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Home Front: Politix

Dick Durbin, second-ranked Senate Democrat, says he''s retiring after this term

2025-04-23

[NYPOST] Sen. Dick Durbin
<span class=Inverse>Dick Durbin</span>

...Senator-for-Life from Illinois and Democratic Party Whip. In April 2006, Time magazine identified Durbin as one of America's 10 Best Senators, so what's that tell you? He was the first United States Senator to support the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama, then the junior senator from Illinois...>
(D-Ill.) announced Wednesday that he will not seek re-election in 2026, saying he would ''pass the torch'' to up-and-coming leaders in his party after completing 44 years in Congress.

The no. 2 Democrat in the Senate posted a video message on X explaining his decision to step down after having served five terms — ''longer than anyone elected to the Senate'' in Illinois' history.

''The decision of whether to run for re-election has not been easy. I truly love the job of being a United States senator,'' Durbin said. ''But in my heart, I know it's time to pass the torch.''

Link

Government Corruption

Dick 'Turban' Durbin of Illinois, the Senate's No. 2 Democrat, won't seek reelection to a sixth term in 2026

2025-04-23

[Ay-Peee] Let the dirty festivities commence!

Link

Home Front: Politix

The Man the Deep State Hates: Kash Patel

2025-02-24

[John Kass] Kashyap Pramod Vinod "Kash" Patel placed his hand on the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita and swore his oath to the Constitution of the United States. It was the worst day imaginable for the Deep State in America. And it will get worse for them.

I could almost see the Deep State liar Sen. Adam Schiff’s head trembling with panic, about to explode. And James Clapper’s, and John Brennan’s and all the other Deep State heads. Don’t worry. They’ll explode like eggs left abandoned in a hot pot on the stove. They all will. And like eggs, they’ll smell of sulfur.

They’ve lost control over the federal hammer they’ve used to destroy those who oppose them. They used our sacred Constitution as a weapon. All that’s over now. He’s already defeated the Deep State. They have no shame.

Patel was sworn in at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building last week by his good friend new U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi. He’d been confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the ninth FBI director, succeeding the known liar Christopher Wray. Patel, who is Indian American, is the first person of color to become FBI director which no doubt has the old boys like J. Edgar Hoover rolling in his grave.

"I am living the American dream," Patel said after taking the oath. "And anyone that thinks the American dream is dead, just look right here. You’re talking to a first-generation Indian kid who’s about to lead the law enforcement community of the greatest nation on God’s green earth. That can’t happen anywhere else."

It takes a first generation immigrant to understand what he’s been through. Especially if we’ve come from authoritarian lands. I can understand. My brothers understand. Our father worshiped American liberty and American freedom. And Patel’s father did as well. In no other country could this have happened. Immigrants love America like few others can love her. You need a family steeped in patriotism to teach you. It is a living thing in some of us. We would never hurt America, just as we would never dishonor our family name or our fathers.

When I think of Patel, I think of his parents, running in panic to stay alive in Uganda as savage tribalism eclipsed the rule of law. He tells that story beautifully in a Wall Street Journal op ed. I leave the link in the paragraph below.

"My father fled Idi Amin’s genocidal dictatorship in Uganda," Patel writes. "My mother was born in Tanzania. They married in India and emigrated to New York, where I was born and raised in a bustling household that included my father’s seven siblings, their spouses and six children. My family instilled in me a deep respect for the rule of law and the transformative power of education. These values have shaped the driving force behind my career: protecting the rights enshrined in our Constitution."

The FBI was the world’s best law enforcement agency. I said "was" for a reason. No one believes it is a great institution now. The public trust has been broken. The FBI lost its credibility when it became another tool in Barack Obama’s Deep State tool box. The FBI was corrupted. There were dishonorable and unlawful conspiracies run out of FBI headquarters aimed at the destruction of one man: President Donald J. Trump.

Corrupted FBI officials spied on Americans hoping to put Trump in prison. They lied about it. They lied about targeting Roman Catholics and parents of public school children concerned about what the schools were teaching their kids. They even lied about the series of lies they told the American people to threaten Trump. They lied about the origins of the Deep State lie to protect Hillary Clinton and destroy the Trump administration with the completely fabricated "Russia Collusion" investigation. And so on.

They lied about the Hunter Biden laptop to protect the corrupt Joe Biden administration, the corrupt president and Hunter himself. And so much more.

"Look, I know the media’s in here, and if you have a target, the target’s right here," Patel said Friday as he pointed to himself. "It is not the men and women at the FBI. You have written everything you possibly can about me that’s fake, malicious, slanderous and defamatory. Keep it coming. Bring it on, but leave the men and women of the FBI out of it. They deserve better," Patel told reporters, throwing the gantlet in the media’s face.

Will Patel rebuild the public trust in the now ruined and sodden FBI?

I hope so. America needs a working FBI, not some hollow shell only fit for ridicule. I had good friends who were FBI agents. They loved our country. They were concerned about short-cuts that would undercut American Constitutional liberty. And none wanted to work at headquarters with the silky political cats. They were field agents. It is the field where Patel hopes to ship FBI agents to save them from the rot of FBI headquarters.

How will he rebuild the public trust? He outlined his goals in op eds and commentary that has driven the Deep State insane. He’s written an excellent book "Government Gangsters" chronicling the Deep State. We are both the sons of immigrants. We had to watch our fathers deal with authoritarian rule. And we won’t forget our fathers facing it.

President Trump’s appointments of Kash Patel at FBI and Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence were a master strokes. And former DNI John Ratcliffe now runs the CIA. They are Trump’s Deep State Rat Catchers. Make no mistake. The rats were terrified when Trump was elected, and they are even more terrified now.

Thinking of Patel and the immigrant’s dream I also think of my brother Nicholas, who like Patel is an immigrant’s son, he has traced the Deep State from its origins in the dark shadows and damp alleyways of Turkish politics. He’s been around. He is a retired senior CIA officer, National Security Council member, White House official and U.S. diplomat. And he’s been writing about the Deep State for years.

Nick writes: "This brings us to what is shaping up to be the overriding issue for 2024: aware of the Deep State, will voters finally condemn it as fundamentally un-American? Or will they disregard, or worse, embrace it—and thereby affirmatively consent to their own subjugation? The country is at a crossroads.

But Trump was victorious. And with Patel running the FBI, the Deep State won’t easily escape. Some of the large fat rats were outside the FBI headquarters theatrically stamping their feet like Deep State Rumpelstiltskins. Thanks to an X by the great and incredibly brave columnist Miranda Devine of the New York Post, I noticed the photo of Sen. Dick Durbin, Melon Head Schiff and others having a protest. Only a handful of bitter Deep Statists bothered to show up. As I stared at the photo, I wondered if their heads would explode soon.

Hope so. They deserve it.

Link

Home Front: Politix

Democrats' ‘Ethics' Smears Against Thomas And Alito Are So Embarrassing They Buried Their Own Report

2025-01-08

[Federalist] The Democrats’ entire assault on the court, and especially on Justices Thomas and Alito, has ended in utter defeat.

The Democrat-run Senate Judiciary Committee’s two-year partisan assault on conservative Supreme Court justices, especially Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, on baseless "ethics" allegations ended with a pathetic 93-page Democrat staff report replete with dishonest and false information. It was so bad it was issued the day after Congress left town for the year and right before the Christmas recess.

This entire investigation was never about "ethics" but about trying to undermine the Supreme Court because it is no longer acting like a left-wing super legislature handing down opinions implementing the Democrats’ political agenda.

The Democrats falsely accused Justices Thomas and Alito of violating ethics laws by not disclosing vacations with friends and not recusing from cases because of their spouses’ activities. They are wrong on both counts.

The Democrats have been after Justice Thomas from the moment he was nominated to the Supreme Court, because despite being born a poor black child and serving as Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education and then chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, he is a thoroughly conservative Supreme Court judge. The terms in which they attacked him over the years would amply justify the term racist had anyone but senior level Democrats said those things.

Justices Thomas and Alito complied with the laws, regulations, advice, and Judicial Conference rulings regarding reporting trips with friends. They were not required to report these trips under the personal hospitality exemption outlined in the law, no matter what the leaders of this witch hunt, Democrat Sens. Dick Durbin and Sheldon Whitehouse, claim or wish.

When the Judicial Conference, which was established by law to administer the ethics laws for the federal judiciary, changed its rules in March 2023 and excluded from the personal hospitality exemption trips on private planes and boats, Justice Thomas promptly reported such trips.

In fact, in a humiliating rebuke to Whitehouse’s personal obsession with smearing Thomas, the Judicial Conference sent a letter to Whitehouse dated Jan. 2, 2025, rejecting his outrageous demand that the conference refer Thomas to the Department of Justice for investigation. With this action, the conference agreed that Thomas had done nothing wrong and had complied with the rules. It also found that where there were inadvertent omissions, Justice Thomas filed amended forms, as every justice and judge has done through the years. In other words, the Judicial Conference completely rejected Whitehouse’s frivolous attempt to smear our greatest justice.

RIDICULOUS RECUSAL CLAIMS
The staff report also falsely claims Justices Thomas and Alito violated the federal recusal law by not recusing from Jan. 6, 2021-related cases because of their wives’ activities. But the law only requires recusal if one’s spouse is a party to or lawyer in the case, has a financial interest, or there is a reasonable basis where the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned. None of those factors are present here.

Ginni Thomas had concerns about fraud and irregularities in the 2020 elections. She expressed those concerns to a friend who was serving as White House chief of staff, and she also sent a prewritten form email to state legislators about election integrity concerns. Martha-Ann Alito flew iconic American flags at the Alitos’ home and summer home, including the historic Appeal to Heaven flag, which was created during the Revolutionary War period and has been flown by federal, state, and local governments through the years. But because some protesters carried this flag during the Jan. 6 demonstration, leftist critics claimed, without evidence, that Mrs. Alito was signaling support for the J6 defendants.

A spouse’s opinion or activity is not a basis for a justice to recuse, and it’s sexist to argue otherwise. In fact, that’s what the Democrats and legal ethics experts argued when the shoe was on the other foot.

In a seminal case in 2011, left-wing federal appellate Judge Stephen Reinhardt refused to recuse from a case concerning a challenge to California’s state ban on same-sex marriages, even though his wife’s ACLU chapter (where she was the executive director) had joined two amicus briefs in the court below arguing that the ban was unconstitutional, and she had publicly denounced the ban.

Left-wing legal ethics expert Stephen Gillers filed a brief defending Reinhardt, stating that "a spouse’s views and actions, however passionately held and discharged, are not imputed to her spouse, and Judge Reinhardt is not presumed to be the reservoir and carrier of his wife’s beliefs... No authority requires a judge to recuse based alone on the opinions of his or her spouse; only an ’outmoded conception of the relationship between spouses’ would hold otherwise." In stark contrast to Mrs. Thomas and Alito, who did not comment on any specific case in the court system, Judge Reinhardt’s wife’s group had joined two briefs in the case now before him.

Neither Thomas nor Alito had any reason to recuse from any of these cases based on their spouses’ activities. Moreover, it’s astonishing that the Senate Democrats would criticize justices on recusal issues when Congress is not subject to any recusal laws. They are the only branch in our system not subject to such laws, and Durbin and Whitehouse have repeatedly taken official action to help their spouses’ clients.

AN EMBARRASSING REPORT
More generally, this Democrat staff report is an embarrassment. I served for 10 years as a chief counsel for oversight and investigations for a major congressional committee, managed nearly 200 investigative hearings, and issued several staff reports. Much of the information the staff received in response to letters sent to private citizens had already been reported in the press. The staff report here is based on very little investigative work itself and relies on shoddy work by discredited leftist-funded groups. It is a disgrace to the professionalism of congressional staff and the institution itself.

For example, the staff report cites leftist-funded Fix the Court’s (FTC) absurd claim that Justice Thomas accepted $4.75 million in gifts when that figure has been completely discredited. FTC’s list has scores of trips Justice Thomas never even went on, preposterously values a trip to Indonesia as a $500,000 gift, calculating that Thomas chartered a private yacht for his own personal use, and absurdly values visiting friends at their summer home as a $280,950 gift. This source is a complete dumpster fire of false claims.

This exposes Whitehouse and Durbin as pure hypocrites who don’t care about ethics. President Joe Biden and his family have taken more than 15 vacations at billionaires’ mansions, and he never once reported them on his form. These billionaires are not friends, they are donors, and they vacate their homes while the Bidens are there.

In fact, Joe Biden decided to issue his sweeping and unprecedented pardon to his son, Hunter, while staying at a billionaire’s $34 million mansion on Nantucket Island. Joe Biden also vacationed over Christmas at a mansion in St. Croix Virgin Islands for the eighth time since 2014, and he has never reported these trips on his forms. Whitehouse and Durbin are fine with Biden grifting on billionaire donor homes but are outraged that Justice Thomas visits his friends at their homes and does not disclose it.

The Democrats had no problem with Justice Stephen Breyer taking more than 230 trips paid for by third parties — 63 of these trips outside the United States and 17 of them funded by the Democrat Pritzker family. Never mind that Ruth Bader Ginsburg took more than 157 trips paid for by third parties, 28 of them international. RBG also received a $1 million gift from the Berggruen Institute, which she then secretly distributed to her favored charities.

Fix the Court is its own scandal center. Its CEO Gabe Roth reportedly violated federal law by failing to disclose that he was lobbying Congress on certain issues and was recently exposed for being paid a salary equivalent of 96 percent of FTC’s revenues, while running a deficit of nearly $46,000. Some experts believe this may violate federal law. FTC was also busted for failing to list several trips that liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor failed to disclose. FTC is a sloppy, partisan, noncredible source, but the Democrat staff report relies on its work for its findings.

The staff report cites ProPublica’s dishonest reporting on the justices’ trips, despite ProPublica refusing to include for months in its reporting that similar claims about Thomas’ travel had already been raised in 2011 in a complaint filed by 20 Democrat members of Congress and that the Judicial Conference ruled in 2012 that Thomas had not failed to disclose any necessary information. When ProPublica was forced to write about this ruling, which blew up their entire false narrative that Thomas and Alito had violated the law, these left-wing activists sought to impugn the Democrat and Republican judges on the conference with smears from anonymous sources. This is their standard tactic.

Link

Home Front: Politix

30% of Senate Democrats have voted in favor of an arms embargo to Israel.

2024-11-21

[X] Separately, President Biden all on his own decided to delay shipping 20,000 MK84 bombs to Israel. For details see here.
Senators:

- Martin Heinrich
- Mazie Hirono
- Tim Kaine
- Angus King
- Ed Markey
- Jeff Merkley
- Jon Ossoff
- Bernie Sanders
- Brian Schatz
- Tina Smith
- Elizabeth Warren
- Peter Welch
- Dick Durbin
- Chris Van Hollen
- Jeanne Shaheen
- Ben Ray Luján
- Raphael Warnock
- Chris Murphy

Senate motions blocking arms sales to Israel fail, but pick up Democrat support

[IsraelTimes] Most Democrats reject Bernie Sanders-led resolutions, though size of faction opposed to Israel’s handling of Gaza war up markedly since January vote, underscoring internal divide

Roughly a third of Senate Democrats
...every time you hear the phrase white people, white supremacy, white anything but paint, you're listening to a Democrat. Ask him/her/it to reimagine something for you; they do that a lot, though not well. They can hear a dog whistle a mile or two away. They invented the spoils system and Tammany Hall, and inspired the addition of the word (Thomas) Nasty to the English language. They want to stop continental drift and repeal the law of unintended side effects...
voted in favor of three failed bids to block the sale of offensive weapons to Israel in measures that tested the strength of the party’s progressive wing, which has pushed for a harder line against the Jewish state over its prosecution of the war against Hamas
Hamas

..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
Eighteen Democrats voted in favor of blocking the transfer of the $774 sale of tank rounds, 19 Democrats sought to block the $61 million sale of mortar rounds and 17 Democrats tried to stop the $262 sale of joint direct attack munitions (JDAMs).

Every Republican senator present and a majority of the 51-member Democratic caucus rejected all three Joint Resolutions of Disapproval led by progressive Senator Bernie Sanders

...The ~~only~~ first openly Socialist member of the U.S. Senate. Sanders was Representative-for-Life from Vermont until moving to the Senate for the rest of his life in 2006, assuming the seat vacated by Jim Jeffords. He ran for the 2016 nomination for president, to be cheated out of it by Hillary Clinton, then went back to being an Independent socialist, waiting for 2020 to roll around...
, which were known ahead of time to be dead-on-arrival due to bipartisan support for Israel’s offensive against Hamas.

However,
a person who gets all wrapped up in himself makes a mighty small package...
the vote underscored increasing discomfort among Democrats with the IDF campaign in the Strip and the division it has opened up in the party.

A Sanders-backed resolution in January to freeze US aid to Israel if the State Department didn’t produce a report within 30 days on alleged human rights
...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless...
violations by Israel in the Gaza Strip won only 10 Democratic votes, though some senators may have been voting with November’s election in mind.

The Wednesday night votes are unlikely to fully satisfy either side of the debate within the Democratic Party, as more traditionally pro-Israel members maintained their majority, though progressives added several notable members.

Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia, who built relationships with several Israeli politicians during his first term before growing increasingly disillusioned by the Gaza humanitarian crisis, voted to block the sales of tank and mortar rounds. The No. 2 Democrat in the Senate Dick Durbin
...Senator-for-Life from Illinois and Democratic Party Whip. In April 2006, Time magazine identified Durbin as one of America's 10 Best Senators, so what's that tell you? He was the first United States Senator to support the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama, then the junior senator from Illinois...>
and the incoming Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Jeanne Shaheen voted against all three arms deals.

Other Democrats who voted in favor of one or more of the resolutions were Senators Martin Heinrich, George Helmy, Mazie Hirono, Tim Kaine, Angus King, Ben Ray Lujan, Ed Markey
...U.S. Representative-for-Life from Massachusetts, serving since 1976. He is a member of the Democratic Party, naturally....
, Jeff Merkley, Chris Murphy (D., Conn)
...Junior senator for life from Connecticutt, foreign policy mastermind, a fast friend and a sympathetic ear to mullahs, ayatollahs, and similar riff-raff. The indigestable boilerplate on his website sez he has has dedicated his career to public service as an advocate for Connecticut families, which means approximately nothing except that he's never held an honest job. He's been a strong voice in the Senate fighting for job creation, affordable health care, education, sensible gun laws, and a forward-looking foreign policy. You can guess what that mess actually means, though the voters of Connecticutt seemingly can't...
, Brian Schatz, Tina Smith, Chris Van Hollen, Raphael Warnock, Elizabeth Being Native American has been part of my story since the day I was born Warren
...The Great White Squaw, Lizzie is the Dem Senatrix from Massachussetts. She traces her noble lineage all the way back to Big Chief Spouting Bull. She has high cheekbones that stretch all the way to the top of her head. It has been alleged that she speaks with forked tongue but she denies that. She had a DNA test to prove her lineage and it turns out she's colorless...
and Peter Welch.

One Democrat, Wisconsin’s Senator Tammy Baldwin, voted present on all three votes.

The Haaretz daily reported that the resolutions’ supporters were looking to secure 25 votes, while opponents were hoping to hold the progressive camp to 10 to 15 votes.

In a speech ahead of the voting, Sanders detailed the spiraling humanitarian crisis in Gaza, highlighting the tens of thousands of civilian deaths and the increasingly dire conditions of those in Gaza. He cited testimony from the UN and aid organizations claiming that Israel is blocking humanitarian aid

from reaching civilians. Israel says it takes steps to avoid harming civilians, while Hamas fights among them, and it has rejected assertions that it is blocking aid to Paleostinians.

The Biden administration lobbied Democrats against supporting the measure, US officials revealed to The Times of Israel on Tuesday, arguing that withholding such weapons from Israel would embolden Israel’s adversaries, that it would not address the humanitarian crisis and robs Israel of what it needs to defend itself.

In a list of 11 talking points sent to Democratic senators, it said, among other things, that providing military equipment to Israel is an investment in Israel’s long-term security, as it faces threats from Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate ~~Jews~~ ~~Zionists~~ Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
and elsewhere, and that the administration is "working constantly" to improve conditions in Gaza.

Link

-Great Cultural Revolution

Schumer forced to pull vote on judicial nominee

2024-06-19

[Hill via MSN] Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday pulled a planned vote on Mustafa Kasubhai’s

…born in LA, the child of Moslem Indian immigrants. He has a lot of firsts on his resumé…

nomination to be a district court judge in Oregon.

Republicans had lined up in opposition to Kasubhai’s nomination, and Democratic absences forced Schumer’s hand. Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) and Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) were all absent Tuesday, with Menendez having been absent for weeks due to his trial in New York.

The Democratic leader is expected to try to get Kasubhai’s nomination across the finish line when they have full attendance.
Bob might be out for a while
Democrats need all hands on deck because Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) has said he will not vote for any nominee that does not have bipartisan support. That means they need all 50 remaining Democrats or Independents who vote with Democrats to be present.

Kasubhai has garnered intense opposition among Republicans, who are hoping to tank his nomination. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) panned Schumer on Monday, saying that instead of using floor time on the annual National Defense Authorization Act, he "will dedicate floor time this week to the latest in the Biden administration’s parade of unfit nominations to the federal bench."

"Judge Kasubhai’s record and judicial philosophy put him well outside the mainstream," McConnell said.
Well, at least he's not a committed Marxist
The Republican leader also labeled him a "committed Marxist" who is more interested in "passing fads of woke politics" than following the law.
Oh

Link

-Great Cultural Revolution

Police Website Reveals CDC Suppressing Defensive Gun Use Data

2024-04-23

[TTAG] Moved to Tuesday
According to a report from Law Enforcement Today, recent revelations have exposed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for allegedly suppressing data on defensive gun use (DGU). This action has ignited debates over the transparency and potential politicization of the agency’s research on gun policy and public health.

The CDC, which studies various factors contributing to injury and mortality including firearm incidents, has been criticized for omitting defensive gun use statistics from its public communications. Despite commissioning a study from The National Academies’ Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, which recognized DGUs as a “common occurrence,” the CDC chose to exclude these statistics following pressure from gun-control advocates.

Documents obtained via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests revealed that individuals such as Mark Bryant of the Gun Violence Archive, Devin Hughes of GVPedia, and Po Murray engaged with top CDC officials. They were introduced by the White House and Senator Dick Durbin’s office and pressed the CDC to downplay DGU frequencies, which range from estimates of 60,000 to 2.5 million annually in the U.S.

Mark Bryant was particularly outspoken, vehemently opposing the highest estimates of DGU. He was quoted in correspondence saying, “that statistic needs to be killed, buried, dug up, killed again and buried again. It is highly misleading, used out of context, and holds zero value even as an outlier in honest discussions surrounding DGUs.”

Despite initial reluctance, the CDC ultimately removed references to DGUs from its publications, a move that has been perceived as aligning the agency more with gun-control advocacy groups than with unbiased scientific inquiry. This has raised concerns about the CDC’s commitment to providing comprehensive and unbiased data.

Gary Kleck, professor emeritus at Florida State University’s College of Criminology and Criminal Justice and a long-time researcher of DGUs, criticized the CDC’s actions, suggesting they indicate the agency is a tool of gun-control advocates rather than a neutral body. Kleck, whose research supports at least 760,000 DGUs annually, emphasized the importance of rigorous methodology and empirical evidence in academic research.

Link

Government Corruption

Durbin, Marshall Weaponizing the Government to Help Mega-Stores

2024-03-21

[Breitbart] It’s a tale all too common in small towns across America. Small businesses once thrived on Main Street only to see giant corporate mega-stores blow into town to undercut them. Now, a new threat looms for small businesses in the form of the Durbin-Marshall credit card bill.
The Mega-Stores, they continue to struggle.
The bill is poised to alter the credit card routing system as we know it under the guise that it would "create competition" and financially benefit small businesses, community banks, and consumers. But the facts reveal just the opposite.

While Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Roger Marshall (R-KS)’s mega-store allies would stand to gain billions, recent findings from the University of Miami paint a more bleak picture for mom and pop retailers. While the top 100 largest stores could see a benefit of nearly $3 billion, with $1.2 billion going to the top five largest retailers alone —Walmart, Amazon, Costco, Kroger and Home Depot — businesses with less than $500 million in revenue would see little or any benefit.

Despite promises of benefits, the report also found that small businesses would likely lose out on their own rewards, as small business operators receive roughly $12 billion in credit card rewards when they make purchases on credit themselves. The bill jeopardizes credit card rewards programs, essential for both businesses and consumers. By increasing costs and threatening the viability of heavily relied-on programs — such as cash back, airline points, and credit card rewards — already struggling Americans would feel an even tighter financial strain.

Many industries and groups now see this bill for what it is — harmful to consumers, to our economy, and to our communities. These individuals are trying to speak out against the legislation, only to face further threats and harm.

Link

Home Front: Politix

Durbin: The Border Is ‘Overwhelmed' But We Can't Keep President from Allowing People in Unilaterally

2023-12-01

[Breitbart] On Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s "Andrea Mitchell Reports," Senate Majority Whip Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) acknowledged that "we have to have a new process at the border, which brings order to the situation, which has been overwhelmed by the numbers of refugees from all over the world." But denounced eliminating the president’s parole authority to unilaterally allow people to enter the country.
Proof positive Mr. Biden may soon be looking up at a Greyhound exhaust assembly?

Link

Home Front: Politix

U.S. Senator Dick Durbin has become the first Senator to voice support for a ceasefire in Gaza

2023-11-03

[PUBLISH.TWITTER]

U.S. Senator Dick Durbin has become the first Senator to voice support for a ceasefire in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/sLDb2SdA1C
— Clash Report (@clashreport) November 2, 2023

Link

Government Corruption

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts's wife could face ethics inquiry

2023-02-01

[Washington Examiner] Jane Sullivan Roberts, the wife of Chief Justice John Roberts, could face an ethics inquiry by the Justice Department.

A former colleague of Jane Roberts is asking for an inquiry after claiming that the chief justice's wife had been paid millions in commissions to place lawyers at firms — some of which have business before the Supreme Court, according to a letter obtained by the New York Times.

Jane Roberts had given up her career as a law firm partner to become a high-end legal recruiter to avoid conflicts of interest after her husband joined the Supreme Court.

The colleague, Kendal Price, 66, a lawyer in Boston, argued that justices should be required to disclose more information relating to their spouses' work. While he did not cite any specific Supreme Court decisions, he expressed concern that having a financial relationship with law firms that argue before the court could affect or appear to affect the justices' impartiality.

"I do believe that litigants in U.S. courts, and especially the Supreme Court, deserve to know if their judges’ households are receiving six-figure payments from the law firms," Price wrote.

Price and Jane Roberts previously worked as legal recruiters for Major, Lindsey & Africa, a global firm based in Maryland. Price was fired in 2013 and sued the firm, Jane Roberts, and another executive over his dismissal, per the New York Times.
So he's a bitter asshole. No fan of Roberts, but I don't see his legal case
He lost the case, but documents from the case show commissions to Jane Roberts between 2007 to 2014. Six-figure fees are credited to Jane Roberts for placing law partners at firms, including $690,000 in 2012 from one match.

Jane Roberts, who now works at Macrae out of Washington, D.C., previously said that she handled conflicts on a case-by-case basis, taking care to avoid matters with any connections to the chief justice's work and refraining from working with lawyers that had active Supreme Court cases.

Patricia McCabe, spokeswoman for the Supreme Court, said in a statement to the New York Times that all justices were "attentive to ethical constraints" and complied with financial disclosure laws.

McCabe said the chief justice and his wife consulted the code of conduct for federal judges and an advisory opinion from 2009. The opinion said a judge "need not recuse merely because" their spouse had worked as a recruiter for a law firm with issues before the court.

In annual disclosures, Chief Justice Roberts listed his wife's employers but not her clients or earnings. He provided a brief description of "attorney search consultants — salary." However, in his letter, Price wrote that this description can be misleading because salaries are "guaranteed and steady" but commissions "depend on cultivating and capitalizing on relationships in order to consummate particular deals."

Chief Justice Roberts has never recused himself from a case during his time on the Supreme Court.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement that Price's letter raised "troubling issues that once again demonstrate the need" for ethics reforms to "begin the process of restoring faith in the Supreme Court."

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-Great Cultural Revolution

Emails Show CDC Removed Defensive Gun Use Stats After Gun-Control Advocates Pressured Officials in Private Meeting

2022-12-15

[TheReload] The Center For Disease Control (CDC) deleted a reference to a study it commissioned after a group of gun-control advocates complained it made passing new restrictions more difficult.

The lobbying campaign spanned months and culminated with a private meeting between CDC officials and three advocates last summer, a collection of emails obtained by The Reload show. Introductions from the White House and Senator Dick Durbin’s (D., Ill.) office helped the advocates reach top officials at the agency after their initial attempt to reach out went unanswered. The advocates focused their complaints on the CDC’s description of its review of studies that estimated defensive gun uses (DGU) happen between 60,000 and 2.5 million times per year in the United States–attacking criminologist Gary Kleck’s work establishing the top end of the range.

“[T]hat 2.5 Million number needs to be killed, buried, dug up, killed again and buried again,” Mark Bryant, one of the attendees, wrote to CDC officials after their meeting. “It is highly misleading, is used out of context and I honestly believe it has zero value – even as an outlier point in honest DGU discussions.”

Bryant, who runs the Gun Violence Archive (GVA), argued Kleck’s estimate has been damaging to the political prospects of passing new gun restrictions and should be eliminated from the CDC’s website.

“And while that very small study by Gary Kleck has been debunked repeatedly by everyone from all sides of this issue [even Kleck] it still remains canon by gun rights folks and their supporting politicians and is used as a blunt instrument against gun safety regulations every time there is a state or federal level hearing,” he wrote in the same email. “Put simply, in the time that study has been published as ‘a CDC Study’ gun violence prevention policy has ground to a halt, in no small part because of the misinformation that small study provided.”

Despite initially standing behind the description in the defensive gun use section of its “fast facts” website on gun violence, the CDC backtracked after a previously-undisclosed virtual meeting with the advocates on September 15th, 2021.

“We are planning to update the fact sheet in early 2022 after the release of some new data,” Beth Reimels, Associate Director for Policy, Partnerships, and Strategic Communication at the CDC’s Division of Violence Prevention, said in one email to the three advocates on December 10th. “We will also make some edits to the content we discussed that I think will address the concerns you and other partners have raised.”

The CDC did not respond to a request for comment on the decision, but none of the emails the agency released related to it did not show any attempts to obtain other outside points of view either before or after the meeting with the gun-control advocates. Hannah Bristol of the White House Office of Public Engagement did not respond to a request for comment on her role in the discussions beyond what the emails reveal. Emily Hampsten, Senator Durbin’s Communications Director, told The Reload their office’s only involvement was “simply connecting” “stakeholder organizations” with a federal agency as part of the “basic function of our work.”

The decision to remove a CDC-commissioned report from the agency’s website on gun statistics at the apparent behest of gun-control advocates may further strain its relationship with Congressional overseers, especially pro-gun Republicans who are set to take control of the House next year. The relationship between the two, already frayed over the Coronavirus pandemic, could reach new lows not seen in decades. During the 1990s, Congress put restrictions on CDC funding in response to officials openly working with gun-control groups to try and ban handguns.

“We need to revolutionize the way we look at guns, like what we did with cigarettes,” Mark Rosenberg, director of the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention, told The Washington Post in 1994. “It used to be that smoking was a glamour symbol–cool, sexy, macho. Now it is dirty, deadly–and banned.”

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