picture up at the time and basically swore secrecy,” Muhammad admitted thirteen years later. “But after the nomination was secured and all the way up until the inauguration; then for eight years after he was president, it was kept under cover.”

When asked whether he thought the photo, if revealed, would have made a difference in the 2008 campaign, Muhammad said, emphatically, “It absolutely would have made a difference.”

The Los Angeles Times violated just about all journalistic canons to bail Obama out in 2008 when it mattered most. In April of that year, the Times secured a copy of a video recorded at a dinner held in Chicago in 2003 on behalf of Obama’s close friend, Rashid Khalidi. As liberal David Garrow points out in his Obama biography, Rising Star, the Obamas, the Khalidis, Bill Ayers, and his wife Bernardine Dohrn dined together almost weekly before Obama felt the need — with the media’s able assistance — to bury those relationships.

The occasion was Khalidi’s imminent departure from Chicago for Columbia University in New York. In 2008, his friendship with Obama posed obvious problems for the candidate. Khalidi would deny he was a spokesman for the lethal Palestinian Liberation Organization, but he was close enough to the PLO to give the rumors merit.

In his account of the dinner, Peter Wallsten of the Times reported a few of the provocative toasts offered to the departing Khalidi. One of the dinner guests compared “Zionist settlers on the West Bank” to Osama bin Laden. Another guest recited a poem accusing Israel of terrorism. For his part, Obama was quoted as thanking Khalidi for offering “consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases.”

What Weather Underground alums Ayers and Dohrn might have said in Obama’s presence was not reported. The Times absolutely refused to air the videotape it had in its possession or let any other party see it. Obama’s reaction to the group’s virulent obsession with Jews and Israel was lost for the ages.

As to Khalidi, last week, an undercover reporter caught him saying what the media would rather he did not. The reporter was posing as a student appalled by the campus’s “Zionistic culture,” a comment that Khalidi affirmed. Apparently, even Columbia’s tepid response to widespread Jew-baiting troubled him.

“We have an antisemitism task force because everybody on the other side has howled their head off if somebody has so much as looked sideways at them,” said the delusional Khalidi. He called the task force “yet another blow” against his allies on campus. “I mean, they picked bigots, fanatics, right-wingers, and extremists,” he said. “I mean, it’s a scandal, and you can’t say anything.”

In the real world, Khalidi can say just about anything he likes with impunity. Until November, at least, Obama has got to be more careful.

Someone Has to Be the Adult in the Room: Clear the Quad and Expel Them All

posted by Derek Hunter at Townhall 

Columbia University has fallen. I don’t care, really, I don’t live in New York City and I wasn’t dumb enough to overpay for an education at an Ivy League school. But I do despise leftists, so anywhere their cancer spreads disgusts me and I wish them ill in every one of their endeavors. 

These little camping mutants need to be dealt with, however, and dealt with harshly, to stop this stupidity from metastasizing to other parts of the country. It’s almost too late, as other liberal bastions of anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism have begun to fester, not wanting to be left out of what will be the social event of the season for the progressive left. But normal parts of America – places where Republicans are elected – have not fallen into the Nuremberg frenzy Democrat-controlled areas have. 

To pull back even the blue areas, something dramatic must happen, something dramatic, which these students clearly have not faced before, likely from bad parenting. They need to face serious consequences for their actions. 

These students are largely from wealthy families that indulged them their whole lives. Think Hunter Biden – there’s no way he just became a degenerate in his 40s, deciding he needed to try crack and prostitutes because he felt like he’d missed out on something in his youth. No, the smart money is on him having been a jackass in high school who got out of countless amounts of trouble and brushes with the law because of his last name. The only way that happens is if his dad picks up the phone and makes a couple of calls when he starts getting in trouble. After that, authorities know there’s no point in arresting him because he’s going to get away with it no matter what, the bosses don’t want the hassle. 

Indulgence is how we got here, as the left always indulges their own when they’re being useful.

But if any of these university presidents announced students had until 4:00 pm to clear the area or they will be arrested, things would change. Not by the threat of arrest, that’s foreplay for these unshowered C.H.U.D.S., but by what must accompany it – real consequences.

“Clear the area by 4:00 or everyone will be arrested, and those who are not students will be charged with trespassing – and we will prosecute – and anyone who is a student will be expelled,” should be the decree. 

But a threat is only as good as your willingness to enforce it. That means any students who don’t leave are expelled. No dialing it back to a suspension, no changing your mind because too many people were swept up in it – real consequences. And make the whole affair public, which means names released publicly, allowing future employers to see who it would be smart to avoid hiring. Let’s see how that works out, bet it’s great.

Consequences have gone the way of the do-do, unfortunately, but now would be a great time to bring them back. Since University Presidents won’t impose, make them the first line to have them restored on them. Fire any who won’t restore order to their campuses and replace them with people who will pass those consequences onto the left-wing goons. 

Sure, it would be fun to watch MSNBC parade the expelled students on their airwaves, whining about how “unfair” enforcing existing rules and doing exactly what you said you’d do is. Of course, that’s epitome of fair, but there’s no doubt Rachel Maddow would find a way to mug and Beaker her way through a monologue about how it’s racist/sexist/Islamophobic/transphobic/triskaidekaphobic/whatever and declare down to be up. Who cares? 

There is no “negotiation” with this mob, that gives them power they do not have or deserve. There are either rules or there are no rules; these are either students or they are not. Step up or step away, it really is that simple. 

Leadership is more than collecting a seven-figure salary and cowering with advisors about how not to offend the radical left; it involves actually leading. Clear the quad, throw out the tents, forbid anyone entry to the area, charge the trespassers and expel the degenerates. Your campus will be much better off and, honestly, the morons out there mindlessly chanting in support of terrorists against Jews and the United States would be better served by it too – they will learn about consequences, probably for the first time in their lives. If it sticks, they'll be changed for the better. If it doesn’t, at least you’ll be rid of them. 

Here Are The 3 Most Shocking Discoveries Just Unsealed In Trump Classified Docs Case

Judge Aileen Cannon unsealed a trove of documents Monday appearing to reveal a coordinated federal effort to target Trump.

Brianna Lyman reporting for The Federalist

Judge Aileen Cannon unsealed a trove of documents Monday that appear to reveal a coordinated effort within the Biden administration to target Donald Trump with political prosecution after he left office.

Special Counsel Jack Smith and other federal prosecutors in President Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) indicted Trump in June 2023 for allegedly mishandling classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home. The indictment followed an unprecedented raid on a former president’s home the prior summer.

President Biden also retained classified documents after leaving the vice presidency. Yet he was not charged because prosecutors say they believed he would “present himself to the jury, as he did during our interview with him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

Here are the three most shocking revelations in the lawfare case against Trump thanks to the newly unsealed documents, in part as pointed out by independent reporter Julie Kelly on X.

1. DOJ Threatened Lawyer’s Judicial Nomination

Jay Bratt, the special counsel’s lead prosecutor, allegedly threatened Trump staff member Walt Nauta’s attorney, Stanley Woodward, with sabotaging his judicial nomination to the Superior Court of the District of Columbia if he could not get Nauta to turn on Trump, according to a newly unsealed motion originally filed in June 2023. Nauta served in Trump’s White House and remained a personal aide to the president after he left office.

The motion requested D.C. District Chief Judge James Boasberg order the “disclosure of certain grand jury materials identified by counsel as likely to reflect misconduct by the government before the grand jury.”

During Woodward and Bratt’s first meeting, which took place two weeks after Mar-a-Lago was raided on August 24, 2022, Woodward “was led to a conference room where Mr. Bratt awaited with what appeared to be a folder containing information about Mr. Woodward,” according to the motion.

“Mr. Bratt thereupon told Mr. Woodward he didn’t consider him to be a ‘Trump lawyer,’ and he further said that he was aware that Mr. Woodward had been recommended to President Biden for an appointment to the Superior Court of the District of Columbia,” the motion continues. “Mr. Bratt followed up with words to the effect of ‘I wouldn’t want you to do anything to mess that up.’ Thereafter, Mr. Bratt advised Mr. Woodward that ‘one way or the other’ his client, Walt Nauta, would be giving up his lavish lifestyle of ‘private planes and golf clubs’ and he encouraged Mr. Woodward to persuade Mr. Nauta to cooperate with the government’s investigation (this was prior to the appointment of the Special Counsel).”

The motion argues Bratt’s “statement suggested a quid pro quo or even a threat intended to cause Mr. Woodward to persuade his client to cooperate with Mr. Bratt…Under such circumstances, it is appropriate for the Court to ease the secrecy protections typically afforded by Rule 6(e) so that it may determine if similar egregious behavior has made its way into this unprecedented investigation, particularly regarding the testimony of Mr. Nauta.”

The DOJ described the incident as follows: “Bratt also informed Woodward that the Government was interested in obtaining Nauta’s potential cooperation and resolving his situation.”

“At no point during the meeting did Woodward suggest that any of the prosecutors’ comments were improper,” the DOJ argued.

Woodward and his partner stated in a letter to Boasberg that their “representation of Mr. Nauta was not adversely impacted” by the alleged discussion and that they had not “complained about the statements in the August 24 meeting” but were bringing it to light after learning “the conduct exhibited in the August 24 meeting may not have been isolated.”

Smith also said the allegations were referred to the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility at Bratt’s request before lamenting that the defense dared to accuse a government official of threatening a private citizen’s lawyer. Smith said it was “wholly without merit” for the defense to allege that Bratt — whom Smith noted had three decades worth of experience — would threaten Woodward with retaliation.

2. White House Involved From The Start

Following Trump’s departure from office, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) began “to work with the White House Office of Records Management on exaggerated claims related to records handling under the Presidential Records Act (PRA),” a motion to compel discovery from Trump’s attorney’s states.

NARA General Counsel Gary Stern sent a letter to Trump’s PRA “representatives” in May of 2021 in which he said he “had several conversations” with the White House’s Office of Records Management and had raised some “concerns,” presumably about the documents in question, with NARA Archivist David Ferriero, according to pictures of the new, less-redacted filing posted by Kelly.

Stern’s letter noted that “things were very chaotic, as they always are in the course of a one-term transition” and acknowledged transferring the documents would take “several more months,” according to the filing. Ferriero, however, said in June 2021 he was “out of patience,” dismissing “good-faith efforts by President Trump’s PRA representatives to address issues raised by NARA,” according to the filing.

Outrageous lies by Joe Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and DOJ/Jack Smith about "independence" from investigations into Trump.

The Biden White House and DOJ wew intimately involved in developing a criminal case against Trump for records mismanagement--it appears the… pic.twitter.com/UhHPtRkVlR

— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) April 22, 2024

The filing alleges Ferriero then “threatened” one of Trump’s PRA representatives in August that he was presuming that 24 “alleged — and non-existent” boxes of records were “destroyed” and that Ferriero would report his claims of missing documents to the White House and Department of Justice.

By September, Stern was sending around a letter “that we could consider sending to the Attorney General about missing Trump records,” according to the filing. Stern also sent an email admitting he “informally reached out to the DOJ counsel about this issue” and that “WH counsel is now also aware of the issue, and has asked that I keep them in the loop to the extent that we make any reference to [WH-ORM],” according to the filing.

The filing alleges that Deputy White House Counsel Jonathan Su asked one of Trump’s PRA representatives to permit an undisclosed individual to access “notes from the Trump administration relating to records handling.” The filing alleges that Su did not disclose that NARA “had already drafted a referral letter and contacted DOJ.”

3. Trump’s Security Clearance Retroactively Revoked

Biden’s Department of Energy also allegedly revoked Trump’s security clearance after Smith indicted Trump in June 2023, according to a 2024 motion to compel discovery from Trump’s lawyers posted on X by Kelly.

The Energy Department’s “Central Personnel Clearance Index and Clearance Action Tracking System ‘reflect[ed] an active Q clearance’ for President Trump,” the unredacted motion states, according to Kelly’s post.

The DOE’s assistant general counsel then “instructed that the relevant systems ‘be immediately amended’ and ‘promptly modified to reflect the terminated status of [President] Trump’s Q clearance,'” the filing states.

Trump “requested additional disclosures relating to the Energy Department’s determination and other security clearance issues” but the office allegedly “declined to provide any additional information.”

Judicial Watch announced Monday it filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Department of Energy for records relating to the alleged termination of Trump’s security clearance.

Contempt For Ordinary Voters Undermines Opposition To Trump

Contempt For Ordinary Voters Undermines Opposition To Trump

BY: LOUIS MARKOS

In Trump, his supporters hear a spirited defense of the hard-working despised and a fearless denouncing of the fashionable despisers.

A complaint I hear increasingly leveled at contemporary American politicians is that they are out of touch with voters, if not downright contemptuous of them. On a number of core issues, politicians seem less concerned with pursuing policies that are deeply unpopular with ordinary Americans than with upholding the ideologies and self-interests of the ruling elite. Two dramatic examples of this political disconnect with average citizens are the refusal of urban governments to prosecute violent criminals, which has caused a surge in crime, and the White House’s tolerance of mass immigration, which threatens jobs, security, and the rule of law.

As I survey the current political and intellectual landscape, I cannot help but see a resurgence of the arrogance and disdain of the 18th-century French revolutionaries for those they considered to be incapable of rational thought and moral behavior. But I am moving too fast. Let me slow down and give some historical background.

In The Roads to Modernity: The British, French, and American Enlightenments(2004), Gertrude Himmelfarb distinguishes, convincingly, between the French philosophes, who championed reason; the American Founding Fathers, who concentrated on liberty; and the British moral philosophers, who emphasized human nature, benevolence, and our shared, internal moral sense.

While the English reformers showed compassion for the poor and uneducated and treated them as members of the same human race, and the American framers sought to ensure freedom for all classes, most of the French intellectuals looked down on the peasants, dismissing them as bestial and irrational, filled to the brim with the prejudices and superstitions of the Catholic Church. To the philosophes, the common people were neither honorable nor moral, but ignorant and unteachable, enthralled by religion and profoundly non-progressive. They were not citizens but the rabble. Even Rousseau, who extended some sympathy to the masses of the countryside, felt they needed to be guided by those who were enlightened to adopt the “general will.”

“In his article on the Encyclopédie,” Himmelfarb writes, “Diderot made it clear that the common people had no part in the ‘philosophical age’ celebrated in this enterprise. ‘The general mass of men are not so made that they can either promote or understand this forward march of the human spirit.’ In another article, ‘Multitude,’ he was more dismissive, indeed contemptuous, of the masses. ‘Distrust the judgment of the multitude in matters of reasoning and philosophy; its voice is that of wickedness, stupidity, inhumanity, unreason, and prejudice. … The multitude is ignorant and stupefied. … Distrust it in matters of morality; it is not capable of strong and generous actions … heroism is practically folly in its eyes.’”     

Diderot, like Rousseau, believed that the masses had to surrender their individual wills to the general will, which would define for them how far they “ought to be a man, a citizen, a subject, a father, a child, and when it is suitable to live or to die. It is for the general will to determine the limits of all duties.” For Diderot and the philosophes, though not Rousseau, what set them above the masses was their superior grasp of reason.

The moral sense and common sense,” Himmelfarb explains, “that the British attributed to all individuals gave to all people, including the common people, a common humanity and a common fund of moral and social obligations. The French idea of reason was not available to the common people and had no such moral or social component.”

As a citizen in a representative democracy, I expect our political leaders, including Donald Trump, to be held up to public scrutiny and questioned, even investigated, when the facts warrant it. What I do not expect, and find increasingly troubling, is the widespread and ongoing demonization and character assassination of all those who support Trump and approve of his candidacy and his policies.

I am old enough to remember how roughly the political establishment treated supporters of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, especially if they identified with a conservative branch of Christianity. Reagan and Bush supporters routinely had their concerns ridiculed, motives suspected, and intelligence doubted. Still, the dismissal of Reaganites and Bushies as boobs and rednecks pales in comparison to the viciously sanctimonious profiling of Trump supporters as authoritarian, narcissistic white supremacists utterly unconcerned for the common good.

Whereas the liberal progressives of the 1980s expressed some compassion for the needs and struggles of the working man, the woke philosophes of today express only contempt for those who work with their hands. While carrying on the oppressor/oppressed identity politics of Karl Marx and his heirs, they have reduced America’s blue-collar proletariat to a racist, sexist, transphobic rabble who must be suppressed, managed, and reeducated.

Convinced, as philosophes were, of the “wickedness, stupidity, inhumanity, unreason, and prejudice” of the rabble, today’s progressive philosophical, political, and social engineers have appointed themselves the task of redefining for the masses what Diderot believed the general will should define for them: what it means “to be a man, a citizen, a subject, a father, a child, and when it is suitable to live or to die.” 

The ironic difference between the philosophes of the past and the progressives of the present is that the latter have jettisoned reason altogether in their anti-scientific embrace of transgenderism and other uprootings of natural law. The superiority they claim over the masses is not, like that of Diderot, based on their more refined power of reason. On the contrary, their claims of superiority rest on the dubious ground of rejecting truth, logic, and reason as the product of white, patriarchal, heterosexual, and cisgender minds.

No wonder the majority of working men and women in America look to Trump as their advocate. He not only defends their traditional family values, common sense, and God-given humanity. His seems to be the only voice in Washington speaking up for, or even understanding, the joys and woes, hopes and fears, victories and struggles of that “rabble” that the political establishment, on both the left and right, seems only to dismiss, disparage, and despise.

Most of “polite” society attacks Trump for his caustic tone, his cutting remarks, and the obvious glee he takes in labeling and mocking his opponents. They fail to understand that Trump’s rhetoric is central to his appeal. The “masses” who flock to his speeches do not go merely to be entertained. They go to witness a much-needed turning of the tables, a political topsy turvy during which the weapons of the progressive philosophes are turned against them.

Far from the bully, Trump is the champion of those who have been bullied relentlessly and mercilessly by a self-appointed elite who holds them in contempt. In Trump, they have found a modern George Bailey — albeit a crasser and more combative one — who is willing to stand up to the Mr. Potters of the world.

In “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Frank Capra, who combined in his work the American fight for liberty and the British embrace of benevolence and our shared human moral nature, raises up an unwilling hero to protect the working families of his town from a man who would manipulate and crush them to fit his vision of, and general will for, Bedford Falls.

At one point in the film, Potter almost tempts George to come to his side and forget about the lower-middle-class homeowners he has devoted his life to defending. Then George, in a burst of insight, sees through the cold heart and colder contempt of Potter. Rejecting the offer that would have given him the rich and adventurous life he has always dreamed of, he exclaims boldly:

Just remember this, Mr. Potter, that this rabble you’re talking about, they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community. Well, is it too much to have them work and pay and live and die in a couple of decent rooms and a bath? Anyway, my father didn’t think so. People were human beings to him, but to you, a warped, frustrated old man, they’re cattle. Well, in my book, he died a much richer man than you’ll ever be.

When the majority of Trump supporters listen to him speak, this is what they hear: a spirited defense of the hard-working despised and a fearless denouncing of the fashionable despisers.