The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) checks the background of illegal aliens they have in custody. But, the administration’s letter to Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) shows that as of July 21, 2024, ICE let 435,719 convicted criminals and 226,847 people with pending criminal charges in their home countries into the U.S.

Of those cleared by ICE, 13,099 have convictions for homicide, and another 1,845 were facing criminal charges. Some 9,461 have convictions for sex offenses (not including assault or commercialized sex), and 2,659 face pending charges. The convictions include other crimes such as assault (62,231), robbery (10,031), sexual assault (15,811), weapons offenses (13,423), and dangerous drugs (56,533).

About 7.4 million noncitizens are in the “national docket data,” so 662,776 is 9% of the total, and if one extrapolates the numbers to the homicide rate in this country, it strongly indicates that the government is letting migrants into this country who commit murder at a rate 50% higher than the rest of the U.S. population.

And these numbers clearly underestimate the crime rate of these noncitizens. The noncitizens in the “national docket data” turned themselves in to border agents for processing or were caught. Those who don’t turn themselves in are obviously far more likely to have something to hide from those doing the processing, so-called “gotaways,” who are observed illegally entering the U.S. but not caught or turned back.

These figures coincide with other data from the Arizona prison system and show illegal aliens commit crime at much higher rates than Americans or legal immigrants.

Under the Remain-in-Mexico policy, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) did background checks on immigrants’ cases, including contacting the country that the immigrant is from before they are approved to come to the U.S.

ICE agents cannot access the same databases to check on the immigrants, and they didn’t contact the immigrant’s home country. Plus, the massive inflow of immigrants has overwhelmed the system. The Deputy Director for ICE blames the “enormous workload”  agents face, so they haven’t been able to do even the limited background checks they are doing. There are so many coming in that the government can’t house these immigrants until their backgrounds are properly checked.

ICE processed these criminals as they entered the country, but it didn’t identify them as criminals, so it released them into the country. Now, they are just walking around freely in the United States, and no one knows where they are.

It took over six months for the Biden administration to finally respond to a congressional request for these numbers. The deputy director for ICE “apologized” for the delay.

As bad as these numbers are, the reality may be even worse. The Biden-Harris administration is cooking the books to make the border crisis not look as bad as it is. For example, in mid-September, retired San Diego Border Patrol Chief Patrol Agent Aaron Heitke testified how the Biden-Harris administration ordered him not to publicize the arrests of illegal border crossers identified as having ties to terrorism.

Democrats quickly pointed out that some of these criminals came in before the Biden administration. But the administration’s letter to Rep. Tony Gonzales, a Texas Republican, didn’t provide a breakdown of how many came through under Biden-Harris. The administration policy, with its limited background checks and overwhelmed agents, has a much higher error rate compared to Trump’s Remain-in-Mexico approach. Background checks are ineffective if officials don’t even contact the immigrant’s home country.

Even if illegal immigrants weren’t committing crimes at higher rates than the general population, the American people have a right to expect those entering this country to be screened in order to prevent more murderers, rapists, drug dealers, and thieves from entering the country. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have the authority to call for expedited extradition for criminal illegal aliens in the U.S., but they have only moved to make extradition more difficult.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) checks the background of illegal aliens they have in custody. But, the administration’s letter to Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) shows that as of July 21, 2024, ICE let 435,719 convicted criminals and 226,847 people with pending criminal charges in their home countries into the U.S.

Of those cleared by ICE, 13,099 have convictions for homicide, and another 1,845 were facing criminal charges. Some 9,461 have convictions for sex offenses (not including assault or commercialized sex), and 2,659 face pending charges. The convictions include other crimes such as assault (62,231), robbery (10,031), sexual assault (15,811), weapons offenses (13,423), and dangerous drugs (56,533).

About 7.4 million noncitizens are in the “national docket data,” so 662,776 is 9% of the total, and if one extrapolates the numbers to the homicide rate in this country, it strongly indicates that the government is letting migrants into this country who commit murder at a rate 50% higher than the rest of the U.S. population.

And these numbers clearly underestimate the crime rate of these noncitizens. The noncitizens in the “national docket data” turned themselves in to border agents for processing or were caught. Those who don’t turn themselves in are obviously far more likely to have something to hide from those doing the processing, so-called “gotaways,” who are observed illegally entering the U.S. but not caught or turned back.

These figures coincide with other data from the Arizona prison system and show illegal aliens commit crime at much higher rates than Americans or legal immigrants.

Under the Remain-in-Mexico policy, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) did background checks on immigrants’ cases, including contacting the country that the immigrant is from before they are approved to come to the U.S.

ICE agents cannot access the same databases to check on the immigrants, and they didn’t contact the immigrant’s home country. Plus, the massive inflow of immigrants has overwhelmed the system. The Deputy Director for ICE blames the “enormous workload”  agents face, so they haven’t been able to do even the limited background checks they are doing. There are so many coming in that the government can’t house these immigrants until their backgrounds are properly checked.

ICE processed these criminals as they entered the country, but it didn’t identify them as criminals, so it released them into the country. Now, they are just walking around freely in the United States, and no one knows where they are.

It took over six months for the Biden administration to finally respond to a congressional request for these numbers. The deputy director for ICE “apologized” for the delay.

As bad as these numbers are, the reality may be even worse. The Biden-Harris administration is cooking the books to make the border crisis not look as bad as it is. For example, in mid-September, retired San Diego Border Patrol Chief Patrol Agent Aaron Heitke testified how the Biden-Harris administration ordered him not to publicize the arrests of illegal border crossers identified as having ties to terrorism.

Democrats quickly pointed out that some of these criminals came in before the Biden administration. But the administration’s letter to Rep. Tony Gonzales, a Texas Republican, didn’t provide a breakdown of how many came through under Biden-Harris. The administration policy, with its limited background checks and overwhelmed agents, has a much higher error rate compared to Trump’s Remain-in-Mexico approach. Background checks are ineffective if officials don’t even contact the immigrant’s home country.

Even if illegal immigrants weren’t committing crimes at higher rates than the general population, the American people have a right to expect those entering this country to be screened in order to prevent more murderers, rapists, drug dealers, and thieves from entering the country. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have the authority to call for expedited extradition for criminal illegal aliens in the U.S., but they have only moved to make extradition more difficult.

Given the roughly 50 million students in U.S. K-12 schools each year, the number of students who have been victims of sexual misconduct by school employees is probably in the millions each decade, according to multiple studies. Such numbers would far exceed the high-profile abuse scandals that rocked the Roman Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts of America.

For a variety of reasons, ranging from embarrassment to eagerness to avoid liability, elected or appointed officials, along with unions or lobbying groups representing school employees, have fought to keep the truth hidden from the public.

“In any given year they have failed to report thousands of these situations, and instead they’ve papered them over, acted like it’s not an issue,” former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos told RealClearInvestigations. Stunned by a 2018 Chicago Tribune investigation that found 523 incident reports of sexual misconduct by employees of the city’s schools during the past decade, DeVos during the Trump administration launched the process of including specific questions about such cases in the Department’s Civil Rights Data Collection, a process it undertakes every two years. Previously, the Office for Civil Rights asked only general questions about sexual misconduct incidents, without a breakdown of alleged perpetrators.

The Biden administration initially sought to remove those questions, saying it wanted to avoid data duplication, but it backtracked after fierce criticism it was doing so as a sop to teachers unions. Consequently, the question will be included on future questionnaires, but, as of today, the Department of Education “has no data,” a spokesperson told RCI. These days, from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon, even a cursory review of local news reporting brings disquieting revelations of teachers accused of or arrested for alleged sexual relations with a student. In just the past month:

• In California, multiple students filed a lawsuit against a male music teacher who had taught at three different schools in the San Jose area. The teacher is already serving prison time for previous convictions in sexual misconduct cases with students.
• In New Jersey, a female middle school teacher was arrested for an alleged ongoing sexual relationship with a student.
• In Texas, a male teacher was arrested for allegedly having a sexual affair with a 12-year-old student.
• In Illinois, a female substitute teacher faces charges of “grooming and predatory criminal sexual assault” for an alleged relationship with a sixth-grader.
• In Washington, the arrest of a male high school teacher on charges of sexual misconduct with a minor represented a repeat nightmare for a school district that previously had a psychologist convicted on the same charges.
• Just last weekend, a 36-year-old New Jersey teacher was arrested on multiple assault charges involving a sexual relationship with a teenage student.

These stories hold a lurid appeal to some. Sensational accounts of seductions of students by teachers, typically by high school female teachers, are tabloid catnip. The topic has provided material for standup comics, Hollywood writers, and pop tunes that didn’t begin or end with Van Halen’s 1984 hit “Hot For Teacher.”

But experts who track the problem don’t take the problem lightly. Pointing to research from Hofstra University that found roughly 1 in 10 students in K-12 schools have suffered “some form of sexual misconduct by an educator,” Terri Miller, head of the advocacy group SESAME (Stop Educator Sexual Abuse, Misconduct and Exploitation), said the number of victims is staggering.

“The rate of educator sexual misconduct is 10 times higher in one year’s time than in five decades of abuse by clergy,” Miller said, noting that in 2021 the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops reported it had received nearly 4,300 sexual abuse allegations. “Another striking contrast is we are not mandated to send our children to church; we are mandated to send them to school.”

The extent of the problem may shock many Americans. The topic has long been shrouded by a curtain held by various actors in the drama: schools reluctant to go public with embarrassing and possibly criminal activity, unions fighting for members’ privacy and sometimes state laws that protect it, and a government reluctant to ask hard questions that would gather reliable data.

But the cases and tactics often used to cover them up have become common enough to earn an ugly nickname: “passing the trash.”

“DOE does not and never has tracked sexual misconduct committed by adults against students,” said Billie-Jo Grant, a professor at California Poly State University who is one of the nation’s top researchers on the topic.

“DOE has never aggressively worked to stop teachers’ unions and administrators from passing the trash,” she told RCI. “DOE does not hold accountable the many enablers who have created a pool of mobile molesters in our schools nationwide. Your questions should include why? Why? Why?”

Grant and Miller attended a Department of Education conference on the topic in D.C. in October 2019, and it was out of that meeting that its Office for Civil Rights decided to ask more specific questions in its Civil Rights Data Collection, according to Miller.

And while the government may be groping toward more clarity, as a DOE official acknowledged having “no data” the Department would make public, he insisted the matter is viewed with concern.

In 2004, then-Hofstra professor Carol Shakeshaft did a report for the DOE that assessed the data available on the topic. From a handful of regional studies and media reports, Shakeshaft’s report found some broad parameters of the problem.

For example, while stories involving female teachers may be more titillating and gain more media attention, about two-thirds of the predators in schools are male. While no region seems to be immune from the problem, about half of the reported incidents occurred in southern states, Shakeshaft’s report found. Most of the victims are female (56%), and the majority of incidents involve high schools (62%).

The problem is not confined to public schools, although the public school student population dwarfs that of private and parochial schools. Incidents of sexual misconduct at tony schools like New York’s Horace Mann, or at St. George’s in Rhode Island are but two of the most publicized examples of the problem.

Protecting kids in school from inappropriate or criminal sexual activity involving employees and students would seem a surefire winner, but instead DeVos and her team found it was a political football. Union contracts and in many cases state law protect the privacy of employees. What that meant, DeVos explained, is that even if credible allegations of sexual misconduct were leveled against an employee, unless authorities were called in or an arrest made the alleged perpetrator was often free to leave one school and work in another.

The definitions of what constitutes sexual misconduct could be broadly construed, and the proliferation of social media has not only loosened the boundaries of contact between school employees and students, but provided more opportunities for wrongdoers.

Still, for the most severe conduct, the Trump administration finally introduced on the 2020-21 school year questionnaire specific questions regarding “a school staff member and rape or attempted rape.” Answers for the initial year were optional, as is common with new reporting requirements, and the DOE declined to make the results public. But, in any case, those figures would be hopelessly incomplete because of the widespread school closures that were part of the COVID response.

Even with the new questions, Miller wondered how clear the picture provided might be, because for now OCR is asking only about incidents that occurred on school grounds.

“That means incidents that happen in a car, or an apartment, or anywhere off-campus, won’t be included, and that’s where the majority of these attacks happen,” she said.

The same problem had confronted one of DeVos’ top lieutenants, Kimberly Richey, when she served as chief counsel to the school system in Oklahoma. Even in a deeply conservative state, Richey found few supporters when, surprised by how many complaints were reaching her desk, she approached lawmakers in Norman about changes.

“I met with resistance from the very beginning,” she said. “And I had complaints, 95 percent of the time coming from parents, about a school or a teacher, and when I contacted them the teacher would immediately resign, travel five miles to the next district and start working there.”

Several people who spoke with RCI said teachers unions’ contracts were a major obstacle to both moving forward with credible allegations of sexual misconduct and blocking future school employment for alleged perpetrators. Neither the American Federation of Teachers nor the National Education Association responded to questions from RCI about this topic.

Teachers aren’t the only obstacles to reform. While Superintendent of Public Education in Oklahoma from 2011-2015, Janet Barresi said, state groups lobbying on behalf of school administrators and board members were much more vociferous opponents than teachers unions of laws that would force schools to disclose information about prior allegations and cases involving school employees.

“If the system would be more open and honest about all this, then parents would feel more relieved and it would get rid of a great deal of rumor and conjecture,” Barresi said.

It is those employee protections that produce the pattern known as “passing the trash,” several experts told RCI. This is particularly relevant in cases where state or local law enforcement agencies are never notified of allegations. A school may launch an investigation after a parent or student files a complaint, but that investigation would cease when the employee resigned, and then state law or bargaining agreements often prohibit officials administrators from relaying such information to any new school where the alleged perpetrator applied or began working.

Miller said SESAME has model legislation states could pass to confront the problem, but thus far the group has found limited success.

The Enough Abuse Campaign, which did not respond to RCI’s questions, notes that age-of-consent laws and the definitions of what constitutes sexual misconduct have created a complicated legal and regulatory map. Still, the campaign seems more optimistic about legislative progress than SESAME, declaring that “over 75 percent of states have now passed legislation specifically outlawing educator sexual misconduct,” in recognition of the power imbalance that exists in a teacher/student relationship.

And there are some signs lawmakers are grasping the enormity of the issue.

On July 1, an Oklahoma law went into effect mandating any verbal or social media contact between school employees and students be done on platforms the school controls, which state Rep. Sherrie Conley called a “long overdue” regulation.

Similarly, in Michigan, state Rep. Brad Paquette, himself a teacher, has proposed legislation appointing a state ombudsman to deal with sexual misconduct complaints.

“It’s just a beginning but we have to start somewhere,” Paquette told RCI. “I first heard back in 2012 or 2013, when I started teaching, that I had to join the union because I might have an accusation filed against me. But I thought, ‘No, I should be fired if I did something wrong.’”

“I think we need to be engaged aggressively to root out the problem,” he said. “There’s no good reason for us to take a lax approach. You see these headlines all over the place and it’s unacceptable. People need to start asking questions.”

While Richey said she did not recall any credible allegations crossing her desk during a brief stint as an attorney with Virginia schools, Paquette’s “everywhere” assessment seems on the mark.

In Texas, for example, the online site Texas Scorecard started looking at the issue in 2022 after administrators in Prosper, a swanky Dallas suburb, attempted to cover up alleged repeated sexual offenses by a school bus driver. Since then, Texas Scorecard has kept an unofficial tally of such incidents, and the Lone Star State has had more than 100 cases every year since.

The Prosper superintendent is currently under investigation by Texas agencies, in part for the 2022 coverup, as Texas law requires officials to report any credible allegations of child abuse within 48 hours. In May, two Prosper high school coaches were arrested for allegedly covering up another sexual assault that involved students.

Separating student-on-student sexual misconduct is key to understanding how deep the problem may run with school employees, according to Grant and other experts. For example, in the more general questions DOE’s OCR would ask regarding improper incidents that fall under Title IX, troubling trends emerged. For 2015-2016, there were 9,649 incidents of sexual violence, and of that figure 394 cases were categorized as rape or attempted rape. In 2017-2018, those numbers skyrocketed, with overall incidents rising by 43% to 13,799 and the most serious category 74% to 685.

As alarming as that trend may be, there is no way of knowing how many of those cases involved school employees, and Richey suspects that, given how the questionnaire was traditionally perceived, the majority of them are student-on-student.

Nevertheless, Grant pointed to multiple studies that came to similar conclusions to that reached in the 2004 Hofstra report. That study found that 9.6% of the U.S. student body fall victim to educator sexual misconduct.

Looking at California data from 2010-2021, Grant of Cal-Poly found 2,497 “school employees disciplined, reprimanded or arrested for sexually abusing K-12 students.” Between 2012 and 2018, the DOE received 280 complaints of adult-on-student sexual harassment in Chicago Public Schools. A Texas study from 2008 to 2016 found 1,415 Lone Star State educators “sanctioned for sexual misconduct.”

These academic papers and sometimes salacious news accounts of teacher/student relationships do send up flares from time to time. In 2007, the Associated Press declared that “sexual misconduct plagues U.S. schools,” after its investigation “found more than 2,500 cases over five years in which educators were punished for actions from bizarre to sadistic.” In December 2023, Business Insider looked at the issue and concluded “shoddy investigations, quiet resignations, and a culture of secrecy have protected predators, not students.”

Last year, the Defense of Freedom Institute released a report titled “catching the trash” that concluded sexual misconduct by school employees has raged in the school system for decades.

“Various actors – school and district personnel, teacher unions, and the federal department charged with enforcing laws against sexual assault in public schools – bear responsibility for a systemic failure in preventing, and responding to, sexual assaults in public schools,” the report said.

Pointing to the Biden administration’s attempt to remove specific questions about the issue from the OCR questionnaire, report author Paul Zimmerman told RCI the public should not expect much daylight on the topic in the near future.

“The Biden administration has gone dark on this, they’re not interested in pressing this issue as evidenced by trying to discontinue the efforts made on this front by the previous administration,” he said.

These political bumps, and the wreckage the COVID shutdowns unleashed on education in America, means there is no way of tackling the problem’s dimensions, let alone the problem itself. “It takes so long to get these numbers that in the end they’re not that helpful,” he said.

The best way to block the passage of trash is through the SESAME Act, which DOE has cited as “model legislation” for states. To date, only a handful of states have passed the act, most recently Illinois in 2023. It requires the prohibition of non-disclosure agreements in personal or collectively bargained contracts, as well as deep background checks on all applicants.

Only such thorough steps will break what Amos Guiora, a law professor at the University of Utah who has worked with Miller and SESAME, calls “the complicity of silence.” While the parameters of the problem may be hard to find, Guiora said he was stunned when he recently published what he acknowledged is a niche book on a West Virginia teacher exposed years late as a pedophile murderer. The limited book sold out on Amazon and his podcast has now topped 1 million views.

“That tells you that what’s happening is something that is touching a chord,” he said. “It is so goddamn egregious what they have done to protect people who do this. Lawmakers will have to break the institutional complicity that surrounds this or they’ll just be protecting the perpetrators.”

The ballot initiative would overhaul Proposition 47, a law voters approved in 2014 that lowered certain theft and drug crimes from felonies to misdemeanors partly as a way of reducing prison overcrowding.

Newsom was among the first elected officials to support Proposition 47, a ballot initiative written by reform-minded George Gascon, who was then the district attorney in San Francisco. (In an unusual move, Gascon is now the DA in Los Angeles.)

But the pendulum has now swung in the other direction, with critics blaming Prop 47 for the steep rise in retail theft and smash-and-grab “mob” robberies of both high-end department stores and convenience stores that have plagued retailers across the state.

Californians for Safer Communities, a bipartisan group made up of law enforcement officials, elected officials, and businesses, including Walmart and Target, collected more than 900,000 signatures in support of a ballot initiative that would reform Prop 47 by increasing penalties for criminals. In early June, the initiative qualified for the November ballot, a move Newsom and liberal supporters in the state legislature opposed.

Instead of letting voters decide its fate, Newsom and his allies, which includes Assembly and Senate leaders, pushed a raft of public safety bills aimed at addressing organized retail theft, car break-ins, and other crimes. They are also working hard to thwart a separate ballot initiative sponsored by the California District Attorneys Association, which has attracted widespread Republican and law enforcement support.

Democrats in the state Assembly added “inoperability” clauses to the proposed public safety bills to prevent them from going into effect if voters approve the ballot initiative aimed at reforming Prop 47. They contend that such clauses are needed to ensure that the law is consistent.

Critics of the move argue that the Democrats’ “poison pill” measure is designed solely to circumvent California’s storied referendum process. Instead of letting voters determine the ballot initiative’s fate, Newsom and his allies are trying to undermine it apparently because they fear it could attract strong support – with the added impact of helping Republicans in key Congressional races this fall.

“Democrats need to stop playing politics with public safety and let voters decide on fixing Prop. 47,” Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher said in a statement. “These poison pills show that Democrats aren’t serious about ending the crime wave – they just want to look like they’re doing something because their years-long support for criminals has become a political liability.”

The machinations to undermine a ballot initiative on crime came the same week the California Supreme Court unexpectedly rejected another referendum that had attained enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot but which Democrats opposed. The court stopped a sweeping proposal that would have made it far more difficult for lawmakers to raise taxes and fees across the state. The justices unanimously ordered that the measure be kept off the ballot, finding it unconstitutional – even though it was an effort to amend California’s Constitution.

Republicans and conservative activists who backed and financed the initiative, which they say had collected more than 1.4 million signatures, are fuming over the move. Carl DeMaio, a candidate for state Assembly and chairman of the group that helped collect the anti-tax initiative signatures, said the state liberal justices sided with “corrupt politicians” to strip citizens of their rights to qualify propositions for the ballot.

Several other ballot initiatives aimed at increasing taxes are slated for the November ballot, and now citizens won’t have a countermeasure to vote on, he said. “The bottom-line remains: Californians cannot afford our state’s high taxes and cost of living – and until we fix the cost crisis, Californians will continue to flee this state,” DeMaio tweeted.

Regarding Democratic leaders’ efforts to thwart the Prop 47 reform measures, Republicans got a surprise assist from several normally skeptical journalists. George Skelton, the longtime Los Angeles Times columnist and dean of the California press corps, wrote a column last week headlined: “Stop playing politics on retail theft.”

“…Democrats cynically intend to insert a ‘poison bill’ that would automatically kill their own legislation if a rival tough-on-crime ballot measure is approved by voters in November,” he wrote. “To normal people, that must seem bizarre.”

“Democrats fear the ballot measure so much they’re offering its backers an offer they can’t refuse,” Skelton added. “At least that’s the Democrats’ hope. The message: Take what you can get immediately from the legislation – or risk losing it if the ballot measure passes.”

Criticism only increased over the week after CBS New California broke a story revealing that Newsom’s chief of staff would not negotiate to strengthen the Democratic package of crime bills unless the coalition backing the Prop 47 reform ballot initiative agreed to postpone that effort.

In leaked emails, Newsom Chief of Staff Dana Williamson told Greg Totten, the coalition’s lead negotiator, that Democrats would be willing to negotiate on its package of crime bills – but only if the matter was tabled until 2026. “As I noted previously, our focus is on amending Proposition 47 on the 2024 ballot,” Totten replied. “If the administration is prepared to consider an amendment of Proposition 47 on the 2024 ballot, then we are happy to meet.”

Williamson then abruptly cut Totten off. “If that’s your position, then I agree, there’s nothing to talk about.” She added, “It’s really amazing how you are incapable of taking a win. And the consultants you’re working with haven’t won anything in a decade. Good luck.”

Republicans and journalists aren’t the only ones who find the inoperability clauses disingenuous. At least three Democratic state lawmakers removed their names from retail theft bills included in the package after the clauses were added, and district attorneys and law enforcement associations in their districts pulled their support.

Assemblyman Kevin McCarty, who chairs the Public Safety Committee, yanked his support from the retail theft bill package because of the added inoperability clauses.

“Unfortunately, I can’t support the retail theft package, which contains my Retail Theft Accountability bill, AB 1794, with the poison pill non-operative amendments included,” McCarty noted. McCarty is running for mayor of Sacramento and has positioned himself more to the center while facing a progressive opponent.

Democratic state Sen. Alvarado-Gil and Assemblywoman Esmeralda Soria, who both represent the more conservative Central Valley, also withdrew their names as co-authors of retail theft bills included in the package.

“I oppose the amendments to these two bills, and I was not consulted about them prior,” Alvarado-Gil said in her weekly newsletter to constituents. “Let me be clear – I do support the Prop 47 reform initiative and believe the voters have the right to vote on this. This is not about the policy; it’s about the politics.”

Meanwhile, the Democratic leadership also faces opposition to both the retail theft legislative package and the ballot initiative from the progressive wing of the party, which opposes any criminal justice reforms that will result in increased incarceration.

“The [Democratic] leadership here has gotten a little bit too far out front of their troops,” GOP Sen. Roger Niello told RealClearPolitics in an interview Friday. “I know a lot of members of their caucus didn’t even know about this amendment move and only heard about it over the [previous] weekend.”

A spokeswoman for Speaker of the Assembly Robert Rivas did not respond to a request for comment about the level of Democratic support for the amended legislative package. This bill was also amended to include an urgency clause, which means it goes into effect immediately. Yet to do so would require a two-thirds majority of the Assembly and Senate. Sacramento insiders say the urgency is needed because of another deadline.

Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta faces a Thursday deadline to provide a title and summary for the ballot initiative and is poised to characterize the proposition as one that would kill the legislature’s anti-crime reform bills. He can only do so, however, if the retail theft package with the inoperability clauses passes with a supermajority this week before the deadline.

Some California political observers assume Newsom is trying to keep Prop 47 intact to protect his political legacy for any future White House run. But others believe Democratic leaders fear the more immediate political fallout – that the tough-on-crime ballot initiative could help turn out more Republican voters this fall, giving GOP candidates for the House of Representatives an edge in tight election contests that could determine which party holds the majority.

“What the Democrats are doing has gotten the Sacramento Bee editorial board, which is to the left of Mao, to agree with Republicans in the legislature,” Rob Stutzman told RCP. “This is absolutely raw politics. This is all about Democrats doing everything in the world to keep this issue off the ballot in November because of how it could affect congressional races and, therefore, the balance of who controls the House of Representatives.”

This past week, Dave Min, a state senator running in a tight battleground contest to replace Rep. Katie Porter this fall, joined his party’s push to undercut the ballot initiative by supporting the addition of the “poison-pill” amendments. Min, who authored a piece of the public safety package, has joined the Democratic leadership in a press conference in which they unveiled their strategy to add the inoperability clause to the legislation.

Over the last week, Min also twice said he didn’t have a position on the Prop 47 reform ballot initiative because he had been too busy to read it.

“I’m sorry, and I’ll be honest, I have not had time to review the initiative,” Min said during an Appropriations Committee meeting while the amendments were being added. “I’ve got a lot on my plate these days. At the point in time when the ballot is finalized, I’m going to take a look at all the initiatives on the ballot and take a look at them.”

Min’s position is a hire-wire act in his Orange County district, where prominent law enforcement officials, including Sheriff Don Barnes, vigorously back the ballot initiative. It also risks highlighting Min’s DUI conviction last year.

“Dangerous Dave Min puts criminals ahead of victims because he is a criminal,” National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Ben Petersen said in a statement. “Min earns a special spot in the hall of shame shilling for these poison pills while on probation himself.”

If the Democratic retail theft package with the amendments manages to pass this week, Skelton says Bonta has a tough decision to make – whether or not to “doctor up” the bill title and summary to undermine its ability to pass and risk “tarnishing his image by looking like just another hack politician.”

Niello is watching Bonta closely because he has long tried to transfer the responsibility of writing proposition titles and summary statements from the attorney general to an independent legislative analyst.

“There’s been so many blatantly biased statements made, and this whole strategy that [Democratic leaders] are pursuing is dependent upon the attorney general rewriting it in a negative light,” Niello said.

The public already overwhelmingly supports Donald Trump on the issues. But what many of them worry about is his demeanor. In other words, does he “act presidential”?

So, on June 27, when Trump joins President Joe Biden on CNN for the earliest general election presidential debate in U.S. history, it’s not going to matter what the former president says so much as how he says it.

Think of it as the equivalent of a medieval knight running the gauntlet. Every question from pro-Democrat moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash and every taunting response from President Biden about threats to democracy will be an opportunity for Trump to lose his temper or to alienate moderate voters with intemperate replies.

But if Trump keeps his cool in hostile territory – and CNN is definitely hostile –  he will pick up invaluable points in the “seems more presidential” surveys that will certainly follow. The demeanor issue could cement Trump as the winner not just of the debate, but of the 2024 election itself.

Of course, Biden and his team are betting that Trump can’t keep his cool. They are no doubt thinking about the first debate of the 2020 campaign when Trump came across as a ferocious junkyard dog by constantly interrupting Biden and insulting him. That’s exactly what the Biden campaign is hoping for this time around, and if their calculation is right, then the president may be able to ride his “sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory” persona to victory in the fall.

Remember, this debate and another one in early September were proposed by Biden at a time when he was trending badly behind Trump in the polls, especially in battleground states. Presumably, the Biden campaign believed the early debates would shore up his support and hurdle him over the much indicted, and now convicted, former president.

But that doesn’t have to be true. All of the potential pitfalls for Trump are clearly marked with giant cartoonish neon signs of pointing fingers flashing the message “Pitfall here, dummy!” Even if Trump is distracted by his legal battles, hopefully his campaign team will make sure that he is prepped and ready to avoid each obstacle, such as making ambiguous jokes like “dictator on day one,” demeaning the elderly president as “Crooked Joe,” and talking more about himself than about the problems of everyday Americans.

If Trump remembers to act presidential, and not like an attack dog, there is every reason to believe he will attract voters eager for a change. Ironically, that’s partly because the Biden campaign’s ground rules for the debate have the potential to work in Trump’s favor. There will be no live audience for the debate, which Biden probably thought would rob Trump of the fuel that feeds his reality-TV personality. In addition, microphones will be turned off for each candidate when they are not responding to the moderators. Both of those changes could help Trump avoid a repeat of the bullying performance that may have cost him the election in 2020. In addition, turning off Trump’s mic will force Biden to complete his responses without making gaffes or getting lost in his addle-pated syntax, an opportunity Trump missed in the 2020 debate.

Nonetheless, the moderators will have their sights set on Trump, whom they have criticized repeatedly on CNN. Three topics are certain to be raised by Tapper and Bash – election interference in 2020, election acceptance in 2024, and Hunter Biden. It is essential that Trump be ready for them, and then having successfully addressed them, demand that the moderators ask questions about substantive issues.

Biden, on the other hand, just needs to speak coherently and lie about his record, with certainty that the moderators will not ask any follow-up questions.

Here are three examples of how Trump’s responses to the most obvious questions can get him through the media minefield and closer to his objective – victory in November. The key in each case is to remain calm, relate his responses to the voters, and ignore the provocations tossed his way.

1) Mr. Trump, since the end of your term as president, you have become a convicted felon in a New York election interference case, and face an additional 55 felony charges in three jurisdictions. In addition, a majority of senators voted after you left office to convict you of inciting an insurrection. Why do you consider yourself fit for office when the president is the chief law enforcement officer in the country?

Jake, I’m glad you asked me that question. I don’t want this debate to be all about me. Or even about my opponent. The American people want to hear me and Joe Biden discuss the hard issues facing the country – namely, crippling inflation, out-of-control illegal immigration, and a world on the brink of war. But the people have a right to know that I maintain my innocence regarding all the charges brought by my political opponents. It’s a sad day when Democrat prosecutors will go to any lengths to destroy me and to prevent me from promoting the policies that will save this country. But it’s not about me. It’s about a corrupt system of justice that the people have lost confidence in. Donald Trump isn’t the first person to get caught up in a two-tier system of justice. You can ask any black or Hispanic family whether they know someone who was railroaded into prison. They’ve lost faith, but I will restore that faith. Not only am I fit for office, but I am the first person to run for president who has experienced what black and minority families have known for decades. And I will fight for them.

2) Mr. Trump, after the 2020 election, you refused to accept the results even though more than 50 courts ruled against you. To this day, you call President Biden an illegitimate president, and you are currently under indictment for election interference. Now, Americans want to know if you will accept the results of the 2024 election regardless of who wins.

Dana, thank you for asking me that question. First of all, I need to correct you on one point. I believe it was more than 60 courts, but none of them heard our evidence of election fraud by the Biden campaign and his surrogates. In other words, we were never given the opportunity to prove our case of election tampering, and the national media failed miserably in looking at the facts objectively. Just saying the election was “safe and secure” does not make it so. Everyone knows the media was out to “get Trump” and to “protect Biden,” and in that regard, nothing has changed since 2020. But more importantly, as we look at accepting the Nov. 5 election results, it is not relevant who wins the election. All that matters is that the election be conducted fairly and transparently. And Dana, you can’t guarantee that will happen. Earlier this month, Democrat officials in Connecticut were charged with election fraud, and there’s no reason to believe the coming election will be any more fair unless it is completely transparent. No one should give up their right to look at the evidence and make up their own minds about the underpinnings of our democracy. “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

3) Mr. Trump, you continually claim there is a two-tier system of justice, but in recent weeks, the Biden Department of Justice has charged or put on trial New Jersey’s Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez, Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar (another Democrat), and President Biden’s own son, Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden was convicted of three felonies, and could be sentenced to jail time despite your attacks on the attorney general and the president, who has said he will not pardon his son nor commute any sentence. Isn’t it about time that you admit that the American system of justice is fair and even-handed?

Jake, this may be the most important question facing millions of Americans, even more important than whether they can afford to put food on the table, pay rent, or buy a home of their own – which many of them can’t. Of course, it’s not up to me to pass judgment on the three gentlemen you bring up in your question. Everyone can make up their own mind about whether justice is served in those cases. But I guarantee you that millions of black and minority families don’t trust the government to administer justice fairly, and the individual verdicts won’t make them forget their own experiences – their own children or parents sent to prison for long sentences, their own struggles against a system that too often rewards those with money or a celebrity name. Nothing can make them forget how they and their families were overlooked by a system gone awry. As for Hunter Biden, I won’t comment on his conviction on gun charges, but I will say that his story is an all-too-common American tragedy. My brother Fred was an alcoholic. His struggles with addiction mirror the experience of millions of Americans. I sympathize with the family of Hunter Biden and hope that he gets the help he needs.

If former President Trump follows the example laid out in these mock questions and answers, and worries more about reassuring the public about himself than attacking his opponent, it is almost certain he will also be future President Trump.

Responding to Trump’s claim that “Joe Biden was locked & loaded ready to take me out & put my family in danger,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said the bureau was following “standard operating procedure” as it executed a search warrant on Aug. 8, 2022, regarding classified material that the former president was holding at Mar-a-Lago.

While noting that Trump was not present during the raid, Attorney General Merrick Garland dismissed Trump’s claim as “false” and “dangerous.” Garland said the same language was used in a later search warrant seeking classified documents President Biden was storing in various locations.

But critics argue that there was nothing ordinary about the Mar-a-Lago raid, in which more than 30 FBI agents descended on Trump’s Palm Beach estate, potentially creating a dangerous situation with the armed Secret Service agents on site.

“There was zero reason to create an unnecessary, even one in a thousand chance, of a blue-on-blue situation with firearms,” former Secret Service agent and political commentator Dan Bongino said on his podcast. “The FBI, DOJ, and management of the Secret Service effed this up royally.”

Even as the DOJ presents its actions as business as usual, the newly released documents and other public records suggest the department’s actions entered uncharted territory. While the department claims that all citizens must be treated equally, critics note that no former president was ever the subject of an FBI search warrant before Trump.

A recently discovered Department of Defense memo suggests that the federal government may well have had copies of the documents in Trump’s possession, also raising questions about the need for the raid. The content of those documents has not been disclosed but, critics ask, if Trump was not retaining copies of information that threatened national security, what was the need for an armed raid?

Many on the right see the Mar-a-Lago raid as part of a broader effort by the Department of Justice to intimidate its political enemies. They say it is part of a larger pattern that includes the armed morning raid on the home of Trump associate Roger Stone in 2019, the arrest of anti-abortion activist Mark Houck by dozens of armed agents in 2022 a year after he was accused of pushing someone outside a Philadelphia clinic, and the DOJ’s aggressive efforts to find and charge to date more than 1,400 people connected to the Jan. 6 protest at the Capitol.

The recent court disclosures also underscore the very different treatments the department has accorded to Trump and the Biden family.

Trump, who has asserted that his presidential authority empowered him to retain and declassify documents, got a surprise nine-hour raid a few months before announcing his plans to run for reelection.

President Biden, who never had the authority to declassify or take home classified records as a senator or vice president, received the courtesy of at least two consensual FBI searches, presumably unarmed.

IRS whistleblower Joseph Ziegler, who has worked on tax cases involving Biden’s son Hunter, has testified that Hunter Biden’s lawyers were tipped off that investigators had probable cause to search his Northern Virginia storage unit.

Trump’s attorneys are now asking Judge Aileen Cannon, who is presiding over Special Counsel Jack Smith’s espionage and obstruction case against Trump in Florida, to prohibit Smith from using any of the materials seized during the Mar-a-Lago raid at trial. The FBI sought the warrant as part of its attempt to recover classified records, including national defense materials, which Trump supposedly took with him at the end of his presidency.

The FBI’s application for the warrant contained false information, the attorneys argue, and the raid violated even the very broad terms of the warrant. To make their case to the judge, Trump’s team on May 21 filed a copy of the FBI’s plan to execute the warrant, which disclosed details about how agents were instructed to conduct the raid.

The operations order, known as an FD-888, indicated the almost undercover nature of the raid. Agents were advised to wear “unmarked polo or collared shirts” and keep their badges, credentials, and equipment “concealed.”

Agents were also told to be equipped with “Standard Issue Weapons, Ammo, [and] Handcuffs.” One team was told to bring “medium and large sized bolt cutters.” A lock-picking team would be on site to open the doors of guest rooms if Mar-a-Lago staff did not cooperate. (It is unclear why an investigator would have probable cause to believe Trump stored secrets in the guest rooms of the resort area of the estate.)

Another section of the order addressed a possible response if the Secret Service attempted to impede the search or if Trump showed up that day. (Trump, at the time, was residing at his Bedminster, New Jersey, home for the summer.)

“Should FPOTUS [Former President of the United States] arrive at MAL [Mar-a-Lago], FBI [agents] will be prepared to engage with FPOTUS and USSS [U.S. Secret Service] Security Team,” the order read.

In a partially redacted portion of the plan, agents were advised to “engage” with an unidentified Secret Service contact “should USSS provide resistance or interfere with FBI timeline or accesses.”

Dan Bongino faulted the Secret Service for permitting armed police into Mar-a-Lago. “What the hell was the Secret Service management thinking, letting the FBI in there with guns? It was a protected facility.”

The inclusion of the use of deadly force policy in the raid plan prompted widespread outrage among Republicans, including the former president. The House Judiciary Committee has since sent a letter to Garland asking for more records related to the search including communications between the FBI and Secret Service in advance of the raid.

Others insisted the deadly force language was nothing to be alarmed about. After this reporter disclosed that language on May 21, FBI Director Christopher Wray issued a statement late on May 21 to that effect: “The FBI followed standard protocol in this search as we do for all search warrants, which includes a standard policy statement limiting the use of deadly force. No one ordered additional steps to be taken and there was no departure from the norm in this matter.”

Others argue, however, that in the case of an unprecedented raid against a former president and leading contender for the Republican nomination for president at the time, Wray should have considered “additional steps” and a “departure from the norm.”

“This type of event has never happened to a full time Protectee of the USSS,” Charles Butt, an 18-year special agent of the Secret Service now retired, told RealClearInvestigations by email last month. “All of this never should have happened in a reasonable environment.”

In a separate statement, Garland claimed the lethal force language was also used in the search of Joe Biden’s residence in 2022, which resulted in the discovery of several classified files, according to Special Counsel Robert Hur’s final report.

But while Trump faces 40 federal criminal charges and the possibility of years in prison for any conviction, Hur, after finding Biden had willfully retained and shared classified material stretching back to the 1970s, concluded Biden should not be charged as a jury would sympathize with “an elderly man with a poor memory.”

Hur’s report makes no mention of an FBI document related to the consensual searches of Biden’s home. Efforts to reach Hur for confirmation were unsuccessful.

After Garland characterized Trump’s comments about the use of lethal force as “extremely dangerous,” Smith filed a May 24 motion asking Cannon to impose a partial gag order on Trump that essentially would prohibit him from continuing to publicly criticize the FBI in the classified documents case.

Smith said his request is “necessary because of several intentionally false and inflammatory statements recently made by Trump that distort the circumstances under which the Federal Bureau of Investigations planned and executed the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago.” Smith complained that Trump’s comments about the raid “create a grossly misleading impression about the intentions and conduct of federal law enforcement.”

Both sides are set to clash over the gag order and the legality of the raid during a hearing in Cannon’s courtroom later this month.

Contrary to claims the raid followed standard protocols, additional court documents, media reports, and congressional testimony demonstrate the unusual nature of the process.

Prosecutors and investigators disagreed on how to pursue the investigation from the start. According to a 2023 report in the Washington Post, Jay Bratt, who initially led the early stages of the investigation, wanted to obtain a search warrant in early May 2022 – just three months after National Archives officials informed the DOJ they had found papers with classified markings contained in 15 boxes Trump’s team turned over the archives in January 2022. (Bratt is now one of Smith’s lead prosecutors in the matter.)

FBI agents working out of the Washington field office – not the proper jurisdiction of southern Florida where the alleged crimes occurred – pushed back on Bratt’s quick trigger. The agents “viewed a Mar-a-Lago search in May as premature and combative, especially given that it involved raiding the home of a former president,” the Post disclosed.

Bratt settled for a subpoena for more documents. Along with three FBI agents, Bratt personally visited Mar-a-Lago on June 3, 2022, to collect 37 records responsive to the subpoena.

Far from attempting to obstruct the investigation, Trump delayed his planned trip to Bedminster to greet the DOJ team. “Whatever you need, just let us know,” he told them. At one point, according to a court document, Trump overruled his own attorney and allowed Bratt to view the area where dozens of boxes of presidential and personal materials were stored.

Despite Team Trump’s cooperation with the DOJ, Bratt spent the next few months pushing for a search warrant for Mar-a-Lago, but key FBI officials continued to resist. The main resistance came from Steven D’Antuono, head of the Washington FBI field office at the time. D’Antuono repeatedly locked horns with Bratt and George Toscas, deputy assistant attorney general for the National Security Division, whose fingerprints also are on the FISAgate scandal to spy on Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Hillary Clinton email investigation.

Toscas, in what appears to be a deviation from normal protocol, sent D’Antuono an email on Aug. 2, 2022 instructing him to move forward with getting a judge to approve the warrant. D’Antuono told the House Judiciary Committee in a 2023 interview that he “put his foot down” and continued to argue that the search should be consensual.

“I kind of got, not upset, but it’s like, you’re talking about my agents? Like they’re my agents, not yours,” D’Antuono testified he told Toscas. “They’re mine. I just – we have a different plan for this, my agents. So don’t tell me what my agents – I didn’t say this, but in the back of my mind, I was like, don’t tell me what my agents want to do because my agents tell me [something] completely different.”

But D’Antuono was overruled by Paul Abbate, deputy director of the FBI. And on Aug. 5, 2022, Florida Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart signed the warrant via WhatsApp encrypted chat.

Despite being thwarted by his higher-ups at the FBI, D’Antuono said he wanted to notify Trump’s attorney at the time, Evan Corcoran, before the FBI team arrived at Mar-a-Lago; Bratt refused the request even though D’Antuono said, “We usually go to the attorneys first” prior to executing any search. The FBI’s initial plan also indicated that Trump’s attorney would be notified on Aug. 8 and “request collaboration and assistance.”

But that did not happen. According to the FD-888, 30 agents out of the Washington and Miami FBI field offices arrived at Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 8 at 8:59 a.m. An unidentified individual attempted to contact Corcoran about 15 minutes later, but he was not reached until around 9:40 a.m. as agents were preparing to conduct the search. It is unclear when Corcoran arrived.

In another oddity, the FBI disclosed that a prosecutor for the U.S. attorney’s office in southern Florida was present during the search; prosecutors generally do not participate in raids, as they instead handle charging decisions after evidence is collected as a result of a search. Further, the prosecutor would lose immunity if the search was declared unlawful.

That appears to be a possibility. The warrant allowed agents to search Trump’s office as well as “all storage rooms, and all other rooms or areas within the premises used or available to be used by FPOTUS and his staff and in which boxes or documents could be stored.”

But Trump’s lawyers argue that FBI agents exceeded the scope of the warrant by searching the private suite of former first lady Melania Trump and the couple’s son, Barron, who was 16 at the time.

An FBI photo log demonstrates agents entered and took photographs of items inside both bedrooms. “There was no factual basis for the agents to rummage through rooms not specified in the warrant and, not surprisingly, they seized nothing from these other rooms,” Trump’s attorneys wrote.

Some records related to the search remain under seal, including grand jury testimony of a Secret Service agent. Judge Cannon previously indicated she would allow for the unsealing of grand jury materials if necessary, so more revelations as to how the raid was planned and conducted could be forthcoming.

Documents filed on June 11 add more context to the execution of the raid. It appears the Secret Service point of contact was only informed of the warrant roughly two hours before agents arrived at Mar-a-Lago. Contrary to what the DOJ attempts to portray as a “cooperative” effort between the two law enforcement agencies, FBI agents used a bolt cutter to open the lock of the storage area where boxes were housed rather than wait for a key.

Agents mishandled files from the start; Smith recently admitted the sequence of evidence inside the boxes is not in the original order and that some alleged classified records do not match the cover sheet used as a placeholder to indicate where the classified record was found.

Which leads to this question: Was the unprecedented and potentially dangerous raid of the former president’s home only the beginning of what now appears to be a botched case?

This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire.

If you are old enough, you heard it in 1979 during the Iranian hostage crisis when supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini invaded the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

Since then, it has been a recurring theme of Islamic fundamentalism, along with “Death to Israel.” Khomeini even went so far as to declare the United States “The Great Satan” in order to goad Muslims into a religious fervor aimed at destroying America.

Since then, we have heard “Death to America” shouted thousands of times around the globe. When the World Trade Center was destroyed in a terror attack in 2001 and thousands of innocent lives were taken there and at the Pentagon and on an empty field in Shanksville, Pa., the jarring chant was heard from the West Bank, from Gaza, from Somalia, and across the Muslim world.

But now it is closer to home. In fact, the chant of “Death to America” is being heard on American soil, and it is being written off by some naive commentators as First Amendment-protected speech. No big deal. We were told by a Supreme Court justice once that the Constitution is not a suicide pact, but if so, then how can we tolerate the anti-American rhetoric of thousands of newcomers as “free speech” when their goal is plainly the destruction of America?

To be specific, “Death to America” was heard earlier this month at a Dearborn, Mich., rally held on al-Quds Day, an anti-Israel holiday invented by Khomeini years ago. At the pro-Palestinian rally, speaker Tarek Bazzi attacked Joe Biden for his support of Israel in the Gaza War but added, “It’s not Genocide Joe that has to go, it is the entire system that has to go. Any system that would allow such atrocities and devilry to happen and would support it – such a system does not deserve to exist on God’s earth.”

Dearborn is the largest Muslim population center in the United States, so it is no surprise that anti-Israel rhetoric is heard there, but what we saw in the days following suggests that we are not just under attack with hateful words but also with actions that can only be described as seditious.

On April 15, pro-Palestinian protesters shut down the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. That same day, in Oregon, traffic was shut down in one direction on Interstate 5 by protesters wielding Palestinian flags. Roads were also shut down in Seattle and Chicago to block air travelers from accessing terminals at the airports in those cities. This was a coordinated effort, and it promises to be the first of many, “with the aim of causing the most economic impact” in the U.S. and elsewhere in order to persuade nations to abandon Israel.

Welcome to the global intifada, yet another disastrous result of the Biden administration’s porous border and feckless foreign policy.

Intifada refers specifically to two separate uprisings of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank over the past four decades, but more broadly, it pertains to the continued resistance of the Palestinians to the existence of Israel. When they shout “Death to Israel,” they mean it. It should be a top priority of Congress now to determine whether they mean it when they shout “Death to America.”

The rise of pro-Palestinian hatred in the United States should not be a surprising development to anyone. Even before President Biden opened the southern border to millions of unvetted “newcomers,” as the global elites like to call the invaders, there has been a reckless U.S. policy going back two decades to resettle Muslim refugees from Iraq, Libya, Somalia, and Afghanistan in the U.S. heartland. And because immigration policy no longer treats assimilation as a worthwhile goal, many of those refugees are loyal to their homeland and their religion much more than to the nation that offered them safety and security.

I suppose that is an inevitable result of the globalist agenda of border dissolution and the merging of disparate populations for the purpose of sharing wealth and assuaging billionaires’ guilt.

But it is only inevitable if the rest of us tolerate it.

In the meantime, the Palestinians have learned the lesson of how to play the victim card. With the support of the left-wing media, they have worked tirelessly to convince the world that the bloodthirsty killers of Hamas are actually heroic freedom fighters. This is not by accident. Since the Hamas invasion of Israel on Oct. 7, Palestinian advocates have been calling on their supporters to “globalize the intifada,” a phrase that “calls for people from around the globe to participate in rising up against Israel.”

According to the American Jewish Committee, “Calls to ‘globalize the intifada’ contribute to the sense that people around the world need to take action against supporters of Israel around the world. Many protests have been peaceful, still some have taken violent action against Jews and their institutions. There are numerous examples of the usage of the phrase such as at a demonstration in Times Square, in front of the Consulate General of Israel in Manhattan, in central London, at Harvard University, and even on Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn, not far from Crown Heights, a neighborhood with a very large Hasidic Jewish population that is the home of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.”

Just last week, pro-Palestinian students held a disruptive protest at Columbia University on the very day when the university’s president, Minouche Shafik, was being grilled by members of a U.S. House committee about the rise of antisemitism on campus. Shafik testified that “One of the issues that we are actively debating now is to actually clarify where language crosses the line from protected speech to discriminatory or harassing speech.”

As Islamic protests escalate over the next few months, that is a debate that should be quickly concluded, not just at Columbia but across America. If protesters disrupt civil society and threaten violence or insurrection, there should be no doubt about the resolve of a free society to fight back. The Department of Justice does not exist solely to prosecute Trump supporters. Attorney General Merrick Garland had better act quickly to suppress the very real insurrection about to blow across the country, or else he and his president will reap the whirlwind.

This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.

The alleged operation against Trump and his associates, which predates the official start of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation, is a stark example of political weaponization of intelligence. The involvement of foreign allies in surveilling American citizens under the pretext of national security raises serious questions about the integrity of our democratic processes and the autonomy of our nation’s intelligence operations.

The narrative that has been pushed for years, that the investigation into Trump’s campaign began with an Australian tip about a boastful Trump aide, now appears to be a cover for a more extensive and coordinated effort to undermine Trump. If reports are accurate, British intelligence began targeting Trump on behalf of American intelligence agencies as early as 2015, long before the official narrative claims.

The implications of this are profound. It suggests an unprecedented level of collusion between U.S. intelligence agencies and their foreign counterparts to influence the outcome of an American presidential election. The use of foreign intelligence to circumvent American laws and surveillance limitations represents a grave threat to our nation’s sovereignty and the principles of democracy.

The fact that this operation was reportedly initiated at the behest of high-ranking officials within the Obama administration, including CIA Director John Brennan, only adds to the severity of the situation. Brennan’s alleged identification of Trump associates for surveillance by the Five Eyes alliance, and the directive to “bump” or make contact with them, illustrates a deliberate strategy to entangle the Trump campaign in a web of suspicion and intrigue.

Moreover, the reported involvement of foreign intelligence in crafting the Russia collusion narrative not only delegitimizes the subsequent investigation but also highlights the willingness of certain elements within the U.S. government to exploit international partnerships for domestic political gain. This revelation demands a thorough and transparent examination to ensure that such abuses of power are brought to light and severely punished to discourage them from being repeated.

As more details emerge, it is imperative that the American public demand accountability from those who orchestrated and executed this operation. The sanctity of our electoral process and the trust in our intelligence agencies are at stake. We must not allow the politicization of intelligence to go unchecked, nor can we tolerate the involvement of foreign powers in our democratic processes.

Undoubtedly, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been relentless in its pursuit of control over Taiwan. Since the presidency of Beijing-skeptic Tsai Ing-Wen began in 2016, the Chinese state has employed a large-scale hybrid warfare campaign against Taipei to subvert Taiwan’s independence-leaning government. China’s hybrid warfare efforts have comprised isolating Taipei diplomatically, undermining public trust through propaganda and fake news, cyber-attacks, economic coercion, and military intimidation through air defense identification zone (ADIZ) incursions and large-scale military exercises.

Despite China’s prolonged hybrid warfare campaign, the pro-independence DPP’s candidate emerged victorious in the recent election. This victory prompts a reevaluation of China’s approach and raises questions about the potential for the escalation of hybrid warfare to a full-scale military operation. The fact that the Kremlin turned its protracted hybrid warfare campaign against Ukraine into a full-scale military operation on February 24, 2022, reveals that the hybrid model of warfare is not the sole element in the revisionist powers’ national security toolkit, and traditional warfare is here to stay.

On paper, Chinese hybrid warfare activities against Taiwan may also escalate to conventional military operations at any time in the future. To assess the likelihood of a military invasion of Taiwan by China, it is crucial to understand the four key factors that led Beijing to adopt the hybrid warfare approach over the past eight years and whether those factors remain relevant.

The first one is Taipei’s preference for the status quo. Beijing has long warned Taiwan that any attempt to declare formal independence from the mainland means war. Even though Taiwanese policymakers repeatedly asserted that Taiwan is already a sovereign and independent country and, thus, there is no need to proclaim independence, it is evident that they have refrained from making a formal declaration to avoid provoking Beijing. Due to Taipei’s hesitant position, China’s perception of the threat stemming from the Taiwanese independence movement has not reached the alarm threshold. Since the perceived threat has been significant but not vital, Beijing has preferred to employ the hybrid model of warfare, which falls somewhere between diplomacy and conventional warfare.

Taiwan’s new president-elect, Lai Ching-te, has frequently emphasized during the electoral campaign that he desires to maintain the status quo with the mainland and has offered dialogue with Beijing. Lai’s emphasis on maintaining the status quo suggests this factor will likely persist.

The second factor is the U.S. support for Taiwan. Although Washington cut off its diplomatic ties with Taipei in 1979, it continued to maintain a robust informal relationship with Taiwan and to sell weapons to its army in the decades that followed. Furthermore, during the previous decade, China’s rise to become the world’s second-largest economic and military power has been perceived as a significant threat to its global interests by the United States. As a result, it has sought to create alliances to restrict its role in Asia-Pacific. In that regard, Washington has seen Taiwan as an important strategic partner and often stated that it will protect Taiwan if China carries out an outright invasion campaign on the island. Therefore, direct military intervention in Taiwan could prompt Washington to impose serious sanctions on China. Moreover, it could spark an all-out war between China and the United States. As such, in recent years, China has prioritized hybrid warfare operations against the island to avoid Washington’s possible countermeasures. The United States has not altered its position regarding a possible Chinese invasion campaign over Taiwan. Indeed, recently, as tension from China intensified, Washington approved a $300 million sale of equipment to help Taiwan upgrade its tactical information systems.

The third factor involves China’s portrayal as a peaceful actor. Despite seemingly asserting a stance against the pursuit of regional or global hegemony and opposing the use of military force in international relations, China’s rapid economic growth raised concerns about potential dominance in the Asia-Pacific region. In response, Beijing introduced the ‘peaceful rise’ concept in the early 2000s to allay suspicions and assure the global community that its expanding political, economic, and military capabilities would not jeopardize international peace and security. This policy remains essential for China to sustain economic growth and enhance diplomatic influence globally.

An overt military operation against Taiwan would significantly damage China’s international image, as has been case with the Russian Federation. Hence, the Chinese leadership has opted for a hybrid warfare model to achieve political objectives concerning Taiwan, avoiding direct military confrontation. Ensuring China’s economic development still depends on its commitment to a peaceful rise, and there is no urgency for Beijing to veer away from the trajectory of peaceful development.

The fourth and last key factor is that occupying the island might not be that straightforward in military terms. Beijing has consistently modernized and enhanced its military forces over decades, making the People Liberation Army (PLA) currently possess the world’s largest active-duty military personnel. Despite this, undertaking a potential invasion of Taiwan poses significant challenges for China’s military. China has not fought a conventional war since the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War. The absence of recent experience in conventional warfare has left the Chinese military without an opportunity to test its doctrine and capabilities. Additionally, a prospective Chinese invasion of Taiwan would require a large-scale amphibious warfare operation. However, currently, the PLA lacks the military capability and capacity to conduct a full-blown amphibious operation against Taiwan.

In conclusion, China’s reasons for adopting a hybrid warfare approach against Taiwan remain valid. Therefore, hybrid warfare operations still fit better into China’s cost-benefit calculus. China’s invasion of Taiwan seems unlikely in the short term. Instead, China would prefer to step up its hybrid warfare activities. The military aspects of China’s hybrid warfare operations may be more visible in the near future. Beijing may use maritime militias called ‘little blue men’ on a broader scale to harass and intimidate Taiwan.

One day, Taiwan might experience a fate similar to Ukraine. However, the timing of such a scenario will depend on evolving circumstances, including Beijing’s perceptions of the threat posed by the Taiwanese independence movement, Washington’s stance on the Taiwan issue, and China’s military and economic posture. Changes in these factors may either heighten the probability of an all-out invasion campaign or contribute to the maintenance of peace.

Tarik Solmaz is a Ph.D. Candidate and research assistant at the University of Exeter.

“I want to be a dictator for one day,” proudly declared former President Donald Trump to the New York Young Republican Club on December 9, 2023. Two hundred and forty years earlier on December 23, 1783, General George Washington humbly informed Congress that he did not want to be a dictator – not even for one moment. That day is when the victorious commander-in-chief willingly gave up power at the end of the American Revolution.

Washington returning his military commission to Congress is probably the most important event in American history. It upheld the Revolution’s promise to establish free government by the consent of the governed and ensured the survival of the United States as we know it.

History is filled with tales of conquering generals turned dictators like Julius Caesar, Oliver Cromwell, and Napoleon Bonaparte. Washington was unique. Unfortunately, unlike July 4, 1776, the date December 23, 1783 isn’t ingrained in the minds of many Americans. Yet, especially given recent talk of an American Caesar (whether Red or Blue), it should be. Washington made dictatorship un-American.

It didn’t have to go this way. Two years after the 1781 victory at Yorktown, things were falling apart. A weak and dysfunctional Congress was broke. The undersupplied Continental Army hadn’t been paid in years. As a result, a rumored officers’ coup potentially threatened the nation with a military dictatorship, or at least the destruction of civil-military relations. By June 1783, resentful soldiers encircled Independence Hall (the birthplace of the Declaration of Independence) with bayonets drawn. The mutiny drove Congress from the capital of Philadelphia.

Across the Atlantic, King George III wondered if Washington would assume power. British Commander-in-Chief General Guy Carleton was convinced that in America “a Monarchy must of necessity take place.” Closer to home, Continental Army officer Lewis Nicola had even previously written to Washington about “the title of king.”

Given the context, Washington’s actions were even more profound. As he headed to Annapolis, Maryland, where the Congress had fled after the Philadelphia mutiny, Washington was not crossing the Rubicon. The only thing on the general’s mind was his “intention of asking leave to resign [to Congress] the Commission I have the honor of holding in their Service.” Since June 19, 1775, when he was first commissioned by Congress as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, the Virginian had affirmed the supremacy of civilian government. Whether he was fighting campaigns, facing cabals to remove him, pulling his officers back from launching a conspiracy, or suppressing a mutiny, he never forgot that he served Congress and the people.

At noon on December 23, Washington entered the packed Old Senate Chamber in the Maryland State House for his “solemn resignation.” Onlookers jostled for position on the floor, as the upstairs gallery overflowed with the city’s most prominent ladies. With his head uncovered, Washington bowed before Congress – who were all seated with their hats still on – in a display of civilian supremacy.

Overcome with emotion, Washington’s “voice faltered and sunk” as he thanked Congress for the “trust committed to” him and spoke of his love for “the Interests of our dearest Country.” Before concluding, he needed to pause and collect himself, “I here offer my Commission, and take my leave of all the employments of public life.” The room burst into tears.

Washington’s surrender was so rare it stunned the world and helped label the U.S. as “a respectable Nation.” Giving up power was “so new in the present times, or rather unknown,” gushed Polish poet Julian Niemcewicz. You had to go back to Roman General Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus surrendering his sword in 458 BC to find a comparable example. And even then Cincinnatus was a dictator – even if it was just for 16 days – before he gave up power and returned to his plow.

Perhaps the most fitting testimony came from a recent enemy, George III who simply called Washington “the greatest man in the world” for his resignation.

The world indeed watched with awe. But Washington’s act became even more venerated as others could not follow his example. The South American “Liberator” Simón Bolívar overthrew Spanish rule but assumed dictatorial powers in Peru and Venezuela. Haitian revolutionary Jean-Jacques Dessalines freed his island before being made emperor by his generals. Napoleon Bonaparte effectively destroyed the ideals of the French Revolution when he crowned himself emperor. In exile, a bitter and defeated Napoleon muttered, “They wanted me to be another Washington.” But it’s not easy being another Washington. His legacy isn’t based on accumulating power – it’s about giving it up for the good of the nation.

Accepting Washington’s commission in Annapolis, Congressional President Thomas Mifflin hoped this example would “continue to animate remotest ages.” It did. General Washington set a precedent for the peaceful transition of power that was expanded and reaffirmed when the unanimously elected President Washington left office after only two terms – when he could have retained the office for life.

Today you can visit a painting of Washington’s resignation by Revolutionary War veteran John Trumbull in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol. It stands as a symbol that in America, dictatorship (for any length of time, whether one day or “4Eva”) has been utterly rejected for 240 years and counting.

So in the hustle and bustle of this most wonderful time of the year, take a moment to remember the greatest moment in American history, “the greatest man” George Washington and his greatest gift – the gift that keeps on giving.

Craig Bruce Smith is a member of the Jack Miller Center’s teaching network and the author of “American Honor: The Creation of the Nation’s Ideals During the Revolutionary Era.” Follow him on social media at @craigbrucesmith. For more, visit www.craigbrucesmith.com. All views are the author’s.