There's a major asterisk next to this one because William Arkin had <a href="https://twitter.com/OrinKerr/status/1557464955602890753">formerly claimed</a> at Newsweek that his sources told him AG Garland hadn't approved the Mar-a-Lago raid.


	And plenty of people got burned by that.


	This story claims that the FBI raid <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/fbi-sought-documents-trump-hoarded-years-including-about-russiagate-1734280">targeted </a>specific documents.

<blockquote>
	
		"The&nbsp;FBI&nbsp;raid on Mar-a-Lago last Monday was specifically intended to recover&nbsp;Donald Trump's personal "stash" of hidden documents, two high-level U.S. intelligence officials tell&nbsp;Newsweek.

	
		To justify the unprecedented raid on a former president's residence and protect the source who revealed the existence of Trump's private hoard, agents went into Trump's residence on the pretext that they were seeking&nbsp;all&nbsp;government documents, says one official who has been involved in the investigation. But the true target was this private stash, which Justice Department officials feared Donald Trump might weaponize."
</blockquote>


	According to Arkin, these documents involved Russiagate.

<blockquote>
	
		"The sought-after documents deal with a variety of intelligence matters of interest to the former president, the officials suggest—including material that Trump apparently thought would exonerate him of any claims of Russian collusion in 2016 or any other election-related charges."

	
		"Trump was particularly interested in matters related to the Russia hoax and the wrong-doings of the deep state," one former Trump official tells&nbsp;Newsweek. "I think he felt, and I agree, that these are facts that the American people need to know." The official says Trump may have been planning to use them as part of a 2024 run for the presidency.
</blockquote>


	Is it true? Who knows. Arkin's sources were wrong about Garland. And that's a very basic thing. But it would provide a certain motive power for the controversy. It would explain why Trump wanted certain documents and why the Biden administration might want to seize them.


	Of course just because something sounds plausible, doesn't mean that it's actually true.

Did FBI Raid Seek "Exonerating" Russiagate Materials?

There's a major asterisk next to this one because William Arkin had formerly claimed at Newsweek that his sources told him AG Garland hadn't approved the Mar-a

Did FBI Raid Seek "Exonerating" Russiagate Materials?

The engine of Holocaust denial is a desire to kill Jews. Otherwise why bother?


	There's a fringe of conspirazoids, the sorts of people who believe that the moon landing was faked,&nbsp;that UFOs can be found in your backyard, and that 9/11 was carried out by the NYPD, and that Bigfoot killed JFK who are attracted to Holocaust denial among the many other conspiracy theory options.&nbsp;But the big leagues of Holocaust denials are associated with Nazism and Communism because they both specialized in the extermination of Jews.


	The "Palestinian" cause is a toxic inbreeding of Nazis and Communists.


	The Muslim Brotherhood, key players in the Arab Revolt, got a lot of their techniques from the Nazis. And the Nazi influence was felt most strongly in Egypt. But the "Palestinian" cause was manufactured by the Soviet Union.


	Mahmoud Abbas, the current dictator-for-life of the PLO, got his <a href="https://www.jpost.com/opinion/abbass-untranslated-book-480751">Holocaust denial training</a> from the USSR. Abbas wrote it as a "student" in the Soviet Union as part of the&nbsp;Palestinian-Soviet Friendship Foundation which was itself <a href="http://www.thetower.org/article/how-holocaust-denial-shaped-mahmoud-abbas-worldview/">crossbred with Nazi propagand</a>a.

<blockquote>
	
		&nbsp;PA President Mahmoud Abbas is profoundly fascinated by Nazi propaganda and has employed it in his own writings, particularly in his doctoral dissertation on the subject of the Holocaust, “The Other Face: The Secret Connections Between Nazism and the Leadership of the Zionist Movement,” which he wrote in Moscow in 1982. Two years later, Abbas published a book based on his dissertation. It is written in Arabic and, tellingly, has never been translated into any other language.

	
		There is a reason for this: The book is inspired by and based on the work of Adolf Eichmann, the architect of the Holocaust. While he was a fugitive in Argentina, Eichmann formulated and disseminated Nazi propaganda according to which the Holocaust was a Jewish-Nazi conspiracy that sacrificed Jewish lives in order to create a Jewish state in Palestine.&nbsp;
</blockquote>


	So what did the Germans really expect when they invited the head of a terror group responsible for the <a href="https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-714943">Munich Massacr</a>e?

<blockquote>
	
		At a news conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin, Abbas was asked by a reporter whether he plans to apologize to Israel and Germany for the 1972 Munich massacre, ahead of its 50th anniversary. Eleven members of the Israeli delegation and a German police officer were murdered after members of the Palestinian terrorist group Black September, which was linked to&nbsp;Abbas’s Fatah party, took hostages at the Olympic Village on September 5, 1972.&nbsp;

	
		“If we want to go over the past, go ahead,” Abbas responded in Arabic. “I have 50 slaughters that Israel committed... 50 massacres, 50 slaughters, 50 holocausts,” saying the last word in English.

	
		While Scholz could be seen wincing at Abbas’s Holocaust reference, he did not immediately rebuke the Palestinian president, although he had earlier rejected his use of the word “apartheid” to describe Israeli policies.
</blockquote>


	Scholtz has since tepidly condemned Abbas' Holocaust denial.


	The debate about Holocaust denial is less important than the motive for it. Abbas responded to his role in the massacre of Jews with Holocaust denial. That's typical. It's the essence of the purpose that Holocaust denial is meant to serve.


	The "Palestinian" cause is about finishing the work that the Nazis began. It's why Hitler is so widely admired in the Palestinian Authority. "Palestinian" Holocaust denial, like most kinds, is about paving the way for justifying the future murder of Jews.

Abbas' Holocaust Denial Tour Hits Germany

The engine of Holocaust denial is a desire to kill Jews. Otherwise why bother?


	There's a fringe of conspirazoids, the sorts of people who believe that

Abbas' Holocaust Denial Tour Hits Germany

Here's the JTA&nbsp;very <a href="https://www.jta.org/2022/08/16/united-states/texas-school-district-orders-librarians-to-remove-a-version-of-anne-franks-diary-from-shelves">deliberately</a> pushing its political agenda of getting sexualized books to kids.

<blockquote>
	
		A school district in suburban Fort Worth, Texas, has ordered its librarians to remove an illustrated adaptation of “The Diary of Anne Frank” from their shelves and digital libraries, along with the Bible and dozens of other books that were challenged by parents last year...

	
		“Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation,”&nbsp;by Israeli filmmaker Ari Folman and illustrator David Polonsky, is a 2019 illustrated adaptation of the bestselling diary by the teenage Holocaust victim.&nbsp;The New York Times called the book&nbsp;“so engaging and effective that it’s easy to imagine it replacing the [original] ‘Diary’ in classrooms and among younger readers.”&nbsp;

	
		The parental challenge against the book came in February, and the district initially dismissed it, Hawes said. Hawes, who is not Jewish, is on a list of parents who can be called in to serve on a committee to review book challenges.

	
		“When we got ‘The Diary of Anne Frank,’ we thought, ‘This is a joke.’ But it wasn’t,” Hawes said, adding that the complaint was that “the book shouldn’t be read without parent supervision.” She suspected that the parent may have objected to the unabridged diary’s references to female genitalia,&nbsp;same-sex attraction&nbsp;and&nbsp;other sexual matters, which&nbsp;have been deemed “pornographic” by parental challenges in the past. But she couldn’t be sure because the parent who challenged the book didn’t show up to the meeting.
</blockquote>


	This is not Anne Frank's diary.


	This is a comic book based on a version of the diary that neither Anne nor her father wanted published.


	I've written about the abuse of Anne Frank's legacy multiple times. There's the famous play that eliminated her Jewishness. There's also the 'unabridged' diary. This is material that Frank wrote when she was younger that she then got rid of. Her father respectfully edited the diary when he fulfilled her wish to have it published. After his death, the "unabridged" diary containing sexual materials that neither the dead girl nor her father wanted to publish was gleefully put out there.


	The material that parents objected to in&nbsp;“Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation”, even assuming it's true to the unabridged version (I have no idea if it is) was also the material that Anne's older self censored and that her father got rid of. It doesn't belong in schools and shouldn't be in public view. It's an insult to her memory.


	Not everything people write as 13-year-olds should be out there. Nor should they be forced to live with it after death.&nbsp;


	The publishing interests pushing this claim that they have some moral right to dig up and publish material that Anne did not want out there for the "greater good".


	Getting it out of libraries and out of publication is a very good thing because it's effectively stolen material that was never meant for publication. It's no different than publishing sexual materials or photos of any other deceased person&nbsp;that they would have not wanted in the public realm.&nbsp;


	Exploiting the Holocaust to push a sexual agenda in schools is despicable. And using stolen writings from a murdered Jewish girl to do so is equally so.


	Anne Frank deserves better. So do our children.

This Version of Anne Frank's Diary Should Be Removed From Libraries

Here's the JTA&nbsp;very deliberately pushing its political agenda of getting sexualized books to kids.


	
		A school district in suburban Fort Worth,

This Version of Anne Frank's Diary Should Be Removed From Libraries

NY Gov Hochul Won't Lock Up Criminals, Will Ban Toy Guns

Toy guns don't kill people, violent criminals who aren't locked up kill people.


	But New York's Governor Hochul has made it clear that, along with

NY Gov Hochul Won't Lock Up Criminals, Will Ban Toy Guns

I remember the controversy over dropping Truth, Justice and the American Way. But that was just the beginning.


	This story involves Spider Man: Remastered, a game for Sony video game consoles that recently came to the personal computer. PCs have a vibrant modding community, much of which is based around a site known as 'Nexus'. While the game's fictional depiction of New York City contained the inevitable 'Pride' flags, a&nbsp;'modder' on that site reportedly figured out how to trigger an alternate graphic used in Muslim countries that would get rid of the flag. And he replaced the Pride flags with American flags.


	Anyone downloading the 'mod' would be able to replace all the 'Pride' flags with the Stars and Stripes.&nbsp;


	Since Spider Man: Remastered is a single-player game, it's an individual choice and nothing they did would have any impact on anyone else playing the game.


	Despite hosting a variety of violent and sexual mods,&nbsp;Nexus, the modding site, responded by banning the 'modder' declaring that sort of thing isn't welcome here. The ban however has only made the mod <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/woup7g/nexus_mods_removes_spiderman_mod_that_replaces/">more popular </a>and it's being distributed across a variety of sites.


	While it's been a while since Gamergate hit the scene, the struggle between the social justice elites and gamers has never actually gone away. Gaming journalism has become much less relevant since, but at the same time corporate wokeness has become more rigidly policed.&nbsp;


	And the one thing you can't do in even the most violent games, as Rockstar's GTA 6 series and its studios are reportedly being remade to be sensitive and politically correct, is be proud of being an American.

Pride Flags, Yes, American Flags, No in Spiderman Game

I remember the controversy over dropping Truth, Justice and the American Way. But that was just the beginning.


	This story involves Spider Man: Remastered

Pride Flags, Yes, American Flags, No in Spiderman Game

Everyone should be deeply troubled by the recent report that the Army is on pace to miss its recruiting goal by dozens of thousands of troops and by the report that followed a few days later, alleging that the Border Patrol is running short of agents in Arizona and Texas. The border is so porous these days that even mayors of sanctuary cities are starting to complain about illegal immigration.


	So, what is Congress doing about these crises? They are going to spend tens of billions of dollars to increase the number of ... IRS employees. The plan calls for spending some $80 billion to hire some 80,000 new agents and investigators. This will give the IRS the resources to double the number of people who get audited every year.


	Is this about the most warped set of national priorities you've ever heard? If this $80 billion were rerouted to the Army and the Border Patrol, we could easily stop much of the tide of illegal immigration and staff up our military so we have the soldiers we need to defend our country.


	According to official budget numbers, the overall cost of border security at the Department of Homeland Security is roughly $55 billion a year. That is less than just the&nbsp;increase&nbsp;in IRS funding to harass the public. Or consider this: The epidemic of opioid and other drug overdoses is killing close to 100,000 a year. We spend about $11 billion a year to prevent these tragic deaths. But the ironically named Inflation Reduction Act calls for 30 times more than this, or more than $300 billion, to try to combat climate change, while the number of those who die from CO2 emissions each year is close to zero.


	All of this is to say that the Biden-Manchin-Schumer spending bill that has now passed the Senate is arguably the greatest misallocation of our federal dollars in American history. It spends money in areas where we should be cutting expenses and ignores national security priorities.


	The reason we have inflation is that the Biden administration has increased spending by $3 trillion in 18 months. Almost everyone knows this. The central idiocy of the Biden Inflation Reduction Act is that instead of cutting a half a trillion from the budget, this bill does just the opposite: It increases spending by that amount.


	Incredibly, a bill that supposedly reduces the budget deficit does not cut one penny of actual spending from the federal budget. Even with federal audit reports finding more than $250 billion of "erroneous" payments in Medicaid, food stamps and unemployment insurance, Congress does nothing to reduce the fraud and theft.


	As the latest report on shortages of recruits in our armed forces tells us, we have national priorities that need to be met. This bill bloats the budget, makes inflation worse and will add to our $30 trillion national debt without dealing with any of the nation's priorities.


	It's reminiscent of the immortal line by Jeff Daniels to Jim Carrey in "Dumb and Dumber": "Just when I think you couldn't possibly be anything dumber ..."


	Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at Freedom Works. He is also author of the new book, Govzilla: How The Relentless Growth of Government Is Devouring Our Economy.


	Reprinted From <a href="https://townhall.com/">Townhall.</a>

Biden Puts IRS Funding Ahead of Military and Border Security

Everyone should be deeply troubled by the recent report that the Army is on pace to miss its recruiting goal by dozens of thousands of troops and by the report

Remember how the world, especially the American media, fawned over former German Chancellor Angela Merkel?


	The adoration was so over the top that in 2015 Time magazine named Merkel its "Person of the Year." It described her as the "Chancellor of the Free World."


	Time owes whatever readers it has left a solemn apology. Today, Germans are suffering the bitter fruits of nearly every major economic and geopolitical decision Merkel made as chancellor.


	Start with the German economy that she attempted to reset for the 21st century, which is reminiscent of how President Joe Biden explains to inflation-weary voters that we are going through "an incredible transition."


	But Merkel's Germany was ahead of us in its "transition." Today, the German economy is in tatters. A recent headline from Business Insider summarized the chaos: "German Industries Could Collapse Due to Russia Natural Gas Supply Cutbacks." The Daily Telegraph recently described Germany as "the sick man of Europe." Things are getting so desperate that the Germans are now considering rationing gas for their major industries to keep the lights on.


	How did one of the five wealthiest countries in the world so quickly careen into this economic ditch?


	It was Merkel's vision of a new Germany. Merkel was the one who made the decision a decade ago to move Germany away from fossil fuels and nuclear power and instead "go green." Her green energy crusade, which environmentalists heralded as a model for the world, nearly bankrupted the German manufacturing economy until the entire solar and wind energy debacle was scuttled. (Sadly, Biden apparently never got that memo.)


	It was Merkel's decision, against the advice of then-President Donald Trump, to build the Nord Stream pipeline. When Trump sagely warned in 2018 that Germans would rue the day they became overly reliant on Russian President Vladimir Putin's energy, Merkel's administration openly scoffed.


	Putin isn't the only one getting rich from Merkel's blunders. She negotiated trade deals with China, blatantly undermining Trump's strategy of economically isolating the Beijing menace. She chose to align Germany with rogue and militaristic regimes in Russia, China and Iran. This helped undermine NATO and Germany's post-World War II close ties with the United States.


	She refused to pony up the 2% of GDP that Germany owed NATO for Europe's defenses, and she bristled when Trump demanded that be raised to 4%. Perhaps if the Germans and Europeans had heeded Trump's advice, the debacle of Ukraine wouldn't have happened.


	The American media, during all this time that Merkel was steering Germany over a green energy cliff, took Merkel's side in her open dispute with Trump. Susan Glasser of the New Yorker snorted in 2018 that Trump had "made war on Angela Merkel and Europe" and the NATO countries were "run(ning) out of patience with the President."


	That statement is foolish today, given the collapse of the euro and the economic downturn throughout the continent.


	Even as an environmentalist, Europe's savior was a flop. Merkel hogtied German industries to expensive and unreliable "renewable" energy by spurning natural gas and closing nuclear plants. The experiment failed miserably, and now Germany is vastly increasing the share of its power that comes from burning coal. That's no strategy to stop climate change.


	Under Merkel's weak leadership, the euro was supposed to replace the dollar as the world currency soon. Instead, the euro is a currency in collapse. Even the Russian ruble is stronger.


	Merkelism can be summarized as a strategy of patronizing enemies and alienating allies. Now with 20/20 hindsight, it is clear that the legacy of Merkelism is a chaotic world and a diminished Germany.


	It turns out that peace through weakness is a failed national and economic security strategy. If Merkel was the "Chancellor of the Free World," why is it that today's world is not safer?


	It is not cleaner.


	It is not freer.


	And it is not a more prosperous place.


	In short, every major decision she made regarding global affairs made the world more dangerous, less free and less prosperous. She was to Germany what Biden has been to the U.S. -- a complete and dismal failure.


	Let's hope we figure this out more quickly than the Germans did.

How Angela Merkel's Green Agenda Caused the Economic Collapse of Germany

Remember how the world, especially the American media, fawned over former German Chancellor Angela Merkel?


	The adoration was so over the top that in 2015

What if two years ago, when COVID-19 first hit these shores, our politicians hadn't panicked?


	What if the government did what it has done every time we were confronted with a deadly virus, such as the Spanish flu or polio? Instead of locking down our schools, churches and businesses, the government could have simply informed citizens of the risks of getting sick and urged people to be extra careful about hygiene, stay out of crowded places and protect the vulnerable.


	It turns out there was one country that mostly rejected lockdowns and let life go on as normal as possible under dire circumstances. That country was Sweden.


	There were some restrictions and temporary lockdowns, but they were minimal.


	The hero of this story is Anders Tegnell, Sweden's chief epidemiologist. He was Sweden's Anthony Fauci, but unlike the now-widely discredited Fauci, Tegnell eschewed lockdowns. The international media pilloried him for not following "the science." At first, it seemed the Swedish live-and-let-live strategy was a miserable failure. Death rates soared higher than in other European nations.


	But to their credit, the Swedes ignored the "mad modelers" such as Britain's Imperial College team, which predicted multiple times that the number of deaths around the world would be more than actually occurred.


	Sweden made some mistakes at the beginning. Like many states in the United States, the Swedes failed to protect elderly nursing home residents adequately, which was a significant reason that deaths in Sweden were higher than in neighboring Norway or Denmark. But Tegnell argued that the collateral damage of lockdowns would outweigh what good they do on a societywide basis. He was proven right.


	Two years later, Sweden's COVID-19 death rate is 1,614 per million people — much lower than Britain (2,335) or the U.S. (2,836), which both had much more stringent lockdowns.


	Sweden appears to have achieved herd immunity much more swiftly and thoroughly than other nations. Deaths were higher at the start of the pandemic but fell much lower than other lockdown nations in succeeding months.


	What is clear today is that the Swedes saved their economy. This year, it's projected to be 5% larger than before the pandemic, compared to a 2% gain for Germany and a 1% gain for Britain. Moreover, the extra debt Sweden has had to take on is a fraction of that of lockdown countries. So it will not have to spend decades paying for the costs of lockdowns.


	Swedish schools stayed open with no face masks. Test scores are up, and there is no talk in Sweden about "lost" years of education.


	What is sadly ironic about the Sweden story is this should have been the U.S. We're the land of the free, not Sweden.&nbsp;We are the nation of rugged individualism, not Sweden, with its more socialist economy and collectivist mindset. We have more solid constitutional protections to guarantee citizen rights against heavy-handed government.


	But the politicians from local health officials and mayors all the way up to the top federal medical experts and lawmakers opted for deadly decisions to shut down the engines of our economy and lock people in their homes. Those policies did irreparable harm that will be felt for many years to come. Those who supported this great mistake need to be held accountable.


	Sweden's successful response strategy reminds us that we must never again shut down our businesses and schools. I just pray we have all learned that enduring lesson before another virus wave arrives.


	Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at Freedom Works. He is also author of the new book: "Govzilla: How The Relentless Growth of Government Is Devouring Our Economy."

In the End, Sweden Did It Right

What if two years ago, when COVID-19 first hit these shores, our politicians hadn't panicked?


	What if the government did what it has done every time we

Frontpage Mag

stephen moore

Biden Puts IRS Funding Ahead of Military and Border Security

How Angela Merkel's Green Agenda Caused the Economic Collapse of Germany

In the End, Sweden Did It Right

FPM Series

Disloyal Military

Progressive Fascists

Racist Mayors

The Point

Did FBI Raid Seek "Exonerating" Russiagate Materials?

Abbas' Holocaust Denial Tour Hits Germany

This Version of Anne Frank's Diary Should Be Removed From Libraries

NY Gov Hochul Won't Lock Up Criminals, Will Ban Toy Guns

Pride Flags, Yes, American Flags, No in Spiderman Game

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