Tag Archives: government

Channeling Fauci

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Anthony Fauci, late of the Federal government, infamously claimed that an attack on him was an attack on science.

Attacks on me, quite frankly, are attacks on science[.]

Now Attorney General Merrick Garland is echoing that self-important, arrogant sentiment and broadening it to include all of the Department of Justice, and not just him personally.

Some have chosen to attack the integrity of the Justice Department… This constitutes an attack on an institution that is essential to American democracy.

Because DoJ and every part of it are above criticism.

In the clip at the second link above, the question put to Garland concerned impeachment considerations regarding FBI Director Chris Wray and other men and women in leadership positions in the FBI and elsewhere in DoJ. Garland cynically talked, instead, about the quality of performance of the line agents in the FBI and elsewhere in DoJ.

That government attitude—that we’re above criticism, and government men don’t have to answer your questions—is what is an attack on American democracy.

Reforming FISA

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One outcome of Special Counsel John Durham’s testimony in front of the House Judiciary Committee is an apparently re-energized, at least by many in the Republican caucus and a few Progressive-Democrats, to reform The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. That’s all to the good, to the extent any serious reform actually occurs.

The most important reform of this Act, though, is the complete elimination of the secret Star Chamber that is the FISA Court. Federal Judges have long known how to seal records that legitimately don’t belong in the public’s eye, at least in the moment. The court’s proceedings, though, are, and should be, public.

So it must be for any sort of FISA-related court. Relevant records can be sealed—primarily the warrants FBI agents are seeking, which process is old hat for any legitimate Article III court, as well as State courts—until the warrants are executed. But this FBI has demonstrated that it will openly lie to the FISA court and that it will fabricate evidence in order to get their warrants. That’s on the FBI. What’s on the FISA court judges is their blithe acceptance of further FBI blandishments after the FBI had been caught out in its dishonesty. That makes the FISA court complicit in the dishonesty.

That badly wants the elimination of the secret court. There is no alternative; there must be no secret courts in the United States.

Full stop.

“He needs to be shot”

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That’s the threat [skip ahead to ~3:30] the Progressive-Democratic Party’s US Virgin Islands Delegate to the House of Representatives, Stacey Plaskett, said on MSNBC Sunday about Party’s political opponent, former President Donald Trump (R).

She changed her phrasing right away and then followed her threat with her pro forma claim that Trump “should have his day in court,” but that’s just her claim that Trump should have his fast trial and prompt firing squad. What concrete, publicly accessible action has Plaskett taken since to indicate that she didn’t really mean her statement that Trump should be murdered?

This is the stuff of lower tier third world countries where political opponents routinely are murdered, when they’re not simply thrown in jail. And then murdered.

This is what the Progressive-Democratic Party wants to inflict on their political opponents here in our nation. Wait—she’s not typical of Party? It’s been three days since Plaskett made her threat. How many Party politicians have spoken publicly in repudiation or rejection of her threat? Their silence is their roaring approval.

A Progressive-Democrat’s Proposal to Combat Shoplifting

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At first glance, this looks like progress after California’s decision to completely condone decriminalize shoplifting if the amount stolen was less than around $1,000 on any single hit. But in reality, it’s just more progressivism.

New York City’s Progressive-Democrat mayor Eric Adams thinks it’s good to deal with shoplifters in the city whose mayoral mansion he occupies in this way, among others:

  • train the shoplifting victim’s employees to de-escalate
  • put kiosks in shoplifting victim stores so shoplifters, at the start of their spree, can call social service
  • allow shoplifters to avoid prosecution or incarceration by “meaningfully” engaging with those services

Unfortunately, this is just more Progressive-Democrat coddling of criminals; it’ll have no useful effect on shoplifting—or on any other NYC crime.

Now We Know

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Recall that House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R, KY) subpoenaed the FBI for an FD-1023 form that is supposed to contain information concerning a potential criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Joe Biden (D) and a foreign national relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions. The subpoena also required the FBI to advise the committee concerning what it did to investigate these allegations.

Both Comer and Senator Chuck Grassley (R, IA), who also wants the document and information so he can run his own investigation (however limited by being in the minority party in the Senate) into the doings of Joe Biden and his family, were confident of the document’s existence, but since their position was based on a so far unidentified whistleblower’s claim, there were doubts about the form’s actual existence.

When the subpoena’s deadline went by without the FBI’s producing either the document or the information, FBI Director Chris Wray wrote a letter to Comey explaining his refusal to produce them. That refusal, despite Wray’s standard “neither confirm nor deny” mantra, now confirms the document’s existence and emphasizes the importance of its production, along with what the FBI did—or didn’t—do about it to the Oversight Committee. Wray wrote a number of things in his letter, but one stands out.

[Y]our request for a single FD-1023 report that you say includes a “precise description” of an “alleged criminal scheme” risks the harms that our confidentiality rules protect against[.]

There are a couple of things about that standout. One is Wray’s naked insubordination in this. FBI “rules” do not supersede the House’s constitutional authority to conduct oversight of the Executive Branch and of Executive Branch agencies. Last I looked, the FBI was an Executive Branch agency. Wray knows full well that his agency’s “rules” are subordinate to that constitutional mandate.

The other thing is this: to the extent that producing the FD-1023 and its activities pursuant to it puts at risk the FBI’s needs for confidentiality regarding its sources and methods and any investigations the FBI may or may not have in progress—and the concerns themselves are valid—the form can be produced to Committee members in a SCIF in the House. The House already has a SCIF; that’s where classified intelligence documents get viewed by specified House members. Wray is fully aware of this, too; his refusal to produce the document and related information altogether rather than in the House’s SCIF is disingenuous at best.

That raises a question in my pea brain: who sent Wray? Who does he work for?