If Joe Biden Is ‘Sharp as Ever,’ Why Is He Trying to Suppress the Hur Audio?

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Joe Biden is as “sharp as ever,” a man blessed with “strong mental acuity,” and in possession of preternaturally incisive intellect. This is just some of the commentary we heard after Special Counsel Robert Hur let the president off the hook for pilfering classified documents because he was an “elderly man with a poor memory.”

If all of this is true, though, why is the president trying to suppress audio of the interview?

Merrick Garland, one of the most nakedly partisan AGs in memory, has advised Biden to argue that the audio falls under executive privilege, which exists to allow a president to engage in candid and confidential conversations with his advisers without worrying about public disclosure.

Garland’s argument is odd for two reasons.

The first, which seems especially pertinent, is that Hur isn’t an adviser to the president. Tasked with investigating Biden’s decades-long mishandling of classified documents, Hur didn’t offer the president any guidance or chew the fat or work on policy or swap confidential stories. Hur was trying to figure out why Biden was hoarding classified documents. (Read more from “If Joe Biden Is ‘Sharp as Ever,’ Why Is He Trying to Suppress the Hur Audio?” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Dutch Government Announces Plan to Move Embassy to Jerusalem

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In a surprise move early Thursday, an advance draft of a coalition agreement between four right-wing Dutch political factions announced their plan to move the Dutch embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem – at “an appropriate time.” If and when this occurs, the Netherlands would be the most significant country to move its embassy to Jerusalem since the United States did so under former President Donald Trump in 2018.

Geert Wilders is the leader of the pro-Israel, anti-immigration Party for Freedom, or PVV, which won 37 out of 150 seats in the Dutch lower house in that nation’s Nov. 22 election. Wilders is often compared to Hungary’s Viktor Orban because of similar stances on a range of issues, including Islam and opposition to the European Union – preferring to elevate national policies over supranational ones that usurp domestic authority.

In addition to the United States, Papua New Guinea, Kosovo, Honduras and Guatemala have already moved their embassies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. If the Dutch coalition holds and the nation’s embassy is moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the decision would be a controversial one. Officially, the EU – under the terms of the “Jerusalem Clause” – has refused to locate diplomatic missions in Jerusalem, Israel’s official capital, until its final status with regard to the Palestinians has been decided.

Wilders was alleged to have toned down his anti-Islam and anti-immigration rhetoric to help secure victory in November’s election. However, the Israel-Hamas war has roiled Dutch society, and the announcement was made with the backdrop of widespread violence carried out by anti-Israel, pro-Hamas protesters on the University of Amsterdam campus and beyond. Many see the virulence of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish feeling among largely migrant communities as evidence of both failed immigration policies and hard-left indoctrination among the Netherlands’ youth – just as in America. (Read more from “Dutch Government Announces Plan to Move Embassy to Jerusalem” HERE)

Expert Warns Biden Is Driving China, Russia Together

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Joe Biden’s foreign policy has been, at best, suspect, experts have noted.

On his watch the Russia-Ukraine war erupted, Afghanistan has returned to a terrorist-controlled land, there have been various outbreaks of conflict across Africa and the threat from China to the free world has surged.

But his “biggest blunder,” says an expert, is to be driving two nuclear powers, Russia and China, into an alliance.

A Fox News report cited the comments that come from Michael Pillsbury, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, on Fox & Friends.

The comments come just as China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin met in Beijing to strengthen bilateral ties. (Read more from “Expert Warns Biden Is Driving China, Russia Together” HERE)

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Young Woman Fights Back Against Alleged Carjackers Who Pistol-Whipped Her in Parking Lot

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A young woman decided to fight back against would-be carjackers who pistol-whipped her and was able to get them arrested after she chased them down in her flip-flops.

Michigan police said the incident unfolded in the parking lot of a Target store on Pardee Road in the city of Taylor at about 4:50 p.m. on Monday.

Rachel Smiglewski told WXYZ-TV that she was sitting in her boyfriend’s car when the attempted carjackers appeared at her window wearing surgical masks and threatening her with a gun. . .

She said she tried to call 911, but one of the thugs smacked the phone away and then hit her face with the gun. She said she could feel the blood spurting from her face when he put the gun to her head. . .

“All of a sudden, something snapped in me and I was like, ‘You know what? No, I’m not going to let this happen to me. This is not going to happen,'” she said. (Read more from “Young Woman Fights Back Against Alleged Carjackers Who Pistol-Whipped Her in Parking Lot” HERE)

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Millions of People Will Now See These Important Bible Verses Thanks to a New Billy Graham Statue in the U.S. Capitol

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Billy Graham, the famed evangelist whose crusades reached hundreds of millions of people, was officially honored at the U.S. Capitol on Thursday.

A 7-foot statute of Graham’s likeness was unveiled inside the National Statuary Hall during a ceremony that was attended by Graham’s family, Speaker Mike Johnson (R), North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D), former Vice President Mike Pence, and other North Carolina lawmakers.

“Today North Carolina gives the nation a symbol representing one of our dearest treasures: the Reverend Billy Graham, a man of faith, a man of North Carolina,” Cooper said at the ceremony.

The statue depicts Graham holding an open Bible with his left hand, and his right hands points to the text. The Bible is opened to Galatians 6:14, which reads, “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” (Read more from “Millions of People Will Now See These Important Bible Verses Thanks to a New Billy Graham Statue in the U.S. Capitol” HERE)

State to Convert Prison Into Shelter for Illegal Aliens

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Massachusetts plans to convert a shuttered prison into an emergency “safety-net” site for illegal aliens, Democrat Governor Maura Healey’s office confirmed to WCVB on Saturday.

The Bay State Correctional Center in Norfolk was decommissioned in 2015 but will soon serve as temporary housing for approximately 140 local homeless and illegal immigrant families residing in Massachusetts, the only state with a right-to-shelter law.

The state’s emergency shelter system reached capacity at 7,500 families in November.

According to Emergency Assistance Director Scott Rice, the facility is still “in good condition,” WCVB reported. Previously a minimum-security prison, the building reportedly features dorm-like rooms, a cafeteria, a gymnasium, a common room, and offices. Residents will have access to showers and bathrooms on each floor.

Rice told the news outlet that the state also plans to create a play area for children and classroom spaces for adults. The facility will host English for Speakers of Other Languages courses, job training, and housing search workshops, he added. Razor wire on the fence that lines the property will be removed, and the facility’s gates will remain open. (Read more from “State to Convert Prison Into Shelter for Illegal Aliens” HERE)

Trump’s Attorney Made Swiss Cheese Out of Michael Cohen’s Testimony, Raising Questions of Perjury

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Former President Donald Trump’s defense attorney rebutted Michael Cohen’s testimony during a brutal cross-examination Thursday, which has legal commentators raising the possibility Cohen again committed perjury.

Defense attorney Todd Blanche confronted Cohen on his past lies under oath, including to Congress and a federal judge, asking him whether he took the same oath before testifying then as he did to testify in this trial: a pointed question aimed to raise doubts about his current claims. Cohen’s prospects took a turn for the worse in the final few minutes before lunch break, when Blanche point-blank accused Cohen of lying when he testified Tuesday that he had called Trump’s bodyguard, Keith Schiller, on Oct. 24, 2016, to discuss the matter of paying porn star Stormy Daniels.

“That was a lie!” Blanche nearly shouted at Cohen. “You did not talk to President Trump on that night,” Blanche said. “You talked to Keith Schiller.”

Blanche pointed to text messages Cohen sent minutes before the call asking how he should handle a 14-year-old’s harassing phone calls to him, to which Schiller responded “call me.”

Cohen said he believed he also spoke to Trump. Blanche pushed back, asking how that was possible on a call that only lasted just a minute and 36 seconds. (Read more from “Trump’s Attorney Made Swiss Cheese Out of Michael Cohen’s Testimony, Raising Questions of Perjury” HERE)

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Reports: Trump’s Defense Lawyer Accuses Cohen of Lying About ‘Hush Money’ Phone Call

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Former President Donald Trump’s defense on Thursday accused disgraced former attorney Michael Cohen of lying about an October 2016 phone call he claimed was about a payment to Stormy Daniels, per reports.

During cross-examination of Cohen in Trump’s business records trial, one of Trump’s defense attorneys, Todd Blanche, pressed Cohen about the call, which occurred just after 8:00 p.m. that autumn evening and was to Trump’s bodyguard, Keith Schiller, reports say. The Hill notes Cohen claimed he spoke to Trump on the call about a payment to Daniels. Blanche was apparently suggesting he contacted Schiller about harassing calls from a teenage prankster.

The New York Times reported that Blanche was implying that “it is ridiculous that Michael Cohen might have simultaneously reported a prankster to Keith Schiller and talked to Trump about the hush-money payment.”

The Inner City Press’s Matthew Russell Lee reports the call lasted less than two minutes, with more specifics of the exchange:

Blanche turned the clock back a quarter of an hour. He got Cohen to acknowledge or remember – depending on one’s perspective; maybe just, he got Cohen to say – that Cohen had been receiving harassing calls for three days and finally the harasser forgot to block their number.

Cohen texted the number, that he would be turning it over to the Secret Service. He said he learned, or was told, that it was a 14 year-old. And then he texted Keith Schiller, asking him to act on it.

(Read more from “Reports: Trump’s Defense Lawyer Accuses Cohen of Lying About ‘Hush Money’ Phone Call” HERE)

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Obama World’s Fingerprints Are All Over Campus Chaos

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A who’s-who of Obama administration alumni are seemingly behind a concerted push to drive a wedge between President Joe Biden and Israel.

For weeks, stories of chaos across the nation’s college campuses dominated the media. Anti-Israel protestors set up encampments, ignored charges of trespassing and ripped down the American flag to replace it with the Palestinian flag, all to protest the United States’ pro-Israel stance in the country’s war against Hamas. Recent reporting by Tablet Magazine, as well as public statements from former White House officials, reveal that members of the Obama administration are stoking the flames of anti-Israel sentiment in the Democratic Party, exacerbating a headache for Biden.

During the chaos, Biden avoided the press for nine days before publicly stating that the protests were not influencing his policy. But the damage was done, and some began to question the president’s commitment to Israel.

“I think by forcing Biden to this dilemma, the outside folks are in practice hurting him,” a former Trump administration official, granted anonymity in order to speak freely about the matter, told the Daily Caller. “They probably don’t view it that way. They probably view themselves as being trying to be advocates for certain anti-Israel policies. But the net effect of it is, yes, they are undermining Biden by sort of railing against him on this wedge issue.”

Tablet identified several organizations, like Students for Justice in Palestine, that have had their hand in backing the students and individuals protesting. The magazine named financial backers like the WESPAC Foundation and Rockefeller Brothers Fund among the groups that are funding the activist organizations on the ground. The WESPAC Foundation and Within Our Lifetime (WOL), an anti-Israel group, have received significant donations from the Tides Foundation, a major progressive dark money group. (Read more from “Obama World’s Fingerprints Are All Over Campus Chaos” HERE)

Prosecution in Trouble as Trump Defense Traps Michael Cohen on Witness Stand

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Defense attorneys for former President Donald Trump stunned observers in a Manhattan courtroom on Thursday with a devastating cross-examination of the prosecution’s star witness, former Trump attorney Michael Cohen.

Trump is on trial for allegedly falsifying business records related to a non-disclosure agreement with adult film star Stormy Daniels (Stephanie Clifford) in 2016. The statute of limitations had expired for misdemeanor charges under state law, so District Attorney Alvin Bragg had to find a way to charge Trump with a felony. He did so by alleging that Trump falsified records to conceal a federal crime, though prosecutors have not told the court what that crime was.

Cohen had testified earlier in the week that Trump had directed him to falsify records related to the payments to Daniels, which Cohen borrowed money to pay from his personal funds. Cohen testified that Trump reimbursed him through a misleading legal retainer agreement, and did so to avoid reporting the payments to the Federal Elections Commission (FEC).

(Neither the FEC nor federal prosecutors have alleged that Trump committed any wrongdoing — possibly because previous prosecutions of politicians for similar payments have failed, and because it is difficult to prove that non-disclosure payments made to protect one’s personal reputation are primarily campaign expenses.)

Cohen, who has already been convicted of lying to Congress, unraveled on the witness stand Thursday as defense attorney Todd Blanche attacked key details of his story. For example, Cohen testified for the prosecution on direct examination Tuesday that he discussed the payments to Daniels in an October 2016 phone call. But that claim fell apart after Blanche showed text messages and call logs that suggested the phone call was about another subject.

(Read more from “Prosecution in Trouble as Trump Defense Traps Michael Cohen on Witness Stand” HERE)