Author: Ethan Hay

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." These immortal words were uttered long ago by one of the greatest conservative political philosophers, Lord Acton. (1) Sadly, recent events have proven Lord Acton to be right. Here in America and around the world we are seeing the media and political elite getting away with, or at the very least surviving a great deal longer than if they were not in the public eye. Nowhere is this made more clear than in the 165 page report (2) that is the product of an investigation conducted by New York State’s Attorney General, Letitia James. (3) This report outlines the sexual abuse of at least half a dozen women by the hands of a political rival and current Governor of the state, the Democratic party’s golden boy, Andrew Cuomo. The rules of the committee allows for the Speaker of the House to ‘appoint 13 Members to the Select Committee (4), 5 of whom shall be appointed after consultation with the minority leader.’ Speaker Pelosi announced her intention to name Liz Cheney (5) as one of her eight appointees. The other seven Democratic members are, Bennie Thompson (6) (MS-02), who is also serving as chairman, Zoe Lofgren (7) (CA-19), House Intelligence Committee (8) Chairman, Adam Schiff (9) (CA-28), Pete Aguilar, (10) (CA-31), Stephanie Murphy, (11) (FL-07), former impeachment manager Jamie Raskin, (12) (MD-08), and Elaine Luria, (13) (VA-07).

After the failed attempt to create a 9/11 style commission to investigate the events of January 6th, Nancy Pelosi (1) vowed to create a House Select committee for that specific reason. On June 30th, a resolution passed the House of Representatives (2) by a vote of 222 for, and 190 against. Sixteen Republicans abstained from the vote, while another two Republicans voted for the committee, (3) the infamous Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. The rules of the committee allows for the Speaker of the House to ‘appoint 13 Members to the Select Committee (4), 5 of whom shall be appointed after consultation with the minority leader.’ Speaker Pelosi announced her intention to name Liz Cheney (5) as one of her eight appointees. The other seven Democratic members are, Bennie Thompson (6) (MS-02), who is also serving as chairman, Zoe Lofgren (7) (CA-19), House Intelligence Committee (8) Chairman, Adam Schiff (9) (CA-28), Pete Aguilar, (10) (CA-31), Stephanie Murphy, (11) (FL-07), former impeachment manager Jamie Raskin, (12) (MD-08), and Elaine Luria, (13) (VA-07).

In ancient Greek mythology, one of the most beautiful creatures was Pegasus. (1) A winged horse that was the child of the Gorgon Medusa and the God of the sea, Poseidon, he would one day be tamed by another child of Poseidon named Bellerophon, before being stabled by Zeus. Sadly, his name has once again popped up, but not for the appreciation of a beautiful myth, but rather, it has been perverted and is now the name of a spyware. The Pegasus software was developed by the Israeli cyber arms technology firm NSO (2) Group Technologies. NSO stands for the names of the founders, Niv Carmi, Omri Lavie, and Shalev Hulio, of which Lavie and Hulio are the only ones who are on the company's board (3) of directors. The company was founded in 2010, and merged with the Bulgarian surveillance firm, Circles, (4) in 2014, which greatly increased the clientele of NSO, giving them connections directly to the governments of twenty-five countries (5) around the world. NSO was bought by the American private equity firm, Francisco Partners, (6) in 2014. It was put up for sale (7) in 2017. A majority of the shares were bought back by two of the founders, Lavie and Hulio who had partnered with London based private equity firm, Novalpina (8) Capital, for one billion dollars in 2019. (9)

Since the overthrow of military dictator Fulgencio Batista, (1) in 1959, Cuba has been ruled by the Castro’s, and they have ruled with an iron fist. First under Fidel, (2) who then ceded the office of President over to his brother Raul in 2008 due to health concerns. He died in 2016. Raul Castro (3) then held onto power for nearly a decade, enacting some reforms in the process, until he began to yield power in 2018 to the current President, Miguel Diaz-Canel. Diaz-Canel’s ascension to power is significant due to the fact that he marks the end of the Castros’ rule.

Critical Race Theory (CRT) continues to be pushed aggressively by far-left activists, media commentators, and politicians. But now it has officially been endorsed by the two largest teacher unions in the country. The National Education Association (NEA) (1) originally endorsed CRT on its website, but it was taken down. The NEA, also in coordination with the Zinn Education Project, has had over five thousand teachers sign a ‘Pledge to Teach (2) the Truth.’ This is an act of defiance against bills that have either been signed into law, or have been introduced by a number of states (3) banning the teaching of CRT. On top of that, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) (4) president, Randi Weingarten, has said that the AFT has a legal fund that is ‘ready to go’ in defense of any teachers who espouse CRT, or as she calls it ‘accurate history.’ CRT also continues to affect the military, as was shown by the US Air Force Academy professor who is calling for the theory to be taught to cadets. There have been calls for associate professor Lynne Chandler Garcia, (5) to be removed from her position by several members of congress.

The USA PATRIOT (1) Act. Officially called the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism. This act was written just after the tragic 9/11 attack that was orchestrated by the Islamic terrorist organization, al-Qaeda. The Act passed the House of Representatives (2) by a vote of 357-66 with 9 not voting. The Senate (3) approved it in a vote of 98-1, with one member not voting. President George W. Bush (4) signed the bill into law on October 26th, 2001. It’s express purpose, according to the office of the Director of National Intelligence (5) and the language of the act itself, is to ‘deter and punish terrorist acts in the United States and around the world.’ One of the key aspects in the PATRIOT act is authorizing enhancing surveillance procedures so as to prevent terrorist events from occurring.

This week, HR/HS-1 (1) was dealt a crushing blow in the United States Senate. Republican senators used the filibuster to block the bill, thus killing it before it could be voted on by an evenly split senate. This angered Democrats, who are actively seeking to abolish the filibuster (2), thus allowing horrendous legislation, the likes of HR/HS-1, to be passed by a simple majority vote. The far left also suffered a major defeat in the New York City mayoral democratic primary. The early results show former police officer, businessman, state senator, and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams (3) leading the field by nearly ten points. (4) Adams ran on a platform dedicated to fighting crime (5) , and restoring order to the city. Now, there are still votes to count, especially as NYC uses ranked-choice voting (6) for the first time. But it is unlikely that AOC endorsed leftist lawyer Maya Wiley, (7) or former NYC Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia, (8) will be able to overcome Adams significant lead, but now NYC must wait and see. (9)