Asking Reasonable Questions About the FBI’s Involvement in January 6th Capitol Hill Event

by Sundance for Conservative Treehouse

While journalist Darren Beattie insults CTH for pointing out the flaws in his advocacy (calling CTH “autistic and stupid“, duly noted), journalist Glenn Greenwald focuses his intellectual armament against the correct enemy highlighting the pattern of the FBI infiltrating and manipulating domestic groups.  Greenwald has a solid outline on Substack worth reading (excerpt):

Greenwald – […] “If the FBI had advanced knowledge of what was being plotted yet did nothing to stop the attack, it raises numerous possibilities about why that is. It could be that they just had yet another “intelligence failure” of the kind that they claimed caused them to miss the 9/11 attack and therefore need massive new surveillance authorities, budget increases, and new Patriot-Act-type laws to fix it. It could be that they allowed the riot to happen because they did not take it seriously enough or because some of them supported the cause behind it, or because they realized that there would be benefits to the security state if it happened. Or it could be that they were using those operatives under their control to plot with, direct, and drive the attack — as they have done so many times in the past — and allowed it to happen out of either negligence or intent.” (continue reading)

Greenwald’s points, and his historic references, are well taken; actually, Greenwald’s outline reminded CTH of an event in 2015 that in hindsight has a very similar pattern and reference point(s).

Do you remember the 2015 Waco, Texas, Twin Peaks shooting/massacre?

Everything about the “Twin Peaks” massacre in 2015 was sketchy from the outset.  There were local, state and federal law enforcement units surrounding the gathering of the bikers at the restaurant.  No-one admits exactly who started the shooting (claims are disputed) but when the smoke cleared many of the dead bikers were shot by .223 rifle ammunition, later identified as the ammunition carried in the weapons of the SWAT and federal snipers who were pre-positioned around the venue.

Hundreds of shots were fired from the perimeter of the building by law enforcement directly into the crowd.  You might remember the FBI (“federal law enforcement”) took over the investigation and the forensics results from bullets retrieved were sealed as part of the investigation.  Almost two-hundred people were arrested, many charged with “conspiracy”, but not a single person was ever convicted of any crime.  Only one case brought to court, and they couldn’t even get close to a conviction. Not a single conviction of any crime.

After a few years of obfuscation, muddled attempts at framing prosecution, and a district attorney who would not release any information to the defense lawyers, the prosecution dropped the cases against all of the people involved.

Poof, just like that, the story of a massive shooting event just disappeared…

2019 – “Such was the mayhem of the gunfight that erupted between biker gangs at a Texas restaurant four years ago, that it may never be entirely clear how the clash that left nine people dead and 20 injured actually unfurled.

But the public now knows exactly how the criminal investigations into the bloody shootout ended: after 177 arrests and 155 indictments, there was one trial and no convictions.

[…] Little evidence has been made public, but details obtained by the Associated Press suggested that four of the bikers were struck with bullets from .223-caliber rifles – the only type of weapon used by Waco police that day.

Police and the district attorney’s office declined to comment on those details at the time, but defended the officers’ use of force.” (read more)

There was not a single conviction for any crime, ANY CRIME, for any of the 177 people arrested. All of the cases were just dropped.

It was absolutely certain the feds had undercover agents in both the Bandidos and Cossacks motorcycle clubs (ie. gangs), as law enforcement had attributed a wide-variety of criminal behaviors including drugs, racketeering, murder, conspiracy and violence to both nationwide organizations.  Approximately three years after the Twin Peaks massacre, in 2018, the leaders of the Bandidos were arrested on unrelated charges.

The framed-up charges of “conspiracy” against those 177 arrested bikers in Texas have a similar smell to the 200 arrests, some for “conspiracy”, in the January 6th DC riot.

Perhaps once the January 6th political narrative is exhausted those prosecutions will also be dropped, and poof – the story will just disappear.

Robert Schuman: Pope puts father of modern Europe on sainthood path

 

Pope Francis has put French statesman Robert Schuman, one of the founders of modern Europe, on the path to sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church.

The Vatican said the Pope approved a decree recognising Schuman's "heroic virtues", an early stage of the long process that can lead to canonisation.

One miracle would have to be attributed to Schuman for him to be beatified and then another for him to become a saint.

Schuman, who died in 1963, was key in creating today's European institutions.

Several popes have praised the role Schuman, who was a devout Catholic, played in trying to break the cycle of wars in Europe. The decree means that he now has the title of "venerable" in the Church.

 

 

Born in Luxembourg in 1886 and naturalised as a French citizen, he was arrested by the Gestapo after the German occupation of France in 1940, but managed to escape and went on to live in hiding until the end of World War Two.

In the post-war period, Schuman served as France's prime minister and foreign minister. In 1950, he proposed that coal and steel resources should be pooled between European countries as a way to avoid future conflicts. The plan became known as the Schuman Declaration, and the day it was announced, 9 May, is celebrated as Europe Day.

Six founding members - France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands - signed the Treaty of Paris, creating the European Coal and Steel Community. It evolved in 1957 to become the European Economic Community and finally the European Union, in 1993.

He also played a key role in founding Nato, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, in 1949, and served as the first president of the predecessor to the current European Parliament, in 1958. When he left office due to poor health he was given the title of Father of Europe.

Last year, on the 70th anniversary of the Schuman Declaration, Pope Francis said it had led to "the long period of stability and peace from which we benefit today".

The France-based Institut Saint Benoît has been promoting sainthood for Schuman for decades, Reuters news agency reports.

The next step in the sainthood path of the Catholic Church is beatification. To reach that stage a miracle needs to be attributed to prayers made to the individual after their death. Claims need to be verified by evidence before they are accepted as miracles.

 

 

 A second miracle normally needs to be attributed to prayers made to the candidate after they have been beatified for the process to move to canonisation, the final step in declaring a deceased person a saint.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57534918?xtor=AL-72-%5Bpartner%5D-%5Bbbc.news.twitter%5D-%5Bheadline%5D-%5Bnews%5D-%5Bbizdev%5D-%5Bisapi%5D&at_medium=custom7&at_custom2=twitter&at_custom4=4E641976-D10E-11EB-86BE-39B64744363C&at_custom3=%40BBCWorld&at_custom1=%5Bpost+type%5D&at_campaign=64 

 

 

 

Twilight of the Elites

It will be arduous, 

but we should remain undaunted: 

A new dawn of freedom is rising.

by Thaddeus G. McCotter for American Greatness

It is hard to describe the clueless hubris exhibited by the smug, self-satisfied G7 “club” while they played grab-ass for photo-ops in the Cornish sands of Carbis Bay, even as the world they ravaged is roiled with deprivation, dislocation, and angst; and a tsunami of populist contempt rises and races toward them.

The Babylon Bee most succinctly identified the G7’s political dimension—“People Who Ruined World’s Economies Gather To Discuss How To Fix World’s Economies.” Yet, recognizing this meeting’s historic import, Ricochet editor-in-chief and “Undisputed King of Stuff” Jon Gabriel tried valiantly to more fully capture this twilight of the elite in his piece, “Repeating Dead Rituals from a Former Age”:

In 1910, nine European sovereigns posed for a final ‘family photo’ before the Great War. They gathered for the funeral of King Edward VII, appropriately enough. Within ten years, the majority had lost power via abdication, assassination, revolution, or death . . . Pantomimes like this week’s G7 Summit reveal an enervated order that doesn’t wield power so much as it clings to it.

These nine European sovereigns in 1910 were the heads of state in elitist, stratified societies. Ultimately, their cupidity helped spark the unprecedented butchery of World War I. Consequently, their regimes were deposed; and the ideological foundation of their authority was held by their peoples to be an illegitimate basis for ruling.

After its execrable, barbaric experiments in fascism and Communism and a second world war, Europe ultimately followed the example of the American Revolution: the true sovereign power of a nation was acknowledged to stem from its people with their consent. Those monarchs who remained were relegated to figureheads, tourist attractions, and tabloid fodder.

Yet is the consent of the governed the legitimacy upon which these G7 leaders rest? And, if so, will it be swept away with them as the Undisputed King of Stuff cautions:

The danger ahead is that, as [Martin] Gurri writes, ‘You can condemn politicians only for so long before you must reject the legitimacy of the system that produced them.’ Everyone senses a change coming and pray it’s nothing like what swept away the world of 1910.

The legitimacy upon which these G7 leaders have based their rule increasingly is not upon the consent of the governed, but upon the coercion of the governed through the powers of the administrative state, multinational corporate actors, and Big Tech. This is elitism and it’s why these leaders fear its antithesis—populism—even to the point of endeavoring to slander and libel it as “white supremacy” and prosecute it as “domestic terrorism.” 

If one listens carefully, these G7 elitists echo the rationale for ruling used by the Chinese Communist Party. The CCP leaders have long held that history has rightfully placed them in totalitarian control of their population; and that they must protect their nation’s prosperity and security from liberty, which they equate with democratic disorder. 

How does this differ from the G7’s messaging—both collectively and individually—on a host of issues, ranging from the pandemic’s lockdowns to outsourcing jobs to appeasing tyrannical Iran and genocidal Communist China? Take, for instance, climate change. “Climate deniers” are on the wrong side of history; only the elites and their “experts” can recognize, decide, and prescribe the issues and crises; the world will end in disorder and death unless the elites are ceded the people’s liberty; and there are no quantifiable metrics—nor promises—by which the people will again be free. 

In both instances the people’s liberty is deemed a danger to the greater good.

The presumptions of the G7 leaders would revert political legitimacy from the people’s God-given right to liberty back to privileges and favors granted by the benevolent hand of the elite. It is a postmodernist riff upon the divine right of kings—albeit this time with an amalgam of oligarchs, bureaucrats, and “experts”  running the show for their own benefit. Despite their paeans to their professed noble motives, all they offer is fear—namely, the end of the world from some impending apocalypse: e.g. COVID-19, climate change, white supremacy. (The elitists’ demand to “do what we want or the world will end,” would sound silly if the stakes weren’t so great.) 

Thus, in rejecting these “leaders” who cling bitterly to power, the public will be rejecting an elitist system that has fearmongered, lied, censored, coerced, and emotionally extorted them. In the United States, this will constitute a popular restoration of our revolutionary principles. In Europe, it will constitute the full realization of the revolutionary promise of 1848 and 1989. 

It will be arduous, but we should remain undaunted: from the twilight of the elites a new dawn of freedom is rising.

Fighting the Extremism Fight

What might happen if Republican senators were serious 

about confronting the Biden Administration’s political 

weaponization of the intelligence community?

by Angelo Codevilla for American Greatness

Suppose I had in my hands a draft of a bill that Senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) were preparing to prevent the Biden Administration from using federal agencies to encourage U.S. persons to inform anonymously on whomever of their families, acquaintances, fellow workers, etc. they suspect of becoming radicalized to violent extremism. The staffers who provided the draft would probably report that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is pressing the senators to stop work on the bill and to deny they had ever started it.

The draft “dear colleague” letter by which the bill’s authors would seek co-sponsors would argue that encouraging people to attribute the undefined term “extremism” on activities, expressions, and even attitudes that no law prohibits makes it possible to hurt persons non-judicially whom the government and its partisans dislike or fear. Thus, say the senators, the Biden Administration is grasping the power effectively to outlaw political opposition. Using anonymous accusations among persons in ordinary contact is sure to politicize ordinary interpersonal difficulties, increase mutual suspicions, and inevitably will lead to bloody fights. Destroying the lives of political opponents through anonymous accusations of shadowy crimes, which the media then hypes, is a standard tactic of totalitarian regimes. It has no place in America.

The letter would also explain the need for legislation to forbid the FBI informants placed within organizations it considers socio-politically extremist to lead subjects of investigation into what can be called crimes. 

Ever since 2009 or so, when serious opposition to government policy developed especially but not exclusively among conservative-minded Americans, the FBI has infiltrated domestic opposition groups with the same Patriot Act tools that it used against affiliates of al-Qaeda. Though the FBI was unable to affect, nevermind control, the massive Tea Party movement, smaller groups such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, and even ad hoc minuscule ones are led and exist largely as creatures of the FBI. 

As with Islamic radicals, the FBI’s antiterrorism work nowadays consists almost exclusively of leading persons in the groups that it influences into near-crimes, and then to prosecutions that it touts as triumphs. The difference is that leading a few conservative Americans into what can be called conspiracies to commit crimes that exist because of the FBI’s own involvement serves to impute illegitimacy if not illegality to the millions of ordinary conservative Americans the government claims these organizations represent. This too, the senators might say, is a totalitarian tactic that America must not tolerate.

The senators then might accuse the Biden Administration of having applied this totalitarian tactic to the Capitol riot of January 6 and of having made it the basis of its domestic policy.

The senators might argue that the promiscuous use of the term “terrorist” has poisoned American political discourse, should be outlawed, and the term reserved for the real thing. 

Here is what such a Cruz-Hawley-Johnson bill might say:  Title I might require any employee of the U.S. government who receives any accusation about the social or political activities, communications, preferences, or attitudes of any U.S. person to post the accusation’s substance on a U.S. government website created by the bill, together with the name, address, and other contact information about the accuser. Any U.S. employee who receives but fails to post such information within 24 hours would be guilty of a felony punishable by a fine of $50,000 and five years in prison.

Title II might repeal what is perhaps the worst of 9/11’s legacies, section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and forbid the surveillance of U.S. persons for any reason other than probable cause to believe that such persons have committed or are about to commit a crime. It specifies that no employee of the United States shall enter, or cause anyone to enter or associate with any social or political group for the purpose of reporting on its socio-political opinions or activities, or to influence such opinions or activities.

Title III could require any and all employees of the United States to use the term “terrorism” or “terrorist” only with regard to persons and activities the character of which can be shown to fit the term. It makes improper accusations of terrorism, direct or indirect, liable to a fine of $50,000 and imprisonment for five years.

Staff sources would be likely then to report that Senator McConnell’s argument is something like “the whole government will lobby against this. You’ll get no Democrats and a handful of crazy Republicans. Give it up!”

 

If these agencies have become politicized, they no longer can claim to be American

Article by S. Christopher Nichols in The American Thinker

 

How Do We Regain Trust in the FBI?

Newsmax released an article this week that gives voice to further distrust of America’s once-premiere law enforcement agency. The column was based on a series of questions and concerns presented by Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) regarding the still murky details around the January 6^th storming of the Capitol building. Two questions lobbed at the FBI are both haunting and disheartening:

“What did the FBI know? And when did they know it?”

The fact that the agency responsible for investigating the lawlessness of that date is itself under scrutiny is alarming. Regardless of how one feels about Americans -- patriots or paid agitators -- entering the Capitol building illegally is not germane to the questions surrounding the supposedly objective pursuit of justice by sworn law enforcement officers. Gaetz’s most damning volley came when he suggested the FBI is no longer acting under the auspices of their original mission and has taken the dubious position of engaging in political policing. If remotely true, it would seem to represent the final nail in the coffin for any chance at repairing the integrity of a federal investigative agency.

And that sentiment is not solely the domain of the congressman from Florida. A Pew Research study released last month demonstrated a sharp decline in trust in the government from a high of seventy-seven percent in 1964 to a low that has remained under twenty-five percent since 2007. If three-quarters of Americans have spent the last fourteen years distrusting the government at large, what does that say about the agencies entrusted with justice and public safety? Former FBI Director James Comey attempted to lay the mistrust at President Trump’s doorstep. Perhaps, Slim Jim should have waited for the Pew Research findings before running his mouth again. The data shows the Truth Train left the station ten years before Forty-Five took office.

Focusing solely on the FBI, investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson released a poll on her website in January 2020 asking respondents about their level of trust in the federal agency. Her query came on the heels of yet another “misstep” for federal agents (that time, it was the wiretapping misconduct). While the scientific accuracy of her polling is unknown -- and her audience is likely skewed towards one ideology over another -- the results were stark. Sixty percent of respondents had less trust in the FBI than before the scandal became public. Thirty-eight percent had no confidence in the agency whatsoever. Even generously assuming that Attkisson’s target audience represents only skeptics, when ninety-eight percent of any reasonably-sized group has little to no trust in the agency tasked with federal criminal investigations, it portends a problem that may be beyond fixable.

 Trust in the FBI is built on two premises. The first is whether they merit trustworthiness through the objectivity -- or lack thereof -- of their investigative practices. The second is their inseparable link to the federal government in general. Admittedly, the agency can only control the outcome of the first premise. Still, when federal agents do not compartmentalize their own politics and beliefs while on the job, they obviously leave themselves open to questions about their motives. It speaks to a more significant problem that some in the media are hinting at but not addressing directly. Meanwhile, Leftist progressives continue to write fantasy-fiction-becomes-reality with ideas to split large Blue states into smaller Blue states while adding even more Blue states in places like Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico. The link between the destruction of republicanism (small “r”), the rise of globalism (read: socialism), and the FBI may not seem apparent at first.

If FBI agents and overlords are acting on political motives, it stands to reason they have an end goal in mind. That end goal, regardless of its specific nature, is part and parcel of the declining trust in the agency. They are not “brownshirts.” They do not currently function as a Stasi. The parallel between all things Nazi or postwar Germany and modern times is a tired trope rife with low-hanging fruit. The more appropriate comparison is “The People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs,” otherwise known as the NKVD. It’s essential to understand the Soviet NKVD was initially tasked with “regular” police work when created in 1917. Lenin and his pals were savvy enough to recognize their new agency had to appear legitimate after the Soviet revolution.

The parallel between the FBI and the NKVD is not a straight line -- at least, not yet. At the same time, looking at the chronology of when Americans suddenly lost faith in their government (2007), an eerie set of circumstances predate the decline in trust. The first development that hastened the consolidation of power and authority in federal agencies like the FBI was the Patriot Act of 2001. It paved the way for expanded police powers in the name of public safety. Unfortunately, it created an institutional environment where Americans and foreigners on American soil could be eyed as less-than-square sorts who need not have access to all their inalienable liberties because…terrorism. The second development came directly from the mouth of then-FBI director Robert Mueller in a 2006 address to a congressional subcommittee. Director Mueller bragged the FBI is “a stronger organization, combining greater capabilities.” His bravado did not stop there. At the end of his lengthy address, Mueller again highlighted the “many accomplishments” of his agency and their direct financial blessing from the subcommittee.

Yes, terrorism was an existential threat. It remains a threat to varying degrees despite the increased police powers afforded to federal agencies. Ben Franklin would almost certainly shake his head at how easily Americans gave up some of their liberties in the name of public safety. Franklin might even say, “I told you so,” as the threat -- perceived or actual -- has not been eliminated though the very federal agencies tasked with doing so have more power and money at their disposal than before any such terrorist attacks began.

And all of this implies that Representative Gaetz’s questions are irrelevant if there is no accountability for the FBI in particular and the federal government in general. What does it matter what the agents knew if they won’t be made to answer for possible crimes? The same is true of when they knew it.

Trust in the FBI cannot be regained until there is a reckoning. That can only come through accountability for bad actors. If an Average Joe breaks the law, he can reasonably assume that law enforcement will not stop searching for him until he is caught and arrested. The same standard doesn’t apply to uber-protected federal agents and their rulers. That group gets to use their positions to conduct political witch hunts. Until the only witches that are hunted are of the criminal kind, trust in the system and those sworn to enforce its rules will remain elusive.

 

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/06/how_do_we_regain_trust_in_the_fbi.html

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Article by Andrea Widburg in The American Thinker

That high level Chinese defector's 'embarrassing and damaging information about our intelligence community'

We already knew that a man with a high-level position in the Chinese Communist Party had defected to America. We also knew that the Defense Intelligence Agency (“DIA”) refused to let the other intelligence agencies in on the secret because it was immediately apparent that our government is riddled with Chinese spies, agents, true believers, and people on the payroll. Now, though, we know who the spy is and the broad outlines of the information he provided – and it’s a lot worse than you thought.

As before, Jennifer Van Laar – who I believe first reported about the defector’s existence – has the most comprehensive information. For the deep dive, go to Red State; for the short(ish) summary stick with me.

The defector’s name is Dong Jingwei and he’s the vice minister of State Security. He knows where all the bodies are buried, both in China and, I’m sorry to say, in America. According to Spy Talk, Dong “was responsible for the Ministry’s counterintelligence efforts in China, i.e., spy-catching, since being promoted to vice minister in April 2018.”

Spy Talk also reports that China demanded Dong’s return, but Blinken said no. Interestingly, the weak, woke Blinken didn’t say “no” as a matter of principle. Instead, he took a stand only because the DIA hadn’t told the administration about Dong’s existence. That tells you about how little the DIA trusts the Biden administration.

According to Spy Talk, Dong’s presence in the U.S. is a rumor. However, Van Laar seems very sure of her sources who told her that China possesses “embarrassing and damaging information about our intelligence community and government officials in the ‘terabytes of data’ he’s provided to the DIA.”

Van Laar also shares information from a Washington Free Beacon report claiming that, when China realized that Trump was about to close travel from China, it sent hundreds of “students” back in January, much earlier than their planned return dates, to monitor events in America. These students (spies), summarizes Van Laar, “were charged with reporting back on public policy changes, economic response and damage, impacts on the healthcare system (equipment/hospital bed shortages, etc), supply chain impacts (including how long it took things like semiconductors from China to reach the United States), civil unrest, and more.”

And here, straight from Van Laar herself, is other information Dong brought with him that should have you simultaneously furiously angry and really terrified:

• Early pathogenic studies of what we know as COVID.
• China’s models about what COVID would do to the U.S. and the world (which makes it sound as if COVID was a bioweapon, not an accident).
• Financial records about which organizations and governments funded COVID “and other biological warfare” research.
• The identity of U.S. citizens who gave intel to China.
• The names of Chinese spies working or attending universities in America.
• Financial records showing American businesspeople and officials who took money from China. (Note: At least as to the businesspeople, these may have been legitimate transactions. I don’t know how they can have been for the officials.)
• U.S. government officials who met (knowingly or not) with Chinese and Russian spies.
• Details about the Chinese government getting into the CIA communications system, which led the Chinese to kill dozens of CIA assets in China.
• Hunter Biden’s hard drive, which meant the Chinese knew all about his porn and drug problems, his acting as a conduit for money to Joe, and his and Joe’s corrupt financial dealings generally.
• News that at least a third of Chinese students on American campuses (who pay full retail, so they drive out American students) are Communist party assets or the children of high-level communist officials in America under false names.

There’s every reason to believe all this information is true. Says Van Laar, “DIA has high confidence in the veracity of Dong’s claims” In a sane, just world, our government would act upon this information immediately. China would become a pariah nation, with immediate steps taken to shut down all possible trade with China; Chinese students would be returned to China; corrupt officials and politicians (regardless of party) would be fired and, if appropriate, indicted; and our intelligence agencies would be cleaned up or, if too corrupt, disbanded.

The mainstream media, however, is currently keeping a tight lid on this story and it’s doubtful that the Biden administration will act – especially considering how compromised both Biden and his son are. We’ll have to wait for the 2022 election for things to happen. If Republicans gain the majority in Congress, there should be some very interesting hearings. And if DeSantis becomes President in 2024, the indictments had better start rolling out.

 

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/06/that_high_level_chinese_defectors_embarrassing_and_damaging_information_about_our_intelligence_community_.html

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Biden's Strategy for Domestic Terrorism Encourages Americans to Turn Stasi to Show their Love of Big Brother

streiff reporting for RedState 

Earlier in the week, the Biden bunch released its National Strategy for Suppressing Domestic Dissent Countering Domestic Terrorism. If you are underwhelmed by the release of yet another strategy paper by yet another government agency, join the club. While the strategy is a lot of word salad, there are parts of it that should give concern to anyone who believes in free speech, freedom of expression, and freedom of association.

The document is clearly targeting groups on the right. This should be no surprise to anyone. The Biden bunch came into office claiming that rightwing violent extremists were the greatest domestic terrorism threat to the nation, a claim that can only be reached by ignoring everything that happened everywhere in the United States last summer:

This new strategy is a direct result of the worldview that ignores leftwing riots and mayhem because the people who carry out those attacks are perceived as friends of the current governing claque.

The review was rooted in an expert assessment of the domestic terrorism threat provided by the intelligence and law enforcement communities. An unclassified summary of that assessment was released in March so the public could see the key findings. It found that the two most lethal elements of today’s domestic terrorism threat are (1) racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists who advocate for the superiority of the white race and (2) anti-government or anti-authority violent extremists, such as militia violent extremists.

The Obama administration weaponized the IRS and law enforcement to disrupt activities by conservative groups and Joe is following the playbook. Just a little earlier today I posted on a Christian prayer group being denied non-profit status because they were pro-life and pro-marriage and encouraged Christians to vote according to Biblical principles (see The IRS Says if You Believe in God and the Bible, You Are Working for the GOP). The introduction, alone, tells you where it is going:

Domestic terrorism is not a new threat in the United States. It has, over centuries, taken many American lives and spilled much American blood, especially in communities deliberately and viciously targeted on the basis of hatred and bigotry. After the Civil War, for example, the Ku Klux Klan waged a campaign of terror to intimidate Black voters and their white supporters and deprive them of political power, killing and injuring untold numbers of Americans. The Klan and other white supremacists continued to terrorize Black Americans and other minorities in the decades that followed. In recent years, we have seen a resurgence of this and related threats in one horrific incident after another: the shooting and killing of 23 people a retail store in ElPaso; the vehicular killing of a peaceful protestor in Charlottesville; the shooting and killing of three people at a garlic festival in Gilroy; the arson committed a mosque in Victoria, Texas; the appalling rise in violence and xenophobia directed against Asian Americans; the surge in anti- Semitism; and more.

Domestic terrorist attacks in the United States also have been committed frequently by those opposing our government institutions. In1995, in the largest single act of domestic terrorism in U.S.history, an anti-government violent extremist detonated a bomb at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people including 19 children- and injuring hundreds of others. In 2016, an anti- authority violent extremist ambushed, shot, and killed five police officers in Dallas. In 2017, a lone gunman wounded four people at a congressional baseball practice. And just months ago, on January 6, 2021, Americans witnessed an unprecedented attack against a core institution of our democracy: the U.S.Congress.

If you read carefully, you’ll note that the violent Antifa demonstrations of last summer are absent. The cold-blooded murder of a right-leaning protester by an Antifa goon is missing. There is no mention of the violent domestic extremists affiliated with radical Islam. The attempt by a progressive Bernie Sanders supporter to decapitate the Congressional GOP is glossed over as though he were a random shooter who just happened to show up at baseball practice. And the motive of the guy who killed 60 or so people in Las Vegas remains unknown.

This strategy will join the resources of

The document also moves the US into the globalist information order visualized by the so-called Christchurch Call to Action to Eliminate Terrorist and Violent Extremist Content Online. For our part, the US government commits to encouraging big tech to crack down on any online conversation they deem to be “extremist.”

Most troubling is we can see the beginnings of a system that makes every government entity a watchdog for “domestic terrorism.”

We will forge a government-wide effort while safeguarding distinctive law enforcement prerogatives, such as those that belong to the Department of Justice, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and safeguarding critical patient-provider relationships like those maintained by the Department of Veterans Affairs providers with veterans. Particular investigatory and prosecutorial decisions are for law enforcement alone, unaffected by and insulated from any political influence or bias. At the policy level, this Strategy demands that the broader Federal Government coordinate and collaborate on programmatic aspects of countering domestic terrorism, such as information sharing, training, prevention, and intervention efforts. It thus sets a pathway for a unity of effort at the policy level, while protecting the specific work of law enforcement that must be left wholly to appropriate law enforcement entities, whether Federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial.

We will also build a community to address domestic terrorism that extends not only across the Federal Government but also to critical partners. That includes state, local, tribal, and territorial governments, as well as foreign allies and partners, civil society, the technology sector, academia, and more. Domestic terrorism and the factors that contribute to it pose a challenge best tackled by a set of interlocking communities that can contribute information, expertise, analysis, and more to addressing this multifaceted threat. With the right orientation and partnerships, the Federal Government can energize, connect, and empower those communities — communities whose input was critical to the formulation of this Strategy itself.

The danger of this approach to civil liberties can’t be overstated. It gives the illusion of making the government work more efficiently so “known wolves” don’t slip through the cracks. In reality, money will flow into this network. And as we saw with the SESTA-FOSTA law, if you pour enough money into combatting something, and incentivize results, you can create immense numbers of cases that have almost nothing to do with the intent of the law. In the words of Ronald Reagan, “If you want more of something, subsidize it.” If you want to generate cases of extremists plotting terrorism, just start paying people to find it.

Going along with the deputizing of everybody and their brother to root out extremists, the strategy intends to create a Stasi-like system where family members are encouraged to inform on one another if they suspect they have become “radicalized.” This is from the Background Press Call by Senior Administration Officials on the National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism:

We will work to improve public awareness of federal resources to address concerning or threatening behavior before violence occurs.  And on that, I would just note that one of the things we’re talking about is the need to do something in this space, like the “See something” — “If you see something, say something” concept that has been promulgated previously by DHS.  This involves creating contexts in which those who are family members or friends or co-workers know that there are pathways and avenues to raise concerns and seek help for those who they have perceived to be radicalizing and potentially radicalizing towards violence.

This is like something out of East Germany and Communist China. Does your father or mother or co-worker believe that the election was stolen? Report them. To who and to what end, we don’t know but given the moist panties created on the left at the thought of “vaccine passports,” it isn’t hard to see a ‘social credit’ system is being created where incorrect beliefs could keep you from traveling by train or airplane or prevent you from getting a decent job. When the whole idea of “red flag” laws, laws that allowed you to report authorities gun owners who you were suspicious of and have their firearms removed, the NRA opposed it because there is no universe in which this will not be used as a vehicle for harassment. 

As much fun as it is to laugh our the Nation’s Dementia Popsicle and Frau Professor Doktor Jill, and no matter how much of a joke they are, we can never lose sight of the fact that they have filled the policymaking positions in the government with virulent and dangerous Marxists who really do want to force you out of the nation’s political process.

National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism

National Strategy for Count... by streiff at redstate

 

Article by Robert W. Merry in The American Conservative

Why Wouldn’t America Talk About the Lab Leak?

On the world stage, the U.S. prioritizes inoffensiveness above all else. That doesn't bode well for our mounting rivalry with China.

Much has been written now—finally—about the remarkable groupthink fiasco in which America’s elite institutions sought to throttle any inquiry or even just any curiosity about whether the COVID-19 pandemic may have originated from a laboratory leak in Wuhan, China. Now we know that such a leak remains in fact a very real possibility, and many scientists, editors, and commentators are scrambling to shed their previous know-nothingism on the matter and join the inquiry on what really happened and why (while avoiding, in most instances, any acknowledgement of their earlier folly).

But some implications of the sordid tale haven’t received much attention. What does it say about America’s capacity for meeting the multifarious and growing challenges to its global leadership? Can a country utterly preoccupied with avoiding any imputation of negative feelings toward other peoples and other nations—those twin evils of “racism” and “xenophobia”—meet the kinds of challenges that inevitably emerge from other peoples and other nations?

Such questions take on added force when meshed with another set of questions related to the underlying cultural current of national self-flagellation gaining prominence in American thought and discourse: What kind of nation devours its own heritage and national narrative? Or labels itself as unworthy at its core and defines itself as having been born in evil and intrinsically incapable of rising above that evil? What kind of nation seeks to emphasize the point by separating schoolchildren into classroom groups labeled “victims” and “oppressors” based on actions of their forebears?

Such a nation is not well equipped to parry threats and challenges from other nations or well positioned to ask young men and women to fight and possibly die for the national honor and the national interest.

Such questions and musings flow naturally from the months-long frenzy of denial that the coronavirus pandemic could possibly have been connected with the nearby Wuhan Institute of Virology or other nearby labs. A turning point in the saga finally came with publication of Katherine Eban’s remarkable Vanity Fair piece, “The Lab-Leak Theory: Inside the Fight to Uncover Covid-19’s Origin.” From Eban and others we learn that the denial was pushed in part by people motivated by fears that a thorough examination of the matter could expose their own “gain-of-function” research—efforts to make the coronavirus more infectious and more deadly.

Eban paints a picture of scientists such as Peter Daszak, who ran a nonprofit outfit that directed U.S. federal grant money to gain-of-function research in China, scrambling to divert attention from any lab-leak possibility. Clearly, many scientists harbored subterranean motives that now, in retrospect, explain their actions. Eban’s piece employs such terms as “conflict of interest,” “totally unscientific,” and “smelled like a cover-up” in describing the efforts, at high levels of science and government, to ensure that the lab-leak theory was debunked as “morally out of bounds.”

But that doesn’t explain why the mainstream media, foreswearing any independence of thought or bloodhound instinct, joined in to insist that a negative had been proved and the matter was now closed. It doesn’t explain how the media went into complete collective overdrive in assailing any hint that it could be otherwise. The New York Times, the Washington Post, NBC News, CNN, the Guardian, the Daily Beast, the Poynter Institute’s “PolitiFact,” and many more news organizations jumped on the can’t-be-true thesis.

Why?

It seems to be a product of desperate fears on the part of growing numbers of Americans that someone somewhere may be harboring sentiments of racism or xenophobia, as defined with broad abandon by those with such fears. Thus, the lab-leak hypothesis couldn’t possibly be right because that might energize underlying anti-Chinese sentiments. But what happens to science or even just normal human cognition when avenues of inquiry are closed for fear of bad thoughts somewhere?

The racism trope was widespread during the groupthink frenzy. Charles Cooke of National Review excoriated lab-leak theorists for being “addicted to racism and xenophobia.” The Washington Post’s Leana Wen worried that “unproven speculation” (which, incidentally, is the starting point of any scientific inquiry) could “increase racist attacks…[and] fuel anti-Asian hate.”

New York Times reporter Apoorva Mandavilli released a tweet (later deleted) that said the COVID lab-leak theory “had racist roots.” And when some writers, finally taking the lab-leak theory seriously, cited earlier writings by former Times reporter Nicholas Wade, a socialist writer named Andre Damon quickly labeled Wade a racist.

Some resisted the tired thinking represented by such citations. Zaid Jilani suggested at Newsweek that Ms. Mandavilli’s Tweet may have been “emblematic of a wider mindset among American journalists, many of whom saw their mission as simply opposing any stance taken by the Trump administration…while also burnishing their anti-racist and anti-imperialist credentials by refusing to blame a foreign government for the pandemic.”

And writer Glenn Greenwald mischievously asked, “Can someone explain to me why it’s racist to wonder if a virus escaped from a Chinese lab, but…not racist to insist it infected humans because of Chinese wet markets?”

But this isn’t merely a matter of proper speech and charitable thoughts in the global sphere. The lead headline in the Seattle Times the other day, over an AP story about the recent NATO summit in Brussels, declared: “NATO leaders join U.S. in standing up to Russian, Chinese threats.” And the Wall Street Journal noted in its summit story that the 79-paragraph NATO communique mentioned China a dozen times, “a shift from past [NATO] summits, when Beijing was barely mentioned.” The paper quoted from the communique, “China’s growing influence and international policies can present challenges that we need to address…. We will engage China with a view to defending the security interests of the alliance.”

Tough talk. But how can America lead NATO in checking China’s growing power when it can’t even unite behind a thorough review of COVID’s origin for fear of bruising some people’s delicate feelings?

The NATO communique represents the growing awareness of a geopolitical reality that many foreign policy experts have discerned now for several years—namely, that America and China seem to be on a collision course stemming from a Chinese resolve to end America’s East Asian dominance and take on that role itself. It is to be hoped that that course can be obstructed peacefully and the collision averted. But, if not, we can bet that the Chinese people, and certainly their leaders and their elites, won’t be worrying about any American hurt feelings stemming from how they characterize us.

And the Chinese aren’t engaged in any internal handwringing these days about regime abuses or historical lapses, though abuses and lapses have been both abundant and at times horrific in China’s history and even in its present. China is too busy with big-picture ambitions of outstripping America economically, technologically, and militarily, so that it can upend the American-led global system and replace it with one more favorable to China.

In this epic geopolitical struggle, China has its head in the game. America doesn’t, as reflected in the silly groupthink bungle over the origin of COVID.

 

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/why-wouldnt-america-talk-about-the-lab-leak/

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