Category: Quick Analysis

Earlier this week, President Biden reversed his 2022 decision, authorizing the provision of antipersonnel land mines to the Ukrainian government. It follows an earlier Administration authorization to allow the use of an advanced American missile system capable of striking as deep as 100 miles inside Russian territory. The US election season may be ending, but both Russia and the West show no indication of stepping down the conflict. Russian propaganda continues to swell as the Kremlin increases its threats to use nuclear weapons against the West. 

Last week Andrey Sushentsov, program director of the pro-Kremlin think tank Valdai Discussion Club (VDC), published an article on growing nuclear tensions in the region. Official Russian language in the last few years has been threatening. Since the US election, rhetoric like that in the Sushentsov article, has approached the level of nuclear blackmail.

The VDC article’s main theme centers on Russia’s intent to directly confront the West militarily if the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) becomes involved in Russia’s conflict with Ukraine. “On the one hand, these threats are intended to frighten the West, but on the other, Russian propagandists themselves are starting to believe in the inevitability of escalation,” according to Ksenia Kirillova of the Jamestown Foundation.

On November 11, Sushentsov wrote that “The conflict will reach a completely new level, with unpredictable consequences for Europe and the entire world.” Kirillova points out that Putin’s distorted image of the world is divorced from reality and is causing the Kremlin to issue demands that are impossible to fulfill. Financial and other Russian resources needed to support Putin’s war are growing scarcer at the same time. This week the Kremlin announced a reduction of payments to its soldiers. Recently North Korea acknowledged it was sending soldiers to fight in Ukraine as Putin is running out of bodies to use as cannon fire. The war is not going well for Russia. 

One question floating around the Washington intelligence community is whether Putin will act out of desperation before President-elect Trump assumes office. In recent months the Russian propaganda machine is spewing out materials from fairly reputable analytical platforms inside the country. Kirillova says that “Kremlin ‘experts’ do not conceal that such threats are only intended to break the West psychologically, as they themselves are not prepared for full-scale nuclear war.” Despite Russia’s lack of preparation for an all-out war with the West, the expanding nuclear rhetoric carries with it an increase in the threat of a full-scale war in multiple theaters of operation. 

In June 2023 a founder of the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Sergey Karaganov, called for “delivering a pre-emptive strike of retaliation” on Poland to force the West to surrender. In the previous month, Dmitry Suslov, a direct of research programs at the policy center proposed organizing “a demonstration nuclear explosion” aimed at intimidating the West. In September, President Putin announced a reappraisal of Russian nuclear doctrine after speaking earlier in the year at the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum and jokingly calling Suslov a “scary person.” 

Pavel Baev, writing in the European Daily Monitor, says “Putin intends his announcement to mark an escalation of nuclear brinkmanship and influence the proceedings of future Ukrainian peace efforts.” Putin is expanding the list of environmental conditions that are acceptable for using a nuclear weapon and incorporating it into Russian military doctrine. Baev adds that “The ups and downs of Russian brinkmanship are disconnected from the kinetic battles of the war, correlating instead with Ukrainian peace offensives, such as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s first peace summit in Bürgenstock, Switzerland.” Despite the increase in vitriolic language, in a You Tube video published a week before the US presidential election, Karaganov openly assured the West the primary goal of the escalation is to break the American spirit and that of the West, not outright nuclear war. By Election Day in the US, with political prognosticators predicting a win for former president Trump, Karaganov changed his tune and called for an increased role in nuclear deterrence.

Kirillova points out that Western concessions to Russia are unlikely to reduce the risk of nuclear escalation. The distorted reality inside the Kremlin continues to push that President-elect Trump is an adherent of “world government,” that Ukraine will create a nuclear weapon, and Russia must prepare for a nuclear conflagration to achieve its ambitions for a new world order. President-elect Trump has indicated he will not agree to concessions that destabilize Europe, the Middle East or other regions. Going forward a strong US foreign policy may be the most stabilizing course the West can count on to restrain Putin and his intent to rebuild the Russian empire.

Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.

Illustration: Pixabay

It has become commonplace for the left to defame and slander those on the right.  But it has also become a matter of course for conservatives to fight back.  However, whether or not the right-leaning person is successful in suing the slanderer often depends on whether or not the target of the attack is a private figure, or a public one.

According to Andrew Stebbins and Christina Williams of the law firm Buckingham, Doolittle and Burroughs of Cleveland, “[t]he designation of public versus private figure for a plaintiff in a defamation claim is important because it governs the burden of proof a plaintiff has in proving the mental state of the defendant. A public figure must prove that a Defendant acted with ‘actual malice’ in publishing a false statement about the plaintiff.  Actual malice means that the person either knew the statement was false or showed such reckless disregard for the truth that they should have known the statement was false.  A private figure, however, only has to show that a defendant was negligent in making the false statement.”  

This distinction made an important difference for the cases brought by Nicholas Sandmann, a high school student who was in Washington DC for a Pro-Life Rally in January of 2019.  Sandmann was confronted by a Native-American activist, who banged a drum and chanted directly in front of Sandmann, who stood still with a smile on his face.

Much of the media immediately assumed that Sandmann, wearing a MAGA hat, was a racist.   “A video that shows white high school students in Make America Great Again hats and shirts mocking a Native American elder shocked the country,” according to CNN, “leading to widespread denunciations of the teens’ behavior.” 

Those denunciations of Sandmann came fast and furious. According to Robby Soave, writing for  Reason, “The Detroit Free Press described the video as depicting ‘[the Native-American activist] peacefully drumming and singing, while surrounded by a hostile crowd’ and suggested that this ‘illustrates the nation’s political and racial tensions.’ The Daily Beast‘s story was filed under ‘AWFUL’ and described the video as ‘disturbing.’ Its first several paragraphs quote directly from [the activist]. NPR asserted that the boys had mocked the Native American man.”

These reactions were calm and measured compared with the torrent of abuse directed at Sandmann on social media.  As described by Soave, “Reza Aslan, a scholar and television pundit on CNN, tweeted that Sandmann had a ‘punchable’ face. His CNN colleague Bakari Sellers agreed. BuzzFeed‘s Anne Petersen tweeted that Sandmann’s face reminded her of Brett Kavanaugh’s – and this wasn’t intended as a compliment. Vulture writer Erik Abriss tweeted that he wanted the kids and their parents to die. Kathy Griffin said the high schoolers ought to be doxxed. As a USA Today retrospective noted, ‘comedian Patton Oswalt called the students in the video ‘bland, frightened, forgettable kids who’ll grow up to be bland, frightened, forgotten adult wastes.’…Writer Michael Green, referring to Sandmann’sapparent smirking at the Native American man, wrote: ‘A face like that never changes. This image will define his life. No one need ever forgive him.’…Huffington Post reporter Christopher Mathias explicitly compared the students to violent segregationists.'”

In their rush to judgment, none of these media figures considered that Sandmann had done nothing wrong.  The video shows him merely standing still, with a smile on his face.  He does not speak; he does not threaten; Sandmann doesn’t even move.  “Within 48 hours,” Soave writes, “the truth had emerged. A longer video, which showed [Sandmann’s] prior harassment at the hands of the Black Hebrew Israelites, made it clear that [Sandmann] had not directed racist invectives at [the Native-American activist].”

What these media figures also never considered is that Nicholas Sandmann was a private figure, a high school student, who could easily show that the media companies he eventually sued were negligent in making false statements about him. Many had no choice but to settle with Sandmann and his attorneys – he had them dead to rights. “CNN confirmed…that it has settled for an undisclosed amount with Nick Sandmann…smeared by multiple news outlets after a video of a ‘standoff’ between the teen and a Native-American activist went viral”, reported the National Trial Lawyers  Sandmann had originally sued CNN for $275 million dollars.  The Washington Post also settled with Sandmann for an undisclosed sum  as did NBC. 

Not all of Sandmann’s lawsuits were successful.  In 2023, the Sixth Circuit denied his appeal of the 2022 dismissal of his case against “Gannett, The New York Times, Rolling Stone magazine, ABC News and CBS News…[the lower court], Circuit Judge Jane B. Stranch said…[r]eporting by the media outlets offered multiple accounts of the event and linked to some version of the video…leaving it to readers to decide what Sandmann’s intentions were during his interaction with [the activist].”   But overall, Sandmann prevailed in the majority of the cases he brought because he was a private citizen, and the media had a lower standard of proof applicable to their behavior than would be used in comments involving a public figure.

In March of 2022, we discussed the case brought by former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin against The New York Times.  After Republican Congressman Steve Scalise was shot by a deranged gunman, The Times published an Editorial blaming rhetoric from the right for the shooting, and specifically pointed to a political advertisement put out by Palin years before the shooting of Scalise that placed a map of the District of Democrat Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords under crosshairs. 

Palin sued, but her case was dismissed during trial by Federal District Court Judge Jed Rakoff of the Southern District of New York, who “ruled that [Palin’s] lawsuit…should be thrown out because her lawyers failed to produce adequate evidence that the newspaper knew what it wrote about her was false or acted recklessly toward indications it was false.”  

Judge Rakoff applied the higher standard for public figures which was established in the seminal US Supreme Court case of New York Times Company v. Sullivan, 376 US 256 (1964). There, the Court stated that “(t)o sustain a claim of defamation or libel, the First Amendment requires that the plaintiff show that the defendant knew that a statement was false or was reckless in deciding to publish the information without investigating whether it was accurate.’ In particular, when a statement concerns a public figure, the Court held, it is not enough to show that it is false for the press to be liable for libel. Instead, ‘the target of the statement must show that it was made with knowledge of or reckless disregard for its falsity.”

Thus, a private figure like Nicholas Sandmann need only establish that the published statement was false, and that it was either negligence or reckless disregard of the truth for the news outlet to publish such a statement without a more complete investigation.  For a public figure like Palin, she must show there was actual malice in the publication of the false statement – an intention to publish an untruth.

As we wrote at the time of the dismissal, “[o]bviously, The Times acted in reckless disregard of the truth.  Rather than investigate whether Palin had actually targeted Giffords…and whether Palin’s actions had actually led to Giffords being shot, The Times went ahead and made the comparison in print.  But when it comes to a public figure, reckless disregard is not enough.  A public figure like Sarah Palin must show that the publisher knew the information they published was false, and printed it anyway.  A high bar to pass, indeed.” (Emphasis in original.) 

We also noted that “[t]his has been the legal standard for more than 50 years. However, Palin’s case, and the mainstream media’s treatment of former President Donald Trump has raised questions about whether or not the Times v. Sullivan standard should remain in effect.”

Perhaps the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has been listening – Palin’s case against The Times has been reinstated. In August of 2024, the appellate court stated, “[w]e conclude that the district court’s [dismissal] improperly intruded on the province of the jury by making credibility  determinations, weighing evidence, and ignoring facts or inferences that a reasonable juror could plausibly have found to support Palin’s case.” 

In its reversal, the Second Circuit did not indicate that the Sullivan standard should be revised or discarded.  Instead, the Court pointed to evidence ignored by the District Court that supported Palin’s case. For instance, “Less than an hour after the editorial was published online, Ross Douthat, a Times columnist, emailed [a Times Editor]   to express serious concerns…'[t]here was…no evidence that…[the Gifford shooter] was incited by Sarah Palin or anyone else,  given his extreme mental illness and lack of any tangible connection to th[e] crosshair[s] map…the point is that the map had no link, none at at [sic] all, to Giffords’[attempted] murder. People assumed a link initially…but the investigation debunked it. I think [the Gifford shooter] was instigated by a non-answer she’d given him at a town hall about one of his theories of grammar, or his obsession with lucid dreaming, or something.  His act had nothing to do with the political climate, so far as anyone can tell.”

Based on evidence like this, the Second Circuit ruled that Judge Rakoff was wrong to dismiss the case “after concluding that no reasonable jury could find actual malice by clear and convincing evidence.”  

Another result which bodes well for the future involves a case brought by Donald Trump against the Pultizer Prize Committee.  As reported by Carson Hollaway of The Daily Caller, “Trump is suing the Pulitzer board for a 2022 statement reaffirming the board’s earlier decision to award the prize to the New York Times and the Washington Post for their reporting on the story of the 2016 Trump campaign’s alleged ties to Russian interference in that year’s presidential election. Trump claims that the statement is legally defamatory because it implies the accuracy of the Times’s and the Post’s reporting, even though Special Counsel Robert Mueller reported that his ‘investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.’” 

Florida Circuit Court Judge Robert Pegg has denied the Pulitzer Committee’s motion to dismiss. “The statement at issue in this case was published by Defendants in July 2022 on Pulitzer.org, a website maintained by Defendants,” Judge Pegg writes. “President Trump alleges that at the time of publication Defendants knew that the ‘Awarded Articles,’ and their intended purpose – the advancement of the broader Russia Collusion Hoax, which had dominated media coverage in 2017 – were false and had been discredited by the published results of multiple federal government investigations.” 

The Court stated that “Defendants argue that the Defendants’ Statement is ‘non-actionable pure opinion’ to the extent that it ‘could reasonably read to convey and endorse the alleged implication that Trump colluded with Russia.’”  However,”[d]efendants cannot claim the statement is pure opinion when they withheld information from their audience that would have provided an adequate factual foundation for a common reader to decide whether to agree or disagree with Defendants’ decision to let 2018 Pulitzer Prizes in National Reporting stand, and whether the awarded reporting had in fact been discredited by facts that emerged from the Mueller Report or the other government investigations that had been made public since the conferral of those prizes.”

“In this case,” Judge Pegg concludes, “President Trump has pled that the Defendants’ Statement left readers with the false, defamatory message that the Awarded Articles, which advanced the Russia Collusion Hoax, ‘had been objectively, thoroughly, and independently reviewed for veracity twice, and that the separate conclusions of these had each accredited the accuracy of the award recipients’ reporting’…In other words, President Trump has alleged the Defendants’ Statement conveyed the false, defamatory message that he had colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election. At this stage of the litigation, President Trump has sufficiently pled defamation per se.”

Maybe the Sullivan standard should be revisited, and possibly revised.  But more important, what is most needed now are courts like the Second Circuit and the Florida District Court – Courts that are willing to apply the law fairly, impartially, and with an eye toward letting juries resolve these disputes.  Rather than take the decision from a jury, we need Courts willing to give Conservative public figures a shot at proving their cases.

This is the very heart of the concluding phrase of the Pledge of Allegiance – “and justice for all.” 

Judge Wilson served on the bench in NYC

Illustration: Pixabay

As Iran is on the brink of becoming a nuclear power, The U.S faces a combined atomic weapons threat greater than that endured during the Cold War.

In addition to Russia’s largest in the world nuclear arsenal, and the reality that China now has more land-based ICBMs than America, rogue and unpredictable regimes in North Korea and Iran now pose a serious danger.

In September, Iran Watch warned that “Iran’s nuclear program has reached the point at which, within about one week, Iran might be able to enrich enough uranium for five fission weapons…Intelligence agencies have long been unanimous in one prediction: If Iran makes nuclear weapons, it would do so at secret sites.”

Iran would join North Korea in becoming a pariah nuclear power. The Arms Control Association notes that “North Korea is estimated to have assembled 50 nuclear warheads, as of January 2024, and to have the fissile material for an estimated 70-90 nuclear weapons, as well as advanced chemical and biological weapons programs. In the past several years Pyongyang has accelerated the pace of ballistic missile testing. North Korea has the capability to deliver nuclear weapons on a variety of land-based missile systems, including intercontinental ballistic missiles with ranges capable of targeting the continental United States, and is developing submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs).”

Earlier this year, General Anthony Cotton, Commander of The U.S. Strategic Command testified before the Senate that China has more land-based ICBM’s than the United States.

Startling as that reality is, it’s only part of Beijing’s comprehensive arsenal.   Overall, General Cotton noted, “The PRC currently has a nuclear triad consisting of bombers, submarines, and land-based missiles. Its H-6N bomber is equipped to carry air-launched ballistic and cruise missiles, and the PRC is actively developing a strategic stealth bomber, the H-20. The PRC also has six JIN-class ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) equipped with new third-generation JL-3 submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), capable of striking the continental United States from PRC littoral waters. Additionally, the PRC has approximately 1,000 medium and intermediate-range dual-capable conventional or nuclear ballistic missiles capable of inflicting significant damage to U.S., Allied, or partner forces and homelands in the Indo-Pacific. As I reported to Congress in January 2023, the PRC’s arsenal of land-based intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launchers currently exceeds that of the United States…Our forces and capabilities underpin and enable all other joint forces operations. We do this in the face of challenges unlike anything America has ever encountered. We are confronting not one, but two nuclear peers, the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China. This reality, combined by missile developments in North Korea, Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and the growing relationships amongst those nations, adds new layers of complexity to our strategic calculus. It also raises the possibility of simultaneous conflicts with multiple nuclear armed adversaries. The PRC is surpassing the United States and its number of fixed intercontinental ballistic missile launchers. And projections indicate its nuclear arsenal would encompass approximately 1,000 warheads by 2030.

Russia has the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, a result of treaty made with President Obama and Moscow in 2010. As Moscow’s conventional forces face attrition in Ukraine, its reliance on nuclear weapons will only grow larger.

As these threats grow every larger and more diverse, the move to modernize the American nuclear deterrent continues to face obstacles.  The Center for Strategic and International Studies reports that “delays, budget overruns, supply chain issues, and significant workforce and infrastructure constraints across both the defense and national lab sectors are leading to an increasing disconnect between policy debates over what might be needed in the future and the reality of what the existing workforce and infrastructure can support.”

Weakness and delay in modernizing America’s nuclear deterrent accelerates and magnifies the growing danger from China, Russia, North Korea and Iran, who should be seen as a combined threat.

Photo: U.S. B-21 Raider nuclear-capable bomber

From the Caribbean to the Mediterranean to the Pacific, the naval forces of Russia and China have challenged the once-dominant position of the United States.

On July 18, U.S.  Army Gen. Laura J. Richardson, in a speech at the Aspen Institute, warned that Russian warships have been making port visits to Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, and 22 nations in the U.S. Southern Command’s area of responsibility has signed on to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the commander of Southcom told attendees of the Aspen Security Forum.

 Army Gen. Laura J. Richardson said the nations that have signed on to the Chinese initiative don’t see the investments the U.S. has been making in their countries. “All they see are the Chinese cranes,” she said. “These projects are in the billions of dollars. … They are big-time projects.” Richardson said it would be OK with her if those investments were for doing good in the hemisphere. “But it makes me a little suspicious when it’s in the critical infrastructure.” Critical infrastructure, she said, includes deep-water ports, cybersecurity, energy and space. “I worry about the dual use nature of that. These are state-owned enterprises by a communist government. I worry about the flipping of that to a military application,” Richardson said, referring to China. 

Regarding the Russian port visits, Richardson said U.S. vessels have been shadowing those vessels to ensure the safety and security of the United States. Also, the Russians continue to make high-level government visits to Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua with their foreign affairs minister and the head of the Russian legislative body, she said, adding that the U.S. could be doing more in its own government exchanges.

“I really believe that economic security and national security go hand in hand here in this hemisphere, and we have got to work both of them together very, very quickly,” she said. 

In the Mediterranean,  according to the Bulgarian Military A fleet, including the missile cruiser Varyag and the frigate Marshal Shaposhnikov, has successfully navigated the Suez Canal, transitioning from the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea, as confirmed by the Pacific Fleet [PF] on Wednesday.  

The authoritative GIS Reports   notes that “In the crucial Indo-Pacific, the tide has changed dramatically against America. the balance of naval power in the Western Pacific has been altered in favor of the Chinese Navy. For instance, the U.S. Navy went from having a 76-warship advantage over China in 2005 to having a 39-combatant deficiency in 2023, based on similar ship and submarine comparisons. That is a swing of 115 naval platforms in 23 years. This is a strategic trend that will continue uninterrupted for at least the next decade.”

Rep. Mike Rogers has previously pointed out that The Biden Administration’s 30-year ship-building plan reduces the Navy’s ability to protect its aircraft-carrier strike groups and eliminate enemy minefields, reduces the Marine Corps’ ability to conduct forcible-entry missions, and reduces by almost 10 percent the Navy’s capacity to launch missiles. Public estimates indicate that China will eventually develop a global force of submarines capable of launching ballistic missiles, posing an obvious risk to the U.S.  China’s surface-combatant forces already greatly exceed that of the U.S.

Photo: Vessels attached to a flotilla with the navy under the PLA Southern Theater Command sail toward the designated area during a comprehensive combat training exercise in late June, 2024. (eng.chinamil.com.cn/Photo by Huang Jiacheng and Wang Jian)

Recently, The New York Times published what can only be described as a “hit piece” against the Supreme Court’s Chief Justice John Roberts. As described in The New York Post, “[i]n an ugly escalation of the left’s war on the Supreme Court, The New York Times…falsely charg[ed] [Roberts] with ‘deploying his authority to steer rulings that benefited’ Donald Trump in ‘a momentous trio of Jan. 6-related cases.'”  

The opinions at issue were the decision to strike down the Colorado Attorney General’s decision to keep the former President off the ballot in that state due to his allegedly “insurrectionist activities”; the Presidential Immunity decision, Trump v. United States  ; and the reversal of the sentences of numerous “January 6th” defendants, based upon the overcharging of these defendants by prosecutors with the Justice Department.

What was most disturbing to The Post Editorial Board was the fact that “the story relied in part on leaks of confidential court documents – which means court staff, and possibly one of the justices, are actively helping the progressive attack on the institution.” (Emphasis in original.)

According to The Post, “Roberts had made his view of the root issues

crystal-clear in a confidential February memo to his colleagues – a memo that, per [The Times] ‘several people from the court’ later discussed with the reporters.”

The Post describes the problem succulently; “Such leaking is a far larger violation of high-court ethics than any of the lefty complaints of recent years: How can the court even function if the justices can’t communicate frankly with each other?” (Emphasis in original.)

How indeed?

In May of 2022, we discussed the “leak” of the draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson,  the decision which reversed Roe v. Wade.  At that time, we noted that Chief Justice John Roberts appointed the Court’s Marshal, Gail Curley, to investigate the leak.  We stated that “[t]here are only so many employees of the US Supreme Court who could have access to a draft opinion.  Thus, it shouldn’t be too hard for Marshal Curley to figure out who ‘let the cat out of the bag.’” 

Apparently, the task of figuring out which one of a limited pool of suspects was the guilty party was beyond the skills of Marshal Curley.  In January of 2023, she basically gave up the search, for all intents and purposes.

Her report, dated January 19, 2023, stated that her office used an “investigative team consist[ing] of seasoned attorneys and trained federal investigators with substantial experience conducting criminal, administrative and cyber investigation.”  Yet, despite this wealth of talent, “investigators have been unable to determine…the identity of the person(s) who disclosed the draft majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Org. or how the draft opinion was provided to Politico.”

The investigators were able to determine that “[i]t is unlikely that the public disclosure was caused by a hack of the Court’s IT systems. The Court’s IT department did not find any indications of a hack…[t]he investigators have likewise not uncovered any evidence that an employee with elevated IT access privileges accessed or moved the draft opinion.”  However, during the investigators interviews with Court employees,  “[s]ome individuals admitted to investigators that they told their spouse or partner about the draft Dobbs opinion and the vote count, in violation of the Court’s confidentiality rules. Several personnel told investigators they had shared confidential details about their work more generally with their spouses and some indicated they thought it permissible to provide such information to their spouses. Some personnel handled the Dobbs draft in ways that deviated from their standard process for handling draft opinions.” 

Despite these admissions of wrongdoing and ethical breeches, the investigators concluded that “it is not possible to determine the identity of any individual who may have disclosed the document or how the draft opinion ended up with Politico. No one confessed to publicly disclosing the document and none of the available forensic and other evidence provided a basis for identifying any individual as the source of the document.”

Seems impossible that such an extensive and sophisticated investigation into so few people under suspicion would turn up empty.  Unless, of course, the Court didn’t really want to know who leaked the draft opinion, a decision which has now led to the disclosure of Roberts’ confidential memo regarding his views on the issues presented by Trump v. United States. 

“The leak was no mere misguided attempt at protest,” the Justices wrote at the time they released the report. “It was a grave assault on the judicial process…It is no exaggeration to say that the integrity of judicial proceedings depends on the inviolability of internal deliberations.” Yet, according to University of Virginia Law Professor Douglas Laycock, “I don’t think we can assume the leaker is an employee.  It could be a justice.  They would take a big reputational hit if they got caught, but they would not lose their job.”

The report from Marshal Curley describes her investigation into Court employees, not Supreme Court Justices.  Strangely, though, the Report quotes the US Code of Conduct for Judges, which states that “A judge should not make public comment on the merits of a matter pending or impending in any court.”

At the time, do you believe that Chief Justice Roberts really wanted to know if one of his Associate Justices had leaked the draft of the Dobbs decision? What would he do with such information?  What impact would that revelation have on the integrity of the Court?

Now, this failure to seriously pursue the culprit and bring them to justice has led to additional violations of the Court’s confidentiality.

Reportedly, the investigation into the leak of the Dobbs draft decision is on-going.  But we all know that short of a confession from the guilty party, or someone coming forward with new information, whoever provided Politico with a draft the of the Dobbs v. Jackson opinion will never be caught.

Further, almost two years after Marshal Curley’s Report was issued, the failure to expose the person who leaked the draft opinion has become a major headache for the Supreme Court.  Since no one was caught or disciplined for leaking the draft of the Dobbs decision, someone has felt free to leak a confidential memo prepared by Chief Justice Roberts.

These leaks also strongly contribute to the continuing disrespect shown to the US Supreme Court and its Justices by Democrats, who clearly benefit from and capitalize on these unethical and potentially illegal disclosures of confidential Court documents.

Judge John Wilson’s (ret.) article concludes tomorrow

Photo: Pixabay

The undersecretary of the U.S. Air Force, Melissa Dalton, warns that “With two nuclear-armed peer competitors — Russia and China — and with both advancing their nuclear capability, the U.S. now, more than ever, must move at full speed to modernize its nuclear deterrence capability. That effort is not just for U.S. national security, but as well for partners who depend on the U.S.”

She stressed that the threat from aggressive, unfriendly nuclear armed nations is unprecedented.  “We face for the first time in our nation’s history, two strategic competitors that are nuclear states with large and growing nuclear arsenals. When we look at the [People’s Republic of China] and its breathtaking modernization over the last two decades, we see today they have over 500 operational nuclear warheads, far exceeding prior projections.” 

Some suspect that China’s nuclear force may even be larger than commonly believed. According to recent Pentagon report, “Over the next decade, the PRC will continue to rapidly modernize, diversify, and expand its nuclear forces. Compared to the PLA’s nuclear modernization efforts a decade ago, current efforts dwarf previous attempts in both scale and complexity. The PRC is expanding the number of its land-, sea-, and air-based nuclear delivery platforms while investing in and constructing the infrastructure necessary to support further expansion of its nuclear forces.

The Undersecretary noted that in coming years, the U.S. expects China’s warheads to exceed 1,000. Russia, the worlds preeminent nuclear power, also remains a challenge. 

“We see Russia brandishing its nuclear weapons in the context of the Ukraine conflict and also possessing novel nuclear capabilities that are designed to challenge our escalation calculus.The stakes are incredibly high.” 

Dalton noted that During the Cold War, the U.S. maintained top-notch nuclear deterrence, and the domestic defense industry stood ready to provide whatever was needed. But since the fall of the Soviet Union, and with the U.S. focused on other parts of the world for the past 20-plus years, the U.S. must now up its game. 

“We mortgaged our nuclear modernization for 30 years. We had the post-Cold War peace dividend… But the fact is, the bills are now way past due, and in that time, our competitors went to school on us, and they caught up.” 

With U.S. defense underpinned by its nuclear deterrent, modernization of that capability is a top priority for the Department of Defense, she stressed.

Air Force Gen. Anthony Cotton, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, said that while two-thirds of the nuclear triad, the ground systems and the aircraft-based systems belong to the Air Force — the submarine systems belong to the Navy — modernization is not just an Air Force effort or even just a Navy effort. 

“It is imperative that we understand that it’s not a Department [of Defense] imperative that we maintain the nuclear security and nuclear triad,” he said. “It is a national imperative. It’s national policy that the foundation of what we hold dear, the framework of that is nuclear deterrence. And to add to that, and I’ve seen this in the last 19 months of being in command, our allies and partners are counting on us more than ever.”

Last year, Senator John Kennedy (R-La) warned that “Today, we no longer face just one threat.  Russia still maintains the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, but China’s nuclear stockpile is growing rapidly.  North Korea continues to threaten our allies with its collection of nuclear weapons.  And, thanks to the disastrous Iran nuclear deal, Iran is marching ever closer to developing nuclear weapons of its own. The United States must now counter nuclear superpowers in both China and Russia while also deterring the itchy trigger fingers of unstable dictators like Kim Jong Un and the Ayatollah in Iran.  We should be innovating and preparing our nuclear arsenal for this new global dynamic, but instead, our nuclear stockpile remains stuck in the Cold War. Simply put: America’s nuclear stockpile is old and shrinking.  And while modernizing our nuclear arsenal should be a top priority, our effort to restart nuclear weapon production has been riddled with delays and poor planning.  And we don’t have time to waste.”

Photo: A Titan II missile on display inside the missile silo at Missile Site 8 in Green Valley, Ariz. (DoD)

There is a stark contrast in foreign affairs between the Biden-Harris record of a disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Putin invasion of Ukraine, China’s assault on the Philippine exclusive economic zone, and the widening Middle East catastrophe.    The Trump White House archives provides a lengthy list of foreign policy results. “President Trump restored American sovereignty at home and American leadership abroad, partnering with strong and responsible nations to promote security, prosperity, and peace. Instead of sending American troops to fight in endless wars or giving cash to terrorists in countries like Iran, the United States under President Trump used bold, creative diplomacy to secure peace deals with our allies across the world. With the same “peace through strength” foreign policy that President Reagan once used to win the Cold War, President Trump rebuilt American deterrence power to hold our adversaries accountable. Perhaps most important, the Trump Administration reversed Washington’s decades-long, bipartisan refusal to confront China over its unfair trade practices, intellectual property theft, and more.

Specifically, the Trump Administration:

“Secured a $400 billion increase in defense spending from NATO allies by 2024, as the number of members meeting their minimum financial obligations more than doubled

Credited by Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg for strengthening NATO

Worked to reform and streamline the United Nations and reduced spending by $1.3 billion

Allies, including Japan and the Republic of Korea, committed to increase burden-sharing

Protected our Second Amendment rights by announcing that the United States will never ratify the UN Arms Trade Treaty

Returned 56 hostages and detainees from more than 24 countries

Worked to advance a free and open Indo-Pacific region, promoting new investments and expanding American partnerships

Advanced peace through strength

Withdrew from the one-sided Iran Nuclear Deal and imposed crippling sanctions on the Iranian regime

Conducted vigorous enforcement on all sanctions to bring Iran’s oil exports to zero and deny the regime its principal source of revenue

First president to meet with a leader of North Korea and the first sitting president to cross the demilitarized zone into North Korea

Maintained a maximum pressure campaign and enforced tough sanctions on North Korea while negotiating denuclearization, the release of American hostages, and the return of the remains of American heroes

Brokered economic normalization between Serbia and Kosovo, bolstering peace in the Balkans

Signed the Hong Kong Autonomy Act and ended the United States’ preferential treatment with Hong Kong to hold China accountable for its infringement on the autonomy of Hong Kong

Led allied efforts to defeat the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts to control the international telecommunications system

Recognized Jerusalem as the true capital of Israel and quickly moved the American Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem

Acknowledged Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights and declared that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are not inconsistent with international law

Removed the United States from the United Nations Human Rights Council due to the group’s blatant anti-Israel bias

Brokered historic peace agreements between Israel and Arab-Muslim countries, including the United Arab Emirates, the Kingdom of Bahrain, and Sudan

Brokered a deal for Kosovo to normalize ties and establish diplomatic relations with Israel

Announced that Serbia would move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem

First American president to address an assembly of leaders from more than 50 Muslim nations, reaching an agreement to fight terrorism in all its forms

Established the Etidal Center to combat terrorism in the Middle East in conjunction with the Saudi Arabian government

Announced the Vision for Peace Political Plan—a two-state solution that resolves the risks of Palestinian statehood to Israel’s security, marking the first time Israel has agreed to a map and a Palestinian state

Released an economic plan to empower the Palestinian people and enhance Palestinian governance through historic private investment

Reversed the previous administration’s Cuba policy, canceling the sellout deal with the Communist Castro dictatorship

Pledged not to lift sanctions until all political prisoners are freed, freedoms of assembly and expression are respected, all political parties are legalized, and free elections are scheduled

Enacted a new policy aimed at preventing American dollars from funding the Cuban regime, including stricter travel restrictions and restrictions on the importation of Cuban alcohol and tobacco

Implemented a cap on remittances to Cuba

Enabled Americans to file lawsuits against persons and entities that traffic in property confiscated by the Cuban regime

First world leader to recognize Juan Guaido as the Interim President of Venezuela and led a diplomatic coalition against the Socialist Dictator of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro

Blocked all property of the Venezuelan government in the jurisdiction of the United States

Cut off the financial resources of the Maduro regime and sanctioned key sectors of the Venezuelan economy exploited by the regime

Brought criminal charges against Nicolas Maduro for his narco-terrorism

Imposed stiff sanctions on the Ortega regime in Nicaragua

Photo: Trump site

Election day is not an end, it is a beginning. What will the victor do for the next four years?

The 2024 election is unusual, in that it is a battle, in many ways, of one incumbent against the other. There is a fairly clear picture of what both candidates will do if they win.

It can reasonably be expected that both will follow the paths they established during their tenure in office. Speaking of his vice president, Biden stated that “…as vice president, there wasn’t a single thing   that I did that she couldn’t do. And so I was able to delegate [to] her responsibility on everything from foreign policy to domestic policy.”

The White House website concurs. “As President of the Senate, Vice President Harris set a new record for the most tie-breaking votes cast by a Vice President in history – surpassing a record that had stood for nearly 200 years. And her votes have been consequential. This includes casting the decisive vote to secure passage of the landmark Inflation Reduction Act, the largest investment ever in tackling the climate crisis. She also presided over the unprecedented vote to confirm the first Black woman, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, to the Supreme Court while working alongside President Biden to achieve historic representation of women and people of color among nominees at all levels of the federal government.”

Vice President Harris was, indeed, the crucial tie-breaking vote on the inflation reduction act. The House Oversight Committee notes that “Instead of lowering prices, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) hiked taxes on businesses, mandates price controls on drugs, devoted $80 billion to hire 87,000 new Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agents to target middle class Americans, and earmarked $300 billion to advance Democrats’ radical climate agenda. The IRA’s drug pricing scheme means higher prices, fewer cures, and less access to care for American patients.

“Joel White, President of the Council for Affordable Health Coverage, discussed how the IRA will result in fewer cures during his opening testimony. “All of the experts – CBO, the CMS Actuary, and private academics – agree that the IRA will result in fewer therapies. They simply disagree on the extent of the damage.”

“President Biden is willing to sacrifice our economic security to pursue his radical Green New Deal.

“President Biden and Democrats have used the IRA to disguise radical Green New Deal policies that put China over the U.S.

“New estimates project the actual cost of the IRA green energy will be double the projected amount.

“Preston Brashers, PhD, and Senior Policy Analyst of Tax Policy at the Heritage Foundation said during his opening testimony, “The IRA is much more fiscally irresponsible than it appeared on paper. It uses gimmicky and questionable pay-fors and expirations, and some of the provisions are proving much more costly than forecasters expected – especially the bevy of tax credits for green energy, electric vehicles, carbon sequestration, and other things ostensibly connected to the climate agenda.”

In stark contrast, inflation was comparatively tamed during the Trump years. Yahoo Finance reports that “ Trump oversaw a period of relatively low inflation, and Biden’s term so far has largely been defined by rapidly rising prices and the most painful inflation since the early 1980s.” On foreign affairs, the Biden-Harris record is worrisome.  The House Oversight Committee also reports that “Meaghan Mobbs, Director of the Center for American Safety and Security: “The core duty of any government is to protect its people. Yet, over the last four years, the world has only grown more dangerous. Under the current administration, we have witnessed the largest attack on a European nation in 85 years and the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. Our enemies no longer view the United States as a nation ready to act with strength and resolve when confronted. Instead, they witnessed an administration more focused on diplomatic gestures and conciliatory measures, often at the expense of American security.

The article concludes tomorrow

Photo: White House web site

HOW THE BIDEN-HARRIS ADMINISTRATION USES THE NATION’S IMMIGRATION COURTS TO ADVANCE AN OPEN-BORDERS AGENDA

The New York Analysis Presents the Executive Summary of the Interim Staff Report of the Committee on the Judiciary and Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement

For almost four years, Americans have watched as President Joe Biden and border czar Vice President Kamala Harris have abandoned the southwest border and welcomed nearly 8 million illegal aliens into the United States. The Biden-Harris Administration’s open-borders policies not only have undermined national security and endangered communities across the U.S., but they also have decimated the nation’s immigration courts.

Since President Biden and Vice President Harris took office, the immigration court case backlog has skyrocketed, with more than 3.7 million new cases since the beginning of fiscal year 2021.2 In just the first three quarters of fiscal year 2024, there were more than 1.5 million new cases filed with the nation’s immigration courts. The majority of those cases are based on claims that ultimately will prove unsuccessful. Of the asylum cases that were adjudicated in fiscal year 2023, only 14 percent resulted in an asylum grant, with the remaining cases denied, abandoned, dismissed, terminated, withdrawn, or administratively closed.

The Biden-Harris Administration has used the immigration court backlog as an excuse to allow even more aliens to remain in the country. Instead of actually adjudicating illegal aliens’ cases based on the merits of aliens’ claims for relief—such as whether an alien has a valid and successful asylum claim—immigration judges under the Biden-Harris Administration have been tasked with rubberstamping case dismissals, case closures, and case terminations, all of which allow illegal aliens to remain in the United States without immigration consequences. This sort of quiet amnesty has become a staple of the Biden-Harris Administration’s immigration courts.

Since 2023, the Committee on the Judiciary and its Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement have conducted oversight of the Biden-Harris border crisis, including its effect on the nation’s immigration courts. This oversight has revealed how the

Biden-Harris Administration has used administrative maneuvering in immigration court proceedings to allow nearly 1 million illegal aliens to remain in the U.S. indefinitely.

For example:

• Under the Biden-Harris Administration, more than 700,000 illegal aliens have had their

cases dismissed, terminated, or administratively closed, allowing those aliens to stay in

the country indefinitely without facing immigration consequences.

• For asylum decisions, the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), which

houses the nation’s immigration courts, reported 109,089 cases as “not adjudicated” in

fiscal year 2023, meaning that those cases were deemed “completed” but were largely

terminated or dismissed and not adjudicated on the merits of the underlying claim.

• Through the first nine months of fiscal year 2024, the number of non-adjudicated asylum

cases already eclipsed the 2023 record, with 109,568 asylum cases not adjudicated.

By comparison, only 12,960 total asylum cases were reported as “not adjudicated” from

fiscal year 2017 through fiscal year 2020 combined

• The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) failed to file the necessary documentation

to begin immigration court removal proceedings in roughly 200,000 additional cases,

meaning that the overwhelming majority of those aliens can also remain in the U.S.

indefinitely.

• An immigration court official admitted to the Committee and Subcommittee that

decisions by the Biden-Harris DHS, such as DHS attorneys not appearing at scheduled

hearings and DHS failing to file proper paperwork with the courts, waste the immigration courts’ time and resources and decrease efficiency. … the [Biden-Harris Administration has used the] nation’s immigration courts to advance an open-borders agenda. Through administrative maneuvering at both the Justice Department and DHS, the Biden-Harris Administration has already ensured that nearly 1 million illegal aliens can remain in the United States without the possibility of deportation—and that trend shows no sign of stopping…