Thursday, June 25, 2020

Pelosi, House Dems Response to the Monument Mob Prove Why Dems Should All Be Voted Out

 AP featured image
Article by Nick Arama in "RedState":

Every Democrats needs to be voted out if they support what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and some House Democrats said on Thursday.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said every historical statue should be “reviewed” for possible removal, even possibly those of the Founding Fathers.

From Washington Examiner:

Although Pelosi highlighted a distinction between the Founding Fathers who owned slaves and the Confederate leaders who fought for slavery, she said the U.S. should “subject everything to scrutiny.”
“I’m all for it. Let’s review this. Why are we glorifying the sins of the past?” she said. “But that doesn’t mean that because Thomas Jefferson or George Washington or others were slave owners that we should undermine what they did for our country. These Confederates — Jefferson Davis, Alexander Stephens — they committed treason against the United States in the name of slavery. I think that’s a different story.”
“But you know what? Subject everything to scrutiny and make a decision. But I do think we should do it in a safer way rather than a more dangerous way,” Pelosi said.

She would wipe away all our history if the mob was for it. She’d do anything to accede to the progressive shock troops. Shows who’s really running the party.

But her brethren went even a step further than she did.
Some of the House Democrats said that federal authorities should not intervene when mobs try to pull down statues or deface monuments. 

From Washington Examiner: 

“It’s not our role, and that this was acting locally, and people are working on it. I don’t feel the need to intervene,” Oregon Democratic Rep. Earl Blumenauer told the Washington Examiner. […]
Indiana Democratic Rep. Andre Carson, however, explained to the Washington Examiner that the process of removing the statues by government has taken too long.
“I think you have to understand that there are Democrats who are saying that there is a process to this and the process is taking place,” Carson said. “The problem is that after years and decades of critiques, and an insistence that these statues be removed, bureaucrats have refused to take these statues down, and now the people are speaking now.”
Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen told the Washington Examiner, “Monuments that celebrate those who fought to protect the institution of slavery really have no place in the public square. They need to be taken down, and I understand the sentiment to pull them down, and we need to be working with people to pull them down.”

As we’ve seen, this isn’t about slavery or racism, if that were true, they wouldn’t be ripping down statues of abolitionists, U.S. Grant and defacing those of Abraham Lincoln, black civil war veterans and World War II veterans. 

By contrast, President Donald Trump has promised that the federal government will prosecute anyone who vandalizes or tries to pull down a monument, saying that people could face up to 10 years in prison pursuant to the Veteran’s Memorial Preservation Act.

Can there be clearer choice? Protecting sanity, the country and history vs. the Marxist mob. 

It’s clear the side the Democrats have chosen. 

https://www.redstate.com/nick-arama/2020/06/25/pelosi-house-dems-prove-why-they-should-be-voted-out-with-how-they-respond-to-monument-mobs/

Explosive New FBI Notes Confirm Obama Directed Anti-Flynn Operation


Handwritten notes from fired former FBI agent Peter Strzok show that Obama himself directed key aspects of the campaign to target Flynn during a Jan. 5, 2017 meeting in the Oval Office.


Newly released notes confirm President Barack Obama’s key role in surveillance and leak operation against Michael Flynn, the incoming Trump administration national security adviser. The handwritten notes, which were first disclosed in a federal court filing made by the Department of Justice on Tuesday, show President Obama himself personally directed former FBI Director James Comey and former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates to investigate Flynn for having routine phone calls with a Russian counterpart. He also suggests they withhold information from President Trump and his key national security figures.

The handwritten notes from fired former FBI agent Peter Strzok appear to describe a Jan. 5, 2017, Oval Office meeting between Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Comey, Yates, and then-national security adviser Susan Rice. The meeting and its substance were confirmed in a bizarre Inauguration Day email Rice wrote to herself.

It was at this meeting, which was confirmed by testimony from Comey and Yates, that Obama gave guidance to key officials who would be tasked with protecting his administration’s utilization of secretly funded Clinton campaign research, which alleged Trump was involved in a treasonous plot to collude with Russia, from being discovered or stopped by the incoming administration.

Yates told the special counsel that Obama broke the news of Flynn’s phone calls with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak to her during the Jan. 5 meeting. Yates detailed further involvement from Obama. “President Obama said he wants to be sure that, as we engage with the incoming team, we are mindful to ascertain if there is any reason that we cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia,” she wrote in her email.

The new notes, which record Comey’s accounting to Strzok of the meeting’s substance, constitute definitive evidence that Obama himself was personally directing significant aspects of a criminal investigation into his political enemy’s top foreign policy adviser. An image of the notes is reproduced below. This is a rough transcript of the unredacted portion of the notes:

NSA-D-DAG = [Flynn cuts?]. Other countries
D-DAG: lean forward on [unclass?]
VP: “Logan Act”
P: These are unusual times
VP: I’ve been on the intel cmte for ten years and I never
P: Make sure you look at things + have the right people on it
P: Is there anything I shouldn’t be telling transition team?
D: Flynn –> Kislyak calls but appear legit
[illegible] Happy New Year. Yeah right



“Make sure you look at things and have the right people on it,” Obama is quoted as saying.

Comey’s description that the Flynn-Kislyak phone calls appear “legit,” shorthand for “legitimate,” is also in the notes. Until this week, this exculpatory information was withheld from Flynn and his defense team, multiple congressional committees, and the American public. A lengthy campaign to illegally leak selectively edited defamatory information through media accessories damaged the Trump administration and spurred the appointment of a special counsel to investigate anyone associated with the Trump campaign.

According to Strzok’s notes, Biden explicitly referenced the Logan Act, an 18th-century law that forbids certain political speech from private citizens. The law, even if it were constitutional, would not apply to a national security adviser for the newly elected president of the United States. Biden had previously denied that he knew anything about the investigation into Flynn.

“I know nothing about those moves to investigate Michael Flynn,” Biden said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” when George Stephanopoulos asked what he knew of the FBI’s operations in early 2017. He later admitted that statement was false.

The meeting to strategize against the Trump administration included just a few key law enforcement principals. Their testimony about what transpired is sometimes in conflict. Yates claimed Comey brought up the Logan Act while Comey claims Biden cited it. Rice claimed Obama directed that the anti-Trump operation be run “by the book,” but Comey claimed Obama even directed which personnel to use.

All parties agree, however, on the main substance of the meeting, which was a discussion of how to target Flynn for his “legit” phone calls and withhold vital national security information from the newly elected presidential administration.

Attorney General William Barr has directed an investigation into the spying and leaking operation, led by U.S. Attorney John Durham. Durham, whose investigation is ongoing, has not yet issued any indictments or any reports of his findings thus far. Barr has repeatedly stated that if Durham finds evidence of criminal wrongdoing that can be proved in a court beyond a reasonable doubt, then those responsible for the criminal acts will be held to account.

The handwritten notes from Strzok, which were included in a court filing from the Justice Department, were filed under seal by order of Emmett Sullivan, the judge overseeing Flynn’s criminal trial. The judge has ordered the documents to be hidden and has given no indication that he will ever allow all of the evidence filed by the DOJ to be publicly disclosed. When the DOJ moved to dismiss charges against Flynn, Sullivan refused to grant their request and instead appointed a shadow prosecutor to target Flynn on Sullivan’s behalf.

Following an appeal by Flynn, the top federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday ordered the judge to dismiss all charges against Flynn. That court also vacated his appointment of a shadow prosecutor to target Flynn.

Obama’s Description of Unrest Is Something Else



There are a lot of things I think about the efforts of radical leftists, claiming to care about black lives, while they use it like a shield to riot and hurt black lives, pull down statues and try to cancel anyone or anything with which they disagree.

There are a lot of things I would call it: pro-anarchy and/or Communism, radical leftist efforts at control of our system and the narrative.

One thing I don’t think I would call it would be what Barack Obama had the audacity to call it in this video as he tried to promote Joe Biden – “a great awakening.”



He then goes on with a bunch of platitudes about Biden, not pointing to anything that Biden has actually done that would make anyone want to vote for him. 

As my colleague Elizabeth Vaughn reported earlier, there was another Biden incoherent moment, where he appeared to lose track of what he was saying/reading, probably from a teleprompter and you can see Obama’s face. It’s priceless.



But what is Obama really saying about what’s going on with this “great awakening” comment? He seems to think it’s all just great. Where is any condemnation for any of the riotous actions? The murders? The attacks on cops? The ripping down of George Washington or Ulysses Grant? Completely missing. What a reminder of how empty he was during his eight years in office and how he stoked division. It’s great in his opinion, if it pushes the country further left. 

But in a case of how it’s never enough for radicals, the BLM, D.C. responded, saying Obama was “asleep” during his time in office.

But given the other news going on today, on Obamagate, with Peter Strzok’s notes adding further weight to the claim of the involvement of both Obama and Joe Biden in the effort against Gen. Michael Flynn, some on the right agreed with Obama’s term – a great awakening- just perhaps not the kind of which he thinking. People are seeing their involvement, with Obama allegedly saying “have the right people on it” and Biden mentioning the Logan Act, despite Jim Comey saying the conversations “appear legit” according to the notes. 

And yes, because of all the above, there may be a great awakening to vote to make sure that Biden never gets into the White House.

Rioters In Madison Assault State Senator, Behead Immigrant Abolitionist Monument



Violent riots in Madison, Wisconsin Tuesday night culminated in the assault of a state senator and the destruction of a statue of Hans Christian Heg, an immigrant, early prison reformer, and leader of the abolition movement.

At the start of the Civil War, Heg swiftly volunteered to fight for his adopted country. Heg led his men, all made up of volunteer immigrants, to numerous victories before he was killed by a Confederate snipers bullet. To remember his sacrifice, a statue of him was built by a fellow immigrant, overseeing his home state of Wisconsin’s capital.

Tuesday night, the statue was torn down from his watch post by hundreds of rioters who had seized control of heavy equipment. After being dragged through the streets, his head was torn off, and what was left was sunk into a lake.

It was hardly an isolated incident. The rioters also tore down a monument to progress for women personifiedthrew a Molotov Cocktail into a government building, and assaulted local state Senator Tom Carpenter, a Democrat, for taking a picture of them.



The events marks the transition of rioters attacking individuals rather than symbolic targets.

Later that night, an attempt was made on the capital building, where Carpenter was sheltering after the attack. Rioters attempted to storm the statehouse, prompting a response from law enforcement. The attackers eventually gave up and scattered.

The violence was triggered by the arrest of activist Devonere Johnson, who has been charged with disorderly conduct while armed, resisting arrest, and attempted escape. Protests, then riots, began shortly after. The situation escalated to the point that Democratic Gov. Evers, an outspoken supporter of BLM, activated the National Guard.


Republicans in state government have agreed that the action was needed, with some stating it should have been done long ago. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos today stated he was “saddened” by officials inability to act, and called on the governor to “finally do something” about the violence according to local media.

Democratic Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway of Madison has yet to make any statements about the riots. It is currently unknown exactly how much damage was inflicted.

Oregon County Issues Coronavirus Mask Mandate, But Only For White People



Lincoln County, Oregon health officials issued a mandatory mask directive last week that exempts non-white people from wearing face coverings in an effort to avoid racial profiling.



The mandate gives exceptions from the new rules for certain people and groups including “people of color who have heightened concerns about racial profiling and harassment.”

Other exemptions applied to people with pre-existing health conditions that may be bothered by a mask, children under the age of 12, and people with disabilities directly related to wearing a mask. 

The health officials also ordered that the directive only required voluntary compliance and that no one of any stature may physically or legally enforce the mandate. 

“No person shall intimidate or harass people who do not comply,” health officials said.

Trevon Logan, a black economics professor at Ohio State University, told CNNthat mask directives are “basically telling people to look dangerous given racial stereotypes that are out there.”

“It looks like almost every criminal sketch of any garden-variety black suspect,” he said.

Germany, France shore up political, financial aid to beleaguered WHO

June 25, 2020
By Stephanie Nebehay and Joseph Nasr
GENEVA/BERLIN (Reuters) – France and Germany expressed political and financial backing for the World Health Organization in its fight against the coronavirus on Thursday, with Berlin saying it would give a record half billion euros in funding and equipment this year.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the agency, criticised by the United States for being slow off the mark in tackling the pandemic, was getting the support it needed and that the talks had been “very productive”.
“We are getting today all the support we need, politically and financially. Both Germany and France are long-standing friends of WHO and global health,” Tedros told a news conference at WHO headquarters.
U.S. President Donald Trump said last month that the United States was cutting ties with the “China-centric” WHO, but he has still not formally notified the U.N. agency.
The United States is the biggest overall donor to the Geneva-based WHO, contributing more than $400 million in 2019, roughly 15% of its budget.
“Isolated national answers to international problems are doomed to fail,” German Health Minister Jens Spahn said.


He announced additional donations of funds and medical equipment to WHO that would bring Germany’s total support to 500 million euros ($561 million) this year, the “highest amount ever”, as it assumes the EU presidency.
“We need a strong, efficient, transparent and accountable WHO today more than ever,” Spahn said.
“Germany will do its part to give the WHO the political, financial and technical backing that is needed. This comes with the expectation that remaining challenges are adequately addressed and needed reforms are pushed forward.”
France said it would give 90 million euros to a WHO research centre in Lyon as well as an additional contribution of 50 million euros.
“I truly believe the world needs, more than ever, a multilateral organisation,” French Health Minister Olivier Veran said. “I believe the world cannot get rid of partners. We need a global answer (to COVID-19) and only the WHO can provide that answer.”
Infections have been reported in more than 210 countries and territories since the first cases were identified in China in December 2019.
More than 9.47 million people have been reported to have been infected by the coronavirus globally and 482,389​ have died so far, according to a Reuters tally.
“The situation in Western Europe is improving. Of course, in the rest of world the pandemic is on the increase,” Tedros said.
 European governments are working with the United States on plans to overhaul the WHO, a top European health official said last week, signalling that Europe shares some of the concerns that led Washington to say it would quit.

 France's Minister for Solidarity and Health Olivier Veran, flanked by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO) and Germany's Federal Minister of Health Jens Spahn, speaks during a news conference in Geneva, Switzerland, June 25, 2020






https://www.oann.com/germany-france-shore-up-political-financial-aid-to-beleaguered-who/

Sidney Powell Discusses Latest Flynn Developments


Michael Flynn’s defense counsel, Sidney Powell, appears on Lou Dobbs tonight to discuss the defense victory in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals; and the next steps in the case.

Ms. Powell still has legal business in front of Judge Emmet Sullivan, so she obviously needs to be a little tempered at this inflection point.  That said, what an incredible job Ms. Powell has done on behalf of her client.  Remarkable legal counsel.  WATCH:


This is not the French Revolution, it is the acting out of spoiled, ignorant and ungrateful thugs

 
Article by Patricia McCarthy in "The American Thinker":

As Americans watch some of our major cities ravaged by rioting, looting and the vandalization or destruction of monuments to our nation’s past with impunity, it is, for those of us of a certain age, a moment to reflect on the depredations of the French Revolution. But let us not be confused by the differences. 

The French Revolution took its cues from our own Revolutionary War for independence from England but theirs went all wrong.  The devastatingly poor of Paris were well and truly abused by the Parisian aristocracy.  They were treated as less than human. 

Of course, the British aristocracy thought the same of the American colonists, but they were by an ocean removed and the colonists were made of sterner stuff than the Brits sent to defeat them for England. 

The Jacqueries of France in 1789 had good reason to set about murdering their abusers and of course got rabidly carried away, killing by guillotine every member of the aristocracy they could capture as well as anyone even remotely related to them, no matter how innocent.  Sound familiar? 

Our rioters and looters of late have been gleefully knocking down statues of great or not so great men of our past with relish and abandon.  The difference is that our monument-destroyers have no clue who the bronzed and marbleized men they are tearing down were or why they were memorialized.  Sure, the Confederate generals are easy, but they are ruining countless statues of abolitionists, generals who fought against slavery, men like Gandhi and Churchill.  A woman in the UK who had defaced a statue of Churchill, when asked who he was, had no idea; none at all.

Higher education has failed two generations of university students, for that is precisely who is showing up to “burn down the whole system” as a BLM “leader” Hawk Newsome in NY told  several gushing cable news hosts.  They are going to “shove legislation down our throats.”  These violent rioters are insisting their demands be met or else!  Or else? 

It seems they actually think that 300+ million people are going to kneel down and cave to their accusations of racism when in fact this is the least racist nation on the planet.  Unlike the French Revolution when masses of truly impoverished people rebelled against their self-appointed betters, this time, here in 2020, it is the self-appointed elites who are inciting the protesters for their own ends, their principal goal being to defeat President Trump.
  
Black Lives Matter and Antifa are well-funded Marxist groups whose intentions are absolutely to burn down America as founded.  They are merely the latest incarnations of SDS and the Weather Underground and all the other sundry narcissistic anti-American organizations that see themselves as leading this century’s cultural revolution.
  
They’ve not been taught how badly these enterprises can end.  Robespierre? Stalin? Mao?  Who are they?
  
As for men like Churchill, Eisenhower and Reagan who saved Western Civilization, these anarchists know nothing.  They only know they want to tear it all down because this country is so racist, so inequitable. The fact that our African Americans, like all Americans, immigrant or native born, have a better quality of life here than in any other country is not at all relevant to these malcontents. They thrive on anger.  It’s how they’ve been taught to see their world, as perennial victims. 

Identity politics has ruined the lives of all those who buy into this nonsense.  For this we must blame the academics, who have so determinedly inculcated  their students with either a victim mentality or a guilty-white-privilege mentality, and the parents who raised kids who were so unable to think critically they were easily indoctrinated with these late 20th century maladies that have so damaged the American psyche.
  
It is tragically clear that the childish “leaders” of CHAZ/CHOP in Seattle, of the anti-police movement, the monument-destroying thugs and the rest of the idle young who lack an ounce of gratitude for being born in the greatest nation ever founded are characterized by one thing above all:  ignorance.  This includes the idiot mayors and governors who support and defend these dissidents who take their cities hostage as they prostrate themselves before them.
   
The delicious schadenfreude in all this is that among the violent protesters there are no truckers, plumbers, electricians, mechanics, pharmacists, doctors, police, fire-fighters, grocery store workers, and other salt of the earth Americans. Those people are busy keeping the rest of us up and running.  They did not attend a prestigious university that taught them to hate the country of their birth or choice.  They do feel gratitude for the blessings this country affords them.  They are our heroes. 

As for the academics who inculcate anger and rage in their privileged students year after year, we should have contempt for them.  As for the poor, ignorant and fatherless young people condemned to failing schools in Democrat-run cities who naturally succumb to the drug, gang, and crime culture promulgated by their elected officials, they are the tools of the Democrats who think their acting out will defeat Trump.  The Democrats are shameless abusers of their most vulnerable supporters that they take for granted.
The French people who rightfully, in the beginning, revolted against their oppressors, became like them in the end, murderous and callous in their lust for the guillotined heads of the ruling class that had so demeaned them.  Our violent protesters are intent upon erasing vestiges of America’s past.  They are like spoiled children playing at a war they cannot and will not win.  

President Trump has so far left dealing with these minor but dangerous bullies to the Democrat mayors and governors who have given them free rein. If these wanna-be tyrants continue on their path of mindless destruction, he may have to act.  The Dems are praying for a police or military intervention, a few dead at the hand of the National Guard, perhaps a Kent State redux.

Make no mistake; actual lives do not matter to the left, no matter what their race, class or gender.   Our American Democrats, like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, are an unrepentant bunch of pols.  If dead Americans serve their purpose, they are all in.
  
On Wednesday, Nancy Pelosi accused the Republicans of murdering George Floyd!  How rich is that?  Even that Minneapolis cop is a Democrat as is the governor, mayor and all but five of Minnesota’s federal elected representatives.  The America-hating Ilhan Omar is in favor of disbanding the city’s police force.  That is not going well, as any ten-year old might have predicted.

We are not seeing a repeat of the French Revolution; not at all, no matter how righteous this band of rioters think they are.  We are seeing something similar to what characterized the 1960s, even as the Republicans passed the Civil Rights laws against Democrat opposition.  Domestic terrorists were the order of the day then; rich white people like Tom Hayden and Bill Ayers and their pals riled up the college students of yore in 1968 and Nixon was elected in a landslide.

The people orchestrating the current violent and non-violent protests are users and abusers.  The people they recruit (and often pay) to riot are not the victims of a classist aristocracy but of the ever-racist and power-mad Democrat party.  

President Trump hosts Polish President Duda at White House

OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 4:55 PM PT — Wednesday, June 24, 2020
According to President Trump, the U.S. has never been closer to Poland than it is right now. He welcomed President Andrzej Duda to the White House this week.
During a meeting in the Oval Office, the president called his Polish counterpart a friend and added the U.S. works very well with the country.
He also noted Duda is the first foreign leader to visit the White House since the COVID-19 pandemic began.
“I think it’s a great honor. Poland’s a country we have a tremendous relationship with and I have a very good personal relationship with the president. This is the first after COVID, after the start of the plague, as I call it. It’s an honor to have you here.” – Donald Trump, 45th President of the United States








 For his part, Duda said it was an honor and privilege to be the first foreign head of state to be at the White House since the pandemic began.


 President Donald Trump meets with Polish President Andrzej Duda in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, June 24, 2020, in Washington, as Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo listen.



FBI Director Chris Wray Conducts Climate Assessment ‘Sensing Session’ With Brett Baier


”because I’m good enough; I’m strong enough; and doggone it, people like me.”

That’s the kitchen table sensibility as projected by FBI Director Christopher Wray in this interview. It’s a communication style blending the modern term “corporate responsibility” with the patronizing mannerisms of a dad discussing sixth grade peer pressure with his tender gender-neutral offspring.

This is actually a very revealing interview to understand why 50 FBI agents chased the Russian conspiracy for two years with Robert Mueller; and why 15 FBI agents excitedly responded to a garage door pull-down rope. The emphasis is on the wrong syllable, but golly we only have a 0.4 percent turnover ratio, so we must be doing something right.

I’ve actually met a Chris Wray clone in the past. While culling a tier of toxic executive management, the CEO voice in the organization said to me: “what if you fire all of them and later find out you’re wrong?” To which I replied: “what’s more dangerous to you, my firing them and being wrong, or you keeping them around and my being right?”…

Director Wray is the guy who doesn’t deal with the toxic infection, instead he uses words like: “we have an opportunity”, “they need to be supported more”; and “I challenge you to provide continuous coaching.” Note at 09:45 Wray says “I put in place an entire new leadership team”, without even realizing that Bill Barr just removed -by force- Wray’s hand-selected chief legal counsel, Dana Boente. It doesn’t even register with him.


Chris Wray’s performance as FBI Director is akin to what would happen if you took a hotel manager and made him the captain of a cruise ship. 



Leftist violence is closing the American mind

 Political Cartoons by Michael Ramirez
Article written by Sheldon Karasik in "The American Thinker":

The latest victim of weeks of violence, which has led cities like Seattle to act as if they were the Navajo Nation, is not just decimated cities, but an open mind.

The Far Left — i.e., the mainstream Democratic Party — is now endorsing yet another assault on our freedom — book-burning.  In 1933, students in Berlin set on fire roughly 25,000 great works, including, among others, those of Franz Kafka, Heinrich Heine, and Thomas Mann.  Such works did not comport with the state-imposed ideology.  We are now witnessing another totalitarian effort, likely to be imposed, if not through legislation, then at least through political arm-twisting and concomitant socioeconomic pressure, to control what we read, think, and believe.

The first step is removing any artistic work, whatever the medium, be it film, literature, art, or otherwise, whose depiction of blacks is anything but respectful.  By such logic, we must ban Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (The Prioress's story tells of a Christian child murdered by Jews), Marlowe's The Jew of Malta (self-explanatory) Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice (we all remember Shylock), and Dickens's Oliver Twist (for those who forgot, Fagin was a Jew).  This is merely the tip of the iceberg.  We will then cull our artistic heritage and identify and ban every work critical of or offensive to American Indians, illegals, gays, the elderly, secularists, and any other self-identifying subgroup spawned by our obsession with identity politics.  One of the first victims of this purge will be the Bible.  God just didn't have the politically correct view of homosexuality and free love.  He was certainly too critical of Sodom and Gomorrah.  Remember the origin of the word "sodomy"?  I would like to believe that when all of this were said and done, we would still have comic books to read, but I suspect that our superheroes were far too dismissive of the rights of the villains they slew.  After all, weren't the superheroes racially profiling the Black Manta?

What are the underlying assumptions behind this lunacy?  First, the cultural Gestapo believes we are all too gullible and far too stupid to form our own judgments of right and wrong.  We shouldn't, for example, be able to see the film The Help because, despite its sympathetic portrayal of blacks, moviegoers will believe that the entire race is fit only to cook and clean for whites.  We are also wholly incapable of appreciating irony, innuendo, or subtlety in an artistic work or delving beneath the surface to appreciate artistic intent.

Second, no matter how brilliant an artistic creation may be, it is fatally flawed if it fails to treat any self-identifying group with the respect it deserves, not as human beings, but as members of that subgroup.  One cannot produce a great artistic work unless he — wait, that pronoun is per se prejudicial; it should be "heshe" — treats even possible affected classification with due deference.  Judged by this standard, all great artistic creations will fall short.

Third, we no longer identify in this country as Americans.  We no longer see ourselves as one or define our greatness through our bonds with our fellow citizens.  Instead, we have allowed our obsession with over-indulging the sensitivities of those who prefer to identify as different to deny the rights and freedoms of the majority.  Indeed, in this warped way, there is no longer a majority — and that is the beauty of it. We are not linked by our commonality; we are divided by artificial differences.  Our overzealous desire to protect our separateness has indeed separated us completely.

Therefore, because we are all so special and needy in our separateness, no artistic creation can be permitted to offend our separate identities.  Our selfhood has become defined by our difference.  A black man is only black; he can have no beliefs or even thoughts that aren't informed by his black identity.  We are all merely a small part of a human being, and that part needs special care because offending that "specialness" kills us at our barren core.

 https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/06/leftist_violence_is_closing_the_american_mind.html

Strzok Notes Indicate Obama/Biden Involvement in Targeting Flynn


In a court filing yesterday [pdf here] the DOJ provided -initially under seal- the Flynn defense team with more exculpatory evidence.  The filing includes hand-written notes taken by FBI agent Peter Strzok in/around key dates in early January 2017.

The filing was unsealed today, and the Peter Strzok notes are released.


One of the reasons CTH has been slow on discussing this release is specifically because I am trying to accurately determine the provenance of the notes (as below).  USAO Jeff Jensen is unsure of the exact date of the notes.  Either January 3rd, 4th, or 5th… and there’s a good reason for that confusing ambiguity; which I am attempting to filter.

The notes are written by Peter Strzok during a conversation with former FBI Director James Comey; that context is important.  What the notes contain are Peter Strzok writing down what Comey relays to him from conversations with White House officials.

Repeat: The notes are Strzok writing down what Comey relays to him from conversations with the White House.   Comey is communicating to Strzok the status of opinion from various officials; those officials may include President Obama and Vice-President Biden.

However,… it also seems likely from CTH research files that some of the instructions (as written by Strzok) are passing through former ODNI James Clapper; who was in frequent contact with Comey on the key dates within the discussion.
So let me try to make sense of this.

James Comey was not in the room with Obama and/or Biden until January 5, 2017, the date of the Susan Rice memo.  The best guess on the date these notes were written is January 4, 2017, specifically because that’s the date when Strzok is telling his FBI counterpart not to close the Flynn case; and he says “The 7th Floor is involved”, which means James Comey.

We know Comey and Clapper were in conversation on January 3rd and 4th; and Comey provided the “CR cuts” (Flynn is Crossfire Razor “CR”) to Clapper on one of those dates.

The cuts are the rough draft transcript from Flynn’s intercepted phone calls with Russian Ambassador Kislyak.  Clapper used copies of the CR cuts to brief President Obama.
Comey would have received the CR cuts from Peter Strzok; and then passed them along to Clapper for use in the White House briefing.  Clapper would then be relaying information back to Comey about the White House position on their Flynn concerns.

The most likely scenario is that Clapper informed Comey about the White House position; and then Comey shared that information with Peter Strzok who is taking notes:


Agent Strzoks handwriting is terrible, and there are big blocks of redacted information.
A plausible rough transcript? [Via Stephen McIntyre]


Again, the background of these notes appears to be Comey relaying information to Peter Strzok about what the White House position is following their reception of the CR cuts. I do not believe Obama and Biden have talked to Comey. Instead the most likely scenario is DNI James Clapper relaying to Comey… who then relays to Strzok.

If my researched position is accurate, the day after these notes, January 5, 2017, Comey then meets with Obama and Biden as scheduled to discuss the Intelligence Community Assessment report that was previously requested by the White House.

It is from that January 5th meeting when the pull-aside took place with Obama, Biden, Rice, Yates, Clapper and Comey.

Jeff Jensen’s cover filing leaves open the slight possibility that Strzok’s notes were taken after the January 5th meeting.  However, I do not see that as likely at all.  The Strzok notes are connected to his LYNC instant messaging on January 4th:


Those instant messages were most likely relayed *AFTER* the conversation with James Comey. ie after “7th floor involved”.  So I would put the date of those notes as early to mid-morning January 4th.

It would look like this:

♦ January 3rd –  Comey asks Strzok to give him the “tech cuts” or “CR cuts” from the intercepted communication between Flynn and Kislyak.  Comey then gives copies (plural) to Clapper upon his request.   Clapper then goes to brief the White House.


♦ January 4th – After briefing the White House Clapper calls back to James Comey (or meets in person) to relay the position of the White House.  This is the substantive information that James Comey then relays to Peter Strzok as Comey tells Strzok: (a) what the White House response was to the CR Cuts; and (b) where to go from that moment.
Strzok then quickly responds by stopping the FBI Washington Field Office from closing the Flynn case as noted in the instant messages above.

♦ January 5th – Comey goes to the White House.

However, I’m also comfortable going to go out on a limb here… ready?

My hunch is these notes are FBI Agent Peter Strzok’s CYA memo for the targeting of Lt. General Michael Flynn.

  • Comey’s memos were Comey’s CYA.
  • Susan Rice’s memo was the White House CYA.
  • I now believe Strzok’s notes are Peter Strzoks’ CYA.

Everyone involved knew the targeting of incoming National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was sketchy at best, seriously political, and potentially unlawful at worst.

The issue was so tenuous, the entire basis for the pull-aside meeting on January 5th was President Obama creating plausible deniability after James Clapper infected the White House with a document trail in the form of the CR Cuts.

Once DNI James Clapper briefed Obama and Biden on the Flynn intercepts, the White House now lost plausible deniability for their knowledge of Flynn being investigated.  The January 5th instructions to James Comey was purposefully the Obama/Biden White House cleaning up that potentially explosive issue.  Everyone was covering their ass.

The outcome of DNI Clapper briefing President Obama, with what Deputy Director Andrew McCabe described as “a summary document” that wasn’t an official “intelligence product”, was the White House now being officially informed of an open FBI investigation against incoming NSA Michael Flynn.  The White House was now infected with knowledge of the investigation…. and that could be a potential problem later on.

The knowledge of an investigation into the incoming administration; and the document trail created by Clapper/Comey; created a need for President Obama to have the pull-aside meeting with FBI Director James Comey the next day, January 5, 2017.

The purpose of the meeting was to create distance from an explosive & political issue.  The outgoing administration needed distance from James Comey.  Everything written in Susan Rice’s memo about the meeting is specifically worded to create that distance.

Susan Rice writes: “The President stressed that he is not asking about, initiating or instructing anything from a law enforcement perspective”, adding three times that President Obama instructed Comey to handle everything “by the book.”   In essence the way Susan Rice framed the conversation was to place James Comey as specifically responsible for anything that happens.

Now, FBI Director James Comey isn’t stupid, and he would have immediately picked up on how he was being positioned outside the protective wire and completely on his own.  Being a very political FBI Director, Comey would know exactly what the purpose of these specific words and instructions from the President implied.


Rice’s memo, written with the advice of White House counsel, is specifically worded to create distance.  You might say the White House was leaving Comey holding the proverbial bag; and setting him up to be the ‘fall guy‘ if things went sideways.

This is the point where we need to put ourselves in Comey’s very political shoes.  Comey knows the purpose of that meeting.  Comey also knows essentially Obama is saying he didn’t authorize an investigation of Flynn and Obama is not going to protect Comey.

So what exactly was Comey tasked to do on behalf of the White House?

The only thing (provable) the FBI was specifically tasked to do was find out the reason for Russia’s behavior or lack thereof.  That’s it.  Comey carried authority to produce the intercepted “tech cuts”; and as an outcome of the task share them with DNI Clapper. But that’s the end of the White House/DNI tasking authority to the FBI against Flynn.

Director Comey was not tasked, authorized or requested to produce a transcript of the intercepted phone call; and he was not tasked to do anything else with it.  From the perspective of Obama, Comey’s task was complete January 5th, anything more is on him.

The lack of investigative authority toward Flynn is a key point to consider as we look at the internal FBI debate.  Remember, the day before the Obama/Comey conversation the FBI investigators had already determined there was “no derogatory information” and they were going to close the investigation.  Additionally, there was nothing of issue within the Flynn-Kislyak call content itself.

Anything, including legal risk from an abuse of power, after that January 5th meeting was now completely on Director Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s shoulders.

With that in mind, the debate with FBI Director of Counterintelligence Bill Priestap, and the January 23/24, 2017, meetings where Priestap is taking notes of conversations with Comey and McCabe, take on a new and narrow focus.

As Priestap took notes about his original concerns: “what is our goal?”
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