Earlier today the DOJ filed a civil action [see pdf here] against former National Security Advisor John Bolton for refusing to comply with the classified intelligence review prior to publishing a book.  [DOJ FILING LINK]  Perpetual warmonger John Bolton worked as NSA to President Trump from April 2018 to September 2019.

Bolton was always an odd pick for National Security Advisor given his propensity to advance mid-east wars and advocacy for military strikes against North Korea.

…”On June 7, 2020, without Defendant giving any prior notice to the NSC, press reports revealed that Defendant and his publisher had resolved to release the book on June 23, without completing the pre-publication review process. Subsequent correspondence with Defendant’s attorney confirmed that public reporting.

Simply put, Defendant struck a bargain with the United States as a condition of his employment in one of the most sensitive and important national security positions in the United States Government and now wants to renege on that bargain by unilaterally deciding that the prepublication review process is complete and deciding for himself whether classified information should be made public.”… (pdf)

An embed of the lawsuit is below:

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NBC News is taking a victory lap after their successful efforts to target their competition, The Federalist website, results in GoogleAds demonetizing the outlet. However, within the article the NBC report also implicates Google in large-scale antitrust violations.

According to NBC the outlet asked Google to take action against the Federalist. Emphasis mine:

(Via NBC News) […] The two sites, ZeroHedge and The Federalist, will no longer be able to generate revenue from any advertisements served by Google Ads.

A Google spokesperson said in an email that it took action after determining the websites violated its policies on content related to race.

“We have strict publisher policies that govern the content ads can run on and explicitly prohibit derogatory content that promotes hatred, intolerance, violence or discrimination based on race from monetizing,” the spokesperson wrote. “When a page or site violates our policies, we take action. In this case, we’ve removed both sites’ ability to monetize with Google.”

[…] Google blocked The Federalist from its advertising platform after the NBC News Verification Unit brought the project to its attention. (link)

Apparently NBC has a self-admitted division within its news operation that is specifically focused on eliminating any competition.  To accomplish this objective NBC requests Google to target and remove revenue from their competition.  An alignment of self-serving interest based on ideology.  This is only one example of an unlawful antitrust violation.

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Comrade Lightfoot explains why the Chicago Ministry of COVID Compliance needed to cancel the days-off for all police officers, and extend all shifts to 12 hrs per day.

According to the Chicago Mayor, the city will be deploying “Social Distancing Ambassadors” to help citizens accept their social responsibility.  The monitors will assist the public remaining disengaged from human contact as the Ministry begins permitting citizens to exit the confines of their homes.  Drone enforcement could likely assist.

No word on the specifics, but Chicago scientists have apparently identified a hybrid form of the virus that will attack outdoor residents who enter a six foot danger-zone in proximity to another person.  The ministry has determined Blue state residents are safe at distances exceeding 6 feet.  However, inside that zone, at 4 or 5 feet or less, the virus creates a rapid death spiral and attacks with increased ferocity.  It is currently unknown why the proximity strain of the virus responds differently in Red states.

Blue State proximity infection is dangerous. Unless, of course, the proximity variable is influenced by the third factor of vegetables or groceries; which have been identified as generating a safe zone as outlined in local supermarkets.  As a consequence, jogging without groceries requires the proximity police, aka “Social Distancing Ambassadors.”

According to city officials, these new exterior compliance officers should help reduce the influx of residents currently jogging in grocery stores.  Remember, we are all in this together; and to prove how critical this is to the fabric of our society, we must all stay apart.

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There is considerable conversation, on all sides of the issue, surrounding a 6-3 supreme court decision today recognizing “gay” and/or “transgender” persons as being protected by the 1964 civil rights act under the definition of “sex”.  Factually, the decision authored by Judge Gorsuch writes those terms into the legislative definition; that’s a problem.

However, that said, for all practical purposes and intents, sexual orientation has been a protected employment category -as viewed by the Dept. of Labor and EEOC- since the mid-90’s. So some of the over-the-top exclamations, in both directions, are moot amid the world of practical application.

As to the issue of SCOTUS usurping the legislative responsibility for the practical wording of law, yes, this ruling is an issue, and Judge Alito is absolutely correct in all corners of his dissent.  Justice Gorsuch has opened a can of worms for downstream consequences unrelated to employment eligibility; and a myriad of potential future cases based on gender orientation are likely to flow to the court; so the big picture is problematic.

All arguments surrounding the issue of SCOTUS writing legislation through the delivery of opinion are merited and worthy.  However, on the specific application of ‘gender’ to employment eligibility, today’s ruling was already in place.  Amy Howe has a good encapsulation at SCOTUS Blog:

“Today the Supreme Court, by a vote of 6-3, ruled that even if Congress may not have had discrimination based on sexual orientation or transgender status in mind when it enacted the landmark law over a half century ago, Title VII’s ban on discrimination protects gay, lesbian and transgender employees. Because fewer than half of the 50 states currently ban employment discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation, today’s decision is a major victory for LGBT employees.”

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Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has previously down-played the violence, looting and riots in the city; while simultaneously telling city aldermen they were over-hyping the problems and issues within the city.  Oddly enough Mayor Lightfoot said this while begging the looted merchants not to abandon the city… so that was always an odd juxtaposition.

Today, the contradiction gets even more weird as the entire Chicago police department; you know, those horrid people Lightfoot previously disparaged and said were unneeded; are now required to work their day’s-off and extend to 12 hour shifts.

CHICAGO – Chicago police officers on Sunday were once again ordered to work 12-hour shifts and have their days off canceled amid some protesting that has persisted in parts of the city following George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police nearly three weeks ago.

[…] Until further notice, Chicago officers who are on active duty and not on vacation will have to work the 12-hour shifts — a normal shift is about 8½ hours — and come in on their days off, the Chicago police spokesman, Luis Agostini, said Sunday morning. (read more)

Isn’t the purpose of ‘defunding‘ the police, essentially to have less policing? Apparently Chicago is doing the ‘defunding‘ thing backwards.

Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson appears on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo to discuss his committee investigation into what the U.S. intelligence apparatus was doing during the 2016 election, transition, and first two years of President Trump’s tenure in office.

It’s a good interview, and chairman Johnson outlines additional subpoenas that his committee is submitting to compel testimony and gain documents.  However, it’s now mid-June 2020.

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Comrade Cuomo is threatening to take enforcement action on behalf of the New York state Ministry of Coronavirus Compliance.

Today, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is threatening “state enforcement action” against the citizens of New York for engaging in economic activity, violating his social distancing rules, not wearing masks and having “parties” against his COVID compliance dictates….

“Enforce the law or there will be state action”

Which is more than a little ironic considering the same Andrew Cuomo previously ruled out “state enforcement action” against riots, violence, looters and arsonists.

Rioting and looting don’t warrant state enforcement, but forget to wear a mask or stand too close to your cousin and there will be hell to pay.   Good luck trying to square that circle of stupidity.

I’m reposting a prior research outline below because something odd is happening in the background of this story. I’m not sure what it is, but there are small -seemingly disconnected- issues surfacing, that might tie back to this much bigger and purposefully avoided story.  I have learned to trust my instincts on this.

♦One – The FISA reauthorization legislation was dropped by Nancy Pelosi and all media conversation immediately vaporized.
♦Two – Crowdstrike is very concerned about this story every time it surfaces.
♦Three – If you understand the scale and scope of surveillance… does that explain the behavior of some people today [legislative (politicians), judiciary (judges), Pentagon (military)].

Are black files being used in 2020?

With the release of recent transcripts and the declassification of material from within the IG report on the Carter Page FISA, there is a common misconception about how the intelligence apparatus began investigating the Trump campaign. In this outline we hope to provide some deep source material that will explain the origin, and specifically why those inside the Intelligence Community began using Confidential Human Sources.

During the time-frame of December 2015 through April 2016 the NSA database was being exploited by contractors within the intelligence community doing unauthorized searches.

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National Economic Council Chairman Larry Kudlow appears for a Sunday interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper on the topic of the economy, recovery and re-opening.  Tapper has to pretend not to know things, like how an extra $600/week (COVID unemployment) is a real disincentive for people to return to work.

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White House Chief Economic Advisor to President Trump, Kevin Hassett, discusses the status of the U.S. economy and the difference between Red State and Blue State economic growth.  As Hassett notes the Blue states have an intention to hold down the economy.

Always the happy warrior, Hassett walks through the data of tracking COVID-19 cases and notes there is no correlation between the level of economic activity in an area, region or state and the scale of positive test results for the virus.  This is a key point.

On the potential for a phase-4 economic relief package, Mr. Hassett notes any legislative action requested by the White House would be very detailed and targeted down to specific tax policy for specific industry. There is no spending package being considered by the White House; instead they are looking at targeted tax relief to assist.  WATCH:

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On a completely unrelated note Kevin Hassett is the kind of common sense advisor that all presidents’ would be fortunate to work with.  He approaches the issues from a very pragmatic and reasonable direction, and is not prideful about saying a policy impact is unknown and should be monitored and adjusted in real time.  We’re lucky to have him.

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