How Biden Got Suckered by Putin

Many Americans of my generation—born early 1950s—have been living with Bob Woodward our entire adult lives. You think I’m speaking figuratively, but in my case it’s literally true: Way downstairs in a "Nixon cupboard" are my original hardback copies of All the President’s Men (1974) and The Final Days (1976); up on a third-floor Supreme Court shelf is The Brethren (1979); in a second floor study are Veil (1987), The Choice (1996), and Shadow (1999), plus Fear (2018) and Rage (2020); in an "FBI basement" bookcase is The Secret Man (2005); here in the office I work in are Obama’s Wars (2010) and The Price of Politics (2012). There are another 10, on subjects ranging from John Belushi to Alan Greenspan, which I don’t own.

Suffice it to say that Robert U. Woodward has been a ubiquitous presence in American life ever since the Watergate summer of 1972. That’s quite a career. Indeed, Woodward may well be the most consequential journalist in American history, eclipsing long-ago names like Scotty Reston and Joe Alsop, whom almost no one nowadays will remember, or even his famous onetime boss, Ben Bradlee. Remember, in the 1976 movie based on his first book, Robert Redford played Woodward, Jason Robards played Bradlee.

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Targeting citizens for their beliefs: The SHOCKING truth about government weaponization



Weaponization of the government’s power against its opponents and even its own citizens has been steadily growing worse and for a reason.

FBI whistleblower Steve Friend is well aware as to why that is.

“To set the foundation for it, you have to go back to Barack Obama assuming office in 2009. So, a Kamala Harris presidency would mean 20 years. That’s an entire government career, a full generation of hiring that has gone across every single agency,” Friend tells Steve Deace of “The Steve Deace Show.”

“Now you have 20 years of ideologies,” he continues, adding, “and that’s how you’re getting things like McDonald's the other day, who had one franchise allow him to do one photo opportunity and then we had an E. coli breakout, CDC all over that one, and then the United States senators accusing them of price gouging and driving the stock share price down.”



Not only did the government jump at the chance to punish McDonald’s for allowing a photo op with a political opponent, but citizens across the country have fallen victim to the FACE Act.

“In the Biden administration, it’s been applied more than any other presidential administration in history,” Friend explains. “92% application towards pro-lifers, not people who were subject to fire bombings at their crisis pregnancy centers.”

“People do not know exactly the powers that are at their fingertips,” Friend continues. “They have the ability to have an assessment from the Patriot Act, which means that they can open up an investigation on any American for an articulable purpose. Don’t need probable cause of a crime.”

Deace is rightfully disturbed.

“In other words, you’re describing investigations in search of crimes. Not criminal investigations, but investigations in search of crimes. That’s what you’re describing,” Deace says.

“Find me a man, and I’ll show you the crime,” Friend agrees.

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The Decline of the Rust Belt and the Loss of Community

My immediate Pittsburgh neighbors believe we live on perhaps the loveliest block in Squirrel Hill, a street so semi-rural that it lacks sidewalks but hosts a seemingly 24-7 population of young deer. I don’t disagree, but I also know that I live in the Mon Valley, a.k.a. Steel Valley, named for the huge river—Monongahela—that allowed it to host America’s premier industrial powerhouse for many decades.

Now it’s mostly all gone. Many mornings you can smell that the coke works is still active up the Mon in Clairton, and E.T.—the Edgar Thomson Works—still produces steel in Braddock. But mainly it’s just memories and memorials, like the Homestead bar named for the long-gone Duquesne Works, Dorothy Six.

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Why Michelle Obama Could Not STAND Barack Obama | @PatGray

Why Michelle Obama Could Not STAND Barack Obama | @PatGray

'Trump was right': New FBI texts show agents 'scrambling' over evidence of Russian collusion



As then-President-elect Donald Trump was preparing to assume office in January 2017, the FBI was "scrambling" to put together evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 election, new texts from an FBI employee involved in the probe into former national security adviser Michael Flynn show.

The texts were made public Thursday as part of a court filing from Sidney Powell, the attorney leading Flynn's legal defense team, Sean Davis and Mollie Hemingway first reported for the Federalist. Newsweek also reported that the text messages from two unnamed FBI staffers discussed President Barack Obama's intelligence briefing on Jan. 5, 2017, noting that Trump "was right" about the FBI delaying the briefing with Obama to have more time to build their case.

"What's the word on how [Obama's] briefing went?" one text from an FBI staffer stated.

"Don't know but people here are scrambling for info to support certain things and it's a mad house," the reply from his colleague said. "Trump was right. Still not put together... Why do we do this to ourselves. What is wrong with these people."

On Jan 3, 2017, Trump speculated that the reason for the briefing's delay until Friday, Jan. 5, was because the FBI did not have its case on Russian interference in the election completely put together for President Obama.

The "Intelligence" briefing on so-called "Russian hacking" was delayed until Friday, perhaps more time needed to build a case. Very strange!
— Donald J. Trump (@Donald J. Trump)1483492492.0

The president has variously referred to allegations of Russian collusion against members of his 2016 campaign team and interference in the election to help him defeat 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton as a "hoax" and suggested that President Obama and members of his administration committed "treason."

After the intelligence briefing, Obama asked Vice President Joe Biden, FBI Director James Comey, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, and national security adviser Susan Rice to stay behind to discuss Flynn, who was under investigation for alleged ties with Russia.

Hemingway previously reported for the Federalist that memos written by Comey during the meeting indicated the contents of the infamous Steele dossier were discussed at the intelligence briefing. Comey's memos mentioned that CNN had obtained the dossier, which is now known to contain false allegations against Trump and disinformation from Russian intelligence. The memos said CNN was looking for a "news hook" to report the salacious allegations used to obtain a FISA court warrant to investigate Carter Page. CNN reported claims from "classified documents" that "Russian operatives claim to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump" on Jan. 10, 2017, five days later.

Hemingway, Davis, and other critics of the Obama administration claim this intelligence briefing was used as a pretext to give CNN and others a reason to report the allegations of Russian collusion from the Steele dossier, damaging the credibility of the Trump administration, throwing into question the legitimacy of Trump's election, and providing Democrats ammunition to use in an impeachment effort against Trump.

Members of the Obama administration have denied the allegations. As Newsweek recounted, Rice and Yates said Obama was concerned about sharing classified information with Flynn given the FBI probe looking into him and wanted to know if the information being shared as part of the presidential administration transition should be restricted.

On Aug. 5, 2017, Yates testified under oath that neither Obama nor Biden attempted to influence the FBI's investigation of Flynn or the Russia probe. "During the meeting, the president, the vice president, the national security adviser did not attempt to in any way to direct or influence any investigation," she said.

Additional FBI text messages indicate agents involved in the Russia probe purchased "liability insurance" for their protection.

From The Federalist:

"[W]e all went and purchased professional liability insurance," one agent texted on Jan. 10, 2017, the same day CNN leaked details that then-President-elect Trump had been briefed by Comey about the bogus Christopher Steele dossier. That briefing of Trump was used as a pretext to legitimize the debunked dossier, which was funded by the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign and compiled by a foreign intelligence officer who was working for a sanctioned Russian oligarch.

"Holy crap," an agent responded. "All the analysts too?"

"Yep," the first agent said. "All the folks at the Agency as well."

"[C]an I ask who are the most likely litigators?" an agent responded. "[A]s far as potentially suing y'all[?]"

"[H]aha, who knows….I think [t]he concern when we got it was that there was a big leak at DOJ and the NYT among others was going to do a piece," the first agent said.

The agents were apparently concerned how the newly installed Trump administration and Attorney General Jeff Sessions might view the actions taken to investigate the Trump campaign.

"If that piece comes out, and Jan 20th comes around... the new AG might have some questions... then yada yada yada... we all get screwed," one agent wrote.

The text messages also show skepticism over the direction of the Flynn investigation and speculation of political motivations behind the investigations.

"[D]oing all this election research - [I] think some of these guys want a [C]linton presidency," a text message from August 11, 2016 reads.

In May 2020, the U.S. Justice Department dropped its criminal case against Michael Flynn, following the public release of documents that were unsealed in the case raising questions about the motivations behind the investigation.