It was their final, most essential command

posted by M. Walter at American Thinker 

You are never, ever the good guy if you are for suffocating speech. Ever.

In order for what follows to make sense, we all need to stipulate this point.  Especially when you are being told to reject the evidence of your own eyes and ears and believe the lies you are being told.

History has proven it true:  if the people in power want to censor, punish, limit speech, they are always the bad guys.  Always.  There are simply no exceptions to this rule. In the 2,000 years of man being upright and organized into groups with a leader, however primitive, if the leader of the group wants to keep you from voicing an opinion, he’s a bad guy. Full stop. Period. No exceptions.  Free speech, like liberty writ large, is “the soul’s right to breathe,” as Henry Ward Beecher said.

So when I read in a July 1st Axios article that point four of Team Biden’s survival strategy was to “limit dissent” that caught my notice.

The Axios passage reads:

Limit dissent. Biden allies helped orchestrate the supportive tweets by former Presidents Clinton and Obama. Those happened after furious back-channeling by allies. Truth is, that was the easy part.

I doubt many of us are surprised, but to see it so plainly, well, they’re not even hiding it anymore. We see it as plainly as we see Joe Biden’s obvious physical and mental infirmities.

“Limit dissent”? From whom? Well, we’re reading from many sources that it’s a comprehensive Team Biden doctrine. Multiple legacy media sources are reporting: Jill Biden is shielding Joe Biden from anyone who might suggest he step aside. The Biden campaign is working the phones to keep Hill Democrats from saying anything about stepping aside publicly, even though many have said or implied exactly that privately.  And the Biden White House?  White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre hadn’t had a briefing in weeks and it took the better part of one of those weeks post-debate to get her behind the podium, finally, a few days ago.

According to Axios, “a massive political, PR and personal campaign is underway to reject calls for President Biden to drop his re-election race. …They’re unleashing the full power of the White House and top Democrats to resist the loud calls for him to give up the race.”

The article even tells you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears and “just believe” the good stuff they are telling you, as they try mightily to limit the bad. 

That’s the plan:

The bottom line: Biden's camp believes voters will give more weight to Biden's judgment and record than to his grandpa gait or fading debate dexterity. It's one of the greatest gambles in the history of politics. Once again, Biden's team is telling Democratic voters: You just have to believe.

“You just have to believe”? What? Your lying eyes? Your lying ears?

We are truly in Orwellian territory here.  Not even figuratively. Literally.  Team Biden’s “bottom line” might as well have been plagiarized. (It’s not like it would be the first time for Joe.)

From George Orwell’s book “1984”:

The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.

I mean … We’re over the rainbow here.  Click your heels and get back to Kansas, America.  Back where things are real, if you’re not already there, because this?  

This is Crazytown.

Trump throws a Clarence Thomas-sized wrench into Mar-a-Lago case after Supreme Court immunity ruling

Donald Trump wants to pause his classified documents case in Florida for several months so he can argue that his charges should be thrown out under the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on presidential “immunity.”

The former president’s attorneys also pointed to an opinion from Justice Clarence Thomas, who appeared to agree with Trump’s argument that special counsel Jack Smith was unconstitutionally appointed and funded — a claim at the center of Trump’s attempts to have the case dismissed.

 Trump throws a Clarence Thomas-sized wrench into Mar-a-Lago case after Supreme Court immunity ruling (msn.com)

Friday’s filings in the Mar-a-Lago case arrived just days after the Supreme Court declared that no president can be criminally prosecuted for any “official” act in the executive office, likely granting the former president some protection in his federal election interference case.

Trump now wants the judge in his classified documents case to hear arguments that he should be immune from those charges at some point between now and September, which would effectively grind the rest of Florida proceedings to a halt while they debate whether the Supreme Court’s ruling applies.

Trump’s attorneys separately argued that Thomas’s argument “adds force” to Trump’s claim that Smith’s appointment and funding is unconstitutional and raises “grave separation-of-powers concerns.”

Thomas wrote his own separate concurring opinion in the immunity decision to specifically take aim at the special counsel’s office, days after Trump’s attorneys made the same arguments to Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida.

The conservative justice went so far as to say that the federal judge overseeing Trump’s election interference case should reconsider whether Jack Smith was even lawfully appointed to the job, giving Trump and the judge presiding over Trump’s classified documents case more legal ammunition in his favor.

“If this unprecedented prosecution is to proceed, it must be conducted by someone duly authorized to do so by the American people,” Justice Thomas wrote. “The lower courts should thus answer these essential questions concerning the Special Counsel’s appointment before proceeding.”

The shocking decision on “immunity” from the nation’s high court has already been used to scramble Trump’s sentencing in New York, where a jury in May convicted him on all 34 counts of falsifying business records.

This week, Justice Juan Merchan agreed to delay his sentencing date by two months, giving Trump’s attorneys time to try and make their case that the verdict should be voided.

That case explicitly deals with Trump’s private actions, largely before he entered the White House, but some evidence from prosecutors — including conversations at the White House and testimony about his actions as president — could be off-limits, according to his attorneys.

Trump was scheduled to be sentenced on July 11. After the “immunity” decision, and pleas from Trump’s legal team, Judge Merchan postponed the sentencing date to September 18.

Trump faces 40 separate charges stemming from allegations that he withheld hundreds of classified documents after leaving the White House for his private Mar-a-Lago compound in Florida, then conspired to obstruct government attempts to retrieve them.

He has pleaded not guilty.

The Independent has always had a global perspective. Built on a firm foundation of superb international reporting and analysis, The Independent now enjoys a reach that was inconceivable when it was launched as an upstart player in the British news industry. For the first time since the end of the Second World War, and across the world, pluralism, reason, a progressive and humanitarian agenda, and internationalism – Independent values – are under threat. Yet we, The Independent, continue to grow.

And we Know, On the Fringe, and more- July 5th

 

They Lied to You

posted by Josh Hammer at Townhall 

Lying is certainly nothing new in politics. It is said that prostitution is the world's oldest profession, but politics is assuredly the dirtiest -- filthier even than garbageman, mortician or, well, the world's oldest profession itself.

Former President Bill Clinton (while we're on the topic of sexual promiscuity) perjured himself, leading to his impeachment. Former President Barack Obama, in what PolitiFact called its 2013 "Lie of the Year," promised that "if you like your health care plan, you can keep it." And on and on it goes.

The corporate media, whose 21st-century raison d'etre is propping up the Regime Party (Democrats) and punishing the Deplorable Party (Republicans), often joins the fray. The Russia-collusion delusion disinformation operation was laundered by Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign to seedy "intelligence" firm Fusion GPS and law firm Perkins Coie LLP. For years, the corporate media then dutifully pushed the false narrative. Indeed, it is unclear to this day whether MSNBC has ever read the Mueller report.

But after last Thursday's CNN presidential debate in Atlanta, in which President Joe Biden delivered a catastrophic performance for the ages, there is only one conclusion: The yearslong effort by Biden administration flunkies, Democratic Party poohbahs and pro-Regime media stenographers to forcefully deny Biden's obvious physical and mental decline will go down as the single greatest lie in American history.

And what an assiduous effort it was. For years, Democrats and the corporate media lied through their teeth about the blatant decline of the president's physical and mental faculties.

When Biden fell off a stationary bicycle in 2022, handlers brushed it off as no big deal. When Biden started wearing funny-looking tennis sneakers instead of dress shoes, presumably in order to stabilize his gait and prevent debilitating falls, aides informed us that Biden was just embracing a certain sartorial savviness.

When former Special Counsel Robert Hur declined to pursue charges against Biden due to the fact he "would likely present himself to a jury ... as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory," media apparatchiks denounced Hur as a "Trump plant" in the Justice Department. (Where is Hur's apology?)

After multiple videos emerged of Biden freezing, staring and wandering off, The New York Times called them "misleading"; the Biden White House dismissed them as "cheap fakes." The Wall Street Journal's recent story in which reporters interviewed 45 officials who expressed concern about Biden's senescence was excoriated as a "hit job."

All along the way, costly "gaffes" -- such as Biden inadvertently calling for regime change in Moscow during a March 2022 visit to Warsaw -- were simply chalked up to Uncle Joe being Uncle Joe. How dare you question hardscrabble Joe from Scranton: nothing to see here!

Anything -- anything -- to prevent the American people from learning the truth. Axios reported last Friday how "close aides have carefully shielded (Biden) from people inside and outside the White House since the beginning of his presidency." For Democrats and their media enablers, there can be no stone left unturned to protect their precious. The ends always justify the means, after all, just as Saul Alinsky taught.

The media's hubris in thinking it could get away with this is astounding. Biden is the president of the United States. His decline wasn't exactly a state secret, at least for anyone with functioning eyes and ears. This column two years ago, in lamenting Biden's "indications of a palpable senility," concluded that "[t]here is something very, very clearly wrong with the president of the United States."

Really, just how stupid do Democrats and the corporate media think we are? How long did they think they could get away with this gaslighting operation?

A Gallup poll last October revealed that 32% of Americans trust the corporate media either "a great deal" or "a fair amount." That seems far too high. These hacks deserve nothing but disgust and contempt.

Nor has the persistent media gaslighting for the past two to three years been a victimless crime. The collective victim is us: all of us. America is wildly insecure under the "leadership" of Biden. Xi Jinping is sure to move on Taiwan before year's end. Who knows what Xi's friends, from Pyongyang to Moscow to Tehran, might do. Who will stop them, after all?

The ultimate irony of it all? The massive lie and disinformation operation to obfuscate the president's decline has been perpetrated in the name of -- you guessed it -- "our democracy." The chutzpah!

"Democracy Dies in Darkness," reads The Washington Post's masthead slogan, conveniently adopted mere weeks after former President Donald Trump took office in 2017. Come again? We don't actually know who is running the country right now. It certainly isn't Uncle Joe. Now that is some serious "darkness."

Never forgive, and never forget, what these lying miscreants have done to us -- and to the republic.

🎭 𝐖𝟑𝐏 𝓓𝓐𝓘𝓛𝓨 𝓗𝓾𝓶𝓸𝓻, 𝓜𝓾𝓼𝓲𝓬, 𝓐𝓻𝓽, 𝓞𝓟𝓔𝓝 𝓣𝓗𝓡𝓔𝓐𝓓

Welcome to 

The 𝐖𝟑𝐏 𝓓𝓐𝓘𝓛𝓨 𝓗𝓾𝓶𝓸𝓻, 𝓜𝓾𝓼𝓲𝓬, 𝓐𝓻𝓽, 𝓞𝓟𝓔𝓝 𝓣𝓗𝓡𝓔𝓐𝓓 

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🌲Exciting news from Great American Family!

 

Source: https://itsawonderfulmovie.blogspot.com/2024/07/great-american-family-announces-new.html

I have some very exciting news, everyone, that will have you singing "Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle All the Way"!

Great American Family has announced Candace Cameron Bure will get a second Christmas movie on their network this year, and her co-star is fan-favorite, Cameron Mathison! See their movie title below.

Casey Elliott, who stars in the Destined at Christmas movies and is a member of the singing group Gentri, will also star in a Christmas movie for the network this year. His co-star is Kristin Wollet of County Rescue. See their movie title below.

And more good news, speaking of County Rescue, the television series that focuses on service to others and faith, will return to Great American Family next year in 2025!

Brittany Underwood and Jonathan Stoddard will be paired together again this holiday season in another royal-themed Christmas movie on Great American Family. Perhaps this is a sequel to their film last year, A Royal Christmas Holiday. See their new movie title below.

Also, two more Christmas movie titles were announced without names attached, yet, to these projects. See titles below.


New Great American Family Christmas Movies:

Jingle Bells, Wedding Bells

starring Candace Cameron Bure and Cameron Mathison

A Wreathmaker Christmas

starring Casey Elliott and Kristin Wollet

A Royal Christmas Ballet

starring Brittany Underwood and Jonathan Stoddard

Christmas in Scotland

starring ?

Little Women Christmas

starring ?

Stay tuned for more details! I'm sure Great American Family will provide more information on these movies during Christmas in July.

Also, I must say, I am rather excited to see Candace Cameron Bure and Cameron Mathison paired together for a new Christmas movie! I think they will be spectacular together, and I love that Candace is getting TWO Christmas movies on Great American Family this year. Even with all of Hallmark's talent, Lacey Chabert had two Christmas films last year for their channel, and I wouldn't be surprised if she also has two this year.

 
Also, I'm delighted to officially share that Casey Elliott will have a new Christmas movie on GFAM this year. We already know he will star in a third installment of the Destined at Christmas films next year with Shae Robins. I think Casey is such a wonderful actor and singer, and I'm beyond thrilled to see him return again this year! And, yes, I'm hoping we might hear him sing in this new movie, even if it's just a little!

As for the movie titles with no names attached, yet, I have some guesses, but we'll see. Trevor Donovan's Christmas movie has yet to be announced. Could one of these be his? Or, Jen Lilley, Jillian Murray, and so on???

Please share your thoughts in the comments below!

Have a Merry Day!

Net

Labour Wins Landslide Victory in UK Election

15 government ministers lost seats following a surge for Reform UK.

Sir Keir Starmer will become British prime minister, with Labour winning 412 seats in Parliament in a general election landslide victory.

ADDENDUM:

Keir Starmer was knighted in 2014 for his services to criminal justice. He received the honor for his work as the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) between 2008 and 2013.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/world/labour-win-landslide-victory-in-uk-election-5680160?utm_source=debrief_sample_paid&utm_campaign=WD_article_2024-07-05-ca&utm_medium=email&est=d73bkbFw2kptPNq%2FUJtKRUJlPhpp93dZUdgx9hJSwhiEedkvmymun2yddD9oKNNvkULO

All but two of the 650 seats have now been declared.

Labour gained 211 seats overall. In his victory speech, Sir Keir said: “We did it. Change begins now ... We are ready to restore Britain to the service of working people.”

The Labour Party passed the majority threshold of 326 at around 5 a.m. just after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak conceded defeat, having clung on to his own seat.

Mr. Sunak has led the Conservatives to a defeat which could see them win their lowest number of seats in the history of the party.

In 1997 the Tories were reduced to 165 seats, but their worst ever result was in 1906 when they won just 156 seats.

So far they have won only 121 seats.

Mr. Sunak, who held on to his own seat at Richmond and Northallerton, said at the count, “The British people have delivered a sobering verdict ... and I take responsibility for that.”

He said Labour had clearly won the election and he had already rung Sir Keir and congratulated him, and he also apologised to all the Tory candidates who lost.

The Labour leader told a crowd of cheering supporters, “a mandate like this comes with a great responsibility.”

Starmer Calls for ‘National Renewal’

Sir Keir said, “Our task is nothing less than renewing the ideas that hold this country together, national renewal, whoever you are, wherever you started in life, if you work hard, if you play by the rules, this country should give you a air chance to get on, it should always respect your contributions, and we have to restore that.”

Reform UK saw a surge in its vote, helping it to win four seats with leader Nigel Farage, in Clacton, and party Chairman Richard Tice, in Boston, both being elected.

The Green Party won more than a million votes nationwide and won three more seats, ousting Labour’s Thangam Debonnaire in Bristol Central, and gaining Waverley Valley and North Herefordshire from the Tories.

The Liberal Democrats have won 71 seats, while in Scotland the SNP lost heavily, with Labour gaining 37 seats off the Scottish nationalists.

The SNP’s leader at Westminster, Stephen Flynn, said the party’s candidates had been overcome by the “Starmer tsunami” and he said it was no reflection on them as people.

Other key results saw Jeremy Corbyn, who was ejected from the Labour Party after refusing to accept a key report on anti-Semitism under his leadership, retained his Islington North seat as an independent.

In Rochdale, George Galloway of the Workers’ Party lost the seat he won at a by-election earlier this year, with Labour’s Paul Waugh, a political journalist, winning back the seat.

Mordaunt Says ‘Democracy Is Never Wrong’

For the Tories, it was a massive turnaround since December 2019, when Boris Johnson won an 80-seat Conservative majority after promising to “get Brexit done.”

Among the Cabinet ministers losing their seats were the leader of the House of Commons, Penny Mordaunt, who said, “Democracy is never wrong.”

In her speech after losing Portsmouth North to Labour’s Amanda Martin, she said: “Tonight, the Conservative Party has taken a battering because it failed to honour the trust that people had placed in it. You can speak all you like of security and freedom, but you can’t have either if you are afraid.”

“Afraid about the cost-of-living or accessing health care, or whether the responsibility you shoulder will be recognised and rewarded. That fear steals the future, and it only makes the present matter and that is why we lost,” she added.

She also warned, “Our renewal as a party and a country will not be achieved by us talking to an ever smaller slice of ourselves but being guided by the people of our country.”

Defence Secretary Grant Shapps lost his seat in Welwyn Hatfield, as did Justice Secretary Alex Chalk in Cheltenham, and Education Secretary Michelle Keegan in Chichester.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt hung on to his seat in Godalming and Ash by just 891 votes.

Mr. Hunt described it as a “crushing victory” and said the Tories needed to have the “humility” to ask themselves what they had done wrong.

He wished the Labour government well and said he hoped they would be able to make the reforms to the NHS, which “the Conservative Party often finds difficult to do.”

Home Secretary James Cleverly also retained his seat after what he described as a “painful” night for the Conservatives.

In a rare setback for Labour, shadow paymaster general Jonathan Ashworth lost in Leicester South to an independent, Shockat Adam, who stood on a strongly pro-Palestinian platform.

This article has being updated with latest seat declaration numbers, and will be updated further.

PA Media contributed to this report.

Harriet Hagemen Eviscerates Joe Biden and the Pretending all Around Him

Sundance reporting for Conservative Treehouse 

Harriet Hageman is on my personal short list of people I hope President Trump is considering for vice president.

During a recent interview Hageman shows she is not going along with the pretending.  Every word about Joe Biden and the length of time the issues have been visible is correct and accurate. “Who is running our country?” WATCH:

The full interview is below:

On “Forbes Newsroom,” Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY) reacted to President Biden’s debate performance with alarm, slamming the press for its coverage of Biden, questioning who is running the U.S., and whether she supports invoking the 25th Amendment.

Meanwhile in Delaware: The Battle of 'Supplemental Authority' Rages On in Hunter Biden's Gun Case

Susie Moore reporting for RedState 

The June conviction of First Son Hunter Biden on gun charges in federal court in Delaware came as a surprise not because the evidence didn't seem to support his guilt but because of the venue and his last name. 

That a jury of 12 of Hunter's "peers" unanimously opted to hold him accountable for lying on a federal firearms form to procure a gun he was prohibited from possessing due to his ongoing drug/addiction issues carried some added schadenfreude in two respects: 1) it came just weeks after former President Donald Trump, his father's chief political opponent, was convicted in Manhattan on specious business fraud charges; 2) his father has long been one of the loudest proponents of "gun control" and measures like the very statutes under which Hunter convicted.

And in a rather ironic legal twist, some recent legal rulings from the very Supreme Court that President Joe Biden has repeatedly railed against for being "extremist" may wind up aiding in Hunter's efforts to overturn his conviction. 

As we reported previously, the day after the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Snyder v. United States, Hunter's legal team filed a "Notice of Supplemental Authority" in the Delaware District Court where he was convicted and where Judge Maryellen Noreika is considering his Motion(s) for Acquittal and Motion for New Trial. Their argument is essentially that a similar analysis of the statutory language under which Biden was charged raises the same issues as the Supreme Court found in Snyder, namely that the language is vague and fails to give "fair notice" to a would-be defendant as to what specific conduct is prohibited by the statute. 

---

Hunter Biden's Legal Team Makes Swift Use of Supreme Court Decision

---

Following that, on July 1, the prosecution filed its response to Biden's Notice of Supplemental Authority, in which it contended that "The Supreme Court’s decision in Snyder has no connection to the factual or legal issues before this Court." Further, the prosecution contends, Biden waived his right to raise the issue of vagueness by failing to raise it in his initial Motion for Acquittal. 

Then, on July 2, the prosecution filed its own Notice of Supplemental Authority, in which it notes that the Supreme Court has now vacated and remanded the Fifth Circuit's ruling in United States v. Daniels (on which Biden relied "extensively" in his Motion for Acquittal) for further consideration in light of the Court's recent ruling in United States v. Rahimi. 

While the Fifth Circuit held, in Daniels, that § 922(g)(3) (the same provision under which Hunter was convicted) was unconstitutional as applied to a recreational marijuana user, the Supreme Court's order remanding the case indicates "that the Fifth and Third circuits incorrectly applied this standard and provide additional support for the conclusion that § 922(g)(3) is constitutional as applied to the defendant in this case," per the Government. 

But wait — there's more! On July 3, Hunter's team responded to the Government's Notice of Supplemental Authority, essentially pooh-poohing the significance of the Supreme Court's granting of certiorari, then vacating and remanding lower court decisions on related issues. Hunter's lawyers insist that these aren't decisions on the merits and further point out that several other "GVRs" issued by the Court on the same day involved lower court decisions that had, in fact, rejected Second Amendment claims. They criticize the Government's expansive reading of Rahimi and, for added measure, point out that this seems to run counter the Supreme Court's decision in Bruen.

The Special Counsel’s suggestion that Rahimi, coupled with the GVRs, means Section 922(g)(3) is close enough to the Founding Era precedents identified in Rahimi to be upheld tracks the very argument that was rejected in New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022). Rahimi and Bruen are bookends to the relevance of Founding Era surety laws.

So, at this point, we have a rolling gun battle (figuratively speaking and no pun intended, of course) between Joe Biden's Department of Justice, which is trying to uphold a conviction of his son under gun control measures of the sort Joe Biden has long championed, and his son's legal team, which is zealously championing the Second Amendment. And they are using recent rulings from the Supreme Court Joe Biden has repeatedly excoriated as ammo. 

Ya gotta love American jurisprudence!