Try a Little Honesty About Israel ~ VDH

by Victor Davis Hanson at Townhall 

Scan news accounts of anti-Israel campus and street protestors. Read their demands and manifestos. Collate the confusion after October 7 from the Biden administration.

Here are 10 of their most common untruths about October 7 and the war that followed.

"Progressive Hamas"

Gay and transgender student protestors in America would be in mortal danger in Gaza under a fascistic Hamas that has banned homosexual acts and lifestyles. Anyone protesting publicly against Hamas or its allies would be arrested and severely punished.

Women are segregated in most Hamas-run educational institutions. Under the Hamas charter, women are valued mostly as child-bearers. By design, there are almost no women in high positions in business or in government under Hamas.

"Colonists and settlers"

Students scream that Israelis are "settlers" and "colonists" and sometimes yell at Jewish students to "go back to Poland."

But the Jewish presence in present-day Israel is deeply rooted in ancient tradition. Dating back at least three millennia, the concept of "Israel" as a distinct Jewish state, situated roughly in its current location, is ingrained in history.

By contrast, the much later Arab invasions of the Byzantine-controlled Levant and their arrival in Palestine occurred about 1,800 years after the establishment of a Jewish Israel.

"Two-state solution"

When student protestors scream "From the river to the sea," that is not advocacy for a two-state solution.

It is a call to eliminate the state of Israel -- lying in between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea -- and its 10 million Jewish and Arab citizens. The Hamas charter is a one-state/no-Israel agenda, which we saw attempted on October 7.

"Occupied Gaza"

Gaza was autonomous. The Israeli border is closed, but so is the Egyptian border. There have not been any Jews in Gaza for nearly two decades.

So on October 7, Gaza was not occupied by Israel. It was under the control of Hamas, designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization.

After being elected to power in 2006, Hamas canceled all subsequent elections and ruled as a dictatorship. Gaza forbids Jews from entering Gaza and has driven out most Christians. Israel hosts two million Arabs, both as Israeli citizens and residents.

"Netanyahu is the problem"

The U.S. and Europe claim that the conservative government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is alone behind the Israeli tough response in Gaza. Thus, both the E.U. and the U.S. are doing their best to undermine or even overthrow the elected Netanyahu administration.

Yet, most Israelis support Netanyahu's coalition government's agenda of destroying Hamas in Gaza. There is no evidence that any other alternative Israeli government would do anything differently from the present policies toward Hamas.

"Targeting civilians"

After murdering nearly 1,200 Israelis on October 7, Hamas scurried back to Gaza and hid in tunnels and bases beneath hospitals, schools, and mosques.

Its pre-planned strategy was to survive by ensuring Gaza civilians would be killed. Hamas has indiscriminately launched more than 7,000 rockets at Israel, all designed to kill Jewish civilians.

Outside assessors have concluded that Israel has not inadvertently killed a greater ratio of civilians to terrorists compared to most other urban fighting conflicts elsewhere, and perhaps even fewer than American engagements in Mosul and Fallujah.

"Protestors are pro-Palestine"

Increasingly, protestors make no distinction between supporting "Palestine" and Hamas. Their chants often echo the original Hamas eliminationist charter and recent genocidal ravings of its leadership. Some protestors wear Hamas logos and wave its flag. Many cheered the Hamas massacre of October 7.

"Anti-Israel is not antisemitic"

When protestors scream to Jewish students to "go back to Poland" or call for the "Final Solution," or assault them or bar them from campus facilities, they do not ask whether they are pro-Israeli.

For protestors, anyone identifiable as Jewish becomes a target of their antisemitic invective and violence.

"Genocide"

Israel has not tried to wipe out the Palestinian people in the fashion of Hamas's one-state solution plan for Jews.

Before October 7, some 20,000 Gazans a day requested to work in Israel -- on the correct expectation of much higher wages and humane treatment.

If Hamas had come out of its tunnels, separated from its impressed civilian shields, released its surviving Israeli hostages, and either openly fought the Israeli Defense Forces or surrendered the organizers of the October 7 massacre, no Gaza civilians would have died.

According to Hamas's questionable "genocide" figures, roughly 4 percent of the Gazan population died during the Israeli response to October 7. At least a third to almost half of those deaths, according to various international observers, were Hamas terrorists.

"Disproportionate response"

Iran tried to send 320 missiles and rockets into Israel. Israel replied with three.

Hamas launched 7,000 rockets into Israel and slaughtered 1,200 Israelis before the IDF responded in Gaza, often dropping leaflets and sending texts to forewarn citizens.

Israel has been disproportionate only in the effectiveness of its response. Hamas and its Iranian benefactor intended disproportionately to hurt Israel but utterly failed.

So Israel proved to be competent, and Hamas incompetent in their similar efforts to use disproportionate force.

And we Know, On the Fringe, and more- May 10

 

The Deep State Exposed Itself

J.B. Shurk reporting for American Thinker 

As I’ve watched the political Uniparty and administrative Deep State conspire to destroy Donald Trump over the last eight years, a tinge of optimism has taken root inside me.  Not only have his tormentors been unsuccessful, but also a growing share of the population see the attacks against him as un-American, vindictive, and dangerous.  There is a heightened social awareness that D.C. is filled with corrupt people who operate the tentacles of government solely for their own benefit and enrichment.

No matter how omnipotent the Deep State appears, this couldn’t have been the outcome it expected.  With every iteration of the “Get Trump” operation, the vultures swirl overhead, eager to nip at his remains and scatter his defenders to the wind, yet the man and his supporters persevere.  Even worse for the D.C. Blob, every time Trump survives, a few more Americans rally to his banner.  Far from ensuring his demise, those who seek to weaken him have made him much stronger.

Think of all the malicious propaganda campaigns that would have surely sunk a less resilient individual.  After Trump’s 2016 victory, Hollywood celebrities desperately urged the Electoral College to disregard the results and install Hillary Clinton as president.  The pop culture industry cynically created the “Me Too” movement as a vehicle for driving him from office.  The Intelligence Community illegally spied on his campaign, blamed his victory on Russian social media trolls, and pushed the lie that he worked for Putin.  The Mueller Inquisition spent two years covering up the FBI’s anti-Trump activities, while doing everything it could to ensnare the president in perjury and obstruction traps.  Members of the military and National Security Council worked with Congress to turn a Biden-Ukraine bribery scandal into a Trump impeachment.  The Department of (in)Justice and too many unethical judges transformed the J6 election integrity protest into an opportunity to destroy lives and take political hostages.  Big-money Democrats have bankrolled countless civil suits against Trump in an effort to bankrupt his entire family.  Corrupt state and federal prosecutors seek to use Democrat juries to convict him on spurious charges and imprison him for life.  Corporate news hosts routinely defame Trump as racist.  Well known historians nonsensically claim that he is an aspiring dictator.  And despite four years of inflation, foreign invasion, and global chaos during Biden’s Oval Office occupation, hyperventilating foreign policy “experts” continue to drum up fear that a 2024 Trump victory will trigger economic collapse and WWIII.

My goodness, that list is long, and really only a snapshot of all the various Deep State operations that have been planned and executed in an effort to deprive the American people of the opportunity to place an outsider (i.e., someone not beholden to the D.C. Blob) in the White House.  Yet right now Donald Trump is arguably more popular than he has ever been.  I cannot help but hear the voice of Robert the Bruce after William Wallace is tortured and executed in Mel Gibson’s Braveheart: “After the beheading, William Wallace’s body was torn to pieces.  His head was set on London Bridge, where passersby were invited to jeer at the man who had caused so much fear in England.  His arms and legs were sent to the four corners of Britain as warning. ... It did not have the effect that Longshanks planned.”

The Deep State has tried to shame Trump with allegations of racism, fascism, and misogyny.  It has framed him for crimes while protecting his political enemies from prosecution.  It has used the pretext of mass COVID hysteria to rig the 2020 election with mail-in-ballot fraud.  It has orchestrated a relentless propaganda campaign to paint Trump and his supporters as vile “insurrectionists.”  It has preyed on people’s fears of nuclear war.  It has denied Trump basic courtesies and treated him as a pariah.  It has imprisoned his voters as a stark public warning.  And still, his support grows.

What does that result tell us?  Well, on the one hand, it says a great deal about Donald Trump.  He simply refuses to cry “uncle.”  For eight years, corporate news media have sullied his reputation.  Pundits have cast him as an “existential threat” to the United States.  Hitmen with law licenses have drained his wealth with civil suits that would have been dismissed had they targeted anyone else.  Partisan prosecutors have threatened his freedom with phony felony charges.  Judges have tried to silence him with gag orders, fines, and threats of jail time.  Yet Donald Trump carries on as if he hasn’t a worry in the world.  He refuses to be broken and forced into submission.  Most people look at everything he’s endured and marvel at his confidence and composure.  I think even his enemies would struggle to identify another historical leader who managed to withstand so many ruthless attacks and survive politically.

On the other hand, it is not merely Trump’s unconquerable spirit that distinguishes this moment in history.  It is the inescapable reality that he has obtained such high public stature despite the vocal opposition of those with entrenched political and economic power.  Outside the conquering emperor, it is a rare feat.

“Democratic” nations are fond of pretending that ordinary people control the direction of their countries with their votes, but, in truth, political leaders rise to power only after the bankers, party bosses, corporate titans, spy chiefs, administrative heavyweights, union bosses, and news media have given their blessing.  In Donald Trump’s case, the collective Establishment universally rejected him and then set about destroying him.  His popularity blossomed anyway.

You can see why this unusual situation greatly concerns the Deep State.  Trump’s success diminishes the permanent bureaucracy’s influence.  Even worse, his success exposes the D.C. Blob’s shadowy manipulations.  Through its efforts to take down Trump, it has been forced to step in front of a giant spotlight.  And the American people do not like what they see.

The Deep State promised that Trump would crash the economy and impetuously start wars.  Instead, he stopped wars, reduced the cost of energy, and expanded middle-class opportunities.  The Deep State insisted that he had “colluded” with Russia.  In reality, Hillary Clinton’s campaign and Barack Obama’s espionage chiefs invented the Russia Hoax in order to illegally spy on Trump and pressure him into leaving office.  The Deep State claimed that Trump engaged in an illicit quid-pro-quo arrangement with Ukraine in order to get political “dirt” on Biden.  In truth, he exposed both Biden’s and other Deep State players’ financial corruption with foreign regimes.  The Deep State says President Trump must go to prison for leaving office with classified documents (even though the president possesses inherent classification authority) but that Jim Comey, Hillary Clinton, Mike Pence, Joe Biden, and countless other Establishment offenders should be excused for unlawfully possessing classified documents of their own.  The Deep State says that it was perfectly fine for Barack Obama to use drone strikes to murder U.S. citizens without any form of due process and to deliver political speeches that encouraged violence against police officers (and resulted in a number of targeted assassinations during his presidency).  At the same time, the Deep State claims that President Trump’s January 6, 2021 speech questioning the 2020 election’s legitimacy in the wake of rampant mail-in ballot fraud was an act of “treason” deserving of the death penalty.  

For eight years now, the Deep State’s two-tiered “justice,” overt propaganda, and malicious political targeting have been too conspicuous for rational people to ignore.  In its unbridled obsession with “getting Trump,” it now stands in bright sunlight for all to see.  This is a good and healthy thing for the American Republic.  If freedom and self-government are to survive, tyranny must die.

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The Making of a Banana Republic

posted by Josh Hammer at Townhall 

It is a presidential election year and a leading candidate for president of the United States, who also happens to be a former president of the United States, is currently a criminal defendant chained to a dingy courtroom four days of a week -- time that he should be spending interacting with voters out on the campaign trail.

That's terrible. But it's only the beginning.

The daughter of the presiding judge is a professional political operative for the presidential candidate's opposition party, and the candidate himself is subject to an over-inclusive and unconstitutional gag order. The George Soros-funded district attorney, who campaigned on a platform of prosecuting that candidate, only pressed charges after his own left-wing predecessor opted not to do so due to the frivolous nature of the charges. One of the Soros-funded DA's subordinates curiously joined his team, just in time to prosecute the candidate, from a high-ranking perch in the Department of Justice that is headed by the candidate's chief political rival.

And this week, the candidate was subjected to tawdry and salacious testimony from a discredited former porn star, who spoke openly in court about how she "blacked out" during their alleged 2006 sexual encounter. Due to the sprawling gag order, the candidate was not -- and is not -- legally permitted to defend his honor and contest her lurid, legally irrelevant claims.

Welcome to our American banana republic.

America has many real, glaring problems on its hands. Inflation remains stubborn, and Americans widely report feeling pessimistic about the economy despite nominal low unemployment metrics. Our wide-open southern border is disastrous, leading to artificially suppressed working-class wages and the most rampant illegal alien crime in the nation's history. Violent and property crime rates remain too high, especially in large urban corridors. Energy prices should be considerably lower, and they would be if our moronic leaders allowed producers to tap into America's great natural wellspring of hydrocarbons. Around the world, hostile regimes act against our interests in unrestrained and revanchist fashion. At home, childlessness, godlessness, anxiety and depression are all rising, symptomatic of a broader civilizational rot and a society that has lost confidence in what it claims to stand for.

Amidst all this, it would be ideal to have a normal, competitive presidential race, in which the flailing incumbent is directly confronted and his record is challenged for all to see. But Americans are now being deprived of anything remotely resembling a normal presidential race. Donald Trump is physically chained down to Judge Juan Merchan's New York courtroom, unable to get out on the campaign trail and deliver his signature rallies to adoring fans across the heartland. Those fans are the very Americans who have been pummeled by President Joe Biden's decades-high inflation, his ideological crusade against domestic energy production, and his reckless, crime-abetting border crisis.

These often-forgotten Americans are, in a quite literal sense, denied the opportunity to hear the full argument against the Biden Regime due to these insidious workings of the Democrat-lawfare complex. Instead of permitting the Regime's challenger, Trump, to campaign for votes in Wisconsin, he is forced to silently endure the unhinged courtroom musings of a literal porn star and a convicted felon (Michael Cohen) -- all in furtherance of a case that suffers from insuperable statute of limitations problems, in addition to the structural absurdity of a local district attorney (the Soros-funded Alvin Bragg) prosecuting and attempting to prove a federal crime (campaign finance violation). Oh, and if Trump doesn't shut up and keep quiet, Merchan might throw him in jail -- as he has repeatedly threatened to do, if Trump keeps violating his unconstitutional gag order.

What a sick, cruel joke it all is.

Democrats seem not to have given any thought to what happens if they lose -- an entirely distinct possibility, given the incumbent's poor swing-state polling and widespread malaise among the electorate. If Trump wins, do Democrats seriously not expect him to respond in kind? Now that the Rubicon has been crossed and we have entered a world in which politicians attempt to not merely defeat their opposition at the ballot box but also prosecute and incarcerate them, there is no going back. Just as Senate Democrats' November 2013 invocation of the "nuclear option" to end the filibuster for lower-court nominees directly led to Republicans doing the same for Supreme Court nominees just a few years later, so too is it impossible to know what may ultimately come from the lawfare precedent Democrats are setting today.

The new rules have been established. Many of us didn't want these rules, but here we are anyway. So game on.

Political Violence in America Likely to Get Worse Before It Gets Better

Ward Clark reporting for RedState 

Earlier, I wrote about adversity, societal evolution, and the personal characteristics that allow capable people to weather any storm, no matter its nature.

Now, I'd like to discuss the upcoming year, and what nature of challenges that year may bring, in the form of political violence -- and for the benefit of anyone who has been living on a remote tropical island for the last year, one need look no further than the nearest Ivy League campus to see political violence taking place right now.

A good summary may be found in The American Mind, where Brooke L. Rollins, President and CEO of the America First Policy Institute, has penned an interesting piece on political violence in America - but a few things are missing from her excellent analysis. She states:

The leftist tumult, often sliding into intimidation and violence, overtaking American college campuses is neither temporary nor topical. That is, it won’t end when the war in Gaza ends, nor is it even particularly about that war. What we are seeing in 2024 is the latest, dreary iteration of left-wing violence that seems predictably to strike during election years. 

Americans who remember the violence of 2020 will find it all familiar. Then, as now, there was a proximate trigger in events, and then, as now, the actual strategic aim of the so-called protestors—really insurrectionists—was to sow chaos and, not at all coincidentally, compel particular policy and electoral outcomes.

Congratulations, incidentally, for calling out what these acts actually are - acts of insurrection, and actual insurrection, not acts of hooliganism wherein a few dozen people wandered through the Capitol taking selfies. These students and their fellow travelers have occupied public property, broken into and taken over campus buildings, and physically attacked bystanders.

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See Related: Pro-Hamas Mob Shows True Colors, Rips Head Scarf Off Jewish Man Near Met Gala, Then Beats Him

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But the worst is yet to come, both in Brooke L. Rollins' estimation and my own. She continued:

The ideological violence of 2024 has yet to climax. One reason it is slow to build is that its proximate trigger is less sympathetic than the one in 2020: everyone wants equal rights for black Americans, but the local constituency for Hamas is quite a bit smaller. Another reason is that it’s early yet. Though the Gaza war has been underway for eight months, the American mass protests over it, in the form of territorial “occupations” and transportation shutdowns, are only a month or so old. Give them time to grow.

Grow they will, but for a reason not mentioned in Ms. Rollins' writing: The people we have seen protesting, rioting, and taking over property and public spaces are just the leading edge; they are the useful idiots who will be swept away when things get really serious. We have already seen evidence of the people pulling the strings.

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See Related: Completely Non-Organic Pro-Hamas Protests Aren't Just Funded - They Train Protesters for Campus Chaos

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The useful idiots are being used. They are being used by people behind the scenes, many of whom very likely entered the country through the Biden administration's porous borders. Millions have come in, unscreened, unvetted, many wholly unknown, to go... where? To do... what? Over the next few months, we may well find out.

There will be inflection points. The Democratic National Convention, ironically, may well be a major one, with the possibility that it will make the 1968 Democratic National Convention look like a picnic; this is a great irony, as the leftist agitators currently serving as unwitting cannon fodder never had a better friend than the doddering old man in the White House or his feckless, incompetent administration. The Republican National Convention may be another, but most of the first line of agitators will be more inclined to put pressure on the Democrats, some of whom share their radical views. But the real turning point will come this November.

In this fall's presidential election, as of this writing, things aren't looking goodfor the Democrats. Even if someone offers to bell the cat and convince befuddled old Joe Biden - and his First Lady - to step down, the Democrats have few good options. Who would replace Joe? The heir apparent, a cackling nitwit? The impeccably coiffed governor of California, who managed to destroy first San Francisco and then the entire state of California with his enlightened, progressive (as in, progress along the road to socialism) policies? Legal issues aside, the Trump reelection effort should be feeling pretty good right about now, and if the former President does Grover Cleveland himself into a non-consecutive second term, watch for our major cities to explode; the summer of 2020 may well be repeated, scaled up.

That, in my estimation, is when the actors behind the scenes will make themselves known, and the scale of the resulting conflict is anyone's guess.

The politicians on the left, amazingly, would have us believe that white supremacy is the threat the nation faces and that right-wing violence will somehow arise, somewhere, somehow. But the only violence that has been undertaken by anyone on the right has been in response, sometimes in self-defense, sometimes in defense of others, and sometimes in the defense of property or just plain public order.

The inestimable Colonel Jeff Cooper, in an interview, made a statement that rings ever more true with each passing day.

One bleeding-heart type asked me in a recent interview if I did not agree that 'violence begets violence.' I told him that it is my earnest endeavor to see that it does. I would like very much to ensure - and in some cases I have - that any man who offers violence to his fellow citizen begets a whole lot more in return than he can enjoy.

It may well come to that. We can hope that it won't. But betting against violence, historically, has never been a winning proposition. Violence and war have been far more common, throughout human history, than peace and prosperity. As George Santayana said, only the dead have seen the end of war.

Civic violence or outright civil war are fundamentally incompatible with a free republic. The next year may well determine the nation's path forward for much of the rest of this century. We may need the characteristics I wrote about earlier - respect, fortitude, strength, and honor - to see us through.

I sure hope I'm wrong about all this. I have grandchildren, and I want them to have a peaceful, prosperous nation to grow up in. I don't want my grandsons to have to fight in another major war, as my father and grandfather had to do. I want to live out what remains of my life in peace, with no such worries. 

But while it takes two to agree to peace, it only takes one to start a fight. The challenge then becomes, who will be the last man standing? I'd prefer it to be America.

A Federal Judge Isn't Buying Hunter's Drugs and Guns Argument

Katie Pavlich reporting for Townhall 

A federal judge rejected efforts by Hunter Biden's attorneys to dismiss felony gun charges against him Thursday afternoon, setting in motion a trial for President Joe Biden's son in June. 

The younger Biden's attorneys argued the charges, which were filed after Hunter lied on a federal background check form about drug use while purchasing a handgun in 2018, are unconstitutional and a violation of Second Amendment rights. That argument didn't fly. 

"Defendant Robert Hunter Biden is charged with possession of a firearm by a prohibited person in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3)1 and two false-statement counts under §§ 922(a)(6) and 924(a)(1)(A). Presently before the Court is Defendant’s motion to dismiss the indictment based on the Second Amendment. In particular, Defendant argues that the indictment must be dismissed because § 922(g)(3) is unconstitutional under the Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022). Defendant argues that the charges under §§ 922(a)(6) and 924(a)(1)(A) must be dismissed as well because his alleged false statements regarding drug use are only illegal if § 922(g)(3) is constitutional," U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika wrote Thursday. "For the reasons set forth below, Defendant’s motion is denied."

"The Second Amendment protects 'the right of the people to keep and bear arms,'" Noreika continued. "That right, however, is 'not unlimited.' Heller, 554 U.S. at 626. Instead, the Second Amendment allows for a 'variety' of firearm regulations, including the 'longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill.'” 

Noreika also noted "Section 922(g)(3) prohibits anyone 'who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance' from possessing a firearm that has moved in interstate commerce.'" 

Biden's trial starts June 3 in Delaware. 

Did Federal Agencies Plant Classified Documents To Frame Trump?

It looks like the ‘strongest’ legal case against Trump is based on yet another set of lies from corrupt federal agencies.

Joy Pullman reporting for The Federalist

On May 7, Florida Judge Aileen Cannon postponed former President Donald Trump’s classified documents trial after explosive information dropped late Friday afternoon. Several new pieces of evidence indicate it’s even possible federal employees planted classified documents to frame Trump.

Even if what happened isn’t that nefarious — although exactly that scenario has already been deployed against Trump several times — not only could the case be thrown out of court, but some federal lawyers may have risked their licenses for mishandling evidence.

As time goes on, the lawfare cases are looking increasingly like coverups of government attempts to imprison Democrats’ top political opponent by framing him with crimes he didn’t do. It’s yet another indication the federal government is using the U.S. legal system to serve extremist partisans instead of justice, destroying equality before the law.

Did the Feds Plant the Classified Documents?

Recent court disclosures give two indications that federal employees could have planted the classified documents used to mire Trump and several aides into a sprawling investigation and an election-interfering court case. The first is the explosive evidence revealed Friday: For 11 months, the special counsel’s office hid that it misplaced some — we don’t know how many or which — of the same allegedly classified documents it claims Trump criminally possessed at Mar-a-Lago.

In that news-dump-timed filing Friday afternoon, the special counsel’s office revealed that when federal agents took boxes of papers from Trump’s home in an unprecedented FBI raid, they took out what they thought might be classified documents the president allegedly was not allowed to possess. They say they marked these documents’ original location in the boxes with “placeholder” sheets of paper marked for an inventory.

Yet after these boxes were removed to the FBI’s Washington field office for further inspection, the special counsel says, they discovered the boxes were not in the same state as when they were seized at Mar-a-Lago. When attempting to piece the boxes back together, the special counsel’s office said, “In many but not all instances, the FBI was able to determine which document with classification markings corresponded to a particular placeholder sheet” (emphasis added).

The filing also says the FBI “generally” inserted the “handwritten sheets,” indicating there were exceptions to its use of placeholders to indicate the allegedly original locations of allegedly classified documents Trump allegedly criminally possessed. In a footnote, the special counsel writes that this situation is “inconsistent with what Government counsel previously understood and represented to the Court.” In other words, the special counsel has been lying to the court, the public, and the Trump legal team this whole time about the evidence grounding its entire case.

If they didn’t always use placeholders to mark moved documents and don’t know what documents some placeholders correspond to, some documents could be missing — or added. If there is no reliable and provable inventory of the seized document boxes, how can anyone trust the boxes accurately represent what Trump had? The DOJ admits the boxes were tampered with and are not in their original condition!

Second, there’s the also newly uncovered fact that a federal agency sent “two pallets” of documents to Mar-a-Lago while the National Archives and Records Administration was setting up this documents case. It’s unknown who all had access to these document boxes during their packing, temporary storage in Virginia, and transit to Trump’s home. Were those boxes a setup too? Imagine if some boxes the feds sent amid NARA’s dispute with Trump were also boxes the DOJ can’t verify as being in their original state.

Potential: Tossing Case, Punishing Lawyers

In a May 4 letter, Trump’s defense argues the document-tampering corrupts the special counsel’s entire case: “[I]t was our understanding that most, and potentially all, of the charged documents were buried within the boxes and located next to other items that provided favorable context.” Corrupting any allegedly classified documents at issue in this case, they say, eliminates legal defense possibilities, making this case moot.

“The theory behind spoliation inference is that when a party has destroyed evidence, it shows that the party had consciousness of guilt or other reasons to avoid evidence. Hence, the court will conclude that the evidence was not in spoliator’s favor,” says USlegal.com.

Spoilation is not only a federal crime, but it risks the licenses of any lawyers who do it, as it violates the American Bar Association’s codes of conduct. Sanctions for spoilation include lawsuits against those alleged to have committed it and dismissing affected cases. That would be especially appropriate here, as the entire case rests on documents the DOJ has admittedly tampered with.

Biden Instigated Classified Docs Lawfare

We also learned just last week that the White House and Department of Justice lawyers colluded with NARA to develop what became the special counsel’s classified documents indictment, starting an entire year before the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago, according to documents reviewed by reporter Julie Kelly. Just the News reports the collusion between NARA and the White House could have begun as early as a few weeks into the Biden presidency, according to White House visitor logs.

So of course the classified documents case didn’t arise from concern over legal improprieties, as the complete lack of prosecution for the same conduct from Joe Biden, Mike Pence, Hillary Clinton, James Comey, and DOJ leakers also proves. It was a political hit from the beginning, using federal agencies and resources to strangle Democrats’ top political opponent and override the votes of half the country. Talk about an insurrection.

The current lawfare cases against Trump are as legally and morally defensible as impeaching him over a Democrat smear operation falsely labeling him a Russian spy. Yet multiple media have claimed the classified docs case is the “strongest” of the five (or seven) attempting to bankrupt and jail Trump so Republicans can’t win the presidency. Outlets describing this case that way include Slate, Reason, The New York Times, BBC, The Hill, Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Republic.

The ‘Strongest’ Case Is a Setup

The case “is absolutely airtight,” a Georgia State professor told the BBC. The Wall Street Journal described the case as “serious” and contrasted Trump’s allegedly “willful” retention of classified documents with Hillary Clinton’s — accidental? — illegal use of a private server containing classified documents. National Review Editor Ramesh Ponnuru called the classified docs case “the most solid case against Trump.”

Really? These are the same agencies that willingly laundered Russian disinformation from Democrats’ presidential candidate through the DOJ and FBI with Spygate, affecting now three election cycles. They’re the same people who lied about Ukraine to protect Biden corruption with a defensive impeachment of Trump, and whose intel agency heads lied their heads off claiming Hunter Biden’s laptop was “Russian disinformation.”

They’re the same people who lied to a secret court to spy on Trump’s campaign after apparently setting up a volunteer through dodgy intel contacts. They’re the same people who amped up the “Russia, Russia!” narrative by arranging a meeting between a Russian lawyer and Don Trump Jr. that he thought was a waste of his time but sure made a strong smear-by-association news cycle.

Steven D’Antuono, the guy running the Washington field office when it tampered with the documents in Trump’s case, is the same guy who oversaw the FBI entrapment of a bunch of shiftless dudes into a hoax kidnapping “conspiracy” against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. D’Antuono was also imported back to D.C. just in time to “investigate” the Jan. 6 riots, where the same people and agencies stonewalled the release of security videos because they could reveal participating federal agents and informants.

If tampered evidence presented by hardened propagandists and high-level scam artists like these is the “strongest” case the DOJ can muster against Trump, that says about everything Americans need to know.

TIME Warns Its Readers That Trump, Not Biden is a ‘Threat to Our Democracy’

 The media censors Trump because they are afraid that if people who have common sense actually hear what he has to say without his words being parsed, they may actually agree with it.

https://amgreatness.com/2024/05/10/time-warns-its-readers-that-trump-not-biden-is-a-threat-to-our-democracy/

Last week, TIME published a lengthy front cover feature titled “How Far Trump Would Go,” in which the author Eric Cortellessa warns the American public without any sense of irony that a second Trump term, should he win re-election in November, will be the “end of our democracy” as we know it.

The editors at TIME were probably not gleeful about putting Trump back on the cover of their coveted magazine, but given that he is currently leading Joe Biden in the latest RCP Polling Average—and has been since September 12 of last year—the magazine could no longer ignore the very real possibility that Trump just might end up back in the White House come January 2025.

Cortellessa promises us in the beginning of the 26-minute read, which was written after two interviews with Trump as well as discussions with more than 12 of his closest advisors, that this particular article would be different from the typical leftist media hit-pieces that cover the former president.

“I wanted to know what Trump would do if he wins a second term, to hear his vision for the nation, in his own words,” Cortellessa writes.

But instead of accurately reporting on Trump’s vision for a second term, Cortellessa splices and dices his piece like a heavily edited 60 Minutes interview—taking Trump’s responses out of context, selectively choosing what quotes to include and which ones to omit—all the while trying to make him appear as belligerent, unhinged and authoritarian as possible.

“To much of the rest of the nation and the world, it represents an alarming risk. A second Trump term could bring ‘the end of our democracy,’ says presidential historian Douglas Brinkley, ‘and the birth of a new kind of authoritarian presidential order,’ Cortellessa writes.

This “threat to our democracy” ritual is beginning to feel as tiresome and as old as the city of Rome. Every Republican president dating back to Richard Nixon has supposedly been a “threat to our democracy,” which really means they’re a threat to the left’s power and disastrous agenda for America.

At this point, it is pretty much assumed that whenever the leftist corporate media covers Trump, they will deliberately misquote him or distort anything he says. Credibility is no longer of any importance to them. Convincing the American public at large that he’s an evil monster is the only thing that matters.

But in a rare act of transparency, TIME decided to include the entire transcript in the online publication of the article, which only further illustrated their lack of journalistic integrity.

Cortellessa, as is typical of the legacy media, fixates on the events of January 6, as though that is top of mind for a truck driver living in Dayton who is wondering how he will pay his bills since the price of gas and groceries has dramatically increased since Biden became president—or for the factory worker in Rochester who is wondering if artificial intelligence will soon put him out of a job.

Cortellessa also tries to make Trump’s stance on illegal immigration and abortion appear as radical as possible, and he mischaracterizes Trump’s response to a racially loaded question—in an attempt to paint him as a bigot. He misrepresents how Trump would use the Justice Department if he’s reelected and he exaggerates Trump’s response about the possibility of political violence after the November election.

Here is how Cortellessa described Trump’s thoughts on January 6:

“The events of Jan. 6, during which a pro-Trump mob attacked the center of American democracy in an effort to subvert the peaceful transfer of power, was a profound stain on his legacy. Trump has sought to recast an insurrectionist riot as an act of patriotism. ‘I call them the J-6 patriots,’ he says. When I ask whether he would consider pardoning every one of them, he says, “Yes, absolutely,” Cortellessa writes.

Here is a more complete answer that Trump gave during the same interview—but was conveniently omitted from the piece—when he was asked if he would pardon those who have been held in prison for the events of January 6:

“It’s a two-tier system. Because when I look at Portland, when I look at Minneapolis, where they took over police precincts and everything else, and went after federal buildings, when I look at other situations that were violent, and where people were killed, nothing happened to them,” Trump said. “If somebody was evil and bad, I would look at that differently. But many of those people went in, many of those people were ushered in. You see it on tape, the police are ushering them in. They’re walking with the police.”

As the full response makes clear, Trump was merely pointing out that violent Black Lives Matter protestors who caused billions of dollars in property damage and, in some cases, murdered citizens were treated with kid gloves by the Justice Department, while those who trespassed the U.S. Capitol Building and committed nonviolent offenses were given overly harsh sentences and treated as domestic terrorists by the very same Justice Department. But apparently Cortellessa wants us to believe that every January 6 trespasser should spend the remainder of their days rotting in a prison cell without due process.

TIME also wants us to believe that Trump’s immigration proposals are a “radical design for presidential power.” Apparently deporting millions of illegal immigrants who had no right to be here in the first place, reinstituting the highly successful Remain in Mexico policy, as well as implementing Title 42, which makes it easier for border patrol officials to expel illegal migrants, is a grave threat to our republic.

How dare Trump put the rights of American citizens first!

When it comes to the right to life, Trump is apparently a dictator because he declined to “commit to vetoing any additional federal [abortion] restrictions if they came to his desk” and because he believes “abortion policies should be left to the states.” In other words, now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned and the power has been returned to the states to implement their own abortion laws, Trump is now being vilified for following the rule of law and not intervening, whereas Biden has said he will sue red states whose abortion policies he disagrees with.

But apparently that’s not executive overreach  and a “threat to our democracy.”

And according to TIME, when Trump says unequivocally that there should not be any discrimination against anyone because of their race, or because he has made law and order and safety and security a centerpiece of his campaign—well, apparently that stance is akin to Jim Crow.

“To critics, Trump’s preoccupation with crime is a racial dog whistle. In polls, large numbers of his supporters have expressed the view that antiwhite racism now represents a greater problem in the U.S. than the systemic racism that has long afflicted Black Americans,” Cortellessa writes. “When I ask if he agrees, Trump does not dispute this position. “There is a definite antiwhite feeling in the country,” he tells TIME, “and that can’t be allowed either.” In a second term, advisers say, a Trump Administration would rescind Biden’s Executive Orders designed to boost diversity and racial equity.”

In TIME’s warped reality, the DEI initiatives that have become prevalent in our society in recent years and the EO’s put forth by the Biden White House, which make it easier to discriminate against white applicants when it comes to employment, school enrollment, or granting white business owners a loan—apparently, none of that exists or is problematic.

And for the record, during Trump’s presidency, he made a permanent commitment of $255 million in annual funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities, but go ahead, keep telling us he’s a racist.

Cortellessa also feigns alarm that Trump “would be willing to fire a U.S. Attorney who doesn’t carry out his order to prosecute someone, breaking with a tradition of independent law enforcement that dates from America’s founding.” Never mind that Biden’s Department of Justice has indicted his leading political opponent multiple times for imaginary crimes. Never mind that Fulton County prosecutor Fani Willis and her romantic partner met with the  Biden White House twice before she decided to charge Trump with a bogus crime. Never mind that Biden has weaponized the Department of Justice to go after parents who disagree with racist anti-white lessons and radical gender ideologies being taught in schools. But that is of no concern to TIME.

Finally, Cortellessa wraps up his hit piece by preposterously insinuating that Trump is promoting political violence if he loses the election.

“Trump does not dismiss the possibility of political violence around the election. “If we don’t win, you know, it depends,” he tells TIME. “It always depends on the fairness of the election.”

Actually, what Trump said in the more complete answer from the transcript about political violence was, “I don’t think we’re going to have that. I think we’re going to win. And if we don’t win, you know, it depends. It always depends on the fairness of an election. I don’t believe they’ll be able to do the things that they did the last time. I don’t think they’ll be able to get away with it. And if that’s the case, we’re gonna win in record-setting fashion.”

It is becoming increasingly clearer that the media does not censor Trump because he supposedly says things that are “untrue,” which, for the record, is still not grounds for censorship. If that were the case, Biden should be censored practically every time he speaks and reinvents history.

But on the contrary, the media censors Trump because they are afraid that if people who have common sense actually hear what he has to say without his words being parsed, they may actually agree with it.

And they can’t let that happen.

David Keltz is the author of “The Campaign of his Life” and “Media Bias in the Trump Presidency and the Extinction of the Conservative Millennial.” His writing has been published in The American Spectator, RealClearPolitics, American Greatness, the Federalist, the American Thinker, and the New York Daily News, among other publications.