A letter from House Intelligence Committee members demands answers from the DNI about illegal breaches of the wall guarding against CIA and NSA domestic activity.
You know what the scariest, most painfull part of this all is? The People’s inability to see wtf is really going on, and frightening capacity to turn on one another instead of doing some inteligent, non-bias, processing. Have you yet been called an extremist? I have. By someone very close to me who is a hard core Democrat and listens to Rachael like it’s gospel. All I said was essentially that Trump may not be exactly who they’re portraying him to be since they are known to lie and some facts don’t add up. And that he, in comparisson to other Presidents past, was not much different. Better or worse at certain things, but over all if you ask a non-American inhabitant of this planet they’d probably say the US has remained pretty consistent no matter who’s in the Oval Office since the bombs never really did quite stop raining on their heads.
To me that’s scary AF. People so easily turning against their friends and loved ones and parroting exactly wtf they heard on MSNBC and CNN: that to question the narrative basically means “you want to see the country burn down”, you’re anti-America, anti-democracy, anti-peace, anti-society, “you’re an etremist”, you’re violent and/or associated to violence, etc. How can people not realize that it is NOT ok or acceptable to use such hostile tactics to debate a point with somebody? How can people not realize they’re playing right into their hands? They’re using us to silence each other while they continue on doing their dirt unencumbered by the bothers of pesky “extremists” asking questions? I can’t help but to wonder what it was the average German was doing while other humans were being burned alive right up the road during the Holocaust.
With the AUMF about to be rescinded by Congress, the hydra-like intelligence community spawned during the post-9/11 era needs to find a new justification for its existence.
After all, why do we have a Department of Homeland Security with no threat to the homeland?
Enter the unholy neocon/neoliberal alliance which has coalesced around one simple philosophy: the government should have unlimited power to spy on whomever it pleases. Otherwise, the power of the government might be threatened. Notably, these evil people do not care if that 'threat' is a political one from the nation they purport to represent.
If the 1/6 rioters engaged in conspiracy to sedition and insurrection, so did Antifa and BLM when they declared themselves independent of US law and attacked federal courthouses and federal agents. But because of the lack of political support for the administration in power at the time, the calls for a new internal security state waited until a more politically palatable target appeared for the left-of-center: Trump supporters.
The point of this screed? Mr. Greenwald has more eloquently than me pointed this out: the legacy media is allied with the would-be masters of the internal security state. Don't believe anything these people tell you, and understand that defending your civil rights matters FAR, FAR more than whether or not you hate the opposing political party.
I don't know about many of you, but I've lost faith in the G-men and women working in the FBI.
We keep hearing after-action reports in many of these mass shootings that the suspect was "known" by the FBI.
While doing nothing to make themselves "well known" to these suspects, a crew of 15 of them hop on down to Talladega to investigate a looped strap handle on a raceway pit garage door that made Bubba Wallace pee his pants.
They falsify FISA warrants and then worse...lie about it when caught.
They coalesce around the other IC to tell us minions that Russia planted that Hunter Biden laptop in the Delaware Repair shop (where they must have forged his signature as well), then tell us the Capitol needs 8' high fencing with razor wire and 5000 Army troops with fully auto weapons to protect the prisoners inside the Capitol Hill Prison (Warden - Nancy Pelosi; Capacity - 535).
Once the G-men lose their ability to know an objective truth and fall away from their true north, it's now them against us...and by us...I mean 70% of the nation.
Feels a lot like the Securitate in Romania during the last 3 years of Ceausescu's regime.
Thank you Glenn - a timely and alarming article. Domestic surveillance is rampant and all encompassing - extensively disclosed by Snowden. HiTech and communication monopolies are already deeply integrated into the US security apparatus.
HiTech monopolies will not likely be broken up any time soon despite recent Congressional report on high priority need to be broken up. The accounting for 5+-years of lying is unravelling and the efforts are now focused to prevent the full disclosure of this scam of the century. Most of us agree that it is very good that Trump defeated himself -- but the involvement of the US security apparatus for five+ years is truly alarming.
By far the highest interest of Biden government and its oligarch cabal is that Russia-gate immense hoax – the scam of the century -- will NOT / will NEVER be exposed. There has been synchronized and choreographed collusion between media, Democrat party, Hi-Tech companies and the deep state for now more than five years.
The entire anti-Russian fairytale is a deliberate fabrication -- the worst scam in US history is neoliberals’ Russia-gate hoax -- initiated by Obama/Biden administration. They lost to a TV host and instead of reflection, they latched onto a moronic conspiracy theory -- this includes the completely (proven) false accusations that Russia gave WikiLeaks Hillary's emails (hence the total silence on Assange torture). Assange must be silenced by that psychopaths' logic -- all the plotters/players agree...
There has been collusion between media, Democrat party, Hi-Tech companies and the deep state for now five years. The Russia-gate hoax and Ukraine-impeachment “entertainment” was concocted by Obama/Hillary/Biden/Pelosi, Schumer, Schiff, Maxine Waters, Jamie Raskin, etc. and their intelligence, HiTech and DNC executives on behalf of their Wall Street and arms industry donors. The lying team is now back in power – note that Kamala Harris (and her sister) and Neera Tanden are Hillary's protégés; Pete Buttigieg was promptly rewarded for his role of election theft in Iowa, etc.
Remember, Clapper, Brennan & Hayden trio were among former 50 intelligence officials stating that Hunter-laptop is classical “Russian disinformation” !?!.
- They were also key promoters of the by now five-year Russia-gate hoax.
- They were also key intelligence executives in Obama/Biden/Hillary government – the government which hunted Snowden (forcing Bolivian plane with Bolivia’s president to land to search it) and armed Al Qaeda (including “white helmets” hoax) and staged all chemical attacks in Syria to remove its government.
When asked about Hunter's corruption laptops - Pelosi brazenly stated "All roads lead to Putin"; commenting on Capitol invasion (called now "armed insurrection" although not a single weapon was discovered) Schumer said - "worse than Pearl Harbor and 9/11"...
The lying Russia-gate team is fully back in power working at full speed -- massive censorship and domestic surveillance is mandatory for them to preserve power..
Love him or hate him, Trump at least removed the curtain to show the lengths the IC will go to engage in domestic politics if they feel threatened, through both its current and former members, utilizing mouthpieces in the media and unverifiable sources that strike with immediate effect but take years to determine the actual veracity. And their response following his deposition is further illuminating.
They might not have much in common, but if you ask an old hippy, a rural gun owner, an old black man, a War on Terror vet, and a Muslim immigrant if they trust the US Government, you will surprisingly get the same answer!
Thank you once again, Glenn. Basically - from what they say - we're all domestic terrorists except for the media useful idiots who take their “reporting” from what intelligence dictates to them. I voted for Obama but got increasingly concerned over his love of surveillance - I came to realize he makes Nixon look like the poster child for non-paranoia - and joined the quite peaceful and well organized marches against his surveillance policies. Which probably has me down as a domestic terrorist.
This is a latter step in the process of the US government completely restructuring the country to an authoritarian, centrally planned system, a system more similar to modern China than historic US. Last year began operation warp speed and this is just nails in the coffin.
Too many Americans were are apathetic about their own liberties and enthusiastically lowered their head for the leash over the last year, probably the last chance of reversing this trend. Most of the left is overwhelmingly on board with virtually any expansion of government power, and enough of the rest are on board or ignorant or stupid or just don’t care. Since governments do not ever voluntarily give up power, and Americans can’t surrender their liberties fast enough, there is little reason to see these trends reverse. Looking for waves of opposition but I just don’t see them.
Glenn, many thanks for sounding the alarm on this growing threat to the future of America.
Given what we have seen in the first few weeks of the Biden administration, the DHS Report of 03/01/2021 is incredibly chilling. A key point of vulnerability is the meaning of the terms "violence" or "DVE" that dominate the DHS document.
The academic establishment, which overwhelmingly supports Biden, and which has surrendered all pretense of objectivity, has already blurred the meaning of "violence," extending the word to encompass any activity it finds intellectually threatening.
This blurring became apparent in the aftermath of the riot of 01/06/2021. This was labeled a "violent insurrection," when of course it was (except for the setting) little more than Fort Lauderdale Spring Break party gone bad until, without warning, a uniformed guard killed Ashli Babbitt.
As I stated for weeks on Powerline Blog, and you carefully documented here, all the most basic information (potentially) contradicting the "violent insurrection" narrative has been withheld. We still don't even know the name of the man who killed Babbitt nearly 3 months ago! We still don't know the results from Sicknick's autopsy. We don't know the dollar value of the damages to the capitol on 01/06, but we can guess that it is less than many a weekend ANTIFA funfest in Portland. Yet DHS is using the "violent insurrection narrative to vastly extend its powers.
What you are now documenting is the near complete takeover of a shadow government in the USA, with the active complicity of a corrupt academic establishment. I could go on for pages, but let's just consider a few obvious changes since Trump was removed.
1. During the first few weeks of the Trump administration, there were dozens of leaks designed to undermine him and his goals. Trump couldn't eat an extra scoop of ice cream, or call a foreign government, without the NY Times getting a full report designed to portray Trump as an ignoramus and a bully. During the first few weeks of the Biden administration, there have been virtually no leaks, even though it is woefully apparent to anyone that Biden actually is an ignoramus and a bully.
2. The academic establishment fully supported many attacks on Trump's mental capacity and morality. For example, Bandy X. Lee published a volume of "long distance" psychiatric analyses of Trump by several academicians that were largely based on hyperbole and political bias. The American Psychiatric Association considers such analyses unethical when presented as professional opinion, yet Lee became a hero in the anti-Trump press, which generally failed to mention that her appointment at Yale was not as a tenure-track professor, while portraying her as a "Yale Professor" in much the same way that they inflated Obama's humble adjunct teaching position into a "Professor of Constitutional Law." For example, Wikipedia describes her as "with Yale University," rather than give her actual title.
Now that Lee has outlived her usefulness, Yale has removed her from her voluntary teaching duties. This has been described as a "firing," and Lee has responded by suing Yale.
It is noteworthy that Lee has not, to my knowledge, ever expressed the slightest public concern about the mental health or fitness of Joe Biden. She's outlived her usefulness.
Many academic "experts" supported various attacks on Trump's veracity. For example, when Trump repeatedly asserted (with good reason) that he was optimistic that a COVID vaccine would be ready by the end of 2020, CNN marshalled numerous experts to declare that this was a joke, an impossibility, and a lie. Interviewed about this a few weeks ago, one of the founders of Moderna and the inventor of the technology that made the vaccine possible declared that those who declared it a joke were apparently unaware of recent developments in the technology. Right. Yet nobody in the liberal media sought to reveal this prior to the election, and there were no leaks of the imminent release of the vaccine either.
Imagine: a pharmaceutical company becomes aware that their vaccine works, meaning billions in potential new revenue --- and keeps the information secret!
US Prosecutor: “Your honor, the defendant clicked the heart button on the article by Mr. Greenwald. This is proof positive that he not only liked the seditious article, but loved it. We recommend the death penalty.”
This might be the least surprising writing you have made recently Glenn. I’m afraid this genie is long gone from the bottle. We released him almost 20 years ago.
I do appreciate you continuing to talk about it because it is a topic of great importance but I wonder what crime it will take to be perpetrated by our own government against us for the public to finally say enough is enough.
I know so many of the “if you are not doing anything, you have nothing to worry about” crowd that I suspect we have passed the point of no return.
"possibly illegal involvement by the intelligence community in U.S. domestic political affairs." There's an understatement. Do they do anything legal? Yesterday we learned that the CO murderer was on the FBI's radar but left free to roam. We are all on the IC's radar because it is easier for them to police the law-abiding and claim that we are "protected" by this, than it is to investigate the real threats.
Also yesterday, we read even more about the CIA chief begging the Yemenis to release "my guy" - Al Alawaki.
How much protection can a country withstand? 17 Intel Agencies and not one of them on our side.
"Indeed, many of the same House Republicans who wrote this important letter to the DNI have in the past supported laws that allow greater involvement of the CIA, NSA and other agencies in activities on U.S. soil — including the Patriot Act."
While I am more right leaning on most things, I do find it very interesting that Republican politicians are getting a taste of the medicine (poison) they pushed for few decades ago. But it also seems like the Democrat constituents are making the same mistake as Republicans did few decades ago - Democrats are supporting these measures against their political opponents without self awareness that when the pendulum swings back, it will be against them. The "it's okay because my opposing view point is a nazi white supremacist" crowd will be wondering what happened when the pendulum flips back on them.
In fact, the establishment hammer is already falling on the few honest liberals still left - Jimmy Dore is being called inciting violence by AOC for his force the vote thing, his channel is throttled, Hard Lens Media got suspended on YouTube, Glenn Greenwald, Aaron Mate, Matt Taibbi, Tulsi Gabbard etc are all called russian agents. You want your $2000 you were promised? You want the $15 minimum wage or medicare for all you were promised? You want to stop forever wars or want to hold Wall Street accountable? You want businesses to open up and stop covid fear mongering? You are a sexist for speaking against the first female treasury secretary, racist for speaking against the black DOD secretary, transphobic for speaking against the trans health minister, inciting violence against AOC for "force the vote", poor uneducated deplorable for wanting $15 minimum wage. Oh and Russia!!!
First they came for Alex Jones and Milo, then they came for Tulsi Gabbard and Orange Man. Bernie Sanders supporters got called misogynsts by the establishment. Remember how Pocahantas Warren and establishment media treated Bernie at the debate? Too bad, Bernie took it as a pathetic cuck that he is.
People seem to think it's a linear scale where left vs right falls. I disagree - I think it's a triangle with liberals and conservatives are on two corners fighting each other while the authoritarian establishment consisting of elite politicians, media, corporations, Hollywood etc are sitting and enjoying the fight in the third corner.
I think this is because people believe in the illusion of the two party system. There's no two party. Nor is there a libertarian party. Remember when libertarian party last year was pushing the BLM narrative? The Democrat and Republican parties are mostly the same - one is evil using identity politics to push their establishment agenda while the other is a bunch of incompetent spineless cucks who run away the very moment someone calls them a bigot. Both parties are totally okay now a days with feeding the war machine, spying on Americans etc.
I wish that instead of wasting 4 years on stupid russiagate nonsense and impeachment harassment, media and liberals spent time demanding pardons for Assange Snowden etc. The biggest disappointment from Trump was him not pardoning the very victims of the things he talked about - deep state, spying, free speech, forever wars etc. It felt like a slap to my face honestly when the pardons didn't come. I honestly wonder if the deep state threatened him with something. We know McConnell did threaten him with a successful impeachment if he did but I wish Trump had grown the balls and just done it.
With that said, I do wonder if this change in the political party ideology is what made Trump switch from being a Democrat until late 2000s into a Republican.
Btw, when I refer to Democrat/Republican/Libertarian - I am talking about the politicians - not the constituents. A lot of constituents don't like what their politicians are doing. Right now it seems like more right leaning don't like their republican politicians vs left leaning not liking the democrat politicians - but I could be mistaken on this. I just don't see enough left leaning push back against the Democrats.
Until this pendulum swinging continues without any self reflection, I think we are going in circles and the establishment cronies will continue winning.
Americans can thank Harry Truman and Democrats in Congress after World War II for the implementation of these agencies. The CIA and NSA were created by the National Security Act of 1947 - which also established the DOD and the United States Air Force - as a means of expeditiously obtaining intelligence rather than depending on the War and Navy Departments' intelligence agencies. It created new bureaucracies instead, each with its own agenda. Incidentally, although the NSA is thought of as a "spy" organization, its actual role is security by SPYING ON US GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS to ensure that they don't pass on classified information through conversations and messages. I was in the Air Force in the 1960s and 1970s and it was common knowledge that telephone lines on military bases were monitored to protect classified information. There were signs on the wall above the phones in our squadron in Okinawa advising that the lines were monitored. The CIA was charged with collecting "intelligence," which is a euphemism for information, pertaining to foreign government although its Special Activities Division was established to start wars and otherwise disrupt governments the US didn't like. As for protecting against violence, Americans forget that the United States came about because of a violent overthrow of the legitimate government of the British monarchy. (Granted, the rebels won only because France came to their aid.) In fact, the Founders - after resistance to the Constitution by the anti-Federalists led by Patrick Henry - provided for the violent overthrow of the Federal government in the event it became tyrannical by the inclusion of the Second Amendment in the first ten amendments to the Constitution. Progressives try to link the amendment to the National Guard but the National Guard didn't come into being until the late nineteenth/early twentieth century and the militia referred to in the amendment was every able-bodied man in the country with the intent being the means to resist tyrannical government.
The U.S. Intelligence Community, Flouting Laws, is Increasingly Involving Itself in Domestic Politics
You know what the scariest, most painfull part of this all is? The People’s inability to see wtf is really going on, and frightening capacity to turn on one another instead of doing some inteligent, non-bias, processing. Have you yet been called an extremist? I have. By someone very close to me who is a hard core Democrat and listens to Rachael like it’s gospel. All I said was essentially that Trump may not be exactly who they’re portraying him to be since they are known to lie and some facts don’t add up. And that he, in comparisson to other Presidents past, was not much different. Better or worse at certain things, but over all if you ask a non-American inhabitant of this planet they’d probably say the US has remained pretty consistent no matter who’s in the Oval Office since the bombs never really did quite stop raining on their heads.
To me that’s scary AF. People so easily turning against their friends and loved ones and parroting exactly wtf they heard on MSNBC and CNN: that to question the narrative basically means “you want to see the country burn down”, you’re anti-America, anti-democracy, anti-peace, anti-society, “you’re an etremist”, you’re violent and/or associated to violence, etc. How can people not realize that it is NOT ok or acceptable to use such hostile tactics to debate a point with somebody? How can people not realize they’re playing right into their hands? They’re using us to silence each other while they continue on doing their dirt unencumbered by the bothers of pesky “extremists” asking questions? I can’t help but to wonder what it was the average German was doing while other humans were being burned alive right up the road during the Holocaust.
With the AUMF about to be rescinded by Congress, the hydra-like intelligence community spawned during the post-9/11 era needs to find a new justification for its existence.
After all, why do we have a Department of Homeland Security with no threat to the homeland?
Enter the unholy neocon/neoliberal alliance which has coalesced around one simple philosophy: the government should have unlimited power to spy on whomever it pleases. Otherwise, the power of the government might be threatened. Notably, these evil people do not care if that 'threat' is a political one from the nation they purport to represent.
If the 1/6 rioters engaged in conspiracy to sedition and insurrection, so did Antifa and BLM when they declared themselves independent of US law and attacked federal courthouses and federal agents. But because of the lack of political support for the administration in power at the time, the calls for a new internal security state waited until a more politically palatable target appeared for the left-of-center: Trump supporters.
The point of this screed? Mr. Greenwald has more eloquently than me pointed this out: the legacy media is allied with the would-be masters of the internal security state. Don't believe anything these people tell you, and understand that defending your civil rights matters FAR, FAR more than whether or not you hate the opposing political party.
I don't know about many of you, but I've lost faith in the G-men and women working in the FBI.
We keep hearing after-action reports in many of these mass shootings that the suspect was "known" by the FBI.
While doing nothing to make themselves "well known" to these suspects, a crew of 15 of them hop on down to Talladega to investigate a looped strap handle on a raceway pit garage door that made Bubba Wallace pee his pants.
They falsify FISA warrants and then worse...lie about it when caught.
They coalesce around the other IC to tell us minions that Russia planted that Hunter Biden laptop in the Delaware Repair shop (where they must have forged his signature as well), then tell us the Capitol needs 8' high fencing with razor wire and 5000 Army troops with fully auto weapons to protect the prisoners inside the Capitol Hill Prison (Warden - Nancy Pelosi; Capacity - 535).
Once the G-men lose their ability to know an objective truth and fall away from their true north, it's now them against us...and by us...I mean 70% of the nation.
Feels a lot like the Securitate in Romania during the last 3 years of Ceausescu's regime.
Thank you Glenn - a timely and alarming article. Domestic surveillance is rampant and all encompassing - extensively disclosed by Snowden. HiTech and communication monopolies are already deeply integrated into the US security apparatus.
HiTech monopolies will not likely be broken up any time soon despite recent Congressional report on high priority need to be broken up. The accounting for 5+-years of lying is unravelling and the efforts are now focused to prevent the full disclosure of this scam of the century. Most of us agree that it is very good that Trump defeated himself -- but the involvement of the US security apparatus for five+ years is truly alarming.
By far the highest interest of Biden government and its oligarch cabal is that Russia-gate immense hoax – the scam of the century -- will NOT / will NEVER be exposed. There has been synchronized and choreographed collusion between media, Democrat party, Hi-Tech companies and the deep state for now more than five years.
The entire anti-Russian fairytale is a deliberate fabrication -- the worst scam in US history is neoliberals’ Russia-gate hoax -- initiated by Obama/Biden administration. They lost to a TV host and instead of reflection, they latched onto a moronic conspiracy theory -- this includes the completely (proven) false accusations that Russia gave WikiLeaks Hillary's emails (hence the total silence on Assange torture). Assange must be silenced by that psychopaths' logic -- all the plotters/players agree...
There has been collusion between media, Democrat party, Hi-Tech companies and the deep state for now five years. The Russia-gate hoax and Ukraine-impeachment “entertainment” was concocted by Obama/Hillary/Biden/Pelosi, Schumer, Schiff, Maxine Waters, Jamie Raskin, etc. and their intelligence, HiTech and DNC executives on behalf of their Wall Street and arms industry donors. The lying team is now back in power – note that Kamala Harris (and her sister) and Neera Tanden are Hillary's protégés; Pete Buttigieg was promptly rewarded for his role of election theft in Iowa, etc.
Remember, Clapper, Brennan & Hayden trio were among former 50 intelligence officials stating that Hunter-laptop is classical “Russian disinformation” !?!.
- They were also key promoters of the by now five-year Russia-gate hoax.
- They were also key intelligence executives in Obama/Biden/Hillary government – the government which hunted Snowden (forcing Bolivian plane with Bolivia’s president to land to search it) and armed Al Qaeda (including “white helmets” hoax) and staged all chemical attacks in Syria to remove its government.
When asked about Hunter's corruption laptops - Pelosi brazenly stated "All roads lead to Putin"; commenting on Capitol invasion (called now "armed insurrection" although not a single weapon was discovered) Schumer said - "worse than Pearl Harbor and 9/11"...
The lying Russia-gate team is fully back in power working at full speed -- massive censorship and domestic surveillance is mandatory for them to preserve power..
But remember, there is no Deep State. That's just a QAnon myth.
I'm still half-convinced QAnon was a CIA disinformation campaign, or a huge 4chan troll. Hard to distinguish anymore.
Love him or hate him, Trump at least removed the curtain to show the lengths the IC will go to engage in domestic politics if they feel threatened, through both its current and former members, utilizing mouthpieces in the media and unverifiable sources that strike with immediate effect but take years to determine the actual veracity. And their response following his deposition is further illuminating.
They might not have much in common, but if you ask an old hippy, a rural gun owner, an old black man, a War on Terror vet, and a Muslim immigrant if they trust the US Government, you will surprisingly get the same answer!
“An “extremist” is anyone who opposes the current prevailing ruling class and system for distributing power.”
We are doomed.
Thank you once again, Glenn. Basically - from what they say - we're all domestic terrorists except for the media useful idiots who take their “reporting” from what intelligence dictates to them. I voted for Obama but got increasingly concerned over his love of surveillance - I came to realize he makes Nixon look like the poster child for non-paranoia - and joined the quite peaceful and well organized marches against his surveillance policies. Which probably has me down as a domestic terrorist.
This is a latter step in the process of the US government completely restructuring the country to an authoritarian, centrally planned system, a system more similar to modern China than historic US. Last year began operation warp speed and this is just nails in the coffin.
Too many Americans were are apathetic about their own liberties and enthusiastically lowered their head for the leash over the last year, probably the last chance of reversing this trend. Most of the left is overwhelmingly on board with virtually any expansion of government power, and enough of the rest are on board or ignorant or stupid or just don’t care. Since governments do not ever voluntarily give up power, and Americans can’t surrender their liberties fast enough, there is little reason to see these trends reverse. Looking for waves of opposition but I just don’t see them.
Glenn, many thanks for sounding the alarm on this growing threat to the future of America.
Given what we have seen in the first few weeks of the Biden administration, the DHS Report of 03/01/2021 is incredibly chilling. A key point of vulnerability is the meaning of the terms "violence" or "DVE" that dominate the DHS document.
The academic establishment, which overwhelmingly supports Biden, and which has surrendered all pretense of objectivity, has already blurred the meaning of "violence," extending the word to encompass any activity it finds intellectually threatening.
This blurring became apparent in the aftermath of the riot of 01/06/2021. This was labeled a "violent insurrection," when of course it was (except for the setting) little more than Fort Lauderdale Spring Break party gone bad until, without warning, a uniformed guard killed Ashli Babbitt.
As I stated for weeks on Powerline Blog, and you carefully documented here, all the most basic information (potentially) contradicting the "violent insurrection" narrative has been withheld. We still don't even know the name of the man who killed Babbitt nearly 3 months ago! We still don't know the results from Sicknick's autopsy. We don't know the dollar value of the damages to the capitol on 01/06, but we can guess that it is less than many a weekend ANTIFA funfest in Portland. Yet DHS is using the "violent insurrection narrative to vastly extend its powers.
What you are now documenting is the near complete takeover of a shadow government in the USA, with the active complicity of a corrupt academic establishment. I could go on for pages, but let's just consider a few obvious changes since Trump was removed.
1. During the first few weeks of the Trump administration, there were dozens of leaks designed to undermine him and his goals. Trump couldn't eat an extra scoop of ice cream, or call a foreign government, without the NY Times getting a full report designed to portray Trump as an ignoramus and a bully. During the first few weeks of the Biden administration, there have been virtually no leaks, even though it is woefully apparent to anyone that Biden actually is an ignoramus and a bully.
2. The academic establishment fully supported many attacks on Trump's mental capacity and morality. For example, Bandy X. Lee published a volume of "long distance" psychiatric analyses of Trump by several academicians that were largely based on hyperbole and political bias. The American Psychiatric Association considers such analyses unethical when presented as professional opinion, yet Lee became a hero in the anti-Trump press, which generally failed to mention that her appointment at Yale was not as a tenure-track professor, while portraying her as a "Yale Professor" in much the same way that they inflated Obama's humble adjunct teaching position into a "Professor of Constitutional Law." For example, Wikipedia describes her as "with Yale University," rather than give her actual title.
Now that Lee has outlived her usefulness, Yale has removed her from her voluntary teaching duties. This has been described as a "firing," and Lee has responded by suing Yale.
It is noteworthy that Lee has not, to my knowledge, ever expressed the slightest public concern about the mental health or fitness of Joe Biden. She's outlived her usefulness.
Many academic "experts" supported various attacks on Trump's veracity. For example, when Trump repeatedly asserted (with good reason) that he was optimistic that a COVID vaccine would be ready by the end of 2020, CNN marshalled numerous experts to declare that this was a joke, an impossibility, and a lie. Interviewed about this a few weeks ago, one of the founders of Moderna and the inventor of the technology that made the vaccine possible declared that those who declared it a joke were apparently unaware of recent developments in the technology. Right. Yet nobody in the liberal media sought to reveal this prior to the election, and there were no leaks of the imminent release of the vaccine either.
Imagine: a pharmaceutical company becomes aware that their vaccine works, meaning billions in potential new revenue --- and keeps the information secret!
US Prosecutor: “Your honor, the defendant clicked the heart button on the article by Mr. Greenwald. This is proof positive that he not only liked the seditious article, but loved it. We recommend the death penalty.”
This might be the least surprising writing you have made recently Glenn. I’m afraid this genie is long gone from the bottle. We released him almost 20 years ago.
I do appreciate you continuing to talk about it because it is a topic of great importance but I wonder what crime it will take to be perpetrated by our own government against us for the public to finally say enough is enough.
I know so many of the “if you are not doing anything, you have nothing to worry about” crowd that I suspect we have passed the point of no return.
"possibly illegal involvement by the intelligence community in U.S. domestic political affairs." There's an understatement. Do they do anything legal? Yesterday we learned that the CO murderer was on the FBI's radar but left free to roam. We are all on the IC's radar because it is easier for them to police the law-abiding and claim that we are "protected" by this, than it is to investigate the real threats.
Also yesterday, we read even more about the CIA chief begging the Yemenis to release "my guy" - Al Alawaki.
How much protection can a country withstand? 17 Intel Agencies and not one of them on our side.
"Indeed, many of the same House Republicans who wrote this important letter to the DNI have in the past supported laws that allow greater involvement of the CIA, NSA and other agencies in activities on U.S. soil — including the Patriot Act."
While I am more right leaning on most things, I do find it very interesting that Republican politicians are getting a taste of the medicine (poison) they pushed for few decades ago. But it also seems like the Democrat constituents are making the same mistake as Republicans did few decades ago - Democrats are supporting these measures against their political opponents without self awareness that when the pendulum swings back, it will be against them. The "it's okay because my opposing view point is a nazi white supremacist" crowd will be wondering what happened when the pendulum flips back on them.
In fact, the establishment hammer is already falling on the few honest liberals still left - Jimmy Dore is being called inciting violence by AOC for his force the vote thing, his channel is throttled, Hard Lens Media got suspended on YouTube, Glenn Greenwald, Aaron Mate, Matt Taibbi, Tulsi Gabbard etc are all called russian agents. You want your $2000 you were promised? You want the $15 minimum wage or medicare for all you were promised? You want to stop forever wars or want to hold Wall Street accountable? You want businesses to open up and stop covid fear mongering? You are a sexist for speaking against the first female treasury secretary, racist for speaking against the black DOD secretary, transphobic for speaking against the trans health minister, inciting violence against AOC for "force the vote", poor uneducated deplorable for wanting $15 minimum wage. Oh and Russia!!!
First they came for Alex Jones and Milo, then they came for Tulsi Gabbard and Orange Man. Bernie Sanders supporters got called misogynsts by the establishment. Remember how Pocahantas Warren and establishment media treated Bernie at the debate? Too bad, Bernie took it as a pathetic cuck that he is.
People seem to think it's a linear scale where left vs right falls. I disagree - I think it's a triangle with liberals and conservatives are on two corners fighting each other while the authoritarian establishment consisting of elite politicians, media, corporations, Hollywood etc are sitting and enjoying the fight in the third corner.
I think this is because people believe in the illusion of the two party system. There's no two party. Nor is there a libertarian party. Remember when libertarian party last year was pushing the BLM narrative? The Democrat and Republican parties are mostly the same - one is evil using identity politics to push their establishment agenda while the other is a bunch of incompetent spineless cucks who run away the very moment someone calls them a bigot. Both parties are totally okay now a days with feeding the war machine, spying on Americans etc.
I wish that instead of wasting 4 years on stupid russiagate nonsense and impeachment harassment, media and liberals spent time demanding pardons for Assange Snowden etc. The biggest disappointment from Trump was him not pardoning the very victims of the things he talked about - deep state, spying, free speech, forever wars etc. It felt like a slap to my face honestly when the pardons didn't come. I honestly wonder if the deep state threatened him with something. We know McConnell did threaten him with a successful impeachment if he did but I wish Trump had grown the balls and just done it.
With that said, I do wonder if this change in the political party ideology is what made Trump switch from being a Democrat until late 2000s into a Republican.
Btw, when I refer to Democrat/Republican/Libertarian - I am talking about the politicians - not the constituents. A lot of constituents don't like what their politicians are doing. Right now it seems like more right leaning don't like their republican politicians vs left leaning not liking the democrat politicians - but I could be mistaken on this. I just don't see enough left leaning push back against the Democrats.
Until this pendulum swinging continues without any self reflection, I think we are going in circles and the establishment cronies will continue winning.
Americans can thank Harry Truman and Democrats in Congress after World War II for the implementation of these agencies. The CIA and NSA were created by the National Security Act of 1947 - which also established the DOD and the United States Air Force - as a means of expeditiously obtaining intelligence rather than depending on the War and Navy Departments' intelligence agencies. It created new bureaucracies instead, each with its own agenda. Incidentally, although the NSA is thought of as a "spy" organization, its actual role is security by SPYING ON US GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS to ensure that they don't pass on classified information through conversations and messages. I was in the Air Force in the 1960s and 1970s and it was common knowledge that telephone lines on military bases were monitored to protect classified information. There were signs on the wall above the phones in our squadron in Okinawa advising that the lines were monitored. The CIA was charged with collecting "intelligence," which is a euphemism for information, pertaining to foreign government although its Special Activities Division was established to start wars and otherwise disrupt governments the US didn't like. As for protecting against violence, Americans forget that the United States came about because of a violent overthrow of the legitimate government of the British monarchy. (Granted, the rebels won only because France came to their aid.) In fact, the Founders - after resistance to the Constitution by the anti-Federalists led by Patrick Henry - provided for the violent overthrow of the Federal government in the event it became tyrannical by the inclusion of the Second Amendment in the first ten amendments to the Constitution. Progressives try to link the amendment to the National Guard but the National Guard didn't come into being until the late nineteenth/early twentieth century and the militia referred to in the amendment was every able-bodied man in the country with the intent being the means to resist tyrannical government.