Chris Wray: The “R” After His Name Stands for ‘Reprobate.’

HO HUM. ANOTHER DAY, another Congressional hearing (this time the House Judiciary Committee), another pol off the hook. Such was the case again on Wednesday when F.B.I. Director Christopher Wray (a Republican—sort of) took the hot seat.

Of course not all members were adversarial, like Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), whose name Zoe Lofgren may ring a bell from managing one of 45th President Donald Trump’s impeachments. Lofgren accused her G.O.P. colleagues of “engaging in conspiracy theories” to delegitimize the the Bureau “without any evidence,” a favorite blame-game among her ilk.

She’s wrong, of course, but why let the truth stand in the way of an untrue accusation? She just doesn’t remember the recent opinion in Missouri v. Biden or the findings from the Twitter Files that fly in what should be the very red faces of the bureaucrats who so enthusiastically censored any opposing views. Writing for The Federalist, Tristan Justice helpfully has provided Rep. Lofgren with the mounting pile of evidence to this effect, here. 

On questioning, Wray simply blew Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) off on the topic of Jan. 6th. He dismissed the notion that undercover agents were involved in any way by calling the allegation “ludicrous.” (There were, and it’s been well documented.)

The fact he refused to answer anything further may have told the Committee everything they needed to know. While it can be true the F.B.I. must, at times, keep matters of ‘humint’ under wraps, one would think that time has come and gone even though American citizens still sit in a D.C. jail awaiting trial. When Rep.  Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) asked Wray, “How many individuals that were FBI employees were in the Jan. 6th entry of the Capitol?” Wray replied, I really need to be careful here about were we have or have not used confidential human sources.” And so it went.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) inquired about the agency’s attempt to locate a suspected pipe bomber who had left devices at both the DNC and RNC Thomas Massie on Jan. 6th.  About two months ago, Massie and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) asked to be briefed on the F.B.I.’s failure to track the suspect’s vehicle down after it had been identified. Massie and Jordan had been tipped off by a whistleblower that the F.B.I. was derelict in its duty in failing to follow up on perfectly good leads. In a characteristic noncommital answer, Wray said he didn’t talk about ongoing investigations. Fair enough, perhaps, but as Massie pointed out, it’s been 900 days.

Based on a new interim report issued on Monday by the House Judiciary’s Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, it appears that the F.B.I. colluded with the Security Service of Ukrainian to flag social media posts of Americans for ‘partners’ in Silicon Valley to censor to further the government’s desired narrative. (More here.)

Wray’s response to inquiries into this was just that the Ukrainian Security Service had been a “longstanding good partner” of the F.B.I., despite the fact it has been found to be notoriously compromised by the Kremlin. (Russian collusion, anyone?) The full interim report is here.

Remarkably, Wray admitted to surveillance of Catholic parishes in the U.S. that prefer Latin masses. Apparently a F.B.I. Special Agent named Kyle Seraphin disclosed that the Richmond Division thought it could prevent ‘white supremacy’ by doing so. House Republicans wrote to Wray about this in April. Jordan asked Wray, “Do you think priests should be informants inside the church?”” Wray conceded the fact the F.B.I. may have engaged in such surveillance, but seemed to suggest it was all okay because it didn’t result in any investigative action.

Then there was the Bureau’s raid on and arrest of a ‘pro-life’ activist, ultimately acquitted. Wray said he wouldn’t “second-guess” the agents on the ground. Roy asked if that wasn’t exactly what his job was.

When Wray was asked if he thought the D.O.J. should rescind a memo it issued targeting concerned parents at school board meetings, Wray passed the buck to the A.G., but said the F.B.I. conducted itself properly. An interim staff report by House Republicans on the Judiciary Committee in March concluded there was no legitimate basis to have done this.

Wray also admitted the F.B.I. got Americans’ records from Bank of America without a warrant, and apparently, other banks, as a routine practice. Again, it was a whistleblower who revealed they had a “huge list” of Americans’ financial transactions on credit and debit cards used near the Capitol around Jan. 6th.

Massie asked about similar overly-broad records regarding gun purchases. Wray said he thought it was legal for business ‘partners’ to report or share info with the agency.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) read a transcript of Hunter Biden’s email threat to get paid that referenced Joe. Gaetz asked Wray if it wounded like a shake-down to him. Wray demurred in answering. When asked if he was protecting the Bidens, Wray said, “absolutely not.”

That is inconsistent with reports of at least two whistleblowers, one of whom is facing the wrath of the U.S. government. Dual American-Israeli citizen, Dr. Gal Luft, worked for CEFC, the same company as Hunter did, and did the same type of work. Hunter used the F.B.I. to leak classified data to C.C.P.-linked CEFC for kickbacks. Luft did not. Both violated Foreign Agents Registration Act. One was indicted this week. The other lives freely at the White House.

Bidenflation & the Call for IOUs, Digital Currency, & Wooden Nickels

In the 1970s, there used to be this thing called the “Peter Principle,” which, paraphrased, held that people reach their own level of incompetence in life. Today things are different. We now have the “Woke Principle,” which goes even further, to say people who are incompetent simply rise like a Chinese surveillance balloon, and to continue the metaphor, may later suddenly pop. 

It’s hard to believe Janet Yellen was Federal Reserve Chairperson (2014-2018). If not qualified, then she seemed at least marginally competent, reaching her Peter Principle zenith. Today, she’s Treasury Secretary in the Biden regime, and has fallen from those lofty heights as well as from America’s good graces. She’s about to pop. To be sure, it’s a hard job and hard times, but still, this is bad…

After two recent bank failures, Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, Yellen was called to testify before the Senate Finance Committee on Biden’s 2024 preposterous and irresponsible budget proposal where Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) tried to get her to commit as to whether or not the deposits at all Oklahoma community banks would, from here on in be fully insured under the FDIC, just like Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank were. (SVB filed for bankruptcy on Friday.) He was referring to the moral hazard of having Americans mistakenly believe their deposits would be fully insured above $250,000 FDIC limits like the Valley oligarchs were, and he clearly didn’t believe that was, or would be the case.

Yellen said she didn’t want to encourage that line of thinking, adding that a bank would only get “that treatment” under the “systemic risk exception rule.” That takes a “supermajority,” along with the agreement of Biden and herself. The test is that “the failure to protect uninsured depositors would create systemic risk and significant economic and financial consequences.” 

When asked about the insurance on CCP-linked deposits at the two banks on Thursday, Yellen could only muster a vague response to Sen. Lankford’s question, “Will my banks in Oklahoma pay a special assessment to be able to make Chinese investors whole from Silicon Valley Bank?” Yellen replied, “I suppose that could include foreign depositors. I don’t believe there’s any legal basis to discriminate among uninsured.”  Say what?! Do you not see you are discriminating against Oklahoman depositors?! (Video here.) In a complete non sequitor, Yellen, with a straight face and bulging eyes, told the Senate, “the banking system is sound.” Yeah, right…Why then did former Chairman of the FDIC, William Isaac, tell Neil Cavuto on Fox News that “there’s probably going to be more failures along the way…the problem we have is the same one that we had back in 1970s when the government was out of control with its fiscal policies, its monetary policies, inflation set in, and banks were just not ready for that.” 

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The FDIC was established after the Great Depression by the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 to insure bank deposits. The first year, it was for $2,500 per depositor, and today is $250,000. It appears the SRE was promulgated in 1991 by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act, to include reporting and audit requirements for banks and winding-up procedures for insolvent banks, among other things, after the banking crisis of the 1980s. Some 1,600 banks had failed between 1980 and 1994. A number of factors caused it, including ineffective regulation of S&Ls and a dramatic collapse of prices of energy and real estate in a significant portion of the country (including mine.) 

The FDICIA also encompassed “the least cost test,” which provided that the FDIC had to use the least costly method to provide FDIC insurance to depositors—selling the bank as a single entity, for example, or liquidating it and selling assets piecemeal.  The FDICIA also had an exception to the least cost test, known as the systemic risk exception, which allows for a decision to protect uninsured depositors, too, even if it’s more costly, when complying with the least cost test “would have adverse effects on economic conditions or financial stability.

Systemic risk is defined, not at law, but in an FDIC working paper as “risk that arises because of the structure of the financial system and interactions between financial institutions.” Systemic risk may include systematic risk, which is “risk explained by factors that influence the economy as a whole,” and it includes risks caused by “contagion,” defined as “the transmission of losses or distress from one institution to another.” In terms of contagion, there are two kinds described as ‘asset price contagion,’ where, for instance, fire sales by a failing institution force mark-to-market prices down for all other institutions, possibly putting their balance sheets in jeopardy; and ‘counter-party contagion,’ where a transaction’s failing counter-party has a domino effect that negatively impacts other financial institutions.”

For SRE to be invoked, the FDICIA requires written recommendations from both the boards of the FDIC and Federal Reserve, with a 2/3 or more vote by each. At that time, the Secretary of the Treasury (here, Yellen) signs off after consultation with the President (here, allegedly Biden). Congress must then be notified. Despite increasing objections from many, it appears the law was likely followed to the extent it exists, and that discretion used was at least arguably authorized, even if only in that vaguely and disturbingly opaque and oblique administrative law way of the executive branch. 

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However, that does not mean opponents of the invocation of the SRE are wrong. They are not. First, while it may not be expressly provided for, implicit in the relevant law is that the problem at hand needs to be corrected. In other words, while being true to the letter of the law, one must follow the spirit of the law, too. The law is clear, at least interstitially, that the idea isn’t to spend good money after bad, or vice versa, and therefore, a solution must also be found for the problem.

While there appear to be safeguards built into the system, by virtue of the numbers required to sign off, these entities are intensely political and divided, despite the fact the Federal Reserve is supposed to be independent and devoid of partisanship. It must not only appear independent, but be independent in fact. And it just doesn’t look that way to many. They need a better explanation than what Yellen managed to muster on Thursday because she, and the Fed she once chaired, have lost credibility with many people. 

That so many are up in arms about these recent bailouts is definitely not dispositive of whether there is a systemic risk to the banking infrastructure, but it is at least suggestive there is a possibility, however slight, that there might not be to the extent of invoking the SRE. Was this possibility deliberated, and how was the decision reached? And why is there not a public disclosure of which banks are deemed to be “too big to fail” or systemic risks enough to trigger the exception? Depositors might like to know. After all, having big banks with outsized Chinese deposits being bailed out by American taxpayers is offensive to said taxpayers, especially when their own regional or local banks are not given the same deference. They are suffering from both the causes and effects of these decisions by people who are  unelected and unaccountable.

Second, just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. Bailing out all depositors having over $250,000 in a bank when the law is clear that is supposed to be the limit requires the taxpayer to be on board and trust the system while you’re exploiting an exception that has only been used once before. (Then it was for the 2008 Financial Crisis where Lehman Bros. was allowed to fail, but the SRE did not stop the Global Finance Crisis, so there’s that…). 

Many simply do not trust this system. This is because mistakes were made in the Fed, which Yellen once chaired and Powell has chaired since then. That at least one of the entities signing off on this exception are complicit in the underlying problem (by ‘fighting’ inflation by sudden and drastic interest rate increases after way-too-long ‘loose’ monetary policy along with uncontrolled and spiraling fiscal spending) means there could be a perverse incentive to do that which is not in America’s best interests. There have also been regulatory failures at a more pedestrian level that seem rife for repeat along with the moral hazard that entails.

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Concerns are only heightened when we learn that in addition to the SRE, the Fed on March 12th created the “Bank Term Funding Program,” designed to give banks, savings associations, and other institutions Fed-backed loans for up to a year “to help assure banks have the ability to meet the needs of all their depositors,” according to the Federal Reserve press release. So far, $11.9 billion has been borrowed. 

And already, 90-day bank borrowing from the Fed’s discount window, is a whopping $153 billion this week, well exceeding the prior record during the 2008 crisis of $111 billion. The BTFP may, in fact, be a wise prophylactic, but as a person bailing out the system, I’d rather see regulators do their jobs in an even-handed, honest, and prudent manner and bypass all these tests altogether. Because when push comes to shove, it isn’t really the FDIC who is insuring these depositors: it is the weary and abused taxpayers of this once-great nation.

Confidence wasn’t instilled in the minds of hard-working, tax-paying Americans when Yellen testified in the Senate Finance Committee hearing that her boss’ policies led to the massive inflation crisis that led to the rapid interest rate hikes that in turn led to the ongoing banking crisis. How much worse can it get, we are left to wonder with fear and trepidation. (According to The Wall Street Journal, since February 2020, the Fed increased the nation’s money supply by a staggering 40%. To some experts, it explains why the U.S. is experiencing its highest inflation rate since 1981.)

The Federal Reserve has been, after all, devaluing the otherwise prudent balance sheets of all banks, not only SVB and SB. Yellen stammered through the hearing, saying a bit incoherently, “My understanding is that the bank, to meet liquidity needs had to sell assets that it expected to hold to maturity and given that the interest rate increases that have occurred since those assets, including treasuries–and government-backed–mortgage-backed securities they had lost market value.” (Video here.)  There was a systemic failure: failure of regulators to do their jobs!

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On Thursday, the Federal Reserve announced the “FedNow” program that will begin in July, probably after additional and foreseeable bank failures. Available 24/7/365 for instant bill payments, money transfers, and government disbursements. It is operated by a consortium of large banks (too big to fail, one would hope) rather than blockchain technology. Certification begins in April. Proponents claim this program cite ‘equity’ and that it will ‘bank’ the ‘unbanked.’ Opponents fear it’s a start of digital currency used to surveil financial transactions and requiring intrusive digital IDs which violate one’s privacy. Add another objection now: it relies on an insecure consortium of banks for its backbone. The timing, once again, couldn’t be worse. 

And on Friday, it was reported the Fed would likely raise interest rates 25 basis points at its next meeting on March 22nd in a frantic attempt to continue to try to tame what has become known as Bidenflation. The Fed has raised rates seven times, totaling 450 basis points, in 2022 already.

Some would undoubtedly claim I’m being way too charitable to these oligarchs. Perhaps. Economics is a challenging assignment, though. I’m admittedly not an ‘End the Fed’ or ‘Screw the Banksters’ type. The Federal Reserve and banks provide a strong societal backing most of us rely on in our personal and business endeavors. We do, however, need to trust these people we are entrusting in non-elected positions of significant power. To taxpayers in the middle or upper-middle classes, who are needed to pay the bulk of taxes in the U.S. today, there is a real disconnect when Silicon Valley start-ups, established tech firms, and Chinese speculators and venture ‘capitalists’ (hugely in aerospace and defense ventures, no less!) and who are all advised well enough to know the $250,000 rule, get bailed out when the taxpayers, as depositors at local or regional banks may not be under what appear to be otherwise identical circumstances.

The next proverbial shoe to drop is likely Credit Suisse which will catapult America’s banking crisis into a global one. Another good timing situation as the world tiptoes into World War III…

Biden’s Rude ‘Wokening’

MARKETS HELD THEIR COLLECTIVE BREATHS when the opening bell rang at the New York Stock Exchange on Monday morning. They had all weekend to fret about the failure of Silicon Valley Bank, Silvergate Capital, and, more recently, Signature Bank, a crypto bank out of New York who had former Rep. Barney Frank on its Board. (His signature legislation, known as the Dodd-Frank Act, was ironically passed in response to the 2008 financial collapse.) Bank buyer(s) hadn’t been found. Would there be a blood bath on Wall Street at 9:30 a.m.? Pre-market trading indicated there would be.

There was a massive $100 billion was lost in the U.S. banking sector on Monday. Some regional banks, in sympathy with SVB, fell by up to 60%, and the so-called “Big Four” trillion-dollar banks (Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and JP Morgan) were thought to be drawn into the contagion from SVB, which had stopped trading on Frriday. In fits and starts, tickers that had ceased trading periodically in the trading day ended up, in some cases, in the green by 4 p.m.. The tech companies that banked with SVB started the day in the red, but in after-hours trading, many were also in the green. What happened?

Treasury Sec’y. Janet Yellen’s remarks over the weekend were a bit cryptic. On the one hand, the regime messaged that no one, no one, would be “bailed out.” The denizens of the Valley, however, were very vocal in their opposition to the regime’s position. Once it all was clarified on Monday, it seemed all borrowers would be made whole, even if they had far in excess of the $250,000 that the FDIC insures all depositors for. This is preposterous. The $250k is per depositor per class of account. One person might theoretically have a checking, savings, money market, trust, business checking, and escrow account and all would be insured to $250k.

So it’s simply a matter of setting the accounts up appropriately in the first place, and FDIC insurance, which banks (and indirectly their customers) all pay for, would kick in and cover one totally. If the government forces the FDIC to cover people who didn’t bother with setting up their accounts properly, it is not only creating a moral hazard, it is endangering the safety and solvency of the FDIC. (Others may need it down the road, BTW!) Yes, it’s true businesses, like the Silicon Valley start-ups that banked at SVB, must have large sums available in banks for payroll and other expensive things that exceed $250k every week or even every day, but an entity can set up bank accounts all over the country if they want and have every account insured up to $250k per. It’s a little less convenient to spread money out like that, but it’s less inconvenient than loosing some of the deposits and have to re-earn the money. But the Valley has lots of Democrat donors (unlike East Palestine, Ohio) and you don’t want to inconvenience them.

In a stunning moment, the illegitimate one, Joey Biden, took an early morning flight to the left coast to reassure the donors  tech entrepreneurs in person. He was brief when he got there and walked off without answering any questions. The messaging, however, was clear: this was not a bailout and taxpayer money would not be involved. 

Only two banks, SVB and Signature, were insured. It will be interesting to see how he, Biden, makes an insurer, FDIC, pay out beyond what it contracted to, which is up to $250k per account. It may be impossible to pay out, too: the FDIC insurance fund stands at roughly $125 billion, which, in the scheme of things, isn’t that much. It is hard to imagine the executive branch can force such an expenditure, but there again, ol’ Joey thinks he can just ‘cancel’ student loans without Congressional approval. So maybe he can ‘cancel’ the FDIC compact, too. Axios reports that uninsured depositors have been paid out in full in every bank failure “in living memory” except for IndyMac in 2008. And taxpayers have always been on the hook from the airline industry bailout of 2001 to Bear Stearns in 2008 to GM in 2009. No one wants another Lehman Brothers, of course.

So what happened, exactly? Information is still forthcoming, but it appears the major problem at SVB was they held government bonds on their balance sheet, which would ordinarily be considered a very conservative and safe investment. However, in this case, at this time, it was a lightening rod. In order to get any return at all, they’d buy long-term government bonds, but as the Fed began raising rates aggressively, new bonds were issued at higher rates, making the long-term bonds held by SVB and others, look very unattractive. When short term bond rates exceeded the long-term rates, known as an “inverted yield curve,” there was a problem. Add Peter Thiel running around with a key on a kite in a storm and yelling to people to get their money out of SVB ASAP, and you have an old-fashioned run on the bank. 

Paying out to the depositors meant selling these almost worthless bonds for squat. Some have said SVB didn’t have a sufficiently diversified client/depositor base, but while it would have been better if they did, it’s losing the forest through the trees, or the sky through through the lightening, so as to not mix metaphors. Inverted yield curves are the sign of economic toxicity.

This all seems more like the S&L Crisis of 1979-1982 than the Great Recession of 2008, as it has been likened to by some. See here, here, and here. Why? Because both S&Ls’ snd SVB’s troubles were triggered by higher energy prices, huge budget deficits, easy money, and ultimately, a tightening Federal Reserve. And this meant, more simply, they borrowed short and lent long in an economic environment where that is very risky. 

It didn’t take long to blame the bank failures on 45th President Donald Trump. And what wasn’t his fault could be blamed on E.S.G. factors: environment, social, governance. Banks (and other woke businesses) made it their highest priority to give loans to alleged victims of ‘racist’ E.S.G. policies and practices (like lending) of the ‘privileged,’ (like bankers). E.S.G. is really just a dog whistle for the woke. Some called for the heads of SVB management, too. What they did wrong (beyond what may be insider trading) isn’t altogether clear. What were the supposed to hold on the bank’s balance sheet, anyway? Crypto?

The question now is how the Fed will tame the wildest inflation since Jimmy Carter’s administration in time for the next presidential election. The Fed is supposed to be nonpartisan, and usually seems to be, but with Janet Reno, formerly on the Fed, and now in Treasury, it’s not so clear where loyalties are. Truth be told, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell et al. should’ve stopped after QE-1 and begun tightening the money supply, slowly but consistently thereafter. Covid made the situation vastly worse, but to be tightening so fast and so hard has had a tourniquet effect on the economy, and now it is not only woke, but broke. Things tend to break. And they broke on Biden’s watch, so he’ll take a hit in the polls. Of course, with friends like Dominion Voting Systems, it may not matter…

Facebook Is Spooky, Or How Idle Hands Are the Devil’s I.C. Workshop

WHILE ALL EYES in the social media world have been on Twitter and The Twitter Files lately, we all instinctively know that what ails it also ails the others, like Facebook. It’s hypocritical founder and C.E.O., Mark Zuckerberg, said the quiet part out loud when he testified before a Senate Committee hearing in the fall of 2020 that FB had been tipped off about alleged Russian hijinks afoot with Hunter Biden’s laptop.  It turns out, though, as the Daily Mail reported just before Christmas, the intelligence community infiltrates Silicon Valley like a coronavirus in a highly vaccinated population—that is, it infects, but doesn’t quite kill them all. Former intel agents are flourishing in Silicon Valley in very senior roles, dedicated to censoring what is deemed by them to be dis- or misinformation. It makes sense except for the unconstitutionality of it all. 

They’re everywhere: Twitter, Meta (parent of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp), Google, and no doubt, every other tech media company. They’re from everywhere, too: the C.I.A., F.B.I., NSC, State Dept., and no doubt, every other alphabet soup I.C. agency there is, including those that on paper don’t.  What is not as clear as ice is how coordinated their efforts are with their previous employers, but presumably, they were good at their jobs, so we ought not be surprised by this.

DailyMail.com managed to locate nine former C.I.A. agents who currently or previously did work at Meta, including Aaron Berman, the senior policy manager for misinformation. He had previously written presidential daily briefings.  David Agranovich is another, a former intelligence officer at the NSO. Then there is Kris Rose, who was a political and counterterrorism analyst at the C.I.A. before joining Meta’s Oversight Board. Or Bryan Weisbard, a former C.I.A. intelligence officer who is now director of trust, safety, security, and data privacy. Or Cameron Harris, a C.I.A. analyst who became Meta’s trust and safety project manager. At Twitter, DailyMail.com found eight former F.B.I. agents. One had worked in ‘psychological operations’ at the NSC. The list goes on, here.

The Daily Mail does not condemn this practice in its exposé, but it should. While people should be free to change jobs or even careers as they see fit, that so many from the I.C. end up in Silicon Valley, or anywhere else for that matter, tends to suggest that the federal bureaucracy as a whole, and the I.C. community specifically, employs too many people.  Recall they all have security clearances!

The Great Understanding Between Government and Big Tech

FORBES UNEARTHED A HELLISH COURT DOCUMENT that should concern Constitutionalists. It was an accidental discovery. It’s called a “keyword warrant” and only three are known to exist, although in all likelihood, many more have been executed. In this particular case, the federal government secretly ordered Google to provide all information they had about anyone who may have searched a name, address, or telephone number in a missing minor case arising out of Wisconsin. It was a sympathetic case where a minor was a presumed victim of kidnapping and sexual abuse in 2019. The fact the alleged victim is sympathetic, however, is not grounds to violate others’ rights. There is no probable cause to believe that someone looking up contact information is up to no good. Quite the antithesis, in fact.

The government sought access to Google users’ accounts, their CookieIDs, and IP addresses. The search was performed over a span of 16 days in mid-2020. It’s another example of how government co-opts big tech tech partners to do their dirty work, just as in geofence warrants, where law enforcement gets Google to dragnet all within range of a crime, whether they were suspected of wrongdoing or not. Although the techniques are different, they are both methods of fishing for law enforcement, and if challenged, could very well be found to be unconstitutional unreasonable searches under the 4th Amendment. Theoretically, a huge swath of the innocent public could be Hoovered up in such warrants.

Google and its Silicon Valley brethren like to assure the world they are making it a better place because they promise to abide by the law. The obvious problem is Google exists at the government’s pleasure with the constant threat of antitrust challenges lurking. If the government wants something, they just consider it a quid pro quo; Google, the cost of doing business. Yet, no one, including those whose privacy was violated, is the wiser. No harm, no foul. This is dangerous.

The two other known instances of keyword warrants occurred in 2017 and 2020. The 2017 case was in Minnesota where Google provided data on anyone who searched a fraud victim’s name from within a certain area. The 2020 case requested data on searches of a victim who was a witness in a government racketeering case. On behalf of several dozen concerned organizations, the New York chapter of the A.C.L.U. wrote a letter to Google last year urging more transparency on usage.

What a Tangled Web We Have Weaved in Politics

IT WASN’T FORESEEABLE in 1969 when computer scientists Vinton Cerf and Bob Kahn invented Internet protocols used today, nor when Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1990, but by, say, 2012, social-media-as-news had to be a thing lawmakers were aware and should have been wary of. 

Specifically, the likes of Facebook and Twitter were, by virtue of sheer size and market power, able to largely control the news Americans and others were seeing in newsfeeds that had increasingly replaced traditional media. These social media giants, a subset of a new boogie man known as Big Tech, had a power of enormous breadth and depth that wasn’t judiciously used, so by 2020, the so-called “progressive” political bias in many Silicon Valley boardrooms had infiltrated everywhere — in spades. 

In the U.S., more conservative regions like, say, the Deep South or “Flyover Country” were subjected to unchallenged liberal-skewing opinions masquerading as news, thanks to the Facebooks and Twitters occupying large swaths of cyberspace. Not everyone appreciated that. 

As time went on, it became harder to find opposing views in websites brought to the fore by search engines, using proprietary optimization and data-mining techniques. Yes, there was more content than could even be envisaged decades before, but the same sh^t was amplified to high heaven (and likewise, the alternatives buried in the depths of hell) by being retweeted ad infinitum, ad nauseum, to the tops of the charts.

Instead of debating the advantages and disadvantages of how it all worked, Congress stalled. If you had a “progressive” agenda, there was no reason to do anything: the Valley was doing your heavy lifting. If, alternatively, you had a conservative or libertarian bent, you were perhaps quite alarmed, but likely did not understand how it all worked enough to proffer any meaningful solution. And so it was in January of 2021 when 45th President Donald Trump was forever banned by these media platforms for having allegedly caused an “insurrection.”

There was no “insurrection,” or anything like it, of course, but when the last opportunity to rid the nation of the Donald came, “progressives” had to use it. And use it they did. To this day, the 45th President of the United States is essentially muted by a powerful cabal in Silicon Valley whose only goals are mega-conglomerate self-perpetuation rather than the health and safety of the nation itself. 

In comments made in a rare interview on Tuesday night with Newsmax TV (watch here), President Trump was finally able to get his views out in terms of the Biden regime’s concerted efforts to thwart every effective and positive change he had made (as well as acknowledge some progress in contested state recounts.) 

Having been banned by much of the World Wide Web, Trump will have to use old-fashioned techniques, like word-of-mouth, to get the news out about his upcoming rallies. While he hasn’t officially announced plans to run for president again in 2024, he has made it clear he wants a G.O.P. House and Senate in 2022, and these rallies are intended to effectuate that immediate goal.

Trump also saluted efforts made by Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, who is beloved by the non-RINO, non-Neo-Con factions of the Republican Party. 

On Monday, DeSantis signed a sweeping bill into law in the Sunshine State which is meant to limit censorship by Big Tech companies. The law prohibits the banning of political candidates by Big Tech. If they do censor or ban a candidate, they will face significant fines. If a local candidate is banned, the penalty is $25,000/day; statewide, $250,000. Utah, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Oklahoma are considering similar measures.

DeSantis’ bill is well-intentioned, and it’s also certain to be litigated. Is a social media company more like a newspaper or magazine, private commercial TV or radio, or public TV or radio? Or something else altogether that cannot be aptly analogized? Whatever it is will determine the constitutionality of limiting speech by the president or anyone else. It’s not an easy or apparent question to answer, in part because it’s one of first impression.

A better attack against these powerful cabals might be on the basis of antitrust. After all, it’s not that some entity doesn’t want to play host to another that’s problematic. Rather, it’s the market control resulting from the decision to de-platform.

A lawsuit against Facebook brought by the F.T.C. and 46 states is awaiting a decision in federal court over whether to dismiss it. (Read Complaint here.) A ruling is expected in June.

These are important legal issues that will slowly make their way through courts in coming years. It’ll be a wonder if by then, anyone will even know what an alternative viewpoint actually is.

2020’s Chinese Take Out

REGARDLESS of whether President Donald J. Trump has to start slumming it at Mar-a-Lago in Florida’s luxe Palm Beach in January, we can expect China to remain in the news. And no, it isn’t dependent on the Chinese coronavirus, though there’s plenty to speculate about with that. No, we are about to learn just how embedded China is in our own government. 

We will likely see China, Inc. d/b/a the corrupt Biden family even if the Deep State tries to bury it during the anticipated Dark Winter. 

But there’s more…

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) was under fire this past week for having connections to a known Chinese ‘honeypot,’  Christine  Fang, known by the moniker, Fang-Fang, and by the F.B.I. as a member of China’s Ministry of State Security (M.S.S.). Back in 2011-2015, Swalwell made the decision to place an intern, thought to be a “subagent,” in his Congressional office based on her recommendation. Fang Fang also socialized and networked with Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA) and then-Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA).

She campaigned for Rep. Rho Khanna (D-CA), volunteered for Democrat Mayor Bill Harrison of Fremont, CA, and fundraised for Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), among others. Some relationships were of a sexual nature. For his part, Swalwell was one of the Trump-Russia-collusion hoaxers seeking to derail the Trump presidency.

Making the situation particularly dire was the fact Swalwell is on the House Intelligence Committee and had been on the Central Intelligence Agency Subcommittee in 2015. Stalwell remains silent on the whole matter, other than his brief statement to Axios, which broke the story.

It is unknown how much Fang Fang might have gleaned from the relationship, but at a minimum, she obtained private information on a number of U.S. bureaucrats, some that might compromise them. Fang Fang also had relationships with two unnamed mayors in the midwest, illustrating the patience in working their way up the chain of command that Chinese intelligence apparently has — a “long game play.” 

Fang Fang arrived in the United States as a student in California, perhaps because of its assets: a robust economy, a Chinese immigrant population, and Silicon Valley. She departed with haste after her discovery in 2015. There are no known charges against her despite the F.B.I. believing China poses an espionage threat to the nation. (The President has attempted to limit or revoke visas to certain Chinese nationals to Democrats’ chagrin and vocal opposition.)

On Thursday, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), fearing Swalwell was “jeopardizing national security,” told Fox News’ Fox & Friends that Swalwell should not be on the Committee. He observed that the meetings were meant to be secret. You cannot even enter a meeting with your watch or phone.

He pondered as to when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi might have known about it and why she would keep him on. It was obviously a rhetorical question. For her part, Pelosi said she wasn’t worried about Swalwell, but she doesn’t worry about much anyway. She also seems to cover up for the Communist state a lot, but hey…

By Friday, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) filed a complaint, saying, “Allowing an international spy to forge a close relationship with a member of Congress and then allowing personnel decisions to be influenced by a Chinese national does not reflect creditably on the House,” adding, “It is unknown how much private and/or classified information Fang had access to as a result of her relationship with Rep. Swalwell and whether Rep. Swalwell was compromised as a relationship with her.”

We may recall Sen. Diane Feinstein, also a Democrat in California, had a similar imbroglio fairly recently in 1996 where she had employed a Chinese staffer who was also spying for the M.S.S. Like everything Democrat involving China, it was swept under the priceless Oriental carpet. Interestingly, perhaps, Feinstein is also suffering from dementia, like presumptive president-elect Biden, but dissimilarly, is being urged to retire by the likes of Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA).

It’s time to rid the nation of unvetted Chinese nationals à la Trump. And despite being a picturesque state with a talented population, perhaps it’s time for California to secede from the Union as it has said it wants to.

George Soros: The Man With Horns and Tentacles

Image: Pixabay

 

To be sure, George Soros is a man conservatives love to hate, and probably with very good reason. Thus, when the Gateway Pundit reported late last week that he, along with unnamed Silicon Valley elites, may have been the financiers of the opposition research firm, Fusion GPS, it perhaps wasn’t a huge surprise.

The evidence proffered for this assertion was a Daily Caller op-ed claiming that Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska said Daniel Jones, a former FBI investigator, Feinstein staffer, and presently a Fusion GPS operative, told his lawyer Adam Waldman this last year.