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Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria was Josef Stalin’s marshal of the Soviet Union.   In 1921, Beria was chosen for the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage—the infamous Cheka—the new Soviet Union’s secret police in charge of eliminating “enemies of the state,” and he became known for the violent methods he employed. By maneuvering Georgia to succumb to centralized Bolshevik control, Beria rose to the position of chairman of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs, known as the NKVD, in the region.and the ruthless head of the secret police, the NKVD.  (Paragraph source:  https://www.biography.com/people/lavrentiy-beria-21345281)

Beria reportedly said, “Show me the man, I’ll find you the crime.”

Beria began with a presumption “the man,” any and every man, was guilty of something.  In the absence of evidence of “the crime,” Beria would simply fabricate evidence to prove “the man’s” guilt of something.  Then he would order “the man” executed or imprisoned.  “The man’s” actual guilt of anything was meaningless.  It was enough that Beria, Stalin, and others believed him to be an enemy of the state.

Beria would likely have been proud of the methods employed by Deputy US Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, US Representative Adam Schiff, and US Representative Jerrold Nadler and others to try and find a reason, any reason at all, to prosecute or at least impeach and remove Donald J. Trump for daring to win the 2016 election and be sworn in as President of the United States.  It appears to me they began with “a man” whom they wanted to remove or drive from office, and then they began the process of trying to find evidence, any evidence at all that would support a process, any process, to remove him.

I’d say Rosenstein, Schiff, and Nadler would look right at home in Beria’s uniform.

On Monday, March 11, 2019, The Washington Times published an online article headlined Support for Trump dwindles among ICE officers.

The article succinctly outlines the allegation of the National ICE Council, the union that represents ICE officers, that “… President Trump … has failed to follow through on his get-tough [campaign] promises, saying catch-and-release of immigrants living illegally in the U.S. is not only still happening, but has gone into ‘overdrive’.”

The article refers to a letter from leaders of the National ICE Council addressed to President Trump expressing their explicit concerns.  Here are links to each of the four pages in the letter:

Page 1     Page 2     Page 3     Page 4

This sounds like a letter of desperation from ICE officers.  For them (or more accurately, the National ICE Council representing them) to go directly to the President and over the heads of ICE Acting Director Ron Vitiello and DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is a very remarkable act suggesting ICE’s lack of confidence in both Secretary Nielsen and Acting Director Vitiello.  More importantly, it informs the President of the obvious friction between ICE officers and their counterparts in the Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection.

Often these types of letters are never seen by the President.  This one should reach him unfiltered and unedited by DHS or White House staff.  If the allegations in the letter by National ICE Council members are timely and accurate, then the Senate should not just rubber-stamp its approval for Vitiello’s appointment and the President should have a private discussion with Secretary Nielsen.

If the letter does make it to the President’s desk, I hope he reads it and takes appropriate action.

If you’re seriously interested in better understanding the issues, policies, and practices that are covered by the very broad umbrella term “border security,” then I strongly recommend you obtain a copy of a entitled Border Security, Second Edition.  The second edition was revised and copyrighted in 2018.

Because this was written primarily as an almost 500-page academic university textbook, it does not place sole emphasis on terrorism or illegal migration.  Neither is it driven by some political agenda.   It is written for colleges and universities that have or may be contemplating homeland security programs as either standalone programs or incorporated  in political science, anthropology, journalism, or sociology courses.

However, it is very expensive.  From Amazon the cost of the trade paper book plus tax and shipping was nearly $78.00.

Being the cheapskate that I am and before deciding to buy the book for myself, I obtained it through the Hayden Library via interlibrary loan from Central Carolina Community College.   That’s a very good way to try before you buy.

Rather than risk violating copyright by scanning and including the 8-page detailed Contents, I’ll just list the chapters and titles. (more…)

President Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, testified to Congress again this week.  In a few weeks, Cohen will be headed off to federal prison for three years or so after being convicted of lying to Congress in preceding testimony.  And based on his testimony this week, House members Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows have requested the Attorney General open an investigation into their allegations that Cohen perjured himself once again.

Now, readers might reasonably ask, “Why in the world would Michael Cohen lie under oath again this past week when he’s toddling off to Hotel Chez Fed?”

The answer may well have been provided in January in a Facebook post by a Trump official and Cohen friend, Lynne Patton, who works in the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

In her Facebook post, Patton reportedly said, “What many of you may not be aware of is the fact that I can personally confirm that the ONLY reason Michael Cohen ‘turned on’ the President of the United States is because Mueller threatened to throw his wife in jail for up to 30 years.”  Patton’s post reportedly went on to explain, “[Cohen’s wife]  is the co-guarantor of a $20M personal loan that Mueller discovered Michael secured back in 2015 by falsely inflating the value of his taxi medallions—effectively making her part & parcel to the federal charge of ‘Making False Statements to a Financial Institution,’ to which Cohen ultimately plead guilty.”

If this report is accurate and complete, then Mueller and the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York may have offered Michael Cohen this deal:  Give us information that will either let us convict President Trump of a crime or at least allow our Democrat friends in Congress to impeach the President of the United States or your wife will spend a long time in jail.

Of course, Mueller and the USA of SDNY would insist that Michael Cohen’s information would have to be verifiable and factual.  Wouldn’t they?

Well … we are talking about pretty much the same US Department of Justice that appears to have submitted falsified by omission affidavits to the FISA court to get illegal warrants to violate the civil rights of Carter Page in order to put the squeeze on him in much the same manner they’ve squeezed Michael Cohen.

We better hope that Attorney General William Barr is honest and diligent about ferreting out dishonest and corrupt attorneys and other officials inhabiting various offices of the US Department of Justice.  It’s getting more and more difficult for we, the people, to say convincingly as John Adams did that we have established a government of laws and not of men.

Readers may recall that in January of this year, a group of high school students from Covington Catholic High School in Covington, KY, were visiting national monuments in Washington, DC.  Some of the students, including plaintiff Nicholas Sandmann, had purchased MAGA caps as souveniers and were wearing them.

During their visit, the students were approached by various demonstrators and were racially and politically derided by anti-Trump demonstrators.

Several of the national skews media including the Washington Post newspaper repeatedly reported the circumstances inaccurately, incompletely, and in a way that incorrectly suggested the high school students were the instigators.

Subsequently, one of the students (Sandmann) and his parents contacted a private attorney who investigated the incident and found sufficient reason to allege that the Washington Post had defamed Nathan Sandmann and damaged his reputation.

Fox News is reporting that on Tuesday, February 19, 2017, the attorney filed a lawsuit alleging defamation against the Washington Post.  The lawsuit was filed in Kentucky.  Here is a link to the complaint filed today in the lawsuit NICHOLAS SANDMANN, by and through his parents and natural guardians, TED SANDMANN and JULIE SANDMANN, Plaintiffs, v. WP COMPANY LLC d/b/a THE WASHINGTON POST, Defendant.

The complaint outlines the events and timeline of events explaining why this lawsuit was filed on behalf of Nicholas Sandmann.  In particular, it explains how his reputation has allegedly been damaged by the defendant, the Washington Post.  If you take the tine to read the complaint (it is pretty much written in plain English rather than outdated formal legalese), you will get a much better understanding of what it is important to prove in court during a defamation lawsuit.

As noted on the webpage of Hemmer DeFrank Wessels, PLLC, the Kentucky law firm who, along with Georgia attorney Lin Wood, are representing the plaintiff, “Lin [Wood] and Todd [McMurtry] will continue to bring wrongdoers before the court to seek damages in compensation for the harm so many have done to the Sandmann family. This is only the beginning.”

“This is only the beginning,” is a pretty good indication that other lawsuits may be filed against other news media and even some entertainment personalities whose prominence and permanence may have added to the damage of Nicholas Sandmann.

Remember this image I used on several of the OpenCdA posts in 2009-2011?   It was intended to be a catchy graphic to get Idahoans to pay attention to the really sloppy bordering on incompetent maintenance and administration of Idaho’s election laws by then Secretary of State Ben Ysursa, the Idaho Legislature, and lazy county clerks like then Kootenai County Clerk Dan English.  (If you’re interested, you can read my paper prepared in 2011 entitled The Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, City Election Contest Lawsuit, 2009-2011.)

Why, you might reasonably ask, am I dredging up ancient sewage?

Well, in 2016 we had a national general election in which the person expected to be elected President, a Democrat, was soundly defeated.  Practically before the votes had been tallied, there were allegations that the Russians had colluded with the winner’s campaign to manipulate the outcome of the election.

Rather than producing evidence supporting those allegations, two Congressional committees’ evidence has shown that to the extent there was “collusion” with the Russians, it was almost certainly done by the Democrat loser and her campaign even with unsettling official government support from the US Department of Justice and its investigative arm, the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Moving on.   In 2018, states held mid-term elections, and lo and behold, there is now developing some strong evidence supporting an allegation of unlawful ballot manipulation in North Carolina’s general election.    The investigation is ongoing, but it appears more and more likely that the state will find evidence to support a new election for one of its Congressional House seats.

With the recent confirmation of William Barr to be the new US Attorney General (replacing the feckless former Fool on the Hill and Alabama US Attorney Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III), there is hope that the DoJ will be subjected to a thorough housecleaning before it has an opportunity to sully the 2020 Presidential election.

Perhaps in a race against time and in an effort to thwart any unpleasant new discoveries about DoJ preparing new insurance policies for the 2020 election, Representative John P. Sarbanes (D-MD-3) has introduced H.R. 1, For the People Act of 2019.  Rep. Sarbanes’ bill has 227 cosponsors in the House, all Democrats.

On February 1, 2019, The Heritage Foundation released its two-page summary analysis of the For the People Act of 2019.

The purpose of the For the People Act of 2019 reads, “To expand Americans’ access to the ballot box, reduce the influence of big money in politics, and strengthen ethics rules for public servants, and for other purposes.”

I wonder what Rep. Sarbanes and his cohorts entrenched in the DoJ have in  mind with “for other purposes?”

President Trump is being threatened by Democrats and Republicans for declaring that the border crisis is a national emergency.   You see, Democrats and Republicans alike both would prefer porous (if not entirely open) borders.  Makes it more convenient for the off-the-books, underpaid, and sexually exploited laborers and illegal voters to come and go freely, don’t you see?

Then on January 20, 2017,  the Great Rate-Buster, President Donald J. Trump was inaugurated.  (For those who have forgotten their high school sociology class, OxfordReference.com defines rate-buster as “An employee who is highly productive and exceeds the formally agreed rate of output for the particular task. Whilst this is advantageous for management, rate-busters are usually disliked by their colleagues because their action provides managers with the excuse to raise the rate of output for all the other employees. Typically, there is informal social regulation of work in most workgroups where rate-busting is deemed antisocial behaviour and potential rate-busters are brought into line by their work colleagues through a mixture of persuasion and coercion.”)

President Trump has already proven himself to be the “employee who is highly productive and exceeds the formally agreed rate of output for the particular task.”  Clearly, the “colleagues” who dislike him refers to many among the 535 Fools on the Hill, the skews media, and probably more than a few federal judges and Department of Justice attorneys who had been catering to and counting on a Hillary Clinton presidency for federal career advancement along with lucrative post-federal consulting jobs.

The “threat” alluded to in the first paragraph is that next time there is a Democrat President (it’ll have to be in the next 12 years, the Pre-We’re Toast Era, according to Rep. Ocasio-Cortez), el Jefe will declare everything from gun violence to climate change to ingrown toenails to be a national emergency.  Yeah, well, whatever …

Is there anyone who actually thinks a Democrat president would never have considered doing something like that but for President Trump’s declaration?  Remember  Barack “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.  If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan”  Obama?

Well, this is interesting.

Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA-13) will be the California co-chair for the 2020 presidential campaign of Senator Kamala Harris.

But wait.  Something is missing from Congresswoman Lee’s official Congressional biography.  What could it be?

Thanks to the Washington Free Beacon’s online article today, we learn a great deal more about her.  The article’s headline says it all:  Castro-Loving Congresswoman Signs On as California Co-Chair for Kamala Harris.

Lee’s recurring relationship with “Comrade Fidel” would unquestionably have brought her into contact with intelligence case officers of the Dirección General de Inteligencia (DGI) and the Departamento de Seguridad del Estado (DSE).  The DGI is Cuba’s external intelligence agency (roughly similar to our CIA), whereas the DSE is responsible for internal security and counterintelligence (similar to our FBI).

It is very likely that when Ms. Lee went to Cuba on her first visit in 1977, she was already working for Congressman Ron Dellums from California.  That would have made Ms. Lee of particular interest to the DGI.   The DGI would certainly have assessed her for any intelligence value she might have, including her being in a position of significant influence then or later in her political career.

So why haven’t our ever-vigilant skews media shown as much interest in Congresswoman Lee’s association with Fidel and his DGI as they have with the business relationship of President Trump with Russia?  The DGI is a very capable intelligence service.  Fidel trusted its case officers and operatives to export Fidel’s Cuban Revolution to Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the United States.

Apparently Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi thinks very highly of Congresswoman Lee, too.  Pelosi created a leadership position in the House for Lee.

Fidel’s pal Barbara is moving up in the world, and you can be absolutely certain that the DGI and its associates at the Russian Federation’s External Intelligence Service (FSV) are taking notice.

One of the most frequently-heard objections to President Trump’s proposed border wall goes something like, “Well, the wall won’t stop everything and everyone.”  Usually that objection or some variation of it is made by ignorant and uninformed elected or appointed officials.  They usually utter their proclamation in an effort to deceive listeners into believing President Trump has asserted that a wall will stop everything and everyone.  He has not.

What President Trump has asserted, correctly in my opinion, is that a wall (or a series of strategically placed wall segments) complements other physical security measures which, taken together, can effectively help ICE and CBP agents interdict human traffic and contraband entering and leaving the United States illegally across the US – Mexico border.

Interdiction of illegal human traffic and contraband is a physical security function.   Laws to interdict human traffic and contraband passed by legislators are completely useless (except for generating campaign contributions and face time on Eye NitWit News) in the absence of systematic physical security measures.  Too often, however, legislators feel that their oh-so-superior knowledge of the law empowers them to prescribe and then micromanage the applications of physical security measures about which they know pitifully little.

The graphic “Physical Security System Functions” comes from a 2013 US Department of Defense publication entitled UFC 4-022-03 — Unified Facilities Criteria — Security Fences and Gates.  Though this publication does not pertain explicitly to securing our nation’s borders, it’s a good 83-page place to start to learn about the challenges, benefits, and limitations faced by the Department of Homeland Security in devising systems of physical security measures to perform that duty.

As the chart shows, the primary functions of physical security measures are to detect unlawful or potentially unlawful border crossings, then delay those illegal crossings until a timely response team can arrive to assess and then act appropriately and lawfully.

The physical security measures most applicable to any segment of the border are best determined by the CBP and ICE agents assigned to that sector, not to the Fools on the Hill in Fantasyland-on-the-Potomac.

John Solomon,  a contributing opinion writer at The Hill, today published an online story headlined Mueller hauled before secret FISA Court to address FBI abuses in 2002, Congress told.

The abuses alleged occurred during Mueller’s term as FBI Director.  Solomon’s article succinctly explains:

The sin that plagued the FBI two decades ago, and that now lingers over the Russia case, involves the omission of material facts by agents applying for FISA warrants in sensitive counterterrorism and counterintelligence cases.  [emphasis mine]

His article explains with remarkable simplicity and clarity why Mueller’s actions in 2002 have tainted any findings Mueller might offer in the Special Counsel’s investigation of alleged Russian involvement in the 2016 national elections.

Please take the time to read this article.