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Quick Updates

10/13/24: Still here, tomorrow gets a new post, one that I didn't want to write. Many things going on, not enough time in the day. I have a dozen articles that I need to finish. I am working on them. I promise.

Entrapment

Entrapment for this context is defined as:

The act of government agents or officials that induces a person to commit a crime he or she is not previously disposed to commit.

This came out last week, and I found it over the weekend, however before I get into it, I want to reference a prior post, from January of 2022,  The enemy of the people:

Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, asked a very simple, straightforward question of Jill Sanborn, who is the Executive Assistant Director of the FBI.

Cruz asked,

"Did any FBI agents or confidential informants actively participate in the events of January 6th?"

Ms. Sanborn answered: "I can't answer that." My view here is any answer short of an unequivocal "NO" answers Senator Cruz's question as a "YES."

So this comes out: F.B.I. Had Informants in Proud Boys, Court Papers Suggest

I would have actually been shocked and surprised if the FBI does not have informants in the Proud Boys, the various Antifa chapters, BLM and all of the rest. That's part of their job, both as a national police and the secret police that performs intelligence operations on citizens. The FBI has self-imposed this mandate for domestic intelligence operations.

So, the new and significant question is, "How active were those CI's in the planning and executing of things? What events might have they instigated, directly or indirectly?"

Of course, our good and moral government would never entrap its' citizens, would they?

-An ATF CI hounded Randy Weaver (Ruby Ridge) for three years to cut the barrels of a couple shotguns to make them under 18"

-FBI CI's actually proposed and helped in the planning to kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer.

-And now we have FBI CI's involved in the "riot" on January 6th.

I hope their full involvement and complicity comes to light and they, as well as their handlers are prosecuted and punished to the full extent of the law. It ain't gonna happen with Merrick Garland running the DOJ, but I can hope.

How it could have happened, Vindicated

Part one is here.

After finding this video, I consider myself as dead on in my assessment. This gentleman took the county election results, ran a hidden program and altered all of the votes in the county. Without setting off any alarms, without anyone noticing. The only way to discover this change would be to go to every polling location's master tabulation and recount the votes.

.

Just like I said:

So, if you wanted to hack a machine, which would it be? How about the one that combines all of the precincts?

You were saying?

Changing hearts

I get a lot of “windshield time” in my job, which means I usually drive 1-2 hours between calls. It is during this time I think. For most of my articles here, their first draft is in a speech-to-text app on my phone.

One of the thoughts I mulled over in one of my many 100+ mile trips, was, “What would I do to straighten everything out in this country,” kind of like the 4th book Executive of the Piers Anthony series “Bio of a Space Tyrant.”

I got pretty deep into it, like the abolishment of the 17th Amendment, elimination of most of the bureaucracy, permanently banning all current members of the House and Senate from serving in public office, Freezing the federal budget, etc.

And then I stopped cold.

I have repeatedly said, “The only way to end mass shootings is to change the heart of people doing them.” Well, it hit me, cutting the cancer out of a patient only buys time if you don’t get the whole thing. It will regrow and present the same threat, or even worse.

The problem you see is US, you and I. We did it. We let things slide, content in our lives. The cultural turn was imperceptible at first, very slight. Because no one of any importance raised the alarm, the course change became greater, and the rate we were turning increased. Which leads us to where we are today.

As V in the Movie V for Vendetta said,

“…And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there?
Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those who are more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.”

No one man, even with the total and enthusiastic power of our federal government, can change the hearts or the minds of the half of this country who have surrendered most of their cognitive abilities to the group. To inexorably tie their ego and identity to ideals that sound good at first glance, but evaporate like the morning dew under any examination, let alone intense scrutiny. And because these people have incorporated these ideals so deeply into their psyche, to deny what they have been told is the truth is like denying their own existence. Not gonna happen.

This is why Trump failed. This is why anybody in that position would fail. He held that mirror up to their faces and the shame and realization was so great they couldn’t gaze into their own eyes and admit it. So anyone who couldn't face themselves, attacked the one trying to help them.

No governmental power can change a person’s mind or heart. No government should have that kind of power in the first place. And even if they did, it would take just as long to get things right as it took to get here. Pray whoever has the helm then doesn’t oversteer and we go off the deep end in the other direction.

I know I don’t have all of the answers. Hell, I don’t even have most of the questions. I do know this: each of us must at least try to wake (not “woke”) these people up, one at a time.

If we fail, we don’t lose just the United States. We will lose America, which is the ideal that all men are free by default.

How it could have happened

If you didn’t know it by now, my day job is fixing things, which I am very good at my job. I’ve been taking things apart since I was 12. It took me a while to learn how to put them back together with no leftover parts though. 

I like to see how things work, and how I can break or exploit them. So, I’m going to show how someone (MIGHT HAVE) altered the election enough for Biden to win.

I have no direct or circumstantial evidence on the “who” or “how,” only how I would have done it if someone paid me to fix an election.

First of all, Pravda likes to throw out the term “Widespread voter fraud,” and all I can say is, there was no “widespread” about it. I can tell you exactly where it (could) have happened. I possess nothing but open public records, I have no proof of anything. I only have my reasoning ability and enough things to make you go “Hmm… that’s strange…” Which is how most discoveries happen.

The people who (might have) done this had four years to plan and set this in motion. They would have had years to move people and things into position, then activate them at the planned moment.

ATTACKING THE MACHINES

I had a friend (he passed last year) who worked for the County election Commission where we live for a couple of elections. He explained the system to me as best he could.

“Each polling location is its’ own network, not connected to anything. The computers used to verify voters, the voting machines themselves, and the server recording everything was a closed network. After the polls closed and the data downloaded, a data module was removed from the server, and along with the box containing the paper votes and two poll workers hopped into a police car, who ran with lights and sirens to the Election Commission offices, where everything was counted and then reported to the State.”

I related this to show hacking individual machines (what the Pravda always talks about) is useless. You can’t hack a machine except for those few minutes IF they are updated from the manufacturer well before the election. Usually these would be updated via thumb drive or closed and air-gapped network after the updates were downloaded and verified. If you did hack “A” machine, you can’t substantially affect its numbers. If one machine at a polling station shows substantially (100+) more votes than the other machines, that would be a red flag.

So, if you wanted to hack a machine, which would it be? How about the one that combines all of the precincts? I’ll explain “what they might have done” later. I would have also used a variety of methods that are easily penetrable and lacking of point-to point control, like mail-in ballots. However I am discussing here the method with the lowest risk/highest reward criteria. This gets WAY easier if the voting machine company is “on your side” politically, because compromising the system (and the necessary risks entailed) would not be necessary. They would put the “secret features” you need into the code itself. This way the user machines would do it and be totally undetectable.

ATTACKING THE SYSTEM

A voting system is useless without people. That being said, it’s easier to hack people than it is systems. You could blackmail someone into compromising the system, but that takes a terrible risk of malicious compliance, which would lead to discovery. You run the risk of the person in question being immune to blackmail, or someone with even a bit of morals to regret doing the work and going to the authorities. No, the people you need are active, willing and even aggressive confederates. What you want to do is get a solid believer of your goal into the positions where they could carry out the plan quietly, and any overwatch of their actions would also be “in on the plan.” That being said, these different people must not know that each other is in on the plan. That would lead to compromise in multiple different ways.

WHERE TO ATTACK

Okay, we have the “What to attack” and “Who will attack” but we need where to best apply this attack. Now a concept: If you had only one index finger to push someone over, where would you use it, the forehead or the small of their back? The forehead, because the person’s feet can’t help keep them up, not to mention the leverage of 6 feet, rather than 3 feet.

Another thought: You want to hide a needle, where would you hide it? In a haystack, or in a warehouse full of needles?

There would not be a single state to do this. I would pick the 5-8 states where the Trump –Clinton results were the closest, even though only 3 larger “battleground” states would be all that is needed. You want extra states because redundancy and overlap is critical if the efforts fail in 1-2 states.

I have looked at four states that had a lot of controversy in the 2020 election. I’m going to use Wisconsin as the example, however Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania it appears all got “the same treatment.”

THE DIRTY DEED ITSELF

Votes, like money is “Fungible.” once they are tallied together, you can’t point into the pool and say “that’s my vote right there, #12,382.”

Here’s a table showing the reported 2020 state-wide results and the Dane County results:

Trump Biden Total votes Biden Won by County Trump Biden Total votes Won by
Wisconsin Reported:          1,610,184          1,630,866          3,241,050          20,682 Dane      78,794          260,212          339,006          181,418

.

Now, we do a “What if…?” and through a minor “computer glitch” 14,000 Trump votes out of the 339,006 cast across the County, a measly 4.1% of the Dane County votes tallied for Trump suddenly came up Biden:

Trump Biden Total votes Biden Won by County Trump Biden Total votes Won by
Wisconsin Theoretical:          1,624,184          1,616,866          3,241,050          (7,318)      92,794          246,212          339,006          153,418

Notice between the two tables the state-wide and Dane County total votes are the same, and notice how Dane county vote tally still stomped Trump to elect Joe. But back on the state-level, Trump went from losing by 20,682 to winning by 7,318.

Again, I do not know what system they use, I don’t know what safeguards that county election commission has in place. Considering that it was designed and run by fallible humans, this would not be an insurmountable task to plan for over the span of three years.

Let’s go over this one more time.

  • You select 5-8 states where the election will be close.
  • You pick a county that is heavily Democrat
  • You get “true believers” into key positions of the county election commission who will a) compromise the necessary systems and b) not raise alarms if something looks off while the malware does what it’s supposed to do.
  • You compromise the 8-10 tally machines (not the hundreds of voting machines you and I interact with) with malicious software that will “flip” a certain number of votes from Trump to Biden, then cleanly remove itself so as not to be discovered by later audits. 

Don’t forget, a flipped vote counts as two votes because it takes away from the other guy while adding it to “your guy.” So you only have to do half the work with less exposure than ballot stuffing.

Now, I came up with this with a total of about 6 hours of thinking and research... Imagine what I could do if given a couple of years, access to the machines and systems, along with a budget to make it “worth my time.”

Don't tell me this "Just doesn't happen." Here's a Tweet about Dara Lindenbaum, Biden's nominee to head the Federal Election Commission on April 6th of this year. The Tweet has video, so you can't say I'm misquoting her.

Sen. Ted Cruz: "As an officer of the court, you were willing to put your name on a legal pleading alleging that the machines used in Georgia in 2018 were switching votes illegally from one candidate to another. Is that correct?"

Dara Lindenbaum: "Yes"

This means it has happened. It was caught, I don't know how or why. Knowing that (given the time and resources) I could circumvent stuff like that.

Last point, I can make the same argument for Wayne County in Michigan, Delaware County in Pennsylvania, and Fulton County in Georgia. All of these counties voted massively for both Clinton and Biden, so how’s a few votes being switched from Trump to Biden really going to show itself? And the 69 Electoral College votes from these four states alone would have kept Trump President.

Yeah, shit like this keeps me awake at night.

The enemy of the people

So I found this Tweet the other day. The full video on this is here but I don't have an exact time index where it is for you. It's over two hours long.

Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, asked a very simple, straightforward question of Jill Sanborn, who is the Executive Assistant Director of the FBI.

Cruz asked,

"Did any FBI agents or confidential informants actively participate in the events of January 6th?"

Before I give her answer, let me say Senator Cruz asked specifically about "active participation." I have no doubt there were undercover agents or confidential informants among the people, that's a given. That's also not what was asked. "Observe and report" is one thing, "actively participate" is a entirely different matter.

Ms. Sanborn answered: "I can't answer that." My view here is any answer short of an unequivocal "NO" answers Senator Cruz's question as a "YES."

Senator Cruz then modified his question to "Did any FBI agents or confidential informants commit any crimes of violence in the events of January 6th?", then asked again, "Did any FBI agents or confidential informants actively encourage and incite crimes of violence on January 6th?" Both of these questions received the same response: "I can't answer that."

When you consider events like the plot to kidnap Governor Whitmore of Michigan seems to have had FBI agents or CI's help with the planning of the plot, you have to ask yourself what side of the line that constitutes entrapment the FBI is on. Actually, that's a rhetorical question, as the answer provided in this short exchange. Agent Sanborn's non-answer answer clearly indicates the FBI, directly through actual federal agents or CI's, contributed to a protest becoming a riot, which Democrats then turned a molehill into a mountain, calling it an "insurrection."

In the words of Senator Mark Rubio,

"...you're not going to convince most normal and sane people that our government last year was almost overthrown by a guy wearing a Viking hat and speedos."

So there you have it. If you are part of a group, especially groups with "radical" ideas, you must act as you have been infiltrated by a federal agent or one of your members has been turned by said agents. The FBI is sounding more and more like the secret police.

FBI no longer means "Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity." I don't know and don't want to know what they stand for now.

The rising star

Despite it being near Christmas, this isn't about that star. A while back, I wrote about a hat store that had earned the ire of the SJW's because they had a yellow Star of David like the German Jews had to wear in 1940's Germany. This one, though, had "Unvaccinated" rather than "Jude" (German for "Jew").

I just came across this article, German call to ban 'Jewish star' at Covid demos. From the article:

"Anti-lockdown protesters argue that the ruling liberal establishment is violating their personal freedom and exaggerating the Covid health risks. However, the head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, said last year it was "unspeakable" that Germans were comparing restrictions on their lives with the abuses of the Third Reich."

I can see their point. Just because the Australian government is forcing the non-vaccinated into concentration COVID camps, and New York State is setting up "Quarantine Camps", I just know the German government would never follow suit. (That's sarcasm if you missed it)

Every day, we all move a little closer to a world Totalitarianism. Resist. Fight back. Do not comply. This is the hill to die on, because a lot more will be crushed if we don't.

Are you crate trained?

Hat tip to Adam Carolla for coming up with the term as it applies in this context.

Crate Training is where you train a dog to willingly enter a cage on command and stay there. The animal behaviorists say that the dog feels safe in the crate since it simulates the enclosed or underground den when they lived in the wild. The reason behind crate training is the human doesn’t trust the dog to not take a dump in the house. The dog craps in the house because the humans are neglectful and he isn’t taken out enough to do his necessary business.

Looking at the whole thing, we have a pet who isn’t trusted. The pet is then conditioned to consider the crate to be a safe space and to enter it on command. A toy or two is kept in the crate/safe space to keep the pet entertained while in there. The owner then lets the dog out to “do his business” every now-and-then, but on the owner’s schedule. Otherwise, the dog is ignored while in the crate.

My point? You, my mask wearing Liberal reader, have been trained to consider any space outside your house as dangerous (and by implication your house/crate is a safe space). You are trained to go there and stay on command. You get to play with your Internet, your GrubHub and Amazon while in your crate.
And you actually have it better than your crated pet. You have a bathroom in your crate, they don’t.

FBI Strikes again

ICYMI, this past week the FBI has admitted that the Steele Dossier which was used as the centerpiece for the investigation of President Trump and his "Russia Collusion," is in fact, a collection claims which remain unverified or have been proven false. Which means, in non-politician speak, lies and false rumors. I know this is true because it's in the New York Times: Secret Sharers: The Hidden Ties Between Private Spies and Journalists.

I've known this to be true from the start. I've known that the FBI ignored their own verification process, known as the "Woods Procedures," and lied to a FISA judge to get the warrants to conduct monitoring against Trump and his organization, telling the judge the information in the Steele Dossier was true, when they knew it wasn't.

We also have a tidbit of indirect verification, namely a diary. Part of that diary relates that the author's father sexually molested her as a child. There are claims that the owner and author of this diary is Ashley Biden, President Biden's daughter. Images of the pages of the diary are online, and some people are claiming they have verified that Ashley Biden is the author.

The biggest and most obvious confirmation is the FBI has raided Project Veritas, who is the last known possessor of the diary. Why does this raid verify the truthfulness of who's diary it is and the truthfulness of the statements in it? Because if it was false, Jen "Circle Back" Psaki would say so, and people friendly to Biden who can access it physically or its' images could prove that it's false. But to exert this much effort to obtain it, says the government is wanting to avoid any independent confirmation. So the FBI finds this diary to make it disappear. Then Pravda lets it fall out of the news cycle. POOF! It's gone like it never existed.

I commend Project Veritas, who did not publish images of or the text in the diary, as their strict journalistic standards could not verify it is Ashley Biden's diary. If only Pravda put their own journalistic integrity ahead of sensationalism or their agenda.

This is all a psychosocial experiment

I realize we will never really know exactly how COVID-19 infected humans. Between the paranoid level of secrecy and “saving face” of the CCP and the lack of information about its’ first start on humans, anyone who really knows will ever tell. Only now, 18 months after three Chinese "scientists” working at the Wuhan lab came down with “a mysterious illness” are some truths coming to light. It is my suspicion, like many others out there, that someone screwed up and carried it home to spread to the rest of us.

If the CCP had weaponized it and actually wanted to unleash it on the world, they probably would have done it the 12 Monkeys way. Get contagious people onto multiple long international flights at the same time, making it impossible to pin down the “patient zero” and the origin of the virus.
Something like this COVID-19 outbreak concerns me, but it doesn’t scare me.

What scares me is there are groups of people out there, with access to the keys of power that were waiting for a crisis of this scale to trigger their contingency plans.

Hang with me on this. Think about what we’ve been through in the last year.

1. Federal, state and local governments ordered private businesses to cease operations. I don’t see that power granted to the government in the Constitution.
2. The debt of the federal government jumped tremendously. It’s now over $28 Trillion. Our whole economy only generates $20 Trillion.
3. Between the drop in the economy and the boost in the federal debt, our debt ratio is now over 140%. We owe more than we can generate.

Now, when a country owes more than it’s worth, well, just plug the word “hyperinflation” into your favorite search engine, with words like “Weimar Republic,” “Zimbabwe,” “Venezuela” and “Greece.”

We have also seen absurd levels of restrictions placed on the American People. From being arrested for kayaking in the ocean alone, to not being able to buy things like vegetable seeds, to a woman who was arrested and jailed for making a choice of opening her nail salon so she could earn money to feed her hungry children, and then the judge demands an apology from her, this shit has got to stop.

Logic and common sense reasoning demands the conclusion that there are individuals and groups with ill intent towards the United States and the American people out there. We see people every day actively working towards tearing this country down to the bedrock and rebuilding it in their twisted image. From the halls of power have come Common Core Math, the Affordable Care Act and more. From the common person we have political riots at a scale the Brownshirts would have applauded. Incessantly browbeating our neighbor over their immutable personal characteristics, ostracizing people for their perceived differences in belief on any subject, the list goes on. To those at the highest levels of the federal government now exposed as actively trying to pull off a silent coup through lies, misinformation and more.

I’m not saying these groups are coordinated. I actually kind of wish they were. It would be easier to stop this madness by finding one spot or several places where the proper application of force could bring the whole plan crashing down. But there’s no coordination or unifying plan. It’s like 40 six-year-old children running amok in the classroom with one teacher trying to regain order. There are children coloring on the walls, taking a crap in the teacher’s desk drawers, smoking weed in the corner, setting the curtains on fire, destroying furniture and more.

The difference between a conspiracy theory and a real conspiracy is, if you can tie up all of the loose ends into one nice, neat package, it’s a conspiracy theory. Real conspiracies are just like freedom and a healthy economy. Everyone is acting in their own best interests and on their own agenda. There are loose ends all over the place like you just flung an entire pot of spaghetti all over the kitchen.

I don’t know how or even if it can be stopped. All I can hope for is the Americans of today bring forth the spirit of their forefathers. To have a natural skepticism, suspicion and inherent distrust of the government. To take a hard look at what’s going on and knowing the difference between the government asking for social distancing, wash your hands and all the rest, versus the government ordering what businesses get to remain open, then using the police enforce those decisions. To have the backbone for when the government tries to go too far, the citizens say “NO” and have the firepower to make it stick.

What I am seeing right now is a test run. We are being tested to see how far government can push, how much the people will take and if we can be psychologically manipulated into acting against our own best interests to comply with government mandates.

Here’s what should keep you awake at night. Right now there are people taking notes on everything that worked and didn’t work. When we get out of this, those “bad actors” are going to go back to their think tanks, review the data and revise what they have. Then they will run some more experiments here and there to see if they can work out the bugs for the next time.

And there will be a next time.

Getting SWATted

If you haven't heard the term "SWATted," This refers to a person (for whatever reason) anonymously calling the police and reporting "Person B has a gun and is threatening to kill people." The police will then respond (appropriately, based on the information they've been given) with overwhelming force and their Special Weapons and Tactics team (hence the acronym SWAT).

In this story, SWAT team with guns drawn raids Arizona home for toddler with fever, An unvaccinated toddler had a high fever. The pediatrician suggested that the family take the child to the emergency room. First of all, the family couldn't afford the $2,500 charge for the ER, and the fever broke soon after the doctor's visit, so they didn't go. When the doctor learned the child did not show at the ER, he called DCS. DCS called the police. The police initially did a "health and wellness" call and were refused entry to the home by the father, so the police came back later that night with a warrant, broke down their door and abducted all three children.

DCS are even more aggressive to use their power and authority than cops are. If DCS thinks a child is in any kind of danger, their first response is to remove the child and investigate later. And if DCS can't abduct the kid, the police will be all to happy to step in. I just love how DCS adheres to the concept of "innocent until proven guilty." [/sarcasm]

So, if the police can SWAT you on the word of a doctor (who's not an agent of the state), if the politicians tell them to round up guns and gun owners, what makes you think they won't hesitate to do so?

The police are not our friends. They are Law Enforcement Officers, which means they (shockingly) enforce the law. LEO's will be friendly toward us, but they are not our friends. They are like an aggressive pit bull. As long as the dog is on the leash and properly controlled by the owner (politicians), they are in their place. And when the politicians let slip the leach and they issue the "attack" command, the dog doesn't care who the target is, only that the owner that feeds him pointed you out.

Never for a second rely that police will quit that job when they are told to ignore the Constitution. When given a choice between feeding their kids or upholding the Constitution, 90+% of them will feed their kids. I'm not angry about it, it's a fact of life. And even if most officers would resign rather than take away your Rights, there's 100 guys just waiting to go through the police academy to bust your head and take your guns.

Your 90 day free trial

…of Authoritarianism is about to expire. Unless you opt-out now, your trial of Authoritarianism will activate automatically and no cancellation or opt-out will be possible for a minimum of 50 years.

The past couple of months have been right out of Robot Overlords. People are forced to stay indoors and forced to have contact tracing. Those that dare to go outside without permission are dealt with harshly.

Then we have an incident that causes mass protests. Ironically, George Floyd was in Minneapolis because his job in Texas was declared “non-essential.” Anarchists use the cover of the protestors to riot, causing massive property damage and looting businesses. This violent activity is considered to be “acceptable” by the feckless Overlords, while the peaceful protestors are kept off balance by the random behavior of law enforcement. The LEO’s either lead with their batons, let the protestors (and rioters) do what they want or surrender to the protestors. The proper thing to do would be to constrain and respect the protesters, and baton the rioters and looters six ways from Sunday.

Over the past couple days, the spineless government of Minneapolis has decided to copy The Purge by “defunding” their police department. While I can imagine the chaos and property damage that will ensue, I don’t want it to happen. Maybe those newly armed liberals (6 million firearms have been sold since our “free trial” started, most to first-time gun owners) will take to the streets and protect each other. Or, maybe, the gangs will start openly selling “protection services.”

And it is in times like these when all people want is some stability in their lives. Women want safety to make sure their children survive. And this is the exact moment when government offers to all of us the promise of “safety”… at the cost of freedom.

Don’t take it, it’s a sucker’s bet. Government cannot ever deliver on the promise of “safety.” There are too many things that they offer to protect you from but cannot deliver. But they always collect the price.

So what have we here? Authoritarians demanding your confinement until “a vaccine is found.” Considering the aspects of COVID-19, the absolutely best we can hope for is an annual shot like for the flu, which is hit-or-miss (and more miss than hit). Of course, this is for “your safety.”

The government also offers to “pay you” because they said they have a power they don’t and forced businesses to close without cause.

At the start of this crisis, our national debt was about $24 Trillion. To put that into perspective, imagine stacks of fresh, new $100 bills. If we stacked all of those bills 30 feet tall, we would cover approximately 7 acres, or about 28 average-sized urban home lots. That’s an entire subdivision, stacked 30 feet tall, of nothing but fresh $100 bills. The federal government added, in the last 90 days, another five lots of 30 foot tall stacks of $100’s. We went from 28 lots to 33 lots in three months. Over the last few years, we’ve been adding about a third of a lot a year. We’ve added five lots in 90 days. And we’re fixing to do it again.

To be perfectly clear, I don’t want government to have this kind of power. I don’t care who’s in charge unless it’s Christ Himself, no. Governments who have this level of power and control over the people do not willingly surrender it.

So let’s review our movie similes.

For the past 20 years, we’ve pretty much been flipping back and forth between Brazil and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Covid-19 brought us Robot Overlords and over the weekend we’ve degenerated in some places into The Purge. If We The People don’t so something quickly, we’ll end up with the government from V for Vendetta. If we let that happen, we’ll have to do something between V for Vendetta or Red Dawn to get back to where we’re supposed to be. A limited and minimal government that maximizes individual freedom and personal accountability.

This video sheds some interesting perspective on things as well:

At the point of a gun

The Founding Fathers had a very clear vision of the country they founded. This country was founded on the concept that the Citizen is Sovereign (not those nonsensical "sovereign citizens") and the government serves the people, not the people serve the government. The concept that the citizen receives their Rights and authority from God (or the Universe) and delegates some of their authority to the government to handle issues that are larger than themselves. Those Founding Fathers also had the mindset of "the laws should be as few as possible and able to be understood while running."

The United States Constitution (and the state Constitutions) were written in such a way as to clearly declare what the Citizens allow the government to do, and no more. The Bill of Rights were additional constraints upon the government. There are twenty-five clear and separate points in those ten Amendments. They don't grant these Rights to the Citizens, they recognize that the Citizens have them already and the government is not to constrain them. "Congress shall make no law...", "The Right of the People... shall not be infringed." "...[B]ut in a manner to be prescribed by law." The phrase "The Right of the People" appear in the First, Second and Fourth, while the mention of "The People" are in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.

Here are the direct and attributable quotes from our Founding Fathers:

“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.” – James Madison, Federalist 45, 1788

“I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that ‘all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people.’ To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, not longer susceptible of any definition.” – Thomas Jefferson, Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank, 1791
Limited Government

“[T]he general government is not to be charged with the whole power of making and administering laws: its jurisdiction is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any.” – James Madison, Federalist 14, 1787

“It will not be denied that power is of an encroaching nature and that it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it.” – James Madison, Federalist 48, 1788

“I own I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.” – Thomas Jefferson, Letter to James Madison, 1787

“The propriety of a law, in a constitutional light, must always be determined by the nature of the powers upon which it is founded.” – Alexander Hamilton, Federalist 33, 1788

I brought all of this up because every law, every regulation, every statute, rule and ordinance that affects the Citizen and has a penalty attached for non-compliance, is ultimately enforced at the point of a gun. It doesn't matter if the crime is first-degree murder or failure to stop during a right-hand turn. A refusal to accept or perform restitution ultimately leads to a law enforcement officer pointing a weapon at you.

I need to explain this, because you probably don't understand this. LEO's do not carry weapons to enforce the law. Their badge and authority do that. The weapons are to protect themselves and others. An LEO must not lose an altercation with a citizen. To do so would damage or destroy any respect for their authority. Let's take that traffic stop. Normally, you're pulled over, you're issued a citation and you're released to go on about your day. For just a minor traffic violation, the LEO can only detain you until you have received and accept the citation. If I refuse to sign and accept the citation, the officer now has the authority to arrest me. If I refuse to comply with his demands to submit to arrest, he has a "Scale of Force" that dictates the level of force they are allowed to use. When an LEO has decided by your refusal of his commands that you need to be arrested because you have disobeyed his lawful orders, you're going to the local lockup. Once this starts, the officer cannot back down and "forget the whole thing" without direct orders from their superiors. At this point the officer will start up that "scale of force" to obtain your compliance. If you resist hard and violently enough that he believes his life or the lives of others are in grave danger, at that point he is justified in pulling his weapon and shooting you until you die or are rendered unable to resist his actions to arrest you.

That's a power you should be scared of, and why the laws should be as few as possible. George Washington is incorrectly attributed to saying this, but the words ring true no matter who said them:

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence,—it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant, and a fearful master; never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.

And in the midst of this COVID Crisis, we see exactly this. James Madison said this:

“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”

To paraphrase Madison, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which grants the ability to the federal or various state governments  the power to close businesses nor confine the people to their homes without just and specific cause." There is no "in case of [whatever] clause" that I can find. There is a very good reason for that, as

Show me where the federal, state or local governments can force a business to suspend operations because that business is "non-essential." Non-essential to WHOM? That business is certainly essential to putting food on the table for the families of the business owner and employees. I understand and accept closures of a specific business based on "nuisance" or "health and safety" violations, but not whole industries because a bureaucrat thinks it's not critical for the economy.

Maybe I should put it this way because when I get into discussions about this, the "other side" misses this very important point: I have zero problem with government informing the public of the hazards of this disease and asking citizens to socially distance, restricting the number of people that can be in a building at any given time, wear masks, wash their hands, glove up and all of those things. We cross into "Police State" territory when the government authorizes the police to arrest and punish people for leaving their homes or operating their businesses.

When dealing with artwork, there is a concept known as "Provenance," which is a documented trail of ownership of the art in question. This "chain of custody"  proves that this work of art is the real artwork. Think of a  "Certificate of Authenticity." What I am meaning is when a mayor, governor or president issues the Executive Order, proclamation, memo, whatever, it (should) quote the applicable law that is being invoked. The provenance of that law (and thus the EO) needs to be derived, ultimately, from the Constitution, either the state or federal. If it can't be, then it's not a proper law.

In the end, if the government has the power to do things like this (and we let them get away with it), like "declare an emergency" to deny us our liberties, with the definition and declaration of "emergency" left up to the bureaucrats, then anything and everything can be an emergency.

That should scare the crap out of you.

Contingency Plans

I realize we will never really know exactly how COVID-19 crossed from animal to human. Between the paranoid level of secrecy and “saving face” of the CCP and the lack of information about its’ first start on humans, anyone who really knows will ever tell.

It is my suspicion, like many others out there, that some bungling maintenance tech didn’t repair some of the clean room equipment properly, leading to a worker getting exposed and the worker unknowingly carried it home to spread to the rest of us. If the CCP had weaponized it and wanted to unleash it on the world, I would have done it the 12 Monkeys way. Get vials with the virus onto multiple long international flights at the same time, making it impossible to pin down the “patient zero” and the origin of the virus.

Something like this COVID-19 outbreak concerns me, but it doesn’t scare me.

What scares me is there are groups of people out there, with access to the keys of power that were waiting for a crisis of this scale to trigger their contingency plans.

Hang with me on this. Think about what we’ve been through in the last couple of weeks.

  • The federal and state governments ordered private businesses to cease operations. I don’t see that power granted to the government in the Constitution.
  • The debt of the federal government jumped over 8% in just the past few days. It’s now over $25 Trillion.
  • The shutdown has thrown more people out of work than we had out of work in the Great Depression.
  • The US economy will drop at least 10-15% before it has a chance the economy can recover. This will not be a “V”-shaped recovery. It’s more like a fully-loaded semi- going from 70 to zero by locking up the brakes. Before it can get rolling again, you have to get the truck straightened out, check the load for shifting and start rolling again. It takes more effort and a lot longer to go from 0 to 70 than 70 to 0.
  • Between the drop in the economy and the boost in the federal debt, our debt ratio now over 105%. We owe more than we can generate.

Now, when a country owes more than it’s worth, well, just plug the word “hyperinflation” into your favorite search engine, with words like “Weimar Republic,” “Zimbabwe,” “Venezuela” and “Greece.”

We have also seen absurd levels of restrictions placed on the American People. From being arrested for kayaking in the ocean alone, to not being able to buy things like vegetable seeds, to a woman who was arrested and jailed for making a choice of opening her nail salon so she could earn money to feed her hungry children, and then the judge demands an apology from her, this shit has got to stop.

Logic and common sense reasoning demands the conclusion that there are individuals and groups with ill intent towards the United States and the American people out there. We see people every day actively working towards tearing this country down to the bedrock and rebuilding it in their twisted image. From those who developed Common Core Math, the Affordable Care Act, to those at the highest levels of the federal government now exposed as actively trying to pull off a silent coup through lies, misinformation and more.

I’m not saying these groups are coordinated. I actually kind of wish they were. It would be easier to stop this madness by finding one spot or several places where the proper application of force could bring the whole plan crashing down. But there’s no coordination or unifying plan. It’s like 40 six-year-old children running amok in the classroom with one teacher trying to regain order. There are children coloring on the walls, taking a crap in the teacher’s desk drawers, smoking weed in the corner, setting the curtains on fire, destroying furniture and more.

The difference between a conspiracy theory and a real conspiracy is, if you can tie up all of the loose ends into one nice, neat package, it’s a conspiracy theory. Real conspiracies are just like freedom and a healthy economy. Everyone is acting in their own best interests and on their own agenda. There are loose ends all over the place like you just flung an entire pot of spaghetti all over the kitchen.

I don’t know how or even if it can be stopped. All I can hope for is the Americans of today bring forth the spirit of their forefathers. To have a natural skepticism and suspicion of the government. To look at what’s going on and knowing the difference between the government asking for social distancing, wash your hands and all the rest, versus the government deciding what businesses get to remain open, then using the police enforce those decisions. To have the backbone for when the government tries to go too far, the citizens say “NO” and have the firepower to make it stick.

What I am seeing right now is a test run. Tests to see how far government can push, how much the people will take and if we can be psychologically manipulated into acting against our own best interests to comply with government mandates.

Here’s what should keep you awake at night. Right now there are people taking notes on everything that worked and didn’t work. When we get out of this, those “bad actors” are going to go back to their think tanks and revise what they have and run some trial tests here and there to see if they can work out the bugs for the next time.

And mark my words, there will be a next time.

Next step for the police state

This should terrify you. If it doesn't, you're not paying attention. This Conversation Between A Passenger And An Airline Should Absolutely Terrify You.

I have said for years, "If you want to know what living in a police state is like, go hang out at the airport."

Basically, a JetBlue passenger was able to board her flight by just getting her face scanned. No boarding pass, no ID. A JetBlue camera scanned her face, the data was sent to TSA and her identity was verified. The passenger did not voluntarily give this data, nor permission to be in this program. Of course, she can "opt-out" of the JetBlue program, but her face is already in the databases of the federal government.

I am scared beyond belief over this.

A camera connected to the internet, any camera that can catch your face can send that image to Homeland Security and tag who you are in seconds. "All well and good, but I'm not a criminal. It's not my concern." I have a one-word answer to that. BULLSHIT.

Because if somebody can get into that database, that data can be altered. With access, a person with nasty intentions toward you can either flag you as someone else (say I copy your biometric data into some living super criminal's record), or I copy their criminal record into your file. Either way, every time you get your face scanned, every alarm goes off and police are dispatched immediately to that location. You get arrested, spirited away and it might be a few hours, a few days or never, before (or if) the government figures out that both you and them are the victim of a cruel prank.

A well-timed example just came to my attention: Apple face-recognition blamed by New York teen for false arrest. This shows how such a "confusion" can happen.

Ousmane Bah, 18, said he was arrested at his home in New York in November and charged with stealing from an Apple store. The arrest warrant included a photo that didn’t resemble Bah.

The story here is Mr. Bah lost a non-photo learners permit. Someone else used it while stealing from an Apple store, so the thief's face (his facial recognition profile) ended up on the record of Mr. Bah, who was arrested and charged with the thefts. Mr. Bah is now suing Apple for $1 Billion. I personally think the damages should be twice the entire net profits of the company for the year.

A government with that kind of capability can be nothing but repressive. China with its' Social Credit System is heading there at full speed. Here's some punishments if you cause trouble, like walking your dog without a leash. And if someone gets mis-scanned and their offense drops into your record, you're screwed. I am sure there is no process to get bad incidents off your record. We have already seen that with the "no-fly" list. If your name and data ends up on that list, I am positive that it would be easier to transmute air into gold than to get bad data expunged from your Homeland record.

Think about that.

Is Spygate unraveling?

Something is happening with this whole "Trump/Russia collusion" thing. It's starting to unravel and George Papadopoulos might be that thread that pulls everything apart.

Papadopoulos pled guilty to lying to federal investigators in October 2017. Lying to federal investigators is a minor process crime. You can get charged with this if you give your story twice (or more) and reword any statements, or add/forget even minor details in the statement. The plea deal to this lower charge is to avoid "more serious charges." We don't know what those "more serious charges" are because in the federal system, dropping charges after a defendant is indicted is difficult at best. The "more serious charges" are not brought to a grand jury if the defendant agrees to plead guilty to lesser charges. So, we have no idea what charges Papadopoulos were threatened with.

Anyway, his sentencing hearing is scheduled for September 7th. From what I understand, right about the time that Peter Strzok was fired from the FBI, Papadopoulos' lawyers filed a motion of discovery to see the evidence the FBI has against their client. According to Rachael Maddow, the Mueller team asked for and was granted a protective order preventing the release of this evidence to Papadopoulos and his legal team. The statement reads in part:

"Entry of a protective order restricting the use, dissemination, and disposition of discovery materials is essential to permit the United States to provide certain discovery to the defendant, which the defendant has requested in advance of his sentencing proceeding..."

This is interesting because things have come out in the past several days. While this whole thing is very complex and with multiple players, I am going to concentrate only on the events that started this ball rolling.

In May of 2016, George Papadopoulos was in a London bar and just so happened to strike up a conversation with Alexander Downer, an Australian diplomat. During this conversation, Papadopoulos stated (upon prompting by Downer) that he "heard the Russians have dirt on Hillary." In June 2016, Downer reported this contact to US authorities in late June, about 6 weeks after the meeting. This event has been declared as what started the whole investigation.

It came out a couple of months ago that in April of 2016 (a month before the meeting with Downer), George Papadopoulos had a conversation with Cambridge Professor Joseph Mifsud. Here is a quote from the charging document filed by the Mueller team against Papadopoulos:

On or about April 26, 2016, the defendant Papadopoulos met the Professor [Mifsud] for breakfast at a London hotel. During this meeting, the Professor told defendant Papadopoulos that he had just returned from a trip to Moscow where he had met with high-level Russian government officials. The Professor told defendant Papadopoulos that on that trip he (the Professor) learned that the Russians had obtained “dirt” on then-candidate Clinton. The Professor told defendant Papadopoulos, as defendant Papadopoulos later described to the FBI, that “They [the Russians] have dirt on her”; “the Russians had emails of Clinton”; “they have thousands of emails.” [Emphasis added]

Now, based on that information, you might reasonably conclude that Mifsud could be a Russian agent of some kind. You would be wrong. Don't feel bad, that's what most people who knew about this thought as well. Evidence has surfaced in the past week that indicates Mifsud is an agent of a Western, not Russian intelligence agency. Which one is still not clear, however things are leaning toward a British intelligence agency.

Let me put it to you this way. Let's say someone you have never met before strikes up a conversation with you one day, and tells you, "Hey, I heard about some guys who want to rob a bank. Would you like to help?" Of course, most people would say "no." Then, a couple weeks later, another person asks you, "Hey, have you heard anything about a bank robbery?" When you say offhandedly, "some guy I've never met before told me about one..." At this point you're arrested and charged with "Conspiracy to Commit Robbery." It turns out both people you had conversations with were undercover police or a confidential informant of the police. In legal terms this is called ENTRAPMENT. This is where the police (or their agent) entices a person who is not intending to commit a crime to commit one.

Mifsud, an alleged Western intelligence agent, planted this bug into Papadopoulos' ear. Downer, another agent (who has direct ties with the Clintons, but I digress) pulled that information out of Papadopoulos and that was used to start the whole Trump witch hunt. With this revelation, it seems to indicate that Papadopoulos is going to withdraw his guilty plea on September 7th. If this goes to trial, some rather embarrassing facts could come to light. Facts that do not work in favor with the Mueller team, the FBI, the Justice Department or the Obama administration.

I am just speculating here. If Mifsud "pushed" this information into Papadopoulos on the orders of Mifsud's handlers (whomever he works for), that would seriously damage the relationship between the US and that country, because a friendly country caused all of this pain and heartache to happen. Let's speculate even further. Let's say a US government official asked this foreign intelligence agency to push this information to someone in the Trump campaign, namely Papadopoulos. What do you think that could mean? A senior-level Obama administration official, asking a friendly foreign intelligence agency to run an entrapment operation on Papadopoulos and by extension the Trump campaign. I would consider that a very serious allegation, wouldn't you?

Making sure they don't show up this time

I have spoken before about the Muller Probe making a show when in February 2018 they indicted 13 Russian nationals and 3 Russian companies, including Concord Management and Consulting, for interfering in the 2016 presidential election. Oh, this is delicious and I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'.

These indictments clearly shows that a prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich. It turns out their case was so screwed up that one of the indicted entities was not even an incorporated entity (i.e., it did not exist) at the time of the alleged offenses. The fact of the matter is, these indictments were a media show to "prove" that Muller was "doing something," since the only things his team has uncovered to date were Flynn's and Papadopolous's lying to federal prosecutors, and Manafort's money laundering, which took place long before Trump was running for president. Of course, we don't have an extradition treaty with Russia, so Muller figured there is no chance that any Russians he charged would show up and his team would actually have to prosecute the case they supposedly had against them.

Then Concord Management actually showed up, demanded a speedy trial and demanded to immediately proceed to the discovery phase of the trial. In response to this, two things happened in a press conference by Rob Rosenstein on July 13th. The first was, the Mueller team has announced more indictments, this time of twelve Russian GRU (military intelligence) officers who will never show up in the US for any reason. Not only (again) do we not have an extradition treaty with Russia, the knowledge these men possess would be a security breach of the highest degree for the Russians. I am sure Putin would execute these men rather than have them set foot on US soil.

The second announcement at that press conference was that for the prosecution of Concord Management the Justice Department will now “transition responsibility for this case to our Department’s National Security Division while we await the apprehension of the defendants.” This means that this case will be buried in the Justice Department unit that deals with counterintelligence matters that do not result in public trials. So even if something does happen (which it won't), the results of that case will never see the light of day.

So now I have to ask an awkward question. If Muller and his team are there because the Justice Department can't or won't investigate, indict and prosecute crimes related to the Russian interference into the 2016 federal election, I have to ask why is he referring all of his indictments back to the Justice Department? If Mueller spent all of this time and resources to investigate and indict these people suspects, then referred the prosecution phase to the same people who wouldn't do the first two, why does he think they will execute the prosecution with enough vigor to earn a conviction?

Things that make you go "Hmmmmm....."

The integrity of law enforcement

The most terrible power of a Law Enforcement Officer, Federal, State or Local, is the power of arrest. When an LEO arrests you, this means to their belief and knowledge, you have violated a law and you need to be held to account for that crime. This simple act and the accompanying words, "You are under arrest for..." changes people's lives. Like the Dark Side of the Force, once you start down that path, it will dominate your future life. Guilty or innocent, your finances will be ruined, your family will be disgraced and your young children will not understand why this Bad Man is taking you away from them. That's all on top of any prison time you may have to serve. If you manage to get a "not guilty" decision from the jury, you are still out thousands, if not millions of dollars spent on your defense and there will always be whispers about you. In the words of former Department of Labor Secretary Raymond Donovan after his acquittal, “What office do I go to to get my reputation back?”

The following applies to ANY warrant, be it an arrest warrant, a surveillance warrant, whatever:

The integrity of an LEO has to be beyond question. His word when he appears before a judge to ask for a warrant has to be nothing less than impeccable. The LEO swears, "The information I am about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." Every piece of information use to obtain a warrant must be true. Either the LEO can produce the physical evidence, or testify that they witnessed/heard the information, or can produce the witness who made the statement. One hundred percent, nothing less. The truthful information in a warrant can't be 51%, or 67%, or 95%, not even if 99 44/100% of the evidence is true, the warrant must not be signed. To have any amount of false information in a warrant and presented as the truth to the judge, the judge will make the incorrect decision.

The reason why the word of an LEO must be impeccable is this: If the LEO is caught lying/falsifying information in a case, for whatever reason, every other case he has been involved with, not matter how tangentially, is now cast doubt on. Every case this LEO has been involved with, every person who has been convicted because of information he gathered and his testimony can now be retried. If that LEO has put 1,000 people in jail in a 30 year career, every one of those convicts can now sue the LEO and the jurisdiction that tried them. For every case he testifies in going forward, the first question any good defense lawyer will ask will be, "You lied in [this case], how can we trust and believe you now?"

Now let's get to the meat of the matter. Here is the application for a surveillance warrant presented to the FISA court to monitor Carter Page, and it's three subsequent renewals.

The "TOP SECRET/NOFORN" at the top and bottom of every page declares that there is information in this document containing information that has been classified as Top Secret. The NOFORN means that this information is not to be shown to any non-US citizen, even if they possess a TS clearance. The (U), (S), (S/NF) and so on at the beginning of every paragraph declares if that bit of information is Unclassified, Confidential, Secret, Top Secret or NOFORN.

Let's start at page 15 of the original application, with the first piece of evidence supporting why this warrant should be signed:

First, according to information provided by an FBI confidential human source (Source #1), [REDACTED] reported that Page had a [REDACTED].

Source #1, who now owns a foreign business/financial intelligence firm, was approached by an identified U.S. person, who indicated to Source #1 that a U.S.-based law firm had hired the identified U.S. person to conduct research regarding Candidate #1's ties to Russia (the identified U.S. person and source #1 have a long-standing business relationship). The identified U.S. person hired Source #1 to conduct this research. The identified U.S. person never advised Source #1 as to the motivation behind the research into Candidate #1's ties to Russia. The FBI speculates that the identified U.S. person was likely looking for information that could be used to discredit Candidate #1's campaign.

Source #1 tasked his sub-source(s) to collect the requisite information. After Source #1 received information from the sub-source(s), described herein, Source #1 provided the information to the identified U.S. person who had hired Source #1 and to the FBI. [REDACTED]

Notwithstanding Source #1's reason for conducting the research into Candidate #1's ties to Russia, based on Source #1's previous reporting history with the FBI, whereby Source #1 provided reliable information to the FBI, the FBI believes Source #1's reporting herein to be credible. [REDACTED].

Just to make things clear, Candidate #1 is Trump, Source #1 is Christopher Steele, and the "identified U.S. person" is Daniel Jones. Who is he? A former staff person for Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA). Jones raised $50 Million to hire Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele to generate this dossier. This same dossier which in January 2017 FBI Director James Comey briefed President-Elect Trump about, which was in Comey's words, "salacious and unverified."

Now, if this was an intelligence or counter-intelligence operation, indirect information given by a reliable source is considered acceptable and "actionable," meaning we can use this information to conduct the operation. Except this is a criminal investigation. For a court of law, a "dependable source" who vouches for the information they got from someone else won't cut it. Vicarious credibility (I trust Bob, who says this fact he got from someone else is true, so I believe the fact is true) does not exist in a court of law. Well, it does, but it's called hearsay and it's not admissible.

No criminal charges can be brought against anybody using any information that is discovered from Page's texts, emails or phone calls from this warrant. Because the basis of the warrant to gather that information was false, this corrupts everything derived from it. This is known as the "fruit from a poisoned tree."

Bottom line: On page 54 of the document, it reads, "I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing information regarding Carter W. Page is true and correct." Signed October [REDACTED} 2016, [REDACTED], Supervisory Special Agent Federal Bureau of Investigation. When we the people find out that the agent who signed this application, his name will be MUD.

I’m not sayin’, I’m just sayin’

A while back, in the post Oh, This is Delicious I made two predictions where I spoke about Mueller indicting a Russian company and how it was a very stupid thing to do. Admittedly I got the Manafort prediction wrong, but I think this will make up for it: And it’s all clearly explained here: Mueller is Trying to Keep Evidence from Defendants in Russian Trolls Case.

I spoke about the "discovery" phase of a criminal trial, where the prosecution must turn over all of the evidence, even the exculpatory evidence ("exculpatory" meaning it shows that you didn't do the crime you're accused of). I make a point of this because this is not a cornerstone of our legal system, it is the bedrock of it. In order for a person or company who is accused of a crime to properly defend themselves, they have to know what they are accused of doing and all evidence concerning the matter.

Except the Muller team doesn't want to turn it over. They are currently petitioning the Court to either totally bar the release of all evidence to the accused Concord Management and grant access only to their "domestic representation" (i.e., the US-based lawyers). Maybe, sometime in the future, two teams of lawyers (a second group of lawyers for the defense and a group of government lawyers not associated with the prosecution) could petition the court and if the two teams agree, let Concord Management see some of the evidence.

I don't care what reasons Mueller's team give for this reasoning, the accused cannot prepare an adequate defense if they cannot see the evidence against them. This legal Cirque du Soleil tells me the Muller team has exactly zero evidence. Thus, they are trying any legal maneuver they can to keep from publicly showing they are assholes.

If this motion is approved, or the indictment is not withdrawn, or the indictment is not thrown out of court, we will know without a doubt the fix is in. Stay tuned.

Cost-Benefit Analysis

For everything we do (or don’t do), we mentally perform a cost/benefit analysis first. Let me explain:

You wake up in the morning and you don’t want to get out of your warm, comfortable bed and go to work. After all, who wants to get out of a warm bed and go to work?

The benefit of staying in bed is that you continue to be warm and comfortable. The cost of staying in bed is you could lose your job, which leads to no housing, bed, utilities, food, car and so on. If the benefits outweigh the costs, then do it. If the costs outweigh the benefits, you might not want to do it.

Another example: In countries where Islam is the primary religion, theft was a rare crime because they tended to lop a hand off for being a thief. In the immediately preceding years, they have become “Westernized” and don’t do that as much today.

So, your benefit is whatever your stole, while the cost can include losing at least one of your hands and all the future handicaps associated with having only one (or no) hands.

I bring this up because for the past eighteen months, we have been pounded on an hourly basis about the “Trump collusion with Russia.” Up until recently, the whole story was, the event that started the “investigation” was when Papadopoulos told Downer (when specifically asked), “the Russians have Hillary’s missing emails.” We now know, thanks to the outing of Halper, that the entrapment started a month earlier, with Halper telling Papadopoulos, “Did you hear the Russians have Hillary’s missing emails?” Of course, the FBI had to approach Halper and prep him to do this, then there was the time invested in thinking this up before Halper was recruited, but you get my point. But I digress.

Those who have created and fed this "Trump-Russia Collusion" narrative, have finally realized realized the jig is up because even their most ardent supporters are seeing that this entrapment wasn’t Kosher, have been trying to do a “Peace with Honor” kind of withdrawal, begging the Republicans to not put them through what they have been putting Trump through since he took office. They want to get away scot-free with just a “we’re sorry.”

The point here is the Trump Administration needs to set the cost/benefit analysis for anyone who wants to “weaponize the government” (use the massive investigatory and prosecutorial resources of the federal government to advance personal or political agenda) way into the “costs outweigh the benefits by several orders of magnitude” category so no one never even considers doing something like this again.

The best way to do this is to prosecute everyone involved in the decision-making progress to the harshest extent possible. This means a public trial and upon conviction, lengthy prison sentences for Obama, Hillary, Comey, McCabe, Clapper, everyone in a government leadership position who participated or did not hinder this plan. This also means Downer, Halpin, the partners of Fusion GPS, and anyone in that little incestuous circle of “Hillary’s Friends” who worked on this. Maximum sentences, running concurrently (10 convictions @ 10 years each = 100 years jail time).

We know Obama was briefed on what was going on because of the texting between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, things like “POTUS wants to know everything." If Obama was the as transparent and ethical as he wants us to believe, the investigation could have been stopped with five words by him, “Shut it all down. Now.”

I NEVER want to see the resources of the federal government used to advance illicit political objectives ever again. Men went to prison and Nixon resigned over the Watergate scandal. There should be negative consequences of equal stature levied against those in the Obama Administration and Hillary campaign for this heinous usurpation of federal power.

If you disagree with this, please comment as to why you think this spying was okay. Your choices are 1) you can toe the party line and use convoluted reasoning to justify it, or 2) just publicly admit you're in favor of an American Police State.

The problem with lists

Is that the lists never really go away.

In the below video, Congressman Gowdy (R-SC), grills Kelli Ann Burriesci the Deputy Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security about "chilled" rights.

A chilled right is a right normally afforded the citizen that has been revoked. A good example is the right to vote. If you are convicted of a felony, the right to vote has been chilled after due process. The due process is you have to charged with a serious crime, the government then has to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt to a jury of your peers that you are the responsible party.

The term "terrorist watch list" which has been bandied about since the Orlando shooting is one of those "sound good" ideas that aren't "good, sound" ideas for the very reason there is no due process involved. It has a lot in common with the "no-fly" list.

There is no substantive process for a citizen to be added to the list. In the case of the "no-fly" list, all it can sometimes take is a name that is spelled somewhat like the name or pseudonym of a known bad guy. You haven't done anything, yet a computer algorithm who sees you as a frequent flyer and has a name similar to a known terrorist operative's name and *poof* your right to travel as you wish using an airline is now chilled. And a lot of people didn't know it until they bought a ticket, showed up at the airport and tried to board the aircraft.

Now Liberals are screaming about how the Orlando shooter "WAS ON THE TERRORIST WATCH LIST AND WAS ALLOWED TO BUY A$$AULT WEAPONZ!!!!" Yeah, well despite being investigated by the FBI twice he managed to pass several background checks and land a job at a company handling security for the the federal government. That says a lot about the coordination and competence of the feds no matter how you look at it.

Back to the due process. Because someone didn't like you, what you wrote or said, and they call up the FBI and say "I think he's a terrorist. He's been talking a lot of subversive stuff" and the FBI puts you on the terrorism watch list. Many of your rights are now chilled and you haven't committed a crime, nor have you been convicted of a crime.

What in the hell every happened to that right of "innocent until proven guilty?"

Then we have this to exemplify my point:

At just after the 2:00 mark, you get this exchange:

DICKERSON:
So if you have been under investigation over some period of time, you would trigger --

FEINSTEIN:
That's correct.

DICKERSON:
And what's the time period there for --

FEINSTEIN:
There is no time period, but --

DICKERSON:
So ever -- if you've ever been looked at by the FBI?

FEINSTEIN:
That's correct.

DICKERSON:
Well, so then what about the fact that somebody could be looked at they -- you know, maybe the FBI got it wrong. So now they never can buy a firearm?

FEINSTEIN:
Well, that doesn't mean that it would be -- they would be subject to being pinged. They would look at it.

Of course, we all know that the deductive reasoning and decision making powers of government officials are impeccable and they would never do something like deny a family from boarding a plane because one of their children had a G.I. Joe in their hand and that G.I. Joe has a 2" long plastic M-16 in its hands, right?

By her own words, Senator "Mr. and Mrs. America, turn them all in" (D-CA) says that if you get on that list, you're going to stay on that list for the rest of your life. No appeal, no due process, you'll have to prove a negative (that you're not a terrorist) every time you attempt to exercise your chilled rights. Which in the end means you'll take your lumps and like them.

 

The Discretion of the Bureaucrat

I am very scared. Not too much personally, rather for the country as a whole.

We are seeing the Chief Executive of the United States turning from a President into a dictator. It started with the "Affordable Care Act." The next chapter is "Net Neutrality." In each case, onerous regulations are enacted, mostly from the power given to the Executive Branch by Congress in the phrase, "The departments tasked with enforcing this Act may issue additional regulations as needed" or words to that effect.

The Law enforces draconian laws, however, if you are willing to endear yourself to those in power (bribes, campaign contributions, doing their bidding, whatever) you can obtain a "waiver" which exempts you from said onerous law. Through this mechanism, we depart from a nation of laws, where all are equal before the law, to most are crushed under the law, except for the privileged few who do not have to follow the law.

Then the new chapter, "Ammunition Bans." Just because the BATFE has "decided" to ban .223/5.56 ammunition, they are going to do it. Of course, BATFE "decided" APCP (the fuel used in high power model rockets and the Space Shuttle SRBs) was an explosive, it took 20+ years of bullshit to store and use something that is clearly not an explosive. I have more to say on this, I have to find the proper words.

 

Unfettered Power

Here you go. If you think you need to go cash only, here is a great reason why: Law Lets I.R.S. Seize Accounts on Suspicion, No Crime Required. In this case, if you consistently deposit less than $10,000 in cash into your bank account, the IRS can take the money. Period. No charges, because you haven't done anything wrong.

The real kick in the guts is, you have to prove a negative, i.e. you are innocent to get it back. And it can take most, if not more of the money that was seized to get it back. Now I am a self-admitted old "fuddy-duddy" who actually reads the Constitution, which, the last time I looked, the 5th Amendment reads, "...nor be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law;" This most assuredly a deprivation of both life and property. You lose your livelihood by being unable to sustain your business, and that cash is your property. Your government at work, folks.

The Noose is Tightening Around All Our Necks

Back in April, I made a post that in part talked about "Operation Choke Point," where the Feds were pressuring banks to close the accounts of people and businesses the government "found objectionable" like porn stars and gun shops. I found this article today, Tyranny expands as consumer agency gives itself power to shut down businesses. Read the comment at the bottom of the article.

A lot of people don't know what the Federal Register is. This is where various government agencies publish their "rule changes" pertaining to whatever they are charged with regulating. This also where things like grants are published. It is a document that if you read it for too long, your brains will liquefy and run out of your ears. It is more mind-numbing than a Jerry Springer show. However, if you want to know what the government is up to, this is the place to go.

Anyway, back last year, This notice was published September 26th, 2013, Volume 78, Number 187. This rule is extended from the Frank-Dodd Act. It takes two-and-a-half pages to say this, but this is what it basically means: If the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection has any suspicion of a business has "incomplete or inaccurate financial records" it may issue a Temporary Cease-And-Desist Order and force the business to close until the financial records are no longer "incomplete or inaccurate."

They don't have to prove anything, they just have to believe that your books are not up to their standards in order to issue the TCDO. Then you can go to court and fight it, but that takes money, and suddenly you don't have any. Your income is now zero (since they closed your business) and it could be months and many thousands of dollars in attorney's fees before you appear before a judge and have a shot at getting the order lifted. And they probably seized your business and personal bank accounts at the same time (evidence, dontchaknow).

Of course, you could surrender your books to the government. And when (not if) they find a mistake in your books, they can put you in Club Fed for as long as they want to. By the way, there is no parole in the Federal system. If you get 10 years, you'll do 10 years. This all falls under the little catchphrase in just about any law passed by Congress, "The Agency(s) charged with the enforcement of this law may issue regulations pertaining to the regulation and enforcement of this law." Gerald Ford said at a joint session of Congress, "A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have."

 

The Fourth Amendment is DEAD

I am not engaging in hyperbole either: Federal Court: The Police Can Stop and Search You for Behaving Innocently. Yes, I found this on the Huffington Post. The scary thing is, when those wingnuts start getting concerned about this kind of stuff, it's usually too late. Normally Liberals root for the encroachment of civil liberties by government. It's all "for our own good" you know.

A federal appeals court just ruled that the police have a legal right to stop, search and arrest you for innocent behavior including driving with your hands at the ten-and-two position on the steering wheel at 7:45 p.m., taking a scenic route and having acne.   To the Tenth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, these factors added up to fit the profile of a person smuggling undocumented immigrants and drugs. The court said, "Although the factors, in isolation, may be consistent with innocent travel ... taken together they may amount to reasonable suspicion."

The reason why this lady is in court, is that the Border Patrol officer searched her vehicle and found an amount of marijuana, which is why she was arrested. Be clear, I make no argument or statement for or against her having marijuana in her car.

The PDF of the decision is here, I suggest you read it. This is the part that disturbs me (bold is mine) The Fourth Amendment protects against “unreasonable searches and seizures,” U.S. Const., amend. IV, including investigatory stops and detentions, see United States v. Sharpe, 470 U.S. 675, 682 (1985); United States v. Cheromiah, 455 F.3d 1216, 1220 (10th Cir. 2006). Ms. Westhoven “bears the burden of establishing that the challenged stop violated the Fourth Amendment.” Cheromiah, 455 F.3d at 1220. Like other law enforcement officers, a border patrol agent must possess reasonable suspicion a law was violated to stop a vehicle: “Except at the border and its functional equivalents, officers on roving patrol may stop vehicles only if they are aware of specific articulable facts, together with rational inferences from those facts, that reasonably warrant suspicion” that the occupants have violated a law. United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 884 (1975); Cheromiah, 455 F.3d at 1220.

In one of my earlier posts, I talk about how DHS has set up a "Constitutional exception zone” for the first 100 miles from the nearest border. By the way, 2/3rds of Americans live within that zone, all day every day. Of the two parts that I bolded, the first one stating that the defendant "bears the burden of establishing that the stop violated her Fourth Amendment rights" sounds a lot like the opposite of "presumed innocent until proven guilty." The government is making the accusation. It should have to prove beyond a reasonable point that the officer was justified in making the stop.

The second, "Except at the border and its functional equivalents..." There is that nasty 100 mile "Constitutional exception zone” thing again. So, let's get this straight. While traveling within 100 miles of a border, you can obey all standing laws (yes, she was speeding, but the BP officer did not have the authority to enforce traffic laws) and still be pulled over. Once the officer makes you nervous and you stutter, or misspeak, that gives him the reasonable suspicion, coupled with your adherence to local laws to detain you and call in the dogs. Just checking.

Just in case you haven't seen my other posts on this, DON'T SAY A WORD TO THE POLICE. Not a word, facial expression, shrug of the shoulders. Ask, and continue to ask until you receive an answer, "Am I being detained officer? Am I free to go?" If you are not being detained, leave the area IMMEDIATELY. If you end up in the back of a patrol car after that, your only words should be, "I want to speak to my lawyer."

A new reality

On this first day of 2014, I wanted to bring light to this issue, which is the suspension of our Fourth Amendment Rights. This also shows you need to look at an issue from several different angles, because one point of view won't give you the whole story. This particular case revolves around Pascal Abidor, who's citizenship is not revealed. One of the articles states that his parents live in New York. Their citizenship status is not clear either. Anyway, Pascal was traveling via Amtrak from Canada to his parents home. I'll let the RT.com article explain it(by the way, here are two more articles on this):

Abidor was sitting in the train's cafe car when an officer forced him to take out his laptop then “ordered Mr. Abidor to enter his password,” the suit claimed. The computer contained images of Hamas and Hezbollah rallies and the agents, unmoved by Abidor's assertion the images were related to his studies, handcuffed the young man and kept him detained for three hours, questioning him numerous times.

Doing a "police inspection" in public like this is simply wrong. And it is not meant to intimidate just the person being stopped, but every other person in sight as well. Because if they can stop him, they can stop you. A probable cause for the stop was given, was that he had "traveled to Lebanon," but no time frame for that travel was given. If he just transferred straight from the airport in Canada to Amtrak and headed into the US, that is one thing. However, I have to ask, did he stay in Canada more than the minimum time necessary to leave the country? Did he stay overnight, a week, a month before heading to New York? That fact would change the equation. I also need to ask, why wasn't he stopped right there at the border? Why wait until he already got some distance into the country? I really think it's telling that the ruling judge, Judge Korman, talked about the First Amendment, not the Fourth. The First wasn't an issue in the lawsuit he was ruling on. Judge Korman also upheld a DHS policy which claims any American land within 100 miles of a border to be a "Constitutional exception zone," which means DHS can stop you without warrant or probable cause, seize your personal electronics and demand proof of your citizenship. Let's tale a look at the Fourth Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Taking a look at this Amendment, I don't see how a police officer can stop a person who does not appear to be breaking any law, and demand access to their "papers and effects" which your laptop, tablet or smartphone clearly is. If the officer has reasonable suspicion, he can swear out an Oath and obtain a warrant for the items the police wishes to inspect and/or seize. The unintended consequences of this ruling means that currently 2/3rds of the population lives within "100 miles of a border," and are thus subject to the whims of the DHS.

If I were to travel to New York City, or Miami, Florida, the DHS can stop and seize any electronics in my possession without warrant or probable cause. Papers, please? I understand that judges are people too, and they have prejudices, beliefs and agendas just like the rest of us. That being said, when we have Judges like this, who blatantly and flagrantly disregard the standards set forth by the Constitution, we are all truly screwed.

Because now all three branches of the Federal government, instead of fighting against each other in a balance of power, have united against the Constitution they have supposedly sworn to "protect, uphold and defend," and the People as well. Sleep well, citizen. Our government is looking out for us.

 
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