Rule Of Law? Fuggedaboutit.

Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others in this post-Constitutional American Tyranny we exist in.

Nothing new in the Banana Republic that Obama and both parties have fundamentally transformed us into.

Rule of law? What rule of law?  The Oligarchy is exempt.  The “law” is just for us little people so the high and mighty can sleep secure knowing we are in our place.

“The Law” is now whatever the Ruling Class and their courts say it is – however they massage it, however they decree it to be.

Justice John Roberts rewrote the Affordable Care Act to redefine a “Penalty” to become a “Tax”

He rewrote the Affordable Care Act again to redefine the meaning of “An Exchange Established by the State” to mean “An Exchange Established by the Federal Government”.

Anthony Kennedy “Reads into” the Constitution the right to redefine marriage for 300 million Americans and pisses in the face of 6,000 years of human history and religious law and tradition.

Now, FBI Director James Comey tells us that the law which criminalizes gross negligence of classified material, which underscores the point that government officials have a high obligation to safeguard national defense secrets, now says today that they cannot prosecute Hillary Clinton because she did not INTEND to harm the United States.

It’s all about what the meaning of the word IS, is in this brave new tyranny erected over us, and the United States is making Banana Republics look morally upright and legitimate in comparison.

FBI Rewrites Federal Law to Let Hillary Off the Hook

By Andrew C. McCarthy

There is no way of getting around this: According to Director James Comey (disclosure: a former colleague and longtime friend of mine), Hillary Clinton checked every box required for a felony violation of Section 793(f) of the federal penal code (Title 18): With lawful access to highly classified information she acted with gross negligence in removing and causing it to be removed it from its proper place of custody, and she transmitted it and caused it to be transmitted to others not authorized to have it, in patent violation of her trust. Director Comey even conceded that former Secretary Clinton was “extremely careless” and strongly suggested that her recklessness very likely led to communications (her own and those she corresponded with) being intercepted by foreign intelligence services.

Yet, Director Comey recommended against prosecution of the law violations he clearly found on the ground that there was no intent to harm the United States.

In essence, in order to give Mrs. Clinton a pass, the FBI rewrote the statute, inserting an intent element that Congress did not require. The added intent element, moreover, makes no sense: The point of having a statute that criminalizes gross negligence is to underscore that government officials have a special obligation to safeguard national defense secrets; when they fail to carry out that obligation due to gross negligence, they are guilty of serious wrongdoing. The lack of intent to harm our country is irrelevant. People never intend the bad things that happen due to gross negligence.

I would point out, moreover, that there are other statutes that criminalize unlawfully removing and transmitting highly classified information with intent to harm the United States. Being not guilty (and, indeed, not even accused) of Offense B does not absolve a person of guilt on Offense A, which she has committed.

It is a common tactic of defense lawyers in criminal trials to set up a straw-man for the jury: a crime the defendant has not committed. The idea is that by knocking down a crime the prosecution does not allege and cannot prove, the defense may confuse the jury into believing the defendant is not guilty of the crime charged. Judges generally do not allow such sleight-of-hand because innocence on an uncharged crime is irrelevant to the consideration of the crimes that actually have been charged.

It seems to me that this is what the FBI has done today. It has told the public that because Mrs. Clinton did not have intent to harm the United States we should not prosecute her on a felony that does not require proof of intent to harm the United States. Meanwhile, although there may have been profound harm to national security caused by her grossly negligent mishandling of classified information, we’ve decided she shouldn’t be prosecuted for grossly negligent mishandling of classified information.

I think highly of Jim Comey personally and professionally, but this makes no sense to me.

Finally, I was especially unpersuaded by Director Comey’s claim that no reasonable prosecutor would bring a case based on the evidence uncovered by the FBI. To my mind, a reasonable prosecutor would ask: Why did Congress criminalize the mishandling of classified information through gross negligence? The answer, obviously, is to prevent harm to national security. So then the reasonable prosecutor asks: Was the statute clearly violated, and if yes, is it likely that Mrs. Clinton’s conduct caused harm to national security? If those two questions are answered in the affirmative, I believe many, if not most, reasonable prosecutors would feel obliged to bring the case.

Denial And Normalcy Bias In The Face Of Tyranny

Lavoy Finnicum’s shooting death has fostered an argument among self-described Patiots over whether or not he had it coming and deserved it, or if it is just another example of a totalitarian state we are comfortable with.

I’m reading it all over the place on Conservative discussion forums and blogs: the argument whether the ambush and shooting death of Lavoy Finnicum and the arrest of Ammon Bundy and the other protestors in Oregon was justified. The arguments are downright vicious and threatening of themselves and they reveal several things about the situation in America that does not bode well for Liberty and private property to exist much longer in a nation that has grown comfortable with tyranny.

As an observation, I find it interesting that there was no division among the Democrat Left over the actions of Michael Brown, Black Lives Matter, The New Black Panthers or Occupy Wall Street protesters who actually engaged in acts of criminality, mayhem, intimidation, death and destruction.  Instead they were in lock-step support of those groups and actions, whose leaders were all invited to the White House for pow-wows with Obama and given legitimacy by the media and a vast expanse of the populace.

No such unanimous support is found among a vast expanse of the ideological “Right” or the Patriot movement over the Bundy’s efforts to stand against federal tyranny over private property rights.  Not saying there should be, but I do find it interesting that the domestic enemies of the Constitution and republicanism are not divided over their banner men.  Conservatives, not so much.

Rather than getting into semantics over actions Finnicum made in his final moments, I want to share a larger point I made about why there was even a protest against the Federal Beast in Oregon to begin with.  That point is this: NONE of this would have ever happened had the Federal Beast been adhering to it’s limits within the bounds of the Constitution. A rancher family would not be imprisoned for doing what was necessary on their own land to protect their home from a lighting fire.

Sadly, few wanted to discuss that, and those that did sound no different than the politicians in D.C. that have empowered tyranny to become a staple that the American people are now comfortable with.

We are witnessing just more of what Jefferson wrote when he penned in the Declaration all experience has shown that men are disposed to suffer evil, while evils are sufferable rather than abolish the forms to which they have become accustomed.

In response to a statement that declared Finnicum’s actions mistakes that justified his execution, I made the point that when a tyrannical government no longer has any legitimate moral authority and is busy imposing tyranny and arresting and executing citizens it declares terrorists – at what point should we realize that it is better to die fighting than begging on our knees for mercy from a despotic beast?

Why do we refuse to recognize tyranny at the hand of the Beast in Washington?

That was when the scourge of Normalcy Bias and Denial revealed how entrenched it is in the minds of those we assume are on ‘our side’.

The reply was that Finnicum was completely wrong on every count of his actions that resulted in his shooting death.  It is wrong they said, to evade a roadblock, no matter the circumstance.  No matter who it is in uniform, or why they are there – one must always comply with the directives given.

So I asked in an analogy, that if this was 1774 would we be writing that the Colonists at Lexington Green acted completely wrong? That they should have never been on the Common and never assembled in formation against the British Regulars after that first command from Pitcairn to disarm and disperse? That they should have NEVER fired that first shot at a superior British force and NEVER should have resisted when the British regulars charged with bayonets and skewered John Parkers men?

I stated I was curious as we denounce those who actually stood in defiance of tyranny as being stupid. Had the Colonists lost Concord, I am sure the historical analysis would be about the same as it is being levied against Bundy and Finicum right now.

The fact they stood at all should be of primary importance to consider, rather than the tactical error they may have made leaving the refuge in the first place. At some point we have to resist, because the longer it takes for us to do so, the less chance we have to preserve what liberty we have left, and eventually our own lives.

Evading ambushes are not grounds for surrender either as some suggest.

The fact is, much of the Revolutionary War was a series of ambushes set up by the Redcoats, and there are myriad examples during the War of Independence of Washington’s miraculous escapes from one set of ambushes after another.

At some point, we have to begin wrapping our minds around the fact that the State is imposing despotism upon us. We are being ambushed every day by the cabal in DC: laws passed in the middle of the night in thousand-page bills that not a single representative has read that abolish by fiat your inalienable rights under mountains of regulatory control over every aspect of your life and property.

Do we surrender to it, or resist it?

Because that is where we have arrived, whether we would admit it or not. Resistance or acceptance.

Good men doing nothing in the face of evil and tyranny has come about as the result of denying we even suffer those things. At least those folks in Oregon made an effort, and the policies of tyranny being imposed by the Fedzilla in Washington has a few more folks aware of what is being done with impunity to the folks who raise your steaks and hamburgers.

Let’s not kill the reason there was an armed protest in Oregon to begin with, by declaring what they did as stupid and foolish. Because if we do, any just cause to resist what is being systematically done to us will perish before it is ever born. And that is EXACTLY what Mordor on the Potomac wants to make sure of.

The reply I received to that argument is what prompted me to discuss it here on this blog.  I was told that this was not Lexington and it is not 1776, that the Colonists did not have a Constitution to protect them, and we do.  They went on to make the following points which almost completely ignore the tyranny we currently are comfortable with:

We do not have federal troops quartered in out houses. 

No. We have a surveillance Police State where every movement we make and every transaction and correspondence we partake in, is collected by the government for unspecified purposes under the guise of ‘security’. We cannot use our own property without permission from the State and nearly every activity we engage in is regulated and requires license.

We have representation from the politicians and people we elect to office. 

Really?   The last 10 years more than illustrate the fact that we do not have any representation in DC.  Because the moment we send someone we think will serve our interests and UNDO dictatorial and Unconstitutional infringements on our Rights and the Rule of Law, they are corrupted by the Ruling Class into supporting their Statist Agenda and empowering the Beast even further.

We do not have a King.

Tell that to Obama, the Democrats, the Judiciary and the GOP leadership that allow him to act like a king with impunity.

and we have a Judicial System, and a Constitution, and a Bill of rights.

Meaningless and ineffective against the velvet coup that usurped them all. Lawlessness has not been rectified or stopped. We have nothing to show for turning the House and Senate over to those who promised to stop this fundamental Marxist transformation of the country, except that the very people and party we empowered, handed a defacto dictatorship over to the Federal Beast on a silver platter, and those of us screaming about it have been held in contempt by the same.

Our recourse has been limited to voting for Establishment cronies, and those with eyes to see are about to discover just how much our redress of grievances has been eliminated in the coming months given all the hints and clues coming out of the mouths of the Ruling Class.

The colonists had none of those things.

No. They had a religious and moral foundation with an innate understanding of where their natural born rights came from and recognized that as soon as the king sets himself up above the Moral Law, he ceased to have any legitimacy and unkinged himself in the tyrant, upon which they had a duty to resist and throw off. We have none of those things today.

I can appreciate the wishful thinking that so many continue to insist on in terms of where we are as a Constitutional Republic and what is left of our rights.

I no longer share those views.

The evidence each day is overwhelming that the very institutions they think safeguard our God-given rights, are corrupted beyond redemption, repair or restoration. The rot is to the core. The institutions cited as proofs there is no tyranny, exist to serve the State, not the individual; serve a Fascist gravy train, not independent Capitalists.

Their faith in the courts is as misplaced as those who assert electing the next politician is going to save us.  Obama and the Democrats did not spend the last decade stacking the courts with Marxist/Maoist/Leftist Radicals by mistake or accident. And those are LIFETIME appointments, most of them.

Lavoy is just one more in a litany of victims of a tyrannical state that with each day is growing to the point it will by necessity consume absolutely everything in order to sustain itself and will not tolerate any dissent or allegiance to anything but itself.

What is disconcerting to me, is that on many of the same fora that complain that no one is doing anything to try and stop the tyranny being imposed upon We The People by the Ruling Class Oligarchs in DC, are the same that castigate and denounce the minute few who actually do.

It seems Denial and Normalcy Bias has neutered the Patriot movement itself regarding whether or not absolute despotism is being imposed against what remains of liberty in this country.

And no wonder.  A people who no longer recognize sin and evil, are not a people who will recognize tyranny and despotism either.

 

WTF?? FBI/DHS Let Media Jackals Contaminate Terror Scene

“CRIME SCENE TURNED INTO A GARAGE SALE”

Apartment of San Bernadino Jihadists was opened by media mob and once inside, discovered mounds of unsecured evidence which is now tampered and contaminated by Obama’s Praetorian Pravda Media.

This is worse than Jack Ruby being let into the underground garage to silence Lee Harvey Oswald.

Apparently the media was let into the apartment of the San Bernadino Islamic Jihadists for an unbridled 3 hour tour that allowed them to rifle through everything in the apartment, contaminating shredded documents, passports and other evidence that was totally ignored and left by the Obama FBI and DHS.

They handled everything from driver’s licenses and passports to raiding the freezer and sucking on popsicles while having their dogs rummaging around in the apartment.

ISIS is laughing their collective arses off while plotting their next massacre, knowing Obama and the entire government apparatus in the USA has their back.

This Is The Most Insane Thing You Have Ever Seen on Live TV. Seriously. What The Actual F***?

The media are jackals.

The feds are incompetent.

We’re completely screwed.

That’s the only message we can take from the media’s three-hour tour of the San Bernardino terrorists’ apartment. On Friday, at media request, the landlord of the apartment pried off a board covering the door with a crowbar, and the media, in all of their vulpine glory, rushed forward to feast on material evidence in a terrorism investigation.

MSNBC led the pack, with Kerry Sanders as the tip of the spear:

pic.twitter.com/aPbeFEPaHT

— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) December 4, 2015

They showed a driver’s license, pictures of children, Korans. They showed children’s toys and a calendar. They showed shredded documents – all of which is now evidence that has been tampered with, inadmissible in court.

The landlord said that the media “rushed” into the apartment, denying he’d allowed them in. CNN’s law enforcement analyst, The Blaze reports, explained:

I don’t see any fingerprint dust on the walls where they went in there and checked for fingerprints for other people that might have been connected with these two. You’ve got documents laying all over the place; you’ve got shredded documents…You have passports, you’ve got drivers’ licenses — now you have thousands of fingerprints all over inside this crime scene…I am so shocked, I cannot believe it.

The San Bernardino Sheriff’s office told The Blaze he had “no clue” how the media were authorized to enter the premises. CNN’s legal analyst stated, “They turned a crime scene into a garage sale.” A CNN reporter stated, “this is no longer members of the media…there is a woman with a dog walking through the house.” One man caught on camera carried a popsicle out of the apartment.

Where were the authorities? The FBI said, “The search is over at that location.” That, of course, does not mean the investigation is over at that location. Sanders said the FBI had “presumably” removed all relevant evidence, and Andrea Mitchell added that the landlord had given permission to enter – which is irrelevant under California law, since it’s illegal for the landlord to open the premises under these circumstances.

The media don’t care about open terrorism investigations – after all, they’re not in law enforcement. The feds obviously don’t care about the media contaminating the crime scene.

But we’re supposed to trust both the media and the feds.

We have now officially moved beyond the realm of parody. And it’s frightening.

UPDATE: According to a reporter from the Los Angeles News Group, “Det. Dan Elton of @RedlandsPD says no one other than the coroner and family members legally have a right to be inside the home.” Well, that didn’t stop them, did it?

The landlord has reportedly now been escorted away by law enforcement.

FBI Braces For ISIS Attacks – No Resources To Vet Muslim ‘Refugees’

The FBI says it is stretched beyond the ability to track, monitor or prevent a potential Jihad attack in America.   Jihadists inside America that the FBI were tracking have ‘gone dark’ prompting fears of an imminent attack.

Isn’t this special?  Capitol Police are warning members of Congress and their aids to keep a low profile and use underground security tunnels because of a credible threat by ISIS against the nation’s Capitol.

However, at the same time – Obama and his entire Leftist cabal is INSISTING that America take in tens of thousands of Syrian “Refugees”, because “they do not pose any kind of threat”.

We of course are being lied to by a regime that has taken over the country in a velvet coup and installed a quasi-Islamic Fascist dictatorship right under our nose.

America has no ability to vet or even find out the real names of these Muslim ‘refugees’.

Efforts by state governors to REJECT any settlement of these so-called ‘refugees’ is being challenged by Obama and his Leftist cohorts who are busy screaming that States have no Authority to prevent Obama from resettling the Syrian branch of the Caliphate’s Army inside their states.

The FBI is already stretched beyond it’s capacity to track and prevent the kinds of attacks we saw in Paris last week.  It already admits it does not have the resources to keep up with the growing number of Jihadists being radicalized locally, much less handle tens of thousands of foreign Islamic people with no record of who they are from their home nations.

I found the following story from the Washington Times frightening in many ways.  One being that the people inside the FBI are apparently at war with the Obama regime who patently takes sides with ISIS, and the inability of our own agencies to keep track of those already here.

And Obama is about to exponentially add to that number on his own authority as his regime apparatus’ (Think Progress et al.) threatens the governors who have publicly stated that they will not accept or allow any ‘refugees’ from Syria to be settled in their states.

Stretched FBI braces for Islamic State terror attacks

With another round of holidays fast approaching in the shadows of last Friday’s Paris attacks, FBI officials on the front lines of the war on terrorism see a new round of threats rising and worry they don’t have all the tools to cope, according to interviews with The Washington Times.

…Bureau officials are deeply worried they don’t have enough resources to track a growing number of radicalized Americans inspired by the Islamic State, with more possibly entering as President Obama opens the borders to thousands of Syrian refugees.

…“They’re basically lying to you saying, ‘oh we’ve got this vetting process to make sure that their safe.’ But you had the FBI director testify before Congress, under oath saying that if they have no information on someone they have nothing to vet them against,” Mr. Farenthold said on the “Capitol Hill Show” with Tim Constantine.

“We have testimony saying, and I think common sense also dictates that in a failed state like Syria you don’t have any government information, police reports to rely on to vet somebody,” the congressman added. “So there’s no way to do a background check from somebody coming out of Syria. There’s no way we can find out whether they’re safe or not.”

…“We have suspects we’ve been tracking that have gone dark, because we can no longer follow their encrypted activities. Physical surveillance can only take us so far and the urgency to solve that gap in the political realm isn’t there,” one official said, speaking only on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the media.

Added another official: “The administration has a calming public storyline that we have this all under control and life can go on as normal. But we’re one crack in the sidewalk away from a tragedy…“

 

read all of it at the LINK.

My advice for the governors of the states that are adamantly opposed to Obama’s efforts to settle potential members of ISIS within their borders is to activate their militias and National Guardsmen to forcibly prevent the Feds from bringing these pretend ‘refugees’ into their states.

Yes, I said ‘pretend’.  REAL refugees from Syria – Christians and Yazidi’s who were being systematically exterminated HAVE BEEN REFUSED ENTRY INTO THE USA BY THE OBAMA REGIME:

So Far: Syrian Refugees in U.S. Include 2,098 Muslims, 53 Christians

President Obama said Monday that calls from some quarters for the U.S. to admit only Christian refugees from Syria were “shameful,” yet the reality is that today’s refugee system discriminates, not against Syrian Muslims, but against Christians and other non-Muslim minorities.

Obama is committing high treason.

We cannot vet these same ‘refugees’ that have invaded Europe by Obama’s orchestration.

Screw the lawyer Caste and the Communists of Obama’s Party and defy this attempt to put all our lives in jeopardy. Obama bringing in these Islamics into America against all common sense is an act of war upon The People, and we have a God-ordained right to defend ourselves from the harm that Obama is intending to cause by resettling an Islamic army amongst us.

It’s time.

FBI Cannot Keep Up With Number Of Americans Fighting For Islamic State

Threat from Americans that fought for ISIS that returned stateside is ‘Not even close to being under control,’ top FBI official says.

News to make you feel all warm, comfy and safe inside; the head of the FBI counterterrorism division stated to a Homeland Security committee today that the threat here at home from Americans who trained with the Jihadist group ISIS overseas in combat operations against Americans is greater than we know, saying: “We don’t have it under control.”

“It’s not even close to being under control,” FBI Deputy Assistant Director Michael Steinbach told House members today.  He went on to state that of the known Americans who trained with and fought with ISIS in Syria and Iraq, the FBI is losing track of those Jihadists who have returned Stateside.

These “Americans” are being trained in use of weapons and explosives by the Islamic State and given access to terrorist networks that are ultimately planning attacks here at home and the West according to NCTC Director Nicholas Rasmussen.

So we have Americans, Jihad terrorists themselves, who were allowed to return back to the states, in such numbers that the FBI can no longer accurately keep tabs on them.

Recall that official Obama policy is to ALLOW and PERMIT all who have gone overseas to fight for the Islamic Jihadists, free and unfettered hindrance to return back to the states here.

American Citizen ISIS Fighters Allowed To Return to America

Any American citizen, who has gone to join ISIS and fight alongside the enemy of America, will be allowed back into the country by the very agencies which pretend to “secure America from terrorists” while violating the Constitution to do it. These individuals have joined a “foreign” army or fighting force that has been declared an enemy of the United States, have actively engaged in heinous crimes, and supported those who kill other US citizens, Christians, Jews and Non-Muslims.

I’m telling you folks – get it through your heads that what we have running the country is no less than this:

…and the time is coming when we are going to suffer something much worse than what we did almost 14 years ago.  How many thousands or millions of Americans will die because of Obama, his party and regime enabling it to happen?  The blood will not only be able to be placed upon the heads of His Heinous, but also of the Republican Leadership and party – who sit AND DO NOTHING about this.  They too are party to enabling the Islamic State to send their Jihadist recruits back to live among us, plotting to do what they dream of doing to us, right here at home.

Benghazi YouTube Patsy: An Agent Provocateur From Obama’s Justice Department

He was NEVER a Coptic Christian, rather the producer of the anti-Muhammad video the Obama administration blamed for the Benghazi attacks, is actually an agent of Eric Holder’s Justice Department.

Anyone remember the intent behind the Fast & Furious Gunwalker scandal?  That was where Obama and Eric Holder ‘walked’ guns into the hands of Mexican drug lords in the hopes they would incite deaths that would galvanize the American public into accepting draconian infringements on the Second Amendment given the damage American guns were said to have caused?

Now imagine that same methodology being used by ‘walking’ that anti-Muhammed  Youtube video as the ‘patsy’ for the Benghazi attack which was a cover to eliminate the evidence of Obama running heavy weapons to Al Qaeda Rebels in Syria.  The SAME Al Qaeda Jihadists who now have conquered much of Northern Iraq.  The video would serve as a pretext for the ‘need’ for Obama to restrict and regulate internet content given the ‘damage’ it was said to have caused.

It’s a connect-the-dots kind of week as it refers to Obama’s aid and comfort to the Jihadist terrorists in the world for the purpose of dismantling things at home.

In one day – news breaks in the blog from yesterday that the LEADER of the Jihadist group ISIS – WAS SET FREE FROM US CUSTODY in 2009 by Obama.  At nearly the same time, news breaks that Obama is “quietly” releasing Jihadist prisoners in Afghanistan.  This of course follows Obama releasing FIVE Taliban Generals for ONE slime ball deserter/traitor of the US Army; Bowe Bergdahl.

See a pattern there?

NEFARIOUS can hardly define what is taking place.

At the same time all that news was breaking, Walid Shoebat – a former Jihadist himself – unloaded a trove of evidence both revealed and circumstantial that Filmmaker Yousef/Nakoula not only admitted being Muslim, but was working for the Obama Justice Department.  The entire anti-Islamic video was crafted to be a pasty – as a Provocateur for both covering up for the Benghazi operation – and giving the Obama regime an excuse to restrict and regulate the internet.

Tom Clancy couldn’t have written all the intrigue, double-dealing and nefarious invention that Shoebat and Keith Davies have uncovered as it all relates to the crafting IN ADVANCE of the scapegoat video apparently created for the purpose to cover for Obama gun-running weapons to ISIS in Syria and as a two-birds-with-one-stone bonus of justifying content restrictions on the internet.

Bombshell: Benghazi Filmmaker CONFIRMED To Be An Agent Of Eric Holder Justice Department

Earlier this week, we brought you news about the producer of the film that was at the heart of the Obama administration talking points on Benghaziadmitting to being a Muslim, not a Coptic Christian as he had been portrayed to America. Now Walid Shoebat, Ben Barrack and Keith Davies confirm he is an agent of Eric Holder’s Justice Department.

The damning trail of evidence begins when a fictitious narrative was concocted by the FBI to lure the courts that Nakoula (the Filmmaker, aka Yousef) was supposed to help the FBI catch Eiad Salameh, his partner in crimes for many years. Yet, the deal was never fulfilled and Eiad was let go by the Feds in 2011 asShoebat.com revealed in a firsthand account never before reported, including a recorded conversation between Nakoula and Shoebat.com in which the filmmaker defended Eiad, the very man he was supposed to help the FEDS catch!

Bolstering the case (aside from the Feds letting two criminals go) is how the filmmaker became an agent of Eric Holder. After Nakoula’s arrest, there was a very curious development at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, which was handling his case through an Assistant U.S. Attorney who suddenly was pulled off the case and replaced by a full bird –  Chief of the office’s Criminal Division, Robert Dugdale. 

Nakoula got high-profile attention.
In an article that appeared in the Washington Times, Kerry Picket wrote:

What is curious, though, is the fact that the original Asst. U.S. Atty. Jennifer Williams, who helped prosecute Mr. Yousef’s [Nakoula] bank fraud conviction, is not the attorney Mr. Yousef’s lawyers would eventually deal with. Mr. Yousef’s probation violation case, for no explained reason, was kicked up to Chief Criminal Division prosecutor Asst. U.S. Atty. Robert Dugdale. Dugdale is second in the chain of command below U.S. Atty. Andre Birotte of the Central District of California.

Picket was suspicious, she attempted to get answers from the office’s spokesman, Thom Mrozek:

When I pointed out that AUSA Dugdale was not part of the team of attorneys who did prosecute Yousef’s case and asked why the case was kicked up the chain to AUSA Dugdale, Mr. Mrozek responded, “I don’t comment on staffing decisions.”

The U.S. Attorney over Dugdale – Andre Birotte, Jr. became the local caretaker of a very high profile and high stakes case the Obama administration wanted to control very closely and later was nominated by Obama to be U.S. District Judge for California’s Central District.

Eiad Salameh, Nakoula’s partner in crimes – also beholden to the administration – obtained special favors from doing the Justice Department’s bidding. According to a report by The Smoking Gun just days after the Benghazi attacks, charges against Eiad (who has a proven rap sheet) were dropped in the same year that Canadian authorities picked him up:

It is unclear whether Salameh, whose whereabouts are unknown, has been charged in connection with the bank fraud. Salameh was named in a 2006 federal criminal complaint charging him with felony fraud. That complaint–filed under one of Salameh’s many aliases–was dismissed last year by federal prosecutors. A court docket shows that no filings were made after the initial complaint, likely indicating that Salameh was never apprehended.

But the last sentence is incorrect; Salameh was apprehended.

Jeffrey Mason of the Canadian Peel Police picked Salameh up in January of 2011!

At that time, he should have been wanted in connection with both the 2006 and 2009 cases, assuming he was involved in the Nakoula bank fraud case. Yet, the 2006 case was dropped in either the same month Eiad was arrested or in the months that followed.

Shoebat.com has learned from one retired FBI agent that this doesn’t just happen unless Eiad was providing the Feds with something in return for such treatment.

As Shoebat.com has reported, a timeline provides further evidence that the Obama Administration was in cahoots with these figures in the summer of 2011, during the July-August time frame.

1.) Secretary of State Hillary Clinton co-chaired a meeting in Istanbul, Turkey with the head of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). It was to be the first of several meetings that would become known as “The Istanbul Process”. One of the objectives of the OIC has been and remains, to pressure non-Muslim countries to censor speech critical of Islam.

2.) Nakoula began casting for his video.

3.) Eiad Salameh was put on a plane back to Palestine by the Canadians after Eric Holder’s FBI refused to have him extradited and charged.

Eiad was clearly on the hook with the U.S. Justice Department if his 2006 case was dismissed.

FBI’s Benghazi Investigation
When UN Ambassador Susan Rice blamed Nakoula’s video for the Benghazi attacks during her five Sunday talk show appearances on September 16, 2012, it served to anger the president of Libya, who shortly before Rice, had identified the attack as an act of terrorism. Last year, State Department whistle blower Gregory Hicks, the Deputy Chief of Mission in Libya at the time of the attacks, testified about this and said Rice’s comments prevented the FBI from getting to the site of the attacks for weeks.

Based on the FBI’s relationship with Nakoula and Eiad, the longer it took to get to the scene of the Benghazi attacks, the more compromised that scene would become. A compromised crime scene would have served to aid the perpetuation of the video narrative.

Silencing Skeptics
Is it unusual for the U.S. Government to empower informants to engage in a massive scheme and criminal enterprise for the purpose of creating a political climate to help push an agenda? Hardly. In much the same way that the Obama State Department championed the “Istanbul Process” as a vehicle to assault the first amendment, a gunwalking operation was used to assault the second amendment.

In Operation Fast and Furious, multiple federal agencies worked together as part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF). The stated purpose of the operation was to track guns that were being trafficked into Mexico, arrest the bad guys, and confiscate the guns. In reality, as has been clearly demonstrated, the actual purpose was to allow the guns to “walk” into Mexico and make their way into the hands of drug cartels after the ATF – an arm of the Justice Department – mandated U.S. gun store owners sell the guns to bad guys.

The guns would be picked up at crime scenes and American gun store owners would be blamed in a blood libel (sound familiar?). The cover of that operation was blown after the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. An ATF whistle blower named John Dodson came forward and the scandal was exposed.

If blood libel and the collateral damage of innocent human lives in the interest of pushing an agenda like gun control was used to launch an assault on the second amendment, why would it be beyond plausibility to envision the same administration launching an assault on the first amendment using to create the climate for speech control?

Ironically – and perhaps not so coincidentally – the man in charge of the Criminal Division involved in both Fast and Furious and the post-Benghazi prosecution of Nakoula was Lanny Breuer.

….In conclusion, cutting a deal with one criminal to help them catch another it didn’t want brings legitimate questions about how Nakoula’s case was handled by Holder’s Criminal Division, where the possible monies obtained for the film, led at the time nationally by a figure whose claim to infamy is that he wound up as a central figure in the Operation Fast and Furious gunwalking scandal – Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer. Along with Holder, Breuer, Dugdale, Birotte should all be deposed by the House Select Committee on Benghazi.

So should Nakoula and Eiad.

The question should be: Why did the law enforcement bureau Holder led refuse to pick up Eiad when offered on a silver platter by Canadian authorities in 2011. What was the source of the monies spent on the movie? Why was Nakoula given a lesser prison sentence to help the FBI arrest someone it didn’t want, thereby making the plea deal about something else?

In the days after the Benghazi attacks, Nakoula was arrested for violating the terms of his probation. The optics, coupled with the Obama administration’s attempts to blame the video for the deaths, clearly communicated that he was being punished for producing a “crude and disgusting video” that was critical of Islam. Unfortunately, the outrage Nakoula’s arrest generated in conservative circles actually played to the Obama administration’s advantage creating a distraction from the devastating truth.

Based on this explosive development, enough probable cause exists to investigate whether or not Eiad was involved in financing Nakoula’s video production. In this ABC News story filed just two days after the Benghazi attacks, it was revealed that the cost of the video was between $50,000 – $60,000 financed by his family in Egypt.

Just two weeks after Benghazi, Shoebat.com published a report about the claim by Nakoula that his “family” provided him with the funds to produce the video. As we wrote then, this “family” has not been located:

…if an Egyptian by the name of Nakoula Bacile Nakoula is blamed for angering over a billion Muslims, it would not be that difficult to find the entire family in Egypt, to include brothers, cousins, aunts, siblings wife, wives, ex-wives, mistresses, and pets, et. al., especially since the riots that spanned across 30 nations were sparked in Egypt.

In the Middle East, you are known by your clan. Yet, Egypt cannot produce neither this man’s family or his background?

Was Eiad the source of the $50,000 – $60,000? The Feds clearly couldn’t have their fingerprints on the money but two informants who were beholden to the Justice Department could. Is this why he wasn’t taken into custody when the Canadians offered him up?

Providing even further evidence that Nakoula’s video was about agitprop and blood libel are his initial claims about the source of his funding. According to the ABC News report above, Nakoula attempted to say the video cost $5 Million and was funded by a consortium of wealthy Jewish friends. This was clearly lie.

In a Shoebat.com exclusive, we learned that Nakoula recently told one of the actresses in his video – Cindy Lee Garcia – that he is a Muslim after being confronted by Garcia. This claim is bolstered by the mere partnership of Nakoula and Eiad.

Eiad Salameh is a Muslim fundamentalist who hates Coptic Christians. If Nakoula was a Copt, why would Salameh partner with him? The answer is that Nakoula is a Muslim who used agitprop and blood libel as an agent of the Obama administration and its Justice Department.

Next Scandal: PhoneGate – Obama Is Collecting Your Phone Call Records

Obama’s NSA collecting the phone records of millions of Americans daily, without warrant, oversight or your permission.

Welcome to Obama’s Amerika folks, the Soviet Utopia, reconstituted on the rotting corruption of our once free nation.

Breaking from  the Guardian in the UK, Townhall reports that Obama’s National Security Agency has mandated that phone-provider Verizon, provide on an on-going daily-basis, the phone records of it’s customers.

Funny thing is, I recall how BESERK the anti-war Leftists went when it was learned that President Bush was wiretapping foreign phone calls from Jihadist nations INTO the USA.  Today – DEAD SILENCE.

It was never about our liberties for the anti-war Left.  It’s about the advancement of their ‘Marxist revolution’ and always has been.

But just ask yourself – what in the world does Obama need with YOUR phone records?  WHOM you talk to?  What ‘unique identifiers’ (key words in your conversation) are they listening for?

Given what this regime was just found doing to AP, this looks to be more of the same gulag-like police-state data collections that many of us are warning you all is taking place.  Eric Holder’s Department of Justice cast a wide net in his search of AP phone logs, as evidenced in his agency naming journalist James Rosen a co-conspirator in an espionage charge in order to obtain all his phone records, but  now we learn that this practice of going after private phone records is not just limited to high-profile critics of the Obama regime, but everyday average Joe and Jill’s as the NSA is targeting millions of Americans for daily data collection.

The purpose?  Well, it creates an atmosphere of fear of saying anything against Obama and this regime or it’s agenda.  It catalogs whom you associate with, and provides the regime with anything and everything you say and associate with for potential charges in the near future.

Think that far-fetched?  You might want to consider what U.S. attorney Bill Killian at Obama’s DOJ just said yesterday.  He stated that saying anything negative about Islam violates the Civil Rights laws of Muslims and they WILL start prosecuting for that violation: “Could an Internet posting or letter in the mail or a phone call or a personal confrontation (against Islam) constitute a violation of those statutes?” he asked, citing 18 US Code 241 and 18 US Code 245. “Yes, it could.”

“In its latest effort to protect followers of Islam in the U.S., the Obama Justice Department warns against using social media to spread information considered inflammatory against Muslims, threatening that it could constitute a violation of civil rights,”

Understand now why potentially, Obama is collecting all our phone records?

This is how the Soviet Union’s tyranny worked – EVERYONE was automatically considered  a criminal by the state, and anything you ever said, did or thought that could be used as a pretext for your arrest was what the Soviet did.  We should not marvel at this.  It’s what every single despotic Left regime does to their own people when it puts down the iron fist of tyranny.

Welcome to Obama’s gulag

JUST IN: NSA Collecting Phone Records of Millions of Americans Daily

Heather Ginsberg | Jun 05, 2013

Well here’s another scandal ready for the Obama administration. It was revealed today that the National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon. This top secret order was issued in April.

The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an “ongoing, daily basis” to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries.

The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.

The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19.

Under the terms of the blanket order, the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls. The contents of the conversation itself are not covered.

Here is just another example of the government overreaching into the lives of millions of Americans without our permission. The Guardian reports:

The unlimited nature of the records being handed over to the NSA is extremely unusual. Fisa court orders typically direct the production of records pertaining to a specific named target who is suspected of being an agent of a terrorist group or foreign state, or a finite set of individually named targets.

The Guardian approached the National Security Agency, the White House and the Department of Justice for comment in advance of publication on Wednesday. All declined. The agencies were also offered the opportunity to raise specific security concerns regarding the publication of the court order.

The court order expressly bars Verizon from disclosing to the public either the existence of the FBI’s request for its customers’ records, or the court order itself.

Talk about a breach of privacy! Are you kidding me?! This administration has gone beyond any standards set by other administrations with this new unlimited order. What is it that the administration feels they need these documents for?

A type of data collection similar to this was started after 9/11/01, but was not nearly as widespread or as far reaching as this new order given in April. It seems from this order, the administration is trying to look at Americans’ communication habits and who we are talking to.

This is a whole new low for the Obama administration. Now we are seeing government reaching into our phone records? No longer is it just the media and Fox News reporters, but now every American can be watched by the NSA. Will this finally be what puts Liberals over the edge? They were against it when Bush did a much smaller version. Now we can see how far the hypocrisy goes. Will Jay Carney be able to comment on this? How will the Obama administration defend themselves now?

Here’s the article that broke the story:

Revealed: NSA collecting phone records of millions of Americans daily

Exclusive: Top secret court order requiring Verizon to hand over all call data shows scale of domestic surveillance under Obama

The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America’s largesttelecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April.

The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an “ongoing, daily basis” to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries.

The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.

More at link.

Obama’s Regime Waging Psychological Warfare On Americans

The Obama Scandals from Benghazi to the IRS; not due to inept leadership, but a concerted effort being waged to soften Americans up for what is to come.

I had written on this subject last week, and contended that Obama is waging war on America.  Psychiatrist Dr. Keith Ablow observes that every scandal and issue that is related to Obama’s direct actions, is not incompetence and inept leadership, but rather he contends it is a concerted war effort aimed at the American mind.  A psychological Psy-Ops designed to dispirit a people that their cause and country are unjust, and get a population to accept surrender to something ‘new’.

While the good Dr. is limited to focusing on the mental war being waged by Obama – I contend it is far more than just psychological.  History shows us that whenever such Leftist ideologues engage in the same exact type of efforts Obama’s regime is currently engaged, it is not long before the dispiriting war becomes a violent and despotic war against the enemies of the state.

The bombardment on our national psyche is nearly constant.  This softens up the entrenched opposition so that an actual assault against them is able to be conducted with little resistance.

Is Obama waging psychological warfare on Americans?

By Dr. Keith Ablow

I believe that the Obama administration is conducting psychological warfare on conservative Americans. Not only that but it is also waging this war on all Americans who previously viewed themselves, their country, their Constitution and their overwhelming belief in God as a force for good in the world.

The psychological warfare began with an apology tour in which President Obama publicly “confessed,” presuming to speak for all of us, for the shortcomings of America and our supposed contributions to tyranny and all manner of evils around the world.

This confession planted in the American mind the notion that our values and beliefs might not be in line with freedom and truth.

*snip*

…deep inside the American psyche, something more malignant could have been planted—the seeds of self-hatred and self-doubt.  And I no longer believe that those seeds were planted unintentionally by people as smart and capable as the president and first lady.

*snip*

…The techniques are often combined with black ops strategy, in which covert initiatives seek to dispirit, disempower and confuse adversaries.

The psychological warfare has continued, I believe, with other opportunities the president has had to make American’s question their individual freedoms and autonomy.

This has included misrepresenting horrific crimes, such as the one which unfolded in Newtown, Connecticut, as evidence of the need for gun control measures, when they clearly evidenced a need for revamping our mental health care system.

Gun rights are inextricably entwined in the American psyche with freedom to defend oneself.  Attacking gun rights, I believe, is an element of the psychological warfare on the American belief that force is justifiable when confronting evil.

My belief that psychological warfare is being deployed on Americans by this American president and his administration has been solidified as news has come out of the targeting of conservative groups by the IRS.

*snip*

…Seen through the lens of psychological warfare, the failure to defend our embassy in Benghazi need not be understood simply as a screw-up. It could reflect an actual strategy on the part of the administration to reinforce the notion that homicidal violence born of hatred toward America is understandable—even condonable—because we have generated it ourselves and are reaping the harvest of ill will we have sown.  In other words, we should take our punishment.

The president said as much when he blamed the murder of our Ambassador to Libya on a film that criticized Islam.

This misstatement may disclose not just incompetence and may not just be evidence of a cover-up, but may be evidence of exactly what I am theorizing here: that the president, with the help of his administration, is attempting to conduct psychological warfare on Americans who value autonomy and free will and free markets and small government, by convincing them that they are wrong-minded, prejudiced and pathological and should deeply question their beliefs—including some ensconced in the Constitution.

The wiretapping of journalists would be, then, just another black ops technique in an ongoing war against our freedoms.

*snip*

…I assert that this administration is engaged in a coordinated attempt to dispirit, disarm and disenfranchise large portions of the American population and to weaken our founding principles through what is best understood as psychological warfare.

Read the full essay at Link

 

Saudi National Bombing Suspect – Visited Obama At White House Several Times

The Saudi National, on a terror watch list and let go by DHS after a deportation order rescinded – visited the Obama’s at the White House on several occasions.  Michelle Obama visits him in hospital.

“I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.” – Barack Hussein Obama, The Audacity of Hope pg. 261

Obama has certainly shown us all that he stands with the Muslims, even to the detriment of America, Christians and innocents.  He supported the Muslim Brotherhood takeover of Egypt, the Islamist overthrow in Libya and has been busy arming Al Qaeda-backed rebels in Syria.  His regime refuses to this day to classify the Fort Hood Jihadist attack as a terror attack, instead insisting it was ‘work place violence’.  He was initially negligent to state that Boston bombing was a terror attack when he first commented.

The initial suspect, a Saudi National on a student Visa with burned hands who was tackled running from the scene of the Boston bombing, and declared a ‘person of interest’ was suddenly and without justification – cleared of the investigation and set to be deported after Obama had a meeting with the Saudi Ambassador.

Then his deportation orders were altered after Janet Napalitano was questioned about the suspect by Congressman Jeff Duncan.  She vehemently denied having any deportation order for any Saudi national, then admitted later  Al-Harbi, the Saudi national was indeed placed on a terror-wartch list when evidence was discovered that those records were altered.

Who ordered those records altered? Why was Al-Harbi’s placement on the terror-watch list suddenly removed?  Why was Al-Harbi suddenly declared ‘not a person of interest’?  Why has the Obama regime, the DHS, ICE and every other alphabet agency refused to note the fact that Abdul Rahman Ali Al-Harbi’s clan and relatives are spouters and members of Al Qaeda?

A path to answering those questions may lay in the fact that White House records show that Abdul Rahman Ali Al-Harbi visited the White House and the Obamas SEVERAL times since 2009.

Perhaps another answer lies here:

Then we learn Michelle Obama even visited him in his hospital room after the Boston bombing.  That was flatly denied by the White House – but Al-Harbi was kind enough to post pictures of her visit on his Facebook page – proving yet again that the Obama regime is not only lying, but somehow involved in a massive cover-up and complicity in all this chicanery.

Glenn Beck blew the lid and cover off this story that is being deliberately ignored and muffled by the mainstream media and ridiculed by the Obama government.

But like everything else from Boston to Benghazi – the Obama Regime is never held to answer questions of it’s incompetence, malfeasance  or treason.

Saudi Student Alharbi Visited the White House Several Times

Saudi student Abdul Rahman Ali Issa Al-Salimi Al-Harbi was injured in the Boston Marathon Bombings.
He was once a “person of interest” in the bombings. He was put on a terror watch listafter the bombings.

Michelle Obama visited al-Harbi in the hospital last week.
He posted pictures on his Facebook page:

SAUDI NATIONAL’S DEPORTATION RECORD ALTERED

The Saudi National questioned after the Boston Marathon Bombing had his deportation order records altered, rescinding his deportation order.

The alteration occurred the night before Secretary Napolitano vehemently denied the existence of any deportation order in testimony before the House of Representatives. Sources with knowledge of these matters says the change occurred subsequent to Secretary John Kerry’s closed door meeting on Tuesday with the Saudi Minister and around the time of the meeting between the Saudi Minister and Obama later on Wednesday evening.

…Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was questioned by Congressman Jeff Duncan about the alleged deportation in a House hearing. Napolitano responded “I am unaware of anyone who is being deported for national security concerns at all related to Boston. I don’t know where that rumor came from.”

Congressman Duncan pushed Napolitano and she retorted:

“I am not going to answer that question, it is so full of misstatements and misapprehensions, that it is just not worthy of an answer….

INFORMATION ON SAUDI NATIONAL ONCE CONSIDERED A PERSON OF INTEREST

• A Saudi national originally identified as a “person of interest” in the Boston Marathon bombing was set to be deported under section 212 3B — “Security and related grounds” — “Terrorist activities” after the bombing
• As the story gained traction, TheBlaze’s Chief Content Officer Joel Cheatwood received word that the government may not deport the Saudi national, originally identified as Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi
• Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano refused to answer questions on the subject when confronted by Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC) on Capitol Hill.
• An ICE official said a different Saudi national is in custody, but is “in no way” connected to the bombings.
• A congressional source, however, says that the file on Alharbi was created, that he was “linked” in some way to the Boston bombings (though it is unclear how), and that documents showing all this have been sent to Congress.
• Key congressmen of the Committee on Homeland Security request a classified briefing with Napolitano
• Fox News’ Todd Starnes reports that Alharbi was allegedly flagged on a terrorist watch list and granted a student visa without being properly vetted.  Sources close to the investigation also told him the Saudi is still set for deportation.
• Alharbi’s file was altered early Wednesday evening to disassociate him from the initial charges
• Sources say the Saudi’s student visa specifically allows him to go to school in Findlay, Ohio, though he appears to have an apartment in Boston, Massachusetts
• Alharbi was put on a terror watchlist after the bombing, andNapolitano confirmed on April 23 that he was briefly on a “watchlist”
• Sources tell us this will most likely now be kicked from the DHS to the DOJ and labeled an ongoing investigation that can no longer be discussed.

“Innocent” Saudi has ties to several Al-Qaeda Terrorists

After the bombings, a Saudi by the name of Abdul Rahman Ali Al-Harbi was hospitalized and became a ‘suspect’, then a ‘person of interest’. His apartment was searched by federal and local authorities. No confirmation has been given so far to his involvement. The Media were quick to claim his innocence, of course.

This brings us to the Boston marathon bombings. Foreign Policy is reporting that he’s ‘no longer a person of interest’, which means he’s “innocent”, right?

Perhaps a quick look at the Arabic sources should raise the eyebrows of every American relative to the extent of the problem at hand. Many from Al-Harbi’s clan are steeped in terrorism and are members of Al-Qaeda. Out of a list of 85 terrorists listed by the Saudi government shows several of Al-Harbi clan to have been active fighters in Al-Qaeda.

Culture of Corruption – “Everyone Loves a Bribe, and Runs After Gifts”

 

Everyone Loves A Bribe, and Runs After Gifts

By Rev. Peter Marshall

I’m worried about my country.

The corruption in our political life is just massive. And I have no doubt that it is just as bad in the business world. Now, you might want to respond that it has always been like this, that the world is always a corrupt place, and what do you expect, etc. But, I’m sorry, I just can’t buy that. In my view, there is more blatant corruption in the body politic than I can ever remember in my lifetime.

The latest and most egregious example is the sickening spectacle of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich trying to literally sell Barack Obama’s now vacant U.S. Senate seat to the highest bidder. Blagojevich has been under Federal investigation for at least three years for alleged hiring fraud, and U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald read profanity-laced quotes from the Governor’s phone conversations that left no doubt about the his corruption. “I’ve got this thing (the opportunity to appoint a Democrat Senator to take Obama’s place) and it’s (expletive) golden, and I’m just not giving it up for (expletive) nothing. I’m not gonna do it.” The FBI’s evidence indicated that overheard phone conversations revealed that what the Governor had in mind was selling the Senate seat for half-million or million dollar campaign contributions, or $250-300,000 jobs for himself, or comparable paying jobs for his real estate agent wife, Patti. In political parlance, it’s called “pay to play.” If you want to have influence in Illinois politics, you have to cough up the cash. “I want to make money,” said the Governor, whose salary is $177,412. Apparently, that’s not money as far as he’s concerned.

The authorities making the announcement of the arrest to the press said that Blagojevich was hoping to raise $2.5 million by the end of the year, and had decided to speed up his “crime spree” before a state anti-corruption law takes effect on January 1.  

I have written several times this year about the corruption of Chicago politics, which in the entire U.S. comes in second only to Louisiana politics. But this latest example is so brazen, so openly and defiantly corrupt that it boggles the mind. Ironically, Blagojevich had campaigned for the Governor’s office back in 2002 on a platform of cleaning up the corruption of his predecessor, George Ryan, who is serving a six year prison sentence for graft. His approval rating with the voters had become a horrendous 13 percent, but undeterred by this, he had talked of rehabilitating his image by appointing himself to the vacant Senate seat, and even had the consummate gall to talk about running for President in 2116. The only small bump in his road is a set of Federal charges of conspiracy to commit fraud and solicitation to commit bribery, which carry maximum prison penalties of 20 years and 10 years respectively.

His Chief of Staff, John Harris, was arrested with Blagojevich, and charged with taking part in the Governor’s schemes. Meanwhile, all Illinois politicians are running away from the Governor like rats fleeing the light. Cries of “resign, resign” are being heard in the land of Lincoln, while U.S. District Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald avowed that this corruption would make Lincoln “roll in his grave.”

Emmanuel Rahm, Obama’s Chief of Staff, had said earlier in response to a reporter’s question, that Obama had talked with Governor Blagojevich about possible appointees to the Senate seat, but after Obama said yesterday that he had had no contact with the Governor lately, Rahm quickly backtracked and said that he had been mistaken in what he had said. Yeah, right.

Do I think that Obama is involved in any of Blagojevich’s corruption? Probably not. He would have had to have been stupid beyond belief to have allowed himself to be tainted with the open corruption of a man known by everybody to be under Federal investigation. But, as I have said before in these commentaries, you cannot possibly have risen to the level that Obama achieved in Illinois politics without having played the corruption game to a certain extent, at least. I suspect that there is a lot of dirty linen in Obama’s closet (just as there was in Bill Clinton’s from his Arkansas Governor days), but whether it will ever see the light of day is doubtful.

Meanwhile, Governor Blagojevich gave no indication that he was about to resign, or even thinking about it. He dispatched his spokesperson, Kelley Quinn, to announce that he was going about “business as usual.” Since his usual business seems to have been corruption, I suppose we should infer from that he’s still trying to sell favors, before the Feds put him away in the slammer.

In today’s Cape Cod paper it is reported that new charges have been brought in an ongoing Federal probe of corruption at the Massachusetts Statehouse and Boston’s City Hall. Massachusetts State Senator Diane Wilkerson has pleaded not guilty to a new indictment of eight counts of attempted extortion and one count of conspiracy. In October, after an eighteen-month investigation by the FBI, she was arrested and charged with taking up to $23,000 in bribes to help the Roxbury nightclub Dejavu get a liquor license. The Bureau released a video tape of Wilkerson stuffing into her bra a wad of bribery money that she had just been handed by an FBI informant.

In the same paper I read today that Providence, RI, Mayor David Cicilline’s brother had written a bad check to the city for $75,000 on behalf of a client who owed tax money. Though the Mayor has not been charged with anything, everyone in New England knows perfectly well that Providence politics has been quite dirty as long as anyone can remember – controlled in the past for many, many years by the Mob. Perhaps it still is.

Charlie Rangel (Democrat-NY), the embattled Chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee is facing mounting allegations of corruption. The House Ethics Committee, which is usually passive and has to be goaded into action, has announced recently that it is broadening its investigation into the Congressman’s dealings. These have  included, among other things, using Congressional letterhead to solicit money for his Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at City College of New York, failure to pay taxes or disclose income from a $75,000 Dominican villa on which he had an interest-free mortgage, his use of rent-controlled apartments in Harlem at sub-standard rates, and the possibility that he helped to preserve a lucrative off-shore tax loophole for an oil drilling executive.

It isn’t only Democrats. Corruption and rottenness are equal opportunity employers. U.S. Senator Larry Craig (Republican-MN) has lost his attempt to withdraw his 2007 guilty plea to disorderly conduct after being arrested in a sting operation at a St. Paul International Airport men’s room. Sgt. Dave Karsnia, the arresting officer, indicated that Craig was attempting to solicit a homosexual encounter. Craig claims that he is innocent, and considering an appeal. But, it appears likely that his original plea was the truth.

It is worthy of note that the Boston Phoenix and other blogs have been keeping track of the 2008 incidents of corruption that involve Democrats. Apparently, the count is now in the mid 90’s, and could possible break 100 before year’s end.

However, the fact that so many corrupt Democrats are being exposed is certainly not anything that Republicans or conservatives can rejoice in, even though the exposure involving Democrats probably outnumbers Republican miscreants ten to one.

For myself, I cannot even muster up anger about it – I find myself filled with a great sadness. Our once proud nation has sunk to a new low in corruption throughout the political process, it seems to me.

What shall we say to all of this? I think these passages of Holy Scripture speak very plainly to our situation: Amos 5:12-16 and Isaiah 1:21-28:

“For I know how many are your transgressions, and how great are your sins – you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe, and turn aside the needy in the gate. Therefore he who is prudent will keep silent in such a time, for it is an evil time. Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you, as you have said. Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

“How the faithful city has become a whore, she who was full of justice! Righteousness lodged in her, but now murderers. Your silver has become dross, your best wine mixed with water. Your princes are rebels and companions of thieves. Everyone loves a bribe and runs after gifts. They do not bring justice to the fatherless, and the widow’s cause does not come to them. Therefore the Lord declares, the Lord of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel: ‘Ah, I will get relief from my enemies and avenge myself on my foes. I will turn my hand against you and will smelt away your dross as with lye and remove all your alloy. And I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning. Afterward you shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city.’ Zion shall be redeemed by justice, and those in her who repent, by righteousness. But rebels and sinners shall be broken together, and those who forsake the Lord shall be consumed.”

A few comments on these passages: In the Amos passage, the verse on the prudent keeping silence does not mean that we Christians are not to speak out about the corruption and evil of our time. What it means, in my view, is that we must cease all boastful, proud, vain, self-righteous, frivolous or careless speech, and watch very carefully what claims we make about ourselves. Further, to hate evil, love good, and work to establish justice in all our dealings (and for others) should be the focus of our lives, as we seek to serve the Lord Jesus. It is an evil time, and we must be sure that we are using our days wisely in the service of God’s Kingdom.

The Isaiah passage speaks strongly to the issue of corruption – that is what the verse about the silver having become dross and the wine having been mixed with water means. The precious metal has become impure, and the pure wine has become diluted. There is no moral purity.

But, the Lord promises that He will purify, when He says that He will “smelt away your dross as with lye and remove all your alloy.” Note that removing alloy is done by fire, which is not a pleasant experience to go through. Yet, I believe that is what has started to happen to America. God is determined to purify American society, and I believe that the exposure of these recent scandals is but the beginnings. There will be more to come, and it will reach into other areas of our society beyond politics.

The redeeming grace in it all, and what brings me hope, is that it is the Lord who is in charge of the whole process. A just and merciful God is wielding the broom, and for that I am thankful.

And lastly, there is a promise that there will be an end to it, an end that will bring justice and righteousness: “Zion shall be redeemed by justice, and those in her who repent, by righteousness.” Notice that His righteousness will redeem “those who repent,” so let us be sure that we come to repentance about any sins in our own lives that we read about in the newspapers or hear about on TV. 

(More at Link)