Month: August 2024

Any story of the August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan must begin in the earliest days of the Obama administration, when the young president, possessed with an overwhelming mandate to end the endless wars begun by his predecessor, was rolled by members of his own cabinet—most notably Secretary of State Hillary Clinton—and his top military and intelligence advisers, who together prevented the president from doing what he was sent to Washington to do: End the disastrous wars begun under George W. Bush.

Almost alone among Obama’s advisers counseling withdrawal were his vice president, Joe Biden, and Biden’s longtime adviser Tom Donilon, then serving as Obama’s national security adviser. 

Twelve years later, President Biden must have felt some measure of satisfaction that it was he who was able to do that which his two predecessors, Obama and Trump, could or would not, when he ordered the final withdrawal of American troops from that Central Asian wasteland. 

And yet, as with anything involving Biden and his national security team of Keystone Cops, all did not go as planned. 

The decision to withdraw from Afghanistan was and remains a deeply divisive one. While Biden for once showed some measure of political courage in ordering the withdrawal, the execution went badly awry. Tragically, on Aug. 26, 2021, thirteen American soldiers and 170 Afghan civilians were killed in a terrorist attack by the Islamic State–Khorasan Province at the Abbey Gate of Hamid Karzai International Airport.

The reaction to the botched withdrawal from America’s own militants was swift. Clutching his pearls on CBS’s Face the Nation, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham exclaimed, 

We set the conditions for another 9/11. I’ve never been more worried about an attack on our homeland than I am right now. And we did not end this war. President Biden said that he wanted to take Afghanistan off the plate for future presidents. He’s done the exact opposite. For the next 20 years, American presidents will be dealing with this catastrophe in Afghanistan. This war has not ended. We’ve entered into a new deadly chapter. Terrorists are now in charge of Afghanistan.

Needless to say, none of this came about. In point of fact, it was the Taliban, once in power, that ended up taking out the perpetrator of the Abbey Gate attack. And, as an actual military expert, the decorated combat veteran and The American Conservative contributing editor Douglas Macgregor, told TAC this week, 

The sudden, rapid withdrawal from Afghanistan removed the failed American ‘whole of government’ fiasco in Southwest Asia from the national spotlight, but at great cost, revealing the acute lack of professional military competence in the senior ranks of the U.S. Armed Forces.

Criticism of Biden’s decision to withdraw has become a staple of Trump’s stump speeches. Missing from the criticism is the fact that the ceasefire agreement signed under Trump between the U.S. and the Taliban in February 2020 provided the US with a four-month window to withdraw—this would have been true regardless of who was president. Trump often claims that, unlike Biden, he would have kept Bagram airfield. Speaking at a rally in late July, Trump claimed, 

I was getting out. After 21 years you get the hell out, but I would have kept Bagram. It’s one hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons. We gave it to them so stupidly.

Translation: If I were president, we’d still be there. 

His criticism reeks of opportunism. But still more, what it misses is that the entire enterprise was a tragedy—from start to finish—because it was unnecessary. The Taliban did not attack America; Al Qaeda did. Besides al Qaeda, the main movers behind 9/11 were Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Recall that Ahmad Uhmar Sheikh, at the direction of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence director general, General Mahmoud Ahmed, wired $100,000 to 9/11 hijacker Mohomed Atta. Bin Laden was hiding out in Abbottabad, Pakistan, with the connivance of ISI. 

Meantime, a lawsuit brought by 9/11 families in May shows that,

Saudi government officials and agents were acting within the core of their functions for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in coordinating an essential support network for pro-jihadist extremists, including the first-arriving 9/11 hijackers, Nawaf Al Hazmi and Khalid Al Mihdhar.

Still more, over the summer it was reported that a close associate of the aforementioned Nawaf Al Hazmi and Khalid Al Mihdhar, Omar Al-Bayoumi, a Saudi national with purported links to Saudi intelligence, filmed the entrances, exits and security checkpoints of Washington, DC landmarks. The video was kept from the American public for over twenty years.

The tragedy of Afghanistan cannot simply be consigned to the terrible events at Abbey Gate. The tragedy is that there are perpetrators of 9/11 who have never been brought to justice because the U.S. national security apparatus decided, in its wisdom, to pursue a twenty year long sideshow in Afghanistan designed to distract the American public from our actual enemies. Time and again, from October 7, 2001 to this very moment, the government has assiduously worked to divert our eyes from our “Saudi and Pakistani partners” elsewhere: to secular, multi-confessional Syria (2012); to Libya, which posed no threat to us (2011); and most fatefully, to Iraq (2003). And if the foreign policy establishment gets its way, Iran will be next.

The post The Real Tragedy of Afghanistan appeared first on The American Conservative.

American policymakers appear set on war. The only question is against whom. Alas, they apparently believe the more, the merrier. 

Washington continues to aid Ukraine, which is increasingly striking within Russia and recently grabbed Russian territory around Kursk, site of a historic World War II battle. Moscow just launched a flurry of missile and drone strikes on Ukraine. Israel and Hezbollah recently traded blows, and Iran continues to threaten retaliatory attacks on Israel, with American units on station to defend the latter. The U.S. Navy is battling Yemen’s Ansar Allah (the Houthis). In Asia the Pentagon garrisons South Korea, patrols the Asia-Pacific, and threatens China over Taiwan.

This all comes naturally to Americans who grew up in a world in which the United States deployed the world’s most powerful military. Washington’s influence was constrained during the Cold War, but its relative power grew dramatically in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s collapse. National ego took over. “What we say goes,” declared President George H.W. Bush. His successors have acted accordingly, determined to run the world, as President Joe Biden put it. Yet who outside of Washington would commend Uncle Sam for the job that he has done?

The problem is not just ostentatious failure. It is possible disaster. The Russo–Ukrainian war is dangerous enough. Allied policymakers and commentators appear to have concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin is little more than a paper tiger, unwilling to escalate despite Ukrainian strikes on and incursions in Russian territory. Nevertheless, Moscow still appears to be winning, advancing in the Donbas and biding its time before dealing with seemingly isolated Ukrainian troops around Kursk. If Putin comes to believe Russia is losing, he might choose to escalate and risk bringing the U.S. and NATO into the war. 

The danger of conflict with the PRC over Taiwan is even greater. Consider war with a great power that is greatly increasing its military outlays while already possessing significant conventional capabilities, the world’s second-best navy, a formidable missile force, and an expanding nuclear arsenal. Imagine fighting thousands of miles away over territory less than 100 miles off China’s coast. All while U.S. allies could choose to remain neutral rather become permanent enemies of the giant next door. 

From the outside Washington appears to be filled with Sturm und Drang over the great issues facing America. But these policy battles are mostly for show. There is little disagreement over whether U.S. policymakers should run the world. Rather, they fight over who among them should run the world. That’s why Washington launched a proxy war against nuclear-armed Russia in Europe. And why Uncle Sam showered Israel and Saudi Arabia with weapons to kill tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza and Yemen respectively. It’s also why the virtually unanimous view in Washington is that the U.S. should be prepared to go to war with the People’s Republic of China if it attacks Taiwan.

Over the latter there is virtually no debate. Yet consider the consequences. Start with economics. If conflict erupts in Northeast Asia and surrounding waters, regional trade could collapse. If Washington and Beijing targeted each other’s maritime commerce, the conflict would spread worldwide. There would be massive trade, financial, and industrial shocks, the latter intensified by Taiwan’s outsize role in the world’s production of semiconductor chips. Bloomberg Economics figures that a simple blockade would be expensive for all: “For China, the U.S., and the world as a whole, GDP in the first year would be down 8.9%, 3.3% and 5% respectively.” The price tag for a shooting war could run “around $10 trillion, equal to about 10% of global GDP—dwarfing the blow from the war in Ukraine, Covid pandemic and Global Financial Crisis.” 

Lost commerce would pale compared to other costs. Observed the Brookings Institution’s Michael O’Hanlon: “World War III could not be ruled out, and the survival of the human race might even be on the line.” Never has there been a full-scale conflict between two nuclear powers. Although the Soviet Union and U.S. fought “limited” conflicts in Afghanistan, Korea, and Vietnam, and India and Pakistan swatted each other conventionally over Kashmir, it would be foolish to assume that Beijing and Washington could keep a battle over Taiwan similarly restrained.

First, the interest involved, control over Taiwan, is more important for the PRC than the U.S. Even students otherwise critical of the Beijing government for its intrusive censorship, laborious demands, and other oppressive controls insist that the island republic is part of China. One reason is deeply emotional, the belief that reversing Taiwan’s detachment by Japan in 1895 would complete the PRC’s recovery from the “century of humiliation” at the hands of others. Another is security: no country, including the U.S. (remember the Cuban Missile Crisis!) will tolerate its great rival maintaining a military base but a few score miles offshore. For China more than the U.S., failure would not be an option.

Second, Beijing would enjoy a significant geographic advantage, able to use mainland bases for operations against Taiwan and surrounding waters. This would force Washington to target the Chinese homeland, which the PRC would almost certainly see as an escalation requiring a response. The latter could include attacks on U.S. facilities in Guam and the Commonwealth of Mariana Islands, Okinawa and elsewhere in Japan, and even in Hawaii. It would be difficult for Washington not to escalate in return. Perhaps good sense would prevail. Yet the American and Soviet peoples barely avoided catastrophe in the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the U.S. played the role of China today. It would be foolish to tempt fate twice.

Third, the political price of failure in the PRC would be high, likely much higher than in the U.S. Despite Xi Jinping’s dominant position, initiating a failed war would allow his disparate foes to coalesce against him. Thus, he would be more likely to double down and escalate, daring Washington to match, than to retreat. If he fell, his successors probably would rearm and prepare for a rematch, like Germany after World War I, rather than accept the loss and go peacefully into the sunset. Defending Taiwan would require eternal vigilance and permanent militarization of the Asia-Pacific by the U.S.

Such a commitment could not easily be sold to the American public. Whatever the PRC’s ambitions, conquering the U.S. is not one. The issue between Washington and Beijing is domination of the Asia-Pacific, the PRC’s home, not security of the Americas, about which Americans are most concerned.

Taiwan has no direct relationship to this nation’s defense. At most, control over islands close to China would inhibit its naval operations. However, Washington should not go to war today because it might want to go to war in the future. Nor would doing so be worthwhile. The United States Navy War College’s Jonathan D. Caverley dismissed the security justification for war: 

Taiwan is a small, 90-mile-wide island just off China’s vast coast. If it became a fully armed Chinese province, the difference in military power between Beijing and Washington would barely shift. China already possesses formidable space, land, air, sea, and cyber systems designed to detect and destroy U.S. and allied naval and air platforms far from the mainland. It does not need the island to menace the United States. Taiwan would give China a new place to base its systems, but the advantages that come from putting its weapons on the island versus the mainland are marginal.

Caverley also warned that direct American defense of Taiwan “would provide Beijing with the chance to destroy many American ships, planes, and troops in terrain favorable to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The U.S. military would likely come away greatly weakened, even if it ultimately prevailed.” If Washington and Beijing are fated to struggle over global dominance, then the former should look beyond the Taiwan Strait, argued Caverley: “Beijing is better positioned to quickly reconstitute its regional forces, meaning it could press on more easily.” He prefers a strategy of “loading [Taiwan] up with drones, mines, and other relatively inexpensive defensive weapons, turning it into what military planners call a ‘porcupine’ that China would struggle to digest,” with only limited direct support.

Other arguments for war are similarly unpersuasive. Would failing to defend Taiwan ruin U.S. credibility, especially with Washington’s Asian allies? Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea all have defense treaties with the U.S., the purpose of which is to provide a formal legal guarantee. The U.S. formally ended its Taiwan treaty in agreeing to mutual recognition with the PRC. Washington has no obligation to go to war for Taipei, which America’s treaty allies surely understand. 

War would not save the Taiwanese semiconductor chip industry, since the factories would be turned into rubble, either by Chinese or American bombs. The solution to the West’s vulnerability to Taiwan’s stranglehold over the market is spreading production more broadly, the objective of the 2022 CHIPS Act. (The legislation probably will fail to achieve its ends, but is still a better approach than war with China.) There also are humanitarian interests at stake, but they are not sufficient for Americans to risk global and nuclear war. Especially since Washington is ever ready to kill civilians promiscuously, often through authoritarian allies and sometimes directly.

Perhaps the best argument for threatening to battle the PRC over Taiwan is as a bluff to deter the former from attacking the latter. Nevertheless, pretending might make conflict more likely. Such a threat would suggest the existence of the kind of cooperative military relationship that Beijing fears and encourage China to preempt U.S. forces if it decided on war. If Washington did not back up its threats, then its credibility would be badly damaged.

There are no easy answers if the PRC attempts to reclaim Taiwan. In June Donald Trump declared: “Taiwan should pay us for defense. You know, we’re no different than an insurance company.” The Taiwanese certainly should pay for their own defense. The U.S., however, can support Taipei without going to war—selling weapons to the latter now and organizing allied states to isolate the PRC economically if Beijing strikes. Washington should seek to prevent a war, but not enter into one if it starts.

So far there has been little serious debate over pressing issues in the presidential race. Few questions are more important than: For what would the candidates go to war? Taiwan would be a good place to start this conversation.

The post What Price Are Americans Prepared to Pay for Defending Taiwan?  appeared first on The American Conservative.

To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement by Benjamin Nathans, Princeton University Press, 816 pages, August 2024

Professor Benjamin Nathans thinks Soviet-era dissidents don’t get enough respect in modern Russia. A 2013 Levada poll found that fewer than one in five Russians could name “any dissidents from the late Soviet era,” according to Nathans’s new book, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement. The word “late” presumably excludes mid-century dissidents like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, whose works are studied in the standard Russian school curriculum. A Russian textbook from 2023 implies that “so-called dissidents” were tools of the CIA: “The West ‘took good care of them’ … and therefore their activities were closely watched by the organs of state security.”

But what exactly about the Soviet dissident movement should be celebrated? There are two ways a dissident movement can be a success: Either it brings down the regime, or it serves as a remnant preserving noble ideals for a better day, in the meantime offering a moral example and a trenchant critique of the system.

The Soviet dissidents were obviously a failure in the first sense. Nothing they did brought the demise of the Soviet empire closer by a single day. The USSR collapsed from its own economic dysfunction. To the extent that widespread disillusionment played a role, the dissidents did nothing to instigate or even guide it. They were too isolated from the population. One of the themes emphasized by Nathans is that the dissident movement was confined almost entirely to the elite and specifically the intelligentsia. Nearly half of the signatories of one anti-government petition from 1968 were employed in higher education.

The attitude of the Russian man on the street to the dissident movement can be guessed from an exchange quoted by Nathans between Valeria Gerlin, a schoolteacher who lost her job for signing a petition in support of four writers on trial for anti-Soviet agitation, and her school board director. Gerlin said she was exercising her rights as a citizen. Her boss replied:

Who among us never has grievances against Soviet power? It happens with everyone. This person didn’t get an apartment, that person wasn’t paid a bonus, and so on. Everyone has some issue. But what do we do? Well, we come home, we grumble a little in the kitchen, but that’s it. We take our grievance no further than the kitchen. But she—she writes it up!

Interestingly, Gerlin was a child of the Soviet aristocracy. Her father was a high-ranking NKVD official with an apartment on Lubyanka Square. This kind of background pops up frequently in Nathans’s cast of characters. The most prominent female dissident, Larisa Bogoraz, had an uncle in the NKVD and her parents were professors. Other dissidents included the descendants of Litvinov and Sverldlov, as well as lesser known Bolsheviks like the Red Army hero Yona Yakir. 

There are several possible explanations for this genealogical connection. Perhaps the luxury of dissent is only possible for those who enjoy a certain level of privilege. Or perhaps these men and women were simply carrying on the family tradition. Nathans notes that dissidents were “part of a generation that became the first adults in history who were not immigrants to socialism (voluntary or otherwise), but native born, the first indigenous speakers of its language.” They did the same thing their parents and grandparents had done, just to a different regime. Bogoraz made the connection explicit between her prominent communist family and her career as a dissenter: “Public activism was apparently in my blood. There was a feeling of being connected to society, of responsibility for what was happening in society.”

If that is the case, then the dissidents were not opponents of revolutionary communism but its true heirs, literally and figuratively. 

Certainly there was an ideological resemblance. With few exceptions, the dissidents in Nathans’s book were all socialists. None of them criticized the Soviet regime from the position of free-market capitalism. They were very poor analysts of the problems that made the USSR unsustainable, namely its economic pathologies. The rights that most interested them were the free speech rights of the intelligentsia or the freedom to emigrate. They cared far less about the daily humiliations to which ordinary Russians were subject. The populist conservatism of Solzhenitsyn was an outlier; the vast majority of dissidents were typical urban liberals.

The true priorities of the dissident movement can be gleaned from the kinds of activism these individuals pursued after communism fell. The flowering of NGOs that occurred in Russia in the 1990s took direct inspiration from, and involved many of the same people as, the dissident movement. These NGOs focused on liberal issues familiar to their Western counterparts: women’s rights, gay rights, domestic violence, free speech, the rights of criminal defendants, the rights of ethnic minorities and refugees, the right to refuse military conscription. 

Not coincidentally, they drew most of their funding from Western sources, including foundations such as the Ford Foundation and the Open Society Foundation, as well as outgrowths of the U.S. government such as USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy. Here may be a good place to mention that the KGB was, in fact, correct to accuse the Soviet-era dissident movement of having extensive links to the CIA.

Eventually Vladimir Putin cracked down on these NGOs, starting around 2006. His objections were, first, that they received foreign funding and colluded with foreign intelligence services (there was a famous instance when the British embassy’s human rights liaison was caught using a fake stone in a park as a transmitter) and also that these groups used “human rights” as a cover for interfering in politics, usually in alignment with Western priorities. Putin, like his KGB predecessors, saw an uncanny convergence between the foreign policy interests of America and the issues that Moscow liberals pursued, such as opposition to the Chechen war.

Veterans of the NGO movement look back on the 1990s as a golden age, a nostalgia that is extremely revealing. Apparently, if you want to picture a world where the dissident movement came to power, it would look a lot like the Yeltsin era: maximum political and social freedom for urban liberals; maximum economic freedom for international corporations and their Russian oligarch allies; for ordinary Russians, poverty, exploitation, humiliation, and the erosion of national independence. The vast majority of Russians remember the Yeltsin years as a nadir.

The USSR was an ugly regime, so it is tempting to assume that the Russians in opposition to it must have been right. Yet judging from Nathans’ 800-page history, the dissidents were not very acute in their diagnosis of what exactly made the USSR ugly. One can oppose communism and still find little merit in the dissidents’ liberalism, just as one can dislike the Putin government and still find very little merit in the critique of it offered by the performance artists Pussy Riot.

The post When Soviet Dissidents Disappoint appeared first on The American Conservative.

Credit: White House

Pope Francis once again revealed his radical leftist agenda by condemning those who take necessary actions to protect their nations from unchecked migration.

During his General Audience on Wednesday, the Pope labeled the efforts to repel migrants as nothing less than a “grave sin,” aligning himself with the open-border globalists who seek to undermine the sovereignty of nations worldwide.

Pope Francis, who has repeatedly shown disdain for traditional values and the rule of law, urged his followers to embrace migrants without hesitation.

He framed the issue in stark terms, focusing on the hardships faced by migrants, while conveniently ignoring the equally significant struggles faced by the communities overwhelmed by this influx, plus the rise of crime.

The Commie pope said:

I have spoken about the Mediterranean many times, because I am the Bishop of Rome and because it is emblematic: the mare nostrum, a place of communication between peoples and civilizations, has become – the mare nostrum – it has become a cemetery.

And the tragedy is that many, the majority of these deaths, could have been prevented. It must be said clearly: there are those who work systematically and with every means possible to repel migrants – to repel migrants. And this, when done with awareness and responsibility, is a grave sin.

[..]

Some deserts too, unfortunately, are becoming cemeteries of migrants. And even here it is not always a question of “natural” deaths. No. At times, they have been taken to the desert and abandoned. We all know the photograph of the wife and daughter of Pato, who died of hunger and thirst in the desert. In the time of satellites and drones, there are migrant men, women and children that no-one must see: they are hidden. Only God sees them and hears their cry. And this is a cruelty of our civilization.

[…]

Brothers and sisters, we can all agree on one thing: migrants should not be in those seas and in those lethal deserts. But it is not through more restrictive laws, it is not with the militarization of borders, it is not with rejection that we will obtain this result. Instead, we will obtain it by extending safe and legal access routes for migrants, providing refuge for those who free from war, violence, persecution and various disasters; we will obtain it by promoting in every way a global governance of migration based on justice, fraternity and solidarity. And by joining forces to combat human trafficking, to stop the criminal traffickers who mercilessly exploit the misery of others.

The Pope’s remarks are not just an attack on those who advocate for secure borders; they are an affront to the millions of citizens who rely on their governments to maintain order and protect their communities. By branding responsible actions as sinful, Pope Francis is effectively endorsing chaos and lawlessness.

The post Commie Pope Francis Condemns Those Who ‘Repel’ Migrants as a ‘Grave Sin’: Sides with Open-Border Globalists Over Sovereign Nations appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Police Chief Marc Anderson

British police have raided and arrested an 11-year-old child for participating in a spate of recent anti-immigration protests, some of which turned violent.

Local police confirmed the arrest of the child on Thursday as they widen their crackdown against political dissidents and those who participated in the demonstrations.

The Evening Standard reports:

Police have arrested an 11-year-old boy suspected of taking part in riots in the North East earlier this month. The young boy was one of 14 people arrested during a series of raids in Teesside carried out by Cleveland Police in the early hours of Wednesday.

The force has now arrested 110 people following the widespread trouble in Hartlepool and Middlesbrough, which was some of the worst seen in recent history.

Before police officers set out to carry out raids on Wednesday morning, Superintendent Marc Anderson briefed them, saying: “I was Silver Commander on Sunday August 4 and never in my 30 years’ service have I seen anything like that in Middlesbrough.”

“What the community had to put up with that day was completely unacceptable.”

While some protesters likely engaged in criminal activity, the police are under orders from the country’s new left-wing government to come down hard on anyone involved in the recent disorder.

UK Is Lost: 61-Year-Old Retiree Sentenced to 18 Months for Screaming “Who the F*** is Allah?” at Police at Recent Protest

During the summer of 2020, similar violent protests broke out across Britain in response to the death of George Floyd and the global Black Lives Matter movement.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who was then just leader of the opposition, made clear his support for protests and even photographed himself “taking the knee” in support of Marxist uprising.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer takes a knee in support of Black Lives Matter rioters https://t.co/Ys7U9N1pcZ

— Cernovich (@Cernovich) August 6, 2024

Meanwhile, the government and law enforcement are also turning their eye towards censoring or even shutting down social media, after Elon Musk’s X platform was blamed for outbreak of violence because of his support for free speech.

The post BRITISH TYRANNY: Police Raid and Arrest 11-Year-Old Child For Attending Recent Anti-Immigration Protest appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Credit: Vicente Arenas/X

The ongoing crisis at the U.S. southern border, exacerbated by border czar Kamala Harris’s failed leadership, has reached alarming new heights.

A shocking video released by Fox 31 Denver reveals the frightening reality of the situation: armed members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua have taken over yet another apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado, terrorizing the local community.

The Gateway Pundit previously reported that Fitzsimon’s apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado was forced to close its doors, displacing hundreds of families who have called the building home.

The takeover is the direct result of the Biden-Harris regime’s dangerous open borders policies, which have allowed criminals to pour into the country unchecked.

City officials initially claimed that the closure was due to code violations, but residents and local leaders aren’t buying it.

Aurora City Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky is sounding the alarm, pointing to the gang’s violent activities as the real reason behind the closure.

“We are not buying this,” Jurinsky said. “Yes, there are code violations, but this started because of a gang takeover. That’s what we believe.”

Read more:

Hundreds of Families Forced to Vacate From Colorado Apartment Complex After Kamala Harris’s Venezuelan Migrant Gang Members Take Over Building

A newly released video from Fox 31 Denver reporter Vicente Arenas has captured alarming footage of an armed group at another Aurora apartment complex.

Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky has been outspoken about the situation, declaring that gangs have taken over the complex.

“And I repeat… A GANG HAS TAKEN OVER several apartment complexes in Aurora!” Jurinsky wrote on X.

WATCH:

NEW VIDEO armed group at troubled #aurora #colorado apartment complex now home to many migrants. Councilmember @DaniJurinsky says gangs have taken over the complex @KDVR @AuroraPD pic.twitter.com/J1uie8Y2M6

— Vicente Arenas (@vicentearenastv) August 28, 2024

The post Kamala’s Border Failure Strikes Again! — New Terrifying Video Shows ARMED Venezuelan Migrant Gangsters Taking Over Another Apartment Complex in Aurora, Colorado appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

After a week in hiding since being crowned the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, Kamala Harris kicked off a two-day Georgia campaign bus tour with her running mate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D) with a stop at Liberty County High School in Hinesville where she spoke to members of the school band who played the school fight song for her and Walz.

An animated Harris spoke in a word salad about leadership, the future and how much the country was depending on the success of the high school band as she made exaggerated facial expressions and gesticulated with her arms and hands.

Harris was the cool mom to the kids, not very presidential. Walz, who also spoke to the kids, was, of course, the cool teacher and assistant coach.

A video clip of Harris posted by the Trump campaign:

Why is Kamala speaking to these high schoolers as if they’re toddlers? pic.twitter.com/UqxRm05w4Y

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) August 28, 2024

Complete video posted by Forbes Breaking News shows the Trump campaign video clip was not taken out of context Even with her emotional support governor, Harris had a hard time acting presidential:

Kamala Harris: So, you know, I’ve been hearing about you incredible young leaders, for quite some time from the players to those who are bringing joy to everybody in the stands, to the music that you guys are creating. And so we wanted to come by just to let you know that our country is counting on you. All of you.

You are leaders. By the very fact that you all are here in this room, doing what you do at this incredible school, doing it as one big team, understanding all of the different parts that fit together to create a team. You are doing some of the best work anybody can do. And we so proud of you. We will counting on you. Your generation, all that you guys stand for, everything you have at stake, is what is going to propel our country into the next era of what we can do and what we can do.

And I want to say to you that you must always lead as you have chosen to lead. Understand you don’t have to ask anybody’s permission to lead. And I think you all figured that out. You’ve decided to be a leader. And in doing that, you are also role models, right? Welcome to the role model club!

And being a role model, right, means that there are going to be members of your family, people who live in your neighborhood, your classmates who watch you, and say, oh, that’s how it’s done. And in that way, you are showing what hard work can achieve, what discipline can achieve, what teamwork can achieve. And that’s the stuff of great leadership.

All of you, and so we wanted to come by to remind you that our nation is counting on you. We’re so proud of you for everything you have achieved. And I will tell you I was in band when I was your age, so I know a little bit about that, coach knows about the players right, and all that you all are doing it requires a whole lot of rehearsal, a whole lot of practice, long hours, right?

Sometimes you hit the note, sometimes you don’t, right? But all that practice makes for beautiful music and that is a metaphor, that is symbolic for everything that you all will do in your lives. Which is you’re going to show what a winning team looks like. You’re going to show what it means to put yourself out on the field to put yourself in front of people. To have the confidence to do it.

Sometimes you’re gonna hit the step right, sometimes you’re not. Sometimes you’re gonna win the game, sometimes you may not. But you know you never let any circumstance knock you down or slow you down, you just keep going at it.

That’s who you are and that’s why we are so confident in everything that you are doing and will continue to do for our country. So just keep being you and all of the excellence that you’re bringing to every do, okay? All right, see you later.

Transcribed by TGP.

The post The Cringe: Animated Kamala Harris Talks Word Salad to High School Students as She Kicks Off Georgia Campaign Bus Trip With Tim Walz appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Judge Juan Merchan with his daughter Lauren who is a leftwing activist and is using the trial to make money for Democrats.

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan subpoenaed the company Judge Juan Merchan’s daughter.

Juan Merchan is the far-left, conflicted judge who oversaw Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s Stormy Daniels ‘hush money’ trial against President Trump

The judge’s daughter, Loren Merchan, is a far-left political operative who worked for the Biden-Harris campaign.

Loren Merchan’s firm, Authentic Campaigns, Inc., has received tens of millions of dollars from Democrats who want to take down Trump.

According to The New York Post, Loren Merchan helped Democrats raise $93 million off of her father’s case.

Jim Jordan subpoenaed Authentic Campaigns’ CEO Mike Nellis to sit down for a deposition and to sign a sworn affidavit

“If Authentic Campaigns indeed has no responsive records for the other requests made by the Committee on August 1, as you have asserted, the Committee requests a sworn certification under the penalty of perjury that Authentic Campaigns made a reasonable, diligent, and good faith search for responsive documents and was unable to locate any responsive documents,” Jim Jordan wrote in a letter obtained by The Gateway Pundit.

“One such conflict is Ms. Merchan’s—daughter of Judge Merchan and President of Authentic Campaigns—work on behalf of President Trump’s political adversaries and the possible financial benefit that Ms. Merchan and Authentic Campaigns received from the prosecution and conviction of President Trump,” Jim Jordan said.

Jordan said according to media reports, Nellis and Loren Merchan were “closely involved in the presidential campaigns of both President Biden and Vice President Harris.”

“During Ms. Merchan’s employment with the Harris campaign, Authentic Campaigns received over $7 million in compensation for its services. You also worked for then-presidential candidate Harris and it appears you continue to do so. Authentic Campaigns conducted work for the 2020 Biden-Harris campaign and, according to public records, was paid just over $2 million in a one-month period for its work,” Jim Jordan wrote.

Mike Nellis lashed out at Jim Jordan and President Trump in a post on X.

“We have just received a subpoena from Jim Jordan and the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee. This is yet another abuse of power, aimed at promoting a baseless right-wing conspiracy theory that links our company, Authentic, to Donald Trump’s fraud trial. We are thoroughly reviewing the subpoena with our legal team and will provide updates as soon as we have more information,” Mike Nellis wrote.

“Let us be clear: these allegations against our company are completely false and purely politically motivated. This is a blatant attempt to intimidate us and divert attention from Donald Trump’s conviction. We refuse to be bullied, and we will not allow House Republicans or MAGA extremists to spread lies about our work. We remain steadfast in our mission and are deeply grateful for the unwavering support of our friends and family during this time,” Nellis said.

BREAKING: We have just received a subpoena from Jim Jordan and the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee. This is yet another abuse of power, aimed at promoting a baseless right-wing conspiracy theory that links our company, Authentic, to Donald Trump’s fraud trial. We are… pic.twitter.com/WU14P5sLn0

— Mike Nellis (@MikeNellis) August 28, 2024

The post Jim Jordan Subpoenas Political Firm Led by Judge Merchan’s Daughter appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

The Harris campaign is now claiming Kamala does not support an electric vehicle (EV) mandate.

Kamala Harris is currently in office. Her Regime imposed an EV mandate yet the media is helping Kamala Harris by decoupling her from Joe Biden’s failed policies.

Electric vehicles are unpopular, expensive, and bad for the environment but the Biden-Harris Regime went into overdrive to force car companies to produce more EVs while they crack down on gas-powered vehicle tailpipe emissions.

Harris-Biden EPA Administrator Michael Regan last year announced new tailpipe emission standards in an effort to restrict gas-powered vehicles.

Under this plan, Americans will likely be forced to buy electric vehicles, which is exactly what Biden wants.

The new emission standards could force as much as 67% of all new vehicles sales to be electric.

Currently, only 5.8% of vehicles sold in the US are electric, CNBC reported.

The Harris-Biden Regime electric vehicle mandate would require nearly 70 percent of most new car purchases to be electric or hybrid by 2032.

When Kamala Harris was a Democrat Senator (CA) she co-sponsored the Zero-Emissions Vehicle Act of 2019 which requires car manufacturers to sell zero-emission vehicles by 2040.

JD Vance slammed Kamala Harris’s EV mandate on Tuesday during a campaign event so the Harris-Walz team responded by claiming Kamala is against an electric vehicle mandate.

BREAKING: Kamala’s handlers have done another walk back, now claiming that she doesn’t support electric vehicle mandates.

This one is particularly interesting because the government that she is currently working for is trying to convert half of gas cars to electric by 2030. pic.twitter.com/FhfLP8LdV0

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) August 27, 2024

JD Vance again on Wednesday slammed Kamala Harris for her EV mandate after she lied about her stance on Chinese-made electric vehicles.

“If you think groceries are bad, wait until Kamala Harris makes every American trucker drive an electric truck. If you think car prices are bad, wait until Kamala Harris makes everybody buy a Chinese-made electric vehicle. If you think housing prices are bad, wait until Kamala Harris makes it impossible for our truckers to get construction materials to the building site. Kamala Harris’s policies are a DISASTER ladies and gentlemen,” Vance said during a campaign event in Erie, Pennsylvania on Wednesday.

WATCH:

.@JDVance: “If you think groceries are bad, wait until Kamala Harris makes every American trucker drive an electric truck. If you think car prices are bad, wait until Kamala Harris makes everybody buy a Chinese-made electric vehicle. If you think housing prices are bad, wait… pic.twitter.com/fRjSzNiwwJ

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) August 28, 2024

The post Another Flip-Flop: Harris Campaign Now Says Kamala Doesn’t Support an Electric Vehicle Mandate Even Though She Co-Sponsored Legislation that Sought to Ban Sale of Gas-Powered Vehicles appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

French President Emmanuel Macron asked Telegram CEO Pavel Durov to move the company headquarters to Paris back in 2018, an offer he refused.

Fast forward six years and Durov was arrested in France at the behest of the Macron regime.

The revelations were first revealed in a bombshell report from The Wall Street Journal:

According to French prosecutors, Durov is complicit in a variety of criminal activities which include enabling drug trafficking and child pornography for hosting a social media platform.

Note that Mark Zuckerberg is not on the arrest list despite his platforms very public issues with child exploitation.

BREAKING: Telegram CEO Arrested by French Authorities for Refusing to Follow Censorship Laws

However, their real motivation is really about Durov’s refusal to comply with censorship demands aimed at curtaling freedom of speech around the world.

The Associated Press notes:

The first preliminary charge against him was for ‘’complicity in managing an online platform to allow illicit transactions by an organized group,’’ a crime that can lead to sentences of up to 10 years in prison and 500,000 euro fine, the prosecutor’s office said.

Preliminary charges under French law mean magistrates have strong reason to believe a crime was committed but allow more time for further investigation. Prosecutors said that Pavel Durov is, “at this stage, the only person implicated in this case.

They did not exclude the possibility that other people are being investigated, but declined to comment on other possible arrest warrants. Any other arrest warrant would be revealed only if the target of such a warrant is detained and informed of their rights, prosecutors said in a statement to the AP.

President Macron’s specific involvement in Durov’s arrest still remains unclear. Earlier this week, he took to the X platform to falsely claim that the French judiciary was acting with “full independence” and that his government remains “deeply commmitted to freedom of expressiong and communication.”

I have seen false information regarding France following the arrest of Pavel Durov.

France is deeply committed to freedom of expression and communication, to innovation, and to the spirit of entrepreneurship. It will remain so.

In a state governed by the rule of law,…

— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) August 26, 2024

The post MACRON’S REVENGE? Telegram CEO Pavel Durov Declined French President’s Plea to Move Company HQ to Paris – Durov Rejected the Idea and Then Became a Political Prisoner appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.