Life Can only an Only Get Worse For Black & White U.S Underclass. BLM is a divide & rule smokescreen from elite fakes ,feminists who hate white men and their stooges. June 1st 2021

Louise Hall 52 mins ago Man arrested on suspicion of murdering woman and child in Louth Hollywood vs. Joss Whedon: accusations of cruelty on the sets of ‘Buffy’ and ‘Justice… © Provided by The Independent

A 12-year-old girl attending a graduation party was one of three people killed in a dozen shooting incidents across the weekend in New Orleans, police have said.

The department’s police chief, Shaun Ferguson, said at a press conference on Monday that the city in Louisiana had seen as many as 12 shooting incidents over the weekend.

“Three resulted in fatalities and we had as many as 13 non-fatal victims,” Mr Ferguson said, adding that out of the dozen which occurred the department had so far made three arres

Comment As a teacher for 18 years , I experienced the creeping then suddenly accelerating political correctness positively discriminating in favour of blacks , Muslims and females. There was , eventually , no alternative but to avoid argument or confrontation with any of these groups.

Management , especially the most senior did not want to know about the problems harbouring these policies caused. Teaching is a form of policing and social control. It is also a job. We did it for money. Management did it for power. The same principles apply to the police. Many are and will do as I did, take early retirement. Robert Cook

Another Liberal Distraction May 19th 2021

The New York attorney general‘s office said on Tuesday it has opened a criminal investigation into former PresidentDonald Trump‘s company, increasing the legal risk for Trump and his family.

Attorney General Letitia James has been investigating whether the Trump Organization falsely reported property values to secure loans and obtain economic and tax benefits.

The latest announcement marked another escalation of the legal jeopardy Trump faces four months after leaving office, taking to three the number of known criminal investigations of the former Republican president.

“We have informed the Trump Organization that our investigation into the organization is no longer purely civil in nature,” Fabien Levy, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office, said in a statement.

“We are now actively investigating the Trump Organization in a criminal capacity, along with the Manhattan DA,” he said.

The Trump Organization, the former president’s family-owned business, could not immediately be reached for comment. Trump has said that the investigation overseen by James, a Democrat, is politically motivated.

James has been investigating whether the Trump Organization inflated the values of some properties to obtain better loans, and lowered their values to obtain property tax breaks.

Separately, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance has been investigating Trump’s pre-presidency business dealings for more than two years.

Vance’s office has said in court filings it was investigating “possibly extensive and protracted criminal conduct” at the Trump Organization, including tax and insurance fraud and falsification of business records.

In February, prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia, opened a criminal investigation into Trump’s attempts to influence the state’s 2020 election results, after he was recorded in a Jan. 2 phone call pressuring Georgia’s secretary of state to overturn the outcome of voting based on unfounded claims of tampering.

Vance’s probe began after Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen paid hush money to silence two women before the 2016 election about extramarital sexual encounters they claimed to have had with Trump.

James has said she opened her inquiry after Cohen testified before Congress that Trump’s financial statements were manipulated to save money on loans or reduce his real estate taxes.

Cohen, who once said he would take a bullet for Trump, pleaded guilty in 2018 to campaign finance violations and other crimes and is currently serving his three-year sentence under home confinement.

TAX BREAK

“As more documents are reviewed by the NYAG and NYDA, it appears that the troubles for Donald Trump just keep on coming! Soon enough, Donald and Associates will be held responsible for their actions,” Cohen said in a text message to Reuters on Tuesday night.

Two people familiar with Vance’s probe have told Reuters that Cohen has been interviewed by the district attorney’s investigators.

Court records show that the New York attorney general and Manhattan district attorney investigations, while separate from one another, do overlap.

Both are examining how the Trump Organization and its agents assessed the value of Seven Springs, a 212-acre estate north of Manhattan that Trump purchased in 1995. Trump’s company has said the century-old, 50,000-square-foot mansion on the grounds was used as a Trump family retreat.

Trump’s ambitions to build a championship golf course there were derailed by local opposition, and he shelved another plan to build luxury homes.

But the property did become a vehicle for a tax break, according to property records and court filings. In 2015, he signed a conservation easement – an agreement not to develop the property – covering 158 acres.

The attorney general’s office said in a court filing that an appraiser hired by Trump before the conservation agreement set the property’s value at $56.5 million and the easement’s value at $21.1 million – an amount Trump claimed as an income tax deduction.

Comment Incredible hypocrisy from the liberal fraternity that includes the Bidens on top. They will do anything to stop Trump running again.

Robert Cook

Gas Stations Run Dry May 12th 2021

Drivers were filmed queuing for gas as stations reportedly ran out of fuel along the East Coast, after a ransomware attack crippled one of the US’ most vital pipelines. The pipeline’s operator is struggling to restore service.

A ransomware attack on Friday shut down a 5,500-mile gasoline and diesel pipeline that supplies nearly half of the fuel supply of the entire US East Coast. Operated by the Colonial Pipeline Company, the vital fuel artery normally transits 100 million gallons per day from Texas all the way to New York. The FBI has blamed the attack on ‘DarkSide,’ a group of criminal hackers believed by the media to operate from a Russian-speaking country.Gas prices have risen by nearly 9 cents per gallon in some states, with the national average standing at $2.99 as of Tuesday morning. Prices are expected to keep climbing past $3, a high not seen since 2014.

Comment I grew up in the shadow of what was generally called the H Bomb. The fear scenario was simple. The Russians wanted to bomb us with that bomb , tried and tested on Japan after they had capitulated. We were raised to live in fear of them and communism.

That fear subsided for a while after Glasnost and what idiot pampered arrogant mainstream journalists called ‘the end of history.’ Clinton and Yeltsin oversaw asset stripping of Russian public property. The age of West loving oligarchs was born. All of that changed with Vladimir Putin. Meanwhile U.S and Europe started outsourcing manufacturing jobs to China.

Western consumption went of the scale, so did pollution. Anglo U.S elite paranoia went of the scale as soon as they realised getting regime change in China and Russia was not as easily achieved as they thought it had been in the mayhem of the Middle East.

A Third World War cannot be as simply achieved with bombs and invasions anymore. Their affairs with vast profits at the masses’ expense, like their viruses , are too interwoven and the weapons of war are extreme. But there is a war and this oil pipe line is just another skirmish on the way to even worse, following on from the Covid con. The hideously overpopulated planet is very much at the mercy of technology, which is a trap.

Robert Cook

Tame for Bame by Robert Cook May 3rd 2021

The following is an extract from a woman of colour’s contribution to American Vogue in May 2020

“I am no longer considering the comfort of white people at the expense of the critical mission of justice. I’m committing to being more courageous in speaking the unflinching truth about my own lived experiences, risking all of the consequences that may come, in an effort to feed the revolution. To my white friends and colleagues who are facing real discomfort for the first time, I say: Welcome, the water’s warm. I encourage you to embrace the unpleasantness that will come from hearing these jarring truths from Black people and, rather than get defensive, leverage your own privilege to defend their right to speak publicly without consequences.

I know that this difficult time is signalling our becoming. I hope that when this is all over, we’ll look back at this time with clarity—understanding that this journey was vital to maintaining and appreciating the new, more just society we birthed.“

Jenae Holloway is a Vogue contributor living in Brooklyn.

Washington rejected Moscow’s offer of complete reset in Russia-US relations shortly after inauguration of Biden, FM Lavrov reveals

28 Apr, 2021 11:53 Get short URL

(L) The Kremlin is seen before the lights are switched off for Earth Hour in Moscow, Russia, March 30, 2019. © REUTERS / Maxim Shemetov; (R) US Capitol building in Washington DC, US. January 17, 2021. © REUTERS / Erin Scott

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By Jonny Tickle The Kremlin proposed a complete reset in the strained relationship between Moscow and Washington after the inauguration of US President Joe Biden, but it was turned down by the White House, Russia’s chief diplomat said on Tuesday.

Speaking to journalist Dmitry Kiselyov, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov explained that Russia wants to get back on a sound footing in its relationship with the US.

“If it only depended on us, we would return to normal relations,” Lavrov explained, noting that the first step would be to cancel the expulsions of Russian diplomats from Washington, and US diplomats from Moscow.

Iranian and American ships avoid NEAR MISSES in tense Persian Gulf encounter, says US Navy (VIDEO)

27 Apr, 2021 15:07 Get short URL

An Iranian warship (FILE PHOTO) © Iranian Army/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

Follow RT on The US Navy has claimed there were two near misses between Iranian and American vessels in the Persian Gulf earlier this month, accusing Tehran’s ships of “unsafe and unprofessional” conduct in the waters.

Speaking on Tuesday, Commander Rebecca Rebarich, a spokeswoman for the US Navy’s Middle East-based Fifth Fleet, told the Associated Press that there had been two incidents of “unsafe maneuvers” by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). 

In a video published by the US Navy, the Iranian Harth support ship appears to cut in front of the United States Coast Guard Cutter (USCGC) ‘Monomoy’ on April 2, causing the American vessel to suddenly stop with its engines smoking. 

Rebarich said the USCGC ‘Wrangell’ was also subjected to the same aggressive behavior.

“The US crews issued multiple warnings via bridge-to-bridge radio, five short blasts from the ships’ horns, and while the [Iranian] Harth 55 responded to the bridge-to-bridge radio queries, they continued the unsafe maneuvers,” the spokeswoman said.

She added that the Iranian vessel finally moved away from the US ships after about three hours of being issued warnings, with the Americans allegedly carrying out further defensive maneuvers.  Also on rt.com Iran decries ‘cherry-picked’ & ‘illegal’ reports of classified chat that claim foreign minister revealed power struggles with army

Iran has not commented on the incident.

Rebarich described the encounter as the first “unsafe and unprofessional” actions involving Iran since April 15, 2020. In previous years, the US Navy has recorded considerably more such alleged incidents, notably 35 in 2016.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard sits under the control of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, with the president acting as second-in-command.

The terse naval movements took place as negotiators in Vienna discussed the return of both the US and Iran to the 2015 nuclear pact, which put limits on the latter’s atomic ambitions. Relations between the two countries grew considerably strained during President Donald Trump’s administration, with the US leader pulling America out of the 2015 deal and subjecting Iran to crippling sanctions.

Population Latest Posted April 27th 2021

The first results of the 2020 US census are in, showing a population of over 331 million. Seven states each lost a seat in Congress, including New York and California. Texas and Florida were among six that gained representation.

According to the apportionment results announced by the Census Bureau on Monday, the total US population as of April 2020 stood at 331,449,281. This was a 7.4% increase from 2010, but the second-slowest rise in history after the 1930s, census officials said.

States gaining seats in reapportionment:Texas +2N. Carolina +1Colorado +1Oregon +1Montana +1Florida +1States losing seats:California -1New York -1Illinois -1Michigan -1Ohio -1W. Virginia -1Pennsylvania -1— Ian Haworth (@ighaworth) April 26, 2021

State results translated into a shift of seven seats in the House of Representatives, with Texas gaining two, followed by Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, Montana and Oregon with one each. Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania lost one seat each, as did California – for the first time in history. 

The Golden State remains the most populous in the US, however, with 39.5 million residents. Wyoming remained the least populous, with only 576,851. This is the smallest number of seats changing hands between states since 1941, officials said, as 37 states remained at current levels of representation. 

A Census official just said that if NY had counted **89 more people** it would not have lost a congressional seat!— Shane Goldmacher (@ShaneGoldmacher) April 26, 2021

New York also lost a seat, but was reportedly only 89 people short of keeping it, in which case Minnesota would have lost a member of Congress instead. This was the smallest margin by which any US state had lost a congressional seat since 1940 and maybe ever, according to the New York Times; Oregon was 231 residents short in 1970.

New York will remain one of the four largest state delegations in the House, with 26 representatives. California will have 52, followed by Texas with 38 and Florida with 28. ©  US Census Bureau

Each member of the House now represents about 50,000 people more than in 2010, or 761,169 on average. The size of the House was fixed by the 1929 Permanent Apportionment Act, though a proposal to grant the District of Columbia statehood would see it rise to 436, if adopted.

While Democrats have argued that Washington, DC residents are suffering from having to pay federal taxes without congressional representation, the population of the capital district actually rose by 14.6% to 689,545. By comparison, Utah at 18.4% is the state with the largest percentage increase in population since 2010. Read more Biden endorses Democrat proposal to make Washington, DC the 51st US state

Major media outlets have pointed out the political implications of the shift, with AP noting that Americans “continue to move to GOP-run states.” Five out of seven states that lost congressional seats are Democrat strongholds, compared to two that gained representation. However, some demographers pointed out the exodus from California translates into neighboring states becoming more Democrat.

“That’s the California exodus, blue state immigrants,” William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, told AP. “Californians are taking their votes and moving to other places.”

The legal deadline for announcing the apportionment results was December 31, but the Census Bureau delayed them until April, citing challenges caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and what AP described as “need to correct not-unexpected irregularities.”

According to Michael Thieme, assistant director in charge of systems and contracts, the Census Bureau received an “unprecedented” number of responses without a 12-digit ‘Census ID’ code allocated to each known home address, but the bureau used “deep human expertise” to fit all the data together properly.

Actual redistricting inside the states can’t be completed until the census releases more precise data, which may happen in August or September. Several states have complained that this will leave them little time before next year’s midterms.

Message Getting Clearer April 24th 2021.

Last year a viral video showing a black student at the University of Virginia asking white students to leave the campus diversity centre had sparked a debate over race.

“Frankly, there’s just too many white people in here,” the student says in the clip posted on Wednesday.

The incident has divided students and commentators on Twitter.

Some argue that minorities at the predominantly white school should have their own space.

Others said the student was exhibiting “racist intolerance”.

The row has touched a nerve at the institution, which was largely built by slaves, in a state that has struggled to reckon with a legacy of racism.

In response, the UVA administration has said that the centre is “open to all members of the university community”.

The video was posted by conservative group Young America’s Foundation. In the clip, a black student is seen calling for attention before making an announcement.

Now , in the wake of the Chauvin verdict, blacks are demanding sanctuary zones for their communities, i.e blacks only. Biden’s team have done their best to encourage a wave of black resentment. BLM talk and act as if the police are only prejudiced and harmful to them.

This is the logical extension of the me too culture. Police and their leaders see no problem with using so called bad character evidence to crucify anyone they don’t like. So some might say this is poetic justice. Well , to quote that awful chav phrase ,’What Goes around , comes around.’ The police in Britain and the U.S need urgent reform.

That is very unlikely to happen in class divided Britain. For the United States , so much bigger, the whites divided on class and regional lines, it will be interesting to see what happens. We know the Anglo U.S mainstream media will severely restrict news on developments, adding heavy elite bias.

Robert Cook

Retired U.S Police Officer Warns Of Chaos On The Streets – April 23rd 2021

It’s difficult to see where the Biden crew expect this all to lead. Maybe they expect the BLM mass to wipe out white right wing mass rebellion. Covid lockdwon is the wild card because it has driven people mad. The blacks are particularly self righteous and the wealthy safe Democrats are playing them.

The white female officers trial will be interesting. In my view the police tend toward the petty and patronising. I have had hell from them and know them to be habitual liars. They recruit certain types. Chauvin had to be a moron to think his behaviour was appropriate and proportionate. I think he was a coward and could not handle George Flloyd.

The woman who mistook a gun for a taser was incompetent at best. These two sides deserve each other. If I were a cop I might turn a blind eye or resign – which is what did when teaching became absurdly politically correct. We can see what has happened there. Just not worth the hassle and malicious allegations. As I said , both sides deserve each other. Robert Cook

War maybe on all fronts say elitist cun-s by Robert Cook -Posted April 22nd 2021

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In Minneapolis, a fortified city awaits Chauvin verdict Posted April 20th 2021

By TIM SULLIVANtoday

1 of 6National Guard members are seen through fencing and wire near the Minneapolis Police 3rd Precinct in Minneapolis on Monday, April 19, 2021, after the murder trial against former Minneapolis police …

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Just outside the entrance to Smile Orthodontics, in a Minneapolis neighborhood of craft breweries and trendy shops, two soldiers in jungle camouflage and body armor were on watch Monday, assault rifles slung over their backs. Snow flurries blew around them. A few steps away at the Iron Door Pub, three more National Guard soldiers and a Minneapolis police officer stood out front, watching the street. A handful of other soldiers were scattered nearby, along with four camouflaged Humvees and a couple police cars.

Across the street was a boarded-up building spray-painted with big yellow letters: “BLACK LIVES MATTER ALL YEAR ROUND.”

Adam Martinez was walking down the street when he briefly stopped to stare at the scene.

“This city feels like it’s occupied by the military,” said Martinez, a commercial painter who lives in nearby St. Paul. “This is so weird.” ADVERTISEMENT

More than 3,000 National Guard soldiers, along with police officers, state police, sheriffs deputies and other law enforcement personnel have flooded the city in recent days, with a verdict looming in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former police officer charged with murder in the death last year of George Floyd.

But in the city that has come to epitomize America’s debate over police killings, there are places today in Minneapolis that can feel almost like a police state.

It leaves many wondering: How much is too much?

Concrete barriers, chain-link fences and barbed wire now ring parts of downtown Minneapolis so that authorities can quickly close off the courthouse where the trial is being held. It’s become normal in recent days to pass convoys of desert-tan military vehicles on nearby highways, and stumble across armed men and women standing guard.

One day they’ll park their armored vehicles in front of the high-end kitchen store with its $160 bread knives and $400 cooking pots. The next they’ll be outside the Depression-era movie theater, or the popular Mexican grocery store or the liquor store ransacked by rioters during the protests that followed Floyd’s death.

Meanwhile hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of stores and other buildings have been boarded up across the city, from Absolute Bail Bonds to glass-walled downtown office towers to Floyd’s 99 Barbershop. ADVERTISEMENT

Behind all the security are the days of violence that began with protests over Floyd’s death. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz faced withering criticism for not stepping in quicker to deploy the National Guard. City officials estimate the city suffered roughly $350 million in damage, mostly to commercial properties.

“They’re between a rock and hard place,” said Eli Silverman, professor emeritus at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a longtime scholar of policing. “You don’t want to overmilitarize and make it appear that you’ve converted a sovereign state into a police state. But on the other hand, you have to be prepared, too,” in case protests flare again.

More important than the size of the force, he said, is the expertise and planning behind it. Law enforcement leaders, for example, need to ensure proper crowd control training, and that officers from other jurisdictions are under a single command.

“It’s not just numbers, it’s the strategic decisions that are incorporated in these things,” he said.

Minneapolis has a coordinated law-enforcement plan, called Operation Safety Net, that oversees planning and law-enforcement responses.

Speaking on Monday to reporters, top law-enforcement officials stood alongside local community leaders and vowed to protect property, allow peaceful protests, and try to de-escalate tensions before demonstrations turn violent.

Recent history, though, hasn’t been so peaceful. A little over a week ago, 20-year-old Daunte Wright, a Black man, was killed by police during a traffic stop in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center.

Protests outside the city’s police headquarters regularly spilled into violence, with protesters lobbing water bottles and the occasional rock at an array of law enforcement officers, and law enforcement responding by going after protesters – and sometimes journalists – with pepper spray, tear gas and rubber bullets.

“We know we need to do better. What happened the last few days wasn’t something we wanted,” Hennepin County Sheriff David Hutchinson said at the press conference. “But we had to act to keep the community safe. And I will never back down from anybody when it comes to keeping this county safe.”

Many here doubt the promises of law enforcement, which has long had a troubled relationship with the city’s Black community.

Burhan Israfael, a community organizer who lives in Cedar-Riverside, a Minneapolis neighborhood with one of the largest East African communities in the country, said the presence of military vehicles and armed soldiers was terrifying. He said the terror strikes particularly sharply at the city’s many immigrants who fled violence for the safety of the United States.

“I don’t know anybody that experienced and lived through something like that, that feels comfortable coming outside,” he said. “To be faced with the violent image of somebody dressed in all that camouflage, sort of parading around those massive weapons — is unsettling for sure.”

But plenty of others believe the city needs to be ready for trouble.

The Rev. Ian Bethel, a leader in the city’s Black church community, sounded almost angry Monday as he spoke alongside the law enforcement officials.

“We’re at a difficult time here, all of us having emotions, anxieties and stress that most of us have not been able yet to express in a proper way,” he said. “But let me make this clear: One way you do not express whatever you got tied up in you is through violence.”

On Monday afternoon, soon after lawyers’ closing arguments and the Chauvin case going to the jury, about 300 protesters marched outside the courthouse.

There was no sign of violence.

___

Associated Press writers Kathleen Hennessey and Mohamed Ibrahim contributed to this report.

___

Find AP’s full coverage of the death of George Floyd: https://apnews.com/hub/death-of-george-floyd

Comment If I , as a truck driver, had killed someone through incompetence or aggressive carelessnes, I would have gone to jail for manslaughter at least. Police should be seen as public employees , not wanna be heroes or soldiers out for medals.

In Britain we have seen some very serious police abuse , including Steven Harwood getting away with killing inncent Ian Tomlinson in broad daylight. Chauvin should have backed off , not sat on George Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes.

I don’t condone rioting , racism in either direction or looting , but just chanting the word democracy doesn’t mean the west has such a set up.

Pity the blacks don’t realise it is not just them. The western elite recruit a certain type of police officer for mass control. These people are in it for money, promotion and glory. They will shoot or frame anyone who can’t fight back and hunt in twos or packs.

This era should not be confused with Chomski’s and Pete Seegers romanticised ‘Times r a Changin’ ‘ 1960s. Crucial things , especially the Janus faced elite, will and cannot change. They hate Russia and China because they still fear communism. They stifled the spread by welcoming and profiteering from World War Two. World War Three is on the back burner and already simmering. Robert Cook

Bordering on Insanity – Robert Cook April 17th 2021

Russia to expel 10 American diplomats and considering ‘painful’ measures aimed at US businesses – Lavrov

16 Apr, 2021 15:44 / Updated 12 hours agoGet short URL

FILE PHOTO. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov meets then-US Vice-President Joe Biden in February 2013. ©  REUTERS/Michael Dalder

Follow RT on Ten US diplomats will have to leave Russia in response to Washington’s expelling of Russian diplomats, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said, adding that Moscow is looking at other sanction options if unfriendly steps continue.

Lavrov announced the news at a press conference on Friday, adding that Moscow would ban US funds and NGOs from interfering in Russia’s internal affairs. Lavrov added that, with the US currently employing 450 diplomatic staff in Russia, and Russia employing 350 in the US, “the Americans will be asked to bring the number of employees in Russia in line with the number of Russians in the United States,” should relations between the two countries sour further.

Lavrov also said that Russia had the opportunity to inflict “painful measures” on US businesses, but would not take action at this time. Also on rt.com US imposes new sanctions against Russia, expels ten diplomats & targets national debt in move Moscow may view as major escalation

A day before Lavrov’s announcement, US President Joe Biden signed a decree sanctioning more than 30 Russian individuals and organizations for allegedly interfering in the 2020 presidential election and for supposed involvement in last year’s SolarWinds cyber-espionage case. Russia vehemently denies both allegations.

Biden also ordered 10 Russian diplomats to leave the US, and banned American companies from directly buying shares in Russia’s national debt.

Russia’s retaliation was expected. Earlier on Friday, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters that Russia would respond with “reciprocity,” but dismissed the impact of the sanctions. Russia’s economic stability, he said, is “fully ensured.”

Prior to the tit-for-tat exchange, the Biden administration touted a potential meeting between Biden and Putin in Europe this summer. While the sanctions and expulsions have apparently wiped that summit from the calendar, Biden held a press conference on Thursday evening, in which he called for “dialogue and diplomatic process” with Russia, and defended his sanctions order as “proportionate.” Also on rt.com Biden’s Russia policy ludicrous, unbelievable, contradictory & unprecedented: First offers Putin summit & then imposes sanctions

Shortly before Biden announced his sanctions, Peskov told reporters that any proposed summit wouldn’t be possible, at least in the short term. Biden was still optimistic on Thursday evening, however, saying that his administration was still working to meet Putin “this summer in Europe.”

Associated Press April 15th 2021

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is preparing to announce sanctions in response to a massive Russian hacking campaign that breached vital federal agencies, as well as for election interference, a senior administration official said.

The sanctions, foreshadowed for weeks by the administration, would represent the first retaliatory action announced against the Kremlin for last year’s hack, familiarly known as the SolarWinds breach. In that intrusion, Russian hackers are believed to have infected widely used software with malicious code, enabling them to access the networks of at least nine agencies in what U.S. officials believe was an intelligence gathering operation aimed at mining government secrets.

Besides that hack, U.S. officials last month alleged that Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized influence operations to help Donald Trump in his unsuccessful bid for reelection as president, though there’s no evidence Russia or anyone else changed votes or manipulated the outcome.

The measures are to be announced Thursday, according to the official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.

It was not immediately clear what, if any, other actions might be planned. Officials had previously said they expected to take actions both seen and unseen.

The sanctions, presumably intended to send a clear retributive message to Russia and to deter similar acts in the future, come amid an already tense relationship between the U.S. and Russia.

President Joe Biden told Putin this week in their second call to “de-escalate tensions” following a Russian military buildup on Ukraine’s border, and said the U.S. would “act firmly in defense of its national interests” regarding Russian intrusions and election interference.

In a television interview last month, Biden replied “I do” when asked if he thought Putin was a “killer.” He said the days of the U.S. “rolling over” to Putin were done. Putin later recalled his ambassador to the U.S. and pointed at the U.S. history of slavery and slaughtering Native Americans and the atomic bombing of Japan in World War II.

It remained unclear whether the U.S. actions would actually result in changed behavior, especially since past measures by the U.S. have failed to bring an end to Russian hacking. The Obama administration expelled diplomats from the U.S. in 2016 in response to interference in that year’s presidential election. And though Trump was often reluctant to criticize Putin, his administration also expelled diplomats in 2018 for Russia’s alleged poisoning of an ex-intelligence officer in Britain.

U.S. officials are still grappling with the aftereffects of the SolarWinds intrusion, which affected agencies including the Treasury, Justice, Energy and Homeland Security departments, and are still assessing what information may have been stolen. The breach exposed vulnerabilities in the supply chain as well as weaknesses in the federal government’s own cyber defenses.

The actions would represent the second major round of sanctions imposed by the Biden administration against Russia. Last month, the U.S. sanctioned seven mid-level and senior Russian officials, along with more than a dozen government entities, over a nearly fatal nerve-agent attack on opposition leader Alexei Navalny and his subsequent jailing.

Bleedership Crisis in Biden’s U.S.A , Posted April 13th 2021

The wrong people chase power and get it. Trump’s failings are not about age, he represened a mindset , a fixation about old enemies and U.S grandeur at the expense of a miserable under class. It is a lifetime ago since I visited the U.S. Thanks to corrupt British police, I will never be allowed back . But millions of Latin Americans and Moslems are welcome to a once great nation falling apart under the Biden Harris conglomerate. Pathetic smug Biden Harris cliche ridden performances will only make the dissaffected more angry and trigger happy. They have nothing to lose.

Robert Cook

What was the point ? Posted April 15th 2021

U.S. allies plan for Afghan withdrawal

In light of the news that the U.S. will pull all its forces from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, NATO’s foreign and defense ministers agreed yesterday to begin withdrawing their 9,600 troops on May 1 and finish “within a few months,” according to a statement.

In Washington, President Biden formally announced the U.S. withdrawal, but he warned the Taliban that if Americans are attacked on the way out, “we’re going to defend ourselves and our partners with all the tools at our disposal.” Here’s what you need to know.

The withdrawal will end the longest war in U.S. history, but it is likely to start another difficult chapter for Afghanistan’s people. It is unclear what the future holds and if the fighting will ever stop. Some fear that everything will be lost when the Americans leave.

Personal account: “I am so worried about my future. It seems so murky. If the Taliban take over, I lose my identity,” said Wahida Sadeqi, 17, a high school student in Kabul. “I was born in 2004 and I have no idea what the Taliban did to women, but I know women were banned from everything.”

Context: U.S. intelligence officials paint a grim portrait of what lies ahead for Afghanistan, but they do not expect it to become a terror threat to America right away. Mr. Biden’s decision to withdraw makes clear his belief that contending with a rising China takes precedence.

Tennessee high school student shot & killed after injuring police officer April 13th 2021

12 Apr, 2021 20:16 / Updated 15 hours agoGet short URL

© Twitter / @Knoxville_PD

Follow RT on A student allegedly shooting inside the Austin-East Magnet High School in Knoxville, Tennessee was killed by a police officer, who was wounded in the exchange of fire. The school was evacuated and classes canceled.

An officer responded to a report of someone armed on school grounds and was shot by the suspect, Knoxville PD said. He returned fire and fatally shot the suspect, who was later confirmed to be a student. Another male teenager was “detained for further investigation,” police said.

Multiple agencies are on the scene of a shooting at Austin-East Magnet High School. Multiple gunshot victims reported, including a KPD officer. The investigation remains active at this time. Please avoid the area. pic.twitter.com/ViQirnQSpx— Knoxville Police TN (@Knoxville_PD) April 12, 2021

The Knoxville News-Sentinel had reported that two people were shot – a student and a police officer on duty at the school – citing law enforcement sources,before the official police statement came shortly after 5:30 pm local time.

The officer was reportedly shot in the hip and is recovering.

“He is conscious and in good spirits. … He’s going to be OK. I thanked him for putting his life on the line to protect students and staff at the school. He said he’d rather be hurt than anybody else,” Mayor Indya Kincannon told CBS News.

– Officer Involved Shooting at Austin East High School – @TBInvestigation will be the lead investigating agency and provide further information as it becomes available. pic.twitter.com/Hjetzf1vNT— Knoxville Police TN (@Knoxville_PD) April 12, 2021

A ‘reunification site’ for parents and their children was established by first responders at a baseball field behind the high school, according to police. Local media reported students “trickling out” of the school.

Superintendent of Knoxville County Schools Bob Thomas appeared to confirm this, tweeting that students “not involved in the incident have been released to their families.”

Both in-person and online classes have been canceled for Tuesday and Wednesday. Also on rt.com School shooting reported on FIRST DAY back in the classroom in Arkansas

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee addressed the shooting at a Monday press conference calling for prayers for victims and their families. 

“Pray for that situation, for the families and victims who might be affected in our state,” he said.

Knoxville recently approved $1 million for “violence prevention” efforts, spurred by the deaths of four teens with ties to Austin-East earlier this year. All four were African-American.

Tennessee high school student shot & killed after injuring police officer

12 Apr, 2021 20:16 / Updated 15 hours agoGet short URL

© Twitter / @Knoxville_PD

Follow RT on A student allegedly shooting inside the Austin-East Magnet High School in Knoxville, Tennessee was killed by a police officer, who was wounded in the exchange of fire. The school was evacuated and classes canceled.

An officer responded to a report of someone armed on school grounds and was shot by the suspect, Knoxville PD said. He returned fire and fatally shot the suspect, who was later confirmed to be a student. Another male teenager was “detained for further investigation,” police said.

Multiple agencies are on the scene of a shooting at Austin-East Magnet High School. Multiple gunshot victims reported, including a KPD officer. The investigation remains active at this time. Please avoid the area. pic.twitter.com/ViQirnQSpx— Knoxville Police TN (@Knoxville_PD) April 12, 2021

The Knoxville News-Sentinel had reported that two people were shot – a student and a police officer on duty at the school – citing law enforcement sources,before the official police statement came shortly after 5:30 pm local time.

The officer was reportedly shot in the hip and is recovering.

“He is conscious and in good spirits. … He’s going to be OK. I thanked him for putting his life on the line to protect students and staff at the school. He said he’d rather be hurt than anybody else,” Mayor Indya Kincannon told CBS News.

– Officer Involved Shooting at Austin East High School – @TBInvestigation will be the lead investigating agency and provide further information as it becomes available. pic.twitter.com/Hjetzf1vNT— Knoxville Police TN (@Knoxville_PD) April 12, 2021

A ‘reunification site’ for parents and their children was established by first responders at a baseball field behind the high school, according to police. Local media reported students “trickling out” of the school.

Superintendent of Knoxville County Schools Bob Thomas appeared to confirm this, tweeting that students “not involved in the incident have been released to their families.”

Both in-person and online classes have been canceled for Tuesday and Wednesday. Also on rt.com School shooting reported on FIRST DAY back in the classroom in Arkansas

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee addressed the shooting at a Monday press conference calling for prayers for victims and their families. 

“Pray for that situation, for the families and victims who might be affected in our state,” he said.

Knoxville recently approved $1 million for “violence prevention” efforts, spurred by the deaths of four teens with ties to Austin-East earlier this year. All four were African-American.

Iran reports ‘NUCLEAR terrorism’ attack at Natanz facility – day after uranium enrichment began Posted April 12th 2021

11 Apr, 2021 15:13 / Updated 11 hours agoGet short URL

Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment plant on April 10, 2021 © AFP / IRANIAN PRESIDENCY

Follow RT on Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility was hit by a “terrorist” attack on Sunday, the country’s nuclear chief said, hours after reports of an electrical “accident” – and a day after new uranium enrichment centrifuges were started up.

Iran reserves the right to “take action” against those behind the incident at the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facility in Natanz, the head of the nation’s Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi, told state TV on Sunday. 

He called the incident at the plant an act of “nuclear terrorism.” Also on rt.com Iranian nuclear activities ‘peaceful & civilian,’ says President Rouhani, as new uranium-enrichment centrifuge chain is unveiled

Iran “condemns this heinous act,” Salehi said, calling on the international community and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in particular to “deal” with the act of “nuclear terrorism.”

The incident at the plant was earlier described as an “electricity problem” at a power grid in Natanz. “Fortunately, the incident did not cause any human injuries or pollution,” Behrouz Kamalvandi, the spokesman for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization (AEOI), said earlier on Sunday.

A member of the Iranian parliament’s Energy Commission, Malek Shariati Niasar, also described the incident as “very suspicious,” and said he had assumed it might potentially be “sabotage and infiltration,” since it took place around the National Day of Nuclear Technology.

The event reportedly caused a blackout in the electricity distribution network of the Shahid Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan nuclear facility in Natanz. Further details have not been made public and the causes of the incident are currently “under investigation.” Also on rt.com Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization says 55 kilos of 20%-enriched uranium produced since January amid nuclear deal talks

Natanz is key to Iran’s uranium enrichment program, which Tehran says is strictly peaceful. In early February, it said that hundreds of advanced centrifuges with a higher capacity for uranium enrichment were installed there.

The events also took place just a day after Iranian President Hassan Rouhani announced that Iran has begun using new advanced IR-5 and IR-6 centrifuges to enrich uranium at the Natanz site.

Israeli media reported that the incident was likely caused by a cyberattack, while the Times of Israel has openly claimed, citing “Western intelligence sources,” that Mossad was “behind” the power cut in Natanz. There have been no official statements from Israeli officials so far, however.

Iran’s nuclear program was significantly limited under the 2015 nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). It included caps on uranium purity and the amount Iran is able to produce.

After then-US President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the US out of the deal, despite the IAEA repeatedly confirming Iran’s compliance, Tehran said that it would no longer be meeting its obligations in full. Washington has since launched a “maximum pressure” campaign of sanctions on Iran. Also on rt.com State Dept says US prepared to lift Iran sanctions, but warns of ‘long road ahead’ amid indirect talks to revive nuclear pact

Earlier this week, Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization said the nation had already produced 55 kilograms of 20%-enriched uranium this year, adding that it exceeded the enrichment capacity achieved before the JCPOA. All of Iran’s nuclear aspirations are “peaceful and civilian,” President Hassan Rouhani said on Saturday.

Recent talks in Vienna on the nuclear deal, which saw Washington and Tehran negotiating indirectly, have not resulted in any major breakthrough.

Demonocracy April 10th 2021

Retired Black NYPD Detective: Derek Chauvin Trial Highlights “Race-Based” Police Brutality Problem

StoryApril 07, 2021

This week at the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, numerous members of the Minneapolis Police Department have taken the stand and testified that Chauvin violated policy by kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nine-and-a-half minutes, and the emergency room doctor who tried to save Floyd’s life said his chances of living would have been higher if CPR had been administered sooner. The trial is putting a spotlight on “the disproportionate killing of Black people by police” in the United States, says Marq Claxton, a retired New York Police Department detective who is now director of the Black Law Enforcement Alliance. He argues that until police officers are arrested, charged and convicted for such killings, “these tragedies will continue to occur.”

AMY GOODMAN: The trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is entering its eighth day. Chauvin is charged with second- and third-degree murder, as well as manslaughter, for killing George Floyd last May. Over the past three days, numerous members of the Minneapolis Police Department accused Chauvin of violating department policy by kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nine-and-a-half minutes, while ignoring pleas from Floyd that he could not breathe. Minneapolis Police Chief Arradondo testified against his officer in a rare move. Here, he’s being questioned by prosecutor Steve Schleicher.

STEVE SCHLEICHER: When, do you believe, or do you have a belief as to when, this restraint, the restraint on the ground that you viewed, should have stopped?

POLICE CHIEF MEDARIA ARRADONDO: Once Mr. Floyd — and this is based on my viewing of the videos — once Mr. Floyd had stopped resisting, and certainly once he was in distress and trying to verbalize that, that should have stopped. There’s an initial reasonableness in trying to just get him under control in the first few seconds. But once there was no longer any resistance, and clearly when Mr. Floyd was no longer responsive and even motionless, to continue to apply that level of force to a person proned out, handcuffed behind their back, that, in no way, shape or form, is anything that is by policy. It is not part of our training. And it is certainly not part of our ethics or our values.

‘We’re so stupid following our politicians’: NBA legend Charles Barkley says Dems & GOP allied in dividing and conquering America Posted April 5th 2021

4 Apr, 2021 09:07 Get short URL

FILE PHOTO. Charles Barkley during the second half in the semifinals of the 2019 men’s Final Four. ©Shanna Lockwood-USA TODAY Sports via Reuters

Follow RT on The political system is rigged to favor the powerful and keep everyone else at each other’s throats to protect the status quo, Charles Barkley said in fiery commentary on the divisiveness in the US.

Barkley, an NBA star who became a sports analyst after retiring from basketball, unleashed a passionate attack on both political camps in America, accusing Democrats and Republicans of deliberately making people not like each other.

I think our system is set up where our politicians, whether they’re Republicans or Democrats, are designed to make us not like each other so they can keep their grasp of money and power.

“I truly believe in my heart most white people and black people are awesome people, but we’re so stupid following our politicians, whether they’re Republicans or Democrats,” he said.

Charles Barkley speaking the truth pic.twitter.com/lt9jBldV2a— ET (@runBMC57) April 3, 2021

He described what he believes to be the thinking behind the divide-and-conquer strategy: “Hey, let’s make these people not like each other. We don’t live in their neighborhoods, we all got money, let’s make the whites and blacks not like each other, let’s make rich people and poor people not like each other, let’s scramble the middle class.”

Barkley was speaking on Saturday ahead of the NCAA Final Four matchup between Baylor and Houston at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indiana. He was responding to a feature segment that detailed how on April 4, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy broke the news about the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. to a crowd in Indianapolis.

JFK’s brother called on people to seek compassion and justice rather than anger and revenge, saying the vast majority of Americans, both black and white, want to live in peace with each other, which was the message Barkley said he took away from the speech. Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated two months later.

Barkley is well-known for being outspoken about current events in both sports and politics. He was an early critic of the ‘defund the police’ movement, arguing that poor black communities would be hit hardest by a spike in crime if there is less policing. “Who are black people supposed to call, Ghostbusters, when we have crime in our neighborhood?” he asked, calling for police and prison reform instead.

Charles Barkley on defunding the police “Who are black people supposed to call Ghost Busters when we have crime in our neighborhood? We need to stop the defund or abolish the police crap” pic.twitter.com/uEIsnX729g— gifdsports (@gifdsports) September 25, 2020

The latest takedown quickly went viral, with online commenters split over Barkley’s view of American politics. Many conservatives cheered his analysis of race tensions, while some liberals accused him of ‘bothsiding’ – refusing to lay all the blame on the GOP. Barkley once supported the Republican Party, but apparently became disillusioned with it. In the 2000s, when he was pondering a bid for governor of Alabama, he said he would run as an independent.

The latest takedown quickly went viral, with online commenters split over Barkley’s view of American politics. Many conservatives cheered his analysis of race tensions, while some liberals accused him of ‘bothsiding’ – refusing to lay all the blame on the GOP. Barkley once supported the Republican Party, but apparently became disillusioned with it. In the 2000s, when he was pondering a bid for governor of Alabama, he said he would run as an independent.

Cop and suspect killed after car rams barricade outside US Capitol April 4th 2021

By Craig McCarthy and Bruce Golding

April 2, 2021 | 1:23pm | Updated One cop, suspect killed after car rams barricade outside US Capitol

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A maniac slammed his car into two US Capitol Police officers on Friday afternoon — killing one — before he was shot dead by police while running at them with a knife, officials said.

The mayhem — which one high-ranking cop called “senseless” — erupted shortly after 1 p.m., sending the government building into lockdown and drawing a massive response from law enforcement authorities and the National Guard.

The slain cop was identified by the Capitol Police as William “Billy” Evans, an 18-year veteran of the force and a member of its First Responders Unit.

The other, unidentified cop “is in stable and non-threatening condition,” the Capitol Police tweeted early Friday evening.

The driver was identified as Noah Green, 25, of Indiana, according to NBC News, which cited four law enforcement officials briefed on the matter.

Evans’ killing came less than three months after the deadly Capitol riot in which a fellow officer, Brian Sicknick, was among five fatalities.

Green died after being taken to a hospital, as were the two cops he mowed down.

Green also stabbed one of the officers, according to The Associated Press, which cited two law enforcement sources.

Acting Capitol Police Chief Yogananda Pittman appeared to struggle with her emotions during a news conference at which she revealed one of the cops had died.

“It is with a very, very heavy heart that I announce that one of our officers has succumbed to his injuries,” Pittman said.

At the time, Pittman said she couldn’t yet identify the slain cop “because we still have to notify the next of kin.”

“This has been an extremely difficult time for US Capitol Police after the events of Jan. 6 and now the events that have occurred here today,” she said.

“So I ask that you keep our US Capitol Police family in your thoughts and prayers.”

A tweet from the Capitol Police posted before Evans was identified said that he died at 1:30 p.m.

“At least one officer drew their weapon and shot the suspect,” the statement added.

The Rev. Patrick Mahoney told The Post that he had finished performing a Good Friday service at the nearby Ulysses S. Grant Memorial when the gunfire erupted.

“I was walking up Constitution Avenue and I was by the Capitol and I heard gunshots ring out,” said Mahoney, a former Presbyterian minister who runs the Christian Defense Coalition activist group.

“I saw a young woman upset. She said she had just seen someone get shot.”

The woman, who appeared to be in her 20s, was “really distraught” and said “the attacker had a knife” and “described it as a machete,” Mahoney said, adding that he prayed aloud to help comfort her.

The fatal attack “does not appear to be terrorism-related but obviously, we’ll continue to investigate to see along those lines,” acting Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Chief Robert Contee said.

Contee also said there “does not appear to be an ongoing threat.”

“Obviously, we’re in the very early stages of our investigation,” he said.

“We need to obviously understand the motivation behind this senseless act. So the Metropolitan Police Department will certainly be doing that.”

The suspect doesn’t appear to be anyone with whom cops are familiar and there’s “no indication” he was targeting any member of Congress, Pittman said.

Both the Senate and the House of Representatives are currently in recess for the Easter holiday.

The lockdown of the Capitol was lifted shortly after 3 p.m.

The incident took place at a vehicle checkpoint on the north side of the Capitol along Constitution Avenue in Washington DC, that’s about 100 feet from an entrance on the Senate side. Police rush to scene after multiple injuries reported at Capitol

Pittman said authorities were reviewing surveillance video.

“The suspect did exit the vehicle with a knife in hand. And at that time he started to lunge toward — run aggressively toward US Capitol police officers,” she said.

A photo of the scene taken shortly after the incident shows a dark blue sedan with its front end crumpled against a white metal, pop-up barricade with the words “STOP” in red.

The driver’s door and trunk were also open as authorities gathered around a band of yellow caution tape.

A 12-foot fence, topped with razor wire, was erected around the Capitol to restrict access and block traffic following the Jan. 6 riot.

But it was taken down about a month ago and replaced with a shorter, 8-foot fence that pulled in the perimeter and allowed vehicles to pass by.

Trump Calls for Boycott of MLB, Coca-Cola, Delta Over Opposition to Georgia Election Reforms Posted April 4th 2021

By Ivan Pentchoukov April 2, 2021 Updated: April 3, 2021 biggersmallerPrint

Former President Donald Trump on April 2 urged people to boycott Major League Baseball (MLB), Coca-Cola, Delta, and other corporations which are openly opposing election reforms enacted by Republicans in Georgia.

“Baseball is already losing tremendous numbers of fans, and now they leave Atlanta with their All-Star Game because they are afraid of the Radical Left Democrats who do not want voter I.D., which is desperately needed, to have anything to do with our elections,” Trump wrote in a statement released by his Save America political action committee. “Boycott baseball and all of the woke companies that are interfering with Free and Fair Elections. Are you listening Coke, Delta, and all!”

MLB on Friday announced that it will move its All-Star game from Atlanta in protest of the election reform package passed by the state’s Republicans last month. MLB Commissioner Robert D. Manfred Jr. announced the move in a news release saying that the decision was the best way to “demonstrate our values as a sport.”

MLB, Coca-Cola, and Delta did not respond to requests for comment.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, signed a package of election reforms into law last month which expanded voting hours and access to early voting. The new law also requires absentee voters to provide a copy of their ID alongside their ballot, something the state had already required for in-person voters.

Georgia was one of six states where Trump challenged the outcome of the 2020 election. That state ultimately certified President Joe Biden as the winner after several recounts. Trump claimed that the election in Georgia was tainted by fraud and was run by rules put in place through an unconstitutional process.

Minutes prior to the boycott message, the former president released a statement about election fraud.

“Why is it that every time the 2020 ELECTION FRAUD is discussed, the Fake News Media consistently states that such charges are baseless, unfounded, unwarranted, etc.? Sadly, there was massive fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election, and many very angry people understand that. With each passing day, and unfortunately for the Radical Left CRAZIES, more and more facts are coming out,” Trump said “Other than that, Happy Easter!”

Georgia’s election reforms have become the target of left-wing criticism, including false claims by Biden about the law requiring the polls to close by 5 p.m. The bill actually expanded the voting hours to 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Corporations including Delta Airlines and Coca-Cola joined the chorus, issuing statements from top executives criticizing the bill.

Biden said on March 31 that he would support the MLB moving the All-star game from Atlanta in response to the election reform legislation.

“I think that today’s professional athletes are acting incredibly responsibly. I would strongly support them doing that,” Biden said. “People look to them, they’re leaders. Look at what’s happened with the NBA as well. Look at what’s happened across the board. The people who’ve been victimized the most are the people who are the leaders in these various sports and it’s just not right.”

Kemp said it was “obvious” that neither Biden nor his advisers familiarized themselves with the content of the bill.

“It is obvious that neither President Biden nor his handlers have actually read SB 202, which I signed into law yesterday,” Kemp told The Epoch Times via email on March 27 referring to the bill by its legislative ID number. “This bill expands voting access, streamlines vote-counting procedures, and ensures election integrity.”

Janita Kan, Mimi Nguyen Ly, and Samuel Allegri contributed to this report. Follow Ivan on Twitter: @ivanpentchoukovFollow Ivan on Parler: @IvanPentchoukov

Something Happening Here April 2nd 2021

Buffalo Springfield – For What It’s Worth 1967 – YouTube

Illegal immigrants, most from Honduras, walk toward a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint after crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico near Mission, Texas, on March 23, 2021. (John Moore/Getty Images) Immigration & Border Security

More Than a Million Illegal Immigrants Expected to Cross Border in 2021: Official

By Jack Phillips April 1, 2021 Updated: April 1, 2021 biggersmallerPrint

A Border Patrol official estimated that more than 1 million illegal immigrants are expected to arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2021 as the White House grapples with how to find facilities and process them.

“We’re already starting to see some higher days of 6,000-plus apprehensions,” Raul Ortiz, deputy chief of the U.S. Border Patrol, told reporters. “So I fully expect our border patrol agents to encounter over a million people this year.”

Border Patrol apprehended approximately 100,000 illegal immigrants in February, which is the highest number since February 2019, Ortiz said. He noted that people try to illegally cross into the U.S. between April and June.

A facility in Donna, Texas, holds about 4,100 people, with many of them being unaccompanied children, Reuters reported. Border Patrol official Oscar Escamilla told Reuters that some 2,000 unaccompanied children have been held there for more than 72 hours, which is the legal limit.

“It’s out of my hands,” he said. “For whatever reason, they have fallen through the system or through the cracks.”

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Wednesday issued a statement criticizing human smuggling attempts into the United States.

“The inhumane way smugglers abuse children while profiting off parents’ desperation is criminal and morally reprehensible,” Mayorkas said. “Just this month, a young girl died by drowning, a six-month-old was thrown into the river, and two young children were dropped from a wall and left in the desert alone.”

“There can be no doubt that children are exceptionally vulnerable when placed in the hands of smugglers. There is grave risk they will be exploited and harmed. I applaud our heroic Border Patrol agents who have saved lives this week and every week, while putting their own lives at risk for the greater good of the country.”

It comes after a video released by a Border Patrol official in New Mexico showed human smugglers dropping two young girls over a 14-foot-tall border barrier before abandoning them.

The smugglers were seen via night-vision cameras leaving the children, aged 3 and 5, in the middle of the New Mexico desert “miles from the nearest residence,” said Border Patrol sector chief Gloria Chavez.

According to a news release from Border Patrol, the two girls were sisters from Ecuador. When agents came upon them, they rendered aid, officials said, before they were taken to a nearby hospital for further evaluation and were later “medically cleared.” The young girls were then put in a temporary holding facility. Epoch Times

Bumbling Biden: White House cringes as Biden makes another gaffe

991,251 views•8 Mar 202121K1KShareSaveSky News Australia 1.37M subscribers The White House has been forced into damage control after President Joe Biden seemingly forgot the name of his own Defense Secretary during an event to mark International Women’s Day. Speaking after unveiling two more nominees to fill his cabinet, the president failed to remember the name of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. “And I want to thank the sec — the, the, ah former general. I keep calling him general, but my, my — the guy who runs that outfit over there,” President Biden said. The stumble comes as Republicans and members of the White House press gallery criticised President Biden for not holding a solo press conference since his inauguration.

13,160 Comments

Add a public comment…

Kat T

2 weeks ago The only thing scarier than Biden running the country is who’s waiting in the wings to take his place. 1.9K

Jadie O’Flynn

2 weeks ago It’s like watching The Walking Dead and Biden is a zombie. 35

C Vidal

2 weeks ago What a big irony. Almost 50 years wanting to be president and when you are, you can’t remember it 267

Michael sambrano

2 weeks ago If this was the Republicans doing this the country would be all over. 29

Bam Bam

2 weeks ago It’s actually disturbing to watch this man speak! If he wasn’t such a corrupt politician I would fell sorry for him! 85

Angele Culbertson

2 weeks ago If anybody thinks Biden legally received the most votes in US history, they are not living in reality. 1K

Mike Stefka

2 weeks ago Why do we continue to put elderly people into demanding jobs? Politicians, supreme court, Pope’s. Ridiculous 23

Khaleesi Kimber

1 week ago He’s unfit and not my president 56

Janet Savona

2 weeks ago Its a shame peoples hatred for Trump clouded their judgment and picked this guy 216

Cristina Johr

2 weeks ago I don’t think Biden is afraid to speak in a Press conference I think “the others” are afraid of what he’s going to say 😂😂😂😂 47

JellyDonuts

2 weeks ago What an absolute disgrace and embarrassment. We Americans we swindled and cheated out of a real president and left with establishment cronies doing whatever the hell they want. 410

M.D. Suave

2 weeks ago One day, this man that many Americans voted for him to presidency will wake and find out, where am I? 27

LET ME EXPLAIN

2 weeks ago Americans : “we didn’t vote for him” … yeah fine but atleast now get your electoral process sorted out.. Stop this stupid ballot system. or else suffer in the next elections again bc your big tech is handling the narrative quite well. Your institutions, big tech companies and most of media houses have been taken over leftist mindset. 27

Alan Bailey

2 weeks ago After this train wreck is over Biden is supposed to lead them out of the room and he clearly has no idea how. It’s cringeworthy, and the world is watching… 23

Tony Snchz

2 weeks ago Biden “If ya’ll don’t like my speech, you ain’t black” 36

MrNoSleep OSRS 2 weeks ago I learn more from Australia news then I do from my own country. Mainstream media is so pathetic… this world needs to wake up 427

Gregoy Molla

2 weeks ago The commentary issue is going to rise just so we can sneak in a women president 14

John C

2 weeks ago Look at our VP giving him a “good job” head nod, just as one would give a cookie to a child 22

Desiree Peters

2 weeks ago HE’S A JOKE 😦 This is our president Sleepy Joe. It’s time for him to take a nap 😴💤💤💤💤💤💤 now. This man should be in a nursing home playing cards or puzzles 🇺🇸 28

Nicholas Guccione

2 weeks ago In all fairness to our beloved President, he CAN’T do a solo press conference until he gets to the next and final level of Mario Cart. And that’s completely understandable. I’ve missed many of my mommies dinner’s for the exact same reason. 7 4:00 Now playing

‘Indian-Americans are taking over the country’: Joe Biden at NASA meet Hindustan Times 344K views

After calling Putin ‘killer’ and Xi ‘autocrat,’ Biden invites them to CLIMATE summit – reports Posted March 27th 2021

26 Mar, 2021 20:02 / Updated 12 hours agoGet short URL

©  REUTERS/Leah Millis;  Sputnik/Alexei Druzhinin/Kremlin via REUTERS;  REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

Follow RT on US President Joe Biden has invited his Russian and Chinese counterparts Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping to a climate summit scheduled for April, in hopes of speeding up global efforts to cut carbon emissions, the White House said.

Putin and Xi were among the 40 leaders invited to the event, anonymous administration officials told reporters on Friday. Others on the list include some of the world’s “top climate-change sufferers, do-gooders and backsliders,” AP reported.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Officials: President Biden invites Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping to first big global climate talks of his administration.#US#Russia#China— Matt Lee (@APDiploWriter) March 26, 2021

“It’s a list of the key players and it’s about having some of the tough conversations and the important conversations,” the official said, speaking on background. “Given how important… this issue is to the entire world, we have to be willing to talk about it and we have to be willing to talk about it at the high levels.”

The presumably virtual summit is scheduled to start on April 22, also known as Earth Day. It was rumored two months ago, within days of Biden taking office and announcing the US would be rejoining the Paris Agreement his predecessor Donald Trump had repudiated.

Biden hasn’t personally talked to Putin and Xi about the summit but “they know they’re invited,” one member of the White House press corps tweeted on Friday. 

Biden says he hasn’t personally talked to Putin and Xi about it but “they know they’re invited” to climate summit. https://t.co/uhB2VhdOxL— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) March 26, 2021

The Democrat has made climate change one of his priorities in both domestic and foreign policy, blocking pipeline projects and fracking with executive orders in his first week in the White House. He also appointed John Kerry, former secretary of state and one of the architects of the Paris agreement, as his special envoy for climate change, with a seat on the National Security Council.

Having Biden’s first major interaction with the Russian and Chinese leaders be at a climate summit is somewhat awkward, however, considering his recent comments about both. During his first press conference on Thursday, Biden called Xi a “smart guy” who “doesn’t have a democratic bone in his body,” before going off on a tangent about the future being a struggle between autocracies and democracies.

China has already accused the US of being “the world’s largest polluter in history and the current largest polluter,” in the words of Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian from January. 

Comment Biden is not disappointing those of us who expected stand up comedy. As for China’ s pollution allegations, I know nothing except the U.S gets massive imports from there. Also the U.S accounts for 6% of world population and 52% of all world natural resources consumed in any one year. This spills over into the Anglo U.S ongoing polluting oil wars and related regime change. R.J Cook

Bordering on Ridiculous March 23rd 2021

The proverbial mind boggles. It is difficult to condemn the Latin Americans marching north to the promised land of the not so United States. Europeans impacted on both sides of what became a contested border in the days of Davy Crockett, one time ‘King of the Wild Frontier ‘ – in the words of Tennessee Ernie Ford’ song , a childjhood favourite of mine.

Davy was immortalised by John Wayne’s ‘Alamo.’ Life was black and white then and it is getting that way again. Catholicism did much to retard the south, with U.S secret agents , aided by the British elite, making sure socialism never worked. Now the fake U.S Democratic elite see their dominance assured by orchestrating a rather secretive yet obvious plan to import migrants en masse. The next four years could be interesting.

R.J Cook

If the news refuses to call it what it is, then I will. I will fight back against stereotypes that Asians — and Asian women in particular — are subservient and quiet. I will fight back and call it by its name: The shootings were racist and demonstrated, in horrifying reality, what misogyny and the fetishization of East Asian women can become.

By Rachel Priest

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March 19, 2021

I cannot even begin to express my deep sorrow at the shooting that left Delaina Ashley Yaun, Paul Andre Michels, Xiaojie Tan, and Daoyou Feng, along with four other women whose names have yet to be officially released, dead in Atlanta this past Tuesday. Six of them were Asian women like myself. I am horrified, I am hurting, I am grieving.

When the first New York Times notification about the shooting came across my screen, I was just sitting down for dinner. It was one of the rare evenings that my busy work schedule and my roommate’s busy grad school schedule let us meet in the kitchen.

“8 people dead in Atlanta shootings,” I read out loud. Both of us — weary and worn from the rise in anti-Asian violence against people who look like us — spent a moment reading it before moving on to other more mundane topics. 

It wasn’t that we didn’t care. We were exhausted, disheartened, so tired of more than a year’s worth of racist rhetoric surrounding the coronavirus pandemic that we just couldn’t bear to delve into the story and our complicated feelings after a long day. 

My roommate – who is Vietnamese – and I, a Chinese woman, have had a lot of conversations regarding race in the seven months we’ve been roommates in Atlanta. Sometimes, we try to make light of the racist incidents we’ve faced. Other times, we let grief, hurt, and anger into our conversations about how the Vietnam War impacted her family and about the identity reckoning I’ve had as a transracial adoptee.

Later that night, as I was scrolling through Twitter, reading and watching as the reports shifted, the wall of grief I’d been holding back hit me and tears sprung to my eyes. A year’s worth of reporting and crying and seeing my community abused, assaulted, and killed came to the surface. I texted two of my closest friends about the news, and then I called my parents close to midnight. 

“Are you scared?” my mom asked. 

I was silent for a second, trying to gather all of my tumbling emotions into a coherent sentence. 

“No … not in the same way as other Asian Americans have been. But this shooting is a lot closer to home,” I said.

In some ways, I’ve been able to distance myself a little bit from the violence happening to elderly Asian people because, unlike many of my Asian peers, my parents are white. I was adopted from China when I was a year old, and so I haven’t had to worry in the same ways other Asian Americans have had to about the safety of my parents and grandparents. 

I took a few more breaths and continued, pushing words past lips trembling with frustration and despair. “It made me realize that I could be walking around my city and any 21-year-old white man with a gun could shoot me because of what I look like.”

Only hours before the shootings, Stop AAPI Hate released a report detailing 3,800 reported incidents of anti-Asian violence, with a disproportionate number of those being directed at Asian women. 

The next morning, I woke up exhausted after a short night of dreaming about our nightmarish reality. I braced myself as I reached over to turn off my alarm, knowing that once I turned on my phone, I would be inundated with more news of the shooting. 

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s front page declared that eight people were shot dead at three massage parlors. Underneath, in smaller but still large text, the paper declared: “Investigators working to determine why victims were targeted.” Later that day, the Cherokee County police department said the shooter confessed to the murders and said he had a sexual addiction. The spas and massage parlors he targeted represented the “temptation he wanted to eliminate.” 

My blood hit a boiling point when I read that law enforcement placed the shooter, not the people whose lives he stole, at the center of the narrative. “He was fed up, at the end of his rope … yesterday was a really bad day for him and this is what he did,” said Capt. Jay Baker, a spokesperson for the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office.

If the news (and the AJC isn’t alone) refuses to call it what it is, then I will. I will fight back against my journalism training that tells me to remain unbiased and stick to the facts, reminding myself I’m an Asian woman before I’m anything else. I will fight back against years of colorblind conditioning that told me bringing race into every conversation is racist. I will fight back against the continuously perpetuated stereotypes that Asians — and Asian women in particular — are subservient and quiet. I will fight back and call it by its name: The shootings were racist and demonstrated, in horrifying reality, what misogyny and the fetishization of East Asian women can become. 

Last year, right before the pandemic shut down the country, my best friend and I took a trip to Nashville, Tennessee, for our senior year spring break trip, and I got the tiniest glimpse of what it’s like to be sought out because of my ethnicity. 

On the last night we were there, we went to a bar on Music Row. About an hour after we arrived, an older white man came up to me and asked where I was from. After hearing me say, five times,“I’m from Georgia,” he thought for a second and switched tactics. “What’s your nationality?”

“I’m American,” I said again and again and again. 

Exasperated, he leaned in too close and shouted: “No, no, I mean I’m English, I’m Irish, I’m white. What are you?”

I’d like to say that I walked away, that I told him to leave me alone — in possibly stronger language — but I didn’t. I stood there in utter embarrassment, disgust, and fear as he offered to buy me a drink and told me about his role as a “cool dad” who often talked to his two school-aged children about drugs and alcohol. This was a white man who was much bigger than I was. He also came to the bar with two other huge men who I had seen cornering others, even remarking to my friend that they were hunting for women. Sensing we might be in over our heads, my friend texted my mom who, on vacation with my brothers and dad, FaceTimed me. 

“I’ve got to go, my mom is calling me,”  I said and turned away before he could respond. I hid in the bathroom while my friend paid our tab and we sprinted for the exit. 

The fetishization of Asian women cannot be ignored when we talk about this shooting, and we need to hold people, news organizations, and Hollywood accountable for the ways in which they talk to and about Asian women. 

 While it’d be easy to point fingers and say the blame for the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes lay entirely at the feet of those who insist — including former President Donald Trump — on calling the coronavirus names like “China virus” and “Kung flu,” this country has always treated people of Asian descent, regardless of their ethnicity, with contempt. 

One of the few things I learned about Asian people in any history class (a problem in itself) was that Chinese immigrants were lured to California by gold and later a promise of freedom  for their labor in building the Transcontinental Railroad in the 1860s. In a move rooted in scapegoating and racism, the United States banned Chinese immigration with the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. What I didn’t learn, however, was that American-born descendants of the Chinese immigrants already living in the U.S. weren’t allowed to become citizens until 1943 with the passage of the Magnuson Act (which also lifted the ban on Chinese immigration after 65 years.) I also was never taught about the Page Act of 1875, which banned “any subject of China, Japan, or any Oriental country” from immigrating to the U.S on the belief they were here for “lewd and immoral purposes.”

We can’t forget the thousands of Japanese Americans and others of Japanese descent who were placed in concentration camps during World War II. Nor can we ignore the destruction and death this country brought upon millions of Vietnamese people who would later flee to America for a chance at freedom — like my roommate and her family — only to be met with prejudice and racism. Nor can we ignore the other Asian communities in the country who have been harmed by xenophobia. 

My good friend and fellow journalist Katie Kim, who is Korean, spoke to our collective trauma and deep hurt when she wrote on Twitter: 

“On Feb. 14, 2020, I became a U.S. citizen. I did it because my parents brought me here to achieve the ‘American Dream.’ I did it because they wanted to see me succeed. I did it because I wanted to make them proud. And when I got my certificate, I *was proud. For a moment. But I am anything but proud today. What is the point of the ‘American Dream’ when America is shooting down people who look like my mom, my dad, my aunts, and my uncles? What did my parents bring me here for? What were all those 12-hour minimum-wage shifts for? What were all those days they had to stick me in daycare so I could pretend like I was any other white kid while their hands grew calluses and their hair turned gray for? I am tired. I am terrified. I feel invisible, yet I am hurting.” 

While this has been the worst anti-Asian crime in recent history in terms of body count, other incidents are no less egregious and terrifying for the AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islander) community. In Houston, Texas, Mike Nguyen’s ramen shop was graffitied with the words “hope u dies” and “Go Back 2 China” and “Kung Flu.” In Oakland, California, Pak Ho, a 75-year-old Asian man, recently died from injuries he sustained from hitting his head on the ground after being punched. In the neighborhood of Queens in New York City, a woman was spit on three times while holding her baby, as the words “Chinese virus!” were hurled at her. And now Atlanta — the place I am proud to call home — joins the list. 

What happens when your home no longer feels safe? When questions about where you’re from are not just casually racist, microaggressions rooted in ignorance, but carry suspicion and danger? When every glance your way makes you feel studied, evaluated, sized up, hated? 

Another friend from college, who is also Chinese, invited me to her socially-distanced picnic birthday party this weekend. Not only did it feel like the safest way to gather but the nicest — soaking up the predicted sunny rays of the weekend forecast. But at 1:30 a.m on Wednesday, when I should’ve been getting caught up on sleep after a hectic work week, I lay there wondering if it would be smart for us to even go. I wondered if sitting out in public would put a target on our backs. 

But then I gently reminded myself to reject the fear, to not let one man’s actions be the reason I don’t get to celebrate my friend and enjoy the weather.

There’s a popular media trope of “giving voice to the voiceless.” But it’s important to remember we are not voiceless, we are not invisible. In fact, we’ve been speaking up, rallying, reporting hate crimes, and advocating for ourselves for the past year and beyond, but only recently has the national – media shifted to cover the issue of anti-Asian racism.. 

So what can non-Asian people do now and in the future?

It starts at the most basic level: treating others with empathy and love and calling out racism when you see it. Check in with your Asian friends, family members, co-workers, and neighbors to let them know you care. (And by check in, I don’t mean reach out to that one Asian person you knew a while ago but haven’t spoken to in years.) And then, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and lean in and learn. 

And finally, to my fellow Asian American brothers and sisters, I see you; I support you; I stand with you. We will get through this and, together, we will be a part of a better South and a better nation. 

This list is filled with educational resources, organizations to donate to, and places to safely volunteer. The Bitter Southerner has also decided to partner with Asian Americans Advancing Justice. Every time you buy an Abide No Hatred T-shirt, $10 will go toward our Better South Initiative, a fund that puts money into the pockets of organizations, including AAAJ, that work on the front lines of issues facing the South.

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We will update the story with the names of the other four women once they are officially released.

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Rachel Priest is the content editor at The Bitter Southerner. She grew up in Minnesota but moved to Georgia in high school, where she continued her education at the University of Georgia. She is passionate about amplifying adoptee and Asian voices, traveling, and a good cup of coffee. You can find her work published on Rewire and at rzpriest.com. Follow her on Twitter @rz_priest.

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Posted March 19th 2021

For Asian Americans, 2020 was a year of political success and newfound influence. But it was also a time of vulnerability to racist assaults.

That painful dichotomy will be on display Friday when President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the first person of South Asian descent to hold national office, visit Atlanta just days after a white gunman killed eight people, most of them Asian American women, in three metro-area massage businesses. The killings come after a spike of anti-Asian violence nationally. ADVERTISEMENT

The presidential trip was planned before the shooting, as part of a victory lap aimed at selling the benefits of pandemic relief legislation. But Biden and Harris will instead spend their visit consoling a community whose growing voting power helped secure their victory in Georgia and beyond.

Biden and Harris departed Washington on Friday morning for Atlanta, but not before the president expressed support for the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, a bill that would strengthen the government’s reporting and response to hate crimes and provide resources to Asian American communities.

“While we do not yet know motive, as I said last week, we condemn in the strongest possible terms the ongoing crisis of gender-based and anti-Asian violence that has long plagued our nation,” Biden said in a statement.

As the fastest-growing racial demographic in the U.S. electorate, Asian Americans are gaining political influence across the country. In California, two Korean American Republican women made history with their congressional victories. The Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, typically dominated by Democrats, has its largest roster ever, including Asian American and Pacific Islander members and others who represent significant numbers of Asian Americans.

“We’re becoming increasingly more visible and active in the political ecosystem,” said Georgia state Sen. Michelle Au, a Democrat who represents part of the growing, diversifying suburbs north of Atlanta. Yet, Au said, “What I’ve heard personally, and what I have felt, is that people sometimes don’t tend to listen to us.” More Stories:

• – Man charged with killing 8 people at Georgia massage parlors
• – EXPLAINER: Why Georgia attack spurs fears in Asian Americans
• – Biden aims for quicker shots, ‘independence from this virus’

Au said a White House spotlight, especially amid tragedy, is welcomed by a community whose influence — and struggles — are often overshadowed in national conversations about diversity. She notes President Donald Trump and other Republicans merely brushed off charges of racism when they dubbed the coronavirus the “China virus” because of its origins.

Activists have seen a rise of racist attacks. Nearly 3,800 incidents have been reported to Stop AAPI Hate, a California-based reporting center for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and its partner advocacy groups, since March 2020.

In his first primetime address to the nation as president, Biden last Thursday — five days before the Atlanta killings — called attacks on Asian Americans “un-American.”

“To have them talk about it in this way, so publicly, and to say AAPI, or to note that our communities are going through difficult times, is huge,” Au said.

The White House said Biden and Harris will meet Friday with Asian American state legislators and other community leaders about racist rhetoric and actions against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Biden also will visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s main campus in Atlanta.

As he boarded Air Force One on Friday morning, Biden, who was wearing a mask, stumbled several times up the stairs to the aircraft, before saluting the military officer who greeted him on the tarmac.

The originally planned political event to tout the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill has been scrapped. The White House confirmed that the president also will meet with Georgia voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams, Democrats’ likely 2022 candidate for governor, as Republicans in the state legislature push several proposals to make it harder to vote in the state. He will also meet with newly minted Democratic Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.

Black and Latino voters far outnumber Asian American voters nationally and in Georgia, but the Asian American and Pacific Islander population is growing at a faster rate. Out of Georgia’s 7.3 million-plus registered voters, more than 300,000 identify as Asian American or Pacific Islander, according to data from the Asian American Advocacy Fund.

Democrats’ coordinated 2020 campaign in Georgia — the joint effort of Biden’s campaign and state Democrats — tailored a turnout effort specifically to Asian American and Pacific Islanders. The Advocacy Fund analysis concluded that more than 185,000 voted in 2020, a 63% increase from four years prior. Biden ultimately won the state by fewer than 13,000 votes out of almost 5 million cast. Democrats also forced two Senate runoffs that they ultimately won, giving the party control of the chamber.

Now, Georgia Democratic Party staffers have started offering their Asian American outreach program as a model to other state parties.

“We certainly aren’t taking the community for granted,” said Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux.

The freshman congresswoman lost in the suburban Atlanta 7th District by fewer than 1,000 votes in 2018. In November, she won by 10,000 votes, flipping what was once a Republican stronghold. She said her campaign’s data show the share of Asian American voters increased in the district from 7% in 2016 to 11% in 2020 — enough that she considers the community decisive in her political fortunes.

That influence doesn’t only benefit Democrats. In California, where the Asian American and Pacific Islander community has long been a political force, freshman Reps. Young Kim and Michelle Steele, both Republicans, became the first Korean American women elected to Congress while giving the GOP two big pickups.

Asian Americans are particularly important as Democrats target suburban voters across the Sun Belt, including the growing communities around Charlotte, Houston and Phoenix, said Guy Cecil, head of the Democratic super PAC Priorities USA.

For example, Priorities’ review of the November election results found that Asian Americans increased their share of the suburban vote in Georgia by 2.5 percentage points compared with 2016. They also made up a notable share of new voters in Arizona and Wisconsin — places where new voters favored Biden and helped drive his victories — the group found.

“We must mobilize these same people in 2022. This is going to be critical for Democrats to maintain our majorities (in Congress) and win governors’ races,” Cecil said.

Au and Bourdeaux said it’s also important for elected officials and others to understand the breadth of the Asian American and Pacific Islander community and not treat it simply as a bloc to be tapped for votes.

Although the Atlanta-area Asian population is overwhelmingly suburban, drawn in part to high-performing public schools, Au said politicians must acknowledge its diversity and economic challenges. “I get it, right, I’m a doctor, too,” she said. “So everyone’s like all Asians are doctors and lawyers and they’re doing great … but that eclipses a huge portion of the AAPI population.”

Bourdeaux praised a “diverse community that is South Asian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, a host of different religions, Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Catholic, Buddhist, non-religious, and so on, just an extraordinarily diverse group of people.”

But that very diversity means some Americans see those differences as a threat.

“We have faced systemic racism, exclusion and violence before,” said Georgia state Rep. Sam Park on Thursday, standing beside his Asian American and Pacific Islander legislative colleagues. “In spite of it all, we have thrived.”

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Lemire reported from Washington. AP writer Zeke Miller in Washington contributed.

America needs a remote workers law Posted March 15th 2021

Ryan Cooper

Last year, when the pandemic struck, whole industries went remote overnight. TV hosts set up mini-studios in their spare rooms, lawyers and judges conducted hearings over Zoom (sometimes with amusing consequences), accountants did their audits remotely, and on and on. Yelp had to scramble to find thousands of laptops overnight to give to their office staff. “We always had spare laptops, but not 3,000,” executive Carolyn Patterson told CNN.

Many workers moved to another state entirely. NPR collected stories of numerous people who have moved across the country permanently to take advantage of remote work — and some of them took a big risk by not getting permission from their employers first. Overall, a study published last summer surveyed U.S. companies and found 45 percent of them had moved at least part of their staff to remote work.

It turns out that it is structurally possible for many jobs to be done at home. Yet, for a variety of reasons, many companies are reluctant to cede this level of flexibility to their workers permanently. One big problem is America’s inconsistent and convoluted tax regime that complicates working across state lines. For both companies and employees to be able to make a fair choice about whether to continue working remotely will take action from Congress.

With any luck, the pandemic will be over soon, and people all over the country will face the question of continuing remote work. The potential savings for businesses paying for office space is considerable — particularly in high-cost cities like San Francisco and New York. For workers, there could be a big savings in time and money from not needing to commute. Advertisement

But there are drawbacks too. Critics argue it has been possible to work remotely for decades — telephones and fax machines can do the job alright — and only a tiny fraction of workers have ever done it. It appears that offices have substantial productivity benefits that come from in-person collaboration. Humans, after all, evolved to communicate face-to-face where body language can carry subtle meaning, not through Slack and video calls. At least one study has also found that workers’ cost-savings is often eaten up by more working hours and increased spending on housing. A fair employer that closed a central office would allocate some of the savings into an office allowance for workers — something that is probably unlikely for non-unionized firms (which is most of them).

Yet surely there should be some space for remote work. I, for one, have worked remotely for the past seven years, and while it took some adaptation, I’ve grown to like it a lot. In particular, there are many American cities badly in need of population and spending where housing is dramatically cheaper than hot coastal cities. Working a San Jose tech job from, say, Nashville can mean a gigantic increase in take-home pay. (Some time ago I moved to Philadelphia from Washington, D.C., precisely to save on housing costs.)

That leads me to the policy problems.

The basic fact standing in the way of a remote work boom is the federal structure of the United States. Each state has its own unemployment system, its own tax laws, its own labor regulations, its own legal requirements for businesses, and so on. Having an employee move to another state can thus trip a whole slew of regulatory and tax requirements that businesses might not even know about — particularly if the state is far away. Advertisement

That means two potentially costly things: taxes and legal compliance. As tax attorney Larry Brant writes, when a company has an employee in another state, that usually creates “nexus,” which means it is subject to that state’s taxing authority. “Corporate income should be allocated by state,” Brant told The Week, so a single fully-remote worker should not create tons of sales tax liability. However, a company will still be legally required to file a state tax return in every state where they have employees, as well as fulfill other requirements, like filing to do business in the state, paying into unemployment and worker’s compensation funds, and so on. Companies that don’t follow the rules — which they may not even know exist — can incur monetary penalties, says Brant.

These kinds of compliance costs probably represent the “biggest dollar cost” of remote work for employers, tax lawyer Robert Romashko told The Week. It’s isn’t that expensive to pay into unemployment and so forth, but it is expensive to hire legal professionals (and often more than one, as lawyers are generally not experts in every state) to figure out what all the rules are and file all the paperwork correctly.

Tax lawyers and accountants have been discussing these problems for a long time. Indeed, millions of people have been unknowingly running afoul of legal requirements for years already, because they are “not even aware of their tax liability,” says Romashko. In certain states, simply answering a work email while on vacation would technically count as work activity, and thus create some income in that state. (Of course it is very difficult for states to detect and enforce such things.)

Already many people who have been working from other states due to the pandemic have been forced to sort through conflicting state requirements about what they owe. As Bloomberg reports, in the worst cases employees may end up paying full income tax to multiple states, while others deal with a ton of obnoxious paperwork.

So what should be done? The cleanest solution would be to get rid of the states and simply have one regulatory and tax framework for the entire country, but obviously that is out of the question. However, the federal government can still govern cross-border remote work — after all, it is interstate commerce by definition. The full scope of a remote workers’ law would necessarily be extremely dense and complex, but the basic idea should be to make interstate remote work easily possible without incentivizing a race to the bottom. States should be able to tax workers and corporations in their states as they like, but companies should not be able to avoid taxes by shuffling around their employees.

The government could thus mandate standardized regulatory treatment for cross-border workers (perhaps by creating a high baseline to encourage better worker protections), create a single tax system for all remote work, and outline a uniform standard for what counts as being present in another state. A company with no footprint aside from remote workers might file an addendum to their federal tax return, and the IRS could sort out whatever might be owed to each state automatically. (A company that actually does business in multiple states, however, would still need to file multiple tax returns.)

Congress could also help by centralizing the unemployment system at the federal level. It is currently a state-federal partnership, and as we’ve seen during the pandemic, a great many states are horrible at administering the program. Many others have designed their systems to not work on purpose, so they can pay out the least possible amount of money. Worst of all, almost all states are not allowed to borrow money, but unemployment costs typically spike during an economic crisis — precisely when tax revenues decline. It would be simpler, fairer, and more efficient to run one big unemployment system at the federal level, where the government can best carry the burden. Advertisement

There are already some partial efforts to address some of these problems. There are a bunch of interstate reciprocal tax agreements making it easier for remote workers to withhold taxes in the right place (naturally, with a whole slew of different forms for each one). And Congress has actually solved a very similar problem for transportation workers. By the logic detailed above, truck drivers and rail workers ought to be liable for state taxes in every single state they pass through doing their jobs — after all, such workers are earning money while they are present in all those locations. But forcing truck drivers to file 40 different tax returns would be absurd, and so in 1990 the Amtrak Act was passed mandating that they only have to file in their actual home state.

Ironing out annoying bureaucratic red tape to make working easy and simple is not historically the specialty of the American government. But logically socialists, liberals, and even some conservatives ought to be able to find common ground on this. Whatever one’s views on the level of taxation or regulation, surely people can agree that it should be simple to follow the rules.

President Biden, or someone in Congress, will just have to pay attention.

Comment The above is from the anti Trump ‘The Week.’ The BBC now refers to Trump simply as Biden’s predecessor. The British elite are seriously into using Covid and Feminists Rights campaigners to rule the world with their advanced police state ideology. R.J Cook

Keep Piling Up The Bulls-it March 9th 2021.

If believing that women should have every opportunity to develop and make use of their talents and skills makes a person a feminist, then I am a feminist.

If believing that men and women should get equal pay for equal work, then I am a feminist. If believing that men and women should be equal under the law, then I am a feminist. equality under the law must mean equal punishments for every crime, including perjury.

If accepting that goodness , honesty and morality are not the monopoly of women, then I am a feminist. But that is not the point of upper middle class elite driven feminism. Feminism is about labelling all men abusers, rapists , crooks and liars. It is about empowering women at men’s expense. BLM have been brought into the operation to reinforce feminism. The purpose is to marginalise, ostracise and scapegoat men.

It comes from the elite and is class war. The following is more dangerous drivel and propaganda from this poisonous lobby. Any working class person regardless of race or gender, should realise that the issue should not be about who gets the vote. It should be why voting is pointless because democracy is fake. Money and interest groups rule, which is why we are in this nightmare world. Covid Lockdown is all about money and global reset.

R.J Cook

Why the 19th Amendment Did Not Guarantee All Women the Right to Vote

Despite the adoption of the 19th Amendment, many women of color, immigrant women and poorer women continued to face barriers at the polls.Lesley Kennedy

With the certification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution on August 26, 1920, women secured the right to vote after a decades-long fight. “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex,” it reads.

But while the passage of the 19th Amendment enabled most white women to vote, that wasn’t the case for many women of color.

“For Black women, their votes weren’t lifted by that tide in the South,” Christina Rivers, associate professor of political science at Depaul University, says. “Their votes were suppressed solely on the basis of race.”

Also prevented from voting: Native Americans—both men and women—did not gain the right to vote until the Snyder Act of 1924, four years after the ratification of the 19th Amendment and more than 50 years after the passage of the 15th Amendment. Even then, some Western states, including Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, didn’t grant Native Americans the right to vote until the 1940s and ‘50s. It wasn’t until the Cable Act of 1922 that women were allowed to keep their citizenship—and gain the right to vote—if they were married to an immigrant (who had to be eligible to become a U.S. citizen). 

In Puerto Rico, literate women won the right to vote in 1929, but it wasn’t until 1935 that all women were given that right. And Asian American immigrant women were denied the right to vote until 1952 when the Immigration and Nationality Act allowed them to become citizens.

READ MORE: A Timeline of the Fight for All Women’s Right to Vote

A Divided Suffrage Movement

But even with the passage of these amendments and acts, a number of nefarious methods were used to keep segments of the population from voting. Most of these measures targeted Black Americans in the Jim Crow South, but Latinx, Native American and Asian Americans also faced obstacles to voting in the Southwest and West.

“When you combine literacy tests, invasive registration forms, interpretation tests, poll taxes and outright violence, this kept Black voting registration percentages down to the single digits in most of the Confederate South,” Rivers says.

In fact, according to Pearl Dowe, professor of political science and African American studies at Emory University, efforts to legalize the right to vote were fraught with racism and division stemming back to the abolitionist movement.

“The biracial coalition that formed during abolition was very tenuous and eventually fractured due to conflicts about what should the status of freed Blacks be,” she says. “This was often based on whites having conflicting attitudes about the humanity of Blacks and if they were equal to whites. These issues and divides continued into the suffrage movement.”

READ MORE: How Early Suffragists Left Out Black Women

You only have to fool some of the people – R.J Cook March 8th 2021

A section of border fence is pictured by the U.S.-Mexico border in the Rio Grande Valley near Hidalgo, Texas, on Oct. 7, 2019. (Loren Elliott/Reuters) US News

1,600 Immigrants Arrested Over 3 Days in Single Texas Border Sector: Official March 7th 2021

By Jack Phillips March 3, 2021 Updated: March 3, 2021 biggersmallerPrint

More than 1,600 illegal immigrants were arrested in three days in a single Texas border sector, according to the chief Border Patrol agent for the area.

“Over 1,600 arrests in three days for Del Rio Sector agents!” wrote Austin Skero, the head of Border Patrol for Texas’s Del Rio Sector, on Twitter. “These arrests include more than 25 smuggling cases, two criminal aliens, and were comprised of mostly single adults.”

Skero later added that Del Rio agents detained a convicted rapist who had previously been deported.

“Our agents arrested two more sex offenders over the weekend, one of whom was convicted of third-degree rape in Kentucky,” he said in a news release on Tuesday. “This is why it is critically important that Border Patrol Agents are out there, on the border, identifying everyone who crosses our borders illegally.”

Roman Gonzalez-Flores, 49, a citizen of Mexico, was arrested after he illegally entered the United States from Mexico. Officials later determined that he was convicted of the crime in 2004, was sentenced to two years in prison, and was most recently deported in 2021, according to the agency.

Gonzalez-Flores now faces felony charges for illegal re-entry after removal as a convicted sex offender and could face 20 years in prison.

The agency said that 56 illegal immigrants with prior sexual assault convictions were “encountered” by agents since Oct. 1 of last year.

On Wednesday, in a separate incident in California, Border Patrol agents and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed that 13 people who died in a crash with a semi-truck may have been illegally smuggled across the border.

“We pray for the accident victims and their families during this difficult time,” said El Centro Sector Chief Patrol Agent Gregory Bovino in a news conference on Wednesday. Agents, he said, believe the deceased individuals were part of a larger group of about 44 migrants who were smuggled through a hole in the fence near Calexico, a California city that lies along the border and is next to the Mexican city of Mexicali.

Bovino added that an “initial investigation into the origins of the vehicles indicate a potential nexus to the aforementioned breach in the border wall,” while adding that “human smugglers have proven time and again they have little regard for human life.”

A section of border fence is pictured by the U.S.-Mexico border in the Rio Grande Valley near Hidalgo, Texas, on Oct. 7, 2019. (Loren Elliott/Reuters) US News

1,600 Immigrants Arrested Over 3 Days in Single Texas Border Sector: Official

By Jack Phillips March 3, 2021 Updated: March 3, 2021 biggersmallerPrint

More than 1,600 illegal immigrants were arrested in three days in a single Texas border sector, according to the chief Border Patrol agent for the area.

“Over 1,600 arrests in three days for Del Rio Sector agents!” wrote Austin Skero, the head of Border Patrol for Texas’s Del Rio Sector, on Twitter. “These arrests include more than 25 smuggling cases, two criminal aliens, and were comprised of mostly single adults.”

Skero later added that Del Rio agents detained a convicted rapist who had previously been deported.

“Our agents arrested two more sex offenders over the weekend, one of whom was convicted of third-degree rape in Kentucky,” he said in a news release on Tuesday. “This is why it is critically important that Border Patrol Agents are out there, on the border, identifying everyone who crosses our borders illegally.”

Roman Gonzalez-Flores, 49, a citizen of Mexico, was arrested after he illegally entered the United States from Mexico. Officials later determined that he was convicted of the crime in 2004, was sentenced to two years in prison, and was most recently deported in 2021, according to the agency.

Gonzalez-Flores now faces felony charges for illegal re-entry after removal as a convicted sex offender and could face 20 years in prison.

The agency said that 56 illegal immigrants with prior sexual assault convictions were “encountered” by agents since Oct. 1 of last year.

On Wednesday, in a separate incident in California, Border Patrol agents and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed that 13 people who died in a crash with a semi-truck may have been illegally smuggled across the border.

“We pray for the accident victims and their families during this difficult time,” said El Centro Sector Chief Patrol Agent Gregory Bovino in a news conference on Wednesday. Agents, he said, believe the deceased individuals were part of a larger group of about 44 migrants who were smuggled through a hole in the fence near Calexico, a California city that lies along the border and is next to the Mexican city of Mexicali.

Bovino added that an “initial investigation into the origins of the vehicles indicate a potential nexus to the aforementioned breach in the border wall,” while adding that “human smugglers have proven time and again they have little regard for human life.”

“Those who may be contemplating crossing the border illegally should pause to think of the dangers that all too often end in tragedy; tragedies our Border Patrol Agents and first responders are unfortunately very familiar with,” he said in the news conference.

Missing Trump Missing The Point March 2nd 2021

Joel Mathis, like all the British created ‘The Week magazine. The following is extracted from his response to Donald Trump’s recent political speech. He quotes Trump’s recent low rating in opinion polls. That is nor surprsing given that polls , including the election , can’t be trusted.

Six weeks after leaving the White House, former President Donald Trump re-emerged Sunday onstage at the Conservative Political Action Conference, to once again dispute the results of the last presidential election and to not-so-coyly hint he might run for another term in 2024.

“Do you miss me yet?” he asked the crowd.

The “we love you!” chants from attendees suggested that, yes, Trump’s supporters still support Trump. No surprise there. But it is fair to suspect that the broader American electorate has welcomed the former president’s absence. His national approval rating hit its low-point of 34 percent in the final week before he left office, after averaging just 41 percent over the four years of his term. (President Joe Biden, by comparison, currently boasts a 54 percent approval rating.) If Trump really is thinking about another election campaign, he’ll need to dig himself out of a pretty deep hole.

There is one thing he could do — but almost certainly won’t — to broaden his appeal: He could just lay low for a little while. He could actually try to let us miss him.

Biden did a good job of looking non threatening during the election campaign. Half the time he didn’t seem to know where he was or sound particularly atriculate. But the truth wa in his eyes. He knew the media was on his side, along with the influential British elite with the BBC.

Obviously something ahd to be done about Trump and Biden was a safe front man. Clinton had told the world press that Democrats should not accept defeat under any circumstances – including getting fewer votes one presumes. She and the goody goody media never accepted hers and this was revenge.

Harris in the background was bait for non thinking Black America and the moron cop who spent 8.5 minitutes killing Black suspected crook George Floyd on camera , was a Godsend. Out came BLM from the stable to change not just U.S.A but as the basis of a new white grovelling morality. Trump is seen as a threat to that and must be neutralised at the least. That is the point that hack Mathis is deliberately helping his readers to miss.

R.J Cook

Roberta Jane Cook , pictured above, whose home was raided by 7 police officers based on their willing receipt of malicious false allegations in 2017. The allegations stated she was working from her home in an illegal brothel

Computers , mobile phones and documents were seized, she was locked up for 12 hours .
Three months later she wanted to know what they were doing and they ignored her.

After swearing at them on phone messages, she was taken to Crown Court with police lying again to get her jailed.
They lost the case regarding distressing a male CID officer with bad language but refused to explain , investigate and apologise for 13 years of serious harrassment againts
Ms Cook.

Their vile behaviour is unabated with mental health problems their latest strategy – they have tried this before . In Britain you don’t need evidence because police are portrayed by tame media relentlessly as our protecters..

The police do not just abuse blacks but they do employ and promote seriously moronic and dishonest self interested bullies. They are pretty good at hate crime. This is no excuse for scapegoating using whites , blaming them all for a legacy of racism. The cop who killed Floyd was guilty of manslaughter at the least. But the same happens in Britain.

Ian Tomlinson was murdered by police thugs and his killer went free.
The woman who gave the order to shoot an innocent Brazilian was made chief of London’s police. As far as I am concerned the British elitist mentality is alive and well in the U.S. Biden and I have Irish ancestory, but that doesn’t make us saints. There are as many myths about the saintly Irish as there are about blacks, Unfortunately power thrives on lies and grows out of bulls-t..
R.J Cook

Cuomo sorry for remarks aide ‘misinterpreted’ as harassment Posted March 1st 2021

By KAREN MATTHEWS and MARINA VILLENEUVEyesterday

FILE – In this Monday, Jan. 11, 2021, file photo, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo delivers his State of the State address virtually from The War Room at the state Capitol, in Albany, N.Y. On Sunday, Feb. 28, 2021, Cuomo acknowledged for the first time that some of his behavior with women had been “misinterpreted as unwanted flirtation,” and he would cooperate with a sexual harassment investigation led by the state’s attorney general. (AP Photo/Hans Pennink, Pool, File)

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo acknowledged for the first time Sunday that some of his behavior with women “may have been insensitive or too personal,” and said he would cooperate with a sexual harassment investigation led by the state’s attorney general.

In a statement released amid mounting criticism from within his own party, the Democrat maintained he had never inappropriately touched or propositioned anyone. But he said he had teased people about their personal lives in an attempt to be “playful.”

“I now understand that my interactions may have been insensitive or too personal and that some of my comments, given my position, made others feel in ways I never intended. I acknowledge some of the things I have said have been misinterpreted as an unwanted flirtation. To the extent anyone felt that way, I am truly sorry about that,” he said.

Cuomo, one of America’s most prominent governors, is facing the most serious challenge of his decade in office following claims he sexually harassed at least two women who worked for him. Democrats in New York and around the nation aren’t rallying to his side, leaving him increasingly isolated from traditional allies.

His partial admission of wrongdoing came after a day of wrangling over who should investigate his workplace behavior.

By day’s end, Cuomo acquiesced to demands that Attorney General Letitia James control the inquiry.

James said she expected to receive a formal referral that would give her office subpoena power and allow her to deputize an outside law firm for “a rigorous and independent investigation.”

“This is not a responsibility we take lightly,” said James, a Democrat who has been, at times, allied with Cuomo but is independently elected and had emerged as a consensus choice to lead a probe.

Calls for an investigation mounted after a second former employee of Cuomo’s administration went public Saturday with harassment claims.More Stories:

• – 2nd former aide accuses Cuomo of sexual harassment
• – Calls grow for Cuomo harassment inquiry. But by whom?
• – Former aide says Cuomo kissed her, suggested strip poker

Charlotte Bennett, a low-level aide in the governor’s administration until November, told The New York Times Cuomo asked questions about her sex life, including whether she ever had sex with older men, and made other comments she interpreted as gauging her interest in an affair.

Her accusation came days after another former aide, Lindsey Boylan, a former economic development adviser, elaborated on harassment allegations she first made in December. Boylan said Cuomo subjected her to an unwanted kiss and comments about her appearance.ADVERTISEMENT

Cuomo, 63, said he had intended to be a mentor for Bennett, who is 25. He has denied Boylan’s allegations.

Over several hours Sunday, James and other leading party officials rejected two of Cuomo’s proposals for how an investigation might proceed.

Under his first plan, a retired federal judge picked by Cuomo, Barbara Jones, would have reviewed his workplace behavior. In the second proposal, announced Sunday morning in an attempt to appease legislative leaders, Cuomo asked James and the state’s chief appeals court judge, Janet DiFiore, to jointly appoint a lawyer to investigate and issue a public report.

James rejected both plans, demanding a formal referral giving her office authority to subpoena documents and witness testimony.

Many of the biggest names in New York politics lined up behind James.

Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, both Democrats, said they wanted the attorney general to handle the investigation. Republican leaders had, for days, called on James to launch a probe. On Sunday, Republican state Senate Minority Leader Robert Ortt called on Cuomo to resign.

New York’s two U.S. senators, Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, both said an independent investigation was essential.Full Coverage: Politics

“These allegations are serious and deeply concerning. As requested by Attorney General James, the matter should be referred to her office so that she can conduct a transparent, independent and thorough investigation with subpoena power,” Gillibrand said.

Cuomo’s statement that women had misinterpreted comments that were intended to be jokes was met with outrage from some people, who said he appeared to be blaming the women.

“Is it ‘playful’ to touch one’s employees’ legs & kiss them on the lips against their will? Bc better men than A Cuomo have been fired for that,” tweeted former Fox News and NBC journalist Megyn Kelly, whose sexual harassment allegations against late Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes helped lead to his ouster.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said President Joe Biden also supported an independent review that “should move forward as quickly as possible.”

The furor comes amid a new round of criticism over Cuomo’s leadership style and actions his administration took to protect his reputation as a leader in the coronavirus pandemic.

Cuomo won praise as a strong hand during last spring’s crisis of rising case counts and overflowing morgues. His book, “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic,” was published in October.

But in recent weeks his administration was forced to revise its count of COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes following criticism that it had undercounted the fatalities to blunt accusations that some of his administration’s policies had made the situation worse.

James fueled some of that criticism by issuing a report saying the Cuomo administration had undercounted deaths.

Now, his support is eroding faster.

“Lindsey Boylan and Charlotte Bennett’s detailed accounts of sexual harassment by Gov. Cuomo are extremely serious and painful to read,” U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said on Twitter Sunday. “There must be an independent investigation — not one led by an individual selected by the Governor, but by the office of the Attorney General.”

Source Associated Press..

Comment It is good to see the high and mighty punished for the political correctness and language policing they have made way for. Given that women are always believed to be telling the truth, they have a powerful weapon because whatever they say and for whatever reason, they will be believed. By and large the laws are taken only as protection for them. They are equal but treated very differently now.

Men need to realise that the law is there to protect women – unless the police have serious issues with you, as they do in my case , then they will do what they do to all people they don’t like, fit you up with lies and witholding evidence. Among their efforts to convict me ,blackening my name ever more to protect themselves, they even raided my premises alleging I had shopped myself for working here as a prostitute employed by my son. I sent 12 hours in the cells again. Failing to find evidence , they took me to Crown Court aiming to jail me for leaving a swearing message after holding key equiment and documents for over 3 months and refusing to answer my inquiries.

So I have little sympathy for professional ‘nice women’ who make complaints and none for the morons who still drool over and recognise women as absurdly more than just another badly dressed power mad gender neutral human being. They don’t deserve what men keep doing to them, Don’t compliment them either. It should work like aversion therapy and get to the point when women have lost their power of sexual attaction.

Men are stupid , so just don’t get the message. This man has admitted inappropriate behaviour. He should not touch women or make flirtatious conversation with them. If this man is at work, his mind should be on the job, dealing with colleagues in a neutral way. There should be no more Bill Clintons.

The work place should not offer the opportunity for idle chit chat or looking for sexual pleasure , even just talking about sex is now a serious offence. Anyone listening could be offended on behalf of the person on the receiving end. I doubt reverse gender complaints would be taken seriously as women are no in charge of all public and much private space – private space barely exists in the mdoern police state.

Men need to be very careful with female police officers because they are always believed because of their job, the gender making them even more trusted. Too many men are way behind the time. The feminists juggernaut is rolling down the steep long hill, crushing everything in its path. Women are career and power orientated. If you marry and upset them they can easily get away with the domestic violence allegations, no evidence needed. They then have the right to half your stuff . You will go on paying for the kids you can’t see.

R.J Cook

What a surprise ! February 27th 2021

It is always fun to read the British posh boy originated rather pretentious ‘The Week’ magazine. Here is their Ryan Cooper pontificating on Biden’s inevitable ‘America is back’ blunder into bombing Syria. Mainstream media who promote all this cr-p have never been more dangerous,

“President Biden came into office promising a new way of doing foreign policy. His campaign said he would “repair the damage wrought by President Trump and chart a fundamentally different course for American foreign policy[.]” And he did start with a promising move — cutting off U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s genocidal war in Yemen.

But now, barely one month into office, he’s done just what Trump did early in his term: bomb Syria on a stupid pretext. U.S. forces conducted an airstrike in the eastern part of the country late on Thursday, supposedly against Iran-backed militias, in retaliation for hitting American forces with a rocket attack on February 15 in northern Iraq.

This move demonstrates the utter folly of keeping such a gigantic military footprint in the Middle East (and indeed in the rest of the world). American forces only inflame chaos in the region and pose a constant risk of touching off a serious war.”

As long as Trump was in power, all the media had to do was to make him the story. Trump will prove very restrained as the Biden imbecile unleashes more idiocy. So long as he panders to women’s rights and BLM, sacred woman of colour Kamila Harris will be happy with her nose turned up and looking very scornful as you would expect from a person from the prosecutor’s office who smoked pot. Interestingly there are moves to block Biden from having the nuclear codes. I wonder why.

Meantime, with due respect to the fight against racism and in support of the glorious vengeful BLM freedom fighters, I will go a step further than knee bending. I am going to bend over and take what punishement they think I deserve for my involvement in enslaving them several hundred years before I was born. I am a white bitch and deserve it. My sacrifice will make all the difference. Roberta Jane Cook

The U.S Elite are back delivering democracy February 26th 2021

By R.J Cook

It is easy to complicate the Middle Eastern situation. It is the birthplace of the Judaic- Christian- Islamic religions , each one being a spilit from the other in that order. The Romans used Judaism for political reaons , then had sport with its Christian offshoot before using it to brainwash the masses. There followed long bloody wars between Christains and the Islamic splinter religion. Then these mighty bodies claiming God’s truth , split – their leaadership more concerned with eartly power and pleasures’

Over the years, the Middle East became ever more valuable, strategically and then for oil. The Anglo U.S dominated, with placemen using religion to control the ignorant impoversihed masses. That condition still applies.

The Anglo U.S elite found it easy to manipulate their old friend Saddam Hussein in 1990. Hussein’s Iraq had fought a long debilitating proxy war against Iran for the Anglo U.S wealthy oil interest.

To recover, Hussein undercut the OPEC price fixing agreement flooding the market with cheap oil. George Bush senior’s oil baron supporters were not pleased. So when Iraq’s ambassador went to the Pentagon for permission to invade and annex oil rich western dictatorship crony Kuwait , the Pentagon said go ahead. As background to this , readers should understand that Iraq and Kuwait were originally a British proectorate called Mesopotamia. The area was spilt and renamed after World War One, which also created the British puppet state of oil rich Saudi Arabia.

So the U.S , backed by an expectant Britain, gave Hussein the go ahead to invade Kuwait. Iraq only realised it was a set up , to cause oil price panic and rise , when the elite western media published horror stories of Iraq’s savage and brutal army raping the innocent virginal Kuwait democracy (sic).

The British masses lapped it up when the Tory Government rushed in to back Bush’s war for democracy. It seems to be forgotten that when Hussein was crushed, Bush snr et al deliberately fell short of toppling him. Bush snr made specific reference to the dangers of creating a power vacuum. He also coined the phrase ;’ The New World Order.’

Saddam Hussein had long before made it very clear, to his western puppet masters, that Iraq was a powder keg because of Shi’ite and Sunni Muslim divisions. Though himself a Sunnie, he ran a secular state. All was well until Tony Blair and George Bush Jnr came along. I mention Blair first because this man -who grotesquely followed up his disasterous ‘King’s new suit of clothes ‘ style British premiership with another money spinner role as ‘Middle Eastern Peace Special Envoy – was the ring leader to the current carnage and double speak.

When 9/11 came along, Blair and Bush Jnr contrived to blame Iraq , even though all bar one of the twin towers attackers were Saudis, the CIA contrived to blame Hussein’s Iraq and Blair contrived to find ‘the dodgy ( fake ) dossier’ alleging evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. The Anglo American elite and dopey followers are cheer leaders for the idea that conspiracy theorists are nut cases to be ignored. So the weapons inspector Dr David Kelly , who rubbished the dodgy dossier, died from an apparent suicide. Michael More’s ‘Stupid White Men ‘ expose also faced a ban by publisher Rupert Murdoch.

So the second war on Iraq created that power vacuum and a heyday for Anglo U.S arms manufacturers. The human cost on all sides was just collateral damage and Gulf War syndrome a myth. This was becoming Vietnam on steroids and all in the name of democracy. Libya went next , then the circus rolled on to Syria.

So yesterday , Biden launched his first presidential attack on Iranian forces who were helping Syrian legal government to fight and repel U.S covertly backed ISIS forces who are undermining the country and creating chaos and misery – because the Anglo – U.S elite want to control the oil and fear Russian rivalry. As we see with their attitude to Europe’s Nordstream II , in an increaasingly over populated propaganda ruled double speak world of fake news and fake democracy , energy – or lack of it – is power in more ways than one. So yesterday a Biden’s lackey said to the nation :

“The operation sends an unambiguous message: President Biden will act to protect American coalition personnel,” Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said in a statement. Iran-backed militias have targeted U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria for years, most recently in a rocket attack on the northern Iraqi city of Erbil last week that wounded four American contractors and one military service member. 

The strikes destroyed multiple facilities at a border control point in al Bukamal, Syria, used by a number of Iranian-backed militant groups, including Kataib Hezbollah and Kataib Sayyid al Shuhada, according to Kirby.

There were 22 people were killed in the strikes, which it said had hit three trucks carrying munitions from Iraq into Syria. All of those killed were believed to have been members of the Iran-backed militias, the majority of them from Kataib Hezbollah, according to official sources.. The death toll was likely to rise as some of the wounded were in serious condition. The Biden team said this was a signal to the Iranians.

As a footnote, I repeat that I get very annoyed and must show my contempt for pseudo intellectual white liberal academics who want the world to know how nice they are, by lying that Muslims and Jews are a race. They are not. Universities are no longer truth seeking institutions. They have become jsut another vested interest. Perpetuating the racial myth and teh sanctity of what should be outdated belief systems, prolongs and worsens conflict to an extent that bodes possible Armageddon.

A major part of the problematic Anglo U.S interest in the Middle East is the powerful distortion of Jewish media , financial and politcal influence, particularly in the United States. The Jews have , understandably , not gotten over the Nazis. Anyone who threatens them invites that label – NAZI. They are widely seen as victims. However , their expansionism and the blind faith of so many Muslims and Jews, is an inherent source of conflict easily manipulated by the meally mouthed careerists wealth & power crazed people with the weapons .

CNN View on Biden Fenruary 26th 2021

Unlike his most recent predecessors — night owls who spent the dark hours reading briefing materials (President Barack Obama) or watching television (President Donald Trump) — Biden is more of an early-to-bed type. He has continued a tradition of reading letters from Americans, a handful of which are tucked into the briefing materials he brings home in the evenings. Recently they have focused on the pandemic; Biden has also spoken by video conference with business owners and laid-off workers weathering the economic crisis.Biden spent ample time at the White House as vice president, navigating West Wing hallways and administration politics for eight years as Obama’s No. 2. He has spent more time working in Washington than any president in decades. His adjustment period inside the executive mansion has been minimal. “It feels like I am going home,” he said as he entered the White House on Inauguration Day. Though he had never lived in the building previously, it was a return of sorts for a man who has wanted to reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for years.He has found his old stomping grounds familiar, dropping into his onetime office in the West Wing one day last week to show his new vice president the place on the window where his wife wrote him a Valentine’s Day greeting in 2009.He’s made surprise visits to other offices in the building as well, asking staffers what they are working on or consulting them on specific questions related to his Covid-19 relief plan.He wasted little time showing off his new digs to his old colleagues in the Senate, inviting nearly a quarter of all senators to the Oval Office over his first three weeks on the job for talks on his Covid-19 relief plan and a new infrastructure package.And he hasn’t been put off by the pack of reporters who track his every move. He’s shown more willingness to answer shouted questions than Obama was, weighing in on his predecessor’s impeachment trial even as the White House insisted he was focused on other things.The President’s Daily Brief, a highly classified update on the country’s top intelligence, is back to a daily occurrence after happening only sporadically under Trump. Joined in the Oval Office by Vice President Kamala Harris — who has used an iPad to receive the briefing, like Obama — Biden is run through the update by a range of intelligence professionals.He has expressed a preference for a fire built in the Oval Office fireplace, and sometimes adds a log himself to keep it going. His dogs, two German Shepherds called Major and Champ, sometimes join him.

Structure and routine

U.S. President Joe Biden prepares to sign a series of executive orders at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office just hours after his inauguration on January 20, 2021.His days are more structured than Trump’s, whose aides began blocking out large chunks of “executive time” to accommodate his television viewing and telephone calls. Biden’s meetings are more routine, though they often run longer than planned. The door to the Oval Office is not considered open to just anyone, as it sometimes was under Trump.Meetings among staffers, which begin before 8 a.m. ET every weekday, are a combination of in-person and video conference while the West Wing remains sparsely staffed due to Covid-19 precautions. In the waning days of the Trump administration, which did not make much use of video-conferencing during the pandemic, cameras were installed on desktops for the incoming team.When Biden cannot meet an official or Cabinet secretary in-person, a large screen is wheeled into the Oval Office for the individual to participate, as Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg did this week for a session on infrastructure. Buttigieg was in isolation after one of his security agents tested positive for coronavirus. His face loomed on the screen in front of the Resolute Desk.The screen has also been used to display charts and data tracking the coronavirus pandemic during briefings with federal health officials.On weekends, Biden has kept to his routine of attending public mass, in Washington at the Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Georgetown and at his home parish in Delaware — occasions that aides say allow him to blend back into normal life, at least for an hour. After one outing, he stopped by a bagel shop; officials expect he and the first lady will be more frequent patrons of Washington’s restaurants once the pandemic is over.More so than any recent first couple, Joe and Jill Biden have demonstrated a publicly affectionate relationship, one that extends to private moments spent together in the White House residence. For the first time in decades, there are no children residing in the building, leaving the 55,000 square-foot mansion to the two of them. Jill Biden recently saw the President off with a kiss before his first flight aboard Marine One.The President traveled to Camp David for the first time since taking office on Presidents Day weekend — but even the mountainside retreat was familiar after many trips there as vice president.Biden said before leaving he planned to “just hang out with the family and do what we always do,” which included playing Mario Kart at the arcade inside one of the lodges with his granddaughters, who bought him a hat emblazoned with the presidential seal and embroidered with their name for him: Pop. Still, even for someone well acquainted with presidential life, there are some upgrades that come with the top job.”It’s the same plane we had as vice president, only it’s much nicer in terms of what the inside is,” Biden said after his first Air Force One ride, which was aboard a smaller jet than the main presidential aircraft because of the shorter runway in Delaware.He will have his first chance to ride the iconic Air Force One, a military version of a Boeing 747, on Tuesday when he travels to Milwaukee for a CNN town hall — his first public event out in the country since taking office. Even Biden will likely set aside his newspapers to relish that moment.

Unlike his most recent predecessors — night owls who spent the dark hours reading briefing materials (President Barack Obama) or watching television (President Donald Trump) — Biden is more of an early-to-bed type. He has continued a tradition of reading letters from Americans, a handful of which are tucked into the briefing materials he brings home in the evenings. Recently they have focused on the pandemic; Biden has also spoken by video conference with business owners and laid-off workers weathering the economic crisis.Biden spent ample time at the White House as vice president, navigating West Wing hallways and administration politics for eight years as Obama’s No. 2. He has spent more time working in Washington than any president in decades. His adjustment period inside the executive mansion has been minimal. “It feels like I am going home,” he said as he entered the White House on Inauguration Day. Though he had never lived in the building previously, it was a return of sorts for a man who has wanted to reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for years.He has found his old stomping grounds familiar, dropping into his onetime office in the West Wing one day last week to show his new vice president the place on the window where his wife wrote him a Valentine’s Day greeting in 2009.He’s made surprise visits to other offices in the building as well, asking staffers what they are working on or consulting them on specific questions related to his Covid-19 relief plan.He wasted little time showing off his new digs to his old colleagues in the Senate, inviting nearly a quarter of all senators to the Oval Office over his first three weeks on the job for talks on his Covid-19 relief plan and a new infrastructure package.And he hasn’t been put off by the pack of reporters who track his every move. He’s shown more willingness to answer shouted questions than Obama was, weighing in on his predecessor’s impeachment trial even as the White House insisted he was focused on other things.The President’s Daily Brief, a highly classified update on the country’s top intelligence, is back to a daily occurrence after happening only sporadically under Trump. Joined in the Oval Office by Vice President Kamala Harris — who has used an iPad to receive the briefing, like Obama — Biden is run through the update by a range of intelligence professionals.He has expressed a preference for a fire built in the Oval Office fireplace, and sometimes adds a log himself to keep it going. His dogs, two German Shepherds called Major and Champ, sometimes join him.

Structure and routine -sleepy Joe

U.S. President Joe Biden prepares to sign a series of executive orders at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office just hours after his inauguration on January 20, 2021.His days are more structured than Trump’s, whose aides began blocking out large chunks of “executive time” to accommodate his television viewing and telephone calls. Biden’s meetings are more routine, though they often run longer than planned. The door to the Oval Office is not considered open to just anyone, as it sometimes was under Trump.Meetings among staffers, which begin before 8 a.m. ET every weekday, are a combination of in-person and video conference while the West Wing remains sparsely staffed due to Covid-19 precautions. In the waning days of the Trump administration, which did not make much use of video-conferencing during the pandemic, cameras were installed on desktops for the incoming team.When Biden cannot meet an official or Cabinet secretary in-person, a large screen is wheeled into the Oval Office for the individual to participate, as Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg did this week for a session on infrastructure. Buttigieg was in isolation after one of his security agents tested positive for coronavirus. His face loomed on the screen in front of the Resolute Desk.The screen has also been used to display charts and data tracking the coronavirus pandemic during briefings with federal health officials.On weekends, Biden has kept to his routine of attending public mass, in Washington at the Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Georgetown and at his home parish in Delaware — occasions that aides say allow him to blend back into normal life, at least for an hour. After one outing, he stopped by a bagel shop; officials expect he and the first lady will be more frequent patrons of Washington’s restaurants once the pandemic is over.More so than any recent first couple, Joe and Jill Biden have demonstrated a publicly affectionate relationship, one that extends to private moments spent together in the White House residence. For the first time in decades, there are no children residing in the building, leaving the 55,000 square-foot mansion to the two of them. Jill Biden recently saw the President off with a kiss before his first flight aboard Marine One.The President traveled to Camp David for the first time since taking office on Presidents Day weekend — but even the mountainside retreat was familiar after many trips there as vice president.Biden said before leaving he planned to “just hang out with the family and do what we always do,” which included playing Mario Kart at the arcade inside one of the lodges with his granddaughters, who bought him a hat emblazoned with the presidential seal and embroidered with their name for him: Pop. Still, even for someone well acquainted with presidential life, there are some upgrades that come with the top job.”It’s the same plane we had as vice president, only it’s much nicer in terms of what the inside is,” Biden said after his first Air Force One ride, which was aboard a smaller jet than the main presidential aircraft because of the shorter runway in Delaware.He will have his first chance to ride the iconic Air Force One, a military version of a Boeing 747, on Tuesday when he travels to Milwaukee for a CNN town hall — his first public event out in the country since taking office. Even Biden will likely set aside his newspapers to relish that moment.

Comment The self interest of the elite attacking on the Syrian border is another contribution to the Middle Eastern chaos , morder and confusion in the name of liberty. As for Biden’s love of structure and routine , he is at one with the Nazis on that one. See where Covid lockdown and jabs (I have had my jab even though it is obviously pointless for my health ) come into the picture ?

R.J Cook

Ex-Capitol Police Chief: Intel Indicated Antifa, Proud Boys, Other Groups Would Join on Jan. 6

By Jack Phillips February 23, 2021 Updated: February 24, 2021 biggersmallerPrint

Former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund said that a pre-Jan. 6 intelligence assessment suggested that Antifa, Proud Boys, and extremist groups would partake in the Jan. 6 event in Washington.

“The assessment indicated that members of the Proud Boys, white supremacist groups, Antifa, and other extremist groups were expected to participate in the January 6th event and that they may be inclined to become violent,” Sund said in a written statement (pdf) to the Senate.

It added that an “intelligence assessment indicated that the January 6th protests/rallies were ‘expected to be similar to the previous Million MAGA March rallies in November and December 2020, which drew tens of thousands of participants,” adding that faulty intelligence was to blame for the outmanned Capitol defenders’ failure to anticipate the riots.

Accused Capitol rioter John Sullivan, a self-styled Antifa activist, was arrested and charged in connection with the breach. Sullivan previously told The Epoch Times that he’s apolitical but has told other news outlets that he is Antifa or anti-fascist. Antifa is a far-left, anarcho-communist network that has engaged in violence across the country in recent years. Sullivan has also been linked to the Black Lives Matter movement, though he’s been disavowed by the leader of Black Lives Matter Utah.

Sund and other officials attempted to blame various federal agencies—and each other—for their failure to defend the building as demonstrators overwhelmed security barriers, broke windows and doors, and sent lawmakers fleeing from the House and Senate chambers.

But Sund told senators on Tuesday that the incident wasn’t his agency’s fault.

“No single civilian law enforcement agency—and certainly not the USCP—is trained and equipped to repel, without significant military or other law enforcement assistance, an insurrection of thousands of armed, violent, and coordinated individuals focused on breaching a building at all costs,” he testified.

And he argued that the incident was “coordinated,” adding that some rioters had “climbing gear.”

“I’m able to provide you a quick overview of why I think it was a coordinated attack. One, people came specifically with equipment. You’re bringing in climbing gear to a demonstration. You’re bringing in explosives. You’re bringing in chemical spray … you’re coming prepared,” Sund told the senators.

“The fact that the group that attacked our west front [did so] approximately 20 minutes before [former President Trump’s rally] ended, which means that they were planning on our agency not being at what they call ‘full strength,’” Sund added. He noted that alleged pipe bombs found near the Republican and Democratic party headquarters in the District of Columbia were likely used to distract officers from being deployed at the Capitol building.

Acting D.C. Metropolitan Police Department chief Robert Contee III told the Senate panel that rioters were using radio communication and hand signals.

A second hearing, expected next week, will examine the response of the Defense Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and the FBI.

The panels may also hold closed-door interviews. Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), the top Republican on the Senate Rules Committee, said they might want to ask for phone records to clear up some of the discrepancies between officials.

The Associated Press and Zack Stieber contributed to this report.

Hidden Agenda ? I think so. R.J Cook February 24th 2021

This is more drivel below, from John Mathis in the anti Trump ‘The Week’ magazine ( Founded by a Tory Brit, Jolyon Connell ). These people are all the same, churning out all the misleading scare mongering. Fact is very few people have died from just Covid 19 – hence Covid related/with deaths- and the BAME have some serious health and life style issues including obesity and drug abuse. Us old folk should accept we are close to death. Wrecking societies and young non BAME lives with unending lockdowns are either a sign of idiocy , or hidden agenda including social control, global reset and enriching the profiteering parasitic global elite :

More than 500,000 Americans have died from COVID-19.

That is a half-million people who leave behind family, friends, and other loved ones haunted by grief and guilt. But the number doesn’t quite capture the scope of the damage done — the survivors who lived through the disease but whose health has never fully returned, the young students whose education has been compromised, the shuttered businesses and employed workers who struggle to keep their homes, the widespread loneliness and isolation caused by the need for social distancing.

Survivors of the pandemic are a devastated generation, to be forever marked by the experience.

Trump will be blamed for the next four years. February 23rd 2021

It is almost funny now Trump is acquited they are after him for taxes. The same does not apply to all the Bidens’ dodgy dealings in Ukraine and other places. Biden was saint Obama’s number two now he is chief saint with Harris his apparent understudy in a newly United States, according to his latest bulls-it.

Protests are becoming the norm , but Biden is looking to revive ‘family life’ to unify the people. I am afraid greedy power crazed feminism and the anti racist brigade have undermined the whites and blacks respectively – with the weapons of blame in the first case and too many excuses in the latter case,

Biden is either a fool , knave or a very big liar. The United States is riven with conflict and there is a clear elite orchestrated campaign to target , rubbish , isolate , criminalise , humilate and ostracise Trump’s core supporters. The elite and media were out to ensure that Trump did not win a second term. Now its about making sure he has criminal record to bar him from office. What citizens should be very aware of is that Biden and his accomplices are ignoring social and economic reality.

BLM is a monster created by the elite , ostensibly starting out to expose police corruption and brutality , now all about attacking the credibility and worthiness of ‘privilege white males . who voted for Trump.’ Class is deliberately never mentioned.

I fear the result will become an ever more controlling police state as the economy and rich are threatened by Chinese economic growth. The Anglo U.S alliance loves war and are crazy enough to start one with Russia and China. Whites are having fewer babies so Biden and the U.K intend to stock up on Islamic and African migrants because they doesn’t want anyone one else to have them. The hapless blacks actually believe Biden and Co care about them. They expect us to accept this as a contribution to ‘our wonderful multi culture.’ R.J Cook

Everything is bigger in the U.S.A and should , therefore should be more obvious than it is in insidious Perfidious Albion – but it doesn’t seem to be the case. February 23rd 2021

They will never leave Trump alone until they feel his humiliation and political defeat is absolute because they have too much to lose and even more to gain – by they, I mean the elite and media laughing hyenas. Equally, there will be no scrutiny of the Bidens, Pelosi et al. So we have the following AP report :

” US Supreme Court won’t halt turnover of Trump’s tax records; Security officials to answer for Jan. 6 failures in Capitol siege

In a significant, substantial defeat for Donald Trump, the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to step in to halt the turnover of his tax records to a New York state prosecutor.

The court’s action was the apparent culmination of a lengthy legal battle that had already reached the high court once before, Jessica Gresko reports.

Trump’s tax records are not supposed to become public as part of prosecutors’ criminal investigation.

But the high court’s action is a blow to Trump because he has long fought to keep his tax records shielded. The ongoing investigation that the records are part of could also become an issue for Trump in his life after the presidency. He has called the probe a “fishing expedition” and “witch hunt.”

Trump’s Legal Troubles: Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. fought for a year and a half to get access to Trump’s tax records. Now he will soon have them. But what will that mean for the investigation into Trump’s business affairs? Former prosecutors say the trove of records could give investigators new tools to determine whether Trump lied to lenders or tax officials, Jim Mustian and David B. Caruso report. 

Capitol Breach: Congress is set to hear from former security officials about what went wrong at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 when a violent mob laid siege to the seat of U.S. democracy and interrupted the counting of electoral votes. Three of the four testifying today resigned under pressure immediately after the attack, including the former head of the Capitol Police. Much is still unknown about the attack and lawmakers are demanding answers, Mary Clare Jalonick reports.”

Meanwhile, the U.S vaccine progarmme continues to fail while Trump takes the blame. Biden takes the opportunity to talk of uniting the country but has no ideas about sorting out the profiteering infrastructure which failed so many in Texas.

He and his eager entourage want to fix the conversation on BLM, white guilt and women’s rights while the house continues to burn. If there was any serious interest in equality they would be looking at income inequality , slave wages , implications of open door immigration favouring Muslims , short if any holidays and unemployment made worse by the million through the Covid 19.

If Biden cared about poverty he would be sending aid to Latin America , not promoting conspiracies to back dicatators and other foreign wars at the poor tax payer’s expense. Still the elite and their media lackeys love him and his ‘team.’ To put Biden’s Covid posturing in perspective , the number of dead ‘with Covid ‘ is less than 2% of all confirmed Covid cases.

For that , like their idiotic European dictators, they shut down the country plunging the masses into hell on earth. But their glabal economy and open door immigration policies make them richer and that is all they care about. Biden and his team will use Trump and the white working classes as scapegoats for the next 4 years and the U.S masses will pay for the next 30 years . R.J Cook

Just Sheep On Dreaming by R.J Cook February 22nd 2021

People who think Biden is the answer to their prayers obviously can’t actually think. Studies have shown that the idea of free will is nonsense. With enough data , the elite can predict and control most if not all of us- as compliance with lunatic lockdown attests. Fear is the elite’s weapon of choice , followed by the baton , taser and gun , not necessarily in that order.

The following four images tell the story of power outages in Texas, following a massive snow storm which weather forecasters predicted. Fact is that the infratructure did not allow for freak weather, so everything froze up, including natiral gas and the wind farms. The untilities in what 1960s economist J.K Gailbraith called a world pf ‘private wealth and public squalor’ don’t have to pay compensation and can actually demand more from customers. The State’s impoversihed trailer park communities were hardest hit apart from the rising number of Covid lockdown related homeless.

Trump was not in a position to do anthing about the U.S’s ailing infrastructure. Now that massive numbers are moving from the old Third World to North America, welcomed and encouraged as an act of liberalism by Biden et al , the problems will ge worse. Africa and Islamic countries will continue to generate massive poverty disease and overpopulation because it would be racist to discourage them. So , the U.S and European underclass will be epected to make room for them – so will Russia just as soon as the Anglo U.S conspiracy for regime change holds favour.

On a micro management level , it is essential to permeate popular allegedy radical rebel comedy and drama with subliminal political correctness. This menatlity has now arrived in South Park. The pregnant woman in the scene below is college vice principal and is about to give birth to the PC quins. Afterwards , her ‘he for she ‘ Principal’ husband helps her get fit for the strong woman competition. There she is interviewed on TV about her main rival, a lady called Heather who is transsexual. She deems it an honour to have trans people on board, until she sees a large heavily muscled bearded black man who had identifed as a woman two weeks earlier.

Turns out (s)he is the vice principal’s ex boyfriend who hates her and all women after being dumped. Heather is ultimately humiliated at board games by girls who have proved themselves superior to the boys in that field. The message is clear, transsexuals are weird woman haters and even get angry when superior little girls beat them and the boys at board games. The verdict is that the vice principal is indeed a ‘strong woman’ even though Heather beat her.

But this kind of thing doesn’t go far enough because the real problem is the whites per se. South Park had a go at them as well. Now it’s Coca Cola’s turn. They have launched a campaign teaching their employees to be less white. Top of the list is the assertion that to be ‘less white’ these prvileged people must be less assertive and less oppressive.

The elite , with media, police and educationalist lackeys raise questions they never find the evidence to answer. It is all about assertons. They have the answers before they ask the questions. Their attitude to transgender is an easy exmple. Elitist critics didn’t like my argument that if boys are messed up and made to feel inferior as boys, then they may well choose the sex change option. My novel ‘Man. Maid, Woman’ went down very badly. I even had a Thames Valley Police Inspector visiting and demanding a copy to read and have others read. All of this herding us into pens , lockdowns and language control in the name of freedom should disturb people , but it won’t be allowed to, People are just sheep. R.J Cook

Joe Biden is already breaking his promise to end the US’ ‘forever wars’ in the Middle East Posted February 20th 2021

19 Feb, 2021

U.S. President Biden takes part in Munich Security Conference virtual event from the White House in Washington © Reuters

Follow RT on

By Robert Inlakesh, a political analyst, journalist, and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the occupied Palestinian territories and currently works with Quds News and Press TV. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’. Follow him on Twitter @falasteen47 Prior to his inauguration, President Joe Biden had proclaimed that he wished to end the “forever wars” the US is fighting, just as former president Trump had claimed he would. But once you’re in office, it’s a different story.

NATO has decided to expand its footprint in Iraq, following a rocket attack in the city of Erbil that killed one American contractor and injured six more people. This, as the US State Department has threatened consequences for all those involved.

NATO announced this Thursday that it will boost its Iraq mission from 500 to 4,000 personnel, which, Pentagon spokesperson Jessica McNulty confirmed in an interview with CNN, will mean the US “will contribute its fair share to this important expanded mission” – a clear indication that Biden is ready to continue his career along the warpath. The United States currently has 2,500 troops active in Iraq, following the former Trump administration’s decision to lower troop presence – a policy the Biden administration is now poised to undo. Also on rt.com Palestinian elections may be doomed to fail if US and Israel interfere again

When in doubt, blame Iran

Despite the fact there has been no confirmation as to who exactly carried out the recent Erbil rocket attack, the US State Department has vowed a response against those involved. The group that claimed the attack, Saraya Awliya Al-Dam, has since been linked by the Western press to Iran. The likes of CNN have even called the group an “Iranian-backed militia”, for which the network provided no evidence and which is a potentially dangerous assertion, as many Americans will have been given the impression that Iran was somehow responsible. Iran has since denied any involvement in the Erbil attack and says it has never backed the Saraya Awliya Al-Dam militia group. 

Following Trump’s ‘targeted assassination’ of Iranian Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units (PMUs) Chairman Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis in January 2020, the Iraqi parliament had voted to expel US forces from the country. Although the expulsion never occurred, US forces did begin to close down military facilities in the east of Iraq and concentrated their troop presence further to the west, in Anbar Province. 

The United States invaded Iraq under the pretence of dispossessing former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein of his non-existent “weapons of mass destruction”. Now, almost 17 years and over a million dead Iraqis later, the war is close to the age that is required for enlistment to serve in the US military. Also on rt.com US designation of Houthis as terrorists harms Saudi Arabia, not Iran & will only cause more suffering for Yemen

Breeding terrorism

While the US footprint seemingly expands in Iraq, Biden is also set to make his decision on whether he will follow the previous administration’s deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan and withdraw the remaining 2,500 troops, or stay in that 20-year-long war. He has until May 1 to do the former or face the backlash of breaking the Trump-era accord. 

The common argument used for staying in Afghanistan is similar to the argument for remaining in Iraq. The US will argue, with the full complicity of its media, that there will be a bloodbath if they leave, due to militant groups gaining the upper hand. But when it comes to the US and its involvement in these wars, the problems in both Iraq and Afghanistan were created almost entirely by its presence.

In the case of Iraq, there had not been a single suicide bombing and no Islamic terrorist organisations, such as al-Qaeda, had operated in the country before the overthrew of Saddam Hussein. 

As for Iranian influence in Iraq, the reason why this was even possible was due to the US having destroyed the country and left space for foreign groups and nations to intervene. The Iranian influence in Iraq, specifically through the aforementioned PMUs (that is, the state-sponsored umbrella organisation for militias), came as a response to Islamic State’s (IS, formerly ISIS) insurgency and occupation of Iraqi lands. Iran stepped in to help build the primary force that defeated IS on the ground inside Iraq. However, despite the fact that the PMUs are part of the Iraqi armed forces, they are portrayed simply as an Iranian proxy group akin to terrorist organisations hostile to US forces. Also on rt.com With Biden policy moves looming, Jewish National Fund to openly buy West Bank land, ACCELERATE EXPANSION of settlements – report

Black Marks by R.J Cook February 16th 2021

The U.S Democratic Party’s challenge against former President Donald Trump started before he was elected. The Russian agent thing was a sideshow. The focus of attack was on labelling him a racist , sexist and sex offender , aiming at the lowest common demoninator of the average U.S elector for whom their basic emotion is contempt.

So here we are in the age of Creepy Jo Biden , the man in the mask and the shades. Much is expected from him , by women , blacks and those funny people who call themselves humanitarians but will be lined up ready to back more wars in the Middle East , and who dream of war and regime change on a much bigger canvas.

Those people are seen as the Democrat’s ever growing power base, with Trumps people a dying breed who will die all the faster from Democrat policies. The Democrats are on thin ice with blacks , however, with recent street violence clearly not based on a coherent political philosophy or grasp of the bigger picture . They are like puppets dancing on the streets , wrecking , looting , prancing and shouting apparently oblivious of the string pullers. Democrats also rely on brain washing the flow of Latin Amercans they are welcoming , into seeing themselves as more people of colour to share the anti Republican resentments they are fostering among the blacks.

The reality is that the Latinos are Caucasians whose major difference and weakness compared to their fellow U.S whites, is Caholicism stemming from history and having fed on poverty and ignorance – because there is no God. God has worked well in getting people to ignore the real inequality stemming from the ruthless string pulling obstacle course setting hideously rich mocking elite. Things could change. The Republicans missed a trick in 2016 , not choosing Jeb Bush, fluent Spanish speaker and husband of a Latino , instead of Trump. They will see the light. Trump will not return for the Republicans.

So the absurd second attempt to impeach Trump has failed but Biden and his inner circle say there must be an inquiry into why it failed , but no inquiry into an obviously rigged 2020 election along with a massive Anglo U.S media campaign to malign and label Trump. The democracy these Democrat people talk of is obviously the German Democratic model with Stassi enforcers.

So , years of improvement in race relations have been exposed as a sham it seems. Same goes for aprent country U.K. In both places the wealthy , who promoted and exploited racism have turned on the white masses whose unemployment and redundancy as workers and human beings has gone off the scale. In both leader western countries , scapegoating white working classes , breaking up the old family structures using feminism and doemstioc violence hysteria , has amde white lower class people ever more vulnerable. The health and mortality consequences of all this don’t matter. Covid’ s causes and the odd lockdown response raises many questions that will never get an honest answer. Clearly protecting vulneraable BAME and covering up an appalling and hideously expensive health care system is a priority in the U.K , while pretending to care about the elderly whites.

The elite’s response is window dressing like choosing a black actress to play domestic abuse and violence victimQueen Ann Boleyn , of Aylsebury. It is truly frightening that so many people accept the argument taht this is challenging convention. it is not a convention to portray Ann Boleyn as white because she was.

The convention we should be challenging is the one that portrays the British Royal family as nice God fearing people. But the truth about them is very unpalatable. Black is a good colour for cover ups because it absorbs all light. Conventions about Afrrica;s vile leadership pre during and post empire should be exposed , but they won’t be. That is a because it is a convention to cover it up and is why Africa is such a terrible continent today. The vile black dictators are still there , abusing their ‘fellow blacks.’

This female reporter was attacked by so called black protesters who shouted out ‘She is a Trump supporter.’ She refused to stop filming and photographing , so paid the price to young BLM ‘peaceful protesters.’

Betsy said : ‘The choice is simple. Carry on like this and the only people you will have left will be the criminals , so you will have to get on with them.’

Ms Omar addressing adoring crowds , telling them that she could not support funding the police as long as they were so violent and racists to people of colour. I have given her the last word here , because the future is black down here on the ground. The elite will , whatever , expect to go on living as with the Ancient Greeks. half way up Mount Olympus , feared , obeyed and out of sight.

Trump Impeachment Decision Angers Elite & Their ‘Liberal’ Left ( Sic ) media. Posted February 14th 2021

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Impeachment February 11th 2021

Chilling video footage becomes key exhibit in Trump impeachment trial; Georgia prosecutor opens criminal investigation after Trump election call

It was raw and visceral. And it un-mistakenly brought home just how much worse last month’s deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol could have been.

Chilling video footage presented by the prosecution, including of rioters searching menacingly for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Mike Pence, is a key exhibit in Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, Lisa Mascaro, Eric Tucker, Mary Clare Jalonick and Jill Colvin report. 

Lawmakers prosecuting the case in the Senate aim to prove that Trump bears singular responsibility for the siege.

The footage shown at trial, much of it never before seen, has included video of the mob smashing into the building, distraught members of Congress receiving comfort, rioters engaging in hand-to-hand combat with police and audio of Capitol police officers pleading for back-up.

It underscored how dangerously close the rioters came to the nation’s leaders, shifting the focus of the trial from an academic debate about the Constitution to a raw retelling of the Jan. 6 assault.

Today brings the second and final full day of House prosecution arguments, with the Trump legal team taking the lectern Friday and Saturday for up to 16 hours to lay out their defense.

Trial Highlights: Harrowing footage, focus on Trump’s words on Day 2, captured by Jill Colvin.

VIDEO: Trump trial video unveils chilling scope of US Capitol riot. 

The Scene: Senators in both parties were stoic and rapt as they relived the horror, watching almost 90 minutes of terror unfold on large screens near their desks. If any senators had tried not to look at images of the Jan. 6 siege on the Capitol, or to bury their memories after they fled a violent mob of Trump supporters that day, they were not able to do so any longer. Senators braced themselves in their chairs, leaned forward over their desks and stayed absolutely silent — impartial jurors but also witnesses to the violence, Mary Clare Jalonick writes.  

VIDEO: Senators stunned by new footage of Capitol siege.

Biden Keeps His Own Counsel: Did someone say impeachment? President Joe Biden has avoided wading into the debate. Biden has said he wouldn’t watch the trial and was leaving it up to the Senate to decide whether to convict Trump. White House press secretary Jen Psaki has dodged question after question about the trial. The message reflects the political and practical realities of the moment. White House aides privately note that the president doesn’t gain much from weighing in. And they say staying above the fray allows him to focus on his national COVID-19 plan, Jonathan Lemire and Alexandra Jaffe report. 

Trump’s Lawyers: Trump has employed high-powered litigators for decades, but since losing the election to Biden, he’s been bleeding attorneys. More established firms have backed away from his baseless claims of election fraud, leaving him with legal teams that repeatedly made elementary errors in cases that were quickly rejected. His personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, was ridiculed for his performance before a federal judge during one election case. By the time Trump’s second impeachment trial rolled around, he was looking far outside the top law firms that typically would represent an ex-president. Alanna Durkin Richer, Nomaan Merchant and Colleen Long report.

Georgia Election Investigation: A Georgia prosecutor’s office has opened a criminal investigation into “attempts to influence” the outcome of last year’s general election. Officials did not mention Donald Trump by name, but a spokesman said that is part of it. Trump has come under intense criticism for a call he made to the state’s top elections official last month. Trump pressed Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the state, Kate Brumback reports.  

More Grass For The Cows & Sheep To Feed On From ‘The We(a)ek’ magazine Posted February 10th 2021

Trump’s dumbfounding defense

Matthew Walther Illustrated | iStock, REUTERS February 9, 2021 Sign Up for Our free email newsletters 10 things you need to know today Today’s best articles Today’s top cartoons The good news newsletter The week’s best photojournalism Daily business briefing Daily gossip newsletter Parenting newsletter Solving COVID newsletter

Like any honest observer, I found the Democrats’ opening presentation in Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial on Tuesday mawkish: groan-inducing paeans to the Founding Fathers and “our democracy,” montages with over-the-top captions, decontextualized references to Warren Hastings and goodness knows who else. More than anything else, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) gave the false impression that presidential impeachment is a well-understood process, comparable to a legislative veto or a judicial confirmation, rather than a highly speculative matter about which, almost by definition, it is impossible to make sweeping arguments.

Fortunately for the Democrats, no description could possibly do justice to the stupidity of the response by Trump’s lawyers. Bruce Castor asked whether “we still know what records are.” He quoted Alexander Hamilton. He dismissed the idea that the British constitution should be of any interest to those attempting to make sense of the American founding. He said: “This trial is not about trading liberty for security. It is about suggesting that it is a good idea that we give up those liberties that we have long fought for.” He appeared on more than one occasion to be under the impression that he was there to defend the First Amendment rights of the January 6 protesters. He seemed to quote directly from the track changes feature on Google Docs: “The floodgates will open. I was going to say ‘release the whirlwind’ which is from a Biblical reference but when I got here I discovered that phrase was already taken, so I changed it to floodgates.” He opined that “Nebraska is quite the judicial thinking place.”

So much for the opening act. The main event from David Schoen was a rant about “cancel culture.” He screamed about due process and insisted that his client, who has refused to take part in the proceedings, deserved the right to be there. He contradicted his partner by invoking the rights of accused persons in the British legal tradition. He used the phrase “insatiable lust.” He insisted that by speeding up the trial process, Democrats were violating some deep but unwritten principles of the same common law that are supposed to be irrelevant here, albeit without noting that the timeline was accelerated with the cooperation of the Senate Republicans who will be voting to acquit Trump. He ended with a poem by Longfellow.

There is a real sense in which none of this matters, of course. Trump’s acquittal in a few days’ time is not remotely in doubt. The opening statements for both sides are rhetorical gestures that are not even ostensibly meant to persuade Senate jurors to vote for or against conviction. Advertisement

Still, I have no idea what Castor and Schoen were doing Tuesday afternoon. Trump would have been better served having the My Pillow guy give a two-hour infomercial or having Ted Nugent perform “Wang Dang Sweet Poontang” live on the Senate floor. While I have come around to the view that the Constitution allows non-seated politicians to be subject to impeachment proceedings and that removal from office and disqualification are distinct penalties, the opposite argument is equally respectable. Any number of qualified lawyers could have made it on behalf of the former president.

Tuesday was a reminder of one of the great themes of Trump’s tenure in office: his anti-talent for choosing advisers and associates. No president of modern times has been so indifferent to questions about staffing and personnel. Instead of talented lawyers making an intelligent, constitutionally plausible case against the proceedings, Trump hired two flunkies who made the “Stop the Steal” dream team of Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell look like Johnny Cochran and Carl Douglas.

Trump’s 2nd impeachment trial starting: ‘Grievous constitutional crime’ or just ‘political theater?’; AP-NORC poll: Few in US say democracy is working very well

From Associated PressThe Rundown

AP PHOTO/ANDREW HARNIK

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Accountability and conviction for the ”most grievous constitutional crime” or a trial staged for ”political theater?”

The prosecution and defense will set forth their arguments this week in Donald Trump’s historic second impeachment trial in the Senate, an undertaking like no other in U.S. history, report Lisa Mascaro, Eric Tucker, Mary Clare Jalonick and Jill Colvin.

The defeated one-term president is charged by the House with inciting the violent mob attack on the U.S. Capitol to overturn the election.

Trump’s lawyers insist as the trial opens today that he is not guilty on the sole charge of “incitement of insurrection,” that his fiery words were just a figure of speech, even as he encouraged a rally crowd to “fight like hell” for his presidency.

The Capitol siege on Jan. 6 stunned the world as rioters stormed the building to try to stop the certification of then-President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.

With senators gathered as the court of impeachment, the trial begins today with a debate and vote on whether it’s constitutionally permissible to prosecute the former president, an argument that could resonate with Republicans keen on voting to acquit Trump without being seen as condoning his behavior. 

Under an agreement between Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Republican leader Mitch McConnell, the opening arguments start at noon Wednesday, with up to 16 hours per side.

You can follow all the latest developments in the trial here.

EXPLAINER: What’s ahead as Trump’s impeachment trial begins.

What to watch as the trial kicks off: The cases made by the prosecution and defense as well as other key players. 

Democracy Poll: Only a fragment of Americans believe democracy is thriving in the U.S., even as broad majorities agree that representative government is one of the country’s bedrock principles. That’s according to a new poll from The AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Just 16% of Americans say democracy is working well or extremely well, a pessimism that spans the political spectrum. Nearly half of Americans, 45%, think democracy isn’t functioning properly, while another 38% say it’s working only somewhat well. Steven Sloan and Thomas Beaumont report. 

VIDEO: AP-NORC Poll finds few in US say democracy is thriving.

Authoritarianism , a moot point.

This is a brief comment on the following , from the neo ‘liberal’ ‘The Week’ magazine. I have highlighted the key paragraph. This in an age when if a liberal meets an impossible argument, then they shut down the conversation.

So called liberals label everyone authoritarian except themselves , moralising from comfortable positions of class , race and gender. This is very much the age of ‘pots calling kettles black.’

The reality and motives for obvious election fraud and media interference are ignored if not totally buried by self interested mainstream media.

R.J Cook

What’s the point of Trump’s second impeachment trial? Posted February 8th 2021

Joel Mathis Illustrated | Getty Images, iStock February 8, 2021 Sign Up for Our free email newsletters 10 things you need to know today Today’s best articles Today’s top cartoons The good news newsletter The week’s best photojournalism Daily business briefing Daily gossip newsletter Parenting newsletter Solving COVID newsletter

Donald Trump’s second — and hopefully final — impeachment trial begins this week. Barring some unexpected development, we already know how it will end: The former president will be acquitted on the single charge of inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection that left five people dead. There just aren’t 67 votes in the 100-member Senate to sustain a conviction.

“It’s not a question of how the trial ends, it’s a question of when it ends,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Sunday on CBS. “Republicans are going to view this as an unconstitutional exercise, and the only question is, will they call witnesses, how long does the trial take? But the outcome is really not in doubt.”

Indeed, there seems to be a “let’s just get this thing over with” air to the proceedings, which are expected to last only about a week. Democrats are torn between spending time and energy to hold Trump accountable and moving forward with President Biden’s agenda, while Republicans clearly just want to move on. Advertisement

So why have an impeachment trial at all?

For one thing, it is vital to get this history right, and right away. The Senate trial will document the events of the Jan. 6 insurrection, as well as why it happened — not just because of the “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the riot, but because Trump and his allies spent the two months following the November election lying that it had been stolen from him, part of a bald attempt to overturn those election results and stay in office illegitimately.

“We think that every American should be aware of what happened — that the reason he was impeached by the House and the reason he should be convicted and disqualified from holding future federal office is to make sure that such an attack on our democracy and Constitution never happens again,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat who is leading the prosecution, told The New York Times.

Already, “alternative” stories about what happened on Jan. 6 are flourishing. The Wyoming GOP, for example, has falsely declared that the insurrection was “instigated by Antifa and BLM radicals,” while Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) on Sunday baselessly suggested the impeachment might be a way for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to divert the country’s attention from her own, nonexistent culpability. The trial should dispel any such notions for Americans who are still interested in facts.

Believe it or not, there are still plenty of those folks. A new ABC/Ipsos poll says 56 percent of respondents agree that Trump should be convicted and prohibited from holding office in the future, while 43 percent disagree. The supporters include 92 percent of Democrats, which is no surprise, and also 54 percent of independent voters.

Just 15 percent of GOP respondents support conviction, but Trump seems to have slimmed his party’s support considerably: Thousands of former Republican voters changed their registration in January, choosing instead to identify as Democrats and independents in swing states like Pennsylvania and Arizona. That suggests voters are imposing accountability on Trump and his party however they can. Senators have the power to impose a more immediate punishment, by prohibiting Trump from running for office again, and thus depriving him of the political leverage that goes along with that possibility.

Again, that probably won’t happen. But the trial is still necessary — even if it doesn’t result in a guilty verdict — simply because failing to even try is wrong. To accept the inevitability of Trump’s impunity is to surrender to cynicism, to give up on the notion of ever getting justice for the grievous wrongdoing of our leaders, to shrug at an act that took dead aim at the heart of democracy. That just encourages the next wannabe authoritarian with designs on stealing an election.

Again, that probably won’t happen. But the trial is still necessary — even if it doesn’t result in a guilty verdict — simply because failing to even try is wrong. To accept the inevitability of Trump’s impunity is to surrender to cynicism, to give up on the notion of ever getting justice for the grievous wrongdoing of our leaders, to shrug at an act that took dead aim at the heart of democracy. That just encourages the next wannabe authoritarian with designs on stealing an election.

Importantly, Senate Republicans who will vote for acquittal are not defending Trump on the merits. They’re offering up constitutional dodges, engaging in whataboutism, or indulging in fresh rounds of conspiracy-mongering. For the most part, they aren’t saying that Donald Trump is innocent of inciting insurrection. This week’s trial puts them on the record. Let them explain — to their constituents, to the nation, to the judgment of history — why they’re willing to give Trump a pass for intentionally doing injury to the constitution they are sworn to defend and uphold. The impeachment trial may not end in a guilty verdict, but it will bring clarity.

Importantly, Senate Republicans who will vote for acquittal are not defending Trump on the merits. They’re offering up constitutional dodges, engaging in whataboutism, or indulging in fresh rounds of conspiracy-mongering. For the most part, they aren’t saying that Donald Trump is innocent of inciting insurrection. This week’s trial puts them on the record. Let them explain — to their constituents, to the nation, to the judgment of history — why they’re willing to give Trump a pass for intentionally doing injury to the constitution they are sworn to defend and uphold. The impeachment trial may not end in a guilty verdict, but it will bring clarity.

Rape & Pillage February 8th 2021

The following article by Casey Michel is yet another ‘neo liberal’ history rewrite. Firstly, the Capitol Hill fiasco was allowed to happen to set up and dispose of Trump and discredit anyone who voted for him – I do not write this as a fan of Trump, only a supporter of better lives for all white , black and indigenous native Red Indians (who are highly intelligent Mongoloids) , working people and an end to the Middle Class feminist victim culture, BLM and LGBTQI rainbow con and distraction.

Secondly the Capitol Hill fiasco was not a coordinated insurrection . It was at the very most a movement of despair, following liberal opposition to investigate clear evidence of electoral fraud, by those who have suffered from greedy corrupt politicians , corrupt banks , billion’s wasted on wars that benefit the billionaires ( The Covid War is the latest ) , and the connsequences of billionaires like Bill Gates being encouaraged to export jobs to China – where the Anglo/Euro/U.S elite now want to complete that shift and consolidate through regime change. Meanwhile they are using other tricks and preparing for nuclear war should China run the other way and join Russia , where the Navalny affair is a an MI6 / CIA plot for more regime change.

Now commonplace Americans must be patronised , divided and ruled – just like the stupid British masses – and not allowed to know all of that. Now they say Trump was cultivated for years as a Russian agent.

That Russian agent was , say Biden and the mainstream, leading an insurrection against his gang’s election. So it is a little suspicious the ease with which the rebels broke in to a bastion of the elite who learned nothing from the corrupt old Europe than to better it in scale, with a bigger country , bigger things and bigger lies – including the lie that anwhere in history there has ever been democracy as Greek thinkers liked to dream on. They failed. All they did was invent the word which isn’t even a bench mark. East Germany , with its Stassi mindest, called itself the German Democratic Republic, which says it all.

So what we have here from Casy Michel is an exhortation to the Northern elite to miimic and better Ulysses Grant whose troops were not freedom fighters.

They raped and pillaged their way across the South. Abolition of slavery – which was facilitated in the first instance by the sort of slave catching and selling black elites that still exist in Africa , hence it is a sh-thole from where the overpopulating migrants will never stop coming .

Lincoln’s economically motivated war destroyed the South’s economy, ‘liberating ‘ slaves into poverty . Those who went north were plunged into real exploitation, loneliness , poverty, a world of abuse and despair, leading on to the probelematic sub culture of today. Biden & Co are exploiting this along with overpaid , elite media, cosseteted cronies. R.J Cook

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Civil War America: Making a Nation, 1848-1877

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What Ulysses Grant Can Teach Joe Biden About Putting Down Violent Insurrections Posted February 8th 2021

Overwhelming force was needed to end racist terrorism throughout the South. But a failure to keep up the pressure meant the victory was short-lived.

By the timeLt. General Ulysses S. Grantascended to the presidency, insurrection was already in the air across the post-Confederacy South. | AP Photo

By CASEY MICHEL

01/30/2021 01:38 PM EST

Casey Michel is an investigative journalist based in New York.

The deadly siege of the Capitol in Washington, which sought to overturn a legitimate election by targeting lawmakers with assassination, was not the first attempted insurrection in American history.

During Reconstruction, a raft of attempted insurrections flared up across the former Confederacy. Violent storms of white supremacists rocked swaths of the South, all aimed at undoing the Union’s victory during the Civil War, as well as the civil rights gains made thereafter. Racial equality, civil rights protections, basic recognition of democratic outcomes — all were targets of rampaging white terrorists, using violence to launch themselves to power once more. Numbers are hazy, but dozens perished as a direct result of insurrection, part of the thousands of victims of white supremacist political violence during the era.

“What occurred in the South in the late 1860s and the 1870s was at a scope and scale of violence and resistance that was not even remotely similar to what we saw [in Washington],” Mark Pitcavage, a historian and senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation League, told me. The scale of violence “was so big that there are some people who say it was a low-intensity conflict. I don’t know if I want to go all the way there, but parts of it weren’t too far off from that.”

However, the echoes of that Reconstruction-era violence — led by both white marauders (cloaked as the Ku Klux Klan and other terrorist groups) and white supremacist Democratic officials bent on reclaiming power from Republicans — were impossible to escape in Washington in early January when the rioters paraded Confederate flags through the halls of the Capitol and chanted threats to hang the vice president. Though largely overlooked in mainstream American history, these insurrections — in Louisiana, in South Carolina, in Mississippi, in North Carolina — attempted to install terrorist-backed regimes in multiple post-Confederacy states. Their longevity was echoed as well in the warning last week from the Department of Homeland Security, which said for the first time publicly that the country faced a rising threat from “violent domestic extremists” who sympathized with the Capitol attack and the false narrative, stoked by former President Donald Trump, that the election was rigged.

“We have to realize that this is a powerful strand in the American experience. It’s always been here, the resistance to actual democracy,” Eric Foner, a historian at Columbia University who specializes on Reconstruction, told me. “We pride ourselves on being a democracy, but there’s actually a long tradition of people who don’t think that, who are unwilling to accept the rights of African-Americans to be citizens, the right of elections to overturn governments in power. In other words, we should realize the fragility of democratic culture.”

While that fragility was on full display in the aftermath of the Civil War (as well as during the siege on the Capitol), those Reconstruction-era insurrectionists contended with a force they consistently underestimated: Ulysses S. Grant, who served as president from 1868-76. Rising to the presidency as the heroic general of the Civil War, Grant entered the White House amidst violent white extremists continuing to roil American politics — and following the failed presidency of a one-term impeached president, who had only added fuel to the post-war inferno.

Time and again, Grant battled back, sometimes almost single-handedly, against rising insurrections bursting across the South. Time and again, he appeared to succeed — only to eventually watch the entire edifice of Reconstruction crumble under Supreme Court decisions, wilting willingness among Northern whites to win the peace, and, most especially, a Compromise of 1877 that cemented the beginnings of the Jim Crow era to come.

Grant’s approach relied on a combination of brute military force and a drastic curtailment of civil liberties, yet it nevertheless has relevance for the current moment and contains lessons for lawmakers who fear that January 6 might have been only the first of widespread attacks on the government and elected officials at all levels, across large swaths of the nation. Officials in our current era have many more legal tools at their disposal to combat such terrorism. But as Grant’s experience shows, it’s not just the tools that count; rather, it’s the willingness to persist in the fight that will likely decide whether these counter-terrorism efforts actually succeed.

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5. ‘The Democratic version of John McCain’

***

By the time Grant ascended to the presidency, insurrection was already in the air across the post-Confederacy South.

“Originally, white supremacist terrorism was aimed at individuals, African-Americans, white allies, sometimes military occupying forces,” Brooks Simpson, an American historian at Arizona State University, told me. “By 1868 that had become more systematic in terms of not only going after voters, but also state legislators.”

Massacres targeting Black freedmen and their white allies occurred with regularity, led by newly formed terrorist groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Not all of it was technically insurrectionist, per se. For instance, Louisiana’s Colfax Massacre — the “bloodiest act of racial violence in all of Reconstruction,” Grant biographer Jean Smith wrote — came from white Louisianans’ refusal to accept the 1872 election, though wasn’t necessarily aimed directly at overthrowing the state government (at least immediately).

But it wasn’t far into Grant’s tenure when the marriage of white terror and disaffected Confederates proved lethal to the administration’s Reconstructionist efforts. And in North Carolina in 1870, they struck first political blood: Ku Klux Klan terror “helped the Democrats recapture the state, electing five of seven congressmen,” Smith wrote.

Amidst the white terror campaigns, Grant and his legislative allies spied a solution. That year, Congress passed the first of what eventually would become three Enforcement Acts. In effect, the statutes made it a federal offense to deprive individuals of civil or political rights, and provided greater federal oversight of elections and voter registration. That wasn’t all. A few weeks later Congress voted to create the Department of Justice, staffing up lawyers under the attorney general and giving the attorney general oversight of all U.S. attorneys and federal marshals. Grant took full advantage of the new tools, putting a “powerful team” together to head the Justice Department, wrote Smith. New Attorney General Amos Akerman understood the stakes, saying that the Klan was in effect leading a “war, and cannot be effectively crushed on any other theory.”

With white supremacist terror continuing to race across the region, led primarily by the Klan, Grant decided to make countering the terrorists his sole focus. In March 1871, he requested a special legislative session for the express purpose of suppressing the group, whose thousands of members across the South formed a so-called “Invisible Empire.” The president placed counter-insurgent efforts front and center of his administration, calling on legislators to make it a federal crime to conspire to “overthrow or destroy by force the government of the United States.” The resultant Ku Klux Klan Act provided Grant authority to use the army to crush further white terror, even allowing him the right to suspend the writ of habeas corpus in areas deemed insurrectionist. The bill’s passage was hardly assured—the opposition, as Smith wrote, encompassed everyone from “unabashed white supremacists, to civil libertarians, to Grant-haters of every variety”—but a visit from Grant to Capitol Hill rallied legislators to the cause. That April, nearly five years to the day after the Civil War officially ended at Appomattox, the anti-KKK bill passed.

And Grant and his team didn’t hesitate to employ their new powers.

In northern Mississippi, a region saturated in white terror, U.S. attorneys secured nearly 1,000 indictments, convicting over half of those arrested. But it was in South Carolina in 1871 where the administration clamped down on outright insurrectionists — and hard. That year, Klan and white terror violence rampaged across the state, aimed directly at overthrowing elected officials. Declaring “a condition of lawlessness” in nine different counties, Grant used the new powers within the anti-KKK bill to their fullest extent. Suspending the writ of habeas corpus, rushing reinforcements to the state, the presence of the American infantry was enough to see thousands of Klansmen tuck tail and flee the state. With the KKK unwilling to face down the American military, members of the Army joined Akerman’s marshals to make hundreds of arrests. Federal grand juries filed thousands of indictments, with hundreds of convictions resulting.

That combination of federal force and legal capacity appeared to work. The insurrectionists scattered, and the Klan stood whipped. “Grant’s willingness to bring the full legal and military authority of the government to bear had broken the Klan’s back and produced a dramatic decline in violence throughout the South,” Smith wrote. The relatively peaceful 1872 election, in which Grant was re-elected in a landslide, attested to as much.

***

Yet the seeds of Washington’s ultimate failure—the eventual Compromise of 1877, the end of Reconstruction, and the rise of terror-backed white supremacist regimes once more—were contained even in those successful efforts in South Carolina.

Despite the arrests, the court system stood overburdened by the rush of indictments, and only managed to issue serious sentences for a few dozen perpetrators. And even then, the sentences — five years maximum in a federal penitentiary — hardly fit the crimes, which often entailed murder and lynching. The new judicial behemoth appeared to be less than the sum of its parts.

More importantly, creeping exhaustion began crawling across Northern white communities, fatigued as they were by a decade’s worth of combating white violence in the South. Tired of seeing their boys off to fight fellow Americans — and uneasy about the potential of living in a republic held together by bayonet — white Northerners began wilting in the face of resurgent violence across the South. A sort of moral stagnation began to take root, rotting support for the administration to continue its anti-insurrection efforts.

It was a wilting that Grant easily perceived – as did the white militants still looking for any signs of weakness among the federal crackdowns. In 1874, white terror resurged once more, seen most especially in Louisiana. In Coushatta, a town not far from Shreveport, members of the KKK-adjacent White League assassinated a number of Republican officials. Shortly thereafter, thousands of White Leaguers set their sights on their statehouse in New Orleans, then serving as the seat of Louisiana’s government. Facing off with thousands more police and Black militia-men, the white terrorists ultimately prevailed, installing a rival Democratic government in a successful insurrection—what Smith called a “coup d’etat.”

The atrocity prompted Grant to immediately ship new contingents of troops to New Orleans, which successfully restored order. A few months later, though, Louisiana teetered into potential civil war yet again. Terror-backed Democrats forcibly seized the Louisiana House, seating Democrats in contested seats. Yet again, the military ejected the claimants. Gen. Philip Sheridan wired the White House that the heads of the White League terrorists backing the putschists should, as the law called for, be arrested and face potential execution. The wire, though, leaked to the press. While some Republicans rallied to Sheridan’s call — “Crush them utterly, remorselessly,” one pro-administration outlet wrote — the leak backfired on Sheridan and Grant both.

“Sheridan wires Washington to tell Grant and the War Department that all these Democrats are banditti and have to be executed, and what unfolds unleashes a storm of criticism in the white North,” Caroline Janney, an American history professor at the University of Virginia, told me. “Grant is condemned, running what people call a ‘government by bayonet.’” Grant doesn’t initially cower, and a compromise in Louisiana ends in a bipartisan state government. Neither the “Ku Klux [Klan], White Leagues, nor any other associations using arms and violence can be permitted to govern any part of this country,” Grant once more says.

But the country — or white Northerners, at least — had had enough. After nearly 15 years of continued violence in the South, after a devastating economic implosion in 1873, after the Democrats had recaptured the House in Washington in 1874, the bottom had fallen out of Grant’s efforts.

“I think events in Louisiana in 1874-75 taught [Grant] that there would be a political price for intervention,” Simpson said. “The common criticism is that he was a poor politician, but he was a political realist [toward the end of his administration]. He realized that however welcome enforcement of Reconstruction would be in the short term, in the long term it was politically suicidal, and no longer enjoyed support of white Americans.” Along the way, the courts began gutting Grant’s Enforcement Acts, depriving him of another tool. “Grant understood that vigorous prosecution of white terrorists without the support of white Northerners would lead to a Democratic victory in that year’s presidential election, so he conducts a fighting withdrawal – but still withdraws,” Simpson said.

And in that withdrawal, terror-backed overthrows take place not just in places like Louisiana, but across the South, in states like Mississippi and South Carolina, led by white insurrectionists like the Red Shirts. Soon thereafter, the Compromise of 1877 essentially codified a new arrangement: In return for the election of Republican Rutherford B. Hayes, the federal government would allow white supremacist regimes to reign once more in the South. The Union may have won the war, but the terrorists — and the insurrectionists — had won the peace.

There is, of course, much that is different between the insurrectionists of Reconstruction and those of the Trump era.

The white supremacist insurrectionists of the 1870s focused on just one region — the South — while the Trumpian insurrectionists have no geographic restrictions. This explains why, in the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6 riot, the FBI found it necessary to warn of potential attacks and insurrectionist activity on state capitols and federal buildings across the country. And the Trumpian insurrectionists, at least thus far, don’t yet come with the full-throated, unequivocal support of a major political party (though that may change if non-Trumpian Republicans continue to lose ground).

But if you squint, it’s not too difficult to see how the insurrections of the 1870s and of the 2020s share a clear lineage. In many ways, the “Lost Cause” has now metamorphosed into the “Trump Lost Cause.”

“As I heard someone say, what we saw was that the Red Shirts of South Carolina have been replaced with the Red Hats of MAGA,” Janney said. Both are clearly aimed at upending the outcomes of democratic elections, willing to use violence to cow legislators — or worse. And both aim at thwarting multi-racial coalitions in the pursuit of ethnonationalist rule, a through-line of attempting to restore white rule that connects 1861 and 1876 to 2016 and 2020. As such, Grant’s experience in battling white insurrectionists presents a pair of primary lessons for the new Biden administration.

The first lesson, experts say, is relatively clear. As Trumpian insurrectionists continue popping up across the country — propelled by “the Big Lie” that Trump’s re-election was stolen—and as Republican legislators saber-rattle about potential violence if they don’t get their way, the administration has to use the full range of tools at its disposal. “There are so many more federal laws that can be used now,” Pitcavage said. “Conspiracy laws that didn’t exist [in the 1870s], laws about federal property that didn’t exist back then, laws about paramilitary training designed to foment civil disorder—there are any number of laws on the books now that theoretically could be used.”

Thus far, given the hundreds of arrests following this month’s Washington insurrection, there’s reason for optimism in terms of authorities cracking down on insurrectionists. “It’s very gratifying that people are taking it seriously and have devoted considerable resources to it and made it a huge priority,” Pitcavage added. But then, the Grant administration oversaw thousands of arrests — with an overworked legal system only issuing a few convictions.

Which leads to the second, and perhaps more important, lesson: follow-through.

The administration must make clear, say experts, there is no quarter for insurrectionists in the American body politic, or for those who would abet their anti-democratic violence. “The quicker you say, ‘There’s a line you can’t cross,’ the better,” Simpson said. “That’s armed resistance to the operations of government and its institutions. You can’t cross that line. ‘And if you do, we’ll come down on you like you won’t believe.’” And until that is understood — and enforced, to the fullest extent of the law — there can be no room for healing, or for unity. “That’s what I think Biden has to understand,” Simpson continued. “You need to demand accountability and justice before you reach out and say, ‘Now, let’s heal.’”

Biden, his administration, and his allies in Congress must be clear: Any threats of violence, of insurrection, of aiding and abetting democratic overthrow, will be met with unswerving dedication to their prevention and prosecution. That goes for an outgoing president claiming the election was stolen from him. That goes for the far-right militias whining about not recognizing election outcomes. That goes for the any insurrectionists who may look at the events in Washington as a success, and who may thirst for more. “Peace sometimes requires force to protect it,” Foner told me. “And what’s needed is persistence, having the will to continue, to maintain the peace.”

Biden seems determined to take a stand and hold it.

As he said in his inauguration, “Here we stand, just days after a riotous mob thought they could use violence to silence the will of the people, to stop the work of our democracy, to drive us from this sacred ground. It did not happen. It will never happen. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever. Not ever.” And because of the range of options at his disposal, he thankfully won’t have to turn to things like martial law. Instead he can, as others have already begun laying out, direct the organs of the federal government — the FBI, the National Security Council and especially the DOJ, that outgrowth of Grant’s first term — to prioritize domestic terrorism, with an eye especially on insurrectionist leaders. He can further lean on legislative allies to keep up the pressure on social media companies to muzzle insurrectionist rhetoric (including any coming from a certain former president). He could also lead a push to finally create a statute aimed at specifically criminalizing domestic terrorism.

Despite the differences, Grant and Biden share more similarities than most might assume. One was a grizzled war hero, who’d crushed the most treasonous movement the country had ever seen. The other is a seasoned politician, known for moderation and political tact. There are plenty of echoes between the era of Grant and the coming era of Biden. After all, as Grant once said, “If we are to have another [civil war], I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon’s, but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition, and ignorance on the other.”

And Grant’s words seem especially prescient as a new administration takes root — and looks to the lessons of previous American insurrections in order to prevent their repeat. “The fundamental question remains: Do we have a legitimate peaceful process of electing and governing that we accept? Or do we not?” Simpson said. “The stakes are actually bigger this time than during Reconstruction. Because the legacy of this deplorable episode will be whether we question the very legitimacy of a process that depends upon the acceptance of its legitimacy in order for it to work.”

Clubs Are Trumps February 8th 2021

Trump’s second impeachment trial to open with sense of urgency, speed; Trial confronts painful memories of Capitol siege 

No American president has been impeached twice. Nor has any in 245 years faced two impeachment trials, the second one while no longer in office.

Donald Trump’s historic second impeachment trial is opening on Tuesday with a sense of urgency, Lisa Mascaro and Hope Yen report. 

Democrats want to hold the former president accountable for the violent U.S. Capitol insurrection. And Republicans want it over as fast as possible.

It comes just over a month since the deadly Jan. 6 riot. Senate leaders are still working out the details, but it appears there will be few witnesses, and Trump has declined a request to testify.

Holed up at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, the former president has had his social media bullhorn stripped from him by Twitter, without public comments since leaving the White House. 

House managers prosecuting the case are expected to rely on the trove of videos from the siege, along with Trump’s incendiary rhetoric refusing to concede the election, to make their case. His new defense team has said it plans to counter with its own cache of videos of Democratic politicians making fiery speeches.

The House impeached Trump Jan. 13 on the charge of inciting insurrection.

EXPLAINER: How Trump’s second impeachment trial will work.

5 key questions for Trump’s Senate impeachment trial. 

VIDEO: Trump impeachment trial confronts Capitol siege.

Analysis: The outcome of Trump’s second impeachment trial may seem preordained, but the trial itself matters. It is ultimately a test of whether a president, who holds an office that many of the nation’s founders feared could become too powerful in the wrong hands, is above the law. Senators will be forced to sit still, listen to evidence and wrestle with elemental questions about American democracy. The American people will also be sitting in their own form of judgment as they watch. The verdict and the process itself will be scrutinized for generations, Political Editor Steven Sloan writes. 

Capitol Breach-What We Know: On Jan. 6, the U.S. Capitol was besieged by supporters of Trump who were angered by the then-president’s election loss. While lawmakers inside the building were voting to affirm Joe Biden’s win, Trump loyalists were marching to Capitol Hill and breaking in. Five people died in the violent melee, including a police officer. The toll of the siege is still being tallied, from the growing number of people charged with crimes to the continued presence of National Guard troops in the nation’s capital, Kevin Freking, Nomaan Merchant and Lolita C. Baldor report. 

Insurrection Remembrances: The trial is more than an effort to convict the former president over inciting an insurrection. It’s a chance for a public accounting and remembrance of the worst attack on the U.S. Capitol in 200 years. In the month since the siege, Trump defenders say it’s time to move on. But many lawmakers have started recounting their personal experiences from that day. For many who were witnesses, onlookers and survivors, it’s far from over. Lisa Mascaro has that story. 

Trump Prosecutor: Stacey Plaskett couldn’t cast a vote last month when the House impeached Trump, but she can help prosecute him. The non-voting delegate from the Virgin Islands is among the impeachment managers selected by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to argue the case. It’s an extraordinary moment that places Plaskett in the center of just the fourth U.S. impeachment trial in history. But there will also be a familiar dynamic when Plaskett walks into the Senate chamber that she’s experienced before. She’ll be one of the only Black women in the room, Padmananda Rama and Mary Clare Jalonick report.

From Camille Caldera   | USA TODAY FEBRUARY 8TH 2021

Migrants Increasing at ‘Concerning Rate’ on Southern Border, Says CBP Agent

Censorship has become so bad in our country that our former president was recently banned from all major social media platforms.

Many of us here at The Epoch Times escaped communist regimes. We know what censorship like this could lead to.

We have experienced the evils of communism first hand.

The claim: President Joe Biden received five draft deferments from the Vietnam War Posted February 7th 2021

Posts on Facebook honed in on former Vice President Joe Biden and his record of military service — or lack thereof.

“Lifeguard/Football player Joe Biden got five draft deferments for asthma during Vietnam,” a post claims, alongside a photo of high-school-aged Biden.

Some users also compared his record with that of his opponent, President Donald Trump.

“Well well well!!!! We finally have a Rebuttal to the Dems saying Trump was a draft dodger..” another post reads. 

The users behind the posts did not respond to requests for comment from USA TODAY.

Fact check: In 2010, Donald Trump offered $6M to try to stop a mosque near Ground Zero

Biden received five student draft deferments and a medical exemption

Born in November 1942, Biden came of age amid the Vietnam War. But unlike millions of men of his generation, he never served in the military.

How America Changed During Donald Trump’s Presidency Posted February 7th 2021

BY MICHAEL DIMOCK AND JOHN GRAMLICH

January 29, 2021

Donald Trump stunned the political world in 2016 when he became the first person without government or military experience ever to be elected president of the United States. His four-year tenure in the White House revealed extraordinary fissures in American society but left little doubt that he is a figure unlike any other in the nation’s history.

Trump, the New York businessman and former reality TV show star, won the 2016 election after a campaign that defied norms and commanded public attention from the moment it began. His approach to governing was equally unconventional.

Other presidents tried to unify the nation after turning from the campaign trail to the White House. From his first days in Washington to his last, Trump seemed to revel in the political fight. He used his presidential megaphone to criticize a long list of perceived adversaries, from the news media to members of his own administration, elected officials in both political parties and foreign heads of state. The more than 26,000 tweets he sent as president provided an unvarnished, real-time account of his thinking on a broad spectrum of issues and eventually proved so provocative that Twitter permanently banned him from its platform. In his final days in office, Trump became the first president ever to be impeached twice – the second time for inciting an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol during the certification of the election he lost – and the nation’s first chief executive in more than 150 years to refuse to attend his successor’s inauguration.

Trump’s policy record included major changes at home and abroad. He achieved a string of long-sought conservative victories domestically, including the biggest corporate tax cuts on record, the elimination of scores of environmental regulations and a reshaping of the federal judiciary. In the international arena, he imposed tough new immigration restrictions, withdrew from several multilateral agreements, forged closer ties with Israel and launched a tit-for-tat trade dispute with China as part of a wider effort to address what he saw as glaring imbalances in America’s economic relationship with other countries. 

Many questions about Trump’s legacy and his role in the nation’s political future will take time to answer. But some takeaways from his presidency are already clear from Pew Research Center’s studies in recent years. In this essay, we take a closer look at a few of the key societal shifts that accelerated – or emerged for the first time – during the tenure of the 45th president.

Related: How America Changed During Barack Obama’s Presidency How we did this

Deeply partisan and personal divides

Trump’s status as a political outsider, his outspoken nature and his willingness to upend past customs and expectations of presidential behavior made him a constant focus of public attention, as well as a source of deep partisan divisions.

Even before he took office, Trump divided Republicans and Democrats more than any incoming chief executive in the prior three decades.¹ The gap only grew more pronounced after he became president. An average of 86% of Republicans approved of Trump’s handling of the job over the course of his tenure, compared with an average of just 6% of Democrats – the widest partisan gap in approval for any president in the modern era of polling.² Trump’s overall approval rating never exceeded 50% and fell to a low of just 29% in his final weeks in office, shortly after a mob of his supporters attacked the Capitol.

Republicans and Democrats weren’t just divided over Trump’s handling of the job. They also interpreted many aspects of his character and personality in fundamentally opposite ways. In a 2019 survey, at least three-quarters of Republicans said the president’s words sometimes or often made them feel hopeful, entertained, informed, happy and proud. Even larger shares of Democrats said his words sometimes or often made them feel concerned, exhausted, angry, insulted and confused.

The strong reactions that Trump provoked appeared in highly personal contexts, too. In a 2019 survey, 71% of Democrats who were single and looking for a relationship said they would definitely or probably not consider being in a committed relationship with someone who had voted for Trump in 2016. That far exceeded the 47% of single-and-looking Republicans who said they would not consider being in a serious relationship with a Hillary Clinton voter.

Many Americans opted not to talk about Trump or politics at all. In 2019, almost half of U.S. adults (44%) said they wouldn’t feel comfortable talking about Trump with someone they didn’t know well. A similar share (45%) said later that year that they had stopped talking politics with someone because of something that person had said.  

In addition to the intense divisions that emerged over Trump personally, his tenure saw a further widening of the gulf between Republicans and Democrats over core political values and issues, including in areas that weren’t especially partisan before his arrival. 

In 1994, when Pew Research Center began asking Americans a series of 10 “values questions” on subjects including the role of government, environmental protection and national security, the average gap between Republicans and Democrats was 15 percentage points. By 2017, the first year of Trump’s presidency, the average partisan gap on those same questions had more than doubled to 36 points, the result of a steady, decades-long increase in polarization.

On some issues, there were bigger changes in thinking among Democrats than among Republicans during Trump’s presidency. That was especially the case on topics such as race and gender, which gained new attention amid the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements. In a 2020 survey that followed months of racial justice protests in the U.S., for instance, 70% of Democrats said it is “a lot more difficult” to be a Black person than to be a White person in the U.S. today, up from 53% who said the same thing just four years earlier. Republican attitudes on the same question changed little during that span, with only a small share agreeing with the Democratic view.

On other issues, attitudes changed more among Republicans than among Democrats. One notable example related to views of higher education: Between 2015 and 2017, the share of Republicans who said colleges and universities were having a negative effect on the way things were going in the U.S. rose from 37% to 58%, even as around seven-in-ten Democrats continued to say these institutions were having a positive effect. 

Related: From #MAGA to #MeToo: A Look at U.S. Public Opinion in 2017 

A dearth of shared facts and information

One of the few things that Republicans and Democrats could agree on during Trump’s tenure is that they didn’t share the same set of facts. In a 2019 survey, around three-quarters of Americans (73%) said most Republican and Democratic voters disagreed not just over political plans and policies, but over “basic facts.”

Much of the disconnect between the parties involved the news media, which Trump routinely disparaged as “fake news” and the “enemy of the people.” Republicans, in particular, expressed widespread and growing distrust of the press. In a 2019 survey, Republicans voiced more distrust than trust in 2o of the 30 specific news outlets they were asked about, even as Democrats expressed more trust than distrust in 22 of those same outlets. Republicans overwhelmingly turned to and trusted one outlet included in the study – Fox News – even as Democrats used and expressed trust in a wider range of sources. The study concluded that the two sides placed their trust in “two nearly inverse media environments.” 

Some of the media organizations Trump criticized most vocally saw the biggest increases in GOP distrust over time. The share of Republicans who said they distrusted CNN rose from 33% in a 2014 survey to 58% by 2019. The proportion of Republicans who said they distrusted The Washington Post and The New York Times rose 17 and 12 percentage points, respectively, during that span.³

In addition to their criticisms of specific news outlets, Republicans also questioned the broader motives of the media. In surveys fielded over the course of 2018 and 2019, Republicans were far less likely than Democrats to say that journalists act in the best interests of the public, have high ethical standards, prevent political leaders from doing things they shouldn’t and deal fairly with all sides. Trump’s staunchest GOP supporters often had the most negative views: Republicans who strongly approved of Trump, for example, were much more likely than those who only somewhat approved or disapproved of him to say journalists have very low ethical standards.

Apart from the growing partisan polarization over the news media, Trump’s time in office also saw the emergence of misinformation as a concerning new reality for many Americans. 

Half of U.S. adults said in 2019 that made-up news and information was a very big problem in the country, exceeding the shares who said the same thing about racism, illegal immigration, terrorism and sexism. Around two-thirds said made-up news and information had a big impact on public confidence in the government (68%), while half or more said it had a major effect on Americans’ confidence in each other (54%) and political leaders’ ability to get work done (51%).

Misinformation played an important role in both the coronavirus pandemic and the 2020 presidential election. Almost two-thirds of U.S. adults (64%) said in April 2020 that they had seen at least some made-up news and information about the pandemic, with around half (49%) saying this kind of misinformation had caused a great deal of confusion over the basic facts of the outbreak. In a survey in mid-November 2020, six-in-ten adults said made-up news and information had played a major role in the just-concluded election.

Conspiracy theories were an especially salient form of misinformation during Trump’s tenure, in many cases amplified by the president himself. For example, nearly half of Americans (47%) said in September 2020 that they had heard or read a lot or a little about the collection of conspiracy theories known as QAnon, up from 23% earlier in the year.⁴ Most of those aware of QAnon said Trump seemed to support the theory’s promoters.

Trump frequently made disproven or questionable claims as president. News and fact-checking organizations documented thousands of his false statements over four years, on subjects ranging from the coronavirus to the economy. Perhaps none were more consequential than his repeated assertion of widespread fraud in the 2020 election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. Even after courts around the country had rejected the claim and all 50 states had certified their results, Trump continued to say he had won a “landslide” victory. The false claim gained widespread currency among his voters: In a January 2021 survey, three-quarters of Trump supporters incorrectly said he was definitely or probably the rightful winner of the election.

New concerns over American democracy  

Throughout his tenure, Donald Trump questioned the legitimacy of democratic institutions, from the free press to the federal judiciary and the electoral process itself. In surveys conducted between 2016 and 2019, more than half of Americans said Trump had little or no respect for the nation’s democratic institutions and traditions, though these views, too, split sharply along partisan lines. 

The 2020 election brought concerns about democracy into much starker relief. Even before the election, Trump had cast doubt on the security of mail-in voting and refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power in the event that he lost. When he did lose, he refused to publicly concede defeat, his campaign and allies filed dozens of unsuccessful lawsuits to challenge the results and Trump personally pressured state government officials to retroactively tilt the outcome in his favor.

The weeks of legal and political challenges culminated on Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump addressed a crowd of supporters at a rally outside the White House and again falsely claimed the election had been “stolen.” With Congress meeting the same day to certify Biden’s win, Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in an attack that left five people dead and forced lawmakers to be evacuated until order could be restored and the certification could be completed. The House of Representatives impeached Trump a week later on a charge of inciting the violence, with 10 Republicans joining 222 Democrats in support of the decision.

Most Americans placed at least some blame on Trump for the riot at the Capitol, including 52% who said he bore a lot of responsibility for it. Again, however, partisans’ views differed widely: 81% of Democrats said Trump bore a lot of responsibility, compared with just 18% of Republicans.

Even as he repeatedly cast doubt on the democratic process, Trump proved to be an enormously galvanizing figure at the polls. Nearly 160 million Americans voted in 2020, the highest estimated turnout rate among eligible voters in 120 years, despite widespread changes in voting procedures brought on by the pandemic. Biden received more than 81 million votes and Trump received more than 74 million, the highest and second-highest totals in U.S. history. Turnout in the 2018 midterm election, the first after Trump took office, also set a modern-day record.

Pew Research Center surveys catalogued the high stakes that voters perceived, particularly in the run-up to the 2020 election. Just before the election, around nine-in-ten Trump and Biden supporters said there would be “lasting harm” to the nation if the other candidate won, and around eight-in-ten in each group said they disagreed with the other side not just on political priorities, but on “core American values and goals.”

Earlier in the year, 83% of registered voters said it “really mattered” who won the election, the highest percentage for any presidential election in at least two decades. Trump himself was a clear motivating factor for voters on both sides: 71% of Trump supporters said before the election that their choice was more of a vote for the president than against Biden, while 63% of Biden supporters said their choice was more of a vote against Trump than for his opponent.

A reckoning over racial inequality

Racial tensions were a constant undercurrent during Trump’s presidency, often intensified by the public statements he made in response to high-profile incidents. 

The death of George Floyd, in particular, brought race to the surface in a way that few other recent events have. The videotaped killing of the unarmed, 46-year-old Black man by a White police officer in Minneapolis was among several police killings that sparked national and international protests in 2020 and led to an outpouring of public support for the Black Lives Matter movement, including from corporations, universities and other institutions. In a survey shortly after Floyd’s death in May, two-thirds of U.S. adults – including majorities across all major racial and ethnic groups – voiced support for the movement, and use of the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag surged to a record high on Twitter.

Attitudes began to change as the protests wore on and sometimes turned violent, drawing sharp condemnation from Trump. By September, support for the Black Lives Matter movement had slipped to 55% – largely due to decreases among White adults – and many Americans questioned whether the nation’s renewed focus on race would lead to changes to address racial inequality or improve the lives of Black people.

Race-related tensions erupted into public view earlier in Trump’s tenure, too. In 2017, White nationalists rallied in Charlottesville, Virginia, to protest the removal of a Confederate statue amid a broader push to eliminate such memorials from public spaces across the country. The rally led to violent clashes in the city’s streets and the death of a 32-year-old woman when a White nationalist deliberately drove a car into a crowd of people. Tensions also arose in the National Football League as some players protested racial injustices in the U.S. by kneeling during the national anthem. The display prompted a backlash among some who saw it as disrespectful to the American flag. 

In all of these controversies and others, Trump weighed in from the White House, but typically not in a way that most Americans saw as helpful. In a summer 2020 survey, for example, six-in-ten U.S. adults said Trump had delivered the wrong message in response to the protests over Floyd’s killing. That included around four-in-ten adults (39%) who said Trump had delivered the completely wrong message. 

More broadly, Americans viewed Trump’s impact on race relations as far more negative than positive. In an early 2019 poll, 56% of adults said Trump had made race relations worse since taking office, compared with only 15% who said he had made progress toward improving relations. In the same survey, around two-thirds of adults (65%) said it had become more common for people in the U.S. to express racist or racially insensitive views since his election.

The public also perceived Trump as too close with White nationalist groups. In 2019, a majority of adults (56%) said he had done too little to distance himself from these groups, while 29% said he had done about the right amount and 7% said he had done too much. These opinions were nearly the same as in December 2016, before he took office.

While Americans overall gave Trump much more negative than positive marks for his handling of race relations, there were consistent divisions along racial, ethnic and partisan lines. Black, Hispanic and Asian adults were often more critical of Trump’s impact on race relations than White adults, as were Democrats when compared with Republicans. For example, while an overwhelming majority of Democrats (83%) said in 2019 that Trump had done too little to distance himself from White nationalist groups, a majority of Republicans (56%) said he had done about the right amount.

White Republicans, in particular, rejected the idea of widespread structural racism in the U.S. and saw too much emphasis on race. In September 2020, around eight-in-ten White Republicans (79%) said the bigger problem was people seeing racial discrimination where it doesn’t exist, rather than people not seeing discrimination where it really does exist. The opinions of White Democrats on the same question were nearly the reverse.

A defining public health and economic crisis

Every presidency is shaped by outside events, and Trump’s will undoubtedly be remembered for the enormous toll the coronavirus pandemic took on the nation’s public health and economy.

More than 400,000 Americans died from COVID-19 between the beginning of the pandemic and when Trump left office, with fatality counts sometimes exceeding 4,000 people a day – a toll more severe than the overall toll of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, or the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. Trump himself contracted the coronavirus in the home stretch of his campaign for reelection, as did dozens of White House and campaign staff and members of his family. 

The far-reaching public health effects of the virus were reflected in a survey in November 2020, when more than half of U.S. adults (54%) said they personally knew someone who had been hospitalized or died due to COVID-19. The shares were even higher among Black (71%) and Hispanic (61%) adults.

At the same time, the pandemic had a disastrous effect on the economy. Trump and Barack Obama together had presided over the longest economic expansion in American history, with the U.S. unemployment rate at a 50-year low of 3.5% as recently as February 2020. By April 2020, with businesses around the country closing their doors to prevent the spread of the virus, unemployment had soared to a post-World War II high of 14.8%. Even after considerable employment gains later in the year, Trump was the first modern president to leave the White House with fewer jobs in the U.S. than when he took office.

The economic consequences of the virus, like its public health repercussions, hit some Americans harder than others. Many upper-income workers were able to continue doing their jobs remotely during the outbreak, even as lower-income workers suffered widespread job losses and pay cuts. The remarkable resiliency of U.S. stock markets was a rare bright spot during the downturn, but one that had its own implications for economic inequality: Going into the outbreak, upper-income adults were far more likely than lower-income adults to be invested in the market.

The pandemic clearly underscored and exacerbated America’s partisan divisions. Democrats were consistently much more likely than Republicans to see the virus as a major threat to public health, while Republicans were far more likely than Democrats to see it as exaggerated and overblown. The two sides disagreed on public health strategies ranging from mask wearing to contact tracing. 

The outbreak also had important consequences for America’s image in the world. International views of the U.S. had already plummeted after Trump took office in 2017, but attitudes turned even more negative amid a widespread perception that the U.S. had mishandled the initial outbreak. The share of people with a favorable opinion of the U.S. fell in 2020 to record or near-record lows in Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and other countries. Across all 13 nations surveyed, a median of just 15% of adults said the U.S. had done a good job responding to COVID-19, well below the median share who said the same thing about their own country, the World Health Organization, the European Union and China.

At a much more personal level, many Americans expected the coronavirus outbreak to have a lasting impact on them. In an August 2020 survey, 51% of U.S. adults said they expected their lives to remain changed in major ways even after the pandemic is over.

Looking ahead

The aftershocks of Donald Trump’s one-of-a-kind presidency will take years to place into full historical context. It remains to be seen, for example, whether his disruptive brand of politics will be adopted by other candidates for office in the U.S., whether other politicians can activate the same coalition of voters he energized and whether his positions on free trade, immigration and other issues will be reflected in government policy in the years to come.

Some of the most pressing questions, particularly in the aftermath of the attack on the Capitol and Trump’s subsequent bipartisan impeachment, concern the future of the Republican Party. Some Republicans have moved away from Trump, but many others have continued to fight on his behalf, including by voting to reject the electoral votes of two states won by Biden.

The GOP’s direction could depend to a considerable degree on what Trump does next. Around two-thirds of Americans (68%) said in January 2021 that they would not like to see Trump continue to be a major political figure in the years to come, but Republicans were divided by ideology. More than half of self-described moderate and liberal Republicans (56%) said they preferred for him to exit the political stage, while 68% of conservatives said they wanted him to remain a national political figure for many years to come.

For his part, Joe Biden has some advantages as he begins his tenure. Democrats have majorities – albeit extraordinarily narrow ones – in both legislative chambers of Congress. Other recent periods of single-party control in Washington have resulted in the enactment of major legislation, such as the $1.5 trillion tax cut package that Trump signed in 2017 or the health care overhaul that Obama signed in 2010. Biden begins his presidency with generally positive assessments from the American public about his Cabinet appointments and the job he has done explaining his policies and plans for the future. Early surveys show that he inspires broad confidence among people in three European countries that have long been important American allies: France, Germany and the UK.

Still, the new administration faces obvious challenges on many fronts. The coronavirus pandemic will continue in the months ahead as the vast majority of Americans remain unvaccinated. The economy is likely to struggle until the outbreak is under control. Polarization in the U.S. is not likely to change dramatically, nor is the partisan gulf in views of the news media or the spread of misinformation in the age of social media. The global challenges of climate change and nuclear proliferation remain stark. 

The nation’s 46th president has vowed to unite the country as he moves forward with his policy agenda. Few would question the formidable nature of the task.

Title photo: President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump board Air Force One for his last time as president on Jan. 20, 2021. (Pete Marovich–Pool/Getty Images)

1. Unless otherwise noted, all references to Republicans and Democrats

Bland Broadcasting Clique – a bland build up for the ‘democracy’ muck spreader . January 27th 2021

This is the third time I’ve witnessed a new secretary of state enter the building.

For Donald Trump’s envoys – Rex Tillerson and Mike Pompeo – the lobby was packed, infused with a mixture of apprehension and hope.

For Antony Blinken, the lobby was nearly empty because of Covid protocols – but the absent presence of the diplomatic core was infused with a sense of relief.

“People are very very happy about [Blinken’s] arrival and the departure of the previous team,” said a state department official who’d been texting his colleagues while watching from home.

Blinken is a veteran diplomat who’s on home turf in the department, but “a lot has changed,” he said in understatement, promising to restore trust and morale.

• Tough tests for Joe Biden in ‘new’ Middle East
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About 1,000 employees left during the Trump years. Many who remained felt sidelined by the undiplomatic approach of the former president, frustrated by the mismanagement of Tillerson and alienated by the politics of Pompeo, a relentless Trump loyalist.

“Everyone is pleased that we’ll have a different face to the world,” said the official. “Everyone’s trying to get back in game shape after four years of the Trump era.”

The faces lining the corridor outside the press pen have already changed: photographs of Pompeo at work replaced by pictures of a variety of secretaries of state.

And a giant billboard showcasing a “professional ethos” statement developed by Pompeo was toppled shortly after Joe Biden took his inaugural oath.

America’s new top diplomat has decades of foreign policy experience and expertise, including so many years advising Biden that the two men are said to have a “mind-meld”.

He’s embedded in Washington culture – even dabbling in the DC “wonk rock” musical scene (he posts his recordings as ABlinken. Get it?)

At his confirmation hearing, the mild-mannered technocrat talked in such measured tones about rewriting Trump foreign policy that he got strong bipartisan support.

Senators seemed eager to leave a confrontational “America First” approach behind them.

Blinken has promised a harder line in response to Russian cyber-attacks and election meddling, an end to support for Saudi airstrikes in Yemen, and a review of the Trump administration’s decision to designate Yemen’s Houthi rebels as a terrorist organisation, because this could undermine humanitarian aid.

On Iran, Blinken has repeated Biden’s pledge to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal if Tehran resumes its commitments, but cautions this won’t happen quickly.

And on China, he’s agreed with Trump’s tougher tone – just not the approach. The better way is to tackle Beijing together with democratic allies and through international institutions that Trump dumped, he says.

His mission is to restore American leadership in that way.

But at his inaugural news conference journalists asked how allies could trust the US after such stark swings in administrations.

The desire to have America back at the table was almost “palpable” in calls with counterparts, Blinken declared.

And he made clear that meeting us on his first day was a signal of wanting to work with the press.

That’s a shift in tone.

Pompeo, like his boss, was dismissive of the mainstream media, and spent his final days railing at it.

We struggled to get answers to our email enquiries from a communications team that was sometimes empowered to say little more than the equivalent of “off the record I have nothing to say”.

Blinken’s low-key style is also quite a shift from Pompeo’s vow to put the “swagger” back in the department, and will be competing with the larger than life personalities of special envoys such as John Kerry – his former boss and Biden’s point man on climate.

But Blinken has a personality of his own, shaped by his life story.

He talks of how his grandfather found refuge in America after fleeing pogroms in Russia, and how his Polish stepfather escaped a Nazi death march to be rescued by an American GI.

“That’s who we are,” he likes to say. “That’s what we represent to the world, however imperfectly, and what we can still be at our best.”

Convincing the rest of the world that that America exists, is central to how he sees his job.