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6 ways flawed & shady

friday, august 18th, 2023

Special Counsel Jack Smith’s latest indictment against President Trump seeks to criminalize political speech and taking incorrect legal advice. Americans of all political stripes should be furious and deeply concerned by the course Smith has set this country on.

[FULL TITLE: "6 Ways Jack Smith’s Latest Indictment Is Legally Flawed And Politically Shady"].

Jack Smith, in his rush to ‘get Trump,’ has done serious violence to our constitutional order and Bill of Rights.

I have reviewed the new Trump indictment closely, and sadly, it is exactly what we have come to expect from Smith’s team — a highly political document, riddled with legal and factual infirmities. This indictment should have never been brought to a grand jury in the first place. Moreover, its timing, particularly in light of Smith’s statements and actions in the Trump documents case, is so highly suspect that it casts a political pall over the whole case.

The Indictment

Smith’s indictment contains four counts against Trump.

The first, brought under 18 U.S.C. § 371, alleges that Trump conspired to defraud the United States “by using knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct federal government function by which those results are collected, counted and certified.”

The second and third allege conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and the actual or attempted obstruction of an official proceeding, both in violation of subsections of 18 U.S.C. § 1512.

The fourth alleges that Trump committed a “conspiracy against rights,” by knowingly conspiring to deprive Americans of their right to vote and have their votes counted, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 241.

Having read the indictment, having followed Jan. 6-related cases closely, having read extensive news coverage, and having spoken to others with experience in this area of the law, I do not believe any of these charges can fairly be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in front of a fair judge and jury. Additionally, I expect that were this case to reach the Supreme Court, the court would reject Smith’s theories of liability on all or at least some of these counts, as it did unanimously with his prosecution of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell.

Smith and his team did a real disservice to the cause of justice by bringing this indictment.

1. Trump’s State of Mind

In the Trump documents case, we’ve already seen how thorny issues of intent can be. There, many of us have argued that, in light of the president’s rights and responsibilities under the Presidential Records Act, it is essentially impossible for Jack Smith to prove that Trump knowingly violated the Espionage Act subsection charged.

Here, we have a similar issue. For all four of these charges, Smith needs to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump knew his claims about election integrity were false, and that he knew the legal theories his team advanced were not viable.

Not just that these claims were false, not just that Trump might have known that they were false, or that Trump should have known that they were false. If Trump did not actually know his claims were false and the theories he was advancing were wrong, then I do not see how he can be found guilty of any of the four charges in the indictment.

While Smith points to a few statements Trump allegedly made to others at various stages of his election challenges where he impliedly (if you squint hard enough) appears to concede defeat, the overwhelming gravamen of Trump’s statements and actions indicate he believed that his claims — both factual about the conduct of the election and legal about potential remedies — were true. Considering the record as a whole, how does one go about proving Trump didn’t believe his own arguments?

Moreover, three of these counts charge conspiracy. For those counts, Smith likely has to prove that Trump’s alleged co-conspirators also knew the claims they were advancing were false. And that Trump and his alleged co-conspirators all agreed, knowing that the claims were false, to press ahead anyway. Given the list of co-conspirators, their activities during the time period in question, and the interactions between them and Trump that have already been made public, I think the opposite is likely the case.

In short, proving the requisite intent on the part of Trump and his alleged co-conspirators on all of these charges is likely impossible, at least in front of a fair jury in a fair courtroom. This indictment should never have been brought.

2. Criminalizing Political Speech

Others have made this point publicly already, so I won’t belabor it. To put it simply, Jack Smith’s theory of the case necessarily requires criminalizing political speech. This is core, protected activity under the First Amendment, and the legal implications are truly scary for our democracy.

Is any public challenge to a certified federal election a criminal act? In Jack Smith’s telling, the answer is probably yes. At what point do election challenges become criminal? Based on Jack Smith’s theory of the case, the answer to that is entirely unclear, meaning that the very fact that this indictment was brought may have a deeply chilling effect on protected speech in years to come.

Hillary Clinton, Stacey Abrams, and many, many others have claimed for years that their elections were stolen from them. Abrams continued her efforts to challenge her defeat to Brian Kemp long after the results were clear. Andrew Jackson claimed John Quincy Adams cheated him out of the election of 1824. After the 2000, 2004, and 2016 elections, Democrats attempted to interfere with the electoral count process. Did those actions constitute a conspiracy against rights under § 241? Under Jack Smith’s theory of the case, I think the answer is unclear, but possible.

Taking political speech and political acts of this sort and shoehorning them into criminal statutes that have never before been used in this way is terrifying. Political candidates should not live in fear of prosecution by their political opponents for stating their views about their elections.

Jack Smith, in his rush to “get Trump,” has done serious violence to our constitutional order and Bill of Rights.

3. Proving Trump’s Specific Intent

Section 241 is a statute that was originally designed to deal with violence against black voters by the Ku Klux Klan, and other similar efforts to deprive people of their constitutional rights. Jack Smith’s use of it here is outrageous on its face, designed to inflame perhaps more than anything else. But there are also serious legal issues that Smith and his team seem to have been willing to ignore in terms of the statute’s applicability to the facts alleged.

In United States v. Guest, the Supreme Court grappled with the constitutionality of this statute, facing an argument that it was unconstitutionally vague and overbroad. The Supreme Court ultimately held that the statute was constitutional, but only because of the heightened intent requirements that follow from it being a conspiracy statute. In the Supreme Court’s words, “[a] specific intent to interfere with the federal right [at issue] must be proved” on the part of the alleged conspirators. Only because of that specific intent requirement was the prosecution in that case allowable, and was the statute itself deemed to pass constitutional muster.

Eight years later, in Anderson v. United States, the Supreme Court addressed the applicability of § 241 to a scheme to cast fake votes for federal, state, and local candidates in West Virginia. The court cautioned that “[i]t is established that since the gravamen of the offense under § 241 is conspiracy, the prosecution must show that the offender acted with a specific intent to interfere with the federal rights in question.” Furthermore, the court stated that “special care” was warranted in assessing this intent, because “charges of conspiracy are not to be made out by piling inference upon inference, thus fashioning … a dragnet to draw in all substantive crimes.”

To prove his case, it’s not enough for Jack Smith to prove that Trump and his alleged co-conspirators sought to overturn certified election results — he needs to prove they acted with specific intent to deprive people of the right to have their votes counted. This cannot be established by inference, under binding Supreme Court precedent. Smith needs evidence that Trump’s intent was specifically to deprive people of their right to have their votes counted.

On the face of the indictment and public record, it doesn’t appear he has anything close to meeting this high bar.

4. Proving a Fraud Conspiracy

Section 371 is a statute that criminalizes defrauding the federal government or interfering in lawful functions of government. Its origins are in the tax fraud context, and it was originally cabined closely to property fraud against the federal government. Even after the statute was expanded, though, the Supreme Court has urged caution throughout the statute’s history that a conspiracy charge relating to the obstruction of governmental functions must be premised on the use of “deceit, craft or trickery, or at least by means that are dishonest,” as was decided in Hammerschmidt v. United States. “Open defiance” of the law, for example, cannot give rise to a § 371 charge.

Courts have consistently held that obtaining a conviction under this statute requires both the existence of an agreement to achieve an unlawful objective, as well as deliberate, knowing, and specific intent to participate in that agreement.

Smith’s theory is that Trump and his alleged co-conspirators conspired to “defeat the lawful federal government function by which the results of the presidential election are collected, counted, and certified by the federal government.” But in light of the requirements for proving fraud conspiracy under § 371, Smith needs to show that Trump and his team knew their theories were groundless when they promoted them to state legislators and other decision-makers in the electoral count process and encouraged those officials to take various official actions. And that Trump and his team agreed this was the plan — promoting theories they knew were groundless, based on facts that they knew were false, to these legislators and officials.

The fact that Trump received advice to the contrary just doesn’t cut it, from a legal perspective, when it comes to proving a fraud conspiracy under § 371. This charge appears to be dead on arrival from a legal perspective.

5. Misapplication of Obstruction Law

Section 1512 was originally enacted as part of the Sarbanes Oxley Act in 2002, intended to deal with the fallout from the Enron collapse and investigations. Subsection (c), under which Trump has been charged, deals primarily with destroying evidence in advance of judicial proceedings or legislative inquiries, but it also contains a catchall provision that criminalizes corruptly “obstructing” an official proceeding.

The Biden DOJ has used this catchall provision, controversially, to prosecute Jan. 6 defendants, and two of the counts in this new indictment track this theory — that Trump’s activities and statements constituted an obstruction of an official proceeding, namely the electoral count process.

This is an issue that is expected to come before the Supreme Court sooner rather than later. In a sharply divided panel opinion this April, the D.C. Circuit allowed § 1512 charges to proceed against three Jan. 6 defendants. But it did so only on the basis that, in the words of Judge Justin Walker’s decisive concurrence, the act’s requirement of a “corrupt” mental state on the part of the defendants sharply delimited its scope. In Walker’s view, to convict under this statute, a defendant must have acted with the specific intent “to procure an unlawful benefit either for himself or for some other person.” (Judge Katsas dissented and would have dismissed the charges entirely).

Under this reading of the statute, it is not enough that Trump (and, in the case of the conspiracy charge, his alleged co-conspirators) called for protests. It is not enough that Trump tried to prevent the certification of the election or the counting of electoral votes. Trump could have burned down the Capitol personally and that wouldn’t necessarily meet this high bar. He must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt to have done what he did to procure a benefit for himself that he knew to be unlawful. As with the other statutes discussed above, this is a very high bar to meet, and the facts as presented simply do not support this charge.

6. Perfectly Timing the Trial for Election Season

As he did with his original indictment in the documents, Jack Smith accompanied his announcement of charges yesterday with a cynical call for a “speedy trial.” More than anything else, Smith’s insistence that these cases that he is bringing should be tried at the height of a presidential election adds fuel to the fire of Trump’s expressed view that the special counsel is waging a political campaign against him, not a valid legal investigation.

There is simply no reason why this case needs to be litigated now, as opposed to two years ago, or as opposed to after the presidential election in 2024. In the documents case, Smith followed his speedy trial call with a voluminous discovery production consisting of close to a million pages of documentary evidence, nine months of video recordings, and terabytes of data to be analyzed by Trump’s defense team. He then proceeded to file a superseding indictment adding new charges and a new defendant. That case was either ready for trial at the time it was brought, or it wasn’t, but Smith can’t have it both ways — his public statements and court filings amount to a gaslighting of the federal court and indeed of the American people.

In this case, the timing concerns are even more severe. The facts at issue date back to 2020 and the first few days of 2021. President Trump has already been impeached and acquitted for the same conduct he now faces these criminal charges for. Trump is now running to be president again (and winning in many polls).

Inserting this case into the presidential election season has all the appearances of an attempt by Smith to substitute the judgment of his office, a single judge, and 12 D.C. jurors for the millions of Americans who would otherwise have had the opportunity to weigh these facts, alongside all the other political considerations that go into a presidential election. These millions of Americans will likely be faced with a choice to vote for Smith’s boss, Joe Biden, or his likely opponent, Donald Trump.

Prosecuting a political opponent during a presidential election in this manner smacks of banana republic politics.

A Day In The Life.

Up at 8a on Friday, I went thru my finger stick to check my BSL (Blood Sugar Level) and recorded it on my Diabetes 2 chart, made coffee, took two 50mg Tramadol and a 300mg Gabapentin for various pains, fired-up the Win-7 Pentium HP desktop to let 32 million lines of code load, had a couple smokes in the semi-cool garage and checked the leftover errands list.

It was a damp (dew), cool 67°, beautifully sunny, blue sky morning and was forecast to hit 87° today, with clouds and t-storms later today, tonight and tomorrow. I scanned the weather and news sites, tuned into the "Chris Stigall Show", 6-9a, before the "Chris Plante Show", 9-12noon, came on. I waited until 9:30 and called the PA Dept of Revenue, Identity Fraud & Analysis Unit to get my ID verified, so they could finish processing and release my PA State Refund, as my identity had apparently been hacked, along with several million others' tax returns, in their possession. Damn.

Sad news: as of this morning, the latest count is 53 dead in the Maui Hawaii Wildfires. Here's are some before/after films of the devastation. The tourist destination island is 95% destroyed. I checked my go-to-site -- TV Racer -- for the weekend's upcoming F-1, IMSA, IndyCar etc races, and printed out a quick reminder list in MS-NotePad, so I wouldn't miss anything. I had a couple Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) transplant seedlings growing in ¼-pint seedling tray pots, and installed them into the back patio garden, watering them in well with 5-50-10 (middle number of Phosphorous is key) Blossom Booster Fertilizer. No, they won't bloom, but the "P" will help them grow and get established for Winter survival.

Q: If you divide If you divide 52 genders by 3 bathrooms, how much climate change do you get? A: Math is racist!

I had condo chores to do, some paperwork and had a huge (YUGE!) lunch of Pasta Salad, Lasagna and Chill. By 3p, I was fading fast, hit the LR couch and finally woke-up around 5:45. After finishing-up the last of the condo chores, I settled-in with a small dinner, watched the new episodes of "Gold Rush" spin-offs: "Mine Rescue w/ Freddy & Juan" and "Hoffman Family Gold", until 11:30. Lights out.

Another sleep-in morning, I finally got up at 8a on Saturday. Partly sunny, 72° and getting humid, I started coffee, fired-up the desktop to scan the weather and news, had a smoke w/ coffee in the warm garage. The forecast was for mid-90s and very humid; I'll just stay inside and put-off the gardening work until after it subsides, as I don't do well in that weather. Hmmm, it looks like we did get an EF`1 Tornado in Southern York County, after all, last week. At first, they called it "straight line winds", but have changed ti, after several people filmed the funnel cloud. Go figure. Thew death toll in Maui Hawaii is now over 80 and an estimated rebuild cost is over $5.5 billion.

I started one load of laundry, with another left for tomorrow, called Sherry but got her voicemail, and tried to decide what to have for lunch. Chill, Roasted Potatoes, Crusty Bread and a Banana sounds good. Tired, I hit the couch at 1:30p, and woke-up at 4p. Nice one. After a massive slab of Shepherd's Pie and Klondike Bar for dessert, for dinner, I caught the news, did paperwork and watched Discovery's "Expedition Unknown" until 11p, and unplugged. T-storms went thru the area as I hit the bed.

Up at 5:45a on Sunday, a sunny, blue sky, 69°, no breeze morning, so I fired-up the computer, coffee carafe and oscillating fan in the garage. My first Marlboro® with the Kona® Coffee was great. Each morning upon getting downstairs, I take a hit from the Combivent® Respimat® (Ipratropium bromide/albuterol) emergency inhaler, so my lungs clear -- best Rx I ever got -- and I can breathe. I checked the news and weather maps, but they didn't show any of the low cloud layer. Yeah, yeah, I know: quit smoking. After 58 years, it doesn't matter.

After my usual morning shower, I felt better facing the heat and humidity, did another load of laundry, and had a Grilled Grilled Lasagna Sandwich & Roasted Potatoes. Mmmmmm. I did some garage cleaning,l took out the garbage and recycle bins to the curb for tomorrow's pick-up, and had a 3hr snooze on the LR couch. I watched the IMSA (Int'l Motor Sports Ass'n) road races at Road America (Elkhart Lake, WI), made Beef Sirloin, Portabello & Pasta for dinner, watched the news and more episodes of some "Gold Rush" spin-offs, until 11:30. Good night, Irene.

Awake at 8:30a on Monday, I got a late start, but I enjoyed the extra sleep. After the usual routines, I scanned the news and weather sites, just to update myself on the day's events. Maui Hawaii's death toll is at 93 and climbing. Joey Bidet doesn't give a rat';s ass about it, but continues to send billions of our hard-earned tax dollars to his Ukrainian masters. I left at 11:45a for DeVono's Laundry & Drycleaners in Dallastown, for what should be a 35min RT (Round Trip). I had 3 other stops to make -- Rutter's Convenience Store, for Half & Half and Marlboros, Rite Aid Pharmacy for a waiting Rx, and Burger King for take out -- so with the number of construction chokepoints and delays, I was back by 1:15p. After unloading, I had lunch, answered email and took a 2hr snooze on the LR couch.

It's official: America is a Turd World Banana Republic. Former President Donald J. Trump has been indicted for the 4th time, by another lowlife, dirtbag demonKKKrat hack, this time in Fulton County, GA. After 247 years, the Constitutional Republic that WAS America, is now gone. Whether it can be restored is doubtful. Of that, I have no doubt, as illegal things have gone too far. Time will tell. This will shove the Biden Organized Crime Family off the news cycles, and it'll all be about DJT&Co for weeks, if not months and years. Right in time for the GE (General Election 2024). Amazing timing. The commies/fascists/Marxists/socialists in the DoInJ have done their job.

After dinner, I watched various news reports on the 10 indictments, switched over to Discovery's "Iron Resurrection" until 11, and called it a night.

Up at 7a on Tuesday, to a partly sunny, already 74°, warm nd humid but a glorious morning, I made coffee, had a couple smokes, and fired-up the desktop computer to scan the news sites. While sitting on the back patio, enjoying the new Kona Blend Coffee (as opposed to Single Origin Bean), I saw a small, partial rainbow (scroll down to Circumhorizontal Arcs) directly overhead -- not the typical rainbow after a storm -- and somehow knew it was from God. OR, it could have been one of these very rare Fire Rainbows; I think it was a *very rare* "Fire Rainbow", but still from God.

In Genesis 9: "I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth. I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth." "God sealed His promise with a rainbow in the sky. In the midst of the devastation from the flood of judgment, there was a beautiful rainbow in the sky symbolizing God's gracious promise! God did not promise we will never experience storms, but He has promised He will be with us during them." Very, very nice, personal and humbling for me to see it.

I found a wide open vent behind the massive (96" long x 30" wide) LR couch, closed it, and the condo's 2nd floor cooled down considerably. Good on me.

I brewed a third carafe of Kona Light Roast Turkish Grind (powder) Kona Coffee, and relaxed with the Chris Plante Show, 9-12, as I do every morning, until 12:15p, and left for my usual food shopping trip to nearby Weis Market. Back home an hour later, temps were climbing past 90° with increasing humidity, so I decided to stay inside after some lunch. By 2p, it was 94° and I could manage 4-5mins for an occasional smoke, closed the electric huge 4ft x 9ft office-sunroom blinds, and had some "Orange Twirl" ice cream -- still can't locate any "Orange Dreamsicle" ice cream (like Good Humor trucks used to carry back in the 50s) -- and hit the LR couch for a snooze. Temps topped 94° and it was difficult to breathe in that heat and humidity.

I fell asleep at 4:30 and woke around 7:30, so I'll be up late tonight. Heh; good nap. I had a bunch of things to do, while getting "re-oriented" from sleeping. All that done without any breakage, heh, I settled-in to watch the news, Chris Plante on NEWSMAX TV and looked for my usual "Secret of Skinwalker Ranch" show at 9p... but last Tuesday was the final show of the season. So it quickly became an "NBC (Nothing But Crap) Night". Damn. I spent the evening watching NEWSMAX's "Greg Kelly Report" and catching-up on Tucker's videos, many of which I'd missed over the past 2 months, until 11, and unplugged.

Awake at 7:30a on Wednesday, it was a beautiful, cloudless blue sky, low humidity, 67° morning. Today and tomorrow are to be nice, but Hot Weather Hell is coming back over the weekend, and will get much worse, into the mid-90s by next week. It's still Summer, thru September, and October brings nicer weather. With coffee done, I fired-up the desktop and scanned the weather and news.

Trump’s legal problems get worse, in numbers -- four indictments, 4 states, 91 criminal charges, up to 700 years in jail. I think he'll get off on all, but the 2 RICO charges, and since they're "state charges", he can't be pardoned by a sitting president. Trump's in trouble, unless the states' governors can pardon, and the demonKKKrat govs, won't.

Looks like a Covid-19 variant, EG.5 from the Omicron family, is acting-up and spreading. It May Be Time to Pay Attention to COVID Again. NO!

I did some condo chores while listening to the "Chris Plante Show", and the clear blue sky gave way to Cumulus and Nimbus clouds. AccuWeather's RADAR didn't show anything, so when Sherry gets here at around 1p, we'll go to nearby Springettsbury Twp Park for one of our walks, today. Friday looks ugly, so we'll probably go to the cavernous York Galleria mall.

The latest unsealed court filings shows that lowlife dirtbag, scum-sucking moron, piece-of-shit demonKKKrat, 'special counsel' Jack Smith has all of President Donald Trump’s direct messages, including the deleted and unsent ones. If you don't think we're a Banana Republic, read this crap.

Before Sherry arrived, I took a 50mg Flexeril and 5mg Valium for lower back and right hip pain. 25-30 mins to get the effects, so the pain has subsided before we walk distance. It worked great and we did a good, solid mile, even with my back/hip pain and bad neuropathic feet. Back at my place, we relaxed, and Sherry left around 4:30. I had some things to do, and hit the LR couch around 5:15. I slept until 7:30.

No, that's not me...

Up and groggy, I had the carafe's last cup of coffee, and as dark was closing-in, got a few last minute chores done, settled down to watch History's new "American Pickers" episodes. By 10, I was fading, and closed down at 10:30p.

Awake at 7a on Thursday, to a cloudy, low humidity, cool 64° morning, I made coffee, had a smoke in the cool garage, tuned into the Chris Stigall Morning Show, 6-9a, and relaxed; nothing pressing to do today. After several mugs of Kona Coffee, I scanned the various news sites and checked the 10-day weather forecast. Another grim day for good news in the corrupt demonKKKrat-MSM. I couldn't process the c crap, and just ignored it all, as best I could, and plodded on thru the 1st, 2nd and 3rd tier of news sites.

Maui Hawaii's grim death count is 106 so far, and expected to go much, much higher. Some people were incinerated so badly that they'll never be a traceable amount of tissue or bone DNA to process and ID. Sad. Of course, Alex Jones weighs-in with an opinion of the "administrative murder" of those people and that island. Here's a 26min video of what happened there. You decide for yourself. I already have decided.

Here's one guy's ("Mr Reagan") opinion of how the demonKKKrats will steal the 2024 General Election. Again, as they've done many times before.

"Yes, we're Fox News, and we suck!

After a late lunch, I did a couple errands and grabbed a 2hr snooze on the LR couch. It was a very nice day and, as usual, I had to close the office-sunroom's 3 huge windows' electric blinds, since the mid-to-late afternoon sun just catches a portion of them, and heats-up the room, as well as being so bright to wash-out the computer's monitor screen. By 6p, I caught the news, had dinner and settled-in to watch some TV. It was another "NBC Night" (Nothing But Crap), and slim pickings, but I found some "Expedition Unknown" episodes on Discovery that I'd missed. 11p rolled around quickly, and I bagged it for the night.

Tomorrow starts a new week here in the "Journal", and with a clear week ahead, Sherry and I've scheduled a long-planned trip to Southern York County with a number of stops of places to visit, and get some Chinese Dim Sum take-out from my favorite Chinese Restaurant, The Emerald Garden in Shrewsbury.

Technocracy’s Control Freak Agenda Is Rapidly Moving Forward.

The future is here, and if you enjoy being dominated by control freaks you are going to love it. “Digital identification” is one of the primary areas the globalists are focusing on right now, and as you will see below, the radical changes that are now being proposed are extremely scary. But most Americans have no idea that any of this is happening. Instead, many of them are obsessing over the relatively meaningless dramas that our corporate news outlets are constantly pushing. Meanwhile, the globalists are achieving their goals at lightning speed, and there is hardly any resistance at all. The following are 8 signs that the futuristic control freak agenda of the globalists is rapidly moving forward…

#1 Starting in September, the EU will “mandate” that all member states offer a “digital identity wallet” to all of their citizens and businesses…

The European Union will mandate digital identity under eIDAS 2.0, which will go into effect in September 2023 and ensure all Member States offer a digital identity wallet (DIW) to citizens and businesses. According to the European Commission, “At least 80% of citizens should be able to use a digital ID solution to access key public services by 2030.”

#2 A system of “digital fingerprints” for Americans has suddenly become Barack Obama’s biggest issue…

Former President Barack Obama suggested in a new interview the development of “digital fingerprints” to combat misinformation and distinguish between true and misleading news for consumers.

Obama sat down with his former White House senior adviser David Axelrod for a conversation on the latter’s podcast, “The Axe Files,” on CNN Audio. During the interview, Axelrod noted he’s seen “misinformation, disinformation, [and] deepfakes” targeting Obama.

#3 A UN policy brief that you can find right here is proposing a global system of digital identification that is linked to our bank accounts…

Digital IDs linked with bank or mobile money accounts can improve the delivery of social protection coverage and serve to better reach eligible beneficiaries. Digital technologies may help to reduce leakage, errors and costs in the design of social protection programmes.

#4 The World Health Organization has adopted “the European Union (EU) system of digital COVID-19 certification” and plans to transform it into a “global system”…

In June 2023, WHO will take up the European Union (EU) system of digital COVID-19 certification to establish a global system that will help facilitate global mobility and protect citizens across the world from on-going and future health threats, including pandemics. This is the first building block of the WHO Global Digital Health Certification Network (GDHCN) that will develop a wide range of digital products to deliver better health for all.

“Building on the EU’s highly successful digital certification network, WHO aims to offer all WHO Member States access to an open-source digital health tool, which is based on the principles of equity, innovation, transparency and data protection and privacy,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “New digital health products in development aim to help people everywhere receive quality health services quickly and more effectively”.

#5 Federal agencies in the United States have been purchasing massive amounts of information about U.S. citizens from data brokers, and we are being warned that such information could potentially be used for “blackmail, stalking, harassment and public shaming”…

Federal agencies are secretly accumulating mountains of data that could be used for “blackmail, stalking, harassment and public shaming” of American citizens.

That allegation doesn’t come from a pink-haired civil-liberties fanatic — it’s in a new report for the nation’s chief spymaster, Avril Haines.

#6 It has been revealed that the Pentagon has been using very creepy online tools in order to “covertly track, locate and identify anyone expressing dissent or even dissatisfaction with the actions of the U.S. military and its leadership”…

In a shocking report published by The Intercept on June 17, details have emerged of a U.S. national security surveillance strategy to covertly track, locate and identify anyone expressing dissent or even dissatisfaction with the actions of the U.S. military and its leadership.

The measures, undertaken by the Army Protective Services Battalion, fall under their remit of safeguarding top generals from “assassination, kidnapping, injury or embarrassment.”

#7 As I discussed yesterday, the UN has developed a global fact-checking system known as “iVerify” in conjunction with big tech companies and Soros-funded organizations. The goal is to be able to police “disinformation” and “hate speech” all over the planet…

The United Nations has unveiled an “automated” fact-checking service to counter so-called disinformation and hate speech on the internet in a project partnered with Big-Tech and Soros-funded organisations.

In response to what they brand as “online information pollution”, which they claim is a “global challenge”, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has launched its iVerify platform to counter alleged disinformation and hate speech online.

#8 The IMF is publicly admitting that it is constructing “a global CBDC platform” for all of the national central bank digital currencies that will soon be rolled out…

During a presentation at a conference in Morocco, Kristalina Georgievahe the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced that the global body is “working hard on the concept of a global CBDC platform.”

Georgieva declared that Central Bank Digital Currencies need to be interoperable between countries, noting “If we are to be successful, CBDCs could not be fragmented national propositions.”

“To have transactions more efficient and fairer, we need systems that connect countries,” Georgieva continued, adding “In other words, we need interoperability.”

If you can read through that entire list without becoming extremely alarmed, I don’t know if there is any hope for you.

The globalists are building a worldwide digital control grid which would potentially give them unprecedented power over the lives of every man, woman and child on the entire planet.

Under such a system, if you insist on being a rebel, your access to the digital system could be revoked completely.

What would you do then?

How would you survive if you could not buy, sell, get a job or open a bank account?

The extremely advanced technology that we possess today has allowed us to do a lot of really good things, but it also has the potential to be used to impose tyranny on a global scale.

We must resist these changes that the globalists are trying to impose on us.

Unfortunately, most Americans are not even talking about these changes, and that is because the mainstream media is telling them to focus on other things.

What Is A Miracle? Here Are 7 Characteristics.

The greatest miracle that ever occurred happened in the very first verse of the Bible — Genesis one. God created the heavens and the earth. If God could speak the universe into existence, create the universe Ex-Nihilo — out of nothing, could He part the Red Sea? Can He raise a man from the dead? Of course! That’s child’s play for Him! If God exists, and he does, then miracles are possible. There have been countless accounts of them.

What is a miracle?

Richard Purtill, a philosophy professor at Western Washington University, defines a miracle this way:

“A miracle is an event brought about by the power of God that is, a temporary exception to the ordinary course of nature for the purpose of showing that God has acted in history."

A miracle is:

1. Supernatural

Miracles are supernatural events. Not events brought about by human power. True miracles are brought about by God.

2. Immediate

When Jesus healed people, the results were always immediate. He didn’t say to the paralytic, “You’ll be well in a few days.” No. He said, “Pick up your mat and walk.” He called Lazarus to come out of his grave and he did…immediately. To the woman who touched His robe, He said, “Your faith has healed you,” and she was healed immediately. When Peter cut off the ear of Malchus in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus healed his ear immediately. Each of Jesus’ healings was immediate.

3. Rare and unpredictable

A miracle by definition is an exception. Because of this, we can’t expect, predict, or demand one. We can’t predict the activity of God. Miracles are only due to His will.

4. Can’t be tested by scientific means

Miracles can’t be investigated by the usual scientific methods since we can’t control the variable and perform experiments. Science measures and evaluates the natural world. Not the supernatural world.

5. Promotes good and glorifies God

A miracle will always promote good and never promote evil, because God is good. Miracles are never for show. They have the distinct purpose of glorifying God and pointing man to Him.

6. More than astonishing

A magician can perform an astonishing act that can be reduced to natural means — sleight-of-hand. But a miracle is a rare, supernatural event that demonstrates divine power.

7. Not a contradiction

God cannot do the impossible or illogical. But there are some events that are physically impossible for humans, but not physically or logically contradictory for God. For example, it’s physically impossible for a man to walk on water. But there’s nothing self-refuting about this idea for God, and He can do it.

In light of the above information, it is necessary to re-evaluate events that occur that may be God’s provision, but not a miracle. For example, my husband was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) one year ago. He went through chemotherapy and had many hurdles to cross before he could receive the bone-marrow transplant necessary to save his life. We, and thousands along with us, prayed before each hurdle to be a success for him. Each one turned out to work in his favor. He had his bone-marrow transplant last November and is now cancer free and thriving. Was his healing a miracle? No, because it was not immediate. He was healed over a period of months. However, with all of the hurdles he had to cross, and all the tests, and procedures, that could have gone wrong, but went perfectly, we know without a doubt that his healing was certainly God’s provision.

We give glory and thanks to God every day for healing him.

What is the purpose of a miracle?

The purpose of a miracle is to point to and confirm a message from God, or a messenger of God, like the prophets. The story of Elijah at Mt. Carmel is an example. You can read about that in 1 Kings 18.^[3]

Are all miracles from God?

We know that the supernatural world is not all good. There are angels and demons. If Satan exists, and he does, he is a supernatural being with the ability to use miraculous powers to deceive us.

Counterfeit miracles

How can we tell the difference between a miracle from God and a counterfeit miracle from Satan?

Miracles from God

1. Causes one to think more highly of God.

2. Tell the truth.

3. Promote moral behavior.

4. God gets the glory here.

A counterfeit miracle from Satan

1. Glorifies the person performing the miracle.

2. Often associated with error or immoral behavior.

3. May not be immediate, instantaneous, or permanent.

Do miracles still happen?

Craig Keener is just one of many authors who recount miracle stories. Keener wrote a two-volume set (Miracles, The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts) on miracles that is 1,000 pages long with hundreds of accounts of miracles that have happened all over the world in our time.

If we believe that miracles can’t happen, maybe what we’re really saying is that miracles never happened to those who said they did, and that those people were just gullible. That is a patronizing and wrong view. Miracles are out of the ordinary and attention-getting in any era of history. God’s goal is to get our attention.

When Jesus rose from the dead 2,000 years ago, that was an epic event. It was so shocking that no one would have believed it unless there were witnesses. But guess what? There were over 500 eyewitnesses who saw Jesus after His resurrection in addition to His own disciples. The point of the resurrection was to prove that Jesus was who He said He was. Many who were skeptics believed after He rose from the dead.

Why do miracles happen to some people and not others?

We don’t understand why God heals some people and not others. Sometimes God intervenes in a way that amazes us. Sometimes it’s a healing or a provision where someone gets a check in the mail for the exact amount required at just the right time.

When my husband was sick, I never assumed that God would heal him. I didn’t know what God was going to do. But I knew what He was capable of, and I knew what I wanted Him to do. God healed my husband by providing the necessary means. It was God’s provision.

God’s provision can be just as obvious to us as a miracle is an obvious interruption to our laws of nature. When we see it, it points to God just as clearly as a miracle. It gives God the glory and causes us to see God for whom He is — just, loving, merciful, and abounding in grace. When it doesn’t happen, we need to trust that God knows what He is doing.

I will conclude with a quote from Tim Keller:

“We modern people think of miracles as the suspension of the natural order. But Jesus meant them to be the restoration of the natural order. The Bible tells us that God did not originally make the world to have disease, hunger, and death in it. Jesus has come to redeem where it is wrong and heal the world where it is broken. His miracles are not just proofs that He has the power, but also a wonderful foretaste of what He is going to do with that power. Jesus’ miracles are not just a challenge to our minds, but a promise to our hearts that the world we all want is coming.”

Throw All the Bums Out.

I don't think the federal government will exist in its current form much longer. The reason is simple: if Marxist globalists get their way, then sovereign U.S. powers will continue to be unlawfully delegated to the U.N., the WHO, and other international monstrosities until some Obama-type tyrant is ruling over us all from Turtle Bay or a stately castle outside Brussels. If freedom-minded people succeed in reining in the federal government and reimposing the Constitution's limited delegation of powers, then the monstrosity that is already with us will radically diminish or disappear. Either the current beast lording it over us will transform into something even more menacing, or it will be sapped of its blood-thirst for unconstitutional overreach and brought to heel. For what it's worth, my vote is for the Price Is Right option: the whole D.C. menagerie should just be spayed or neutered.

As we stand right now, the federal government functions as an extra-constitutional and largely illegitimate system that usurps the individual states' respective sovereignties, infringes the American people's personal rights, and betrays the spirit of our country's foundations in liberty.

Our Union came into existence only because the former colonies were assured that they would maintain their freedom and independence. Had the Articles of Confederation or their successor, the U.S. Constitution, sought to extinguish the individual states' inherent sovereignties by replacing their discrete political powers with those of a single new nation, then no agreement to form a Union would have ever been reached. The colonies did not fight a war for their independence from an empire only to squander their victory and become part of another empire.

Quite the contrary, the individual states maintain a political stature on par with foreign nations such as France and Spain; it is only in the specifically enumerated powers delegated to the federal government that federal authority supersedes the states' own. That word "delegated" is important. The federal government's power does not spring from thin air, but rather is derived from specifically listed authorities delegated to it from the states and the people. The American people and the individual states are the origin of all legitimate power, and the federal government exists only so long as the people and the states continue to lend their own innate powers to breathe life into an otherwise powerless system. Before the Civil War, the idea that an American was a citizen of the United States would have been as absurd as an American today being a citizen of the United Nations. Americans are citizens of their respective states, and the states belong to the Union.

Because history and civics are no longer taught in school, the federal government has worked a self-serving linguistic voodoo that has allowed it to pretend that the birth of the United States was the birth of a brand new nation. In actuality, we are a federation of independent states that magically became a single nation before inexplicably becoming a borderless empire.

If we were still abiding by the Constitution, then 99% of today's federal government would be chucked to the bottom of the Potomac. As James Madison wrote in The Federalist Papers (No. 45):

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.

In other words, the individual states and the American people delegated a small number of powers (there are only eighteen enumerated legislative powers in Art. I, Sec. 8) to a jointly directed government that would provide for the states' common defenses, represent the states in negotiations with other nations, and regulate foreign commerce among the states. That's it. All other powers, as the Ninth and Tenth Amendments make clear, remain with the individual states and the people.

The plain meaning of the U.S. Constitution and the Founding Fathers' copious essays and personal correspondence all attest to their intention to keep the federal government small, limited in authority, and deferential to the states. Instead, we have today the largest, most expensive, most powerful central government that has ever existed on Planet Earth. No detail of an American's life is too small for the federal government not to regulate; no nuclear confrontation is too risky or military alliance too great for D.C.'s permanent "ruling class" not to unilaterally undertake. The federal government insists on controlling the rain puddles on our land, the political speech that we may voice, the health care we may receive, the appliances in our homes, and the fruits of our labor. The Constitution vests none of these powers in the federal government; they represent illegitimate power-grabs, yet the government has legalized its illegitimacy anyway.

The idea was simple: divide the federal government into three branches that would compete against one another, let the state legislatures control the U.S. Senate, and let the people choose their representation for the House. Instead, the branches conspired with one another to become bigger and more powerful, the Seventeenth Amendment turned the Senate into a ruling aristocracy, and the imposition of political parties gave private corporations control over who would pretend to represent the people. In order to sidestep the Constitution's limitations completely, the federal government invented a fourth branch — the administrative State — that acts with the combined powers of the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Branches while operating beyond the reach of the people. In order to preserve these illegitimate powers, the federal government then invented an unaccountable Intelligence Community that spies on and bullies ordinary Americans.

Within the Constitution's "checks and balances," the people have three principal powers to use against the federal government: their vote, their free speech, and their Second Amendment right to defend themselves against tyranny. Today, elections are not trusted, the federal government censors political speech and dissent, and there is an ongoing effort to deprive Americans of their firearms. The federal government has stolen the people's power.

The individual state governments, bought off or intimidated into submission long ago, have largely remained quiet. It is as if someone told the states to play dead, and they complied.

The remedy to all this nonsense has always been straightforward: nullification. In the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions arguing against the constitutionality of the Alien and Sedition Acts, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison insisted that the states have a duty to reject acts of Congress not authorized by the Constitution's enumerated powers. "[W]here powers are assumed which have not been delegated," Jefferson wrote, "nullification ... is the rightful remedy." Alexander Hamilton — a staunch supporter of centralized government — agreed and warned that should Congress exert authority beyond its "constitutional powers," its actions are "merely acts of usurpation and will deserve to be treated as such."

What we need is a movement of people who recognize that nullification is not only possible, but necessary. The problem is that Americans have been forced to choose between two private corporations posing as political parties that do not embrace a duty to protect Americans' freedom and liberty. That is perhaps the most telling symptom of our current problems. A Union that was formed to protect the people's inalienable rights and liberties has no political party addressing those foundational concerns on the national stage.

Perhaps it is time to throw all the bums out, so that we may begin representing ourselves.