Thursday, August 31, 2023

Former President Trump pleads not guilty in Georgia

 




This certainly isn't surprising, but Donald Trump has entered a plea of  not guilty to the charges leveled against him in Georgia.

Sterling Mosley reports:

On Thursday, leading Republican presidential candidate and 45th President Donald Trump made a major legal move in the case brought against him by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in Georgia regarding his actions following the 2020 election.

Trump decisively pleaded "not guilty" on all charges and decided to waive his arraignment which lays the groundwork for a lengthy legal case in the televised courtroom that could very well lead to the former president exonerating himself both in the eyes of the legal system and the American people.


Company behind Michigan battery plant employs 923 Communist Party members

 Filing details revealed after company denies 

'bringing communism to North America'


The Chinese parent company of Gotion Inc., which intends to build two electric battery plants in Michigan, employs 923 Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members, including its CEO, according to its 2022 ESG report.

The Fremont, California-based Gotion Inc. — which is “wholly owned and controlled” by Gotion High-Tech Power Energy Co., according to a Foreign Agents Registration Act filing — seeks to “invest $2.4 billion to construct two 550,000-square-foot production plants” for electric vehicle (EV) batteries in Big Rapids, Michigan, Fox News reported.

Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer supports Gotion’s plan, and the Biden administration approved the project in June. However, some Republicans have raised red flags over Gotion’s CCP ties through its parent company Gotion High-Tech.

While Gotion Inc.’s representatives deny CCP influence, Chinese-language documents show its Hefei-based parent company is led by a CCP member and employs hundreds more of them.

“Gotion High-Tech founded a CCP branch in 2010 that was upgraded to a CCP committee in 2014,” reads Gotion High-Tech’s 2022 ESG Report. “The CCP committee’s subunits are two CCP general branches and 11 party branches, currently with 923 CCP members, among which over 50% hold master’s degrees or higher.”

Gotion High-Tech’s CEO, Li Zhen, is also identified as the party secretary for the firm’s CCP committee within a section of the 2022 ESG report highlighting the company’s 2022 “party building work situation.”

“The company’s party secretary for its CCP committee, chairman of the board of directors, Li Zhen, led a portion of CCP member representatives, company leader groups and every level of core personnel on a road trip to Anhui province’s Jinzhai Revolutionary Martyr’s Memorial Tower, to tour the Red Army Memorial Hall and Jinzhai Revolutionary Museum,” the firm’s ESG report states.

Questions about Gotion’s CCP-ties arose after The Midwesterner reported that Gotion High-Tech’s “Articles of Association” state that: “The Company shall set up a Party organization and carry out Party activities in accordance with the Constitution of the Communist Party of China. The Company shall ensure necessary conditions for carrying out Party activities. The secretary of the Party committee shall be the chairman.”

In August 2023, Politico reported that Gotion’s North American manufacturing vice president Chuck Thelen criticized those who cited this language in the China-based parent company’s Articles of Association.

Thelen, Politico reported, has insisted that there is no such language in the U.S.-based company’s articles of incorporation. Thelen said the Chinese Communist Party has no presence in the North American company.

“‘The rumors that you’ve heard about us bringing communism to North America are just flat-out fear-mongering and really have nothing based in reality,’” Politico quoted Thelen as saying.

Likewise, an unnamed spokesperson for Gotion told Fox News: “Gotion Inc. makes it very clear in the [Foreign Agents Registration Act] filing that it is not supervised, directed, controlled or financed by any foreign government or foreign political party. … It’s unequivocally spelled out in the FARA document.”

However, lawmakers remain concerned, given that Gotion’s proposed Michigan battery plant will “be located within 60 miles of military armories and 100 miles from Camp Grayling, the country’s largest U.S. National Guard training facility,” Fox News reported.

Camp Grayling occupies 148,000 acres and hosts live-fire combat training exercises, according to its website.

Gotion did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Li Zhen could not be reached for comment.

https://dailycallernewsfoundation.org/2023/08/31/exclusive-chinese-parent-behind-company-building-michigan-battery-plants-employs-923-ccp-members/

Appeals court smashes government habit of dodging financial liabilities

 Agencies sued for violating the constitution pull out at the last minute

(Unsplash)

It's a tactic that's actually been seen over and over: A government agency gets sued for one of its practices, and just before a court ruling comes, it backs down, or has the practice changed somehow.

The case then goes away, with or without a court decision favorable to the plaintiffs. But the governmental entity insists it does not owe attorneys' fees to the plaintiffs, a standard practice in such cases, because it reversed course before the decision.

But now an appeals court is holding a governmental body accountable anyway, and has ordered those fees to be paid.

Officials with the Rutherford Institute say the 7-4 decision came in Stinnie V. Holcomb. There, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and said the Virginia Division of Motor Vehicles cannot escape paying those costs.

"If the government is allowed to avoid the financial liabilities associated with violating the Constitution, it will violate the Constitution for as long as it can get away with it,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of "Battlefield America: The War on the American People."

"Such a practice cripples the ability of the citizenry, especially the poor and vulnerable, to effectively seek protection from the courts and hold the government accountable."

The case focused on a state law that penalized drivers for failing to pay court fines and costs, which "often have nothing to do with road safety or driving infractions."

After the fight developed, the state adopted legislation overturning the practice, a move that took place before the case reached its conclusion in court.

Because of that, the DMV demanded that it could not be required to pay the attorneys' fees for the winning side.

"A legal coalition including The Rutherford Institute, warned that allowing the DMV to avoid fiscal accountability would encourage further constitutional mischief by the government," the report said.

The appeals court agreed, and said governmental decision-makers were now allowed to "game the system" that way.

"Damian Stinnie was among more than 900,000 people who had their driver’s licenses automatically suspended by the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) under a state law that penalizes drivers for failing to pay court fines and costs which often have nothing to do with road safety or driving infractions," the institute reported.

"In July 2016, a lawsuit was filed against the DMV, alleging that the automatic suspensions violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantees of due process and equal protection.

The complaint charged that many people lost their licenses through being too poor to pay fines, "effectively depriving them of reliable, lawful transportation necessary to get to and from work, take children to school, keep medical appointments, care for ill or disabled family members, or, paradoxically, to meet their financial obligations to the courts," Rutherford explained.

The state's decision to drop the program came shortly before a preliminary injunction was issued from a district court that banned the practice.

The government, "attempting to avoid any legal consequences for its constitutional violations … insisted that since the issue was resolved through legislation rather than a final court-ruling against the DMV, the government could not be required to pay the plaintiffs’ attorneys for their time working on the case," the report said.

https://www.wnd.com/2023/08/appeals-court-smashes-government-habit-dodging-financial-liabilities/

Poll Shows GOP Establishment’s Senate Pick Getting Clobbered In Primary Matchup



A poll released Thursday indicates the Senate GOP campaign arm’s pick to unseat Montana’s incumbent Democratic senator in 2024 is not faring well in a potential primary.

Former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy, who was recruited by the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), is losing by double digits to Republican Rep. Matt Rosendale, who’s considering a bid, according to a J.L. Partners survey. Sheehy garnered only 21% support compared to Rosendale’s 52%, with 28% of GOP primary voters remaining undecided as to which Republican should take on Democratic Sen. Jon Tester.

Both Sheehy and Rosendale would beat Tester, but the former Navy SEAL is winning by a slightly larger margin of 1 point among likely general election voters, according to the poll. 

(RELATED: Top Montana State Republican Lawmakers Break From National GOP, Reveal Their Senate Pick)

“This poll shows Tim Sheehy has gained over 20 points on Matt Rosendale during his brief time in the race. Expect that trend to continue as Montana voters continue to learn about Sheehy’s military and business career,” NRSC Communications Director Mike Berg told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Other polling on this potential primary matchup indicates similar results, with a late June survey from the Democrat-aligned Public Policy Polling firm suggesting Sheehy would lose to Rosendale by 54 points. The congressman would also beat Tester by 5 points in a hypothetical 2024 general election matchup, according to an OnMessage Inc. survey from early March.

Sheehy founded an aerial firefighting company after serving in Afghanistan following 9/11, and has drawn criticism from some Republicans in the state regarding his lack of political experience in going up against a longtime Democratic senator. The businessman has the endorsement of Gov. Greg Gianforte, NRSC Chairman and Montana Sen. Steve Daines, Montana Rep. Ryan Zinke and numerous other national Republicans.

Rosendale served in both chambers of the state Legislature, was state auditor and has been serving Montana in Congress since 2020. The House Freedom Caucus member previously challenged Tester in 2018 and lost by 3.5 points, which is why the NRSC has said they didn’t recruit him to run for the same seat in 2024.

The congressman was one of the 20 members who opposed GOP Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California’s speakership bid in January, and held out until the 15th ballot to cast his vote for McCarthy.

Tester’s seat, which he’s held since 2006, is characterized by The Cook Political Report as in the “Lean D” category, along with Senate races in Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The J.L. Partners poll surveyed 418 likely Republican primary voters and 741 likely general election voters between Aug. 12 and Aug. 17.

https://dailycaller.com/2023/08/31/poll-shows-gop-establishments-senate-pick-tim-sheehy-getting-clobbered-primary-matchup-matt-rosendale/

Over 1,600 Scientists Sign 'No Climate Emergency' Declaration

International scientists have jointly signed a declaration dismissing the existence of a climate crisis and insisting that carbon dioxide is beneficial to Earth, contrary to the popular alarmist narrative.


“There is no climate emergency,” the Global Climate Intelligence Group (CLINTEL) said in its World Climate Declaration (pdf), made public in August. “Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific. Scientists should openly address uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming, while politicians should dispassionately count the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of their policy measures.”

A total of 1,609 scientists and professionals from around the world have signed the declaration, including 321 from the United States.

The coalition pointed out that Earth’s climate has varied as long as it has existed, with the planet experiencing several cold and warm phases. The Little Ice Age only ended as recently as 1850, they said.

"Therefore, it is no surprise that we now are experiencing a period of warming," the declaration said.

Warming is happening “far slower” than predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“Climate models have many shortcomings and are not remotely plausible as policy tools,” the coalition said, adding that these models "exaggerate the effect of greenhouse gases" and "ignore the fact that enriching the atmosphere with CO2 is beneficial.” For instance, even though climate alarmists characterize CO2 as environmentally-damaging, the coalition pointed out that the gas is “not a pollutant.”

Carbon dioxide is “essential” to all life on earth and is “favorable” for nature. Extra CO2 results in the growth of global plant biomass while also boosting the yields of crops worldwide.

CLINTEL also dismissed the narrative of global warming being linked to increased natural disasters like hurricanes, floods, and droughts, stressing that there is “no statistical evidence” to support these claims.

“There is no climate emergency. Therefore, there is no cause for panic and alarm. We strongly oppose the harmful and unrealistic net-zero CO2 policy proposed for 2050. Go for adaptation instead of mitigation; adaptation works whatever the causes are,” it said.

“To believe the outcome of a climate model is to believe what the model makers have put in. This is precisely the problem of today’s climate discussion to which climate models are central. Climate science has degenerated into a discussion based on beliefs, not on sound self-critical science. Should not we free ourselves from the naive belief in immature climate models?”
Climate Models and Sunlight Reflection

Among the CLINTEL signatories are two Nobel laureates—physicists John Francis Clauser from the United States and Ivan Giaever, a Norwegian-American.

Mr. Clauser has made a significant addition to climate models to dismiss the narrative of global warming: the visible light reflected by cumulus clouds which, on average, cover half of the earth.


Current climate models vastly underestimate this aspect of cumulus cloud reflection, which plays a key role in regulating the earth’s temperature. Mr. Clauser previously told President Joe Biden that he disagreed with his climate policies.

In May, Mr. Clauser was elected to the board of directors at the CO2 Coalition, a group focusing on the beneficial contributions of carbon dioxide in the environment.

“The popular narrative about climate change reflects a dangerous corruption of science that threatens the world’s economy and the well-being of billions of people,” Mr. Clauser said in a May 5 statement.

“Misguided climate science has metastasized into massive shock-journalistic pseudoscience. In turn, the pseudoscience has become a scapegoat for a wide variety of other unrelated ills.”

“It has been promoted and extended by similarly misguided business marketing agents, politicians, journalists, government agencies, and environmentalists. In my opinion, there is no real climate crisis.”
False Doomsday Predictions, a Presidential Issue

CLINTEL’s declaration against the climate change narrative counters propaganda spread by climate alarmists who have long predicted doomsday scenarios triggered by global warming—none of which have ever come true.

In 1970, some climate scientists predicted that the earth would move into a new ice age by the 21st century. Pollution expert James Lodge predicted that “air pollution may obliterate the sun and cause a new ice age in the first third of the new century,” according to The Boston Globe.


In May 1982, Mostafa Tolba, then-executive director of the United Nations environmental program, said that if the world did not change course, it would face an “environmental catastrophe which will witness devastation as complete, as irreversible, as any nuclear holocaust” by 2000.

In June 2008, James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Sciences, said that within five to 10 years, the Arctic would have no ice left in the summer.

As climate alarmists continue to spread propaganda about global warming, the topic has become an issue in the 2024 presidential race, with multiple candidates openly dismissing it.

In a July 13 post on X, Democrat presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that climate change “is being used to control us through fear.”

“Freedom and free markets are a much better way to stop pollution. Polluters make themselves rich by making the public pay for the damage they do," he said.

During the first 2024 GOP presidential debate, candidate Vivek Ramaswamy called climate change a “hoax.”

“The reality is, the anti-carbon agenda is the wet blanket on our economy. And so the reality is, more people are dying of bad climate change policies than they are of actual climate change,” he said.
High Temperatures, Biden’s Appliance Crackdown

Climate activists have insisted that global warming is responsible for the soaring temperatures across the United States, even claiming that temperatures are hitting record highs.

In a recent interview with The Epoch Times, John Christy, a climatologist and professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, dismissed the narrative of record high temperatures.

“Regionally, the West has seen its largest number of hot summer records in the past 100 years, but the Ohio Valley and Upper Midwest are experiencing their fewest,” he said.

“For the conterminous U.S. as a whole, the last 10 years have produced only an average number of records. The 1930s are still champs.”

Climate change policies have been used to justify sweeping lifestyle changes across the United States by the Energy Department, like restricting home appliances, and sometimes, even outright banning them.

In June, the Energy Department proposed rules that would require ceiling fans to become more energy efficient, a development that could lead to manufacturers having to shell out $86.6 million per year in “increased equipment costs.”

In February, the DOE proposed energy efficiency rules targeting gas stoves that would affect half of all new models of such stoves sold in the United States while making most of the existing ones noncompliant.

In July, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission proposed a policy that would remove nearly all existing portable gas generators from the market.

The Biden administration has already implemented a ban on incandescent light bulbs, which came into effect on Aug. 1.

https://creativedestructionmedia.com/news/national/2023/08/31/over-1600-scientists-sign-no-climate-emergency-declaration/

Judge Deciding Trump’s Fate in 2024 Election Comes from Family of Marxist Revolutionaries

The judge presiding over former President Trump’s multiple charges related to his attempts to legally challenge the 2020 presidential election comes from a family with a history of Marxist revolutionary activities in Jamaica. The judge’s family history was reported recently by the New York Post.

Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, appointed by President Obama, is the grandchild of Frank Hill. Hill was a communist revolutionary in Jamaica who, along with his brother Ken, was briefly incarcerated by the British governor of the island during WWII due to suspicions of “subversive activities,” the report notes.

Frank Hill is the father of Noelle Hill, who is Judge Chutkan’s mother, according to public records. Frank and his brother Ken were ousted from the People’s National Party of Jamaica for their communist beliefs, as reported by Jamaican media outlets.

Ken was described as “more pragmatic and less concerned with political theory” by Richard Hart in his 1999 book, “Towards Decolonisation: Political, Labour and Economic Developments in Jamaica 1938–1945.”

“Ken Hill, by far the most influential, was more pragmatic and less concerned with political theory than most members of the left. He probably began to consider himself a communist both as a result of the influence of his brother Frank and also his observation of the course of world events,” Hart wrote of the brothers.

Judge Chutkan has faced accusations from conservatives, who allege that she demonstrates political bias in her role. Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, for example, recently introduced a resolution seeking to censure and investigate the judge for “open bias and partisanship in the conduct of her official duties,” referencing her past remarks in support of Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020.

“Tanya Chutkan was appointed as a district judge for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia by President Barack Obama after donating thousands of dollars to get him elected,” a statement from Gaetz said.

According to official documents, Chutkan donated $1,500 to Obama’s campaign between 2008 and 2009.

Gaetz’s statement added that Chutkan “has inappropriately expressed support for violent protests that occurred in the summer of 2020, all the while handing down multiple tough sentences to non-violent January 6th defendants. Additionally, during a sentencing hearing in October 2022, she inappropriately lamented that President Donald Trump ‘remains free to this day.'”

Chutkan has been an extraordinarily tough judge on January 6 cases. The judge has consistently expressed the view that the incident was an attempt to overthrow the government, rather than a riot carried out by unarmed extremists with no means to capture and hold the government.

“People gathered all over the country last year to protest the violent murder by the police of an unarmed man. Some of those protesters became violent,” Chutkan wrote about the BLM protests in October 2021.

“But to compare the actions of people protesting, mostly peacefully, for civil rights, to those of a violent mob seeking to overthrow the lawfully elected government is a false equivalency and ignores a very real danger that the January 6 riot posed to the foundation of our democracy,” she said.

The BLM riots led to over twenty deaths, while the January 6 protesters did not provably kill anyone. Despite her obvious partisan bias, the judge has nonetheless been given free reign to decide January 6 cases. She now holds the fate of a presidential election in her hands.

NOW READ:

https://beckernews.com/judge-deciding-trumps-fate-in-2024-election-comes-from-family-of-marxist-revolutionaries-51652/

Ex-CIA Agent Who Signed Propaganda Letter About Hunter Biden Laptop Tried To Conceal Twitter Job

A new Twitter Files has dropped, this time from substack journalist Texas Lindsay - who reveals that a former CIA agent who was one of the 51 ex-intelligence officials that signed the infamous Hunter Biden laptop propaganda letter - tried to hide her later work for Twitter.

Nada Bakos

Nada Bakos, whose picture appeared in March 2022 on the cover of the NY Post detailing the signatories of the Oct. 2020 letter suggesting that the Hunter Biden laptop release was a "Russian information operation," went on to work for Twitter's policy team in March 2022.

"Hi All – I wanted to make you aware of the NYPost cover that I was ‘featured’ on related to the Oct 2020 story about Hunter Biden’s emails when he was on the Board of the Ukrainian Gas company, Burisma and a letter signed by 100s of former IC officials," Bakos said in an internal email that bore the signature 'senior policy domain specialist.'

"(Twitter also banned the NYPost for the story at the time). Given my Policy role (and currently doing enforcement) across CHA-O, I didn’t want this to come as a surprise. I don’t/haven’t publicly acknowledged working for Twitter and locked down my Linkedin. My mentions are a mess, of course," she added.

Bakos notably worked for the CIA's in counterterrorism between 2000-2010 and published a 2019 memoir about her time with the agency.

What's more, Bakos has received multiple letters from House Judiciary Committee Chair Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) asking for more information and documents regarding her decision to sign the propaganda letter.

According to her archived social media footprint, Bakos clearly hates Donald Trump and held a positive view of Joe Biden and Democrats - raising questions over political bias regarding her involvement in both the letter and employment at Twitter. In June of 2017, she wrote a WaPo OpEd critical of Trump's tweets.

Her former CIA boss, Mike Morrell, is a columnist at the Washington Post (who hasn't written anything since Oct. 2020).

In closing, Texas Lindsay writes: "People trained to overthrow foreign governments have no place meddling, influencing or putting their thumb on the scales to sway outcomes of our elections at home. Accountability and answers are needed."

Indeed.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/ex-cia-agent-who-signed-propaganda-letter-about-hunter-biden-laptop-tried-conceal-twitter

It's Cartoon/Meme Time! #373