An Interesting Twist

On Thursday, Substack posted the following headline:

Court orders production of Seth Rich laptop

As you remember, Seth Rich was murdered in Washington, D.C., in July 2016. He was shot twice in the back and the police declared it a botched robbery– his wallet, expensive gold, cell phone and gold necklace were not taken. There has been a theory that Seth Rich was the one leaking information about the Democrat campaign to Wikileaks.

The Substack article reports:

This case involves a multi-year fight by attorney Ty Clevenger to obtain records relating to the FBI/DOJ investigation of Seth Rich, particularly whether Rich was involved in the hack of the DNC or had communicated with Wikileaks.

This fight dates back to 2017 and includes two FOIA lawsuit. In the first lawsuit, the FBI produced no responsive documents. The parties knew the FBI had something, and so this sparked a second lawsuit – where the FBI somehow found 20,000 pages of potentially responsive documents.

…Of those 20,000 pages, the government found 1,596 pages of responsive documents, of which the government withheld 1,469 pages under various FOIA exemptions (privacy, law enforcement exemption, etc.).

The FBI also withheld the contents of Seth Rich’s personal laptop, which it possesses, in its entirety, alleging the privacy of Rich’s family in “preventing the public release of this information” outweighs the public interest in disclosure.

The court rejected that argument, stating “the FBI has not satisfied its burden of showing more than a de minimis privacy interest that would justify withholding information from Seth Rich’s laptop.”

The article concludes:

What might be more interesting is the FBI’s complete records on Seth Rich. The FBI has fought production of those records – first by failing to “find” its own documents, and now by alleging documents must be withheld due to “national security grounds” and the “basis that disclosure of the information would threaten intelligence-gathering efforts.”

The information in the FBI’s possession includes that which was “provided by foreign government agency authorities under an implied assurance of confidentiality.” It also may – or may not – include whether the FBI used a “code name” associated with Seth Rich. And, if FBI representations are to be believed, it also includes “details of intelligence activities, sources, and methods related to national security.”

Unfortunately, the court won’t require the production of this information. Some questions will remain unanswered. Read the full order here.

There are a lot of valid questions regarding Seth Rich’s death. It would be nice to see them answered.

Actions Have Consequences

Philadelphia has never been known as the poster child for honest elections, but somehow nothing ever seems to be done about it. Well, there has been at least one move in the right direction.

On Thursday, The Epoch Times posted an article about the sentencing of former U.S. Representative Michael “Ozzie” Myers, a Pennsylvania Democrat.

The article reports:

Despite declarations of safe and secure elections, history shows that past Pennsylvania elections were host to corruption.

For example, former U.S. Rep. Michael “Ozzie” Myers, a Pennsylvania Democrat, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to deprive voters of civil rights, bribery, obstruction of justice, falsification of voting records, conspiring to illegally vote in a federal election, and orchestrating schemes to fraudulently stuff ballot boxes for specific Democrat candidates in Pennsylvania elections held from 2014 to 2018.

Myers was sentenced Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Paul S. Diamond to 30 months in prison, three years supervised release, and ordered to pay $100,000 in fines, with $10,000 of that due immediately, according to a statement from U.S. Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero.

Directly after Tuesday’s Philadelphia hearing, Myers, 79, was taken into custody.

Myers served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1979 until 1980 when he was caught taking bribes in an FBI sting operation. That was part of an old, completed investigation.

The article notes:

In a 1980 FBI operation dubbed the ABSCAM Investigation, undercover FBI agents disguised themselves as businessmen and Arab sheiks and ultimately criminally charged seven members of Congress, alleging the politicians had accepted money from the phony sheiks, promising favors in return.

Myers was among those charged and was sentenced to three years in prison.

The FBI had videotapes showing the members accepting cash or stocks. In one, an agent handed Myers an envelope stuffed with hundred-dollar bills amounting to $50,000, saying, “Spend it well.” Myers responded, “Pleasure,” according to a report at the Library of Congress.

In response, the House ethics committee unanimously recommended expelling him.

The article concludes:

After leaving prison, he started a political consulting firm.

There is nothing I can add to that!

Following The Money

Money does not always determine the outcome of an election (see the presidential election of 2016), but in many cases, large amounts of money can make a difference. Name recognition is important in an election, and being able to purchase ads to answer false charges against an opponent is also important. The mid-term elections are crucial for the Democrats–if enough Republicans win who care about government integrity, the Democrats may not be able to survive the investigations that follow. So the Democrats need lots of money from various sources.

On Tuesday, The Washington Examiner posted the following headline, “Fake charities are spending millions to help Democrats win elections.”

The article reports:

In fact, what the IRS isn’t doing in the nonprofit (or “public charity”) sector will affect the midterm elections far more than any FBI raid ever could.

A big part of the IRS’s job is the oversight of 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations that are awarded tax-exempt status because of the beneficial work they do. There are many different rules that 501(c)(3) nonprofit groups must follow to maintain their favored status, but the most important is that 501(c)(3)s are forbidden to engage in partisan electioneering, or efforts to aid political candidates and affect the results of elections, in any way.

Advocacy and political bias are allowed, but elections are strictly off-limits.

Enter fake charities such as the Voter Participation Center, State Voices, and the Voter Registration Project that siphon tens of millions of dollars every year from billionaires and their charitable foundations to use in ways that the IRS strictly forbids. By abusing their knowledge of racial demographic voting trends and enormous microtargeted voter databases, these groups can ensure they only register people likely to vote for Democrats and function as tax-exempt Democratic PACs.

The partisanship of these “civic participation” nonprofit groups has been an open secret for decades.

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now is the best and earliest example — and the one most people know. During the 2008 election cycle, ACORN harvested voter registration forms from over 1.3 million people, and the organization crumbled after numerous ACORN activists were investigated and charged with forgery, fraud, and bribery related to voter registration work.

Later, in the 2012 book The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns, liberal journalist Sasha Isenberg wrote of the Voter Participation Center (which raised $88 million in 2020): “Even though the group was officially nonpartisan, for tax purposes, there was no secret that the goal of all its efforts was to generate new votes for Democrats.”

Remember Lois Lerner, director of the Exempt Organizations Unit of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), who was the central figure in the 2013 IRS targeting controversy. The IRS denied conservative groups tax-exempt status outright or delayed that status until they could no longer take effective part in the 2012 election.  The Democrats have always understood the value of politically-aligned groups. It’s time all of those groups were recognized for what they are so that the public can make informed decisions.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. What has happened to our elections in recent years may result in the end of our representative republic as we know it.

Get The Mink First

On Tuesday, The Daily Caller posted an article about the compromise the Democrats made with Senator Joe Manchin in order to persuade him to vote for the Inflation Reduction Act. The Inflation Reduction Act passed by a vote of 51-50, with Vice-President Kamala Harris breaking the tie–all Democrats voted for it. If Senator Manchin had not voted for it, the bill would not have passed. In order to win his vote, the Democrats made promises of reforming the permitting process in energy permits in a future bill. The Democrats have reneged on that promise, and Senator Manchin is stuck with a bill that will negatively impact his home state of West Virginia. Now the Senator has backed down from his insisting that the agreement made be honored in the government funding resolution. He is not looking good. He is up for re-election in 2024, but maybe voters will forget what he did by then.

The article reports:

Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin backed down from including his energy permitting overhaul in a government funding resolution Tuesday evening after a bipartisan group of senators threatened to block it.

Federal funding is scheduled to run out Sept. 30, and the continuing resolution introduced by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York would pay for the government to stay open through Dec. 16. As part of Manchin’s support for the Inflation Reduction Act, Schumer promised the moderate that the Senate would pass his permitting reform proposal. The Energy Independence and Security Act would speed up completion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a more-than-300 mile pipeline that would transport natural gas from West Virginia to Virginia, and amend the National Environmental Policy Act or the Clean Water Act to require federal agencies to approve or reject energy projects faster.

The article concludes:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky whipped Republicans against the provision, although Manchin’s fellow West Virginia senator, Republican Shelley Moore Capito, came out in favor of it.

“Given what Senator Manchin did on the reconciliation bill, [it’s] engendered a lot of bad blood,” Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn told Politico of the package. “There’s not a lot of sympathy on our side to provide Sen. Manchin a reward.”

Manchin announced his support just hours after 17 Republican senators voted in favor the CHIPS and Science Act. McConnell had threatened to pull Republican support from the research and development package if Democrats continued with reconciliation negotiations.

The Senate voted 72-23 shortly before 7 p.m. to open debate on the continuing resolution. The final bill must become law by Saturday to avoid a government shutdown.

Remember when Congress actually paid attention to the correct, legal budgeting process and we didn’t have threatened government shutdowns? It’s time to get back to a time when annual budgets were passed rather than continuing resolutions. I believe that the last time we actually had a federal budge passed was sometime between 2007 and 2009. It’s time we got back to doing things according to the law.

 

Equal Justice Under The Law

The U.S. Constitution states:

Amendment XIV

Section 1.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. 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.  (emphasis mine)

In the past two years there have been some events that have caused me to question whether the Biden administration is adhering to the concept of equal protection under the law. There are many questionable happenings regarding the January 6th defendants and recently questions about the pro-life activist who had never broken a law and whose home was raided by 15-20 FBI agents with guns. Now we have more questions regarding the standard applied to President Trump versus the standard applied to President Obama regarding the keeping and storing of presidential records.

On Tuesday, The American Thinker reported the following:

It almost sounds like a scene from an Indiana Jones movie: a dusty warehouse.  The smell of must permeating the air.  The only sound the scurrying of the occasional rat.  And entombed within it, thousands of boxes upon boxes, practically stamped “TOP SECRET.”

But this is no flight of Hollywood fantasy.  It is the reality of what remains of the Barack Obama presidency: Twenty truckloads of crates, kept in a space that formerly housed the inventory of Plunkett Furniture, containing roughly thirty million documents generated during the eight years of Obama’s time in the Oval Office.

And to the best of anyone’s public knowledge, it may still be sitting there, uncatalogued and unscanned for future perusal.  It’s composed in part, it can be assumed, of classified files.

That is the conclusion being made following a letter from the Obama Foundation to the National Archive and Records Administration  that has recently come to light.  According to the letter, at least up until 2018, the Obama-era documents — all of them — were being stored in the warehouse at Hoffman Estates.  The letter clearly states that classified papers were included alongside the unclassified files.

From the letter: “The Obama Foundation agrees to transfer up to three million three hundred thousand dollars ($3,300,000) to the National Archives Trust Fund (NATF) to support the move of classified and unclassified Obama Presidential records and artifacts from Hoffman Estates to NARA-controlled facilities that conform to the agency’s archival storage standards for such records and artifacts, and for the modification of such spaces. The first transfer of $300,000 was already made on August 9, 2018. An additional interim transfer will be made within 180 days of that date. Subsequent payments are subject to the negotiation of terms of the digitization process and museum operations.”

It is now also being reported by the Daily Herald that the Obama Foundation has extended its lease of the warehouse through 2026.

Somehow the FBI has not chosen to raid that warehouse. I kind of wonder who is pulling the strings at the FBI right now.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article.

Back To The Drawing Board?

On Tuesday, The Blue State Conservative posted a sad tale on its website. It was the tale of an environmentally conscientious consumer and his Ford F-150 Lightning electric pickup.

The article reports:

Yet another electric vehicle disaster is making the rounds on the internet, this time as a YouTuber with over 1.4 million followers tried towing an ancient 1930s Ford Model A truck with a contemporary Ford F-150 Lightning electric pickup. Despite setting the bar ridiculously low – he just wanted to tow it just over 100 miles round trip – the entire experiment failed in a spectacularly “complete and total disaster.”

Youtuber Tyler Hoover says in the video, seen below, that “[i]f a truck towing 3,500 pounds can’t even go 100 miles — that is ridiculously stupid. He then highlights the basic argument against EVs. “This truck can’t do normal truck things. You would be stopping every hour to recharge, which would take about 45 minutes a pop, and that is absolutely not practical.”

He says of the exercise: “My plan was to make two trips up today,” he said. “About 32 miles each way, so that’s about 64 times two: 128 miles round trip.”

This is the video:

I think we have a little more work to do before we commit entirely to electric vehicles. If you want a truck to do truck things, obviously at this time an electric truck is not your answer.

Just What We Needed–Another Government Agency!

On Sunday, The Epoch Times reported the following:

The Biden administration on Saturday launched a new national office dubbed the “Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights” charged with addressing what some officials say are the disproportionate harms inflicted on low-income areas and communities of color by pollution and climate change.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), an independent executive agency of the U.S. federal government, announced that the new office “will position the agency to better advance environmental justice, enforce civil rights laws in overburdened communities, and deliver new grants and technical assistance.”

The new office will oversee a portion of Democrats’ $60 billion investment in environmental justice initiatives created by the Inflation Reduction Act—specifically, the implementation and delivery of $3 billion in block grants to underserved communities affected by pollution.

The EPA said the new office will also “ensure EPA’s implementation of other funding programs provided by the Inflation Reduction Act [and] Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.”

Three existing EPA programs that oversee environmental justice, civil rights, and conflict prevention and resolution will be merged into the new senior-level office.

Wow! A whole agency saying that the climate is racist. Good grief!

I have a suggestion. If the summertime temperature is higher in black neighborhoods that white neighborhoods, plant trees. I am sure something could be worked out so that the city involved could afford to do that. We don’t need another government agency to do that.

Note that they are merging three current EPA programs into this new office. These programs oversee environmental justice, civil rights, conflict prevention and resolution. Let’s get something straight–if the earth burns up because of climate change (which is highly unlikely) all people will be equally impacted. The climate is not aware of anyone’s financial situation or political power. If those screaming the loudest about climate change really believed what they were saying, would they buy oceanfront estates and run around in private jets?

The article concludes:

The EPA’s definition of “environmental justice” is “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income, with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.”

There is no such thing as environmental justice–the government does NOT control the environment! This office will simply be a center for the redistribution of wealth, which is the ultimate goal of the Biden (Obama) administration.

The Pigford Settlement Revisited

In April 2013, Investor’s Business Daily reported the following:

Turns out conservative crusader Andrew Breitbart was correct when he exposed a multibillion-dollar redistribution scheme to African-American farmers based on largely dubious claims of discrimination.

If there’s a patron saint for government watchdogs, it’s Breitbart, who was well into exposing at the time of his early death one of the most egregious examples of wealth redistribution in the name of social justice: the Pigford case.

A handful of black farmers who arguably were discriminated against in their dealings with the Agriculture Department were exploited by a racial grievance industry empowered by a government and a president out to fundamentally transform America.

Outside Breitbart and his Big Government website, only a handful of outlets, among them IBD, pursued the story. Late to the story, but welcome, comes the New York Times with an analysis that Breitbart was right, that Pigford became not a redress of legitimate grievances but a “a runaway train, driven by racial politics, pressure from influential members of Congress and law firms that stand to gain more than $130 million in fees.”

The article notes:

Based on Census data reflecting the original period in question, the USDA first estimated only 2,000 claims would be filed. But in this age of victimhood and dependency fanned by demagoguery, “more than 90,000 people have filed claims” and the “total cost could top $4.4 billion,” noted the Times.

As BigGovernment.com reported, the only “proof” required was a form stating the claimant had “attempted” to farm, perhaps planting tomatoes in the backyard, and to have a family member vouch for that assertion.

The government would then send the aggrieved “farmer” a check for as much as $50,000.

Remember Shirley Sherrod, the former USDA official whose speech before an NAACP group revealing her angst about helping a white farmer got her fired?

Time magazine reported that $330,000 was “awarded to Shirley and Charles Sherrod for mental suffering alone,” in their claim against the USDA.

On September 26, 2022, The Daily Caller reported:

The Democrats’ massive climate spending and tax bill gave the Department of Agriculture (USDA) $2.2 billion in loans to pay farmers, many of whom are black, who have previously been denied USDA loans due to discrimination.

The provision, which was backed by Democratic Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Raphael Warnock of Georgia, is intended to provide financial assistance to farmers, ranchers or forest landowners that the department determines to have experienced discrimination in USDA farm lending programs before January 1. 2021, according to the bill’s text. Although the funding could go to any farmer that the government has discriminated against, such as white women or members of the LGBTQ community, the money is primarily intended to rectify the historic denial of loans to black farmers, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Somehow I don’t believe that there were $2.2 billion in loans denied to black farmers (or anyone else). This is another attempt (unfortunately successful) to pay reparations and to redistribute money from people who earned it to people who didn’t.

There Are A Few Strings Attached To This Deal

On Monday, The National Review reported that Vladimir Putin has granted Russian citizenship to Edward Snowden. Nine years ago Edward Snowden fled to Russia after leaking information about secret wide-ranging information-gathering programs conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA). I have no idea whether or not that leaking was good or bad–I simply don’t know enough about it, but in view of what we have learned about government spying in the recent past, I am not sure who the good guys are here.

The article reports:

“After years of separation from our parents, my wife and I have no desire to be separated from our son. That’s why, in this era of pandemics and closed borders, we’re applying for dual US-Russian citizenship,” Snowden wrote on Twitter.

“Lindsay and I will remain Americans, raising our son with all the values of the America we love, including the freedom to speak his mind. And I look forward to the day I can return to the States, so the whole family can be reunited. Our greatest wish is that, wherever our son lives, he feels at home,” he added.

The former intelligence contractor leaked classified information from the National Security Agency in 2013, revealing the extent of mass surveillance in the country. The Department of Justice charged him with violating the Espionage Act of 1917, and he fled to Russia to avoid the charges.

The article concludes:

Snowden’s approval comes as Putin has eased the citizenship process for Ukrainians and those who serve in the Russian military amid the war on Ukraine.

On Saturday, Putin signed a law granting Russian citizenship to foreigners who serve for one year in the Russian Armed Forces.

My understanding is that when Snowden becomes a Russian citizen, he is eligible to be drafted into the Russian army. This could get interesting.

The Globalists Have Hit A Snag

On Monday, Ed Morrissey at Hot Air posted an article about the recent Italian elections.

The article reports:

Voters in yet another EU nation turned away from the leftward tilt of Brussels and more toward self-determination. Italy has elected its first right-wing coalition government in decades, and will almost certainly have its first female prime minister. Georgia Meloni led her Brothers of Italy into a dominant role in the coalition, as both CNN and Reuters describe this as “the most right-wing government since World War II”:

The mainstream media is in panic mode.

CNN reported:

Brothers of Italy leader Giorgia Meloni has claimed victory in a general election that seems set to install her as Italy’s first female prime minister, leading the most far-right government since the fascist era of Benito Mussolini.

Addressing the media and supporters in the early hours of Monday morning, Meloni said it was “a night of pride for many and a night of redemption.”

“It’s a victory I want to dedicate to everyone who is no longer with us and wanted this night,” she said. “Starting tomorrow we have to show our value … Italians chose us, and we will not betray it, as we never have,” she said.

Preliminary results put an alliance of far-right parties, led by Meloni’s ultraconservative Brothers of Italy party, on track to win at least 44% of the vote, according to the Italian Interior Ministry.

Ed Morrissey notes:

Ahem. If Italy had elected Mitt Romney, that would also be “the most far-right government” since Mussolini. In American terms, Italy’s politics has ranged from the CPUSA to, say, Bill Clinton since World War II. Even Silvio Berlusconi fit within the left-of-center EU salons while dabbling in populism and narcissism.

The article at Hot Air concludes:

Frankly, from this description, Meloni appears to be a business-as-usual politician. If Draghi finds her mainstream enough to maintain a political engagement with Meloni, and if Meloni has already set in place the relationships that will make coalition-building and consensus possible, that doesn’t sound very “fascist” to me — and not even very “far right,” for that matter. Time will tell, but this looks like yet another media freak-out over not very much except something that doesn’t suit their tastes.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. It’s fun to watch the media go crazy because someone got elected who might actually understand that they work for the people.

Crickets

On Thursday, Newsbusters posted an article about the media coverage of the murder of Cayler Ellingson in North Dakota. Somehow there has been very little coverage of this event in the mainstream media.

The article reports:

Shannon Brandt, 41, struck and killed the teenager with his Ford Explorer SUV early Sunday in an alley. His mother said Cayler called and asked her if she knew Brandt (she did). The boy called again a short time later and said ‘that ‘he’ or ‘they’ were chasing him.” The mother could no longer reach him after that.

Court documents said “Brandt admitted to striking the pedestrian with his car because he had a political argument with the pedestrian and believed the pedestrian was calling people to come get him.” He claimed the teen was part of an unspecified Republican “extremist group.” Brandt was released on bail.

While the Fox News Channel and Newsmax both started reporting this story on the evening of September 20, NewsBusters found zero coverage on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and MSNBC. How about our taxpayer-funded PBS and NPR? Zero coverage. The New York Times and The Washington Post had nothing.

The article notes:

This murder bears some resemblance to 32-year-old Heather Heyer dying when she was run over by a white nationalist during dueling protests in Charlottesville in 2017. In that case, another 35 people were injured. The liberals would insist this was different because it occurred at a major protest scene over the removal of Confederate statues that the national media had been anticipating for weeks in advance.

Heyer’s death was promoted as a political disaster for President Trump. PBS NewsHour ran headlines like “Trump faces backlash for Charlottesville comments as protest victim is laid to rest.” Joe Biden later declared that Trump’s reaction to the Charlottesville attack inspired him to run for president.

The article concludes:

Liberal outlets recently rolled out a new set of stories marking the fifth anniversary of Heyer’s death. Doesn’t Cayler Ellingson’s death deserve national attention? Or is it just too contrary to the narrative that all the political violence is presumed to be coming from the conservative side? No one’s going to suggest this is a problem for President Biden, who recently trashed MAGA Republicans as a dangerous threat to democracy.

This lines up with the recent murder of Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Jeff German by a Democrat county official, Robert Telles. Since the victim was a journalist, this has gotten some national attention, but it came with a nasty tendency to avoid describing Telles as a Democrat

It makes it harder to speculate that Democratic politicians are spurring violence through using hateful rhetoric if media outlets seek to squelch the idea there’s any politically motivated violence by Democrats. 

It seems as if the Democrats have interpreted free speech as their right to yell fire in a crowded theater, but they feel the need to censor and restrict almost everything everyone else can say.

Is This Now A Hostile Work Environment?

On Sunday, Just the News posted an article about FBI Special Agent Stephen M. Friend, who serves as a SWAT team member, who has been suspended in recent days because of his status as a whistleblower.

The article reports:

An FBI whistleblower has reported to the Office of Special Counsel that he believes the bureau and Justice Department are violating the constitutional rights of Jan. 6 defendants, falsifying statistics on domestic extremism and misusing SWAT teams to make misdemeanor arrests, according to a copy of the complaint reviewed by Just the News.

Special Agent Stephen M. Friend, who works for the FBI in Florida and serves as a SWAT team member, told the main federal whistleblower office in Washington he had an “exemplary” work record since he joined the bureau in 2014 and even won awards but was suspended in recent days after he began raising concerns about the FBI’s and DOJ’s conduct in the Jan. 6 investigation

“I believed the investigations were inconsistent with FBI procedure and resulted in the violation of citizens’ Sixth and Eighth Amendment rights,” Friend wrote. “I added that many of my colleagues expressed similar concerns to me but had not vocalized their objections to FBI Executive Management.”

The FBI national press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent on Friday.

Although I have very little doubt that what Agent Friend is saying is true, I am not optimistic that the problems he points out will be dealt with. Although there are Congressional committees charged with overseeing various aspects of the FBI, the Director, Christoper Wray, is accountable to the Attorney General, Merrick Garland. Both the Director and the Attorney General are known for the politicization of their organizations. Since the prosecutions relating to January 6th are purely political, I suspect the civil rights of those accused will continue to be violated. As for the SWAT teams, there have be a number of incidents when SWAT teams and other tactics were used to intimidate political enemies of the Democrat party.

I don’t mean to be negative, but I am beginning to wonder if anyone can put right our totally corrupt FBI and Department of Justice.

Looking Or Taking?

On Saturday, The New York Post posted an article about a recent FBI raid on a Beverly Hills safety deposit company that uncovered $86 million in cash and millions more other assets, according to a new report.

Pocketsense notes:

No laws exist that prevent you from keeping cash in a safe deposit box. However, while not illegal, bankers typically discourage customers from keeping cash in safe deposit boxes because funds inside the box are not insured. Additionally, you can only access your box during regular bank hours, which means you have no access to your cash during weekends and evenings when banks are closed.

It should also be noted that money in a safe deposit box is not earning interest.

The article at The New York Post notes:

The FBI and US Attorney’s Office misled a judge who issued a warrant for a controversial raid on a Beverly Hills safety deposit company that uncovered $86 million in cash and millions more other assets, according to a new report.

A senior FBI agent recently testified that central to the plan, and not disclosed to the judge, was the permanent confiscation of the contents of every box that contained at least $5,000 in cash or goods, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The alleged disclosure failure came out in FBI documents and agent depositions in a class-action lawsuit by box holders at U.S. Private Vaults, who say the 2021 raid violated their rights.

The FBI justified the seizure by arguing that the goods were tied to unknown crimes, the Times reported, citing court records.

Court filings also showed that agents defied a judge’s restrictions in the warrant by searching through box holders’ belongings for evidence of crimes, the paper said.

“The government did not know what was in those boxes, who owned them, or what, if anything, those people had done,” Robert Frommer, a lawyer who represents nearly 400 box holders in the class-action case, wrote in court papers, according to the Times.

It does seem as if the FBI has overstepped its bounds and been less than honest in its dealings lately. If the FBI truly misrepresented their intentions to the judge, I hope the people in the FBI who planned the raid will be fired.

Targeting Political Enemies?

On Saturday, The Conservative Review reported on an FBI raid on the home of Mark Houck, a Catholic author, lecturer, radio host, and co-founder of The King’s Men – a club for men “to unite and build up other men in the mold of leader, protector, and provider through education, formation, healing, and action.”

The article reports:

Houck’s wife, Ryan-Marie Houck, told LifeSiteNews, “For ‘weeks and weeks,’ a ‘pro-abortion protester’ would speak to the boy saying ‘crude … inappropriate and disgusting things,’ such as ‘you’re dad’s a fag,’ and other statements that were too vulgar for her to convey.”

Houck’s wife claimed that Love got into “the son’s personal space” and refused to stop saying “crude… inappropriate and disgusting” comments at the father and son.

Mark Houck “shoved him away from his child, and the guy fell back” and he hit the ground. Houck allegedly pushed the pro-abortion man to the ground outside of the Planned Parenthood clinic a second time. Love – a 72-year-old volunteer escort at the abortion clinic – reportedly suffered injuries that required medical attention.

Police were called, but Houck was reportedly not charged because there was a “lack of evidence” of an assault.

Ryan-Marie Houck claimed that Love “tried to sue Mark,” but the case was thrown out of court this summer.

Around 7:05 a.m. on Friday, the Houck’s home was reportedly raided by 25 to 30 FBI agents and 15 government vehicles surrounded their house.

Ryan-Marie Houck said the FBI agents had their guns drawn and “they started pounding on the door and yelling for us to open it.”

Mark Houck allegedly told the FBI agents, “Please, I’m going to open the door, but, please, my children are in the home. I have seven babies in the house.”

When the front door was opened, Ryan-Marie said, “They had big, huge rifles pointed at Mark and pointed at me and kind of pointed throughout the house.”

“The kids were all just screaming,” she said. “It was all just very scary and traumatic.”

Houck was arrested and taken away.

The fact that Houck was not charged or arrested and the case was thrown out of court this past summer is suspicious. It sounds as if the person who was shoved knew who to contact to escalate the incident.

The Daily Wire posted an article today on the events, but added some interesting details and denials:

A spokesperson with the Philadelphia office of the FBI said SWAT was not involved with the arrest of Houck.

“There are inaccurate claims being made regarding the arrest of Mark Houck. No SWAT Team or SWAT operators were involved,” a spokesperson told Fox News. “FBI agents knocked on Mr. Houck’s front door, identified themselves as FBI agents and asked him to exit the residence. He did so and was taken into custody without incident pursuant to an indictment.”

Notably, a senior FBI source told Fox News there might have been 15-20 agents at the scene who came to the family’s door with guns out and at the ready. The source claimed that the guns were never pointed at Houck or his family.

If there are 15-20 people coming toward my house with guns, I really don’t care whether or not they are a SWAT Team–they are pretty intimidating. This is another example of the Justice Department harassing people whose politics disagree with those of the President.

Reversing Another Common-Sense Policy

On Sunday, Breitbart reported that the Biden administration has reversed the Trump administration’s policy that directed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to stop fast-tracking work permits for border crossers and illegal aliens.

The article reports:

The rule change made sure that border crossers and illegal aliens would need to be in the U.S. for at least a year before applying for work permits through the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) agency.

Now, as Reuters reports, Biden is repealing the Trump-era rule change to ensure that hundreds of thousands of border crossers and illegal aliens his DHS releases every few months into the U.S. interior can now more quickly secure work permits to take American jobs.

As part of the reversal, border crossers and illegal aliens who crossed in between ports of entry or have been convicted of certain crimes will now be eligible for work permits after residing in the U.S. for at least 150 days.

Biden’s push to more quickly get border crossers and illegal aliens into American jobs comes as 11.5 million Americans are jobless but want full-time employment and another 4.1 million Americans are stuck in part-time jobs wanting full-time work.

The change in policy by the Biden administration will only encourage more economic migration. There is nothing wrong with people seeking to come to America to pursue a better life; however, we need to encourage people to come here legally. Making it easy for illegal aliens to find work quickly does not benefit Americans–it lowers wages for working Americans and limits the number of jobs available to Americans. It doen nothing to help Americans realize their dreams.

 

Follow The Money

How did the illegal immigrants promptly moved off of Martha’s Vineyard know who to call to sue Governor DeSantis? How did they even come to the conclusion that they could sue? Well, Breitbart News did some investigating and seems to have discovered the answers to those questions.

Breitbart reports:

A left-wing non-governmental organization (NGO) partially funded by billionaire George Soros is behind a lawsuit targeting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) for flying illegal aliens to the elite coastal island of Martha’s Vineyard.

Late last week, DeSantis sent two flights packed with 50 illegal aliens from Venezuela to Martha’s Vineyard, where former President Obama has a sprawling 29-acre summer estate.

A handful of illegal aliens flown to Martha’s Vineyard have since filed a class action lawsuit against DeSantis, alleging their Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated. The illegal aliens are being represented by lawyers at Alianza Americas — an NGO that has received nearly $1.4 million from Soros’s Open Society Foundation from 2016 to 2020.

Most of the Soros funding to Alianza Americas has gone to promote an open border agenda between the United States, Mexico, and Central America, including lobbying for pro-mass immigration policies in the U.S.

The article includes the following:

The article concludes:

Despite the backlash from elected Democrats and the open borders lobby, DeSantis has vowed to fly more illegal aliens to sanctuary jurisdictions and the doorsteps of the Democrat Party’s wealthiest and most well-connected donors.

That may be the only way to get the Democrats and some Republicans to close the border. Please understand–if enough members of either party actually wanted the border closed, it would be closed by now. The Democrats want future voters and the Republican corporate types want cheap labor. Meanwhile American citizens and American workers are thrown under the bus.

 

Where Are They Coming From?

According to a Western Journal article in August:

The illegal border crossings, which occurred between Oct. 1, 2021, and Aug. 6 2022, already exceed the 1,662,422 Border Patrol encountered in fiscal year 2021, which was already a record high for the force, according to the internal data.

The record number comes after Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas assured the public in July that “the border is secure.”

So where are these people coming from? On Friday, The Epoch Times reported the following:

Venezuela is deliberately releasing prisoners, among them violent criminals, and has them travel to the U.S. southern border, a development that prompted 14 House Republicans to write to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas), who is leading the Republican effort to have Mayorkas answer questions, said in the Sept. 22 letter that the decision by the Nicolas Maduro regime has put the United States “in grave danger.”

“We write you with serious concern about a recent U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) intelligence report received by Border Patrol that instructs agents to look for violent criminals from Venezuela among the migrant caravans heading towards the U.S.-Mexico border,” the letter says, citing a recent report from Breitbart.

The outlet reported on Sept. 18 that it had reviewed the DHS intelligence report from an unnamed source within the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The report warned that released prisoners—including those convicted of murder, rape, and extortion—had been seen within migrant caravans traveling from Tapachula, Mexico, to the southern border, as recently as July.

The article concludes:

The 14 Republicans want Mayorkas to answer more than 10 questions, including the precautions DHS is taking to prevent these Venezuelan criminals from entering the United States.

“Have any of the Venezuelan nationals encountered at the southern border this year been suspected to be released prisoners?” says one of the questions. “Does DHS have a projected headcount of how many released Venezuelan prisoners are expected to enter the U.S.?”

Another question asks, “Do you have reason to believe that the release of the convicts could be a purposeful geopolitical move specifically intended to impact U.S. national security?”

“We need transparency and accountability from this administration,” Nehls wrote on Twitter.

The open southern border of America is a national security issue. It is only a matter of time until that porous border results in a terrorist incident that leaves Americans dead.

The Problem Wasn’t What Was Said–It Was Who Said It

I realize that our current President has some difficulty recognizing the importance of personal space, and I realize that there are some valid questions about his past relationships with women and young girls. Keeping that in mind, he needs to be careful about what he says and the jokes he makes.

On Friday, The New York Post reported the following:

President Biden shocked viewers of his Friday speech to teachers when he recognized an audience member and told the crowd, “She was 12, I was 30.”

Biden lit up social media with the confounding and seemingly inappropriate aside. He did not say what he did when he was 30 and the woman was a preteen.

“You gotta say hi to me,” Biden said mid-speech at the National Education Association headquarters in DC. “We go back a long way. She was 12, I was 30. But anyway, this woman helped me get an awful lot done.”

I am willing to give President Biden the benefit of the doubt on this one. How many times has a man remarked to a woman celebrating a wedding anniversary of more than twenty years, “You were twelve, right?” It is supposed to be taken as a compliment. I believe that was the joke President Biden was trying to reach. Unfortunately, his questionable behavior in the past (shown on multiple YouTube videos) caused the joke to go flat. In this particular instance, I am willing to give the man the benefit of the doubt. He is old, he is senile, and half the time he doesn’t know where he is much less what he is saying. I refuse to give him a break on how bad his policies are and the fact that he appears to be totally mentally unfit for the job, but in this case, I am willing to let a stupid remark slide.

Did The Science Change?

On Thursday, The New York Post posted an article about a recent statement by Stacey Abrams.

The article reports:

Progressive Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams is facing fierce backlash after a clip surfaced of her declaring that there is “no such thing” as a fetal heartbeat at six weeks — insisting that is just “manufactured sound” designed to control women’s bodies.

“There is no such thing as a heartbeat at six weeks,” the Peach State gubernatorial candidate said at an event in Atlanta on Tuesday.

“It is a manufactured sound designed to convince people that men have the right to take control of a woman’s body.”

You could fertilize your garden with that statement. It illustrates a level of ignorance and willingness to lie for political purposes I can’t even imagine.

Just for the record, Medical News Today states:

The heart of an embryo starts to beat from around 5–6 weeks of pregnancy. Also, it may be possible to see the first visible sign of the embryo, known as the fetal pole, at this stage.

The heart of a fetus is fully developed by the 10th week of pregnancy.

I don’t understand why killing babies is so important to the Democrat party. I also don’t understand why they are so upset about each state now having the right to make their own laws regarding abortion. That is constitutional in accordance with the Tenth Amendment. Finally, I refuse to think of killing a baby as healthcare.

Some Notes On The Most Secure Election Ever

On Thursday, The Gateway Pundit posted an article noting that former Attorney General William Barr had stated in the past that there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, defying President Donald Trump’s ongoing efforts to reverse the results. Well, that statement didn’t really report the actual truth.

The article notes:

On Thursday former Trump adviser Jeffrey Clark, the Director of Litigation at the Center for Renewing America, joined Steve Bannon on The War Room.

Jeffrey Clark told Steve the Center for Renewing America sent out FOIA requests to 12 US Attorney districts from the 2020 battleground states.

Bill Barr sent out a memo on November 9, 2020, saying there should be investigations of the elections.

Jeff Clark told Steve Bannon the FOIA requests have come back from every district but one with NO DOCUMENTS.

No investigations were done as a result of that memo. There is only one of the 12 districts that has not yet come in and that’s the eastern district of Pennsylvania.

The US Attorney of the Eastern District asked to investigate issues in his district. Barr denied the request!

Bill Barr lied to the American public. Now he got caught.

It’s important to investigate the 2020 election before the mid-terms so that we don’t have questionable results in the mid-terms.

In July 2022, Just the News posted an article titled, “Bombshells undercut the ‘Big Lie:’ 21 confirmed illegalities, irregularities from 2020 election.” Please follow the link to the article for the details, but here is the list:

1. Illegal ballot drop boxes.

2. A Foreign Intrusion.

3. The Laptop Lie:

4. Alleged Bribery.

5. Illegal ballot harvesting in Wisconsin.

6. Ballot harvesting probe in the Peach State.

7. Bad voter signatures?

8. 50,000 Arizona ballots called into question. 

9. Foreign voters found on Texas rolls

10. Foreign voters found on Georgia  rolls.

11. More noncitizen voters.

12. Election Machine Vulnerabilities:

13. Ballot chain of custody issues.

14. Fulton County irregularities.

15. Errant vote counting

16. Dirty voter rolls.

17. Illegal exemptions from voter ID.

18. Uneven enforcement of election laws.

19. More illegal harvesting.

20. Voter fraud in Michigan.

21. Still more nursing home fraud.

These issues need to be resolved before we move forward.

Have We Reached Banana Republic Yet?

On Thursday, John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line Blog about recent legal activities that appear to be political.

The article reports:

A hallmark of banana republics is that those who lose power are apt to wind up in prison, or on the wrong end of a firing squad. Even more advanced countries, like Israel, sometimes have a regrettable tendency to prosecute former political leaders.

It is hard to think of anything more destructive to a democracy, and yet the Democrats are going down that path. It seems clear that they intend to bring criminal charges against President Trump over his keeping some White House documents at Mar-a-Lago–a trivial offense, as far as anyone knows.

And that’s not all. The Department of Justice has issued subpoenas to a large number of people who were associated in some way with the Trump campaign or administration. They generally seek information about efforts to challenge the reported election results in several states. A copy of one of the subpoenas, with the name of the person who was served redacted, is linked below. Take a look at the scope of the documents the subject of the subpoena is required to produce:

594129794-Redacted-Subpoena

In case you are wondering about John Hinderaker’s background in making the above statements, John Hinderaker practiced law for 41 years, enjoying a nationwide litigation practice. He retired from the practice of law at the end of 2015, and is now President of Center of the American Experiment, a think tank headquartered in Minnesota. He and two other lawyers founded Power Line Blog in 2002.

The article concludes:

So far, of course, no criminal investigations have been launched into Joe Biden’s shipping of illegal aliens to many points across the country, often in the dead of night, for the last year and a half.

More examples could be multiplied. Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon likely will go to jail for contempt of Congress, the same offense that former Attorney General Eric Holder was held to have committed by a bipartisan 255–67 vote of the House of Representatives. But unlike Bannon, Holder was not prosecuted. He now makes millions as a partner in a prominent Washington, D.C. law firm.

Given the thorough corruption of the Department of Justice under Merrick Garland, there is a reasonable possibility that the Democrats will move to imprison both Donald Trump and other prominent Republicans. I suppose they think they are secure, because Republicans would never follow such a third-world precedent when they regain power. I don’t know about that. In any event, there is a more fundamental question: are the Democrats trying to trigger a civil war, as they did in 1861? Judging from their actions, I think the question must be taken seriously.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. It is frightening to see how corrupt the Justice Department has become.

A Very Good Question

As our politicized justice department and New York’s political hack of an attorney general continue their microscopic search of anything President Trump has ever done and demand that every aspect of his life be made public, the University of Delaware has still not complied with Freedom of Information Requests by the Daily Caller and Judicial Watch to make President Biden’s Senate records public.

On September 14th, The Daily Caller posted the headline, “‘What Is Biden Hiding?’: Court Orders University Of Delaware To Explain Why It’s Still Hiding Biden’s Senate Records”

The article reports:

A Delaware court ordered the University of Delaware Aug. 23 to provide clarity on its move to keep President Joe Biden’s Senate records hidden. It’s the latest development in the Daily Caller News Foundation and Judicial Watch’s lawsuit to make the records public.

The DCNF and Judicial Watch objected on July 27 to the university’s reasoning to not release the records. Now, the Delaware Superior Court is demanding the university provide further information justifying its move to keep the records out of the public eye.

“After all the lectures from the Biden administration on democracy and the rule of law it’s amazing that the President has a secret deal in place to hide his records from the public,” said DCNF Chairman Neil Patel. “We are happy that the court is pushing the University of Delaware to stop playing games and come clean.”

The DCNF and Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit in July 2020 to obtain the records — which are housed in the University of Delaware’s library. The lawsuit came after the university denied both groups’ earlier attempts to FOIA the Biden records.

The article concludes:

The records sought by both the DCNF and Judicial Watch may contain information related to Tara Reade — who in 1993, while working in Biden’s senate office, accused him of sexually assaulting her. A copy of the complaint she filed on the matter and related documents to the alleged incident may also be included in the records, Reade has said.

In addition, the records could contain critical information related to Hunter Biden — the president’s son who is under federal investigation for his alleged tax and foreign lobbying violations and alleged involvement in a 2018 gun incident.

The University of Delaware declined the DCNF’s request for comment. The university was given a 30-day deadline to respond to the court.

The Superior Court of Delaware did not respond to a request for comment.

Why do I think that if the records are ever released they will either be incomplete or heavily redacted. We have lost the concept of equal justice under the law.

The Are Still Some Unresolved Issues Concerning Electric Cars

On Wednesday, Breitbart posted an article about a recent fire in California. Most of us at one point or another have seen a car fire on the side of the road. The fire department shows up, a lot of water is used, the fire is out, and everyone goes home. However, this recent fire in California involved an electric car. That makes a difference.

The article reports:

A Tesla Megapack battery caught fire at PG&E’s Elkhorn Battery Storage facility in Monterey County, California. A shelter-in-place advisory was in place for 12 hours due to fears of toxic smoke from the fire caused by Elon Musk’s battery system, with county officials announcing that even though the fire was “fully controlled” by 7:00 p.m. PT, “smoke may still occur in the area for several days.”

KSBW Action News 8 reports that a Tesla Megapack battery caught fire at the local utility company PG&E’s Elkhorn Battery Storage facility in Monterey County, California. The fire reported started at around 1:30 a.m. on September 20 according to the comm manager for PG&E, Jeff Smith. No injuries were reported at the time.

I think it may be time to widen our focus regarding green energy. Rather than simply looking at the pollution coming out of the exhaust pipe of a standard car or truck engine, maybe we should look at what goes into the manufacturing of a standard car or truck engine versus an electric car engine and also the consequences of an accident or fire involving those engines.

The article reports:

Monterey County Sheriff’s Office, North County Fire Protection District, and Pacific Gas & Electric had all issued a shelter-in-place advisory for nearby areas, including an interactive map showing which areas are affected and closing roads for over 12 hours.

Local residents were told to shut all windows and turn off ventilation systems due to the hazardous waste material that may have entered the atmosphere due to the Tesla Megapack fire.

A section of Highway 1 was confirmed to have been closed by Caltrans as fire crews were deployed to take control of the blaze. The California Highway Patrol tweeted at 4:29 PM that the closure was extended due to concerns about air quality in the area.

It is time to re-examine the push toward electric cars.

An Interesting Head Fake

On Tuesday there were rumors that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was going to send an airplane full of migrants to Delaware to President Biden’s home. The press bought into the story and waited at the airport. While they were waiting at the airport, they somehow avoided telling Americans what was actually happening at the southern border.

The Federalist reported the following on Wednesday:

As amazing as it was to watch the media’s best and brightest flock to Delaware at such incredible speed, the same can’t be said for those same “journalists” when it comes to traveling to the U.S.-Mexico border, where Customs and Border Protection just apprehended a dozen people listed on the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB) in August alone.

According to Fox News, the “[n]ew data released by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) this week show that there were 12 individuals encountered by Border Patrol between ports of entry at the border whose names matched on the TSDB – which contains information about the identities of those who are known or ‘reasonably suspected’ of being involved in terrorist activities.”

Let’s put this in perspective. In July 2021, I posted an article about the Biden administration using military bases to fly illegal immigrants around the country. The article came from Breitbart, the media didn’t even bother to report it. In April 2022, The New York Post reported on night flights of illegal immigrants coming into an airport in upstate New York (article here). Somehow the major media overlooked the story. It was okay for the government to fly illegal immigrants anywhere, and there were no complaints. When the immigrants land near the sanctuaries of the rich and powerful, anger, lawsuits, and hysteria follow. Meanwhile, people on the terrorist watch list freely enter our country through our porous southern border.

Something is very wrong with this picture.