When Hunter Biden business associate Tony Bobulinski was interviewed by the FBI two years ago --- shortly before the 2020 election --- they said they wanted to continue speaking with him, likely the following week, and that they would contact him, but he never heard from them again. Gee, was it something he said?

(We now know the reason –- they assigned the virulently anti-Trump agent Tim Thibault as “point man.” No wonder.)

When Bobulinski sat down the first time to talk with Tucker Carlson –- this was also shortly before the 2020 election –- their interview was ignored in the mainstream media.

So what do you think happened when Bobulinski sat down once more on Tuesday, two years later –- again, shortly before an election –- for another remarkable hour-long interview with Tucker, very specifically implicating Joe Biden in a family influence-peddling scheme and armed with mountains of documentation for everything he said?

Essentially the same thing. There’s a song from the show CHICAGO called “Mr. Cellophane” that we think could be Tony Bobulinski’s theme song:

Cellophane, Mr. Cellophane

Shoulda been my name, Mr. Cellophane

‘Cause you can look right through me

Walk right by me

And never know I’m there.

After the interview, the White House did not respond. No major media organization did, either. “No television network in the United States of America said a word about it,” Tucker said on Wednesday. The silence screams loudly about the state of the media today.

We all know what the reaction would be if it were the Trump family scandal.

If “democracy dies in darkness” –- and it surely does –- then we’d better start lighting a whole lotta candles. Elsewhere in today’s newsletter, you’ll see other dismaying examples of journalism’s demise, as it is increasingly complicit with those abusing power. (Be sure to read about Dr. Jordan Peterson’s interview with Julian Assange’s wife/attorney.) At the same time, there are still SOME heroic investigative journalists and publishers out there, and we do what we can to expand their reach. Without them, we wouldn’t have a country at all any more, not as we knew it. As it is, we’re holding on to it by our fingernails to save it.

I’m convinced, and polls often show, that most people in this country really are conservative on most issues but that many would never even entertain the notion. They mostly want the same basic things we do, but they continue voting for leftists and then wonder why everything is going so horribly wrong. This is mostly because of selective reporting and flat-out lying in the mainstream media, agenda-driven “fact”-checkers, ever-tightening social media censorship, and –- especially lately –- phony government narratives demonizing conservatism.

Dr. Jordan Peterson interviews Stella Assange, Part 2

On Tuesday, we brought you Part 1 of our summary of Dr. Jordan Peterson’s enlightening interview with Stella Assange, wife and longtime attorney for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. As you know, after years of self-imposed confinement inside the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, he’s now being held in a London prison and faces possible extradition to America to stand trial on espionage-related charges that could carry 170 years.

Part 1 shed light on what, exactly, Assange did and what his motivations were. As described by his wife, they were mostly that he hates deceit and sees where the digital age is taking us in the brave new world of so-called ‘journalism.’ He wanted to make a statement with a large-scale action, and he sure did.

Stella also explained that the “new rules” we now see being “normalized” and applied to political dissidents --- such as the collaboration between government and private industry to cripple them financially --- were first used to go after Julian. Since Trump got into office, she said, the CIA has been obsessed with Julian and Wikileaks. (Of course, we have to say it: they’re even more obsessed with Trump himself!)

Now, here’s Part 2…

Given all that Assange might know, we’ve wondered in recent years about his safety. Stella speaks of an investigative piece from 2021 saying there had been a plan not only to kidnap but to assassinate him. It mostly got attention from far-left publications, likely because this concerned Trump’s CIA. (I have a feeling that if Assange is at this point a target for assassination, it’s because of deep-state Democrat concerns, certainly not Trump, who is all for transparency. Just a hunch.)

https://www.salon.com/2021/10/19/with-cia-assassination-plot-exposed-press-freedom-groups-urge-doj-to-drop-assange-case_partner/

Before the government introduced espionage charges, Stella explains, they started with one charge in March 2018, over using his computer to help Chelsea Manning hide her identity when logging in. (She already could gain access but wanted anonymity.) They’re saying that he "agreed to help her hide her identity, which is what journalists do all the time,” she says.

The charge of “conspiracy to commit computer intrusion,” carrying a five-year sentence, was used as a “PR exercise,” she says, to differentiate him in people’s minds from “other journalists.” Then came the add-on: 17 espionage charges. Even the NEW YORK TIMES and WASHINGTON POST ran editorials in support of him.

Dr. Peterson suggests that because of the “troublesome” security concerns and legal issues Julian is raising, the government’s strategy might be to ensnare him in a decades-long legal nightmare whether or not it they could convict. (We would add, again, that this sounds much like what they’ve done to Trump.) There’s virtually no cost to them –- except, of course, for the long-term damage it does to our institutions –- but the cost to Julian is the rest of his life.

Dr. Peterson, in fact, says he finds the claim by Julian’s attorneys that his legal travails have, over time, contributed to the decline of his mental health to be “highly probable.” He’s spoken with many who’ve suffered similar persecution, to a much lesser degree, and that’s what he saw in them. It’s a form of PTSD.

It shows “how serious this culture of unwarranted accusation and weaponization of the investigative process really is,” he says. The likelihood that this might happen to you or someone you know is “increasing dramatically.” And seeing it happen publicly to others is “making you muzzle your willingness to speak freely and act truly, in a manner that’s so pernicious and pervasive that you can hardly even imagine.”

(Note: sometimes what Dr. Peterson says off the top of his head is so spot-on, we especially like to put it in print. The above paragraph, which capsulizes perhaps the worst problem of our age, certainly qualifies.)

He speculates that for every Julian Assange who is actually persecuted “on the reputational front,” there are perhaps 10,000 to decide to “just shut up and take it.”

Stella says that for Julian, “the U.S. has been moving the goalposts constantly.” Halfway through the extradition hearings, for example, they produced a “superceding indictment,” saying they had a new witness –- who had been given immunity –- talking about Julian actually instructing hackers. (Note: this “superceding indictment” sounds like what they do to the January 6 detainees.) But that witness later said publicly that this is not what he told the FBI.

“The Department of ‘Justice’ has completely misled the British courts,” she says.

Under the Espionage Act of 1917, which was enacted during wartime to prosecute spies and critics of the war, all it takes to violate it is possessing –- not necessarily even publishing –- just one document marked “classified.” (Aside: that’s why there looking for even one “classified” document from Mar-A-Lago to be able to charge Trump.) After the war, the focus was on spies, and then it was turned on journalists who dared to expose government secrets. They argue that journalists have no “public interest” defense because this is an espionage statute. The line between espionage and journalism is being blurred. This is why even THE NYT and WAPO became alarmed, and why everyone who reads and/or shares “unauthorized” news on their laptop should be.

So, why stay in legal limbo rather than be extradited to America and fight within the legal system there? Stella says Julian is indeed using the law to fight what is a political persecution. If he went to America, she says, he’d be tried in a Virginia court, which is near CIA headquarters, “the same CIA that plotted to assassinate him.” He would be “under their complete control.” At least in the U.K., he can see her and their two children.

She doesn’t have faith in the ‘justice’ system, either here or in the U.K. “This case is as political as it gets,” she says. She believes that in the U.S., the CIA might house Julian under what are called “special administrative measures,” which allow the prisoner only 30 MINUTES A MONTH to speak to his family or attorney. About 50 prisoners in the U.S. are confined this way. He might also be placed at the SuperMax prison. A lower British court ruled last year that Julian should not be extradited because it would lead him to conditions that might drive him to take his own life.

Julian, she says, has a keen respect for the historical record and has always thought of WikiLeaks as a “Rebel Library of Alexandria.”

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Library-of-Alexandria

She says he’s shown how governments –- even our own State Department –- have behaved in a criminal manner when the stakes were high enough. In her words, “When we come to this level of power, there are no rules. The only rule is...‘might’ over ‘right.’”

According to Dr. Peterson, there’s a “beneficial antagonism” between journalists who want to expose secrets and states that want to keep them. “And it’s not appropriate for the state security agents, even though they have their domain, to interfere with the overarching freedom of expression and a free press,” he says.

Ah, but that’s what they’re doing, and every day they look for new ways to do it. Plenty of fake journalists are fine with being scribes for the state, at least when it’s run by “their” side. But REAL journalists are an endangered species in the digital age.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRSwDBMiaWQ

The Difference Between Democrats and Republicans: A Parable

Just over a month from now, voters across America will be voting and the stakes are high.  Some early voting will actually begin in a few places in the next week or so.  The contrast to the competing parties has never been more dramatic.  I’m frankly not as confident as I’d like to be that if the Republicans win both houses of Congress they will do a whole lot of what they promise.  I’ve learned to be deeply disappointed in Republicans when they are in power in Congress.  Time and again I’ve heard the promises, but rarely have seen the results.  I’d love it if they got power and actually conducted honest and thorough investigations into everything from the DOJ and FBI brutally trampling the civil rights of Americans by using their taxpayer funded power as a weapon to punish Christians, pro-lifers, and conservatives.  It would be great if they would find out whether Joe Biden really is the “big guy” that is repeatedly referred to by Hunter Biden as the one getting a cash cut of the dirty deals Hunter made with the Communist Chinese government and the corrupt Russian and Ukrainian business oligarchs.  We need to know if the IRS is politically targeting conservatives, Christian groups, and pro-life ministries to intimidate them.  We need to know why the FBI is sending large teams of armed agents swarming into the homes of pro-life advocates, scaring the daylights out of their children or conducting armed raids on a former President when they have never done that to previous Presidents who also had classified documents from their time in office.

To help explain what is the difference between the parties and how it impacts your life, let me re-tell a story I heard recently that puts the election in clear perspective.

A woman in a hot air balloon realizes she is lost. She lowers her altitude and spots a man fishing from a boat below. She shouts to him, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The man consults his portable GPS and replies, "You're in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above a ground elevation of 2,346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude.

She rolls her eyes and says, "You must be a Republican!"

"I am," replies the man. "How did you know?"

"Well," answers the balloonist, "everything you tell me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to do with your information, and I'm still lost. Frankly, you're not much help to me."

The man smiles and responds, "You must be a Democrat."

"I am, replies the balloonist. "How did you know?"

"Well," says the man, "You don't know where you are or where you're going. You've risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise that you have no idea how to keep, and now you expect me to solve your problem. You're in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but, somehow, now it's my fault."

Somehow, I feel that story sums up what we’re up against.  As I said earlier, I’m typically disappointed in Republicans when they get power because they seem to never get around to doing the big things they promise, but a Congress that does nothing is a great improvement over the one we have now that is destroying our country before our eyes with higher taxes and reckless spending that create runaway inflation, stagnant paychecks for working Americans, a stranglehold for small businesses, a Justice Department that labels parents domestic terrorists for caring about what their schoolchildren are being taught and which tramples the rule of law and due process, and a Congress that lies about the border being secure but doesn’t seem to care that human trafficking and drugs are coming across those open borders in record numbers.  And we must stop the uncontrolled crime wave led by Democrats who believe in defunding the police, letting violent criminals out just hours after being arrested, and who never face consequences for bashing in the head of an elderly subway rider, shooting randomly and killing small children, or torching police cars and federal courthouses.

Republicans are that great, but they aren’t stark raving crazy!  And as much as I’d like to see a stout Republican party truly fight to restore a Constitutional republic, right now, I’d settle for them just stopping the silly, the insane, and the dangerous.

White House hits panic mode

One unnamed official told CNN that the White House staff is “having a spasm and panicking” over news that OPEC dismissed President Biden’s pleas to increase oil production and instead voted to slash it by two million barrels a day starting in November. Gas prices had been dropping over the summer, but they’ve started rising again and are expected to keep rising, as OPEC’s decision caused the price of oil to leap $10 in one day to over $93 a barrel.

https://www.westernjournal.com/white-house-fails-bid-stop-total-disaster-opec-announces-huge-production-cut/

Biden will reportedly try to stave off the political damage until after the midterm elections by releasing even more oil from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve. This despite the fact that the SPR is at a 37-year low due to his previous releases and will now have to be refilled at much higher prices.

But leave it to this White House to try to spin one of the dumbest self-inflicted wounds in history as a positive (reminds me of a kid who says, "I meant to do that" after face-planting off his skateboard.) White House spokesman John Kirby told Fox News that Biden has issued thousands more domestic oil drilling leases and blamed the oil companies for not taking full advantage of them. (This article explains why that’s very misleading; in fact, federal oil leasing is down 97% from the first 19 months of Trump’s term.)

https://www.wsj.com/articles/federal-oil-leases-slow-to-a-trickle-under-biden-11662230816

But what really floored me was when Kirby implied that this proves how wise Biden is to recognize that “clean energy solutions are the future” and that “we need to be less dependent on OPEC.”

News flash, John: Before your boss took over, WE WEREN’T DEPENDENT ON OPEC! Trump had made America energy-independent at last. On his first day in office, Biden declared war on domestic oil and gas production and pipelines, apparently believing the energy shortfall would be made up for by wind, solar and unicorn burps. Instead, he’s been smacked by reality and drained the SPR that Trump topped up at very low oil prices (over fierce Democrat objections)  

The obvious solution would be to let American producers produce more oil, or at least restart the pipeline projects Biden killed to bring in more Canadian oil. But instead, Biden, having been spurned by OPEC, is now relaxing sanctions on Venezuela’s socialist dictator (in the news just last month for emptying his prisons to send his criminals to the US as illegal immigrants) so that the US and Europe can get more Venezuelan oil. Which, by the way, is rated among the world’s dirtiest.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/biden-admin-prepping-scale-down-venezuela-sanctions-allow-pumping-oil-world-dirtiest

Sure, technically, it will make America weaker, enrich our enemies and actually harm the environment more than producing our own oil. But it will also mollify the green radicals of the Democrat base until after the election. And isn’t that what really matters most?

I JUST WANTED TO SAY: