Tag: FBI

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crime and punishment media and media people

Antifa in Popular Ontology

Jimmy Kimmel, Antifa

What do Jimmy Kimmel and the late J. Edgar Hoover have in common?

A kink for women’s dresswear?

Nope. Both denied the existence of major criminal organizations. 

Hoover, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 1924 to 1972, refused to affirm that the Mafia crime syndicate existed. Repeatedly, over the years.

Rumors that he was being blackmailed by the Mafia itself, over his own cross-​dressing kinks (the mob allegedly had photos), is not affirmed by major historians, who say his denial-​of-​the-​facts was just politics. 

So when we encounter those rejecting the reality of Antifa, take them with a grain of salt. Truth is, Antifa has a long history. It had a beginning; it spread; it fell into disarray; it was revived (or mimicked) by young radicals wanting an excuse to commit violence against “fascists” — which proved, of course, to be anyone they disagree with. We see them today on the streets of major cities at night, black masks and their proclivity to beat up heretics to their variant of communism/​anarchism/​nihilism.

But comedian and ABC talk-​show host Jimmy Kimmel derides such observations. 

“There is no Antifa. This is an entirely imaginary organization,” he cackled, likening any claim for Antifa’s existence to announcing the capture of fictional creatures such as the Decepticons or the Chupacabra.

But Chupacabra didn’t beat Andy Ngo within an inch of his life; Decepticons have not been caught on camera throwing bricks.

Many other talking heads have made similar denials — despite the demonstrated fact that Antifa is well funded and that funding is directed by somebody.

Even a “grassroots” organization informally managed counts as an existing entity; just because a group looks more like a network than a corporate entity with an HR department doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. 

Philosophers might call these denials “ontic negative claims” — “ontic” as in ontology as in the Philosophy of Being. While I’m uncertain of many things, I am certain of this: Antifa exists and Jimmy Kimmel is no ontologist.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights Fourth Amendment rights privacy too much government

What Does the FBI Do?

FBI, surveillance, censorship, religion, church

“The FBI began surveilling a Catholic priest in 2023,” wrote James Lynch last week, “after the clergyman refused to divulge details about a recently arrested parishioner who was converting to Catholicism and seeking spiritual guidance.”

The agency’s Richmond Field Office “tracked the priest’s movements and coordinated with several other FBI offices and a foreign law enforcement agency to gather intelligence on the clergyman and his priestly organization,” Lynch summarizes.

This is all based on a new House Judiciary Committee report entitled “How the Biden-​Wray FBI Manufactured a False Narrative of Catholic Americans as Violent Extremists.” *

“The FBI attempted to violate the priest-​penitent privilege,” the report continues, “on the faulty reasoning that the Richmond subject under investigation seeking spiritual guidance had not been baptized or completed catechism.”

You may be asking yourself, is the FBI out of its mind?

Certainly, out of this hemisphere. Consider that FBI agents have also extended their reach way beyond U.S. borders to focus on wrongthink elsewhere.

According to investigative journalist David Ágape, “the FBI has helped Brazil censor its citizens,” working with the Soros’ Open Society Foundation to promote censorship in Brazil and a secret judicial police force targeting “people deemed to be spreading false information.”

Was the FBI nurturing censorship in foreign lands to later re-​import them here?

From its beginning, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has had trouble staying within constitutional limits. I guess we should not be shocked that it doesn’t obey jurisdictional limits, either. 

Hopefully, Director Kash Patel will rein in the agency. It won’t be easy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

* According to the committee, “The report reveals that contrary to testimony from former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray, the 2023 Richmond memorandum that derisively labeled traditional Catholics as ‘racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists’ was not an isolated incident. Under the new leadership of Director Kash Patel, the FBI has cooperated considerably with the Committee’s subpoena, and has produced over 1,300 pages of additional documents related to the Richmond memorandum that the Biden-​Wray FBI did not disclose.”
Note: You can also mouse-​over the asterisk in the main text to see the footnote.

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Accountability First Amendment rights government transparency

Overly Broad Stonewalling

United States, censorship, intelligence agency, FBI, CIA, free speech, First Amendment

How specific do requests for records of unconstitutional activity have to be?

In February, the Federal Bureau of Investigation pretended an inability to fulfill America First Legal Foundation’s freedom-​of-​information request for documents about the FBI’s pre-​election efforts to censor Twitter users. The agency declared the request to be “overly broad.”

What’s been “overly broad” is the policy of censorship, disinformation, and more by the Deep State using private partners. Meaning their real problem is doubtless that the requested documents are “overly incriminating,” too unmistakably what AFL wanted.

So the FBI stonewalled. 

And AFL has sued, in its complaint concluding that the agency’s “blanket denial of AFL’s FOIA request is contrary to law and should not stand.”

Thanks to evidence brought to light by other litigation and by Matt Taibbi’s reporting on Twitter’s internal records, none of us is just guessing that the FBI has acted to censor constitutionally protected discourse. We know that the FBI’s National Election Command Post flagged at least 25 Twitter accounts for “misinformation.”

But the only party to the censorship revealing relevant information voluntarily is Twitter itself, thanks to decisions by Twitter’s new management under Elon Musk.

With respect to everybody else colluding to censor social media — the FBI, the DOJ, the White House, Google, Facebook, etc. — looks like it’ll have to be lawsuits every step of the way.

The First Amendment’s stricture upon Congress to “make no law” abridging our “freedom of speech, or of the press,” does not allow the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and other agencies to simply subcontract. Nor are they free to mold public opinion. 

A government-​controlled “press” is not a free press.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability government transparency international affairs

Time for Truth Is … Now?

China, Covid, FBI

The “kooky” conspiracy hypothesis that in 2019 a Wuhan laboratory that had been rebuilding viruses to make them better, stronger, faster then somehow unleashed the COVID-​19 virus on the world has been gaining traction lately.

Three years ago, such a thing was declared to be impossible, or at least extremely unlikely. After all, the Chinese government itself, which always tells the truth, had repudiated this explanation, even going so far as to conscientiously refuse to cooperate with investigations into the origin of the pandemic.

Many policy makers and media mavens in the West nodded vigorously. No need to inquire further.

But the dam has been breaking in recent months. Now, even U.S. government agencies — government agencies themselves! — are saying yeah, probably a lab leak.

The FBI has hopped on the probably-​lab bandwagon and, according to its director, has been on the wagon a while.

FBI director Chris Wray says: “The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan.”

Quite some time now? And kept quiet?

Author James Kunstler wants to know if the FBI knew during all the time that fey Wray “was in charge of a battalion of FBI agents assigned to managing Twitter, Facebook, and Google … to make sure that anyone who opined about Covid coming from the Wuhan lab got censored, banished, cancelled, reputationally destroyed.”

It’s hardly “kooky” to inquire as to what the FBI was thinking, simultaneously believing something to be true and, yet, in contravention of the First Amendment, working to suppress that very belief.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability crime and punishment insider corruption

Are 1,000 Pages Enough?

Congress, FBI, security, surveillance, freedom

The GOP has just issued a 1,000-page report about corruption in the Department of Justice and its Federal Bureau of Investigation. Based largely on the disclosures of 14 whistleblowers, plus what’s in plain sight — what we’ve all been able to see for ourselves over the last several years — the report details “a rampant culture of unaccountability, manipulation, and abuse.”

  • To support its political agendas, the FBI has deliberately inflated statistics about “domestic violent extremism” and has diverted resources from legitimate investigations — like those into child trafficking.
  • The Justice Department and FBI have averted their gaze from blatant and multifarious wrongdoing by Hunter Biden, son of the president.
  • The FBI has “purged” employees who disagree with the left-​leaning ideology of top brass.
  • The FBI has targeted parents for investigation simply for protesting school board policies.
  • Without cause, the FBI has been spying on US citizens, including persons who worked for candidate Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
  • Like other agencies, the FBI has worked with Big Tech social-​media companies to censor viewpoints that FBI honchos find uncongenial.
  • While targeting anti-​abortion activists who have perpetrated no violent acts, DOJ and FBI have ignored attacks on churches and pregnancy centers.

To be sure, the recent conduct of these agencies has plenty of precedent; thousands more pages could be produced.

From initial election results (before I got too sleepy), Republicans will have control of the House of Representatives, at the very least, and perhaps a Senate majority. They will have the power to press their investigation further and compel reforms.

The House controls the purse strings … if it dares. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment First Amendment rights general freedom

The FBI Is Misinformed

disinformation, FBI, free speech, 1st Amendment

The FBI is misinformed if it thinks that prosecuting persons who misinform solely for misinforming is consistent with freedom of speech.

The utterance of false statements, whether unknowingly or willfully, is nothing new in human history. And such utterances are impossible to avoid in any kind of discourse — for example, political debates — in which people disagree with each other about facts as well as values.

Indeed, one often hears both true things and false things. We must evaluate claims as best we can, using observation, logic, common sense and so forth.

But, somehow, the FBI has decided that “misinformation” and “disinformation,” chronic in campaign ads, political pronouncements, and domestic quarrels, are a crime when communicated in the context of an election.

An FBI document leaked to Project Veritas wants to explain “What Are Election Crimes.” This document lumps misleading speech with such actual crimes as electoral fraud and intimidation of voters.

Robert Spencer has questions about this assumption for the FBI’s, ahem, Election Crimes Coordinator, Lindsay Capodilupo. For example, how does the FBI determine what is and is not misinformation? Will there be an appeals process given the fact that certain notorious so-​called “misinformation” — like the once-​upon-​a-​time contested claim that Hunter Biden’s laptop is indeed Hunter Biden’s laptop — has turned out to be true information?

And — most important — how can wrongspeak as such be classified as any kind of crime in light of the First Amendment?

Stay tuned for the FBI’s answers. But not with bated breath, okay?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom

Partisan Police State Tactics

FBI

We must take the initiative to change things if we don’t like the way things are. If you’re a congressman, this means — sometimes, at least — investigating horrific conduct.

The September 23rd raid of anti-​abortion activist Mark Houck’s home should evoke bipartisan dismay. But only Republicans seem to be looking into the FBI’s recent arrest of Houck and the ludicrously heavy-​handed tactics used to apprehend him.

In 2021, Houck had pushed a pro-​abortion activist away from his son, whom the activist had been harassing, in front of a clinic. Houck’s action was allegedly a violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. The alleged victim sued.

Last summer, the case was dismissed on a local level. But that determination was blithely ignored by our ideologically compromised FBI, which sent dozens of agents to swoop down on Houck and terrorize his family.

U.S. Representatives Jim Jordan and Mike Johnson, both Republicans, sent a letter asking for documents related to the raid and arrest.

According to the letter: “Several recent actions by the department reinforce the conclusion that the Justice Department is using its federal law-​enforcement authority as a weapon against the administration’s political opponents.…

“We write to conduct oversight of your authorization of a dawn raid of the home of a pro-​life leader, in front of his wife and seven children, when he had offered to voluntarily cooperate with authorities.”

Such a letter requesting accountability is only a bare beginning, however. If we want to prevent a partisan police state, there is much more to be done.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability First Amendment rights general freedom social media

Facebook, the FBI’s Snitch

Facebook, FBI, spying

All we have is the word of Department of Justice whistleblowers.

They told the New York Post that over the last 19 months, Facebook has been cooperating with the FBI to spy on “private” messages of users “outside the legal process and without probable cause.”

The targets were gun enthusiasts and those who questioned 2020’s election results.

“They [Facebook and the FBI] were looking for conservative right-​wing individuals. None were Antifa types.”

According to the whistleblowers, Facebook flagged allegedly subversive private messages and sent them to the FBI to be studied by agents specializing in domestic terrorism.

Facebook provided the FBI “with private conversations which are protected by the First Amendment without any subpoena.” Subpoenas were then issued to obtain the conversations that Facebook had already revealed to the FBI.

According to one DOJ source: “As soon as a subpoena was requested, within an hour, Facebook sent back gigabytes of data and photos. It was ready to go. They were just waiting for that legal process so they could send it.”

Facebook has issued a denial. The FBI has issued a non-​denial denial.

The allegations might seem very implausible but for the fact that as the November election approaches, the DOJ has been openly targeting Trump allies for claiming “that the vice president and/​or president of the Senate had the authority to reject or choose not to count presidential electors.”

In short, for talking out of turn.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Second Amendment rights

Gun Grabbing G‑Men

red flag, gun control, 2nd Amendment, FBI

The FBI itches to take away your guns.

Or at least some people’s guns. That’s what recent revelations indicate, anyway.

What happened is that FBI agents got at least 15 people — it could be many more — to sign away their rights to obtain and possess firearms. Specifically, we read at The Epoch Times, “FBI officials had Americans fill out a form that said they want the FBI to make it illegal for them to purchase or own guns forever because of a mental health condition.”

Yes, it’s a strange case. 

“We’ve learned the FBI had no business disarming these individuals. They did not pose a threat to society. The FBI actions were wholly unlawful,” explained Aidan Johnston, president of a national firearms rights group, Gun Owners of America. GOA demands that “the FBI remove the records from the background check database by Oct. 8 and that Congress enforce the removals.”

This is all about Red Flag laws and similar legislation, such as the “federal law [prohibiting] shipping, transporting, receiving, or possessing any firearm or ammunition” by anyone who has been “adjudicated as a mental defective” or “committed to a mental institution.” But these people were not adjudicated on any status like that. Somehow the FBI pressured them to “give up their rights” — which technically cannot be done. 

But can be, in practice.

I said it was a strange case. Senator Rand Paul (Ky‑R) highlighted the strangeness on Fox News, noting the legal puzzle of “how someone that’s mentally incompetent to own a gun could be competent to sign away their gun rights.”

More reasons to distrust the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment insider corruption national politics & policies

A Plausible Theory

Donald Trump, deep state, Hillary Clinton, top secret files, fishing expedition

A solid majority of Americans — a supermajority, even — are likely unaware that Donald J. Trump is suing Hillary Clinton and a gaggle of her cohorts for their part in the Russiagate hoax.

Though it has been reported on, here and there and now and then, I wasn’t aware until a few weeks ago.

Most major network news outfits do not make much of it.

Indeed, CNN’s initial coverage was quite instructive in how to downgrade a story in potential readers’ minds: “deep state” is in scare quotes and Hillary crony John Podesta is himself quoted as saying the suit was sure to be a “hoot.”

That’s the dismissive tactic of the current Vice President’s cackle. 

But this lawsuit may be the key to understanding what the FBI was really looking for during its documents raid at Trump’s Mar-​a-​Lago residence: the material he had collected to bring this lawsuit against his enemies who had tried to unseat him using farrago, fantasy, and fraud.

In The Epoch Times, Jeff Carlson expounds on this theory that Trump had the goods on Clinton and certain other players on her staff and within the FBI and elsewhere, and that the FBI was trying to confiscate and muddy up the waters about what documents may be used in Trump’s lawsuit.

Calling the raid “a targeted fishing expedition — designed to capture any and all information relating to the Russiagate hoax,” Carlson notes it comes “at the exact time that the DOJ is defending its actions taken in the Russiagate hoax in court against Trump’s RICO case.”

Evidence, over time, has indeed linked Russiagate directly back to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. Indeed, the Muller Report was  a jumble of nonsense and notoriously fizzled. The whole mess is indecent.

But the only thing we — outside the halls of power — can count on for sure is that the insiders cannot be trusted to do anything but protect their power.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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