Category: Law Enforcement

The “Rule of Law” is Under Attack — By OUR Government!

March 4, 2021

The United States of America is an exceptional nation in world history. As no other nation, it has stood for limited government, separation of powers, the Rule of Law, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, free-market economy, and other principles outlined in its founding document, the United States Constitution. These have contributed to making America incredibly free and prosperous, a magnet for immigrants from nations worldwide, and an undeniably positive force in the world for most of its history.

More and more, however, these founding laws and principles are under attack. Key pillars of American history and identity are being vilified and destroyed. Educators teach oncoming generations that the narrative about individual liberty and constitutional checks and balances that have survived and prospered for Americans for two centuries is a mask for wealthy, white, European men to dominate. Such thinking has made its way into the highest levels of America’s government, to the point that, on many issues, politicians share the views of the nation’s worst enemies!

This trend is terribly dangerous. Contempt for America’s heritage is fueling a wholesale departure from it. The founders established the nation on Biblical morality; this growing movement is amoral and areligious. It is anti-history, anti-tradition, anti-authority, and anti-law.

A breakdown in the Rule of Law is devastating to a nation. Our world is filled with nations where the government does not enforce law and order. As a result, criminality, corruption, bribery, thuggery, and lawlessness are burning from coast to coast, as are the low living standards that always accompany them. As America abandons the laws on which it was established, this is its future. America’s Founding Fathers warned explicitly of this very problem.

To take just one example, President George Washington said in his first inaugural address, “The foundations of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality.”  In his famous farewell address, he said, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.”

Many American Leaders Ignore the Rule of Law

Don’t gasp when reading that. This practice of American leaders who thumb their noses at the Rule of Law is rampant across our nation. And it has been for a decade or longer. Why, with the knowledge that the Rule of Law is the greatest of the multiple American institutions that separates us from the “Pack,” leaders would ignore our laws is beyond me. But I think I’ve puzzled through to an answer: These elitists in government feel THEY are more knowledgeable than all others and are empowered to ignore laws with which they disagree and to promote the illegalities they support in disregard of American law. Our current administration is making a mockery of the Rule of Law.

  • President Obama notified his first Attorney General to stop non-violent drug offenders’ prosecutions despite federal laws against illegal drug abuses. Why would those be termed “illegal” if not to be prosecuted when violated?
  • The same holds for winking at the rampant and open-encouragement of illegals crossing into the U.S. at our southern border by the thousands. It’s violations of multiple federal laws in doing so. Yet, somehow in the name of some unknown “humanitarian necessity,” the Biden Administration is openly encouraging illegals to “come on down!” And this happens while the nation is in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic. We learned on Thursday that hundreds of illegals in the last two weeks had been allowed into the country without being tested for the virus.
  • ANTIFA and Black Lives Matter members and activists for the last two years have destroyed an estimated $2 billion of federal, state, and private property across the nation in supposed protests and demonstrations that are actually organized riots. They include acts of physical violence against citizens, the looting of businesses, burning of numerous buildings, and, needless to say, the disruption of businesses of all kinds that has resulted in numerous closures.

The “Blame Game”

If it were not so serious, it would be humorous to watch as heads of law enforcement agencies and political leaders at local, state, and federal levels stand before television cameras decrying these acts of violence. But then they do nothing to hold offenders accountable!

Black Lives Matter adherents destroyed a section of Minneapolis during the uproar after the horrendous George Floyd killing. Millions of dollars of property were destroyed, with dozens of businesses shuttered permanently. Minneapolis and Minnesota law enforcement authorities have done nothing beyond the arrests and pending prosecutions of the four officers involved in Floyd’s death. The destruction of the Rule of Law happens before our eyes, and these authorities justify it because the perpetrators’ “cause” was a good one. Explain that to the owners and employees of the businesses that were destroyed, the people who live in the area who are still afraid to be out on their streets after dark, and the African American couple who invested their entire savings into a restaurant that was about to open only to watch their lifelong dreams be turned into ashes by these Rule of Law violaters.

Portland, Seattle, Rochester, Washington D.C., Louisville, Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago: names of just a few of the cities that have been torn to pieces by this violence. And leaders do little or nothing to hold those accountable for their lawbreaking and certainly do little or nothing to stop repeat attacks. Why do they continue to allow this to happen? They have personally dismissed a constitutional edict upon which this country was founded: the enforcement of the Rule of Law.

When New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is asked why there’s so much violence on city streets, he blames the NYPD, the New York State government, Donald Trump, and everyone else, taking no personal responsibility. He NEVER accepts blame. The same holds in D.C., Chicago, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and these other cities. They all play the “Blame Game.” Meanwhile, their cities burn while a young up-and-coming generation watches as their leaders support the lawbreakers and their actions by simply doing NOTHING.

America’s Founders Recognized This Was to Come

On Jan. 27, 1838, 28-year-old Abraham Lincoln gave a speech describing America’s greatest danger:  the “mobocratic spirit.”  This speech is known as the Lyceum Address, given when our young country was facing great internal strife and debate about our collective path forward as a nation.

In words that ring far too familiar today, he said, “I hope I am over wary; but … there is, even now, something of ill-omen amongst us. I mean the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country; the growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions instead of the sober judgment of courts; and the worse than savage mobs, for the executive ministers of justice.”

He warned that “if the laws are continually despised and disregarded if their rights to be secure in their persons and property are held by no better tenure than the caprice of the mob,” then this government cannot last.

Author and journalist Malcolm Gladwell said, “The first person who throws the rock is a lot more radical than the hundredth person. By the time the riot has attracted a hundred people, you don’t have to be nearly as much a daredevil or a hothead or committed to any of those things to want to engage in a riot.”

It seems throwing that rock has become more and more common and thus easier and easier. We see it on social media chat pages, in the media, and even amongst lifelong friends. The anger is rising, the passion is intensifying, and the rock-throwing has become harder and more dangerous.

As March 4 has arrived — the QAnon conspiracists’ “D-Day” — we have heard that some on both ends of the political spectrum plan protests and perhaps riots. To what end? President Lincoln ended the Lyceum Address: “There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law.” I could not agree more.

Men and women in law enforcement and the U.S. military have mobilized to deter and prevent violence in our nation’s capital. They do this even while in the middle of the worst days of the COVID-19 pandemic. They do this, for most of them, without yet having received a vaccine. They do it, even when they may disagree with the institutions of power in a state like California that put criminals in prison ahead of them in line for vaccinations, not to mention the sick and elderly. They put themselves in harm’s way, once again, to help defend our way of life and to push back against the mob. We owe it to these men and women who stand up on the front line to push back against the mob mentality wherever we see it, not to lose faith in our political processes even when we may disagree with our elected representatives, and to encourage everyone to work within our system of government to achieve our desired ends, and not seek to tear down that system.

Summary

This should be THE fundamental perspective Americans — at least for the foreseeable future — should have about the operating principles of the Biden Administration: the U.S. Constitution was a good framework for our forefathers to use for the beginning of our nation. In their minds, however, that document is outdated, does not apply to 21st-century America, and either needs to be made 100% definable as the Leftists now describe it. Laws, principles, and fundamental premises from the original document no longer apply. Moving forward in our history, laws will be defined and enforced in only the manner the leadership from the Left determine. Any other thoughts on the matter will not be allowed.

Does that seem extreme to you? I hope so. And if you after reading this today disagree with this premise, just file it away in your “quickly recallable” file folder so you can reference it during the balance of the Biden/Harris Administration.

In just 45 days, this president in tandem with this Congress has taken more actions in total to undo the Rule of Law and other tenets in the Constitution than has any other U.S. president. And he’s just getting started.

We will chronicle each of these stark and dramatic changes and their impacts on Americans and the ripple effects they have on our partners as well as our opponents across the Globe. Be assured of this one thing: there’s an underlying template for the Leftist Cause that is driving this. And tomorrow make sure you come back here: we will give you the first two planks of what they are using to jumpstart this push for their ultimate goal.

To Download Today’s (Thursday, March 4, 2021) “TNN Live” Streaming Radio Show, Click on this link:

Where Does the Greatest Threat to the U.S. Originate?

October 7, 2020

As we watch night after night, week after week, month after month the violence play out on the streets of cities like Seattle, Portland, Chicago, New York, Washington D.C., Louisiville, and Atlanta, we wonder who is lighting these fires of violence and terror. This all happens while Democrats tell us all that these are mostly “peaceful” demonstrations and not violent.

How could any sensible person call what we watch even now police in Portland struggle to keep their city safe? Thugs have turned the once-breathtaking Oregon city into a war zone of destruction. Those on the Left thumb their noses at the notion that any of what we watch is violence. Even former First Lady Michelle Obama this week derided Conservatives who call this violence, looting and rioting! She and her husband both maintain these are all “peaceful” people expressing their First Amendment right to demonstrate.

Tell that to the hundreds of police and innocent Americans who have been brutally injured, beaten, blinded by lasers, and those who have lost tens of millions of dollars in assets. The Obamas gloss over the terror that has devastated their own city of Chicago while hundreds are slaughtered by fellow Chicagoans month after month.

No matter what one wants to call it, it’s TERROR and MAYHEM at the hands of incorrigible anarchists been on the destruction of our Democracy. Michelle termed it “peaceful demonstrations to restore racial fairness.”

Who Is Responsible?

The primary terrorist threat inside the United States stems from violent extremists, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in its first-ever “Homeland Threat Assessment.”

DHS officials said part of the primary threat are “domestic violent extremists, or people operating primarily within the U.S. without direction or inspiration from foreign terrorist groups or other foreign powers, and homegrown violent extremists, or a person of any citizenship who has lived and/or operated primarily in the United States and who advocates, is engaged in or is preparing to engage in ideologically-motivated terrorist activities.”

Among the former category, racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists, specifically white supremacist extremists, “will remain the most persistent and lethal threat in the Homeland,” the report states. No specific white supremacist groups were identified. These extremists have demonstrated over time the intent to target both racial and religious minorities, lawmakers, and people they think promote multi-culturalism and globalization at the expense of their identity, according to DHS officials. White supremacist extremists were responsible for more terrorist attacks, nearly 40, posing a greater threat to life inside the United States from 2018 to 2019 than any other group, DHS said.

Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf said in the report’s introduction that he is “particularly concerned about white supremacist violent extremists who have been exceptionally lethal in their abhorrent targeted attacks in recent years. I am proud of our work to prevent terrorizing tactics by domestic terrorists and violent extremists who seek to force ideological change in the United States through violence, death, and destruction,” he added.

Kyle Shideler, director and senior analyst for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism at the Center for Security Policy said that he disagrees with the approach used by DHS officials in determining the biggest threat inside the country. “I disagree fundamentally with an approach that says that deaths in a given range of years represent the best way to determine which threat is the largest, particularly over a short time frame. Fortunately, lethal terror attacks in the United States remain (statistically) rare. That means figures are highly susceptible to being distorted by any single mass-casualty incident, as appears to be the case in this assessment,” he said.

“As you can see the three categories DHS includes in their chart reflect nearly the same number of attempts. Without specific case studies, we have no way of determining why white supremacist attacks had higher lethality than other violent extremists in these cases. It may be simply a matter of dumb luck that one attack killed more than another and not be reflective of either intent or capability.”

Terrorism databases have historically attributed, in some cases, non-terrorist violence such as domestic violence to white supremacists, he added, but with no case studies included in the report, it’s not clear if that was the case with the DHS report. Shideler, whose center last month published a report on white supremacist attitudes, also said the “descriptor” (characteristic or identifier) of white supremacists is reasonable, but no other groups were clearly identified, such as jihadists or black supremacists.

“The descriptor of ‘racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists’ is almost completely opaque. We can only presume from the context that this refers to black separatist or black supremacist extremists such as those acting in support of Black Lives Matter,” Shideler wrote. “It is also somewhat disconcerting that the DHS report attributes their motives to ‘social injustice,’ which seems wholly inappropriate. Can it be any wonder that white supremacists are identified as the highest-ranking threat when it appears to be the only threat that is permitted to be identified by name?”

Besides white supremacy, another motivating force behind domestic terrorism is anti-government and anti-authority sentiment, according to the DHS report. The violent extremists, sometimes influenced by anarchist ideology, have been linked to multiple plots and attacks, including attacks against law enforcement and government buildings. The ideology is exploited by hostile nation-states, which seek to promote it through disinformation campaigns.

These extremists have targeted otherwise peaceful protests and hijacked them for violent means, taking advantage of the large crowds to attack government officials, facilities, and counter-protesters, DHS officials said. In the case of ongoing rioting in Portland, federal officers suffered over 300 injuries.

Members of the far-left, anarcho-communist group Antifa, as well as people who are part of the Black Lives Matter movement, have been involved in the unrest in Oregon’s largest city. Other examples include rioting in the Brooklyn borough of New York City and Kenosha, Wisconsin.

“These increasingly pervasive incidents highlight the threat of anarchist violence that has accelerated in our cities in recent months,” the report states. “If you are only looking at deaths, and you are not looking at property damage, insurance claims, and all the other societal factors, and only looking at deaths, then yes, white supremacist extremists sort of lead that category,” Wolf told CBS. “But as we have witnessed over the last several months, the movements and the civil unrest we have seen here inside the U.S., while maybe not lethal, certainly have lasting implications to the homeland and do serve as a threat to the homeland.”

Foreign threats identified by the report include China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

The assessment was developed at the direction of former acting Secretary Kevin McAleenan. In a strategic framework announcement in September 2019, McAleenan said the department, with the help of the FBI, would produce an annual product “that evaluates the strategic threat environment within the Homeland related to terrorism and targeted violence and anticipates future or emerging threats.”

Summary

“Violent Extremists.”

Black Lives Matter, Antifa, White Supremacists, Boogaloos and others have NO exclusives on terrorism in the Nation. But those are a good place to start to quell this anti-American thugism that rips at the fabric of America.

Americans want better. Americans expect better. It’s time for our law enforcement at every level — local, state and federal — to take off the gloves and remove the muzzles and begin enforcing the Rule of Law consistently and firmly.

Why hasn’t it stopped? Why do these terror groups continue their anarchy? There’s no accountability for their illegalities sufficient to entice them to stop!

As an American, each of us has the right to let authorities know that “Enough is Enough.” We want to take back our nation.

An election is NOT the only critical element of snatching the U.S. from the jaws of totalitarianism. The Rule of Law MUST be restored and implemented as a “permanent fixture” for all to embrace and to which they must abide.

Without laws, we are NOT a nation. Nations are structured by laws.

So which are we: a republic or a “banana” republic ruled by supremacists, anarchists, neo nazis, or a nation of patriots who are willing to do as generations of fellow Americans historically have done: fight to preserve the greatest country on Earth?

“Freedom isn’t free,” and it MUST be maintained by hard work to keep what we and our ancestors built.

I’m in.

Breonna Taylor

September 25, 2020

Once again, a grand jury has rendered a decision in a high-profile case involving police shooting a person of color, this time in Louisville, Kentucky. As if on cue, predestined violent protests and civil unrest erupted across the country. Fires were set, and angry demonstrators continued their monthslong path of destruction, this time fueled by their frustration over the decision in the Breonna Taylor case. In what has also become far too commonplace, two Louisville Metro Police Department officers were shot and wounded Wednesday evening.

Taylor, 26, a black medical worker, was tragically killed this past March in an exchange of gunfire between police and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, who fired a 9 mm pistol at the entry team executing a search warrant. Walker struck police Sgt. Jonathan Mattingly in the leg. Mattingly and Detective Myles Cosgrove returned fire. During the exchange, Taylor was fatally struck six times by police bullets. She had been standing in the hallway, alongside Walker, who was in a shooting stance and remained unscathed during the shootout.

A Jefferson County Grand Jury ultimately charged Brett Hankinson, now a former Louisville Metro Police Department detective, with three counts of “wanton endangerment.” He fired a total of 10 rounds, with some entering an adjacent apartment that contained a male, a pregnant female, and a child. Hankinson has already been fired from the force. He now faces five years on each of the three charged counts. The other two officers were determined to have been justified in firing their weapons.

Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s office led the investigation into the execution of the search warrant. His was a difficult position. There are concurrent federal, state, and local investigations ongoing. And he would serve as a special prosecutor, an appointment due to concerns that local district attorney offices work too closely with the police departments they may be charged to investigate. The reason for the “special” circumstances was well understood.

But Cameron is also a black man. And too often these days, everything related to our criminal justice system is defined along color lines. For example, on MSNBC, former Los Angeles Police Department Sgt. Cheryl Dorsey flippantly said of Cameron: “He’s skin folk, but he is not kinfolk.” Noted race-baiter Colin Kaepernick predictably weighed in with his take that the policing profession contains “white supremacists” and needs to be abolished.

And as usual, lies escalated in number and intensity in the supercharged case from the outset. Louisville’s Courier-Journal set about to fact-check some of the distortions, such as 1) police were at the wrong apartment, 2) police affected a no-knock warrant, 3) Breonna Taylor was shot and killed while asleep in her bed, and 4) Mattingly was wounded by friendly fire. More on all this later.

Defense attorneys and social justice activists often scream non-stop incendiary and inaccurate charges. Wildly inaccurate distortions of fact have recently led to violent riots in Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Minneapolis. The Taylor case has undoubtedly followed a similar false-claims playbook.

First, police secured a search warrant for Taylor’s apartment. A former “significant-other” had once lived there. And while he was arrested at a nearby drug den, Taylor’s apartment was considered a location where drugs were stashed. The court also authorized searches for three other persons if located at the apartment. And while Taylor’s current boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, was not listed on the warrant, her former boyfriend, Jamarcus Glover, was named. In addition, the grand jury determined that police did conduct a “knock and announce” warrant service and identified themselves. This also wasn’t an incident of targeting a disliked person, as was also falsely claimed. Walker, who fired first, was armed with a 9 mm pistol, while police were carrying weapons chambered in .40 caliber. The round that struck Mattingly was a 9 mm round.

Allow me to clear up several more misperceptions.

Beat cops do NOT complete paperwork and run the process necessary to secure warrants. Typically, case personnel works with prosecutors to secure warrants. Law enforcement tactical teams are then briefed on investigation details but draft the takedown plans, which they then execute. In the perfect realm, a senior agency official is then put in charge as the “on-scene commander” to make and give on-the-spot decisions.

Most of such warrants are of the standard “knock and announce” variety. A select few, due to the subject’s history of violence, are “no-knock.” But the distinction between the two doesn’t mean that police fail to identify themselves loudly before making entry. Instead, it is related to the amount of time you afford the inhabitants to open the door.

The Louisville case was NOT a no-knock warrant service, although that has been and still is being proclaimed as “fact” in Mainstream Media reports. Walker may very well have misidentified the entry team as intruders. But once he fired his weapon at them, wounding one of the officers in the process, they had every right to defend themselves.

Cameron defended the decision of the grand jury and decried the new era of “wokeness” that has flooded into our pursuit of justice:

The facts have been examined, and the grand jury, made up of Louisville peers and residents, has decided. Justice is not often easy. It does not fit the mold of public opinion. And it does not conform to shifting standards. It answers only to the facts and to the law.

The social justice awakening of 2020 has its roots in Ferguson, Missouri, and the 2014 justifiable fatal police shooting of Michael Brown. The federal grand jury’s decision not to indict the police officer at the center of that case helped birth the Black Lives Matter movement. And while BLM supporters claim to be fighting for justice, they demand predetermined outcomes, insistent that every police shooting of a minority MUST BE in every such case due specifically to systemic racism and the officers involved therefore are guilty and should be convicted of murder.

That’s not how our system works. That isn’t justice and certainly strips police officers of rights to due process and the presumption of innocence. But as Kentucky Attorney General Cameron cautioned, the standards are shifting. And that is not only unfair to the police, but it is dangerous. What eager, selfless, idealistic, young American attracted to law enforcement hasn’t taken notice? You are considered the enemy now. Assassination attempts are occurring with shocking regularity. This serves as an ominous warning. Foolhardy “abolish the police” initiatives may soon be rendered moot.

Good luck with attracting our best and brightest to the policing profession. After all, the demonization has its costs.

Today on “TNN Live”

We will launch further into the details of this story and what happened in the grand jury during our live show this morning (Friday) at 9:00 AM Central. We will verbatim share the transcript of AG Cameron’s detail of the grand jury facts that resulted in the determination of only one officer being charged in the case. Not a single Mainstream Media outlet has bothered to do that! That should not surprise Americans, but it does. Millions simply shake their heads to watch and listen to so-called Media “experts” still phrase reports as “factual” when they in almost every such case as Breonna’s are portrayed purely from the “Racial Perspective:” that is “white cops shooting a black citizen for no reason other than racial hatred.” Nothing could be further from the truth!

But what is more shocking than even the grand jury results and that Mainstream ignores reporting the truth is what our federal leaders have to say to the public about the grand jury findings. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi weighs-in with a statement that will blow your mind!

How do you join “TNN Live?” It’s simple: at the top of this article is a blue horizontal banner that says “LISTEN LIVE.” Click on that banner at 9:00 AM Central and join the show.

Feel free while listening to call the show to ask questions, share your thoughts, and even object if you so desire with what you hear on the show. It’s a toll-free call: 866-378-7884 — that is 866-37TRUTH. You can join and share your thoughts with people from your city and others from cities and countries around the World!

The Art of the Deal

September 3, 2020

After months of trying to frame the narrative of the nationwide unrest as “peaceful protesting,” as President Obama called it, or ignoring it entirely, Democrats have discovered a new way to label it: the riots are violent, and they’re Trump’s fault. After all, when Joe Biden decided to escape his basement, he was looking for some new “schtick” that he can use to let everyone know that HE’s the champion of anti-violence while Trump is the ringmaster of “pillage and burn!”

Joe Biden jumped on this new storyline during a campaign speech in Pittsburgh on Monday, telling voters that Trump is “stoking violence in our cities.”

“This president long ago forfeited any moral leadership in this country. He can’t stop the violence — because for years he has fomented it,” Biden claimed.

This is probably the most dishonest scheme the Democrats have ever created. Remember, the series of protests across the country — which often turned violent after nightfall — started in Minneapolis after the death of George Floyd at the hands of police. They were supposedly about police brutality and racist tendencies to attack African Americans. This all gave birth to the “Defund the Police” movement.

In Atlanta, rioters burned a Wendy’s after police shot Rayshard Brooks in the back in a parking lot. People burned businesses in Kenosha after the shooting of Jacob Blake. Protesters and rioters may have turned on President Trump because they view him as the leader of a broken system. But one thing is missing about this fairytale of anarchy: If Trump is the source of it all, what did he suddenly change that started the fires and devastation?

To listen to Democrats explain the riots, they were peaceful until white supremacist Trump supporters got involved. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler called ANTIFA violence in Portland a “myth” when he was confronted on a D.C. street about it. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser bragged in her Democratic National Convention speech about creating “Black Lives Matter Plaza” in Washington, D.C. for the protesters. But the Mayor conveniently forgot that some of those protesters set fire to the historic St John’s church outside of the White House.

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan  described her city’s “autonomous zone,” which was snatched from Seattle authorities by armed protesters, as a place that would usher in a “Summer of Love.” That is where a black teenager would later be shot dead, in a “block party atmosphere.” Speaker Nancy Pelosi responded to the toppling of a statue of Christopher Columbus by giving a wave of her hand: “People will do what they do.”

Massachusetts Representative Ayanna Pressley took it further than did her fellow lawmakers. She urged more “unrest in the streets” during an MSNBC interview in August. No one blamed her for the Americans who were pulled out of their cars and beaten for daring to drive on streets blocked by protesters.

Then there is Senator Kamala Harris who is now Biden’s cohort — his Vice President running mate. Harris promoted a bail fund intended for protesters in Minnesota. Simply helping lawbreakers raise money from fellow Americans to bail them out of jail for committing crimes of all kinds is bad enough. It’s even worse when you look at the individuals who received those funds. One went on to assault a bar owner who was left with a traumatic brain injury after his release. Another was charged with stabbing a friend for refusing sex, a third was charged with sexual assault and kidnapping, and a fourth was charged with shooting at police. Great peaceful, law-abiding folks to help with bail money, right?

Biden was really powerful in attacking the violence in our streets in a speech in early June. But while lashing out at those who perpetrated the violence, he blamed Trump and the police for escalating tensions. His verbal assault on law officers AND the President was as crazy then as it is now.

Trump repeatedly offered federal assistance to governors and mayors as their cities were burned and looted. He continually and publicly made it clear to those mayors and governors, “All you have to do is call and we’ll send help immediately that will stop it all very quickly.” Many Americans are beginning to sense that Biden wanted to allow the unrest and violence to continue because he and other Democrats felt it gave them voter support.

The Democrats in charge of those cities must have thought the same thing! Almost all continually told President Trump to “mind your own business and stay in Washington.” They didn’t need his help. Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler wrote in a letter to Trump on August 28, “We don’t need your politics of division and demagoguery. When you sent the Feds to Portland last month, you made the situation far worse.” Ted apparently forgot that the looters were destroying the $200 million federal courthouse in Portland and Ted’s police force was not stopping the ANTIFA thugs from fire-bombing the building almost nightly.

The following night, weeks after federal troops left the area, a Trump supporter was shot by a member of ANTIFA. Protesters looted stores and set fires near the building in which Wheeler lives.

There’s a huge price to pay for letting all this rioting, looting, burning, and other types of destruction continue unabated. Homicide rates in 27 major American cities were up 21 percent from May to June.

After three months of all this chaos and mayhem — that showed little signs of slowing — locals began to take up arms to defend their families and their properties from destruction. Theirs’ was a response to violence they deemed necessary because their city government under Ted Wheeler — who is not just the Mayor but the Police Commissioner, too — refused to keep the city, its citizens, and its property safe.

Citizens who watched as police around the country were told to stand down or were chased and burned out of their own precincts cannot be blamed for taking matters into their own hands when the state failed them. Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old who was used as proof that Trump was aiding and abetting violent right-wingers, claims he was protecting a local business when he was chased and attacked by rioters who tried to take his weapon.

Don’t you find it curious that Joe Biden, who several months before became the certain Democrat Party presidential nominee — said NOTHING about the violence? And then, suddenly as if someone said, “Hey Joe: we’ve got to start blaming Trump for all this. The people are getting upset and are beginning to grumble against we Democrats,” Joe on cue began placing the blame squarely on Trump.

Here’s the Democrats’ conundrum:

  • The polls are no longer in the Democrats’ favor.
  • Support for Black Lives Matter has plummeted in swing states.
  • Biden is underperforming when compared to Hillary Clinton in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.
  • Even Minnesota looks like it could be in play for Trump.
  • These are all states where high turnout in rural and suburban areas — whose residents likely fear riots coming to their streets — could hand the election to Trump.
  • The Biden campaign has obviously noticed all this and realized that allowing Trump to take control of the anti-violence message is a losing strategy.

So, here comes Uncle Joe! He began asking people if they feel safer under Trump and begins painting the picture of a death-spiral for America: “Does anyone believe there will be less violence in America if Donald Trump is reelected?”

Summary

When I was in the car business right out of college, I learned that in a negotiation — an interface between two people who are trying to induce the other to believe what they’re being told more than they believe what they’re trying to get the OTHER to believe — when an offer is made, the first party to even speak about the specifics will lose the negotiation! 

You know what? That happened almost every time I as a salesman began a price negotiation with a car buyer. Guess what: it happens in politics as well!

Joe Biden and the Democrat Party thought that sitting in the weeds while watching America burn with violence would give them a real advantage among voters. What they failed to understand was Donald Trump knew that Americans were not so stupid as to think that HE (or any other Republicans for that matter) could possibly have any control of the atmosphere of violence in any of these Democrat-controlled cities and states! So Mr. Trump just quietly stood by and made sure all knew that “all they have to do is call and ask me and we’ll end their violence and restore peace in their cities and states immediately.”

Of course they laughed and lashed-out at the President. “We don’t need your help! You’ll just make matters worse. Stay outta my town!”

Guess what? The Biden campaign and the DNC waited too long. They were hoping there would be some type of Armageddon blowup that would expose to the World that Donald Trump was an inept politician who simply let anarchists take over the United States!

Suddenly, the truth slapped them all in the faces at the same time: Trump has quietly let everyone know over and over, he can fix this. And because we haven’t even talked about it or even stated it exists, Americans are beginning to think that Joe, Kamala, and the other Democrats want this to result in the devastation of our major cities just to try and make Trump look bad!

You know what? I’m beginning to believe that’s just what they wanted.

But then, the Biden handlers made that sales fatal mistake: they sent Joe out to speak to the public about the violence. And, sure enough, he did exactly what Americans expected him to do: he blamed all the violence on the President.

This race is over, folks. The Democrats lost. Joe Biden lost. Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer lost.

They were beaten by a salesman who learned long ago that when a sales “final offer” is made in a negotiation, the first one to blink loses. And they blinked.

Obviously, none of them read the “Art of the Deal” written by that great salesman who lives in the White House.

Trump didn’t need to read it: he wrote it.

“Defund the Police!” — What will That Look Like?

August 3, 2020

As a Republic, Americans vote for the politicians they believe will represent their best interests. No doubt there has been a huge outcry from some of the public that has been vicious enough to cause politicians to seriously consider de-funding law enforcement entities. Rep. Alexandria Ocaso-Cortez (D-NY) has been one of the loudest crying for defunding of local police forces. When New York City Mayor Bill deBlasio got the City Council to cut the NYC Police budget by $1 Billion, Ocasio-Cortez famously tweeted, “Defunding the police means ‘Defunding’ not reducing.”

Despite all the threats and promises about de-funding police agencies, the devil is in the details. Few have given Americans true pictures of what law enforcement will look like in such a program, or if any type of police force will exist in that scenario. Basic police services will always be needed to respond to calls for service and violent crime. Proponents of “broken windows” policing, Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED), and other pro-active prevention methods such as foot beat patrols and traffic enforcement, believe there should be tactics and strategies to prevent crime as well. If de-funded, you can bet most, if not all, community policing and prevention programs will suffer. And if there is such suffering, who will bear the pain? The People.

Long before the death of George Floyd, there have been calls to “de-militarize” the police. The Government 10-33 Program that awards military surplus to local law enforcement was first attacked during the Obama administration. The Urban Area Strategic Initiative (UASI) program, which helps identify and strengthen law enforcement infrastructure, has seen budgets dwindle over the years as well. The accompanying Urban Shield SWAT readiness training and exercises have been defunded. All these programs are linked to the public picture painted of the “militarization of the police.” Activists of most kinds are not always adept at painting truthful pictures. They tend to embellish to further their causes.

Protesters rally Wednesday, June 3, 2020, in Phoenix, demanding that the Phoenix City Council defund the Phoenix Police Department. (AP Photo/Matt York)

Despite changes to these federally funded programs, the impact on the patrol force has not been significant. Although agency budgets will no doubt be trimmed, the actual trickle down to patrol operations can be expected to be minimal.

Before dismantling police departments, city officials, councils, boards, and mayors may want to do some due diligence and speak to:

The COPS Office: The Department of Justice has valid input about the benefits of community policing grants and personnel hiring grants

Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD)

The organizers behind community policing initiatives like National Night Out; human trafficking awareness groups; domestic violence, family violence, and child abuse prevention advocates; and all the many victim advocate programs and agencies that partner with police.

The End of Social Problems Policing?

Much of the negative shadow over policing is due to the social problems the police are often called to handle. Critics say police should not be the agency to deal with the chronically inebriated, drug abusers or the mentally ill. If anything good comes from the cry to defund police, maybe it will shift funding for mental health professionals to respond to calls involving the mentally ill. Calls for service for the mentally ill are significant in any American city. In 2018, a Santa Clara County Grand Jury found that 40% of all police shootings involved an individual with mental illness.

Law enforcement’s contact with the mentally ill may not always end in a shooting, but the use of force is not uncommon, which has been upheld by the courts. Still, part of the de-fund movement attacks the ability of police to handle those with mental illness in crisis. Despite efforts to train law enforcement personnel in crisis intervention and other means of communicating with those in crisis, perhaps now may be a good time to hand duties over to trained medical and psychological experts in the field. Better yet, put the mobile crisis teams in the field and have them respond directly to 911-dispatched calls for service.

Budget shifting could reallocate funds for trained unarmed outreach workers to address homeless issues, including disputes in camps. I would imagine that most line officers would gladly turn over response authority and calls for service regarding public nuisance reports. Although in reality, it would not be long before someone got hurt or stopped responding to such calls. In San Francisco over a decade ago, street sweeper trucks from the Department of Public Works (DPW) were tasked with cleaning the United Nations Plaza. After some of the DPW drivers were assaulted, they refused to drive through the plaza without a police escort.

Perhaps all external defibrillators (AED) and naloxone will be removed from patrol vehicles and given to additional EMS personnel and vehicles to actively patrol areas where public chronic drug abuse is rampant and sometimes sanctioned and supported by the local government. That will make life easier on the patrol force, which often finds their hands tied when responding to medical crises.

The concept of changing procedures and shifting responsibilities to another agency has been successful in some places. There are numerous documented past cases that when called to public places where unconscious chronically inebriated or drug-infused individuals that were found,  officers would try to awaken them and transport them to a station detention cell until they sober up. Multiple in-custody deaths led to a new policy that mandated for an EMS response for those non-ambulatory individuals who could not be revived or speak coherently. The new policy was beneficial for the police and the inebriated person. The downside was an EMS ambulance was taken out of service, the cost of the service ($3,000 or more in San Francisco), and inadequate bed capacities at critical care hospital emergency rooms.

Legislated Crime Mandates

There seems to be the usual legislation of “all or nothing.” There is no message to the public to reassure them that crime and criminals will be dealt with. Do legislators understand that most crime victim legislation arises from tragedy? Do they understand the Jacob Wetterling Act? Have they heard of Megan Kanka, Polly Klass, or Adam Walsh?

Are they familiar with the Clery Act? University and college police chiefs understand their obligations of the Clery Act to provide transparency around campus crime policy and statistics. Failure to act, notify, or report crimes can result in fines of approximately $54,000 per omission. Not to mention that students need to know of crime problems and hot spots on and near their campuses.

The wounded and suffering families of these victims for which their loved ones are named after can confirm the need for a well-trained and professional police force.

Police as Firefighters

The idea of de-funding police departments is unrealistic. We have already anticipated negative impacts on public safety budgets from the COVID-19 recession, but some opportunists are seeking to redistribute budget dollars to other favored unarmed services in the medical, mental health, and social service sectors. If the intent is not to abolish law agencies altogether but to downsize their abilities and presence, police response from the station house will be reactive, not pro-active. In other words, the result will be police responding to crime after it occurs.

Experts have said that inner-city urban violence can be attributed to young men with guns who carry “payback” in their own hands rather than relying on the police for justice. Will de-funding police be the answer to the violence we routinely witness in cities like Chicago, Seattle, Portland, and Baltimore? Knee-jerk policymaking will always result in unintended consequences. Cities that are quick to de-fund police agencies may see bigger problems than the ones they currently perceive.

The problem is that major groups like Black Lives Matter who are well organized, very well funded, and who intimidate many politicians and city and state policymakers carry a really large stick in the public’s view. BLM is adamantly committed to defunding the police — ALL police — in the United States. BLM has not offered a plan for how law enforcement will exist without any law enforcement!

Most Americans in large percentages are against the complete defunding and therefore disbanding police forces. Most Americans want a revision of law enforcement agencies to assure citizens that members of police forces who integrate daily face-to-face with people have adopted through classes and instruction given by experts from public health organizations processes that will result in far less physical and verbal violence in each interaction.

Can that even be done? Is there any realistic scenario in which viable law enforcement can achieve the lofty expectations of Americans in protection? Is reducing the number of police officers while adding EMS and firemen and social workers into the mix realistic?

In most 911 calls in the nation, especially those involving health trauma, having police solely in response doesn’t happen today. Responders usually include police and fire department EMS first responders. Is that necessary?

Think about it: a 911 caller usually is NOT an expert in addressing whatever is happening on the scene. More often than not, the circumstances of such an incident are different when the response team arrives. In life and death emergency cases, having whatever resources are necessary as quickly impossible is what saves lives.

Summary

Plain and simple, reducing budget dollars or defunding police is the most ridiculous political talking point of this century! If this happens, (and it looks like it is likely in some localities) people will die needlessly for lack of ALL the emergency care that in today’s scenario is made available. Police action during many incidents will be less intrusive and comprehensive. This will certainly result in some for whom these responses are made will die. Are public officials prepared to pay the consequences for such actions?

In answer to that, just look at the recent responses to emergency situations of all kinds in Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis, Chicago, and Washington D.C. Mayors and governors of those locations have caved strictly because of political purposes. The emergencies that have occurred daily in each location have been handled poorly because politics drove the responses rather than the perceived responses dictated by those incidents. And people suffer needlessly. Is that what America

What’ll it Be: War or Peace?

June 1, 2020

Here we are, 90 days into the destruction of the most exceptional economy in World history at the hands of a virus. And just about the time, we discover that we just might make it back to health while getting everyone back to work pretty quickly, our entire social infrastructure is destroyed by a handful of racist cops and the slaughter of an African American man in broad daylight. And, just as we have seen through the years over and over, a city explodes, thousands of lives are turned upside down, and social activists have found a new weapon with which they can use to instigate anarchy in Minnesota while driving a wedge between a couple of American ethnicities. (Like we needed something to create a greater gap between African and Caucasian Americans.)

Just as always happens, it took only minutes for political leaders and the media to launch the current episode of the “Blame Game.”

Forbes Magazine: 

As Minnesota officials blamed violent protests on organized groups from out of state, far-right commentators on Twitter increasingly began blaming billionaire George Soros for playing a shadowy role behind the riots taking place in cities across the country—employing an old conspiracy theory based on false information and anti-semitic tropes.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, along with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, Saint Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, confirmed Saturday that outside forces had infiltrated the protests to cause mayhem.

State authorities said they were monitoring alleged criminals online, including posts from suspected white supremacist groups trying to incite violence by promoting looting and mayhem in Minneapolis.

The Washington Times:

The Trump administration blamed on Saturday far-left groups using Antifa tactics for fomenting the violent protests upending Minneapolis and other major cities, even as Minnesota Democrats say they’re looking at white supremacists and far-right extremists.

Attorney General William Barr said that the “voices of peaceful protests are being hijacked by violent radical elements.” He warned that it was a federal crime to cross state lines to incite or participate in rioting.

“Groups of outside radicals and agitators are exploiting the situation to pursue their own separate and violent agenda,” said Mr. Barr. “In many places, it appears violence is planned, organized, and being driven by anarchic and far-left extremist groups using Antifa-like tactics, many of whom traveled from outside the state to promote the violence.”

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey:

Officials have suggested that organized outsiders, including but not limited to anarchists, white supremacists, and gangs from other states, were behind the destruction and chaos in Minneapolis.

“We are now confronting white supremacists, members of organized crime, out of state instigators, and possibly even foreign actors to destroy and destabilize our city and our region,” Frey tweeted Saturday.

Minnesota Television Station:

The overwhelming majority of people arrested in connection with the Minneapolis unrest have Minnesota addresses, a search of the online Hennepin County Jail log shows.

Of the 45 people arrested for rioting, unlawful assembly, stolen property, burglary, or robbery on May 29 and May 30 so far, 38 had Minnesota addresses, according to publicly available jail records reviewed by FOX 9.

Politics

Everything — yes, EVERYTHING — that happens today somehow gets weaponized by those in politics. Certainly this racial horror the past week has been weaponized as well. Sadly, for the most part, the purpose or purposes for these political acts have nothing to do with racism, with the death of George Floyd or the loss to his family and his community. His death has been little more than a tool for people to use to try to get political advantage in an election year. Don’t think that I’m being cold in saying that. If you’ve watched and listened this past week, if you are honest you will agree with the politicization of George’s tragic death.

Let’s do this for the balance of this offering today: let’s drop the politics. Let’s deal with the REAL things that underly what we’re seeing: hatred, anger, fear, despondency, desperation, and uncertainty. Let’s don’t just talk about them, let’s discuss them from only the perspective of dealing with them to try to find ways through them. Let’s drop the finger-pointing, the blaming, the psychology of this and that. Let’s talk about the truth.

The Eddings Family from Minden, Louisiana

Do you have any idea how a black family with children begins, lives, and finish each day of their lives? A college classmate of mine who was a fantastic offensive lineman at Louisiana Tech graduated, married, and settled down to raise a family in his hometown. Not surprisingly, Gerald and his wife have a son: a BIG son. They are African-American, a really close-knit family, active in their community, and loved by all that know them. But, the Eddings Family live in the South and in a tiny town. Their 6-7 son sticks out in a crowd. And you know what that means.

Gerald’s wife (I’ll not give her name) penned this letter this past weekend to explain just what they as a family are going through today regarding this race war that is imminent in our nation. There’s no way any who are not African-American could ever honestly say to one of them, “I know how you feel.” There’s NO way a White person could ever truthfully say that. To try and give other Caucasians and me a snapshot of what their family works through mentally and emotionally every day of their lives, she worded it this way:

My heart is heavy as I begin this day. I would ask “why” George Floyd died, pleading for his life but I know all too well the answer. As the mother to a 6’7” black male, I have told him that merely by his standing close or towering over someone, he can expect to hear that he “intimidated”or “threatened” them. I trained him as early as a five year-old, when he goes into stores, he must put both hands in his front pockets until he is in the process of purchasing something. I’ve told him to stay away from certain areas, as not to be suspected of doing something “suspicious.” I admonished him not to take any comfort in residing in his zip code, stressing that it does not exempt him from being discriminated against. I wondered what rules George Floyd’s mom instilled in him. But, nothing that I have taught my son and nothing that his mom could have taught him is as powerful as the racism,violence and degradation he was subjected to by the Minneapolis policemen as the handcuffed Floyd lay for nearly ten minutes, pleading to be allowed to have water, to receive mercy, to breathe. I believe, In my heart, when he called for his deceased mother, this man knew his death was imminent. His life mattered. He joins a chorus of others who have been murdered at the hands of those who have taken an oath “to protect and serve.” I cannot erase the picture and sounds of his suffering from my mind. As a black mother, I’m haunted by the fact that George Floyd could have just as easily been my son. The choice of sitting alone in his own vehicle could result in him being detained. Though my son is a mature man today, I still caution him when he leaves home. Why? I’m the mother of an African American son and his life matters. I know other mothers seek for their black children to be treated with humanity and respect. Like me, black parents want their children to be given the benefit of being treated as if they are innocent, not judged and executed before any due process has been afforded. The phrase, “no justice, no peace” resonates more clearly and much stronger to me now. My prayer is that it awakens the hearts and minds of all of us.

Imagine if we all were forced to live and make a life for 30, 40, even 50 years with that shadow over us, we’d probably have the same horrors and emotions as do millions in the African American community.

I’m not going to admonish you anymore. I leave that to my brother and Pastor, Denny Duron. Sunday he put it plainly for all Christians as to how we should in Christ handle this. (Click on the link)

https://truthnewsnet.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Denny-@-SCC-53120-9.49-PM.mp3

Summary

I hope that we all go to prayer, refrain from making excuses, call evil evil, and LISTEN. And there’s no need for self-defense. In the words of Taylor Swift: ”Haters gonna hate.”

Pray for our leaders: not because we agree with everything that they do or say, but because we Christians are instructed to.

We need to be honest with ourselves and open AND honest with those with whom we interface. Trying to live behind a mask of untruthfulness will only make things harder.

Lock-down Anger Just Got Started

May 19, 2020

Protesters shouted “I want my life back” and held up signs with slogans such as “Protect constitutional rights,” “Freedom isn’t everything but without freedom, everything is nothing,” and “Daddy, what is a kiss?” Police said on Twitter they had arrested more than 100 people.

Some protesters tried to keep a distance from each other, sitting on the ground and wearing masks, but others clustered together.

Like dozens of countries around the globe, strict guidelines have been enacted on public activity to slow transmission of COVID-19, imposing its lockdown on March 17. The protesters handed out newspapers entitled “Democratic Resistance,” which said the new coronavirus is an attempt to seize power by spreading fear. The papers quoted 127 doctors from around the world who question the need for strict lockdowns.

A Police spokesman said permission had been granted for a flyer distribution campaign, but authorities had not granted permission for a public demonstration.

“According to state emergency declarations, we are obliged to prevent a gathering,” a spokesman said, adding 180 police officers were on duty.

A State Court ruled earlier this month that people have the right to hold demonstrations if they adhere to social distancing rules after activists brought a case that argued that the lockdown breaches freedom of assembly.

On Saturday, some protesters sat peacefully on the ground at a distance from each other, holding white roses in reference to the White Rose resistance movement against the Nazis in Germany. “We are here today … to stand up for our opinion. For the protection of constitutional rights, freedom, and above all freedom of speech,” said a woman holding a rose who gave her name only as Sandra.

This story actually came from a German newspaper and is about the demonstrations and protests currently underway in Germany! That story eerily parallels what could easily be an exact story about the United States. Are there any ties there?

There is so much of this type of protest going on around the world, it’s hard to accept that each is about a specific nation’s issues addressing COVID-19 and its fallouts in each. But in the case of Germany, it appears that the German people are taking plays from U.S. workers playbook on protests. Or maybe it’s just the opposite. Either way, citizens of at least these two countries are facing similar horrors at the hand of the virus — or is it the fault of COVID-19?

Who Is In Control?

If we only knew! Is it possible that there is someone who is maybe not actually pulling these strings, but might be coordinating the pulling? Don’t take this the wrong way: I am NOT claiming there is any such coordination nor is this a conspiracy theory. But in numerous countries around the world, similar protests are underway for the same reasons.

Let’s be perfectly clear: I don’t know of any of these protests that are actually protesting COVID-19. Covid-19 is NOT the culprit. There’s no doubt it is “a,” if not “the” major player in all this. But the disease is NOT locking down the citizens of Germany, Hong Kong, the U.S. or Kyiv. Protests are underway in India and Lebanon.

Protests have been ongoing in Colombia since November 2019 against a range of proposed economic and political reforms. While they stopped in January 2020, following the outbreak of coronavirus, they appear to have started once again. Since March 24, Colombia has been under lockdown, first starting at city levels and expanding across the country.

France has been under lockdown since March 17 to curb the spread of COVID-19 and amid the global health crisis, the news of riots in a Paris suburb that occurred on March 18 may have slipped under the radar. Paris has become accustomed to the “yellow-vest” demonstrations of which some turn violent. It was natural for those to morph into protests against France for lockdowns regarding the virus.

Is it just a coincidence that all these countries along with others find themselves not only dealing with a health crisis but a crisis that involves their citizens protesting? Sometimes protests turn violent as a result of their governments’ attacks on the economies of their nation in the name of beating a virus.

Usually, when something like this happens in places that appear to be unattached there are some connections. But I have no idea if any or all of these have some ties to the others or, if so, with whom and why they are related in some way.

Why is The Anger so Threatening?

That’s the easiest question to answer. Peoples’ lives have been turned upside down by those who are supposed to make sure everything is OK. And when the entity that is chosen to do that suddenly becomes the entity that shuts down the economic life source for everyone one of their citizens, tempers quickly boil over.

It’s the same across the Globe.

But the protests while are partly due to economic reasons, most of these countries are democratic or some combination of democracy and socialist in their governments. Their populace is accustomed to working in jobs and being paid for their work. And their pay allows them to survive, paying necessary amounts for their families to make it. Through no choice of their own — no election and therefore no authorization of shutdowns — citizens find themselves with no jobs and no way to make it financially without government assistance. And turning to federal governments for that assistance leaves bad tastes in everyone’s mouth.

Summary

That’s why the populace in these countries have resorted to demonstrations and sometimes even protests: to have their lives restored. In each of these countries impacted there have been numerous epidemics of various sorts through the years, none of which has forced these total lockdowns that are in place today.

The U.S. is NOT the only such country whose citizens have Constitutional rights that preclude governments from arbitrarily taking the lockdown and quarantine actions that have been put in place. The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution ensures that Americans’ right to free speech and to assemble will be unilaterally maintained “by the People.” And the state governments seem to have weaponized the coronavirus against its own citizens.

We didn’t see that happen in the Spanish flu, the HIV epidemic, H1N1 flu, or any other epidemic. So why now?

Any answer here is totally subjective. We may be given an answer or some answers to the “why” question. But we don’t know right now.

What we DO know is that our government at the federal level and at state levels had better act quickly to get these skirmishes resolved before protestors create an environment that can easily escalate and create real problems for many people.

What exacerbates the problem is that none of the “experts” can give solid and believable information about the virus and how to defeat it. Having so many die with only guesses for answers just lights the fires of fear and anguish. That must be stopped.

It’s horrible but typical of many in government to shed any responsibility or any of this and point to President Trump when blamed by the People. In fairness, at its inception, those same people were prosecuting him for abuse of power! But even while that was happening he established the White House task force to spearhead the quick building of a response team with all the “experts” that Democrats demanded he brings to the fray already in place. Unilaterally he quickly through executive order closed our borders to any travel from China. Such is only rare exceptions. Democrats, on the other hand, in all of January and the first week of February this year dealt with one and only one matter: the impeachment of the President. The House of Representatives were allowed by Speaker Pelosi to take up any coronavirus matters until February 5 — 6-days after Trump closed our borders to travelers from China. They were too busy attacking him first in impeachment and then for racism and xenophobia on his part for the China travel ban. Their own experts would state that Trump’s actions doing so saved thousands of U.S. lives.

Will we discover who, what, and why for all this? I hope we do, but not for the purpose of blaming someone politically. We need to find out the causes and the “caus-ers” so we can confront all those involved and implement processes to assure it will never happen again.

Shame on any Americans who are scrounging for the answer just to use for ammunition about their counterparts! We’re a better nation than that. Let’s while we’re looking for those answers continue to find ways to restart our economy and quickly, efficiently, and safely as possible to put Americans back on the job! Unless we find ways and find ways quickly to do that, our nation as we know it is doomed.

But in retrospect, that may be the actual objective of those who continue to want division and animus in our political atmosphere, knowing it will spill out into the streets and perpetuate the atmosphere. Nothing but further division can possibly result from that scenario.

Who’s responsible? Don’t look to others for those answers: Watch the players in all this. They’ll give you a sign — the proof — of who’s making it happen.

We need that to happen immediately!

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FBI Director Chris Wray: “We’re broken…and We’ve Got to be Fixed”

February 11, 2020

In a letter sent to Intelligence Inspector General Michael Horowitz following the humiliation of the FBI at the hands of the FISA Court, FBI Director Chris Wray publicly offered some changes the FBI are going to make:

“The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) appreciates the OIG’s crucial independent oversight role and the thoroughness and professionalism your office brought to this work. The Report’s findings and recommendations represent constructive criticism that will make us stronger as an organization. We also appreciate the Report’s recognition that the FBI cooperated fully with this review and provided broad and timely access to all information requested by the OIG, including highly classified and sensitive material involving national security.”

“The Report concludes that the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation and related investigations of certain individuals were opened in 2016 for an authorized purpose and with sufficient factual predication. The Report also details instances in which certain FBI personnel, at times during the 2016-2017 period reviewed by the OIG, did not comply with existing policies, neglected to exercise appropriate diligence, or otherwise failed to meet the standard of conduct that the FBI expects of its employees — and that our country expects of the FBI. We are vested with significant authorities, and it is our obligation as public servants to ensure that these authorities are exercised with objectivity and integrity. Anything less falls short of the FBI’s duty to the American people.”

“Accordingly, the FBI accepts the Report’s findings and embraces the need for thoughtful, meaningful remedial action. I have ordered more than 40 corrective steps to address the Report’s recommendations. Because our credibility and brand are central to fulfilling our mission, we are also making improvements beyond those recommended by the OIG. And where certain individuals have been referred by the OIG for review of their conduct, the FBI will not hesitate to take appropriate disciplinary action if warranted after the required procedures for disciplinary review.”

Below is a summary of the actions we are taking, which we describe in more detail in the attachment to this letter.

First, we are modifying our processes under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), both for initial applications and renewals, to enhance accuracy and completeness. The FBI relies on FISA every day in national security investigations to prevent terrorists and foreign intelligence services from harming the United States. We are making concrete changes to ensure that our FISA protocols, verifications, layers of review, record-keeping requirements, and audits are more stringent and less susceptible to mistake or inaccuracy. These new processes will also ensure that the FISA Court and the Department of Justice (DOJ) are apprised of all information in the FBI’s holdings relevant to a determination of the probable cause.

“Second, we undertook an extensive review of investigative activity based out of FBI Headquarters. The FBI is a field-based law enforcement organization, and the vast majority of our investigations should continue to be worked by our field offices. Moving forward, in the very rare instance when FBI Headquarters runs a sensitive investigation, we require prior approval by the FBI Deputy Director and consultation with the Assistant Director in Charge or Special Agent in Charge of the affected field offices.”

“Third, we are making significant changes to how the FBI manages its Confidential Human Source (CHS) Program. Many FBI investigations rely on human sources, but the investigative value derived from CHS-provided information rests in part on the CHS’s credibility, which demands rigorous assessment of the source. The modifications we are making to how the FBI collects, documents, and shares information about CHSs will strengthen our assessment of the information these sources are providing.”

“Fourth, I am establishing new protocols for the FBI’s participation in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI)-led counterintelligence transition briefings (i.e., strategic intelligence briefings) provided to presidential nominees. The FBI’s role in these briefings should be for national security purposes and not for investigative purposes. Continued participation by the FBI in these transition briefings is critical to ensuring continuity in the event of a change in administrations. The new FBI protocols about transition briefings will complement procedures already implemented by the FBI earlier this year to govern the separate category of defensive briefings. The FBI gives defensive briefings, which are based on specific threat information, in a wide variety of contexts and for myriad federal, state, and other public and private individuals and entities. The procedures we recently established for defensive briefings regarding malign foreign influence efforts have brought a new rigor and discipline to whether and how such briefings should proceed.”

“Fifth, I am mandating a specialized, semiannual training requirement for FBI personnel at all levels who handle FISA and CHS matters. This training will be experience-based, and it will cover specific lessons learned from this Report, along with other new and revised material. Earlier in my tenure as Director, I reinstated an annual ethics training program for all FBI employees, because I learned the training had been discontinued in prior years. While that training was not introduced in response to this Report, all current FBI employees involved in the 2016-2017 events reviewed by the OIG have since completed this additional training in ethics and professional responsibility.”

“Finally, we will review the performance and conduct of certain FBI employees who were referenced in the Report’s recommendations — including managers, supervisors, and senior officials at the time. The FBI will take appropriate disciplinary action where warranted. Notably, many of the employees described in the report are no longer employed at the FBI.”

                Carter Page

The issue with the FBI in all this is the illicit (and some say “illegal”) application produced by the FBI to obtain authority to surveil Trump Campaign worker Carter Page.

It’s safe to say that each of these proposed changes seems critical in the quest to clean up what has been for years called “The greatest law enforcement agency in the World.” It’s sad such a letter even needed to be penned. It’s more disturbing, though, that somehow the FBI became what it has become under the leadership of former Director James Comey.

Who’s minding the shop?

Director Wray, two weeks ago, made a second trip to the Hill to defend the FBI once again. This trip was Part 2 of the necessary FBI cleanup Wray began several months ago. Thankfully for Americans, Wray in his testimony was a bit more direct about the FBI issues:

“The failures highlighted in the inspector general report are unacceptable, period. And they cannot be repeated,” Wray testified before the House Judiciary Committee.

“I have already ordered more than 40 corrective actions to our FISA policies and procedures,” Wray continued, adding that he has “gone above and beyond” in outlining what “should be changed” and “can be changed” and can provide “accountability,” “rigor” and “discipline.”

“I do not think anyone has carte blanche to bypass rules, and I intend to make it painfully clear that is unacceptable at the FBI today,” he added.

I, as do many Americans, expect the FBI not just to be known as such a significant law enforcement agency; I expect the FBI to “BE” the most excellent law enforcement agency in the World. There’s a vast difference between “being known as” and “actually being.”

In consideration of where Director Wray may be in his political thinking, this news came to the forefront:

“FBI Director Christopher Wray reportedly represented an American energy executive who was facing a criminal investigation by Russia in 2006. However, as Trump deals with multiple investigations AFTER all speculation about his campaign’s ties to Russia that were debunked by Robert Mueller, one wouldn’t know that particular detail of Wray’s career history. Why? Wray himself deleted the reference well before he was up for one of the country’s top law enforcement jobs.

As early as 2009, Wray’s profile for law firm King and Spalding described his clients and included the line: ‘An energy company president in a criminal investigation by Russian authorities.'”

The firm said that Wray “purposely” made the changes but that he wasn’t the only attorney to work on the case over the years for a client the firm would not name. With offices spread across the globe, King and Spalding have previously represented companies that dealt with Russian state-run energy companies Rosneft and Gazprom.

This fact does not necessarily mean that Mr. Wray is not qualified to run the FBI. But where is the outcry from the Left for his hiding HIS involvement with Russia? Aren’t Democrats and their media minions the “keepers of information regarding all thing corrupt” to report to Americans? They all swallowed the “ignore pill” when it came to anything that might be perceived to be negative news for the Left. It makes me wonder where Director Wray is regarding political non-partisanship.

Summary

These thoughts about Christopher Wray go to a much broader and more critical concern. And that concern has resided mostly in the back of my mind since his appointment to Director. My anxiety has crept forward to the “front” of my mind multiple times since he became Director. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but, regarding politics during the last decade or so, I’ve often discovered too late that my concerns were based on facts that, when revealed, proved to be justified. I don’t know if the following matters are tied to facts, but they certainly cause me to question:

  • Much of the so-far revealed FBI nastiness regarding Russia and the Trump Campaign happened on Chris Wray’s watch as Director. Remember: President Trump sent James Comey packing just a few months after his inauguration. Wray took over the Bureau in August of 2017.
  • Even if it all happened BEFORE he became Director,  Wray was not part of the deep-dive that unveiled all the corruption at the Bureau, especially regarding the Russia collusion investigation. It is very concerning to me that a newly appointed Director, knowing his good friend and former DOJ fellow employee Robert Mueller was steering that Russia collusion investigation did NOT work closely with Mueller to as quickly as possible identify the corrupt FBI employees and make changes.
  • Why did the FBI not conduct the investigations into the group we reported yesterday were indicted in December (2019) for massive illegal contributions, much of that went to the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign? That is a typical job for the FBI. Yet the Department of Justice conducted that investigation internally.
  • The final concern: those “40 corrective actions to our FISA policies and procedures” Director Wray reported have been put in place at the FBI are non-existent. I hope I am wrong with that statement. But as of this moment, we have been unable to confirm Wray’s claim those 40 have been implemented. No one at the FBI has any accountability to Truth News Network. Director Wray did not send us a press release to document the claims he made in his letter to Congress. But we’ve reached out to numerous government contacts inside and outside the FBI and cannot find anyone who has those 40 corrective actions mentioned in the letter. They know nothing about them other than what Wray stated.

I’m not an “anti-FBI” American. I’m far from that. I have a very close friend who is an FBI lifer that I don’t just know “about,” I really “know” him. I am confident that among the 35,000 FBI employees, there are numerous loyal Americans and patriots. Of late, however, bits of information and evidence are leaked that cause many to reflect on the agency’s universal credibility. The recent investigations into the FBI have revealed the shockingly political partisan actions taken by FBI upper-level management members to upend a duly elected President based not on evidence, but based on partisan disagreements with the President’s policies.

Isn’t it spooky to think that an American president — ANY American president — could possibly be driven from office by a small group of political hacks from the FBI and DOJ? Forget about the Russians. Those FBI malcontents attempted a coup from the inside!

President Trump has done many good things since elected. One of his commitments is still unfulfilled: to clean up Washington D.C. and rid our government of corrupt politicians. His problem in doing so is two-fold: finding the “what” and “who’s” of the internal corruption and having the confidence that those who are in the branches of government that generally guarantee that fraud does not happen are truthfully and honestly not a part of it.

Regarding Director Wray: I’m not yet sure of his credibility and commitment to do everything he can to make the Bureau honest in its investigatory capacity. Fortunately for us all, President Trump now has an Attorney General whose lifetime of law enforcement shows his honesty and commitment to the rule of law — Will Barr — at the helm of the Department of Justice.

What do we know about Attorney General Barr? Besides his biography and substantial resume, his voracity was confirmed to me when Morning Joe’s Joe Scarborough demanded not only that William Barr is fired as AG, he demanded that Mr. Barr be disbarred.

That means the Attorney General is pulling the right strings and stirring the correct hornets’ nest to cause Joe to holler. That’s good enough for me!

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