“Data Breach” Weaponized Against People Who Support the US Constitution (Kyle Rittenhouse)

posted by Sundance at Conservative TreeHouse

A story in The Hill highlights a “data breach” in the Christian donation site GiveSendGo and how that data breach is being weaponized against people who support the standard of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ in the Wisconsin case against Kyle Rittenhouse.   You can read the article HERE, but what I would draw attention toward is not the details of the people being targeted, but rather the process behind the “data breach.”

We have talked about the weaponization of metadata for several years on this website.  Factually we know with certainty that political operatives within the national security apparatus illegally exploit their access to the FBI and NSA database, the totality of all electronic communication, amid Americans.

The NSA has made those factual admissions to the FISA court who are supposed to be the backstop to protect the fourth amendment privacy of our nation.

The fact that no-one has ever been held legally accountable for violating the law and extracting the personal information of U.S. citizens shows how eroded the constitutional protections really are.  Not a single person has ever been arrested or convicted for exploiting their access… so why would it stop?  Short answer: it hasn’t.

As a result every time I read a story that says a “data breach’ is being weaponized for political benefit, my immediate reaction is now to dismiss the oft claimed “hackers” and focus on the most likely source of privacy weaponization: the known and intentional intrusion by government officials and contractors.

It only makes sense that an ideologically aligned donation site to support patriots would be considered a high value target for exploitation by political operatives who need a system to weaponized against their enemy, wrong-thinking Americans.   Is this “data breach” just another example of that?  The answer is most likely, yes.  If you need another frame of reference think about the admitted IRS target list of conservative donors to Tea Party groups.  Another undeniable and factual example that led the IRS to settle a class action lawsuit.

However, beyond the initial value of targeting donors there is another facet that is even more important to contemplate.  Targeting donors is actually small ball, stopping Americans from donating to groups and individuals fighting against the deep state is a bigger goal.   If these individuals can put fear into Americans that their financial support can lead to targeting, well, that financial support might just stop…. THAT is their bigger goal.

With all of that in mind these are not just “data breaches”, these are battles within the ideological war that need to be adequately contemplated.  Who will stand?  Who will remain in the fight?  Who will put themselves ‘out there’, remain courageous, remain strong in the face of the administrative state?

“We mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor”…

The Declaration of Independence – […] “There is no doubt that the signers of the Declaration knew they were up to something far more serious than making a brave gesture when they put their signatures on the document. Indeed, for reasons of security, the Declaration with the signatures was not published until January, 1777—six months after the signing—for it was fully understood that if the Revolution failed, the signers would be rounded up, their property confiscated, and their lives forfeited.

As it happened, Washington’s victory at Trenton the day after Christmas in 1776, and his defeat of Cornwallis at Princeton a week later, turned the tide, and the Declaration was published with all the signatures. (link)

Steadfast doesn’t mean when it’s easy; the term has no meaning when things are working according to our own convenient interests.

Steadfast means standing strong when it’s challenging, difficult and unnerving. Just as courage is not the absence of fear, rather it is taking action despite being fearful; so too is steadfast a decision.

Often when things are disconcerting, we retreat to the place where we are comfortable. However, steadfast is unwavering despite the obstacles and difficulties. When we don’t hold the words to comfort the grieved, yet we show up and sit quietly just to eliminate loneliness, that is a steadfast commitment.

When we see adversity on the face of another, and we choose to engage with our time and comfort, that is a steadfast decision.

When CTH was formed, it was a small assembly of misfits who were not fearless, but brave enough to be comfortable within our discomfort.  We knew we had to look deeply at the issues which face us. We remind ourselves that ‘truth has no agenda‘ & truth exists despite our feelings of the subject matter. The core elements of CTH are based on this principle of remaining steadfast amid the face of adversity, national, political or even personal.

The CTH armory is insightful, wise and often purposeful; but this assembly is foremost a fellowship. A steadfast decision to stand together and figure out how all of these intense subjects, issues and events interact, influence and ultimately impact our lives.

Right now our nation is facing a time of extreme trepidation. Nerves are frayed, emotions are raw and individually we find our compass spinning in a way that destabilizes us. Into this climate the originating value of our core assembly becomes critical. CTH remains steadfast & committed to the best hopes and solutions within us. We strive with purpose.

Each day for over a decade we begin with a simple prayer. We host a candle for those who need prayers and support, and we engage purposefully with the intent to cherish the value, wisdom and skills that each unique person brings to the subject matter being discussed.

My personal commitment toward that end has been to remain steadfast and unwavering in defense of this little corner of the internet. To maintain a place where facts can be discovered, truth can be unearthed and honest discussion/opinion can be afforded.

President Donald J Trump represented ‘We The People‘, and as a consequence those within this corrupt system viewed his appearances with the same dismissive outlook they carry toward those who voted for him.

They want to destroy us, so they need to destroy him. They want to destroy our faith, so they need to destroy hope.

They will fail so long as we remain steadfast.

CTH (The Last Refuge) was founded upon this acceptance long before Donald Trump became president in 2016; and the actions by both wings of the UniParty congress over the past five years have been clear evidence of what we always knew was present.

Our current national challenge is to figure out a way to confront this dynamic and then deal with it. However, we must deal with it in a way that does not destroy the founding principles of our constitutional republic. There are many disappointments around us, but we must remain strong and purposeful with any chosen direction. Misplaced corrective action regardless of intent is neither prudent nor wise.

Above all, those who understand the larger issues must remain united and hold a sense of fellowship toward each-other if we are to overcome the challenges.

Right now everything around us seems less focused on the pursuit of happiness and more focused on what happiness we are missing. At the heart of that anxiety is this sense of foreboding. A choking sense of fear and worry; a sense of trepidation. Faith in a loving and purposeful God is now more important than ever, embrace it – share it.

This moment in history is where each person of strength holds a higher level of influence, and we should engage in the lives of others to show that strength. Right now people around you are looking for courage, optimism and hope. If you do not provide that to your family, friends and community, you allow the alternative, despair, to take root.

Despair is the foreboding outcome of the evil systems that create it. Recognize despair when you see it, intercept it and eliminate it when you can… AND you always can. Tend to the flickering flame of liberty & teach others, especially our youth, the skills to defend it.

Do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. We are a majority nation of liberty loving independent and free-thinking people; born under a compact to allow each to live their lives according to their own purpose. They control the mechanisms by which we can identify the scale of our assembly.

Often I use the metaphor of Poland in the early 1980’s to describe where we are in 2021 America.  It was a visit by Pope John Paul, and later Ronald Reagan, that took millions to the streets and suddenly they realized: “hey, there are more of us than them”… and things immediately began to change.   Similar to the former Soviet-era control systems, the intent of the modern Big Tech control effort is to crush the reality of our majority position.

We are the majority….

Do not abdicate the duty to protect individual liberty to anyone except yourself. Your dreams are unique to you.

Stay strong for your family…

Stay strong for your community….

Stay strong for our nation… We need each-other.

Steadfast,… and I mean it!

~ Sundance

A Billion Ripples of Freedom

From these multitudinous daily acts of dissent shall come a billion ripples of freedom that will level the Left’s crony socialist dunghill.

by Thaddeus G. McCotter for American Greatness

Last week we examined “woke” corporate extortionists and their new business model, wherein it makes financial sense to align with the Left against the center and the Right, even when said position opposes a majoritarian consensus among the electorate. 

A lemming-like alignment with “woke” goals benefits corporations for a number of reasons: the avoidance of leftist boycotts, proxy issues, and coordinated negative media; the prospect of governmental rewards, such as tax breaks, subsidies, and other legislative favors from the crony socialist Democratic Party; support (or at least apathy) from their elitist peers and the international globalist community; and, critically, international revenue streams, most notably from genocidal communist China. 

While not an exhaustive list, we have limned the outlines of the problem; and conclude that woke corporate extortion is less about virtue signaling than it is about rent-seeking. Regrettably, it is as good for their bottom line as it is bad for our free republic. For this reason, especially, it should concern every American. 

Fighting Back Against Corporate Overreach

What can be done to end woke corporate extortion?

Since the initial article appeared, woke corporate extortionists have issued a nebulous manifesto regarding the franchise that states must obey—or else. In coordination, the corporate media has endeavored to coerce compliance from dissenting corporations. 

On a brighter note, defenders of our free republic have begun fashioning solutions to end woke corporate extortion. Ned Ryun of American Majority (and an American Greatness regular) is a leader in this fight who has advocated measures including the elimination of tax breaks, special exemptions, the banning of imports produced in whole or in part by forced and/or enslaved labor, and moving our supply chains and American jobs back home from nations antithetical to liberty, such as genocidal Communist China. Republican politicians should take note, too, as there is strong evidence that such measures are widely supported by their constitutents.

Further, there are calls for organized boycotts; divesting from woke corporations; and for the proxy voting reforms to protect the interests of retirees and other shareholders from being hijacked by leftists who, despite their fiduciary duty, claim a “higher duty” to use and diminish other people’s hard-earned money to advance their political aims on behalf of “stakeholders” (read, “their lefty cohorts”), all the while getting their victims to pay for it.

Other right-of-center populists have gone further, either softening their opposition to or, in some cases, joining with Progressive populists to support anti-corporate measures, including: increased corporate tax rates; monopoly taxes that increase with the size of the corporation and its market share; and capping of corporate CEO pay. Some of these measures may prove counterproductive, and it pays to remember not every enterprise engages in woke corporate extortion. It is also true that as we must never become what we denounce, one must never harm the innocent to punish the guilty.

In addition to abiding by and honoring our principles, there is the eminently practical aspect of not reducing the size of any potential coalition against woke corporate extortion.

Depoliticizing the Free Market

Yet, regardless of which solutions one finds appealing, the crux of the issue remains how best to adversely affect the bottom lines of woke corporate extortionists; end their extortionate behavior; and return them to apolitical engines for Americans’ prosperity. As noted above, this must be viewed through a prism of practicality—one that realizes the difficulty of the challenge and recognizes the Right’s antipathy for using the free market to accomplish political goals.

First, the philosophical concern about using the free market to accomplish political goals is easily answered. It is the woke crew that has injected their politics into the free market and yoked corporations to their radical agenda. To engage in measures to oppose woke corporate extortion is not to politicize the free market; it is to depoliticize the free market. 

Further, one is not using the free market to quash the democratic decisions of legislatures and their sovereign citizens; one is defending the democratic decisions—be they favored by the Right or the Left—of legislatures and sovereign citizens. (For example, compare and contrast the 2019 corporate and media responses to Georgia’s fetal heartbeat law and New York’s “Reproductive Health Act.”) In point of fact, then, refusing to battle woke corporate is to support the Left’s continued politicizing and, ultimately, devolving of our free market into a socialist oligarchy.

In truth, the greatest hurdle for an individual who wants to defend liberty against woke corporate extortion is not the Left, per se. It is the enormity of the task—an enormity the Left, woke corporate extortionists, and their media cohorts are constantly propagandizing to demoralize the defenders of our free republic. Their narrative is simple and aims to prey upon our fears of being overwhelmed by the inevitable: How can one person really make a difference—let alone level—this Leftist dung heap of crony socialism?

Dozens of Daily Acts of Dissent

You can do it through a daily act of dissent.

One person is not expected to overcome the Left’s concentration of governmental, corporate, and media power and wealth. After all, a singular leftist didn’t build their socialist dung hill alone or overnight. Neither will there be a singular solution to leveling the Left’s socialist dunghill and ending woke corporate extortion.

But whether you act as an individual or in conjunction with your fellow defenders of our free republic, you can make a difference every day through an act of dissent of your choosing. (The task has even been made less onerous for us because, in its hubris, the Left has provided lists of companies engaged and not engaged in woke corporate extortion.) 

One needn’t possess Biblical amounts of willpower to make a difference. One needn’t feel guilty about not being able to stop buying all the products one wants or, worse, one may need. One can make a difference by switching brands where feasible and desirable or simply by using less of the offending products. You don’t have a magic wand, but you have a magic mouse—one that can click on products not made by woke corporate extortionists, or order fewer of them. 

Equally, one can shop locally rather than from major corporations. Despite the best efforts of the lockdown governors and their lemmings, small business remains the backbone of our economy. Now more than ever, they need our patronage. And the owners, no matter their politics, will not be able to personally extort a state. 

Whatever means by which one can dissent, in a grand irony defending the free market will be accomplished by the very means through which the wisdom of the free market works: the culmination of individual decisions freely made. From these multitudinous daily acts of dissent shall come a billion ripples of freedom that will level the Left’s crony socialist dunghill; decimate the bottom lines and jeopardize the jobs of the woke corporate extortionists; and, most importantly, protect and promote the sovereignty of all citizens within our free republic. 

Paying a Price for Criminal Actions: a Lesson We Might Need to Relearn

by Shipwreckedcrew for RedState

I stumbled across this little “slice of life” video that is bouncing around Twitter today. You’ll certainly want to have the volume turned up in order to receive the full entertainment value.

Clearly, this gentleman has some skills and/or training in the art of unarmed self-defense. Everything he does is consistent with a well-trained response. He first gives ground in reaction to the threat, evaluates his situation and his alternatives, and then acts with speed and overwhelming physical violence to neutralize the immediate threat and the secondary threat. Then, rather than pursue into circumstances he’s unsure about, he lets them go in favor of ground he can defend if necessary, making sure the gun is left behind.

Among the thoughts that occurred to me after watching this was, “If only Kim Potter’s partner on the Brooklyn Center Police Department had responded similarly when Daunte Wright created a threat by re-entering his car with an intention to drive off, Wright would still be alive and Potter would not be facing manslaughter charges.”

Wright was not a large person. Tall, but pretty slight of build.

Would the events of that afternoon have worked out differently if, rather than the “let’s be respectful of the suspect’s sensibilities” approach to policing, the male officer was empowered by law and his training to handle Wright in the manner the citizen in the Twitter video handled the individual who confronted him with a gun in order to rob him?

I could be wrong in my analysis given that we only have this one video, but it seems to me that the officer working with Potter had the physical capability of simply jerking Wright out of the car and throwing him to the ground in the same fashion that we see in the first video. Is this a kind of policing we are able to tolerate as a society in response to threats, if it meant there would be fewer Daunte Wright-style shootings?

I’m talking about non-lethal force here, but force that could nevertheless cause injury to the suspect. I don’t know if its the right thing to do, but in my opinion, it’s better than the current trend towards the nonsensical babble we heard from Minneapolis Police Chief Arredondo about “sanctity of life and the protection of the public” being the two pillars for the Minneapolis Police “Use of Force” policy.

Including suspects like Daunte Wright as part of “the public” in that policy only deprives the police of the ability to bring dangerous situations to a fast and certain conclusion — short of using deadly force. It would be hard to argue that having a police officer deal with Wright — AFTER he got back into his car — in the same manner as the citizen dealt with the armed robber wouldn’t fit within the “protection of the public” aspect of the current policy.

But should that be the policy that’s applied to suspects like Wright AFTER he made himself a threat to the officers and the public by re-entering his car? Or should the officers have had the authority to do exactly what the citizen did to the armed robber — yank Wright out of the car with pure brute physical force and slam him to the ground to control him?

He’d still be alive.

Would there be fewer incidents like this next one, where the police officer was killed after an interminable “debate” with the driver about whether he needed to get out of his car?

That video is important and should be required viewing for all who are so critical of the two officers in Windsor, Virginia, who encountered Lt. Caron Nazario and had to decide on how to respond to his unwillingness to follow their lawful commands to step out of his vehicle.

Keep in mind that they followed Nazario with their lights and sirens activated for a minute and 45 seconds before he finally pulled into the gas station because he wanted to stop in a well-lit area.  That justification is fine, but the two officers are unaware of that — or what he was doing inside his vehicle for the 1:45 he refused to pull over, while he had a lawful obligation to do so in response to their emergency lights.

Narzario’s decision to keep driving out of “fear” of stopping in a dark area escalated the “fear” of the officers about what the occupant of the SUV might be doing inside, while he was refusing to comply with his lawful obligation to pull over and stop in response to their lights.

The idea that has taken root that citizens have some right to debate with police the legitimacy of their exercise of police powers while they are doing so is at the core of the increasingly confrontational relationship between the police and the public. The law does not countenance that debate while police powers are being exercised. Save the debate for later when you file a complaint with the Department of Civilian Review Board, or in a civil lawsuit for violation of your rights.

Debating police on the streets, when tension and fear are high on both sides, is a recipe for disaster — and we’re seeing the results of that volatile mix far too frequently.

BOTH sides need to calm down. But in the current environment, the fear on the part of each is only ratcheting up the fear of the other.

Less policing doesn’t mean less violence. It’s just the opposite.

There is a plentiful and populous segment of our society that is happy to prey on and live off the goods and belongings of others. Less policing simply makes their “job” in that regard easier and will draw even larger numbers into such a lifestyle.

Stealing what you want and need is much easier, and takes far less time and far less effort than working for the same. Less policing means more crime, and more crime means more violence.

This is not complicated.

“We Need China” – Biden’s Presumptive Ambassador

“We Need China” – Biden’s Presumptive Ambassador Worked At A CCP-Linked Consulting Firm, And A Harvard Group Advising China’s Military.

Natalie Winters reporting for The National Pulse

President Biden’s presumptive Ambassador to China – Nick Burns – is a former adviser to a consulting firm employing Chinese Communist Party officials, a board member of a Harvard University program collaborating with China’s military, and a contributor to Chinese state-run media outlets.

While corporate news media outlets refer to Burns as a “career diplomat,” he is in fact more like a career Chinese Communist Party apparatchik, The National Pulse can exclusively reveal.

Prior to joining Team Biden, Burns served as a Senior Counselor at the Cohen Group, a consulting firm founded by Bill Clinton-era Defense Secretary Bill Cohen. The Cohen Group works closely with former Chinese Communist Party officials many consultants are active in various D.C.-based China lobbying groups. What’s more, the group has participated in an advisory program working with an entity sanctioned by President Trump for human rights abuses against Uyghurs in Xinjiang.

The former member of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush’s State Department also serves on the Board of Harvard’s Belfer Center, which routinely conducts cybersecurity events alongside Chinese Communist Party military officials and has appeared on China Global Television Network (CGTN).

“We can’t see them as the enemy because we need them,” Burns remarked in reference to China at a 2020 Aspen Institute event.

CCP Consultancy.

The Cohen Group’s China Practice claims to facilitate “constructive engagement and cooperation between leading multinational companies and Chinese enterprises around the world” as well as “support Chinese companies engaged in high-quality investments overseas.”

To do so, the Cohen Group has retained two China-based offices in Beijing and Tianjin for over a decade and employs former Chinese Communist Party officials.

The group’s Beijing Deputy Chief Representative, Xiaorong Wu, led the Chinese Communist Party’s “era of sovereignty” campaign as a former official in the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs “where he participated in Sino-UK negotiation on the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong to China.”

Another Chief Representative, Yinghua Wang, joined the group in 2007 after years of serving the Chinese Communist Party’s Tianjin Municipal Government. As an official, Mr. Wang “frequently hosted meetings with foreign officials in order to foster stronger political and economic ties between Tianjin and state governments in the United States.”

CONSULTANT NICK BURNS.

The Cohen Group also retains partnerships with a bevy of Chinese Communist Party such as the U.S.-China Business Council.

It has sponsored the Council’s 40th Anniversary Dinner where Henry Kissinger, notoriously soft on China, was honored. Cameron Turley, the Cohen Group’s Vice President, identifies himself as a member of the pro-China lobby group known as the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations (NCUSCR). Founder Bill Cohen has even helped commemorate the group’s 50th anniversary as a speaker.

And the Cohen Group’s Senior Counselor William Zarit, who formerly served as Commercial Program Officer at the NCUSCR, is the Chairman of the Board for the American Chamber of Commerce in China, which argues for closer business ties between the two countries.

In 2011, founder Bill Cohen met with the chairman of China Center for International Economic Exchanges (CCIEE), China’s top government-funded think tank, at the Chinese Communist Party’s central headquarters in Beijing. CCIEE offered to “work together with the Cohen Group to provide services in helping domestic and foreign companies to expand their businesses both at home and abroad,” and Cohen readily agreed. Cohen insisted he’d “help Chinese companies go global and conduct investment in the U.S.,” the primary avenue by which the Chinese Communist Party conducts intellectual property theft, espionage, and siphons American jobs.

In 2018, Bill Cohen visited China again to meet with Shanghai Mayor Ying Yong. Cohen pledged to “use its advantages to further promote the cooperation and exchanges of companies in both countries and advance the healthy development of bilateral trade and investment” during the meeting.

The Cohen Group was also listed as a 2014 participant in the Harvard Ash Center’s “China’s Leaders in Development Program,” an initiative that touts itself as “widely recognized by the Chinese government as one of the best overseas training programs for government officials.” Several years, members of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corp, which has been identified as an “instrument of repression” against Uyghurs by the Washington Post and now sanctioned by the Trump and Biden administrations for “serious human rights abuse against ethnic minorities in Xinjiang,” have repeatedly joined the delegation.

Academics for Genocide.

Burns also serves on the board of Harvard’s Belfer Center, which center has hosted cybersecurity working groups alongside Chinese Communist Party government and military officials, despite China’s repeated poaching and hacking of U.S. technology, The group roleplayed “fictitious cyber scenarios” and discussed sensitive technology matters relating to artificial intelligence, Huawei, arms control frameworks, and more:

Both sides worked through a fictitious cyber scenario to discuss what their respective governments and companies would do in the face of a third party cyber attack on critical infrastructure. The working group also discussed AI, IP theft, supply chain security and Huawei, arms control frameworks, and controlling the spread of malware over the dark web. 

Pictures from the event reveal People’s Liberation Army General Hao Yeli in attendance:

PLA GENERAL AT BELFER CENTER EVENT.

The Harvard center felt comfortable swapping cybersecurity tips with the group, even inviting its Senior Adviser, General Hao, for a speech, “Perspectives from the PLA: A Conversation with Major General Hao Yeli.”

EVENT PROMO.

Burns, also a Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy and International Relations, has appeared on Chinese state-run media outlets including China Global Television Network (CGTN). In 2015, he appeared on the program to support extending American troop presence in Afghanistan.

“We need to stay the course here,” he emphasized before adding “most countries in the world want to see the United States and its NATO allies stay as long as we can to stabilize that government.”

Watch: