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Faith in Miracles

One stunning afternoon: Setbacks imperil Biden’s reset

It was an hour President Joe Biden would no doubt like to forget.

On Friday, the Pentagon acknowledged that a drone strike in Afghanistan killed 10 civilians, including seven children, not terrorists. A panel advising the Food and Drug Administration voted to not recommend COVID-19 booster shots for all Americans over age 16, dashing an administration hope. And France announced it was recalling its ambassador to the United States out of anger for being cut out of a secret nuclear submarine deal Biden had struck with the United Kingdom and Australia.

The headlines, all within an hour, underscored the perils for any president from situations that can define a term in office.

Already, Biden has seen public approval numbers trend downward as the pandemic has deepened and Americans cast blame for the flawed U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The administration had hoped to roll out tougher vaccine guidelines, a new international alliance to thwart China and a recommitment to what Biden has done best: drawing on his years on Capitol Hill and knowledge of the legislative process to cajole fellow Democrats to pass the two far-reaching spending bills that make up the heart of his agenda.

Those ambitions are now more difficult to achieve.

Biden has proclaimed defeating the pandemic to be the central mission of his presidency. But the United States is now averaging more than 145,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases per day, compared with a low of about 8,500 per day three months ago.

The president has tried to shift the blame for the resurgence of cases to the more than 70 million Americans who have not gotten a vaccine and the GOP lawmakers who have opposed his increasingly forceful efforts to push people to get a shot. Aides had hoped for full FDA approval for the boosters, yet the advisory panel only recommended them for those over age 65 or with underlying health conditions or special circumstances.

Biden aides in recent days had quietly expressed relief that the Afghanistan withdrawal — like the war itself for much of its nearly two decades — has receded from headlines. That feeling was shattered Friday afternoon when the Pentagon revealed the errant target for what was believed to be the final American drone strike of the war.

Biden had long advocated leaving Afghanistan. Even after a suicide bombing killed 13 American service members, he told advisers the withdrawal decision was correct. He is known for his certitude, a stubbornness that flashed when he dismissed suggestions that he express regret for how the withdrawal occurred.

Aides have since been quick to note that more than 120,000 people have been successfully evacuated and they say U.S. efforts are securing the steady departure of others from under Taliban rule.

The end in Afghanistan was part of an effort to refocus foreign policy on China, an aim that accelerated with the surprise announcement of the agreement between the United States, United Kingdom and Australia.

But not only did Beijing balk, so did Paris, as France angrily accused the U.S. of cutting France out of the alliance and scuttling its own submarine deal with Australia.

And then France recalled its ambassador after its officials expressed dismay that, in their estimation, Biden had proven to be as unreliable a partner as his predecessor Donald Trump.

The strain with France came just as Biden had hoped to pivot to his ambitious domestic agenda.

But there are ideological divides among the Democrats on Capitol Hill about the $3.5 trillion spending package meant to be passed in tandem with the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. And all of Congress will be forced to juggle the White House’s legislation while being swamped with imminent deadlines on the debt ceiling and government funding.

The West Wing is re-creating a legislative strategy that worked to secure passage of the $1.9 trillion COVID relief in March and pushed the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill through the Senate in August, according to a half dozen White House aides and outside advisers who were not authorized to publicly discuss internal deliberations and spoke on condition of anonymity.

With Biden cajoling lawmakers, the infrastructure bill is to be passed through the House along with the $3.5 trillion spending bill that contains many of the president’s priorities, such as like climate change and child care, and would pass the Senate along party lines.

Because the Senate is in a 50-50 tie and Democrats’ margin in the House is only a handful of seats, few votes can be lost. It could be a formidable task to unite Democratic moderates such as Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who want a far smaller spending bill, with liberals including Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who has steadfastly said it could not shrink.

The White House also has begun filling the president’s schedule again with events meant to highlight the need to pass the bills, including linking visits to the sites of natural disasters — fires in California and Idaho, hurricane damage in Louisiana and the Northeast — to the climate change funding in the legislation.

This past Thursday, on what had previously been tentatively planned as a down day for Biden, the White House scheduled him to give a speech from the East Room during which he zeroed in on how tax enforcement to get big corporations and wealthy Americans to pay more would help fund his plan, without offering any new details.

But there are roadblocks. Manchin told Biden that he could not support $3.5 trillion and White House aides have begun signaling that they would settle for a smaller package, even if it raises the ire of progressives.

Biden’s advisers believe that, even if there is some unhappiness with the package, no Democratic lawmaker would want to be perceived as undermining the centerpiece of the agenda of a president from their own party.

The White House is also scaling back the president’s travel so he can support the agenda on Capitol Hill, but it’s led to concerns among some Democratic lawmakers that Biden isn’t doing enough to personally sell the legislation to their constituents across the country.

Some aides worry about the exposure level Biden may have faced when he mingled in groups during a recent trip to the West and his three stops to mark the Sept. 11 anniversary, two officials said. Biden, 78, also did not get a summer vacation. His plan to spend time at his Delaware home in August was scuttled by the Afghanistan crisis.

Aides had finally scheduled him a break, a long weekend at his house in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.. He reached his home Friday just after 1:30 p.m.

Ninety minutes later, any hope for a quiet weekend vanished.

Perspective on the Pandemic

According to the CDC, as of April 26, 2021, 3,427,321 people died from all causes in the United States in 2020. In comparison, 2,854,838 people died from all causes in the US in 2019 of which the CDC says 345,323 died from Covid-19. Trouble is we know a large percentage of these deaths were “with” Covid, not necessarily “from” Covid.

Yes, the total number of deaths was up in 2020 but the fact is we really don’t know exactly how many were attributable to Covid alone. Some estimates suggest the actual mortality from Covid is in the seven percent range of the CDC estimates, suggesting that 93 percent of the deaths were due to something else.

We do know the CDC says that Covid-19 is lethal to .026 percent of those infected meaning 99.74 percent survive. So if there were 345,323 deaths in 2020, allegedly due to Covid-19 that would mean only about 13 Million people were actually infected with Covid? But that doesn’t square with a recent report from the National Institute of Health (NIH) published September 7th, 2021, referencing a Nature magazine article that estimated the actual number of Covid-19 infections in 2020 was over 100 Million?

Using the CDC’s data we can calculate that 345,323 deaths would have meant 13 Million were infected assuming the CDC’s .026 percent mortality rate is accurate. If the Nature article is accurate that means Covid-19 is actually much less lethal than the CDC says. Somebody is lying through their teeth.

Aging Americans

It’s no secret the US has a rapidly aging population. According to the US Census Bureau there were over 54 million people age 65 and over in 2019. Of these more than 13 million are over age 80. According to the CDC the average life expectancy for US males is 76 and for females 81.

So virtually the entire population age 80+ is beyond their normal life expectancy. And according to the CDC 85 percent of people over age 65 have at least one of the following six chronic health conditions: diabetes, cardiovascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, cancer, or arthritis. And 56 percent (over half) have at least two chronic health conditions.

Obviously as one ages the probability of suffering from chronic health ailments goes up. Interestingly, the CDC does not list obesity as a chronic health ailment. According to The National Conference of State Legislatures obesity is a big deal. In their September 2014 report they said:

Obesity, a common and costly health issue that increases risk for heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancer, affects more than one-third of adults and 17 percent of youth in the United States. By the numbers, 78 million adults and 12 million children are obese—figures many regard as an epidemic…

So way back in 2014 it was obvious the US was suffering from an obesity “epidemic” according to this report. According to the CDC nearly 25 percent of Americans over age 65 are obese and as we saw above over half of those people have at least two chronic health issues.

The Obesity ‘Epidemic’

So if one out of four Americans over age 65 is obese, with all the serious health consequences that entails AND half of them have at least two chronic health issues as well, that would suggest it wouldn’t take much to push them over the edge to meet their maker. All it would take is a bad flu bug, a bout of pneumonia, or a case of bronchitis combined with existing health problems for death to occur.

How many of these deaths could have been prevented if timely (and as we now know, effective) treatments had been administered like Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine? Many doctors who were actually treating patients with these protocols reported dramatic improvement in 36-72 hours. But instead our medical “experts” literally outlawed these treatments and cancelled any doctor who spoke publicly about their effectiveness?

This Isn’t about health care

An additional 345,323 deaths in 2020 works out to about .65 percent of the 65 and over population in the US. Is that really a dramatic increase in deaths when proven effective treatments were purposely withheld from sick patients by medical professionals? And what about all the people who were refused routine medical care because of the hospitals being overwhelmed with patients?

But somehow these same hospitals that were allegedly “overwhelmed” found time for their staff to perform elaborately choreographed dance routines that were uploaded to Youtube and TikTok.

So far I’ve focused on physical ailments but this “pandemic” has been as much a psychological attack on the people as a physical one. Here’s why this matters: In the Holy Bible Proverbs 23:7 says, “As a man thinks in his heart so is he.” In this case the “heart” is the subconscious mind.

According to the Cleveland Clinic, five-to-seven percent of the adult population is susceptible to what is known as “somatic” disorder or psychosomatic disorder. They emphasize that somatic patients have weakened immune systems due to their condition making them more susceptible to illness. Somatic illness is defined as:

Somatic symptom disorder is a disorder in which individuals feel excessively distressed about their health and also have abnormal thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in response to their symptoms. There are different subtypes of the disorder based on the patient’s complaint. The disorder causes a disruption in the patient’s normal functioning and quality of life.

According to the latest Census data there are approximately 250 million adults in the US So if we take the lower five percent estimate that would suggest there are over 12 million adults predisposed to somatic illness. How do you think these people have been affected by the constant barrage of fear porn being broadcast 24/7 by all types of media?

Mandatory face masks everywhere, social distancing signs plastered on the floor of every store, hand sanitizer everywhere, Plexiglas shields at the bank, restaurants closed down, churches closed, neighbors committing suicide and no access to needed routine medical care. And being told there is NO treatment available until a vaccine arrives. Then discovering the vaccine doesn’t work very well and may be worse than the virus! I suspect some somatic patients have literally died from constant, grinding fear morphing into abject terror.

What has been done by our elected officials and their medical “experts” is the greatest crime against the people that has ever been perpetrated by any criminal gang in the history of the world! And they are doing it under the “authority” of the state which they claim is legal.

It is not and we must resist with every fiber of our being right now or there will be no country worth having for our children and grandchildren.

Conservatives warned to shun members of the ‘eco-Right’

‘You have nothing to gain and everything to lose’

If there’s one thing the Left knows cold, it’s deception. From Vladimir Lenin to Saul Alinsky, leftists are unparalleled masters of the art of victory through hoodwinking: Defeating opponents by fooling them into false agreement.

Owning the battlefield in this war starts with controlling the language. We’ve seen this play out in the debate over abortion access, with pro-choice activists redefining “pro-life” to mean anything but the conviction that life begins at conception—and swindling unwitting Christians into their ranks.

Now it’s spreading to the debate over climate change, with environmental activists claiming there’s nothing “partisan” about their one-sided campaign to fundamentally transform America. Radicals, socialists, and authoritarians know that global warming offers them the best chance to weaponize Big Government and dictate where Americans live and work, what they drive, eat, and buy, and even what beliefs they’re allowed to hold—all through fear.

Truth-loving skeptics are all that stand in their way. So what better way to defeat them than by undermining the skeptics’ unity with false promises?

Meet the “eco-Right,” the collection of lobbying, litigation, and activist nonprofits that identify themselves as free market yet who have bought the Left’s argument that the Earth is getting dangerously hot and we’re to blame. Groups like ClearPath, Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, and the Climate Leadership Council disagree over specific policies—some want a devastating carbon tax to reduce emissions, others want federal subsidies for expensive lithium batteries—but all want skeptical Republicans to compromise with uncompromising leftists on their global warming policies.

By doing so they threaten to undermine both affordable energy in America and the future of the conservative movement—which is why they’re often funded by the likes of George Soros as well as the Ford and Hewlett Foundations.

My colleagues and I at the Capital Research Center first broke the news on the secret liberal mega-donors bankrolling the eco-Right in order to rebrand radical environmentalism as “conservative.” Our new report, Rise of the Eco-Right, compiles years of research and investigative reporting to expose the funders, leadership, and lobbying of the eco-Right, exposing a web of overlapping boards and shared donors in service to a destructive and cynical agenda.

We’ve studied the professional Left for decades and are all too familiar with activists’ use of deception and misdirection to camouflage their agenda to the casual glance. Unlike Activism Inc., we believe that Americans should be free from fearmongering to listen to arguments from both sides and come to their own conclusions in the global warming debate. Rise of the Eco-Right aims to make it clear that climate-conscious conservatives cannot compromise with the Left because activists aren’t interested in anything less than a “green” socialist revolution.

Don’t take my word for it—that’s the crux of an open letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) signed by 263 activist groups in November 2019, urging Congress to pass the Green New Deal—arguably the most sweeping legislation ever proposed in America—to combat “increasing income/wealth inequality and rising white nationalism and neo-fascism” in America.

Today’s environmentalists are more interested in “environmental racism” and “restitution for Black and Indigenous farmers” than the environment, and they’re no longer hiding it behind the fig leaf of saving the planet from greenhouse gases.

Recall the explanation that Green New Deal author Saikat Chakrabarti’s gave to the Washington Post: “Do you guys think of [the Green New Deal] as a climate thing? Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.”

Here’s the bottom line: carbon taxes, “green” tech subsidies, and greenhouse gas pledges will never be enough for Big Green because the debate isn’t really about those things, but power. Activists know this, which is why they’ve abandoned these “market-friendly” proposals for the ultimate prize: the utopia of socialized medicine, federal jobs for everyone, slavery reparations, and more.

The eco-Right offers the Left a backdoor for the kind of statist policies that conservatives would never support—if they weren’t falsely labeled. It’s a siren’s song that promises free market answers to climate change but will only result in tyranny. Conservatives, you have nothing to gain and everything to lose by listening to the eco-Right—so don’t give up the ship.

‘Where Does It Stop?’: Disney World Employees Protest Company’s Vaccine Mandate

A little more than 30 Walt Disney World employees gathered outside the complex’s shopping center in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, on Friday afternoon to protest the company’s vaccine mandate.

The protest’s organizer, 16-year cast member Nick Caturano, told the Miami Herald he hopes the demonstration will spark a nationwide discussion about constitutional rights and medical privacy.

“People are free to get this vaccine if they feel it’s going to be the best thing for them,” he said, “but to force people to get the vaccine, that’s another story.”

Caturano told the newspaper he has heard from thousands of Disney employees, both in the U.S. and around the world, who have said they oppose the brand’s mandate but are fearful of losing their jobs if they speak up.

“I don’t want to lose my job,” he said. “I love my job, but I’m also more afraid that, if I don’t speak up now, where does it stop?”

Although he’s considered immunocompromised, Caturano said he is hesitant about taking a COVID-19 inoculation due to his natural immunity as well as his religious beliefs.

He said this week he’s “not comfortable” taking the shots.

“I just can’t see putting it in my body,” the Disney employee explained.

In a separate interview with WOFL-TV, Caturano said he and his Disney colleagues “understand that COVID-19 is a very real health concern that we all have to take seriously, but many cast members have a legitimate basis for refusing vaccination.”

“So many cast member felt alone and felt like they were the only ones who thought this was wrong,” he said of why he organized the protest. “I think we were made to feel that way on purpose. But we have connected now, and we are pushing back.”

The Friday march comes a little less than a month after Walt Disney World reached an agreement with unions to require COVID-19 vaccines for unionized cast members. About a month before that, Disney mandated all its salaried and non-union hourly staffers in the U.S. be fully inoculated against the virus.

Union workers and salaried employees have until Oct. 22 to be totally vaccinated.

As for Caturano, he is hoping the pressure he and his fellow cast members are putting on Disney will be enough for the company to reconsider its vaccine mandate.

Earlier this week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) announced his administration will fine state and local officials $5,000 if they fire employees for not being vaccinated.

‘This Is Illegal’: Republicans Question Biden Administration’s Ban of Drones at Epicenter of Border Crisis

The Biden administration ban on drones at the new epicenter of the border crisis may not be legal, according to Senate Republicans.

The Federal Aviation Administration, or FAA, imposed on Thursday the no-fly-zone for drones and other unmanned aircraft in Del Rio, Texas, where thousands of illegal immigrants have amassed.

“I believe that the reason that they’re limiting drone usage is because they don’t want the American public to know, and I think this is illegal,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said on “Fox & Friends.”

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) also questioned the drone ban, which he said has grounded drones that were being used by news organizations to cover the border crisis.

“Any government stifling of First Amendment activities is unacceptable,” Johnson wrote to Troy Miller, acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

The ban was imposed on the same day that Fox News flew a drone in the area and captured aerial footage of the immigrants.

The FAA said in announcing the ban that it was driven by “special security reasons.” Johnson asked what those reasons were. The agency told The Epoch Times in an email that Border Patrol requested the restrictions “due to drones interfering with law enforcement flights on the border.” Johnson asked for more details on the alleged interference.

Epoch Times Photo
Illegal immigrants board a bus to be transported to a Border Patrol station for processing, under the international bridge, in Del Rio, Texas, on Sept. 16, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

Other Republicans also questioned the ban, including Reps. Diana Harshbarger (R-Tenn.), Brian Babin (R-Texas), and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio.).

“The FAA’s conveniently placed a ban on drones flying over the international bridge where [10,000 plus] illegal aliens are waiting to be processed—preventing media from covering the scene,” Babin wrote on Twitter.

President Joe Biden “doesn’t want you to see what a disaster he’s created,” he added.

CBP and the White House did not respond to early morning requests for comment. The FAA declined to say under what authority the agency issued the flight zone restrictions.

The White House did not hold a briefing on Friday and Biden traveled to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware for the weekend without speaking to reporters. He has no public events scheduled.

The FAA said Friday in a statement that Fox applied for and received clearance to operate drones in the restricted airspace and directed any other media organizations wanting to apply for exemptions to the restrictions to its website.

“As with any temporary flight restriction, media is able to call the FAA to make requests to see if it is possible to safely operate in the area,” the agency told The Epoch Times.

While Fox’s drones were still grounded, correspondent Bill Melugin went up in a helicopter with the Texas Department of Public Safety and recorded fresh aerial video footage and photographs.

General Milley Downplayed BLM Riots to Prevent Trump From Invoking Insurrection Act

Claimed they were mainly centered around the use of “spray paint.”

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, tried to downplay the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots in an effort to prevent Donald Trump from invoking the Insurrection Act, arguing that they were mainly centered around the use of “spray paint.”

That’s according to the new book, ‘Peril’, written by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.

Despite the violent demonstrations quickly spreading across the country, Milley continued to insist that they had only impacted two cities and were relatively sedate, echoing CNN’s ludicrous “fiery, but most peaceful” description of the riots.

“They used spray paint, Mr President, that’s not an insurrection. […] We’re a country of 330 million people. You’ve got these penny packet protests,” Milley allegedly told Trump.

Milley apparently told Trump that most of the riots only involved around 300 people and that they paled in significance to the 1968 Washington riots caused by the assassination of MLK and the Battle of Fort Sumter in 1861, which started the Civil War.

The riots took mere days to spread to virtually every major city in the country, with looting, arson and violent attacks becoming commonplace, eventually causing around $2 billion dollars in property damage as well as at least 19 deaths and over 17,000 arrests.

At one point, demonstrators took over an entire area of downtown Seattle, completely obliterating official law and order for a number of weeks.

Trump’s failure to act strongly and decisively led to him looking weak, derailing a lot of momentum he would have had going into the election.

According to other reports, Trump wanted to invoke the Insurrection Act and put Milley in charge of National Guard troops to end the unrest, leading the two to have a shouting match where Milley refused to take charge.

Back in June, Milley appeared to side with the kind of ‘woke’ rhetoric spewed by far-left groups like BLM when he told the House Armed Services Committee that he was concerned about “white rage” in the United States.

As we highlighted earlier this week, Milley was also accused of treason by Trump after it emerged that he had promised to warn China ahead of any military operations.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson labeled the revelation, “One of the scariest things that has ever happened in this country.”

State Supreme Court Clears the Way for Full Reversal of a Derek Chauvin Murder Conviction

One of the murder convictions against former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is likely to be thrown out after a decision last week by the Minnesota Supreme Court.

Chauvin was found guilty of killing alleged counterfeiter George Floyd in 2020, an incident that spawned massive violent protests in Minneapolis and nationwide. Chauvin’s conviction came against a backdrop of activists saying they planned to riot if Chauvin were acquitted.

According to KMSP-TV, Minnesota has defined third-degree murder as killing a victim without intent while acting in a dangerous way to other people while showing “a depraved mind.”

The Minnesota high court’s ruling said that the element of a depraved mind is not applicable if the person being charged was only focused on one victim, KMSP reported.

The ruling came in the case of former Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor, who was convicted of second-degree manslaughter and third-degree murder in the 2017 shooting death of Justine Ruszczyk Damond.

However, the ruling is likely to set a precedent that could be applied to the Chauvin case.

“It’s crystal clear now that Derek Chauvin cannot be convicted of murder three,” said Joseph Daly, emeritus professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Susan Gaertner, former county attorney in Ramsey County, Minnesota, told the Star Tribune she expects Eric Nelson, Chauvin’s attorney, to try to use the argument that having the charge against him hurt Chauvin’s chances during his trial.

However, she did not give it a very good chance of winning.

“Do I think that argument will be successful?” said Gaertner. “No.”

Daly said Nelson could argue that the charge impacted the jury, but also downplayed its chances for success.

“By having that charge, it so confused the jurors it violated his due process rights,” Daly said an argument could claim. “I think that’s a valid argument. Whether the court will [buy] it, I doubt it, because [jurors] did find him guilty of the higher crime.”

University of St. Thomas law professor Rachel Moran said the ruling clarifies state law, according to KARE-TV.

“The Supreme Court has to address legal issues that apply to a variety of cases, not just one, and sometimes, really their decision wasn’t so much about when should Mr. Noor get out of prison as it was, how should this third-degree murder statute be defined in anybody’s case?” Moran said.

Moran said the law is murky as written.

“It contains outdated language that frankly is not very well written, and the court actually said if you want to focus on rewriting the statute that’s a task for the legislature,” Moran said.

“It’s absolutely true none of these laws were written with police officers specifically in mind, so when the government does decide to prosecute a police officer, they’re trying to figure out which of these ordinarily applicable statutes fit with the officer’s conduct.”

“In a practical way, it does not affect Mr. Chauvin at all,” Moran said. “He will probably get his third-degree murder conviction vacated, just like Mr. Noor did, because his conduct was also recklessly indifferent as to one person: George Floyd.”

Chauvin was sentenced to more than 22 years in prison on the second-degree murder charge. The sentence was based on the second-degree murder charge only, according to the Star Tribune. Unless Chauvin’s attorney can successfully argue that the third-degree charge hurt his chances at trial, it was unlikely his sentence on that charge would be affected.

Caitlinrose Fisher,  one of Noor’s attorneys,  said the ruling was important for her client, according to NPR.

“Mohamed Noor did not act with a depraved mind. Mohamed Noor was not indifferent to human life,” Fisher said during oral arguments over the case earlier this year. “With the benefit of hindsight, we now know that Mr. Noor made a tragic split-second mistake. But if there is to be any meaningful difference between murder and manslaughter, that mistake is not sufficient to sustain Mr. Noor’s conviction for third-degree murder.”

She said Noor “really believed that he was saving his partner’s life that night, and instead he tragically caused the loss of an innocent life. Of course that is incredibly challenging, but I think just having reaffirmation that a mistake like that isn’t murder will mean more than words can say.”

Capitol Police Detain Man With A Gun At ‘Justice For J6’ Rally, Turns Out He’s ‘Undercover Law Enforcement’

“‘Are you undercover?’ the officers asked the masked man, who gave them a badge.”

Capitol Police surrounded a mask man at the “Justice for J6” rally that was reportedly armed with a firearm. The man told police where the gun was and they pulled out his law enforcement badge.

He identified himself as undercover law enforcement. The man replied “I’m just here” when asked if he was an undercover law enforcement. There is no confirmation that this man was on-duty law enforcement. Capitol Police extracted the masked man from the event without disarming or handcuffing him. (READ MORE: Penn State University Professor Calls for Unmasked Students to be Suspended)

Journalist Ford Fischer and other protesters armed with smartphones recorded images and videos of the police questioning the man.

The ‘Justice for J6’ event was hosted by Look Ahead America. The organization is run by former Republican analyst Matt Braynard. Their stated mission is “to register, educate, and enfranchise these disaffected citizens and ensure that their voices are not just heard but heeded and that the American Dream becomes their dream again.” The event was created in response to hundred of Trump supporters in prison awaiting their trial date for walking through the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. There were more press and law enforcement at this event than protestors.

California Democrats see Harris and Newsom colliding on road to the White House

A week before Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom beat back a recall election, Vice President Kamala Harris returned to California to rally voters to his side. United in victory for now, Democrats suspect Harris and Newsom will soon find themselves on a collision course.

The two California Democrats were molded by the “same political machine, same political family,” said Mike Madrid, a Republican California political operative, referring to the San Francisco-based team that helped jump-start their careers. A longtime Newsom adviser said that as the governor gains momentum from his win, “they could end up both wanting the same thing, which is the White House.”

Gil Duran, a former aide to Harris when she was California attorney general, said this could pose a challenge for the advisers who led both her 2020 presidential bid and Newsom’s successful campaign against the recall. Rumors of backroom negotiations brokered by the firm swirled when California Sen. Barbara Boxer announced her retirement in 2015. The seat ultimately went to Harris.

“The real question is if Newsom emerges from this recall with a lot of strength and tries to start building a narrative toward a presidential run of his own, you get to a crossroads where it’s Kamala and Newsom,” Duran said. “Which client do you pick?”

Whether Harris would turn to Bearstar Strategies to run her next presidential bid is an open question.The firm is the latest iteration of the powerhouse California Democratic campaign shop formerly known as SCN Strategies, and later SCRB Strategies, known for securing victories on local and statewide tickets. Hillary Clinton’s California primary victory over then-Sen. Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential race is credited to the firm’s founder, who also led her campaign in Texas and North Carolina.

The team was in attendance for Harris’s San Leandro rally with Newsom, where the vice president snapped pictures with former staffers away from the press. This person said the moment was all for show.

“They are persona non grata with Kamala,” one Democratic strategist said. “They are not welcomed or allowed to communicate with the vice president in any meaningful way.”

Photos circulated from the event showing the consultants and Harris chatting and smiling, but he said this wasn’t an accurate depiction of the relationship. “That’s not the reality,” he said. “That was for Instagram.”

Last week, in Oakland, California, Harris took to the stage before some 200 supporters urging voters to reject the recall motion. President Joe Biden campaigned for Newsom the day before the election.

Much has changed since Harris launched her presidential bid 12 miles away in 2019 before 20,000 people — not least, a bruising first eight months in office.

Before teaming up with Biden, Californians said they saw Harris as risk-averse
and pointed to her stance on healthcare during the race. Her prosecutorial skills were previously her selling point, showing up in confirmation hearings for Jeff Sessions and Brett Kavanaugh or on the debate stage with Biden, but she sought to distance herself from her years as a prosecutor amid a national reckoning on law enforcement and race.

Some blamed her advisers. The firm’s clients, with an eye on the national stage, took “politically cautious” stands, a San Francisco Democrat said.

“That’s a trait shared by Newsom and Kamala, and that’s a trait that their consultants push,” this person argued, stating that Newsom’s agenda-setting moves on same-sex marriage, or executions, while ground-breaking, were few.

It’s the effect of being guided by a famed opposition researcher, Bearstar Strategies founder Averill “Ace” Smith, who puts opponents on edge simply by entering the room , the San Francisco Democrat said.

“His job is to find faults in people and to punish and ruin them for it,” this person said. “He’s going to give you advice to knock off all the edges.”

One Los Angeles operative said that Harris, as a black and South Asian woman, faces a level of scrutiny and pushback that her counterpart avoids. “Because of who Gavin is, he can take more chances,” he argued.

While Harris remains the heir apparent to succeed Biden in leading a future Democratic ticket, whether that is in 2024 or beyond, sources in California politics wondered how she would advance her case for the top slot.

“It will be fascinating to see if Kamala can put together the kind of coalition and campaign and finally build an apparatus that can win,” said another California Democrat.

Her presidential run “burned really hot for a very short amount of time,” he added. “I don’t know where you go to correct that.”

By Wednesday, Newsom got what he wanted, a sweeping victory that Biden said cemented his and the governor’s mandates.

Political strategists credited Newsom’s political muscle for engineering an early coup by boxing out other prominent Democrats from the ballot.

This meant pushing aside the “panicky agitations” of concerned Democrats who wanted a viable second-option candidate, Duran said. “You had Chicken Littles saying, ‘We’ve got to have a Democrat on the ballot, just in case,’ and the Bearstar team very wisely said no.”

Chris Lehman, a political adviser to NextGen Policy, an advocacy group founded by billionaire environmental activist and former presidential primary candidate Tom Steyer, said the race was over when the candidate filing deadline passed and no credible Democrat filed to replace Newsom. “That’s when I, as a Democrat, started popping my champagne cork,” he said.

This “high risk, high reward” tactic, as a strategist called it, came into its own as Newsom’s most prominent rival began gaining steam.

With conservative radio host Larry Elder surging ahead of other recall candidates, Newsom succeeded in turning the race from a referendum on his leadership over the last 18 months into a head-to-head battle, posing the question: Did California’s deep-blue voters want a MAGA-aligned governor?

About one-quarter of signatories to the recall petition were registered Democrats, a feat that spooked party officials.

Frustrating voters was a willingness some saw in Newsom to breach his own COVID-19 rules, even as Californians struggled under strict lockdowns.

According to a pre-election poll from the Los Angeles Times and the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, 56% of voters agreed with the statement that “through his own actions, Newsom has demonstrated that the strict policies and behaviors that he wants others to follow during the pandemic don’t apply to him.”

A video shared to Instagram by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, California’s “first partner” and Newsom’s wife, seemed to capture the essence of this complaint. Wagging her finger at the camera, Jennifer Siebel Newsom instructed Californians to conserve water, to turn the tap off while brushing their teeth, and wait to run the dishwasher until full. But viewers spied a second dishwasher, undercutting the water conservation message she was pushing.

“[Newsom], in her two-dishwasher home, is telling people who are living three families to home, with homeless people out in the street, ‘Don’t use your dishwasher,’” one Sacramento Democrat said. “The theme of that was just, ‘Wow, these people, they’re so out of touch.’”

Parents grew irate on learning that Newsom’s children were back in their private school classrooms while public schools stayed shuttered.

“I think any one of [his advisers] would have thrown their body under the wheels of the governor’s SUV to keep him from going to French Laundry that night,” Duran said, pointing to the evening that effectively lit a match under the recall effort. While the outdoor, three-walled setting where Newsom was seen dining followed the letter of the state’s coronavirus rules, it flouted the spirit, for which the governor later apologized.

Newsom shifted his strategy, advocating for reopening schools and supporting businesses, a pivot that Joe Rodota, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s policy chief during his run for California governor in 2003, said made the challenge of countering the Democrat more difficult.

Newsom leaned into statewide concerns around the coronavirus and touted his vaccine mandate for health and school workers. In a campaign advertisement, the governor argued the race was “a matter of life and death ,” taking aim at Elder’s “deadly conspiracies” that he said threatened school closures.

The downside to capitalizing on Elder as a foil, one strategist said, was that Newsom’s team “never really sold Gavin.”

Californians saw the “same thing we’ve been seeing since 2016,” this person said — a referendum on MAGA politics. “If Democrats can only run against Trump, what are we for?”

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