In a recent Rasmussen Reports poll, 53 percent of Americans agreed with the Roger Stone statement that there is “a group of politicized thugs at the top of the FBI who are using the FBI … as Joe Biden’s personal Gestapo.” Over half of Americans think the bureau is turning into the Gestapo, and Director Wray still doesn’t see the need for reform. That includes 25 percent of Democrats and 70 percent of Republicans who view the FBI unfavorably.
The fact that we have two justice systems, one for Democrats and another somewhat harsher one for Republicans, is no longer debatable. That fact is far more settled than climate change science. Anyone who disagrees needs to explain the difference in the treatment of Hillary’s mishandling of classified documents, and Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents.
The classified materials on Hillary’s bathroom server were verified as among our most closely held secrets, and were almost certainly accessed by foreign actors. The documents in Trump’s basement were reportedly declassified and were secured per FBI instructions, in a building guarded by the Secret Service. And yet no search warrant has ever been served on the Clinton estate.
The FBI has been a key player in the creation of our two-tiered justice system with its dogged pursuit of Republicans, and its willful blindness to Democrat infractions. The bureau has become the Democrat party enforcer, and the public recognizes it now.
Spare me the argument that the rot only exists at the top – the rank-and-file agents are patriotic Americans faithfully upholding the law. Balderdash! If the vast majority of agents are working in compliance with their oath, where are the whistleblowers? All agents are sworn to defend the Constitution from enemies foreign and domestic. Doesn’t an attack on the constitutionally protected liberties of our citizens constitute a domestic attack on our system of government – on our Constitution? The well-intentioned field agents should be screaming bloody murder. But except for a very few, it’s crickets.
Congressman Jim Jordan claims to have been contacted by a dozen or so (he’s being intentionally vague for obvious reasons) FBI whistleblowers. That is 12 people out of 35,000 employees. One out of every 2917 FBI employees are willing to come forward – anonymously. Only .034 percent have voiced concerns to congress about the state of the bureau. To put it another way, 99.97 percent of FBI employees are keeping their mouths shut, regardless of the oath they have taken. That makes them part of the problem. There is simply no evidence to support the claim that the rot exists only at the top.
Now that the FBI’s war on the Republicans has broken our criminal justice system, it’s time for a little battle damage assessment. Has the FBI redirected America onto a course that will satisfy them in the long term?
Can any law enforcement agency be effective when over half of the citizens it is charged to serve, don’t trust it. Are people who don’t trust the FBI likely to help it with its mission to investigate crimes? Will they report crimes to an organization that they consider Joe Biden’s personal Gestapo? Will they provide witness testimony in support of arrests made by the Gestapo?
If people refuse to cooperate, is it going to take a grand jury subpoena to talk to any potential witnesses? What if, “I’m asserting my constitutional right to not comment” becomes the public’s standard answer to any FBI question, at any time? Canvassing for potential witnesses will get rather slow, no?
What will happen to the FBI’s conviction rate when 53 percent of jurors don’t believe the testimony of its agents? Will it be harder to achieve “beyond a reasonable doubt” when testifying agents are part of Biden’s Gestapo? If 6 out of 12 jurors don’t trust the FBI, what is the likelihood that 1 out of 12 will refuse to return a guilty verdict? Does the recent Whitmer kidnapping case provide any insight into where juror distrust leads?
What happens when half of the judges don’t believe the affidavits that the FBI presents to them? Will the issuance of arrest warrants, search warrants, or surveillance authorization be affected?
Will the FBI be able to obtain timely support from local law enforcement? Will requests for assistance be enthusiastically supported or ignored, denied, and slow walked?
How does the FBI’s future look when 25 percent of Democrat and 70 percent of Republican congressmen have stopped trusting the bureau? What happens when those numbers reach 50 and 90 percent respectively? Will loss of congressional support create any risk to the FBI’s mission, funding, or staffing?
As effectiveness wanes, how many unsolved crimes will it take before the FBI is no longer relevant at all?
I’ve seen enough about the FBI’s behavior that I’m among the untrusting half of Americans. I’m a law-abiding citizen and haven’t even had a traffic violation in over 40 years. I am not a defund the police fool. But if an FBI agent knocks on my door to ask about a crime I may or may not have seen, my response is going to be the same as Michael Flynn’s should have been.
I have nothing to say until I talk to my lawyer and find out what my legal obligations are. He will likely say that I have no obligation to say anything to agents standing on my doorstep. He’ll advise me that if I get a grand jury subpoena, I have to show up, but I still don’t have to say anything. If I don’t say anything, I’ll never find myself in a perjury trap such as the one that snared General Flynn.
If I’m summoned to be a juror at a criminal trial, the prosecutor better have evidence that doesn’t depend on the integrity of FBI special agents. “Their word against someone else’s” becomes a much harder assessment when neither party is presumed to be credible.
The Whitmer kidnapping trial should be a warning claxon to the FBI. Jurors are beginning to consider that the FBI rather than the defendant may be the guilty party.
The bureau has already lost the confidence of half of American citizens. That confidence will continue to tank with every:
- 66 year-old man and his wife dragged out of their home in their pajamas at gunpoint
- Republican put in handcuffs at an airport for the filming pleasure of CNN
- Democrat crime dismissed as disinformation
- Crime created so it can be solved
- Parent targeted as a terrorist threat
- Standard of conduct violated
The FBI has already lost half of the people it is sworn to protect – and it’s showing no interest in stopping its decent into irrelevancy.
The reality is that the FBI can’t be effective without the trust of the American people. Its leadership and a majority of its field agents are rendering our “premier law enforcement agency” … premier no more. When the bureau’s credibility and effectiveness craters, we’ll no longer have any use for it – and those in the FBI will have only themselves to blame.
This article appeared previously on American Thinker.
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If the split is at 53% about the thugs, the attitude toward the FBI is split around political desires, and that means, to me at least, that the agency definitely has no good place in our country, unless we are starting to become another East Germany, or the Soviet Union. Contrary to popular belief, there is no 50-50 split in the beliefs of our citizens about the Constitution and justice. But, it is close enough for liars to fool enough people enough of the time to make one believe it is.
I do not care for the use of the term, “Gestapo” in this article. I do not feel that it accurately reflects the FBI’s current loyalties and political backdrop. I feel a more accurate term to describe them is the Staatssicherheitsdienst, also known as the Stasi. The Stasi and the Gestapo both had similar methodologies for their operations however, the Gestapo existed to support the Nazis and the 1,000 year Reich. The Stasi on the other hand, existed to support the GDR (German Democratic Republic), a communist state. Clearly, the current thugs running this government more closely resemble communists than Nazis. JMHO.
Your argument makes sense. But Gestapo is the term that Rasmussen used in their poll.
Actually, the New Left is kind of a fusion of the two–the two different flavors of Totalitarian Statism thrown into a meatgrinder and blended into a toxic new sausage. Many years ago, Michael Savage had a writeup on this worth the read in “Liberalism Is A Mental Disorder” and “The Enemy Within.”
The incestuous relationships between Big Gov and Big Corp (Tech and Finance in particular) are much closer to the Wilson-Hitler-Mussolini “administrative/corporatist state” tradition.
Doesn’t matter the label. Totalitarian is still totalitarian. Heinz ketchup is Hunt’s catsup, or a store brand catsup. All the same thing made of tomatoes.
Years ago in a history class I was taught that the political spectrum is not a straight line from left (Liberal) to right (Conservative). Rather, it is a circle.
If you start at the top and go counterclockwise you go towards liberalism, then socialism, then just before you reach the bottom is communism.
If you start at the top and go clockwise you move toward reactionary, then conservatism, then just before you reach the bottom is fascism.
No matter which direction you go, we are heading for the bottom.
You’re trying to split the difference between national socialism and international socialism, between the narrow mustache and the wide mustache. It’s a distinction without a difference.
We need to question and analyze the entire FBI. Good, real agents need to be re-assigned to LEGITIMATE agencies. Other agents and DIRECTORS need to be fired and stripped of their retirements (and some put in prison) to protect our republic.
NEVER TRUST THEM AGAIN. Never talk to them again without a legitimate lawyer.
It’s so sad what they have become!!!!
We need a Department of Justice THAT can be TRUSTED to complete this task.
No one has to report crimes to the FBI
THEY MAKE THEM UP!
Doesn’t anyone else see the common thread here…. all the problems can boil down to…. LAWYERS. Most politicians and FBI agents are LAWYERS. Shakespeare had it right. “The first thing we do,” said the character in Shakespeare’s Henry VI, is “kill all the lawyers.” While it is an extreme view, the answer may be merely limiting their opportunities to influence government/society.
Yep. I had a t-shirt in college with that phrase on it. I was a cj major.
Simple, make holding a Bar card a DQ for non-judicial office.
I’ve been saying what this author asserts for years now. It galls me when I hear Sean Hannity talk about, “A few bad apples on the 7th floor”.
It’s much deeper, and far more pervasive than that. These agents (like most people) will always look out for their own best interests first, and sacrificing their jobs and pensions for the sake of doing the right thing runs counter to that instinct we all have for self preservation. In reality, a person willing to risk throwing it all away in the name of truth and justice is a special kind of individual; a rarity among the general population. As such, there is really no hope for the FBI as it is presently constituted. You could no more reform this corrupt organization than you could reform the Gestapo to which they have been compared.
I completely agree. It makes me mad every time he says it. And he says it nearly every time he mentions the FBI. If it were true, the rot would have been cleaned up years ago.
Count me among the 53%.
I have friends that have retired from the FBI. They say they got out within a year of each other and told me, at different times, that they actually saw the “writing on the wall” and bailed when they could.
I am one of the 53 percent, and so are they…
One of my gun-board buddies is still on the inside, part of the 53% and is counting the days until he can take his pension and run.
If you’re reading this, you’re no doubt asking yourself, “Why did this have to happen?” The simple truth is that it is complicated and has been coming for a long time. The writing process, started many months ago, was intended to be therapy in the face of the looming realization that there isn’t enough therapy in the world that can fix what is really broken. Needless to say, this rant could fill volumes with example after example if I would let it. I find the process of writing it frustrating, tedious, and probably pointless… especially given my gross inability to gracefully articulate my thoughts in light of the storm raging in my head. Exactly what is therapeutic about that I’m not sure, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
We are all taught as children that without laws there would be no society, only anarchy. Sadly, starting at early ages we in this country have been brainwashed to believe that, in return for our dedication and service, our government stands for justice for all. We are further brainwashed to believe that there is freedom in this place, and that we should be ready to lay our lives down for the noble principals represented by its founding fathers. Remember? One of these was “no taxation without representation”. I have spent the total years of my adulthood unlearning that crap from only a few years of my childhood. These days anyone who really stands up for that principal is promptly labeled a “crackpot”, traitor and worse.
While very few working people would say they haven’t had their fair share of taxes (as can I), in my lifetime I can say with a great degree of certainty that there has never been a politician cast a vote on any matter with the likes of me or my interests in mind. Nor, for that matter, are they the least bit interested in me or anything I have to say.
Why is it that a handful of thugs and plunderers can commit unthinkable atrocities (and in the case of the GM executives, for scores of years) and when it’s time for their gravy train to crash under the weight of their gluttony and overwhelming stupidity, the force of the full federal government has no difficulty coming to their aid within days if not hours? Yet at the same time, the joke we call the American medical system, including the drug and insurance companies, are murdering tens of thousands of people a year and stealing from the corpses and victims they cripple, and this country’s leaders don’t see this as important as bailing out a few of their vile, rich cronies. Yet, the political “representatives” (thieves, liars, and self-serving scumbags is far more accurate) have endless time to sit around for year after year and debate the state of the “terrible health care problem”. It’s clear they see no crisis as long as the dead people don’t get in the way of their corporate profits rolling in.
And justice? You’ve got to be kidding!
How can any rational individual explain that white elephant conundrum in the middle of our tax system and, indeed, our entire legal system? Here we have a system that is, by far, too complicated for the brightest of the master scholars to understand. Yet, it mercilessly “holds accountable” its victims, claiming that they’re responsible for fully complying with laws not even the experts understand. The law “requires” a signature on the bottom of a tax filing; yet no one can say truthfully that they understand what they are signing; if that’s not “duress” than
what is. If this is not the measure of a totalitarian regime, nothing is.
How did I get here?
My introduction to the real American nightmare starts back in the early ‘80s. Unfortunately after more than 16 years of school, somewhere along the line I picked up the absurd, pompous notion that I could read and understand plain English. Some friends introduced me to a group of people who were having ‘tax code’ readings and discussions. In particular, zeroed in on a section relating to the wonderful “exemptions” that make institutions like the vulgar, corrupt Catholic Church so incredibly wealthy. We carefully studied the law (with the help of some
of the “best”, high-paid, experienced tax lawyers in the business), and then began to do exactly what the “big boys” were doing (except that we weren’t steeling from our congregation or lying to the government about our massive profits in the name of God). We took a great deal of care to make it all visible, following all of the rules, exactly the way the law said it was to be done.
The intent of this exercise and our efforts was to bring about a much- needed re-evaluation of the laws that allow the monsters of organized religion to make such a mockery of people who earn an honest living. However, this is where I learned that there are two “interpretations” for every law; one for the very rich, and one for the rest of us… Oh, and the monsters are the very ones making and enforcing the laws; the inquisition is still alive and well today in this country.
That little lesson in patriotism cost me $40,000+, 10 years of my life, and set my retirement plans back to 0. It made me realize for the first time that I live in a country with an ideology that is based on a total and complete lie. It also made me realize, not only how naive I had been, but also the incredible stupidity of the American public; that they buy, hook, line, and sinker, the crap about their “freedom”… and that they continue to do so with eyes closed in the face of overwhelming evidence and all that keeps happening in front of them.
Before even having to make a shaky recovery from the sting of the first lesson on what justice really means in this country (around 1984 after making my way through engineering school and still another five years of “paying my dues”), I felt I finally had to take a chance of launching my dream of becoming an independent engineer.
On the subjects of engineers and dreams of independence, I should digress somewhat to say that I’m sure that I inherited the fascination for creative problem solving from my father. I realized this at a very young age.
The significance of independence, however, came much later during my early years of college; at the age of 18 or 19 when I was living on my own as student in an apartment in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. My neighbor was an elderly retired woman (80+ seemed ancient to me at that age) who was the widowed wife of a retired steel worker. Her husband had worked all his life in the steel mills of central Pennsylvania with promises from big business and the union that, for his 30 years of service, he would have a pension and medical care to look forward to in his retirement. Instead he was one of the thousands who got nothing because the incompetent mill management and corrupt union (not to mention the government) raided their pension funds and stole their retirement. All she had
was social security to live on.
In retrospect, the situation was laughable because here I was living on peanut butter and bread (or Ritz crackers when I could afford to splurge) for months at a time. When I got to know this poor figure and heard her story I felt worse for her plight than for my own (I, after all, I thought I had everything to in front of me). I was genuinely appalled at one point, as we exchanged stories and commiserated with each other over our situations, when she in her grandmotherly fashion tried to convince me that I would be “healthier” eating cat food (like her) rather than
trying to get all my substance from peanut butter and bread. I couldn’t quite go there, but the impression was made. I decided that I didn’t trust big business to take care of me, and that I would take responsibility for my own future and myself.
Return to the early ‘80s, and here I was off to a terrifying start as a ‘wet-behind-the-ears’ contract software engineer… and two years later, thanks to the fine backroom, midnight effort by the sleazy executives of Arthur Andersen (the very same folks who later brought us Enron and other such calamities) and an equally sleazy New York Senator (Patrick Moynihan), we saw the passage of 1986 tax reform act with its section 1706.
For you who are unfamiliar, here is the core text of the IRS Section 1706, defining the treatment of workers (such as contract engineers) for tax purposes. Visit this link for a conference committee report
(http://www.synergistech.eom/1706.shtml#ConferenceCommitteeReport) regarding the intended interpretation of Section 1706 and the relevant parts of Section 530, as amended. For information on how these laws affect technical
services workers and their clients, read our discussion here (http://www.synergistech.com/ic-taxlaw.shtml).
SEC. 1706. TREATMENT OF CERTAIN TECHNICAL PERSONNEL
(a) IN GENERAL – Section 530 of the Revenue Act of 1 978 is amended by adding at the end thereof the following new subsection:
(d) EXCEPTION. – This section shall not apply in the case of an individual who pursuant to an arrangement between the taxpayer and another person, provides services for such other person as an engineer, designer, drafter, computer programmer, systems analyst, or other similarly skilled worker engaged in a similar line of work.
(b) EFFECTIVE DATE. – The amendment made by this section shall apply to remuneration paid and services rendered after December 31, 1986.
Note:
“another person” is the client in the traditional job-shop relationship,
“taxpayer” is the recruiter, broker, agency, or job shop.
“individual”, “employee”, or “worker” is you.
Admittedly, you need to read the treatment to understand what it is saying but it’s not very complicated. The bottom line is that they may as well have put my name right in the text of section (d). Moreover, they could only have been more blunt if they would have came out and directly declared me a criminal and non-citizen slave. Twenty years later, I still can’t believe my eyes.
During 1987, I spent close to $5000 of my ‘pocket change’, and at least 1000 hours of my time writing, printing, and mailing to any senator, congressman, governor, or slug that might listen; none did, and they universally treated me as if I was wasting their time. I spent countless hours on the L.A. freeways driving to meetings and any and all of the disorganized professional groups who were attempting to mount a campaign against this atrocity. This, only to discover that our efforts were being easily derailed by a few moles from the brokers who were just beginning to enjoy the windfall from the new declaration of their “freedom”. Oh, and don’t forget, for all of the time I was spending on this, I was loosing income that I couldn’t bill clients.
After months of struggling it had clearly gotten to be a futile exercise. The best we could get for all of our trouble is a pronouncement from an IRS mouthpiece that they weren’t going to enforce that provision (read harass engineers and scientists). This immediately proved to be a lie, and the mere existence of the regulation began to have its impact on my bottom line; this, of course, was the intended effect.
Again, rewind my retirement plans back to 0 and shift them into idle. If I had any sense, I clearly should have left abandoned engineering and never looked back.
Instead I got busy working 100-hour workweeks. Then came the L.A. depression of the early 1990s. Our leaders decided that they didn’t need the all of those extra Air Force bases they had in Southern California, so they were closed; just like that. The result was economic devastation in the region that rivaled the widely publicized Texas S&L fiasco. However, because the government caused it, no one gave a shit about all of the young families who lost their homes or street after street of boarded up houses abandoned to the wealthy loan companies who
received government funds to “shore up” their windfall. Again, I lost my retirement.
Years later, after weathering a divorce and the constant struggle trying to build some momentum with my business, I find myself once again beginning to finally pick up some speed. Then came the .COM bust and the 91 1 nightmare. Our leaders decided that all aircraft were grounded for what seemed like an eternity; and long after that, ‘special’ facilities like San Francisco were on security alert for months. This made access to my customers prohibitively expensive. Ironically, after what they had done the Government came to the aid of the airlines with
billions of our tax dollars … as usual they left me to rot and die while they bailed out their rich, incompetent cronies WITH MY MONEY! After these events, there went my business but not quite yet all of my retirement and savings.
By this time, I’m thinking that it might be good for a change. Bye to California, I’ll try Austin for a while. So I moved, only to find out that this is a place with a highly inflated sense of self-importance and where damn little real engineering work is done. I’ve never experienced such a hard time finding work. The rates are 1/3 of what I was earning before the crash, because pay rates here are fixed by the three or four large companies in the area who are in collusion to drive down prices and wages… and this happens because the justice department is all on the take and doesn’t give a fuck about serving anyone or anything but themselves and their rich buddies.
To survive, I was forced to cannibalize my savings and retirement, the last of which was a small IRA. This came in a year with mammoth expenses and not a single dollar of income. I filed no return that year thinking that because I didn’t have any income there was no need. The sleazy government decided that they disagreed. But they didn’t notify me in time for me to launch a legal objection so when I attempted to get a protest filed with the court I was told I was no longer entitled to due process because the time to file ran out. Bend over for another $10,000 helping of justice.
So now we come to the present. After my experience with the CPA world, following the business crash I swore that I’d never enter another accountant’s office again. But here I am with a new marriage and a boatload of undocumented income, not to mention an expensive new business asset, a piano, which I had no idea how to handle. After considerable thought I decided that it would be irresponsible NOT to get professional help; a very big mistake.
When we received the forms back I was very optimistic that they were in order. I had taken all of the years information to Bill Ross, and he came back with results very similar to what I was expecting. Except that he had neglected to include the contents of Sheryl’s unreported income; $12,700 worth of it. To make matters worse, Ross knew all along this was missing and I didn’t have a clue until he pointed it out in the middle of the audit. By that time it had become brutally evident that he was representing himself and not me.
This left me stuck in the middle of this disaster trying to defend transactions that have no relationship to anything tax- related (at least the tax- related transactions were poorly documented). Things I never knew anything about and things my wife had no clue would ever matter to anyone. The end result is… well, just look around.
I remember reading about the stock market crash before the “great” depression and how there were wealthy bankers and businessmen jumping out of windows when they realized they screwed up and lost everything. Isn’t it ironic how far we’ve come in 60 years in this country that they now know how to fix that little economic problem; they just steal from the middle class (who doesn’t have any say in it, elections are a joke) to cover their asses and it’s “business-as-usual”. Now when the wealthy fuck up, the poor get to die for the mistakes… isn’t that a clever, tidy solution.
As government agencies go, the FAA is often justifiably referred to as a tombstone agency, though they are hardly alone. The recent presidential puppet GW Bush and his cronies in their eight years certainly reinforced for all of us that this criticism rings equally true for all of the government. Nothing changes unless there is a body count (unless it is in the interest of the wealthy sows at the government trough). In a government full of hypocrites from top to bottom, life is as cheap as their lies and their self-serving laws.
I know I’m hardly the first one to decide I have had all I can stand. It has always been a myth that people have stopped dying for their freedom in this country, and it isn’t limited to the blacks, and poor immigrants. I know there have been countless before me and there are sure to be as many after. But I also know that
by not adding my body to the count, I insure nothing will change. I choose to not keep looking over my shoulder at “big brother” while he strips my carcass, I choose not to ignore what is going on all around me, I choose not to pretend that business as usual won’t continue; I have just had enough.
I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt; it will take nothing less. I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are. Sadly, though I spent my entire life trying to believe it wasn’t so, but violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer. The cruel joke is that the really big chunks of shit at the top have known this all along and have been laughing, at and using this awareness against, fools like me all along.
I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different. I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well.
The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.
Joe Stack (1956-2010)
02/18/2010