Below is my column in the New York Post on the recent call for a criminal investigation of journalist Matt Taibbi for perjury by the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. It all comes down to Taibbi’s mistake in adding an “A” to “CIS” – a group involved in the expanding censorship system. The allegation is completely meritless but Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI) did show that you cannot spell authoritarianism without “A.”
Here is the column:
As every elementary student is told, a single letter can change an entire thought.
Leave off an “S” and your dessert turns into a desert.
A missing “R” turns a friend into a fiend.
For journalist Matt Taibbi, the brief accidental addition of an “A” may not only have changed the identity of a group, but, according to a ranking Democrat, put the convict into the meaning of conviction.
Delegate Stacey Plaskett (D-VI), the ranking member of the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, issued a letter that accused Taibbi of possible perjury because of an error that he made, not in testimony but in a tweet he later corrected.
At issue is Taibbi referring to CISA, the government’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, when he meant to refer to CIS, the Center for Internet Security.
Plaskett’s threatening letter to Taibbi was immediately pushed on MSNBC by host Mehdi Hasan, who was shocked by the added “A” and called for the journalist to be criminally investigated for having “deliberately & under oath misrepresented” the facts.
(It was an ironic moment, as writer Lee Fang noted, given past allegations made against Hasan over false statements.)
For Taibbi, this is only the latest such unnerving moment.
When he was testifying before Congress on government censorship efforts, the IRS sent an agent to his home to look into irregularities on his taxes from years earlier.
Plaskett also attacked Taibbi in the hearing as a “so-called journalist” and said he (and another journalist witness) were “a direct threat” to the safety of others for having reported the censorship story.
And she insisted he reveal his source for his Twitter Files reporting.
Taibbi and others also objected to a demand from Federal Trade Commission Chairwoman Lina Khan for Musk to “identify all journalists” who had access to the Twitter Files.
I testified before this same subcommittee and warned the Democrats not to adopt McCarthy-like tactics in threatening and targeting critics.
Members seemed to take that warning as more of an invitation than an admonition. Immediately after the hearing, figures like former Sen. (and MSNBC contributor) Claire McCaskill denounced witnesses as “Putin lovers,” while current members accused free-speech advocates of supporting “insurrection.”
Democrats have continued to attack virtually every witness who has appeared to discuss the dangers to free speech or the need for transparency on the government’s censorship efforts.
They often attack witnesses and then refuse to let them respond. Recently, Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) used that tactic on a gun-rights advocate in cutting her off as she attempted to explain an answer.
Porter later demanded a perjury investigation as a result of the testimony.
Most chilling about Plaskett’s threatening letter and the MSNBC’s attacks is that they are entirely baseless.
Plaskett told Taibbi, “This mistake is important because, by adding an ‘A,’ you weren’t making a harmless spelling error. Rather, you were alleging that CISA — a government entity — was working with the EIP [Election Integrity Partnership] to have posts removed from social media.”
She added, “When presented with this misinformation, you acknowledged you had made ‘an error’ by intentionally altering the acronym CIS and you subsequently deleted your erroneous tweet.”
The claim that this error was “intentional” is ridiculous. Moreover, and here is the kicker, CISA is involved in the censorship efforts.
As Fang noted on Substack, the EIP listed CISA as one of its key government stakeholders and worked with CISA on censorship efforts.
But this is not about the added “A.” It’s about the loss of any sense of decency and civility in politics.
As someone who comes from a liberal Democratic family, the shock over the Democratic Party’s embrace of censorship is only exceeded by its vicious treatment of journalists and free-speech advocates attempting to expose government efforts.
Despite these attacks and the assistance of an enabling media, the evidence of the government censorship efforts has continued to mount.
We are learning of an array of grants and government-support programs to target, blacklist and censor citizens.
It’s clear Democratic members will continue to seek to intimidate witnesses and deter them from coming forward with free-speech concerns.
In these hearings, I got off light.
When I testified on the Twitter Files before the hearing with Taibbi, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) criticized me for offering “legal opinions” without actually working at Twitter.
It was akin to saying a witness should not discuss the contents of the Pentagon Papers unless he worked at the Pentagon. It was particularly bizarre because I was asked about the content of the Twitter Files.
The content — like the content of the Pentagon Papers — is “facts.” The implication of those facts are opinions.
As with an attack from Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), I was cut off like other witnesses in attempting to explain.
Members can cut off, attack and threaten criminal prosecution, but it will not work.
Censorship systems have never succeeded in destroying ideas, and jailing journalists have never stopped reporting.
That does not mean these abusive attacks will not continue or escalate.
There is a whiff of panic in these efforts as House committees force greater transparency and greater public access to this evidence.
Now it appears these efforts to shield government censorship has come down to spelling. Indeed, if Delegate Plaskett has her way, that added “A” may prove the difference between a free press and authoritarianism.
Jonathan Turley is an attorney and a professor at George Washington University Law School.
Earlier a poster on this blog said that this woman does not represent all Democrats. There are a couple of things that we do know. The first is that she represents all Democrats in congress in her statement and the second is that Democrats voted for these members of congress who want to censor and lock up reporters who expose their censorship. Unfortunately the majority of Democratic voters are onboard with the lock up the reporters movement. However, we do see some who are switching their party affiliation. Hope springs eternal.
Certainly there are many Democrats who are appalled by the party’s pro-censorship position. I know this is one of the top reasons I will not be voting for them any time soon.
“Plaskett’s threatening letter to Taibbi [. . .] called for the journalist to be criminally investigated for having ‘deliberately & under oath misrepresented’ the facts” — via an innocent spelling error.
In a recent letter to Congress requesting funding for the Virgin Islands, Plaskett wrote: “. . . *algal* blooms in the territory.” (Emphasis added.)
A schoolchild knows that “algal” is the singular; “algae” the plural.
Her intentional misinformation is not a harmless word use error. It is a willful attempt to deceive Congress, for the purpose of securing federal funding.
Impeach her. Then the pillory.
Actually, it works like this:
Algal – adjective
Alga – singular noun
Algae – plural or uncountable noun
Algore – politician with brain of one-celled plant life.
OT
Most Business Leaders Prefer Working With Millennials Over ‘Discipline Lacking’ GenZers
“Resume Builder said out of the 1,344 managers and business leaders surveyed in April, a whopping 74% said, “GenZ is more difficult to work with than other generations.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/most-business-leaders-prefer-working-millennials-over-discipline-lacking-genzers
I share Turley’s disgust at this. A few democrats and many liberals are increasing shocked at both the massive and completely unconstitutional government censorship campaign, but also the efforts of many many many democrats to whitewash. defend and often praise these illegal unconstitutional and immoral actions.
But Turley’s focus in this article is the further rhetoric of democratic politicians suggesting criminalizing those who brought this to light.
Here is where I will SLIGHTLY disagree with Turley.
Political rhetoric has become increasingly lunatic and extreme. While this effort – like ALL the increasing ends justifies the means efforts of Democrats over the past decade were LEAD by Democrats – Republicans are increasingly using the Same Alinskite tactics.
Donald Trump is so hated by Democrats – because he successfully uses the same grenade throwing tactics against them – just as Bill Clinton was so hated by Republicans because he made many republicans issues his own. He campaigned on Fiscal responsibility. He campaigned on the economy.
He wporked to reduce abortions, to reduce dependance on welfare. To cut federal programs.
Much of the very successful efforts of Clinton – some joined by republicans, were undone by Obama.
Regardless, Clinton was hated by republicans for successfully stealing their tactics. Trump is hated by democrats for successfully stealing their tactics.
The result is that our public dialogue is radically coarsened.
While that is a bad thing it is one of the painful costs to free speech and one we must pay.
The only moral means to get passed the bitter divisive grenade throwing rhetoric is for it to cease working.
And that requires voters to punish politicians who throw grenades.
That is not likely anytime soon.
Whether it is Trump threatening Journalists and others with consequences, for their speech – or the similar rhetoric of democrats such as Planket.
So long as these are only words, they are offensive, they are immoral, they are unethical, but they are protected by our first amendment.
What is NOT protected is ACTING to fulfill those threats.
Politicians should not threaten Journalists. But that is not a crime, and the punishment for such threats must come from the electorate.
But ACTING on those threats IS a crime. The Obama administration targets journalists. Something that was poorly reported, but mostly it targeted unfriendly journalists. Regardless that was wrong. it was a violation fo the first amendment, and it was a crime.
But we have doubled down on all of this.
We are learning that much of the direct government election interference as well s the government funding of election interference is the result of EO’s and programs that Obama put in place – that have been expanded under Biden.
What is most disturbing today – is NOT Plankets threats. But the very real possibility those threat will turn into action.
THAT is what Distinguishes the conduct of Trump and other Republicans from Planket and Democrats.
THAT is also what was so vile about Sen. MacCarthy 70 years ago.
Politicians threatening journalists or ordinary people for speaking on political issues is deeply offensive.
But the use of government power to make those threats reality is fascist, and undermines the social contract.
It is egregious beyond unconstitutionality.
We can not govern ourselves when those in power will use that power to punish those whose speech they do not like.
Palmerism.
Matt Taibbi must be punished for his exposure of the Deep State’s activities. The Deep State has so determined. Mr. Taibbi must be indicted, convicted, and punished.
Letters do indeed matter. Mr. Taibbi must be forced to stand on a scaffold for three hours, exposed to public humiliation, and he shall be required to wear a large scarlet “A” for the rest of his life. This mandate has so been decreed in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic novel The Scarlet Letter.
The irony escapes them that, in retaliation for Taibbi reporting on the political abuse of power to benefit the Democrat party, officials threaten to abuse their positions of authority and prosecute Taibbi.
Democrats also exercise liberal license to indulge diversity [dogma] (e.g. racism, sexism, ageism), witch hunts and warlock trials (e.g. Palmerism), human rites for fair weather progress, conflation of religion (e.g. Pro-Choice ethics) and State, shared responsibility through progressive prices, wars without borders, cargo cult science (e.g. Levine’s dreams of Herr Mengele), etc.
Tactics of intimidation can be authoritarian if such tactics achieve their intended purpose. America is no longer recognizable to me as what I was raised to think of it as a free country. The authoritarianism is on both sides of the isle despite the two sides opposing agendas, yet in a singular pursuit is servitude to whatever Wall Street desires.
Trump posted on his Truth Social account Thursday that the Supreme Court will “never find out” who leaked the draft based on its investigation, adding that it was “important that they do.”
“So, go to the reporter & ask him/her who it was,” Trump suggested. “If not given the answer, put whoever in jail until the answer is given.”
He also said: You take the writer and/or the publisher of the paper, a certain paper that you know, and you say, ‘Who is the leaker?’ National security,” Trump said at the rally. “And they say, ‘We’re not gonna tell you.’ Then [you] say, ‘That’s OK. You’re going to jail.’ And when this person realizes that he is going to be the bride of another prisoner very shortly, he will say, ‘I’d very much like to tell you exactly who that leaker [is]. It was Bill Jones, I swear, he’s the leaker.’ And we got him. But they don’t want to do that.” And according to reports the crowd wen wild.
I sure hope you did a column filled with rage about that.
I don’t know what Delegate Plaskett was thinking but she is wrong, wrong wrong but she doesn’t represent all Democrats and isn’t a “leader”. As far as I can find she cannot even vote in the House.
I suspect the SCOTUS leak was an inside job, intended to soften the blow by the time the ruling was officially made public.
Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. Whataboutism abounds. If you want to do down that route, then I can throw loads of examples the democrats have done to silence their oppositions. You can pick out one thing at a Trump rally, based on hearsay. Obama politicized these 3 letter agencies that have been censoring conservatives and libertarians with sweet deals for social media companies. That’s worth a 1000 of Trump rallies. I know, I know. These are private companies. They are not private company if they are getting tax breaks from the government. Even without that, it is a privilege to do business in our country, not a right. If a company abuses that privilege by violating our rights, they need their licenses revoked. That’s what happens in a Republic.
Plasket threatened a very real private citizen/journalist person – Taibbi, claiming that he committed a crime when there is no crime.
Trump suggested that Law enforcement should agressively seek to find an unknown but ACTUAL criminal.
And that it should use all the legal powers it has to coerce those IN GOVERNMENT who might know who the actual criminal is.
What constitutes legal moral and ethical conduct for a journalist is radically different from that of someone working at the supreme court.
Journalists are ethically and morally obligated to protect their sources – and sometimes even legally.
Government employees are ethically morally and even legally obligated to provide any information that might have regarding an actual crime.
In fact they are even ethically morally and legally required to provide all law enforcement or court requested information regarding their job.
I would further suggtest that what Trump discussed – which is p[rocedures often followed and used even against ordinary and innocent citizens by law enforcement when investigating a crime is precisely what is wrong with Plasketts remarks.
An investigation of an ACTUAL crime gives government the power to engage in many of the tactics Trump discussed.
But there is no ACTUAL crime that Plasket is addressing.
Plasket is actively seeking to repeat the unconstitutional criminal mistakes of the collusion delusion – where innocent people were subject to precisely the techniques that Trump mentioned in the investigation of something that the DOJ/FBI KNEW was a Hoax from day one.
If you wish to have a debate ast to whether law enforcement can use the powers and techniques described by Trump to investigate REAL crimes – I will be happy to have that discussion with you – Maybe we can even find common ground.
But we should be able to unanimously agree that those techniques NEVER should be used where there is NO CRIME.
That Taibbi and his associates and staff should NOT be subject to the techniquest Trump described – which whether she will admit it or not, is what Plasket is asking for when she askes for a criminal investigation.
That those targeted by the FBI/DOJ and Mueller should not have been subject to those techniques.
Taibbi and the Collusion Delusion targets were all:
Innocent Private citizens in an investigation where the investigators KNEW from the start there was no crime, Citizens who had no obligation to disclose pretty much anything about a non-crime.
Conversely those involved int eh SCOTUS leak investagation are government employees with established obligations to provide truthful information regarding their employment. And no right of privacy at all with regard to their govenrment work.
In an investigation of an ESTABLISHED crime – not a fictitious allegation.
Isn’t the most salient aspect of the modern American Left its unAmerican quality? For most of American history, Americans have recognized a common bond that persisted through crises. Even in the Civil War, soldiers of the North and South respected one another and their respective leaders; both the common soldier and General would be willing to surrender to the other side, knowing that they would not be butchered. And until recently victorious political candidates did not use the power of government to persecute their beaten or prospective opponents. We ridiculed countries where that occured. On foreign policy questions, it was said that “politics ended at the shore”. But the modern Left recognizes no common Americaness. Political opponents are simply an enemy standing in the way of achieving complete poltical power. No ethical limits need be recognized. Thus we have: Alvin Bragg; Letitia James; Stacey Plaskett; Dan Goldman; Adam Schiff; and many others. The question is whether the current Left is an aberration or whether the American psyche has irredeemedly been damaged. The answer to that question will decide whether our country can hold together. If the Left does not change, I can easily see states in the South, Midwest and West considering breaking away.
Lincoln carried out an unconstitutional war with a gun to America’s head.
Lincoln forced men to join Union armies with guns to their heads.
The “dictatorship of the proletariat” is a mean bas—-!
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“The New York Draft Riots occurred in July 1863, when the anger of working-class New Yorkers over a new federal draft law during the Civil War sparked five days of some of the bloodiest and most destructive rioting in U.S. history. Hundreds of people were killed, many more seriously injured, and Black New Yorkers were often the target of the rioters’ violence.”
– history.com
I believe it is not an aberration. It is irredeemably damaged. For proof take a look at California where one party rules. Same with Washington state, and Oregon. The list of states is longer, but these are only examples. Power is everything.
The question is whether the current Left is an aberration or whether the American psyche has irredeemably been damaged.
Sadly, I’d say the latter. To see that that’s true, ask yourself if, in your lifetime or your kids’ lifetime, you would ever again trust indispensable and once-solid institutions like national journalism, the FBI, and the national public health authorities.
There are too many congressional members in today’s illiberal Democratic Party who have moved on from being mere authoritarians to becoming their own unique brand of fascists. They promote an ideology and national movement characterized by multiple bureaucracies that serve at the direction of their singular party, suppression of opposition, strong regimentation of society and the economy, belief in government designed and coerced social hierarchies, and subordination of individual rights and interests for what their party perceives to be the good of the nation. People keep electing them and growing their number at their peril. Persons may think they are not ones who are in the sights of the party now, but given that the party’s ambitions never weaken and its vision is ever expanding it would be wise to keep alert for when it appears likely to be coming for them.
In his piece Jonathan Turley wrote: “The content– like the content of the Pentagon Papers — is “facts.” The implication of these facts are opinions. In my judgment a better ending would be “The implication of these facts are assessments.
Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI) et al. must be prosecuted, retroactively by 150 years, to the fullest extent of the law for egregious violation of the Naturalization Act of 1802.
A corrupt, phantom federal abortion right was recently struck down, retroactively by 50, years by the Supreme Court.
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Naturalization Act of 1802
United States Congress, “An act to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization,” March 26, 1790
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That any Alien being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof…
I wonder what size Jackboots she wears. They are provided as standard issue by the DPOSC. Democratic Party Of Socialist Censors. Jackboots on her feet and Handcuffs on her belt. Taibbi better watch out for that 25 cal. Tucked away in her garter belt if he knows whats good for him. Did you notice the jaunty tilt of her garrison cap.
The House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government just proved the federal government is, in fact, weaponized.
When a politician demands and facilitates a person be jailed for engaging in activity that is part of an ordinary duty of their profession or for living an ordinary life, (in other words doing nothing wrong or illegal) that politician is no longer suited for office. It is the first step toward tyranny.
It is tyranny.
The question is whether the DOJ has enough integrity left not to act on her request.
The real question is, when will the voters wake up. On Election Day their minds go blank.
Scrivener’s Terror
So you finally figured out that communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs, AINOs) in America are the direct and mortal enemies of the American thesis of freedom and self-reliance under infinitesimal self-government, the Founders, the Framers, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, Americans and America?
The communists, who were run out of Europe, ended up in New York et al., including Illinois, “The Land of Lincoln.”
To wit,
https://www.aier.org/article/was-lincoln-really-into-marx/
https://isreview.org/issue/79/reading-karl-marx-abraham-lincoln/index.html
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Ben Franklin et al. admonished you to “keep it” and to take it back.
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[We gave you] a [restricted-vote] republic, if you can keep it.”
– Ben Franklin
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“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
– Declaration of Independence, 1776
Simply goes to re-enforce the fact that a rank dirtbag has no complexion, sex, sexual preference, gender, gender/identification, socioeconomic or political identification or affiliation, religious persuasion, heritage, lineage, or national origin. One only needs to be the right peg in the right hole. Out of the gate, Plaskett has shown that she qualifies for the Adam Schiff Prize.
I like that…..the “Adam Schiff Prize”. I can be awarded to the most disgusting politician of the year.
I find it bizarre that the party which championed civil rights and, through its various organizations such as the ACLU, strongly opposed censorship in the past, is now in the position of being the main promoter of censorship in America.
But when large-scale phenomena appear bizarre, there’s usually some large-scale and hidden organizing force acting behind the scenes . . . and I don’t think this is any exception. I want to know what’s going on behind the scenes that is driving this uniform march by so many erstwhile liberals toward censorship.
I don’t believe it is the result of individual persons acting autonomously. That would be like saying a stone can roll up hill if all its molecules coincidentally move in the same direction at the same time through a random process. While as a matter of thermodynamics that may theoretically be possible, in reality it will never happen.
So the Democrats make a NON-VOTING DELEGATE, whatever the heck that means, the ranking member of the committee and then this NON-VOTING fascist moron demands that a journalist say who his sources are and threatens him with prison. The NON-VOTING arrogant impotent token should have been told that she was out of order by the chairman of the committee. Maybe they shouldn’t even have had any Democrats on the committee since we know there is precedence for doing so.
Hey NON-VOTING member of the committee, you have no power so maybe quit with the lame fascist threats.
Elon Musk was smart to give a respected journalist like left-of-center Matt Taibbi preferred access to Twitter’s records, including its communications with the White House and federal agencies. It has been interesting to watch events unfold whenever Taibbi uncovers a new example of hard-left federal officials censoring things on Twitter that they don’t like. DC Democrats have been faced with the option of responding to Taibbi’s reports by attacking him with lies or keeping quiet. Hint, they have not been keeping quiet.