Europe's Financial Suicide

American  Thinker 

Another devastating package of sanctions for Russia is in the works, the nineteenth one, crafted by the bureaucrats in Brussels.

Europe continues to cut off its last remaining ties with the Russian economy.

It is doing so publicly and on principle.

But sanctions don't work, not generally, and not in the long term.

The latest package bans European cooperation with Russian oil and gas companies, financial institutions, and specific banks.  

This approach is loud, menacing, and ineffective. You can ban Russian energy companies and prohibit doing business with them in Europe, but they have already mostly repositioned themselves in other markets.  

Due to the loss of inexpensive Russian raw materials, the price of European goods has increased, and their competitiveness will likely continue to decline.

The mounting economic challenges facing the European Union are a clear indication of this trend.  

The impact of the current European sanctions on Russian banks and financial institutions is minimal as well. Any painful measures Brussels could have taken have already been taken. The key issue here is the frozen Russian financial assets in Euroclear that Europeans are trying to exploit.  

For Brussels, there's a sort of charm of frozen assets.

Backed by France, Germany, and several other EU countries, the European Commission's latest scheme aims to provide Kyiv with €140 billion in frozen Russian assets.

However, this plan carries unprecedented risks. Essentially, it is a poorly disguised form of expropriation.  

Proponents of the plan argue that it is a loan to Ukraine, secured by the assets' value. Technically, the EU does not dispute Moscow's ownership.

Nevertheless, investors remain unconvinced. The world of big money is built on predictability and a set of widely accepted rules based on the protection of property rights.  

Confiscating Russian assets would damage the reputation of European financial institutions. Amid growing macroeconomic pressure on key countries, the EU will scare away those who wish to keep their money in Europe. This will primarily affect countries in Asia and the Middle East.  

While these problems may have remained Europe's alone, the EU's actions could still directly harm America.  

The devil is in the specifics.

The total amount of frozen Euroclear Russian assets is 258 billion euros. Of that, 55 billion euros are assets of the Moscow National Settlement Depository, which was sanctioned in 2022. Another 10 billion euros are held by Russian banks whose depositors are not primarily on sanctions lists.    

The largest portion, around 193 billion euros, consists of immobilized transactions belonging to the Russian central bank.

Many of these are transfers to Western counterparties, including American ones. For example, there is a 2.25 billion euro deposit that is set to be returned to JPMorgan Chase.

Unsurprisingly, Moscow's counterparts in most cases prefer to keep a low profile and are not eager to loudly defend their rights.  

Another issue is the legality of such actions.

In September 2023, the European Union court ruled that individuals not on sanctions lists are entitled to the return of their assets.

However, the Belgian Treasury still refuses to comply with this decision, citing the need to ensure the EU's financial security.  

This creates a legal conflict and the basis for numerous lawsuits against the Belgian government. The Belgian Council of State is already considering over 200 similar claims. Naturally, the authorities are doing everything they can to slow down the review and execution process. Nevertheless, the investors who were robbed are unlikely to abandon their property claims.  

If the European Commission implements its proposed plan to seize some of Russia's frozen assets, Europe will face systemic consequences. Investors will question the security of their portfolios, and the euro, which has accounted for around 20 percent of global reserves in recent years, will lose its global influence.  

Rising political risks will make European assets less attractive, raising borrowing costs and hindering long-term investment opportunities. The success of the Capital Markets Union, which is critical to Europe's future, will be called into question.  

However, these unprecedented actions by Europe will directly damage the U.S. dollar.

Given all this, it's clear that the use of the dollar in international transactions will continue to decline. Gold will definitely become more important, as will other currencies. Central banks will seek more neutral jurisdictions in which to place reserves. An increasing number of foreign companies are demanding that their U.S. counterparts settle contracts in currencies other than the dollar.  

Additionally, the reputation of Western financial institutions will suffer, which will negatively impact the global economy.

If losing face is something Europeans are used to, then the unnecessary risks that Brussels and its partners are pushing Washington to take should be avoided.

In particular, it is fully understood by Beijing that similar actions may be taken against China in the future. This is particularly crucial in the context of the ongoing intensification of the trade and economic tensions between China and the United States.  

Xi Jinping has already demonstrated his willingness to escalate the situation by imposing strict restrictions on the supply of rare earth metals and magnets. Further escalating the trade war and beginning a tough financial confrontation with China hardly serves American interests.  

American interests have to come first.

Similar assessments of the consequences of confiscating Russian assets were made in 2023 by Robert J. Shiller, the 2013 Nobel Prize laureate in economics and a professor at Yale University.  

Schiller made it clear that transferring frozen Russian assets to Ukraine would weaken the dollar's position as the world's reserve currency and accelerate the de-dollarization of the global economy.  

Even at the height of the Cold War, the West did not seriously consider plans to confiscate USSR assets due to the risks of losing control.  

However, Europe's bold plan signals that the international financial system is entering a new era in which political expediency trumps legal principles.  

The U.S. must ensure that Europe's financial recklessness does not harm America's financial health.

Entertainment and podcast thread for Oct 29

 

You are bigger then your fears.

Arctic Frost Docs Expose Breadth Of Biden DOJ’s Weaponization

 

There could be no valid reason for such a widespread probe other than to destroy not just Trump, but anyone within six-degrees of separation.

More than 150 individuals in Trump’s orbit faced scrutiny by the FBI after Biden’s attorney general approved the opening of an investigation related to the Trump campaign’s use of alternative electors. Documents released Tuesday by the House Judiciary Committee reveal that during the Biden Administration, the FBI used the Arctic Frost investigation to target Republicans in key battleground states, raising serious questions concerning whether the Democrat-led DOJ plotted with state prosecutors to bring criminal charges against Trump supporters.

“Arctic Frost investigators utilized FBI field offices from across the country to conduct its investigation,” the House Judiciary Committee explained in releasing nearly 200-pages of internal emails on Tuesday. The investigators also sought more than $16,000 in travel expenses to interview more than 40 individuals, according to the House committee. The documents contained a list of a veritable who’s who of players in the 2020 election, including Steve Bannon, Scott Perry, Rudolph Giuliani, Jeffrey Clark, John Eastman, Mark Meadows, Peter Navarro, Dan Scavino, Jeff Rosen, and Ed Martin.

Tuesday’s document dump follows news from last week that in early April of 2022, then-FBI Director Christopher Wray sought approval to launch Arctic Frost as a “full investigation.” In a memorandum drafted for Attorney General Merrick Garland, Wray claimed that “fraudulent certificates of electors’ votes were submitted to the Archivist of the United States” for Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin. Director Wray claimed the Washington Field Office concluded there were “specific and articulable facts that individuals, both known and unknown, engaged in a conspiracy to obstruct Congress’s certification of the Electoral College on January 6, 2020, including through the submission of fraudulent certificates of electors’ votes to the United States Government.”

Biden’s attorney general approved the opening of the criminal investigation, even though Wray’s memorandum detailed public comments by both the Trump team and the various alternative electors establishing that their intent was to preserve the legal challenges to the election. Equally shocking is AG Garland’s decision to approve the investigation even with clear precedent pointing to the propriety of the use of alternative electors in contested elections. 

As The Federalist explained in “The Left’s 2020 ‘Fake Electors’ Narrative Is Fake News,” the exact same scenario occurred in Hawaii in 1960, when Nixon was certified the victor while Kennedy’s legal challenge to the outcome remained pending. Both Democrat and Republic electors certified that they were the “duly and legally qualified and appointed” electors for Hawaii. And the three Democrat electors, which included two retired federal judges, attested, alongside their Republican counterparts: “We hereby certify that the lists of all the votes of the state of Hawaii given for President, and of all the votes given for Vice President, are contained herein.”

Unlike most of Trump’s state court challenges, the Hawaii court reached the merits of Kennedy’s election challenge before Congress tallied the electoral votes, with the court concluding Kennedy won Hawaii. As a result — and only because the Democrat alternative electors submitted their vote for Kennedy to Congress — Hawaii’s three electors were included in Kennedy’s total.

Given this precedent, it is inconceivable that the FBI would launch an investigation into supposed fraud premised on the use of alternative electors, much less that the attorney general would approve the investigation. 

Tuesday’s release of internal emails adds to the scandal, though, by showing that the FBI wasn’t merely targeting Trump or a few high-level officials, but potentially more than 150 individuals. There could be no valid reason for such a widespread probe other than to destroy not just Trump, but anyone within six-degrees of separation. This scorched-earth approach sent a clear message not to dare challenge a Democrat win.

Notwithstanding the extensive federal investigation into the use of alternative electors, Special Counsel Jack Smith only charged Donald Trump with crimes related to the contested election, although the indictment described several supposed co-conspirators. However, several states — or in the case of Georgia, Fulton County — pursued nearly identical criminal cases against the alternative electors, as well as other lawyers and members of the Trump campaign.

We know from the fight to force Fani Willis’ recusal in the Georgia criminal case against Trump and nearly 20 other Republicans that both the Fulton County prosecutor and her paramour-paid junior prosecutor engaged with Biden Administration officials both before and after obtaining the indictment. We also know that Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, and Michigan pursued similar criminal charges. What we don’t know yet, though, is whether the Biden Administration coached or coaxed those officials to weaponize the state criminal “justice” system.

Given what went down in Georgia, it wouldn’t be surprising: It just might take some time before congressional oversight committees uncover evidence that the Biden Administration concocted the state charges. In the meantime, though, scores of innocent Americans, whose only crime was backing Trump, remain in jeopardy in Arizona, Nevada, and Wisconsin. Only Michigan’s electors obtained a reprieve, after a state court judge dismissed the charges brought by Michigan’s Democrat attorney general, holding there was no crime.

And yet, Democrats continue to decry the Trump Administration for supposedly weaponizing the Department of Justice. After the Biden Administration targeted more than 150 Trump-connected Americans, that sob story won’t sell.

https://thefederalist.com/2025/10/29/arctic-frost-docs-expose-breadth-of-biden-dojs-weaponization/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=garland_approved_it_the_fbi_executed_it_were_exposing_it&utm_term=2025-10-29

How John Brennan Lied To Congress

Townhall 

The Justice Department is evaluating a criminal referral accusing former CIA Director John Brennan of lying to Congress. In the referral, Republican members of the House allege that Brennan lied to investigators trying to figure out what the nation's intelligence agencies did in their pursuit of President Donald Trump over the Russia collusion matter. The case is a strong one.

It started back in 2017. Congressional Republicans were trying to trace the FBI, CIA, and other agencies' activities in what is often known as the "Russia hoax." One central focus was the Steele dossier, the collection of false and salacious accusations that Trump conspired with Russia to steal the 2016 election.

The dossier, as everyone knows today, was a political opposition research job. It was put together by a former British spy who was hired and paid by operatives working on behalf of the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign. As an investigative document, it was 100% BS.

That, of course, did not stop the FBI from embracing it. The bureau accepted the dossier as a legitimate source. The FBI included material from the dossier in a secret court application to wiretap a former low-level Trump campaign aide named Carter Page. And it even briefly hired the dossier's fabricator, Christopher Steele.

Here was where things did not add up for Hill investigators. Given what the FBI was doing, one might have expected that the CIA would also have played some role in the whole dossier saga. But Brennan, then the head of the CIA, swore under oath that the CIA had nothing to do with the dossier.

A lot of the Republicans' questions had to do with what was called the Intelligence Community Assessment, the document produced by the CIA, FBI, NSA, and other agencies describing their investigation into Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election. The assessment had famously -- and controversially -- concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin "developed a clear preference" for candidate Trump and "aspired" to help Trump win the election.

GOP investigators wanted to know: Was that conclusion based on the dossier? Did Brennan's CIA support including the dossier in the assessment? In testimony on May 23, 2017, Brennan said absolutely not, that the dossier played no role in the CIA's work. Brennan told lawmakers the dossier "was not in any way used as a basis for the Intelligence Community Assessment."

Six years later, on May 11, 2023, Brennan again found himself answering questions from Hill Republicans, and he again denied CIA involvement with the dossier. "I was not involved in analyzing the dossier at all," Brennan said. "I said the first time I actually saw it, it was after the election. And the CIA was not involved at all with the dossier. ... It was [the FBI's] purview, their area, not ours at all." Brennan also reiterated earlier testimony when he said, "The CIA was very much opposed to having any reference or inclusion of the Steele dossier in the Intelligence Community Assessment."

Now it appears that what Brennan told congressional investigators was false. The current CIA director, John Ratcliffe, who used to be one of the House investigators looking into the Russia matter, has declassified documents from Brennan's time at the agency which show that, far from keeping the dossier at arm's reach, Brennan actually forced CIA analysts to use it and overruled those who wanted to leave the dossier out of the Intelligence Community Assessment.

Ratcliffe has also declassified a 2020 House Intelligence Committee report, which the CIA had kept under wraps, that outlined Brennan's involvement in the dossier. The report, based on the committee's interviews with CIA staff, said that "two senior CIA officers," both with extensive Russia experience, "argued with [Brennan] that the dossier should not be included at all in the Intelligence Community Assessment, because it failed to meet basic tradecraft standards, according to a senior officer present at the meeting. The same officer said that [Brennan] refused to remove it, and when confronted with the dossier's many flaws, responded, 'Yes, but doesn't it ring true?'"

Taken together, these accounts show that significant portions of Brennan's congressional testimony about the dossier and the Intelligence Community Assessment were untrue.

Here's the bottom line, which Republicans have believed for a long time. In the politically supercharged atmosphere of late 2016 and early 2017, the FBI and CIA both knew the dossier was BS. They knew they had no business including it in their assessment of Russia's 2016 activities. But they included it anyway because it told them what they wanted to hear -- that Trump had colluded with Russia. And then, under oath before Congress, Brennan lied about it.

In a letter last week to Attorney General Pam Bondi, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) wrote that the 2020 House report and the CIA's analysis "confirm not only that the Steele dossier was used as a basis for the Intelligence Community Assessment, but that Brennan insisted on its inclusion." Brennan's testimony to Congress, Jordan continued, "was a brazen attempt to knowingly and willfully testify falsely and fictitiously to material facts." Jordan asked Bondi to investigate whether Brennan's statements warrant a criminal charge of making false statements.

Now it is up to the attorney general. Will Brennan contend that he somehow was telling the truth when he made the above statements? Of course, he will. But if he is charged, that will be a hard case to make.

Attack of the Political First Wives

Townhall 

I was never married before my current bride, but seeing the naggy, grating likes of such Democrat archetypes as Abigail Spanberger (D-Langley) and Mikie Sherrill (D-Wall Street), I think I understand why society loathes evil first wives. Moreover, these harridans make clear why these faux first wives are such an abomination when allowed to participate in our governance. They are VERY disappointed with us, and they won’t shut up about it. Sure, their partners in whine can – and will – call me “sexist,” but that complaint is going to get lost in the tsunami of gripes, complaints, and grumbles their kind endlessly generates. Why anyone would want anything to do with this brand of naggy scold is beyond me; I don’t get it, but I also don’t get why anyone would vote for Kamala Harris (not really a first wife; more like the cause of divorces by decent ones).

For whatever reason, Democrats eagerly promote other very irritating categories of stereotypical candidates. You’ve got your flat-out Marxists, often seasoned with a diversity imprimatur via a quasi-Aztec first name like Xochilitanicnl, a girl-penis, or maybe a hint of Muslim supremacy. You have the hirsute hicklib who talks like an amalgamation of Yellowstone’s Rip Wheeler and a pony-tailed TA in a Decolonialization of the Patriarchy seminar at the University of College. You have the female black radical who mimics every sassy best friend in every 2000s rom-com, including the ones who code-switch out of the fluent English they learned in private school to fluent ghetto they apparently learned watching rap videos. And then, you have the male-identifying black radical who channels Shaft if the detective were on the down-low – he’s the black private d**k that’s a sex machine, just not necessarily to all the chicks.

These archetypes are all terrible in their own way – DEI means that every kind of idiot can be uniquely ridiculous and add colors to the Democrat Party’s rich tapestry of stupidity. But the faux first wives are special, probably because we often encounter their real-life analogs as we go through our normal lives. They’re the annoying middle-aged women complaining at Whole Foods because there are no gluten-free bran crackers, and Kaden is gluten intolerant, and how will Kaden have bran crackers if there are no gluten-free bran crackers?

If they aren’t officially named Karen, they could have been. These are the women who demand to speak to America’s manager because those MAGA people seem to be having far too much fun, and that is triggering their transing “daughter” Ashleigh.

The faux first wives have several things in common, all awful, all tiresome. Let’s get superficial. They all look so worn out. Take Sen. Patty Murray of Washington. She looks like a shoe, and hectors like a shrew; every once in a while, I accidentally activate one of her countless X videos, and after three seconds, I’m giving up my name, rank, serial number, and the time and location of D-Day. They all dress in Very Serious clothes and have Very Serious hair, which I assume means they are listening to their straight male political consultants instead of finding a fabulous gay stylist like normal women. Sen. Elissa Slotkin looks like she’s on the way to take her place at a school board meeting where she ignores parents complaining that some sex offender pretending to be Carmen Miranda is waggling his banana and grapes in the local middle school girls’ locker room. Spanberger and Sherrill have both adopted a simulacrum of womanhood – “We are strong, powerful womyn, and we’ll show it by suppressing any trace of femininity.”

And they all look like that. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. The face of one of the faux first wives pops up on TV or X, and you brace for her unloading a bunch of complaints about how hard conservatives are making it to kill the babies they will probably never have. In contrast, a conservative lady pops up; she may not be a traditional beauty, but she is attractive rather than off-putting because she’s happy.

It’s not purely physical because some of these faux first wives are structurally sound; rather, it’s a manifestation of the bitter hate inside them. That’s what drives them, their sense of resentment and anger that defies explanation or description. What are they so damn mad about? Is it residual rage over the fact that their daddy did not love them enough? That the guys in high school didn’t appreciate them? Some weird self-hatred for being part of the fairer sex? Is there some quasi-sexual thing going on? Yikes, let’s leave that Pandora’s box locked tight.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and they sure are demonstrating symptoms consistent with scorning. Beyond their obsession with promoting fetuscide, it was this genre of women who seemed most open to the idea that Charlie Kirk was asking for it; they definitely hated his lovely and accomplished wife. Spanberger standing there in that debate going full system-crash Stepford Wife when asked why she was sticking with her homicidal ticket mate Jay Jones – the guy who wants to murder Republicans, presumably after making them watch their kids die – was right in character. And so was Sherrill’s lashing out at those who revealed the Annapolis honor discipline she had so carefully hidden from the voters so as not to mar her image as the second coming of John Paul Jones, except in sensible shoes. These women are pressure cookers of hate, their unfocused fury building up and up and up inside them, just waiting to blow. If you don’t think they would cheer as you were hauled off to the gulag for felony wrongthink, you have not been paying attention.

And, of course, they are also insufferable strivers, the white-knuckle good girls who did student government and sweated for pats on the head from the teacher. When 2:59 p.m. on Friday rolled around and Miss Parsons had forgotten to assign homework for the weekend, it was their hands that shot up to remind her. These were the insufferable, asexual Tracey Flicks who built their resumes on yearbook and at the Model UN. Respect their achievements, damn it! Nothing makes CIA alums like Spanberger and Slotkin madder than when they announce they worked for the Agency, and we laugh and tell them we think it makes them suck more. The impertinence! They are like mama bears when it comes to protecting their precious CV entries. That’s why Sherrill was so outraged by Cheatgate being revealed – her whole thing is she went to Annapolis, and the truth tarnished her shiny little trophy.

And they are still striving, except in politics. They want to be governor or whatever, not to do things beyond seeking revenge on their enemies, like men and fetuses, but merely to be governor or whatever. They want the job; maybe a new accolade will fill that void inside them. Like evil first wives, they have no inner life. They exist only as what their title is – wife, senator, governor. Yet, these massive character flaws make them perfect Democrat candidates, until we voters finalize the divorce.

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Nvidia and Palantir Team Up to Deploy Advanced Autonomous Computing into Integrated AI Infrastructure

Conservative  Treehouse 

The technical terms for the partnership between the world’s most advanced microchips, and computing of Nvidia joining with Palantir software systems, are expressed in various linguistics as to cloud the outcomes.

The non-technical terms to describe the predictable outcome would be America now prepared to launch the most comprehensive, technological surveillance system in the world.

Nvidia systems are being purchased by every sector of the economy, from manufacturing to law enforcement, to transportation and logistics.  Palantir software combines with Nvidia, and meshes all of the 6G data flows into seamless systems of integration that enable super-fast gateway doors to open.

GTC Washington, D.C.—NVIDIA today announced a collaboration with Palantir Technologies Inc. to build a first-of-its-kind integrated technology stack for operational AI — including analytics capabilities, reference workflows, automation features and customizable, specialized AI agents — to accelerate and optimize complex enterprise and government systems.

Palantir Ontology, at the core of the Palantir AI Platform (AIP), will integrate NVIDIA GPU-accelerated data processing and route optimization libraries, open models and accelerated computing. This combination of Ontology and NVIDIA AI will support customers by providing the advanced, context-aware reasoning necessary for operational AI.

Enterprises using the customizable technology stack will be able to tap into their data to power domain-specific automations and AI agents for the sophisticated operating environments of retailers, healthcare providers, financial services and the public sector.

“Palantir and NVIDIA share a vision: to put AI into action, turning enterprise data into decision intelligence,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “By combining Palantir’s powerful AI-driven platform with NVIDIA CUDA-X accelerated computing and Nemotron open AI models, we’re creating a next-generation engine to fuel AI-specialized applications and agents that run the world’s most complex industrial and operational pipelines.”

“Palantir is focused on deploying AI that delivers immediate, asymmetric value to our customers,” said Alex Karp, cofounder and CEO of Palantir Technologies. “We are proud to partner with NVIDIA to fuse our AI-driven decision intelligence systems with the world’s most advanced AI infrastructure.” (read more)

Democrats Don’t Get To Play The Patriotism Card While Embracing Anti-Americanism

The anti-Americanism within the Democrat Party leaves no room for its members to play the patriotism card in opposition to Trump.

The  Federalist 

By now, you’ve probably seen the plethora of memes making their way across social media in recent days mocking the media and other Democrats for melting down about President Trump’s White House renovations. These jokes — which often include a photo of a real-world (or fictional) site alongside the caption, “I can’t believe Trump did this” — are as creative as they are funny.

But as humorous and well-deserved as such mockery is, the entire episode underscores a much more sinister aspect of modern leftists — one that many of their fellow conservative Americans recognized long ago.

One of the noticeable themes trotted out by Democrats in their condemnation of Trump’s East Wing makeover is the claim that it is an attack on American history itself. Former Obama lackey David Axelrod all but made this point when throwing a temper tantrum on X last week, writing in part, “For anyone who has worked at the WH, or cares about its rich history,” Trump’s renovations are “a gut punch.”

This sudden bid to wrap themselves in the stars and stripes has also been a recurring feature of Democrat activists’ “No Kings” demonstrations against Trump. The message from these grumpy, elderly protestors, as it seems, is that Trump is a dangerous dictator who represents an existential threat to the American republic and its heritage.

For anyone who’s paid considerable attention to the modern left and its relationship with U.S. history over the past several decades, however, the left’s supposed concern for the sanctity of the “American Way” and its history is pretty laughable. The Democrat Party and much of its base have made it clear time and again that they not only disdain the country’s past and heritage but are also perfectly fine with destroying any monument commemorating them.

Take, for instance, the left’s overwhelming silence regarding (or approval of) the recent Marxist “reimagining” of a statue recognizing former Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. Displayed in Charlottesville, Virginia, until its removal in 2021, the now-desecrated monument is a “mangled junkyard of a statue, with horse and human limbs glommed together like some kind of zombie Ichabod Crane,” as The Federalist’s Elle Purnell recently reported.

“The display is a statement of not just provocation but subjugation. Ancient armies once put the corpses of their conquered enemies on display to reinforce their defeat; the same is happening here,” Purnell observed.

But it’s not only monuments dedicated to Confederate figures like Jackson and Robert E. Lee whose destruction at the hands of history-hating Marxists has garnered zero outrage from the modern Democrat Party.

When Black Lives Matter and Antifa were busy tearing down and desecrating statues and monuments during the “summer of love” riots that succeeded George Floyd’s 2020 death, the left was not indifferent to these horrific acts — they supported them. (And keep in mind, these weren’t just statues of former Confederate officials, but important American figures like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and others.)

Figures like Axelrod weaponizing patriotic sentiments to attack Trump over something as menial as a White House renovation is to be expected, however.

For decades, the left has used America’s freedoms to advance a worldview completely antithetical to the one upon which the country was founded. In essence, they’ve been using liberty to destroy liberty.

Democrats’ East Wing remodeling meltdown and their accompanying “No Kings” protests are simply another version of this long-embraced tactic. By fomenting outrage about Trump’s “attack” on the nation’s “rich history” and constitutional system, they hope to deceive their fellow countrymen into believing it is they who are the real protectors of America’s past and tradition.

As with so many other issues, however, the problem for Democrats is that they’ve already shown their hand. The blatant anti-Americanism rife within their party has reared its ugly head one too many times, leaving no room for hacks like Axelrod to try and play the patriotism card in their opposition to Trump.

If Democrats had any interest in being taken seriously on matters pertaining to America’s history and heritage, perhaps they should consider confronting the anti-patriotic fervor metastasizing within their ranks. Doing so, however, would require the party to engage in a bit of introspection — something they’ve never done and likely never will.

DOJ Asks SCOTUS To End ‘Judicial Interference’ With Trump’s Firing Of Library Of Congress Official

The  Federalist 

The Justice Department has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to shut down a lower court blockade against President Trump’s bid to fire a top official at the Library of Congress.

In an emergency application for stay filed on Monday, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer requested that the nation’s highest court temporarily pause an injunction issued last month by a three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. That panel (2-1) attempted to block the Trump administration’s firing of Shira Perlmutter, who headed up the U.S. Copyright Office in the Library of Congress since 2020 until her termination in May.

Perlmutter’s dismissal came shortly after Trump removed Obama-appointed Carla Hayden as Librarian of Congress. Hayden has been replaced by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who is filling the position on an “acting” basis.

Following her termination, Perlmutter sued the federal government, claiming that Trump lacked the authority to implement a temporary Librarian of Congress and that only the latter can appoint and remove registers of the U.S. Copyright Office such as herself.

“In short, the President’s attempt to name Mr. Blanche as acting Librarian of Congress was unlawful and ineffective, and therefore Mr. Blanche cannot remove or replace Ms. Perlmutter,” the lawsuit reads.

In asking the Supreme Court to temporarily stay the D.C. Circuit Court’s injunction, Sauer argued that the administration’s newest application filed with the high court represents “another case of improper judicial interference with the President’s power to remove executive officers —here, the Register of Copyrights.” He specifically claimed that Perlmutter’s position is “an inferior officer appointed by the Librarian of Congress, who is, despite his title, a principal executive officer” and who “wields executive power by exercising ‘significant regulatory authority over copyrights’ … — impacting a wide array of crucial intellectual-property issues.”

“The Librarian and Register exercise powers that this Court has repeatedly classified as executive, such as the power to issue rules implementing a federal statute, to issue orders in administrative adjudications, and even to conduct foreign relations relating to copyright issues,” Sauer wrote. “The Librarian and Register are appointed under Article II’s Appointments Clause, not under Article I’s provisions authorizing each House of Congress to choose its own officers.”

“As in past cases where lower courts have impaired the President’s constitutional authority to oversee executive agencies, this Court should grant a stay: the case is certworthy, the President had authority to direct respondent’s removal, the D.C. Circuit lacked equitable authority to reinstate her, and the balance of equities favors the government,” he added.

The case is the latest in a series of legal disputes involving the president’s Article II authority to remove certain executive branch officials.

Earlier this year, for instance, SCOTUS granted the Trump administration’s request to temporarily pause a lower court injunction seeking to stop the president from firing a Democrat member of the Federal Trade Commission. Notably, the high court, while agreeing to take up and hear arguments in the case (Trump v. Slaughter), tasked both parties to address whether longstanding Supreme Court precedent (Humphrey’s Executor v. U.S.) that helped birth the administrative state should be overturned.

Nearly Half Of State AGs Ask SCOTUS To End ‘Birthright Citizenship’

If the Supreme Court ends up taking the case and rules in line with the true understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Citizenship Clause, the Trump administration could start turning the corner on removing the true number of illegals in the country.

The  Federalist 

The attorneys general of 24 states filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court supporting the Trump administration’s attempt to stop the invasion-through-legal-loophole of “birthright citizenship.”

Attorneys general Jonathan Skrmetti, R-Tenn., and Brenna Bird, R-Iowa, led the charge alongside nearly every Republican state attorney general in the country with the 37-page brief asking the nation’s high court to side with the Trump administration’s argument that the 14th Amendment clearly does not allow for any person born on American soil to automatically become an American citizen.

After President Donald Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office properly interpreting the 14th Amendment, and discarding ridiculous left-wing arguments about “birthright citizenship” — which have allowed illegals to stay in the United States with anchor babies for decades — Washington, Arizona, Illinois, and Oregon sued in order to protect illegals over Americans.

“The idea that citizenship is guaranteed to everyone born in the United States doesn’t square with the plain language of the Fourteenth Amendment or the way many government officials and legal analysts understood the law when it was adopted after the Civil War,” Skrmetti said in a press release. “If you look at the law at the time, citizenship attached to kids whose parents were lawfully in the country. Each child born in this country is precious no matter their parents’ immigration status, but not every child is entitled to American citizenship. This case could allow the Supreme Court to resolve a constitutional question with far-reaching implications for the States and our nation.”

After the four states sued, low-court tyrants in the federal judiciary decided to issue nationwide injunctions, which was met with a major rebuke at the Supreme Court. However, the Supreme Court did not rule on the merits of the challenge to “birthright citizenship” at the time, but is expected to decide whether to take the case in the coming weeks.

The brief shows the history surrounding the ratification of the 14th Amendment and its Citizenship Clause from the 1860s through the early 1900s, laying out the proper understanding of the clause before it was twisted by opportunistic leftists who wanted to destroy the country by importing culturally unrecognizable people who refuse to assimilate.

“Birthright citizenship” incentivizes illegal immigration, which inherently takes a toll on states both through sapping government resources meant for Americans and degrading culture and community.

“Recent years have seen an influx of illegal aliens — over 9 million — overwhelming our nation’s infrastructure and its capacity to assimilate,” the brief states. “Conferring United States citizenship requires a more meaningful connection than mere presence by happenstance or illegality. That connection, originalist evidence repeatedly instructs, was parental domicile.”

The attorneys general dismantled the left-wing states’ primary argument, which relies on a case from 1898, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, where a baby was born on American soil to two Chinese nationals and was deemed a citizen. The brief argues that using Wong Kim Ark actually “cuts against” the argument for “birthright citizenship,” because the parents in the case were legally allowed in the United States and, as the 14th Amendment states, “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

Children born of illegals who have been able to evade law enforcement are unequivocally not.

The intertwined nature of the Civil Rights Act (CRA) of 1866 and the 14th Amendment’s purpose to “ingraft” its protections, coupled with the legislative history of the two, show that its drafters and ratifiers never intended for it to be used to import countless illegals.

Indeed, the 1866 CRA counted as citizens only those “not subject to any foreign power.”

The law stated that “‘all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States,’ no matter their ‘race and color’ and ‘without regard to any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude.”

The 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause and the 1866 CRA worked in tandem to overturn the Supreme Court’s 1857 decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, which declared that U.S.-born descendants of slaves were incapable of obtaining citizenship because their ancestors were considered property upon ratification of the Constitution.

“The provisions also sought to redress the ‘systematic denial of civil rights to freed slaves’ by prohibiting race-based discrimination in the conferral of citizenship or provision of civil rights,” the brief states.

Statements from the 39th Congress, which passed the 1866 CRA, make even more clear that the children of illegals were not intended to be included in the Citizenship Clause.

Illinois Sen. Lyman Trumbull, who was the primary author of the law, used language explicitly excluding the children of “persons temporarily resident” as part of that Congress’s goal “to withhold birthright citizenship from those who did not owe a complete, permanent allegiance to the United States and who were not part of the ‘American people.’”

Rep. John Bingham of Ohio, who was the primary author of the 14th Amendment in the House of Representatives, said “every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural-born citizen.”

Sen. Jacob Howard of Michigan explained how the Citizenship Clause was interrelated with the 1866 CRA, noting it “will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, [or] who belong to the families of embassadors [sic] or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States.”

To the last point on those born to ambassadors or foreign ministers, even the left agrees, which undercuts their overarching argument that mere presence in the country should result in citizenship.

In the 1880s, secretaries of state had denied citizenship to persons born on U.S. soil at least twice because their parents were not subjects of the United States, the brief said.

In 19th century lectures on naturalization and citizenship, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Freeman Miller explained that “if a stranger or traveller [sic] passing through, or temporarily residing in this country, who has not himself been naturalized, and who claims to owe no allegiance to our Government, has a child born here which goes out of the country with its father, such child is not a citizen of the United States, because it was not subject to its jurisdiction.”

If the Supreme Court ends up taking the case and rules in line with the true understanding of the 14th Amendment and the Citizenship Clause, the Trump administration could start turning the corner on removing the true number of illegals in the country, including those who were erroneously given the ability to stay under the theory that their parents could just get them across the border before going into labor.

The other states that joined the brief are: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming.