Category: US Politics

Under the leadership of Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the U.S. State Department has become fixated on controlling speech under the pretense of guarding against so-called "disinformation."

Fortunately, some of the apparent targets of the agency — reporters Gabe Kaminsky of the Washington Examiner and Matt Taibbi of the "Twitter Files," as well as some Republican lawmakers — have chosen to fight back, calling out the State Department for trying to censor Americans and right-leaning media outlets exercising their First Amendment rights in ways the government doesn’t like.

Blaze News caught up with Kaminsky and others wrangled into this ongoing fight for free speech to learn what they have endured in the past and what they hope to accomplish going forward.

Background: The ‘disinformation’ boogeyman

These days, it seems that all high-profile Democrats and their allies in the media are obsessed with this trend.

In connection with FEMA funding and the hurricanes that recently battered the Southeastern United States, Vice President Kamala Harris claimed in early October that "there’s a lot of mis- and disinformation being pushed out there" by former President Donald Trump.

‘Our First Amendment stands as a major block.’

CNN anchor Dana Bash dutifully followed Harris’ lead and bragged in an X post that she had asked Harris "about dangerous misinformation coming in part from Donald Trump."

Back in 2022, Harris’ running mate, vice presidential nominee Tim Walz (D), bizarrely asserted that "there’s no guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, especially around our democracy."

Speaking at a World Economic Forum event in September, former Secretary of State John Kerry lamented that "if people go to only one source and the source they go to is sick and has an agenda and they’re putting out disinformation, our First Amendment stands as a major block to the ability to be able to just hammer it out of existence."

Even with deadly forces of nature flooding a major swath of the U.S., tens of thousands of rapists and murderers from foreign countries stealing into the country, painfully high prices at the pump and in grocery stores, and the ever-present threat of nuclear war, the Democrats have apparently settled on "disinformation" as the most pressing problem facing America today.

The State Department never responded to the series of questions Blaze News submitted about the topic, so it remains unclear how the department defines "disinformation" or how it determines which information is branded "disinformation" and which is considered plain old information.

Despite this lack of clarity, back in 2016, under the Obama administration, the State Department created a subdivision entitled the General Engagement Center, which has as its mission "to recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining or influencing the policies, security, or stability of the United States, its allies, and partner nations."

In short, the GEC was mainly established to root out "disinformation" propagandized by other countries in order to guard Americans against pernicious foreign influence.

Within just a few years, however, the GEC appears to have devolved into little more than a federal panopticon seeking out Americans and American media outlets that hold disfavored views and then censoring them by allegedly funding disinformation-related organizations, both foreign and domestic.

The Twitter and Kaminsky files

In January 2023, independent journalist Matt Taibbi famously initiated what became known as the "Twitter Files," a series of exposés revealing alleged ties between the social media platform now called X and various federal agencies.

The first installment of the Twitter Files focused mainly on 2020 — while Trump was still in office — and the increasing number of requests from federal agents and lawmakers to silence accounts over alleged disinformation about COVID-19. According to Taibbi’s report, the State Department’s General Engagement Center was among the first to flag supposedly "Russia-linked accounts" that promulgated COVID-related messages in various languages to spread disinformation to "a global audience."

By 2021, Joe Biden had been sworn into office, and the GEC then allegedly expanded its efforts to root out disinformation.

To that end, the GEC apparently partnered with the Global Disinformation Index, a London-based organization that ranks various media outlets based on the risk they pose of purveying disinformation. Because GDI is located overseas, the GEC could theoretically send money its way without running afoul of the GEC mission to address only "foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts."

And since the GDI included many American outlets on its Dynamic Exclusion List, the GEC appears to have indirectly funded attacks on American media. Blaze Media was among the top 10 media outlets the GDI described as the "riskiest" for disseminating disinformation, as were the Daily Wire, the Federalist, RealClearPolitics, One America News, and the New York Post.

According to reports from Gabe Kaminsky of the Washington Examiner, between October 2021 and March 2022, the GEC gave the GDI a grant of $100,000.

The National Endowment for Democracy, a nonprofit heavily funded by the State Department, apparently gave the GDI an additional grant of more than $750,000, bringing the total given to the GDI by organizations within the State Department’s purview to over $850,000.

Neither of those grants has been renewed, the New York Post reported.

‘The State Department had numerous opportunities to respond to my reporting on it funding the Global Disinformation Index, but they declined to answer basic questions.’

Rather than engage in introspection after that information became public and assess whether the State Department had gone too far in seeking to silence free speech and the free press, in March 2023, the department apparently compiled a press guide so that agents could defend it against the reports from Taibbi, Kaminsky, and others.

The New York Post eventually got hold of the press guide and published screenshots of it in a damning report last month. All of the screenshots of the State Department’s press guide shared by the Post except one is marked "U.S. Department of State" and "not for public release."

According to one screenshot, which appears to be a script for agents to follow in the event they are asked about the relationship between the GEC and the GDI, agents are encouraged to say that the GEC did not invest in the GDI "to blacklist conservative media outlets" but rather to analyze "disinformation efforts in East Asia and Europe."

"The GEC presented GDI with a scope of work to apply its disinformation risk measurement across a set of foreign countries and languages in East Asia and Europe," the script suggests that agents say, according to the screenshot. "GDI was able to expand its disinformation risk measurement across six new languages — Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Russian and Ukrainian — enabling a more precise focus on [People’s Republic of China] and Russian disinformation activities."

"The GEC’s work with GDI was limited to counter-disinformation efforts in East Asia and Europe," another screenshot reiterates.

Should a State Department agent be asked whether the GDI ever created "a blacklist of American sites," the script suggests referring the inquirer "to GDI for questions on their activities."

Other screenshots of the press guide indicate that the State Department wanted to go on the offense, seemingly attacking the reporters who covered the relationship between the GEC and the GDI rather than defend the actions of the agency.

In a section entitled "Background for Briefer’s Eyes Only," the press guide accuses Taibbi of misrepresenting the facts regarding federal influence over Twitter and Elon Musk of amplifying Taibbi’s misrepresentations by retweeting his first Twitter Files thread.

"Elon Musk’s retweet of Taibbi’s thread insinuates that the [United States government], and the GEC in particular, pressured Twitter to close U.S. accounts of which the USG disapproved," one screenshot says. "The evidence offered for this claim is often missing, inferred, or presented out of context."

The text in the screenshot never explains in what way Taibbi failed to support his claims or offered evidence "out of context."

The State Department press guide also takes aim at Kaminsky, implying that he failed in his journalistic responsibilities by not asking for an interview with State Department officials, even as it admits that Kaminsky "sent questions repeatedly" to the State Department press office, the screenshot shows. The guide even acknowledges that the press office "responded to his requests."

Kaminsky, who reportedly sent the State Department press office nearly a dozen requests for comment between January and February 2023, gave the Post a different version of events. "The State Department had numerous opportunities to respond to my reporting on it funding the Global Disinformation Index, but they declined to answer basic questions," he said.

In a summary page of the press guide, the State Department reiterates the mission of the GEC, that it is geared toward combatting "foreign attempts to spread disinformation and propaganda globally" and that it "does not fund programs in the United States."

Another page of the guide insists that "the GEC does not and has never attempted to moderate content on social media," a screenshot reveals.

In a statement to Blaze News, Kaminsky called that assertion "false."

"That claim is untrue alone based on the GEC’s involvement in the lead-up to the 2020 election with the Election Integrity Partnership, a collaboration between colleges, think tanks, social media platforms, and the U.S. government to thwart alleged falsehoods online," he said.

"It makes sense that the State Department — or any other agency — would craft public or non-public press guidance to determine how to respond to reporting that scrutinizes its activities and unearths wrongdoing," he continued.

"Investigative reporting by Taibbi, myself, and other journalists demonstrated that the GEC has been closely linked to efforts by activists to suppress domestic content on social media and also funded entities such as the Global Disinformation Index that aim to thwart U.S.-based voices that the British group disagrees with."

Matthew Peterson, editor in chief of Blaze News, one of the outlets disparaged by the GDI, is likewise incensed that the federal government has seemingly taken aim at its own law-abiding citizens:

The federal government now routinely uses our tax dollars to shape and censor political speech in America. In this case, we see the State Department engaged in an active war against journalists like Matt Taibbi and Gabe Kaminsky and elected officials like Jim Banks who dared to expose their unconstitutional activity. If America is to retain a republican form of government, federal officials cannot be allowed to attack and smear anyone who attempts to discover the truth about what they are up to.

The State Department, the Global Disinformation Index, the National Endowment for Democracy, and Taibbi did not respond to a request for comment.

‘A sloppy and hypocritical lie’: Lawmakers become involved

In addition to Taibbi and Kaminsky, the State Department press guidance obtained by the Post also refers to members of Congress, including Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.).

Murphy, who has described himself as "one of the bipartisan creators" of the Global Engagement Center, appears to have been included in the press guidance because he issued his own tweet thread in February 2023, claiming that the accusations against the GEC in Taibbi’s Twitter Files thread were "MADE UP OUT OF THIN AIR."

According to Murphy, the GEC never "improperly labeled" Twitter accounts as agents of "Russian propaganda."

"All the GEC did was was to note that bots and social media accounts that had previously been proven to be linked to foreign governments were now in the business of spreading anti-U.S. COVID misinformation. That’s it," he wrote.

‘The Putin regime and the Biden-Harris administration both hate free speech, and that’s why they targeted me.’

The reasons for including Rep. Banks in the State Department press guidance are less clear, especially since the key reference to him in the document appears to be a misquotation of a statement Banks gave to Kaminsky.

For an article published February 9, 2023, Banks told the Washington Examiner: "House Republicans will be hauling these bad actors before Congress, and I absolutely support legislation to ban federal funding of anti-free-speech groups."

However, the quotation attributed to Banks that appears in the State Department press guidance, according to a screenshot shared by the Post, looks markedly different: "The Republicans of the House of Representatives will bring these bad actors to justice to Congress, and I absolutely support the legislation banning federal funding for the fight against freedom of speech."

In a letter dated September 16, 2024, and addressed to Secretary of State Blinken, Banks indicated that the cause for the discrepancy is that the State Department cited "RIA FAN (Russia)" as the source for Banks’ statement, not Kaminsky or the Washington Examiner.

The ultimate effect of the GEC’s "intentional misquotation," Banks argued in the letter, was to give "the impression that [he] had been speaking with a Russian propaganda outlet."

"The State Department, in defense of its domestic so-called ‘disinformation’ operation, purposefully spread disinformation about a U.S. lawmaker," the letter continued. "This is a sloppy and hypocritical lie and it is typical of the Biden-Harris State Department’s repeated attacks on the First Amendment and Americans’ free speech rights."

Kaminsky is likewise troubled by the apparent misquotation of Banks, telling Blaze News that it raises "concerns about speech suppression."

"The State Department’s decision to cite the Russian misquotation, which did not circulate among U.S.-based readers, was an apparent effort to unfairly link Banks to a foreign adversary. Some would call that disinformation. Ironic, no?"

In a statement to Blaze News, Rep. Banks called out Russia and the Biden-Harris administration as enemies of free speech.

"Russia sanctioned me for being an enemy of Vladimir Putin, and now the Biden State Department is falsely smearing me as a Russian propaganda booster," he said. "The Putin regime and the Biden-Harris administration both hate free speech, and that’s why they targeted me."

About a week after Banks issued the letter to Blinken, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) wrote a letter of his own, claiming the GEC was beyond hope and demanding its outright dissolution.

"By smearing anyone who disagrees with it as a Russian stooge, this network conflates U.S. citizens with a U.S. adversary, as State Department talking points did to my colleague Representative Jim Banks and the award-winning journalists Gabe Kaminsky and Matt Taibbi in a scheming sleight of hand that ruled out of bounds political opinions and fact-based reporting it opposed but cannot refute," Issa said.

"Mr. Secretary: It is time for this failed entity to be held accountable. It is time to bring an end to the Global Engagement Center," his letter closed.

In a statement to Blaze News, Issa said:

The First Amendment rights of the American people are threatened not only by malign actors in the EU, U.K., or Brazil — but by our own State Department and specifically the Global Engagement Center. There truly is a Censorship Industrial Complex at home and abroad, and our opposition to it must be no less comprehensive. Congress can’t look away from this continuing scandal that grows worse with every revelation. We need to be committed and creative if we’re going to win the fight for free speech and a future without the GEC is a step in that right direction.

Issa may soon get his wish. A State Department appropriations bill that has already passed the House and that will soon be under consideration in the Senate seeks to strike funding for the GEC based on its alleged ties to American censorship.

Refusing to be silenced

Ever since Taibbi, Kaminsky, and others exposed the apparent attempts at the Global Engagement Center to censor Americans in defiance of the First Amendment, elected Republicans and some watchdog groups have taken action against it.

‘One of the most egregious government operations to censor the American press in the history of the nation.’

Back in December, Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton joined the Daily Wire and the Federalist in filing a lawsuit against the State Department for allegedly "actively intervening in the news-media market to render disfavored press outlets unprofitable" by sending taxpayer dollars to help fund the Global Disinformation Index and a similar group called NewsGuard.

The lawsuit further alleged that the GEC implemented "one of the most egregious government operations to censor the American press in the history of the nation."

In response to a request for comment, a spokesperson from NewsGuard told the Post that the lawsuit “inaccurately portrays” NewsGuard’s relationship with the State Department.

"NewsGuard does not offer any technology that censors or blocks any content, or that blocks ads on content,” the spokesperson continued. "Instead, we provide information — our assessments of sites — so that our clients can decide for themselves where to place their ads or which content to amplify, and each client decides for themselves how to use that data."

Following the bombshell report from the New York Post that made public the State Department’s press guidance, a group identified as the Functional Government Initiative filed Freedom of Information Act requests in the hopes of uncovering further details about the agency’s alleged attempts to malign Kaminsky, Taibbi, Banks, and others in defense of the GEC.

In its requests, the Functional Government Initiative also asked for certain communications involving Blinken and other top State Department officials dating all the way back to January 2023. The aim, FGI spokesperson Pete McGinnis told the Examiner, was to see "who was involved in the blacklisting efforts" and "just how high up the chain this memo was guiding their media strategy."

"The reporting on the Biden-Harris administration’s censorship clearly struck a nerve at the State Department."

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World Weather Attribution was founded in 2014 to produce research linking extreme weather events to climate change. That research is then funneled to mainstream media outlets, giving them what the group calls the "larger global warming context" as they cover natural disasters.

The group found a friend in Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who in 2022 announced a $10 million grant to WWA and two other organizations to "scale effective communication on the links between climate change and extreme weather." The Bezos Earth Fund said the money would provide the WWA an outlet to "reach the most important audience segments via trusted messengers."

The post WaPo’s Favorite Environmental Group Uses ‘Political’ Research To Link Climate Change to Natural Disasters. It’s Also Bankrolled by WaPo Owner Jeff Bezos. appeared first on .

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The Biden-Harris regime finds itself embroiled in yet another scandal, as U.S. officials scramble to investigate the alarming leak of two highly classified documents that detail Israel’s potential strike plans on Iran.

The Gateway Pundit previously reported that the leaked documents, now being circulated through Telegram channels linked to Iran, contain details about Israel’s military positioning ahead of an expected strike on Iran in response to an October 1 missile barrage.

The leak includes intelligence marked as top secret and is sharable only within the “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance (the U.S., U.K., Canada, New Zealand, and Australia).

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) confirmed on Sunday that the U.S. government is now investigating the unauthorized release of these documents, which are believed to have originated from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, according to PBS.

Jake Tapper: You spoke with Prime Minister Netanyahu yesterday. The U.S. is right now investigating a leak of highly classified intelligence documents posted online that appear to show Israeli plans for a retaliatory strike against Iran. What’s the latest on the investigation into this leak, and what did your conversation with Netanyahu go like? How did that go?

Speaker Johnson: Yeah, the leak is very concerning. There are some serious allegations being made. An investigation is underway, and I’ll get a briefing on that in a couple of hours. There’s a classified-level briefing and others. But we’re following it closely.

Look, I talked to my friend Bibi, Prime Minister Netanyahu, yesterday to encourage him. I mean, he’s done an extraordinary job, I think, prosecuting that war. If he had taken Joe Biden’s advice, they’d be in a much weaker position right now. I think the United States needs to stand unequivocally by our ally right now. Really, we’re on the precipice, I think, Jake, of a new era of security and freedom for Israel.

I think we’re very close, I hope and pray, to ending that conflict there. But we cannot equivocate. We can’t appease Iran. Now is the time for a maximum pressure campaign against the head of the snake. It’s not Hezbollah and Hamas and the proxies that are ultimately the threat; it is Iran itself. I think we need to recognize that reality.

WATCH:

This is not the first instance where the Biden administration has been accused of leaking sensitive information to hostile regimes.

In 2023, House Republicans raised alarms over Robert Malley, the Biden administration’s former Special Envoy to Iran, who was investigated for potentially compromising ties to the Iranian regime.

Malley, a figure with a clear bias against former President Trump, was suspended from his role amid serious allegations of mishandling classified information. Yet, to date, there have been no updates from the FBI regarding this investigation.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) previously stated that Malley’s security violations were so egregious that he was suspended without pay and had his security clearances revoked.

Read more:

Joe Biden’s Special Envoy to Iran and Principal Architect on Resurrecting Nuclear Deal Accused of Sharing Classified Information with Islamic Regime

The post Biden-Harris Regime’s Unthinkable Betrayal: U.S. Launches Investigation After Intel Leaks Israel’s Potential Attack Plans on Iran appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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With The Bloodbath Hoax having been so swiftly and thoroughly debunked, the evening network newscasts had to scramble to find ways to keep this narrative alive. It appears that they’ve settled on wrapping this latest hoax around the Capitol Riot of January 6th, thus magically eliminating the need for context.
No surprise here, the most hysterical report comes via ABC World News Tonight and Jon Karl, who acknowledged that former President Donald Trump’s remarks were in fact about the automotive industry, before making them about January 6th:
JON KARL: Today Donald Trump is defending comments he made at a rally in Ohio warning of a quote, “bloodbath” if he doesn’t win the presidential election in November. Trump made the comment as he was talking about the auto industry, vowing to impose 100% tariffs on some imported cars. 
DONALD TRUMP: We’re going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you’re not going to be able to sell those cars- If I get elected. Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country. That’ll be the least of it. 
KARL: Today, Trump insisted he wasn’t talking about political violence at all, saying, quote, “I was simply referring to imports allowed by Crooked Joe Biden, which are killing the automobile industry.” But the world saw what happened the last time Trump lost a presidential election, as Trump’s supporters violently attacked the Capitol on January 6th.
There has been a tactical evolution here. Trump’s remarks are now acknowledged as being about Chinese electric cars potentially built in Mexico (a grossly underreported story, as I said to Tim Graham on the NewsBusters Podcast), but here’s the new switcheroo: the full quote has Trump bracketing the “bloodbath” quote with remarks on the automotive industry. Chopping that last part off, even when restoring context in the beginning of the quote, keeps everything vague enough to keep the Bloodbath Hoax plausible and duct-tape January 6th onto it. Now there’s a fresh angle. And for Karl, perhaps, a fourth Trump book.
NBC ran The Bloodbath Hoax as part of its recap of Trump stories as opposed to a standalone item, but with the same basic play:
GARRETT HAAKE: And tonight the presumptive GOP nominee also pushing back, saying Democrats, quote, “pretended to be shocked at my use of the word bloodbath” during this riff about Chinese car makers. 
TRUMP: We’re going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line. And you’re not going to be able to sell those cars. If I get elected. Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country. That’ll be the least of it. 
HAAKE: Mr. Trump saying he was referring to President Biden allowing imports he says are killing the auto industry. Late tonight, calling Democratic attacks, quote, “misinformation”.
TRUMP: The word “bloodbath”, I used it about trade, essentially auto trade, because we’re getting ripped off with Biden’s really dumb auto policy.
HAAKE: The Biden campaign rejecting that it was about only cars. 
MICHAEL TYLER: Every single day, Donald Trump is promoting and endorsing and encouraging political violence on the stump.
The slightly expanded quote with a bit of context but maintaining plausibility, the (indirect) tie-in to January 6th- it’s all there, with a few more quotes with which to provide the illusion of balance.
CBS’s Robert Costa runs the exact same play within his Trump recap, albeit with a slightly different angle. Wash, rinse, repeat:
ROBERT COSTA: Meanwhile, the former president has ramped up his incendiary rhetoric on the campaign trail. 
DONALD TRUMP: We’re going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line and you’re not going to be able to sell those cars. If I get elected. Now if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country.
COSTA: Trump insists he was referring to a potential bloodbath in the automobile industry. In the past, Trump has warned of bedlam if Biden wins, suggesting there will be anger if he is convicted of a crime.
TRUMP: There will be bedlam in the country. It’s a very bad thing. It’s very bad precedent, as we say, it’s the opening of a Pandora’s box. 
The strategy may have evolved in order to provide a smidgen of context, but it remains as shameless and as reliant on multiple suspensions of disbelief as ever. The title of “regime media” is well earned here.
Click “expand” to view the full transcripts of the reports respective as aired on their respective evening newscasts on Monday, March 18th, 2024:
ABC World News Tonight
DAVID MUIR: Back here at home tonight, and to the race for the White House, on the campaign trail, Donald Trump warning of a, quote, “bloodbath” if he loses the election. Tonight, his campaign and what Trump meant by that. The Biden campaign pointing to January 6th. The country and the world seeing what can happen amid dangerous rhetoric. And the moment Trump played the national anthem to honor those who are behind bars for January 6th. Here’s Jon Karl.
JON KARL: Today Donald Trump is defending comments he made at a rally in Ohio warning of a quote, “bloodbath” if he doesn’t win the presidential election in November. Trump made the comment as he was talking about the auto industry, vowing to impose 100% tariffs on some imported cars. 
DONALD TRUMP: We’re going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you’re not going to be able to sell those cars- If I get elected. Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country. That’ll be the least of it. 
KARL: Today, Trump insisted he wasn’t talking about political violence at all, saying, quote, “I was simply referring to imports allowed by Crooked Joe Biden, which are killing the automobile industry.” But the world saw what happened the last time Trump lost a presidential election, as Trump’s supporters violently attacked the Capitol on January 6th. And in Ohio, Trump paid tribute to those arrested for their actions on that day. 
ANNOUNCER: Please rise for the horribly and unfairly treated January 6th hostages (The Star-Spangled Banner)
KARL: He saluted during a rendition of the National Anthem that was recorded by people in prison for what they did on January 6th. Trump called those now serving prison sentences hostages and patriots, suggesting he’d pardon them as soon as he gets back in office. Today, the Biden campaign condemned Trump’s prediction of a bloodbath, accusing him of having an "affection for violence" and a "thirst for revenge" and alleging Trump wants "another January 6th." Not long after Trump paid tribute to the people who attacked the Capitol as, quote, “unbelievable patriots", he posted multiple statements calling for Liz Cheney and other members of the January 6th committee to be prosecuted and sent to jail. In other words, David- Trump wants to pardon those who attacked the Capitol, and he wants to prosecute those who investigated his actions on January 6th. 
MUIR: Jon Karl, covering the campaign for us. Jon, Thank you.
 
NBC Nightly News
LESTER HOLT: His criminal cases may be caught up in a cycle of delays, but things may have moved too quickly for former President Trump in the wake of that stunning civil fraud judgment against him last month. In a court filing today Mr. Trump’s attorneys saying they have been unable to secure the $464 million bond due next week, saying a bond in the full amount is a practical impossibility. The former president, who built his professional reputation in part on his wealth, was held liable last month for fraudulently overstating the value of assets. Today’s development potentially opens the door for New York’s state attorney general to seize and sell off Trump assets while Mr. Trump appeals. Meantime, the former president is on the political defensive tonight over some remarks he made over the weekend. Garrett Haake has our report. 
GAARETT HAAKE: Tonight the fate of former President Trump’s most famous properties could be up in the air, with Trump attorneys telling a judge he’s unable to secure bond in the $464 million civil fraud judgment against him, asking a judge for an emergency stay. Guarantors won’t accept real estate as collateral but want nearly a half billion dollars in cash, which Trump’s company doesn’t have, his lawyers say. If he cannot post bond for the full amount by next week, Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James could start seizing his assets, potentially even his Trump Tower penthouse. In their filing, Trump attorneys argue the penalty is grossly disproportional when there were, quote, “no victims, no damages and no actual financial losses” in the case. It comes as the Trump campaign also faces blowback amid Mr. Trump’s new inflammatory rhetoric against what he calls criminal migrants. 
DONALD TRUMP: They’re not people in my opinion. But I’m not allowed to say that because the radical left says that’s a terrible thing to say. These are animals. Okay?
HAAKE: Mr. Trump has vowed to bring back his Remain in Mexico policy that keeps migrants waiting outside the U.S. until courts decide their asylum cases. The Biden administration is releasing 85% of migrants into the U.S. while they wait for asylum decisions. And tonight the presumptive GOP nominee also pushing back, saying Democrats, quote, “pretended to be shocked at my use of the word bloodbath” during this riff about Chinese car makers. 
TRUMP: We’re going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line. And you’re not going to be able to sell those cars. If I get elected. Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country. That’ll be the least of it. 
HAAKE: Mr. Trump saying he was referring to President Biden allowing imports he says are killing the auto industry. Late tonight, calling Democratic attacks, quote, “misinformation”.
TRUMP: The word “bloodbath”, I used it about trade, essentially auto trade, because we’re getting ripped off with Biden’s really dumb auto policy.
HAAKE: The Biden campaign rejecting that it was about only cars. 
MICHAEL TYLER: Every single day, Donald Trump is promoting and endorsing and encouraging political violence on the stump.
HOLT:  And Garrett, NBC News also has new reporting tonight about President Biden showing some growing frustration about his re-election campaign. What do we know? HAAKE: Yeah, that’s right, Lester. President Biden shouted and swore about falling poll numbers in a January White House meeting, and has felt cocooned by staff, eager to move more aggressively in campaigning against Mr. Trump, sources tell NBC News. Lester.
HOLT: All right, Garrett Haake. Thank you. 
 
CBS Evening News
NORAH O’DONNELL: We’re going to begin tonight with Donald Trump facing a cash crunch. The former president is on the brink of being forced to surrender some of his most valuable real estate properties to help pay that $454 million civil fraud judgment in New York. He’s already admitted that he doesn’t have the nearly half a billion dollars in cash, and today, his lawyers revealed that more than 30 firms that they were unable to or , quote, "unwilling" to accept the risk associated with such a large bond. The clock is now ticking with that bond due next week. It’s worth remembering the civil judgment stems from a ruling that Trump falsely valued parts of his real estate empire for financial gain. And then on the campaign trail, Trump is also defending himself after a series of disturbing remarks about migrants, January 6th defendants, and warning of a, quote, "bloodbath" if he loses in November. It was all while discussing tariffs on Chinese-made cars. CBS’s Robert Costa is here and he’ll start us off tonight.
ROBERT COSTA: Former President Donald Trump could soon be facing a financial crisis. His lawyers today revealing in a court filing that Trump has failed to obtain a $454 million bond, calling it a practical impossibility. It’s due in just one week and without it, New York Attorney General Letitia James could freeze his bank accounts and seize his prized properties, including Trump Tower and 40 Wall Street. 
DONALD TRUMP: The bottom line is, this is rigged.
COSTA: Trump, who was unable to reach agreement with more than 30 companies that provide appeal bonds, is also scrambling to raise money for the general election. CBS News has learned Trump is considering enlisting his former 2016 campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, a convicted felon who was found guilty of committing several financial crimes in 2018 and later pardoned by Trump. Meanwhile, the former president has ramped up his incendiary rhetoric on the campaign trail. 
TRUMP: We’re going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line and you’re not going to be able to sell those cars. If I get elected. Now if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country.
COSTA: Trump insists he was referring to a potential bloodbath in the automobile industry. In the past, Trump has warned of bedlam if Biden wins, suggesting there will be anger if he is convicted of a crime.
TRUMP: There will be bedlam in the country. It’s a very bad thing. It’s very bad precedent, as we say, it’s the opening of a Pandora’s box. 
COSTA: Over the weekend, Trump also referred to migrants as animals, and described those convicted for crimes related to January 6th as hostages and patriots. That remark drawing criticism from both sides of the aisle.
MIKE PENCE: It’s just, it’s just unacceptable. 
JAMIE RASKIN: A hostage is someone who is being held by a criminal group or a terrorist group for a financial or political ransom. That’s got nothing to do with people who have been criminally charged and given due process. 
COSTA: Meanwhile, former Trump White House advisor Peter Navarro will likely be headed to jail. Today the Supreme Court rejected Navarro’s push to stave off his sentence for refusing to comply with the congressional subpoena and he is now set to report to a correctional facility tomorrow in Florida, Norah. That is some big news. Robert Costa, thank you.
 

via NewsBusters – Exposing Liberal Media Bias

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Thanksgiving is meant to be devoted to thankfulness for family and the many other blessings in each of our lives. But, as most American families sit down to a Thanksgiving meal on Thursday, they will also be met with a specter looming over their financial life—namely, Bidenomics.

Rising consumer prices, falling real incomes, a slowing economy, and housing costs that are through the roof are all just some of the economic maladies visited on American families this year by way of the economic policies of the Biden administration.

Bidenomics is, tragically, nothing new. It is the doubling down of an age-old approach to economic policy, the idea that the government is better at using your money than you are. Through reckless federal deficits and money printing, the Biden administration has sown the seeds of economic malaise.

The American Farm Bureau Federation annually publishes the price of a “Classic Thanksgiving Dinner” that attempts to capture the experience of a typical American family.

The federation’s reported price, pre-Biden, for a Thanksgiving meal for 10 in 2020 was $46.90, but now, for 2023, it is $61.17—an increase of more than 30.4%.

This price increase puts an astonishing burden on American households. However, that is only one of many price jumps during the Bidenomics era. Across all categories of food at home, prices are up more than 20% from when President Joe Biden took office, while energy prices are up well over 35%.

This rampant level of inflation hasn’t, however, been a random or unforeseeable occurrence. It’s the direct and predictable result of massive upticks in federal spending. Whenever the government spends, it does so by forcefully taking funding out of the hands of hardworking Americans.

When a business or household borrows, it does so because the lender has faith that the borrower will be able to earn enough money to pay back the loan in the future. When a government borrows, however, that isn’t the case.

Governments are not capable of earning money through merit alone. Nationalizing industries or raising taxes are clearly coercive. Printing more money is another form of theft, forcefully pouring water into the wine of every American’s life savings.

Since these methods are coercive, government borrowing is as well. When a government borrows money, it agrees to use its unique power to pay back the loan with someone else’s money.

For decades, the Left has propagated the lie that government deficit spending was a magical free lunch because the government didn’t hike taxes to pay for massive spending increases. As inflation has shown, in the end, there is no free lunch, just the government eating your lunch at the money market buffet table.

As the federal debt has ballooned by 44% from $23.44 trillion to $33.75 trillion during the COVID-19 pandemic, so too has the inflation tax imposed on every American.

With Biden and so many other politicians committed to deficits at such an absurd level, there is only one further policy outcome: hyperinflation or sky-high interest rates that crowd out economic growth.

In early 2022, the Federal Reserve switched course, having let prices jump more than 12% in less than two  years, and decided to start increasing interest rates by constricting the money supply. While this has slowed inflation, it by no means has stopped it—or the harm it has done to household finances.

Despite the Federal Reserve’s actions, prices are now up more than 20% since the pandemic started and mortgage rates have spiked from around 3% to 7.5%, pushing that pillar of the American dream, homeownership, even further out of reach for tens of millions of Americans.

This goes to show that if the federal government drives up its deficits and spending, there will be nowhere for families to hide. The following chart shows that as the Federal Reserve stopped printing money to cover federal deficits, it traded an inflation crisis for an interest-rate crisis.

That has dramatically pushed up the first year’s interest cost on a typical mortgage from around $8,500 when President Donald Trump left office to well over $24,000 now.

From Reagan through Trump, annual interest payments on a new mortgage, with 20% down on a median house, were stable.

Under Biden? Up from $8,500 to almost $24,300…over 285% of the level under Trump! Thanks Bidenomics… pic.twitter.com/CegrUuLOW6

— Richard A. Stern (@RichAStern) October 28, 2023

We can do better than trading high inflation for high interest rates as the economy is slowly strangled to death. This all speaks to the immortal wisdom of President Ronald Reagan, who said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’”

As the nation comes together this Thanksgiving to be with loved ones and count their blessings, let us recommit to the principles that led us to such prosperity.

May lawmakers reduce the crushing size and scope of the government to allow Americans to keep the fruits of their labors and get back to building a brighter future for generations to come.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com, and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

The post NO, THANKS: Bidenomics Is a Big Turkey, and Not Only at Thanksgiving appeared first on The Daily Signal.

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At the heart of our unbelief lies not only our refusal to glorify God, but our refusal to thank him. Apart from grace, we take the gifts and ignore the Giver.

Listen Now

via Desiring God

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"We’re In The Middle Of A Revolution" – Victor Davis Hanson Warns Tucker: "The Next 12 Months Will Be The Most Explosive In History"

Tyler Durden Tue, 10/03/2023 – 08:45

via ZeroHedge News

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