Tag: law

No cake for you!

You don’t have to bake the cake anymore:

The Supreme Court on Monday handed a narrow victory to a Christian baker from Colorado who refused for religious reasons to make a wedding cake for a gay couple.

The justices, in a 7-2 decision, faulted the Colorado Civil Rights Commission’s handling of the claims brought against Jack Phillips, saying it had showed a hostility to religion. In doing so, the commission violated his religious rights under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

But the court did not issue a definitive ruling on the circumstances under which people can seek exemptions from anti-discrimination laws based on their religious views.

Of course they didn’t. That might actually be useful. But at least one minor injustice has been overturned. But on what planet is a 7-2 decision “a narrow victory”?

Nationalists detained

The globalists in the UK are cracking down on European and American nationalists:

Austrian activist Martin Sellner of Génération Identitaire and his girlfriend, American author and YouTuber Brittany Pettibone, have been detained by airport police in England for nearly three days.

Nobody from the US State Department or embassy contacted Pettibone’s family.

Sellner was on his way to give a speech that authorities say would cause “tension among local communities and possibly incite hatred.”

Brittany Pettibone & Martin Sellner are being held in a detention centre in London. They have been there for 2 days and don’t know when they will be allowed to leave. The immigration officer told Brittany she was being detained for ‘planning to meet Tommy Robinson, an extremist”.
— Caolan Robertson (@CaolanRob) March 10, 2018

“Yesterday, Martin Sellner and Brittany Pettibone were detained by the UK Government and effectively declared political dissidents. The government has decided that Martin’s talk about free speech is too dangerous to be heard. Don’t worry, some of our activists will be reading his speech at Speakers’ Corner at noon tomorrow in his stead. We can’t allow either the far left or the government to silence us,” a statement from the British GI chapter read.

Sellner frequently speaks out about the dangers of European nations taking in migrants. He was supposed to be addressing the issue at Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park on Sunday.

Journalist and researcher Nick Monroe spoke to Pettibone on Saturday afternoon when she called him from the detention center. She told him that she is expecting that they will be released on Sunday — 72 hours after their initial detention. She has not been permitted to speak to Sellner.

Remember, this is the very same UK government who expect the public to be outraged – outraged – when China and Russia detain journalists of whom they don’t approve. And it is the same UK government that has allowed millions of Muslims and other third world natives to freely enter and settle in England, despite the way that has definitely caused considerable tension among local communities and incited hatred.

This is why it is a waste of time to talk about free speech. There is no free speech in the UK, in Europe, or the USA anymore. So stop pretending there is.

Freedom of association lives

For the time being, anyhow:

A California trial court has upheld a Christian baker’s right to refuse to create a wedding cake for a lesbian couple, but the decision comes as a similar case is already pending in the nation’s highest court.

Tastries Bakery owner Cathy Miller’s freedom of speech “outweighs” the state of California’s interest in ensuring a freely accessible marketplace, Judge David R. Lampe said in his decision in the Superior Court of California in Kern County, one of the state’s 58 trial courts.

Standing to set a legal precedent is the case of Colorado baker and Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips, deliberated before the U.S. Supreme Court in December 2017. A ruling is expected within months in Phillips’ fight to limit his creativity as a wedding cake baker to marriages between a man and a woman.

No one should ever have to bake a damn cake for anyone. It’s absurd that this is even an issue at all.

Corruption and circled wagons

The Deep State’s best efforts to hide its corrupt and illegal behavior are failing:

A U.S. House committee voted Monday to seek White House clearance to publicly release a classified Republican memo that alleges bias and counterintelligence abuses in government surveillance of people surrounding President Donald Trump, members of the panel said.

Representative Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said the majority-Republican panel decided to seek release of the memo on a party-line vote. The Republican majority refused along party lines to disclose a competing memo written by Democrats.

“This is an effort to circle the wagons around the White House and distract from the Russia probe,” Schiff said…. Releasing the memo has become a cause for conservative congressional Republicans, who say the FBI and the Justice Department pursued the investigation of possible Russian ties to the Trump presidential campaign under false pretenses. Schiff has countered that the memo is part of a Republican effort designed to distract from, and undermine, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference and whether those around Trump colluded in it.

Disclosure of the memo requires White House approval because the document is based on classified information. Now, the Trump administration will have up to five days to review the document for national security concerns, though it could be released at any point. Even if the administration objects, the full House could hold a rare closed-door vote on whether to publicly disclose the memo anyway.

It will be interesting to see if what is in the memo is as bad as people are suggesting, or if it is simply more smoke that may or may not be indicative of anything substantive. Regardless, one hopes the Trump administration puts it out for public review as quickly as possible.

The key tell from Schiff is his use of the phrase “circle the wagons”. Remember, SJWs always project, and they are reliably guilty of committing the crimes of which they accuse others. There is no need to “distract from the Russia probe”. Everyone has known for months that there is nothing to be found there except for collusion between the Clinton Campaign, the FBI, and the NSA.

The only significant thing here is the discovery that there isn’t even one honest Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. If there are allegations of serious corruption and criminality in the memo and all of them voted to keep the memo under wraps, they are going to face some serious questions about their own corruption.

More missing texts

The DOJ may have them all. Or they may not. But either way, they haven’t turned them all over to Congress. Yet.

The Justice Department has given Congress less than 15 percent of the texts between FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page – and that is all Congress is likely to get, at least until department experts finish an effort to recover an unknown number of previously lost texts that were sent and received during a key five-month period during the Trump-Russia investigation.

There is much confusion over some basic facts of the Strzok-Page texts. How many are there? How many relate to the two most politically-charged investigations in years, the Trump-Russia probe and the Hillary Clinton email investigation? How many have been turned over to Congress? And how many are left to be turned over to Congress?

The answers are complicated, but here is what I have been able to figure out from conversations with the Justice Department and Capitol Hill investigators.

The Justice Department has identified about 50,000 Strzok-Page texts. But that is apart from the texts between Dec. 14, 2016 and May 17, 2017 that were declared missing a week ago but are now being recovered. So, the total is apparently 50,000 plus the currently unknown number of formerly missing texts.

But that number refers only to the Strzok-Page texts that were sent and received on FBI-issued Samsung phones. There are a number of instances in the texts in which the two officials say that they should switch the conversation to iMessage, suggesting they continued to talk about FBI matters on personal Apple phones. For investigators, those are particularly intriguing texts – what was so sensitive that they couldn’t discuss on their work phones? – but the number of those texts is unknown. And of course, they have not been turned over to Congress.

How many texts have been turned over? Both Justice Department and Capitol Hill sources say the total number is in the 7,000 range, which includes all the texts handed over on two separate occasions.

The question is, is “an effort to recover” actually what it appears or is the DOJ going to follow the example of the FBI and the NSA and declare a third successive “oops, we seem to have deleted everything”?

Now it’s getting serious

There is growing evidence that we hit Peak NFL back in 2015. This proposed law is almost certainly only the first of many that will be adopted across the country in the coming years.

Organized tackle football would be banned for Illinois children younger than 12 years old under a bill to be unveiled on Thursday. The Dave Duerson Act to Prevent CTE is named for the Chicago Bears defensive back who was diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy after he killed himself at the age of 50. Duerson shot himself in the chest so his brain could be studied for signs of the disease that has been linked to concussions or repeated head trauma.

“When my father tragically took his own life, he donated his brain to science in hopes of being part of the solution,” said Tregg Duerson, who like his father played football at Notre Dame.

“Thanks to increased attention and research on brain trauma, we know that part of the solution is to guard young children’s developing brains from the risks of tackle football,” Tregg Duerson said in a statement, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press in advance of the announcement. “This bill honors my family’s hopes and my father’s legacy to protect future athletes and the future of football.”

State Rep. Carol Sente, a Democrat from Vernon Hills, announced the proposal at a news conference Thursday along with Chris Nowinski, the head of the Concussion Legacy Foundation. Also expected to attend were former Bears players Mike Adamle and Otis Wilson — a teammate of Dave Duerson’s on the 1985 championship team — and Liz Nicholson, the wife of former Cleveland Brown Gerry Sullivan, who has sued the NFL over its handling of concussions.

While I played football for three years, from six until nine, I think this is probably a good idea. The basic skills simply are not there, and it appears that the problem with CTE involves the mild head-banging on the line more than the big shots in the open field that lead to concussions.

As to whether this will cause fewer people to follow football, who knows. But that’s really not relevant. Besides, playing flag football until high school will probably prepare the boys better for the strategic elements of the game as well as balancing the playing field a little between the early developers and the late developers.

FBI assassination threats?

No wonder the FBI is so desperate to bury the text messages sent between their agents and executives:

A high-ranking FBI official confirms a number of the missing 50,000 FBI text messages — as well as other text and email messages among FBI brass — reportedly discussed initiating physical harm to President Donald Trump.

The FBI official urged the U.S. Department of Homeland Security — which oversees the U.S. Secret Service  — to launch an investigation of the Justice Department, the FBI and all text messages missing and otherwise that threatened the President.

“This is dangerous territory and all FBI text messages and personal phones should be examined,” the official said. “It would reveal some frightening conversations.”

Did FBI brass discuss the assassination of President Donald Trump? If not, what was the nature of the threats against the president from inside the alleged premiere law enforcement agency in the United States?

“(Director) Wray wants a lid on this,” the FBI official said. “Many know there was talk of harming Trump politically but there is a group here (in D.C. HQ) that understands it goes deeper. We need a special counsel or Homeland Security. Somebody has to clean this up outside of DOJ. It is unacceptable.

“This is much larger than just texts between two FBI agents.”

The FBI official called on President Trump to do what is necessary to weed out corruption in the FBI.

“Text messages just don’t disappear,” the FBI official said. “Not here. Someone outside DOJ has to look at all emails and texts. These (FBI bosses) are bad people. You’ve only scratched the surface.”

The high-ranking FBI official called on lawmakers and the Inspector General to focus on the text and email messages of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. The official referred to McCabe’s official and personal correspondences “an anti-Trump treasure trove.”

Q was right, apparently. These people are not only evil, they are stupid as well. I mean, they know better than anyone else that all electronic communications are monitored somewhere, by someone.

“A massive scandal brewing”

Thunder is beginning to rumble in the mainstream media:

During the financial crisis, the federal government bailed out banks it declared “too big to fail.” Fearing their bankruptcy might trigger economic Armageddon, the feds propped them up with taxpayer cash.

Something similar is happening now at the FBI, with the Washington wagons circling the agency to protect it from charges of corruption. This time, the appropriate tag line is “too big to believe.”

Yet each day brings credible reports suggesting there is a massive scandal involving the top ranks of America’s premier law enforcement agency. The reports, which feature talk among agents of a “secret society” and suddenly missing text messages, point to the existence both of a cabal dedicated to defeating Donald Trump in 2016 and of a plan to let Hillary Clinton skate free in the classified email probe.

If either one is true — and I believe both probably are — it would mean FBI leaders betrayed the nation by abusing their powers in a bid to pick the president.

More support for this view involves the FBI’s use of the Russian dossier on Trump that was paid for by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. It is almost certain that the FBI used the dossier to get FISA court warrants to spy on Trump associates, meaning it used the opposition research of the party in power to convince a court to let it spy on the candidate of the other party — likely without telling the court of the dossier’s political link.

Even worse, there is growing reason to believe someone in President Barack Obama’s administration turned over classified information about Trump to the Clinton campaign.

Notice that the headline is that “evidence suggests” rather than a reliance upon rumors, whispers, reports, or insiders. Which means that unlike the special investigator’s search for collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, there is almost certainly a substantive there there.

An FBI informant has apparently informed Congress that a secret society at the FBI was holding secret meetings off-site after the election of Donald Trump. On Special Report with Bret Baier Tuesday evening, Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) called it “corruption of the highest levels of the FBI.”

So much for the FBI’s once-pristine reputation. The FBI is now circling the wagons, as is the NSA, despite what they once said about the Nixon White House and how the problem isn’t so much the original crime as the coverup. The problem in this case appears to be that the crimes are so bad, and so serious, that they are even worse than those that were subsequently committed in the coverup.

The “secret society”

Seditious parties in the FBI may be hiding text messages, but they won’t be able to keep the FISA memo under wraps:

There is serious talk on Capitol Hill about the appointment of a second special counsel amid several new bombshell revelations swirling around the Trump/Russia probe. First, there are the allegations of shocking and substantial government surveillance abuses under President Obama outlined in the FISA abuse memo. Secondly, the FBI lost five months of key text messages between the anti-Trump/pro-Clinton FBI officials Peter Strzok and his mistress Lisa Page. And now there’s talk of a “secret society” of officials within the FBI that apparently met the day after the election of Donald J. Trump to plot against the president-elect….

According to Fox News, Nunes, Gowdy and Goodlatte are in the process of going through the steps necessary to release the four-page FISA memo and intend to see it released to the public by early February.

The FBI has demanded to see a copy of the memo, but so far — understandably —  the Intelligence Committee has declined to show them their hand. Republicans believe that publishing the memo will but pressure on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to appoint a second special counsel, Fox News reported.

Reps Gowdy and Ratcliffe (R-TX) were on Fox News’ “The Story with Martha MacCallum” Monday night to talk about the latest developments.

Rep. Ratcliffe said that former FBI director James Comey needs to come back to Capitol Hill to testify again under oath on the question of when the decision to exonerate former secretary of State Hillary Clinton was made. The latest batch of text messages between Strzok and Page suggests that Comey was coordinating with Attorney General Lynch on the decision well ahead of his July 5 press conference.

“It’s really clear to me that the decision was made in May of 2016 — two months before the press conference,” Gowdy said. “Of course Loretta Lynch knew he wasn’t going to be charged. Everyone except the public knew that she was not going to be charged.”

“We knew that Strzok and Page had an intense anti-Trump bias and that’s okay so long as they check it at the door and do their job,” Ratcliffe said. “But we learned today in the thousands of text messages that we reviewed that perhaps they may not have done that.”

Ratcliffe went on to mention one particular text message that referenced a “secret society” at the Bureau. “We know about this insurance policy that was referenced in trying to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president,” he began. “We learned today about information in the immediate aftermath of his election that there may have been a ‘secret society’ of folks within the Department of Justice and the FBI to include Page and Strzok that would be working against him.”

This goes well beyond basic criminality. We’re getting into serious sedition, high crimes, and treason territory here. And yes, this is definitely Storm-related. The FBI and NSA aren’t “accidentally losing” hundreds of text messages and emails because nothing is at stake.

The Conservative Treehouse explains the strategy called “the Big Ugly”, of which the aforementioned FISA memo is a key part of informing the public in a manner it can digest:

Nunes, Grassley and Goodlatte are working in concert, each with a specific attack strategy that targets the larger swamp defense. This week they began the three-pronged attack we call “THE BIG UGLY“.

The Big Ugly is the wrecking ball that will shatter the front line swamp defenses and allow the draining to begin. The plan for this strategy was developed almost a year ago after Nunes realized how the compartmented intelligence would be used to block sunlight.

ODNI Dan Coats, the man who declassified the original FISA court opinion, NSA Director Mike Rogers, CIA Director Mike Pompeo, FBI Director Christopher Wray, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Inspector General Michael Horowitz and Asst. AG Rod Rosenstein have each played a significant role in preparing the landscape and armory for this conflict.

Congressional allies like Jim Jordan and Ron DeSantis will be working toward messaging and clearing the fog from the media.

It is not accidental that Ron DeSantis has asked Speaker Ryan to declassify everything…. only a week before Devin Nunes announces his request for the full house to see everything declassified and without redaction. These are Big Ugly cannon shots into the heart of deception.  The summary of the classified FISA-702 abuse, and the subsequent unmasking therein, lies at the heart of the strategy to use a four-page summary memo to inform the public of the historic issues.

Release the memo!

More sound and fury signifying nothing? Or is the government shutdown, combined with what appears to be the imminent release of the FISA court abuse memo, the first thunderclap of the much-anticipated Storm?

All hell is breaking loose in Washington D.C. after a four-page memo detailing extensive FISA court abuse was made available to the entire House of Representatives Thursday. The contents of the memo are so explosive, says Journalist Sara Carter, that it could lead to the removal of senior officials in the FBI and the Department of Justice and the end of Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation.

These sources say the report is “explosive,” stating they would not be surprised if it leads to the end of Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel investigation into President Trump and his associates.

A source close to the matter tells Fox News that “the memo details the Intelligence Committee’s oversight work for the FBI and Justice, including the controversy over unmasking and FISA surveillance.” An educated guess by anyone who’s been paying attention for the last year leads to the obvious conclusion that the report reveals extensive abuse of power and highly illegal collusion between the Obama administration, the FBI, the DOJ and the Clinton Campaign against Donald Trump and his team during and after the 2016 presidential election.

Lawmakers who have seen the memo are calling for its immediate release, while the phrases “explosive,” “shocking,” “troubling,” and “alarming” have all been used in all sincerity. One congressman even likened the report’s details to KGB activity in Russia.

Now we know why the Democrats have been so stupidly intransigent in shutting down the government over a few illegal aliens. They’re just trying to shift the media narrative away from the expected fallout from the release of the memo.

It’s important to keep in mind that all of these things – all of them – are interconnected. It’s sometimes hard to remember that since the media covers every story as if it appeared ex nihilo even when the same people are involved from one story to the next, but there is absolutely no chance that the Democrats just happened to dig in their heels over nothing at this particular point in time.

After all, no one expected the Swamp not to resist its draining. And right now, the illegal collusion between the Obama administration, the Clinton campaign, the FBI, and the DOJ is its weakest and most vulnerable point.