fox files

Judge Declares FBI’s Search for Peter Strzok Records Inadequate

A petulant child or employee will perform a task halfway and wait to see if he can get away with it. Such seems to be the strategy of the entire Deep State bureaucracy.

The FBI is particularly good at this, and we are particularly good at calling them on it. Luckily for the American people we have judges who respect the Freedom of Information Act.

A case in point: U.S. District Court Judge Christopher R. Cooper for the District of Columbia has agreed with that the FBI did not adequately search for records related to the removal and reassignment of Peter Strzok from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigative team. He was a former deputy to the assistant director for counterintelligence at the FBI.

In granting our request, Judge Cooper ordered the FBI to further search their records. (The original, deficient search had only returned 14 pages.)

The order comes in the December 2017 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit we filed after the DOJ failed to respond to and August 17, 2017, request (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Federal Bureau of Investigation (No. 1:17-cv-02682)). Judicial Watch seeks:

All records regarding the assignment of FBI Supervisor Peter Strzok to the special counsel’s investigation led by former Director Robert Mueller.
All records related to the reassignment of FBI Supervisor Peter Strzok from the special counsel’s investigation to another position within the FBI.
All SF-50 and/or SF-52 employment forms, as well as all related records of communication between any official, employee, or representative of the FBI and any other individual or entity.

On July 31, 2018, we released the first 14 pages of FBI documents produced in this FOIA lawsuit, showing that Strzok insisted on retaining his FBI security clearance before moving to the Mueller team and confirmed that Strzok played a pivotal role in the flawed Hillary Clinton email investigation.

In his decision, Judge Cooper called the FBI’s search “overly cramped:”

Notwithstanding that Judicial Watch’s request referred to Mueller by name … the Bureau searched only for the term “special counsel.” But surely one would expect that Agent Strzok and other FBI personnel might use the Special Counsel’s name — “Mueller” — rather than his title when discussing Strzok’s assignment to the Russia investigation, especially in informal emails. Another logical variation on “special counsel” is its commonly used acronym “SCO,” which appears to be used within the Special Counsel’s Office itself, as reflected by documents that the FBI uncovered and produced to Judicial Watch.

The ruling also stated that the FBI did not adequately respond to our FOIA lawsuit because it limited its search to only Strzok’s email account.

Judge Cooper ordered that the FBI must conduct a new search that includes “the email accounts of any of Agent Strzok’s superiors or other Bureau officials who were involved in the decision to assign him to the Special Counsel’s Office or the decision to reassign him to the FBI’s Human Resources Division after his removal from the Mueller investigation.”

The FBI must also expand its search to other forms of communication in addition to email. Given Strzok’s well-known use of text messaging, “it strikes the Court as reasonably likely that he discussed his assignment to the Special Counsel’s Office in text messages—which again is the standard for assessing an agency’s selection of search locations.”

Strzok was reportedly removed from the Mueller investigative team in August 2017 and reassigned to a human resources position after it was discovered that he and then-FBI lawyer Lisa Page exchanged text messages during the Clinton investigation and 2016 election season that raised serious questions about his anti-Trump/pro-Clinton bias. They were also engaged in an extramarital affair. Strzok infamously texted “there’s no way he gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk.”

Strzok reportedly oversaw the FBI’s interviews of former National Security Adviser, General Michael Flynn; changed former FBI Director James Comey’s language about Hillary Clinton’s actions regarding her illicit email server from “grossly negligent” to “extremely careless;” played a lead role in the FBI’s interview of Clinton and is suspected of being responsible for using the unverified dossier to obtain a FISA warrant in order to spy on President Trump’s campaign.

The Court rightly slammed the FBI for its gamesmanship in searching for records about one of the most notorious FBI agents of all time – Peter Strzok. The FBI leadership is in cover-up mode on its abuses targeting President Trump, and we’re pleased a federal court pushed back on this stonewall.
Judicial Watch Sues for Key Anti-Trump Coup Doc

Perhaps you remember the 1964 film “Seven Days in May,” in which a Deep State cabal plotted a takeover of the government. Burt Lancaster starred, and Rod Serling, appropriately, wrote script.

Now we’re living through a real life “Eight Days in May” featuring Rod Rosenstein, the disgraced former FBI official Andrew McCabe and a slew of characters conniving to bring down a real life President.

In the latest scene we are suing the Department of Justice for the communications of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein between May 8 and May 17, 2017.

We filed the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit after the DOJ failed to respond to a September 21, 2018, FOIA request (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:19-cv-00481)). We are seeking:

Any and all e-mails, text messages, or other records of communication addressed to or received by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein between May 8, 2017, and May 22, 2017.

This time period is critical. On May 8, 2017, Rosenstein wrote a memo to President Trump recommending that FBI Director James Comey be fired. The next day, President Trump fired Comey. On May 17 Rosenstein appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller to investigate Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

Between May 8 and May 17, Rosenstein met with then-acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe and other senior Justice Department FBI officials and discussed invoking the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump and whether Rosenstein and others should wear a wire to secretly record conversations with the President.

We previously filed a FOIA lawsuit seeking the communications of former FBI Deputy Director McCabe, the Office of the Attorney General Jeff Sessions, or the Office of Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein discussing the 25th Amendment or presidential fitness. Additionally, that lawsuit seeks all recordings made by any official in the Office of the Attorney General or Deputy Attorney General of meetings in the Executive Office of the President or Vice President.

These critical days in May, a scant three months into President Trump’s term, included extraordinary targeting of President Trump by Rod Rosenstein and other Deep State officials at the DOJ and FBI. Our focused FOIA lawsuit aims to uncover exactly what Mr. Rosenstein’s role was in any discussions to overthrow President Trump.

I don’t have much use for Hollywood, but sometimes it ominously foreshadows reality.

Judicial Watch Files Ethics Complaint Against Congressman Adam Schiff

The plot deep within the Justice Department to bring down President Trump is but one of three legs: The DOJ/FBI maneuver has been given covering fire all along by the media, and it has been buttressed by members of the Congress, whose unhinged behavior has seriously eroded that institution’s credibility.

No one has been more eager to get in front of the cameras and spout knowingly false conspiratorcy theories than Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who is, remarkably, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

We have now filed an official complaint with the Office of Congressional Ethics about Rep. Schiff’s controversial communications and contacts with two congressional witnesses: Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS and Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former personal lawyer.

We are asking that Rep. Schiff be investigated in connection with recent revelations that he met with Simpson in Aspen, Colorado, in July 2018 and that he and his staff coordinated with Michael Cohen on Cohen’s recent testimony to congressional committees. Cohen’s testimony is alleged to be false in several important respects.

You will recall that we filed an ethics complaint on April 13, 2018, against Rep. Schiff and Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) for improperly confirming classified information in violation of House rules but the Committee has yet to take any public action on the complaint.

Rep. Schiff has an ethics problem. His and his staff’s irregular communications with anti-Trump witnesses reflect poorly on the credibility of the House and its committees’ investigations. It has long been apparent that Rep. Schiff can’t be trusted to lead the Intelligence Committee, so we hope that Democrats on the Ethics Committee stop protecting Mr. Schiff and take action.

In our complaint we elaborate on our concerns:

Dear Chairman Skaggs,

Judicial Watch is a non-profit, non-partisan educational foundation, which promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government and fidelity to the rule of law. We regularly monitor congressional ethics issues as part of our anti-corruption mission.

This letter serves as our official complaint to the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) concerning the activities of Rep. Adam Schiff. Rep. Schiff appears to have violated House Code of Official Conduct, Rule 23, clauses 1 and 2, by inappropriately communicating with witnesses. Clauses 1 and 2 provide:

1. A Member, Delegate, Resident Commissioner, officer, or employee of the House shall behave at all times in a manner that shall reflect creditably on the House.

2. A Member, Delegate, Resident Commissioner, officer, or employee of the House shall adhere to the spirit and the letter of the Rules of the House and to the rules of duly constituted committees thereof.

Rep. Adam Schiff attended the Aspen Security Forum conference in July 2018, which was also attended by Glenn Simpson, the founder of the firm Fusion GPS. Press reports have detailed evidence of a meeting and discussion between Rep. Schiff and Glenn Simpson at the July 2018 Aspen Security Forum. As noted in The Hill newspaper:

At the time of the encounter, Simpson was an important witness in the House Intelligence Committee probe who had given sworn testimony about alleged, but still unproven, collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.

Fusion GPS is the political opposition research firm involved in procuring “unverified” information claiming the Trump presidential campaign had “colluded” with Russia, among other things. That Fusion GPS-supplied information was the basis upon which the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) obtained Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) surveillance warrants against Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page.

Mr. Simpson’s leadership of Fusion GPS and his centrality to events resulted in his having to testify before congressional committees or their staffs. Specifically, Mr. Simpson testified before the House Intelligence Committee, of which Rep. Schiff was the ranking Democratic member, on October 16, 2018 – approximately three (3) months after the Aspen Security Forum.

We note that following revelations in 2017 that Rep. Devin Nunes had informed President Trump that U.S. intelligence agencies had been engaging in “incidental collection” of his campaign’s communications, Rep. Schiff demanded that Rep. Nunes, then Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, recuse himself from any investigations involving alleged Trump collusion with Russia. Indeed, Rep. Schiff wrote the following on twitter:

This is not a recommendation I make lightly … But in much the same way that the attorney general [Jeff Sessions] was forced to recuse himself from the Russia investigation after failing to inform the Senate of his meetings with Russian officials, I believe the public cannot have the necessary confidence that matters involving the president’s campaign or transition team can be objectively investigated or overseen by the chairman.

Then-Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi concurred with Rep. Schiff’s call for Mr. Nunes to recuse himself.

The July 2018 contacts between Rep. Schiff and Mr. Simpson create, at a minimum, the appearance of impropriety. As a result of Rep. Schiff’s previously undisclosed, private discussions with Mr. Simpson, the public’s confidence in Mr. Schiff’s ability to objectively and impartially carry out his duties as Committee Chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has been gravely damaged.

Further, Rep. Schiff’s contacts with Mr. Michael Cohen should also be scrutinized in the same light as the Simpson contacts. Journalists have reported:

President Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen told House investigators this week that staff for Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., traveled to New York at least four times to meet with him for over 10 hours immediately before last month’s high-profile public testimony, according to two sources familiar with the matter – as Republicans question whether the meetings amounted to coaching a witness.

The sources said the sessions covered a slew of topics addressed during the public hearing before the oversight committee – including the National Enquirer ‘s “Catch and Kill” policy, American Media CEO David Pecker and the alleged undervaluing of President Trump’s assets.

Again, Rep. Schiff’ s conduct creates the appearance of unethical collusion and synchronization of efforts that calls into question whether Cohen’s testimony was a legitimate congressional hearing or well-rehearsed political theatre.

During Mr. Cohen’s congressional testimony, he was questioned by Rep. Mike Turner concerning the number, nature and subject of his [Cohen’s] contacts with the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Rep Jim Jordan pressed Cohen on the subject in subsequent questioning. Cohen hesitantly acknowledged that he had spoken with Schiff “about topics that were going to be raised at the upcoming hearing.”

A pattern of conduct on the part of Rep. Schiff in these matters would exponentially increase the gravity of the prejudice and harm to the public’s confidence in the institution of the House of Representatives.

Rep. Schiff’s conduct and contacts with witnesses must be treated with the same gravity that Reps. Schiff and Pelosi accorded Rep. Nunes’s actions. Rep. Nunes recused himself for a time from certain oversight responsibilities with respect to the Russia-Trump investigations.

In the least, Rep. Schiff and his staff communications with Glenn Simpson and Michael Cohen, undermine the “credibility of the House” and its committee proceedings, especially given Mr. Cohen’s subsequent alleged false testimony.

We call upon the OCE to investigate Rep. Schiff and his previously undisclosed, inappropriate contact with key witnesses in congressional investigation over which that Member holds significant sway.

Thank you for your attention.

The ethics process in the House is a mess so I don’t expect something quickly to happen, but it is important that we put the House on official notice so no politician there has an excuse to let Adam Schiff ‘suntoward behavior slide.

Clinton Email Scandal Witness Testimony Begins

In January U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth ordered senior Obama Administration officials — including Susan Rice, Ben Rhodes, Jacob Sullivan, and FBI official E.W. Priestap – to respond under oath to our questions regarding Benghazi and the Clinton email scandal.

We now have a schedule for the depositions.

This court-ordered discovery comes in our July 2014 FOIA lawsuit filed after the U.S. Department of State failed to respond to a May 13, 2014 FOIA request (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:14-cv-01242)). Judicial Watch seeks:

Copies of any updates and/or talking points given to Ambassador Rice by the White House or any federal agency concerning, regarding, or related to the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Any and all records or communications concerning, regarding, or relating to talking points or updates on the Benghazi attack given to Ambassador Rice by the White House or any federal agency.

Remember that this lawsuit led directly to the disclosure of the Clinton email system in 2015.

Our discovery will seek answers to:
Whether Clinton intentionally attempted to evade the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by using a non-government email system;
whether the State Department’s efforts to settle this case beginning in late 2014 amounted to bad faith; and
whether the State Department adequately searched for records responsive to Judicial Watch’s FOIA request.
The confirmed discovery schedule now includes:

March 12: State Department’s responses to interrogatories and document requests were due.

March 14: Deposition of Justin Cooper, a former aide to Bill Clinton who reportedly had no security clearance and is believed to have played a key role in setting up Hillary Clinton’s non-government email system.

April 5: Deposition of John Hackett, a State Department records official “immediately responsible for responding to requests for records under the Freedom of Information Act.”

April 16: Deposition of Jacob “Jake” Sullivan, Hillary Clinton’s former senior advisor and deputy chief of staff.

April 23: Deposition of Sheryl Walter, former State Department Director of the Office of Information Programs and Services/Global Information Services.

April 26: Deposition of Gene Smilansky, a State Department lawyer.

April 30. Deposition of Monica Tillery, a State Department official.

May 7: Deposition of Jonathon Wasser, who was a management analyst on the Executive Secretariat staff. Wasser worked for Deputy Director Clarence Finney and was the State Department employee who actually conducted the searches for records in response to FOIA requests to the Office of the Secretary.

May 14: Deposition of Clarence Finney, the deputy director of the Executive Secretariat staff who was the principal advisor and records management expert in the Office of the Secretary responsible for control of all correspondence and records for Hillary Clinton and other State Department officials.

June 11: 30(b)(6) Deposition, which will be designated by the State Department.

June 13: Deposition of Heather Samuelson, the former State Department senior advisor who helped facilitate the State Department’s receipt and release of Hillary Clinton’s emails.

As yet to be determined is the deposition date for Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security Eric Boswell, who wrote a March 2, 2009, internal memorandum titled “Use of Blackberries on Mahogany Row,” in which he strongly advised that the devices not be allowed.

Written questions under oath are to be answered by:

Monica Hanley, Hillary Clinton’s former confidential assistant at the State Department.

Lauren Jiloty, Clinton’s former special assistant.

E.W. Priestap, is serving as assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division and helped oversee both the Clinton email and the 2016 presidential campaign investigations. Priestap testified in a separate lawsuit that Clinton was the subject of a grand jury investigation related to her BlackBerry email accounts.

Susan Rice, President Obama’s former UN ambassador who appeared on Sunday television news shows following the Benghazi attacks, blaming a “hateful video.” Rice was also Obama’s national security advisor involved in the “unmasking” the identities of senior Trump officials caught up in the surveillance of foreign targets.

Ben Rhodes, an Obama-era White House deputy strategic communications adviser who attempted to orchestrate a campaign to “reinforce” Obama and to portray the Benghazi consulate terrorist attack as being “rooted in an Internet video, and not a failure of policy.”

We’re doing the heavy lifting in the Clinton email scandal, even as Congress dropped the ball and DOJ and State continued to obstruct our quest for the truth. The Court in our case wants real answers on the Clinton email scandal, which is why our request for basic discovery was granted.

Judicial Watch is #1 on FOIA!
Since 2001 we have led all nonprofit organizations in filing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits, according to figures released late last year by The FOIA Project of Syracuse University.

We are announcing this in honor of “Sunshine Week,” March 10-16, which is an “annual nationwide celebration of access to public information.”

According to the FOIAproject.org’s most recent study, we were again No. 1 on the top ten list of most frequent Nonprofit/Advocacy Groups (Jan 21, 2001-July 2018) challenging federal government withholding in court and for the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations.

Overall Top 10 FOIA Filers (Jan 21, 2001 – July 2018)

Rank Plaintiff in FOIA Suit Number Filed
1. Judicial Watch 391
2. American Civil Liberties Union 130
3. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility 94
4. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington 88
5. Electronic Privacy Information Center 74
6. Natural Resources Defense Council 59
7. Center for Biological Diversity 47
8. Cause of Action Institute 44
9. American Oversight 43
10. Electronic Frontier Foundation 43

The FOIA Project “aims to: (1) create a shaming mechanism by which agencies and officials who ignore the law are held accountable, and (2) arm the public with the full record of FOIA efforts that have and haven’t worked, so anyone can more effectively surmount frequently used roadblocks to public access.”

We use the open records or freedom of information laws and other tools to uncover misconduct by government officials and hold to account those who engage in corrupt activities. When agencies balk at releasing information that is of value to the public, we sue.

The Freedom of Information Act was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson in 1966 to improve public access to government records. The FOIA Project says there is wide agreement that the FOIA’s administrative process has many flaws, with federal agencies frequently resisting its mandates by either refusing to provide properly requested records or ignoring the requirements that the documents be made available within specified time periods.

The most-sued agency is the Department of Justice, which has been the defendant in 2,312 FOIA suits since 2001. Within the DOJ, the FBI has been the most sued division with 712 suits. We frequently clash with the DOJ and FBI in court, often in cases involving IRS malfeasance, the Clinton email scandal, and the Robert Mueller special counsel investigation. Judicial Watch currently is pursuing 40 lawsuits against the DOJ.

We are the most important transparency watchdog organization in the country. For 25 years, we’ve led the way in holding the government to account as both the media and Congress have gone AWOL. Most of what we know about government corruption – from Clinton emails to Deep State abuses – are as a result of our historic FOIA lawsuits.

BAM! AND BAM AGAIN!

A GOVERNMENT BIG ENOUGH TO GIVE YOU EVERYTHING YOU WANT, IS ALSO BIG ENOUGH TO TAKE AWAY EVERYTHING YOU HAVE

Thomas Jefferson

REMEMBER THIS AND NEVER FORGET IT.

EVEN THOSE THAT REFUSE, EVENTUALLY THROUGH NATURAL ATTRITION, WILL DIE OFF AND WITH LAWS IN PLACE STIPULATING EVERY NEW BORN MUST COMPLY, EVENTUALLY THE NWO WILL HAVE 100% COMPLIANCE IN FUTURE GENERATIONS!

THIS QUOTE CONCERNING GOVERNMENT LAWS IS MORE IMPORTANT TODAY THAN EVER BEFORE.

“It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.”

US President Calvin Coolidge

EVEN IF 99.9% OF ALL HUMANS ON EARTH HATED YOU, 7.7 MILLION WOULD STILL LIKE YOU

REMEMBER THIS:

THE ABSOLUTE FACT THAT THE ANTI-GUN, ANTI-FREEDOM CROWD AND POLITICIANS CHOOSE TO IGNORE THE TRUTH THAT CRIMINALS DON’T FOLLOW LAWS AND THEIR PUSH TO CREATE MORE LAWS WHICH ONLY AFFECT THE INNOCENT, LAW-ABIDING CITIZENS AND GUN OWNERS SAYS A LOT ABOUT THEIR TRUE MOTIVES.

NEVER FORGET THIS.

A BRAIN FOG OF BIASED DATA PRODUCED WITH TAXPAYER FUNDED MONIES TO CONFUSE THE MASSES EXISTS TODAY IN GREAT NUMBERS, AND THE PUBLIC IS FALLING FOR IT TOOTH AND NAIL.

It’s a never-ending cycle of complete and utter rubbish and garbage from the elite ivory towers that are behind this giant push.

Who Zucks the Zuckerberg?

Facebook CEO would like the U.S. government to fix Facebook for him

Mark Zuckerberg is upset.

All he wanted to do is harvest your private data and sell it to the highest bidder. And now everyone is mad at him. (What gives, guys?)

In a watery op-ed published in the Washington Post over the weekend, Zuckerberg executed one of the most lackluster attempts at passing the buck I have ever seen in my life.

Zuckerberg’s piece can be boiled down to, “We don’t want to police our own platform. People get mad at us when we try. The government should do it instead.”

A change of character

Facebook has spent millions lobbying against anti-privacy laws. But as of late, its billionaire CEO has become a champion for online privacy for no apparent reason.

(*Cough* Cambridge Analytica *cough* government probes *cough* doesn’t want to go to jail.)

In his article, Zuckerberg called for global regulation of the internet, identified four key problems that need to be addressed, and made some suggestions on how to fix these problems.

This is a bit like El Chapo telling the DEA how to police the Mexican cartels. But let’s hear the little lizard man out.

Hateful and Violent Content

In recent years, Facebook has taken flak for allowing hate speech and terrorist propaganda on its platform.

But when it finally stepped up to the plate and tried to stamp it out, Facebook was accused of over-policing and snuffing out free speech.

Zuckerberg doesn’t like it when people are mad at his little data harvesting machine, so he wants to pass the buck to the government.

“One idea is for third-party bodies to set standards governing the distribution of harmful content and measure companies against those standards,” says Zuckerberg. “Regulation could set baselines for what’s prohibited and require companies to build systems for keeping harmful content to a bare minimum.”

Great idea, Zuck! Hand over the reins of free speech to the government. Because that specific idea has never backfired in the course of human history before.

Election Integrity

Zuckerberg has admitted in the past that his platform was used to meddle in elections around the world.

(Zuck’s about-face on the issue of privacy was likely motivated by Congress dragging his ass to Washington and forcing him to explain about election meddling on live television.)

In his op-ed, Zuckerberg said that Facebook has tried to put a system into place to identify election meddling on Facebook. But he says it’s also not very good.

“We built a searchable archive that shows who pays for ads, what other ads they ran and what audiences saw the ads. However, deciding whether an ad is political isn’t always straightforward. Our systems would be more effective if regulation created common standards for verifying political actors.”

Mark’s solution? Regulation that clearly defines what constitutes election meddling.

That way Facebook is simply enforcing someone else’s rules. (So you can’t get mad at Mark if you don’t like it.)

Privacy and Data Protection

Zuckerberg, the great privacy violator, would like stricter privacy laws (as long as they don’t actually do anything).

Mark would like the rest of the world to regulate privacy and data just like the E.U.’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

“New privacy regulation in the United States and around the world should build on the protections GDPR provides,” says Zuckerberg. “It should protect your right to choose how your information is used — while enabling companies to use information for safety purposes and to provide services.”

This seems like a major concession at a glance. But for anyone even slightly familiar with the GDPR, it’s obvious why Zuckerberg loves the GDPR.

The GDPR is what you get when you have people who know nothing about the internet writing laws about the internet.

The GDPR:

Allows Facebook to appear to be concerned about your data, while still allowing it to harvest it in droves.

Legally covers Facebook’s ass. If someone accuses Facebook of misusing the data it can simply point to the law (which allows the company to do what it likes as long as it covers certain bases).

All Facebook had to do after the law was passed was add a simple agree-to-data-sharing button, some paper-thin parental controls, and a privacy settings menu that most people don’t know exists.

Technically, you can use this settings menu to customize how you’d like your data to be shared. But since nobody really knows about it, Facebook gets to reap all the data it likes. And now Facebook’s ass is covered by the law.

Mighty big of you, Mark.

Data Portability

Data portability is the ability to move your data between apps.

Zuckerberg initially introduces this as a “problem.” But in the actual op-ed, Markie boy goes on to say how great data portability is and how everyone wants it.

He just wants the government’s rubber stamp to allow Facebook to share data across apps (like WhatsApp and Instagram, which are both owned by Facebook).

Facebook’s investors and users don’t see eye-to-eye

It looks like Facebook’s investors are buying Mark’s shtick for now. Facebook’s stock rose about 1% when the markets woke up this morning.

But investors don’t hold Facebook’s future in their hands. The next generation of social media users do.

And boy, they do not like Facebook.

According to a Pew study released last year, the rate of teens using Facebook is plummeting.

Between 2015 and 2018 the number of U.S. teens who use Facebook plunged dramatically from 71% to just 51%.

So where is this all heading? You tell me.

Did you know that most of the $33 Billion in Remittances to Mexico Flow Via a U.S. Govt. Banking Program?

Though President Trump said he would block money transfers to Mexico to fund a much-needed border wall, Mexicans in the U.S. sent a record $33.48 billion in remittances last year and a big chunk of it flowed through a government program operated by the Federal Reserve.

This means that, amid an onslaught of illegal immigration, the U.S. government is largely responsible for the billions in remittances flowing south of the border from illegal aliens. Figures released by Mexico’s central bank show that 104 million transactions were executed in 2018, nearly six million more than the previous year.

Uncle Sam facilitates the process with a program called “Directo a Mexico” (Direct to Mexico), launched by the Federal Reserve, the government agency that serves as the nation’s central bank, more than a decade ago. President George W. Bush came up with the idea following the 2001 U.S.-Mexico Partnership for Prosperity to provide low-cost banking services to illegal immigrants and facilitate the procedure for those sending money home.

In its first year, 2005, remittances to Mexico topped $20 billion and the Federal Reserve reports “double-digit percentage growth for the past several years.” Remittances are transferred through the Federal Reserve’s own automated clearinghouse linked directly to Mexico’s central bank (Banco de Mexico). The Trump administration should eliminate it because it undermines our nation’s immigration laws and is a potential national security nightmare.

Back in 2006 Judicial Watch investigated the outrageous taxpayer-subsidized initiative and obtained government records that shed light on how it functions. Marketing materials target immigrant workers in the U.S.—regardless of their legal status—as well as banks, credit unions and other financial institutions.

The program is promoted as “the best way to send money home,” offering “more pesos for every dollar.” American financial institutions are charged $0.67 per item to transfer money from the United States to Mexican banks, ensuring a “highly competitive rate.” The Federal Reserve also provides participating U.S. financial institutions with Spanish language promotional materials to “help get your message out.” The marketing materials also include the number of Mexican migrants in the U.S. with no distinction between those here illegally or not. A separate list identifies thousands of Mexican banks receiving “Directo a México” transfers.

When the program was created Federal Reserve officials acknowledged that most of the Mexican nationals who send money back home are illegal immigrants so a Mexican-issued identification is the only requirement to use the government banking service. A colorful brochure promoting “Directo a Mexico” offered to help immigrants who don’t have bank accounts and assured the best foreign exchange rate and low transfer fees.

A frequently asked question section posed this: “If I return to Mexico or am deported, will I lose the money in my bank account?” The answer: “No. The money still belongs to you and can easily be accessed at an ATM in Mexico using your debit card.” In short, the U.S. created this special banking system specifically for illegal aliens and tens of billions of dollars have streamed through it.

As a presidential candidate Trump proposed a plan to get Mexico to fund a border wall by cutting off remittance payments from Mexican migrants in the U.S. In a memo to a mainstream newspaper Trump wrote that Mexican migrants send $24 billion in remittances annually and the estimated cost of a border wall would be between $5 billion and $10 billion.

According to his plan, the U.S. Patriot Act would be amended to block wire transfers from Mexican nationals using companies such as Western Union. Nowhere in the document is the Federal Reserve’s special program, which clearly caters to illegal immigrants. The president is well aware that the overwhelming majority of remittances to Mexico are sent by those living in the U.S. illegally.

In fact, his proposal was to create a rule that “no alien may wire money outside of the United States unless the alien first provides a document establishing his lawful presence in the United States.” The Federal Reserve’s “Directo a Mexico” has no such requirement as the commander-in-chief completes his first term.

JUST A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE TO THINK ABOUT.

Have you even noticed?

Counties across the country are actually jailing people for living the way they want to live — off the grid. The headlines are all over the place …

The Burden Of Income Tax Implies that Government Owns You

The income tax is enshrined into law but it is an idea that stands in total contradiction to the driving force behind the American Revolution and the idea of freedom itself.

We desperately need a serious national movement to get rid of it – not reform it, not replace it, not flatten it or refocus its sting from this group to that. It just needs to go.

The great essayist Frank Chodorov once described the income tax as the root of all evil. His target was not the tax itself, but the principle behind it.

Since its implementation in 1913, he wrote, “The government says to the citizen: ‘Your earnings are not exclusively your own; we have a claim on them, and our claim precedes yours; we will allow you to keep some of it, because we recognize your need, not your right; but whatever we grant you for yourself is for us to decide.”

He really does have a point. That’s evil. When Congress ratified the 16th Amendment on Feb. 3, 1913, there was a sense in which all private income in the U.S. was nationalized. What was not taxed from then on was a favor granted unto us, and continues to be so.

This is implied in the text of the amendment itself: “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”

No Limits

Where are the limits? There weren’t any. There was some discussion about putting a limit on the tax, but it seemed unnecessary. Only 1% of the income earners would end up paying about 1% to the government. Everyone else was initially untouched. Who really cares that the rich have to pay a bit more, right? They can afford it.

This perspective totally misunderstands the true nature of government, which always wants more money and more power and will stop at nothing to get both. The 16th Amendment was more than a modern additive to an antique document. It was a new philosophy of the fiscal life of the entire country.

Today, the ruling elite no longer bothers with things like amendments. But back in the day, it was different. The amendment was made necessary because of previous court decisions that stated what was once considered a bottom-line presumption of the free society: Government cannot tax personal property.

What you make is your own. You get to keep the product of your labors. Government can tax sales, perhaps, or raise money through tariffs on goods coming in and out of the country. But your bank account is off-limits.

The amendment changed that idea. In the beginning, it applied to very few people. This was one reason it passed. It was pitched as a replacement tax, not a new money raiser. After all the havoc caused by the divisive tariffs of the 19th century, this sounded like a great deal to many people, particularly Southerners and Westerners fed up with paying such high prices for manufactured goods while seeing their trading relations with foreign consumers disrupted.

People who supported it – and they were not so much the left but the right-wing populists of the time – imagined that the tax would hit the robber baron class of industrialists in the North. And that it did. Their fortunes began to dwindle, and their confidence in their ability to amass and retain inter-generational fortunes began to wane.

Limit to Accumulation

We all know the stories of how the grandchildren of the Gilded Age tycoons squandered their family heritage in the 1920’s and failed to carry on the tradition. Well, it is hardly surprising. The government put a timetable and limit on accumulation. Private families and individuals would no longer be permitted to exist except in subjugation to the taxing state. The kids left their private estates to live in the cities, put off marriage, stopped bothering with all that hearth and home stuff. Time horizons shortened, and the Jazz Age began.

Class warfare was part of the deal from the beginning. The income tax turned the social fabric of the country into a giant lifetime boat, with everyone arguing about who had to be thrown overboard so that others might live.

The demon in the beginning was the rich. That remained true until the 1930’s, when FDR changed the deal. Suddenly, the income would be collected, but taxed in a different way. It would be taken from everyone, but a portion would be given back late in life as a permanent income stream. Thus was the payroll tax born. This tax today is far more significant than the income tax.

The class warfare unleashed all those years ago continues today. One side wants to tax the rich. The other side finds it appalling that the percentage of people who pay no income tax has risen from 30% to nearly 50%. Now we see the appalling spectacle of Republicans regarding this as a disgrace that must change. They have joined the political classes that seek advancement by hurting people.

The Payroll Tax

It’s extremely strange that the payroll tax is rarely considered in this debate. The poor, the middle class and the rich are all being hammered by payroll taxes that fund failed programs that provide no security and few benefits at all.

It’s impossible to take seriously the claims that the income tax doesn’t harm wealth creation. When Congress wants to discourage something – smoking, imports, selling stocks or whatever – they know what to do: Tax it. Tax income, and on the margin, you discourage people from earning it.

Tax debates are always about “reform” – which always means a slight shift in who pays what, with an eye to raising ever more money for the government. A far better solution would be to forget the whole thing and return to the original idea of a free society: You get to keep what you earn or inherit. That means nothing short of abolishing the great mistake of 1913.

Forget the flat tax. The only just solution is no tax on incomes ever.

But let’s say that one day we actually become safe from the income tax collectors and something like blessed peace arrives. There is still another problem that emerged in 1913. Congress created the Federal Reserve, which eventually developed the power to create all the money that government would ever need, even without taxing.

For the practical running of the affairs of the state, the Fed is far worse than the income tax. It creates the more-insidious tax because it is so sneaky. In a strange way, it has made all the debates about taxation superfluous. Denying the government revenue does nothing to curb its appetites for our liberties and property. The Fed has managed to make it impossible to starve the beast.

Chodorov was correct about the evil of the income tax. Its passage signaled the beginning of a century of despotism. Our property is no longer safe. Our income is not our own. We are legally obligated to turn over whatever our masters say we owe them. You can fudge this point: None of this is compatible with the old liberal idea of freedom.

You doubt it? Listen to Thomas Jefferson from his inaugural address of 1801. What he said then remains true today:

“…what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one more thing fellow citizens, a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.”

Smart men our ancestors were. Very smart people indeed!

THAT ANSWER RIGHT THE HELL HERE. BAM!

Anti-gunners like to bring up a term when they argue for gun control: “gun violence.” They make it sound so reasonable that gun violence must be stopped, but we need to ask ourselves: What is gun violence, and is gun violence even real?

If you talk to an anti-gunner, they will, of course, tell you that gun violence is the most horrible thing occurring in the world today, but Robert A. Margulies, M.D. (yes, a medical doctor) begs to differ. In fact, Margulies says that gun violence is a myth. He writes,

I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT THERE IS ANY SUCH THING AS “GUN VIOLENCE.” THERE IS ALSO NO SUCH THING AS KNIFE VIOLENCE, CAR VIOLENCE, ALCOHOL VIOLENCE, ETC. VIOLENCE IS PERPETRATED BY AN INDIVIDUAL OR GROUP. THE TOOL USED IS IRRELEVANT.

MOST ARTICLES ABOUT ‘GUN VIOLENCE’ ARE WRITTEN AS IF TO JUSTIFY POSITIONS THAT THE AUTHORS DON’T RECOGNIZE OR ACCEPT AREN’T TRUE. LET’S BREAK IT DOWN:

1. SUICIDE, WHETHER INVOLVING FIREARMS OR NOT, IS AN ACT OF DESPERATION, REMORSE, INABILITY TO ACCEPT CIRCUMSTANCES, OR CHOOSING TO AVOID A SITUATION THAT THE INDIVIDUAL CANNOT CONTROL.

THE LITERATURE IS REPLETE WITH DATA ABOUT OTHER COUNTRIES’ NUMBERS AND RATES OF SUICIDE. CULTURE STRONGLY INFLUENCES RATES AS WELL AS THE PREFERRED MECHANISMS. SUICIDE BY FIREARM MAKES UP APPROXIMATELY TWO-THIRDS OF UNITED STATES FIREARM-ASSOCIATED DEATHS.

2. JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDE FALLS INTO THE CATEGORY OF SELF-DEFENSE, INCLUDING LAW ENFORCEMENT ACTION. WHETHER IT INVOLVES FIREARMS, CONDUCTED ELECTRICAL WEAPONS, BLUNT OBJECTS, POINTED OBJECTS OR BLADES, OR HANDS MAKES NO DIFFERENCE IN THE END.

THESE MAKE UP 20 TO 25% OF FIREARMS-ASSOCIATED DEATHS. THESE OUTCOMES ARE SOCIALLY AND CULTURALLY ACCEPTABLE.

3. THERE ARE SMALL AND DECLINING NUMBERS OF ACCIDENTAL FIREARM DEATHS IN THE UNITED STATES.

4. THAT LEAVES APPROXIMATELY 25% OF FIREARMS ASSOCIATED DEATHS DUE TO CRIMINAL ACTIVITY. MORE THAN HALF OF THESE OCCUR IN JUST A FEW OF OUR LARGE CITIES AND ARE ASSOCIATED WITH GANG ACTIVITY AND OTHER DRUG OR SEX TRAFFICKING CRIME.

WITH THAT BASIC INFORMATION ON THE TABLE, THE QUESTION BECOMES: WHAT TO DO ABOUT VIOLENCE? THE EMPHASIS ON FIREARMS IS A PROVERBIAL RED HERRING. THE PROBLEM IS NOT FIREARMS, KNIVES, OR TIRE IRONS IN THE HANDS OF THE POLICE OR HONEST CITIZENS.

THE AVOWED INTENT OF MUCH OF THE LITERATURE ON “GUN VIOLENCE” IS TO DESIGN LAWS THAT WILL PRECLUDE CRIMINALS OBTAINING FIREARMS. THAT IDEA IS EITHER MISTAKEN OR MALICIOUS. NO LAW WILL PREVENT A CRIMINAL FROM BREAKING THE LAW. THAT IS WHAT DEFINES “CRIMINAL”. THE ONLY PURPOSE OF LAWS IS TO PUNISH PEOPLE FOR VIOLATING THEM, WHICH MAY BE OF SOME DETERRENCE. UNTIL HUMAN NATURE BECOMES ANGELIC, THERE WILL BE THE NEED TO PUNISH CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR.

Dr. Margulies nails this issue on the head. Gun violence is a myth. Violence is a reality, but the tool used in violence is irrelevant, and banning guns hasn’t and won’t solve the problem of violence committed by criminals.

It is exactly this reason that we need to both oppose all gun control laws and also train to be able to protect ourselves and those we love. Because a law isn’t going to prevent a criminal from doing evil; you will be what restrains evil when it appears at your proverbial ‘front door’.