Category: Corruption

Feds Back Off Jailing Michael Flynn After Stunning New Evidence That Gov’t ‘Lied’ And ‘Framed’ Him

gubbermint bureaucraps lied about a purported crime?!

The government lied, “framed,” hid favorable evidence, and showed “contempt for the law at every turn” in their treatment of Michael Flynn, the retired three-star Army general and former Trump White House national security adviser.

Those charges were contained in a new filing in the government’s case against Flynn. And his attorney, Sidney Powell, was just getting started.

In the 27-page-filing, an add-on to her previous motions, Powell demanded charges be dropped against Flynn based on previously withheld exculpatory documents by the government and the IG report on FISA abuse.

And where do you think the “leak” of the manuscript of John Bolton’s book came from? What I can’t figure out is why these Obama administration staffers were allowed to remain in the posts. It’s stupid to keep people around, who can be dismissed at will, who are of the supposed opposite end of the political spectrum.

NSC aide handling book approvals (like Bolton’s) is twin brother of Lt. Col. Vindman.

The twin brother of a key administration impeachment witness against President Trump is in charge of the National Security Council’s process for reviewing publications by current and former NSC officials, according to a new report on Monday.

Breitbart reported that Army Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman, a senior ethics lawyer for the NSC, is in charge of reviewing publications such as the book manuscript submitted to the NSC on Dec. 30 by former National Security Adviser John Bolton.

The report cited a source close to the administration. The NSC had no immediate comment…………..

“No Standing Army”

The question is how can such an idjit be so corrupt? Then is dawns on you that being corrupt must be his standard operational plan, 24/7/365.

Everybody knows by now about Uncle Pervy’s latest mouthfart:

“So, the idea we’re gonna cut the defense budget significantly, we can cut it some, but we don’t need standing armies, we need to be smarter than we’re dealing now into how we handle this.”

Of course, the general consensus is all about national defense and blah blah blah.

Here’s my  question for the Has-Been VP, though:

If you have no standing army, how the hell do you propose to disarm the American public and confiscate all those eeeevil black assault rifles?

No doubt he and the other Communist presidential wannabes would probably want to create their own private army (e.g. SS, SA, KGB etc.) out of the Pantifa cadres… that’s always worked quite well for the Russian- and European totalitarians in the past.

Don’t think it would work that well with Americans, though.

Venezuela May Be Forced To Sell Off Its Oil Company… To Russia.

(Stop me if you’ve heard this one.) Venezuela is so broke…

HOW BROKE ARE THEY?

They’re so broke that they’re looking to sell their nationalized oil company to the private sector.

Okay, I won’t be giving up my day job for a career as a standup comic anytime soon, but this really isn’t a joking matter anyway. Back when Hugo Chavez and the Venezuelan Socialist Party took over that country, one of Chavez’s early moves was to finish locking down and nationalizing the nation’s oil industry. (Nationalization had originally begun under the presidency of Carlos Andrés Pérez back in the 70’s, but Chavez cemented state control of all assets.) It was a blow to their already crippled private sector, but it provided admirable income for the socialist regime for many years.

Now, as most of you are doubtless aware, the country has effectively been driven into bankruptcy by the corrupt administration of Nicolas Maduro. The only thing propping them up lately has been the Russian military and regular inputs of cash from China. Unfortunately for the Venezuelan people, that stream of revenue is probably coming to an end. The national oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), is totally underwater. Maduro is obviously desperate because he’s been in talks with several international oil companies to discuss selling control of the operation. And one of the interested buyers is a Russian outfit, to the surprise of nobody. (Bloomberg)

Facing economic collapse and painful sanctions, the socialist government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has proposed giving majority shares and control of its oil industry to big international corporations, a move that would forsake decades of state monopoly.

Maduro’s representatives have held talks with Russia’s Rosneft PJSC, Repsol SA of Spain and Italy’s Eni SpA. The idea is to allow them to take over government-controlled oil properties and restructure some debt of state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA in exchange for assets, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The proposal, which could offer a balm to the country’s disintegrating oil industry, is in early stages and faces major obstacles.

Venezuela still sits on one of the richest deposits of sweet crude oil in the world, but it’s not doing them much good currently. Maduro has robbed PDVSA blind and failed to fund the required maintenance and staffing to keep it functional. The company once produced more than 3.5 million barrels of oil per day. They currently struggle to produce even half a million and most of that has to go to pay the country’s mounting debts.

While the report indicates that Venezuela has been in talks with oil and gas companies from Spain and Italy as well, Russia is the most likely and obvious potential buyer. That’s because of a combination of factors. First of all, the Russians are already on the ground in the country and Maduro owes them a lot of money. But also, current sanctions forbid companies from most western nations, including the United States, from doing business with PDVSA or anyone else in Venezuela without a waiver. Russia can and probably would ignore those rules if it allowed them to seize control of Venezuela’s oil.

Further complicating matters is the issue of the Venezuelan constitution and laws requiring the oil assets to be the property of “the people.” Of course, Maduro has already rewritten the constitution to suit him and he controls the Supreme Court and his new legislative body so that probably won’t slow him down much.

Vladimir Putin might want to be a bit cautious here, however. There’s a significant risk in entering into any sort of business deal with a socialist nation like Venezuela. Maduro’s government is weak and impotent now, but if they somehow stabilize in the years to come, things could change. The socialists could, at some point, simply declare that the oil resources and assets are being taken back by the government without compensation. That’s what they did in the 70s and 90s, and there’s no reason to believe they wouldn’t do it again if they felt they could get away with it.

HATE HOAX: Anti-Gun Trauma Surgeon Posts Photo of ‘Death Threat’ Left on His Windshield… But His Car Was Parked in His Garage

By the way. These original tweets have been deleted by the Doctor after he was taken to task for the obvious fakery. All that did was confirm he was lying all along.
So, why do anti-gunners lie so much?
Because the truth doesn’t work to get them what they want.

It has been a year since the Jussie Smollett hate hoax so it’s time for the left to cook up a new scandal.

oseph Sakran, an anti-gun trauma surgeon posted two photos to his Twitter account claiming a note with a hand pointing a gun and the words “The End is Near” was left on the windshield of his car.

Sakran said he discovered the death threat as he was leaving for work…but observant Twitter users pointed out that the reflection on the windshield shows that his car was parked in his garage when he discovered the note.

“Debated whether to share this, & after a lot of thought here it is,” Sakran said.

“Last week I’m leaving my home for work & I find this paper under my windshield. One does not have to see the rest of the sentence that was covered to understand the intent of this message, a Death Threat.”

 

After catching people’s attention, Sakran went on a Twitter rant about how he is currently working on Capitol Hill with radical anti-gun groups.

 

Sakran said the death threat he left on his car is “disturbing.”

 

‘One of the 10 best speeches I’ve heard:’ Schumer heaps praise on Schiff for impeachment trial performance.

Yes, a performance, as in theater, Kabuki Theater that is.
It dawned on me just a few minutes ago, that Schiff is performing. He’s performing, to put it in the old way, for ‘the folks back home’ consumption. I wondered why he’s been so “into” this anti-Trump deal, when this volume of fawning praise for his theatrics lit that lightbulb over the head.

He doesn’t care one way or the other about what Trump did – or didn’t – do. Shifty Schiff is positioning himself for the Senate campaign when Dianne Feinstein either finally decides to retire, or kicks the bucket & dies in office. His sidelining Nadler to take more of the center stage adds confirmation.

Schiff knows that he will face strong opposition from Kevin de León, Eric Swallwell and who knows who else and he believes this theatrical performance will place him at the head of the pack.

I may be all wet, but we will see in 2024 when DiFi’s latest term ends.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer praised House impeachment manager Adam Schiff for a strong delivery as he wrapped up the first day of opening arguments in President Trump’s impeachment trial.

“The managers did just an incredible, incredible job. And they were all good. But particularly Adam Schiff. His closing speech, which I hope many of your viewers saw, is one of the tour de forces that I have seen in my decades here,” Schumer said Wednesday night on MSNBC. “I’d say it’s one of the 10 best speeches I’ve heard.”

It’s Official: FISA Court Says Warrants Issued Against Carter Page Were Not Valid

This is what you get when you have a real corrupt person (Obammy) and his corrupt Chicago politics sitting in the Oval Office. A corrupted, politicized – and weaponized against your political opponents – federal bureaucracy. The federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies will take generations of their agents changing before anyone will ever trust them again, if they ever should be trusted in the first place to be anything but political operatives.

The FISA court officially acknowledged Thursday that the FBI submitted false information when obtaining warrants to surveil Trump campaign aide Carter Page. Therefore, the FISA warrants that were issued are invalid.

“Thanks in large part to the work of the Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice, the Court has received notice of material misstatements and omissions in the applications filed by the government in the above-captioned dockets. See Docket No. Misc. 19-02, Order (Dec. 17, 2019; DOJ PIG, Review of Four FISA Applications and Other Aspects of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane Investigation (Dec. 2019),” the court released in an order. “DOJ assesses that with respect to the applications in Docket Numbers 17-375 and 170679, ‘if not earlier, there was insufficient predication to establish probable cause to believe that [Carter] Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power.'”

In other words:

During the time the FBI was illegally surveilling Carter Page with illegitimate and illegally obtained FISA warrants, Page was working for the CIA on behalf of the United States. He was not working for the Russias as the FBI and their friends in the media repeatedly stated…………..

Due to the seriousness and extent of the FISA abuse uncovered by Horowitz, a number of Senators have considered shutting the court down.

The FBI Wants To Treat Carter Page Warrant Mistakes Like Training Problems. A Court Adviser Says That’s Not Enough.
After seriously messing up its warrant applications with the FISA Court, can the FBI be trusted?

The FBI could and can be trusted to always be a player in national politics.

The FBI’s newly released plans to avoid mistakes when seeking permission to wiretap and surveil American citizens is insufficient, according to an expert brought in to advise the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).

In December, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) for the Department of Justice released a report showing significant problems with the warrants that the FBI submitted to FISC in order to secretly wiretap Carter Page, a former foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. While the OIG’s report concluded that the agency was justified in investigating whether Page was unduly influenced by his connections with the Russian government, it also determined that the FBI withheld important details from the FISC that might have influenced its decision to grant these warrants. These omissions were not in Page’s favor, and ultimately the OIG found 17 different errors or omissions in the warrant requests, some of which were not corrected in subsequent applications.

The FISC’s judges were extremely unhappy to discover information had been withheld from them, and then-presiding Judge Rosemary M. Collyer (who has since retired) ordered FBI Director Christopher Wray to send a plan to the court by January 10 explaining how the FBI would avoid making similar mistakes in the future.

Wray submitted his plan last week. It’s a dense and technical response that is mostly inscrutable to anybody who does not have a history of involvement with the court’s surveillance processes. Wray provides a list of 12 actions the FBI has taken or will take to make sure future applications for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants include all the information judges should’ve had when the FBI sought permission to surveil Page. Wray’s plans revolve primarily around adding most steps to verify and re-verify information contained in the warrant requests to make sure that FBI agents and supervisors are not omitting information that might undermine or compromise their case for a surveillance warrant. Wray also says the agency will improve training by creating a case study program to teach FBI agents about historical precedents (I’m guessing the Page warrants will play a starring role).

While the FBI was hammering out this plan, the FISC appointed David Kris, a former Justice Department attorney during President Barack Obama’s administration, to advise the court. His appointment caused some partisan-tinged outrage. Kris had previously defended the FBI’s surveillance of Page and had been critical of claims by Rep. Devin Nunes (R–Calif.) that the warrants against Page had problems. Trump even attacked Kris in a tweet.

But Kris has also been skeptical of how the federal government uses surveillance against American citizens and has criticized the National Security Agency’s position that laws passed to fight the war on terror and to investigate Al Qaeda permitted the agency to secretly snoop on American citizens. And he voiced these criticisms while working on national security issues at the Justice Department under President George W. Bush.

It appears that version of Kris analyzed the FBI’s plans. On Wednesday, he responded that Wray’s proposals were ultimately insufficient. Part of the larger problem, which Wray has acknowledged, is that it’s hard to check the accuracy of information that’s not included or deliberately omitted. In the Page case, much of the erroneous intel that might have dissuaded the judges from granting a warrant was not included in the warrant application, and therefore its accuracy was not assessed.

Finally. The Feds — Including ICE — Appear to be Investigating Ilhan Omar

On Oct. 30, I reported that the Department of Justice had assigned an FBI Special Agent in Charge, or SAC, to review Rep. Ilhan Omar’s apparent, astonishing spree of felonies from 2009 to 2017.

Minnesota state Rep. Steve Drazkowski (R) had previously filed a complaint on the matter with the Minnesota District of the Department of Justice. That office — headed by U.S. Attorney Erica MacDonald, a 2018 Donald Trump appointee — directed the FBI to review the complaint. An FBI SAC formally met with Rep. Drazkowski, and others, in mid-October to receive a prepared file of evidence and related information.

Indeed, this has since occurred.

At least the following two federal agencies were contacted by the FBI with information regarding Rep. Omar. The FBI then placed the October meeting attendees in touch with selected investigators within these two agencies:

1. Department of Education Inspector General

This is related to evidence suggesting that Rep. Omar’s 2009 marriage to a UK citizen may have been an attempt to facilitate federal student loan fraud, or other fraud involving higher education.

2. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

● This is related to evidence suggesting a breathtaking number of possible immigration-related felonies. As I stated in an introductory passage within my July 18 article:

The [following] answers to those questions about [Rep. Omar’s 2009 marriage] appear to give probable cause to investigate Omar for eight instances of perjury, immigration fraud, marriage fraud, up to eight years of state and federal tax fraud, two years of federal student loan fraud, and even bigamy.

BREAKING: James Comey Under Investigation for Allegedly Leaking Classified Info, Lynch/Clinton Evidence That Made Comey Take Over Is Revealed

The New York Times is breaking, and can we say, desperately spinning, the reports that former FBI Director James Comey is under investigation for leaking classified information.

How’s that for an attempt to spin the investigation? This is the news timeline, not opinion. But yes, let’s pretend they’re objective. And maybe the reason it wasn’t investigated when it should have been is that there were still Comey cronies controlling everything? Of course, just a thought.

But on to what they’re trying to spin.

Comey had previously violated FBI policy in leaking the information to the times through his friend, Daniel Richman and the matter was referred to federal prosecutors in New York.

Now this new investigation involves leaks relating to two articles including one in the Washington Post and another in the NY Times (now we see why the spinning) about a Russian intelligence document, which the Times says was highly classified.

Now this part is fascinating:

The document played a key role in Mr. Comey’s decision to sideline the Justice Department and announce in July 2016 that the F.B.I. would not recommend that Hillary Clinton face charges in her use of a private email server to conduct government business while secretary of state.

Wait, what? What would a Russian intelligence document have to do with Comey stepping in and taking the power away from the DOJ, which he could not properly do anyway? At the time, Comey implied in his reasoning that there was classified information with regard to Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

The document is mentioned in a book published last fall, “Deep State: Trump, the F.B.I., and the Rule of Law” by James B. Stewart, a Times reporter.

Here’s the money paragraph, hidden down in the story.

The latest investigation involves material that Dutch intelligence operatives siphoned off Russian computers and provided to the United States government. The information included a Russian analysis of what appeared to be an email exchange during the 2016 presidential campaign between Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democrat of Florida who was also the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee at the time, and Leonard Benardo, an official with the Open Society Foundations, a democracy-promoting organization whose founder, George Soros, has long been a target of the far right.

In the email, Ms. Wasserman Schultz suggested that then-Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch would make sure that Mrs. Clinton would not be prosecuted in the email case. Both Ms. Wasserman Schultz and Mr. Benardo have denied being in contact, suggesting the document was meant to be Russian disinformation.

That document was one of the key factors that drove Mr. Comey to hold a news conference in July 2016 announcing that investigators would recommend no charges against Mrs. Clinton. Typically, senior Justice Department officials would decide how to proceed in such a high-profile case, but Mr. Comey was concerned that if Ms. Lynch played a central role in deciding whether to charge Mrs. Clinton, Russia could leak the email.

Whoa, so strip everything away and what the document says is that Debbie Wasserman Schultz was guaranteeing that Lynch would get Hillary Clinton off.

Florida Carry Wins Lawsuit Against Broward County

FLORIDA CARRY PRESS RELEASE
January 14, 2019
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FLORIDA CARRY WINS LAWSUIT AGAINST BROWARD COUNTY FOR BLATANT VIOLATIONS OF FLORIDA’S LAW THAT PREEMPTS LOCAL GUN CONTROL
Tallahassee, FL – Florida Carry, Inc. has emerged victorious in their lawsuit against Broward County and County Administrator Bertha Henry in which they sought a permanent injunction to protect the rights of law abiding gun owners from the county’s multiple illegal ordinances that burden nearly all aspects of firearms ownership, use, transfer, and possession.
“Broward County has ignored repeated attempts since 2011 by Florida Carry to gain its compliance with state law and left us with no choice but to file this case,” said Florida Carry Executive Director Sean Caranna. “Let this case serve as proof that when local officials refuse to stop breaking the law in order to deny the rights of Floridians, Florida Carry will act to demand that people’s rights be protected.”
Since 1987 the Florida Legislature has preempted firearms law and issued state-wide licenses to carry for self-defense. Florida Carry has prompted the repeal of anti-gun ordinances and regulations in over 200 Florida jurisdictions, including municipalities, counties, colleges and state agencies. “Usually the jurisdiction is responsive to our notification that there is a problem and no lawsuit is necessary,” noted Caranna. “Unfortunately, that was not the case with Broward County.”
In his ruling Judge Carlos Rodriguez granted Florida Carry’s request for summary judgement and permanently enjoined Broward County from enforcing their illegal gun laws. Florida Carry was also awarded reimbursement of legal fees.
Florida Carry won a similar case against the University of North Florida (UNF) in 2011. In Florida Carry v. UNF the First District Court of Appeal ruled that “The legislature’s primacy in firearms regulation derives directly from the Florida Constitution… Indeed, the legislature has reserved for itself the whole field of firearms regulation in section 790.33(1)…”
“It is a rare and unfortunate circumstance when local government leaders decide to willfully break state law, despite the personal penalties. When local officials are willing to knowingly violate the law in order to suppress the rights of law-abiding gun owners, they can expect that we’re going to make them pay for it.”

Dr. John Robson looks back on the 10th anniversary of the exposure of the scandalous “Climategate” decision to delete awkward data that contradicted the idea that settled science said we face a man-made global warming crisis.

The Real Reason the UN Wants Control Over the Internet

Obama allowed the US contract with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers to expire in 2016. ICANN assigns IP addresses and maintains the stability and security of the internet. As planned, the UN picked up that contract and now has the power to throttle the Internet. The Internet of Things (IoT) is the big prize that will fund total control over human activity and is expected to generate $3-trillion in revenue by 2025 — and continue to grow by 30% per year. If the UN taxes the Internet of Things, as it plans to do, it finally will be self funded without relying on member states. ICANN has the ability to assign a unique and directly addressable number to every electronic device on Earth, including air conditioners, computers, automobiles, cameras, phones, refrigerators, articles of clothing, and much more…

The reason that ICANN formerly served the interests of the United States was simply that it answered to our government’s judicial, legislative and executive branches. In other words, the U.S. held the umbrella over ICANN and that was enough to keep it working for our national interests and not for someone else’s interests.

Obama changed that when he cut ICANN loose on September 30, 2016 by letting the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) contract expire without being renewed. After expiration, we forever lost the right to renew the contract again.

So, ICANN is now a “free-agent” looking for shelter in the same way that a boll weevil looks for a cotton plant: it needs a host organization in order to practice its craft, and, I dare say, it doesn’t care one whit who that host is.

Andrew McCabe Said He Lied to FBI About Wall Street Journal Leak

Former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe apologized for lying to agents who spent weeks investigating the source of a leak to the Wall Street Journal that actually came from him, new documents reveal.

Shortly before the 2016 election, The Journal reported that an FBI investigation was underway involving then-candidate Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation.

McCabe in May 2017 denied that he was the source of the leak — but later fessed up, angering bureau investigators who had been spinning their wheels trying to identify the source of the leak.

Fisa Court Committed a Fraud upon America.

Presiding judge Rosemary Collyer, having returned from her vacation on Mars and just in time for her retirement, has demanded of the FBI revised procedures to ensure that the multiple frauds committed upon the court, including inclusion of fraudulent material, omission of exculpatory information, and the deliberate alteration of documents to mislead the court.  It was farcical to hear her, in the face of multiple felonies in a Deep State plot bordering on sedition, suggest that revised procedures for the handling and submitting of FISA applications is the answer to our chief law enforcement agency’s attempt to overthrow a sitting president of the United States.

Did she just wake up?  Where has she been?

Back on February 2, 2018, a House Intelligence Committee memo, written when it was chaired by the now vindicated Rep. Devin Nunes, detailed the phoniness and falsification of the data used in the first and subsequent FISA warrants based primarily on the fraudulent Steele dossier.

Nunes told how FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe admitted that without the now fully discredited Steele dossier, there would have been no FISA warrants and no subsequent Deep State coup against Trump under the guise of a counter-intelligence investigation:

The dossier, authored by former British spy Christopher Steele and commissioned by Fusion GPS, was paid for by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign through law firm Perkins Coie.  It included salacious and unverified allegations about Trump’s connections to Russia.

The memo, which has been at the center of an intense power struggle between congressional Republicans and the FBI, specifically cites the DOJ and FBI’s surveillance of Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, saying the dossier “formed an essential part” of the application to spy on him[.] …

The memo states that in December 2017, then FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe testified that “no surveillance warrant would have been sought” from the FISA court “without the Steele dossier information.”

The memo also says Steele was eventually cut off from the FBI for being chatty with the media.  It says he was terminated in October 2016 as an FBI source “for what the FBI defines as the most serious of violations — an unauthorized disclosure to the media of his relationship with the FBI.”

Justice is supposed to be blind, but in her case and that of the other FISA court judges, it was brain-dead………..

Most Americans know of the FISA court and its star chamber judges but not about it, which is that it is a borderline example of the prophetic warning about trading liberty for security and winding up with neither.  The potential abuse of FISA powers is enormous and the damage that has been done to our republic, and our politics has been staggering:

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court deals with some of the most sensitive matters of national security — terror threats and espionage.  Its work for the most part cannot be examined by the American public, by order of the Congress and the President.  It is a tribunal that is completely secret (or supposed to be), its structure largely one-sided, and its members unilaterally chosen by one person.

A rotating panel of federal judges at the FISC decides whether to grant certain types of government requests — wiretapping, data analysis, and other monitoring for “foreign intelligence purposes” of suspected terrorists and spies operating in the United States.

… [T]he 11 judges are appointed exclusively by the Chief Justice of the United States, without any supplemental confirmation from the other two branches of government.  John Roberts has named every member of the current court, as a well as a separate three-judge panel to hear appeals of FISC orders, known as the Court of Review.

The FISA court knew all of this or should have.  The remedy is to impose the appropriate criminal sanctions authorized by law.  As Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett notes:

A year and a half ago when the redacted FISA applications were first made public, it was obvious that the FBI relied almost entirely on Christopher Steele’s phony “dossier” and that the FISA court was being lied to.  Back then, Collyer should have immediately ordered a “show cause contempt” hearing demanding that Comey, Sally Yates, Andrew McCabe, Dana Boente and Rod Rosenstein all appear before the court to explain why they should not be held in criminal contempt for deceiving judges in the four warrant applications they signed.  They swore that the information was true and verified when they knew or should have known it was not.  Collyer still isn’t ordering a contempt hearing.  This is an appalling abdication of judicial duty.

Indeed it is. Imprisonment and/or disbarment for the lot of them is required.  After that, abolish the FISA court itself.  It is an unelected fourth branch of government with no real accountability.  We have sacrificed our liberty for its bogus promise of security, putting our democracy at risk.  Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and we see that happening before our very eyes.

The Era of ‘Good’ Fascism?

Consider the recent statements and acts of iconic progressive celebrities.

Jane Fonda is chronically furious. This time she directed her wrath at those who disagree about the urgency of ending the entire fossil fuel industry and ruining the current economy. Her idea is to put climate “deniers” on trial for incorrect speech. So much for the First Amendment. “Now, because of the fossil fuel industry, it’s too late for moderation,” Fonda says. “And given the emergency, it’s those who believe in moderation, in pre-Trump business as usual, who are truly delusional. And those who lie and continue to lie about what they’re doing to the environment should be put on trial.”

Green teenage heartthrob Greta Thunberg has a different solution for those who disagree with her orthodox view on “climate change”: “World leaders are still trying to run away from their responsibilities, but we have to make sure they cannot do that. We will make sure that we put them against the wall, and they will have to do their job to protect our futures.”

If Thunberg is truly worried about past government decisions that have threatened the world, she might study Swedish history and ask why her forefathers sold iron ore to the Nazi war machine—without which it could not have waged the war it did—and often threw in Swedish transport in the bargain.

For those who think the American Civil Liberties Union and other liberal watchdogs ceaselessly monitor our government to ensure our Bill of Rights and laws are not abused to the detriment of citizens, they should be sorely disappointed. The Left has redefined “civil liberties” to mean “correct thinking.” Thus, incorrect thinking is not protected speech or behavior.

It is now clear that the top hierarchy of the FBI under James Comey and Andrew McCabe used the powers of their agency to deceive a federal court with fraudulent evidence in order to surveil a U.S. citizen as part of a larger plan to subvert a political campaign and eventually a presidential transition.
It is also likely that both James Clapper and John Brennan trafficked in a fake dossier, a product of opposition research designed to smear a political candidate in a presidential race. Both were also likely involved in the use of overseas informants to surveil Trump campaign aides.

Few on the Left feel that it was either morally or legally wrong for Hillary Clinton to hire a foreign national to spy on her opponent’s campaign, much less for a foreign national Christopher Steele to interfere in a U.S. election.
Laws are fluid, to be enforced when they champion the “good,” to be ignored or subverted when they empower the “bad.” That is why both Clapper and Brennan—who in the past alike have admitted to lying to Congress while under oath—were rewarded with paid analyst positions, respectively with CNN and MSNBC……

If and when fascism comes to America, it will not arrive with jackboots, stiff arms, and military uniforms. The attempt to suppress political opposition in anti-constitutional fashion, to regiment the economy by denying constitutionally protected freedoms, and the efforts to change the Constitution to reflect political utility, will come under the auspices of “equality,” “fairness,” “saving the planet,” and “social justice”—as a way to combat “climate change,” “racism,” “homophobia,” and “sexism.”

The old Confederate idea of state nullification of federal law—the great bane of a century of civil rights movements—is now a progressive trademark.

Over 550 sanctuary jurisdictions have announced that federal immigration law simply does not apply in full within their confines. Because there were no federal consequences when states simply ignored federal immigration legislation, why would not local jurisdictions—such as an increasing number of counties in Virginia—simply renounce state laws in matters of gun control?………….

Gun regulators have admitted to violating the Second Amendment

On Dec. 11, Gun Owners of America argued before the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals that the government’s recently enacted ban on bump stocks is illegal.

The organization’s argument is by no means controversial. The government bureau that made them illegal, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, even admitted in a court filing that it lacks authority under the Gun Control Act and National Firearms Act to issue the rule. In short, it violated the Second Amendment as a way of reaping more power for itself, and that should not be tolerated.

The GOA can and will continue fighting the illicit actions of gun regulators as they arise in court, and they will be penalized; however, this piecemeal approach can only go so far. It is high time for Second Amendment advocates in Congress and the White House to begin taking action to reform the rogue bureau.

After all, this isn’t the first time the ATF has disregarded the law. Just two months ago, a judge similarly found the bureau to have been enforcing laws that don’t exist against gun owners. The bureau has been pretending that receivers are bound by the same draconian D.C. regulations as entire put-together firearms and have been threatening their manufacturers with prosecution for not going through the full regulatory process.

The methods the bureau has used to generate firearm cases against the American people have always been questionable. In the 1970s and 1980s, Congress studied the issue closely, with a Senate subcommittee report ultimately concluding that “it is apparent that ATF enforcement tactics made possible by current federal firearms laws are constitutionally, legally, and practically reprehensible.”…………….

With the ATF’s abuses are still being reported in the news and are fresh on the public’s mind, now is the time for the Senate to begin holding hearings and getting to the bottom of the exploitation.

The Senate Judiciary Committee should call in ATF head Regina Lombardo to discuss the bureau’s legal violations and what steps, if any, are being taken to correct them.

Meanwhile, Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy’s Senate appropriations subcommittee should call the tax bureau’s leaders, Mary J. Ryan and Daniel Riordan, in to see if they accept the deregulatory and transparency orders currently on the books and what action, if any, they are taking to ensure compliance.

If the ATF’s or the tax bureau’s leaders refuse to come before Congress or give lackluster answers to congressional questioning, the Trump administration can and should replace both. As luck would have it, Lombardo, Ryan, and Riordan are only serving in acting roles, so the White House has every right to replace them with permanent leadership officials at any time. In the case of the tax bureau, this would not even require Senate confirmation.

Gun Owners of America will continue to monitor the behavior of both bureaus and fight their illegal activity in court, but substantive change will never occur if we do not receive a helping hand from our friends in Congress and the White House.