RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/michael-flynn-unmasking-real-story-is-when-he-was-not-masked-in-the-first-place/

Was his call with Kislyak recorded by a different agency than the FBI?

Despite Wednesday’s blockbuster news about the dozens of Obama-administration officials who “unmasked” then-incoming Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn, there remains a gaping hole in the story: Where is the record showing who unmasked Flynn in connection with his fateful conversation with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak?

There isn’t one.

There is no such evidence in the unmasking list that acting national intelligence director Richard Grenell provided to Senators Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) and Ron Johnson (R., Wis.). I suspect that’s because General Flynn’s identity was not “masked” in the first place. Instead, his December 29 call with Kislyak was likely intercepted under an intelligence program not subject to the masking rules, probably by the CIA or a friendly foreign spy service acting in a nod-and-wink arrangement with our intelligence community.

Intelligence Collection Under FISA
“Unmasking” is a term of art for revealing in classified reports the names of Americans who have been “incidentally” monitored by our intelligence agencies. Presumptively, the names of Americans should be concealed in these reports, which reflect the surveillance of foreign targets, primarily under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Broadly speaking, FISA governs two kinds of intelligence collection.

The first is “traditional” FISA — the targeted monitoring of a suspected clandestine operative of a foreign power. If the FBI shows the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) probable cause that a person inside the United States is acting as a foreign power’s agent, it may obtain a warrant to surveil that person. If the foreign power’s suspected agent communicates with Americans, the latter are incidentally intercepted even though they are not the targets of the surveillance.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/05/15/the-moral-busybodies-strike-again/

There’s a weird cognitive dissonance happening right now that is as revealing as it is alarming.

Just as we learn more details about all the ways Barack Obama and his henchmen weaponized powerful federal agencies to punish Donald Trump, Americans, oddly, are surrendering their own power to the same type of god-like government authorities under the guise of the common good.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive,” C.S. Lewis wrote. “It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

The effort to stop coronavirus, much like the attempt to stop Donald Trump, has been presented by ardent defenders as their call to duty, a selfless act undertaken not to gratify their lust for power but to protect the public’s best interest.

There is no discernible difference between the high-minded hectoring of former FBI Director James Comey and that of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer—their decisions are above scrutiny because, as they often scold their lesser subjects, these decisions are made for your own good. (“Everything I’m doing is trying to save your life,” Whitmer just said in an interview.)

Lies, Lies, and More Lies

Let’s begin with what now is appropriately called Obamagate.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/05/the_coronavirus_fifth_column.html

As left-wing Democrat-controlled states continue to keep people in lockdown, it is becoming apparent that they are using the pandemic as a means to gain ultimate control of people’s lives.

In fact, leftists the world over are exploiting the pandemic in order to create their alleged utopias.  Vanessa Vallejo, a Colombian activist and columnist explains that

Whenever they come to power, communists work hard to create a clientele network that will vote for them and support them in the future. So instead of looking for real solutions to lift people out of poverty altogether, they offer them subsidies or useless jobs where citizens are dependent on politicians. At the same time, they make life difficult for entrepreneurs, resulting in more and more unemployed people who can be hooked into their clientele network. Many of them will not be able to get subsidies, but plunging them into poverty will make them easy prey to convince so long as the government offers them aid and blames right-wing entrepreneurs and politicians for their misery.

Sound familiar?  This is happening all across the United States.  The governors of states like Michigan, New York, New Jersey, California, and Pennsylvania continue to hold people hostage to their dictatorial impulses.

After all, “[c]ompanies have been forced to close, people cannot leave their homes so they can not ‘seek’ income on their own, many are sick or have sick relatives, and in this crisis, they have no way to pay the expenses raised by the calamity. In just a few weeks, government spending and the people who need help have both increased dramatically because people have lost their jobs.”