Learning About Political Parties & Political Philosophy

10/28/2024

https://youtu.be/31hIokuJUhk?si=MKAK6MQrqzvY9PrE

Vladimir Pozner at Yale University, How the west created putin

10/20/2020

A PAC of RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) and anti-Trumpers has lumped Donald Trump and The John Birch Society (JBS) in with the K*K and neo-Nazis in one of their latest smear ads.

The ad, released earlier in October, was paid for by a political action committee ironically called the Lincoln Project. To put the U.S. president and JBS in the company of hateful, murderous, terrorist groups is hyperbolic absurdity void of any semblance of truth. Honest Abe would be disappointed.

The video ad, one minute long, is called “Our fight.” Its high-quality production tries to appeal to human emotion through patriotism; it aims to draw a line between real patriotism –represented by film of American soldiers fighting in World War II—and “extremist groups,” such as the Klan, neo-Nazis—and the JBS.

“We’ve seen this before,” the narrator begins. “In the history of the great American experiment, extremist groups have risen up to challenge our democracy. There were anti-semitic fascists in the 1930s, the K*K, The John Birch Society.” While the narrator mentions each of the three groups, it shows black-and-white film of American neo-Nazis, K*K rallies, and representing the JBS, G. Edward Griffin. Though not mentioned in the ad, footage of Griffin came from his 1969 film presentation This Is The John Birch Society: An Invitation to Membership, wherein he condemned Communism, Na**sm, and the K*K, while supporting limited government under the Constitution. Talk about the Lincoln Project turning truth on its head!

The malicious ad continues: “And each of these hate groups were opposed by the American president, rejected by the American mainstream. Today, for the first time in our history, an American president embraces extremists and incites them to violence.”

There is absolutely no evidence that Trump or the JBS has ever advocated for the ideology of or taken part in the sort of horrid, hateful actions neo-Nazis and klansman have. But there is plenty of proof showing that the opposite is true. In fact, the Society, which founder Robert Welch created in 1958, had Jewish and black members and officials before integration between black and white was mainstream. The Society also has a long and well-documented record of exposing and opposing fascism, Na**sm, racism, and all forms of collectivism and tyranny.

Unfortunately, the Society, which has always been a threat to the establishment political class, Democrat and Republican, is no stranger to ridiculous lies.

So who is this new group to lob the latest shameless smears at the JBS?

A Look Into the Dishonest Lincoln Project

The Lincoln Project announced its arrival on the scene late 2019 via a pious op-ed in the New York Times. It was founded by Republican political operatives Steve Schmidt, John Weaver, and Rick Wilson, as well as New York lawyer and husband of former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, anti-Trump Republican George Conway.

Schmidt is a political strategist who worked for President George W. Bush, Senator John McCain and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Weaver worked as a strategist for President George H.W. Bush, Senator John McCain and Gov. John Kasich. Wilson is a media consultant and author of “Everything Trump Touches Dies.” Conway is known for being married to someone much more notable than him who worked for the man he’s working to keep from getting re-elected.

The PAC is a “an effort to highlight our country’s story and values, and its people’s sacrifices and obligations,” the group claims. Their reason for existence, the Lincoln Project claims, is to prevent Donald Trump’s re-election—apparently by convincing the electorate to vote for a Democrat: “Our efforts are aimed at persuading enough disaffected conservatives, Republicans and Republican-leaning independents in swing states and districts to help ensure a victory in the Electoral College.”

But are there more lies to this group than just the run-of-the-mill smears?

Investigative reporting by National Review and the New York Post indicate the group’s official agenda may be a façade for covering their debt as well as their true political identities.

“If a group of unemployed strategists were looking to shape a persuasive center-right critique of Trump and his allies, these are not the talents they’d turn to,” NR reports. “If, on the other hand, the aim was to open up anti-Trump wallets on the left, they couldn’t pick a better team.”

“The Lincoln Project’s communications director is Keith Edwards,” NR continues. “He previously worked on communications for Mike Bloomberg’s run in the Democratic presidential primary and as a staffer for New York City Council speaker Corey Johnson, also a Democrat. Johnson is on record as trying to kick a Christian relief organization, Samaritan’s Purse, out of New York City, after its staff set up a field hospital in Central Park at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.”

To date, NR reports, the Lincoln Project has spent nearly $100,000 for “fundraising consulting services” with the Katz Watson Group. “That firm’s founder, Fran Katz Watson, is a lifelong Democratic operative who previously worked as the national finance director for the Democratic National Committee. The firm’s long list of left-wing clients includes the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Beto for Senate.”

As of September, the group’s FEC filing shows it has raised nearly $59 million since its inception.

These operatives may also be looking for a way to cover some debt.

According to IRS filings obtained by the New York Post, the Republican operative Weaver — who has also called Trump a “tax fraud” — also has an outstanding $313,655 federal tax lien against his Austin, Texas, home.

American Express had taken Rick Wilson to court for his own unpaid $25,729 credit card bill the year before, documents show, The Post reports.

There seems to be very little that’s honest about this group.

“The project is a scam — little more than the most brazen election-season grift in recent memory,” NR writes.

America First Action, a pro-Trump PAC, circulated a memo entitled “The Lincoln Project Discrepancies,” with the intention of showing that the group’s principals are using the Lincoln Project to pay each other through their consulting firms.

Citing FEC filings, the memo says the treasurer of the Lincoln Project has a media firm called Summit Strategic Communications. It just so happens that Summit Strategic Communications received $19,581,590 from The Lincoln Project. The memo says that Lincoln Project founder and adviser Ron Steslow is the owner and president of TUSK Digital, which the Lincoln Project just so happens to have paid $6,441,614.

JBS’ True History of Inclusivity

Given it encompasses all the tells of a sham, it should be no surprise that the Lincoln Project — which did not reply with comment for request about why it smeared the JBS — blatantly lied about the Society in its ad.

Unfortunately, such fabrications are nothing new. Since the JBS arrived on the scene, it has had one overarching goal: to educate, organize and mobilize Americans to measure all policy and legislators with the ruler of the U.S. Constitution. In doing this, the Society has drawn the ire of a cornucopia of leftist groups, as well as neo-conservatives, none of which have any interest in reining American laws and policy into the small pen of American Constitutionalism.

One of the most common smears against the Society has been of the most egregious kind: hate. As with Trump, the Birch Society has occasionally been smeared as ‘racist’ or ‘anti-Semitic’ by some of its more dishonest enemies. But the truth is the opposite.

In 1963, the California Senate Factfinding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities performed an extensive investigation into the Society. Welch, the founder and president at the time, welcomed the investigation. He had even asked for it.

In the five years of existence at the time, the Society had grown exponentially and had become very successful in its mission. Its success alarmed and spurred to action those whose ideals and goals were diametrically opposed. The communists, socialists, and other groups knew the JBS threatened their mission, so they attacked with their favorite weapon: lies. The nonpartisan investigators confirmed this was happening as well.

“The Birch actions to throttle Communist activities provoked immediate reaction, and on December 5, 1960, through the Manifesto of 81 Communist Parties, and again through the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the anti-Communist movement in the United States was specifically and unmistakably pointed out as the most important target against which to concentrate communist strength,” the investigators reported.

As for its look into the JBS, the commission investigators pored over Society bulletins and writings, including everything available by Welch and in the Society magazine at the time, American Opinion. It looked over “a wide range of newspaper descriptions of the John Birch Society.” Investigators interviewed detractors and supporters of the group. It secured affidavits and signed statements from 91 people. It reviewed reports submitted by agents who attended Society chapter meetings. It read the report of then-attorney general and the charges made by the then-governor.

After all that work, here’s what the commission found:

“Among other unjustified criticism against the society is the charge that it is anti-Semitic. Our investigation leads us to the opposite conclusion. The organization is open to people of all religions, all races, all political persuasions except those deemed subversive…. There are many jews on the Birch committees, many in the society; some members have been asked to resign because they were found to be disruptive with their anti-Semitic attitude.”

Furthermore, the investigators added, all-black chapters had been formed, as well as integrated ones: “There are also several local chapters consisting of both colored and white members.”

Again, the report was filed in 1963, before the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Birchers didn’t need government to tell them to be inclusive.

Meanwhile, while the JBS was being pelted with false smears, black Society members were exposing the communists, stressing the need for racial harmony, and working to prevent civil unrest. They included George Schuyler, Alvin Smith Freeman Yearling, Charles Smith, Solomon Belete, Anthony Bryant, and Evans-Raymond Pierre.

Also, prominent black Americans such as nationally renowned conservative radio host Jesse Lee Peterson, founder and president of the pro-family group BOND (the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny), have been involved with JBS for decades. JBS chapter leader, radio co-host, and U.S. military veteran Ken Wood also happens to be black.

Furthermore, the JBS has not only excluded hate, but it has helped eliminate it.

Working with the FBI, a member of the society helped bring down some of the K*K’s most violent murderers. Reverend Delmar Dennis was a JBS member who infiltrated the most violent Klan in U.S. history, the White Knights of the K*K of Mississippi. He played a crucial role in bringing down some of its murderous members. Afterward, he went on a speaking tour for JBS exposing the Klan.

We Truly Have Seen This Before

The Lincoln Project ad got one thing correct in its deceitful ad: “We’ve seen this before.”

There is nothing new about political operatives pretending to be someone they’re not, pretending to care about causes they don’t.

The John Birch Society, however, has never lied about its agenda, nor strayed from it. The Society motto perfectly encapsulates its purpose, “ To bring about less government, more responsibility—and with God’s help—a better world.”

A PAC of RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) and anti-Trumpers has lumped Donald Trump and The John Birch Society in with the K*K and neo-Nazis in one of their latest smear ads. ...

10/19/2020

Jen O’Malley Dillon, Biden’s campaign manager who admitted that Biden’s polling numbers are inflated, has significant obstacles to overcome to get her man into the White House in January 2021.

Following revelations that Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, profited from selling access to his father while he was Vice President, the affair is beginning to show up in the polls. This is despite the former vice president’s protestations that the whole “Hunter thing” is just a “smear campaign.” The latest IBD/TIPP poll taken just after the New York Post printed the story showed the Biden campaign already losing three percentage points of its previously reported advantage over the incumbent.

O’Malley Dillon’s campaign is now, belatedly, sending volunteers door-to-door canvassing in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Michigan, and Nevada to counteract the enormous “ground game” the Trump campaign launched there months ago.

Former President Obama has been reluctantly enticed out of silence and retirement to hit the campaign trail for Biden.

Larry O’Connor, who hosts a politics and pop-culture talk show in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles, has questioned the validity of the whole “likely-voter” paradigm driving nearly all the national media’s polling strategies. He noted, “If you have voted before, or are aware of the local voting location, you are more likely to show up in those ‘likely voter’ polls.”

But, he says, “think about the energy and enthusiasm you see at Trump rallies, at Trump boat parades, at Trump truck parades, at Trump block parties.… Think about all of that energy and enthusiasm.… Who ARE those people?”

They are not voters whom the national pollsters are likely to quiz. O’Connor notes the results from the rally in Des Moines last week tallied by the Trump campaign. They identified more than 10,000 attendees, half of whom are NOT Republican, and more than a QUARTER of whom are Democrats. Twenty-five percent of them did not vote in 2016, and more than one in eight have never voted.

Asked O’Connor: “Look at those numbers and now filter them through the lens of how Gallup and other pollsters qualify a respondent as a ‘likely voter’. Do you think a significant number of people at this rally would qualify as a ‘likely voter’? Do you think those people will show up in a Gallup poll?”

He said: “Think of that! The people who go out of their way to go to a Trump rally are not counted for the presidential election!”

Those numbers from the Des Moines rally were repeated in the Janesville, Wisconsin, rally on Saturday: Nearly 14,000 signups, half of whom weren’t Republicans and a quarter of whom did not vote in 2016.

From the Muskegon, Michigan, rally, the day before: Nearly 12,000 voters’ names were collected, with less than half of them Republicans and nearly 40 percent of whom didn’t vote in 2016.

Biden campaign manager O’Malley Dillon is also facing a registration gap. As Andrea Widburg noted at American Thinker, “There’s good evidence that the people who haven’t voted but are attending the rallies are registering to vote. In Florida, a key state to win the election, new Republicans halved the once huge advantage Democrats had. Republican registration is also rising in Pennsylvania, another must-win state.”

In Pennsylvania, a state that Trump won by a scant 44,000 votes in 2016, the Republican Party has picked up nearly 200,000 voters. As a result, JPMorgan is estimating that Trump could win the state in November by more than 240,000 votes.

There’s the “small-donor” measure of enthusiasm for the Trump campaign, with the number of donors contributing less than $200 to the president’s campaign outpacing “small donors” to the Biden campaign.

There’s the “swing-voter” advantage that put Trump into the White House in 2016. The vast majority of them are sticking with the president as The New American reported back in August.

There’s the revelation that despite the COVID shutdown some 56 percent of Americans think they are better off now than they were four years ago.

There are the more than five million new gun owners, the majority of whom are black and female, who could secure another four years for President Trump all by themselves. The reason is simple: Why would a brand new gun owner vote for someone who has promised to take them away?

There’s the support for Trump’s Supreme Court nominee among voters, and an ever-increasing support for the president among Black and Hispanic voters.

O’Malley Dillon has a tall mountain to climb to win the White House for her man in November. And that mountain just got higher. It was announced on Sunday that the Biden campaign is going to keep their candidate hidden from view until Thursday night, explaining that he needs the time to prepare for the final debate with the president.

Biden has several significant obstacles to overcome to get into the White House. ...

10/18/2020

Newly published emails show that Hunter Biden’s business buddies helped set up members of the “China Entrepreneur Club,” also known as “China, Inc.,” with a tour of the White House in November 2011.

But Peter Schweizer and Seamus Bruner revealed something even more disturbing in their report about the emails at Breitbart on Friday. Hunter Biden’s insiders also arranged a meeting with his father, then Vice President Joe Biden.

Meanwhile, another email related to the Biden-Burisma influence-peddling scandal shows that Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to Burisma Holdings, asked the vice president’s son, a Bursima board member, for help in ending a prosecutor’s probe of the energy company.

Burisma, of course, is at the center of the scandal involving Joe Biden, who forced Ukraine to fire the prosecutor investigating the company.

The China Entrepreneur Club went to Hunter Biden and his pals, Schweizer and Bruner reported, because it did not receive a favorable answer from direct overtures to the Obama administration.

All the “entrepreneurs” needed was help from someone plugged in to Biden senior.

The Biden-China influence peddling emails, unrelated to those published in the New York Post, came from convicted fraudster Bevan Cooney, a former associate of Hunter Biden who gave Schweizer access to his Gmail account.

Reported Schweizer and Bruner:

In 2019, Cooney reached out to Schweizer after becoming familiar with the revelations in his 2018 book Secret Empires. Cooney explained that he believes he was the “fall guy” for the fraud scheme and that [Biden partner Devon] Archer and Hunter Biden had avoided responsibility.

But more importantly, “the emails offer a unique window into just how the Biden universe conducted business during the Obama-Biden Administration. These associates sought to trade on Hunter Biden’s relationship with, and access to, his father and the Obama-Biden White House in order to generate business.”

The China Entrepreneur Club is not, as its name suggests, a group of wealthy, enterprising businessmen merely trying to make a quick buck on gullible Americans, Schweizer and Bruner reported. It’s really China’s “second foreign ministry.” The membership includes top Chinese Reds.

As China Entrepreneur Club cutout Mohamed Khashoggi wrote to Hunter Biden associate Gary Fears, “the group is highly influential and includes the most important private sector individuals in China today.”

Providing the favor to “China Inc” will be profitable down the road, Khashoggi wrote.

I know it is political season and people are hesitant but a group like this does not come along everyday. A tour of the white house and a meeting with a member of the chief of staff’s office and John Kerry would be great. I will let you think about it. If we can set up meetings even with Rominy or non elected officials might be easier. ( Not sure if one has to be registered to to this). … I would be with them all the time and we would have good access to them for any deal in the future.

That deal, apparently, involved a lucrative potash mine in China.

Khashoggi even explained exactly what he wanted:

Biggest priority for the CEC group is to see the White House, and have a senior US politician, or senior member of Obama’s administration, give them a tour. If that can happen from 9:30am-10:30am on Nov 14th, there will be time for the group to see one-two other top US officials from 10:30am-12pm.

Wrote Fears to Archer, “this is perfect for u to attend and get guys for the potash deal.”

While Schweizer and Bruner don’t say which “senior member of Obama’s administration” gave the White House tour, Archer assured Fears that the meeting would take place. “Couldn’t confirm this with Hunter on the line but we got him his meeting at the WH Monday for the Chinese folks,” he wrote.

The day the Chinese went to the White House, Cooney told Fears that Archer “got the Chinese guys all taken care of in DC.”

White House visitor logs, Schweizer and Bruner reported, recorded the visit:

The Obama-Biden Administration archives reveal that this Chinese delegation did indeed visit the White House on November 14, 2011, and enjoyed high-level access. The delegation included approximately thirty members, according to White House visitor logs. But those records also obscure perhaps the most important item for the Chinese delegation: a meeting with Vice President Joe Biden himself….

Curiously, the Obama-Biden visitor logs do not mention any meeting with Vice President Joe Biden. But the Vice President’s off-the-books meeting was revealed by one of the core founders of the CEC. In an obscure document listing the CEC members’ biographies, CEC Secretary General Maggie Cheng alleges that she facilitated the CEC delegation meetings in Washington in 2011 and boasts of the Washington establishment figures that CEC met with. The first name she dropped was that of Vice President Joe Biden.

The relationships established during that visit may have benefited Hunter Biden and Devon Archer down the road. Two years later, they famously helped to form the Chinese government funded Bohai Harvest RST (BHR) investment fund.

Another top D.C. mentioned in Khashoggi’s email is, is Juleanna Glover, a top lobbyist and former press secretary for Vice President Dick Cheney.

More On Ukraine

China isn’t the only beneficiary of Hunter Biden’s many talents, of course.

The globe trotter is experience hand in Ukraine, too.

An email published at the Media Action Network offered more evidence that Hunter Biden and his father were indeed enmeshed in a major influence-peddling scheme there.

As The New York Post reported early this week, Pozharskyi thanked Hunter Biden for arranging a meeting with his father. That proved the Democrat presidential candidate lied when he claimed he didn’t discuss with his son the latter’s work with Burisma.

But on November 2, 2015, Pozharskyi explained what he expected from pal Hunter, a Burisma board member despite major drug problems. Pozharskyi wanted help killing the corruption probe into Burisma, the email shows:

I would like us to formulate a list of deliverables, including, but not limited to: a concrete course of actions, incl. meetings/communications resulting in high-ranking US officials in Ukraine (US Ambassador) and in US publicly or in private communication/comment expressing their “positive opinion” and support of Nikolay/Burisma to the highest level of decision makers here in Ukraine :President of Ukraine, president Chief of staff, Prosecutor General, etc The scope of work should also include organization of a visit of a number of widely recognized and influential current and/or former US policy-makers to Ukraine in November aiming to conduct meetings with and bring positive signal/message and support on Nikolay’s issue to the Ukrainian top officials above with the ultimate purpose to close down for any cases/pursuits against Nikolay in Ukraine.

Nikolay refers to Bursima founder Nikolay Zlochevsky, the target of Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.

Pozharskyi got what he wanted. Months later in early 2016, Vice President Joe Biden, the Obama Administration’s point man on Ukraine, ordered Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko to fire Shokin or lose $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees.

Recalled Biden:

I said, “You’re not getting the billion.” I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: “I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.”

Well, son of a b***h, he got fired.

Newly published emails show that Hunter Biden’s business buddies helped set up members of the “China Entrepreneur Club,” also known as “China, Inc.,” with a tour of the White House in November 2011. ...

10/17/2020

Days of contentious hearings and relentless questioning in the confirmation process for Amy Coney Barrett have brought everything full circle. Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) predicted on Monday, the first day of the hearings, that “all the Republicans will vote yes, all the Democrats will vote no,” indicating that with a Republican majority, Barrett’s confirmation was a sure thing. Now, with the questioning of Barrett complete and Democrats unable to stall the vote, all that seems left is the formality of counting those already-decided votes.

Throughout the questioning phase of the confirmation hearings, Barrett was grilled on her record as a jurist, her religion (Barrett is a devout Catholic), and her past service as a clerk to Justice Scalia. While Democrats attempted to paint a picture of a zealous, right-wing radical, Barrett managed to acquit herself as a reasonable and qualified jurist. Case in point: The questioning by California Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein about whether Barrett believes — as Scalia wrote — that Roe v. Wade “was wrongly decided and that it can and should be overruled.” Though pressed repeatedly, Barrett refused to give a direct answer. While some saw this as a portent of her weakness on the issue of abortion, she clearly stated her very good reason for refusing to answer, saying, “It would be wrong and a violations of the canons [of law] for me to [answer that question] as a sitting judge.”

This answer is perfectly consistent with Barrett’s remarks in her opening statement about activist judges legislating from the bench. On day one of the hearings, Barrett stated, “Courts have a vital responsibility to enforce the rule of law, which is critical to a free society. But courts are not designed to solve every problem or right every wrong in our public life.” She added, “The policy decisions and value judgments of government must be made by the political branches elected by and accountable to the people. The public should not expect courts to do so, and courts should not try.”

This ties directly in with her statement that she could set aside her Catholic beliefs when hearing a case. While at first blush it may seem like Barrett is willing to compromise her religious beliefs, that is not the case. Unlike a legislator, who makes law, a judge is not supposed to make law but is instead to decide legal matters based on what the law is, regardless of whether he (or she) agrees with the law. It would be the height of hypocrisy for a conservative to steal a play from the Left and legislate from the bench in direct contradiction of the Constitution. That Barrett has maintained a consistent position on that is commendable.

So would a Justice Barrett decide to overturn Roe v. Wade? If she evaluates the Constitution as an originalist, on the basis of the intent of the law-giver, as she has promised to do, then she should not be able to find in the “penumbra” of the Constitution a right to privacy protecting a right to have an abortion, as did a majority of the justices in the court’s January 22, 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. And perhaps this is the real reason why the Left is opposed to Barrett’s nomination. That is, they may not fear that she will impose Catholicism from the bench; they may fear instead that she will impose constitutionalism.

Having failed to expose Barrett as a religious zealot and loose cannon, Democrats moved to block the vote for confirmation from moving forward to the full Senate and were quickly outvoted by Republicans who hold the majority. Senator Graham set the vote for the committee for October 22 at 1 p.m. That vote is as good as counted since Republicans are expected to hold a united front.

Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — who is majority leader of the Senate — told reporters in Kentucky that Republicans “have the votes” to confirm her, and the Senate would begin considering the nomination on October 23.

Again, since Republicans have the majority in the Senate and Graham’s prediction that “all the Republicans will vote yes, all the Democrats will vote no” has panned out so far and seems likely to continue to do so, Barrett’s confirmation is as close to certain as anything could be. And given that the vote will be as early as late October, President Trump’s hope of having another conservative justice on the Supreme Court before the election is equally almost certain.

Judge Barrett’s confirmation is as close to certain as anything could be. ...

10/14/2020

JEKYLL ISLAND -- In this exclusive interview with The New American magazine senior editor Alex Newman, Red Pill Expo Chairman G. Edward Griffin exposes the Federal Reserve System and the escalating damage it is doing to America's economy and middle class. He warned that the worst is yet to come. Dubbed "The Creature from Jekyll Island" in his book by that title, the banking cartel known as the "Fed" has been undermining American prosperity and stability for over a century while helping to enrich the elites, he said. However, with enough education and organized action, Griffin was convinced that positive change is possible.

JEKYLL ISLAND -- In this exclusive interview with The New American magazine senior editor Alex Newman, Red Pill Expo Chairman G. Edward Griffin exposes the F...