We Agree; We Don't Want Authoritarian Rule

Can we agree on this? We don’t want to be under authoritarian rule. We don’t want a Big Brother, totalitarian tyranny.

For years now—since the noted descent on the escalator—opponents of Donald Trump have been describing him as a Hitler wannabe. A fascist. Racist, etc., to boot. They are afraid of him; he wants to control us all.

If you’ve been one of those, then it’s time for a paradigm shift. In his four years in office, I defy you to find an action that he took as president that was authoritarian.

He reduced regulation. He lowered inflation and unemployment rates. The economy thrived—except during the couple of quarters of 2020 when the economy shut down because of COVID-19. Note that the President did not shut the country down; that was done by local and state authorities, under the unauthoritative direction of deep state actors in the NIH, CDC, and WHO.

Did Trump deny the American people the use of oil and gas reserves? His successor has. Trump took us quickly to energy independence, with the largest resource supply of oil and gas in the world. Biden immediately shut that down, then went begging to Venezuela and Saudi Arabia—as if we couldn’t supply our own. And he drew down our strategic reserves—and sold them to the CCP, while Americans pay several dollars more per gallon at the pump.

image is screenshot from this Facts Matter video

Targeting Political Enemies

But the real sign of authoritarian rule is the targeting of political enemies. The Biden regime has quite a record of that—especially if you tag on the Obama/Biden years and the Deep State attacks during Trump’s presidency.

The “raid” seems to be a favorite authoritarian ploy—because it’s scary and pushy, and can be construed by media to be lawful.

Here are a few such stories:

·       “Feds Reportedly Raid Project Veritas-Linked Apartments over Ashley Biden’s Diary” by Ben Feuerherd, New York Post, November 5, 2021. / This was when Project Veritas was given Ashley Biden’s diary, reportedly left in a hotel room. They couldn’t verify its authenticity and didn’t want to touch it. They tried returning it, and whoever it was refused. So they turned it over to police. After doing so, James O’Keefe and several Project-Veritas employees had their apartments raided, purportedly looking for the “stolen” diary. More likely this was to scare them, and maybe to do a fishing search for something that could be twisted against them. Even if they’d still held the diary—which they were known not to have—there was no need for a raid. The diary has since been verified as authentic.

·    “FBI Raids Target Democrats’ Political Foes Instead of True Criminals” by Beth Whitehead, The Federalist, June 27, 2022.  This story talks about the FBI targeting a list of people: Roger Stone, Rudy Giuliani, James O’Keefe, and Jeff Clark. It says, “The FBI is now also engaging in raids on private homes of elderly Americans who peacefully attended the Capitol protest on Jan. 6, 2020. Compare this treatment to that of actual criminals affiliated with Democrats, such as Hunter Biden, Andy McCabe, Peter Strzok, and Michael Sussmann. The latter have seen no personal visit from the FBI since their crimes were committed or exposed.” They mention:

o   Stone’s home in January 2019

o   Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s home in April 2021, ostensibly searching for evidence that Giuliani broke the law regarding Ukraine. This was after Giuliani had offered twice to answer prosecutors’ questions. A year after the raid, Giuliani is still under investigation with no crimes charged against him nor the FBI willing to broadcast what they’re after. 

o   The FBI raided O’Keefe’s home and office under the allegation that O’Keefe had stolen Ashley Biden’s diary. Yet the diary was no longer in O’Keefe’s hands at the time, as he had turned it in to Florida police after evaluating its veracity. 

o   June 22, federal authorities searched the home of Jeff Clark, former assistant attorney general under Trump.

·       “Alaska Couple Says FBI Raided Their Home with Guns Drawn, Interrogated Them in Search for Pelosi's Laptop” by Breck Dumas, The Blaze, April 30, 2022.  This was a case of mistaken identity. Again, a nighttime raid was way over-the-top unnecessary.

·       “Why Were These Churches Raided by the FBI? HOPCC Churches and Seminaries Are Under Investigation for Fraud, Allegedly Targeting Veterans” by Collin Leonard, Deseret News, June 24, 2022. t I’m not defending these churches and their particular actions; it appears they may have been crossing the line into criminal activity. But the normal approach would have been through subpoena of documents, officially terminating their ability to use GI bill funds, and then pursue particular criminal claims. An FBI raid at three locations seems meant more to intimidate than to get evidence that could be obtained in no other way and was at risk of being destroyed.

·       “FBI Raids Home of Retired Texas Couple Who Attended Jan. 6 Capitol Rally” by Darlene McCormick Sanchez, The Epoch Times, June 25, 2022. Another case of mistaken identity. Startled homeowners hearing alarms in the pre-dawn got their guns out. A flash-bang was tossed into the home, upsetting the dogs. This was a year and a half after the January 6^th incident; the retired couple had attended the rally but had not gone beyond the capitol steps. What danger were they to the country on this date, at that hour? It’s fortunate no one was killed or injured.     

There's a whole "List of FBI Controversies" on Wikipedia, worth exploring.

Let’s add in that the administration has declared “domestic terrorists” to be the greatest threat to the nation—and domestic terrorists are redefined as people like us, who are normal, patriotic, good citizens. The NASB first suggested parents who spoke up at school board meetings were domestic terrorist threats—and the DOJ went along with that declaration, without evidence of a single threat.

Recently Senator Ted Cruz challenged FBI Director Christopher Wray about a document leaked to Project Veritas showing symbols associated with domestic terrorists, which included the Betsy Ross flag, the Gadsden flag, the Liberty Tree, the Gonzalez battle flag which reads “Come and Take It,” Revolutionary War imagery, and “Other Commonly Referenced Historical Imagery and Quotes.”  Wray, who heads the FBI, claimed ignorance of any memo regarding associating these symbols with domestic terrorism. (There’s a good body language analysis of this exchange here.)

FBI document leaked to Project Veritas,
identifying symbols of domestic terrorism

 

In case you only listen to broadcast and cable media, maybe you’re unaware that messages not aligned with the regime are not allowed on those platforms. And they are censored on public forums. You ought to be aware that Twitter took down President Trump’s account—including his tweet requesting that protestors on January 6^th needed to go home, because we needed to maintain peace (not because his Tweets inflamed his followers, but because they verified that he didn’t).

Differing views—including factual statements using government data—relating to election fraud, COVID-19 and its vaccines and other protocol or questions of origin, and anything else not approved get cautioned, censored, shadow-banned on Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube. It is a common “cost of doing business” on these platforms for conservatives to self-censor, use code wording, or otherwise tiptoe around vague "community standards" to avoid being shut down.

 

The Raid

This raid on President Trump’s home was a step too far.

Let’s clear up some legal details. First, the President is entitled to his personal documents. It is a matter of discussion between him and the National Archives as to whom should hold an original or copy of various things. Those discussions were ongoing, as expected. There were not any classified documents the President wasn’t entitled to. It isn’t illegal for him to possess them. He didn’t “steal” or “destroy, spindle, or mutilate” anything. If the National Archives wanted something, they needed to ask and negotiate—which apparently they have been doing.

There was no need of “an informant close to Trump” leaking news that the documents were at his Mar-a-Lago residence; the National Archives already knew that. They had been to the location where the documents were being stored and had recommended an additional lock on the location, for security—which was placed there. That additional lock was broken by the FBI in the raid. 

If this were some other case in which a former government employee had classified documents, or was keeping documents in an unsafe location that could lead to their being compromised, then there would be procedures for that. These would include a subpoena, possibly an arrest—although that would much more likely take place through lawyer negotiations and court hearings, not through an FBI raid using dozens of agents.

If there were a case in which documents were at risk of imminent destruction, ostensibly making an FBI surprise visit necessary, it still would not take an armed brigade.

But it would require a warrant. And the warrant would have to be shown immediately—and a copy would be made available to the subject of the investigation and his legal representation. Reports are that, during the 12-hour search, Trump lawyers were flashed the subpoena from ten feet away, and they were not allowed to keep a copy.

Tom Fitten of Judicial Watch, among others, has requested a copy of the warrant through a Freedom of Information Act request. So far, however, there has been no detailed information about what was being sought or what was taken. They may respond by Monday.

Judicial Watch FOIA request to see the warrant.
taken as a screenshot from here

In the service of a legal search warrant, anything taken by officials would be itemized, and a receipt given. This also did not happen. That means it is impossible to know what Trump had in his possession that they took—or, possibly, what they said he had. In other words, they have put themselves in the position of planting items among his possessions, so we cannot trust chain of custody of evidence. Again, whatever they claim he had or didn’t have shouldn’t matter, because the former president is entitled to his documents, regardless of classification. He committed no crime; the government may have.

There is speculation about what the FBI was after—which they even went through Melania Trump’s closet to search for. Some speculate it must have something to do with January 6^th. I doubt that. The most plausible reason is to find a way to keep Trump from running again. There is a statement in law (federal code section 2071) that a person convicted of mishandling classified documents (as Hillary Clinton clearly did) would not be allowed to run for any future public office. Nice try, but that law does not apply to the President of the United States; the documents are his. Former presidents fill their presidential libraries with such materials. The president can declassify at will. Classified materials may be kept and safeguarded by the National Archives as well—or copies.

What is important to the nation is the preservation of documents. And what we can’t be certain of is that a federal agency this reckless concerning the law would want to preserve documents, rather than destroy anything that might be embarrassing for the regime. There’s a strong possibility that Donald Trump has documents that could take down a great many Deep State players. And they want to stop that at all costs.

 

Why They Did It

In short, they have never hated Trump because he is an authoritarian, or racist, or any other epithet they have thrown at him. They have hated him because he is a threat to their way of doing business—their power mongering.

YouTuber Mr. Reagan lays out a scenario, which he imagines happened some years back. A group of these players sat together in a room, white board at the ready, and brainstormed ways to take out Donald Trump. They tried the Russia hoax—it failed. They tried impeachment over that; it failed. And eventually proof came out that the Clinton campaign had paid for the whole hoax.

Mr. Reagan imagines a list of things they went down. Both impeachments (including one after he left office) failed to show any wrongdoing on Trump’s part. They had to steal the election, of course. And then they tried to set up something they could blame on Trump, such as an insurrection. How inconvenient for them that there wasn’t one. They had gone through the dry run in Michigan, with a hoax attempt at kidnapping Governor Whitmer. Every person on trial in that case was acquitted or granted a mistrial—and the defense was government entrapment. There were more FBI agents and informants than actors—and the plot would simply not have been considered without the urging of those government agents.

The Detroit FBI Field Manager was promoted to DC field manager just in time for the January 6^th entrapment. (See the Revolver news story on that.) FBI agents and agent provocateurs instigated entering the capitol that day. Add to that, most of the crowd that did get agitated were provoked by Capitol Police, who shot them with rubber bullets, threw concussive grenades into the crowd, and beat nonviolent protesters. As more evidence comes out, it appears all six of the deaths that day were caused by the police, not the protesters. No police were killed; only protesters. (See the EpochTV documentary The Real Story of Jan. 6.)

Government business was continued as usual that same evening. People went home peacefully, as President Trump had asked them to do. And yet Biden calls it the worst attack on democracy in history—worse than Pearl Harbor or 9/11. The only way that is true is when you see the regime’s response (coupled with the election theft itself) as the regime’s attack on our constitutional republic.

After January 6^th, people were rounded up—often experiencing violent raids at their peaceful homes in the pre-dawn darkness. People have been taken into custody and kept there, without trial, without rights, without access to counsel, in solitary confinement—often without charges—now going on a year and a half. For misdemeanor trespass charges.

I got sidetracked from Mr. Reagan’s list. Anyway, they have tried this false narrative that Trump caused an insurrection on January 6^th, and the people aren’t buying it. Their Senate inquiry is going nowhere. More of their lies have come to light, rather than people getting convinced of Trump’s guilt. Mr. Reagan thinks that the very fact they have moved on down the list—and this raid was probably near the bottom—shows that they’re giving up on the insurrection lie.

This raid was unprecedented. You don’t raid a former president’s home and confiscate his belongings. It’s unthinkable outside a banana republic. 

Definition 2, from Dictionary.com

It obviously smacks of political weaponization of government law enforcement—which it is, whatever their stated reason on that warrant. The FBI is at fault. Director Wray has no explanation. The DOJ is at fault. What we can be certain of is that America dodged a bullet when the Republicans refused to allow Merrick Garland to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court in those last few months of the Obama administration. Garland clearly does not have the law or the best interests of the United States on his list of guiding principles. He’s about political vendettas and personal power mongering.

Under a president even slightly less weak than Biden, it’s hard to imagine this happening.

 

What Next

Is there something from that imagined white board list they haven’t gotten to yet? I don’t know. But their time is running out. This midterm election is critical. The raid this week was a Hail Mary pass. The thing about Hail Mary passes; they hardly ever work. That’s why football teams don’t do them all through the game—only when desperate.

If I were to guess at the next such desperate attempt, I would say they’ll try to keep the November midterm election from happening. Maybe because of riots. Maybe they’ll try to scare us about another pandemic. Maybe it will be something we haven’t even conceived of. Evil minds can be very inventive. All I know is, if they don’t keep their power now, good patriots have a chance to bring to light and clear the government and institutions of the evil cabal of tyrants. So they will pull out all the stops.

So, you Trump haters, if you have any actual concern about authoritarian rule: Wake up! The authoritarian, totalitarian, corrupt tyrants are the ones you put in power.

The rest of us are beyond our patience, waiting for you to wake up and see what’s been going on right in front of our eyes.

We’d like to be a country united—united against totalitarian tyranny. But we can’t unify with people who hate us and hate our freedoms and our Constitution. We can’t compromise like we’ve done in the past—live and let live. Because those tyrants aren’t letting us live.

We’ve agreed with you all along: authoritarian rule is wrong. We’re just not blind, as you have been, about where we see it.

What you’ll find, once you wake up, is that we won’t punish you for having been blind; we’ll just welcome you to the light of freedom. That’s the path to unity and peace.

 

Monuments and Memorials, Part IV

This is the fourth (final) part of “What I Did on My Just-Past-Summer Vacation,” to Washington, DC. The significant element of this trip was how frequently we encountered reverence—for the ideas of freedom and civilization, and for the great people who brought those things to us, out of a world of tyranny and savagery.

The first three parts covered mainly individuals: Part I was Thomas Jefferson; Part II was Abraham Lincoln; Part III was George Washington. This final post will cover a number of people and places I’m glad we got to experience, and I want to share, at least with a photo and a mention.

White House front portico, from Pennsylvania Avenue

We saw the White House from the front and the back. To tour inside these days requires a special invitation from your Congressman, arranged well ahead of time. This was four days before some crazy person jumped the fence and made it inside the front door, which was a huge security breach. With all the security we saw, it’s hard to imagine that happening. We also toured the beautiful White House Visitors Center, about a block away—which was the first place to require inspection on the way it.

White House, back view, where the inauguration takes place



National Archives, where you can see the actual
Declaration of Independence and Constitution

 

 

No photos were allowed inside the Archives, so I just have to remember. The security guard standing next to the Constitution talked with us, about the various signatures and other details. He had an accent, so I asked where he was from. As I assumed, he had become a citizen, which was required in order to work there. He was from Ghana, but now he is American, and very proud of it. And he may know our history better than most of us born here.

 

"Eternal Vigilance Is the Price of Liberty"
aside the entrance to the National Archives
 

 

Inscription on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

 

 

 

We got to witness the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. This was one of the most reverent moments of our trip. We all stood, in silence, throughout. The ceremony takes place whether people are there or not. They revere those sacred dead; we are invited to join them in that honor. We felt privileged to witness it.

Changing of the Guard
at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

 

Retiring the Flag at Arlington Cemetery

 

 

 

After the ceremony, we were waiting for our tour bus, and I ran off to take a few more photos. And I noticed this additional ceremony, the retiring of the flag in early evening. There was no crowd around. The soldiers were doing the honorable ceremony, because that’s what they do. I took the photo from a distance; I was glad I got to see this sacred moment.

 



Among the Acres of Graves at Arlington Cemetery

 

 

 

 

I know it doesn’t sound like a thrilling vacation to go to a cemetery, but Arlington Cemetery is worth experiencing. It’s vast, and beautiful, and sacred.

 

 

JFK Grave, Eternal Flame

The eternal flame, marking the grave of John F. Kennedy, is actually quite simple and understated.



"Ask not what your country can do for you,
but Ask what you can do for your country..."
near JFK's Eternal Flame

 

 

 

In the wall behind the marker are some of his quotes, carved in the stone. This is my favorite.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Vietnam Memorial Wall

 

 

 

The Vietnam Memorial Wall is most impressive maybe because of its length, full of names of those lost in service in that war.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

Korean War Memorial

On the opposite side of the Lincoln Memorial is this Korean War Memorial. It also has a reflective wall, this one with faces looking out. The wall is alongside a garden of statues, soldiers walking through undergrowth, as you might have seen them in action. I hadn’t been aware of this memorial before the trip. But I saw it in a scene of a TV show (Covert Affairs) after returning home. This was another place I really felt the reverence. Maybe it relates to having a son stationed in Korea this year.

 

  

Iwo Jima Monument

 

The Iwo Jima Monument relates to World War II. It is located just outside the Arlington Cemetery. We saw it just before sunset, which made photography a challenge, but the sky toward the sun was stunning. This photo is taken with back to the sun.

 

  

 

 

 

MLK Monument, viewed from across the tide pool

The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial is relatively new. It is along the tide pool, which starts with the Jefferson Memorial, then the FDR Memorial, and then the MLK Memorial, before you get to Lincoln Memorial and reflecting pond.  It’s a long, but not impossible, walk.

 

That's me, standing strong with
Martin Luther King

on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial

 

This stone, in front of the Lincoln Memorial, marks where MLK gave his “I Have a Dream” Speech.

 

 

 

 

 

World War II Memorial

At the end of the reflecting pool, opposite the Lincoln Memorial, and before the grassy hill leading to the Washington Monument, is the relatively new World War II Memorial. It’s a beautiful, huge circle of pillars, identifying each of the states and territories that participated, all surrounding a huge fountain. We arrived as some tour busses arrived. We were after schools had started, so we saw more older visitors than usual. But at this one, there was an unusual number of wheelchairs. And we realized these were WWII vets, coming here to see the memorial that honored them. Some were in tears. And so was I. Being there, with them, was one of my favorite memories of the trip. My dad served in WWII. He passed away several years ago, at age 91. So I’m thinking our few remaining WWII vets are getting near the limit of being able to come.

What was remarkable about this trip to Washington, DC, was how little we heard the news or politics while in our nation’s capital. It was a great respite. And maybe it would do us all good to look to the ideas of our founding, and the people who staked their lives on those ideas, and go resolutely in that direction.