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.”
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
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.”
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.
sportspolitika | On Sunday, however, the mood turned ugly when thousands of
demonstrators, including students and non-students, showed up on campus
to protest their cause. Some joined the Palestinian solidarity
encampment that was set up earlier in the week, while pro-Israeli
counter-protestors demonstrated across from the encampment.
Some
of those demonstrators reportedly broke through the metal barricades
that had been placed to separate the two factions, leading to skirmishes
between the opposing groups. One video showed groups of protesters and counter-protesters clashing, with at least one person punching someone else.
Among
the assailants was David Kaminsky, an Israeli boxer and gym owner who
was caught on camera using racial insults and spitting on protestors.
Kaminsky was further recognized by Israeli MMA fighter Haim Gozali, who expressed approval of Kaminsky’s actions in a post on Telegram. Meanwhile, Gozali himself has been garnering attention for inscribing the names of individuals he considers adversaries on artillery shells destined for Gaza. My name was among those inscribed.
The boxer holds a 6-1 professional record,
which includes three knockout victories. He has not fought since 2020,
when Clay Collard handed Kaminsky his first professional loss following a
split decision on the Gabriel Flores Jr.-Josec Ruiz undercard in Las
Vegas.
Kaminsky has shifted his attention to managing his gym in LA’s
San Fernando Valley. In the previous year, the gym gained attention when
news surfaced of rapper Blueface being stabbed during a confrontation on
the premises. Security footage suggested Kaminsky intervened, trying to
separate Blueface from the attacker, who was able to stab the rapper in
the leg before fleeing the scene with his Rottweiler.
Kaminsky
may be the only professional fighter to have been identified among the
converging protestors at UCLA, this is not the first example of combat
sports athletes attempting to intimidate peaceful demonstrators.
Neo-Nazi MMA fighter Robert Rundo and his white supremacist Rise Above Movement (RAM) were notorious for attacking protestors during tense demonstrations
in the US following Donald Trump’s election in 2016. Three years later,
a mob of MMA fighters from a gym owned by an oligarch with ties to
Vladimir Putin chased away local protestors
who opposed the building of an Orthodox church in the Russian
hinterlands. The church was being sponsored by the same oligarch who ran
the fight club.
While Kaminsky has not been seen
since being caught on camera hurling racial slurs earlier this week, the
UCLA Gaza solidarity encampment continues to face various acts of
aggression. Truthout reported
that pro-Israel protestors were “hurling fireworks at the structure and
beating demonstrators as campus security and city police stood by.”
Such inaction from UCLA and local police contrasts sharply with the
fierce crackdown on pro-Palestinian demonstrations at universities
across the US, including Columbia University in New York City, where
police arrested hundreds of students late Tuesday.
Just
before midnight, a large group of counterdemonstrators, wearing black
outfits and white masks, arrived on campus and tried to tear down the
barricades surrounding the encampment. Campers, some holding lumber and
wearing goggles and helmets, rallied to defend the encampment’s
perimeter. The violence occurred hours after the university declared
that the camp was “unlawful and violates university policy.”
Videos
showed fireworks being set off and at least one being thrown into the
camp. Over several hours, counterdemonstrators threw objects, including
wood and a metal barrier, at the camp and those inside, with fights
repeatedly breaking out. Some tried to force their way into the camp,
and the pro-Palestinian side used pepper spray to defend themselves.
A
group of security guards could be seen observing the clashes but did
not move in to stop them. Authorities cleared the area around 3 a.m.
Some
in the camp were being treated for eye irritation and other wounds. The
extent of the injuries was unclear, though The Times saw several people
who were bleeding and needed medical attention. At least one person, a
26-year-old man suffering from a head injury, was taken to the hospital
by paramedics, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department.
UCLA
administrators and law enforcement are facing scrutiny from students,
professors and the broader community for not intervening faster.
“The
limited and delayed campus law enforcement response at UCLA last night
was unacceptable — and it demands answers,” Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office
said in a statement.
UCLA officials decried the violence and said
they had requested help from the Los Angeles Police Department. It is
not clear whether police made any arrests. UCLA police did not
immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
“Horrific
acts of violence occurred at the encampment tonight and we immediately
called law enforcement for mutual aid support. The fire department and
medical personnel are on the scene. We are sickened by this senseless
violence and it must end,” Mary Osako, vice chancellor for UCLA
Strategic Communications, said in a statement.
A law enforcement
source told The Times on Wednesday that the LAPD reached out to campus
police shortly after the violence broke out. They were told not to bring
in anti-riot police, but eventually UCLA agreed to accept help from the
larger police force. The discussion unfolded over several hours until
officers with the LAPD and California Highway Patrol were given the
green light to intervene around 1 a.m., the source said.
At
around 1:40 a.m., police officers in riot gear arrived, and some
counterprotesters began to leave. But the police did not immediately
break up the clashes at the camp, which continued despite the law
enforcement presence.
One representative of the camp said the
counterdemonstrators repeatedly pushed over barricades that outline the
boundaries of the encampment, and some campers said they were hit by a
substance they thought was pepper spray. As counterprotesters attempted
to pull down the wood boards surrounding the encampment, at least one
person could be heard yelling, “Second nakba,” referring to the mass
displacement and dispossession of Palestinians during the 1948
Arab-Israeli war.
Daily Bruin News Editor Catherine Hamilton said
she was sprayed with some type of irritant and repeatedly punched in
the chest and upper abdomen as she was reporting on the unrest. Another
student journalist was pushed to the ground by counterprotesters and was
beaten and kicked for nearly a minute. Hamilton was treated at a
hospital and released.
“I truly did not expect to be directly
assaulted. I know that these individuals — at least the individual who
initiated the mobilization against us — knew that we were journalists,”
she said. “And while I did not think that protected us from harassment, I
thought that might have [prevented us from being] assaulted. I was
mistaken.”
At around 3 a.m., a line of officers arrived at the
camp and pushed the remaining counterprotesters out of the quad area.
The police told people to leave or face arrest.
“What we’ve just
witnessed was the darkest day in my 32 years at UCLA,” said David Myers,
a professor of Jewish history at UCLA who is working on initiatives to
bridge differences on campus. He called the situation a “complete and
total systems failure at the university, city and state levels.”
“Why
didn’t the police, UCPD and LAPD, show up? Those in the encampment were
defenseless in the face of a violent band of thugs. And no one,
wherever they stand politically, is safer today,” Myers said.
Ananya
Roy, a professor of urban planning, social welfare and geography,
echoed concerns about the university’s lack of response when faced with a
violent counterprotest.
“It gives people impunity to come to our
campus as a rampaging mob,” she said. “The word is out they can do this
repeatedly and get away with it. I am ashamed of my university.”
slate | The ADL is arguably the most prominent organization in the country
dedicated toward countering antisemitism. It is not that the ADL has not
faced criticism
before (earlier this year, a report from the Intercept charged that the
ADL had “lobbied for counterterror legislation that singled out
Palestinians”). Nor is it the case that the ADL has never before chosen
to cooperate with law enforcement or authority over forging solidarity
with left-wing Jews. (Indeed, it did so during the Red Scare.)
Still, the group is the go-to American organization on antisemitism,
and it also played a prominent role in championing civil rights historically.
It has also been a resource for me personally: I have, over the years,
interviewed and been greatly informed by various ADL staffers, and have
turned to the organization’s research in my own writing and thinking on
antisemitism. I believe that a civil rights organization “to stop the
defamation of the Jewish people, and to secure justice and fair
treatment to all,” the founding principle of the ADL, remains necessary
in this country.
But
the ADL, under the leadership of Greenblatt, is insisting on conflating
anti-Zionism and antisemitism, and it has made this conflation central
to the ADL’s work. This has not only muddied the waters of its own
antisemitism research, it has also undermined the safety, security, and
pluralism of American Jews.
For example, the ADL reportedly mapped
protests for a cease-fire led by the Jewish groups Jewish Voice for
Peace and IfNotNow as antisemitic incidents. The ADL also, in its report
on antisemitism this year, updated its methodology to include
certain anti-Israel incidents in its calculation of how much
antisemitism had risen. This not only makes it more difficult to see
what the actual year-over-year change in antisemitic incidents was—of
course an increase will seem more dramatic if you are now counting
incidents that you weren’t before—but it also arguably undermines the
rest of the ADL’s reporting on antisemitism. If the group tracking
antisemitism considers pro-Palestinian speech or differences in foreign
policy preferences to be motivated by antisemitism, how seriously will
those who disagree with the ADL on foreign policy take its calls to
tackle antisemitism?
At
least as troubling as the new research methods, though, are the
statements and posture of Greenblatt himself. Some observers thinking
that he privileges support for Israel over civil rights is not new; a
Jewish Currents story from 2021 revealed
that former ADL employees felt Greenblatt was choosing defense of
Israel over protecting civil liberties, one of the group’s stated
missions. In March of last year, the same publication published a report on internal dissent over Greenblatt comparing pro-Palestinian groups to the extreme right.
But if this had been a running undercurrent, the past six months have thrown it to the surface. In November, mere days after X boss Elon Musk called an antisemitic conspiracy “the actual truth,” Greenblatt praised Musk’s suggestion of banning the terms “from the river to the sea” and “decolonization” from the platform.
In a speech at Brown University in February, Greenblatt reiterated
that he thought anti-Zionism was antisemitism, and said he wanted to
define the terms before “activists who participate in ‘BrownU Jews for
Ceasefire Now’ start to object.” The next month, addressing the Never Is
Now Conference, Greenblatt similarly dismissed
“the editors at left-wing Jewish magazines that very few of us actually
read,” and said, “I must say, I have to share: What amazes me is that
when ADL says that anti-Zionism is antisemitism, or when the Hillel
director says that the mob chanting ‘from the river to the sea’ [is], …
journalists at major newspapers don’t listen to the victim. Instead,
they literally go looking for an alternative point of view. … You’ve all
read these paragraphs: ‘To be sure, Professor So and So says’ or ‘the
head of Jewish Voice for Peace counters …’ ”
These students and professors
and activists are also Jewish. Again, historically, the ADL has had as
its mission not only to protect Jews, but also to protect civil
liberties for Jews and all Americans; on its website today, one can
still read that the ADL stands up for
religious freedom and against discrimination. It is thus theoretically
Greenblatt’s job to defend these ostensibly little-read journalists and
Professors So and So, too, even if he disagrees with them on Israel.
Instead, he has repeatedly used his platform not to defend their right
to expression even as he disagrees with their definition of
antisemitism, but to undercut them. That isn’t just abandonment of part
of the ADL’s mandate, but an abandonment of some of the people who are
at risk of antisemitism.
In the past week, this dynamic has intensified. Speaking outside Columbia University last week, Greenblatt suggested that the National Guard may need to be called to ensure the safety of Jewish students.
wired | Leaders
in the United States Senate have been discussing plans to extend
Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) beyond
its December 31 deadline by amending must-pass legislation this month.
A
senior congressional aide tells WIRED that leadership offices and
judiciary sources have both disclosed that discussions are underway
about saving the Section 702 program in the short term by attaching an
amendment extending it to a bill that is sorely needed to extend federal
funding and avert a government shutdown one week from now.
The
program, last extended in 2018, is due to expire at the end of the
year. Without a vote to reauthorize 702, the US government will lose its
ability to obtain year-long “certifications” compelling
telecommunications companies to wiretap overseas calls, text messages,
and emails without being served individual warrants or subpoenas.
Whether
the authority is reauthorized before expiring on January 1 or not, the
actual surveillance is likely to continue into the spring, when this
year’s certifications expire.
Extending the
program by attaching it to another bill that Congress can’t avoid is a
risky political maneuver that will cause significant unrest among a
majority of House lawmakers and a number of senators who are working to
reform the 702 program. A top priority for privacy hawks is curtailing
the ability of federal law enforcement to use 702 data “incidentally”
collected on Americans. The 702 program collects communications from two
sources: internet service providers and the companies that conduct
traffic between them. The latter source is tapped less frequently but
intercepts a greater quantity of domestic communications.
An
aide to Jim Jordan, the Republican chair of the House Judiciary
Committee, said Jordan was firmly on the side of the reformers and would
not support extending 702 through a temporary measure. Chuck Schumer,
the senate majority leader, did not respond to a request for comment
Thursday afternoon.
“America’s
security and its citizens’ rights demand more than a short-term fix.
Congress has had all year to scrutinize and address this crucial policy
question,” says James Czerniawski, a senior policy analyst at the
nonprofit Americans for Prosperity. “Doing a short-term extension punts
the ball on the critical reforms desperately needed to this program to
protect Americans civil liberties.”
While
surveillance of US calls is illegal and unconstitutional without a
warrant based on probable cause, the government is permitted to collect
domestic calls for specific national security purposes under procedures
created to minimize its access to them later. The US National Security
Agency, which conducts electronic surveillance for the Pentagon, is only
permitted to eavesdrop on foreigners who are overseas. Those
foreigners, however, many of whom are likely government officials and
not criminals or terrorists, frequently exchange calls and emails with
people inside the United States, and those get collected as well.
Roughly a quarter of a million people are targeted by
the program each year, and it is estimated that the number of
individual messages collected reaches into the hundreds of millions.
While
the NSA is not allowed to target the communications of “US persons” (an
umbrella term for US citizens, legal residents, and corporations), the
government has long been permitted to query the database for information
on US persons without obtaining warrants.
It is
known that the 702 program collects significant numbers of US
communications, but the exact quantity is unknown, even to the
government. The NSA argues that it would be unfeasible to count the
number of Americans incidentally spied on without analyzing the
collection thoroughly, further imperiling people’s rights. Privacy
watchdogs who have classified knowledge of the program say the term
“incidental” is deceiving, in that it makes the volume of the collection
sound small.
The term is also frequently
conflated with wiretaps that accidentally target Americans, which is
called “inadvertent” collection. Incidental collection is factored into
the program as an acceptable risk to Americans’ civil liberties,
ameliorated by various internal procedures approved by the Justice
Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Critics of the program say these procedures are frequently violated and
do little to nothing to stop the FBI from warrantlessly accessing
Americans’ calls and emails without evidence that they’ve committed a
crime.
amgreatness | The strategies of saving the Biden presidency from an impeachment and
a Senate trial despite overwhelming evidence of his corruption are
starting to emerge.
The Family is confronted with damning evidence from the laptop, from
the testimonies of Hunter’s business associates Bobulinksi and Archer,
from Ukrainian oligarchs and Viktor Shokin, from IRS whistleblowers,
from FBI writs, from a likely pseudonymous Biden trove of 4,000 emails
to his son and associates, and from the absolute paranoia of a White
House that must constantly change its narrative of denials to adjust to a
growing portrait of utter corruption, bribery, and perhaps even the
treason of warping U.S. policy to fit Biden family interests.
One of their strategies is to deny, then hedge, then ignore, then grow
silent—and repeat the wash/rinse/spin cycle of stonewalling as many
times as necessary to evade the mounting truth.
Insidiously Joe Biden has retreated from his once loud protestations
that he supposedly had no idea of what Hunter and his associates were
doing. Such a patently dishonest denial set the model that the President
would have no compunction about lying to the American people until the
evidence of his wrongdoing becomes overwhelming.
But this first line of defense did not crumble for years—only to be
replaced by a second line of denial: Biden may have known of Hunter’s
shenanigans, but he had no business interests with him. That was another
blatant untruth.
Biden’s tripartite lines of defense always got shorter and shallower
as evidence mounted. But so far Biden has managed to consume 31 months
of his presidency through these strategic retreats. His fourth and final
line of defense will likely be that he was involved, that he had rather
than feigned contact, but that he did nothing other than what scores of
other high-ranking politicians do who rub shoulders with would-be
miscreants, sycophants, and crooks—and so did not knowingly take “loans” and “gifts” that had strings attached.
To breach this fourth defense line, House Republicans will have to
break through the labyrinth of Biden paywalls and find how much money
was rerouted into Biden coffers. And then they must additionally compare
what came into the Biden hands with a) what the family reported on
their respective income tax returns, and b) whether their various
properties and lifestyles were remotely possible without such massive
hidden income. And getting bank records from the Bidens will be near
impossible.
The Shadow Government is a combination of big energy, aerospace, and technology. These private sector contractors for the
military industrial complex have taken over control of a lot of the spy
programs as well as research and development on highly classified technology. This gives
those who are in an official government position plausible deniability
and the majority of the money being spent is from the private sector so
Congress is held out of the loop. Elected officials and unelected military and civilian bureaucrats are all still on a big
corporate pay roll as an insurance policy not to step outside the box of permitted discourse.
Grusch isn't asking anyone to trust him; he's asking Congress to investigate his claims. Grusch provided all of the evidence accumulated in his investigation,
including the names and testimonies of first hand witnesses, locations
where alleged craft and biology are held, and documentary evidence (e.g.
photos) to the Inspectors General of Defense and Intelligence and to
the House and Senate intelligence committees.
Apparently everyone involved in the public hearings ALREADY HAVE THE INFORMATION THEY ASKED FOR. if anything seems like a
ploy to cause the shadow government to reveal itself more. It worked.
Look at the reprisals - attacks on the witnesses, the complete lies from AARO, the clear
blackout of MSM media coverage, or if it’s covered, only ridicule.
The fact that WE the citizens have to DEMAND our government represent
our interests, when they were created for that purpose. The blockage of
House Oversight Committee investigations by obfuscation of evidence or outright denial
of access. The public’s firm grasp of the stigma and psy-op main points i.e., don’t look up, “trust us, nothing to see here.”
The ICIG’s finding that Grusch’s allegations of UAP information being illegally withheld
from Congress is “urgent and credible” (credible enough to proceed for
further investigation). Many in the public can name the contractors,
where craft are keep, and some of the 40 witnesses who have likely
previously made public statements. I do not doubt for a moment that Grusch is presenting
what he believes to be the “truth”. I do not believe that he is intentionally participating in a
psyop. I think he believes what he has been told, read, and I credit him
for his investigative efforts.
We need the public to trust the process;
people of a free and open society to trust what to date has be a very
closed hearing process. We
need clarification. To date we do not have examples because of “spy
craft”, nor access to scif debriefings, names of witness, or clear
definitions of terms like aliens, non-human intelligence, spacecraft,
off-world, crash retrieval, etc… and this is exactly how a public psyop
would work by effectively creating misunderstanding and fear through
omission. While Grusch is not using the word “extraterrestrial”, the
headlines are. He is using the
term “inter-dimensional”, a relatively modern concept but one that is
not reflected in the longer nazi, paperclip and mkultra history.
I want to trust they’ll get it right but
we have questions.
It
came as British travellers were warned about the risk of curfews and
travel restrictions due to the spiralling upheaval and vandalism around
France.
A
domestic intelligence note seen by Le Monde has warned riots could
become increasingly “widespread” and go on for “the coming nights”.
The
French government announced on Friday that all major public gatherings
that could “pose a risk to public order” would be banned. Various rock
concerts have been pulled. Some 45,000 police were deployed.
The
Interior Ministry said 994 arrests were made during Friday night, with
more than 2,500 fires. The night before, 917 people were arrested
nationwide, 500 buildings targeted, 2,000 vehicles burned and dozens of
stores ransacked.
While
the number of overnight arrests was the highest yet, there were fewer
fires, cars burned and police stations attacked around France than the
previous night, according to the Interior Ministry. Gerald Darmanin,
France’s interior minister, claimed the violence was of “much less
intensity”.
Hundreds
of police and firefighters have been injured, including 79 overnight,
but authorities have not released injury tallies for protesters.
Protests
have continued into a fourth night, with rioters in Paris on Saturday
night setting fire to a bus and clashing with police. Unrest has also
spread to Lyon and Grenoble.
Meanwhile, security will be beefed up during the upcoming Tour de France bike race, which is due to start in Spain on Saturday.
In
updated travel advice, the Foreign Office said: “Locations and timing
of riots are unpredictable. You should monitor the media, and avoid
areas where riots are taking place.”
PCR |Against the backdrop of the United States’ recognition of the
investigation against Donald Trump as politically motivated, structural
and ideological controversies, and concerns that the American economy
will enter a recession, the GEOFOR editorial board asked Paul Craig
Roberts, Chairman of the Institute for Political Economy (USA), a PhD in
Economics and US Undersecretary of Treasury in the Reagan
administration, to share his views on America’s future.
GEOFOR: Special Counsel John Durham “acquitted” Donald Trump on the
so-called “Russiagate”, writing in his report that the FBI investigation
was politically motivated. How will this news affect the Democrats’
fight against Trump?
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts: The Special Counsel’s vindication of Donald
Trump and denunciation of the FBI for conducting a politically motivated
investigation devoid of any evidence should collapse the equally
fraudulent Biden regime investigation of Trump on fake documents charges
and the New York state prosecution of Trump on alleged expense
misreporting charges. It has been clear for a long time that the list of
fake charges against Trump, supported by the media, are propaganda to
prevent Trump again running for President and to teach all future
potential presidential candidates that they will be destroyed if they
attempt to represent the people instead of the unelected ruling
oligarchy.
However, the Democrat Party and the presstitutes that service them
have no respect whatsoever for truth. Facts simply do not matter to
them. This is true also of American Universities, law associations,
medical associations, the CIA, FBI, NSA, the State Department, the
regulatory agencies such as NIH, CDC, FDA, the large corporations, and
many establishment Republican members of the House and Senate who serve
the economic interests that pay them, not truth. It is also the case
with a high percentage of Democrat voters who have been conditioned by
propaganda to hate Trump. To Democrats what matters is not facts, but
getting Trump. Truth is not permitted to prevent the destruction of
Trump.
Consequently, the US is moving toward a fatal split in the society
from which recovery is impossible. Trump represents ordinary Americans
who prefer peace to the neoconservatives’ wars, who want their jobs back
that the greed-driven capitalist global corporations sent to China and
Asia, who want their children properly educated instead of indoctrinated
with sexual perversion, Satanism, and told that they are racists. In
contrast, the Democrats are increasingly Woke–people who believe that
truth is an oppressive tool of white supremacy, that Christian morality
is tyrannical and discriminatory against pedophiles and other sexual
perverts, and that, as “President” Biden himself has said, white people
are the greatest threat to America. See: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2023/05/15/us-navy-enlists-drag-queen-for-digital-ambassador-role-to-attract-more-recruits-2/
Now that official investigations by the House Republicans have brought the utter corruption of Biden and his son to light (see: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2023/05/16/bank-records-show-biden-family-received-10-million-in-payments-from-china-foreign-interests-house-oversight/
), the Democrats, the dangerous and corrupt military/security complex,
and the complicit whore American media, are desperate. They all stand as
being exposed. So, rather than apologize for their mistreatment of
Trump and his supporters–1,000 of whom the Democrats have illegally
imprisoned–they will likely strike out while they still control the
Executive Branch, the US Senate, the CIA, FBI, NSA, and federal agencies
such as the IRS that have been armed and militarized.
Alternatively, the corrupt and threatened Democrats might cause war
between the US and Russia, or Iran, or China in the hopes that a war
will unify even Trump supporters, especially the super-patriots among
them, around the “President” against “foreign enemies.”
azerbaycan | With the House of Representatives controlling the “power of the purse”
(the budget) of the US, it has become the norm in these politically
divisive days when the House is controlled by the party opposing the
president, to try to humiliate him by creating a crisis.
That being said, there has been an ever-growing chorus of US politicians
and officials who have called for the debt ceiling to be raised, saying
if they don’t do it, it will “help China,” or sometimes even Russia.
These claims are bizarre. Are they truly suggesting that the only reason
to maintain basic political unity and compromise in the US is Beijing?
And that this is the reason they should comply to keep the mountain of
US debt and spending going? Such a statement says a lot about US
politics, both past and present. First, it tells us that beyond exerting
aggression and fear of foreign adversaries, there is very little to
keep US politics together these days and its environment is essentially
toxic. Secondly, it also tells us how the US system sustains its power
as a whole.
The US is a vast and diverse nation. It has a population of over 300
million people across a territorial expanse which is the third largest
in the world by some definitions. Across its 50 states, a variety of
different ethnic and social backgrounds can be found. Your Baptist
pastor from Alabama has nothing in common with your ambitious young
middle-class banker living in New York City, and even less with your
struggling African-American family in the same city. In incorporating
such diversity, the political system of the US is also by constitution
decentralized, delegating power into multiple branches of government
dispersed across federal, state and local levels.
It is no surprise that this has produced a political system which is
beset by often bitter division and intense ideological and value-based
conflicts. This has been enough, as history demonstrates, to plunge the
country into a civil war. The development of mass media and social
networks has only made it worse. Thus, starting in the 20th century, the
American elite structure has sought to maintain control over its nation
by vesting itself in the politics of fear mongering, which forces a
continual emphasis on “American values,” namely democracy and liberty,
in the bid to maintain a basic consensus for the justification of the
state itself.
When analyzed through this lens, if the US runs out of adversaries and
threats, politicians genuinely might have difficulty justifying the
existence or unity of the nation altogether in its current form. The US
centralizes itself through fear and hysteria, because if not for those
things constantly looming, Americans wouldn’t have a whole lot to agree
on, be it guns, abortion, LGBTQ rights, immigration, or anything else.
antiwar | As Israel celebrates its 75th anniversary, the state-building project it cemented
into place in 1948 by expelling
750,000 Palestinians from their homeland is showing the first signs of unraveling.
The surprise is that Israel’s woes spring not, as generations of its leaders
feared, from outside forces – a combined attack from Arab states or pressure
from the international community – but from Israel’s own internal contradictions.
Israeli leaders created the very problems they all too obviously lack the tools
to now solve. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bombardment of Gaza in
recent days, killing dozens of Palestinians, should be understood in that light.
It is one more indication of Israel’s internal crisis.
Once again, the Palestinians are being used in a frantic bid to shore up an
increasingly fragile “Jewish” unity.
Israel’s long-term problem is underscored by the current, bitter standoff
over Netanyahu’s plan for a so-called judicial overhaul. The Israeli Jewish
population is split down the middle, with neither side willing to back down.
Rightly, each sees the confrontation in terms of a zero-sum
battle.
And behind this stands a political system in near-constant paralysis, with
neither side of the divide able to gain a stable majority in the parliament.
Israel is now mired in a permanent, low-level
civil war.
To understand how Israel reached this point, and where it is likely to head
next, one must delve deep into the country’s origin story.
Morality tale
The official narrative is that Israel was created
out of necessity: to serve as a safe haven for Jews fleeing centuries of
persecution and the horrors of the Nazi death camps in Europe.
The resulting ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and the erasure of hundreds
of their towns and villages – what Palestinians call their Nakba,
or Catastrophe – is either mystified or presented simply as a desperate
act of self-defense by a long-victimized people.
This colossal act of dispossession, aided and abetted by western powers, has
been reinvented for western publics as a simple morality tale, as a story of
redemption.
Israel’s establishment was not only a chance for the Jewish people to gain
self-determination through statehood so they would never again be persecuted.
Jews would also build a state from scratch that would offer to the world a more
virtuous model of how to live.
This tapped neatly, if subliminally, into a western, Christian-derived
worldview that looked to the Holy Land for salvation.
Jews would restore their place as “a light unto the nations” by “redeeming”
the land they had stolen from the Palestinians and offering a path by which
westerners could redeem themselves too.
FT | Many say the crisis was triggered by Netanyahu’s decision to form an electoral alliance with extreme ultranationalists previously on the fringes of politics.
The divisive veteran premier, who is on trial for corruption, returned to power in December by manufacturing a coalition dependent on ultraorthodox parties and ideologically driven religious Zionist leaders.
These include Itamar Ben-Gvir, who in 2007 was convicted of inciting for racism and is now Netanyahu’s national security minister, and finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, a self-declared homophobe whose Religious Zionist party is one of the main drivers behind the legal reform.
Both men live in settlements in the occupied West Bank that most of the international community consider illegal. They represent the religious nationalist settler movement and support the annexation of Palestinian territory. Ultraorthodox leaders hold other key posts, including the interior and religious affairs ministries.
After last year’s election — the fifth in less than four years — the coalition’s 64 seats in the 120-member Knesset are split between Likud, with 32, and the ultraorthodox and religious Zionist parties.
In coalition agreements with the parties, Netanyahu committed to a number of policies that would have a far-reaching impact on Israeli society, including expanding the powers of Rabbinical courts and tightening rules around religious conversions and immigration.
He also pledged to annex the West Bank “while choosing the timing and considering the national and international interests of the state of Israel”.
Since winning the election last year, the coalition has drafted legislation on a number of fronts, ranging from the legal reforms to changes that allow people convicted of crimes, but spared jail time, to serve as ministers. It has also legalised nine Jewish settler outposts deep in the West Bank, which even Israel had deemed to be built illegally.
Simcha Rothman, a MP with Smotrich’s Religious Zionist party, who heads the Knesset’s justice committee and is an architect of the planned judicial changes, considers the moment a “great opportunity” for “the believers”.
“What brings together the ultraorthodox, a religious Zionist like me [and] a secular like Netanyahu . . . is the deep belief that Israel is and should always be the homeland of the Jewish people,” he says.
Rothman says the legal reforms are needed to rein in the “unchecked and unbalanced” powers of judges. He blames the Supreme Court for having a “big part in radicalising” Palestinians of Israeli citizenship, and argues that in its current form it can block parents’ autonomy over how they educate their children, and even economic policies.
He complains that Jewish aspects of the state have been eroded, with “progressive elites” staging a “power grab in culture and academia”. He says an Israeli child can spend a year in school without opening a Bible and condemns a 2020 Supreme Court ruling that it was OK for people to bring non-kosher food into hospitals during Passover.
In his mind, “Israel was helpless against trends that would make Israel lose its Jewish identity”.
“I think it’s time for the public in Israel to decide if they want to be a country ruled by its people or by its judges,” Rothman says. “A constitutional moment is always some kind of a crisis, but it’s very important.” The government’s goal, he adds, is to “bring Israel back to normality”.
tikkunolam | As over 600,000 Israelis marched in scores of cities throughout the country and in major world capitals, cracks began to form
in the governing coalition. Facing near munity in the ranks of the
IDF, defense minister Yoav Gallant called on Bibi Netanyahu to put a
halt to the legislative steamroller being rammed through the Knesset. He
did so in a dramatic national TV address, which was clearly intended as
a shot across the prime minister’s bow.
Already, the ruling
coalition passed a law legalizing five settlements Israel had promised
George Bush would not be populated. It also passed a law removing the
attorney general’s right to disqualify a prime minister convicted of a
criminal offense. This will protect Netanyahu if he is convicted on any
of the corruption charges he confronts in his current trial. As
Opposition leader Benny Gantz said in a TV interview, there are dozens
more pieces of legislation that will follow if the government continues
this onslaught.
Regardless of Gallant’s political opinions about this agenda, as a
former army general, he understands that Israel must have a cohesive
fighting force. When there is munity within, the country cannot protect
its citizens. Not to mention, that the IDF is most significant
unifying institution in the country. It defines Israeli identity and
most citizens serve in it. For many Israelis the army and the state are
indistinguishable. For that reason, Gallant defines his allegiance to
the state via the army. If the army is not with the government, then
the latter cannot or should not function.
To clarify, I am
defining Israeli reality as most Israelis see it, in the above
paragraph, and not offering my own opinion, which is highly critical, as
readers will know.
Two senior Likud MKs followed suit
announcing support for Gallant. On the other side, a number of
Netanyahu stalwarts denounced Gallant. Fascist firebrand, Itamar Ben
Gvir, called for the PM to immediately fire him.
I wouldn’t be surprised if tomorrow he calls for erecting a scaffold in
Tel Aviv’s Kaplan Street and hanging Gallant by the neck till he is
dead, as judges used to say in the old Hollywood westerns.
Netanyahu
has two choices: he can accede to Gallant and declare a ceasefire.
That would involve members of the governing coalition and opposition
negotiating a compromise legislative agenda that would ensable some of
the proposed “reforms,” while eliminating the most objectional ones.
Even if he agreed to this option, these negotiations would have no
guarantee of success, since the sides are so far apart.
Or Netanyahu can reject Gallant’s call and go full steam ahead,
throwing in his lot with the radical elements of his coalition, the
anti-democracy coup plotters, Yariv Levin and Simcha Rotman. As I wrote in a recent post,
this will bring a confrontaton between the legisltiave and judicial
branches of Israeli government. Until now, the Supreme Court has
exerted limited powers compared to high courts in most democratic
countries. But at least it could review legislation and declare it in
violation of Israel’s quasi constitutional Basic Laws.
In that
sense, the Court would take up the laws passed by the far-right
governing coalition and likely strike down most, if not all of them.
The legislative body really has very little recourse at that point. It
cannot force the Court to arrive a different conclusion short of taking
the justices out in the courtyard and offering them a choice between
life or death. The Knesset has no enforcement provision that would
enable it to override the Court. Thus, its edict will prevail.
It
remains to be seen how the coup plotters will react. Perhaps after
reading the decisions, they will water down or rephrase new proposed
bills in the hope the justices will be willing to approve them. Since
the Court is a right-wing institution, it remains possible that they
will approve some of the current legislation; and improve even more if
it is modified or recast.
Begrudgingly Acknowledged Country Bangers
-
When someone says they hate country music, they’re typically referring,
whether they know it or not, to the neotraditionalist “young country” that
arose in...
A Foundation of Joy
-
Two years and I've lost count of how many times my eye has been operated
on, either beating the fuck out of the tumor, or reattaching that slippery
eel ...
April Three
-
4/3
43
When 1 = A and 26 = Z
March = 43
What day?
4 to the power of 3 is 64
64th day is March 5
My birthday
March also has 5 letters.
4 x 3 = 12
...
Return of the Magi
-
Lately, the Holy Spirit is in the air. Emotional energy is swirling out of
the earth.I can feel it bubbling up, effervescing and evaporating around
us, s...
New Travels
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Haven’t published on the Blog in quite a while. I at least part have been
immersed in the area of writing books. My focus is on Science Fiction an
Historic...
Covid-19 Preys Upon The Elderly And The Obese
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sciencemag | This spring, after days of flulike symptoms and fever, a man
arrived at the emergency room at the University of Vermont Medical Center.
He ...