Via Middle East Eye

Israeli commandos disguised as medics, patients and other Palestinian civilians raided a hospital in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin on Tuesday morning, in footage widely shared online.

The soldiers killed three people inside Jenin’s Ibn Sina Hospital. Footage shared online and in Israeli media showed around a dozen Israeli soldiers in the hospital, armed with assault rifles. 

Hamas responded to the attack saying that “Israel’s crimes will not go unanswered”, and said that the killings were a “continuation of the occupation’s ongoing crimes against our people from Gaza to Jenin”. 

The men killed (reportedly Palestinian militants) have been identified as Mohammed Jalamneh, and two brothers, Basil and Mohammed al-Ghazawi.

According to Israeli media, the raid took around 10 minutes and took place at 5.30am. One of the Israeli commandos was speaking Arabic at the time of the raid, Israel Hayom reported.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military said that one of the Palestinians was a Hamas member who was planning an attack inspired by Oct 7th. The brothers allegedly belonged to the Jenin Brigade and the armed wing of Islamic Jihad.

The raid left parts of the hospital destroyed, with beds upturned and blood stains covering the floor and equipment. 

Tawfiq Al-Shoubaki, the medical director of the hospital told Middle East Eye that some of the Israeli commandos were also dressed as nurses, and drew their weapons as soon as they entered the hospital.

He added that some of the Israeli forces entered Basil al-Ghazawi’s room, despite the fact that he was receiving treatment for wounds he sustained on October 25, following a missile explosion in the Jenin cemetery. 

“No gunshots were heard during their storming of the wounded man’s room. They immediately withdrew after a few minutes, and the hospital staff found the three young men covered in their blood, without any indication that they were alive, and the bullets were concentrated in the head,” he said.

Al-Shoubaki says that the assassinations mark new ways Israel is targeting hospitals and medical staff in Jenin.

The hospital director Naji Nazzal told AFP that the attack took place in the hospital’s rehabilitation ward where Basil Ghazawi had been undergoing treatment. “They [Israeli forces] used weapons fitted with silencers,” he told the news agency. 

An AFP photographer said that he saw a bullet hole in a pillow covered with blood following the raid, the news agency reported. The Palestinian Ministry of Health denounced the attack, saying that healthcare facilities are granted special protection under international law:

“The minister of health calls urgently on the United Nations General Assembly, international institutions and human rights organisations to end the daily string of crimes committed by the occupation [Israel]  against our people and health centers,” a ministry statement said.

Israeli special forces disguised as Palestinian civilians and medical workers, raided the Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin, reportedly killing three Palestinians.

The raid took place early on Tuesday inside the Ibn Sina hospital in Jenin in the occupied West Bank pic.twitter.com/pAzJVrIeTE

— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) January 30, 2024

This is not the first time Israeli forces have raided and targeted the Ibn Sina hospital since the start of the Gaza War on October 7. 

In November, Israeli forces and tanks surrounded the hospital during a raid on the city. At least four hospitals in the city were besieged, including the Ibn Sina Hospital. “Israeli forces turned up at Ibn Sina Hospital, one of the biggest in the occupied West Bank. They turned up in a raid where they asked medical staff to put their hands up and evacuate the hospital,” an Al Jazeera correspondent reported.

At least two paramedics were arrested in the raid, while drone strikes killed three in the Jenin refugee camp.

“Hungary does not allow blackmail,” Hungary’s minister for European affairs, Janos Boka, has lashed out in response to the FT-reported secret document showing the EU stands ready to inflict intentional damage to Hungary’s economy if Orban’s government persists in rejecting more funding for Ukraine. “The document, drafted by Brussels bureaucrats only confirms what the Hungarian Government has been saying for a long time: access to EU funds is used for political blackmailing by Brussels,” Boka emphasized on X. 

EU leaders are expected in Brussels on Thursday (Feb 1st) in an effort to salvage and pass the €50bn four-year aid package to Ukraine which Budapest has been blocking. But if Orban doesn’t back down, EU leaders are reportedly ready to say ‘enough is enough’ – per Financial Times’ reporting, which openly uses the word “sabotage” to describe what other bloc members will seek to do to the Hungarian economy. Yet ironically enough, it remains officials in Brussels who are instead openly accusing Budapest of using blackmail related to Ukraine funding.

“In a document drawn up by EU officials and seen by the Financial Times, Brussels has outlined a strategy to explicitly target Hungary’s economic weaknesses, imperil its currency and drive a collapse in investor confidence in a bid to hurt “jobs and growth” if Budapest refuses to lift its veto against the aid to Kyiv,” FT writes.

It appears the nuclear option of final threats. Continues FT: “If he does not back down, other EU leaders should publicly vow to permanently shut off all EU funding to Budapest with the intention of spooking the markets, precipitating a run on the country’s forint currency and a surge in the cost of its borrowing, Brussels stated in the document.”

Viktor Orban’s office said in reaction to the revelation in the FT article, “Now it’s crystal clear: this is blackmail and has nothing to do with the rule of law. And now they’re not even trying to hide it! Whatever happens, change is needed in Brussels!”

FT has cited the draft secret document directly. It declares that “in the case of no agreement in the February 1 [summit], other heads of state and government would publicly declare that in the light of the unconstructive behaviour of the Hungarian PM …  they cannot imagine that [EU funds would be provided to Budapest].”

While this is perhaps shaping up to be the most “overt” example of Brussels trying to force Budapest into line by targeting its whole economy, it’s certainly not the first time blackmail style rhetoric has been deployed, hearkening back to ‘rule of law’ issues and debate over “LGBTQ+” and other supposed ‘democratic backsliding’.

European Commission data indicates intra-EU trade accounts for 78% of Hungary’s exports, with a mere 3% going to the US and 3% to the UK. The EU plan cited in the report points out that “growth and jobs … depend to a large extent” on foreign money, including substantial EU funding. As news of the secret plan leaked the Hungarian currency, the forint, depreciated by 0.7% on Monday.

Here is the EU plan to punish Hungary’s Orban if he doesn’t approve a $50bn aid to Ukraine:

• The EU will sabotage Hungary’s economy and imperil its currency and drive a collapse in investor confidence in a bid to hurt “jobs and growth

• EU leaders should publicly vow to… pic.twitter.com/KoukM7fTI3

— Ragıp Soylu (@ragipsoylu) January 28, 2024

Interestingly, amid Hungary’s perceived intransigeance on the Ukraine funding issued (though it should be remembered it’s the Hungarian side saying the EU won’t compromise), some EU diplomats have begun to complain Europe is “starting to look weak”. 

Orban on Tuesday has been reported as being ready to soften his stance, per Reuters: “Hungary is ready to participate in the solution of the 27 (EU member nations) if you guarantee that each year we will decide whether or not to send this money. And this annual decision must have the same legal basis as today: it must be unanimous,” the prime minister was quoted as saying, which is being widely seen as an opening toward significant compromise.

* * *

Below, Philip Pilkington of the Multipolarity podcast dissects some of the underlying assumptions of FT’s reporting, and looks at the question of ‘weakness’ [emphasis ZH]…

The most obvious is the idea that Hungary has “very high inflation”. In reality, after being very high previously, inflation in Hungary has come down rapidly, and is now just above 5% and is beating expectations. Errors like this suggest whoever put together the ‘strategy’ probably isn’t a very, shall we say, data-oriented economist. More likely a lawyer vaguely remembering FT headlines from 6 months previous that are now out of date.

It also highlights Hungary’s public deficit. Hungary’s public deficit is large because of energy subsidies, but this is the case across Europe. The Hungarian public deficit is currently 5.9% of GDP. Compare that to the Italian at 8% or the French at 4.8%. Hungary is somewhere in the middle. And it has a low public debt at 74% of GDP. France’s is 112%, Italy’s is 142%. This suggests that the authors just did a quick Wikipedia job trying to get scary numbers without contextualising them.

But more egregious is the lack of basic macro understanding. Whoever wrote it seems to think that if EU funds are withheld from Hungary, the Hungarian currency, the forint, will collapse. This is the only really meaty threat in the piece. But the forint is determined like most other DM currencies: by Hungary’s relative inflation rate and the central bank interest rate. Throughout the previous inflation, the central bank managed the forint’s adjustment pretty well.

My guess is that there’s some projection going on here. The lawyers that wrote the ‘attack strategy’ are aware that Ukraine’s currency relies on foreign aid – the foreign aid that Hungary is disputing – and simply assume Hungary’s does too. Basic lawyer brain.

Maybe the Brussels crowd can convince the financial press to weaponize their headlines against Hungary – this seems an increasingly common tactic at certain outlets, which are haemorrhaging credibility doing so – but it likely won’t make a difference. FDI flowing into Hungary is being deployed by investors that are aware the country is a ‘black sheep’ and are fully used to interpreting headlines through this lens. You can just about get away with weaponising headlines against China, playing on peoples’ unfamiliarity with the statistics and low-key racism but if you start doing this to a country whose statistics are published by Eurostat you’ll just look ill-informed and idiotic.

All in all, the EU ‘attack strategy’ is unserious. It was very likely not devised by economists or market-adjacent people. More likely by lawyers whose macro understanding comes from half-remembered newspaper clippings. It all looks a bit desperate, to be honest. A tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

An environmental lobbyist told viewers of British News channel GB News Tuesday that having children presents a “moral issue” because of the amount of carbon they will produce over the course of their lifetime.

Donnachadh McCarthy argued that people should have fewer children, and that having only one child is “great”.

McCarthy, an advocate of alarmist groups like Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion, told the news station “When my dad was born there were 1.6 billion people on the planet. When I was born there were 3 billion. Now there are 8 billion and we are heading towards eleven.”

“Women are working now and looking for a quality of life and they don’t want to spend their lives pregnant,” he continued.

“We’ve destroyed 70 per cent of nature. There’s a moral issue here,” McCarthy further proclaimed, adding “How can we pass that on to the next generation? Every child in an industrial country like ours has around 505 hundred tonnes of carbon over their lifetime.”

“That’s equivalent to 1000 years of electricity for a household. So each child has an impact and we’re saying one is great, two is plenty and three is selfish.”

This Eco lunatic says there’s a “moral issue” with having kids because each will have a 500 ton carbon footprint. Meanwhile, global fertility rates are catastrophically collapsing. They HATE humanity. Their lives are miserable & their agenda is 💀 Report: https://t.co/I3vfVi3M3Q pic.twitter.com/8C71q752c3

— m o d e r n i t y (@ModernityNews) January 30, 2024

Parenting coach and mother of two Nicole Ratcliff took issue with the rhetoric, telling McCarthy “I’ll be honest, I feel quite angry by that kind of language. I am one of four. I’m sorry, We’ve got a lovely family and the idea of that three is selfish is shocking.”

Ratcliff argued that people who don’t have children tend to have more disposable income and freedom, so they travel more and have a deeper carbon footprint.

She continued, “I think that it is absolutely awful, for me I think if someone is choosing not to have children because of climate change that is not somebody who is driven to have them.”

“The need to have children is something that is built within us and if you are somebody that wants to have them then you can’t switch that urge off,” Ratcliff added.

“There are people out there spending every single penny that they have got to have a child and if they are made to feel guilty, I feel quite offended by the idea that bringing a much loved child into the world would be a bad thing to do,” Ratcliff further urged.

McCarthy responded that he wants to see the birth rate fall naturally, and is “not advocating compulsory family planning.”

Here is the full segment:

All of this is absolutely insane when you factor in the stark reality that fertility rates globally are collapsing and almost every country is on course to have shrinking populations by the end of the century.

In countries like South Korea and Japan, there are twice as many people are dying as there are being born. You don’t have to be a mathematic genius to do the calculations on what’s going to happen very soon.

The figures have prompted influential figures like Elon Musk to warn that humanity is literally going to disappear if something is not done to reverse the trend.

Fertility rates globally are collapsing and almost every country is on course to have shrinking populations by the end of the century. This is why @elonmusk and others are sounding the alarm. Report here: https://t.co/I3vfVi3M3Q pic.twitter.com/0enKUksxk2

— m o d e r n i t y (@ModernityNews) January 30, 2024

The current UK fertility rate is 1.6, significantly below the “replacement rate” of 2.1, and it continues to fall. So no, having two children is not “plenty” and having three is not “selfish”, despite what eco-lunatics like Donnachadh McCarthy are baselessly claiming.

Despite this horrifying reality, it is now commonplace in modern culture for young people to genuinely believe they need to abandon their human instincts to reproduce, all for the greater good:

As we’ve previously highlighted, Extinction Rebellion co-founder Stuart Basden admitted that the group’s agenda “isn’t about the climate” and is instead about toppling western civilization, right down to ending the notion that heterosexuality is “normal.”

*  *  *

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Submitted by Donald Jeffries via “I Protest”,

We’ve come a long way from the Boston Tea Party. What would happen to “extremists” throwing tea into a harbor today? Independence Hall. Lexington and Concord. The Articles of Confederation. Patrick Henry declaring, “I may not agree with what you say, but I’ll defend to my dying day your right to say it.”

The Founding Fathers (sorry, there were no Founding Mothers, and certainly no Founding Transgenders) would all be marginalized if they were living and breathing in the Orwellian mess that is America 2.0. They’d be relegated to writing on Substack. Maybe some of them would be subscribers of mine. No mainstream media outlet would give them even a momentary platform. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Keep your “insurrectionist” thoughts to yourself. That little line should be confined to Ben Franklin’s womanizing. Yes, Ben actually used “would you like to join me in the pursuit of happiness?” as an eighteenth century pickup line. When he wasn’t consorting with prostitutes dressed as nuns in his demonic Hellfire Club.

Aside from Franklin, and certainly the bankers’ stooge Alexander Hamilton, the Founders were a legendary lot. The “greatest generation” if such a thing ever existed. As recently as 1963, Thomas Jefferson was thought so highly of that President Kennedy would tell a state dinner comprised of some of the leading cultural figures of the time, “The is the greatest assemblage of talent ever gathered together in the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.” That kind of comment would get any Democrat, and probably any American, “cancelled” today. Sally Hemings was the real talent behind Jefferson. She wrote the Declaration of Independence. Designed Monticello. Ask any court historian. He was a racist rapist.

One of the few responsibilities ceded to the central government under the Constitution is defending the border. Article 4, section 4, states clearly that “The United States shall guarantee to every State in the Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against invasion…” Our southern border has been under an invasion of illegal aliens, illegal immigrants, undocumented migrants, whatever you want to call them, for over forty years now. More significantly, the federal government has gone beyond enabling this invasion. They have assisted it. Made it possible. Probably financed much of it.

Greg Abbott has been governor of Texas since 2015. He epitomizes the Stupid Party’s tradition of issuing lukewarm rhetoric about “border security,” but ultimately doing nothing to stop the invasion. For unclear reasons, he has now stepped up the rhetoric decisively. After the Supreme Court- Trump’s supposed court, with his lovely nominee Amy Coney Barrett voting with the Left as usual- made one of its trademark disastrous decisions, Abbott threw down the gauntlet. The Court ruled that Texas can not try to stop the Feds from cutting down the barbed wire fencing they’ve put up in places, in a laughable attempt to stop the flow of immigrants.

Think about that; the highest court in the land- the Supreme Court- has ruled that a state cannot defend its borders. True, the Feds are constitutionally delegated with that power, but they quite blatantly have neglected to do this for several decades now. Under the Biden administration, the numbers coming across the border with literally no resistance from U.S. authorities, have reached such a critical mass that it has finally caught the attention of even the sleeping Republicucks. When you have one of the three branches in government- the Executive- aiding and abetting a foreign invasion, another- the Legislative- encouraging it as well, and now the Judicial branch giving the invasion a legal imprimatur, then you understand the situation.

Abbott’s fiery statements brought to mind visions of Sons of Liberty dancing in our heads. He has sounded remarkably like the Confederates did back in 1860, when he charged that the federal government has broken their “compact” with the states. This was the central premise behind the decision of the southern states to secede. Our fast food culture insists it was all about slavery. The dastardly, tobacco spitting whiter than White secessionists wanted their slaves, and that was that. Abraham Lincoln, the secular saint of our crumbling civilization, responded by declaring, “The Union of these States is perpetual.” That contradicted, of course, the guiding principle of our War for Independence, which was that all people have a right to consent to those who govern them. In 1860, the Confederate states no longer consented.

What exactly does “consent” mean, anyhow? In America 2.0, it has come to be a carte blanche power given to women (well, when there were women- now all gender is fluid), over whether a sexual act can take place. This power has been extended to well beyond the act itself, so that women who have had time to reflect on a bad decision can claim they were “date raped,” or simply maintain that they had said “no,” but the hapless, mindless, horny male used force. If you think about it, Abraham Lincoln was a rapist. Or at least a date rapist. Those poor southern states clearly said “No!” But Honest Able pushed on relentlessly, resulting in nearly a million American deaths. He took their consent and shoved it in them with extreme unconstitutional force.

Now I don’t know that Joe Biden has Lincoln’s raping capabilities, but he is certainly a time-tested hair sniffer and all around creep. Not that he’d be making any decisions anyhow. He’s barely capable of eating his own ice cream cone at this point. If I understood it correctly, the deadline for his first ultimatum to Texas has already passed. Videos of Texans firing their guns have gone viral. There is supposed to be a huge trucker convoy going to the border, to stand with the brave Texans. And most shockingly, the governor of twenty five other states have signed on with their support. This includes the putrid RINO in Utah. This is extremely uncharacteristic behavior on the part of Republicans. The Washington Generals. The apology experts.

If history is an indicator, Abbott will return to form and back down. The other Republican governors will become Republicucks again. “State’s Rights” is an anachronistic term in America 2.0. It brings to mind images of Strom Thurmond, back before he married that pretty woman some forty years younger than him. Or George Wallace, trying to block Black students from entering the University of Alabama, and proclaiming, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” But in both those instances, the underlying motivation appears to have been race. Call it “White supremacy” if you must. You have to go back to 1860 to understand the real principles at stake. The Confederacy and Lincoln weren’t on the same page. Neither are the Biden administration and Texas.

I’ve written extensively about our immigration policy. Which has become a no enforcement policy. A policy of overt favoritism towards those entering this country illegally. Free healthcare. Free VISA cards. Free transportation to various spots across America, usually by a startling coincidence to Republican enclaves with lots of “White privilege.” Free housing and food in some very nice hotels. And now, the Biden administration is supposedly instructing banks not to turn down loans to illegals. I don’t know, maybe that’s all Republican propaganda. It certainly seems hard to comprehend. Especially given that so many American citizens are sleeping in tents on the street, and foraging in dumpsters for food.

I confess to feeling an illicit thrill over the prospect of Texas state authorities standing up to the biggest and most odious Goliath that ever existed. Maybe that’s how people felt nearly 190 years ago, when Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, and a small band of other worthies steadfastly defended the Alamo against far superior forces. Remember the Barbed Wire! doesn’t have quite the same ring to it. To whatever degree our horrific leaders still care about public relations optics, it might give them pause before attempting to forcefully overpower Texas officials, and perhaps a lot of angry truckers. Maybe they’ll send a special Transgender SWAT team.

I don’t know how any American could possibly support the federal government sending agents to a sovereign state, to remove the only weak blockade put up to repel a nonstop foreign invasion. But I know millions do. The Supreme Court does. So does the state controlled mainstream media. So does the entire entertainment world. Why would any American citizen be in favor of flooding the job market, and our tenuous government safety net, with unimaginable numbers of the poorest people in the world? We have way too many poor people of our own, and have little desire to help them, so why such generosity for poor people from other countries?

Could this all turn into a Civil War II? Think of the ugly logistics involved. In my own family, outside of my wife and kids, I’m not sure any of my other large collection of relatives would be on my side in any such conflict. Not that I’d be taking up arms, mind you, but I’d have a logical rooting interest for those that are resisting tyranny. If brother fought brother in Lincoln’s war, think how many would be opposing each other in Civil War II. You would have father versus son, mother versus daughter, wife versus husband. As if American families weren’t already dysfunctional enough. I don’t think any of us would be literally fighting, with blue and red uniforms I guess, but the ideological battle would be brutal. And centered around Trumpenstein.

Trump has praised Governor Abbott for his resolve. Frankly, by merely putting up barbed wire, Abbott has done more than Trump did in four years. It’s not much, of course, but it beats tweeting out toothless threats to put troops on the border, end sanctuary cities, end birthright citizenship, deport millions, and the like. Trump couldn’t even end DACA, which Obama created with an executive order. It wasn’t legislation. But he’s preoccupied, what with being ordered to pay millions to an off-the-wall woman who can’t remember the year in which he raped her. The border may be the boiling point, but this conflict is centered around a corrupt and politicized “justice” system, taxation without representation, and a huge cultural divide.

I guess it’s fitting that illegal immigration should be the triggering mechanism for whatever battle that follows. It was Trump’s foundational issue in 2016, and what turned out to be his empty rhetoric on the subject precipitated an intense hatred towards him unlike that for any other public figure in our history. Ever since Ronald Reagan signed the Immigration “Reform” Act in 1986, this has been a bubble issue, waiting to explode like the “dream deferred” Langston Hughes wrote about. The Reagan Supreme Court, no friendlier to liberty than Trump’s Court, decreed that the children of illegals must be given a free public school education. And the 1965 “Reform” Act directed that almost all legal immigrants be nonwhite persons.

As a fiery young radical, I watched all those old timers, along with the yuppies and soccer moms, accept bilingual signs. Bilingual ballots. Shouldn’t you have to be able to read a ballot in the predominant language of the country you’re voting in? Can you imagine being able to vote in France, or Greece, without understanding either language? But no, it’s “Press 2 for Spanish.” Is cheap labor really worth all that? Worth rendering your citizenship status meaningless? After all, if you don’t have to be a citizen to vote, just what advantage is there to being a citizen? And every “Woke” person in America supports noncitizens being able to vote. They’re the ones who will be opposing us in any prospective Civil War.

I have said many times that America cannot continue in its present, balkanized state. I hate quoting the despot Lincoln, but a house divided against itself cannot stand. There is not a single foundational principle today which all Americans agree upon. God? Millions not only don’t believe in God, but mock and ridicule the concept. We don’t agree on when life begins. Probably at least 80 million Americans will never accept the transgender madness. Cancel us all you want, but you cannot make us believe that men can give birth. We will not accept the mutilation of little boys and little girls, sacrificed on the altar of identity politics.

More Whites are becoming fed up with the Great Replacement. And that lies at the heart of what’s happening at the border. Everyone coming across that border is nonwhite. Persons of color. We who oppose this are cast as colorless and privileged. As I’ve noted, this massive influx of nonwhite migrants is happening exclusively in Western nations. Majority White nations. At least for now. Where is the shrill “Woke” demands that China experience some of our “diversity?” Japan? North Korea? Saudi Arabia? India? This is a very simply equation; import nonwhites into White nations. Sure, it’s expensive, but obviously someone is paying for Haitians and Africans to travel great distances to “diversify” England, Canada, Australia, and the U.S.

Nothing reveals the deterioration of America like our immigration policies. That open southern border is the poster child for America 2.0. And that’s with political prisoners everywhere, and citizens fired for politically incorrect social media posts, made on their own personal time. Legal precedents are being set to sue Thought Criminals for speculating about national events, or “exaggerating” the extent of their wealth. Or for even suggesting electoral fraud. The Orwellian term “Hate Speech” is accepted by almost all. Free speech is more unpopular than ever, and not allowed as a defense in American courtrooms. And our infrastructure “rebuild” consists of renaming “racist” roads, not fixing pot holes. Click your heels and repeat “Build Back Better.” But it’s that open border that epitomizes everything. The Beatles of corruption.

If Greg Abbott and other Republicans surprise us all and stand strong, they will be thoroughly demonized. In a society run by the worst criminals in the world, dissent must be crushed. And so it has been. But it’s gone beyond that. The notion of dissent must be as demonized as any present-day dissenters. So the Founders become dead White male “racists,” memorable only as examples of “White Supremacy.” The stirring fight for liberty and independence becomes converted into endless lectures on how awful American slavery was, juxtaposed against the amazing accomplishments of Black Americans who were simultaneously prevented from accomplishing anything. The Civil War was about slavery. Period. Ask the great Nikki Haley. And World War II was a “good war.” It was about the Holocaust. Period. All enemies are “Nazis.”

If the crisis at the border turns out any other way than the Texas officials skulking back to their offices with their tails between their legs, I’ll be shocked. They aren’t going to let states secede. Abraham Lincoln, our greatest president, demonstrated that to the tune of about 800,000 deaths. You aren’t leaving. Our government is like a cheating, abusive spouse, who won’t give us a divorce. The majority of brainwashed, unthinking Speeple have a special brand of Stockholm Syndrome. Let’s say the unthinkable happens, and the Texas guard and trucker convey defeats federal forces decisively. Would the state controlled media even report it? How would they spin even a federal victory? “U.S. Forces Prevent Texas From Defending its Border?”

One senses that we are in the final act of a play. America 2.0, staggering around the ring, primed to be counted out. Have Texans, at least, been pushed perhaps a bit too far? Despite decades of non-enforcement at the border, has the incredible increase in migrants finally got their attention? Are Texans, or any appreciable number of Americans, capable of saying enough is enough? Our ancestors sacrificed everything for the right of self-determination. I’ll be watching with keen interest, remembering Bull Run, and Valley Forge, and Yorktown, and whistling “Dixie.” Just don’t tell the authorities. I’m pretty sure that’s a Thought Crime at this point.

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Utah Legislature on Jan. 26 approved two conservative-minded bills that prompted Democrats to don all black in mourning—one that bans men from women’s bathrooms and another that ejects diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) from public education.

Utah state lawmakers in both chambers gave final legislative approval on Jan. 26 to H.B. 257, titled the Sex-based Designations for Privacy, Anti-bullying, and Women’s Opportunities Act. The measure prohibits men who identify as women from accessing women’s bathrooms in schools and government buildings.

“Keeping men from women’s spaces is an appropriate and much needed boundary in Utah and across America,” the bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Kera Birkeland, a Republican, said in a post on social media platform X.

“Men don’t belong in women’s bathrooms,” competitive swimmer Riley Gaines said in a post on X. “Thanks @KeraBirk for your leadership on this.”

The other bill, H.B. 261, titled the Equal Opportunity Initiatives Act, prohibits government employers and institutions of higher education and public education from engaging in discriminatory practices, including those based on DEI principles.

The measure, sponsored by state Rep. Katy Hall, a Republican, would ban “requiring an individual, before, during, or after admission or employment, to provide certain submissions or attend certain training that promotes differential treatment.”

Former NFL player Rep. Burgess Owens (R-Utah) took to X to express his appreciation for the bill’s passage.

“Thank you, Rep. Katy Hall, @KeithGroverUT, and Utah legislators for continuing to lead the way,” he wrote. “We’re leaving divisive DEI behind.”

Mr. Burgess has criticized what he earlier described as the “leftist mantra of systemic racism.”

On Jan. 25, when the bills had already passed one of the Utah Legislature’s chambers but before they cleared final legislative hurdles the next day, a group of Democrats staged a protest against the two measures—wearing all black as a sign of mourning.

“That’s because we are hurting as we join with our communities, our marginalized communities and vulnerable communities, through this process and we just came out of the Senate floor that passed H.B.257 and H.B. 261 and they may move really fast to the governor’s desk,” one of the state representatives said, according to a video posted on an account on X called End Wokeness.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, is expected to sign both bills into law. During a news conference in December, Mr. Cox voiced strong support for the anti-DEI bill.

“I can assure you, after this legislative session, it will not be happening here in the state of Utah, these diversity statements that you have to sign to get hired,” Mr. Cox said.

“It’s bordering on evil, that we’re forcing people into a political framework before they can even apply for a job, by the state.”

More Details

The bathroom bill, H.B. 257, bars people from using bathrooms for the opposite sex in schools and government-owned or -controlled buildings.

The measure also stipulates that the state’s definition of “male” and “female” are based on biological characteristics such as genitalia as opposed to gender identity.

There are exceptions for unisex or single-occupant facilities, changing rooms not open to the general public, and intersex individuals.

Supporters of the bill have argued that it’s needed to protect women from male predators seeking to enter bathrooms or changing rooms under the pretense that they are transgender.

Opponents claim that the bill unfairly singles out people from the transgender community.

The DEI bill, H.B. 261, would prohibit universities and government entities from having offices that promote certain policies or require employees to submit statements of allegiance to DEI principles. It also prohibits mandatory DEI training.

So far this year, Republican lawmakers have proposed several dozen bills across at least 17 states that restrict various DEI initiatives or require their public disclosure, according to an Associated Press legislative tally.

Democrats, by contrast, have filed at least 20 bills in nine states that would promote or require DEI measures.

Deluge of DEI

The rise of DEI has been pronounced across businesses, colleges, and other institutions in the United States.

For instance, more than 60 percent of U.S. companies have a race- or gender-based DEI program, according to a 2022 Harvard Business Review survey.

Also, a recent report from The Heritage Foundation shows that DEI initiatives were present at 81 percent of community colleges reviewed; that figure was 96 percent when counting only community colleges with more than 10,000 students.

But the backlash against DEI also has been pronounced.

In June 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the use of racially discriminatory admissions policies at educational facilities that receive federal funding.

Subsequently, state attorneys general from a dozen states urged major U.S. corporations to abandon their use of racial quotas and race-based preferences in hiring and contracting.

Later, a report published by DEI consultancy firm Paradigm Strategies Inc. identified a decline in corporate DEI budgets and a drop in the number of organizations with a set DEI strategy.

The year “2023 has undeniably shifted the DEI landscape for years to come,” according to the report.

“External forces are no longer pushing companies to invest in DEI; instead, in some cases, external forces are pushing back on companies’ investment in DEI,” it reads.

In what could very clearly become the slipperiest of slopes, a bill introduced in the Florida Senate would make calling someone ‘transphobic’ , ‘homophobic’ , racist, or sexist a form of defamation.

Introduced on Friday, SB 1780 “Defamation, False Light, and Unauthorized Publication of Name or Likeness,” would make it easier for people to sue each other for defamation.

According to the bill, “an allegation that the plaintiff has discriminated against another person or group because of their race, sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity constitutes defamation per se,” which means that even when said allegations are false, they are automatically defamatory – meaning that anyone accused of said ‘isms’ wouldn’t have to prove “actual malice,” a higher standard set for defamation suits following a 1964 Supreme Court case, New York Times vs. Sullivan.

In instances where someone is accused of homophobia or transphobia, defendants charged with defamation wouldn’t be allowed to use the plaintiff’s religious or scientific beliefs as part of their defense, and could face fines of at least $35,000.

The bill, which has a counterpart in the Florida House (HB 757), would also significantly narrow the definition of “public figure” in defamation lawsuits to exclude non-elected or appointed public employees, as well as individuals who became publicly known for defending themselves against accusations – either by giving interviews or being the subject of a viral “video, image, or statement uploaded on the Internet,” CBS News reports.

The bill also weakens protections for anonymous sources for journalists – and classifies their statements as “presumptively false,” making journalists vulnerable to lawsuits.

As Not the Bee notes, if passed, the law would not require actual malice to be proved for:

• A person made famous solely from a video or pictures uploaded to the internet.
• Statements made by a person defending their reputation.
• Granting an interview on a subject.

And just to be safe, the law also redefines when a famous person can claim actual malice. It says that judges should infer that statements are actually malicious when:

• The source of the claim is unidentified and anonymous.
• The allegation is fabricated solely in the imagination of the defendant.
• The allegation is so implausible that only a reckless person would put it into circulation.
• There are obvious reasons to doubt the veracity of the report.
• The defendant willfully failed to validate or corroborate the claim.

And finally, the law carves out protections for religion and science.

• A defendant cannot prove the truth of an allegation of discrimination with respect to sexual orientation or gender identity by citing a plaintiff’s constitutionally protected religious expression or beliefs.
• A defendant cannot prove the truth of an allegation of discrimination with respect to sexual orientation or gender identity by citing a plaintiff’s scientific beliefs.

Of course, as the Bee‘s ‘Mister Retrops’ notes: “While I appreciate the law as a worthy effort to deal with these legal loopholes the Left is employing to attack anyone they see as a standing in the way of “real communism,” one has to wonder if there’s anything in this law that would keep it from being used as a cudgel of the Left.”

To read a thorough breakdown of what’s going on, click here.

Authored by Catherine Yang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Attorneys for former President Donald Trump on Monday responded to a recent report issued by a court-appointed independent monitor regarding Trump Organization finances, disputing former judge Barbara Jones’s characterization of the financial statements as incomplete and inconsistent.

Ms. Jones recommended that third party monitoring of Trump Organization continue, and concluded that “misstatements and errors may continue to occur,” which defense attorneys said was an effort to continue the monitor’s “exorbitant” fees paid by Trump Organization. Ms. Jones has been paid $2.6 million in her 14-month period as an independent monitor on the case.

Ms. Jones’s team has received Trump Organization financial disclosures to third parties, including lenders and insurers; agreements and documents related to transactions; documents related to Trump Organization entities and dissolutions; bank statements; and documents provided to tax authorities.

Attorney Clifford Robert claimed that the Jan. 26 report, submitted at the request of the court, was also meant to “fill the gaping hole in the Attorney General’s case” and was issued “in bad faith.”

“The January 26 Report also contains numerous factual inaccuracies (casting serious doubt on the Monitor’s competency), fails to reference governing standards of any kind, and is otherwise misleading and disingenuous,” the letter reads.

The report pointed out errors on seven disclosure items, three inconsistencies, and five clerical errors, which the defense argues are immaterial amid the thousands of pages of financial data related to the 400 entities Ms. Jones is monitoring.

“The Monitor was appointed to report any financial reporting misconduct, suspicious activity or any suspected or actual fraudulent activity,“ the letter reads. ”The Monitor was not appointed to identify math errors or otherwise sensationalize minor and inconsequential accounting discrepancies scattered throughout the financial reports of the over 400 companies comprising the Defendants’ global enterprise.”

Mr. Robert pointed out that the biggest discrepancy Ms. Jones identified was a difference of $1 million in an “internal trial balance presentation,” and had no actual impact. Mentions of delays in implementing transactions had provided “no evidence of any inappropriate or untoward conduct,” he added, claiming this representation as an effort to “malign such disclosures.”

Mr. Robert noted that the words “misconduct,” “suspicious activity,” “suspected fraud,” or “actual fraud” do not appear in Ms. Jones’s report at all, and argued the errors she cites have been blown out of proportion.

“Moreover, as the Reports and the January 26 Report make clear, every item identified has been resolved to the full satisfaction of the Monitor,” he added. “She has not and cannot point to even a single instance of controversy or complaint between any of the Defendants and outside third parties.”

He pointed to five reports Ms. Jones previously submitted, in which she wrote that Trump Organization defendants were repeatedly “complying with” and “continuing to comply with” court orders and the third-party monitoring as a pattern of ongoing cooperation and good faith.

“The Monitor now twists immaterial accounting items into a narrative favoring her continued appointment, and thereby the continued receipt of millions of dollars in excessive fees,” Mr. Robert argued.

Mr. Robert argued there is no purpose in continuing the monitoring of Trump Organization going forward.

Ruling, Penalties Imminent

President Trump and other Trump Organization executives were sued by New York Attorney General Letitia James in September 2022 for fraud in the organization’s financial statements from 2011 to 2021.

New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron has already found the defendants liable for fraud, and is expected to issue an order this week that will detail the penalties President Trump will have to pay.

The attorney general is seeking $370 million in disgorgement, which is the difference in what the state claims Trump Organization would have paid in interest and fees if the financial statement totals had been lower, plus several other penalties.

The judge had already ordered the cancellation of President Trump’s business certificates and the dissolution of Trump Organization companies. The ambiguous order had been put on pause by an appeals court after defense attorneys argued it would upend the livelihoods of hundreds of employees overnight. It was not clear whether an independent receiver would then sell off Trump Organization properties under bankruptcy procedures, and the judge had said he would revisit the details.

The attorney general is also seeking to bar President Trump from doing business in New York or with New York-based financial organizations for life, as well as five-year bans for his sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., who are executive vice presidents at Trump Organization.

As the region braces for the consequences of major US airstrikes on ‘Iranian proxies’ in Iraq and Syria, Israel’s defense minister has issued an alert saying Israeli troops will “very soon go into action” near the country’s northern border with Lebanon.

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant issued the words Monday at a time of daily tit-for-tat cross-border fire with Hezbollah. The conflict has thus far been seen as “contained” – yet things across the broader region are looking anything but contained. Gallant said, “They will very soon go into action… so the forces in the north are reinforced.”

He added that reservists need to “prepare and come ready” for future operations in the north when called upon. Israel’s military struck several Hezbollah positions on Monday.

“The targets included Hezbollah’s infrastructure and an observation post located in the southern Lebanese areas of Markaba, Taybeh, and Maroun Al-Ras,” the IDF said.

This was in response to at least a dozen earlier attacks by Hezbollah the same day, which reportedly included use of Iranian-made Falaq-1 and Burkan missiles.

Days ago, ABC News quoted an Israeli government official who predicted:

Israel is “closer to war” with Hezbollah and a possible regional war than ever, a senior Israeli official said.

Gallant had previously estimated that as a result of Hezbollah rockets which started soon after Oct.7, over 80,000 Israeli citizens are still displaced from their homes, after border regions had to be evacuated en masse.

Incoming missile and drone alerts have also become commonplace across communities in the north. Some Israeli officials have wanted a more hawkish response in order to eventually allow these citizens to safely return to their homes in the north.

⚡️Hezb-Allah has just released a video titled:

“I am the soldier of Radwan” pic.twitter.com/zLVxk2pCs3

— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) January 30, 2024

Over a month ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned, “If Hezbollah decides to open an all-out war, then with its own hands it will turn Beirut and southern Lebanon, which are not far from here, into Gaza and Khan Younis.”

The consensus among regional analysts is that Hezbollah is far superior to Hamas’ capability in terms of numbers of fighters, missiles, and weaponry such as laser-guided anti-tank missiles. An all-out war scenario would be severe, but likely Lebanon would be devastated and come under Israeli bombs. For now it seems, neither side wants this worst-case scenario.

Authored by Julie Kelly via RealClear Wire,

Washington glitterati assembled at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in October to celebrate federal employees making a difference in government. Hosted by CNN anchor Kate Bolduan, the black-tie affair featured in-person appearances by top Biden White House officials including Chief of Staff Jeffrey Zients, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, and Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack.

Midway through the evening’s festivities, Max Stier, president of the group sponsoring the event – the Partnership for Public Service, a $24 million nonprofit based in Washington that recruits individuals to work in the civil service – took the stage to thank his high-profile guests. “Great leaders are the heart and soul of effective organizations,” Stier said, “which is why I am so thankful to see so many of our government’s amazing leaders here tonight.”

Stier also acknowledged one federal employee, his wife, Judge Florence Y. Pan, who sits on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Pan would soon need no introduction. Earlier this month she made headlines  by asking Donald Trump’s lawyers whether the presidential immunity he sought in connection with alleged Jan. 6 crimes was absolute.

Could a president order SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival?” Pan asked Trump lawyer John Sauer. “That’s an official act – an order to SEAL Team Six?” she clarified.

Related: Anti-MAGA Networker at White House and Her J6 Prosecutor Husband

Although the back and forth between Pan and Sauer was inconclusive as to the question about a president’s criminal liability, many mainstream outlets misconstrued the exchange while lionizing Pan for posing a question that they then used to advance their description of Trump as a lawless menace. The exchange, which Pan prompted when she posed the pre-arranged hypothetical at beginning of the hearing, has raised new questions about the impartiality of judges hearing politically charged cases.

For months progressives have been insisting that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas should recuse himself from any case that involves Trump because of his wife Ginni Thomas’ political involvement and participation in the events of Jan. 6. Those same interests have yet to express similar worries about Pan’s objectivity, despite her husband’s longtime political activism and current opposition to another Trump presidency.

Power couples are the lifeblood of Washington so it’s not unusual for political activists, judges, and White House bigwigs to rub elbows at fancy soirees like the October gala at the Kennedy Center. But Max Stier’s longtime ties to the Democratic Party, his access to key Biden administration officials, and his suggestion that Trump represents a threat to democracy at the same time his wife is handling sensitive matters related to the Department of Justice’s prosecution of the former president should raise questions about her impartiality.

A member of Bill Clinton’s legal team during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Stier, 57, has been a Democratic Party fixture for nearly three decades. Since 2001, he has run the Partnership for Public Service, which is funded by some of the most generous benefactors of progressive causes including the Gates Foundation, Democracy Fund, and the Ford Foundation. In 2020, the Partnership launched an effort tied to the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) movement, pledging to demand what it considers greater diversity in government agencies and institutions.

In a letter to mark the group’s 20-year anniversary, Stier lamented the country’s democratic “crisis” caused by “a violent insurrection against Congress and growing suspicions about the results of a legitimate election.”

Recently, Stier has joined the growing chorus of Beltway voices warning that a second Trump presidency would pose a unique “threat” to the country’s future. Stier and others are particularly concerned with Trump’s promise to convert tens of thousands of federal bureaucrats into political appointees, meaning they could be fired without cause by the president. Such a plan, according to Stier, undermines the Constitution and the law.

“You wind up with a workforce that is not only going to deliver poor service, but also that is going to be a tool for retribution and actions that are contrary to our democratic system,” Stier said in a December 2023 Politico interview. “If you are selecting people on the basis of their political persuasion or their loyalty as opposed to their expertise and their commitment to the public good, you’re going to wind up with less good service and more risk for the American people.”

Related: In Her J6 Courtroom, Trump Judge Is Pot Calling Defendant Incendiary

“I don’t think we have a deep state today,” he said. But “the proposals that are on the table would create a deep state, rather than the effective state that we all should be pursuing.”

Stier is doing more than just discussing the issue in media interviews; he is working directly with Biden officials to prevent Trump from following through on his pledge if he wins in November. Stier has called Trump’s plans to reform so-called “Schedule F” employees “an assault on our civil service, the core to our system of government and democratic institutions.”

When Republicans threatened to shut down the government last year over disagreements with Democrats on federal spending levels, Stier warned it would sideline what unions estimate as 4 million government employees. “[It] is the equivalent of burning down your own house,” he said of a potential shutdown.

But Stier is perhaps best known for his involvement in attempting to thwart Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. Stier and Kavanaugh attended Yale University together in the mid-1980s. In September 2019, while reporting on a sexual abuse accusation made by another Yale student, Deborah Ramirez, the New York Times disclosed Stier’s account of an incident he allegedly witnessed during their freshman year.

Two Times reporters, in their first-person-plural “analysis” favoring Kavanaugh’s accusers, wrote:

A classmate, Max Stier, saw Mr. Kavanaugh with his pants down at a different drunken dorm party, where friends pushed his penis into the hand of a female student. Mr. Stier, who runs a nonprofit organization in Washington, notified senators and the F.B.I. about this account, but the F.B.I. did not investigate and Mr. Stier has declined to discuss it publicly. We corroborated the story with two officials who have communicated with Mr. Stier; the female student declined to be interviewed and friends say she does not recall the episode.

Stier’s still unproven allegations are included in a new documentary, “Justice,” about the Kavanaugh scandal. The film, which premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, centers on Ramirez and features a recording of Stier’s never-before-heard 2018 call to the FBI tip line detailing what he claimed to have seen and heard. 

Washington Post entertainment reporter Jada Yuan wrote in January 2023:

In the previously unheard recording, Stier says classmates told him not just that Kavanaugh stuck his penis in Ramirez’s face, but that afterward, Kavanaugh went to the bathroom to make himself erect before allegedly returning to assault her again, hoping to amuse an audience of mutual friends, In the film, Ramirez says she’d suppressed the memory so deeply she couldn’t recall this second incident. … Stier’s message to the FBI also cites another incident involving a different woman, which he says he witnessed “firsthand”: A severely inebriated Kavanaugh, his dorm mate, pulling his pants down at a different party while a group of soccer players forced a drunk female freshman to hold his penis.

Stier did not appear as an interview subject in the film. Some speculated that Stier’s involvement in the Kavanaugh matter was retaliation against former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for allowing his wife’s earlier nomination as district judge to expire with the end of the Obama administration.

Judge Pan, 57, a Taiwanese-American, has longstanding ties to the Democratic Party. A graduate of Stanford Law School, Pan worked for President Clinton’s departments of Justice and Treasury before joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia in 1999. In 2009, President Barack Obama nominated her to serve as an associate judge on the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. As his tenure drew to a close, Obama then nominated her unsuccessfully to serve as a United States district judge for the District of Columbia.

After Trump left office in 2021, Pan became one of President Biden’s first judicial nominees, tapped again to serve as a U.S. district judge in Washington. Less than a year later, Biden promoted her to the D.C. appellate court; in both instances, Pan replaced Ketanji Brown Jackson as she made her way to the Supreme Court. She is the first Asian American to serve on both benches.

“This is a perfect example of how the Deep State defends its interest,” Russell Vought, president of the Center for Renewing America, one of the organizations pushing for the Schedule F reforms told RealClearInvestigations. “In and out of government, multiple branches of government, relying on personal networks, even marriages, to defeat President Trump and thereby protect a permanent, unaccountable bureaucracy.”

During her brief tenure on the appellate court, Pan has found herself on an unusually high number of politically charged cases.

A panel of three judges initially hears appeals before the full court selected out of 11 sitting judges. Pan has been seated on two such panels regarding cases involving Jan. 6 and Donald Trump. In both cases she provided the key vote in a split, 2-1 decision, that sided with the government. In Fischer v. USA, Pan acknowledged that the government was making a “novel” use of a post-Enron statute that addressed tampering with documents to increase the legal jeopardy of individuals who disrupted the Electoral College Count on Jan. 6.

“To be sure, outside of the January 6 cases brought in this jurisdiction, there is no precedent for using 1512(c)(2) to prosecute the type of conduct at issue in this case.” Nonetheless, Pan applied a “broad reading of the statute” to allow application of the law.

Pan reached the same conclusion in Robertson v. USA on the same matter in another 2-1 decision. Her opinion in the Fischer case is now before the Supreme Court; legal observers predict the court might reverse her opinion, essentially overturning how the DOJ has interpreted the statute’s language to charge more than 300 Jan. 6 protesters with the felony count. (This would put Judge Kavanaugh in the unique position of voting against a decision written by the spouse of one of his accusers.)

Unusual GOP Dissent on Court

Pan also upheld another controversial lower court ruling that favored the DOJ and worked against Trump, one that recently resulted in a harsh rebuke from some of her colleagues on the circuit court.

U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell, another Obama appointee, in 2023 authorized an application from Special Counsel Jack Smith to obtain a search warrant for Trump’s Twitter data in his Jan. 6 case against the former President. Not only did Howell force the company to produce the records, which included direct messages and draft posts, she signed a nondisclosure order to prevent Twitter – now X and owned by liberal bête noire Elon Musk – from notifying its customer, Trump, about the warrant for 180 days.

X appealed Howell’s nondisclosure order; Judge Pan backed Howell’s decision and ruled against the company’s appeal, citing the need to “safeguard the security and integrity of the investigation” and “avoid tipping off the former President about the warrant’s existence.”

But Pan’s conclusions were wrong, four Republican-appointed judges on the D.C. circuit court wrote this month in what legal observers described as an unusual 12-page statement related to the appeal.

“The Special Counsel’s approach obscured and bypassed any assertion of executive privilege and dodged the careful balance Congress struck in the Presidential Records Act,” Judges Neomi Rao, Justin Walker, Gregory Katsas, and Karen Henderson wrote in an order filed Jan. 16. “The district court and this court permitted this arrangement without any consideration of the consequential executive privilege issues raised by this unprecedented search. We should not have endorsed this gambit. Rather than follow established precedent, for the first time in American history, a court allowed access to presidential communications before any scrutiny of executive privilege.”

But it was Pan’s exchange with Trump’s defense attorney during oral arguments related to Trump’s claims of presidential immunity against criminal prosecution that caught the media’s attention. Trump is seeking to dismiss Smith’s Jan. 6 indictment on immunity grounds; Judge Tanya S. Chutkan issued a landmark ruling in December denying Trump’s motion and concluded that presidents are subject to criminal prosecution.

Roughly one minute into the Jan. 9 discussion, Pan interrupted Trump lawyer Sauer with her hypothetical question. The exchange went as follows:

Pan: Could a president order SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival? That’s an official act, an order to SEAL Team Six?

John Sauer: He would have to be and would speedily be impeached and convicted before the criminal prosecution.

Pan: But if he weren’t … there would be no criminal prosecution, no criminal liability for that?

Sauer: Chief Justice’s opinion in Marbury against Madison … and the Impeachment Judgment Clause all clearly presuppose what the Founders were concerned about …

Pan: I asked you a yes or no question. Could a president who ordered SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival who was not impeached, would he be subject to criminal prosecution?

Sauer: If he were impeached and convicted first.

Pan: So your answer is … no.

Sauer: It is a qualified yes.

Despite Sauer’s answer, figures in major media nonetheless reported that Sauer claimed a president could not be prosecuted for ordering the assassination of a political rival. (It was unclear whether Pan suggested the order or the act itself was illegal.) Legal analysts, cable news hosts, and columnists praised Pan regardless of the plausibility of such a scenario.

Former federal prosecutor Harry Litman told MSNBC host Chris Hayes that “after Judge Pan asked that hypo about SEAL Team Six, Sauer … was a dead man walking. He will lose. He should lose.”

Writing for the Atlantic, former federal prosecutor and Trump antagonist George Conway described Pan’s hypothetical as a way of setting a “trap” for Team Trump. He further suggested Pan could host “Meet the Press” if she decided to pursue a different career outside the judiciary.

Conway continued to praise Pan in a CNN interview, calling her SEAL Team Six line of inquiry an “intellectual tour de force.”

Democrats also seized on Sauer’s response. Rep. Adam Schiff, currently running for the U.S. Senate in California, denounced Trump and his legal team, insisting “there is no immunity for murder.”

A reporter asked Trump about the exchange during an appearance on Jan. 11. “Do you agree with your lawyers, what they said on Tuesday, that you should not be prosecuted if you ordered SEAL Team Six to kill a political opponent?” Trump replied that presidents “have to have immunity,” otherwise every president would be prosecuted by that leader’s successor of the opposite political party.

Some pundits took Pan’s hypothetical a step further. MSNBC contributor Elie Mystal misrepresented Sauer’s answer, then proposed that Joe Biden could “launch a preemptive strike on a rebel stronghold at Mar-a-Lago” under Trump’s way of thinking.

Paul Rozenzweig of the anti-Trump conservative site The Bulwark wrote that Trump’s reasoning meant Biden could assassinate Trump without any consequences.

The controversy presumably will continue to swirl until Pan’s panel issues its ruling. It could be weeks until the opinion is filed. Until then, Trump’s March 4 trial date is on hold and looks less likely by the day, which is why Jack Smith asked the court to fast-track the announcement to expedite the process as it inevitably heads toward the Supreme Court. Considering the political composition of the three-judge panel – two judges appointed by Democratic presidents – most observers expect the appellate court to uphold Chutkan’s ruling.

Meanwhile, Pan’s hypothetical scenario of a presidentially ordered hit likely will figure prominently in any opinion.

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before, but the billions of dollars we’re spending to convert the country to “clean” energy in order to reduce carbon emissions is being allocated poorly. We know, government spending that isn’t efficient? We were shocked, too.

The latest example comes from the idea that our tax money should be responsible for instituting electric busses nationwide. As Fox News reported this week, the idea has been nothing short of a total disaster, with busses broken down and unused across the nation. 

Fox cites several examples, including authorities in Asheville, North Carolina, who have encountered numerous difficulties with their electric bus fleet, leading to the idling of three out of five buses bought in 2018 for “millions”. These challenges stem from an assortment of software glitches, mechanical failures, and the unavailability of necessary spare parts.

In a similar vein, The Denver Gazette highlighted issues in Colorado Springs, where Mountain Metropolitan Transit’s electric bus initiative faces setbacks. Of the four e-buses procured in 2021, each costing $1.2 million primarily funded by governmental grants, two are currently non-operational.

One of the key reasons the electric bus industry isn’t evolving? The free market has already sent it a message by bankrupting its key supplier and largest e-bus manufacturer in the U.S., a company called Proterra. 

It filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in August, exacerbating issues for cities with their buses. Despite being promoted by President Biden and having former Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on its board, the company faced other challenges (for example: a business model that doesn’t work even with massive government subsidies). 

Asheville’s interim transportation director, Jessica Morriss, reported difficulties in obtaining parts post-bankruptcy.

Proterra’s problems predate the bankruptcy. In 2020, SEPTA in Philadelphia pulled its $24 million Proterra fleet, and in 2021, Foothill Transit in California reported over half of its electric buses idle. Other affected areas include Stockton, Reno, Louisville, where TARC’s entire fleet remained unused for two years, and Austin, where Capital Metro’s $46 million deal with Proterra faces delays.

Broward County, Florida’s experience was particularly telling, with their Proterra buses breaking down far more frequently than diesel counterparts, highlighting the challenges in transitioning to electric public transportation, the report says.

Now, Fox reports the company is trying to make a comeback. Jose Paul, Chief Revenue Officer of its new holding company, Phoenix Motorcars, discussed the company’s acquisition of Proterra’s “world-class technology” with FOX Business. He compared the evolution of electric vehicles to the early days of the Model T, noting that Proterra’s buses have been improving over time.

Paul acknowledged challenges faced by Proterra’s customers, like Asheville, particularly due to part shortages following the bankruptcy. He revealed Phoenix Motorcars’ immediate plan to restock spare parts and address supplier issues.

Paul expressed optimism that issues caused by Proterra’s bankruptcy would be resolved within six to nine months, emphasizing Phoenix’s commitment to customer satisfaction.

It’ll be back at the trough for more of your taxpayer cash in no time…