State Whitmer Kidnap Conspiracy Trial Starts w/ Prosecution Recycling Debunked Info

Ken Silva
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State Whitmer Kidnap Conspiracy Trial Starts w/ Prosecution Recycling Debunked Info

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The trial of three men accused of aiding the 2020 alleged militia plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer began this week, with both parties making their opening statements on Tuesday.

The prosecution began by recycling the same false narrative spread by the U.S. government since October 2020, when the FBI arrested 14 members of the alleged conspiracy.

William Rollstin of Michigan’s attorney general’s office told a jury that the defendants—Eric Molitor and twin brothers William Null and Michael Null—assisted the “ringleaders” of the plot, Adam Fox and Barry Croft.

Rollstin said that Croft, a Delaware resident, was the “national leader” of a violent militia movement bent on killing public officials, while Fox was Croft’s commander in Michigan. According to Rollstin, Fox then recruited other Michigan militiamen, including Molitor, to participate in the alleged plot against Whitmer.

The reason the FBI as able to foil the kidnapping plot was because one of the militia members, Dan Chappel, was alarmed by their violent rhetoric when he joined the group in early 2020, and agreed to act as an undercover informant, Rollstin said.

However, much of Rollstin’s narrative has already been debunked.

For starters, the FBI was monitoring members of the alleged conspiracy long before FBI informant Chappel allegedly discovered their violent rhetoric on social media in early 2020. As Headline USA reported in January, FBI informant Stephen Robeson had targeted Croft since at least 2019.

Evidence revealed in Fox and Croft’s trial last year also undermines Rollstin’s claim that Fox was Croft’s second in command.

In fact, it was FBI informant Robeson who made Fox the head of Michigan’s chapter of the Three Percenters militia after a June 6, 2020, meeting in Dublin, Ohio—a meeting also set up by Robeson, according to Fox’s defense attorney, Christopher Gibbons.

Tuesday was also the first time that government has claimed that Fox recruited Molitor to be part of the kidnapping conspiracy, according to independent journalist Christina Urso, who is working on a documentary about the Whitmer kidnap conspiracy entitled Kidnap and Kill: An FBI Terror Plot.

Defense attorneys didn’t address these specific points during their opening statements Tuesday. Instead, they argued that their clients had no knowledge of a plot to kidnap Whitmer, and were merely viewed by the FBI as guilty by association with Croft and Fox.

Molitor’s attorney, Bill Barnett, did note that his client turned down Fox’s recruitment efforts when he saw that militia members were talking about exploding Whitmer’s boat. Fox even told FBI informant Chappel that Eric “wasn’t down for extreme shit” after failing to recruit him, Barnett said.

Barnett also focused on the entrapment elements of the Whitmer case, noting how FBI informant Chappel was the second in command of the Wolverine Watchmen. Chappel, an Army veteran, also provided much of the training to the militias, Barnett said.

“Unbeknownst to Eric, the FBI had been watching and infiltrating a downstate militia,” he said.

“The FBI sent an informant—who’s supposed to be a listening post—and he becomes second in command,” he said. “Dan trained them to be more dangerous.”

Additionally, Barnett referred to Fox as the government’s “patsy,” referring to how Fox was a recently divorced homeless man whom the government manipulated into being the leader of a manufactured militia conspiracy.

Fox, who incarcerated in the Florence supermax prison in Colorado, was initially planning to testify for Molitor about the FBI’s nefarious actions. However, he was threatened with additional charges and withdrew.

Nine have been convicted in state or federal court, including four who pleaded guilty, while two were acquitted. Both Fox and Croft have appeals pending against their federal convictions.

The ongoing state trial is set to last about three weeks.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Leftists Shriek over Trump Immigration Plan to Screen for ‘Marxist’ Ideologies

Abdul-Rahman Oladimeji Bello
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Leftists Shriek over Trump Immigration Plan to Screen for ‘Marxist’ Ideologies

(Abdul–Rahman Oladimeji Bello, Headline USA) Former President Donald Trump has revealed plans to implement a comprehensive plan to secure the southern border and ultimately end the illegal immigration crisis created by the Biden administration. 

Leftists have erupted in hysterics and smeared Trump’s plan as a sickening attempt to purge civil servants and fill government offices with loyalist to him and his Marxist ideologies, Axios reported. 

“For those passionate about securing our immigration system … the first 100 days of the Trump administration will be pure bliss—followed by another four years of the most hard-hitting action conceivable,” Trump policy advisor Stephen Miller said.

Trump’s immigration plans include completing the border wall, creating a sea blockade to end drug smuggling, and also to end “birthright citizenship” for children born in the U.S. to undocumented immigrants.

The plan would also strengthen social media tools that further enable ideological screening of people legally applying to come into the country and infiltrating their anti-American propaganda into society.

Using the Alien Enemies Act, Trump’s plan would ultimately deport unlawful enemy combatants like gang members, drug traffickers and criminals. Trump plans to also designate people from certain countries as “alien enemies,” making it easier to find undocumented immigrants and end the migrant crisis. 

As the Supreme Court is recently leaning more into the conservative side, reports noted that Trump’s plan would stand a better chance of surviving any legal challenge than it did in his first term as president. 

Despite horror stories and documented cases of the ravages fostered by illegal immigration pouring across Biden’s open border, from a deadly fentanyl crisis to increased human- and drug trafficking, advocates were more concerned with knocking Trump instead of fixing the problems.

“It is the QAnon-ization of border policy,” gaslighted Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council. “We are seeing a lot more talk about the border as a hub for child sex trafficking, even though there is effectively no evidence.”

KELLY: D.C. Judge Who Will Hear Trump’s Case Is the Pot Calling the Defendant Incendiary

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KELLY: D.C. Judge Who Will Hear Trump’s Case Is the Pot Calling the Defendant Incendiary

(Julie Kelly, RealClearInvestigations) At her first appearance in the criminal case against Donald Trump for his alleged attempt to overturn the 2020 election, U.S. District Court Judge Tanya S. Chutkan repeatedly warned the former president’s lawyers that politics would not be tolerated in her courtroom. 

“The fact that [Trump is] running a political campaign has to yield to the orderly administration of justice,” Chutkan said during the Aug. 11 hearing. “If that means he can’t say exactly what he wants to say about witnesses in this case, that’s how it has to be.” 

But even as she warns Trump about his “inflammatory” language, Chutkan has routinely issued politically charged rulings and made incendiary statements of her own while presiding over some 30 cases involving Trump supporters charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, melee at the U.S. Capitol. 

A review of thousands of pages of hearing transcripts reveal that Chutkan has repeatedly expressed strong and settled opinions about the issues at the heart of United States v. Donald Trump—the criminal case she is now presiding over.  

These include her public assertions that the 2020 election was beyond reproach, that the Jan. 6 protests were orchestrated by Trump, and that the former president is guilty of crimes.

She has described Jan. 6 as a “mob attack” on “the very foundation of our democracy” and branded the issue at the heart of the case she is hearing—Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was stolen—a conspiracy theory.   

Although judges often make comments from the bench, Chutkan’s strident language raises questions about her impartiality in handling the case against the presumptive GOP nominee for president in 2024. 

The U.S. code that addresses grounds for recusal states, ”Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”

One reason to recuse is if the judge has demonstrated “a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party.”  

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., recently filed a resolution to condemn and censure Chutkan for exhibiting “open bias and partisanship in the conduct of her official duties as a judge.”  

But if the aim among Trump loyalists is to get a new judge assigned to the case, it’s a steep legal hurdle.

Typically a judge can be recused for bias or the appearance of bias “only when the purported bias comes from a source outside the judge’s work as a judge,” said Stephen Gillers, a professor of law at New York University.

“Almost never will a judge be recused for opinions she forms as a judge—in hearing cases and motions,” he continued. “Judges are expected to form opinions based on these ’intrajudicial’ sources. It’s what judges do.”  

A Trump representative declined to comment about Judge Chutkan’s potential bias. The chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and the American Bar Association did not respond to requests for comment. Nor did Chutkan.

Appointed by Barack Obama to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in 2013, Chutkan has been one of the toughest judges on Jan. 6 defendants. In several cases, she has given defendants longer prison terms than recommended by prosecutors.

In at least two cases, she sentenced defendants to jail time when prosecutors only sought probation. Chutkan herself admitted during a July 2022 court hearing that she is “one of the few judges that’s given a lot of terms of incarceration” in Jan 6. cases. 

On at least one occasion, Chutkan suggested in open court that Trump should have been charged for his alleged role in what she routinely describes as “an attempt to overthrow the government” on Jan. 6.  

Before sentencing Christine Priola, a Trump supporter from Ohio who pleaded guilty to obstruction of an official proceeding, to 15 months in jail, Chutkan appeared to lament the fact Trump was not yet in prison.

“[The] people who mobbed that Capitol were there in fealty, in loyalty, to one man—not to the Constitution, of which most of the people who come before me seem woefully ignorant, not to the ideals of this country, and not to the principles of democracy,” Chutkan said on Oct. 28, 2022. “It’s a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.” (Emphasis added.) 

Chutkan accused Matthew Mazzocco, another Jan. 6 defendant, of choosing Trump over the country.

In rejecting Mazzocco’s argument that he traveled from Texas to Washington to engage in a legal political demonstration, Chutkan declared at his October 2021 sentencing hearing: “He went there to support one man who he viewed had the election taken from him. In total disregard of a lawfully conducted election, he went to the Capitol in support of one man, not in support of our country or in support of democracy.”  

Although Mazzocco spent only 12 minutes inside the Capitol and committed no violence, Chutkun rejected the government’s recommendation of three months home confinement for pleading guilty to “parading” in the Capitol, a Class B misdemeanor, and instead sentenced Mazzocco to 45 days in jail. 

Despite President Trump’s explicit request that his supporters march “peacefully and patriotically” to the Capitol, Chutkan blamed Trump for the Jan. 6 violence while sentencing Robert Palmer, who pleaded guilty in June 2021 to one count of assaulting police officers with a dangerous weapon (a fire extinguisher). In that case, Palmer’s lawyer sought a reduced prison sentence by echoing the judge’s view of Trump. 

“Mr. Palmer went to the Capitol at the behest of the former president,” attorney Bjorn E. Brunvand wrote in a December 2021 sentencing memo to Chutkan. “Like many others who participated in the Capitol riot, Mr. Palmer blindly followed the many figures who falsely but persistently claimed that the election had been stolen from the president.”  

Palmer himself told Chutkan that Trump’s claims about a “stolen” 2020 election prompted him to travel from his Tampa home to the nation’s capital to participate in the Capitol protest.

In a handwritten note dated November 2021, Palmer told Chutkan that he realized “Trump supporters were lied to by those that at the time had great power meaning the then sitting president, as well as those acting in his behalf.” 

Palmer apologized to Chutkan for his conduct and begged for mercy. 

His plea fell on deaf ears. Although Chutkan expressed no sympathy for Palmer, whom she sent to prison for more than five years, she amplified Palmer’s assertions that Trump bore some responsibility:

And it is true, Mr. Palmer you have made a very good point, one that has been made before—that the people who exhorted you and encouraged you and rallied you to go and take action and to fight have not been charged. That is not this court’s position. I don’t charge anybody. I don’t negotiate plea offers. I don’t make charging decisions. I sentence people who have pleaded guilty or have been convicted. The issue of who has or has not been charged is not before me. I don’t have any influence on that. I have my opinions, but they are not relevant. And you’re correct in that no one who was encouraging everybody to take the Capitol has been charged as of yet, but I don’t think that fact means that you should get a lower sentence.

Chutkan’s references to the former president aren’t the only area of concern for Trump. Her comments from the bench also suggest that she shares the same view of Jan. 6 as the man prosecuting Trump in her courtroom, special counsel Jack Smith.

Tasked by Attorney General Merrick Garland with investigating “whether any person or entity unlawfully interfered with the transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election or the certification of the Electoral College vote held on or about January 6, 2021,” Smith indicted Trump in the District of Columbia on three conspiracy counts and one obstruction count last month.

Throughout the 45-page indictment, Smith repeatedly accused Trump of knowingly promoting falsehoods about the 2020 presidential election.

“[For] more than two months following election day on November 3, 2020, the Defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won,” he wrote.

“These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false,” he continued. “But the Defendant repeated and widely disseminated them anyway—to make his knowingly false claims appear legitimate, create an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger, and erode public faith in the administration of the election.” 

Chutkan clearly shares that view. On numerous occasions, the judge has insisted the 2020 election was legitimate and fully vetted by the court system—a claim disputed by Trump that lies at the heart of the case she is now hearing.  

“He went to the Capitol because, despite election results which were clear-cut, despite the fact that multiple court challenges all over the country had rejected every single one of the challenges to the election, Mr. Palmer didn’t like the result,” Chutkan also said during Palmer’s sentencing.

“He didn’t like the result, and he didn’t want the transition of power to take place because his guy lost,” she added. (When not cryptically referring to Trump, Chutkan often describes the former president as “guy.”) 

She has accused individuals who believe the 2020 election was “stolen” as promoting “conspiracy theories.”

In the case of Donna Bissel, who pleaded guilty to the nonviolent petty offense of “parading” in the Capitol, Chutkan cited Bissel’s personal beliefs as reason to sentence her to 14 days in jail rather than impose the three-year probation sentence recommended by prosecutors. 

“As noted in the government’s sentencing memo, the defendant appears to be susceptible to believing outlandish and absurd conspiracy theories,” Chutkan said during Bissel’s October 2021 sentencing.

“To protect the public, it’s important to make sure that she does not fall victim to another lie or conspiracy and act out in a way that again jeopardizes public safety,” the judge continued. “It’s one thing to believe in conspiracy theories in your basement, and it’s another thing to act out on them and, for instance, to travel from Indiana to D.C. to storm the Capitol to overturn an election.” 

Court records show that Chutkan has repeatedly scolded defendants who question the integrity of the 2020 election—skepticism shared by 39% of Americans, according to a recent CNN poll.

Here are a few examples of Chutkan’s comments on Jan. 6:  

  • USA v. Scott Ponder: “When you say you got caught up, Mr. Ponder, there’s a lot of rage and a lot of emotion and a lot of tension as you describe, and people felt very strongly, right or wrongly, that an election had been stolen. I think the evidence is quite clear that it had not, but that’s neither here nor there.” (July 26, 2022)
  • USA v. Benjamin Larocca: “Everyone standing around with their cameras on that—in front of those doors, every single one of those people contributed to the mob that tried to intimidate those police officers; that tried to gain entry into that building; that were trying to stop the transfer of power and nullify a lawfully conducted election. This was a lawfully conducted election.” (Aug. 10, 2022)
  • USA v. Christian Cortez: “[He] was motivated to come because his candidate didn’t win and he somehow believed this election was stolen and he wanted to get it back. As I said, this wasn’t just a protest. He wanted to — that mob wanted to overthrow the government. They wanted to undo the results of what they considered a stolen election; their guy didn’t win.” (Aug. 31, 2022) 

Little Nuance: Chutkan’s View of Jan. 6 

For Chutkan, the events of Jan. 6 provoke strong emotions, which she freely volunteers from the bench.

“[Every] single time I watch the videos and look at the photographs of what was going on that day, I am struck anew by how horrible this was, by how violent and terrifying, and how the outnumbered and vastly unequipped law enforcement officers were feeling that day as they were basically struggling for their lives and wondering if they were going to make it home to their kids,” Chutkan told defendant Matthew Caspel in December 2022. “I don’t know if we’ll ever recover from that.” 

A former public defender in Washington, D.C.—one of the country’s most perennially violent cities, and one generally lenient toward criminals—Chutkan argues that Jan. 6 is among the worst crime scenes she’s ever witnessed.  

“I watch these videotapes in almost every case, and every single time I am struck anew at how horrifying the events of that day were,” she volunteered to Benjamin Larocca, who pleaded guilty to a disorderly conduct misdemeanor and received 60 days in jail.

“And I’m struck as someone who is watching—has seen this kind of footage multiple times and was looking at footage on the day—and as somebody, frankly, who has seen a lot of crime scene footage,” she continued. “I was a criminal defense lawyer, I was a public defender for many years. I’m not easily shocked, but it’s shocking.”

Many observers believe Trump already confronts a nearly insurmountable task in receiving a fair trial in the nation’s capital, a city that voted 92% for Joe Biden.

Further, the Justice Department has a near-perfect conviction rate in Jan. 6 trials. Chutkan’s extensive record of comments suggest the judge presiding over his case will not make it any easier. 

Calif. Bill Would Pay Unemployment Benefits for Striking Screenwriters

Jacob Bruns
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Calif. Bill Would Pay Unemployment Benefits for Striking Screenwriters

(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) A group of Democrats in California is planning to introduce a bill that would secure unemployment benefits for striking screenwriters, Fox News reported.

Despite the fact that California’s unemployment program finds itself $18 billion in the hole, leftist in the California state government hope to shell out some additional funding to aid the writers, who are voluntarily not working.

The legislation will likely be introduced by the Senate Appropriations Chair Anthony Portantino.

It was co-authored by Democratic Assembly members Laura Friedman and Chris Holden.

Portantino tweeted his support for the forthcoming bill, claiming to be “[h]onored to be authoring this effort to help hardworking Californians during a time of unrest.”

According to California Chamber of Commerce Policy Advocate Rob Moutrie, an opponent of the legislation, such a move would help those who simply do not want to work milk the system that is meant to help those in genuine need.

“It would allow individuals on strike who are not looking for work and were not let go through no fault of their own to claim unemployment insurance as if they were truly unemployed,” Moutrie said, noting that calling screenwriters unemployed is an insult to unemployment.

“Striking people are not the same as people who truly have been let go and have no idea where their next paycheck will come from,” Moutrie added. “But someone on strike knows where their job is.”

Despite a strong Democratic majority, some Republicans in the state oppose the legislation.

“The last thing California needs is more ways of paying for people not to work,” U.S. Rep. Kevin Kiley said.

Kiley also noted that California has the second-highest unemployment in the nation while falling dead last in total wage growth.

Christie Keeps Close Ties to Big Pharma through Campaign

Molly Bruns
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Christie Keeps Close Ties to Big Pharma through Campaign

(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) Never Trumper and 2024 presidential candidate Chris Christie has maintained connections to Big Pharma, despite his constant degradation of drug titans on the campaign trail.

Christie currently sits on the board of Pacira BioSciences, a company that manufactures alternatives to opioids, according to the Daily Caller.

Pacira BioSciences paid Christie handsomely for his lobbying services in 2018-2019, after reaching their goal of Medicare alterations to encourage consumers to buy their non-opioid painkiller treatments. The company shelled out $800,000 and $1 million in stock options for these services.

Christie joined the Pacira board in 2019.

“Governor Christie’s track record of unwavering commitment to combating our nation’s opioid crisis and his solid reputation as a seasoned government leader is unparalleled,” a statement from the company read. “He is distinguished for effecting bipartisan change within healthcare policy and legislation, and his insights should prove to be of immeasurable benefit to Pacira.”

He also worked with Novo Nordisk, lobbying for the international company via his consulting firm in 2020 and 2021.

Christie 55 Solutions, his consulting firm, received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Novo Nordisk over the course of two years. It is unclear what kind of assistance the pharmaceutical company requested of Christie’s firm.

Christie’s former chief of staff Rich Bagger now runs the consulting firm. Bagger previously worked as a pharmaceutical executive with Pfizer and Celgene.

Big Pharma thrived in New Jersey, where Christie got his start as Republican governor.

Despite his involvement in the industry Christie went after pharmaceutical managers and advertisements on the campaign trail.

“I don’t think we need to be advertising drugs,” Christie said. “We never did before, and everybody seemed to get the medicine they needed because the pharmaceutical companies went to the doctors, explained to the doctors what their medicines did, and then the doctors decided for you or me whether that would help my particular medical problem or yours.”

Christie polled at 3.1% in national primary polls. A survey by The Economist discovered that 54% of Republicans view Christie unfavorably and 27% saw him as a quality candidate.

No Charges for Mich. Hero Who Shot at Would-Be Robber While Holding 6-Pack

Robert Jonathan
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No Charges for Mich. Hero Who Shot at Would-Be Robber While Holding 6-Pack

(Robert Jonathan, Headline USA) A Michigan legal gun owner who foiled an alleged convenience store robbery won’t face any criminal charges after justifiably using his firearm in a self-defense situation, in this instance on behalf of a potential victim, authorities have determined.

With a six-pack in one hand and a gun in the other, the customer opened fire on the alleged would-be thief who, according to police, had threatened the store clerk with a box cutter.

Before making a decision pending an investigation that gathered the evidence, Cass County prosecutor Victor Fitz implied that defending other people in good faith in a dangerous situation is a doctrine recognized under state law.

“In Michigan, obviously, it’s clear that we do have defense of others as part of the law in Michigan, that you can defend others if they’re in a situation where there’s dangerous force being used against them,” Fitz explained during an interview about the case with WOOD TV, Grand Rapids.

“And certainly in this case, we’ll be looking at the facts in regard to that,” he added.

Roughly along the lines of a stand-your-ground law, a Michigan statute appears to allow the use deadly force by someone who is not himself or herself in the process of committing a crime “if the individual honestly and reasonably believes that the use of deadly force is necessary to prevent the imminent death of or imminent great bodily harm to himself or herself or to another individual.”

According to WOOD, the Good Samaritan who reportedly has a valid concealed carry permit and background as a security guard, was unable to see what was in the suspect’s hand, ‘but he could see the look of fear on the clerk’s face.

The customer, who purportedly fired six or seven shots in the encounter that was at least partially captured on a store surveillance camera, held the suspect at gunpoint until cops arrived.

The suspect, 35, who was wounded in the arm, back and face, subsequently received treatment and was released by a local hospital before he was again taken into custody.

The employee behind the counter told WOOD that the customer “saved my life.”

Reportedly considered a habitual offender because of three prior felonies, the suspect faces charges including alleged armed robbery and assault with intent to rob while armed, and is being held subject to a $100,000 bond.

He is due back in court on Thursday. As with all criminal matters, the presumption of innocence applies.

The July 27 incident occurred in Cassopolis, Mich., in the southwest part of the state not far from South Bend, Indiana.

The prosecutor’s office announced its decision on Tuesday.

As a footnote, the hero was carrying a six pack of Miller Lite, not Bud Light.

Obama Enjoys Fireworks as Hawaii Burns

Jacob Bruns
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Obama Enjoys Fireworks as Hawaii Burns

(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) Following the lead of his former vice president, now-President Joe Biden, Barack Obama decided to ignore the fires ravaging his alleged home state of Hawaii in order to dine out and watch fireworks near his Martha’s Vineyard home.

While Maui burned, the “empathizer-in-chief” vacationed, only visiting the island to catch a nap while listening to fire survivors speak.

Meanwhile, Obama attended a firework show and spent time at his 7,000-square-foot Martha’s Vineyard mansion as Maui’s fires reached their height, FUN 107 reported.

On Aug. 19, Barack and Michelle Obama arrived at the Lookout Tavern to watch the island’s annual summer firework show. Brandy Lussier, a woman who has a condo on the island, caught footage of the Obamas on video.

In the video footage, numerous people can be heard squealing with delight at the sight of the celebrity-politician and his wife.

“Oh my God, I’m going to cry!” one person said during the video.

According to Lussier, the Obamas’ presence at the event was fairly normal, and the famous couple attends most years.

“They (the Obamas) watch the fireworks most years at the house next door to the Lookout Tavern,” she explained. “It’s a perfect view and the fireworks were some of the best I’ve ever seen.”

As he attended firework shows and attended to his normal business, the former president, one of the world’s most powerful men, declined to help his former home state.

Fortunately for the former president, however, his lavish estate on Hawaii was not damaged by the fire.

In response to the crisis, Obama tried to comfort distressed Hawaiians with an empathetic X post.

“As someone who grew up in Hawaii, as someone who has taken my family to enjoy the incredible beauty of that island and the hospitality of the people of Lahaina, we now find ourselves mourning the lives that are lost, and our thoughts and prayers go out to the families that have lost so much,” Obama wrote.

According to Obama, “thoughts and prayers are not enough.” Rather, “we have to step up, and we have to help those families, and we have to help Lahaina rebuild.”

Biden Admin Sought to Use Chinese TikTok App to Spy on Americans

Molly Bruns
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Biden Admin Sought to Use Chinese TikTok App to Spy on Americans

(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) Regulators in the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States endeavored to make a back-door deal with TikTok that would have granted the federal government an unprecedented amount of control over the app, effectively allowing them to spy on American citizens.

The government requested surveillance via the app, despite having condemned similar tactics that they accused Chinese Communist Party officials of using to undermine U.S. national security, according to the Post Millennial.

CFIUS drafted a proposal demanding greater access to the app and its records for the Justice and Defense departments in the summer of 2022.

If ByteDance—the parent company of TikTok—had agreed to the terms, federal actors would have had more access to the platform than to any other social media company. Feds would have power to search TikTok’s U.S. headquarters, files and servers without a warrant and without warning.

Federal officials also would have had power to stop changes to the platform’s terms of service.

After Gizmodo published a report on the government’s demands, TikTok issued a statement making it clear that they had worked with CFIUS for over a year.

“As has been widely reported, we’ve been working with CFIUS… to implement a national security agreement and have invested significant resources in implementing a firewall to isolate US user data,” a TikTok spokesperson said.

“Today, all new protected US user data is stored in the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure in the US with tightly controlled and monitored gateways,” it continued. “We are doing more than any peer company to safeguard US national security interests.”

TikTok has been criticized on a variety of fronts by both conservatives and leftists for posing security risks that undermine U.S. interests and values.

Many experts have cautioned about the invasive data-tracking practices by Chinese companies, domestic influence from billionaires seeking to sway elections and migrants smugglers seeking to bring illegal immigrants across America’s southern border.

The video-streaming platform, which caters predominately to a younger audience, also has been slammed by watchdog users such as Libs of TikTok for giving a platform to toxic content that promotes a Marxist agenda and the decay of traditional moral values, including radical transgender theory. By contrast, the Chinese version offers educational content.

The DOJ investigated ByteDance after revelations of workers spying on users, particularly several prominent journalists.

The Senate unanimously passed a ban on TikTok for all government devices in December.

COMMENT: Con-Artist Andrew Tate Infiltrates Conservative Movement

Dmytro "Henry" Aleksandrov
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COMMENT: Con-Artist Andrew Tate Infiltrates Conservative Movement

(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) Andrew Tate—an accused human trafficker, scammer and pedophile, among many other things—has been as able to convince many famous conservative personalities that he is on their side by creating a fake persona of himself as a fighter against the globalist regime.

Marketing himself as the public face of the “mens rights” movement, he has even caught the attention of revered anti-establishment journalist Tucker Carlson, who posted via Twitter a lengthy two-part interview with Tate from his home in Romania.

At the time, the social-media influencer remained on house arrest while awaiting trial amid allegations that he psychologically and financially manipulated women into involuntary servitude and captivity.

However, despite his criminal record fans have rallied behind Tate simply because he didn’t demonize half of the planet’s population and, therefore, “has positively impacted the lives of millions of young men,” as one Tate supporter wrote.

At face value, his message may seem an alluring one to those jaded by the guilt-driven dogma of wokeism and politically correct leftist culture, which unjustly saddles men with guilt and blame over their biological nature.

Tate became famous for espousing the opposite narrative: While feminists were attacking men by saying that they were the evil products of the patriarchal system who must apologize for their mere existence, Tate was telling them to “embrace their masculinity.”

However, critics note that—like other libertarian thinkers, including Ayn Rand—Tate’s value system has not only cast aside the religion of wokeism, but also traditional religion, such as Christianity, in favor of an amoral code of virtues that puts self-interest at the forefront.

Tate’s vision of a “good man” is not someone who is a responsible, hard-working husband and father who goes to church every Sunday. In his perspective, a real man is a childless, secular bachelor who pursues wealth, fornication with random women and material possessions.

As a result, Tate—whose audiences on social-media networks including TikTok, YouTube and Instagram boasted an estimated 7 million followers at their peak—has encouraged impressionable young men to follow suit.

In addition to offering questionable “solutions” in the fight against woke culture, Tate’s own moral code has been accused of being far worse. Using Tate’s own words against him, the MilkBarTV podcast recently exposed him as a pimp, sex trafficker, scammer, pedophile, liar, online pornograper and many other unpleasant titles in an extensive report.

However, after facing attacks from mainstream media, Tate and his brother, Tristan, added fuel to the fire by casting themselves as martyrs being persecuted for standing up against the Marxist regime.

While some, including Carlson and Blexit leader Candace Owens, have taken the bait, other conservatives, particularly those with a strong faith-based foundation, have remained skeptical.

Among those who have rejected Tate and his message are Liz Wheeler, Jason Whitlock, Michael Knowles, Matt Walsh, Andrew Klavan and Allie Beth Stuckey.

“You know, the more I hear about this Andrew Tate fella, the more he sounds like a real jerk,” Knowles wrote.

Reactions to Tate may be a belwether warning for traditional-values conservatives who find themselves increasingly in the minority as Americas shifting morals and the pernicious influence of social media force them to adapt in order to survive.

And for those who have dug into his online footprint deep enough to see the true Andrew Tate, it paints a very bleak picture for both the conservative movement and the future of America.

Trump PAC Trolls GOP Debate w/ ‘Vice Presidential Debate 2024’

Mark Pellin
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Trump PAC Trolls GOP Debate w/ ‘Vice Presidential Debate 2024’

(Mark Pellin, Headline USA) Donald Trump will be sitting for an online interview Wednesday night with Tucker Carlson, absent from the first GOP 2024 presidential primary debate in Milwaukee, but the former president and his campaign had already cast a wide shadow over the stage.

Starting with his proclamation on Truth Social over the weekend that “The public knows who I am & what a successful Presidency I had” Trump cited his administration’s myriad accomplishments and an NBC poll that showed him leading his next closet competitor by a whopping 46%, before declaring “I WILL THEREFORE NOT BE DOING THE DEBATES!”

Mainstream media and social media pundits spent the ensuing days in a frenzied reporting of how the eight candidates participating in the debate would respond to Trump’s absence, and how it would impact their own standings.

Reacting to the media’s obsession with how the other candidate’s would measure up to Trump, the former president’s MAGA PAC promoted the presidential debate as a de facto tryout for a slot on a Trump 2024 ticket as Veep.

The group even created a website where viewers watching the actual debate could vote for the winner of the “Vice Presidential Debate 2024” whose caricatures line a stage like pageant contestants: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former Vice President Mike Pence, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson.

vpdebate2024
IMAGE: vpdebate2024.com

In a reported fit of pique at the possibility of Trump’s debate night interview with Carlson cutting into event-host Fox News’ ratings, the network slapped back by restricting post-debate “spin room” access for Trump allies.

“Trump senior aides who had indicated they’d be in the spin room — where campaigns tout their candidate and rip their foes — now will be able to enter only if they’re guests of media organizations,” according to an internal Fox memo obtained by Axios.

Trump shrugged off any intended slight with a dismissive post on Truth Social.

On the chance that any of the presidential contenders should make a shocking breakthrough during Wednesday night’s debate, Trump’s shadow would likely once again dim any immediate post-debate Thursday media attention that could be used for public acclaim.

“Can you believe it? I’ll be going to Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday to be ARRESTED by a Radical Left District Attorney, Fani Willis, who is overseeing one of the greatest Murder and Violent Crime DISASTERS in American History,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “It is all about ELECTION INTERFERENCE!”

Mark Pellin is an editor at Headline USA. Follow him at  twitter.com/sabrepaw70.

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