Friday Morning Breakfast For The Brain

Thank God it’s FRIDAY!

If The FBI’s Contempt For The Law Is Not Reined In, Its Abuses Will Get Worse

Via The Federalist

The former CIA and FBI director’s article is a symptom of how the establishment media has become the propaganda arm of an increasingly robust U.S. authoritarian movement.

In 2018, the U.S. government filed 1,117 final applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court for authority for the FBI to conduct electronic surveillance and physical searches. One application was withdrawn. One other was denied. The remaining 1,115 were granted.

Hours before the FISA court issued a December 17 order openly declaring that it could no longer trust any of the sworn statements the FBI had submitted to justify spying on Americans, The New York Times published an opinion article by William Webster, a former director of both the FBI and the CIA. Webster wrote, “Today, the integrity of the institutions that protect our civil order is, tragically, under assault from too many people whose job it should be to protect them.”

Gone are the days The New York Times worked to expose government abuse of power. The New York Times now defends power from truth.

No More ‘Dissent Is Patriotism’
Setting aside the very dubious propositions that the FBI and the CIA should be protected from criticism, let’s plumb the depths of the Webster/NYT argument. Who, according to Webster, has the job of protecting the FBI and the CIA? Webster explains exactly who he means: “I am deeply disturbed by the assertion of President Trump that our ‘current director’ — as he refers to the man he selected for the job of running the F.B.I. — cannot fix what the president calls a broken agency.”

Webster goes on to suggest that the FBI should operate as an independent agency and that he is outraged by the “president’s thinly veiled suggestion that the director, Christopher Wray, like his banished predecessor, James Comey, could be on the chopping block.” He adds, “The independence of both the F.B.I. and its director is critical and should be fiercely protected by each branch of government.” Webster goes on to make it clear that the “rule of law” is threatened by the president criticizing the FBI.

The article is a symptom of how the establishment media has become the propaganda arm of an increasingly robust authoritarian movement in the United States. This movement inverts constitutional principles so that it becomes the president’s job to protect the FBI from criticism and his threat to fire an FBI chief is a threat to the Constitution. This is the kind of thing that Vladimir Putin might have told Tass to publish as he sought to seize power from Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s.

Read the entire article HERE.

IG Report Reveals Steele Funneled Claims Through John McCain After FBI Dropped Him

Via Breitbart News

Late Senator John McCain provided disgraced former FBI chief James Comey with five separate reports from Christopher Steele that the FBI didn’t previously possess related to unsubstantiated allegations of collusion between Russia and President Trump’s 2016 campaign, the Justice Department’s recent Inspector General report revealed.

There have long been questions about why it was necessary for McCain to pass Steele’s anti-Trump dossier to Comey on December 9, 2016, several weeks after the November 2016 presidential election. By then, Steele had already met numerous times with FBI agents to provide them with his controversial reports. Steele, however, was terminated as an FBI source in the fall of 2016 because he spoke to the news media.

The IG report discloses that McCain gave five new Steele reports to Comey that the FBI did not previously possess, showing that McCain served as a conduit for Steele’s information to reach the FBI even after the British ex-spy was formally cut off as an FBI source.

It is not clear whether McCain knew at the time that Steele had previously been terminated as an FBI source.

The IG report also verifies that a McCain aid obtained the Steele reports directly from Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson, meaning that when McCain transferred the anti-Trump charges to Comey he had to have known that the material originated with a firm that specializes in controversial opposition tactics.

Read the entire article HERE.

AOC for president? The buzz has begun

Via Politico

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was campaigning for Bernie Sanders at a jampacked beach-side rally last week when she took a moment to look beyond 2020.

“I know, and we all know, that this isn’t just about Bernie Sanders,” she said. “This is about a movement that has been decades in the making.”

While the two democratic socialists are hyperfocused on 2020, some political operatives see their joint appearances as also laying the groundwork for a possible Ocasio-Cortez bid one day, purposefully or not. They’ve shown that she can excite Democrats in critical early-voting states.

Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez’s fans have also begun thinking about AOC 2024 or 2028. At their rally in Los Angeles, chiropractor Samuel Aguilera predicted that Ocasio-Cortez will eventually run for the White House: “In fact, I’m excited about that. She’s intelligent. I’ve got three daughters, and I’m excited that she’s opening up our opportunities for women.” Another audience member at the event shouted “Ocasio-Cortez 2020!” as she spoke.

Read the entire article HERE.

The Real Whistleblower Story: Dennis Montgomery, The HAMMER, The Hard Drives, The Wiretapping Of Trump, and the Prosecution Of General Flynn

Via The American Report

The assault on President Trump by a partisan CIA operative and whistleblower who was placed in the White House to spy on the President is unparalleled in American history. While obstructionists roll out their latest hoax, the real whistleblower story has not been told. President Obama and his yet to be indicted, corrupt Praetorian Guard led by John Brennan and James Clapper, spied on all of America in order to deliver a death blow to the U.S. Constitution and steal our freedoms. Obama’s top intelligence officials spied on America for the purpose of blackmail and leverage with a secret super surveillance system called “THE HAMMER.”

Former U.S. military officials told The American Report that the foreign surveillance system known as “The Hammer,” built by CIA contractor-turned whistleblower Dennis L. Montgomery, saved the lives of U.S. troops engaged in the War on Terror. “THE HAMMER” kept Americans safe after 9/11, according to those military sources.

Those sources further stated that “THE HAMMER” was a foreign surveillance tool with multiple echelons of safeguards and sign-offs that logged the identities of all U.S. personnel who accessed the super-surveillance system, up to and including the President. Those safeguards were put in place to ensure that “THE HAMMER” was never misused and turned into a domestic surveillance system to spy on the American people, obliterating their Fourth Amendment constitutional rights.

In February 2009, under newly-elected President Barack Obama, John Brennan and James Clapper commandeered and repurposed “THE HAMMER” by expanding and transforming it from a foreign surveillance system into a private, parallel platform domestic surveillance system. That system was illegal.

Brennan and Clapper moved “THE HAMMER” to a new secret location less than twenty miles from the Obama White House, where they scaled it up and covertly operated it to spy on all of America.

Dennis Montgomery designed and built “THE HAMMER” to protect Americans, not to spy on them. What Brennan and Clapper were doing was in direct opposition to the original mission of “THE HAMMER.” Brennan and Clapper were doing exactly what the multiple echelons of safeguards and sign-offs were designed to stop.

Read the entire article HERE.

Airport Revenues Soar After Allowing Travelers To Pay To Turn Off CNN

Via The Babylon Bee (Satire)

WORLD—Airports around the world are reporting record revenues after introducing a long-awaited feature: the ability to turn off CNN on television sets in their terminals.

For just one quarter, you can turn off CNN for a full fifteen minutes while you’re waiting for your flight, leaving you with the “far superior” experience of just staring at a blank screen.

“At long last,” said one man waiting for his flight at LaGuardia as he dropped a few dollars’ worth of quarters into the “Turn CNN Off” slot. “Honestly, I might fly more now.” He’s not alone: airports expect a 426% uptick in traveling over the holidays as flyers no longer have to worry about having the droning words of CNN hosts pounded into their heads for hours on a layover.

The feature has been one of the most-requested by travelers along with the dismantling of the TSA and pretzel bags with more than 3 pretzels in them.

The money-making move has inspired moments of human compassion and unity as travelers lend each other money or leave quarters behind atop the television sets for future travelers to turn off CNN. One anonymous philanthropist at DFW prepaid for over a year of CNN-less travel throughout the terminal.

“It’s great to see what humanity can accomplish when we unite,” said one man at LAX as he rummaged through his pockets to lend a quarter to a woman who wanted to turn off the CNN screen near her. “Here you go, miss. Enjoy your flight!”

CNN is protesting the move, saying it has cut their viewing audience in half, leaving them with just one.

A similar program is being rolled out in hospital waiting rooms throughout the country.

Check out all of the Bee’s great takes on politics and culture HERE.

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