Trump Needs to Pardon All the J6 Political Prisoners on Day One

posted by Kurt Schlichter at Townhall 

I, for one, am delighted that alleged President Joe Biden pardoned his scumbag, perverted, drug-addled corrupto-kid. I might as well be because there’s not anything I can do about it. We all knew this was coming. We knew it from the beginning. We especially knew it when Joe Biden promised he wouldn’t do it. That made it a certainty. And now we get to watch the amazing contortions of the all-star leftist yogis twisting themselves into positions unfathomable by the human mind in order to justify it. It’s great to see them humiliating themselves.

It’s not great because it’s yet another blow to the rule of law. The rule of law has been beaten worse than Michael Cera getting in the ring with a prime Mike Tyson after talking bad about his mama. There is no rule of law, and therefore there is no point in being outraged over this latest outrage. It was inevitable. It was always going to happen. And then it did happen, and now we should take advantage of it.

How do we take advantage of it? I’m glad you asked. On January 20, 2025, President Donald J. Trump should pardon every single J6 defendant.

All of them.

Every single one.

He shouldn’t do it because Joe Biden pardoned his scumbag spawn – that just provides us ammo to fire against the critics. He should do it because these patriots were framed and subjected to a two-tier justice system by the Woke Stasi that evolved out of Inspector Erskine’s once legendary FBI, as well as the Department of Justice, whose name itself is a lie. If you nearly burned down Washington DC, Portland, or one of the other cities torched after that drug-addicted dirtbag vapor-locked while resisting arrest, you got a free pass. You didn’t go to jail for more than five minutes before getting out with a ticket, which was then dismissed. In fact, many of these leftist rioters got paid cash settlements by the government. But if you wandered around the Capitol – which belongs to you, by the way, and not to the pols and potentates of Congress or the establishment – you got sent to prison on shaky legal theories after being tortured in the DC dungeons. You got special treatment – especially harsh, unfair and unequal treatment.  

It's unacceptable to allow the weaponized feds to persecute patriots on our side of the aisle on behalf of the Dems, meaning we can’t accept it. They don’t get to win. There can be but one standard, and they chose it when they let their associates, allies, and fellow travelers go unpunished. So must the persecuted patriots of J6.

Trump must pardon every J6 defendant on Day One. All of them. Every single one of them. No exceptions, except for the collaborators. The people working for the FBI and narcing on the patriots should get nothing. The likes of Ray Epps – whatever his situation is since he denies being a tool of the feds even though he somehow got a sweetheart deal compared to other people – should get nothing. But everybody else? Pardoned.

If you walked through the Capitol, pardoned.

If you and a bunch of friends rolled out Nancy Pelosi’s massive liquor cabinet, pardoned.

If you threw fists with flatfoots, pardoned.

I don’t care what the feds claim they did – they didn’t get treated the same as leftists, and the leftists got a pass, and therefore so must the J6 people

Pardon all of them. 

Every single one of them.

You cannot let injustice persist. It was an injustice to turn the full force of the federal government against these people with the specific intent of unequally punishing them for supporting Donald Trump and for questioning the establishment, as well as attempting to scare people out of dissenting in the future. Federal law enforcement deserves absolutely no default to an assumption of good faith, zero benefit of the doubt, and absolutely no credit for its claims. It has disgraced itself. This can’t be rewarded or it will be repeated. The Democrats and their allies must not be allowed to win. Winning means theirs walk, ours suffer. Hard pass on that.

To allow to stand even one of these fraudulent and disgusting convictions, obtained in a city that’s 95% Democrat in front of judges who displayed what observers characterize as outrageous bias against the accused, ensures that this travesty of selective persecution will happen again. So, the accused all need to be pardoned. Every single one of them. Now, a lot of soft Republicans – but I repeat myself – will scream and yell and cry like the little sissies they are. The President should tell them to shut the hell up. It’s time to grow a spine. It’s time to take a stand for what’s right. Our people were kidnapped at gunpoint, dragged into filthy cells, and kept locked up without bail for years before facing biased juries and charges that have never been brought against anybody else – in fact, the Supreme Court tossed one of the prosecutors’ creative new theories. But, as the persecutors well knew, the process of fighting it was punishment. They wanted to intimidate us. They have failed. And now everything they did must be undone.

This was a grave injustice, and it cannot stand. Donald Trump would be cowardly not to use his pardon power to begin undoing it. But the pardon is only the first step towards partially righting these wrongs. There must be accountability. President Trump should formally apologize on behalf of the government of the United States for this outrageous and disgusting campaign of law-enforcement terror against Americans for daring to dissent. The perpetrators must be fired, and prosecuted if they violated the law. And then, President Trump should direct that his reformed Department of Justice begin settling the legitimate claims of outrageous law enforcement actions and prosecutorial misconduct.

Did you know that the FBI liars who were fired under Donald Trump sued and the Biden administration settled their crappy lawsuits for millions of dollars instead of fighting them? Well, the new rules are the new rules. It’s time to settle the J6 defendants’ legitimate civil rights claims for millions of dollars each. They were held without bail. Government flunkies abused them in jail and out – oh, and those scumbags need to be investigated and prosecuted, including the guy who shot Ashli Babbitt. They were overcharged. They were charged with crimes that were not crimes by prosecutors who used statutes that didn’t apply in an effort to find some way to lock them up for decades. The feds asked for far too much time for what alleged crimes there were. And the government should pay. 

When I say pay, I mean millions of dollars. I’ve done civil litigation for 30 years. These people would be compensated to the tune of millions of dollars each if anyone else besides the federal government inflicted that kind of abuse on them. You can’t give back years of their lives. You can’t resurrect the people who have committed suicide, but you can pay the victims or their heirs. And you can set a precedent so the federal government will never do this again.

Hunter Biden was always going to be pardoned because Joe Biden was always a crook. The J6 defendants – as well as the abortion protesters, crypto bros, school board moms, and social media dissenters persecuted by the disgraceful Department of Justice and other disgraceful federal agencies, must be made whole. They deserve at least what Hunter Biden got.

Pardon them all.

Apologize to them all.

Pay them all.

And then prosecute all their prosecutors.

X22, And we Know, and more- Dec 6

 

Will Trump really end the Ukraine war in 24 hours?

posted by Edward Lozansky at American Thinker 

The list of Trump’s team members is long, so let’s concentrate on a short list of “troika” candidates who deal with foreign affairs and national security, starting with secretary of state Marco Rubio.

As vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and a Committee on Foreign Relations member, Rubio often warns that China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are increasingly partnering against the United States.  “They all share one goal, and that is, they want to weaken America, weaken our alliances, weaken our standing and our capability and our will,” he said in a recent speech.  However, he sees Russia as an “acute five-year or ten-year problem, while China is a 100-year problem.”

When nominating Mike Waltz as his new national security adviser, Trump said that Waltz is a “nationally recognized leader in national security, and an expert on the threats posed by China, Russia, Iran, and global terrorism.....and will be a tremendous champion of our pursuit of Peace through Strength!” 

Waltz said this during his recent interview on National Public Radio about ending the war in Ukraine: “First and foremost, you would enforce the actual energy sanctions on Russia.  Russia is essentially a gas station with nukes, so that will get Putin to the table.  We have leverage, like taking the handcuffs off of the long-range weapons we provided Ukraine as well.”

Trump also picked retired Army lt. gen. Keith Kellogg, former vice president Mike Pence’s national security adviser, as his special envoy to Ukraine and Russia.  “Keith has led a distinguished military and business career, including serving in highly sensitive national security roles in my first administration.  He was with me right from the beginning,” Trump said on his Truth Socialaccount.  “Together, we will secure peace through strength and make America and the world safe again.”

Trump didn’t say that Kellogg was a top security aide to Pence.  Well, it was Pence who forced the firing of Trump’s national security adviser, General Michael Flynn, on February 13, 2017 — i.e., only 22 days after Flynn was sworn in for this position.  Flynn shared and took Trump’s strategic goal of “getting along with Russia” seriously, and had he kept this job, he could have helped Trump to withstand the pressure from the Deep State and perpetrators of the “Russia Gate” scandal that ruined his presidency.

As for Kellogg, he and Fred Fleitz, who served in the National Security Council during the first Trump administration, proposed resolving the crisis by putting pressure on both sides: “Ukraine would only get more American weapons if it entered peace talks, while the Kremlin would be told that any refusal to negotiate would increase U.S. support for Ukraine.”  This sounds like an ultimatum, and Putin is not known for yielding to threats.  So where do we stand?

During his presidential campaign, Trump pledged that if he won, he would end the war within 24 hours, even before moving into the White House.  This didn’t happen, and moreover, the fighting kept escalating.  So one would assume the real action would start after January 20, 2025, but the team he has chosen to fulfill this pledge does raise mixed feelings.  

In addition, the lame-duck Biden administration still has about seven weeks to ruin Trump’s peace plans.  Biden has sped up new financial and military aid to Ukraine and wants Congress to authorize an additional $24 billion to keep the war going.  Whether Congress passes this bill would be a litmus test for the Republican majority.

There continue to be vast partisan differences, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted Nov. 12–17.  Republicans are far more likely than Democrats to say the United States is providing too much support to Ukraine (42% vs. 13%).  Republicans are also far less likely than Democrats to say the U.S. has a responsibility to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia (36% vs. 65%).  Also, Republicans and Republican-leaning independents have long been less likely than Democrats and Democrat-leaners to see Russia’s invasion as a major threat to U.S. interests.  And this partisan gap has grown.  Just 19% of Republicans now say the invasion is a major threat, compared with 42% of Democrats.

According to Gallup, the majority of Ukrainians, after more than two years of grinding conflict, would like to see their country negotiate an end to the war as soon as possible.  However, the Biden administration is pushing Ukraine to lower its minimum draft age from 25 to 18 to provide more cannon fodder for the war. 

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AUKUS risks are piling up. Australia must prepare to build French SSNs instead

 

Australia should start planning for acquisition of at least 12 submarines of the French Suffren design. The current AUKUS plan for eight nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs) has always been flawed, and now its risks are piling up.

We should go ahead with naval-operational aspects of the AUKUS SSN plan, such as supporting US and British submarines when they come to Australia. But for the acquisition effort, we should be ready to drop the plan to buy eight SSNs under AUKUS—three from the US that Washington is increasingly unlikely to supply, and five that are supposed to be built to an oversized British design and probably can’t arrive on time.

Instead, we would commence a joint Franco-Australian construction program for a greater number of submarines of the Suffren class, a design that is already in service with the French navy.

To ensure deliveries could begin as early as 2038, the Australian government that’s elected next year should commit to deciding in 2026 whether to switch to the French design.

Even if the AUKUS acquisition plan succeeds, it will deliver a questionable capability. The submarines’ designs would be a mix of two blocks of Virginia-class submarines, more than 14 years apart in design, and yet-to-be-designed SSN-AUKUS using Britain’s yet-to-be-tested PWR3 reactor. Moreover, SSN-AUKUS would be partly built by the underperforming British submarine enterprise that’s under great pressure to deliver the Royal Navy’s next class of ballistic missile submarines.  

Displacing more than 10,000 tonnes, SSN-AUKUS submarines will be too big for Australia’s needs. Their size will increase their detectability, cost and crews. (The large size appears to be driven by the dimensions of the reactor.)

The Royal Australian Navy is already unable to crew its ships and grow to meet future demands. It will have great difficulty in crewing Virginias, which need 132 people each, and SSN-AUKUS boats, too, if their crews equal the 100-odd needed for the current British Astute class.

We have yet to see a schedule for the British design process, nor does a joint design team   seem to have been established. In the absence of news that milestones have been achieved or even set, it is highly likely that the SSN-AUKUS program, like the Astute program, will run late and deliver a first-of-class boat with many problems. Knowing that Britain’s Strategic Defence Review is grappling with serious funding shortfalls hardly instils confidence.

Also, eight SSNs will be enough to maintain deployment of only one or two at any time, not enough for an effective deterrent. The difficulty in training crews and building up experience in three designs of submarines would add to the obvious supply chain challenges in achieving an operational force.  

Achieving even this inadequate capability is growing less likely. Reports at the recent US Navy Submarine League Symposium reveal continuing US failure to increase submarine building rates. By now an additional submarine should have been ordered to cover the transfer of an existing Block IV Virginia to Australia in eight years, but no contract has been placed. Worse, Virginia production at both US submarine shipbuilders is actually slowing due to supply chain delays. The US’s top priority shipbuilding program, for Columbia class ballistic-missile submarines, continues to suffer delays. In late November, the White House requested emergency funding from Congress for the Virginia and Columbia programs.

This situation flags an increasing likelihood that, despite its best efforts, the US Navy will be unable to spare any Virginias for sale to Australia. The president of the day probably will be unable, as legislation requires, to certify 270 days before the transfer it will not degrade US undersea capabilities.

Meanwhile, Britain’s submarine support establishment is having difficulties in getting SSNs to sea. A recent fire affecting the delivery of the final Astute class SSN can only add to these woes.

The French Suffren SSN class was the reference design for the diesel Attack class that Australia intended to buy before switching to SSNs. It offers the solution to our AUKUS problems. It is in production by Naval Group, with three of the planned six submarines commissioned in the French navy. 

At 5300 tonnes and with a 70-day endurance, capacity for 24 torpedoes or missiles, four torpedo tubes and a crew of 60, it would be cheaper to build, own and crew than the AUKUS boats. The design is flexible—optimised for anti-submarine warfare but with a good anti-surface ship capability from dual-purpose torpedoes and anti-ship cruise missiles. It can also carry land-attack cruise missiles, mines and special forces.

The Suffren class uses low-enriched uranium fuel and needs refuelling every 10 years, whereas the US and British designs, with highly enriched uranium, are intended never to be refuelled. But the Suffren reactor is designed to simplify refuelling, which could be completed during a scheduled refit in Australia. Used fuel can be reprocessed, simplifying decommissioning at the end of life.

True, the Suffren design does not have the weapon load, vertical launch missile tubes or 90-day endurance of the Virginia and, presumably, SSN-AUKUS. However, as a nuclear-powered relative of the Attack class it is much closer to the original Australian requirement for a replacement for the Collins class than SSN-AUKUS is shaping up to be. The design offers adequate capability for Australia’s needs in a package we can afford to own. We could operate 12 Suffrens and still need fewer crew members than we would under the AUKUS plan. 

If we shifted to the Suffren design, we should nonetheless stick with the SSN training programs we’ve arranged with the US Navy and Royal Navy. We should also go ahead with establishing an intermediate repair facility that would support their SSNs as well as ours and with rotating them through Western Australia.

As for the AUKUS acquisition plan, we need to begin preparations now for jointly building Suffrens with France. Australia cannot wait for the US to finally say Virginias will be unavailable.

To the extent that design needs changing, we can go back to the work done for the Attack class, particularly incorporation of a US combat system and Australian standards.

Difficult, challenging and politically courageous? Surely. But not nearly as improbable getting SSNs under AUKUS on time.  

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/aukus-risks-are-piling-up-australia-must-prepare-to-build-french-ssns-instead/

Tucker Interviews Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow

posted  by  Sundance  at  CTH 

First things first, Tucker Carlson deserves enormous credit for gaining reentry into Russia during a time when Russia has essentially locked down their entry visa process. This was not a simple task, and Tucker’s motives for doing so are accepted without immediate reservation. As the only other American I know who has navigated this dynamic, congratulations Tucker.

There have been no diplomatic channels used by the U.S. government toward Russia for over two years. Literally, all talks between government officials and emissaries have been severed for the past two years. As I have said before, this is a very dangerous dynamic.

That said, this conversation does not take place without the intent of Russia, specifically President Vladimir Putin and his Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov from wanting this conversation to take place. Without any doubt this is a public message, a direct and intentional communication, intended to reach a U.S. audience much deeper than the average American viewer. Perhaps an audience of one. Again, great job.  WATCH:

Chapters:
0:00 Is the US at War With Russia?
12:56 Russia’s Message to the West Through Hypersonic Weapons
17:47 Is There Conversation Happening Between Russia and the US?

23:18 How Many Have Died in the Ukraine/Russia War?
28:21 What Would It Take To End the War?
36:11 What Happened to Alexei Navalny?
39:45 Boris Johnson Wants the War to Continue
45:43 Sanctions on Russia
56:31 The Chinese/Russian Alliance
1:02:18 Who Is Making Foreign Policy Decisions in the US?
1:05:05 Biden Pushes the US Toward Nuclear War Before Trump Takes Office
1:08:52 What’s Happening in Syria?
1:13:08 Lavrov’s Thoughts on Trump

One of the things that separates Russians from their eastern European counterparts, is their keen ability to detect and dismiss bullshit. If you watch Russian engagement, from either inside or outside of Russia, their non pretending is truly an artform. Even the silent space between their words is something remarkable to watch.

Vladimir Putin has a weapon the “west” cannot defend against.  It’s not part of his physical military armament, it’s far more powerful.  Putin has the truth as a weapon.

The western group must pretend they didn’t carry out a color revolution in Ukraine.  The western group must also pretend they didn’t install Volodymyr Zelenskyy.  The western group must also pretend there was not a civil war happening inside Ukraine for a decade, and the western group must pretend they didn’t try to provoke Vladimir Putin with expansions of NATO and an intentional breaking of the Minsk accords.  There are other pretenses that must be maintained, but those are the top ones.

Into this grand game of pretenses comes President Donald Trump, not exactly the best pretender (by choice) and Vladimir Putin not only knows this, but he also respects this Trump attribute of honesty in problem solving.

Keep in mind, President Putin watched how President Trump dealt with the “North Korea threat” problem that was left to him by President Obama.  Putin watched how Trump negotiated an exit to escalating conflict by honesty confronting China, the true hand on the puppet strings of the DPRK.

Putin saw in that North Korea geopolitical dynamic that President Trump dealt with Kim Jong-un with a brutally honest strategy that encompassed the influence of China.  While Putin is more allied currently with China, he knows President Trump cuts through the gordian knot woven by western interventionists.  Trump cuts through the gordian knot with honest and pragmatic policy.

As a result of this dynamic, everyone around President Trump, including the National Security Council, his National Security Advisor (Waltz), his CIA Director (Ratcliffe), and his State Dept Secretary (Rubio), all have to maintain the “western” pretenses that were/are cemented by the people and silos they replace.

The larger American government, sans President Trump, have to maintain all the aforementioned pretenses, in part because the Intelligence Community and the USA media support it, and in part because it would weaken the USA on the global stage to ever make honest admissions about our control of Ukraine.  And yes, that pretending dynamic includes Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg who President Trump appointed as special envoy for Russia and Ukraine.

Vladimir Putin’s strongest weapon is the truth.  Vladimir Putin also knows the auto-setting on President Trump’s psyche of problem solving, ie ‘optimal solutions’, is also centered on truth.

The proverbial $64,000 question: How does truthful President Trump deal with truthful President Putin, while all around the office of the White House are people who only know how to maintain pretenses?

That my friends, is going to be a very interesting dynamic to watch.

One way President Trump could gain back the power of not pretending is to: (1) request an immediate ceasefire; then (2) tell the CIA (Ratcliffe) to immediately withdraw all CIA operatives from Ukraine; then (3) tell Secretary Marco Rubio to pull all USAID operatives out of Ukraine; then (4) tell Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy he must hold a national election within 60 days.

If the U.S and NATO pull all of the control agents out of Ukraine and hold an election, the result will highlight the will of the Ukranian people to retain Volodymyr Zelenskyy.  If Zelenskyy wins, then he is in a stronger position.  If he loses, then he was never strong to begin with, and he’s the wrong person to be negotiating with.

Calling for an election in Ukraine is a radical approach because I think we all know what the outcome would be.  Then again, that’s the problem with pretending, when you stop you have to accept the transparently predictable forecast.

In the interim, President Putin has the truth as a weapon, and President Trump is going to have to find a way to deal with it while everyone around him maintains pretenses.

My money is on President Trump finding an optimal solution, just like he did in North Korea. It will certainly be interesting to watch.

UMich ends required DEI statements in hiring — but stops short of cutting funds to DEI programs

 Jennifer Kabbany - Fix Editor •December 5, 2024

https://www.thecollegefix.com/umich-ends-required-dei-statements-in-hiring-but-stops-short-of-cutting-funds-to-dei-programs/

The College Fix

The University of Michigan on Thursday announced it will no longer require diversity statements in faculty hiring, promotion and tenure decisions — but several members of its Board of Regents at their monthly meeting denied reports they plan to cut DEI spending at this time.

In announcing the decision on diversity statements by Provost Laurie McCauley, campus leaders pointed out that most faculty surveyed “agreed that diversity statements put pressure on faculty to express specific positions on moral, political or social issues.”

The top-down decision means different departments can no longer formulate their own rules on diversity statements, as had been the practice.

“Critics of diversity statements perceive them as expressions of personal identity traits, support of specific ideology or opinions on socially-relevant issues, and serve as a ‘litmus test’ of whether a faculty member’s views are politically acceptable,” according to a faculty working group. “Thus, as currently enacted, diversity statements have the potential to limit viewpoints and reduce diversity of thought among faculty members.”

As for the DEI funding issue, some “regents have indicated they are likely to seek cuts to the school’s large D.E.I. bureaucracy to offset the expansion, though those decisions will not be finalized until Michigan formulates its next annual budget,” the New York Times reported.

At least two regents said rumors that there are plans to make major cuts at Thursday’s meeting to the institution’s DEI spending are false.

But the rumors had prompted protests — including one outside the meeting room Thursday. Several speakers during public comment implored the board to retain DEI programs, calling them an important and vital safety net and support for students of color.

Keith Riles, a longtime physics professor at the University of Michigan, is the one person who spoke against DEI during public comment, calling it a “particularly toxic form of affirmative action because of its relentless focus on grievance ideology.”

He also accused the Board of Regents of allowing on campus a variety of illegal programs that purposely overlook white and Asian males to favor of other identity groups.

He told the regents “this university is one lawsuit away from another humiliating trip to the U.S. or perhaps Michigan Supreme Court. … All it takes is one person with legal standing, and I suspect there are several hundred if not thousands who have that legal standing.”

Riles told the regents they are culpable because they “signed off on these programs, including the $15 million-plus per year that is squandered on the salaries of DEI administrators who collectively have done more harm than good.”

Riles is one of many critics of the university’s behemoth, $250 million 10-year-old DEI bureaucracy. Earlier this year, The Fix reported that UMich employs nearly 250 employees focused on DEI with payroll costs exceeding $30 million annually. UMich DEI efforts have included a DEI manager for its botanical garden and a $100,000 hip-hop performance party for its DEI 2.0 launch.

Regent Sarah Hubbard on Sunday had told Fox News that the Board of Regents will consider cutting diversity, equity, and inclusion hiring practices and programming after its DEI efforts have faced intense “scrutiny.”

Hubbard posted on X on Thursday that the university is “making moves in the right direction to signal to the world we’re open for business for students and families from all walks of life.”

“We’re removing barriers to diversity of thought and I expect this will bring more points of view to our faculty. This sends a message to everyone about our need to be intentional regarding a variety of opinions on issues of the day,” she wrote.

MORE: UMich regent: Board re-thinking DEI statements, programs after intense ‘scrutiny’

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