The violent storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, has heightened concerns about the threat posed by far-right extremism in the United States. In examining the wide range of terrorism and counterterrorism challenges facing the incoming Biden administration in this month’s feature commentary, Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware write that “the January 6 events at the U.S. Capitol offered a stark, frightening picture of the powerful forces fueling a conspiratorial mindset eschewing both the country’s foundational democratic values and the rule of law” and “serves as a salutary and timely reminder of the danger of potential violence to come.” Given the continued threat posed by “a stubbornly resilient Islamic State and an implacably determined al-Qa`ida,” they write that “it may be that as the United States and its allies enter the third decade of war against international salafi-jihadi terrorism, we need to recalibrate our immediate expectations away from ‘winning’ and ‘losing,’ toward ‘accepting’ and ‘managing’ this conflict. Such an admission would not be popular, but it would be a fairer reflection of the current state of the fight against terrorism, and a more honest prediction of what to expect over the next four, or more, years.”
Our interview is with David Lasseter, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction. He notes that “advances in synthetic biology and other related biotechnologies hold the potential for both promise and peril in their application. And so we’ve got to be cognizant of how such technological shifts can alter the threat landscape [and] impose new defense and security challenges. We’ve heard it said that biological weapons are ‘a poor man’s nuke,’ given the potentially enormous impact of their usage. I think COVID-19 has further accelerated this mindset. The U.S. has had a watchful eye on bio threats and has elevated bio threats as a core national security priority over the past several years.”
In an assessment that has far-reaching implications for the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan, Jonathan Schroden finds that if the United States were to withdraw the remainder of its troops from the country, the Taliban would have “a slight military advantage” over Afghanistan’s security forces, “which would then likely grow in a compounding fashion.” Nodirbek Soliev examines the Tajik connection in an Islamic State plot against U.S. and NATO air bases in Germany thwarted in April 2020.
Paul Cruickshank, Editor in Chief
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Dershowitz speaks out regarding impeachment but no Democrat is listening. They are hell bent on governing motivated by hatred and vindictiveness.
There is a series on NETFLIX called "Reign." It is about French, Scottish and English history around the time of King Francis, Mary Queen of Scot's and Queen Elizabeth. Royal governance was full of pettiness, intrigue and bad deeds done in the name of virtue. Sound familiar?
Alan
Dershowitz Says Impeachment Against Trump A “Loaded Weapon”
(FreedomJournal)- Democrats in the House of Representatives
are pushing forward with more articles of impeachment against President Donald
Trump.
At least one prominent constitutional law scholar thinks
those efforts are futile, though.
Alan Dershowitz, a professor emeritus at Harvard Law School,
said the impeachment of the president will end up providing a “loaded weapon”
to both Republicans and Democrats to use whenever they see fit in the future.
He doesn’t believe that Trump will face a Senate trial due to
the fact that he’ll likely be out of office by the time the upper chamber
receives the case. As he said on Fox News on Sunday morning:
“It will not go to trial. All the Democrats can do is impeach
the president in the House of Representatives. For that, all you need is a
majority vote. You don’t have to take evidence, there are no lawyers involved.
“But the case cannot come to trial in the Senate because the
Senate has rules, and the rules would not allow the case to come to trial until
— according to the majority leader — until 1 p.m. on January 20, one hour after
President Trump leaves office.”
Dershowitz further explained that “the Constitution
specifically says the president shall be removed from office upon impeachment.”
Because the language doesn’t say “the former president,” the Senate’s
“jurisdiction is limited to a sitting president.”
This interpretation of Constitutional law as it relates to
impeachment is one that is likely to be debated strongly once the House
formally impeaches the president — which seems like a formality at this point.
On Monday, the House formally introduced one article of
impeachment against Trump, citing the president’s alleged interference in the
presidential election with his urging to “find” votes in Georgia for him to
win. It also cites his role in last week’s riot at the U.S. Capitol building.
The resolution states:
“In all this, President Trump gravely endangered the security
of the United States and its institutions of Government. He threatened the
integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of
power, and imperiled a coequal branch of Government. He thereby betrayed his
trust as President, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.”
The article further states the 14th Amendment
to the Constitution “prohibits any person who has ‘engaged in insurrection or
rebellion against’ the United States” from holding political office.
It’s likely the House will vote, and approve of, the article
of impeachment this week. The next step would be to send it over to the Senate
for a full trial, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that won’t
happen before the January 20 inauguration of Democrat Joe Biden.
That’s where Dershowitz said Constitutional law will ban the
trial from happening. Still, there will be a new majority leader in the Senate
after January 20, so it’s likely the new Democrat-led upper chamber will try to
push ahead with it anyway.
Dershowitz further stated that impeaching Trump — or any
president — for what he says would set a very bad precedent that the framers of
the Constitution didn’t intend. He explained:
“It would lie around like a loaded weapon ready to be used by
either part against the other party, and that’s not what impeachment or the 25th Amendment
were intended to be.”
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I do not understand the difference between radicalism from the right versus the left. Goldwater told us: "Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice" and was promptly defeated.
We have become a bar bell nation. Both "coast tails" wag the dog. Our parties are at extreme ends of the political spectrum or philosophically profess to be. Large segments of our population are at each other's throats and distrust each other.
The words United States of America seem like an oxymoron at this time in our history. If it persists I seriously doubt the republic will survive and I see little that is happening to change our divide.
+++
Sent to me by a dear friend and fellow memo reader.
WHY ATHLETES CAN'T HAVE REGULAR JOBS
1. Chicago Cubs outfielder Andre Dawson on being a role model:
"I wan' all dem kids to do what I do, to look up to me. I wan' all the kids to copulate me."
2. New Orleans Saint RB George Rogers when asked about the upcoming season:
"I want to rush for 1,000 or 1,500 yards, whichever comes first.."
3. And, upon hearing Joe Jacobi of the 'Skin's say:
"I'd run over my own mother to win the Super Bowl,"
Matt Millen of the Raiders said: "To win, I'd run over Joe's Mom, too."
4. Torrin Polk, University of Houston receiver, on his coach, John Jenkins:
"He treat us like mens. He let us wear earrings."
5. Football commentator and former player Joe Theismann:
"Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein."
6. Senior basketball player at the University of Pittsburgh :
"I'm going to graduate on time, no matter how long it takes.."
(Now that is beautiful)
7. Bill Peterson, a Florida State football coach:
"You guys line up alphabetically by height.."
And, "You guys pair up in groups of three, and then line up in a circle."
8. Boxing promoter Dan Duva on Mike Tyson going to prison:
"Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton .."
9. Stu Grimson, Chicago Blackhawks left wing, explaining why he keeps a color photo of himself above his locker:
"That's so when I forget how to spell my name, I can still find my clothes."
10. Lou Duva, veteran boxing trainer, on the Spartan training regimen of heavyweight Andrew Golota:
"He's a guy who gets up at six o'clock in the morning, regardless of what time it is."
11. Chuck Nevitt , North Carolina State basketball player, explaining to Coach Jim Valvano why he appeared nervous at practice:
"My sister's expecting a baby, and I don't know if I'm going to be an uncle or an aunt. (I wonder if his IQ ever hit room temperature in January)
12. Frank Layden , Utah Jazz president, on a former player:
"I asked him, 'Son, what is it with you? Is it ignorance or apathy?'
He said, 'Coach, I don't know and I don't care.'"
13. Shelby Metcalf, basketball coach at Texas A&M, recounting what he told a player who received four F's and one D: (NOW THIS IS FUNNY)
"Son, looks to me like you're spending too much time on one subject."
14. In the words of NC State great Charles Shackelford:
"I can go to my left or right, I am amphibious."
15. Former Houston Oilers coach Bum Phillips when asked by Bob Costas why he takes his wife on all the road trips,
Phillips responded: "Because she's too ugly to kiss good-bye."
+++
The Trump Dump has begun.
Trump Declassifies ‘Foot-High’ Stack Of Russiagate, Obamagate Documents
By Mark Hale
President Trump has declassified and authorized the release of “more than a foot-high stack of documents” related to the Obama administration’s surveillance and espionage committed against the 2016 Trump campaign, as part of a larger campaign to discredit and undermine the incoming US president.
According to journalist and Trump insider John Solomon, the documents would be released as soon as Friday, but no later than Monday.
“He has delivered in a big way. More than a foot-high stack of documents he has authorized to be released by the FBI and the DOJ. These are the things that the FBI has tried to keep from the public for 4 years. They have amazing, big picture revelations,” Solomon told Fox News’ “Lou Dobbs Tonight.”
According to Solomon‘s website, Just The News, the release will support claims that the entire Russia narrative was created and leaked to the news media to upstage concerns over Hillary Clinton’s email scandal.
And:
There was a time when facts counted.
Just the Facts, Mrs. Pelosi | The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
By Ben Stein
1. President Trump in no way incited anyone to riot on Capitol Hill or anywhere else.
2. The precipitating cause of the riot was the astonishing incompetence of the Capitol police.
3. The rioters in no conceivable way were seeking the overthrow of the government. Seizing a few empty rooms of the Capitol offers no control of anything. To say otherwise demonstrates an almost unbelievable ignorance of how government works.
4. President Trump has been a truly heroic leader of the Free World.
5. Mr. Trump has been a spectacular friend to Israel.
6. Mr. Trump has not gotten the U.S. into any new wars.
7. Mr. Trump has stood up nobly under unrelentingly dishonest media and political attack.
8. We will not see another Donald Trump in our White House in our lifetime.
9. Mr. President, we will miss you.
I can remember it like it was yesterday. 1965. 1966. 1967. 1968. 1969. 1970. 1971. 1972. 1973. One demonstration after another. Driving down from Columbia to Cambridge to march with Stokely and Martin and Eldridge to demand equality of opportunity for blacks.
Hauling down in an ancient light blue Volvo station wagon from Yale to D.C. to protest the war in Vietnam: “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” “One, two, three, four, LBJ stop the war!”
We tried to break into the White House, the Pentagon, the South Vietnamese Embassy, the State Department. We lay down on K Street, in Lafayette Square, the Memorial Bridge, on Virginia Avenue Northwest. On Highway 50 in Maryland. We blocked traffic. We tore down street signs. We spray-painted obscenities everywhere we could find space. Jerry and Abby and all three million of us students.
The police picked us up and then let us go, and we were back the next day or the next month or the next year. The president called us every name in the book. But none of us spent more than a few hours or days in jail, and again, we were back marching and screaming and vandalizing the next time the dinner bell rang.
None of us had our right to speak cut off. LBJ and Richard Nixon did not have their rights to speak in any way reduced at all! We could speak all we wanted, and the president could speak all he wanted. Freedom of speech was in the Constitution. It could not be taken away from anyone!
That was then. That was America. Now, in punishment for an “incitement” that never happened at all (I read every word of Mr. Trump’s “incitement” speech. There is not one syllable of incitement in it. Not a syllable!), freedom of speech is gone, cut off by a group of high-tech billionaires and judges who apparently have no idea of what the Constitution means or what America means.
This is the darkest of days. America is far too precious to lose. And what’s next? Isn’t there a court anywhere that can read?
Thursday
Blessed Are the Peacemakers
For they shall be called the Children of God
But they shall also be mocked and
Belittled and Impeached and sneered at
By cowards and snobs as déclassé
And leave their peace making work
And travel in solitary pride back to Florida
To plot more peace while their critics
Plot war.
++++
I agree with Kim and I also do not like corporate stockholder money being used for campaign contributions. I even have issues when my corporation chooses to donate to charitable organizations and does not allow stockholders a choice but at least it is going to mostly worthy causes.
Big Business’s Sharp Left Turn
Corporations’ new political role carries serious political and legal consequences.
By Kimberley A. Strassel
Corporate America took a big step this week, moving from
captives of wokeness to active accomplices. The legal and political
consequences may prove profound.
Big Business over the
past four years has increasingly signed up for leftist politics. Some of this
was “wokewashing,” peddling causes or figures for brand benefit—think Nike’s Colin
Kaepernick commercial or Lacoste’s replacement of its crocodile logo with
endangered species. Some was spinelessness, caving in to the liberal
mob—think Goldman Sachs’s refusal to finance fossil-fuel projects. Some was
strategic— Twitter and Facebook attempting to ward off regulation
with ever-changing policies on “misinformation.”
But the events of last week—the assault on the Capitol and the
Democratic Senate takeover—inspired corporate America to take on a new role.
Business titans are positioning themselves as arbiters of political speech and
activity—by withholding essential services to conservative individuals,
companies and groups. They’ve turned themselves into political entities,
raising constitutional and antitrust questions.
This goes way beyond Big Tech’s
censoring of Donald Trump and
Parler. Twitter, Facebook, Apple, Google
and Amazon entered the
fray by deploying a bogus rationale for banning the president from the biggest
social-media sites, then dismantling the only effective conservative
alternative. This alone raises free-speech concerns.
The bum’s rush that followed put in bright focus the
extraordinary power corporate America holds to shut down a political figure,
even a party, completely. SnapChat, Twitch and YouTube also disabled Trump
accounts, creating a near-total media silencing. Campaign Monitor, an email
service provider, confirmed it had suspended Trump campaign emails. Stripe
Inc., one of the largest processors of online financial transactions, said it
won’t process contributions to the Trump campaign. Shopify took offline stores run by Trump
entities. In a week, the nation’s C-suites disabled the president’s ability to
speak to the nation and communicate with donors.
The media has lumped these actions along with the decision by
dozens of other companies to halt political-action committee donations to
Republicans who objected to state election results. But companies have no
obligation to make contributions, and pulling money is a longtime corporate
response to controversial figures. The “deplatforming” of Mr. Trump is
something new and menacing. Companies are refusing to provide the services
that, in our online, interconnected world, are the backbone of all political
campaigning and speech.
And they highlight the power corporate America has to do this to
any conservative for any reason. Today it is Mr. Trump, and the corporations
claim it’s necessary to prevent more violence. But how long before an online
processor refuses to facilitate the credit-card transaction of any American
with a Parler account, or an online provider announces it will no longer
transmit emails that question climate change? When does Apple start scouring
and shutting down iMessages that fit its definition of “insurrectionist” talk?
The corporate chieftans’ response: Private companies get to
choose whom to serve and whom to ban. Until a week ago, many conservatives
would have agreed. But these actions, coming on the back of Democratic control
in Washington and targeting only the Democrats’ opponents, change the legal
picture. They raise the specter of corporations that have been coerced or
co-opted by government itself, making them effective arms of the state—serving
the interest of one-party control. Entities that take on the conduct of
government are subject to a different rule book.
This past week also highlighted how nonexistent is the usual
remedy to corporate excess: competition. The liberal response for years to any
conservative griping about Twitter censorship: Don’t like it? Start an
alternative. Conservatives did, only to watch the tech giants shut down Parler.
We live increasingly in an online world, which a few powerful gatekeepers
control.
Corporations may feel emboldened because Washington Republicans
are helpless to impose a legislative or regulatory response; companies likely
took these steps in part to curry favor with Democrats. The political fallout
will nonetheless be seismic. The GOP may be fractured on discrete policy issues
like Section 230, but this week unified them on a far more consequential point:
Their reflexive support of Big Business is at an end. This will have
far-reaching consequences for upcoming policy battles.
Companies have set the stage for a slew of lawsuits on
constitutional and antitrust grounds, which could end up reshaping the business
landscape. Businesses’ actions on the left’s behalf open the way for courts to
establish new constitutional limitations on conduct. They are also at risk of
antitrust and unfair-trade actions by state attorneys general and private parties.
Corporate America stepped up as a political enforcer this week.
Serious legal and political consequences come with that role.
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