The Daily Wire’s Candace Owens released a new trailer on Tuesday, teasing her upcoming documentary, titled “The Greatest Lie Ever Told: George Floyd And The Rise Of BLM.”
The trailer shows a sneak peek of Owens’ look behind the curtain in Minneapolis, Minnesota — where George Floyd’s death at the hands of police officer Derek Chauvin sparked a firestorm of protests and riots across the nation — on the two-year anniversary of his death.
“Get a look at the fiery new documentary that only Candace Owens and The Daily Wire would dare bring you. On the 2-year anniversary of George Floyd’s death, Candace revisits Minneapolis and the violent, racially-divided aftermath that fueled BLM’s global rise—and filled its coffers. Tune in May 23 for the global premiere event,” the website added to the tease.
Owens has been critical of Floyd from the beginning, and of the political Left for rushing him to sainthood. In an opinion piece for The Daily Wire, Owens mocked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for claiming that Floyd’s name would “always be synonymous with justice.”
“George Floyd’s name will always be synonymous with justice? You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said. “I am not an intellectual coward who will simply accept the lie about George Floyd and the way that he lived as the truth just because the mob demands it. And believe me, it’s a lie.”
Daniel Miranda, 2, with his grandmother, Juana Maria Lara, during a July immigration rights protest in D.C. (Michael Blackshire/The Washington Post)
Views: 29
The great replacement can be very scary. I myself don’t believe that there’s a movement to get rid of white people. I do believe that some loon politicians and progressives want the undocumented here in order to change the political balance. Over 50% of the people ( 20% Democrats ) believe this.
Last December, the Associated Press and NORC conducted a large national poll examining conspiratorial ideas including this one.
The Arizona Attorney General claims to be on the side of election integrity and even claims that he will prosecute individuals for 2020 election crimes. However, new documents show that AG Mark Brnovich almost indicted pro-Trump electors in Arizona.
Instead of investigating the horrific election crimes that took place on November 3rd to steal the 2020 Presidential Election, RINO Mark Brnovich colluded with the federal government and targeted Arizona patriots who knew their election was stolen.
The full forensic audit of Maricopa County’s 2020 election discovered evidence of hundreds of thousands of fraudulent votes. After seven long months of “investigating” the fraud, Brnovich released a report acknowledging “problematic system-wide issues” and confirming that over 100,000 ballots did not have chain of custody documentation. However, Mark Brnovich has failed to act on any new prosecutions.
NEW DOCUMENTS REVEAL THE ARIZONA VERSION OF BILL BARR COVERTLY WORKED ON PROSECUTING HIS PRO-TRUMP CITIZENS.
Brnovich clamors for Trump’s endorsement and touts himself as a pro-Trump conservative. But explosive new documents prove his office actively considered prosecuting pro-Trump electors in the state who rightfully questioned the dubious official results of the presidential election of 2020.
The Arizona vote was among the most contentious in America, with a mere 0.3 percent, just over 10,000 votes, separating Biden and President Trump in the official tally. Given the highly questionable conduct of the election, including widespread voting by illegal migrants and violations of the 14th Amendment Equal Protection clause, several rival slates of electors formed in Arizona.
Ultimately, the Biden slate was unduly and prematurely certified by Governor Ducey, but with enormous controversy.
Brnovich’s office requested information from the Office of the Federal Register (OFR) about a document they had received from one of the pro-Trump slates, a group known as the Sovereign Citizens of the Great State of Arizona (SCGSA).
Prosecutors in Brnovich’s office gave the OFR specific instructions on how to deliver the documents to Arizona so that Attorney General Brnovich could use them as evidence to prosecute the group.
According to the original report by The Arizona Republic,
The Arizona Attorney General’s Office sought information from the Office of the Federal Register about a document a group of Arizona Republicans sent falsely calling themselves the state’s presidential electors and that used the official state seal, according to documents released Friday.
The request from prosecutors specified exactly how the documents needed to be delivered to the office to be useful in obtaining a conviction, according to emails released to The Arizona Republic from the Federal Register’s Office.
The Sovereign Citizens group met on Dec. 7, 2020, and both sat themselves as electors and cast their votes for Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. According to the documents sent to the Federal Register, and released on Friday, those electors took their position “under the God-given powers held by THE CITIZENS.”
The group sent its documents to the Office of the Federal Register, which oversees the National Archives and Records Administration. The procedure outlined in the U.S. Constitution specifies that office, along with the U.S. Senate, receives each state’s electoral votes.
In addition to the evidence submitted by Maricopa County auditors, over 200,000 ballots were potentially trafficked by Democratic nonprofits in Arizona.
The Gateway Pundit reported on the massive evidence of illegal ballot trafficking and fraud in Arizona’s 2020 election presented by Dinesh D’Souza and True The Vote. Irrefutable proof that the 2020 election was stolen was recently revealed in their new documentary, “2000 Mules.” Why hasn’t Mark Brnovich prosecuted these criminals?
Where has Mark Brnovich been? Is he still investigating Trump supporters who know their vote was stolen?
Contact Mark Brnovich immediately to demand indictments for the criminals who stole the 2020 election.
Mark Brnovich is currently running for the US Senate and pretends to be pro- Trump.
Friday the 13th was Jen Psaki’s last day as the Bagdad Ali of the White House. I want to thank Joel B. Pollak for this list.
Yes some — particularly in the establishment media — have called her the “best ever,” perhaps because the job of explaining Joe Biden’s failures is simply so difficult. Here are some of the most memorable moments of her tenure, for better or for worse:
17. COVID and masks. Despite sanctimonious lectures about pandemic precautions, Psaki somehow managed to contract COVID twice. She also struggled to explain the White House’s double standards on wearing masks on federal property.
16. “Circle back.” Psaki drew mockery from conservatives over her repeated promises from the podium to “circle back” with reporters when she did not know the answer to questions — or perhaps when she knew, but preferred not to answer.
15. Hoaxes. Psaki repeated some — not all — of the famliar liberal hoaxes about Trump, most notably the “bleach” hoax, insisting — despite glaring evidence to the contrary — that he had told Americans to inject bleach to cure COVID (he did not).
14. Defaming Kyle Rittenhouse. In the midst of the Rittenhouse trial, Psaki criticized “vigilantes with assault weapons.” After Rittenhouse was acquitted, she refused to walk back Biden’s false claim that Rittenhouse was a “white supremacist.”
13. War on “misinformation.” Psaki vowed her briefings would fight “misinformation,” and defended — to her last week — the Biden administration’s “disinformation” office. But she herself spread disinformation about Russia, and Hunter Biden.
12. Space Force snub. Psaki appeared to snub the sixth branch of the U.S. armed forces when she mocked a reporter’s query about whether Biden intended to continue Donald Trump’s addition to the military. She later clarified that she supported it.
11. Major dog cover-up. When Biden’s dog, Major, was accused of biting a Secret Service agent, Psaki downplayed the incident. Later, documents suggested that Psaki misled the public about the real threat the dog posed to agency staff.
10. Border denial. Psaki made it clear she did not want reporters to ask about the crisis at the southern border, chastising reporters for “maddening” questions about it. She claimed Biden’s policy was more “moral” and “humane” than Trump’s.
9. Refusing to condemn protests at Supreme Court justices’ homes. It took Psaki days to condemn violence after a draft opinion reversing Roe was leaked, and she actually encouraged the arguably illegal protests outside the homes of justices.
8. Dismissing the idea of free COVID tests. Psaki initially scoffed at the idea of sending free COVID tests to every American as too costly to undertake. A few days later, mid-omicron wave, the administration belatedly began doing so.
7. “Don’t Say Gay’ demagoguery. It was Psaki who started the false — yet effective — claim that Florida had passed a law that literally prohibited people from saying “gay.” The law actually restricts sexual instruction of any kind to K-3 children.
6. Doocy. Among many examples of the Biden administration failing to respect the press, one of the worst was Psaki saying that Fox News made Peter Doocy — one of the few critical voices in the press corps — sound like a “stupid son of a bitch.”
5. Defending inflation. Psaki test-drove several excuses for inflation, first claiming that it was transitory (“inflation is going to come down next year”), then trying to put a positive spin on it as the by-product of an otherwise wonderful economy.
4. Admitting Biden skipped D-Day. Among other clean-up jobs, Psaki had to explain Biden’s unfortunate failure to commemorate the anniversary of D-Day in 2021. She told reporters that the historic occasion was still “close to his heart.”
3. Vacationing while Afghanistan fell. Psaki and many other members of the administration had to be called back from summer vacation when Afghanistan began to fall to the Taliban, a failure that has since defined perceptions of the president.
2. Hunter Biden dodges. Psaki repeatedly (and successfully) dodged questions about Hunter Biden, his laptop, and his connection to his dad’s finances, claiming they were a private matter or the under the purview of the Department of Justice.
1. Baby formula. Psaki’s advice, when asked what parents should do if worried about their babies amid a national shortage of baby formula, was to “call their doctor.” Neither she nor the White House had any solace to offer American families.
One example when Psaki called it right: she did, finally, admit that communism is a “failed ideology,” as Cubans protested in the streets against their oppressive regime. But that, sadly, is all the Biden administration was willing to do to help them.
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito delivered a virtual speech at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School on Thursday. This was his first public appearance since a SCOTUS insider leaked the upcoming Roe v. Wade decision to the liberal press.
A SCOTUS insider leaked the decision to far-left media outlet Politico which ran it last week. The leak happened to coincide with the release of the documentary “2000 Mules” that proved the 2020 election was stolen by a network of leftist ballot traffickers in the battleground states.
Alito told the audience on Thursday after being asked about the decision, “The court right now, we had our conference this morning, we’re doing our work. We’re taking new cases, we’re headed toward the end of the term, which is also a frenetic time as we get our opinions out.”
The FBI and law enforcement still have not found the leaker after a two week investigation. It’s funny how bad they are when the culprit is helping the leftist cause.
Samuel Alito, the Supreme Court justice who authored the leaked draft majority opinion showing the court is preparing to strike down landmark Roe v. Wade abortion rights, addressed the leak for the first time Thursday.
“This is a subject I told myself I wasn’t going to talk about today regarding, you know — given all the circumstances,” Alito said at an event at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, in response to a question about how the justices were getting along, according to The Washington Post.
“The court right now, we had our conference this morning, we’re doing our work. We’re taking new cases, we’re headed toward the end of the term, which is always a frenetic time as we get our opinions out,” Alito said.
“So that’s where we are,” he continued.
Chief Justice John Roberts told a meeting of lawyers and judges at a judicial conference in Atlanta on May 5 that he hoped “one bad apple” would not change “people’s perception” of the Supreme Court, according to CNN.
Finland’s President Sauli Niinistö and Prime Minister Sanna Marin announced Thursday the country plans to apply for NATO membership “without delay,” arguing such a move would strengthen both Finland’s own security and the defense alliance as a whole. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the accession process will be “smooth and swift” once Finland formally applies, and Pentagon spokesman John Kirby praised the decision as “historic.” The Kremlin, meanwhile, threatened to retaliate with “military-technical” measures if Finland follows through on the move.
The Interior Department canceled plans this week to auction off oil and gas leases for two regions in the Gulf of Mexico and one off the coast of Alaska, citing legal challenges and “a lack of industry interest” in the drilling rights. Industry groups disputed that characterization, noting the decision likely means the Biden administration will not auction off any leases for offshore drilling until at least 2023.
In light of ongoing shortages, President Joe Biden announced Thursday he had instructed his administration to crack down on any “price gouging or unfair market practices” related to baby formula, cut some restrictions on baby formula imports, and allow states to loosen certain Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) requirements.
North Korea conducted another set of ballistic missile tests on Thursday, according to Japanese and South Korean military officials. The country—which is currently dealing with an unmitigated COVID-19 outbreak—launched three missiles off its east coast yesterday, each traveling about 225 miles before landing in the sea between Japan and the Korean Peninsula.
At least 11 people were confirmed dead on Thursday after a boat believed to be carrying migrants capsized near Puerto Rico. A U.S. Coast Guard spokesman said a Customs and Border Protection aircraft spotted the makeshift vessel Thursday morning, and that at least 31 survivors were rescued.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday the producer price index—a measure of what suppliers and wholesalers are charging their customers—increased 0.5 percent in April on a seasonally adjusted basis, down from March’s 1.6 percent month-over-month increase and February’s 1.1 percent. Annual PPI inflation came in at 11 percent, just shy of last month’s record-high 11.2 percent.
The January 6 Select Committee announced Thursday it had issued subpoenas to five Republican House members—Reps. Jim Jordan, Mo Brooks, Scott Perry, Andy Biggs, and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy—citing their refusal to voluntarily testify before the committee about their “relevant knowledge of the events on or leading up to January 6th.” It’s unclear whether the lawmakers will comply with the subpoenas—there’s little precedent of an investigative committee using such tactics against fellow House members—or whether the Justice Department will pursue contempt charges if they don’t.
The Labor Department reported Thursday that initial jobless claims—a proxy for layoffs—increased by 1,000 week-over-week to 203,000 last week.
A New Leader in the Philippines …
Ferdinand Marcos Jr., president-elect of the Philippines. (Photo by TED ALJIBE/AFP via Getty Images)
In 1986, Philippine ruler Ferdinand Marcos Sr. fled to Hawaii with his wife and kids, 90 of his closest friends, and a fewessentials: jeweled cufflinks, gold bricks, tiaras, and crates of cash. (His wife Imelda’s 3,000-pair shoe collection stayed behind.) A military-backed, pro-democracy uprising had ended a decades-long rule characterized by human rights abuses and corruption that earned the family as much as $10 billion.
Marcos Sr. died three years into his self-exile, but his family has spent years working its way back into power in the Philippines—his son Ferdinand “BongBong” Marcos Jr. served as a provincial governor and senator and in 2016 lost a bid for vice president. This week, Marcos Jr. was elected president of the Philippines by about a 15 million vote margin, as public polling predicted. He’ll take office June 30, and President Joe Biden called Wednesday to congratulate him on the win.
“To the world: Judge me not by my ancestors, but by my actions,” Marcos Jr. said in a statement delivered by his spokesman this week. He campaigned on national unity and—with the help of social media—portrayed his father’s rule as a golden age. Fact check group Tsek.ph found 92 percent of false posts it checked about Marcos Jr. were favorable toward him, while 96 percent of posts with misinformation about his primary competitor were negative toward her. The independent news outlet Rappler—founded by journalist Maria Ressa, whom Charlotte profiled last year—has suggested Marcos Jr. conducted a disinformation campaign on social media to launder his family’s reputation, beginning as early as 2014.
Critics worry he’ll shut down efforts to investigate his family’s crimes. Amnesty International estimates Marcos Sr.’s security forces imprisoned more than 70,000 people, torturing many of them. The Presidential Commission on Good Government has recovered less than $4 billion of the wealth the Marcos family and associates accrued. Imelda Marcos, 92, was found guilty of graft in 2018 but posted bail and has appealed the conviction. As president, Marcos Jr. could close the commission and scrap the case against his mother.
Outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs” killed more than 7,000 people, according to Human Rights Watch, and he promised after leaving office to “search for drug peddlers, shoot them, and kill them.” Filipinos elected Duterte’s daughter, Sara Duterte-Carpio, as Marcos Jr.’s vice president, and he says he’ll allow International Criminal Court officials investigating Duterte’s killings into the country—“but only as tourists.”
… and in Hong Kong
A hop, skip, and a two-hour plane ride from the Philippines, Hong Kong also chose a new leader this week.
Britain returned Hong Kong to China’s sovereignty in 1997 under the “one country, two systems” agreement, under which Hong Kong could keep its political freedoms and market economy for 50 years. But this agreement has come under pressure in recent years as Beijing exerts more control over the “special administrative region’s” governance. Many critics regard the city’s new leader as a further departure from Hong Kong’s promised freedoms.
Beijing loyalist and former Deputy Secretary for Security John Lee is best known for leading the brutal police crackdown on Hong Kong’s 2019 pro-democracy protests. He has also helped implement the city’s new National Security Law, which outlaws “secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces” and has led to the arrests of more than 150 people and squashed most pro-democracy political groups and independent news outlets. (The city’s foreign correspondents club recently suspended its human rights award for fear of violating the new laws.) The U.S. sanctioned Lee in 2020 for undermining Hong Kong’s autonomy and its citizens’ freedom of expression.
Lee’s election Sunday is the first since changes to Hong Kong’s election laws last year that Beijing implemented to ensure only “patriots” hold office. In his role as chief secretary last year, Lee led the vetting of members of the approximately 1,500-person committee that, this year, was responsible for electing him. The only candidate in Sunday’s election, he won 99 percent of the vote and will be sworn in on July 1 when his predecessor, Carrie Lam, steps down after a five-year term marked by crackdowns on pro-democracy protests and a tumultuous COVID-19 situation.
“[The election result] fully demonstrates the new vitality of the democratic practice in Hong Kong and the true democratic spirit,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Tuesday. After all, a full 1,416 of Hong Kong’s approximately 7.5 million residents voted for Lee.
Other countries pointed out the disconnect. In a joint statement on Sunday, the G7 nations expressed “grave concern” over “a continued assault on political pluralism and fundamental freedoms.” Days after the election, Hong Kong national security officers arrested four prominent pro-democracy activists—including 90-year-old Cardinal Joseph Zen—under the national security law. They’ve since been released on bail pending investigation.
“I look forward to all of us starting a new chapter together, building a Hong Kong that is caring, open and vibrant, and a Hong Kong that is full of opportunities and harmony,” Lee said in a victory speech. He’s pledged to improve Hong Kong’s governance and housing, as well as enact laws fighting treason, secession, sedition, and subversion.
“In Lee, Beijing gets its ‘designated enforcer,’” said Samuel Chu, founder of pro-democracy advocacy group The Campaign for Hong Kong. “Lee is a puppet elected through a sham process who will face no political opposition, no independent and free press, and no freedom of speech, assembly, or expression. Today, John Lee won and the people of Hong Kong lost.”
Capital Tensions High After Draft Supreme Court Opinion Leak
When Politico published a leaked draft opinion from Justice Samuel Alito showing the Supreme Court was poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, it wasn’t just Washington, D.C. that was turned upside down. A couple of quiet neighborhoods in Maryland and Virginia, were too.
Abortion-access activists have organized a handful of protests outside conservatives justices’ homes in recent days, hoping to use public pressure to influence the court’s final ruling. Harvest and Audrey observed some protests outside Alito’s home in Alexandria and Brett Kavanaugh’s in Chevy Chase, and they report what they saw in
The justices pose for a group photo at the Supreme Court in Washington on April 23, 2021. (Erin Schaff – Pool / Getty Images).
By Abby Liebing for Western Journal May 11, 2022 at 7:48am
Last week, Politico published a leaked draft of a Supreme Court decision, authored by Justice Samuel Alito, on the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case. The draft showed that the court could strike down the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.
Now, as the court is set to meet on Thursday, Politico has published more leaked information — and it is good news for pro-lifers.
The outlet reported Wednesday morning that Alito’s draft opinion is still the only circulated draft in the abortion case and that no votes have changed while the court is waiting for the dissent opinion to emerge.
“[T]here’s no sign that the court is changing course from issuing that ruling,” the report said.
The initial draft majority opinion by Alito said “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Politico reported on May 2.
“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” the justice wrote. “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”
However, Politico noted at the time that the court’s votes on the Dobbs v. Jackson case could change.
“Under long-standing court procedures, justices hold preliminary votes on cases shortly after argument and assign a member of the majority to write a draft of the court’s opinion,” it said. “The draft is often amended in consultation with other justices, and in some cases the justices change their votes altogether, creating the possibility that the current alignment on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization could change.”
But the report Wednesday indicated no change in the votes.
Do you think Roe v. Wade will be overturned?
Yes: 97% (66 Votes)
No: 3% (2 Votes)
(From WJ site @ 11 am 5/11/22)
“Justice Samuel Alito’s sweeping and blunt draft majority opinion from February overturning Roe remains the court’s only circulated draft in the pending Mississippi abortion case, POLITICO has learned, and none of the conservative justices who initially sided with Alito have to date switched their votes,” the outlet reported.
“No dissenting draft opinions have circulated from any justice, including the three liberals,” Politico added.
The initial leak led to outrage among pro-abortion activists and joy among pro-lifers over the possibility of the court overturning Roe v. Wade.
But also shocking was that someone inside the Supreme Court would leak such information to the media.
How does Politico know this? Someone inside the Supreme Court continues to leak. Unbelievable! https://t.co/Chr4wz80rz
University of Texas law professor Steve Vladek said these leaks indicate there is turmoil behind the Supreme Court’s closed doors.
“It’s hard to overstate how ugly this means things must be behind the scenes,” Vladeck tweeted.
This appears to be at least the fifth different leak out of #SCOTUS related to Dobbs — after the WSJ editorial page, the original Politico leak, CNN, and the Washington Post. (And I may be missing one.)
It’s hard to overstate how ugly this means things must be behind the scenes. https://t.co/jpJrel5dFH
Even Politico, which has published the leaked information, reported that the Supreme Court is facing a great crisis due to the leaks and the resulting furor, which has included protests targeting justices’ homes.
“This is the most serious assault on the court, perhaps from within, that the Supreme Court’s ever experienced,” one source told the outlet. “It’s an understatement to say they are heavily, heavily burdened by this.”
With the summer break coming, the justices have only about seven more weeks to craft a decision on abortion.
Debunking Fake News.
(Photograph by Erin Schaff/Getty Images.)
Views: 28
Article was originally here.
A viral tweet claims that Supreme Court Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Samuel Alito justified overturning Roe v. Wade in the leaked draft majority opinion because “the US needs a ‘domestic supply of infants.’”
The draft was written by Alito, not Barrett and Alito as the tweet suggests. The section of the opinion from which the quote is pulled is a footnote, with the line not being written by Barrett or Alito, but coming from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention paper on adoption. The line reads: “[N]early 1 million women were seeking to adopt children in 2002 (i.e., they were in demand of a child), whereas the domestic supply of infants relinquished at birth or within the first month of life and available to be adopted had become virtually nonexistent.”
This paper is cited in a paragraph summing up arguments from pro-life Americans, specifically being cited in a sentence noting that a newborn put up for adoption in the United States will likely find a home. The footnote appears in the following section, following the italicized portion (italicization added):
“Americans who believe that abortion should be restricted press countervailing arguments about modern developments. They note that attitudes about the pregnancy of un-married women have changed drastically; that federal and state laws ban discrimination on the basis of pregnancy,42 that leave for pregnancy and childbirth are now guaranteed by law in many cases,43 that the costs of medical care associated with pregnancy are covered by insurance or government assistance44; that States have increasingly adopted ‘safe haven’ laws, which generally allow women to drop off babies anonymously45; and that a woman who puts her newborn up for adoption today has little reason to fear that the baby will not find a suitable home46.”
From the context of the footnote, it’s clear that the CDC quote appeared in the footnote only to highlight the fact that unwanted babies put up for adoption in the United States will likely find a family—not, as the tweet implies, that domestic birth rates need to increase to meet adoption demands. What’s more, the paragraph in which the footnote appears is about the arguments of pro-life Americans, taking place in a summary of the public debate surrounding abortion. Immediately preceding the above paragraph is another summing up the beliefs of pro-abortion Americans, which reads:
“Defenders of Roe and [Casey v. Planned Parenthood] do not claim that any new scientific learning calls for a different answer to the underlying moral question, but they do contend that changes in society require the recognition of a constitutional right to obtain an abortion. Without the availability of abortion, they maintain, people will be inhibited from exercising their freedom to choose the types of relationships they desire, and women will be unable to compete with men in the workplace and in other endeavors.”
Following both summaries, the opinion continues:
“Both sides make important policy arguments, but supporters of Roe and Casey must show that this Court has the authority to weigh those arguments and decide how abortion may be regulated in the States. They have failed to make that showing, and we thus return the power to weigh those arguments to the people and their elected officials.”
California’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Gabe Petek had some bad news for the Legislature last week. His office conducted an analysis of 10,000 possible scenarios of tax revenue collections to see how the state’s general fund would be affected.
“In 95 percent of our simulations, the state encountered a budget problem by 2025-26,” Petek wrote.
The “budget problem” is that the state has taken in so much revenue from its high tax rates that it has triggered the so-called Gann limit, a state appropriations limit that was approved by voters in 1979. An “appropriation” is a legislative authorization for spending, and the Gann limit, named after its proponent, Proposition 13 backer Paul Gann, was intended to prevent local and state government from intentionally raking in surplus tax revenue and then spending it all.
The Gann limit, also known as 1979’s Proposition 4, has specific and complicated rules about how revenue is counted and which types of appropriations are limited, but what it means is that surplus revenue can’t simply be spent on anything lawmakers choose.
Voters have had their say more than once about the state should be allocating tax dollars. Under 1988’s Proposition 98, a percentage of revenues must be spent on education, and under 2014’s Proposition 2, the Legislature must put money toward budget reserves. The Legislative Analyst’s Office determined that once the state appropriations limit (SAL) is reached, the “budget problem” kicks in with a vengeance. “We estimate that for every dollar of tax revenue above the SAL, the state faces approximately $1.60 in constitutional funding obligations,” Petek wrote.
So if the economy is strong and revenues continue to rise, the budget is in trouble by 2025-26, and if the economy goes into a recession and revenues fall, the budget is in trouble by 2025-26.
While this would seem to indicate that nothing lawmakers do will change the outcome, that’s not the case. The recommendation from the Legislative Analyst’s Office is for the Legislature to reject “the lion’s share” of $10 billion of proposals in the governor’s budget.
You might as well try to get a raw steak out of a lion’s jaws. Even the LAO admits that rejecting new spending programs is “the most jarring of the options” for the Legislature.
Still, the governor’s budget plan “is not a fiscally sustainable starting point,” Petek writes. Rejecting $10 billion of the governor’s “non-SAL-excludable spending proposals” would help by “constraining growth of the state’s spending base,” another way of saying new programs are an ongoing commitment, not a one-time expense. Rejecting the governor’s spending proposals would also help by “saving the unspent funds” to put the state on “more solid fiscal footing for whatever economic conditions the future holds.”
In a worse-case scenario, the LAO’s analysis found, the state’s budget reserves, estimated at $25 billion, “would be depleted within one year.”
It would be a good idea, Petek, wrote, for lawmakers to apply “close scrutiny to the governor’s spending proposals,” and if it’s not possible to reject them all, to at least adopt a “high threshold for new programs.” The LAO recommends approving only proposals that “address a well-defined problem with a policy strategy that has been evaluated and found to be cost-effective.”
As long as we’re indulging in daydreams, the state should cut its highest-in-the-nation tax rates and stay within the spending limits in the state constitution.
Attorney Brad Geyer seeks information on unidentified “suspicious actors” at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (Brad Geyer/Graphic via The Epoch Times)
By Joseph M. Hanneman May 6, 2022Updated: May 7, 2022
Defense attorneys are seeking to identify and investigate 80 suspicious actors and material witnesses, some of whom allegedly ran an entrapment operation against the Oath Keepers on January 6, 2021, and committed crimes including the removal of security fencing, breaching police lines, attacking officers, and inciting crowds to storm into the Capitol.
In a motion (pdf) and supplement (pdf) filed after 11 p.m. on May 5 in federal court in Washington, attorney Brad Geyer listed 80 people, some of whom he said could be government agents or provocateurs. The people are seen on video operating in a coordinated fashion across the Capitol grounds on January 6, the attorney alleged.
Geyer’s suggestion of an entrapment scheme will resonate with dozens of January 6 defense attorneys, coming shortly after two men were acquitted of an alleged plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D). There was a hung jury on charges against two other defendants. The jury in that case was allowed to consider FBI entrapment as a defense.
Geyer, who represents Oath Keepers defendant Kenneth Harrelson, is seeking a court order from U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta compelling federal prosecutors to help identify the individuals and disclose whether they were working for law enforcement or any government agency on January 6. Geyer wrote that the information is exculpatory, which compels the government to produce it. Other Oath Keepers defendants are expected to join in the motion.
The May 5 filing comes on the heels of an April 12 Oath Keepers motion that alleged at least 20 “assets” from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) were embedded in the crowds on January 6.
More than a dozen ‘suspicious actors’ flagged by defense attorneys line up on the east steps of the U.S. Capitol, shortly before they pushed past police and climbed to the Columbus Doors on Jan. 6, 2021. (Attorney Brad Geyer/Screenshot via The Epoch Times) According to the new filing, video evidence the defense gained access to only recently shows that some of the 80 people attacked police, other people, and members of the Oath Keepers; entered the Capitol on the west side “with apparent permission or acquiescence of government actors”; opened the Columbus Doors on the east side of the Capitol “from the inside, possibly with even further assistance of government actors”; and deployed “sophisticated crowd-behavior techniques,” orienting themselves between protesters and police.Suspicious actors are seen on video “associating, conferring and traveling with others, engaging in behavior to confuse law enforcement through body masking, facial masking, clothing changes, and disorienting skirmishing behavior,” Geyer wrote.
The suspected people used earpieces, satellite phones, and other communication equipment. “Often it appears that these communications devices do not seem to be affected by capacity restriction or sophisticated jamming that was evident throughout the day,” Geyer wrote.
“If it can be established that these SAs [suspicious actors] were government agents, this could amount to entrapment defense that will dispose of this 7th indictment prior to trial,” the motion said.
“If it can be established that SAs, even without established government agency, from the west or elsewhere, were let into the Capitol and/or were assisted in opening the Columbus Doors from the inside—a reasonable inference from video evidence—a reasonable jury might conclude that one or more SAs had government sponsorship,” Geyer wrote.
Eleven members of the Oath Keepers were charged on January 12 with seditious conspiracy, obstruction of a government proceeding, and other counts. The government alleged the Oathkeepers committed the crimes to prevent the certification of Electoral College votes from the 2020 presidential election.
Two Oath Keepers defendants of the original 11 accepted deals offered by prosecutors and pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy and obstruction. Another Oath Keepers member from North Carolina was charged May 4 with the same counts and pleaded guilty on May 5. All three are expected to assist the FBI with its ongoing January 6 investigations.
Geyer suggested the Oath Keepers who entered the Capitol Rotunda through the famous Columbus Doors atop the east stairs were entrapped by suspicious actors who boxed them in and attempted to push them into the Capitol after the doors were opened from the inside.
“Prima facie evidence of an entrapment scheme (very possibly without formal government agency) is becoming impossible to ignore on video,” Geyer wrote.
Video shot by a French television crew, and surveillance footage under court seal raise “significant concerns of informants, influencers, and inciters whose activities are now clearly observable,” said a footnote in the motion.
Suspicious Examples
“The now observable behavior suggests the exact kind of specialized training, coordination, logistical support, timing, and common goals and objectives that the government attributes to the Oath Keepers,” Geyer wrote. “Conduct alleged against the Oath Keepers seems to have been perpetrated by others before the Oath Keepers were brought in front of the Columbus Doors.”
The new video evidence “not only exculpates defendant Harrelson and the Oath Keepers in compelling ways, it also shows a large group of SAs that actually carry out the crimes of which the Oath Keepers are accused and which is the centerpiece of the government’s case,” the motion said.
The many unidentified individuals in the court filing are referred to by the hashtag nicknames assigned by the Sedition Hunters website.
“James Dean Wannabe” stood on a column near the Columbus Doors and led “vicious attacks by SAs on police with chemicals and mace,” Geyer wrote.
As soon as the inner doors to the Rotunda opened, James Dean Wannabe shot inside the door and began violently pulling protesters into the Capitol, the document said. He also helped to trap Oath Keepers member James Dolan into a tight space with a Capitol Police officer, the report alleged. He was later seen on the east steps after changing clothes and removing his hat.
“Lemony Kickit” and “Lemon Zest,” both known for their colorful hats, appeared at the first and second breach points of the day near Ray Epps, the alleged provocateur who was captured on video on January 5 and 6 imploring protesters to go into the Capitol.
Video also showed Lemony Kickit and Lemon Zest pushed at police and breached the police line on the east steps before they moved up the stairs to the Columbus Doors.
Columbus Doors Were Closed
Videos referenced in Geyer’s motion show that the 17-foot-high, 20,000-pound bronze Columbus Doors were closed when the crowd gathered at the bottom of the steps and then breached the police line. When the crowd reached the top, the fortress-like doors were still shut. It’s not clear when, or why, the doors were opened.
That significant revelation backs up arguments made in January by attorney Jonathon Moseley, who told prosecutors his client, Kelly Meggs, could not have breached the doors because they are controlled from inside the Capitol.
“The outer doors cast from solid bronze would require a bazooka, an artillery shell, or C4 military-grade explosives to breach,” Moseley wrote in a letter to federal prosecutors. “That of course did not happen. You would sooner break into a bank vault than to break the bronze outer Columbus Doors.”
The 17-foot-high bronze Columbus Doors at the U.S. Capitol were closed when protesters and suspicious actors pushed past police on the east steps on Jan. 6, 2021. The 20,000-pound doors can only be opened from inside. (Attorney Brad Geyer/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)
The towering Columbus Doors that lead into the Rotunda on the east side of the U.S. Capitol are secured by magnetic locks that can only be opened from the inside by using a security code controlled by Capitol Police, Moseley wrote in an eight-page memo in January.
The two inner doors are secured by magnetic locks and cannot be opened from the outside. Twice within an hour on January 6, suspicious actors opened the inner doors from inside the Rotunda, surveillance video shows.
According to Geyer’s filing, a large number of suspicious actors controlled the scene directly in front of the Columbus Doors after the giant doors were opened. They chased away regular protesters with pepper spray and moved other actors into place. The Oath Keepers, each of whom was shadowed by at least one suspicious actor, were positioned and coaxed toward the entrance.
Six to eight suspicious actors attacked police with mace in preparation to breach the entrance, Geyer wrote.
“The dynamic of the crowd makes this almost invisible or fleeting to almost all publicly available camera angles, so most people in the crowd could not have known these chemical assaults occurred and certainly no one could have known who was standing on the steps which is where the Oath Keepers were positioned at exactly this moment.”
The net effect is that the Oath Keepers, who had come up the east stairs, were swept into the Capitol with the group of suspicious actors, the document alleged. The actors attacked police, breached the doors, and led a crowd inside the Rotunda.
Members of the Oath Keepers were flanked and followed into the U.S. Capitol by suspicious actors on Jan. 6, 2021. (Attorney Brad Geyer/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)
Some of the video evidence referenced in the court motion was redacted from the document because it is part of the more than 14,000 hours of video under a protective court seal.
The court filing will bring fresh attention to the issue of provocateurs at the U.S. Capitol. Epps, a former Oath Keepers member from Arizona, denies he was working as a government informant on Jan. 5 and 6.
Federal prosecutors announced earlier this year they would disclose more information about Epps, whose photo was removed from the FBI’s Jan. 6 most-wanted list. He has not been arrested or charged, despite urging crowds to enter the Capitol and being present when police lines were breached by protesters.
Some of the suspicious actors on Geyer’s list were also seen in the hallway outside the Speaker’s Lobby where Ashli Babbitt was shot at 2:44 p.m. on Jan. 6. There are a number of other unidentified individuals who stood near Babbitt before she tried to climb out of the hallway and was shot and killed by Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd.
Three witnesses to the Babbitt shooting were removed from the FBI’s most-wanted list in April 2021 without explanation. Those men have not been identified or charged.
205
