You Know You Done Fucked Up, Right?

nakedcapitalism  |  “Jury Instructions & Charges” (PDF) [Judge Juan Merchan, New York State Unified Court System]. Merchan’s instructions are 55 pages long. Apparently, Merchan isn’t allowed to give the jury a copy (hence their request to have them read aloud to them again). In any case, Merchan’s instructions are not devoid of interest. Let me start with an epigraph:

“The Law is the true embodiment. Of everything that’s excellent. It has no kind of fault or flaw. And I, my Lords, embody the Law” –Gilbert and Sullivan, Iolanthe

I’m reminded of G&S by this passage from the transcript. Merchan before he launches his Instructions:

I am, however, not necessarily being fair to Merchan. He consistently uses the word “our law,” which could imply the majestic principle that the law applies to and is for the benefit of all of us, or should do so. On the other hand, Merchan could also be using “our law” exactly as liberal Democrats use “our democracy.” Given lawfare, the latter may be more likely.

Now let me move to some extracts, helpfully annotated. A technical matter, page 22:

[1] Merchan quotes from the Guide to New York Evidence, 6.10. I have to assume that with enough time, I could come up with similar boilerplate for all the instructions.

On “Accessorial Liability,” p. 25:

And:

[1] To this layperson, this notion of “unanimity” since strange (“I don’t care who broke the vase or who hid the pieces”), though I’m sure it comes from somewhere in the Guide. But certainly “acting in concert” maximizes the paths to conviction (not that I would expect a good, or at least an effective, prosecutor to do anything else).

On “Intent to Defraud,” p. 29 (as I understand it _{MR SUBLIMINAL Hollow laughter}, the “intent to defraud” applies to the business records, and not to the “other crime”):

[1] As, for example, a candidate’s misrepresentations in an election. Ideal for the Censorship Industrial Complex, when you think about it. Who would have thought five Pinocchios from Glenn Kessler could end up as a criminal offense?

[2] Underlining that “election interference” could theorized as fraud. (If true, this principle is certainly arbitrarily applied in the State of New York; RussiaGate, Clinton’s email server, and the suppression of Hunter Biden’s laptop could all be considered criminal.)

On “Intent to Commit or Conceal Another Crime” (this is the heart of the matter: the theory that bootstraps 34 business records misdemeanors into 34 felonies; the “other crime” (“object offense”) that the business records were falsified in aid of (if falsified they were), pp. 29 et seq.:

[1] Once again, the paths to conviction are maximized.

[1] As I showed here (early), the “object offense” did not appear in District Attorney Bragg’s charges, but evolved — with a great deal of puzzlement here and in the press generally — in the course of the trial, much assisted by Merchan in his pre-trial ruling (as I show here). To this layperson, it seems very much like the Defendant was not informed of the charges against him (SIxth Amendment: “to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation“). Now, Bragg might argue that the Defendant was informed; the “accusation” was the business records violation, and the “other crimes” were merely icing on the cake, as it were. Perhaps “our law” is ambiguous in that regard. If so, the matter of whether converting misdemeanors into felonies requires “notice of accusation” may be settled in an appeal.

[2] “Promote or prevent” is the election interference part (and nothing in this case is distinguishable from normal campaigning, to my simple mind, and this includes business records stuff like the Clinton campaign laundering payment for the Steele dossier through Marc Elias’s highly reputable law firm).

[3] So some member of the alleged conspiracy must act, but not necessarily the Defendant, once again maximizing the paths to conviction.

[4] One question why the Defendant was never charged with conspiracy. This is the charge of conspiracy.

[1] This “Merchan’s Chinese Menu: One from Column A, one from Column B… The concept of “unanimity” seems to take on strange forms in Merchan’s court.

[2] Turley argues: Suppose there are three “unlawful means” (the object offenses) A, B, and C. A verdict where 4 jurors voted for A, 4 for B, and 4 for C would be treated as “unanimous”; to this layperson, an absurd result. But I think this argument can be made more pointed: The jurors who vote for A must necessarily believe that the Defendant is not guilty beyond reasonably doubt of offenses B and C, and so with the remaining jurors. So we could have a verdict where 12 jurors do not believe in the Defendants guilt beyond a reasonable doubt of any one object offense. That strikes me as a very bad precedent and worthy of consideration on appeal. From Thomas P Gallanis, “Reasonable Doubt and the History of the Criminal Trial,” The University of Chicago Law Review: “Reasonable doubt was originally a protection not for criminal defendants, but rather for the ‘souls of the jurors’ (p 3). Reasonable doubt was “designed to make conviction easier” by reassuring anxious jurors that they would not be damned for voting to spill the defendant’s blood (p 4 (emphasis omitted)). Jurors could safely convict as long as their hesitations did not rise to the level of reasonable doubt.” So what is the state of the individual juror’s soul when the entire jury votes to convict, but without unamimity as to the cause of the conviction?

[3] These are the the three “unlawful means” proposed by the Prosecution. I presume that “other” business records does not include any of the 34 business records in the charge, so I don’t think that item (2) is necessarily circular, or “loops back on itself,” in an infinite regress, but without clarification, it could mean that records 1-17 would fall under the business records offense, and records 18-34 could be redeployed as object offenses…. One wonders what form of “unanimity” would be required to sort this, if so (but see on “Falsification of Other Business Records” below):

On the first of the three unlawful means, “The Federal Election Campaign Act,” p. 32:

[1] Leaving aside the question of whether Federal laws should be enforced at the state level, and leaving aside Merchan’s curious refusal to let the defense expert on FECA testify, the obvious agenda here is to urge that NMI’s “catch and kill scheme,” which suppressed news stories, was not a “legitimate press function.” However, suppressing news stories is obviously a legitimate press function, and only a child of six would think otherwise (one thinks at once of The New York Times suppressing James Risen’s story on warrantless surveillance until after Bush was safely elected).

On the second, “Falsification of Other Business Records,” p. 33:

This closes out my theorizing on infinite regression in other records, above. Too bad! I haven’t mastered the detail on these documents, but Merchan’s specificity makes me think that this “object offense”) is the most dangerous to the Defendant. (Of course, I don’t believe there are object offenses, because iff the initial counts 1-34 all pertain to the payments for Cohen that are allegedly not for legal services, they in fact were, because to my simple mind. a legal service is something you pay a lawyer to do, and thus there is no primary offense to begin with.)

On the third, “Violation of Tax Laws,” p. 34:

[1] If this is the only unlawful means, I can see at least one hold-out being unwilling to jacl up 34 misdemeanors to felonies based on it.

On “The Charged Crimes,” p 27:

“Verdict Sheet,” p. 53:

[1] These are the counts in Bragg’s indictment; each of the 34 counts is a separate business records offense.

[2] Notice the checkboxes that Merchan does not include:

Surely the voting public has an interest in knowing which object offense caused Trump’s misdemeanors (if any) to be converted into felonies. An absurdly minor tax violation? The much bruited and salacious catch-and-kill scheme? A campaign finance violation? Merchan, apparently, has no care for the voters. I would speculate that — with the possible assistance of the flex-net working the lawfare on this project — having maximized the paths to conviction with capacious definitions of unanimity, Merchan would prefer not to “show his work,” and reveal how those definitions worked out in reality. Whether this is grounds for appeal I don’t know, but I find it appalling. “Our law”! “Our democracy”!

.45 GUILTY!!! of being the antithesis of a man of culture.....,

President Trump reacts to the verdict:

“The whole country is being rigged right now. This is being done by the Biden Administration in order to hurt or wound a political opponent."

"We'll fight to the end and we'll win...this is long from over." pic.twitter.com/G93N5ZwiBH

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) May 30, 2024

dailycaller  |  A jury in the deep-blue New York City borough of Manhattan convicted former President Donald Trump on Thursday in the case brought by Democratic District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Trump was convicted on all 34 counts of falsifying business records charged in Bragg’s indictment. Defense attorneys cornered the prosecution’s witnesses at critical junctures of the trial in a case that stood on shaky legal grounds from the start, including when Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen, an admitted liar, took the stand as the prosecution’s star witness, a choice that resulted in Cohen revealing he stole from the Trump organization and committing what the defense demonstrated was potentially another act of perjury.

The charges stemmed from $420,000 Trump paid Cohen over 12 months in 2017 for “legal services,” which prosecutors argued was actually to reimburse Cohen for $130,000 he paid to secure a nondisclosure agreement with porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election and keep her quiet about claims of an affair with Trump.

To indict Trump on felony charges and circumvent the expired statute of limitations, Bragg had to claim the records were falsified to conceal or commit another crime — which remained unclear throughout the trial but was assumed to be either a campaign finance or election law violation.

Prosecutors argued Trump engaged in a conspiracy to influence the 2016 election by paying to suppress stories of former Trump Tower doorman Dino Sajudin, former Playboy model Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels. They suggested he violated a state election law that makes it a misdemeanor for any two or more people to “conspire” to influence an election using “unlawful means.”

Trump is the first former U.S. president to be convicted at a criminal trial. His sentencing is scheduled for July 11th, days before the Republican National Convention set to begin on July 15. Falsifying business record charges carry a maximum sentence of four years in prison.

The jury began its deliberations on Wednesday after Judge Juan Merchan read the jury instructions, which did not require jurors to agree on what “unlawful” means Trump allegedly used to influence the election.

Bragg’s team included Matthew Colangelo, who spent two years as a top official in the Biden Department of Justice (DOJ). While previously working at the New York District Attorney’s office, Colangelo also led both the investigation that culminated in the Trump Foundation’s dissolution and the investigation that later became Trump’s civil fraud case.

Colangelo joined the Manhattan District Attorney’s office as senior counsel in 2022 while Bragg was still investigating Trump.

 

 

Why They Call These Pirates Name Stealers....,

 

Do you know that Netanyahu's real name is Mileikowsky?

Every israeli prime minister changed their name to sound more Jewish or middle eastern.

Here’s a list of all their real names. Share or you’re antisemitic. pic.twitter.com/RfbH8PIl6K

— Richard Medhurst (@richimedhurst) May 27, 2024

Israel Became A Gangster State When Its Lawbreakers Became Its Lawmakers

NYTimes  |  For decades, most Israelis have considered Palestinian terrorism the country’s biggest security concern. But there is another threat that may be even more destabilizing for Israel’s future as a democracy: Jewish terrorism and violence, and the failure to enforce the law against it.

Our yearslong investigation reveals how violent factions within the Israeli settler movement, protected and sometimes abetted by the government, have come to pose a grave threat to Palestinians in the occupied territories and to the State of Israel itself. Piecing together new documents, videos and over 100 interviews, we found a government shaken by an internal war — burying reports it commissioned, neutering investigations it assigned and silencing whistle-blowers, some of them senior officials.
It is a blunt account, told in some cases for the first time by Israeli officials, of how the occupation came to threaten the integrity of the country’s democracy.

Lawbreakers Become Lawmakers
Officials told us that once fringe, sometimes criminal groups of settlers bent on pursuing a theocratic state have been allowed for decades to operate with few restraints. Since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government came to power in 2022, elements of that faction have taken power — driving the country’s policies, including in the war in Gaza.

The lawbreakers have become the law.
Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister and the official in Netanyahu’s government with oversight over the West Bank, was arrested in 2005 by the Shin Bet domestic security service for plotting road blockages to halt the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. He was released with no charges. Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, had been convicted multiple times for supporting terrorist organizations and, in front of television cameras in 1995, vaguely threatened the life of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was murdered weeks later by an Israeli student.

Settler Violence Protected, and Abetted
All West Bank settlers are in theory subject to the same military law that applies to Palestinian residents. But in practice, they are treated according to the civil law of the State of Israel, which formally applies only to territory within the state’s borders. This means that Shin Bet might probe two similar acts of terrorism in the West Bank — one committed by Jewish settlers and one committed by Palestinians — and use wholly different investigative tools.

After the Arab-​Israeli War of 1967, Israel controlled new territory in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem. In 1979, it agreed to return the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt.

The job of investigating Jewish terrorism falls to a division of Shin Bet known commonly as the Jewish Department. But it is dwarfed both in size and prestige by the Arab Department, the division charged mostly with combating Palestinian terrorism.

Jews involved in terror attacks against Arabs over the past decades have received substantial leniency, which has included reductions in prison time, anemic investigations and pardons. Most incidents of settler violence — torching vehicles, cutting down olive groves — fall under the jurisdiction of the police, who tend to ignore them. When the Jewish Department investigates more serious terrorist threats, it is often stymied from the outset, and even its successes have sometimes been undermined by judges and politicians sympathetic to the settler cause.

There's Still A Civil War Bubbling For Control Of The Israeli Government

mondoweiss |   Any Palestinian following the developments in the Israeli protest movement against “the judicial coup” will require nerves of steel to withstand the hypocrisy on display. The protests are estimated to be 100,000 people strong, politicians are jumping over tables in the Knesset, and former army Chief of Staff Yair Golan is calling for a state of “civil disobedience.” Only yesterday, Netanyahu dismissed Defense Minister Yoav Gallant after he voiced opposition to the judicial reforms, and angry protestors took to the streets in Tel Aviv and other cities and shut down highways. The army has been going through its own crisis ever since military reservists, especially those in the Air Force, joined the protests. If that wasn’t enough, large sums of money are being transferred out of Israeli banks for fear of the effects that the judicial reforms might have on the Israeli economy and on the value of the Israeli Shekel. As for gall, that was hardly in short supply in Yuval Noah Harari’s op-ed telling Netanyahu to “stop your coup or we’ll stop the country.” It’s as if Harari has never heard of al-Issawiyya, which continues to be strangled by the Hebrew University where he teaches, or of oppression and occupation, which wasn’t reason enough to warrant speaking of halting the state.

The Israeli government is trying to use these judicial reforms to grant itself absolute power through the passing of two central laws. The first law aims to establish control over the Israeli Judicial Selection Committee, hence appointing judges whose loyalties would lie with specific politicians rather than with the law; and the second law is the “Override Clause,” which would allow the Knesset to override any decision of the Israeli High Court of Justice that passes by a majority of 61 Knesset members. In other words, the government would seize complete control over the state without checks and balances, effectively becoming the sole governing authority in the country given that it also controls the Knesset by virtue of its majority within the parliamentary body. 

All of this is taking place without a constitution. This means, for instance, that the government can decide to hold elections once every ten years instead of the standard four-year limit still in effect, and no one can override it; or it could pass laws granting the government total control over the media, or it could put LGBTQ people in jail. But the true crisis will emerge when the Israeli High Court of Justice repeals the judicial reforms and regards them as illegal — that is when the state will enter a constitutional crisis without a solution. 

Who will the Israeli security apparatus obey: the government or the judiciary? This isn’t merely a crisis of the state; it is far more profound, posing the question of what the state is in the first place. Former commander of the Israeli Air Force Eliezer Shkedi said as much in an interview with Channel 12: “I have never come across a situation where the commander of the Air Force, the chief of staff, the head of the Mossad, or the police commissioner has to decide whether he listens to an executive authority or to a court decision,” going on to say that if he were the head of the Air Force he would never disobey a court decision.

The fact that Israeli society has always echoed this hypocrisy is nothing new, and neither is it a novel discovery that “democracy” was never an honest description of a state that defines itself as a “state of the Jews.” But the protests this time are greater than at any previous point, and 35% of Israelis express fears of a “civil war,” a phrase that has made its way into daily use.

It’s precisely this level of hysteria, however, that makes it especially infuriating — because of the power and influence of the participants in the protests, because it’s the first time that the struggle is over the identity of the state, and because the roots of the crisis relate to profound political questions concerning the Zionist project, which are normally considered off-limits.

The DEI vs. Zionist Intranecine Conflict Continues More Publicly...,

NYTimes  |  The New York Times is astonishing its readers, especially those of us who monitor its tradition of biased and dishonest reporting about Israel/Palestine. The paper just published a long indictment of what it actually called “Jewish terrorism” against Palestinians. The report, which is the cover story of the widely-circulated Sunday magazine, is titled: “The Unpunished: How Extremists Took Over Israel.” Here is the opening paragraph of the “takeaway” synopsis that ran along with the actual article:

“For decades, most Israelis have considered Palestinian terrorism the country’s biggest security concern. But there is another threat that may be even more destabilizing for Israel’s future as a democracy: Jewish terrorism and violence, and the failure to enforce the law against it.” 

The massive article, by Ronen Bergman and Mark Mazzetti, prints out to 52 pages. It covers decades of history, and includes more than 100 interviews. Bergman has long had ties to Israel’s intelligence services, and he includes inside sources. “This story is told in three parts. . .,” the reporters say. “Taken together they tell the story of how a radical ideology moved from the fringes to the heart of Israeli political power.” 

Howard French, the distinguished former New York Times reporter turned author, asked the obvious question on Twitter: 

“Where was the daily coverage of the Times throughout all of this?”

French’s view was echoed in the paper’s comment section. “Jack” was one of the 2500 Times readers who have already overwhelmingly endorsed the article. He wrote: “. . . I am struck by this piece being the only one I can recall to make consistent use of the term ‘terrorism’ to describe the actions of Jewish Israelis. It is far more common to hear settlers who commit violence against unarmed civilians referred to as ‘extremists’ rather than ‘terrorists.’” 

So why did the Times print this long report, which does actually start to correct decades of its biased coverage? In time, leaks from people on the paper’s staff may provide part of the answer. But surely the pro-Palestine solidarity movement, along with alternative media, can claim some of the credit. In the Internet age, it is much harder to cover up the truth. First hand accounts from Gaza, the occupied Palestinian West Bank, and from Israel itself, are now widely available, and the student protesters and others have spread the word. Add to that internal dissension at the Times itself, and so top management there may have decided the paper had to act if its reputation wasn’t going to be completely tarnished.

A related question: Ronen Bergman has long had well-placed sources inside Israel’s intelligence elite. Very little of what is in this long Times article is new; much of the reporting is about events that happened decades ago. So why did Bergman decide — now — to report on what is basically old news? And why did his sources, who include former Israeli prime ministers, decide — now — to talk to the New York Times?

A valuable post on this site in March 2023 by the eloquent Razi Nabulse offers a clue. Nabulse probed behind the headlines to explain why Israeli Jews last year joined the massive uprising against the effort by Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right wing allies to stage a “coup” against the country’s legal system. The protesters represented the old Israeli elite, who are losing political power to the religious far right and the increasingly powerful settler/colonists. It is this old elite that Bergman quoted at length in this long report. The Times may be trying to protect this older “good” Israel from Netanyahu and his “bad” allies, who are the greatest threat to the country’s international standing in many decades.

It is too early to celebrate the Times‘s possible change in direction. First we will have to see if the paper, or other mainstream U.S. media, do any follow up. The adage used to be that “yesterday’s newspaper wraps today’s fish,” and the online attention span can also be short. It is possible that this story will die down in a few days, and the Times will go back to its old distortion methods. We shall see.

Farmer Brown Gives No Kind Of Phuks About Bringing On Mass Psychosis

washingtonmonthly  |  A new study has documented a remarkable rise in Americans’ use of marijuana. Over the last 30 years, the number of people who report using the drug in the past month has risen fivefold from 8 million to 42 million. Through the mid-1990s, only about one-in-six or one-in-eight of those users consumed the drug daily or near daily, similar to alcohol’s roughly one-in-ten. Now, more than 40 percent of marijuana users consume daily or near daily. The increased use is important to recognize as President Joe Biden plans to reschedule marijuana from a Class I to a Class III drug.

At the nadir of modern marijuana use, in 1992, just 0.9 million Americans reported using marijuana daily or near daily. That number had grown twenty-fold to 17.7 million by the most recent survey in 2022. For the first time, more Americans report using marijuana daily or near daily than they do drinking that often (17.7 million vs. 14.7 million).

Legalization and commercialization have produced a spectacular rise in the potency of cannabis products. Until the end of the 20^th century, the average potency of seized cannabis never exceeded 5 percent THC, its active intoxicant. Now, the labeled potency of “flower” sold in state-licensed stores averages 20-25 percent THC. Extract-based products like vape oils and dabs routinely exceed 60 percent. Back in the 1990s, a person averaging two 0.5-gram joints of 4 percent THC weed per week was consuming about 5 milligrams of THC per day on average. Today’s daily users average more than 1.5 grams of material that is 20-25 percent THC, which is more than 300 milligrams per day. That is far more THC than is consumed in typical medical studies of its health effects.

This spike in marijuana usage and THC consumption might seem unimportant in an era when fentanyl and other synthetic drugs are killing over 80,000 Americans per year, but describing a drug as less dangerous than fentanyl is damning with faint praise. There are exceptions, of course, but on the whole, daily marijuana use is neither health-promoting nor performance-enhancing for the typical daily user.

On the positive side, the kids are mostly all right. Just 2 percent of 12-17 year-old marijuana users consume daily or near daily. As a result, youth account for just 3 percent of the 8.3 billion annual days of self-reported marijuana use in the country. Adult (18+) daily and near-daily users account for three-quarters of those days of use—and a considerably greater share of consumption because they use more per day than weekend-only users.

Indeed, marijuana is becoming something of an old person’s drug. As a group, 35-49-year-olds consume more than 26-34-year-olds, who account for a larger share of the market than 18-25-year-olds. The 50-and-over demographic accounts for slightly more days of use than those 25 and younger.

Still, it is worth asking what the population effects are of so many people consuming high-strength cannabis regularly. Science has struggled to keep up with the new world of cannabis, but potentially concerning signs include increases in emergency room visits for both psychotic episodes and cannabis-induced cyclical vomiting, increased risk of cardiovascular disease, and higher rates of automotive crashes involving impaired drivers. And gram for gram, smoking cannabis creates about as many carcinogens, tars, and other lung-damaging chemicals as tobacco—although grams consumed per day is only about one-tenth as great. For others, the effects might be the opposite of a cognitive enhancer, with intoxication adversely affecting short-term memory, concentration, and motivation, resulting in lost opportunities in schools and the workplace.

The biggest long-term medical health risk may concern serious and lifelong psychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia. Early hopes—not to say hype—that cannabis would prove an effective medication for mental health disorders have been challenged as studies repeatedly find that use concurrent with conditions like depression and PTSD often predicts a worse course of illness.

In Netanyahu's America, IDF Veterans Get American Veterans' Preferences...,

responsiblestatecraft  |  In what might sound like something out of Louis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, or for the more modern twist, Seinfeld's Bizarro World, two Republican congressmen have introduced legislation that would extend the same employment protections to Americans serving in the Israeli army as Americans who leave work and home to serve the U.S. military.

In other words, no different than U.S. National Guardsman or Reservists, they are just fighting for another country.

“Over 20,000 American citizens are currently defending Israel from Hamas terrorists, risking their lives for the betterment of our ally,” said Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA), in a recent statement.“This legislation will ensure we do everything possible to support these heroes who are standing with Israel, fighting for freedom, and combating terrorism in the Middle East.”

“As our closest ally in the Middle East continues to defend itself against terror, many brave Americans have decided to lend a hand,” added Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio). “I’m proud that this legislation extends important protections to those Americans who chose to risk their lives in the fight against terror.”

Their legislation would, according to the lawmakers, amend title 38 of United States Code, and the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) to include American citizens, including Israeli dual citizens, who serve in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). The SCRA allows protections against foreclosure, default judgements in legal cases, repossession of rental property or leases and hiked interest rates while a individual is serving. This amendment would also extend to these IDF soldiers protections under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA), which extends "civilian job rights and benefits for veterans, members of reserve components, and even individuals activated by the President of the United States to provide Federal Response for National Emergencies."

According to the Washington Post, as of February, some 23,380 American citizens are currently serving in the Israeli Army, many of them emigres to Israel, though reservists living in the U.S. have been called back to Israel to fight. Some 21 Americans in IDF units have been killed inside Gaza, another one died along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, and another was killed in Jerusalem while serving in Israel’s border police.

Military service is compulsory for all Israeli Jews after high school; many stay on to serve in the reserves. According to reports, Israel called up 350,000 reservists after the Hamas attacks.

Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., caused a stir in October, shortly after the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, when he showed up for work on the floor of the House wearing his IDF uniform. "As the only member to serve with both the United States Army and the Israel Defense Forces, I will always stand with Israel,” Mast wrote in a post on X, alongside several photos of him wearing the uniform.

Cmdr. Cornpop Leaving His Mark On American History - In His Draws....,

teenvogue  |  While President Joe Biden gave a commencement address (and received an honorary degree) from Morehouse College in Atlanta on Sunday, May 19, several students staged pro-Palestine protests — some turning their backs and others walking out. The students who protested cited the president's ongoing policy decisions in Israel's war on Gaza.

Before Biden took the stage for his address, Morehouse valedictorian DeAngelo Fletcher gave a rousing speech calling for an “immediate and permanent ceasefire in the Gaza strip," and was met with applause from both the crowd and Biden, who also shook Fletcher's hand. “From the comfort of our homes, we watch an unprecedented number of civilians mourn the loss of men, women and children, while calling for the release of all hostages," Fletcher said.

The audience also included Morehouse alumni vocally supporting Biden during the ceremony, giving the president a standing ovation as he approached the stage, according to video taken from the event. Meanwhile, some graduates who wore keffiyeh scarves and Palestinian flags opted to turn their chairs away from Biden for the duration of his speech, according to the New York Times. Other graduates walked out of the ceremony as a sign of protest, though the Times notes that Biden's speech was largely uninterrupted. When he finished, attendees in the VIP section chanted, “Four more years.”

“I support peaceful nonviolent protest,” Biden told students in his speech. “Your voices should be heard, and I promise you I hear them.” He also said he is "working around the clock” for an immediate ceasefire.

Young people across college campuses have protested the war with demonstrations taking place nationwide. Pro-Palestine students are demanding their schools disclose and divest from companies with financial investments or economic connections to military companies connected to Israel.

After Morehouse announced that it would welcome Biden to deliver the commencement speech this year and grant him an honorary degree from the historically Black college, current students and alumni pushed back on the Atlanta-area school, urging them to reconsider. In one open letter to Morehouse's faculty from a group with the Atlanta University Center Students for Justice in Palestine, Dr. Marlon Millner, class of 1995, asked that Morehouse “not award [an] honorary degree to someone morally complicit in a war in Gaza.”

“[Morehouse alumni Martin Luther King Jr.] challenged a historically courageous [Lyndon B. Johnson] on Vietnam after the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act. That’s moral courage, not moral complicity or moral complacency,” Millner wrote. “Morehouse does produce businessmen, but let’s not fail to produce better men. Morehouse does produce politicians, but let’s not fail to produce men of principle. This is a defining moment where actions, not accolades will matter.”

 

 

Funny How America Bristles When Netanyahu Indicted...,

thehill  |   U.S. officials went on the offensive Monday after the International Criminal Court (ICC) filed arrest warrants against two top Israeli leaders over the war in Gaza, a move that Congress and the White House slammed for equating Israel’s conduct with the Palestinian militant group’s Oct. 7 attack.

President Biden and moderate Democrats united with Republicans in Congress to criticize the ICC shortly after the Monday notice that arrest warrants had been filed for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, along with three top Hamas officials. 

They argued the ICC has no jurisdiction in the case and was undermining its own credibility, while House Republican leaders threatened to sanction the court over the warrants.

Sen. James E. Risch (R-Idaho), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the ICC inserted a “false moral equivalency” for issuing arrest warrants targeting both Hamas and Israel. 

“Today’s ICC decision is absurd. The ICC, like the rest of the international community, continues to be obsessed with targeting Israel during its time of need,” Risch said in a statement. “Today’s actions have hurt the credibility of the court and seriously harmed legitimate accountability efforts where true war crimes are occurring, like Ukraine, Syria, and across Africa.” 

The White House also criticized the ICC for the arrest warrants, with Biden calling it “outrageous” in a statement and denouncing the equivalence of Hamas and Israel. 

White House national security communications adviser John Kirby told reporters that while there have been too many casualties in Gaza, the Israeli military is not intentionally targeting civilians. 

“[Israeli] soldiers are not waking up in the morning putting their boots on the ground with direct orders to go kill innocent civilians in Gaza,” he said.

The U.S. and Israel have repeatedly contrasted the army’s actions with Hamas, saying the militant group deliberately targeted Israeli civilians on Oct. 7 when fighters killed more than 1,100 people and took another roughly 250 hostages, about 130 of whom are still being held captive, an unknown number alive. They also accuse Hamas of using civilians as human shields in Gaza. 

“There should be no equivalence at all,” Kirby said. “It’s ridiculous.” 

But ICC top prosecutor Karim Khan deflected criticism in a Monday interview with CNN, noting he appointed an independent panel of international law experts to review the warrant process. 

 

Leaving Labels Aside For A Moment - Netanyahu's Reality Is A Moral Abomination

This video will be watched in schools and Universities for generations to come, when people will ask the question: did we know what was really happening and why, and what did we say about it as it was happening? pic.twitter.com/9DgvGSN5F4

— Robin Monotti (@robinmonotti) May 18, 2024

 

WHO Put The Hit On Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico?

Eyes on Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico who has just announced a Covid Inquiry that will investigate the vaccine, excess deaths, the EU Pfizer deal and Big Pharma’s ability to control the Government.

‘The Slovak public simply needs an answer. Needs an answer about… pic.twitter.com/V84S04uyan

— Kat A 🌸 (@SaiKate108) January 28, 2024

igor-chudov  |   1. The media taks about the strong motivations of the guy regarding the Ukraine war. Who is interested in Fico being killed, when viewed from the Ukraine war angle?

Clearly, not the Russians. Fico and Orban (the PM's of Slovakia and Hungary) are the only ones in the EU that do not want this war to continue. The rest of the EU is either captured by their corrupt leaders and/or are vested in delivering arms (such as the Czech Republic that has major orders now for ammunition), they want this war to continue, mostly pushed by the US and NATO. Especially the US considers this proxy war "good for business" and both the UK and US foreign ministers are doing a sales roadshow, literally stating how good it is for business (since every military contractor earns money, while soldiers of the Ukraine and Russia, not of other countries, are dying). A despicable immoral attitude, but factual. And people have become totally insensitive to this message, when they should be outraged about politicians openly talking about war like business, ignoring the devastation.

So whatever the motivators in intimidating Slovakia regarding the war, it does not serve Russian interests.

But what is the media full with already? "Pro-Russian militant group with ties to the assassin". Totally illogical. Just like the first media message that emerged about the blowing up of the North-stream pipeline, as if Russia were behind it, blowing up its own money maker. But it does fit with the media and political narrative of the collective West, the military industrial complex and some other interests I will cover in the next bulletpoints. So whatever news will now appear that wants to implicate Russia, is obviously a lie. Like so many other media news on politics, including the reasons for this war, how it's progressing and the effects on the economy. But the power of the media will have the masses believe the official narrative nonetheless, just like that "safe and effective" jab they forced on people.

2. What other controversial topics did Fico deal with that may cause him to be assassinated?

Well, the list is pretty long. He does not like the way NATO is going, he does not want to finance the Ukraine war, he does not like the Covid plandemic enforcement by the WHO and wanted to investigate it, he is opposing the LGBTQ+ narrative, so he pretty much seems to be standing up against the current rages, most of which are fuelled by interest groups in the US. I would say that he is stepping on all of the Deep State toes at the same time with this. BigPharma, the Military Industrial Complex, all globalists' plans on the future of humanity, the whole DEI concept, he is opposing all of these. So there are plenty of interests that would want him gone.

In that sense, I do not think that this assassination is isolated to the WHO or BigPharma interests solely, though they are vested of course.

3. Perhaps the most important aspect is overlooked, as we are frantically looking for the interests behind this: we are beyond conspiracies at this point. A sole gunman or a group that laid out a plan to remove a problematic leader, it boils down to the same: the sign of the times. This is our world now and it is no longer an isolated effect. Whether it's the attempts on Bolsenaro, Abe, Fico or the 4 presidents that died under suspicious circumstances at the start of the plandemic and who were the only ones opposing the WHO orders, we see that radicalization is now mainstream. And it no longer requires conspiracies, as the brainwashing has been so effective that people assume they can afford to do such horrible deeds. The general population's big part has lost its mind, as it has lost its points of reference, since there is no such thing anymore as "normal". Just look at the Eurovision Song Contest with the satanic, queer, LGBTQ+ minority appearances en-masse: what used to be considered as fringe and extreme, is now mainstream, "pop". The foundations of our society are cast down, this IS a tectonic shift and you have to be vast asleep to not be aware of it.

Almost everything that happens as an extremity, is part of a broader narrative, whether it's an isolated event or not. Just like the extremity of an assassination, the extremeties of our politicians are portraying the same narratives. I don't even think that world leaders at this point need to get their talking points from the WEF or WHO to be fully aligned or meet behind closed doors to know their answers to crucial questions, just look at the collective pro-war insanity that almost all of the EU leaders agree on. They have a certain view of how the world should go and they are rolling it out, no matter the cost. Whether it's because they have been brainwashed as "young global leaders" under the WEF as Schwab proudly stated many times, or whether the world has taken a direction of decadence in which such authoritarian leaders are being elected as the masses have an anxiety and dissatisfaction that they want to have channeled via these leaders, it does not make a difference when it comes to the narrative that results from this unified approach. And this happens on both the left and the right, authoritarianism is now universal.

Therefore, I do not believe that this one man needed to be trained for this, that there is a single group or motivator behind him, that it can be pinpointed to parties, leaders, countries or vested groups for that matter. Because I think that ALL of these are behind this, through their collective actions.

We as the people have become divided through many means, mainly (social) media. And we are now part of the problem. I do not fully agree with Mattias Desmet's analysis on the Mass Formation hypothesis (because he does not agree with finding the head kingpins that lead us to the conflict, as he believes that the problems start with us and our leaders are merely a reflection of our needs for such leaders), but I do agree with his assessment that in a time of general dissatisfaction, "free floating anxiety" as he calls it, lack of common goals, people become radicalized, even masses, not just individuals.

And this is exactly the problem. People are so divided now, that at any moment someone can perform a radical deed such as an assassination and consider it "normal", because of lack of reference point. People watch too much media as it is, especially social media and the extremities they witness daily are becoming the norm, while these have nothing to do with real life. Therefore their actions reflect this twisted world view, which in turn DOES change the world around us, making it into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I'm afraid this person is a symptom and this will continue, even accelerate. The two people in the US lighting themselves on fire for a cause that is not theirs (the young soldier in front of an embassy shouting about Palestine, as well as the other person in front of the Trump courtcase having left messages about some financial collapse to come) are excellent examples of the insanity that people have been captured in and increasingly are, as the censorship is ramping up, to hold us back from communicating freely about facts, which would pull us back to the ground and see things more clearly, avoiding panic and fanaticism. In a sense, I see such irrational extremism emerge in the alternative media as well, where rational thinkers tend to see a conspiracy behind everything, as we too are in our echo-chambers. Most of the time these assumptions are right, but it does radicalize and make solutions on the long term impossible, where common ground needs to be found at some point with the equally radicalized oppposing side.

Like Neil Oliver said a few days ago in a podcast: the question is no longer whether our leaders have nefarious plans, but whether they will push us into destruction by coincidence, such is their incompetence and ignorance about the damage they are doing to the world. At this point, clearly they have lost control. And people are imitating their leaders, just like this lone gunman did.

The learning I think is that we need to look a this calmly and avoid a widening of the gap within our societies. People should talk more about the contested topics, instead of going full ad hominem on "the other side". Yes, there are nefarious forces at work behind deeds like this. No, the aim is not to go to war with them, because we cannot win such a war. We need to ignore them and start talking to each other more. That will take the wind out of their sails.

What It Means To Live In Netanyahu's America

al-jazeera  |  A handful of powerful businessmen pushed New York City Mayor Eric Adams to use police to crack down on pro-Palestinian student protesters at Columbia University, donating to the politician and offering to pay for private investigators to help break up the demonstrations, the Washington Post has reported, based on leaked WhatsApp conversations.

The story, published on Thursday, says that several billionaires seeking to influence public perception of Israel’s war in Gaza discussed means of pushing the mayor and the university’s president to end the protests, which were eventually cleared last month amid criticism of the police’s heavy-handed response.

“One member of the WhatsApp chat group told The Post he donated $2,100, the maximum legal limit, to Adams that month,” the story reads.

“Some members also offered to pay for private investigators to assist New York police in handling the protests, the chat log shows — an offer a member of the group reported in the chat that Adams accepted.” The story states that city authorities denied that private investigators were used to help manage the protests.

The report comes as universities across the country continue to employ force against pro-Palestine activism, raising concerns over the repression of political expression. A number of universities have successfully negotiated with student encampments, which have called for divestment from companies involved in Israel’s war in Gaza and boycotts of Israeli institutions.

The WhatsApp chat cited by the Washington Post included prominent businessmen such as former CEO of Starbucks Howard Schultz, Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell, hedge fund manager Bill Ackman and Joshua Kushner, brother of former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser on Middle East issues, Jared Kushner.

Other leaders, such as snack company founder Daniel Lubetzky, hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb, billionaire Len Blavatnik and real estate investor Joseph Sitt also said that they held a video meeting with Mayor Adams on April 26.

Sending in the police has done little to dampen the spirits of pro-Palestine protesters, and in some cases, has led to heightened support from faculty and fellow students.

While supporters of the crackdowns say they are necessary to ensure the safety of Jewish students, some of whom say they have felt discomforted by anti-Israel rhetoric at the protests, pro-Palestine students – many of them Jewish – have faced the brunt of the violence at protests across the country, with few expressions of concern from authorities.

 

 

Elite Donor Level Conflicts Openly Waged On The National Political Stage

thehill  |  House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) has demanded the U.S. Chamber of Commerce answer questions about the more than $12 million its Chamber of Commerce Foundation received from the Tides Foundation, a left-leaning nonprofit, between 2018 and 2022.

In a letter last Monday to Chamber president and CEO Suzanne Clark and foundation President Carolyn Cawley, Smith said that the Tides grants appear to conflict with the Chamber’s mission to support American businesses and raise questions about the groups’ tax-exempt status.

A GOP chair investigating the Chamber and its foundation is a major shift from the historically close alignment between the group and Republicans. The probe also comes as the Chamber gears up for a massive lobbying blitz around the expiration of former President Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, a fight in which Smith and Ways and Means Republicans will have heavy influence.

If Republicans hold the House, Smith is expected to retain the Ways and Means gavel and run the House committee charged with tax policy. A sour relationship with Smith could compromise the Chamber’s ability to sway the 2025 tax fight and other priorities that fall before the panel.

The inquiry also represents a new phase in well-reported tensions that erupted after the 2020 election between the Chamber and an increasingly populist Republican Party, some members of which were unhappy with the Chamber’s efforts to improve its relationships with Democrats.

The Chamber and the foundation say the probe is based on a misunderstanding. Eric Eversole, president of the foundation’s Hiring Our Heroes program, told The Hill the funds the foundation received “were charitable contributions from corporations made to the donor advised fund,” a charitable giving vehicle that makes it virtually impossible to trace the ultimate source of the funds.

A Tides spokesperson told The Hill that Smith’s inquiry “is a politically-motivated PR tactic during an election year, driven by actors who disagree with the social justice work of Tides and our partner organizations.”

But Smith made clear he was not satisfied with the initial response.

“The mission statement for the Chamber is pretty obvious: to help American businesses,” he said. “Getting $12 million from Tides and then trying to say it’s really not from Tides, it’s from someone else, that makes me want to look harder.”

 

AIPAC Powered By Weak, Shameful, American Ejaculations

All filthy weird pathetic things belongs to the Z I O N N I I S S T S it’s in their blood pic.twitter.com/YKFjNmOyrQ

— Syed M Khurram Zahoor (@MuhammadKhurram) May 13, 2024

 

🇮🇱🇺🇸 Who's Been AIPAC's Biggest Donor Since October 7?

That would be Leonid Radvinsky, the Jewish-Zionist owner of OnlyFans.

He pledged $11 million to the pro-Israeli lobby.

Radvinsky's donation was over 5x bigger than the 2nd largest donation to AIPAC post-October 7. pic.twitter.com/NjJTTBVCJl

— Censored Men (@CensoredMen) May 13, 2024

I Don't See Taking Sides In This Intra-tribal Skirmish....,

Jessica Seinfeld, wife of Jerry Seinfeld, just donated $5,000 (more than anyone else) to the GoFundMe of the pro-Israel UCLA rally.
At this rally, participants yelled “I hope they rape you” & spat on and used the N-word towards pro-Palestinian students. pic.twitter.com/74G7QG5SVR

— Prem Thakker (@prem_thakker) April 29, 2024

thedailybeast  |  Jessica Seinfeld, cookbook author and wife to comedian Jerry Seinfeld, is funding a pro-Israel counterprotest at UCLA—where violence broke out Tuesday night after a mob attacked demonstrators inside a pro-Palestine encampment.

A GoFundMe for the effort, which Seinfeld promoted in an Instagram story this week after contributing at least $5,000, has since made the majority of its donations anonymous. The fundraising page has raised more than $93,000 as of Wednesday and also changed its organizer name and description since launching over the weekend.

The Daily Beast left messages for reps for the Seinfelds.

“I just gave to this GoFundMe to support more allies like yesterday’s at UCLA,” Seinfeld wrote this week. “More cities are being planned so please give what you can. Donations are annonymous [sic]. We will continue to share our light and love, as proud American Jews.”

It’s unclear whether Seinfeld coordinated with the GoFundMe to make donations anonymous after they’d been public earlier in the week. Nor is it clear whether supporters or organizers of this fundraiser were among the 100 or so counterprotesters, some wearing masks, who ripped down barricades or tossed objects including fireworks into the camp opposing Israel’s war on Gaza.

Still, it hasn’t stopped X users from roasting Seinfeld.

One observer, who shared video of a mob violently attacking the encampment, wrote, “Jessica Seinfeld must be elated seeing her 5k donation come to fruition.”

A University of California president parody account posted that campus cops were “ready to step in and continue the assault once the counterprotesters tuckered out but Jessica Seinfeld’s Zelle payments kept their fighting spirits high into the wee hours!”

Other celebrities—including actors Melissa Barrera and John Cusack—have shared footage on social media of Israel supporters ambushing the UCLA protest camp.

Billionaire hedge-funder Bill Ackman has taken to X to repost UCLA protest footage, including one account claiming a Jewish woman was beaten during a confrontation, and donated $10,000 to a separate GoFundMe financing a similar video-based effort to be held at the George Washington University.

Despite the chaos, police and campus security didn’t intervene as the counterprotesters moved in around 11 p.m., according to eyewitness accounts from journalists on scene.

UCLA’s student-run newspaper, the Daily Bruin, revealed that a counterprotester with a megaphone shouted, “If they can be there, so can we. You guys are going to want to get this. This is history being made.”

Populism Is The Voice Of The Voiceless vs. Nancy Pelosi's Crypt-Keeper Gas...,

realclearpolitics  |   Winston Marshall, the former banjo player from the band "Mumford & Sons", now host of The Winston Marshall Show podcast, spoke in opposition to an Oxford Union motion that "This House Believes Populism is a Threat to Democracy." Speaking for the motion was former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

"Populism is not a threat to democracy," Marshall said. "Populism is democracy."

"Populism is not a threat to democracy, but I'll tell you what is. It is elites ordering social media to censor political opponents. It's police shutting down dissenters," he said.

WINSTON MARSHALL: Words have a tendency to change meaning when I was a boy, "woman" meant "someone who didn't have a cock."

Populism has become a word used synonymously with "racists." We've heard "ethno-nationalist," with "bigot," with "hillbilly," "redneck," with "deplorables."

Elites use it to show their contempt for ordinary people.

This is a recent change. Not long ago, Barack Obama, while he was still president, at the North American Leaders Summit in June 2016, took umbrage with the notion that Trump be called a "populist." How could Trump be called a populist? He doesn't care about working people. If anything, Obama argued he was the populist. If anything Obama argued, Bernie was the populist. It was Bernie who'd spent five decades fighting for working people. But Trump.

Something curious happens. If you watch Obama's speeches after that point, more and more recently, he uses the word "populist" interchangeably with "strong man," with "authoritarian." The word changes meaning, it becomes a negative, a pejorative, a slur.

To me, populism is not a dirty word. Since the 2008 crash and specifically the trillion-dollar Wall Street bailout, we are in the populist age, and for good reason. The elites have failed.

Let me address some common fallacies, some of which have been made tonight. If the motion was that demagoguery was a threat to democracy, I would be on that side of the House. If the motion was that political violence was a threat to democracy, I'd be on that side of the house. January 6th has been mentioned -- a dark day for America, indeed. And I'm sure Congresswoman Pelosi will agree that the entire month of June 2020, when the federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon was under siege, and under insurrection by radical progressives, those too were dark days for America.

REP. NANCY PELOSI: You are not. There is no equivalence there.

WINSTON MARSHALL: So you don't agree, that is fine. You don't agree. That's fine.

REP. NANCY PELOSI: It is not like what happened on January 6, which was an insurrection incited by the president of the United States.

iWINSTON MARSHALL: So you don't agree, but you will condemn those days.

My point, though is that all political movements are susceptible to violence, and indeed insurrection. And if we were arguing that fascism was a threat to democracy, I'd be on that side of the House.

Indeed, the current populist age is a movement against fascism. I've got quite a lot to get through.

Populism as you know, is the politics of the ordinary people against an elite, populism is not a threat to democracy. Populism is democracy, and why else have universal suffrage, if not to keep elites in check?

Ladies and gentlemen, given the success of Trump, and more recently, Javier Milei taking a chainsaw to the state behemoth of Argentina's bureaucratic monster, you'd be mistaken for thinking this was a right-wing populist age, but that would be ignoring Occupy Wall Street. That would be ignoring Jeremy Corbyn's "for the many, not the few," that would be ignoring Bernie against the billionaires, RFK Jr. against Big Pharma, and more recently, George Galloway against his better judgment. Now all of them, including Galloway, recognize genuine concerns of ordinary people being otherwise ignored by the establishment.

I'm actually rather surprised that our esteemed opposition, Congressman Pelosi, is on that side of the motion. I thought the left was supposed to be anti-elite. I thought the left was supposed to be anti-establishment today, particularly in America, the globalist left have become the establishment. I suppose for Miss Pelosi to have taken this side of the motion, she'd be arguing herself out of a job.

But it's here in Britain, where right and left populists united for the supreme act of democracy, Brexit. Polls have showed the number one reason people voted for Brexit was sovereignty, for more democracy.

What was the response of the Brussels elite? They did everything in their power to undermine the Democratic will of the British people and the Westminster elite were just as disgraceful. As we've heard, David Cameron called the voters "fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists." The liberal Democrats did everything they could to overturn a democratic vote. Keir Starmer campaigned for a second referendum. Elites would have had us voting and voting and voting until we voted their way. Indeed, that's what happened in Ireland and in Denmark.

Let's look at some of the other populist movements. The Hong Konger populist revolt is literally called the Pro-Democracy Movement. In the Farmer revolts from the Netherlands to Germany, France, Greece, to Sri Lanka, farmers are taking their tractors to the road to protest ESG policy that's floated down to us from those all-knowing, infallible elites of Davos. The trucker movement in Canada became anti-elitist when petty tyrant Prime Minister Justin Trudeau froze their bank accounts, not the behavior of a democratic head of state. The Gilets Jaunes France, ULEZ in London, working people protesting policy that hurt them. And how are they treated? They're called conspiracy theorists. They're called far-right, by the mayor as well.

Ladies and gentlemen, populism is the voice of the voiceless. The real threat to democracy is from the elites. Now don't get me wrong, we need elites. If President Biden has shown us anything, we need someone to run the countries. When the president has severe dementia, it is not just America that crumbles, the whole world burns.

But let's examine the elites. European corporations spend over €1 billion a year lobbying Brussels, U.S. corporations spend over $2 billion a year lobbying in DC, and two-thirds of Congress receive funding from pharmaceutical companies. Pfizer alone spent $11 million in 2021. They made over $10 billion in profit. No wonder then that 66% of Americans think the is rigged against them for the rich and the powerful.

And by the way, we used to have a word for when big business and big government were in cahoots. And I think any students here of early 20th-century Italian history will know what I'm talking about.

What about Big Tech? Throughout the pandemic, Biden's team, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security colluded with Big Tech in censoring dissenting voices. Not kooky conspiracy theorists, people like Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the Stanford epidemiologist, people like Harvard scientist Martin Kulldorf, people spreading true information, not misinformation, true information at odds with the government narrative.

Need I remind you, democracy without free speech is not democracy.

This was a direct breach by the way of the First Amendment. Before COVID, Intelligence services colluded with Big Tech to have Trump suspended off Twitter. Yes, the same platform which hosted the Taliban and Ayatollah "Death To Israel" Khomeini. They thought the president crossed the line when he tweeted on Jan 6 quote, "Remain peaceful. No violence! Respect the law and our great men and women in blue." That's a quote.

You may be thinking now that Trump is a populist. You are right. He didn't accept the 2020 elections and he should have. So should Hillary in 2016. So should Brussels, and so should Westminster in 2016. And so too should Congresswoman Pelosi, instead of saying the 2016 election was quote, "hijacked."

PELOSI: That doesn't mean we don't accept the results, though!

WINSTON MARSHALL: What about the mainstream media? Let me read you some mainstream media headlines. The New Yorker the day before the 2016 election, "The Case Against Democracy." The Washington Post, the day after the election, "The Problem With Our Government Is Democracy." The LA Times, June 2017, "The British Election Is A Reminder Of The Perils Of Too Much Democracy." Vox, June 2017, "Two eminent political scientists say the problem with democracy is voters." New York Times, June 2017, "The Problem With Participatory Democracy Is The Participants."

Mainstream media elites are part of a class who don't just disdain populism, they disdain the people. If the Democrats had put half their energy into delivering for the people, Trump wouldn't even have a chance in 2024. He shouldn't, he shouldn't have a chance. You've had power for four years. From the fabricated Steele dossier, to trying to take him off the ballot in both Maine and Colorado, the Democrats are the anti-Democrat party. All we need now is the Republicans to come out as the pro-Monarchist party.

Ladies and gentlemen, populism is not a threat to democracy, but I'll tell you what is. It is elites ordering social media to censor political opponents. It's police shutting down dissenters, be it anti-monarchists in this country or gender-critical voices here, or last week in Brussels, the National Conservative Movement.

I'll tell you what is a threat to democracy. It's Brussels, DC, Westminster, the mainstream media, big tech, big Pharma, corporate collusion and the Davos cronies. The threat to democracy comes from those who write off ordinary people as "deplorable." The threat to democracy comes from those who smear working people as "racists." The threat to democracy comes from those who write off working people as "populists."

And I'll say one last thing. This populist age can be brought to an end at the snap of a finger. All that needs to be done is for elites to start listening to, respecting, and God forbid, working for ordinary people. Thank you.