Wednesday, July 3, 2024

Schedule F for the Final FU

Sunlit7 op




 Sometimes I can't quite get it when Trump says something the media will grab onto the least of it and run with it.  Reminds me of a couple of weeks ago Nancy Pelosi came out of wherever she has been hiding making comments on abortion.  People grabbed onto aspects of the conversation but never noticed she said conservatives who complain about abortions don't realize they benefit the most from it, or some insane thing along that line.  Being that African Americans are high on the list of people seeking abortions, I was sort of blown backwards by the comment.  The other day Trump was ridiculed for a statement he made during the debate with Biden on illegal immigrants taking black jobs.  Nobody paid any attention to the overall statement and were consumed with exactly what is a black job.


> "His big kill on the Black people is the millions of people that he's allowed to come in through the border. They're taking Black jobs now," Trump said of Biden's immigration policies. "It could be 18, it could be 19 and even 20 million people. They’re taking Black jobs, and they’re taking Hispanic jobs, and you haven’t seen it yet, but you’re gonna see something that’s going to be the worst in our history.”  <a href = "https://www.11alive.com/article/news/politics/trump-black-jobs-presidential-debate-online-outrage/85-df663ed2-8b9d-4d4f-bce4-a674b4506dbd">


His big kill on the black people comes off like Biden is some sort of kill joy in that department.  Trump's comment that if he's not re-elected, we'll see death and destruction of the likes never seen in this country has had me quip in comments before that any build back better scenario seen in this country would see the Bronx getting the Ukraine-Gaza treatment.  But I digress from getting too far off track here despite the latter half of the statement could seemingly fall along a similar line.  


I often tell people that Trump loves telling people the real truth.  It's often, as with the article, hidden behind a mound of distractions, like what is a black job.  Nobody stops to ask what he meant by what it is we haven't seen yet that will be worst in our history.  Whatever it is it will have to outpace the Revolutionary War, Civil War or 9-11 to be the worst thing in our history.  Maybe another great depression?  Our first nuclear hit?  An overthrow of our government?  Given the current global climate any of those are feasible but if you are listening to the prevailing winds, the last on the list appears to be where the winds are blowing.  Later I will get into the preliminary groundwork that was being laid but will focus for a moment where those winds are starting to howl louder.  You have the preliminary groundwork laid, now you need the legal precedent to be established that enforces it.  


I've been saying now for months that come 2025, that some government workers still working from home are going to get pink slipped.  A lot of what has been taking place the last few years is that one action proceeds into another.  The pandemic was the perfect excuse to empty offices for someone else just to walk into.  Where this appears to be going doesn't necessitate that an office be empty, just that in the event of a large turnover in government, it just makes it an easier transition.  Trump, who likes to come off sounding like he's a racist, really isn't a racist, that's if one doesn't consider there's a racist overture wanting the cheapest labor.  An example of this I give to people is when viewing photos of Trump properties of those doing menial labor, to bring me back one that doesn't show people of color.  So far no one has.  When it comes to paying the lowest wage for menial labor, there isn't a racist bone in Trump's body.  When you are going to reduce the cost of white-collar workers, there's really no equality, equity and inclusion involved, that's just the cover.  Just as these calls of political prosecutions are just the cover that will lay the legal framework that is going to allow them to legally bring the powers within the executive branches to heel and overturn of employees to those of like mindedness.  The checks and balances within our government on constitutional rights will increasingly become harder to enforce.  This will come to fruition under the cover of the precedent set by the supreme court under the call of political prosecutions. 


To further reiterate the political prosecution calls were a deliberate set up to set in motion a supreme court precedent, one has to go back to 2017 when James Sherk, domestic policy council member under the Trump administration recommended as part of what was quoted as a laundry list of policy proposals.  One of those policy proposals was a legal theory for what was termed the Constitutional option, that the president, under Article 2 had the power to dismiss any federal employee for any reason.


>Members of the Trump administration did push for more sweeping approaches to the federal civil service, however. Then-Domestic Policy Council member James Sherk recommended as part of an internal laundry list of policy proposals that officials seek legal justification for what he called the “Constitutional option,” a legal theory that the president has power through Article II to dismiss any federal employee for any reason. Last year, Sherk published a report reiterating that proposal for the America First Policy Institute.  <a href = "https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2022/03/trump-threatening-return-and-expansion-schedule-f/363145/">  


What one is looking for in the underlying intent to turn the Constitutional Option from a legal theory into a supreme court precedent was what the supreme court had to say about this:  


>(i) The indictment alleges that as part of their conspiracy to 

overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election, 

Trump and his co-conspirators attempted to leverage the Justice Department’s power and authority to convince certain States to replace 

their legitimate electors with Trump’s fraudulent slates of electors. 

According to the indictment, Trump met with the Acting Attorney

General and other senior Justice Department and White House officials to discuss investigating purported election fraud and sending a 

letter from the Department to those States regarding such fraud. The 

indictment further alleges that after the Acting Attorney General resisted Trump’s requests, Trump repeatedly threatened to replace him.


>The Government does not dispute that the indictment’s allegations

regarding the Justice Department involve Trump’s use of official 

power. The allegations in fact plainly implicate Trump’s “conclusive 

and preclusive” authority. The Executive Branch has “exclusive authority and absolute discretion” to decide which crimes to investigate

and prosecute, including with respect to allegations of election crime. 

Nixon, 418 U. S., at 693. And the President’s “management of the Executive Branch” requires him to have “unrestricted power to remove

the most important of his subordinates”—such as the Attorney General—“in their most important duties.” Fitzgerald, 457 U. S., at 750. 

The indictment’s allegations that the requested investigations were 

shams or proposed for an improper purpose do not divest the President 

of exclusive authority over the investigative and prosecutorial functions of the Justice Department and its officials. Because the President cannot be prosecuted for conduct within his exclusive constitutional authority, Trump is absolutely immune from prosecution for the 

alleged conduct involving his discussions with Justice Department officials. Pp. 19–21.


The key words in all that are:  "And the President’s “management of the Executive Branch” requires him to have “unrestricted power to remove

the most important of his subordinates”—such as the Attorney General—“in their most important duties.", and "do not divest the President 

of exclusive authority over the investigative and prosecutorial functions of the Justice Department and its officials"


What that entails when it came to this judgement on behalf of the supreme court is the moments described when Trump sat down with officials, including Bill Barr, to discuss election fraud and requesting of Barr to send letters to states from the justice department on those allegations of fraud and Barr refused, it was well within the confines of Trump's constitutional authority to make such a request and to consider Barr's refusal to do such as being insubordinate.  As such under the constitutional powers of the presidency, he had every right to not only threaten but to fire Barr for being insubordinate.  The justice department has exclusive authority to decided which crimes it will investigate and prosecute but the management of the department by the executive branch requires him (the president) to have unrestricted power to remove

 what he considers acts of being subordinate.  That is where Sherk's Constitutional Option starts to take ground.  This, under the supreme court ruling is private, protected, confidential conversations between the executive branches of government for which under a president's constitutional authority he cannot be prosecuted for.  It would hinder a president's ability to fearlessly and fairly execute the duties of his office if he lived under constant fear of prosecution according to the supreme court.  This immunity from prosecution for acts under a president's constitutional authority stands as long as it's not obviously and openly determined to be beyond his scope of a president's constitutional authority.  Questioning a president's motives, or the questioning of those surrounding the conversation are private events, protected under constitutional authority, as such, those conversations are exempt from discovery by the courts and the public at large and provide a range of prosecutorial protected immunity to the president. 


Not all acts surrounding any particular event though, are protected by immunity.  Public discourse and actions on the matter, the court has determined, has to be sorted out by lower courts if those acts were performed under a president's official duties when engaging to the public, or outside the scope of an official duty when taken.  But what they can't do in making such determinations, is involve any discussions or testimonies given by individuals between the executive branches of the government.   So, they cannot try to collaborate as evidence between what was spoken officially as a private matter to what was spoken publicly on a matter, what was spoken publicly also has to be weighed by a court as official or not official engagement.   


This becomes the underlying objective for taking an ex-president through these trials and tribulations. The open public acknowledgement, understanding of the legal precedent of what is the often-heard phrase lately, "on day one".  On day one the public can witness the start of a purge of government officials from office, and the supreme court just ruled there isn't, as Michael Moore has expressed in opinion, a god damn thing you can do about it, it will be too late.  Not that Michael Moore was warning of what would happen, he just knows how it was all being scripted.  On day one they are going to bring the government to heel against your constitutionally protected rights by installing a government of likeminded people.  This is far beyond the scope of bringing the so-called deep state down.  Like Moore said there won't be anything you can do about it, you won't even be able to question it, because it all falls under the realm of the protected constitutional authority invested under the president now legally established by the supreme court.  When Trump says you haven't seen it yet, but you're going to see something that's the worst in our history, he's talking about a complete overthrow of our government granted by a greater constitutional authority upon one man than bestowed upon any other man. 


 You have to admit it's pretty disgustingly genius to use the constitution to outsmart the constitution in an overthrow of a government.  When any president walks into office they can engage in conversations where their motive(s) can't be questioned and anyone not of like mindedness to that discussion can be shown the exit door.  When the dissenting supreme court justices and the media get done bellowing out every conceivable option granted under that presidential immunity of executive constitutional authority, you'll be completely indoctrinated to the latitude and longitude of your unanswerable questions.


Unfortunately, it doesn't stop there.  That just deals with the power of authorities within the executive federal branches, and your lack of power to question it thereof.  Getting rid of the underlings of unlike mindedness and those beholding to nonpartisan positions is a whole different ball game.  The same James Sherk mentioned above who wanted to seek legal justification for the Constitutional Option also wanted to start a new category called Schedule F that would exempt federal employees from codified job protections.  The majority of civil service workers are covered under those protections.  Schedule F would make any federal employee with policy and oversight positions exempt from job protections and move them into Schedule F position as at will workers who could be more easily fired.  Sherk contended that moving these employees into a new Schedule F position would make them more accountable to the white house thus more accountable to the American people.  In October 2020 Trump signed an executive order creating Schedule F.


> Trump created Schedule F in an October 2020 executive order. Under that order, federal workers involved in “confidential, policy-determining, policy-making and policy-advocating positions” — a vague description that would include at least tens of thousands of people — would be stripped of their civil service protections and reclassified as “at-will” appointees, meaning they could be hired or fired for any reason, or none at all.   <a href = "https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-chilling-trump-plan-that-could-pave-the-way-for-authoritarianism/ar-BB1o2O5p?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=2eb2f102b2184f3cb92dfc19718fad04&ei=90">


The order mandated that within one hundred twenty days of the order that agency heads compile a list of employees who'd fall within the perimeters of the new schedule F.  Sherk contended it would be a small percentage of employees that would qualify to go on the list, but some agency heads stated it found it would be as high as sixty nine percent of their employees.  Critics of the plan complained that such a move would force employees to bend to the will of a political party and would keep employees from speaking out for fear of losing their jobs.  When Biden came into office, he rescinded Schedule F and sat into motion policies that would make it harder to try and change civil service job protections.  There though is nothing that stops a future administration from abolishing those policies and putting schedule F back into motion.  


Under a FOIA request by groups National Treasury Employees and American Oversight reinforced what the government accountability office review stated that schedule F lists could contain as many as sixty nine percent of some federal office employees.  


>The agency that found over two-thirds of its workers could be reclassified was the very policy-focused Office of Management and Budget. The Office of Personnel Management — the executive branch’s human resource’s office, and the office that would be responsible for actually overseeing the reclassification of workers under Schedule F — had approved the reclassification of OMB jobs ranging from IT specialists and office managers to attorneys, policy analysts and economists, according to government records obtained by the National Treasury Employees Union and the watchdog group American Oversight.


The very public claim by Trump that reclassifying employees will be used to bring the deep state to heel falls flat on its face because intelligence officers are not protected by civil employee protections.


>“We will pass critical reforms making every executive branch employee fireable by the president of the United States,” Trump said. “The deep state must and will be brought to heel.”


The information given under the FOIA to National Treasury Employees and American Oversight was limited in its scope as to how much work had already progressed on the reclassifications.  Given the heightened awareness that any future administration can rescind Biden's order and policies, they requested of the Biden administration under the FOIA all documents pertaining to Schedule F.  After exhausting all avenues under the FOIA request, they moved to sue the Biden administration in court.   COMPLAINT: AMERICAN OVERSIGHT V. OPM – SCHEDULE F COMMUNICATIONS AND GUIDANCE <a href = "https://www.americanoversight.org/document/complaint-american-oversight-v-opm-schedule-f-communications-and-guidance">


>But the documents provide just a glimpse at the changes Schedule F could bring.


> “We don’t know yet what we don’t know, which is why we’re going to court,” said Ron Fein, chief counsel for American Oversight, which has sued the Biden administration to release more records related to Schedule F.


They have every right to be concerned about it.  Last year republicans in both the house and senate introduced legislation to make every executive branch employee at will.


>Last year,Republicans in both the House and Senate introduced legislation to make every executive branch employee “at-will.” And multiple former Republican presidential candidates expressed support for Schedule F, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who as a presidential candidate said of the so-called deep state, “We’re going to start slitting throats on day one.”


Again, intelligence officers are exempt from civil employee protections.  They can already be fired at will.  This isn't surprising witnessing another cover to meet an objective.  We only have to look at Sherk's comments from years ago to plainly see how that objective was met, clearly both parties worked hand in hand to bring about the calls of political prosecution to achieve the point where the Constitutional Option ended up at the supreme court to go from a legal theory to a supreme court precedent.   It's also wouldn't be surprising to find democrats and republicans working hand in hand again with the mention of the American First Institute mentioned above.  I wrote an opinion piece two years ago that showed the Trump born institute have been working hand in hand with democrats sneaking in and out of doors in New York City.  "Hooked, Lined and Sinkered: The True Underbelly Of Trump" <a href = "https://hive.blog/deepdives/@sunlit7/hooked-lined-and-sinkered-the-true-underbelly-of-trump"> On day one they fully plan to implement their America First Policies, not Americans, America.


Even when faced with the excuses that moving federal employees to at will make it easier to get rid of unproductive employees or reduce an over bloated bureaucracy fails as states that have moved to at will employment there hasn't been an increase of people fired or a reduction in state jobs.  Other risk factors involved here are the loss of menial government jobs to cheap foreign labor, or importation of degreed workers willing to work for less, likely hired through temporary employment agencies alleviating the government from paying a living wage, benefits, workers compensation and unemployment funding.   There has to be some significance to the repeated phrase "on day one", whether an overthrow or an overhaul, I wouldn't want to be any number of those federal employees still working from home when the call comes that you've been replaced, maybe even replaced by one of those foreign occupants living in buildings in NYC that AOC says Americans have no right to know what they are doing in there, might just be they are being trained to take over your job.


People are becoming increasingly aware of the deceit, not just by our elected officials, but among global leaders.  Russian diesel fuel shipped into Europe up until last year, natural gas being supplied to some European countries, including France, German companies helping Russia to rebuild in Russian occupied cities.  Jared Kushner admitting he'd been engaged with the current administration on the implementation of the Abraham Accords.  Now the sham prosecution of an ex-president to accomplish an established legal precedent.  Ron Fein, chief counsel for American Oversight, quote "“We don’t know yet what we don’t know" should serve as caution with this global political swing back to the right, because it definitely doesn't mean we are winning.

Gullibility 101


We watch Washington D.C. like we’d watch a ship steaming way too fast toward a crowd on the pier.  Our nation’s capital is so filled with corruption, ladder-climbing, and plain stupidity that it’s embarrassing to watch. This is America?!?

Yet the Democrats we know personally are not guilty of those sins. Many are smart, hard-working, kind, educated people and yet they voted for the wasted shell in the oval office -- a man who is not only suffering from dementia, but has never been very bright, or very good. A lot of these lovely people appear to be planning to vote for him again. How can that be? How can even a third of our compatriots think Biden is okay? I believe it to be one of the most startling paradoxes of our time. These proud, sophisticated, overeducated folks are, unlike the power brokers of the party, simply naive. They’re hopelessly gullible. How they can possibly be both -- naïve and sophisticated -- is beyond me. For these lefty-leanies, the Brooklyn Bridge is always for sale at half price and someone else will pick up the difference. Let us list the facets of the Democrat fairytale:

  1. They assume that other people are just like them -- hardworking, clean, healthy, nice, fun-loving. It just doesn’t occur to them that the man dragging two kids across the border isn’t their father and is only interested in selling them. The fact that most of these illegals are young men of military age doesn’t ring any bells for the average Democrat. Somehow the only reaction to these intruders is to feel sorry for them -- not to be cautious about their motives, or to be concerned about what diseases they may carry or where their education stopped.
  2. They think people are what they portray themselves to be. To them, there is no angry, sexually abused, misfit of a young man behind the exuberant makeup and the green sequined dress. From their point of view, college professors are wise, good, and superior and have no intention of disabusing your child of his upbringing. No priest or Boy Scout leader has any perverse designs on your kids. How cynical to suspect that they’re anything other than caring and compassionate. Ambrose Bierce, in his hilarious book The Devil’s Dictionary, defines cynic as a person “who sees things as they really are.” Then I guess I’m a cynic. Won’t you join me?
  3. This attitude slithers out from the left’s assumption that there is basically no evil, no sin, that people are all basically good (except Republicans, of course). A middle-class leftist can look at a drag queen reading to three-year-olds and not see anything perverse and nasty. A thief is just someone overreacting to some 200-year-old atrocity done to someone else’s ancestor. A rapist just needs counseling. The 85,000 missing kids? Oh look! There’s a squirrel!
  4. Speaking of naivete -- this one is a doozy. These fanciful folk think that a law passed is a law obeyed -- to the letter. Don’t like guns? Ban them and they will be no more. In fact, there will be no more violence. Look at what happened with bipartisan Prohibition -- did everyone just suck it up and quit drinking? No. The Mafia was born.
  5. Which brings up the issue of rich verses poor. The loony leftist assumes that the poor are poor because of the rich. The wealthy have more than their fair share (as if wealth is limited -- it isn’t: it’s produced, but that’s another discussion.). So -- if we raise taxes on the rich, we’ll have enough money to give a lot to the poor and we’ll all be equal. Right? That just beats all. How do they think the rich got that way? Not by being stupid. No law has ever been written that didn’t have a loophole in it. The rich can afford to lobby Congress to get those loopholes created. And the rich can afford to hire people smart enough to find and appropriate those loopholes. What makes matters worse is that not only do the rich get richer, but those whose job it is to redistribute the wealth gain power and use that power to get even richer themselves. So, the poor will always be with us.
  6. The naïve can cling to their suppositions because, in their world, truth and logic are no longer required, no longer absolute, no longer respected.Neither are facts. I haven’t just observed this, I’ve been told this by brilliant, well-educated people. One guy, who holds three hard-science doctorates, patiently explained to me that logic is now passé. I’ve also been told that facts don’t matter. Outright lies don’t even seem to faze leftists, no matter whether they’re on the receiving or the delivery side of the lie. It is hard to have a productive conversation with those who live according to these “rules.”
  7. The by-default Left believes that feelings are where reality lives. What matters is how I feel. If I feel like a princess, or a giraffe, or Napoleon, by George, you need to deal with me as such. Never mind that mutilation -- either bodily or linguistically -- may be required.
  8. The Democrats I know feel that loyalty to a party is more important than loyalty to our country. Most of the Democrats I know are Democrats only because they always have been. One doesn’t just abandon a ship because someone has drilled a hole in the hull. And if you don’t even notice the hole -- such a position doesn’t require a person to know anything about what’s going on. It doesn’t demand much in the way of common sense thinking or practicality. Just yell Go-team-go! And burn down a building now and then.
  9. Being an automatic leftist is also easy in that one doesn’t need to know history or geography. How many of the pro-Palestinian activists even know where Israel is, let alone how she got there? Besides which, the gullible Left believes all cultures are the same in value. It’s just fine that a Muslim father thinks he should kill a disobedient daughter. It’s okay if the Netsilik Eskimos put their elderly out on ice floes to freeze to death on the barren ice. No problem if the Chinese enslave their people.
  10. For these compliant leftists, tolerance is the most important virtue and wealth the most egregious sin. You just hate the rich, especially if they’re white, and especially if they’re male. No other judgment needed. No courage necessary. No kindness required.

Having listed these traits, what’s to be done? I’m afraid that the fanciful will always be with us, so it is doubly important that we keep our feet solidly planted in reality, in God’s truth, in common sense. Someone has to mind the store, watch the kids, and plow the north forty. And we have to win elections -- honestly and by huge margins, remembering that our opponents don’t mind cheating -- see #6. However, we need to see our deluded fellow Americans as just that. The bigwig Democrats are patently evil -- look what they allowed (or planned) to have happen to Joe Biden in that debacle they called a debate. They were clearly eating their own. But our friends, neighbors, and countrymen are not those people. Let’s remind ourselves of that now and then so that when the cannon smoke clears, we can all still be friends.



X22, And we Know, and more- July 3rd

 




Republicans Will Seek To Make It ‘Extraordinarily Difficult’ for Democrats To Swap Out Biden

 As calls mount for Biden to drop out of the presidential race, a conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation, releases a memo laying out the challenges to removing Biden from the ballot.

https://www.nysun.com/article/republicans-hoping-to-make-it-extraordinarily-difficult-for-dems-to-swap-out-biden

A conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation, is trying to make it “extraordinarily difficult” for Democrats to replace President Biden on the ticket for the coming election. 

Calls have mounted for Mr. Biden to drop out of the race following his challenged debate performance last week. Democratic party members have reportedly been scrambling to manage the fallout from the debate, but so far have tried to curb any internal calls for Mr. Biden to step down. 

While Mr. Biden seems set on being the democratic nominee, Republicans are reportedly making arrangements in case he chooses to withdraw — plans which have been in the works for weeks. 

After special counsel Robert Hur’s report escalated concerns over Biden’s declining health, the Heritage Foundation began to look into the process for replacing a presidential nominee. 

Researchers from the Heritage Oversight Project compiled all of the requirements for replacing Mr. Biden in a memo that was released shortly before last week’s debate. 

The laws vary state by state, and any effort to replace Mr. Biden will have to abide by the process outlined by each state. According to the memo, the laws in place in some key swing states could make such a move particularly difficult. 

“The problem that any potential replacement for Joe Biden would likely run into is that in many states, including in several key states, the deadline for getting on the ballot has already passed,” a senior legal fellow at Heritage, Zack Smith, told NOTUS

“Or in many states,” he adds, “the process for replacing a candidate currently on the ballot just isn’t clearly defined because it happens so rarely.”

According to the memo, the laws in Wisconsin, Nevada, and Georgia position them as prime places for litigation that would challenge efforts to swap out Mr. Biden from the ballot. 

As the debate has negatively impacted voters’ views of Mr. Biden, Republicans are likely motivated to keep him at the top of the ticket given that it may boost President Trump’s chances of reelection in November. 

However, should the Democratic National Committee rush to replace Mr. Biden before he is named at the virtual roll call ahead of the August convention, they may be able to secure a swap in the nick of time, state election lawyer John Ciampoli tells NOTUS. 


Russia Hoaxer Marc Elias’ Firm Sues To Let Foreign Billionaires Buy Ohio Elections

 The Elias Law Group, founded by Russia hoaxer Marc Elias, is challenging Ohio’s ban on foreign election funding.

https://thefederalist.com/2024/07/03/russia-hoaxer-marc-elias-firm-sues-to-let-foreign-billionaires-buy-ohio-elections/

A prominent Democrat law firm, founded by an architect of the Trump-Russia hoax, is suing to let foreign billionaires meddle in Ohio elections.

Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine signed House Bill 1 on June 2, banning foreign nationals from spending money on state ballot measures. Elias Law Group, founded by Russia hoaxer Marc Elias, challenged the bill in court on June 27, according to The Associated Press

Elias, while working for a law firm whose client was Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, paid Fusion GPS for the infamous Steele dossier that accused former President Donald Trump of ties to Russia. He then peddled the dossier to bureaucrats and legacy media.

Elias founded the Elias Law Group in 2021 to do the bidding of Democrat politicians, according to Influence Watch. The group, along with the law firm Cooper Elliott, sued in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, claiming that the state’s election integrity measure would harm public discourse.

“All noncitizens are now threatened with investigation, criminal prosecution, and mandatory fines if they even indicate they intend to engage in any election-related spending or contributions — including to support or oppose ballot questions in virtually any capacity,” the lawsuit reads, according to the AP.

The Ohio law prohibits foreign nationals including green card holders, foreign political parties, foreign governments, and foreign businesses from contributing funding for “ballot issues or candidates.” 

So perhaps Elias’ real issue with Ohio’s ban on foreign campaign funding is that it keeps Democrats from doing what he falsely accused Trump of doing. The law simply bans foreign funders from interfering in Ohio elections to boost partisan turnout. 

Caitlin Sutherland, director of Americans for Public Trust, pointed out the hypocrisy of Democrats who pretend to care about “foreign interference.”

“For those following along at home, this means the attorney for a foreign billionaire is suing to make sure he can keep spending in Ohio,” Sutherland wrote on X about Elias’ client, Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss. “I thought Dems said foreign interference is a problem?”

Compromised Interests

According to Influence Watch, Elias’ firm took $5 million from George Soros “sometime before 2016” to “challenge what left-wing activists allege to be restrictions that deter Democrats and left-wing constituencies from voting.” The firm also represented the left-wing dark-money behemoth Arabella Advisors in 2022.

Wyss — known as the “new Soros,” according to Bloomberg — has also given some $52 million through the Wyss Foundation to Arabella groups from 2010 to 2020. The groups have worked closely together over the years.

The Daily Caller revealed in 2016 that Wyss had given $41,000 to Democrat causes in 1998-2003, violating the federal ban on foreign nationals giving to campaigns. Americans for Public Trust filed a complaint in 2021 alleging illegal election interference from Wyss, the Wyss Foundation, and Arabella’s Sixteen Thirty Fund and New Venture Fund, and the Berger Action Fund, which was previously the Wyss Action Fund.

Wyss has also interfered in Ohio elections, reportedly funding groups that sent a total of $3.9 million to help codify a supposed right to abortion in the state’s constitution. The ballot measure passed in November.

So essentially, a lawyer for Wyss’s interests is now suing to return the levers of power in Ohio to people like the foreign billionaire. Wyss clearly has political aims, as the Wyss Foundation worked with John Podesta, former adviser to President Barack Obama, in 2015 to expand the Democrat voter base with election policy. 

The Elias’ Law Group’s suit is not about fair treatment for foreigners residing in America. It is simply a desperate power grab for the dark-money influencers that seek to co-opt American elections for their own ends. 

This bill overcame plenty of conflict to become law. Now Elias’ firm hopes to undo this protection for Ohio voters. 

Like some of Elias’ previous work, the judge in this case should treat it as an “absurd interpretation” of the law for partisan ends. 


Republicans Need to Come to Terms With This Simple Reality If We’re Going to Win in November


No one wants to be the skunk at the garden party, nor does anyone enjoy telling their readers something they undoubtedly do not want to hear. However, more often than not, medicine tastes gross, yet it works and you need to take it for your own good. I’m not a doctor, and what I have to say isn’t medicine, but Republicans do need to hear it if they want to win this November.

As much as Donald Trump is loved by some on the right, he is hated by as many on the left. 

It’s true, and it’s also the fastest way to get negative comments, angry emails and to lose followers. That’s why so few people who know it refuse to say it. But it needs to be said if it’s going to be overcome.

There’s a lot of money in telling people what they want to hear, and the conservative media world is full of people who will tell you only good news, positive spin. But that’s not real life, and while it’s helpful to their bottom lines, it’s less so to the cause they claim to care deeply about.

Let’s get to the reality check: Donald Trump has a ceiling on his support, at least as of now. 

With all the bad news for Joe Biden, all the horrible “senior moments,” mumbles and tripping, it doesn’t really move the needle for him or Trump in the polls.

There isn’t a poll where Trump doesn’t dominate on the issues – the economy, border, war, inflation, on everything but abortion – and he’s within the margin of error in almost all of them. More than that, even though the alterative is a senile, corrupt, pervert, Trump routinely pulls in support only in the mid-to-high 40s. 

The only way this is possible is there is an incredibly large group of Americans who, no matter the circumstances or alternative, will not vote for Donald Trump. The only other viable choice is someone who can’t stand upright, forgets where he is and to close his mouth, and can’t remember what he was talking about while he is talking about it, who also created an economy riddled with inflation, unaffordable housing, food and gas, and he still sits within 2 points of Trump.

Honestly, polls show voters think Biden is mentally gone, bad at his job and incapable of doing it, AND only somewhere in the mid-30s even moderately approve of how he does it, yet more than 10 percentage points more of them than like him say they’ll vote for him over the man who had an excellent economy and they trust more on most issues. It makes sense, unless you factor in the hate.

One thing about Donald Trump is you’ll never come across anyone who doesn’t have an opinion about him. Love him or hate him, people don’t live in the in-between on him. In many ways, Joe Biden is a non-entity in this election, it’s just between Trump and not Trump. 

As much as people love him, people hate him. Depending upon social circles, there is an incentive for both, especially with the hate, which feeds on itself and is reinforced by pop culture and liberals who can’t control themselves. If you’re a conservative, you’ve absolutely known a liberal who can’t control themselves when they hear the word “Trump.” If you don’t follow politics, it’s the same – there is just a large swatch of the left who simply cannot control their rage at the thought of Donald Trump existing. 

While Trump will never get the “Karens” and “Karls” who suffer from Trump Tourette’s, but the rest of them are not only possible to get, they are needed. 

As much as the debate exposed Biden as an empty husk of a man, and viewers noticed, the first poll on the issue found it didn’t matter. The Daily Mail reports, “Biden's support eased from 46 to 44 per cent, and Trump was dead still at 44 per cent before and after,” according to the Ipsos poll. The debate was a disaster for Joe with Democrats in the media, but it didn’t register anywhere else.

Trump has to find a way to reach the people who can’t imagine voting for him simply because there are so many liberals around them who can’t shut up about how they hate him. They don’t like Trump because it’s the “in” thing to do in their circle. 

All President Trump has to do is show these people he’s not Hitler, that he knows how the economy is hurting them and he has a plan to change that. He’s doing it, he has to do it more. He has to do it until he breaks through the bubble they live in, then do it through November and beyond. 



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Clarence Thomas Questions Whether Jack Smith’s Appointment Is Even Constitutional

‘If this unprecedented prosecution is to proceed, it must be conducted by someone duly authorized to do so by the American people,’ Thomas wrote.



On the final day of a significant Supreme Court term, and in one of its most consequential cases, Justice Clarence Thomas delivered a stunning rebuke to our ruling regime for its disingenuous effort to legitimize the republic-eviscerating lawfare inquisition against Donald Trump.

Thomas took to a concurrence in the landmark Trump v. United States case not so much to affirm the majority’s view regarding former President Trump’s immunity from prosecution, but to question whether the Biden Justice Department’s prosecution of Trump itself was legal.

“In this case, there has been much discussion about ensuring that a President ‘is not above the law,’” Thomas wrote. “But, as the Court explains, the President’s immunity from prosecution for his official acts is the law.”

By contrast, the associate justice asserted, “I am not sure that any office for the Special Counsel has been ‘established by Law,’ as the Constitution requires.”

“If this unprecedented prosecution is to proceed, it must be conducted by someone duly authorized to do so by the American people,” Thomas wrote.

Thomas wants the lower courts to weigh in on whether Special Counsel Jack Smith is in fact “duly authorized.”

Under the Constitution’s appointment clause, which is key to ensuring the separation of powers, Congress creates offices, and either presidents fill them with the advice and consent of the Senate or, if Congress delegates them the authority, the president, “Courts of Law,” or “Heads of Departments” may appoint “inferior officers.”

This represented a break from and corrective to the British monarchy, under which, as Thomas recounts, quoting the Declaration of Independence, the king had “erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.”

Thomas makes a compelling case that Congress never created Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office. Even if it did, he asserts, Smith may well not be lawfully appointed to it. Historically, the legislative branch has created special and independent counsels by statute. Not so in the case of Special Counsel Smith. Attorney General Merrick Garland failed to identify any statute “that clearly creates” Smith’s office.

He did rely on “several statutes of a general nature” to justify Smith’s appointment, per the concurrence. However, Thomas found Garland’s use of 28 U.S.C. §509510515533 to justify that appointment to be dubious.

Sections 509 and 510, Thomas notes, deal with the attorney general’s general functions and “ability to delegate authority to ‘any other officer, employee, or agency.’”

Section 515, which deals with specially appointed attorneys, concerns those tabbed by the attorney general “under law,” suggesting, as Thomas says, “that such an attorney’s office must have already been created by some other law.”

Section 533 concerns the attorney general’s power to “appoint officials … to detect and prosecute crimes against the United States.” Whether or not “officials” are equivalent to “officers,” Thomas writes, “this provision would be a curious place for Congress to hide the creation of an office for a Special Counsel” since it falls within a chapter pertaining to the Federal Bureau of Investigations.

None of these statutes create an office for the special counsel, at least “not with the clarity typical of past statutes used for that purpose,” Thomas wrote.

Separately, he noted in a footnote, Congress has previously granted the attorney general power to appoint “additional officers” as he deems fit, but only to the Bureau of Prisons. This further suggests that the legislative branch circumscribed the appointment power and would have been apt to specify it if intended that the attorney general could appoint a special counsel like Jack Smith.

While presidents have appointed special prosecutors previously, and without pointing to a specific authorizing statute, Thomas concedes the Supreme Court has never ruled on the constitutionality of those appointments. He concludes:

Respecting the protections that the Constitution provides for the Office of the Presidency secures liberty. In that same vein, the Constitution also secures liberty by separating the powers to create and fill offices. And, there are serious questions whether the Attorney General has violated that structure by creating an office of the Special Counsel that has not been established by law. Those questions must be answered before this prosecution can proceed. We must respect the Constitution’s separation of powers in all its forms, else we risk rendering its protection of liberty a parchment guarantee. (Emphasis mine)

It is perhaps unlikely that Judge Tanya Chutkan, the presiding judge in the Jan. 6 case in which the presidential immunity question arose, will seriously weigh any challenge to Special Counsel Smith’s legitimacy.

Judge Aileen Cannon, however, who is overseeing Jack Smith’s classified documents case, has shown a willingness to check the Justice Department’s work. That seems more than prudent given the seeming abnormalities and defects in that prosecution and the zealousness that has led Smith to be smacked down by the Supreme Court historically, and in just the last two business days with the Fischer case, potentially wiping out of two of Smith’s four Jan. 6 charges. Now the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling eliminates meaningful portions of the indictment as grounds for prosecution.

Despite the court providing checks on Biden’s hyper-political and weaponized Justice Department, it remains remarkable that merely one justice stepped into the breach to raise his hand and demand the courts scrutinize the lawfulness of Smith’s office itself.

We ought to celebrate Thomas’ devotion to the Constitution and willingness to stand alone in its defense, but that he did so here is a reminder that the courts are no panacea. Ultimately, there is no substitute for vigorous legislative action to combat an administrative state run amok.