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Posts Tagged ‘treason’

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Did House Republicans and Democrats Commit Treason, Again?

Posted by M. C. on March 19, 2024

House Republicans passed H.R. 7521, legislation to give Biden the power to decide what apps go on your phone. That’s right, Republicans think it is a good idea to give Biden the power to decide what apps and websites you view.

This legislation is not really about Tic Tok. In the near term, it appears to be about finding a  way to censor X.com as well as blocking access to Yandex.com. Yandex.com is the Russian search engine that is quickly becoming the search engine of choice for many liberty activists when doing research.

Dr. Joseph Sansone

https://josephsansone.substack.com/p/did-house-republicans-and-democrats

A common denominator of all totalitarian societies is that they censor information. They label it heretical or misinformation, and simply prohibit its distribution. Up until 2020, this was something associated with countries like North Korea, Communist China, the former Soviet Union, NAZIs, and oppressive countries around the world. The West cherished its tradition of free thought and the free exchange of ideas. It appears today, this tradition of freedom of speech, is being targeted. 

In the 1400s Gutenberg’s printing press revolutionized the Western World. The invention of the printing press made books more readily available spurring an age of information and decentralization of knowledge, essentially giving birth to a new broader marketplace of ideas. This history changing invention coincided with the fall of Constantinople and the collapse of what was left of the Eastern Roman Empire. The exodus of classical manuscripts from Constantinople to Rome spurred the Italian Renaissance and the broader European Renaissance.

This European rebirth of civilization, with the spread of classical knowledge, amplified the force of individual liberty in Western Civilization. The somewhat uniquely Western concept of freedom of consciousness that was forged in the Dark Ages and Medieval Ages, in the tug of war between ecclesiastical and secular authorities, had a platform for expression in the mass production of books. 

In the 1990s and early 2000s the internet was viewed in many ways like Gutenberg’s invention. It spurred an information revolution that was a force for decentralization of information comparable to the printing press. It wasn’t just that information could be easily shared across the planet, it was also revolutionary, because anyone could establish a website, become a publisher of that information, and share that information across the planet.

Search engines, including Google, became analogous to user friendly libraries with a seemingly infinite number of books in the form of websites. Social networks eventually came about where people could share information and connect with each other more easily. I didn’t really get this at first. I didn’t understand why people would want to put their data on someone else’s website and promote someone else’s website rather than their own.

The deep state enabled specific search engines and social networks to end up dominating the market. The dark side of the web slowly began to emerge over the past ten to fifteen years as censorship started creeping in. Acting under the color of law censorship became more overt. This was first only in the form of shadow banning websites on search engines and individuals on social networks, then, the censorship became more overt, and then outright oppressive during 2020 with the advent of the plandemic. Since 2020, the advent of oppressive censorship has not been limited to search engines and social networks. The censorship has grown as banks and financial institutions have interrupted payment processing and companies have shut down the webservers for websites all based on political ideology.

As a result of the censorship, new platforms have emerged and are viewed as direct threats to authoritarianism. 

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General Milley’s Last Words Confirm His Sedition and Likely Treason

Posted by M. C. on October 2, 2023

“Now that we are globally witness to Gen. Milley’s seditious outgoing ‘hate speech’ he should be stripped of his rank and pension.    Milley’s illustrious career ended with Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Afghanistan Freedom.   Which liberated Iraq and Afghanistan of roughly 350,000 lives and Taxpayers of $4-$6 TRILLION.   Afghanistan is now controlled by the Taliban and Iraq is an ally of Russia.  WELL DONE!“

General Milley’s Last Words Confirm His Sedition and Likely Treason

by Helena

General Milley formally exited ‘stage left’ by evoking Hate Speech’:   “We don’t take an oath to a country, we don’t take an oath to a tribe, we don’t take an oath to a religion. We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, or a tyrant or a dictator.   And we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator,”   he spat.   “We take an oath to the Constitution and we take an oath to the idea that is America – and we’re willing to die to protect it.”   

Not only does this crude statement reveal a man enshrined in hate, it reveals a General who has no idea what the oath of office is for officers!   A) he takes an oath to the Constitution of the United States our COUNTRY – not to China – not to Ukraine – not to Taiwan!   B) he takes an oath to ‘obey the President of the United States’.  

He did neither of these things and has now gone on record digging his grave for the world to hear and absorb.   His last words are words of sedition.   Sedition:   Speech or organization that includes subversion of The US Constitution.

The Oath states:

I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed …

The media has an interesting take on defining ‘hate speech’ – and instead references this ‘Generals’ choice of outgoing statements as a simple Trump ‘jab’.   Of course the media has zero understanding of the Military, its vows of discretion and honor and respect!   They only know Hollywood Che Guevara Sean Penn deviance of how military officials are supposed to be conduct themselves, and the hierarchy that entails.   The President is Milley’s Commander in Chief.   Not the other way around.  And if he cannot abide that Commander – he has the option to RESIGN.   Effective immediately.

Worse yet, Private First Class Milley, made his statements in front of cadets, other servicemen, and media, thereby enhancing his choice of words within the colossal potential for Treason by admitting he failed to uphold his Oath of Office under Trump, did not uphold The Constitution, and instead colluded with China – and made secret phone calls with CCP officials while still under Oath to President Trump.   An allegiance deviance.

In addition to Hate Speech, sedition, and treason – Milley revealed rampant ‘stupidity’ in his public display which he can not now deny happened.

In a similar vein of idiocy, Twitter influencer, Mehdi Hasan, made the unproven declaration that Hate Speech on Twitter has increased 1000x since Musk bought the company.   Without anyone asking, he decided to take upon himself to hold his own Challenge and thus prove he is right.   But in classic liberal scream fashion, he failed to edit his own tweets, which are rife with “Hate Speech”!   Stupidity has taken the reins of the liberals.   They cannot undo.

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Let’s Examine Some REAL Crimes Committed by Presidents

Posted by M. C. on September 7, 2023

In many of those wars, Obama expanded George W. Bush’s policy of giving support to al-Qaeda, which is treason according to Article 3, Section 3 of the Constitution.

https://mises.org/wire/lets-examine-some-real-crimes-committed-presidents

Connor O’Keeffe

Former president Donald Trump is facing ninety-one criminal charges as he seeks to win back the White House in 2024. The indictments are the latest battle in a roughly six-year crusade against Trump that first sought to remove him from power through the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, then with espionage charges and impeachments, and that now aims to block him from becoming president again. The mantra we hear from those in politics and media who support these efforts is that nobody is above the law.

But there’s an entire class of people above the law. Or who at least act like they’re above the law—the political class. The hypocrisies of their effort to convict Trump and block him from holding office again reveal that the motivations are purely political—not born of some commitment to a higher moral or legal principle.

Two broad schools of thought make up Western legal philosophy. They are natural law theory and legal positivism. Natural law theory says that law exists regardless of the dictates of states. That justice is derived from nature and common to all humans. Simply put, natural law theorists argue that a crime is a crime regardless of what the state says. That makes killing another human with malice aforethought murder, for example, even when it’s done with the blessings of government officials.

Many libertarians, such as Murray Rothbard, ground their moral opposition to state power in appeals to natural law. There is no special status that someone can attain that allows them to commit crimes.

The idea that nobody, not even the president, is above the law is right in line with this view. But, taken to its logical Rothbardian conclusion, equality under the law is a denial of political authority. So, it’s bizarre to hear the political class use this slogan as a rallying cry when all their wealth, power, and status is built on political privilege. And they can’t rightfully go after Trump for how he used his political authority because that’s not unique to Trump.

The political class prefers legal positivism, which separates law from morality. According to legal positivists, law is what the sovereign political authority says it is. There may be just laws and unjust laws. But they are all valid laws in this view. Legal positivism enshrines the political class’s privileged legal status above the rest of us.

Therefore, the way to get Trump is not to show he did anything immoral or wrong but to prove he technically broke some rule made up by members of an earlier political class. That way he can be driven out of public life without threatening the regime’s authority. But the problem hasn’t been finding crimes committed by Trump but finding crimes unique to Trump. Because all recent presidents have broken the law.

President George H. W. Bush launched a war on Iraq without congressional authorization. That is illegal according to Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11 of the Constitution, the set of rules Bush swore an oath to uphold. President Bill Clinton did the same, overseeing illegal military operations in Somalia, Serbia, and Iraq.

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Seditious Conspiracy Is Not a Real Crime | Mises Institute

Posted by M. C. on May 9, 2023

Of course, as we’ve noted here at mises.org before, the very idea of treason is itself problematic, since it assumes that violence against a government agent is somehow worse than a crime against a private citizen. Governments love this double standard because it reinforces the idea that the regime is more important than the voluntary private sector. 

https://mises.org/power-market/seditious-conspiracy-not-real-crime

Ryan McMaken

Last Thursday, Enrique Tarrio, a reputed national leader of the Proud Boys organization was convicted in federal court of seditious conspiracy along with three-co-defendants. This conviction in a District of Columbia court represents a victory for the Justice Department which has now charged more than a thousand people with “crimes” related to the January 6 riot at the US capitol. Most of the charges related to the riot have been for small-time offenses that amount to vandalism and trespassing. A handful of those allegedly involved in the riot, however, have been convicted of seditious conspiracy.

Notably, Tarrio wasn’t even in Washington, DC on the day of the riot, and thus could not have engaged in any violent acts against Capitol personnel. Yet, he has nonetheless been convicted on grounds that he was involved in some sort of “agreement” to “hinder” federal laws, and thus is guilty of saying things that allegedly led to the riot. The Tarrio case is an excellent example of how federal “crimes” can be spun by federal prosecutors from actions that are neither violence, nor fraud, nor any other act that a normal person would recognize as a real crime. 

Seditious Conspiracy Was Invented to Get Around Limitations on Treason Prosecutions 

Seditious conspiracy must not be confused with the act of treason legally defined in the US Constitution, however. Generally speaking, while treason requires an overt act of some kind, seditious conspiracy is a charge that a person has said things designed to undermine government authority. In other words, it is a “crime” of intent as interpreted by state authorities. This is fundamentally different from picking up a weapon and using it against agents of a government.

Of course, as we’ve noted here at mises.org before, the very idea of treason is itself problematic, since it assumes that violence against a government agent is somehow worse than a crime against a private citizen. Governments love this double standard because it reinforces the idea that the regime is more important than the voluntary private sector. Ultimately, however, violence against a person or property should be prosecuted as exactly that, and not as some separate category of crime against the “special” human beings who work for a regime.

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If Government Officials Want To Prevent Rebellion They Should Stop Committing Treason – Alt-Market.us

Posted by M. C. on December 24, 2022

Translation: We are your “protectors”, therefore we can do whatever we want. Anyone that calls us out on our corrupt operations is crazy and a liar regardless of evidence. Discrediting the agency puts the public at risk. We are too big to fail.

https://alt-market.us/if-government-officials-want-to-prevent-rebellion-they-should-stop-committing-treason/

By Brandon Smith

I have been working within the liberty movement for almost 17 years now. In that time I’ve been involved in numerous organizations that all generally fought the same battle, or the same war – The war against encroaching centralization and authoritarianism. Each group and each institution has had different ideas about how to go about solving the problem of incremental tyranny.

Some of them focused on politics, others on preparedness, and still others on convincing police and military to stand on the side of freedom. Some of them had focused goals, some of them were scattered. Some had decent leadership, while the leadership in others was lacking (or self sabotaging). None of them, however, had malicious intent. None of them sought power over others, only to prevent power from being abused.

In some cases the effort became confrontational because that was the only option, as with Bundy Ranch. Liberty activists vowed never to allow another Waco or another Ruby Ridge in which federal agents violate the due process of targeted citizens, or outright murder them. And we should continue to hold to that promise. As we have seen time and time again, agencies like the FBI, ATF, CIA, etc are corrupt beyond all reckoning and there comes a point where the only solution to deal with a bully is to punch him in the teeth.

The Jan 6th event is also something that has been highly misrepresented on both sides – Leftists argue that it was an “insurrection” worse than anything seen since the Civil War in the name of installing Trump as a dictator. Many conservatives argue that it was a “honey pot” or “false flag” which was completely controlled by feds and informants. Neither claim is accurate.

Yes, there were obviously feds present at the event and yes, Capitol Police let protesters into the building as video evidence proves. But, the vast majority of people that showed up to the capitol that day were not feds. They were normal Americans seeking to air their grievances, as is their constitutional right. It is a mistake to pigeonhole very single major event as nothing more than a false flag; it’s lazy and it ignores the greater reality that many millions of people in the US are unhappy with the declining state of our nation.

As for those that claim it was an insurrection, they don’t know what an insurrection is.

Inconveniencing the government for a couple hours is not an insurrection. Protesting at the Capitol Building is not an insurrection. A real insurrection would be led by armed groups that would not leave the capitol voluntarily, and many people on both sides would die during such an action. As it stands, not a single person was killed by a Jan. 6th protester. Not one. This is not something that can be honestly said for the BLM protests which caused dozens of deaths and billions of dollars in property damage across the country.

If it had been BLM that day marching into the Capitol Building, the media would have nothing but applause and positive things to say. But because it was a show of conservative strength, they call it an insurrection and they seek to imprison the people involved. The media response to BLM vs their response to Jan 6th tells us one thing – The establishment wants to destroy conservatives and elevate leftist movements.

This debate, however, ignores the bigger question: Why is half the country angry? Why does half the country mistrust the government to the point that a potential civil war seems like the only viable option?

The establishment controlled media and the Biden Administration would argue that it is our fault. We are “conspiracy theorists” suffering from delusions of rising totalitarianism. We supposedly misinterpret everything we see as something more nefarious than what it is. We are dangerous because we are willing to lash out over changes that serve the greater good but disadvantage us in some way. Or, we are “white supremacists” and the evolving demographics of the country are triggering our inherent toxic ideology.

None of these claims are true. All of them are easily debunked propaganda, but they represent a narrative that is repeated ad nauseam on every mainstream outlet, on every social media website and by every leftist politician. There is no conspiracy theory, there is only conspiracy reality.

Almost every single “conspiracy claim” made by liberty groups over the past two decades has turned out to be true. There is indeed an authoritarian agenda at the core of our government today, and it has been gestating for many years. We saw this agenda enacted right out in the open during the pandemic lockdowns. the federal government and some state governments sought to erase nearly every protection outlined in the Bill of Rights, including free speech.

Most recently, we have seen the exposure of the Twitter Files by Elon Musk, which contain hard evidence of collusion (direct communications) between government agencies and Big Tech companies to silence the 1st Amendment rights of American citizens.

Multiple agencies have been exposed this year in a conspiracy with the old Twitter management (and undoubtedly all other large social media platforms) to censor and ban targeted individuals or groups that discuss information that is contrary to the establishment narrative. Whether it is info on Jan 6th, or info on the covid pandemic or vaccines, or info on Hunter Biden’s laptop, the FBI, DHS, the DNC, etc were all engaging in a joint effort to erase dissent and hide the facts according to internal documents and communications with Twitter staff.

The FBI in particular has even been caught PAYING Twitter staff millions of dollars to process their requests (censor people). This is proven TREASON, a violation of several elements of the Bill of Rights, and the FBI should be eliminated for it. Not reprimanded, but eliminated.

The FBI’s response to being caught was predictable. They state:

“The men and women of the FBI work every day to protect the American public. It is unfortunate that conspiracy theorists and others are feeding the American public misinformation with the sole purpose of attempting to discredit the agency.”

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The Fall of Canada, The Danger in the US

Posted by M. C. on February 21, 2022

Understanding Martial Law

The image of the great conflict of the 60s was of a young woman placing a daisy in a rifle barrel. The image of our great conflict, is that of scores of truckers on their knees, in the snow, praying, surrounded by unidentifiable standing thugs.

We have been here before. God have mercy on us; and as for us men and women, may we only remember in time that we are free people.

https://naomiwolf.substack.com/p/the-fall-of-canada-the-danger-in?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxNTYyMTUyOCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NDkwNDUxODcsIl8iOiJrZHZFRCIsImlhdCI6MTY0NTM0ODAyNywiZXhwIjoxNjQ1MzUxNjI3LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItNjc2OTMwIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.aRpoAPtPe-l7e0cOmsdoeFukr1LVklf8VM38-zlRDg8&utm_source=url

The world has watched, in pain, as images of police violence from Ottawa, and of a bid for Canadian tyranny (that I would ever write those words!) are flashed around the world.

As usual, I hate to be Cassandra; but the chessboard ahead is all too clear. On Feb 12, 2022, I warned, during an appearance on Steve Bannon’s WarRoom, that we all must all now brace for a period during which the powers that now clearly seek to enslave our planet, and subdue our human species, will be broadcasting scenes of civil society mayhem, and of shocking violence against protesters.

I also predicted that there would be food shortages and other economic harms that would be blamed on the protesting truckers, and I warned too that people should print out their bank and any liquid asset records, as there would be cyberattacks on financial institutions and the freezing of accounts. All of that, of course, took place in the week that followed.

I recently received a kind note on social media thanking me for my bulletins about the near future as it helped people, the writer explained, to stave off shock and disorientation. I have often spoken about how tyrants rely on just these effects of shock and disorientation to “tenderize” a targeted population, so I will keep alerting you all to the near future, as unpleasant as that task can be.

So in this essay I wish to explain, especially to Canadians, what martial law really is, and how very dangerous it is, since many leaders there, especially Parliamentarians, appear to be in the treacherous “hangover” state of thinking that they still inhabit the old world that died when Justin Trudeau declared emergency law. I also wish to warn what happens historically at this moment in the decline of a formerly democratic nation, and what the murder of Canadian democracy — at least for now — means to the rest of the world.

Parliamentarians in Canada do not seem to understand that now their former colleague, Justin Trudeau, can arrest not just truckers, whose lawful protest has been declared illegal, but also the Parliamentarians themselves. This is, sadly, the next step in this kind of drama, historically. It is an extraordinarily dangerous sign that Parliament is not seated. When the Australian Parliament was suspended, by the time they reconvened, their powers had been dramatically curtailed. Tyrants seek to normalize the convening of Parliaments as “optional” or to suspend normal Parliamentary processes long enough to hollow out a legislative body’s deliberative powers, and to ensure that when and if a Parliament (or a Congress, for that matter) meets again, it will be merely a ceremonial assembly.

Parliamentarians in Canada also do not seem to understand that “dictator” is no longer rhetorical. A member of Parliament was shushed when he cried out this epithet, but the fact is that this is not a slur at this point. Justin Trudeau is by definition now in fact a dictator.

At this stage in history, you do not go back to a previous state of civil society order without arrests, though hopefully you can do so without civil war. Historically, when a would-be dictator has reached this point in the suspension of democratic processes and has sought this level of a power grab, his arrests of the opposition’s leaders, on trumped-up charges, come next. Also arrested at this point are labor leaders, outspoken members of the clergy, and independent journalists and editors.

Beware the word “incitement”; the next stage is an edict that casts criticism of what Trudeau is doing, as a crime, or an act of violence.

At this stage in history, too, the identity of the security forces are at issue. Who are these frighteningly gas-masked, uniformed, extremely violent men represented as police in the streets of Ottawa? For that matter, who are the masked, black-uniformed, extremely violent men represented as police beating the protesters in Paris, a week ago?

It is not easy to get police and military to enforce violence upon their own people, their own neighbors and community members. A real danger at this point in the overthrow of a democracy (for that is what happened in Canada in this past week) is the deployment of militias accountable not to the people but to the newly minted dictator. This happened in Italy when Mussolini sought control, in Germany when the National Socialists sought power, and so on. Remember that there are mercenary armies around the world, such as those run by Xe, formerly Blackwater, for hire [https://www.xecompany.us/]; remember that the Southern border of the United States is wide open and many observers have reported a massive influx of young adults of military age traveling alone [https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/us-agents-encounter-single-adults-crossing-border-77661358]. With an open border in North America, a mercenary army can flow not just into Canada, if permitted by border guards directed by a would-be dictator; they can also flow into strategic points in the United States.

But Parliamentarians and heads of provinces in Canada should be aware that those violent entities in the streets of Ottawa may be loosed against them, as well as against other hapless citizens trying to make use of their Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, of course, guarantees freedom of speech and expression, peaceful protest, and assembly.

[https://lop.parl.ca/about/parliament/education/ourcountryourparliament/html_booklet/canadian-charter-rights-and-freedoms-e.html]

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms also guarantees Canadians the right to a democracy itself, so what Justin Trudeau has done is unlawful on its face. Canadians, any Canadians, according to the Charter, can take him to court for having suspended their democracy unlawfully.

There is also the criminal charge at stake. Justin Trudeau may well be guilty of an act of treason, which is defined in Canadian law as preparing to levy war against Canada, which is what I personally see in the Ottawa livestreams; and treason in Canadian law is also defined in other broad ways, including this: “(a) uses force or violence for the purpose of overthrowing the government of Canada or a province”;

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Why the Left Can’t Let Go of Jan. 6 – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on July 27, 2021

As of today, Jan. 6 is the biggest and last best stick the Democrats have for retaining control of Congress in 2022.

For if that election is not about the worst day for the GOP of the Trump years, it is going to be about the successes and failures of the first two Biden years.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2021/07/patrick-j-buchanan/why-the-left-cant-let-go-of-jan-6/

By Patrick J. Buchanan

To understand what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s select committee investigation of the Capitol Hill events of Jan. 6 is all about, a good place to begin is with the sentencing hearing last week of Paul Hodgkins.

A crane operator from Tampa, Florida, Hodgkins, 38, pleaded guilty to a single count of obstructing a joint session of Congress called to confirm Joe Biden as the next president.

Hodgkins entered the Senate chamber carrying a Trump 2020 flag. He committed no assault, no act of destruction, no act of violence. Yet, he was sentenced to eight months in prison by U.S. Judge Randolph Moss.

Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Mona Sedky argued for a sentence of twice that length, a year and a half, because, as she told the judge, “Jan. 6 was genuinely an act of terrorism.”

But is that true? Was Jan. 6 “an act of terrorism” — of the character if not the magnitude, say, of the Oklahoma City bombing?

Hodgkins’ attorney vigorously rejected that depiction. To call Jan. 6 “domestic terrorism,” said Patrick Leduc, is “offensive and gaslighting the country … It was a protest that became a riot, period, full stop.”

Leduc is correct: Jan. 6th was a riot. Had it truly been “domestic terrorism,” as the U.S. attorney claimed, why would she have accepted a guilty plea for a single nonviolent offense?

Why did she not throw the book at the terrorist?

Looking back, what was Jan. 6 in reality?

A huge pro-Trump demonstration of tens of thousands, out of which a mob of hundreds moved on the Capitol, broke police lines, assaulted cops, rampaged and disrupted an official proceeding.

All in all, a shameful disgrace. But 1/6 was not 9/11 or Oklahoma City or Pearl Harbor or the Pulse nightclub or the Las Vegas massacre.

Why is it being hyped like this? Why will the establishment not let go of Jan. 6? Why, half a year on, does it remain an obsession of regime media?

The hype never ends. Daily, we hear establishment politicians and press paint it up as the most awful day in America’s history.

It was, we are told, an “armed insurrection,” “domestic terrorism,” an attempted “coup,” “an act of treason,” “the worst attack on American democracy since the British burned the Capitol in 1814.”

Why did Pelosi recoil from and reject two of House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy’s picks for her select committee — Reps. Jim Banks of Indiana and Jim Jordan of Ohio?

Because the deck is stacked, the fix is in. Pelosi’s committee has been crafted to bring in a third impeachment of Donald Trump and the GOP for posing the greatest threat to American democracy since Fort Sumter.

Issues, arguments and questions Banks and Jordan would have raised would have been off-script and interrupted the agreed-upon narrative.

Indeed, of whom does the select committee consist as it opens its hearings today?

Every Democrat of the committee has voted to impeach Trump for Jan. 6. Both of the Republicans Pelosi put on the committee to provide bipartisan balance — Wyoming’s Liz Cheney and Illinois’ Adam Kinzinger — voted to impeach Trump last January and are the two ranking anti-Trump Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Pelosi has impaneled a jury to try Trump and the GOP for insurrection, every one of whose members has already indicated they believe that Jan. 6 is a historic crime and Trump is guilty.

Why are Pelosi and the regime media doing everything to keep Jan. 6 alive? What are the stakes involved?

As of today, Jan. 6 is the biggest and last best stick the Democrats have for retaining control of Congress in 2022.

For if that election is not about the worst day for the GOP of the Trump years, it is going to be about the successes and failures of the first two Biden years.

And what, as of today, look to be the issues of 2022?

That election will be about the worst outbreak of inflation in a quarter-century to hit the U.S. economy. It will be about Biden’s having presided over a fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, after having declared on July 4, 2021, our independence of the virus.

It will be about the largest invasion of illegals across America’s southern border in the history of the republic — 2 million a year in 2021 and again in 2022, with 300,000 of these “gotaways” who evaded any contact with the Border Patrol.

Among the 4 million anticipated illegals in Biden’s first two years are child molesters, drug dealers and unvaccinated carriers of COVID-19.

The election of 2022 will also be about a wave of shootings, woundings, killings and gun crimes in our greatest cities that have long been governed by liberal Democrats.

The Democratic establishment and its media arm have a vital interest in hyping Jan. 6 and not letting go of it. For Jan. 6, 2021, is their last best hope for holding power after Nov. 8, 2022.

Patrick J. Buchanan is co-founder and editor of The American Conservative. He is also the author of Where the Right Went Wrong, and Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War. His latest book is Nixon’s White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever See his website.

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Truth Is Treason

Posted by M. C. on April 22, 2021

Things are moving fast. Great reset. Build back better. Cancel culture. Media power. Big tech. How can we search for truth in what appears to be a time of deception? RPI Board Member, filmmaker, and philanthropist Gary Heavin joins today’s program.

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How Treason And Thoughtcrime Are Easier Than Ever In Biden’s America | The Daily Caller

Posted by M. C. on February 2, 2021

In 1918, the Wilson administration responded to rising criticism of the U.S. role in World War One with a Sedition Act that “made virtually any criticism of the government or the war a criminal offense,” as historian Arthur Ekirch noted. Government propaganda fanned intolerance and torrents of informants. Congress repealed that Sedition Act at the end of 1920, but other Sedition Act provisions remain in place.

https://dailycaller.com/2021/01/29/treason-and-thoughtcrime-easy-joe-biden-america/

James Bovard Contributor

President Joe Biden is supplementing his calls for national unity with fervent denunciations of extremists, insurrectionists, and domestic terrorists, as well as comparing Senate opponents to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.

Biden is now in charge of the world’s largest law firm – the U.S. Justice Department – as well as armies of federal enforcement agents. Biden and his Democratic allies have the tools to assure a steady stream of denunciations and indictments in the coming years against Americans targeted for their political beliefs.

Democrats are already vastly expanding the only crime defined by the Constitution – treason. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared that Republicans who signaled they would not ratify the Electoral College results earlier this month “gave aid and comfort to [protestors] with the idea that they were embracing a lie… that the election did not have legitimacy.”

As law professor Jonathan Turley noted, Pelosi’s use of “the treason language in the Constitution” suggests that Republican members were more than just politically at fault… they were traitors.” A court of law would never convict Republican members of treason, but Pelosi can convict them in the court of public opinion, thanks to the hanging judges at CNN and MSNBC.

Opposing Biden becomes the equivalent of opposing democracy, and fuels demands for expelling more than a hundred Republicans from Congress. (RELATED ‘The Enemy Is Within’: Pelosi Calls For More Security To Defend Against Members Who ‘Want To Bring Guns On The Floor’)

After the clash at the Capitol on January 6, President-elect Joe Biden declared that the action of the rioters “borders on sedition.” (Actually, Republican members of Congress who objected to the Electoral College verdict were being denounced as the “sedition caucus” even before January 6).

Federal prosecutor Michael Sherwin, who is handling the January 6 cases, said he has given other federal lawyers “marching orders… to build seditious and conspiracy charges” against the most abusive rioters. The federal Seditious Conspiracy statute declares that if two or more persons conspire to “oppose by force the authority [of the U.S. government], or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law… or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States… they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.”

This is a sweeping legal drift net that could spur 20-year prison sentences for anyone who helped the dude who proudly carried off Nancy Pelosi’s lectern. Many members of Congress want all of the 800 protestors harshly punished for “desecrating” the “temple” of democracy, their “hallowed halls,” and their “sacred space” — even though most of those present committed no violence and left peacefully of their own accord after a few hours.

There are ample federal laws to vigorously prosecute and harshly punish the people who violently attacked Capitol Police. But blanket charges of sedition against protestors who were guilty merely of unlawful entry would mean scourging them as if they were political heretics.

While it is unclear how many protestors will be charged with sedition, reliance on that legal penalty blew up prior administrations. The Sedition Act of 1798 briefly helped President John Adams persecute newspaper editors who criticized his policies, but outrageous prosecutions helped Thomas Jefferson defeat Adams in the 1800 election.

In 1918, the Wilson administration responded to rising criticism of the U.S. role in World War One with a Sedition Act that “made virtually any criticism of the government or the war a criminal offense,” as historian Arthur Ekirch noted. Government propaganda fanned intolerance and torrents of informants. Congress repealed that Sedition Act at the end of 1920, but other Sedition Act provisions remain in place.

On Inauguration Day, former CIA chief John Brennan declared on MSNBC that “Biden team” members “are now moving in laser-like fashion to try to uncover as much as they can about what looks very similar to insurgency movements… an unholy alliance frequently of religious extremists, authoritarians, fascists, bigots, racists, Nativists, even libertarians.”

Americans who hold ideas that politicians associate with any of those groups could be in the cross-hairs of federal investigators in the coming years, according to Brennan’s warning. Beyond treason and sedition, more than 4000 federal criminal laws provide ample opportunities to hammer potential or actual government opponents. (RELATED: ‘QAnon Shaman’ Prepared To Testify In Trump’s Impeachment Trial)

Will Biden’s denunciation of protestors as “domestic terrorists” spur a bureaucratic stampede to “round up the usual suspects?” Prosecutors will find a ready tool in the Patriot Act’s provision that defined “domestic terrorism” as violent or threatening private actions intended “to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion.”

A few scuffles at a rally can transform a protest group into a terrorist entity. If the violence at a rally is done by a government agent provocateur – as happened at 1960s antiwar protests – the government could still treat all the group’s members as terrorists. “Material support of terrorism” is also broadly defined, which could allow the feds to drop the hammer on anyone who donated to protest groups capriciously designated as terrorist entities.

Federal agents have a long record of creating the crimes that politicians rush to exploit. The FBI admits that it formally entitles its army of informants to commit more than 5000 crimes a year. FBI crime sprees have been propelled by decades of Supreme Court decisions that effectively defined entrapment out of existence.

Almost anything that an undercover government agent can do to induce someone to violate the law is fair play. Federal judges have even countenanced undercover agents who enticed their targets into sexual affairs to lure them to their legal doom.

In the coming months and years, many people will likely be convicted not for violent acts against the government but for unwise or reckless words that they uttered in proximity to government informants – regardless of whether they were coaxed into saying things for which they could be legally impaled.

Critics of the Biden administration may suffer the same law enforcement abuses that Muslims suffered after the 9/11 attacks. The vast majority of people charged with international terrorism offenses in the first decade after 9/11 were induced by the FBI to behave in ways that prompted their arrest, according to Trevor Aaronson, author of “The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism.”

Federal agents targeted numerous young Muslims who were mentally feeble or psychologically disabled in order to pad their conviction counts, thereby helping score bigger budgets from Congress.

The American media mostly ignored the due process travesties that occurred in post-9/11 terrorism prosecutions. Considering the histrionic effort by pundits and Democrats to portray the January 6 Capitol clash as the equivalent of the 9/11 attacks, we can expect similar media nonchalance over federal abuses targeting Biden’s enemies.’

Targeting individuals for entrapment and prosecution based on their political beliefs and associations will help tarnish Biden’s political opponents across the board. CNN’s Don Lemon recently denounced all Trump voters as guilty of siding with Nazis and the Klan, and prosecutions of anti-Biden activists could help tar any Biden critic as a potentially dangerous zealot.

The Department of Homeland Security issued a warning on Wednesday that “ideologically-motivated violent extremists with objections to the exercise of governmental authority and the presidential transition, as well as other perceived grievances fueled by false narratives” pose a threat to public safety. Once politicians establish that extremism is intolerable, the definition of extremism will be consistently expanded to justify outlawing more ideas.

The FBI could become the 800-pound gorilla in efforts to police thoughts. The FBI brazenly violated federal surveillance laws in recent years but suffered no real punishment from the courts, Congress, or various administrations.

Many liberal Democrats are grateful to the FBI for its role in hobbling the Trump administration, making it less likely that the Biden team would leash the agency.

From 1956 through 1971, the FBI’s COINTELPRO program conducted thousands of covert operations to incite street warfare between violent groups, to get people fired, to portray innocent people as government informants, to destroy marriages, and to cripple or destroy leftist, black, white racist, and anti-war organizations. A 1976 Senate report explained that the FBI targeted and harassed vast numbers of peaceful protesters because of its “belief that dissident speech and association should be prevented because they were incipient steps toward the possible ultimate commission of an act which might be criminal.”

That report concluded: “The American people need to be assured that never again will an agency of the government be permitted to conduct a secret war against those citizens it considers threats to the established order.” But legal restrictions on FBI operations are mostly a mirage at this point and the agency operates with near-total impunity. (RELATED: Ex-FBI Lawyer Receives Probation For Altering Email About Carter Page)

Don’t expect an official Federal Register notice if the FBI decides to revive its persecution of dissent. The original COINTELPRO was kept secret for 15 years until a group of patriotic citizens burglarized an FBI office in a Pennsylvania suburb on the night of the first Ali-Frazier fight. They sent newspapers copies of the damning files they seized, spurring J. Edgar Hoover to shut down the program.

If the FBI revives its COINTELPRO-style targeting and mass subversion, would Americans have to wait until 2036 to learn of the scandal?

Power-hungry presidents have perennially portrayed their critics as public nuisances, but the Biden administration seems hellbent on doing far more than finger-wagging. Perhaps the feds will overreach and finally awaken more Americans to the peril of letting their rulers judge their thoughts.

In the meantime, prudent dissidents and wily cynics will avoid writing anything in an email that they don’t want to hear read out loud in federal court.

James Bovard is the author of “Attention Deficit Democracy,” “The Bush Betrayal,” “Terrorism and Tyranny,” and other books. Bovard is on the USA Today Board of Contributors. He is on Twitter at @jimbovard. His website is at www.jimbovard.com

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In a Paranoid Nation, “Treason” Is Everywhere | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on January 27, 2021

This struck me as a microcosm of what American society is becoming—more and more government agents waiting to whack anyone who violates a secret, unannounced rule.

In a free society, peaceful citizens deserve the legal benefit of the doubt. In an age where government agents have endlessly intruded onto people’s land and into their emails, citizens should not be scourged for transgressing unknown or unmarked federal boundaries. There are enough real criminals in this nation that federal prosecutors don’t need to seek publicity by destroying people who may have unknowingly illicitly violated politicians’ sacred turf. 

https://mises.org/wire/paranoid-nation-treason-everywhere

James Bovard

FBI agents across the nation are tracking down and arresting Trump supporters who walked into the US Capitol during the January 6 protest that turned into a brawl. Scores of protestors have already been charged with unlawful entry—“knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds without lawful authority.” The media is treating this as a heinous and self-evident offense, but my own experience at Washington protests makes me wary of treating transgressions as treason.

I roamed downtown Washington on the day before the inauguration. The city was a ghost town, and most of the stores were either boarded up or out of business. More than a dozen subway stops were barricaded shut to prevent any guys wearing furry hats with horns from suddenly appearing from underground to strike terror into the hearts of the media.

Practically the only folks on the streets were National Guard troops touting automatic weapons (mostly without ammo magazines). There were snipers on rooftops and helicopters occasionally buzzing overhead—all part of what DC mayor Muriel Bowser hailed as the “peaceful transition of power in our country.” If it had been even more “peaceful,” drones would have been blowing up manhole covers. Deploying twenty thousand troops in the nation’s capital was noncontroversial for the nation’s media, because the soldiers were supposedly protecting America against right-wing extremists.

At Farragut Square, I entered the “green zone”—the official term for the area the military locked down and the same term the US military used earlier in Baghdad. I ambled over to the edge of Lafayette Park next to the White House, scene of clashes between demonstrators and police last June and a Trump photo op that went awry. I have witnessed many rowdy protests at this park over the decades, but it was walled off with thick wire fencing. I could see the forms of soldiers on the other side of the barrier but not much else. No chance of getting even a glimpse of the White House.

I chatted with a Secret Service policeman guarding the entrance to the park. When I said I was heading toward the Mall, he replied: “You can’t go through here but if you go down to the next block—Seventeenth Street—you can walk to Constitution Avenue from there.”

I thanked the dude and made tracks. But after walking a block or two on Seventeenth, further progress was barred by a tangle of high barriers.

I saw a solitary soldier standing guard to make sure that no pickpockets carted off one of the four thousand–pound concrete jersey barriers blocking the road. He told me that if I went one block over, to Eighteenth Street, that was clear all the way to the Mall.

At Constitution Avenue, I saw that the Mall was completely barricaded. On the other side of the high fences, I saw troops patrolling with their rifles at the ready in case anyone tried to kidnap the geese in the Reflecting Pool.

In the distance, I could see the Washington Monument, but that was as close as I could get—that landmark was protected by row after row of barricades, from the edge of Constitution Avenue onward. To justify writing off my subway fare as a business expense, I took a bevy of bad photos, including a few with a large yellow Police Line Do Not Cross sign juxtaposed with the base of the monument.

Heading back up Eighteenth Street, I ran into another military roadblock—a half dozen soldiers staked out by a closed subway station. I told them I was looking to get to Dupont Circle. A young soldier with a heavy Southern accent replied, “You can’t go this away. The road is closed at the end of this block.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I’m just following orders. You can go over to the next block—Seventeenth Street—and go up on that road.”

I tipped my hat to the dude and ambled along. There was no rhyme or reason to the street closures—just a long series of arbitrary edicts. 

A pack of Metropolitan Police bicyclists suddenly came up the street. There was a slight incline in the road, so the cops were struggling like Tour de France riders crossing the highest peak in the French Alps.

As I watched their arduous ascent, I flashed back to fifteen years earlier when I had roamed the same street on my road bike while hundreds of thousands of marchers protested the Bush administration’s Iraq War. That event was well organized, with plenty of activist lawyers stationed along the route with cameras to document if the police used any brutality on the peaceful demonstrators. I had walked my bike with the marchers as they passed the Treasury building on the east side of the White House, where I snapped my all-time favorite photo of a glassy-eyed cop.

After hoofing for a mile with the protestors, I hopped on my bike, zipped down the street between Lafayette Park and the White House and then swung down Seventeenth Street on the west side of the White House. That road was almost empty except for two cops standing in the middle twenty-five yards ahead of me. As I got closer to them, a fat cop suddenly raised his four-foot wooden pole over his head and began moving directly into my path.

I was puzzled until I heard the other cop mumbling about how I wasn’t allowed on that street. His partner was getting ready to bust his stick over my head.

I revved up my speed, veered to the right, and laughed at the flatfoot over my shoulder. The street closing was not marked, but cops were still entitled to assail any violators—as long as there was no one around to film the beating. Actually, if that cop had smashed me with that pole, I might have been arrested on ginned-up charges such as assaulting a policeman. In the same way that cops routinely justify shooting motorists by claiming the driver was trying to run them down, so the pole dude might have claimed I was trying to run him over.

This struck me as a microcosm of what American society is becoming—more and more government agents waiting to whack anyone who violates a secret, unannounced rule.

I rode around the area to the west of the White House and, hearing some speakers in the distance, swung down another street toward the Ellipse in front of the White House. As I reached the intersection with Seventeenth Street, a gnarly police commander with a burning cigar butt clenched between his teeth screamed at me: “How did you get here!?!”

“I rode down the street,” I replied.

“You’re not allowed to come down on this street!”

“I didn’t see any signs or anything prohibiting it,” I said.

“I had two policemen at the entrance of the street,” he raged. “How did you sneak by them?”

I said I hadn’t seen anyone.

The cop boss was tottering on the edge of arresting me. Another policeman, dressed in civvies, suggested to this cigar chomper that he just let me go through the opening of the metal sawhorses.

Not a chance. The boss cop insisted that I reverse course and ride back down that street. I did so and, at the end of that block, I saw four DC police officers lounging in the shade, talking and laughing among themselves. Regardless of his subordinates’ negligence, the police commander took great satisfaction in reversing one bicyclist’s path. Maybe he even reported it as an “antiterrorism success” to superiors that day.

What the hell, I avoided getting thumped that day. But the flashback made me think of the plight of the hundreds of protestors who entered the Capitol on January 6 and now are facing legal ruin or long prison sentences.

In the past few weeks, the media and Democratic politicians have caterwauled that the clash at the Capitol was an attempted coup, putsch, or “insurrection” (the preferred label in the House of Representatives’s impeachment of Trump). A small number of participants assaulted police and did serious property damage. But most of the protestors entered the Capitol through open doors and wreaked no havoc once they had crossed the threshold. Videos show Capitol policemen doing nothing to impede legions of protestors who often stayed inside the designated rope lines for visitors. As American Conservative founder Pat Buchanan noted, “Had it been [A]ntifa or BLM that carried out the invasion, not one statue would have been left standing in Statuary Hall.” Many of the participants said they didn’t realize they were prohibited from entering the Capitol, and the vast majority left peacefully after a brief visit.

Most Americans support vigorous prosecution of protestors who physically assaulted police at the Capitol. But partly because of the thundering chorus that all participants were guilty of treason, and partly because of Democrats’ and media allies’ howling about the Capitol being “holy” and a “temple,” peaceful protestors also face legal ruin and possibly long jail sentences. The Washington Post reported, “Authorities say they could ultimately arrest hundreds, building some of their cases with the social media posts and live streams of alleged participants who triumphantly broadcast images of the mob.”

Federal prosecutors may pile “seditious conspiracy” charges atop the “unlawful entry” offense, threatening protestors with twenty-year prison sentences. Overcharging is routinely done by the feds to browbeat guilty pleas from people who cannot afford thousands of dollars in legal fees to prove their innocence. But the Justice Department may be realizing that many of its cases against the roughly eight hundred protestors who entered the Capitol could explode in the government’s face. Most of the 135 people charged thus far have no criminal records, and many are former military. The Washington Post noted on Saturday that

some federal officials have argued internally that those people who are known only to have committed unlawful entry—and were not engaged in violent, threatening or destructive behavior—should not be charged….Other agents and prosecutors have pushed back against that suggestion, arguing that it is important to send a forceful message that the kind of political violence and mayhem on display Jan. 6 needs to be punished to the full extent of the law.

One federal law enforcement official commented, “If an old man says all he did was walk in and no one tried to stop him, and he walked out and no one tried to stop him, and that’s all we know about what he did, that’s a case we may not win.” If the cases are all tried in Washington, then that would mean that the DC federal court would have to handle almost three times as many criminal cases as its total caseload for 2020. The Post noted that top officials are keenly aware that “the credibility of the Justice Department and the FBI are at stake in such decisions” on prosecuting protestors. It will take only a few cases against protestors to be squashed by jury nonguilty verdicts to severely damage the histrionic sedition storyline of the January 6 clash.

Americans who hanker to legally impale peaceful Capitol protestors should pause to recognize that far more turf in this nation may soon be permanently off limits to private citizens. DC Mayor Bowser warned that after the inauguration, “We are going to go back to a new normal. I think our entire country is going to have to deal with…a very real and present threat to our nation.” Some members of Congress favor turning Capitol Hill into the equivalent of a supermax prison, permanently surrounding the area with a high fence with razor wire. House speaker Nancy Pelosi says every day on Capitol Hill should be a “national security event.” Will that mean TSA-style checkpoints with far more pointless prodding of anyone who deigns to step onto federal grounds? The George W. Bush administration was notorious for decreeing vast “restricted zones” around the president when he traveled around the nation. Anyone who protested or even held up a critical sign in those areas could face arrest and federal prosecution. That type of repression could be revived by Biden, who was notorious for his dreadful record on civil liberties when he was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In a free society, peaceful citizens deserve the legal benefit of the doubt. In an age where government agents have endlessly intruded onto people’s land and into their emails, citizens should not be scourged for transgressing unknown or unmarked federal boundaries. There are enough real criminals in this nation that federal prosecutors don’t need to seek publicity by destroying people who may have unknowingly illicitly violated politicians’ sacred turf. 

Author:

James Bovard

James Bovard is the author of ten books, including 2012’s Public Policy Hooligan, and 2006’s Attention Deficit Democracy. He has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Playboy, Washington Post, and many other publications.

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