RealClearInvestigations'
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Dec. 8 to Dec. 14, 2024 In RealClearInvestigations, Julie Kelly reports that the Biden administration is continuing to arrest and try people over the Jan. 6 Capitol siege even as President-elect Donald Trump openly discusses pardons. Prosecutors are pushing ahead with what they consider the Justice Department’s crowning achievement: the so-called “Capitol Siege” investigation into the events of Jan. 6, 2021 – what Attorney General Merrick Garland describes as the biggest criminal investigation in Department of Justice history More than 1,560 people have been charged for federal crimes never before used against political protesters. At least 1,000 of these defendants have been convicted – either at trial or by accepting plea offers – with some 650 defendants ordered to serve time in a federal prison. Sentences range from a few days in jail to up to 22 years as the DOJ seeks “terror enhancements” to tack on additional time. Activity in the J6 investigation accelerated the month before the election. At least 16 were arrested. Shortly after the election, DOJ officials instructed attorneys working on J6 cases to carry on regardless of the pending change in leadership. The office of Matthew Graves, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, has opposed J6 defendants’ requests to halt proceedings until after Trump is sworn in next month. Federal judges in liberal Washington are on-board with the DOJ’s punitive approach. In RealClearInvestigations, Paul Sperry reports that after losing big election challenges in 2024, Democratic lawfare attorney Marc Elias is vowing to fight Trump and Republicans even harder in court in 2026 and 2028. "We must be comfortable using every legal tool available to challenge Trumpism in court," he wrote in a recent blog post after losing challenges to the Pennsylvania losses of Kamala Harris and Sen. Bob Casey. Elias believes he will get favorable rulings, because, he said, "more than half of federal judges were appointed by Democratic presidents," and "many state courts are controlled by liberals." Elias continues to bring legal challenges in several states. He recently noted there are still 211 voting or election cases pending in 40 states. While claiming to protect voting rights, the partisan actions of Elias stand in tension with his past statements excoriating Trump for denying the 2020 results and trying to "steal the election." Elias has decried what he calls "grotesque partisan gerrymandering” by Republicans in red states like North Carolina, but court records show he defended Democrats doing the same thing in blue states. Waste of the Day
by Jeremy Portnoy, Open the Books Conflict of Interest in Atlanta’s Pay Raises, RCI
'Cheaper' Medicare Costs 22% More, RCI
Laken Riley’s Killer Took Tax-Funded Flight, RCI
Feds Can’t Rein In Wild Horse Spending, RCI
Tax-Paid Salaries for Corrupt Philly Officials, RCI Election 2024 and the Beltway Joey Langston is Booneville, Mississippi’s leading citizen – and a longtime political ally of the Biden family. Now, this article reports, the wealthy attorney’s relationship with the president could be the difference between freedom and incarceration for his son, Keaton Langston, who pleaded guilty in a federal court in New Jersey to $50 million worth of fraud, some of which occurred at a hospital company Jim Biden worked for: That plea seemed to mark a bleak coda to the saga of the Biden family’s long run with their allies from Mississippi. But Keaton Langston’s case is not over yet, and an audio recording reviewed by POLITICO indicates there is more to the story. On the recording, Keaton Langston vents about his plea negotiations and the pressures of feeling caught between his father, the Justice Department, and the president’s brother. He says he “covered” for his father, but only after receiving some sort of assurance from a person he described as “the senator in Alabama.” He also says he was not truthful with federal investigators about Jim Biden and describes his father’s view of his situation as: “We have a guarantee that Keaton gets a pardon.” This article reports that representatives for the president and Jim Biden did not respond to requests for comment. A lawyer for Joey Langston, meanwhile, said he never urged his son to mislead the government or discussed pardons with any member of the Biden administration. In a separate article, the Associated Press reports that Biden commuted roughly 1,500 sentences and pardoned 39 people on Dec. 12, in the single biggest single-day act of clemency in American history. Keaton Langston was not among the beneficiaries. Other Election 2024 and the Beltway Justice Dept.: 26 FBI Informants Were On Hand for Jan 6., X
Did the Secret Service Chief Perjure Himself?, RealClearPolitics
Biden's Sean Spicer Firing Gives Trump Legal Ammo for Sackings, Examiner
Trump’s DOJ Obtained Kash Patel's Call Logs in Leak Probe, CNN
Millions in Self-Dealing at 'Never Trump' Lincoln Project, Examiner
Departing Biden Selling Border Wall Materials Cheap, Daily Wire
Marc Elias’s Law Firm Tied to Deceptive Text Operation, Free Beacon Other Noteworthy Articles and Series From the Annals of Now They Tell Us, the New York Times reports -- after the election -- that its analysis shows the Biden administration has allowed record numbers of migrants to stream across America’s borders. The influx reflects a faster pace of arrivals than during any other period on record, including the peak years of Ellis Island traffic, when millions of Europeans came to the United States. Even after taking into account today’s larger U.S. population, the recent surge is the most rapid since at least 1850: Annual net migration – the number of people coming to the country minus the number leaving – averaged 2.4 million people from 2021 to 2023, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Total net migration during the Biden administration is likely to exceed eight million people…. The numbers in the Times analysis include both legal and illegal immigration. About 60 percent of immigrants who have entered the country since 2021 have done so without legal authorization, according to a Goldman Sachs report based on government data. The combined increases of legal and illegal immigration have caused the share of the U.S. population born in another country to reach a new high, 15.2 percent in 2023, up from 13.6 percent in 2020. The previous high was 14.8 percent, in 1890. The Times reports that several factors caused the surge, “starting with President Biden’s welcoming immigration policy during his first three years in office." Hours before President Bashar al-Assad fled Syria, storming mobs freed hundreds of men from the notorious Saydnaya prison, which has been dubbed the “human slaughterhouse.” Footage from inside the prison showed armed men shooting through locks and gaunt detainees emerging hollow-eyed and limping. “Ten years in prison!” cried one man in a video. This article reports that Assad’s overthrow has provided hope for the families of tens of thousands of Syrians who disappeared into the labyrinth of the country’s feared security apparatus in recent decades: As many as 13,000 people were executed in Saydnaya prison during the first six years of the uprising against Assad, which broke out in 2011, according to a report by Amnesty International. Many others were killed there after being repeatedly tortured and systematically deprived of food, water and medicine. A report by the Syrian Network for Human Rights published earlier this year found that more than 96,000 people remained forcibly disappeared by the regime since 2011. Other parties to the conflict have also forcibly disappeared opponents, though the numbers are small in comparison. Islamic State forcibly disappeared nearly 9,000 individuals. Nearly 3,000 people have been forcibly disappeared by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, which control the northeast of the country. And Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the U.S. designated terrorist group that spearheaded the rebel offensive and is poised to wield significant power in the new Syria, has forcibly disappeared more than 2,000 people. This article reports that while enforced disappearances peaked in 2012 as Assad sought to crush the revolt, the gross mistreatment continued, with detainees electrocuted, beaten with pipes and subjected to sexual violence. Prisoners had their feet whipped and their teeth and nails pulled out. Some had their spine stretched while chained to the so-called German chair. In its latest round of reporting based on private tax records stolen from the IRS, ProPublica reports that many billionaires have avoided paying Medicare taxes despite earning huge amounts from their companies. Steve Cohen, billionaire owner of the New York Mets, paid $0 in 2016 -- a move that, to say the least, left him better able to land Juan Soto last week in a record $765 million deal. Stephen Schwarzman, head of the investment behemoth Blackstone, also paid zero. Bill Ackman, the headline-grabbing hedge fund manager, was able to shield almost all his income from the tax. How do they do it? The answer is complex, but, this article reports, it has its roots in the 1970s when Congress tried to prevent federal workers – who are do not pay Social Security and Medicare taxes and are therefore ineligible to receive benefits – from becoming eligible for those benefits by channeling some of their earnings into limited partnerships, which would pay them a salary that was taxed: The solution, Congress decided, was to exclude most income earned by limited partners. It wouldn’t count toward self-employment income and, as a result, wouldn’t be subject to self-employment tax, which goes to Social Security and Medicare. As part of a major 1977 Social Security reform bill, this soon became the law. It seemed like an easy fix. At the time, limited partners were, as a rule, passive investors. The line between the two types of partners that made up a limited partnership was real: General partners ran the business, and limited partners didn’t. … A new business structure, the limited liability company, exploded in popularity in the ’90s. LLCs limited the legal liability of all owners regardless of their role. Limited partnerships morphed into something that functioned similarly. After the change, the fact that someone was a limited partner said nothing about what they did for the business. They could be the CEO or a passive investor. It became common for owners to serve as both limited and general partners. In this new world, the 1977 law was no longer a narrow exclusion. It was a broad grant of tax avoidance to anyone with a canny tax adviser. This article reports that the Medicare tax is 2.9% for most people and 3.8% for high earners. But these maneuvers by the rich are hastening Medicare’s future crisis. Sometime in the 2030s, the program’s trust fund is due to run dry. Closing the loophole, along with eliminating other ways around the tax for wealthy business owners, could raise more than $250 billion over 10 years for Medicare, according to recent government estimates. Since 2013 the Human Rights Campaign has tallied the number of “transgender and gender-expansive people” that die from “fatal violence” each year in the United States. So far this year, it reports at least 29 victims, a grim figure often used to advance the narrative that alleged anti-trans bias leads to violence and death. On Nov. 20, 2024, President Joe Biden put out a statement saying, “Today, on Transgender Day of Remembrance, we mourn the transgender Americans whose lives were taken this year in horrific acts of violence. There should be no place for hate in America – and yet too many transgender Americans, including young people, are cruelly targeted and face harassment simply for being themselves.” But, this article reports, the data show in 2024 there were no reported murders of a trans-identifying person due to anti-trans bias in the United States: Looking at each of 29 such reported cases in 2024, the three most common categories are domestic violence (6), altercations (6), and accidents (4). Of all cases, four did not have sufficient information reported by authorities to make a determination on what kind of violence occurred. The deaths also included a suicide, the highly publicized death of Dagny (Nex) Benedict, a victim of a mass shooting, and a random act of violence. … Year after year, these reports end up the same. Domestic violence, interpersonal fights, random violence, and, more frequently, complete accidents, make up the majority of reported deaths of trans-identified people. Hate crimes do occur – they are simply very rare, upon review of reported cases. This article reports that the constant repetition of this false narrative of rampant anti-trans violence creates an environment of fear and hatred in the LGBT community. |
