Radiohead’s Thom Yorke walks off stage after being heckled by pro-Palestinian protester
“Come on. You want to p*ss on everybody’s night? OK, you do, see you later then.”
National Climate, Polling Points To A Trump Victory
National Climate, Polling Points To A Trump Victory
Authored by Jim Lee via RealClearPennsylvania,
Currently, both the national climate and the polling seems to point to a Trump victory in November. For instance, according to polling averages , only 28% of Americans say the country is going in the right direction, compared to 61% who say it’s on the wrong track. Why is this important? Because wrong track voters are more apt to vote for the party out of power – i.e., the Trump campaign – than the party “in power.”
Second, President Joe Biden’s average approval rating is still at a dismal 41% nationally, with a higher 56% of Americans saying they disapprove of his job performance. Why is this important? Because if Americans are unhappy with the president’s job performance, they theoretically should be less likely to vote for another four years of his administration with a vote for the Harris campaign. And remember, when Kamala Harris was asked on a national network television program just recently if she would have done anything different than Biden, she couldn’t answer. In other words, she seems to have unwittingly conceded that she represents another four years of a Biden presidency.
Another reason the political climate seems to favor Republicans at the current time has to do with how Americans are self-identifying in polls. According to national polling, in October 2016, the country self-identified as Democrat by a 3-point margin over Republicans. In October 2020, the country self-identified as Democrat by a higher 6-point margin. But in September of this year, just last month, new polling showed Republicans with a 1-point lead over Democrats on party self-identification. This could prove important because it seems to suggest that more Americans are aligned with the GOP brand than the Democrats – another good sign for the Trump campaign.
Moreover, the current polling has shifted in Trump’s favor both nationally and in critical battleground states. For instance, the RCP average of national polls now shows Trump with a 48.4 to 48.3% lead – just one tenth of a percent difference, but still leaning Trump. This is a big deal because the national popular vote has favored Harris for months, but now has shifted in Trump’s favor. This could be a sign of which way the political winds are blowing. Plus, polling averages currently show that Trump leads in all seven battleground states, including Pennsylvania (.6 percent lead), Michigan (.2 points), Wisconsin (.2 points), Arizona (1.5 points), North Carolina (.8 points), Georgia (2.2 points) and Nevada (.7 points). These are RCP averages as of October 26.
In Pennsylvania, Trump’s lead is significant when you consider that on that day in 2020, Biden led in the RCP averages in Pennsylvania by 4.8%; Biden of course went on to eek out a narrow margin over Trump by only 1.2%. Back in 2016 at this time, Hillary Clinton led in the RCP averages by 4.3 points, only to lose to Trump by a razor-thin, 48.58 to 47.85 margin on Election Day (or 44,292 votes).
So, are we on the cusp of a landslide (Electoral College) victory for Trump? No one knows for sure, but it could happen. In Pennsylvania, our latest poll shows a 46% to 45.8% statistical tie between Trump and Harris (Harris leading by .2 percentage points). This poll was conducted October 18-22 with a sample size of 500 likely voters. But there is plenty of good news for Trump in this poll.
For instance, Trump looks poised to overperform his 2020 numbers with Republicans. In the current survey, Trump is winning Republicans by an 89.4% to 3.7% margin over Harris. Why is this important? In 2020, Trump lost 8% of the GOP vote to Biden – a huge setback in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans. More importantly, Trump is doing better with Independents in the current survey, currently leading them 43.9% to 36.4%. In 2020, Biden carried Independents by a 52:44 margin according to CNN exit polls. If Trump wins Independents in Pennsylvania, which constitute about 16% of the electorate and are technically the fastest growing cohort of the voter registration rolls, he will likely win the Keystone State.
And the political issues currently favor a Trump victory in terms of what is influencing people’s vote choices. For instance, in our Pennsylvania survey, 45% say inflation and the economy is the top issue that will influence peoples’ votes for a candidate, while immigration is second (at 32%). No other issue polls higher. Inflation/economy voters are breaking for Trump by a 57.4% to 35.4% margin. Immigration voters favor Trump by a whopping 72.7% to 17.4% margin. So, if voters go to the polls thinking about inflation, the economy and illegal immigration, Trump is likely to win. Lower ranking issues like protecting democracy, reproductive rights, and healthcare access all favor the Harris narrative.
Yet despite all these factors pointing in Trump’s direction, our polling still shows a statistical tie, so Harris can’t be counted out. In the poll, there are some red flags for Trump. For instance, voters who say they already cast early ballots favor Harris by a 53.9% to 37.1% margin. This means Harris has the edge in early returns with absentee and mail in ballots. Plus, Trump doesn’t seem to be getting much traction with Hispanic/Latino voters, which make up about 8% of the state’s electorate and are a fast-growing cohort in suburban areas like Lancaster, Reading, Allentown and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton media markets. In the current survey, Harris leads Trump with Latino voters 76.7% to 20.0%. This suggests an underperformance for Trump when you consider that Trump got 27% of the Latino vote in 2020 according to exit polls. In addition, in a separate poll we recently conducted in the hotly contested 10th congressional district election (between GOP incumbent U.S. Rep. Scott Perry and Democratic challenger Janelle Stelson), Harris actually leads Trump by a 46:41 margin – a reversal from a 4-point Trump victory in this same district in 2020. So, Trump seems be underperforming in some Mid-state counties, which are a must win area for him when you consider that our polling shows Trump will lose the vote-rich Philadelphia suburban collar counties, plus the state’s two major urban centers of Allegheny and Philadelphia counties. Let’s not forget that in 2020, Biden carried the Keystone State but only by winning 13 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties – a highly surgical approach to victory.
So, the current survey seems to suggest a very close race on Election Day in a very pivotal battleground state. Turnout could be the deciding factor in determining the outcome. This is because Pennsylvania is almost a 50:50 state in voter registration since the GOP has narrowed the voter registration edge to fewer than a 300,000 vote-difference, or a current 44% Democrat to 40% GOP margin; independents and other third-party voters make up the remaining 16%. Exit polls in 2020 showed a +1 percent margin for GOP versus Democrats in party self-Identification. In the current poll, Trump is winning Republicans 89.4% to 3.7% over Harris, while Harris is winning Democrats 90.8% to 3.2% over Trump. So, both candidates seem to be doing equally well in their respective bases of support. This means it’s hard to tell if the “never Trump” campaign narrative is getting real traction or is simply a red herring. This means whichever candidate gets more of their voters to the polls will likely be the victor. Other states will see similar trend lines since states like Arizona, Nevada, and Wisconsin are also states where Republicans and Democrats are relatively equal in voter registration. Turnout will play a critical role in this election, and the party that gets their vote out could have the edge on Election Day.
Tyler Durden
Fri, 11/01/2024 – 07:20
Chinese Hackers Compromised Multiple Canadian Government Networks For Years, Stole Info: Security Agency
Chinese Hackers Compromised Multiple Canadian Government Networks For Years, Stole Info: Security Agency
Authored by Andrew Chen via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Cyber threat actors from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have been implicated in multiple breaches of networks associated with federal government agencies and departments, according to a report from the national cybersecurity agency.
“Over the past four years, at least 20 networks associated with Government of Canada agencies and departments have been compromised by PRC cyber threat actors,” said the National Cyber Threat Assessment 2025-2026, released Oct. 30 by the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security.
The centre identifies China as the top threat actor targeting Canada, noting that its cyber operations are “second to none” in scale, technique, and ambition. Beijing’s objectives include espionage, intellectual property theft, malign influence, and transnational repression, the centre says.
While the report highlights China’s hacking of 20 federal government networks in the past four years, information elsewhere in the report shows that Chinese hackers have had access to multiple government networks longer than that. The report says that Chinese agents have compromised Canadian government networks over the past five years, collecting communications and other valuable information.
“While all known federal government compromises have been resolved, it is very likely that the actors responsible for these intrusions dedicated significant time and resources to learn about the target networks,” the report reads.
At a press conference on Oct. 30, Caroline Xavier, chief of the Canadian Communications Security Establishment (CSE), would not comment on the details of the breaches, but said mitigation measures had been “effective.”
“The key message for us—when there are incidents that occur—is really being focused on ensuring [we] minimize the impact to the government department that may have been compromised. And that is exactly where our focus has been,” she told reporters. “We do feel that the measures were taken to be able to mitigate any of the risks, and to address the incidents in an effective manner.”
The cyber centre is hosted within CSE, Canada’s electronic spy agency, which is responsible for collecting signals intelligence and defending against cyberattacks.
China Targets
In addition to federal agencies, provincial and territorial governments are also seen as valuable targets for Beijing, the report said, noting that these governments hold decision-making power over regional trade and commerce, including the extraction of critical minerals and other natural resources.
Xavier said this targeting indicates Beijing is a “sophisticated, consistent, and persistent actor,” and that Canada needs to address the threat with a more comprehensive approach.
“We have work to do as a nation, to continue to work, in particular with the provinces, territories, indigenous communities, because we recognize that we’re all vulnerable, or we all could be vulnerable, and we really want to continue to raise Canada’s cyber resilience,” she said.
The cyber centre also echoed previous reports from various human rights groups, warning that Beijing’s transnational repression has primarily targeted five specific communities, referred to by the regime as the “five poisons.” These include Falun Gong practitioners, Uyghurs, Tibetans, supporters of Taiwanese independence, and pro-democracy activists.
“PRC actors very likely facilitate transnational repression by monitoring and harassing these groups online and tracking them using cyber surveillance,” the report said. “For example, the PRC has been publicly linked to cyber espionage operations against the Uyghur minority group, including members living in Canada, using spear phishing emails and spyware.”
Other Countries Named
Other state-backed threat actors highlighted in the cyber centre report include Russia, Iran, and India.
Russia’s cyber operations are characterized as “a multi-layered strategy” that combines conventional cyber espionage and computer network attacks with disinformation. Its primary goal is to enhance Russia’s global status while undermining democratic institutions in Canada and among its allies.
A specific case cited in the report involves a breach detected by Microsoft in January, where a Russian state-sponsored cyber threat actor known as Midnight Blizzard accessed the company’s cloud-based enterprise email service.
The group infiltrated correspondence between Microsoft and government officials in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Initially, the actors sought information about Russia itself, but later used personal data and credentials from the emails to gain access to Microsoft customer systems.
Meanwhile, the report said Iran has been expanding its cyberattacks to western countries amid its ongoing military conflict with Israel.
“Iran has taken advantage of its back-and-forth cyber confrontation with Israel to improve its cyber espionage and offensive cyber capabilities and hone its information campaigns, which it is now almost certainly deploying against targets in the West,” the report said.
During the press conference, Xavier also identified India as an “emerging threat” to Canada.
“India very likely uses its cyber program to advance its national security imperatives, including espionage, counterterrorism, and the country’s efforts to promote its global status and counter narratives against India and the Indian government,” the report said.
Citing her recent testimony before the foreign interference inquiry, Xavier noted India could potentially “flex those cyber threat actions against Canadians” amid ongoing diplomatic tensions.
Earlier this month, Canada expelled six Indian diplomats, prompting a reciprocal move by India, which also expelled six Canadian diplomats. This dispute arose after the RCMP announced its investigation into criminal activities allegedly involving “agents of the Government of India.”
‘Ever-Present’ Threat
The Centre for Cyber Security says Canada has entered a new era in which cyber threats are “ever present.”
“Canadians will increasingly feel the impact of cyber incidents that have cascading and disruptive effects on their daily lives,” the report said.
The centre says the threat has expanded as Canadians increasingly rely on online platforms and digital technologies to go about their lives.
“These systems record and process vast amounts of data about us, often over poorly secured or untrustworthy digital networks,” it said.
Aside from the threats from hostile state actors, the centre notes that the cybercrime business model is “underpinned by flourishing online marketplaces” where leaked data is sold along with cyber tools for criminals.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 10/31/2024 – 23:55
Germany closes all Iranian Consulates in country after Tehran executes American man of German-Iranian descent
69-year-old Jamshid Sharmahd was a journalist and outspoken critic of the Tehran government who had been living in California since 2003 before he was kidnapped by Iranian security forces in Dubai in 2020.
Iran Readies Major Retaliatory Strike From Iraq ‘In Coming Days’: Israeli Officials
Iran Readies Major Retaliatory Strike From Iraq ‘In Coming Days’: Israeli Officials
Axios is reporting Thursday that Iran is still preparing a major retaliation in response to the Israeli aerial attack of the overnight and early morning hours of last Saturday. Israel’s strikes on missile and military facilities was itself a much anticipated response to the Oct.1st ballistic missile attack.
While most regional observers believe the tit-for-tat has cooled down, reflected in declining oil prices this week, the Axios report cites a pair of Israeli officials to say “Israeli intelligence suggests Iran is preparing to attack Israel from Iraqi territory in the coming days, possibly before the US presidential election.”
This would involve large numbers of drones and ballistic missiles, they say. Throughout the Gaza war, there have been sporadic drones launched by Iran-backed paramilitary units in Iraq, but nothing on a major scale.
Israeli sources on Thursday have suggested Iran is actually moving ballistic missiles to prepare for such an attack.
Also, Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander Hossein Salami has been cited as saying that Iran’s response will be “different from any scenario” Israel might expect.
CNN too has been reporting the fresh threats, on Wednesday writing the following based on Iranian military sources:
Israel’s recent attacks on Iran will be met with a “definitive and painful” response that will likely come before the US presidential vote, a high-ranking source told CNN on Wednesday.
The remarks signal a departure from Iran’s initial attempts to downplay the severity of the strikes carried out by Israel on October 25, which marked the first time Israel has openly acknowledged striking Iranian targets.
“The response of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the aggression of the Zionist regime will be definitive and painful,” the source, who is familiar with Iran’s deliberations, said.
Although the source did not provide an exact date for the attack, they said it “will probably take place before the day of the US presidential election.”
Meanwhile, the Iraqi government is seething over Israeli warplanes violating its airspace during last weekend’s attack. It has lodged an official protest note with the United Nations about the illegal breach.
It appears the some one hundred Israeli jets reportedly used in the attack fired on Iran from over neighboring Iraqi airspace. Such a tactic has long been utilized by the Israeli Air Force in attacking Syria, as it typically fires from over undefended Lebanese airspace.
Currently US and Israeli negotiators say they are getting close to achieving a ceasefire with Hezbollah, but any new large-scale attack from the ‘Iranian axis’ would surely jeopardize such a potential deal.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 10/31/2024 – 17:45
Turning Point UK calls for Keir Starmer to resign over alleged cover-up of motivations behind Southport stabbing murder of 3 school girls
“A cover-up will permanently damage public trust in whether we’re being told the truth about crime in our country. Keir Starmer must urgently explain to the country what he knew about the Southport attack.”
JACQUELINE TOBOROFF: NY shows up for Trump
Believe your eyes. If this is happening in New York City, this is happening.
Harvard Memorial Church To Host “Reading Taylor Swift As A Sacred Text” Event
Harvard Memorial Church To Host “Reading Taylor Swift As A Sacred Text” Event
Authored by Jennifer Kabbany via The College Fix,
A Harvard Memorial Church student program is slated to host a “Reading Taylor Swift as a Sacred Text” tonight.
The Tuesday evening event is organized by the Memorial Church Student Program Coordinator & Multifaith Engagement fellow.
“What can reading the texts that matter to us as sacred tell us about ourselves and our lives? Discover a new way to engage with the Taylor Swift canon that honors the important emotional and spiritual role her work plays in many peoples’ lives. Bring your favorite Taylor Swift song and we’ll bring the sacred reading practices,” the event description states.
The RSVP page also states the gathering is “open to people from all religious, ethical, and spiritual backgrounds.”
“We will be using Lectio Divina, an ancient Christian monastic reading practice, but the insights you gain from this practice will not necessarily be connected to the Christian tradition or ‘religious’ in nature. Students are invited and encouraged to bring insights and wisdom from their own lives, traditions, and backgrounds.”
Harvard is no stranger to Swift adoration.
It offered a class dedicated to the pop star last spring.
That class even hosted an all-nighter to review the release of her new album “The Tortured Poets Department.”
As The College Fix previously reported, the University of Florida’s Honors Program offered a course on Swift last semester.
As it relates to the intersection between Swift and religion, The Fix reported in July about a class at Duke University that involved Swift and the occult:
At Duke University, a first-year writing course called “Radical Magic,” will analyze why magic and the supernatural “have been coded as feminine, irrational, and sinister.” Students also will discuss why people accuse Taylor Swift of witchcraft.
Course instructor Cheryl Spinner told The Fix via email [at the time] her class will look at footage of Swift’s Eras Tour and “use gender and feminist studies to parse out what’s really going on with these accusations.”
Spinner said she had productive discussions in previous classes about the pop star, including the lyrics from one of her songs: “I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street,” which Swift sings on a moving stage that appears to make her float.
The class also will examine the literacy quality of tarot cards, spells, and incantations. Their final project will be to create a grimoire, or spellbook that records “magical insights and oral traditions that might otherwise be forgotten,” according to Spinner.
An entire academic conference has also been dedicated to Swift in the past, zeroing in on topics such as gender, capitalism and feminism.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 10/31/2024 – 06:30
Did Boston Dynamics Get Jealous After Spotlight On Tesla’s Optimus Robot?
Did Boston Dynamics Get Jealous After Spotlight On Tesla’s Optimus Robot?
Less than a day after Tesla CEO Elon Musk made bold claims at the Future Investment Initiative Conference in Saudi Arabia, touting big AI growth in the coming years, which is only suggestive of powerful tailwinds for his Optimus robot, Boston Dynamics—once the leader in viral humanoid robot videos—published a clip on YouTube on Wednesday morning showcasing its robot performing typical warehouse tasks usually carried out by workers in Amazon distribution centers.
Maybe a bit of jealousy is unfolding between Boston Dynamics and Musk’s Optimus robot, which has received a lot of attention in October – from the “We, Robot“ event on October 10 to Musk’s comment at the event in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday:
“I think by 2040, probably there are more humanoid robots than there are people. Every country will have an AI or multiple AIs, and there will be a lot of robots, way more robots than people.”
Back to the We, Robot event, where Musk said Optimus will cost less than $30,000 and forecasted that the humanoid robot will be the company’s most popular product in the years ahead…
NEW: Elon Musk introduces an army of Optimus robots, says people will be able to buy them to complete tasks.
Epic.
Musk then said attendees could walk up to the Optimus robots who would do things like serve drinks.
“At scale, you should be able to buy an Optimus robot for… pic.twitter.com/zsGF4zzhaR
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) October 11, 2024
Maybe all this attention on Optimus provoked Boston Dynamics to release a video of its bipedal humanoid robot, Atlas.
Here’s more from Boston Dynamics:
Atlas is autonomously moving engine covers between supplier containers and a mobile sequencing dolly. The robot receives as input a list of bin locations to move parts between.
Atlas uses a machine learning (ML) vision model to detect and localize the environment fixtures and individual bins [0:36]. The robot uses a specialized grasping policy and continuously estimates the state of manipulated objects to achieve the task.
There are no prescribed or teleoperated movements; all motions are generated autonomously online. The robot is able to detect and react to changes in the environment (e.g., moving fixtures) and action failures (e.g., failure to insert the cover, tripping, environment collisions [1:24]) using a combination of vision, force, and proprioceptive sensors.
Suppose robots and AI are forecasted to lead to millions of job losses in the years ahead. Then why did Democrats facilitate the greatest migrant invasion this nation has ever seen with low-skilled, unvetted illegal aliens when many of those jobs are likely to be automated away? Ah, yes, it’s all about the votes.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 10/30/2024 – 23:25
Democrats Plan For Color Revolution
Democrats Plan For Color Revolution
Authored by Jeff Carlson and Hans Mahncke via Truth Over News,
It feels like there’s been a notable shift amongst Democrats in the last month. A recent sense of fatalism – or perhaps just simple resignation to what appears to be an inevitable Trump win. But as it turns out, there are some Democrats who have been preparing for this potential outcome for at least the last year.
One of those people is Norman Eisen, and it looks like he’s up to his old Lawfare & Color Revolution tricks again. The man responsible for virtually all of the legal attacks on President Trump now has a new activist group – although it has many of the same players – and they’re preparing for an assault on a second Trump Presidency.
Eisen, a Brookings senior fellow, Obama’s former White House Ethics Czar and Ambassador to Czechoslovakia during the “Velvet Revolution,” has been behind the ongoing Lawfare that has targeted Trump for years. Eisen was one of the primary forces behind the first impeachment of Trump and is also the co-founder of Leftist non-profit CREW or Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
Eisen played a lead role in Democrats pre-2020 election war games which predicted a remarkably accurate contested election scenario that ended unfavorably for Trump. Of particular note in regards to his current efforts, Eisen is also the author of the highly influential color revolution manual, The Democracy Playbook.
Eisen’s latest venture, State Democracy Defenders Action (SDDA), bills itself as bringing “together a bipartisan all-star team of experts in safeguarding democracy” and ominously claims they help “shape the long term strategy to defeat Election denial and its logical outgrowth: American Autocracy, starting with preparing for a vigorous response to whatever 2025 – and beyond – may bring.”
Their site claims that SDDA will “fill three key gaps in the fight against election sabotage and autocracy” by going “on offense against democracy deniers who break the law, including through our innovative program of outside public support for criminal prosecutions.”
The group says they “work with national, state and local allies across the country to defend in real-time the foundation of our democracy – free and fair elections.” State Democracy Defenders Action also foreshadows future civil unrest by claiming to “help shape the long-term strategy to defeat autocracy in 2025 – and beyond.”
As we’ll see, this sounds like the formation of a Color Revolution.
Central to their efforts are what the group calls their 10 Principles, which can appear innocuous with a casual glance but are actually representative of NeoCon, Never-Trump talking points and Globalist Goals. When one reads these principles with an eye towards a future Trump Presidency, their words take on an entirely different meaning.
The group’s first principle states that they “believe in the foundational idea of rule of law.” But that claim is immediately followed by a weaponized declaration that’s obviously aimed at Trump:
“Our country cannot be led by anyone who believes they are not accountable to our Constitution or who repeatedly and persistently violates civil and criminal statutes. That is disqualifying and contrary to the principle of rule of law.”
You can probably see where this is going. State Democracy Defenders Action repeatedly references J6, Project 2025 and Autocracy, utilizing these leftist dog whistles wherever possible:
“We are alarmed about the rising autocratic movement in the United States that threatens the American idea and the American people. January 6, 2021, represented an ugly inflection point of this movement and it is driving forward with authoritarian proposals like Project 2025 that constitute an assault on the freedoms of every American. This movement threatens to eviscerate our rights, our prosperity, and our stability and security upon which our nation and the world rely.”
The group also appears to be preparing to fight Trump’s planned downsizing of the federal government, noting that career civil service employees “work in our government irrespective of the political party or ideology of the person elected to the Presidency.” They laughingly claim that “Our civil servants’ obligations to the people of this country, the Constitution, and the rule of law serve a fundamental role in effective democratic governance.”
Eisen appears to be using many of the useful idiots and perennial talking heads that he hosts on his weekly lawfare calls: Jennifer Rubin, Asha Rangappa, George Conway, Joe Walsh, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Ty Cobb, John Dean, Heath Mayo, and Skye Perryman.
Although most are not particularly impressive, these operatives do have a purpose to fulfill. The way Eisen’s projects have worked historically is through the establishment of a public-facing entity that propagates and publicizes their ideas and agendas while disguising the organization’s more sinister goals.
Eisen and the other senior operators always seem to use the same talking heads and former federal prosecutors to get their narrative circling in the public sphere. A public “prep” if you will. Meanwhile, a far more serious effort is mounted behind the scenes.
In advance of the 2020 election, Edward Foley, an Eisen collaborator and head of the election law program at Ohio University, issued a 55-page paper discussing the coming Blue Shift – a theory which holds that Democratic candidates often gain votes in the days following the actual election. This narrative was carefully crafted by Eisen’s operatives and carried by the media over the next twelve months.
By the time the 2020 election arrived everyone anticipated a delay in voting results. The sudden overnight shift from a Trump lead to a Biden win was still a huge shock – but it would have been impossible without this careful advance planning and widespread dissemination by Democrat operatives. Eisen’s useful idiots fulfill precisely this function – which is why he uses them in almost all of his operations.
But make no mistake. More serious operators are in charge of things. In addition to Eisen, there’s Eisen’s original Lawfare partner Norm Ornstein of American Enterprise Institute, NeoCon and Never-Trumper Bill Kristol (we can debate how serious Kristol actually is), the Atlantic’s David Frum, Susan Corke (Managing Director of SDDA), Victoria Nuland’s husband Robert Kagan – and DNC Power Operative Michael Podhorzer.
Podhorzer, the former political director of the AFL-CIO and current Fellow at the Center for American Progress, is the man credited in Time’s now-infamous article, The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign, as being “The Architect” of Biden’s “win in 2020. Podhorzer is also the founder of The Analyst Institute, which has been referred to as “the nerve center of the data-driven empirical turn in Democratic campaign strategies.”
Unlike the public-facing useful idiots, Podhorzer is rarely seen and once again appears to be operating behind the scenes. Podhorzer is a highly powerful, highly influential, but little known DNC operative – and while we can’t prove it, our guess is that he’s directing Eisen rather than the other way around.
The inclusion of Robert Kagan, a Brookings Fellow like Eisen, is also notable. He recently “resigned” from the Washington Post after the paper refused to endorse Kamala. A long-time NeoCon, Kagan has worked tirelessly to lie and manipulate our country into multiple wars. His wife, Victoria Nuland, was instrumental in overthrowing the legitimately elected government in Ukraine in early 2014 and she was also involved in the RussiaGate lie – receiving perhaps the earliest known copy of the Steele Dossier in early July 2016.
Back in November 2023, Kagan penned a dangerous – 6,000 word editorial in the Washington Post titled “A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending.” Kagan said a Trump win was all but inevitable – and Trump would rule as a ruthless dictator “unless something radical and unforeseen happens.”
As Mollie Hemmingway noted at the time, “This extreme and dangerous genre – of claiming Trump is Hitler (because, they say, he might do what Democrats are doing right now) – should probably be given the name Assassination Prep.”
Kagan’s inclusion in Eisen’s new effort also explains the sudden appearance of Victoria Nuland on Rachel Maddow – which prompted Alexandros Marinos to ask “Did Nuland step down from State so she could coordinate the color revolution playbook from outside, like she did in Ukraine?” The answer to that question is almost certainly a resounding “yes.”
After resigning from the State Department, Nuland joined the Board of Directors at the National Endowment for Democracy. As Mike Benz notes, the NED is really just a CIA cut-out – and a major driver in the censorship of Americans – something that Nuland told Maddow she still supports:
“In 2020, the social media companies worked hard with the government to try to do content moderation to try to catch this stuff as it was happening, but this time we have Elon Musk talking directly to the Kremlin and ensuring that every time the Russians put out something like this, it gets 5 million views on X before anybody can catch it. So it’s quite dangerous.”
Eisen’s new group has also collaborated closely with the No Dictators Declaration, a loose-knit coalition organized by Senator Jamie Raskin – who recently stated that he intended to lead an effort to refuse to certify Trump as president if Trump won the election. Included in the No Dictators Declaration are specific calls to reduce Trump’s ability to respond to any post-election domestic unrest or civil uprisings. From their A Call to Protect American Freedoms declaration:
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To reduce the threat of dictatorship, Congress should limit the president’s ability to declare bogus domestic and foreign emergencies.
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To reduce the threat of dictatorship, Congress should limit the president’s abuse of his or her power to deploy the military on American soil.
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Under the outdated and overbroad Insurrection Act, presidents can claim extraordinary powers to deploy troops domestically. Recently, some have called for its invocation to prevent Americans from exercising their First Amendment rights of free expression.
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To reduce the threat of dictatorship, Congress should prevent the adoption of partisan, personal, and ideological loyalty tests, loyalty oaths, and similar authoritarian measures designed to purge the professional civil service and replace qualified workers with unqualified loyalists to the president.
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Working for the federal government means working for the American people under the Constitution and the rule of law.
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To reduce the threat of dictatorship, Congress should ensure that presidents who abuse their powers to commit crimes can be prosecuted like all other people.
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The founders overthrew a king and wrote a Constitution to enshrine the core American ideal that no person is above the law. We the people must restore the concept that we are all equal before the law.
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To reduce the threat of dictatorship, Congress should limit the president’s ability to use investigative and prosecutorial decisions and resources to pursue vendettas against disfavored people and groups.
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The Department of Justice, the Internal Revenue Service, and other government agencies cannot become instruments of tyranny. We must make certain that the executive branch cannot employ increasingly creative ways to persecute individuals, civil society organizations, and nonprofits based on their ideologies.
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The U.S. currently has 42 national emergencies declared, some decades-old. Under emergency powers, a president can claim the authority to divert funds, seize property, and bypass Congress.
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Everything contained within the group’s declaration is designed to limit and neuter a Trump Presidency – to cripple Trump’s ability to respond and follow through on his campaign promises. Their declaration is really the fearful confession of guilty parties who are willing to do anything to avoid accountability.
One word that’s used over and over again by Eisen’s group is Autocracy – in which absolute power is held by the ruler – in this case Trump. It’s a subtle continuation of the “Trump is Hitler” theme that’s used as the rationale for the group’s existence (Eisen’s group even has an extensive “American Autocracy Threat Tracker”). As SDDA member Ruth Ben-Ghiat stated, “This is an anti-autocracy conference because autocracy is what we are looking at if Donald Trump comes back to the White House.”
It’s also why there’s a continual focus on restricting Trump’s use of the Insurrection Act.
A number of current and former officials have claimed that Trump will attempt to use military force. Leon Panetta, who served as Obama’s CIA Director and then as his Secretary of Defense, told NBC that “Like any good dictator, Trump’s going to try to use the military to basically perform his will.” Senator Dick Blumenthal breathlessly claimed that “There are an array of horrors that could result from Trump’s unrestricted use of the Insurrection Act.”
Mary McCord, executive director of the Institution for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown Law, told NBC that “‘We’re already starting to put together a team to think through the most damaging types of things that Trump might do so that we’re ready to bring lawsuits if we have to.”
McCord was the Acting head of the DOJ’s National Security Division from 2016 to 2017 and she was involved in the FBI’s early FISA surveillance of Trump advisor Carter Page. McCord was also appointed by Nancy Pelosi as legal counsel to the Jan 6th Capitol Security Review Task Force and has written articles pushing the Jan 6th narrative. McCord is one of the very worst of the Deep State actors.
The Insurrection Act authorizes the president to deploy military forces inside the United States to suppress rebellion or domestic violence or to enforce the law in certain situations. The Insurrection Act was last invoked in 1992, during the L.A. riots that followed the Rodney King beating by police. Both sides seem to believe that it may be needed again.
Podhorzer placed things into frightening context when he told the Autocracy in America conference that “The key question going into November is whether or not – and this is the message this conference is trying to get across – is to believe that this is an election as profound as any since 1860 about where this country is going.”
Podhorzer knew exactly what he was invoking. The election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 marked the final slide of America into the Civil War which formally began on April 12, 1861.
We mentioned the Time Magazine article on the 2020 election earlier, and we did so for a reason. There were several material admissions made, not the least being that the Left does actually control the activities of groups like Antifa, Black Lives Matter and others that rioted throughout the 2020 election year.
As the article notes, “Many of those organizers were part of [Mike] Podhorzer’s network” the man credited in Time’s article as being “The Architect” of the entire election effort.
The article detailed how more than 150 liberal groups had joined the “Protect the Results” coalition and stated that “The group’s now defunct website had a map listing 400 planned post election demonstrations, to be activated via text message as soon as Nov. 4. To stop the coup they feared, the left was ready to flood the streets.”
There is another unspoken admission here as well. The trigger for the pre-planned riots was a Biden loss, not a “stolen election”. Or said another way, the Left would determine what comprised a stolen election only by its outcome.
This matter was further highlighted by Angela Peoples, director for the Democracy Defense Coalition, who told Time Magazine that “We wanted to be mindful of when was the right time to call for moving masses of people into the street.”
But after Fox called Arizona for Biden, a decision was made to “stand down”. As Podhorzer noted, “They had spent so much time getting ready to hit the streets on Wednesday. But they did it…there was not a single Antifa vs. Proud Boys incident.”
In other words, Podhorzer and his crew effectively controlled the actions of Antifa and Black Lives Matter – if not completely, then at the very least during these critical moments and days. It seems likely that they control these same groups today.
In his Color Revolution playbook, Eisen wrote that “Political opposition groups should form networks between other opposition groups, local electoral activists, civil society groups, and, where appropriate, international organizations and actors” and “Forcefully contest each individual illiberal act of non-democratic actors”.
Eisen also foreshadowed his continued use of lawfare, noting that “big data and AI can play a role in litigation by forecasting which judges and jurisdictions are responsive to specific arguments, thereby guiding well-funded litigants while disadvantaging those without access to such tools.”
The plans by Eisen’s group should be taken seriously. We all remember the chaos and widespread civil unrest that took place in 2020. And don’t forget. If Trump is Hitler, then in Eisen’s eyes we are the “non-democratic actors” that his group is targeting.
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Tyler Durden
Wed, 10/30/2024 – 18:00