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Friday, 17 January 2025

Cruz Releases Ad Promoting Justice For Jocelyn Act

 Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) released a powerful new ad on Thursday promoting the Justice for Jocelyn Act.

The legislation was named after Jocelyn Nungaray, a 12-year-old who was allegedly murdered by two illegal aliens Johan Jose Rangel Martinez, 21, and Franklin Jose Pena Ramos, 26.

The Justice for Jocelyn Act would require that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) fill every detention bed before enrolling any illegal alines in the “alternative to detention” program.

The bill would require that all illegal aliens released as part of this program be subject to GPS monitoring and they would have a curfew imposed on them.

“Last year, I began the fight for justice for 12-year-old Jocelyn,” Cruz said. “The aliens responsible for her murder crossed the southern border illegally and should have been detained by ICE.”

“Democrats’ reckless open-border policies prevented ICE and Border Patrol agents from acting, left thousands of detention center beds empty, and allowed these criminals to go free,” he continued. “Congress should act with urgency to ensure no other American family ever has to endure what Jocelyn’s mother, Alexis Nungaray, has been forced to face.”

 

“Standing alongside Alexis in this fight for justice has been an immense privilege, and I will not stop fighting until our communities are safe and justice is served,” he added.

WATCH:


Democrat Staffers Push To Reduce Full-Time Work Week To 32 Hours

 Democrat staff members who belong to a far-Left caucus wrote a letter to congressional leaders this week asking that they reduce the full-time work week to just 32 hours so that they do not get burned out.

The Congressional Progressive Staff Association, which represents House and Senate employees across the country, claimed that their proposal was about “a more sustainable approach to work on a national level.”

“By adopting a 32-hour workweek for staff on a rotating basis, you can accomplish these goals while retaining the productivity and quality of work you expect and deserve from your team,” they claimed. “We urge you to consider piloting the program in your own offices and encouraging your fellow Members across your conference or caucus to do the same.”

They complained that their jobs working for members of Congress were “often demanding and intensive.”

“Staffers routinely work long hours at a level of rigor that regularly leads to burnout,” the letter claimed.

The proposal, which was widely mocked online, said that members should institute “a 32-hour workweek for D.C.-based staff during district work periods and a 32-hour workweek for district-based staff while in-session.”

“Doing so — without a reduction in pay — would allow both D.C. and distinct staff to be fully available around the clock throughout more intensive periods when the Member is in town while allowing for a more sustainable schedule when workloads are more manageable,” they added. “If implemented, offices are not likely to see a drop in overall productivity.”

 

The staffers claimed that members who were skeptical should “engage in a six-month pilot” to see if the reduction in hours leads to increased outcomes.

Rep. Burgess Owens (R-UT) responded to the letter: “Members of Congress are always looking to hire and retain the best staff—hard workers who you can count on to go above and beyond on behalf of constituents.”

“My advice to these ‘progressive staffers’ is simple: find a new industry. Public service is clearly not meant for you,” he added.

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) responded: “If progressive hill staffers worked 0 hours per week, it would probably do more to help the Democrats win than anything else they could do.”

“You want to work 32 hours but get paid for 40? Nope,” said Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL). “The taxpayers aka your boss, deserve folks who hustle and work hard FULL TIME on their behalf. This is public service after all…”

Queer Time, Black Shakespeare, and Afrofuturism: The Wokest College Courses In America

 From “Queer Time, Queer Space” to “Black Shakespeare,” universities across the United States are offering left-wing courses that range from the radical to the downright strange.

It’s no surprise that elite colleges and universities have left-wing biases. But rather than offer courses on Marx or critical theory, many institutions are going even further in the spring semester. Academics are bringing increasingly fringe subjects to the classroom, “queering” the world of architecture and “racializing” science fiction.

Here are some of the most woke classes being offered on college campuses this semester.

Art Films: Queer Time, Queer Space (Brown University)

The Ivy League institution in Providence, Rhode Island is offering students Art Films: Queer Time, Queer Space, which will encourage “a sustained meditation on cinematic practices that trouble and disrupt normative, reproductive, developmental, and accumulative time.” The description goes into more depth, explaining its methods.

“By situating queer theories of temporality in proximity to time-based art-making, we will engage with and analyze art films, digital media, and performative works that push the boundaries of the aesthetically and politically possible,” it adds.

Spaces of Queer Theory (University of California Berkeley)

Not to be outdone, UC Berkeley is hosting “Spaces of Queer Theory,” a class that examines architectural practices and their interactions with queer politics. It will delve into “queer necropolitics and the carceral state” as well as “the architectural futurity of queer communities,” all while discussing “queering architecture,” “queer ecologies,” and “spaces of queer consumption.”

Black Shakespeare; Race, Climate Change, and Environmental Justice (Columbia University)

Called “Black Shakespeare,” the Columbia University course raises the question, “Can performing Shakespeare be an activist endeavor?” It goes further. “Can creators and scholars separate Shakespeare from the apparatus of white supremacy that has been built around his works?” the course description inquires. It even probes, “What are the challenges and obstacles for BIPOC scholars working on Shakespeare in academia?”

Students at Columbia can also take “Race, Climate Change, and Environmental Justice,” which seeks to untether science from its “colonial foundations” and encourages students to “decolonize their own research.”

“We begin by examining the colonial foundations of the sciences, with a special focus on the geo- and climate sciences,” the description explains. “The ideological underpinnings of these sciences assume the earth to be an inert object ripe for exploitation; this legacy of European modernity is often at odds with the worldviews of indigenous peoples and their relations with nature.”

AfroFuturism (Vassar College)

“Afrofuturists reconfigure notions of race and identity by appropriating science fiction tropes while speculating potential futures free from any Eurocentric gaze,” reads the description of the course at the Poughkeepsie, New York college.

“Beginning with Afrofuturist progenitor Sun Ra, we go “black to the future” and closely encounter other Afronauts such as Octavia Butler, Janelle MonĂ¡e, Nnedi Okorafor, OutKast, Parliament-Funkadelic, Ishmael Reed, and Fatimah Tuggar, among others.”

The Sexual Life of Colonialism; Race, Gender, and Medicine (Harvard University)

Students at Harvard University are invited to take a course called “Race, Gender, and Medicine” which employs “feminist theory, disability justice movements, critical race theory, queer theory, anti-colonial thought, and trans liberation movements.” One of the focuses of the course, the description explains, is “the development and racialization of transgender medicine.” It also poses the question, “What unique challenges do trans and gender-diverse youth face in seeking medical care as a result of recent transphobic laws and policies?”

Another course at the institution is titled “The Sexual Life of Colonialism” and seeks to “investigate the role of colonialism and neocolonialism in racial imaginations of gender and sexuality.”

Black Feminist and Queer Contemporary Culture (Swarthmore College)

Pennsylvania’s Swarthmore College will offer a course on “Black Feminist and Queer Contemporary Culture,” with a focus on “the works of black queer and trans visual artists and writers.”

“Using the tools of black feminist and queer theory, the class will cover topics and concepts such as Afrofuturism, stereotypes, intersectionality, surveillance, film, performance, abstraction/figuration, photography, poetry, and ungendering,” the description states.

Queer and Trans of Color Critique; Queer and Trans Latino Studies (Northwestern University)

Evanston, Illinois’ Northwestern University joins the ranks of the other institutions with classes on race and queer politics. Students can take both “Queer and Trans of Color Critique” and “Queer and Trans Latino Studies,” the latter of which “will explore the construction of gender and sexuality as it intersects with race, class, immigration, and other relationships of power” and focus on “Black feminist, women of color feminist, and queer of color critique writing and activism.”

Queer, Quare, Ku’er: or Queer of Color Critique (University of Chicago)

The highly-ranked University of Chicago advertises a course titled “Queer, Quare, Ku’er: or queer of color critique,” which poses the question “what could queer theory look like if we begin from the premise that its model subject is not white?”

It also has a number of different courses on queer politics, including “Queer Theory and Queer Practice,” “The Aesthetics of Camp: Queer Style, Queer Sensibility,” and “Queer Theology and Queer of Color Critique.”

Trump Demands FBI Retain All Records From DEI Office It Closed

 President-elect Donald Trump demanded on Thursday night that the FBI retain all records from the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) office that it closed last month.

The Bureau quietly closed its Office of Diversity and Inclusion last month ahead of Trump’s inauguration as the president-elect has promised to gut DEI efforts throughout the federal government — a move that many corporations have started to do over the last year.

“We demand that the FBI preserve and retain all records, documents, and information on the now closing DEI Office—Never should have been opened and, if it was, should have closed long ago,” Trump wrote on social media. “Why is it that they’re closing one day before the Inauguration of a new Administration? The reason is, CORRUPTION!”

The FBI said in a statement that it closed the office last month, but it did not elaborate on why.

The FBI’s DEI agenda recently came under fire from Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), who warned that the ideological agenda is being elevated over the mission of ensuring the safety of Americans. “I am deeply concerned that—under your leadership—the Bureau has prioritized Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives over its core mission of protecting the American people,” Blackburn said in a letter earlier this month.

One former FBI special agent Nicole Parker blasted the “constant push for social justice weaponization at the FBI whose top priorities are to protect the American people and uphold the constitution” in a statement of her own.

 

The FBI still lists the Office of Diversity and Inclusion on its website, explaining that the office’s mission is to “provide guidance and implement programs that promote a diverse and inclusive workplace that allows all employees to succeed and advance.”

“The FBI’s efforts to diversify are crucial to creating an inclusive workforce and to being increasingly effective and efficient in our investigations and keeping the American public safe,” a quote from the FBI’s first Chief Diversity Officer Scott McMillion also reads on the site.

It also encourages employees to join employee resource groups, identity-based associations that The Daily Wire found are used as activist nodes to push the leftwing agenda. It is unclear if these groups will be discontinued along with the agency’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion.

Various different agencies across the federal government are still pursuing the DEI agenda, however, with agencies under the Biden administration taking an estimated 500 actions intended to embed and promote DEI. Upon being inaugurated next week, Trump and his administration will have the opportunity to fire woke bureaucrats who may attempt to stonewall his policy agenda and purge the DEI agenda from the bureaucracy and military.

Thursday, 16 January 2025

Iran’s President Expected to Sign ‘Strategic Partnership’ Deal in Russia

 Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is expected to visit Moscow on Friday for talks with strongman Vladimir Putin, which both governments confirmed would include the signing of a new “Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty.”

Pezeshkian, who is subordinate to Iranian “supreme leader” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is currently on a regional tour including a stop in Tajikistan on Thursday before his arrival in Russia. International observers are watching the Iranian-Russian meeting with anticipation as the Kremlin and Tehran both teased the new “partnership treaty” as significantly reinforcing the close ties that already exist between the two rogue states, particularly on the economic front.

Iran and Russia have long maintained a diplomatic relationship and supported each other’s goals internationally. Together, they were the key allies responsible for keeping Syrian dictator Bashar Assad in power for over a decade of civil war; Assad’s regime fell to the jihadist militia Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in December. The two countries are also members of the anti-American BRICS coalition, where Pezeshkian proclaimed the coalition hoped to “neutralize” American interests.

The two countries are upgrading their ties officially to replace a 24-year-old cooperation deal, the “Treaty of the Foundation of Mutual Relations and the Principles of Cooperation,” that was supposed to last ten years but expires in 2026 after several extensions. The Iranian state propaganda outlet PressTV reported on Monday that the new comprehensive agreement will focus heavily on multiple economic sectors and facilitate trade to help keep both floundering economies afloat.

“The agreement covers multiple areas, including economy, transportation, energy, healthcare and agriculture,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday, “as well as cooperation in the field of common challenges such as organized crime, and terrorism and dealing with climate change.”

The agreement is expected to last at least 20 years.

One field that the deal will not cover, Iranian Ambassador to Moscow Kazem Jalali said on Thursday, is direct military aid. The agreement will not include any mutual defense provisions, Jalali told reporters, according to the Russian news agency Tass. International observers had expressed some concern that Moscow and Tehran could agree to such a mutual defense provision as Russia has signed similar agreements with fellow rogue states in recent memory, most prominently with North Korea in June.

The signing of the North Korean mutual defense deal, which occurred during a visit by Putin to Pyongyang, preceded Ukraine reporting the presence of thousands of North Korean soldiers on its borders, fighting alongside Russians in the ongoing invasion of that country. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced last week that his troops had captured at least two North Korean soldiers alive.

“The nature of this agreement is different,” Jalali insisted. “[With North Korea], they established cooperation in a number of areas we did not really focus on. Our country’s independence and security, as well as reliance on our own strength, are very important.”

“We are not interested in joining any blocs,” Jalali said, a year after Iran joined the BRICS coalition. “In 45 years, we have paid a [heavy] price for the independence of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

The deal will include, Jalali shared, a note on respecting the “territorial integrity” of both countries, which would indicate that Iran would accept Russia’s false claims over sovereign Ukrainian territory.

Top Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov did list “military” cooperation, without offering specifics, as part of the new comprehensive agreement in remarks to the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) on Wednesday.

“The areas of cooperation will include military, political, trade, economic, scientific, educational, cultural, and humanitarian activities,” he reportedly said.

In addition to signing the agreement, the Kremlin press service explained in a statement on Thursday that Peseshkian and Putin would discuss the war between Israel and Iran’s proxies in Gaza, the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, and other “developments in the Middle East.”

“Russian-Iranian relations are on a rise, intensively developing under the principles of mutual respect and due regard for interests,” the statement emphasized, according to the news service Interfax.

Jalali independently highlighted in a separate interview on Thursday that finding a way to pay for bilateral trade outside of the SWIFT international payment system, from which Russia has been banned over the Ukraine invasion, is on the docket for the two leaders.

“The situation in banking and currency cooperation has significantly improved,” he said. “At the moment, we are working on a confidential financial messaging channel to completely get rid of SWIFT.”

The timing of Pezeshkian’s trip has caused some concern, as it arrives immediately before the anticipated inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump on Monday. Russian Foreign Ministry Sergey Lavrov insisted in remarks on Wednesday that the agreement the two parties will sign, and the visit to complete the partnership, is meant to benefit Russia and Iran, not to hurt the United States.

“This treaty, like the Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between the Russian Federation and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, is not directed against any third country,” Lavrov told reporters. “It is constructive and aims to enable both Russia and Iran, as well as our friends in various parts of the world, to better develop their economies, address social issues, and ensure reliable defence capabilities.”

Democrat Rep. Rashida Tlaib Calls Netanyahu a ‘Genocidal Maniac’ for Not Meeting to Approve Ceasefire Deal

 Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) on Thursday spewed harsh criticisms against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding a ceasefire deal in the Gaza Strip.

“Genocidal maniac Netanyahu and his cabinet will never stop until we have an arms embargo,” Tlaib wrote in a social media post.

Her post featured an Aljazeera news story with the headline “Israel’s Netanyahu says cabinet will not meet to approve ceasefire deal”:

A few social media users replied to Tlaib’s message, one of them calling him “evil.”

However, Netanyahu’s office said his Cabinet will not meet to approve the agreement for a ceasefire and the release of several hostages until the terrorist organization known as Hamas “backs down from what it called a ‘last minute crisis,'” the Associated Press (AP) reported Thursday.

“Netanyahu’s office accused Hamas of reneging on parts of the agreement in an attempt ‘to extort last minute concessions.’ It did not elaborate,” the article said.

Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists murdered 1200 Israelis and abducted more than 250 hostages on October 7, 2023, per Breitbart News:

In the year since, Israel has smashed the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza; begun uprooting Hezbollah terrorists from its northern border; destroyed facilities in Yemen used by Houthi rebels; and threatened Iran itself with attack.

Politically, Israel is a more united and cohesive nation than it was on October 6, 2023. When the terrorists attacked, Israelis ran toward the battle, with reservists driving across the country to join the fight. Volunteers emerged to do whatever was needed for those in the line of fire, or anyone affected by the war. Israelis know they cannot be broken.

It is important to note that on Wednesday, President-elect Donald Trump (R) was the first to announce a ceasefire deal was reached in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, per Breitbart News.

“Israeli officials soon confirmed an agreement was in place to secure the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas since the October 7 atrocities,” the report said.

Pelosi to Skip Trump’s Inauguration

 

Pelosi uses a walker on House floor

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi won’t be attending Trump’s inauguration on Monday, according to ABC News.

Pelosi’s spokesperson did not give a reason for the lawmaker’s absence.

Nancy Pelosi attended Trump’s inauguration in 2017.

ABC News reported:

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will not attend President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, according to her spokesperson.

Pelosi notably attended Trump’s inauguration in 2017, when she was the House Democratic leader.

A spokesman did not disclose a reason why the California Democrat is skipping the high-profile event.

The last time Pelosi was seen in public she was shuffling around the House floor with a walker. 

Earlier this month, fresh off of a hip transplant, Nancy Pelosi was spotted using a walker during the 2024 election certification.

Pelosi, 84, appeared on the House floor as Congress met in a joint session to certify Trump’s 2024 victory.

WATCH:

Pelosi was hospitalized during a congressional delegation trip overseas after she fractured her hip.

The 84-year-old had hip replacement surgery after she lost her footing on a marble staircase and fell to the ground.

“The operation was conducted at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center at Landstuhl Army Base in Germany, her office said. The Defense Department provided medevac support to transport Pelosi there from Luxembourg,” CBS News reported.

The spokesperson added, “Speaker Pelosi is grateful to U.S. military staff at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center at Landstuhl Army Base and medical staff at Hospital Kirchberg in Luxembourg for their excellent care and kindness.”