“Lock Her Up”?
 
Remember that crowd-pleasing chant that punctuated many of Donald Trump’s rallies in 2016?  Of course, the “her” in the chant was Hillary Clinton.  Credible reports at the time pointed to possible corruption involving the Clinton Foundation while Hillary was secretary of state in the Obama administration.  The Foundation was soliciting donations from foreign and domestic entities that had “business” pending at the State Department.  Not good!
 
There was enough credible evidence of corruption that career FBI agents in three cities wanted to move forward on an investigation.  Much to our chagrin, at the time no real investigation took place.  It would have hurt Hillary and helped Trump. 
 
Now, thanks to FBI director Kash Patel we are seeing evidence that confirms our suspicions that a “fix” was in.  Patel uncovered a 2017 memo written by a DOJ lawyer that presents a “timeline” of what was happening out of sight from the public.  The memo outlined the extraordinary political obstruction FBI agents in New York City, Little Rock, Arkansas, and Washington, D.C., faced from their own superiors as well as the Obama Justice Department.
 
In February 2016, the Obama Justice Department said they would not be supportive of an FBI investigation.  Deputy Attorney General and political hack Sally Yates ordered a federal prosecutor to “Shut it down,” the “it” being the investigation.
 
Former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe also put “road blocks” in front of concerned FBI agents.  In early February 2016, the memo timeline indicates he ordered “no overt investigative steps” of the Clinton Foundation take place without his approval.
 
All of this, no doubt, seems like ancient history at this point, but it is still important.  Attorney General Pam Bondi has established a “strike force” and is using a grand jury to determine whether there has been a decade long “criminal conspiracy” to protect the Clintons, Bidens, and Obamas, while persecuting and prosecuting President Trump and his supporters.  It is these “two tiers” of justice that has undermined the confidence of millions of Americans in our “democracy.”
 
There are reports that current and former prosecutors and agents are ready to fully cooperate with the investigation.  A lot of people are “lawyering up.”  But of course, as of now, most of “big” media is ignoring the story. 
 
 
 
Update On Redistricting
 
The Texas redistricting fight is still up in the air with some hopeful signs that Democrat state legislators are beginning to cave.  They are facing $500 a day fines and the possibility of being ejected from their seats if they don’t return to do their jobs.
 
California Democrat Governor Newsome continues to threaten his own redistricting effort.  He hopes to be the Democrat nominee in 2028, and he sees this fight as a way to impress his party’s crazy leftists.  He has roadblocks to overcome, however, including changing current state law probably through a referendum.
 
Meanwhile other states, both Republican controlled and Democrat controlled, are getting in on the action.  The GOP has the edge in this battle for a simple reason.  Democrats have been aggressively gerrymandering Republicans for years.  There aren’t many more GOP seats they can steal by re-drawing lines.  But in GOP states like Florida, Ohio, and Missouri more Democrat seats are still vulnerable to being redrawn. 
 
One thing is certain.  If Democrats take the House back in 2026, they will immediately move to impeach President Trump again!
 
 
 
Surrendering To Islam
 
I’ve never been to the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), Cannes, or Sundance, but I know what these cultural icons represent.  They are celebrations by creative folks, who, they say, like to push envelopes and challenge taboos.
 
Get your movie on the calendar there, or in Hollywood, Venice or Berlin, and you’re on the map.  The kinds of subjects this atmosphere lends itself to are predictable. And, yes, it’s vital for these leaders in the arts to prove they are open minded – so open that rational thought often drops out of their brains.
 
Which brings us back to Toronto, whose famous film festival is scheduled for early September.  It seems there’s one film at least that was too provocative to be shown on the shores of Lake Ontario.
 
The New York Post has the story. The movie is a documentary on the horrific events of October 7, 2023.  It’s called The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue.  It’s the true story of an Israeli soldier on October 7, 2023, when Israel was invaded by Hamas terrorists. This Israeli hero set out and saved young people, including his two granddaughters, during the horrific attack that killed 1,200 Israelis.
 
No one questions the documentary’s truth.  It relies on footage taken by both Hamas and Israeli forces, from cell phones and body cams.  
 
The footage is stomach-churning.  The Hamas attack was horrendous. Israeli babies were murdered and Israeli women sexually assaulted, mutilated, and killed.
 
People need to know what happened that day.
 
Earlier this year, the Toronto film festival board invited the makers of The Road Between Us to show the documentary at the September event.  On Tuesday, the board announced the invitation was rescinded.  The first stated reason is just bizarre.  They said it was a legal issue because the filmmakers haven’t proved that the Hamas terrorists gave them permission to use the video.  What?  Do we normally ask murderers for their permission?
 
This can’t be serious.  The film board is worried that terrorists, who recorded their acts of rape, shooting and mutilation, will go into international courts and demand respect for their copyrights?
 
But deeper in the film board’s statement is the real truth.  The board said, “The risk of major, disruptive protest actions around the film’s presence at the festival, including internal opposition, has become too great.”
 
What a scandal. The contested footage is in the public domain. TIFF’s real message is that Canadian Muslims, who have migrated to Canada’s big cities in record numbers, may engage in violence because they hate Israel.
 
The documentary team was strong in response to the film board, refusing to agree to the cancellation. “We are shocked and saddened that a venerable film festival has defied its mission and censored its own programming by refusing this film,” they said.
 
“We are not political filmmakers, nor are we activists; we are storytellers. We remain defiant, we will release the film, and we invite audiences, broadcasters, and streamers to make up their own mind, once they have seen it.”
 
Late last night, after the public outcry, the film board announced it is reversing its decision and will reportedly work with the filmmakers to ensure the movie will be screened.  We have to hope the pressure worked and the board is not just buying time with another word cloud.
 
So, what was really going on here?  Anyone who is paying attention to current affairs sees the symptoms across many Western cities. 
 
Clamp-downs on free speech are happening everywhere, from U.S. social media to British abortion clinic buffer zones to German politics. 
 
On some issues, the Left’s social agenda is driving the repression.
 
On other issues, like Toronto, the motive is simply fear.  After years of allowing mass immigration of Muslims with no effort to screen them or others for radical views, cities in Europe and North America are being transformed.
 
In Canada, estimates say the share of the Muslim population has doubled in recent years to nearly five percent.  The count is some 1.7 million and the median age of this group is 30, eleven years younger than the median for the aging Canadian population.
 
America has long been a nation of immigrants.  Lately, however, we have become a nation no longer secure in its basic creed.  For centuries we drew visitors and new citizens because of our vision of faith, family and freedom.  We insisted that new arrivals assimilate.
 
How do we apply that concept to even those who legally come to our shores when the American Left rejects those ideas? 
 
Europe shows us where we are headed if we don’t recover our confidence and change our ways.  Thank God for Donald Trump! 
  
Finally, I am inclined like everyone else to repeat the assurances I’ve given so many times.  There are many good Muslims who love our traditions of ordered liberty and pose no threat at all. But today I won’t, because too many of us, hearing that, will simply go back to sleep.
 
Western governments face a hopeless task trying not to offend every Muslim.  The mayor of London is Muslim.  The next likely mayor of New York, who has vowed to defund the police, is Muslim.  The mayor of Minneapolis too.  I can confidently predict that in a decade’s time even more Western cities will have Muslim leaders.
 
The evidence is clear that when the name Mohammed pops up ever more frequently as a first name, middle name, or last name, you get more adherents to a far-left Islamic creed in power. And the reason is simple – this subgroup sticks together.  Demography is destiny.
 
It seems like yesterday, but I remember a turning point in the 2016 presidential race.  Eight Republican contenders were on stage, and the moderator asked them whether they would limit Muslim immigration to the United States.  Only one hand went up.  Donald Trump’s.  The moderator pursued, “Mr. Trump, none of your competitors seems to agree with you.”
 
Trump replied to the effect, “We need to know who agrees with our values before they come here.”  I turned to Carol and said, “This man will win the election.”
 
Let me close on a positive note.  We know we do not need more Ilhan Omars in Congress.  We don’t need more cities defunding police.  More cities with antisemitic riots and graffiti.  More open borders and waves of people coming here not because they are, as the Emma Lazarus poem says, “yearning to breathe free,” but because they hate our country or want to install some version of socialism or sharia law.
 
The Toronto film board responded to pressure from within.  Whether it knows it or not, it has recognized that devotion to our nations’ founding principles is not risk-free.  Fidelity to the truth, courage under fire, and freedom of speech are ideals worthy of our blood, sweat and tears.