July 03, 2024
Dear Patriot,
We wish you a fun celebration of our nation’s founding.
America has survived much turmoil over the past 249 years. Our current state of affairs seems uniquely horrible, but, it is not unique to our history.
We deeply believe that if we can eek out a fair election in November and return to the rule of law and the Constitution to guide us, we will save this country.
Meanwhile, celebrate the best country on Earth...become involved in your community by helping brave candidates, volunteering for registering voters and being poll watchers. Talk to people about the truth. It is shocking how little information so many people have on anything.
Mostly importantly, pray for America.
"It will be celebrated with pomp and parade, bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other.” ` John Adams
We will be taking the day off on Friday. Our next newsletter will be Monday, July 8th.
A few of our topics today may take a little bit of extra time to read in full. We hope you will be able to do that over a long holiday weekend.
1- In a huge win for the presidency, the Supreme Court ruled that the former presidents can not be prosecuted for action they took while in office. Of course, the left is spinning this in truly absurd and dangerous ways. Read up on it so you will not be influenced by their idiocy.
Justices rule Trump has some immunity from prosecution
QUOTE: In a historic decision, a divided Supreme Court on Monday ruled that former presidents can never be prosecuted for actions relating to the core powers of their office, and that there is at least a presumption that they have immunity for their official acts more broadly.
The decision left open the possibility that the charges brought against former President Donald Trump by Special Counsel Jack Smith – alleging that Trump conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election – can still go forward to the extent that the charges are based on his private conduct, rather than his official acts.
The case now returns to the lower courts for them to determine whether the conduct at the center of the charges against Trump was official or unofficial – an inquiry that, even if it leads to the conclusion that the charges can proceed, will almost certainly further delay any trial in the case, which had originally been scheduled to begin on March 4, 2024 but is currently on hold.
The decision was the latest chapter in a case that began last year, when Trump was indicted on four counts arising from Smith’s investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the U.S. Capitol. The indictment contended that Trump created “widespread mistrust … through pervasive and destabilizing lies about election fraud” and then conspired to undermine “a bedrock function of the United States federal government: the nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election.”
Trump asked Chutkan to throw out the charges against him, arguing that he is immune from prosecution because he was the president. Chutkan turned that request down in early December, explaining that the presidency does not “confer a lifelong ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ pass.”
2- The prospect of a former President being sentenced to prison has hung like a shroud over the country since Trump was first indicted. Now that shroud is lifting.
Judge Merchan Delays Trump Sentencing Until September
QUOTE: Judge Juan Merchan, who oversaw former President Donald Trump’s business records trial, delayed sentencing for the former president until September.
In a letter on Tuesday, Merchan wrote that Trump’s sentencing date of July 11, was “vacated,” and rescheduled for September 18, 2024. This came after Trump’s lawyers sent a letter to Merchan requesting that his guilty verdict from a Manhattan jury on May 30 be tossed in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity.
“The July 11, 2024, sentencing date is therefore vacated,” Merchan wrote. “The Court’s decision will be tendered off-calendar on September 6, 2024 and the matter is adjourned to September 18, 2024, at 10:00 AM for the imposition of sentence, if such is still necessary, or other proceedings.”
Trump was originally scheduled to be sentenced on July 11, four days before the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on July 15.
3- Insightful interview with Mark Paoletta, the biographer of Justice Thomas, on the attacks by the left on the Supreme Court. Learn more about this at the link. It is important to have the truth at hand.
‘The Left Is Triggered By Justice Thomas’: Mark Paoletta On The Crusade Against The Supreme Court
QUOTE: The Supreme Court has issued several landmark decisions over the last few years – including the overturning of Roe v. Wade and more recently the end of Chevron deference. Many of these decisions fell along party lines, raising the ire of progressive activists. Biographer Mark Paoletta, co-editor of “Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in his Own Words” explains the attacks. Among the biggest targets have been Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, both accused of bias and ethical violations. Why is the Left so focused on undermining the conservative justices? And is the barrage of criticism influencing public opinion?
JOHN: First of all, you wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal last week saying it’s open season on the Supreme Court, and especially Clarence Thomas, someone you know very well and have written a book on. What is driving the attacks and why are they coming now?
MARK: The Left is furious that they don’t control the Supreme Court anymore. For decades, the Left has had a reliable ally in the court to implement their Left-wing agenda — think abortion-on-demand, race-based affirmative action — all of these things were upheld by the Supreme Court acting as a sort of super legislature. And Justice Thomas, whose confirmation I worked on back in 1991, was the beginning of the seeds, the foundation of an originalist court. And because he is a black conservative, the Left is triggered by Justice Thomas, because of their racist views of how a black person should think.
And so he has been unbowed for 30 years — more than 30 years — on the Supreme Court. And all of these, recent cases over the past few years with this more originalist court — from the Dobbs decision to the affirmative action decision last year, taking on the administrative state, religious liberties — all of these things are things that Justice Thomas has been writing about for more than 30 years in his dissents and concurrences are now majority opinions.
What you see, John, is that in the past several years, when it’s springtime and the court’s coming down with blockbuster decisions, sort of dismantling this Left-wing body of law, they want to undermine the court to either intimidate the justices so that they change their opinions, they trim their sails on some of the opinions.
Ultimately, if they’re not successful with that, they’re laying the groundwork to pack the court if they win in 2024. If they win the White House, if they win the House and Senate, I do believe they will pack the Supreme Court, which means they will try and add four new justices to the court to wipe away this conservative majority that’s in place now.
Justice Thomas has been the person they’ve been targeting for 30 years. The high tech lynching in 1991, the belittling of him as a justice when he went on the court, absolutely racist, absolutely despicable. Thomas has never bowed to them. As he always says, “I just do my job, my J-O-B.” It’s the Thomas Court, and they hate him for it. That’s why they go after him time and time again, and his wife. How can we make life difficult for him? How can we try and undermine Justice Clarence Thomas — who, in my opinion, is the greatest Supreme Court justice and our greatest living American?
That’s why it’s necessary and important to defend him and for people to write and push back on these lies. This “Fix the Court” chart that came out a couple of weeks ago is just filled with dishonesty, deception, and false information. It is just shocking to me, and I’ve been doing this for a while, how bad and dishonest this chart is that claims to show how many gifts Justice Thomas received during his time on the court. It’s all just a complete dishonest representation of things.
4- The best and the brightest need not apply.
Which is why it is good that these lawsuits are being pursued.
Affirmative Action Suit Details How Law School Blackballed Accomplished White Men, Opted For Unqualified Black Women
QUOTE: Northwestern Law School made faculty job offers to only three white men in the last three years, passing over intellectual giants in favor of less qualified black females, including one who graduated “near the bottom of her class” and another who plagiarized when writing an exam, according to a blistering lawsuit filed on Tuesday.
Charging that “[f]aculty hiring at American universities is a cesspool of corruption and lawlessness,” the suit was filed by lawyers including Jonathan Mitchell, who was involved in the 2023 Supreme Court case on Harvard University admissions that blocked affirmative action, and signals that similar lawsuits could be in store against colleges across the country.
The lawsuit delves into the details of Northwestern’s recent hiring to paint a picture of affirmative action that is not simply a tie-breaker between equals, but rather the near-total exclusion of highly qualified white males in favor of minorities with weak qualifications, and whose hiring typically ends in disaster.
“For at least the last twelve years, since the installation of then-Dean Daniel Rodriguez, the leadership of Northwestern Law School has propagated and enforced a mandate to hire as many non-white and non-male faculty candidates as possible,” it said.
The lawsuit says it was impossible for even the brightest legal minds to reach a classroom if they were white. Northwestern declined to even interview Eugene Volokh, a “prolific and internationally renowned legal scholar,” for a job, the suit said — adding that Vice Dean Emily Kadens “openly said that Professor Volokh would have been hired at Northwestern had he been anything other than a white man.”
Meanwhile, it hired Destiny Peery, a black woman who graduated from Northwestern Law “near the bottom of her class,” something Northwestern’s faculty was well aware of, and which ordinarily would be an absolute roadblock to being hired as a law professor.
5- The truth is we are the majority in America. That is why the left works so darn hard to propagandize.
Tractor Supply’s DEI Reversal Shows The Power Of Citizen Activism
QUOTE: Tractor Supply announced Thursday it is no longer implementing neo-Marxist initiatives throughout the company, marking a rare win for conservatives seeking to restore sanity to American institutions.
“We work hard to live up to our Mission and Values every day and represent the values of the communities and customers we serve,” a company press release reads. “We have heard from customers that we have disappointed them. We have taken this feedback to heart. Going forward, we will ensure our activities and giving tie directly to our business.”
The announcement came after conservative filmmaker and former congressional candidate Robby Starbuck unearthed the company’s infatuation with so-called “diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI),” a poisonous left-wing framework that dismisses merit and instead discriminates based on characteristics such as skin color and sex. Individuals who qualify for a certain position on merit but don’t meet the discriminating entity’s goal of being more “diverse” are often passed over in favor of those who meet institutionally preferred identitarian standards.
Over the course of several weeks, Starbuck revealed how Tractor Supply implemented these left-wing ideologies throughout its company and financially supported related causes. Some of the policies adopted by the outdoor retail giant included publishing charts analyzing how many racial minorities it hired, flying LGBT flags at distribution centers, and partaking in LGBT “pride” events.
In its Thursday release, Tractor Supply pledged to reverse these policies and shift its focus back toward “rural America priorities.”
Tractor Supply’s reversal on its DEI obsession is a major victory, and one that conservatives should celebrate. The boycott’s success shows that American restorationists can make an impact when they unite and work together towards a common goal — a strategy the left knows all too well.
6- A long but informative interview with Steve Bannon, who was imprisoned on Monday.
My Unsettling Interview With Steve Bannon
How Steve Bannon Sees the Future
QUOTE: I felt like I was talking with Leon Trotsky in the years before the Russian Revolution.
I was sitting in Steve Bannon’s Washington living room in 2019. His stint in Donald Trump’s White House had ended ingloriously, but he had resumed his self-appointed role as populism’s grand strategist, its propagandist, its bad-boy visionary. He sat there that day sketching out his plans for how MAGA-type movements could take over the world.
By then populists had already racked up some big wins — Brexit in Britain, Trump’s victory in 2016. Right-wing populists were in power in Hungary and Poland, Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party was surging and populists were rising across Latin America. Bannon knew I opposed him in every particular and abhorred much of what he said, but he laid out his grand vision cheerfully, confidently. He didn’t seem concerned about old-fashioned conservatives, moderates and classical liberals like me; we were destined for the ash heap of history.
I decided to check in with Bannon again about a week ago. This year, populists have scored yet another string of triumphs and a second Trump victory is possible or even probable this November. I found Bannon, currently the host of the podcast “War Room,” to be embroiled and embattled as usual. He’s going to prison Monday, to begin serving a four-month sentence for contempt of Congress. If anything, he is more confident than ever.
What follows is a transcript of our conversation, edited for clarity and length — and to remove the F-bombs that Bannon dropped with machine gun regularity. I should emphasize that I wasn’t trying to debate Bannon or rebut his beliefs; I wanted to understand how he sees the current moment. I wanted to understand the global populist surge from the inside. What he told me now seems doubly terrifying, given Joe Biden’s performance at the first presidential debate.
DAVID BROOKS: Since we last spoke, in fact in just the past few months, there have been populist victories in the Netherlands, with Geert Wilders. We have the Chega movement doing well in Portugal, with the young especially. In Germany, the ultra-right-wing Alternative for Germany surged in last month’s European parliamentary elections. In France, Marine Le Pen’s populist party also triumphed in the European election, a result that prompted President Emmanuel Macron to call new national elections and throw the entire French political system into meltdown. In the U.K.’s forthcoming national elections, Nigel Farage’s Reform Party is on pace to win seats for the first time. So if you’re a historian telling the big story of what’s happening, what would it be? What’s the core narrative here?
STEVE BANNON: Well, I think it’s very simple: that the ruling elites of the West lost confidence in themselves. The elites have lost their faith in their countries. They’ve lost faith in the Westphalian system, the nation-state. They are more and more detached from the lived experience of their people.
On our show “War Room,” I probably spend at least 20 percent of our time talking about international elements in our movement. So we’ve made Nigel a rock star, Giorgia Meloni a rock star. Marine Le Pen is a rock star. Geert is a rock star. We talk about these people all the time.
BROOKS: Do you see yourself in the same business that Fox News’s Roger Ailes was in, sort of right-wing journalism?
BANNON: I’m not a journalist. I’m not in the media. This is a military headquarters for a populist revolt. This is how we motivate people. This show is an activist show. If you watch this show, you’re a foot soldier. We call it the Army of the Awakened.
I mean, Murdoch is a bigger enemy of ours than MSNBC. Because he’s the epitome of neoliberal neocon. And they’re the opiate of the masses. They’re the controlled opposition, right? They’re never going to want fundamental change. They’ll throw some shiny toys — Obama’s a Muslim, the kind of issues which we mock all the time.
BROOKS: Let’s get back to the big narrative. Do you think immigration is the core issue here? That seems to be one issue that drives populist support everywhere.
BANNON: Immigration, spending — it’s the lack of confidence and self-loathing of their own civilization and their own culture. That’s the spiritual part that’s at the base. Immigration is just the manifestation of a loss of self-confidence. And it’s shocking.
I came up in the golden age of Pax Americana, a working-class dad who had a housewife and five kids. All went to Catholic schools. I mean, a guy who was a foreman and then lower-level white-collar management. That’s the kind of thing we aspire to have in this country. If you look at it country by country, it’s all the same. The lack of jobs, the lack of opportunities, the lack of self-confidence.
What we should be doing is cutting the number of foreign students in American universities by 50 percent immediately, because we’re never going to get a Hispanic and Black population in Silicon Valley unless you get them into the engineering schools. No. 2, we should staple an exit visa to their diploma. The foreign students can hang around for a week and party, but then they got to go home and make their own country great.
Our movement is metastasizing to something that’s different than America First; it’s American Citizens First.
All DTR Merchandise 40% Off - Coupon Code: USA1776
ORDER HERE …. … … COUPON CODE: USA1776
PRAY for AMERICA. PRAY for divine intervention. PRAY for warriors being imprisoned, bankrupted by the left’s lawfare.
SHARE the truth.
Hold Fast,
Defending The Republic
This will be permanently available for all at Defending The Republic.
