Tag: hypocrisy

NBC REJECTS TRUMP VOICE BUT EMBRACES WAR PARTY

“YOU WOULDN’T HIRE a made man, like a mobster, to work at a DA’s office, right?” MSNBC host Rachel Maddow said this week of NBC’s decision to hire former Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel, a decision the network later reversed. “You wouldn’t hire a pickpocket to work as a TSA screener.” 

But NBC does just that with another party: its pro-war stable of retired military generals and admirals who hold forth on wars and threats to national security. A partisan voice if there ever was one, the TV generals and admirals are all the more scandalous because the network presents them as objective “analysts” as they sit on defense industry and corporate boards that profit from forever wars, including ones not being fought by the United States directly. The conflict is not just tolerated by NBC, it is also never disclosed. (NBC did not respond to a request for comment on its current conflict of interest policies.)

“The U.S. needs to get involved in a leadership role here [in Haiti] and very quickly,” retired four-star Adm. James Stavridis said on the air earlier this month, speaking of the deteriorating situation. Stavridis calls for the deployment of a U.S.-led intervention force, warning of the consequences of inaction. “In the ’90s, we had waves of migration, refugee-driven, from Haiti,” he said.

The host, NBC News’s Gabe Gutierrez, to his credit, pushed back. “Admiral, you know this better than anybody else: The history of American intervention in the Americas has not always been that great,” he said. But the network, in giving Stavridis a platform — just as they would have done with McDaniel — doesn’t bother to mention that their “analyst” profits from the use of military force. For example, Stavridis serves as partner of the investment firm Carlyle Group, owner of major defense contractors and which lists the admiral among its Global Aerospace and Government Services Team. 

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Report: Jon Stewart Found to Have Overvalued New York Home After Accusing Trump of ‘Lying’ About Property Values

Comedian Jon Stewart is facing online mockery after a new report showed that he overvalued his New York City home during a sale.  The revelation comes after Stewart devoted a recent episode of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show to ridiculing former President Donald Trump over his New York civil case involving real estate valuations.

On Monday’s show, Jon Stewart accused Trump of “lying”  about the valuation of some of his properties, claiming Trump’s “shenanigans cost the city of New York.”

But documents obtained by the New York Post appear to show that Stewart once overvalued his own New York home by more than $16 million.

In 2014, the comedian reportedly sold his 6,280-square-foot Tribeca duplex to financier Parag Pande for $17.5 million. But, according to 2013-2014 assessor records obtained by The Post, the property had the estimated market value of only $1.882 million. The actual assessor valuation for property tax purposes was $847,174.

Records also show that Stewart paid property taxes based on that assessor valuation price — in other words, what he accused Trump of doing.

The report has inspired online mockery of Stewart.

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ACLU, Once a Defender of Free Speech, Goes After a Whistleblower

Among the unfortunate changes of recent years has been the transformation of the American Civil Liberties Union from an advocate for free speech and other individual rights into just another progressive political organization. Historically, despite much pushback, the group defended the right of people from across the political spectrum to advocate and protest. But the organization has become unreliable on the issue; most recently in the very 21st century debate over gender identity, which sees the ACLU of Missouri targeting a whistleblower who is critical of medical transitions for minors.

“Strange evening,” journalist Jesse Singal wrote March 7 on X (formerly Twitter). “The ACLU of Missouri subpoenaed Jamie Reed, demanding (among other stuff) all her communications w/me. I emailed them saying (politely) wtf, you’re the ACLU. Got a call from a lawyer there saying it was a mistake – ‘It’s a big team.’ Okay.”

The subpoena Singal attached (supposedly since modified, though a redacted version of the original remains publicly available through the Missouri courts website) demanded of Reed “all communications, including any documents exchanged, between you and Jessie Singal concerning Gender-Affirming Care provided at or through the Center.” It also sought “all communications, including any documents exchanged, concerning Gender-Affirming Care involving media or between you and any media outlet or any member of the media” (journalist Benjamin Ryan says that would include him). The subpoena also demanded Reed’s communications with state officials, legislators, and advocacy organizations.

Jamie Reed, it should be noted, isn’t a party to the case behind the subpoena, which is a challenge to Missouri’s 2023 ban on “gender transition surgery” and “cross-sex hormones or puberty-blocking drugs” for minors. But she was a motivator for that legislation as a former staffer at the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital who developed significant doubts about what she believed to be a lack of safeguards in place regarding permanent changes to children’s bodies and lives. In a widely read piece for The Free Press, she described such interventions as “medically appalling.”

Whether you agree with Reed or not, she’s a sincere advocate for a position on an issue that commands attention and has serious policy implications. Just this month, New York magazine published a piece arguing that minors have an absolute right to change their bodies, while Britain’s National Health Service stopped prescribing puberty blockers for children in gender identity cases because of doubts about their safety or effectiveness. Reed is engaged in public debate of the sort that civil libertarians defend, so it’s bizarre to see the ACLU of Missouri putting the screws to her over her advocacy. Or it would be if the ACLU wasn’t undergoing a painful and very public transformation.

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Illegal Immigration Is Illegal: Mexico Disagrees

The second-largest source of income for Mexican drug cartels is human trafficking into the U.S. Laws discouraging illegal immigration challenge that income. The cartels have so much sway over the Mexican government that even the country’s president is speaking out against Texas laws countering illegal immigration.

Earlier this week, a confrontation broke out between Texas Army National Guard troops and a group of migrants who charged a border wall in El Paso. Texas Governor Abbott has called the immigration crisis an invasion.

Attempting to stem the flow of illegals, he came under fire, allegedly for passing a law making illegal entry from Mexico into the U.S. a crime. The irony of this statement is that it is already “illegal” to enter the U.S. illegally.

To be more accurate, Abbott has not made illegal entry into the United States a crime; he has instructed his police officers to enforce existing laws, arrest lawbreakers, and restore legality by deporting the illegals.

Under Title 8 federal authority, it is illegal to enter the US at non-ports of entry, and the punishment is deportation and a five-year ban on future immigration.

Social media accounts in Mexico provide instructions on how to enter the US illegally, including encouraging people to enter at illegal points of entry. Human traffickers, transitional criminal organizations, however, are selling illegal access to the US.

The criminals, generally linked to drug cartels, accept money from the migrants, promising safe passage, but they are being led to illegal entry ports. The money that cartels are earning from illegal human trafficking to the US is used to buy more guns, politicians, and judges, further destabilizing Mexico.

Title 8 states, “The Secretary of Homeland Security shall take such actions as may be necessary to install additional physical barriers and roads (including the removal of obstacles to detection of illegal entrants) in the vicinity of the United States border to deter illegal crossings in areas of high illegal entry into the United States.”

This is one of the many points of contention between Governor Abbott and the federal government. The governor, along with many American Conservatives, is questioning why the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is not doing more to prevent illegal immigration and why the Federal government would challenge the Texas governor’s assertion that he has the authority to protect the border of his state to keep his citizens safe.

Additionally, Title 8 mandates the erection of physical barriers to prevent illegal entrance to the US. However, when Governor Abbott implemented barriers, he faced vilification from the media, and the federal government ordered him to remove them.

Governor Abbott’s efforts to enforce immigration law have been challenged at both the state and federal levels. Twenty-five GOP state governors have signed the “Stand with Texas” declaration, expressing support for Governor Abbott and defending the border.

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Biden’s State of the Union Address Exposed by US Intelligence Threat Assessment

President Biden used the bully pulpit of the annual State of the Union Address to describe a world that significantly differed from the picture presented just a month earlier in the Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community.

Information fed to the general public is deliberately spun to sell the imperial project. In contrast, intelligence assessments for elite policy makers are designed to sustain the endeavor. That the president’s pronouncements diverge from the conclusions reached by his own intelligence community highlights the chasm between what is foisted on the public compared to what is understood within the bowels of the state.

Unlike Biden’s bullish and bellicose pronouncements about “our leadership in the world,” the Assessment’s view was less triumphal. It states: “The United States faces an increasingly fragile global order.”

The fraying US-imposed “rules based order” and its discredited neoliberal economic system are more and more being challenged by “states engaging in competitive behavior,” according to the Assessment. The report adds, fallout from the Gaza crisis, in particular, serves to “undermine” the US.

Both pronouncements, however, have similar biases. Biden’s address to the nation was overtly political, accusing Trump of “bowing down” to Putin. But the supposedly neutral and objective “collective insights of the Intelligence Community” were likewise predisposed in favor of Democratic Party memes. Both blame Russian electoral interference for Trump’s ascension to the Oval Office in 2016. As proof, the so-called intelligence community again offered nothing more than its own assessment, lacking better evidence.

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Illegitimate Western Leaders Call Putin Re-Election Illegitimate

Western leaders are decrying Russian President Putin’s election to another 6 years in power.

Western leaders condemned the poll as “illegitimate” and neither free nor fair, while Putin hailed the result and turnout as proof of his country’s democracy, reports CNBC.

“Russian authorities have continued to increase the systematic internal repression by cracking down on opposition politicians, civil society organizations, independent media and other critical voices with the use of repressive legislation and politically motivated prison sentences,” the EU said in a statement out Monday.

The circumstances in which the elections were held “deprived Russian voters of a real choice and heavily limited their access to accurate information,” the bloc added, while also condemning presidential votes carried out by Russia in occupied territories of Ukraine.

While the development in Moscow exists within a Russian system of political repression, Western leaders are the pot calling the kettle black.

For example, in Europe and Canada, people are going to jail for their speech. Farmers across The Continent are protesting violently because the EU wants to destroy their businesses. The EU and the Biden regime are importing millions of migrants to destroy Western society. The Jan 6 political prisoners are rotting in jail, and Republican leaders don’t care. The 2020 U.S. presidential election was certainly fraudulent.

Maoist cancel culture is still alive and well in American and the West.

None of this is based on the will of the people, and certainly illegitimate.

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Joe Biden’s Deputies Quietly Block Haitian Exodus

President Joe Biden’s U.S. Coast Guard has intercepted a boatful of Haitian migrants and returned them to their society without triggering an avalanche of asylum claims, NBC News reported on March 15.

“The U.S. Coast Guard stopped 65 Haitians who were trying to flee Haiti by boat and sent them back to Haiti,” said NBC, citing an agency statement.

This policy suggests that Biden’s pro-migration deputies want to quietly avoid triggering a massive exodus of asylum-seeking migrants when many polls show escalating public opposition to his policy of importing poor workers and renters.

The sea interception prevents the migrants from reaching U.S. soil where they can apply for asylum. If they were allowed to reach U.S. soil to apply for asylum, their success would guarantee many more migrants — forcing Biden’s campaign deputies to either detain a large population of black Haitians or release them into U.S. communities during an election year.

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As White House Hosts Marijuana Pardon Recipients, It’s Time For Bolder Action From Biden

As President Biden listed off his first-term accomplishments during his State of the Union address, Richeda Ashmeade sat studying for midterms in her last year of law school. Listening to the president tout his executive actions on cannabis, she was acutely aware of those whom his reforms have left behind. Despite all the rhetoric and applause breaks, her father, Ricardo Ashmeade, is still serving a 22-year sentence and is one of the thousands of people still in federal prison for cannabis.

The specific actions Biden highlighted during his address were related to his October 2022 proclamation, in which he pardoned all prior federal offenses of simple marijuana possession, a move that was expanded on late last year to bring relief to an estimated 13,000 Americans. His executive action also initiated a review process that could result in cannabis being reclassified under the Controlled Substances Act at the federal level and moved out of Schedule I, the most dangerous drug classification. Yet neither of these actions would affect those who have suffered the most devastating consequences of prohibition, families like the Ashmeades.

Biden’s actions are being hailed as historic, but in reality, they represent peripheral changes that signal the reevaluation of cannabis but not the release of cannabis prisoners or relief for those who continue to be burdened by the lasting consequences of the carceral system. In short, these announcements represent progress but not justice. But that hasn’t stopped the administration from leveraging these actions with voters.

On Friday, Vice President Harris gathered several of the cannabis pardon recipients, along with rapper Fat Joe, for a public discussion about criminal justice reform at the White House. Clearly, the administration sees the political power of undoing the harms caused by the criminalization of cannabis—a sentiment that is backed up by polling data that shows the vast majority of Americans feel cannabis should no longer be criminalized.

Of course, the timing and context here matter, with these moves coming as the highly contentious presidential race ramps up. When he made his remarks, Biden became the first president in over 35 years to mention marijuana during a State of the Union address. The last president to mention cannabis during the address was Reagan, who listed marijuana among the prime enemies of the people and as a reason for the necessity of the war on drugs.

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The Anti-Democratic Democratic Left

Joe Biden has claimed that his opponents are assaulting democracy on the basis of the January 6, 2020, buffoonish riot.

Aside from the fact that storming the Capitol Rotunda sometimes is apparently deemed permissible – as in the recent pro-Hamas takeover of it – or aside from the fact that disrupting a federal government proceeding is deemed exempt – as in the recent pro-Hamas throng that blocked the route of the presidential motorcade and thus delayed the State of the Union address to the nation by 26 minutes – who really is attacking democracy?

Take the Supreme Court. After the Court went to a 6-3 conservative majority, liberal law professors, progressive activist groups, and many ends-justify-the-means Democrats in Congress began advocating “packing the court” to gain additional new billets for left-wing judges.

In other words, the left had little confidence that it would hold the White House and the Senate when a judicial opening came up, so it sought to force the issue while it had the power in both.

Formerly, any such notion would have been written off as lunatic and dangerous, given that the nine-justice Supreme Court has been canonized for 155 years since 1869. Second, during the last time Democrats attacked the nine-justice Supreme Court over its supposedly too conservative rulings – Franklin Roosevelt’s 1937 notorious court-packing scheme – even fellow liberals opposed the toxic gambit. They knew that it would only lead to a tit-for-tat fluid court every time a new administration took power.

Then there was the public demonization of the court, which saw efforts to scare it into “correct” rulings. The effort was multifaceted.

Sometimes the left-wing method was direct intimidation. So in 2020, then Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) led a throng of pro-abortion protestors to the court’s very doors, threatening Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh by name. He was not subtle in his warnings: 

“I want to tell you, Gorsuch. I want to tell you, Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you.” 

Hit you? Pay the price?

Later, when left-wing mobs thronged at the private homes of some conservative judges with the intention of intimidating them and leveraging their decisions—in violation of a 1950 federal law—the Biden administration did nothing. No wonder a potential assassin soon showed up near the home of Justice Kavanaugh, and, fortunately, did not go through with his planned attack.

Nor was the 2022 leaker ever found who illegally disclosed confidential memos on the court’s future rulings on abortion. In the recent State of the Union address, Joe Biden spoke directly to the seated justices and seemed to level yet another threat: “With all due respect, justices, women are not without electoral or political power…You’re about to realize just how much.” In some sense, Biden was following the precedent of Barack Obama, who in his 2010 State of the Union address made a direct attack on the justices of the Supreme Court, many of whom were in attendance.

In sum, during the years of liberal majorities, the left once defended the sacrosanct nature of the third branch of government. Now, when rulings do not always go their way, they seek to discredit and impugn it. And they employ direct intimidation, willful blindness to threats to the justices’ private homes, and plans to alter the makeup of the court to fit their ideological agendas.

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Maine’s Soros-Funded DA Will No Longer Prosecute Illegal Immigrants for Specific Traffic Offenses, Including Driving Without a License, and Driving with a Suspended Registration

Soros-funded Cumberland County District Attorney Jacqueline A. Sartoris announced a policy change that will no longer see illegal aliens charged for specific traffic violations within Maine’s most populous county.

This policy change, effective from March 1, has been met with mixed reactions due to its implications for illegal aliens operating motor vehicles in the area.

The announcement, detailed in a memo obtained by The Maine Wire, specifies that individuals, including illegal aliens, will no longer face criminal charges for certain traffic offenses. These offenses encompass driving without a license, driving with a suspended registration, or driving an unregistered motor vehicle.

Sartoris pointed out the DA’s office’s focus on ‘problem-solving’ and ‘focusing on genuine public safety cases,’ highlighting the overwhelming caseload, which is reportedly at 150% capacity.

“The focus for us is on problem-solving (making people get legal) and focusing on genuine public safety cases, of which we have plenty,” Sartoris said in the memo.

“If you have other thoughts about resolving our 150% caseload, please feel free to share them,” she said.

“At the moment, and for the foreseeable future, this step is prudent, responsive to real-world challenges, and a civil violation is the appropriate response when any of these are the only potential criminal charge,” she added.

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