April 12, 2023 | Sundance It’s going to be ugly. Likely to be uncomfortable. Certain to be intense, grit, bloody, fierce and filled with adrenaline.
As we share in a reminder every morning, “This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can’t be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won’t be done. The Founders’ Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.” I can assure you of only this, if we do not stand victorious it will not be because Donald J Trump left anything on the battlefield.
2024 is MAGA burning the ships behind us. This one is for all the marbles. This is not a place where tepid half-measures and gentlemanly pastels will suffice. Get right with God, put on the armor, absorb the focus of fighting like the third monkey on the ramp to Noah’s ark, and get comfortable being uncomfortable. {Direct Rumble Link}
Our ally is anyone who stands beside us, right now. Our enemy is anyone who doesn’t.
The new sons and daughters of the revolution are going to look completely different. The Green Dragon Tavern may be a church or a picnic table. The assembly is not focused on the labels of the assembled. We ain’t got time for that. The mission is the purpose… The fight is wherever it surfaces…. Delicate sensibilities dispatched like a feather in a hurricane.
"There are too many folks that are right of center for us not to inhabit the key states. We did not cross the Rubicon, the left has, and they intend to pursue a scorched earth policy. You either live at their throat or under their foot. So, you might as well live at their throat"
MOSCOW, April 12. /TASS/. The Strategic Missile Forces have carried out a test-launch of the intercontinental ballistic missile from the Kapustin Yar training ground in Russia’s Astrakhan Region, the Defense Ministry reported on Wednesday.
"On April 11, 2023, the combat crew of the Strategic Missile Troops successfully launched the intercontinental ballistic missile of the land-based mobile missile system from the Kapustin Yar State Central Multiservice Training Ground in the Astrakhan Region," the report said.
The launch was aimed at testing the advanced military supplying of intercontinental ballistic missiles, the ministry noted, adding that "the launch permitted proving that the <…> solutions used in the development of new strategic missile complexes are correct.".
The exercise head hit the hypothetical target at the Sary-Shagan proving ground in Kazakhstan to the specified accuracy, according to the report. "The launch fully dispatched its mission," the Defense Ministry said.
Republicans and others started raising concerns during President Biden's successful 2020 White House campaign, if not earlier, that Hunter Biden used the family name and influence while his father was vice president to make millions in overseas business deals, which also could have compromised U.S. national security.
Johnson told The Washington Times the records show the Biden family involved with the now-defunct CEFC China Energy, which had connections to the Chinese Communist Party.
The firm gave $1 million to Hudson West III, which was a joint venture owned by Hunter Biden and Gongwen Dong, who is a business associate of CEFC’s founder and chairman, Ye Jianming, reportedly according to the bank records.
"In my mind, it's the Chinese government telling Joe Biden, 'We got the goods on you, buddy. And we’re willing to dish it up,'" Johnson said.
The records provided by the bank also include those from the president's brother, James Biden.
Cathay Bank has offices in Los Angeles and China.
Johnson says the bank turned over the records to him and fellow GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley, of Iowa. Other banks have denied the senators' requests for the records.
For months, the National Archives and Records Administration has insisted it had nothing to do with the federal criminal investigation into memos containing classified markings that were found at former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate since it referred the matter to the FBI in February 2022. "When NARA identified items marked as classified national security information within the 15 boxes, NARA referred this issue to the DOJ," acting Archivist Debra Wall wrote Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), now the House Intelligence Committee chairman, on Aug. 16. "Since that time, the DOJ has been exclusively responsible for all aspects of this investigation, and NARA has not been involved in the DOJ investigation or any searches that it has conducted." The claim is important because it has been used by NARA as a reason why it doesn't have to answer any further questions from curious lawmakers. "Accordingly, NARA is unable to provide a briefing or any documents in response to your letter, and we refer you to the DOJ," Wall wrote last summer. But internal messages, emails and letters — some released in recent days under the Freedom of Information Act — tell a different story that raises questions about the Archives' official timeline in the Trump dispute. For instance, new internal messages between Archives staff show that a full week after Wall's letter to Congress, a senior NARA official was still seeking data about the FBI probe. "Need the case number for the FBI review," NARA liaison to the Biden White House John Laster wrote in a text message dated Aug. 23 of last year. "I think it's LW 2022-070," a colleague texted back. "This is the FBI review of the 15 boxes correct?" "Correct," Laster responded. Months earlier, but well after the NARA referral to the FBI, the Archives was deeply involved in the probe when it fielded a request in April 2022 from the Biden White House to facilitate FBI "special access" to 15 boxes of documents Trump had returned to the Archives, some of which contained the classified memos, according to a letter from the Archives to one of Trump's attorneys. "On April 11, 2022, the White House Counsel's Office — affirming a request from the Department of Justice supported by an FBI letterhead memorandum — formally transmitted a request that NARA provide the FBI access to the 15 boxes for its review within seven days, with the possibility that the FBI might request copies of specific documents following its review of the boxes," the Archives wrote in a May 10, 2022 letter to Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran. Such documents, released by NARA to the public, clearly show Archives activity well after the criminal referral. But despite the activity, both the FBI and NARA have continued to maintain the case changed hands and the Archives dropped out as soon as the National Archives Office of Inspector General referred the matter to the FBI for criminal investigation on Feb. 9, 2022. "NARA received the 15 boxes from President Trump on January 18, 2022, and then discovered that they contained classified national security information," Wall wrote current House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and current House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer on Oct. 25 of last year. "Shortly after the discovery, NARA consulted with its Office of Inspector General (OIG), which operates independently of NARA," Wall added. "As DOJ has disclosed publicly in court filings, NARA's OIG subsequently referred the matter to DOJ on February 9, 2022." In its application for the search warrant used to raid Mar-a-Lago, the FBI likewise cited the February 2022 referral as the trigger for probable cause for its investigation. "The investigation began as a result of a referral the United States National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) sent to the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) on February 9, 2022," an FBI agent wrote in the affidavit. A spokesperson for the National Archives did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday. When Just the News and this reporter first obtained the May 2022 communications between Corcoran and NARA and published them on Aug. 23, 2022, the story's revelation about the special access request from the FBI raised concerns at the highest levels of the Archives, in part because other news outlets were beginning to pick up on it. "fyi," NARA general counsel Gary Stern wrote Wall, "see query below from Politico, which is following up on John Solomon's story effectively releasing the letter that Deb sent to Trump rep Evan Corcoran in May concerning the DOJ special access request for the 15 boxes. (I've also received calls from AP and the NYTimes.) "Solomon also posted this story characterizing the communications between Jonathan Su (WHCO), Corcoran, and me over the DOJ request that led up to Deb's letter (and quoting Jim Jordan and Alan Dershowitz)." The conflicts between NARA's representations to Congress and its own internal communications are raising concerns. The conservative public interest law firm America First Legal is preparing a Freedom of Information Act request to force the release of additional communications and records, officials for the group told Just the News. "The evidence suggests that the ostensibly nonpartisan National Archives and Records Administration misled Congress about the Biden White House's responsibility for the FBI's raid of former President Trump's home," said Reed D. Rubinstein, America First Legal's Senior Counselor and Director of Oversight and Investigations. "The evidence further suggests that Biden officials in the Executive Office of the President and the Department of Justice unlawfully abused their power and then lied about it to the American people. This government, it seems, acknowledges no limits on its power to harass, intimidate, and silence its political opponents," he added. And members of Congress are also beginning to dig deeper into the role of the Biden White House, NARA and others in the months after the February 2022 referral.
Supporting documents... https://justthenews.com/sites/default/files/2023-04/acting-archivists-response-to-08-09-2022-letter-from-hpsci-ranking-member-turner.08.16.2022.pdf
https://justthenews.com/sites/default/files/2023-04/category-9-combined-15-boxes-release-.pdf
https://justthenews.com/sites/default/files/2023-04/FBIMarALagoRaidAffidavit.pdf
The war in Ukraine is the twilight struggle not of a dictatorship which lasted half a century, but of an empire which lasted nearly five. In A.D. 1475 the Principality of Theodoro fell to an Ottoman siege. The final rump state of a rump state of what had once been the Eastern Roman Empire, Theodoro’s fall had been inevitable since the capture of Constantinople by the Ottomans in 1453, the date historians usually point to as the fall of Eastern Rome. But whether one pegs the final end of the Eastern Roman Empire to 1453 or 1475 is beside the point; the fall of the empire, sometimes referred to as the Second Rome, was a seismic event, ending over two millennia of some form of Roman statehood. But the full reverberations of that fall took centuries to become clear, and certainly never were so to those living at the time. Though it may not seem so at first, the world finds itself in a similar situation today in regard to what was once called the “Third Rome”: Moscow, the heart of the Russian Empire, Soviet Union, and the current-day Russian Federation. Moscow received this moniker due to its proximity to the Second Rome, Constantinople, its close relationship to that empire, and their shared Orthodox Christianity. And the fall of that Second Rome provides a roadmap of warning to Western policymakers today regarding the final fall of the Third. Of course, most foreign policy analysts, especially those of the liberal internationalist variety, would not see a connection here beyond historical happenstance. To them, the Third Rome, such as it was, ended when the Russian Empire fell in 1917. Most Western analysts and policymakers view the current state of affairs in Eastern Europe as nothing more than post-Soviet Russia making a last-gasp attempt at retrieving its former territories in order to climb back to its 1950s communist heights, a time in which it was the clear ruler of Eurasia. This explains President Joe Biden’s administration’s recent call for a “weakened Russia” and Biden’s improvised call for regime change. In his eyes, the current Russian Federation is simply the weak and dying Soviet Union, led by weak and dying former communist officials. Those crafty cartoon communists, Boris and Natasha, are at it again, and those on the right side of history must step in. But there is another possibility, one which should be taken seriously by those who seek to determine the future of the world: that we are not in the aftermath of the Soviet Union but are instead still in the final days of the Third Rome. The idea of the Russian Empire still existing in spirit is not original; for just one example, it was recently espoused by the Russian author, philosopher, and historian Boris Akunin. But it has flown under the radar of major Western policymakers on all sides of the political spectrum and it deserves attention, because when viewed through this lens recent historical events take on a different hue. In this telling, the Soviet Union was a last-ditch attempt by a group of radicals, knowingly or unknowingly, to resurrect Russian imperial greatness. The war in Ukraine, therefore, is the twilight struggle not of a dictatorship which lasted half a century, but of an empire which lasted nearly five. This leads one to a conclusion opposite that of the former view: that the West should be cautious in seeking to destabilize or destroy the Russian Federation. Far from desiring to end the aftermath of a failed communist experiment, the West may inadvertently be seeking to finalize the half-millennium old Russian Empire. We should therefore be wary of wantonly seeking to “weaken” Russia. This warning was most recently exhibited by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger at Davos, who called on the Ukrainians to “match the heroism that they have shown in the war with wisdom for the balance in Europe and in the world at large.” For inspiration as to how to proceed with balance and the West-Russian relationship, and for warning as to what not to do, we can look to the fate of Russia’s Orthodox progenitor, the Second Rome: the Eastern Roman Empire, its collapse, its final stand, and all that followed.
Continue at The American Conservative
The man known as Russia's "Merchant of Death" offered former President Donald Trump asylum in Russia earlier this week, believing that the GOP leader's life is in danger, RadarOnline.com has learned. In an interview with a Russian-state TV station, Victor Bout told a reporter he sent a telegram to the ex-prez warning him of an "imminent threat" to his life and asking him to fly to Russia for refuge. Bout claimed: "The legal process which has now begun in New York won't just end in Donald Trump being convicted and barred from the [2024] election." Instead, he believes the 76-year-old politician will "simply be eliminated." "I think it's in the best interests of all of humanity and primarily all of the American people to invite Donald Trump here, to Russia, to give him security and protection," Bout continued. "Here so that he leads this uprising against the globalists and, most importantly, does not allow the elimination of the American people."
