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 My son has narrated the
last book I wrote.
World &
NationPlease consider listening to it and encouraging others to do so too. (Click on Book Cover) Noncitizens do vote in U.S. elections — here’s how they do it Illegal noncitizen voters were three times more likely to be Dems than GOP  Eloy Alberto Zayas-Berrier was part of the infamous Mariel boatlift that brought 125,000 Cubans, including criminals and mental hospital patients, to the U.S. in 1980. He’s been here ever since in a bizarre legal limbo. He can’t qualify for citizenship and Cuba has refused to take him back, so he’s been stuck on “parole.” He remains here with only the barest of legal protections and cannot get a green card. He is decidedly not a citizen. That did not, however, stop him from showing up at an early-voting location in North Carolina on Nov. 5, 2016, where he not only registered and claimed to be a citizen, but cast an early-ballot vote that same day. Mr. Zayas says he went with a friend who was planning to vote. He says the poll worker encouraged him to sign up and vote, too. Trump clears up remarks about gag order, may still testify  Former President Donald Trump on Friday said he might testify in his criminal trial, one day after he suggested the gag order on him would prevent him from taking the stand. Mr. Trump, heading into another full day in the Manhattan courtroom, said he thinks the gag order is unconstitutional, though he understands it pertains only to comments outside of court. “The gag order is not [about testifying]. The gag order stops me from talking about people and responding when they say things about me. We have people saying things about me, and I’m not allowed to respond,” Mr. Trump said. Mr. Trump had to do some cleanup because, following court Thursday, he said: “I’m not allowed to testify. I’m under a gag order, I guess. I can’t testify.” Trump: Judge Making Case 'Salacious as Possible' Former President Donald Trump, speaking Friday to reporters before entering the Manhattan courtroom where his criminal trial continues, accused Judge Juan Merchan of trying to make the case against him as "salacious as possible" by "allowing testimony that has nothing to do with the case." "He wants to make it a salacious case, to try and hurt Trump, but it's having the opposite effect," Trump said. "He's allowing things in, but nothing for us. He gives everything to the corrupt DA [Alvin Bragg]. You have a corrupt DA that's not doing his job." Trump also railed against Merchan's ongoing gag order.
IRS says it will need more money soon  IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel said Thursday that the agency has made huge strides in improving customer service, but will soon need more money if Congress wants continued progress for the rest of the decade. Two years ago, Congress allocated tens of billions of dollars for the IRS to fix problems, including years of unanswered phone calls, outdated technology, backlogged returns and low audit rates. Mr. Werfel said he could deliver a significant increase in the number of audits of the wealthy but his funding for technology upgrades will run dry by 2026. That means customer service, which rebounded this year to an 88% level of service, could drop back to 30%, leaving most taxpayers unable to reach anyone at the agency for assistance. He said Congress clawed back $20 billion of the $80 billion allocated in President Biden’s 2022 budget-climate law. He said the agency wants lawmakers to restore that money and add more. Nearly half of anti-Israel ‘student’ protesters arrested at Columbia, CCNY weren’t students  It turns out that nearly half of the anti-Israel student protesters taken into custody at Columbia University and the City College of New York weren’t exactly students. An estimated 134 of the 282 demonstrators arrested late Tuesday — that’s 47.5% — had no affiliation with the two New York colleges, according to preliminary police department data released Thursday. At Columbia, 32 of the 119 protesters charged had no connection to the school, while 80 did. At CCNY, 102 of the 173 individuals arrested were unaffiliated with the campus and just 68 had a college connection. The breakdown represented an I-told-you-so moment for New York City Mayor Eric Adams, an ex-cop who had warned for weeks that the campus demonstrations had been co-opted by “professionals” and “outside agitators.”
UN Agency: Rafah Incursion Would Put Many Lives at Risk The United Nations humanitarian aid agency says hundreds of thousands of people would be "at imminent risk of death" if Israel carries out a military assault in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. The city has become critical for humanitarian aid and is highly concentrated with displaced Palestinians. Leaders internationally have urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be cautious about any incursion into Rafah, where seven people — mostly children — were killed overnight in an Israeli airstrike. On Thursday, United States Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said any U.S. response to such an incursion would be up to President Joe Biden, but that currently, “conditions are not favorable to any kind of operation.” Turkey's trade minister said Friday that its new trade ban on Israel was in response to “the deterioration and aggravation of the situation in Rafah." The Israel-Hamas war has driven around 80% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million from their homes, caused vast destruction in several towns and cities, and pushed northern Gaza to the brink of famine. The death toll in Gaza has soared to more than 34,500 people, according to local health officials, and the territory’s entire population has been driven into a humanitarian catastrophe.
Speaker Johnson calls move to oust him ‘recipe for chaos,’ contends he’s scoring ‘incremental’ wins  House Speaker Mike Johnson, hobbled by a one-vote majority and dogged by a small band of disgruntled archconservatives who want to fire him, is determined to defy his critics and remain speaker in the next Congress. He is also adamant that he is incrementally advancing a conservative agenda while battling a Democratic-run Senate and White House, though his Republican opponents accuse him of succumbing to liberal Washington’s status quo. “My plan is to lead this conference to victory, and that won’t just be in the election cycle but in the days that follow,” Mr. Johnson said in an interview with The Washington Times. The Louisiana Republican, 52, has been speaker for a little more than six months and is already facing an effort to oust him. Three hard-line House Republicans say he has capitulated to Democrats and has moved the House Republicans to the left on major legislation, most recently a foreign aid package that provided $61 billion to Ukraine but did not include a dime of U.S. border security funding. Hiring Slows to 175K in April; Unemployment at 3.9% U.S. job growth slowed more than expected in April and annual wage gains cooled, but it is probably too early to expect that the Federal Reserve will start cutting interest rates before September as the labor market remains fairly tight. Nonfarm payrolls increased by 175,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department's Bureau of Statistics said in its closely watched employment report on Friday. Data for March was revised up to show payrolls rising by 315,000 jobs instead of 303,000 as previously reported. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast payrolls advancing by 243,000. Estimates ranged from 150,000 to 280,000. The unemployment rate rose to 3.9% from 3.8%, still staying below 4% for the 27th straight month. Two Judeo-Christian values China accidentally acknowledges in the TikTok debate China does believe in free speech - just not in China The fires of reasoned and responsible debate have a way of refining the precious metals with which we forge a democratic republic. And free speech is at the heart of the debate surrounding the TikTok ban in the United States. Proponents of the Deterring America’s Technology Adversaries (DATA) Act argue its necessity for national security given that TikTok is owned and controlled by ByteDance, a Chinese company with the power and potential to manipulate Americans’ personal data on behalf of the Chinese government. Critics of the DATA Act argue that while the security concerns are real, the ban goes too far and infringes upon Americans’ First Amendment rights to free speech. The fire of the TikTok ban debate — indeed the very fact that we’re having the debate — can help refine our understanding of two particular precious metals, metals whose molecules bond in the Judeo-Christian worldview. How did the United Methodist Church get to this point? In late 2023, the United Methodist Church (UMC) released many of its conservative churches due to theological disagreements over LGBTQ+ ministers and congregants. Without its more conservative membership weighing in on theological issues, the UMC recently voted to ordain “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” and to allow same-sex unions with little internal resistance. But how did the UMC get to this point? As an outsider (I am not a member of the UMC or the newly formed Global Methodist Church), the internal politics that brought about these changes can only be inferred. However, the timeline of events suggests that UMC leadership and/or congregations were allowing practices that were against historic denominational teachings. Medal of Honor
THOMAS
JEROME HUDNER JR.
RANK: LIEUTENANT, J.G. CONFLICT/ERA: KOREAN WAR MILITARY SERVICE BRANCH: U.S. NAVY MEDAL OF HONOR ACTION DATE: DECEMBER 4, 1950 MEDAL OF HONOR ACTION PLACE: CHOSIN RESERVOIR, KOREA CITATION
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as a pilot in Fighter Squadron 32, while attempting to rescue a squadron mate whose plane, struck by antiaircraft fire and trailing smoke, was forced down behind enemy lines. Quickly maneuvering to circle the downed pilot and protect him from enemy troops infesting the area, Lt. (j.g.) Hudner risked his life to save the injured flier who was trapped alive in the burning wreckage. Fully aware of the extreme danger in landing on the rough mountainous terrain, and the scant hope of escape or survival in subzero temperature, he put his plane down skillfully in a deliberate wheels-up landing in the presence of enemy troops. With his bare hands, he packed the fuselage with snow to keep the flames away from the pilot and struggled to pull him free. Unsuccessful in this he returned to his crashed aircraft and radioed other airborne planes, requesting that a helicopter be dispatched with an ax and fire extinguisher. He then remained on the spot despite the continuing danger from enemy action and, with the assistance of the rescue pilot, renewed a desperate but unavailing battle against time, cold, and flames. Lt. (j.g.) Hudner's exceptionally valiant action and selfless devotion to a shipmate sustain and enhance the highest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service. From the Archive....
TO
KILL OR FEED A MOCKINGBIRD By Geoff Metcalf July 29, 2002 Two mutually exclusive and under reported stories have been troubling me. * The apparent penchant for political operatives to leak classified information that jeopardizes national security. * The generational control of information dissemination by powerful controllers. So we have another ‘Catch-22’. The complicity of the mainstream media to spin, cover, and obfuscate government abuse of power under the color of authority was not unique to the Clinton administration. It may have been more ubiquitous, and at times even clumsy, but it was not unique. It has been reported that in June 1991 David Rockefeller allegedly told a Bilderberg meeting in Baden Baden German, "We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years." He went on to explain: "It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supernational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries." Some argue that quote is apocryphal urban legend. However, although I have never been able to find three corroborating independent sources for it, it IS consistent in content and tone with other Bilderberg quotes I HAVE been able to confirm. “If we had been subjected to the light of publicity….” Indicates the one world, globalist, wannabe controllers were/are successful in managing the message. Operation ‘Mockingbird’ was a program supposedly conceived by a brilliant Machiavellian State Department official, Frank Wisner. Wisner selected Philip Graham, then publisher of the Washington Post to manage the program. According to Deborah Davis, author of ‘Katharine the Great’, "By the early 1950s, Wisner 'owned' respected members of the New York Times, Newsweek, CBS and other communications vehicles, plus stringers, four to six hundred in all, according to a former CIA analyst." Over twenty five major newspapers and wire services became willing house organs for the CIA media manipulation. Investigators digging into MOCKINGBIRD have been flabbergasted to discover FOIA documents in which agents boast (in CIA office memos) of pride in having placed "important assets" inside every major news publication in the country. I know, this is the stuff of Ludlum novels conspiracy wackos, but not until 1982 did the ‘Company’ finally concede that reporters on the CIA payroll have been case officers to field agents. I have too often observed, “Some people don’t like to be confused with facts that contradict their preconceived opinions.” I have also noted (and struggle to maintain) “It is not WHO is right or wrong…but WHAT is right or wrong.” Anyone with almost ‘any’ military experience has no doubt seen the once ubiquitous posters cautioning “Loose Lips Sink Ships”. It is a left over phrase from WWII and among “lessons learned”. In the complex world of intelligence loose lips can and have cost lives. Once upon a time, not so long ago, Senator Patrick Leahy (currently the Senate Judiciary committee’s lead obstructionist) used to be the Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee in the mid 80s. Leahy allegedly ‘inadvertently’ exposed a top-secret intercept of Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak that led to the capture of the Achille Lauro terrorists. That supposed slip of the tongue “cost the life of at least one Egyptian operative.” http://www.newsmax.com/showinside.shtml?a=2001/1/31/85757 Loose Lip Leahy was forced to resign in disgrace 14 years ago in the wake of having to acknowledge he leaked secret intelligence to the press. However today he lords his power over the Senate Judiciary committee. Congress’ institutional memory must be as short as some of Jennifer Flowers former paramours. In our contemporary environment in which whistleblowers have become in many cases heroes it is important to make the distinctions between the appropriateness of corporate and political whistleblowers and the idiot or miscreant who leaks information with genuine national security implications. Currently the FBI is investigating national security leaks from specifically the House and Senate Select Intelligence committees. This is serious stuff. Defenders of the indefensible will argue it is a political witch-hunt by politicians in a heavy C.Y.A. mode. That is not true but a convenient political spin job. Sure it is true the white house is p.o.-ed over media reports that the National Security Agency had received but not acted on two early warning messages to 9/11. Dick Cheney reportedly went ballistic and ripped congressional leaders. Both House and Senate Select Intelligence committees asked the Attorney General to conduct an investigation (and no doubt quietly prayed it would be botched). Justice said in a statement, “…the appropriate department officials will expeditiously review this matter and take any appropriate action.” Not if congress has anything to say about it. Don’t expect anything fast. Remember Leahy resigned in disgrace 14 years ago and today has the chutzpah to pontificate ad nauseum to the Judiciary committee and stall any and all Bush judicial appointments. More on Operation Mockingbird http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/ |
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