Let that sink in: The Secretary of Homeland Security, the cabinet-level leader of the very people falsely accused of a heinous act, chose to advance his Progressive political goals at the expense of the reputation and well-being of his completely innocent subordinates. As Robert Redford stated in Three Days of the Condor…
Were we running the Border Patrol, we’d be urging our people to threaten mass resignation if Biden didn’t immediately remove Mayorkis from office. And were we the Republican House leadership, we’d be preparing articles of impeachment in the event Biden refuses to act.
Now, here’s The Gouge, which may well be appearing to you in italics, though we’ve idea why!
Since we’re on the subject of high government officials acting on allegations they KNEW to be bogus, NRO‘s Andy McCarthy lends his unparalleled expertise to the…
“In my posts Tuesday on the start of the Igor Danchenko trial (here and here), I observed that “no matter how the case plays out, the most notable evidence will be about the behavior of the FBI, not the defendant.” Just one day in, we are already seeing why.
The FBI offered former British spy Christopher Steele $1 million if he could corroborate the claims in the now-infamous anti-Trump dossier. As reported by the Washington Examiner’s Jerry Dunleavy, the admission about the offer was made by Brian Auten, an FBI senior intelligence analyst who was the first witness called by special counsel John Durham in Danchenko’s false-statements trial.
The Steele dossier, for which Steele’s associate Danchenko was the “principal source,” portrayed then–GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump as enmeshed in a corrupt “conspiracy of cooperation” with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin. The dossier further claimed that Trump was compromised by, among other things, a recording of lewd sexual behavior that was supposedly in the Kremlin’s possession. Neither Steele nor Danchenko was ever able to corroborate the dossier allegations. Moreover, Durham’s court filings in the Danchenko case indicate that the “pee tape” claim was a complete fabrication.
Because proceedings before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court are classified and ex parte — meaning only the FBI and Justice Department appear before FISC judges, and there is no notice or discovery ever provided to Americans who are monitored under the court’s warrants — the government has a higher legal obligation than in normal criminal proceedings to ensure that the information presented to the court has been verified.
It is thus breathtaking that the FBI would offer an informant $1 million to corroborate his allegations — which is tantamount to an admission that the information is not even supported, much less verified — and yet rely on that unverified and likely false information, not once but four separate times over the course of a year, under oath in applications to the FISC.
Just as remarkable: Danchenko was Steele’s principal source for the dossier, yet the FBI did not interview him until late January 2017. By that time, the bureau had relied on the dossier information twice (in October 2016 and January 2017) in sworn applications to the FISC that limned Trump — the GOP candidate for the presidency, and then the sitting president — as a tool of the Russian government. The purpose of interviewing Danchenko was to determine whether the Steele allegations were true or false. Obviously, the FBI is supposed to determine that the information has been verified beforemaking an application to the FISC in the first place.
Moreover, the FBI rationalizes that it needed to turn to Danchenko because it had a falling-out with Steele over his leaking to the media around the time of the 2020 election. Put aside that Steele was giving the press information well before that, and that the FBI had every reason to know it. Steele was a paid FBI informant. The bureau had every right to ask Steele exactly who his sources were, and Steele would have had an obligation to provide that information. Yet the FBI relied on Steele even though it was well aware that he was not an eyewitness to anything he was reporting — he was relying on second- and third-hand accounts from a supposed “network” of sources.
That is, the FBI did not seek to interview these sources before portraying the president of the United States as a Russian asset. The bureau depended solely on Steele, notwithstanding that agents knew his anti-Trump bias was virulent and his information was uncorroborated — hence, the $1 million offer, which the FBI knew it hadn’t had to pay because Steele was unable to support his claims.
It turned out, furthermore, that Steele’s network was, in essence, Danchenko…”
“For anyone who thought that James Comey’s FBI could not have been any more irresponsible in peddling the false claims included in the infamous Steele dossier, the latest revelations are bound to trigger a reassessment.
…Not even a million dollars dangled in front of a questionable source could pry corroborating evidence out of him—yet FBI officials still insisted on promoting his story? Remember, a million dollars went a lot further in 2016 than in the Biden era.
…The fact that even a million dollars hadn’t been able to shake any verification out of Mr. Steele in 2016 makes the 2017 actions of the FBI’s then director James Comey even more appalling.
…This week’s court testimony shows that the conduct of the FBI was even worse than previously reported. But one thing hasn’t changed. There’s still no real accountability for the FBI officials who abused their power and poisoned our politics.“
The depth of the corruption in Washington is truly staggering! There are banana republics with less corruption than what currently infests the federal bureaucracy.
Yet Progressives continue to increase their funding at every opportunity.
Next, writing at The Epoch Times, Jeff Tucker warns us…
“…We know by now exactly what Big Tech companies mean by “misinformation.” They mean information that belies regime priorities. It began with COVID and extended to vaccines. Now it includes climate change. Indeed, every bit of opining or evidence that seems to go against the prevailing agenda of the Gates Foundation, the Biden administration, or the World Economic Forum is being systematically deprecated by Big Tech. That applies to Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, and now PayPal.
The war on information freedom is intensifying by the day. This little victory over PayPal is sweet, but everyone knows it’s a temporary concession. They didn’t like the bad public relations messaging. Since the release of the policy, the company has likely experienced a record number of account cancellations. They changed the policy to stop the bleeding.
In that sense, we have seen what works. At the very least, these people have to obey market signals because they have a customer base and must deal with the basic demands of bookkeeping. They not only have to please government interests, but also the public insofar as they still depend on willing users.
Still, the trajectory here is very clear. It’s the most frightening step in the ongoing rise of tyranny in the world today that your very ability to move money or even to earn an income will be officially declared as contingent upon the opinions you express.
It’s next-level despotism that hasn’t yet happened in any systematic way in the United States. In China, this has become institutionalized. The past year has shown us many examples of how the Chinese Communist Party uses digital apps to turn on or off people’s ability to speak, associate, travel, and move money. Compliance is everything.
To some extent in Canada, this is already happening, as the government invaded the bank accounts of protesting truckers and those who supported them with donations.
How much does it matter that PayPal reversed course? It isn’t entirely clear. They showed their hand and revealed a much deeper and scarier plan that relates to the Biden administration’s intention to create a new central bank digital currency. This will be programmable money, one that would allow a ruling elite to cut off your means to live if they so choose.
It’s all too tragic. PayPal was set up initially as a means of obtaining financial independence from government-controlled banks. It even hoped to become an independent form of money. All these years later, it has been captured by interests that have the very opposite ambition. In truth, many people out there cheer the prospect.
That’s how intense the political war has become in this country. We used to debate. We used to talk. We reveled in the freedom that was guaranteed by a constitutional republic. Today, many interest groups—many of them associated, for now, mainly with the left—no longer want to play that game. They want you deplatformed, canceled, and even left bereft of your ability to earn a living or feed your family.
It’s a new age of brutalism, and the technologies that were supposed to prevent it are now being deployed to usher it in and entrench it.“
Here’s the juice: PayPal just provided you a glimpse of a future in which currency is fully digitized and the government controls your accounts through its control over the companies which hold them. It’s not a future we’ll go into willingly.
Meanwhile, Yahoo reports, in an interview with Jake Tapper…
“…Addressing the accusations that he made a false statement while purchasing a gun, President Biden said it’s already been addressed in that same memoir.
“He came along and said, ‘By the way, this thing about a gun, I didn’t know anything about it.’ But it turns out that when he made an application to purchase a gun, what happened was, you get asked the question, ‘Are you on drugs or do you use drugs?’ and he said no,” Biden explained. “He wrote about saying no in his book.”
“So I have great confidence in my son,” President Biden concluded. “I love him, and he’s on a straight and narrow and he has been for a couple years now. I’m just so proud of him.”“
So, he deliberately lied on his application to purchase a gun…a federal felony…but ‘cuz he wrote about it in his book, it’s somehow…what…okay?!? Thus does Biden demonstrate the same complete contempt for truth regarding his son as he does the state of the nation’s economy…
(4). In what we can only assume is a rhetorical question, Derek Hunter asks and answers, “What the Hell is WRONG with Dimocrats?!?” We offer a hint in the form of a tweet he cites which requires no added explanation or commentary whatsoever:
1/
This woman’s speech at a school board meeting–after a school sent emails advertising a “family friendly” drag show for kids (sponsored by a 21+ gay bar)–is so good I’m going to transcribe it and explain why it’s so effective.
(5). Jim Geraghty examines the media’s misguided love affair with John Fetterman, delving deep beneath the hype and unearthing the facts regarding the man who’s perhaps the most unqualified candidate for the Senate…
…since Barack Obama.
(6). Since we’re on the subject of manifestly unqualified candidates. upon reading this headline…
…we could only think, “No…no…PLEASE NO!!!” This would be going from bad…
…to much, much worse:
Which brings us, appropriately enough, to The Lighter Side:
Then there’s these from Balls Cotton…
…and Speed:
Finally, we’ll call it a wrap with a cross betwixt News of the Bizarre and another sordid story straight from the pages of The Crime Blotter, as Daytona Beach News-Journal informs us a…
“A Port Orange man was charged with child neglect on Monday after dropping off a rental car and apparently forgetting his one-year-old granddaughter was in the back seat. David Towner, 62, had been babysitting his granddaughter for the day. He dropped off the car at the Daytona Beach International Airport and was picked up by his daughter. The child was in the car for almost an hour before being found by a worker at the Hertz rental car facility, Volusia County sheriff’s investigators said.
…On their way back to Towner’s home, his daughter asked about the baby and he told her the child was at his home with his roommate, according to his arrest report. Meanwhile, an employee with the rental company checked the car and found the girl in the back seat of the 2019 Chevy Equinox, sheriff’s investigators said.
…“The child was scared and hot, but thankfully in good health when checked by paramedics,” Gant said.
Deputies and airport staff initially could not make contact with Towner but were alerted by 9-1-1 dispatchers that the child’s mother was on her way to the airport, officials said.The woman told investigators her father told her he left the child at home but when she got to the house she did not see her daughter. She then learned her father had left her daughter in the rental car instead…
When deputies made contact with Towner, he was remorseful and cooperative with deputies…”
We can only imagine Towner’s conversation with his daughter resembled this scene from one of our favorite episodes of The Three Stooges:
Magoo
Video of the Day
In a must-view installment of his YouTube series, Matt Walsh examines Progressives efforts to rip apart the moral fabric of the country.
Tales of The Darkside
Anyone want to bet those involved won’t ever be held accountable for ANYTHING?!?
On the Lighter Side
Check out this clip from a Superman episode we can’t recall ever watching featuring a Jimmy Olson we’ve never seen and see if you can pick the part TLJ and we found so funny.
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