Daily News Roundup - PRICKLY PEAR

Estimated Reading Time: 29 minutes

NOTABLE QUOTES

Nick Givas reporter for Just the news: Recent revelations surrounding classified documents found in Joe Biden’s private think tank office have not only turned the Mar-a-Lago raid investigation on its head, it also has revived scrutiny of the many ties China has to America’s first family and its effort to use academia to spy in America.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) in an interview with Charlie Kirk: “Kevin McCarthy told us he’s going to get the evidence out in front of the American people, and that means releasing the 14,000 hours of tapes that have been hidden that I think would give more full context to that day, rather than the cherry-picked moments that the January 6th committee tried to use to inflame and further divide our country,”

Robert Spencer contributor to FrontPage Magazine: American democracy is continuing to endure a violent assault from those who claim that what happened on Jan. 6 constituted an “insurrection,” and that, as Old Joe intoned last September, “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.” The threat to our republic is coming from those who would rule half of the electorate out of the bounds of acceptable discourse. That’s what the Left’s Jan. 6 hysteria is all about: fascists advancing fascism. And the fascists aren’t the MAGA Republicans.

Bruce Thornton contributor to FrontPage Magazine: Our Constitutional order may have its weaknesses that give scope to the frailties and selfishness of human nature, but its enumerated, unalienable rights and its guarantee of political freedom and equality have not, despite the near-century of effort by progressive technocrats, been cast aside. At least not yet. If we are living in the end of days, and if decline will be our destiny, it will be we free American people who make that choice.

J.B. Shurk contributor to American Thinker: Ordinary people have extraordinary power. Don’t believe me? Watch what happens if tens of millions ever decide to close their bank accounts all at once. Or critical sectors of the workforce decide to stay home for weeks. Or a sizable percentage of the population refuses to obey arbitrary and capricious government orders. When citizens become fed up enough to take matters into their own hands, those with government-bestowed titles learn quickly how little power those vaunted titles actually have.

John Green contributor to American Thinker: In a recent Rasmussen Reports poll, 39 percent of Americans consider other Americans to be America’s greatest threat. That’s more people than consider China our greatest threat (25 percent). It’s almost twice as many as those that consider Russia our greatest threat (20 percent). Of those polled, 22 percent say Democrats are our greatest threat. That would include people like myself, who believe the Dems have become the American communists — determined to destroy everything that makes us exceptional — as a necessary measure to marshal in a socialist utopia. Another 17 percent say that Republicans are the greatest threat. Those would be our fellow citizens who have bought Biden’s semi-fascist baloney and Merrick Garland’s “white supremacist” propaganda. So much for returning comity and normalcy to the American conversation.

Carson Choate contributor to Daily Caller: Overall, only 16 percent of Gen Z adults said they were proud to live in the United States — the lowest rate of all generations. Millennials were second lowest, with 36 percent proud to be Americans. By comparison, Generation Xers and Baby Boomers were the most patriotic, at 54 and 73 percent, respectively.

Jeff Kart contributor to hotair.com: The push to electrify everything is going full speed ahead, at the same time that our grid is getting less reliable and losing base load capacity. Brownouts/planned blackouts have plagued multiple grids in the country in recent months, and the electrification of the transportation industry threatens to overload the system even more. Yet the Biden Administration, the Climate Change fanatics, and some “public health” folks are pushing for the banning of gas stoves on some shaky evidence that they cause asthma.

David Strom contributor to hotair.com: The IRS focuses its audits on the poor and middle class. That is a fact.

Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA): ‘Our current tax system is a laughingstock, and the IRS is the butt of the joke. The only people with something to gain from maintaining a behemoth IRS are the bureaucracy-loving Washington Democrats, who want armed, unelected agents to have more control over your paycheck than you do.’

Lincoln Brown contributor to PJMedia: Young people, are you ready for success? Want a career in a rewarding field that will lead to a fulfilling life? Don’t go to college. Be an electrician, be a plumber, be a welder, be a carpenter — hell, learn to code — but for heaven’s sake and for that matter, your own, don’t go to college. I know some of you are months or even years away from high school graduation, but: Don’t. Go. To. College. Okay, so if you want to be a doctor, lawyer, or physicist . . . maybe look for a college that does not double as an asylum. Other than that, treat college campuses like the radioactive waste depots that they have become.

Steve Cortes Substack: In the wake of the Damar Hamlin medical scare, the Leftists see an opening to score political points and simultaneously pursue two goals they relish: insist on vaccine conformity and disparage football. In fact, such conjoined opportunities rarely arise in one incident. So, thinking Americans better be prepared to push back — to maintain vaccine skepticism, and to defend our cherished national game.

Lloyd Billingsley contributor to FrontPage Magazine: Elon Musk has good reason to call for prosecution of Fauci, and the new Congress should strive to be like Elon. Open the books and let the light shine in. Summon witnesses from far and wide, including the Incarnation Children’s Center in Harlem.

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL): You see, the Biden administration wants to nix gas stoves. Are you kidding me? I want gas stoves.

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Solomon: Trump says Biden document revelation ‘totally changes’ DOJ probe of Mar-a-Lago

Former President Donald Trump said Thursday the revelation that Joe Biden kept classified documents from his vice presidency at a private think tank office “totally changes” the Justice Department investigation prompted by the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago, suggesting politics may have delayed the public revelation of the current president’s new legal and political predicament. […] Trump told Just the News in an exclusive interview that he did not believe the lag between discovery and public acknowledgement of the Biden classified documents was an accident.

GLOBALISM (GREAT RESET) & TRANSHUMANISM (HUMANS 2.0) ARE INEXTRICABLY LINKED

Breitbart London: World Economic Forum’s Davos Set for ‘Record Participation’ as 52 Heads of State to Attend Globalist Summit

Forum organizers said their latest lineup for the elite gathering of political leaders, business executives, cultural trend-setters and international organization chiefs will tackle issues facing a divided world as 2023 begins, with war and conflict, economic pressures and climate change in focus. […] Nearly 300 government ministers were expected to take part. […] . . . unspecified “high-level” delegations from China and Ukraine would attend.

A WEST IN DECLINE?

Thornton: Is the West Living in the End of Days?

The new axis of enemies can see that we’ve already been doing their work for them. An apocalyptic vibe seems to have settled over the West. Signs and portents abound: The Covid plague and the Russo-Ukrainian War have unleashed two of the Four Horses of Revelations. For those not terminally “woke,” gaudy transexuals performing for prepubescent school-children, and credentialed medical doctors poisoning and mutilating healthy children and young people bespeak the moral idiocy that typically marks civilizational collapse. A self-created energy crisis threatens to turn off the heat and lights and all the other amenities of modern civilization. And cities rife with murder, daylight plundering of stores with impunity, junkies shooting up near schools, excrement polluting the sidewalks, and the mentally disturbed roaming streets and subways summon up images redolent of rough beasts whose time has come round at last. What we’re really talking about is that staple of historiographical pessimism, what in 1918 Oswald Spengler called the Decline of the West. Since then many moments of Western decline have come and gone. But is this time different? Are we finally facing the end of the most sophisticated, wealthy, and powerful civilization in history? Our geopolitical rivals certainly think so.

GOP HOUSE MAJORITY

Wilson: McCarthy Bounces Dems Swalwell, Schiff, Omar From Key House Committees

California Democrats Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell were booted from the House Intelligence Committee, and Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, who has repeatedly been accused of anti-Semitism, is off the Foreign Affairs Committee, McCarthy told The Associated Press Monday night. “Eric Swalwell cannot get a security clearance in the public sector. Why would we ever give him a security clearance in the secrets to America? So, I will not allow him to be on Intel,” McCarthy said in November. “You have Adam Schiff, who had lied to the American public time and again. We will not allow him to be on the Intel Committee either.”

[…] A Republican steering committee has assigned chairmanships, with several of the House’s more conservative members landing key roles. Missouri Rep. Jason Smith will chair the powerful . . . ; Tennessee Rep. Mark Green the . . .; Texas Rep. Jodey Arrington the . . . . In addition, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan is widely expected to chair the Judiciary Committee. Green and Jordan have previously identified themselves as members of the House Freedom Caucus, a conservative group of 35-40 Republicans that does not divulge its membership.

Aschieris: House Overwhelmingly Adopts Resolution to Establish China Select Committee

The resolution aimed at creating the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party—also known as the Select Committee on China—passed 365 to 65. Republicans control the House of Representatives with 222 members, while Democrats hold 212 seats. “It is time to push back against the Chinese Communist Party’s aggression in bipartisan fashion, and today’s overwhelming bipartisan vote to create the Select Committee on the CCP is an important first step in that direction,” Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., who in December was tapped to be the committee’s chairman, said Tuesday after the vote.

Sundance: House Authorizes Subcommittee to Investigate Weaponization of Federal Government Against U.S. Citizens, Dan Bishop Puts The Deep State on Notice, Video

As anticipated, The House of Representatives now under Republican control, has established a subcommittee to review the “weaponization of the federal government.” [Media Report] […] In the debate to establish the committee, Representative Dan Bishop (R-North Carolina) delivered powerful remarks from the floor.

Watch the 2:54 minute speech: https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2023/01/10/house-authorizes-subcommittee-to-investigate-weaponization-of-federal-government-against-u-s-citizens-dan-bishop-puts-the-deep-state-on-notice-video/

Heine: Jim Jordan to Lead Select Subcommittee on ‘the Weaponization of the Federal Government’ Under Biden

The new Judiciary subcommittee will be called the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, and will be composed of 13 members, according to Axios.

Brown: House Oversight Chairman Demands Answers on Biden’s Classified Documents

Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, the new chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, is taking his duties seriously, already jumping into the growing Biden scandal regarding revelations that then-former Vice President Joe Biden kept classified government documents in a private office for years. You know, the same thing he attacked his predecessor Donald Trump as “irresponsible” for doing. In a letter sent fewer than 24 hours after news of Biden’s improper possession of sensitive documents broke, Chairman Comer asked the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and the White House Counsel’s Office for more information about President Biden’s “failure to return highly classified records from his time as vice president.”

Brown: Articles of Impeachment Filed Against DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas recently called for expediting citizenship for illegal immigrants. DHS also told U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) managers they couldn’t publish weekly updates about immigration incursions and apprehensions on social media without agency permission. And Mayorkas is also now known for propping up the lie that border patrol agents whipped Haitian immigrants when he knew it wasn’t true. Between those things and the crush of illegal immigrants at the border, combined with the increase in human and drug trafficking, crime, and the pressure on border towns to manage the new arrivals, Republican Congressman Pat Fallon of Texas has had enough. […] Reportedly, the articles charge Mayorkas with failing to execute the “Secure the Fence Act of 2006,” and state that the secretary gave false and misleading testimony to Congress and that he falsely slandered border agents during the alleged whipping incident. Back in November, Kevin McCarthy called on Mayorkas to resign over the way he has handled the border crisis and warned that impeachment was imminent. Mayorkas has refused to resign and has said he is ready for whatever the House Republicans have in mind.

The Defender: House GOP to Embark on Sweeping Probe of COVID Origin, U.S. Response + More

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), who is set to chair the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, under whose umbrella the COVID panel will do its work, said that congressional investigators would “talk to the researchers,” including “all of the people that were involved” at the National Institutes of Health around the development of vaccines.

Phillips: House Republicans will now vote on ABOLISHING the IRS and replacing a national income tax with a consumption tax – after voting to strip agency of Biden-backed $72 billion in funds for 87,000 new staff

Georgia Republican Rep. Buddy Carter will bring forth the Fair Tax Act that he says would remove the need for an IRS entirely by simplifying the tax code. It would replace the national corporate and personal income tax and other taxes with a single consumption tax. The bill also gets rid of the death, gift and payroll taxes. It further calls for repealing the 16th Amendment – which gives Congress the right to lay and collect taxes on incomes. A vote on the bill, which has 30 co-sponsors, was promised as part of a deal to get Kevin McCarthy the Speaker’s gavel last week. It’s not yet clear when the legislation will come to the House floor.

War Room: House Republicans Must Keep Pressure On Leadership To Ensure They Follow Every Part Of The Deal 12

Russ Vought, who was President Trump’s director of Office of Management and Budget, talks to host Steve Bannon about the deal reached between the Freedom Caucus and the establishment Republicans in the House to ensure the election of Kevin McCarthy as speaker. The main point: Hold their feet to the fire, or the gains made will slip away.

Watch the 7:18 minute interview: https://warroom.org/2023/01/09/house-republicans-must-keep-pressure-on-leadership-to-ensure-they-follow-every-part-of-the-deal-12/

RealAmericaVoice: Rep. Matt Gaetz joins Charlie Kirk to discuss Speaker Kevin McCarthy

Watch the 23:55 minute interview: https://rumble.com/v24save-rep.-matt-gaetz-joins-charlie-kirk-to-discuss-speaker-kevin-mccarthy.html

RNC ELECTION UPDATE

McGraw: Candidates for RNC chair are set to square off

The candidates running for the top spot at the committee will square off in a forum later this month, according to an email on the rules and procedures for the election of RNC officers sent Tuesday morning to members by RNC counsel. That could intensify even further an already-heated race between the current leader of the party, Ronna McDaniel, and Harmeet Dhillon. The email, which was provided to POLITICO, says that the candidate forums, which will be held for contested races, will take place on the afternoon of Jan. 25 and 26. The election for RNC offices will be held on Jan. 27 at the annual meeting, held this year in Dana Point, Calif. Only RNC members can vote for the chair.

THE CORRUPT INTELLIGENCE/ADMINSTRATIVE STATE APPARATUS

Pearce: After Paying Twitter Millions, FBI Says Other Possible Big Tech Payments Are Protected For ‘Law Enforcement Purposes’

The FBI denied a request to make public any payments it may have made to Google or Meta because such records could reveal protected information about law enforcement. The FBI was recently revealed to have paid the social media company Twitter $3.4 million to process requests for information on or censorship of numerous accounts on the platform. Through a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request, The Daily Wire sought similar records of payments the agency may have made to Meta, which controls Facebook and Instagram, and Google, which controls YouTube.

JUDICIARY

Arthur: Florida Sues Biden for His Southwest Border ‘Crisis’

Hearings began Monday in Florida v. U.S., a suit brought by the Sunshine State challenging the Biden administration’s migrant release policies at the Southwest border. The complaint in that matter begins with a dispositively true (and indisputable) statement: “The Southwest border is in crisis, with record numbers of migrants illegally entering our country.” It ends by blaming Biden for the mess and asking for enforcement of the immigration laws as Congress has written them. […] The Biden Administration Is “Promoting [an] Open Borders Agenda”, in Two Steps. Florida alleges that none of this is coincidental, but instead is the byproduct of an “open borders agenda” that the Biden administration is “promoting … with two steps”. The first of those steps is the administration’s elimination of what the state terms “effective immigration enforcement measures”.One of those measures is a combined series of Trump-era executive orders “expressly aimed at eliminating ‘catch and release’”, which the state contends (correctly) that the Biden administration has revoked. A second is the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), better known as “Remain in Mexico”, under which aliens apprehended entering illegally at the Southwest border were returned back across the line to await their asylum hearings.

Weaver: Judge Rules Catholic Hospital Discriminated Against Transgender Individual By Not Offering Sex-Change Surgery

University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center had refused to perform a hysterectomy on Jesse Hammons, prompting the individual to sue the hospital under Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act. Hammons had scheduled the hysterectomy with obstetrician-gynecologist Dr. Steven Adashek before Dr. Gail Cunningham, the hospital’s chief medical officer, informed Adashek that the St. Joseph could not perform a “transgender surgery,” according to court documents. Hammons rescheduled his hysterectomy for June 2020 at a different hospital.

THE FIGHT FOR ELECTION INTEGRITY

Marshall: Ranked-Choice Voting Keeps Rigging Elections

As different states and municipalities across the country adopt ranked-choice voting, it’s become obvious this mind-boggling election system deserves a new name: rigged-choice voting. After nearly two months of tabulation, Alameda County, California, — one such ranked-choice voting (RCV) adoptee — announced it got the count wrong for its Nov. 8 election. As The Wall Street Journal reported, the California county admitted it made systemic errors while tabulating ballots. As a result of the snafu, an Oakland School Board race flipped: The top vote-getter (and certified winner) must now hand his board seat over to the third-place finisher. […] What’s behind the RCV takeover? As The Federalist has previously reported, partisan Democratic activists and moderate Republicans are pushing RCV as a legal mechanism to push out more revolutionary (read: populist) candidates in favor of establishment-backed contenders. As Project Veritas has documented, the moderate, nominal Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski was behind the campaign to change Alaska’s primary to an RCV system, ensuring the defeat of her Trump-backed challenger Kelly Tshibaka. Had Alaska not implemented RCV, Tshibaka likely would have defeated Murkowski in the primary.

CHINA: AMERICA’S MORTAL ENEMY

Bergman: China Cements its Position in the Middle East

Saudi Arabia is now not only one of China’s most important suppliers of energy, but the kingdom is also an important link in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) — a gigantic global development project to enhance China’s global influence from East Asia to Europe by making countries worldwide increasingly dependent on China. Under the BRI, China has signed cooperation agreements with 20 Arab countries.
China is also Saudi Arabia’s largest trading partner — an arrangement that extends to military cooperation….
Biden took a longstanding ally, Saudi Arabia, and, by repeating that he would make the kingdom a “pariah nation,” created an adversary. “For an American president to be silent on the issue of human rights is inconsistent with who we are and who I am,” Biden said. The same concern for human rights has not seemed to bother him, however, when it comes to China or Iran, whose record on human rights is at least as bad as Saudi Arabia’s, if not worse.
China jumped in to fill the vacuum.

War Room: Only Solution To CCP Infiltration Is Subpoena Of Every Penny Of CCP Money That Went In US Pockets

Watch the 5:50 minute with Kash Patel: https://rumble.com/v24rmfo-only-solution-to-ccp-infiltration-is-subpoena-of-every-penny-of-ccp-money-t.html

BIDEN/HARRIS/OBAMA’S AMERICA FIRST REGIME: TRANSFORMING FOREIGN POLICY

(Biden’s War) Pentagon Press Sec. Says Ukrainian Forces To Start Training On U.S. Air Defense System On American Soil Next Week

Ryder told reporters the training would prepare approximately 90 to 100 Ukrainian soldiers to operate, maintain and sustain the defensive system over a training course expected to last several months. “Once fielded, the Patriot will continue to contribute to Ukraine’s air defense capabilities and provide another capability to Ukrainian people to defend themselves against Russia’s ongoing aerial assaults,” Ryder said. […] Pentagon officials report the United States has funded Ukraine with more than $24.2 billion in security assistance since its war with Russia began on Feb. 24, 2022.

Hagstrom: Democrats organize bid to extradite Bolsonaro from Florida after Brazilian Capitol attack

Bolsonaro offered meager criticism of the riots Sunday evening and denied any involvement in inciting them. Democrats have compared the attack to the pro-Trump storming of the U.S. Capitol in January 2021. Like former President Donald Trump, Bolsonaro refused to concede to Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and did not attend his inauguration. “Two years ago out Capitol was attacked by fanatics, now we are watching it happen in Brazil,” Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., tweeted Sunday “Solidarity with [President] Lula and the Brazilian people. Democracies around the world must stand united to condemn this attack on democracy.” “Bolsonaro should not be given refuge in Florida,” she added.

BIDEN/HARRIS/OBAMA’S AMERICA FIRST REGIME: TRANSFORMING AMERICA

Strom: Democrats lying about IRS audits

The IRS focuses its audits on the poor and middle class. That is a fact. So what was the response of the Democrats when the first order of business for the Republican majority in Congress was cutting the funding for 87,000 new IRS agents? Accuse them of shilling for the rich. We live in a dystopia. On Wednesday, Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) released data provided to it by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on audits performed by the agency in fiscal year 2022. Despite the infusion of new funding earmarked for the IRS via last year’s Inflation Reduction Act, the agency continued historic trends of hassling primarily low-income taxpayers, with relatively few millionaires and billionaires getting caught up in the audit sweep.

Pullmann: 7 Reasons High Inflation Isn’t Likely To Go Away Any Time Soon

A recession is coming in 2023, concluded more than two-thirds of the economists at big financial institutions recently surveyed by The Wall Street Journal. Inflation is also likely to remain high. Measuring year-over-year inflation by the U.S. government’s 1980s methodology put it at 15.23 percent in November 2022 instead of the government’s claimed 7.11 percent, according to economist John Williams. Many commentators, including me, were wrong when we previously claimed our grandkids will be paying off America’s massively unaffordable welfare state. We are all paying for it right now and are likely to be for much of our lives in inflation and other economic devastation. Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman’s maxim that “inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon” — meaning, inflation is always caused by government overspending — predicts continued inflation for at least the next five years, if not longer. That’s because government entities are continuing to engage in seriously inflationary actions. They’re doing this partly because of ideology, partly to buy votes, and partly because they prefer eating away Americans’ savings to paying off the unprecedented government debt that politicians have accumulated in the last 70 years enriching their friends and buying off voters. Inflation Means Politicians Stealing from You. A 2021 Politico profile of a former U.S. Federal Reserve member noted, “Between 2008 and 2014, the Federal Reserve printed more than $3.5 trillion in new bills. To put that in perspective, it’s roughly triple the amount of money that the Fed created in its first 95 years of existence. Three centuries’ worth of growth in the money supply was crammed into a few short years.” […] The Borrowing Will Go On Until It Can’t . . .

Anderson: Biden Promised To Refill Oil Reserves at a Profit. Now Prices Are Too High.

Emergency reserves have plunged to four-decade low, gone to China under Biden. The Biden administration last week rejected all offers it received to purchase oil for the country’s dwindling reserves because those offers “were either too expensive or didn’t meet the required specifications,” Bloomberg reported Friday. The move comes just weeks after the White House said it would “turn a profit for the taxpayers” by buying up to three million reserve barrels at a reduced cost, which Biden’s Energy Department pledged to obtain by February. […] The blunder is also likely to prompt fresh criticism from congressional Republicans, who have long accused the president of mismanaging the country’s oil reserves.

Bensman: United Nations to Hand Out Hundreds of Millions in Cash to U.S.-Bound Immigrants in 2023

[Note: A significant percentage of the cash that the U.N. is handing out to the illegals comes from hardworking U.S. taxpayers.] The director of this country’s largest immigrant shelter worked himself into a peak of outrage recalling the largesse of a United Nations program that, unknown to most Americans, has been showering millions of dollars in cash to help foreign nationals on their way to cross the U.S. southern border. Casa INDI shelter director Jose Jaime Salina Flores was recounting the recent case of an immigrant mother staying with three daughters at his facility who demanded that Flores help arrange a UN raise above the 6,000 pesos a month the UN already gave her on a debit card (about US$300) and which she thought insufficient while she planned the journey over America’s border. […] “I said, ‘Tough! Millions of Mexicans wish to earn that amount of money per month right now — working — and she’s having it for free when she’s not paying anything for shelter, food, and medical attention,” the Casa INDI shelter director, otherwise a passionate advocate for migrants, recalled, his voice rising in anger. “She pays absolutely nothing and on the side she gets 6,000 pesos and still she’s complaining it’s not enough?! Lots of Mexicans would like to have that!” […] Asked to comment about the new planning document, which he had not yet seen, for instance, Gooden said he was outraged to hear of their continuation at such high levels. Gooden was strongly considering again proposing his bill to defund the UN, with new revisions. “This is a slap in the face to American taxpayers who foot the bill for this corrupt globalist institution,” he told CIS over the weekend. “Republicans must condition UN funding and stop this taxpayer funded invasion immediately.”

Lepore: Jerome Powell warns Federal Reserve should NOT tackle climate change and social issues as he slaps down woke colleagues

Powell, 69, gave his remarks to a forum on central bank independence sponsored by the Swedish central bank. The Federal Reserve’s independence from political influence is central to its ability to battle inflation, but requires it stay out of issues like climate change that are beyond its congressionally established mandate. ‘Taking on new goals, however worthy,’ such as climate or social policy, he said, ‘without a clear statutory mandate would undermine the case for our independence.’ […] Though Powell said the Fed’s regulatory powers give it a ‘narrow’ role to ensure financial institutions ‘appropriately manage’ the risks they face from climate change, ‘we are not, and will not be, a ‘climate policymaker.”

Goodin: Biden’s stash of classified files ‘contained Ukraine, Iran and UK intelligence memos’: Smiling President again REFUSES to answer questions on whether he ‘mishandled’ government documents

“Mr President, did you mishandle classified documents?’ a member of the press corps shouted at him. He merely smiled and stayed silent as White House staff escorted journalists from the room. […] The White House announced late Monday that Biden’s lawyers discovered 10 classified documents in his former office at a Washington think tank on November 2. That was six days before the midterm election, where Republicans won control of the House but not by the landslide many had predicted. The announcement of such a discovery likely would have a been a political explosion in the election, akin to the FBI announcing in 2016, 11 days before the election, the discovery of additional Hillary Clinton emails.

Turley: Biden may have taken secret documents for his book — doubling his hypocrisy

“How that could possibly happen, how anyone could be that irresponsible,” President Biden, struggling to find words to express his revulsion at the very idea of moving classified material to Mar-a-Lago in a “60 Minutes” interview. “And I thought what data was in there that may compromise sources and methods.”

So how does Biden explain the roughly dozen documents found sitting in a closet at a private office supplied by the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement? For the moment, he is not saying anything at all. It is easy to understand why. According to reports, the clearly marked classified documents include those at the highly classified “Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information” (TS/SCI) level. The documents reportedly include material related to Iran, Ukraine and the United Kingdom.

Tucker Carlson: Biden’s lawyers were likely trying to get ahead of a scandal they knew was coming

Watch the 17:11 minute opening monologue: https://www.foxnews.com/video/6318480976112

War Room: Tony Blinken Was Managing Director Of Biden’s China-Funded UPenn Center.

Watch the 4:41 minute interview with Natalie Winters: https://rumble.com/v24rfzq-tony-blinken-was-managing-director-of-bidens-china-funded-upenn-center.html

War Room: Biden’s Backdoor Grift With UPenn Helped Funnel CCP Cash Into The Biden Crime Family, Cortes Reports.

Watch the 4:12 minute Steve Cortes interview: https://rumble.com/v24riz8-bidens-backdoor-grift-with-upenn-helped-funnel-ccp-cash-into-the-biden-crim.html

Tucker Carlson Tonight: Miranda Devine: Biden treated the University of Pennsylvania as his ‘play pen’.

Watch the 2:21 minute interview: https://www.foxnews.com/video/6318482687112

Blitzer: Biden once planned to fire US Attorney who is tapped to investigate classified documents

U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John Lausch will be leading the investigation of classified documents found at the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Biden Center, nearly two years after President Biden nearly fired him. […] Durbin and Duckworth added that there was precedent for individuals in Lausch’s position to stay in office after a new administration took over “to conclude sensitive investigations.” They urged Biden to at least let Lausch stay on until a replacement was confirmed.

FAUCI, “I AM SCIENCE”

Billingsley: Musk Exposes Fauci

And calls out his wife Christine Grady – chief of bioethics for the National Institutes of Health. […] Elon Musk is transforming Twitter from a government censorship bureau into a powerhouse of investigative journalism. The Biden Junta doesn’t like it. […] On December 28, Musk tweeted, “Almost no one seems to realize that the head of bioethics at NIH – the person who is supposed to make sure that Fauci behaves ethically – is his wife.” That would be National Institutes of Health bioethics boss Christine Grady. […] Born in 1952, the Boston College grad served with the National Institute of Nursing Research, a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and in 1995 Grady authored The Search for an AIDS Vaccine. On page 22, Grady identifies the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) as “the branch of the NIH primarily responsible for vaccine development.” On page 55, Grady identifies Dr. Anthony Fauci as “director of NIAID” but fails to tell readers that she had been married to the NIAID boss for ten years. That sort of deception is not what readers would expect from a health professional with a PhD in philosophy and bioethics from Georgetown University. The following year, Grady became deputy director of . . .

[…] Nobel laureate Kary Mullis, inventor of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), is on record that Dr. Fauci “doesn’t understand electronic microscopy and doesn’t understand medicine. He should not be in a position like he’s in.” But he was, from 1984 until 2023, wielding executive-level power but never having to face the voters.

BIDEN’S MANDATED COVID VACCINATIONS JABS & SADS. IS THERE A LINK?

Salgado: 21-Year-Old Air Force Academy Football Player Dies Suddenly

The latest victim of the “Sudden Adult Death Syndrome” killing so many healthy young people is Hunter Brown, a 21-year-old Air Force Academy cadet and offensive lineman on the AF Falcons football team. This young athlete was at a prestigious school, set to graduate as a military officer with a bright future ahead of him. Now he is dead. How many young people have to “die suddenly” and tragically before there is a serious investigation into the reasons why? […] The U.S. military requires all members (including those at the academies) to be fully vaccinated with COVID-19 vaccines. One wonders if Hunter Brown’s tragic death is related to that.

MEDICAL CARTEL CANCELS HIPPOCRATIC OATH

The Defender Staff: Childhood Obesity: Drugs and Surgery Top List of American Academy of Pediatrics New Guidelines

The American Academy of Pediatrics’ new clinical guidelines for treating childhood obesity recommend weight-loss drugs and surgery, prompting some to ask why the academy is focused on profit-generating treatments rather than addressing the root causes. […] The guidelines also recommend that obese children 12 and older be offered weight-loss medications alongside health behavior and lifestyle treatments and that doctors refer severely obese children 13 and older to surgeons to evaluate whether they would be good candidates for metabolic and bariatric surgery. They also state that pediatricians may consider weight-loss medications for children as young as 8 to 11 years old. […] As The Defender reported in August 2022, as obesity rates rise — in children and adults — Big Pharma can expect windfall profits. […] Commenting on the AAP surgical recommendations, Singleton told The Defender, “I was shocked to see the AAP state ‘weight loss surgery is safe and effective for pediatric patients.’” “While children are less likely to experience serious surgical complications than adults, the mortality rate for children undergoing weight loss-surgery is 1 in 500. Most parents would not consider this an insignificant risk,” she added.

Crozier: Harvard med class focuses on LGBTQIA+ ‘infants’ and older

Harvard Medical School students can learn about how to provide healthcare to “infants” who are LGBTQIA+, according to a course catalog description. “Caring for Patients with Diverse Sexual Orientations, Gender Identities, and Sex Development,” a regularly available med school course, promises to give students a chance to work with “patients [who] identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex or asexual.” “Clinical exposure and education will focus on serving gender and sexual minority people across the lifespan, from infants to older adults,” according to the course description. […] Another institution involved in the course is Boston Children’s Hospital, which became the center of a national controversy in August due to videos of employees promoting “a full suite of surgical options for transgender teens,” including vaginoplasties and hysterectomies. One video contained the claim that children can know they’re transgender “from the womb.”

CLIMATE EMERGENCY = CONTROL NOT SCIENCE

Greenfield: Biden Isn’t Banning Gas Stoves Because of Health, But Global Warming

I warned that this was coming at the end of last year. Los Angeles banned gas stoves in 2023. Seattle and NYC have done it. Now it’s time for the Biden admin to do it nationwide.[…] This is not about health. Health risks are just how the Biden administration envisions making such an abuse appear more palatable to the public. This is about environmentalism, its mythical global warming, its opposition to fossil fuels and its insistence on making every electric and centrally regulated.

Strom: The real reason they want to ban gas stoves: climate change

Whatever. We’ve been using gas stoves for generations, and just about every restaurant uses them with cooks standing over them for hours at a time, but whatever. If safety is your concern, what do the stats say? They say this: . . . […] This is pure BS, and driven not by health concerns but rather is part of a war on fossil fuels. Steve Milloy of Junk Science debunks the study cited itself, which isn’t even a study. It is a poorly designed meta-analysis that doesn’t focus on children, doesn’t say what they claim, and doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. They wanted a result, and created some “scientific” research to get it.

PragerU: ‘Confessions Of An Environmentalist’

Imagine you dedicated your life to environmentalism and all of its assumptions. Then imagine you realize those assumptions are all wrong. What would you do? Entrepreneur Brian Gitt tells his personal story and where it led him.

Watch the 5:37 minute video: https://www.prageru.com/video/confessions-of-an-environmentalist

DEMOCRAT PARTY MARXIST PLAYBOOK: LANGUAGE CONTROLS THEIR NARRATIVE

Malone: The CDC Puts Itself in Charge of Language Too

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has come out with a guide for how we are all to speak and write. This can be found on the website titled, “Preferred Terms for Select Population Groups & Communities.” It is clear that this list is being read and distributed broadly – from medical institutions, hospitals, scientific communications, doctor’s offices, schools and universities, as well as other US Government agencies and institutes. The CDC is the arm of the US Government tasked with disease control and prevention. It is not tasked with correcting wrong-speak. Now, how exactly this guide fits in with the CDC mission is beyond me.

Here is what the CDC lists as their mission on their website: https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/cdc-principles-to-avoid-wrong-speak

Schwerha: Elite University Department Bans Use Of Word ‘Field,’ Claiming It’s Too Racist

The University of Southern California (USC) Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work will no longer use the world “field” in its curriculum or its practices as part of its anti-racist framework, according to an email reportedly sent Monday. The school reportedly stripped the word from use due to alleged ties to “anti-Black” and “anti-immigrant” rhetoric, according to the email sent by the Practicum Education Department to the campus community, faculty, staff and students. The school informed that the word “practicum” would be used instead to “ensure [its] use of inclusive language and practice.”

EDUCATION INDOCTRINATION

Kemp: Jew-Hate at American Universities

As Jews were hounded out of German universities in the 1930s, where would you have stood? Many of us would like to think we would have found the moral and if necessary physical courage to stand up for our fellow students rather than see them persecuted, bullied, abused and thrown out. Well, now we can actually put our courage to the test as before our eyes we see a re-run of an almost identical pattern of antisemitism — this time at American colleges, with a similar picture at universities in Britain and elsewhere in the West. […] The Amcha report characterises the situation on US campuses today as a crisis for American Jews. It is much more than that. It is a crisis for us all that one section of our student body is bullied, abused, intimidated and cast down by their fellow students and often abandoned by their professors and faculty authorities. It is high time for the federal government, under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, to withdraw its funding from all universities that participate in bigotry such as that.

DEMOCRAT PARTY MARXIST PLAYBOOK: WOKE IDENTITY POLITICS

Greenfield: Muslim Brotherhood Blasphemy Cops on a Minnesota Campus

The decision by Hamline University to purge a minority art teacher for showing a Shiite painting of Mohammed has traveled from the outskirts of a few blogs, and a student paper of the small private college in St. Paul, to art sites, a PEN condemnation and finally the New York Times. Erika Lopez Prater, an adjunct at Hamline, showed a Persian painting of Mohammed to her class. Aram Wedatalla, a president of the Muslim Student Association, objected. The MSA rallied to denounce her, along with its advisor, Nur Mood: the college’s Assistant Director of Social Justice Programs. The Latina professor was dumped and condemned as an Islamophobe. Jaylani Hussein, CAIR-Minnesota’s director came in to hold a session on Islamophobia. The MSA and CAIR have both been linked to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Blitzer: Military installations, ships named after Confederates begin renaming process

The DoD said in an announcement that naming bases after Confederates had been done during “the height of the Jim Crow Laws in the South,” in an effort to garner support from the South and without consideration for Black service members. “All this changed in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd in 2020,” the announcement said. “Many people protested systemic racism and pointed to Confederate statues and bases as part of that system.” […] As per the recommendations, many well-known bases and items will receive new names. For example, Fort Bragg in North Carolina – named after Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg – will be renamed Fort Liberty. Fort Gordon, Georgia, named for senior Confederate officer John Brown Gordon, will become . . .

Reese: Law Group Sues Texas Medical Schools For Allegedly Admitting Students Based On Race Rather Than Merit

America First Legal Foundation (AFL) sued six Texas medical schools Tuesday for allegedly using race and sex preferences illegally in the admissions process, according to the lawsuit. Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, University of Texas at Austin, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center are allegedly discriminating against whites, Asians and males during the admissions process and admitting less qualified black, Hispanic and female students with lower grade-point averages and Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) scores, according to the lawsuit. AFL sued on behalf of a client who filed an open records request for “race, sex, grade-point average and MCAT score data for every applicant” in the 2021-2022 school year after being denied from the six medical schools.

PEACEFULLY & PATRIOTICALLY HAVE YOUR VOICES HEARD

Shurk: America’s Animal Farm

If you were to ask a collection of random people what governments do, you would hear a multitude of answers: they make and enforce laws, collect taxes, regulate industry, police citizens, and mobilize militaries. In actuality, what governments do, first and foremost, is prevent citizens from ever understanding the above paragraph. Their first order of business is to convince the vast majority of people not in positions of authority to obey the cumulative will of the small minority in charge of the government. For most of human history, this magic act, in which so few control so many, has been accomplished through intimidation, violence, and other forms of coercion. […] That so many Americans still fail to see how distorted their acting government has become from what their Constitution affords is proof that those who corral humans into pens for a living have done their jobs exceptionally well. Like too many generations before them, Americans have allowed themselves to be rounded up with a little prodding, some tasty carrots, and reassuring words along the way. Too many look at the barbed wire surrounding them and assume that life must always be endured behind the government’s enclosure. Obedience in exchange for the government’s promises of safety, welfare, and happiness has created a narcotic bliss. What happens, though, if enough Americans decide they are not safe, comfortable, or happy? What happens when the American government runs out of carrots, and those in cages realize they are surrounded by nothing but filth and decay? Perhaps then ordinary people will realize what extraordinary power they actually possess. Perhaps then . . .

BOOK RECOMMENDATION: GOVERNMENT GANSTERS BY KASH PATEL

War Room: Patel: Government Gangsters Have Our Nation Hostage.

Watch the 7:18 minute interview: https://rumble.com/v24rkqk-patel-government-gangsters-have-our-nation-hostage.html

OTHER NEWS, COMMENTARY, OPINION

Peek behind curtain of democracy rivets public, House members warm to expanded C-SPAN floor access

C-SPAN saw a sharp spike in viewer numbers the night of the 15th vote for Speaker of the House, resulting in calls for its cameras to be granted more freedom in what they record. During the cable-satellite public affairs network’s coverage of the latter stages of the suspense-filled voting marathon, YouTube views peaked at over 1 million. The success of C-SPAN’s coverage of the vote, usually little more than a formality, resulted in the network sending a request to House leadership for permission to expand video access to floor proceedings on behalf of the network, as well as congressionally-accredited news organizations.

(H/T PC) Durden: Email Reveals AR-15 Pistol Brace Company Hit With Data Breach Ahead Of ATF Ruling

SB Tactical, one of the most popular AR-15 pistol brace manufacturers, appears to have been hit with a data breach, where customer data, including names, addresses, and credit card information, was leaked online. […] The pistol brace manufacturer has sold millions of units and is arguably one of the most popular stabilizing brace brands in the US. The email continued by indicating “the timeframe of the compromise to be between September 19, 2022, through December 13. 2022.” […] The timing of the hack is very suspicious because tens of millions of Americans could become lawbreakers overnight, pending a decision by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) to classify stabilizing braces as short-barreled rifles. Anyone who doesn’t register with the ATF would possess an illegal SBR.

Luthi: ‘Very Volatile Moment’: Newsom Slashes Budget After Turning $98 Billion Surplus Into $22.5 Billion Deficit in Single Year

Climate change and mental health funding on chopping block in 2023. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D.) revealed Tuesday that the state faces a $22.5 billion deficit in the coming fiscal year, a far cry from last year’s $98 billion surplus. Newsom announced the deficit in a speech unveiling his proposed 2023-24 budget, which includes $297 billion in spending proposals, an $11 billion decrease from last year. The Democrat acknowledged that the state is “in a very volatile moment … of uncertainty,” which he noted could worsen over the coming months. The governor dismissed the “old narratives” that Democrats are “profligate” and incapable of “managing budgets,” instead laying the blame on California’s dwindling tax base, which is now roughly half of what it was last year.

The Post Millennial: Arizona GOP lawmakers walk out on Governor Katie Hobbs during State of the State address

The effort was led by the members of the Arizona Freedom caucus who were joined by several other members of the Legislature.[…] Other conservative members walked out when Hobbs said in reference to abortion that she would veto any bill that “…delays the liberty or inherent right of any individual to decide what’s best for themselves or their families.”

Lynch: Pfizer Donated $1 Million To Kentucky Republicans For Headquarter Expansion

The Republican Party of Kentucky Building Fund filed a report Jan 3. with the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance (KREF) containing its fourth quarter donations. The filing was due Monday and first reported on by the Kentucky Lantern, a local outlet.

Miller: US citizens detained, fined thousands for using wrong lane at Mexico border: ‘Humiliated’

Two Los Angeles residents told KTTV-TV this week they were detained and forced to pay fines so their cars would not be impounded after accidentally using the Sentri Lane, which only permits pre-approved travelers to use. “They shackled me to this metal bench as I waited for three hours,” Rose, a Burbank, California resident, told the outlet about her experience at the Tijuana/San Ysidro Port of Entry, where she accidentally used the Sentri Lane, which has concrete barriers that make it impossible for a car to leave the lane once it has entered. […] Agents from the CBP said that drivers are issued a $5,000 fine only if they have used the Sentri lane for the third time, but California residents told KTTV-TV they never received a warning.

Leonard: Scientists develop simple questionnaire that can diagnose autism with up to 95% accuracy

Researchers have developed a 39-item questionnaire to help parents navigate a notoriously tricky diagnosis process. It is the latest promising development in autism screening, coming just days after officials started the approval process for a test that detects the disorder in hair. The new Autism Symptom Dimension Questionnaire (ASDQ) – to be filled out by parents or caregivers – asks questions about the child’s behavior and reads social cues.

INTERNATIONAL

Tucker Carlson Tonight: Mexican drug war worsening just south of US border

Watch the 2:23 minute report: https://www.foxnews.com/video/6318431521112

Barrett: Dirty bomb fears as ‘several kilos of URANIUM’ is found in cargo at Heathrow: Package ‘shipped from Pakistan to UK-based Iranians’ is at centre of Met Police anti-terror probe after being discovered when it triggered airport alarms

Police have not made any arrests. A source told the Mail: ‘The package contained kilos of uranium – but it was not weapons-grade.’ Separately, a source told The Sun there is an overwhelming ‘concern over what the Iranians living here wanted with non-disclosed nuclear material’.

The Prickly Pear’s TAKE ACTION focus this year is to help achieve a winning 2024 national and state November 5th election with the removal of the Biden/Obama leftist executive branch disaster, win one U.S. Senate seat, maintain and win strong majorities in all Arizona state offices on the ballot and to insure that unrestricted abortion is not constitutionally embedded in our laws and culture.

Please click the TAKE ACTION link to learn to do’s and don’ts for voting in 2024. Our state and national elections are at great risk from the very aggressive and radical leftist Democrat operatives with documented rigging, mail-in voter fraud and illegals voting across the country (yes, with illegals voting across the country) in the last several election cycles.

Read Part 1 and Part 2 of The Prickly Pear essays entitled How NOT to Vote in the November 5, 2024 Election in Arizona to be well informed of the above issues and to vote in a way to ensure the most likely chance your vote will be counted and counted as you intend.

Please click the following link to learn more.

TAKE ACTION