NSA Denies That Tucker Was Ever A 'Target'

But of course that was never the issue. It's one of those non-denial denials. Glenn Greenwald points that out at somewhat greater length:

First, it's bizarre that @NSAGov allow no replies.

IOW, NSA's non-denial tweet allowed no responses. 

Second, NSA has used this same deceit for years: they can spy on US citizens' communications without "targeting" the American.

Third, NSA has extremely broad authorities to collect communications without "targeting" a person. https://t.co/vAgaSS0x1k

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) June 30, 2021

The real question has never been whether the NSA collects communication data regarding all USPERs, including Tucker Carlson. It does. The real question is, Has an investigative agency acquired the data that NSA has, beyond a doubt, been collecting with regard to Tucker Carlson? If so, the investigative agency must be doing so by virtue of a warrant and must have an open full investigation--if not on Tucker himself as the subject, then on someone with whom Tucker is in contact. Let's hear from the FBI.

In the meantime, there's this:

And just FYI: the Pentagon just suspended a pro-Trump security official for "unauthorized disclosure of classified information" from the NSA -- meaning, presumably, that she leaked NSA activities to someone she wasn't supposed to talk to about it:https://t.co/OqCECPj6rr

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) June 30, 2021

UPDATED: Tradition And Strawmen

George Bergoglio--he's the guy who lives in Rome and dresses in white--has been on a toot lately attacking "rigidity" and "tradition"--as he sees it. For example, as reported by LIfeSite, in his homily for the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, he appeared to compare ‘rigid’ Catholics to St. Paul’s persecution of the Church:

The Apostle Paul also experienced the freedom brought by Christ. He was set free from the most oppressive form of slavery, which is slavery to self. ... He was also set free from the religious fervour that had made him a zealous defender of his ancestral traditions and a cruel persecutor of Christians. Set free. Formal religious observance and the intransigent defence of tradition, rather than making him open to the love of God and of his brothers and sisters, had hardened him: he was a fundamentalist.

Those who have read Paul's letters and the account of his ministry in the Acts of the Apostles might be forgiven if they don't recognize this portrait of the apostle. Indeed, such persons might find in this dichotomy of tradition and freedom in Christ a straw man that Paul himself would have rejected. For Paul, it is precisely adherence to what was handed down--the tradition of the Apostles--that sets us free. Such subtleties are apparently lost on Bergoglio.

However, LifeSite notes:

Clusters

I hadda laugh at this vax map of the US. Not the map per se but the caption. Since when were Michigan, Ohio, Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky, and even southern Illinois, "Southern states"? Notice, too, that any counties over 50% are all lumped in as NOT "under-vaxxed". When my wife was working in a private school, any time the vaccination rate for any of the common childhood diseases fell below 90% your got a call from the State. Gradations above 50%--not just below 50%--might show an even more clustered effect.

What's The Story Re Tucker?

As I'm sure you know, Tucker Carlson has announced that a "whistleblower"--which, in this context, I take to mean simply an informed source--has told him that he (Tucker) is being "spied on" by the National Security Agency (NSA):

I assume that the NSA collects all communications that it's able to collect--phone calls, emails, texts, whatever. If it's technically possible for NSA to collect some category of data, they do:

Whether and how that data gets put to use is a longer story. We're all familiar with the fact that the FBI for years appears to have been accessing the NSA databases for routine checks on people, without the legally required predication for running such checks. The exact parameters of this illegal activity aren't clear, except that it appears to have definitely occurred in politically sensitive situations and for political reasons. Some may wish to disagree with that conclusion, but that the activity was in fact illegal is inarguable, whatever the motives. Also inarguable is that there have been no known consequences for the actual individuals who were responsible.

Robert Malone Endorses A Michael Yeadon's Interview

I'd more or less expected news today from the SCOTUS regarding the AZ election law case. No word yet, although we may yet hear. In the meantime ...

Some might wonder how Robert Malone tweeting out a Michael Yeadon interview qualifies as news. Here's why in a nutshell:

Robert W Malone, MD

@RWMaloneMD

Inventor of mRNA vaccines and RNA as a drug, Bench to Bedside vaccines and biologics consulting.

Malone is a very big name in the field of mRNA vaccines. He also happens to be an outspoken critic of the current run of vaccines as well as of the government agencies that are either not compiling or not releasing the data that would allow for truly valid risk assessments. For example:

How The Left Gets A Foothold In Red America

Admittedly this is a sample of one, but you can imagine that variations on this pattern happen with some regularity throughout the land. The reporting comes from the Franklin County [PA] Journal:

County Government in Deep Red America Giving in to Marxist Indoctrination

You can read about the demographics of Franklin County before going on, but if I tell you that this Deep Red county in rural Pennsylvania is 95.33% "white", you'll get the picture.

The Covid Cult, Its Origins

Big picture stuff from Bobby Jindal, and it's really pretty good. I'm sure many others have generally sensed that with the Covid Panic we're dealing with a Neo-Gnostic cult--to call it a religion seems vaguely sacrilegious. Jindal examines where this weird cult is coming from, and how the Covid Panic is a perfect expression of its deepest yearnings--which aren't all that deep. You can find the whole article here:

COVID's liberal religious revival – how their God-less theocracy's destroying politics, culture

What is unique about COVID that brought this new left religiosity to the fore?

However, before we get to excerpts from Jindal himself, at the page there's a brief sound clip of Niall Ferguson talking about the rise of "fake religions". Notice that he, too, is uneasy about applying the term "religion" to this phenomenon, although he does draw disquieting historical parallels:

So we are dealing not just with the decay of traditional religion, but--far worse--with the rise of new fake religions, political religions. And one thing that's very clear from the twentieth century is that, when people take their religious feelings and they apply them to political ideologies, terrible things can happen. Central to what made Communism so deadly is that ultimately it's a religion.

Fundamentally, while I sympathize with Ferguson's concerns, I can't agree with the substance of what Ferguson is saying--it's sadly warmed over Classical Liberalism, with its fake dichotomy of "religious feelings" and "political ideology." Politics always reflects a religious worldview--there is no neutral ground. Some of that is also present in Jindal's opinion piece. Like the liberal Ferguson, Jindal appears to identify "religion" with subjective "feeling," rather than with reasonable belief. However, here's what's central:

Roberts Strategy To Be Revealed Tomorrow?

For the last several months--since the abdication of the Roberts SCOTUS from involvement in Election 2020--we've been speculating about a possible 'Roberts strategy' for election law. The basic idea is that, based on recent election law rulings, CJ Roberts has devised a federalist strategy for extricating the SCOTUS from the swamp of election lawsuits--to the extent possible--by returning primary responsibility for elections to the states. Which is precisely where the Constitution places the exclusive responsibility. What a concept! That, of course, would run counter to the federalization of all elections that has been trending--at the instigation of the Left--for several decades.

The rubber may hit the road on Monday, when Jonathan Turley expects a ruling in the Arizona election law case that came to the SCOTUS from the Ninth Circuit. This term--since the election in any event--the SCOTUS seems to have adopted a policy of issuing quite narrow--perhaps excessively narrow--rulings, but on largely unanimous grounds. But it's difficult to see the Court disposing of the AZ case on narrow procedural grounds if Roberts truly has a strategy in mind. The AZ case seeks to legitimize the Left's favorite electoral tactics of ballot harvesting and so forth which the AZ law bans. If the Roberts court returns responsibility to the states there should be a scramble to rewrite elections laws--with the legislatures being held accountable to the voters.

In this context of a pending decision in the AZ case, DoJ took the step of initiating a lawsuit challenging Georgia's new law. Does the Zhou regime know something? Or, in my opinion, is this a last ditch effort to influence the SCOTUS decision in the AZ case? Or is it possibly an attempt to steal some of the thunder from a decision that Dems fear, for consumption of their base? 

Jonathan Turley, law prof at Geo Washington U., has weighed in at Fox News with some interesting thoughts on the matter.

Rare And Mild?

I found this link to an article by Alex Berenson at TGP:

Vaccines: Reasons for Concern

Part 2: Why does the CDC keep calling post-Covid vaccine heart problems in young men "rare" and "mild" when they are neither?

I found this brief quote quite striking:

…the CDC’s own data shows that for every 100,000 vaccines given to young people, more than 25,000 will have temporary side effects that prevent them from “normal activities,” 700 will require medical care and 200 will be hospitalized.

In contrast, the CDC estimates that only about 50 out of 100,000 adolescents have EVER been hospitalized for Covid-related illness.

Moreover, the risk of hospitalization aside for a moment, the risk of mortality from Covid is vanishingly small in this demographic--so small as to almost defy conceptualization. Quite lterally, and by the CDC's own numbers, the risk from the vaccine is greater than the risk from the disease.

And yet, as TGP notes, these stunning revelations are being met with silence from the MSM. It's as if the vaccines have become some bizarre cultish dogma that flies in the face of all public health science. And this cult is being embraced not by the ignorant proles but by our supposed cultural elites.

Strange days in America.

Glenn Greenwald On Our Race Baiting Generals

Mark Milley's performance in the House--and make no mistake, it was a performance--has drawn a fair amount of commentary. Yesterday Glenn Greenwald offered some observations. He rightly focuses on the highly political stance that has been adopted by our active duty professional military--perhaps unprecedented in our time. Some excerpts follow. You may not agree with everything Greenwald--a liberal--has to say, but he does place developments within a coherent, largish picture perspective. I will note that it's surprising that a liberal like Greenwald--while rightly focusing on the military's participation in a campaign of demonization of a fairly specific demographic within the American populace--fails to note the pretty clear class and religious markers of the demonized demographic:

Black Rage

Jason Whitlock is black and he's enraged. Righteously so and, one suspects, more authentically so than Lindsey Graham and his GOPe colleagues. In a lengthy letter to "black America"--but, really, to all Americans--Whitlock sketches out the big picture in uncompromising terms:

Fearless: Jason Whitlock’s letter to black America explaining the real purpose of made-for-TV racial conflict

Excerpts:

Dear Black People:

We are being lied to and set up. The mainstream media, Democratic politicians, social justice activists, and perhaps even your church pastor have led you to believe America is in the midst of a racial conflict similar to the Civil War and the civil rights movement.

They have pitted us against the Proud Boys, the KKK, rural militia groups, and Trump supporters in a made-for-TV race war. Just five years after Barack Obama completed two terms as president of the United States, we're supposed to believe America has been overrun by violent white supremacists determined to reinstate segregation, Jim Crow laws, and maybe even slavery.

...

It's a setup. We're being used as decoys and distractions in a war that has nothing to do with race.

The real war is about global power and the future of America's system of government. This country's elite, global citizens, and corporations prefer communism over capitalism and democracy. They prefer China's system over our system.

...

... They want you to believe that a great reset is necessary to achieve fairness.

The reset is communism, which starts with the gateway drug of socialism and ends in full-blown Marxism. China is run by the Communist Chinese Party. Communism has no respect for individual freedom or religion of any kind. Communism has no tolerance for political dissent.

Your religion and free speech will not survive the reset. Communism is racial oppression's best friend. When a nation is stripped of religious faith and free speech, few people have the courage to defend the rights of minorities. The elites cozying up to China do not care about you. They are aware of how despicably China treats black people. They are aware of how China squashes dissent.

...

... Oprah, LeBron, and the other uber-wealthy black tokens will thrive under socialism and communism.

You won't. Unless you're a 6'6" basketball star or some other black entertainer capable of entertaining the people in power. That's a tiny percentage of black people.

...

My faith won't allow me to jump on board with the lunacy, racism, and sacrilege of Black Lives Matter, a movement founded by three lesbian self-admitted trained Marxists. BLM is an atheist movement in support of LGBTQ issues and the reshaping of America into a communist country. BLM is part of the deception.

...

We have to stop letting everyone use us. We're being played. We're all being played, black and white working-class people. It's all a giant setup. Look at what they did to Trump supporters. They were manipulated into storming the Capitol, and then the corporate media portrayed it as a bloody, violent KKK rally intended to overthrow democracy. The so-called "insurrection" is an excuse for the government to seize more power and crush dissent.

We, black people, have been convinced the crushing of working-class white people is good for us.

It's not. Working-class white people, Christian white people, are our true allies, not the elites. We can't see that because of the made-for-TV hyper-focus on racial conflict.

The defunding and demoralizing of police are tactics deployed to increase violence in major cities. Local media outlets are focusing on this rise in crime, national media outlets have followed suit, and social media platforms are generating viral videos exposing the crime wave.

Guess who are the stars of this content. Black perpetrators.

It's all a massive setup. The stirring of racial animus between Obama worshippers and Trump worshippers is orchestrated by billionaire elites, executed by trained Marxists, promoted by millionaire influencers in the media, sports, and entertainment worlds, and co-signed by religious leaders pursuing popularity.

And it's also being promoted by our professional military, which is in some ways the most chilling development of all. 

Thanks for reading,

Jason Whitlock\\\\

Lots more where that came from. A great read. A real voice in the wilderness of modern America.

White Rage--A Bit Late?

Lindsey Graham is white and he's enraged--or so he says--so I guess his reaction to the Dems' attempted bait and switch qualifies as White Rage. But, really, everybody under the sun knew this would happen. The Daily Mail (UK) summarizes:

Republican FURY at Baiden's infrastructure blindside: Lindsey Graham says president made the GOP look like 'f***ing idiots' by tying $1.2trillion deal to huge reconciliation package after 'suicide mission' negotiations

• Lindsey Graham said Baiden has made the GOP look like 'f***ing idiots' by publicly tying the infrastructure deal to whether his American Families Plan passes 
• 'I don't mind bipartisanship, but I'm not going to do a suicide mission,' Graham said in backing out of the group of 11 Republicans supporting the bipartisan deal
• Baiden said Thursday after announcing a deal was reached: 'If this is the only thing that comes to me, I'm not signing it'
• But Republicans claim there was never any 'side deal' involving reconciliation
• Senator Bill Cassidy, one of the five Republicans who negotiated the deal, said he felt 'blindsided' by the all-or-nothing approach  
• Baiden stepped out of the White House Thursday with a group of 10 senators from both parties to announce 'we have a deal' on an infrastructure package 
• 'We made serious compromises on both ends,' Baiden said 
• The deal amounts to $1.2 trillion in infrastructure spending over eight years

I suppose wising up is a better late than never thing, but in politics that is done in public there can be a price to pay for being late--in terms of credibility with your base of support. The look Graham describes so vividly is not what the GOP base is looking for, nor is it the kind of look that will attract independents. Having cooperated with the Deep State and the rest of the Establishment in ousting Trump, is this really the sort of fecklessness the GOPe is offering the American people?

UPDATED: Is America Fracturing?

My Dutch friend sent me a link to a longish piece at Zerohedge that raises once again the issue of civil war in America. The piece begins with a lengthy and very interesting analysis of where Turkey stands vis a vis NATO, the EU, Russia, and China's Belt and Road project. But halfway through the author shifts gears. But the theme is similar--just as the old Cold War alliances are shifting and even fracturing, so too in America:

New Alliances Forming In The US...Civil War Is On The Table

The focus of the article is singleminded. The one issue raised is The Border, although state finances are drawn into that mix. Basically here's how the author sees a civil war developing.

We've seen that Texas and Arizona are very much concerned with the flood of illegals pouring across the border with Mexico, and are trying to address the situation with their own resources. More striking than this open conflict with the Zhou regime's policy of attacking American sovereignty, however, was the recent announcement by Florida governor DeSantis that Florida would send law enforcement resources to assist "fellow Americans"

Briefly Noted: A Glimpse Of The Dem Future

During the final year of Trump's presidency the American political establishment essentially turned much of public social policy over to the Left. The policies that were adopted were forged in the crucible of the Covid Panic and the year of Leftist rioting. The Covid Panic was used as an excuse to shut down the nation's government schools and the Leftist rioting put racist instruction on steroids. The rioting--egged on by the Dems, with Bluto Barr and Chris Wray stepping down--was used to place police in racist straitjackets.  Two stories today illustrate the results, as the nation continues to drift toward Election 2022.

While parents in upper scale school districts are beginning to fight back against their woke school boards, that is not at all the case in big Blue cities. In those cities, as exemplified by Chicago, the inmates are running the asylum virtually unchallenged. What this portends for coming generations and for the cities themselves is shudder worthy. 

‘The single most important task we have’: Chicago previews plan to reconnect with missing students

Missing students--that means, students who simply didn't bother when the teachers forced the schools to close and stay closed, during the Panic. How many students went missing? About a third of all students. Let that sink in--a third of all students simply stopped being students for all practical purposes:

Essential To The Morale, Cohesion, And Readiness Of The Military

Nellis AFB staged what was called Drag-u-Nellis:

“Ensuring our ranks reflect and are inclusive of the American people is essential to the morale, cohesion, and readiness of the military. Nellis Air Force Base is committed to providing and championing an environment that is characterized by equal opportunity, diversity and inclusion.”

Political Scariants

H/T to Mike Sylwester, for linking to the latest Ivor Cummins video. This video makes brilliant use of graphing to prove that so-called Delta (Indian) variant of Covid, which is a real thing of course, is being used as what Cummins calls a "scariant". A scare tactic that isn't a statistical threat in the real world of health but is instead a ploy to take away freedoms in the world of politics. The entire video is barely 2:30 long, but speaks volumes about the true intent animating the proponents of a Great Reset--and why they need to hide it:

Just yesterday Fauci was saying that this variant is "the greatest threat to the United States’ effort to eradicate COVID-19 in its borders". Who thinks eradicating a respiratory virus within our borders is a realistic goal? Would that be the same people who want to open our borders to the rest of the world? Is the goal a globalist vaccine, and boosters until that happens? Could we discuss this--from a scientific point of view?

UPDATE: From a link in the comments by Mike Sylwester:

I liked this from the end of that linked item:

I have been struck by the number of atheists who have – along with those Christians who have seen through it – commented that it has been as if some kind of spell has been cast on people, and that there is a mysterious, spiritual dimension to all this. Something like this?

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:12 – see also Revelation 20:7-8)

When Is True Information Not Authoritative?

Apparently when it suits Google. The story today is that Google has been funding Peter Daszak's adventures with bats and coronaviruses in China since about 2010. Which means that when Google suppressed search references regarding the origin of Covid-19 in the Wuhan lab they knew that they were suppressing information that was quite possibly true, and which certainly was highly relevant to the question of Covid origins. Especially given that Indian scientists had already identified the Covid virus as lab engineered by January, 2020. The problem, says Google, is that that information was somehow not "authoritative" and, so, had to be suppressed.

The Daily Mail summarizes:

The Art Of Spiritual Warfare

Over on the Dems Launch On Catholic Church thread commenter Frank provided a link and some commentary regarding an article by Michael Anton:

The Art of Spiritual War

Anton has a very interesting background. He served for many years in the belly of the beast, so to speak, but then came out as a major supporter of Trump--bridging the gap between the Orange Man and highbrow conservatives of the Claremont Review ilk. This will give you an idea of his background, including the essay than made him famous:

Michael Anton (born 1969) is an American conservative essayist, speechwriter and former private-equity executive who was a senior national security official in the Trump administration. Under a pseudonym he wrote "The Flight 93 Election", an influential essay in support of Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Anton was Deputy Assistant to the President for Strategic Communications on the National Security Council under Trump. He is a former speechwriter for Rupert Murdoch, Rudy Giuliani, and Condoleezza Rice, and worked as director of communications at the investment bank Citigroup and as managing director of investing firm BlackRock.

I found this essay somewhat short on specific recommendations. However, there was one passage that appealed to me, because he identified specific movements usually considered "allies" of conservatism, but which in fact have been very much part of America's problems. FWIW, here is that passage:

China, Russia, Black

It's a bit of a slow day so all I have to offer is a bit of commentary. However, Conrad Black and Tucker Carlson have some quality commentary today, so ...

Conrad Black has a wide ranging article that addresses America's rivalry with China. Here's what I like about it. Too many "conservatives" have fallen into the trap of criticizing Zhou for being soft on Russia--it's a cheap but ultimately stupid approach. Stupid, because it's at odds with Trump's sensible approach to Russia, which was thwarted by the Globalist/Deep State set. Adopting Globalist/Deep State talking points simply isn't the way forward for intelligent conservatives who have our nation's interests at heart. It may be fine for National Review, but not for conservatives. Conrad Black, after noting the moral disarray that is roiling our national life, disposes of this fallacy very quickly:

China’s COVID Coup 

China deserves credit for a remarkable feat of strategic improvisation in translating a public health crisis into a large economical and geopolitical advance at the expense of the West.

Excerpts:

The American indulgence in an entire summer of white-hating, statue-toppling, rioting, and denigration of American history, freedom, and values astonished the world. Moreover, it helped China propagate its message that democracy leads to chaos and waste and that the United States is an unreliable and unstable country.

I hate to say this but ... It just may be true that the United States is an unreliable and unstable country. Two words: Donald Trump. He attempted to restore reliability and stability to our foreign policy, and look what happened to him. If you were a foreign leader, how far out on a limb would you go if asked to do so by an American president? Would you assume that America would have your back? Well? That's where we are.

Briefly Noted: Fascinating Referendum Results In Switzerland

I don't think this was expected:

A climate change referendum in Switzerland just went down in flames led by 18-34 year old voters

Read the full article for more commentary on the reality of government fronted climate change policies. Here's what happened with the vote. The question is--can this translate to other countries as well? When faced with the reality of Leftist policies--not just in climate matters--will young people wake up to the threat to their future?

Swiss Reject Climate Change

Eurointelligence reports Swiss Reject Climate Change

After Switzerland dropped its negotiations with the EU, the country has now rejected a climate-protection law in a referendum. Concretely, they rejected all three parts of the law in separate votes: on CO2, on pesticides, and on drinking water.

We agree with the Swiss journalist Mathieu von Rohr that this failure is not merely important in its own right, but symptomatic for the difficulties facing Green politics in general. It is one thing for people to pretend they support the Green party, especially when it is cool to do so. It is quite another to make actual sacrifices as the Swiss were asked to do.

But what is particularly interesting about this referendum is that the strongest opposition came from young people. 60-70% of the 18-34 year old voted No in the three categories.

Each country is different, but the big yet unanswered question is whether people elsewhere would agree to make personal sacrifices for the greater good. The Swiss referendum tells us we should not take this for granted. The German elections will be the next big test.

Huge Shock

The referendum Failed 51-49. And it took a crushing rejection by Zoomers and millennials to do it. 

In other words, but for young people getting out to vote 'No' three times, this referendum would have passed. What could this portend for Election 2020? I can't say, obviously. As Eurointelligence says, "each country is different." Will "people elsewhere ... agree to make personal sacrifices for the greater good?"

Speaking of personal sacrifices, in Chicago over the weekend some people made personal sacrifices--including the ultimate sacrifice--for the greater good of a Demo sponsored "mostly peaceful" holiday: 8 Murdered, 49 Wounded in America’s Largest Open-Air Range. Believe it or not--and I wouldn't joke you about this--those numbers represented major progress from 2020, when Chicago went 17-96.

The Money Behind The Great Reset And The Deep State

Yesterday sundance did a terrific post, which I assume many have already read. If you haven't you need to:

BlackRock in The White House

I'm going to quote fairly freely from the post, but I'll just point out one thing up front. Well, two things.

1. I'm surprised that sundance didn't use his trademark line: There are trillions at stake. It's no exaggeration.

2. I'm also surprised that sundance didn't point out--something I'm sure he's aware of--the way in which all this money and stakeholding intersects with the US National Security establishment, i.e., the Deep State. Simply put, anyone rising up through the national security establishment--whether civilian or uniformed military (think Lloyd Austin as one currently prominent example out of many)--who wishes to become majorly wealthy needs to be approved by Blackrock (one of two such outfits, the other being Vanguard) for membership on corporate boards. Or for legal business. Etc. You get the idea. You'll see why I think this is worth mentioning.

So, with that in mind, sundance:

Controversy Swirling Around Chinese Defector

Red State, which has the lead on information releases regarding the Chinese defector--said to be former MSS head of counterintelligence Dong Jingwei--who is reported to have provided blockbuster inside information regarding the release of Covid-19 from the Wuhan labs, is reporting tonight about the controversy around their stories:

Reactions to RedState's Exclusive Reporting on Chinese Defector Dong Jingwei Show Disturbing Pattern

The whole long story is mostly Jennifer Van Laar defending her reporting--which is entirely understandable.

However, what caught my attention was a quote of Pat Lang. This quote does appear at Lang's blog, Turcopolier, so it reflects his views:

Comments from Col. Patrick Lang who at the Defense Intelligence Agency, was the defense intelligence officer (DIO) for the Middle East, South Asia and counter-terrorism, and later, the first director of the Defense Humint Service.

At the DIA, he was a member of the Defense Senior Executive Service. He participated in the drafting of National Intelligence Estimates. From 1992 to 1994, all the U.S. military attachés worldwide reported to him.

These are his thoughts on Chinese Defector “Dong”:

OK pilgrim turcopoles, here is the deal. This man, as Chinese counter-intelligence boss looked around the IC and decided that he was most likely to survive an internal leak if he defected to DIA.

That means that in spite of the fact that DIA had an internal Chinese mole (recently arrested at DIA request by the FBI), the rest of the agencies are worse in the level in Chinese intelligence penetration not only of their analytic people but also of their operations staff.

How do I know that? Material from the defector (Dong) would not normally be shared with analysts if it had his name in it. His identity would be held in operational channels.

Clearly, this man believes that; CIA. army intelligence, naval intelligence, USAF intelligence and all the rest are heavily penetrated. pl

*Someone asked about how the info was released, here is his very strategic response:

“I suspect that DIA deliberately leaked this info to make it more difficult for CIA to try to take him away from them. I would have done that.”

Here's the long and the short. Controversy swirls, and we have no real way of assessing the reality behind it all. All we can do is wait and see.

Update On The Florida Cruise Ship Case

Just this past Monday in Will The Courts Restore Rationality? we took a look at the CDC's attempt to shut down the cruise ship industry in Florida. We attempted to place this case in the larger context of the administrative state and the unprecedented lockdown of the nation--business, social relations, education--all done in the name of "experts" in our regulatory agencies. 

Today Judge Merryman issued his ruling. It's 124 pages long, but the long and the short of it is that he has granted Florida a preliminary injunction against CDC that suspends the mandatory guidelines against cruise ships. The Hill notes, further:

The injunction will stay in place until July 18, at which point the “conditional sailing order and the measures promulgated under the conditional sailing order will persist as only a non-binding ‘consideration,’ ‘recommendation’ or ‘guideline,’” as is the case for other industries such as restaurants, railroads and hotels, according to the ruling. 

Merryman makes little effort to disguise his suspicion that the CDC was carrying out a political strike against a Republican state and its Republican governor, noting that the restrictions CDC attempted to impose were without precedent. He also takes aim at CDC's claims of essentially unlimited authority to shut down a state's economy. Here are just a few excerpts:

Never has CDC (or a predecessor) detained a vessel for more than fifteen months; never has CDC implemented a widespread or industry-wide detention of a fleet of vessels in American waters; never has CDC conditioned pratique [sic] as extensively and burdensomely as the conditional sailing order; and never has CDC imposed restrictions that have summarily dismissed the effectiveness of state regulation and halted for an extended time an entire multi-billion dollar industry nationwide. In a word, never has CDC implemented measures as extensive, disabling, and exclusive as those under review in this action.

However, in this action CDC claims a startlingly magnified power. But as CDC concedes, the Public Health Service Act “consolidates and codifies” the federal quarantine practices applied during the previous century (Doc. 31 at 5), and “over the 20th and into the 21st century, the legislative framing for quarantine has remained relatively constant.” Donohue, Biodefense and Constitutional Constraints, at 156. Thus, viewed with the benefit of history, CDC’s assertion of a formidable and unprecedented authority warrants a healthy dose of skepticism. (p.38)

... the conditional sailing order is arbitrary and capricious because the order imposes vague and shifting (but binding) legal requirements and because the order fails to offer any reasoned explanation about the inadequacy of local measures. (p. 100)

Hopefully we'll be seeing more such challenges. It's time for the judiciary to reign in the "experts" of the administrative state, to give government back to the people.

Dems Launch On Catholic Church

Not a good look:

This morning in DC pic.twitter.com/UswA8Bpx8z

— Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) June 19, 2021

We always knew that Liberalism is a religion or cult, but now it turns out it's an aggressively imperialistic one as well. Following the US Catholic bishops vote on abortion supporters who claim to be Catholic ...

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops voted Friday to create draft guidelines on the meaning of Communion that could eventually bar people who express support for abortion from receiving the Eucharist.

prominent Dems--including some who don't even claim to be believers-- are spinning out of control with claims to dictate who can receive the Eucharist. My guess is that among fair minded Americans of any faith, or no faith at all, this will simply add to the growing view of Dems as radical and intolerant. One more indication that Dems are at war with all things normal. Here's what it comes down to:

Update On The Dread "Delta" Variant

You may have heard of the dreaded "Delta" variant of Covid that's so infectious and "may be" very deadly. It's popping up all over, including in the US and the UK. LifeSite is reporting that in the UK Delta Covid is, indeed, proving to be SIX TIMES AS DEADLY as Covid Classic for fully vaxxed folks as it is for the unvaxxed. That sounds bad, except that, in either case, its case fatality rate is "exceedingly low":

Death rate from variant COVID virus six times higher for vaccinated than unvaccinated, UK health data show

Hospitalizations are also higher among thousands of fully vaccinated individuals who test positive for the Delta COVID ‘variant of concern.’

...

Both death rates among the unvaccinated and vaccinated are exceedingly low (less than one percent of all positive tests) for a variant that Public Health England describes as the “dominant variant” in the UK, comprising “91 percent of sequenced cases.” 

A risk assessment of the Delta variant of the pandemic coronavirus published Friday describes it as being more readily spread between people, but it is also described as a variant with “low infection severity.”

In other words, it's following the typical profile for all these types of viruses. As mutations proceed, the virus becomes more transmissible but less severe. Nevertheless, each newly identified mutant variant is hyped to the skies.

Intel Work, Criminal Work--Today's FBI?

Yesterday I did a lengthy analysis of Shipwreckedcrew's shortcoming's in discussing the Russia Hoax--especially the role of Carter Page and the key fact of Page's involvement with the FBI's hugely important case against Russian officials in New York. The actual nature of the charges may not have been terribly earth shaking, but in the world of counterintelligence (CI) and foreign policy the case was huge. Page's targeting by the FBI simply cannot be understood without a full understanding of Page's role in that case and his falling out with the FBI.

I followed that up a bit later with Somebody Tell SWC To Stop Digging! That post was very brief and was simply intended to show that SWC doesn't really have a clue about the FBI's "intelligence" work--more properly speaking, National Security work. Since that post was so short I'll quote it in its entirety:

I can't believe it when prosecutors say sh*t like this:

@shipwreckedcrew:

It might end up tanking the criminal case. But building a criminal case is not what intelligence division agents are focused on when they are trying to figure out if Scientist X is a spy or not a spy. The only goal for the intelligence agent is to get an answer to that question.

The FBI has an "Intelligence Division" and a "Criminal Division" -- they do separate kinds of work.  The "Intelligence Division" is not gathering evidence for purposes of a court proceeding.  They have more "leeway" for their conduct.  Their goal is to simply get information.

He was a prosecutor and doesn't understand that espionage is a criminal offense? 

Later, reader Jim pointed me to an article at the Cato Institute:

Bad Incentives Lead FBI Agent to Accuse Chinese‐​Born Canadian Researcher of Being a Spy

Cato, of course, is a pretty doctrinaire libertarian think tank, and you can read about it here. I oppose much of the policy agenda that Cato advances, and for our purposes here I'll point out that Cato advocates for very liberal immigration policies and opposed President Trump's policies. The article must therefore be read with certain filters working. On the other hand, it offers an entrance into a somewhat different world than most readers may be familiar with and may help clear up misunderstandings such as SWC demonstrates.

The thesis of the Cato article is that the FBI and prosecutors, operating under pressure to find spies, find spies. In a way it's a bit like a CI version of, when all you've got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Looked at from a different angle, it can lead to "bad incentives" such as framing innocent Chinese professors in order to impress your superiors and gain promotion. Cato is very much of the view that the Chinese professor is most likely innocent--and for all I know from my distance Cato may be right:

Is Chinese Defector Shaking Up USIC--And US Politics?

Earlier this evening commenter AmericanCardigan passed along claimed information from Hot Air that the Chinese defector who's been providing information regarding the Wuhan origins of Covid-19 is the former head of CI for the PRC's Ministry of State Security (MSS). I commented at the time--just a few hours ago: 

[The claim is] tantalizing, but towards the middle mention is made of something that jumped to my mind immediately:

"would a spy-catcher be in position to know what went on at the Wuhan Institute of Virology with SARS-CoV-2?"

Never say never, reality can surprise. But there's also the matter of need to know--and a counterintelligence guy would have zero need to know about anything going on at Wuhan. Except concerns about foreign spies. Not the kind of detailed science we're hearing about.

Nevertheless, Red State--which seems to be the conduit for information about this defector--is confirming what hours ago were still rumors--Chinese Defector's Identity Confirmed, Was Top Counterintelligence Official:

The Oligarchy's Shame

 

Vladimir Putin took 2-dozen questions from the press yesterday for 55 minutes. No notes.

President Biden took 7 pre-prepared questions from the press for 11 minutes. He had a list of people to call on. Cue cards in hand.

Which country is the former-communist dictatorship?

— Justin Hart (@justin_hart) June 17, 2021

Somebody Tell SWC To Stop Digging!

I can't believe it when prosecutors say sh*t like this:

@shipwreckedcrew:

It might end up tanking the criminal case. But building a criminal case is not what intelligence division agents are focused on when they are trying to figure out if Scientist X is a spy or not a spy. The only goal for the intelligence agent is to get an answer to that question.

The FBI has an "Intelligence Division" and a "Criminal Division" -- they do separate kinds of work.  The "Intelligence Division" is not gathering evidence for purposes of a court proceeding.  They have more "leeway" for their conduct.  Their goal is to simply get information.

He was a prosecutor and doesn't understand that espionage is a criminal offense? 

SWC Having Rough Day Re Carter Page

Actually, Shipwreckedcrew is having a fairly rough day overall--despite a fine article dissecting Merrick Garland's efforts to intimidate the Arizona senate. My takeaway from one is that Garland could be facing some significantly rough sledding. SWC himself points out that Garland, in his letter to AZ, misrepresented the law. And Mark Brnovich, AZ AG, made it clear in so many words, that AZ is "not amused by the DoJ's posturing.

Ultimately, SWC concludes:

That [Brnovich's response] seems to be a “line in the sand” and an invitation to DOJ to come into Arizona for a little exercise in lawfare over the issue of Arizona’s conduct of elections.

There is no question that Garland made it clear the Biden Department of Justice is going to take up the cause of the Democrat Party in pursuing electoral advantages through the courts.

If not for Pres. Trump’s ability to get dozens of new Appeals Court Justices nominated, and Mitch McConnell’s ability to get those nominees through the Senate, the very existence of the GOP as a viable political entity could have been at risk.

Things have gone downhill from there for SWC. He engaged in a long and abusive exchange with Julie Kelly, before ultimately--after much name calling on his part--having to admit that he had misrepresented what Kelly had written. Ouch!

At the same time, however, he was engaging in another flame war with regard to the Carter Page FISA--and once again demonstrating less than a full grasp of the facts. In what follows I've omitted most Twitter headers.

It started with a fairly tame tweet by Lee Smith (I couldn't see where it was coming from):

He means I believe that Page’s history as a USG informant was erased by an FBI official. The point is not about the Page FISA but rather that the laws and regulations that should be observed are no longer observed by the agencies involved. twitter.com/shipwreckedcre…

SWC immediately launched on an unwise course that--for reasons best known to himself--he has been pursuing for some time: defending the FBI's institutional conduct in the Russia Hoax, writing it off to the incompetence of isolated individuals. And accompanying it with slurs that he's not going to be able to back up. So, he writes:

[Page's history as a USG informant] wasn't erased. It was considered and then dismissed BY ONE AGENT as being untimely.  It only took that one agent to leave it out of the FISA application. The people who reviewed the application had no idea Page had provided information to the CIA -- until Page went public.

Concluding that "laws and regulations ... are no longer observed" because one agent looked at the information from the CIA and said "outdated" is unreasonable and silly.

The big problems are in the first paragraph. Carter Page was a long time CIA asset--up until 2013. At that time--and this is me telling you how these things work--the FBI became aware of a possible case with Russian officials in New York and wanted to use Page against those officials. The way this would have worked would have been like this: The FBI--through standard FISA coverage of the Russian officials--learned that Page was in touch with those officials to one extent or another. When they contacted Page, Page told them he was working with the CIA--we know this from FBI records. The two agencies coordinated, and because of the possibility that the FBI could make a big case against Russians--any criminal case against foreign officials is huge--and because Page was a relatively minor asset for the CIA, the FBI took over with Page. The transition was basically seamless. That also means that Page was an asset or informant of some sort for the FBI, and had a file opened on him. He was in the system, along with his background.

As things developed, this worked out great for the FBI. They made their case, they arrested the Russians, and they told Page to stand by in case he was needed as a witness. That continued up until shortly before Page joined the Trump campaign. Shortly before that event Page took it upon himself to inform Russian officials that he was, in fact, working for the FBI and had been helping the FBI in the case described above. The FBI was understandably outraged--possibly especially so because this may have compromised sensitive investigative techniques.

However, the main point in this is that, as I've been long maintaining, this case was so huge in the big picture of US-Russian relations that there was simply no way that the top most levels of the FBI would not have been following the case closely and probably knew who Page was by name. They would have been briefing the White House on the case--it was a major feather in the cap for the FBI and then Page possibly threatened it.

What happened next is that FBI New York immediately hit the ceiling and began looking for ways to make Page pay a price for what he had done. They opened a counterintelligence case on Page and began exploring the possibility of obtaining a FISA on Page. Those discussions involved none other than Peter Strzok, but in the event no FISA was obtained until the Fall of 2016.

But then, shortly after all that hit the fan, Page joined the Trump campaign. Now, if Mcabe and Comey didn't know Page's name and his role in the New York case before, they sure did then. Comey was telling AG Lynch about Page, who in the FBI would have failed to brief him on Page?

That's the picture to keep in mind as SWC goes to war with one and all. Various persons challenged SWC on his take, defending the Russia Hoax as the fault of ONE AGENT:

WHOA! Did I Majorly Jump The Gun?

Hey, no wonder legal commentators--the good ones--read the whole opinion before commenting on SCOTUS decisions. I've just read portions of Alito's opinion at LifeSite, and it's a slash and burn opinion:

Law Day #2: Important Critique of Revolver, Tucker

I'm glad I didn't comment on this aspect of the Revolver story about the January 6 Event. Of course there's plenty to be concerned about as regards the role of federal law enforcement, and of the FBI in particular. However, the claim that the use of the term "unindicted co-conspirators" is intended to conceal government agents and informants is, on the authority of experienced prosecutors and defense attorneys, flatly wrong: "Agents & informants are not included in the definition of unindicted co-conspirators ..."

This 👇🏻is how actual practitioners of federal criminal law (left & right) will see it. Agents & informants are not included in the definition of unindicted co-conspirators & it would be improper for prosecutors to try to “hide” them in that category. https://t.co/w4ojUgJeB8

— Leslie McAdoo Gordon (@McAdooGordon) June 17, 2021

SWC weighs in on this, too, against Robert Barnes. However, I believe that McAdoo Gordon and McCarthy express this better. SWC seems to suggest--probably in a moment of keyboard carelessness--that government agents and informants are ipso facto unable to be part of the conspiracy

A "co-conspirator" must be part of the agreement to commit the criminal object of the conspiracy.

Someone informing the FBI about the conspiracy-- unless it is entirely after the fact--is actually working AGAINST the conspiratorial agreement.

That, of course, is how it's supposed to work. However, UC agents and informants have been known to go overboard and--contrary to instructions--actually cross the line into advancing the conspiracy in ways that would not have occurred but for their actions. That type of conduct will get the case dismissed. This can get factually very complicated, so I'll leave it at that. That issue may very well come up at trial--if trials are held. But the important issue for purposes of the Revolver article is addressed in the tweet above. The UC agents or informants may or may not have behaved improperly--that's a factual issue that will have to be hashed out later based on what is discovered about their participation. However, we can take it as given that no one labeled as an "unindicted co-conspirator" is in fact a government agent or informant. They will be witnesses.

MAJOR UPDATE: Law Day #1: SCOTUS Goes 9-0 Again, And Lib Heads Will Explode

The significance of the latest 9-0 decision handed down by the SCOTUS--this one has to do with local governments trying to exclude foster care agencies on religious grounds--is that the SCOTUS is sending a strong signal that they will continue to defend the First Amendment free exercise rights of all Americans, not matter the current fashion in wokeness. That shouldn't be news, but in today's America it's a message to normals that an important institution may have their back after all. It's also a strong message to the Left, given the 9-0 breakout.

There's very little commentary out yet, but here's the link to the Fox article:

Supreme Court sides with Catholic foster agency that excludes same-sex couples in 9-0 ruling

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion

Excerpts:

The Supreme Court sided unanimously with a Catholic foster agency in a dispute against the city of Philadelphia over whether it should be banned from participating in the city's foster program because it excludes same-sex couples. 

The group, Catholic Social Services (CSS), claimed that "Philadelphia’s attempts to exclude the Catholic Church from foster care" violated the First Amendment. Lawyers for the city, meanwhile, said that CSS "lacks a constitutional right to demand that DHS offer it a contract that omits the same nondiscrimination requirement every other FFCA must follow when performing services for the City." 

In a 9-0 ruling, the justices sided with Catholic Social Services. 

"CSS seeks only an accommodation that will allow it to continue serving the children of Philadelphia in a manner consistent with its religious beliefs; it does not seek to impose those beliefs on anyone else," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in a majority opinion. "The refusal of Philadelphia to contract with CSS for the provision of foster care services unless it agrees to certify same-sex couples as foster parents cannot survive strict scrutiny, and violates the First Amendment."

Roberts was joined on his opinion by Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. 

Barrett herself wrote a concurring opinion, which was joined fully by Kavanaugh and partially by Breyer. 

"As the Court’s opinion today explains, the government contract at issue provides for individualized exemptions from its nondiscrimination rule, thus triggering strict scrutiny," Barrett wrote. "And all nine Justices agree that the City cannot satisfy strict scrutiny." 

Justice Samuel Alito wrote a concurring opinion that was joined by Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas. Gorsuch wrote a concurrence that Thomas and Alito joined. 

Food For Thought: Bolsheviks And Billionaires

I just got around to reading a post at ZeroHedge that republishes and article that first appeared at The Mises Institute. I don't normally follow Libertarian sites, but I do try to keep an open mind. I've read various Libertarian authors--Hayek in particular--and freely acknowledge that I agree with much of what he has to say. It's simply that I disagree with Libertarianism as a global explanatory theory, or theory of everything.

Anyway, the piece has a title that's sure to attract the interest of people like me: 

Why America's Oligarchs Are Moving Left

As usual, you don't need to agree with everything the author says to derive some benefit from the article. The subject is Oligarchs, the ueber wealthy, the kind of people who turn up when the conversation turns to the Global Elite, the Great Reset, the ruling elite. You can get a pretty good idea of who these people are by looking at lists of donors to either major political party, or simply following the news to see who are the most influential people in the world. Of course, some fly under the radar, but for government work--so to speak--for the rough idea that forms the basis of the article, that will suffice.

What I'm reproducing here is the middle section of the article, which is what I found most insightful. No doubt many will find this old news, but the point is that the author expresses these insights well, in a readily digestible way. Obviously these insights can be extended greatly:

Tucker Apologizes

Any time Tucker Carlson issues a public apology, that's somewhat noteworthy. He did so last night, and in unequivocal terms, without excuses. You can catch this apology starting around the 10:00 mark, but watch from the beginning for the full context:

Here's the apology:

A lot of us missed this the first time around, and you are due an apology. And we're proffering it on television right now. We didn't see the obvious. If you empower the government to violate civil liberties  in pursuit of a foreign terror organization--and there are foreign terror organizations--it's just a matter of time before ambitious politicians use those same mechanisms to suppress political dissent. And that's what we're seeing now. We should have seen it earlier.

This came on the same day that the FBI repeated its absurd evocation of the QAnon boogeyman--surely a low point for the Bureau. However, in fairness to Tucker I suspect this apology was in the works for some time, rather than a response to an event of the same day.

Which it was, it's welcome.

Reining In The Lockdowns?

There's a growing consensus, not just in the US but internationally, and including officials of mainstream public health organizations like WHO, that the Covid regime of lockdowns has been a disaster, a public health catastrophe. It has led to widespread very harmful consequences for public health, both physical (illnesses undiagnosed and untreated) and mental. We wrote about this recently in Lock This Down! 

It appears that increasingly there is pushback. Some is coming from lawsuits and courts are beginning to listen. That's a slow process. On the other hand, state legislature's are taking action, too. Here's a story that's getting some play. As so often, I quote from a piece republished at ZeroHedge-- 15 States Are Moving To Curb Public Health Agency Powers Following Lockdown Carnage.

Obviously most of these states are Red states--there are a few exceptions--but states like TX and FL are hardly to be dismissed in the scheme of American politics.

The following excerpt is intended to simply provide an overview of measures under consideration. How much momentum this movement has is difficult to say, but I wouldn't dismiss this lightly:

Tough Questions: America's Culpability For Covid

Stephen Bryen is a former top Pentagon official (read his resume here), including as the founding director of the Defense Technology Security Administration. Within the past week he's been speaking out on the Covid origins matter, spurred by recent revelations. With his wife he wrote an opinion piece for Newsweek, and he also recently gave an interview to Just The News. Bryen's main argument is simply that the US government--at least DoD and the scientific establishment--were not just funders of research at Wuhan. They were partners, and they were partners with a Chinese biowarfare program. He is convinced that there's a lot more to this story than what we've been told thus far. This would certainly explain features of the Covid origins coverup, because it has been clear to me that Tony Fauci could not have constructed his web of lies if not spurred on from more powerful players than himself. It also explains why reputable scientists were willing to spout nonsense for so long. They would not have done that simply to save Tony Fauci's sorry ass. I suspect this was presented as a National Security issue.

What I'll do here is, first, insert what amounts to a precis of the Bryens' opinion piece at Newsweek. Then I'll provide a transcript cum summary of his remarks to Just The News--because that interview goes beyond what he wrote for Newsweek. Please note toward the end his statements re elements of HIV having been added to the Covid genome. As we've noted several times in the past, that is exactly what the Indian scientists were maintaining as early as January, 2020--but they withdrew their article when Fauci labeled it "outlandish." One can only speculate on how much influence was brought to bear on the Indian scientists--and by whom. Bryen thinks we need the equivalent of a War Crimes trial, because what has happened is equivalent--his words--to "a genocide."

UPDATED: Briefly Noted: Lockdowns All The Way Down?

ZeroHedge is republishing an interesting piece from Off-Guardian. The idea is that our Globalist masters, having succeeded with the Covid lockdown--confirmed to their satisfaction that the public can be gaslighted into compliance with almost any restrictions on freedom--are now considering rebranding the Covid lockdown as a Climate lockdown:

Is A "Climate Lockdown" On The Horizon?

What would a climate lockdown look like? The author quotes from an article written by a WHO employee, Avoiding a climate lockdown:

Under a “climate lockdown,” governments would limit private-vehicle use, ban consumption of red meat, and impose extreme energy-saving measures, while fossil-fuel companies would have to stop drilling.

Wait--haven't I heard all that before? Isn't that thinking at the bottom of most of the Zhou regime's policies--some already implemented? Isn't that what the G-7 were running on about for the last few days? Yes, it is. And didn't BoJo the conservative just extend the UK lockdown? Yes, he did. Establishment politicos love lockdowns.

All that is being presented in the article as ways to avoid a climate lockdown--it's the carrot we'll be required to eat to avoid the stick of a lockdown.

Maybe the author is just a nobody, speculating on a climate change pie in the sky agenda? Not so much. This is who the backers of this are:

Three Way Squeeze

That's the title of a thought provoking post by James Howard Kunstler today (h/t aNanyMouse). The idea behind the title is that the Zhou Baiden regime--a regime for which Zhou himself is merely the frontman for others, probably in the Obama camp--is finding itself squeezed from three separate directions, but with all three factors working toward the imminent downfall of the regime. What makes these three factors so potent is that they rest upon Three Big Lies. When those lies are exposed--and the exposure of all three is proceeding apace--the result, Kunstler argues, will spell the end of the regime.

What are these three Big Lies?

AZ Audit Update

I've been waiting for the audit process to run its course, rather than try to keep up with breathless speculation. However, this morning sundance has pointed to an article in which a named person associated with the AZ audit makes important assertions of fact. Sundance argues that the fact that these assertions are not being reported anonymously warrants repeating them, and I agree. What follows is simply the relevant portion of the article as reproduced at CTH. I did check the original, and what follows does appear to be the extent of the relevant information:

ARIZONA – Several hundred thousand votes that were counted in Maricopa County, Arizona are associated with missing ballots, according to an audit organizer who is speaking regularly with people on the audit floor.

“We found a ballot shortage, anywhere from 5 to 10 percent of the votes,” Josh Barnett, an audit organizer who led the affidavit drive to make the audit happen, tells NATIONAL FILE. “It looks like a couple hundred thousand ballots are unaccounted for. The ballots are missing.”

“I also know that there were boxes filled with blank ballots in those pallets. There were blanks in there,” Barnett said, citing a person who is frequently at the audit site as part of the audit process. “They (election officials) were doing it for appearance, to try to hide the fact that ballots are missing by saying, ‘It’s okay, they’re all right here.’ But the ballots are blank.” (read more)

Obviously, if true--and we should know very soon now--this would be a genormous development, which nationwide ramifications.

Briefly Noted: Babylon Bee Wins Big Over NYT

You may recall that satire site Babylon Bee has been threatening legal action against the NYT, which has been using various subterfuges to tag Babylon Bee as "right wing misinformation". Apparently realizing it was holding a losing hand, the NYT threw it in. Here's a short version from The Federalist:

New York Times Forced To Back Down After Smearing Babylon Bee

JUNE 14, 2021 By Jordan Davidson

The New York Times was forced to back down from targeting popular satire website the Babylon Bee after months of smearing it as “far-right misinformation.”

In a reply to the Babylon Bee’s demands to retract “defamatory statements” about the satire site from one of the New York Times’ March articles, the Times said it has “removed the reference to the Babylon Bee from the article and appended a correction.”

Follow the link for more details. You can also read about it at Red State, which may include some extra tweets: The Babylon Bee Scores a Huge Victory Against the New York Times.

This is a big victory for freedom of the press, in that it demonstrates that there are some standards of accountability for Big Media. Nevertheless, it remains the case that asserting the right to a public life free of defamation from Big Media remains tenuous at best. Hopefully these issues of accountability will be reviewed by the SCOTUS in the relatively near future, specifically with regard to NYT v. Sullivan. I append several paragraphs from Wikipedia's article that demonstrates that at least some on the SCOTUS are aware of the threat that the outdated and politically motivated case poses to free public discourse:

In February 2019, the Supreme Court denied a petition brought by Katherine McKee, one of the women that accused Bill Cosby of sexual assault, which claimed that Cosby had leaked a letter that permanently damaged her reputation, and had sought civil action against Cosby on this matter. Lower courts rejected her case based on New York Times Co., stating that she "thrust herself to the forefront of a public controversy", making her a limited public figure and requiring the higher standard of malice to be demonstrated. The denial by the Supreme Court did not include a vote count, but Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the solitary opinion on the case, agreeing that denial was appropriate per New York Times Co., but stating that he believed that decision of New York Times Co. was made wrongly. Thomas wrote "If the Constitution does not require public figures to satisfy an actual-malice standard in state-law defamation suits, then neither should we".^[25] The views of Thomas, a conservative, mirrored that of President Donald Trump, who had repeatedly called for the review of libel laws in the United States to give those defamed by others a "meaningful recourse in our courts".^[25]

In March 2021, federal judge Laurence Silberman called on the Supreme Court to overturn New York Times v. Sullivan, stating that the New York Times and The Washington Post are "virtually Democratic Party broadsheets". Silberman's dissent also accused big tech companies of censoring conservatives and warned that "Democratic Party ideological control" of mainstream media may be a prelude to an "authoritarian or dictatorial regime" that constitutes "a threat to a viable democracy".^[26][27]

Judge Silberman's dissent produced significant public discussion of Sullivan and potential reforms. Many conservative-leaning outlets endorsed Silberman's criticisms of Sullivan.^[28] Most liberal-leaning outlets and several moderate conservatives condemned Silberman's decision for its tone and the substantive idea of loosening defamation standards.^[29] However, some liberal scholars and a Harvard Law student writing in the Wall Street Journal embraced significant reforms to Sullivan.^[30]

Central Bankers To Lead The Great Reset

What could go wrong, right? The Great Rest--or, How to reduce the Middle Class to serfdom where they belong.

Canada's National Post has a very long and fascinating--chillingly so--article about Mark Carney. Never heard of him? He's a very influential man. And he's totally up for revolution--or, if you prefer, a Great Reset. It comes down to pretty much the same thing. You can read the article here or at ZeroHedge:

"It Won't Be Pleasant" - Mark Carney Unveils Dystopian New World To Combat Climate 'Crisis'

Authored by Peter Foster via NationalPost.com,

What Carney ultimately wants is a technocratic dictatorship justified by climate alarmism ...

Do you remember Boris Johnson babbling to the G-7 about "building back better" and making society more "gender neutral" and "more feminine"? Mark Carney is a special adviser to BoJo. He's also very much a Marxist of a 21st century technocratic variety and an influential voice in the World Economic Forum. For that reason I'm pasting in the beginning and conclusion of this article--and believe me, there's lots more in between. This should give you an idea of what sundance means with his oft repeated refrain, "There are trillions at stake." These are the people who had to have Trump gone, and want to beat the middle classes down. Think I'm exaggerating? I'm not.