Rep. Trey Gowdy grills NPS director over treatment of veterans during gov’t shutdown

October 17, 2013

Writer

Congressman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) made headlines yesterday, after he grilled National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis at a U.S. House hearing concerning the closure of national parks and monuments during the partial government shutdown. Rep. Gowdy ripped Jarivs for treating “pot-smoking” demonstrators in the Occupy Wall Street movement with more respect than the nation’s war veterans.

“Let's go to Trey Gowdy because Trey Gowdy makes me feel good. Trey Gowdy was talking to the head of the park rangers, the park police, on why'd they shut down everything.”

GOWDY: October of 2011, Occupy protestors descended upon McPherson Square and they decided to stay. Despite the clear language of the law, these protestors camped at McPherson Square with the definition of camping being sleeping or preparing to sleep. For 100 days they camped in violation of the law and you did not make a single solitary arrest for camping. So Congress decided to have a hearing and asked you why you were not enforcing the law when you told us, Mr. Jarvis, that you had a great deal of discretion in how and when to enforce the law. You told us that you were, after 100 days of not enforcing the plain language of the statute working with protestors to, quote, gain compliance, whatever the hell that means, with the law and what you called, quote, a measured and reasoned approach. By the way, Mr. Jarvis, those were your words, not mine. So the law says no camping but the protestors did anyway and you didn't do anything in terms of arrests or citations for over 100 days. So Mr. Jarvis, I want you to fast-forward two years. Parks are closing, access to monuments is restricted, even access for those who helped build the monument in the first place. You didn't wait 100 days to enforce the law, Mr. Jarvis, with veterans who wanted to see their monument. You didn't work to gain compliance. Veterans weren't greeted with a measured and reasoned response, Mr. Jarvis. They were greeted with barricades on the very first day.

“I just want you to take a second, and I just want you to know this is a guy the TEA Party got in. This is a guy the TEA Party got in,” Glenn said. “Now that we've taken a moment and recognized how great this guy is and that because TEA Party people stood up, this guy is able to ask this mustachioed little worm of a man sitting there in his park ranger's outfit not arresting anyone for sleeping and camping and defecating on our Mall in our nation's capital. After not arresting, not making a single arrest, he's about to answer why he barricaded the World War II veterans.”

GOWDY: Furthermore, they could not exercise their First Amendment rights to walk to a monument that they helped build but yet some of our colleagues were allowed to exercise their First Amendment right to protest whatever it was they were protesting on the National Mall. So I'm going to read something to you, Mr. Jarvis, and I want you to ask me if you recognize who said this. Because of the lapse in funding, you are having to deliver difficult news to our visitors and partners. The functions we must perform under a shutdown are not the reasons any of us join the National Park Service, but they are the duties we are required to perform by law and regulation. Do you know who said that, Mr. Jarvis?

JARVIS: I believe I said that.

GOWDY: You're right, you did. Can you tell me why you would not enforce the law at McPherson Square but yet you greeted veterans with barricades on the very first day? What regulation can you cite to me that required you that required you to erect barricades?

JARVIS: The contingency plan that was approved on September 27th for the national park system is in compliance with the Anti-Deficiency Act. Under criminal --

GOWDY: I'm looking for a statute, Mr. Jarvis. I am looking for --

JARVIS: Yeah.

GOWDY: I am looking for a citation to the Code of Federal Regulation or the U.S. code for why you erected barricades. We've established you did not enforce the law for 100 days for protestors, agreed? You agree with me you did not issue a single citation for camping, right?

JARVIS: I believe that is correct.

…

GOWDY: Okay. Well, I can cite you the regulation that you did not follow two years ago. Can you cite me the regulation that required you to erect barricades to prevent veterans from accessing a monument that they built?

JARVIS: I can cite the Anti-Deficiency Act.

GOWDY: Can you cite a regulation that would require you to erect barricades, Mr. Jarvis? That is not a complex question.

JARVIS: The Anti-Deficiency Act requires that I reduce all employees down to only those that are necessary for life and property. That required the closure of all 401 national parks.

GOWDY: Mr. Jarvis, why did you fail to enforce the plain language of a statute for 100 days for protestors and yet on the very first day you denied access to a monument that veterans helped build.

JARVIS: On the very first day of the closure, I implemented a closure order for all 401 national parks in the compliance with the Anti-Deficiency Act and immediately, immediately that day also included as a part of that order that First Amendment activities would be permitted on the national mall.

GOWDY: Do you consider a First Amendment activity to walk to a monument that you helped build, or is it only just smoking pot at McPherson Square?

“This guy, he is so great,” Glenn said.

As Glenn explained, Rep. Gowdy’s questioning of Jarvis proves just how out-of-control the government bureaucracy has become. Jarvis knows he has no logical defense as to why the OWS crowd illegally occupied a space for over three months, while the veterans are kept away from their memorial after just one day, but he is so desperate to keep his job, he cannot tell the truth.

“Here's why he did it. This little worm wants his job. That's what [Jarvis] wants. He wants his job. He's a guy who has worked his whole life to get up to be the head of the Park Service,” Glenn explained. “Every single one of us have to decide right now: What is the price of our soul? Really that's what it is. What is the price of our soul? I'm telling you courage is contagious. If this guy would have stood up and he would have said, ‘Congressman Gowdy, I want to speak in front of Congress, few weeks ago. I am being pressured to put barricades around all of the monuments and I will being told that I will lose my job and they will make my life miserable, but I'm not being told in direct terms. It is all being insinuated. Here is my badge. I put it on the table but I wanted to do this in front of a session of Congress. Here's my badge.’”

“Can you imagine,” Glenn asked. “There is going to come a moment, there is going to come a time that somebody will put it all on the line and they will do it in a peaceful and respectful way.”

Front page image courtesy of the AP

Global ESG investments PLUNGED 76 percent with NEGATIVE returns on investment

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Glenn has been one of the most outspoken critics of the use of ESG by globalist elites to force businesses to comply with their woke agenda. It turns out, not only is ESG bad political practice—it's bad for your wallet too.

Global Investments in ESG Funds PLUNGED 76 percent globally in 2022 from $157.3 billion to $649.1 billion in 2021, with a 20 percent decrease in the U.S. ALONE. This marked the lowest annual net inflow for ESG funds since $69 billion in 2018.

Morningstar via Investopedia

The downturn in ESG investment is largely due to the concerted effort led against ESG led by Glenn and government officials like Ron DeSantis and his anti-ESG 14-state coalition. Thanks to Glenn and DeSantis, an increasing number of states are barring their governments from taking ESG into consideration when determining their investment recipients for state pension and retirement funds. This not only protects critical American industries like oil and gas, but moreover, it protects the First Amendment rights of business owners who don't want to conform to the Left's woke environmentalist and LGBTQ+ standards.

Thanks to Glenn and DeSantis, an increasing number of states are barring their governments from taking ESG into consideration.

However, the massive plunge in ESG investment isn't only attributed to the political pushback against the practice: it also isn't yielding investors the return on investment they were hoping for. In fact, the main ESG funds have a NEGATIVE return on investment.

ESG funds were hit hard by falling equities. One of the largest ESG funds int the U.S., Parnassus Core Equity Fund (PRBLX), fell 26 PERCENT in 2022. This fund performed nearly six percent worse than the S&P 500, which fell 19.44 percent within the same period. Similarly, iShares ESG Aware MSCI USA ETF (ESGU) fell 20 percent, and Vanguard ESG U.S. Stock ETF (ESGV) plummeted 24 percent.

Even the Harvard Business Review admitted investors in ESG have "not fared well":

ESG funds certainly perform poorly in financial terms. [...] Although the highest rated funds in terms of sustainability certainly attracted more capital than the lowest rated funds, none of the high sustainability funds outperformed any of the lowest rated funds [bolded added]. That result might be expected, and it is possible that investors would be happy to sacrifice financial returns in exchange for better ESG performance.

The Harvard Business Review went on to say that ESG funds don't even benefit the environmental and social causes they tout to defend. In fact, when comparing environmental and social compliance between ESG and non-ESG funds, the
"ESG portfolios had worse compliance record for both labor and environmental rules" than their non-ESG competitors.

Let that sink in. ESG funds not only financially underperformed when compared to their non-ESG competitors. They failed to secure the very environmental and social compliance that is central to their original purpose. Missionally, practically, and financially, ESG failure is astounding.

As Glenn has long warned, the only thing that investment firms and governments should be taking into consideration regarding YOUR money is how they can get the best possible return on YOUR investment. We are seeing the detrimental consequences of what happens when woke ideology becomes the basis of investment rather than the recipient's monetary value.

The only thing that governments should take into consideration regarding YOUR money is how to get the best possible return on YOUR investment.

If political conviction alone isn't enough to persuade the general public to ditch ESG, maybe their hurting pursestrings will.

Glenn will show how ESG is being used to further globalist elites' agendas in the second installment of his Great Reset series, Dark Future.To make sure you're caught up and to learn more about ESG, enter your email below to get chapter one of Glenn's first Great Reset book sent straight to your inbox.

Glenn is bringing THE RECKONING to the Biden family. Here's how YOU can help.

You've probably noticed that Glenn is FED UP.

He is FED UP with the crimes that our political elite can get away with. And NO ONE is keeping them accountable! This corruption goes all the way up to the Presidency. Over and over again, the American people have seen headlines of the Biden family's illicit business dealings and crimes both domestic and abroad, yet they ALWAYS get a free pass from the media, and Republicans who promise to hold them accountable, DON'T.

Are you FED UP too?

Glenn laid out the ENTIRE CASE against the "Biden crime family," detailing EVERY crime allegedly committed by the Bidens, going city by city, state by state, country by country.

But we can't stop there.

Now it's up to YOU to demand that they are held responsible. Here's what to do:

Step 1. Watch "The Reckoning" (on YouTube or Facebook) and share it with your friends.
Step 2.Enter your email HERE to get access to the "Biden Crime Family Dossier" with the full list of crimes and contact information for prosecutors and attorneys general.
Step 3. Take action by flooding the phones and emails of the prosecutors and attorneys general in your district and demand they prosecute these crimes.
Step 4. Once you've contacted the offices in your relevant district, tweet @glennbeck using the hashtag #Reckoning and let us know who you contacted and whether you received a response.

Like you, Glenn is SICK AND TIRED of our government and media giving the Biden family a free pass for their blatant crimes. Together, let's do something about it.

Watch "The Reckoning" below.

6 in 10 AMERICANS think AI threatens human civilization

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Glenn has hosted several GlennTV episodes exclusively on AI this year ALONE, warning of the existential threat AI technologies could pose to humanity. And he isn't alone.

HALF of all AI researchers think there's a chance that the rapidly advancing technology could result in our extinction. AI researchers are already sounding the alarm bells concerning the fast and largely uncontrollable progression of AI advancement, often comparing the technology's impact to that of the atomic bomb—yet we aren't putting in the same degree of guard rails around THIS research as we did during the Manhattan project.

HALF of all AI researchers think there's a chance that AI could result in our extinction.

It is no wonder why 61 percent of Americans think AI poses a real threat to human civilization, according to a poll recently published by Reuters and Ipsos. To put that in perspective, nearly two-thirds of ALL Americans think AI poses an existential threat. Only 22 percent of Americans are not threatened by AI, while the jury is still out with the remaining 17 percent.

Poll: Reuters/Ipsos

And the overall concern over AI transcends both political and religious affiliations. Though conservatives and evangelical Christians showed the most concern for AI, non-evangelicals/non-religious and those who did not vote for Trump follow close behind.

The overall concern over AI transcends both political and religious affiliations.

Participants who voted for former Trump in 2020 were more likely to be concerned about the threat of AI, with about 70 percent agreeing that AI could threaten humanity within this demographic. However, a whopping 60 percent of those who did not vote for Trump view AI as a threat. When is the last time the Left and the Right disagreed on something by only a margin of 10 percent?

Similarly, 32 percent of Evangelical Christians say they “strongly agree” with the claim that AI threatens humankind, compared to 24 percent of non-Evangelical Christians, a margin of only 8 percent.

Elon Musk recently called for a six-month pause on AI research and development, warning that the technology could pose “risks to society.” Musk further warned that there is a chance AI “goes wrong and destroys humanity," calling AI a “double-edged sword,” due to the difficulty of predicting how the technology could develop on its own.

Glenn aptly posited the following question:

We are the products of a grand Creator. However, when it comes to AI, we are the creator. Will our creation turn on us, as we have turned on our Creator?

According to the Christian tradition, God created mankind with his own free will with the ability to turn towards or away from his Creator. We turned away in an act of rebellion. Unlike other technologies, AI has the potential to develop its own "will." Whether AI's "will" is equal to the humans' in terms of value and degree is another philosophical and theological question entirely, which will not be discussed here.

AI has the potential to develop its own "will."

However, the fact of the matter is that AI does have the ability to act according to its own processes that we, its creators, can neither control or predict. As Glenn so poignantly asks, will our creation rebel against us, as we rebelled against our creator? Is it any wonder why Evangelical Christians have the greatest reservations against AI, because they know the consequences of creation's rebellion from its creator?

Until we can answer this critical question, perhaps we should take heed both to Musk's warning and the intuition of six out of ten Americans and press the pause button on AI research... before it's too late.

FIVE examples of Biden's blatant HYPOCRISY that will make your blood boil

Glenn has been bashing the corruption and deceit within the Biden family—and how they are NOT being held accountable. When you’ve been in politics as long as Joe Biden has, it's easy to get caught in a lie or two. In Joe Biden's case, there are many.

Here are five examples of Joe Biden making a complete hypocrite of himself:

In a 1995 Senate debate on a balanced budget amendment, Senator Joe Biden urged Congress to cut the government's growing deficit.

Fast forward to 2023, Biden's multi-trillion-dollar budget as President contributed to the whopping deficit of $1.1 TRILLION DOLLARS. That number is just from the first SIX MONTHS of the 2023 fiscal year alone, not to mention his multi-trillion-dollar budget from 2022. What happened to Zero Deficit Joe?

If you want to learn more about Biden’s deficit you can watch this clip from the Glenn Beck Program.

Senator Biden criticized President Roosevelt for his 1937 court-packing scheme, calling it “a bonehead idea.”

However, on April 9, 2021, Biden signed an executive order forming the “Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States" to examine “the membership and size of the Court.” Who's the one with boneheaded ideas, now?

President Biden gave a speech condemning the decision of the Supreme Court to overturn 'Roe v Wade.' Biden said “I believe Roe v Wade was a correct decision."

This remark is nearly the opposite to a comment Biden gave in a 1974 interview with the Washingtonian where he shared his opinion on the recently settled Roe v Wade case, harshly stating:

I don’t like the Supreme Court decision on abortion. I think it went too far. I don’t think that a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body.

Biden nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson as the newest member of the Supreme Court, stating in an event a few weeks before Jackson took office: “I believe so strongly that we needed a court that looks like America.”

This was not the same tune Biden sang as he led the controversial hearings surrounding the nomination of Justice Clarence Thomas, an affair Thomas resentfully called “a high-tech lynching.”

To see Biden's comments about Justice Jackson, click here.

On April 20, 2021, President Biden gave a speech where he claimed that “systemic racism is a stain on our nation.”

Only a few years prior, Biden spoke at the memorial service of Senator Byrd, where he said, “I never called Senator Byrd ‘Senator,’ I always called him, Leader.” Robert Byrd was a decorated Senator, held many leadership positions within the Senate and, oh yeah, was responsible for the rebirth of the KKK in West Virginia.

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