Reader’s Links for June 30th, 2023

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Each day at just after midnight Eastern, a post like this one is created for contributors and readers of this site to upload news links and video links on the issues that concern this site. Most notably, Islam and its effects on Classical Civilization, and various forms of leftism from Soviet era communism, to postmodernism and all the flavours of galloping statism and totalitarianism such as Nazism and Fascism which are increasingly snuffing out the classical liberalism which created our near, miraculous civilization the West has been building since the time of Socrates.

This document was written around the time this site was created, for those who wish to understand what this site is about. And while our understanding of the world and events has grown since then, the basic ideas remain sound and true to the purpose.

So please post all links, thoughts and ideas that you feel will benefit the readers of this site to the comments under this post each day. And thank you all for your contributions.

This is the new Samizdat. We must use it while we can.

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

43 Replies to “Reader’s Links for June 30th, 2023”

  1. I have wondered for a long time if geoengineering is a conspiracy theory. Yes, I know cloud seeding is old tech, but mass-scale tinkering of weather is another matter, and I don’t know the state of this art. These forest fires are unnerving and unprecedented. I have always taken comfort that we here always get rain when we really need it because we have more evaporating fresh water than any other place in the world. If the Great Lakes aren’t enough for this there are limitless lakes and rivers in Ontario fueling rainfall. Now, it seems, the smoke has reached Europe. Chicago is seeing the effects, too. People are wondering if it isn’t just wood smoke they are breathing, but dangerous chemicals. Why did the Ontario and Quebec fires blossom all at once? Where is the reliable rain? Conspiracy theories abound because, like every other situation short on reliable data points, people are forced to speculate. They cannot be blamed for this. In fact it is human nature, and when governments suppress information and control media it only takes the speculators further to the fringes.

    From economics to weather, no complex system can be centrally planned without unintended consequences. Man can play God but not be God. This is the bane of our current existence on many fronts.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/eu-warns-against-potential-unintended-consequences-geoengineering

    USA Watchdog roundup includes a segment on the fires:
    https://usawatchdog.com/fake-trump-recording-bidenomics-tanking-smoke-poison/

    A previous USA Watchdog with Dane Wigington on climate engineering. I disregarded this fellow, but who knows now?

    https://usawatchdog.com/climate-engineering-must-stop-or-humanity-is-finished-dane-wigington/

    • Exactly. And when the government lies about, well everything with the purpose of doing damage to its own people, then there isn’t much else do but speculate.

      And then we get new problems.

      People damage themselves by circulating new lies. Either by accepting government narratives posing as counter-narratives or hucksters making money off of lies about events posing as counter-narratives or people simply not understanding a real event and inventing one that seems potentially more likely than reality and injecting that into the pop culture and then we all take the damage as if it was a government lie.

      At the risk of inciting the famous Chinese agitator, Hu Flung Pu, I’ll take 911 as an example.

      It would be normal for a building to collapse if all the support systems under it collapsed first like building 7 at the WTC. No surprise there at all. But as no aircraft hit it, people then say that all buildings were taken down by controlled demo by the government itself. No reason given that I am aware of.

      People have done the same about the 1969 moon landing. The irony there was they did indeed have the tech to send ballistic missiles to the Moon and back at that time. What they most certainly did not have, was the technology to fake it. Watch the highest budget Hollywood films from 1969 and compare the effects to the television broadcast of the landing.

      Also, and this I recommend because it is also really good family friendly fun, watch the Australian movie, The Dish. This is a movie version of a factual event. That the actual landing itself, because the time was moved, had to be captured and rebroadcast from the only radio telescope in the Southern hemisphere at the time in a sheep paddock in Australia.

      The tendency is to want to accept a source as true, then rebroadcast and take on that information as your own truth. At the end of the day what people have to learn to do is to understand how reason works and logical fallacies and apply it all the time.

      It is possible that most people cannot do this. It is also possible none of us can as so much truth is counter-intuitive, which is why we have specialists. And we cannot learn every specialty enough to make all the decisions for ourselves.

      I think our enemies count on this so they captured the regulatory bodies of specialties like medicine and law.

      Which brings me back to Jane Scharf and how she is coaching people to self represent in court and getting win, after win, after win.

    • Solar Radiation Management (SRM) introduces reflective nanoparticles into the upper atmosphere to reflect some sunlight before it reaches the surface of the Earth. Sulphur dioxide, aluminum and barium are some of the likely ingredients used in SRM. Persistence lasting contrails remain in our skies for hours, slowly dissipating and creating a false cloud ceiling.
      What effect will these particles have on the air we breathe, the water we drink and the Earth itself?

      The results of SRM are unknown. It is an EXPERIMENT.

      Geoengineering scientists admit they do not know how SRM will affect our environment, but they do acknowledge it will be messy. The treatment may well be worse than the disease ( where have I heard that before). They don’t know, they don’t know, they don’t know.

      Oxford University has determined the following principles as regards to geoengineering:
      1. Geoengineering to be regulated as a public good.
      2. Public participation in GE decision making
      3. Disclosure of GE research and open publication of results
      4. Independent assessment of results
      5. GOVERNANCE before deployment

      None of the above principles have been applied, yet exactly what the GE scientists propose evidently happening in our skies. Citizens of Canada have not given their CONFORMED CONSENT.

      The past winter has been the darkest in 80 years, SRM will continue to remove direct sunlight which is required for life on Earth. Covid showed the high numbers of people lacking vitamin D, darkening the skies will help more people to get sick, is hat the final goal, methinks so.

  7. Quite possible they are taking leaf out of religion of peace, creating jihad against their own population fires. As it seems well accepted that there is red green alliance/ mutual goals.

  13. LEAK: Jack Smith Preparing to Hit Trump with 45 More Charges as ‘Back-Up Plan’ in Classified Documents Case
    By Cristina Laila Jun. 30, 2023 12:15 pm110 Comments

    Another day, another leak.

    Jack Smith is reportedly preparing to hit President Trump with 45 additional charges as a ‘backup plan’ should Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, delay or thwart the classified documents case currently in the Southern District of Florida.

    The additional charges are expected “in the coming weeks,” The Independent reported.

    President Trump was recently indicted on 37 federal counts in a Florida court in Jack Smith’s classified documents case.

    According to the latest leak, the special counsel’s prosecutors are preparing a “superseding indictment” – a separate set of charges against Trump in the Southern District of Florida.

    Jack Smith’s prosecutors may also bring additional charges against Trump in a different venue if they feel Judge Aileen Cannon is being too fair to Trump.

    This is the same theory that corrupt prosecutor Andrew Weissmann recently floated.

    Trump was charged with 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information and 6 other process crimes stemming from his conversations with his lawyer.

    Jack Smith however did not charge Trump with dissemination of the national defense information related to documents stored at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club.

    According to the indictment reviewed by this reporter, In July 2021, at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, NJ, during an audio-recorded meeting with a reporter and two staffers, Trump “showed and described a “plan of attack” that Trump said was prepared for him by the DoD and a senior military official.”

    The Florida indictment did not include a charge for the so-called ‘Iran memo’ – so Jack Smith can hit Trump with charges in another venue outside of Florida.

    The Independent reported:

    The Department of Justice is prepared to seek indictments against multiple figures in former president Donald Trump’s orbit and may yet bring additional charges against the ex-president in the coming weeks, The Independent has learned.

    According to sources familiar with the matter, the department has made preparations to bring what is known as a “superseding indictment” — a second set of charges against an already-indicted defendant that could include more serious crimes — against the ex-president in the Southern District of Florida.

    But prosecutors may also choose to bring additional charges against Mr Trump in a different venue, depending on how they feel the case they have brought against him in is proceeding.

    The Independent understands that prosecutors’ decision on whether to seek additional charges from a grand jury — and where to seek them — will depend in part on whether they feel the Trump-appointed district judge overseeing the case against him in the Southern District of Florida, Aileen Cannon, is giving undue deference to the twice-impeached, now twice-indicted former president.

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/leak-jack-smith-preparing-hit-trump-45-more/

  14. Brazilian President Lula Who Was Backed by Biden and the CIA Announces He Is Proud to Be Called a Communist and Socialist (VIDEO)

    In 2022 the Biden regime and Deep State worked to overthrow popular populist President Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and make way for the communist Lula to return to office.

    They started their preparations in 2021 when Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan warned Brazil’s President Bolsonaro not to mess with voting machines in the upcoming election.

    There is no paper trail in Brazil’s elections, only voting machines. Jair Bolsonaro saw millions of supporters come out to his rallies. Lula, the communist felon, could not match Bolsonaro’s popularity. But in a twist of fate, Lula won on election day. Amazing! Where have we seen this before?

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/brazilian-president-lula-who-was-backed-biden-cia/

  15. Supreme Court Trolls Nancy Pelosi in Decision Striking Down Biden’s $400 Billion Student Loan Scheme – Conservatives Respond with Glee (VIDEO)
    By Cullen Linebarger Jun. 30, 2023 11:27 am128 Comments

    The Supreme Court on Friday struck down Joe Biden’s student loan scheme, ruling that he overstepped his authority. The decision was 6-3 with Roberts writing for the majority.

    As Cristina Laila previously reported, Biden canceled over $400 billion in student loans which turns out to be up to $10,000 in student debt for borrowers who earn $125,000 a year or less and up to $20,000 for recipients of Pell Grants.

    Six Republican state attorneys general sued Joe Biden and argued the student loan bailout violates the separation of powers. Separately, two borrowers who did not qualify for Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan sued to stop the program.

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/supreme-court-trolls-nancy-pelosi-decision-striking-down/

  16. Just In: Dirty Jack Smith and Biden’s DOJ Is Set to Indict Rudy Giuliani and Fellow Trump Attorneys for Questioning Stolen 2020 Election
    By Jim Hoft Jun. 30, 2023 10:16 am546 Comments

    Just as more and more criminal conduct is revealed against Joe Biden and the Biden Crime Family, including likely treasonous acts, the DOJ springs into action and leaks that they are going to indict Trump’s attorneys and add more bogus charges against President Trump.

    You are witnessing the final stages of a once great nation.

    The government is now openly working with Democrats to indict, smear, bankrupt, and imprison their political opposition – Donald Trump, his supporters, and his attorneys.

    Now Merrick Garland’s DOJ is set to indict Rudy Giuliani and fellow Trump attorneys who questioned the fraudulent election and sought to delay the certification in Congress.

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/just-dirty-jack-smith-bidens-doj-is-set/

  17. JUST IN: Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Christian Web Designer Who Doesn’t Want to Make LGBTQ Wedding Sites
    By Cristina Laila Jun. 30, 2023 9:30 am443 Comments

    The US Supreme Court on Friday ruled in favor of a Colorado-based Christian web designer who doesn’t want to make LGBTQ wedding sites.

    The high court ruled 6-3 in favor of Lorie Smith, a graphic artist who doesn’t want to design wedding sites for same-sex couples.

    The conservative justices argued the web designer has freedom of speech to choose which websites she designs during oral arguments last year.

    On Friday, the conservative majority ruled in favor of the web designer.

    “The First Amendment envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the court’s six conservative justices.

    Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented: “Today, the Court, for the first time in its history, grants a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class.”

    “Today, the Court, for the first time in its history, grants a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class,” Sotomayor wrote, AP reported.

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/just-supreme-court-rules-favor-christian-web-designer/

  18. Delivery Driver Shoved Off Bike to Make Way for Biden’s Motorcade (Video)
    By Anthony Scott Jun. 30, 2023 9:15 am277 Comments

    Joe Biden on Thursday caused a commotion as his motorcade unexpectedly traveled through New York City.

    As the large motorcade came through the busy streets of the Big Apple many New Yorkers were wondering what was happening considering they weren’t given a heads-up.

    One delivery driver especially wished he was warned.

    A video published by journalist Ian Miles Cheong shows a delivery driver being pushed by a police officer in order to make way for Biden’s motorcade.

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/delivery-driver-shoved-bike-make-way-bidens-motorcade/

  19. THOUGHTCRIME: Michigan May Imprison Residents for Years for “Misgendering” or “Threatening” LGBTQ Individuals Under New “Hate Speech” Bill
    By Cullen Linebarger Jun. 30, 2023 9:00 am553 CommentsCalling Dylan Mulvaney a man could soon land you in prison if you are a resident in Democrat-controlled Michigan.

    As reported by the Daily Mail, the Democrat-controlled Michigan House of Representatives passed a so-called “hate speech” bill, known as HB 4474, which introduces criminal penalties for causing someone to ‘feel terrorized, frightened, or threatened,’ with ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity or expression’ included as protected classes.

    Intimidate means a willful course of conduct involving repeated or continuing harassment of another individual that would cause a reasonable individual to feel terrorized, frightened, or threatened, and that actually causes the victim to feel terrorized, frightened, or threatened.

    People in violation of this proposed law face five years in prison. A $10,000 fine is also possible.

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/thoughtcrime-michigan-may-imprison-residents-years-misgendering-threatening/

  20. “It Borders on Treason – We Believe This President Is Compromised” – Rep Comer on Joe Biden’s Criminal Deals with China (VIDEO)
    By Jim Hoft Jun. 30, 2023 7:45 am386 Comments

    House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) joined Rob Schmitt on Newsmax TV on Thursday night.

    Comer discussed the latest criminal conduct by the Biden Crime Family. On entering office, Joe Biden immediately ended the China Initiative that prevented China from stealing research from US universities.

    James Comer: The thing that stands out in my mind is one of the first acts Joe Biden made as President of the United States is he canceled a thing called the China Initiative. And what that was, was the FBI had had this investigation ongoing since the Obama administration at the request of university presidents all over America, who were complaining that these Chinese students who were coming to the United States legally, who were paying full tuition but they were stealing our intellectual property, stealing our research and development and sending it back to China… The only person that benefited from that, the only country, would be the Chinese Communist Party, because this is their way of not having to invest in research and development…

    …So one of the things and you’re going to hear someone in a deposition talk about this very soon that the bidens agreed to accept money from China for was to help them invest in the United States. Invest in? The energy industry. Invest in manufacturing farmland. Invest in anything that they could get their hands on because they had so much money and there were so many barriers to entry. So Joe Biden, when he was in the private sector, along with his son, and this is the CEFC, which was the big guy, this was the 10% for the big guy. Their company was all about helping China take over the United States in as many investment deals as possible because the United States had barriers to entry. These are the things the Bidens were doing in exchange for the money they were taking from the Chinese Communist Party…

    …Fortunately for the American people with respect to Tony Bobulinsky, very soon Tony Babalinski is going to have an opportunity to tell the American people just exactly what the Bidens did with China. And I think this is going to be alarming to every American and this is a national security risk. And this is why we fear this president is compromised because of the millions and millions of dollars they’ve taken from the Chinese Communist Party.

    Via Newsmax TV.

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/its-border-traitorous-behavior-we-believe-this-president/

  21. The Baby Duckies picture!
    No matter how grim the news, or how fierce our rage, we bird lovers feel the friendship radiating from this space.

  23. Understanding The Wagner Private Military Company
    By Larry Johnson Jun. 30, 2023 7:00 am118 Comments

    There is a massive misunderstanding about the Wagner PMC. I want to try to clear up some of the confusion and erroneous assumptions.

    First, Wagner PMC was created by the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence organization. Think of it as the CIA’s Special Activities Divsion (SAD) on steroids. It is a para-military unit that carried out missions under the cover of a PMC but was controlled by the GRU. Wagner gave Russia the ability to carry out military missions without putting the reputation of the Russian military on the line. The military commanders of Wagner are former Spetznaz and conventional Russian military.

    Second, Wagner PMC was a Russian military contractor, albeit “covert.” The cover was not robust but Wagner could project Russian military force without being overtly seen as a direct Russian operation.

    Third, Prigozhin is the business CEO of Wagner. He has zero military experience but is an established contractor, just like Raytheon or General Dynamics in the United States. He handled (or mishandled) the money flowing to Wagner and probably spread the wealth among some commanders. The cash flow from Wagner added to Prigozhin’s wealth. It also fed his ego and provided him the illusion of being viewed in Russia an important military figure.

    Fourth, Prigozhin reportedly cut a deal in 2018 with a Syrian warlord to capture a Conoco oil field in a portion of Kurd-controlled territory, which was defended by a small group of U.S. Special Operations Forces. This was the Battle of Khashsam aka the Battle of Conoco:

    The Battle of Khasham, also known as the Battle of Conoco Fields, was a military engagement of the Syrian civil war fought on 7 February 2018 near the towns of Khasham and Al Tabiyeh in the Deir ez-Zor Governorate, Syria. The Operation Inherent Resolve coalition delivered air and artillery strikes on Syrian Armed Forces and pro-government militias after they reportedly engaged a U.S. military and Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) position in the region.

    The United States explained the attack by stating that the pro-government forces had “initiated an unprovoked attack against well-established Syrian Democratic Forces headquarters” in the area, while coalition service members were “co-located with SDF partners during the attack 8 kilometers (5 mi) east of the agreed-upon Euphrates River de-confliction line”.[18][19][20] The Russian Ministry of Defence‘s statement, released on 8 February 2018, referred to the incident at the village of Salihiyah (located south of the SDF-held town of Abu Hamam in the Abu Kamal District) and said that it was caused by reconnaissance actions of Syrian militias that had not been cleared with the Russian operations command; the statement stressed that there were no Russian service members in the “designated district of the Deir ez-Zor province of Syria”

    The United States, from its Joint Air Operations Center in Qatar, asked its Russian counter parts if there were any Russian personnel in the area, according to the New York Times:

    American military officials repeatedly warned about the growing mass of troops. But Russian military officials said they had no control over the fighters assembling near the river — even though American surveillance equipment monitoring radio transmissions had revealed the ground force was speaking in Russian.

    The documents described the fighters as a “pro-regime force,” loyal to President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. It included some Syrian government soldiers and militias, but American military and intelligence officials have said a majority were private Russian paramilitary mercenaries — and most likely a part of the Wagner Group, a company often used by the Kremlin to carry out objectives that officials do not want to be connected to the Russian government.

    “The Russian high command in Syria assured us it was not their people,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told senators in testimony last month. He said he directed Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “for the force, then, to be annihilated.”

    This is the origin of Prigozhin’s anger with the Russian Ministry of Defense. Prigozhin, going rogue as part of a scheme to make some big money not tied to Wagner’s contract with the Russian MOD, authorized the attack and got burned.

    This apparently was one of the motives for Prigozhin’s eventual meeting with Ukrainian and Western intelligence officers in Africa, which led to his harebrained scheme to take out the Defense Minister Shoigu and Chief of Staff of the Russian military, Gerasimov.

    Apart from Prigozhin the other guilty party in the failed mutiny is the GRU or, more specifically, those GRU officers responsible for managing the PMC. It is highly likely that Prigozhin may have bribed his GRU handlers with some of the cash he earned on the side in order to get them to look the other way and allow him to pursue entrepreneurial opportunities. Those officers may be in more trouble than Prigozhin.

    Wagner PMC is now consigned to history. It is kaput as a PMC. This explains why the MOD ended the contract with Wagner aka Prigozhin and established a dead line for moving the Wagner troops under the direct control of the Russian military.

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/understanding-wagner-private-military-company/

  24. Trump Plan To Bypass Congress and Starve ‘The Deep State’
    By Philip Wegmann – RCP Staff
    June 28, 2023
    Trump Plan To Bypass Congress and Starve ‘The Deep State’AP
    Sources close to former President Trump say he has a plan for keeping Congress from ever again forcing him into “disgraceful” and “ridiculous” spending situations. If he returns to the White House, Trump will seek to resurrect authority that Congress stripped from the presidency almost a half century ago.

    What President Nixon squandered, his campaign promises, Trump will restore, namely the impoundment power. “A lot of you,” the former president told a New Hampshire crowd Thursday, “don’t know what that is.” Indeed, few now remember it.

    Impoundment, if restored, would allow a president, in theory, to simply refuse to spend appropriations by Congress. More than just an avenue to cut spending, Trump sees that kind of authority as key to starving, and thus crushing, the so-called “deep state.”

    But such a move would fundamentally alter the balance of power, and any effort to restore the long-forgotten authority virtually guarantees a protracted legal battle over who exactly controls the power of the purse. Trump welcomes that fight. Some budget experts believe he won’t get anywhere.

    In a statement to RealClearPolitics, Trump described the impoundment power as “the secret weapon” to squeezing out “the bloated federal bureaucracy while still doing everything America needs and more.”

    “This constitutional power of the President should never have been curtailed,” the former president added, “but I will get it back and will use it to stop inflation and bring federal spending under control.”

    Regardless, advisors close to the former president tell RealClearPolitics they are drawing up plans to challenge the 1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act in court, and if that fails, to lean on the legislature to repeal it. The latter would require passing a law to surrender power, something lawmakers are loath to do.

    Congress already went to war with another president who had expansive views of his own authority. And Congress won.

    Inflation in the 1970s, the Nixon White House complained, was the result of a profligate “Credit Card Congress.” The California Republican warned Capitol Hill not to spend in excess of $250 billion. When his warning was ignored, Nixon simply refused to spend the appropriated money. A rebuke from the Supreme Court followed when the president impounded funding for environmental projects. But weakened by Watergate, Nixon eventually signed legislation effectively surrendering a power that had been exercised from the presidencies of Thomas Jefferson to Lyndon B. Johnson.

    Russ Vought, Trump’s last director of the Office of Management and Budget, calls the concession of impoundment power “the original sin” that ensured “the executive branch no longer plays a meaningful role” in the appropriations process. Vought told RCP in an interview that the power of the purse has become “caricature,” where rather than “setting ceilings,” Congress now sets “spending floors.”

    Hence, Trump’s “unhappy” signature on multiple multi trillion-dollar spending bills.

    Trump promised he would “never sign another bill like this again” before putting his signature on a “crazy” $1.3 trillion spending bill in 2018. Two years later, he signed another omnibus bill, this one worth $1.4 trillion, that he called “disgraceful.” Both times, Trump justified voting for the bloated bills conservatives loathed by pointing to increased military spending.

    Restoring impoundment authority, thus giving presidents an option to curb spending beyond just the veto, current Trump campaign and former Trump administration officials tell RCP that was part of the plan for a second term that never came.

    The former president said he believes the 1974 law that gutted impoundment is unconstitutional, and if returned to the White House, would govern accordingly.

    “Yes, there’s the effort to have it overturned in courts. Yes, there is the legislative effort, but when you think that a law is unconstitutional,” Vought told RCP, the administration ought to look “to do the bare minimum of what the courts have required,” and “to push the envelope.”

    Trump did something like this, exercising what Vought called “impoundment-like authorities,” when he froze nearly $400 million in foreign aid to Ukraine, even though the funds were congressionally appropriated. The Government Accountability Office later said that in doing so, Trump violated the law. He was impeached by the House over a phone call to Ukrainian President Zelensky concerning the money.

    Trump’s OMB disputed the GAO ruling at the time, saying the administration was simply its apportionment authority to spend the money according to the most efficient timetable.

    “The reason why there wasn’t an impoundment was because we did not have the authority just to pocket the money and not spend it,” Vought recalled, saying that if a new paradigm was in place, the administration “potentially would have had the ability to go further and pocket the money.”

    Trump believes impoundment would be “a crucial tool” in his fight with the administrative state. “Bringing back impoundment will give us a crucial tool with which to obliterate the Deep State, Drain the Swamp, and starve the Warmongers,” he said in campaign video first obtained and reported by Semafor. “We can simply choke off the money.”

    His campaign pointed RCP to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency within the Department of Homeland Security, an entity that House Republicans allege has been involved in censorship of Americans, as a prime example of where dollars could be impounded.

    But even some conservatives have their doubts. Kevin Kosar, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said that when it comes to cutting spending appropriated money after the fact, there “is a limited amount of wiggle room.”

    “The idea that a president is going to achieve any sort of significant savings or reduction in the size of the administrative state by exercising impoundment authorities is patently ludicrous,” Kosar told RCP.

    The policy wonk agrees that the reform Nixon signed into law, mandating a complex and cumbersome budgeting process, seldom works. But without repealing and replacing that law, he said, “a president flat out refusing to spend money that was clearly appropriated for a particular purpose, saying he just doesn’t want to do it, pretty much would be grounds for impeachment.”

    Linda Bilmes, an assistant secretary at the Department of Commerce during the Clinton administration, agrees that the current budget process “has become so dysfunctional that it is very ripe for reforms.”

    Now a lecturer at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, she points to the partisan gridlock and numerous government shutdowns that are a feature of the current process. “The number of shutdowns in the entirety of U.S. history before 1974,” Bilmes said in an interview with RCP, “was zero.”

    Congress has been kicking around ideas for some time on how to reform the way they spend taxpayer money. Lawmakers consistently fail to pass individual appropriation bills, opting instead to approve spending all at once with a single bill, usually at the end of year and the last minute.

    Even if the process is reformed, however, Bilmes said that “the basic premise of the law, which is that the Constitution provides Congress with the ultimate authority, is very unlikely to change.”

    She added that although she disagrees with the idea that reducing the national debt requires gutting the Impoundment Act, there is a recent precedent for taming runaway spending. Bilmes pointed RCP to the agreements hammered out between Bill Clinton and then-Speaker Newt Gingrich in the 1990s. That is possible again. In theory.

    Related Topics: Deep State, Impoundment Act, Federal Budget, Donald Trump, Politics

    https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2023/06/28/trump_plan_to_bypass_congress_and_starve_the_deep_state__149417.html

  25. The Supreme Court rules for a designer who doesn’t want to make wedding websites for gay couples
    JESSICA GRESKO

    WASHINGTON (AP) — In a defeat for gay rights, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority ruled on Friday that a Christian graphic artist who wants to design wedding websites can refuse to work with same-sex couples. One of the court’s liberal justices wrote in a dissent that the decision’s effect is to “mark gays and lesbians for second-class status” and that it opens the door to other discrimination.

    The court ruled 6-3 for designer Lorie Smith despite a Colorado law that bars discrimination based on sexual orientation, race, gender and other characteristics. Smith had argued that the law violates her free speech rights.

    Smith’s opponents warned that a win for her would allow a range of businesses to discriminate, refusing to serve Black, Jewish or Muslim customers, interracial or interfaith couples or immigrants. But Smith and her supporters had said that a ruling against her would force artists — from painters and photographers to writers and musicians — to do work that is against their beliefs

    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/supreme-court-rules-designer-doesnt-140446544.html

  28. (Richard: I recommend everyone reads this article, it is long and thought provoking. But it is full of useful information.)

    China morsels: Balloon that saw far; “Virtual territory”; and other adventures
    A shifting correlation of forces

    This will be a little Chinese “hefan” lunch assortment of updates on security matters related to China. The analysis won’t be extensive; most of it is pretty self-explanatory, and the facts and images are what will convey the impact. Things are moving fast.

    Out of fuel in the Pacific

    It’s the U.S. that’s out of fuel. This has been covered before at TOC (see here as well), but a reminder is always timely that the ability to refuel Navy ships and military planes at a depot in Hawaii is gone.

    The fuel depot at Red Hill on Oahu was closed for operations last year. As I have said many times, no one, least of all me, wants to have fuel contaminating people’s drinking water. The point is not that Red Hill should have been left unaddressed. It’s that we don’t have the refueling capability now, anywhere between the U.S. West coast and Guam.

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    This is a shortfall that it will be very expensive and inconvenient to make good if we have to move to a combat-level security posture and operations tempo in the Far East. There is no real solution on the horizon that will be in place before the earliest potential start of a conflict over Taiwan. An interim solution like running more oilers for the fleet gives all the advantage to China (making it easier to take out the capability piecemeal), and in any case puts a significant sustainment burden on our already overstretched Navy, just trying to rotate it to the fight.

    The inconvenience may be bearable in normal conditions, but it will limit us significantly if we have to surge beyond normal.

    I can certainly envision a solution other than a simple one-for-one replacement of “Red Hill.” It’s not particularly clever to say we should think out of the box.

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    What’s better than clever, however, is setting the priority to go ahead and think already, and commit to a better solution – not a vulnerable, defense-unready patch job with baling wire and too many moving parts – and get it going.

    No long-term restoration of the capability is envisioned for at least a decade and a half. The most realistic assumption is thought to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 years. The latest news is that preparations for draining the fuel at Red Hill have been completed and are being reviewed for certification now, with draining scheduled to be complete in January 2024.

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    Always good to stay abreast of paralysis.

    Chinese balloon had eyes

    Like the “boats on the Yangtze River” that children used to read about in Marjorie Flack’s The Story about Ping, it turns out the Chinese balloon that made its way over the U.S. back in February 2023 was a craft with “eyes,” navigating overhead.

    The Wall Street Journal on 29 June 2023 reported that U.S. intelligence analysis “found the balloon was crammed with commercially available U.S. gear, some of it for sale online, and interspersed with more specialized Chinese sensors and other equipment to collect photos, video and other information to transmit to China…”

    Social media image; author composition.
    Certainly it matters that China put U.S.-origin equipment in the balloon. There’s not a lot we can do about that if we want to sell our products commercially and China wants to buy and use them.

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    But the latest finding is vindication for those of us who pointed out back in February that the balloon’s transit profile spoke strongly of imaging and video collection. Although the media’s official “sources” emphasized electronic-signal collection at the time (even saying they didn’t think the balloon was doing imaging or video surveillance), it was clear that the balloon’s altitude and dwell time were giving it a unique collection opportunity for imagery sensors, one not replicable with satellites or powered-flight aircraft.

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    It was always a good bet that the balloon was imaging extensive swaths of U.S. territory, at high resolution and with a synoptic and persistent view not available via other platforms.

    We can’t know if the public will receive any updates on whether the balloon was, in fact, able to transmit its haul to China before being shot down. (The WSJ article quotes our officials stating that they don’t think it was.) We can hope we got lucky, but the story has evolved on this balloon event in such a way that there’s no reason to assume the balloon’s failure to transmit the data is a done deal; i.e., to assume that that assessment won’t be revisited.

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    “Virtual” expansion: The visuals

    I’ve written a number of times, most recently here, about the conceptual expansion of a Chinese span of control through occupation and development of

    https://theoptimisticconservative.wordpress.com/2023/06/30/china-morsels-balloon-that-saw-far-virtual-territory-and-other-adventures/#more-8247

  29. Video: Biden Border Patrol Cuts Razor Wire Fence on Private Property to Let Illegal Aliens Enter Texas
    By Kristinn Taylor Jun. 30, 2023 3:15 pm0 Comments

    Video obtained by Fox News reporter Bill Melugin shows a Biden Border Patrol agent cutting a razor wire fence on private property on the Eagle Pass, Texas side of the Rio Grande to allow illegal aliens to enter the U.S.

    Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has deployed personnel and materiel to the border in an effort to staunch the flood of illegal aliens being let in by the Biden administration.

    More than a dozen men, women, children and infants are seen being let in the cut razor wire fence by the agent. A coyote can be seen turning back his fan motorboat after unloading his human cargo and heading unmolested back to Mexico.

    Melugin reported the Texas Department of Public Safety said they had permission from the property owner to set up the razor wire fencing on their property:

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/video-biden-border-patrol-cuts-razor-wire-fence/

  30. JUST IN: Fox News Agrees to Pay $12 Million Settlement to Former Tucker Carlson Producer Abby Grossberg
    By Cristina Laila Jun. 30, 2023 2:55 pm65 Comments

    Fox News agreed to pay a $12 million settlement to former Tucker Carlson producer Abby Grossberg.

    Abby Grossberg filed lawsuits against the outlet in March after she left the company.

    Grossberg filed a lawsuit alleging the company’s legal team urged her to answer “I don’t know” to questions in the company’s lawsuit with Dominion voting machines.

    Tucker Carlson was fired from Fox News shortly after Grossberg filed her lawsuits.

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/fox-news-agrees-pay-12-million-settlement-former/