Sunday, July 31, 2022

Tyranny Denied! New York Dems Can No Longer Send Anyone, Anytime, to a 'COVID Camp'

BY KEVIN DOWNEY JR. | P J MEDIA


AP Photo/Seth Wenig

Yes, the United States has COVID-19 camps.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) quietly published its COVID Camp protocol back in 2020. The plan was to send “sick” people to a camp for the betterment of all. But the phrase “COVID camp” has a negative feel to it. The CDC prefers the words “shielding camps.”

What is a COVID “shielding” camp? I’ll let the CDC explain it. By the way, don’t look for the word “voluntarily” because you won’t find it. That’s likely not an accident.

The shielding approach aims to reduce the number of severe COVID-19 cases by limiting contact between individuals at higher risk of developing severe disease (“high-risk”) and the general population (“low-risk”). High-risk individuals would be temporarily relocated to safe or “green zones” established at the household, neighborhood, camp/sector or community level depending on the context and setting.1,2They would have minimal contact with family members and other low-risk residents.

Like every other authoritarian attempt to curtail our freedoms, the Shielding COVID lockdown camps come to us disguised as a virtue. Check out the “strict adherence to protocol” part that every freedom-loving American should be wary of. Remember, they wanted to lock you down to protect “the most vulnerable populations.”

In theory, shielding may serve its objective to protect high-risk populations from disease and death. However, implementation of the approach necessitates strict adherence1,6,7, to protocol. Inadvertent introduction of the virus into a green zone may result in rapid transmission among the most vulnerable populations the approach is trying to protect.

So who decides which people are “high-risk”? In New York, it’s the public health commissioner who makes that call, comrade. Here is where it gets all commie-pinko: in New York state, you didn’t have to be sick to be sent to a camp. The public health commissioner could send anyone away, at any time, for any reason, for as long as she wanted.

FACT-O-RAMA! Biden wanted everyone not vaccinated to be fired from their jobs. Remember that every election day for the rest of your lives.

Here’s the good news: a New York judge just scuttled New York Rule 2.13, which allowed the New York commissioner of public health to take on these insane dictatorial powers.

According to court documents, Rule 2.13 suggests “[t]he commissioner has unfettered discretion to issue a quarantine or isolation for anyone, even if there is no evidence that person is infected or a carrier of the disease. Further, the commissioner sets the terms, duration, and location of the detention, not an independent magistrate.”

The judge continued:

Involuntary detention is a severe deprivation of individual liberty, far more egregious than other health safety measures, such as requiring mask wearing at certain venues. Involuntary quarantine may have far-reaching consequences such as loss of income [or employment] and isolation from family.

The New York legislature never voted on Rule 2.13. So how did this shockingly unconstitutional and draconian decision come to be? It was on the orders of N.Y.’s unelected Gov. Kathy Hochul and her Department of Health.

MARXISM-O-RAMA! Rule 2.13 gave the N.Y. commissioner of health the power to send anyone, sick or not, regardless of age (they could have snatched your kids), to a camp for as long as she wanted to.

Just as importantly, who is the commissioner of health who was given the power to lock up healthy people for as long as she wants? It’s Mary T. Bassett, whom Hochul employed roughly one month after she took over for disgraced Gov. “Handsy” Andy Cuomo.

Check out Bassett’s bio, especially the words “equity” and “social justice,” which have become code words for communism.

Governor Kathy Hochul today announced Mary T. Bassett, MD, MPH, has been appointed Commissioner of the Department of Health. With more than 30 years of experience devoted to promoting health equity and social justice, both in the United States and abroad, Dr. Bassett’s career has spanned academia, government, and not-for-profit work. Her appointment is effective December 1.

Who is the hero who brought the lawsuit? Attorney Bobbie Anne Cox. Her pro-bono lawsuit brought down Hochul’s attempt to round up any New Yorker, sick or not, that her pal Bassett decided needed to be sent away.

Check out Cox in this amazing video below as she explains how Hochul’s people fought to keep their tyrannical “rule” in place and how they wanted to use local law enforcement to round up people Democrats deemed “sick” enough to send away to a camp.

Spoiler alert: this all stems from Cuomo’s “emergency COVID powers,” which N.Y. tyrants never wanted to surrender.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW A VIDEO OF AN INTERVIEW WITH ATTORNEY BOBBIE ANN COX.

Saturday, July 30, 2022

Americans Ask If Biden Has Body Double After Face Looks Totally Different in 2 Different Vids Posted on Same Day

By Kassandra White | The Western Journal

President Joe Biden looked different in two videos he appeared in on Tuesday, July 26. Above are the images from the two videos.

[Below are some readers' comments:

- Is that an impersonator? Look how narrow-set and beady the eyes are. Does Biden really look like that? Or are they sending out his body double to read the teleprompters at this point?

- The impersonator has a fatter face with no age-related moles, a neater haircut, different shaped ears and rounder eyes.]

In the beginning of his video address of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement, Biden appeared normal as he criticized the Jan. 6 incursion at the United States Capitol.

During the last two minutes, Biden’s pupils appeared heavily dilated.

[A reader's comments:

- Here are the two videos back and forth.  Pay attention to his physical appearance and his voice. Again, both supposedly from today,  both only a few hours apart. What the hell is happening here? ]

CLICK HERE TO SEE ONE VIDEO

Biden would later appear in an official White House video in which he touted small decreases in the average price of a gallon of gas.

In that speech, Biden appeared more recognizable, with the pupil dilation from his previous video seemingly gone.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE SECOND VIDEO

The videos were released just hours apart.

Members of the public were quick to point out that Biden looked noticeably different in the second video released on Tuesday, causing some to ask if he had a body double.

One Twitter user ever brought up the point that others in the past used body doubles, so it is not something outside the realm of possibility.

Biden was diagnosed with coronavirus last week, a disease that White House staff have indicated he’s gradually recovering from.

The coronavirus case and his medication for it could explain why Biden’s voice sounded deeper in the first video he released.

It’s entirely possible that White House physicians would prescribe medication for a 79-year-old coronavirus patient that causes pupil dilation.

White House physicians have disclosed that Biden has received a regimen of paxlovid, an anti-viral drug designed to keep high-risk and older patients from developing severe cases that land them in the hospital.

Biden did appear to have recovered in a Wednesday Rose Garden appearance.

Biden disclosed experiencing mild symptoms, such as a runny nose, a dry cough and fatigue, during his bout with coronavirus.

______________________

RELATED ARTICLE

Biden tests positive for COVID in 'rebound' case, doctor says

By Adam Sabes | Fox News


President Biden speaks in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, July 27, 2022.  (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

President Biden tested positive for COVID-19 in a "rebound" case on Saturday, according to the White House.

"As described last week, acknowledging the potential for so-called ‘rebound’ COVID positivity observed in a small percentage of patients treated with PAXLOVID the President increased his testing cadence, both to protect people around him and to assure early detection of any return of viral replication," White House Doctor Dr. Kevin O'Connor said.

O'Connor said in the letter that Biden tested negative for COVID-19 on Tuesday evening, Wednesday morning, Thursday morning, and Friday morning, but tested positive on Saturday morning by an antigen test.

The doctor says that the re-infection represents "rebound positivity" and said that Biden has not experienced a reemergence of symptoms, and there's no need to restart treatment.

Biden will, however, begin "strict isolation procedures," according to O'Connor.

Biden tweeted on Saturday afternoon that he will continue working.

"Folks, today I tested positive for COVID again. This happens with a small minority of folks. I’ve got no symptoms but I am going to isolate for the safety of everyone around me. I’m still at work, and will be back on the road soon," Biden said.

Biden tested negative for COVID-19 on Wednesday after contracting the virus last week, prior to the announcement on Saturday afternoon.

A White House official told Fox News that contact tracing is now underway since Biden tested positive for COVID-19 again.

Previously, White House press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that it didn't matter where Biden contracted the coronavirus.

"Look, I don't think that matters, right? I think what matters is we prepared for this moment," Jean-Pierre said on July 21.

He was previously seen at several White House events without a mask since testing negative for COVID-19 on Wednesday, including at a roundtable discussing the economy on Thursday.

Dr. Marc Siegel, Fox News medical analyst and professor of medicine at New York University Langone Medical Center said it's not a good look for President Biden.

"Not a good look for a president who talks about mandates. He has played too loose with this," Siegel said.

Siegel said that Biden should have stayed in isolation longer, stating that he still had mild symptoms.

"Paxlovid rebound for Biden is not a surprise. I was surprised when he ended quarantine after 5 days even with two negative tests because he still clearly had mild symptoms including nasal congestion," Siegel said. "What I think happens is that the Paxlovid stops the virus from reproducing but when it wears off there may still be some particles left and they then start to reproduce again and the test turns positive."

"I think the FDA should consider extending the course to 7-8 days in higher risk cases like the president," Siegel said.

Friday, July 29, 2022

Biden’s Collapse Exposes Rot in the Establishment

 By Matthew Boose | American Greatness


Joe Biden - AFP via Getty Images

The problem isn’t really Joe Biden. It’s that the supposed “adults in the room” who surround him are children with no self-awareness and a violent allergy to accountability. 

A revolt is underway in King Biden’s court. The facade of the Capable Unifier has come undone. As if by magic, a moratorium on noticing Old Joe’s feeble condition has been lifted, and the ruthless machine that pushed the freakish spectacle of his presidency on the country is feigning surprise to find that the Oval Office is occupied by a dementia patient. 

Joe Biden has yet to face a midterm referendum, but he is already one of the most unpopular presidents in U.S. history. His own party is abandoning him. A recent New York Times poll found that more than 60 percent of Democrats want Biden to bow out in 2024. Across the board, Biden approval ratings are floating in the 30s. 

This day was always going to come, sooner or later. Democrats used every dirty trick in the book to push Biden past the finish line and remove the Bad Orange Man from power, but they never had a plan for what would come after the election. Everything about Biden’s campaign was a cynical sham. 

To the undeceived, the signs of Biden’s incapacity were obvious even then. Biden spent much of the campaign sequestered at home. An irresponsible, overtly political media campaigned on his behalf. They refused to cover his mental decline, covered up his family’s treacherous, salacious dealings with China, the evidence of which is now undeniable, and portrayed Biden as a saint, the John Paul II of “democracy.” 

Of course, this was all a load of poppycock. Americans are well-acquainted now with the real Biden. He is a nasty, corrupt, tired old man. 

But the establishment rallied behind Biden for lack of alternatives, and this factor hasn’t really changed. Kamala Harris, who rose to her current station through one of the more spectacular examples of affirmative action in history and an infamous act of “poontronage,” is a talentless buffoon who is even more inept and unpopular than Biden. Then there’s Pete Buttigieg, the lab-created striver freak from South Bend. Who else? Bernie Sanders? He has shown himself to be as malleable as the rest of the machine’s cogs. 

Democrats are currently preoccupied with finding somebody to replace their shambling puppet ruler, but it might do them some good to ponder this question: why aren’t there any leaders on the Left? There is nobody at the top with any spine, nobody who has the nation’s best interest at heart. A problem this deeply rooted can’t be fixed by swapping Biden for another shill of the oligarchy who has a little more energy.

The globalist institutions in which the liberal “elite” live create empty suits who lack conviction and loyalty to the nation. The system rewards those who kowtow to it and readily obey its soul-warping demands of uniformity. The carbon copy “elites” it produces are obsessed with power and the means of preserving it. When they make mistakes, which is often, their first instinct is to moralize and blame the people. In the name of social justice, they destroy those with competence, originality, and daring and replace them with unqualified people who will take marching orders. Those who rise to the top are followers, slaves to fashion and the day’s absurd dogma. Biden, a former “moderate” whose campaign relied on a misleading perception of familiarity, is no exception. 

The only way for a white man like Joe Biden to succeed in the Democratic Party is to apologize for existing. Who finds such a man inspiring? Who would march into battle with him? Good rulers know how to give a speech that uplifts their people, but today’s occupational “elites” are barely literate in English. 

Harris is a particularly rich font of the “wisdom” of her class. The system has trained her and others like her to distinguish themselves not by worthy acts of public service (a term they have stolen for their own selfish purposes), but by adopting a freakish, nonsensical language that alienates average people (“Latinx,” “birthing people”) even as it exposes the rulers’ lack of competence. They discredit themselves and degrade the public a little more each time they open their mouths. 

The problem isn’t Biden, it’s that the so-called “adults in the room” who surround him are children with no self-awareness and a violent allergy to accountability. They are incapable of feigning interest in what concerns normal people, and the public is beginning to sense this indifference. The unusually hostile, contemptuous tone of the Biden Administration is a novelty in our politics and a sign of deep insecurity. The “elites” know that they are not legitimate and that their own corruption is what powers the enduring political appeal of Donald Trump, who appears to be on a glide path to the White House in 2024 despite the establishment’s efforts to make him into a pariah, or even a political prisoner. 

Biden doesn’t get a pass for his role in destroying the country because of his feeble condition. What he’s doing at the southern border is treasonous. On some level, he is aware of his responsibility. He did not have to run for the presidency, but he was compelled by his own hunger for power. The “elites” should have stopped him. That’s what they would have done if they loved the country, instead of degrading it with this charade.

Thursday, July 28, 2022

IT’S OFFICIAL: Second Quarter GDP Comes In at Negative 0.9 Percent — US OFFICIALLY ENTERS BIDEN RECESSION

By Jim Hoft

.
US RECESSION WATCH —  Second Quarter GDP comes in at negative 0.9%.

Joe Biden on Monday straight up denied the US is going into a recession. He was wrong.

“We’re not gonna be in a recession in my view,” Biden said rattling off his talking points that the US is going to go from “rapid growth to steady growth.”

The GDP shrank by 1.6 percent in the first quarter of 2022.

The Atlanta Federal Reserve announced earlier this month that the second quarter of 2022 saw a GDP of minus 2.1 percent.

The historic definition of an economic recession is two quarters of negative economic growth.

CNBC reported:

Whether the U.S. skirts recession will mostly rest in the hands of consumers, who accounted for 68% of all economic activity in the first quarter.

Recent indications, however, are that spending retreated in the April-to-June period. Real (after-inflation) personal consumption expenditures declined 0.1% in May after increasing just 0.2% in the first quarter. In fact, real spending fell in three of the first five months this year, a product of inflation running at its hottest pace in more than 40 years.

Americans Are Hurting. Do Democrats Care?

By Oliver L. North and David L. Goetsch | Creators.com


PHOTO: U. S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer

While the weak and feckless President Joe Biden was hat-in-hand begging Saudi Arabia's crown prince to pump more oil, here is what was happening at home in the U.S.: An elderly woman on a fixed income had to choose between purchasing medicine or groceries; a recent college graduate who worked her way through college refusing student loans had to decide whether to fill her gas tank or pay rent; a young couple lost their only child in a drive-by shooting; and fentanyl overdoses continued to skyrocket.

Incomprehensibly, Democrat office holders are not only guilty of causing the financial pain and suffering Americans are enduring; elitist "Dems" apparently don't even care. Americans are hurting because of the Left's destructive policies, yet the Biden, Pelosi and Schumer troika refuses to even consider a new direction.

Since the days of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Democrats have portrayed themselves as the party of the people. They have long claimed to be protectors of "working men" and "voiceless women." These claims are mere political propaganda. The truth, as demonstrated by the Biden administration, is this: Hardworking American families are hurting, and today's Democrats just don't give a damn.

Rather than being the party that cares about "We the People," Democrats have become a favored class of wealthy, white, "woke" elites. These privileged, out-of-touch, "chosen" care little about the challenges of everyday Americans.

Those considered to be "elites" by leading Democrats, our mainstream media and academic communities are supposedly unbiased pursuers of truth who go where the facts lead them. They allegedly subscribe to universal truths and acknowledge the source of those truths. None of this is true. "Educators," members of the so-called mainstream media and the Democrat Party are replete with well-educated fools. Never confuse diplomas, degrees or titles with wisdom.

Academic elites, allegedly highly educated, are often biased tyrants using their positions and power to demand compliance with leftist orthodoxy rather than objectively pursuing facts and truth, regardless of where these factors lead. Academic elites often deny obvious truths running counter to leftist ideology. To the elites controlling today's Democrat Party, truth is anything advancing their socialist agenda.

Biden, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have made it clear they care more about destroying America's fossil fuel industry than protecting American citizens from runaway inflation. Elderly Americans being forced to choose between buying groceries or medicine do not concern the leftist ideologues now running our government. Mothers who cannot purchase formula for their babies — even if they have the money — are brushed aside by leftist elitists who would rather see our economy collapse before giving an inch on "green" energy.

It's possible the U.S. inflation rate will soon hit 10%. This means many more millions of wage-earning Americans will soon be abandoned by Biden, Schumer and Pelosi.

Biden's open-border policy has resulted in a huge upsurge in crime, drug overdoses and human trafficking. But the radical leftists who control Biden and the Democrat Party still portray their border policies as compassionate and humane. Americans who see their loved ones gunned down by convicted felons put back on the streets by leftist judges and woke district attorneys cannot understand these pro-criminal Democrat policies. Our military is being gutted, dropping our guard as we face our enemies from around the globe.

These far-left policies and practices are driving inflation through the ceiling, moving our economy toward a recession, and putting us in ever greater peril. We submit their uncaring attitude is the result of hubris, arrogance and elitist snobbery. In short, Americans are hurting because of ill-advised Democrat policies. "We the People" can fix this in November. Let's pray we do so.





Wednesday, July 27, 2022

How To Erode the World’s Greatest Military

By Victor Davis Hanson


Alienating half the country is not a wise strategy of military recruitment. 

The U.S. Army has met only 40 percent of its 2022 recruiting goals.  

In fact, all branches of the military are facing historic resistance to their current recruiting efforts. If some solution is not found quickly, the armed forces will radically shrink or be forced to lower standards—or both.  

Such a crisis occurs importunely as an aggressive Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea believe the Biden Administration and the Pentagon have lost traditional U.S. deterrence.  

That pessimistic view abroad unfortunately is now shared by many Americans at home. In 2021, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute conducted its periodic poll of attitudes toward the U.S. military. The result was astonishing. Currently, only 45 percent of Americans polled expressed a great deal of trust in their armed forces. Confidence had dived 25 points since an early 2018 poll. 

Military officials cite both the usual and a new array of challenges in finding suitable young soldiers—drug use, gang affiliation, physical and mental incapacities, and the dislocations arising from the COVID pandemic and vaccination mandates. But they are too quiet about why such supposedly longer-term obstacles suddenly coalesced in 2022—as if their own leadership and policies have had no effect in discouraging tens of thousands of young men and women to join them. 

The Greatest Skedaddle in Modern American History 

A year ago, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley were assuring the country not to worry over Joe Biden’s strange ideas of abruptly pulling out all U.S. troops from Afghanistan. The radical step was purportedly to coincide with Biden’s planned 20-year celebratory event marking his role in ensuring an iconic end of the war on terror that began on September 11, 2001.  

What followed was the worst U.S. military humiliation since Pearl Harbor.  

U.S. forces abandoned hundreds if not thousands of American contractors and loyal Afghan employees, a $1 billion embassy, a huge $300 million refitted air base, and reportedly somewhere between $60-80 billion in military equipment and infrastructure. That sum was nearly double all the current military assistance sent to Ukraine.  

Thirteen Americans were murdered by terrorists during the chaotic flight. In response, the United States mistakenly blew up 10 innocent Afghans after misidentifying them as ISIS terrorists. The horrific scenes at the Kabul airport surpassed the 1975 catastrophic ending of the Vietnam War on the U.S. embassy roof.  

The global aftermath was eerie. Russia in a few months thereafter invaded Ukraine. Iran proudly announced it would soon have enough fissionable material to make a nuclear weapon. North Korea resumed its provocative missile launches. China openly talked of storming Taiwan.  

The common denominator was the global perception that any president and military responsible for such colossal, televised incompetence would or could neither deter enemy aggression nor protect allied interests.  

In response, widely reported furor arose among the ranks of some American officers and the enlisted. Mid-level officers especially claimed they were ignored after warning that the abrupt withdrawal was suicidal, that Pentagon grandees were lying about the dire facts on the grounds in efforts to lubricate the Biden agenda, and that thousands of Americans and loyal Afghans would be cast adrift, along with our NATO allies.

The shame of defeat and the cloud of incompetence from Afghanistan have continued to harm recruitment efforts of the military. 

The White Rage Unicorn 

About a year ago Austin and Chairman Milley took time out from assuring Americans that all would be well in Kabul, to testify before Congress about the Pentagon’s effort to address “white rage” in the six-month aftermath of the January 6 riot.  

Both were also asked to explain why the armed services were recommending soldiers read inter alia the often-discredited “antiracist” theories of Ibram X. Kendi. His polarizing doctrine asserts that the entire U.S. system of government, all social and political life, and our very culture are racist to core. As a result, Kendi’s solution requires radical and overt racial preferencing and discrimination supposedly to fight such an insidious system.  

Yet what was startling about the two officials’ testimonies was the utter lack of data showing any general trends that white soldiers were any more or less likely to practice racial discrimination or chauvinism than other ethnic and racial groups in the military. An array of officers defended various workshops and course work at the military academies purporting that white rage is an existential problem in the military.  

The subtext of the entire testimony debacle was that the two titular heads of the military wished to reassure progressive majorities in the U.S. Congress that they were sympathetic to the woke movement and, along with other high-ranking officers, wanted publicly to virtue signal to that effect.  

In their emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion—the latest euphemisms for using race and gender quotas to assure proportional or even reparatory representation—throughout the officer corps, Austin and Milley seemed entirely oblivious that the U.S. Army depends on generations of family loyalty to the armed forces. Such heritage and legacy considerations have ensured a steady stream of recruits for front-line combat units.  

In other words, over generations the same families, drawn from mostly middle-class cohorts, have served disproportionately in combat units in Vietnam, the various Iraq conflicts, and Afghanistan. Indeed, if the military was consistent in its racial fixations, it might have noted that white males—the purported targets of the Austin and Milley efforts to ferret out supposed white rage cells— died in three wars at roughly twice their numbers in the general

Current analysis of the recruiting crisis reveals what almost any observer would have predicted a year earlier from the haughty virtue signaling of Austin and Milley: traditional military families are not sending their sons and daughters into the ranks. It is not the danger of combat or the rigor of military life that families fear, but the suspicion their offspring will be targeted for ideological indoctrination and coercion that is either extraneous or antithetical to military efficacy. 

Traditionally, 40 percent of new recruits cite the military service of their parents—not to mention their veteran grandparents. Currently only 13 percent of new recruits arrive from such military families. Yet Austin and Milley made no connection between the Pentagon fixations on current hot-button social issues and its apparent inability to secure an honorable and safe withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The Weaponization of the Pentagon 

There is a general perception in and outside the military that the top ranks of the services are increasingly politicized. High profile officers have used the great authority, influence, and power of the Pentagon in polarizing progressive advocacy roles from transgenderism to abortion—to the detriment of military efficacy and lethality. Much of unhappiness with the military arises partly from the woke hysteria, the institutional disdain for Donald Trump and his response to it, and the perceived rewards for those retired military lobbyists and corporate board members who reflect a new woke creed.   

The nadir in politicization came in 2021 when it was revealed that Milley secretly contacted his Chinese communist counterpart during the height of the 2020 presidential election. Milley claimed he believed that his own commander-in-chief, Trump, was unstable. And so, after his layman’s diagnosis, he wished to assure the People’s Liberation Army’s ranking officer that he would tip the Chinese off about any thought of a preemptive American strike on China. Milley also ordered his own subordinate theater officers to report to him first should Trump contemplate any nuclear action against China. 

Upon public disclosure of those facts, Milley should have been summarily fired. By law, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs is an advisory official only. The position enjoys no operational command.  

Milley violated the chain of command by usurping theater authority that was not his. Nor can a military long exist, if its iconic leader freelances in contacting enemy counterparts without the knowledge of the commander-in-chief.  

Can we imagine the outrage that would now ensue, if Milley should once again warn his Chinese counterpart that another president, Joe Biden, in the chairman’s own opinion, suffers bouts of cognitive debility and early onset senility, forcing Milley to take matters in his own hands? Yet such freelancing insubordination is now Milley’s legacy.  

In fact, some in the retired U.S. military for over four years systematically violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice, sometimes to the extent of engaging in a sort of coup porn. 

In a Washington Post op-ed, retired generals Paul Eaton, Antonio Taguba, and Steven Anderson melodramatically and without evidence warned the nation of a supposedly impending coup should their commander-in-chief Donald Trump be elected again in 2024. 

In August 2020, two retired officers John Nagl and Paul Yingling, wrote an op-ed urging Milley to simply remove Trump from office should Milley himself feel such a move was necessary after a disputed election. That was a de facto call for a possible coup d’état. But it was not unique.

Earlier, civilian Rosa Brooks, a former Obama-era Pentagon legal official, published an inflammatory call to arms in Foreign Policy. She discussed three major possible avenues to remove newly inaugurated Donald Trump from the presidency. One of her alternatives was a military coup.  

For the entire Trump presidency, retired four-star generals and admirals had routinely smeared their commander-in-chief as a veritable Nazi, a Mussolini-like figure, an abject liar, and comparable in his policies to the architects of the Nazi death camps. One retired admiral called for the removal of Trump “the sooner, the better” as if regularly scheduled elections were insufficient remedies. 

Aside from clear violations of Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, these officers were oblivious that nearly half the country supported the president and his policies. And so, millions of people would logically conclude that the highest-ranking retired officers, and by extension the culture of the current military, had nothing but contempt for their own views and voting decisions. Alienating nearly half the country is not a wise strategy of military recruitment.

Nor is hypocrisy. The perceptions in the ranks have grown that applications of the law are asymmetrical and politically warped. Article 88, applicable to retired generals and admirals, prohibits military officers from using contemptuous words about top civilian elected and appointed officials. It says nothing about the spouses of said officials.

None of the retired officers who in the media libeled their commander-in-chief from 2017-2021 faced any consequences—reprimands, court martials, or sanctions from doing business with the Pentagon from their corporate billets. Yet one recently did.  

The U.S. Army just fired retired consultant Lt. Gen. Gary Volesky from a contractual position with the Pentagon because he poked fun at First Lady Jill Biden. Note that Volesky did not suggest Jill or Joe Biden was a Nazi, a fascist, or liar —much less that her husband should be removed from office “the sooner, the better.” Retired General Volesky’s crime was mocking Jill Biden’s purported hypocrisy on the recent overturn of Roe v. Wade. 

Unfortunately, the crisis in the U.S. military transcends even the Afghanistan misadventure, unsupported accusations against an entire demographic, the erosion of military familial loyalty, freelancing politicized officers, and asymmetrical applications of laws and codes. 

Fairly or not, the perception among the public and our enemies is that the U.S. military has become a political entity with an agenda that transcends defending the U.S. and its interests. 

Its perceived main agenda by half the country is progressive social justice, administered top-down from a cadre of elites who can implement controversial policies through the chain of command without the messy work of the Congress—to the delight of the Pentagon’s newfound sunshine friends on the woke Left. 

Such military social engineers unfortunately appear to share contempt for a large group of Americans who voted for a president they despised. And this is a fact warmly welcomed by our worst enemies abroad.

Tuesday, July 26, 2022

“You Can’t Fake This!” – CNN Panel Blasts Biden Regime For Lying About the Definition of a Recession

By Cristina Laila | Gateway Pundit


You know it’s bad when CNN is calling out the Biden Regime’s lies.

The Biden Regime is actually trying to redefine the term recession.

Joe Biden on Monday straight up denied the US is going into a recession.

“We’re not gonna be in a recession in my view,” Biden said rattling off his talking points that the US is going to go from “rapid growth to steady growth.”

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Monday she won’t define a recession: “I’m not going to define it from here.”

The GDP shrank by 1.6 percent in the first quarter of 2022.

The Atlanta Federal Reserve announced earlier this month that the second quarter of 2022 saw a GDP of minus 2.1 percent.

The Biden Regime is gaslighting Americans and claiming we are merely in a “unique” transition.

A CNN panel wasn’t buying the Biden Regime’s lies.

“You can’t fake this!” CNN’s Kasie Hunt said.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE CNN VIDEO


Russia to Cut Europe’s Gas Flow via Nord Stream to 20%

 By Joe Wallace and Georgi Kantchev | The Wall Street Journal


The Nord Stream pipeline supplies vital flows of gas to Europe.
PHOTO: MARKUS SCHREIBER/ASSOCIATED PRESS


Nord Stream: How Russia Has Turned Its Gas Into a Global Economic Weapon

Russian state gas company Gazprom blames problems with a turbine; German Economy Ministry says there is no technical reason for a reduction


Russia said it would further reduce natural-gas supplies to Europe this week, lobbing another volley in its economic war with the West and raising new questions about Europe’s ability to avoid shutting down factories and leaving homes cold this winter.

Russian state-owned energy producer Gazprom PJSC said gas exports through the vital Nord Stream pipeline to Germany would drop to about a fifth of the pipe’s capacity, blaming sanctions-related problems with turbines that have already reduced flows. The fresh reduction in the pipeline’s capacity—from 40% currently to 20%—is expected to take effect Wednesday, Gazprom said.

Wholesale European gas prices jumped 12% Monday to 179 euros, or about $183, a megawatt-hour. They have more than doubled so far this year and are expected by analysts to keep rising as winter approaches, adding to inflation that is straining economies, governments and financial markets in the region.

European officials and analysts say Russia President Vladimir Putin is weaponizing gas deliveries, aiming to retaliate for economic sanctions imposed on Russia and weaken the West’s resolve to give military and financial assistance to Ukraine. By keeping some gas flowing, they say, Moscow is keeping Europe guessing and maximizing the leverage it has over Europe’s energy security to sow political fissures.

“Russia is playing a strategic game here,” said Simone Tagliapietra, a senior fellow at Brussels-based economic think tank Bruegel. “Fluctuating already low flows is better than a full cutoff as it manipulates the market and optimizes geopolitical impact.”

European government officials and companies say Moscow is using the turbine holdups as a diversion in what Berlin has called an economic attack. Nord Stream has an elaborate contingency system with at least one spare turbine available at all times, The Wall Street Journal previously reported. The German Economy Ministry on Monday said there was no technical reason for the reduction in deliveries.

Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s press secretary, dismissed accusations that Gazprom has meddled with gas supplies to gain political leverage. “Russia is a responsible gas supplier,” he told reporters Monday, before the Gazprom announcement, according to Russia’s Interfax news agency.

The planned reduction complicates Europe’s efforts to fill up its gas storage ahead of winter. Without enough gas in the higher-demand months, governments say they are likely to ration energy and the continent’s fragile economy could sink into recession. Germany’s federal energy regulator has said that the country would struggle to reach its storage goals with Nord Stream flows capped at 40%. Reaching them at 20% is an even taller order.

Berlin has drawn up plans to dole out gas to consumers, hospitals and other critical sectors while potentially leaving industry short of supplies. For many companies in sectors reliant on gas, such as the chemical industry, rationing would mean halting production altogether, risking job cuts and upending supply chains around the globe.

Earlier Monday, Germany’s Ifo Institute, an economic research institution, said that the threat of gas shortages and high energy prices weighed on business sentiment in Europe’s largest economy in July. “Germany is on the threshold of recession,” the institute said.

Gazprom last month reduced flows to 40% of Nord Stream’s capacity, blaming a missing turbine that was stuck in Canada due to Western sanctions. Then, earlier this month, Gazprom halted the pipeline altogether for previously planned, routine maintenance. Last week, the pipeline started back up again, but Mr. Putin warned that sanctions threatened to force Gazprom to reduce flows again.

Gazprom’s statement on Monday came hours after the company signaled further delays in reinstalling the initial turbine en route back from Canada. Gazprom had said Siemens Energy AG, the German company handling the maintenance, hadn’t provided the correct documentation for the turbine to make the final leg of its journey from Germany back to Russia.

Siemens spokesman said the turbine could be shipped immediately but that Russia hasn’t issued the necessary customs documents. “Gazprom, as the customer, is required to provide those,” he said. He added that German authorities gave Siemens Energy the necessary documentation to export the turbine to Russia at the start of last week.

The German Economy Ministry said that “sanctions approval requirements for the delivery of the turbine in question have been met.”

Amid the standoff over Nord Stream flows, the EU last week outlined plans to cut gas demand by 15%. The program would start as a series of voluntary reductions through changing fuels, factory closures and diminished energy consumption in office blocks and public buildings. But pushback from Southern European countries, Poland and others could prompt the bloc to scale back those plans after a meeting of energy ministers Tuesday.

Russia’s move “should increase pressure on EU energy ministers to deliver a sensible deal,” Mr. Tagliapietra said. “Action on this cannot be delayed any more.”

With many European countries that depend on Russian gas reliant on supplies transiting through Germany, irregular or dwindling supplies through Nord Stream would be felt across the continent.

Governments across Europe are trying to secure gas from other suppliers, including Norway, Algeria, the U.S. and Qatar, which often comes in the form of liquefied natural gas transported by ship. Germany is building several LNG terminals on its coast to receive shipments and has chartered five floating terminals that can handle those inflows in the short term.

The worst-case scenario for Europe would be if Russia severed supplies both through Nord Stream and other routes. Europe already has a big hole to fill in replacing Russia, which met 40% of the EU’s gas needs in 2021.

Since invading Ukraine in February, Moscow has put the Yamal-Europe pipeline, which traverses Belarus and Poland into Germany, out of action by imposing sanctions on the owner of the Polish section of the pipeline. Gazprom is using less than 40% of the transit capacity it booked to send gas via the huge pipelines that run through Ukraine to eastern members of the EU.

The result: In the first half of July, Europe imported nearly 70% less Russian gas via pipelines than it did this time a year ago, according to ICIS, a commodities data firm. A small amount of Russian fuel arrives in Europe on ships in the form of LNG.

In the event of a full cutoff, Hungary—which relies heavily on Russian gas and whose alternative pipeline routes run through other dependent countries—would see economic output decline by as much as 6.5%, according to recent forecasts by the International Monetary Fund. Italy could shed up to 5.7% and Austria and Germany almost 3% apiece, the IMF estimated.

Gazprom last week invoked force majeure for its failure to deliver contractually agreed natural-gas shipments in recent weeks, European energy companies have said. The move—a legal declaration that exempts the company from fulfilling contractual obligations because of circumstances outside its control—has been seen as an attempt by Gazprom to shield itself from legal consequences of any gas cuts.

The strategy carries risks for Moscow because gas exports, unlike oil shipments, are constrained by pipeline infrastructure, most of which points towards Europe. Russia has been injecting more gas into storage and shutting some production, analysts said. According to analysts at Goldman Sachs, Gazprom’s production is down more than 35% year-over-year for the first half of July.

Monday, July 25, 2022

Far-Left Group in Boston Who Make Official Edict on Biden Recession May Wait Till After 2022 Election

By Joe Hoft | Gateway Pundit


The responsibility for determining whether the US is in a recession or not lies with a group of economists in Boston.  The fact they are in far-left Boston makes it less likely that they’ll be saying anything about Biden’s horrible recession-turning depression before the 2022 Election. 

The Boston Globe reports that the official pronouncement of a recession comes from a group of elites in Boston.

There’s a good chance the US Commerce Department will report Thursday that the economy shrank from April through June, a second-straight quarterly contraction that by a conventional rule of thumb would mean the nation is in a recession.

But it’s not officially a recession until a small group of experts empaneled by the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge says so — and they are known to take their time.

The private organization that the federal government has empowered to designate recessions is headquartered in a nondescript office building between Harvard and Central squares, with a parking lot next to Hubba Hubba, a self-proclaimed “sex positive” boutique. Outside economists describe its workings as mysterious, and the long wait for its recession pronouncements can be like watching for the white smoke heralding a new pope…

…But the absence of a recession declaration creates an information void. Many people, including some economists, default to the two-quarter rule that usually — although not always — is correct. And until NBER makes its announcement, Democrats and Republicans are able to spar about whether the nation is actually in a recession.


It appears clear that the memo has gone out to the press that “you’d better not call it a recession until NBER says so.”

The supposedly non-partisan NBER has at least two members (Christina Romer and her husband) who are fervent leftists, so they will almost certainly heed the call, even though they probably already have all the data they need to declare that a recession began late last year.

Combine this with the White House insisting yesterday that it won’t believe even with a negative second quarter that we’re in a recession because so much other news is so strong per PJMedia:

Axios reported that White House economic advisors on Thursday moved the goalposts on what a recession is. The traditional definition of a recession is two or more quarters of economic shrinkage, but the Biden administration argues that “by most measures,” according to Axios, “the world’s largest economy remains comfortably in expansion mode.”

That’s why the White House “is seeking to preempt heightened recession chatter that would accompany two quarters of shrinking GDP.”

By changing the accepted definition.

Citing a “holistic look at the data,” the White House Council of Economic Advisors claims that “it is unlikely that the decline in GDP in the first quarter of this year—even if followed by another GDP decline in the second quarter—indicates a recession.”

Top economist Art Laffer reported that we’re already in a recession.

The bad news is piling up and conditions are deteriorating quickly.  The last time the GDP hit a high was in October of last year.  This is now eight months of declining GDP.

_________________


TRENDING: CAUGHT: Michigan News Channel Posts Results to Republican Primary Election — That’s Not Until Next Week!!