The speech was delivered by Giorgia Meloni in 2020 introducing us to her worldview, values and purpose..  For those prefering to read her remarks, I provide a transcript lightly edited from the closed captions. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Giorgia Meloni Winner of Sunday’s Italian Election

Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, I wish to thank you – thank you to our friends of the Edmund Burke foundation for inviting me to open this important event, for choosing Rome in Italy as a venue for this second edition of the National Conservative conference.

I entirely, entirely agree with your views on the need to put conservatism back into its traditional sphere of national identity. The great challenge facing us today is defending national identity and the very existence of the nation-states as a sole means of safeguarding people’s sovereignty and freedom.

This is why I find the title of Yoram Hazony’s latest book, The Virtue of Nationalism, effective.  Because in a few words it clearly sums up the fact that our worldview is the exact opposite to what they would like to force on us. Yoram, your book will scandalize Italy. And I will gladly make my part on this effect because I intend to quote it frequently.

Our main enemy today is the globalist drift of those who view identity in all its forms to be an evil to be overcome and constantly acts to shift real power away from the people to supranational entities headed by supposedly enlightened elites.

Let us be clear, let us bear this clearly in our mind because we did not fight against and defeat communism in order to replace it with a new internationalist regime, but to permit independent nation states once again to defend the freedom identity and sovereignty of their peoples.

It is in this same spirit that today Fratelli d’Italia is fighting for a Europe of free and sovereign nations as a serious alternative to the bureaucratic super state that has been gradually foisted on us since the Maastricht Treaty, following the rationale of the external constraint whereby there is always someone who claims the right to take decisions in place of the sovereign peoples and the national governments.

And although that someone in Brussels or Frankfurt, Davos or the City of London lacks democratic legitimacy, every day it conditions the economic choices and the political decisions of those who have been vested with that legitimacy by the popular vote. It means that whether the false democrats like it or not, national conservatives in every latitude are actually the only real democrats. Because it is only by defending the nation state that we defend the political sovereignty that belongs to the citizens of that state.

But of course a national conservative cannot be content with claiming to be a democrat. Democracy without values becomes demagoguery, and can itself heighten decadence. I believe that it is not difficult for the conservative world to identify the substance with which we want to fill our democracies. We do not need the ideological indoctrination manuals that are so dear to the left.

Our vision of values and our worldview is actually quite simple as a great philosopher that Francesco mentioned who died a few days ago. Roger Scruton pointed out the real reason people are conservatives is that they are attached to the things they love. And another great father of conservative thought, John Tolkien, wrote a similar thing in one of the characters of his Lord of the Rings:

“I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.”

This was Faramir’s worldview ; this worldview is embodied every day by millions of ordinary men and women and sometimes even by some of the great men of history. Throughout this history, where John Paul II and Ronald Reagan to whom today’s meeting is dedicated. John Paul II was a patriot who knew perfectly well that nations and the fact of belonging to a people sharing the same historical memory were the bedrock of the freedom of every man. He never tired of repeating that there is no Europe without Christianity, a teaching which is more topical than than ever today when the Christian identity of Europe is under attack by a distorted secularism that even attacks the symbol of the Christian tradition while throwing open the gates to the most intransigent form of Islam that wants to apply Sharia law in our European homelands. In which lies at the heart of the Islamic terrorism that has caused caused bloodshed in Europe and in the United States.

John Paul II’s patriotism also enabled him to view today’s historical events in the light of a Christian realism shorn of all rhetoric, as in the case of immigration. He considered that the right to emigrate had to be preceded first and foremost by a right not to emigrate, to live in peace and dignity in one’s homeland. Christian Petra was also critic of mass immigration when you think about that.

Today John Paul II would be on the European Union’s blacklist as a dangerous subversive; but not for us. Neither would Ronald Reagan have faired any better. More than any President of the United States, Reagan stood for the American “We the People” of that preamble to the Constitution that based national democracy on the principle of popular sovereignty, another great enemy of the globalist league.

I was very impressed by the metaphor Reagan used to describe the conservative movement as a three-legged stool. Without any one of these three legs, the stool will collapse. In the three legs of our defense, fiscal and social, defense– the first leg is a patriotic soul, which today would be called sovereignist. It means the defense of nation and interest in popular sovereignty.

The second leg is economic freedom, which means also a just relationship between government and taxpayers. A great lesson of conservative thought is that an oppressive tax system not only limits free enterprise, production and consumption, but it also destroys the commonality between the state and citizens. Because over taxation enforces the state to build up a system of controls similar to that of the totalitarian regimes, restricting individual freedoms.

Awakening the economy as a free enterprise, lower taxes, less bureaucracy, public investment in infrastructure and the defense of national interests this is the recipe with which President Trump today is making the American economy Strong. And it is the recipe that we would we would like to bring to Italy, to Europe as an an alternative to the blind austerity Germany wanted. which so far has only benefited Germany and the big financial speculators.

And the third leg is the social soul to protect religious and moral values, the noblest purpose of all political action. These values and principles are found in the three concepts of today’s meeting: God, Freedom and Nation. Or in the Italian formula to which I am very attached: God, Homeland and Family.

One of the founding values of conservative movements is the defense of the natural family. They would like us to give up defending the family, considering it to be an archaic and backward concept to be superseded. They would like to convince us that a family is any emotional bond between sentient beings; that it is a sign of great civil and moral progress to pay a poor mother to keep her child in her womb for nine months and then snatch it from the her arms to give it away to whoever has bought it.

We reject all this without a moment’s hesitation even though today it is considered highly scandalous and even revolutionary to say that a family is made up of a man and a woman and any children they may have, They are creating a world of alleged individual rights and formal freedom. In theory we are free or almost free to do anything we like: free to take drugs , free to have an abortion , to take the lives of human beings suffering from serious illnesses and therefore defenseless. Only rights and few if at all do this

Free indeed, but never free for the sake of something, for fulfilling a life project. Free indeed, but fenced in within a predetermined enclosure, because if you dare try to climb to clamber over it, you are censored by the new Menlo Park high priests of the only school of thought allowed.

So our task is to counter this drift and to reaffirm that the nation is the place where our values are safeguarded and transmitted, renewed every day as the common sense of the people forging an identity that is the greatest treasure in the world. Our opponents paint us as obtuse nationalists in love with old verities, rejecting any dialogue, ready to wage war on the slightest pretext.

But that is not the case. The sovereignty of nations is not out to destroy Europe, it wants the true real Europe of peoples and identities, not the abstract Europe decided in back rooms by technocrats. It does not want to impose its own interests at the expense of other nation states. When Trump says America first or we say Italy first, it certainly means defending the national economic interests of those countries.

But as conservatives I think we have to focus above all on the world of high finance and the great economic powers that are imposing their will on the nation-states. As I say it the message our homeland first means reaffirming the primacy of the real economy over the financial economy; of popular sovereignty over supranational entities with no democratic legitimacy. Modern national conservatism defends the identities of nations as the basis for the new forms of cooperation.

That is why while defending the Italian sovereignty, we cannot forget to defend Viktor Orbán’s Hungary or Kachinsky’s Poland, once again under attack from the European progressive mainstream. That is why, without the shameful ambiguity typical of the left, we defend the right of the State of Israel to its security and future peace and prosperity. Our patriotism is the will to defend our homelands from the great challenges of our age; challenges that will mark the future and the very survival of our civilization. We have to face together the division between extreme nationalism which is as bad as the weakness of ill-defined supranational entities such as the European Union.

The only possible answer must be the alliance of homelands that believe in a common destiny. It is this vision that has led us to join the great family of the European conservatives: the idea of a new Europe as a confederation of sovereign nation-states capable of cooperating on important matters while remaining free to take decisions regarding matters affecting our daily lives. It is much more than a choice of political positioning. It is taking up a firm stand and choosing sides.

I have an image in mind of President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II walking in the gardens of the president residence in Florida back in 1987. It is the image of two great men walking together alone along the paths of history in that brief period in the 20th century that was to change the world very shortly thereafter with the collapse of communism thanks also to them.

Remembering them here today it is not simply to pay them tribute. It is a warning, a commitment not to betray their dream of freedom, which is our dream of freedom too. Thank you.

Footnote:  Confirmation that Media Pushing Left Wing Propaganda

USA Today:  Giorgia Meloni: Who is Italy’s most far-right leader since Mussolini?

NY Post:  Far-right pol Giorgia Meloni poised to become Italy’s first female PM

BBC:  Far-right pol Giorgia Meloni poised to become Italy’s first female PM

The Guardian:  Giorgia Meloni is a danger to Italy and the rest of Europe

CNN: Giorgia Meloni claims victory to become Italy’s most far-right government since the fascist era of Benito Mussolini

NY Times:  Some Women Fear Giorgia Meloni’s Far-Right Agenda Will Set Italy Back

The Conversation: Giorgia Meloni and the return of fascism: how Italy got here

France24:  Mother, Italian, Christian’: Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s far-right leader

Summary:  A person claims to be a proud mother, Italian and Christian.  For this she is labeled: Far-right.  Which tells you she is mainstream and the labelers are far-left.

We have evidence of a sea change against leftist politics, recently in Sweden ousting the long incumbent left wing parties. Boom! Leftists Ousted in Sweden  Next up this month is Italy where a similar change is expected. Italy’s right heads for clear election victory, final polls indicate.

Closer to home, in Canada keen observer Rex Murphy reports in Epoch Times  Poilievre’s Star Rises as the Liberals Fumble and Falter.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

There wasn’t much drama to the event.  Ever since the Conservative leadership race was announced, it was clear from the crowds that showed up at Pierre Poilievre’s rallies that he was the enthusiastic favourite, and by a long shot. He did not merely win. He was a rocket. The rest were Volkswagens.

Secondly, he also demonstrated from the first he was serious, by which I mean the tone and substance of his speeches gave indication this was a guy ready and eager to take on the current leader. He found both a theme and manner that kept the crowds swelling till the very end. Turnout had the excitement level of a general election, and there is no reason whenever the next election occurs—if and when Jagmeet Singh uncouples his diminished NDP from the Liberals—that excitement will abate. In fact, it will be greater.

Justin Trudeau, should he hang on, will go into it as the underdog, and should he drop out before the challenge, Chrystia Freeland will not be the challenger so many in the media have been pretending or building her up to be. Ms. Freeland will be carrying Mr. Trudeau’s baggage, and the only good thing about that is that it won’t be at Pearson Airport.

The Liberals, after their long and dreary tenure, are at present a roaring catastrophe.

They are stumbling in every conceivable direction. They cannot maintain even the most basic and routine of government functions. They have made a mess of issuing Canadian passports—the passport being the most significant and symbolical instruments of citizenship. At the same time, their precious monomania about “systemically racist” Canada has Heritage Canada and the CRTC blindly doling out over half a million dollars to a certified antisemite (not even resident in Canada) to teach “anti-racism”!

They were a mess at the beginning of COVID, maintaining—as always with the Liberals—that it would be “racist” to ban flights. Now at its end or expiry they impose the wantonly useless arriveCAN app and are still uselessly forcing passengers on flights to mask up (between meals) to add two more miseries to the nightmare that is getting in or out of major Canadian airports.

A great country in Europe, under an energy siege from Vladimir Putin, comes to Canada to see if our country can help with its extensive supplies of oil and gas, and is turned away empty handed.

Because Canada under Green Justin has done everything but declare the the oil and gas industry a criminal activity. Instead, that German chancellor is given the promise of a “hydrogen facility” in Stephenville, Newfoundland, which if it ever should develop, which if it ever should develop will come at least a decade past the current crisis.

Trudeau gave Greta Thunberg, the teen scold, a better welcome.

We haven’t had a real Parliament in nearly three years, and the promise is that when it resumes fairly soon, this too will be a “Zoom” production. Every other public event, from concerts to sports shows to conferences, are back to normal, but the Liberal-NDP absentee parliamentarians insist face-to-face House of Commons sittings are a health hazard. No one believes this, but the NDP and the Liberals shamelessly insist on it anyway.

Still, full cabinets can fly to B.C. for special meetings. Do you think that when the PM and the cabinet fly they are wearing masks? Were they wearing masks when they convened for lunch and dinner in B.C.? Does Trudeau wear masks on his many foreign jaunts? Parliament is not functioning as it should and must when members are virtual ghosts, when the whole of Parliament, physically, does not meet. This “health-risk” is just opposition avoidance. The Ottawa press gallery should be pushing this point with force and relentlessly, but alas, no.

Finally, the whole style of this government—apart from its incompetence, its aimlessness, its evolution into nasty and divisive rhetoric, and its resort to “wedge” issues (Trudeau’s cant against the unvaccinated in last summer’s election)—has an even bigger problem.

It has become annoying.

The virtue-speak, the always cloying telling Canadians what they are thinking, the endless moralizing homilies always reflecting self-congratulatory lights back on the speaker, whether the PM, the environment minister, or heritage or diversity. A little smug glow on first entering office is a forgivable folly. But it wears thin in seven years after a trail of ethics breaches, grossly gaudy foreign adventures (the Great Costume Tour of India), numerous still-unfinished inquiries, and above all the Liberals’ manic absorption with global warming.

The government is tired. And it is annoying. It would not take a campaigner of Pierre Poilievre’s now-proven skills to take it down.

It is an old and true maxim in politics that opposition parties do not win, governments defeat themselves. And this one over the last year in particular has an unwonted keenness in preparing for its own departure.

Poilievre will be attacked remorselessly. The larger part of the media will not make it easy for him. But his leadership campaign displayed both focus and energy. Whenever the contest comes he will enter it with eagerness, facing a defensive and exhausted opponent.

 

 

Transcript Excerpt:

Note that the exit polls initially suggested that the left-wing block would win but the actual results of the vote now suggest a victory for the right-wing block. Again we see the shy voter effect, where the voters tell the pollsters that they’re going to vote left wing, but then actually go in and vote for the right-wing parties.

Another huge white pill is the fact that 58% of young voters, those aged 18 to 29, voted for the right wing block. More specifically: from people between the ages of 18 and 21, Sweden Democrats received 22 percent of the vote. That represents a doubling compared to the last election.

Another added irony is the fact that the ruling leftist party social Democrats lost votes to a new far-left pro-migrant party called Nyans in some heavily migrant populated areas of the country like Rinkeby (Stockholm). Significant numbers of voters have abandoned SD for Nyans, funnily enough. They’ve done so in response to SD having to acknowledge that mass migration has basically failed, with the Swedish prime minister previously vowing to put a stop to the growth of ethnic ghettos. So the pro-migrant party might have actually cost the left-wing block the election.

You love to see it but it’s a shame what has had to happen to Sweden in order for the left to lose power. Soaring crime, much of it driven by vast numbers of unintegrated migrants. Social disorder driven by warp speed multi-ethnicity that over the last 20 years took Sweden from being one of the safest countries in Europe to being one of the most dangerous. This was exemplified by yet another round of violent riots in migrant dense areas earlier this year.

Overall, whatever the final result, the election represents a stunning achievement for the Sweden Democrats who have completely outstripped expectations and are now a huge influential power block within Sweden. Because they dared smash through Sweden’s creepy ominous obsession with political correctness. And because large enough numbers of people are finally sick of the leftists demented agenda to use Mass Migration as a weapon to eviscerate the identity of the country.

“The Swedish people have voted for a change of power”, wrote Jimmie Åkesson, head of the right-wing Sweden Democrats, on Facebook. “Our success in the election, both for the conservative coalition and for our party, means a heavy responsibility towards the voters, we will manage that responsibility in the best way and with the deepest respect. Enough with failed Socialist policy, which for eight years has continued to lead the country in the wrong direction. It is time to start rebuilding security, welfare and cohesion. It is time to put Sweden first. The Sweden Democrats will be a constructive and driving force in this work.”

Footnote:

There could be more salty tears and exploding heads at “The Guardian” when Italy elects a solidly patriotic government September 25th!

No surprise federally subsidized CBC is in the tank for Trudeau claiming Poilievre is divisive.  Certainly he is not one to be cowed by leftist media bias, and will strongly confront them.  For example,

And it’s not just CBC, but a Global News reporter tried to derail Poilievre’s presser explaining “JustInflation”, how Trudeau’s spending has raised the cost of everything for ordinary Canadians.

Background Post: Hope For Trudeau’s Exit

The end of Trudeau’s regime in Canada can’t happen soon enough, but hope is on the horizon.  Joe Oliver writes at National Post Canada Liberals risk drowning in the Poilievre wave.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

As the Conservative leadership campaign approaches what now seems certain to be Pierre Poilievre’s coronation, progressives are unnerved by the huge crowds of all ages he is attracting across the country, which point to an expanding Conservative base. Predictably, the Laurentian elite and their media loyalists have dissolved into full-blown derangement syndrome, while providing cover for Liberal missteps.

Intriguingly, they are less protective of an increasingly unpopular prime minister.

The conventional wisdom that Poilievre cannot win a national election is wearing thin. Inflation, which people intuitively understand was created and exacerbated by government profligacy, is the public’s top concern. There is also widespread frustration with the government’s maddening incompetence and multiple ministerial missteps: Omar Alghabra for the airport debacles, Marco Mendicino, for misleading Parliament about the Emergencies Act, Karina Gould for mind-boggling passport delays, Mélanie Joly for an official inexplicably attending a Russian diplomatic party, Ahmed Hussen and Pablo Rodriguez for the Marouf scandal, Chrystia Freeland for favouring out-of-control spending over growth.

The prime minister’s charisma has faded with his team’s eroding credibility. Moreover, even die-hard Liberals are disillusioned by his own divisive tactics, hypocritical virtue-signalling, inability to deliver on priorities, tarnished brand abroad and, perhaps most important for them, 50 per cent disapproval rating.

The government is notoriously selective about treating people differently depending on their race, ethnic group, gender identity, sexual preference, age or country of origin.

The most obvious case in point is that despite Laith Marouf’s appallingly bigoted and anti-semitic comments he was paid half a million public dollars to provide anti-racism advice. The absence of even elementary due diligence is inexcusable. Worse, it took over a month for the responsible minister to act and even longer for the prime minister to comment, no doubt in part because he did not want to own up to his ministry’s incompetence but perhaps also because Marouf hypocritically presented himself as a supposed ally in its core mission.

Had a racial minority or Aboriginal person been called a bag of feces or threatened with a bullet to the head the PM would quite rightly have expressed outrage, likely in minutes. He was appropriately quick off the mark when Chrystia Freeland was subject to unacceptable verbal harassment. Which makes the delayed reaction from the government and many in the media in the Marouf case even more disconcerting. The Jewish community is understandably disheartened by the blatant double standard. As a matter of basic decency, not to mention fundamental philosophical principle, governments should treat people equally and not discriminate based on twisted notions about identity or victimhood politics.

Pierre Poilievre clearly understands the widespread and growing anger about the disdain, condescension and snobbery a progressive elite have for working and lower middle-class Canadians. He empathizes with resentment about nanny-state intrusions, the politicization of science and the often bizarre ideas of left-wing ideologues, woke capitalists and “expert” academics. He agrees with people who rail against a government that allows faceless bureaucrats to infringe on their agency, curtail their freedom and damage their standard of living with heavy taxes and burdensome regulations.

Critics are torn between claiming Pierre Poilievre has no policies and denouncing these non-policies as extreme. He is decried as a populist because he seeks public support (as if the Liberal default position on just about everything is not to swing with public opinion). The “Trump North” label has failed to stick because he has been consistently pro-choice, supports gay marriage and favours immigration.

Liberals loath Pierre Poilievre because they fear he will dismantle excessive government intervention in society and the economy, reverse tax-and-spend policies, encourage natural resource development, defend free speech and genuine diversity of opinion, decry woke-ism, defund the CBC and undercut elite influence.

But it is Pierre Poilievre, not Justin Trudeau, who reflects mainstream Canadian thinking about fundamental issues. He believes profoundly in personal freedom and is proud of our history.

In contrast, Trudeau has called Canada systemically racist and guilty of genocide. He proclaimed it the world’s first “post-national” state and declared “There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada.” His far-left thinking manifests itself in a profligate government that creates more problems than it solves.

Trudeau’s cultish climate obsession has wrought enormous harm to jobs, growth, national unity and the economic prospects of Indigenous peoples. Yet it has not achieved a single national GHG target or impacted global warming even minutely — something that actually could be achieved if Canadian LNG replaced coal in energy-hungry Asia and Europe.

I expect Pierre Poilievre will reach out to his leadership rivals and their supporters the way Stephen Harper did as prime minister. He can easily do that without compromising conservative principles, policy priorities or authenticity. It would be the magnanimous and smart thing to do. He will then speak directly to Canadians about how he will represent their values and interests and pursue his vision for a prosperous, proud and fair country for everyone. No wonder Liberals are worried.

Missouri AG Eric Schmitt reports at his website: Missouri and Louisiana Attorneys General Ask Court to Compel Department of Justice to Produce Communications Between Top Officials and Social Media Companies.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

“We have already received a number of documents that clearly prove that the federal government has an incestuous relationship with social media companies and clearly coordinate to censor freedom of speech, but we’re not done. The Department of Justice is cowering behind executive privilege and has refused to turn over communications between the highest-ranking Biden Administration officials and social media companies. That’s why, yesterday, we asked the Court to compel the Department of Justice to produce those records. We’re just getting started – stay tuned.”

The communications already provided by the Department of Justice to the plaintiff states show, as the joint statement points out, a vast “Censorship Enterprise” across a multitude of federal agencies. In response to Missouri and Louisiana’s interrogatories, defendants identified 45 federal officials at DHS, CISA, the CDC, NIAID, and the Office of the Surgeon General (all of which are contained in either DHS or HHS) that communicate with social media platforms about “misinformation” and censorship. The joint statement points out, “But in those responses, Defendants did not provide information about any federal officials at other federal agencies of whom they are aware who engage in such communications with social-media platforms about misinformation and censorship, though Plaintiffs had specifically asked for this highly relevant information. Defendants’ document production, however, reveals that such officials at other federal agencies exist—for example, their emails include extensive copying of officials at the Census Bureau, and they also include communications involving the Departments of Treasury and State.”

Beyond the Department of Justice’s production, “Meta, for example, has disclosed that at least 32 federal officials—including senior officials at the FDA, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, and the White House—have communicated with Meta about content moderation on its platforms, many of whom were not disclosed in response to Plaintiffs’ interrogatories to Defendants. YouTube disclosed eleven federal officials engaged in such communications, including officials at the Census Bureau and the White House, many of whom were also not disclosed by Defendants.”

The joint statement continues, “The discovery provided so far demonstrates that this Censorship Enterprise is extremely broad, including officials in the White House, HHS, DHS, CISA, the CDC, NIAID, and the Office of the Surgeon General; and evidently other agencies as well, such as the Census Bureau, the FDA, the FBI, the State Department, the Treasury Department, and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. And it rises to the highest levels of the U.S. Government, including numerous White House officials. Defendants have objected to producing some of the most relevant and probative information in their possession.”

This “Censorship Enterprise” is proven by the Department of Justice’s productions thus far, but the full extent of federal officials’ collusion with social media companies on censorship is unknown until the Department of Justice produces further communications requested by Missouri and Louisiana.

Summary from Townhall:

Here’s some of the smoking-gun communications proving the Biden administration was actively working with big tech companies to stifle or censor free expression on a range of issues, including an email from Facebook to Biden’s surgeon general about a meeting between the two entities during which White House expectations regarding Facebook’s policies on “misinformation” were discussed.

The litigation process uncovered specific and explicit information about how Facebook was censoring content posted to its platform, apparently at the Biden administration’s request, based on so-called third party fact checkers who are known to be biased and beholden to Democrat interests. Facebook also explained that it was taking strict action to suppress content on its platform labeled as merely “lacking context” as if it were rated to be entirely false.

It wasn’t just Facebook colluding with the Biden administration, either. Twitter scheduled meetings with White House officials to discuss “vaccine misinformation.”

Meanwhile, both Twitter and Facebook emails with Biden administration officials show the two entities colluding directly in a relationship where “claims” flagged by big tech companies would face “debunking” in regular meetings with the CDC’s “experts.” That is, what the Biden administration decided was harmful “misinformation” would then presumably be squashed by big tech companies at the expense of free speech on their platforms.

In addition to speech related to COVID, the Biden administration pursued a proactive relationship with big tech companies whenever scandal hit, such as the embarrassingly botched rollout of the allegedly discontinued Disinformation Governance Board.

Additional communications showed the White House asking Instagram to remove fake accounts impersonating Dr. Fauci and the Treasury Department’s deputy secretary asking Meta for a meeting “to discuss potential influence operations on social media.”

As Schmitt explained, the documents his litigation with Landry have already uncovered are just the beginning of their probe into what the Biden administration has been doing when it comes to using its position of power to get big tech companies to censor Americans’ speech.

 

Townhall reports Judge Orders Special Master Review of Documents Seized from Mar-a-Lago.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

Judge Aileen M. Cannon, a U.S. District judge from the Southern District of Florida, delivered some bad news to the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday, by ordering that a special master be appointed to review the documents seized from the FBI during last month’s raid of Mar-a-Lago. This means that the DOJ must stop their own review. The DOJ revealed last week that they already reviewed documents which would be subject to such oversight by any special master. 

The special master is to “review the seized property, manage assertions of privilege and make recommendations thereon, and evaluate claims for return of property.”

“The Court hereby authorizes the appointment of a special master to review the seized property for personal items and documents and potentially privileged material subject to claims of attorney- client and/or executive privilege,” the order stated. “Furthermore, in natural conjunction with that appointment, and consistent with the value and sequence of special master procedures, the Court also temporarily enjoins the Government from reviewing and using the seized materials for investigative purposes pending completion of the special master’s review or further Court order.”

As Matt highlighted last week, the DOJ had tried to argue against such a request, as a matter of national security. In response, Trump’s attorneys, as Sarah covered, called the DOJ’s request an “extraordinary document” and argued the government “twists the framework of responding to a motion for a Special Master into an all-encompassing challenge to any judicial consideration, presently or in the future, of any aspect of its unprecedented behavior in this investigation.”

The reveal of records seized by the FBI drew much attention and heavy criticism, as Larry O’Connor and Mike Davis, a former law clerk for Justice Neil Gorsuch, highlighted.

Fox News was among the first outlets to report on Judge Cannon’s order. The Hill included a copy of the order in its coverage. 

Judge Cannon was nominated by then President Donald Trump in May 2020 and confirmed by the Senate in November 2020. She’s asked the DOJ and attorneys for Trump to submit a joint filing by Friday with a list of proposed candidates to serve as the special master.

 

It’s a struggle to understand the rapid and ruinous demise of USA under the Biden administration.  One obvious but insufficient cause is Incompetence.  Powerful and responsible positions were filled with people based on their group identities, regardless of knowledge or skill qualifications, so stupid mistakes were a foregone consequence.  Beyond this, the raiding of the US Treasury by spending trillions of dollars on unaccountable pretexts suggests Corruption must be added in as a factor.  Still, these two do not explain the willful, ruthless and determined efforts by the federal government to systematically destroy the American Republic, its heritage and reputation.

Qui bono?  (Who benefits?)  Who and What is threatened by American Greatness?  And Why must the MAGA champion, Donald Trump, be disappeared by any means necessary?

Kevin Lewis sorts out a credible answer in his American Thinker article We Have Been Thinking about This All Wrong.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.

For many of us, the path our governmental leaders have recently taken has been perplexing. Many of the policy decisions that perhaps sounded good (at least to some) have turned out to be not only clearly deleterious, but often catastrophic for our country. Without hyperbole, I mean catastrophic for our economy, our national defense capability, our national sovereignty, the safety and security of citizens, and our standing among other nations of the world.

We hear that inflation is “temporary,” that “we are not in a recession,” that the administration “feels our pain” at the gas pump and is making a historic effort to bring down prices (though we should really focus on the fact that we are in an exciting “Great Transition”). Even though our money doesn’t go nearly as far as it used to, our economy is in the midst of a “booming recovery.” We are told that a massive new spending bill will somehow reduce inflation — (the “Inflation Reduction Bill”). Even the government’s own CBO stated that it will do almost nothing to reduce inflation. Most economists say it will make inflation much worse.

These statements don’t seem to align with empirical evidence — our everyday experience! Sadly, it would not surprise me at all if it were suddenly announced that “due to the racial overtones and white supremacist associations of ‘up,’ in the interest of equity, it will henceforth be considered down.”

One might reasonably ask, “Why are our government officials doing these things and saying these things that don’t seem to help us or our country?” I believe that asking this question would indicate a basic misunderstanding of our current governmental environment, their views and their goals. You’re thinking about this all wrong!

There are some simple, obvious explanations that we can see and hear from various political experts. One such would be the “do the opposite of whatever Trump did” explanation. That mentality certainly exists. We have seen this from various individuals on both sides of the aisle — the desire to distance themselves from whatever Donald Trump did, whether good or bad. Another explanation would be unwavering allegiance to the progressive/Green New Deal contingent of the Democrat party, who, I assume, Joe Biden believes helped get him elected. There is always the “old standby” Democrat position that more government and more spending are always a good thing. With regard to the administration’s complete disregard for and puzzling silence regarding the unsecured southern border, there is the conventional wisdom that if individuals come to the U.S. illegally and are given benefits and, more than likely, the chance to stay, they will be beholden to the Democrat policies of which they are beneficiaries, and therefore be lifelong democratic voters, ostensibly keeping Democratic politicians in power forever.

These are all good possibilities, each with a degree of validity, but they don’t seem like enough.  They might explain some things, but not all of them. When decisions are made that are blatantly unconstitutional, when policies are adopted that do not benefit U.S. citizens, and may even demonstrably hurt them, one might rightly begin to believe that there is more at play here — that there may be an even more insidious agenda afoot. I believe that there is.

I believe that the goal, simply put, is to make America less, in every respect.

If the U.S. is arguably the most powerful, wealthiest, and most independent nation, with safeguards to avoid tyranny and subversion built into its founding documents, it becomes a major (if not the major) obstacle to a globalist one-world government, wherein all nations have equity. Some might consider the idea of a one-world government a conspiracy theory espoused by the Alt-Right or some other equally vilified group. Listening to the narratives from the United Nations’ deliberations or from many of their leaders, it seems clear that it is indeed a real goal. Many of our own leaders, including several U.S. presidents, both Democrat and Republican, have extolled the virtue of the New World Order. Whatever you choose to call it, I believe that many (most?) within our government consider the U.S. too wealthy, too powerful — too privileged. For them, that must change.

The movers and shakers running the government, along with their happily willing figurehead (currently Joe Biden), view all who oppose this “transition” with disgust. They view anything like an “America First” mentality and certainly the “Make America Great Again” mentality merely as primitive tribalism.

If seen from this perspective, Biden’s perplexing decisions and policies align and make some sort of perverse sense. America is not just “transitioning” away from fossil fuel toward green and renewable energy. It is transitioning toward its place as just another nation-state of the world — no better, no worse. For that to occur, the U.S. must be “brought down” from its current position. Since citizens would not voluntarily jump on the bandwagon if this goal were stated clearly, it must be done surreptitiously.

Biden didn’t shut down oil and gas production in America (then plead to buy it from other countries) because of the climate or because he was seeking “green energy” (obviously, because we are still using oil and gas, just paying much more for it, and becoming beholden to other countries). It was done because it was one simple but very powerful way to weaken America (under the pretext of helping the climate or moving toward green energy). Not only has Joe Biden failed to fulfill his oath of office (to defend the U.S. from all enemies, foreign and domestic), but he (and the obviously intricate network of controlling governmental operatives) has intentionally and specifically disparaged and discarded it.

Now it all begins to make sense, and it scares the hell out of me.

Footnote: One candidate for Canadian Prime Minister gets it.

 

The terms “red pill” and “blue pill” refer to a choice between the willingness to learn a potentially unsettling or life-changing truth by taking the red pill or remaining in contented ignorance with the blue pill. The terms refer to a scene in the 1999 film The Matrix.  Sash Stone applies the metaphor in discussing American perceptions of socio-political reality in her substack article The Raid that Red-Pilled America.  Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

No one who watches Joe and Mika or Rachel Maddow or reads the New York Times will ever be red-pilled. They simply believe that is the only reality. How could it not be if every high-status person in America is going along with it? If your friends and family go along with it, if your social media feed confirms it every day with links. If it’s in the media, it must be true, right? How do you not trust it if it’s on NBC News or the Washington Post?

Waking up to the media’s near-total collapse during the Trump years is a big part of being red-pilled. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. The only way to escape the media’s hold on the narrative is to cut it out completely, at least until you can see that there is another reality, and very often, the actual truth.

If they hadn’t already given up on the “establishment” by watching them crush Bernie Sanders like a bug in 2016, 2020 would do it. The response to COVID was a big one. Dividing the country the way it did into the compliant and the non-compliant. What it did to businesses, to the minds of children, to everyone who was locked down and locked in – unable to attend funerals, weddings, and death beds.

But the raid on Mar-a-Lago very likely has red-pilled Americans even more, especially when you put it together with the authoritarianism during COVID, the suppression of speech, the silencing of dissent, and the dehumanization we all live with every day.

To watch our Department of Justice raid a former president’s home months before the midterms, where the Democrats were expected to do very badly, looks suspect to anyone. If they were trying to create distrust in our institutions, they succeeded.

Most Americans have seen, maybe for the first time, that our government has become too powerful, too punitive, and too authoritarian in crushing dissenting voices and outsiders who challenge that authority. We call that being red-pilled.

More worrisome is the ongoing mass hysteria that started on Twitter, spread into our institutions of power, and now has spread to our government. To have such a complicit and compliant media is even more terrifying. What wouldn’t they go along with by now? Gulags?

We all thought “cancel culture” would be confined to social media but clearly it has become the modus operandi for our establishment government. It’s hard not see this as yet another extension of the insanity and hysteria over Trump.

The Mar-a-Lago raid on its own would have one thing. But it comes right after Merrick Garland announced the “largest investigation in American history” against a former president. That came on the heels of prime-time hearings that aired on every news network except Fox, led by Liz Cheney, where they compared January 6th to the end of slavery and the Jim Crow South. This, after Kamala Harris, compared January 6th to Pearl Harbor and 9/11.

A red-pilled America is probably starting to think the reaction to Trump, rather than Trump himself, might be the even bigger threat.

Instead of bringing more voters in, the administrative state has now red-pilled even more Americans. . . It’s likely that many of these voters agree with Rep. Mayra Flores (R-Texas) who responded to the Mar-a-Lago search thus: “The FBI raid on the residence of the former POTUS is unprecedented. We do not live in a third world country.” 

Whether the newly red-pilled Americans will become GOP voters or whether they will support Trump at all remains an open question. But many of them will be coming out of August 8th with a high distrust for a government that would use the Department of Justice to sabotage its political enemies.

The media has long since lost touch with reality.

They listen to Twitter, not the American public. For too long now, the Biden administration has been taking its cues from the wrong people. They think if it makes Joy Behar happy, it’s worth doing. They think it’s the right move if Rob Reiner approves on Twitter. Twitter is a small pond with way too many big fish driving ongoing hysteria and preventing the Democrats from focusing on the problems of average Americans.

Chasing Trump for six years based on one mass hysteria event after another has destroyed the Democratic Party and possibly our Department of Justice. Just because they can indict Trump on some procedural error doesn’t mean they should.

The problem with mass hysteria is that it often leads to the dehumanization of whole groups of people. While most see it as more of a physical affliction, like coughing fits or laughing disease, it can also work when a threat spreads quickly in a tight-knit community. Think about a snake slithering into a tent. The more who are connected, the faster the hysteria spreads.

The hysteria only ends when they’ve gotten rid of the bad thing. That is why we watched person after person purged and persecuted from their jobs, Hollywood, and social media all through the Trump years, a practice that continues to this day. In 2016 there are more people online and connected than ever before. In 2020, even more people were online and connected.

Dehumanization is the red line we should never cross, not necessarily because of what it does to other people, but because of what it does to ourselves, nothing less than the total destruction of the human soul.

There were no real witches in Salem, America is not corrupt to its core with “white supremacy,” and Trump is not an omnipotent Super Villain. We’re all just human beings, flaws and all. Trump is still the same gadfly from the 1980s whose fame revolved around his opulent lifestyle.

There is nothing left of the Trump hunters. They have been destroyed by their addiction. It defines who they are now and defines what they are. For people who have everything – money, culture, art museums, every major corporation in the country, all Big Tech platforms were undone by their need to destroy one man.

Americans are looking at the January 6th committee hearings, and now, with the raid on Mar-a-Lago and thinking, do they not trust their own candidates or policies to win in November? Why are they so worried the people will vote for Trump instead? Shouldn’t they be fixing themselves rather than trying to take out their opponent before he’s even announced he’s running?

I never thought anything could shake my faith and loyalty to the Democratic Party. I trusted them. I believed in them. That doesn’t mean I think the Republican Party is any better, but they don’t control everything as the Democrats do.

They will probably indict Trump. That will mark the last gasp of their collapsing empire. The red pills will be eaten like candy. No American will ever see them the same way again.

I am not MAGA. I am not a Conservative. My friends and family do not understand why I care about Trump and his supporters. They want me to join them in their hatred. They want me to be inside the same group hysteria as they are. I know where they’re coming from. I used to be among them. I did everything they’re doing now.

But the red pill is a powerful one. Once you find your way out of the bubble of hysteria on the Left, it feels more like normal life. People are people again. And that, my friends, is worth waking up for.

Postscript

In response to Michael’s question in his comment, “Where’s the science in this matter?”

From Ted Noel’s American Thinker article, Truth Matters And Never More So Than With the Mar-a-Lago Raid. Excerpts in italics with my bolds.

“Truth” is a verbal representation of what is or what has happened. Truth does not care whether you believe it or not. It will not argue with you. It will simply hit you between the eyes when you ignore or deny it enough times. For example, if you have no income and you keep spending money, eventually your credit card will be rejected. It’s not complicated; it’s just a fact. It’s not my truth or your truth. It is the truth. In this vein, we must consider the seizure of documents from Mar-a-Lago. There are four classes of material.

The first is the simplest. Donald Trump works at Mar-a-Lago while he’s there, so he has created work-related documents. Those are properly his and should never have been taken. They aren’t covered by the Presidential Records Act and aren’t classified security documents.

Second are his passports. As president, he had both a personal and a diplomatic passport. Those are his unless he is required to surrender them by a Court or the State Department. No such orders have been given and, should he be required to surrender them, the Mar-a-Lago raid would look like kicking over a sand castle on a beach.

The third class is security-related documents. Here’s where things get interesting. If Trump took classified documents with him and did not store them properly, then it is possible to suggest that there might be a security violation.

But…

In 1988, the Supreme Court, in Navy v. Egan, declared that the President’s control over classified documents is absolute:

“The President, after all, is the “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.” U.S.Const., Art. II, § 2. His authority to classify and control access to information bearing on national security and to determine whether an individual is sufficiently trustworthy to occupy a position in the Executive Branch that will give that person access to such information flows primarily from this constitutional investment of power in the President, and exists quite apart from any explicit congressional grant.

This is also a direct reference to Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution. “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.”

In short, the Constitution granted President Trump complete authority to classify or declassify anything he wanted. No one had any legal authority to question him. He was not required to follow any procedure. His standing order that any materials he removed from the Oval Office were deemed declassified was both fully effective and unquestionable. He had “plenary authority.”

There is only one possibility regarding any materials taken from the White House before noon on January 20, 2021. Unless Donald Trump rescinded his standing order, all those documents were, in fact, declassified the moment they left the Oval Office.

Thus, any Espionage Act charge relating to documents at Mar-a-Lago is bogus.
As President Trump said, “All the documents were declassified.”

As for the movers, they are required to be gone with all the outgoing President’s belongings, mementos, and whatever before noon. Put bluntly, if Trump didn’t get it out of the White House by noon, he didn’t have it at Mar-a-Lago, and that means that any papers fell under his standing declassification order. Game, set, and match.

The final question is whether Trump had documents that the Presidential Records Act says belong to the National Archives. While that’s possible, 45 has been very cooperative on that count. When the movers took things out of the White House, it’s quite likely that they scooped up some items that fit into that description. On an earlier DOJ visit to Mar-a-Lago, some of these things were identified and handed over without objection. And as The Donald has noted, all they had to do was ask.  For National Archives issues, a simple phone call would work. Trump’s personal work and passports don’t fall under any form of request or excuse. So, what’s going on?

I can’t read the alleged mind of anyone on the Left, so here comes my best guess. Sleepy Joe’s puppet masters realized that their attempt to use the January 6 circus to paint Trump as an insurrectionist was failing. So, they needed to find a way to soil him so badly that his base would reject him. “Under investigation” would be the magic words. But they forgot a key item.

First, as I’ve noted above, Trump did nothing illegal. Second, they tried multiple investigations. Russiagate flopped. Then, an investigation into a routine phone call resulted in a sham impeachment. Finally, when bad actors crashed Biden’s Electoral College party, the Left gave Trump credit. But in every case, the Left failed.