Trump Targets Antifa

 

Trump Targets Antifa, With Good Reason

Deroy Murdock, The Daily Signal

President Donald Trump correctly designated Antifa a domestic terrorist group.

“Individuals associated with and acting on behalf of Antifa further coordinate with other organizations and entities for the purpose of spreading, fomenting, and advancing political violence,” his Sept. 22 executive order declared. “This organized effort designed to achieve policy objectives by coercion and intimidation is domestic terrorism.”

“Not so fast!” the Trump-hating Left responds. They consider Antifa, at worst, Boy Scouts in a bad mood.

The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols dismissed Antifa-led chaos in Portland, Oregon, as the work of “costumed pranksters.” Elsewhere, an Atlantic headline giggled: “Portland’s ‘War Zone’ Is Like Burning Man for the Terminally Online.”

Never mind Antifa’s red, white, and black flag; Mark Bray’s “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook” (Melville House, 2017), and this extremist group’s recognition by the Anti-Defamation League, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel swears: “There is no Antifa. This is an entirely imaginary organization. There is not an Antifa.”

“Antifa isn’t an organization!” MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle insisted Wednesday. That night, CNN’s Erin Burnett claimed that “Antifa-linked violence is rare and limited.”

Grabien’s Tom Elliott has artfully curated 10 on-camera lies from Antifa deniers who argue that this brutal outfit is less of a thing than Captain Crunch.

Rep. Maxine Dexter, D-Ore., denied the mayhem that Antifa currently perpetrates in Portland. “Many of my constituents have been engaged for quite a long time,” Dexter shrugged. “Most of them are middle-aged women who are just trying to bear witness.” 

“They’re not bearing witness. They’re bearing arms,” Fox News’ Jesse Watters observed Thursday evening. Citing a recent, locally shot video, he added: “This middle-aged woman’s packing a machete.”

An Oct. 8 White House fact sheet stripped the varnish that left-wing apologists have slathered all over Antifa:

• “It’s like a war zone. There are times I’ve had to have a gas mask on inside my own home,” says a resident near the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility under siege in south Portland.

• “I only come out during the day. You see all the black-covered Antifa people aren’t here. They come with the night,” says another Portland resident.

• Since early June, the terrorists have violently breached the facility by using a stop sign as a battering ram, hurled explosives and projectiles, burned American flags, viciously assaulted, attacked, and injured officers, doxed officers, berated neighbors, and even rolled out a guillotine.

• In May 2024, an “Antifa anarchist movement” took credit for burning more than a dozen Portland Police Bureau training vehicles.

• In May 2022, Antifa members deployed smoke grenades, paint-filled balloons, and fireworks to break up a campaign event for a Republican political candidate.

• In January 2021, more than 100 Antifa demonstrators attacked Portland police and vandalized property, with some armed with knives and long poles.

• In August 2020, a self-described Antifa militant shot and killed a Patriot Prayer supporter during a riot in Portland, then was later killed after he brandished a weapon while law enforcement attempted to apprehend him on murder charges.

• In 2020, Antifa terrorists led 100 days of carnage and violence in Portland—in which they rioted, looted, burned buildings, bludgeoned officers, deployed power tools and commercial-grade fireworks as weapons, and attempted to destroy a local courthouse.

“Rare and limited.” Really?

Also on Wednesday, Trump, well, presided at a White House conference on Antifa. Independent journalists detailed the potentially fatal dangers of covering these bloodthirsty criminals.

“I have been infiltrating Antifa cells in Seattle and Portland for the past decade,” said The Post-Millennial’s Katie Daviscourt. “Antifa uses extreme political violence to crush the civil rights of their political enemies.” She added: “Today, I’m sitting here with a black eye and a concussion after being violently hit in the face with a metal pole while reporting outside the ICE facility.”

“I was ambushed in a mob beating,” while scrutinizing Antifa in 2019, journalist Andy Ngo remembered. “I was bleeding out of my eyes and ears.” He continued: “I was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance and CT scan, and I had a subarachnoid hemorrhage, which is bleeding in the brain and nearly died.”

Antifa thugs typically wear black and don masks. They recall white-clad Klansmen with hooded faces.

Coincidence? Nope.

Just as the Ku Klux Klan was the postbellum Democratic Party’s ruthless enforcement arm, Antifa is today’s neo-Marxist Democratic Party’s militant wing.

No wonder the Left treats these domestic terrorists so gingerly.

Drones: Potential US–China Warfare

Why Drones Are the Center of Potential US–China Warfare

The Epoch Times 

Scale and speed—not a perfect design—will decide drone warfare, pushing Washington to cut red tape and ship autonomous fleets by the thousands, analysts say.

On today’s battlefields, inexpensive flying robots are capable of locating, jamming, and eliminating targets faster than any human can react. China is determined to flood the skies with them.

In response, the United States is working on building its own swarms, refining smarter software, and tightening curbs on Chinese technology, while Ukraine’s front lines serve as a testing ground for evaluating effective and ineffective technologies.

The contest is not about a single “best drone,” an analyst told The Epoch Times. Instead, it’s a race between China’s ability to mobilize a huge civilian drone industry for war and America’s effort to turn clever prototypes into mass production, then bind them together with software and allied networks.

To prevail, the analyst said, Washington must move faster on approvals and testing, buy in large quantities, and adopt strategies proven effective on Ukraine’s battlefield on a larger scale, such as embracing open systems, facilitating quick upgrades, and shipping technology in the thousands.

Any future clash, especially over Taiwan, will be decided by scale, speed, and the lessons that endure from Ukraine, according to the analyst.

China’s Civil‑Military Fusion

China’s consumer drone machine is enormous.

China delivered more than 3.17 million civilian drones in 2023, with more than 2,300 companies and at least 1,000 models in mass production, the vice minister of industry and information technology told a press conference in April 2024.

That ecosystem—anchored by Chinese company DJI, the world’s largest drone maker—feeds a low-cost parts chain of motors, optics, radios, and flight controllers that can pivot to military use almost overnight.

This illustrates the civil-military fusion strategy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP): a state-guided process that transforms consumer dominance into wartime readiness.

 Beijing is investing just as heavily in technology used to attack drones.

 In July, state-owned giant Norinco showcased a truck-mounted 50-kilowatt laser, the OW5-A50, billed as a swarm killer, during a widely publicized “border-control” drill that also paraded an array of uncrewed systems.

In September, a military parade pushed new drones alongside anti-drone lasers and microwave weapons. However, such equipment—such as the Hurricane-3000 microwave system—remains under field tests, according to an exclusive report by Army Recognition Group, a defense news website.

Civil feats could serve as evidence of military capabilities. In Yunnan, for example, in July, a coordinated fleet of heavy-lift drones hauled 180 metric tons of steel and concrete up a mountain to build power-line towers in days rather than weeks—a glimpse of the logistics muscle that could matter in wartime resupply.

At recent air shows, China has also touted a “drone mothership,” a large unmanned aircraft designed to launch and retrieve dozens of smaller drones.

However, due to the limited technical details available, observers say its practicality and battlefield value in real-world scenarios remain uncertain.

“The message is clear: Beijing wants scale on both offense and defense,” Stephen Xia, a former People’s Liberation Army engineer who now works as a military-equipment analyst, told The Epoch Times.

US Counters China

 Sensing the urgency, Washington is trying to decouple from Chinese parts while ramping up U.S. capacity.

In June, the Trump administration issued an executive order aimed at accelerating domestic drone manufacturing and reducing reliance on foreign suppliers.

The following month, the Commerce Department opened a national-security probe under Section 232 into imports of drones and related components—a move that may lead to tariffs or outright limits.

In September, U.S. authorities signaled new rules that could restrict or ban many Chinese drones and parts outright, building on earlier measures. A federal court also upheld the Pentagon’s authority to label DJI a Chinese military company, further tightening restrictions on the world’s biggest consumer drone brand.

The Pentagon’s Blue unmanned aerial system (UAS) program maintains a public, vetted roster of small drones and components that meet cybersecurity and supply-chain requirements—excluding those made in China—and guides Department of War buyers and other agencies toward trusted options.

“Policy only sets the stage—the real test is deploying hardware at scale,” said Mark Cao, a U.S.-based military-tech analyst, former materials engineer, and host of the Chinese-language military-news YouTube channel “Mark Space.”

The Department of War’s Replicator initiative, launched in August 2023, pledged to deliver “multiple thousands” of low-cost, expandable, autonomous systems by August 2025, pressing the military services to procure faster and in bulk.

The program prioritizes drone systems that can be produced quickly and at scale, bypassing traditional slow defense procurement methods.

Defense officials told DefenseScoop last month that hundreds have reached military units so far—still short of the original mark—but funding and momentum continue. The Epoch Times could not independently verify this claim.

The concept dovetails with Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo’s vow to turn the Taiwan Strait into an “unmanned hellscape” if the Chinese regime launches an attack, using swarms across air, sea, and land to slow the People’s Liberation Army and buy time for heavier forces. He made the remarks during an interview with The Washington Post on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore in June 2024.

At the high end, the Air Force’s robotic wingmen are already in the air. General Atomics’ YFQ‑42A began flight tests in August, while Anduril’s YFQ‑44A is slated to fly in mid-October, the Air Force’s top civilian announced last month.

The glue that holds it all together is software. L3Harris’s AMORPHOUS aims to enable a single operator to task and retask thousands of mixed drones and unmanned boats through a single interface—the command-and-control backbone for large-scale swarming demands.

Russian Drones Rely on Chinese Parts

Crack open a wrecked Russian drone and the global supply chain comes into view.

“There is a good number of Chinese components and microprocessors in Russian drones, along with basically everything that is needed to assemble first-person view drones,” Samuel Bendett, an adviser at the Center for Naval Analyses’ Russia Studies Program who focuses on unmanned systems, told the Epoch Times.

“The transfer is direct and unobstructed.”

He noted that Russian builders order first-person view drone parts straight from Chinese factories and online marketplaces.

“The supply is cheap and plentiful,” Bendett said, claiming that it was so plentiful that it hurts Russia’s own attempts to make those parts domestically.

A Reuters investigation published in July tracked Chinese L550E engines—relabeled as “industrial refrigeration units”—to a sanctioned Russian maker of attack drones used in Ukraine. Kyiv has also blacklisted several Chinese suppliers after finding their parts in downed aircraft.

Beijing has tightened some dual-use exports since July 2024 to safeguard its national security interests—moves that have driven up prices and complicated shipments of components such as infrared cameras and inertial sensors.

Yet this display of leverage also underscored how dependent global buyers remain on Chinese supply, accelerating Washington’s push to reduce reliance through Section 232 measures, the Blue UAS program, and procurement bans, according to Cao.

Ukrainian Drones

“If China’s advantage lies in its mass and supply capabilities, Ukraine’s advantage is speed and adaptation,” Cao told The Epoch Times.

He noted that over the past year, Ukrainian units have transitioned from solo-drone strikes to artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted swarms that coordinate their own attacks under heavy jamming—still small in scale, but designed to expand in scope.

The Pentagon has allocated $50 million for 33,000 AI “strike kits” from Auterion, a Swiss-American defense and robotics software company, to equip the Ukrainian military. These kits transform low-cost drones into jam-resistant, target-tracking weapons, integrating battlefield upgrades into regular inventories.

Ukrainian sea drones such as the Magura V5 forced key Russian naval assets to pull back from Crimea, reshaping Black Sea operations since late 2023. U.S. naval planners are taking notes as they draft deterrence concepts for Taiwan.

Electronic warfare delivers the hardest lessons, according to Cao.

“Jamming can blind or hijack a drone; the counter is better autonomy and navigation that doesn’t rely on GPS,” he said, pointing to Russia’s fiber-optic-tethered first-person view drones, which sidestep conventional jammers.

Bendett said that when AI-driven drone swarms arrive in force, cyber defenses alone won’t be enough—armies will also need physical shields such as wire netting, cage armor, decoys, and old-fashioned kinetic weapons.

Both Russia and Ukraine are already developing lasers for that role, he noted.

The United States is also experimenting with directed-energy weapons.

At a live-fire trial in late August, U.S. electromagnetic-warfare company Epirus proved that a single pulse from its Leonidas high-power microwave system can disable a swarm of 61 drones, showcasing a potential low-cost shield.

Who’s Ahead and Why It Matters

In consumer and commercial drones, as well as the parts ecosystem that supports them, China leads by a considerable margin.

Civil-military fusion lets Beijing field “good-enough” platforms quickly and back them with a growing suite of counter-drone weapons, Cao said, noting that much of the PLA’s newest gear remains untested in combat.

 “The parade ground is not a battlefield,” he said.

The United States still sets the pace in high-end autonomy, battlefield-proven intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; strike drones; and software that integrates mixed fleets. Its stumbling block is turning rapid-fire innovation into industrial-scale output—precisely what initiatives such as Replicator, the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program, and Blue UAS aim to fix, Cao explained.

The United States pioneered military drones starting from the Vietnam War, setting benchmarks with Predator and Reaper, while China’s early advances leaned heavily on copying, according to Cao.

“But today’s race isn’t about cloning airframes,” he said. “It’s about standardization, modularity, and speed—treating autonomy like software that can be pushed quickly and bought by the thousand once it works.”

What the US Can Learn From Ukraine

Cao identified three lessons that he says frequently reappear.

First, numbers matter more than perfection: Open-architecture designs, fast logistics, and continual software updates consistently outperform exquisite weapons that arrive too late.

Second, signals have become a battlefield; jammers cut control links, driving drones to rely on onboard autonomy, which, in turn, demands smarter counters. Those counters must be cheap—microwave pulses, lasers, decoys, even wire cages—so a soldier does not fire a million-dollar missile at a hundred-dollar quadcopter, he said.

Third, supply chains are a strategic element; as long as Chinese parts dominate, sanctions turn into a cat-and-mouse game, according to Cao. The more innovative approach is to out-produce and adapt quickly with allies—and it must be done fast.

China’s strength is mass mobilization. America’s answer must be software, allied production, and speed, Cao said. If Washington can convert today’s demos—AI strike kits, swarm control, robotic wingmen—into repeat orders and fielded units, it can offset China’s factory edge and raise the cost of any fight for Beijing. If not, he warned, the skies and seas around Taiwan may be dominated by those who ship faster, rather than those who design better.

🔗 RELATED

The Commerce Department added 19 Chinese entities that have supported or supplied drones to terrorist organizations to an entity list on Oct. 8. Among them are Goodview Global, found to be part of an illicit network supplying the sanctioned Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps with drone parts. The U.S. government in March offered rewards of up to $15 million for information that would disrupt the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps funding network, which supports the Hamas terrorist group, the Hezbollah terrorist group, and other proxies. The bounty notice named four Chinese nationals allegedly providing the terrorists with arms.

Chinese drone experts have traveled to Russia to work on military drones at a state-owned weapons manufacturer already under Western sanctions, Reuters reported. The Chinese experts visited IEMZ Kupol’s weapon facilities more than six times since mid-2024, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing two European security officials and company documents reviewed by the outlet.

War-torn Ukraine has much to offer its allies and partners in the expanding drone arms race, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a speech before the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 24. Noting recent developments in unmanned weapons systems and artificial intelligence, Zelenskyy told the assembly, “We are now living through the most destructive arms race in human history.” The Ukrainian president touted his country’s successes in employing drones to slow the march of the numerically superior Russian military.

Cutting Back the Administrative State

Cutting Back the Administrative State

Ronald Dodson, The American Mind

 A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to downsize the bureaucracy.

The Trump Administration’s approach to the government shutdown is aimed above all at recovering the unitary executive as envisioned by the framers of the Constitution. Article II’s vesting clause, the epitome of “short and sweet,” empowers the president to control the executive branch, as Alexander Hamilton explained in Federalist 70. Though the administrative state steadily seized the chief executive’s power throughout the 20th century, President Trump seems determined to wrest it back by reasserting his authority over the executive agencies under his purview.

In preparing for the shutdown, each agency created contingency plans for operating during a lapse in appropriations. These are required by law and managed under guidance from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to ensure that essential government functions continue even when Congress fails to pass funding.

Each shutdown plan outlines an agency’s core mission, identifies which functions are critical, and lists how many employees will keep working and how many will be furloughed. It also explains how the agency will communicate with staff, why certain programs are allowed to continue, and how operations will restart once funding is restored.

The key law for our purposes is the Antideficiency Act, which makes it illegal for federal employees to obligate or spend money not appropriated by Congress, or to continue working when funding has lapsed—that is, unless the work is tied to constitutional powers or has an explicit exception. For example, the Department of War keeps nearly all uniformed personnel on duty, the Treasury Department continues key financial activities like IRS collections, and agencies such as the EPA, Department of Education, and HUD typically place most of their employees on furlough.

All of this raises an important question: If someone isn’t essential, why should they be employed at all? If an agency is performing duties that are out of step with President Trump’s agenda, shouldn’t he have the power to release those employees and close those departments? This is, after all, what any successful chief executive would do.

After Satya Nadella became the CEO of Microsoft in 2014, he saw that the phone hardware division was a non-essential drain on resources and talent and had a less-than-meaningful market share. Within a year, he shut down the entire division, writing off over $7.6 billion in the process and firing 18,000 employees. He refocused efforts on Microsoft’s core mission, which has proven quite successful. What was controversial at the time has since been seen as a decisive act that has been critical to the company’s success.

Elon Musk did a much more drastic version of this at Twitter/X. Steve Jobs famously eliminated dozens of Apple product lines in 1997. Andy Jassy streamlined Amazon.

Chief executives are the embodiment of an organization’s focus and mission. So it is with the President of the United States. Without the power to hire and fire at will, without the power to close unprofitable product lines, what is his role other than being a national figurehead?

And that is the rub—the modern liberal wants a figurehead who serves the managerial state instead of a managerial apparatus which serves the executive as the Founders wanted.

The late Sam Francis argued that modern liberal democracy produced the very managerial regime that enslaves the executive. The power the regime wields is unaccountable. No one votes on the staffing at HUD, for example. Therefore, this regime is self-perpetuating and naturally becomes monolithic in ideals. This structure becomes an antibiotic-resistant infection that is impossible to treat or to remove.

Francis further argued the Constitution’s grant of “the executive Power” to the president had been hollowed out by civil service protections, administrative law, and vast agencies that followed their own agendas. Instead of being constrained by lawyers and career officials, he contended that decisive leadership from the president could break up the procedural paralysis of the modern state.

Drawing on thinkers like James Burnham and Vilfredo Pareto, Francis maintained that only a strong, centralized executive could reassert discipline and restore national purpose, much like a CEO who can swiftly reorganize a failing company. For Francis, restoring full presidential command was a constitutional and moral necessity to ensure that the people’s elected leader, not an entrenched bureaucracy, actually governs.

Enter the reduction in force (RIF), a formal mechanism under federal personnel law that allows agencies under the supervision of the OMB and the Office of Personnel Management to permanently eliminate positions when funding or organizational needs change.

During the early stages of a shutdown, employees are temporarily furloughed but remain on the payroll. If the funding lapse continues and it becomes clear that some programs won’t reopen or that budgets will not return to previous levels, agencies may need to reorganize to preserve essential functions. At that stage, OMB can authorize a formal reduction in force, making those job cuts permanent.

A reduction in force follows a strict legal process in which agencies identify positions to eliminate, rank employees by service and performance, and give at least a 60-day notice before separation. Affected employees may receive severance pay, have priority for reemployment, and can appeal their dismissal to the Merit Systems Protection Board.

OMB’s main role during a prolonged shutdown is to coordinate staffing reductions across federal agencies, ensure compliance with fiscal and personnel laws, and prevent inconsistent or overlapping cuts. If the shutdown appears likely to continue, OMB can shift from temporary furlough management to planning permanent workforce reductions, turning short-term pauses into long-term structural downsizing.

Russ Vought, the head of OMB and a Claremont Institute Lincoln Fellow, understands that the shutdown is an opportunity to permanently scale back the federal Leviathan. This is beneficial from a mission standpoint, from a budgetary standpoint, and from a moral standpoint, which is why Vought should be supported politically and procedurally. It is immoral to ask the American people to employ nonessential people. It is immoral to ask the American people to support an unconstitutional system.

Donald Trump once promised, “I will shatter the Deep State (this administrative monster), and restore government that is controlled by the People” (emphasis added). He needs every bit of support, every bit of help, to achieve this important goal. The administration must have the will to follow through with the president’s stated intentions. It must show the intestinal fortitude to restore executive power as it was envisioned by the framers of the Constitution.

There are further tools to explore at a later time. Impoundment and Schedule F should be revisited. But now this is a time of opportunity. A time of decision. A chance to give the country a leaner heart and a clearer head.

This is a once-in-a-generation chance to restore constitutional government in the executive branch and remove entrenched powers that have only served to drag the country to the Left.

Ronald Dodson is CEO and Portfolio Manager of Dallas North Capital Partners, a private fund management firm.

THE ENIGMA OF APRIL FOOL’S DAY

THE ENIGMA OF APRIL FOOL’S DAY:

TRUMP’S HIDDEN WAR TO SAVE THE REPUBLIC

NEW FROM DAVID CLEMENTS - Joe Hoft, JoeHoft.com

The following is the latest from former Professor and Attorney David Clements.

Rumble Video

https://rumble.com/v6zx57m-ep.-8-the-enigma-of-april-fools-day-trumps-hidden-war-to-save-the-republic.html

See transcript below:

A SHADOW ENGULFS OUR REPUBLIC, its sacred vote plundered for over two decades by traitors wielding rigged elections and a media unleashed to deceive by the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012, a law that freed government-funded propaganda to shape American minds. As I’ve chronicled in “Mr. President, Look to Lincoln and Act” and “Antifa’s Fall,” President Donald Trump, guided by loyal military advisors, may have crafted a grand sting in 2020 to unmask this betrayal.

A cryptic clue emerged on July 13, 2024, when Trump, surviving an assassin’s bullet in Butler, Pennsylvania, brandished an immigration chart with a startling note: its bottom right corner claimed he “left office” on April 1, 2020. Did he signal a secret activation of Continuity of Government, a Cold War plan to preserve governance amid catastrophe, hinting at a shadow war to reclaim America?

This question demands answers. Consider the timing. Days prior, the bioweapon known as COVID-19 was unleashed to shut down America. Antifa’s street chaos during the “summer of love” shaped their handler’s fear campaign. Precursors to a stolen election. All tools to carry out a soft coup by globalist insiders—think Obama’s intelligence operatives and Clinton’s hidden allies.

In 2025, troops march to Portland, Oregon, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities to counter Antifa’s riots. New executive orders shield elections, and Venezuelan operatives are named as meddlers. If Continuity of Government was triggered in 2020, it could nullify objections from courts corrupted by traitors, keeping Trump’s fight within the Constitution’s hallowed bounds.

As a former professor and prosecutor, I offer a civilian lens to trace this legal path, blending it with military standards to reveal how Trump—and allies like House Speaker Mike Johnson, who calls himself a “wartime speaker”—could restore the Republic. Trump’s own words, claiming vast presidential powers and a wartime mantle, underscore a commander-in-chief’s resolve against a fractured government.

And that’s the topic for today.

The Enigma of April Fool’s Day: Trump’s Hidden War to Save the Republic

On July 13, 2025, as Trump defied death in Butler, he pointed to an immigration chart declaring he “left office” on April 1, 2020—a date belied by his service until January 20, 2021. In our premise—elections rigged since 2000 via hacked machines and foreign ballots, media hiding treason—this note sparks intrigue.

Continuity of Government is a classified system, born in the Cold War to ensure governance survives crises like nuclear war or a coup. Guided by Presidential Policy Directive 40 (PPD-40), it allows the President to relocate leaders to secure bunkers—like Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado—or transfer power to trusted officials if Washington falls. Did military advisors, alerted by 2016’s spying on Trump’s campaign (exposed in 2025 by declassified intelligence reports), warn him that the COVID-19 bioweapon had two ends?

First, to set into motion the bioengineers’ depopulation agenda. Second, to create panic to undermine his presidency and shape the conditions to rig the 2020 election through machine subversion and mail-in ballots. Could Continuity of Government have been activated on April 1, 2020, to counter the insurgency, shield a sting operation, with Trump’s “departure” a coded signal of a shadow presidency?

This aligns with a sting: tracking fraud through ballots or data from the Space Force, a military branch created in 2019 to oversee space and cyber operations, possibly using Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite network with early 2020 Defense Department contracts. The chart’s note, a patriot’s signal, may suggest Trump devolved power to those loyal to their oaths of office, retaining control over critical assets—nuclear codes, secure bunkers—while captured civilian arms, like FBI Director Christopher Wray or Attorney General Merrick Garland, turned the bureaucracy against the people.

Trump’s own rhetoric supports this. On September 30, 2025, at Marine Corps Base Quantico, addressing 800 generals and admirals, he proclaimed himself the “45th, 46th, and 47th President,” emphasizing the 46th—Biden’s term—as one he shuns credit for due to its “disasters.” If Continuity of Government was active, this implies he held shadow authority over essentials during Biden’s tenure, a wartime fracture where patriots guarded the Republic’s core against rogue elements.

Building the Case: A Civilian and Military Lens

As a former prosecutor, I know investigations must be lawful to withstand scrutiny. In the civilian justice system, we follow a clear process: starting with reasonable articulable suspicion (specific facts suggesting wrongdoing, a low bar), escalating to probable cause (enough evidence for legal action like warrants), then clear and convincing evidence (a strong case, often for civil matters), and finally beyond a reasonable doubt (proof for criminal convictions). This is how I would have built a case against election fraud or treason—betraying the nation to foreign powers, per Article III of the Constitution. In 2016, suspicion arose when the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane, a probe into Trump’s campaign, was unmasked in 2025 as a fabricated “Russia hoax” by Obama’s intelligence officials, with Clinton’s allies fueling the lie. This justified secret probes into treason or seditious conspiracy (plotting to overthrow the government, 18 U.S.C. § 2384).

By 2018, Executive Order 13848, a presidential directive ordering the Director of National Intelligence to investigate foreign election interference, built probable cause. Declassified 2025 reports confirmed meddling, like Chinese-funded fake ballots. The 2020 sting—tracking fraud via Space Force or Starlink—gathered strong evidence of a stolen election, with Antifa’s riots as a distraction. In 2025, declassification could deliver undeniable proof for convictions.

Given the military stakes—treason under a national security framework—the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ, 10 U.S.C. §§ 801–946) applies for tribunals. Military investigations start with preliminary inquiries (like reasonable suspicion) based on credible information of crimes like Aiding the Enemy (Article 103b, UCMJ) or sedition (Article 94). Commanders’ investigations (akin to probable cause) justify charges, leading to courts-martial, requiring proof beyond a reasonable doubt, as in civilian courts. In a Continuity of Government scenario, military tribunals could prosecute traitors if civilian courts are captured, bypassing corrupted judges. Trump’s sting, if under Continuity of Government, blended civilian evidence-building with military rigor, preparing for tribunals.

Trump’s assertions of power fuel this path. On July 23, 2019, at a Washington, D.C., youth summit, he declared, “I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president,” invoking the Constitution’s executive authority. On March 18, 2020, amid COVID-19, he called himself a “wartime president,” framing the crisis as a battle against an “invisible enemy.” House Speaker Mike Johnson echoed this, calling himself a “wartime speaker” on April 16, 2024, and again and February 24th and June 12th of 2025, citing the “consequential times” of his tenure amid political battles and national unrest. Their rhetoric paints a fractured government—patriots like Trump and Johnson holding the line, while captured officials betray the people. Trump delayed arrests in 2017, knowing a deceived public, swayed by media lies, would reject them as tyranny, letting enemies overplay their hand while truth was stifled on Twitter, YouTube, and Google.

The Insurrection Act: A Silent Strike?

The Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C. §§ 251–255), an 1807 law, allows the President to deploy troops or federalize the National Guard to stop rebellions or lawlessness, like a rigged election threatening federal authority. On September 27, 2025, Trump sent troops to Portland and ICE facilities, labeling Antifa—radical activists tied to 2020’s chaos—“domestic terrorists” attacking federal sites. Oregon’s leaders, possibly complicit, sued, claiming the move was unlawful.

So, here is a question to ponder. Does the Insurrection Act require Trump to announce its use, alerting traitors or a misled public?

In a word, no.

Section 254 requires only a public proclamation after invocation, ordering rebels to “disperse,” as President Bush did in 1992 for Los Angeles riots. No law demands prior notice to enemies or Congress. One could argue Trump already provided notice to disperse. On January 20, 2025, President Trump issued a Presidential Proclamation (”Guaranteeing the States Protection Against Invasion”), which aligns with § 254 by ordering dispersal of those contributing to the border crisis, effectively satisfying this requirement before military deployments were made.

The proclamation is a prerequisite only when the Insurrection Act is explicitly invoked. However, under Continuity of Government, a secret order—perhaps a Presidential Emergency Action Document (PEAD), a classified crisis plan—could have invoked the Act on April Fool’s Day 2020, with troops deployed domestically (this year) as its echo.

 This would bypass the Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C. § 1385), which bars military use in domestic policing unless exceptions like the Insurrection Act apply. If Continuity of Government was active, complaints from captured courts, like Oregon’s, would be powerless. Authority, even if devolved, would override tainted rulings.

The Missing Orders: A Trail of Shadows

Trump’s executive orders, directives with the force of law, reveal gaps. From 2017 to 2021, he issued 220 orders, none naming the Insurrection Act. EO 13848 (2018) set traps, ordering probes into election fraud, with 2025 leaks confirming Venezuelan, Serbian, and Chinese meddling. In 2025, 205 orders were issued (numbered 14147 to 14351) including a January border security order to repel the invasion, and an order targeting Venezuelan narco-terrorists, which coincidentally involves election interference. Yet no order invokes the Act. I believe the silence is deliberate: a sting thrives in secrecy, avoiding media cries of “dictator.” The April 1st chart hints at hidden orders, possibly tying Continuity of Government to Space Force’s cyber tracking or Starlink’s secure data, preserving evidence of the coup.

Awakening the People

The public, lulled by media lies claiming elections are “secure,” is the final battleground. Trump’s declassification power, rooted in Article II, can reveal sting evidence: tracked ballots, hacked systems, Venezuelan plots. The DNI, now led by patriots in 2025, could unveil this, as recent leaks exposed 2016’s spying. X, still shadow banning many, at least appears to be freer from corporate gatekeepers, and spreading truth is an easier prospect than in 2020. If corrupted courts block, as in 2020’s 60+ failed lawsuits, Continuity of Government’s framework—shifting power to loyalists—prevails. The Constitution’s 14th Amendment could bar traitorous officials, or a House vote, led by a “wartime speaker” like Johnson, could restore governance.

The Path Ahead

The chart’s riddle—April 1, 2020—may signal Continuity of Government’s activation, a shield for a sting to expose a bioweapon and stolen election. Trump’s Quantico claim as the “46th President” suggests he held shadow control, with Johnson’s “wartime” resolve as his legislative ally. In 2025, troops in Portland, orders against Venezuela, and Antifa’s defeat are its ripples. The Insurrection Act, if secretly invoked, awaits its proclamation when traitors are cornered. Article II, Continuity of Government, and declassification form a legal trinity to slay the coup.

I offer one final thought for your consideration, though it's anecdotal.

On August 13, 2021, I met Trump directly after presenting at Mike Lindell’s Cyber Symposium, a chaotic event rife with spies, truth-tellers, misinformation, infiltrators, and honeypots. The event was a gamble for all involved. I firmly believe the symposium became a trap to ensnare and destroy the election integrity movement at its inception. But for the miraculous emergence of whistleblower Tina Peters, providing unassailable evidence of election subversion in Mesa County, and a hard pivot away from PCAPs tied to Dennis Montgomery, a spook and con man of the highest order, the trap would have succeeded.

Trump seemed genuinely surprised when I arrived, as he had just finished watching my presentation on television. Our 30-minute meeting began with Trump going through the motions, lamenting 2020’s unfairness. He didn’t need to re-air his grievances, certainly not with a nobody like me. I suspect Trump was weighing me in a balance. I had heard he possessed a radar that saw through people in seconds. Never taking his eyes off me, he spoke while I listened, reading my reactions like a book.

He would eventually turn to me and ask, “What do we do?”

How would you respond to such a question? Only a fool would open his mouth and delude himself into thinking he had an answer to satisfy the most powerful man in the world.

Now, understand, I do not think for a second, Trump was relying on me for an answer. He already had the answers. I believe he was simply adjusting his scale, fine-tuning his weighing and measuring of yours truly. My invitation may have served as nothing more than a curiosity. A law professor backing his claims made me a unicorn, a novelty.

With no attempt to impress the President, I simply told him the problem was not the black letter law found in the lawsuits filed by his lawyers. That I could file a lawsuit with 10 more months’ worth of evidence of fraud, and the case would be dismissed twice as fast. That the real problem was the existential threat Trump posed to his enemies, which included a captured judiciary.

I told him that the judiciary was “cancer-ridden,” a barrier to justice.

He challenged my statement. “All of it? Are you sure?”

Now that he posed the question, I paused. Was I sure? How could I be?

I have reexamined our conversation in my head a thousand times.

I believe in that moment he was offering a subtle clue that I shouldn’t be so certain. And through hindsight, perhaps a different type of court was already at work. I hope I will learn the answer to this question one day.

Towards the end of our meeting, I sought an answer from him to ease the weight of it all. Keep in mind, my loyalty to this man’s office, would go on to cost me everything. I would lose my career the following week. I would lose my reputation in the press the following year, slandered and destroyed. I would be targeted by the IRS, subjected to death threats, and physical assaults. I needed something to keep the faith.

So, I spoke up and said, “As you sit there, you are the commander-in-chief, by virtue of our legal votes. The most powerful man in the world, no matter what attempts the imposter Biden made to steal the election. Meaning no disrespect to Mike Lindell, there is no way the fate of the Republic is in the hands of the MyPillow guy. That he has data that you don’t.”

After all, I was staring at the guy that created Space Force.

He didn’t answer. He just gave me an appraising look.

I concluded by saying something along the lines of, “Mr. President, I don’t see a path in the (civilian) courts of law. So, I will do everything in my power to change hearts and minds in the court of public opinion. I trust that you have a plan. And when the time is right, I believe the American people will meet you in the middle.”

Again, Trump did not answer, giving nothing away. He simply nodded his head and asked, “Would you mind if I join you for dinner?’

Take what you will from this article. I would go on to sit at a dinner table with the greatest man I had ever met for nearly three hours.

I have never spoken with the President since. I don’t know if that was because my advocacy, while over the target, could potentially conflict with plans set into motion a decade ago. Or that being read into his inner circle was too big a risk. After all, as a civilian professor, I came out of nowhere. Perhaps I didn’t make an impression on him at all, and the memory of our meeting would fade alongside his countless other meetings held with much more important men.

I just know that I treasure that memory. I got to sit at the equivalent of the King’s table. I left with a photograph. Impressed by his genius and even more impressed by his kindness to those around him. Busboys, waitresses were all treated with dignity.

Randy Weingarten Whines

 Randy Weingarten Whines

Randi Weingarten prioritizes far-left politics — and selling books — over students’ tests scores

Miranda Devine, NY Post 

Randi Weingarten has taken to wearing a paper clip on her lapel as a ­bizarre symbol of her ­crusade against “fascism,” aka Donald Trump. 

The president of the American Federation of Teachers is on tour to peddle her new book, “Why Fascists Fear Teachers” — yet another example of prioritizing poisonous politics over education from this Marxist fossil. Not to mention fattening her own wallet. 

The paper clip, she likes to explain to anyone who will listen — mostly on MSNBC — symbolizes a Norwegian protest against Adolf Hitler in World War II. 

“Teachers in Norway when there was Nazi occupation, they started wearing paper clips . . . to bind people together as community,” Weingarten told MSNBC. 

Pretty subtle analogy there — less than three weeks after Charlie Kirk was assassinated by a young leftist of the sort radicalized in Weingarten’s classrooms who engraved anti-fascist messages on his bullets. 

The fact she would continue with her “fascist” book tour after such a tragedy proves that her moral compass is badly awry. 

Meanwhile, not a single child was found to be proficient in math and reading in 55 public schools in Chicago, according to 2024 state tests. 

New York is not quite as bad but, still, two thirds of fourth-graders are not proficient in math and reading and 12th-grade scores have dropped to levels not seen since 1992 in reading and 2005 in math. 

When US Secretary of Education Linda McMahon released the latest scores for eighth-grade science and 12th-grade reading and mathematics in the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress last month, she described them as “devastating.” 

“American students are testing at historic lows across all of K-12,” she said.

“Nearly half of America’s high school seniors are testing at below basic levels in math and reading.”

“Despite spending billions annually on numerous K-12 programs, the achievement gap is widening, and more high school seniors are performing below the basic benchmark in math and reading than ever before.” 

The “Nation’s Report Card” shows little to no progress in regaining pre-pandemic levels in math and reading. 

Reading scores for each grade level fell 5 points from 2019 levels.

Math scores dropped 3 points for fourth-graders and 8 points for eighth-graders. 

Only 22% of 12th-grade students meet proficiency in math, while just 35% of 12th-grade students have achieved proficiency in reading. 

Just 31% of 8th-grade students meet proficiency in science. 

Lasting harm 

The unnecessarily prolonged school lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, some of which extended well into 2021, caused lasting harm to children in public schools. 

The most severe impact was on kids from low-income families, and black, Hispanic and rural students. 

A lot of kids just figured school was a waste of time and lost the habit of going to class. 

Absenteeism has soared since the pandemic with more than one-third of New York City students chronically absent last year. 

In Chicago, almost half the students just don’t bother turning up. 

Is it any wonder that gang violence in Chicago is through the roof? 

There’s not much hope for the future in kids betrayed by the system and destined for a life on the margins.

The way to tackle the root causes of crime is to teach every child to read and do math proficiently so they have the tools to seize the American dream. 

What a contrast to the “Mississippi Miracle” where kids have gone from near last place in the nation to first place (when adjusted for socioeconomic factors) in reading proficiency after the state implemented phonics-based literacy reforms. 

Fourth-grade students in Mississippi now read at a level that is almost a full school year ahead of their New York City counterparts.

Louisiana, Alabama and Tennessee are following suit and showing the same gains. 

Every child in New York and Chicago deserves the same. 

The fact there is any argument at all is due entirely to Weingarten and the teachers unions — and their inextricable links with the Democrats who run the cities with the worst education and the worst youth crime. 

When they’re not lionizing terrorists and demanding pay rises, Weingarten and pals are propagandizing students in left-wing politics. 

If there is institutional racism in this country, it is concentrated in one institution — not police forces but the teachers unions run by Randi Weingarten for more than 30 years. 

She doesn’t care about the students, the majority of whom are illiterate when they graduate after 13 years in school.

They are just a means to an end. 

In her book, she says the role of a teacher is to defend “our democracy.”

Anyone who paid attention during the Biden years knows that’s code for fighting Trump, aka “the fascists.” 

Dem friends in power 

The Biden years were golden for Weingarten and friends. 

Then-First Lady “Dr.” Jill Biden was a teacher in the Weingarten mold.

In a White House event honoring educators, she once described Weingarten and her National Education Association counterpart Becky Pringle as “good friends,” and “incredible partners.” 

Just eight days into Joe Biden’s term, he phoned Weingarten to assure her that “I am not abandoning you,” amid pressure from parents to end school closures. 

After promising to open a majority of K-12 public schools within his first 100 days, Biden wimped out, redefining “open” to “at least one day a week.” 

You see, Weingarten was holding out for another big taxpayer handout before it was “safe” for teachers to return to classrooms. 

A big chunk of the inflationary $1.9 trillion slush fund that Dems misleadingly titled the “American Rescue Plan” went to schools to be frittered away on anything but reading, science and math.

Hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer largesse, and the results for students were horrendous. 

Presumably prodded by his wife, Biden would boast that he was “teacher-centric,” and ran a “teacher-oriented Department of Education.” 

That’s the problem.

They forgot about the kids. 

When peddling her book this week, Weingarten let the cat out of the bag when she said “education is power.” 

Of course, the power she is talking about is union power, political power, prioritizing woke brainwashing and protecting underperforming teachers at the expense of student achievement. 

Weingarten has done enough damage.

Let the book tour be her swan song.

 

A brief example of James Comey’s dishonesty

Byron York, Washington Examiner 

This is not the place to analyze the details of former FBI Director James Comey’s indictment because we don’t know what those details are. Prosecutors will soon have to come up with a bill of particulars enumerating the specific lies they allege Comey told under oath. Of course, there are critics who say the whole thing is a disaster. For now, we don’t really know.

But we do know what happened in 2017. The new president, Donald Trump, was the target of wild speculation accusing him of “collusion” with Russia in the 2016 election. Comey, then head of the FBI, was in the middle of it, leading the bureau’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation.

When Trump was still president-elect, Comey, after long and careful planning, used a briefing on Russian election influence efforts as the pretext to ambush Trump with the so-called “pee tape” allegation from the debunked Steele dossier. It happened on Jan. 6, 2017, in Trump Tower in New York. At the end of the briefing, Comey said, “Can I have a few minutes alone with the president-elect?” With just the two men in the room, Comey hit Trump with the accusation that the Russians had recorded Trump with prostitutes performing kinky sex acts in a Moscow hotel room in 2013. Trump was left stunned and wondering whether the director of the FBI was setting him up for something.

For Comey, it was part of Crossfire Hurricane, an opportunity to question the key figure in the investigation under the guise of a security briefing. After the meeting, Comey dashed to an FBI car, where a laptop was waiting for him to write his version of what Trump said, for instant analysis by the Crossfire Hurricane team. (Many of the details and quotes in this newsletter are taken from Obsession, my 2020 book about the pursuit of Trump.)

Comey later wrote that as he prepared for the meeting, he was concerned that Trump would “assume I was pulling a J. Edgar Hoover,” a reference to the founding FBI director famous for keeping and using embarrassing information about politicians. In light of that, Comey said he tried to think of some way he could reassure Trump. “After extensive discussion with my team, I decided I could assure the president-elect that the FBI was not currently investigating him,” Comey wrote. 

Sure enough, Trump was deeply concerned by Comey’s pee tape maneuver. “As he began to grow more defensive and the conversation teetered toward disaster,” Comey recalled, the FBI director used his reassurance plan, saying, “We are not investigating you, sir.” The statement “seemed to quiet him,” Comey wrote.

But was it really true that the FBI was not investigating Trump? Was Comey telling Trump the truth? Here is a passage from Obsession: 

Comey seemed to believe it was quite clever to assure Trump that he was not under investigation, even as the investigation continued apace. Comey later wrote that telling Trump, “We are not investigating you, sir,” was “literally true” because the FBI “did not have a counterintelligence case file open on him.” But Comey was hairsplitting, and other FBI officials warned him that what he said was misleading. [FBI general counsel James] Baker told Comey as much in a pre-meeting planning session. Of course Trump is under investigation, Baker argued. His conduct might well be “within the scope of an investigation looking at whether his campaign coordinated with Russia.” But Comey was now on the record with Trump saying that the president-elect was not under investigation. 

To no one’s surprise, Comey’s Trump Tower session with the president-elect leaked to the press a few days later, when CNN reported that the nation’s top intelligence officials presented Trump with “compromising personal” information — the story of the pee tape — that came from “a former British intelligence operative whose past work U.S. intelligence officials consider to be credible.” Trump-Russia hysteria, already at a high level, soared even higher.

But what about that key question: Is the president of the United States under FBI investigation? The untruth Comey told in Trump Tower soon came back into the picture when, on March 15, 2017, Comey talked privately to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. As he had in the meeting with Trump, Comey told senators that Trump was not under investigation.

To any layman, and that included some members of the committee, it was obvious that the FBI was investigating Trump. What was Crossfire Hurricane about, if it did not include investigating Trump? And why would Comey have pulled the Hoover maneuver if Trump were not under investigation? But Comey assured senators that Trump was not under investigation.

Those conversations were in private meetings. Five days later, on March 20, Comey testified publicly before the House Intelligence Committee. There, he told a different story. He began by dramatically announcing, “I have been authorized by the Department of Justice to confirm that the FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, and that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts.”

The obvious question was whether “individuals associated with the Trump campaign” included Trump. Comey was asked that repeatedly, by lawmakers from both parties, and each time he answered, “I’m not going to answer that.”

So behind closed doors, Comey confidently told members of Congress and Trump that Trump was not under investigation. In front of the cameras, under oath, Comey refused to say. That undoubtedly left the impression in many minds that the real answer was yes, the president was under investigation, which, of course, he was.

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was appalled. Taking to X, formerly Twitter, later in the day on March 20, Grassley said, “FBI Dir Comey needs to be transparent + tell the public what he told me about whether he is or is not investigating POTUS.” That is all Grassley felt he could say because the briefing had been confidential. But Grassley knew that Comey had told him, straight out, that Trump was not under investigation. Grassley was angry that Comey was saying one thing in private and another in public. But that was Comey’s way.

The simple description of what happened is that Comey, in a private setting, lied to Trump on Jan. 6, 2017, and then, also in a private setting, lied to Grassley and other members of Congress on March 15, 2017. Then, in public on March 20, 2017, Comey refused to answer the question he had privately lied about.

Trump’s worries about Comey, serious before, became even more serious. In the wake of the Trump Tower incident, once he was president, Trump invited Comey to the White House. On Jan. 27, 2017, the two of them — and just the two of them — had dinner at the residence. There, Trump, according to Comey, said, “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.” 

Given what had happened in Trump Tower, with Comey surprising Trump with the salacious and debunked pee tape story, and then dashing out to assess the information with the Crossfire Hurricane prosecution team, it is not surprising that Trump would want assurances that the FBI director was not secretly seeking to prosecute him. What Trump did not know at the Jan. 27 dinner is that Comey, just like he did after the Trump Tower pee tape meeting, would leave the White House to write down his version of what Trump said. The two had later conversations, in person and on the phone, and Comey did the same thing after each one.

On May 9, 2017, Trump fired Comey. Exactly a week later, on May 16, 2017, the New York Times made a huge splash reporting that at that private dinner on Jan. 27, Trump asked Comey “at least two times for a pledge of loyalty — which Mr. Comey declined.” The story set off an uproar, with some commentators comparing Trump to a Mafia boss.

Comey, of course, leaked the information to the New York Times. But he did not do it directly. Instead, after he was fired, Comey gave the notes to a friend, Columbia University law professor Daniel Richman, who then read selected parts of the notes aloud to a New York Times reporter. Comey later said he went through a cutout “for a variety of reasons.” But whatever Comey’s tactical decisions were, the larger purpose of the leak was clear. “I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel,” Comey said. If he could just stir enough controversy about the matter, Comey reasoned, the political pressure to appoint a counsel would be overwhelming. And indeed, it was; Comey got what he wanted a short time later, on May 17, 2017, with the appointment of Trump-Russia special counsel Robert Mueller.

In the end, it didn’t work. After two years of investigation that at times paralyzed the Trump White House, Mueller concluded that he could not establish that collusion, which he called “conspiracy” or “coordination,” had ever occurred. All of James Comey’s scheming and dissembling and too-clever-by-half statements failed to establish that the crime for which he and the Crossfire Hurricane team pursued Trump had ever even happened. On the other hand, Comey had done incalculable political damage to Trump’s presidency.

After it was all over, the inspector general of the Justice Department, Michael Horowitz, examined Comey’s actions. As an FBI employee, Comey was subject to rules requiring that he keep highly sensitive law enforcement material confidential, Horowitz noted. Instead, Comey leaked the memos in hopes of leveraging them into an investigation of the president of the U.S. Horowitz concluded that Comey had set a “dangerous example” for employees of the FBI. From Horowitz’s report:

By not safeguarding sensitive information during the course of his FBI employment, and by using it to create public pressure for official action, Comey set a dangerous example for the over 35,000 current FBI employees — and the many thousands more former FBI employees — who similarly have access to or knowledge of non-public information … Comey’s closest advisors used the words “surprised,” “stunned,” “shocked,” and “disappointment” to describe their reactions to learning what Comey had done … In a country built on the rule of law, it is of utmost importance that all FBI employees adhere to Department and FBI policies, particularly when confronted by what appear to be extraordinary circumstances or compelling personal convictions. Comey had several other lawful options available to him to advocate for the appointment of a special counsel, which he told us was his goal in making the disclosure. What was not permitted was the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive investigative information, obtained during the course of FBI employment, in order to achieve a personally desired outcome.

Could there be a more complete condemnation of Comey’s actions? Horowitz did it in a couple of paragraphs.

Now Comey is in the news again, facing criminal charges. Does this episode mean Comey lied under oath as alleged in the indictment? No, it doesn’t. But it does mean that no one should ever trust a word James Comey says.

The Left's Terror Campaign

 

The Left's Terror Campaign

The left is waging a sustained domestic-terror campaign against the Trump presidency

Rich Lowry, New York Post 

Donald Trump’s second term has been met with a sustained, low-level campaign of domestic terrorism. 

It has mostly involved relatively minor property damage amid much more consequential acts, but the pattern of violence meant to achieve anti-Trump political goals has been unmistakable. 

I thought Trump’s second election would be met with rioting in the streets and serious threats against Cabinet officials. Instead, we got the “vibe shift,” with the initial political reaction against Trump relatively muted compared to that in 2016.

Once the administration got underway, though, the violent resistance began. 

First, it was the campaign against Tesla. Anti-Elon Musk agitators torched and otherwise vandalized vehicles, fired shots, and threw Molotov cocktails at dealerships and damaged charging stations.

This wasn’t terrorism on the level of ISIS — not even close — but it clearly met the textbook definition of terrorism as violence in furtherance of a political or social objective.

Then, the anti-ICE assaults ramped up. There have been riots outside ICE facilities, as well as incendiary attacks and shootings.

In the craziest incident prior to the Sept. 24 sniper attack in Dallas, a group of agitators dressed in black military-style clothing began shooting fireworks and spraying graffiti at an ICE detention facility in Alvarado, Texas, in July.

According to officials, this was a ploy meant to draw ICE officers out of the facility to be ambushed.

One attacker hiding in the woods shot a responding police officer in the neck (he survived), while another assailant fired 20 or more rounds at correctional officers who had strayed outside the building.

When they were arrested, some of the agitators were wearing body armor and had two-way radios. The attack emanated from a Dallas-area anti-fascist network. 

Less than a week later, an armed man tried to shoot his way into a Border Patrol annex in McAllen, Texas, before getting shot dead.

The waves of anti-Tesla and anti-ICE violence were precipitated, respectively, by a libertarian billionaire trying to reduce the number of federal workers and cut foreign aid, and a federal agency detaining immigrants who are living and working in the country illegally, some of whom have committed other serious crimes.

If these activities can evoke a violent response, just imagine if the country experiences a true crisis.

In both cases — regarding DOGE at its height and ICE now — Democratic officeholders and progressive opinion-makers whipped up an apocalyptic frenzy.

The fevered rhetoric has been accompanied by peaceful protests, civil disobedience (think of Democratic officials getting arrested protesting immigration enforcement), and, at the margins, zealots and the disaffected lashing out violently.

When these events are put against the context of the assassination of a MAGA leader, Charlie Kirk, and last year’s two assassination attempts against Donald Trump himself, the picture is stark — a persistent, if wholly unorganized effort to use violence to frustrate Trump’s policy goals and, in the extreme instance, to end the project entirely by killing him. 

What is to be done? Since none of the violence is directed from above and the perpetrators don’t know each other and have divergent motivations, it’s hard to see how it stops.

It’d certainly help if the Democrats acknowledged the legitimacy of Trump and what he’s trying to do, even if they strenuously oppose him and his policies, but they are never going to cease believing that we are on the cusp of a fascist dystopia.

The legacy media should also acknowledge what we are experiencing.

If a Kamala Harris presidency had been met with attacks against Mark Cuban businesses and arson and shootings at abortion clinics — as well as the ideologically motivated murder of a top Harris supporter — we’d be at a DEFCON 2-type national emergency in terms of the press coverage.

“There’s nothing like getting used to things,” Abraham Lincoln said of the threatening letters he received once he rose to prominence.

But we shouldn’t have to get used to violence as a means of influencing our politics.

X: @RichLowry