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In a story destined to be dramatized on the big screen, a major Mexican drug lord was tricked on Thursday into flying aboard a small plane that landed near El Paso, Texas, where federal agents greeted him on the tarmac with handcuffs. 

That big prize was 76-year-old Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, who co-founded the infamous Sinaloa cartel with Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman in the late 1980s. El Chapo was extradited to America in 2017 and is serving a life sentence at the federal supermax penitentiary in  Florence, Colorado. El Chapo's son, Joaquín Guzman Lopez, may become his "so close and yet so far" neighbor at the Alcatraz of the Rockies, as he was also nabbed in the creative scheme -- and reportedly participated in it. 

Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the arrests in a statement issued Thursday: 

“The Justice Department has taken into custody two additional alleged leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world...Both men are facing multiple charges in the United States for leading the Cartel’s criminal operations, including its deadly fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks." 

According the Wall Street Journal's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) sources, El Mayo was led to believe the small aircraft he was boarding would take him to survey covert airstrips inside Mexico. The scheme was months in the making, and was a joint project with the FBI.

Adding to the cinematic intrigue, a high-ranking cartel member is said to have tricked the two into boarding the US-bound airplane. Plot twist: The New York Times reports that it was Guzman Lopez -- El Chapo's son who was also aboard and arrested. Fox News' Bryan Llenas reports that a source tells him Guzman Lopez was said to have turned on El Mayo because he blamed him for his father's apprehension.  

While the DOJ and DEA statements didn't identify the airstrip, reports from Reuters and KTSM indicate the plane landed at Santa Teresa International Jetport, which is located in New Mexico, just across the state line from El Paso. "One worker at the Santa Teresa airport...[said] that he saw a Beechcraft King Air land on the runway, where federal agents were already waiting," Reuters reports. 

Since the Sinaloa Cartel is widely believed to be the foremost smuggler of illicit fentanyl, the twin-arrests represent a major triumph for federal law enforcement, and come at a time when Donald Trump and other Republican candidates are sharply criticizing the Biden administration's performance on that particular drug-war front. 

Another of Chapo's sons, Ovidio Guzman, was extradited to the US in January 2023. El Chapo's four sons are known as "Los Chapitos," and the same name is used by the criminal organization they've run, which is one of four that comprise the Sinaloa Cartel. In October, the Sinaloa Cartel reportedly banned fentanyl production and trafficking, but the DEA dismissed the announcement as "probably a publicity stunt," noting that the volume of fentanyl seized at the border was undiminished.  

"Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, and the Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable," said Garland. Synthetic opioids -- including fentanyl -- were responsible for more than 74,000 deaths in the United States in 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

While the DEA crowed that the arrest of El Mayo represents an "enormous blow to the Sinaloa Cartel," don't count on it to have a material impact on the flow of drugs into the United States. "We aren’t talking about a structure that depends on a few kingpins — it’s very diffuse and resilient to these kinds of hits,” International Crisis Group senior analyst Falko Ernst tells the Times. In the near term, he adds, the principal result will likely be violence as the cartel's succession competition plays out. 

It should also be noted that, in a grand example of unintended consequences of government market interventions, the rise of fentanyl is itself a product of the war on drugs. Per Richard Cowan's Iron Law of Prohibition, "As law enforcement becomes more intense, the potency of prohibited substances increases." That's because high-potency drugs are easier to smuggle -- giving a 10-pound parcel of fentanyl a far better risk/reward/ROI profile than a truckload of marijuana.

Authored by Ken Silva via Headline USA,

Last month, the Justice Department asked a judge to pause a lawsuit seeking records about the FBI’s involvement with the Oklahoma City bombing. But in doing so, the DOJ and the FBI made statements so misleading they merit sanctions, according to the plaintiff in that case, Utah attorney Jesse Trentadue.

The deception spotted by Trentadue stems from a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit he filed against the FBI in February, seeking records about Roger Edwin Moore, who was a CIA asset, an FBI informant and a business associate to OKC bomber Tim McVeigh; as well as for records about the Aryan Republican Army, a neo-Nazi bank-robbery gang also involved in the attack.

Trentadue filed the lawsuit after waiting nine years for the FBI to process his FOIA request for those records. Despite that long wait, the FBI then asked a federal judge for another nearly 12 years to release the records he seeks.

Then, last month the bureau represented to a federal judge that many of the records Trentadue wants are already on the FBI’s website. But according to Trentadue, that’s a lie.

The FBI tried to tell Jesse Trentadue the stuff he was requesting was "all on our website" - so we looked at what was on the website. Turns out, they were lying. Imagine my shock. pic.twitter.com/n3KaUdSAKT

— Richard ? (@okc_facts) July 23, 2024

“That statement is so misleading as to merit sanctions. The BOMBROB records posted by the FBI, for example, consist of just 5,514 pages, not the 36,795 pages of responsive documents that the Bureau claims to possess,” Trentadue said in a Tuesday court filing, responding to the FBI’s request to pause his lawsuit. BOMBROB was FBI’s investigation of the ARA.

“More importantly, of these 5,514 pages, only 51 pages reference McVeigh. Similarly, the FBI’s website contains just 229 pages of records on Roger Edwin Moore, not the 31,129 pages of responsive records that the Bureau claims to have located, and none of these records involve Moore’s participation in Operation Punchout,” Trentadue added, referencing the FBI operation in which Moore served as an informant.

Trentadue also took issue with the FBI telling the judge that he agreed to receive records at a rate of 500 pages per month, which would mean it would take about 12 years to receive them all. Trentadue explained that he initially was OK with receiving 500 records per month on a rolling basis nearly a decade ago—as opposed to waiting for the FBI to gather all the records and send them in one batch.

“Plaintiff agreed to receiving the document sin 500-page increments on a CD as they were processed, whereby he would not have to wait until all of the records were processed before receiving them,” he explained in his Tuesday filing. “Plaintiff NEVER agreed to the FBI processing the documents at the rate of only 500-pages per month.”

For Trentadue, dealing with DOJ/FBI deception is nothing new. For instance, in a separate lawsuit seeking surveillance footage of the OKC bombing, a federal judge is investigating allegations that the FBI tampered with one of his witnesses. Trentadue referenced that ongoing scandal in his Tuesday response to the FBI.

“It can fairly be said that the only difference between the FBI and Russian KGB is that the KGB never claimed to be a legitimate law enforcement agency. It can also be fairly said that in cases such as this involving an overarching specter of government malfeasance, the FBI has been and will be anything but honest and candid with the court,” he said.

Trentadue wants the presiding judge to order the FBI to give him records at the rate of 5,500 pages per month.

In his Tuesday filing, he noted that the 30th anniversary of the OKC bombing is this April. He argued that there’s immense public interest in that case, and attached two articles written by this reporter as evidence of that. To Trentadue’s point, Headline USA’s article about his initial lawsuit in February is currently the third-most viewed story on the site in 2024.

Jesse Trentadue attached 2 of my articles as court exhibits in his ongoing FOIA lawsuit against the FBI.
The articles are evidence that there's immense public interest in the Oklahoma City bombing -- meaning the FBI must release the records he seeks ASAP! pic.twitter.com/NdDBQOtpF2

— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) July 24, 2024

“The court should deny the FBI’s motion to stay and commence with the BOMBROB request because of the upcoming anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing … The court should also order the FBI to process the records at the rate of 5,500 pages per month with interim month-end releases of the documents processed during each month, which will result in Plaintiff receiving all of the records in about 13 months instead of 11-plus years,” he said.

It’s not clear when the judge might decide on the matter.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Watch Live (due to start at 10amET):

In a move seemingly timed to ease the immediate pressure on Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle,  Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Sunday night announced the formation of an independent review panel charged with examining the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, which appeared to illuminate an astonishing degree of Secret Service incompetence. 

The unusual Sunday night announcement came about 12 hours before Cheatle's 10 am Monday appearance before the House Oversight Committee, which Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has touted as "must-watch TV," telling CNN, "She's got a lot to answer for. And those concerns are bipartisan." Underscoring that notion, Oversight Committee member and Democratic Pennsylvania Rep. Brendan Boyle has already demanded that Cheatle resign, via a statement released Saturday:  

"The evidence coming to light has shown unacceptable operational failures. I have no confidence in the leadership of the United States Secret Service if Director Cheatle chooses to remain in her position.

The creation of the panel will give Cheatle a flimsy shield she can use to try deflecting Monday's pointed questions about the Secret Service's damning actions and inactions surrounding the July 13 shooting at Trump's rally that wounded Trump and two spectators and killed a third.  

“We are committed to getting to the bottom of what happened on July 13," said Mayorkas. "This independent review will examine what happened and provide actionable recommendations to ensure they carry out their no-fail mission most effectively and to prevent something like this from ever happening again.”

In his Sunday night statement, Mayorkas also made the deeply dubious assertion that the Secret Service is "the greatest protective service in the world." The victims and surviving family members of the shooting at Trump's rally would likely quarrel with that poorly-timed chest-thumping. It's also wildly inappropriate given the panel he just appointed should be at least theoretically free to reach an entirely different conclusion.  

"Our goal is a 30% female Secret Service by 2030" - Director Kimberly Cheatle

What could possibly go wrong? pic.twitter.com/ItlNZDMtZg

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) July 14, 2024

That panel has been given 45 days to perform its review. While new experts may be added shortly, it initially has four members: 

• Obama Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano

• Fran Townsend, a homeland security advisor to President George W. Bush

• Mark Filip, who was deputy attorney general to George W. Bush

• David Mitchell, former Secretary of the Department of Public Safety and Homeland Security for the State of Delaware

Damning information about the Secret Service's handling of Trump's rally in Butler, Pennsylvania continues to emerge. On Saturday, the agency was caught in a lie: Having repeatedly denied that Trump's campaign was denied additional security resources it had requested, the agency was exposed as having done just that, via a report from the Washington Post. 

On Friday, the world learned that would-be assassin Thomas Crooks was able to fly a drone over the event site just a few hours before he opened fire. The Secret Service typically bans drone flights at secured sites; but it's unclear if such a prohibition was at least nominally imposed at the rally.

Crooks was identified as a suspicious individual more than an hour before he opened fire from a rooftop only about 450 feet from Trump's podium. At the time, he'd already been observed in possession of a range finder and carrying a duffel bag. Later, he was spotted on a rooftop 20 minutes before all hell broke loose. As it did, female agents assigned to the DEI-focused protective detail appeared to falter under fire -- even struggling with holstering a weapon. 

In the aftermath of the shooting, Cheatle's credibility took a sharp downturn when, asked why no Secret Service agent was posted atop ideal sniper roost used by the shooter, she told ABC:

"That building in particular has a sloped roof at its highest point. And so, you know, there’s a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof." 

SS sloped roof division. ???? pic.twitter.com/dHgFCVrlFz

— ???????????????????????????????????? (@Texas_jeep__guy) July 20, 2024

That flatly ridiculous rationale fueled a brewing public perception that an emphasis on stocking the Secret Service with diversity hires -- including Cheatle -- had greatly weakened the agency. "The initial excuses that [Cheatle] has given for the lapses that happened last Saturday are just unbelievable, so we're going to get down to the bottom of it," said Speaker Johnson. 

You can watch Cheatle's 10am Monday appearance before the House Oversight Committee here. She'll try dodging the fusillade of rhetorical bullets fired her way from both sides of the aisle, but could emerge more bloodied than Trump. 

In the latest indicator of a glaring lack of security surrounding the Pennsylvania rally where a bullet came within inches or less of killing former President Trump, sources familiar with the investigation say would-be assassin Thomas Crooks flew a drone over the event site just a few hours before he opened fire. 

As first reported by the Wall Street Journal, Crooks used the overflight to record footage of the rally layout on the grounds of the Butler Farm Show. His research of the facility began soon after the Trump campaign announced the event on July 3. He registered to attend on July 7, and soon thereafter, made the roundtrip drive of more than two hours from his Bethel Park home to recon the site in person. 

According to data from the drone, Crooks -- who's said to have been highly intelligent and tech-savvy -- flew it on a pre-programmed path, an official who'd been briefed on the investigation told the New York Times. The Secret Service typically bans drone flights at secured sites; NBC News reports it's unclear if such a prohibition was imposed at the rally. Conversely, the Secret Service usually requests FAA permission to deploy drones in restricted airspace such as the Trump rally, but did not on this occasion, according to the Times. 

This new development in the investigation adds a troubling new entry to an already damning timeline on the day of the shooting, which killed spectator Corey Comperatore and wounded two others. Crooks was identified as a suspicious individual more than an hour before he opened fire from a rooftop only about 450 feet from Trump's podium. At the time, he'd already been observed in possession of a range finder and carrying a duffel bag. Later, he was spotted on a rooftop 20 minutes before all hell broke loose. 

The drone was found in Crooks' Hyundai Sonata. Parked near the event, it also contained two crude explosive devices, a bulletproof vest and several 30-round magazines for the rifle he used in the attack. The homemade bombs had a receiver comparable to what's used to ignite fireworks from a distance, the Journal's sources said. In the months leading up to the assassination attempt, Crooks received a number of packages shipped to his house marked "hazardous materials." 

On the day before the rally, Crooks spent several hours shooting on a rifle range at the Clairton Sportsmen's Club, of which he was a member. Sources have told Fox News that Crooks used a DPMS AR-15 chambered in 5.56mm. His father bought it in 2013. 

On his last morning on Earth, Crooks bought a ladder at Home Depot at 9:30am; investigators don't think he ended up using it. In the afternoon, he bought 50 rounds of ammunition. 

Investigators are reportedly still uncertain about Crooks' specific motivation. His internet search history indicates he'd not only examined Trump's campaign schedule, but also the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Chicago, which starts on Aug 19. He also sought images of both Trump and President Biden. Officials have told federal lawmakers that Crooks had a hatred of politicians in general, and didn't have a distinct political profile or ideology of his own. 

What will be the next damning detail to drop? 

Authored by James Howard Kusntler via Kunstler.com,

“Biden has been jabbed at least four times. This is his third covid diagnosis. The shots are working great.”

- Jeff Childers, Coffee & Covid

There was a lot of talk about divine intervention at the Republican Convention this week. The country has witnessed a rush of seemingly providential events since the fateful night of June 27th when, to universal horror, “Joe Biden” was unmasked as The Phantom of the White House. The attempt on Donald Trump’s life Saturday, with its intimations of blob involvement, was only the latest of countless trips, hoaxes, capers, and ops that smacked of demonic inspiration laid on the public, so you can’t blame them for feeling that “God is among us now.”

A huge piece of this dynamic has been the Right’s amazing impotence in the eight-year-long march of insults to the republic - especially the failure to find relief for any of that in the courts of law, until last month when the SCOTUS finally kneecapped Democratic Party lawfare operations. A paramount example of that impotence was being unable to find one jurisdiction willing to adjudicate election fraud in 2020 on the merit of the arguments.

But there was much more, starting with collective helplessness in the drawn-out RussiaGate psychodrama, even when all the players and their many nefarious acts were exposed by the alt news media, and extending to the mendacious roguery of the two-year Mueller (Weissmann) Commission, followed by fifty-one former intel higher-ups labeling Hunter Biden’s laptop “Russian disinformation, followed by Rep. Adam Schiff’s Ukraine “whistleblower” prank featuring CIA/NSC/DOD/DOJ moles Eric Ciaramella, Colonel Vindman and IC Inspector General Michael Atkinson, and then the FBI-instigated J-6 riot with the ensuing  faked-up House J-6 committee . . . plus you can throw in the stupid Ukraine war, the drag queens in the kindergartens, the bumbling Durham investigation, ten million unvetted illegal migrants flowing into the country and this year’s four show-trials put on to finally break Mr. Trump.

For many in this land, it has been like the classic nightmare of being paralyzed in the presence of evil. So, it’s no wonder that the Republicans came into their convention with a tremendous tailwind of relief when events suddenly broke their way in June. Now, everyone knows that the current president is a vindictive invalid who will be tossed overboard by his own terrified party in a matter of hours now. And the entire scaffold of lies supporting “Joe Biden” and his party is wobbling badly, too.

You could see it in the deranged terror of Rachel Maddow’s increasingly contorted face last night as she rehearsed all the hoaxes she has helped to perpetrate, along with her mentally-ill posse of Jenn Psaki, Joy Reid, Nicole Wallace, and the strangely mute white male Ari Melber. It seemed that any minute Rachel’s head would spin and start spewing pea soup at the camera. When will an exorcist finally pay a visit to MSNBC?

As the sun sets on “Joe Biden’s” career, what’s left of his campaign runs an ad in which he promises “to finish the job.”

Sounds kind of sinister now, doesn’t it, like something a crime boss might tell his caporegimes? And for sure the country is suffering from this three-year-plus reign-of-terror against common sense and common decency.

The wreckage is everywhere, all over this land. “Defending our Democracy,” my ass.

The party big dawgs have paid their terminal visit to the old grifter bringing the sad news that it’s over. Of course, this excites several new headaches for them. Foremost: how can “JB” bow out of the election on account of mental infirmity but still remain president? Even if they call it something else, make some other excuse, the whole world knows now that the president is gone in the head. There are six months remaining to the end of his term and a lot of urgent issues requiring a president’s attention. You can be sure that pressure will rise to shove him out of office altogether. And it may come before the Democratic Convention in late August — if we want to be taken seriously by the rest of the world.

Of course, that would elevate Kamala to the White House. Would getting to be the first female president of-color for six months be her consolation prize for graciously declining an automatic nomination to run in “JB’s” place, so that the party can stage an “open convention” free-for-all? Or would she better serve the party as a sacrificial goat to head the ticket and get buried in what’s shaping up to be an election landslide for the Republicans? Anyway, which of the various replacement politicians — Newsom, Whitmer, Pritzker, PA Gov. Shapiro —really wants to squander a political future in an election that’s as much a vote against the Democratic Party itself as any particular figure in it? Let the party go down so it can be purged of Green Woke Satanic mentally-ill communists and reorganized on a sane and decent basis.

But then there’s always HRC.

She’s been laying back alertly, waiting for an opening to swoop in on her leathery wings and cast a fresh spell over the batshit-crazy women who, in recent times, comprise the party’s base.

At one point, not many years ago, the party was broke and had to be bailed-out by the Clinton Foundation. To what extent does that entity still own the DNC, and especially its cargo of super-delegates? I guess we’re going to find out.

Max Boot - a big fan of 'forever wars' who laundered Trump-Russia conspiracy theories through the Washington Post - is married to a South Korean spy who used to work for the CIA, and is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (now on 'administrative leave) - according to a new indictment revealed on Wednesday.

Boot's wife, Sue Mi Terry, 54, a native of Seoul living in Manhattan, used her position as a foreign policy expert to trade access to top US officials in exchange for luxury goods and 'high-end sushi dinners,' according to the indictment.

Terry allegedly began spying for South Korea in October 2013, five years after she left the CIA, and three years before Boot began calling Donald Trump a Russian asset.

Max Boot, spy hunter. pic.twitter.com/asdKE2R46d

— Chad West (@Chad_WestReal) July 17, 2024

Max Boot, one of the chief purveyors of the "Russian asset" narrative, is married to an unregistered foreign agent? And she has been indicted for selling access, accepting bribes, sharing non-public info with South Korean officials, etc.?

That ... you couldn't write that. https://t.co/7gkfFVbWD6

— T. Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) July 17, 2024

Terry is accused of having "disclosed sensitive US government information to South Korean intelligence and used her position to influence US policy in favor of South Korea" over the course of a decade, in exchange for "money and luxury gifts," FBI Acting Assistant Director in Charge Christie M. Curtis said in a statement.

From 2001-2011, Terry served in a range of US government positions - including as a CIA analyst, as well as Director for Korea, Japan, and Oceanic Affairs for the White House National Security Council, the Post reports.

According to the indictment, a South Korean spy bought Terry a Dolce & Gabbana coat from a Chevy Chase, Maryland store in November of 2019 - which she returned days later for a $4,100 Christian Dior coat.

The spies also funneled over $37,000 to a public policy program on Korean affairs run by Terry - who never registered as a foreign agent with the DOJ, and had been warned by the FBI in 2014 that she could be a target for illegal foreign influence.

Meanwhile, she was passing intelligence to her South Korean handler according to the indictment:

For instance, Terry delivered handwritten notes about a private North Korea-related June 2022 meeting with the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, to her South Korean intelligence handler who picked her up in a car minutes later, according to the indictment unsealed Tuesday.

Weeks after that, Terry hosted a happy hour – at her handlers’ behest – where she allowed the South Korean spy to mingle with congressional staffers while posing as a diplomat, the filing charges. -NY Post

The indictment also details how Terry was "visibly nervous" in a voluntary interview with the feds, and eventually admitted to having met with her South Korean handler after initially claiming she did not know his name. 

Terry was released after posting a $500,000 bond during her initial appearance in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday, and faces up to five years in prison if convicted.

"What are all these meetings and phone calls with South Korean officials about? Also, where are all these designer handbags coming from? There are no charges on our cards. It's probably nothing. Anyway, here I go national securitizing again!"

— T. Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) July 17, 2024

What's more, Boot and Terry co-published South Korean propaganda in the Washington Post...

Today we found out via an indictment that one of the Washington Post's columnists, Max Boot, published a piece with his wife about South Korea based on talking points from that government while his wife was allegedly acting as a foreign agent for them.https://t.co/m3PoNODIVO pic.twitter.com/8l1COr43ny

— AG (@AGHamilton29) July 17, 2024

Max Boot co-wrote and WaPo published a column on US Korea relations with his wife who is also a Korean spy. pic.twitter.com/NzDxayA2MS

— Jarvis (@jarvis_best) July 17, 2024

Boot also had the back of Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), who allegedly banged a Chinese spy.

Today we found out via an indictment that one of the Washington Post's columnists, Max Boot, published a piece with his wife about South Korea based on talking points from that government while his wife was allegedly acting as a foreign agent for them.https://t.co/m3PoNODIVO pic.twitter.com/8l1COr43ny

— AG (@AGHamilton29) July 17, 2024

Amazing...

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????Max Boot was married to a foreign agent… https://t.co/OV1ptWc5lh

— Jeff Carlson (@themarketswork) July 17, 2024

 

Authored by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky via GlobalResearch.ca,

Introduction

Normalization of diplomatic relations with the Russian Federation had first been proposed by Donald Trump in 2017.

Under RussiaGate (2016), President-elect Donald Trump had been accused of treason “after President Obama announced new sanctions [in late December 2016] against Russia and Trump praised Vladimir Putin’s response to the sanctions.” (Daily Caller, December 30, 2016, emphasis added)

Former Secretary of Defense and CIA Director Leo Panetta had already intimated prior to the elections that Trump was a threat to national security. 

Even prior to the inauguration of president Trump, the US media in liaison with US intelligence had launched successive waves of smears directed against President-elect Donald Trump.

The objective from the very outset was to discredit president Trump, presenting him as a Manchurian candidate serving the interests of the Kremlin.

Vanity Fair November 1 2016

Donald Trump, The Manchurian Candidate: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Campaign to Destabilize the Trump Presidency. Regime Change in America

The Atlantic October 8 2016

RussiaGate 2.0

The RussiaGate objective as formulated in 2016 was: 

“to get rid of a President who intended to normalize relations with Russia, thus curtailing the budget and power of the military/security complex.”

(Paul Craig Roberts, emphasis added)

In January 2019, the FBI Russia investigation was quoted by the media as “evidence” that Trump was “wittingly or unwittingly” an agent of the Kremlin.

What is the stance of the FBI today in regard to the candidacy of Donald Trump? The FBI played a key role in sustaining RussiaGate. (P. C Roberts). I should mention that the FBI is also responsible (coincidentally) for the investigation of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Pennsylvania.

Let us wake up to REALITY.  

The levels of political manipulation, fraud and criminality have reached their pinnacle.

The ultimate intent of the campaign against Trump in 2016-19, led by the Neocons and the Dems Clinton faction was to destabilize the Trump presidency.

From RussiaGate 1.0 to RussiaGate 2.0

There is continuity: Under RussiaGate 2.0 (2024) which we are currently experiencing, various accusations of treason against Trump will once more go into high gear, ultimately with a view to sabotage the peace process as well as destabilize Trump’s candidacy to the presidency of the U.S. 

Trump has confirmed: …

“that if reelected, he would swiftly bring an end to the war in Ukraine by speaking with Putin.

“I will have that war settled between Putin and Zelensky as president-elect before I take office on January 20.

I’ll have that war settled,” Trump said on June 27 during a debate with Biden, adding,

“I’ll get it settled fast, before I take office.”

(Quoted by Newsweek)

Speaking with Putin is regarded as an act of treason. This courageous statement, reminiscent of Donald Trump –the alleged Manchurian Candidate— is unlikely to be accepted by the “Deep State”, the Military Industrial Complex and the powerful financial groups which support the Democratic Party leadership.

What will be the ultimate outcome? 

Real peace negotiations are an integral part of Trump’s election campaign.

Trump’s national security advisory team has prepared a balanced plan: if the Kiev regime does not enter into peace talks with Moscow, the U.S. would (under a Trump presidency) immediately suspend the flow of US weapons to Ukraine:

“Under the plan drawn up by [General Keith] Kellogg and Fred Fleitz, who both served as chiefs of staff in Trump’s National Security Council during his 2017-2021 presidency, there would be a ceasefire based on prevailing battle lines during peace talks, Fleitz said.

They have presented their strategy to Trump, and the Republican presidential candidate responded favorably”. (Reuters, June 23, 2024)

It is worth noting that this peace proposal - which is part of his election campaign - was formulated barely a few weeks prior to the failed attempt to assassinate Donald Trump in Pennsylvania.

Evidence continues to mount that Saturday's attempted assassination of Donald Trump by shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks was allowed to happen, despite ample warning from bystanders, local PD, and even the shooter's parents.

To review:

• Three hours before the shooting, security for the rally caught Crooks with a rangefinder and let him go.

• 40 minutes before the shooting, law enforcement circulated a picture of Crooks crawling around on the ground.

• Local PD notified the Secret Service that they had inadequate resources to monitor the building used by Crooks.

• The parents of Thomas Matthew Crooks called law enforcement before the assassination attempt to warn them that their son was "missing" and they were "worried" about him.

WTH is this about pic.twitter.com/lR6ypitfqo

— Karli Bonne’ ???? (@KarluskaP) July 17, 2024

• Local law enforcement observed Crooks leave the area and return three times, during which they took two pictures of him and reported the suspicious activity.

• A Secret Service agent in charge of security for the event was on the phone with local and state police about the threat while the shooting took place.

• Crowds were shouting at the police to do something about the guy on the roof with a rifle for several minutes.

And now for the kicker: 

After Crooks was positioned on the roof, one cop boosted another cop up to the roofline - only for Crooks to point his weapon at him. At that point, the boosted cop fell.

Both of them radioed the threat on a "blanket tactical channel" before the shooting, on which "everyone who was on the tactical channel heard it" according to Butler Township manager, Tom Knights.

"The boosting officer and the officer that fell were both on the radio indicating that there was an individual on the roof that did, in fact, have a weapon," said Knights. "There was a blanket tactical channel being used. Everyone who was on that tactical channel heard it."

Watch (via @KanekoaTheGreat):

The officer who confronted Thomas Matthew Crooks on the roof radioed a "blanket tactical channel" that there was "an individual on the roof with a weapon" before the assassination attempt on President Trump.

Why wasn't President Trump immediately evacuated?

Was the Secret… pic.twitter.com/c2J0KlQEwF

— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) July 17, 2024

It is unknown how much time passed between that radio communication and when shots rang out - or whether the Secret Service was on the "blanket tactical channel" (one would assume). But there was ample knowledge of the armed guy trying to kill Trump before he began shooting. 

BREAKING: Secret Service knew about threat before Trump took stage at Pennsylvania rally, source sayshttps://t.co/SYSzuDHWjQ

— Fox News (@FoxNews) July 17, 2024

3:00 — Assassin under suspicion when range finder sets off metal detector.

5:45 — counter-sniper spots assassin on roof. Radios it in.

6:02-6:04 — They still allow Trump to take the stage

6:11 — after enjoying seven minutes to set up his shot, assassin brandishes rifle at…

— John Ocasio-Rodham Nolte (@NolteNC) July 17, 2024

We're sure Congress will get to the bottom of this...

...or not:

COVER-UP: “According to House Speaker Mike Johnson, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is attempting to block Cheatle from testifying. Johnson called on Cheatle to resign during an interview with Fox News Wednesday morning.” - Townhall pic.twitter.com/yWuyOHdTV9

— Drew Hernandez (@DrewHLive) July 17, 2024

In the wake of Saturday's attempted assassination of Donald Trump, the #1 question is how the Secret Service could have failed to secure a rooftop a little over 400ft away - which former Army sniper Rep. Cory Mills called a "sniper's paradise" that was so obvious he wondered aloud whether it was an "intentional" failure.

And in typical government fashion, their excuses aren't adding up.

Sloped roof?

According to Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle - who has rejected calls to resign, there was no agent placed on the building because it had a "sloped roof."

"That building in particular has a sloped roof at its highest point, and so there’s a safety factor that would be considered there, that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof," she said in a Tuesday interview with ABC News. "So, you know, the decision was made to secure the building from inside."

"Should that roof have been secured?"

Director Kimberly Cheatle: "That building has a sloped roof. There's a safety factor considered that we wouldn't want to put somebody up on the sloped roof." pic.twitter.com/66eteneY4E

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) July 17, 2024

This is obviously absurd. For starters, the counter-snipers near Trump were perched on a roof with a steeper slope.

JUST IN: USSS director Kim Cheatle says sn*pers weren't on the roof where Thomas Crooks shot from because it was "sloped" and unsafe.

Ironically, the sn*pers who were behind Trump during the rally were on a sloped roof.

"That building in particular has a sloped roof at its… pic.twitter.com/Vg36tXr9rJ

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) July 16, 2024

Snipers had eyes-on the shooter before Trump went onstage:

Conspicuously absent from the Secret Service's explanation are reports that a local PD sniper stationed on the second floor inside the building saw the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, outside the building and looking up at the roof. He then walked away, returned, whipped out his phone, when one of the snipers took the first of two pictures of him.

Crooks then took out a rangefinder - at which point the sniper radioed to a command post. Crooks then disappeared again and came back a third time with a backpack. The snipers called in once again with information that he had a backpack and that he (Crooks) was walking toward the back of the building.

By the time other officers came for backup, he had climbed on top of the building and was positioned above and behind the snipers inside the building, the officer said.

Two other officers who heard the sniper's call tried to get onto the roof. State police started rushing to the scene, but by that time, a Secret Service sniper had already killed Crooks, the officer said. -CBS News

So - law enforcement had eyes-on the shooter the entire time, took pictures of him, notified their command post - and nothing was done until Crooks shot Trump, at which point Secret Service snipers returned fire and killed him.

Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi has said that local police officers radioed agents about a possible suspicious person before Mr. Trump came onstage. It’s unclear if the sniper teams were alerted. -NYT

What's more, a Butler County Sheriff Michael Slupe told CNN that a Butler Township officer encountered Crooks on the roof of the building before the shooting, but retreated down a ladder after Crooks pointed his gun at him. According to Slupe, there was a security failure, but said "there is not just one entity responsible."

Three hours?

BOMBSHELL.??

Trump's Would-Be Assassin on Secret Service Radar THREE HOURS Before Shooting President

Thomas Matthew Crooks, alleged shooter in the Trump assassination attempt, was on the Secret Service's radar after he attempted to pass through a metal detector with a range… pic.twitter.com/rCfAbWsZrw

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) July 17, 2024

Further complicating matters is a NYT report citing a law enforcement official who said that the local PD forces were in an adjacent building, not the one the shooter was firing from.

Nothing from the Secret Service on this report - and not one mention of it in today's breakdown in the Washington Post - which is now suggesting that the slope could have hindered counter-snipers' view.

Meanwhile, while law enforcement has suggested that the Crooks used an air conditioning unit to climb onto the dangerously sloped roof, while questions are being asked about various ladders.

So here’s the situation … pic.twitter.com/uxpzEsna5v

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 17, 2024

Resources diverted?

According to RealClearPolitics, resources were diverted away from Trump's rally to an event where First Lady Jill Biden was speaking. USSC spox Anthony Guglielmi denied this was the case.

Susan, this is very wrong. We did not divert resources from FPOTUS Trump & protection models don't work that way. As far as "field office teams" these are the candidate nominee operations teams that are added during election years for the heavy travel tempo. https://t.co/ulf45qLAsO

— Anthony Guglielmi (@SecretSvcSpox) July 15, 2024

Blame Game:

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, the Secret Service blamed local law enforcement for failing to secure the building, and vice-versa.

"There was local police in that building – there was local police in the area that were responsible for the outer perimeter of the building," Cheatle said during her interview with ABC News.

Yet - according to Butler County DA Richard Goldlinger, the "Secret Service was in charge," and that "it was their responsibility to make sure that the venue and the surrounding area was secure."

"For them to blame local law enforcement is them passing the blame when they hold the blame, in my opinion," he told the Washington Post on Tuesday.

One former Secret Service agent told CNN: "The Service is responsible for everything, not just the inner perimeter. They should make sure all of this is covered."

Former secret service agent Jeffrey James told the Daily Caller that protection "works in a series of concentric circles," in which there is an inner circle of secret service agents, a second circle that's a mix of both agents and local law enforcement, and an outer ring that is largely state and local partners.

If the agent in charge of the site told a local law enforcement officer on the outer perimeter that the building is his responsibility, then anything that happens is on the officer.

“But if that agent didn’t find one of the local law enforcement partners and give very clear, direct directions…then it’s going to be the responsibility or the fault of that agent for not delegating that,” he told the DCNF.

It’s unclear what instructions the Secret Service gave to local law enforcement. -Daily Caller

"Whatever happened in Butler, this was not a failure of the local, state or federal officers on the ground who responded to the shots fired at former President Trump. They acted heroically and put their lives on the line to protect everyone at the event and we must recognize that," said Patrick Yoes, national president of the Fraternal Order of Police. "This is a failure at the management or command level who failed to secure an obvious weakness in the security of this event."

"Why was President Trump even on stage at that point? He should have not been on stage."

NEW: @Dbongino breaks news the Secret Service had the suspect on its radar "but lost track of him, apparently, and he was hiding in a building about 300 yards away."pic.twitter.com/FZ3YUBWUPb

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) July 15, 2024

Good news: the government is investigating itself again!

While House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) is set to investigate the incident - with a vow to subpoena Cheatle, and both the Oversight Panel and the Homeland Security Committees are trying to schedule briefings, and Rep. Cory Mills wants to launch a 'J13 Committee' to investigate the assassination attempt - the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has launched its own internal investigation into the Secret Service's handling of the rally.

A new bulletin listed under "ongoing projects" on the DHS Office of Inspector General website said the project objective is to "evaluate the United States Secret Service's (Secret Service) process for securing former President Trump's July 13, 2024 campaign event." -ABC News

We're sure the government will do a great job investigating itself. 

Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

“We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”  – William J. Casey, CIA Director (1981)

The always mysterious question when trying to figure out what is happening in this insane world and why it is happening is who are “they”? In the current chaotic atmosphere, “they” are in the process of throwing their senile child sniffing pedophile Trojan horse president overboard because his dementia ridden brain has been laid bare for all the world to see. It isn’t just the Democratic Party throwing him to the wolves.

When you witness the party, supposedly loyal politicians, the regime media, surveillance state spooks, Hollywood celebrities, and globalist billionaires all simultaneously turn on the person they installed in 2020 through a rigged election, you realize the voting public have no say in how this country is run. Whether you refer to “they” as the Deep State, invisible government, ruling elite, globalist oligarchs, or shadowy men in smoke filled backrooms, we are just bit players in this surreal horror movie.

It is no longer a conspiracy theory that we are ruled by unelected men using their wealth to pull the levers of society to benefit themselves and the apparatchiks who do their dirty work. At some level, this type of control has existed since the inception of our country. Andrew Jackson’s tirade in the 1830s revealed there were deceitful men operating in the shadows, with their greedy agendas prevailing over what was best for the people.

 “Gentlemen! I too have been a close observer of the doings of the Bank of the United States. I have had men watching you for a long time, and am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I have determined to rout you out, and by the Eternal, (bringing his fist down on the table) I will rout you out!”

The capture of our government, media and financial system accelerated during the last century as described by Edward Bernays in his 1928 book – Propaganda. Of course, he wrote this fifteen years after the capture of our financial system, with the Creature from Jekyll Island – the Federal Reserve being created by a cabal of bankers and politicians intent on lining their pockets.

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. …In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons… who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.”– Edward Bernays – Propaganda (1928) pp. 9–10

The traitorous president who signed the bill creating the Federal Reserve, in the same year he signed into existence the loathsome income tax, and later promised to keep the U.S. out of World War I, before taking us into that war, supposedly regretted handing over control of the government to a small cabal of dishonorable men. Politicians and Wall Street bankers have been using the debasement of our currency to enrich themselves at our expense, ever since.

“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world — no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.” – Woodrow Wilson – 1919

For decades the Deep State was able to remain hidden, working in the shadows behind the scenes, with the general population oblivious to their existence. But their existence was outed when they assassinated John F. Kennedy in front of the entire world and took out their CIA patsy on national TV. The CIA, along with their media mouthpieces, created the term “conspiracy theorist” as a derogatory term to keep the public sedated and onboard with whatever narrative they were selling.

The Church Committee in the mid-1970s further revealed the depth and breadth of the traitorous activities of the CIA and the surveillance state bureaucracy. Mike Lofgren defined the Deep State in his 2016 book, describing how the consent of the governed has been nothing more than a fantasy for many decades in this country.

“I have come to call this shadow government the Deep State…a hybrid association of key elements of government and parts of top-level finance and industry that is effectively able to govern the United States with only limited reference to the consent of the governed as normally expressed through elections” ? Mike Lofgren, The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government

Still, anyone questioning the officially approved narrative, as propagated by the bought off politicians; captured propaganda spewing regime media; paid-off “experts” in academia, finance, the military and the sciences; globalist organizations; and billionaires with fake foundations, was ridiculed and censored as nutjob conspiracy theorists.

But, since Trump’s unlikely rise to power in 2016 and the subsequent traitorous acts by the Deep State and their lackeys in the government, media, and surveillance state bureaus, in attempting to destroy Trump through the fake Russiagate investigations, two impeachments based on nothing, creating a fake pandemic to rig the 2020 election, instigating a fake insurrection to keep him from running again, using the power of the DOJ to bring multiple fake charges against him, raiding his residence with orders to shoot if necessary, allowing millions of illegals to enter the country and encouraging them to vote illegally to throw the 2024 election, vilifying him as a threat worse than Hitler, and now being exposed using a patsy to try and assassinate him while his Secret Service detail pretended to protect him.

There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind a Deep State/Invisible government is running the show, and we are all nothing more than spectators who are brainwashed into doing what we are told by those who “have our best interests at heart”. After they failed by one inch in blowing Trump’s head off (ala JFK), the narrative being spun is that we all must unite and tone down the vitriol. It is too late, and they know it. This is all for show.

We are now at war with the Deep State, and anyone associated with their criminal deeds. Their need to retain power grows more desperate by the day. They have concluded they must win the upcoming election at all costs, or their unlawful acts over the last eight years will be revealed and retribution doled out to the perpetrators. Their failure in assassinating Trump, does not mean they will not try again.

Their biggest hurdle is their ballot rigging operation only works in the swing states when the vote is reasonably close. The presidential debate and subsequent embarrassing press conferences have revealed Biden to be dementia ridden husk, who can’t even read a teleprompter at this point. Only the most brain-dead liberal kooks will vote for this walking dead candidate.

After Trump’s triumphant post assassination attempt photo-op, with fist raised in victory, his odds of winning the election went through the roof. The potential replacement candidates for Biden are a motley crew of idiocy, failure and low IQ diversity options. When the Deep State was blindsided in 2016 with the Trump victory, they proceeded to derail his presidency by convincing him to hire their Deep State operatives into key roles, while keeping the Congress, DOJ, DOD, FBI, and CIA at war with everything Trump tried to accomplish. If he wins this time, he won’t make the same miscalculations again. And they know it.

We have less than four months until the election. These being the waning years of this Fourth Turning, whatever happens from here on out will only be intensified. There will be no unity. There will be no compromise. Fourth Turnings do not wind down. They accelerate towards a bloody crescendo, with clear winners and losers. The potential for civil and global war rises on a daily basis.

Most of the ignorant, I-gadget distracted, narrative believing masses, have no clue how close the world is to erupting in violent no-holds barred death and destruction. Virtually no one is alive who remembers the horrors of WWII. That is why Fourth Turnings re-occur every eighty years or so. We forget the past and are condemned to relive it. There are several scenarios that could play out.

The Deep State may have provided Trump with a stark reminder about who really runs the show. Will he heed their warning? If so, they may let him win and then continue their control behind the scenes, letting him know they can take him out at a time of their choosing. Trump’s cooperation in this scenario is possible, but after the last eight years of unbridled attacks on him, this may be unlikely.

They could try another assassination attempt, but the world is now aware of their hatred for Trump, and would likely react negatively towards all parties involved in the murder of the past and future president of the U.S. The question is how desperate are these godless authoritarians? How many innocent people are they willing to sacrifice at the altar of mammon and power, to continue their stranglehold on the political, financial, social, and economic structures of the U.S. and western world.

Knowing they will do anything to win and remain in control of the levers of our society, what may seem unthinkable to you and me, wouldn’t make these sociopaths pause for a second. They’ve already killed tens of millions with their fake pandemic and their toxic antidote gene therapy. All done to rig an election, enrich themselves, and cull the herd. We already know the neo-con branch of the Deep State has been saber rattling towards both Russia and China.

We also know false flags are one of their favorite tools to initiate conflict and fill their coffers with blood money. Our blood and their money. We’ve already seen a possible scenario with their puppet Zelensky in the Ukraine. If you can create a national emergency through either a civil or foreign war, you can cancel the election until the emergency is over.

A successful assassination of Trump this past weekend would have initiated some form of chaos in the streets, with the political powder keg poised to be lit by one side or the other. The Deep State is certainly capable of creating a false flag that kills hundreds or thousands of innocents, blaming white nationalist Trumpers for the tragedy. Another George Floyd incident could be cooked up, with Soros unleashing his Antifa and BLM terrorist hordes on cities across the land.

The normal citizens supporting Trump will only be pushed so far, and if they begin to fight back, all hell could break loose. This is what the Deep State wants. Chaos and violence in the streets would be their excuse to “delay” the elections. That would even cause more violence and upheaval. The Deep State thrives on violence, chaos, war, and a fearful populace, begging to be saved.

The Deep State is conducting the war against Russia. The Ukrainian soldiers are being chewed up by the Russian army, but the high-tech aspects of the war are being carried out by Americans, who are the only ones capable of operating the drones and advanced missiles being used against Russia. They know Putin’s red lines. If they choose to start World War III, they will initiate an attack guaranteed to force Putin into a drastic response, attempting to ignite a conflagration across Europe, into the Middle East.

With the US/EU sanction war having pushed Russia, China and the rest of the BRIC countries closer together, China and possibly India would side with Russia in a global conflict. The use of nuclear arms becomes more and more likely as the warring countries become more desperate and pushed into a corner.

The Deep State has no qualms about killing millions to attain their goals and retain their wealth, power and control over the masses. I do believe the next four months will mark a turning point in the history of the world. I fear there will be much bloodshed, but will continue to try and decipher the path of this Fourth Turning and guide my family and anyone choosing to listen towards the light and away from the darkness. I do believe Strauss & Howe’s possible outcomes for this Fourth Turning are an accurate portrayal of what awaits us within the next decade. 

1.  This Fourth Turning could mark the end of man. It could be an omnicidal Armageddon, destroying everything, leaving nothing. If mankind ever extinguishes itself, this will probably happen when its dominant civilization triggers a Fourth Turning that ends horribly. For this Fourth Turning to put an end to all this would require an extremely unlikely blend of social disaster, human malevolence, technological perfection and bad luck.

2. The Fourth Turning could mark the end of modernity. The Western saecular rythm – which began in the mid-fifteenth century with the Renaissance – could come to an abrupt terminus. The seventh modern saeculum would be the last. This too could come from total war, terrible but not final. There could be a complete collapse of science, culture, politics, and society. Such a dire result would probably happen only when a dominant nation (like today’s America) lets a Fourth Turning ekpyrosis engulf the planet. But this outcome is well within the reach of foreseeable technology and malevolence.

3. The Fourth Turning could spare modernity but mark the end of our nation. It could close the book on the political constitution, popular culture, and moral standing that the word America has come to signify. The nation has endured for three saecula; Rome lasted twelve, the Soviet Union only one. Fourth Turnings are critical thresholds for national survival. Each of the last three American Crises produced moments of extreme danger: In the Revolution, the very birth of the republic hung by a thread in more than one battle. In the Civil War, the union barely survived a four-year slaughter that in its own time was regarded as the most lethal war in history. In World War II, the nation destroyed an enemy of democracy that for a time was winning; had the enemy won, America might have itself been destroyed. In all likelihood, the next Crisis will present the nation with a threat and a consequence on a similar scale.

4. Or the Fourth Turning could simply mark the end of the Millennial Saeculum. Mankind, modernity, and America would all persevere. Afterward, there would be a new mood, a new High, and a new saeculum. America would be reborn. But, reborn, it would not be the same.

The odds are stacked against us, but if we give up the fight, we will surely lose. Our choices and actions in the coming days will surely matter. We must fight, fight, fight!! Godspeed and good luck.

Authored by Ken Silva via HeadlineUSA.com,

The FBI has reportedly taken alleged Trump shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks’s phone to its lab in Quantico, Virginia, where its technicians are working to unlock it as part of the investigation into his possible motives.

But according to Fox News reporter Laura Ingraham, the FBI’s finest techies are struggling to crack the phone.

“An official is telling Fox they believe the shooter acted along. We’re also learning they can’t get into his cellphone,” Ingraham said on Sunday. “They have it at Quantico but haven’t been able to get any data out of it.”

BREAKING ?? Quantico reportedly cannot get into the alleged shooter’s cell phone, who they state: "Acted alone."

pic.twitter.com/voRPYiHlGV

— Toria Brooke (@realtoriabrooke) July 15, 2024

The FBI’s claim that it can’t crack Crooks’s phone should be treated with skepticism. The bureau has a track record of lying about such matters.

The most notorious case of the FBI claiming it couldn’t crack an encrypted phone happened in December 2015, in the wake of the San Bernardino shooting, in which two shooters killed more than a dozen victims.

At the time, the FBI claimed it couldn’t access one of the shooters’ iPhones. The bureau sought a court order to force Apple to help the FBI break the phone’s encryption.

Apple resisted the FBI’s coercsion, but the dispute was never fully litigated. It turned out, the FBI hired an Australian cybersecurity firm to hack the phone around March 2016 or shortly thereafter. The purported true story of how the FBI unlocked the phone wasn’t told until 2021.

A similar situation occurred in May 2020, when then-Attorney General William Barr and FBI Director Chris Wray criticized Apple for not helping investigators who were attempting to gain access to two iPhones used by Mohammed Alshamrani, who launched a terror attack at the Pensacola Naval Air Station in Florida in December 2019.

Wray has continued his anti-encryption throughout the years. In March 2021, for example, he told the Senate Judiciary Committee that encryption was stifling his agents from investigating domestic extremism.

“Like Alshamrani, the plotters who sought to kidnap the governor of Michigan late last year used end-to-end encrypted apps to hide their communications from law enforcement. Their plot was only disrupted by well-timed human source reporting and the resulting undercover operation,” Wray said at the time.

“Subjects of our investigation into the Jan. 6 Capitol siege used end-to-end encrypted communications as well.”

According to Wray and other law enforcers, tech companies should be able to build “backdoors” into their encryption that preserves privacy, while allowing for access when necessary. That, they say, strikes the proper balance between data security and national security.

However, numerous tech experts, civil libertarians, and others say that it’s impossible to build a backdoor that can’t be exploited by hackers. They also say that by banning encryption, the United States would be following in the footsteps of authoritarian countries such as China, which blocked the encrypted messaging app Signal.

“It is important to understand that any kind of back door (or front door) access for the ‘good guys’ can also be exploited by the ’bad guys,’” the pro-industry Information Technology & Innovation Foundation stated in a July 2020 report, in the midst of the Apple-Barr controversy.

“For example, key escrow systems would introduce new attack vectors that could allow attackers to gain access to encrypted information, such as by compromising the system that maintains copies of the keys.”

...and in case you hadn't put it all together, here's Matt Walsh...

Guys there’s nothing strange going on here. The 20 year old shooter had never used social media or posted a single thing on the internet, ever, and his phone cannot be accessed because it has a password which our government’s best hackers cannot bypass. That’s all. Normal stuff.

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) July 15, 2024

...what do they need to hide?

While the entire world - or rather Democrats - are shocked to learn that Biden's dementia is not a vast right wing conspiracy as they themselves had claimed prior to the catastrophic Trump-Biden debate, and that their eyes and ears had not in fact been deceiving them for the past three years, last week a Florida judge dropped a bombshell 150-page transcript related to a 2006 grand jury investigation of Jeffrey Epstein (readers may remember him if not his clients, none of whom it would appear are notable enough to be criminally charged), revealing that prosecutors were aware that Epstein sexually abused underage girls.

As Breanna Morello explains, the transcripts reveal that the deal between Epstein and prosecutors came two years after they learned that Epstein engaged in statutory rape of teenage girls, and resulted in minimal punishments for the billionaire human trafficker. In the end, Epstein was charged with only one count of solicitation of prostitution from a minor, despite evidence of multiple rapes and a pattern of behavior. Thanks to this slap on the wrist which meant he would be free shortly after, Epstein went on to sexually exploit children until his "suicide" in 2019 and made hundreds of millions from child trafficking with countless billionaires and political oligarchs, ferrying them back and forth on his Lolita Express to Epstein island, where countless underage girls were raped by the true ruling class which to this day remains immune from the legal system.

"Details in the record will be outrageous to decent people,” Judge Luis Delgado wrote, adding that the transcript has (further) diminished public perception of the criminal justice system, which in recent months is best known for getting hijacked to serve Biden's failed crusade to incarcerate Trump before the election. The filings were released after a 2024 Florida law made it legal to do so for transcripts related to Epstein.

As noted above, the 2008 charges boiled down to a count of solicitation of prostitution from a minor, despite investigators’ knowledge of Epstein’s pattern of behavior, including numerous incidents of rape. The charge was significantly less severe than the evidence warranted, especially since investigators had knowledge of Epstein's pattern of behavior, including numerous incidents of rape. The limited charge ignored the full extent of Epstein's criminal activities.

The filing, which itself further unveils prosecutorial missteps that enabled Epstein’s later conduct, came years after the lenient, and delayed, sentence was criticized.

“The story of how Jeffrey Epstein victimized some of Palm Beach County’s most vulnerable has been the subject of much anger and has at times diminished the public’s perception of the criminal justice system,” Delgado wrote.

Florida’s Southern District Attorney, Alex Acosta, who served for a period of time as Trump former Secretary of Labor, approved a non-prosecution agreement with Epstein in 2008, despite prosecutors’ knowledge of the rapes. Acosta eventually left the Trump administration in scandal after details emerged outlining his botched prosecution of the prolific trafficker.

Watch the full report below.

??JEFFREY EPSTEIN DOCUMENT DUMP??

I’ve just read through the entire 2008 Epstein grand jury transcripts.

The details are disturbing including the claims that Epstein raped a teenage girl a day before her 18th birthday.

Why did Alex Acosta cut Epstein this deal?

I discuss: pic.twitter.com/FRKnEoMWeC

— Breanna Morello (@BreannaMorello) July 3, 2024

Morello's complete analysis of the transcripts can be read here, and as a post-script, here is Elon Musk once again asking the most obvious question amid this whole farce: how come there has not been "one – just one – even *attempted* prosecution of that Epstein (Bill Gates & Reid Hoffman come to mind) client list."

When is there not one – just one – even *attempted* prosecution of that Epstein (Bill Gates & Reid Hoffman come to mind)
client list.

Either FBI does their duty or the case for an entire departmental reset or abolishment is strong. https://t.co/qLgWvyuysp

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 6, 2024

Authored by Ken Silva via Headline USA,

The first article of this series chronicled the FBI’s mid-2000s program to stage neo-Nazi rallies around the country as a means to conduct surveillance and recruit potential informants.

Those rallies were just the beginning of a sweeping multi-state investigation, Headline USA can reveal.

Indeed, after an FBI informant was exposed in 2007 for organizing a Nazi rally in Orlando the year before, the bureau launched another operation in the same area. Dubbed “Primitive Affliction,” the FBI set up a neo-Nazi motorcycle front group to infiltrate Florida’s right-wing underground.

Federal agencies are known to have used motorcycle front groups cases against targets such as the Hells Angels for drug- and gun-trafficking investigations. However, Headline USA is unaware of such a tactic being employed in a politically charged domestic terrorism case until Primitive Affliction.

This publication has also found that then-FBI Director Robert Mueller had a personal interest in Primitive Affliction, which ran from about 2007 to 2012. Indeed, Mueller was briefed daily on the operation during its final stages, according to a newly unearthed performance review of one undercover cop on the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force.

OK I've been promising docs that ties then-FBI Director Robert Mueller to these post-9/11 PATCON-like ops.

Here's a performance review of an undercover FBI officer in Primitive Affliction, which was centered around a neo-Nazi motorcycle front group.

Mueller was 'briefed daily' pic.twitter.com/dR92lcY9Qm

— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) June 30, 2024

Because Primitive Affliction collapsed with no terrorism convictions, the case never grabbed the national spotlight. However, a deeper look at the case reveals infiltration and entrapment techniques used by the FBI in 1990s investigations against the Aryan Nations, as well as more recent cases such as the 2020 militia conspiracy to kidnap Michigan’s governor.

Mueller did not respond to an email about Primitive Affliction. The FBI declined to comment.

Reviving the Aryan Nations

In the 1980s and 90s, the Aryan Nations rivaled the Ku Klux Klan as the face of “white hate” in America—and for good reason, having been linked to numerous bank robberies, the assassination of a Jewish radio host and the Oklahoma City bombing, along with other crimes.

But by the mid-2000s, the Aryan Nations was largely decimated by numerous arrests and civil litigation. The group had splintered into various factions around the country. One of its remaining leaders, August Kreis, was desperate to consolidate power.

Working out of a South Carolina mobile home with a man named Joshua Caleb Sutter—who was a known FBI informant since 2003—Kreis attempted several publicity stunts to put his name on the map.

For example, at one point Kreis pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden and claimed to seek an alliance with Muslim jihadists. Sutter, who was Kreis’s “minister for Islamic liaison,”  also reportedly posted a “message of solidarity and support” to Saddam Hussein on the Aryan Nations Web site. (If Sutter’s name sounds familiar, it’s because he made headlines in 2021, when it was revealed that he earned more than $100,000 from the FBI while running a Satanic publishing house.)

When that didn’t work in attracting new members or donations, Kreis began plotting with another Aryan Nations member, Robert Killian. Like Sutter, Killian turned out to be undercover law enforcement—Killian an undercover cop on the FBI’s JTTF.

An avid motorcyclist living in Orlando, Killian had been hanging out at a local Outlaw biker bar while posing online as a member of the Aryan Nations. Using the name “Doc,” by 2007 he had risen to become the Aryan Nations Florida state administrator—which, ironically, gave him power to vet applicants. The Orlando Sentinel later described Killian as the Aryan Nations’ “top recruiter.”

Apparently, someone in the FBI had the idea of merging a domestic terrorism case with a biker case. Killian planted the idea in Kreis’s head to start a neo-Nazi motorcycle club, the 1st SS Kavallerie Brigade Motorcycle Division—named after a horse-mounted unit of Nazi Germany’s Waffen-SS.

For Kreis, a biker gang posed the opportunity to attract publicity, gain members and increase revenue for the Aryan Nations.

But first, they needed bikers. To that end, Killian convinced an Outlaw biker named Brian Klose to become the leader of the 1st SS Kavallerie. According to people familiar with the matter, Killian was able to convince Klose to leave the Outlaws by playing to his ego. Keeping with the neo-Nazi theme, Klose was named “Fuhrer” of the new group.

Klose would come to regret his decision to leave the Outlaws for what turned out to be an FBI front group.

With Klose surrounded by a gaggle of informants and undercover cops, the 1st SS Kavallerie clubhouse was open for business. According to internal law enforcement records, there were at least four undercover employees and an untold number of informants who infiltrated the group, along with numerous wiretaps and other “sophisticated techniques.”

Kelly Boaz a.k.a. ‘Kevin Post’

One of the key undercover agents from Primitive Affliction was Kelly Boaz, a local Orange County cop who, like Killian, had earned a spot on the FBI’s JTTF—receiving specialized training from the ADL and SPLC, according to their personnel records.

Boaz earned a JTTF assignment despite a scandal-plagued career with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, where he was the subject of more than a dozen internal investigations since joining in 1989, several involving allegations of excessive force.

Meet undercover FBI officer Kelly Boaz, who features in Part 2 of The Hidden History of Robert Mueller’s Right-Wing Terror Factory
Boaz posed as renegade Black Pistons bomb-maker "Kevin Post" in Primitive Affliction

Boaz made it to the FBI's JTTF despite a checkered career as… pic.twitter.com/MYUn6w1Nfl

— Headline USA (@HeadlineUSA) June 30, 2024

In December 1999, for example, Boaz was involved in a predawn raid where another officer shot a suspect. Months later in August 2000, Boaz was at the center of another controversy when he shot and killed an unarmed thief at a shopping center.

He was cleared of wrongdoing in both incidents, but his supervisor was reportedly demoted and his racketeering squad was disbanded. A civil lawsuit was filed against him and the Orange County Sheriff’s Office over the December 1999 incident, but the case was eventually dismissed.

Despite Boaz’s controversial past, the FBI relied on him to build a complex case against a supposed network of white supremacist terrorists.

Boaz, who declined an interview request, entered Florida’s neo-Nazi scene sometime after the Orlando neo-Nazi rally organizer, FBI undercover operative David Gletty, had his cover blown in the media—as detailed in Part 1 of this series.

According to court records, Boaz was introduced to the Outlaw bikers and the 1st SS Kavallerie in 2009 by his colleague, Killian. By then, Boaz had already infiltrated the Black Pistons biker gang and was posing as one of its members, a renegade bomb maker named “Kevin Post.”

For nearly the next three years, Boaz and the FBI built their case.

During his investigation, one of his informants purportedly learned about another right-wing group in the area called the American Front. Operation Primitive Affliction eventually expanded to the Russia-linked American Front, which will be the subject of Part 3 of this series.

In both cases, Boaz made extravagant claims of the drug deals and terroristic plots he witnessed in his roughly three years as an undercover biker/bomber. He also claimed that his life was threatened when an Outlaw biker put a firearm to his head and accused him of being law enforcement.

Mueller likely heard similar reports. A glowing performance review for Boaz said the case “was briefed to the FBI Director daily during the executions of the disruptions.”

But a deeper look at the evidence produced in court casts doubt on Boaz’s claims, as well as the FBI’s entire case.
Kavallerie Collapse

“Biker Gangsters Busted after Three-Year Probe,” the Orlando Sentinel reported on March 31, 2012.

Two nights earlier, Boaz and the FBI had rounded up the targets of Primitive Affliction. One of those arrested was a woman named Deborah Plowman, who was at her home near Chicago when more than a dozen armed agents swarmed her on March 29, 2012. According to Boaz, he saw Plowman take pills at an Outlaw bikers party several years earlier.

After spending the night in jail, Plowman was told she needed to travel to Florida to face drug-trafficking charges—or else, she’d face extradition. Baffled, Plowman professed her innocence.

She was telling the truth.

On April 19, 2012, Plowman turned herself into law enforcement in Florida to be interviewed by Boaz. It didn’t take long before Boaz realized that he had the wrong person arrested.

“Boaz asked [Plowman] if she has ever used the nickname or has ever been called ‘Sin,’ to which she replied with a ‘no,’” Plowman said in a lawsuit she filed later over the wrongful arrest.

“Defendant Boaz immediately began to break out into a sweat upon viewing and questioning [Plowman], realizing he caused the wrong person, [Plowman], to be arrested in his undercover operation, instead of ‘Sin’ [Kristy Pryzbylla].”

It turned out, Plowman was married to someone Boaz had been investigating, and the undercover agent somehow confused her with Pryzbylla. Plowman quickly hired a lawyer, who blasted Boaz in the Orlando Sentinel for his carelessness.

“Had Boaz pulled her drivers license, he would have known it wasn’t her, and he’d made a huge mistake,” Plowman’s then-attorney, Jerry Theophilopoulos, said at the time. “In all my 20 years of practice, I’ve never seen anything like what they did to Deborah Plowman.”

Plowman had her charges dropped in May 2012, and she eventually won $30,000 from Boaz in a civil lawsuit.

Boaz’s sloppy police work would continue to rear its ugly head as the fruits of Primitive Affliction moved through the courts.

The other defendants—including the “Fuehrer” Klose, Ronald Cusack, Carlos Eugene Dubose and Harold Johnson Kinlaw—were initially charged with violent crimes, such as bomb-making and soliciting murder. However, prosecutors later dropped most of the charges related to violence, instead reaching deals with the defendants to plead guilty to drug charges.

Assistant State Attorney Steven Foster reportedly said at the time that prosecutors were willing to strike plea deals with alleged white supremacist extremists because they were following the “Al Capone theory of prosecution”—referencing how federal authorities jailed the notorious mobster for tax evasion instead of his countless violent crimes.

“We decided to strike against the Kavallerie Brigade by bringing these heavy-duty drug charges to shut the active members down,” Foster reportedly said, bragging about shutting down an FBI front group.

However, one of the Outlaw biker defendants, Dubose, fought his charges.

It was a good thing he did.

A retired U.S. Marine, Dubose’s crime stemmed from when he cracked his skull in a motorcycle accident. Down and out on his luck and looking for cash, Dubose took another blow in life when an FBI informant arranged for him to sell his prescription painkillers to an undercover officer.

Initially charged with selling more than 28 grams of Oxycodone pills, Dubose could have spent the rest of his life in prison. But when he started receiving pre-trial discovery, he noticed something: An FBI report showed he only gave the undercover officer 9 grams of pills—a crime that carried the far lesser max sentence of seven years imprisonment.

After successfully diminishing the severity of his drug charge, Dubose decided to plead guilty to that lone count. But he continued to vociferously deny any involvement in a bomb plot—a charge that stemmed from a conversation he had with Boaz, aka renegade bomb maker “Kevin Post,” nearly three years earlier in 2009.

To Dubose’s point, the Feb. 27, 2009, conversation he had with Boaz/Post never developed any further over the next three years. And a transcript of the conversation shows Dubose choosing his words carefully when talking about “hypothetically” building a pipe bomb: “We’re not lookin’ to do anything. It’s just a matter if we start to go to war with somebody,” Dubose told Post/Boaz at the end of the discussion.

Florida prosecutors admitted that Boaz’s one recorded conversation didn’t contain smoking-gun evidence of bomb plots, but they claimed there were other discussions where Dubose made such plans.

Even though there were no recordings of those other purported conversations—and even though Dubose never possessed or attempt to build a bomb—the judge accepted the narrative of Boaz and the government. He tossed the motion to dismiss, and Dubose took a plea deal soon thereafter.

Gun to the Head?

Boaz’s credibility would be challenged once more at Dubose’s April 21, 2014, sentencing hearing, where the undercover agent claimed to have had a weapon pointed at his head.

During the hearing, defense attorney Harold Uhrig asked Boaz the obvious question: If Dubose pointed a gun at him, why didn’t the government mention that before?

“I’ve gone through about 600 pages of transcripts, reports, supplemental reports, I don’t find it anywhere mentioned in there. Are you telling me that there’s some information that y’all did not disclose to us?” Uhrig asked Boaz.

Boaz insisted that he did report the gun-pointing incident to the FBI for “intelligence gathering,” but he didn’t tell the Orange County Sheriff’s Office. Boaz also admitted that he didn’t have any documentation proving that he reported the alleged incident to the FBI.

After Boaz’s dubious testimony, the judge still sentenced Dubose to five years imprisonment for both the drug trafficking and bomb solicitation charges.

The judge did admit that the available evidence “somewhat” supported Dubose’s version of events.

However, the judge noted that Dubose did talk about having a bomb “in the event of a war.” Therefore, “the Court finds, viewing the evidence in its totality, that [Dubose intended] to obtain a destructive device for the purpose of injuring or causing damage to persons or property,” the judge said, allowing the government to somewhat save face after a disastrous case.

The judge sentenced Dubose to five-year concurrent sentences for the drug and bomb charges.

While prosecutors were able to secure some convictions from the 1st SS Kavallerie investigation—Klose is still in prison on felony drug trafficking charges—they fared even worse in the American Front case, thanks in part to more Boaz blunders.

Bizarre developments would continue to occur outside the courtroom, too. As they prepped for trial around 2013, Boaz and several other government officials would begin receiving strange threats, purportedly from a neo-Nazi fugitive on the run in Mexico—the subject of Part 3 of this series.

Stay tuned…

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Though he separately assured staffers and governors on Wednesday that he's staying in the race all the way to Election Day, President Biden has privately conceded to close allies that he must excel in his public appearances over the next several days if his campaign is to survive, according to the New York Times.  

Those upcoming events include weekend campaign stops in swing states Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, but the most attention by far will be paid to a Friday night sit-down interview with ABC News host George Stephanopoulos. After taping the interview on Friday, July 5, ABC will provide a first glimpse of the conversation that evening via "World News Tonight with David Muir." The full interview -- after ABC's edits -- will air as a "primetime special" on Friday at 8pm ET, and again on Sunday morning's "This Week."  

In contrast to last week's debate -- when Americans who hadn't been paying attention were shocked by Biden's shuffling gait, periodic incoherence, weak voice and slack-jawed stares -- the ABC interview will be pre-recorded, and it will be edited. However, seemingly in response to backlash about that taped-and-edited format, ABC has committed to releasing a full transcript of the interview on Friday.

As Fox News notes, that's a decision with some significant historical context where both ABC and Stephanopoulos are concerned: 

In 2018, ABC News was heavily criticized for a massive editing job when former FBI Director James Comey sat down with Stephanopoulos for his first interview since he was abruptly fired by then-President Trump the previous year. The full transcript released by the network revealed it chose not to air several key moments during its Sunday night special, such as when Comey ripped former President Obama. 

Readers will naturally view the idea of a Stephanopoulos interview with justifiable wariness of soft-pitch questions and friendly editing. However, we're in a different political world than last week, one where liberal media has abandoned its monolithic shielding of Biden's mental health from public scrutiny. It's a world where Stephanopoulos won't be uniformly pressured by his peers and leftist mobs on social media to make Biden look "sharp as a tack," to borrow the propaganda line that Biden's defenders regularly employed in the months leading up to the debate.  

Biden is set to do his first post-debate interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos. Here's George shouting over Nikki Haley last year when she questioned Biden's ability to finish a second term: "How do you know Joe Biden is not going to finish his term? What is that based on?" pic.twitter.com/PT5vhVCUyy

— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) July 2, 2024

To appreciate how much has changed, consider that the cornerstone leftist media institution -- the New York Times -- crossed the Rubicon last weekend. Its editorial board, noting Biden's "infirmity" that Americans had "[seen] with their own eyes," urged Biden to quit the race, saying that would be "the greatest public service Mr. Biden can now provide."

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Boston Globe followed suit, along with columnists and pundits across the country, from Paul Krugman to James Carville and Joe Scarborough. Emboldened by the media's lead, elected Democrats have started to issue their own pleas for Biden to quit, starting with Texas Rep. Lloyd Doggett and Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva. A draft letter, intended to be signed by multiple members, is circulating on Capitol Hill. At least two House reps have publicly said Biden can't win after what Americans saw in the debate. 

Given the debate-triggered earthquake that's altered the leftist landscape, Stephanopoulos will likely feel significant pressure to act something like a real journalist, for once. Indeed, the interview could prove to be the most historically significant of his career. 

On the other side, Team Biden has every interest in molding the event to its benefit. On Wednesday night, the Daily Beast reported that Biden's handlers are pulling on one very significant lever -- the length of the interview, which will take place in Wisconsin as Biden is on the campaign trail:

The Beast has learned that behind the scenes there is deep concern inside ABC News’ upper echelons that Stephanopolous could get as little as 15 minutes to conduct what should be a searching interview offering insight into the president’s mental state...

One source suggested it would be more in the range of 20 minutes—still a relatively short period of time for even an accomplished interviewer to cover questions both over Biden’s cognitive state and his ability to stay in the campaign

The Biden campaign is forced to balance two huge risks. A longer interview increases the odds of a major Biden flub, while a shorter interview could anger Democrats who -- wary of not only losing the White House but also suffering consequences up and down the ballot -- are demanding that Biden quickly and urgently make a strong case that he's mentally fit to serve another term. 

In the week following the debate, Biden's response has disappointed Democratic leaders and major donors alike, with a senior campaign advisor telling the Washington Post that Biden had met widespread panic with "deafening silence." 

This is Joe Biden ‘19 and ‘24. Until the debate the media tried to deny this. Who you gonna trust; them or your own lying eyes?! pic.twitter.com/y7xAeDMaGI

— Russell Brand (@rustyrockets) June 29, 2024

His few efforts to shore up public opinion during that stretch have been terribly underwhelming. Attendees at a celebrity-laden fundraiser in the Hamptons on Saturday said Biden's appearance only reinforced their deep worries about his fitness. The event was tightly orchestrated, and Biden did his speaking with the aid of a teleprompter, reminding attendees that he struggles to manage unscripted dialogue -- even with a friendly audience. 

Similarly, when Biden took to a White House podium to address the Supreme Court ruling providing a large degree of legal immunity to former President Trump, he read from a teleprompter and left without taking any questions from the press.   

ABC is certain to garner high ratings on Friday night; Biden's chance of prospering from the opportunity is much lower. 

Authored by Justin Smith via The Burning Platform blog,

Americans probably still have many good reasons to be proud of America, but as I sat thinking about what I would write to commemorate our Independence Day, they all seemed to evade me at the moment, given where we find our country today. And even tho’ we have seen some recent gains moving the country away from the Marxist-Maoist Democrat Party’s communist agenda and the plan to fundamentally transform America into something despicable, foreign and conquered, it will be for naught so long as the American people keep embracing corrupt politicians and act as tho’ the Bill of Rights are unimportant footnotes in Mad Magazine, written by President Alfred E. Newman, trudging into the years ahead unprincipled and immoral as ever.

After decades of witnessing America hasten into a dark nightmare of an existence and an ever more uncertain, ill-prepared direction for the future of the country, under a fascist Marxist-Maoist regime, our reasons to be proud of this country have become practically non-existent, on this 4th of July, due to largely inadequate counters or no counterattacks at all to prevent or halt the constant and continuous assaults and attacks by America’s domestic terrorists and the enemies-from-within, as well as enemies from abroad. And as many prepare to celebrate America’s Independence Day, Americans should reflect on their own vision for the not so “united” United States of America and whether or not they love this nation enough to ensure its continued success and survival throughout the 21st century as the greatest nation on earth.

This is the nation that gave the world the marriage between the ideas of liberty and the equality of all under the law, which greatly enabled and facilitated the highest levels of individual liberty and the greatest economic prosperity ever seen throughout the entire history of mankind. This alone would ordinarily make America a very Exceptional nation indeed, if not for the advent of the new amerikkans who hate America’s founding, Her principles and Western civilization itself.

The American Flag is heavily worn, and its stars are faded today, after roughly 200 years of America being such an exceptional nation. Yes, we know She’s stood tall for many years, the best She could for 248 years, but a large segment of the American people — those with a long line of American ancestry as well as the newer generations of immigrants — have themselves diminished and torn asunder the luster of the idea of American Exceptionalism and that Shining City on the Hill that has so often been used across history to depict America, and in far too many instances they have sabotaged the country and American virtues and principles by way of numerous Machiavellian mechanisms, as seen for example in the 1913 Federal Reserve Bank Act, 1929 Stock Market Crash, 1965 Immigration Act, the Covid Pandemic, mail-in ballots, “Election Month” instead of “Election Day” and the New Green Deal.

Our nation emerged from the fire, fury and chaos of the War for Independence with the hopes of the people and a people determined to live free through their own capabilities and devices without the heavy, tyrannical hand of any government from that day on, but from the looks of things today, those hopes were dashed repeatedly across the ages. They revolted over a two percent tax hike on tea, and yet here we sit today taxed on every damned thing under the sun, including the property we supposedly own and the very damned air we breathe.

The average American has many more valid reasons to revolt today, than they had in 1776. Consider the Declaration of Independence, and then consider the current political malaise that has grabbed the American people by the cajones and seemingly just sucked the will and the life out of them, as they sit back ever complacent and apathetic as a Marxist-Maoist juggernaut rolls over their inalienable God-given rights as seen in Natural Law made by God the Creator. One can almost hear the bleating as one walks down Main Street USA.

“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and intransient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

Never in American history have we seen our country and its people so sorely abused and put upon. Never have the American people suffered such a long train of abuses and usurpations, as we are suffering through today under this Marxist-Maoist communist regime that has captured our government through and through. And it’s damned hard to be proud of a country that has allowed for this, that stands by this very moment watching as if the situation will somehow miraculously resolve itself, as the Democratic Party move ahead with the fundamental transformation of America into something foreign and antithetical to Her founding, a tyrannical Socialist Super-State

It’s damned hard to be proud of a country that is doing next to nothing to stop the treason on the southern border that allows millions of illegal aliens to cross each year, mostly military aged men from all across the world, from the socialist-loving people of Nicaragua, Mexico and El Salvador to nations hostile to America like China, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Syria and many others too — smuggling tons of China’s death dealing fentanyl into the country in the process. Yes, there’s nothing for the American people to be proud to see in a country that won’t stand up in the face of an existential threat, because its people have grown weak and complacent and obedient to their deaths, even with the Democrat Party admitting they plan to legitimize these illegal aliens and hand them “the right to vote”.

Yea — I can’t be too proud of America when She has nearly totally forgotten Her Veterans in far too many respects, as we see thousands of homeless Veterans trying to get help in vain, while the Veteran Administration Office is busy filing medical claims for Illegal Aliens [I shit You not] as explained in a recent article by Representative Greg Steube (R-FL).

How can anyone be proud of America when the tyrant in the Oval Office has weaponized the DOJ, the FBI and the IRS against his political opponents with impunity, giving a wink and a nod to Attorney Generals in every state that it’s open season on former President Donald Trump and any conservative or independent political leaders that currently are trying to fight back in any meaningful manner against the Biden regime’s anti-American agenda? No one should be proud to see this illegal and unconstitutional lawfare being utilized as tho’ it’s business as usual.

How can anyone be proud of a country that allows Government Agents to gun down innocent patriotic Americans such as Randy Weaver’s wife Vicki and his son Sammy, LaVoy Finicum and Ashli Babbitt under suspect and largely unwarranted circumstances?

And it sure as hell is hard to be proud of America, when so many of Her leaders seem to give more allegiance to foreign interests than they give to America, especially where the Bidens, Clintons and McConnells [and many others too] are concerned in regard to their respective dealings with China and Russia, especially when one looks at the millions handed to the Biden Crime Family by several Big Players in the Chinese Communist Party.

Are you proud of this America that has spent and manipulated us all into economic oblivion and a debt-based economy hell that forces everyone in a household to have to work a fulltime job and a parttime job too, since 2000, making the traders and top business executives even wealthier while everyone else goes bust? Are you proud of an America that has every ordinary citizen pinching pennies and scraping everything they can together, just to get by, when it was just sixty years ago that one man’s salary would still pay the rent/mortgage, utilities, gas for the car and groceries for a family of four.

It’s damned hard to be proud of a country that, despite the final defeat of Roe vs Wade, still promotes and facilitates the murder of millions of unborn babies, even up to them exiting the birth canal, as millions cry “a woman’s right to free reproduction”. How about they clamp their damned legs shut if they don’t want children, or get on the pill and make their sexual liaison wear a condom? Better yet, wouldn’t it be a fine thing and the right thing if they could be brave enough to allow the baby its life and give it to loving adoptive parents?

How can we be proud of America, when so many of Her people revel in their sick, demented, immoral perversions and deviancy and brainwash America’s children so deeply that twenty-five percent of that demographic now identifies as non-binary, homosexual or transsexual? What is there to be proud of in a country that enables minor children to be severely damaged both physically and psychologically for life, behind their parents’ back, and given transsexual gender therapy treatment? I’ll tell You what. NOTHING. Not one damned thing.

There’s nothing found in a country to instill pride, when its own churches wallow in the immoral ways of society and lend comfort to the deviant pervert heretics, even to the point of allowing “drag queens” to promote their sinful way of life before the congregants.

What pride is to be found in an America that has forgotten God and Her own founding virtues and principles?

No one believes this current situation or this current government’s agenda represent anything remotely close to the principles our ancestors fought to defend and preserve in 1776 or WWI and WWII.

“president” Joe aka Traitor Joe does not love America, or he would not be attempting to “fundamentally change” Her into something completely antithetical to every idea and principle She is founded upon. He wouldn’t be destroying our border security, our energy infrastructure, our economy and our families if he had the tiniest bit of concern or true love for America.

Yes. This 4th of July, it’s hard to feel proud of an America that has fallen so far from its beginning.

Americans must stop enabling the fools and knaves in the ranks of the Democrat Party Communists and RINOs to twist and manipulate the truth, and they can no longer remain so passive as these anti-Americans break the fine things so many have devoted their lives to build by way of their insane and asinine policies, that are purposely designed to destroy America. We will kneel and build them again, forcing our hearts and nerve and sinew to fight on long after we are worn out, and so, we hold on and continue when there is nothing in us except the will to enable and ensure that a free America will soon exist once more, after this next election. Afterward, if we are not compelled toward armed rebellion beforehand, we will untangle ourselves from the Marxist-Maoist tentacles and the mess the communist ideology has created within our system and, perhaps, return America and Her courage to Her resplendent magnificence and place of honor, in order that we may preserve freedom and individual liberty far into the future for our children and grandchildren and their children’s children, and many generations yet to come.

Now more than ever, America needs Her people to return to God and the principles upon which She was founded and to remember those things that made America great so many years ago, to understand that America still has the potential to be great again, far into the future, if only Her people will take a hard stand for true freedom and liberty for all.

Thinking of what America faced then and now, I think of the rousing speech Patrick Henry delivered to the Continental Congress in the spring of 1775. Henry concluded:

“The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. … There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our Chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable — and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come.

“… Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace — but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”

Even more heart-wrenching are the final words of the Declaration of Independence, since every signer of this sacred document believed he was signing his own death warrant:

“And for the support of this Declaration, with Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

My eternal allegiance is to God, Family and America, and for anyone who desires to rebuild America anew, we must pledge our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Over half a billion dollars worth of cryptocurrency was stolen in the second quarter this year through hacks and scams, with two incidents making up the bulk of the stolen funds, according to a recent report by bug bounty platform Immunefi.

Crypto losses in Q2, 2024, totaled more than $572 million, the June report said. Over $564 million in losses were accounted for by 53 hacking incidents and the remaining $8.45 million by 19 fraud incidents. Hacking was responsible for 98.5 percent of losses, with fraud making up 1.5 percent. Two major hacking incidents in that quarter made up $360 million (62.8 percent) of the total losses.

The first was a May 31 hacking attack against Japanese cryptocurrency platform DMM Bitcoin that led to a loss of around $305 million, while the second was a cyberattack targeting Turkish crypto exchange BtcTurk, on June 23, which resulted in $55 million worth of funds getting stolen.

More than $920 million in crypto losses were identified—a 24 percent increase compared to the same period last year.

Main targets of the exploits were centralized finance (CeFi) entities. In CeFi, all crypto trades are handled via a central exchange. This stands in contrast to decentralized finance (DeFi) where there is no exchange involved in the trade.

CeFi losses made up 70 percent of the total losses, with DeFi accounting for the remaining 30 percent.

“This quarter highlights how infrastructure compromises can be the most devastating hacks in crypto, as a single compromise can lead to millions in damages,” said Immunefi CEO Mitchell Amador.

“This was evident during this quarter, where losses surged primarily due to hacks targeting CeFi infrastructure, surpassing DeFi, despite a smaller number of hacks in that sector. Robust measures to safeguard the entirety of the ecosystem are crucial.”

According to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), payments made via cryptocurrencies “typically are not reversible.” As such, the hacked cryptos may be difficult to recover.

Immunefi data shows that $26.7 million was recovered from four incidents in Q2, representing only 5 percent of total losses. The recovery rate was a slight improvement over the 3.9 percent recovered in Q2, 2023.

An April 2023 poll by Pew Research showed that 17 percent of U.S. adults have invested in, traded, or used a cryptocurrency.

Crypto Hackers

The U.S. Department of Justice has arrested several people in connection with crypto hacking incidents over the past year.

In May, two brothers were arrested for allegedly stealing $25 million worth of cryptocurrency. The duo sought to pull off the heist “through a technologically sophisticated, cutting-edge scheme they plotted for months and executed in seconds,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco.

They are accused of manipulating and tampering with the processes used to validate transactions on the Ethereum blockchain. This allegedly allowed them to gain access to certain pending transactions and eventually steal people’s cryptocurrency.

In April, Shakeeb Ahmed, a former security engineer at a tech firm, was sentenced to three years in prison for hacking two decentralized crypto exchanges and stealing more than $12 million in cryptocurrency.

In one incident, he attacked crypto exchange Nirvana Finance and stole $3.6 million in funds. The theft represented almost all the funds owned by the company. As a result, Nirvana was forced to shut down.

Meanwhile, crypto fraud is also causing major losses to ordinary citizens. According to the FTC, Americans reported losing over $10 billion to fraud last year. Consumers said they lost more money to fraudulent bank transfers and cryptocurrencies than all other methods combined.

“Digital tools are making it easier than ever to target hard-working Americans, and we see the effects of that in the data we’re releasing today,” said Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.

“The FTC is working hard to take action against those scams,” he added.

According to a 2023 report by the Institute for Marketplace Trust, investment/cryptocurrency scams topped the list of “riskiest scams” last year. Over 80 percent of victims of these scams reported a monetary loss.

Authored by Alexandre Stachtchenko via Bitcoin Magazine,

When they descended into coal mines, miners would take a caged canary with them.

The toxic gasses, notably carbon monoxide, that accumulate in these places and pose a deadly risk to miners, would kill the canaries before the miners.

This information made them aware of the danger, enabling them to evacuate before it was too late.

On May 14, 2024, Alexey Pertsev, a software developer who built an open-source tool to preserve online privacy, was found guilty of money laundering and sentenced to more than 5 years in prison by a Dutch court.

In the court's decision, the following can be read:

"The tool developed by the suspect and his co-authors combines maximum anonymity and optimal concealment techniques with a serious lack of identification functionalities. Therefore, the tool cannot be characterized as a legitimate tool that has been inadvertently used by criminals. By its nature and operation, the tool is specifically intended for criminals."

Seeking to preserve one's privacy is thus at worst proof of criminality, at best complicity in a crime. A threshold has been crossed.

Unfortunately, it is likely that this case will generate little empathy and interest, as the person involved worked in the crypto industry, and the tool developed, Tornado Cash, was intended to preserve transaction confidentiality.

However, it would be a grave mistake to consider this an isolated incident limited to a fledgling industry for which the public has little affection.

This is our canary in the coal mine.

It has stopped singing and is dying. If we do not react, all the miners will perish. Cryptos are an early and glaring revealer of an insidious phenomenon that has been eroding our liberal democracies for about thirty years and is reaching a point of no return.

Despite the lack of evidence of their effectiveness, financial surveillance measures continue to be regularly reinforced, defying all democratic rules and requirements: the primacy of secrecy, freedom as a norm, the principle of proportionality of rights limitations, technological neutrality, presumption of innocence... Preemptive control prior to any offense becomes the norm, the enforcement of law becomes selective and arbitrary, bank account closures take on the appearance of censorship and financial suffocation, and property rights are reduced to a mere shadow.

The fight against money laundering and terrorist financing has degenerated into collective hysteria worthy of authoritarian or even totalitarian regimes, to the point of criminalizing a fundamental and constitutional right: privacy. The famous American computer engineer Phil Zimmermann warned us in 1991: "if privacy is outlawed, only outlaws will have privacy."

Far from being a "crypto" issue, this shift away from liberal democracy concerns everyone. There are numerous examples in regimes known for their democracy, spanning from India to the United Kingdom, and from Canada to France.

Note: If the crypto part does not interest you, you can proceed directly to part II.

I. LESSONS FROM THE CANARY

1. THE UNITED STATES INVOLVES ITSELF

Less than a year ago, the arrest of the Tornado Cash developers had already legitimately caused quite a stir. But the scope of the case, limited to the crypto world, perceived as a den of terrorists and money launderers, had quickly confined the indignation to a small group of insiders.

In April 2024, American and European public authorities, emboldened by this success, continued to move forward in a worrying direction.

Several events occurred almost simultaneously. The arrest of the developers of the Bitcoin wallet developers of Samourai Wallet, by the FBI in cooperation with the IRS (the American tax authority), with the guilty cooperation of European authorities, kicked things off. Their crime would be to have “conspired to launder money” and to have “operated an unlicensed money transfer business”. They face 20 years’ imprisonment for the first charge and 5 years for the second. By comparison, the maximum irreducible life sentence in France is 30 years.

Following this was an FBI notice urging all Americans not to use "money transmitting businesses" that do not collect their identity and are not registered. And the Federal Bureau continued by threatening to freeze all funds that had been mixed with funds obtained through illegal means.

To better understand the absurdity of such an announcement by the FBI, let us transpose the reasoning into the physical world, and highlight two major issues.

The first concerns the accusation of operating an unlicensed money transfer business.

Samourai Wallet is a company that provides Bitcoin wallets with enhanced transaction privacy. It does not operate transactions on behalf of its clients; it provides the wallet software. In the physical world, their equivalent would be a leather craftsman who crafts leather wallets enabling their users to store cash. He facilitates cash management but has no say in how the wallet owners spend their cash.

Here, the U.S. federal services conflate and lump together a large bank that operates transactions on behalf of its clients and a leather craftsman, holding the latter responsible for how his clients use their cash.

How far can we go with this line of reasoning? To ATMs? To the people at the Central Bank who print these bills? To the lumberjacks who produce the wood used for the paper of the bills?

Similarly, should we hold a carpenter responsible for what his clients decide to put in the furniture they make? Or an architect if the house they build ends up being used for drug trafficking?

It quickly becomes apparent that this conflation is completely absurd. A wallet creator is not responsible for what the wallet owner decides to do with the money stored in it. Being part of the cash or cash storage value chain should in no way imply responsibility for its final use, as there is no limit to this reasoning.

This question was actually raised 20 years ago regarding peer-to-peer exchanges, which allow multiple people to exchange information directly in a decentralized manner. This communication protocol and the software that enable it are sometimes used to commit offenses, particularly against intellectual property rights. However, despite attempts to criminalize the tool itself4, European5 and American6 courts have ruled in favor of technological neutrality, stating that the software in question allows both legal and illegal exchanges and that their providers are not responsible for the use made by third parties. The case law then focused on the responsibility of each individual involved in a potentially illegal activity, acquitting some individuals due to lack of evidence of their criminal intent7. These judicial solutions are obviously in line with the normal exercise of fundamental rights.

The second issue lies in the threat of fund blocking.

Freezing any money mixed with funds obtained through illegal means would be equivalent to arresting anyone whose bills, whether in their leather wallet or pocket, have passed through the wrong hands.

In 2009, a university study covered by CNN showed that 90% of American dollar bills carry traces of cocaine, and up to 100% in some major cities. This helps us better understand the absurdity of the FBI's threat: almost all the cash in the world has already passed through the wrong hands. Should all cash holders be imprisoned? Of course not.

Following these absurd coercive actions, on 26 April 2024, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York published the government's rationale against Roman Storm, the lead developer of the privacy software Tornado Cash. The author insists, considering Tornado Cash as a "money transmitting business."

According to this argument, "the definition of “money transmitting” in Section 1960 does not require the money transmitter to have 'control' of the funds being transferred. [...] For instance, a USB cable transfers data from one device to another [...]."

A very broad definition of a "money transmitting business" that would even include USB cables, according to their own admission. At this rate, the question will soon become "who is not a money transmitter?"

Here, the DOJ (Department of Justice) is so ambitious that it goes against the guidelines provided by FinCen (Financial Crime Enforcement Network, a bureau of the U.S. Treasury Department). In other words, the U.S. government does not agree with itself, which indicates a certain uneasiness.

In 2013, FinCen explained that software developers were not "money transmitters" ("The production and distribution of software, in and of itself, does not constitute acceptance and transmission of value, even if the purpose of the software is to facilitate the sale of virtual currency.").

In 2019, following an inquiry regarding certain programmable features on Bitcoin (Time-locked and multi-signature), FinCen reiterated that the partial control that could be exercised by wallet developers was not sufficient to qualify them as "money transmitters" ("the person participating in the transaction to provide additional validation at the request of the owner does not have totally independent control over the value.").

2. EUROPE AT THE FOREFRONT OF AN ILLIBERAL SHIFT

Beyond the opportunistic qualifications of various parties and to return more simply to the way the law should be applied in a liberal democracy, let's recall that cryptocurrency transfers are transfers of electronic communications according to the definition provided by European Union law.

Moreover, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum allow for the exchange of communications that can be qualified as correspondences (the possibilities of exchange are not limited to monetary units). Electronic communications are protected by the right to privacy and personal data protection, and a limitation such as lifting confidentiality or blocking can only be justified if it is necessary for the effective pursuit of a defined objective, in a strictly proportionate manner, particularly in the case of a proven offense and personally committed by the individual whose communication is limited.

The Court of Justice of the European Union has also ruled in this sense, considering that the systematic analysis of communications, even when possible, infringes on the fundamental right to the protection of users' personal data, in violation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. The Court specifies that an injunction to block communications that does not distinguish "between illegal and legal content [...] could result in the blocking of communications with legal content" and thus infringe on the freedom of expression and communication. Regarding cryptocurrency transfers, we can also invoke an infringement on the right to property.

It is therefore inconceivable, in a liberal democracy, to ask a private actor to block transactions or other types of communications without being certain of their illegality.

We can note another convenient schizophrenia on the part of the American authorities, which Lyn Alden aptly summarizes by referring to "Schrödinger's Currency": Bitcoin is considered as a currency only when it allows for the prosecution of individuals. The rest of the time, it is a speculative tool to which this qualification is denied. Indeed, to apply the definition of "money transmitter," it is necessary to consider that what is being transmitted (bitcoins) is indeed money. To the point that the government argues that "Bitcoin clearly qualifies as money" in order to prosecute Roman Storm.

Europe regularly engages in this distortion as well, as I had already shown in the justification invoked to include "crypto-assets" in the TFR regulation. Cryptos have indeed appeared in a text that previously targeted exclusively "banknotes and coins, scriptural money, and electronic money." But to say that Bitcoin is a currency...

Moreover, in Europe, coincidentally, a new regulation was voted on April 25 imposing new financial constraints, still with the laudable objective of combating money laundering.

Among the constraints, we can particularly note a €10,000 cash payment limit across Europe, but also the requirement for digital asset service providers (DASPs) to collect even more information about their clients, including for transactions under €1,000, and for personal wallets, known as "self-custodial," "self-hosted," or "un-hosted," i.e., not managed by a financial intermediary on behalf of third parties. The leather wallets of the digital world.

A small digression into Newspeak here: by imposing the terminology "self-hosted" or "un-hosted," regulators and legislators are trying to enforce the view that third-party custody is the norm, and self-custody is the exception. This is obviously a dangerous and insidious view, suggesting that wanting to keep one's own money is suspicious, even though it is part of the normal exercise of freedoms. There are no "un-hosted" or "self-hosted" wallets. There are just wallets, period. And there are third parties who hold wallets on behalf of others.

Returning to the text, let’s casually note that it is particularly precise and imposes know-your-customer (KYC) requirements for transactions under €1,000 only on DASPs, exempting banks and other financial institutions, which handle far larger volumes than DASPs. The proportionality of this amount and this discrimination is not justified.

In addition, there is a ban on supporting enhanced privacy cryptocurrencies. Let us recall here that historical commodity monies (gold, silver, copper, bones, etc.) are anonymous, as is still cash today. The ban is therefore inequitable and strikes under the pretext of its electronic nature. It is again unjustified, although it unacceptably hinders the normal exercise of a freedom since we are talking about its outright extinction (such a disproportion is not admitted by the European Court of Human Rights).

As previously mentioned, all these actions are extremely problematic in several respects.

First, because these constraints are based on no rational reasoning or relevant justification and are simply the result of paranoia related to cryptos, coupled with a KYC model (Know Your Customer, the customer identification processes imposed on financial institutions) that has been elevated to a religion despite the lack of convincing results over several decades. Second, because they disregard the requirements for the protection of fundamental freedoms on which the European Union was built and to which it is subject. Third, because they are counterproductive, meaning they create new threats, the consequences of which are increasingly severe.

3. AN UNFOUNDED PARANOIA

Nearly all texts dealing with the "necessary" regulation of "crypto-assets" have abandoned scientific and legal rigor to the point of never proving the initial assertion from which their reasoning starts: "cryptos are a good means to facilitate money laundering."

To appreciate this, one only needs to analyze all the texts on the subject issued in recent years. This is an exercise I have already done for the TFR text. Indeed, in the "proportionality" paragraph of the proposed amendment to the regulation, there is a small phrase indicating that, according to the opinion of EU surveillance authorities, "specific" risk-increasing factors have been identified concerning cryptos.

Why is proportionality an extremely important principle in a state governed by the rule of law?

Because the adequacy of a legislative standard or instrument to the pursued objective, i.e., the balance between the infringement on a right and the general interest, is absolutely crucial to avoid authoritarian and liberty-infringing drifts. One cannot hide behind an objective, however commendable, to impose disproportionate restrictions on rights.

For example, one might think that by installing a policeman in everyone's home, crime would be reduced. The objective may be considered laudable, but the individual rights that would be compromised in the process represent an unacceptable reduction in freedoms. Thus, society decides to tolerate potentially higher crime rates (subject to the risks to freedoms generated by surveillance itself) in order to preserve the rule of law and fundamental freedoms, without which democracy cannot exist.

Conversely, the prohibition of alcohol while driving is a restriction that can be considered proportionate: alcohol consumption is not prohibited, but it is prohibited in situations where its consumption is systematically dangerous for oneself and others. The impacts of such legislation can be monitored by observing the number of accidents, for example. A right has been restricted, certainly, but the general interest prevails since the effectiveness of the measure in relation to an important objective (the preservation of life) can be demonstrated, and the infringement on rights is minimized by limiting the restrictions as much as possible.

In a liberal democracy, freedom is the norm and constraints the exception. It is up to the state, when it wishes to restrict a freedom, to demonstrate that it does not go further than necessary to achieve its objective and that this objective is effectively achieved. Furthermore, the state is obliged to adopt norms to ensure that all persons and institutions, both public and private, respect this rule.

In the case at hand (money laundering and terrorist financing), and despite the assertion that "supervisory authorities have identified specific risk factors," when one plays the detective wishing to trace back to the source, one realizes that the opinion in question, dating from 2019, itself admits that the so-called "competent authorities" do not have the "knowledge and understanding of these products and assets, which prevents them from carrying out a proper impact assessment."

It also deflects by referring to another opinion (sic) from the European Banking Authority, which dates back to... 2014. In this "original" opinion, we find a rather laconic analysis: "the phenomenon of Virtual Currencies being assessed has not existed for a sufficient amount of time for there to be quantitative evidence available of the existing risks, nor is this of the quality required for a robust ranking."

In other words, the TFR regulation, imposing monitoring of all crypto transfers from one provider to another, was built on the basis of two reports. One report stated that there was no evidence to qualify or quantify the risks, while the other admitted that competent authorities lacked the knowledge and understanding to conduct an analysis.

Therefore, concluding the paragraph on the "proportionality" of the TFR regulation by stating that "In accordance with the principle of Proportionality as set out in Article 5 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU), this regulation does not exceed what is necessary to achieve its objectives" is questionable at best. Since the risks are not assessed, it seems difficult to characterize the restriction of rights as "proportionate."

In his fight against FINMA, Alexis Roussel made the same observation for Switzerland. The Swiss National Risk Assessment (NRA) of 201822 regarding money laundering risks in crypto indicates, from its very first sentence, that no cases of terrorism financing related to crypto have been identified, and only rare cases of money laundering. However, the subsequent statement recommends classifying these assets as "high-risk" by their very nature. Specifically, this means that a crypto transaction, even of €10, carries the same level of risk as a €100,000 transfer to an account in Russia. This equivalence is established without democratic processes in Switzerland and without any evidence.

The 2024 NRA23 does not seem to have made much progress and still admits to lacking data to assess risks.

We can clearly see a pattern emerge: anti-money laundering regulations and increasingly stringent data collection requirements are imposed without legitimate basis or factual data to justify their implementation.

A more comprehensive overview has been provided by L0la L33tz in Bitcoin Magazine24, allowing us to supplement this inventory of breaches of the most basic rigor in Europe, as well as by sister institutions of Bretton-Woods, the IMF, and the World Bank, which are true compasses for global decision-makers.

For example, in 2023, the annual report for 2021 from the European Union's FSRB (the European branch of the Financial Action Task Force, FATF)25, an intergovernmental group established in 1989 to combat money laundering and terrorism financing, was released.

The report begins with the following quote: "It is well known that money launderers have abused cryptocurrencies, initially to transfer and conceal profits generated from drug trafficking. Nowadays, their methods are becoming increasingly sophisticated and on a larger scale."

Unfortunately, starting an argument with "it is well known" reads the same as an essay that begins with "Throughout history, mankind": it does not exude the rigor of thorough research.

The report itself admits that a study will be dedicated in 2022 to analyzing money laundering trends in cryptocurrencies, suggesting that it did not exist at the time of writing the report, asserting as an obvious truth what had never been studied.

This report dedicated to the study of money laundering trends in cryptocurrencies has indeed been published26, but it focuses not on the phenomenon itself but rather on the analysis of the implementation of regulations. Regulations that, it is worth noting, are based on unproven money laundering.

Regarding the study of facts and the field, the report interestingly notes that the risk assessment "lacks depth." It also observes that the majority of regulators lack the tools and expertise necessary to effectively analyze and investigate cases of money laundering and terrorism financing related to "virtual assets."

The study also takes the same shortcut as the aforementioned Swiss analysis: finding very few cases of money laundering involving virtual assets, it prefers to conclude that it is because more regulation is needed, rather than considering that money laundering is not overrepresented in these assets.

As for the IMF, it's no better: the latest report on public policies related to crypto-assets (September 2023)27 points out the lack of data on money laundering and terrorism financing risks, stating that "such impacts have not been specifically studied in relation to crypto-assets."

The IMF's Global Financial Stability Report for 202428 relies on Chainalysis figures and proposes the figure of $1.1 billion received in cryptocurrencies for ransomware globally, which is less than 0.07% of the crypto market capitalization.

The IMF's twin institution, the World Bank, does not significantly differ from the aforementioned views. In a 2023 report the institution indicates that the issue of "Virtual Assets" was not addressed in the Risk Assessment and calls on public authorities and companies to provide more data regarding these assets.

In its money laundering-related publications for 2020 and 2022 the World Bank simply makes no mention of cryptocurrencies. In its articles  on crypto adoption, the World Bank merely sidesteps the issue by redirecting to FATF papers.

We have come full circle: reports cite each other, asking for more clarity on the figures, but nobody ever conducts the study itself. We rely on FATF, an unelected body, not subject to the rules of a respectable democracy, especially regarding proportionality, as I mentioned earlier.

The objective is no longer to allow a proportionate fight against money laundering but to raise the standards of controls every year, forgetting the reason why these controls were implemented in the first place.

Moreover, financial institutions use the term "compliance" to emphasize the fact that they comply with the expected control standards. The objectives of efficiency and proportionality are no longer at stake. There is no doubt that if FATF recommended putting a policeman behind every computer, legislators would rush to transpose this "best practice" into law...

It's not even hidden. In the regulation voted on April 24 by the European Union34, the justification for imposing new standards on crypto companies is absolutely not focused on combating money laundering and its effectiveness. Indeed, since MiCA has not even entered into force yet, and the adaptation of the TFR text to cryptos is very recent, how could we conduct a posteriori analysis of the effectiveness of measures that have not yet had an effect and possibly judge that they need to be strengthened?

The reasoning behind the strengthening of controls is in fact much simpler: "Due to rapid technological developments and the advancement in FATF standards, it is necessary to review that approach."

It is not the evolution of the threat, its assessment, the means used by criminals, or the results of a study, etc., but rather the advancement in FATF standards that leads Europe to align itself.

And the next steps are already laid out: "At the same time, advances in innovation, such as the development of the metaverse, provide new avenues for the perpetration of crimes and for the laundering of their proceeds."

While the most popular metaverses are still in the experimental stage and barely see a few hundred people connecting simultaneously, and as the hype subsides, they are already being talked about as nothing less than "avenues" for money laundering.

If you're looking for numbers and analyses, look elsewhere. The imposition of additional surveillance standards relies more on beliefs and perceptions than on facts because no one dares to oppose as a policymaker, risking being equated with a supporter of terrorism or money laundering. It's therefore a genuine religion, one that becomes almost impossible to question at its core.

The digital transition has been greatly beneficial for states: with the need to be banked to take advantage of financial globalization, leading to the omnipresence of banks, the number of potential targets to monitor has drastically diminished, until it ended up concerning only a handful of banks. The transition from a world in which everyone held their cash at home to one where, at least in the OECD, banking is the norm, entails an inevitable financial intermediation.

In this regard, Bitcoin was a huge wake-up call because it signifies that the entire financial regulation of the past 30 years is obsolete, as it is based on an assumption that is no longer valid, namely the need for a financial intermediary to conduct transactions in the digital world.

In tomorrow's world where companies will make wallet-to-wallet payments, who will perform KYC? Will we only realize the absurdity of the model when half the planet is working to monitor the other half?

Bitcoin shakes the very foundations of anti-money laundering efforts. And rather than questioning the regulation and its relevance, both in terms of effectiveness and in terms of respect for fundamental freedoms, we prefer the path of blindness, which leads to restricting the use of a technologically neutral tool by arbitrarily impeding innovation, the right to property, and the protection of exchange confidentiality, the importance of which for democracy, notably through encryption of exchanges, has recently been reaffirmed by the European Court of Human Rights35.

Bitcoin is a canary in the mine. A signal that something is slipping away from us, not concerning cryptocurrencies, but concerning the fundamental freedoms of all citizens, threatened by financial surveillance.

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

Joe Biden Catches Cold

“Biden’s entire closing statement is the political equivalent of the blue screen of death. It’s just one long frozen glitch.”

-Sean Davis, the Federalist

Maybe ninety-seconds into last night’s long-awaited debate spectacle, the consensus must have jelled among the woke-and-broken news media mavens that their champion, “Joe Biden,” was not quite killing it out there at the podium. CNN moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash acted like witnesses at a ritual sacrifice. And afterward, the CNN post-mortem panel seemed genuinely shocked that months of playing pretend had skidded to such an ignominious finish.

Which raises a great many questions, starting with: why on earth did the Democratic Party and its media handmaidens persist in pretending month-after-month that “Joe Biden” was a fit candidate for another four-year term?  Last night, he didn’t appear capable of even finishing the current term. Why did they usher him so jauntily into the nomination? And what are they going to do about that now? And what were their motives for all that pretending? “Joe Biden” circulates among scores of astute officials every day. Did they all fail to notice his incapacity? Or has the whole thing been a sham and a lie all along? Was this just the culminating hoax by the Party of Hoaxes of a long string of hoaxes against the nation going back to 2015?

To the question of motives, the answer is obvious: the news networks have worked tirelessly (and with stunning dishonor) to hide their collusion with the government in gaslighting the public. More to the point, they’ve concealed the appalling truth that the CIA, DARPA, and their many intel blob subsidiaries conducted a silent coup over the USA and have been running our country’s affairs disastrously behind the “Joe Biden” façade — and that the coup actually started well before Mr. Trump’s 2016 inauguration. You know it, and they know that you know it.

More acutely, now that “Joe Biden” has been revealed as a hoax president, whole legions of public officials appear liable to criminal charges of the most serious degree: sedition, treason, mass murder, fraud, malfeasance, and in the case of the president himself, influence peddling and bribery.

They must be desperate to avoid accounting for all that, losing their accrued fortunes to legal fees and going to prison (or worse). For example, outed just this week: news that then-CIA Director in 2020, Gina Haspel, knew about and participated in the infamous operation using 51 former Intel officers to cover up the veracity of Hunter Biden’s laptop days before the election.

They knew the laptop was real. Their colleagues over at the FBI knew it was real. They all knew it was stuffed with deal memos, legal memoranda, and emails that clearly laid out a long-running bribery operation among Biden family members and their lawyers. They knew it in 2019 when the Democratic Party moved to impeach Mr. Trump for inquiring about the Biden family’s money-grubbing activities in Ukraine — where, by the way, we may have fomented the war with Russia in part to cover up the culpability of all involved, including especially the State Department and their embassy staff in Kiev. The FBI and its bosses in the DOJ also withheld the laptop from Mr. Trump’s defense lawyers during the 2020 impeachment, though it contained massive exculpatory evidence to explain just why he made that fateful phone call to the newly elected Zelensky.

It’s obvious that the ruling blob now has to deep-six “Joe Biden.” The problem is they must induce him to renounce the nomination of his own will. The party’s nominating process is so bizarrely complex that it would very difficult to just shove him out. Another problem is that the party had to peremptorily declare “JB” their legal nominee before the August convention in order to keep him on the ballot in Ohio with its 17 electoral votes (due to some arcane machinery in the state’s election laws).

As per above, the debate fiasco calls into serious question whether “Joe Biden” is competent to even serve out this term. He (or shadowy figures pulling strings behind him) are making profoundly hazardous decisions right now, such as last week’s missile attack that killed and wounded civilians on the beach in Crimea. Are you seeing how easily “Joe Biden” might start World War Three? All of which is to say that pressure will soon rise to use the 25th amendment to relieve him of duty, leaving you-know-who in the oval office. If Joe Biden actually has to resign as president, he also loses the ability to pardon his son, Hunter, and peremptorily his other family members who shared bribery money received from China, Ukraine, and elsewhere.

If he won’t resign, and the party can’t force him off the ticket, the blob could have no choice except to bump him off. I imagine they would get it done humanely, say late at night sometime, in bed, using the same method as for putting down an old dog who has peed on the carpet one too many times. Or, if that can’t be managed and he clings to his position, maybe the party could cobble up some new nominating rules impromptu. And then, who could they slot in from the bench?

The usual suspects are like the cast of a freak show, each one displaying one grotesque deformity after another.

Gavin Newsom we understand: the party’s base of batshit-crazy women may all want to bear his child, but that limbic instinct to mate with a six-foot-three haircut-in-search-of-a-brain might not work with any other voter demographic — and Newsom has the failed state of California hanging around his neck. All Mr. Trump would have to do is broadcast the scene from a San Francisco street-cam on “X” (Twitter) 24/7.

Hillary has been stealthily flapping her leathery wings overhead for weeks as this debacle approached. She may still own the actual machinery of the Democratic Party — having purchased it through the Clinton Foundation some years back when the party was broke and needed a bailout. She could just command the nomination by screeching “Caw Caw” from the convention rostrum. Whatever happens, it will look terrible.

Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan? An inveterate and notorious intel blob tool, Whitmer has allowed herself to be used repeatedly by the FBI to frame and persecute conservatives in her state as well as using her state AG Dana Nessel to go after political enemies there, especially poll workers who cried fraud in the sketchiest Michigan voting districts.

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker. Like Dreamboat Newsom in California, Mr. Pritzker is busily running Illinois (and especially Chicago) into bankruptcy and chaos. Looks aren’t everything, but if Dreamboat gives the vapors to Karens across the land, the Illinois governor will get them shrieking in terror as from the sight of King Kong on Skull Island

Who else is there? Michelle O, of course, who will be instantly branded as a catspaw for her husband seeking a fifth term — as Barack himself has averred in so many words: just hanging out in the background, managing things in his jogging suit. That would be the ultimate Banana Republic set-up for us and I don’t think the voters will go for it. It all boils down to the Party of Chaos being thrust into chaos. Can it even survive “Joe Biden?”

Then there is Mr. Trump himself. He remains the object of widespread rabid loathing, yet more and more Americans are coming to appreciate his opposition to Woke Marxist chaos and intel blobbery-gone-wild in our land. His performance last night featured his usual jumpy locutions and incomplete sentences, but in contrast to the current president, he looked neither senile nor an agent of sinister forces dedicated to bringing our country to its knees.

Had Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. been present both of the others would have been badly outclassed verbally and intellectually.

If Mr. Trump survives the blob’s efforts to delete him before November, I’m sure Mr. Kennedy will play a prominent role in another Trump administration. He knows exactly where the rot is and how to roust it out.

*  *  *

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National security concerns are rising as the Biden administration's apparent experiment with open southern and northern borders has facilitated the greatest illegal alien invasion this nation has ever seen. Customs data suggests that at least 10 million migrants have crossed into the US illegally during Biden's first term. Alarming data shows a spike in military-aged men and dangerous terror-watch list suspects who have also illegally crossed the border or been apprehended.  

Democrats have rolled out the red carpet for illegal aliens while gaslighting the American people and blaming everyone but themselves for the migrant crisis. The White House has been watching its polling data slide and decided late last month to sign an executive order to limit the number of illegals flooding the nation.

However, any efforts by the White House or Democrats to salvage their reputations after the biggest policy blunder in a generation are likely too late. The damage is irreversible, with 10 million illegals roaming the country freely. In recent weeks, the nation has been shocked by some migrants committing heinous crimes, including the rape and murder of young American women. 

The rise in illegal crossings and suspected terrorist encounters at the southern border has been enough of a red flag for the Special Operations Association of America (SOAA) to release an open letter of concern about the "current heightened risk of terrorist attacks against targets inside the United States and both US and allied interests abroad."

Here's SOAA's full letter, dated June 25:

June 25, 2024

An Open Letter of Concern,

Special Operations Association of America (SOAA) represents thousands of Army Rangers and Green Berets, Navy SEALs, Marine Raiders, Air Force Air Commandos, and other special operators who have fought and currently serve on behalf of our nation. We are gravely concerned by the current heightened risk of terrorist attacks against targets inside the United States and both US and allied interests abroad. Our complete withdrawal from Afghanistan, without a viable stay-behind or over-the-horizon counterterrorism and intelligence capability to suppress threats, has created a vacuum in the region in which anti-American terrorist groups, such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, are flourishing once again.

The United States has lost significant intelligence collection capabilities in the region, leaving federal authorities blind and deaf to emerging threats emanating from the region. The creation of new and reestablishment of previous terrorist training camps within Afghanistan has led to successful, deadly attacks by the Islamic State's regional branch against targets in Iran and Russia and elsewhere, providing further credence to the notion that the US is at risk. This heightened risk has been verified by multiple departments and agencies of the federal government, mainstream journalists and publications, former senior officials from both parties, and from former allies with whom we maintain communication.

This risk is compounded by developments in the Middle East and in the porous, unsecured southern border through which we have seen numerous instances of individuals on terrorist watchlists and others from adversarial countries attempt to enter the US — and those are the ones we know about only because they were detected. We do not know how many other threats are already currently inside the US.

At the same time, the US has continued to send the Taliban millions of dollars for "counterterrorism assistance," which has proved to be only marginally successful due to a lack of partners on the ground in Afghanistan. Millions more in aid is being repurposed by the Taliban to bolster their own operations.

As former White House and CIA Intelligence Agency Mike Morell recently wrote, "The Terrorism warning lights are blinking red again — echoes of the run-up to 9/11."

Time is running out, and urgent executive action is needed to address this ever-increasing threat to US national security, our families, our allies, and our homeland.

Signed, The Hon. Christopher Miller, Chair Daniel Elkins, President Alex Plitsas, Secretary Jaclyn Scott, Director Dr. Newton Howard, Director Keith Pellegrini, Director Doug Livermore, Vice President Christopher Lay, Treasurer Jess Monaco, Director Scott Mann, Director David Cook, Executive Director

The letter was first published on X by Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson. 

Special Operations Association of America warns its members ‘gravely concerned’ about terrorist threat to U.S. after withdrawal from Afghanistan and the ‘unsecured southern border’ pic.twitter.com/eGqK9JJgvG

— Lucas Tomlinson (@LucasFoxNews) June 26, 2024

None of what SOAA is saying should come as a major surprise to readers. We have detailed in numerous reports how open borders are a red carpet for criminals and terrorists into America:

• Terrorist Caught Illegally Crossing Border Says He Was 'Here To Make A Bomb'

• DHS Admits Border Has Been Open To Criminals And Terrorists

• Iranian Assassin On The Loose In America, Targeting Trump-era Officials

• 17 Individuals On FBI Terror Watch List Caught Attempting Entry At Southern Border

• "More Red Flags Than Before 9-11": Ohio Sheriff Warns American People Of Worsening Border Invasion

For more on the border discussion, we are featuring a special ZeroHedge debate on this topic tonight at 7 PM ET.

Former Navy intel officer Jack Posobiec, Libertarian presidential Candidate Chase Oliver, The Hill's Robby Soave, and author Ryan Girdusky will be on the debate stage. The debate will be moderated by The Intercept's Ryan Grim and Unherd's Emily Jashinsky who host the Counter Points show on YouTube.

Tomorrow at 7pm ET, streaming live on @zerohedge and @X

The Border Debate

Featuring @JackPosobiec & @RyanGirdusky vs @ChaseForLiberty & @robbysoave
Moderated by @ryangrim & @emilyjashinsky pic.twitter.com/3lDQhLRflM

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 25, 2024

Tune in live this evening at 7 PM ET on the ZeroHedge homepage, X feed, Rumble channel, or YouTube. The debate will also be uploaded the following day to the ZeroHedge Spotify page.

Washington has significantly ramped up its intelligence-sharing with Israel, despite recent attempts by the Biden administration to distance itself from large-scale civilian casualties mounting from the Rafah ground offensive as well as airstrikes across the Gaza Strip.

The Washington Post has documented the Pentagon is now handing an "extraordinary amount" of intelligence to Tel Aviv, including "drone footage, satellite imagery, communications intercepts and data analysis using advanced software, some of it powered by artificial intelligence."

Much of this is said to be focused on hostage-location efforts, given also that among the Oct.7 captives there were eight Americans, but three are since believed deceased.

"If we managed to unilaterally get information that we could act on, and we thought we could actually get US people out alive, we could act," a US official told the Post, adding "there was genuinely very little information specifically about US hostages."

The report confirmed the presence of the US military's elite Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) at a CIA station in Israel, as well as personnel from the Defense Intelligence Agency. These US intel officials have been meeting with their counterparts in the country "on a daily basis". The State Department has also has a special envoy on the ground, while the FBI has also assisted ongoing investigations related to Oct.7.

WaPo also revealed that earlier in the war the US had intricate plans for a potential hostage operation to retrieve the remaining American captives (dual nationals) held by Hamas. That operation, which would have been extraordinarily high-risk both militarily as well as politically for the Biden administration, was shelved.

All of this increased intel-sharing has worried some lawmakers, who don't want the United States to be seen as too hand in glove with Israeli operations in Gaza. The Post wrote:

Other officials, including lawmakers on Capitol Hill, worry that intelligence the United States provides could be making its way into the repositories of data that Israeli military forces use to conduct airstrikes or other military operations, and that Washington has no effective means of monitoring how Israel uses the U.S. information.

Meanwhile there is this surprisingly blunt assessment from Politico concerning how the crisis impacts Biden's political future in the White House...

"Diplomats and world leaders - many of whom are gathering for the G7 summit here this week - have begun to worry that Biden’s reluctance to more fully break with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could cost him the election in November," Politico writes.

Jeremy Shapiro, a former Obama State Department official who commented on recent conversations with European diplomats, explained to the outlet that "The level of concern is something between panic and terror." He added: "The alliance is too important for these countries right now."

As for growing nervousness among US lawmakers over the intel-sharing relationship at a time Israel is being increasingly seen as a 'pariah' among many countries abroad, AntiWar.com notes that—

Rep. Jason Crow, a Colorado Democrat and a member of the House Intelligence Committee, has been critical of the lack of supervision on intelligence-sharing with Israel. Calling for more "robust oversight," he recently co-sponsored a bill that would require top officials to notify lawmakers if US intel was used for an operation that resulted in civilian deaths. The legislation is still making its way through the House.

A trickle of Biden admin 'protest resignations' have meanwhile continued...

Maj. Harrison Mann, a Jewish American working for the Defense Intelligence Agency, has resigned from the U.S. Army, citing the United States' "nearly unqualified support for the government of Israel.” Hear his damning CBS interview. pic.twitter.com/bXOq4cfidw

— William Lafi Youmans (@wyoumans) June 4, 2024

While the Biden administration has publicly pushed back and fought against things like the recent anti-Israeli actions of the International Criminal Court (ICC), including arrest warrants issued for Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, it has faced some degree of revolt from within - including a spate of protest resignations in the State Department and other agencies like USAID.

Authored by Darlene McCormick Sanchez via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Fears of attacks on the homeland and foreign espionage stemming from the border crisis are growing in light of illegal immigrants breaching military bases as well as those with suspected terrorist ties.

On June 11, news broke that eight Tajikistan nationals with possible connections to the terrorist group ISIS had been arrested in New York, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles in recent days.

Tajikistan nationals were responsible for the March 22 attack on the Crocus City Hall concert near Moscow that left more than 140 people dead and hundreds injured.

The individuals in the United States were being tracked by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. They were taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on immigration violation charges, according to wire agency reports.

The suspects crossed the U.S. southern border illegally in 2023 and were released after being vetted. The federal government’s screening process did not turn up any information that would have identified them as potential terrorists with ties to ISIS.

Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas), who sits on the National Security, the Border and Foreign Affairs subcommittee, said that wiretap information revealed that one of the Tajikistan suspects was discussing “bombs.”

“That’s scary. The vetting is a joke,” he said in an exclusive interview with The Epoch Times.

The incident highlights an increase in foreign nationals from adversarial nations encountered at the U.S. southern border from 180 different countries that include state sponsors of terrorism.

One of the fastest-growing groups of illegal immigrants arriving from hostile countries is China.

In the first seven months of this fiscal year, beginning October 2023, border agents have apprehended 48,500 Chinese illegal immigrants, which stands to smash the 2023 fiscal year’s record of 52,700.

At the same time, Chinese nationals and others from adversarial nations have increasingly been caught attempting to access America’s military bases.

The breaches sparked Mr. Fallon’s subcommittee to hold a classified hearing in May titled: “Intruder Alert: Assessing the CCP’s Ongoing Infiltration of U.S. Military Installations.”

Mr. Fallon described what he heard in the closed hearing as concerning.

Dozens of incidents have come to light of Chinese nationals snapping photos near military installations and critical infrastructure such as reservoirs, claiming to be tourists—even when the facilities are rural and isolated, he said.

Mr. Fallon noted that Navy Adm. Daryl Caudle said in a recent interview that incidents of foreign nationals from China and Russia trying to breach Navy bases occur “two or three times a week.”

“There are some folks in positions of authority and power that want to stick their heads in the sand and say, ‘Oh, there’s nothing here,’” he said.

It could be that the Chinese are probing how the United States responds and how close they can get to bases, he said.

That information would be critical, for example, should there be a conflict between China and the United States over Taiwan.

While the majority of Chinese nationals coming into the United States may be looking for a better life, even if 1 percent were communist “sleeper agents,” that would give Beijing about 480 operatives, he said.

Mr. Fallon said he doesn’t think the record-breaking number of Chinese nationals entering the United States illegally is an accident.

“That is a sky-high number when you consider under the Trump administration, it was under 1,000,” he said.

In fiscal year 2020, Border Patrol agents apprehended 554 Chinese illegal immigrants nationwide, according to government data.

“So I unfortunately believe that there’s going to be something awful that happens from an incident like this,” Mr. Fallon said.

More than 9 million illegal immigrant encounters have been documented nationwide by Border Patrol since the beginning of 2021.

Additionally, officials estimate hundreds of thousands of unknown “gotaways” who aren’t seeking asylum have illegally crossed the southwest border.

Republicans have long complained that President Joe Biden created the border crisis by rescinding policies under the Trump administration, such as  “Remain in Mexico,” where asylum-seekers waited in Mexico while their cases were pending.

But Democrats have downplayed mass illegal migration and have blamed global political and economic instability for the border crisis.

House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability member Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) said during the hearing last month that America’s immigration system was “broken” and implied racism was the reason behind opposition to migration.

Simon Hankinson is a senior research fellow at the Center for Border Security and Immigration for the Heritage Foundation who worked as Consul with the State Department during the Trump administration.

Read more here...

Authored by John R. Lott Jr. via RealClearPolitics,

The 2023 Nashville Covenant School murders understandably received massive news coverage when they occurred. The fight over obtaining the murderer’s diary also received news attention. But when “nearly four dozen pages” of the murderer’s diary were finally released last week, the mainstream media completely ignored it. It turns out that behind the scenes, the FBI had fought hard against the diary’s release. Some Covenant School parents also opposed releasing the diary because it would force families to re-live the nightmare. The Tennessee Star’s parent company, Star News Digital Media, successfully filed two lawsuits to obtain the diary.

Five days after the release of the diary, with the exception of the New York Post, which is a national news outlet, the news coverage was limited to seven other conservative outlets such as The Daily Wire and Newsbusters.

The school murderer was transgender, and her diary reveals a suicidal left-winger who hated whites. The FBI expressed concern that the release of the diary from a transgender person could lead the public “to dismiss the attacker as mentally ill,” which would “further permeate the false narrative that the majority of attackers are mentally ill.” It worried that the diary could “potentially inflam[e] the public.”

The FBI worried that releasing the diary could have “unintended consequences for the segment of the population more vulnerable or open to conspiracy theories, which will undoubtedly abound.” Self-professed “experts,” the FBI fears, will “proffer their perspectives” in the press.

But there is a lot of important information in the diary. As is very typical of mass public shooters, the murderer was suicidal: “A terrible feeling to know I am nothing of the gender I was born of. I am the most unhappy boy alive. I wish to be dead.” She was also on the anti-anxiety drug Buspirone, whose potential side effects include “abnormal dreams, outbursts of anger, tremors, and physical weakness.”

The FBI worries that the diary will help create a link in people’s minds between mass murderers and mental illness, but suicidal people presumably have some mental health problems. Nor should the link be particularly surprising given that the Crime Prevention Research Center shows that 51% of mass public shooters in the last 25 years were actually seeing mental health care professionals before their attacks. That is 2.5 times the rate in the general public.

The FBI acknowledged that Americans want to “understand what led to such tragic events.” But the FBI argued these statements “seldom provide the answers” and the diaries and manifestos were “often misleading.” Yet the national media appears completely uninterested in why these murderers pick the targets they do and how their motivation to get media coverage is important in understanding how to stop these attacks.

The diary showed that the murderer had picked the Covenant School because it was a soft, unprotected target. Even if the national media ignored these comments, the Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake, who had access to the diary, said on the day of the attack, “There was another location that was mentioned, but because of a threat assessment by the suspect of too much security, they decided not to.” A couple of days later, Nashville Council member Robert Swope stated that the murderer “looked at” two other Nashville public schools before deciding “the security was too great to do what she wanted to do.”

While the FBI worries that many of “the offenders themselves do not fully grasp or comprehend” what they are writing, there is a logic to attacking facilities assumed to be gun-free zones, like the Covenant School, and trying to maximize the amount of media coverage that they receive. The FBI may not want to acknowledge this, and the media may not want to cover these points, but we see it consistently in these attacks.

The mass murderer wanted to get attention for the difficulties facing transgender individuals. She compared trans individuals to other groups in a way that indicates she clearly believed that transgender people didn’t have the same rights: “Disabled have rights, civil races have rights, LGBTQ have rights, gun owners have rights.” But referring to the life of transgender people, she declared: “… with no rights, anyone’s country is a s***** dictatorship.”

The news media and the FBI under the Biden administration are attempting to control the information available to Americans about a mentally troubled woman who identified as a man. The Biden administration is free to argue against linking transgender issues to mental illness or mass murder, but censoring the information is not the right approach.

John R. Lott Jr. is a contributor to RealClearInvestigations, focusing on voting and gun rights. His articles have appeared in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, New York Post, USA Today, and Chicago Tribune. Lott is an economist who has held research and/or teaching positions at the University of Chicago, Yale University, Stanford, UCLA, Wharton, and Rice.

Authored by Ben Sellers via Headline USA,

During a visit to Monroe, N.C., to support conservative congressional candidate Mark Harris on Friday, House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, was surprised by a reporter’s question about fresh allegations from former President Donald Trump’s New York lawfare trial that could potentially result in a mistrial.

Earlier in the day, Judge Juan Merchan wrote a letter to Trump’s attorneys and prosecutors with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, notifying them of a Facebook comment that was discovered under a routine court post dated May 29, the day before a jury convicted Trump of 34 felonies.

The commenter, identifying himself as a juror’s cousin by the name of Michael Anderson, appeared to offer some advance inside knowledge about the verdict.

“Well, if that happened, that’s wrong,” Jordan responded when asked about the breaking news. “I have not heard that and I don’t know if it’s true, but you obviously aren’t supposed to be doing that, so we’ll have to see.“

In his letter, Merchan claimed he had just learned of the comment.

“Today, the Court became aware of a comment that was posted on the Unified Court System’s public Facebook page and which I now bring to your attention,” the judge wrote. “The comment, now labeled as one week old, responded to a routine UCS notice, posted on May 29.”

Merchan’s letter did not clarify whether the person who posted the comment was indeed related to a juror.

The judge, a Biden donor, was widely criticized for his biased rulings throughout the trial and was even suspected of receiving bribes through his daughter, whose digital marketing firm drew millions of dollars from Democrat politicians—some of whom became involved directly in the case.

Merchan’s brief letter did not outline any sort of follow up steps, although it stands to reason that the court will investigate the matter and would declare a mistrial if, in fact, juror misconduct were established.

The concern provides yet another avenue for appeal to Trump, whom many legal experts believe will ultimately see the case overturned, although the disruption to his campaign and political fallout from the conviction have yet to be determined.

At the Friday night fundraiser in North Carolina, Jordan offered high praise for Trump, with whom he has formed a close bond, touting his tenacity in particular.

“His attitude in light of everything they’ve done to him is just phenomenal,” Jordan told the audience.

The charter chairman of the House Freedom Caucus recalled an anecdote from the night Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate was raided by the FBI—an unprecedented abuse of power at the time—which took place shortly before the 2022 midterm election.

“There are certain times where you think, ‘This is not supposed to happen in this country,'” Jordan said of his reaction after seeing the news unfold on television with his wife.

When he called Trump, however, the reaction was far from what one might have expected:

“Jim, this is the best thing that’s ever happened to our party,” Trump reportedly told him. “My numbers are gonna go up.”

During an exclusive interview with Headline USA, Jordan said House Republicans had received a response on Friday after sending a letter last week to Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg and his lead prosecutor, requesting that they testify before the House Weaponization Subcommittee.

pic.twitter.com/DqSo96X9S0

— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) May 31, 2024

“They just sent us a letter back today saying they’re willing to talk to us, so we’ll see,” said Jordan. “But we may have to, you know, go with a subpoena to get him [Bragg] to testify as well.”

The House is also investigating Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who has publicly quarreled with Jordan and leveled ad hominem attacks against him for his oversight efforts.

Jordan noted, however, that as of this week, “Willis’s case is falling apart” following an appellate court’s decision to suspend the trial until October while evaluating whether she is ethically fit to continue as prosecutor.

The House is also attempting to impose accountability on special counsel Jack Smith. However, a proposed bill likely faces steep odds of clearing the Democrat-run Senate, even though it ironically vests greater authority in the upper chamber to close a constitutional loophole exploited by Attorney General Merrick Garland.

“We’re trying to get legislation out to say that any special counsel who wasn’t approved by the Senate gets no funds,” Jordan said. “It‘s the way to get at this Jack Smith and the ridiculous things he’s done.”

Florida Judge Aileen Cannon has similarly scheduled a June 21 hearing for Trump and his co-defendants in the Mar-a-Lago case to argue that Smith’s appointment was unlawful since he was never confirmed by the Senate—a legal theory first floated by former Attorney General Ed Meese.

Jordan downplayed calls for the House to rescind two contempt of Congress resolutions passed by Democrats in the previous session, saying the move was unlikely to have any effect on the already prosecuted cases.

Two former Trump advisers—Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon—became the first people prosecuted and convicted under the law in roughly four decades, fueling more outrage and allegations of two-tiered justice. Navarro is currently incarcerated, and Bannon is expected to report to jail by the end of the month.

In the wake of Trump’s felony convictions, House Republicans have faced brutal criticism from some for their inaction, with Jordan, in particular, bearing the brunt of it over his failure to live up to his promise as a GOP attack dog—instead becoming the champion of the “strongly worded letter.”

Wow another strong worded letter from Jim Jordan. What a worthless clown. @Jim_Jordan pic.twitter.com/Tz2APai8XL

— Cyber Journey (@CyberJourneyKs) May 31, 2024

How long will it take for the majority of Americans to wake up and realize scumbags like Jim "Strongly worded letter" Jordan is a compromised, traitor? Don't worry if you don't understand! The #TreasonDocumentary is going to expose it all! pic.twitter.com/KzS8wkqsgR

— RyanMatta ???? ?? (@RyanMattaMedia) June 4, 2024

In Response To Trump Conviction, Republicans Threaten To Fire Off 'Strongliest Worded Letter Of All Time' https://t.co/i3M1ijATZd pic.twitter.com/w8cFiumEiq

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) June 4, 2024

Ben Sellers is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/realbensellers.

The Center Square’s Brett Rowland contributed to this report.

Authored by Casey Carlisle via AntiWar.com,

Before we get into this, let’s discuss what most would label “a hypothetical.” Tonight, I’m going to break into your home, point a gun at you, and rob you – all the while claiming that I’m not your enemy. Your enemy, I’ll say, is elsewhere, and I don’t mean across the street but in a different country. What will you do? By a show of hands, will you fight back and protect those in your home by evicting me or even by killing me? By a show of hands, who will thank me and travel to said country in search of the enemy, leaving those in your home vulnerable to me? Anyone? Nobody? It sounds absurd, but for reasons that I’ll soon explain, you’ll understand that it’s more real than hypothetical.

Hello, I’m Casey Carlisle. I’m a West Point graduate, and I spent five years in the Army, including 11 months in Afghanistan. Some of you are thinking about serving your country, and most of you are asking yourselves, “Why am I listening to this guy?” I’m glad that both of these groups are here, and I promise that my remarks will cause both groups to think differently about military service.

I was a high-school senior on September 11^th, 2001, sitting in class and stunned after hearing the principal announce that our country had just been attacked. Why would someone want to do this to the greatest country on Earth? I was also livid, and I wanted revenge. I wanted to kill the people responsible for this atrocity, and my dilemma then was between enlisting in the military to exact revenge now or first spending years at a military academy before helping to rid the world of terrorists. I chose the latter, so I didn’t deploy to Afghanistan until 2009. My time there radically changed my views, which was uncomfortable, but, as with failure, discomfort breeds learning.

I learned that not only were we not keeping our fellow Americans safe or protecting their liberty, we were further impoverishing one of the poorest countries in the world. I watched in disgust my alleged allies – the Afghan police – rob their neighbors while on patrol and in broad daylight via traffic stops. Imagine getting pulled over, not for speeding, but because the cop hopes to rob you. My enemy – the Taliban – didn’t do such things, which is why I ended up having more respect for them than for my mission or for those who were allegedly helping us accomplish it. “Oh, but they’re horrible in other ways,” you might argue, and I’d agree; however, it’s much harder to kill an idea than it is to kill a person. Killing someone who holds an idea that you find distasteful only helps that person’s loved ones accept that idea. It turns out that killing someone for their ideas is a great way to spread those ideas.

Instead of dismissing me as an anti-American lunatic, consider the following. In the year 2000, the Taliban controlled most of Afghanistan, and today, they control all of it. This is just one of the reasons why I feel contempt for those who thank me for my alleged service. Our ‘service’ was worse than worthless, and the people thanking me were forced to pay for it. All of those who died there did so for nothing. And the innocent Afghans who were displaced, injured, or killed during our attempt to bring democracy to a country that didn’t want it were far better off in 2000 than they are now.

To be clear, the desire to serve one’s country is noble, but we must first define “country.” Serving one’s country is entirely different from serving one’s government. They are not the same. Serving one’s country is serving one’s family, friends, neighbors, and the land that they’ve made home. Serving one’s country is serving one’s community. Serving one’s government, however, is ultimately what everyone does when they enlist or when they take my path as an officer. Who are these people in government that you’ll end up serving? Are they your family, friends, or neighbors? For the most part, they are not, yet, they are ultimately who will decide your fate while in uniform. Whether they’re politicians or bureaucrats, they decide what serving one’s country entails, and, naturally, they’ll subordinate our country’s prosperity to their job security. If given the opportunity, these people will not hesitate to send you to your death if it means scoring a measly political point against their ideological foes. Serving one’s country in this context – reality – means serving these parasites.

Here’s something else to consider.  When you tell the military recruiter that you want to enlist, what are you implying? You’re telling the recruiter – a government agent – that not only do you want to serve your government but that you’re willing to kill for it. Tell any other recruiter in the real economy of that proclivity, and, at the very least, you won’t be getting that job.  Seems obvious enough, but have you heard of Operation Vigilant Eagle? This operation, headed by the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, tracks veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and characterizes them as extremists and potential domestic terrorists. Why?  Because these veterans might be disgruntled or suffering from the psychological effects of war. Yes, you heard that correctly.

The government that bribed the graduating senior into joining the military now views that same patriot as its enemy. You might protest, thinking that getting put on a list isn’t all that bad, but I’d argue that lists are never created as an end; they’re always a means, and in this case, too, they’re diabolical. Not only were these veterans put on a list for the ‘crime’ of justifiably feeling disillusioned, when a veteran was explicitly critical of the regime, these veterans were labeled “mentally unfit” and forced into psychiatric facilities where they’d receive treatment for whatever illness the regime deemed appropriate, indefinitely. I don’t know if this program continues today, but if the regime were to tell us, “We’re not doing that anymore,” would you believe it?

I know you weren’t around for 9/11, but I’m sure you recall March of 2020. I bet you were almost as angry then as I was. We all witnessed a very sad truth: the “home of the brave” is devoid of the brave, and the “land of the free” hasn’t been free for quite some time. Most Americans not only take their liberty for granted, they readily reject it. They’re terrified of it, which is why they hate it. What we all witnessed then undermines the tired slogan – the blatant lie – that those who join the military are “fighting for our freedom.” This is no theory; it’s why, to this day, the military is struggling like hell to recruit people like you. They think you’re stupid.

But you might’ve realized that serving one’s country necessarily implies staying in one’s country. You might be thinking that when one joins the military, he swears to defend the Constitution against all enemies – foreign and domestic; however, the regime would like you to combat only the foreign enemies that it tells you to hate. Who kicked you out of school in 2020? Who cancelled your games, meets, matches, and races? Who prevented you from traveling freely?  Who thought it best that you not embrace your loved ones?  Who masked you? Our own government is our greatest threat, and it has proven to be so scared of those it duped into ‘serving’ that it’ll send you to some other country or to a mental hospital in order to protect itself.

I’m not telling you what to do. I’m making sure that you’re fully aware of what you’re getting into if you decide to join the military, as I’m sure the recruiter didn’t tell you about Operation Vigilant Eagle. He probably didn’t tell you that 18 veterans kill themselves every day, and he probably didn’t tell you that the military is the final political option. But does it seem like the regime waits until all else fails before getting involved, or is it easier to count the countries that do not have U.S. military personnel stationed in them? Did the recruiter tell you that those who don’t ‘serve’ pay the salaries of those who do? Seems a bit backward – to be forced to pay those who allegedly serve you.

Most of the millionaires and billionaires in this country got rich by actually serving their fellow man via voluntary exchange, not by living off of their neighbors. I encourage you to consider taking that route – enriching yourself by enriching your community, not by parasitizing it. And no need to fixate on getting rich. If your interactions with your community are voluntary – no matter how lousy the pay – they’re likely honorable, no killing required. In closing, take a deep breath, and look around. Your country is here. We are your country, and when things get bad, we will need you here, not fighting those in a different country who pose no threat to us while leaving us vulnerable to our greatest threat. Thank you for listening.

Authored by Lori Weintz via the Brownstone Institute,

From a Russell Brand video posted May 28, 2024:

Quote from former CDC Director Robert Redfield: “[The Covid vaccines] really aren’t that critical for those that are under 50 or younger, but those vaccines saved a lot of lives…To be honest, some people got significant side effects from the vaccine. I have a number of people that are quite ill and they never had Covid, but they are ill from the vaccine, and we just have to acknowledge that.

Russell Brand’s response: “How long can you maintain the sort of slow drag that it was all worth it?… I have a question, why are there so many excess deaths all around the world?…Attempting to continue to claim that the pandemic was a success, that it was well handled, that the medications were effective, that there hasn’t been an extraordinary swindle practiced on the people of the world – seems more and more difficult to do with a straight face.”

Limited Hangouts:

To present a “limited hangout” is to put part of the information out there, in order to divert from other facts or activities you don’t want someone to notice. It is a sleight of hand, a way of getting ahead of damning truths that are too big to keep covered up, like the 1,637,441 Vaccine Adverse Event Reports (VAERS) connected to the Covid-19 injections in the US (It’s estimated that VAERS is largely underreported and represents only around 1% of actual adverse events.)

We apparently have reached a moment of communal introspection with regard to Covid-19 and our pandemic response, leading to increasing limited hangouts. The New York Times in a May 4, 2024 article informs us that some people have been injured by the Covid vaccines and implies, rightly so, that we should help them. The Brookings Institution report of 2024 commends us for saving thousands of lives by “slowing the spread” of Covid through changing our behaviors (aka social distancing and masking) until we could get the Safe and Effective™ vaccines. Everyone from former FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock to former CNN reporter Chris Cuomo now acknowledges that maybe some things could have been handled better. But they all assure us, “We did the best we could with the information we had at the time.”

An insightful individual who writes under the pseudonym of A Midwestern Doctor accurately describes the New York Times vaccine injury article as a piece, “sculpted to redeem the medical system’s reputation while admitting the absolute minimal amount of guilt necessary to accomplish that objective.”

Widening the Overton Window

It’s good to see the Overton window concerning the pandemic response opening up a bit in the mainstream media and government agencies. But it’s important to be very clear that their concessions are largely a limited hangout, designed to deflect from their own failures. In addition, these limited hangouts are an attempt to distract from the continuing goal of controlling everyone through repeated use of “emergencies” that require us to give up our freedom in order to be “safe.” Or at least to be “good citizens,” which was a powerful guilt-inducing motivator during the pandemic to gain compliance from people who weren’t actually afraid of the virus.

Why Can’t We Just Move on?

With the expansion of acceptable dialogue, some admissions that mistakes were made, and the Covid pandemic seeming to be fully in our rearview mirror some ask exasperatedly, “Why do you want to keep talking about the pandemic anyway? Why can’t you just move on?”

I’ll tell you why. There are many powerful people and organizations who are weaponizing “pandemic preparedness” for ulterior motives having nothing to do with health. In fact, the perpetrators of pandemic harms have doubled down, even as they engage in limited hangouts. It appears they believe, probably correctly, that if they say something enough times such as, “The vaccines saved a lot of lives,” people will believe it.

The Push for Digital ID’s

Buried in the Times article that finally acknowledges the possibility of some vaccine injuries is the idea that we need a national medical database in order to better track, and therefore compensate for such injuries. This would be a database where all citizens’ medical records are tracked electronically and managed by the federal government. Not only would this complete the government takeover of our medical system that has been underway for years, but it would also be the end of personal privacy. The phrase “national medical database” is a euphemism for “vaccine passports” – required medical proof in order to participate in the public square.

FDA Still Wants Money for Hazardous Gain-of-Function Research

Another reason why we can’t just forget about the pandemic is because of people like Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Robert Califf. In a May 8, 2024 US Senate Appropriations Committee Hearing, Califf requested a total of $3.69 billion for the FDA budget, including an additional $168 million partly to pay for “countermeasures” to prevent a “wider outbreak of H5N1 avian influenza.” Califf states, “If we institute the countermeasures now, and reduce the spread of the virus…we’re much less likely to see a mutation that jumps to humans – for which we’re ill-prepared.”

Califf, among others, is attempting to generate fear of H5N1 avian flu that has been circulating for decades in various animal populations, and likely won’t become easily transmissible to humans unless someone in a lab tinkers with it. Let’s not forget that the nature of viruses, even lab-made ones, is to be either highly transmissible, or highly virulent, but not both. A virus can’t survive long and infect many others if it kills its host. With the medical advances we have today, we know how to treat the symptoms of illness, even in those infected with a new virus. However, the policy response to a pathogen can be horrific, as seen throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.

Yet Robert Califf wants even more money for the FDA, partly so they can develop virus countermeasures, which is an Intelligence Community term having to do with biological warfare. In other words, Califf acknowledges that lab-made viruses are being studied around the world, and the viruses created in these labs require antidotal vaccines. Making a pathogen more transmissible, or more virulent, through experimentation is called gain-of-function research, and it is a controversial practice. Not all research in biological laboratories involves gain-of-function, and perhaps some of the research has public health benefits, but there is often lax oversight and poor adherence to containment protocols.

Lab Leaks Have Led to Multiple Disease Outbreaks in the Past Century

Epidemiologist Donald A. Henderson, credited with the eradication of smallpox through a targeted vaccination campaign, coauthored a paper in 2014 expressing concerns about gain-of-function research on the H5N1 virus:

Scientists recently have announced that they genetically modified H5N1 in the laboratory and that this mutated strain spread through the air between ferrets that were physically separated from each other. This is ominous news. Since ferret influenza virus infection closely mirrors human infection and is similarly transmissible, these scientists appear to have created a bird flu strain with characteristics that indicate it would be readily transmissible by air between humans. In fact, the lead scientist on one of the experiments explicitly stated this.

The question is this: Should we purposefully engineer avian flu strains to become highly transmissible in humans? In our view, no. We believe the benefits of this work do not outweigh the risks. Here’s why. There are no guarantees that such a deadly strain of avian flu would not escape accidentally from the laboratory. (emphasis added)

There is substantive evidence that various diseases in the past century including the 1976 swine flu outbreak, the surge of Lyme disease in the US, and the Covid-19 pandemic can be traced to lab experiments that escaped and infected the general population.

The best thing the Appropriations Committee can do for the health of the US and all citizens of the world is put a moratorium on gain-of-function research. While they’re at it, the Senate should consider restructuring that needs to happen at the FDA, and throughout the entire National Institutes of Health (NIH). They could start by removing Califf from his position, as his investments in pharmaceutical companies and stints working for them have surely compromised his ability to properly regulate the products from which he profits. In addition, the Senate should outlaw the current corrupt system in which over half of the NIH’s operating budget is provided by pharmaceutical companies the NIH is charged with regulating.

Bill Gates and the World Health Organization

Another reason we cannot just “move past” the Covid-19 pandemic is because in addition to people like compromised Director Robert Califf, we have Bill Gates, the largest donor to the World Health Organization (WHO) just behind the United States and Germany. Gates, with his outsized influence on the WHO, has the stated goal to deliver a vaccine in 100 days against the next virus. He’s heavily invested in mRNA vaccines and has found the returns on investments in vaccines to be highly profitable.

Gates, who has engaged consistently in pandemic wargame simulations for over two decades, espouses a preparedness plan that involves year-round pandemic teams in every community around the world. These teams would immediately enforce contact tracing and quarantine upon the appearance of any communicable disease until the vaccine can be deployed. In a 2022 TED talk, Gates even provided a visual of his dream, coming soon to a city near you:

The WHO is pushing for a worldwide Pandemic Treaty, and changes to the International Health Regulations. These changes, if approved by member countries, will allow the WHO unprecedented influence on community responses to epidemic and pandemic threats, as identified by the Director General. The current Director General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, is not a medical doctor, is known to be weak on human rights, and has an uncomfortably close relationship with the Chinese Communist Party.  Tedros is among the many unelected persons, including government bureaucrats and public health officials, who wreaked havoc during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Pandemic Preparedness as a Weapon:

The reason why we must still attempt to unpack the facts is because so many are willing to use “pandemic preparedness” as a weapon, and so few have acknowledged the absolute failure of our Covid-19 pandemic response. For example, the previously referenced Brookings Paper from March 2024, titled “The Impact of Vaccines and Behavior on US Cumulative Deaths from Covid-19,” attempts to lend validity to the unscientific human disaster of “social distancing.”

Social distancing was found to have zero impact on the spread of disease. Former FDA Director Scott Gottlieb even stated that the 6-foot distancing rule was “arbitrary,” and Dr. Anthony Fauci said the 6-foot rule “sort of just appeared.” Those admissions bring small comfort to schools, care centers, hospitals, churches, businesses, performing arts, and other organizations, and individuals whose day-to-day lives were harmed, sometimes permanently, by the 6-foot rule.

Johns Hopkins: Lockdowns Have Had Little to No Effect on Covid-19 Mortality

A 2022 analysis conducted by professors at Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics considered 18,950 studies on the effectiveness of lockdowns, paring down to 24 that met the screening procedures for their meta-analysis. For purposes of the analysis, lockdown was defined as “at least one compulsory, non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI)…that directly restrict(s) people’s possibilities, such as policies that limit internal movement, close schools and businesses, and ban international travel.” The 24 qualified studies were divided into three groups: lockdown stringency index studies, shelter-in-place-order (SIPO) studies, and specific NPI studies, and determined that “Lockdowns have had little to no effect on COVID-19 mortality.” The authors summarized:

While this meta-analysis concludes that lockdowns have had little to no public health effects, they have imposed enormous economic and social costs where they have been adopted. In consequence, lockdown policies are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.

New Zealand: a Lesson in Lockdown Failure

One need only look at the data from New Zealand in the following chart to know that social distancing and locking down entire populations does not prevent the spread of respiratory viruses.

As pointed out by former United Nations Assistant Secretary-General Ramesh Thakur, 99.3% of Covid deaths in New Zealand occurred after 60% of the population was fully vaccinated. In Australia, another hard lockdown country, that figure was 93%. In other words, harsh lockdowns can delay the spread of a respiratory virus, but not prevent it. Meanwhile, the lockdowns cause economic mayhem, and social and emotional devastation, and inflict permanent disadvantages on the upcoming generation. Lockdowns are a violation of fundamental human rights and should never be tolerated again as a viable means of containing viral spread, not even if a perfect vaccine antidote can be manufactured in less than 100 days.

The above, and similar charts for other states and countries, was created by Ian Miller from official publicly available data. It’s mystifying that anyone can actually look at these charts and claim, “Yes, but Covid-19 would have been so much worse if we hadn’t masked, locked down, and taken the vaccine.” How can there be worse results than exponential growth in cases; increased illness, hospitalizations, and deaths in the vaccinated; increased Covid deaths after vaccination, and a marked rise in excess deaths – especially among the young?

Brookings Advocates for More of the Same in the “Next Pandemic”

Yet the Brookings paper joins emotionally abusive governments in praising people for engaging in anti-human social distancing because it was effective in “slowing the spread of a dangerous infectious respiratory disease for a long time.” Brookings does acknowledge that these “behavior changes” came at a “tremendous economic, social, and human cost.” The solution, according to Brookings? More of the same, but with more targeted interventions:

To avoid similar pain from mitigation in the next pandemic, we argue that we need to make investments now not only in vaccine development, but also in data infrastructure so that we can precisely target behavior-oriented mitigation efforts to minimize their economic and social impacts of the next pandemic.

Brookings advocates for both vaccine development and a centralized “data infrastructure,” so “we can precisely target behavior-oriented mitigation efforts” in the next pandemic. Refer back to Bill Gates’ paradise of swooping in by helicopter with medical SWAT teams ready to take you and yours down in order to save the world. 

One might consider the times a mask was worn below the chin, a trip was taken to get away from onerous Covid regulations, a fake vaccine card was obtained to facilitate normal life, or a dinner party exceeded the numbers allowed by government decree.  Then project what it might be like as the recipient of targeted “behavior-oriented mitigation efforts” in a world where those behaviors are digitally tracked and “corrected” in real time.

Bill Gates compares people to computers that need new software, and viruses to something that can be prevented from spreading by dousing them with interventions, like putting out a fire. Both analogies are untethered from real science and tone-deaf to the complexities of the human body, normally functioning societies, and our interdependence with a microbial planet. 

Believing the Evidence of Your Own Eyes

The Brookings paper does a lot of talking and citing of selective data but ignores the common sense facts before our eyes. We all observed that social distancing and masking did not prevent the spread of Covid. The data and our own experiences consistently showed that Covid-19 largely was not a serious disease except for the elderly and the medically frail – something that was already known in February 2020. We all noticed that most vaccinated people contracted Covid-19. We also have observed that many multiple-vaccinated people appear to be repeatedly ill with cold and flu symptoms, while many have developed autoimmune illnesses, neurological issues, infertility problems, cancers, and heart issues within the past three years.

Those with the Megaphone Still Claim the Pandemic Response was a Success

Yet still the official Covid narrative persists, as does the fear-mongering. On May 16, 2024, the New York Times ran an opinion piece from John M. Barry, a scholar at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, titled “As Bird Flu Looms, the Lessons of Past Pandemics Take on New Urgency.” In his article, Barry claims that the public health measures taken to slow the spread of Covid are effective, but:

[E]ven the most extreme interventions cannot eliminate a pathogen that escapes initial containment if, like influenza or the virus that causes Covid-19, it is both airborne and transmitted by people showing no symptoms. Yet such interventions can achieve two important goals.

The first is preventing hospitals from being overrun. Achieving this outcome could require a cycle of imposing, lifting and reimposing public health measures to slow the spread of the virus. But the public should accept that because the goal is understandable, narrow and well defined.

The second objective is to slow transmission to buy time for identifying, manufacturing and distributing therapeutics and vaccines and for clinicians to learn how to manage care with the resources at hand.

The number of inaccuracies in just these three paragraphs from Barry’s opinion piece is astounding, qualifying more as outright propaganda than as a limited hangout.

We hear the word a lot, but a refresher from Britannica on Propaganda is in order:

Propaganda is the more or less systematic effort to manipulate other people’s beliefs, attitudes, or actions…Propagandists…deliberately select facts, arguments, and displays of symbols and present them in ways they think will have the most effect…To maximize effect, they may omit or distort pertinent facts or simply lie, and they may try to divert the attention of the reactors (the people they are trying to sway) from everything but their own propaganda. Comparatively deliberate selectivity and manipulation also distinguish propaganda from education.  (emphasis added)                                                                       

Propagandists such as Barry draw on their credentials, and use their writing and reasoning skills, to “distort pertinent facts or simply lie” to prop up the official Covid narrative, in this case. Gratefully there are resources for balanced discussion.  There are credible individuals discussing legitimate studies and data that refute the false statements in Barry’s opinion piece. Unfortunately, many people do not know where to find their work, or simply don’t want to know.

Power, Control, Money: The Great Motivators

It would indeed be wonderful to say that the Covid-19 pandemic is behind us. Been there, done that. But unfortunately, there is an entire industry comprised of billionaires, corporate, NGO, military, intelligence, and government interests that is driving the idea of scary pandemics, and preparing radical interventions to deal with them. What could possibly be their motive? Nothing new under the sun. It’s always power, money, and a desire for control driving any human experiment that leads to cruel oppression, misery, and death. We saw it writ large through the campaigns of Stalin, Lenin, Hitler, and Mao. We saw it with Mussolini, Pol Pot, and Pinochet.

The desire for power at the expense of others is as old as the history of mankind, but for the first time, the campaign is being orchestrated on a global scale. What was revealed during the Covid pandemic was not new ways to handle frightening pandemic-causing pathogens. What was actually revealed was a global trial run of how to bring entire populations into subjugation through fear and medical tyranny under the false assurance of Safety.

The experiment wasn’t completely successful, largely because the Emergency Use Authorized (EUA) vaccines failed to prevent disease or transmission. It’s not hard to develop a product at “Warp Speed” when all safety regulations and accountability are removed from product development, approval, and distribution. The mRNA platform was not ready for human use, and still isn’t, but the EUA Covid injections were administered to billions of people under cover of a “global emergency.” The debacle of increasingly noticeable vaccine injuries is the direct result.

Plans to Extend the mRNA Platform to all Vaccines:

Nonetheless, there are plans to convert traditional vaccines to the flawed mRNA platform, as well as to develop new profitable mRNA injections to treat pandemic-potential viruses in the future. Health and Human Services is currently in discussions with Pfizer and Moderna to produce mRNA flu vaccines to treat H5N1, which announcement led to a surge in biotech companies’ stocks this week, according to the Financial Times.

An academic who went through WWII in Nazi Germany was interviewed afterward and explained how the horrors of that time gradually grew upon them, over several years, almost without them noticing. He said:

What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security…

One had no time to think. There was so much going on…I speak of my colleagues and myself, learned men, mind you. Most of us did not want to think about fundamental things and never had. There was no need to…we were decent people – and kept so busy with continuous changes and ‘crises’ and so fascinated…that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us.” (p. 166-168, They Thought They Were Free, By Milton Mayer)

Government Intent to Silence Dissent:

It’s very important to those in charge that we not think and not notice. This is why we hear so much today about the dangers of misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation, and how much the government wants to protect us from such harmful speech. In fact Homeland Security is so worried they published a Terrorism Threat Bulletin calling people who say things that might undermine public trust in government institutions “domestic threat actors.”

This bulletin was accompanied by government censorship efforts that led to removed posts and accounts throughout all social media platforms, as well as character defamation, loss of employment, and other forms of persecution – all as a consequence of exercising freedom of speech. It also led to a Disinformation Governance Board created by the Biden Administration, that was “paused” after three weeks of comparison to the Ministry of Truth in Orwell’s 1984, and following concerns raised about the head of the Board.

The government’s concerns about correct information do not extend to itself, or its mouthpieces, of which the New York Times is one. Despite the limited hangout acknowledging some “rare but serious” Covid-19 vaccine injuries, the Times is quick to claim there’s no way to know for sure if these people really were injured by the injections. The Times states:

The government’s understaffed compensation fund has paid so little because it officially recognizes few side effects for Covid vaccines. And vaccine supporters, including federal officials, worry that even a whisper of possible side effects feeds into misinformation spread by a vitriolic anti-vaccine movement.

Ah, yes. Those nasty anti-vaxxers. The ones that Homeland Security calls domestic terrorists, along with parents who speak out at school board meetings, and people who have concerns about election integrity. Homeland Security says people who question, “sow discord or undermine public trust in U.S. government institutions.” So don’t ask questions and just do as you’re told. Whatever happened to the widespread consensus of the truth in Pres. Ronald Reagan’s quip, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help?’”

Multi-billionaire Bill Gates in his grandfatherly sweater and glasses said in the previously referenced TED talk that it’s, “Kind of weird” how the anti-vaxxers respond to him. He claims his Gavi foundation has saved tens of millions of lives through vaccines. Gates states, “It’s somewhat ironic to have someone turn around and say no, we’re using vaccines to kill people or to make money or…some strange things like, that I somehow want to track, you know, the location of individuals because I’m so deeply desirous to know where everybody is. Uh, I’m not sure what I’m going to do with that information.” Cue the helicopters.

I understand people who want to believe that we did the best we could with the information that we had, and that our efforts to stop a virus made a difference. It’s comforting to believe that those in charge have our best interests at heart. It’s easier and less frightening to believe wise scientists, doctors, and government officials know just what we need to be “safe.” 

It’s generally thought that we enlightened modern people could never be susceptible to a mass formation like that of Nazi Germany, or Mao’s Cultural Revolution; we would recognize what was going on and we wouldn’t fall for it. There seems to be a general belief that the freedoms guaranteed in the US Constitution are inviolable, and therefore we do not need to fight to retain them.

A limited hangout may open the Overton window a bit, but it’s being made very clear to anyone who is paying attention that the powers that be are loathe to give up the control they tasted during Covid-19, and next time they intend to completely squash dissent.

Combatting the Tidal Wave of Corporate and Government Control:

From attorney Jeff Childer’s Substack on US Memorial Day May 27, 2024, we gain some insight into the call to action for our times:

Lincoln’s [Gettysburg Address] could just as well have been written for us the living in the equally extraordinary year 2024, Anno Domini. In particular, the second half of President Lincoln’s short speech seems aimed right at us, reminding us that the honored dead made their ultimate sacrifices for a reason.

Our heroic dead expect that we, the living, will keep fighting to the last man and woman. In Lincoln’s own words:

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Ours is not a war fought with cannons and musket balls. Our generation’s war is a mental, emotional, and cultural war, a war waged in secret and in lies, a war with needles and mysterious snake oil payloads, a mendacious war waged against truth, thoughts and feelings.

Keep fighting! Fight for the dead. Fight for the living. Fight for those not yet born. Fight and never stop fighting, until we have achieved a new birth of freedom in America.

Tidal waves don’t discriminate between those who believe in them, and those who don’t. A wave of censorship and government controls is building, fueled by fears about another pandemic, or climate change, or whatever “emergency” can be exploited to justify government power grabs. The only thing that will stop the censorship and control from washing over everyone is enlightened people who refuse to be swept up, and who work together to push back.

Republished from the author’s Substack

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

Which Movie Will It Be?

“It’s almost as if the principals (prosecutors and judge) were performing for their political audience - with a wink, a nod and a stage whisper (“watch this!”) as they ignore yet another fundamental element of American due process.”

- Jack DeVine on “X”

The ninnies of Bidenworld seem to not understand that by subjecting Mr. Trump to a kangaroo court they’ve made him the kind of outlaw that Americans revere above every other archetypal hero.

He’s the new American Robin Hood, the people’s outlaw - with “Joe Biden” relegated as the wicked Sir Guy of Gisbourne, master of foul play and servant of the evil regent Prince John (Barack Obama).

The galvanizing moment in this melodrama was not the verdict in Judge Juan Merchan’s kangaroo corral of a court, but the next day in the White House when “Joe Biden” was asked to comment on it as he shuffled away from the podium, halted, turned, and smirked silently at the cameras, a gesture that is sure to live in infamy.

The fun should really kick off when the judge gets to sentence Trump-the-Outlaw July 11, a few days before the Republican convention. Life in some New York state pen? A year on Rikers Island? House arrest? Who knows. But you can bet that just like Robin-of-Locksley, Donald-of-Mar-a-Lago will manage to slip out of his captors’ clutches and cleverly vanquish them.

In a sane world, of course, the US Supreme Court would be entreated to adjudicate this gross insult to due process as spelled out in Section 1 of the 14th Amendment.

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

But you might have noticed that this is not a sane world, at least not these days, and not a few supposedly sober analysts, such as Jonathan Turley of George Washington University, claim that that a SCOTUS review is a long-shot — which only confirms the reigning insanity since it’s hard to imagine a more compelling moment for the SCOTUS to carry out its fundamental duty: to elucidate the meaning of our Constitution and resolve disputes arising therefrom.

Now, it looks like what we’re seeing after a few days for the shock to wear off, is a mighty righteous rage arising among the faction designated as “Red” — that is, the anti-Woke, anti-Globalist, anti-neoMarxist, anti-Deep State blob, anti-Lawfare, anti-Democratic Party chunk of the adult US population. It amounts to a recognition that we are already in some kind of civil war, and that the tactics of “Joe Biden’s” party must and will be opposed by all means. The SCOTUS is the last resort of legal means for redress in this matter, and they would punt this duty at great peril to the country.

To clarify just what this matter is: “Joe Biden’s” White House and Department of Justice conspired with New York County (Manhattan) authorities to maliciously construct and execute a court case made of patently false charges against their principal political adversary, and with a cavalier disrespect to both state and federal law.

As such, the “Stormy Daniels Payoff Case,” as it’s known, is just the latest ploy in a long train of lawless gambits starting with RussiaGate in 2016 (the “Steele Dossier” and all) that have left hundreds of high appointed officials in the federal bureaucracy (plus many retired from it) liable to severe criminal charges ranging as far as sedition and treason. RussiaGate may have started its life as a typical campaign prank by doofuses in the Hillary Clinton organization, but it turned seriously sinister when it was adopted by the FBI and the CIA to execute a plan to harass and defenestrate the elected president, Mr. Trump.

With each subsequent prank, to distract from and cover-up their crimes, the same group of officials has committed more crimes, to the point that the federal government now behaves like a gigantic mafia, dedicated to nothing but crime of one kind or another. The Democratic Party has become this mob’s protective order; the old mainstream media its mouthpiece; and the people of this country increasingly its victims. Naturally, these criminals are now desperate to avoid having to account for their crimes, which is exactly and explicitly what Mr. Trump promises to do.

So, there it is: a criminal regime versus the people defended by their outlaw hero. Does the SCOTUS want to aid and abet this gang of criminals — led by the way, and just so you know, by Barack Obama and his Kalorama coterie, John Brennan, Mary McCord and her Lawfare coterie, Hillary and Bill Clinton and their henchmen, and scores of additional DC lawyers, fixers, and judges — or, will the SCOTUS avert an epic crisis of legitimacy by stepping in to quash the ridiculously fake New York case just concluded?

If they demur in some cowardly blur of excuses, then it’s onto the next truly nation-ending stage of this game. The “Joe Biden” regime would like nothing more than an outbreak of civil violence they can blame on “right-wing extremists.” In fact, they could and probably will gin that up themselves, just as they transformed the Jan-6-21 mass protest against widespread ballot fraud into a “MAGA insurrection.” You are also certainly aware of the sinister millions, mainly young men from faraway lands, who “Joe Biden” imported across the border the past three years. And you might imagine how they could be put to use against American citizens, along with the Democratic Party shock troops known as BLM and Antifa. Summer’s here and the time is right for fighting in the streets.

And, of course, even if the SCOTUS puts an end to this latest bit of Lawfare fuckery, the “Joe Biden” crew can always opt to just up and kill its opponent. Nothing is beneath them now. But when that happens, we’ll be in a very different kind of movie.

*  *  *

Support his blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page or Substack

In April, the FBI released its annual Internet Crime Report, evaluating all complaints logged via its Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). According to the Bureau's analysis, losses connected to cybercrime complaints were $12.5 billion in 2023, up $2 billion year-over-year and more than triple the amount recorded in 2019 despite the number of complaints less than doubling compared to four years prior.

As Statista's Florian Zandt shows in the chart below, based on data provided in the report shows, reported cybercrime losses increased significantly from 2021 onwards.

You will find more infographics at Statista

While 2021 only saw a year-over-year increase of roughly $700 million lost even though complaints shot up, the jump in losses from 2021 to 2022 was decidedly more pronounced. This suggests criminals were able to illegally extract larger sums of money per breach.

Most funds were lost due to investment fraud and hacked business email addresses. These two attack vectors were connected to around 60 percent of all money reported stolen. Although these figures are already substantial, the actual numbers may be much higher due to the FBI only being able to analyze cases reported via its own platform.

The data also shows a clear bias in geographical distribution: 521,652 complaints were filed from the United States and 288,355 from the United Kingdom. Zooming in on U.S. cases, most complaints originated in California, Texas and Florida. The former also ranked first in terms of money lost with $2.1 billion or 17 percent of the reported worldwide total. Apart from the U.S. and the UK, the nations with the highest complaint prevalences were Canada (6,601), India (3,405) and Nigeria (1,779).

Authored by Shaun Maguire via X

I just donated $300k to Trump. I’m prepared to lose friends. Here’s why.

Back in 2016 I had drunk the media Kool-Aid and was scared out of my mind about Trump. As such I donated to Hilary Clinton’s campaign and voted for her.

By 2020 I was disillusioned and didn’t vote – I didn’t like either option.

Now, in 2024, I believe this is one of the most important elections of my lifetime, and I’m supporting Trump.

I know that I’ll lose friends for this. Some will refuse to do business with me. The media will probably demonize me, as they have so many others before me. But despite this, I still believe it’s the right thing to do.

I refuse to live in a society where people are afraid to speak.

The 2016 Election

I’m going to start off with something provocative, but I think it leads to a different take on the most controversial Trump issue, which is obviously January 6th. So here goes nothing.

I believe the 2016 election was manipulated to hurt Hilary Clinton and to help Donald Trump.

Hilary Clinton herself believes this, she has denied the 2016 election result dozens of times, and still does to this day. Plot twist: I agree with her! Look into Guccifer 2.0 which was the “hacker group” that strategically leaked her emails (through Wikileaks) in a drip campaign at just the right moments. Turns out it was the Russian GRU. And remember all those fake news and bot farms? These incidents are the tip of the spear -- some of the publicly known incidents. There was extreme manipulation happening during the 2016 election.

Before proceeding, please watch at least 30 seconds of this video. It’s “24 straight minutes of Democrats denying election results.”

Russia (and others) interfering in the 2016 election was nothing new, this happens in every election, everywhere in the world. Obviously.

But for me, as someone that used to work in National Security, Russia’s implicit support for Trump made me deathly afraid of him getting elected as President.

I was wrong, and Russia miscalculated. President Trump turned out to be a master of foreign policy and particularly strong towards Russia. If you’ve never seen it before, please watch this two minute clip from Trump at a NATO breakfast 5 years ago.

If you're too lazy, Trump told Germany that they're a) owned by Russia via their energy dependence b) financing Russia's war machine by buying their energy c) not investing enough in defense, investing only 1% of GDP, which was below the 2% NATO commitment, meanwhile the US was investing 4.2% of GDP. And yet the world said he's owned by Russia?

For other Trump foreign policy wins, he: a) signed the Abraham Accords b) successfully put Iran in the penalty box, which the Biden administration immediately unwound and c) he helped India see the dangers of having their comms networks controlled by China resulting in Huawei and TikTok bans there.

My “radicalization” towards the center

August 16th, 2021 was the day I knew I could never support Joe Biden or any of the senior officials in his administration. This was the day that Afghans fell to their deaths from US C-17 airplanes at the Kabul International Airport, or KAIA as ISAF forces referred to it.

Back in 2012 I deployed to Afghanistan working for DARPA. I used to fly out of KAIA at least weekly, usually taking a Blackhawk to Bagram Airfield (BAF), but sometimes jumping on a C-130 down to Kandahar (KAF).

I'm not going to go into all of the details here, but this was personal for me -- as it was for anyone that served in Afghanistan. Most have the wrong impression of what happened there. Afghanistan wasn't Iraq. And real progress had been made. It took roughly 15 years to stabilize most of Afghanistan, but the ISAF coalition had gotten it to the place that little girls were going to school in Kabul, sometimes walked there by their mothers who weren't even wearing Burkas anymore. All of this was unimaginable a decade prior.

And then there's the strategic aspect. The US's most strategic base in Afghanistan was Bagram Airfield. Unless you've been there it's impossible to imagine how strategic this base is, and how easy it is to defend. Nestled in a remote valley at the foothills of the Himalayas. Within a couple hour flight of China and Iran, and a few minute flight to Pakistan. I believe this airfield could have been held for 50+ years with 50,000 men. A similar scale to the US permanent forces stationed at Ramstein Air Base in Germany or the US bases in Okinawa, Japan.

We gave up one of the most strategic air bases in the world, and arguably stability in Kabul, for political gain -- to be able to say that President Biden ended the War in Afghanistan. And we did it in the most incompetent manner possible, literally with people falling from our airplanes. Everyone I have spoken with that served in Afghanistan knows this.

Global instability

It wasn't just Afghanistan, I believe that the Biden administration has had some of the worst foreign policy in decades. And this has manifested in two major Wars breaking out during their administration, with Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Iran's proxy attack against Israel.

Was the timing just bad luck? I don't believe so. I believe that a weak America leads to a chaotic world.

The failed Afghanistan pull-out showed the weakness of the Biden administration. They failed to adapt to changing facts on the ground, chiefly the Afghan army putting up no resistance as the Taliban drove towards Kabul. If the US can't adapt quickly in a theater where we're already active, how can it react quickly to a blitz in a new theater, Ukraine? Granted the Russian's botched their blitz, miscalculating the weather, almost certainly to keep China happy as they hosted the Olympics in Feb 2022.

The most damaging foreign policy has been the Biden administration's approach to Iran. Biden resuscitated Obama's braindead Iran doctrine. Somehow believing that the theocratic Islamic Regime could be turned towards the West.

But it's much worse than this. After Hamas' attack against Israel on October 7th, Iran took credit for planning the attack publicly. Moreover, Iran was so bold that their proxies carried out over 300 attacks against US bases and Naval ships. Many of the attacks haven't been disclosed or publicized. At least 4 US soldiers have been killed in these attacks. And yet somehow despite this, the Biden administration has been rewarding Iran by unfreezing their funds, mourning the death of President Raisi and hamstringing Israel in its proxy battle.

This level of weakness is unprecedented in my opinion. The US has been kissing the ring of its attacker, literally while attacks against our Armed Forces are carried out. If you start looking, it's hard to see anything other than Iranian foreign influence in the Biden administration, such as what Semafor reported on, and which was effectively buried by our mainstream media.

The Biden administration has been a dream come true for foreign adversaries, and a nightmare for US allies. Trusting of enemies, and fickle with friends.

Israel

To anyone that follows me on X you know that I'm a staunch Israel supporter and also Zionist. I believe that Israel is one of America's most important allies in the world. Unfortunately, in a post-Snowden world, Israel is now arguably the world's top cyber power. And it's a critical intelligence ally for any US operations in the Middle East. It's also becoming an advanced weapons partner, co-developing the hypersonic missile defense system Arrow 3 and also Iron Dome + Iron Beam.

The Islamic Regime in Iran terrorizes its own people and their proxies terrorize the entire region. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has been modernizing at an exceptional pace. Somehow the Biden administration has chosen to cuddle up to Iran while driving Saudi Arabia and Israel away. This is unforgivably disastrous policy in my opinion.

Double standards

The next topic that has boiled my blood are the double standards and lawfare that Trump has faced. Here are some examples:

• Classified documents: Hilary Clinton, Joe Biden, Mike Pence and Donald Trump were all caught with classified documents. Only Trump was indicted. Either it's a crime for all of them or none of them. All of the arguments about quantity of documents or obstruction are distractions to justify a double standard.

• The Border Wall: remember how Trump was villainized for promoting a border wall? Biden resumed building sections of it after pausing them, which the legacy media has been very quiet about.

• Election denialism: yes, Trump denied the 2020 election results. But as we linked to above, so did Hilary Clinton and Joe Biden regarding the 2016 results. As have hundreds of other politicians since 2000. Either they're all election deniers, or none of them.

• Corruption charges: every inch has been searched for Trump corruption while Joe Biden's involvement with foreign countries (through Hunter) have been swept under the rug. Here are some examples.

• Three strikes for thee but not for me: Joe Biden was the architect of the 1994 Crime Bill, which most attribute as the source of the mass incarceration we saw over the next two decades (especially amongst black communities). Crack cocaine in particular was treated harshly when combined with the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act. Watch this video. Hunter Biden would be locked up for life if the same rules were applied to him that Joe Biden imposed on thousands of others.

This is just the tip of the double standard iceberg.

Lawfare

This is too broad of a topic to go into detail here, but suffice to say I've spent hundreds of hours following the trials and researching the charges against Trump. This has been another radicalizing experience. I understand that normally when there's smoke there's fire, but in this case I think when there's smoke there's lawfare.

To anyone with a curious mind, I implore you to go deep on any of the charges against Trump, whether civil or criminal. Here's a very quick summary of some of the fishy aspects:

• Election Interference Case: Jack Smith was appointed Special Counsel to prosecute Trump. Jack Smith previously got the Governor of Virginia convicted of corruption charges... WHICH WERE THEN UNANIMOUSLY OVERTURNED BY THE SUPREME COURT. Basically Jack Smith misled the Jury. Why would you choose Jack Smith to be the Special Counsel for this case? Maybe if all you're trying to do is to get charges to stick before an election, even if you know they'll be overturned subsequently by the Supreme Court?

• The Classified Documents Case: once again Jack Smith is the Special Counsel.

• Georgia Election Interference: The Fulton County DA, Fani Willis, has a history of corruption. It turns out that the outside lawyer she selected to prosecute Trump ... is someone she was having a romantic relationship with, Nathan Wade.Wade's Law firm made about $700k after Willis appointed him. This was concealed. Wade has since resigned from the case but Willis is still involved.

• The Hush Money Case: The key witness, Michael Cohen, is a proven liar. His testimony has been filled with contradiction after contradiction.

• Bank Fraud: Trump was ordered by Judge Engoron to pay over $350M in civil judgment that he committed bank fraud. This whole case reeked of corruption. This was an incident where no harm had been done: the banks had already been fully repaid with interest. The most important point in the case was Judge Engoron arguing that Mar-a-Lago was worth only between $18M and $27.6M when Trump had said it's worth between $426.5M and $612M. Judge Engoron tried to compare apples to oranges, with an appraised value vs market value for a property that is very clearly worth something close to Trump's range.

• Sexual Assault / E Jean Carroll: the background to this case was almost unbelievable. In simple terms, a woman in 2019, E Jean Carroll, came out and said that 20+ years prior, in the late 1990s, Donald Trump had sexually assaulted her. The statute of limitations on this case had expired more than a decade prior to her claims. But the state of New York did something unprecedented and opened a one year window where people could file claims for sexual abuse going back to exactly the window when E Jean Carroll accused him. So that's point #1, there was lawfare around the statute of limitations. Point #2 is that the case was highly irregular and ultimately the Jury determined that Trump did not rape E Jean Carroll, despite her claims. But they did determine that he sexually assaulted her (a lesser charge than rape.)

All of these cases are too complicated for most to follow, almost by design. As someone that has been following the cases closely, I've had the opposite reaction of what was intended: a) every single case seems to have had impropriety and b) after going through Trump's entire life, if these are the worst things they can find, then he did less wrong then I otherwise would have assumed.

Fairness is one of my guiding principles in life and simply, these cases haven't been fair for Trump.

Where do I disagree with Republicans?

The number one area is abortion. This is obviously a lightning rod issue. As someone with libertarian leaning views, I believe the Republicans have the wrong stance around imposing their views on others. That said, I think Democrats misunderstand the constitutional argument that this should be a states issue.

Domestic policies

Other than abortion, I believe that President Trump and the Republicans have been better on most domestic issues. Look at the quality of life in Red States such as Florida and Texas vs that in Blue States like California, Oregon and New York. I used to live in San Francisco and now live in Los Angeles. The crime and homelessness is out of control.

Trump was villainized for his stance on building a border wall, but we've had about 10M illegal immigrants cross into the US already during President Biden's tenure.

The Democrats have been trying to regulate technology -- especially open source AI and crypto in ways that incentivize the best builders to build outside of America.

25 years ago I believe the Far Right was vastly more dangerous than the Far Left. But today I believe the Far Left, and especially Antifa, is more dangerous. Our attention and maintenance was on the Far Right while we ignored the Far Left.

The 2020 election and January 6th

Now onto the elephant in the room, the 2020 election. The topic so taboo that if you talk about it you're immediately cancelled. I'm willing to wade into this fire -- some of us need to be willing to.

I believe America has conflated two issues: the 2020 election itself and January 6th.

Just as Hilary Clinton and dozens of other democrats claimed the 2016 election was stolen (which I agree with). I believe there was a similar scale, or even more interference in the 2020 election. We need to be able to talk about this, so that we can fix the problems. Democracy doesn't work without secure elections. But it also doesn't work without peaceful transitions of power. Both are essential.

I believe there was extreme election interference but I don't believe January 6th was the right response. Bear with me.

So what was going on during the 2020 election?

I held a Top Secret (TS/SCI) clearance for about 7 years and used to work in information warfare, and also cybersecurity. I've seen nation-state tactics that most can't imagine. It is from this lens, and through access to lots of non-public information, through which I viewed the election.

If you go back to the 2020 election, arguably the most sophisticated cyberattack in history was taking place. This was the SolarWinds supply chain attack. This attack was so sophisticated that it's impossible to know exactly what it was used for. And much of what we do know has never been reported.

Washington has an interesting phenomenon where when something incredibly damaging is learned, people oftentimes clam up and refuse to deal with it. I've seen this first hand multiple times now.

But we also have things like the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, which the FBI was in possession of for roughly a year before the election, and despite it being easy to verify its authenticity, the FBI was actively telling Facebook and Twitter that it is fake news and they recommended banning sharing of the NY Post article about it.

But there were so many other issues. Not least of which was a global pandemic that almost certainly leaked from a Chinese lab, but we weren't allowed to talk about that. Nor the mail-in ballot issues.

Many point to the 2020 election and say "there's no smoking gun evidence so therefore there was no interference!" My retort is that there's not public evidence and in general the DoD/IC is afraid to push too far on the issue, knowing how damaging it would be to find interference. There's things I can't say.

The end result is a 2020 election where Biden and Trump combined received 155.5M votes vs the 128.8M combined for Hilary and Trump in 2016. That's 26.7M more votes in 2020 compared to 2016. That's a 20% increase in voter turnout in a period where the population only grew by a few percent. In an election where people weren't inspired by either candidate. And where there was more voting friction than ever before due to COVID-19.

Personally I don't think it's fair for Hilary Clinton to be able to claim the 2016 election was stolen, but Donald Trump to be indicted for the same thing.

Regarding the January 6th protests. I don't agree with them. Even if an election is stolen I think the correct democratic response is to accept it, have peaceful transition of power, and then to fight like hell on the backend to make sure it never happens again.

Regarding Trump's involvement in January 6th. The clearest thing he did was deny the election results, but again, so did Hilary Clinton. So if this isn't a crime in and of itself, then what else did he do?

The rest is fuzzy. There is conflicting testimony, especially around when the National Guard was requested. On the one hand you had the testimonies of General Charles Flynn and Lt. General Walter Piatt. But on the other side you have the testimonies of Colonel Earl Mathews, Trump's Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and The Head of the Capitol Police at the time, Steven Sund. The media reports on Trump's January 6th involvement in absolute terms but again, if you go deep, it's unclear. For me, if Trump actually asked for the National Guard to be ready to go during January 6th it's a major counterpoint against the allegations that he was inciting an insurrection.

Summary

In 2016 there were two primary reasons I voted for Hilary (and was deathly afraid of Trump)

#1) Russia helped him in the election by hurting Hilary. This made me susceptible to the media narrative that he's owned by Russia and will be a foreign policy disaster.

#2) Candidly the clip where he said "I grab them by their pussy" deeply bothered me.

These two things built a pattern in my mind that Trump was out of control.

But now with the benefit of hindsight, revisiting these two points:

#1) To my shock, I believe Trump was one of the best foreign policy Presidents in decades, and during the most complex period in almost a century, as the East rises, which leads to a changing set of rules.

#2) That clip still sits in the back of my mind, but I personally consider the double standards and lawfare against Trump to be 10x worse, and 10x more dangerous for our Democracy.

What's next?

Do I agree with Trump on everything? Of course not. The area where I disagree with Republicans the most is on Women's rights. And I'm sure I'll disagree with some of Trump's policies in the future.

But in general I think he was surprisingly prescient, such as with the border wall, and he was also a masterful negotiator, such as with the Abraham accords.

There's a real chance President Trump is convicted of felony charges and sentenced to prison. Bluntly, that's part of why I'm supporting him. I believe our justice system is being weaponized against him.

If abortion is your most important issue, then I get it, vote for Biden. If any other topic is your most important issue, then do your homework and investigate the manipulation I outlined above.

Given the two choices, I believe President Trump is overwhelmingly the stronger candidate. Again, this is something I couldn't have imagined saying in 2016.

Conclusion

Speak up. Don't be silenced. Freedom of speech is worth nothing if you're afraid to use it. We can't let cancel culture win.

There's no greater country in the world than America. But America has had a bad decade. America is blessed with a robust constitution, abundant natural resources and diverse people. The way out from here is by focusing on our strengths, which are liberalism and hard work. We need to start building again.

Best of luck to President Trump.

-----

*Note that everything in this post reflects my personal views and not the views of my employer. I work in Silicon Valley which traditionally leans very far left. I'm lucky to work at a place that tolerates spirited debate and independent thinking. If the truth is in the middle, it's impossible to find it without sharing our ideas and debating each other.

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

There are three layers to the U.S. state that lord it over the American people and the world: deep, middle, and shallow. It’s a typology of how technocracy works in practice. Let’s talk about how it works and how the layers interact.

Donald Trump popularized the term deep state, and it is a good one. There is a large and serious literature on the topic. It refers mostly to the long-operating and largely out-of-public eye intelligence agencies and their cut-outs in the private sector. It is inclusive of security agencies, which means CIA but also some portions of the FBI, NSC, NSA, CISA, DHS, top brass at the Pentagon, and more besides.

They are the most powerful force in American politics and have been for many decades. Anyone who calls them out is called a “conspiracy theorist” simply because there is a lack of documentation for these claims that everyone knows are true. They are “classified,” Washington’s magic term for anything they want to hide from you.

Lately, there has been an opening up on this topic, thanks very much to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Trump, journalist Mike Benz, and many others who have worked so hard over the years to expose the cabal. This new attention is mostly due to a series of audacious plots that unfolded since 2016: the bogus claim of Russia interference in the election, as manufactured by the deep state, the surreptitious weaponization of the justice system still ongoing, as well as the pandemic policies that had deep-state fingerprints all over them.

The middle state is the administrative bureaucracy, the civil service, as they are called. Invented by the Pendleton Act of 1883 and growing through wars and crises, and deeply entrenched in the 21st century, it is more than 2 million strong and consists of more than 400 agencies, some innocuous and some deeply threatening. Elected politicians only pretend to control the middle state but the reality is the opposite. They are the people with permanent positions, institutional knowledge, and the focus to preserve the status quo no matter who shows up in town for the party.

Very often, newly elected politicians come to town naively hoping to make some difference. They quickly encounter an awesome and impenetrable force all around them, staffers moving from office to office, random people from agencies about which they have never heard, and attending briefings designed to introduce the newbie to the ways of Washington but which are really designed to intimidate them into compliance. Most newly elected leaders arrive with no real understanding of this system.

This is what Trump faced when he was elected. He believed that the president was supposed to be in charge, like a CEO or an owner of a company. That’s the only world he knew, one in which he was at the top of the heap and his word was a marching order. He figured that this day would arrive after the inauguration. It did not. He simply couldn’t get over it and never was willing to simply play the marionette as others had done, in exchange for plaudits and payoffs.

Once Trump figured it all out, he assigned his trusted staff to do something about it. He issued a series of executive orders to get the middle state under control. In May of 2018, he took his first steps to gain some modicum of control over this deep state. He issued three executive orders (E.O. 13837, E.O. 13836, and E.O.13839) that would have diminished their access to labor-union protection when being pressed on the terms of their employment. Those three orders were litigated by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) and sixteen other federal labor unions.

All three were struck down with a decision by a D.C. District Court. The presiding judge was Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was later rewarded for her decision with a nomination to the Supreme Court, which was affirmed by the U.S. Senate. The prevailing and openly stated reason for her nomination was said to be mostly demographic: she would be the first black woman on the Court. The deeper reason was more likely traceable to her role in thwarting actions by Trump which had begun the process of upending the administrative state. Jackson’s judgment was later reversed but Trump’s actions were embroiled in a juridical tangle that rendered them moot.

Later came a wonderful executive order that would have reclassified a range of middle-state employees as “Schedule F” and thus subject to control by the elected president. That order caused Washington to fly into wild panic. Joe Biden reversed the order on his first day in office. They have had four years now to pass restrictions to prohibit that from happening again.

As recently as last week, Biden’s Office of Personnel Management finalized rules to make it difficult for Trump to strip civil servants in policy making roles of their permanent positions. Yes, the plot against a possible second Trump term is fully engaged already.

The third layer is the shallow state. It consists of legacy media outlets such as CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post, MSNBC, in addition to social media companies like Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit, as well as common internet tools like Google and Wikipedia. It includes military contractors and tax-supported academia as well.

These are all captured institutions, with revolving doors with the deep and middle states. The reporters at these large media outfits have close relationships with the top bureaucrats at the agencies they cover, which is why the agencies themselves are rarely investigated closely.

When lockdowns came, Facebook and all the mainline social media companies instantly signed up to be both propagandists and censors. When they worried about the impact on their business models, middle and deep state bureaucrats hounded them to step it up and serve their masters. They mostly complied. We know all this by virtue of tens of thousands of pages of correspondence that is now moving through the courts, possibly resulting in judgments that would bring back the First Amendment.

The shallow state also includes a major swath of the banking and financial sector that depends fundamentally on the benevolence of the middle-state Federal Reserve to provide an uninterrupted stream of liquidity to fuel its operations. In some sense, the entire system mapped out here depends on this funding source, without which the lockdowns, wars, welfare state, and enormous corporate subsidies (to pharma, agriculture, and the Green New Deal) could not and would not exist.

What is and isn’t included in the shallow state is obviously debatable on many levels. What about an institution that massively benefitted from lockdowns, such as Amazon, but didn’t actively lobby for the policy? How does the fact that its founder and major investor also owns the Washington Post which did push for lockdowns affect the judgment? And what about online learning companies that got rich solely due to school closures? Are they also shallow state? There are good discussions to have here.

The relationship between the three layers is perfectly illustrated in the way pharmaceutical companies work. They do the bidding of the deep state with biodefense work that is classified, making both pathogens and antidotes. They work with the middle state, with board members and managers of companies going back and forth with the NIH and FDA, sharing royalties on new patented consumer products. The companies then dominate advertising on all the main media venues, which means that the media covers up for them at every turn and echoes deep and middle state priorities.

If you are seeking to set up and manage a 21st-century technocratic regime, the ideal mechanism of compulsion and coercion is centered in the shallow state, because it is private, consumer-facing, and trusted more than any other layers of the state. Every form of coercion can be “market washed” as if these are purely private actions taking place. The strategic objective of any really good plan for hegemony, then, is to push the agenda from the deep state, through the middle state, and land in the shallow state for distribution to the public.

This is because the shallow state is the most effective tool for bringing about results. You want the large corporations and big finance to be the ones to move against political enemies, and you want the major media rather than the agencies to distribute the propaganda. You want the doctors to sell the drugs and the search engines to generate the message. Whatever trust remains is centered on these shallow-state institutions and therefore they are the ones you want to capture to do your bidding.

Yes, it all sounds very corrupt. It is. And it has absolutely nothing to do with this document called the Constitution, which is supposed to be the real law of the law. For the three-layer state, this document simply doesn’t matter. A quiet coup has taken place over the decades that has entrenched this wild system in contradiction to everything the Founding Fathers desired.

All three are right now plotting to resist a possible victory by Donald Trump in November. The notion that he would win in 2016 seemed outlandish. But the prospect of returning after a four-year hiatus to gain the presidency again is nearly miraculous. In any case, it is something no one imagined possible a few years ago.

Indeed it is easily one of the biggest political comebacks in history, and amounts to the closest thing we’ll likely ever see to a genuine revolution in modern times. What comes of it, we’ll have to find out but this much is clear: the whole of the three-layered state has done everything to stop it. Right now, the whole system is in complete freak-out mode, in full display of the whole world.

There is plenty of reason to doubt aspects of the Trump agenda. I’ve personally authored what is by now a large literature against features of the ideology that drives it.

But there is no getting around the real issue today. We are nearing a perfect battle between the people, who are supposed to rule or at least have some line of influence over the regime, and this three-layer cartel of overlords that is actually in charge.

No one who aspires to freedom and dignity can possibly defend this status quo, so it makes sense to look forward to its overthrow, if it is at all possible.

Authored by James Rickards via DailyReckoning.com,

We all know about the non-stop lawfare attacks on Donald Trump. You might like Trump or hate him, but it shouldn’t matter. Every American who cares about justice and the rule of law should be concerned about them.

It corrodes the system of justice that’s long been a source of national pride.

Besides being a financial analyst, I’m also an attorney with a deep understanding of constitutional law. And what they’re trying to do to Trump is unconstitutional in many cases, and in some instances egregiously so.

I’m not a fan of Joe Biden to put it mildly. But I’d be equally appalled if Republicans used the same type of lawfare against him based on specious legal grounds. It shouldn’t happen in the United States, period, regardless of political orientation. It shouldn’t be a partisan issue.

But unfortunately, Democrats have chosen to open Pandora’s box. Beyond the current lawfare, Democrats moved against Trump from the very beginning, in cooperation with the deep state.

Get Trump at Any Cost

It began with the Russian collusion hoax orchestrated by Hillary Clinton in 2016 followed by Operation Crossfire Hurricane run by the FBI and CIA that tied the Trump administration in knots (as intended) from 2017–2019.

This was followed by two impeachments (2019 and 2021) on bogus charges, then the Jan. 6 setup where Trump urged a peaceful demonstration at the Capitol, but Nancy Pelosi refused to deploy the National Guard (as Trump requested) or to notify the Capitol Police (standard operating procedure) in order to precipitate the riot helped along by lots of undercover FBI agents egging the protesters on.

Once Trump decided to enter the 2024 presidential race, he was hit with an “insurrectionist” label to kick him off state ballots in Maine and Colorado, then with the Jan. 6 case in Washington; the classified documents case in Palm Beach; the RICO conspiracy charge in Fulton County, Georgia; and most ridiculous of all, the loan application and “hush money” cases in New York City that threaten to bankrupt Trump or put him in jail.

That’s quite a list but the lawfare freaks have a few more tricks up their sleeves between now and the next election.

Serve Trump, Pay the Price

What’s not as well-known are the other targets of Democratic lawfare, including Trump-affiliated lawyers and advisers.

These include the 73-year-old Harvard-trained economist Peter Navarro, who is now in federal prison; former Trump campaign manager and adviser Steve Bannon, who is now awaiting imprisonment on federal charges; former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was hit with a summons at his 80th birthday party; and John Eastman, a prominent lawyer and constitutional scholar who was arrested in Arizona on 2020 election charges despite having had no involvement in contesting the Arizona election results.

Lawfare is being used against candidates, advisers, members of Congress, judges and others who in any way support Trump or his policies

The purpose of this is clear. Lawfare fanatics not only want to disable Trump, but they also want to disable his advisers and intimidate any other qualified professionals from helping Trump. This is not just lawfare; it’s warfare.

Even if the charges are completely bogus, which is almost always the case, you have to hire attorneys to defend you in court. That could potentially cost hundreds of thousands of dollars — or more in Trump’s case.

Donald Trump might be able to afford to hire all these expensive lawyers to defend him. But most others can’t. So lawfare is designed to ruin them financially. And that’s the point. Even if you win in court, you still lose because you’ve been ruined financially, or at least badly damaged.

Anyone on Team Trump who doesn’t understand the stakes will get run over or worse. But is it really new?

Nixon and Watergate

Lawfare is a good way to understand what happened to Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal in 1972–1974 that resulted in his being driven from office. First, some context is required.

Nixon was elected in a close election in 1968 and then reelected in one of the greatest landslides in U.S. history in 1972. (Nixon carried 49 of the 50 states. Nixon’s opponent George McGovern carried only Massachusetts and Washington, D.C.).

It should be noted that Nixon had an impactful presidency. He opened relations with China after a 25-year freeze, ended the Vietnam War (started by John F. Kennedy and escalated by Lyndon Johnson) after 10 years of combat and over 50,000 Americans killed, created the Environmental Protection Agency (for better or worse) and was president when the first men landed on the moon. Nixon also negotiated the first nuclear arms limitation treaty with the Soviet Union.

To this day, there is no evidence that Nixon knew about the Watergate break-in in advance or had any hand in authorizing it. But as is often said, the cover-up is worse than the crime.

The Long Knives Were out for Nixon

Once the break-in participants were arrested, the White House went into damage-control mode. There’s no doubt Nixon broke the law by authorizing payments to the burglars and their families. He was also aware of perjury by some of his aides. Still, these were not momentous crimes relative to what almost all of his predecessors had done.

Nixon’s acts could arguably be viewed as in the national interest to preserve what had been a successful administration in both domestic and foreign policy. The scandal could have ended with some criminal trials of both campaign officials and some White House officials involved in the cover-up.

But the FBI, liberal media and Democrats were out for blood. Using leaks from Mark Felt (deputy director of the FBI also known as Deep Throat), friendly media outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post and hearings in the Democrat-controlled Senate (summer of 1973) and House (summer of 1974), Nixon’s enemies raised the temperature and, in the end, made Nixon’s resignation almost inevitable due to the threat of impeachment.

Donald Trump has been through this and more; he’s been impeached twice. The point is Trump should study the Watergate playbook to avoid some of Nixon’s mistakes and for guidance on how to stand up to the wolf pack behavior of the progressive media.

He’s going to need all the help he can get.

Authored by Frank Fang via The Epoch Times,

A Chinese national has been arrested for allegedly running a botnet of 19 million infected IP addresses in nearly 200 countries, amassing at least $99 million by leasing his network to criminals for cybercrimes including COVID-19 pandemic relief scams.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) said Wang Yunhe, 35, offered customers to use his network of compromised IP addresses for a fee from 2014 until July 2022, according to a press release issued on May 29. The service, named “911 S5,” allowed cybercriminals to conceal their digital footprint when engaging in nefarious online activities.

Those offenses included financial crimes, stalking, transmitting bomb threats and threats of harm, illegal exportation of goods, and receiving and sending child exploitation materials.

Criminals are also alleged to have used the botnet service to bypass financial fraud detection systems in the United States and elsewhere, and stolen billions of dollars from financial institutions, credit card issuers, and federal lending programs, according to an indictment. About 560,529 fraudulent claims came from “IP addresses exploited and trafficked” by Mr. Wang’s botnet, leading to more than $5.9 billion in losses.

The network was “likely the world’s largest botnet ever,” the DOJ said, quoting FBI Director Christopher Wray.

Mr. Wang’s alleged scheme “reads like it’s ripped from a screenplay,” Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement Matthew S. Axelrod from the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security said in a statement.

Malware

According to the indictment, Mr. Wang went by several pseudonyms including “Jack Wan,” “Williams Tang,” and “Tom Long.” He was arrested in Singapore on May 24 and search warrants were executed in the Southeast Asian country and nearby Thailand, Brett Leatherman, the deputy assistant director for the FBI’s cyber division, said in a LinkedIn post.

Authorities also seized $29 million in cryptocurrency, according to Mr. Leatherman.

To build up his botnet, Mr. Wang allegedly began developing malicious Virtual Private Network (VPN) programs, such as MaskVPN, DewVPN, and Shine VPN, as early as 2011, according to the indictment. He then allegedly distributed his malware “with the intent to infect residential computers worldwide.”

A VPN is a service that typically hides a user’s IP address and encrypts an internet connection, diverting traffic through a remote server.

“Wang then managed and controlled approximately 150 dedicated servers worldwide, approximately 76 of which he leased from U.S.-based online service providers,” the press release reads.

As of July 2022, Mr. Wang amassed more than 19 million unique IP addresses by spreading his malware to computers worldwide. “[C]ybercriminals using the 911 S5 service were able to select by city, state, zip code, or country exactly the IP addresses through which they wanted to connect to the internet,” the indictment reads.

Of the 19 million IP addresses, Mr. Wang’s botnet included about 613,841 IP addresses in the United States, the indictment stated, and his malware infected about 346 computers in the Eastern District of Texas between April 2020 and July 2022.

The indictment stated that Mr. Wang’s botnet ceased operations in July 2022 but infected computers “remain actively compromised.” Therefore “the botnet remains available to be reconstituted into a new illicit proxy service at any time,” the document reads.

Cooperation

Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said international cooperation led to the dismantling of the botnet.

“The Justice Department led an international law enforcement operation stretching from Southeast Asia to Europe to the Caribbean, which disrupted 911 S5,” Mr. Garland said in a video statement. “As a result of our coordinated actions, the botnet has been taken down.”

According to the DOJ, law enforcement agencies in Singapore, Thailand, and Germany worked with U.S. officials in the case. The joint operation led to the seizure of 23 domains and over 70 servers.

“As today’s case makes clear, the long arm of the law stretches across borders and into the deepest shadows of the dark web,” Mr. Garland added.

Mr. Wang allegedly used the proceeds received from customers of his botnet to buy property in the United States, St. Kitts and Nevis, China, Singapore, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates.

Mr. Wang is facing charges of conspiracy to commit computer fraud, substantive computer fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering, with a maximum 65-year prison sentence.

Federal authorities are seeking to seize dozens of assets and properties allegedly owned by Mr. Wang, according to the indictment. These include a 2022 Ferrari F8 Spider S-A, a BMW i8, a BMW X7 M50d, a Rolls Royce, more than a dozen domestic and international bank accounts, over two dozen cryptocurrency wallets, several luxury wristwatches, and 21 residential or investment properties.

On May 28, the Treasury Department announced sanctions against Mr. Wang, his co-conspirator Liu Jinping, his attorney Zheng Yanni, and three Thailand-based companies under his control.

Rashida Tlaib, a Congresswoman from Detroit and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, spoke over the weekend at the "People's Conference for Palestine," linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

This group, an Arab nationalist movement with Marxist-Leninist ideology, is designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the US. It has public-facing arms, such as Samidoun, working on behalf of the group, and active cells in many countries in Europe and North America. 

During the Saturday speech, Tlaib referred to members of the audience as the "squad" and demanded President Biden establish a "red line" on Israel's counteroffensive in Gaza. She criticized the president for "attacking the authority" of the International Criminal Court, which issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week over war crimes and crimes against humanity in Israel's mission to eliminate Hamas in Gaza. 

Among the speakers was Wisam Rafeedie, an activist linked to PFLP. The US State Department has designated the PFLP as a terrorist organization. 

According to the Director of National Intelligence, PFLP is a terrorist group based in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. It unites Arab nationalism with Marxist-Leninist ideology. It promotes the destruction of "Israel as integral to the struggle to remove Western capitalism from the Middle East and ultimately establish a Communist Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital," the DNI writes on its website. 

DNI provides more valuable insight into the terror organization: 

The PFLP fostered links and carried out attacks with leftist militant groups across the world during the 1970s and was actively involved in the Second Intifada from 2000 to 2005, during which the group carried out suicide operations and launched multiple joint operations with other Palestinian terrorist groups. The PFLP's operational tempo has since declined, with only two attacks in the last five years, most recently in 2019 that killed an Israeli teen and injured multiple others.

"I don't need to tell you that you're on the right side," Tlaib said in her speech in Detroit, adding, "I don't need to. But I'll be damned if I wait ten years before they apologize to all of you for doing what was right at this moment."

A Sitting-Member of Congress, Rashida Tlaib was a Speaker yesterday at the “People’s Conference for Palestine” which was Funded and Supported by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Communist-Terrorist Group which is Headquartered in the Syrian Capital of… pic.twitter.com/K5QP0FebvI

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) May 26, 2024

A recent statement by Israel's Ministry of Defense specifies, "Samidoun organization was designated as a terrorist organization as it is part of the PFLP." 

"Representatives of the organization are active in many countries in Europe and North America, led by Khaled Barakat, who is part of the leadership of PFLP abroad. Barkat is involved with establishing militant cells and motivating terrorist activity in Judea & Samaria and abroad," MoD said. 

Barakat is married to leftist radical Charlotte Kates, the coordinator of Samidoun and a Rutgers University School of Law graduate. 

According to NGO Monitor, PFLP and Samidoun "had a strong presence at encampments, demonstrations, and riots on American college campuses. Students have been documented carrying PFLP posters, flying the PFLP flag, hosting PFLP-linked speakers, and reading PFLP publications." 

The degrees of separation between PFLP and Samidoun are only a few steps, and now it should become increasingly apparent a terrorist group has been directly/indirectly fueling the chaos across America's elite colleges and universities. Yet, the Biden administration could care less, and the FBI is nowhere to be found publicly.  

As for Tlaib speaking at the PFLP-linked event in Detroit, we'll refrain from adding our commentary. Instead, here are some reactions from X users:

Rashida Tlaib should be removed from Congress.

— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) May 26, 2024

When did this become okay?

— TaraBull (@TaraBull808) May 26, 2024

There's even a PFLP member speaking to the conference today at 1pm ESThttps://t.co/PuH8dPSWDb

— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) May 26, 2024

The same popular front who hijacked planes? https://t.co/CwkhRnswAK

— Harry Theocharous (@TheocharousH) May 26, 2024

Yeah…she needs to go. An enemy of the U.S. has no place in the halls of Congress.

— James Lasher (@TheJamesLasher) May 26, 2024

Rep Tlaib should be removed from all House of Representatives committees and censured. Tlaib believes she say or do whatever she wishes, supporting a designated terrorist organization, Speakers Johnson should take action.

— Jeff Wright (@1991Wolfpack) May 26, 2024

Where is the FBI?

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

“We must stop Donald Trump.”

- President “Joe Biden”

Surely it was the right thing to do for President “Joe Biden” to remind the nation of the tragic loss of George Floyd four years ago this Memorial Day weekend.

At the time, the man known as “the Black Thomas Edison” was rumored to be this close to achieving an economically viable system for producing electricity via atomic fusion using the fentanyl molecule (C22H28N2O) combined with the nuclei of alcohol (C2H6O), releasing enough energy from one gram to power a city the size of Minneapolis for a day.

The math he left behind on his chalkboard spells it out:

17.6 MeV×1.60218×10?13 J/MeV?2.82×10?12 J

You see how that works?

Alas, Dr. Floyd had apparently ingested a small amount of these experimental substances accidently before leaving his lab May 25, 2020, when he encountered the white supremacist police officer Derek Chauvin outside a Cup Foods convenience store in Minneapolis’s “Powderhorn” neighborhood. For reasons never understood, despite manifold judicial inquiries, the officer dragged the Great Man out of his car — where he was polishing some of the requisite algebra in his notebook — and for no reason at all placed one knee, and all his weight, on Dr. Floyd’s neck, constricting his airway and causing his death.

The nation erupted in violence, and you know the rest of the story: no cheap energy for you, you nation of white supremacist asswipes!

And so it has gone since that fateful day: one darn thing after another.

Luckily though — and with a little help from Mark Zuckerberg’s Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) - the vigilant “Joe Biden” presides in the White House, keeping America safe for democracy, by democracy, and of democracy. The country has never experienced so much democracy. The Brookings Institution even warns that the country might be close to a democracy overload, in which the popular will is so immense that everyone in all fifty states thinks the same morally correct thoughts all day long without giving offense or making any space unsafe or dis-including any diverse category of human (except white supremacists) from his, her, or they’s share of the nation’s limitless wealth.

“Joe Biden” has been especially effective at containing the Grand Golem of all white supremacists, Trump, from deconstructing our utopian democracy. This Trump uttered perfidious misinformation that the 2020 election was less than fair and upright. He is under indictment in Fulton County, GA, for conspiring to transmit this incorrect thinking to other white supremacists and creating an unsafe space for GA Sec’y of State Brad Raffensberger by asking him to “find” additional votes. What log was Bradraff supposed to look under, anyway (ha ha!)?

The case is being guided by Fulton County DA, the indomitable Fani Willis, at least for now, as she awaits a process known as getting the bidness from a white supremacist so-called ethics committee in the Georgia State Senate, where she has been falsely accused of mis-spending state money on vacations with erstwhile special prosecutor Nathan Wade. These trips were, of course, fact-finding efforts. One fact found is that the white supremacist cruise ship directors attempt to kill black people by luring them into all-you-can-eat buffets at sea, from which escape is impossible.

“Joe Biden” also got Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint Lawfare paladin Jack Smith to prosecute this nefarious Trump in the most upright of all federal court districts, Washington, DC, for instigating what “Joe Biden” recently called an “erection” against our democracy. Trump, you see, told a gigantic mob of white supremacists to penetrate our nation’s capitol building so as to obstruct certification of the 2020 electoral vote and murder then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, if possible, along with all congresspersons of color. Legal experts at MSNBC, Andrew Weissmann (of the Mueller Special Counsel office), and Andy McCabe (former Deputy Director of the FBI), have already found this Trump guilty, and they know about these matters better than anybody, so the trial under Judge Tanya Chutkan may be unnecessary.

Things are not going quite so well for SC Smith in the Martin County Federal Court of Judge Aileen Cannon, where this Trump stands accused of fobbing off with classified government documents, claiming some fabricated sort of presidential privilege — unlike “Joe Biden” who got his classified docs before he was president and therefore does not have to claim any such privilege (and was understandably “forgetful” when asked about the docs by the other SC Robert Hur). In any case, AG Garland can always dispatch an FBI SWAT team to Judge Cannon’s home to spur an attitude adjustment on the bench, if required.

Hopes really rest, though, on the current case against the Grand Golem Trump in Judge Juan Marchan’s Manhattan courtroom, where the most supreme of all white supremacists stands accused of book-keeping irregularities in furtherance of federal crimes so unspeakable that they have never actually been spoken. The case, engineered by veteran DC Golem hunters Mary McCord, Norm Eisen, Lisa Monaco, and Matthew Colangelo, fronted by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, goes to the jury after final arguments this week.

Judge Marchan is expected to instruct the jury to vote guilty because no other conclusion is possible. Thus, Judge Merchan will be celebrated far and wide for saving our democracy. But that’s not all. After the most excellent verdict of guilty X-23-Plus, he will have the pleasure of sentencing this Trump to life in the Rikers Island prison complex, where it will be difficult for the Grand Golem to organize any white supremacist activities and will be relegated to a diet of baloney sandwiches for the duration of his term.

The only downside for this scenario is that Trump might get elected President of the USA despite conviction, and on January 20, 2025, commence operations to put “Joe Biden” and all the others in his train of officials in jail for the rest of their natural lives. You have to wonder if they’re thinking about that this holiday weekend.

*  *  *

Support his blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page or Substack

Weeks ago, two individuals in a box truck attempted to breach the gates at Quantico Marine Corps Base in Triangle, Virginia. Armed guards immediately stopped them, and the base's top brass quickly covered up the incident.

The reason for burying this incident? It's an election year for President Biden - and this type of news is politically explosive. The suspects were two Jordanian nationals, one a known terrorist, raising suspicions that they entered illegally through the Biden administration's open southern border, as one report says, adding this could've been a dry run for a potential vehicle-borne improvised explosive device attack.

Potomac Local News first reported the incident. Since then, the New York Post has exposed how the May 3 incident was potentially covered up, even for those on the base for two weeks. 

Matt Strickland was the first to report the incident to the local media outlet. He told NYPost, "After I [raised the alarm], I had people who work at Quantico messaging me saying, 'Holy f—k, when did this happen?" 

Great reporting from the @nypost. Shoutout to them for somehow getting my address and coming to my house to get the whole story.

That’s real journalism.

Most news outlets won’t report on this story because it shows the danger open borders cause.https://t.co/JrR2aL1G2I

— Matt Strickland (@MattForVA) May 23, 2024

He said, "Two weeks after it happened, Quantico finally put an email out to employees on base letting them know." 

"It was basically 'F—k, guys, I guess we aren't going to be able to keep this secret, we should try to do some CYA' [cover your ass]," said Strickland, a former Blackwater contractor and combat incident analyst at the National Ground Intelligence Center. 

Strickland said, "Every American has a right to know what happened at Quantico," adding, "Citizens have a right to know what is going on in their backyard." 

Why is that, you ask?

Well, as the NYPost explained:

Some reports speculated the two men arrested had recently crossed the southern border into the US, and one was on the US government's terrorist watch list.

Strickland was told one of the people involved had a Virginia ID, while the other was a terrorist. The Post has not been able to independently verify either rumor.

Both men are in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody. Authorities would not comment further, only saying the two will remain in ICE custody until deported.

Strickland continued:

"Who would they be keeping that information from? The reasoning would be so the terrorists, or whoever the Jordanians are working for, don't know all the information. But whoever those two Jordanian men are working for already know what they planned to do and that they were apprehended.

"The only people who don't know what happened are the American people."

This is why Strickland believes the incident was abruptly covered up:

"The secrecy is purposeful because it was illegal immigrants, one of who was on the terror watch list, who breached the gates. 

"And they're allowing these illegal immigrants to come across the border."

The NYPost's Editorial Board asks...

And this is not the first incident. We covered a report over the weekend of two undocumented Chechens, with one using a "telephoto lens" - taking photos outside the home of an elite US Army special forces colonel near Fort Liberty, formerly Fort Bragg, in North Carolina.

None of this should be surprising to ZH readers. The Biden administration's experiment of letting unvetted and unvaxxed illegal aliens into the nation - upwards of ten million - is truly shocking. Even the Department of Homeland Security admitted the southern border has been open to terrorists and criminals. The FBI has made similar warnings, with known terrorists apprehended on the border. 

Recall earlier this year, Ohio Sheriff Richard K. Jones warned, "There are more red flags going off now than before 9-11" thanks to open southern borders. 

Also, an Iranian intelligence officer is running around America, plotting assassination attacks against former and current government officials. 

Don't forget the countless terrorists that have already crossed the border and are unknown at this point because of open southern border policies. 

Great job, Democrats. The American people will never forget how open southern borders have fueled chaos nationwide—all because you want a new voting base. How selfish. This issue will haunt the party in the upcoming elections, as the majority of Americans are fed up.

Two Chechens with no personal identification - and who were in no US national databases, otherwise illegal aliens that likely invaded the nation through the southern border, were 'taking photos' - or possibly surveilling - outside the home of an elite US Army special forces colonel near Fort Liberty, formerly Fort Bragg, in North Carolina.

Fox News reports the colonel confronted the men, one of which was using a "telephoto lens" and taking "photos of his children" outside his home on the evening of May 3, and that's the moment when an altercation broke out, with the special forces operator shooting and killing one of the Chechens. 

The FBI told Fox News, "Our law enforcement partners at the Moore County Sheriff's Office contacted the FBI after a shooting death in Carthage. A special agent met with investigators and provided a linguist to assist with a language barrier for interviews."

Local Sheriff Ronnie Fields said, "The caller indicated that an individual was observed taking photographs on the property and had become aggressive towards a resident outside their home…. The deceased was found approximately 250 yards from the roadway, along a powerline on the residential property."

America, BUY GUNS & AMMO

Army Special Ops Soldier Has Home Invaded By Chechen Men & They Were Taking Pictures Of His Kids

“2 Chechen men who spoke broken English were found near the soldier's home”

“His family alleges the suspected intruder, 35 year old Ramzan Dariev of… pic.twitter.com/4eYcpDkhAl

— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) May 24, 2024

Over the years, special operations soldiers have seen an increase in "strange interactions" and "suspicious surveillance of them and their families," according to Fox News. Some say this is part of foreign spy programs. 

The illegal alien who was killed, 35-year-old Ramzan Daraev, was working as a subcontractor for Utilities One, but at the time of the incident, "Daraev was not in possession of any utility equipment, utility clothing, or identification," Fox News said.

Intel sources explain to Fox that "power company employment is often a cover for status/action." 

That said, we want to learn more about Utilities One. We use the risk intelligence platform Sayari, combing through public records, and find that the company is a "foreign corporation." 

Sayari data shows Serghei Busmachiu is the company's officer. Fox noted that Busmachiu founded the company in 2016, shortly after immigrating from Moldova. 

This incident is still a mystery. The biggest red flag is an illegal alien using a telephoto lens to snap photos outside the home of an elite special forces officer. Maybe if Joe Biden and the Democrats didn't flood the nation with ten million illegals, incidents like this wouldn't happen.

Also, why is a "foreign corporation" working on US critical infrastructure? 

Thre are a lot of questions here.

Authored by James Gorrie via The Epoch Times,

The cybersecurity wars between communist China and the West are raging, yet few people realize what’s really going on. That’s now changing.

The Chinese regime’s ability to launch successful cyberattacks against American and British defenses is higher than it has ever been. New attack tactics, techniques, and protocols (TTPs) developed by the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) cyber division are threatening the integrity and functionality of Western nations’ military communications, operations, and other critical systems.

(L to R) MP Tim Loughton, Sir Iain Duncan Smith, and MP Stewart McDonald during a press conference at the Centre for Social Justice in central London on March 25, 2024. The Chinese regime is believed to have targeted a group of senior MPs and peers with a fresh series of cyberattacks aimed at undermining UK democracy. (Jordan Pettitt/PA Wire)

That may be why the United States and the UK are now publicly speaking about these critical threats, warning the Chinese and other national threat actors with which they coordinate to cease these provocative attacks. To that point, American, British, and European officials have warned that the Chinese regime’s cyberattacks are both coercive and destabilizing. As an indication of just how serious those threats are, the UK summoned the Chinese ambassador as a formal response to the regime’s increasing cyber threats to the UK.

UK: Defending Against China’s Cyberattacks Is ‘Top Priority’

To underscore their concern, Anne Keast-Butler, director of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the UK’s top-tier surveillance agency, said at a security conference in England’s city of Birmingham that responding to China’s cyber activities was “a top priority” for GCHQ. This isn’t the first time the UK government has had to confront Beijing about its illegal and threatening activities in cyberspace, but of late, it’s become a much bigger problem.

In fact, last month, British Prime Minister Rushi Sunak said Chinese hackers working for the CCP were running “malicious cyber campaigns” against UK lawmakers and UK media and were also responsible for a hack on the British Armed Forces’ payments system. The prime minister spoke further about the cyber threats, saying his country faced an “axis of authoritarian states like Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China.”

What’s more, British authorities have charged three men with spying for Hong Kong’s foreign intelligence service in the UK. The men are accused of being Chinese state-sponsored hackers and stealing election data from the UK’s elections offices, as well as performing surveillance operations in the UK. Beijing stated that the case was “a fabrication.” When pressed about these and other cyber activities and the threats they pose to international norms and the security of the United States, the UK, and European countries, Beijing denied the existence of such threats, dismissing them as “absurd.”

These events put additional strains on UK relations with China.

The Volt Typhoon Threat and Beyond

These official accusations follow in the wake of the confrontation that Washington had with Beijing several weeks ago regarding its advanced “Volt Typhoon” attack. That attack involved the discovery of the long and undetected presence of Chinese infiltration into vital U.S. operational systems across a variety of verticals. It was determined that Chinese attackers had breached the networks of dozens of American critical infrastructure organizations that control electrical power, water, and both civilian and military communication systems via a widespread network of compromised servers and computers.

FBI Director Christopher Wray contends that Volt Typhoon would be used to disrupt, if not eliminate, control of the critical infrastructure systems mentioned above, as well as other strategic assets, prior to launching a military campaign against the United States or Taiwan. Again, Beijing has denied any official connection to the Volt Typhoon attack.

Hackers Penetrating US Defense Systems

However, at the Birmingham security conference, National Cyber Director Harry Coker asserted that Chinese hackers were violating U.S. defense sites in cyberspace and targeting U.S. interests at an “unprecedented scale.” Mr. Coker highlighted the severity of this threat, noting that “in a crisis or conflict scenario, China could use their pre-positioned cyber capabilities to wreak havoc in civilian infrastructure and deter U.S. military action.”

The British prime minister and the GCHQ chief emphasized their rising concerns about China’s cyberattacks and their impact on the global order. Mr. Sunak said the next few years would be “dangerous and transformational,” while Ms. Keast-Butler said that “Russia and Iran pose immediate threats, but China is the ‘epoch-defining’ challenge.”

As China’s Power Rises, So Do Attacks

However, the United States, the UK, and Europe aren’t the only targets of Chinese hackers. The Philippines has seen a fourfold rise in Chinese cyberattacks year over year as friction between the two has increased. The parallel between the Chinese regime’s growing military power and influence in the world and its rising level of cyberattacks against its adversaries can’t be overlooked. Nor can the fact that the United States and the UK feel the need to publicly point the finger at China.

Cyberattacks have occurred for decades, but this is a clear change from how they were handled in the past, when they were managed at the government level. However, with China’s apparent ability to penetrate even the most highly guarded systems, the next few years may well be, as the British observed, “destabilizing,” “transformative,” and “epoch-defining.”

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Authored by James Breslo via The Epoch Times,

The Biden administration’s experiment with a relatively open southern border has been shocking in the sheer number of people who have come across in just over three years, estimated to be about ten million. But the most shocking thing about the border policy may have just been revealed.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), headed by the impeached Alejandro Mayorkas, recently proposed a new rule. In a statement announcing the rule, DHS unwittingly revealed that it has not been doing background checks on these millions of illegal immigrants in order to immediately deport those with criminal records or terrorism ties. Instead, they have been leaving that determination until the asylum hearing, which occurs many years down the road. In the meantime, they remain in the U.S. awaiting the hearing.

First, it should be noted that the whole premise upon which these millions of illegal immigrants are permitted to enter the United States is absurd. People are free to cross almost anywhere they please along our nearly 2,000-mile southern border. They are typically not required to enter through an official entry point. Cross the desert, the mountains, or the river at a place of your choosing (or, more accurately, at the drug cartel’s choosing). No problem, we will bring border patrol to you and gladly process you right there and allow immediate entry.

They are processed and allowed in because they are being treated as refugees seeking asylum, not illegal immigrants as before. That is the hook and the key to the open border experiment. U.S. immigration law (Title VIII, Section 1158(b)) provides, “To establish that the applicant is a refugee ... the applicant must establish that race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion was or will be at least one central reason for persecuting the applicant.”

But the vast majority of these immigrants are not coming here to escape persecution. They are coming because they are poor, which has never been grounds for asylum. If they were escaping persecution, where are the reports of millions of central and south Americans being persecuted because of their race? Where are the reports of millions being persecuted because of their religion?

The vast majority of illegal immigrants will be denied asylum at their hearing years down the road because they do not qualify. But now we learn that not only does DHS allow people to remain in this country for years despite knowing they do not qualify for asylum, DHS allows known dangerous immigrants to remain here.

“Federal law bars individuals who pose a national security or public safety risk from asylum,” DHS states.

Yet, the agency acknowledges, “the asylum eligibility determination is not currently made until later in the process—at the merits adjudication stage of the asylum and withholding of removal claims.”

We know that only occurs years later. The statement announces that the “proposed rule would permit Asylum Officers to consider these bars to asylum and withholding of removal during initial credible fear screening, which happens just days after an individual is encountered.” This, according to the statement, “will allow DHS to expeditiously remove individuals who pose a threat to the United States much sooner than is currently the case, better safeguarding the security of our border and our country.”

After over three years of allowing in millions of illegal immigrants, DHS has just now come up with the idea that maybe, just maybe, it is a good idea to deport those with violent criminal histories and ties to terrorism immediately instead of after their asylum hearing years down the road.

It gets worse.

They still have not changed the policy. Incredibly, they propose this as an administrative rule change, requiring a period for public comment. Comments are due by June 12. Thus, the rule cannot even take effect until later this summer.

If President Biden can overturn former President Trump’s remain-in-Mexico order with his own order on day one, a move upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, why can he not issue another order changing this policy immediately? Of course he can, but this administration, while seeking to now look tough on illegal immigration just in time for the election, is not in any hurry to reduce the number of immigrants coming across.

According to the statement, “Noncitizens who present a national security or public safety risk remain in DHS custody while their cases are referred for full immigration hearings before an immigration judge, a process that can take years and is resource intensive.” Thus, some illegal immigrants are currently not released into the country, according to DHS. Instead, apparently, taxpayers foot the bill for their room and board for years while they await their asylum hearing, which DHS often already knows they will fail because of their criminal or terror related past.

But there is good reason to believe they are not all, in fact, detained. A DHS senior official recently told reporters on a call about the proposed rule: “I will say this is really intended to be a national security and public safety measure. And so it is intended to ensure that, again, the individuals that we are most concerned about that we encounter—people with serious criminal histories or links to terrorism—can be removed as early as possible in the process.”

If they are detained for years until their hearing as they claim, then how is this a national security and public safety issue? Clearly, because this has not always happened, and it appears DHS now realizes they have a serious security problem.

Just look at the case of Jose Ibarra, the alleged murderer of Laken Riley, a nursing student who went out for a jog on the University of Georgia campus and never returned. He was first arrested in September 2022 by Customs and Border Patrol officials near El Paso after crossing the border illegally. He came from Venezuela. He was then “paroled and released for further processing,” according to border officials. Paroled means you are free, awaiting your asylum hearing years down the road. He was put on a bus to New York. There he was arrested for endangering a minor. Since New York is a sanctuary city, ICE was not notified. He was arrested again in Athens, Georgia for shoplifting. Athens is a sanctuary city. Again, ICE was not notified. He then allegedly killed Ms. Riley.

There are no reports about his criminal record in Venezuela, but considering his criminal record over a period of months here, odds are he has one.

In likely related news, the FBI and DHS recently issued a joint public service announcement warning that foreign terrorist organizations could target events during Pride Month. In particular officials cited “ISIS messaging” focused on “anti-LGBTQIA+ rhetoric.” Why is the FBI and DHS suddenly concerned about ISIS in the U.S.? Could it be that people with ties to ISIS have crossed our southern border in the last three years?

And we learned last week that two illegal immigrants tried to drive a box truck past security guards and onto a Marine base in Quantico, Virginia earlier this month. The Potomac Local News reported that one of them is a Jordanian national who had recently crossed the border, and that at least one was on the U.S. government’s terrorist watch list. A similar incident occurred in March when an illegal immigrant from China forced his way onto a Marine base in Twentynine Palms, California.

Now that we know how DHS has been handling illegal immigrants with criminal records or terrorism ties, this all makes sense. The agency clearly has a major problem on its hands.

*  *  *

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Authored by Julie Kelly via The Florida Capital Star (emphasis ours),

FBI agents last week arrested a man from Maine for his involvement in the events of January 6. According to a Department of Justice press release, Lincoln Deming spent about 30 minutes inside the building after entering through an open door with Capitol Police standing by. Deming faces numerous charges including civil disorder and the dreaded “parading” in the Capitol misdemeanor.

The DOJ bragged in the press release about the government’s scalp count for its unprecedented prosecution of Jan 6 protesters. “More than 1,424 individuals have been charged in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol,” Matthew Graves, the Joe Biden-appointed U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, boasted. The investigation into the four-hour disturbance, Graves warned, is “ongoing.”

Indeed. The DOJ, astonishingly, is on pace to arrest one J6 protester a day this year; Graves has stated his intention to bring the total caseload to at least 2,000 defendants before the statute of limitations expires.

If DOJ Didn’t Have Double Standards, It Would Have No Standards at All…Oh Wait

At the same time, the DOJ refuses to bring federal charges against pro-Palestinian demonstrators who in many instances engaged in similar if not worse conduct inside Congressional buildings over the past six months.

Graves’ spokeswoman recently confirmed to me via email that all cases stemming from arrests of pro-Palestinian protesters are being handled by the local D.C. prosecutor.

In other words, no federal obstruction of an official proceeding indictments against those who repeatedly interrupted Senate and House hearings to protest against the Israel-Gaza war. No federal “parading” charges for demonstrators who unlawfully occupied government buildings in Washington on multiple occasions. Even demonstrators who assaulted Capitol police outside the DNC headquarters last November do not face federal charges — a shocking double-standard since hundreds of J6ers have been federally charged with assault on police, even for minor confrontations, often resulting in lengthy prison sentences and pretrial detention in several cases.

Which makes recent comments by Attorney General Merrick Garland all the more outrageous — and demonstrably false. Before two House committees voted Thursday to advance contempt of Congress against Garland for defying a congressional subpoena demanding the audio recording of Biden’s interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur last year, Garland mustered his most sanctimonious self to explain how House Republicans, not him, threaten the legitimacy of the DOJ — a “fundamental institution of our democracy,” Garland claimed. (Garland advised Biden to invoke executive privilege to prevent producing the tapes to Congress; Biden only too happily accepted his counsel.)

Garland audaciously claimed politics plays no role in determining what investigations his department pursues.

Without political influence?

If the country had a real news media instead of boot-lickers who ask Garland about his hurt feelings when people criticize the DOJ, at least one reporter would have confronted Garland about the ongoing prosecution of J6ers while letting Hamasurrectionists off the hook.

A reporter would have asked Garland how many times the DOJ seeks pretrial detention for political protesters accused of assaulting police, as the DOJ has done in dozens of J6 cases.

A reporter would have asked Garland how often the FBI conducts armed raids of Americans accused of nonviolent offenses, as the FBI has done in hundreds of J6 cases and continues to do.

A reporter would have asked Garland about the possibility the Supreme Court will reverse how his DOJ has applied a post-Enron statute against 350 or so J6ers, turning many otherwise nonviolent protesters into convicted felons.

A reporter also would have asked Garland about two recent D.C. appellate court decisions that overturned excessive sentencing requests made by the DOJ.

A reporter would have asked Garland why he authorized an armed FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago to search for classified documents but didn’t do the same for Joe Biden or Mike Pence.

A reporter would have asked Garland why he should not be held in contempt of Congress for defying a House subpoena while his prosecutors indicted both Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro — who is currently doing time in a Miami prison — for contempt after they defied subpoenas by the January 6 Select Committee.

A reporter would have asked Garland why his office just boasted about imprisoning several individuals including two women in their 70s for protesting outside a D.C. abortion clinic in 2020 while nearly all federal charges against 2020 BLM rioters have been dropped.

You get the drift.

The fascinating backdrop here is that the Biden regime and news media warn a second Trump presidency will result in a crusade of retribution and retaliation against his sworn enemies — including DOJ and FBI officials.

Given Garland’s performance as attorney general, one can only hope that’s true.

Part of Garland’s letter to Biden

Julie Kelly is an independent journalist covering the weaponization of the U.S. Government against her citizens, Follow Kelly on Twitter / X.

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

FBI agents executing a search warrant at former President Donald Trump’s home in 2022 prepared for the possibility U.S. Secret Service agents resisted the agents, according to newly unsealed court documents.

An operations plan for the raid of Mar-a-Lago in southern Florida stated that should President Trump arrive at Mar-a-Lago during the period when agents were there, FBI agents would be prepared to “engage with” him and U.S. Secret Service (USSS) agents who protect him.

If the Secret Service agents “provide resistance or interfere with FBI timeline or accesses,” then FBI officials would contact certain individuals—their names and positions were redacted—the documents stated.

The documents also stated that if Mar-a-Lago employees refused to provide a list of occupied guest rooms, FBI agents would “knock on each guest room door to determine occupation status.” Agents would request a map, list of rooms, and a skeleton key for all rooms, and were preparing to bring lock-picking equipment with them.

The documents, produced to President Trump through discovery in the criminal case against him, were placed on the docket on May 21.

President Trump’s lawyers attached the documents as exhibits to a motion asking to suppress evidence seized by agents, arguing the raid was unconstitutional.

The warrant was cleared by a U.S. magistrate judge after agents said there was probable cause to believe sensitive materials were being kept at unauthorized places at the resort. Officials said the raid would likely uncover evidence of obstruction of justice.

Agents arrived at Mar-a-Lago at 8:59 a.m. on Aug. 8, 2022, and initiated the search at 10:33 a.m.. A summary of what transpired stated that FBI leaders coordinated with local Secret Service leaders and that Secret Service agents “facilitated entry onto the premises, provided escort and access to various locations within, and posted USSS personnel in locations where the FBI team conducted searches.”

In addition to 25 FBI employees from the bureau’s Miami office, the group of DOJ personnel included five officials from Washington and two DOJ lawyers.

The group took numerous photographs, including pictures in the bedroom of former First Lady Melania Trump and a “child’s bedroom suite,” according to picture logs that were released on Tuesday.

President Trump’s lawyers said in the motion that the search was “roving and highly inappropriate,” citing how it covered a gym, a kitchen, and the bedrooms where the pictures were taken. They said the warrant was too broad and authorized agents to seize virtually any document from Mar-a-Lago.

Government officials have acknowledged they improperly seized passports and some other materials.

Agents remained on the scene until 6:39 p.m. They flew the seized evidence to Washington the following day.

President Trump after the execution of the warrant was charged with mishandling of national defense information, concealing documents, and making false statements.

Deadly Force an Option

The documents included a statement on the use of deadly force, which quoted government policy in stating that “law enforcement officers of the Department of Justice (DOJ) may use deadly force only when necessary, that is, when the officer has a reasonable belief that the subject of such force poses an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to the officer or to another person.”

Biden ordered the hit on Trump at Mar-a-Lago. pic.twitter.com/amyUysoNKU

— Rep. Paul Gosar, DDS (@RepGosar) May 21, 2024

The FBI also brought a medic and paramedic along on the raid, according to the documents, and listed the nearest trauma center in case anyone was injured during the execution of the warrant.

Agents were equipped with standard issue weapons, ammunition, handcuffs, and badges, and brought medium and large bolt cutters.

There was no basis for the FBI to bring guns into Mar-a-Lago, according to President Trump’s lawyers.

“There were no threats and no risk to agents’ safety arising from their allegations relating to possession of documents at a premises already guarded by the Secret Service,” the lawyers said.

The lawyers also argued that an FBI agent omitted relevant information from the affidavit submitted to the judge as part of the request to authorize the warrant.

The agent, for instance, “failed to disclose that presidents are not required to obtain clearances and that sensitive briefings including classified information had been provided to President Trump at Mar-a-Lago and other residences before and during his presidency,” the lawyers said.

In a DOJ filing in response to the motion, government attorneys countered the arguments.

“Regardless of Trump’s authority during his presidency, he lacked authority to possess classified documents at Mar-a-Lago after it ended and he became a private citizen. Trump’s authority to access or possess classified documents during his presidency was both obvious and immaterial to the probable cause determination regarding the retention of the documents after his presidency,” they wrote in part.

The attorneys also said that while some FBI officials did suggest seeking the consent of former President Trump to search Mar-a-Lago before seeking a warrant, his “prior obfuscation and deception up to that point” meant there was “ample reason to avoid seeking Trump’s consent, which would simply invite more deception.”

Baltimore officials announced that the "refloat and transit" of the container ship that toppled the Francis Scott Key Bridge nearly two months ago will begin around 0500 ET on Monday. 

This is video of what the #KeyBridgeCollapse site looks like today. You can see the progress—but there’s still a chunk of the Beltway on the Dali. You can also see the massive cut pieces of steel from the old Key Bridge on a salvage barge. @wjz pic.twitter.com/Rd3cSGpFfY

— Mike Hellgren (@HellgrenWJZ) May 17, 2024

Unified Command wrote in a Saturday statement:

Optimum conditions call for the transit of the M/V Dali to commence at high tide, predicted to be Monday at 5:24 a.m. The vessel will be prepared at 2 a.m., allowing the M/V Dali to catch the peak high tide for a controlled transit.

Five tugboats will tow and push the Dali about two and a half miles to the Seagirt Marine Terminal in the Port of Baltimore. The 984-foot, 106,000-ton ship will travel at one mph to the marine terminal and take an estimated three hours. 

 Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said on Sunday that the deep water shipping lane will reopen by the end of the month.

 "I'm proud that we're on track that by the end of May we'll have that federal channel reopened," Moore said on NBC's Meet the Press, adding, "And within days, we're going to have that massive vessel, the Dali, out of that federal channel."

The collision of the Dali with the bridge in the early hours of March 26 has caused severe disruptions at the port and the local economy. This incident underscores the need for state and federal governments to increase protections for critical infrastructures. 

The FBI and Coast Guard are investigating what caused the ship's loss of propulsion system minutes before the bridge strike. 

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

Former Ukrainian MP Andrey Derkach, who’s reviled by the Biden Administration for sharing dirt about Hunter Biden’s Burisma corruption scandal with Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani ahead of the 2020 elections, just gave a very important interview to Belarus’ BelTA where be blew the whistle even louder. According to him, the $6 million bribe that was paid in cash to shut down the investigation into the First Son’s scandal eventually found its way to the Ukrainian Armed Forces and its military-intelligence agency.

Derkach claimed to have proof of the secret court order that divided these funds between those two, with the first investing its portion into building up their country’s drone army while the second financed terrorist attacks like the assassination of Darya Dugina, which he specifically mentioned in the interview. These allegations expand upon the ones that he shared earlier this year regarding the real-world impact of Hunter’s corruption scandal, which were analyzed here at the time.

On the subject of Ukrainian assassinations and terrorism, Derkach said that the CIA and FBI actually condone these actions despite their public claims to the contrary, but he warned that this immoral policy will inevitably ricochet into the US itself. In particular, he cited FBI chief Christopher Wray’s testimony to Congress last April where he said that law enforcement officials fear that Crocus-like attacks are presently being plotted against their country.

About that, it shouldn’t be forgotten that Ukraine’s military-intelligence service GUR is the chief suspect of Russia’s investigation into what became one of the worst terrorist attacks in its history, thus meaning that the portion of Burisma’s $6 million bribe that made its way into their hands likely financed part of it. In other words, the third-order effect of Hunter’s corruption scandal is that it was partially responsible for the brutal murder of innocent civilians halfway across the world some years later.

That’s already scandalous enough, but Derkach shared even more details about the other indirect consequences of this cover-up into the First Son’s illicit activities, adding that some GUR-linked figures have been connected to the Western narrative about September 2022’s Nord Stream terrorist attack. He regards that story as a distraction from the US’ complicity, the view of which was elaborated upon here at the time that it entered the discourse, but lauded the CIA for the lengths it went to cover up its role.

In his view, the CIA might very well have sent a highly trained Ukrainian diving team to the Baltic Sea exactly as the Western media reported, though only to plant fake bombs. In his words, “when a cover story is made, it is done quite well. We shouldn’t belittle the experience of the CIA or the experience of MI6 in preparing cover operations. They have quite a lot of experience in using proxies, in using cover stories to form a certain position in order to dodge responsibility. This is actually what happened.”

Looking forward, Derkach expects Ukraine to attempt more terrorist attacks against Russia, which the US public is being preconditioned to accept via the CIA’s various leaks to the media. While many might lay the blame for all this on Zelensky’s lap, Derkach believes that it’s actually his Chief of Staff Andrey Yermak who’s running the show, albeit as a Western puppet. Nevertheless, he’s also convinced that the West is indeed preparing to formally replace Zelensky, but doesn’t yet know when or with whom.

Altogether, the importance of Derkach’s interview is that he’s a former veteran Ukrainian politician who still retains a lot of sources inside the regime, having served in the Rada for a whopping 22 years from 1998-2020. While his homeland charged him with treason after he fled to Russia in early 2022, which followed the US charging him with election meddling on behalf of that country in September 2020, the argument can be made that these are politically driven attempts to intimidate a top whistleblower.

The dirt that Derkach shared about Hunter’s Burisma corruption scandal, not to mention its newly revealed third-order effects that led to the brutal killing of civilians halfway across the world after part of his company’s bribe made its way into GUR’s hands, made him an enemy of the US Government. They and their Ukrainian proxies will therefore always try to discredit him with sensational allegations, but everyone would do well to listen to what he says and then make up their own minds about it.

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The U.S. Department of State on Friday issued a “worldwide caution” alert for U.S. citizens to remain alert for possible terrorist attacks or other violent actions against Americans.

In a “security alert” posted on its website, the agency said the warning was sent because of the “potential for terrorist attacks, demonstrations, or violent actions against U.S. citizens and interests.” Americans who are overseas, it added, are encouraged to use “increased caution.”

The Department of State said it is also “aware of the increased potential for foreign terrorist organization-inspired violence against” LGBT people, echoing a statement issued by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security earlier this week that terrorist groups such as ISIS could target “Pride” month-related events in June.

“Stay alert in locations frequented by tourists, including Pride celebrations and venues frequented” by those individuals, the bulletin added. It did not provide any specific details about any alleged or reported terrorist plots.

Late last year, the State Department issued a similar worldwide alert for Americans following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack in Israel that triggered the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

About a week ago, the agency issued a statement to U.S. citizens in the Middle East, cautioning them to heed a travel advisory for Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank because of active military operations in the area.

“Terrorist groups, lone-actor terrorists and other violent extremists continue plotting possible attacks in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza,” it said. “Terrorists and violent extremists may attack with little or no warning, targeting tourist locations, transportation hubs, markets [or] shopping malls, and local government facilities.”

The Israel-Hamas conflict has led to a “complex situation” that could have implications for U.S. citizens’ safety, the department said, adding that the Israel Defense Forces currently has control over the Gaza side of Rafah Crossing.

Israel has said that about 100 hostages are still captive in Gaza, along with the bodies of about 30 more. Military officials and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday said that its forces found the bodies of three Israeli hostages killed by Hamas during its Oct. 7 attack, including German-Israeli Shani Louk.

Mr. Netanyahu called the deaths “heartbreaking,” saying in a statement, “We will return all of our hostages, both the living and the dead.”

Hamas-led terrorists killed about 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and abducted about 250 others in the Oct. 7 attack. About half of those hostages have since been freed, most in swaps for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel during a weeklong cease-fire in November.

FBI and DHS Warning

In a separate bulletin, both the FBI and DHS said that groups such as ISIS, or Islamic State, might “seek to exploit increased gatherings associated” with “Pride”-related events. The terrorist threats could come via the mail, in person, or online, the agencies stated without elaborating or providing specific details.

The bulletin noted that June 12 is the eighth anniversary of the mass shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando in which 49 people died. After the incident, pro-ISIS groups “praised this attack as one of the high-profile attacks in Western countries” and “supporters celebrated it,” according to the FBI and DHS.

Both agencies also noted that in February 2023, an ISIS-related message board had included “rhetoric and rallied against the growth and promotion” of LGBT groups.

The two agencies revealed “possible indicators” of what they called “potential threat activity,” which includes “unusual surveillance or interest in buildings, gatherings, or events” as well as “unusual or prolonged testing or probing of security measures at events or venues,” violent threats made online or in person, and photography of security related equipment or personnel.

In April, the FBI announced that it had arrested an 18-year-old Idaho man for allegedly plotting to carry out a terrorist attack targeting local churches. The man, identified in court documents as Alexander Mercurio, is accused of telling an FBI informant about his alleged plans and that he wanted to carry out an attack on April 7, but he was thwarted by officials.

Meanwhile, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) earlier this week warned that an ISIS-linked human smuggling network was discovered at the U.S.-Mexico border, adding that the FBI told him about ISIS-linked “individuals who are facilitating the passage of migrants across the U.S.–Mexican border into the United States.”

Mr. Cornyn, who was speaking at a congressional hearing, added that he believes that it is only a matter of “when” and not “if” a terrorist attack is carried out on U.S. soil.

Several weeks ago, FBI Director Chris Wray said foreign terrorist groups are again looking to attack the United States in an “increasingly concerning” way, noting that his agency is attempting to prevent an attack on U.S. soil via terrorist groups such as ISIS-K, a regional branch of ISIS mainly in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“Foreign terrorists, including ISIS, al-Qaeda, and their adherents, have renewed calls for attacks against Jewish communities here in the United States and across the West in statements and propaganda,” Mr. Wray said in April.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Authored by Ryan Morgan via The Epoch Times,

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has called for U.S. federal authorities to investigate whether foreign actors are promoting contentions within the United States, including recent protests over the war in Gaza taking place on U.S. college campuses and other venues around the country.

During a Wednesday, May 15 episode of his personal podcast “The Verdict,” Mr. Cruz noted a recent report by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) alleging connections between the the “Shut It Down for Palestine” (SID4P) movement and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The NCRI report specifically alleges that convenor organizations that formed the SID4P protest movement, People’s Forum, the International People’s Assembly, and ANSWER Coalition, “serve as the conduit through which CCP-affiliated entities have effectively co-opted pro-Palestinian activism in the U.S., advancing a broader anti-American, anti-democratic, and anti-capitalist agenda.”

“If you look at this report from NCRI, it details how China is spending millions upwards of potentially $100 million funding these protests that are occurring on campuses that are shutting down bridges that are shutting down airports,” Mr. Cruz said.

“And you might think, okay, ‘What does China care about Hamas? What does China care about Israel?’ And the truth of the matter is they don’t, but they care about America, they care about tearing our country apart, they care about chaos and fomenting dissent and dissension that paralyzes our country.”

During the podcast episode, Mr. Cruz also noted a recent article by the New York Post alleging ties between Manolo De Los Santos, a 35-year-old New York-based activist involved in recent pro-Palestinian activism, and Cuba. Mr. De Los Santos was born in the Dominican Republic and now works with The People’s Forum.

Report Says Protest Group May Be Tied to Terrorist Group

The NCRI report also states some Western intelligence assessments indicate Samidoun, an organization that has endorsed SID4P, is connected to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The U.S. government has designated PFLP as a foreign terrorist organization.

The German government banned Samidoun from operating in the country in October.

The NCRI report derives its claims that Samidoun may be linked to PFLP from a November article in the German newspaper Deutsche Welle, which itself cites unnamed intelligence sources for the alleged PFLP connection.

NTD News reached out to Samidoun for comment on these allegations but did not receive a response by press time. The group did, however, publish a statement criticizing the German government’s decision to ban them in October.

“If the German Chancellor and his government support the genocidal war on Gaza being carried out as we speak, it can be no surprise that they also seek to criminalize the ability of Palestinians and people of conscience to act against that war, to speak out, to organize, and to express support for the Palestinian people’s drive and struggle for freedom, justice and liberation,” Samidoun’s October statement reads.

Samidoun said in October that it was committed to challenging the German government’s ban.

Cruz: DOJ and FBI Should Investigate

Mr. Cruz and 15 other Republican U.S. senators signed a letter last week, calling on the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to begin investigating whether various nonprofit organizations involved in organizing protests over the war in Gaza should lose their tax-exempt status on the grounds that their activities may constitute prohibit support for terrorist organizations.

The Republican Texas senator took his calls for investigation a step further during the Wednesday podcast, urging the U.S. Department of Justice to also begin investigating these activist groups.

“The Department of Justice should be investigating this. The FBI should be investigating this,” Mr. Cruz said. “We’ve got money coming from communist China, behind these protests, behind these anti-American anti-Israel protests. We’ve got money coming from organizations that have close ties to designated terrorist organizations. And so, whether it is Hamas and Hezbollah pushing this, whether it is affiliated allies of theirs pushing this, whether it is Iran pushing this, or whether it’s Communist China pushing this, the FBI ought to be all over it.”

NTD News reached out to the SID4P convenor organizations for comment about the NCRI report and Mr. Cruz’s calls for investigation but they did not respond by press time.

NTD News also reached out for comment from Mr. De Los Santos but did not receive a response.

In addition to his calls for FBI investigations, Mr. Cruz also advocated for deporting foreign nationals engaged in certain protest activities.

“As far as I’m concerned, if you have a student on a student visa, who gets out there and is burning an American flag and chanting Death to America, you should deport him that day,” Mr. Cruz said. “We have no obligation to allow people to come on student visas, which is permissive, and it is a choice that is a discretionary choice if they are going to tear down this country.”

Authored by Donald Jeffries via I Protest,

There are only so many ways one can say that America is collapsing. That the Fat Lady is nearing the end of her song. That we’re running on fumes. If Yogi Berra were around, he’d say it’s over. We had a good run, as far as civilizations go. We were the light of the world for a long time. Maybe even Reagan’s shining city upon a hill.

Yesterday, Jason Whitlock reported on one Dexter Taylor, a software engineer who was just convicted and sentenced to ten years for constructing his own guns without a license. Shades of January 6. Taylor is Black, by the way, for those of you to whom that matters. I don’t expect to see former crack dealer turned FBI informant “Reverend” Al Sharpton leading a protest about this particular Black man being a victim of injustice. Our record-setting prisons are overflowing with people like Taylor, of all races. People who most decidedly don’t belong behind bars. Having watched enough of those Investigation Discovery shows, and cops gone wild videos, I often wonder just how many actual criminals are in prison. The system devotes so much effort to framing innocent people, that they may no longer be capable of convicting truly guilty ones.

I could have titled this Substack Whistling Past the American Graveyard. Maybe I should have. But America 2.0 isn’t literally dead yet. On life support? Yes. With an almost certain terminal prognosis? Yes. I used the train wreck analogy because everywhere we look, things are wrecked. A sad vestige of what they were even a decade ago. It’s fitting that we haven’t addressed our Third World infrastructure for over sixty years. What you see is what you get now. America is in critical condition, and it looks it. You can judge this book by its cover. Give me your obese, your tattooed, your weezing, chronically ill with oxygen tanks and walkers. Wretched refuse indeed. Your endless migrants, who don’t speak English and urinate and defecate in public. What’s not to love?

A society is reflected in its leaders. And what leaders America 2.0 has! Our political “representatives” are so dedicated to not representing us that every piece of legislation they pass is assumed to be yet another figurative drone strike to the population. I’ve been a political junkie for over fifty years, and I couldn’t tell you when the last law was passed that benefited the People in the slightest way. That’s why libertarianism, and now anarchy, has become popular. The best we can hope for with these beloved statesmen (and stateswomen, and soon to be statetransgenders), is that they do nothing. That we pay them their generous salaries, and give them the lucrative benefits very few of us get, to maybe rape an underage page, or be bribed by a special interest group. Just don’t pass any legislation. Pretty please.

As I wrote recently in depth about, Americans also have to contend with the occupying force of militarized police officers. They are the standing army Thomas Jefferson warned about. They serve no function other than to annoy, harass, and sometimes kill the befuddled citizens who pay them. They are never there when you need them, and are incapable of solving any real crime. They are good at beating people (as long as you are a vulnerable target who represents no danger to them), planting evidence, and lying on their police reports. But people love them. Jolly coppers on parade, as Randy Newman called them long ago. The best you can hope for is to completely avoid any interaction with them. They are upholding the systemic corruption. Doing the bidding of their masters. Guarding the train wreck.

Our government agencies are all worthless, providing no real services other than to begrudgingly pay us back the money they stole from us (Social Security, Medicare, and Unemployment Compensation), or provide the benefits they promised (military personnel). But, like savage beasts that are always hungry, they must be fed. Paid better than those who pay them, and with much better benefits. While conservatives bemoan “welfare,” which was altered significantly under Bill Clinton, so that fewer people receive less money, they fail to see the federal government itself for what it is: a gigantic, entitled welfare recipient. Think of Reagan’s mythical Welfare Queen. Living it up with house money. Taxpayer money.

To paraphrase Rodney Dangerfield, private industry is no winner, either. Much of it would welcome back child labor. They hate the minimum wage. If we raise it, your Big Mac will cost $50 and all that. They’ve been chipping away at the best legislation of the twentieth century, the 1938 act that created the forty hour work week, overtime, sick and vacation pay. They don’t like paying their lowly serfs time and a half. Remember, this law only came about because of the pressure Huey Long put on the Left, to pass a thirty hour work week, with a month’s paid vacation for all workers. The 1938 act was a watered down version of his ideas, a compromise that was still far better than what workers had before that. Which was basically nothing. I think that 1938 act may have been the last good law, passed eighteen years before I was born.

Corporate America used to represent the epitome of conservatism. Now, they are at least as “Woke” as every government agency is. Say that men can’t have babies at your own risk. Object to some mentally unbalanced co-worker complaining that you don’t respect his/her/its ridiculous new “pronouns,” and be immediately “cancelled.” Without passing “Go” or collecting $200. Say “All Lives Matter.” Wear a MAGA hat. You’ll find that your right to “free expression” is severely restricted. I could never make it in any work environment today. Virtually every word I uttered would be a fireable offense under the “new normal.” And sociable guys like me would be in hot water constantly. Just smiling and saying “hello” to the wrong Karen is no longer permitted. Unless you’re Black. Then be as loud and vulgar as you like. Except saying “9/11 was an inside job,” or talking about the Jews in a loud voice, that is.

Our dystopian downfall might be a bit more tolerable if it had a nice soundtrack. This one doesn’t, because new music has effectively stopped. I don’t consider rap and the American Idol-inspired wailing to be rock or pop music. It’s like the Titanic going down, and the band decides to be fronted by Snoop Dogg and Cardi B. That’s not quite the same as Nearer my God to Thee. And we can’t even watch any good movies or television shows that critique or satirize the madness. That’s because this train wreck can’t even be mentioned, let alone criticized. So we’re forced to watch old movies and television shows instead. It’s a form of therapy, like digitized valium. That’s how I wind down at night. Get lost in that black and white world, with attractive people, simple values, solid acting, writing, and production values.

And then there’s the populace. Sure, there are millions of people awake now, to varying degrees. But millions more are sound asleep. If you try to act as their alarm clock, they can quickly become violent. Against all reason, they appear to like the present situation. They seem to feel there is hope for the future. They recoil at our re-pilled and black-pilled proclamations like we were holding them up at intellectual gunpoint. As e.e. cummings once chided his fellow poet Ezra Pound, who was obsessed with Jews, the Federal Reserve, and unnecessary wars, and involuntarily committed to a mental health facility for a decade by the government, “You bastard- you’re trying to get them to think!” Most people desperately don’t want to think. It’s an ignorance is bliss thing, you wouldn’t understand.

A citizenry basically has two ways to try and reform things. To abolish bad laws and “mandates,” get rid of corrupt leaders, and enact better laws that ensure better leaders. One is by the voting process. As should be obvious by this point, that isn’t an option here. ‘Murricans reelect some 96 percent of the worst people on earth to “represent” them every election. Either this is because they are incurably stupid, or because the votes aren’t honestly counted. Either way, we’re screwed. The other way is by legal redress. Judicial Review, which everyone except Thomas Jefferson, and me, seems to think is the constitutional way to do it. Donald Trump’s and Alex Jones’s show trials alone demonstrate that the legal system is hopelessly compromised, by criminally biased judges, unethical prosecutors, and brainless juries.

The judge in Dexter Taylor’s trial proclaimed that the Second Amendment didn’t exist in her court. These lordly judges seem to think that the courtroom itself is their property, that it belongs to them. Instead of “get off my lawn,” they yell, “you’re in contempt!” So the Constitution she is supposed to be upholding, which includes the Second Amendment, is irrelevant to her. That statement alone would instantly assure her removal from office in an honest society. This obviously isn’t an honest society. And it follows on the heels of all those Trump and Jones’ judges who have decreed that the First Amendment can’t be cited as a defense in their courtroom. All rise! Here comes ‘da judge, as they used to say when you could lampoon such things.

Some allegedly famous “social media influencer” named Haley Kalil, who has some ten million followers on social media, recently scoffed at the unwashed masses by quoting Marie Antoinette’s iconic “Let them eat cake.” And to think, I can’t even get 5,000 followers on the platform formerly known as Twitter. Now, it’s highly unlikely that young Haley has even heard of Marie Antoinette. She certainly doesn’t have the mental acuity to realize how that sounds. What she is representing. But some other celebrities, as crazed as they are themselves, became incensed enough at the remark to announce that they were going to subject her to the digitine- the digitalized guillotine. I’m impressed that any young celebrity knows the connection between Marie Antoinette and the guillotine. So I guess that’s a positive development.

If present-day Americans had anything of the mindset of the eighteenth century French, or the American colonists, then they would have long ago started sharpening some real guillotines. I must stress that I am not supporting guillotining anyone. I oppose capital punishment. Period. Whatever the French monarchy was doing to the masses in the late 1700s certainly cannot compare to the tyranny we see in America today, or really everywhere around the world. Taxes on tea and stamps are laughable compared to the unfair and unjust monolithic establishment present-day Americans must contend with. Someone in an American courtroom faces the same cruel and unusual punishment which is forbidden under the Constitution, every day in this country. And we still have that whole “taxation without representation” thing.

RFK, Jr.’s recent inexplicable disclosure that he had suffered from a brain worm, which caused him to lose some cognitive function, really hammered home how tragically comic things are. We have Joe Biden, so obviously suffering from dementia that he wouldn’t be trusted by the average nursing home to lead a transgender story time hour, and Donald Trump, who if you accept him at face value (which I don’t), has the emotional maturity of a twelve year old. And now Bobby, Jr. With a worm in his head. Not exactly Jefferson vs. Adams. But many- perhaps millions- still believe the “White Hats” are just around the corner. Despite no evidence of any good people in power anywhere, some still trust that they will save us.

So all aboard the American train wreck. It’s not going anywhere, but you’ll need to give your ticket to the conductor anyway. You’re forced to watch (and finance) inaction in motion. Just don’t point out it’s not moving. There are a lot of fellow passengers that will want to punch you for that. To them, it’s the best ride they’ve ever been on. Maybe they can keep this facade up a bit longer. Look what they’re doing with the stock market. Even evil magicians can work wonders. This is still the greatest country in the world. Love it or leave it. Pull yourself up by the bootstraps. Those who don’t work don’t eat. Choose your pronouns wisely. And stay on this wreck. We’re number one! And we prosecute dissenters.

Subscribe to "I Protest" by Donald Jeffries

In the early 1950s, a notorious bank robber, one of the first fugitives on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list, was asked after his capture: Why did you rob banks?

William Sutton's response: "Because that's where the money is."

Fast-forward to today. Thieves are targeting electric vehicle charging stations because the charging cords at each stall contain a 'gold mine' of copper that can easily be scrapped. 

Targeting EV charging stations is nothing new (read here). Still, thieves are noticing copper prices moving higher, mainly due to strained mining supplies and robust demand for powering up America in the digital age. And this trend might spark concern with Elon Musk, as his Tesla Superchargers are being targeted in imploding California. 

One Bay Area Supercharger Station had all charging cords severed. This is terrible news for EV drivers rolling up with low battery. 

Tesla Supercharger station in Bay Area hit by thieves with every charging cable cut pic.twitter.com/ro38DkJKqQ

— Clown World ™ ?? (@ClownWorld_) May 13, 2024

EV blog Teslarati said thieves are targeting Tesla Superchargers across several states:

 It now seems this is a new form of attack on Tesla Superchargers, as another identical incident occurred last week in Houston, Texas. Thieves also cut the charging cables in Minneapolis, Minnesota, earlier this year.

This comes as Goldman's Nicholas Snowdon has warned about the entire copper market "moving into extreme tightness." 

Prices of Copper are powering higher - preparing for a possible breakout. 

How will Musk protect Superchargers from thieves? 

More importantly, violent crime and theft are a byproduct of failed social justice warriors in progressive states and metro areas that care very little about law and order and more about the destruction of the country.

 

One day after postponing a filing deadline in Donald Trump's classified documents case, Judge Aileen M. Cannon has postponed the whole thing indefinitely.

In a Tuesday decision, Cannon vacated (canceled) Trump's May 20 trial date, and wrote that setting a new date given the enormous stack of pre-trial matters would be "imprudent."

NEW: Judge Cannon officially vacates May 20 trial date, says setting a new date with so many outstanding matters would be “imprudent.” pic.twitter.com/A8QwNmuQ6o

— Julie Kelly ???? (@julie_kelly2) May 7, 2024

On Monday, Cannon postponed a filing deadline for Trump's team to provide a list of classified documents they want to present at trial - which was supposed to be filed by this Thursday. Cannon did not announce a new deadline, perhaps the first clue into today's decision.

The move also comes after special counsel Jack Smith's team admitted that the classified files at the heart of the case had been tampered with, and they needed more time to assess that revelation.

Smith also misled the court, after originally telling U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon that the boxes remained "in their original, intact form as seized," when in a footnote they conceded that they removed classified documents and left placeholder sheets, which prosecutors acknowledged has created an "inconsistent" record - in which some of the documents are no longer in the same order as they appear in digital scans made in the fall of 2022.

"The Government acknowledges that this is inconsistent with what Government counsel previously understood and represented to the Court," the footnote reads, according to Just the News.

The finding comes after Cannon ordered a review into whether the FBI may have seized legally privileged records in response to a request from Trump co-defendant Walt Nauta.

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

The Biden administration has agreed to shut down a national security experts’ group as part of settling a lawsuit accusing the group of being politically biased in favor of Democrats.

On Sept. 19, 2023, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) launched the Homeland Intelligence Experts Group to provide advice on intelligence and national security efforts. In November, America First Legal (AFL) and former Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell sued the DHS, the group, and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, arguing that the experts group violated provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA).

Section 5 of FACA requires that an advisory committee be “fairly balanced in terms of the points of view.” It also mandates there be provisions to ensure that “the advice and recommendations of the advisory committee will not be inappropriately influenced by the appointing authority or by any special interest.”

The lawsuit noted that “the Experts Group’s members are political allies of the Biden Administration. Most members have applauded the Administration’s decisions and fervidly condemned former President Trump’s America First approach to foreign policy.”

“They have overwhelmingly donated to President Biden or other Democrats. Defendant Mayorkas selected members that are agreeable, not balanced,” it stated.

Some of the members were also signatories of a letter that dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop story as Russian disinformation.

On May 2, plaintiffs and the defendants in the case agreed to settle the matter, with the DHS agreeing to wind up the experts group in 30 days.

The group “will not hold any future meetings, and the Department will not reconstitute the Experts Group inconsistent with the FACA or the Homeland Security Act of 2002,” the joint notice of the agreement stated.

The DHS agreed to provide AFL with the group’s meeting agendas and minutes, which have to be submitted within 15 days. “Based on these representations, Plaintiffs have agreed to dismiss their lawsuit with prejudice.”

The department did not admit any wrongdoing and maintained its position that the group did not violate FACA.

“Thanks to the courage of Ric Grenell in standing up to the Deep State, we have just achieved an unqualified legal victory over Mayorkas and Biden. As a result of our lawsuit in federal court, DHS is surrendering in total to our demands,” said Stephen Miller, president of America First Legal.

The “partisan” experts group “would have been used to promote censored, unethical spying, and gross civil rights invasions of political enemies,” he added.

Mr. Grenell said that DHS “surrendered” on the issue because they knew AFL was in the right and that “Biden’s team broke the law.”

This is the second time that the Biden administration has agreed to disband an advisory group due to violating FACA provisions. In December 2022, the Department of Education disbanded its National Parents and Families Engagement Council after legal action brought by AFL and its clients.

Partisan Committee

When the DHS experts group was first announced, the panel comprised seventeen members. In its lawsuit, AFL stated that these members “do not represent a fair balance of viewpoints.”

Two of the panel members were John Brennan, a former director of the CIA, and James Clapper, former director of national intelligence. Both of them were signatories of the “Letter of 51,” using their intelligence credentials to outrightly dismiss the Hunter Biden laptop story ahead of the 2020 election.

Despite the FBI having validated the authenticity of the laptop, the letter claimed that the story had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

Another panel member, Tashina Gauhar, a former associate deputy attorney general and deputy assistant attorney general, is linked to the 2016 Trump–Russia collusion probe.

She was “extensively involved in the FBI’s corrupt, partisan probe into the baseless allegations that former President Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia before the 2016 election, including drafting the FISA applications that were used to spy on the Trump campaign,” the lawsuit noted.

Out of the 17 panel members, 13 have a history of political contributions, collectively making 945 contributions to candidates for political office that are reportable to the Federal Election Commission.

“Of those 945 contributions, 932 (98.62 percent) were made to Democrat candidates for office, while only 12 (1.27 percent) were made to Republican candidates for office,” the lawsuit stated.

“Of the 13 contributors, 9 contributed only to Democrats, whereas 1 contributed only to a Republican (with a single donation of $250). Three contributed to members of both parties, but of those, 2 were heavily lopsided in favor of Democrat candidates. The other contributor gave 8 contributions to Democrat candidates and 7 to Republican candidates.”

In total, the political contributions made by the panel members came to over $168,000 since January 2012, out of which more than $156,000 went to Democrat candidates.

On Sept. 29 after the DHS announced the experts group, GOP lawmakers had written a letter to Mr. Mayorkas, asking him to rescind appointments of people like Mr. Clapper and Mr. Brennan as they were “individuals known to spread lies and disinformation.”

A few days earlier on Sept. 26, Rep. August Pfluger (R-Tex.) introduced HR 5729 which sought to “prohibit the use of Federal funds to establish a Homeland Intelligence Experts Group and for other purposes.”

Authored by Ken Silva via Headline USA,

The tech publication Wired reported Thursday that the Three Percenter, or III%er, militia is again proliferating on Facebook ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

The Three Percenters are a national network of militias, the name being a reference to the fact that only about 3% of colonists took up arms against King George in the American Revolution. The Three Percenters were involved in both the Whitmer kidnap plot and the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill uprising.

However, what Wired didn’t mention in its report is that the Three Percenters were heavily infiltrated by the FBI. In fact, the FBI used the Three Percenters as a front group in the Whitmer plot—going so far as to have its informants run fake III%er Facebook groups.

I mean if you’re dumb enough to participate in any of these fed post operations, you only have yourself to blame at this point. https://t.co/YT9hVSjYba

— Julie Kelly ???? (@julie_kelly2) May 2, 2024

The FBI’s creation of Three Percenter Facebook pages was revealed during the first Whitmer trial in 2022.

Defense attorney Christopher Gibbons, who represented militia “ringleader” Adam Fox, said during the trial that FBI informant Steve Robeson created the Facebook page of the Michigan Three Percenters.

According to Gibbons, Robeson announced on the Three Percenters’ Facebook page that Fox had become the leader of the Michigan branch in June 2020. It was around that time that Fox became active with the Wolverine Watchmen, the group associated with the alleged plot to kidnap Whitmer.

Fox was made administrator of the Michigan Three Percenters’ Facebook page created by the FBI informants, Gibbons said.

“He got that Facebook page courtesy of the federal government,” the attorney said.

After being made administrator of the Facebook page, Gibbons said, Fox received a message from another FBI informant named “Mark.” Fox then attended a militia training event in Munith, Michigan, on June 28, 2020, Gibbons said.

The alleged plot escalated from there, until Fox was arrested along with Barry Croft, Daniel Harris, Brandon Caserta, Ty Garbin, and Kaleb Franks in October 2020.

After the arrests, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg bragged about alerting the FBI to the Whitmer plot—apparently unaware that his company was alerting the FBI to its own informants.

October 28, 2020. Zuckerberg testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee.

Facebook worked closely with the FBI to stop an FBI kidnapping plot. Bravo. pic.twitter.com/5ZGctAYtch

— MAZE (@mazemoore) April 10, 2022

More recently, The Intercept reported that FBI informant Jenny Plunk was also involved in creating the fake Michigan Three Percenters.

“FBI informant, Jenny Plunk, created a private Facebook group called ‘Michigan Patriot III%ers.’ (The FBI classifies Three Percenters as a domestic terrorism threat.),” The Intercept reported in March.

“The Facebook group’s first members were Plunk and Robeson, both on the FBI’s payroll, and Fox and his girlfriend, Amanda Keller.”

But none of that is mentioned in Wired’s article, which instead fearmongered over an apparent resurgence in extremism.

“After lying low for several years in the aftermath of the US Capitol riot on January 6, militia extremists have been quietly reorganizing, ramping up recruitment and rhetoric on Facebook—with apparently little concern that Meta will enforce its ban against them,” Wired reported.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

In the wake of a catastrophe that claimed the lives of six roadwork crew members and disrupted one of the nation’s busiest ports, Maryland has committed to a monumental task of rebuilding the Francis Scott Key Bridge. The project, set to be completed by the fall of 2028, is projected to cost between $1.7 billion and $1.9 billion, according to David Broughton, spokesperson for the Maryland Department of Transportation.

The announcement comes as state and federal agencies press forward with recovery efforts following the bridge's tragic collapse on March 26, which not only resulted in significant loss of life but also temporarily shut down the Port of Baltimore. The collapse occurred when a container ship, having lost power, struck one of the bridge’s main supports.

Fifth body recovered

Salvage operations achieved a somber milestone late Wednesday with the recovery of Miguel Angel Luna Gonzalez, 49, from Glen Burnie, Maryland, marking the last of five missing people identified after the accident. Gonzalez, along with the other victims, was working on the bridge when the disaster struck, AP reports.

Salvage teams found one of the missing construction vehicles Wednesday and notified the Maryland State Police, officials said. State police investigators and Maryland Transportation Authority Police officers and the FBI responded to the scene and recovered the body inside a red truck. The state police underwater recovery team and crime scene unit also assisted.

Governor Wes Moore expressed his condolences, reflecting the collective heartache: “We continue to pray for Miguel Angel Luna Gonzalez, his family, and all those who love him, acknowledging the anguish they have experienced since the Key Bridge collapsed. We pray for comfort, we pray for healing, and we pray for peace in knowing that their loved one has finally come home.”

The detailed engineering plans for the new bridge are still under development, with state officials emphasizing both the urgency and the complexity of the design process. The new span not only promises to restore a critical infrastructural node but also aims to be a beacon of safety and innovation to prevent future tragedies.

Meanwhile, the broker for the bridge’s insurance policy confirmed Thursday that a $350 million payout will be made to the state of Maryland in what is expected to be the first of many payouts related to the collapse.

Chubb, the company that insured the bridge, is preparing to make the $350 million payment, according to WTW, the broker. Douglas Menelly, a spokesperson for WTW, on Thursday confirmed plans for the payout, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. Chubb did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.

The Maryland Transportation Authority said Thursday that the state’s treasurer filed a claim on the day of the bridge’s collapse “against our $350 million property policy and put on notice our $150 million liability policy first tier carrier on behalf of MDTA.” -AP

The FBI, alongside Maryland State Police and the Maryland Transportation Authority Police, continues to investigate the circumstances surrounding the collapse, ensuring that the lessons learned from this tragic event will forge a safer path forward for all.

Special Counsel Jack Smith's team admitted on Friday that key evidence in Trump's classified documents case was altered or manipulated - leaving two different chronologies; one that was digitally scanned vs. what's in the actual boxes.

Smith also misled the court, after originally telling U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon that the boxes remained "in their original, intact form as seized," when in a footnote they conceded that they removed classified documents and left placeholder sheets, which prosecutors acknowledged has created an "inconsistent" record - in which some of the documents are no longer in the same order as they appear in digital scans made in the fall of 2022.

"The Government acknowledges that this is inconsistent with what Government counsel previously understood and represented to the Court," the footnote reads, according to Just the News.

The finding comes after Cannon ordered a review into whether the FBI may have seized legally privileged records in response to a request from Trump co-defendant Walt Nauta.

"Since the boxes were seized and stored, appropriate personnel have had access to the boxes for several reasons, including to comply with orders issued by this Court in the civil proceedings noted above, for investigative purposes, and to facilitate the defendants' review of the boxes," wrote Smith's team in the Friday filing.

"There are some boxes where the order of items within that box is not the same as in the associated scans," the filing continues.

The organization of the documents in storage boxes at Mar-a-Lago is likely to be an important part of Trump‘s defense. His team is expected to argue the documents were stored in the White House in chronological order on the days that Trump received them, and that staff simply boxed them up and sent them to his home without him accessing them or knowing they contained classified information.

Smith’s team tried to downplay the problem and argued it’s not a reason for a delay in Trump’s case.

But several legal experts told Just the News the court filing essentially is an admission of evidence tampering, and could be problematic. -Just the News

"Prosecutors and investigators should never tamper with or alter evidence in their possession, including the order of documents in a box because one never knows what may become relevant or crucial to a court or jury later in a case," Alan Dershowitz told Just the News.

"This admission is stunning on multiple levels," said defense attorney Tim Parlatore, who worked on Trump’s team earlier in the classified documents case but no longer is involved, adding that the revelation "reinforces the incompetence" of prosecutors "in conducting basic criminal investigations and prosecutions that I observed when I was on the team.

"But at a deeper level, the loss of specific document locations is a destruction of exculpatory evidence," Parlatore added. "I went through all of the boxes at NARA and the document order was important because it was clear to us that the boxes had been untouched since leaving the White House.

"For prosecutors who are trying to prove that the defendants knowingly possessed these documents to then destroy the evidence that would undermine that claim is a very serious violation," he said.

In response to the filing, Trump said on Truth Social that "Deranged Jack has admitted in a filing in front of Judge Cannon to what I have been saying happened since the Illegal RAID on my home ... that he and his team committed blatant Evidence Tampering by mishandling the very Boxes they used as a pretext to bring this Fake Case."

Smith's Excuses

The prosecution offered several explanations for the manipulated evidence.

"There are several possible explanations, including the above-described instances in which the boxes were accessed, as well as the size and shape of certain items in the boxes possibly leading to movement of items," reads the filing. "For example, the boxes contain items smaller than standard paper such as index cards, books, and stationary, which shift easily when the boxes are carried, especially because many of the boxes are not full."

That said, Just the News also notes that altered evidence has featured prominently in previous political scandals.

Erasure of an 18 1/2 minute segment of Richard Nixon’s White House tapes became a very important aspect of the Watergate scandal.

The Iran-Contra scandal exploded during the Reagan years with the revelation that documents were shredded before they could be obtained by investigators.

The Hillary Clinton classified email scandal became more complicated in 2015 with the revelation that her team used a "Bleach Bit" program to erase emails on her secret computer server, and had email devices destroyed. 

As Judicial Watch's Tom Fitton suggests, this is "Yet more reason to throw out this sham prosecution."

EVIDENCE TAMPERING? Biden DOJ/Jack Smith just admitted they messed with boxes supposedly containing "classified" documents they seized from Trump and can't be sure the order or placement of the documents as originally found has been maintained -- which is contrary to what they…

— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) May 3, 2024

And as the Epoch Times notes, the case was brought against President Trump and others over their alleged violation of federal law in handling documents marked classified. Defendants have pleaded not guilty.

Neither Mr. Nauta nor other defendants in the case have responded yet to the new filing.

Mr. Nauta’s request for an extension is one of many documents that are under seal, or unavailable for perusal.

In another recent filing, President Trump’s team said that the case should be dismissed because prosecutors are motivated by “improper political animus,” pointing in part to how White House lawyers worked with the National Archives and Records Administration on its referral to the Department of Justice and how President Joe Biden has said that he was “making sure” President Trump “does not become the next president again.”

Prosecutors opposed the dismissal request but their opposition was filed under seal.

Read the filing below (via Just the News): 

Authored by Caden Pearson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Former President Donald Trump docketed a brief to support his motion to dismiss the classified documents indictment against him in Florida, citing “selective and vindictive prosecution” on Thursday.

The 43-page filing contends that special counsel Jack Smith’s case against the former president “has been motivated by improper political animus.”

It cites “targeted leaks and public statements” by President Joe Biden, “urging others to prosecute President Trump.” This refers to a New York Times report from April 2, 2022, reporting that President Biden told his “inner circle that he believed former President Donald J. Trump was a threat to democracy and should be prosecuted.”

President Trump’s lawyers contend that the article amounted to presidential pressure on Attorney General Merrick Garland to “act ... more like a prosecutor who is willing to take decisive action.”

The motion details a series of events to support the former president’s arguments of a concerted effort by the Biden administration and federal agencies to target him.

It points to statements from officials at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), which is responsible for the preservation of presidential records, that the Biden administration’s “current business” was investigating the 45th president. Among other events, it cites a text message from a NARA official dated Feb. 9, 2022, stating that the classified documents have “consumed all of our discussions” with the Biden White House.

“There is evidence of vindictive political animosity focused on election interference in these proceedings, which is part of the reason why the Special Counsel’s Office is wrong in the claim that President Trump ‘does not contend that the Special Counsel himself was motivated by improper considerations,’” President Trump’s lawyers argue.

Smith Refutes Trump’s Claims

In a March 7 filing, Mr. Smith argues against President Trump’s claims that the prosecution team, influenced by political bias, is selectively targeting him for prosecution.

Prosecutors from the special counsel’s office argue that the former president hadn’t identified anyone in his motion who was engaging in similar conduct without being prosecuted and failed to provide evidence that his indictment was solely retaliatory.

“Trump contends ... that he has been subject to selective and vindictive prosecution,” the prosecution wrote. “But he has not identified anyone who has engaged in a remotely similar battery of criminal conduct and not been prosecuted as a result.

“He has likewise failed to provide any evidence that his indictment was brought solely to retaliate against him for exercising his legal rights, rather than because he flagrantly and repeatedly broke the law,” the prosecution continued.

Meanwhile, President Trump’s legal team has given Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, a list of other former government officials who they say engaged in similar alleged misconduct, including the mishandling of classified information.

Among them are President Biden, former Vice President Mike Pence, former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, former President Bill Clinton, and the FBI’s former director James Comey.

However, with respect to the alleged misconduct of these officials, President Trump’s team asserted in a February motion that “no one in the government lifted a finger” to prosecute them.

“Collectively, this history of non-prosecution and leniency for similarly situated individuals and others strongly supports President Trump’s motion based on intolerable and unconstitutional selective and vindictive prosecution,” the motion reads.

President Trump’s lawyers argued again on Thursday that, on its face, these specific comparators are enough to establish a case of selective and vindictive prosecution.

The former president’s legal team asked the judge for further investigation through discovery and a hearing to examine the allegations of selective prosecution.

Trump ‘The Exception’

Special counsel Robert Hurr declined to press charges against President Biden in February, despite finding evidence that he retained and disclosed highly classified materials when he was a private citizen.

According to Mr. Hur’s report from February, there is no precedent for prosecuting former presidents or vice presidents for mishandling classified documents from their own administrations, with one exception.

“The exception is President Trump,” the February motion reads.

“The basis is his politics and status as President Biden’s chief political rival,” the motion continues. “Thus, this case reflects the type of selective and vindictive prosecution that cannot be tolerated. Accordingly, further discovery and a hearing are necessary, and the Superseding Indictment must be dismissed.”

President Trump’s legal team cited Mr. Hur’s report in a bid to exonerate him from charges. On the other hand, the prosecution claims that the former president was the only one who participated in a “multifaceted scheme of deception and obstruction” to prevent the safe return of those documents.

The former president argues that the special counsel’s office is trying to influence the general election by pursuing “two lawless prosecutions,” which have been initiated at the urging of the Biden administration.

“[T]he Special Counsel’s Office seeks to ‘become a de facto campaign voice for the Democrats in the general election,’ and Jack Smith is ‘probably less concerned now with whether a Trump conviction will survive appeal than with whether Trump can be convicted ahead of the November 2024 election,’” the February motions reads.

“No sitting President has ever successfully pressed for the prosecution of a former President, and his chief political rival, the way that President Biden did—proudly and publicly—in 2022,” President Trump’s lawyers contend. “NARA has never targeted a former President in the way that the agency targeted President Trump. No law enforcement body has ever raided a former President’s home. DOJ has never even used civil remedies against a former President.”

President Trump’s defense had previously sought to have the case thrown out based on the Presidential Records Act (PRA), but Judge Cannon rejected this argument on April 4.

Mr. Smith had indicted President Trump and aide Walt Nauta in June 2023, alleging mishandling of over 300 classified documents. The charges against the former president include 31 counts of violating the Espionage Act, along with various other counts related to obstruction of justice, withholding documents, and making false statements.

The Epoch Times contacted Mr. Smith’s office for comment.

Authored by Paul D. Thacker via The Disinformation Chronicle,

Some of the shine on the disinformation industry has gone dull in recent years, as many misinformation experts having been caught trafficking in misinformation themselves, or exposed for their ties to intelligence agencies. This should not come as a shock.

It’s a basic tenet of “mirror politics” and practitioners of propaganda to accuse others of the very same actions they plan to commit.

In late 2018, the New York Times and Washington Post reported on a leaked document discussing a secret project by Democratic Party operatives that falsely accused Republican candidate Roy Moore of support by Russians, while he was running in a tight race for the Senate in Alabama. The scheme linked the Moore campaign to thousands of Russian accounts on Twitter and drew national media attention.

“We orchestrated an elaborate ‘false flag’ operation that planted the idea that the Moore campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet,” the New York Times reported that the leaked documents stated.

The documents linked a relatively unknown company called New Knowledge to the Alabama disinformation campaign, although New Knowledge’s chief executive Jonathon Morgan said the company was not involved, and he worked on “Project Birmingham” in his personal capacity. Morgan also reached out at the time to Renee DiResta, a self-styled expert on disinformation, who told the New York Times she disagreed with such tactics, and later joined New Knowledge sometime, but only after Project Birmingham ended.

New Knowledge later changed names to Yonder, while DiResta joined Stanford University as an expert in disinformation. However, New Knowledge could not stop landing in the media spotlight.

2) New Knowledge filled w/ former NSA agents who explained the game to Betsy Depuis while out for drinks:
NSA cannot violate the Constitution, so they hire contractors to do their dirty work of spying on Americans and censoring them. pic.twitter.com/IngIwmHQCw

— Paul D. Thacker (@thackerpd) May 1, 2024

In early 2023, journalist Matt Taibbi released a “Twitter Files” drop about “Hamilton 68,” a public dashboard created by New Knowledge. Hamiton 68 tracked hundreds of Twitter accounts to monitor the spread of purported pro-Russian propaganda online, but screenshots of emails sent by former Twitter executive, Yoel Roth, voiced alarm that the dashboard was creating, not tracking disinformation.

“I think we need to just call this out on the bullshit it is,” Roth wrote.

The “Hamilton 68” dashboard had spurred dozens of stories in major media outlets that accused conservatives of trafficking in Russian disinformation, but when Twitter looked into the dashboard’s accuracy, they found it was garbage in, garbage out.

Former FBI counterintelligence official Clint Watts headed the Hamilton 68 dashboard and Jonathon Morgan of New Knowledge had helped to build it, along with J.M. Berger at the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD), housed by the German Marshall Fund.

“No evidence to support the statement that the dashboard is a finger on the pulse of Russian information ops,” one Twitter official wrote of Hamilton 68.

The internal Twitter emails were so damaging that the Washington Post later posted corrections to multiple stories that reported on Hamilton 68 and its findings.

But every story about disinformation elites caught creating disinformation contains critical missing facts and minor elements of disinformation planted by the very experts being exposed. New Knowledge is no different.

Starting a month ago, I began discussing what the media got wrong about New Knowledge and Hamilton 68 with Betsy Dupuis, a former New Knowledge employee who worked on Hamilton 68. Dupuis tells me she was fired from New Knowledge after expressing misgivings upon discovering the company that branded itself  “the world’s first platform for defending online communities from social media manipulation” was itself engaging in blatant social media manipulation.

To back up her claims, Dupuis provided internal documents and photos from her time at New Knowledge, as well as screenshots of texts messages. Some of those we are publishing today.

New Knowledge poached Dupuis from another company and set her to work improving the Hamilton 68 dashboard, which was planned as a product for groups aligned with the Democratic Party. The development was underwritten with a year of funding by the Center for American Progress, a think tank and lobby shop run by party political operatives.

Dupuis says she enjoyed her work updating Hamilton 68, but she became concerned when people in the office discussed the “Alabama Project” and she began wondering if this had anything to do with Roy Moore, a Republican candidate running for Senate. When she had joined the company, Jonathon Morgan had assured her that New Knowledge would only monitor, never create disinformation.

But then several former employees from the National Security Agency (NSA) joined New Knowledge.

Out for company drinks, former NSA employees explained to Dupuis how agencies get around federal laws that ban the U.S. government from spying on and censoring Americans: they contract with companies like New Knowledge to do their dirty work. By the time New Knowledge announced they had secured a Department of Defense contract to create automated disinformation, Dupuis had had enough.

She met with Jonathon Morgan to discuss her concerns and was fired days later.

Speaking with me from her home in Austin, Dupuis says that neither Jonathon Morgan, nor Stanford’s Renee DiResta have come clean with journalists about what happened in Alabama to create disinformation during an American election. But she says she is tired of being scared and the time has come for her to speak up. “Silence doesn’t buy you safety, Dupuis says. “People will still come after you because of what you know.”

“I just kept quiet, until now, because I didn’t want to be accused of spreading a conspiracy theory,” Dupuis tells The DisInformation Chronicle. “After I was fired, I was just like, ‘You know what? This is so crazy. Nobody's ever going to believe me. I'm never going to talk about this again.’”

Jonathon Morgan did not return multiple requests for comment sent to his current job and personal cell phone number. This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

*  *  *

THACKER: What caused you to get fired at New Knowledge?

DUPUIS: When they hired me, they said that we would never do disinformation. And I felt the grounds I'd been hired on had been violated. So I went to Jonathon Morgan, who was the CEO. I had a good relationship with him, or at least I thought I did.

I told Jonathon, “Hey, this is unethical. I'm concerned about this.”

I knew there were other people who were also concerned, very disturbed about what was going on, but I didn't bring them up.

I told Jonathon, “You said we would track disinformation, but we wouldn't do disinformation.”

And he told me, “If we don't do it, somebody else will.”

Which sounds like a very classic James Bond villain. What a great way of revealing your evil plan.

THACKER: This conversation happens on a Friday, night. Then what happens to you on Monday?

DUPUIS: Well, I went home, and at this point, I really didn't want to work there anymore. I had already been talking to friends about this, and I went out to the lake with a friend.

I got a message from Sandeep Verma that I needed to come in at—I think it was 8 a.m.—which is really early in tech time. This was very confusing, so I asked if they wanted to do it remote, but I was told I needed to come in early on Monday.

They had hired this really young women to be, I think it was VP of Marketing, but also HR. She was a nepo baby: her parents had given her a bunch of money to start a fashion line that failed. And now she's an executive at my tech company.

She and Sandeep are there, and Sandeep… I don't know, he was trying to look really positive, but he looked sad also.

He said, “We're letting you go. We no longer need the position. We're going to give you a month severance if you sign this NDA.” I had to sign the NDA right there on the spot, before I left, or else I wouldn’t get severance.

I told him, “I left another job to come to this company.” He said he knew, and then I signed it and left. If they want to come after me for doing this interview, I was coerced to sign the NDA.

I felt pressured to sign it. I didn't really have a choice because of how insane things were. What am I supposed to do? Not take the severance, and not be allowed to collect unemployment because I refused to sign their agreement and then maybe tell people that there's a conspiracy going on.

THACKER: Right?

DUPUIS: What happened was so crazy. Things that people would not believe is true.

DUPUIS: I'm mid-thirties, so that puts me smack dab in the middle of millennial territory, and I grew up with internet. I was one of those kids that learned to make their own web pages and interact with the internet even before Myspace.

THACKER: When I started at UC Davis in 1994, that was the first year that University of California students were required to have an email. I learned how to type having discussions on a UC Davis chat group.

When people started to come out with this idea, about seven years back, that they had discovered there was “disinformation” on the internet, I was like, “Wait, I've been on the internet for decades. From the very beginning I saw people behave like assholes and throw crap up on the internet.”

DUPUIS: Well, there was this progression from “Do not use anything from the internet for any paper; it has to be from Ebsco or Britannica. Some trusted encyclopedia.”

You were supposed to vet sources. Now with Gen Z kids, they don't even know what plagiarism is.

THACKER: So you started off at around age ten. You're on the computer, but it was still kind of a thing for weird dudes in the basement.

DUPUIS: I kept it kind of a secret, and then MySpace came out when I was in high school. But the internet was still for nerds. I gave up pursuing a career in programing because my parents had read a bunch of articles in newspapers saying that the internet was a fad.

THACKER: But you still got involved.

DUPUIS: I got into photography in high school, and I started shooting for iStockphoto which was an early internet start-up in online stock photography. Before them, you had to order a stock photo catalog.

I was doing work for them when I was teenager making like $1,000 a month, which for a high school kid is a hell of a lot of money. I could rent an apartment $300 at the time. I thought this is going to be my job. And then the stock market crashed in 2007 and everything went away.

So, I went to college and studied art, and when I graduated the market still really sucked.

I went to go visit some friends during South by Southwest—the big music festival in Austin—to see about jobs and opportunities in 2012.

I was like, “I’m moving here.” I was kind of homeless for about a year, worked for a few random start-ups, and became part of this industry.

THACKER: But then you land your dream job at New Knowledge.

DUPUIS: I would not say it was a dream job. I was really skeptical of this company to begin with.

THACKER: You’re this young woman working in the tech industry in Austin. Why New Knowledge?

DUPUIS: I was at an oil and gas data analytics company that owned some old data sets which are very valuable. My title was software engineer, but I was working mostly as a designer, building the front end of the software. I was designing a dashboard that allowed you to build reports and interface with their data. It wasn't super advanced stuff.

It was fine, but then New Knowledge reached out to me on Angel List and, when I met with them, they were immediately ready to hire me.

I think New Knowledge was interested in me because, “Oh, you can do some of the programing, but then you can also know how data works and can do the data visualization stuff.”

I think that's what I was qualified to do for New Knowledge, but I wasn't really qualified to do this disinformation stuff.

THACKER: Did you research them to find out what they were all about?

DUPUIS: I'd never heard of them before and the politics they were involved in. My way of looking into politics was going on Facebook and subscribing to every spectrum of political ideology: Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Green Party, whatever. I just read whatever because I wanted to see what everybody was thinking.

Politics was not a big deal to me, but I would casually absorb things. I knew that Russian disinformation was in the news, and stuff about Trump.

THACKER: Of course, you knew about Russian disinformation and Trump, because that's all the media wrote about for four years.

DUPUIS: Yes. But it wasn’t something I really followed. I just wanted to have intelligent conversations about what was in the news.

New Knowledge told me they do all this stuff with disinformation. Jonathon had some State Department role under the Obama administration. Sandy was a friend from high school or something from their time in Houston. He was the Chief Technical Officer (CTO.) I guess you know how that works, right?

THACKER: Well, no. From what I understand about the tech industry, people get these jobs they’re not really qualified for, but they know someone, or have some weird skill that nobody else has in the office. The programming guy who likes talking to people can suddenly become head of marketing.

I get the sense that titles are very nebulous in tech start-ups.

DUPUIS: Sandy had a degree, and I think he was serious about being a tech guy. But I don't think he had the work experience to be a CTO. But that's often the case at start-ups.

They told me about their funding and trying to get all these contracts with companies that were doing this disinformation thing. I had a vague idea about this stuff from what I was reading about Trump and just from being online for so long.

People make stuff up.

But they said they were going to build this AI tool and I was kind of skeptical.

I previously worked at a company that had done some AI thing back in 2013. A lot of times people tell you they have artificial intelligence to do some chore, but it’s really just a bunch of humans doing all the work. Which is really expensive.

Eventually, you get found out

THACKER: There’s a lot of nonsense and pretense in tech. Amazon dropped their "Just Walk Out" AI technology which automated what you bought. It was really just 1,000 workers in India acting as remote cashiers.

DUPUIS: These companies pretend to have computer automated intelligence, but it's a sham. Real people do the work it because they don't know how to make software good enough to automate the task.

So I was a little bit skeptical of that, but they had all these PhDs so maybe they could make it work. I asked, “Hey, will you guys ever want to do disinformation?”

And they said, “No, it's completely against our ethics.” I also asked if they were only going to point out disinformation whenever Republicans do it, or when both sides do it.

And they said, “We're bipartisan. In fact, we have Republicans that we've worked with for a long time.”

THACKER: How was their business set up? Who was funding them?

DUPUIS: DARPA. Jonathon had gotten his seed money from DARPA, and he had actually been through several iterations of trying to get the company off the ground. Apparently, a whole other set of co-founders had left the company. I can’t remember why.

He had a podcast called Partially Derivative and some nonprofit organization called Data for Democracy.

There was a weird thing with people in the office, people that weren't in the office, people working as contractors. Some of the contractors had this aura around them. The same as what I've heard of Renee DiResta: “We're just really passionate about disinformation!”

One contractor was just involved in building scrapers.

THACKER: Explain what scraping means. I think it means an automated system to go out and collect or scrape data off the internet, instead of doing it manually.

DUPUIS: Instead of having a person go and copy/paste everything from a website, you use a computer that collects all the data.

I knew someone who had a scraping company that the State Department, FBI and other agencies use, and they could have saved a lot of money using him. Instead, they hired this contractor to learn how to scrape Twitter.

Twitter kept denying New Knowledge access to scrape, because it costs them money when you’re pulling too much data, and they didn't have an established partnership. New Knowledge was using a lot of their bandwidth.

THACKER: Tell me about working on the Hamilton 68 disinformation dashboard.

DUPUIS: We eventually had a meeting with J.M. Berger with the German Marshall Fund. There were other people on the Zoom, but the German Marshall Fund had done this dashboard and I was supposed to redesign it.

It was ugly and looked like a programmer designed it. I was supposed to repackage it into a better dashboard and allow them to sell that as a product. They were going to sell it to the Center for American Progress.

THACKER: Just to let readers know, the Center for American Progress (CAP) is a Democratic Party think tank and lobby shop. They're most famous for being the ones who basically ran Hillary Clinton's campaign in 2016. Simon Clark is a former member of CAP who now chairs the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a bogus “disinformation group” that works closely with the Biden Administration.

According to your notes from the time, the lead on this dashboard redesign at CAP was Casey Michel, who worked at their news site, Think Progress. Another was Andrew Weisburd, who was working at the German Marshall Fund and is now at Microsoft’s Threat Context.

And in the dashboard deliverables you were given, it says that J.M. Berger, who also had ties to the Brookings Institute, was developing the communities or lists of people to track.

What did the German Marshall Fund want you to make better?

DUPUIS: The dashboard was called Hamilton 68 because it had something to do with Alexander Hamilton, some paper he wrote, or something esoteric. You know how people name something after some esoteric fact to make it sound important?

THACKER: Right.

DUPUIS: The German Marshall Fund owned Hamilton 68, which was something Jonathon Morgan had built for them. I think with his previous business partners.

J.M. Berger was there because he was somehow involved with the Center for American Progress getting their own version. They were going to launch it on Think Progress, which was CAP’s news organization, but is now defunct.

I wrote specifically in my notes that Center for American Progress was giving us 12 months of funding. I don't know what that meant in terms of actual money.

THACKER: I’m gonna guess that Center for American Progress won’t tell me how much funding they were putting out for this. (The Center for American Progress did not respond to questions asking how much money they provided to upgrade Hamiltion 68 and whether they still use the system.)

DUPUIS: My job was to take Hamilton 68 and repackage it with a better design. I think I did a good job of it.

THACKER: What did this upgraded Hamilton 68 allow them to do?

DUPUIS: They could observe emerging trends on Twitter, trending hashtags, trending topics and track what people were linking to.

Click here to continue reading...

Authored by Aaron Maté via RealClear Investigations,

In successfully lobbying Congress for an additional $61 billion in Ukraine war funding, an effort that ended this month with celebratory Democrats waving Ukrainian flags in the House chamber, President Biden has cast his administration’s standoff with Russia as an existential test for democracy.

“What makes our moment rare is that freedom and democracy are under attack, both at home and overseas,” Biden declared in his State of the Union address in March. “History is watching, just like history watched three years ago on January 6th.”

While Biden’s narrative is widely accepted by Washington’s political establishment, a close examination of the president and his top principals’ record dating back to the Obama administration reveals a different picture. Far from protecting democracy from Kyiv to Washington, their role in Ukraine looks more like epic meddling resulting in political upheaval for both countries.

Over the last decade, Ukraine has been the battleground in a proxy war between the U.S. and Russia – a conflict massively escalated by the Kremlin’s invasion in 2022. The fight erupted in early 2014, when Biden and his team, then serving in the Obama administration, supported the overthrow of Ukraine’s elected president, Viktor Yanukovych. Leveraging billions of dollars in U.S. assistance, Washington has shaped the personnel and policies of subsequent Ukrainian governments, all while expanding its military and intelligence presence in Ukraine via the CIA and NATO. During this period, Ukraine has not become an independent self-sustaining democracy, but a client state heavily dependent on European and U.S. support, which has not protected it from the ravages of war.

The Biden-Obama team’s meddling in Ukraine has also had a boomerang effect at home.

As well-connected Washington Beltway insiders such as Hunter Biden have exploited it for personal enrichment, Ukraine has become a source of foreign interference in the U.S. political system – with questions of unsavory dealings arising in the 2016 and 2020 elections as well as the first impeachment of Donald Trump. After years of secrecy, CIA sources have only recently confirmed that Ukrainian intelligence helped generate the Russian interference allegations that engulfed Trump’s presidency. House Democrats' initial attempt to impeach Trump, undertaken in the fall of 2019, came in response to his efforts to scrutinize Ukraine’s Russiagate connection.

This account of U.S. interference in Ukraine, which can be traced to fateful decisions made by the Obama administration, including then-Vice President Biden and his top aides, is based on often overlooked public disclosures. It also relies on the personal testimony of Andrii Telizhenko, a former Ukrainian diplomat and Democratic Party-tied political consultant who worked closely with U.S. officials to promote regime change in Ukraine. 

Although he once welcomed Washington’s influence in Ukraine, Telizhenko now takes a different view. “I'm a Ukrainian who knew how Ukraine was 30 years ago, and what it became today,” he says. “For me, it's a total failed state.” In his view, Ukraine has been “used directly by the United States to fight a [proxy] war with Russia” and “as a rag to make money for people like Biden and his family.”

The State Department has accused Telizhenko being part of a "Russia-linked foreign influence network." In Sept. 2020 it revoked his visa to travel to the United States. Telizhenko, who now lives in a western European country where he was granted political asylum, denies working with Russia and says that he is a whistleblower speaking out to expose how U.S. interference has ravaged his country. RealClearInvestigations has confirmed that he worked closely with top American officials while they advanced policies aimed at severing Ukraine’s ties to Russia. No official contacted for this article – including former CIA chief John Brennan and senior State Department official Victoria Nuland – disputed any of his claims.

A Coup in 'Full Coordination' With the U.S.

The Biden team’s path to influencing Ukraine began with the eruption of anti-government unrest in November 2013. That month, protesters began filling Kyiv’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) after then-President Viktor Yanukovych, a notoriously corrupt leader, delayed signing a European Union (EU) trade pact. To members of what came to be known as the Maidan movement, Yanukovych’s decision was a betrayal of his pledge to strengthen Western ties, and a worrying sign of Russian allegiance in a country haunted by its Soviet past.

The reality was more complex. Yanukovych was hoping to maintain relations with both Russia and Europe – and use competition between them to Ukraine’s advantage. He also worried that the EU’s terms, which demanded reduced trade with Russia, would alienate his political base in the east and south, home to millions of ethnic Russians. As the International Crisis Group noted, these Yanukovych-supporting Ukrainians feared that the EU terms “would hurt their livelihoods, a large number of which were tied to trade and close relations with Russia.” Despite claims that the Maidan movement represented a “popular revolution,” polls from that period showed that Ukrainians were evenly split on it, or even majority opposed.

After an initial period of peaceful protest, the Maidan movement was soon co-opted by nationalist forces, which encouraged a violent insurrection for regime change. Leading Maidan’s hardline contingent was Oleh Tyahnybok of the Svoboda party, who had once urged his supporters to fight what he called the “Muscovite-Jewish mafia running Ukraine.” Tyahnybok’s followers were joined by Right Sector, a coalition of ultra-nationalist groups whose members openly sported Nazi insignia. One year before, the European Parliament condemned Svoboda for “racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic views” and urged Ukrainian political parties “not to associate with, endorse or form coalitions with this party.”

Powerful figures in Washington took a different view: For them, the Maidan movement represented an opportunity to achieve a longtime goal of pulling Ukraine into the Western orbit. Given Ukraine’s historical ties to Russia, its integration with the West could also be used to undermine the rule of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

As the-late Zbigniew Brzezinski, the influential former national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, once wrote: “Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire.” Two months before the Kyiv protests erupted, Carl Gershman, head of the National Endowment for Democracy, dubbed Ukraine “the biggest prize” in the West’s rivalry with Russia. Absorbing Ukraine, Gershman explained, could leave Putin “on the losing end not just in the near abroad" – i.e, its former Soviet satellites – "but within Russia itself.” Shortly after, senior State Department official Nuland boasted that the U.S. had “invested more than $5 billion” to help pro-Western “civil society” groups achieve a “secure and prosperous and democratic Ukraine.”

Seeking to capitalize on the unrest, U.S. figures including Nuland, Republican Sen. John McCain, and Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy visited Maidan Square. In a show of support for the movement’s hardline faction, which went beyond supporting the EU trade deal to demand Yanukovych’s ouster, the trio met privately with Tyahnybok and appeared with him on stage. The senators' mission, Murphy said, was to “bring about a peaceful transition here.”

The Maidan Movement’s most significant U.S. endorsement came from then-Vice President Joe Biden. “Nothing would have greater impact for securing our interests and the world’s interests in Europe than to see a democratic, prosperous, and independent Ukraine in the region,” Biden said.

According to Andrii Telizhenko, a former Ukrainian government official who worked closely with Western officials during this period, the U.S. government’s role went far beyond those high-profile displays of solidarity.

“As soon as it grew into something, into the bigger Maidan, in the beginning of December, it basically was full coordination with the U.S. Embassy,” Telizhenko recalls. “Full, full.”

When the protests erupted, Telizhenko was working as an adviser to a Ukrainian member of Parliament. Having spent part of his youth in Canada and the United States, Telizhenko’s fluent English and Western connections landed him a position helping to oversee the Maidan Movement’s international relations. In this role, he organized meetings with and coordinated security arrangements for foreign visitors, including U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt, Nuland, and McCain. Most of their briefings were held at Kyiv’s Trade Unions Building, the movement’s de-facto headquarters in the city’s center.

Telizhenko says Pyatt routinely coordinated with Maidan leaders on protest strategy. In one encounter, the ambassador observed Right Sector members assembling Molotov cocktails that would later be thrown at riot police attempting to enter the building. Sometimes, the U.S. ambassador disapproved of his counterparts’ tactics. “The U.S. embassy would criticize if something would happen more radical than it was supposed to go by plan, because it's bad for the picture,” Telizhenko said..

That winter was marked by a series of escalating clashes. On February 20, 2014, snipers fatally shot dozens of protesters in Maidan square. Western governments attributed the killings to Yanukovych's forces. But an intercepted phone call between NATO officials told a different story.

In the recorded conversation, Estonian foreign minister Urmas Paet told EU foreign secretary Catherine Ashton that he believed pro-Maidan forces were behind the slaughter. In Kyiv, Paet reported, “there is now stronger and stronger understanding that behind the snipers, it was not Yanukovych, but it was somebody from the new [opposition] coalition.”

In a bid to resolve the Maidan crisis and avoid more bloodshed, European officials brokered a compromise between Yanukovich and the opposition. The Feb. 21 deal called for a new national unity government that would keep him in office, with reduced powers, until early elections at year’s end. It also called for the disarmament of the Maidan forces and a withdrawal of riot police. Holding up its end of the bargain, government security forces pulled back. But the Maidan encampment's ultra-nationalist contingent had no interest in compromise.

“We don’t want to see Yanukovych in power,” Maidan Movement squadron leader Vladimir Parasyuk declared that same day. “… And unless this morning you come up with a statement demanding that he steps down, then we will take arms and go, I swear.”

In insisting on regime change, the far-right contingent was also usurping the leadership of more moderate opposition leaders such as Vitali Klitschko, who supported the power-sharing agreement.

“The goal was to overthrow the government,” Telizhenko says. “That was the first goal. And it was all green-lighted by the U.S. Embassy. They basically supported all this, because they did not tell them to stop. If they told them [Maidan leaders] to stop, they would stop.”

Yet another leaked phone call bolstered suspicions that the U.S. endorsed regime change. On the recording, presumably intercepted in January by Russian or Ukrainian intelligence, Nuland and Pyatt discussed their choice of leaders in a proposed power-sharing government with Yanukovich. Their conversation showed that the U.S. exerted considerable influence with the faction  seeking the Ukrainian president’s ouster.

Tyahnybok, the openly antisemitic head of Svodova, would be a “problem” in office, Nuland worried, and better “on the outside.” Klitschko, the more moderate Maidan member, was ruled out as well. “I don’t think Klitsch should go into government,” Nuland said. “I don’t think it’s necessary. I don’t think it’s a good idea.” One reason was Klitschko's proximity to the European Union. Despite her government’s warm words for the European Union in public, Nuland told Pyatt: “Fuck the EU.”

The two U.S. officials settled on technocrat Arseniy Yatsenyuk. “I think Yats is the guy,” Nuland said. By that point, Yatsenyuk had endorsed violent insurrection. The government’s rejection of Maidan demands, he said, meant that “people had acquired the right to move from non-violent to violent means of protest.”

The only outstanding matter, Pyatt relayed, was securing “somebody with an international personality to come out here and help to midwife this thing.” Nuland replied that Vice President Joe Biden and his senior aide, Jake Sullivan, who now serves as Biden’s National Security Adviser, had signed on to provide “an atta-boy and to get the deets [details] to stick.”

Just hours after the power-sharing agreement was reached, Nuland’s wishes were granted. Yanukovich, no longer protected by his armed forces, fled the capital. Emboldened by their sabotage of an EU-brokered power-sharing truce, Maidan Movement members stormed the Ukrainian Parliament and pushed through the formation of a new government. In violation of parliamentary rules on impeachment proceedings, and lacking a sufficient quorum, Oleksandr Turchynov was named the new acting president. The Nuland-backed Yatsenyuk was appointed Prime Minister.

In a reflection of their influence, at least five post-coup cabinet posts in national security, defense, and law enforcement were given to members of Svoboda and its far-right ally Right Sector.

“The uncomfortable truth is that a sizeable portion of Kyiv’s current government – and the protesters who brought it to power – are, indeed, fascists,” wrote Andrew Foxall, now a British defense official, and Oren Kessler, a Tel Aviv-based analyst, in Foreign Policy the following month. While denying any role in Yanukovich’s ouster, the Obama administration immediately endorsed it, as Secretary of State John Kerry expressed “strong support” for the new government.

In his memoir, former senior Obama aide Ben Rhodes acknowledged that Nuland and Pyatt “sounded as if they were picking a new government as they evaluated different Ukrainian leaders.” Rather than dispel that impression, he acknowledged that some of the Maidan “leaders received grants from U.S. democracy promotion programs.”

In 2012, one pro-Maidan group, Center UA, received most of its more than $500,000 in donations from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the National Endowment for Democracy, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, and financier George Soros.

By its own count, Soros’ International Renaissance Foundation spent over $109 million in Ukraine between 2004 and 2014. In leaked documents, a former IRF board member even bragged that its partners “were the main driving force and the foundation of the Maidan movement,” and that without Soros’ funding, “the revolution might not have succeeded.” Weeks after the coup, an IRF strategy document noted, “Like during the Maidan protests, IRF representatives are in the midst of Ukraine’s transition process.”

Jeffrey Sachs, a Columbia University professor who advised Ukraine on economic policy in the early 1990s, visited Kyiv shortly after the coup to consult with the new government. 

“I was taken around the Maidan where people were still milling around,” Sachs recalls. “And the American NGOs were around there, and they were describing to me: ‘Oh we paid for this, we paid for that. We funded this insurrection.’ It turned my stomach.” Sachs believes that these groups were acting at the behest of U.S. intelligence. To go about “funding this uprising,” he says, “they didn't do that on their own as nice NGOs. This is off-budget financing for a U.S. regime-change operation.”

Weeks after vowing to bring about a “transition” in Ukraine, Sen. Murphy openly took credit for it. “I really think that the clear position of the United States has in part been what has helped lead to this change in regime,” Murphy said. “I think it was our role, including sanctions and threats of sanctions, that forced, in part, Yanukovych from office.”

The Proxy War Gets Hot

Far from resolving the unrest, Viktor Yanukovych’s ouster plunged Ukraine into a war.

Just days after the Ukrainian president fled to Moscow, Russian special forces stormed Crimea’s local parliament. The following month, Russia annexed Crimea following a hasty, militarized referendum denounced by Ukraine, the U.S., and much of the world. While these objections were well-founded, Western surveys of Crimeans nonetheless found majority support for Russian annexation.

Emboldened by the events in Crimea, and hostile to a new government that had overthrown their elected leader Yanukovych, Russophile Ukrainians in the eastern Donbas region followed suit.

On April 6 and 7, anti-Maidan protesters seized government buildings in Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kharkiv. The Donetsk rebels declared the founding of the Donetsk People’s Republic. The Luhansk People’s Republic followed 20 days later. Both areas announced independence referendums for May 11.

As in Crimea, Moscow backed the Donbas rebellion. But unlike in Crimea, the Kremlin opposed the independence votes. The organizers, Putin said, should “hold off on the referendum in order to give dialogue the conditions it needs to have a chance.”

In public, the Obama administration claimed to also favor dialogue between Kyiv and the Russia-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine. Behind the scenes, a more aggressive plan was brewing.

On April 12, CIA chief John Brennan slipped into the Ukrainian capital for secret meetings with top officials. Russia, whose intelligence services ran a network of informants inside Ukraine, publicly outed Brennan’s visit. The Kremlin and Yanukovych directly accused Brennan of encouraging an assault on the Donbas.

The CIA dismissed the allegation as “completely false,” and insisted that Brennan supported a “diplomatic solution” as “the only way to resolve the crisis.” The following month, Brennan insisted that “I was out there to interact with our Ukrainian partners and friends.”

Yet Russia and Yanukovych were not alone in voicing concerns about the CIA chief’s covert trip. “What message does it send to have John Brennan, the head of the CIA in Kiev, meeting with the interim government?” Sen. Murphy complained. “Does that not confirm the worst paranoia on the part of the Russians and those who see the Kiev government as essentially a puppet of the West?... It may not be super smart to have Brennan in Kiev, giving the impression that the United States is somehow there to fight a proxy war with Russia.”

According to Telizhenko, who attended the Brennan meeting and spoke to RCI on record about it for the first time, that’s exactly what the CIA chief was there to do. Contrary to U.S. claims, Telizhenko says, “Brennan gave a green light to use force against Donbas,” and discussed “how the U.S. could support it.” One day after the meeting, Kyiv announced an “Anti-Terrorist Operation” (ATO) against the Donbas region and began a military assault.

Telizhenko, who was by then working as a senior policy adviser to Vitaliy Yarema, the First Deputy Prime Minister, says he helped arrange the Brennan gathering after getting a phone call from the U.S. embassy. “I was told there was going to be a top secret meeting, with a top U.S. official and that my boss should be there,” he recalls. “I was also told not to tell anyone.”

Brennan, he recalls, arrived at the Foreign Intelligence Office of Ukraine in a beat-up gray mini-van and a coterie of armed guards. Others in attendance included U.S. Ambassador Pyatt, Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov, foreign intelligence chief Victor Gvozd, and other senior Ukrainian security officials.

After a customary exchange of medals and souvenir trophies, the topic turned to the unrest in the Donbas. “Brennan was talking about how Ukraine should act,” Telizhenko says. “A plan to keep Donbas in Ukraine’s hands. But Ukraine’s army was not fully equipped. We only had stuff in reserves. They discussed plans for the ATO and how to keep Ukraine’s military fully armed throughout.” Brennan’s overall message was that “Russia is behind” the Donbas unrest, and “Ukraine has to take firm, aggressive action to not let this spread all over.”

Brennan and Pyatt did not respond to a request for comment.

Two weeks after Brennan’s visit, the Obama administration offered yet another high-level endorsement of the Donbas operation when then-Vice President Biden visited Kyiv. With Ukraine facing “unrest and uncertainty,” Biden told a group of lawmakers, it now had “a second opportunity to make good on the original promise made by the Orange Revolution” – referring to earlier 2004-2005 post-electoral upheaval that blocked Yanukovych, albeit temporarily, from the presidency.

Looking back, Telizhenko is struck by the contrast between Brennan’s bellicosity in Donbas and the Obama administration’s lax response to Russia’s Crimea grab one month prior.

“After Crimea, they told us not to respond,” he said. But beforehand, “the Americans scoffed at warnings” that Ukraine could lose the peninsula. When Ukrainian officials met with Pentagon counterparts in March, “we gave them evidence that the little green men” – the incognito Russian forces who seized Crimea – “were Russians. They dismissed it.” Telizhenko now speculates that the U.S. permitted the Crimean takeover to encourage a conflict between Kyiv and Moscow-backed eastern Ukrainians. “I think they wanted Ukraine to hate Russia, and they wanted Russia to take the bait,” he said. Had Ukraine acted earlier, he believes, “the Crimea situation could have been stopped.”

With Russia in control of Crimea and Ukraine assaulting the Donbas with U.S. backing, the country descended into a full-scale civil war. Thousands were killed and millions displaced in the ensuing conflict. When Ukrainian forces threatened to overrun the Donbas rebels in August 2014, the Kremlin launched a direct military intervention that turned the tide. But rather than offer Ukraine more military assistance, Obama began getting cold feet.

Obama, senior Pentagon official Derek Chollet recalled, was concerned that flooding Ukraine with more weapons would “escalate the crisis” and give “Putin a pretext to go further and invade all of Ukraine.”

Rebuffing pressure from within his own Cabinet, Obama promised German Chancellor Angela Merkel in February 2015 that he would not send lethal aid to Ukraine. According to the U.S. Ambassador to Germany, Peter Wittig, Obama agreed with Merkel on the need “to give some space for those diplomatic, political efforts that were under way.”

That same month, Obama’s commitment gave Merkel the momentum to finalize the Minsk II Accords, a pact between Kyiv and Russian-backed Ukrainian rebels. Under Minsk II, an outmatched Ukrainian government agreed to allow limited autonomy for the breakaway Donbas regions in exchange for the rebels’ demilitarization and the withdrawal of their Russian allies.

Inside the White House, Obama’s position on Ukraine left him virtually alone. Obama’s reluctance to arm Ukraine, Chollet recalled, marked a rare situation “in which just about every senior official was for doing something that the president opposed.”

One of those senior officials was the State Department’s point person for Ukraine, Victoria Nuland. Along with allied officials and lawmakers, Nuland sought to undermine the Minsk peace pact even before it was signed.

As Germany and France lobbied Moscow and Kyiv to accept a peace deal, Nuland addressed a private meeting of U.S. officials, generals, and lawmakers – including Sen. McCain and future Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – on the sidelines of the annual Munich Security Conference. Dismissing the French-German diplomatic efforts as an act of appeasement, Nuland outlined a strategy to continue the war with a fresh influx of Western arms. Perhaps mindful of the optics of flooding Ukraine with military hardware at a time when the Obama administration was claiming to support to a peace agreement, Nuland offered a public relations suggestion.  “I would like to urge you to use the word ‘defensive system’ to describe what we would be delivering against Putin’s offensive systems,” Nuland told the gathering.

The Munich meeting underscored that while President Obama may have publicly supported a peace deal in Ukraine, a bipartisan alliance of powerful Washington actors – including his own principals – was determined to stop it. As Foreign Policy magazine reported, “the takeaway for many Europeans ... was that Nuland gave short shrift to their concerns about provoking an escalation with Russia and was confusingly out of sync with Obama.”

As Nuland and other officials quietly undermined the Minsk accords, the CIA deepened its role in Ukraine. U.S. intelligence sources recently disclosed to the New York Times that the agency has operated 12 secret bases inside Ukraine since 2014. The post-coup government’s first new spy chief, Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, also revealed that he established a formal partnership with the CIA and MI6 just two days after Yanukovych’s ouster.

According to a separate account in the Washington Post, the CIA restructured Ukraine’s two main spy services and turned them into U.S. proxies. Starting in 2015, the CIA transformed Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, the GUR, so extensively that “we had kind of rebuilt it from scratch,” a former intelligence official told the Post. “GUR was our little baby.” As a benefit of being the CIA's proxy, the agency even funded new headquarters for the GUR’s paramilitary wing and a separate division for electronic espionage.

In a 2016 congressional appearance, Nuland touted the extensive U.S. role in Ukraine. “Since the start of the crisis, the United States has provided over $760 million in assistance to Ukraine, in addition to two $1 billion loan guarantees,” Nuland said. U.S. advisers “serve in almost a dozen Ukrainian ministries,” and were helping “modernize Ukraine’s institutions” of state-owned industries.

Nuland’s comments underscored an overlooked irony of the U.S. role in Ukraine: In claiming to defend Ukraine from Russian influence, Ukraine was subsumed by American influence.

Boomeranging Into U.S. Politics 

In the aftermath of the February 2014 coup, the transformation of Ukraine into an American client state soon had a boomerang effect, as maneuvers in that country increasingly impacted U.S. domestic politics.

“Americans are highly visible in the Ukrainian political process,” Bloomberg columnist Leonid Bershidsky observed in November 2015. “The U.S. embassy in Kyiv is a center of power, and Ukrainian politicians openly talk of appointments and dismissals being vetted by U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt and even U.S. Vice President Joe Biden.”

One of the earliest and best-known cases came in December 2015, when Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in aid unless Ukraine fired its prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin, whom the vice president claimed was corrupt. When Biden’s threat resurfaced as an issue during the 2020 election, the official line, as reported by CNN, was that “the effort to remove Shokin was backed by the Obama administration, European allies” and even some Republicans.

In fact, from Washington’s perspective, the campaign for Shokin’s ouster marked a change of course. Six months before Biden’s visit, Nuland had written Shokin that “We have been impressed with the ambitious reform and anti-corruption agenda of your government.”

And as RCI recently reported:

An Oct. 1, 2015, memo summarizing the recommendation of the [U.S.] Interagency Policy Committee on Ukraine stated, “Ukraine has made sufficient progress on its [anti-corruption] reform agenda to justify a third [loan] guarantee.” … The next month, moreover, the task force drafted a loan guarantee agreement that did not call for Shokin’s removal. Then, in December, Joe Biden flew to Kyiv to demand his ouster.

No one has explained why Shokin suddenly came into the crosshairs. At the time, the prosecutor general was investigating Burisma, a Ukrainian energy firm that was paying Hunter Biden over $80,000 per month to sit on its board.

According to emails obtained from his laptop, Hunter Biden introduced his father to a top Burisma executive less than one year before. Burisma also retained Blue Star Strategies, a D.C. consulting firm that worked closely with Hunter, to help enlist U.S. officials who could pressure the Ukrainian government to drop its criminal probes.

Two senior executives at Blue Star, Sally Painter and Karen Tramontano, formerly worked as top aides to President Bill Clinton.

According to a November 2015 email sent to Hunter by Vadym Pozharsky, a Burisma adviser, the energy firm’s desired “deliverables” included visits from “influential current and/or former US policy-makers to Ukraine.” The “ultimate purpose” of these visits would be “to close down” any legal cases against the company’s owner, Mykola Zlochevsky. One month after that email, Joe Biden visited Ukraine and demanded Shokin’s firing.

Telizhenko – who worked in Shokin’s office at the time, and later worked for Blue Star – said the evidence contradicts claims that Shokin was fired because of his failure, among other things, to investigate Burisma. “There were four criminal cases opened in 2014 against Burisma, and two more additionally opened by Shokin when he became the Prosecutor General,” recalls Telizhenko. “So, whenever anybody says, ‘There were no criminal cases, nobody was investigating Burisma, Shokin was fired because he was a bad prosecutor, he didn't do his work’ ... this was all a lie. No, he did his work.”

In a 2023 interview, Hunter Biden’s former business partner, Devon Archer, said Shokin was seen as a “threat” to Burisma. Both of Shokin’s cases against Burisma were closed after his firing.

Ukraine Meddling vs. Trump

While allegations of Russian interference and collusion would come to dominate the 2016 campaign, the first documented case of foreign meddling originated in Ukraine.

Telizhenko, who served as a political officer at the Ukrainian embassy in Washington, D.C., before joining Blue Star, was an early whistleblower. He went public in January 2017, telling Politico how the Ukrainian embassy worked to help Hillary Clinton’s 2016 election campaign and undermine Trump’s.

According to Telizhenko, Ukraine’s D.C. ambassador, Valeriy Chaly, instructed staffers to shun Trump’s campaign because “Hillary was going to win.”

Telizhenko says he was told to meet with veteran Democratic operative Alexandra Chalupa, who had also served in the Clinton White House. “The U.S. government and people from the Democratic National Committee are approaching and asking for dirt on a presidential candidate,” Telizhenko recalls. “And Chalupa said, ‘I want dirt. I just want to get Trump off the elections.’”

Starting in early 2016, U.S. officials leaned on the Ukrainians to investigate Paul Manafort, the GOP consultant who would become Trump’s campaign manager, and avoid scrutiny of Burisma, as RCI reported in 2022. “Obama’s NSC hosted Ukrainian officials and told them to stop investigating Hunter Biden and start investigating Paul Manafort,” a former senior NSC official told RCI. In January 2016, the FBI suddenly reopened a closed investigation into Manafort for potential money laundering and tax evasion connected to his work in Ukraine.

Telizhenko, who attended a White House meeting with Ukrainian colleagues that same month, says he witnessed Justice Department officials pressing representatives of Ukraine’s Corruption Bureau. “The U.S. officials were asking for the Ukrainian officials to get any information, financial information, about Americans working for the former government of Ukraine, the Yanukovych government,” he says.

By the time Telizhenko spoke out, Ukrainian officials had already admitted intervening in the 2016 election to help Clinton’s campaign. In August, Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) released what it claimed was a secret ledger showing that Manafort received millions in illicit cash payments from Yanukovych’s party. The Clinton campaign, then in the early stages of its effort to portray their Republican rival as a Russian conspirator, seized on the news as evidence of Trump’s “troubling connections” to “pro-Kremlin elements in Ukraine.”

The alleged ledger was first obtained by Ukrainian lawmaker Serhiy Leshchenko, who had claimed that he had received it anonymously by mail. Yet Leshchenko was not an impartial source: He made no effort to hide his efforts to help elect Clinton. “A Trump presidency would change the pro-Ukrainian agenda in American foreign policy,” Leshchenko told the Financial Times. For him, “it was important to show ... that [Trump] is [a] pro-Russian candidate who can break the geopolitical balance in the world.” Accordingly, he added, most of Ukraine’s politicians were “on Hillary Clinton’s side.”

Manafort, who would be convicted of unrelated tax and other financial crimes in 2018, denied the allegation. The ledger was handwritten and did not match the amounts that Manafort was paid in electronic wire transfers. Moreover, the ledger was said to have been stored at Yanukovych’s party headquarters, yet that building was burned in a 2014 riot by Maidan activists.

Telizhenko agrees with Manafort that the ledger was a fabrication. “I think the ledger was just made up because nobody saw it, and nobody got the official documents themselves. From my understanding it was all a toss-up, a made-up story, just because they could not find any dirt on the Trump campaign.”

But with the U.S. media starting to amplify the Clinton campaign’s Trump-Russia conspiracy theories, a wary Trump demanded Manafort's resignation. “The easiest way for Trump to sidestep the whole Ukraine story is for Manafort not to be there,” Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker and a Trump campaign adviser, explained.

The 2016 Russian Hacking Claim

The release of the Manafort ledger and cooperation with the Democratic National Committee was not the end of Ukraine’s 2016 election interference.

A recent account in the New York Times revealed that Ukrainian intelligence played a vital role in generating CIA allegations that would become a foundation of the Russiagate hoax – that Russia stole Democratic Party emails and released them via WikiLeaks in a bid to help elect Trump. Once again, CIA chief Brennan played a critical role.

In the Times’ telling, some Obama officials wanted to shut down the CIA’s work in Ukraine after a botched August 2016 Ukrainian intelligence operation in Crimea turned deadly. But Brennan “persuaded them that doing so would be self-defeating, given the relationship was starting to produce intelligence on the Russians as the C.I.A. was investigating Russian election meddling.” This “relationship” between Brennan and his Ukrainian counterparts proved to be pivotal. According to the Times, Ukrainian military intelligence – which the CIA closely managed – claimed to have duped a Russian officer into “into providing information that allowed the C.I.A. to connect Russia’s government to the so-called Fancy Bear hacking group.”

“Fancy Bear” is one of two alleged Russian cyber espionage groups that the FBI has accused of carrying out the 2016 DNC email theft. Yet this allegation has a direct tie not just to Ukraine, but to the Clinton campaign. The name “Fancy Bear” was coined by CrowdStrike, a private firm working directly for Clinton’s attorney, Michael Sussmann. As RealClearInvestigations has previously reported, CrowdStrike first accused Russia of hacking the DNC, and the FBI relied on the firm for evidence. Years after publicly accusing Russia of the theft, CrowdStrike executive Shawn Henry was forced to admit in sworn congressional testimony that the firm “did not have concrete evidence” that Russian hackers took data from the DNC servers.

CrowdStrike’s admission about the evidentiary hole in the Russian hacking allegation, along with the newly disclosed Ukrainian intelligence role in generating it, were both kept under wraps throughout the entirety of Special Counsel Robert Muller’s probe into alleged Russian interference. But when Trump sought answers on both matters, he once again found himself the target of an investigation.

In late September 2019, weeks after Mueller’s halting congressional testimony – which left Trump foes dissatisfied over his failure to find insufficient evidence of a Russian conspiracy – House Democrats kicked off an effort to impeach Trump for freezing U.S. weapons shipments in an alleged scheme to pressure Ukraine into investigating the Bidens. The impeachment was triggered by a whistleblower complaint about a phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky two months prior. The "whistleblower" was later identified by RealClearInvestigations as Eric Ciaramella, an intelligence official who had served as Ukraine adviser to then-Vice President Biden when he demanded Shokin’s firing and to the Obama administration’s other key point person for Kyiv, Victoria Nuland.

Yet Trump’s infamous July 2019 phone call with Zelensky was not primarily focused on the Bidens. Instead, according to the transcript, Trump asked Zelensky to do him “a favor” and cooperate with a Justice Department investigation into the origins of Russiagate, which, he asserted, had Ukrainian links. Trump specifically invoked CrowdStrike, the Clinton campaign contractor that had generated the allegation that Russia had hacked the Democratic Party emails. CrowdStrike’s allegation of Russian interference, Trump told Zelensky, had somehow “started with Ukraine.”

More than four years after the call, and eight years after the 2016 campaign, the New York Times’ recent revelation that the CIA relied on Ukrainian intelligence operatives to identify alleged Russian hackers adds new context to Trump’s request for Zelensky’s help. Asked about the Times’ disclosure, a source familiar with Trump's thinking confirmed to RCI that the president was indeed referring to a Ukrainian role in the Russian hacking allegations that consumed his presidency. “That’s why they impeached him,” the source said. “They didn’t want to be exposed.”

Trump's First Impeachment

The first impeachment of Donald Trump once again inserted Ukraine into the highest levels of U.S. politics. But the impact may have been even greater in Ukraine.

When Democrats targeted Trump for his phone call with Zelensky, the rookie Ukrainian leader was just months into a mandate that he had won on a pledge to end the Donbas war. In his inaugural address, Zelensky promised that he was “not afraid to lose my own popularity, my ratings,” and even “my own position – as long as peace arrives.”

In their lone face-to-face meeting, held on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, Trump tried to encourage Zelensky to negotiate with Russia. “I really hope that you and President Putin can get together and solve your problem,” Trump said, referring to the Donbas war. “That would be a tremendous achievement."

But Ukraine’s powerful ultra-nationalists had other plans. Right Sector co-founder Dmytro Yarosh, commander of the Ukrainian Volunteer Army, responded: “No, he [Zelensky] would lose his life. He will hang on some tree on Khreshchatyk [Kyiv’s main street] – if he betrays Ukraine” by making a peace with the Russian-backed rebels.

By impeaching Trump for pausing U.S. weaponry to Ukraine, Democrats sent a similar message. Trump, the final House impeachment report proclaimed, had “compromised the national security of the United States.” In his opening statement at Trump’s Senate trial, Rep. Adam Schiff – then seeking to rebound from the collapse of the Trump-Russia conspiracy theory – declared: “The United States aids Ukraine and her people, so that we can fight Russia over there, and we don’t have to fight Russia here.”

Other powerful Washington officials, including star impeachment witness William Taylor, then serving as the chief U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, pushed Zelensky toward conflict.

Just before the impeachment scandal erupted in Washington, Zelensky was “expressing curiosity” about the Steinmeier Formula, a German-led effort to revive the stalled Minsk process, which he “hoped might lead to a deal with the Kremlin,” Taylor later recounted to the Washington Post. But Taylor disagreed.  “No one knows what it is,” Taylor told Zelensky of the German plan. “Steinmeier doesn’t know what it is ... It’s a terrible idea.”

With both powerful Ukrainian ultra-nationalists and Washington bureaucrats opposed to ending the Donbas war, Zelensky ultimately abandoned the peace platform that he was elected on. “By early 2021,” the Post reported, citing a Zelensky ally, “Zelensky believed that negotiations wouldn’t work and that Ukraine would need to retake the Donetsk and Luhansk regions ‘either through a political or military path.’”

The return of the Biden team to the Oval Office in January 2021 appears to have encouraged Zelensky’s confrontational path. By then, polls showed the rookie president trailing OPFL, the opposition party with the second-most seats in parliament and headed by Viktor Medvedchuk, a Ukrainian mogul close to Putin.

The following month, Zelensky offered his response to waning public support. Three OPFL-tied television channels were taken off the air. Two weeks later, Zelensky followed up by seizing the assets of Medvedchuk’s family, including a pipeline that brought Russian oil through Ukraine. Medvedchuk was also charged with treason. 

Zelensky’s crackdown drew harsh criticism, including from close allies. “This is an illegal mechanism that contradicts the Constitution,” Dmytro Razumkov, the speaker of the parliament and a manager of Zelensky’s presidential campaign, complained.

Yet Zelensky won praise from the newly inaugurated Biden White House, while hailed his effort to “counter Russia’s malign influence.” 

It turns out that the U.S. not only applauded Zelensky’s domestic crackdown, but inspired it. Zelensky's first national security adviser, Oleksandr Danyliuk, later revealed to Time Magazine that the TV stations' shuttering was “conceived as a welcome gift to the Biden Administration.” Targeting those stations, Danyliuk explained, “was calculated to fit in with the U.S. agenda.” And the U.S. was a happy recipient. “He turned out to be a doer,” a State Department official approvingly said of Zelensky. “He got it done.”

Just days after receiving Zelensky’s “welcome gift” in March 2021, the Biden administration approved its first military package for Ukraine, valued at $125 million. That same month, Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council approved a strategy to recover all of Crimea from Russian control, including by force. By the end of March, intense fighting resumed in the Donbas, shattering months of a relatively stable ceasefire.

Russia offered its own reaction. Two days after its ally Medvedchuk’s assets were seized in February, Russia deployed thousands of troops to the Ukraine border, the beginning of a build-up that ultimately topped 100,000 and culminated in an invasion one year later.

The Kremlin, Medvedchuk claimed, was acting to protect Russophile Ukrainians targeted by Zelensky’s censorship. “When they close TV channels that Russian-speaking people watched, when they persecute the party these people voted for, it touches all of the Russian-speaking population,” he said.

Medvedchuk also warned that the more hawkish factions of the Kremlin could use the crackdown as a pretext for war. “There are hawks around Putin who want this crisis. They are ready to invade. They come to him and say, ‘Look at your Medvedchuk. Where is he now? Where is your peaceful solution? Sitting under house arrest? Should we wait until all pro-Russian forces are arrested?’ ”

A Whistleblower Silenced
on Alleged Biden Corruption

Along with encouraging a proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, the first Trump impeachment also promoted the highly dubious Democratic Party narrative that scrutiny of Ukrainian interference in U.S. politics was a “conspiracy theory” or “Russian disinformation.” Another star impeachment witness, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who leaked the Trump/Zelensky phone call to Ciaramella, testified that Telizhenko – who had blown the whistle on Ukrainian collusion with the DNC – was “not a credible individual.”

Telizhenko was undeterred. After detailing reliable evidence of Ukrainian’s 2016 election interference to Politico, Telizhenko continued to speak out – and increasingly drew the attention of government officials who sought to undermine his claims by casting him as a Russian agent.

Beginning in May 2019, Telizhenko cooperated with Rudy Giuliani, then acting as Trump’s personal attorney, in his effort to expose information about the Bidens’ alleged corruption in Ukraine. During Giuliani’s visits to Ukraine, Telizhenko served as an adviser and translator.

That same year, Telizhenko testified to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) as part of a probe into whether the DNC’s 2016 collusion with the Ukrainian embassy violated campaign finance laws. By contrast, multiple DNC officials refused to testify. Telizhenko then cooperated with a separate Senate probe, co-chaired by Republicans Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson, on how Hunter Biden’s business dealings impacted U.S. policy in Ukraine.

By the lead-up to the 2020 election, Telizhenko found himself the target of a concerted effort to silence him. As the Senate probed Ukraine, the FBI delivered a classified warning echoing Democrats’ talking points that Telizhenko was among the “known purveyors of Russian disinformation narratives” about the Bidens. In response, GOP Sen. Johnson dropped plans to subpoena Telizhenko. Nevertheless, Telizhenko’s communications with Obama administration officials and his former employer Blue Star Strategies were heavily featured in Johnson and Grassley’s final report on the Bidens’ conflicts of interest in Ukraine, released in September 2020.

The U.S. government’s claims of yet another Russian-backed plot to hurt a Democratic Party presidential nominee set the stage for another highly consequential act of election interference. On October 14, 2020, the New York Post published the first in a series of stories detailing how Hunter Biden had traded on his family name to secure lucrative business abroad, including in Ukraine. The Post’s reporting, based on the contents of a laptop Hunter’s had apparently abandoned in a repair shop, also raised questions about Joe Biden’s denials of involvement in his son’s business dealings.

The Hunter Biden laptop emails pointed to the very kind of influence-peddling that the Biden campaign and Democrats routinely accused Trump of. But rather than allow voters to read the reporting and judge for themselves, the Post’s journalism was subjected to a smear campaign and a censorship campaign unparalleled in modern American history. In a statement, a group of more than 50 former intelligence officials – including John Brennan, the former CIA chief – declared that the Hunter Biden laptop story “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” Meanwhile, Facebook and Twitter prevented the story from being shared on their social media networks.

The FBI lent credence to the intelligence veterans’ false claim by launching a probe into whether the laptop contents were part of a “Russian disinformation” campaign aiming to hurt Biden. The bureau initiated this effort despite having been in possession of Hunter Biden’s laptop, which it had verified as genuine, for almost a year. To buttress innuendo that the laptop was a Russian plot, a CNN report suspiciously noted that Telizhenko had posted an image on social media featuring Trump holding up an edition of the New York Post’s laptop story.

In January 2021, shortly before Biden took office, the U.S. Treasury Department followed suit by imposing sanctions on Telizhenko for allegedly “having directly or indirectly engaged in, sponsored, concealed, or otherwise been complicit in foreign influence in a United States election.”

Treasury, however, did not release any evidence to support its claims. Two months later, the department issued a similar statement in announcing sanctions on former Manafort aide Konstantin Kilimnik, whom it accused of being a "known Russian Intelligence Services agent implementing influence operations on their behalf." Treasury’s actions followed a bipartisan Senate Intelligence report that also accused Kilimnik of being a Russian spy. As RealClearInvestigations has previously reported, neither the Treasury Department or Senate panel provided any evidence to support their allegations about Kilimnik, which were called into question by countervailing information that RCI brought to light. Just like Telizhenko, Kilimnik had extensive contacts with the Obama administration, whose State Department treated him as a trusted source.

The U.S. government’s endorsement of Democratic claims about Telizhenko had a direct impact on the FEC investigation into DNC-Ukrainian collusion, in which he had testified. In August 2019, the FEC initially sided with Telizhenko and informed Alexandra Chalupa – the DNC operative whom he outed for targeting Paul Manafort – that she plausibly violated the Federal Election Campaign Act by having “the Ukrainian Embassy... [perform] opposition research on the Trump campaign at no charge to the DNC.” The FEC also noted that the DNC “does not directly deny that Chalupa obtained assistance from the Ukrainians nor that she passed on the Ukrainian Embassy’s research to DNC officials.”

But when the Treasury Department sanctioned Telizhenko in January 2021, the FEC suddenly reversed course. As RealClearInvestigations has previously reported, the FEC closed the case against the DNC without punitive action. Democratic commissioner Ellen Weintraub even dismissed allegations of Ukrainian-DNC collusion as “Russian disinformation.” As evidence, she pointed to media reports about Telizhenko and the recent Treasury sanctions against him.

Yet Telizhenko’s detractors have been unable to adduce any concrete evidence tying him to Russia. A January 2021 intelligence community report, declassified two months later, accused Russia of waging “influence operations against the 2020 US presidential election” on behalf of Trump. It made no mention of Telizhenko. The Democratic-led claims of Telizhenko’s supposed Russian ties are additionally undermined by his extensive contact with Obama-Biden administration officials, as journalist John Solomon reported in September 2020.

Telizhenko says he has “no connection at all” to the Russian government or any effort to amplify its messaging. “I’m ready,” he says. “Let the Treasury Department publish what they have on me, and I’m ready to go against them.  Let them show the public what they have.  They have nothing ... I am ready to talk about the truth.  They are not.”

Epilogue

Just as Telizhenko has been effectively silenced in the U.S. establishment, so has the Ukrainian meddling that he helped expose. Capturing the prevailing media narrative, the Washington Post recently claimed that Trump has “falsely blamed Ukraine for trying to help Democratic rival Hillary Clinton,” which, the Post added, is “a smear spread by Russian spy services.” This narrative ignores a voluminous record that includes Ukrainian officials admitting to helping Clinton.

As the Biden administration successfully pressured Congress to approve its $61 billion funding request for Ukraine, holdout Republicans were similarly accused of parroting the Kremlin. Shortly before the vote, two influential Republican committee chairmen, Reps. Mike Turner of Ohio and Mike McCaul of Texas, claimed that unnamed members of their caucus were repeating Russian propaganda. Zelensky also asserted that Russia was manipulating U.S. opponents of continued war funding: “When we talk about the Congress — do you notice how [the Russians] work with society in the United States?”

Now that Biden has signed that newly authorized funding into law, the president and his senior aides have been handed the means to extend a proxy war that they launched a decade ago and that continues to ravage Ukraine. In yet another case of Ukraine playing a significant role in domestic U.S. politics, Biden has also secured a boost to his bid for reelection. As the New York Times recently observed: “The resumption of large-scale military aid from the United States all but ensures that the war will be unfinished in Ukraine when Americans go to the polls in November.”

Authored by Matt Margolis via PJMedia.com,

This week in Florida, Judge Aileen Cannon unsealed a trove of new documents that Jack Smith fought to keep hidden. And you'll soon find out why. Among the documents unsealed were extensive exhibits, motions, and other filings shedding light on the intricate web of communication between the Biden White House and the National Archives and Records Administration in the lead-up to Trump's indictment.

Investigative journalist Julie Kelly found something interesting in the documents that could change everything.

The first things is testimony from an FBI agent who testified that the General Services Association (GSA) had been in possession of Trump's boxes in Virginia before ordering Trump's team to come get them.

WELL WELL WELL I am pretty sure we never heard this part of the "classified documents/box" story!

More from unredacted motions in FLA--this is from an unsealed transcript of witness interview.

FBI agent says GSA was holding large quantity of Trump's boxes in VA and then ordered… pic.twitter.com/0i4tGdWZ9A

— Julie Kelly ???? (@julie_kelly2) April 27, 2024

"So an entire pallet full of boxes that had been held by GSA somewhere outside of DC is dumped at Mar-a-Lago," Kelly notes. "Apparently these are the boxes that ended up containing papers with 'classified markings.'"

"I will double check indictment but I don't recall this event in the timeline," she added.

So, it appears that the Biden administration may have been responsible for shipping classified information to Trump's Mar-a-Lago home in Florida. This development is significant because Trump has previously blamed the GSA for packing the boxes that contained the classified documents, only to later accuse Trump of essentially stealing them and using that as pretext for sending the  FBI to raid his Mar-a-Lago home in August 2022.

"It was a set-up from the get-go," remarked Tom Fitton, the founder of Judicial Watch.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden had classified information that he was never entitled to have stored in boxes in his garage for years, but was not charged. Biden blamed staffers for packing the classified information. 

While this may not prove the Biden administration set up Trump in the classified documents case, considering the way the Biden administration has abused the legal system against Trump, no one can confidently say they wouldn't.

Even so, it still raises other legitimate questions.

For example, if the GSA had been in possession of the boxes, why wasn't a review of the materials conducted before they instructed Trump's team to get them?

When it comes to classified information, they wouldn't have expected Trump and his staff to be responsible for ensuring that classified documents weren't among the records.

Perhaps they did review the contents of the boxes and knew classified documents were contained in them before they told Trump's people to come get them.

Authored by Matt McGregor via The Epoch Times,

The Department of Justice has arrested two Chinese nationals who allegedly plotted to export U.S. technology to advance the People’s Republic of China’s military operations.

Han Li, 44, and Lin Chen, 64, have been charged with several counts of conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), in addition to the Export Administration Regulations (EAR), for attempting to export a machine used to process silicon microchips.

“The export restrictions at issue in this case were put in place to prevent the illicit procurement of commodities and technologies for unauthorized military end use in the People’s Republic of China,” U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California Ismail Ramsey said in a press release on the arrests.

“This office will continue to vigorously enforce the nation’s export laws, including those pertaining to advanced technologies, to protect our national security.”

Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olson explained that the defendants “sought to evade export controls to obtain U.S. semiconductors” that they were then going to ship to a Chinese company.

In 2014, the Department of Commerce placed restrictions on the Chengdu GaStone Technology Company (CGTC) based in China, which made it “ineligible to receive exports of certain U.S. technologies and services.”

“As alleged in the indictment, between at least May 2015 and August 2018, Li and Chen conspired to evade the export restrictions imposed by the Department of Commerce on CGTC by using intermediary companies,” the DOJ said.

“Specifically, the defendants sought to illegally obtain for CGTC a DTX-150 Automatic Diamond Scriber Breaker machine from Dynatex International, a Santa Rosa, California company.”

The DOJ said the defendants purposefully avoided getting the Department of Commerce’s authorization to export the CGTC, the DOJ said.

“The defendants sought to obtain the machine through an intermediary company called Jiangsu Hantang International (JHI), which they fraudulently represented as the purchaser and end user, a proxy they fraudulently represented as the purchaser and end user,” the DOJ said.

“To avoid detection, Li and Chen instructed Dynatex International to ensure that the export information associated with the sale did not list CGTC as the ultimate consignee of the shipment.”

Li, the DOJ said, is suspected to be in China.

Both Li and Chen are charged with counts of conspiracy to violate IEEPA, which carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine, and a count of false electronic export information activities, which carries a sentence of up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. They are also charged on a count of smuggling, which carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, and IEEPA violations, which carry a sentence of up to 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California and the DOJ’s National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control department will prosecute the case.

“This arrest highlights the importance of interagency collaboration in preventing illegal exports that could compromise sensitive technologies and our national security as well as undermine our American economy,” said Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent in Charge Tatum King.  

Brent Burmester, a special agent in charge with the Department of Commerce, said stopping “the flow of U.S. semiconductor technology” that goes to advance the People’s Republic of China’s “military modernization efforts” is key to protecting the country’s national security.

FBI Special Agent in Charge Robert Tripp suggested that businesses in the U.S. should establish a relationship with their local FBI field office “to help protect against the pervasive threat of criminals looking to steal American technology.”

“We will aggressively pursue anyone who violates export control laws designed to protect our national and economic security,” Mr. Tripp said.

In a 2023 report on FBI Director Christopher Wray’s roundtable discussion on CBS News, Mr. Wray called the Chinese Communist Party “the defining threat of this generation.”

He said in the discussion that the FBI has 2,000 active investigations “just related to the Chinese government’s effort to steal information.”

“There is no country that presents a broader, more comprehensive threat to our ideas, our innovation, our economic security, and ultimately our national security,” he said.

Authored by Joseph M. Hanneman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A federal judge in Washington D.C. has denied seven motions from a defendant seeking to identify FBI agents in Jan. 6 crowds and gain access to undercover videos shot by Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officers, at least one of whom incited the crowds at the U.S. Capitol.

In a 22-page order, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras ruled against William Pope on a range of motions filed in his Jan. 6 criminal case since May 2023.

Judge Contreras partially granted a government cross-motion to modify the evidence protective order in the case. “I now have the most restricted discovery access conditions of any Jan 6 defendant,” Mr. Pope wrote on X.

“All I’m asking for is a fair fight in court, but he’s denying me rights to defend myself Pro Se that aren’t denied to attorneys,” Mr. Pope told The Epoch Times in a statement. “Even though some January 6 attorneys have filed highly sensitive materials as public exhibits, or leaked them on social media, I have not released a single sensitive or highly sensitive file governed by the protective order.”

Mr. Pope, 38, publisher of the news website Free State Kansas, was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, covering the protest and subsequent violence.

Federal prosecutors charged him with civil disorder, corruptly obstructing an official proceeding, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, impeding ingress or egress in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, impeding passage through the Capitol grounds or buildings, and parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building.

He faces a July 22 trial.

Sought FBI Agents

Mr. Pope most recently asked the court to compel federal prosecutors to identify all FBI special agents or other employees who were “material witnesses” at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and produce “all photographs, videos, and records related to their presence.”

In that motion, Mr. Pope cited two suspected FBI agents who attended Jan. 6 events at the Capitol with former special agent John Guandolo, who once served as the Bureau’s liaison with U.S. Capitol Police.

Mr. Guandolo “has said in interviews that he was with several active-duty FBI agents on January 6, and that he and those agents have been interviewed by the FBI regarding their observations,” Mr. Pope wrote in his Feb. 12 motion.

One of the men was seen on security video clapping enthusiastically as a large crowd of protesters rushed up the east steps to the Columbus Doors. “Oh, oh, oh man, this is huge,” the man said, heard on Mr. Guandolo’s cell phone video that showed the crowd ascending the steps.

The other suspected agent was seen on Capitol Police security video meeting with an FBI SWAT team shortly after its BearCat tactical vehicle rolled onto the House Plaza at about 2:30 p.m. Twenty minutes later the SWAT team responded to the South Door after the shooting of Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt by Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd.

Federal prosecutors argued they have no obligation to investigate the identity or roles of FBI agents on Jan. 6. The judge concurred.

“The Court agrees with the government and finds that defendant has failed to show that the government has an obligation to produce the requested material,” Judge Contreras wrote.

In another motion denied by Judge Contreras, Mr. Pope sought to compel the U.S. Department of Justice to inventory and provide access to all Capitol Police security video it has had in its possession.

Mr. Pope said footage is missing from some of the 1,800 USCP security cameras, and prosecutors have only produced 6,000 hours of security video in discovery. A U.S. House committee that oversees Capitol Police has released 20,000 hours of an expected 40,000 hours it will post publicly.

Mr. Pope wrote that the importance of the security video—thousands of hours of which are now available on Rumble—is underscored by an investigation suggesting two Capitol police officers perjured themselves in the first Oath Keepers trial in the fall of 2022.

Video obtained by Blaze Media showed that a supposed confrontation between Officer Harry Dunn and the Oath Keepers could not have occurred as he described under oath. Capitol Police Special Agent David Lazarus, who testified that he witnessed the confrontation, was in another part of Capitol grounds at the time.

‘Not Beneficial’

“While Pope asserts that the missing camera footage is ‘highly relevant to January 6 cases, including [his] own,’ … he does not explain what he expects the footage to show or why that footage would assist in his defense,” Judge Contreras wrote. “Much of the camera footage that Pope requests depicts areas where Pope never set foot. That footage is therefore not beneficial to Pope’s case.”

The judge also denied Mr. Pope’s Aug. 21, 2023, motion seeking video shot by more than two dozen members of the MPD Electronic Surveillance Unit on Jan. 6. He first requested access to the Electronic Surveillance Unit videos in March 2023.

The August 2023 motion cites MPD internal affairs investigations of MPD officers Nicholas Tomasula and Lt. Zeb Barcus. Hundreds of pages of documents on Mr. Tomasula were heavily redacted, Mr. Pope said, and “the two reports have led to more questions about misconduct by undercover police.”

Mr. Tomasula was identified as the MPD officer heard on video encouraging protesters on the Northwest Steps to keep going and enter the Capitol. He was heard participating in crowd chants such as, “Whose House? Our House!”

At the foot of the Northwest Steps, as a protester climbed up a makeshift ladder onto the balustrade, Mr. Tomasula shouted: “C’mon, man, let’s go! Leave that [expletive],” his video showed. Mr. Tomasula got help from a protester climbing onto the balustrade, then shouted to protesters moving up the steps, “C’mon, go, go, go!”

Federal prosecutors admitted in 2023 that Mr. Tomasula acted as a provocateur embedded in the crowd on Jan. 6.

Judge Contreras concluded Electronic Surveillance Unit video is only relevant to the extent Mr. Pope can identify an undercover officer whose path he crossed.

“While evidence of undercover officers instigating the riot on January 6 could—hypothetically—be helpful and material to Pope’s case, Pope’s motion ‘never identifies a single individual he interacted with whom he now suspects to be an undercover actor,’” Judge Contreras wrote.

“Pope does not say that he himself spoke with or was induced by any undercover officer,” the judge wrote. “Therefore, he cannot make an entrapment defense with the evidence he seeks from the government, and the material he seeks is irrelevant and immaterial.”

Mr. Pope complained that prosecutors restricted his access to some of the investigative materials, which he described as “highly explosive” and “exculpatory.”

In previous filings, Mr. Pope described several self-identified Antifa supporters who were intercepted by undercover MPD officers on Jan. 6, including one who was carrying a gun.

MPD officers made a traffic stop at 10:15 a.m. on Jan. 6 of a vehicle containing three Antifa operatives: Jonathan Kelly, Logan Grimes, and Dempsey Mikula.

“Undercover officers who stopped their vehicle said they had received reports that the individuals were carrying weapons,” Mr. Pope wrote. “No footage of this incident has been produced by the government in discovery. However, Kelly live-streamed part of the police stop to Facebook.”

Metropolitan Police arrested Mr. Grimes—who identifies as a woman and uses the name Leslie—for carrying a pistol without a license and being in possession of a high-capacity magazine and unregistered ammunition, according to Mr. Pope. The charges were dropped on Jan. 7, 2021.

In a previous filing, Mr. Pope identified undercover MPD officer Ryan Roe, who encountered a still-unidentified protester seen cutting down green plastic temporary fencing on Capitol grounds. Mr. Roe said to #FenceCutterBulwark, “Appreciate it, brother,” according to his video.

Baltimore City filed a lawsuit against the owner and operator of the container ship that crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge last month, causing it to collapse. 

Attorneys for Baltimore's mayor and City Council claim the bridge collapse was caused by "negligence of the vessel's crew and shoreside management," according to the Washington Post. 

In the early morning hours of March 26, the Dali, a 213-million-pound container ship owned by Grace Ocean Private Limited and managed by Synergy Marine PTE LTD., lost power and slammed into one of the main pillars of the 1.6-mile long Key Bridge, instantly crumpling the bridge and blocking the only shipping channel in and out of the Port of Baltimore. 

"The Dali slammed into the bridge, causing the bridge's immediate collapse, killing at least six individuals, destroying Baltimore property, and bringing the region's primary economic engine to a grinding halt," the city said in court filings. 

"None of this should have happened," the attorneys said, adding, "Reporting has indicated that, even before leaving port, alarms showing an inconsistent power supply on the Dali had sounded. The Dali left port anyway, despite its clearly unseaworthy condition."

Earlier this month, Grace Ocean and Synergy Marine submitted a request in federal court to cap their potential liability at $43.6 million. Baltimore on Monday requested that the court dismiss the companies' petition to limit liability.

The court filing also called the crew of the Dali "incompetent" and lacked proper skill or training, adding they were "inattentive to their duties" and "failed to comply with local navigation customs."

The source of the "inconsistent power supply" has yet to be identified, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the US Coast Guard have launched a criminal investigation into the crash. 

Meanwhile, the city of Baltimore failed to install fender systems to prevent ships from crashing into the bridge. These fenders could have prevented the collapse. 

Why did the city, county, or whoever manages the bridge fail to install fender systems? Were progressive lawmakers in the city and state too distracted with their socialist agenda to focus on upgrading critical infrastructure? 

Tennessee House Republicans on Tuesday passed legislation to allow some trained teachers and school staff to carry firearms despite aggressive opposition from Democrats and gun control advocates calling for the bill to be defeated.  The bill is all but guaranteed to become law within weeks, as Gov. Bill Lee can either sign it or allow it to become law without his signature. Lee has never vetoed a bill.

The law requires criminal and mental health background checks of prospective teachers along with training courses and approval from school administrators.  Democrats railed against the bill, suggesting that training courses are not enough and that it was "unfair" to burden teachers with the job of defending their classrooms from potential assailants.  This argument is strange because teachers are already burdened with the job of protecting students from harm (not to mention their own lives), they just haven't had the means to do that job until now. 

Democrats also stated that armed teachers would "lead to tragedy," with expectations that merely having a gun in or near a school would inevitably cause a shooting with the teacher at fault.  Of course, if a teacher wanted to come to school armed to commit a crime, there's nothing stopping them anyway (except perhaps another armed teacher).

Angry protesters screamed "blood on your hands" when the bill was passed by the House as they attempted to disrupt proceedings.  Protesters were eventually cleared from the building by police.  Representative Justin Jones, a Democrat and activist politician who has been the subject of multiple expulsions from the House, tried to film the event with his cell phone while chanting along with protester and was removed.  Democrats accused Tennessee Republicans of "fascism."

Tennessee Republicans just cut off debate and passed a bill to arm teachers in our schools.

The public chanted “Blood on your hands!” as the Speaker ordered troopers to clear the gallery.

This is what fascism looks like. pic.twitter.com/9mg67oWMxM

— Rep. Justin Jones (@brotherjones_) April 23, 2024

And here we find the disconnect that anti-gun advocates don't grasp:  They seem to believe that the mere presence of a gun will automatically trigger violence, as if it has magical powers to attract and inspire evil.  In reality, the problem is evil people, not "evil" objects.  There's nothing stopping a bad person from acquiring and using a firearm for terrible purposes at any place of their choosing.  Gun free zones only prevent good people from carrying.

Furthermore, why is it that Democrats rabidly defend pornography and sexualized propaganda in schools, but they're aghast at the notion of teachers being trained to defend children from violent attackers?  One might start to think that Democrats want school shootings to continue, but why would that be...?

Keep in mind that the passage of the bill comes one year after the mass shooting at the Christian Covenant School in Nashville.  The shooting was perpetrated by Audrey Hale, a far-left trans activists who was allegedly motivated to make a political statement.  Her manifesto which was confiscated by the FBI still has yet to be released.  Suspicions abound that this is only being done because Hale was part of the LGBT community. 

Not surprisingly, leftist activists and Democrats alike defended Audrey Hale as "just another victim" of the shooting while some even argued that the murders were justified because of Tennessee's attempts to stop transgender surgeries for minors.  

When common sense is labeled "fascism" the likelihood of reconciliation between leftists and conservatives grows dim.  Is it only "democracy" when leftists get their way?  Are Democrats really outraged by the idea of teachers being able to effectively save the lives of students or act as a deterrent so that potential mass shooters never consider going through with an attack?  Or, are they outraged because they secretly fear that the strategy of armed teachers will work? 

Democrats ignore mass shootings in minority neighborhoods all the time because these murders don't serve their purposes.  What they want, what they need, are shootings where the tragedy can be turned into political capital.  Their true intent is to achieve gun confiscation, and if there are no more school shootings because teachers are armed, then they'll no longer have the leverage they desire.     

Newly unsealed documents in Donald Trump's classified documents case reveal that the Biden White House colluded with the National Archives (NARA) and the FBI to concoct a case against the former president.

Journalist Julie Kelly has been all over this:

NEW: Thanks to order by Judge Cannon, key evidence related to classified docs case is now unredacted.

On the left: What DOJ/Jack Smith wanted to conceal.

On the right: Now we know why. More proof of collaboration btw Biden White House and NARA to concoct a case. pic.twitter.com/YVHVmAfOai

— Julie Kelly ???? (@julie_kelly2) April 22, 2024

What's more, Special Counsel Jack Smith sought to conceal this - telling Judge Eileen Cannon in February that Trump's counsel isn't entitled to discovery on documents between the White House and NARA, that the court should toss requests for evidence of the alleged coordination, and that the court should deny Trump's request for evidence related to secure facilities at his residences. Further, Trump's request for unredacted discovery of materials should be denied.

To clear up any confusion as to what Special Counsel Jack Smith sought to conceal in classified documents case, this is what Smith told Judge Cannon in Feb 2024 in response to Trump's motion to compel discovery from numerous govt agencies:

1) Defendants are not entitled to…

— Julie Kelly ???? (@julie_kelly2) April 23, 2024

As the Epoch Times notes further, the trove of unsealed filings also revealed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) code name for its investigation into President Trump’s presidential records was “[Redacted] Plasmic Echo.”

A key exhibit included with a motion to compel filed in January was an FBI case file labeled “[Redacted] PLASMIC ECHO; Mishandling of Classified or National Defense Information.”

The defense has argued that the emails unsealed on Monday indicate communication between NARA officials, the Biden administration, and the DOJ regarding President Trump’s records, alleging coordination in targeting the former president since 2021.

One email from NARA’s general counsel to the national archivist discussed drafting a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland concerning “missing Trump records.” Subsequent emails revealed coordination between NARA and the Biden White House counsel’s office regarding the handling of these records.

The same month (Feb 2022) that Biden’s White House and DOJ were in cahoots with NARA to concoct a reckless document-handling case against Trump, Maggie Haberman helped the cause by claiming Trump used to flush files down the toilet: https://t.co/6ahzAv3p0F

— Julie Kelly ???? (@julie_kelly2) April 22, 2024

The Sept. 1, 2021, email revealed that NARA’s general counsel, Gary Stern, had been in touch with both the DOJ and the Biden White House “about this issue.” A subsequent email on Sept. 30, 2021, reveals that the White House counsel’s office “is now ready to set up a call to discuss the Trump boxes.”

This email came after Mr. Stern emailed Deputy White House Counsel Jonathan Su two days earlier to “check back in to see when and how you want to proceed re [sic] meeting with [redacted], [redacted], [redacted], and NARA to discuss the Trump boxes?”

Furthermore, the defense highlighted instances where NARA officials didn’t disclose certain actions to Trump representatives, suggesting bias in the investigation process.

*  *  *

MORE NEW INFO from unredacted evidence in classified documents case.

Within 24 hours of receiving 15 boxes from Mar-a-Lago, here is assessment by NARA.

F*cking clown show-- pic.twitter.com/yc6RKR7TXg

— Julie Kelly ???? (@julie_kelly2) April 22, 2024

Despite extensive cooperation btw DOJ and NARA, the govt in May 2023 subpoenaed NARA for other documents. (Trying to figure this one out)

19 of the responsive docs--meaning complied with specific request in subpoena--related to Crossfire Hurricane and John Durham investigation: pic.twitter.com/GUE1pxS1TF

— Julie Kelly ???? (@julie_kelly2) April 23, 2024

More from Epoch: 

On Oct. 5, 2023, Mr. Stern wrote in an internal NARA email that the release of a letter to Congress “can be timed with our public release of the Trump social media records ... as well as our release to the 1/6 Committee of responsive tweets on the day of January 6.”

Mr. Stern noted that NARA had “issues” getting President Trump’s “social media records” because the Trump White House didn’t “capture them through the use of third-party archiving tools.”

“I do not think that these problems are something that the AG/DOJ can deal with, but it could be appropriate to report them to Congress, especially since the January 6 Committee has specifically requested Trump’s Tweets from the day of January 6,” Mr. Stern wrote in the email.

Mr. Stern adds that the Biden White House counsel “is now also aware of this issue, and has asked that I keep them in the loop to the extent that we make any reference to the White House Office of Records Management.”

The defense has accused the prosecution of withholding potentially exculpatory evidence and alleged bias in the investigation.

The filings made public on Monday revealed previously sealed information while limiting the redactions to keeping secret the names of government witnesses.

They were included as exhibits in a motion to compel the prosecution to produce discovery material. In the Jan. 16 motion, they argued that the office of Special Counsel Jack Smith has engaged in discovery violations and has disregarded fundamental fairness in its pursuit of prosecuting President Trump.

The disclosures come amid a protracted battle over court documents, with Judge Aileen Cannon having reminded both parties in various court filings of the “strong presumption of public access” in the criminal proceedings, showing a preference for making public as much as possible. In January, she ordered that no unclassified material be sealed unless there were clear risks to personal safety or national security.

Authored by 'sundance' via TheConservativeTreehouse.com,

Barack Obama and Eric Holder did not create a weaponized DOJ and FBI; instead, what they did was take the preexisting system and retool it so the weapons only targeted one side of the political continuum.  This point is where many people understandably get confused...

In the era shortly after 9/11, the DC national security apparatus was constructed to preserve continuity of government and simultaneously view all Americans as potential threats.  The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) were created specifically for this purpose.

What Barack Obama and Eric Holder did with that new construct was refine the internal targeting mechanisms so that only their ideological opposition became the target of the new national security system.  This is very important to understand as you dig deeper into this research outline.

Washington DC created the modern national security apparatus immediately and hurriedly after 9/11/01.  DHS came along in 2002, and within the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 the ODNI was formed.  When Barack Obama and Eric Holder arrived a few years later, those newly formed institutions were viewed as opportunities to create a very specific national security apparatus that would focus almost exclusively against their political opposition.

The preexisting Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Dept of Justice (DOJ) were then repurposed to become two of the four pillars of the domestic national security apparatus.  However, this new construct would have a targeting mechanism based on political ideology.  The DHS, ODNI, DOJ and FBI became the four pillars of this new institution.  Atop these pillars is where you will find the Fourth Branch of Government.

We were not sleeping when this happened, we were wide awake.  However, we were stunningly distracted by the economic collapse that was taking place in 2006 and 2007 when the engineers behind Obama started to assemble the design.  By the time Obama took office in 2009, we sensed something profound was shifting, but we can only see exactly what shifted in the aftermath.  The four pillars were put into place, and a new Fourth Branch of Government was quietly created.

As time passed, and the system operators became familiar with their new tools, technology allowed the tentacles of the system to reach out and touch us. That is when we first started to notice that something very disconcerting was happening.  Those four pillars are the root of it, and if we take the time to understand how the Fourth Branch originated, questions about this current state of perpetual angst will start to make sense.

Grab a cup of your favorite beverage, and take a walk with me as we outline how this was put together.  You might find many of the questions about our current state of political affairs beginning to make a lot more sense.

Remember, it is not my intent to outline the entire history of how we got to this place where the intelligence community now acts as the superseding fourth branch of government. Such an effort would be exhausting and likely take our discussion away from understanding the current dynamic.

History provided enough warnings from Dwight D. Eisenhower (military), to John F. Kennedy (CIA), to Richard Nixon (FBI), to all modern versions of warnings and frustrations from HPSCI Devin Nunes and ODNI Ric Grenell. None of those prior reference points are invalid, and all documented outlines of historic reference are likely true and accurate. However, a generational review is not useful, as the reference impacting us ‘right now‘ gets lost.

Instead, we pick up the expansive and weaponized intelligence system as it manifests after 9/11/01, and my goal is to highlight how the modern version of the total intelligence apparatus has now metastasized into a Fourth Branch of Government. It is this superseding branch that now touches and influences every facet of our life.

If we take the modern construct, originating at the speed of technological change, we can also see how the oversight or “check/balance” in our system of government became functionally obsolescent.

After many years of granular research about the intelligence apparatus inside our government, in the summer of 2020 I visited Washington DC to ask specific questions. My goal was to go where the influence agents within government actually operate, and to discover the people deep inside the institutions no one elected and few people pay attention to.

It was during this process when I discovered how information is purposefully put into containment silos; essentially a formal process to block the flow of information between agencies and between the original branches. While frustrating to discover, the silo effect was important because understanding the communication between networks leads to our ability to reconcile conflict between what we perceive and what’s actually taking place.

After days of research and meetings in DC during 2020; amid a town that was serendipitously shut down due to COVID-19; I found a letter slid under the door of my room in a nearly empty hotel with an introduction of sorts. The subsequent discussions were perhaps the most important. After many hours of specific questions and answers on specific examples, I realized why our nation is in this mess. That is when I discovered the fourth and superseding branch of government, the Intelligence Branch.

I am going to explain how the Intelligence Branch works:

(1) to control every other branch of government;

(2) how it functions as an entirely independent branch of government with no oversight;

(3) how and why it was created to be independent from oversight;

(4) what is the current mission of the IC Branch,

and most importantly (5) who operates it.

The Intelligence Branch is an independent functioning branch of government, it is no longer a subsidiary set of agencies within the Executive Branch as most would think. To understand the Intelligence Branch, we need to drop the elementary school civics class lessons about three coequal branches of government and replace that outlook with the modern system that created itself.

The Intelligence Branch functions much like the State Dept, through a unique set of public-private partnerships that support it. Big Tech industry collaboration with intelligence operatives is part of that functioning; almost like an NGO. However, the process is much more important than most think. In this problematic perspective of a corrupt system of government, the process is the flaw – not the outcome.

There are people making decisions inside this little known, unregulated and out-of-control branch of government that impact every facet of our lives.

None of the people operating deep inside the Intelligence Branch were elected, and our elected representative House members genuinely do not know how the system works. I assert this position affirmatively because I have talked to House and Senate staffers, including the chiefs of staff for multiple House & Senate committee seats. They are not malicious people; however, they are genuinely clueless of things that happen outside their silo. That is part of the purpose of me explaining it, with examples, in full detail with sunlight.

We begin….

In April of 2016, the FBI launched a counterintelligence operation against presidential candidate Donald Trump. The questioning about that operation is what New York Representative Elise Stefanik cites in March of 2017, approximately 11 months later (First Two Minutes).

Things to note:

• Notice how FBI Director James Comey just matter-of-factly explains no one outside the DOJ was informed about the FBI operation. Why? Because that’s just the way things are done. His justification for unilateral operations was “because of the sensitivity of the matter“, totally ignoring any constitutional or regulatory framework for oversight; because, well, quite simply, there isn’t any. The intelligence apparatus inside the DOJ/FBI can, and does, operate based on their own independent determinations of authority.

• Notice also how FBI Director Comey shares his perspective that informing the National Security Council (NSC) is the equivalent of notifying the White House. The FBI leadership expressly believe they bear no responsibility to brief the Chief Executive. As long as they tell some unknown, unelected, bureaucratic entity inside the NSC, their unwritten responsibility to inform the top of their institutional silo is complete. If the IC wants to carve out the Oval Office, they simply plant information inside the NSC and, from their perspective, their civic responsibility to follow checks-and-balances is complete. This is an intentional construct.

• Notice how Comey obfuscates notification to the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), by avoiding the fact James Clapper was the DNI from outset of the counterintelligence operation throughout the remainder of Obama’s term. When I get deeper into the process, we will understand how the Intelligence Branch has intentionally used the creation of the DNI position (established post 9/11/01) as a method to avoid oversight, not enhance it. Keeping an oblivious doofus like James Clapper in position held strategic value [Doofus Reminder HERE].

That video of James Comey being questioned by Elise Stefanik was the first example given to me by someone who knew the background of everything that was taking place preceding that March 20, 2017, hearing. That FBI reference point is a key to understand how the Intelligence Branch operates with unilateral authority above Congress (legislative branch), above the White House (executive branch), and even above the court system (judicial branch).

Also, watch this short video of James Clapper because it is likely many readers have forgotten, and likely even more readers have never seen it.  Watch closely how then White House national security adviser John Brennan is responding in that video.  This is before Brennan became CIA Director, this is when Brennan was helping Barack Obama put the pillars into place.  WATCH:

[Sidebar: Every time I post this video it gets scrubbed from YouTube (example), so save it if you ever want to see it again.]

The video of James Clapper highlights how the ODNI position (created with good national security intention) ended up becoming the fulcrum for modern weaponization, and is now an office manipulated by agencies with a vested interest in retaining power. The Intelligence Branch holds power over the ODNI through their influence and partnership with the body that authorizes the power within it, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI).

Factually, the modern intelligence apparatus uses checks and balances in their favor. The checks create silos of proprietary information, classified information, vaults of information that work around oversight issues. The silos are part of the problem.

Ironically, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was created in the aftermath of 9/11/01 expressly to eliminate the silos of information which they felt led to a domestic terrorist attack that could have been prevented. The ODNI was created specifically upon the recommendation of the 9/11 commission.

The intent was to create a central hub of intelligence information, inside the Executive Branch, where the CIA, NSA, DoD, DoS, and DIA could deposit their unique intelligence products and a repository would be created so that domestic intelligence operations, like the DOJ and FBI could access them when needed to analyze threats to the U.S. This, they hoped, would ensure the obvious flags missed in the 9/11 attacks would not be missed again.

The DNI office created a problem for those who operate in the shadows of proprietary information. You’ll see how it was critical to install a person uniquely skilled in being an idiot, James Clapper, into that willfully blind role while intelligence operatives worked around the office to assemble the Intelligence Branch of Government.

• The last federal budget that flowed through the traditional budgetary process was signed into law in September of 2007 for fiscal year 2008 by George W. Bush. Every budget since then has been a fragmented process of continuing resolutions and individual spending bills.

Why does this matter? Because many people think defunding the Intelligence Community is a solution; it is not…. at least, not yet. Worse yet, the corrupt divisions deep inside the U.S. intelligence system can now fund themselves from multinational private sector partnerships (banks, corporations and foreign entities).

• When Democrats took over the House of Representatives in January 2007, they took office with a plan. Nancy Pelosi became Speaker, and Democrats controlled the Senate where Harry Reid was Majority Leader. Barack Obama was a junior senator from Illinois.

Pelosi and Reid intentionally did not advance a budget in 2008 (for fiscal year 2009) because their plan included installing Barack Obama (and all that came with him) with an open checkbook made even more lucrative by a worsening financial crisis and a process called baseline budgeting. Baseline budgeting means the prior fiscal year budget is accepted as the starting point for the next year budget. All previous expenditures are baked into the cake within baseline budgeting.

Massive bailouts preceded Obama’s installation due to U.S. economic collapse, and massive bailouts continued after his installation. This is the ‘never let a crisis go to waste’ aspect. TARP (Troubled Asset Recovery Program), auto bailouts (GM), and the massive stimulus spending bill, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA, ie. those shovel ready jobs) were all part of the non budget spending. The federal reserve assisted with Quantitative Easing (QE1 and QE2) as congress passed various Porkulous spending bills further spending and replacing the formal budget process.

Note: There has never been a budget passed in the normal/traditional process since September of 2007.

• While Obama’s radical ‘transformation‘ was triggered across a broad range of government institutions, simultaneously spending on the U.S. military was cut, but spending on the intelligence apparatus expanded. We were all distracted by Obamacare, and the Republican party wanted to keep us that way. However, in the background there was a process of transformation taking place that included very specific action by Eric Holder and targeted effort toward the newest executive agency the ODNI.

The people behind Obama, those same people now behind Joe Biden, knew from years of strategic planning that ‘radical transformation’ would require control over specific elements inside the U.S. government. Eric Holder played a key role in his position as U.S. Attorney General in the DOJ.

AG Holder recruited ideologically aligned political operatives who were aware of the larger institutional objectives. One of those objectives was weaponizing the DOJ-National Security Division (DOJ-NSD) a division inside the DOJ that had no inspector general oversight. For most people the DOJ-NSD weaponization surfaced with a hindsight awakening of the DOJ-NSD targeting candidate Donald Trump many years later. However, by then the Holder crew had executed almost eight full years of background work.

• The second larger Obama/Holder objective was control over the FBI. Why was that important? Because the FBI does the domestic investigative work on anyone who needs or holds a security clearance. The removal of security clearances could be used as a filter to further build the internal ideological army they were assembling. Additionally, with new power in the ODNI created as a downstream consequence of the Patriot Act, new protocols for U.S. security clearances were easy to justify.

Carefully selecting fellow ideological travelers was facilitated by this filtration within the security clearance process. How does that issue later manifest?   Just look around at how politicized every intelligence agency has become, specifically including the FBI.

• At the exact same time this new background security clearance process was ongoing, again everyone distracted by the fight over Obamacare, inside the Department of State (Secretary Hillary Clinton) a political alignment making room for the next phase was being assembled. Names like Samantha Power, Susan Rice and Hillary Clinton were familiar on television while Lisa Monaco worked as a legal liaison between the Obama White House and Clinton State Department.

Through the Dept of State (DoS) the intelligence apparatus began working on their first steps to align Big Tech with a larger domestic institutional objective. Those of you who remember the “Arab Spring”, some say “Islamist Spring”, will remember it was triggered by Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo – his first foreign trip. The State Department worked with grassroots organizers (mostly Muslim Brotherhood) in Egypt, Syria, Bahrain, Qatar and Libya. Obama leaned heavily on the organizational network of Turkish President Recep Erdogan for contacts and support.

Why does this aspect matter to us? Well, you might remember how much effort the Obama administration put into recruiting Facebook and Twitter as resources for the various mideast rebellions the White House and DoS supported. This was the point of modern merge between the U.S. intelligence community and Big Tech social media.

In many ways, the coordinated political outcomes in Libya and Egypt were the beta test for the coordinated domestic political outcomes we saw in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. The U.S. intelligence community working with social media platforms and political operatives.

Overlaying all of that background activity was also a new alignment of the Obama-era intelligence apparatus with ideological federal “contractors“. Where does this contractor activity manifest? In the FISA Court opinion of Rosemary Collyer who cited the “interagency memorandum of understanding”, or MOU.

Hopefully, you can see a small part of how tentacled the system to organize/weaponize the intelligence apparatus was. None of this was accidental, all of this was by design, and the United States Senate was responsible for intentionally allowing most of this to take place.

That’s the 30,000/ft level backdrop history of what was happening as the modern IC was created. Next we will go into how all these various intelligence networks began working in unison and how they currently control all of the other DC institutions under them; including how they can carve out the President from knowing their activity.

• When Barack Obama was installed in January 2009, the Democrats held a 60 seat majority in the U.S. Senate. As the people behind the Obama installation began executing their longer-term plan, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was a tool to create the Intelligence Branch; it was not an unintentional series of events.

When Obama was installed, Dianne Feinstein was the Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), and Democrat operative Dan Jones was her lead staffer. Feinstein was completely controlled by those around her including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The CIA was in the process of turning over personnel following the Bush era, and as a result of a massive multi-year narrative of diminished credibility (Iraq WMD), a deep purge was underway. Obama/Holder were in the process of shifting intelligence alignment and the intensely political Democrat Leader Harry Reid was a key participant.

THE TRAP – Many people say that Congress is the solution to eliminating the Fourth and superseding Branch of Government, the Intelligence Branch. This is an exercise in futility because the Legislative Branch, specifically the SSCI, facilitated the creation of the Intelligence Branch. The SSCI cannot put the genie they created back in the bottle without admitting they too are corrupt; and the background story of their corruption is way too intense to be exposed now.

Every member of the SSCI is compromised in some controlling manner. Those Senators who disliked the control over them; specifically disliked because the risk of sunlight was tenuous and, well, possible; have either left completely or stepped down from the committee. None of the SSCI members past or present would ever contemplate saying openly what their tenure involved.

[Note: You might remember when Vice Chairman Mark Warner’s text messages surfaced, there was a controlled Republican SSCI member who came to his defense in February of 2018. It was not accidental that exact Senator later became the chair of the SSCI himself. That Republican Senator is Marco Rubio, now vice-chair since the Senate re-flipped back to the optics of Democrat control in 2021.]

All of President Obama’s 2009 intelligence appointments required confirmation from the Senate. The nominees had to first pass through the Democrat controlled SSCI, and then to a full Senate vote where Democrats held a 60 vote majority. Essentially, Obama got everyone he wanted in place easily. Rahm Emmanuel was Obama’s Chief of Staff, and Valerie Jarrett was Senior Advisor.

Tim Geithner was Treasury Secretary in 2010 when the joint DOJ/FBI and IRS operation to target the Tea Party took place after the midterm “shellacking” caused by the Obamacare backlash. Mitch McConnell was Minority Leader in the Senate but supported the targeting of the Tea Party as his Senate colleagues were getting primaried by an angry and effective grassroots campaign. McConnell’s friend, Senator Bob Bennett,  getting beaten in Utah was the final straw.

Dirty Harry and Mitch McConnell saw the TEA Party through the same prism. The TEA Party took Kennedy’s seat in Massachusetts (Scott Brown); Sharon Angle was about to take out Harry Reid in Nevada; Arlen Spector was taken down in Pennsylvania; Senator Robert Byrd died; Senator Lisa Murkowski lost her primary to Joe Miller in Alaska; McConnell’s nominee Mike Castle lost to Christine O’Donnell in Delaware; Rand Paul won in Kentucky. This is the background. The peasants were revolting…. and visibly angry Mitch McConnell desperately made a deal with the devil to protect himself.

In many ways, the TEA Party movement was/is very similar to the MAGA movement. The difference in 2010 was the absence of a head of the movement, in 2015 Donald Trump became that head figure who benefited from the TEA Party energy. Trump came into office in 2017 with the same congressional opposition as the successful TEA Party candidates in 2011.

Republicans took control of the Senate following the 2014 mid-terms. Republicans took control of the SSCI in January 2015. Senator Richard Burr became chairman of the SSCI, and Dianne Feinstein shifted to Vice-Chair. Dirty Harry Reid left the Senate, and Mitch McConnell took power again.

Republicans were in control of the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2015 when the Intelligence Branch operation against candidate Donald Trump was underway. [Feinstein’s staffer, Dan Jones, left the SSCI so he could act as a liaison and political operative between private-sector efforts (Fusion GPS, Chris Steele) and the SSCI.] The SSCI was a participant in that Fusion-GPS/Chris Steele operation, and as a direct consequence Republicans were inherently tied to the problem with President Trump taking office in January of 2017. Indiana Republican Senator Dan Coats was a member of the SSCI.

Bottom line…. When it came to the intelligence system targeting Donald Trump during the 2015/2016 primary, the GOP was just as much at risk as their Democrat counterparts.

When Trump unexpectedly won the 2016 election, the SSCI was shocked more than most. They knew countermeasures would need to be deployed to protect themselves from any exposure of their intelligence conduct. Dianne Feinstein stepped down, and Senator Mark Warner was elevated to Vice Chairman.

Indiana’s own Mike Pence, now Vice President, recommended fellow Hoosier, SSCI Senator Dan Coats, to become President Trump’s Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). [Apply hindsight here]

• To give an idea of the Intelligence Branch power dynamic, remind yourself how House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), Chairman Devin Nunes, tried to get access to the DOJ/FBI records of the FISA application used against the Trump campaign via Carter Page.

Remember, Devin Nunes only saw a portion of the FISA trail from his review of a Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) previously given to President Obama. Chairman Nunes had to review the PDB at the White House SCIF due to compartmented intelligence, another example of the silo benefit.

Remember the massive stonewalling and blocking of the DOJ/FBI toward Nunes? Remember the back and forth battle over declassification surrounding the Nunes memo?

Remember, after Nunes went directly to House Speaker Paul Ryan for help (didn’t get any), the DOJ only permitted two members from each party within the HPSCI to review the documents, and only at the DOJ offices of main justice?

Contrast that amount of House Intel Committee railroading and blocking by intelligence operatives in the DOJ, DOJ-NSD and FBI, with the simple request by Senate Intelligence Vice Chairman Mark Warner asking to see the Carter Page FISA application and immediately a copy being delivered to him on March 17th 2017.

Can you see which intelligence committee is aligned with the deepest part of the deep state?

Oh, how quickly we forget:

The contrast of ideological alignment between the House, Senate and Intelligence Branch is crystal clear when viewed through the prism of cooperation. You can see which legislative committee holds the power and support of the Intelligence Branch. The Senate Intel Committee facilitates the corrupt existence of the IC Branch, so the IC Branch only cooperates with the Senate Intel Committee. It really is that simple.

• The Intelligence Branch carefully selects its own members by controlling how security clearances are investigated and allowed (FBI). The Intelligence Branch also uses compartmentalization of intelligence as a way to keep each agency, and each downstream branch of government (executive, legislative and judicial), at arms length as a method to stop anyone from seeing the larger picture of their activity. I call this the “silo effect“, and it is done by design.

I have looked at stunned faces when I presented declassified silo product from one agency to the silo customers of another. You would be astonished at what they don’t know because it is not in their ‘silo’.

Through the advise and consent rules, the Intelligence Branch uses the SSCI to keep out people they consider dangerous to their ongoing operations. Any appointee to the intelligence community must first pass through the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, before they get a full Senate vote. If the SSCI rejects the candidate, they simply refuse to take up the nomination. The president is then blocked from that appointment. This is what happened with President Trump over-and-over again.

• Additionally, the Intelligence Branch protects itself, and its facilitating allies through the formal classification process. The Intelligence Branch gets to decide unilaterally what information will be released and what information will be kept secret. There is no entity outside the Intelligence Branch, and yes that includes the President of the United States, who can supersede the classification authority of the Intelligence Branch. {Go Deep} and {Go Deep} This is something 99.9% of the people on our side get totally and frustratingly wrong.

No one can declassify, or make public, anything the Intelligence Branch will not agree to. Doubt this?  Ask Ric Grenell, John Ratcliffe, or even President Trump himself.

• The classification process is determined inside the Intelligence Branch, all by themselves. They get to choose what rank of classification exists on any work-product they create; and they get to decide what the classification status is of any work product that is created by anyone else. The Intelligence Branch has full control over what is considered classified information and what is not. The Intelligence Branch defines what is a “national security interest” and what is not. A great technique for hiding fingerprints of corrupt and illegal activity.

[For familiar reference see the redactions to Lisa Page and Peter Strzok text messages. The Intelligence Branch does all redactions.]

• Similarly, the declassification process is a request by an agency, even a traditionally superior agency like the President of the United States, to the Intelligence Branch asking for them to release the information. The Intelligence Branch again holds full unilateral control. If the head of the CIA refuses to comply with the declassification instruction of the President, what can the president do except fire him/her? {Again, GO DEEP} How does the President replace the non-compliant cabinet member?  They have to go through the SSCI confirmation.  See the problem?

Yes, there are ways to break up the Intelligence Branch, but they do not start with any congressional effort. As you can see above, the process is the flaw – not the solution. Most conservative pundits have their emphasis on the wrong syllable. Their cornerstone is false.

For their own self-preservation, the Intelligence Branch has been interfering in our elections for years. The way to tear this apart begins with STATE LEVEL election reform that blocks the Legislative Branch from coordinating with the Intelligence Branch.

The extreme federalism approach is critical and also explains why Joe Biden has instructed Attorney General Merrick Garland to use the full power of the DOJ to stop state level election reform efforts. The worry of successful state level election control is also why the Intelligence Branch now needs to support the federal takeover of elections.

Our elections have been usurped by the Intelligence Branch. Start with honest elections and we will see just how much Democrat AND Republican corruption is dependent on manipulated election results. Start at the state level. Start there…. everything else is downstream.

People want examples, reference points for work the Intelligence Branch conducts, specifically how it protects itself.

Here is an example: Julian Assange.

Yes, the history of the U.S. national security apparatus goes back decades; however, the weaponization of that apparatus, the creation of an apex branch of government, the Intelligence Branch, originated –as we currently feel it– under President Barack Obama.

Obama took the foundational tools created by Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and used the intelligence system architecture to create a weapon for use in his fundamental transformation. An alliance of ideologues within government (intel community) and the private sector (big tech and finance) was assembled, and the largest government weapon was created. Think about this every time you take your shoes off at an airport.

After the weapon was assembled and tested (Arab Spring), the Legislative Branch was enjoined under the auspices of a common enemy, Donald J. Trump, an outsider who was a risk to every entity in the institutional construct of Washington DC. Trillions were at stake, and years of affluence and influence were at risk as the unholy alliance was put together.

To understand the risk that Julian Assange represented to U.S. Intelligence Branch interests, it is important to understand just how extensive the operations of the FBI/CIA were in 2016.

It is within the network of foreign and domestic intel operations where Intelligence Branch political tool, FBI Agent Peter Strzok, was working as a bridge between the CIA and FBI counterintelligence operations.

By now, people are familiar with the construct of CIA operations involving Joseph Mifsud, the Maltese professor generally identified as a western intelligence operative who was tasked by the FBI/CIA to run an operation against Trump campaign official George Papadopoulos in both Italy (Rome) and London. {Go Deep}

In a similar fashion, the FBI tasked U.S. intelligence asset Stefan Halper to target another Trump campaign official, Carter Page. Under the auspices of being a Cambridge Professor, Stefan Halper also targeted General Michael Flynn. Additionally, using assistance from a female FBI agent under the false name Azra Turk, Halper also targeted Papadopoulos.

The initial operations to target Flynn, Papadopoulos and Page were all based overseas. This seemingly makes the CIA exploitation of the assets and the targets much easier.

HPSCI Ranking Member Devin Nunes outlined how very specific exculpatory evidence was known to the FBI and yet withheld from the FISA application used against Carter Page that also mentions George Papadopoulos. The FBI also fabricated information in the FISA.

However, there is an aspect to the domestic U.S. operation that also bears the fingerprints of the international intelligence apparatus; only this time, due to the restrictive laws on targets inside the U.S., the CIA aspect is less prominent. This is where FBI Agent Peter Strzok working for both agencies was important.

Remember, it’s clear in the text messages Strzok had a working relationship with what he called their “sister agency”, the CIA. Additionally, former CIA Director John Brennan has admitted Strzok helped write the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) which outlines the Russia narrative; and Peter Strzok wrote the July 31st, 2016, “Electronic Communication” that originated FBI operation “Crossfire Hurricane.” Strzok immediately used that EC to travel to London to debrief allied intelligence officials connected to the Australian Ambassador to the U.K, Alexander Downer.

In short, Peter Strzok acted as a bridge between the CIA and the FBI. The perfect type of FBI career agent for the Intelligence Branch and CIA Director John Brennan to utilize.

Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson hired CIA Open Source analyst Nellie Ohr toward the end of 2015; at appropriately the same time as “FBI Contractors” were identified exploiting the NSA database and extracting information on a specific set of U.S. persons, the 2015 GOP candidates for President.

It was also Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson who was domestically tasked with a Russian lobbyist named Natalia Veselnitskaya. A little reported Russian Deputy Attorney General named Saak Albertovich Karapetyan was working double agents for the CIA and Kremlin. Karapetyan was directing the foreign operations of Natalia Veselnitskaya, and Glenn Simpson was organizing her inside the U.S.

Glenn Simpson managed Veselnitskaya through the 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr. However, once the CIA/Fusion-GPS operation using Veselnitskaya started to unravel with public reporting… back in Russia Deputy AG Karapetyan died in a helicopter crash.

Simultaneously timed in late 2015 through mid 2016, there was a domestic FBI operation using a young Russian named Maria Butina tasked to run up against republican presidential candidates. According to Patrick Byrne, Butina’s private sector handler [NOTE: remember, the public-private sector partnership], it was FBI agent Peter Strzok who was giving Patrick Byrne the instructions on where to send Butina. {Go Deep}

All of this context outlines the extent to which the FBI/CIA was openly involved in constructing a political operation that eventually settled upon anyone in candidate Donald Trump’s orbit. The international operations of the Intelligence Branch were directed by the FBI/CIA; and the domestic operations were coordinated by Peter Strzok operating with a foot in both agencies. [Strzok gets CIA service coin]

Recap: 

• Mifsud tasked against Papadopoulos (CIA).

• Halper tasked against Flynn (CIA), Page (CIA), and Papadopoulos (CIA).

• Azra Turk, pretending to be a Halper asst, tasked against Papadopoulos (FBI).

• Veselnitskaya tasked against Donald Trump Jr (CIA, Fusion-GPS).

• Butina tasked against Donald Trump Jr (FBI). All of these activities were coordinated.

Additionally, Christopher Steele was a British intelligence officer, hired by Fusion GPS to assemble and launder fraudulent intelligence information within his dossier. And we cannot forget Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch, who was recruited by Asst. FBI Director Andrew McCabe to participate in running an operation against the Trump campaign and create the impression of Russian involvement. However, Deripaska refused to participate.

All of this foreign and domestic engagement was directly controlled by collaborating U.S. intelligence agencies from inside the Intelligence Branch. And all of this coordinated activity was intended to give a specific Russia influence/interference impression.

The key point of all that background context is to see how committed the Intelligence Branch was to the constructed narrative of Russia interfering with the 2016 election. The CIA, FBI, and by extension the DOJ and DOJ-NSD, put a hell of a lot of work into it.

We also know that John Durham looked at the construct of the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA); and talked to CIA analysts who participated in the construct of the January 2017 report that bolstered the false appearance of Russian interference in the 2016 election. This is important because it ties in to the next part that involves Julian Assange and Wikileaks.

On April 11th, 2019, the Julian Assange indictment was unsealed in the EDVA. From the indictment we discover it was under seal since March 6th, 2018:

(Link to pdf)

On Tuesday April 15th more investigative material was released. Again, note the dates: Grand Jury, *December of 2017* This means FBI investigation prior to….

The FBI investigation took place prior to December 2017, and it was coordinated through the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA) where Dana Boente was U.S. Attorney at the time. The grand jury indictment was sealed from March of 2018 until after Mueller completed his investigation, April 2019.

Why the delay?

What was the DOJ waiting for?

Here’s where it gets interesting….

The FBI submission to the Grand Jury in December of 2017 was four months after Congressman Dana Rohrabacher talked to Julian Assange in August of 2017: “Assange told a U.S. congressman … he can prove the leaked Democratic Party documents … did not come from Russia.”

(August 2017, The Hill Via John Solomon) Julian Assange told a U.S. congressman on Tuesday he can prove the leaked Democratic Party documents he published during last year’s election did not come from Russia and promised additional helpful information about the leaks in the near future.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican who is friendly to Russia and chairs an important House subcommittee on Eurasia policy, became the first American congressman to meet with Assange during a three-hour private gathering at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where the WikiLeaks founder has been holed up for years.

Rohrabacher recounted his conversation with Assange to The Hill.

“Our three-hour meeting covered a wide array of issues, including the WikiLeaks exposure of the DNC [Democratic National Committee] emails during last year’s presidential election,” Rohrabacher said, “Julian emphatically stated that the Russians were not involved in the hacking or disclosure of those emails.”

Pressed for more detail on the source of the documents, Rohrabacher said he had information to share privately with President Trump. (read more)

Knowing how much effort the Intelligence Branch put into the false Russia collusion-conspiracy narrative, it would make sense for the FBI to take keen interest after this August 2017 meeting between Rohrabacher and Assange, monitor all activity, and why the FBI would quickly gather specific evidence (related to Wikileaks and Bradley Manning) for a grand jury by December 2017.

Within three months of the EDVA grand jury, the DOJ generated an indictment and sealed it in March 2018.

The DOJ sat on the indictment while the Mueller/Weissmann probe was ongoing.

As soon as the Mueller/Weissmann probe ended, on April 11th, 2019, a planned and coordinated effort between the U.K. and U.S. was executed; Julian Assange was forcibly arrested and removed from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and the EDVA indictment was unsealed (link).

As a person who has researched this fiasco; including the ridiculously false 2016 Russian hacking/interference narrative: “17 intelligence agencies”, Joint Analysis Report (JAR) needed for Obama’s anti-Russia narrative in December ’16; and then a month later the ridiculously political Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) in January ’17; this timing against Assange is too coincidental.

It doesn’t take a deep researcher to see the aligned Deep State motive to control Julian Assange. The Weissmann/Mueller report was dependent on Russia cybercrimes for justification, and that narrative was contingent on the Russia DNC hack story which Julian Assange disputes.

• This is critical. The Weissmann/Mueller report contains claims that Russia hacked the DNC servers as the central element to the Russia interference narrative in the U.S. election. This claim is directly disputed by WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, as outlined during the Dana Rohrabacher interview, and by Julian Assange on-the-record statements.

The predicate for Robert Mueller’s investigation was specifically due to Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The fulcrum for this Russia interference claim is the intelligence community assessment; and the only factual evidence claimed within the ICA is that Russia hacked the DNC servers; a claim only made possible by relying on forensic computer analysis from Crowdstrike, a DNC and FBI contractor.

The CIA holds a self-interest in upholding the Russian hacking claim; the FBI holds an interest in maintaining that claim; the U.S. media hold an interest in maintaining that claim. All of the foreign countries whose intelligence apparatus participated with Brennan and Strzok also have a self-interest in maintaining that Russia hacking and interference narrative.

Julian Assange is the only person with direct knowledge of how Wikileaks gained custody of the DNC emails; and Assange has claimed he has evidence it was not from a hack.

This “Russian hacking” claim was ultimately important to the CIA, FBI, DOJ, ODNI and U.K intelligence apparatus, it forms the corner of their justification. With that level of importance, well, right there is the obvious motive to shut Julian Assange down as soon as intelligence officials knew the Weissmann/Mueller report was going to be public.

…. and that’s exactly what they did. They threw a bag over Assange.

• COLLAPSED OVERSIGHT – The modern system to ‘check’ the Executive Branch was the creation of the legislative “Gang of Eight,” a legislative oversight mechanism intended to provide a bridge of oversight between the authority of the intelligence community within the Executive Branch.

The Go8 construct was designed to allow the President authority to carry out intelligence operations and provide the most sensitive notifications to a select group within Congress.

The Go8 oversight is directed to the position, not the person, and consists of: (1) The Speaker of the House; (2) The Minority Leader of the House; (3) The Chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, HPSCI; (4) The Ranking Member (minority) of the HPSCI; (5) The Leader of the Senate; (6) The Minority Leader of the Senate; (7) The Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, SSCI; and finally (8) the Vice-Chair of the SSCI.

Example: When the Chief Executive (the President) initiates an intelligence operation on behalf of the United States, the President triggers a “finding memo.” In essence, the instruction to the intel agency or agencies to authorize a covert operation. When that process takes place, the Go8 are the first people notified. Depending on the sensitivity of the operation, sometimes the G08 are notified immediately after the operation is conducted. The notification can be a phone call or an in-person briefing.

Because of the sensitivity of their intelligence information, the Gang of Eight hold security clearances that permit them to receive and review all intelligence operations. The intelligence community are also responsible for briefing the Go8 with the same information they use to brief the President.

~ 2021 Gang of Eight ~

The Go8 design is intended to put intelligence oversight upon both political parties in Congress; it is designed that way by informing the minority leaders of both the House and Senate as well as the ranking minority members of the SSCI and HPSCI. Under the concept, the President cannot conduct an intelligence operation; and the intelligence community cannot carry out intelligence gathering operations without the majority and minority parties knowing about it.

The modern design of this oversight system was done to keep rogue and/or corrupt intelligence operations from happening. However, as we shared in the preview to this entire discussion, the process was usurped during the Obama era. {GO DEEP}

Former FBI Director James Comey openly admitted to Congress on March 20, 2017, that the FBI, FBI Counterintelligence Division, DOJ and DOJ-National Security Division, together with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the CIA, had been conducting independent investigations of Donald Trump for over a year without informing the Go8. Comey justified the lack of informing Go8 oversight by saying, “because of the sensitivity of the matter.”

Stupidly, Congress never pressed James Comey on that issue. The arrogance was astounding, and the acceptance by Congress was infuriating. However, that specific example highlighted just how politically corrupt the system had become. In essence, Team Obama usurped the entire design of congressional oversight…. and Congress just brushed it off.

Keep in mind, Comey did not say the White House was unaware; in fact he said exactly the opposite, he said, “The White House was informed through the National Security Council,” (the NSC). The implication, the very direct and specific implication; the unavoidable implication and James Comey admission that everyone just brushed aside, was that President Obama’s National Security Advisor, Susan Rice, was totally informed of the intelligence operation(s) against Donald Trump. After all, the NSC reports to the National Security Advisor.

Does the January 20, 2017, Susan Rice memo look different now?

Again, no one saw the immediate issue. What Comey just described on that March day in 2017 was the total usurpation of the entire reason the Gang of Eight exists; to eliminate the potential for political weaponization of the Intelligence Community by the executive branch. The G08 notifications to the majority and minority are specifically designed to make sure what James Comey admitted to doing was never supposed to happen.

Team Obama carried out a political operation using the intelligence community and the checks-and-balances in the system were intentionally usurped. This is an indisputable fact.

Worse still, the entire legislative branch of Congress, which specifically includes the Republicans that now controlled the House and Senate, did nothing. They just ignored what was admitted. The usurpation was willfully ignored.  The mechanism of the G08 was bypassed without a twitch of condemnation or investigation…. because the common enemy was Donald Trump.

This example highlights the collapse of the system. Obama, the executive branch, collapsed the system by usurping the process; in essence the process became the bigger issue and the lack of immediate legislative branch reaction became evidence of open acceptance. The outcomes of the usurpation played out over the next four years, Donald J. Trump was kneecapped and lost his presidency because of it. However, the bigger issue of the collapse still exists.

The downstream consequence of the Legislative Branch accepting the Executive Branch usurpation meant both intelligence committees were compromised. Additionally, the leadership of both the House and Senate were complicit. Think about this carefully. The Legislative Branch allowance of the intelligence usurpation meant the Legislative Branch was now subservient to the Intelligence Branch.

That’s where we are.

Right now.

That’s where we are.

Term-3 Obama is now back in the White House with Joe Biden.

Term-1 and Term-2 Obama usurped the ‘check and balance‘ within the system and weaponized the intelligence apparatus.

During Trump’s term that weaponization was covered up by a compliant congress, and not a single member of the oversight called it out.

Now, Term-3 Obama steps back in to continue the cover up and continue the weaponization.

Hopefully, you can now see the scale of the problem that surrounds us with specific citation for what has taken place. What I just explained to you above is not conspiracy theory, it is admitted fact that anyone can look upon. Yet….

Have you seen this mentioned anywhere? Have you seen this called out by anyone in Congress? Have you seen anyone in media (ally or adversary) call this out? Have you seen any member of the Judicial Branch stand up and say wait, what is taking place is not okay? Have you seen a single candidate for elected office point this out? Have you seen anyone advising a candidate point this out?

This is our current status. It is not deniable. The truth exists regardless of our comfort.

Not a single person in power will say openly what has taken place. They are scared of the Fourth Branch. The evidence of what has taken place is right there in front of our face. The words, actions and activities of those who participated in this process are not deniable.

There are only two members of the Gang of Eight who have existed in place from January 2007 (the real beginning of Obama’s term, two years before he took office when the Congress flipped). Only two members of the G08 have been consistently in place from January of 2007 to right now, today.

All the others came and went, but two members of the Gang of Eight have been part of that failed and collapsed oversight throughout the past 15 years, Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell.

TECHNOLOGY

On a global scale – the modern intelligence gathering networks are now dependent on data collection to execute their intelligence missions. In the digital age nations have been executing various methods to gather that data. Digital surveillance has replaced other methods of interception. Those surveillance efforts have resulted in a coalescing of regional data networks based on historic multi-national relationships.

We have a recent frame of reference for the “U.S. data collection network” within the NSA. Through the allied process the Five Eyes nations all rely on the NSA surveillance database (U.K, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and U.S.) The NSA database provides the digital baseline for intelligence operations in defense of our allies. The portals into the NSA database are essentially an assembly of allies in like-minded ideological connection to the United States.

Unfortunately, there have been some revelations about the NSA database being used to monitor our allies, like in the example of Germany and surveillance on Angela Merkel’s phone. As long as “the good guys” are operating honorably, allies of the United States can feel confident about having protection from the NSA surveillance of global digital data. We warn our friends if we detect something dangerous etc.

The U.S. has nodes on communication pipelines to intercept and extract data. We have also launched hundreds, perhaps thousands, of satellites to conduct surveillance and gather up data. All of this data is fed into the NSA database where it is monitored (presumably) as a national security mechanism, and in defense of our allies.

However, what about data collection or data networks that are outside the NSA database? What do our enemies do? The NSA database is just one intelligence operation of digital surveillance amid the entire world, and we do not allow access by adversaries we are monitoring. So what do they do? What do our allies do who might not trust the United States due to past inconsistencies, ie. the Middle East?

The answers to those questions highlight other data collection networks. So a brief review of the major players is needed.

CHINA

China operates their own database. They, like the NSA, scoop up data for their system. Like us, China launches satellites and deploys other electronic data collection methods to download into their database. This is why the issues of electronic devices manufactured in China becomes problematic. Part of the Chinese data collection system involves the use of spyware, hacking and extraction.

Issues with Chinese communication company Huawei take on an added dimension when you consider the goal of the Chinese government to conduct surveillance and assemble a network of data to compete with the United States via the NSA. Other Chinese methods of surveillance and data-collection are less subversive, as in the examples of TicTok and WeChat. These are Chinese social media companies that are scraping data just like the NSA scrapes data from Facebook, Twitter and other Silicon Valley tech companies. [ Remember, the Intelligence Branch is a public-private partnership. ]

RUSSIA

It is very likely that Russia operates their own database. We know Russia launches satellites, just like China and the USA, for the same purposes. Russia is also very proficient at hacking into other databases and extracting information to store and utilize in their own network. The difference between the U.S., China and Russia is likely that Russia spends more time on the hacking aspect because they do not generate actual technology systems as rapidly as the U.S. and China.

The most recent database creation is an outcome of an ally having to take action because they cannot rely on the ideology of the United States remaining consistent, as the administrations ping-pong based on ideology.

SAUDI ARABIA

Yes, in 2016 we discovered that Saudi Arabia was now operating their own intelligence data-gathering operation. It would make sense, given the nature of the Middle East and the constant fluctuations in political support from the United States. It is a lesson the allied Arab community and Gulf Cooperation Council learned quickly when President Obama went to Cairo in 2009 and launched the Islamist Spring (Arab Spring) upon them.

I have no doubt the creation of the Saudi intelligence network was specifically because the Obama administration started supporting radical Islamists within the Muslim Brotherhood, and threw fuel on the fires of extremism all over the Arab world.

Think about it., What would you do if you were Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, Kuwait, the UAE, Jordan, Oman or Yemen and you knew the United States could just trigger an internal uprising of al-Qaeda, ISIS and the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood to seek your destruction?

Without a doubt, those urgent lessons from 2009, 2010, 2011 triggered the formation of the Arab Intelligence Network as a network to defend itself with consistency. They assembled the network and activated it in 2017 as pictured above.

Israel

Along a similar outlook to the Arab network, no doubt Israel operates an independent data collection system as a method of protecting itself from ever-changing U.S. politics amid a region that is extremely hostile to its very existence. Like the others, Israel launches proprietary satellites, and we can be sure they use covert methods to gather electronic data just like the U.S. and China.

As we have recently seen in the Pegasus story, Israel creates spyware programs that are able to track and monitor cell phone communications of targets. The spyware would not work unless Israel had access to some network where the phone meta-data was actually stored. So yeah, it makes sense for Israel to operate an independent intelligence database.

Summary:

As we understand the United States Intelligence Branch of government as the superseding entity that controls the internal politics of our nation, we also must consider that multiple nations have the same issue. There are major intelligence networks around the world beside the NSA “Five-Eyes” database. China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Israel all operate proprietary databases deploying the same tools and techniques for assembly.

The geopolitical conflict that has always existed has now shifted into a digital battle-space. The Intelligence Agencies from these regions are now operating as the backbone of the government that uses them, and has become dependent on them. [<- Reread that].

Once you accept the digital-era intelligence apparatus of China, Russia, Saudi-Arabia, The United States and Israel, are now the primary national security mechanisms for stabilization of government; then you accept the importance of those intelligence operations.

Once you understand how foundational those modern intelligence operations have become for the stability and continuity of those governments…… then you begin to understand just how the United States intelligence community became more important than the government that created it.

Public Private Partnership – The modern Fourth Branch of Government is only possible because of a Public-Private partnership with the intelligence apparatus. You do not have to take my word for it, the partnership is so brazen they have made public admissions.

The biggest names in Big Tech announced in June their partnership with the Five Eyes intelligence network, ultimately controlled by the NSA, to: (1) monitor all activity in their platforms; (2) identify extremist content; (3) look for expressions of Domestic Violent Extremism (DVE); and then, (4) put the content details into a database where the Five Eyes intelligence agencies (U.K., U.S., Australia, Canada, New Zealand) can access it.

Facebook, Twitter, Google and Microsoft are all partnering with the intelligence apparatus. It might be difficult to fathom how openly they admit this, but they do. Look at this sentence in the press release (emphasis mine):

[…] “The Group will use lists from intelligence-sharing group Five Eyes adding URLs and PDFs from more groups, including the Proud Boys, the Three Percenters and neo-Nazis.”

Think about that sentence structure very carefully. They are “adding to” the preexisting list…. admitting the group (aka Big Tech) already have access to the the intelligence-sharing database… and also admitting there is a preexisting list created by the Five Eyes consortium.

Obviously, who and what is defined as “extremist content” will be determined by the Big Tech insiders themselves. This provides a gateway, another plausible deniability aspect, to cover the Intelligence Branch from any oversight.

When the Intelligence Branch within government wants to conduct surveillance and monitor American citizens, they run up against problems due to the Constitution of the United States. They get around those legal limitations by sub-contracting the intelligence gathering, the actual data-mining, and allowing outside parties (contractors) to have access to the central database.

The government cannot conduct electronic searches (4th amendment issue) without a warrant; however, private individuals can search and report back as long as they have access. What is being admitted is exactly that preexisting partnership. The difference is that Big Tech will flag the content from within their platforms, and now a secondary database filled with the extracted information will be provided openly for the Intelligence Branch to exploit.

The volume of metadata captured by the NSA has always been a problem because of the filters needed to make the targeting useful. There is a lot of noise in collecting all data that makes the parts you really want to identify more difficult to capture. This new admission puts a new massive filtration system in the metadata that circumvents any privacy protections for individuals.

Previously, the Intelligence Branch worked around the constitutional and unlawful search issue by using resources that were not in the United States. A domestic U.S. agency, working on behalf of the U.S. government, cannot listen on your calls without a warrant. However, if the U.S. agency sub-contracts to say a Canadian group, or foreign ally, the privacy invasion is no longer legally restricted by U.S. law.

What was announced in June 2021 is an alarming admission of a prior relationship along with open intent to define their domestic political opposition as extremists.

July 26 (Reuters) – A counterterrorism organization formed by some of the biggest U.S. tech companies including Facebook (FB.O) and Microsoft (MSFT.O) is significantly expanding the types of extremist content shared between firms in a key database, aiming to crack down on material from white supremacists and far-right militias, the group told Reuters.

Until now, the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism’s (GIFCT) database has focused on videos and images from terrorist groups on a United Nations list and so has largely consisted of content from Islamist extremist organizations such as Islamic State, al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Over the next few months, the group will add attacker manifestos – often shared by sympathizers after white supremacist violence – and other publications and links flagged by U.N. initiative Tech Against Terrorism. It will use lists from intelligence-sharing group Five Eyes, adding URLs and PDFs from more groups, including the Proud Boys, the Three Percenters and neo-Nazis.

The firms, which include Twitter (TWTR.N) and Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) YouTube, share “hashes,” unique numerical representations of original pieces of content that have been removed from their services. Other platforms use these to identify the same content on their own sites in order to review or remove it. (read more)

The influence of the Intelligence Branch now reaches into our lives, our personal lives. In the decades before 9/11/01 the intelligence apparatus intersected with government, influenced government, and undoubtedly controlled many institutions with it. The legislative oversight function was weak and growing weaker, but it still existed and could have been used to keep the IC in check. However, after the events of 9/11/01, the short-sighted legislative reactions opened the door to allow the surveillance state to weaponize.

After the Patriot Act was triggered, not coincidentally only six weeks after 9/11, a slow and dangerous fuse was lit that ends with the intelligence apparatus being granted a massive amount of power. The problem with assembled power is always what happens when a Machiavellian network takes control over that power and begins the process to weaponize the tools for their own malicious benefit. That is exactly what the installation of Barack Obama was all about.

The Obama network took pre-assembled intelligence weapons we should never have allowed to be created, and turned those weapons into tools for his radical and fundamental change. The target was the essential fabric of our nation. Ultimately, this corrupt political process gave power to create the Fourth Branch of Government, the Intelligence Branch. From that perspective the fundamental change was successful.

WHAT NOW? 

There is a way to stop and deconstruct the Intelligence Branch, but it requires some outside-the-box thinking and reliance on the Constitution as a tool to radically change one element within government. In the interim, we must remain focused on the three tiers that we need for success.

• Tier One is “tactical civics” at a local level. Engaged and active citizen participation at the community, city, town and hamlet level of society. This is what might be described as grassroots level, school board level; city council level; county commissioner level.

• Tier Two is “extreme federalism” at a state level. Engaged and active citizen participation through your State House and State Senate representative. This is state level assembly and action demands upon the State House, State Senate and State Governor.

• Tier Three the challenge of “federal offices” on a national level {Go Deep}.  This is the part where we need President Donald Trump, and his power to confront the issues comes directly from us.

I am confident that ultimately “We The People” will win.  How we can execute the solution is more challenging; in the interim, tactical civics and extreme federalism are doable right now, in this next 2024 election cycle.

It sucks that a UniParty congress extended FISA-702.  However, even if the hail-Mary pass on Monday fails, FISA was still extended for only two-years.

Authored by Tucker Carlson via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours)

The U.S. House is expected to vote Friday on a two-year extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, commonly known as FISA. This transcript has been edited for length and reprinted with permission from Tucker Carlson.

A few years ago, we learned conclusively that, in fact, the FBI and the federal intel agencies—the dozen or more federal intel agencies we have, for some reason—had been working secretly against Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

Trump had whispered about this, then shouted about it, was roundly denounced as a conspiracy nut, a lunatic. But in the end, he was vindicated. It was true.

These agencies spied on Trump, and they leaked some of what they learned to the media, which used it against Trump. Then these agencies concocted false stories about Trump. They tried to crush Trump completely in 2016 and then for the entire course of his presidency. Then they did the same thing in 2020 during the presidential election.

And they’re doing it still. They’re trying to put him in prison for the rest of his life. So if we take three steps back, what you have here is what we’re seeing now.

For the third time in three consecutive cycles, secretive federal agencies are trying to rig our presidential election. This is what the Democrats refer to as democracy, and they’re trying to defend it. But of course, it’s the opposite of democracy. It’s, in fact, the end of democracy in any semblance of a constitutional republic we ever had.

If you have a secret police force threatening people, spying on them, and working secretly the levers of political power, then you don’t have a democracy. You have no control over really anything as a voter.

So if there’s one thing the Republican Party, the opposition party, should be doing in response to this, right now, it’s fighting back against this descent into totalitarianism. They should be working to return freedom and democracy to the country. They should defend the Constitution. They should rein in these agencies, Washington secret police.

But you will not be surprised to learn they’ve been busy doing just the opposite. So if you’re wondering why no one is going to prison for any of this, now that we know what actually happened, well, the reason is in part a law called FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, has been around a long time.

Sen. Teddy Kennedy first proposed it, by the way, back in the mid-1970s. And that law allows the federal government to spy without a warrant on foreigners outside the borders of the country. The idea is bad people are doing bad things against us. We need to know what they are, and we can’t bother to go to a court to get a warrant every time we want to know, but it will never be used against American citizens. Well, of course, now we know it has been at scale.

That law, FISA, has made it possible. So that law is now up for reauthorization in the House of Representatives. And amazingly, the new speaker of the House, Mike Johnson of Louisiana, has spent the last couple of weeks doing all he can to get that law reauthorized.

In other words, to allow the federal agencies to continue to spy upon and punish people who disagree with them. In other words, Mike Johnson’s own party. Republicans, Trump voters. Mike Johnson has been working to do that, and that effort failed [Wednesday] because members of Congress heard from their constituents or came to their senses, saw the truth in a dream.

Whatever happened, they stopped Mike Johnson from doing that for the moment. So that’s a good thing. And you ought to be celebrating. And even if you didn’t know it was happening—and a lot of people didn’t because it got very little media coverage. But of course, this is a temporary victory. Like all bad things, like that Chlamydia you got in a hot tub in Cabo in college, it will come back.

This attempt to spy on you, an American citizen, without a warrant because you’ve been politically disobedient. Why will it come back? Because it’s what they really care about. And so, before it does come back, it’s worth just a very quick autopsy.

What just happened? What do we just see so we can learn a couple of important lessons?

Ep. 92 The FISA bill is dead but, like herpes, it’ll be back. It’s important to punish the people that pushed it. pic.twitter.com/QFRh16SsRL

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) April 10, 2024

The first lesson we’re going to learn is that a lot of powerful people in the Congress are liars. They lie without shame, in fact, with pride. And they do so at the behest of or because of blackmail instituted by the intel agencies. And at the head of that list would be the chairman of the House Intel Committee, Mike Turner of Ohio.

We’re going to play a clip from Mike Turner of Ohio saying exactly the opposite of what is true here. Is Mike Turner reassuring you that face, it would never, under the face of law, the U.S. government would never be allowed to spy on you without a warrant, because that’s unconstitutional. It never happened. It never will happen. And if you think otherwise, you’re probably one of those UFO-believing nutjobs who want to stop doing ayahuasca.

Here’s House Intel Committee, pawn of the intel agencies, Mike Turner of Ohio:

“They are—we are not surveilling foreigners in the United States. We’re not surveilling Americans, United States. Those individuals who say that is a warrantless search of Americans’ data are just not telling the truth. These are foreigners abroad. They’re a select group of individuals who are a national security threat. If you’re an American and you’re corresponding with ISIS, yes. If we’re, if we’re spying on ISIS, your communications are going to be captured. And you would want us to do that. All Americans would want us to try to make certain that we keep ourselves safe from these terrorist, outside terrorist groups, organizations. We are not spying on Americans. This is not a warrantless surveillance program. This is foreigners who are abroad only.”

Every word of that is a lie. And we don’t need to guess. And I hate to use that pronoun, but I specifically don’t need to guess, because that actually happened to me.

The [National Security Agency] broke into my text messages, read them, passed them to news organizations in order to discredit me, and then admitted that they did that. They spied on me and they did it under FISA because I was daring to text with a foreigner outside our borders.

So Mike Turner knows that, he’s the chairman of the intel committee. He knows he’s lying, but he’s doing it anyway because it’s that important to preserve that core power.

If you have the power to spy on someone and then to leak the information that you gather or manipulated and then leak it in order to control that person, that’s a major power. In fact, that’s a bigger power than any voter in this country has. And so he’s acting on their behalf when he lies to you. And so it shouldn’t surprise you that they want to keep that power.

They want to keep it so badly that over the last week, U.S. government officials did something that may not have precedent in Washington. They lobbied members of Congress directly. They, in the words they used in Washington, they whipped the bill.

Officials from the Department of Justice called, among others, [Rep.] Chip Roy of Texas to demand that he vote for FISA reauthorization.

Imagine that—DOJ, Department of Justice, the federal law enforcement agency, called Chip Roy and said, “You got to do this.” Think about that.

Is there any group in this country more powerful than the Department of Justice? They can put you in jail, and they’ve shown a willingness to do that. They could put kiddy porn on your computer. They’ve probably done that too. And everybody who serves in Congress knows that, and everybody’s afraid of them—along with the CIA and NSA and a bunch of other, three other agencies.

Members of Congress are afraid of them because they know the consequences of disobedience. And so for them to call directly a member of Congress would be like the FBI coming to your House on Election Day and demanding that you vote for their designated candidate. And then having access to the record of who you actually voted for, as they do in the Congress.

Can you imagine? You’d be highly motivated to vote for their candidate, wouldn’t you? Yes, you would. So they’re willing to do anything to get this enshrined in law, because it gives them legal cover to subvert democracy, which is their program, of course.

Read the full transcript at TuckerCarlson.com. Reprinted by permission from The Daily Signal, a publication of The Heritage Foundation.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie on Tuesday became the second representative to call for an end to Mike Johnson's reign as Speaker of the House, joining Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene. 

He delivered that news directly to Johnson in a closed-door Republican conference meeting, telling the Louisianan "you’re not going to be the speaker much longer,” two representatives told Politico. Massie has criticized Johnson for backing aid packages for Ukraine and Israel, kick-the-can spending bills and the extension of warrantless NSA spying via the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act -- while failing to bolster border security. 

?? Congress gives itself a carve out in the reauthorization of FISA 702 warrantless spying on Americans.

The bill requires the FBI to notify and seek consent from Congress before violating the privacy of Congressmen.

This will persuade many members of Congress to vote yes. pic.twitter.com/usKVeNnq3b

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) April 9, 2024

In March, Greene -- incensed at Johnson for collaborating with Democrats to push through a $1.2 trillion spending package over the objection of conservatives seeking spending cuts -- filed a motion to "vacate the chair," which would initiate a vote by House members on whether to fire Johnson from the job of speaker.

It's unclear when Greene, Massie or someone else will call for a vote on the motion. Greene has said that she wants to allow time "for us to go through the process, take our time and find a new speaker of the House that will stand with Republicans and our Republican majority instead of standing with the Democrats.” She's also expressed wariness over risking the GOP's razor-thin House majority -- which has withered in recent weeks as multiple Republicans announced they're leaving Congress before finishing their terms. 

This is how the Constitution dies.

By a tie vote, the amendment to require a warrant to spy on Americans goes down in flames.

This is a sad day for America.

The Speaker doesn’t always vote in the House, but he was the tie breaker today. He voted against warrants. pic.twitter.com/i49GnCzyPm

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) April 12, 2024

Massie says it's only a matter of time before the House votes on Greene's motion to vacate. “The motion is going to get called, OK? Does anybody doubt that? The motion will get called," Massie told reporters after Tuesday's meeting.  "And then he's gonna lose more votes than Kevin McCarthy. And I have told him this in private, like weeks ago.” Johnson's predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, was himself dethroned in October via a motion to vacate the chair.

While Massie and Greene are far from alone in their disappointment in Johnson, many of their disgruntled colleagues are wary of a scenario in which Johnson is ousted and the House spends days or weeks  struggling to settle on a successor.  

Friday, we have one less Republican in the majority as Rep Gallagher leaves instead of finishing his term.

As a going away gift, Speaker Johnson plans to force the senate to take up Gallagher’s bill to ban tiktok and give Presidential power to ban websites.

But still no border.

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) April 16, 2024

"We saw what happened last fall when this all went down — there’s not an alternative…You are not going to get a majority of votes for any new person,” Louisiana Rep. Garret Graves told Politico.  

Massie has asked Johnson to first allow the party to select a successor, and then voluntarily step down. On Tuesday, Johnson was defiant. “I am not resigning and it is in my view an absurd notion that someone would bring a vacate motion when we are simply trying to do our job,” he told reporters. 

Massie's announcement in the closed-door meeting ruffled feathers. Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan voiced his discomfort with the idea, saying, "We don't need that, no way. We don't want that. We shouldn't go through that again. That's a bad idea.” 

“I regard myself as a wartime Speaker.”

Get a grip; we are not at war. You can’t use that as an excuse to justify passage of warrantless spying, a bloated omnibus, or $100 billion in foreign aid. https://t.co/hOb0IRNxVr

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) April 17, 2024

On Monday night, Johnson compounded conservatives' anger when he announced he would bring four separate measures to a vote: aid to Ukraine, aid to Israel, aid to Taiwan and another bill with miscellaneous measures including a TikTok ban. As the New York Times explains, the goal is to cobble together legislation that would match what Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is cooking up: 

If all four pieces passed the House, they would then be folded into a single bill for the Senate to take up, in an effort to ensure that senators could not cherry-pick pieces to approve or reject.

“We’re steering toward everything Chuck Schumer wants,” said Massie. Decoupling the proposals also saps conservatives' leverage to force more spending on border security. Greene called the plan "a scam" and added, "He’s definitely not going to be speaker next Congress if we’re lucky enough to have the majority."

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

“Once someone determined Trump was so bad it was okay to lie about him, it set the precedent that the only thing that mattered was a subject’s politics.”

- Matt Taibbi

What fascinates us about sex, I suppose, is that most everyone wants it and seeks it, driven by irresistible natural impulses, and yet the act itself is such an affront to civilized decorum that it inspires both comedy and horror, two states of consciousness that are themselves irresistibly compelling. Add lawyers to all that and you find yourself entering the realm of opera bouffe, which is to say, kitsch, human expression reduced to its most self-consciously ridiculous.

Enter Stormy Daniels, that notorious pair of cumulus clouds attached to a person, who made a career in the sex industry and later on, at the age when sex workers generally face retirement, had a fresh start as a political gadfly buzzing around the mystifying hair-do of President Donald Trump. Stormy first encountered Mr. Trump in 2006 when he was a mere TV star who played in a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe. She was hanging out there with two porn-star girlfriends. Golf nuts all, must’ve been.

Stormy managed to blow into Mr. Trump’s hotel room there, so her story goes, where she apparently teased him into a state of florid desire, while mocking him, and then obliged his advances, even developing a sort of friendship that, over a few years, included more hotel room meet-ups and promises of revamped stardom on his “The Apprentice” TV show, alas, never consummated. Strange to relate, around that time Stormy launched her own political career way before Mr. Trump made the leap into government.

But once Mr. Trump jumped into the 2016 presidential primaries and began to terrify the establishment by winning one contest after another, Stormy finagled a $130,000 hush-money payment through Trump attorney Michael Cohen to keep her big yap shut about their doings.

By 2018, she hitched herself to California lawyer Michael Avenatti (now in prison) and filed a lawsuit against then-President Trump attempting to invalidate the non-disclosure agreement that came with the hush-money. Stormy also engaged a publicist, and, what do you know, The Wall Street Journal published a story about the alleged romance.

By then, Stormy had launched a “publicity tour” and got herself booked on Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night talk show to discuss the allegations.

In December 2018, Stormy lost a defamation suit against President Trump filed by Mr. Avenatti, and was ordered to pay over $300,000 to Mr. Trump.

Five years later, an appeals court ordered her to pay an additional $122,000 to Mr. Trump to cover his legal fees. By then, Michael Avenatti, her lawyer, was in jail in California for embezzling client funds. Various letters had emerged allegedly signed by Stormy stating that she hadn’t engaged in sex with Mr. Trump, along with Facebook conversations on her account saying the same thing.

Also, in 2018, Mr. Trump’s attorney, Michael Cohen, was busted by the FBI for tax evasion and eventually plead guilty. He was interrogated by the Mueller special counsel operation which, by a convoluted route, earned Mr. Cohen a conviction for perjury in congressional testimony.

Stormy Daniels then sued Mr. Cohen for defamation but the case was dismissed.

Mr. Cohen eventually served a year in prison but was released to home confinement due to the Covid-19 event.

These doings did not go unnoticed by the politicized Southern District of New York office of the DOJ and by then Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance, Jr. Both tried to construct some kind of case against President Trump on all this monkey business, but gave up because the payment of hush-money was itself not illegal between consenting parties and they could not torture the facts into a theory that would make it a crime.

Also, by then, their chief witness, Mr. Cohen, had been disbarred and was officially branded a perjurer and liar.

Fast-forward to the 2020 election. “Joe Biden” manages to charm swing-state voters from his basement hide-out, moves into the puppet-theater known as the White House, and unleashes the dogs of lawfare on former president Trump so as to knock him off the political game-board for once and for all.

“JB’s” Attorney General, Merrick Garland, sends Deputy AG Matthew Colangelo to work in DA Alvin Bragg’s office, to construct some kind of case out of the Stormy Daniels / Michael Cohen debris.

The result is an improbable farrago of 34 counts of falsifying business records relating to the Stormy Daniels hush-money payments, converted from misdemeanors to felonies on the theory that the falsifications were intended to conceal other election law crimes, including “influencing the 2016 election.”

Each count for which Trump is convicted could result in a prison sentence of up to four years, to be served consecutively, meaning 136 years in jail.

Mr. Trump thus becomes the proverbial ham sandwich that an ambitious DA can convince a grand jury to indict.

Now, Mr. Bragg has to persuade a trial jury to convict, in a courtroom presided over by one Judge Juan Merchan, Democratic Party activist and donor, whose daughter, Loren, has raised $93-million in campaign money for Democratic candidates in this November’s election. The Judge has, so far, refused to recuse himself.

The DA’s chief witness will be Michael Cohen. Donald Trump will be the first US president indicted on criminal charges. He’ll be in the courtroom many days as the trial proceeds, likely into June.

Even if the trial becomes a dumpster fire for the prosecution, Mr. Trump could be convicted by a Trump-deranged New York jury.

Then it’ll be onto the appeals courts. Then, the three other lawfare cases await in Georgia, Florida, and DC.

Do you suppose that Americans actually take comfort in the re-election of “Joe Biden”?

*  *  *

Support his blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page or Substack

Authored by Lee Fang via RealClear Investigations and LeeFang.com,

Ukraine’s American-backed fight against Russia is being waged not only in the blood-soaked trenches of the Donbas region but also on what military planners call the cognitive battlefield – to win hearts and minds.

A sprawling constellation of media outlets organized with substantial funding and direction from the U.S. government has not just worked to counter Russian propaganda but has supported strong censorship laws and shutdowns of dissident outlets, disseminated disinformation of its own, and sought to silence critics of the war, including many American citizens.

Economist Jeffrey Sachs, commentator Tucker Carlson, journalist Glenn Greenwald, and University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer are among the critics on both the left and the right who have been cast as part of a “network of Russian propaganda.”

But the figures targeted by the Ukrainian watchdog groups are hardly Kremlin agents. They simply have forcefully criticized dominant narratives about the war.

Sachs is a highly respected international development expert who has angered Ukrainian officials over his repeated calls for a diplomatic solution to the current military conflict. Last November, he gave a speech at the United Nations calling for a negotiated peace.

Mearsheimer has written extensively on international relations and is a skeptic of NATO expansion. He predicted that Western efforts to militarize Ukraine would lead to a Russian invasion.

Greenwald is a Pulitzer Prize-winning independent journalist who has criticized not just war coverage but media dynamics that suppress voices that run counter to U.S. narratives.

“What they mean when they demand censorship of ‘pro-Russia propaganda’ is anything that questions the US/EU role in the Ukraine war or who dissents from their narratives,” Greenwald has observed.

There’s no evidence of Kremlin influence over their viewpoints, but their comments alone are enough for a network of U.S.-backed Ukrainian media groups to tarnish these experts as Russian propagandists.  

As Congress debates major new funding to support the Ukrainian war effort, U.S. taxpayer dollars are already flowing to outlets such as the New Voice of Ukraine, VoxUkraine, Detector Media, the Institute of Mass Information, the Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine and many others. Some of this money has come from the $44.1 billion in civilian-needs foreign aid committed to Ukraine. While the funding is officially billed as an ambitious program to develop high-quality independent news programs; counter malign Russian influence; and modernize Ukraine’s archaic media laws, the new sites in many cases have promoted aggressive messages that stray from traditional journalistic practices to promote the Ukrainian government’s official positions and delegitimize its critics.

VoxUkraine has released highly produced videos attacking the credibility of American opposition voices, including Sachs, Mearsheimer, and Greenwald. Detector Media, one of the most influential media watchdog groups, similarly produces a flow of social media and posts branding American critics of the war as part of a Russian disinformation operation. The outlets are also devoted to domestic disputes. Detector Media’s broadcasts have lampooned critics of Ukrainian government moves to shut down opposition media outlets.

It’s not only dissident voices targeted by the media groups, which are funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

Detector Media went after the New York Times in February over a news report about hundreds of Ukrainians in the battle for Avdiivka who were captured or missing. The Ukrainian fact-check site offered little in terms of a rebuttal. Detector Media only cited a spokesperson for the Ukrainian Defense Forces disputing the Times' story, which it labeled as "disinformation." The New Voice of Ukraine quoted a Ukrainian official describing the Times story as a “Russian Psyop,” a term for psychological warfare.

Unlike similar media development programs that USAID has led throughout the Middle East, Ukrainian outlets tend to produce a great deal of English content that trickles back into the domestic American audience and explicitly targets American foreign policy discourse.

The New Voice of Ukraine syndicates with Yahoo News. VoxUkraine is a fact-checking partner with Meta, which assists in removing content deemed “Russian disinformation” from Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Detector Media has similarly led a consortium of nonprofit groups pressuring social media platforms to aggressively remove content critical of Ukraine.

"It makes more sense to have it in English because one of the things that happens is that the narrative that one encounters in the mainstream media in the West is referenced as the official Ukrainian voices," said Nicolai N. Petro, a professor specializing in Russian and Ukrainian affairs at the University of Rhode Island.

"These then become the known Ukrainian voices, although they're actually only an echo of the voice that we are projecting into Ukraine,” Petro added.

In the new aid earmarked for the war in Ukraine that Congress is now debating, a small portion of the $60 billion emergency spending package is devoted to continued USAID programs in the country. President Volodymyr Zelensky, in an interview this week with Politico and Bild, argued that legislators skeptical of the aid package were under the influence of Russian propaganda.

“They have their lobbies everywhere: in the United States, in the EU countries, in Britain, in Latin America, in Africa,” Zelenskyy said of Russian influence, without naming names. The pro-Russian pressure groups, the Ukrainian president added, relied on "certain media groups, citizens of the United States."

Information control is a central dynamic playing out in the Ukraine-Russia war. U.S. media have provided wide coverage of President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to clamp down on critical news outlets, enacting new criminal penalties for those publishing "false information" about the conflict. Many independent outlets in Russia have been forced to close, including the left-leaning radio station Ekho Moskvy. The Russian government has also blocked Russian-language news sites based in the West and arrested at least 22 journalists, including the Wall Street Journal's Evan Gershkovich.

But far less attention has been paid to the Ukraine government’s crackdown on independent and opposition media, a push aided by the U.S.-backed network of anti-disinformation groups. Even as Washington’s efforts to censor information at home are drawing greater scrutiny, its support of Ukraine’s efforts reflects the increasingly global reach of the American government’s propaganda arms.

"There's an information war going on between Russia and Ukraine, and the United States is not a disinterested party – we're an active participant,” said George Beebe, a director with the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. "The U.S. government has been trying to shape perceptions, and it's very difficult to separate what's intended for foreign audiences from what seeps into the Anglosphere media, if you want to call it that, including here in the United States.”

American influence in Ukraine’s media environment stretches back to the end of the Cold War, though it has intensified in recent years. Since the outbreak of the war, USAID support has extended to 175 national Ukrainian media entities.

Over the last decade, efforts to crack down on speech have been increasingly justified as an effort to protect social media from disinformation. The U.S. helped set up new think tanks and media watchdogs and brought over communications specialists to guide Ukraine’s approach. Nina Jankowicz, the polarizing official whom President Biden appointed to lead the Department of Homeland Security's Disinformation Governance Board to police social media content, previously advised the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry on its anti-disinformation work.

In response to questions about the U.S.-backed anti-disinformation groups in Ukraine targeting Americans, the U.S. State Department provided a statement saying it defines disinformation as “as false or misleading information that is deliberately created or spread with the intent to deceive or mislead.” It added, “We accept there may be other interpretations or definitions and do not censor or coerce independent organizations into adopting our definition.” 

While noting that the U.S. “provides funding to credible independent media organizations to strengthen democracies in the countries we work in around the world,” the statement declared, “We do not control the editorial content of these organizations.”

However, disclosures indicate that the U.S. government and its contractors tasked with reforming Ukraine’s institutions have directly set the agenda for Ukrainian outlets. Immediately after Russia invaded Ukraine two years ago, the USAID dispensed emergency grants to its media partners, partly through the Zinc Network, a contractor based in London that has been accused of setting up covert public relations campaigns on behalf of the British government.

The grant description notes that the money went to the Zinc Network and Detector Media to assist the Ukrainian government with strategic communications and to "undermine Kremlin information operations.” Far from independent reporting, the grant instructions asked the recipients to provide "quick, effective PR and media engagement." In addition to countering Russian disinformation, the money was intended to “maintain public morale” and "bolster international support for solidarity with Ukraine."

Last September, journalist Jack Poulson reported on a leaked report from the Zinc Network’s Open Information Partnership, which helps coordinate the activities of several anti-Russian disinformation nonprofits around Europe backed by NATO members, including Detector Media.

The lengthy report defines disinformation as not only false or misleading content but also "verifiable information which is unbalanced or skewed, amplifies, or exaggerates certain elements for effect, or uses emotive or inflammatory language to achieve effects which fit within existing Kremlin narratives, aims, or activities."

In other words, factual information with emotional language that simply overlaps with anything remotely connected to Russian viewpoints is considered disinformation, according to this U.S.-backed consulting firm helping to guide the efforts of Ukrainian think tanks and media.

Many of the broad narratives the report identified as Russian disinformation follow this vague rubric. These included allegations that NATO is using Ukraine as a pawn in a proxy war against Russia and concerns that Ukrainian politicians are corrupt.

Above, Ukraine war critic John Mearsheimer on "The Grayzone,"
the YouTube program of Aaron MatÄ—, another critic of the war.

The report goes on to blame many British and American experts who “portray the West as being divided, corrupt, or nefarious” as part of the Russian disinformation system. The document names liberal journalists Max Blumenthal and Newsweek’s Ellie Cook, as well as Republican figures such as former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and Arizona Congressman Andy Biggs, as voices that end up featured in Russian propaganda and disinformation.

The Open Information Partnership report suggests new legislation to counter "malign foreign actors" and for European intelligence agencies to "do more" and provide a "unified approach" against the dangers of disinformation. Zinc Network did not respond to a request for comment.

Ukraine’s government has also worked with U.S. government officials and others to censor its American critics. One prominent example is Aaron Mate—, a RealClearInvestigations contributor who has criticized U.S. policy regarding Ukraine in other outlets. Following the Russian invasion, Twitter, under its old ownership, flagged Mate— to be censored after the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the Ukrainian intelligence agency, included him on a list of accounts sent to the FBI that were "suspected by the SBU in spreading fear and disinformation.”

Just months after the social media request, Ross Burley, a former Zinc Network and Open Information Partnership official now with the Centre for Information Resilience, spoke openly about his desire to censor critics of the war, including Mate—. Burley, who "designed, implemented, and led several of the UK Government’s counter disinformation programmes," according to a now-deleted profile, discussed the rise of independent media critical of the Ukrainian government and Western support for a war that has devastated that country. He discussed the conflict at the Opinion Festival in Tallinn, Estonia, in August 2022.

Burley argued that social media platforms needed more “responsibility” regarding what types of content to allow. "Even I saw Russell Brand, who has a huge following on YouTube, was interviewing a journalist called Aaron Mate— on his channel," said Burley, who added that it is "incredibly irresponsible for YouTube and other social media companies to continue to host these people.”

Silencing Zelensky's Enemies Within

The organizations supported by the U.S. government have also sought to silence critics inside Ukraine.  Before the war, in one of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s first controversial acts to stifle political opposition, he moved in February 2021 to close television channels 112, NewsOne, and ZIK – stations owned by Viktor Medvedchuk and his associate Taras Kozak, former lawmakers with the Opposition Party of Life, a bloc opposed to Zelensky – over allegations of Kremlin ties.

"The sanctions against TV channels of Mr. Medvedchuk are not about media and freedom of speech at all," said Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelensky's chief of staff. "This is only about effective countermeasures against fakes and foreign propaganda."

Later that year, in December 2021, the United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights released a statement that criticized the Ukrainian crackdown on journalists and peaceful expression. The report cited the closure of opposition television channels and other media.

The USAID-funded Ukrainian media network, however, was quick to defend the Zelensky government. The decision to close the outlets, wrote Detector Media, was "not an attack on freedom of speech" because the channels, the group argued, provided "informational support of Russian aggression against Ukraine."

In May 2022, the Zelensky government widely expanded its efforts to outlaw the political opposition. Zelensky moved to ban 11 political parties over alleged ties to Russia, the largest of which was Medvedchuk’s Opposition Party of Life, which previously held 44 seats in the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian parliament.

Later that summer, other bills to crack down on media rights that had failed to pass in the past over civil liberty concerns were brought back into consideration. Mykyta Poturayev, a Ukrainian legislator and close ally of Zelensky, re-introduced the On Media Law.

The legislation features provisions to penalize hate speech and disinformation, as well as broad powers to limit certain forms of foreign influence. Among its most contentious provisions is the power granting a council controlled by Zelensky and his allies to ban media outlets without a court order. 

Before Zelensky signed the bill in December 2022, many journalists spoke out against the legislation. The European Federation of Journalists and the Committee to Protect Journalists denounced it as an extreme violation of journalistic freedom. Ukraine's National Union of Journalists described the bill as the "biggest threat to free speech in independent [Ukraine's] history."

Again, the USAID-funded media groups provided pivotal support amid a tightening on journalistic freedom. The push to support the bill was largely led by U.S.-government-backed think tanks and media outlets. As the Ukrainian legislature moved forward, Detector Media reported a new statement from select journalists and nonprofits who supported the controversial legislation. The statement argued that the Zelensky-appointed council overseeing media was an “independent regulator” and urged the adoption of the law as a tool to counteract foreign aggression.

The statement was organized by Ukraine's Center for Democracy and Rule of Law. In 2022, the group received 76.67% of its budget from USAID, USAID’s contractors, and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a U.S. government-funded nonprofit that was spun out of the Central Intelligence Agency in the 1980s.

The other signatories of the statement included the Laboratory of Digital Security and Human Rights Platform – both funded by USAID and Internews, a California-based USAID contractor that manages much of the agency’s Ukraine media work. Internews Ukraine, the company’s in-house Ukraine media outlet, also signed the statement supporting the On Media Law.

Internews is a significant pillar of USAID's $35 million Ukraine media program. Other European governments and private sector donors, led by billionaires Pierre Omidyar via the Omidyar Network and George Soros via the International Renaissance Foundation, have financed the network of media and activists working with the USAID groups.

Disclosures suggest other supplemental funding has been rushed to local Ukrainian media. In 2021, before Russia's invasion, Detector Media received 35.1% of its nearly $1 million budget from Internews. New data released by the federal government shows that USAID provided a $2.5 million direct grant to Detector Media last year.

In a report titled "Long-Term Investments Pay Dividends in Ukraine," NED noted that U.S.-backed groups have been pivotal in reshaping the country's law. It pointed to a coalition of nonprofits led by the Coalition Reanimation Package of Reforms, a USAID-backed group that mobilized civil society to lobby for legal and legislative changes. The group was pivotal in the push for the On Media Law. The group hailed the law's passage, calling it one of the major achievements of reforms passed during the war.

After the legislation was passed, Detector Media attacked “Pro-Russian Telegram channels” for spreading “fakes and manipulations” about the law. One fact-check published by the group claimed that the law “had to be adopted in the context of Ukraine’s European integration.” The post countered claims that the law introduces authoritarian forms of censorship by pointing to the fact that “media professionals and members of the public were involved in its development.”

NED, the former CIA arm, has publicly touted the effort to pass the On Media Law for its work in reshaping Ukraine’s media landscape. In a report written in collaboration with Detector Media, the group discusses the law with respect to bolstering efforts to “rid the Ukrainian information space of harmful Russian propaganda.” The report noted some journalistic criticism of the proposal, concluded that it was "supported by the majority of media related civil society organizations and international donors for its expansion of democratic accountability in the information space."

Unmentioned in NED and Detector Media’s claims of widespread media support for the law is its own central role and that of other USAID-backed groups.

New Difficulties Reporting

In the midst of the first months of the Russian invasion, many in Ukraine readily accepted the need for emergency government influence. The Ukrainian government condensed the major television channels into a single “United News” national broadcast that continues today. Many journalists voluntarily paused critical reporting of the Ukrainian government to focus on coverage of the Russian invasion.

Now, over two years into the conflict, reporters are facing new difficulties in reporting on routine issues. Journalists taking a critical look at the government are facing intimidation and threats.

The Columbia Journalism Review has chronicled the precarious situation independent journalists face in today's Ukraine. In January, a pair of thugs went to the home of Yuriy Nikolov, a prominent investigative journalist who has uncovered scandals involving military catering contracts. The men tried to break down Nikolov's door, and according to his mother, who was home, called him a "provocateur" and a "traitor."

That same month, an anonymous video released videos from hidden cameras showing journalists with Bihus.Info – a local media outlet that has extensively reported on Ukrainian government corruption – using illegal drugs in private. Denys Bihus, the head of the site, has reported on Ukraine's intelligence service's involvement in the surveillance and intimidation of his media outlet.

Anatoly Shariy, a controversial Ukrainian blogger living in exile over repeated death threats, has clashed repeatedly with USAID's network of media outlets. Shariy is known for his blistering criticism of the 2014 Maidan Revolution that toppled pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych and set Ukraine on a path to alignment with NATO. The SBU, the Ukrainian intelligence agency, has accused him of "high treason" over alleged ethnic slurs targeted towards the people of the western region of Ukraine.

In July 2023, the agency added new charges, claiming Shariy distributed staged videos of Ukrainian prisoners under detention by Russian forces. The SBU has attempted to extradite Shariy, who has moved from the Netherlands to Spain and reportedly to Italy for asylum.

Online reporting in English, though, is dominated by USAID media outlets. A search for Shariy’s name returns half a dozen articles by VoxUkraine, Detector Media, the Institute of Mass Information, and the New Voice of Ukraine. The articles trash Shariy as a pro-Russian propagandist and criminal, guilty of a variety of speech-related crimes.

“In his Telegram posts, Shariy tries to emphasize that Russia is more united and stronger than Ukraine,” Detector Media claimed. “He rejects the severing of any ties between Ukraine and Russia. Even in the face of proven Russian lies and evidence of their crimes, Shariy continues to promote narratives favorable to Russia and disseminate disinformation.”

The Detector Media article provides little substance in terms of any illegal actions beyond Shariy’s viewpoints. But expressing viewpoints that run counter to Ukraine and NATO policies with respect to the war is enough to make an individual an enemy of the state.

An Afghan man and illegal immigrant who's on the FBI terror watchlist has been twice apprehended in the United States only to be released by a federal apparatus that continues to make a mockery of the very notion of "border security."  

Mohammad Kharwin, 48, was first arrested in Southern California in March 2023 after he'd illegally entered the United States from Mexico, according to NBC News, which was first to report the story. Border police suspected Kharwin was on the watchlist, because one unspecified attribute matched his entry on the list.

However, for lack of additional corroborating data, he was processed and released, just like hordes of other illegal migrants before and since. He was instructed to periodically call an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer, but was free to apply for asylum and permission to work in the United States. He was also free to board domestic flights.  

This February, the FBI alerted ICE that they suspected Kharwin had links to a terrorist group and could pose a danger. That prompted ICE to track him down in San Antonio and arrest him on Feb. 28. 

Buckle in, because the story's about to get a lot worse. On March 28, Kharwin had an immigration hearing in Pearsall, Texas. The ICE prosecutors told the judge that Kharwin was a flight risk who should be detained without bond. However, they didn't tell the judge that he posed a potential risk to national security, and declined to show the judge information revealing why the FBI is concerned about him. 

Kept in the dark, the unnamed immigration judge ordered that Kharwin be released, but demanded an above-average-for-illegal-immigrants $12,000 bond. Kharwin immediately paid it and off he went, without any court-mandated restrictions on his travel within the country. He is supposed to appear for another hearing next spring. ICE hasn't appealed the ruling and, in NBC's reporting, there's no indication authorities are seeking him. 

According to the watchlist, the FBI believes Kharwin is a member of an Afghanistan group called Hezb-e-Islami (HIG), which has been designated by the United States as a terror group. 

According to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, HIG is a “virulently anti-Western insurgent group” that sought to overturn the Western-backed Afghan government before its fall in 2021. 

HIG was responsible for attacks in Afghanistan that killed at least nine American soldiers and civilians between 2013 and 2015. The group is not seen as a top threat in terms of attacks inside the U.S.

Believe it or not, there are some 1.8 million names on the FBI's terror watchlist, and, as has been observed in the colossal rolling clusterf**k at Guantanamo Bay, the US government sometimes misidentifies people -- with positively godawful results. That said, the FBI could well be correct about Kharwin, and the handling of his March immigration hearing is certainly a cause for concern. 

There have been similar cases where watchlisted men have been processed and released. In February, we detailed the case of a man who allegedly is/was a member of the Somali terror group al-Shabaab. He was also caught in southern California in March 2023 and set free to roam the country.  

In 2023 the Border Patrol caught 172 suspects from the terror watchlist attempting to enter the US illegally. According to former DHS officials, the constant deluge of illegal migrants through the southern border has made it easier for bad actors to enter the country. According to NBC's analysis of government data, about 0.02% of encountered illegal immigrants are on the terror watchlist -- making them needles in a Biden-enlarged haystack. 

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

When ideology replaces meritocracy or provides immunity from the consequences of illegal behavior, systemic mediocrity follows.

Under toxic National Socialism, Stalinism, and Maoism, millions of cronies and grifters mouthed party lines in hopes that their approved ideology would allow them to advance their careers and excuse their lawbreaking.

The same thing has happened with the woke movement and the now-huge Diversity/Equity/Inclusion conglomerate.

Grifters and opportunists mask their selfish agendas under the cloak of neo-Marxist care for the underprivileged or victimized minorities. Meanwhile, they seek to profit illegally as if they were old-fashioned crony capitalists.

During the disastrous COVID-19 lockdown, California governor Gavin Newsom pontificated about leveraging the quarantine to ensure greater equality: “There is opportunity for reimagining a [more] progressive era as it [relates] to capitalism…We see this as an opportunity to reshape the way we do business and how we govern.”

Meanwhile, Newsom did not seem very “progressive” when he was caught in one of California’s most expensive restaurants dining with sidekick lobbyists while violating the very mask and social distancing rules he had mandated for 40 million others.

Newsom also bragged about social equity when he signed a new California law mandating $20 an hour for fast-food workers—while many of his own employees at his various company-controlled eateries made only $16 an hour.

And he allegedly gave a unique exemption from his wage law to one particular bakery/restaurant chain, Panera, whose owner is an old friend and major campaign contributor.

Newsom apparently feels that the more progressively he postures, the less he’ll be called out for his own hypocrisy and self-interested agendas.

In another egregious case, the now-imprisoned felon, Sam Bankman-Fried, may have been the greatest con artist in American history. He siphoned billions of dollars from his cryptocurrency company, destroying the fortunes of thousands when his multi-billion-dollar Ponzi empire collapsed.

How did Sam and his two Stanford law-professor parents manage to accumulate millions of dollars in resort properties and perks without getting caught until after their empire collapsed?

Answer: Sam showered millions of dollars on left-wing politicians to advance their progressive crusades. His parents justified this family giving as a form of “effective altruism.”

That catchy phrase masked the reality that his crusade for social justice was just an incredibly effective get-rich-quick scheme.

The Bankman-Fried family apparently reasoned that their devotion to this woke form of “altruism” would translate into riches for themselves, albeit bankruptcies for investors.

Another example: in Georgia’s Fulton County, District Attorney Fani Willis ran for office, promising to indict supposed right-wing monster Donald Trump.

She raised campaign money on her woke credentials. Often, when challenged, she played the race victim card.

Meanwhile, Willis hired as a special prosecutor her secret paramour, the incompetent Nathan Wade, although he had never tried a single felony or even criminal case.

She and Wade then went on expensive junkets. She claimed that she reimbursed him with cash that was, of course, unverifiable.

Given their woke ideology, both assumed they were entitled to splurge at taxpayers’ expense, offer likely-false testimony under oath, and violate canons of professional behavior for lawyers.

She wasn’t alone in her corruption. After the death of George Floyd, the founders of the left-wing Black Lives Matter movement went on a house-buying rampage. The more corporations filled their coffers with millions, either from guilt or as protection money, the more new homes the directors purchased.

One co-founder, Patrisse Khan-Cullors, a self-described Marxist, splurged by spending $3.2 million in BLM money to buy herself four upscale residences.

And the most radical Democratic members of Congress—the so-called Squad—apparently feel that the more they level accusations of racism, the more they can profit without fearing any consequences for their wrongdoing.

One squad member, Rep. Ilhan Omar, redirected $2.8 million of her office’s allotted government money to her husband’s political consulting company.

Still another member, the radical leftist Rep. Cori Bush, often harangued the country to defund the police. Now the FBI is investigating her for stealthily paying tens of thousands of campaign dollars to her own husband for “security.”

Woke and DEI activists may not necessarily be any more innately mediocre, corrupt, or conniving than other politicians and activists.

But they seem so, because they loudly broadcast that they are for “diversity,” “equity,” and “inclusion”—and thus assume themselves to be exempt from all scrutiny and free to profit in any way they please.

The woke/DEI project is enticing thousands of shysters, careerists, and mediocrities, all keen to enrich themselves on the premise that they are noble fighters for social justice who deserve immunity from any scrutiny.

How odd it is that America is wasting billions of dollars hiring DEI czars and electing woke politicians who so often accuse others of a multitude of sins, largely as a way of enriching themselves, hiding their own culpability, and making a mockery of the law.

Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

An illegal immigrant who had been deported seven times and arrested 11 times was charged with aggravated murder after an unidentified body was found in Ohio, according to local authorities.

Police found the body in Hamilton on Monday after responding to a 911 call. Investigators interviewed suspect Fermin Garcia-Gutierrez the following day.

Butler County Sheriff’s Office stated that Mr. Garcia-Gutierrez, a 46-year-old Mexican national, was detained on an ICE holder and held in the Butler County Jail for weapon charges, aggravated murder, and drug possession.

Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones said that Mr. Garcia-Gutierrez had previously been deported and arrested multiple times using seven different names and three different birth dates.

“Who knows how many people this guy has been involved in and has killed? Here in the United States, in our jail, he’s had two or three weapons charges, he’s had domestic violence [charges] … driving while intoxicated.

“We don’t know how many he’s killed in Mexico,” Mr. Jones said at a press conference.

Mr. Jones also blamed the Biden administration for the surge in illegal crossings at the U.S.–Mexico border.

“Our border is broken, and these individuals are the cause of it,” he said. “We’ve got to stop this border invasion, it’s killing us and its killing innocent people.”

The Hamilton Police Department is continuing its investigation into the murder case, according to Butler County Sheriff’s Office.

Border Patrol has encountered more than 7.6 million illegal immigrants trying to cross the border since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021.

Former federal officials and experts have said in the past that there is a real possibility that hundreds of people on the FBI’s terrorist watchlist have slipped into the United States among the millions of other illegal immigrants over the past three years.

Both FBI Director Christopher Wray and Border Patrol’s former chief, Rodney Scott, have been sounding the alarm about the state of U.S. borders amid an increasing number of known criminals and terror suspects being caught trying to enter the United States.

Customs and Border Protection data show that in fiscal year 2023, which ended in October 2023, Border Patrol agents apprehended 172 people on the watchlist from along the southwest border. However, when all ports of entry are added, the total number rises to 736. Some illegal immigrants were also caught with explosives.

U.S. Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens has previously called for stricter immigration policies to deter illegal immigrants from crossing the southern border with Mexico, including imposing jail time for violators.

Mr. Owens also suggested reviewing the country’s asylum laws to ensure that only migrants with legitimate claims will be allowed to seek asylum in the United States. He thinks that if people know there will be a consequence for breaking the law and entering the country illegally, they'll be less likely to do it.

Stephen Katte contributed to this report.

Authored by Alice Giordano via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The result of a six-month special grand jury investigation into the murder of 8-year-old Tommy Valva by his father has revealed another disturbing instance of abuse of power by child protection agencies and the family court system.

The New York boy died in 2019 from hypothermia after his father, an NYPD cop, inflicted a series of cruel punishments on him. He made the child strip naked, lay on a cold cement garage floor, and hosed him down with cold water. Michael Valva was convicted of his son’s murder in 2022.

The grand jury report, released on April 3, is wrought with similar findings in the recent review of the murder of 5-year-old Harmony Montgomery. Details of the girl’s murder and the state of New Hampshire’s inability to account for her whereabouts for two years gripped the nation.

It was a tragedy set in motion when Massachusetts Family Court Judge Mark Newman awarded custody of the little girl to her father Adam Montgomery. Mr. Montgomery was convicted in February of murdering his daughter.

Judge Newman granted custody to Mr. Montgomery instead of the girl’s mother despite his lengthy violent criminal history and transient status.

Before Tommy Valva’s murder, Suffolk County Family Court Judge Jeff Zimmerman also awarded full custody of the little boy along with his two brothers to his father Michael Valva over the boy’s mother Justyna Zubko-Valva.

In both Harmony and Tommy’s cases, court records, which were widely publicized in both murder trials, show that neither of their mothers had any history of abuse or violence.

In both of the children’s cases, child protection service workers went along with the court’s custody awards despite knowing that there were serious child abuse allegations and child welfare concerns pending against both men.

In her office’s findings from an investigation into Harmony’s murder, Maria Mossaides, director of the Massachusetts Office of the Child Advocate, slammed the state child protection agency for what she called system-wide failures and also for “recklessly” favoring parental rights over Harmony’s safety.

Throughout its 75-page investigative report, the New York grand jury charges New York’s child protection services system with the same kind of failures.

It faulted CPS employees for deeming child abuse allegations by another parent as unfounded with little evidence. It also cited the system as flawed for not having any independent checks and balances with the agency over such decisions.

According to the grand jury, the agency even refused to return its records for the investigation.

“The failure of CPS to do so can only be interpreted as a transparent attempt to shield their own inaction from public scrutiny. Thus, the laws and rules must be changed to prevent such future injustices,” the investigative jury charged.

In its report, it also focuses on another familiar issue raised in other states regarding the operations of child protection agencies and the family court system: the immunity that child protection workers and judges enjoy from dereliction of duty.

“Even though immunity does not preclude a finding of criminal liability for CPS caseworkers who have engaged in willful misconduct or gross negligence, such caseworkers are still effectively impervious to any such liability in cases where reports are deemed unfounded,” the panel wrote.

The panel discovered that caseworkers, due to not being required to substantiate their findings to the court or even a supervisor, created a shield against accusations of “willful misconduct or gross negligence.”

“In this regard, employees of CPS have the unilateral ability to thwart criminal investigations prior to the matter of immunity even becoming relevant, by determining that a case is unfounded, or by deciding not to migrate prior unfounded reports and related materials in a new indicated investigation,” the panel found.

At a press conference during the murder trial, Ms. Zubko-Valva talked about her many pleas for help to child protection workers and other state officials that went ignored.

“I kept thinking about all the institutions who failed to help him, who completely did absolutely nothing ... now everybody’s trying to do the right thing ... but where were you when I begged you for help when you could have saved my child’s life,” said Ms. Zubka-Valva who said she also filed a complaint with the FBI after Judge Hope Schwartz Zimmerman gave custody to Mr. Valva.

The judge awarded custody to the father after a divorce attorney complained to the court Ms. Zubko-Valva was “interfering with her access to the children,” according to a pending wrongful death lawsuit Ms. Zubko-Valva filed against the county CPS.

Details of CPS' alleged complicity in the court’s custody ruling are scattered throughout the lawsuit. These include accounts of the agency’s quick dismissal of a flash drive. The lawsuit stated the mother provided this drive to the agency, and it contained 320 documents and other evidence supporting the claim that Tommy and his brothers were enduring severe abuse by their father and stepmother, Angela Pollina, who was convicted last March of the second-degree murder of her stepson.

According to the lawsuit, the evidence included several letters from Tommy’s pediatrician and therapists corroborating the abuse. It was already revealed in the lawsuit and during Mr. Valva and Ms. Pollina’s trial that the agency ignored visible signs Tommy and his brothers were being starved.

Two years ago, the Institute for Justice (IJ) launched “Project Immunity and Accountability,” a national campaign to end immunity for government officials.

“If we the people must follow the law, our government must follow the Constitution,” the group states as the headline to its campaign’s mission.

CPS agencies have long been accused of using immunity to justify their troubling decisions rather than reform them.

In a 2007 case, a child advocate brought a federal suit against the Standing Rock Child Protection Services and Bureau of Indian Affairs in North Dakota after the agencies claimed immunity for knowingly placing a juvenile sex offender into a foster home with three young children.

“Such immunity, it maintains, is based on the agency’s policy decision to protect the privacy interests of its former ward,” the lawsuit charged. “By this argument, CPS creates a smokescreen within which to hide from liability, despite its flagrant abuse of a system that it is duty-bound to protect.”

As part of its campaign, IJ is asking state legislators to adopt amendments to their state constitution to abolish government immunity, but so far no lawmakers have taken up the cause.

In New Hampshire, where Harmony Montgomery was murdered in 2019, Republican lawmakers like Rep. Leah Cushman have been pushing for reform of the child protection agency and family courts.

The state did not accept any blame for the girl’s murder even though evidence was introduced during her father’s trial that the agency failed to conduct mandatory checks on her and appeared to be unaware that she had been missing for two years.

Recently, Ms. Cushman successfully convinced House leaders to form a special committee to investigate the New Hampshire Division of Children, Youth, and Family (DCYF).

As reported previously by The Epoch Times, the committee had only started when she was removed as chairman of the committee by the House Speaker when she initiated a voluntary oath for both victims and officials as part of the special committee’s investigation.

She has since told The Epoch Times she believes the “real fix” is to take child protection service agencies out of the “investigation business,” abolish family courts, and return allegations of child abuse to the criminal courts where there is real due process.

“Keeping these cases civil is being soft on crime and letting people shown to be abusive to never face justice in a real court of law,” she said.

The NH DCYF, Massachusetts Department of Children Services, and Suffolk County Child Protective Services did not respond to requests for comment from The Epoch Times.

In early March, FBI Director Chris Wray warned a Senate panel that dangerous individuals had entered the United States illegally at the southern border.

"We have had dangerous individuals entering the United States have a variety of sources," Wray said at the annual "Worldwide Threats" congressional hearings. 

Fast forward to Friday, an ABC News report citing a US intelligence bulletin warns that "radicals in the US might respond to ISIS calls for similar attacks in the wake of last month's deadly terrorist attack at a concert hall in Moscow." 

The bulletin said "lone wolves" might be compelled to attack public venues following the attack at a popular concert hall complex near Moscow last month. It warned that individuals who are not members of ISIS could also unleash attacks. 

In a bulletin to law enforcement obtained by @ABC News, the FBI, DHS and National Counterterrorism Center warned of "possible threats to public gatherings" in the U.S. from "threat actors" inspired by the ISIS attack in Moscow. @PierreTABC has details. https://t.co/wIixdvC4aq pic.twitter.com/0Oej1GoRQ2

— World News Tonight (@ABCWorldNews) April 6, 2024

Given this new warning, and what has the national intelligence community up at night, is President Biden and Democrat's disastrous open southern borders that flooded the nation with millions of unvetted migrants - some of whom are military-aged men from countries that deeply hate America. 

Donald Trump speaking on #BidensBorderBloodbath in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He highlights the fact that many single military aged men from China are coming here. #Invasion pic.twitter.com/DZQZrzESXB

— Jenna Fredo (@LynkLuv) April 2, 2024

The hearing last month with Wray emphasized how the nation is more vulnerable than ever because open southern borders have allowed bad actors to infiltrate deep within the borders under the guise of 'migrants.'  

In late March, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, warned ABC's "This Week" that human smuggling group with reported ties to ISIS will "most certainly use [their network] to move operatives into the United States."

Just days ago, a US counter-terrorism official told the New York Post that ISIS-K terrorists are growing "bolder," and its members could be preparing to flood the nation through the southern border. 

The source warned: "An attack on US soil is definitely a possibility." 

Meanwhile, a rogue Iranian assassin is already roaming the US, hunting for current and former government officials. 

And, remember last month when New York Governor Kathy Hochul mobilized 1,000 National Guard troops and State Police officers, some of whom were armed with machine guns, to patrol NYC's subway system. This kind of response by the government wasn't due to migrants but likely terror threats. 

All of this is happening right before the elections... 

Authored by Justin Smith via The Burning Platform blog,

It never ceases to amaze me at how little so many people in this country have done to train their minds to critically analyze information. They have eyes to see and ears to see, and yet, somehow the truth of any major issue still seems to evade them, or they simply refuse to recognize the truth with it standing right in front of them, slapping them in the face.

So many things are currently plumb damned fouled up by this Biden regime and going awry on their own through the dynamics set in motion by this anti-American, lawless regime, that it’s nearly impossible to properly address them all in a single commentary. But I’ve tried to give the Reader as comprehensive an assessment as I possibly can with this piece.

Michael Savage, a longtime renown radio host, was fond of noting that “liberalism is a mental disorder” and we’re witnessing the result of its heavy utilization for far too many years without being grounded in common sense and a certain amount of pragmatic realism. And so here we are, on the cusp of the final fall of America, short of a miracle from God or true patriots taking a firm stand with rifles in hand and refusing to give an inch of ground and any further movement towards the new world order desired by our amerikkan commies.

It might sound quaint and out of touch with what some have now accepted as “the new normal”, but I say we should all wrap ourselves in the American Flag and send out the clarion call for a rush of strong, capable men to come to the aid of their country, in a manner as never before.

~ J.O.S.

“I may be crazy. But it’s no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” ~ Ivor Browne, Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the University College Dublin [2017]

In an ideal and perfect world, all Americans would be following a righteously guided conscience and their better angels, and they could trust that their elected leaders were doing likewise; but, we live in a far from perfect world or society, and the fools of the country have abandoned Christian kindness, the Golden Rule and humanity for the evil of trans-humanism. Heartwarming words advocating for true freedom and liberty are far and few between in today’s society and political arenas, in a manner not too unlike the years between 1850 and 1860 that led to the Civil War; and tho’ some on both side of the political aisle still exude goodness in a way that makes each day seem a bit brighter, by and large, the Democratic Party has been completely infiltrated by Marxist-Maoist Communists, who are driving the nation towards the darkest tyranny and bloodiest days ever witnessed in America, as they attempt to stamp out the tenderness and beauty in each person’s soul and reduce us all to mere mindless cogs in their authoritarian machine.

Look around. Half or more of America’s citizenry have lost their minds and are six steps or more removed from reality, either due to the mind-numbing communist indoctrination they have absorbed from their “education” in the public school system, something genetic or a trauma from their life, some new maniacal drug that has them hooked and out of their minds, or a combination of all three.

Some would suggest that we set about immediately reforming public education to promote and defend the ideas that originally built America, but we don’t have time to change hearts and minds to counter a movement that started over a hundred years ago and now sits on the cusp of being able to solidify its current stranglehold on America, if the tide swings its way in the 2024 Election or they are able to steal the election through current fraud facilitating mechanisms. Although we can still move to properly educate the next generation in a newly reformed education system or through homeschool, now is the time to organize and assemble those within the country who already know and hold to the truth of American principles and all the freedom and liberty that follow — time to gather our like-minded American patriots and those Lions of Liberty who have had enough of witnessing this America we love so well so sorely abused, put upon and assaulted.

It doesn’t help when we have self-serving, corrupt people in high office promising to save the gullible and ill-informed from their hell and the misery it brings, if only they will support more madness to be placed in U.S. code. Vote for more economy killing “climate change” change regulations and initiatives and “we’ll put more money on your EBT cards, courtesy of Uncle Sam and the American taxpayer”. “Help us make sure the government has the final say over everybody’s children and can kill babies as they exit the birthing canal, and we’ll make certain you get privilege over all other Americans”, one can almost hear Traitor Joe whispering in some dimly lit concert hall. “You can be a champion among champions”, they say — “Let us help you change your gender”.

And if anyone stands in your way in the pursuit of any evil, it is they who will be called evil and fallen upon by the full weight of the U.S. Federal Government.

Oh yea. And as if that isn’t bad enough, Biden is now moving as fast as he can to forgive $144 billion more in student loans. He plans to announce this on Monday, April 8th 2024, and for anyone with eyes to see, this is simply corruption at its worst and Biden buying votes in the upcoming presidential election. What a slap in the face of Americans who couldn’t afford to go to college but now will be forced to bear the tax burden this move will bring.

I see the immorality growing every day, the people who revel in its evil, freaks from some futuristic sideshow that bodes ill and speaks to the destruction of humanity. and with each passing day, I find myself moving farther and farther away from those with whom I have little or nothing in common with, adrift from most of humanity too. Not in any manner that lends itself to any sadness over my situation, but rather as if to say “whew” in a realization of the relief that has come by way of my separation from those I despise most.

It’s sort of like I’m standing on the river bank watching the “ship of fools” sailing over the river falls in denial of their own mortality, thinking their crazy ideas will save them and hold them invincible, or worse, knowing they are going to die and not caring who they drag to Hell along with them. They think we’re crazy for defending America’s righteous and true founding principles and virtues and the liberty associated with them, and we think them mad for denying God, reality and the best mankind has to offer in exchange for an evil, unrestrained, immoral freedom that is no freedom at all, a bringer of Death.

Since 1965, the communists within the federal government, Congress and many state and local governments have essentially separated us and pitted us against one another as one aggrieved group or another, some special interest and through identity politics and racial hatred. They broke us into tribes and acted as if the represented each, all the while setting in place mechanisms that made us serfs to the government, The Leviathan, and reducing us all to poverty as they have gradually destroyed the bulk of the middle class in our country. The Constitution is so degraded and eroded now that any tyrant can impose his will by way of one flourish of a pen, which Traitor Joe has done through 118 executive orders, bypassing Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court.

We have a national debt that’s rapidly approaching $35 trillion and counting, that to be sure rests on the shoulders of both parties, but it couldn’t have arrived to this abysmal point without both Marxist-Maoists and RINOs accepting the tenets of the Marxist-Keynesian Modern Monetary Theory and the notion that any one nation could print and borrow an endless supply of money forever without any terrible consequence, which is currently being proven wrong. Our people struggle to pay for food and rent and new high mortgage rates have put home ownership out of reach for this new Generation Z that is coming up and expecting a successful way of life to be attainable in some form or fashion, even tho’ many of them are a great part of the problem, some thirty percent claiming to be either queer themselves or supportive of the LGBTQ sickness running rampant through American society, advocating for every known sexual perversion and deviancy one might care to mention.

Several decades ago, I realized every government in the world was using a Keynesian debt-based system, printing money as if there was no end to real assets or backing for it. Basically, the world had gone mad, as the greed of its so-called “leaders” knew no bounds, and the various governments of the world basically accepted the use of monopoly money. The charade is ongoing and the casino open, that is, ’til those at the very top decide to call in their markers and usher in the final forced phase of The Great Reset.

In 2008, as I watched the near total collapse of our economic system and heard George [Bush] say that we had to temporarily abandon the free market capitalist system in order to save it, I received a strong sense that America may have peaked and was as good as it was going to get from there on out. I had a feeling that things were only going to continue to decline, especially as one major corporation after the next receive a taxpayer funded bailout after being deemed “too big to fail”.

In unbelievable fashion, when the largest economic collapse in U.S. history hit in March 2020, to be followed by the Covid Lockdowns, pushed and kept going for years by traitors to America, such as Dr Anthony Fauci and Dr Deborah Birx, many of us saw it for the fraud it was. Still, whole swaths of our cultural freedoms and norms were very nearly destroyed, as a timid American people complied, by and large, because they couldn’t simply stand on their hind feet and tell the government despots “NO”. Even now, as many careers no longer exist and jobs are disappearing like cotton-candy on a rainy day, far too many, especially the communists among us, hold to the delusion that all is well and deny that out-of-control spending and massive national debt really do matter for the health of the nation’s economy.

Who could have possibly known at the time — other than those Deep State bad actors behind the curtain — that this was a dire harbinger of things to come and but one of the first precursors to a validation of this current system of economic fascism as the preeminent and defining feature of what everyone still mistakenly calls our “free market capitalist system”. Who knew that — if one believes Obama and now Biden — the cure for debt was more debt; the cure for greed was more greed, and that envy of the neighbors’ possessions was perfectly acceptable, even if one easily walked on over to take them by force, through armed robbery. And who could have foreseen that every Marxist-Maoist of the Democratic Party would become modern day Jezebels, condemning the innocent by way of one false accusation after another, paving the way for a vile new phenomena and way of life for the misguided youth of America.

But never in my wildest imagination did I expect to see every single government institution corrupted to its very core and heavily infiltrated by men and women seeking to destroy traditional America — to “transform America” — and bring great harm to all Americans in the process, as evil was called “good” and good was called “evil”, turning the world upside down as foretold in Isaiah 5:20, as we all witnessed in 2020, driven by the Democratic Party Communists and fascists and globalists of the country, for the most part. Never did I expect to see U.S. science so corrupted and in denial of real science, reality itself, as supposedly “educated” people were soon trying to convince the entire nation that men could really become women and women could become men — that men actually have periods and can have babies.

And as the American people continue to fail to mount a strong and passionate rejection or effective defense against the current climate change directives from the Biden regime, the Biden regime has just recently [January 26th] ordered our international export of natural gas and natural gas extraction to be placed on hold; and it’s still on hold as of this writing [April 5th], while its impact on the environment is further scrutinized. And in the meantime, the movement towards greater control over our society by way of a digital currency is gaining momentum.

I don’t think the Biden regime is going to be able to control much of anything once they completely destroy America’s energy infrastructure and our efficacy as an worldwide energy powerhouse, as we were under the Trump administration. It’s going to be damned difficult to control anything without electricity, fossil fuels or heat, and all hell will be unleashed once Americans start being forced to sit in the dark, shivering in the cold or sweltering in the heat.

When I hear Rachel “Mad-Cow” Maddow and Chris “Cry-baby” Matthews talking about Republicans who support Trump being members of a cult with “crazy ideas”, I think how ironic, that they are perfectly describing themselves and their ilk. They are so insane that they don’t even recognize themselves in that description or what it is that they don’t know; they call themselves “the normal people” as their despot leader, Traitor Joe, dismantles and tears the American republic down around the shoulders of all Americans.

In listening to many proponents of the Democratic Party Communist platform and agenda — Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Senator Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer for three in particular — I cannot help but wonder when did the wards for the mentally ill release all the inmates. And so here we are in America, where the inmates of mental institutions, federal prisons, Illegal Aliens, drug dealers and sexual deviants and child predators are running the country and the Oval Office today.

I have noted in several past articles, I do believe the “united States” is currently hurling down a path on a fast track to a full blown, hot civil war. What will emerge will either be a nation squashed under an iron-fisted communist government or a people united in freedom and liberty under a limited government, restrained from ever growing or overreaching as the current Federal System has allowed and the Biden regime has done, trampling on the entire Constitution and our Inalienable God-given Rights in the process.

Although I refuse to accept any excuse for the far-reaching, incredible and massive ignorance of so many of my countrymen in this day of the internet and information, with books aplenty in every public library too, there are an unbelievable number who accumulate scores, even hundreds, of bits and pieces of the bigger picture without the ability or the will to put them together to reach any worthwhile conclusion aimed at formulating a proper course of action to resist this current totalitarian-minded movement and save themselves, their families and communities and America herself. They do not currently seem to have any real sense of urgency, unless one looks at leadership in Texas and Florida and the current manufactured border crisis.

Twenty-five state governors stood alongside Governor Abbot of Texas in the border dispute with the Biden regime, and the Governor of South Carolina sent his own National Guardsmen to the border to assist the Texas National Guard and Texas’s various law enforcement agencies who are in this struggle for America’s survival. So although I was speaking of the average citizen in the preceding paragraph, there are some holding key positions who see the rapidly approaching existential threats to all America and are reacting with a high level of urgency and accordingly, using everything within their power to stop this one segment of the madness emanating from the Biden regime.

America has been cleaved into two separate and antithetical ideologies — two opposing worldviews — with the communists and radical takers of the country supporting a dark vision of tyranny and the conservatives and independent producers supporting the light of truth and a vision of freedom and liberty. They are both hanging in the balance and waiting for gravity or some monumental event to throw the lever that moves them to act and take the country by storm, with the Democrats willing to use every illegal means imaginable.

The heavy infiltration of Illegal Aliens from many foreign countries that are unfriendly or outright enemies of America is one more dynamic and issue of concern for all who love America, since they will certainly come down on the side which is trying to destroy America. No one should be oblivious to the fact that various “sleeper cells” of Hamas and Hezbollah have been in America for several decades now. Taken in conjunction with thousands of military aged Chinese men entering the country illegally the coming chaos will be Biblical in proportion to anything we have witnessed in all American history.

Nineteenth century French economist and writer, Frederic Bastiat could have been speaking of America today and the situation She currently finds Herself, as he once stated:

“When misguided public opinion honors what is despicable and despises what is honorable, punishes virtue and rewards vice, encourages what is harmful and discourages what is useful, applauds falsehood and smothers truth under indifference or insult, a nation turns its back on progress and can be restored only by the terrible lessons of catastrophe.”

Americans from all across the country have either been complicit in this current treason to “fundamentally transform America”, into something strange and foreign to the Founding, or they have simply been so complacent as to allow the country to fall to her enemies-from-within, in a manner that’s proving fairly damned tough to counter for the moment due to a litany of reasons, from lawfare against conservative and independent patriots to the outright targeting of American patriots by the FBI and the DOJ. But basically, the nation is just about to reap the full, terrible consequences of what was sown so many decades ago, and everyone had better prepare as best as they can.

We can’t stop what is headed down the road towards us, no matter if we stopped all unnecessary spending or the invasion at the border today — not if we outlawed all deviancy, abuse of children through gender assignment and men competing in women’s sports, or started drilling for oil and gas like crazy overnight. The die has been cast, and no one single man or woman, sitting in the Oval Office, can change what is coming, not Trump or RFK, JR or anyone else who wants to give it a try.

All good and decent Americans, who can still remember what America used to be or who have been well taught from childhood and know what a great nation — an exceptional nation — She has been in years gone by, will soon be forced to fight against enemies-from-within and foreign enemies supported by the World Economic Forum and the United Nations, so that our friends, families and communities can survive this period and freedom and liberty shall not perish in our land. And as we fight, we must pray and hope that our side emerges victoriously from the din and cacophony of the conflagration and chaos, in order that we may purge the land of those who hate America and restore Her to a land that truly understands what “equality under the law” actually means, to be governed in a manner that actually defends and protects the Inalienable God-given Rights for all, restoring America as something better than She has been in a long, long time.

This is the war that lays ahead of us, looming just over the horizon, and our very lives and the lives of our loved ones depend on our success. The death of America as She has stood is guaranteed, unless liberty-minded patriots rise from the ashes of the next civil war. That is the reality and the future we now must face.

Keep ringing the bell … the Liberty Bell and the sound of Freedom from sea to shining sea.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been accused of illegally recording a lawyer in the Trump-Georgia case.

During an interview with Townhall columnist and legal analyst Phil Holloway, an attorney for Trump co-defendant Harrison Floyd, Christopher Kachouroff, claimed that Willis recorded a phone call between herself and one of his colleagues in Maryland.

"Fani did reach out to one of my colleagues in Maryland" said Kachouroff. "And was rude and abrupt with him on the phone ... and she ended up recording him."

He further noted that Maryland is a "two party state," meaning that both parties on a phone call have to consent to being recorded.

"So, are you saying she illegally recorded a phone call?" asked Holloway.

"Oh yeah, it's a felony in Maryland," Kachouroff replied.

Watch:

Fani Willis ILLEGALLY recorded a ?? call with my lawyer.

Its a felony!

She is a DEI thug with a law license.

Will anyone in GA stand up to her?#fultoncounty #corrupt #Georgia pic.twitter.com/2ZPqckPVzD

— Harrison Floyd ???? (@hw_floyd) April 4, 2024

Maryland is one of 11 states which require two-party consent. Under the state's Wiretap Act, recording a private conversation without consent from both parties is punishable by up to five years in prison, a fine of up to $10,000, or both.

Harrison Floyd, the defendant, has given Fani until noon on Monday to recuse herself from the case or he "may have no other choice than to pursue all lawful remedies."

????

Well now, this has escalated quickly

Did #FaniWillis violate Maryland law? https://t.co/WgJRlZu0Xp

— Phil Holloway ?? (@PhilHollowayEsq) April 5, 2024

As Redstate notes: 

In Floyd's tweet, it refers to Willis providing a copy or a recording of a call to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution between herself and Carlos J.R. Salvado, an attorney in Maryland, who also represents Floyd on an unrelated matter. 

Atlanta News First and Newsweek have reached out to Willis' office for comment on this new allegation but she doesn't appear to have weighed in yet. It will be interesting to see what her response to this allegation is. 

Floyd, who served as a senior campaign staffer for Donald Trump's 2020 campaign, was indicted by Willis on three felony counts stemming from his alleged efforts to help Trump overturn his loss in the state. The charges include conspiracy to solicit false statements, influencing witnesses, and racketeering. He has also been accused of assaulting an FBI agent in Maryland. He has pleaded not guilty.

Fani's wiretapping accusation is the latest debacle involving Willis' RICO case against Trump and his allies.

On Wednesday, special prosecutor Nathan Wade's estranged wife filed contempt of court proceedings against him. Wade and Willis' romantic relationship was the focal point of the disqualification efforts against the district attorney's office. However, Judge Scott McAfee ultimately allowed Willis to remain on the prosecution so long as Wade stepped down. Wade handed in his resignation hours after McAfee's ruling. -Newsweek

Floyd, a former Black Voices for Trump leader, turned himself in without a lawyer or bond agreement on August 24 of last year, and was released August 30 on $100,000 bond. He is one of 19 defendants in the case. 

Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) suggested that House Speaker Mike Johnson is being "blackmailed" because of his "complete departure" from Republican concerns, saying the Louisiana Republican "has completely changed his character."

"Mike Johnson has completely changed his character in a matter of about five months after he has become speaker of the House," Greene told Tucker Carlson in a recent episode of Tucker Carlson Uncensored.

Carlson pointed to Johnson's meeting with Ukraine's President, Volodymyr Zelensky - after which Johnson said that the second congressional recess ends, "his number one priority at a moment when the U.S. is being invaded" is to " send that $60 billion to Ukraine, possibly as a loan."

According to Carlson, Johnson won't come on his show to explain, while Zelensky also refused to discuss his position:

They're not grateful now. So we sent a message to the speaker of the House and asked him to come on and explain why, when the majority of the Republicans he represents both the voters and members of Congress, opposes why he would join with Democrats to do the one thing that Americans don't think we should do, which is send another $60 billion to pay the pensions of Ukrainian bureaucrats and fund a doomed war. Why are you for that? And of course, he hasn't responded. We also sent multiple requests to Zelensky himself for an interview to explain his position. Of course, he ignored that as well.

Greene echoed Tucker's concerns, saying "It's outrageous."

When you saw Zelenskyy right there on that interview talking about, oh, we're going to lose territory. Oh, we really need this money. This $60 billion should have been approved yesterday. Let me tell you, we are losing our country to the illegal invasion that's happening every single day at our southern border. And I am so pissed off about it because the American people are pissed off about it. And while our so-called Republican speaker of the House is only working with Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries and Ukraine First Mitch McConnell and the white House and Jake Sullivan, who he talks to on the phone all the time. We are angry and people have had it.

Greene said this "needs to end," but Johnson "has has made a complete departure of who he is, and what he stands for and to the point where people are literally asking, is he blackmailed?"

When Carlson asked her to expound, Greene said that she has "no idea" if that's the case, but asks: "What radically changes a man. I mean, if we break down the the second part of basically an omnibus, let's let's break that down."

Greene cited Johnson's funding of "full term abortion clinics" despite being pro-life, doing "nothing for the southern border" - particularly on the heels of Laken Riley's murder at the hands of an illegal, which followed "a video that was running on loop on social media, where illegal aliens had rushed our border, ran over Texas National Guard."

"He did nothing to secure the border. It's the number one issue in the world. He completely changed who he was. Funded the FBI, gave them a brand new building, fully funded the Department of Justice that is persecuting everyone on the right and actually targeting our presidential candidate, for for election this year. Literally trying to put him in jail the rest of his life. We don't know who Mike Johnson is anymore. So there's no, I can't comprehend it," Greene continued.

Watch:

NEW: Marjorie Taylor Greene Speculates Speaker Johnson Is "Being Blackmailed" — "What Do They Have On Him?"

GREENE: But now Mike Johnson has made a complete departure of who he is and what he stands for, and to the point where people are literally asking, is he blackmailed? What… pic.twitter.com/trjGjYUqpZ

— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) April 3, 2024

And watch the entire interview below:

Ep. 88 Is Speaker of the House Mike Johnson being blackmailed to do the bidding of the left? It certainly seems that way. His colleague, Marjorie Taylor Greene, explains pic.twitter.com/r60v1XQusY

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) April 3, 2024

Meanwhile, you can support Tucker Carlson by subscribing to the Tucker Carlson Network if you haven't done so already. 

The "Black Mayors' Coalition on Crime" gathered this week in Memphis, Tennessee to discuss the dangers of crime across the US, as well as apparent solutions to the growing threat.  The question is, was the meeting really about stopping crime, or, was it all about maintaining optics and making the public believe crime is going down when it's not?

It's difficult to say because public and media access to the event was strictly limited.  In many states private meetings between public officials related to policy are illegal.  However, in Tennessee the regulations are a bit more lax in terms of what constitutes a "meeting subject to law."  

The Tennessee Open Meetings Act defines a “meeting” as “the convening of a governing body of a public body for which a quorum is required to make a decision or to deliberate toward a decision.” A “governing body” is “any public body [consisting] of two or more members, with the authority to make decisions for or recommendations to a public body on policy or administration.” 

In other words, a quorum is required, which means Tennessee was very carefully chosen by the Black Mayor's Coalition (the vast majority of them Democrats) because it allowed them more legal room to hold closed door meetings.  But why not include the press and the public in this discourse?  

Perhaps because the event is in itself an admission that crime is rising; a reality which Democrat representatives have tried to deny for the past few years.  Another reason may be because the solutions being discussed are not something the voting population would agree with. 

In the interview below the Mayor of St. Louis, Tishaura Jones, mentions that gas stations and convenience stores attract a high rate of crime and asks how the business owners can be 'held accountable' for this, rather than how they can be protected from it? 

“We have a lot of violence around convenience stores and gas stations...So how can we hold those business owners accountable and also bring down crime? Some of the things are already doing, we’re finding other mayors are doing as well.”

In other words, how can these mayors blame businesses for the crime rate instead of taking responsibility as elected representatives?   

There are the obvious ironies to mention here, including the fact that many of these mayors supported far-left measures to defund police departments, only to quietly remove those measures a few years later.  Then there's the plethora of statistical tricks used by city politicians to hide real crime data. 

This includes greatly reduced prosecution and conviction rates; in many Democrat controlled cities the conviction rate is less than 5 out of every 100 arrests.  From 2018 to 2023, conviction rates dropped over 58%, and convictions sharply declined specifically from 2020 onward.  From 2011 to 2021 prison populations dropped over 22%, despite the fact that criminal activity increased over the same period.     

The less prosecutions, the less convictions, the lower the crime stats.  It's that simple.  Democrats have also taken advantage of a change in the FBI criminal reporting policies which was conveniently initiated in 2020.  Because of this change, numerous US cities will not be reporting full numbers to the FBI until 2025.  This is why the FBI recently reported a "drop" in violent crime nationally - Because they don't have complete statistics. 

Then of course there's the disproportionate number of crimes committed by minorities in these same cities.  Black on black crime rates in places like St. Louis are stunning.  Studies from 2022 show that 92% of homicide suspects and 86% of victims in St. Louis and St. Louis County were black.  Around 84% of them were repeat offenders.  Blacks make up 43% of the population in that region.     

Leftist mayors have long suggested that public perception of crime deviates from the reality of crime; yet, here they are holding closed-door meetings to discuss the growing crime problem in their own towns.  Perhaps the issue is not public perception mismatching reality,  maybe the issue is political spin mismatching reality.  The populace deals with these crimes on a daily basis; it's going to be hard to gaslight people into thinking criminal activity isn't a problem. 

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Modernity.news,

Two videos have gone viral on X showing FBI agents visiting people’s houses to ask questions about offensive social media posts.

The first clip shows three people who claim to be FBI agents visiting a woman called Rolla Abdeljawad at her home in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

The woman asks them to identify themselves, but they refuse to do so while being filmed, before claiming they had already shown the woman their IDs.

Wow. The FBI reportedly sent agents to a woman’s house in Stillwater, Oklahoma to question her over her political beliefs that she posted on Facebook.

Unless these guys are impersonating federal agents, this is a very serious red line they’ve crossed. ??pic.twitter.com/q3nwukWPfA

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) March 29, 2024

“What we’d like to do is have a conversation with you about some social media posts that you’ve made, would you be willing to talk to us about that?” asks one of the agents.

The woman refuses to talk until she has a lawyer present, before the agent asks her for contact information.

“No, I’ll get back to you,” states Abdeljawad.

Another agent then asks the woman to have her attorney “contact the FBI office in Oklahoma City.”

Abdeljawad is told by one of the agents that “Facebook gave us a couple of screenshots of your accounts.”

“Well you can’t arrest me for freedom of speech, we live in America, so it’s kind of weird that you want to come talk to me about me exercising my freedom of speech,” responds the woman.

“We do this every day, all day long we talk to people, it’s just an effort to keep everybody safe, make sure that nobody has any ill will or bad intent or anything like that,” responds one of the agents.

After Abdeljawad asks if the FBI would question “all the citizens in America” who used Facebook, the agent responds, “We certainly would if we had any sort of concerns.”

The clip then shows the agents leaving the scene.

The woman later posted a message on her Facebook confirming that the individuals were FBI agents.

“Just verified with local law enforcement that, the indivs who came to my home, really were FBI per their license plate. My lawyer will contact the OKC field office. The lawyer did inform me that, these instances are now common but, the lawyer doesn’t believe that FB sent them the screenshots of my posts. Rather, it seems like a fishing expedition. I do not fear them. My only concern as, I told the cop is that, someone in my state will do something or that they would and then use my posts in a malicious attempt to “smear” me. Just *remember, I am a Muslim, an obligated protector of creation. I enjoin what is good and forbid what is wrong.”

Another X user called Kam St. Martin posted, “The FBI came to my house over a TWEET! Not cool. My pinned tweet that’s still up.”

The video she posted shows a man who introduces himself as an FBI special agent asking to speak to someone over a post which he subsequently explains is “about the Baton Rouge subject.”

??The FBI came to my house over a TWEET!
Not cool.
My pinned tweet that’s still up.
?@elonmusk? pic.twitter.com/5GauyJTXTt

— ?????? ????.???????????? (@KAM4Texas) March 29, 2024

The pinned tweet in question features an image of a black man who St. Martin claims killed her cousin.

“This monster drugged my 27 yr old cousin at the L’Auberge Casino in Baton Rouge last February. He dumped her half naked dead body like trash. Rap sheet a mile long. He walks today on PROBATION. Damion Matthews may you reap what you have sown,” it states.

??This monster drugged my 27 yr old cousin at the L’Auberge Casino in Baton Rouge last February. He dumped her half naked dead body like trash.
Rap sheet a mile long. He walks today on PROBATION .Damion Matthews may you reap what you have sown. @govjefflandryy pic.twitter.com/pW7Bo9HsjQ

— ?????? ????.???????????? (@KAM4Texas) February 20, 2024

The post has 39,000 likes.

Is the FBI really visiting private homes to police social media posts that criticize alleged murderers?

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Authored by John & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

“In these days of worldwide confusion, there is a dire need for men and women who will courageously do battle for truth.”

- Martin Luther King Jr.

When exposing a crime is treated as committing a crime, you are being ruled by criminals.

In the current governmental climate, obeying one’s conscience and speaking truth to the power of the police state can easily render you an “enemy of the state.”

The government’s list of so-called “enemies of the state” is growing by the day.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is merely one of the most visible victims of the police state’s war on dissidents and whistleblowers.

Five years ago, on April 11, 2019, police arrested Assange for daring to access and disclose military documents that portray the U.S. government and its endless wars abroad as reckless, irresponsible, immoral and responsible for thousands of civilian deaths.

Included among the leaked materials was gunsight video footage from two U.S. AH-64 Apache helicopters engaged in a series of air-to-ground attacks while American air crew laughed at some of the casualties. Among the casualties were two Reuters correspondents who were gunned down after their cameras were mistaken for weapons and a driver who stopped to help one of the journalists. The driver’s two children, who happened to be in the van at the time it was fired upon by U.S. forces, suffered serious injuries.

There is nothing defensible about crimes such as these perpetrated by the government.

When any government becomes almost indistinguishable from the evil it claims to be fighting—whether that evil takes the form of war, terrorism, torture, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, murder, violence, theft, pornography, scientific experimentations or some other diabolical means of inflicting pain, suffering and servitude on humanity—that government has lost its claim to legitimacy.

These are hard words, but hard times require straight-talking.

It is easy to remain silent in the face of evil.

What is harder—what we lack today and so desperately need—are those with moral courage who will risk their freedoms and lives in order to speak out against evil in its many forms.

Throughout history, individuals or groups of individuals have risen up to challenge the injustices of their age. Nazi Germany had its Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The gulags of the Soviet Union were challenged by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. America had its color-coded system of racial segregation and warmongering called out for what it was, blatant discrimination and profiteering, by Martin Luther King Jr.

And then there was Jesus Christ, an itinerant preacher and revolutionary activist, who not only died challenging the police state of his day—namely, the Roman Empire—but provided a blueprint for civil disobedience that would be followed by those, religious and otherwise, who came after him.

Indeed, it is fitting that we remember that Jesus Christ—the religious figure worshipped by Christians for his death on the cross and subsequent resurrection—paid the ultimate price for speaking out against the police state of his day.

A radical nonconformist who challenged authority at every turn, Jesus was a far cry from the watered-down, corporatized, simplified, gentrified, sissified vision of a meek creature holding a lamb that most modern churches peddle. In fact, he spent his adult life speaking truth to power, challenging the status quo of his day, and pushing back against the abuses of the Roman Empire.

Much like the American Empire today, the Roman Empire of Jesus’ day had all of the characteristics of a police state: secrecy, surveillance, a widespread police presence, a citizenry treated like suspects with little recourse against the police state, perpetual wars, a military empire, martial law, and political retribution against those who dared to challenge the power of the state.

For all the accolades poured out upon Jesus, little is said about the harsh realities of the police state in which he lived and its similarities to modern-day America, and yet they are striking.

Secrecy, surveillance and rule by the elite. As the chasm between the wealthy and poor grew wider in the Roman Empire, the ruling class and the wealthy class became synonymous, while the lower classes, increasingly deprived of their political freedoms, grew disinterested in the government and easily distracted by “bread and circuses.” Much like America today, with its lack of government transparency, overt domestic surveillance, and rule by the rich, the inner workings of the Roman Empire were shrouded in secrecy, while its leaders were constantly on the watch for any potential threats to its power. The resulting state-wide surveillance was primarily carried out by the military, which acted as investigators, enforcers, torturers, policemen, executioners and jailers. Today that role is fulfilled by the NSA, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the increasingly militarized police forces across the country.

Widespread police presence. The Roman Empire used its military forces to maintain the “peace,” thereby establishing a police state that reached into all aspects of a citizen’s life. In this way, these military officers, used to address a broad range of routine problems and conflicts, enforced the will of the state. Today SWAT teams, comprised of local police and federal agents, are employed to carry out routine search warrants for minor crimes such as marijuana possession and credit card fraud.

Citizenry with little recourse against the police state. As the Roman Empire expanded, personal freedom and independence nearly vanished, as did any real sense of local governance and national consciousness. Similarly, in America today, citizens largely feel powerless, voiceless and unrepresented in the face of a power-hungry federal government. As states and localities are brought under direct control by federal agencies and regulations, a sense of learned helplessness grips the nation.

Perpetual wars and a military empire. Much like America today with its practice of policing the world, war and an over-arching militarist ethos provided the framework for the Roman Empire, which extended from the Italian peninsula to all over Southern, Western, and Eastern Europe, extending into North Africa and Western Asia as well. In addition to significant foreign threats, wars were waged against inchoate, unstructured and socially inferior foes.

Martial law. Eventually, Rome established a permanent military dictatorship that left the citizens at the mercy of an unreachable and oppressive totalitarian regime. In the absence of resources to establish civic police forces, the Romans relied increasingly on the military to intervene in all matters of conflict or upheaval in provinces, from small-scale scuffles to large-scale revolts. Not unlike police forces today, with their martial law training drills on American soil, militarized weapons and “shoot first, ask questions later” mindset, the Roman soldier had “the exercise of lethal force at his fingertips” with the potential of wreaking havoc on normal citizens’ lives.

A nation of suspects. Just as the American Empire looks upon its citizens as suspects to be tracked, surveilled and controlled, the Roman Empire looked upon all potential insubordinates, from the common thief to a full-fledged insurrectionist, as threats to its power. The insurrectionist was seen as directly challenging the Emperor.  A “bandit,” or revolutionist, was seen as capable of overturning the empire, was always considered guilty and deserving of the most savage penalties, including capital punishment. Bandits were usually punished publicly and cruelly as a means of deterring others from challenging the power of the state.  Jesus’ execution was one such public punishment.

Acts of civil disobedience by insurrectionists. Much like the Roman Empire, the American Empire has exhibited zero tolerance for dissidents such as Julian Assange, Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning who exposed the police state’s seedy underbelly. Jesus was also branded a political revolutionary starting with his attack on the money chargers and traders at the Jewish temple, an act of civil disobedience at the site of the administrative headquarters of the Sanhedrin, the supreme Jewish council.

Military-style arrests in the dead of night. Jesus’ arrest account testifies to the fact that the Romans perceived Him as a revolutionary. Eerily similar to today’s SWAT team raids, Jesus was arrested in the middle of the night, in secret, by a large, heavily armed fleet of soldiers.  Rather than merely asking for Jesus when they came to arrest him, his pursuers collaborated beforehand with Judas. Acting as a government informant, Judas concocted a kiss as a secret identification marker, hinting that a level of deception and trickery must be used to obtain this seemingly “dangerous revolutionist’s” cooperation. 

Torture and capital punishment. In Jesus’ day, religious preachers, self-proclaimed prophets and nonviolent protesters were not summarily arrested and executed. Indeed, the high priests and Roman governors normally allowed a protest, particularly a small-scale one, to run its course. However, government authorities were quick to dispose of leaders and movements that appeared to threaten the Roman Empire. The charges leveled against Jesus—that he was a threat to the stability of the nation, opposed paying Roman taxes and claimed to be the rightful King—were purely political, not religious. To the Romans, any one of these charges was enough to merit death by crucifixion, which was usually reserved for slaves, non-Romans, radicals, revolutionaries and the worst criminals.

Jesus was presented to Pontius Pilate “as a disturber of the political peace,” a leader of a rebellion, a political threat, and most gravely—a claimant to kingship, a “king of the revolutionary type.” After Jesus is formally condemned by Pilate, he is sentenced to death by crucifixion, “the Roman means of executing criminals convicted of high treason.”  The purpose of crucifixion was not so much to kill the criminal, as it was an immensely public statement intended to visually warn all those who would challenge the power of the Roman Empire. Hence, it was reserved solely for the most extreme political crimes: treason, rebellion, sedition, and banditry. After being ruthlessly whipped and mocked, Jesus was nailed to a cross.

Jesus—the revolutionary, the political dissident, and the nonviolent activist—lived and died in a police state. Any reflection on Jesus’ life and death within a police state must take into account several factors: Jesus spoke out strongly against such things as empires, controlling people, state violence and power politics. Jesus challenged the political and religious belief systems of his day. And worldly powers feared Jesus, not because he challenged them for control of thrones or government but because he undercut their claims of supremacy, and he dared to speak truth to power in a time when doing so could—and often did—cost a person his life.

Unfortunately, the radical Jesus, the political dissident who took aim at injustice and oppression, has been largely forgotten today, replaced by a congenial, smiling Jesus trotted out for religious holidays but otherwise rendered mute when it comes to matters of war, power and politics.

Yet for those who truly study the life and teachings of Jesus, the resounding theme is one of outright resistance to war, materialism and empire.

What a marked contrast to the advice being given to Americans by church leaders to “submit to your leaders and those in authority,” which in the American police state translates to complying, conforming, submitting, obeying orders, deferring to authority and generally doing whatever a government official tells you to do.

Telling Americans to blindly obey the government or put their faith in politics and vote for a political savior flies in the face of everything for which Jesus lived and died.

Will we follow the path of least resistance—turning a blind eye to the evils of our age and marching in lockstep with the police state—or will we be transformed nonconformists “dedicated to justice, peace, and brotherhood”?

As Martin Luther King Jr. reminds us in a powerful sermon delivered 70 years ago, “This command not to conform comes … [from] Jesus Christ, the world’s most dedicated nonconformist, whose ethical nonconformity still challenges the conscience of mankind.”

Ultimately, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, this is the contradiction that must be resolved if the radical Jesus—the one who stood up to the Roman Empire and was crucified as a warning to others not to challenge the powers-that-be—is to be an example for our modern age.

Authored by Pete Hoekstra via The Gatestone Institute,

• China-linked hackers appear to be looking to attack U.S. infrastructure, especially key components such as the electrical grid, water reservoirs and treatment plants, pipelines, and transportation and communications systems, among other targets.

• The goal is seemingly to disrupt the U.S. everything critical to life – if you have no electricity, your cellphone will not work; no water will come out of the tap; gas pumps will not pump gas; flights and trains will stop, and disease from disabled sewage treatment plants will spread. There will be havoc and panic. The government and military will be unable to protect the nation. That is what is meant by "unrestricted warfare." Not a bullet was fired. It did not have to be. According to Sun Tzu's The Art of War, it is perfect.

• What are some of the steps that should be taken?

• The West has correctly identified the CCP as the malign threat that it is; now we have a responsibility to put into place the measures and deterrents to prevent it from attacking us through cyberspace or any other way. Let us not wait until we experience a 9/11-scale cyberattack that could be far more damaging to the U.S. than what took place on that dark day more than 20 years ago.

The West has correctly identified the Chinese Communist Party as the malign threat that it is; now we have a responsibility to put into place the measures and deterrents to prevent it from attacking us through cyberspace or any other way. Let us not wait until we experience a 9/11-scale cyberattack that could be far more damaging to the U.S. than what took place on that dark day more than 20 years ago. (Image source: iStock)

If there is one thing FBI Director Christopher Wray has been consistent on, it is the threat of Communist China across a wide range of fronts. At an unprecedented event on July 6, 2022, Wray and his British counterpart, MI5 Director General Ken McCallum, held a joint public appearance – the first ever -- to discuss the growing security challenge posed by China. Evidently, they saw the matter as urgent.

In this joint appearance, the two men highlighted the threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the CCP's civil-military fusion state -- specifically, that the CCP is intent on acquiring and stealing technology and business secrets from the West. Targeted areas include advanced materials, data and artificial intelligence (AI). China's President Xi Jinping has made it clear that he intends China to not only catch-up to, but surpass, the West.

More recently, Wray highlighted how the CCP and those affiliated with it apparently plan to use its technological capabilities to target the West.

China-linked hackers appear to be looking to attack U.S. infrastructure, especially key components such as the electrical grid, water reservoirs and treatment plants, pipelines, and transportation and communications systems, among other targets.

The goal is seemingly to disrupt the U.S. everything critical to life – if you have no electricity, your cellphone will not work; no water will come out of the tap; gas pumps will not pump gas; flights and trains will stop, and disease from disabled sewage treatment plants will spread. There will be havoc and panic. The government and military will be unable to protect the nation. That is what is meant by "unrestricted warfare." Not a bullet was fired. It did not have to be. According to Sun Tzu's The Art of War, it is perfect.

Jen Easterly, Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), testified before the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party that the threats posed by China are not imaginary: they are real. Her agency already has discovered CCP penetrations into the telecommunications industry, aviation, energy and water infrastructure. As the threat from China continues to grow, the global security environment requires the U.S. and our allies to act now to harden our infrastructure and systems to mitigate the threat.

The problem is one of supreme urgency.

No one knows who will win the U.S. presidential election on November 5. If I were head of the Chinese Communist Party, I would probably be saying to myself, "I am stuck with a weak economy, more than a billion people who will not be happy with that, and just more seven months with an American president who calls me a 'competitor,' as if the US-Chinese relationship were about EV car dealerships -- although that, too. What are my choices? a) Use this opportunity, which will soon be closing, to choke off Taiwan and take over the world's supply of semiconductor chips. If the U.S. tries to stop us, we could threaten them with mayhem or simply go ahead and make some. b) Instead of Taiwan, why not just go straight for the U.S. while it is bogged down in Ukraine, the Middle East and its election? Or c) We can wait and see who wins (with our help) and if it is the wrong person, we still have two-and-a-half months until the new president is inaugurated."

What are some of the steps that should be taken?

First, stop all investments in China and reroute essentials, such as the manufacture of medicines, to other nations. Any investment, even in paper cocktail umbrellas, goes toward strengthening the People's Liberation Army against us. We can hear the screeching of Wall Street and their Augustinian cry: "But not yet!" The threat, however, should be viewed in terms of national security. No one will ring a bell when the lights go out.

The U.S. will also need to impose secondary sanctions, so that any country preferring to do business with China is prohibited from doing business with the U.S.

In addition, China -- for poisoning to death roughly 100,000 Americans each year with fentanyl and other opiates, a mass-murder equivalent to one large plane crash every day -- should be designated as a state sponsor of terrorism. China should also be barred from using the international banking system, or SWIFT, "a secure network that allows more than 10,000 financial institutions in 212 different countries to send and receive information about financial transactions to each other."

Second, companies and universities also need to get serious about their security systems to make the theft of intellectual property more difficult to perpetrate but easier to detect. We cannot allow our enemies to short-circuit the difficult and expensive process of technological innovation by simply walking out the door with the plans.

This precaution, sadly, would do well to include a moratorium, at least for the time being, on students from Communist China attending U.S. universities. Again, there will be more screeching from academic institutions that are fond of holding out their tin cups, but are we really interested in educating our "competitors" to take us over or kill us?

Third, the U.S. needs to cooperate with its allies to protect the intellectual property and technological advances of our countries' respective corporations as a national security priority. One excellent example where this cooperation has been successful is between the U.S. and the Netherlands. The governments of the two countries have worked together closely to protect against technology transfer to the CCP. While each country has the decision as to its own trade policies, sharing intelligence and threat assessments enables both countries to make better decisions regarding joint security concerns.

Fourth, companies must be willing to notify the government if their systems have been attacked or compromised by outside entities. Under current law, publicly-traded companies have four days to report a cyber incident to regulators. Businesses sometimes have been understandably reluctant to acknowledge that their systems have been compromised: there is the risk of reputational damage and unpleasant repercussions. Organizations, however, need to be confident that sharing this information with the government will only be used to help address the specific incident. Tragically, our government has not quite been doing all it can to inspire trust. There might be some extremely unpleasant repercussions from that.

Finally, there must be a coordinated strategy between our national, state and local governments on the CCP threat, including prime examples of where this system has failed, as in the production of EV batteries in the U.S. by CCP firms; the CCP buying up American farmland, especially near military bases, and the government's failure to hold the CCP to account for its lies about COVID's human-to-human transmissibility, which caused the unnecessary deaths of more than a million Americans, and the CCP's mass-poisoning of Americans with fentanyl, which in itself is an act of war.

While the federal government has warned "that Chinese EVs could collect your data and send it back to China," states and local governments are welcoming Chinese EV battery manufacturing plants into their communities, frequently with massive government subsidies. This lack of coordination is a serious vulnerability in our national security posture.

Wray and McCallum were correct in highlighting the threat from the CCP in 2022. Wray has reemphasized the growing threat.

The evidence is clear, and the time has come for our elected leaders and public servants — at all levels of government — to respond in a coordinated fashion to this threat.

The West has correctly identified the CCP as the malign threat that it is; now we have a responsibility to put into place the measures and deterrents to prevent it from attacking us through cyberspace or any other way. Let us not wait until we experience a 9/11-scale cyberattack that could be far more damaging to the U.S. than what took place on that dark day more than 20 years ago.

Authored by Brad Jones via The Epoch Times,

A high-ranking leader of the international Mara Salvatrucha gang, better known as MS-13, was arrested on narco-terrorism charges at the U.S.-Mexican border in San Diego earlier this month.

Fredy Ivan Jandres-Parada, a leader of the international MS-13 gang, was arrested at the San Ysidro Port of Entry in San Diego on March 7, 2024. (Courtesy of FBI)

Federal authorities arrested Fredy Ivan Jandres-Parada, 48, also known as “Lucky De Park View“ at the San Ysidro Port of Entry March 7.

He has been charged for his alleged role in ordering numerous acts of violence against civilians, law enforcement, and rival gang members, as well as transnational drug distribution and extortion schemes.

The San Ysidro Port of Entry in San Ysidro, Calif., on Feb. 2, 2024. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

The suspect ranks among the senior leaders of MS-13’s Ranfla Nacional leadership council, formerly known as the Twelve Apostles of the Devil, which controls thousands of MS-13 members worldwide, according to the FBI.

The U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York, issued a federal warrant for his arrest in late December 2020, charging him with conspiracy to provide and conceal support and resources to terrorists, conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries, conspiracy to finance terrorism, and narco-terrorism conspiracy.

An indictment unsealed a month later reveals the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) strategy to target the upper echelon of MS-13 leadership—the Ranfla Nacional—in El Salvador to dismantle its command and ability to direct cliques in the U.S.

Such cliques are known to be in various Los Angeles neighborhoods known by an area or street including Hollywood, Park View, Normandie, Francis, Fulton, and Coronado, according to the 31-page indictment.

Trump’s Crackdown

A 2020 DOJ report on the department’s efforts to combat MS-13 estimated the gang had 10,000 members across the U.S. and tens of thousands more worldwide and is “responsible for violent crimes in the United States, including murders, extortion, arms and drug trafficking, assaults, rapes, human trafficking, robberies, and kidnappings.”

Less than a month after he was sworn into office, then-President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing “the whole-of-government” to develop and execute a comprehensive and decisive approach to dismantle transnational criminal organizations, including MS-13, to “restore safety for the American people,” the DOJ report states.

“For decades, MS-13 has exploited weaknesses in U.S. immigration enforcement policies to move its members in and out of the United States and to recruit new members who have arrived in the United States illegally,” according to the report.

It has infiltrated American cities and suburbs and established cliques in California, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, Massachusetts, Ohio, North Carolina, Georgia, and Texas, according to the DOJ report.

The San Ysidro border entryway near San Diego, Calif., on May 31, 2023. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

MS-13 members are mostly Salvadoran nationals or first-generation Salvadoran Americans, as well as Hondurans, Guatemalans, Mexicans, and other Central and South American immigrants, according to the FBI.

And a 2008 report from the agency deemed MS-13 a high-level threat in some parts of the U.S. and a medium threat nationwide, saying it often targets middle and high school students for recruitment.

But, in May 2018, then-President Trump took flak from political adversaries who accused him of calling illegal immigrants “animals,” while criticizing California’s sanctuary state policy at an immigration roundtable in Washington.

“We have people coming into the country, or trying to come in—and we’re stopping a lot of them,” President Trump said. “You wouldn’t believe how bad these people are. These aren’t people. These are animals.”

He made the remark in response to a question about gangs from a sheriff—and later said he was referring to MS-13, but at a National Hispanic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., a month later, U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, former House Speaker, chastised him over the remark.

“This is the first time in recent history where we have had a president who does not respect the dignity and worth of every person coming into our country, the recognition that immigration is the constant reinvigoration of America,” Ms. Pelosi said. “America has always been a nation of immigrants, enriched and blessed by each wave of newcomers to our shores. We truly believe, as people of faith, that we are all God’s children.”

Former President Donald Trump attends a border security briefing to discuss further plans in securing the southern border wall in Weslaco, Texas, on June 30, 2021. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

Ms. Pelosi also received public backlash for saying there is “a spark of divinity” in every immigrant that demands “respect for every person—not animals, not inhuman, but children of God.”

“Immigrants keep faith in America’s promise of opportunity and we must keep faith with them by respecting … the dignity and worth of every person. We must reject language that calls them animals,” she said.

Meanwhile, CBS News reported March 24, that U.S. Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens has called the southern border a “national security threat” citing 140,000 known “gotaways” who were detected by cameras and sensors crossing into the U.S. illegally, but evaded apprehension in the last five months.

Mr. Owens told CBS the Border Patrol is “closing in” on one million apprehensions of migrants in between ports of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border in the 2024 fiscal year, which began in October.

President Trump, who is again running for president, continues to stress at his rallies the danger of MS-13 gangs, including their brutal machete attacks and other violent tactics.

In the latest bad news for Boeing, the FBI has started notifying passengers on the Jan. 5 Alaska Airlines flight that experienced a terrifying blowout of a door-plug that they may be a "victim of a crime." 

“As a victim specialist with the Seattle division, I’m contacting you because we have identified you as a possible victim of a crime,” read the FBI letters to travelers on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282. “This case is currently under investigation by the FBI. A criminal investigation can be a lengthy undertaking, and for several reasons, we cannot tell you about its progress at this time.” 

Passenger releases footage from January 7, 2024 on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 in Portland, Oregon where a Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft experienced rapid decompression after the plane door ‘fell off’ pic.twitter.com/1yrly2JDZc

— TRACKER DEEP (@tracker_deep) March 19, 2024

In early March, it was reported that the Justice Department had opened an investigation of Boeing over the incident, which involved a Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft used for an Alaska Airlines flight from Portland, Oregon to Ontario, California. Soon after takeoff, a door plug -- a panel used to fill an area that in some configurations might hold a functioning door -- blew out of the side of the aircraft. Fortunately, the seats adjacent to the hole weren't occupied, and there were no serious injuries. 

In a preliminary report on its own inquiry, the National Transportation Safety Board said the door plug was missing four bolts that are used to secure it to the fuselage. They also said they'd determined the bolts weren't installed when the plane left a Boeing assembly plant in late 2023. 

Diagram of a Boeing 737-9 mid-cabin door plug and components (Source: Boeing) pic.twitter.com/7qPF5MGAOX

— NTSB Newsroom (@NTSB_Newsroom) January 8, 2024

The DOJ investigation is ominous enough on its own, but it could also have a serious follow-on effect: 

If the Justice Department brings any criminal charge against Boeing in the Alaska Airlines case, that would give prosecutors the grounds to tear up the earlier agreement and charge Boeing for its role in the crashes of a Lion Air flight in 2018 and an Ethiopian Airlines flight in 2019. Those crashes resulted in the deaths of 346 passengers and crew. -- Bloomberg

In that earlier combined case, Boeing agreed to pay more than $2.5 million, with most of that going to customers. In exchange, the DOJ agreed not to charge Boeing for withholding information from the Federal Aviation Administration pursuant to obtaining FAA approval for the MAX model. 

On March 19, FAA chief Michael Whitaker said his visit to Boeing facilities left him with the impression that the firm's "priorities have been on production, and not on safety and quality." In February, the FAA published a report in which it noted 27 failings of safety procedures and culture at Boeing.  

The door-plug blowout was just the first of a string of worrying incidents involving Boeing jets in 2024, the rest of which have no doubt left United Airlines with a bad case of buyer's remorse...

• "Plane Was Nosediving": United Airlines Boeing 737 Engine Erupts In Flames Over Texas
• United's Boeing 737 Max Jet Veers Off Runway In Houston, Marking Third Incident In Week
• Tire Separates From Boeing 777, Crushes Cars In San Francisco Parking Lot
• Boeing 737 With 139 Passengers Loses External Panel Mid-Air

Authored by Jacob Hornberger via The Future of Freedom Foundation,

More than 30 years ago, Congress enacted the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992. Enacted in the wake of Oliver Stone’s movie JFK, which posited that the Kennedy assassination was a regime-change operation on the part of the U.S. national-security establishment, the law mandated that all the assassination-related records of the Pentagon, the CIA, the Secret Service, the FBI, and other federal agencies be released to the public. Having succeeded in keeping their assassination-related records secret for almost 30 years, they didn’t like that at all.

Today — more than 60 years after the assassination — the CIA continues to keep thousands of its assassination-related records secret. Its justification? You guessed it: “national security,” the two most powerful and meaningless words in the American political lexicon. CIA officials maintain, with straight faces, that if those still-secret assassination-related records were released, the United States would fall into the ocean, be taken over by communists, or have its “national security” endangered in some other silly way.

How in the world can “national security” be threatened by the release of records that are more than 60 years old, regardless of what definition is placed on that nebulous term? Indeed, how can any American really believe this nonsense? They obviously take Americans for dupes.

It is a virtual certainty that those still-secret records contain circumstantial evidence that further confirms criminal culpability on the part of the CIA and the Pentagon in the assassination of President Kennedy. After all, the CIA knows that that is precisely what most everyone is thinking with respect to the continued secrecy of those records. Why would the CIA want to leave people thinking that? One reason: Because it’s better to have people thinking that those records contain incriminating evidence rather than knowing that they do.

What could the CIA be hiding with those still-secret records? The answer necessarily has to be speculative in nature, but my hunch is that some of the still-secret information deals with Mexico City, where the accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was supposed to have met with Cuban and Soviet officials.

In the immediate aftermath of the assassination, it is obvious that everything went wrong with the Mexico City part of the assassination plot. For example, there were audiotapes that supposedly contained Oswald’s voice and then suddenly there were no such audiotapes. There was a photograph of Oswald except that it was a photograph of someone else.

Why was Mexico City an important part of the assassination plot? As I detail in my newest book on the assassination, An Encounter with Evil: The Abraham Zapruder Story, an essential part of the assassination plot was to frame a communist. This was the height of the Cold War, when most everyone hated and feared the Reds. By framing a communist, the national-security establishment could rest assured that Americans would be reluctant to come to Oswald’s defense or believe anything he said.

Mexico City played an important role in this endeavor. Oswald was ordered to travel to Mexico City, where he was to meet with both Cuban and Soviet officials. In that way, the plotters could definitely tie the future assassin to the Soviet and Cuban communists.

Why would Oswald obey such orders? Because he was an operative for U.S. intelligence. Intelligence operatives follow orders, especially when they’re told that they are part of an intelligence operation.

In fact, in one of its first meetings, Earl Warren, the head of the Warren Commission, told the commission that there was highly discomforting evidence that Oswald was, in fact, an intelligence operative. Once the CIA and the FBI, which, of course, would never lie about such a thing, assured the commission that such wasn’t the case, Warren ordered that the meeting be kept top-secret and never revealed to the American people.

When he was serving in the army, Oswald became fluent in the Russian language. That is not an easy thing to do. It takes language experts, which the U.S. government has. That’s the only way Oswald could have learned to speak fluent Russian while he was in the army.

There is also New Orleans, where Oswald had moved from Dallas prior to his trip to Mexico City. In New Orleans, Oswald spent a lot of effort building up his “pro-communist” persona, especially with the help of an anti-Castro group called the DRE.

Immediately after the assassination, the DRE sent out a press release informing the nation that Oswald was a communist. There is one big important thing about the DRE that the nation did not know and would not know for several decades. It was a CIA-funded and CIA-supervised group. Thus, it was actually the CIA that wanted the nation to know that the president had been killed by a Red.

As JFK researcher Jefferson Morley, who first discovered the CIA’s connection to the DRE, has also discovered, the CIA was secretly monitoring Oswald in the months leading up to the assassination, including secretly reading his mail. Why would the CIA be doing that? Because if one is going to frame a person in a very complex murder plot, one has to be certain that the person being framed doesn’t figure out what is going on.

Will the CIA succeed in keeping its assassination-related records secret forever? Given the overwhelming power that the national-security branch has within the federal governmental structure, it’s a virtual certainty that it will succeed. But what difference does it make? The evidence that was released by the JFK Records Act already proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the Kennedy assassination was a national-security state regime-change operation, especially with respect to the fraudulent autopsy that the military conducted on JFK’s body and the fraudulent copy of the Zapruder film that the CIA produced. (See my books The Kennedy Autopsy and An Encounter with Evil: The Abraham Zapruder Story.) The CIA’s still-secret assassination-related records would only add more circumstantial evidence to what we already know.

By Matt Taibbi of the Racket News substack

The German people are famous for putting everything in print, even things they shouldn’t, and in this instance at least, American playwright and author CJ Hopkins is glad. “The irony,” he says, laughing. “The Germans, always documenting everything.”

In a letter from the Berlin Prosecutor’s file on Hopkins, the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA, analogous to our FBI) acknowledges receipt of a document from a government office describing an effort to have tweets deleted. “The Hessen Gegen Hetze reporting office,” the highlighted portion reads, “has already initiated measures to delete the relevant post on the social network”:

Hopkins reached out to me after listening in disgust to the Murthy v. Missouri Supreme Court hearing Monday. Standing was a big issue: our government said plaintiffs like Drs. Jay Bhattacharya and Aaron Kheriaty lacked definite proof that the government was responsible for suppressing their speech. No such issue exists in CJ’s case, as you can see.

Hopkins also wanted Americans who might be up in arms about the specter of legalized censorship in their own country to see that the phenomenon has also spread to virtually every Western democracy, often in more extreme forms than we’ve seen so far in the United States.

CJ’s unique insight involves his ludicrous German case, which as you’ll read in the Q&A below has taken bizarre turns since we last checked and will now go to trial yet again. As an expat following the American situation from afar, he’s seen how the authoritarian tide is rising in similar or worse ways all around the globe.

Hopkins is facing the business end of the German version, among the worst. As detailed last June, he was charged with “disseminating propaganda, the contents of which are intended to further the aims of a former National Socialist organization.” The crime? Using a barely detectible Swastika in the cover image of his book, The Rise of the New Normal Reich. Far from “furthering the aims” of Nazism, he was criticizing them by comparing Nazi methods and laws to those of modern health authorities. The offending image:

Hopkins went to trial in January and delivered an impassioned plea to the court. “Every journalist that has covered my case, everyone in this courtroom, understands what this prosecution is actually about,” he said. “It has nothing to do with punishing people who actually disseminate pro-Nazi propaganda. It is about punishing dissent, and making an example of dissidents in order to intimidate others into silence.”

Though the judge was clearly not a fan of Hopkins — a courtroom account by Aya Velázquez, which I recommend reading, described how the judge said CJ’s statements were “ideological drivel,” just “not punishable by law” — he won on the law.

After acquittal, he was made aware that technically the case wasn’t over, because thanks to a quirk of German jurisprudence, the prosecutor had a week to file an appeal. Hopkins was unconcerned. “I doubt he will [re-file]. He made a total fool of himself in front of a large audience yesterday,” he wrote. “I can’t imagine that he will want to do that again.”

Bzzt! Wrong. The prosecutor re-filed charges. The prosecutorial theory in the Hopkins case was based on a bizarre interpretation of hate crime, essentially asserting that if you have to think about an image to realize it’s satire, it can’t be allowed. If that idea spreads, it would make comedy or even sharp commentary impossible. This is why his indictment, and the similar investigation of Roger Waters, are really serious moments. Not to be heavy-handed, but eliminating the loophole for satire or mockery is exactly what Waters meant by “Another Brick in the Wall.” Before you know it, it’ll be too high to see over:

MT: You got charged again?

CJ Hopkins: No… I got acquitted. I went to trial on the 23rd of January, and I wrote this up and I’ll send it to you so you can just look at the whole account. But at the trial I made a big aggressive statement that people republished all over the place. The judge acquitted me, and then called me all kinds of names and then put on her covid mask and stalked out of the courtroom. She called me a Schwurbler, which in German is kind of an idiot, I guess a babbler or someone.

Anyway, I read that statement, which pissed them all off, but she said, “Okay, you’re an idiot, but that’s not against the law, so you’re acquitted.” So I thought, “Great. This is over. I’m acquitted.” The prosecutor had no case whatsoever, and it was really embarrassing, and I figured it was all done, but my attorney reminded me: oh no, the prosecutor can appeal. Which he did. So now I’m facing another trial in appeals court. It’s not new charges, it’s the same charge, but the prosecutor’s appeal of my acquittal.

MT: The double jeopardy thing isn’t big in Germany, I take it?

CJ Hopkins: No.

MT: Are they going to make a different argument?

CJ Hopkins: I have no idea what they’re going to do. They have no argument… I mean, they put my tweets up on an overhead projector, like we were back in high school, and interrogated me about whether the Swastika was on top of the mask or behind the mask, that sort of thing. The prosecutor’s argument was basically, “We don’t believe that Mr. Hopkins is a Nazi, or pro-Nazi, we don’t believe he was trying to spread Nazi propaganda, but he nonetheless spread Nazi propaganda. because his tweet” – and this is a great part of their argument – “because if people saw his tweets, they would have to stop and think for a minute to figure out what they meant.”

MT: Essentially you can’t have satire, because that requires a person to have at least one thought.

CJ Hopkins: You can’t make people think. You’ve got to have beat-you-over-the-head messaging. I think the whole point of this… I’m sure it’s like the plea-bargain thing in the States. They figure if they hit you with a 3,600 Euro fine, you’re going to pay three times that much to fight it in court, so you’re just going to pay the fine and go away. I don’t think they ever expected to end up in court, and I have no idea what the prosecutor is doing with this appeal. The judge a few weeks later submitted a written verdict, which is strongly in my favor. She pretty much reiterated my attorney’s arguments and made it absolutely clear that what I did falls under the exceptions to the statute, and there’s nothing here to prosecute. Nonetheless, the prosecution’s going ahead.

MT: Did you have much Western news coverage?

CJ Hopkins: Right before the trial I had you, then Neue Zürcher Zeitung, which is the big paper of record in Switzerland, and James Kirchick at The Atlantic, who was a big help. I think it put a lot of pressure on the judge. My lawyer made her aware that Germany was being portrayed as a laughingstock in the international press. Aside from The Atlantic, it was all independent alternative media.

MT: In the Murthy Supreme Court case in the States Monday, there was an issue with what they call “traceability.” I see you don’t have a traceability issue, with this document from your case file?

CJ Hopkins: Exactly. That’s why I sent it to you. Unquestionably, this is a government office, directly involved with removing the tweets. The other thing that I was going to say, is that I’m looking at things like the Supreme Court case from a non-U.S. perspective. I’m outside of it. I’m watching the legislation that’s getting rolled out in Ireland and the UK and what’s happening to me here and what’s going on in the States, and it’s so obviously much broader than just a red-blue political story in the US. This is happening throughout the Western democratic countries.

I’m just desperate to get that across to people. I think it’s so easy for people to get locked into what’s going on in their own country and not see the bigger picture.

MT: What’s an example?  

CJ Hopkins: There was just a piece in The Herald, in Scotland. The police were being trained there on how to crack down on abusive hate speech. According to this new legislation that’s rolling out and in the training manual, they were saying this could take place in comic performances or stage plays. People are being arrested in the UK for protest signs.

If I can just put one little bug in your head, Matt, to whatever degree you can tweak people and let them know: “Hey, it’s not just Trump and the Democrats and the liberals and the woke people and all that.” This is happening all over the West, in all these different countries. I think that’s one thing that my case does, it provides folks with an opportunity to remind them that this is happening all over. The old rules don’t apply.

MT: Good luck with your case.

CJ Hopkins: Take care.

Authored by Soobin Kim and Bradley Hope via whalehunting.projectbrazen.com,

Last fall, we reported on a man named Gaurav Srivastava who pretended to be a CIA operative to allegedly fleece the sanctioned Dutch oil trader Niels Troost. The ruse was simple, according to extensive recorded conversations: hand over half your company to me, a secret spy, and I'll protect you from the US government because ... I'm a secret spy.

In the following months since our original article, it emerged that Srivastava – or "Chairman G," as he likes to be called – is a big time political donor in the United States.

• Whale Hunting can exclusively reveal that FBI agents in Los Angeles have been interviewing Srivastava’s current and former associates about his campaign donations, claims of being a federal officer and other financial affairs.

• We also confirmed from a staff member for the Washington State Democratic Party that the Biden campaign is in the process of quietly refunding thousands of dollars of his political donations.

The FBI inquiries — ongoing for last several months — may lead nowhere, but the Biden campaign’s decision to start refunding donations suggests there are deeper issues afoot for Srivastava.

“All allegations raised in this story are false," a spokesman for Srivastava told us (full statement and more details on the news after the jump).

The culmination of Srivastava’s rise to public life came alongside a more than $1 million donation in 2022 to the Atlantic Council, a DC-based think tank. The money underwrote a conference in Bali, where he was a “co-host” and rubbed shoulders with business magnates, political honchos and John Legend.

But that relationship isn’t going smoothly. The Atlantic Council terminated its relationship with Srivastava, Politico reported last month, and returned additional funds donated by Srivastava in 2023.

“We made the decision to terminate our relationship with Mr. Srivastava in May 2023 upon learning new information because of our donor review process. For example, we learned that The Gaurav & Sharon Srivastava Family Foundation was not an established 501C3 in April of 2023, despite Mr. Srivastava’s representation to the Council that this was a registered foundation,” the spokesperson told Politico.

Srivastava’s lawyer told Politico the Atlantic Council made the decision after they “disagreed” about how a gift would be implemented. (Small note: Recipients of gifts usually try very hard to implement the handover of gifts.)

Alongside his campaign to solve global food security he also became a big spender on political campaigns. Among Srivastava’s key advisors for how to best disperse funds for political purposes were Greg Schultz (Biden’s 2020 campaign manager) and Ret. General Wesley Clark. They didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The Federal Election Commission’s database of individual contributions shows that Srivastava contributed at least $1 million to political campaigns and committees in the United States. As an Indian national he is eligible to donate to political campaigns as a Green Card holder. Lo and behold, the donations led to a photo op with Biden which you can find here.

Since 2022, Srivastava has made sizeable donations – including over $500,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and $500,000 to Senate Majority PAC.

One mystery we are continuing to investigate: Whale Hunting discovered publicly available evidence suggesting Srivastava contributed over $116,000 using the personal details of an individual with the same name who resides in the same city. The funds were donated under the previous employer, occupation and mailing address of the namesake, who denies making the donations.

It's unclear how those donations were made. Impersonating another individual to make a political contribution is strictly prohibited by law.

The single biggest recipient for the donations made with the namesake's personal details was the Biden Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee for Joe Biden’s 2024 re-election, which received $50,000. About a dozen state Democratic parties across the U.S. also received funds through the Biden Victory Fund.   

"The Biden campaign is aware of the issue and the donation is in the process of being refunded," a staff member with Washington State Democratic Party, which received these funds, told Whale Hunting in an email.

It's unclear the exact allegations the FBI is investigating, but among the questions they've presented current and former associates of Srivastava have been queries about his political spending, source of funds, involvement in international money transfers and other topics related to the allegations already aired publicly about Srivastava in a litany of lawsuits.

Srivastava's spokesman's full comment here:

All allegations raised in this story are false. The source for this story and others, including 87 paid stories on obscure websites, is tied to a Russian asset facilitating the unfettered trade of Russian oil as made clear by the U.K. sanctions. There’s a direct through-line between Russia, a barrel of oil and the high price of gas at the pump squeezing the American consumer. The slanderous suggestion of a fabricated relationship between Mr. Srivastava and a U.S. intelligence agency was orchestrated by the same Russian asset relied on as a source for your stories and designed by that Russian asset to put a target on his back, threatening the safety of him, his friends and family.

So if your year is off to a bad start, think about what Srivastava is now dealing with: being on the Feds’ radar, juggling a glut of lawsuits brought on by all the people he’s allegedly stiffed – from his former interior designer to former landlord to former business partners – and witnessing the collapse of his carefully crafted reputation. 

In the meantime, Whale Hunting will be chasing this story to fill its gaping plot holes, one among them being where on earth Chairman G got the funds to make the donations in the first place. If you have any insight, please get in touch!

Authored by Petr Svab via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The New York Times for nearly six months has been preparing a hit piece against Shen Yun Performing Arts, The Epoch Times has learned.

Communications obtained by The Epoch Times suggest the article, which is yet to be published, will play into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in its transnational repression campaign against Shen Yun.

The New York-based Shen Yun, whose mission is to revive traditional Chinese culture and whose slogan is “China Before Communism,” has been a major thorn in Beijing’s side for nearly two decades.

In its campaign, the CCP has used a plethora of tactics to obstruct Shen Yun—which each year performs for an audience of a million people globally—including attempting to pressure theaters to drop performances, persecuting artists’ family members back in China, and hijacking the U.S. legal system for its purposes.

The FBI last May arrested two suspected Chinese agents who had tried to bribe an FBI agent posing as an IRS official with tens of thousands of dollars in an attempt to revoke Shen Yun’s nonprofit status.

The Department of Justice indicated that the two alleged CCP agents had also sought to use an environmental lawsuit targeting the company’s training facilities and schools to “inhibit” their growth.

The next attack against Shen Yun, however, appears to be coming from America’s largest newspaper, The New York Times.

Two reporters, Michael Rothfeld and Nicole Hong—the latter of whom began to work on the Shen Yun story after spending six months at The New York Times’ China desk—have specifically sought out former artists who might have left the company years ago with a grudge, records obtained by The Epoch Times suggest.

Many of Shen Yun’s artists are practitioners of Falun Gong, a meditation practice whose followers are brutally persecuted by the CCP—making the company a prime target of the regime and its proxies. Some of Shen Yun’s dance pieces include artistic depictions of the persecution.

“We know these reporters are targeting for interviews [with] a tiny group that might have something bad to say about Shen Yun, and seem to be ignoring the overwhelming majority [of artists] who see their time at Shen Yun positively and deeply rewarding,”  Ying Chen, a vice president of Shen Yun, told The Epoch Times.

“We also know some of these interviewees have freely traveled to China, which raises a huge red flag because normally anyone who works for Shen Yun or is known to practice Falun Gong would be in grave danger going back to China—but these folks do so freely and repeatedly. We also have records of communication that demonstrate some of these interviewees were very happy with their experience at Shen Yun, but now are saying the opposite to The New York Times.

“All this indicates that The New York Times is laser-focused on attacking us, and are building a story around very questionable interviews.”

­­­­Out to Smear

Internal CCP documents show the Party considers the Shen Yun campus in upstate New York, called Dragon Springs, a “headquarters” of activities by Falun Gong practitioners to counter the persecution.

“Attack the overseas Falun Gong headquarters and bases systematically and strategically,” reads one CCP directive document obtained by The Epoch Times.

Another document prescribes specific industries to co-opt in its transnational repression against Falun Gong, calling for mobilization of “China friendly people such as experts, scholars, journalists … who have greater influence in the U.S. and Western countries to speak for us, and strive to make more foreign media to publish more reports favorable to us.”

The New York Times now appears to be doing just that, commented Larry Liu, a deputy director of the Falun Dafa Information Center (FDIC), a nonprofit dedicated to monitoring the persecution of Falun Gong.

“This article will likely be the CCP’s dream come true,” says Mr. Liu.

Not long after Ms. Hong returned to New York last year after a stint with The New York Times’ China team in Seoul, some former Shen Yun dancers started to receive emails from her and Mr. Rothfeld. The emailed questions were at times disturbingly specific and left the artists with the impression the reporters were trying to dig up information that could be weaponized against the company, Mr. Liu said.

One former dancer was only asked about one specific incident: a knee injury.

According to Mr. Liu, the reporters seem to be trying to craft a narrative suggesting that the dancers don’t receive sufficient medical care, a key false narrative pushed by the CCP to malign Falun Gong.

The Epoch Times spoke to dozens of Shen Yun artists and their family members as well as students and teachers at two schools affiliated with Shen Yun. They described the environment as demanding, but with a healthy culture and supportive community. The suggestion of lacking medical care or treatment prompted visceral responses.

“It’s absolute rubbish,” said Kay Rubacek whose son and daughter perform with Shen Yun. Ms. Rubacek is a filmmaker whose portfolio includes award-winning documentaries and the program “Life & Times” on NTD.

“Everyone who watches the show, sees Shen Yun, they can see that these dancers love it. They really love what they do.”

Her children started attending Fei Tian Academy of the Arts, a grade 5–12 private art school, when they were 13 and 14. She was very particular about first getting familiar with the campus and the teachers, she said.

“I’m very careful with where I send my kids. I’m very protective of them,” she said. “So for me to feel comfortable for them to go to a boarding school, I have to check everything, and I checked everything.”

The dance track at the school gives students the possibility of auditioning for Shen Yun while training at the Fei Tian College on the same campus, which is what her children did–with great success, she noted.

She recalled that shortly after joining the school, her son hit his toe during dance practice. He was taken for an X-ray, which revealed a hairline fracture. His dance teacher insisted he couldn’t join dance class again until the fracture had fully healed.

He took the hiatus as an opportunity to focus on stretching, becoming one of the most flexible dancers in the troupe, she said.

“The level of positivity that I see coming from them and their ability to face challenges is pretty remarkable and something that I wish I had as a kid,” Ms. Rubacek said.

She was appalled to learn that The New York Times would try to smear her children as being part of some opprobrious organization.

‘Real Danger’

“The false narratives that the Times seems to be pursuing are a grave concern for us because it can create real danger,” said George Xu, vice president of Dragon Springs.

He said several months ago local and federal authorities mobilized to counter what they believed was a credible threat posed by a Chinese man who posted to social media about wanting to be part of a “death squad.” The man also posted a video of himself loading an AR-15 rifle magazines.

The man “propagates these same false narratives and had been speaking with some of the same individuals the [New York] Times is interviewing,” Mr. Xu said.

“At one point, this man was known to be in the area of our campus. … We had state police patrolling our entrances, and everyone was on high alert. This is very serious.”

The Epoch Times obtained a copy of a September FBI Officer Safety bulleting, stating that the man “has made threats to the Dragon Springs campus,” was seen in the area, and “is potentially armed and dangerous.”

Aiming for the Top

Shen Yun prides itself as the leading Chinese classical dance company in the world, growing from one group in 2007 to eight, each with its own orchestra, touring the world and performing for more than a million people every year. The Epoch Times has been a long-time media sponsor of Shen Yun.

As with any elite artistic endeavor, classical Chinese dance requires enormous effort, said multiple dancers and teachers.

“To become an artist of such a high caliber, it definitely takes a lot of grit and a lot of persistence, and you have to sacrifice a lot of time and energy,” said Alison Chen, who retired from Shen Yun in 2015 to become a dance teacher and later co-chair of the dance department at Fei Tian College’s campus in Middletown, New York.

She was still in her teens when she started training with Shen Yun in 2007, shortly after its inception. Thanks to her aptitude and previous dance experience, she was invited to join the touring company fairly quickly as part of her school practicum. Over the years, however, the company has continued to raise the bar. Fei Tian students are still allowed to audition for tours as part of their coursework, but their dance skills must be exceptional for them to make the cut, she said.

Compared to ballet, classical Chinese dance training is more aligned with the natural disposition of the human body, leading to less extreme strain, said Jimmy Cha, who was a professional ballet dancer before he joined Shen Yun in 2008.

Ballet dancers usually retire in their 30s and are often left with chronic pain and other ailments. On average, younger amateur dancers suffer one injury and older professional dancers 1.2 injuries for every 1,000 dance hours, according to a 2015 review of research on the topic.

According to those estimates, a professional dance company the size of Shen Yun would theoretically have hundreds of injuries occurring every year.

The dancers and teachers The Epoch Times spoke to didn’t have such statistics ready, but all agreed the injury incidence they observed in Shen Yun was a fraction of that number.

Read more here...

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The FBI must face a lawsuit filed by a Muslim man who has since been removed from the bureau’s “no-fly list,” the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on March 19.

“The government has failed to demonstrate that this case is moot,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in a unanimous ruling.

“While the government’s representation that it will not relist Mr. Fikre may mean that his past conduct is not enough to warrant relisting, that does not speak to whether the government might relist him if he engages in the same or similar conduct in the future,” he added later.

Yonas Fikre, a Eritrean national and American citizen, sued the FBI in 2015 after having issues traveling due to being on the no-fly list, which is part of the government’s terrorist screening database. It bars certain people from flying.

“The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision is a major blow to the lawlessness that has allowed the FBI to amass almost two million people on their secret lists. This is but the latest indication that the FBI’s secret watchlists have no place in our country,” Gadeir Abbas, an attorney with the Council on American-Islamic Relations who is representing Mr. Fikre, told The Epoch Times in an email.

Government officials did not respond to requests for comment.

Told He Couldn’t Return

Mr. Fikre experienced problems flying, including when he traveled to Sudan in 2009 from Oregon, according to court papers.

While in Sudan at the U.S. embassy there, two FBI agents told Mr. Fikre he could not return to the United States since he was on the no-fly list. The agents also asked him about the mosque he attended and offered to look into having him removed from the list if he became a bureau informant.

Mr. Fikre refused.

Mr. Fikre then went to the United Arab Emirates, where he allegedly was detained for months on direction from the FBI. He eventually ended up in Sweden.

The government in 2015 declined to remove Mr. Fikre from the last, alleging he “is an individual who represents a threat of engaging in or conducting a violent act of terrorism and who is operationally capable of doing so.” The information supporting placing and keeping Mr. Fikre on the last was too sensitive to share, the government said at the time.

Mr. Fikre then filed the suit.

Case Dismissed Before

In 2016, the FBI told Mr. Fikre it removed him from the no-fly list because “he no longer satisfied the criteria for placement on the on-fly list.”

The bureau then asked a federal court to dismiss the case, claiming the removal meant the suit had become moot.

The U.S. District Judge Anna Brown, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, ruled for the government. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the decision because, it said, there was nothing to prevent the government from putting Mr. Fikre back on the list in the future.

After the government swore it would not do that, U.S. District Judge Michael Mosman, appointed under President George W. Bush entered an order dismissing the case.

But the appeals court again overturned the lower court decision, finding that the court wrongly dismissed the claims and that the government had not provided enough information on why Mr. Fikre was placed on and then removed from the list. It remanded the case back to the district court.

The government then appealed the ruling, asking the Supreme Court to step in.

“The court of appeals erred in holding that respondent’s claims challenging his placement on the No Fly List are not moot even though he was removed from that list seven years ago and the government has submitted a sworn declaration stating that he ‘will not be placed on the No Fly List in the future based on the currently available information,’” government lawyers said. “The court’s holding directly conflicts with decisions of the Fourth and Sixth Circuits that have found similar No Fly List claims moot upon the execution of declarations materially identical to the one in this case.”

More on SCOTUS Ruling

The Supreme Court, though, said that the government was wrong.

“The government contends that because Mr. Fikre has been delisted since 2016 and has presumably interacted freely with his co-religionists during that time, it is unlikely he will face relisting in the future. This too is insufficient to warrant dismissal,” Justice Gorsuch, appointed by President Donald Trump, said.

“A defendant’s speculation about a plaintiff’s actions cannot make up for a lack of assurance about its own. The burden here is on the defendant to establish that it cannot reasonably be expected to resume its challenged conduct, and nothing the government offers here satisfies that formidable standard,” he added.

In a concurring opinion, Justice Samuel Alito, appointed by President Bush, said the ruling did not mean the government must disclose classified information to Mr. Fikre, his attorneys, or a court.

Justice Alito was joined by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was appointed by President Trump.

Heading into the 2024 election, corporate media is once again spinning lies in order to re-frame, or contain, legitimate news stories.

In his latest reports, Racket News' Matt Taibbi corrects the record after a desperate slam job on the Twitter Files, published by The New York Times ("We seek the truth and help people understand the world") just before oral arguments in a historic First Amendment case in the Supreme Court...

In advance of oral arguments tomorrow in the Supreme Court for Murthy v. Missouri, formerly Missouri v. Biden, the New York Times and authors Jim Rutenberg and Steven Lee Myers wrote a craven and dishonest piece called, “How Trump’s Allies Are Winning the War Over Disinformation.”

The Times implies both the Twitter Files reports and my congressional testimony with Michael Shellenberger were strongly influenced by former Trump administration official Mike Benz, whose profile occupies much of the text. Benz is described as a purveyor of “conspiracy theories, like the one about the Pentagon’s use of Taylor Swift,” that are “talking points for many Republicans.” They quote Shellenberger as saying meeting Benz was the “Aha moment,” in our coverage, and the entire premise of the piece is that Benz and other “Trump allies” pushed Michael, me, and the rest of the Twitter Files reporters into aiding a “counteroffensive” in the war against disinformation, helping keep social media a home for “antidemocratic tactics.”

This all has a strong whiff of setup. I have nothing to say against Mike Benz, but let’s set some things straight. As Rutenberg and Lee Myers themselves note, I first talked to Benz in March, 2023. The Twitter Files reports were virtually all done by then. I would publish just two more, one on the day of my testimony, March 9, 2023 (“The Censorship-Industrial Complex”) and one on March 17 (“Stanford, the Virality Project, and the Censorship of ‘True Stories’”).

Mike was the source for exactly one piece of information in those two stories: a video his Foundation for Freedom Online posted of Stanford Internet Observatory director Alex Stamos, in which Stamos said Stanford’s Election Integrity Partnership was created to “fill the gap of things the government couldn’t do” legally:

This was true, public, and newsworthy, not a “conspiracy theory” about Taylor Swift or anyone else. Did “Trump Allies” force Stamos to put that video on YouTube?

Rutenberg and Lee Myers imply Benz influenced a change in my personal reporting, since I didn’t discover “evidence of direct government involvement” in the first installment of the Twitter Files about the Hunter Biden laptop story:

The author of that dispatch, Mr. Taibbi, concluded that Twitter had limited the coverage amid general warnings from the F.B.I. that Russia could leak hacked materials to try to influence the 2020 election. Though he was critical of previous leadership at Twitter, he reported that he saw no evidence of direct government involvement.

In March 2023, Mr. Benz joined the fray. Both Mr. Taibbi and Mr. Benz participated in a live discussion on Twitter, which was co-hosted by Jennifer Lynn Lawrence, an organizer of the Trump rally that preceded the riot on Jan. 6… As Mr. Taibbi described his work, Mr. Benz jumped in: “I believe I have all of the missing pieces of the puzzle.” There was a far broader “scale of censorship the world has never experienced before,” he told Mr. Taibbi, who made plans to follow up.

Nice try. Though I didn’t find “direct evidence” of government involvement in censorship programs in the first Twitter Files piece, we did discover it, on a grand scale, almost immediately after. Subsequent Twitter Files reports reflected this, including “Twitter, the FBI Subsidiary” from December 16th, 2022, and the “Twitter and Other Government Agencies” story published on Christmas Eve of 2022, the day the IRS opened a case on me.

Shellenberger, Bari Weiss, Lee Fang, and other Twitter Files reporters discovered the key elements of the Twitter Files reports, from the “industry calls” held between the FBI and Internet platforms like Twitter, to the role of Stanford’s Election Integrity Partnership, to the role of the State Department’s Global Engagement Center in sponsoring “anti-disinformation” work, in the first two weeks of research. Our central thesis about state-sponsored censorship was online months before we met Benz. By mid-December 2022, I knew we were looking at a sweeping federal content-control program, and repeated the idea many times. As I wrote on Christmas Eve, 2022:

The files show the FBI acting as doorman to a vast program of social media surveillance and censorship, encompassing agencies across the federal government —from the State Department to the Pentagon to the CIA… The operation is far bigger than the reported 80 members of the Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF)… Twitter had so much contact with so many agencies that executives lost track.

Nonetheless, the gist of today’s Times piece is that Shellenberger and I got this thesis from Benz. They literally wrote it that way, that when I testified to Congress, I was presenting his thesis:

Later, Mr. Shellenberger said that connecting with Mr. Benz had led to “a big aha moment…”

A week after that online meeting, Mr. Taibbi and Mr. Shellenberger appeared on Capitol Hill as star witnesses for the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. Mr. Benz sat behind them, listening as they detailed parts of his central thesis: This was not an imperfect attempt to balance free speech with democratic rights but a state-sponsored thought-policing system.

Michael, Bari, Lee, David Zweig and others involved with the Twitter Files project have been subject to a lot of silly smear jobs in the last year-plus, but this piece of deep state fan fiction in the Times is low even by their standards. It’s clearly intended to re-cast the outing of federal censorship initiatives as Trumpian conspiracy theory before oral arguments begin in Murthy v. Missouri tomorrow.

As the Times notes, this is one of “the most important First Amendment cases of the internet age,” and “could curtail the government’s latitude in monitoring content online.” Originally filed by the Attorneys General of Louisiana and Missouri, the lawsuit “accuses federal officials of colluding with or coercing the platforms to censor content critical of the government.”

The reason the government faces such danger is because two lower courts have already affirmed the core accusation that multiple Executive Branch agencies, including the White House and the FBI, violated the First Amendment when they engaged in mass-flagging programs of the type identified in both the Twitter Files and the original Missouri v. Biden complaint. After these lower court decisions, the Times notes with sadness, “the Biden administration has largely abandoned moves that might be construed as stifling political speech,” facing as it now does the specter of “legal and political blowback.”

The administration faces this blowback because the story about the censorship programs is true. The Times didn’t bother trying to argue we got anything wrong. It just said we knew Benz, showed a picture of him sitting behind Shellenberger as he testified, then said things like “More recently, Mr. Benz originated the false assertion that Taylor Swift was a ‘psychological operation’ asset for the Pentagon,” as if that had something to do with us. It’s Six Degrees of Misinformation.

Rutenberg two election cycles ago authored the seminal article on “oppositional” journalism in the Trump age. “Trump is Testing the Norms of Objectivity in Journalism” came out in summer of 2016, and was hugely influential. It said Trump was such a threat that the job going forward could no longer just be about reporting facts, but reporting facts that will “stand up to history’s judgment.”

Now he’s arguing the exposure of censorship programs is “paralyzing” official efforts to police social media, the medium that was “central to [Trump’s] political success.” Apparently misleading the public about my reporting is the new version of staying on the right side of “history’s judgment.” Let’s hope the Supreme Court doesn’t get distracted by these hysterics. Is there any doubt that’s what this story is designed to accomplish?

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