An Unimaginative Supreme Court Envisions Novel Argument in J6 Case.

AN IMPORTANT Supreme Court case has finally wound its way through the judicial system to now be before the nation’s highest court—which seems a bit skeptical of the D.O.J. pedigree behind it. 

The case is styled Fischer v. United States, and it argues that the statute the defendant was charged under, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1512(c)(2), was too broadly expanded and interpreted beyond the original intent to target crimes of alleged evidence-tampering. Specifically, it was interpreted by the D.O.J. so as to charge the defendants, Joseph Fischer and others, of obstructing Congress’ certification of the 2020 presidential election results thought to favor Biden. A concern was that such an interpretation was being used to sweep up a broad swath of others engaging in legitimate protest activity. 

Justice Neil Gorsuch asked some of the most salient questions. “Would a sit-in that disrupts a trial or access to a federal courthouse qualify?” he asked Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar. “Would a heckler in today’s audience qualify or at the State of the Union address?” Or pulling a fire alarm before a legislative vote, à la Dem, Rep. Jamaal Bowman of NY? These acts, of course, represent things done not only by Jan. 6th defendants, but in some cases, by those lawfully exercising their First Amendment rights, or by elected officials themselves engaged in legitimate of controversial political activity. 

For his part, Justice Samuel Alito seemed a bit unconvinced by the D.O.J.’s position, too. In fact, the way the statute is being creatively applied here could adversely and inappropriately not only impact hundreds of J6 defendants, but even President Trump’s election interference case. (Indeed, two of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s indictments (here) against President Trump rely on such an excessively broad read of the statute.) And the penalties are not inconsequential, resulting in a possible 20 years in prison. And of almost 1,387 J6 defendants, some 353 have been charged under this overly-broad interpretation of the statute. Justice Clarence Thomas, also skeptical, asked when the government had applied this statute to other protests in the past. It was, of course, a rhetorical question. 

The novel application of the statute in an overly broad context certainly has serious ramifications for Joseph Fischer, a former PA cop who entered the Capitol on Jan. 6th for a mere four minutes, and who allegedly had a scuffle with law enforcement in that short period, resulting in him being charged with seven offenses, including a felony count of obstructing an official proceeding. 

Fischer and certain other J6 defendants have a lot riding on the statute’s proper reading, as does President Trump. The SCOTUS decision is expected in late June. The procedural history is here. The writ of certiorari is here.

In Which Abbott Asserts Himself, DeSantis Redeems Himself, and Biden Makes an Ass of Himself (Again)

THERE HAS BEEN AN ONGOING figurative sniping between the feds and the Lone Star State for many months over the unnecessarily contentious issue of an invasion of illegal aliens over our southern border. It now seriously threatens to graduate to literal sniping. 

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) finally declared an invasion at the border and took steps to halt it pursuant to, inter alia, Art. 1, §10, Cl. 3 and Art. IV, §4, of the United States Constitution. He understandably claimed Texas has a right to self-defense given the federal government is failing to do so, and in fact, is endangering the state by failing to enforce the fed’s own laws as duly enacted. It should’ve happened many months ago, but whatever…

Illicit occupant of the White House, Joey Biden, and his wholly incompetent minion, Alejandro Mayorkas, tried to circumvent the State of Texas in its attempts at border restraints, including razor wire installation, meant to discourage aliens from entering illegally. Of particular concern was the razor wire at Shelby Park in an invasion hotspot known as Eagle Pass, Texas, which had been taken over by the state in a further attempt to control illegal immigration. Since Jan. 10th, Border Patrol was blocked from accessing the park in the tiny town.

There was a basis for the federal lawsuit, inasmuch as federal law preempts state law on matters of immigration. But the Biden regime just went in and cut the wire installed by the Texas National Guard, fueling the fire into what may become a raging inferno.The Biden regime ultimately won this round on Monday after the matter went to the U.S. Supreme Court which ruled, 5-4, without elaboration, that Border Patrol agents under Biden could cut through the razor wire and remove it ‘if necessary,’ while also remanding the case to the lower court for adjudication. (It isn’t a ‘Biden victory’ as some reporters have described it. The legal argument for a stay was probably deficient as drafted. The merits have yet to be heard.)

The ‘if necessary’ part of the deal is allegedly in response to three migrants drowning in the Rio Grande as they tried to enter the country illegally (as opposed to being a mere pretext for the invasion). In other words, it’s to allow the federal government to rush to give free emergency medical care to the illegals that American citizens wouldn’t be entitled to receive. The illegal aliens who drowned were later beatified by N.P.R., P.B.S. and other mainstream media complicit in the Biden regime’s propaganda efforts.(See any links herein, for example.)

 However, what was blatantly wrong with the outcome at the Supreme Court, as Abbott has made clear, is that the federal government isn’t enforcing it own federal immigration laws and, in fact, has refused to—to Texas’ indisputable detriment. 

Meanwhile, the p!ssing contest between the feds and Lone Star State has been somewhat successful in limiting migrants from Eagle Pass, but now, instead, they are entering the country at crossings north of the park and onto private ranches. Illegal aliens don’t distinguish, or care to, between public and private lands. Neither, it seems, does the illicit Biden regime. In response to outcries from affected ranchers, Texas offered to install free razor wire on their lands. It’s a very small concession, but some $10 billion in state money has been used since March of 2021 to try to curb the crisis affecting 1,200 miles of the border in Abbott’s Operation Lone Star. A lot!

Very few illegal aliens entering the country in this way are ever detained. Since Oct. 1st, there have been at least 96,000 ‘gotaways’ at the southern border, a Customs and Border Protection source told Fox News. The futility of the situation isn’t lost on some ranchers, who, despite razor- and concertina wire, have been unable to keep the illegals off their property. What can you really do when Border Patrol is relegated to making illegal aliens sandwiches for their northbound journeys? What can you do when the federal government only manages to post a bilingual sign reading, “No migrant processing at this location. Please proceed to nearest port of entry for processing with U.S. Border Patrol?”

Abbott isn’t done enforcing the laws the feds refuse to enforce. Late in 2023, the state legislature passed a bill scheduled to go into effect in March which will permit state police to arrest those they suspect are illegally crossing the border into Texas and charge them with state crimes. The A.C.L.U., inexplicably mute on the Biden regime’s many transgressions of Americans’ civil liberties, has suddenly mustered the cahones to challenge Abbott’s treatment of lawbreakers.

On Wednesday after the SCOTUS ruling, Abbott released his statement (here) declaring an invasion,Texas’ right to self defense, and “lawless [putative] president [Biden].” (Brackets added.). Abbott’s statement actually reads as a good start to articles of impeachment for both Biden and Mayorkas. On Thursday, the Biden regime issued a Friday deadline for Abbott to order the Texas National Guard to allow Border Patrol back to cut down the razor wire. (When similar demands were made to abandon illegal ‘sanctuary city or state’ statuses, though, nothing was done then, so why should anythings be done here and now?) Also on Thursday, after Abbott’s statement, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) immediately announced Florida’s support, in personnel and supplies, for Texas. It was a moment of fast thinking that he didn’t miss. Some 24 other governors nationwide added theirs, too, and issued a joint statement on X (here.)

Meanwhile, in Washington, which isn’t as impacted by the folly of their own failed policies, Congress continues stalling tactics at solving the crisis by extended recesses, demands for pay raises, and per diems. As if World War III isn’t a big enough challenge for the Big Guy, add a Civil War. However this all plays out, it will become a pretty compelling docudrama someday.

Some commentators like to point out the unprecedented nature of the state’s response, as if that, ipso facto, makes it unacceptable, but such people, when pressed, have to admit the scale, scope, and effects of the illegal alien invasion are also unprecedented. The Fifth Circuit will hear the merits in February.

Why Do Republicans Shoot Themselves in Both Feet?

THE G.O.P. HOLDS such a small and precarious majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, it makes it nearly impossible to advance legislatively. It’s worse today, thanks to the loss of two Republicans, which narrows the majority to just two.

It started with George Santos, who served as the U.S. Representative for the 3rd Congressional District of New York for less than a year. Elected in 2022 after having unsuccessfully running in 2020, he defeated Dem incumbent Tom Suozzi. He was a devout supporter of President Trump, and spoke at a Stop the Steal rally and attended the Save America rally at the Ellipse on Jan. 6th, 2021. He holds the dubious distinctions of being the first openly gay rep for the G.O.P., as well as the sixth person to be expelled from the House of Representatives. 

It turned out his bio appeared to be fabricated, including his ancestry (which is a foremost issue today for no reason whatsoever); ethnicity (also vitally unimportant, but highly scrutinized); education; employment, including charity work; finances; property ownership; victimhood, and even his residency. He ultimately admitted he fabricated his education and employment, but it wasn’t all he lied about or hid. 

He had committed check fraud in Brazil in 2008, failing to appear in court. He eventually agreed to plead guilty. And in New York in the 2010s, he failed to pay personal debt and eviction judgments against him, amounting to thousands. Two federal indictments alleging 23 fraud-related charges were brought against him in 2023, to which he pleaded not guilty. 

Santos refused to resign his office, bartering his resignation to the issue of the speakership, and avoided an initial expulsion vote, but wasn’t so lucky the second time, after a House Ethics Committee report issued in November. The second vote on Dec. 1st was 311-114 to expel, with 112 Republicans joining Dems—over the 2/3 needed to pass. Santos was the first Republican rep expelled and the only one who was expelled without first being convicted of a federal crime (or supporting the Confederacy in the Civil War.)

As guilty as Santos may or may not be, he is the first person to have been expelled from the House without having been convicted first. That there is precedent for needing a conviction isn’t trivial: it’s called due process. A better approach would be to try to convince him to resign—after some critical votes the House had planned, including and especially spending bills. That’s just smart lawmaking, and Dems would do it that way in a New York nanosecond. But no. The G.O.P. likes to shoot itself in the foot because it either wants, or believes it deserves to lose.

Another loss to the G.O.P. is former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who announced on Dec. 6th he would be resigning at the end of the year. It was a debacle when he was forced to resign his speakership on Oct. 3rd, so soon after he received it, but those were the terms he agreed to. It made the G.O.P. look like the grumpy old party, but it had been battling the mental demon of donkeys in elephants’ clothing for years, without much success. 

Still, McCarthy’s seat is staunchly Republican, so probably no worries there, but Santos’ seat is usually Dem all the way. It is said he won only because of disinterest in the election during the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s up for grabs.

It’s Dems versus the G.O.P. and the G.O.P. is divided. The G.O.P. is MAGA versus Neocons, and MAGA is ascendant. Unfortunately, Neocons are as toxic as most Dems are today, so there is no reconciliation likely in the near future. Some of just hope it isn’t because Neocons have hands as dirty as the Biden and Obama-affiliated, corrupt Dems.

A Glimpse Into the 2028 Presidential Race?

THIS EVENING, FOX NEWS’ SEAN HANNITY moderated Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) and Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) in a debate that had been agreed to some time ago when DeSantis’ poll numbers in the Republican presidential primary race were much better than they are today. At the time, it was also expected the imposter occupying the White House, Joey Biden, would be impeached, ousted, or ready to retire, a mere footnote in the 2024 campaign season, and that Newsom might be the new Big Guy taking his place. 

I haven’t watched Hannity, or Fox (except Maria Bartiromo on Sunday morning), since early on Election Day of 2020 when the cable news channel prematurely and erroneously called the State of Arizona for Biden with only a tiny fraction of the vote counted. I didn’t miss much, it seems. 

It wasn’t really a debate, but rather, a clearly one-sided G.O.P. presentation, albeit, a well-researched and accurate one. Newsom would have none of it, though, and talked over Sean and DeSantis, sometimes very loudly. His answers were unresponsive and irrelevant as he ignored the facts presented to him by Hannity that painted a tarnished picture of the Golden State. Many of his assertions were just plain untrue, except, perhaps, for his correction to DeSantis’ pronunciation of Kamala Harris’ first name. Newsom came across as the pompous ass he truly is, but credit where due: he agreed to appear on (gasp!) Fox.

DeSantis, for his part, came across as sane, reasoned, and prepared. He is not known to be a good debater (this was good practice), but he can do a pretty credible compare-and-contrast presentation, as he illustrated. He came with a show-and-tell package, which included, e.g., an actual map currently in use showing where the human shit on the streets in San Francisco is especially bad and a couple of actual books in current use in California schools that glorify homosexuality in age-inappropriate ways. He had to be a bit annoying by speaking fast and loud to be heard over Newsom’s constant interruptions. At the end, it sounded as though the two had agreed to continue the debate another 20 minutes, but during the commercials, they changed their minds. A news imbroglio ensued.

It appears over 5 million watched the fiasco. All the while, it was irrelevant to 2024, but maybe it is a glimpse into the future—2028. 

The Guest and the Rest

THE HAMAS COMMANDER of the military wing of the group is Mohammed Deif. It is a nom de guerre that translates to “the Guest.” It is apt given the practice of militant Palestinians to sleep in a different bed of sympathizers every night. His ambition is simply to destroy Israel. Israeli intelligence service Shin Bet has a lengthy file on two generations of men in his family going back to the 1950s, but he remains a mystery even though they have attributed the death of well over 50 civilians to him.

He was well-known to Israeli security who nearly killed him two decades ago in an airstrike that cost him, literally, an arm and a leg (and an eye) and left him wheelchair-bound. A survivor of five Israeli attacks, he is revered by many aggrieved Palestinians. He video-taped a message that was chilling. It was released within hours of the attack on Israel on Saturday. He said:

“In light of the continuing crimes against our people, in light of the orgy of occupation and its denial of international laws and resolutions, and in light of American and Western support, we’ve decided to put an end to all this so that the enemy understands that he can no longer revel without being held to account.”

Videos were also released by Hamas on social media showing its militants paragliding over the border along with gruesome pictures of dead soldiers and terrified civilians. Footage was shown beheading soldiers. It wasn’t amateur hour. As of Monday evening, more than 900 Israelis have been killed, 2,600 injured, and others captured and taken hostage. Apparently the attack that was celebrated by Palestinians and Muslims worldwide, was rehearsed in plain sight. By Monday evening, U.S. time, Hamas threatened to execute 150 hostages online. It appears the analogy of it being Israel’s 9/11 was fairly accurate.

Some, including the third-largest Israeli newspaper Haaretz, blame Bibi Netanyahu for the deadliest attack on the Holy Land in a half decade when Egypt and Syria attacked in 1973’s Yom Kippur War. Netanyahu and his “fully-right government”  was derelict in identifying the dangers of his government’s practice of “annexation and dispossession” and the appointment of certain men hostile to Palestinians and Palestinian statehood who are intent on expanding Jewish settlements. The military and intelligence failures by his government does not absolve him of responsibility either, the newspaper opined. Brokering a peace deal with Saudi Arabia gave the Palestinians nothing, it added. Netanyahu’s three corruption cases, it claims, made him unable to look after affairs of the state.

Meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Affairs blames the European Union for funding “antisemitic propaganda.” And halfway around the world, there was plenty of blame for the completely incompetent Joey Biden, who has been illicitly occupying the White House since 2020. Specifically, he abandoned a massive cache of military weapons and equipment when he suddenly and irresponsibly bugged out of Afghanistan which, it appears, found its way to Israel. 

Biden also unfroze $6 billion in assets of Iran in a recent prisoner swap, which, it also appears, was used to fund the attack on Israel. (Iran’s involvement via its militia, Hezbollah, has been acknowledged by Hamas.) Aside from that, Biden’s irresponsible, unmeasured, and unaccountable giveaway of American weapons, including equipment, supplies, and money, to Ukraine and its corrupt president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has resulted in the shipment of war spoils from fallen Ukrainian soldiers to Hamas militants, a fact admitted to by Kyiv. Plus, Biden has been distracted with his own corruption and that of his son, Hunter, as well as the many international and domestic issues plaguing what was recently considered the world’s most major power. 

Netanyahu, for whatever his degree of fault may be, deemed Hamas “worse than ISIS” and vowed to get vengeance. He is, after all, a living master class in propagandizing. By Monday, his response had killed 3,000 in the two-day blitz over Gaza. A full-scale ground invasion is expected to commence on Tuesday. Some very graphic photographs have been published (and not yet censored by U.S. authorities) of the response in The Sun. With its 300 rocket launchers, 173,000 active troops, 465,000 reserve personnel, 2,200 tanks, and 601 planes, Israel’s complete response promises to be unforgiving and bloody. How the Iron Dome was overwhelmed isn’t clear, but undoubtedly, it will be examined.

Claiming “we are fighting human animals and we act accordingly,” Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant promised, “there will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed,” referring to Gaza. 

A senior Hamas official reportedly said the group was open to a possible ceasefire given it had “achieved its targets.” But Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog lamented that “not since the Holocaust have so many Jews been killed in one day,” and Netanyahu has officially declared war, so a ceasefire, understandably, wouldn’t seem likely to be on the negotiating table. Typical Palestinian mismanagement!

See How They Censor: Social Media & the USG ‘Partnership’

THE 11th AND 12th INSTALLMENTS OF THE TWITTER FILES were released and presented by Matt Taibbi. Part 11 described how Twitter allowed the intelligence community into its realm. Specifically, the government intimidated Big Tech companies to start censoring in 2017 using the Trump-Russia-collusion narrative. Yes, that implies other social media was complicit.

Back in Aug. of 2017, Facebook decided to suspend 300 accounts that allegedly had “suspected Russian origin.” Twitter, though, didn’t think they had the same problem. The company kept the focus on FB, as evidenced by a “privileged and confidential” email on the matter from Colin Crowell that had the subject line, “Russian election meddling.” By Sept., though, Twitter informed the Senate it suspended 22 possible offenders with another 179 others with “possible links” to those accounts from a set of 2,700 manually examined. 

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) was furious, finding Twitter’s presentation before the Intel Committee “inadequate on every level.” Crowell later sent an email to then-owner Jack Dorsey saying that an off-the-record closed-door meeting with the committee was more cordial and he promised to “circle back” with more information on their queries.  On the House side, he told Dorsey Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said Twitter had “significant forensic work to do to understand the depth and breadth of Russian activity during the [206 presidential” campaign.” (Brackets added.). Crowell added that Warner had a political incentive to pressure the industry generally and Twitter specifically t”to keep producing material.” 

Finally, Crowell added that Hillary Clinton had been blaming social media’s lack of censorship of “Russian propaganda” in her “What Happened” book tour and that third party academics and researchers were hurting the company by claiming “the bot/Russian troll problem” was “significant.” Crowell followed up on this by noting Clinton had said, “It’s time for Twitter to stop dragging its heels and live up to the fact that its platform is being used as a tool for cyber-warfare.”

Recognizing there was a PR problem, Twitter thereafter formed a “Russia Task Force” to proactively investigate itself. The plan of attack outlined by Policy Director Carlos Monje was to review the 2016 election, prepare for congressional hearings, reaching out to researchers, reporters and Congress, and evaluate whether policy needed change. Ultimately the search was a dud, finding only possible “lone-wolf type activity.” By Oct., all that the task force found was “15 high risk accounts, 3 of which have connections with Russia, although 2 are RT.” A week later, it completed its examination, finding 32 suspicious accounts, 17 of which were connected with Russia, and 2 of which “have significant spend,” and one which was RT.  Nonetheless, a panicked headline “Russian Influence Reached 126 million Through Facebook Alone” appeared and another, “Twitter deleted data potentially crucial to Russia probes” was attributed by Politico to an Intel Committee source. 

Once Congress threatened Twitter with costly litigation, the company saw the light and the significance of its Russia problem.  A new law sponsored by Sens. Warner, Klobuchar, and McCain would threaten its political advertising revenue, so Twitter was prepared to remove RT and Sputnik to placate Congress. Reporters chimed in, claiming to find new “Russian-linked bot accounts.” Twitter looked into it and found they were principally active in German and English and related to Brexit. After Buzzfeed published, though, Twitter backtracked and apologized for the accounts they had said were not a problem. At this point, the threat of litigation and scare headlines pushed by Congress and intel sources became a model to get Twitter to cave to moderation and became formalized in partnerships with federal law enforcement.  In public, it said it removed content “at our sole discretion” even though they would “off-board” anything “identified by the U.S.. intelligence community as a state-sponsored entity conducting cyber-operations.” This became the new status quo.

Part 12 of The Twitter Files showed the continued use of the Trump-Russia-collusion hoax even years later to force Big Tech to censor as desired—in this case, with Covid-19 content.  By early 2020, government agencies were bypassing Twitter and going straight to MSM with suspect accounts.  In Feb., with the Covid pandemic underway, the Global Engagement Center went to the media with a report, “Russian Disinformation Apparatus Taking Advantage of Coronavirus Concerns.” GEC was a new analytic intelligence arm in the State Dept. It identified accounts as “Russian Disinformation Apparatus Taking Advantage of Coronavirus Concerns.” GEC flagged accounts retweeting news that Twitter banned ZeroHedge, which they said was disinformation since it claimed the virus had a lab origin. MSM echoed this with, e.g., a Politico story about how “Russian, Chinese, Iranian Disinformation Narratives Echo One Another.” 

In May, an email from Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth updated his team on work with Clemson researchers working on “a media literacy tool to help consumers identify when they might be engaging with an inauthentic persona online,” where he felt he had developed a good rapport.  But the Clemson lab continued to bypass Twitter. The GEC wanted to publish a list of 5,500 accounts it said would would “amplify Chinese propaganda and disinformation” about COVID,” and Twitter was unhappy. The accounts followed two or more Chinese diplomatic accounts, but the list, then 250,000 in toto, included Canadian officials and a CNN account. 

Roth believed the GEC was using intel from other agencies to “insert themselves” into social media moderation. They also shared their material with the press before Twitter could review it. Twitter was displeased. Then the F.B.I. told Twitter the GEC wanted to be involved in the “industry call” between social media companies and the DHS and F.B.I.  At that point, the social media companies were talking to each other. Roth sent a confidential email about the problem which would only worsen as the 2020 election heated up. Multiple emails passed between the USG and social media over how the relationships would work. The F.B.I.’s Elvis Chan then circulated private numbers for all the chief moderation officers in a Word document with the subject line, List of Numbers. 

By September, emails were sent to Senate intel regarding Twitter’s suspension of 5 accounts that had little impact before deletion, but which Twitter could claim to have worked with the F.B.I. on. Before long, it seems as if everyone in the USG was participating in the censorship. Some were requesting accounts of people they disliked to be suspended. A notable example was House intel Committee chief Adam Schiff asking that senior reporter for RealClearInvestigations.com; New York Post columnist; Hoover Institution media fellow; and former-D.C. bureau chief Paul Sperry be suspended, suppressing him in search results, ceasing the spread of the info, and labeling and reducing the visibility of his content. Although Sperry was ultimately suspended, Twitter declined Schiff’s request, though they honored plenty of others. 

Lists of requests were increasingly sent and later included censorship requests surrounding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine based only on the assertion that “[t]he attached email accounts… were possibly used for ‘influence operations, social media collection, or social engineering.’”  Twitter was even warned about a book by former Ukraine prosecutor Viktor Shokhin who alleged Joe Biden was a corrupt U.S. official. Further demands on Twitter came fast and furious. It appears Twitter received underpayment of $3,415,323 for its inconvenience.  It also appears much of what was censored was also true.

We Came. We Saw. Albright All Dead.

March 26, 2022

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT was the first woman to be appointed as Secretary of State in 1997 under then-President Bill Clinton. She served as ambassador to the U.N. previously. In 2012, then-President Obama awarded her the Medal of Freedom. She died, age 84, from cancer on Wednesday.

The Clintons loved her, so that should tell you something about this Prague native. Among other things, she encouraged NATO to be the world’s policemen in Kosovo after the fall of the U.S.S.R. in 1999. It established a precedent for later wars of aggression, such as Bush’s invasion of Iraq, and yes, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

She was also instrumental in enforcing harsh sanctions against Iraq’s dictator Saddam Hussein through the 1990s that starved Iraqi civilians of food and killed them from lack of medicines. When asked by the CBS TV news-magazine “60 Minutes” in 1996 whether the Iraqi sanctions after the 1991 Gulf war were worth it, she replied they were, despite resultant deaths of some 500,000 Iraqi children, a figure Albright did not bother to dispute. (Eventually it was estimated up to 1.5 million Iraqis had died as a result of the sanctions, probably rising to the scale of a genocide.) Osama bin Laden later said the cruel sanctions were one of the primary reasons for al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Albright thought then, as the imposter in the White House, Joe Biden, does today, that sanctions would force the nation to capitulate and cause the population to overthrow their leader. It didn’t work any better back then than it does today, but Biden was probably too busy then beating up Corn Pop outside the gym to notice. Time will tell if the analogy stops there, or if, like the pretext of WMDs being used to rationalize the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the pretext of chemical or bio-weapons will justify a possible U.S. invasion of Russia for regime change. (There were no WMDs and hopefully there will be no chem- or bio-weapons, but one cannot trust reporting on it as a contemporaneous matter given recent history of ‘mistakes.’)

Before we venerate a woman such as Albright, perhaps we should think about how we might feel if another country, say, Russia, just for giggles, did to us what Albright did to them. Would they call us what our own call Putin: a worse-than-Hitler soulless war-criminal killer madman? The MSM is not clear on this.

The Votes Keep Rolling on In.

LATE LAST WEEK, former Georgia Sen. David Perdue (R) filed a lawsuit against Fulton County (read it here), alleging it “circumvented the majority vote of the people and thereby affected the outcome of the Election on 11/3.” This, he maintains, is because “clearly unlawful counterfeit absentee ballots were counted” in the state, thousands of which were scanned and tabulated two or three times. The lawsuit seeks to inspect those ballots. The county also violated state law by not ensuring full visibility in the ballot processing area while the ballots were being scanned and tabulated. Joe Biden allegedly “won” Georgia by 12,000 votes, so it matters.

Also of note in the complaint is Happy Faces. Happy Faces is a stacey Abrams-linked personnel provider that was used for temporary staffing needs in the county’s 2020 election. Personnel were allegedly improperly trained and were allowed to engage in “clearly unlawful actions related to the General Election.”

Meanwhile, the Public Interest Legal Foundation filed a federal lawsuit against Colorado’s Secretary of State for failing to permit inspection of voter list maintenance records, including that which the state receives from the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), which is considered notoriously inaccurate by partisans on both sides of the aisle. (Read the complaint here.) ERIC is used by Colorado and 30 other states and the District of Columbia outsource voter roll maintenance to this non-profit of dubious value.

These records are to be kept and available for inspection under the National Voter Registration Act. Colorado’s defense is rich. The state claims it is protecting voter’s privacy, because, you know, states are so good at protecting peoples’ privacy. PILF will argue the case as the only 501(c)(3) public interest law firm in the nation dealing exclusively with election integrity.

Unfortunately, there appears to be no remedy at law and in court for voter and/or election fraud. At best, all we’ll probably get out of it is some sort of consent decree promising to try to run a better election next time. What we should have expected in the first instance…

The Case for Televising Trials

THE JURY REACHED ITS VERDICT in the Kyle Rittenhouse case in Kenosha, WI on Friday. The now-18-year-old’s criminal trial wrapped early in the week and jurors, despite having death threats leveled against them, fulfilled their civil duty with dignity and aplomb. Some Americans followed he case closely on TV. And some were not impressed with what they saw.

Rittenhouse had shot dead two (white) people a wounded a third on the night of Aug. 25, 02020 in Kenosha amidst the Black Lives Matter rioting there. Rittenhouse had claimed self-defense. Because it was seen by so many, including his own testimony(!), it was impossible to hide some serious prosecutorial misconduct, such as the use of witnesses whose testimony was belied by photographic evidence; as well as press propaganda, such that the judge in the case disallowed MSNBC back into the courtroom because of their juror intimidation (under further investigation). Had the case been quietly tried in some tiny courthouse in the outback of the Badger State, the result may have been quite different. You couldn’t even get an update on Facebook and Twitter as both platforms (and GoFundMe) had banned support for the defendant, who was supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. (Hint: he wasn’t.)

The verdict, finding Rittenhouse Not Guilty on all five counts, has since been condemned by many who had erroneously reduced the trial to one about ‘systemic racism,’ a favorite, albeit unsupported theme of the era. Even Joe Biden managed to say he was “angry” about it, though he may have confused it with the colonoscopy he had that day. One thing is for certain: whether you view the verdict as a miscarriage of justice depends entirely on your political bent. (If you’re a Dem, the “racists” and “Nazis” won.) That’s not how justice is supposed to work, of course, so having objective coverage is critical to a fair and just legal process. Interestingly, though, Mother Jones had this to say, here.

With good judgment, the National Guard was put on alert for the delivery of the verdict. Thankfully so far, things remain peaceful in Kenosha, though near-freezing temperatures may be the reason more than acceptance. There is no need to re-litigate this case. We’ll probably see Rittenhouse sue media outlets, a la Nicholas Sandmann, for defamation and he’ll probably prevail. No one should be accused of, and have to defend against, being a “white supremacist.” (Let’s Go Brandon.)

More Communist Sympathy in the Illegitimate Biden Regime

THE POSITION OF COMPTROLLER OF THE CURRENCY sounds as if it’s a purely ministerial job, but it isn’t, and a communist should not be nominated, let alone conformed for it. The position oversees 3,500 employees and, inter alia, exercises authority over bank account and lending rules. Confirmation is, however, what the illegitimate C.C.P. puppet-in-chief occupying the White House, Joe Biden, is attempting to do by nominating Soviet-born (Kazakhstan) Saule Omarova, who came to the U.S. in 1991 as an exchange student through Moscow State University. Today, Poor Dear claims to have been stateless when the communist regime collapsed as she was studying in the U.S.

Omarova has publicly proclaimed she wants to “end banking as we know it.” Poor Dear was grilled by the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs on Thursday in some sort of confirmation ruse but had views that raised eyebrows.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), for one, minced no words when he asked her if he should call her professor or comrade given her past membership in the Young Communists. She stated all kids were members, which is surely true, but her uncomforting follow-up on the matter was, “There is no record of me actually ever participating in any Marxist or communist discussions of any kind.” Except there apparently was as late as 2019 in a Marxist Facebook group, which she claims to not remember. In fairness, she did renounce her Soviet citizenship, although, again in fairness, renouncing a state that ceased to exist was redundant.

It turns out there’s more to know about Omarova. She was reportedly arrested on June 2, 1995 in Madison, WI for “retail theft,” a/k/a shoplifting at TJ Maxx, a misdemeanor crime. Her prosecution appears to have been deferred until some time in 1996, when the charge was dropped under their first offender program. A spokesperson noted the arrest was remote in time, arose from “a misunderstanding and a confusing situation,” and Poor Dear was “transparent” about it. They then countered that the reporting of the matter amounted to “tawdry behavior” despite it being a matter of public record.

So, okay, let’s let that go then, shall we? Here’s what’s truly disturbing about this Cornell Law School professor:

As recently as Oct. 2020, she authored a paper entitled, “The People’s Ledger,” which advocated a replacement of the nation’s private bank deposits and allowing the Federal Reserve System to control “systemically important prices” such as food, wages, and real estate. Now she backtracks it as “academic writing.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) helps her cause by blaming opposition to Omarova on “sexism, racism, [and]…Red Scare” akin to Sen. Joe McCarthy in the 1950s.

But McCarthyism aside, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) noted Omarova had proposed that policymaking in economics and ‘climate change’ be removed from Congress and given to a new federal bureaucracy she would call the “National Investment Authority.” It would, in effect, execute the so-called Green New Deal.

And, speaking of energy matters, Omarova had infamously stated “we” want fossil fuel companies to go bankrupt to tackle climate change. To Omarova, it’s “a tricky question” whether higher energy prices are good or bad for America. When probed further, she said she had “misspoke.” She really meant the opposite.

Much of what Omarova believes is foolish at best, dangerous at worst, but some in the G.O.P. were, IMO, needlessly hard on her position on cryptocurrency. They believe it can safeguard savings by negating inflation caused by irresponsible spending by lawmakers. Omarova, however, believes it lessens government control over money. Both are correct in their assertion; both are right in the outcome. This isn’t mutually exclusive.

Yet, Omarova is inconsistent in that she would appear to support a central bank digital currency (or CBDC, which sounds suspiciously like a cannabinoid-induced mental impairment of some type.) This could constitute an extremely concerning micromanagement of economic activity never before contemplated in this country.

Egad. Will the Biden parade of horribles ever end?