It does seem — because of the raids and surveillance and things targeting critics of the regime — that the Biden administration (“the Biden”) is out to get its political opponents.
John Hinderaker of Powerline notes a few recent tip-of-the-iceberg actions by the Biden or its political allies.
The Dilbert comic strip by Scott Adams was suddenly dropped from 80 newspapers after the strip began mocking certain modish pieties about diversity. We’ve learned that ostensibly private censorship is often done at the behest of government or politicians eager to muzzle somebody.
The Biden issued a slew of subpoenas to persons associated with the Trump administration for documents about efforts to challenge the 2020 election results. Nearly all these pertain “to activities that are plainly lawful,” observes Hinderaker.
The Biden seized the cell phone of Mike Lindell, CEO of MyPillow and infamous skeptic of the 2020 election results. He’s accused of identity theft and damaging a computer related to an alleged breach of Colorado voting machines, accusations that Hinderaker regards as implausible on their face. “This all has to do with his opposition to the regime.”
Although the Biden may provide rationales for the targeting, these tend to be paper-thin. Why? Probably because the Biden wants you to know exactly why all this banana-republic stuff is happening. You are expected to take the micro-thin excuses as a hint — so that you will adopt a paranoid stance.
And to avoid saying or doing anything that may get you, too, targeted by the Biden.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Illustration created with DALL-E
—
See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
10 replies on “The Bidening”
“WASHINGTON — Mike Lindell, the My Pillow Inc chief executive and ally to former President Donald Trump, is under U.S. federal investigation for identity theft and for conspiring to damage a protected computer connected to a suspected voting equipment security breach in Colorado.
The new details about the focus of the investigation were confirmed on Wednesday after Lindell’s attorneys uploaded a copy of a search and seizure warrant approved by U.S. Magistrate Judge Tony Leung for Minnesota federal court on Sept. 7.
Leung approved the warrant based on probable cause that Lindell and other possible co-conspirators may have violated federal laws prohibiting identity fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States and causing intentional damage a protected computer.
Lindell’s attorneys uploaded the warrant as part of their lawsuit against the Justice Department to demand the return of Lindell’s cell phone, which FBI agents seized on Sept. 13 while he was ordering fast food at a drive-through window.
Lindell is the latest person to be swept into federal criminal investigations surrounding Trump and his allies over their failed efforts to overturn the 2020 election results based on false claims of voter fraud.
Investigations into election claims
The FBI in August 2021 confirmed it had opened a criminal investigation into a suspected security breach of voting equipment in the western Colorado county of Mesa.
The investigation came on the heels of a parallel state investigation, after election-equipment passwords were discovered on a right-wing internet blog.
2020 ELECTION
Trump ally Mike Lindell must face defamation suit over election-rigging claims
The equipment at issue in the election security breach investigation were furnished by Dominion Voting Systems, which has sued Trump allies and conservative television networks over baseless claims the company’s products were used to rig the election against Trump.
The suspected breach led Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold to decertify the county’s 41 devices, and she accused Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters, a Republican and Trump supporter, of assisting with the breach.
Peters, her deputy Belinda Knisley and former elections manager Sandra Brown were indicted on state criminal charges this year in connection with the election security breach.
Knisley has since plead guilty and will testify against Peters, who has maintained she is not guilty of the charges.
Peters, Knisley and Brown are all named as subjects in the Justice Department’s criminal investigation, according to the warrant, along with several others.
The warrant indicates the FBI is looking for “all records and information related to damage to any Dominion computerized voting system” and other related data.”
You and Hinderaker may think this investigation is frivolous but it is a very serious allegation and investigation.
And the Georgia investigation is very, very serious!
ATLANTA (AP) — A Republican Party official in Georgia told a computer forensics team to copy components of the voting system at a rural elections office two months after the 2020 election and spent nearly all day there, contradicting her sworn deposition testimony about her role in the alleged breach of the equipment, a new court filing says.
The filing late Monday is part of a broader lawsuit challenging the security of the state’s voting machines that has been drawn into a separate investigation of former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his loss in Georgia. The apparent breach happened on Jan. 7, 2021, the day after a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters seeking to stop the certification of the election.
Interior security camera video from the Coffee County elections office shows Cathy Latham, the county Republican Party chair at the time, welcomed the computer forensics team when it arrived, introduced the team to local election officials and spent nearly all day there. She also instructed the team what to copy, which turned out to be “virtually every component of the voting system,” the filing says. The video directly refutes Latham’s testimony in a sworn deposition and her representations in filings with the court, the document states.
The filing comes in response to Latham’s attorneys’ attempt to quash subpoenas for her personal electronic devices, including any cellphones, computers and storage devices.
Robert Cheeley, an attorney for Latham, did not respond to an email seeking comment. He previously said his client doesn’t remember all the details of that day. But he said she “would not and has not knowingly been involved in any impropriety in any election” and “has not acted improperly or illegally.”
Latham said in a deposition last month that she moved to Texas over the summer. In January 2021, she was chair of the Coffee County Republican Party and was the state party caucus chair for more than 125 of Georgia’s smaller counties. Latham also was one of 16 Georgia Republicans who signed a certificate in December 2020 falsely stating that Trump had won the state and declaring that they were the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors.
Trump in fact lost Georgia by nearly 12,000 votes to Democrat Joe Biden. The investigation into Trump’s efforts to change the results includes a phone call he made to the Georgia secretary of state, a fellow Republican, suggesting he could “find” just enough votes to make Trump the winner.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, a Democrat who’s leading that investigation, has notified Latham and the other fake electors that they could face criminal charges.
The Georgia secretary of state’s office has described the copying of data from Coffee County’s election system as an “alleged unauthorized access” and last month asked the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to get involved. It’s the latest of several suspected breaches of voting system data around the country tied to Trump allies since his election loss.
Attorney Sidney Powell and other Trump allies were involved in arranging for the copying of the election equipment in Coffee County — which is home to 43,000 people and voted overwhelmingly for Trump — as part of a wider effort to access voting equipment in several states, according to documents produced in response to subpoenas in the long-running lawsuit over Georgia’s voting machines.
Latham’s “data likely will reveal additional details about the work performed and information obtained in the breach, what was done with the compromised software and data, and the people involved in planning and orchestrating the breach, which puts voters and future elections at enormous risk,” the filing says.
An exhibit attached to the Monday filing juxtaposes quotes from Latham’s deposition with images pulled from security camera footage that appear to directly contradict her statements.
Latham said that she went to her job as a high school teacher and stopped by the election office briefly that afternoon. But the video image shows her arriving at 11:37 a.m., and time stamps on other images show her there throughout much of the day. She also said she didn’t see specific people and saw others only briefly, but the video images show otherwise.
The lawsuit that includes the fight over Latham’s personal electronic devices was originally filed several years before the 2020 election by individual voters and the Coalition for Good Governance, an election security advocacy group. It alleges that Georgia’s touchscreen voting machines are not secure and seeks to have them replaced by hand-marked paper ballots.
The Monday filing said the plaintiffs have identified multiple documents that Latham failed to produce in response to a previous subpoena. It seeks to have a third party make a temporary forensic copy of her devices and search for responsive documents.”
Pam, I don’t know why here, as in some of your past comments, you act as if you think that a tsunami of quotation, some of it not even attributed, will be persuasive.
Also, you need to learn proper practice when quoting multiple paragraphs. Quotation marks are to be placed at the start of each paragraph quoted, regardless of whether the previous paragraph was quoted. When you violate this rule of punctuation, you make it hard for literate people to know when you are continuing the quotation, or inserting your own words.
Oh boo hoo, little Daniel doesn’t get his way!
Live with it or ignore my posts. You are just another REPUBLIKOOK.
Pam, it’s “Boo hoo!” for you if your words don’t have the effect that you intend. You lose your audience when you down then in words, when you quote but don’t attribute, and when you grossly mispunctuate.
Declaring that I’m “another REPUBLIKOOK” because I tell you how to communicate better just makes your repugnant to everyone not already in your political camp. (For the record, I’ve not voted for any candidate affilitated with a major party in more than a decade, and the last time that I did it was for Democrat Mike Aguirre.)
I will post my comments as I see fit!
Buzz off!!
Pam, of course you’ll comment as you see fit, but if you don’t do a better job of seeing fitness, then you’ll bring no one to your side. If you’re unconcerned with persuading people, then why are you here?
Tha idiots on here can’t be persuaded! They have their own truth which is a pack of lies (the big steal, election fraud, etc.).
I am on here to present facts that refute their lies. I realize it is a lost cause. But I am not easily discouraged.
Pam, it would be crazy to pursue an objective that you regarded as unattainable, and it is crazy to declare that you doing just that.
(As to facts, you haven’t here nor elsewhere on this ‘blog produced facts that refute your opponents; instead, you produce contrary interpretations, often contradicting yourself in the process.)
There are a lot of these idiots in jail or going to jail that believe the lies. The cases in Colorado and Georgia May produce others. And there are no presidential pardons for state crimes. Trump and his idiot followers can make all the claims they want until they get to court. If they lie in court, they will be in big trouble. His 60 lawsuits were thrown out before getting to court because there were no facts.
I will continue as I see fit.
Pam, again, of course you’ll continue as you see fit (that much is a vacuous tautology of human action), but unless you do a better job of what you see as fitness, you’ll just seem to be an angry crank.
You’re not here plucking low-hanging fruit. Giuliani and Powell are not here. Paul didn’t buy the QAnon narrative. Pretending that I’m a Republican blew-up in your face. You might as well trawl for tuna in Yosemite.