"I don’t know where they would find the forces to begin to do that." The post Denver Mayor Suggests Police May Be Used to Block Deportation of Illegals appeared first on Frontpage Mag.

Within hours of the House Ethics Committee announcing they would not release their investigation on Matt Gaetz, a document from the DOJ’s probe was leaked to The New York Times. The Times hates the right. “It [allegedly] shows [Gaetz] made thousands $ in payments to women who told investigators they had sex with him for money. […] The post Gaetz Report Leaks & NY Times Weaponizes It appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

It appears the UK censorship demons have decided to summon Elon Musk before the UK Parliament to answer questions about X’s role in the summer riots and the rise of AI. They’ve threatened to do so, and one police chief is considering arresting him. Imagine the arrogance it takes even to think it. Meta and […] The post UK Parliament to Summon Musk to Explain His Role in Their Riots appeared first on www.independentsentinel.com.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former defense minister Yoav Gallant, and officials of the terror group Hamas on Thursday. The court issued warrants for leaders of Hamas over the October 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza. Hamas’ remaining leaders have reportedly sought refuge in Turkey, a NATO member, after being forced out of Qatar following the election of President-elect Donald Trump. The ICC, which has long been accused of harboring bias against Israel, accused the Israelis of “crimes against humanity and war crimes” in Israel’s prosecution of its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, according to the ICC’s announcement of the warrants. Netanyahu and Gallant “bear criminal responsibility for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare,” the court claimed. “The Chamber found that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the lack of food, water, electricity and fuel, and specific medical supplies, created conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of part of the civilian population in Gaza.” The accusations drew sharp rebukes and allegations of anti-Semitism from American and Israeli officials. Netanyahu’s office called the charges against him and Gallant “absurd and false.”  “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will not surrender to the pressures,” his office said in a statement. “He will not recoil or withdraw until all of the war’s goals — that were set at the start of the battle — are achieved.” Defense Minister Israel Katz, who recently replaced Gallant in the role, posted a statement to X ripping the court’s decision as “shameful” and “a moral disgrace, entirely tainted by antisemitism.” The decision by the International Criminal Court in The Hague to issue arrest warrants against Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Gallant is a moral disgrace, entirely tainted by antisemitism, and drags the international judicial system to an unprecedented low.… — ישראל כ”ץ Israel Katz (@Israel_katz) November 21, 2024 In the U.S., Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania responded to the ICC warrants, saying on X that the court has “No standing, relevance, or path.” The senator added, “F*** that,” with an emoji of the Israel flag. GOP Rep. Mike Waltz of Florida, Trump’s pick to be the next National Security Adviser, offered a similar response. “The ICC has no credibility and these allegations have been refuted by the U.S. government. Israel has lawfully defended its people & borders from genocidal terrorists. You can expect a strong response to the antisemitic bias of the ICC & UN come January,” Waltz posted on X. The ICC has no credibility and these allegations have been refuted by the U.S. government. Israel has lawfully defended its people & borders from genocidal terrorists. You can expect a strong response to the antisemitic bias of the ICC & UN come January. https://t.co/jIalwzooeS — Rep. Mike Waltz (@michaelgwaltz) November 21, 2024 Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas took aim at the ICC’s top prosecutor, Karim Khan. MATT WALSH’S ‘AM I RACIST?’ NOW STREAMING ON DAILYWIRE+ “The ICC is a kangaroo court and Karim Khan is a deranged fanatic. Woe to him and anyone who tries to enforce these outlaw warrants. Let me give them all a friendly reminder: the American law on the ICC is known as The Hague Invasion Act for a reason. Think about it,” Cotton said in a post on X. The ICC is a kangaroo court and Karim Khan is a deranged fanatic. Woe to him and anyone who tries to enforce these outlaw warrants. Let me give them all a friendly reminder: the American law on the ICC is known as The Hague Invasion Act for a reason. Think about it. — Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) November 21, 2024

Outgoing Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) shared his thoughts on casting the upcoming “Star Wars” trilogy, which was just announced by Lucasfilm. “If the lead Jedi is not a Black man I ain’t messing with yall,” Bowman posted on X.  “Yall not about to make 12 Star Wars and have all white leads for all 12. Y’all wilding with that and I hate to say that I would not watch and will spend the rest of my days denouncing this franchise that I have loved forever. The new Jedi order better be multicultural with a Black super powerful lead. We ain’t playing yall!” If the lead Jedi is not a Black man I ain’t messing with yall. Yall not about to make 12 Star Wars and have all white leads for all 12. Y’all wilding with that and I hate to say that I would not watch and will spend the rest of my days denouncing this franchise that I have loved… https://t.co/f2duXRwbg9 — Rep. Jamaal Bowman Ed.D. (@JamaalBowmanNY) November 20, 2024 Bowman was replying to the announcement that Simon Kinberg would be writing and producing Episodes X, XI, and XII of the film series. There have been many “Star Wars” movies over the past four decades with varying degrees of success. MATT WALSH’S ‘AM I RACIST?’ NOW STREAMING ON DAILYWIRE+ Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012 and immediately got to work on a new trilogy of Star Wars sequels to the existing six movies. Each of the three films had a different director attached, leading to fans saying they didn’t feel like a cohesive story was being told.  Despite Bowman’s demand to have a black actor play the lead role, multiple outlets are reporting that Henry Cavill is in talks to star in the new trilogy, though no official casting decisions have been announced yet. Several Disney films have featured different races and ethnicities in roles that originally had white leads. Some examples include the upcoming live-action “Snow White” starring Rachel Zegler and actress Halle Bailey playing Ariel in “The Little Mermaid” (2023). Bowman is a leftist activist who was charged late last year with pulling a fire alarm in Congress. He’s also a member of what’s commonly referred to as “The Squad” — a group of far-left lawmakers that includes Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Cori Bush (D-MO), and others. He’s the first of The Squad to be ousted from Congress after losing his primary race against moderate George Latimer in June.

The following is an excerpt from the new book “The Insider Threat: How the Deep State Undermines America from Within,” by Adam Lovinger, (November 19, 2024, Encounter Books) * * * Targeting A Presidential Transition Team On January 11, 2017, nine days before the start of the Trump administration, three members of the NSC Presidential Transition Team called [James H.] Baker in his Pentagon office to inform him that I would be leaving ONA [Office of Net Assessment] to join the Trump administration’s NSC. By then Baker was infamous at PTT headquarters. As the Pentagon PTT lead later told me, Baker had already illegally concealed ONA work product from her team. Baker did that by classifying unclassified ONA contractor reports. Alerted to Baker’s schemes, the NSC PTT leadership insisted on a conference call so there would be witnesses to what Baker told them about me. “General Flynn wants Adam Lovinger to serve as his Senior Director for Strategic Assessments on the NSC,” one member of the PTT said. There was a long pause. “That could be a problem,” Baker said. “How so?” “Adam is currently under investigation for serious misconduct in the performance of his official duties. That investigation will be finished soon. Would General Flynn be willing to take someone else from my staff?” “No, the general wants Adam.” There was another pause. Then Baker reluctantly agreed to release me to the NSC immediately. What those who joined the Trump administration would soon realize was that they were not in power. The Deep State held the real power in the U.S. national security, intelligence, and law enforcement federal bureaucracies. Trump administration officials, even very senior ones, who could not be coopted by the Deep State to do its bidding and insisted on holding those bureaucracies accountable for following U.S. law, would have their careers and reputations destroyed.(4) Two days later, on January 13, 2017, [Anthony L.] Russell wrote to Baker that I posed a “professional threat” to them both: Sir, I was just asked by Adam Lovinger to walk out with him as he departed ONA for the day  He indicated that he believed your treatment of Mike [Pillsbury, then on the Trump Presidential Transition Team], including inquiries to the CIA, were violations of the Privacy Act and the Hatch Act.  I took this as an explicit professional threat toward you and an implied one toward myself and I chose to not respond at all and simply turned and walked away. Immediately upon returning to the office I shared the contents of this conversation with Andrew May to ensure a witness to the events and my response, or lack thereof. (5) Russell’s reference to “inquiries to the CIA” related to Baker’s gathering a security file on Pillsbury. His reference to the Hatch Act, a federal statute that forbids executive branch officials from engaging in political activity, related to Baker’s use of CIA to gather dirt on Trump’s Presidential Transition Team. Cover design: Encounter Books Thanks to the playbook, I learned later that hours after receiving the above email from Russell, Baker secretly filed an “Incident Report” in my security file (on what is called the “Joint Personnel Adjudication System” or “JPAS”). That began the process of stripping me of my Top Secret/SCI security clearance. That done, Russell drafted a memo placing me on “administrative leave.” Several days later, attorney James B. Vietti, a subordinate of WHS director Barbara Westgate, wrote me out of my ONA job description. That was May’s idea: eight months later, when I found the playbook on my DoD computer, I learned that May had suggested that WHS “eliminate Adam’s billet.” Baker then placed Russell in charge of investigating me. But Vietti feared that what Baker and Russell were doing was too obviously illegal. On paper, legal counsel is required to stop criminal subversion of DoD processes and correct for that abuse of authority. But Vietti seemed mainly concerned that Russell wasn’t sufficiently covering up his own and others’ misconduct. On January 17, 2017, Vietti warned Russell that Baker’s actions looked too much like “a ‘go forth and find a justification to fire him [Lovinger]’ sort of investigation.”(6) The personnel lawyer then wrote to Russell: “It looks like you’re trying to interfere with or hinder his [Lovinger’s] advancement in some way and that the email [to the NSC] would be sent after [Lovinger] complained that Baker had violated the Hatch Act.” Despite all these behind-the-curtain efforts to derail my secondment to the NSC, on January 20, 2017, I departed by Secret Service van from the Presidential Transition Team headquarters at 18th and E Street, NW, passing through the heavy black-steel gates of the White House, and officially assumed my position as senior director for strategic assessments at the U.S. National Security Council. The U.S. National Security Council In Washington, proximity to power is everything. The magnificent federal buildings of DC, and the self-importance they inspire, infect almost everyone who walks their halls. Just days earlier I had been a civil servant in a Pentagon cubicle. Overnight my working environment became a suite of historically furnished offices in the majestic Eisenhower Executive Office Building (EEOB) on the corner of 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. Constructed in 1888 in the French Second Empire style, the EEOB has gracious eighteen-foot ceilings, black-and-white-checkered marble floors, and sumptuous, historically pristine period rooms. Many of the office suites have ornate marble fireplaces. In its early years the building housed the Departments of State, Army, and Navy all under one roof. Today the Navy and State Department libraries are iron-latticed oases of quiet calm. My third-floor office was separated from the West Wing of the White House by West Executive Avenue; it was only a five-minute jaunt to the second-floor National Security Advisor’s Office, White House Situation Room, and Navy Mess. For the first time in my career, I was assigned an executive assistant and had staff reporting to me. My new job put me in the U.S. Government pecking order a little higher than an assistant secretary; I was the civilian equivalent of a three-star flag officer (that is, lieutenant general or vice admiral). But I was under no illusions. As the Founders had intended, like everyone else in the White House, even the president, I was a temporary worker, and wonderfully expendable. * * * Incoming National Security Advisor Michael T. Flynn was appalled to learn that ONA had done no net assessments for the entirety of the Obama administration. To correct that deficit, my job on the NSC was to, in Flynn’s words, “do ONA’s job for it.” As I contemplated my new duties, I reflected on how my mentor and legendary first boss in ONA, Andrew W. Marshall, had held a similar position when Henry Kissinger brought him to the White House from the RAND Corporation in 1971. Both Marshall and I had been tasked by national security advisors with guiding America’s strategic recovery from “forever wars,” and building or rebuilding the Pentagon’s and NSC’s capacity to craft and execute net assessment–informed national security strategies. Those strategies were necessary to inject more logic into our alliances and partnerships and ensure that all strategic initiatives coming out of the White House were mutually reinforcing. But crafting strategies to end America’s directionless wars also posed a strategic threat to the Deep State–contractor nexus, which had become invested in perpetuating those wars as long as possible. A week later, I met with Flynn and several other NSC staff in his West Wing office to discuss the president’s Iran policy. As the meeting ended, Flynn asked me to stay behind. “Baker has some serious concerns about you,” he said gravely. That sent a cold chill down my spine. Flynn then smiled and broke into a laugh. “You must be doing something right,” he said. While my relief was growing exponentially by the millisecond, I still had no idea what he was talking about. “Just like Obama warned Trump not to hire me, Jim Baker warned me not to hire you!” Flynn was referring to a November 10, 2016, meeting between Obama and Trump. During that White House meeting, despite all the weighty world issues the outgoing president might have raised with Trump, Obama seemed monomaniacally fixated on Flynn, telling Trump not to appoint Flynn as his national security advisor.(7) All told, Trump was beseeched three times on three separate occasions (later by National Security Advisor Susan Rice and FBI Director James Comey) not to hire Flynn. Though each of those messages had an unmistakable “or else” quality, Trump brushed them all off. If anything, these fervent objections made it clear to Trump that Flynn was the right man for the job. * * * On the heels of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Michael T. Flynn had been appointed director of intelligence at the Joint Task Force 180 in Afghanistan. That was followed by a steady stream of promotions to Commander of the 111th Military Intelligence Brigade (2002–2004), then to Director of Intelligence for each of the Joint Special Operations Commands (2004–2007). Prestigious appointments to the U.S. Central Command (2007–2008), U.S. Joint Staff (2008–2009), and International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan (2009–2010) followed. From those positions of leadership, Flynn revolutionized U.S. counterinsurgency doctrine. As he would later detail in “Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan” (2010), which he coauthored with Matt Pottinger and Paul D. Batchelor, the U.S. military’s existing intelligence processes were not just broken, but self-defeating.(8) Intelligence gathered in the field was sent back to the U.S. for analysis. This was cumbersome and untimely, and it led to poor analysis, because the analysts charged with analyzing the information from afar lacked the local knowhow to accurately interpret what they were looking at. Flynn recommended several changes. To get actionable intelligence, U.S. forces had to win the trust of locals. That meant decamping from the safety of fortified bases and armored vehicles to live among the Afghan people. That showed the local population that Americans had skin in the game. He also shortened the analysis-operations cycle by cutting out Washington and conducting tactical intelligence assessments in the field. Those changes resulted in radical improvements in mission outcomes. But they also posed a direct threat to the connective tissue binding for-profit contractors to U.S. national security and intelligence agencies. By the second year of the Obama administration, that nexus had achieved institutional capture of the entire enterprise. It became a major force driving the course of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In July 2012, Flynn became the eighteenth Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). As he recounted to me years later, before assuming that role he studied ten years of DoD Inspector General audits of DIA’s expenditures of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars. None of those audits was “clean.” For an entire decade, at least, DIA had failed to properly account for its contractor expenditures. Seeking to root out that corruption and dysfunction, Flynn did what ordinary Americans expect from their leaders. He demanded transparency. “Right now,” Flynn said during a speech on September 12, 2013, we are conducting DIA’s first-ever full audit of the agency’s capabilities, and I have launched a special Task Force that is laser-focused on examining and analyzing DIA’s reliance on contracting to make sure we are spending our money as wisely as possible. I take the mandate to cut waste very seriously, and I also want to make sure we are putting our money into the right places where our attention will have to be focused on the various crossroads, and ultimately, strategic turns that we will have to negotiate in the future.(9)  In August 2014, Obama forced Flynn to “retire,” despite the fact that Flynn was regarded as the “best intelligence officer for the past twenty years,” in the words of NSA head Admiral Rogers. (10) Retired four-star general Barry McCaffrey concurred, calling Flynn “the best intelligence officer of his generation.”(11) What I didn’t know at the time of my early February 2017 meeting with Flynn was that FBI Director Comey had already ambushed and fabricated a “process foul” against him. That was recorded in writing by Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Bill Priestap: “What is our goal? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?”(12) Similarly, around the same time, the actions of Baker’s subordinate Commander Anthony L. Russell appeared, in the words of WHS attorney James Vietti, like “a ‘go forth and find a justification to fire him [Lovinger]’ sort of investigation.”(13) As I exited Flynn’s West Wing office he said, “Adam, see what Baker is doing to you as a badge of honor.” “What do you mean, sir?” “You were doing your job; Baker wasn’t, and isn’t. You make him look bad.” What neither of us fully realized at that moment, however, was that when our respective bosses failed to heed their threats, Obama and Baker marked us as “insider threats.” With that, the Deep State set out to weaponize federal authorities, smear our reputations, and destroy our careers.   * * * Adam S. Lovinger currently serves as vice president for strategic affairs at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C.-based think-and-do tank. In 2017 he was senior director for strategic assessments at the U.S. National Security Council (NSC). He holds degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, and Georgetown Law School. This excerpt is published by permission from Encounter Books. “The Insider Threat: How the Deep State Undermines America from Within,” by Adam Lovinger, (November 19, 2024, Encounter Books). Copyright 2024 by Adam Lovinger. The views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the U.S. government. The public release clearance of this publication by the Department of Defense does not imply Department of Defense endorsement or factual accuracy of the material contained herein (Defense Office of Prepublication and Security Review file 23-SB-0186). The views expressed in this book excerpt do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.    * * * NOTES: CHAPTER 7: TARGETING A PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITION TEAM 4.  Those who posed no threat to the Deep State, and those who collaborated with the Deep State to remove other Trump appointees, would be left in place and rewarded. 5. Anthony L. Russell, email to James H. Baker, “Documenting Conversation with Adam Lovinger,” January 13, 2017,” 2:47 p.m. 6.  James B. Vietti, email to Anthony L. Russell, “Re: Investigation Update/Next Steps,” January 17, 2017, 10:07 a.m. 7.  Kristen Welker, Dafna Linzer, and Ken Dilanian, “Obama Warned Trump against Hiring Mike Flynn, Say Officials,” NBC News, May 8, 2017, https:// www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/obama-warned-trump-against-hiring-mike- flynn-say-officials-n756316. 8. Michael T. Flynn, Matt Pottinger, and Paul D. Batchelor, Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan (Center for a New American Security, January 2010), accessed online, July 7, 2024, at https://s3.us-east-1. amazonaws.com/files.cnas.org/hero/documents/AfghanIntel_Flynn_Jan2010_ code507_voices.pdf. 9.  Michael Flynn, “Lt. Gen. Flynn INSA IC Summit Remarks” (speech), Defense Intelligence Agency, September 12, 2013, https://www.dia.mil/Articles/Speeches- and-Testimonies/Article/567074/lt-gen-flynn-insa-ic-summit-remarks. 10.  James Kitfield, Twilight Warriors: The Soldiers, Spies, and Special Agents Who Are Revolutionizing the American Way of War (New York: Basic Books, 2016), 2. 11.  Ken Dilanian, “Trump National Security Adviser Pick Michael Flynn Has Medals—and Baggage,” NBC News, November 18, 2016, https://www.nbcnews. com/news/us-news/trump-national-security-adviser-pick-has-medals-baggage- n685681. 12.  Bill Priestap, quoted in Adam Goldman and Katie Benner, “Ex-F.B.I. Official Is Said to Undercut Justice Dept. Effort to Drop Flynn Case,” New York Times, May 13, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/13/us/politics/bill-priestap- michael-flynn.html. 13. Vietti, email to Anthony L. Russell.

The court released the New York Police Department’s initial interrogation of Daniel Penny on Wednesday, showing detectives did not tell him Jordan Neely had died after Penny placed him in a chokehold in a subway. The video begins with Penny seemingly unaware he was under any suspicion or that he would be arrested, and he can be seen smiling and talking with the detectives about his time in the Marine Corps. The detectives, Michael Medina and Brian McCarthy, then walk Penny through his Miranda warning – never telling him Neely died. Parts of the video have been used in pretrial hearings, Fox News reported, but the full 30-minute interrogation was not released until it became part of the public record during Penny’s trial. Penny waived his right to an attorney and spoke with the detectives for 25 minutes after the Miranda warning, walking them through his day on the F train that led to him putting Neely in a chokehold. “Some guy came in, and he’s like with his jacket off and he’s like, ‘I’m gonna kill everybody. I’m gonna go to prison forever. I don’t care,'” Penny says in the video. Penny then tells the detectives that he asked the person next to him to hold his phone, and he removed his earbuds before getting behind Neely and placing him in the hold. “I just kind of, like, grabbed him from behind,” Penny said. “Because he was acting like a lunatic, like a crazy person,” he continued. “So, and he was rolling around the floor. And at that point, the train stopped. I was like, ‘Someone call the cops,’ and he’s still, like rolling around, still going crazy. I had two other guys kind of help me just kind of keep him from going nuts. And yeah, that’s when you guys came.” MATT WALSH’S ‘AM I RACIST?’ NOW STREAMING ON DAILYWIRE+ Later in the interrogation, Penny said he wouldn’t normally get involved in such a situation but felt the need to step up because of Neely’s threats to other passengers. “He’s like, ‘If I don’t get this, this and this, I’m going to go to jail forever,'” Penny said. “He was talking gibberish, you know, but these guys are pushing people in front of trains and stuff.” Penny was referring to the more than 20 people who had been shoved onto subway tracks in New York City, according to Fox 5 New York. Many of the suspects were homeless and mentally ill. On Wednesday, jurors heard from forensic psychiatrist Dr. Alexander Bardey, who reviewed thousands of pages of Neely’s medical records dating back to 2015, Fox News reported, and told jurors that Neely had been hospitalized more than a dozen times for psychotic episodes and for abusing synthetic marijuana. Bardey testified that Neely had delusions that deceased rapper and actor Tupac Shakur – who has been dead for nearly 30 years, was using him to “change the world.” Neely also heard the “devil’s voice.” Numerous witnesses have also testified that they feared Neely, with some even thanking Penny for stepping in to protect them. Penny faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted of manslaughter or up to 4 years if he’s convicted on the lesser charge of criminally negligent homicide. Here’s a clip from the interrogation courtesy of The Free Press:

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) announced on Thursday that he is withdrawing his name from consideration for attorney general after being tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to serve in the position. Gaetz said that his decision came after meeting with senators on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. He said that it was “clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition.” Gaetz’s withdrawal comes as multiple senators expressed concern over his confirmation and the House Ethics Committee weighed releasing a report on alleged sexual misconduct. “I had excellent meetings with Senators yesterday. I appreciate their thoughtful feedback – and the incredible support of so many. While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition. There is no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle, thus I’ll be withdrawing my name from consideration to serve as Attorney General. Trump’s DOJ must be in place and ready on Day 1,” Gaetz wrote. “I remain fully committed to see that Donald J. Trump is the most successful President in history. I will forever be honored that President Trump nominated me to lead the Department of Justice and I’m certain he will Save America.” I had excellent meetings with Senators yesterday. I appreciate their thoughtful feedback – and the incredible support of so many. While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance… — Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) November 21, 2024 MATT WALSH’S ‘AM I RACIST?’ NOW STREAMING ON DAILYWIRE+ This is a developing story; refresh the page for updates. 

Now Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto, Dr. Jordan B. Peterson has dedicated much of his career — and life — to teaching. Having been bestowed the title of honor in recognition of his service, leadership, research, and teaching, Peterson’s distinguished career and sphere of influence has set him apart. His instructional practices did not end when he exited the classroom; rather, it seems they had only just begun. Peterson continues teaching on a variety of subjects outside the classroom, just as he does in his new series, “Success,” available on DailyWire+.  Today, Peterson remains steeped in his roots, leaning on his knowledge of psychology, religion, philosophy, and literature. At the same time, he will tackle any topic of conversation and answer any question posed to him; he is not one to shy away from a challenge. Addressing the topic of success, however, is no challenge to Peterson, but it is one he parses with careful consideration. His assertions are not without support, and he foregrounds his teaching on success with knowledge from his experience, practice, and research.  The beginning of the third episode opens with Peterson, still seated, reiterating a main point in the first. He refutes the notion that happiness and the absence of suffering are requirements for success. “Success is not a matter of mere happiness. Success is not a matter of mere absence of suffering” he says, using firm hand gestures that denote his seriousness. People often think they want an easy life, but he counters this idea, saying, “It’s very often the case, when people look back on their lives, they’re happiest about the things they did that were maximally challenging.” With the happiness and absence of suffering hypothesis cast aside, Peterson identifies optimized suffering as a worthy matter of success instead — specifically, “optimized challenge in the pursuit of maximal integration.” Here, Peterson harkens back to one of his foregrounding teaching topics: being reasonably embedded in a social hierarchy.  Peterson has long since established the need to be embedded in a hierarchy; without being so, a horrible life expands multidimensionally. In the absence of an intimate partner, a family, any friends, a career or job, all that is left is pain. But Peterson is a problem-solver, not simply a problem-poser. He identifies a problem and almost seems to accept the responsibility of owning it, of solving it. The diagnosis is between the individual and the hierarchy itself.  WATCH ‘SUCCESS’ ON DAILYWIRE+ Taking a lesson he has explicated thoroughly over time — that as deeply social creatures, we must be a harmonious player in a multidimensional symphony of social interaction — Peterson connects this teaching to the point at hand: optimized challenge in the pursuit of maximal integration. When you engage in competition to challenge yourself, you let go of skills that are counterproductive and develop new skills as a consequence of being challenged, he explains. “When you’re playing the game, you’re not just trying to win the game, you’re trying to become a better player while you play it.” Thus, striving to operate at all levels — with a partner, family, community, town, city, nation — in a way that makes you better at those levels is formative of success.  This means success is not an apex; it is, instead, a journey to pursue. “You think you’re going to hit a pinnacle, and that there’ll be something static about that pinnacle and that you’ll have accomplished something and you’ll be done. Well, the problem with that is, success is not a place you get to and stay.” Again, integration is required. Understanding the idea of process is necessary in order to conceptualize success, to truly understand it. As Peterson knowingly professes, “Wherever you are, you’re definitely not at your final destination.” Recalling people he has met who peaked in high school, Peterson states the truth in this example: many, many years remain to go downhill. Success as an end state is a thought which must be opposed.  To provide support for these already well-founded truths, Peterson draws on Fyodor Dostoevsky, the nineteenth-century Russian author — one that captured and held Peterson’s attention for decades. In “Notes from Underground,” Dostoevsky posits that if people were provided a worry-free life with nothing but the opportunity to enjoy, they would destroy it within a week just to have something unexpected happen. Though the idea that “if we only had enough, everything would be alright” is foolish, it is, in large part, due to our “history of privation.” Regardless, Peterson knows we are not created for the sole desire of satiation. We are, instead, built for adventure.  He continues, saying, “That adventure is part and parcel of being pushed to that development edge in the context of, let’s say, the competitive play we have to engage in.” This brings about the issue of a zero-sum attitude — an attitude of limitation, lack, and insufficiency — which must be done away with. Instead, a perspective that hones in on opportunity because “abundance is a consequence of proper social integration and social structure” is needed. Peterson speaks with an air of optimism, asserting that “the world’s an ever expanding set of possibilities.” He is also realistic, acknowledging that people face differing opportunities and limitations, which he lays claim to having witnessed with patients in his psychological practice. But even so, he has encountered people looking for opportunity. He shares a moving story of one patient in particular who “had enough largeness of soul to notice that there were people who were even worse off than her — and then wanted to do something about it.”  What of those who have been given much? “I think that with each of your talents, they come accompanied by a requisite responsibility,” Peterson says. “Very few gifts come without a price.” There is no shortage of causes for someone’s presumed limitations or constraints, as he makes evident in the list he poses: narrowness of vision and conceptualization, cynicism, bitterness, shallowness, lack of discipline, corrosive self-criticism, excuse-making and rationalization, outright deception, and sins of omission. People sometimes impose constraints on themselves for self-justifying reasons, not a direct indication of their environment.  When self-justification of constraints becomes the reason for limitations, comparison can easily ensue. Comparison has the potential to lead to envy, but “casual envy is not that wise,” Peterson warns. Here, he tells a story of triumph, of a man who faced constant trouble, “that kind of tragic trouble that never goes away,” but managed to create a successful life for himself. Peterson knows this upward striving feat can be accomplished by having a default proposition of knowing there are ways you can “get your act together” that would “open the world up to you.”  Peterson ends with hope, naming “the courage of hope” as part of success. He seems to know the viewer may tilt their head in confusion at the idea of hope being associated with success, but his reasoning makes sense. Seeing that life is cataclysmic yet still daring to hope is, indeed, courageous. “The development and cultivation of that existential courage, that’s also core to what constitutes success — and that’s the practice of virtue.” Whether intentionally or by happenstance, Peterson comes full circle and gives the viewer a chance to embark on a journey toward optimized challenge. He inquires, “How much of what isn’t working for you in your life is a consequence of your failure to seize the moment and blindness to the opportunities right in front of you?”  Consider the call to seize the moment, identify the opportunities in your path, engage in what is maximally challenging, and pursue your adventure to success.