Happy Day-Before-Thanksgiving!
ATTACKS ON POLITICIANS
Dutch politician Thierry Baudet was working a crowded room when the bottle came down.
“I just agreed to do some selfies and videos and short photographs with some members of the audience. And one of them turned out to have an empty bottle of beer in his hand and hit me on my face,” Baudet, a member of the Dutch House of Representatives, told The Epoch Times in a Nov. 21 interview.
The leader of the Forum for Democracy party pointed to the places he was hit: “near the eye,” and “on the back of the skull.”
Dutch Parliamentary Leader in the opposition party, The Forum for Democracy, Thierry Baudet The Epoch Times
After security subdued the assailant, Baudet headed to a hospital.
“There I learned very luckily that he had missed the fragile part of my bone,” he said, referring to a place where the skull fuses during infancy.
The Nov. 20 attack on Baudet in Groningen came just two days ahead of the Netherlands’ general election.
It has been condemned by many Dutch politicians, including Prime Minister Mark Rutte. He described the incident as “totally unacceptable” in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
But for all of that, a broader, troubling pattern is hard to ignore: violence against right-leaning European politicians is on the rise, and little seems to be stopping it.
The beer bottle attack came just weeks after another attack on Baudet by a different assailant.
“It was in Ghent, which is in Belgium. I was going to speak, and someone was there with an umbrella and hit me on my head, screaming, ‘No to fascism, no to fascism!’” he told The Epoch Times.
“I don’t know what kind of organization is behind this, but I do think that this is something that the security services should be looking into. They’ve been devoting an awful lot of attention to breaking up [anti-lockdown] movements. They’ve been spending an awful lot of time analyzing petty nationalist movements. But they haven’t spent a lot of time analyzing BLM [Black Lives Matter] or Antifa,” Baudet said.
Earlier this month in Spain, Alejo Vidal-Quadras of the Vox Party was shot in the face. In August, Andreas Jurca of the AfD (Alternative for Germany) Party was assaulted in what he has called an organized attack by migrants.
“The establishment sees Antifa as their stormtroopers,” Baudet said.
“Whenever some demonstration happens on the Right, it’s immediately called out as a severe threat to democracy … It’s, ‘Oh, it’s civil unrest rising,’ and blah, blah. But the actual violence is coming from the Left and, indeed, it does seem like the establishment isn’t very willing to do anything about it,” he continued.
—Nathan Worcester
FISA RENEWAL DEBATE
The FBI may lose its free pass to search data on millions of U.S. citizens before the end of 2023.
Congress is expected to crack down on warrantless searches conducted on a trove of electronic communications captured through FISA 702. Many of those communications involve Americans.
Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 is a law authorizing U.S. intelligence agencies to capture phone calls, emails, internet searches, and text messages of foreigners without a warrant.
Data from Americans gets collected too, when they communicate with foreign nationals.
There are rules to prevent the FBI and other agencies from violating the rights of U.S. citizens. But they have often been breached.
Violations include inappropriately searching for a U.S. senator and Jan. 6 protesters, according to court records and watchdog groups.
Christopher Wray, director of the FBI, told Congress the agency is cleaning up its act.
“The bureau is implementing further measures both to keep improving our compliance and to hold our personnel accountable for misuse of Section 702 and other FISA provisions—including through an escalating scheme for employee discipline, culminating in possible dismissal,” Wray told the House Judiciary Committee on July 12.
That’s too little, too late according to some members of Congress. “The patient is not saveable,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) said at the time, meaning the law should be scrapped.
The authorization for FISA expires at the end of the year, so lawmakers could simply let it sunset.
Most members apparently want to tighten it up instead. Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) said doing away with FISA would be “dumb and dangerous” and “not in our national interest.”
“And anyone who knows about FISA and what it does to secure us internationally should support it,” McHenry told reporters on Nov. 14.
Lawmakers have proposed a series of reforms to FISA 702. The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence released a 73-page report last week detailing 45 revisions.
Those include restricting the number of people at the FBI who can authorize database queries on Americans, requiring a warrant for those searches, imposing criminal penalties for leaking information, and requiring mandatory independent audits.
The report also recommends changes to the FISC, the special court overseeing FISA. Proposed changes include empowering the FISC to prosecute for contempt, prohibiting the use of the database for political opposition research, allowing members of Congress to attend hearings, and making hearing transcripts available to Congress.
A newly proposed law, the Government Surveillance Reform Act, would forbid the bureau and other agencies like the CIA from querying a database for information on Americans, with some exceptions.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), a co-sponsor, said, “Our central message here is you can’t bypass the Fourth Amendment. When you do, bad things happen.”
The proposed law has gained support from members of both parties in both the House and the Senate. Those include Reps. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Warren Davidson (R-Ohio), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.), Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), Judy Chu (D-Calif.), Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Lou Correa (D-Calif.), and Ted Lieu (D-Calif.).
The legislation is backed by Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.), Steve Daines (R-Mont.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Ed Markey (D-Mass.).
—Lawrence Wilson
TUBERVILLE HOLDS
Nov. 1 was a long Wednesday night on the floor of the U.S. Senate and it was all Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s (R-Ala.) fault.
Sixty times that night, the first-term senator from Alabama stood and objected, one at a time, to every pending flag officer promotion requested by the Pentagon that requires Senate approval.
Tuberville has placed a hold on Department of Defense (DOD) civilian and military nominations for flag and executive promotions in protest of the Biden administration’s policy that provides leave and travel reimbursement for service members seeking abortions.
Since implementing his holds in February, the Pentagon maintains nearly 400 key command-level promotions have been ensnared and many thousands more frozen. This is impairing readiness and morale of active-duty military and leaving thousands of dependents stuck in limbo, it says.
For months, Democrats were outspoken in leading criticism of his promotion holds but on Nov. 1, during that long night of Tuberville “nays,” at least five Republicans joined the fray.
You’ve made your point, they said, now let’s move on.
Noting Tuberville drew widespread mockery for his June claim that: “There’s nobody more military than me” despite never serving in the military, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), a former Marine, said Tuberville’s holds are “such bull” (except he didn’t say bull).
Sullivan and Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) would repeat the attempt on the Senate floor lasting into the wee hours of Nov. 16, but again to no avail.
But, some say the real story is being told backwards. Tuberville’s holds aren’t holding up promotions. It’s the Biden policy that instigated the whole mess to begin with.
As The Epoch Times’ Mark Tapscott writes in his recent article, 27 of Tuberville’s Republican Senate colleagues reminded the DOD in a letter to get the horse back in front of the cart.
The letter recounts the Pentagon’s policy was illegally implemented without Congressional approval and expanded in the wake of the Supreme Court’s June 2022 Roe repeal.
Tuberville has been excoriated as a Tubervillain but as Tapscott notes, compromise is a two-way street. Thus far, the Biden administration has shown no intent to back away from its policy.
—John Haughey
Note: Constitution Ave staff will be taking a break for Thanksgiving so we won’t be publishing on Thursday or Friday.
WHAT’S HAPPENING
- India hosts a virtual G20 summit to mark the end of its presidency of the international group. All G20 leaders and the heads of 11 global organizations are expected to attend.
- President Donald Trump’s legal team faces a deadline to file a reply in support of his motion to dismiss the case on the grounds that the former president is being selectively and vindictively persecuted.
- Today marks the 60th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
It’s no secret the U.S. military has struggled to meet recruiting targets this year (with the notable exception of the Marine Corps). Now the Army is trying to reenlist soldiers who were kicked out because they refused the COVID-19 vaccine. Talk about an about-face. Zachary Stieber of The Epoch Times breaks down what the Army is offering and how it’s being received. Plus? Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson made an impromptu visit to Washington last week to aid in recruiting. The Washington Examiner has the story.
The U.S. military’s recruitment woes come as the Israel-Hamas war lurches closer to becoming a regional conflict. ABC details a U.S. strike against what Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder described as “Iran-backed militia personnel” in Iraq. And the Times of Israel explains the possible implications of Houthi attacks in Middle Eastern waters patrolled by the U.S. Navy. A recent hijacking of a ship flying the Israeli flag in the Red Sea “signals the opening of a new maritime front in a region long focused on the Persian Gulf and its narrow mouth at the Strait of Hormuz.”
Elon Musk wants the world to know that he’s not a Nazi. The mega-entrepreneur is suing Media Matters for defamation over its claim that X promoted Nazi content. Caden Pearson of The Epoch Times details the dubious research techniques employed by the left-leaning watchdog group. If you’ve never heard of Media Matters, you’re not alone. The Washington Post has this profile on this 20-year-old company that mostly targets conservative media.
Argentina has a new president. But who is Javier Milei? The Epoch Times’ Marcos Schotgues profiles the controversial libertarian and breaks down the challenges facing this new leader. Meanwhile, some outlets, including The New York Times, are comparing Milei to Donald Trump.
Joseph Heller’s famous line, “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you,” seems more relevant than ever. Wired reports on a sprawling government surveillance program known as Data Analytical Surveillance (DAS), run with the help of AT&T. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has written Attorney General Merrick Garland to voice “serious concerns” about the program’s legitimacy under the law.
