California is in the midst of a historic rainstorm, but will it be a waste?
Watch Amanda break down the latest controversy below:
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
ANALYSIS – Say it Isn’t So, Joe – In what must be one of the most ironic twists of news, in a world full of twisted news, Joe Biden appears to have taken home highly classified intelligence memos and documents during his time as Vice President.
Or, worse, took them to a private, unsecured DC office he used occasionally after leaving the White House.
CNN reported that Rep. James Comer, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, said he plans to “press the National Archives for information about the classified documents removed by Joe Biden during his time as VP. He said he would send a letter to the Archives — which his committee oversees — within the next 48 hours.”
“President Biden has been very critical of President Trump mistakenly taking classified documents to the residence or wherever and now it seems he may have done the same,” Comer added. “How ironic.”
This comes as an Attorney General-appointed special counsel investigates, among other things, former president Trump’s treasure trove of classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Florida.
So, while still bad, Trump’s reckless disregard for sensitive intelligence now seems less unique, or outrageous.
Especially considering Trump was a political neophyte, and Biden has been in national politics his entire adult life.
To be fair, a key difference between the two cases is Team Trump’s long delay in recovering and returning the classified documents in Trump’s possession.
Biden’s personal attorneys reportedly found the documents in a closet when packing files in November while emptying out an office that Biden used at the notorious Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C. for his nonexistent relationship with the University of Pennsylvania (U Penn).
There he was paid handsomely (nearly $1 million over two years) as an honorary professor from 2017 to 2019, but never taught a class or saw a student.
Instead, according to the New York Post, “Biden gave roughly a dozen lectures and talks but never taught a full semester’s course. Nor did he conduct any research or have any administrative responsibilities.”
This reality hasn’t kept Biden from claiming he was a “full professor” at U Penn for years.
In response to the public disclosure, almost three months after the documents were found, the White House evaded commenting by using the Justice Department ‘ongoing investigation’ trope.
CNN reported that nearly a dozen classified documents were found at Biden’s former office.
The news outlet added:
It is unclear why they were taken to Biden’s private office. The classified materials included some top-secret files with the “sensitive compartmented information” designation, also known as SCI, which is used for highly sensitive information obtained from intelligence sources. Federal officeholders are required by law to relinquish official documents and classified records when their government service ends.
In response to specific questions about why the Biden team did not disclose the discovery of classified documents in November at Biden’s private office, Ian Sams, a spokesman for the White House counsel’s office, said that they are “limited in what we can say” now because the Justice Department is looking into the matter, and “further details” may be shared in the future.
Typically, despite some of the documents being clearly labeled SCI, CNN chose to report that “two people familiar with the call say, none of which are ‘particularly sensitive’ and ‘not of high interest to the intelligence community.’”
Yet, the designation of SCI on some of the documents says otherwise.
Newsflash to the hacks at CNN, by definition SCI information is ‘sensitive’ as in Sensitive Compartmented Information.
It is also always of high interest to the intelligence community since SCI always concerns or is derived from sensitive intelligence sources, methods, or analytical processes.
All SCI must be handled within formal access control systems established by the Director of National Intelligence.
While SCI is not a classification; SCI clearance has sometimes been called “above Top Secret.”
In practice though, information at any classification level (Confidential, Secret or Top Secret) may also be considered SCI and protected accordingly.
However, as noted above at least some of the Biden documents were Top Secret/SCI, which is fairly high.
The U.S. government requires SCI be processed, stored, used, read, or discussed in an extremely secure Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF).
Rep. Mike Turner, the new GOP chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has sent a letter to Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Avril Haines requesting an “immediate review and damage assessment” of the classified documents Biden had left in an old private office closet.
So, despite the laughable mental gymnastics CNN is performing to minimize Biden’s reckless actions in taking home some highly classified intelligence – in that regard, his doing so makes him no different than Trump.
Just more hypocritical.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
ANALYSIS – The Elon Musk ‘Twitter Files’ exposé, much-ignored and maligned by the establishment media, has shown a consistent effort by various U.S. government agencies, and several prominent Democrat lawmakers, to censor or cancel dissenting, mostly conservative views.
Under the guise of combating ‘misinformation,’ a wholly concocted concept to justify censorship, Big Tech slowly at first, but increasingly later, got cozily into bed with Uncle Sam… and Adam Schiff.
Fox News reports that journalist Matt Taibbi joined Joe Rogan’s podcast to break down how the federal government, including the office of Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the hyper-partisan former chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, frequently contacted Twitter to have the content removed from the social media platform.
It is important to note that Taibbi is not a right-wing conspiracy theorist. On the contrary, he is a left-leaning former contributing editor for Rolling Stone, and the author of several books, including ‘Insane Clown President,’ an unflattering portrayal of Donald Trump.
According to Taibbi, the relationship between our security agencies like the FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and tech companies like Twitter and Facebook was a “little bit less formal” than he originally thought.
Rather than playing an advisory role, the feds and Twitter created a “really intense structure” cultivated over several years.
This structure included regular meetings and a system where the DHS handled censorship requests from the states while the FBI fielded international requests.
Taibbi said he was “especially shocked” by an email from a Schiff staffer who called for the suspension of journalists on Twitter who tweeted critically on the House Intelligence Committee.
Rogan replied that it was “bizarre” for someone in the government to openly call for censorship in unsecured, unclassified emails that could be disseminated publicly.
Taibbi said it represents a Big Government and Big Tech mentality of being “impregnable” without fear of oversight.
It’s not surprising, he added, because, “They’re so comfortable with the idea that the government should be involved in this censorship…”
But that’s not all. Fox News reports:
In a January installment of “The Twitter Files”, Taibbi indicated Schiff’s staff asked Twitter “quite often” to take down certain tweets. A separate batch of Twitter Files that same month revealed similar requests by Schiff’s office.
An example he shared was one sent in November 2020 by Schiff’s office, which contacted Twitter hoping the tech giant would take action regarding “alleged harassment from QAnon conspiracists” against Schiff’s staff, including aide Sean Misko. The latest batch indicates Schiff’s office even fought to have unflattering pictures removed.
“This important use of taxpayer resources involved an ask about a ‘Peter Douche’ parody photo of Joe Biden. The DNC made the same request,” Taibbi wrote, proving visual evidence.
“To its credit, Twitter refused to remove it, with Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth saying it had obvious ‘humorous intent’ and ‘any reasonable observer’ – apparently, not a Schiff staffer – could see it was doctored,” he added.
Meanwhile, as the New York Post reports, things only appear to be getting worse, with left-leaning Big Tech billionaires like Bill Gates promoting even more frightening ideas to control conservatives.
In a recent chilling interview, Microsoft founder and billionaire Bill Gates called for the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to combat not just “digital misinformation” but “political polarization,” as well.
Gates wants to fight this feared “political polarization” by checking “confirmation bias,” the tendency of people to search for information in a way that confirms their own embedded beliefs.
While this can be applied to anyone, left, right, or center, including COVID-19 fear mongers, climate change extremists, or Trump-Russia-collusion fanatics, it is now being used exclusively by our self-appointed tech overlords to dismiss all those who oppose and accepted, established liberal mantras.
And like all Leftist agendas, fear of the end fuels their need for control.
First, it was the fear of the end of the planet due to climate change, now it’s the fear of the end of democracy due to conservative ideas.
To these technocratic leftists, robust, free-wheeling debate in a democracy is now considered “political polarization,” and must be quashed to save us from death.
If we don’t use Gate’s enlightened, benevolent AI to supply the solutions, Gates suggested, we could all die: “Political polarization may bring it all to an end, we’re going to have a hung election and a civil war.”
And many leading left-wing Democrats, including Joe Biden, agree.
As the New York Post explains, the Orwellian Leftist censorship landscape may only get worse, even as they use a book by Aldous Huxley for their metaphor:
Others have suggested a Brave New World where citizens will be carefully guided in what they read and see. Democratic leaders have called for a type of “enlightened algorithm” to frame what citizens access on the internet. In 2021, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) objected that people were not listening to the informed views of herself and leading experts. Instead, they were reading views of skeptics by searching Amazon and finding books by “prominent spreaders of misinformation.”
Warren blamed Amazon for failing to limit searches or choices: “This pattern and practice of misbehavior suggests that Amazon is either unwilling or unable to modify its business practices to prevent the spread of falsehoods or the sale of inappropriate products.” In her letter, Warren gave the company 14 days to change its algorithms to throttle and obstruct efforts to read opposing views.
Social media responded to such calls and engaged in widespread censorship of those who held opposing views of mask mandates, vaccine safety, school mandates, and the origin of COVID-19. Many of those criticisms and views are now acknowledged as plausible and legitimate, but scientists were banned and censored. There was no “polarization” allowed. The public never was allowed to have that full debate on social media because such views were declared disinformation.
President Biden joined in these calls for censorship, often sounding like a censor-in-chief, denouncing social media companies for “killing people” by not blocking enough. Recently, he expressed doubt that the public can “know the truth” without such censorship by “editors” in Big Tech.
Well, in this case the fear is justified.
But it’s not fear that far-left Democrats and Big Tech billionaires espouse; it’s the fear of losing our constitutional right to free speech, and the platforms to express them.
Not to mention your right to order any book you want from Amazon.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
The Sam Brinton luggage saga seems to be never-ending…New details about the crime are coming to light and are sure to upset taxpayers…
Watch Amanda explain the situation below:
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
ANALYSIS – It seems like just yesterday that the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) was categorically disavowing claims that ‘Havana Syndrome’ was the result of a directed energy weapon.
Actually, it was a few weeks ago, and I mocked that ridiculous report by comparing it to the same idiotic IC consensus that COVID-19 could not have originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s BSL-4 biolab.
On March 1st, Avril Haines, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), told journalists that most cases of Havana Syndrome were likely attributed to “environmental factors” or “conventional illnesses.”
She added that the idea that the symptoms were caused by a “directed energy weapon” was considered “highly unlikely.”
The IC has even posited nonsensical theories ranging from mass delusion to crickets.
But now, a newly declassified, government-sponsored report says the opposite of the IC’s conclusion – that the syndrome could, in fact, be caused by “electromagnetic energy.”
Can we say: ‘smoking gun’ and cover-up?
The report was compiled by the Intelligence Community Experts Panel on Anomalous Health Incidents (AHIs) at the behest of the federal government seeking answers to the mystery ailment.
For those who need to be refreshed, ‘Havana Syndrome’ is the moniker for the bizarre rash of neurological disorders plaguing over 1,000 U.S. diplomats and spies stationed at our embassies overseas.
This number includes one or two friends of mine.
Those strange symptoms include things like hearing and memory loss, severe headaches, light sensitivity, nausea and a host of other debilitating issues.
The first known cases appeared among officers at the U.S. embassy in Havana in 2016 before spreading worldwide.
While many experts, not to mention the victims themselves, have pushed for answers and been open to the idea that their maladies were caused by some sort of ‘electromagnetic’ or ‘sonic weapon,’ the government kept the findings of this important result secret.
And the report was only declassified now due to a lawsuit filed by the James Madison Project, a non-profit that lobbies against government secrecy.
Salon has published the full (albeit heavily redacted) 153-page report.
In it, the panel dismisses almost all the other natural purported origins espoused by the IC and others. It refers to Havana Syndrome as a “unique neurosensory syndrome” that is “distinctly unusual” and is “unreported elsewhere in the medical literature.”
While it was still secret, previous news reports said that the panel’s findings supported the theory that electromagnetic energy may have been the cause.
And now we have confirmation.
According to the newly declassified report, at least one plausible culprit, and the most likely, for the range of disorders, may be “pulsed electromagnetic energy.”
It reads: “Electromagnetic energy, particularly pulsed signals in the radio frequency range, plausibly explains the core characteristics, although information gaps exist.”
Attorney Mark Zaid, with the James Madison Project, told Salon that he believed the report clearly showed that the government was hiding something.
Zaid said: “The U.S. government is covering up evidence as to what AHIs are. It is becoming apparent that these events were perpetrated either by foreign actors, or it is an experiment gone horribly wrong.”
While the government has been adamant that no foreign government or adversary is behind ‘Havana Syndrome,’ the feds may be parsing the truth to avoid an even less appealing reality.
What if, as one online commenter posted, “we did this to ourselves. It was some experiment to see if we could ‘cloak,’ for lack of a better term, our embassies from electronic surveillance from the outside. Instead, it backfired and caused damage to our own people.”
Right now, that sounds as likely as anything. And far more plausible than crickets.
It would also open up the government to a whole new world of damage control.
Perhaps this is why it has just been reported by Bloomberg Law that: “The State Department agreed to pay $460K [61% of his original demand] to Mark Lenzi, an engineer who said the government discriminated against him over his Havana Syndrome diagnosis and his public advocacy for victims of the condition.”
As part of the agreement, Bloomberg noted, Lenzi withdrew all claims against the State Department, which denied any liability.
This could be just the beginning in a wave of State Department settlements with victims now that this formerly classified report is partly seeing the light of day.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
ANALYSIS – Big Brother keeps growing – As part of the broader government war against free speech, the Department of Defense (DoD) is now using Orwellian means to search the internet, social media, and just about everything else, for things we say or post.
And it’s not just for legitimate physical threats against generals, it will also be looking for simple negative comments about our top military leaders.
And we should all be outraged. This really is scary stuff. This even goes beyond recent reports of the government buying our detailed personal information from data brokers, which I wrote about here.
The military runs a little-known outfit called the Army Protective Services Battalion under the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division (CID). Think of it as the Pentagon’s Secret Service for generals.
Its mission specifically falls under CID’s Executive Protection and Special Investigations Field Office. And it has a lot of resources. Its new webpage notes:
With over 400 assigned special agents, police officers, analysts, physical security specialists, and professional support personnel spread across three continents, the Executive Protection Field Office is the largest office within CID providing worldwide dignitary protection for the Secretary of Defense, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Secretary of the Army, Chief of Staff of the Army, and over a dozen other protectees in domestic and overseas locations.
Executive Protection also protects foreign counterparts during official visits to the United States, along with designated former or retired Department of Defense officials. Army CID’s dignitary protection mission is supported by robust protective intelligence and threat management investigative capabilities. [Emphasis added].
This perfectly legitimate organization exists to safeguard our senior military brass, as well as foreign brass visiting our country. As part of its duties, it conducts legitimate ‘protective intelligence’ to identify potential physical threats to its protectees.
I am very familiar with their mission having worked with some of these folks as a military attaché during high-level foreign visits by our Defense Secretary and generals. I also have professional experience with dignitary protection.
All this is very good and vital stuff.
The problem arises when the scope of the protective intelligence mission expands to include things that it shouldn’t. In this case, the unit is tasked to protect current and former high-ranking military officers from “assassination, kidnapping, injury or embarrassment.”
Yes, among the big threats is “embarrassment.”
That’s bad enough since it opens the door to looking into things that they shouldn’t just because they might embarrass a general.
But now, according to an Army procurement document from September 2022, reports the Intercept, the detachment’s mission has expanded to include monitoring social media for “direct, indirect, and veiled” threats and identifying “negative sentiment” regarding its protectees.
And it’s hiring a technology contractor to do its dirty work.
“Negative sentiment” – that is almost as bad as “mean tweets.” It is beyond outrageous.
I have expressed ‘negative sentiment’ toward a few senior military leaders numerous times online and in published articles – including Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley.
And I will continue to do so, as is my 1st amendment right.
The line should be when anyone makes veiled or direct physical threats against any political or military leader, not just says mean things.
As The Intercept reports: “There may be legally valid reasons to intrude on someone’s privacy by searching for, collecting, and analyzing publicly available information, particularly when it pertains to serious crimes and terrorist threats,” Ilia Siatitsa, program director at Privacy International, said.
“However,” he added, “expressing ‘positive or negative sentiment towards a senior high-risk individual’ cannot be deemed sufficient grounds for government agencies to conduct surveillance operations.”
Siatitsa rightly concluded: “The ability to express opinions, criticize, make assumptions, or form value judgments — especially regarding public officials — is a quintessential part of democratic society.”
Beyond that, what if the Army is protecting a Chinese general visiting the United States? Will they surveil or target Americans who are critical of this foreign adversary’s general or of China?
And according to the documents uncovered by The Intercept, the program the Army is procuring for its newly expanded intelligence mission is a dystopian surveillance nightmare.
It will scour everything, everywhere, and then even pinpoint the location of the person making the comment.
This is extremely frightening.
The Army describes their surveillance system as “a reliable social media threat mitigation service” with an “Open-Source Web-based toolkit with advanced capabilities to collect publicly available information (PAI).”
Information is not only grabbed up from Twitter’s “firehose” but also from 4Chan, Reddit, YouTube, Discord, Telegram, private contractors like Dataminr, as well as smartphone apps and advertisers.
Combined with cellular location data the Army could also precisely pinpoint those who might make a mean tweet about current or former military officials.
The Intercept adds that all this data, plus CCTV feeds, radio stations, personal records, and even webcams – would be available via a “universal search selector.” That means they can access just about anything.
The Army also wants the contractor to preserve the “anonymity and security needed” by “using various egress points globally to mask their identity.” This means they can conveniently make it look like the folks doing the snooping are in China or Russia.
This is a very scary domestic spying capability to use against Americans. Congress must investigate this Orwellian program immediately and remove elements that will infringe on our constitutional rights.
Or it will soon be used against you.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
Americans may soon know more about a Biden family business arrangement selling White House access to foreign interests, under a lawsuit from an ethics watchdog.
The non-profit public interest law firm Judicial Watch reports it may receive more records under a “Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) for Biden family records and communications regarding travel and finance transactions, as well as communications between the Bidens and several known business associates.”
“This lawsuit is an opportunity for the Trump team to stop the Deep State’s slow-walking of the release of Biden family corruption records,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.
The suit was originally filed in May 2023 “after the National Archives failed to respond to a February 2023 FOIA request.”
This lawsuit previously “forced the release of records revealing emails sent by Joe Biden using alias accounts during his vice presidency, in which he communicated with family members, including his son Hunter and brother James. The records also showed that in August 2016, Biden approved ending Secret Service protection for both Hunter Biden and Beau Biden’s daughter, Natalie, during a trip to Kosovo,” Judicial Watch reports.
The emails included messages to Jim and Hunter Biden regarding the then-vice president’s schedule and meetings. Some emails showed Joe Biden using the alias: [email protected].
According to Judicial Watch:
The emails also showed that Hunter and Jim Biden accompanied Joe Biden on taxpayer-funded trips; and then-Vice President Biden in December 2009 emailing an aide after he forgot the password to his West Wing computer.
The records showed that Hunter Biden used an email address ([email protected]) from his now-dissolved firm Rosemont Seneca Partners and that James Biden used an email address ([email protected]) tied to his consulting firm Lion Hall, which had been the subject of an FBI bribery investigation in the 1990s.
The lawsuit also forced the release of records showing then-Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter received a May 26, 2016, email detailing a scheduled “8:45 am prep for a 9 am phone call with Pres Poroshenko,” who was the president of Ukraine. Joe Biden’s email address is the alias [email protected], Hunter Biden’s email account is disclosed as [email protected]. (Hunter Biden was on the board of the controversial Ukrainian firm Burisma at the time.)
“The interview, which was taped this week and is dropping to coincide with the debate, is intended as additional salt in the wound for Fox executives wary that a Trump-less event will not bring in the major ratings typically expected from these kinds of nights.”Notably, video-sharing platform Rumble which was the the first place to try and pitch itself as the free speech alternative to YouTube partnered with the RNC and probably boosted their own profits last night as well. The Rumble stream of the debate from the GOP’s channel has amassed 1.54 million views. Definitely a respectable number, but making up less than 1% of the views amassed by Carlson on X. For the record the Rumble stream via Roku is how I personally watched the debate, refusing to give my dollars to the Fox News machine. Fox News has yet to officially release numbers on last night’s debate but here are some viewership numbers reported by Mediaite from past presidential debates:
“In 2015, Fox’s primary debate – with Trump and nine other candidates – drew 24 million viewers, smashing previous records and earning the distinction of being one of the most-watched cable programs ever. Overall, 2016 was a blockbuster year for debate ratings: the 12 Republican primary events averaged 15 million viewers.”Even if Fox’s numbers last night were close to their past viewership – which they are not expected to be without Trump – Carlson’s X video dwarfed those numbers as well. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Great America News Desk. This piece is republished with permission from American Liberty News.
ANALYSIS – You know things are bad when the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Team Obama is worried about terrorists crossing the border under Joe Biden.
In the wake of the gruesome and deadly terror attacks against Israeli civilians by Hamas, Jeh Johnson told Fox News that he is concerned that Hamas or other Iranian-backed terrorist groups could use, or already have used, the wide-open border to infiltrate terror cells into the U.S.
As noted by 19fortyfive:
“There are a lot of people entering our southern border right now,” Johnson said. “Thousands and thousands. It’s a hemispheric move north bigger than anything we’ve ever seen. [emphasis added] And the challenge for [U.S. Customs and Border Protection, or CBP], for our DHS, the FBI, is to try to keep up.”
Johnson continued, “Unfortunately, as you know, the system is broken, it’s horribly backlogged, and there’s a whole lot of people entering this country who we cannot identify.”
we know, Jeh. Please tell Biden!
Newsweek reported: “There has also been a rise in recent years in the number of people apprehended on the FBI’s terrorist watchlist, with border patrol agents apprehending 151 migrants along the southern border in the fiscal year 2023 who match the FBI’s screening system, according to the CBP.”
It added: “In fiscal year 2022, 98 people on the watchlist were apprehended after entering from Mexico.”
If Hamas can get past Israel’s highly fortified border with Gaza and deceive one of the world’s most sophisticated intelligence services to conduct what was mostly a massive surprise suicide raid to kill massive numbers of civilians, what do you think Iranian backed terrorists could do to us across our currently open border with Mexico?
One scenario involves them working hand in hand with powerful and deadly Mexican drug cartels that have free reign along the border and are behind much of the human and drug smuggling today.
As 19fortyfive reported:
Fox News reporter Griff Jenkins noted on X Friday that the Border Patrol had apprehended two Lebanese nationals in Eagle Pass, Texas, an area of high illegal migrant flow. Hizballah is based in Lebanon.
Hizballah has a documented relationship with the Mexican cartels that could easily be used to smuggle sleeper agents into the U.S. as it is used to smuggle drugs. Such agents likely would only be activated in the event of a war with Iran, because Hizballah is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps [IRGC].
Recall that in 2011 the IRGC plotted with Los Zetas cartel to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. at Washington, D.C.’s upscale Café Milano in Georgetown.
Had that terror attack not been thwarted, it could have killed dozens of innocent civilians on U.S. soil. This is a perfect example of how Iran or its terror proxies could infiltrate the United States in coordination with Mexican cartels.
Today things could be far worse. They could then use Biden’s wide open border and the cartels’ growing networks inside our country to inflict maximum damage.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
ANALYSIS – It isn’t news that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has proven to be vulnerable to political pressure. Just look at the threat assessments produced in 2020 that single out ‘white supremacists’ as the ‘most lethal domestic terror threat’ in the U.S., despite their numbers being minuscule.
According to that report, self-described ‘white supremacists’ were responsible for 49 homicides in 26 attacks spread across more than a decade and a half – from 2000 to 2016.
Yes, that’s more murders than any other specific domestic extremist group but let’s get real.
There are more murders in Chicago in one weekend than the entire number of white supremacist killings nationwide in those sixteen years.
This DHS report, though produced under the last year of Trump’s term, like many others recently by different federal agencies, like the FBI, is part of a wider political campaign that conflates the relatively small number of white supremacists, and other so-called right-wing extremists, with the tens of millions of mainstream conservatives and Trump supporters.
And we can now add traditional Catholics to the feds’ “most wanted” list.
The FBI recently produced a memo by its Richmond, Virginia, Field Office that was leaked on Jan. 23, 2023.
That memo, according to a group of 20 GOP state attorney generals, “identifies ‘radical-traditionalist Catholic[s]’ as potential ‘racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists.’”
In their letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, Fox News reported, the AGs told the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) to “desist from investigating and surveilling Americans who have done nothing more than exercise their natural and constitutional right to practice their religion in a manner of their choosing.”
The AGS also asked that the DOJ and the FBI “reveal to the American public the extent to which they have engaged in such activities.”
The AGs letter notes that the FBI memorandum deploys “alarmingly detailed theological distinctions to distinguish between the Catholics whom the FBI deems acceptable, and those it does not.”
It’s in this context of politicized and weaponized federal law enforcement agencies, that this latest report of DHS malfeasance deserves special attention.
Specifically, we are talking about the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis (OIA), whose leadership, according to Politico, was called “shady” and run “like a corrupt government.”
For years it has been operating a secretive domestic-intelligence gathering program that many DHS employees have complained may be illegal.
The OIA’s Overt Human Intelligence Collection Program allows DHS officials to bypass lawyers and seek intelligence interviews with individuals being held in local jails, federal prisons, and immigrant detention centers.
While most law-abiding U.S. citizens may not care much about this DHS target group, remember this is just another example of how elements of DHS appear corrupt, and play fast and loose with the law, and all our civil liberties.
But the Department’s politicization is probably the biggest danger according to documents obtained by Politico.
As the New York Post reports:
The ability of DHS to be impartial and withstand caving to political pressure was also a major concern, documents show.
An internal analysis during the Trump administration found a “significant number of respondents cited concerns with politicization of analytic products and/or the perceptions of undue influence that may compromise the integrity of the work performed by employees. This concern touches on analytic topics, the review process, and the appropriate safeguards in place to protect against undue influence.”
The document adds that “a number of respondents expressed concerns/challenges with the quality and effectiveness of I&A senior leadership” such as the “inability to resist political pressure.”
“The workforce has a general mistrust of leadership resulting from orders to conduct activities they perceive to be inappropriate, bureaucratic, or political,” the document continues.
It is clearly time to rein in rogue elements at DHS and FBI, but also to clean house at the top levels of both organizations, and DOJ.
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
