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The Moralistic Risk for Trump’s Foreign Policy

As the new Trump Administration turns a critical eye to the priorities of government spending, one target of its investigations seems to be delivering an endless supply of questionable practices for scrutiny. USAID, long theorized to be part of a global soft regime change network by many opposed to the status quo of foreign policy, has been proven to be exactly that. This ranges from manufacturing opposition to the Cuban government, to using progressive identitarian groups to affect elections in Bangladesh, and even to create a feedback loop where American media cites supposedly independent activists abroad (who are funded by USAID)  in order to justify distorting the narrative at home.

None of this is particularly surprising to those of us who have been skeptical of the softer side of endless interventionism. Two and a half years ago I published Woke Imperium: The Coming Confluence of Social Justice and Neoconservatism, which made the case that the increasingly messianic nature of progressivism served the cause of moral justification for a foreign policy of endless interventionism abroad; it provides a built-in excuse to be involved in as many foreign countries as possible. Through everything from non-governmental organizations supporting ethnic minorities in geopolitical fault lines to the funding of media that pushes a North American–style cultural vanguardism onto very different societies, a changing domestic audience could be brought into the quest for global domination through a self-flattering moralism.

That process is hardly unique to the liberal faction of politics, however. The George W. Bush administration was obsessed with democracy promotion and nation-building as a part of its plan to combat terrorism. It also had a reputation for conflating its own conservative Christian fixation on culture war with foreign policy, such as when its plans to combat AIDS in Africa were tied to abstinence-only education and a ban on condoms, reflecting the administration’s domestic obsession with similar policies at home. It was under such conditions that foreign governments could reasonably claim that American missionaries were tied at the hip to intelligence operations.

The present Trump administration’s willingness to question old talking points about foreign policy being a moral project are laudable but inconsistent. In the transactional worldview that Trump emphasized on campaign, there can be little room for such sentiments, yet already there are signs that he is willing to lean into domestic culture war in order to justify unnecessary interventions abroad. Any plan to remake war-shattered Gaza by acquiring it in a real estate deal facilitated by the United States reflects a long line of interventionist thought about the United States playing some kind of providential role in transforming the Middle East. Indeed, USAID itself once cooked up a potential plan for the relocation of Palestinians into new settlements in Egypt.

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Democrats charged with election fraud amid party’s efforts to obstruct election integrity measures

Democrats are facing new charges of election fraud going back to 2021, despite their party pushing back on election integrity and voter fraud claims since the 2020 presidential election. 

While Democrats have long criticized Republicans who are concerned about election integrity by smearing them with the pejorative label “election deniers,” new allegations regarding election fraud are being made against Democrats. Five Democratic Party members in Bridgeport, Conn., and Philadelphia have been criminally charged with numerous counts of voter fraud on both the state and federal levels regarding mail-in ballots. 

Bridgeport had to redo primary and general elections last year after evidence surfaced of alleged ballot harvesting in the Democratic mayoral primary in September 2023. 

Ballot harvesting

The incumbent Democratic mayor, whose supporter was the reason for the redo elections after allegedly committing ballot harvesting, won the redo elections. The mayor denied any knowledge of the alleged ballot harvesting. The Democratic Connecticut secretary of the state sent multiple referrals of alleged election malfeasance to State Elections Enforcement Commission from the redo general election last February.

Bridgeport Democratic Town Committee Vice Chairperson Wanda Geter-Pataky, and Bridgeport Democratic City Council Members Alfredo Castillo, Jazmarie Melendez, and Maria Pereira were all criminally charged, as well as a woman from Stratford. Geter-Pataky has the most criminal charges against her, with 92 in total, including 42 counts of Possession of Ballots and Envelopes Restricted.

Other charges filed against the five people accused include fraudulent voting, being present while voters filled out those ballots, and misrepresenting who is eligible to vote absentee.

Castillo and Geter-Pataky were criminally charged last year for allegedly taking possession of voters’ absentee ballots during Bridgeport’s 2019 Democratic mayoral primary.

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Status Panic on the Campus

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is “fighting back against efforts to intimidate professors into silence,” which—for many of us whose memories of college lecture halls are not uniformly pleasant—is yet another ACLU cause we might not support. The issues here, however, are of more momentous social and political consequence than our initial reaction might suggest.

The ACLU’s efforts—they’re raising funds to support them—are a response to lawsuits brought against students and faculty at Columbia University and elsewhere for their opposition to the war in Gaza. 

The issues are complicated, but the ACLU says it is fighting against attempts to “weaponize our legal system to punish and silence constitutionally protected speech.” Such lawsuits “have become a common tool for intimidating and silencing criticism—including from whistleblowers, journalists and political protestors… not necessarily to win in court, but to entangle people in expensive litigation, using the prospect of mounting legal fees and a potentially ruinous financial penalty to chill speech. In other words, to bully people into silence.” 

The plaintiffs in the Columbia case say statements by faculty supporting student protestors “somehow injured them by causing Columbia University to move classes online, restrict campus access, and cancel commencement.” Three defendants in the case are Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Jamaal Bowman—members of the notorious Capitol Hill “Squad”—which might be about all most conservatives will want to know before making up their minds.

Personally, I have no dog in this fight. Both sides—all sides—seem intent on dragging their opponents into court, a strategy that seems unlikely to improve matters. This conclusion that the atmosphere on campuses will only get more poisonous, tentative as it is, was reinforced the other day in a casual conversation with a college professor friend at a public university more than 300 miles from Columbia. 

This professor and I have a mutual friend who was hoping to land a job at the university, and I asked what he might do to help make that happen. 

“I have no influence here,” the professor said. “I’m just a content provider.”

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British Offer Up Own Citizen to Radical Islamists for Execution After He Burned Quran

At the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 14, the German defense chancellor chided Vice President J.D. Vance for expressing concern regarding the respect for free speech in Europe.

“If I understand him correctly he compares the condition of Europe with what prevails in some authoritarian regimes,” Boris Pistorius said during his remarks after Vance’s address.

“This is not acceptable. This is not the Europe where I live,” he added.

Never mind the fact that Germany not only banned two of its top political parties from the Munich Security Conference and is trying to ban one of them, period. That can always be pinned on Germany’s, ahem, history in regard to certain sociopolitical matters during the last century.

However, if this truly isn’t “the Europe where I live,” Pistorius need only look to one of the countries Vance criticized — the United Kingdom — which recently offered up one of its citizens to the whims of radical Islamists for the grave crime of desecrating a Quran.

Now, before we begin, let’s just get this out front. The man, who we will not name, is not engaging in activity we’d condone. He doesn’t appear to be in compos mentis in the video that was taken of him committing the act, and his record seems to bear that out.

However, consider what happened and the steps Britain took, and ask yourself if this is the kind of society that values freedom of speech or expression — or, rather, whether it is willing to suicidally give its dissenters over to its most violent, extremist element.

So, the facts, such as they are: The Manchester man, 47 years old, has pleaded guilty in court to a charge of “racially or religiously aggravated intentional harassment or alarm,” which is punishable under the Public Order Act of 1986.

The man was recorded holding an Israeli flag before ripping out pages from the Quran and lighting them on fire at a memorial for the victims of the 2017 Manchester terrorist attack, according to the Manchester Evening News. He had previously advertised that he would be committing the demonstration on social media and live-streamed the affair.

“The ‘trigger’ for his actions was the death of his daughter in the Israeli conflict, which had affected his mental health, the court heard on [Feb. 3],” the Evening News reported.

A victim impact statement from Fahad Iqbal, who tried to intervene, read before the court, said this: “I was quite shocked, disgusted and offended. I’m a Muslim. I still can’t believe someone would do this. When he began to burn the Quran my heart was about to break out. This is the most emotion I have ever felt.”

Meanwhile, the defender of the man who pleaded guilty pointed out the obvious: “He’s extremely distressed at the distress he’s caused others as a result of this. He needs some further help and support.”

The defender said his daughter was killed during the conflict in Israel, which contributed to his declining mental health in recent months.

The judge wasn’t terribly sympathetic, saying she was sorry the man lost his daughter, but that “the Quran is a sacred book to Muslims and treating it as you did is going to cause extreme distress.”

“This is a tolerant country, but we just do not tolerate this behavior,” she said.

He’ll be sentenced on April 29 and is out on bail with the condition he doesn’t post on social media.

The Greater Manchester Police published the man’s name and street address — as claimed by groups that have come to his defense, like the Free Speech Union. However, the man also has 20 convictions on 47 prior offenses (that don’t include religious incitement), and police often publish that information, so it was likely readily available.

The Manchester Evening News, as if giving a helping hand to anyone who might want to take extrajudicial punishment out upon him, helpfully provided that information themselves.

And, as you might expect, the Greater Manchester Police were more concerned about the effect on Muslims than on someone who might get targeted by extremist Muslims for desecrating the Quran: “We understand the deep concern this will cause within some of our diverse communities and are aware of a live video circulating,” Assistant Chief Constable Stephanie Parker said, according to Free Speech Union.

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Trump Is Right to Play Hardball with Europe

The rhetoric of European leaders in response to Vice President J.D. Vance’s statements at the Munich Security Conference has been a mix of genuine fear and false bravado. They are terrified about the prospect of the U.S. rethinking its lopsided trade relationship with Europe and abandoning its commitment to provide for Europe’s defense. At the same time, they have flirted with treating the U.S. as just another nation, as if Europe has the economic heft and military potential to assert itself as an autonomous geopolitical power center. The Trump administration’s response to this alleged confidence has been clear: Go ahead and try. 

After all, the 47th president’s first several weeks in office have showcased the effective use of tariffs as statecraft, with Trump getting concessions from Mexico and Canada on fentanyl and border security. Next up on the docket is a reported 10 percent levy on all exports coming from the European Union. This coincides with the EU’s commitment to ramp up sanctions against Russia later this month. Aluminum, fertilizer, and a number of other products will now be restricted, along with a host of additional sanctions on Russia’s shadow oil tanker fleet. The likely effect will be to raise prices even higher as agricultural costs increase and European industry is further strangled amid efforts to keep Russian energy out.

Europe appears to be at the crossroads of practical reality and ideological principle. The commitment of the political class to punish Russia for invading Ukraine no matter the cost is being rejected at the ballot box as populist parties win elections across the continent. In reaction to the rising tide of populism, the EU leadership is mulling a mechanism for outright rejecting election results they deem illegitimate. The blacklisting of certain populist parties in order to bar them from participating in governing coalitions is sure to further inflame political tensions. Vance, in his Munich speech, drew attention to this exact issue.

But in reality, it is the Trump administration’s America First agenda that can restore some balance to the European continent. This may sound like a paradox to those at the Munich conference who were so incensed about Vance’s chastisement of their liberal internationalist orthodoxy—a chastisement that equally applies to the U.S. ruling class as well, as evidenced by the recent revelations into the deep rot at USAID. Prioritizing the U.S. national interest by ensuring fair trading practices and more reciprocal relationships with European countries will not only serve America well, but will also help to strengthen the U.S. geopolitical position in Europe and the world more broadly.

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We Can, and Should, Negotiate with Putin

One thing at least is now indisputable. We live in a multipolar world. Secretary of State Marco Rubio admitted as much during his wide-ranging interview in January with Megyn Kelly. The recognition that multipolarity is now the kind of world we live in came about, in the first instance, because Russia has not been defeated in Ukraine. Rather the reverse. 

To be sure, acceptance of the fact of multipolarity does not dictate the nature of our response to it. Secretary Rubio’s preferred response, as he made clear during his interview, is to embrace—one is tempted to say relearn how to do—the “hard work of diplomacy.”   

Other responses are certainly possible. A team writing for Foreign Affairs last fall suggested reinstating a far-going policy of containment of Russia, such as existed during the first Cold War. Former British defense secretary Ben Wallace, for his part, went considerably further: he suggested, in an article published in January, placing Russia “in a prison” and “building the walls high.” 

Which path is the right one? Rubio’s strikes me as the best approach, especially if supplemented by what is sometimes termed civilizational realism, a school that does not—as the pure realists are sometimes prone to do—exclude moral considerations from the practice of foreign affairs. Civilizational realists accept the necessity of virtue, but they also have the sophistication to recognize that liberal democracies are not the only states capable of practicing it. As for the idealists, their problem is a tendency to get divorced from reality, and they have an annoying habit of imposing their own version of morality on everyone everywhere—or at least, trying to. 

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China To Develop Robot Dog Drones With Thermobaric Weapons For ‘Comprehensive Destruction’

New technologies such as drones have remade the battlefield as has been show in the Ukrainian conflict with deadly effect.

However, a new terrifying dawn is coming to warfare – the robots.

Recent People’s Liberation Army (PLA) urban warfare drills suggest that unmanned platforms armed solely with light weapons may struggle to root out enemies shielded in buildings or underground bunkers, wrote the South China Morning Post.

To achieve “comprehensive annihilation”, Chinese military scientists now propose equipping ground robots with thermobaric warheads – weapons of mass destruction second only to nuclear arms in lethality.

This marks China’s first official disclosure of plans to deploy the controversial munitions on unmanned systems.

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Red-District DOGE Protests, Cited As Proof of Broad Musk ‘Backlash,’ Were Organized By Left-Wing Groups

When angry voters confronted Rep. Rich McCormick over DOGE at a town hall held in the Georgia Republican’s deep-red district, the New York Times, Washington Post, and CBS News cited the scene as proof of emerging bipartisan “backlash” over Elon Musk’s efforts to slash government spending. CBS included a quote from one of the protest’s organizers, Maggie Goldman, describing her only as a McCormick constituent.

Goldman does live in McCormick’s district, though she’s far from a concerned supporter of the two-term Republican. A self-described “Democrat & Political Activist,” Goldman, who did not respond to a request for comment, coordinated volunteers for Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign in 2019 and 2020, according to her LinkedIn. Shortly thereafter, she ran for her local county commission as a Democrat seeking to enact a “more inclusive policy agenda.” Goldman has donated exclusively to Democrats and sent Kamala Harris’s campaign more than $1,500 last year, according to campaign finance records. On her Facebook page, she boasted of the national media attention the McCormick protest received, sharing screenshots of headlines alongside the caption, “We really were on fire.”

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USAID In Egypt Had Me Detained For Walking In And Asking If It’s Following Trump’s Orders

For some years now, I have been tracking globalist initiatives at both ends: at the point where the ideological rounds are chambered and downrange where they affect the lives of millions as public policies. This has taken me from places like Davos, Switzerland, where the World Economic Forum meets annually, to cartel towns in Colombia where illegal aliens board Zodiacs bound for the Darién Gap and thousands of them simply disappear.

I’ve also been tracking how USAID, the United States Agency for International Development, via a series of NGOs, has been running what amounts to a massive human trafficking operation across South America, through Central America, and straight up through our borders. President Trump is working to hold accountable those responsible, but there is so much more to the global workings of this clandestine government agency.

A Visit to the USAID in Egypt

I recently traveled from Davos to the ancient city on the Nile. With USAID’s nefarious activities dominating the news, I decided to visit its Cairo office to see how it was responding to Trump’s recent order slashing USAID activities.

To call USAID Egypt an office is misleading. It is a military-style compound.

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We Caught FBI Using “Minority Report Style” Secret Form Pressuring Gun Owners To Forfeit Their Rights

Gun Owners of America just caught the FBI coercing more people into giving up their Second Amendment rights!

Thanks to a FOIA request by GOA’s lawyers, we uncovered even more evidence on the FBI’s unconstitutional and unlawful NICS Indices program.

In 2019, it was discovered that the FBI was using a document titled “NICS Indices Self-Submission Form” that purported to allow American citizens to “voluntarily” waive their Second Amendment rights. 

By completing this FBI form, law-abiding Americans allegedly “consent” for the FBI to enter their names into the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, marking them as permanently prohibited from purchasing or possessing firearms or ammunition.  And as the form warns, once an individual waives their rights, it’s impossible to get them back.

Now, the mere existence of this form was troubling, and it clearly violates the Second Amendment and even the Gun Control Act. But at that point, we weren’t sure how extensively the FBI was using the form, if in fact it was being used at all.

Fast-forward a few years to 2022.

GOA published our initial findings that the FBI had provided these forms to agents for use on American gun owners, who were pressured into signing and therefore “voluntarily” relinquished their rights to purchase, possess, and use firearms.

These FOIA records painted a vivid picture of FBI agents showing up to people’s homes, place of work, etc., presenting to them these forms, and “asking” them to declare themselves to be a “danger” to themselves or others, or lacking the “mental capacity to adequately contract or manage” their lives.

You can imagine how coercive these sorts of FBI visits must have been.  The FBI’s use of this secret form has occurred during recent years when the bureau has become increasingly politicized and weaponized against Americans, including gun owners.

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