No newsletter in October?

Government and Big Tech working together to censor conservative views, is a big reason why we changed things up and moved my newsletter to Substack.

In case you missed it…

On Friday, a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled that the Biden White House, federal health officials, and the FBI may have infringed on the First Amendment by pressuring social media platforms to suppress or remove content related to COVID-19 and the 2020 election by using “intimidating messages and threats of adverse consequences.” "MAY have?!" Read that sentence again. Sounds kinda fascist, doesn’t it?

https://www.westernjournal.com/appeals-court-affirms-biden-likely-violated-first-amendment-suppressing-information-social-media/

The court wrote, “The officials have engaged in a broad pressure campaign designed to coerce social-media companies into suppressing speakers, viewpoints, and content disfavored by the government. The harms that radiate from such conduct extend far beyond just the Plaintiffs; it impacts every social media user.”

Unfortunately, they also narrowed the lower court judge’s ban on government agencies contacting tech companies about removing speech. The panel kept the ban on the White House, Surgeon General, CDC and FBI, but lifted it on the State Department, HHS and DHS. I guess because those agencies would NEVER abuse their power to silence their critics.

The Administration has ten days to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court. I hope they’ll concede defeat and drop it, but I admit I would love to hear Justices Thomas and Alito grilling them as they try to make the case for government censorship of free speech.

Time to consider what can be done to stop corrupt Georgia DA

“Now, at what point do you have a prosecutor arrested?”

That was the question from bestselling author and DILBERT creator Scott Adams on Saturday after learning that Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis had ignored evidence that the alternate GOP slate of electors had not been trying to fraudulently replace the original slate.  As we reported last week, the minutes of the December 14, 2020, meeting of these alternates clearly proves that they weren’t out to commit election fraud, only to be ready with GOP electors in the event that a recount in Georgia turned the election to Trump.  Willis disregarded this clear exoneration and indicted these individuals, anyway.

In Willis’ indictments, not to mention the countless media reports about the case, the alternates have been falsely branded “fake electors.”  We’ve even seen this in conservative media.

“Now, if somebody was going to pretend they were the legitimate electors, that would look pretty bad,” Adams said on “Coffee With Scott Adams,” his daily podcast.  “Wouldn’t it?  Turns out, that’s not the case.”  As you know, Willis had in her possession the minutes from the official vote-counting meeting in which members went on the record clarifying, very directly, what they were and were not doing with this alternate slate of electors.  “Their intentions clearly stated that they were not going to be fake electors,” Adams said.  “They were gonna be sort of like back-up...placeholders in case needed.”

Exactly:  they were placeholders, not a replacement.  “A replacement would look like an insurrection,” Adams said, and indeed it would.  “Alternates, while you sort out what’s real, just looks like being prepared for all outcomes.”  And that was the idea.  As you know, there’s even legal precedent for having a slate of alternates, set by the state of Hawaii during the razor-thin Kennedy-Nixon count.

“So they’re being charged with the thing that the documents clearly showed they were not trying to do,” Adams said.  “They were trying to do something legal, and not that thing they’re being charged with.”

It’s “super, super obvious” they’re innocent, he said, yet Willis apparently suppressed the evidence that would prove it.

(FYI, there have been a number of liberal media “fact-checks” about how Georgia is totally different from Hawaii in 1960, but I suspect none of them knew there was exculpatory evidence being hidden that shows it was actually not different. Or if they did know, they didn’t care.)

One might think that, oh, maybe she and her team of assistants weren’t aware of that one particular document in the file of thousands and thousands of pages when she criminally indicted these people in a “fake electors” scheme.  Gosh, maybe it was just an oversight on her part, an honest mistake.  But if that were the case, Willis should already have dropped the charges and apologized profusely to these innocent people.

Since that hasn’t happened, we may safely conclude that “honest” has got nothin’ to do with it --- that Willis is deliberately trying to railroad some innocent people who were just trying to do their duty as specified in the Constitution.  She’ll hold onto that case like a dog with a bone, no matter how obvious it is that she’s abusing the system in a way that would make Stalin proud.

So, if she suppressed the evidence that exonerates them, shouldn’t she be in jail already?  YES.

Adams tried putting the “fog of war” standard on what we’re seeing, suggesting she might have had a legitimate reason for what she did.  We see a reason, all right, but it’s not legitimate.  And Adams gets a similar sense of what she did, saying that “based on what we’ve seen so far, it would look like she’s just a criminal.”

And that brings us full circle, to the original question; namely, at what point do you have a prosecutor arrested?  By coincidence, Sunday’s episode of LIFE, LIBERTY & LEVIN was dedicated to the question of whether this DA is accountable to anyone as she interferes with a federal election, charges federal officials and coordinates with DC.  First, here’s criminal defense attorney David Schoen…

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6336940773112

But Schoen doesn’t specify how to deal with a DA who is out of control.  We’re looking into that ourselves, but in the meantime, Levin also spoke with House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio about the fact that without Congress, there would be no district attorney’s office, or special counsel, or DOJ.  (Reminds me of the old Bill Cosby line, “I brought you into this world, and I can take you out.”)  We have to stick together as a party, he said, to stop them.

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6336850537112

RELATED POINT:  Scott Adams spoke about his earlier tweeting (X-ing?) on Saturday that “when Republicans are wrong, that’s the whole story, but when Democrats are wrong, most of the time it’s because their own team ran a sophisticated op to brainwash them.”  He said, “I’ve never met a Democrat who’s aware of that.  Have you?”

What a fabulous observation: “I’ve never met a Democrat who was aware that their own team runs serial hoaxes on THEM.”

“They don’t work as well on Republicans because Republicans know what’s happening,” he said.

“But the Democrats seem to be completely unaware that their team is running ops on them.”  This seems to be happening on only one side, “and the reason would be that only one side controls enough of the media that you can come up with an op that the media will support.”

Adams observed that the Democrat Party is running ops on their supporters “all the time --- it’s nonstop.”  It’s constant brainwashing that they don’t know is happening at all.

“It’s impressive in its own way,” he said lightly before moving on to another subject.  It strikes us that a more appropriate word would be “OP-pressive,” as it’s the antithesis of a free country with an independent media.  But it certainly does explain a lot, such as every hoax that has been perpetrated against Trump (that’s a long list!) and now Fani Willis’ shocking abuse of power against him and his supporters.

This episode of “Coffee With Scott Adams” is particularly good.  The observations discussed above comes in at about the 20-minute point.  Afterwards, Adams talks about the “tells” people use when they’re experiencing cognitive dissonance and desperately need a comeback to protect themselves.  (Cognitive dissonance is when someone’s comfortable bubble gets poked by some truth.)  As you might have seen, people are amazingly skilled at deflection and straw man arguments.  Just mention something --- anything --- good about Trump, pop the popcorn and watch the fun begin.  Here’s the entire podcast…

https://www.youtube.com/live/X8UHK23bqNg?si=BukjWCuweVM5IAlh

Bill O’Reilly, in a great column this Sunday called “The Sting,” elaborated on this irrational hatred that’s been created towards Trump. First, he outlined Trump’s impressive resume for the first years of his presidency --- a strong economy, good border containment, no new wars, ISIS decimated, Xi and Putin relatively contained.

“But there is scant national reporting of it,” O’Reilly wrote. “Instead, salacious charges of corruption involving Russia dominated headlines for two years” before and during Trump’s term. The Russia Hoax. “A Special Counsel is appointed to investigate. His report says there is no corruption. The national media do not celebrate.”

Consequently, millions of people will disagree with O’Reilly’s positive analysis and continue to “hate” Trump. The only reason for this that O’Reilly would term as “valid” (and we would say its validity is debatable) is the “colossal Trump-driven fiasco after the 2020 election.” But as O’Reilly readily acknowledged, the “get-Trump” movement started long before that; in fact, it started at the very beginning of his first run for President, with the liberal media marching in lock-step to protect Hillary.

O’Reilly was conveying in different words what Scott Adams said about the psy-ops being run by Democrats on Democrats: that the “news agencies are openly currently supporting President Biden by hiding his deficiencies and alleged corruption. The leftist media is also cheerleading the legal cases against Trump without a shred of balance or skepticism.”

“Honest, balanced reporting and news analysis are on the endangered species list,” O’Reilly wrote. “The scorpions who control most media companies are more driven than ever to impose progressive policies and get pliable people like Biden and Kamala elected.”

The result: in O’Reilly’s words, “a lot of power and money is being used to prop up incompetence and corruption.” We see it now all around us, every day. Can the media really dress up this pig enough to sell it once again? It’s hard to imagine they can after witnessing Biden’s horrifying, near-incoherent struggle on his Vietnam trip…

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2023/09/10/biden-goes-over-the-edge-in-vietnam-with-softballs-confusion-and-dog-faced-pony-soldiers-n2163634

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2023/09/10/even-the-liberal-press-noticed-how-insane-bidens-vietnam-presser-was-and-democrats-are-stuck-n2163649

...and growing evidence of his financial corruption and dishonesty, but we shall see.

https://www.billoreilly.com/b/The-Sting/-286406884029567455.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=staff_column

UPDATE:

I told you over the weekend about New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham doing a test-run of the liberal idea of branding shootings as a “health emergency” to suspend the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens. In this case, she responded to a rise in violence in Albuquerque with a 30-day order suspending the rights of people with concealed carry permits. I predicted that she would face legal challenges.

Well, it didn’t take long, and “legal challenges” was an understatement! It’s only Monday, and already, the Albuquerque DA is refusing to enforce the order…

https://www.westernjournal.com/albuquerque-da-refusing-enforce-governors-suspension-2nd-amendment-rights-clearly-unconstitutional/

…The legislature is threatening to impeach Grisham, while she’s digging in her heels and refusing to back down…

https://redstate.com/jeffc/2023/09/09/new-mexico-lawmakers-call-for-impeaching-gov-lujan-grisham-over-emergency-order-suspending-gun-rights-n2163621

…And four lawsuits have already been filed seeking immediate injunctive relief to block the order. Astoundingly, even famous gun grabbers Ted Lieu and David Hogg tweeted that while they support gun safety, there’s no such thing as a public health emergency exception to the US Constitution. I wonder if they’re trying to kill off defenders of Second Amendment rights by making us all die of shock.

https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/09/four-lawsuits-filed-challenging-new-mexico-2a-emergency-order/

Protests in DC

Monday, seven protesters occupied Speaker McCarthy’s office in the Capitol and refused to leave until their demands were met. Capitol Police arrested them and charged them with unlawful entry. So I guess they’ll also be upcharged with terrorism, insurrection and obstruction of an official proceeding and thrown into jail for months, awaiting sentencing to 20 years in prison, along with anyone who might have encouraged them to do it or expressed any support for them…

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2023/09/11/insurrection-activists-occupy-speaker-mccarthys-office-n1726095

Oh, wait: they were leftwing protesters demanding AIDS funding? Well, never mind! Nothing to see here then…

Stop The Presses!

The Biden “Justice” Department actually dropped a case against someone who had a Kevin Bacon-level connection to Donald Trump!

https://dailycaller.com/2023/09/11/justice-department-case-against-michael-flynns-former-business-partner/

Five years ago, they charged former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s former business partner, Bijan Rafiekian, with failing to register as a foreign agent for Turkey. Before everything done by anyone who's ever met Trump became a felony, that used to be handled with a warning phone call. They got a jury conviction in 2019, but the judge tossed it out for lack of evidence. Biden’s DOJ refused to accept their loss and kept appealing, wasting years of time and a ton of money for both the accused and the taxpayers.

Rafiekian’s attorney said he never should have been indicted and has “been the target of baseless federal prosecution for the past five years, only because he made the poor decision to be in business with Michael Flynn.” The Biden DOJ said, “After carefully considering the Fourth Circuit’s recent decision in this case and the principles of federal prosecution, the United States believes it is not in the public interest to pursue the case against defendant Bijan Rafiekian further.”

I'm pleasantly surprised to learn that federal prosecutions still have principles. But was it ever really in the public’s interest to pursue that case? Or did they finally just decide that five years of expensive legal persecution was enough process-as-punishment? On the bright side, maybe this means that after five years, they’ll finally decide it’s not in the public’s interest to keep trying to put Trump in prison for 700 years for possessing his own papers or making a phone call.

Just some questions

Why do we negotiate with Terrorists countries who threaten us daily and give them $6 billion to use to develop weapons that they will use against us?

Why do we give them the money before they give us what they are supposed to give us?

Are the protestors that barged in to McCarthy’s office and sat down screaming and yelling blocking the staffers from doing their jobs and were arrested going to be charged with sedition? What about other protestors that do this in the capitol going forward?

If not, what’s the difference between them and the Jan. 6th protestors who merely walked by the capitol or walked in but didn’t tear anything up or even yell and scream?

When Biden can’t remember where he is or rambles on incoherently or says he needs to go to bed, why aren’t people more concerned about who is in charge in this country?

September 11th Anniversary News Round-up

For those who might have missed it yesterday, here is the video of the full 9/11 Memorial ceremony in New York City…

https://www.youtube.com/live/tXmM0Ip-1Uc?si=kbbSK9IZ0lBFWcfW

And Breitbart News’ visual history of 9/11 images. Warning: some are very disturbing.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/09/11/9-11-a-visual-history/

President Biden took criticism for being the first sitting American President not to attend the New York 9/11 ceremony since 2002. The official White House excuse was that 22 years after Pearl Harbor, Presidents still weren’t attending that ceremony. Well, maybe they should have. It was also a lot more difficult to travel 4800 miles from DC to Hawaii in 1964 than to travel 200 miles from DC to NYC in 2023. Biden, meanwhile, was in Alaska (about 4300 miles from DC), one of the few places not dealing with the consequences of his open border and so less likely to be filled with hecklers than Manhattan. Even so, he was blasted for starting his 9/11 comments with a joke and for falsely claiming he’d been at Ground Zero the day after the attack – which, to be fair, he might actually believe.

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2023/09/11/bidens-911-speech-in-alaska-was-a-national-embarrassment-n2163690

Speaking of jokes, Biden’s place in New York was taken by VP Kamala Harris, who, as always and under the most inappropriate circumstances, had a hard time not giggling.

https://www.westernjournal.com/kamala-harris-cant-keep-laughing-9-11-memorial/

On the anniversary of the date when 19 Islamic terrorists killed over 2700 people, it was reported that so far this year, 149 people who are on the Terrorist Watch List were intercepted trying to cross our southern or northern borders – 146 of them on the southern border.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/09/11/nearly-150-illegal-aliens-terrorist-watch-list-encountered-u-s-border-past-year/

Reader conducted Gmail test

From Substack reader Steve F:

I tested Pat Reeder's sentence fragment ("It was also reported that the same Georgia grand jury that indicted Trump and 18 other people...") in Proton Mail. There was no complaint at all (as I expected). The problem is almost certainly the GMail servers, not whatever browser you use to access GMail. This is sad but unsurprising -- and a good reason to get a Proton Mail account. :-)

White House agrees to Iran deal on September 11 Anniversary

In what many are calling an embarrassment and an insult to the memory of 9/11 victims, the White House announced on September 11^th that they’d reached a deal to release $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets and to release five Iranians being held in the US in exchange for Iran releasing five Americans that they’ve been holding prisoner.

As noted at the link, the White House claims the $6 billion will be spent on “humanitarian purposes,” but nobody seriously believes that. And even if it were true, it would just free up $6 billion elsewhere in Iran’s budget to fund terrorism. The announcement set off a fierce debate over which was worse: the deal itself or the timing of its announcement?

https://redstate.com/jenvanlaar/2023/09/11/biden-admin-commemorates-911-by-announcing-deal-to-pay-iran-6-billion-for-hostage-release-n2163695

Trump files motion for biased DC Judge Chutkan to recuse herself

On Monday, attorneys for President Trump did something they were absolutely bound to do: they filed a motion asking Judge Tanya Chutkan, the DC judge hearing his case about interference in the 2020 election, to recuse herself.

Judge Chutkan, an Obama appointee, is on record, from before being assigned Trump’s case, strongly implying that Trump needed to be behind bars.

Trump’s attorneys say this statement is “inherently disqualifying,” and they are right.  If she fails to disqualify herself over this and other statements she has made, and is allowed to continue presiding, we may assume that our legal system is down the toilet and we really are just “going through the motions of justice.”

Perhaps the worst problem with Trump Derangement Syndrome is that those infected by it do not realize this and still are convinced they’re objective.  As the motion states, “Although Judge Chutkin may genuinely intend to give President Trump a fair trial --- and may believe that she can do so --- her public statements unavoidably taint these proceedings, regardless of outcome.”

It was during the sentencing of January 6 defendant Christine Priola that she said the people at the Capitol that day were there out of “blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.”

Trump’s lawyers argued that the meaning of this is “inescapable --- President Trump is free, but should not be.”

It’s not just words but actions.  Chutkan has already done one thing that suggests she’s --- consciously or not --- trying to damage President Trump’s ability to run for the GOP nomination in ‘24.  She set the trial date in his case for March 4 of next year.  The Super Tuesday primaries are March 5.

It’s up to the judge to recuse herself, but if she doesn’t (and she probably won’t), we’d think that would enter into any appeal down the road, if it comes to that.

https://dailycaller.com/2023/09/11/trump-tanya-chutkan-recuse

Now, let’s go from DC to Fulton County, Georgia, and see how the deck has been stacked against President Trump there…

Attorney and election law expert Cleta Mitchell told legal analyst Margot Cleveland at THE FEDERALIST that being questioned for hours by the Fulton County grand jury was “a surreal experience.”  She said, “I knew coming out of there that the whole thing was a loose cannon...[that] they were going to recommend indicting basically all the Trump allies --- it was a completely political situation --- nothing to do with the law.  NOTHING.”

Mitchell was called to testify because she had represented Trump in his challenge to the 2020 election in Georgia.  (As you know, the concept of attorney-client privilege, at least for President Trump, has been tossed right out the window.  Executive privilege, too.)

Now that the grand jury report has been released, we know that “all the Trump allies” refers to 39 (!) people that they wanted to charge, not just the 19 who actually were indicted.  Some of those on the list but whom DA Fani Willis apparently knew better than to indict were South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham, and former GOP Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, both of Georgia.  Mitchell herself was on the list but also not indicted.

Remember Emily Kohrs, the scary jury foreperson who made the mistake of doing a few interviews while the grand jury was still hearing testimony?  Her overzealousness apparently was no act; Mitchell told Cleveland that some notes she herself had carried into the grand jury room had been taken by Kohrs and completely misread.  “You say here,” Kohrs told her, “...that you are asking the court to award the electors to Donald Trump.”

As the notes said no such thing, a puzzled Mitchell said, “Where do you read that?”  Kohrs handed it back.  To quote Mitchell:

“Nowhere in the memorandum of law does it say that the election should be awarded to Trump. We argued that there is precedent under Georgia law for the court to vacate the results and order a new election IF we were able to establish that the evidence proved there were more illegal votes, cast in violation of state law but counted and included in the certified total, than the margin of difference between the two candidates — the remedy is a new election. Alternatively, we argued that the state legislature has plenary power under the U.S. Constitution to meet and determine the electors — and I told her that.”

In other words, she was explaining this the way we explained the alternate slate of electors (who now face criminal charges):  that it was only IN CASE the evidence showed the need for it.  What Mitchell had described in writing was not illegal.  But Kohrs is such a zealot, she automatically jumped to the worst possible interpretation --- something that Mitchell hadn’t even said.

The grand jury recommended indicting Mitchell on a variety of charges relating to the phone call in which Trump allegedly told Secretary of State Raffensperger to “find” a specified number of votes.  They did this in spite of the fact that they never asked her even one question about the phone call.  What Fulton County prosecutors asked her about, she said, was what they saw as “deficiencies” in the election challenge filed by Trump.

After hearing Mitchell’s account, Cleveland concluded that the questions they had asked her “further cement the reality that what Democrats are trying to do is criminalize election challenges brought by Republicans.”  (Democrats, knock yourself out with all the election challenges you want!)  If this DA in Georgia can get away with it, it’s bound to start happening all over the country, with Democrat-controlled courts picking the winners.

https://thefederalist.com/2023/09/11/fulton-county-grand-jury-was-totally-unhinged-reveals-election-lawyer/

RELATED:  As long as we’re talking about contested elections, what on earth is going on with GOP Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado, in his remarks about the J6 case?  He currently sits on the House Judiciary Committee, but, good heavens, is he looking for a permanent gig on MSNBC?  Investigative reporter Julie Kelly has picked apart Buck’s response to a letter signed by more than 200 in the Colorado Republican Party demanding that elected officials in their state address the plight of the J6 defendants.

Buck made light of their plight.

Kelly, who knows as much and possibly more than anyone about the J6 defendants and the treatment they’ve received by the legal system, says Buck’s “Pollyanna-ish view of the DC legal and judicial system is animated by ignorance.”  Her masterful response to Rep. Buck is a must-read…

https://www.declassified.live/p/why-ken-buck-is-wrong-about-j6-defendants

And, yes, Buck actually did go on MSNBC to defend Joe Biden from claims he was involved in Hunter’s business.   As for talk of an impeachment inquiry, he says Speaker Kevin McCarthy is just using that as “a distraction.”

“The time for impeachment is the time when there’s evidence linking President Biden --- if there’s evidence linking President Biden to a high crime or misdemeanor.  That doesn’t exist now.”

What??

It’s true that an impeachment shouldn’t be rushed, but there’s more than enough evidence to warrant the inquiry, NOW.  It’s all up to Congress, because the ‘Justice’ Department sure isn’t going to do it. 

https://www.independentsentinel.com/rep-ken-buck-defends-joe-biden-again/

 I JUST WANTED TO SAY: 

Thank you for reading my newsletter. 

For more news, visit my website.