Category: Criminal Justice

Is Minneapolis Peace Possible?

May 29, 2020

“When civility leads to death, revolting is the only logical reaction,” the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback tweeted. “The cries for peace will rain down, and when they do, they will land on deaf ears, because your violence has brought this resistance. We have the right to fight back! Rest in Power George Floyd.”

Former San Francisco 49er QB Colin Kaepernick delivered that message to all those who were part of the aftermath of the killing of a man in Minneapolis in a tragic encounter with four policemen. Video of the event clearly shows that the police grossly mishandled the confrontation with George Floyd, an African American. The video is absolute proof of excessive force in the encounter and George’s subsequent death. And Floyd was subdued, under control, and making no attempt to escape or harm police when he died.

Already three nights of violence have decimated downtown Minneapolis with stores looted and destroyed, several buildings burned to the ground and millions of dollars of destruction at the hands of demonstrators.

There is no doubt this man we killed in brutal fashion and killed needlessly. That issue should be a stand-alone. For outsiders such as Kaepernick to make such inflammatory comments as he did with no personal attachments, knowledge of, or any personal involvement serves absolutely no reasonable purpose in this travesty. In fact, Kaepernick’s statement will probably act like pouring gasoline on an already massive fire.

Those rioters and protestors use as justification for their pilfering from and destroying of stores the fact that systemic racism among the ranks of white policemen are the direct causes of Floyd’s death. You know what? That’s probably true. But who do these rioters punish for the unnecessary death of Floyd? Does their destruction of private property, the random theft from the store inventories they raided, and burning down an automotive parts store do anything to impact the injustice committed against Floyd.

Neither does the inflammatory threats of the former NFL Quarterback.

No doubt we in the U.S. have a rampant racist problem that is obviously embedded in our criminal justice system at every level. I’m certain it has been addressed in law enforcement in numerous places and at numerous times. But obviously, it has NOT been eradicated and seems to be thriving in Minneapolis. It MUST be addressed aggressively and done so quickly. The African American community does NOT trust white policemen – and justifiably so.

Added crime in no way can erase the crime of Floyd’s apparent murder. And rioting accomplishes nothing. Those actions only worsen the divide between justice and fairness. They certainly do nothing to stem criminal activity by either side: rioters AND the police. Actions like these playing out daily in Minnesota only make the possibilities of fixing this problem and removing those who insist to perpetually feed the fires of brutality and racism on increase the already near impossibility in which we live today. So what can be done?

Leadership – American leadership representing ALL Americans MUST come to the table, dropping all pretense and anger before sitting down. That’s a tough task to organize! I’m not certain it is even possible. But one thing I DO know: even IF reconciliation is possible, it will never occur around that table with guns drawn both verbally and literally. Violence has never begat peace in any situation. And it will not today.

“If” those in the minority community and those in law enforcement sincerely want to craft and implement a permanent racial peace, having such a summit is an absolute necessity. I’m not saying it will ever work. But no one will know unless honest attempts are made.

You know what? I don’t think those at that table should come from law enforcement nor racial activists, black or white. They need to represent rank-and-file Americans of color and white Americans who already love and daily interact with each other in the same world. Those Americans seem to be the ones most desirous of actual reconciliation and seem to want nothing but real peace. Accomplishing that requires no political or racial agenda.

Can that peace process be brokered? “Can” is possible “IF” enough people believe it is possible and will drop the anger and blame and victim-status to talk to and with each other in honesty and can do that without just talking “AT” each other.

Will that peace process be brokered? I’m not a soothsayer nor a prophet. But I will say honestly for it to happen will require a supernatural miracle. In our history, we’ve had a few of those. We certainly can have another. And we certainly need another.

One more thing MUST be part of an attempt for peace in Minneapolis: white cops nor a former NFL Quarterback need to be part of that conversation. Those people foregoing their political and racial perspectives will be at least part of the necessary miracle for such as an act like this to happen.

Missed in this tragedy of the death of George Floyd and the aftermath in Minneapolis are the feelings of his family members. I want you to watch and listen to the responses of questions from his two cousins. Contrast their words with those of one of the nation’s most recognizable Civil Rights attorneys:

There’s a stark contrast between the countenances and words of these two cousins and this attorney.

That alone is the heretofore insurmountable challenge of racial reconciliation in our nation. That’s going to take a miracle.

A “God” Miracle.

The Story of Archie

May 26, 2020

Racial biases in the criminal justice system have started to decline, according to new research by the bipartisan Council on Criminal Justice, but that is no reason to celebrate. Mostly black and brown faces still fill the country’s jails and prisons, and people of color make up most of the parole and probation rolls. The work is not done until the gap is eliminated and the unfair targeting of people of color has ended.

Still, the strides the report outlined shouldn’t be ignored. The imprisonment rate for black men decreased for all crime categories except public order offenses, such as disorderly conduct and public drunkenness, according to the report, which analyzed data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics spanning 2000 to 2016. African Americans were incarcerated at a rate 8.3 times higher than white people in 2000, and for Hispanic people the rate was 2.6 times higher. By 2016 those ratios dropped to 5.1 to 1 and 1.6 to 1, respectively, according to the study.

While that represents progress, African Americans are still five times more likely to be imprisoned than white people and Hispanics nearly twice as likely, and both imbalances are wholly unacceptable. The culture of locking up people of color, whether because of unconscious biases our outright discrimination, is still alive and well. Just recently, The New York Times reported that police officers said they were told by a commander to go after blacks and Latinos for minor offenses like jumping turnstiles. Leave Asians and whites alone, they were instructed.

If there is a bright spot to the numbers, it’s that they offer encouragement to those who have kept issues like mass incarceration, mandatory minimums, and unfair sentencing in the spotlight. It adds even more credence to the good work of groups like the Innocence Project that have worked, sometimes on shoestring budgets, to free those who have been wrongly convicted based on trumped-up charges, coerced confessions, and bad witness testimony. All of this activism has helped keep up the pressure to end biases by showing the tragic result such disparities in sentencing and imprisonment have. It’s well-documented that people with prison records have a hard time getting jobs and that incarceration breaks up families. We need more resources directed at these issues, and these groups need to keep plowing ahead to keep the biases in law enforcement at the forefront.

Researchers with the Council on Criminal Justice say they will use the data collected to come up with policies that can help further erode the disparities in the system. They concede that outcomes vary by race and type of crime, making it hard to point to a single cause for the disparities. The largest drop in racial disparity occurred for drug offenses, which also correlated with a drop in the disparity of those who were jailed. We need to know more about why those drops occurred and whether similar principles should be applied in other areas.

Researchers also should conduct an analysis by state and region to see if the problem is more pronounced in certain parts of the country. Do factors such as past criminal history impact whether or not someone ends up in jail again? In other words, is the prison pipeline cycle perpetuating itself? Also, how do police departments change a culture in which police officers scrutinize people of color more intensely than white residents? Racial bias, bail reform, and the over-policing of low-income neighborhoods are all areas ripe for reform.

Before we look at Criminal Justice reform, Meet Archie Williams:

Of all the Presidents who a large majority of Americans thought could possibly get a criminal justice reform bill — one of ANY kind passed — Donald Trump would have been the last name mentioned. But he’s the one that did it: The First Step Act.

The First Step Act, which replaced a federal “three strikes” rule that imposed a life sentence for three or more convictions – with a 25-year sentence, is benefiting thousands of incarcerated Black men, according to a new report. More than 1,000 individuals incarcerated in federal prisons were granted sentence reductions in the four months since the First Step Act was signed into law, according to the United States Sentencing Commission (USSC).

Their sentences were reduced by a mean of 73 months or 29.4 percent, as a result of the resentencing provisions allowed under the Act which, in addition to shortening mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenses, applied resentencing to be applied retroactively to individuals convicted of crack cocaine offenses before 2010 – when the federal government reduced disparities between crack and powder cocaine offenses.

Over a quarter of the 1,051 resentencing motions were granted by federal courts in Florida, South Carolina, and Virginia.

Over 91 percent of the individuals whose sentences were shortened were African American and 98 percent were male, the USSC said.

The average age of those granted resentencing motions was 45 – and the average age at the time of the original sentence was 32.

Summary

Is there still racism in America’s criminal justice system? Absolutely. Is it better with The First Step Act? Probably so. I say “Probably,” because there are many who feel it really IS just a first step and that much more needs to be done.

But isn’t there something to be said for getting a start that in just months achieved the startling results that it has? Isn’t it startling that the United States first African American president was unable to get it done and it took the rebel from Queens to muster sufficient votes in the House and Senate so he could sign it into law?

As our story on Saturday said, “Racism has no color.” But there’s no doubt that in criminal justice, the African American community has been profusely disadvantaged in dramatic fashion.

I don’t care if you’re a mother of several black children, or an African American high school football coach or even if you’re a Caucasian billionaire Wall Street banker, you’d be blind if you didn’t see systemic racism that has plagued our nation for years. The First Step Act is just the first step.

No, this is not a call to allow law-breakers to not pay for their crimes. It’s a call for justice for all: nothing more and nothing less. It’s a call for law enforcement agency members and those in robes that pass sentences and every other man, woman and child to recognize there’s no right for minorities and another for whites when it comes to laws. “Equal Justice Under the Law” means just that.

The First Step needs to be just that: the First Step. There are many more steps necessary. Let’s see who will step up to lead the charge for the Second Step.

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Somebody’s In BIG Trouble!

May 14, 2020

Won’t it be wonderful one day when we can pick up a newspaper, go to our favorite news website, listen to our #1 radio talk show or watch nighttime TV news and just believe everything they tell us and give us in print is REALLY true? Do you think that will ever happen? To be honest, I think before that happens the Statue of Liberty will dive into the Hudson and swim up the East River to have lunch in Brooklyn at the River Cafe!

It is really sad that our media presentation has come to this. I am not going to talk about specific examples, who said this or that, who wrote this, who edited this or that story to prefer someone: if I did that, it would take all day. You’d undoubtedly tire — or you’d just turn me off. 

Say, maybe that’s something we might want to consider ourselves: turn THEM off. Would your world actually end if you tried that? I have before and I’m thinking about doing it again.

Yeah, I know: I’m the publisher of TruthNewsNetwork. I can’t just turn off the news. How else could I bring you all the things we share with you daily. But that doesn’t mean I cannot resent the fact that neither you nor I have any confidence that what we see, read, watch or listen to is news. And that is sad.

Take for example, what is burning up the news coverage yesterday and will be again today: the unmasking of Lt. General Michael Flynn by members of the Obama Administration. I don’t remember an instance before in which such a travesty against a private American citizen was implemented for whatever reason (we still don’t know) by members of a presidential administration. To say this occurrence being discovered and confirmed is one thing. But to read the details of the requests for the unmasking of Flynn’s name is mindboggling. To make matters worse, the Left has been frothing at the mouth all day yesterday, demanding that Americans just “let it go.” If I heard these two things once, I’ve heard them one hundred times. Their excuse for the Flynn unmasking is two-fold: “The unmasking of Americans’ names who were conversing with foreign nationals is commonplace. It happens all the time.” But this one takes the cake: “Michael Flynn pled guilty to lying to federal officials. He pled guilty!” As if his extorted guilty plea justifies the Flynn unmasking before the meeting even took place at which he committed the act for which he was charged.

The insanity of the unmasking is one thing. What is even more unthinkable is who requested and received Flynn’s name from the NSA. Let’s take a look so you can know what we’re talking about:

I hope you can read these names. (I know, the list is tough to read. If you cannot on your device, wait until you can get to your computer.) For the sake of the point of today’s story, let’s discuss just a few:

U.S. Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power  She requested the unmasking of Flynn’s identity regarding phone calls from the dates 11/3/2016 through 1/17/2017. In the first place, what business does a U.S. ambassador to the United Nations have knowing to whom the incoming National Security Advisor is speaking regarding matters between the incoming President and leaders of foreign nations? She’s not the ambassador to Britain, or France, or Russia, or China. The answer: she had NO business and no authority to do so. Note: each of her calls happened after the election when Obama was on his way out of the White House.

Director for National Intelligence James Clapper It comes as no surprise that Clapper would be desperate to know to whom Flynn was speaking and about what. After all, he like these others were probably headed for the exit. His unmasking requests were also on dates between the election and the inauguration. Do you think there may have been some CYA?

Director of the CIA John Brennan Mr. Brennan has made it no secret that he despises this president. Of all those shown above, he was the likely candidate for this to me. He has been caught in committing felonies by lying under oath numerous times when acting in his official capacity. It is expected by many that he will certainly be revealed as the target of an indictment from the Durham criminal investigation that is reportedly wrapping up.

Director of the FBI James Comey Remember, Flynn served as Director of the ODNI under Obama with Comey has FBI Director. Knowing what we now know about Comey, do you think those two may have had a run-in of some kind during their overlapping years in the Obama Administration? Comey, too, will probably see the inside of a courtroom with his compadre Brennan when results of the Durham investigation are final.

Former Vice President Joe Biden Is there any reason for an explanation for Biden’s requests? What in the world did HE need to know about Michael Flynn’s phone calls? Biden was leaving office!

The important things to note here are these:

  • Notice the date of each request. Each happened after the 2016 election and before the inauguration.
  • None of those mentioned above had any reason to request the unmasking of Flynn, even though 16 were authorized to do so. Why? None of them were going to make the transition to the new administration!

There’s one other salient point: the purpose given by every liberal and interpreted by every leftist media reporter for the unmasking was “because of the illegal collusion taking place by Trump’s incoming National Security Advisor and Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak. But, do you know what’s curious about all of this? The first contact Flynn had with Kislyak was December 29. Every one of this unmasking requests came days and weeks before the call ever took place!

So why would there be this many people who can get personal information about American citizens? Former FBI Director James Comey in testimony before the House explained why. Listen to what he says and do everything you can not to throw up:

Summary

Just how high in the Obama Administration did this all go? We know, based on the classified documents released last week, that Mr. Obama told acting Attorney General Sally Yates in that Oval Office meeting on January 5, 2017, that he “knew all about the stuff going on regarding Michael Flynn.” Biden, Clapper, and Brennan were in that Oval Office meeting as well.

But what was the universal concern by so many in the Obama Administration to find out during the transition to the Trump Administration details of conversations Flynn was having with foreign leaders? Could it be that there is or are things they do not want the American people to know about? Do they have anything to hide? Could the President have done something for which people throughout the top tier of his Administration would join forces with other Obama adherents to seek out information to try and keep Lt. General Flynn from sharing it with the incoming President?

Did you know, Obama was obligated to share known details with Trump of the specifics of any wrongdoing by Flynn while acting in the Obama Administration as Director of the National Intelligence office? And he didn’t!

How are Americans supposed to reconcile all this? Indeed it will not happen because of the demands of the Leftist media who all day Wednesday screamed at their media counterparts that “everybody does it!” It was SO obvious that they were desperate to assure their party’s base that even though it looked terrible, absolutely nothing went wrong in this case.

Do you know what the only thing that matters in hindsight is? Someone from that list of Americans — the only ones who knew that Flynn was speaking to foreign government leaders, specifically Kislyak — were those on that list. One of them is the person who leaked to the Washington Post and the New York Times the entire Flynn story, concentrating, of course, on the “Russia connection.” Whoever is the guilty party committed felony acts in giving that classified information to those newspapers. Whichever one of those did the dirty deed faces up to ten years in jail for doing so.

Today, Thursday is another day. Wouldn’t it be nice to just walk with the dog to pick up your newspaper, head to your back porch with a steaming cup of coffee and read the news without feeling the need to question everything you read?

Do you think we’ll ever see that again? I sure hope so.

And to whoever was the guilty person to make those two phone calls, get ready: in this situation with so many spotlights shining brightly into it, you certainly will have lots of time to read the newspaper — probably yesterday’s edition — sitting in your cell still thinking about a steaming cup of hot coffee.

They’re not going to bring you one!

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Equal Justice Under the Law: Two Sets That are NOT Equal

February 21, 2020

This story comes as a direct result of the story and podcast published yesterday, February 20, 2020, that was centered around the bold actions of three U.S. Senators along with former Secretary of State John Kerry. Those three plus Kerry took it upon themselves to go to a meeting in Europe to meet privately with the Foreign Minister of Iran to discuss matters in regards to relations between Iran and the United States.

That seems benign on its face. After all, Sen. Menendez (D-NJ), Sen. Van Hollen (D-DE) and Sen. Murphy (D-CT) currently serve in the “senior” chamber of Congress, the U.S. Senate. And Congress has oversight of the Executive Branch of government, which includes foreign relations.

We introduced our partners to the Logan Act — a law passed by Congress to protect the U.S. from politicians and others who decide on their own to interact with officials of other countries on governmental matters between the U.S. and those countries. Congress felt people in doing so would make a dangerous impact on U.S. foreign policy matters with those countries and could be egregiously damaged by those other than government officials who are expressly authorized to conduct such meetings. 

Not only did these three Senators and Kerry make this trip and meet with Iran’s foreign minister without permission of the State Department, but they also did so without the knowledge of anyone in the Administration.

In a FOX News interview, Kerry responded to charges of his violation of the Logan Act by first laughing and then saying, “I haven’t violated any law. I never negotiated with ANYONE.”

The Logan Act never lists “negotiating” as a violation of the law. It states that meeting with those foreign leaders “regarding matters having to do with anything between the U.S. and that other country” is a violation.

When our TNN partners were told of those actions in light of the Logan Act, over 100,000 expressed their anger and dismay! Email after email expressed horror and disgust for Van Hollen, Murphy, Menendez doing so. And there was almost hatred from many for John Kerry’s involvement. He’s not even in the government!

Those emails each very clearly stated that this is happening because there is no fear of prosecution for those crimes. Why is that? Americans feel there is a two-tiered Justice System in the U.S. today: one for regular Americans and one for the political elite that contains separate rules, regulations, and laws that apply only to those elites. And, obviously, those elites are held to a much easier and forgiving justice than are we.

Equal Justice Under the Law: Really!

The U.S. is comprised mostly of lawful, red-blooded Americans who love the red, white, and blue, often get choked up singing the “Star Bangled Banner,” and get a tear in their eye when hearing taps played while the caskets of soldiers are taken off a plane returning home after dying for their nation overseas.

Most Americans are proud to be Americans. And most Americans feel blessed to live in the greatest country on the planet. Most Americans feel one of the reasons for this country’s greatness is the structure of and fairness in the American Justice System. It guarantees us all “Equal Justice under the Law.” Laws are laws, and lawbreakers are considered innocent unless and until they are adjudicated to be guilty by a jury of their peers in a courtroom.

Those are the characteristics of our country that, for a couple of centuries, we just assumed are in place and always will be to protect us all. But that assurance is wavering.

Many Americans see things play out that dispute that eternal guarantee of equal justice. What fuels those disputes is illustrated best by what many have concluded is corruption in our government. Nowhere else is that corruption better represented than a justice system that appears to no longer be a system of justice that is fair and equal for all.

Two sets of rules under the law are called “duplicity:” contradictory doubleness of thought, speech, or action. Federal laws are written and presented to be implemented equally for everyone. Their enforcement sadly is no longer equal.

Equal Justice?

♦♦ In 2018, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz issued a criminal referral to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C. related to fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.

Horowitz issued a scathing report of McCabe’s conduct at the FBI, alleging that he authorized a leak to the media to “advance his personal interests” and then misled internal investigators and fired FBI Director James Comey about the matter.

Lying to federal investigators is a federal crime, and the report was seen by some analysts as a roadmap for federal charges against McCabe. Surely McCabe would be prosecuted. However, in February of 2020, almost two years later, the Department of Justice gave notice they will NOT prosecute McCabe for the criminal wrongdoing revealed in Inspector Horowitz’s referral.

♦♦ Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was charged with lying to FBI agents on January 24, 2017. The substance of Flynn’s statements made to FBI agents: he denied asking a Russian Ambassador to come to the United States and denied asking that Ambassador to request Russia to delay making their vote in the U.N. Security Council on a specific issue. Flynn plead guilty on both charges as part of a plea deal. However, Flynn’s lawyer has stated Flynn is asking to withdraw his guilty plea. The resolution is pending.

♦♦ Trump Associate Roger Stone was charged with seven counts. The seven counts against Stone include one count of obstruction of an official proceeding, five counts of false statements — including lying to Congress — and one count of witness tampering in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election. Stone was sentenced to 34 months in jail. A decision on a possible new trial is pending.

♦♦ George Papadopoulos, a Trump campaign adviser, was charged and subsequently plead guilty to lying to the FBI as part of the Mueller investigation into Trump campaign wrongdoing. Papadopoulos plead guilty and served six weeks in jail.

There were others who were charged, several of which have plead to charges against them. However, none but those above were charged with anything that involved Donald Trump or his campaign. Paul Manaforte and his associate Rick Gates were charged and convicted for a host of actions taken before the Trump Campaign even began and involved nothing to do with the election or Mr. Trump.

Americans expect those — ALL those — who break the laws of the U.S. should face prosecution for their illegal actions. (That includes those who enter the nation illegally as illegal immigrants.) Those same Americans are aghast that any of those who break laws are allowed to skate with no accountability and are never charged for their crimes.

The reality of a “Deep State” with extremely intrusive political power is confirmed over and over as many politically connected Americans actually commit illegal actions for which they are never prosecuted. Each is an example of a two-tiered justice system: one that’s good for politically connected people and a second-tier applicable only for the rest of Americans — those who are NOT connected to VIP’s.

The actions of the Robert Mueller team proved that system exists. Recent actions confirm its existence but confirm that this “New” justice system is deeper and far wider than was first thought.

DOJ “Anti-Trump” Operatives Who Colluded to “Dump Trump”

Who will ever forget these:

  • Former FBI Director James Comey
  • DNI Director James Clapper
  • CIA Director John Brennan
  • Bruce and Nelli Ohr
  • Lisa Page
  • Peter Strozk
  • Susan Rice
  • The Impeachment Whistleblower
  • Christopher Steele
  • Glen Simpson
  • Hillary Clinton
  • Uma Abedin

Each of these worked in the Department of Justice, FBI, the White House or were involved directly with the Clinton Campaign during the 2016 election cycle regarding how to make certain Donald Trump did NOT win. Each of these have been implicated with “reasonable” evidence of illegal activity far more serious than was the basis used to take-down Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, and George Papadopoulos. Don’t forget: Inspector General Horowitz in his criminal referral to the DOJ of Andrew McCabe included a significant basis for McCabe’s prosecution.

The anger from Americans for all of the above is headed toward all-out rage. This comes exclusively because there is no explanation offered by the DOJ or any other agency for none of these — NONE — being prosecuted when their crimes are front-and-center in the faces of all Americans!

Summary

We’ve tried to be generous to the government regarding no legal actions being taken against those committing these unforgivable acts that often have been illegal. We’ve searched for plausible explanations for the prosecutorial inactions. But, honestly, we keep coming up empty. There’s no believable reason we can find for the lack of equal justice for these wrongdoers as compared to Flynn, Papadopoulos, Stone and even several others.

What’s believable? The only explanation I can find is this:

If you’re a working-class American with no political ties but just do your best in your town or city to raise a family, you’re NOT eligible to receive the same justice as are POLITICOS.

If you’re a federal politician with close ties to career workers at the DOJ, FBI, and intelligence agencies, there’s a good chance you can find a way to obtain a free pass that will exclude you from that “other” justice.

When the dirt began to be released about career bureaucrats who joined together to keep Donald Trump from office and then to remove him, Americans were told by political leaders, “Most of the rank and file workers at the Department of Justice and the FBI are good people who love the Country and authentic justice. The few whose political hatred and animus we’ve seen uncovered are in the minority, and there’s only a handful of them.”

Americans no longer believe that.

I still have the conviction that the DOJ is probably in the midst of ongoing investigations into these and others. We know those have been and are still underway at the hands of Federal Prosecutor John Durham of Connecticut. And Durham announced when they turned from “inquiries” to “criminal investigations.”

Americans don’t have much confidence that anything will come of this. So far, not one of the “black hat” guys has been brought to justice. McCabe is an example of that. Hillary, Comey, Obama, and a host of former Obama Administration members still hold their breaths, praying they’ll too get a pass as did McCabe. The “white hat” guys have all either been busted, run out of town or the country, or are hiding hoping to not show up in someone’s bullseye.

Is that the America in which we want to live? Do we not want and expect everyone to receive justice based on the same criteria as that for those in government and politics? Americans simply want “Equal Justice under the Law“– no special favors, no tricks by law enforcement officers, and simple truth.

We learned long ago that among the American public, “perception is reality.” Today’s American perception of the Justice System is that it has branched into two branches. Until that is disproven through actual examples that are rolled out in the public consistently, distrust for fairness under our justice system exists and will sadly continue to grow.

Americans are not supposed to feel that way. If your name is Kerry, Comey, Clinton, McCabe, Smith or Jones, Lady Justice shown above promised us all she’d be blind.

She’s peeking pretty regularly right now.

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A Lawless President That Ignores “The Rule of Law”

February 13, 2020

Many Americans are shocked to see a president that thumbs his nose at the Judicial branch of our government and just began making laws and executive decisions on his own when court findings disagree with what he thought should happen in a case. The outcry by Americans has only just begun.

Remember the Presidential oath of office: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

That oath is succinct regarding the requirement for every president to defend the Constitution “to the best of his or her ability.” What’s the purpose of the Constitution? To forever be the legal template for all of the nation to use in crafting and implementing all federal legislation passed and signed into law. No person, either American or foreign, has a right to under any conditions refuse to abide by duly enacted laws. And each must be held accountable for breaking any of these laws. Remember: “No man is above the law.” That includes U.S. Presidents.

So why does Executive Branch lawbreaking happen?

You may have reached the conclusion that this story is NOT about Donald Trump — it’s about former President Barack Obama. It’s amazing how many instances of wrongdoing on the part of the President were given a benign approval by millions in America — including those in Congress and even from the Department of Justice.

I know: there are those that will make tag these comments and this story as one of racist rhetoric by a racist Southerner. Nothing could be further from the truth. As is normal at TruthNewsNetwork, we bring you conclusions based on facts. And you are always provided the facts on which conclusions are made.

How did I feel personally about Mr. Obama? I did not vote for him in 2008 or 2012. My vote never had any tie to his skin color: I didn’t agree with his policies and thought in both elections those supported by his opponents were better for the American people than were his. So I voted based solely on my thoughts driven by his political standings on issues. And I supported him while in office and hoped desperately he would succeed in making things better in our nation.

I heard that philosophy best explained this way:

When I board a commercial jet, I may not like the pilot or co-pilot. I may not like the way the pilot talks just before takeoff on the PA to the passengers. But all that matters is that he IS the pilot for my flight. I would never wish failure for him. I want him to succeed. He succeeds when he successfully lands that plane at my destination. After all, if he doesn’t succeed, it’s not going to be too good for me!

That illustrates my feelings for every president that has served during my lifetime and every member of Congress, my state government, parish (county) and city as well.

All that being said, it troubled me constantly during the Obama eight years to face his obvious disdain for U.S. law. And in many cases, he specifically usurped laws passed by Congress and signed into law by previous presidents in favor of his OWN thoughts and ideas about legal matters.

We today have been bombarded by a Press and by members of Congress who are screaming at the sky about Attorney General William Barr’s position to “readdress” the sentencing of Roger Stone for his illegalities which apparently will imprison him for nine years. Democrats are crying for the head of Attorney General Barr AND, once again, that of President Trump.

Let’s today put that in context. Let’s compare these actions by this Attorney General and President to those of President Obama and his Attorneys General Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch. While doing so, think back to the ways the Media and Democrats acted in the aftermath of each of these things.

“In Your Face”

Black Panthers A federal court in Washington, D.C., held that political appointees appointed by President Obama did interfere with the Department of Justice’s prosecution of the New Black Panther Party. The New Black Panthers case stems from a Election Day 2008 incident where two members of the New Black Panther Party were filmed outside a polling place intimidating voters and poll watchers by brandishing a billy club. Justice Department lawyers investigated the case, filed charges, and when the Panthers failed to respond, a federal court in Philadelphia entered a “default” against all the Panthers defendants. But after Obama was sworn in, the Justice Department reversed course, dismissed charges against three of the defendants, and let the fourth off with a narrowly tailored restraining order.

Fast and Furious  Operation Fast and Furious was an Obama program in which the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) helped put heavy weapons into the hands of murderous drug cartels in Mexico. The whole scandal exploded when a federal agent was murdered with a Fast and Furious gun. As the story threatened to bring down key Obama officials, the spin was put out that it was all part of a supposed “investigation” into “drug cartels.” However, massive amounts of evidence emerged in the subsequent months and years, suggesting that it was actually a criminal operation to blame the Second Amendment for violence, with the supposed targets of the alleged “investigation” already on the FBI payroll. Indeed, top lawmakers and gun-rights activists have said the operation was intended to be exploited by Obama to push gun-control.  It blew up in the administration’s face when federal agents blew the whistle.

Congress, in its investigation, subpoenaed the DOJ for records that detailed that operation. AG Eric Holder himself was involved in withholding thousands of key documents. Holder requested President Obama to exert executive privilege to allow the DOJ to withhold those documents. Obama did so. However, Congress found Holder in Contempt of Congress and referred his doing so to the Washington D.C. federal attorney’s office for prosecution. That federal attorney — an Obama appointee — refused to take up the matter for investigation and prosecution of the Contempt charge. It, therefore, was never brought to the Court for adjudication.

Let’s just make a quick list of some of the other top examples:

  • Attempted to shut down gun stores outside of the law
  • Spent tax dollars to illegally re-settle illegals inside the U.S.
  • Illegally targeted conservative groups via IRS
  • Secretly obtained phone records from Associated Press journalists
  • Carried out military interventionism in Libya without Congressional approval
  • Conducted the unconstitutional, indefinite detention of U.S. citizens without filing any charges
  • Undertook illegal, warrantless wiretapping
  • Ordered Boeing — a private company — to fire 1,000 employees
  • Stole money from retired teachers and police officers during Chrysler bankruptcy
  • Auctioned off ambassadorship to the Netherlands
  • Took money from retired Delphi employees by canceling their pensions unilaterally
  • Illegally gave Obamacare exemptions to unions that supported the passage of Obamacare
  • Authorized installation of hidden cameras on private property without a search warrant
  • Accepted illegal campaign contributions from foreign citizens

“Not only did I not get indicted, nobody in my administration got indicted.” That’s how Mr. Obama justified his continual law-breaking and the authorization of members of the Eric Holder and then Loretta Lynch Department of Justice to skirt the law. The Obama Administration, under his leadership, will likely be labeled by historians as “one of, if not THE, most corrupt administrations in U.S. history.” Americans don’t hear much about that. Instead, here’s what we hear today:

Trump friend Roger Stone caught-up in the Mueller Investigation was convicted of seven felonies in his federal trial. Oddly enough, not a single charge nor conviction had anything to do with President Trump, his campaign, or even the Mueller investigation “original” purpose: “to prove Trump et al. colluded with Russians to impact the 2016 election for the benefit of Candidate Trump.” NO American was ever charged with anything to do with Donald Trump or Russian collusion. Stone, Paul Manaforte, and Michael Cohen and General Michael Flynn were charged with “process crimes;” that is, crimes regarding their testimony in which they allegedly (and were subsequently convicted of or plead to) told lies or interfered with the Mueller investigation. Mueller prosecutors wanted Stone to be sentenced to nine years + for his crimes.

The uproar from Democrats is deafening in the wake of Attorney General William Barr’s move to “reassess” the Stone sentence. Barr, as AG, can do that. And Democrats want his head.

Naturally, the Democrats and their media minions have gone nuts about Barr’s pending actions regarding the Stone sentencing. There are cries from the Left for Barr’s resignation for his testimony before House and Senate committees to be questioned for his reasonings for intervention in Stone’s sentence.

But what is the uproar all about: Donald Trump!

Facts are facts: Federal minimums for non-violent offenders are typically not anywhere near the nine years with which Stone is facing. Manslaughter with a weapon — one year; Burglary with a firearm — one year; Sexual assault with a gun — two years; Assault with a firearm — one year; Carjacking — three years.

Stone’s seven crimes? All had to do with “misrepresenting facts, lying to Congress, lying to Prosecutors, etc. None were serious crimes and none were violent nor involved another person. Remember this: General Michael Flynn was goaded into pleading guilty for lying to FBI investigators during an “unofficial” visit by FBI agents. It was an illegal interrogation of Flynn. He was NOT notified what was their purpose. He was therefore not informed he might need an attorney present. Then when it became apparent what they had was flimsy at best, they blackmailed a confession from Flynn, telling him if he did NOT agree, they would charge his son for not registering as a lobbyist for a foreign country.

Summary

Attorneys General Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch during the Obama Administration flaunted their disrespect for and constant ignoring of federal law, including those broken by their boss in the White House! Where were the Democrats in Congress when that occurred? We heard nothing. There was NO outcry about Obama’s wrongdoing and his often illegal actions. These examples showed there was a two-tiered justice system in America: one for Democrats and their cronies and one for everyone else.

I won’t even bring race into this conversation. But it appears that President Obama seemed to be acting on some racial “get-even” cause by arbitrarily determining which laws could be broken and by whom. And much of those instances listed above and dozens of others “seem” to have racial overtones.

No one can reasonably state there was no racial injustice in America. No one can reasonably assert that African-Americans were and are today not held to a different standard of liability by law enforcement officials. To what measure was the racial injustice then and today is sadly totally subjective. And that allows the cries for retribution for past sins to be forced on Americans today over and over.

If that played any role in any of the actions described here today by President Obama and members of his Department of Justice, it’s a sad revelation of the spite and disrespect Mr. Obama and his administration members had for the Constitution and the rule of law. Any attempt to determine the “why” for those actions would result in only subjective answers: there is no way to reach an inevitable conclusion.

What is the truth in all this? The Stone sentencing, when viewed in the light of the federal criminal sentencing guidelines, is a sign of unfairness and partisan attacks. Can you imagine how Democrats would feel if this happened under President Obama regarding a friend of his today? Democrats in Congress and elsewhere would be screaming through their media outlets for that Attorney General’s head!

Instead, Democrats, today are in a fashion saying to us all: “Ignore the federal minimum sentencing guidelines. Ignore sentencing precedents. Ignore the nature of the proven charges for which Mr. Stone was convicted. Thow the book at him!”

But they’re going even more in-depth with their cries for the heads of Barr and Trump: they are once again showing the nation they will do anything — anything at all — to remove Donald Trump and every official elected or appointed during the Trump presidency.

“Forget about Americans; forget about the election process including the one just months ahead. We’ll inject our opinions into the process while removing those of American voters.”

To me, that sounds like Anarchy!

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The Federal Government Breaking the Law

July 24, 2019

It happens every day: someone in federal government arbitrarily assumes the responsibility and authority to ignore lawbreaking of every kind. Whether that lawbreaking is the selling or using marijuana, (which doing so is a federal offense) crossing American borders without legal authority, passing along classified government information and/or documents to a media organization, or using open source or unsecured computer or other electronic devices for the dissemination of classified information, each is a violation of a federal law. Apparently, these acts and others are committed daily across the U.S. Yet more often than not, these criminal acts are ignored by authorities.

What has happened to the enforcement of Law in the United States? Aren’t we a nation established on the premise that the United States Constitution was and is a template on which government was established and to function — especially regarding the enforcement of ALL laws passed according to the Constitutional process for doing so? Isn’t that process called “The Rule of Law?”

Rule of Law

In its simplest form, the “Rule of Law” means that “no one is above the law.” It is the foundation for the development of peaceful, equitable and prosperous societies. For the rule of law to be effective, there must be equality under the law, transparency of law, an independent judiciary and access to legal remedy. Yet, about 57% of the world’s population lives outside the shelter of the law. That’s five billion people struggling for basic, human rights on a daily basis.

American citizens and all those who come into our country have access to that “Rule of Law,” even those who cross into the United States illegally. That’s something of a paradox, but it’s true: once here every person Constitutionally is granted certain rights and must adhere to U.S. law.

The rule of law is a critical key to a just society and democracy. It dictates that laws of the land be transparent, known to everyone and applicable to all. No one, regardless of title, position or wealth can be held above the law and government decisions must be predictable because they follow known legal principles and encoded rules known as “laws.”

For most of the 19th century, America was far ahead of the rest of the world in its consistent and thorough efforts to adhere to the rule of law and strive toward equal opportunity for its citizens regardless of class, wealth or title. While politicians and individuals acting in self-interest have frequently violated this key principle (seems to be human nature for some), historically the courts were able to correct back to founding principles. If applying the law of the land results in an amazingly unfair or unjust outcome in a particular set of facts, courts are able to restore balance and respect for the rule of law through the principles of equity.

The “Rub” for Most Americans

What’s the complaint from average Americans about the Law? It’s not enforced equally or it’s not enforced at all!

How many specific instances can you name where lawbreakers — primarily at the federal level — are caught “in the act” but pay NO penalty for their crimes? Can you name a few?

  1. James Comey: fired FBI Director. He transferred classified documents to a member of the media for the express purpose of releasing that information to the public — a felony violation of a federal statute. Comey also lied under oath to Congress which is also a criminal violation.
  2. Hillary Clinton: Ms. Clinton broke multiple laws surrounding her use of a private email server while serving as Secretary of State. First, that server was never tested nor certified by State Department IT personnel to operate for the purpose of sending and receiving emails containing classified information. Subsequent to the FBI’s investigation, Clinton sent numerous emails from that server that the FBI concluded were intercepted and forwarded to a foreign server belonging to an unknown person or persons — all illegal. Her illegal acts did not end there. She or others with her directions destroyed cell phones and other electronic devices that had been used for government business instead of turning those over to authorities.
  3. President Obama: while President, Obama communicated via emails with then-Secretary of State Clinton while knowing he was doing so via her illegal and unauthorized server. The President used a made-up Gmail email account he opened with no one knowing about. All communications of any kind by or with a U.S. President are by law considered “classified.” His doing so violated several federal statutes.
  4. Former NSA Adviser Susan Rice: Ms. Rice using her position in the White House authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to release the names of Trump Associates who were caughtup in communications with foreigners. The NSA legally keeps the names of Americans classified in such circumstances. Rice was discovered giving those names to others. She is the one who (through surveilled telephone conversations) released information regarding General Michael Flynn.

When Americans see and hear the obvious illegal acts committed by those in the highest echelons of U.S. government, it is at least disheartening to know (as an example) ALL four of the above politicians that includes a U.S. president are apparently above the Rule of Law!

A member of the U.S. Navy, Kristian Saucier, 28, of Arlington, Vermont, was convicted of taking photos of classified spaces, instruments and equipment inside the U.S.S. Alexandria, where he was stationed. He sent the photos to show friends where he worked. Those photos were classified. Based on THAT prosecution and his one criminal act, Comey, Clinton, Obama, and Susan Rice should ALL certainly be in prison after being tried and then certain conviction of breaking multiple very serious federal charge and all in federal prison! They would then be receiving (along with Saucier) “Equal Justice Under the Law.”
So why doesn’t this happen? Why are powerful political elites in America give preferential treatment?
  • How does a former U.S. Senator, then Secretary of State and a candidate for President skate by with thumbing her nose at the Rule of Law and accountability for her illegal acts?
  • How does an FBI Director release classified information to the Media and not even be charged for federal law violations?
  • How does a National Security Adviser unilaterally and illegally unmask the name of an American general for the express purpose of digging up dirt on a political candidate?
  • How does a sitting President of the United States over a period of years transfer and receive classified information to his Secretary of State on a non-classified and non-secured email server that transferred every one of his emails to some unknown entity in an unknown foreign country?

How did each do it? In each case there has been NO ACCOUNTABILITY for their acts.

In this short video, notice the fake outrage and demonization by James Comey of Donald Trump, all the while knowing Comey himself had and was breaking numerous laws:

The Rule of Law, Not a Rule of Lawyers

The rule of written law is one of the six pillars of the American republic.

  • One is democracy: We involve the greatest number of people in making government decisions, rather than trust in an elite of “experts.”
  • The second is free markets: We involve the greatest number of people in making economic decisions, rather than trust in central planners.
  • The third is federalism: We put government decisions closer to the people in order to involve a more diverse set of decision-makers who can experiment with different paths for different communities’ needs.
  • The fourth is tradition: We invoke the wisdom of the larger sample of multiple generations by trial and error on matters of common human experience rather than rely on the more limited number of people alive at a particular time.
  • The fifth, which ties together democracy, federalism, and tradition, is deliberation: We have a republic, not a pure democracy, so that government decisions are not the process of hasty panics but are openly debated and resolved with support that is deep, geographically wide, and enduring over a series of elections, so that continuing to enforce today’s laws tomorrow has legitimacy.
  • And sixth, without which the other five are powerless, we have the stable rule of written law so that the democratically enacted decisions reduced to written law by the representatives of the people with due deliberation are honored until overturned by the same process and not easily discarded by a narrow professional elite.

This is not the system designed by Washington, or Jefferson, or Adams, or Hamilton, or Madison, or Franklin, or any of the other Founding Fathers; it’s the system designed by deliberate compromises among all of them, ratified by the people of their day, and changed repeatedly since by the people of the U.S. when the need for changes became apparent. Taken all together, the American system is designed to follow a path down the middle between the self-absorbed elites in Washington and the self-interests of a sometimes dis-enfranchised group of middle-Americans who occasionally act as a populist mob. It is also designed to steer a middle path between the “ancient” rule of the past and the fickle moods of today. The people remain sovereign and can change any law they like — if they act in large enough numbers over a broad enough area across a sustained period of time.

The PEOPLE as represented by the 535 representatives sent to represent each community, district and state have the Constitutional right to change the law in the manner dictated by the U.S. Constitution. But NO ONE has the right to ignore or unilaterally change enforcement of any duly passed law — PERIOD. Least of all are the members of Government.

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Pedophilia Front and Center

July 9, 2019

Enter Stage Left: Jeffrey Epstein. You probably heard his name during the last decade or so. But you never heard “all about” Jeffrey Epstein. He’s in the news now. And Epstein news is just beginning its ramping up. Get ready folks: Jeffrey Epstein is about to begin the daisy-chain of the revelation of dozens and dozens of famous Americans in sex trafficking incidents of which he was a part of and/or instigator! That’s right: “SEX TRAFFICKING.”

An indictment alleging sex trafficking and sex trafficking conspiracy was unsealed Monday morning (July 8) against billionaire financier and registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein who made his first appearance in a New York City federal court late that same day.

Prosecutors allege Epstein, the 66-year-old wealthy hedge fund manager arrested on Saturday (June 6), preyed on “dozens” of victims as young as 14.

“The victims described herein were as young as 14 years old at the time they were abused…and were, for various reasons, often particularly vulnerable to exploitation,” prosecutors wrote in court documents. “Epstein intentionally sought out minors and knew that many of his victims were in fact under the age of 18.”

Immediately following the arrest of Epstein for sex trafficking, Christine Pelosi, a Democratic National Committee official and daughter of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, warned conspicuously that it is “quite likely that some of our faves are implicated” in the “horrific” sex-trafficking case against politically connected financier Jeffrey Epstein.

“This Epstein case is horrific and the young women deserve justice,” Pelosi tweeted. “It is quite likely that some of our faves are implicated but we must follow the facts and let the chips fall where they may – whether on Republicans or Democrats.”

Pelosi’s tweet is ominous. First, she is NOT media high profile — at least compared to her mother. Many (including TruthNewsNetwork) feel her tweet is a message to all those she termed their “faves” (who must be high-profile politicos and probably some titans of industry, finance, and entertainment) that the clock is ticking quite a bit faster now toward their exposure for the past sexual misdeeds of many.

Apparently all this has been for years commonplace in Washington. Word is that some if not many of the members of Congress who mysteriously “retired” before the 2018 midterms or who decided to simply not run for re-election for “personal reasons” and did so with little if any explanation may be on the Epstein “revelation list.”

You can bet Epstein has no intention of going down without taking others with him. If he and his attorneys sincerely believe that the Feds have the goods on him, the magnitude of the charges against him so far (with apparently more to come) would send him to jail for the rest of his life. Yep: it’s that serious. Epstein will certainly bargain with the names of visitors to his mansions and Caribbean island.

As hard as it is to envision, there will be more noise in the media in the coming days than you have EVER seen and heard before — even from Watergate, the 2 Iraq wars, and Vietnam. But here’s something that may shock you: it is doubtful that you’ll see and hear much of this in the “anti-Trump media,” at least at first. As sealed indictment after sealed indictment are released and made public, conservative media outlets will trumpet details of those to the World. Traditional media will be forced to reluctantly give-in and cover the Epstein story.

TNN is all over it, has been all over the sex trafficking going on in our country, and will bring you every tidbit as revealed and confirmed. Remember this: when we bring you something, you will KNOW it’s factual and factually confirmed. We do NOT bring gossip and innuendo to you. That means you may see and hear some thing from other media sources that you do NOT see and hear at TNN — at first. That will be only because we have not been able to yet confirm them. After all, none want another CNN, MSNBC, Washington Post, New York Times, or Huffington Post. As we get truth, so will you.

We’ll get right to it. Let’s go back to the details of Jeffrey Epstein from 14 years ago when the billionaire hedge fund guru faced the business for the first time for messing around with kids.

Jeffrey Epstein: Sexual assault history

Epstein allegedly created and maintained a network and operation from 2002 “up to and including” at least 2005 that enabled him to “sexually exploit and abuse dozens of underage girls” in addition to paying victims to recruit other underage girls.

In 2005, the world was introduced to the reclusive billionaire who was a friend to princes and an American president, a power broker with the darkest of secrets: He was also a pedophile, accused of recruiting dozens of underage girls into a sex-slave network, buying their silence and moving along, although he has been convicted of only one count of soliciting prostitution from a minor. Visitors to his private Caribbean island, known as “Orgy Island,” have included Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew and Stephen Hawking.

According to a 2011 court filing by alleged Epstein victim Virginia Roberts Giuffre, she saw Clinton and Prince Andrew on the island but never saw the former president do anything improper. Giuffre has accused Prince Andrew of having sex with her when she was a minor, a charge Buckingham Palace denies.

Epstein has spent the bulk of his adult life cultivating relationships with the world’s most powerful men. Flight logs show that from 2001 to 2003, Bill Clinton flew on Epstein’s private plane, dubbed “The Lolita Express” by the press, 26 times. After Epstein’s arrest in July 2006, federal tax records show Epstein donated $25,000 to the Clinton Foundation that year.

Epstein was also a regular visitor to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, and the two were friends. According to the Daily Mail, Trump was a frequent dinner guest at Epstein’s home, which was often full of barely dressed models. In 2003, New York magazine reported that Trump also attended a dinner party at Epstein’s honoring Bill Clinton.

(Trump supporters: don’t get excited. Trump NEVER went to Epstein’s island, was on Epstein’s jet one time only, flying from south Florida to New York with Epstein’s son. Additionally, Trump years ago severed all ties with Epstein. Mr. Trump discovered Epstein had made aggressive overtures to a Trump employee’s underage daughter at Mar-a-Lago. Trump banned Epstein from his resort for life. Further, in the 2006 investigation of Epstein, Trump cooperated with testimony to federal authorities who stated then that Trump had no involvement in anyway and was just testifying about what happened with Epstein.)

Last year, The Guardian reported that Epstein’s “little black book” contained contact numbers for A-listers including Tony Blair, Naomi Campbell, Dustin Hoffman, Michael Bloomberg and Richard Branson.

In a 2006 court filing, Palm Beach police noted that a search of Epstein’s home uncovered two hidden cameras. The Mirror reported that in 2015, a 6-year-old civil lawsuit filed by “Jane Doe No. 3,” believed to be the now-married Giuffre, alleged that Epstein wired his mansion with hidden cameras, secretly recording orgies involving his prominent friends and underage girls. The ultimate purpose: blackmail, according to court papers.

“Jane Doe No. 3” also alleged that she had been forced to have sex with “numerous prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, a well-known prime minister, and other world leaders.”

“We uncovered a lot of details about the police investigation and a lot about the girls, what happened to them, the effect on their lives,” Patterson says.

Prosecutors also allege Epstein “worked and conspired with others, including employees and associates” who helped facilitate his conduct by contacting victims and scheduling their sexual encounters with the 66-year-old at his mansion in New York City and Palm, Beach, FL.

Attorneys for  Epstein touted his close friendship with Bill Clinton and even claimed the billionaire helped start Clinton’s controversial family foundation in a 2007 letter aimed at boosting his image during plea negotiations, according to Fox News.

A 23-page letter, written by high-powered lawyers Alan Dershowitz and Gerald Lefcourt, was apparently part of an ultimately successful bid to negotiate a plea deal before Epstein could be tried for using underage girls in that Palm Beach sex ring, and his private island estate on the 72-acre Virgin Islands home dubbed “Orgy Island.” Epstein spent 13 months in prison and home detention after agreeing to a plea deal in which he admitted to soliciting an underage girl for prostitution.

Summary

Child trafficking is a growing problem that cannot be ignored, and the media can no longer stay silent about, regardless of fears that it will call out powerful people and harm tight relationships. There have been too many instances to ignore, including the 1,400 individuals that underwent investigation by the British police as part of a historic VIP sex abuse network believed to include celebrities and politicians. Sadly, that inquiry fizzled out as a result of heavy pressure from powerful brokers in the U.K. establishment. There are various other cases to note, and yet pedophilia and child pornography continue to escape justice. One can only assume that blackmailing and bribery are keeping lips tight.

It was shocking that in his first sex trafficking “hand-slap,” Epstein was given an amazingly light sentence. In his approximate 1-year jail term at a south Florida jail, he was actually allowed to leave and go to work most weekdays. To make it worse, the records of all of the testimony and evidence and court proceedings in that case were sealed and unavailable to the general public. Last week, a federal judge unsealed those records.

Let’s hope that justice for our children is coming back to the U.S. Let’s hope America will have its proverbial eyes opened to the ongoing attacks on our babies. Let’s pray that the truth will be demanded by the public, elected representatives in our government both at the state and federal levels, and that the power brokers will be stymied at their attempts to hide the evil doings at their hands.

Sadly, this is the first chapter of this horror story. Make certain you stay close to TruthNewsNet.org. There are many more very important things happening that we watch and bring details of as they happen. That will continue. But we will certainly make this process and current and subsequent investigations our priority.

”The Truth Will Out.”

Human Trafficking: the Victims

June 26, 2019

In Part I of this offering, we spoke globally about Human Trafficking and its various iterations. The 3 most common types of human trafficking are sex trafficking, forced labor, and debt bondage.

  • Forced labor, also known as involuntary servitude, is the biggest sector of trafficking in the world, according to the U.S. Department of State.
  • Debt bondage is another form of human trafficking in which an individual is forced to work in order to pay a debt.
  • Sex trafficking disproportionately affects women and children and involves forced participation in commercial sex acts. In the United States, any child under the age of 18 who has been involved in a commercial sex act is considered a trafficking victim. Women and girls make up 80% of the people trafficked transnationally. Yearly, traffickers exploit 1 million children in the commercial sex trade.

Perceptions of human trafficking often involve women forced into prostitution. This is just one aspect of human trafficking. Survivors of trafficking also include men and children, and these survivors are exploited by any number of means. Victims may be forced into any of the following types of labor, among others:

• domestic servitude
• agricultural work
• manufacturing
• janitorial services
• hotel services
• construction
• health and elder care
• hair and nail salons
• prostitution
• strip club dancing

Some survivors are “mail-order” brides who believe they are going to a new country for marriage, but instead, are enslaved.  All nationalities and ethnic groups are vulnerable to human trafficking. Any given country may be a source of forced labor, a place of transit, or a destination. 

It may seem odd to those who live in the U.S., but worldwide the type of human trafficking most widely found is that of Forced Labor. While it happens in the U.S., it is rare. In third-world and poor countries, Forced Labor is far more prevalent. But as we learn the Human Trafficking world, it is important for us all to understand all 3 types.

Far more egregious than labor and debt trafficking is that of sex trafficking — primarily because traffickers disproportionately target children. 

Here at Home

I live in a community of about 300,000 in Northwest Louisiana. It on the most part is a sleepy little community. Few people notice that human trafficking — especially sex trafficking — flourishes in Shreveport/Bossier Louisiana. Why is that?

Simple: “Location.”

Interstate 49 and Interstate 20 run right through the heart of these twin cities. Add to that the proximity to Dallas/Fort Worth and this location is critical to sex traffickers. Shreveport is just 180 miles from Dallas. It’s a natural spot for sex traffickers to set up shop, using Dallas/Fort Worth as the “starting point” for their operations and using Shreveport/Bossier as a crossroads to transporting their victims east, north, and south using the 2 interstates. Of course, they can “market” their commodities right here in town — and they do. Seldom does a month go by without there being a major local bust coordinated by the FBI, DEA, and state and local authorities. It is common for there to be dozens of such arrests made public quite often. It is also not surprising that when the identities of those arrested are made public, many of the traffickers are from North Texas and from south of the Texas border.

Northwest Louisiana and the entire state are really just one example of locations sex traffickers use in the U.S. Here’s part of a recent Shreveport story regarding Louisiana’s issues:

“The public will never know their real names. Take the case of “Julie” — a nine-year-old girl in Caddo Parish (Shreveport) who was sexually abused by her father and then prostituted by her mother out of her own home. Or the case of R.V., a 14-year-old girl who was taken from her home in Florida and trafficked to New Orleans, where she was arrested, at 15 in a 2010 sting operation for prostitution. Or the most recent cases of a minor who was advertised as a prostitute online by a Baton Rouge couple who pleaded guilty in Jan. 2016 to conspiring to commit sex trafficking of a minor, or the 14-year-old girl trafficked in from Dallas to a Shreveport motel.

There’s an underground movement in Louisiana — creeping along interstates, hiding in darkened hotel rooms and operating out of homes and neighborhoods. Child sex-trafficking — selling children for money, drugs, food, rent or greed — is a growing epidemic in the state with more than 100 child victims recovered by the FBI and law enforcement in just one quarter alone.”

No U.S. City is Exempt

(New York City, June of 2019) Harvey Weinstein’s lawyers sought Friday to toss out the sex trafficking claims of an actress the disgraced movie-making mogul maintains is trying to capitalize on the legal success of other women. The lawyers filed papers in Manhattan federal court to try to persuade a judge to reject Wedil David’s trafficking claims. David’s lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles in 2017 and moved to New York, said Weinstein raped her in late 2015 after using the promise of a role in a television series, “Marco Polo,” to lure her to a Beverly Hills hotel.
According to the lawsuit, David met Weinstein at a 2011 party, and he offered to assist her acting career. It said he invited her to awards show parties for several years afterward.

(Greater Los Angeles, June of 2019) “Given the recent reports in our own backyard, we need to become knowledgeable about the issue and change the way we think about sex trafficking. This problem resulted in a domestic and global large-scale trafficking system that was set up in Irvine. The 2017 and 2018 victim demographic report from the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force reveals 365 sex trafficking cases within our county. These women are minors and minorities, many ridden with poverty that keeps them entrapped with limited opportunities to leave and receive support. Almost 30% of the sex trafficking victims in Orange County were female minors. The majority of these young girls were already in the legal system. These are our community members. Many of these women face poverty and discrimination. When taking a look at racial disparities, about 32% of trafficking victims identified as black and 24% as Hispanic. These numbers demonstrate the corruption that is occurring in the sexual and reproductive health of our own community.

There is a juxtaposition of wealth, safety and opportunity with the hidden dangers that our youth encounter. Young girls walk down that area of Beach Boulevard you drive by faster. They wear long sleeves to cover their bruises and other signs of abuse. They aren’t old enough to consent; they didn’t choose this life. If you pay attention you, too, will see them, but we all know them. These victims are our minors; they are our friends; they are a part of our community.”

(Upstate New York from CBS News) “The former spiritual leader of a purported upstate New York self-improvement group that’s been called a cult and a pyramid scheme has been found guilty on seven counts including sex trafficking, racketeering, and conspiracy charges. Jurors began deliberating the case against Keith Raniere Wednesday morning and announced they had reached a verdict about four hours later. They were handed the case following a trial in Brooklyn federal court that has given a disturbing inside look inside the group, NXIVM. Since early May of 2019, jurors have been hearing testimony from what prosecutors say are former “sex slaves” who spoke about the torment of being branded with Raniere’s initials — their “supreme master” who was known as “Vanguard” and revered as “the smartest man in the world” among some followers. The women said they were duped into a joining a secretive NXIVM sub-sect known as DOS under the pretenses that it was a women’s empowerment group. But, they said they were forced by other women who were their “masters” to turn over “collateral,” including nude photographs, and groomed for sex with Raniere. “

(Denton, TX, June of 2019) A six-member panel of experts on sexual exploitation, including members of law enforcement and a trafficking survivor, addressed questions from the moderator and audience in the two-hour discussion aimed at educating the community about sexual exploitation. After an opening prayer, panelists addressed what they said are widespread misconceptions about trafficking being a strictly urban problem.

“I think the biggest challenge that we run into is that lack of public knowledge where people think ‘well, it doesn’t happen here,’” said John Kochan, a special agent in Homeland Security’s sex trafficking unit. Leslie Haight, a 22-year-old Denton resident, said she was surprised to learn that trafficking is a threat to the DFW community. “I didn’t know that it was in Denton [or] that sex trafficking was as common as it is,” Haight said. “I travel a lot so in China, that’s something that’s definitely in that area, but I didn’t think that locally, it was as big of a deal.”

Here’s what the professionals who face the task of destroying sex trafficking every day must do:

What Can We Do?

Under the Trump Administration, aggressive actions have been taken to rip apart groups and jail individuals who traffic all people, but especially our babies. The FBI aggressively leads the pack on finding, taking offenders off the streets, and rescuing those children among us who simply get trapped. Here’s how the FBI does it:

Summary

Last night, 4 of our grandchildren spent the night with us, ages 13 (twin girls and 1 boy) and the youngest is a boy age 10. I had just published Part 1 of this story and certainly was deep into the preparation of this Part II. From the perspective of spending days in research of Human Trafficking and seeing its horrors close up, I could not help but feel dread for these 4 kids that are part of MY family. I cannot fathom the travesty of losing any of them, especially to the world of Human Trafficking.

As I finalized this story, I could not help but think that certainly there are Nonni’s and Poppi’s all over the world that feel the same way as I about their own grandchildren. Probably reading and hearing Parts I and II of this story scares you. If so, you’re not alone. The scariest thing, though, is the knowledge that the criminals that perpetrate these crimes are not necessarily the shady old men who drive really slow through a neighborhood, see a young child on the sidewalk, and stop and say, “Hey, little boy, want a piece of candy?” Of course, that certainly happens. But most of these villans look just like you and me, live in middle-class neighborhoods, drive middle-class cars, and are just everyday people. Because of that, it’s tough to identify them before they strike.

What do we do? Be ever watchful; never take for granted when your children (no matter what their age) run to a public restroom or go inside a store by themselves while you wait in the car. These people are watching, and waiting, and watching…

A local mother told me the story a few weeks ago that right here in my city, she went with her young child to a chain discount store. As she and her little girl pushed a basket around the store, a really conspicuous couple calmly followed them for 20 minutes or so. When she finished shopping and she and her daughter were going to their car, the young man walked up behind her and asked, “Can I help you put your groceries in your car?” It scared her, thankfully. She immediately looked to see where her daughter was. She was horrified to see the young woman that was with the young man talking to her daughter on the other side of the car. The mom sidestepped around the man to hurriedly walk over to where her daughter was listening to the young woman. Without a word, she opened the car door — the passenger side — and slipped into the front seat holding her daughter. As she did, she firmly told the young man and woman to leave them alone. It startled the couple, and without a word, they quickly walked away.

Just think how quickly and how horribly that encounter could have been if that mother had not reacted the way she did. Unfortunately, every day there are hundreds if not thousands of such interactions happening at stores and restaurants and schools and sporting events, etc. which do NOT end so well for little girls and boys.

I challenge you to download this entire story and share it with friends. All American moms and dads and young men and women need to see and read it. We take our safety for granted never thinking something like this could happen to us. But it does. And when it does, it most often is final.

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Human Trafficking: Tragedy!

June 25, 2019

It is shocking to look into the details of the human trafficking that has been occurring for centuries, is still occurring, grows in number and severity every year, and is occurring in every country on Earth, including the United States.

A good friend of mine is in federal law enforcement. He shocked me several years ago with the details of a federal investigation that was attacking “Sex Tourism.” I had never heard of it. It involved U.S. tourists — primarily men — who make trips overseas that purportedly are for business but are not. In Costa Rica, El Salvador and other Central American countries and in Southeast Asia the Americans fly in to conduct “business.” Instead, they stay in specific hotels that have room service menus. Food is not on the menu, however, boys, girls, women and even men ARE on the menu. The American “orders” off the menu.

Because of new international laws, U.S. federal authorities can now track these American sex=fiends into those foreign countries, arrest them on the spot, and without extradition bring them straight back to the U.S. for prosecution.

Selling people has always been a hidden, dark enterprise that is perpetrated in and from every country in the World. It’s not exclusive to any one demographic. Sadly, there are sadistic people who are happy “purchasing” other humans without preferences for those of specific sexes, ages, and ethnicities.

Not all — in fact, less than half — of those caught-up in human trafficking had any idea of what was happening until it was too late. Like Rebecca Bender. Rebecca was from a good middle-class family, was a good student headed for a great university after high school graduation. And then it happened:

The Basics of Human Trafficking

We today and tomorrow will explore the human trafficking that is so rampant in the World but is blowing up in the United States. There is so much information out there for us to digest we cannot do it in one session. It is so deplorable, we cannot even get our minds around the fact that human trafficking even exists.

Worldwide human trafficking statistics for 2018

  1. 51% of all victims of human trafficking are women aged 18 or older. The proportion of men being trafficked has significantly increased over the last 10 years – from 13% to 21%.
  2. Around 85% of all the victims are trafficked for labor exploitation, nearly 7% for sexual exploitation and just 1% for organ removal. Women and girls are 72% more likely to be trafficked for sexual exploitation than men.
  3. 28% of all human trafficking victims are children (around 20% of girls and 8% of boys).
  4. 63% of all convicted of human trafficking are male, and 37% are female.
  5. Around 43% of all documented cases were domestic, meaning the victim was trafficked with the national borders.
  6. India, Libya, and Myanmar are considered the most dangerous countries especially for women in terms of human trafficking.

United States human trafficking statistics

  1. More than 10,000 people become victims of human trafficking in the US each year;
  2. Women are approximately seven times more likely to experience human trafficking than men;
  3. The average age of the victims is around 15-17 years for sexual exploitation and around 20 for labor exploitation;
  4. It was estimated that Hispanic and Asian people are more likely to become victims of human trafficking;
  5. A marriage proposal is by far the most common type of recruitment tactics for sex slavery, whereas for the labor exploitation, the perpetrators most often just promise a good job;
  6. During Super Bowls and some other large events, there is a spike in sex trafficking, which is around 5 to 20 percent;
  7. California, Texas, and Florida had the most cases of human trafficking registered in 2018;
  8. According to the national human trafficking statistics, Atlanta’s underground sex economy is the biggest with the yearly profit of around $250 million.

Child Trafficking

“When a child has been recruited, transported, harbored, or received and some commercial element is introduced in the production of child pornography, then that individual (by federal law) has also engaged in child trafficking. Whether they work in strip clubs or sweatshops, these boys and girls are victims of human trafficking.”

The Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) defines “severe forms of trafficking in persons” as: “sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age.”

“The economic reality is that human trafficking is driven by profits. If nobody paid for sex, sex trafficking would not exist.”

Where do trafficked children come from?

Child trafficking victims, whether for labor, sex or organ trafficking, come from all backgrounds, include both boys and girls. They span a wide age range from 1 to 18 years old. Sex trafficking victims up to roughly 25 years old most often started as young as 14. Children are trafficked out of, or into the United States from all regions of the world and represent a variety of different races, ethnic groups, and religions. They may be brought to the U.S. legally or smuggled in.

Trafficked children can be lured to the U.S. through the promise of school or work and promised the opportunity to send money back to their families. Children are also vulnerable to kidnappers, pimps, and professional brokers. Some children are even sold to traffickers by their families, who may or may not have an understanding of what will happen to the child. U.S. born children are also trafficked within the U.S., coming from any racial group, socio-economic background, and come from or trafficked within both city and rural areas.

The Numbers Internationally

The (UNODC) United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime reports the percentage of child victims had risen in a 3-year span from 20 percent to 27 percent. Of every three child victims, two are girls and one is a boy.

Gender and age profile of victims detected globally: 59% Women – 14% Men – 17% Girls and 10% were Boys.

  • 600,000 to 800,000 women, children and men are bought and sold across international borders every year and exploited for forced labor or commercial sex (U.S. Government);
  • When internal trafficking victims are added to the estimates, the number of victims annually is in the range of 2 to 4 million
  • 50% of those victims are estimated to be children;
  • It is estimated that 76 % of transactions for sex with underage girls start on the Internet;
  • 2 million children are subjected to prostitution in the global commercial sex trade (UNICEF).

The impact

  • Human trafficking has surpassed the illegal sale of arms;
  • Trafficking will surpass the illegal sale of drugs in the next few years;
  • Drugs are used once and they are gone. Victims of child trafficking can be used and abused over and over;
  • A $32 billion-a-year industry, human trafficking is on the rise and is in all 50 states (U.S. Government);
  • 4.5 Million of trafficked persons are sexually exploited;
  • Up to 300,000 Americans under 18 are lured into the international commercial sex trade every year;
  • From 14,500 – 17,500 of those victims are trafficked into the United States each year.
  • The average life span of a victim is reported to be 7 years (found dead from attack, abuse, HIV and other STD’s, malnutrition, overdose or suicide)

In the United States, the largest group of at-risk children are runaway, thrown away, or homeless American children who use survival sex to acquire food, shelter, clothing, and other things needed to survive on America’s streets. According to the National Runaway Switchboard, 1.3 million runaway and homeless youth live on America’s streets every day. [5,000 die each year] It would not be surprising to learn that the number of children trafficked in the United States is actually much higher than 300,000.

Children are often targeted by traffickers as they are deemed easier to manipulate than adults. More money can be earned by younger girls and boys exploited in sexual exploitation, especially virgins. Pre-pubescent girls are reported to be injected with hormones to bring on puberty. Younger girls are expected to have a greater earning potential, and as such are in greater demand.

Physical and Mental Consequences of Trafficking for victims

  • Child victims of human trafficking face significant problems. Often physically and sexually abused, they have distinctive medical and psychological needs that must be addressed before advancing in the formative years of adulthood.
  • Child victims of exploitation can face a number of long-term health problems:
  • Sleeping and eating disorders;
  • Sexually transmitted diseases;
  • HIV/AIDS, pelvic pain, rectal trauma and urinary difficulties from working in the sex industry;
  • Drug addiction;
  • Chronic back, hearing, cardiovascular or respiratory problems from endless days toiling in dangerous agriculture, sweatshop or construction conditions;
  • Fear and anxiety;
  • Depression, mood changes;
  • Guilt and shame;
  • The cultural shock from finding themselves in a strange country;
  • Posttraumatic Stress Disorder;
  • Traumatic bonding with the trafficker.

Summary

We have barely scratched the surface in this story of just how big, far-reaching, and all-encompassing Human Trafficking is. Many saw the movie “Taken” starring Liam Neeson as a former CIA undercover agent whose daughter was kidnapped while on a trip to France with a friend. She was able to reach her father by phone just moments before the human traffickers abducted her. He made a trip to Paris, tracked down the traffickers, and was able to use his considerable CIA skills to get his daughter back just moments before she was to be spirited away into a Middle Eastern life as a slave that would have certainly ended in her death.

Real life seldom finds an ex-CIA dad able to save these children from human trafficking. And it doesn’t matter if these are young children, young adults, boys or girls, men or women, humans are being sold into slavery every day right under our noses. As you saw and heard in the story of Rebecca Bender above, there’s no “cookie-cutter” victim for traffickers. Just about anyone and everyone — especially young children, teens and young adults — are candidates.

Traffickers are professionals. They know their trade inside and out, know how to act swiftly, and know how to sway the minds of young people who most often see their worlds as only their world that exists right around them. Traffickers have learned how to influence their victims with anything at their disposal necessary to sway those trafficked into a life situation that changes them forever and that they never thought could happen to them.

Let me say this: the Trump Administration has taken demonstrative actions in President Trump’s first term — as he promised in campaigning — to take on human traffickers here in the U.S. and abroad working with foreign intelligence entities. Tens of thousands have been arrested and thousands of young people have been rescued. We’ll have more specifics including eye witness accounts in the next chapter of this drama that will play out tomorrow.

As horrifying and devastating as are these experiences, do you know what is more horrifying? The fact that you and I rarely if ever see or hear any national coverage about human trafficking. Ask yourself this question: Why is that? Is it because the victims are too young, too poor, or too unknown for the Media to spend the time and effort to give us their stories? Or is it because that same Media may have powerful people to protect by NOT telling these stories? In either case, our not seeing and hearing these heartbreaking testimonies sufficient to kick these rescues into high gear is in my opinion as big a tragedy as are those young people in the stories themselves.

Be back tomorrow and we drill deeper, uncover more facts and tell more stories, and challenge all to take a role in assisting all those in power in the U.S. and elsewhere who are taking up this cause to save our young people.

 

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Who is “Below the Law?”

June 5, 2019

“I don’t know who needs to hear this, but the president is not above the law.”

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 3, 2019

The Law

“Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates, furnishes, transmits, or otherwise makes available to an unauthorized person, or publishes, or uses in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States or for the benefit of any foreign government to the detriment of the United States any classified information—

  1. concerning the nature, preparation, or use of any code, cipher, or cryptographic system of the United States or any foreign government; or
  2. concerning the design, construction, use, maintenance, or repair of any device, apparatus, or appliance used or prepared or planned for use by the United States or any foreign government for cryptographic or communication intelligence purposes; or
  3. concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United States or any foreign government; or
  4. obtained by the processes of communication intelligence from the communications of any foreign government, knowing the same to have been obtained by such processes—
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.”
That’s the law — 18 U.S. Code § 798 — regarding the handling of classified information: the Law. By any understanding of that law and the penalty for breaking the law, when someone does so, their doing so is a heinous act against the U.S. Government that in doing so allows someone — anyone — to access potentially serious national information that could be damaging to the United States in any number of ways.

“Anyone:” Then there’s former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

(Follow along very carefully these next sentences:)

  • According to documents, Undersecretary of State Patrick Kennedy pressured a senior FBI official into de-classifying emails sent from Hillary Clinton’s illegal private server. The FBI official notes that Kennedy contacted the organization to ask for the change in classification in “exchange for a ‘quid pro quo.’ More specifically, “State would reciprocate by allowing the FBI to place more agents in countries where they are presently forbidden,” according to a conversation relayed by The Weekly Standard‘s Stephen Hayes. The FBI did not take Kennedy up on his offer.
  • Despite initial denials from the State Department, this exchange is entirely plausible. For one, State had plenty of expertise in the deployment of quid pro quo during Hillary’s years of enriching her family foundation by trading government access. Moreover, a senior FBI official has a lot less reason to fabricate a conversation about favor trading than a Clinton functionary has to pressure a senior FBI official into saving Hillary from criminal prosecution.
  • “Classification is an art, not a science, and individuals with classification authority sometimes have different views,” a State Department spokesperson said. No doubt this is true. So why did Kennedy wait until a criminal investigation was well underway to ask law enforcement to scrutinize that particular document at that particular time? Is it customary for undersecretaries of State to ask the FBI to alter the classifications of documents that just happen to protect political candidates at the center of a politically explosive investigation? Did Kennedy — a man who owes his high position to the Clintons — engage in this conversation on his own? Was he asked to do it? For months, law enforcement had attempted to contact him, and he ignored their inquiries. Why, according to FBI documents, did Kennedy only reach out to make this request?
  • What’s even more curious is that FBI Director James Comey didn’t consider this event — or, for that matter, the litany of other actions Clinton’s lackeys took to protect her — as a sign that there was, at the very least, an intent to influence the investigation. This is, of course, was just one revelation in the Hillary email scandal. It’s worth remembering that the illegal email setup was only inadvertently discovered through a congressional investigation into Benghazi. The server itself existed to evade transparency.
  • When caught, Hillary alleged that she “never sent any classified material nor received any marked classified.” This turned out to be a lie. Hillary claimed before becoming secretary she had merely wanted only one device “for convenience.” This turned out to be a lie. The FBI found that Clinton “used numerous mobile devices,” not to mention servers. Clinton — the most competent person to ever run for president, according to Barack Obama — claimed she didn’t understand how classified markings work. This was also a lie.
  • According to the FBI, Hillary sent 110 emails containing clearly marked classified information. Thirty-six of these emails contained secret information. Eight of those email chains contained “top secret” information. “We assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail account,” Comey said at his press conference in July of 2016. He acknowledged this could have happened because Hillary and her staff were “extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.” He also admitted that no competent foreign power would have left behind evidence of this hack.

Yet, for some reason, Comey would not admit that this is why U.S. Code makes mishandling information — not the intent of those mishandling it — illegal.

Those who ran Clinton’s server attempted to destroy evidence — government documents — after The New York Times reported on her wrongdoing. Probably another coincidence. Not that intent mattered to Comey, either. Before the FBI even cracked open their laptops, the Justice Department proactively gave immunity to the five people who could have testified that Hillary was lying. (One of these people, Cheryl Mills, later acted as Hillary’s lawyer.) The two Clinton aides with the most intimate knowledge about her email conniving were also given side deals.

Does anyone besides me see any conflict in the happenings detailed above and what Ms. Clinton said in her speech on Monday of this week and in her tweet: “…the president is not above the law?”

Then There’s Congress

Everyone knows that it takes an impeachment proceeding initiated from the House Judiciary Committee in the House of Representatives, then with that committee’s referral to the floor of the House followed by a successful House vote to impeach to start that process. If and when that occurs, the matter is turned over to the Senate for an actual trial on the merits. Obviously, much debate ensues during an actual trial. At the conclusion, the Senate votes on the charges. If two-thirds of the Senators vote to confirm the House resolution for impeachment, the President is convicted and removed from office.

We want to note here: there’s a process — a Constitutional process. That process requires charges, evidence of violation by the President of U.S. Constitutional mandate that states in Article II, Section 4: “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

There’s a Constitutional process for impeaching the President, Vice President, and other “civil officers of the United States.” Certainly, Americans support everything within the Constitution, right? But let’s see what longtime Democrat and Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz has to say about what is being threatened by House Democrats right now:

“The mantra invoked by those Democrats who are seeking to impeach President Trump is that ‘no one is above the law.’ That, of course, is true, but it is as applicable to Congress as it is to the president. Those members of Congress who are seeking to impeach the president, even though he has not committed any of the specified impeachable offenses set out in the Constitution, are themselves seeking to go above the law.

All branches of government are bound by the law. Members of Congress, presidents, justices and judges must all operate within the law. All take an oath to support the Constitution, not to rewrite it for partisan advantage.

It is the law that exempts presidents from being prosecuted or impeached for carrying out their constitutional authority under Article 2. The same Constitution precludes members of Congress from being prosecuted for most actions taken while on the floor of the House and Senate or on the way to performing their functions. The Constitution, which is the governing law, precludes Congress from impeaching a president for mere “dereliction” of duty or even alleged ‘corruption.’ Under the text of the Constitution, a president’s actions to be impeachable must consist of treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Consider Rep. Maxine Waters, (D-CA), who has said the following:

Congressman Waters said this the other day: “Impeachment is about whatever the Congress says it is. There is no law that dictates impeachment.”

It is she, and other like-minded members of Congress, who are claiming the right to be above the law. That is a dangerous claim whether made by a president or by a member of Congress.

So Hillary, members of Congress, and most in the Mainstream Media are claiming they are above the Law, who then would be considered to be below the law?

The answer to that is simple: anyone who disagrees with anything any member of the Democrat ruling “Elitist-ocracy” is certainly below the Law and obviously unworthy of the consideration of “Equal justice under the Law.” Who throughout history are some of those “folks?”

  • All those who fled the repression of European elitist members of the Ruling Class who considered anyone not deemed to be eligible for membership in their groups to be less than worthy of “Equal justice under the Law;”
  • African-American men, women, and children who were taken by slave traders in Northern Africa and sold in America had no rights and were certainly less than worthy of “Equal justice under the Law;”
  • Today’s working-class Americans who don’t live and work in Coastal American states or those several interior states comprised of like-minded elites who have garnered favor from the political elite “Overclass” are less than worthy of “Equal justice under the Law;”
  • According to Hillary and other Dems, everyone who did NOT vote for Hillary in 2016 but chose Mr. Trump instead is not only ineligible for “Equal Justice under the Law,” but are reprehensible human beings and deserve no consideration of the benefits of simply being Americans.

Summary

I know this may seem harsh today. But it is time for Americans to wake up and realize liberty and justice for all is about to be “liberty and justice for only an elite few.” And regardless of what the pundits on the Left want all to believe, those elites are NOT the current inhabitants of the White House. They are led by the defeated 2016 presidential candidate and all those who had surreptitiously created, implemented, and maintained her path to the White House so as to cover-up all the wrongdoing committed by her team and others comprised by a large number of very important government officials.

Even in the aftermath of two years of an exhaustive investigation into ridiculous allegations against this president, his staff, family, and many friends, those Elitists still shout in anger threats against all of those who are “below the Law” that support the duly elected president and the Rule of Law.

I never in my wildest dream we would ever see a day like this today. But it’s true: for at least the eight years of the Obama Administration, evil and deviousness ran rampant through the Capital and the Department of Justice in D.C. And the U.S. government was nothing more than a piggy bank for Elitists to tap for their evildoing. Taxpayers paid every dime for what they did. And our children will continue to pay that bill.

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