John Fredericks Commentary: Analysis and Predictions for the GOP for Saturday’s Nominating Convention

American flag flying above a large crowd.

On Saturday, May 8, up to 53,000 Virginia Republicans who pre-registered as delegates will nominate candidates for state-wide offices in November, including governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general.

It’s been a long time coming.

The nominating process for Republicans, an unassembled convention with about 40 voting locations across the Commonwealth – open for voting from 9:00 AM-4:00 PM – is a convoluted and confusing affair that took months to negotiate and consummate after numerous marathon and agonizing Zoom calls by the Party’s State Central Committee.

It’s been a long time coming.  

The nominating process for Republicans, an unassembled convention with about 40 voting locations across the Commonwealth–open for voting from 9:00 AM-4:00 PM–is a convoluted and confusing affair that took months to negotiate and consummate after numerous marathon and agonizing Zoom calls by the Party’s State Central Committee. 

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Facebook Is Keeping Trump Off Its Platform

Facebook’s oversight board upheld the company’s decision to ban former President Donald Trump Wednesday morning.

“The Board found that, in maintaining an unfounded narrative of electoral fraud and persistent calls to action, Mr. Trump created an environment where a serious risk of violence was possible,” the board said in a statement.

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Bill and Melinda Gates Announce Divorce

Bill and Melinda Gates announced in a statement on Monday that they will be divorcing after more than a quarter century of marriage.

“After a great deal of thought and a lot of work on our relationship, we have made the decision to end our marriage. Over the last 27 years, we have raised three incredible children and built a foundation that works all over the world to enable all people to lead healthy, productive lives,” the former couple said in a statement. “We continue to share belief in that mission and will continue our work together at the foundation, but we no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in this next phase of our lives. We ask for space and privacy for our family as we begin to navigate this new life.”

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Columbus Police Release More Footage and 911 Calls in Shooting Death of 16-year-Old

Columbus Division of Police released body camera footage Tuesday night showing the fatal shooting of 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant that occurred earlier in the day.  Wednesday afternoon, police released additional body cam recordings and two 911 calls.

Interim Chief of Police Michael Woods said it’s uncommon for information to be provided this soon, but officials understand the public’s need, desire and expectation to have transparency about what happened.

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Officer in Minneapolis-Area Shooting Fired Fatal Shot after Mistaking Gun for Taser, Police Say

Brooklyn Center Police

Brooklyn Center Police Chief Tim Gannon described the officer involved shooting that led to the death of Daunte Wright as an “accidental discharge” during a Monday press conference.

Gannon played partial body-camera video from the Sunday incident, which shows a female officer threatening to deploy her Taser and expressing distress after shooting Wright, who was pulled over for a traffic violation around 2 p.m. Sunday.

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Zuckerberg Group Gave Detroit $7.4 Million to ‘Dramatically’ Expand Vote in City Key to Biden Win

Mark Zuckergberg

The Center for Tech and Civil Life (CTCL), a voter advocacy group funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, donated $7.4 million last year to Detroit to, among other things, “dramatically expand strategic voter education and outreach” in a blue city key to Joe Biden’s 2020 election win, according to memos obtained by Just the News under an open records request.

Detroit received three grants in 2020 from CTCL for $200,000, $3,512,000, and $3,724,450, according to the records released under Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

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Housing Inventory Remains Sharply Down, Fueling Months-Long, White-Hot Real Estate Market

Housing inventory in the U.S. remains significantly low, driving a white-hot market in which buyers continue to resort to aggressive buying tactics such as inspection-free transfers and hugely inflated offering prices.

Data from the Federal Reserve show housing inventory began declining last summer before dropping sharply in October. From over 1,550,000 units in May of last year, the Fed says stock has dropped to just above 1,000,000.

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GOP Senator: Biden Family Deals in China Pose ‘Enormous Blackmail’ Threat for President

Hunter Biden’s dealings with Chinese nationals, including one who is now a convicted felon, pose an “enormous blackmail” threat to President Biden, a key Republican senator who investigated the matter warns.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., the former chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and current ranking member on the powerful Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, told the John Solomon Reports podcast on Friday that the case of Chinese businessman Patrick Ho chi-Ping illustrates the threat.

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New Social Media Platform Rescues Donald Trump Interview after Facebook Removes It

Trump Interview

When Facebook and Instagram threatened to impose “additional limitations” on Lara Trump for posting her interview with her father-in-law, the former president, she didn’t back down.

The Fox News contributor and former producer for Inside Edition jumped ship for an alternative platform that only left beta testing in November.

Lara Trump’s podcast “The Right View” debuted on Clouthub soon after Facebook and Instagram removed her Donald Trump interview, Clouthub CEO Jeff Brain told Just the News.

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First Battlefront Drawn in Georgia in Epic Fight over Future of American Elections

Over just a few hours Thursday, Georgia’s Legislature and Gov. Brian Kemp drew the first battle line in the high-stakes struggle to decide how American voters will cast ballots in the future after the pandemic-ridden election of 2020.

The Republican-controlled state put itself firmly in the camp of voter ID requirements, limited drop boxes and expanded weekend voting. And depending on the eye of the beholder, it was either a win for election integrity or a return to the era of Jim Crow voter suppression.

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Judge Rules Gourmeltz Can Stay Open While Case Proceeds

Gourmeltz 90’s Music Bar & Drafthouse will stay open for now, after a judge denied a request for an emergency injunction to force the restaurant to close.

Even after being contacted by the health department officials, Gourmeltz owner Matt Strickland has refused to comply with some provisions of Governor Ralph Northam’s COVID-19 Executive Orders.As a result, Strickland’s health certification allowing him to operate legally was rescinded, but Gourmeltz remained open. The Attorney General’s office is now bringing a case against Strickland, but they asked the court for an emergency injunction to close the restaurant while the case proceeds.

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Trump Will Return to Social Media on His Own New Platform, Aide Says

Former President Trump will return to social media on his own new platform in around two or three months, Jason Miller said.

“But I do think that we’re gonna see President Trump returning to social media in probably about two or three months here with his own platform,” Miller said during an interview on Fox News Channel’s program Media Buzz. “And this is something that I think will be the hottest ticket in social media. It’s gonna completely redefine the game and everybody is gonna be waiting and watching to see what exactly President Trump does, but it will be his own platform.”

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New Emails Heighten Mystery Around Presidential Vote Count in Georgia’s Largest County

Internal emails from Fulton County election workers obtained by Just the News are heightening the mystery surrounding ballot-processing in Georgia’s largest county during last November’s presidential contest.

Uncertainty arose regarding the ballot processing operation at Fulton County’s State Farm Arena on and after Election Night, when ballot-scanning apparently continued even after most election workers had reportedly been sent home.

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Georgia Secretary of State Official Who Sourced False WAPO Story About Donald Trump Explains Her Actions

The Georgia Secretary of State investigator who was the anonymous source for a Washington Post story about former U.S. President Donald Trump — that people now discredit — said Tuesday the paper got the story correct. This, aside from a few minor mistakes, said Georgia Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs, the anonymous source.

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Efforts Underway in Key Battleground States to Return Voting Systems to Pre-2020 Rules

Significant legislative attempts are underway in multiple U.S. states, including key battleground states, to roll back major changes in voting rules and regulations to various pre-2020 status quo antes. The efforts come after an historically chaotic election process that has left millions of Americans doubtful of election fairness, security, transparency and accountability.

Changes to election rules — some of them enacted prior to 2020 and others put in place in response to the COVID-19 pandemic last year — have included expansive mail-in voting, expanded early voting, relaxation of verification rules, and extensions to ballot receipt deadlines.

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Cuomo’s Troubles Deepen as N.Y. Attorney General Seeks Subpoena Power in Sex Harassment Probe

Gov. Andrew Cuomo

After a rollercoaster weekend of reversals, recriminations and apologies, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s legal troubles are deepening as New York’s top law enforcement officer prepares to secure subpoena powers to investigate allegations of sexual harassment.

Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, announced Sunday night she will deputize an outside law firm to investigate the allegations by two former Cuomo aides after the governor’s effort to fashion his own investigation led by a former federal judge backfired.

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Analysis: The First Gulf War Validated Five Major Weapon Systems, All-Volunteer Military

The First Gulf War, or Desert Shield and Desert Storm, which was a strategic failure, but an operational success came to an end Feb. 28, 1991 with President George H.W. Bush calling a halt to combat operations after the 100 hours of combined land and air offensive.

It was the culmination of months Desert Shield’s diplomacy and military build-up beginning Aug. 7, 1990, shortly after Iraq invaded and conquered its neighbor Kuwait. Desert Storm began Jan. 16, 1991 with a ferocious air campaign that prepared the battlefield for the last 100 hours.

It is important to record operations success in the ledger of a war whose memory has become awkward and difficult.

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After Defying COVID Groupthink, Big Tech Censors, DeSantis Hosts CPAC as Rising GOP Star for 2024

When Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis takes the stage to deliver a welcoming address at the Conservative Political Action Conference on his home field in Orlando Friday, it will be as a fast-rising force in the conservative movement and an increasingly plausible and popular contender for his party’s presidential nomination in 2024.

DeSantis will be followed in the spotlight on the first full day of CPAC 2021 by a succession of marquee GOP names vying to woo the party’s conservative base at the movement’s signature annual gathering of the tribes. Among them will be potential 2024 GOP presidential hopefuls and aspiring heirs to the leadership of their party’s populist conservative wing, including Sens. Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, and Josh Hawley, of Texas, Arkansas and Missouri, respectively.

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Once-Secret FBI Informant Reports Reveal Wider-Ranging Operation to Spy on Trump Campaign

Once-secret reports show the FBI effort to spy on the Trump campaign was far wider than previously disclosed, as agents directed an undercover informant to make secret recordings, pressed for intelligence on numerous GOP figures, and sought to find “anyone in the Trump campaign” with ties to Russia who could acquire dirt “damaging to Hillary Clinton.”

The now-declassified operational handling reports for FBI confidential human source Stefan Halper — codenamed “Mitch” — provide an unprecedented window both into the tactics used by the bureau to probe the Trump campaign and the wide dragnet that was cast to target numerous high-level officials inside the GOP campaign just weeks before Americans chose their next president in the November 2016 election.

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Virginia GOP Leadership Votes to Hold Drive-In Convention at Liberty University

The Republican Party of Virginia (RPV) State Central Committee (SCC) voted 37 to 31 to issue a call for an in-person drive-in-style nominating convention to be held at Liberty University (LU) on May 8 at 9 a.m. Before passing that vote, the SCC voted against changing party rules to allow an unassembled convention, and voted against holding a canvass. The nearly four-hour-long Tuesday evening Zoom meeting hit the same notes of exasperation as previous SCC Zoom meetings and again highlighted a sharp divide between the pro-convention faction, led in the meeting by Mike Ginsburg, and the pro-primary faction, led in the meeting by Jeff Ryer.

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Parler Resumes Social Media App After Securing New Computer Servers

Parler, the upstart social media platform silenced last month by big-tech censorship, said Monday it is resuming operations under new leadership and with new computer servers.

Parler moved to a new computer server farm, and the 20 million users on the platform when Amazon Web Services shut off the social media platform on Jan. 11 can begin using their old app and logins Monday, Interim CEO Mark Meckler told Just the News.

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The New York Times Retracts the Story Asserting Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick was Killed by a Trump Supporter

In a quiet but stunning correction, the New York Times backed away from its original report that Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick was killed by a Trump supporter wielding a fire extinguisher during the January 6 melee at the Capitol building. Shortly after American Greatness published my column Friday that showed how the Times gradually was backpedaling on its January 8 bombshell, the paper posted this caveat:

UPDATE: New information has emerged regarding the death of the Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick that questions the initial cause of his death provided by officials close to the Capitol Police.

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McConnell, Schumer Strike Deal on Impeachment Trial Rules

Senate leaders said on Monday that a deal has been agreed upon regarding the framework for former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial slated to begin on Tuesday.

“For the information of the Senate, the Republican leader and I, in consultation with both the House managers and former President Trump’s lawyers, have agreed to a bipartisan resolution to govern the structure and timing of the impending trial,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Monday on the Senate floor. “All parties have agreed to a structure that will ensure a fair and honest Senate impeachment trial of the former president,” the New York Democrat said.

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Three Crucial Questions Remain Unanswered About Capitol Siege

One thing recent history has taught America is the first storyline of major tragedies or controversies is never the most accurate.

Americans were told by the Bush administration that they were sucker-punched by a surprise attack on 9/11 by terrorists, only to learn the CIA and FBI had significant advance evidence of the plot and its players and failed to connect the dots.

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Analysis: How the GOP Lost Control of Washington, and What Comes Next

Washington DC

ow that Democrats are poised to control the White House, Senate and House, the traditional game of finger-pointing and recrimination will begin inside the GOP.

The first instinct for politicians will be to assign blame, call names and jockey for position. But the 2020 election wasn’t just an election, it was a political watershed in which the rules and strategy for winning were rewritten.

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Congress Affirms Biden Electoral College Votes; Trump Agrees to ‘Orderly Transition’

A joint session of Congress, completing its work in the early morning hours of Thursday after lawmakers had been forced to flee their chambers by a violent invasion of the Capitol, affirmed that Joe Biden will be the next president of the United States.

The proceedings concluded shortly after 3:30 a.m. EST, drawing to a close an chaotic day in the nation’s house of laws that saw one person shot dead inside the building after some rioters breached its security during a massive rally to support President Trump.

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Vice President Mike Pence Welcomes the Efforts of Representatives and Senators to Object to Electoral College Votes

  In a statement Saturday, Vice President Mike Pence issued a statement through his Chief of Staff Marc Short that he welcomes the actions of some members of the House and Senate, who say they will object to the final certification of the Electoral College vote on Wednesday. “Vice President…

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Nashville Police Confirm Anthony Quinn Warner ‘Is Under Investigation’ for Christmas Day Bombing

The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department (MNPD) Sunday morning confirmed to The Tennessee Star that Anthony Quinn Warner is officially under investigation in the Christmas morning explosion that rocked downtown Nashville, injuring three people.

“That person is under investigation,” Don Aaron, MNPD Public Affairs Manager said by email. 

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