A Judge Rules Rachel Maddow is a Fake News Fabulist and Not a Journalist

Article by Brad Stager in "RedState":

A court decision came in with a pure document-dump timing this past weekend. On Friday a judge dismissed a lawsuit brought against MSNBC personality Rachel Maddow by the upstart network One America News, and most in journalism circles probably shrugged with smug satisfaction, if they even noticed during the news vacuum on a holiday weekend.

The $10 million suit was a defamation case, where OAN stated that Maddow had slandered the network on-air when she declared it was an outlet of ‘’paid Russian propaganda’’. What has not been properly acknowledged is that in order for her to evade responsibility in the case Maddow took on the defense that she was not delivering fact-based news on her program that evening, something the judge agreed was accurate.

“Maddow had inserted her own colorful commentary into and throughout the segment, laughing, expressing her dismay (i.e., saying ‘I mean, what?’) and calling the segment a ‘sparkly story’ and one we must ‘take in stride,'” Judge Cynthia Bashant wrote Friday.

This is a rather amazing stance for a member of the media to take. Here we have Maddow essentially resorting to the convenient dodge more popularly employed by the likes of John Stewart from his tenure of the satirical ‘’The Daily Show’’. At times when he would be caught delivering an inaccuracy or potentially slanderous commentary he could fall back on, ‘’It’s only satire, who fact-checks jokes?’’ It is a far different scenario for Maddow, who cloaks herself as being a serious journalist, to resort to the clown nose on/clown nose off act of deflection.

Except — Maddow’s own quote about OAN from that evening is hardly one of unmistakable jocularity. “In this case, the most obsequiously pro-Trump right-wing news outlet in America really literally is paid Russian propaganda.”

Judge Cynthia Bashant wrote in her decision, “For her (Maddow) to exaggerate the facts and call OAN Russian propaganda was consistent with her tone up to that point.’’ Of note here is that it is left to the viewer to make the assumption when Maddow is no longer delivering serious news and information. ‘’The Court finds a reasonable viewer would not take the statement as factual given this context,” Bashant added, essentially acknowledging the ‘’fake-news’’ aspect of the Maddow broadcast.

Rachael Maddow’s own words here defy the interpretation of things being clearly and obviously a joke. It becomes one of amazement to declare a quote using ‘’really literally’’ was never intended to be treated as realistic, nor literal. Racheal Maddow has thus invalidated herself as any type of reputable source, as her words once delivered bear absolutely no semblance to reality, and anyone attempting to hold her to her quotes is operating in error.

While this is not a jarring revelation to anyone who has watched her program it is a firm departure from Madoow’s own positioning as one who frequently breaks big stories — the success rate of those notwithstanding. Fox News frequently absorbs charges of a similar nature regarding its primetime lineup, without there being this excusal of commentary/opinion granted. But the judge, in this case, manages to play along with the Maddow dodge — while ignoring a glaring contradiction in Maddow’s own defense.

To support her position Maddow referenced a Daily Beast article that noted a name on the OAN payroll is of a questionable Russian origination — someone called ‘’A Kremlin-paid journalist’’. This would then indicate that Maddow was in fact supporting her claim of accuracy, not dismissing her comments as merely a colorful interpretation. Judge Bashant elects to make a very distinct delineation in Maddow’s commentary from that evening.

“Instead, he or she [the viewer] would follow the facts of the Daily Beast article; that OAN and Sputnik share a reporter and both pay this reporter to write articles. Anything beyond this is Maddow’s opinion or her exaggeration of the facts,” ruled Bashant. So, she was reporting the facts, then when the problematic commentary was delivered those words became just ‘’colorful commentary’’. This appears to be more than a convenient deflection; it is all the reason to declare all of Maddow’s future broadcasts to be nothing more than unserious versions of the facts.

There is some deep irony at the heart of this entire suit. Maddow, MSNBC, and also CNN – Brian Stelter and Oliver Darcy in particular – have been on a mission of late to discredit OAN as a legitimate participant in their journalism environment. OAN has been called an illegitimate outlet, one earning favor by warmly supporting President Trump. For this reason, the outlets which almost exclusively hotly oppose Trump are upset.

Here lies the real humor in this decision. In the process of denigrating OAN as an illegitimate news source, Rachael Maddow had to rest on the defense that what she was delivering was itself illegitimate ‘’infotainment’’. By her own admission, the primetime hostess has declared her own words to be little more than sparkly storytelling. While the network has appealed the decision, in a manner OAN has won a victory.

It managed to get Rachael Maddow to declare in court records that she is a fabulist whose reporting does not need to be taken as the least bit accurate. It is not to be taken lightly when a major name in the media universe has gone on the record to declare what she traffics in on the air is fake news.

https://www.redstate.com/bradslager/2020/05/28/845430/

Most Minnesota law enforcement agencies ban the neck-pinning maneuver used against George Floyd — but it's still allowed in Minneapolis

 
Article by Kelly McLaughlin in "Insider":

• George Floyd, 46, died on Monday after a Minneapolis police officer subdued him for eight minutes by putting a knee on his neck. 
• Police in Minneapolis are still allowed to kneel on a suspect's neck under the department's use-of-force policy, but it can only be used by officers who have been trained on how to do so without putting direct pressure on the airway.
• It's unknown if the officer to restrained Floyd was properly trained in how to use the knee maneuver used before Floyd's death.
• Four officers have been fired because of the incident, and a former director of one of the police department's training facilities says police went too far.
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

The maneuver police used to restrain George Floyd before his death is no longer allowed in most Minnesota law-enforcement agencies, but in Minneapolis, it's allowed as a "non-deadly force option" if officers are properly trained.

Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, died on Monday after being subdued for eight minutes by a police officer who was seen on video kneeling on his neck. In the video of the incident, Floyd can be heard repeatedly saying "I can't breathe."

Four police officers were fired after the incident, and the two who have been identified — Derek Chauvin, who was seen with his knee on Floyd's neck, and Tuo Thao, who was standing nearby — have been involved in use-of-force incidents in the past, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

The Star-Tribune reports that kneeling on a suspect's neck is no longer allowed in most Minnesota law enforcement agencies. But in Minneapolis, certain officers can still use the maneuver.

Minneapolis police are still allowed to kneel on a suspect's neck under the department's use-of-force policy

In Minneapolis, the move is still allowed under the department's use-of-force policy, but only for officers who have been trained on how to do so without putting direct pressure on the suspect's airway, USA Today reported. The move, according to the department's policy handbook seen by USA Today, is considered a "non-deadly force option" by the Minneapolis police department.

Mylan Masson, a former Minneapolis police officer and the former director of law enforcement and criminal justice education at Hennepin Technical College, which trains half of Minnesota's police force, told the Star-Tribune that until at least 2016, officers were taught to put pressure on the sides of perpetrators' necks to de-escalate situations.

She said that she was troubled by the video of Floyd and the prolonged use of the maneuver in his case.

"Once the [officer] is in control, then you release," Masson said. "That's what use of force is: You use it till the threat has stopped."

George Kirkham, a professor emeritus at the College of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida State University, told the Star-Tribune that the maneuver of putting a knee on a suspect's neck isn't often taught in police academies anymore, because it is a risky move that can cause brain death in just a few minutes.

"The man was prone on the ground. He was no threat to anyone," Kirkham said of Floyd. 

Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo told reporters on Tuesday that the department is investigating Floyd's death.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey banned warrior-style police training

Last year, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey banned "warrior-style" training, which he said prioritizes officer safety over community safety.

The Minneapolis Police Department has since focused on "guardian" tactics, in which deadly force is used as a last resort. On its website, the department says officers would deny any opportunities to take warrior-like training.

Minneapolis's police union has publicly opposed the policy and last year said they would offer warrior training for free.

A spokesperson in Frey's office told Insider that the union's plan never amounted to anything.

"The police union obviously hates the policy but the policy itself was never overturned or undermined as far as we can tell," the spokesperson said. "The training they bragged about never materialized."

Two of the officers involved in Floyd's death have histories of use-of-force incidents

Chauvin and Thao joined the force long before any recent policy changes. 

Chauvin, 44, had been with the force for 19 years before Floyd's death. In 2008, Chauvin shot and injured a man during a domestic assault call after the man grabbed for his gun, according to the Star-Tribune. In 2006, he was one of six officers responding to a stabbing, in which Wayne Reyes, 42, was shot and killed after police said he pulled a shotgun on officers, Communities United Against Police Brutality, a police watchdog nonprofit based in Minneapolis, reported in 2018. 

It's unknown if Chauvin was properly trained in how to use the knee maneuver used before Floyd's death.

Thao, who first joined the force in 2009, was sued in 2017 for excessive use of force after he and another officer, Robert Thunder, stopped Lamar Ferguson and a pregnant woman for a stop-and-search they were walking home, the Star-Tribune reported.

Ferguson said the officers stopped them without cause, handcuffed him, threw him to the ground, and punched and kicked him. The case settled in court for $25,000.

Neither the Minneapolis Police Department nor the police union immediately responded to Insider's request for comment.

https://www.insider.com/minneapolis-police-george-floyd-maneuver-not-allowed-in-other-cities-2020-5 

New FBI document confirms the Trump campaign was investigated without justification

A document created by Peter Strzok, approved by Peter Strzok,

and sent from Peter Strzok to Peter Strzok

by Kevin R. Brock at The Hill

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN 
AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL

Late last week the FBI document that started the Trump-Russia collusion fiasco was publicly released. It hasn’t received a lot of attention but it should, because not too long from now this document likely will be blown up and placed on an easel as Exhibit A in a federal courtroom.

The prosecutor, U.S. Attorney John Durham, will rightly point out that the document that spawned three years of political misery fails to articulate a single justifiable reason for starting the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation.  

Those of us who have speculated there was insufficient cause for beginning the investigation could not have imagined the actual opening document was this feeble. It is as if it were written by someone who had no experience as an FBI agent.

Keep in mind the FBI cannot begin to investigate anyone, especially a U.S. citizen or entity, without first creating a document that lists the reasonably suspicious factors that would legally justify the investigation. That’s FBI 101, taught Day 1 at the FBI Academy at Quantico, Va.

To the untrained eye, the FBI document that launched Crossfire Hurricane can be confusing, and it may be difficult to discern how it might be inadequate. To the trained eye, however, it is a train wreck. There are a number of reasons why it is so bad. Two main ones are offered below (if you would like to follow along, the document is here):

First, the document is oddly constructed. In a normal, legitimate FBI Electronic Communication, or EC, there would be a “To” and a “From” line. The Crossfire Hurricane EC has only a “From” line; it is from a part of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division whose contact is listed as Peter Strzok. The EC was drafted also by Peter Strzok. And, finally, it was approved by Peter Strzok. Essentially, it is a document created by Peter Strzok, approved by Peter Strzok, and sent from Peter Strzok to Peter Strzok.

On that basis alone, the document is an absurdity, violative of all FBI protocols and, therefore, invalid on its face. An agent cannot approve his or her own case; that would make a mockery of the oversight designed to protect Americans. Yet, for this document, Peter Strzok was pitcher, catcher, batter and umpire.

In addition, several names are listed in a “cc” or copy line; all are redacted, save Strzok’s, who, for some reason, felt it necessary to copy himself on a document he sent from himself to himself.  

Names on an FBI document are always listed in cascading fashion, with the most senior at the top and on down to the least senior. On this EC, Strzok is listed last, so the redacted names should be more senior to him. Those names could well include then-FBI Director James Comey, then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and then-Counterintelligence Assistant Director Bill Priestap. The document also establishes these redacted names as “case participants.”

Second, the Crossfire Hurricane case was opened as a Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) investigation. A FARA investigation involves a criminal violation of law — in this case, a negligent or intentional failure to register with the U.S. government after being engaged by a foreign country to perform services on its behalf — that is punishable by fines and imprisonment. It is rarely investigated.

In a normal EC opening a FARA case, we should expect to see a list of reasons why the FBI believes individuals associated with a U.S. presidential campaign had been engaged by the Russian government to represent and advocate that government’s goals.

This, however, was no normal EC. Try as we might to spot them, those reasons are not found anywhere in the document. Despite redactions, it has been fairly well established that an Australian diplomat, Andrew Downer, met a low-level Trump campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, in a London bar for drinks; Downer then reported the conversation, which eventually made its way to U.S. officials in London. 

The Strzok EC quotes verbatim an email authored by Downer. In it, Downer claims Papadopoulos “suggested” to him that the Trump team had received “some kind of suggestion” of assistance from Russia regarding information damaging to Hillary Clinton and President Obama. In other words, a suggestion of a suggestion.

Strzok apparently took this nebulous reporting by Downer and then leapt to the dubious conclusion that Papadopoulos and unnamed others were engaged by the Russians to act as foreign agents on Russia’s behalf. This, despite Downer also offering two exculpatory statements in the same email: 1) It was “unclear” how the Trump campaign might have reacted to the Russian claims and 2) the Russians likely were going to do what they were going to do with the information whether anyone in the Trump campaign cooperated with them or not.

Strzok then concludes the EC by moving the goalposts. He writes that Crossfire Hurricane is being opened to determine if unspecified “individual(s)” associated with the Trump campaign are “witting of and/or coordinating activities” — also unspecified — “with the Government of Russia.” He doesn’t even mention Papadopoulos.

Ultimately, there was no attempt by Strzok to articulate any factors that address the elements of FARA. He couldn’t, because there are none. Instead, there was a weak attempt to allege some kind of cooperation with Russians by unknown individuals affiliated with the Trump campaign, again, with no supporting facts listed.

What this FBI document clearly establishes is that Crossfire Hurricane was an illicit, made-up investigation lacking a shred of justifying predication, sprung from the mind of someone who despised Donald Trump, and then blessed by inexperienced leadership at the highest levels who harbored their own now well-established biases.  

To paraphrase a fired FBI director: No reasonable FBI counterintelligence squad supervisor in the field would have approved and opened that Strzok EC. They know the rules too well.

Instead, the nation was left with an investigation of a presidential campaign that had no legitimate predication; that spawned a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act intercept of a U.S. citizen that had no legitimate predication; that resulted in a confrontation with a new administration’s national security adviser that had no legitimate predication; and, finally, that led to an expensive special counsel investigation that had no legitimate predication. No pattern-recognition software needed here.

Hopefully, Exhibit A will be displayed in a federal courtroom soon. The rule of law, upon which the FBI rests its very purpose and being, was callously discarded by weak leaders who sought higher loyalty to their personal agendas, egos, biases and politics. Accountability is demanded by the American people. Let’s pray we see some.

Rush Limbaugh Makes Point About the Media's Treatment of the 'Protesters' in Minneapolis

Article by Cortney O'Brien in "Townhall":
https://twitter.com/MDVancleave/status/1265931426970689537?s=2

https://twitter.com/MDVancleave/status/1265931426970689537?s=20

https://twitter.com/MDVancleave/status/1265931426970689537?s=2Everyone is outraged by that shocking video of a Minneapolis police officer pinning an unarmed suspect to the ground with his knee. He and three other officers ended up killing the man, George Floyd, in the altercation. The tragic incident was reportedly over a counterfeit $20 bill. The four officers involved in the confrontation with Floyd were fired, and Mayor Jacob Frey is seeking criminal charges against the arresting officer, Derek Chauvin.

Rush Limbaugh said that the incident makes him so mad he "can't think straight" during his Thursday radio broadcast. It was "unjustifiable," he said, and he hopes the officers are dealt with accordingly. 

"There was no reason that George Floyd should have lost his life," Limbaugh added for emphasis.

But like other observers, Limbaugh said that the search for justice is undermined by the violent protests that have erupted in the city of Minneapolis. What purpose does a ransacked Target serve? Or a burning building?

Kyle Hooten ✔ @KyleHooten2

Inside a looted Target store, Minneapolis Minnesota, early morning hours of May 28

 

Mark Vancleave +=@MDVancleave

Never in my life had I imagined I'd see violence and destruction in my home city like I saw tonight. I went to high school two blocks from here. Lake St. and 26th Ave. S.

   

 

Limbaugh then made an observation. The media have referred to the looters and rioters in Minneapolis as "protesters," (admittedly yours truly included) while they paint Americans hankering to return to work during the coronavirus outbreak as "major lunatics" and "great threats." Millions of people have had to file for unemployment during the pandemic, and now that it seems that several states have "flattened the curve," those same people want to regain their livelihoods. 

 

But individuals who are reopening their businesses are being "savagely condemned," while the people burning businesses are given a pass, Limbaugh charged. One hair salon owner in Texas was even arrested for simply opening her business.

 

Rush made another comparison.

 

"Who is more dangerous?" Limbaugh asked his listeners. "Looters and rioters, or the people in a swimming pool in the Ozarks?"

 

By the Ozarks, he was referring to the crowds that showed up to a swimming pool in Lake of the Ozarks, MO during Memorial Day weekend. 

 

Sadly, more violence and destruction is expected in Minneapolis this week.

 

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/cortneyobrien/2020/05/28/rush-makes-point-about-protesters-in-minneapolis-n2569607 

BOOM!!! - Donald Trump Signs Exec Order to Curb Big Tech’s ‘Unchecked Power’

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday in the White House to defend free speech on social media.

“We’re here today to defend free speech from one of the greatest dangers,” the president said, referring to the “unchecked power” wielded by social media companies in the United States.
The president signed the order in the Oval Office on Thursday.

“They’ve had unchecked power to censor restrict, edit shape hide alter virtually any form of communication between private citizens or large public audiences,” Trump said.  “There’s no precedent in American history for so small a number of corporations to control so large a sphere of interaction.”

Trump said that companies like Twitter operated under the “unprecedented liability shield” of a neutral platform which would soon change.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr attended the event and said his office would prepare legislation to restrict social media companies from pressing their particular viewpoints on their platforms rather than acting neutrally.

The president also noted that checking social media companies had become a bipartisan issue, citing Democrat support for regulation.

When reporters asked why President Trump did not delete his Twitter account in protest of the company’s decisions, he replied, “If you weren’t fake, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”

Breitbart News

Mandatory Masks Aren’t About Safety

Molly McCann for The Federalist

Mandatory Masks Aren’t About Safety, 

They’re About Social Control

To those looking to benefit politically from emergencies, COVID presents an opportunity to advance plans targeted to transform American freedom and the American way of life.

On May 26, Virginia’s Gov. Ralph Northam announced that wearing masks outside one’s home will be mandatory effective May 29. He first hinted he might issue a masking order a week ago, likely to test the water.

A new refrain in public discourse is growing in volume by the day: “Things will never be the same.” The certainty with which we are assured of this pre-determined future is perplexing. Whether or not “things” will ever be the same is not at all clear, but that some people hope things will never be the same is certain.

To those looking to benefit politically from emergencies, COVID presents an opportunity to advance plans targeted to transform American freedom and the American way of life. Mandatory-masking policies provide a valuable foundation to weaponize the virus against American liberty—now and in the future.

Demanding Freedoms Helps Ensure Them

Much of our freedom is maintained by the collective resistance of the American mood. When the Minnesota governor excluded churches from his Phase I reopening plan, Catholic and Lutheran leadership announced, through counsel, that their churches would reopen with or without the state’s blessing.

The governor’s resulting about-face was probably not due to a legal epiphany. Rather, he understood he’d pushed the envelope too far. Minnesotans wouldn’t put up with any further abuse of their religious freedoms.

Would Virginians, outside of the blue D.C. suburbs, be willing to accept a masking order? To take our freedom from us, people with anti-American agendas have to mobilize some initial quorum of consent from the population.

Masking Is Meant to Build an Opinion Cascade

Mandatory masking seeks to build that consent. In addition to extending the fiction that we are in an emergency sufficient to trigger the extra-constitutional authority of local and state executives, mandatory masking acts as a peer pressure-fueled signal that encourages conformity to our coming “new normal.”

An April 18 article in the Washington Post underscores the strategy, presenting the mask controversy as a left versus right debate. People resisting mandatory mask policies are, per usual, painted as unreasonable, headstrong, and backward—displaying ignorant American bravado while rejecting science and good sense. (That caricature is itself a tool to mock, marginalize, and silence dissent.)

The most telling passage of the article is this one:

For Trump’s supporters, declining to wear a mask is a visible way to demonstrate “that ‘I’m a Republican,’ or ‘I want businesses to start up again,’ or ‘I support the president,’ ” said Robert Kahn, a law professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis who has studied Americans’ attitudes toward masks. ‘Masks will quickly become the new normal in blue states, but if social distancing continues through 2022, the mentality among Republicans could well change, too: If I can go to work and the cost of marginal improvement in my life is wearing a mask, maybe Americans of both parties do accommodate ourselves to it.’

And that’s the key. If we want to marginally improve our lives, we will submit. The masks aren’t the endgame. The point of the masks is to teach the American people that if we want to get some sense of normal, we have to accept abnormality.

If everyone is wearing a mask, it telegraphs a society-wide acceptance that the status quo has changed, and with that consensus other changes can come, too. Society will be primed to accept measures that most normal Americans would reject in any other time. Our new normal will include a permanent expansion of the bureaucracy and alarming new COVID-related regulations.

Masks Are of Limited Benefit

The truth is you aren’t irrational or obdurate if you are skeptical about masks. The “experts” have admitted that masks’ efficacy is usually negligible. Dr. Anthony Fauci himself, in a “60 Minutes” interview early in this pandemic, dismissed masks as essentially useless.

“There is no reason to be walking around wearing a mask. When you are in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel better, and might even block a droplet,” he said with almost an eyeroll, “but it’s not providing the perfect protection people think it is, and often there are unintended consequences…”

Fauci may have changed his tune, but plenty of sensible doctors are still speaking up. Last week, a doctor in the Wall Street Journal pointed out that cloth masks—the type worn by the overwhelming majority of the population—are not very effective, echoing Fauci’s earlier admission. The WSJ author noted that even the N95 masks fall short: “They’re considered effective at blocking coronavirus particles only when they’re form fitted and tested to make sure there isn’t any leakage.”

In short, cloth masks are largely symbolic. The science hasn’t changed, but the agenda has.

Implementing mandatory mask policies across a society of 300 million because it makes some people feel better is absurd on its face. But the policy makes a lot of sense if you understand its purpose and usefulness to shift the American mindset.

Mandatory masks are a critical predicate conditioning us to accept abuses of our liberty. Mandatory masking provides the foundation on which governments continue to justify emergency measures and rule by executive fiat, and it creates a national mood of consent that America will accept indefinite government expansion because we face a “new normal.”

Molly McCann is Of Counsel with Sidney Powell, P.C. and lives and works in the Washington, D.C. metro area. In her free time, Molly is active in conservative policy and directs the Phyllis Schlafly Virginia Constitution Center, organizing events for young professionals.

Michael Flynn Judge Emmet Sullivan Needs To Recuse Himself Already

Emmet Sullivan’s order welcoming amicus curiae briefs in a criminal case would cause a reasonable person to question Judge Sullivan’s impartiality.

Margot Cleveland reporting for The Federalist

Judge Emmet Sullivan must recuse from the Michael Flynn criminal case because he no longer maintains any semblance of impartiality.

On December 1, 2017, Flynn appeared before federal Judge Randolph Contreras and pleaded guilty to one count of making a false statement to FBI agents. Less than a week later, and without explanation, the case was reassigned to Sullivan, who has served as the presiding judge in the Flynn case since then.

Circumstances have long suggested that Judge Sullivan holds an anti-Flynn bias. After all, he once intimated during court proceedings that the retired lieutenant general had committed treason.

Then, when it came time to sentence Flynn, even though the government had touted Flynn’s extraordinary cooperation with the special counsel’s office to justify a no-jail time sentence, Sullivan indicated Flynn might well serve time behind bars if sentencing proceeded as planned. Flynn accepted Sullivan’s hint and requested a continuance to allow him to complete his cooperation with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office.

The delay proved providential because it allowed Flynn a chance to seek legal counsel outside his Covington and Burling lawyers, who had a serious conflict of interest. After the special counsel’s office closed, Flynn fired his Covington and Burling attorneys and hired Sidney Powell.

Indications that Judge Sullivan held an improper bias against President Trump’s former national security advisor continued to mount as Powell pushed forward. When she sought evidence from federal prosecutors, Sullivan slapped down the entire motion in a 99-page opinion, while gratuitously suggesting Powell had unethically “plagiarized” portions of her brief.

Judge Sullivan’s response to Powell’s complaint that the government had failed to provide the original FBI interview summary also struck an odd chord for a federal judge with a reputation for requiring fastidious compliance with the Brady rule—the rule that requires the prosecution to provide a defendant material exculpatory evidence. “Sometimes throughout the best efforts, notwithstanding the best efforts of everyone, things happen, and documents are lost,” the long-time federal judge opined.

The Bias Didn’t End There

While the original 302 interview summary of Flynn’s December 2016 conversation with the Russian ambassador has yet to turn up, other evidence has as the result of the independent review of the Flynn prosecution by Missouri-based U.S. Attorney Jeff Jensen. But when Powell presented this evidence to Sullivan, rather than respond with outrage over the government’s failure to produce the material earlier, Sullivan issued a terse order directing Powell to stop filing additional materials with the court until Jensen concluded his review.

Then when the U.S. attorney’s office filed a motion to dismiss the charge against Flynn, highlighting the previously withheld evidence and explaining how it established that Flynn had not committed a crime, rather than grant that motion Sullivan announced he would accept amicus curiae, or friend of the court, briefs from outside parties concerning the propriety of dismissal.

At that point, recusal under 28 U.S.C. § 455 was arguably required. Section 455 provides that “any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” Sullivan’s order welcoming amicus curiae briefs in a criminal case would cause a reasonable person to question Judge Sullivan’s impartiality.

Declining Third Parties, Then Inviting Them

That is especially true given that when outsiders had previously attempted to file amicus curiae briefs in support of Flynn, Sullivan rejected the briefs, correctly noting that “Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure do not provide for intervention by third parties in criminal cases.”

“The Court recognizes that the movant sincerely believes that he has information to share that bears on this case, and that, understandably, he wishes to be heard,” Sullivan wrote, adding that “options exist for a private citizen to express his views about matters of public interest, but the Court’s docket is not an available option.”

But now that the government has uncovered evidence establishing the case against Flynn was concocted, Judge Sullivan welcomes “the intervention by third parties in criminal cases”?

Even if Sullivan’s order welcoming random amicus curiae into the fray didn’t cross the appearance-of-impartiality line, his order the following day appointing John Gleeson surely did. Gleeson, whom Sullivan handpicked, suggested in a Washington Post op-ed published the same day as his appointment that Sullivan should not dismiss the criminal charge against Flynn because “the record reeks of improper political influence.”

A reasonable observer would surely conclude that Sullivan’s selection of Gleeson—or at a minimum his failure to switch amicus curiae following the running of the op-ed—tells of a deep-seated bias against Flynn.

Court Asked to Make Sullivan Follow the Law

If that were still not enough under Section 455 to demand Sullivan’s recusal, the currently pending mandamus proceedings in the D.C. Circuit Court cement the conclusion that Sullivan can no longer fairly preside over the Flynn criminal case. Powell filed a petition for a writ of mandamus with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals a little over a week ago. In legal-speak, a writ of mandamus is an order by a higher court to a lower court to conform to the law. As I explained last week, “it is not an appeal, but rather a separate proceeding which challenges a judge’s conduct.”

Mandamus proceedings are rare and appellate courts routinely dismiss petitions requesting a writ of mandamus out-of-hand, with the local court rules providing that “the court may deny the petition without an answer.” Occasionally, however, an appellate court will order “the respondent” to answer the petition.”

In the normal course, the respondent would be the opposing party who benefitted from the trial judge’s allegedly extrajudicial conduct, and the appellate court would thus name the opposing party the respondent. In those cases, the court could still allow the judge or a friend-of-the court to respond, with the local rules providing that the court of appeals may invite the “trial-court judge to address the petition or may invite an amicus curiae to do so.”

But in the Flynn case, and a smattering of others, both sides to the case find the judge’s conduct inappropriate. In those situations, there is no adverse “respondent” to argue against mandamus. Under the court rules, then, the court could order an answer from the judge or an amicus. An example of the latter is found in the Fokker case that the D.C. Circuit handed down a few years ago.

The Mandamus Order Also Poisons Sullivan’s Court

The Fokker case, like the Flynn case, involved a situation where both the government and a criminal defendant agreed on the disposition of a criminal case, but the trial judge balked. After the government filed a petition for mandamus, the D.C. Circuit in Fokker appointed an outside attorney to act as an amicus curiae, then went on to grant the petition, holding that “decisions to dismiss pending criminal charges — no less than decisions to initiate charges and to identify which charges to bring — lie squarely within the ken of prosecutorial discretion.” The Fokker court, however, did not invite the trial judge to answer the petition for mandamus, allowing him to stay on the sidelines of the dispute.

But the Flynn case is different. The D.C. Circuit court ordered Sullivan to answer the petition for mandamus by June 1, 2020. The three-judge appellate panel did not invite a response—it demanded one.

By doing so, the D.C. Circuit created an adversarial relationship between Judge Sullivan and the litigants before him. Sullivan’s retention of an outside attorney, Beth Wilkinson, to represent him further highlights the combatant position in which the supposedly neutral court now finds itself. (There was nothing improper, however, in Sullivan’s hiring of Wilkinson.) There should be no question, then, that recusal is required under 28 U.S.C. § 455, which, again, mandates recusal “in proceedings in which the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”

Case Law Also Indicates Recusal Is Required

Because the Flynn case represents a sliver of the already miniscule mandamus cases meriting an answer, there is scant precedent on the recusal question. The sparse case law available, however, makes clear that recusal is required under Section 455.

In United States v. Craig, the defendants in an underlying lawsuit sought to disqualify the presiding judge, Judge Highsmith, pursuant to Section 455, “solely because he submitted a brief in response to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals’ order directing him to answer the petition for write of mandamus.” That order, like the D.C. Circuit’s order, “directed Judge Highsmith to respond within 10 days and requested that he address two specific cases.” Judge Highsmith “promptly complied” with the directive.

After the Third Circuit resolved the mandamus question, the defendants sought recusal of Judge Highsmith, and the government agreed that “the court’s impartiality might be questioned since it personally responded to defendants’ mandamus petition.” The court agree and ordered recusal, citing the Third Circuit decision in Alexander v. Primerica Holdings, Inc..

In that case, the court concluded that a judge’s letter to the petitioner rebutting allegations in a petition for writ of mandamus raised an appearance of partiality. Also cited was the Rapp v. Van Dusen decision that modified the mandamus proceedings to eliminate the need for a judge to personally answer routine petitions for writs of mandamus and thereby avoid becoming an active party in the litigation.

This case law—and common sense—mandate Judge Sullivan’s recusal.

A New Judge Will Dismiss the Case

The question of recusal, however, may soon be mooted. If the D.C. Circuit grants Flynn’s petition for mandamus and orders dismissal of the criminal case, it will almost certainly reassign the case on remand to a different judge.

The new judge will then merely execute the appellate court’s mandate, i.e., dismiss the criminal case. That approach will remove the case from Sullivan’s courtroom without forcing the appellate court to declare Sullivan in violation of Section 455.

But the recusal issue could still rear its head if the appellate court does not also nix any attempt by Sullivan to hold Flynn in criminal contempt of court for perjury; or if the long-time federal judge decides to issue a flurry of rulings before the D.C. Circuit rules on the mandamus petition. Under either of those scenarios, Sullivan’s rulings would be subject to attack based on his failure to recuse under Section 455.

We should know within a week the likely outcome of the mandamus petition and then the next steps in this long-running legal battle.

President Trump considering timelines for Afghanistan troop withdrawal

OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 9:07 AM PT — Thursday, May 28, 2020

President Trump is considering prospective scenarios for bringing American soldiers back home from Afghanistan. One America’s Hans Hubbard has more.

by William Murchison for Spectator USA

The People Speak: 

Populism and the Pandemic

“We, the people” is the phrase that comes trippingly to mind.

We, the people, over Memorial Day weekend, initiated an urgent referendum on the means and methods of battling the novel coronavirus. Early returns pour in even as we speak. We, the people of the United States, after a couple of months in a state resembling genteel captivity, seem increasingly ready to rock ’n’ roll. The markets are up sharply. The Wall Street Journal reports on the pending return of sports. Polls show respondents feeling, if not dramatically better about the state of things in general, then marginally better. Marginally ain’t bad these days, wouldn’t you agree?

Science says this; science says that. It may. Or it may not. In any cases, the architects of lockdown, shutdown, shut-your-mouth, quiet-I’m-talking may have overplayed their hand. 

I would not have the reader confuse this news with a cry of exultation. Blessed, or whatever, with the same chronology and cultural memories as Joe Biden and Tony Fauci, I mean to go sheltering more or less in place. But I am not trying to decide the question of “When are we going to beat COVID-19?” I’m suggesting the people themselves are going to decide that in their own good time, and in their own way, with a whole lot less “expert” direction than a standing army of self-appointed experts has been ladling out to us. The people are a little tired of experts, a bit impatient with how often the experts, in trying to order our coronavirus offensive, wield the word “science.” Science says this; science says that. It may. Or it may not. In any cases, the architects of lockdown, shutdown, shut-your-mouth, quiet-I’m-talking may have overplayed their hand.

To coincide with the Memorial Day referendum, Robert Reich, Bill Clinton’s Labor secretary, declared in Newsweek that “In truth, there is no good reason to reopen when the pandemic is still raging.… The pressure to reopen the economy is coming from business that want to return to profitability, and from Trump.” Got that? Profitability. Can’t have un-American stuff like that.

We have arguments at this debased and debasing level because we have politicized — in the People’s name, of course! — everything that goes on around here. Numerous public policies seem to have as their main objective political victory achieved through bribing the people — in the present case, with promises of personal safety. Many of the people, it turns out, have their attention on other things — like getting out of the house, like renewing old acquaintances and friendships, like seeing a college football game — on television if nowhere else.

We live, supposedly, in an age of revived and rejuvenated populism. We want to kick “elites” out of people’s lives: affirming personal rights and, at the same time, personal responsibilities. Me, I’d say such an outlook calls more loudly, more demandingly for calm, thoughtful guidance than for nailing people’s doors metaphorically shut so they can’t go anywhere or see anyone. It calls for the annealing properties of discussion: the search for solutions that neither deny danger nor raise so-called security to the apex of public concerns.

Maybe we start to see, in any event, the vastly harmful effects of turning life into an ongoing political referendum, a thing less desired by the people themselves than by those who want, crudely speaking, the people’s votes and, oh, yes, money.

Being better organized than the people, the vote-and-money seekers love these little set-tos. Less so the people themselves. The people, left free to exercise their rights, have a way of making up their own minds: going to the beach, by golly; booking a plane reservation; going to a restaurant.

Running other people’s lives — the perpetual province of the perpetual experts — works better in a place like Wuhan or Moscow or Tehran than one like, say, Dallas, where the right to be wrong is embedded in public thought and affection. The early 20th-century cultural critic Albert Jay Nock identified the obstacle that determined reshapers of people’s lives and outlooks always run up against. “People,” said Nock in his Memoirs of a Superfluous Man, published in 1943, “are very much what they are, and will do very much what they will do.” No matter, he would likely add today, what all the Robert Reichs in the world want them to do.

William Murchison is writing a book on moral restoration.

COPYRIGHT 2020 CREATORS.COM

First Draft WH Exec Order on Social Media Bias

Full White House Draft Exec Order on Big Tech: 

‘Functional Equivalent of Public Forum’, 

Establishes ‘Watchlists’ for Attorney General

The National Pulse

This draft is subject to alteration in the final version, and has been available on the internet for several hours.

The order explicitly calls out Big Tech companies for openly working with the Chinese Communist Party and its military.

The order pursues the long-addressed “Section 230” argument protecting Big Tech firms.

The order also calls large social media platforms “the functional equivalent of a traditional public forum” and states these firms “should not infringe on protected speech”.

The White House reveals in the EO that they received “over 16,000 complaints of online platforms censoring or otherwise taking action against users based on their political viewpoints”. The complaints system has been online since May 2019.

READ IN FULL:

Trump's Draft Executive... by Raheem Kassam on Scribd

Disclaimer: 
As a draft document, this EO may have been altered since this version was created.

Jon Schweppe, director of policy and government affairs at American Principles Project, who has repeatedly advocated for a legislative rewrite of Section 230 that would make immunity from civil liability conditional on market-dominant Big Tech platforms adhering to free speech principles, released the following statement:

“Today President Trump made it clear that his administration is committed to free speech principles, and we applaud him for that. This is a big day for those who have had their speech unfairly restricted by Big Tech platforms, which, through their market dominance, have now manifested themselves as the digital replacement to the physical public square. Given that reality, and given the political and cultural influence that affords these multinational corporations, it is of utmost importance to defend free speech values and to protect the essence of democracy itself by encouraging the platforms to observe First Amendment principles and allow the free-flowing exchange of ideas.

“Platforms have speech rights, too. Twitter, for example, is well within its rights to censor or otherwise restrict a user’s speech — even the President of the United States. But if Twitter wants to engage in that censorship, they should not be receiving a special subsidy from the federal government in the form of immunity from civil liability. Those advocating for a change to Section 230 want to establish a quid pro quo — if the American people are going to insulate these multinational corporations from legal liability, they need to at least provide a public square in return.

“While many will quibble with the details of the executive order, especially with its deference to federal agencies, the main takeaway is that this sets an important precedent for future policymaking: If market-dominant platforms aren’t interested in behaving like a public square with regard to content moderation policies, they shouldn’t receive any sort of special deal from the federal government — period.”

TIME, Names Karen Person...

TIME Names Karen Person Of The Year

May 27th, 2020

NEW YORK, NY—Time's Person of the Year issue has highlighted some of the world's most influential, important, and controversial figures for almost 100 years. After weeks of intense internal deliberation, Time Magazine has officially announced its Person of the Year: Karen. 

"Karen could be any of us. She could be all of us," said Edward Felsenthal, Editor in Chief of Time. "For years, we have been under the watchful protection of everyday heroes who are dedicated to righting all wrongs, no matter how tiny or insignificant. Today, that watchful protector has a name, and her name is Karen."   

The announcement was met with mixed reactions and fierce debate. Some Karens have celebrated the news as a huge step forward for Karen representation and human rights. Other Karens took issue with the cover photo and demanded to speak to the manager of Time Magazine. Some have questioned Time choosing Karen in 2020 after already choosing Greta Thunberg last year, who is kind of like a "climate Karen."  

Karen will be joining Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Bill Anders, and Hitler as one of the most important and newsworthy people of the last 100 years. Donald Trump supporters, outraged by Time's snub of the president, wrote letters to the editor and threatened to call the police.