Whenever I run into some info about the government
persecution of ranchers that stood with the Bundy family against Federal
government (largely the Bureau of Land Management – BLM) intrusion to
enforce bureaucratic rules that act as laws that benefit Eco-Marxists desires
over private property and private business.
Here is a brief synopsis of the reasons that Cliven Bundy
decided to withstand the Law created by the BLM and not Congress from my last
post on this situation – “Supporting Bundys in Trials &
Tribulations”:
A few facts about the Cliven
Bundy and the BLM incident
For some time, the Bundy’s have
owned cattle that have grazed in the Bunkerville, NV area. Since his
cattle grazed on federal land, he paid grazing fees to the federal
government. In 1993, the local grazing rules changed when a number of
things came together; the Desert
tortoise became protected under the species act, and the Fish and
Wildlife Service determined that this was one of the areas critical to their
long-term survival. Grazing rules were also changed in order
to accommodate restoration needed from years of overgrazing
and recent fires. These new rules would include Bundy having to
reduce his number of cattle. Refusing to comply, he decided to “fire” the BLM,
and stop paying grazing fees, while continuing to use federal lands for his
cattle to graze. Not only did he not reduce his cattle count, but actually
increased them over time.
In this latest update that I have discovered, the Freedom
Outpost reports the 1/3 of Idaho State Senators and Representatives are
urging Attorney General Jeff Sessions to stop the DOJ led persecution
– er I mean – prosecution of the Bundy Ranch Standoff largely due to a fair
amount of the defendants are experiencing second and third retrials after hung
juries.
The judicial persecution is happening in the Bundy family’s
home State of Nevada. Apparently these Idaho legislators are making views known
to AG Sessions is because of the defendants are from Idaho.
Last
Friday, following a meeting of Tier 1 and Tier 3 Bundy Ranchdefendants in court with Judge Gloria
Navarro,a trial date was set for October 10.
That trial will include Eric Parker and Stephen Drexler, who have already
been tried twice with hung juries and non-guilty verdicts. Now, at least
a third of Idaho representatives are calling on Attorney General Jeff Sessions
to put an end to the badgering of these men with trial after trial, a clear
violation of the Fifth Amendment's protections against Double Jeopardy (and
yes, I know the "legaleze" about mistrials, but the fact of the
matter is that under that thinking, one could try someone indefinitely).
Deb
Jordan, co-host of thePete Santilli Show, shared the
story of what the outcome of the meeting was with me on Friday's Sons of
Liberty Radio Show. Eric and his wife Andrea also joined us for the show.
You can download that episode byclicking
here.
Since
then, one-third of the representatives of Idaho, the state in which Parker and
Drexler live, penned a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions asking for him
relax the pursuit by Nevada prosecutors against four Idahoans who are charged
or have been convicted in the 2014 Bundy Ranch standoff in Nevada.
The
letter was authored by State Rep. Dorothy Moon (R-Stanley) and signed by
24 Idaho representatives from the House and Senate last Tuesday stating,
"We believe that the decision by the current U.S. attorney to Nevada to
prosecute these men a third time represents disrespect for the rule of law and
the jury system."
The
four men these representatives are standing up for are Ammon Bundy, of
Emmett; Eric Parker, of Hailey; Scott Drexler, of Challis; and Todd Engel, of
Boundary County.
"We
are tasked with the responsibility to protect our citizens' constitutional
rights," the letter stated, noting the Idaho Legislatures has a "high
respect for the rule of law."
"We
believe that the right to a speedy trial and the presumption of innocence
are essential pillars to law, order, and a Republican form of government,"
the letter continues. "We also believe that a trial by a jury of
one's peers is the highest form of justice as set forth by our founders.
Ensuring government stays within the bounds of its proper constitutional
role empowers the people through a jury's verdict to give clear guidance as to
their will."
They
then spoke out about the innocence of the defendants who have already been
tried and found not guilty.
"We
the undersigned believe that in the case of 'The Bunkerville Stand Off' trials
in the State of Nevada in which Eric Parker and O. Scott Drexler of the State
of Idaho were charged with 40 criminal counts in connection with the above
case having been found not guilty speaks volumes to the public
of their innocence," the letter states. "U. S. Attorneys have
been unsuccessful obtaining guilty verdicts not once, but twice, establishing
criteria for dismissal of charges against them according to our standards of
justice. Further expolitation [sic] of these citizens would be an affront
to justice and notice to the public of prosecutorial harassment."
Well,
if you ask me, that began when they sought to try the men a second time after
failing to prove their case. After all, the burden of proof is on the
prosecution to prove guilt, not on those charged to prove their innocence.
"We
believe that the decision by the current U. S. Attorney of Nevada to prosecute
these men a third time represents disrespect for the rule of law and the Jury
system," the representatives wrote. "A third trial would show
blatant disregard for tax funds collected from hard working law abiding
citizens who are represented by these juries who have found them innocent of 34
of the 40 charges and hung by the very slimmest margins in those where the jury
stood deadlocked. The decisions of 10-2 to acquit in the first trial and
11-1 to acquit in the second trial highlights the narrow margin by which the
prosecution hopes to continue their attack."
They
then called on Sessions, the court and the prosecutor to consider Todd Engel's
time served as punishment for the minor charges for which he was found guilty.
He is scheduled to be sentenced on September 28.
"Ammon
Bundy, an Idaho resident, remains in custody awaiting trial directly after the
final outcome of the pending prosecution's decision with Parker and
Drexler," the letter adds. "Ammon has been in custody since
January of 2016 without benefit of bail or the comfort of home and familiy [sic]
in spite of being found not guilty of all counts in the Oregon trial.
Ammon has been stripped of normal due process for a prosecution that now
seems flimsy as we discover evidence exposed during these previous hung trials
of others for similar offenses."
The
representatives then added, "This prosecution sends a chilling message to
the public who are concerned about federal overreach in their daily lives that
is inharmonious to well-established constitutional guarantees. The
percentages of jurors causing the hung verdicts in these trials should send a
clear signal to the government prosecutors of the jury's reticence to further
prosecute these defendants as has clearly been received by the public."
The
representatives then call on Sessions to "have those in charge of this
case end this long enduring action and set Eric Parker and Scott Drexler free,
set reasonable bail for Ammon Bundy and allow Todd Engel to use his time served
as total sentencing.
Among
signing the letter include House Majority Leader Mike Moyle; Assistant
Majority Leader Brent Crane; Treasure Valley Sens. Clifford Bayer and Lori Den
Hartog; and Treasure Valley Reps. Judy Boyle, Christy Perry, Brandon Hixon,
Greg Chaney, Joe Palmer, James Holtzclaw, Steve Harris and Jason Monks.
“I
think it is a complete injustice and a waste of taxpayer money and time to
continue to go after these guys after two mistrials,” said Rep. Boyle, from
Midvale.
“Let
it go. We are not talking about murders, robberies, druggies, rapists. It is
continuing to waste the court’s time and federal taxpayers’ money. I know the
federal government wants to make a point, but get over it.”
Things
do not have to go to a third trial in order for this to be considered
exploitation and prosecutorial harassment. That has and is currently taking
place by the prosecution and by Judge Gloria Navarro.
I
have said since the end of the first trial, if the prosecution had any sense
about them, they would drop the charges against the remaining defendants and
spare them and taxpayers any further grief and burden by simply admitting the
central government was wrong.
I'm
hoping once things settle that we will see each one of these men come together
to sue the pants off the prosecution and the judge in the case, as well as
Bureau of Land Management goon Daniel P. Love for their reckless and lawless
behavior in this entire process.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) got its start
during the Civil Rights movement of the ‘70s. In those days the SPLC was a hero
for targeting racist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), Neo-Nazi
groups (e.g. Aryans and Skin Heads) and other racist hate groups. Good stuff,
right?
Well the major victories of the Civil Rights movement at
least on legal ground has leveled the playing field in the rule of law.
Certainly racism still exists in America, but racial minorities have the law on
their side to prevent racial exploitation on an overt basis. The racism that is
growing now in the America is largely the result of Left-Wing groups stirring
up strife with race-baiting in an effort to gain votes. Leftist race-baiting
has been a political instrument for the last couple of decades to hinder
traditional American values that began to regain sway with the Presidential
Administrations of Reagan, Bush II and now populist Conservatism with the
surprise election of President Donald Trump.
Since the Left can hardly believe they lost to President
Trump, they have done everything to lie, obstruct and manufacture anti-Trump
accusations ever since that first Tuesday in November 2016.
The SPLC is doing their part for the Left by labeling
Biblical Family Values organizations as hate groups. There are several groups
on the SPLC so-called hate list that are simply Biblical Christian or telling
the truth about Islam that I am not going to name here. The Christian ones of
interest to me are the Liberty Counsel (LC), Family
Research Council (FRC) and American Family Association
(AFA).
If I had time I could point out Counterjihad writers and
organizations that simply expose the darker nature of Islam that the Left
refuses to expose and way too many Conservatives are hesitant to expose out of
fear of organizations like the SPLC labeling them Islamophobic haters.
For both Christians and Counterjihadists, the SPLC
hate-labels are merely to turn the relatively uninformed public against what is
correct and moral by calling the good as evil.
The Conservapedia entry for the SPLC provides a great
synopsis of the organization’s hatred of all things American Patriotic,
Christian and Counterjihad in the first couple of paragraphs – READ the entire
entry:
The Southern Poverty Law
Center is a far-Left legal and activist organization created in 1971 in
Montgomery, Alabama. It
was founded by trial lawyers Morris Dees and Joe Levin, and its first president
was civil rights leader Julian Bond, who would later take control of the NAACP. SPLC supports a wide variety of liberal positions;
it is pro-immigration (both
legal and illegal),
advocates multiculturalism and
the homosexual
agenda, supports Muslims and racial preferences and defendants' rights,
and advocates against what it considers "hate groups". In 2012, Black
pastors confronted the Southern Poverty Law Center for smearing as "hate
groups" pro-family organizations opposed to the homosexual agenda.[1] Reverend Dr. Patrick
Wooden admonished the SPLC in declaring that it is wrong to compare "my
beautiful blackness" with homosexual perversion.[2]
The SPLC's op-ed writings have
appeared in the Communist
Party USA's newspaper People's World.[3] This
"controversial, liberal organization" [4] has been criticized
in mainstream press for being extravagant in its spending, and using charges of
racism to stifle conservatives.[5] (Southern Poverty Law Center; Conservapedia; page was last modified on 21 July
2017, at 22:33)
The Liberty Counsel has been blistered by the SPLC so often
that they have been the subject of multiple hate-accusations trying to
discredit and ruin the Christian Family Values advocate organization. It has
led Mat Staver to ask for legal defense aid several times a week to battle in
civil suit beginning with NGO expert Guidestar that used the SPLC hate-list.
An article from 7/2/17 I found on American Civil Rights
Union (ACRU not to be confused with Leftist ACLU):
Frustrated by its inability to win
elections, the left is attempting to silence opponents through intimidation,
either in the streets or in the courts.
The latest example is the hijacking of Guidestar USA by the Southern Poverty
Law Center (SPLC).
Guidestar is a database of more
than 2 million nonprofit and non-governmental (NGO) organizations. It’s
considered the foremost authority on nonprofits, and had a self-avowed
reputation for “remaining neutral.”
That changed when a left-wing
activist, Jacob Harold, came aboard in 2012. Mr. Harold, whose bio boasts of
donating to the Obama campaign, extensive activism on behalf of climate change
groups, and hosting a NARAL Pro-Choice D.C. men’s event, tweeted a photo of
himself holding a sign protesting President Trump at the radical Women’s March
in January.
Apart from Vermont ice cream
magnates Ben and Jerry, it might be hard to find a more radically leftist major
CEO. So it’s no wonder that Mr. Harold welcomed the Southern Poverty Law Center
as an authority on “hate groups.” Using SPLC’s “hate map” as a resource,
Guidestar smeared 46 organizations, many of them Christian, as “hate groups.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center has
a long history of abusing nonprofits and individuals with whom they disagree.
They tar innocent people and may have inspired at least two terrorist
incidents. The SPLC’s “hate map” lumps Christian and conservative organizations
with neo-Nazis, skinheads and other violence-prone groups. … (Silencing the Silencers; By Robert Knight; ACRU; 7/2/17)
And from Christianity Today:
A venerable Christian ministry
based in Fort Lauderdale recently saw its name listed on a CNN map of “all the
active hate groups where you live,” as well as in local news reports as the No.
1 hate group in Florida.
…
“Enough is enough,” said Frank
Wright, president of D. James Kennedy Ministries, which filed a lawsuit against
the SPLC on Wednesday. The organization also sued GuideStar and AmazonSmile for
their use of the SPLC list.
…
The SPLC recently received a prominent boost from Apple, which pledged a $1
million donation and will launch a new feature to allow users to donate
directly from iTunes.
…
D. James Kennedy
Ministries—formerly called Truth in Action—claims that the SPLC falsely labeled
it as a hate group with the intention to hurt its reputation and fundraising
efforts, according to a 39-page lawsuit filed in federal district court in
Alabama (where the SPLC is headquartered).
The suit alleges that the
ministry’s inclusion on the list of hate groups amounts to defamation—spreading
false, harmful information—as well as a trademark violation, misrepresenting
the ministry in order to drum up fundraising support. Wednesday’s filing made
the same claims against the charity-research site GuideStar for promoting the
SPLC designation, seeking an injunction against further use of the “hate group”
label and damages from both organizations.
Wanting to call out “hateful
rhetoric” during a “highly politicized moment,” GuideStar recently added the SPLC designations onto
its profile pages—including for Christian nonprofits who stand for traditional
marriage like the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), Liberty Counsel, the Family
Research Council (FRC), and the American Family Association—then removed the
hate labels after backlash in June. The controversy made many of these groups,
their leaders, and their supporters even more upset over the prominence of the
SPLC’s categorizations. (D. James Kennedy Ministries Sues SPLC over
Hate Map; By KATE SHELLNUTT; Christianity
Today; 8/24/17 10:20 AM)
From WND:
…
The case alleges that the
defendants — online retailer Amazon, online charity reporting company
Guidestar and SPLC — damaged the ministries by creating, publishing and
promoting SPLC’s infamous “hate” designations.
The hate designations already have
prompted a lawsuit by Liberty Counsel against Guidestar. And several
organizations, including the Alliance Defending Freedom, have demanded
broadcasters retract reports quoting SPLC’s hate designations.
The case seeks an award for
“special harms from the SPLC” over the groups’ rejection by the
AmazonSmile program due to the hate designations.
…
“It is the SPLC’s intent that the
people who receive the information that SPLC publishes about the ministry will
rely on SPLC’s information as fact and will base their charitable giving
decisions on that information.”
For its part, GuideStar “knowingly
accepts defamatory information from the SPLC regarding the ministry and
knowingly, intentionally, and purposefully republishes that defamatory
information with the intent that the people who receive the republished SPLC
information from GuideStar will rely on that information as fact for the
purpose of making their charitable giving decsisions [sic].”
The case alleges defamation against
SPLC and GuideStar: “SPLC’s very purpose for placing the ministry on the Hate
Map was to harm the reputation of the ministry as to lower it in the estimation
of the community and to deter third persons from associating or dealing with
the ministry.”
…
Liberty Counsel, a
nonprofit that advocates for civil and religious rights, sued GuideStar over
its use of SPLC’s “hate” labels, explaining the actions resulted in death
threats to employees and other harm.
“Liberty Counsel has been forced to
provide additional security because of the significant threat that GuideStar’s
false and defamatory statement has caused. Violent extremists have relied on
the false and defamatory statement to commit acts of terrorism and violence
against innocent people who merely happen to hold a different viewpoint on
certain issues than GuideStar,” Liberty Counsel said.
Liberty Counsel pointed out that
SPLC “hate” designations already have been linked to two attempted mass
murders: the attack by Corkins on the Washington office of Family Research
Council and the shooting attack this summer near the capital that severely
injured Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La. (LEFT-WING GROUPS SUED FOR VIOLATING
CHRISTIANS' CIVIL RIGHTS; By BOB
UNRUH; WND; 8/22/17 8:39 PM)
From Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF):
…
SPLC’s word-weapon of choice is
“hate.” It uses the H-word to harpoon victims through a “Hate Map” – a
cluttered visual surrounded by sobering images such as a “hate-graph” and
clenched fist symbols. Percentages purportedly communicating something really
serious about “hate” assault the viewer’s senses in size 72 font.
The map’s approach is
indiscriminate, by design. It mixes the likes of the KKK, “Racist Skinhead(s),”
and “Neo-Nazi(s)” with groups holding traditional views of human sexuality.
Quaint notions on the meaning of marriage, rooted in longstanding religious
beliefs, receive special hostility. Never mind that less than 10 years ago
nearly every major political figure in the country, including President Obama,
said marriage was a union of one man and one woman. Many of those folks are
given a pass, however, because their views on that issue have since “evolved.”
But the SPLC dictates - because it
says so - that those who failed to evolve (some might say “retained their
convictions”) are now the functional equivalent of skinheads. Just picture those
scary traditional marriage types, roaming the streets with chains, looking for
a good fight. This would be a ludicrous and even laughable attempt at
equivalency, if not for the harm it does to people of good will (to say nothing
of the damage to public discourse).
Mat Staver of the Liberty Counsel not only is
involved in the civil suit against the SPLC, Guidestar and etc., but they are
also publicizing some dirt on the SPLC to demonstrate how nefarious the Leftist
organization is:
I have some breaking news on
the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) that gives us a window of opportunity to
expose the SPLC for what it is — a massive, money-making machine of the radical
left that is aggressively targeting pro-faith and pro-family organizations.
On Thursday, The
Washington Free Beacon exposed the SPLC’s ongoing practice of
funneling many millions of dollars into offshore accounts, where it apparently
is stockpiling vast sums of money.
+ + Why is the SPLC stockpiling
millions overseas?
This practice of stockpiling
millions of dollars in overseas, unregulated bank accounts is highly unusual
for a U.S. non-profit and blows the SPLC’s cover as allegedly being a
legitimate, grassroots organization. Instead, as Liberty Counsel has reported,
the SPLC is a vast enterprise with hundreds of millions of dollars that is
pushing an anti-faith, anti-family agenda that threatens every American’s
liberties! Now that the SPLC’s unethical and unregulated “offshore” money has
come to light, we must do everything in our power to fight back against their
“fake hate” campaign and overcome their outrageous lies once and for all!
That’s why I’m asking for your help
right now…
Over the past few weeks, the SPLC
has blatantly “leveraged” the Charlottesville tragedy to expand its “fake hate”
campaign. As I have been reporting, this has resulted in an AVALANCHE of
attacks against Liberty Counsel and a massive increase in
funding to the SPLC from commercial entities like Apple, JP Morgan, and others.
…
With this revelation of SPLC offshore
bank accounts stockpiling millions of dollars, we must move quickly to expand
our efforts to both expose the SPLC’s deceptions and defeat the SPLC’s attacks.
…
The SPLC is at the forefront of a
very strategic effort to equate Christian and family values with “hate.”
Their attacks have multiplied in recent weeks. But right now, I believe
we have a unique opportunity to both expose their lies and defeat the SPLC’s
twisted strategy. I can’t do this without your help. Please take a moment right
now to consider how you can help. And thengo here to make your best
possible gift. …
(BREAKING: SPLC stashing millions offshore!
(Liberty Counsel); By Mat Staver; Liberty Counsel Connect; 9/2/17 7:48 pm)
And I leave you with PJ Media piece on the hypocrisy of the
SPLC.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has gained traction
in recent weeks, but contrary to media reports, the group does not exist to
"monitor hate groups" but to destroy groups that it targets for
"strictly ideological" reasons. In light of large donations from
Apple, J.P. Morgan, and George Clooney, and CNN's favorable coverage of the
SPLC, Americans should learn the real motivations behind this far-left
organization.
In the words of SPLC former spokesman Mark Potok (who spent
20 years as a senior fellow at the SPLC and only retired this year, according to LinkedIn), the
group does not exist to monitor hate groups.
"Sometimes the press will describe us as monitoring
hate groups, I want to say plainly that our aim in life is to destroy these
groups, completely destroy them," Potok declared at an event in Michigan
in 2007.
Mark Potok from the Southern
Poverty Law Center Speaks at the 2007 MIAAHC Hate Crimes Conference
Potok reiterated this point at a Vermont school group in
2008. "You are able to destroy these groups sometimes by the things you
publish," he declared. "It's not so much that they will bring down
the police or the federal agents on their head, it's that you can sometimes
so mortally embarrass these groups that they will be
destroyed" (emphasis added).
The SPLC "mortally embarrasses" groups by equating
mainstream conservative, Christian, and other organizations with the Ku Klux
Klan and white supremacists. Make no mistake, this is not a "hate group
monitoring" organization, it's a far-Left defamation racket that exists to
target any group it disagrees with politically.
"We see this political struggle," Potok added in
his 2008 Vermont speech. "We're not trying to change anybody's mind. We're
trying to wreck the groups. We're trying to destroy them. Not to send them to
prison unfairly or to take their free speech rights away, but as a political
matter to destroy them."
In yet another 2008 speech, Potok explained the SPLC criteria for a "hate group." The
spokesman said, "Our criteria for a 'hate group,' first of all, have
nothing to do with criminality, or violence, or any kind of guess we're making
about 'this group could be dangerous.' It's strictly ideological"
(emphasis added).
Here's the criteria:
"So we look at a group and we say, 'Does this group, in its platform
statements, or the speeches of its leader or leaders — Does this group say that
a whole group of people, by virtue of their group characteristics, is somehow
less?"
The SPLC's actions have revealed what "group
characteristics" means. The "hate group" list features
Christian organizations like D. James Kennedy Ministries, the Family Research Council (FRC), Liberty Counsel, the American
Family Association (AFA), and Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF),
along with other groups like the American College of Pediatricians and the
Center for Immigration Studies. It also lists Muslim reformer Maajid Nawaz and women's rights
activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali as "anti-Muslim extremists."
If an organization disagrees with LGBT activism, it is a
"hate group," because in the eyes of the SPLC belief in traditional
marriage equates to stigmatizing gay people. If an organization or an
individual warns against radical Islamic terrorism, that person or group is
"hateful" because in the eyes of the SPLC it has stigmatized all
Muslims, even if the person is a Muslim himself.
The SPLC's broad definition of a "hate group" is
exceedingly important, because this "hate" labeling has inspired at
least one terror attack.
In the summer of 2012, the SPLC's "hate map"
inspired Floyd Lee Corkins III to break into the Family Research Council (FRC),
a Christian nonprofit in Washington, D.C. Corkins aimed to murder everyone in
the building, and he later pled guilty to
committing an act of terrorism. He was sentenced to 25 years in
prison.
During an FBI interrogation, the terrorist said he targeted
FRC because it was listed as an "anti-gay group" on the SPLC website.
Nor was the 2012 attack the only terrorist event involving
the SPLC. Earlier this summer, Bernie Sanders supporter James Hodgkinson shot
people at a Republican Congressional Baseball Game practice, nearly killing
Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) Hodgkinson "liked" the SPLC on Facebook.
The group had repeatedly tarred
Scalise for a speech he gave to a white supremacist group, even after Scalise apologized (and
was called a "sellout" by former KKK leader David Duke).
This connection to terror is particularly troubling,
considering the SPLC's most recent "hate map" — a diagram
showing every single Confederate monument across
the United States, which also includes elementary schools, middle
schools, and high schools. The SPLC warned of "turmoil and bloodshed"
should these statues not be taken down.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has
warned of 'turmoil' with new map identifying Confederate monuments, cities and
middle schools. But is SPLC also part of the problem? #Tucker
The group has also been rather slow to admit fault and
remove innocent towns from the "hate map" that inspired the FRC
shooting. The SPLC falsely listed the historic Iowa town of
Amana Colonies as the home of the notorious white supremacist website Daily
Stormer. When challenged, the group argued that Daily Stormer writers had met
for a book club in one of the town's restaurants. The SPLC finally
removed the town this week.
In spite of all this, the SPLC has been raking in the cash
after the riots in Charlottesville, Va. George Clooney and his
wife Amalpledged $1 million to the group, and the company J.P. Morgan pledged
$500,000. Apple CEO Tim Cook was even more generous, announcing
his company would give $1 million to the SPLC and that it would set up a system
in iTunes software to let consumers directly donate to the organization.
Earlier this month, Lyft announced it
would partner with the SPLC "to provide educational resources for
drivers." MGM Resorts announced that
it would match employee contributions to the SPLC dollar-for-dollar. Some
companies already follow this policy.
According to an analysis by Second Vote provided to PJ
Media, companies such as Disney, Kraft Heinz, Charles Schwab, Progressive
Insurance, Shell, and Verizon have matched their employees' small-dollar
donations to the SPLC. The big offenders are: Pfizer, which gave the SPLC
$8,919.5 in 2013 and 2015 combined; Bank of America, which gave the SPLC $9,310
between 2013 and 2015; and Newman's Own, which gave the group $50,000 between
2013 and 2015.
Each of these contributions pale in comparison to the gifts
from George Clooney, J.P. Morgan, and Apple, but they are still noteworthy.
To make matters worse, the SPLC does not need any of this
money. The group is a cash cow, recording more than $50 million in
contributions and $328 million in net assets (according to its 2015 Form 990). The
Washington Free Beacon reported multiple transactions to foreign entities,
including two cash payments of $2.2 million to funds in the
Cayman Islands.
"The SPLC depicts itself as a big champion of rights,
but it's become a champion of wrongs," Dan Gainor, vice president of
Business and Culture at the Media Research Center, told PJ Media in an email
statement. "It is no longer the civil rights era group that many of its
supporters believe. It now exists largely to attack groups it doesn't agree
with and to fundraise millions and millions of dollars off of uninformed
donors."
Gainor warned that "the media make this far worse by
legitimizing the group's so-called 'hate list.' In reality, that list is a
bizarre mix of good conservative groups and disturbing fringe organizations.
The SPLC sees no difference between a group defending the rights of Christians
in court and the Klan."
"The media credential this awful hate group and rarely
report that some of the SPLC's biggest fans are dangerous criminals,"
Gainor added. He mentioned Floyd Lee Corkins and James Hodgkinson.
Apple, J.P. Morgan, George Clooney, Lyft, MGM Resorts, and
any organization that partners with the SPLC should know what it's getting
into.
Corporate America should not support a group that exists to
tar mainstream organizations as "hate groups," inciting violence
against them. It should not bankroll an organization that targets innocent
towns and elementary schools as purveyors of hate. It should not support a
"poverty" organization that sends millions of dollars to accounts in
the Cayman Islands. Enough is enough.
Without the Obama Administration to protect Crooked Hillary or
Crooked Comey to bury investigative information some swamp data is beginning to
come to the surface.
Is it possible that Obama inspired corruption is finally
beginning to unravel to show everyday Americans that nefarious goings-on was
perpetrated in front of our very eyes?
I am guessing if Crooked Hillary is exposed enough that she
won’t go down alone.
Senator Chuck Grassley
(R-IA), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to FBI
Director Christopher Wray to inform him that the committee found in unredacted
parts in transcripts that former FBI Director James Comey decided to write a
statement to exonerate then-presumptive Democrat presidential candidate before
the FBI finished its investigation into her emails.
According
to the unredacted portions of the transcripts, it appears that in early April
or early May 2016, Mr. Comey had already decided he would issue a statement
exonerating Secretary Clinton. This was long before FBI agents finished their
work. Mr. Coney even circulated an early draft statement to select members of
senior FBI leadership. The outcome of an investigation should not be prejudged
while FBI agents are still hard at work trying to gather the facts.
OSC
[Office of Special Counsel] attorneys questioned two witnesses, presumably Mr.
[Jim] Rybicki [Comey’s Chief of Staff] and Ms. Trisha] Anderson [Principal
Deputy General Counsel of National Security and Cyberlaw], about Mr. Comey’s
July 5, 2016, statement exonerating Secretary Clinton. The transcript of what
appears to be Mr. Rybicki’s interview contains the following exchange:
This is the portion of the
transcript that Grassley provided:
Grassley and the other
senators have asked Wray to provide the committee all drafts of Comey’s
statement that closed the investigation, including the one from April or May,
along with all of the records “related to communications between or among FBI
officials regarding Comey’s draft statement closing the Clinton investigation.
These documents include “all memoranda or analyses of the factual or legal
justification for the announcement.”
The committee also wants the
records “provided to the Office of Special Counsel in the course of its now
closed Hatch Act investigation of Mr. Comey.”
Does this add new credence to
those who suspected the fix was already in for Hillary to get off? It’s possible.
After all, a week before Comey’s press conference, a local news crew discovered
that then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch met with Hillary’s husband Bill on a
tarmac at an Arizona airport. As Professor Jacobson noted at the time:
Neither
Lynch nor Bill Clinton are dummies. They both know that such a private meeting
creates the appearance of impropriety regardless of what was discussed. Bill
Clinton’s wife is being investigated by the FBI — why do you think he dropped
in for a chat with Lynch?
Of
course they didn’t discuss the case. They didn’t need to.
If
there was no appearance of impropriety, why did Lynch wait until a local news
crew, apparently tipped off, asked her about it?
It
feeds a narrative of the Clintons acting like the fix is in, with Hillary repeatedly braggingthat
there is no way she’s going to be indicted.
On July 5, 2016, Comeygavea detailed press
conference to exonerate Hillary even though the found found serious problems
and mishandling of classified information. He said he could not recommend
charges because “no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case because no
bad intent.”
Lynchdecidedthe following day
to accept Comey’s recommendation not to prosecute Hillary.
Earlier this month, the American
Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) published413 pages of
memos from the DOJ that showed the tarmac meeting was planned. The ACLJwrote:
We
have just obtained hundreds of pages in our ongoing investigation and federal
lawsuit on former Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s tarmac meeting with former
President Bill Clinton while the Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI had an
ongoing criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails. The results are
shocking.
First,
the Comey FBI lied to us. Last July, we sent FOIA requests to both the Comey
FBI and the Lynch DOJ asking for any documents related to the Clinton Lynch
plane meeting. The FBI, under the then directorship of James Comey, replied
that “No records responsive to your request were located.”
The
documents we received today from the Department of Justice include several
emails from the FBI to DOJ officials concerning the meeting. One with the
subject line “FLAG” was correspondence between FBI officials (Richard Quinn,
FBI Media/Investigative Publicity, and Michael Kortan) and DOJ officials
concerning “flag[ing] a story . . . about a casual, unscheduled meeting between
former president Bill Clinton and the AG.” The DOJ official instructs the FBI
to “let me know if you get any questions about this” and provides “[o]ur
talkers [DOJ talking points] on this”. The talking points, however are
redacted.
In January, the Justice Department inspector general announced“he will investigate the
actions of the Justice Department and FBI in the months leading up to the 2016
election.” The investigation includes if Comey followed department policies.
Comey, who was still FBI director at the time, promised cooperation. CBS News
reported at the time:
The
review will examine Comey’s news conference in July 2016 in which he said that
the FBI would not recommend charges. During his announcement, Comey delivered
an unusual public statement for an FBI chief by chastising Clinton and her aides
as “extremely careless.”
It
will also review the two letters he sent to Congress about the case in the
final days before the 2016 election. Clinton and her aides said the disclosure
of “new” emails – found on a laptop belonging to Anthony Weiner, the estranged
husband of Clinton aide Huma Abedin – less than two weeks before Election Day
hurt her in several battleground states.
+++
The
fix was in! Memos show Comey exonerated Hillary before investigation concluded
– but, that’s not all…
If you’re going to conduct a
legitimate investigation, it’s probably a good idea to wait until all the facts
come in before actually coming to a conclusion, much less drafting a statement
about the decision you plan to make.
Of course, if the ‘fix is
in,’ why not go ahead and get your paperwork over with, right?
James Comey has yet again found himself in the national
spotlight, this timeover
memos obtained by the Senate Judiciary Committee in their role of investigating
Comey’s May 9 firing which show that the former FBI director had begun drafting
a statement exonerating Hillary Clinton before all witnesses had even been
interviewed.
Grassley: Comey decided as early as April 2016 to declare Hillary's innocence, long before she and her staffers were even interviewed. pic.twitter.com/qqRNhlHpmp
In fact, the exoneration
statement was so premature that the FBI hadn’t even interviewed Clinton herself
yet.
Either Comey and his cohorts
had a crystal ball, or the so-called ‘investigation’ into Clinton’s emails was
corrupt to the core.
The revelations come from
interview transcripts of Comey’s chief of staff, James Rybicki, and FBI counsel
Trisha Anderson, which were given last Fall as a part of an Office of Special
Counsel investigation into the FBI’s role in investigating Clinton’s emails.
Even though the transcripts
are heavily redacted, they still show that the former FBI director began work
on an exoneration announcement in either April or May of 2016, when the FBI had
yet to interview 17 witnesses, including Clinton herself.
When was Clinton eventually
interviewed? July 2, three days before Comey’s big reveal.
In
a letter to the FBI, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey
Graham also noted that Comey’s draft was prepared even before two Clinton
aides, Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson, had reached what the two Republicans
called a “highly unusual” immunity deal with the Justice Department.
The
limited immunity deal prohibited investigators and prosecutors from asking
about conversations between the two Clinton aides and Platte River Networks, a
Denver-based tech firm that maintained Clinton’s server after she left the
State Department.
Grassley and Graham, like the
rest of us, wonder how Comey could have possibly performed an impartial
investigation if his mind seems to have already been made up.
“Conclusion first,
fact-gathering second — that’s no way to run an investigation,” the senators
wrote to the FBI. “The FBI should be held to a higher standard than that,
especially in a matter of such great public interest and controversy. The
outcome of an investigation should not be prejudged while FBI agents are still
hard at work trying to gather the facts.”
A federal judge ordered the
FBI Thursday to publicly release previously unseen documents related to the
investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private
email server.
U.S. District Judge James E.
Boasberg ordered the FBI to produce uncensored court documents describing the
grand jury subpoenas issued to force Clinton’s internet service providers to
turn over information related to her private server use, according to a
statement released by Cause of Action Institute.
The ruling was made in
response to a motionfiled
in June as part of a suit brought by Cause of Action Institute and Judicial
Watch. The organizations claim the Department of State violated the Federal
Records Act by failing to maintain records related to Clinton’s handling of
classified information.
Boasberg justified hisrulingon
the basis that the set of documents in question “rehashes information already
made public, thus obviating any need for secrecy.”
Cause of Action President and
CEO John J. Vecchione praised the decision in a statement released Thursday
following the court’s ruling.
“I applaud the court’s
opinion. The government attempted to end a case with evidence no one could
review. This order makes public details submitted by the government about the
FBI’s efforts to recover then-Secretary Clinton’s unlawfully removed emails,”
he said. “Americans deserve to know the full scope of that investigation, and
we, as Plaintiffs, should have an opportunity to contest the relevance of the
government’s facts.”
Former FBI Director James
Comey called Clinton’s use of a private email address and server to handle
classified information “extremely careless” in his July Congressional testimony
but stopped short of filing charges.
The requested documents
relate specifically to subpoenas related to emails Clinton sent on two
Blackberry accounts during her first few weeks in office.
Boasberg’s order overrules
objections made by the Trump administration, who previously claimed that
publicly releasing the documents would violate grand jury secrecy rules.
The order comes days after
the FBI refusedto
turn over documents related to their investigation into Clinton’s private email
server, citing a lack of public interest to justify denying the FOIA request.
