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A common sentiment expressed by some voters on social media these days is the need to "move on." This viewpoint seems to be particularly popular with those deeply desirous of a Republican candidate for president of the United States who is not Donald Trump.

They readily admit that Trump's policies were far better for the economy and view Biden's administration as disastrous. Some even acknowledge that social media censorship and changes to election procedures many unlawful cost Trump the 2020 presidential election.

Even so, they say, "It's time to move on."

It's easy to chalk this up to "Trump fatigue" weariness of Trump's ego and combative personality. But an argument can also be made that this is the latest example of the public's reluctance to confront corruption and the erosion of standards in American governance. What we're watching transpire in U.S. politics right now should be galvanizing the country. But it doesn't seem to be, and we need to ask ourselves why.

Joe Biden, the president of the United States, has just had Donald Trump his primary political opponent in the 2024 presidential election indicted and arrested. That may be a common occurrence in third-world countries, but it is unprecedented in the history of this nation.

Worse than the political targeting is the legal double standard. Trump is accused of mishandling classified documents. But we now know that Biden has had classified documents in unsecured locations (including his garage) for years. And he acquired these documents when he was not the president with the constitutional power to declassify them.

Where is the indictment of President Biden?

While Biden was vice president, his son Hunter received millions of dollars from a Ukrainian natural gas company, Burisma, whose leadership was under investigation. Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid unless Viktor Shokin, the Ukrainian prosecutor conducting the investigations, was fired. "Well, son of a bitch," Biden bragged on camera, "he got fired."

After Trump was elected president, he asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to look into the decision to fire Shokin. Democrats accused Trump of using the presidency to target a political opponent and impeached him for "abuse of power."

Where are the articles of impeachment against Biden?

More information has come to light this week, suggesting not only that Joe and Hunter Biden received millions of dollars in bribes from Ukraine, but that the FBI has been covering up evidence of the bribery.

Why aren't more of us demanding accountability? Perhaps it is because we have been dismissing government corruption for far too long.

Under former President Barack Obama, the IRS improperly held up the applications of conservative nonprofits for tax-exempt status often for years crippling their fundraising efforts and support for their candidates and policies. Lois Lerner, then-director of Exempt Organizations, pleaded the Fifth Amendment in response to a congressional subpoena. Lerner was held in contempt of Congress. What penalty? She retired from the IRS with a full pension.

Move on.

Obama's attorney general, Eric Holder, was also held in contempt of Congress, after refusing to turn over information subpoenaed as part of a congressional investigation into failed "gunwalking" program Operation Fast and Furious. Guns ended up in the hands of criminals who killed dozens of Mexican citizens, as well as U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. Contempt proceedings against Holder languished in the federal court system for years until Democrats regained control of the U.S. House of Representatives and dropped the matter.

Move on.

Hillary Clinton has had her share of corruption scandals. In 2012, when she was secretary of state, our consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was attacked and four Americans killed, including our ambassador, Christopher Stevens. Clinton knew it was a planned terrorist attack, but lied to the American public that it was a spontaneous uprising in response to a video made by an obscure filmmaker named Nakoula Basseley Nakoula (who was arrested and served a year in prison). When questioned about her lies during a congressional investigation, Clinton's infamous response was, "What difference at this point does it make?"

Clinton also lied about having classified information on private, unsecured email servers and she destroyed evidence. But then-FBI Director James Comey declared that "no reasonable prosecutor" would bring charges.

Move on.

Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign illegally funneled money through law firm Perkins Coie to Fusion GPS and then former British spy Christopher Steele, looking for dirt on opponent Donald Trump. The FBI knew the information they received thereafter was false, but lied to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to get warrants to spy on Trump.

Clinton's campaign paid a modest fine. No consequences for the FBI. Move on.

The unrest at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, is supposedly another day that will live in infamy. But we don't know why FBI brass refuse to answer straightforward questions about whether federal agents in the crowd incited or contributed to violence.

But let's do "move on."

This week, major news outlets are finally admitting what was obvious three years ago that SARS-Cov-2 emerged from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, where dangerous "gain-of-function" research was being conducted. The government lied to us about the origins of COVID-19 and locked down the country, crippling the economy and doing immeasurable damage to the education of millions of children. It demanded that social media censor physicians, scientists and researchers trying to expose the truth about the virus, available drug treatments, and the vaccines Americans were being forced to take.

But let's not get into the blame game. We need to "move on."

There is no "moving on" from corruption. To wave it away is to embolden the corrupt. If we as a people do not care enough about the integrity of our laws and the proper limits of our government to enforce both, those who flagrantly disregard those laws and those limits will not stop until they destroy everything we hold dear.

To find out more about Laura Hollis and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at http://www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Robert Linder at Unsplash

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There Is No 'Moving On' From Corruption, by Laura Hollis - Creators Syndicate

If you own a business, the leftists in Congress are coming after you. The only thing standing in their way is the American Constitution.

Whether you own a mom-and-pop diner, an auto repair shop or shares in a multinational corporation, your property is at risk.

The Constitutions takings clause was designed to protect us from government grabbing our property without paying fairly for it.

Yet last year, when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, they rammed through the Inflation Reduction Act, boasting that it would enable Medicare to negotiate lower prices for medications for seniors.

Negotiate is a lie. Under the new law, government can strong-arm companies to sell their most popular medications at a price Uncle Sam dictates, or be taxed out of existence in a matter of weeks.

On June 6, the pharmaceutical giant Merck sued, claiming the law violates its constitutional rights.

Amen. This lawsuit is a red flag for everyone in America who owns anything or hopes to.

The actual language of the law is breathtakingly coercive, but lets face it, most members of Congress dont bother to read bills before voting on them.

The law says that any company that refuses to sell at the governments price will be hit with a tax that starts at 186 percent of the drugs revenues on Day 1 and is hiked daily until it reaches a ruinous 1,900 percent of revenues not just from government sales but all sales.

That would mean hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes per day.

The company has no escape. Contrast this coercion with price controls in socialist-leaning European countries, where drug companies can decline to sell at the government price.

Merck explains that it will be legally compelled to sell its most valuable products for a fraction of their value, on pain of yet more draconian penalties. This is not negotiation. It is tantamount to extortion.

The law also gags the company from disclosing what Medicare officials say about price negotiations behind closed doors. Worse, the law requires the company to publicly call the price rammed down its throat fair.

Is this even America? Congress limits free speech and requires companies to state things they dont believe.

Mercks lawsuit objects, Our Constitution does not countenance compelled speech in service of state propaganda.

Congress needs a refresher course on the Constitution. The Fifth Amendment bars the government from taking your property without just compensation.

And the First Amendment prohibits the government from forcing you to say something against your will. These are the bases of Mercks lawsuit.

The law being challenged is exactly what youd find in George Orwells 1984, a novel depicting socialist despotism. The government dictates the price for your product but calls it a negotiation.

If you refuse, your business is taxed to death overnight. You are gagged from disclosing what is happening and forced to declare the price fair.

If Mercks lawsuit fails, who are the next victims? Auto makers could be forced to sell cars for the federal fleet for $10,000 a piece instead of a fair price.

What about bed sheets for the Army, airplane parts for the Air Force or restaurant meals for government employees?

Mercks lawsuit raises only constitutional issues, but Americans also need to know that price controls on pharmaceuticals could be dangerous to their health.

In countries that cap prices, patients have reduced access to new drugs. Patients in France get only half the new treatments that U.S. patients get, according to University of Chicago economist Tomas Philipson.

Last week, the American Society of Clinical Oncology announced a treatment osimertinib that improves survival by 51 percent for lung cancer patients who have had surgery and face a recurrence.

As a survivor myself, I cut out the article and put it in my desk drawer, hoping I wont need it but glad its a possibility.

Many politicians think vilifying drug companies is good politics. They ignore the devastating impact of price controls on the pipeline for future cures.

This is a legitimate policy debate. But obeying the Constitution is not optional. Congress members swear an oath to it.

Mercks lawsuit is headed to the Supreme Court.

Tell Biden and leftist lawmakers to read the 4,543 words in the Constitution and honor them.

Creators.com

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Left-wing Democrats Running Roughshod Over Constitutional ... - The New York Sun

Tether mints $1 billion in USDT, sparks market fear, CTO explain "it's for chain swaps" | Credit; Shutterstock

Key Takeaways

USDT and minting company Tether come into the spotlight this week for minting a further $1 billion on an Ethereum blockchain. Tether CTO clarified, this amount will be used as inventory for next period issuance requests and chain swaps. Crypto analyst draws worries that USDT might be next in the crosshairs of the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

He claimed, Why not go straight for the jugular and starve crypto of its liquidity..

This recent minting follows the previous mint, which was less than 2 months prior. Tether has minted $16 billion in 2023 alone, while its market capitalization is at $83 billion.

Understandably, the event caught the attention of many stakeholders, nudging company CTO, Paolo Ardoino to explain the move. 1B USDt inventory replenish on Ethereum Network. Note this is a[sic] authorized but not issued transaction, meaning that this amount will be used as inventory for next period issuance requests and chain swaps, tweeted Ardoino.

Chain swaps explained the process of moving crypto tokens from one blockchain to another, enabling users to utilize their tokens on multiple blockchains simultaneously. Ardoino also explained that the $1 billion mint was to make sure theres enough liquidity to enable such chain swaps.

Prior to Adoinos tweet explaining the $1 billion mint, USDT price dipped due to market fears. However, it recovered almost immediately after the CTO explained the situation. Nevertheless, many fear that Tether/USDT might become the SECs next target as the tokens continue to gain popularity in 2023.

At this point, its no secret that the SEC is at a severe war with the crypto industry. Earlier this month, the commission filed thirteen lawsuits against the worlds biggest crypto exchange, Binance, for a number of alleged crimes.

The SEC also filed a lawsuit against Ripple, for allegedly trading in unregistered securities. They even sued Coinbase, the biggest US-based crypto exchange, for allegedly committing the same crime, yet refusing to put proper regulations in place for crypto trading when Coinbase officially requested they do.

More importantly, the SEC is not only going to war against the trade of decentralized tokens, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, but theyre also attempting to remove the legitimacy of stablecoins, as they did with BUSD.

In the documentation for the Binance lawsuits, the SEC specifically said that the exchange violated laws by Binance and BAM Trading with the unregistered offer and sale of Binances own crypto assets, including a so-called exchange token, BNB, a so-called stablecoin, Binance USD (BUSD).

According to Miles Deutscher, a crypto analyst, Tethers USD-tied token USDT makes up 76% of the entire stablecoin market. USDT, a coin that severs itself from the volatility of decentralized tokens, such as Bitcoin by basing its value on the USD while providing digital-based transfer solutions and ease of movement could potentially be the next target for the SECs rampage on crypto.

If youre the SEC and you really want to kill crypto, then your next target would be Tether. Why? 76% of all stablecoins on exchanges is USDT. Why not go straight for the jugular and starve crypto of its liquidity.. tweeted Deutscher

The SEC hasnt just gone for Binance, Coinbase, and Ripple. Other exchanges, such as Kraken and Bittrex, as well as a crypto lending platform called Nexo, have been on the receiving end of the commissions attack on the industry.

The irony is that the basis of many of the SECs allegations are based on the cryptocurrencies that they see as unregulated registers, while, as previously stated, it is the SEC that stands in the way of a proper regulatory reform on crypto.

Coin Metrics co-founder Nic Carter coined the term Operation Chokepoint 2.0, for which he details the issues created by regulators, alleging that they deliberately are destroying the crypto industry to create stricter control on the finance market.

Among the text within the legal petition sent to Washington DC are allegations such as The federal bank regulators are also refusing to perform their non-discretionary duties when doing so will benefit the cryptocurrency industry, as well as Operation Choke Point 2.0 deprives business of their constitutional rights to due process in violation of the Fifth Amendment.

It is well-settled that when a federal agency attaches a derogatory label to an individual or business, and this stigmatizing label causes the business to lose a bank account or broadly precludes them from the pursuit of their chosen trade, the agency has violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, unless if first afforded the individual or business a right to be heard.

Carter even tweeted I dont want to alarm, but since the turn of the year, a new Operation Choke Point type operation began targeting the crypto space in the US. it is a well-coordinated effort to marginalize the industry and cut of [sic] its connectivity to the banking system and its working.

Being the most popular stablecoin out there, USDT, created by Tether is considered the flagship of USD-based stablecoins. And, while many worry about the volatility of decentralized tokens such as Bitcoin, stablecoins provide a safe way to bridge the gap between crypto and fiat currencies.

Should the SEC go after Tether and USDT, a significant trade sum would be forced into a halt, potentially starving the market of fiat value, and consequently affecting the lives of many crypto-based businesses.

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Tether SEC Action? USDT Selling Floods Liquidity Pools in Wake of ... - CCN.com

University of California, Los Angeles, alumnus and associate professor Bobby Rimas of the American legal systems course at California State University, Los Angeles Downtown LA Campus, lectured on the importance of subpoenas and what should be done to ensure compliance on May 10.

Additionally, Rimas indicated that subpoenas allow for parties to learn about information or evidence that may be used for their cases.

Rimas then introduced guest speaker Andrew Beshai, an associate attorney at Larson LLP.

Beshai spoke about the difference between civil and criminal subpoenas, how subpoenas can request for court appearance, document productions or both. Furthermore, civil subpoenas can be issued by any lawyer but not a prosecutor.

Beshai also discussed the Fifth Amendment constitutional right not to self-incriminate.

Prior to his role as a federal prosecutor, Beshai was a trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, where he investigated and litigated discrimination cases against state and local entities in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Louisiana and Colorado.

As a trial lawyer with the DOJ Civil Rights Division, Beshai also worked on complex matters, including taking depositions, developing discovery strategy and arguing motions. He graduated valedictorian from Loyola Law School, where he served for two years as an adjunct professor teaching legal drafting.

Rimas indicated that Beshais presentation was very informative and gave students a clear picture as to the significance of subpoenas and what they should consider doing when assisting their legal teams with such matters.

In addition to being an associate professor, Rimas is a paralegal at the Larson LLP law firm and an adjunct faculty member at the University of La Verne. He is also the vice chair of the special committee on diversity, equity and inclusion for a Los Angeles-based nonprofit organization and a board member for the UCLA Lambda Alumni Association.

Rimas graduated with a bachelors degree in history from UCLA and a Master of Legal Studies degree, cum laude, from the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law.

He is the past chair/president of the UCLA Pilipino Alumni Association and past president of the Los Angeles Paralegal Association.

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Essential Education: Professor, attorney discuss importance of ... - LA Downtown News Online

On May 25, 1996, Kristin Smart was murdered by her classmate Paul Flores at California Polytechnic State University. He walked free for nearly three decades until a podcast helped solve the case.

Kristin Smart disappeared on May 25, 1996, while walking back to her dorm at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California after an off-campus party. No one saw the 19-year-old again and six years later, in 2002, Smart was declared legally dead in absentia.

For decades, it seemed like no one would ever know, for certain, what happened to Kristin Smart. The police had a person of interest in Paul Flores, Smarts classmate who walked her home the night she vanished and the last person to see her alive. But Flores maintained his innocence, and police were unable to gather enough hard evidence against him.

Then, in 2019, a budding freelance journalist named Chris Lambert created the podcast Your Own Backyard, which covered Smarts disappearance and reignited interest in the case, helping to bring new information to light. These developments galvanized further investigation into Smarts murder, which produced enough evidence to officially name Paul Flores as her killer.

Heres everything you need to know about the case.

Kristin Denise Smart was born on February 20, 1977, in Augsburg, Bavaria, West Germany, to Stan and Denise Smart, who were both teaching children of American military service members who were overseas. The Smarts later moved to Stockton, California, where their children attended school.

In 1995, Kristin Smart graduated from high school in Stockton and enrolled at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California.

Then, on May 25, 1996, Smart now a 19-year-old freshman attended an off-campus party. She left around 2 a.m., but she didnt leave alone. She was accompanied by three other Cal Poly students, including Paul Flores.

Unbeknownst to Smart, Flores had earned a negative reputation among women at Cal Poly. According to a 2006 Los Angeles Times report, he had been nicknamed Chester the Molester for his behavior at parties.

According to Flores, after he and Smart split off from the other students who had left the party, he and Smart walked toward his dorm in Santa Lucia Hall. He claimed that Smart then headed to her room in the nearby Muir Hall by herself. Kristin Smart was never seen again after that night.

Two days later, Smarts neighbor in her dorm reached out to campus police and Smarts parents, as Smart had seemingly vanished into thin air. It was only because of this students insistence that campus police opened an investigation, as they had initially assumed that Smart had voluntarily disappeared for a brief period and would be back on campus soon.

An incident report from campus police at the time also seemed to judge Smart harshly for drinking alcohol at the off-campus party shortly before her disappearance, according to her family. The report read:

Smart does not have any close friends at Cal Poly. Smart appeared to be under the influence of alcohol on Friday night. Smart was talking with and socializing with several different males at the party. Smart lives her life in her own way, not conforming to typical teenage behavior. These observations are in no way implying that her behavior caused her disappearance, but they provide a picture of her conduct on the night of her disappearance.

Despite the slow start of the investigation, missing-person posters and billboards began to pop up in public places and along roads in the area, offering rewards for information that could help find Kristin Smart.

Soon, two investigators from the district attorneys office were called in to help the campus police with the case, and they quickly zeroed in on Flores. When they interviewed him, they noticed numerous inconsistencies in his story, most notably his changing story about how he got a black eye.

Flores was eventually identified as a person of interest, but he denied any involvement in Smarts disappearance. And despite his suspicious behavior, police struggled to definitively link him to the crime.

In June 1996, the San Luis Obispo County Sheriffs Office took over the Kristin Smart case. The Cal Poly campus was then combed over by police and volunteers alike. When cadaver dogs were brought in to search the dorms at Cal Poly, three of them reacted to what had been Flores room.

Then, in the fall of 1996, a woman named Mary Lassiter was renting a house that belonged to Paul Flores mother Susan in Arroyo Grande, California. During her stay, she found a single womans earring in the driveway that appeared to match a necklace worn by Smart on one of the billboards she had seen of the missing teenager. Lassiter turned the earring over to the police but they lost it before they could mark it as evidence.

Susan Flores house naturally became the focus of widespread speculation, though police only searched it later on in the investigation. Though the backyard was searched several times, no further evidence was found there.

As reported by Yahoo! News, police eventually did find biological evidence of Smarts body at a different Flores property but that was more than two decades after the first investigation. With police unable to build a strong enough case early on, Flores was not initially arrested or charged.

Then, in 1997, the Smart family filed a $40 million wrongful death lawsuit against Paul Flores, still the main person of interest in the case.

During a deposition later that year for the civil suit, Flores invoked the Fifth Amendment 27 times on the advice of his lawyer.

The only answers he provided were his name, his birth date, and his Social Security number. He would not, on the other hand, answer questions about whether he was a Cal Poly student in May 1996, the name of his father, or even if he cooked hamburgers at his job at Garlands Hamburgers.

The tactic seemingly worked, with police soon admitting that without any new information from Flores, the investigation had stalled.

We need Paul Flores to tell us what happened to Kristin Smart, said San Luis Obispos then-Sheriff Ed Williams. The fact of the matter is we have very qualified detectives who have conducted well over a hundred interviews, and everything leads to Mr. Flores. There are no other suspects. So absent something from Mr. Flores, I dont see us completing this case.

In 2002, six years after her disappearance, Kristin Smart was declared legally dead in absentia and Flores was still a free man, according to The New York Times. For several years, the case would remain at a standstill, and the Smarts seemed to be no closer to getting justice for their daughter.

But things started to look up in 2011 when San Luis Obispo got a new sheriff.

When Sheriff Ian Parkinson took the job, he made a promise to the Smart family that solving Kristin Smarts case would be a top priority.

And he kept his promise. Parkinsons department would carry out 23 search warrants and 96 interviews. They also collected 258 pieces of evidence. Through it all, they still had only one suspect: Paul Flores.

Still, the case against Flores was missing evidence. But in 2019, the investigation got some much-needed aid from an unlikely source: a podcast focused on Smarts disappearance by freelance journalist Chris Lambert.

Lambert, who was only eight years old when Kristin Smart disappeared in 1996 and had no initial connection with her family, helped spark a wave of new information about the case that would help lead to Flores arrest.

According to Vanity Fair, Chris Lambert lived about half an hour from Cal Polys campus, and had no formal training as a journalist or documentarian, yet the Kristin Smart case endlessly fascinated him.

One day, he emailed his girlfriend a link to a Los Angeles Times story about Smart, jokingly saying that he was going to solve the case. He also told a writer friend of his about his interest in Smarts disappearance, and the friend told him that she remembered the Smart story from years earlier.

That same friend later emailed Lambert with more information: I cant believe I didnt tell you; I went to school with the guy who walked her home that night. I went to high school with him. We all called him Scary Paul.

This inspired him to create a podcast about the case in 2019, and it quickly became a hit, garnering nearly 75,000 streams on the day that the first episode was posted. As word spread about the podcast, more and more people began reaching out to Lambert with new information about Smart and Flores. Multiple people alleged seeing Flores taking advantage of several inebriated women, and some even accused Flores of sexual assault.

Lambert also began a working relationship with the San Luis Obispo County Sheriffs Office, sharing sources and letting the police interview them before he would. When Paul Flores was finally arrested for Kristin Smarts murder in April 2021, many people including the police and Smarts family looked to Lamberts podcast as a driving force behind the investigation. (Pauls father Ruben was also arrested and charged with being an accessory after the murder, as it was believed he helped his son hide Smarts body.)

Chris was able to fill in a part of the puzzle along with the dedicated members of the sheriffs office who worked this case over the years and the district attorneys office who successfully prosecuted this case, Sheriff Parkinson said of the podcasts impact on the investigation.

Lambert was in attendance throughout the murder trial in 2022, which ended with Paul Flores, who was 45 years old at the time, being found guilty of the first-degree murder of Kristin Smart. He was later sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for the crime. (Pauls father, Ruben Flores, was acquitted of the accessory charge by a separate jury.)

It started to hit me in waves, and I just started crying, Lambert said. I was thinking about where this started, was thinking about my relationship with the Smart family.

Lambert had met Denise Smart shortly after he started the podcast and expressed his desire to share her daughters story the real story, not one that, like early reports, judged Smart for partying the night she vanished.

It was that victim shaming, Denise Smart said. People dont want to connect with that, because its like, Oh, its that girl with the shorts going to a party getting drunk? Oh, well, thats what happens when you do that. And my kids would never do that. Sharing the real story is so important. My friends and I call Chris an angel in disguise.

After learning about the case of Kristin Smart, see how DNA helped to solve a 40-year-old cold case murder of a California kindergartner. Then, dive into these 11 cold cases that were solved thanks to Unsolved Mysteries.

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Inside The Murder Of Kristin Smart And How Her Killer Was Caught - All That's Interesting