FBI Overreach

How Feds ‘Skirted’ Constitution to Censor Content Online

Published by Papa Giorgio

See my previous post on this topic:

REASON-TV

These two shorter video clips are taken from a longer conversation with Stanford’s Jay Bhattacharya and New Civil Liberties Alliance senior counsel John Vechionne.

By focusing their sights on government actors instead of private companies under their boot, the Missouri v. Biden plaintiffs have chosen exactly the right target.

YouTube removed this March 2021 roundtable organized by Florida governor Ron DeSantis because of the views Bhattacharya and others expressed about masking children in school. Was this part of an illegal censorship campaign, as a lawsuit in federal court alleges?

JOHN SOLOMON

(Oct 1, 2022) “Anyone who’s concerned about free speech… this ought to scare you.” John Solomon joins Dr. Gina with his report on a private group that worked with the government to submit requests for censorship online during the 2020 election AND THEY’RE DOING IT AGAIN!

WALL STREET JOURNAL

The WALL STREET JOURNAL writes about the ruling as well:

  • 5th Circuit finds Biden White House, CDC likely violated First Amendment — The three judge panel found that contacts with tech companies by officials from the White House, the surgeon general’s office, the CDC and the FBI likely amounted to coercion

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit on Friday ruled that the Biden White House, top government health officials and the FBI likely violated the First Amendment by improperly influencing tech companies’ decisions to remove or suppress posts on the coronavirus and elections.

The decision, written unanimously by three judges nominated by Republican presidents, was likely to be seen as victory for conservatives who have long argued that social media platforms’ content moderation efforts restrict their free speech rights. But some advocates also said the ruling was an improvement over a temporary injunction U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty issued July 4.

David Greene, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the new injunction was “a thousand times better” than what Doughty, an appointee of former president Trump, had ordered originally.

Doughty’s decision had affected a wide range of government departments and agencies, and imposed 10 specific prohibitions on government officials. The appeals court threw out nine of those and modified the 10th to limit it to efforts to “coerce or significantly encourage social-media companies to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce, including through altering their algorithms, posted social-media content containing protected free speech.”
The 5th Circuit panel also limited the government institutions affected by its ruling to the White House, the surgeon general’s office, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the FBI. It removed restrictions Doughty had imposed on the departments of State, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services and on agencies including the U.S. Census Bureau, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. The 5th Circuit found that those agencies had not coerced the social media companies to moderate their sites.

Read the 5th Circuit’s ruling

The judges wrote that the White House likely “coerced the platforms to make their moderation decisions by way of intimidating messages and threats of adverse consequences.” They also found the White House “significantly encouraged the platforms’ decisions by commandeering their decision-making processes, both in violation of the First Amendment.”

A White House spokesperson said in a statement that the Justice Department was “reviewing” the decision and evaluating its options.
“This Administration has promoted responsible actions to protect public health, safety, and security when confronted by challenges like a deadly pandemic and foreign attacks on our elections,” the White House official said. “Our consistent view remains that social media platforms have a critical responsibility to take account of the effects their platforms are having on the American people, but make independent choices about the information they present.”

The decision, by Judges Edith Brown Clement, Don R. Willett and Jennifer Walker Elrod, is likely to have a wide-ranging impact on how the federal government communicates with the public and the social media companies about key public health issues and the 2024 election.

The case is the most successful salvo to date in a growing conservative legal and political effort to limit coordination between the federal government and tech platforms. This case and recent probes in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives have accused government officials of actively colluding with platforms to influence public discourse, in an evolution of long-running allegations that liberal employees inside tech companies favor Democrats when making decisions about what posts are removed or limited online.

The appeals court judges found that pressure from the White House and the CDC affected how social media platforms handled posts about covid-19 in 2021, as the Biden administration sought to encourage the public to obtain vaccinations.

The judges detail multiple emails and statements from White House officials that they say show escalating threats and pressure on the social media companies to address covid misinformation. The judges say that the officials “were not shy in their requests,” calling for posts to be removed “ASAP” and appearing “persistent and angry.” The judges detailed a particularly contentious period in July of 2021, which reached a boiling point when President Biden accused Facebook of “killing people.”

“We find, like the district court, that the officials’ communications — reading them in ‘context, not in isolation’ — were on-the-whole intimidating,” the judges wrote.
The judges also zeroed in on the FBI’s communications with tech platforms in the run-up to the 2020 elections, which included regular meetings with the tech companies. The judges wrote that the FBI’s activities were “not limited to purely foreign threats,” citing instances where the law enforcement agency “targeted” posts that originated inside the United States, including some that stated incorrect poll hours or mail-in voting procedures.

The judges said in their rulings that the platforms changed their policies based on the FBI briefings, citing updates to their terms of service about handling of hacked materials, following warnings of state-sponsored “hack and dump” operations.

[….]

The 5th Circuit ruling reversed Doughty’s order specifically enjoining the actions of leaders at DHS, HHS and other agencies, saying many of those individuals “were permissibly exercising government speech.”

“That distinction is important because the state-action doctrine is vitally important to our Nation’s operation — by distinguishing between the state and the People, it promotes ‘a robust sphere of individual liberty,’” the 5th Circuit judges wrote.

Yet Friday’s order still applies to a wide range of individuals working across the government, specifically naming 14 White House officials, including five who are no longer in office. The order specifically names Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy and another member of his office, three CDC staffers and two FBI officials, including the head of the foreign influence task force and the lead agent of its cyber investigative task force in San Francisco.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is among the White House officials named.

Stanford Law School professor Daphne Keller said the 5th Circuit’s ruling appeared to allow “a lot of normal communications as long as they are not threatening or taking over control of platforms’ content decisions.”

“But it also says they can’t ‘significantly encourage’ platforms to remove lawful content, so the real question is what that means,” she said.

Friday’s decision came in response to a lawsuit brought by Republican attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri who allege that government officials violated the First Amendment in their efforts to encourage social media companies to address posts that they worried could contribute to vaccine hesitancy during the pandemic or upend elections.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey celebrated the decision as a victory in a statement.

“The first brick was laid in the wall of separation between tech and state on July 4,” he said. “Today’s ruling is yet another brick.”

ACLJ: WILL END UP IN FRONT OF THE SUPES

ACLJ make the point that it will end up in front of SCOTUS.

We’re celebrating a massive free speech victory as the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling that President Joe Biden cannot censor conservatives on social media. We also give an update on our newest legal battle on behalf of Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA against digital censorship. We must not allow the Biden Administration to interfere in future elections as it did with President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election by censoring the Hunter Biden laptop story. 

Big Win for the 1st / Big Loss for David French

Published by Papa Giorgio

5th circuit – Biden White House, FBI likely violated the first amendment

TWITCHY!

While the Second Amendment is being violated in Arizona, we are getting news tonight that the First Amendment is being honored in the Fifth Circuit court of appeals.

Previously, we told you about Missouri v. Biden. As we said on July 4 of this year when the district court issued an injunction:

This is huge deal. This is potentially a landmark case on how the First Amendment applies in the age of social media[.]

We also covered that case here, here and here.

Generally speaking, it is widely believed that social media is free to censor people as they see fit. We believe there might be some legal arguments that can be made against that, but that is a common belief. ‘They’re just private companies making their own decisions’ is the argument offered by people defending this censorship. For instance, here’s uber-weenie David French making that argument:

We have suspected for years that this was French just running interference, and that, in fact, he likes Internet censorship. Recently, he confirmed our suspicions: 

Antisemitism speech is free speech, however vile it can be. So French is upset that Twitter/X is allowing for free speech. We would rather have people feel free to say vile things then have someone decide what kind of speech is allowed.

But the other retort to the French view is presented in Missouri v. Biden, because the argument in that case is that the social media companies were not simply acting on their own. Private action can become government action, under the right circumstances—the most obvious being when the government coerces the private action. The lower court found that various social media companies—like Twitter/X, Meta/Facebook and Google/YouTube were—were not censoring based on their own desires, but because of illegal government pressure. As a result, the District Court issued a preliminary injunction, prohibiting a broad range of communication by the government, and it applied nationwide. If you have been on social media since then, this order protected your right to free speech.

The Biden administration appealed and tonight they largely lost. The Fifth Circuit largely upheld that order, explaining that this was the standard for when private action became state action.

The government cannot abridge free speech. U.S. Const. amend. I. A private party, on the other hand, bears no such burden—it is ‘not ordinarily constrained by the First Amendment.’ Manhattan Cmty. Access Corp. v. Halleck, 139 S. Ct. 1921, 1930 (2019). That changes, though, when a private party is coerced or significantly encouraged by the government to such a degree that its ‘choice’—which if made by the government would be unconstitutional, Norwood v. Harrison, 413 U.S. 455, 465 (1973)—’must in law be deemed to be that of the State.’ Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U.S. 991, 1004 (1982); Barnes v. Lehman, 861 F.2d 1383, 1385–36 (5th Cir. 1988). This is known as the close nexus test.

They also found that the Plaintiffs, including many doctors, state officials and even the Gateway Pundit had met the requirement that there be a sufficient threat of irreparable harm:

We agree that the Plaintiffs have shown that they are likely to suffer an irreparable injury. Deprivation of First Amendment rights, even for a short period, is sufficient to establish irreparable injury. 

So, they largely upheld the lower court’s order. They did tighten up the list of officials being enjoined and they clarified the language so it clearly prevented both coercion and ‘significant encouragement’ as the law prohibits. This means that the Biden administration can ask nicely for censorship but can’t engage in the kind of pressure campaigns it has in the past…..

 

The Pyramid of “Far Right” Radicalization (RPT’s Thoughts)

Published by Papa Giorgio

After this “short” expose the bottom line is that the top half of the pyramid [to follow] has more in common with Leftist ideals of a larger government, and should be in a pyramid that includes ANTIFA and the beliefs of Michael Loadenthal.

DAN BONGINO: LEFTY ADMITS THE THINGS THEY DO ARE ILLEGAL

(See also ACE OF SPADES for more “stuff) Some backdrop to the above video, first by AMERICAN FAMILY NEWS:

Thanks to the MEDIA RESEARCH CENTER, a media watchdog group, the public is now learning the Biden-led Department of Homeland Security has passed out $40 million in grant funds to left-leaning recipients through a program called Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention Grant Program, or TVTP. Those funds, which ranged from a $85,000 to $1.1 million, were spread among 80 grants to recipients such as an extremism prevention program at the University of Dayton and a homosexual rights group named Out Boulder County.

Free Speech America, a division of Media Research, learnenewsbd about the flow of grant money and its recipients thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request. That public records request forced DHS to hand over some – but not all – public documents related to the federal agency’s ongoing effort to condemn its right-wing enemies, such as think tank The Heritage Foundation and cable news outlet Fox News. 

With some of that public request information in hand, MRC and Free Speech America were able to track down the TVTP grant recipients and request the results they produced from their taxpayer-funded grants.

Michael Morris, who leads Free Speech America, tells AFN the most alarming revelation so far was a “Pyramid of Far-Right Radicalization” that categorizes right-wing threats in four tiers. It includes little-known Neo-Nazi groups with well-known groups such as the NRA and media outlets such a Fox News.

“When [Joe] Biden goes out and says that they’re administration is looking to go after white supremacists,” Morris tells AFN, “they’re not talking about actual white supremacists. They’re talking about you.”

Like a food pyramid with whole grains at the bottom and sugar at the top, the top of the pyramid lists anti-Semitic Neo-Nazi groups as the most dangerous enemy of the American public. In the chart, they fill up the No. 4 and No. 3 slots. Meanwhile, Fox News, The Heritage Foundation, Christian Broadcasting Network, the National Rifle Association, and the Republican Party are listed at the bottom.

Just above them, in the No. 2 slot, are PragerUniversity, Breitbart News, pro-police group Blue Lives Matter, Turning Point USA, and Infowars.

[….]

According to Morris, a genocide expert at the conference compared President Donald Trump to Pol Pot, the Cambodian leader who oversaw the massacre of millions. A second speaker, with Human Rights Watch, suggested Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, wants to start a second Holocaust by creating a state militia. 

In its story, Fox News was not done with Loadenthal. It points out how he spoke at a second seminar on “White Nationalism” in which he praised “antifascists” and Antifa for fighting the Far Right. Like a war veteran describing battle, Loadenthal recalled fondly how he had fought “white supremacists” in his “younger years” before that movement evolved into what is now known as Antifa. 

“Antifascists” is where “Antifa” gets it name, and its violent members are self-described Communists, Marxists, and anarchists. 

“A lot of things we’re doing are illegal,” the researcher said. “A lot of it involves breaking the law.” 

Yes, they are breaking laws, but the chart breaks common sense as well. I will explain what I mean a bit [those that follow me know when I say “a bit,” sometimes that means “a lot”], but people have a very broken view of the issue and where the cards fall, so-to-speak.

So, let’s delve into this issue with some partial past posts of mine discussing the main issue I see between levels 1 and 2 and those of 3 and four. (So I am cutting the pyramid in half essentially.) Here is the main idea via an old post that originally appeared in August 2007 on my old blog, but that eventually got imported and updated to my .com:

WHAT “IS” FASCISM ~ TWO OLD POSTS COMBINED

…. Let us look at what we are told is suppose to be the political landscape if it were to be put into a line graph.

Really this is misleading. For one, it doesn’t allow for anarchy, which is a form of governance (or lack thereof). Also, it places democracy in the center… as if this is what one should strive for, a sort of balance. (The most popular — college level graph — is wrong and misleading as well):

However, the founding fathers wanted nothing to do with a democracy no matter how many times a New York Times editorialist or you’re teacher says we are in one:

  • James Madison (fourth President, co-author of the Federalist Papers and the father of the Constitution) Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have, in general; been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.
  • John Adams (American political philosopher, first vice President and second President) Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.
  • Benjamin Rush (signer of the Declaration): “A simple democracy is one of the greatest of evils.”
  • Fisher Ames (American political thinker and leader of the federalists [he entered Harvard at twelve and graduated by sixteen], author of the House language for the First Amendment): “A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will provide an eruption and carry desolation in their way…. The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness [excessive license] which the ambitious call, and the ignorant believe to be liberty.”
  • Governor Morris (signer and penman of the Constitution): “We have seen the tumult of democracy terminate as [it has] everywhere terminated, in despotism. Democracy! Savage and wild. Thou who wouldst bring down the virtous and wise to thy level of folly and guilt.”
  • John Quincy Adams (sixth President, son of John Adams [see above]): “The experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived.”
  • Noah Webster (American educator and journalist as well as publishing the first dictionary): “In democracy there are commonly tumults and disorders.. therefore a pure democracy is generally a very bad government. It is often the most tyrannical government on earth.”
  • John Witherspoon (signer of the Declaration of Independence): “Pure democracy cannot subsist long nor be carried far into the departments of state it is very subject to caprice and the madness of popular rage.”
  • Zephaniah Swift (author of Americas first legal text): “It may generally be remarked that the more a government [or state] resembles a pure democracy the more they abound with disorder and confusion.”

The Founders obviously knew what a democracy was, which is why in Article IV, Section Four of the Constitution, it says:

  • The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government.

The following graph includes all political models and better shows where the political beliefs lie e.g., left or right is the following (take note, this graph is from a book I do not support nor recommend… but these visual insights are very useful):

In actuality, during WWII, fascism grew out of socialism, showing how close the ties were. I would argue that the New Left that comprises much of the Democratic Party today is fascistic, or, at least, of a closer stripe than any conservative could ever hope to be. I will end with a model comparing the two forms of governance that the two core values (conservatism/classical liberalism versus a socialist democracy) will produce. Before you view the below though, keep in mind that a few years back the ASA (American Socialist Association) on their own web site said that according to the voting record of United States Congressmen and Women, that 58 of them were social democrats. These are the same that put Hitler and Mussolini in power.

Which Do You Prefer?? Liberal Democrats want more government control, Conservative Republicans want less. In a discussion, I exemplified that minimally “fascism” is growth of government in this way:

[….]

To expand a bit on the Rummel book mentioned above… he shows that both the citizenry and free countries are dealt heavy hands and dedath in greater numbers as the government grows larger. Conservatives want to decrease governments size. Progressives want to increase the size of government.

Which is why I shake my head when I hear about people talking about the libertarian Koch Brothers influencing politics. They are for same-sex marriage as well as wanting to make government smaller, in other words, MORE CONSTUTUTIONAL. When people like billionaire coal magnate Tom Steyer gives millions of dollars to Democrats to increase the size of government, he is praised as a hero. The same goes for George Soros.

The bottom line is that leftist billionaires/millionaires who support more control by government over the affairs of men [like Tom Steyer, George Soros, Bill Gates, etc] are participating in the exponential growth in the chance of it’s citizenry to be killed in order to implement all these new legislative laws and powers that go along with the growth of government. By growth of government the ease to nationalize things becomes easier. Like Obama’s Harvard professor pointed out, above.

Here is a more Constitutional look (clip) at government:

So we see that there is a misunderstanding at the core that doesn’t account for the top half of the pyramid wanting a socialist form of government like Mussolini or Hitler set out to accomplish, versus, the “right” in America that wants a small government and voting brought back to the electorate through what the Constitution clearly enumerates in statehood.

So let us go through the bottom half a b it.

FIRSTLY, I cross out the JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY (JBS) and INFO WARS for a few reasons. I was heavily influenced by JBS through an old bookstore in North Hollywood back in the day. Lots of conspiracy books and VHS documentaries, yada-yada. While many authors and writers for JBS made great points and had insights into communism and the Left… there was a stream of conspiratorial views that I eventually rejected, and thus stopped following the society as a whole. I discuss this a bit in a chapter from my book:

In fact, even though these “conspiracy writers” may drop the ball on some historical facts and their connections, insights — like I said — are still admirable. For instance, some of the graphs I have already used above come from such a book: None Dare Call It Conspiracy, By GARY ALLEN. I wouldn’t recommend the book to a young mind just starting out in parsing good political theory from bad… but I would recommend it to someone who can rightly parse good history from bad…. as there is worthwhile thoughts to glean from such a book. Especially with the World Economic Forum topic and the George Soros‘ of the world.

And my site makes it plain I am no fan of Alex Jones and  all he touches. Many on the right glom on to him as some sort of truth teller, when he is anything but. For instance, just one linked story from my site:

And I will admit I feel bad for conservatism proper that so many “of my people” follow such a clown. I also wish to not defend the tactics or actions taken by Patriot Prayer of Proud Boys… also in the bottom half of the pyramid. But I do not cross them out as may of their goals are maligned/distorted by the media and the left.

 I also have some recent notes on this idea that the Left maligns everyone who is violent as “white supremists.” Here is my personal thoughts on the matter:

When “White Supremacists” Attack (UHaul Edition)

This has been bugging me for quite some time, and I wish to opine. Some here may know my biography a bit… but to catch you up a tad: Thirty-plus-years ago I was incarcerated a few times, mainly for 3-felonies. During my two longest stints in various L.A. County jail system (from Biscailuz, to H.O.J.J., to Super Max and Mira Loma – etc.). My first couple weeks in were a steep learning curve, as are most young persons. But in all my time in the system – about a year and a half – I never met a “white supremacist person of color.” Having met many actual Aryan Brotherhood members, Nazi Low Riders, white pride guys, and other white purists (like an Odinite I met), and the like. Not one was Mexican, Black, Indian (from India), yada-yada.

I also met many racist cult members other than the ones already mentioned who were likewise part of prison gangs, like: Black Guerilla Family (BGF), Barrio Azteca, Mexican Mafia (La Eme), and the like. While there is some cooperation between Whites and Hispanics at times in jail… I slept in what was called the “wood pile.”

I loved [even then] to talk politics and categorize things. The reason, for instance, I was removed from Biscailuz detention center was in my dorm I was asking all the Hispanic, Blacks, and White’s their set or gang affiliation or one’s they knew of. I had a very long list on two double sided legal paper notepad. Well… One guy said I was doing this because I was an undercover “po-po.” THAT caused a BIG problem, and I was removed before I was beaten to a pulp.

In my very long list – ironically confiscated by the Sheriff’s removing me – and although I am sure the Sheriff gang unit were/are aware of them all, maybe I got a sub-set they were not. So, the accusation was a self-fulfilling prophecy by the guy who initially accused me. Lol.

All that to say, studying quite a few religiously racist cults years later and racist origins/history…. I have never, ever met a non-white white supremacist.

Ever.

The cults I have spent some time investigating are [to name a few]:

  1. Christian Identity [defunct for the most part];
  2. the KKK [5,000 members];
  3. British Israelism;
  4. the Nation of Islam [NOI];
  5. Black Hebrew Israelites;
  6. and the Five Percent Nation of Gods and Earths

My studies have included getting original source materials from the founders of these movements, and watching copious amounts of members descriptions of their beliefs.

And in all that, the only time I hear about “white supremacist people of color” is from the “new-new” Democrats and the Left.

In other words, they do not exist outside of hyperbole the Left realizes keeps a voting block scared and in their pocket.

Period.

I have met and studied a lot about anti-Semitism in my time in jail and my studies. Anti-Semites come in all colors, creeds, and historical movements…

But never a black or brown white supremacist.

~ RPT

So the origin of the Proud Boys (PB) is a bit more innocent than they are painted to be. That doesn’t mean that people in any of these groups do not have people in them (like any group) that abuse the stated goals of these groups. And the “boys” [in America at least], are small government advocates. As are John Birchers as well.

Which brings me to the upper half of the chart. Three and four.

I note on my site, after years of studying racist movements, that all these groups (black or white) almost always vote democrat. Here, for instance is another excerpt from a post of mine detailing this:

Some Trump Sized Mantras

First, in the broad sense this has to be true… that is… somewhere in this nation I am sure a racist supports Donald J. Trump. Even if we assume the Klan all voted in unison, he would have gotten 8,000 votes at most! Nationwide.

HOWEVER, as you will see, even the above hypothetical is more complicated than most assume it to be. Let’s just clear the air first on this past charge of Trump not disavowing David Duke (a “famous” racist and past KKK leader) during the run-up-to the nomination: Trump clearly disavowed David Duke’s endorsement. As we will see, the truth about David Duke is more complicated than we often hear. Okay, moving on.

After Trump won the election the media and Hollywood types as well as comedians and Democrat Senators and Representatives all started saying there was a backlash of old-racist-white-men that came out in force and voted for Trump. This just isn’t the case. You can see from just a few of the bullet points from my “Blacks, Hispanics and Gays are Sexist, Xenophobic, Homophobic, Racist” post that this attack on American voters is just a maligning of each and everyone of those peoples character:

  • …Thirteen percent of Muslims voted for Trump, triple the amount that voted Romney, are they are Islamophobic, bigoted, xenophobic, and racist?
  • Eight percent of blacks voted for Trump, seven percent more than Romney — not to mention the black men and women who didn’t vote for the president at all in a higher percentage. These same men and women previously voted twice for Obama. These persons of color… if I understand my detractors correctly, are racist bigots?
  • A higher percentage (almost 30%) of Hispanics voted for Trump, more in fact than voted for Romney. These Hispanic and Latino men and women, like the others, are xenophobic, bigoted, and racist?
  • One hundred-and-ninety-four counties that voted for Obama once switched to GOP in the 2016 election. And, two-hundred-and-nine counties that voted for Obama twice switched to GOP. Many of these people are union members as well as life-long Democrats. Am I now being told that these Democrats who voted for Obama are: racist. sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic, racist, bigoted?

So you can see from the above and the graphic below that the people who really pushed Trump into the “win” section of the electoral count were minorities and voters who previously voted for Obama either once or both times prior to voting for Trump.

I refer to this with a euphemism from a previous election as

“they were NOT racist before they WERE.”

In other words, according to people I dearly love, these people are now magically racists… but weren’t when they voted for Obama.

Most of these flipped voters were/are Democrats… am I now being told Democrats are racists?

Do you see the dilemma?

Even Michael Moore opined on this:

  • “They’re not racist,” Moore said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, “They twice voted for a man whose middle name is Hussein. That’s the America you live in.”everything-is-racist-spongbob-380

However, let us delve into this even more to dispel commonly held myths.

Got your big-boy-pants on?

I have studied four racist cults in-depth: the Nation of Islam, the Ku Klux Klan, Christian Identity, and the Five-Percenters — known also as the Nation of Gods and Earths.

Two of the above four racist cults are both telling their followers to vote for Trump… the KKK and the Nation of Islam. Christian Identity as a cohesive movement is all but dead… and the 5% when they do vote always vote Democrat. IN FACT they all primarily vote Democrat.

A quick history point that is important for the next paragraph:

After the triumph of the civil rights movement and the introduction of a series of civil rights laws, the Klan broke up into various subgroups. Previously these KKK members were Democrats and they continued being so after.

  • “…virtually every significant racist in American political history was a Democrat.” — Bruce Bartlett, Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party’s Buried Past (New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008), ix;
  • “…not every Democrat was a KKK’er, but every KKK’er was a Democrat.” — Ann Coulter, Mugged: Racial Demagoguery from the Seventies to Obama (New York, NY: Sentinel [Penguin], 2012), 19.

People do not realize why these groups, especially the KKK, vote Democrat. For instance, out of the four leaders in the “white-power” movement (the KKK subculture) with the most followers, three told their peeps to vote Democrat (Actually, then it was them telling their followers to vote for Obama in 2008).

Here you see some higher ups in this white racist movement telling their people (3-of-the-4) to vote Democrat for the election in 2008:

➤ Tom Metzger: Director, White Aryan Resistance; Career Highlights: Was Grand Dragon of Ku Klux Klan in the 70s; won the Democratic primary during his bid for Congress in 1980…
➤ Ron Edwards: Imperial Wizard, Imperial Klans of America; Career Highlights: Sued in 2007 by the Southern Poverty Law Center for inciting the brutal beating of a Latino teenager; building the IKA into one of the nation’s largest Klan groups by allowing non-Christians to join.
➤ Erich Gliebe: Chairman, National Alliance; Career Highlights: Turning white-power record label, Resistance Records, into a million-dollar-a-year business juggernaut; an 8-0 record as a professional boxer under the nickname, “The Aryan Barbarian.”
➤ Rocky Suhayda: Chairman, American Nazi Party; Career highlights: Being widely quoted bemoaning in the fact that so few Aryan-Americans had the cojones of the 9/11 hijackers: “If we were one-tenth as serious, we might start getting somewhere.”

Yes, most racist groups — INCLUDING THE KKK — voted for a black nominee.

The next question should be, Why?

Reason One
One reason is that these racist white groups are typically socialists. And socialism is a political system that wants the government to run health-care, business, increase central power, etc. Here is a most basic graph of this concept (see to the right – click the graph to go to my combined post on the matter).

“We are socialists, we are ene­mies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are determined to destroy this system under all conditions.” — Hitler

John Toland, Adolph Hitler: The Definitive Biography (New York, NY: Anchor Books, 1976), 223-225.

Reason Two
Another reason a lot of racist whites vote Democrat is they are very poor and use heavily the social services they support ideologically. This was even evident when less than the typical 80% that vote straight Democrat still voted straight Democrat in their respective states but did not vote for Obama.

The other Black Nationalist cults vote heavier [percentage wise] Democratic.

This year is different. You have both Louis Farrakhan telling his followers to vote for Trump, and you have more people in the disjointed KKK telling their people to vote for him. Why this change? I think it is because he has many similar views on issues with Bernie Sanders, as an example,

  • Forty-four percent of Sanders supporters surveyed said they would rather back the presumptive GOP nominee in November, with only 23 percent saying they’d support Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton. And 31 percent said would support neither candidate in the likely general election match-up. (THE HILL)

Keep in mind those are voters in the state that put Sander’s into the Senate!

Here is the kicker though regarding the Nation of Islam (NOI). This cult, unlike the KKK, is VERY structured under a single leader. So what Farrakhan says is followed “religiously” by his adherents. Whereas, in the KKK, these leaders are not looked to in the same way Farrakhan is, as some sort of “messianic” figure. So you might have slightly more vote for Trump in the Klan on the recommendation of their leaders. This is different in the structure of the Nation of Islam, the percentages would be almost unanimous in their “lock-step.”

Many will continue to vote straight Democrat the rest of the ticket, in all groups mentioned.

“Racists Vote Republican,” or, “Republican’s Are Old Racist White Men” may be a convenient (actually evil) political narrative to scare a few voters away from the GOP, surely. But the maligning of every Republican nominee since Nixon just is not factually true.

DON’T accept the comparison. Take their arguments and return them packaged in a nice little bow.

Editor’s Aside:

Democrats want to fundamentally change America. I don’t love my wife if I want to fundamentally change her. Black Life Matters protesters teach their children to burn American flags or march down the street CHANTING “What do we want?!” “Dead Cops!” “When do we want them?!” “NOW!” They argue America was founded on nothing but slavery and greed. Hillary Clinton backed this group even going as far as far as saying (at the NAACP) that “systemic racism” needs to be eliminated. Months later calling Americans all racists: “I think implicit bias is a problem for everyone, not just police. I think unfortunately too many of us in our great country jump to conclusions about each other and therefore I think we need all of us to be asked the hard questions ‘why am I feeling this way?’”

Democrats think I am an imperialist white supremacist Christian cisgender capitalist heteropatriarchal male. Apparently however, these many demographic changes across the board [noted above] seem to agree that Trump’s slogan was acceptable, “Make America Great Again.”

One reason many of these hate groups (black and white) are voting for Trump is for border control. A) There is an animosity towards illegal aliens for racist reasons, and B) reasons related to economics as well. A great example would be this video “CHICAGO’S INNER-CITY POOR BLACK COMMUNITY ABANDONING OBAMA’S LIBERAL AGENDA“

To continue this point, one woman said this:

  • A resident of the Austin community, Jean Ray, says after 40 years of Democratic party control over the black community, the policies “are hurting,” and if there were Republicans willing to do the right job in her community, she would vote for them. (More at BREITBART)

So a good reason that black racist groups would have voted Trump includes practical economic concerns, i.e., jobs. Which is why we saw a 7% jump in blacks voting for the Republican candidate… but most likely even they voted Democrat the rest of the ticket.

Reason Three
They HATE (H-A-T-E) Israel, and this is a reason they tend to support Democrats. For instance, on his YouTube, David Duke endorsed Charles Barron for Congress (video on the left). Another endorsement for Hillary was from a KKK leader here in California (right video).

So attributing racism to the GOP is silly, because as a whole, the almost 8,000 KKK members nation wide vote Democrat. AS DO ALL THE OTHER RACIST CULTS IN AMERICA (*booming megaphone affect in a cave*). NOT TO MENTION where all the hub-bub is when all these hate groups vote for Democrats in years past?

In other words, WHY is it only “newsworthy” when they vote for Republicans and not for Democrats?

I smell something fishy here.

I can continue, but this post is already long enough. On the racial issues, I suggest my page entitled: U.S. RACIAL HISTORY. This page deals with the supposed party switch by racist Democrats to Republicans, slavery, American Indian narratives, some VERY PROUD BLACK HISTORY in our country… and the like.

Recap
Again, let’s recap for clarity some of my reasons white racist/nationalists cults vote Democrat:

  • They are typically socialist in their political views, and thus support the welfare state for personal financial reasons (poor) and ideological reasoning (socialist); or for the reason that it is a way of controlling minorities (racist reasoning). A modern plantation so-to-speak; There is a shared hatred for Israel and supporting of groups wanting to exterminate the Jews (Palestinians for instance).

This is why a majority STILL supported Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump. She is a socialist at heart, wants a big welfare state, and does not like Israel as much as Trump, who has kids practicing the Jewish religion. Thee ONLY issue a racist could want to vote for Trump on is his immigration policies… hardly a racist position. It has only now become an issue of bigotry and racism because the Left has moved the goal post in the use of language. Racists no longer means “genetically superior,” rather, it mean you disagree with a Democrat and/or hurt their feelings. Otherwise, these people would be RACISTS!

So the bottom line is that the top half of the pyramid has more in common with Leftist ideals of a larger government, and should be in a pyramid that includes ANTIFA and the beliefs of Michael Loadenthal.

So, as far as I can tell there are complete idiots at the FBI that follow the bad thinking of places like the Southern Poverty Law Center that further polluting the ideas that are soo easily refuted.

Here are just a couple examples of how the Left distorts reality:

THE SPLC!
An example of this infectious disease

The Southern Poverty Law Center bills itself as a watchdog of hate groups. But is this just a cover for its true aims? Journalist and author Karl Zinsmeister explains.

It is SHOCKING that the FBI works with this political cult!

MORE SPLC RADICALISM

GAY PATRIOT [now defunct, sadly] notes the radical attacks from Leftist organizations:

The Southern Poverty Law Center was, perhaps, once a civil rights organization. Then extremists spent its core assets – in this case, SPLC’s good word and reputation – until they were gone. SPLC now routinely mislabels conservative and/or Christian groups as so-called “hate groups”, emptying the term of meaning and making the SPLC a bad joke.

Most famously, SPLC mislabelled the Family Research Council a “hate group” for its stance against gay marriage, and in 2013 that prompted an attempted mass-murder by a gay activist, Floyd Lee Corkins II.

SPLC is still going. Most recently, they mislabelled the D. James Kennedy Ministries:

[…..]

The DJKM plan to fight back with a defamation suit. It will be interesting to see how it goes. I expect it to fail; “that’s our opinion” is a workable defense in many instances, and many in the law profession have a blind spot for the SPLC.

But I didn’t think Trump would win, either…..

(READ IT ALL)

Stossel!

The WASHINGTON EXAMINER goes after the partisan hate-group with this excellent article:

Newsrooms were on fire this week with terrible news: The number of hate groups in the United States has soared to record highs under President Trump.

There are most certainly hate groups in the U.S., and even one is one too many, but I’d encourage everyone to approach the numbers reported this week with calm and caution. There’s nothing partisan operatives would love more than for you to panic and to believe them when they suggest that the problem can be solved by expelling “the other team” from power. That the figures cited by newsrooms come via the decidedly unreliable and hyper-partisan Southern Poverty Law Center also doesn’t help anything.

The New York Times reported, “Over 1,000 Hate Groups Are Now Active in United States, Civil Rights Group Says.”

“Hate groups ‘surge’ across the country since Charlottesville riot, report says,” reads the headline from the Miami Herald.

“Trump ‘Fear-Mongering’ Fuels Rise of U.S. Hate Groups to Record: Watchdog,” U.S. News and World Report said in a headline that sort of gives the game away.

First, let’s keep things in perspective. Remember, for example, that the rise in the number of hate crimes is attributable in some way to the fact that there are more reporting agencies ( hundreds, in fact!) than ever before. It’s easy to say, “Oh, it’s all because of President Trump,” pointing to incidents like his disastrous Charlottesville statement. But the problem of bigotry is far older and deeper than the current administration. That the Trump White House isn’t helping anything is one complaint, but don’t fall for the suggestion that it’s the main driver.

Second, while we’re on the topic of taking things seriously, it’s important to remember that the SPLC is not an organization whose declarations should be taken seriously or treated as fact. As I’ve written before, much of its “hate group” reporting is trash.

In 2015, for example, the group put Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson on its “extremist watch list,” citing the one-time presidential candidate’s “anti-LGBT views.” Later, in 2016, the SPLC labeled women’s rights activist, female genital mutilation victim, atheist, and ex-Muslim Ayaan Hirsi Ali an “anti-Muslim extremist” because she opposes Islamic extremism. The British activist and extremist-turned-counterextremist Maajid Nawaz was placed in the same category. The SPLC lumps pro-family and pro-Israel organizations in with actual neo-Nazis.

The SPLC is not in the business of exploring and addressing racial and ethnic bigotry. IT’S IN THE BUSINESS OF CRUSHING ANYTHING TO THE RIGHT OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY.

As for the report the SPLC just released this week, IT CONCEDES THERE IS AN UPTICK IN THE NUMBER OF BLACK NATIONALIST GROUPS SINCE 2017, BUT IT DOWNPLAYS THIS FACT BY CLAIMING THOSE GROUPS “HAVE LITTLE OR NO IMPACT ON MAINSTREAM POLITICS AND NO DEFENDERS IN HIGH OFFICE.” I must’ve just imagined noted-anti-Semite and frequent Democratic guest Louis Farrakhan.

[….]

Hate groups are real. Hate crimes are real. The SPLC is not. It exploits hate groups to raise money and further political interests unrelated to the problem of hate. Don’t fall for the SPLC’s lies.

(emphasis added — read it all)

More FISA Abuse by The FBI!

Published by Papa Giorgio

BREAKING: New allegations the FBI overstepped its authority conducting investigations against American citizens, and not just a few times, we’re talking in the hundreds of thousands of times. “This court document released just a few hours ago found that the FBI misused a popular digital surveillance tool (Sec 702, FISA) on everyday Americans more than 278,000 times between 2020 and 2021.” “[FISA] gives the FBI and other intelligence agencies the ability to digitally surveil without a court order or a warrant.” “They [spied] on J6 protestors… even political donors (including over 19,000 donors to a congressional campaign).”

Kevin McCarthy Speaks Out after FBI Caught Improperly Using FISC Searches 278,000 Times in 2021. This video file is with thanks to GATEWAY PUNDIT’s Rumble, here is more information on the issue for those in search:

  • Beyond Partisanship: FBI’s Abuses Affect Americans on All Sides (RED STATE)
  • FBI Played Fast and Loose with the Facts to Exaggerate ‘Domestic Terror’ Threat (PJ-MEDIA)
  • Alarm grows over whistleblower claims that FBI scooped up Americans’ bank records without subpoena (JUST THE NEWS)

TWEET THIS!

 

Rep. Wesley Hunt: Biden Admin Is Targeting Conservatives!

Published by Papa Giorgio

Rep Wesly Hunt: “Under this administration conservatives are being targeted. My first example is the ATF. The ATF is targeting lawful gun owners by crafting a rule that would make 40 million Americans felons overnight.”

Americans Are Right To Distrust The Government | Durham Report

Published by Papa Giorgio

  • “[N]either U.S. law enforcement nor the Intelligence Community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation,” Durham wrote in the report.
  • “I think it reveals that Americans are right to distrust the government—even civil servants people in the government,” Dershowitz told THE EPOCH TIMES

THE FEDERALIST, then Glenn Beck.

Imagine someone told you that in the run-up to a U.S. presidential election, the FBI tried to undermine a candidate at the behest of the opposing campaign by cooking up a false narrative of collusion with Moscow.

And let’s say this conspiracy implicated not just the FBI but also the White House, Justice Department, and CIA — and that nearly the entire corporate press went along with it, gleefully spreading the false narrative that this candidate was a Russian agent, running story after story of fabricated nonsense in a coordinated effort to ensure the opposing candidate won.

In normal times, you’d scoff at such an outlandish story, dismiss it as the plot of some half-baked Tom Clancy novel. That could never happen in America, you’d say, where we have free and fair elections, the rule of law, and so on. And anyway, the media would never allow it to happen. They’d be too invested in exposing the conspiracy and claiming, rightly, a Watergate-type story of their very own.

But you’d be wrong. All of that really happened in 2016, recounted in all its jaw-dropping detail in Special Counsel John Durham’s 306-page report, released Monday after nearly four years in the making. The big takeaway from the report is that the Obama-era FBI launched a full investigation of the Trump campaign, codenamed Crossfire Hurricane, in the summer of 2016 despite having zero evidence of any collusion between Trump and Russia.

Not only that, but officials at the highest levels of the U.S. government, including President Obama, knew that the entire false narrative that Trump was colluding with Moscow was completely made up by the Clinton campaign in an effort to weaponize the federal government against Trump and distract from Hillary Clinton’s own email server scandal.

The Durham report recounts how in August 2016, CIA Director John Brennan briefed Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, FBI Director James Comey, and other senior administration officials on what the report calls the “Clinton Plan intelligence,” a scheme Clinton approved in July 2016 “to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security services.”

In other words, all of these senior officials, some of the most powerful people in the federal government, knew as early as the summer of 2016 that the Clinton campaign had a plan to whip up a scandal by falsely alleging collusion between Trump and Moscow. But all of them ignored this important fact when the FBI launched Crossfire Hurricane around the same time on the basis of far-fetched claims that Trump was a Russian agent — claims that were made in the Steele dossier, a slapdash piece of oppo-research the Clinton campaign itself had paid for.

The FBI knew all of this, as did Brennan, yet they ignored it to keep Crossfire Hurricane alive, along with the narrative that Trump was in bed with Russia. That fall, the FBI used the baseless dossier to acquire FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign. All of this was eventually leaked to a compliant and incurious new media, and voila! Clinton’s Trump-Russia scandal was born — without a shred of evidence, and indeed despite significant evidence to the contrary. 

My colleagues at The Federalist have detailed the shocking contents of the Durham report (here, here, here, and here), but taking a step back from the dizzying array of details, every American needs to understand that what made all of this possible was the stupefying level of corruption and partisan malevolence deep inside our federal government.

The Russia-collusion hoax was concocted and brought to life only because the most powerful people in the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement community wanted an excuse to weaponize the federal government against Donald Trump. They didn’t want him to be president, simple as that. It didn’t matter to them what voters wanted; they thought they knew better. So they felt any abuse of power was justified in preventing Trump from winning the White House.

[….]

Beyond the shamelessness of the media and the corruption of government officials, the Durham report is a sobering reminder that we can’t sustain a self-governing republic under these conditions. When the law enforcement and intelligence agencies of the federal government can be used as a weapon to undermine an outsider candidate for high office, it means our republic is in grave danger.

It means, too, that it would be better if we had no FBI at all than the corrupt agency we have now, which sees fit to traffic in actual disinformation, spread conspiracy theories, and throttle the democratic process whenever a candidate comes along who threatens the status quo. That’s the real lesson of the Durham report, and we ignore it at our peril.

Prosecutor John Durham has finally concluded his report and the FBI’s probe into alleged Trump ties to Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign season. And the findings are HUGE — despite what some in the mainstream media may say. In this clip, Glenn explains exactly what the Durham Report says, what it means for the FBI, and why Glenn wouldn’t be happy until ‘people GO TO JAIL.’

MORE:

  • Democrats PANIC As Durham Report PROVES Soft Coup Against Trump, Media Tries To COVER IT UP (TIM CAST)
  • Sen. Josh Hawley on Durham Report: Hillary Needs to be Prosecuted – FBI Needs to Be Disbanded (GATEWAY PUNDIT)
  • BREAKING: Nunes reacts to release of Durham report (RED PILL PATRIOTS)
  • Durham Report Bombshell: Watergate On Steroids! (LOUDER WITH CROWDER)
  • Trump Was Right?! What The Durham Report REALLY Means! (RUSSELL BRAND)

A New Hoax: Classified Documents

Published by Papa Giorgio

Clay Travis believes the Washington Post’s nuke documents story doesn’t add up. If the seized paperwork was already declassified by Donald Trump then we are in the midst of yet another mainstream media hoax.

Clay Travis and Buck Sexton continue to break down the fallout of the FBI’s raid of Donald Trump’s home in Florida. But what will we see happen next in the coming weeks? Watch as Clay and Buck discuss exactly that question.

Mar-a-Lago: Hanson, Shapiro, Pool, Callan, Bongino

Published by Papa Giorgio

Starting this collection with VDH!

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON

BEN SHAPIRO

The FBI raided the home of President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago. We won’t know how fully insane the FBI raid on Trump is until we see the warrant and warrant application. But after Russiagate – years of investigation predicated lately on Clinton campaign misinformation – if the basis for this isn’t bedrock-solid, there should be hell to pay.

TIM POOL

(Tim discusses and interesting aspect of an internal battle at the FBI) Trump Suggests FBI PLANTING Evidence, FBI BROKE Lock THEY Asked For, Theories Of Corruption Erupt

PAUL CALLAN

CNN legal analyst Paul Callan said the Presidential Records Act is “not enough to warrant all this,” during a segment on CNN’s “At This Hour” with Kate Bolduan on 8/9/2022.

DAN BONGINO

The Biggest Mistake In The History Of The FBI (Ep. 1827) – The Dan Bongino Show

Mar-a-Lago: Jarrett, Dershowitz, Solomon, Hanson

Published by Papa Giorgio

Okay, these videos are the best explainers to the move against Trump. I will include my thought as well. First up, Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz joined ‘Hannity’ to weigh in on the FBI raiding the home of former President Donald Trump.

GREGG JARRETT and ALAN DERSOWITZ

ALAN DERSHOWITZ


Constitutional scholar Alan Dershowitz reacts to the breaking news of the FBI raiding Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and more – via Newsmax’s Rob Schmitt Tonight

JOHN SOLOMON

John Solomon discusses the imbalance of Justice regarding Mar-a-Lago.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON

The original file is here – “Jim Jordan, Harmeet Dhillon, Victor Hansen Laura Ingraham FBI Raids POTUS Mar-a-Lago Estate” — but I isolated VDH! He hit it out of the park!

ME

Here is my winded comment on a reason why…

FBI Maintains a Workspace Inside the Law Firm of Perkins Coie

Published by Papa Giorgio

CONSERVATIVE TREE HOUSE hat-tip:

There is very little that surprises me, but this is completely stunning.  An FBI whistleblower came forth to inform Rep Jim Jordan and Rep Matt Gaetz that the FBI maintains a workspace inside the law firm of Perkins Coie.

In response to a letter sent by Rep. Matt Gaetz and Jim Jordan, Perkins Coie, the legal arm of the DNC and Hillary Clinton, admitted they have been operating an FBI workspace in their Washington D.C. office since 2012.  Pay attention to that date, it matters.

This is a huge development.  Essentially, what is being admitted in this claim is that a portal existed into FBI databases within the law firm that represents democrats.  This means access to FBI database searches exists inside the office of the DNC and Clinton legal group.  Think about the ramifications here.

CTH has long claimed there was some kind of direct portal link between the Clinton campaign team and the FBI databases.  There were too many trails of extracted non-minimized research evidence in the hands of the Clinton team that CTH could not trace to a transferring FBI official.  If Perkins Coie operated a portal in their office that allowed them to conduct search queries of American citizens, then everything would make sense.  That access portal is exactly what is being claimed and admitted in this report……………

IG Report Slams FBI and Others (UPDATED)

Published by Papa Giorgio

JUMP to the FACEBOOK CONVO | JUMP to DAVID FRENCH

During that December 2018 hearing, Rep. Trey Gowdy posed this question to Comey: “Late July of 2016, the FBI did, in fact, open a counterintelligence investigation into, is it fair to say the Trump campaign or Donald Trump himself?”

“It’s not fair to say either of those things, in my recollection,” Comey retorted. “We opened investigations on four Americans to see if there was any connection between those four Americans and the Russian interference efforts. And those four Americans did not include the candidate.”

[….]

So, not only did the Obama administration’s FBI target the Trump campaign in the heat of the 2016 presidential election, but they used an intelligence briefing of candidate Trump to gather “evidence,” and even memorialized Trump’s comments in official FBI documents related to the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.

Nonetheless, Comey lied to Americans in order to keep up the appearance that the Steele dossier was in some way legitimate or that he was unaware of it’s illegitimacy.

The new report from Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz confirmed former CIA Director John Brennan lied to Congress about whether the dossier authored by Christopher Steele was used in the Obama administration’s Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA).

An example of a lie by ADAM SCHIFF, which he KNEW was a lie when he said it:

FBI and officials did not “abuse” the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) process, omit material information, or subvert this vital tool to spy on the Trump campaign.

In fact, DOJ and the FBI would have been remiss in their duty to protect the country had they not sought a FISA warrant and repeated renewals to conduct temporary surveillance of Carter Page, someone the FBI assessed to be an agent of the Russian government. DOJ met the rigor, transparency, and evidentiary basis needed to meet probable cause requirement, by demonstrating: contemporaneous evidence of Russia?s election interference;

Christopher Steele’s raw intelligence reporting did not inform the decision to initiate its counterintelligence investigation in late July 2016. In fact, the FBI’s closely-held investigative team only received Steele’s reporting in mid-September more than seven weeks later.

(DEF-CON)

An example of a JOHN BRENNAN lie… which he knew was a lie when he said it:

Mr. Gowdy: Do you know if the Bureau ever relied on the Steele dossier as any — as part of any court filings, applications, petitions, pleadings?

Mr. Brennan: I have no awareness.

Mr. Gowdy: Did the CIA rely on it?

Mr. Brennan: No.

Mr. Gowdy: Why not?

Mr. Brennan: Because we — we didn’t. It wasn’t part of the corpus of intelligence information that we had. It was not in any way used as a basis for the Intelligence Community assessment that was done. It was — it was not.

[….]

Except, on Page 179 of the FISA report we find that former FBI Director James Comey told investigators that he remembers being “part of a conversation, maybe more than one conversation, where the topic was how the [Steele] reporting would be integrated, if at all, into the IC assessment.” 

Comey added that Brennan and other officials argued that the Steele dossier was found credible by intelligence community analysts, and that while they did not want to include it in the main body of the ICA, “they thought it was important enough and consistent enough that it ought to be part of the package in some way, and so they had come up with this idea to make an [appendix]. 

In an exclusive interview, Attorney General William Barr spoke to NBC News’ Pete Williams about the findings on the Justice Department Inspector General’s report on the Russia investigation and his criticisms of the FBI.

U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr sits down with the Wall Street Journal to discuss the information released within the IG report on FBI 2016 election surveillance against candidate Trump; and FISA exploitation for use therein.

FACEBOOK MEANDERINGS

As I was driving around today in slow or stopped traffic, I gave my thoughts about what I was hearing today:

Just a quick note here. The four U.S. citizens spied on by the government we’ll have a great case to make in court to sue set government (during the whole Russian Collusion conspiracy against Trump). So not only did the original investigation cost many millions of dollars, it is possible that many millions more is going to be doled out.

Now… Adam Schiff has himself (against proper procedure) gone and gotten metadata from phone companies and then matched it up with journalist an opposing political persons phones. Without a warrant. I assume another criminal case will start around this… And, much like the other case millions of dollars may be doled out to these individuals who had their metadata illegally seized by the government.

BY THE WAY, you can read here “Democrats” when I say government. Ultimately all the taxpayers will have to — and have paid for it. But these incurred cost come by way of Democrats alone. (As well as never Trumper’s)

So two articles of impeachment have been put forward. Bribery was what CNN says was the Crux of the case a few weeks ago. However, remember all the terms changed over time: quid pro quo, to extortion, to bribery, to obstruction of justice. None of these are part of the impeachment articles. One impeachment article is “obstruction of Congress” (read here Democrats). What a joke! I think a bulk of the American voters see through this sham/witch Hunt.

RESPONSE:

After another quick link of mine linked to this REASON.ORG article, a friend said this on Facebook:

IG Report, Chapter 12: Conclusions & Recommendations (p. 411)–CHS refers to “confidential human sources”:

“We did not find any documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the FBI’s decision to conduct these operations. Additionally, we found no evidence that the FBI attempted to place any CHSs within the Trump campaign, recruit members of the Trump campaign as CHSs, or task CHSs to report on the Trump campaign.”

Yes, there were problems with some aspects of FISA, but those issues were later. The investigation began earlier, based on reports from a friendly government that there might be connections between Russia and the Trump campaign. Bottom line: the Trump accusation that this was all a witch hunt with political motives has been debunked.

This was my response[s], and it is solid!

JIM G. — two things, well, three. The first is, Horowitz had no subpoena power. So, for instance, he wanted to interview Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS. Glenn simply declined. In other words, Horowitz had an incomplete picture. (Durham and Barr traveled to Italy and other places to talk to what we [not you] know were players involved in those countries.) That is number one.

Number two… and this is a common sense one. Of all the mistakes documented plus the Woods violation… Why didn’t a single one break in Trump’s favor? In other words, FBI director Wray is putting forward 40-changes to stop this from happening again. (Which wouldn’t have happened is Hillary were elected.) If Director Wray were to say, “wow, that was something from this whole thing that worked well. We should keep that.” Or if half, or even a quarter of the mistakes broke in Trump’s favor, I wouldn’t be skeptical.

And third, remember, the Steele Report (as I said in the past) was almost the exclusive bulk of the info to obtain the FISA warrants. Prior to this multiple voices in the FBI warned against Steele. The CIA warned the FBI NOT to use it. Yet:

…DOJ IG Michael Horowitz, who assumed his position during the Obama administration, and his team reported that “Steele’s handling agent” in the FBI “told us that when Steele provided him with the first election reports in July 2016 and described his engagement with Fusion GPS, it was obvious to him that the request for the research was politically motivated.”

In addition, the “supervisory intelligence analyst who supervised the analytical efforts for the Crossfire Hurricane team (Supervisory Intel Analyst) explained that he also was aware of the potential for political influences on the Steele reporting.”

The Horowitz report explained that the FBI was still able to use the Steele dossier even if it was clear that it contained opposition research connected to the Hillary Clinton campaign….

(PJ-MEDIA)

I also just found out that Horowitz wanted to speak to Comey (supporting point #1). But he couldn’t because Comey didn’t sign back up for his top secret clearance, so he couldn’t be interviewed in depth. Durham has the ability to compel testimony.

ACE OF SPADES has this great

The IG report might have falsely claimed that there was no evidence of political bias in the opening of Crossfire Hurricane, BUT IT FOUND THAT ALL OF DEVIN NUNES’ CLAIMS ABOUT LIES TOLD TO SECURE THE FISA WARRANT WERE TRUE, AND ALL OF ADAM SCHIFF’S COUNTER-CLAIMS WERE FALSE:

The memo from the Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee reported:

  • A salacious and unverified dossier formed an essential part of the application to secure a warrant against a Trump campaign affiliate named Carter Page. This application failed to reveal that the dossier was bought and paid for by Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee.
  • The application cited a Yahoo News article extensively. The story did not corroborate the dossier, and the FBI wrongly claimed Christopher Steele, the author of the dossier, was not a source for the story.
  • Nellie Ohr, the wife of a high-ranking Justice Department official, also worked on behalf of the Clinton campaign effort. Her husband Bruce Ohr funneled her research into the Department of Justice. Although he admitted that Steele “was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president,” this and the Ohrs’ relationship with the Clinton campaign was concealed from the secret court that grants surveillance warrants.
  • The dossier was “only minimally corroborated” and unverified, according to FBI officials.
  • All of these things were found to be true by the Inspector General Michael Horowitz in his December 9 report. In fact, Horowitz detailed rampant abuse that went far beyond these four items.
  • The Democratic minority on the committee, then led by Rep. Adam Schiff, put out a response memo with competing claims:
  • FBI and DOJ officials did not omit material information from the FISA warrant.
  • The DOJ “made only narrow use of information from Steele’s sources about Page’s specific activities in 2016.”
  • In subsequent FISA renewals, DOJ provided additional information that corroborated Steele’s reporting.
  • The Page FISA warrant allowed the FBI to collect “valuable intelligence.”
  • “Far from ‘omitting’ material facts about Steele, as the Majority claims, DOJ repeatedly informed the Court about Steele’s background, credibility, and potential bias.”
  • The FBI conducted a “rigorous process” to vet Steele’s allegations, and the Page FISA application explained the FBI’s reasonable basis for finding Steele credible.
  • Steele’s prior reporting was used in “criminal proceedings.”

Each of these claims were found by Horowitz to be false….

(EMPHASIS ADDED)

DAVID FRENCH FODDER

One of the many nuggets from ACE OF SPADES is this from MSNBC: National Review Writer On Why Nunes Should Step Down (March 2017). In the video from MSNBC we see David French retroactively go down in flames! ALSO:

Suffice it to say, ACE destroys David French and Adam Schiff!

Here is more regarding the IG REPORT with thanks to FLOPPING ACES!

The DOJ Inspector General’s report disclosed a multitude of FISA violations by the FBI. As noted by John Solomon, there were 51 Woods violations and nine false statements made to the FISA Court.

To understand just how shoddy the FBI’s work was in securing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant targeting the Trump campaign, you only need to read an obscure attachment to Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report.

Appendix 1 identifies the total violations by the FBI of the so-called Woods Procedures, the process by which the bureau verifies information and assures the FISA court its evidence is true.

The Appendix identifies a total of 51 Woods procedure violations from the FISA application the FBI submitted to the court authorizing surveillance of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page starting in October 2016.

A whopping nine of those violations fell into the category called: “Supporting document shows that the factual assertion is
inaccurate.”

For those who don’t speak IG parlance, it means the FBI made nine false assertions to the FISA court. In short, what the bureau said was contradicted by the evidence in its official file.

More at the link.

Horowitz also identified 17 “significant errors or omissions” in the FISA application. Among them:

1. Omitted information the FBI had obtained from another U.S. government agency detailing its prior relationship with Page, including that Page had been approved as an “operational contact” for the other agency from 2008 to 2013, and that Page had provided information to the other agency concerning his prior contacts with certain Russian intelligence officers, one of which overlapped with facts asserted in the FISA application;

2. Included a source characterization statement asserting that Steele’s prior reporting had been “corroborated and used in criminal proceedings,” which overstated the significance of Steele’s past reporting and was not approved by Steele’s handling agent, as required by the Woods Procedures;

3. Omitted information relevant to the reliability of Person 1, a key Steele sub-source (who was attributed with providing the information in Report 95 and some of the information in Reports 80 and 102 relied upon in the application), namely that (1) Steele himself told members of the Crossfire Hurricane team that Person 1 was a “boaster” and an “egoist” and “may engage in some embellishment” and (2) INFORMATION REDACTED

4. Asserted that the FBI had assessed that Steele did not directly provide to the press information in the September 23 Yahoo News article based on the premise that Steele had told the FBI that he only shared his election-related research with the FBI and Fusion GPS, his client; this premise was incorrect and contradicted by documentation in the Woods File- Steele had told the FBI that he also gave his information to the State Department;

5. Omitted Papadopoulos’s consensually monitored statements to an FBI CHS in September 2016 denying that anyone associated with the Trump campaign was collaborating with Russia or with outside groups like Wikileaks in the release of emails;

6. Omitted Page’s consensually monitored statements to an FBI CHS in August 2016 that Page had “literally never met” or “said one word to” Paul Manafort and that Manafort had not responded to any of Page’s emails; if true, those statements were in tension with claims in Report 95 that Page was participating in a conspiracy with Russia by acting as an intermediary for Manafort on behalf of the Trump campaign; and

7. Included Page’s consensually monitored statements to an FBI CHS in October 2016 that the FBI believed supported its theory that Page was an agent of Russia but omitted other statements Page made that were inconsistent with its theory, including denying having met with Sechin and Divyekin, or even knowing who Divyekin was; if true, those statements contradicted the claims in Report 94 that Page had met secretly with Sechin and Divyekin about future cooperation with Russia and shared derogatory information about candidate Clinton.

Do read the rest. 17 major “mistakes” and not one of them goes Trump’s way.

The FBI knew that the dossier was nearly 100% without substance, but acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe demanded it be used in the ICA. The CIA was reluctant….

(READ IT ALL)

INSTAPUNDIT notes the FBI campaign against Trump is not necessarily new:

And I have noted before the same on my site:

This is the same tactic Andrew Weissmann used on Flynn (WASHINGTON TIMES | THE FEDERALIST)….

UPDATED POST by POWERLINE intros the video for us:

In the memoir Cardiac Arrest: Five Heart-Stopping Years as a CEO on the Feds’ Hit List (written with Stephen Saltarelli), Howard Root tells the story of his experience as chief executive officer of Vascular Solutions caught in the crosshairs of the federal government when prosecutors sought to put his company out of business and to send him to the big house. Howard touched on one aspect of his story in the Wall Street Journal column “Sally Yates’s legacy of injustice at the Department of Justice.”

Howard is one of the most amazing people I have ever met. Among other things, he is a corporate lawyer turned entrepreneur, inventor, and corporate executive.

Howard faced down the government. The jury didn’t think much of the government’s case. It returned with a verdict of acquittal on all charges after a day of deliberations, and that includes the time spent electing a foreman.

Howard’s case is important in its own way. The crimes charged were bogus. The government procured testimony through serious prosecutorial misconduct. The prosecution represented fruit of the poisonous Yates Memo tree. Howard had the resources to fight the government’s case against him and his company, but it exacted an enormous toll. The case cries out for study and reform.

Howard has thus sought to engage prosecutors in discussion of the case in person before professional audiences of lawyers and businessmen for whom it holds immediate relevance. The prosecutors and their superiors in the department have sought to keep Howard from speaking to such audiences. When I wrote the Department of Justice to request its explanation for what it was doing, it declined to comment (a week after I asked the question).

Former Assistant United States Attorney Andrew McCarthy was more forthcoming. He called out the Department of Justice’s behavior as “a disgrace.”

The Department of Justice declines to answer to Howard or me but it has at long last responded to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Utah Senator Mike Lee. Senators Grassley and Lee sent a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein seeking an update on the Justice Department’s inquiry into professional misconduct committed by prosecutors and higher-ups who brought the charges against Howard and have since sought to prevent him from being heard. I posted the Grassley/Lee letter in “Fear & loathing at the DoJ, cont’d.”

In their letter Senators Grassley and Lee noted that “reports suggest a pattern of threatened and actual retribution against defendants and witnesses borne out of the Department’s disappointment with the outcome of a particular case. This not only casts doubt on the Department’s ability to accept the results of judicial proceedings in a professional manner befitting the nation’s preeminent law enforcement agency, but it significantly undermines our confidence in its commitment to hold government attorneys accountable for questionable actions that may have occurred in the course of this case or other cases.” …..

Wow! Fear & Loathing At The DOJ

Published by Papa Giorgio

This is the same tactic Andrew Weissmann used on Flynn (WASHINGTON TIMES)…

UPDATED POST by POWERLINE intros the video for us:

In the memoir Cardiac Arrest: Five Heart-Stopping Years as a CEO on the Feds’ Hit List (written with Stephen Saltarelli), Howard Root tells the story of his experience as chief executive officer of Vascular Solutions caught in the crosshairs of the federal government when prosecutors sought to put his company out of business and to send him to the big house. Howard touched on one aspect of his story in the Wall Street Journal column “Sally Yates’s legacy of injustice at the Department of Justice.”

Howard is one of the most amazing people I have ever met. Among other things, he is a corporate lawyer turned entrepreneur, inventor, and corporate executive.

Howard faced down the government. The jury didn’t think much of the government’s case. It returned with a verdict of acquittal on all charges after a day of deliberations, and that includes the time spent electing a foreman.

Howard’s case is important in its own way. The crimes charged were bogus. The government procured testimony through serious prosecutorial misconduct. The prosecution represented fruit of the poisonous Yates Memo tree. Howard had the resources to fight the government’s case against him and his company, but it exacted an enormous toll. The case cries out for study and reform.

Howard has thus sought to engage prosecutors in discussion of the case in person before professional audiences of lawyers and businessmen for whom it holds immediate relevance. The prosecutors and their superiors in the department have sought to keep Howard from speaking to such audiences. When I wrote the Department of Justice to request its explanation for what it was doing, it declined to comment (a week after I asked the question).

Former Assistant United States Attorney Andrew McCarthy was more forthcoming. He called out the Department of Justice’s behavior as “a disgrace.”

The Department of Justice declines to answer to Howard or me but it has at long last responded to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Utah Senator Mike Lee. Senators Grassley and Lee sent a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein seeking an update on the Justice Department’s inquiry into professional misconduct committed by prosecutors and higher-ups who brought the charges against Howard and have since sought to prevent him from being heard. I posted the Grassley/Lee letter in “Fear & loathing at the DoJ, cont’d.”

In their letter Senators Grassley and Lee noted that “reports suggest a pattern of threatened and actual retribution against defendants and witnesses borne out of the Department’s disappointment with the outcome of a particular case. This not only casts doubt on the Department’s ability to accept the results of judicial proceedings in a professional manner befitting the nation’s preeminent law enforcement agency, but it significantly undermines our confidence in its commitment to hold government attorneys accountable for questionable actions that may have occurred in the course of this case or other cases.” …..