This is my fifth review of a children’s propagandist library book. “Tasting the Sky” described Barakat’s childhood. “Balcony on the Moon” covers her high school years and her ongoing pursuit for Palestine.
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Ramallah-born Ibtisam Barakat, a kind, intelligent child, has become a thoughtful, accomplished young woman. She excelled in her studies and defied Islamic custom by breaking free of an early arranged marriage to pursue her education.
In her book, Balcony on the Moon, she explains that she was born in “Palestine,” but questions why it appears nowhere on a map. Except for the nineteen years of Jordan’s rule over its “West Bank,” it was historically Judea (from which is derived “Jew”) and Samaria. The name Palestine was a Roman-contrived insult to the Jews, a taunt of their ancient Cretan enemies, the Philistines.
Ibtisam’s surname, Barakat, is Egyptian. Her mother is Bedouin, a nomadic people. There is no history, government, language, culture, literature, monetary system, or archaeological evidence of a Palestinian nation.
After World War II and the displacement of millions, the UN General Assembly organized the International Refugee Organization (IRO) in December 1946. Only the Arab escapees of the 1948-49 war received their own relief agency with 110 times the money allocated to others worldwide, although they did not meet the conventional refugee concepts. They were not unprovoked victims, but the aggressors who should have compensated their Jewish and Israeli victims. They were not displaced victims because they remained in their country of nationality, and they had no fear of persecution because Israel did not persecute them. Israel’s future prime minister, Ben Gurion, promised them equality without exception, no harm, no expulsion, but peaceful coexistence with Israel’s Arab population. Nevertheless, the UN blindly registered the false claimants as refugees, a lie, even adding new non-Palestinian arrivals to the roster.
They could not return to their dwellings in Judea and Samaria, Jordan’s West Bank, because Egypt and Jordan prohibited them, and Israel was awaiting a workable peace plan. Those who fled to Jordan became Jordanian citizens. And had King Hussein not attacked, there would have been no war, no refugees, and the West Bank would have remained Jordan’s.
Within months of its creation, UNRWA should have yielded control to the host countries and ended UN support for the works program on June 30, 1951, but it didn’t. The Arabs refused to improve their condition and, instead, demanded increased and improved medical and education services. The works program became a relief operation for an exaggerated number of Arabs; the mission of reintegration was all but abandoned by 1956.
Seventeen thousand displaced Jews in Israel plus hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees from Arab countries were absorbed into Israel’s citizenry, but the Arabs perpetuated their entitlement status of welfare recipients for generations, now in its 72nd year of eternal refugeedom. Each time the Arabs were offered a large expanse of land, they refused and went to war. They remain in the West Bank and in Gaza, hoping to someday conquer Israel and rename it Palestine for themselves.
Ibtisam Barakat’s Author’s Note begins: “When I mention that I am Palestinian, I am often asked: but where is Palestine on the map?” She defines it geographically as an area ruled by many nations, Ottoman governance until World War I and a British military mandate until 1948. (TK-This was followed by Jordanian control for 19 years following its attack on Israel, until Jordan lost another attack in 1967, when Israel, the victor, was forced into administering the territory. It is now called “disputed land,” not Palestine.)
Ibtisam continued that Israel became a state because of the Holocaust, an incorrect, perpetuated lie. Theodore Herzl, journalist, playwright, and visionary began bringing the centuries of love of Zion (Israel) to the world in the 1800s. Ibtisam said that Britain had suppressed Palestinian aspirations for freedom, not true, a lie, and that Israel had been established on three-quarters of the mandate, also untrue, a lie. The Jews were betrayed in several ways over 100 years, one being that 78% of the land originally promised to them became Jordan, and the Arabs west of the Jordan River declined statehood. They were Egyptians, Yemenites, Iraqis and sundry nomadic tribes, not Palestinians. They adopted the term in 1967 to support their victimhood narrative (a lie) with its lure of financial aid and the eventual goal of eradicating the Jews. They eschewed statehood and independence.
During and after the Holocaust, many Jews returned to their homeland (then a borderless swath of land known as Palestine) and embraced Zionism, the movement to re-create the Jewish state. After tirelessly petitioning for an independent state in their homeland, Israel became a UN-recognized, independent nation in 1948. Tension between Jews and Arabs a constant, now escalated, and the neighboring Arabs immediately waged war against the nascent state.
Lest Ibtisam or the reader continue the belief that the upheaval rests with Israel’s rebirth, we must return to the history of Islamic Jihad, beginning with Mohammed’s slaughter of Meccan Jews in 620 CE to the present. The Quran commands violence. Muslims must convert or eliminate all non-Muslims. Mohammed founded the deadly cult of Islam, his words encouraging Islam’s children to relinquish their lives so as to take the lives of others. Only Islam has this unique fanaticism of a self-sustaining religious component that feeds on the psychological weaknesses of humans who fear the unknown and need a secure hereafter. This is what drives them to accept suicide bombings, fight holy wars, force conversions, and slaughter humans – the comfort that their view is must be followed by the rest of the world.
Ibtisam continues her story of family and school, surrounded by war and war stories. She is never taught that their leadership refuses statehood and independence at every opportunity, and that her people’s political narrative of victimhood is a fallacy, another lie. Just as she seeks independence, so too could her people have done the same. The key was in their own hands.
In ninth grade, she learns about Dalal al-Mughrabi, the female terrorist responsible for the 1978 Coastal Road massacre in Israel, killing 39 Israeli civilians, including 13 children, and compares 30 hours of fierce offensive terrorism with Menachem Begin’s defensive actions. Attempting to equate an act of terror and slaughter with Israel’s self-protection is an invention, a lie. She learns to create her own newspaper by reversing roles, featuring the terrorist Dalal as the embodiment of heroism, courage and resistance.
With each bomb explosion, she believes that armed Israeli settlers are taking Palestinian property. She has bought the war of words, using settlers to mean colonizers, when these Jews are the progeny of the indigenous people of thousands of years before who hold the legal title deed to the land of Israel. Not only can the Jewish people claim an eternal covenant to the land of Canaan given them by God in Genesis 13-17, but upon their return from exile in the late 1890s, they bought the desolate land at exorbitant prices from the absentee Arab landlords who had laid claim to the land under the Ottoman Empire.
Our writer looks back, but not far enough. For her, the conflict began when Jews said they would rebuild Israel on Jewish land, and purchased or restored fallow or swamp land in the early 1900s. But it began long before. From the Prophet’s jihad against Arabs (622-634); to the Jewish tribes (624), to Zoroastrians (634-651), to Byzantine Christians (634-1453), Berbers (650-700), Hindus (638-1857), Christian Coptic Egyptians (640-655), Nubians (650), Turks (651-751), Spaniards (711-730), Franks (720-732), Chinese (751), Sicilians (812-940), Armenians and Georgians (1071-1920), Mongols (1260-1300), Albania (1332-1853), Serbs, Croats and Albanians (1334-1920), Romania (1350-1699), Bulgaria (1350-1853), Croatia (1389-1843), Poland (1444-1599), Indonesians and Malays (1450-1500), Assyrians, Armenians and Greeks (1450-1853), Russia (1500-1683), Hungarians (1500-1683), Germany (1529 – ongoing), Yazidis (1640), Austrians (1683), and into modernity – Israelis, Americans, British, Russians, Norwegians, Swedes, Thais, Nigerians, Australia –jihad is now global. The International Union of Muslim Scholars calls on all Muslims to spread incitement to terror and extremism, for Palestinians to “seek death so as to be given life.”
Certainly, Ibtisam has not studied true Islamic history and she would be shocked to learn of the centuries of bloodshed, and it is possible that she would deny that history. In Islam, lies are acceptable if the purpose is deemed worthy. Mohammed set the laws: it was right to take land from others, to steal women from conquered men, and to make and break treaties for conquest.
The concept was significant when Ibtisam was taking her final high school exam, and her proctor asked if she would help a girl who was crying because she had no student enough to complete the questions. Ibtisam reasoned that this would not qualify as cheating because Islam justifies lying if it is done to help a fellow Muslim. She did not reason that if this incompetent student is accepted into college and subsequently drops out, the space she appropriated from a capable student is now lost. The help for one came at the expense of another, and the lie has now become theft, perhaps even life-altering.
The Palestinians who once identified with other Arab countries came to Israel and now occupy land they lost in their war of aggression against Israel, previously Jordan’s, previously Ottoman, previously a host of other ruling entities. Wars change boundaries. Until Israel chooses to annex the area, the Palestinians will continue to have meager health services because their huge funds are funneled to the PA for weapons and awards for mothers of martyrs. Today’s Arabs are tired of Arab corruption and more freely express that they prefer life under Netanyahu. They want an Israeli ID to work freely in Israel, a parliamentary democracy.
Saudi writer Abdulhameed Al-Ghobain tells the Arabic media that he and others support Israel’s annexation of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. He states, “There was a call for establishing a Palestinian state. The Palestinians, the Arabs, and even the Arab league refused to recognize that there should be a Palestine state. Maybe if a Palestinian state had been established, the situation would be different. So for us to be waiting all these years, destroying our Arab nation, destroying our economies and not achieving anything . . . I arrived at the conclusion that this cause has not been a real and just cause at any point in history. The Palestinian cause is an illusion … nothing to do with reality.”
Alabama is a closed primary with ballots determined by party affiliation. Former Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions is facing off against candidate Tommy Tuberville tomorrow in what will likely be one of the most watched primary races of the evening.
Jeff Sessions was an abject failure as U.S. Attorney General. After spending two years targeted by a fraudulent special counsel investigation as a result of Sessions’ recusal; there will forever be a strong dislike by President Trump toward Jeff Sessions.
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For those who have forgotten just how bad it was, it’s worth revisiting Jeff Sessions testimony to congress (November of 2017) when he admitted there were approximately ten ongoing investigations -that he knew of- that he was recused from.
Jeff Sessions recommended Rod Rosenstein. Rod Rosenstein recommended Chris Wray. Three years of abject misery was the result. See below:
Comrade citizens, those who travel in the Northeast zone should beware, Minister Cuomo is going all-in with the COVID compliance mandates. All travelers into New York from “high-COVID” states, must provide their papers upon arrival or face a summons and $2,000 fine.
This is nuts. In an effort to fundamentally destroy the livelihoods of millions of California small businesses, Comrade Governor Gavin Newsom has declared that all indoor activities must shut down to top the spread of COVID-19.
The overwhelming majority of dictates around COVID-19 mitigation are not laws. There was no debate; no input from representative government; and no option for the public to weigh-in on the decisions.
CALIFORNIA – […] Newsom ordered houses of worship, gyms and barbershops to close across dozens of counties that collectively contain the vast majority of California’s population and most of its urban centers. Statewide, bars will need to again shutter and restaurants must halt indoor dining.
[…] In March, Newsom was the first governor in the nation to fully shut down his state, elevating California into a poster child for aggressive efforts to limit the pandemic’s spread. Public health officials credited the effort with staving off a surge that might have crippled the state’s health care system.
“We were able to suppress the spread of this virus, we were able to knock down the growth of this in the beginning,” Newsom said Monday as he issued new restrictions. “We’re going to do that again, there’s no doubt in my mind.”
Caseloads and hospitalization numbers have risen sharply in recent weeks as California authorized counties to restart various sectors of the economy. Hospitals in some parts of the state are staring down the prospect of running out of beds as the state’s seven-day average of new infections is approaches 9,000 daily, while its positive test rate has climbed above 7 percent after hovering near 4 percent during the initial reopening process.
The Democratic governor previously ordered especially stricken counties to bar indoor commerce like inside dining and museums, but his Monday order expanded that mandate to cover all 58 counties in California — a clear acknowledgment that the state must do more to control the rapid spread of the disease. (more)
In order to support the most important political objectives of the DNC writ large in the 2020 election, COVID-19 hype is essential:
♦Without COVID-19 panic Democrats cannot easily achieve ‘mail-in’ voting; which they desperately need in key battleground states in order to control the outcome.
♦Without COVID-19 panic Democrats cannot shut down rallies and political campaigning efforts of President Trump; which they desperate need to do in key battleground states.
♦Without COVID-19 panic Democrats cannot block the campaign contrast between an energetic President Trump and a physically tenuous, mentally compromised, challenger.
♦Without COVID-19 panic Democrats do not have an excuse for cancelling the DNC convention in Milwaukee; thereby blocking Team Bernie Sanders from visible opposition while protecting candidate gibberish from himself.
♦Without COVID-19 panic Democrats do not have a mechanism to keep voters isolated from each-other; limiting communication and national debate adverse to their interests. COVID-19 panic pushes the national conversation into the digital space where Big Tech controls every element of the conversation.
♦Without COVID-19 panic Democrats cannot keep their Blue state economies easily shut-down and continue to block U.S. economic growth. All thriving economies are against the political interests of Democrats.
♦Without COVID-19 panic Democrats cannot easily keep club candidate Joe Biden sealed in the basement; where the electorate is not exposed to visible signs of his dementia.
♦Without COVID-19 panic it becomes more difficult for Big Tech to censor voices that would outline the fraud and scheme. With COVID-19 panic they have a better method and an excuse.
♦Without COVID-19 panic Democrats cannot advance, influence, or organize their preferred presidential debate format, a ‘virtual presidential debate’ series.
[Comrade Gretchen Whitmer knows this plan, hence she cancelled the Michigan venue]
All of these, and more, strategic outcomes are based on the manufactured weaponization of the COVID-19 virus to achieve a larger political objective. There is ZERO benefit to anyone other than Democrats for the overwhelming hype surrounding COVID-19.
It is not coincidental that all corporate media are all-in to facilitate the demanded fear that Democrats need in order to achieve their objectives. Thus there is an alignment of all big government institutions and multinationals to support the same.
To support police, earlier this afternoon President Trump and Vice-President Mike Pence held a roundtable discussion with people positively impacted by law enforcement. [Video and Transcript Below]
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[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: Great to have you here. Nice group. Some familiar faces. So thank you all very much for being at the White House. Very special house. Very special place. I’m grateful to be joined by citizens whose lives have been saved by law enforcement heroes. And that’s what they are: They’re heroes. And they’re being very unfairly treated over the last long period of time, but over the last few years. It’s terrible what’s happening.
We’re also joined by two amazing officers: South Carolina Deputy Sheriff William Kimbro. Where’s William? William? William? What happened to William? Okay.
MS. ROLLINS: Mr. President, he is holding a baby (inaudible).
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, okay.
MS. ROLLINS: The baby was crying, so he took (inaudible).
THE PRESIDENT: That’s a good excuse. That’s good. (Laughter.)
And Palm Beach County Deputy Sheriff Corey Reece. Hi, Corey. Good.
In recent weeks, our country’s police officers have been really under siege. I want to thank — first of all, I do want to thank Vice President Pence for all the work he’s done on this and, in particular, Attorney General Bill Barr, because the job he’s done has been amazing. It’s been — it’s been 24 hours a day. I guess I could say 28 hours a day. Right? It never ends, but it’s been a great job that you’ve both done. We appreciate it. Mike, we appreciate it very much.
But our officers have been under vicious assault, and hundreds of police have been injured and several murdered. You’ve been reading about it just like I’ve been seeing it.
Reckless politicians have defamed our law enforcement heroes as “the enemy.” They call them “the enemy.” They actually go and say they’re the enemy, and even call them “an invading army.”
These radical politicians want to defund and abolish the police from our nation. At first — when I first heard it, I said, “Well, that’s just something that they’re saying. That doesn’t…” But they actually are trying to do it. You look at what’s going on in Minneapolis, you look at what’s going in many, many Democrat-run areas. But they want to defund and they want to abolish.
Far-left mayors are escalating the anti-cop crusade, and violent crime is spiraling in their cities. It’s all far-left cities where they have no understanding of what has to be done. They don’t have a clue. And I will say that we put on a very powerful rule and law that you get 10 years if you knock down a monument. If it’s a federal monument, you go to jail for 10 years. And if it’s anything else, we tell them we work with the states to help them. But if it’s — if you do anything where it’s a federal monument — and there are a lot of them up there — and nobody has been attacked, nothing has been attacked since we did 10 years in jail, monument or statue.
In one recent week in New York City — this is hard to believe — shootings were up 358 percent, and yet they spend all their time — they want to do Black Lives latter [sic] — Matter signs outside of Trump Tower. They ought to spend their time doing something else, because I’ll tell you what: 358 percent increase in shootings in New York.
Last month, over 300 people were shot. NYPD retirements have quadrupled, and they’re going up even further. And New York City is out of control, unfortunately. My place, I love it, but it’s out of control. It was doing so well.
Rudy Giuliani — whether you like Rudy or not, he did a great job. He was the greatest mayor in the history of New York.
Murders in Atlanta are up 133 percent compared to the same period last year. And one of the victims was an 8-year-old girl, and we’ve had younger than that in Chicago last weekend.
In the last two weeks, 105 Americans were shot in Philadelphia. In Minneapolis, the city voted to disband the police department and cut it way down, but disband it ultimately. The radical politicians are waging war on innocent Americans. That’s what you’re doing when you play with the police.
My administration is pro-safety, pro-police, and anti-crime. And I will say — I just see a new number came in from Chicago — this weekend was a scourge. This weekend was — I guess 20 people killed in many, many shootings — many, many shootings. Far worse than the last week.
So things are happening that nobody has ever seen happening, happen in cities that are liberally run. I call them “radical lib.” And yet, they’ll go and march on areas and rip everything down in front of them.
If that’s what you want for a country, you probably have to vote for Sleepy Joe Biden, because he doesn’t know what’s happening. But you’re not going to have it with me. So we’ve been very strong on law enforcement. We’ll be doing things that you’ll be, I think, very impressed with. Numbers are going to be coming down even if we have to go in and take over cities, because we can’t let that happen.
When you have 20 people killed, 22 people killed in one weekend in Chicago, and you have 88 shootings — it’s not even conceivable. That’s worse than Afghanistan. I hate to say it: That’s worse than any war zone that we’re in, by a lot. It makes them look like tame places by comparison. So we’re not going to let it go on.
We’re not supposed to — you’re supposed to wait for them to call, but they don’t call. We’ve asked Chicago, “Would you like us to go in and help?” And they don’t want to say anything. And we’ve called many of the cities, “Would you like us to go and help?”
We’ve done a great job in Portland. Portland was totally out of control, and they went in and, I guess, we have many people right now in jail. And we very much quelled it. And if it starts again, we’ll quell it again very easily. It’s not hard to do if you know what you’re doing.
So I just want to thank everybody for being here. I’d maybe ask Vice President Pence to say a couple of words and then I’d like Bill Barr to say something, and we’ll go around the room. Okay?
Thank you very much. Thank you, everybody.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Mr. President It’s — it’s a real privilege to be here with the law enforcement officers who are gathered here and families whose lives have been impacted so profoundly by the courageous efforts of men and women in law enforcement.
I can assure you that while some are talking about defunding the police, under this President and this administration, we’re going to defend the police and we’re going to back the blue, because we understand that while tragedies happen — and we’ll always look for ways that we can improve public safety, and the President has taken steps and taken executive action to provide new resources to improve public safety and law enforcement around the country — I want to assure you that you have a President who knows what the people gathered around this table know, is that most of the men and women who put on the uniform of law enforcement every day are the best people in this country. They risk their lives every day to make — to make a difference in our communities, just like they’ve made a difference in all of your lives.
And so I want to thank you all. I want to thank you for being here at this — and for this conversation, as the American people will greatly benefit by being reminded of the incredible contributions that our law enforcement community makes each and every day. And I appreciate your willingness to tell that story.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Mike. Bill, please.
ATTORNEY GENERAL BARR: Thank you, Mr. President. First, let me say what an honor it is for me to serve under a President who is such a strong supporter of law enforcement.
I’ve said repeatedly that, to my mind, there is no more noble profession in our country than serving as a law enforcement officer. The police put their lives and wellbeing on the line every day for us, and their jobs have never been more difficult than it is today.
Today, we suffer many unprecedented social ills: kids growing up without fathers; alienated young, angry men; gangs engaged in the most brutal kinds of violence; increasing mental illness and homelessness; and a drug epidemic inflicting casualties beyond anything that we’ve experienced in a major war; and an increase in sexual assaults and child exploitation. You name it.
And who is expected to deal with all of this? As other institutions fail and abdicate their responsibility, who is expected to stand their ground and pick up the pieces? The police are. And that’s why I say their job — the job we ask them to do today has never been more challenging.
I believe it’s important to understand that, just like any other institution, there’s always room for improvement. And over the past several decades, there’s unquestionably been a lot of progress and reforms in policing. Its improved policing and life for the officers, their families, and their communities. We have the most professional police in the world.
Now, obviously, the event in Minneapolis was ghastly, and I haven’t heard anyone attempt to defend it. And it has rightly brought about an urge to make sure that we continue reforming and we finish the job. And I think that law enforcement understands and agrees that the concerns of the African American community regarding excessive use of force must be addressed. But we also have to be careful and not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
And so extremist reactions like “defund the police” are trying to pull us in exactly the opposite direction of where we have to go. We have to give law enforcement more support, more training and resources. And I think the executive order that the President signed last month strikes exactly the right balance: It’s supportive of the police, and it also addresses legitimate concerns about excessive force.
So our nation needs to gain a renewed appreciation of the noble work done by our police officers in protecting our communities. And I thank the President for convening this roundtable to highlight the good work done by our men and women in blue.
Thank you, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, Bill. I appreciate it. Maybe what we’ll do is we’ll go around the room, and maybe you could introduce yourself and explain exactly what’s going on. You have an incredible story. Please.
MS. BOYD: Hi, my name is Kemira Boyd. I’m from Charleston, South Carolina. Well, on June 11th, 2019, my baby started choking on breast milk, and I start — the first thing I started to do was just run out the house and jump in the car. While leaving out of my neighborhood, Officer Kimbro came. He was coming into the neighborhood and he immediately pulled me over. And we immediately jumped out, and he just took her from my arms and proceeded helping her. And, yeah, thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Saved her. Saved her. Really —
MS. BOYD: Saved her.
THE PRESIDENT: Wow. You don’t hear those stories. That’s why I think it’s important to have a meeting like this, a little different than it’s — it’s the meeting that we should have about 100 times out of almost 100. This is the one — because the police do such a great job. And there’s an example that’s fantastic. That’s fantastic. And did you know the gentleman on your left? Huh?
Come on. Let’s go. Let’s — let’s tell that story, please.
MS. BOYD: What do you mean? Like —
THE PRESIDENT: Now, did you — you know? Do you want to go ahead? Please. Yes, go ahead.
DEPUTY KIMBRO: Mr. President, Vice President, Attorney General Barr, thank you for having us here as distinguished guests. My name is William Kimbro. I’m from Charleston, South Carolina. I work for the Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office. As Kemira was saying, on July 10th of 2019, while I was trolling the unincorporated district of Summerville, South Carolina, I came across Kemira and her grandmother speeding in the car. I conducted a traffic stop on that vehicle, and as soon as those vehicles stopped, the lady later identified — was it your grandmother, Kemira?
MS. BOYD: It was my stepmom.
DEPUTY KIMBRO: Oh, your stepmom had jumped out of the vehicle and was frantic and said, “My baby! My baby! She can’t breathe.” And I kind — kind of stepped back and I said, “What?” And, you know, the rest was captured on my body cam video that’s since gone viral. But as soon as I made entrance over — stepped up to Kemira, I instantly asked her for the baby, who is now my goddaughter.
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, wow.
DEPUTY KIMBRO: And god-mom over there, Noni. Hi, Noni. Say hi, Noni. And — so, yeah, we’ve — we’ve been blessed and we just — it’s been a wonderful experience. Wonderful.
THE PRESIDENT: Great job.
DEPUTY KIMBRO: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, that’s what I meant when I kiddingly said — (applause) — that’s what I meant when I kiddingly said, you know the gentleman on your left, because you really know him because —
MS. BOYD: Oh, okay. (Laughter.)
THE PRESIDENT: That’s what I meant. And great job you’ve done. Thank you very much, on behalf of all of us. And, Kemira, congratulations. That’s great.
MS. BOYD: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you for being here.
MS. BOYD: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you both.
Please, go ahead.
MS. BOHON: It was about two weeks ago, I was lying in bed with my other three kids and — well, I forgot to introduce myself. Sorry. Sara Bohon. We have four kids, and we’re from Roanoke, Virginia.
I was lying in bed and my sister happened to be home. And my husband ended up calling her and asking her to count how many kids were home. And she got up and looked inside of my boy Spencer’s room, and he was not there, and his window was open.
And so we instantly saw that he was missing. And he is autistic, nonverbal, and doesn’t really have sense of danger. So when he goes missing, it’s like life or death. You got to find him as fast as you possibly can.
So we instantly called the police, and my husband rushed home from work. And they called the search dogs out, and within 12 minutes, they found him. He had ran up into the woods. Someone had spotted him sitting in the middle of the road. And he pulled over, and they tried to get him to come to him, but of course, he bolted and ran up into the woods. And following behind the dog, going in and out of the trees, it was actually really cool because I could imagine him doing that exact thing of going in and out of the trees and sliding down the creeks. And I’m sure he was having the time of his life because he was free.
But we were able to find him. And the dog’s ears perked up right when he was within 15 feet. And I yelled his name, and he sat down. And I instantly ran over to him and we were able to carry him back, and he was safe. And the only thing he had on him was four ticks, so he was good.
THE PRESIDENT: That’s great. So, again, the police did a great job, and the group did a great job. And — so Spencer has no sense of danger? So you would say, basically, he’s very brave. Okay? (Laughter.) View it — view it that way. Good.
Thank you very much for being here. We appreciate it. Thank you.
Brooke, please.
MS. ROLLINS: Mr. President, thank you. I got to meet almost everyone. My name is Brooke Rollins. I have the extraordinary honor of serving this President as his Domestic Policy Chief every day in this White House. And I will say there’s a lot of brave people in the room, probably no one more so than our two officers. But this mom not only has, Mr. President, her 9-year-old here, but she has her 4-year-old, her 3-year-old, and her 10-month-old here. And her husband, Spencer, just took them into the other room.
So this is bravery at its finest for all the moms in the room who’ve sort of manhandled lots of children. So thank you for being here, and certainly you, too, and that beautiful baby girl. What an honor to have you and all of you with us today.
Mr. President, you mentioned New York City, Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia. The lack of leadership, I think, happening in some of our most ravaged cities around this country is really astonishing. But I think it’s really important to note that that failure is a choice. And it is a choice, Mr. President, that I know you would never make.
I have seen you, now more than two and a half years, stand with law enforcement, stand with the mothers and the fathers in this country who are fighting for a chance at the American Dream. That dream is not possible without a law enforcement that stands for the rule of law and for safe and secure communities.
So thank you so much for your leadership. Everyone here today, thank you for coming. What an honor it is to have you in your house here at the White House on this day. And a special thanks to the moms who were brave enough to bring the little ones in to tell their story on behalf of these amazing men and women serving in blue.
Thank you so much.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much, Brooke. What’s more so astonishing to me is that we’ll call — Bill will call, Vice President will call, I’ll call — you’ll call leaders of these cities — Democrat leaders — and we don’t care if they’re Democrat or not; they happen to be in every case. But we’ll call them and we’ll say, “Do you need help?” And they’ll say, “No.” And I say, “But you just had 40 people shot and many people killed this weekend.” And they’ll say, “No, we’re okay.” And I’ll say, “What’s that all about?” And we’re tired of those answers. We’re tired of those answers. So thank you. To me, that’s astonishing.
Thank you very much, Brooke.
Please.
MR. BEARDEN: My name is Kenneth Bearden. I’m from Louisville, Kentucky. And I’m here today because I’m a man in recovery. At the age of 11 years old, I used substances for the first time. And by the end of that summer, I had overdosed seven times already. I’m one of them people that once I put a (inaudible) mood-altering substance in my body, I cannot stop.
I did not stop using alcohol or drugs until the age of 24. And through that time, at the age of 11 to 24, I’ve overdosed over 30 times. And at least a dozen of them times I’ve had police officers there on site, administering Narcan, saving my life. And my son would not have his father today if it wasn’t for the police officers, the men and the women who administered that Narcan.
And just that, my son gets to have his dad today because of that. And I get to help others along the way because of police officers, because of the people who have helped me along the way. And I’m truly grateful to be here.
THE PRESIDENT: And how you doing now then? So that’s been — that’s a lot of times that you had difficulty.
MR. BEARDEN: Yes. So —
THE PRESIDENT: How are you doing?
MR. BEARDEN: So I’ve got six years sober now.
THE PRESIDENT: Good.
MR. BEARDEN: And I am one semester — (applause) — I’m one semester away from having my bachelor’s degree in social work. I have a house. I have full custody of my son. I work for Addiction Recovery Care as a community liaison helping other alcoholics and addicts get into recovery and providing support for them. I’m living my purpose and my passion.
THE PRESIDENT: That’s a fantastic job. Thank you very much. That’s a — that’s an equally incredible statement. You understand what you’re doing now, so that’s great. Six years — almost six years. That’s fantastic. Good luck. We’ll see you in — let’s say, celebrate in 10. Okay? We’ll see you in 10.
MR. BEARDEN: Yes, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: So we’ll see you in another four years, all right? That’s fantastic news. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Please.
MS. NORRIS: Good afternoon, Mr. President. Thank you so much for having me here today.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.
MS. NORRIS: My name is Rhonda Norris. My story started when I was coming home from school one day. I teach. And I was broadsided in an intersection by a truck who ran a red light. I have no recollection of the accident.
My first memory was a policeman reaching through the shattered window and checking for a pulse. And I was in and out of consciousness and he continuously urged me to stay awake and stay with him — very soothing, very calm — and was calling on his radio for an ambulance and first responders, which — his being there sped up the process dramatically. He’s the one who told me, “We’re going to put a sheet over you to cut you out of the vehicle.” I had — I couldn’t move. I was trapped in the vehicle. And also, my injuries made me incapable of movement.
He also followed the ambulance to the hospital. He gathered up all my personal belongings that he could find at the accident and brought them to my husband at the hospital, and explained to him that I had regained consciousness. Stayed with my husband until the tests were done. And they said, “She’s going to be okay.”
The most amazing thing to me about this state trooper is that he was off duty. He didn’t have to do any of that.
THE PRESIDENT: Right.
MS. NORRIS: He was — just happened to be at the scene of the accident, and immediately responded and sped up my rescue. And I’m eternally grateful to him for doing that.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, that’s great. Thank you very much. It’s an incredible story.
So how seriously — how long did it take to recover? How bad was it?
MS. NORRIS: I was — I missed five weeks of work. I still have some injuries that will never go away, but I am very, very thankful to be here.
THE PRESIDENT: Okay. That’s a great job. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
MS. NORRIS: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you for being here. Please.
PASTOR CLEEK: Mr. President, I’m Perry Cleek, pastor of Lighthouse Baptist Church in Jonesboro, Tennessee.
THE PRESIDENT: Good.
PASTOR CLEEK: And our church watched over the last few weeks, as the way that our police officers were treated all over the country. And it was all over the news about how they are such — you know, they’ve been demonized and disgraced and dishonored. And we got our heads together and thought, “What can we do as a small church in a small town to honor our police, and to let our voice be known?” Their voice is loud that blame all this on police officers. The voice of small town America is seldom heard.
So we just set up a little ceremony. We went through the chief of police and the public safety director, and we asked them if we could hold a public ceremony on the steps of the courthouse on Main Street in Jonesboro, on July 4th at 11 o’clock in the morning, and present each member of the Jonesboro Police Department with a check for $1,000. And we did that and it shouldn’t have, but it made national news.
I think small towns all over America feel like we do: that we want our voice to be heard, that we love law enforcement — our local police officers. And if we can do something to support them and encourage them, then that’s what we want to do. And we feel very good about what we did.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, that’s a great story. I thought you were going to tell me that they wanted to arrest you for giving them a couple of bucks. (Laughter.) And they deserve it very much. But, you know, I’ve — I’ve heard the other end of those stories also. You’re not allowed to do anything. And you’re right about it: They’ve been, what — what the police have been going through over the last number of years, in all fairness — it’s been starting and — but it’s never been like this, has it? It’s never been like this. It’s — it’s crazy. It’s crazy.
And they’ll find out it’ll go the opposite direction, unfortunately, at some point. It’ll go absolutely opposite when they see — and you’re going to have some defunding and abolishing, and you’ll see numbers like nobody would ever believe. And they’re going to say, “Let’s get our police back as soon as we can.” Right?
Well, that’s great what you just — that’s a fantastic thing.
PASTOR CLEEK: Yes, sir. We were thankful that it’s a small town and a small police department. It was only 23 employees. (Laughter.) So it wasn’t that big a hit, but —
THE PRESIDENT: That’s a lot.
PASTOR CLEEK: — it was a blessing to them.
THE PRESIDENT: That’s a lot. That’s — good job. Thank you very much.
PASTOR CLEEK: And, Mr. President, I’ve already heard — I got a note written to the church that didn’t identify the officer but said, “I’m an 83-year-old widower and one of the officers brought by a sum of money, and gave to me to put back to pay my utility bills this winter. And told me it was a gift from Lighthouse Baptist Church.” That’s what one officer — and it’s just a week ago — but that’s what one officer did with that gift that we gave them.
THE PRESIDENT: That’s great. Great stories. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
MS. WINSER: Thank you, Mr. President —
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.
MS. WINSER: — and Mr. Vice President, for having us. My name is Debby Wisner. I’m local; I live in Maryland. And my story is not very dramatic; it’s just one that my purse was stolen. My purse. People have it happen to them. My credit cards were canceled and my cell phone — we put a special note on it that said, “If found, please call this number.” Nothing came of it.
A couple nights later in the middle of the night, at midnight, the phone rings and it’s — a gentleman says, “I found your phone. I have your phone. Would you offer a reward for it?” And I said, “Of course.” And my husband said, “Are you nuts?” (Laughter.) And he said, “I’ll bring it to you.” I gave him my address and hung up the phone and called our police department, because that’s who we turn to when there’s a situation.
THE PRESIDENT: Right.
MS. WINSER: My husband had another idea. He wanted to do something else, but I said, “No, we’re going to let the police do this. There’s no shooting tonight.” (Laughter.)
So he — the police came. They gave us their cell phone number. They went away around the corner and they said, “When he pulls up, give us a ring. We’ll be there.” Sure enough, he pulled up. He comes out of the car. It’s two o’clock in the morning now. And the police — two squad cars were there immediately, which is what we need in our communities.
THE PRESIDENT: Right.
MS. WINSER: And they checked him out. He did, in fact, find the phone. And I gave him a reward and thanked my police officers.
And I’m grateful that we have community policemen that are willing to come at two in the morning and do this —
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.
MS. WINSER: — silly thing.
THE PRESIDENT: That’s great. Thank you very much.
MS. WINSER: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Two in the morning? Why did he — that’s a strange time. So you found him to be okay? Even though he came at two in the morning?
MS. WINSER: He came at two in the morning, but so were our policemen.
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, no, they were there.
MS. WINSER: And that’s the only reason —
THE PRESIDENT: That’s great.
MS. WINSER: — we were okay with it.
THE PRESIDENT: Good. Thank you very much.
MS. WINSER: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Really nice.
Please.
STATE REPRESENTATIVE JONES: Mr. President, thank you so much. It’s an honor to be here. I, like many others — we support you in support our law enforcement officers in providing the safe communities.
Thank you, Mr. Vice President, for being here as well and your hard work. And obviously, to the Attorney General, Attorney General Barr, thank you. And to law enforcement officers that are here and their families, and to your staff, Mr. President.
Although it shouldn’t matter, Mr. President, I’m kind of a unique bird, if you will. I’m a Democrat. I’m an elected official. I’m African American. I have 8 years — or 12 years of experience in the Georgia House of Representatives, 8 years as county exec.
And as county exec, I’ve had to manage a very large — probably one of the largest police departments in the state of Georgia. But I’ve also had the unfortunate experience of having to meet with family members who lost a loved one from a police shooting. That was the very — probably the most difficult part of my job. But I’ve also had to deal on the other side, where I lost two police officers in one night, among several others I lost, but I lost two in one night.
By the way, they happen to have been African Americans. And going to meet with their family members as well, and young wives with young babies, and having to experience seeing them lose a loved one is nothing anybody would want to do.
But I can tell you this, Mr. President: By and large, most law enforcement officers — those men and women who honorably wear their uniforms each and every day to go out — when they’re running towards a situation, others are running from it. So we have to stand with them.
And I’ll say this; I have two words: We need more funding for police officers, not less funding. And here’s why I say that: When you look at law enforcement and the equipment, that’s important for them because it’s protecting and saving their lives as well as saving others’ lives.
But clearly, more money is needed to buy less lethal enforcement types of tools like the Bola — what they call the “BolaWrap.”
THE PRESIDENT: Right.
MR. JONES: We also need resources for them. Officers usually, almost always, only get the psychological exams prior of being hired, as part of examination of getting hired. But afterwards, they’re not given those type of psychological exams or assessments.
And when you look at them, they’ve been on the — let’s say, the beat four or five years, nonstop, and the number of calls they’re getting, the number situations — that’s a way we can detect: Are they burnt out? Do we need to put them somewhere else? That’s important.
And finally, Mr. President, community policing is important. That relationship, that trust being fair, but enforcing the law. And most people, including black people, they want law enforcement to be out there enforcing the law. I think people just want it to be — they want them to be fair. They want them to be swift in justice.
And we lost a baby girl too, in Atlanta, eight years old, and it wasn’t to a police officer. More people have died from the protests of Black Lives Matter than prior to that. And so, sometimes it’s hypocritical. It’s almost as if some black lives matter, but all black lives should matter, and all lives should matter.
So I thank you, Mr. President, for what you’re doing, and I stand solid with you.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Beautiful.
Please.
MS. YOUNG: Good afternoon, President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Mr. Barr, and distinguished guests. I thank you for this opportunity to share our family’s story.
Eight years ago, our 15-year-old daughter was trafficked by MS-13 gang members. She was trafficked over a year-and-a-half time period throughout the DMV area. Law enforcement played a fundamental role in the rescue and the recovery of our daughter and were also vital in the protection and safety of our family, both then and now.
Initially, the officers handling our case, albeit well intentioned, were not trauma informed and not able to differentiate a runaway teen from a victim of human trafficking. Once we came in contact with trained personnel, former detective Bill Woolf, our situation improved.
We need to provide resources and training to law enforcement to properly address only — not only the offenders, but also to the victims and to their families. Because of Mr. Woolf’s expertise in this area, we were able to relocate our family to a safe location. We were able to get our daughter the proper resources and help so that she could heal and move on for her life.
The law enforcement is crucial to the rescue, to victims of human trafficking, and I believe we should support them with everything we have. Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Great story. Thank you.
MR. SMITH: Thanks so much, Mr. President, for convening this listening session. And thank you for all of the passion and, you know, being able to share your stories here on national TV, and with the President, because it’s really important.
There’s so many people who don’t get a chance to have their voice lifted, and having this opportunity to tell your story to a President that’s not only going to listen to it, but take action, is extremely important to the work that we do. And I want you all to know that as you go back home, we’re still there with you, and we’re willing to come and do all we can to help create safer communities.
Since day one, this President has been really focused on that in a unique way. I’ve spent some time on the road and with my colleague Scott Turner, trying to get local leadership to work with us to not only change those communities, but empower people. But having these sessions here is extremely important because most people don’t know — some people don’t know the pain that you all go through. And so having that story told to millions of people is extremely important.
But I think what’s most important is that we take this session here and create action, work with our police department, empower our police department, empower our families so that we can change what’s happened over the last 20 years.
There’s no reason for places across the country in America to have more deaths than a war over in Iraq or Afghanistan. You know, that’s — that’s not the country that we’re about. And this President won’t stand for it. So thank you so much for your — Mr. President, for your leadership.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you very much. You’re doing a great job too.
Please.
MS. JO ETTA NORTHCUTT: Thank you, Mr. President. I’m basically here in support of my daughter-in-law and my grandchildren. But I would like to say a personal thank you to Officer Reece, here, for saving my grandson. I will never forget it, and I’ll always be grateful.
And I would also like to add that I’m a state employee. I work in the city of Atlanta, and I have seen a drastic change in law enforcement coverage in that area. And I see the difference when law enforcement is not visible on the streets. So we’ve had our challenges there. And it’s peaceful now, but when there is a lack of law enforcement within a community, civility breaks down and crime increases. And I don’t have any answers, any solutions, but I can just speak on the fact that I have experienced it over the past three to four months. And I thank you for your invitation here and for your time.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you.
DEPUTY REECE: First of all, Mr. President, Vice President, Attorney General, thank you very much for inviting me here today. It’s truly an honor to be here. I’m Deputy Corey Reece with Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office. I have been a deputy there for — going on three years now.
Last month, in June, I was staying with my wife at a Hampton Inn in Tampa — off-duty, of course. I work in Palm Beach County; this is Tampa. We were in the room relaxing, and I could hear a lady in the hallway screaming for help. And so I went outside to see what was going on, and the young lady to my left here was on the floor, clutching the child in her arms. She was screaming for help. The child was crying. And there was a man standing above them, grabbing at her and the child.
Now, my first thought was, it was a domestic situation, but clearly there was something going — something wasn’t right with the situation. So I separated him, and she said that she doesn’t know him, and he was trying to take her child.
And more and more people came pouring out of the rooms and were saying the same thing. So I immediately got him separated. I had him sit down in the hallway, and I had someone else call Tampa PD. And they arrived, and, at that point, I just was keeping the peace between everybody because there was some people getting quite aggressive, you know, with him. You know, it’s not, you know, the right time. You know, you have to let law enforcement handle it. You know, it’s not a time to take matters into your own hands. So, at that point, it was mostly peacekeeping.
But, you know, I didn’t think it would be as big of a deal as it ended up being until, you know, the next day, some people in the hallway were like, “The video has gone viral. There’s like a million views.” And then I’m getting a call saying I’m invited to the White House. (Laughter.) I mean, it just — it was completely unexpected. You know, I just — just doing what — you know, what I was trained to do, what I was told to do. You know, just being there at right time, right place, and that’s it.
Again, thank you for having me here.
THE PRESIDENT: It’s called “natural instinct” — right? — more than anything else. Thank you very much. Great job. Appreciate it. (Applause.)
MS. JAKEBIA NORTHCUTT: Hi, I’m — my name is Jakebia Northcutt. And I want to thank you, Mr. President and Vice President and everyone else, for having me here. I want to thank you. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t come help me. So I just want to thank you.
(Ms. Andrews speaks to her son.) David, want to say thank you? He’s not too (inaudible). He’s still dealing with it. I don’t really want to speak on the case because it’s still open. But my — the main thing I wanted to address today is our police that helped.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, you’ve said it all. So that’s a case that’s still going now? It’s still going?
MS. JAKEBIA NORTHCUTT: Well, as far as with the law. At the hotel — we entered our hotel room with a key, and that — and he came in and tried to take him away.
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, well, good luck with it. Good luck. Beautiful guy, too.
MS. JAKEBIA NORTHCUTT: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: Beautiful.
Okay, that’s just a few stories of the thousands and thousands of stories that we could tell. And we’ll probably be doing this again. But the police — they do a great job. They do a fantastic job, and they don’t get the kind of — I will say this: The people of this country appreciate the police; they appreciate all they’ve done. You don’t see that if you watch the news, for the most part. You don’t see things like this, but they’ve done a fantastic job.
Everybody here is a witness to that, and we see it a lot. The Attorney General sees it every day. But we see it a lot, and I just want to thank the various police departments, law enforcement. They’ve done an incredible job in this country. Where they’re allowed to do their work, they really do a job.
So thank you all very much for being here. Good luck with your case.
MS. JAKEBIA NORTHCUTT: Thank you, President.
THE PRESIDENT: And really terrific job, everybody. Terrific job. Thank you. (Applause.)
Would anybody from the media like to ask anybody a question here? Steve, go ahead, please.
Q Well, I was going to ask you about — if you’re in a good place with Dr. Fauci. There’s been some criticism of him over the last couple of days. Do you still appreciate his advice?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I have a very good relationship with Dr. Fauci; I’ve had for a long time, right from the beginning. I find him to be a very nice person. I don’t always agree with him. I closed the border, as you know, to China. I closed — I did the ban on China, heavily infected. And we saved tens of thousands of lives. And Dr. Fauci will admit that it was a good decision. It was very early. That was in January, long before it was thought of as the right thing to do.
I also closed the borders to Europe when Italy and a couple of other countries over there — France, certainly; Spain, they were having a lot of problems. I closed the borders very early, shortly after I did with China. So we saved a lot of lives. So we’ve made a lot of good decisions.
But, no, I get along with him very well. I like him, personally.
Yeah. Please.
Q Are you going to pardon Michael Flynn?
THE PRESIDENT: I can’t hear you.
Q Are you going to pardon Michael Flynn?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, he’s got a case going on right now. I think he would — I don’t know this for a fact, but I think he’s doing really well, with respect to his case. I hope that he’s going to be able to win it. And I don’t have a decision to make until I find out what’s going to happen. But I think he was persecuted. He didn’t lie, it turned out. He didn’t lie. The FBI said he didn’t lie. I think he was persecuted, and nobody understands what’s going on with the judge. The Justice Department, which is so capable, they decided to take a view on it and they decided that he should be — they were going to drop the case.
So he’s, right now — meaning, his lawyers and him are embroiled in hopefully the final stages of what should have never happened. They treated him very unfairly, as they have many people on this side.
Yeah, please.
Q President Trump, you’ve said many times that the number of coronavirus cases is going up because testing is increasing.
THE PRESIDENT: That’s right.
Q Do you acknowledge that it’s going up for other reasons too; for example, that it’s actually spreading? And what are you going to do to stop the spread?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, you know that we have one of the lowest mortality rates anywhere. If you know, Biden and Obama stopped their testing; they just stopped it. You probably know that. I’m sure you don’t want to report it. But they stopped testing. Right in the middle, they just went, “No more testing,” and on a much lesser problem than the problem that we have, obviously with respect to — this is the worst thing that’s happened since probably 1917. This is a very bad — all over the world. It’s 188 countries right now.
But, no, we are — we test more than anybody, by far. And when you test, you create cases. So we’ve created cases. I can tell you some countries, they test when somebody walks into a hospital sick or walks into maybe a doctor’s office, but usually a hospital. That’s the testing they do, so they don’t have cases, whereas we do — we have all of these cases. So, you know, it’s a double-edged sword.
At the same time, we have the lowest mortality or just about the lowest mortality in the world. We’re doing a great job. We’re doing very well with vaccines, and we’re doing very, very well with therapeutics. And I think we’re going to have some very good information coming out soon.
But we have the best, and certainly the biggest — by far, the biggest testing program anywhere in the world. If you tested China or Russia or any of the larger countries, if you just tested India, as an example, the way we test, you’d see numbers that would be very surprising. Brazil, too. You know, Brazil is going through a big problem, but they don’t do testing like we do.
So we do the testing, and by doing the testing, we have tremendous numbers of cases. If we didn’t do the — as an example, we’ve done 45 million tests. If we did half that number, you’d have half the cases, probably — around that number. If we did — if we did another half of that, you’d have half the numbers. Everyone would be saying, “Oh, we’re doing so well on cases.”
But when I see it reported in the night — you can check me out on this — I mean, they always talk about — they’re always talking about cases, the number of cases. Well, it is a big factor that we do — we have a lot of cases because we have a lot of testing, far more than any other country in the world. And it’s also the best testing.
Yeah, please.
Q Mr. President, the federal government is set to resume federal executions for this first time in more than a decade, potentially as soon as a couple of hours from now. Are you monitoring the last-minute appeals on that case?
And have you given any consideration to —
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think what I’m going to do is be answered by our Attorney General. Do you mind, Bill?
ATTORNEY GENERAL BARR: Yes, sir. We obviously monitor the appellate process.
Q And, Mr. President, have you given any consideration to using your clemency powers to stop these executions and commute them to life sentences?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I’ve — I’ve looked at it very strongly, and in this particular case, I’m dealing with Bill and all of the people at Justice. And it’s always tough. You’re talking about the death penalty. But when you talk about people that did what this particular person did, that’s tough also. So we’re going to see what happens.
Right now, they have a stay, I believe, right? They have a stay. And we’ll let the courts determine the final outcome. And that’s what’s going to happen. Okay?
Q A question about (inaudible), sir. You’re asking Americans to have full faith in law enforcement. How do you respond to critics who say you undermined your own federal law enforcement agency, the DOJ, when you commuted the sentence of Roger Stone?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, if you look back on it, this was an investigation that should have never taken place. You have guys like Comey, you have McCabe, you have Strzok, you have his lover, Lisa Page. You have all of these people running around. You have Brennan and Clapper, who lied to Congress. You have many, many people. You have people that changed documents going into the FISA courts. And it’s a terrible thing.
And this is an investigation that they said should have ended before it started; it should have started. And if it did, it should have ended immediately, because they found, as you know as well as I do, they found nothing initially, but it went on for two years or longer.
And — no, I did — I’m getting rave reviews for what I did for Roger Stone. And he, frankly, is going to go and now appeal his case. He had a jury forewoman who hated Roger Stone and who hated, probably, me. But she went on a false pretense. And he wasn’t given a fair trial. He wasn’t — it’s not a fair trial. He wasn’t given another trial. He should have been given another trial.
I won’t say more. I won’t talk about the judge. I’m not going to — why would I ever talk about a judge? But this was a judge that gave, I believe, solitary confinement to Paul Manafort. Al Capone didn’t have solitary confinement.
So these are things that happened. And if you look at President Bush, President Clinton, President Obama — take a look at what they did. Frankly, it’s very unfair. Roger stone was treated very unfairly, in my opinion, and so were many others on this side.
In the meantime, you have the other ones who are — admitted lying before — they admitted. They lied before Congress. They leaked. They leaked classified information, which is something you just can’t do. And what are they doing? So we’ll see what happens.
But, no, we’re getting rave reviews for what I did. Okay?
Q Are you going to be able to hold the convention in Jacksonville with all this virus spreading?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, we’re going to see. It built up a little bit, but we’re going to do something that will be great.
We think we’re doing very well. We had some poll numbers a little while ago that are great. You know, it’s the same story: It’s suppression polls that we had in 2016. Phony polls. Fake news, phony polls. Same thing.
And we’re doing very well. We’re doing well in Georgia, we’re doing well in Texas. I read where I was one point up in Texas. I’m not one point up in Texas; we’re many points up. I saved their oil industry. Two months ago, I saved the oil industry. There would have been — I created it; we became number one. We have millions of jobs. And we saved it, so Texas is not going to have to let go of millions and millions of people. Oklahoma, North Dakota — many states.
We have — we’re at $40 a barrel, and yet, you can buy gasoline for under $2. Nobody has ever seen it like this. So we have the biggest energy in the world. We’re number one in oil, as you know — oil and gas — by far. We’re now number one in the world. And we would have had millions of people out of work. I saved it.
And then they say I’m leading by one point in Texas. They said it last time too. They said Texas is too close to call. This was, like, three months before the election. And then I won Texas in a blowout. They called it the minute the polls closed. They said that about Utah. They said that about — Georgia, they said the same thing, that Georgia is, “Oh, we can’t — it’s too close. They’ll never be able to determine. We’ll have to wait until Election Night.” On Election Night, two seconds after the polls closed, they called Georgia.
So, you know, it’s the same thing. We have the same thing. They’re phony polls. They’re suppression polls.
But to think that after saving the oil and gas business, and millions and millions of jobs — I’m leading Texas by one point? I don’t think so. Go ahead.
Q Is the China phase one deal still intact, or is it — do you see it in jeopardy?
THE PRESIDENT: It’s intact. It’s intact. But I’m — I think what China has done to the world with what took place — the China plague — you can call it the China virus; you can call it whatever you want to call it. It’s about 20 different names. What they did to the world should not be forgotten. But it’s intact; they’re buying. Whether they buy or not, that’s up to them. They’re buying.
Q Mr. President, Los Angeles just announced that they are delaying the opening of their schools. New York already said they were going to delay them. Other school districts are giving parents the choice whether to send their kids to school or not. What do you tell parents who look at this, who look at Arizona where a schoolteacher recently died teaching summer school; parents who are worried about the safety of their children in public schools?
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. Schools should be opened. Schools should be opened. There’s kids who want to go to school. You’re losing a lot of lives by keeping things closed. We did the right thing. We saved millions of lives. We saved millions of lives when we did the initial closure. Had we not done what we did, we would’ve had two to — Mike and I were talking about it before — two to three million lives lost.
But we did that. So we’re at about 135,000, and we’ll be at somewhat higher than that by the time it ends. And again, the vaccines are happening and the therapeutics are happening, but I’m not even talking about that.
So we’ll be at a somewhat higher. But we would’ve lost two million, three million lives had we not done it. Now we understand it also. We understand there are certain vulnerabilities — young children.
I was with — talking to Governor Murphy, and they have thousands of lives — I won’t even say how many; just thousands of lives, hard to believe — in New Jersey. And he said there was only one life that was 18 or younger. One person died and that was a person — a young man that had some medical difficulty.
So when you think of that — with thousands of lives, and you have one person that was under 18 — that’s something. That tells you, for some reason, I guess, the immune system is much stronger with young people than it is for others.
So we have to watch the group that does have the difficulty, does have the problem. We all know what that is, we all know who they are, especially if they have a medical problem. If they have a medical problem — diabetes or heart or anything — it’s a — it’s a big problem. But we’re being very careful.
But we have to open the schools. Would you agree with that? Do you agree? Yeah. We have to open the schools. We have to get them open. And I think there’s a lot of politics going along. I think they think they’ll do better if they can keep the schools closed in the election. I don’t think it’s going to help them, frankly, but I think they feel that by keeping schools closed, that’s a bad thing for the country and, therefore, that’s a good thing for them.
But they’re the ones whose city is burning. I mean, can you imagine if the country was run like Chicago and like New York and like some of these other Democrat, super radical-left cities are run? You wouldn’t have a country for very long, and the economy would crash.
So we just set a brand-new record today on NASDAQ again. This is now, I think, the 18th time since — and this is since after the problem. So we have a new stock market high for NASDAQ, and the other ones are getting very close.
When I came here, the stock market was up almost 500 points. Today, the economy is rebuilding, jobs are being produced at a record pace. We’ve never had a pace like this.
And I will tell you, if Biden got in, this economy would be destroyed. You know, he was in — he was in office for 48 years, and what he did was not great. Almost every decision was a wrong decision. And now he’s going to come in and try and help us.
We didn’t need any help. We built the greatest economy in history — greatest economy we’ve ever had; the greatest economy the world has ever seen. And then the plague came in from China and we started — we did the right thing. We had to close it down; now we’re opening it up. He can’t do it. He doesn’t have the capability to do it.
Thank you all very much. I appreciate it. Thank you. Good luck with everything. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. (Applause.)
National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow has been doing a great job in his role as an economic cheerleader and sounding board for President Trump on COVID mitigation. In this interview Kudlow discusses a ‘potential’ phase-4 stimulus package targeted to offset very specific sectors at risk from continued COVID-19 closures.
Additionally, Kudlow notes there could be financial incentives, offsets to expenses, to help schools re-open this fall in the event COVID mitigation creates higher costs. Lastly, Kudlow again notes that China is in a precarious position from the outlook of the White House.
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It sure seems this COVID economic battle is more psychological than anything else. The media is pushing the fear narrative hard… very hard.
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany holds a press briefing from the Brady room. Anticipated start time 1:00pm ET.
UPDATE: Video and Transcript Added
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[Transcript] – MS. MCENANY: Hello, everyone. President Trump will participate in a roundtable to hear stories of families positively impacted by law enforcement. That will be taking place shortly after this briefing concludes. The President stands with our police officers, our men and women across this country who valiantly patrol our streets and protect our protect our citizenry.
This President stands on the side of law and order to secure peace in our streets. That has always been his priority, and remains so today.
Tragically, this weekend, we saw a devastating ambush attack against brave law enforcement officers in McAllen, Texas: Officer Edelmiro Garza, Jr., who was 45 years old, and Officer Ismael Chavez, who was 39 years old. And while responding to a domestic disturbance call, Officers Garza and Chavez arrived on scene to protect the people that they serve. They were met with gunfire. They were ambushed by a violent and dangerous suspect who horrifically shot before they even drew their weapon or had a chance to call for backup.
We honor the lives and the service of Officer Garza and Officer Chavez. This President will always stand on the side of law enforcement and the heroes who protect and serve.
And with that, I’ll take questions.
Weijia.
Q Hey, Kayleigh. Thanks so much.
MS. MCENANY: No problem.
Q As the number of cases and fatalities continues to break records, in the most recent interview President Trump did, he said, “We are going to be in really good shape,” in the next two to four weeks. Can you share what evidence he’s using to draw that conclusion? And what is the administration going to do differently in the next two to four weeks to stop the spread?
MS. MCENANY: So the one thing I would note is that when you look at the mortality rate, we’re seeing that our efforts here at the federal government have been working. And to give you an example of that, when you look at New York and New Jersey, there were 21 deaths for every thousand cases; 20 deaths for every thousand cases, in the case of New Jersey. Those were the ratios we were seeing just a few months ago.
Now, New York and New Jersey are down 1.7 per 1,000 and 1.8 per 1,000, respectively. And moving beyond New York and New Jersey, we’re seeing in Florida, for example — though they have 12 cases for every 1,000, it is 0.2 mortality for every thousand cases. In Arizona, 0.3 deaths for every thousand cases. So we are seeing that our therapeutics are working, that dexamethasone and convalescent plasma and remdesivir are working. And that’s something good and something that the President takes note of.
Q But two to four weeks is such a short time period. I mean, what specifically are you doing to stop the spread?
MS. MCENANY: There’s a lot. And I’m very glad that you asked that because it is worth highlighting the work that we’re doing each and every day. For one, we’re surging personnel to Arizona, Texas, California; we already have people working in Florida. Surging remdesivir to states that are seeing rising case numbers. We’re also surging testing supplies to decrease turnaround time. These are several action items that Dr. Birx briefed me on before coming out here.
And the White House will be going to several states this week. Dr. Birx, in particular, to Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina. We’ve sent 19 HHS teams to metroplexes; eight more coming this week. So we are aggressively on the ground reacting to this virus, and we’re encouraged to see the declining mortality compared to a few months ago.
Jim, I haven’t seen you in a few weeks. I’m glad you’re back.
Q Yeah. Thanks. Kayleigh, why is the White House trashing Dr. Fauci and sending out opposition research, like memos, to reporters?
The President has gone off on anonymous sources in the past. Why not have the guts to trash Dr. Fauci with your own names?
MS. MCENANY: So, President Trump — I’ll refer you back. There is no opposition research being dumped to reporters. We were asked a very specific question by the Washington Post, and that question was President Trump noted that Dr. Fauci had made some mistakes, and we provided a direct answer to what was a direct question.
Q Hasn’t the President made mistakes? He suggested at one point that Americans inject themselves with disinfectants, that sort of thing. Why not send out these notes to reporters, about what Dr. Fauci said in the past, with your names on it? They were sent out by a White House official. The President has said he doesn’t trust anonymous sources, and yet you were sending out these notes to reporters, anonymously.
MS. MCENANY: Look, I would note that in terms of the President and his record on coronavirus, he stands by the actions and the steps he’s taken in this historic response. You have Dr. Fauci who said that “the record of this President is impressive. I can’t imagine that, under any circumstance, that anybody could be doing more.” And those are the words of Dr. Fauci.
We provided a direct response to a direct question, and that’s about it. And to the notion that there’s opposition research and that there’s Fauci versus the President, it couldn’t be further from the truth. Dr. Fauci and the President have always had a very good working relationship.
Q And on just a separate subject, very quickly: Does the President or the administration plan to make it very clear to the Russian Federation that there should not be bounties placed on the heads of American soldiers serving in Afghanistan?
MS. MCENANY: We make that clear each and every day to every country around the world that this President will always stand by our law enforcement. No one has been tougher on Russia. What you’re —
Q Not law enforcement. I’m talking about military soldiers.
MS. MCENANY: What you’re talking —
Q U.S. forces overseas.
MS. MCENANY: Yes, of course. That’s what I’m saying. Our U.S. forces.
Q Not just any country. The Russians. Will you tell the Kremlin and President Putin —
MS. MCENANY: Each and every country. But what you’re getting at —
Q — not to put bounties on the heads of American soldiers?
MS. MCENANY: Of course. We tell each and every country that. But what you’re getting at is uncorroborated intelligence, and you’re treating it as if it were true. To this day, there are varying views on the Russian bounty intelligence — DOD, NSC, and the ODNI all pointing that out.
You know, I’m not going to answer a question based on unverified intelligence, but rest assured, every country in this world is put on notice that bounties on the heads of U.S. troops is unacceptable, and this President will stand for U.S. troops at home and abroad.
Q Including the Kremlin? Including the Russians?
MS. MCENANY: Yes.
Q Thank you, Kayleigh. Another — mentioned a quote from Dr. Fauci — another quote from him:
“When you compare us to other countries, I don’t think you can say we’re doing great.” Is there any reaction to that from the White House?
MS. MCENANY: When you compare us to other countries, we have the most testing in the world. When you compare us to other countries on case fatality rate, other industrialized nations, we’re very low and beating most countries, if not all, in Europe.
So we’re doing a lot on the world stage and a lot right. Noted that we were supposed to have a ventilator shortage, and as it turned out, the U.S. actually sent ventilators all around the world. So the U.S. response has been historic. And by several metrics, including the three I just mentioned, we’re beating the rest of the world.
Q Is Anthony Fauci —
MS. MCENANY: Kristin.
Q Thank you, Kayleigh. Could you just clarify the scope of Roger Stone’s clemency? A federal judge is asking for this. Does it only apply to prison time or does it also include the two-year period of supervised release?
MS. MCENANY: I don’t have the exact details for you on that, but I can follow up. What I will say is that the Roger Stone clemency was a very important moment for justice in this country. You had a completely bogus Russia witch hunt that found nothing. And in order to justify the waste of taxpayer dollars, you had Robert Mueller charging people with process crimes.
And it’s really curious to me that with Roger Stone — you know, he’s charged of false statements, but McCabe was charged of false statements, lying to federal investigators; Brennan, false statements to Congress; Clapper, false statements to Congress. But last time I checked, they didn’t have 29 FBI agents wearing tactical gear showing up there at their house in a pre-dawn raid wielding M4 rifles, sweeping across their lawn, as happened to Roger Stone. They didn’t have four agents using battering rams breaking down their front door over false statements. And they didn’t have helicopters hovering over their houses and two police boats that roared up.
Instead, McCabe and Clapper and Brennan and these guys are given lucrative contracts, books, contributorships. So there are really two standards of justice in this country, as Adam Schiff noted. Fortunately, he doesn’t have the facts to back up the way he meant that term.
Mario.
Q But one more — one more question, if I could.
MS. MCENANY: Yes, Kristin.
Q The President retweeted something this morning, implying that he believes that — he retweeted something, saying that the CDC is lying about the coronavirus in order to hurt his chances of getting reelected. Does the President believe that the CDC is lying about COVID-19?
MS. MCENANY: The President, with his intent in that retweet, expresses displeasure with the CDC, some rogue individuals leaking guidelines prematurely. You had a 63-page plan that was leaked prematurely. He believes that that misleads the American public when there are planning materials released that are not in their fullest form and their best form. So that’s what he was getting at.
But overall, the notion of the tweet was to point out the fact that when we use science, we have to use it in a way that is not political. When you had 1,300 health experts sign a letter not to condemn large crowds of protesters, but some same health experts say churches need to stay shut down, or lockdown protests somehow don’t get the same First Amendment rights as the protest that we saw on our streets, we need to use science, lean into science, but not use it and cherry-pick it to fit whatever particular political persuasion is.
Yes, Mario.
Q So he has confidence in the CDC?
MS. MCENANY: He does.
Mario.
Q Thank you, Kayleigh. Given what we’re seeing in Florida with the cases rising, is the President anticipating a scaled-down version of the convention next month? And if so, is that something that he would be content with?
MS. MCENANY: That would be a question for the campaign, but we still plan to move forward with the convention here at the White House. But for particularities, I would point you to the RNC and to the campaign.
Yes. Steve.
Q Just to close the loop on Dr. Fauci, does the President still appreciate the advice that he gets from him?
MS. MCENANY: Certainly. Dr. Fauci is one of many on the task force who provides advice. And I would note, you know, Dr. Fauci is an epidemiologist and infectious disease expert, and he provides his — his opinion there. You also have other experts like Dr. McCance-Katz who are behavioral — behavioral health experts who provide opinions about the holistic health of the child. And she’s been a voice for reopening schools, and the damage long-term lockdowns can do. You have Dr. Moncef Slaoui who is working on the vaccines.
So there are a number of scientists who are experts in various issues and various specialties. But the President takes the full opinions of the task force, and the varying opinion sometimes, and moves forward in a way he thinks is best for this country, like he did with the China travel ban.
Q And secondly, Kayleigh, the travel ban with Canada expires in about a week. Is that going to be extended? Are you talking about — talking with Canada about that?
MS. MCENANY: So no announcements now for our plans with Canada.
Yes.
Q Yes, Arizona has more new cases of coronavirus than any country in the world — more than the European Union as a whole. So isn’t, by that metric, the United States not doing as well as other countries in handling this?
MS. MCENANY: No, because when you lead the world in testing, that means that you identify more cases.
Q But hospitalizations are up. Deaths are starting to rise.
MS. MCENANY: And I would note — well, you talk about deaths; I can give you that particular information, which Dr. Birx gave to me before running out here, which is: In Arizona, you have 17 cases per 1,000 population, and 0.3 deaths per population, which means our therapeutics are working and we’re in a better place today than we were before.
Katherine.
Q Kimberly Byrd, a schoolteacher in Arizona, died, however, when she as following all the rules. She wore a mask. She wore gloves. She was teaching summer school. She got it and died. Two other teachers got it and are ill. Her family, her husband, her daughter. I mean, how do you tell parents of schoolchildren that it’s safe to send their kids to back to school when something like that happens?
MS. MCENANY: Well, I would point you to the words of the CDC director, who said children are not very affected by this and typically are not spreaders in this. But I would also point to the consequences of staying closed. We have to look at the holistic health of the child.
And when you have, according to HHS, one-fifth of all child abuse cases being reported by teachers and educational staff, we cannot stay closed. When you have DC Family and Child Agency talking about a 62 percent decrease in abuse cases being reported, you cannot stay closed.
When even the AAP, American Academy of Pediatrics, talked about morbidity and mortality if school stays shut down, and 70 to 80 percent of mental — children with mental health diagnoses receive their care in schools, the consequences are grave if we stay shut down.
And there’s a way for essential workers to go back to work, just as our meatpacking facilities did. Just as you all in the media are essential workers, we believe our teachers are as well.
Yes, Katherine.
Q Thanks, Kayleigh. The administration has said that the goal of maximum pressure is to force Iran back to the negotiating table so we can get a better deal. Is that still the goal of maximum pressure? And in light of the reported new trade and military partnership between Iran and China, what evidence is there that the policy is succeeding?
MS. MCENANY: I have no information today to update you on our Iran relationship, which stays the same today as it has been.
Yes, Daniel.
Q Hi, Kayleigh. I have two quick questions. President Trump’s former Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, who still has a role in this administration, he said in an op-ed today that we still have a testing problem in this country and that he and his son had to wait for five to seven days for results. If even President Trump’s former chief of staff levels this criticism, doesn’t that indicate we do have a problem with testing? Do you have a reaction to his op-ed?
MS. MCENANY: Yeah. A reaction is that we’ve tested — we lead the world in testing. We’ve done more than 40 million tests — that’s an extraordinary number. Admiral Giroir gave us an update yesterday that, on Friday, we did over 800,000 tests. We tripled — quadrupled the number of tests. This is his exact quote: We have — “And we also have 12,000 retail test sites that are there, and we’re surging testing in basically every specific county that’s having a problem.”
And Dr. Birx was just walking me through pooled testing, which will be a way to process tests at an even faster rate. So leading the world in testing, I would say, means we’re doing a pretty good job.
Q Does the President have any reaction to the Washington Redskins dropping their name today?
MS. MCENANY: Yeah, it’s a good question. You know, he made — I haven’t talked to him since this specific announcement has been made. I have talked to him, but not specifically on that.
But last week, his tweet made it clear that these teams — these teams’ name — their team is out of strength, not weakness. And he talked about the Washington Redskins and Cleveland Indians looking at changing their names. And he says that he believes that the Native American community would be very angry at this, and he does have polling to back him up. There was a Washington Post poll from a few years ago that 90 percent of Native Americans say they’re not offended by the name. It is reflective of a 2004 poll.
And the Washington Post notes that many of these Native Americans voiced admiration for the team name, like Barbara Bruce who said, “I’m proud of being Native American and of the Redskins. I’m not ashamed of that at all. I like that name.” Gabriel Nez, another 39 — 29-year-old from the Navajo community: “I really don’t mind it. I like it.” And there were several other comments like this in the Washington Post.
Q Kayleigh.
MS. MCENANY: Debra.
Q Thank you, Kayleigh. I have a question myself, and then, as the print pooler, I’d like to ask a question from a news organization that can’t be here because of social distancing.
My question: In February, when he was in Las Vegas speaking to Hope for Prisoners, the President said he didn’t want to use his pardon power on Roger Stone because he thought he’d be exonerated. That didn’t happen, and the President commuted the sentence. During the same event, the President said that he might give a full pardon to Jon Ponder, a convicted bank robber who served his time, turned his life around, and started Hope for Prisoners. Is there going to be a pardon for Jon Ponder?
And what about the more than 1,300 pardon applications sitting in the Pardon Attorney’s Office? Because there’s talk now that people don’t go to the Pardon Attorney’s Office; they go through the White House. Is that a good thing, or does it mean that only politically connected people can get pardons?
MS. MCENANY: So I have no update on Jon Ponder. It’s absolutely not the case that only those who are politically connected get a pardon. This President is the president of criminal justice reform. This President did the FIRST STEP Act. This President has fought for those who are given unduly harsh sentences more than any Democrat who like to talk about it but never actually did it.
And, in fact, when you compare the pardoning record of this President with past presidents, it’s quite striking that this President has given 36 pardons and commutations. President Obama gave 1,927. And when you look at the nature of some of the pardons given — let’s say, under President Clinton — you talk about politically connected pardons. Oh, it can’t get more politically connected with pardons than pardoning your brother, Roger Clinton, as President Clinton did; Susan McDougal, one of your associates who was pardoned for her role in Whitewater; Marc Rich, who gave $450,000 to the Clinton Library, or at least his wife did, donated $1 million to Democrat campaigns, and then he gets a pardon from President Clinton. And notably, a lot of these pardons were when he was going out the door.
So, this President has used it sparingly, and instead focused on criminal justice reform, helping those helping to rectify racial disparities in our sentencing. And Clinton and Obama, it appears, did a whole lot of pardoning and, in some cases, politically motivated, it seems, but didn’t do a whole lot to help the innocent people who have served their time and been given unduly harsh sentences.
Q I have a follow-up for someone who has —
MS. MCENANY: Yes.
Q — who asked me to ask a question because of social distancing.
This is from Jackson Richman at the Jewish News Syndicate: What’s the President’s stance on Israel planning to apply sovereignty at parts of the West Bank, and to Democrats — from Nancy Pelosi to AOC — who warned that such a move would undermine U.S. national security in the U.S.-Israel alliance?
MS. MCENANY: So I have no update today on the current status, but just other than the President has been a strong supporter of Israel.
Chris.
Q Thanks, Kayleigh. We’re coming up on the three-year anniversary of the President tweeting he’d ban transgender people from the military in any capacity, which led to the policy currently in place. Last week, a group of 116 lawmakers, led by Congresswoman DelBene, wrote the administration urging them to lift the policy. Would the President reconsider the policy?
MS. MCENANY: I haven’t talked to him about that specific policy, but this President is proud that, in 2019, we launched a global initiative to end the criminalization of homosexuality throughout the world. He has a great record when it comes to the LGBT community. The Trump administration eased a ban on blood donations from gay and bisexual men, and he launched a plan to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030. So we’re very proud of our achievements.
Q Nonetheless — but nonetheless, the ban on transgenders in the military is still in place.
MS. MCENANY: John.
Q Thank you very much.
Q You have a Supreme Court ruling that anti-trans discrimination is a form of sex discrimination. We have an estimated 14,700 people in the military who identify as transgender. We have a poll showing upwards of 70 percent of Americans support transgender service. And we have major medical and psychological groups saying there’s no problem with transgender people in the military. So what is the reason for having the policy currently in place?
MS. MCENANY: I have no updates for you, but several of the events that you cited, like the Supreme Court ruling, I would refer you back to Justice Kavanaugh who has said, “We are judges; we’re not Members of Congress. Instead of a hard-earned victory won through the democratic process, today’s victory is brought about by judicial dictates.” So we’ll always stand on the side of correct statutory interpretation.
Q Kayleigh, thank you.
MS. MCENANY: Yes. John.
Q Kayleigh, thank you very much. Can you really — can you really say that the rise in testing accounts for the rise in the number of cases? Because the percentage of those testing positive has risen sharply.
MS. MCENANY: Yeah, so I would say to this, as we’ve always said: that there would be embers; there would be fires.
Q Is it still an ember?
MS. MCENANY: So we — we readily acknowledge the embers and the fires that are around the country, but we also note that it’s logic, basic common sense: When you’re testing more than any country in the world, you’re going to identify more cases. We’ve tested more than 40 million. That means we will identify more cases.
But when you see the fact that mortality has come down per thousand population, and in a way that it was — it was not months ago in New York and New Jersey, it means that we have become very adept at our therapeutics and our ways of finding people in communities rather than in hospitals, catching things early, and moving forward in a way that we know how to aggressively attack this virus and keep the American people safe.
Q And can I just follow up with the travel ban?
MS. MCENANY: Chanel.
Q Just, can I ask on the travel ban?
MS. MCENANY: Sure.
Q What is the rationale now for keeping people from Europe, Ireland, and the UK from the United States when they have a fraction of the number of cases that you do in the U.S.?
MS. MCENANY: The argument is we will always put America first.
Chanel.
Q Thank you, Kayleigh. If you will expand on the difference between this time last month and now, when it comes to framing the discussion about law enforcement — last month, the President hosted a law enforcement roundtable, and at that roundtable, he said that he would not support defunding the police. And yet, one month later, we still have Democrat cities doing so — disbanding their police, defunding the police. How does the White House feel it should frame the debate now, with regards to defunding the police, so that a reasonable discussion can be had with these Democrat cities who are trying to do so?
MS. MCENANY: Yeah, it’s a very good question. We know that in Los Angeles, when they announced they would be defunding their police department by 150 million, they basically, immediately after, saw a 250 percent increase in homicides. When you have people out there, like Representative Ilhan Omar, saying, “We have to completely dismantle the police” and “police are cancer,” this is not how we should be talking about our heroes.
You have, most egregious of all, really, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez saying, Defund[ing] the police means defund[ing] the police.” She criticized, of course, the announcement of $1.5 billion being taken down from NYPD.
And this weekend, you know, when faced with — there were 28 shootings in New York, a 600 percent increase from this time last year — you have Representative Ocasio-Cortez saying this is just because people are trying to get food with their families. That is preposterous.
The reality is 63 percent of Americans in this country fear that criticism of our police departments will lead to no public safety in their streets, and 69 percent of black Americans. This is a real issue when you call our police “cancer,” when you talk about dismantling them. And then this weekend, in New York, you see a one-year-old killed in his stroller. His name was Davell Gardner, Jr. And that one-year- old will be in our prayers. Not only that — you see officers Garza and Chavez.
And to your question about how we should talk about the police and defund the police movement, the President stands against.
The two officers ambushed this weekend, one of them — Officer Chavez’s daughter wrote a very touching tribute online. She said, “Words cannot describe the pain I’m in, but I’m glad my dad is at peace. You were an amazing man and anyone who ever came across you knew that. I’m going to miss you so much. You died doing what you loved most. You died a hero.” And those touching words were written by Savannah Chavez, and I know she received vile and outrageous comments online that were absolutely atrocious for her touching sentiment to her dad.
I want Savannah to know: Your dad is a hero. His police department should never be defunded because most of our police officers are good, hardworking men and women, and heroes — much like Savannah’s dad. We’ll be praying for you, Savannah.
Do you now understand how the Mueller team, the 17 hired members of the legal resistance operation, were running the DOJ from May 2017 through April 2019? If no, go back through the archives and catch up. If so, invest yourself and read on…
There was an ongoing cover-up operation with its origin going back to June, July and August of 2018 led by the Mueller team, Deputy AG Rosenstein, AAG John C Demers and FBI chief legal counsel Dana Boente. That cover-up continues through today; though there are indications of accountability. Not strong enough in my opinion; but they do exist.
What is John Durham’s hold up?
Well, first we need to focus on the players…
Start by reminding yourself of a series of documents released by the Senate Judiciary Committee on April 17, 2020. [SEE HERE] Within the release there is a rather alarming letter from the DOJ to the FISA Court dated July 2018. [Link to Letter]
BACKGROUND – After the FISA Court reviewed the December 9, 2019, inspector general report, the FISC ordered the DOJ-NSD to declassify and release documents related to the Carter Page FISA application. In January the FISA court ordered the DOJ and FBI to release certain materials making them public for the first time.
That FISA court order is what led to the Bill Barr DOJ submitting documents to the Senate Judiciary Committee. That court order is what led to the judiciary committee (Senator Lindsey Graham) releasing those documents. The 2020 FISA court was forcing sunlight on the DOJ and FBI. AG Bill Barr is not adverse to this sunlight; but everyone else, including the players from 2017-2019 who were running Main Justice, are.
In the cover letter for this specific release to the Senate Judiciary and Senate Intelligence committees, the Bill Barr DOJ cites the January 7, 2020, FISA court order:
Keep in mind that prior to this release only the FISA court had seen this letter from the DOJ-National Security Division (DOJ-NSD), as transmitted by the Mueller resistance unit.
As we walk through the alarming content of this 2018 letter I think you’ll identify the motive behind the FISC order to release it.
First, the letter in question was sent by the DOJ-NSD to the FISA Court on July 12, 2018. It is critical to keep the date of the letter in mind as we review the content. Remember, the Mueller resistance unit was in control.
Aside from the date the important part of the first page is the motive for sending it. The DOJ (Mueller resistance unit) is telling the court in July 2018: based on what they know the FISA application still contains “sufficient predication for the Court to have found probable cause” to approve the Carter Page FISA application. The DOJ (Team Mueller) is defending the Carter Page FISA application as still valid.
However, it is within the justification of the application that alarm bells are found. On page six the letter identifies the primary participants behind the FISA redactions:
As you can see: Christopher Steele is noted as “Source #1”. Glenn Simpson of Fusion-GPS is noted as “identified U.S. person” or “business associate”; and Perkins Coie is the “U.S-based law firm.”
Now things get very interesting.
On page #8 when discussing Christopher Steele’s sub-source, the DOJ notes the FBI found him to be truthful and cooperative.
This is an incredibly misleading statement to the FISA court because what the letter doesn’t say is that 18-months earlier the sub-source, also known in the IG report as the “primary sub-source”, informed the FBI that the material attributed to him in the dossier was essentially junk.
Let’s look at how the IG report frames the primary sub-source, and specifically notice the FBI contact and questioning took place in January 2017 (we now know that date to be January 12, 2017):
Those interviews with Steele’s primary sub-source took place in January, March and May of 2017; and clearly the sub-source debunked the content of the dossier itself.
Those interviews were 18-months, 16-months and 14-months ahead of the July 2018 Mueller Team letter to the FISC.
The Mueller Team (DOJ-NSD) says the sub-source was “truthful and cooperative” but the DOJ doesn’t tell the court the content of the truthfulness and cooperation. Why?
Keep in mind this letter to the court was written by AAG John Demers in July 2018.
Jeff Sessions was Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein was Deputy AG; Christopher Wray was/is FBI Director, David Bowditch was/is Deputy, and Dana Boente was/is FBI chief-legal-counsel; the Mueller resistance unit controlled the DOJ and everything that touched upon a total any of at least TEN ongoing DOJ investigations.
Why would the Mueller Team (DOJ-NSD) not be forthcoming with the FISA court about the primary sub-source? This level of disingenuous withholding of information speaks to an institutional motive. Mueller team is in control.
By July 2018 the DOJ clearly knew the dossier was full of fabrications, yet Mueller’s resistance unit withheld that information from the court and said the predicate was still valid. Why?
It doesn’t take a deep-weeds-walker to identify the DOJ motive.
In July 2018 Robert Mueller’s investigation was at its apex, the resistance unit is in charge, Bob Mueller was a “dear friend” of current AG Bill Barr. Mueller was a figure-head, a face in name only, selected to give credibility to an internal occupation of the DOJ by a resistance unit adverse to the interests of justice.
This letter justifying the FISA application, and claiming the current information would still be a valid predicate therein, speaks to the 2018 Mueller Team needing to retain the validity of the FISA warrant…. My researched suspicion, now confirmed, was that the DOJ needed to protect evidence Mueller had already extracted from their fraudulent FISA authority.
That’s the motive for sending a fraudulent letter to the FISA court.
In July 2018 if the DOJ-NSD had admitted the FISA application and all renewals were fatally flawed Robert Mueller would have needed to withdraw any evidence gathered as a result of its exploitation. The Mueller probe would have suffered severe scrutiny. The DOJ in 2018 was protecting Mueller’s poisoned fruit. The DOJ was being run by the resistance.
If the DOJ had been honest with the court, there’s a strong possibility some, perhaps much, of Mueller evidence gathering would have been invalidated… and cases were pending. The solution: mislead the court and claim the predication was still valid.
This is not simply a hunch, because that motive also speaks to why the FISC would order the current DOJ to release the letter.
Remember, in December 2019 the FISC received the IG Horowitz report; and they would have immediately noted the disparity between what IG Horowitz outlined about the FBI investigating Steele’s sub-source, as contrast against what the DOJ (Mueller Team) told them in July 2018. [Not coincidentally this is when Team Mueller released the FISA application to the public under the fraudulent premise of a FOIA release. They released the exact copies of the previously leaked FISA]
The DOJ letter (July 2018) is a transparent misrepresentation when compared to the information in the Horowitz report (Dec 2019). Hence, the court orders the DOJ THIS YEAR to release the July 2018 letter so that everyone, including congressional oversight and the public can see the misrepresentation.
The court was misled; now everyone can see it.
We can see it.
The content of that DOJ-NSD letter, and the subsequent disparity, points to an institutional cover-up; and as a consequence the FISC also ordered the DOJ to begin an immediate sequestration effort to find all the evidence from the fraudulent FISA application. The proverbial fruit from the poisonous tree…. And yes, that is ongoing.
Moving on… Two more big misstatements within the July letter appear on page #9. The first is the DOJ (Team Mueller) claiming that only after the application was filed did they become aware of Christopher Steele working for Fusion-GPS and knowing his intent was to create opposition research for the Hillary Clinton campaign. See the top of the page.
According to the DOJ-NSD claim the number four ranking official in the DOJ, Bruce Ohr, never told them he was acting as a conduit for Christopher Steele to the FBI. While that claim is hard to believe, in essence what the DOJ-NSD is saying in that paragraph is that the FBI hoodwinked the DOJ-NSD by not telling them where the information for the FISA application was coming from. The DOJ, via John Demers (writing for the resistance), is blaming the FBI.
The second statement, equally as incredulous, is at the bottom of page nine where the DOJ (Team Mueller) claims they had no idea Bruce Ohr was talking to the FBI throughout the entire time any of the FISA applications were being submitted. October 2016 through June 2017.
In essence the claim there is that Bruce Ohr was working with the FBI and never told anyone in the DOJ throughout 2016 and all the way past June 29th of 2017. That denial seems rather unlikely; however, once again the DOJ-NSD is putting the FBI in the crosshairs and claiming they knew nothing about the information pipeline.
Bruce Ohr, whose wife was working for Fusion-GPS and assisting Christopher Steele with information, was interviewed by the FBI over a dozen times as he communicated with Steele and fed his information to the FBI. Yet the DOJ (Team Mueller) claims they knew nothing about it.
Again, just keep in mind this claim by the DOJ-NSD is being made in July 2018, six months after Bruce Ohr was demoted twice (December 2017 and January 2018). If what the DOJ is saying is true, well, the FBI was completely off-the-rails and rogue.
Neither option speaks well about the integrity of either institution; and quite frankly I never bought the DOJ-NSD spin. Why? The reason is simple, the DOJ is claiming in the letter the predication was still valid… if the DOJ-NSD genuinely didn’t know about the FBI manipulation, they would be informing the court in 2018 the DOJ no longer supported the FISA application due to new information. They did not do that. Instead, in July 2018, the Mueller-led resistance unit specifically told the court the predicate was valid, yet the DOJ-NSD knew it was not.
The last point about the July 2018 letter is perhaps the most jarring. Again, keep in mind when it was written Chris Wray is FBI Director, David Bowditch is Deputy and Dana Boente is FBI chief legal counsel.
Their own FBI reports, by three different INSD and IG investigations; had turned up seriously alarming evidence going back to the early 2017 time-frame; the results of which ultimately led to the DC FBI office losing all of their top officials; and knowing the letter itself was full of misleading and false information about FBI knowledge in/around Christopher Steele; this particular sentence is alarming:
“The FBI has reviewed this letter and confirmed its factual accuracy?”
Really?
As we have just shared, the July 2018 letter itself is filled with factual inaccuracies, misstatements and intentional omissions. So who exactly did the 2018 “reviewing”?
This declassification release raised more questions than any other in recent memory. It seems likely now this release inspired AG Bill Barr to start asking some rather hard questions to FBI Director Christopher Wray. That’s where Dana Boente’s participation with the group in 2017, 2018 and 2019 comes in to play.
WASHINGTON DC – After a 38-year career with the Justice Department, the FBI’s top lawyer Dana Boente was asked to resign on Friday. Two sources familiar with the decision to dismiss Boente said it came from high levels of the Justice Department rather than directly from FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Here’s the Full Letter. I strongly suggest everyone read the 14-pages slowly. If you know the background, this letter is infuriating…
It is not accidental the fraudulent letter to the FISA court was written on July 12, 2018.
This is the exact same timeframe when the Mueller Team and FBI were involved in two other operations. These are two distinct cover-up operations carried out by the resistance unit to protect their prior activity.
The position of Bill Barr today is a direct result of decisions made by the DOJ (Team Mueller) in the summer of 2018. The events surrounding the March 17, 2017, leaking of the FISA warrant used against U.S. person Carter Page, and the 2018 DOJ decision not to prosecute SSCI Security Director James Wolfe for those leaks, was the fork in the road moment for the DOJ. The Mueller team coordinated the process.
This was the point of no return…
This is when every downstream action had to be taken to cover-up these decisions…
Everything since has been designed to protect three specific cover-up operations…
In the summer of 2018 Attorney General Jeff Session was recused, Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein was in charge and the Mueller investigation was ongoing. That was when the DOJ made a decision not to prosecute SSCI Security Director James Wolfe for leaking classified information (The Page FISA Warrant).
As a result of people at the highest level of power and authority making a decision to protect themselves and the gross abuses of power by current and former DC officials and politicians…. DC-based U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu signed-off on a plea deal where Wolfe plead guilty to only a single count of lying to the FBI.
If the DOJ had pursued the case against Wolfe for leaking the FISA application, everything would have been different. The American electorate would have seen evidence of what was taking place in the background effort to remove President Trump. We would be in an entirely different place today if that prosecution or trial had taken place.
Three events revealed the Wolfe issue and highlight the cover-up:
EVENT ONE – On February 9th, 2018, the media reported on text messages from 2017 between Senate Intelligence Committee Vice-Chairman Mark Warner and Chris Steele’s lawyer, a lobbyist named Adam Waldman.
EVENT TWO – Four months after the Mark Warner texts were made public, on June 8th, 2018, another headline story surfaced. An indictment for Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Security Director James Wolfe was unsealed on June 7th, 2018.
EVENT THREE – Slightly less than two months after release of the Wolfe indictment, another headline story. On July 21st, 2018, the DOJ/FBI declassified and publicly released the FISA application(s) used against former Trump campaign advisor Carter Page.
♦ Later on December 14th 2018 a fourth albeit buried public release confirmed everything. The FBI filed a sentencing recommendation proving it was the Carter Page FISA that was leaked by Wolfe:
So on July 12, 2018, the DOJ and FBI were lying to the FISA court; and telling the court there was reasonable justification for the Carter Page FISA warrant, when they knew that was false. At the same time the DOJ resistance unit and FBI were initiating processes to cover SSCI Security Director James Wolfe leaking the FISA application to the media.
But wait it gets worse….
Simultaneous to the decision to mislead the court; and simultaneous to the decision-making regarding Wolfe; there was yet another (a third) Robert Mueller resistance unit cover-up effort that was also necessary to retain the origin of the Russia-collusion fraud.
To further understand the decision-making of the resistance, and purposeful utility of Rosenstein & Liu as to why they hid the James Wolfe leak, it is important to note the DOJ in the Eastern District of Virginia was creating the cover-story to block sunlight on the origin of how Wikileaks gained the leaked DNC emails.
On April 11th, 2019, the Julian Assange indictment was unsealed in the EDVA. From the indictment we discover it was under seal since March 6th, 2018:
On Tuesday April 15th 2019 more investigative material was released. Again, note the dates: Grand Jury, *December of 2017* This means FBI investigation prior to….
The FBI investigation took place prior to December 2017, it was coordinated through the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA) where Dana Boente was U.S. Attorney at the time. The grand jury indictment was sealed from March of 2018 until after Mueller completed his investigation, April 2019.
How does this all connect?
What does it mean?
James Wolfe was confronted about his leaking by the FBI in December of 2017. At the same time the FBI were investigating Wolfe and the SSCI, the FBI was also investigating Wikileaks and Julian Assange. This matters because it shows what the mindset was within the resistance unit of the DOJ in late 2017 and early 2018.
In both examples, Wolfe and Assange, the actions by the Mueller team reflect a predisposition to hide the much larger background story:
• An honest and ordinary prosecution of Wolfe would have exposed a complicit conspiracy between corrupt U.S. intelligence actors, the United States senate intelligence committee, and the resistance unit now running the DOJ. Two branches of government essentially working on one objective; the removal of a sitting president. The Mueller team was protecting multiple U.S. agencies, allied in the resistance cause, and their comrades in congress.
• Additionally, a non-prosecution of Julian Assange would have exposed a complicit conspiracy between corrupt U.S. intelligence actors and a host of political interests who created a fraudulent Russia-collusion conspiracy with the central component of Russia “hacking” the DNC. If Assange were allowed to show he received the DNC emails from a leaker, and not from a hack, the central component of the Russia interference narrative would collapse. The Mueller team decision protected multiple U.S. agencies and the fraudulent auspices of the Robert Mueller appointment.
As soon as the team were set to release their Russia report, the EDVA activated their prior cover-up operation; and shut down Assange with the DOJ indictment; in a similar way the DOJ shut down Wolfe with a weak plea agreement.
Again, the key takeaway here is the timing. Both DOJ operations were taking place at the same time (Fall 2017 through spring/summer 2018). Both hold a similar purpose.
What we can see from both DOJ operations is an intentional effort by Main Justice, now being run by Team Mueller, not to expose the epicenter of a multi-branch effort against the White House.
Some people within the FBI were obviously participating along with people within the DOJ. However, not all Washington DC FBI agents/officials were involved. We know there were genuine investigators, at least in the Wolfe case, because their investigative evidence shows Wolfe was leaking classified information. If they did not present the investigative evidence that proves Wolfe leaked, quite simply we wouldn’t have it to show you.
This buried attachment (from the supervisory FBI special agent who conducted the investigation) was attached to the DOJ sentencing memorandum for James Wolfe. This statement under oath was sworn by the FBI agent on December 14, 2018:
The FBI swears under penalty of perjury:
…”because the known disclosure of classified information –the FISA application– involved an FBI equity”…
This is after the same FBI special agent outlined how the leak took place in the Wolfe indictment; which was subsequently shaped by the Mueller team to hide it. He refused to accept the corruption that allowed Wolfe to escape. Ten months after the FBI presented their investigative files to the DOJ to begin grand jury proceedings; the FBI special agent wasn’t going to let them plead out Wolfe without again affirming the truth.
In hindsight we can see the corrupt influences of the resistance operation within the DOJ because the direct and concrete FBI evidence against Wolfe was buried.
The high-level resistance group inside the DOJ in Washington DC, in the Summer of 2018, was making decisions on what NOT to do; and who not to prosecute. .
These two events highlight corruption and how much control was held by the Mueller team within the DOJ despite the presence of AG Jeff Sessions (firewalled and recused) and apparently with the willfully blind participation of Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein.
The decisions in the Wolfe case are critical. That’s the fork in the road. If the Wolfe prosecution for leaking the FISA application had continued it would have undoubtedly surfaced that key government officials and politicians were working together (executive and legislative); to frame a sitting president and remove him from office.
The Wolfe leak had that purposeful design.
The ramifications of the Wolfe case are stunning. Had the prosecution continued it’s very likely a seditious conspiracy would have surfaced.
♦ I often field a question: If you know this; if all of this information is in the public sphere; then why didn’t any member of the media cover it?
Here’s the answer: They couldn’t….
…..At least they couldn’t cover it and still retain all of the claims they had been making since March 2017 when journalist Ali Watkins gained a fully non-redacted copy of the Carter Page FISA application and first renewal.
Politico, The New York Times, CNN, MSNBC and The Washington Post are all implicated in the James Wolfe leak to Ali Watkins. They had the FISA information since March 2017, yet those media outlets were disingenuously falsifying their reporting on the actual content of the FISA application despite their actual knowledge.
Remember all of the media denials about what Devin Nunes wrote in the “Nunes memo”? Remember the media proclaiming the Steele Dossier was not part of the FISA application?
How was the media fifteen months later (July 2018) going to report on the Wolfe leak to Watkins without admitting they had been manufacturing stories about its content for the past year-and-a-half?
It was in the media’s interest NOT to cover, or dig into, the Wolfe story. The media were allied with the resistance unit which was leaking them information to retain the fraud.
Additionally, from both the DOJ and Media perspective, coverage of the Wolfe leak would prove the senate intel committee (SSCI) was, at a minimum, a participating entity in the coup effort. That same SSCI is responsible for oversight over the CIA, FBI, DOJ-NSD, ODNI, DNI, and all intelligence agencies.
Worse yet, all officers within those agencies require confirmation from the SSCI (including Chair and Vice-Chair); and any discussion of the Wolfe leak would highlight the motive for ongoing corruption within the SSCI in blocking those nominations (see John Ratcliffe).
WASHINGTON—Members of the Senate Intelligence Committee have been notified they may be asked for testimony as part of the criminal trial of a veteran Senate staffer accused of lying to the FBI while working for the panel.
Attorneys for James A. Wolfe sent letters to all 15 senators on the committee, notifying them that their testimony may be sought as part of Mr. Wolfe’s defense, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Mr. Wolfe, who for nearly 30 years served as the director of security for the intelligence committee, was arrested last month and charged with lying to the FBI about his contacts with reporters while the bureau was conducting an investigation into leaks of classified information to journalists. Mr. Wolfe wasn’t charged with leaking any information. (July 27, 2018)
Stunning ramifications.
There was a clear fork in the road, and the resistance unit running the DOJ constructed the cover-up; which, considering what the special counsel resistance unit was simultaneously doing with the EDVA regarding Assange, is not entirely surprising.
Were the special counsel (resistance) decisions done with forethought to coverup a transparent trail showing gross abuses of government? Yes.
Where the DOJ is today, under AG Barr, is directly connected to the decisions the resistance operations made in 2017 and 2018 to protect themselves and internally corrupt actors from discovery.
It is often said: “the coverup is always worse than the crime.” This is never more true than with these examples, because where we are today… now miles down the path of consequence from those corrupt decisions… is seemingly disconnected from the ability of any institutional recovery. That’s now become the issue for Bill Barr and John Durham.
So what happened recently? Well…
WASHINGTON DC – After a 38-year career with the Justice Department, the FBI’s top lawyer Dana Boente was asked to resign on Friday. Two sources familiar with the decision to dismiss Boente said it came from high levels of the Justice Department rather than directly from FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Considering the decision about Dana Boente came from John Durham and Bill Barr, this removal makes sense.
But what about the FBI investigator, the Supervisory Special Agent, who invested over a year tracking down classified intelligence leaks, only to have the Mueller team bury the case?
It’s an observable fact Christian influence is waning, supplanted by liberal political religion. Once, Christianity was the undisputed foundation of Western Europe, the continent considered a Christian mission. Ponder believer Charlemagne’s success building a Christian kingdom, including free schools for kids and charity for the poor.
Development and use of Natural Law created a medieval European tool for education. Says one scholar,
Natural law became a central feature of the intellectual, political and juridical culture of Enlightenment Europe…with a basic pedagogical task, namely, to instruct young men in elementary social ideas, a kind of pre-modern ‘civics’. This accounts for the fact that we find natural law ideas in all kinds of intellectual endeavour in the Enlightenment, for virtually everyone who had even the rudiments of advanced education would have been exposed to it in some form…But, first of all, natural law was politically important by supplying a systematic theory of social and political life.
Natural Law founded the earliest British jurisprudence, ‘Common Law.’ Writes one author, “There can be no denying that the Common Law has one advantage overall other systems of law: it was Christian from the very beginning of its history.” Later, Colonies became a bastion for abused Christendom when Pilgrims relocated to Plymouth, MA, establishing an experimental colony for free faith. The earliest law, Mayflower Compact, composed in 1620 aboard the Mayflower, states:
Having undertaken, for Glory of God, and advancements of the Christian faith, and the honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northern parts of Virginia…
The Christian purpose of this first American covenant is clear, and a model for our Constitution. Later, one writer claimed, “The United States are by far the most religious and Christian country in the world…because religion is there most free.”
And yet today, US Christianity declines. Sadly, millions of church goers have scant knowledge of American history or important religious doctrines. One cannot defend what they don’t know. Further, millions of Bible enthusiasts disastrously mix religious truths with patently absurd Post-Modern nostrums, creating a toxic brew of heretic syncretism. In midst of unprecedented social turmoil, a soporific languor settles upon Believers in churches festering under lockdown, as confused pastors remain inert, while society is stripped to the bone and rebuilt with putrid, rotting Marxism.
II. WOKE POLITICAL RELIGION
Cosmopolitan Socialism Cosmopolitanism, first proposed in ancient Greece, precedes globalism, aka world socialism. Says one source, “Cosmopolitanism refers to the ideology all human beings belong to a single community, based on a shared morality.” Liberals think all open-minded people should be cosmopolitan, with humanity above every state and religion. Marx’s demand for world socialism was bootstrapped into the idea, for government authority and power are necessary to authorize such a universal project.
Leftism as New Fundamentalist Religion Ponder the strange resemblance of modern left politics to cultic religion. But why do the most virulent critics create ersatz religion to replace Christianity? King Solomon wrote, “God has also set eternity in man’s heart.” John Calvin said, “the human mind is, so to speak, a perpetual forge of idols.”
Mentally ill French philosophe Auguste Comte outlined a “Positivist Church,” aka Religion of Humanity. Mises observed, “Comte was insane in the full sense which pathology attaches to this term.” John Stuart Mill created his own version. But politics controls religion, choking off true spirituality, which occurred in every communist state. Once in power, leftists allow no competition.
Antinomianism: Lawless LeftismAmerica’s woke moment augurs an antinomian, or lawless spirit. Why? Generally, rejection of God makes man god. Then, all shifts to political struggle. Nietzsche also celebrated power by any means. In Will to Power, he rejected God, claiming power by any means was self-justified. Dostoyevski said, “If there is no god, everything is permitted.”
GnosticismLeftism is inherently Gnostic – or justification by knowledge. Eric Voegelin considered Gnosticism the spirit of the age. Faith is jettisoned while knowledge becomes key to advancement. Collapse of a faith-based culture means society based on superstition, personal creed, political partisanship, or nihilism.
No Principled Dissent ExistsModern leftism allows no dissent. Leftists remarkably believe every opposed liberal idea has a ‘true’ defense – which will destroy the opposition. Meanwhile. leftist leaders wage a polemical war, employing strategic “talking points.” But progressive followers treat these statements as “Mother Ship” holy writ. These cannot be falsified. Logic itself collapses, but emotions rule – while “Truth” evolves. A highly unstable belief “system.”
Leftist Woke HeroismLeftism always vomits up self-appointed “great men.” Faithless leftist “messiahs” arise believing they’ve morphed into Nietzche’s Superman. FBI’s Peter Strzok bragged he’d “stop” Trump’s election. So leftism creates self-canonized rebels, smashing statutes, claiming to follow “Higher Law”, like James Comey.
III. CONCLUSION: NIHILISM
The mindlessness of modern leftism is truly astonishing. An army of devouring cockroaches has more brain activity. Every “resistance” is explained by stale Marxist theory. But why? In fact, abandoning the West’s theory of religion and government leads to catatonic brain dysfunction. This willful rejection of reality explains why attacks leveled at the opposition are not serious. Meanwhile, the left’s Nihilism – Nietzsche’s belief in nothing, a hallmark of Russian communism, is exposed by current protests.
The left offers typically ludicrous naked conclusions they think necessary for survival, then tortuously argues backwards towards ridiculous “facts”. They just assume once power is achieved, the utopia of their dreams will simply appear by magic. Reminiscent of Mao’s Great Leap Forward, after sending all farmers to communes, he then watched the national tragedy as 45 million souls starved to death.
Montana has about 1,400 Jews, Mississippi about 1,500, South Dakota 250. If I lived in any one of those beautiful states, I would not be writing this article. But I live in New York––home to about one-million, 800-thousand Jews––so the politics of being Jewish affects me and my family in a very existential––life and death––way.
It’s quite simple for me, as it should be for all Jews, given the fact that in a world of about eight-billion people, we Jews are a miniscule 15 million, only about six-million in the United States, eight-million in Israel, and another one-million around the world. That is equivalent to the proverbial drop in the ocean.
A PRESSING IMPERATIVE
If we Jews and our supporters don’t aggressively address the pandemic of anti-Semitism that is galloping around the globe and exploding here in America, rampant on college campuses, aided and abetted by a craven media that gives credibility to career hate-mongers like Louis Farrakhan and his ilk, and even contaminating the hallowed halls of the U.S. Congress––with more floridly hate-Jews/hate-Israel Democrats than ever before in history––then we know from our tragic history that annihilation could be right around the corner.
Sadly the Democrat Party of old––of JFK, Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson, Senator and VP Walter Mondale, et al––has vanished, replaced by Democrats like “the squad” who spew their poisonous hatred of Jews and Israel from the House of Representatives itself. Then there are those who remain thunderously silent––including elected Democrat Jews like Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, Jerrold Nadler, Eliot Engel, Adam Schiff, Richard Blumenthal, as well Democrat Representatives from Long Island––with a huge Jewish population––Tom Suozzi and Kathleen Rice.
Don’t be fooled by the boilerplate, politically correct press releases written by their aides. Once these statements are made public, these cowards go back to cowering before the radical leftists who now call the shots in the Democrat Party, most prominently the racists who continue to vent their anti-Semitic bile to this day.
WHERE DID ALL THE ADVOCATES GO?
Shockingly, most of the Jewish organizations that once supported and defended Jews in America abandoned those roles, having caved to their biggest donors’ conversion to a new religion called “Social Justice.” These are the quislings who “reach out” to––in essence, endorse––groups like Black Lives Matter, Antifa and others that wantonly attack synagogues, Jewish businesses and ordinary Jewish citizens walking in their neighborhoods, and brazenly promote the Boycott-Divest-Sanction (BDS) movement to destroy Israel through economic strangulation.
For instance, The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), founded in 1913, aggressively and successfully fulfilled its mission to “stop the defamation of the Jewish people” until 102 years after its founding when, in 2015, Jonathan Greenblatt became the ADL’s national director and CEO. Greenblatt worked for three far-left regimes antagonistic to Israel––the Clinton Administration, the Obama fiasco, and the George Soros-funded Aspen Institute. Now, Mr. Greenblatt sounds deranged when he states that “only a small number” of the Black Lives Matter anarchy group don’t like Jews, when he knows full well––and Americans can see with their own eyes––that it is one of the most rabidly Jew- and Israel-loathing groups in the world!
According to columnist and author Rabbi Aryeh Spero, the ADL under Greenblatt “has betrayed its original mission of fighting anti-Semites by forging a new partnership with one of America’s most notorious anti-Semites, Al Sharpton.”
But the ADL is only one example out of nearly a dozen that I place in the category of turncoats against the Jewish people. [More on this in a future article].
AMERICA TO THE RESCUE
I have always felt safe in America, protected by the powerful principles of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, by the always-reliable police-and-fire departments in every community where I’ve lived, and by local, state and national leaders of both political parties who fought to preserve our extraordinary way of life through our country’s bedrock foundations of God, family, freedom and safety.
But with the advent of the well-organized, heavily financed emergence of the Jew-hating, Christian-hating, America-hating “Cancel Culture,” what can people do? Yes, they can call or write a letter or e-mail to their elected representative, for which they’ll get back a form letter written by an intern.
But a sure-fire cure for this downward plunge into the sewers of our body politic is to vote out every Democrat running for office. Not one of these America-loathing, anarchist-supporting people is worthy of representing either their constituents or America itself.
Just ask them. They will tell you that they “support” the terrorism––which they call “protests”––we’ve been witnessing for the last several weeks, that they want to raise your taxes, cut funding to the police and military that protect you and your children, institute the socialized medicine and education that have failed in every country they’ve ever been instituted, and enact the Big Government programs that “protect” you from cradle to grave.
November 3, 2020, could change your life forever. If you believe in self-preservation, be smart!
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This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America
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