The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has banned almost all noncompete employment agreements that prohibit workers from switching to competing businesses or starting one of their own.
UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron arrived in Israel on Wednesday for talks where he is expected to repeat his warning against any response to the recent missile attack by Iran.
Corona Farmers Market in Queens, New York is one of the most dynamic and diverse farmers markets in the city and is steps off the subway and mass transit system for the city. USDA Photo by Preston Keres
The California economy should serve as a cautionary tale for the rest of the nation, showcasing the negative impact of illegal immigration combined with liberal social welfare programs that discourage citizens from working.
The ‘Californication’ of the United States would exacerbate illegal immigration, depress market-driven labor rates, expand welfare rolls, significantly raise taxes on those employed, and prompt the government to address the diminished standard of living by imposing an exorbitant minimum wage.
Increasing the labor pool through illegal immigration drives down wages. The most basic law of economics, supply and demand, states that when supply increases and demand remains the same, price goes down.
You need water to live, but water is cheap because there is a large supply. Gold and diamonds are less of a necessity for maintaining life, but they are expensive because there is a large demand and limited supply. If tomorrow a new goldmine was discovered which quadrupled the supply of gold, the price of gold would go down.
Illegal immigrants increase the supply of workers, which brings down the price of labor, i.e., the wage. And although it is true that illegal immigrants are concentrated in certain industries, the decline in wages affects all industries.
The industries with the highest percentage of illegal immigrants are construction, cleaning, maintenance, food service, garment manufacturing, and agricultural occupations. The Americans who were displaced from those industries went to work in other industries, increasing the quantity of labor and driving down wages.
Using California as an example of what some people want to do to the entire country: illegal immigrants comprise 9% of the population. The market wage for workers was low because of the large pool of immigrants.
The Democratic legislation addressed this issue by imposing a draconian minimum wage of $16 an hour for all workers and $20 for those working in fast food.
The state also has liberal unemployment and welfare rules. As market wages drop and unemployment or welfare benefits increase, people are disincentivized to continue working.
In many Democrat-led states, workers can earn more on benefits than they can working. And a minimum wage of $20 an hour will not fix this problem. Jobs like landscaping and construction used to pay more than $20 an hour.
And jobs in maintenance and janitorial services, while not the highest paid, used to have job security and benefits when they were done on the books, by legal workers.
The Americans who lost those career jobs to illegals cannot make up the lost income by flipping burgers. Removing the illegal immigrants from the labor force will cause the natural rate of wages in landscaping, construction, and maintenance to increase, motivating people to go back to work.
The high taxes, high minimum wage, and lack of law enforcement have caused a steady exodus of companies, resulting in rising unemployment. However, the minimum wage only applies to legal workers, not illegals, so many of the unemployed citizens were replaced by illegal immigrants.
And now, the taxpayers are paying for it in the form of unemployment or welfare benefits. However, the illegals do not pay taxes. So, the tax burden on each legal worker is increasing, which then disincentivizes people from working. And the circle goes on and on, spiraling steadily downward.
At the national level, Democrats in favor of illegal immigration claim that low unemployment rates in the US are proof that “we need illegal immigrants” to fill those jobs. However, this claim ignores the labor force participation rate, which took a nosedive in 2020 and has never returned to pre-pandemic levels.
The labor force participation rate refers to the percentage of the working-age population (usually defined as individuals aged 16 and older) who are either employed or actively seeking employment.
People who are on unemployment are still counted as being part of the labor force because they are allegedly looking for a job. Only those who give up or go on permanent welfare or benefits are no longer counted.
There are two important points here. By liberalizing unemployment benefits, increasing the amount and the duration of the payments, the Biden Administration gets to count these people as part of the labor force.
And yet, the labor force participation rate is declining. This brings us to the second point. The federal government spent $1.3 trillion on welfare programs in 2023. If social benefits were not plentiful, more people would remain in the workforce.
In California, the labor force participation rate has been trending steadily downward since 1989. Currently, only 62% of legal adults are part of California’s labor force. Meanwhile, California has one of the highest incidences of tax in the country.
It also has 28% of the total homeless population of the United States, with the number having increased by 40% over the past 5 years. In short, California is a mess of outcomes that could not happen in a free-market economy that enforced immigration laws and was tough on crime.
According to Pew Research, 87% of Democrat voters agree that illegal immigrants only do jobs Americans won’t do. This notion is completely false. The reality is, there is no job Americans won’t do if they are paid for it.
Removing the illegals and canceling the benefits programs will bring about an equilibrium between wages and labor force participation. Taxes could be cut, and the minimum wage for unskilled work could go back to a reasonable market rate.
People would be incentivized to work and to better themselves, while the burger-flipping jobs would revert to the high school and college students who previously held them.
President Joe Biden delivers a speech on the U.S. economy and “Bidenomics”, Thursday, September 14, 2023, at Prince George’s Community College in Largo, Maryland. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)
Biden talks up the economy’s strong growth but doesn’t address the fact that the inflation rate he’s given us surpasses the GDP growth rate. He also doesn’t mention that much of this growth was funded directly by government stimulus and other financial aid given to the public.
The White House claims the economy is roaring, and mainstream media suggests only Republicans doubt it. However, consumer sentiment is declining, albeit with a slight recent uptick, which both the White House and mainstream media quickly seized upon as a positive trend. Inflation also rose this month, but the White House contends it’s down compared to 2022 levels. It appears the White House chooses to cite macro or micro data depending on what makes them look better.
The average gas price increased by 7% this month compared to last month. However, it remains lower than the $4.90 it hit in 2022. So, I suppose the White House can chalk up another win.
The reality is, both the average American and business owner perceive the economy as dismal and lack confidence in the future. Despite high inflation, the specter of recession still looms large, suggesting stagflation may become a reality in the near future. We could easily find ourselves grappling with growing unemployment alongside escalating prices. Technically, we’ve been in a recession for some time now, but Janet Yellen’s assertion that a recession isn’t defined by two consecutive quarters of negative growth was surprising to me and most university economics professors, as it contradicts the textbook definition of a recession.
Regarding stagflation, it’s defined by rising prices and growing unemployment. In the strictest sense, the White House is correct that we haven’t reached that point yet. More jobs are being created each month. However, if you’re looking for a job, the difficulty in finding one is obvious. This is largely due to the fact that 70% of the new jobs being created are part-time, while about 20% are government jobs. Depending on one’s definition of “jobs,” an argument could be made that significant numbers of new full-time private sector jobs are not being created.
The truth is, the economy has been on shaky ground throughout Biden’s entire administration. The only thing preventing a complete collapse is government stimulus and government job expansion, both of which add to the deficit and debt, merely postponing the inevitable. And that inevitable end is fast approaching.
Several US municipalities have implemented excessively high minimum wages, reaching up to $20 an hour. As a result, retailers, fast food chains, and ride-hailing apps like Lyft and Uber are exiting these markets. Grocery stores are transitioning to self-checkout systems, while fast-food establishments are introducing order kiosks. Moreover, many CVS and Walgreens drugstores have significantly reduced their floor staff, in some instances to just one employee.
Under Bidenomics, we’ve witnessed a 46% increase in gas prices, with mortgage rates inching closer to 7%. Meanwhile, the demand for new mortgages is dwindling.
Real wages, adjusted for inflation, have dropped by an average of $371. The White House’s deception on this matter lies in presenting a chart of inflation that peaked in June 2022 and has since been declining, while wages have been on the rise. At first glance, it may seem that the worst of inflation is behind us and wages now surpass inflation. However, it’s crucial to remember that prices have not decreased.
The rate at which wages are increasing, at 5%, now exceeds the rate of price increases, at 3.2%. However, over the past four years, we’ve seen cumulative inflation of nearly 20%. So, whereas you once earned a dollar, you now earn $1.05, while goods that previously cost $1.00 now cost $1.20. As a result, your real wages, adjusted for inflation, have decreased.
In short, the money you earn buys you less stuff.
Due to a decline in inflation-adjusted income, US savings rates have dropped to 3.6% from the pre-pandemic level of 6%. Credit card delinquencies and car loan defaults have reached record highs. Many Americans report borrowing money each month just to cover their cost of living.
Bidenomics is a disaster, and the White House is still considering cutting interest rates, which would cause inflation to skyrocket.
A pair of Nigerian brothers pleaded guilty to conspiring to sexually exploit American minors after a 17-year-old Michigan boy committed suicide as a result of their online sextortion scheme.
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has suggested President Joe Biden’s “economic failure” may well be his downfall in November’s presidential election.
bec, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
The Biden White House claims to have heralded “a great year for American workers” with more jobs created “during any year of the prior Administration.” However, most are part-time or government jobs, paid for by taxpayers. Additionally, the constant influx of illegal immigrants distorts the job market.
The March jobs report shows 303,000 new jobs added. However, most of the jobs were part-time. Meanwhile, year-over-year creation of full-time positions has been in recession territory since December. Even these part-time jobs are largely going to immigrants, including illegal immigrants. Consequently, considering both part-time and full-time employment, there have been almost no jobs created for citizens.
Nearly one-quarter of the new jobs are government jobs, paid for by taxpayers. This percentage is about double the norm for government job creation, which typically falls between 10 and 12 percent. In addition to the fact that government jobs drain taxpayer funds, they also do not represent an investment in the future. Jobs created by a private company today, if successful, will grow and create more jobs in the future. Private companies develop new industries, products, and services that facilitate investment and the development of other private companies. This is why the US economy is much more robust than the economy of a centrally planned, communist country.
Even in communist China, the rapid economic growth of the past few decades was led by the private sector, not the public sector. Another problem with a growing public sector is that it draws talent away from the private sector. People who might otherwise have been inventive or innovative, creating something new in the private sector, will be absorbed into government jobs that produce nothing.
In addition to there not being enough full-time jobs, the job market is also plagued by swings and fluctuations. Inflation is a constant feature of the Biden economy, making markets more susceptible to speculation regarding Fed policy. Usually, as election time nears, the sitting president, running for reelection, will decide that the level of inflation is too low and will cut interest rates to induce an illusory job boom. Signals from the White House and the Fed suggest that they are mulling over such a destructive move now, despite the fact that the US still faces high inflation and has suffered cumulative inflation of over 18% since Biden took office.
Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan is an example of a shortsighted policy that will give people the illusion of a better economy. People who will have thousands of dollars’ worth of debt wiped clean will feel instant relief and forget that every product they buy is more expensive than under Trump. As a populist move, those wishing to have their current or future college debts erased will also vote for Biden.
Like any other government transfer, the student loan forgiveness program is transferring money from taxpayers—who may or may not have been able to afford college—to people who borrowed money, attended college, and will now enjoy the economic benefits of an education at the expense of others. The trillions Biden is giving away through this and other programs, which began during COVID, are driving up the deficit, increasing the debt, and eroding the dollar’s buying power.
There are areas where job creation and real economic growth could be fostered, such as by increasing Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) exports. The energy industry creates highly paid, full-time jobs for non-college graduates, which is something this country is running short of. However, Biden caved to the climate crowd and has halted approvals for export certifications for LNG, a commodity whose price has nearly tripled since sanctions on Russian energy exports reduced the supply to Europe and the world.
Cutting these LNG jobs and revenues is considered a victory for climate activists. However, the Energy and Commerce Committee, along with more than 150 House Republicans, including Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., are working to reverse Biden’s ban on LNG. They argue that demand will remain the same, while Biden is effectively cutting the supply, thus driving up prices. Expanding US LNG exports would bring down prices, create jobs, increase the size of the US economy, and afford the US diplomatic advantages, bringing the US closer to its European allies.
If the Biden economy is considered good, perhaps we should revert to the supposedly bad economy under Trump, where inflation was low, unemployment was low, gas prices were low, illegal immigration was being addressed, and Russia dared not invade Ukraine.
Chicago's self-professed progressive Mayor Brandon Johnson is pushing the Biden administration to cut loose with more work permits for the tens of thousands of illegals sheltering in the city even as local black unemployment soars to many times the national average.
President Joe Biden, Senate Majority Leader Charles “Chuck” Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., look on as Vice President Kamala Harris delivers remarks on the American Rescue Plan Friday, March 12, 2021, in the Rose Garden of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)
“The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.” – JFK
Capitalism and free markets are the primary drivers of wealth creation while also protecting personal freedoms. Socialism and government intervention tend to erode personal freedoms and produce only temporary prosperity, addressing specific issues for certain groups while impoverishing others and overlooking the underlying causes of problems.
Biden’s American Rescue Plan was a good example of how ineffective socialism is at solving economic problems. By sending a $1,500 check to every poor person, he claimed, incorrectly, to have done more to reduce poverty than any other president.
Firstly, the American Rescue Plan drove up the US debt and pushed inflation to levels not seen in decades. Additionally, the $1,500 did not reduce poverty. The poverty threshold for a family of 3 is $25,820 per year. So, unless these families fell short by exactly $1,500, he did not bring them above the threshold that year. And unless he planned to send checks to all 37.9 million Americans living below the poverty line every year, forever, he has not eliminated poverty.
The only way for these people to rise out of poverty is to get a better job with a higher salary. So, the solution is free markets, not socialism.
The US ranks among the most capitalist countries in the world. In a capitalist society, the means of production are controlled by private businesses and private citizens, not the government. The economy runs according to the market, not central planning. Prices, wages, quantities, and types of production are determined by the market, with information transmitted from buyers to sellers millions of times per day.
In a capitalist society, a fast-food restaurant has the right to make a fish and peanut butter milkshake, but by refusing to buy that product, citizens signal that they do not want it, and the producer will either stop selling it or go out of business.
On average, the more government intervention there is in the economy, the lower the standard of living will be. As a hypothetical example, if the peanut butter and fish milkshake company had a government subsidy, it could remain in business, even though no one wants that product. The money the government spends supporting the unwanted fish and peanut butter milkshake company could have been spent on border security, which is one of the only purviews of government in capitalism.
In a true capitalist society, the government only has three responsibilities: maintaining courts and public security for protecting personal property rights, building infrastructure, and protecting the border. The further the government deviates from these limited mandates, the more money is wasted.
This report will compare four countries: the US, which has an economic freedom score calculated by Freedom House of 8.22, and the more socialist countries, Germany with an economic freedom score of 7.85, China with a score of 6.2, and Venezuela with a score of 3.34.
Standard of living can be quantified in the Quality of Life Index, which ranks countries based on the level of wealth, comfort, necessities, and material goods available to citizens. It also examines physical and mental health and wellness. Germany, with a score of 91.26, ranks slightly higher than the US at 89.11, but this is probably because of obesity and obesity-related illnesses, which decrease the health indicator in the US. But on some level, obesity is a positive sign of wealth. China, at 82.80, and Venezuela, at 71.66, rank worse off, with a lower standard of living.
While socialist countries offer free or heavily subsidized higher education, the United States boasts a diverse array of prestigious universities and colleges, many of which are privately funded. This competitive landscape fosters innovation and excellence in education, attracting students from around the world. The US has 3,100 universities, with 53 ranked in the top 100 globally. China has 2,495 universities, with 6 ranked in the top 100; Germany has 461 universities, with only 1 ranked in the top 100; and Venezuela has 73 universities, with 0 ranked in the top 100.
In terms of the average number of years of education citizens have, in Germany and the US, most adults have had 14 years of education, while in China, the average is 8 years, and in Venezuela, it’s 6.6 years.
For infrastructure, China is always touted as the leader in transportation because they have high-speed rail. However, the US has a much broader transportation infrastructure than any country in the world. The US has 148,553 kilometers of railroad, China has 10,767 kilometers (with a population four times the size of the US), Germany has 33,401 kilometers, and Venezuela has 682 kilometers.
Socialist countries usually have a government-owned national flagship airline, such as Air China or Conviasa in Venezuela. In the US, the airlines are private, and the US has more flights, with more Americans flying each year than citizens in any other country. Furthermore, Americans can afford to buy cars. Cars per capita in the US are 860 out of 1000, in Germany it’s 627 out of 1000, in China it’s 223 out of 1000, and in Venezuela it’s 149 out of 1000.
The US does not have a government sovereign wealth fund. Our outbound investment is private, and yet, the US is the largest source of outbound investment on the planet.
In socialist countries, citizens depend on the government to create jobs. The US, with a relatively free market for jobs, has a low unemployment rate of 3.6%, while in socialist China it is 5.1%, and in Venezuela, it is 7.5%. However, in China, youth unemployment had reached 21.3% last year before Beijing stopped reporting and then changed the definition of youth unemployment to make the number smaller. This is another example of the benefits of a free-market society. We have private institutions, NGOs, and associations that collect and publish data, so there is greater transparency.
The salaries between the US and socialist countries are vastly different. The average American earns about $75,269 per year, while the average German only earns $48,845. In China, it’s $12,598, and in Venezuela, it’s $3,910.
And the final kicker in a socialist country is income tax. In both China and Germany, the top income tax rate is 45%. In the US, it is 37%, and in Venezuela, it is 34%. So, Americans earn dramatically more than people in socialist countries and get to keep a larger percentage of their salary compared to most socialist countries.
Apart from failing to deliver in terms of economic well-being, socialism also falls short of its claim to offer greater freedom. Economic freedom, as already discussed, is higher in the U.S. In general, personal freedoms are also higher. According to the Human Freedom Index, which evaluates countries across the following criteria: Rule of law, Security and safety, Movement, Religion, Association, assembly, and civil society, Expression and information, public health, and a number of other factors, Germany ranked higher than the US at 18th. But this was largely because of the lack of social welfare in the US and because of the higher crime rate. The US ranked as the 23rd most free country in the world, China 152, and Venezuela 163.
As a result of capitalism, Americans earn more, keep more of their salary, and have greater freedom than in socialist countries. Let’s vote to keep it that way.
President Joe Biden, Senate Majority Leader Charles “Chuck” Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., look on as Vice President Kamala Harris delivers remarks on the American Rescue Plan Friday, March 12, 2021, in the Rose Garden of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)
Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador ordered an end to all diplomatic relations with Ecuador soon after police forces from that country stormed the Mexican Embassy.
The commander of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard, General Hossein Salami, taunted the U.S. on Friday by declaring it “wildly hated by the world, especially in Muslim-dominated countries."
Businesses in the U.S. added 184,000 workers to their payrolls in March, the largest increase in hiring since July, according to payroll processor ADP. The March hiring exceeded even the most optimistic forecasts. The median forecast was for 155,000 jobs,
AARP Services, Inc., an arm of American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), must pay approximately $2.1 million to a gay employee for illegally firing him in 2018.
He’s mentally ill, you see, but healthy enough to become an imam. Lord, what fools these Infidels be. “Double murderer and imam apprentice get an early pension,” translated from “Dobbeltmorder og imamlærling får førtidspension,” by Bertil B. Fruelund and James Kristoffer Miles, Ekstra Bladet, April 5, 2023 (thanks to L.): A 62-year-old Iraqi citizen who […]
Daoud Wright is a former Islamic State (ISIS) operative in Boston who was the ringleader of a plot to behead me. In December 2017, he was found guilty on five counts in this terrorist plot against me, which involved Wright maintaining close contact with and even financing a major American ISIS leader, Zulfi Hoxha. Yet late Wednesday afternoon, one of those convictions was overturned. Federal Appeals Court Justice David J. Barron said Wright “could have been simply been ‘role-playing’ with respect to following ISIS’s direction.”
Back when Wright was convicted, the jury didn’t think Wright was just “role-playing.” They brought the verdict in swiftly: according to WBUR, they “reached five verdicts in six hours.” Acting U.S. Attorney William Weinreb said: “Mr. Wright is a terrorist, an ISIS supporter and recruiter who intended to wage war against the United States by beheading people and killing Americans.”
Barron, in contrast, clearly has embraced the claim of the defense during the trial, that Wright was just a fat fantasist sitting in his mother’s basement playing video games and dreaming of glory. But in an extraordinary article that appeared in the left-wing Atlantic in January 2018 entitled “A New American Leader Rises in ISIS,” Seamus Hughes, Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, and Bennett Clifford revealed that a “shared interest in video games may have been one of the first things that brought Hoxha together with David Wright.” The video games were not an idle pastime:
Islamic State’s 2015 instructional manual for its Western supporters, “How to Survive in the West,” includes references to video games as a method of training to join the group. More importantly, it may have brought together Wright and Hoxha, who unlike Wright successfully followed through on his intentions to support the Islamic State using violence… During Wright’s trial, prosecutors argued that he used several video games, including Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and other titles to “virtually prepare” for jihad. His defense attorneys, however, painted Wright, who weighed over 400 pounds at the time of the conspiracy, as a “fat, failed loser” who used video games as a substitute for real-life violent activity, according to the trial transcript. Unfortunately, one can be both a gamer who veers towards violence and weigh in at 400 pounds of loneliness and isolation…..
Zulfi Hoxha is reportedly “a senior commander of Islamic State and one of the faces of the group’s recruitment efforts.” He was also “the son of an Albanian-American pizza-shop owner from New Jersey.”
By Pamela Geller, Breitbart, January 14th, 2019:
Zulfi Hoxha, a.k.a. Abu Hamza al-Amriki, who was involved in the plot to behead me for daring to defend the freedom of speech and stand up to violent intimidation by sponsoring a Muhammad cartoon contest, is still at large. And a year after a series of shocking revelations about his activities and the jihad network in America, nothing has been done.
It was an extraordinary article to have appeared in the left-wingAtlantic: “A New American Leader Rises in ISIS,” by Seamus Hughes, Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, and Bennett Clifford, published on January 13, 2018. What made it extraordinary was that it exploded so many of the core assumptions about the jihad terror threat, assumptions held not only by the media but also by the law enforcement establishment.
For example, it explodes the omnipresent myth that jihadis in the U.S. and Europe are “radicalized” on the Internet: “While it is often tempting,” the article says, “to assume that individuals are ‘radicalized online’ through their consumption of propaganda, this is rarely the case. More commonly, the internet allows people to make contacts with and plug themselves into pre-existing, real-world recruitment and radicalization networks.”
Hughes, Meleagrou-Hitchens, and Clifford also revealed that a “shared interest in video games may have been one of the first things that brought Hoxha together with David Wright,” who was sentenced to 28 years in prison for his role in the plot to behead me.
The video games were not an idle pastime:
Islamic State’s 2015 instructional manual for its Western supporters, “How to Survive in the West,” includes references to video games as a method of training to join the group. More importantly, it may have brought together Wright and Hoxha, who unlike Wright successfully followed through on his intentions to support the Islamic State using violence… During Wright’s trial, prosecutors argued that he used several video games, including Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and other titles to “virtually prepare” for jihad. His defense attorneys, however, painted Wright, who weighed over 400 pounds at the time of the conspiracy, as a “fat, failed loser” who used video games as a substitute for real-life violent activity, according to the trial transcript. Unfortunately, one can be both a gamer who veers towards violence and weigh in at 400 pounds of loneliness and isolation.
This makes sense of what happened: Wright spent his days playing video games and thus appearing to everyone around him to be a fat loser — when, in fact, he was training for jihad.
The “fat, failed loser” Wright also financed Hoxha’s flight to Syria to train with ISIS: “The court records show that prior to Hoxha’s departure, David Wright put him in touch with another American Islamic State supporter, his uncle Usaamah Rahim, and together they began helping Hoxha as he prepared to travel in the spring of 2015. The two men raised money for Hoxha’s plane ticket to Istanbul by selling Rahim’s laptop on Craigslist.”
Their interactions revealed that these were trained jihadis, not idiots or pikers: “Rahim contacted Wright on Skype with instructions from Hoxha. ‘AsSalaamu A’laikum Zulfi asked me if you could delete his name off Skype,’ Rahim writes. ‘But before you do it, if you have any saved messages to him go to “tools,” go to “options,” then click on “privacy,” and click “clear history.”’ These steps removed the interactions between Hoxha and Wright on Skype, but did not clear the metadata that would later be used in Wright’s trial.”
Yet “at the time of his death, Rahim was portrayed as just another incompetent ‘lone wolf’ Islamic State supporter with no serious connections to any real-world group members,” the authors continue.
Even after investigators arrested Wright, who at the time was unemployed and essentially immobile due to his weight, and [fellow jihadi Nicholas] Rovinski, who had cerebral palsy, this “cell” of Islamic State supporters is still viewed largely as an isolated group of three friends acting on deluded fantasies. While Rahim, Wright, and Rovinski were undoubtedly amateurs, we now know that they formed part of a wider network that was in communication with Islamic State operatives in Syria and had facilitated the travel of Hoxha, who would go on to rise in the group’s ranks.
Far from being “losers,” jihadis from America are generally skilled and sophisticated: “High-ranking and capable American members of the group present a unique threat. It is these figures who often act as nodes for terrorist networks, using their connections and influence to help recruit as well as plan attacks in their home countries.”
The article, in sum, was a complete refutation of everything that has been said and reported about the plot to behead me, and about much more that is assumed about jihadi “lone wolves” in the West and how they are “radicalized.” Loser “lost youth” don’t go on to attain senior rank in the Islamic State without having some specialized acumen. “Islamic State’s American commanders may be limited in number— but the trajectory of the group shows that small numbers can wreak great damage.” Yes, indeed.
Abu Hamza al-Amriki is still out there. Where is he? Are our intelligence and law enforcement agencies still too hamstrung by political correctness and wishful thinking to pursue him in any serious way?
Activist/blogger Pamela Geller is escorted into Associated Press headquarters for an interview, Thursday, May 07, 2015 in New York. Since September 11, 2001, the self-described apolitical mother of four who once paid little mind to world affairs, has become one of the nations most outspoken critics of Islamic extremism, taking the hard-edge view that such extremism sprouts not from fringe elements but the tenets of the religion itself. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan)
Daoud Wright is a former Islamic State (ISIS) operative in Boston who was the ringleader of a plot to behead me. In December 2017, he was found guilty on five counts in this terrorist plot against me, which involved Wright maintaining close contact with and even financing a major American ISIS leader, Zulfi Hoxha. Yet late Wednesday afternoon, one of those convictions was overturned. Federal Appeals Court Justice David J. Barron said Wright “could have been simply been ‘role-playing’ with respect to following ISIS’s direction.”
Back when Wright was convicted, the jury didn’t think Wright was just “role-playing.” They brought the verdict in swiftly: according to WBUR, they “reached five verdicts in six hours.” Acting U.S. Attorney William Weinreb said: “Mr. Wright is a terrorist, an ISIS supporter and recruiter who intended to wage war against the United States by beheading people and killing Americans.”
Barron, in contrast, clearly has embraced the claim of the defense during the trial, that Wright was just a fat fantasist sitting in his mother’s basement playing video games and dreaming of glory. But in an extraordinary article that appeared in the left-wing Atlantic in January 2018 entitled “A New American Leader Rises in ISIS,” Seamus Hughes, Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, and Bennett Clifford revealed that a “shared interest in video games may have been one of the first things that brought Hoxha together with David Wright.” The video games were not an idle pastime:
Islamic State’s 2015 instructional manual for its Western supporters, “How to Survive in the West,” includes references to video games as a method of training to join the group. More importantly, it may have brought together Wright and Hoxha, who unlike Wright successfully followed through on his intentions to support the Islamic State using violence… During Wright’s trial, prosecutors argued that he used several video games, including Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and other titles to “virtually prepare” for jihad. His defense attorneys, however, painted Wright, who weighed over 400 pounds at the time of the conspiracy, as a “fat, failed loser” who used video games as a substitute for real-life violent activity, according to the trial transcript. Unfortunately, one can be both a gamer who veers towards violence and weigh in at 400 pounds of loneliness and isolation…..
Zulfi Hoxha is reportedly “a senior commander of Islamic State and one of the faces of the group’s recruitment efforts.” He was also “the son of an Albanian-American pizza-shop owner from New Jersey.”
By Pamela Geller, Breitbart, January 14th, 2019:
Zulfi Hoxha, a.k.a. Abu Hamza al-Amriki, who was involved in the plot to behead me for daring to defend the freedom of speech and stand up to violent intimidation by sponsoring a Muhammad cartoon contest, is still at large. And a year after a series of shocking revelations about his activities and the jihad network in America, nothing has been done.
It was an extraordinary article to have appeared in the left-wingAtlantic: “A New American Leader Rises in ISIS,” by Seamus Hughes, Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, and Bennett Clifford, published on January 13, 2018. What made it extraordinary was that it exploded so many of the core assumptions about the jihad terror threat, assumptions held not only by the media but also by the law enforcement establishment.
For example, it explodes the omnipresent myth that jihadis in the U.S. and Europe are “radicalized” on the Internet: “While it is often tempting,” the article says, “to assume that individuals are ‘radicalized online’ through their consumption of propaganda, this is rarely the case. More commonly, the internet allows people to make contacts with and plug themselves into pre-existing, real-world recruitment and radicalization networks.”
Hughes, Meleagrou-Hitchens, and Clifford also revealed that a “shared interest in video games may have been one of the first things that brought Hoxha together with David Wright,” who was sentenced to 28 years in prison for his role in the plot to behead me.
The video games were not an idle pastime:
Islamic State’s 2015 instructional manual for its Western supporters, “How to Survive in the West,” includes references to video games as a method of training to join the group. More importantly, it may have brought together Wright and Hoxha, who unlike Wright successfully followed through on his intentions to support the Islamic State using violence… During Wright’s trial, prosecutors argued that he used several video games, including Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and other titles to “virtually prepare” for jihad. His defense attorneys, however, painted Wright, who weighed over 400 pounds at the time of the conspiracy, as a “fat, failed loser” who used video games as a substitute for real-life violent activity, according to the trial transcript. Unfortunately, one can be both a gamer who veers towards violence and weigh in at 400 pounds of loneliness and isolation.
This makes sense of what happened: Wright spent his days playing video games and thus appearing to everyone around him to be a fat loser — when, in fact, he was training for jihad.
The “fat, failed loser” Wright also financed Hoxha’s flight to Syria to train with ISIS: “The court records show that prior to Hoxha’s departure, David Wright put him in touch with another American Islamic State supporter, his uncle Usaamah Rahim, and together they began helping Hoxha as he prepared to travel in the spring of 2015. The two men raised money for Hoxha’s plane ticket to Istanbul by selling Rahim’s laptop on Craigslist.”
Their interactions revealed that these were trained jihadis, not idiots or pikers: “Rahim contacted Wright on Skype with instructions from Hoxha. ‘AsSalaamu A’laikum Zulfi asked me if you could delete his name off Skype,’ Rahim writes. ‘But before you do it, if you have any saved messages to him go to “tools,” go to “options,” then click on “privacy,” and click “clear history.”’ These steps removed the interactions between Hoxha and Wright on Skype, but did not clear the metadata that would later be used in Wright’s trial.”
Yet “at the time of his death, Rahim was portrayed as just another incompetent ‘lone wolf’ Islamic State supporter with no serious connections to any real-world group members,” the authors continue.
Even after investigators arrested Wright, who at the time was unemployed and essentially immobile due to his weight, and [fellow jihadi Nicholas] Rovinski, who had cerebral palsy, this “cell” of Islamic State supporters is still viewed largely as an isolated group of three friends acting on deluded fantasies. While Rahim, Wright, and Rovinski were undoubtedly amateurs, we now know that they formed part of a wider network that was in communication with Islamic State operatives in Syria and had facilitated the travel of Hoxha, who would go on to rise in the group’s ranks.
Far from being “losers,” jihadis from America are generally skilled and sophisticated: “High-ranking and capable American members of the group present a unique threat. It is these figures who often act as nodes for terrorist networks, using their connections and influence to help recruit as well as plan attacks in their home countries.”
The article, in sum, was a complete refutation of everything that has been said and reported about the plot to behead me, and about much more that is assumed about jihadi “lone wolves” in the West and how they are “radicalized.” Loser “lost youth” don’t go on to attain senior rank in the Islamic State without having some specialized acumen. “Islamic State’s American commanders may be limited in number— but the trajectory of the group shows that small numbers can wreak great damage.” Yes, indeed.
Abu Hamza al-Amriki is still out there. Where is he? Are our intelligence and law enforcement agencies still too hamstrung by political correctness and wishful thinking to pursue him in any serious way?
Activist/blogger Pamela Geller is escorted into Associated Press headquarters for an interview, Thursday, May 07, 2015 in New York. Since September 11, 2001, the self-described apolitical mother of four who once paid little mind to world affairs, has become one of the nations most outspoken critics of Islamic extremism, taking the hard-edge view that such extremism sprouts not from fringe elements but the tenets of the religion itself. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan)
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