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We’re not short on takes about the search (or whatever you wanna call it) at Mar-a-Lago this week; but one can’t ever get enough of people who know what they’re talking about when it comes to something as big as this!
Ricochet’s old friend Andy McCarthy joins to provide just that kinda commentary. He gives some essential vocab clarifications; lays out the charges he believes the Justice Department is actually seeking; and ponders how and when the ethos of the agency went awry – and how he thinks it could be brought back.
Also, Peter recounts how he felt right at home on the range. Plus he and James chat about the shows they “have to” watch and the stuff they can live without.
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It was a Panty Raid!
?
Related to what you guys are saying, I wish somebody with Ricochet’s sensibilities would set up a podcast where they interview people that are sort of heretical to the GOP. A big variety of people. Steve Deace, Pedro Gonzalez, David Stockman, Michael Malice, the Michael Anton orbit, whoever steps into Angelo Codavilla’s shoes, Charlie Kirk, people from the Mises institute etc.
Ha! That’s pretty well done.
Correct!
It’s good to have Peter Robinson back, and I’m looking forward to getting Rob Long back from his balcony…Beginning with that wonderful moose story was fine idea. The moose was clearly a conservative–or at least a libertarian. Otherwise, it might have broken Peter Robinson’s window, charged in, and served him with a search warrant.
I am a regular reader of Andy McCarthy, who is so very good at explaining legal matters to us non-lawyers! Thank you!
That video clip is not “well done.” If one’s intent is deception don’t leave the 2-year-old primary ticker at the bottom of the screen.
Thus, Robert Barnes would be better.
Picky picky.
I’m thinking that there are people who are going to believe it — in spite of the freeze-frames on DeSantis.
Perhaps “well done” in the sense that a good effort was made. We’re not expecting Industrial Light and Magic, are we?
Robert Barnes would be a great get.
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It’s been that way for at least two years if not longer. Here’s a podcast discussing the weaponization of federal law enforcement from a Border Patrol agent. If you want to understand what’s happening, as @kedavis said, you need to ask those who’ve been on the inside recently.
https://conservative-daily.com/cd-livestream/fmr-border-patrol-agent-todd-watkins-on-irs-arming-agents-to-kill-americans-huge-trump-fbi-raid-update
The scary thing is that I have more editing power in my office computer set up than I did at any of the broadcast stations I ever worked for. And scarier yet is the relative unsophistication of the people who soak this stuff up.
And it’s not about becoming more sophisticated, either. It’s about “owning” someone online. And you tell by the language they use. When someone looks at, say a Project Veritas video, and uses the phrase “selectively edited,” I usually ask them if they believe the mainstream networks “randomly edit” their reports on the evening news. Of course not. All editing is selective.
And if they answer that the MSM doesn’t edit to deceive I usually offer to sell them a previously NBC-owned Chevy pickup truck.
You and I are the same age, Peter. The movie Grease came out when we were 21, not in jr. high. ;-)
It’s like when someone would describe one of Trumps cabinet officials (usually the AG) as “hand-picked”. Like most Presidents get their cabinets assigned to them by someone else.
I like the implication that everything was fine during the J. Edgar Hoover years because they were before the 90’s. I watched The Departed the other day. Read up on Whitey Bulger when you have the time.
I like McCarthy, but it’s become clear no one whose career and reputation and tied up with the DOJ will do anything significant towards reform.
Years ago a guy left the New York state legislature and gave as a reason that the longer you stay there the more you lose your sense of outrage. Thus McCarthy was too long in the old boy network of the DOJ/FBI where all the prosecutors/persecutors of Republicans are ‘straight shooters’ who he’s known for a long time starting with Patrick Fitzgerald who tortured Scooter Libby for years while knowing all along it was someone else. Injustice is fine as long as all the papers are filed correctly.
And any election that is “certified” is inherently unquestionable. Just ask GR, among others.
Wait wait . . . did people think the guy who created that fake DeSantis video was trying to fool DeSantis fans or DeSantis haterz?
I thought it was the latter, and he wanted to see how many fish he hooked with the obvious fake.
The pro-Trump faction in the Republican Party is much larger than the anti-Trump faction.
You’ll have to do better than that. At least provide a link. I did a Google search and I did get back that one FBI agent got caught taking a $200,000 bribe. I didn’t click on the link, so I don’t know whether he went to prison or not.
On Olivia Newton-John, I actually saw her in concert in March 1975, in a small town in eastern New Mexico. I was a senior in high school. At the time, she was just getting started in the USA, and was popular on the country charts. She had already broken out as a popular singer in the UK and Australia. It was about two years later before she broke out of country and became mainstream.
I posted this reminder on a high school alumni group, and a lot of people remembered that. Though the concert was twenty miles a way from our town, a lot of classmates went to it.
James’s comparision of Newton-John to Doris Day is interesting, but it kind of breaks down. For one thing, Doris Day’s remembrance endures in a way Newton-John has not been. It’s unusual that someone with a nice-girl image like Day’s would be remembered as much as she has been.
Perhaps it’s because Day’s nice girl image was more mainstream at the height of her popularity, whereas Newton-John’s popularity was when nice was getting less respect.
There used to be a poster of her in the NY Subway stations that was so beautiful that it was actually painful to look at and not be able to touch her.
Arguably, every FBI person involved with this case should be in prison. Were there 200? Maybe.
https://ricochet.com/1298594/the-fbi-is-corrupt-to-its-core/
And everyone involved in the Roger Stone raid, boats , helicopters , SWAT , really?
The safe deposit boxes one might be arguably worse, since it’s all about money and they knew it from the start.
On J. Edgar Hoover’s time at the FBI. Hoover is one of the few people that held headed a powerful bureaucracy for decades (the FBI is still actually called a bureau, maybe the last federal agency that does). There are very few people in the federal government that have.
Other people that come to mind are Hyman Rickover, the head of the Navy’s nuclear power program, and Anthony Fauci. Perhaps you can add Douglas MacArthur too, though his longevity in the Army wasn’t in one place or position.
Getting back to Hoover. For most of the FBI’s existence under Hoover, it had a reputation as incorruptible when local police agencies did not. That reputation extended from the 1920’s until at least the mid to late 1960’s. Most of his corruption didn’t come out until after he died in 1972.
Lately, I’ve been thinking of the difference between Hoover’s FBI and today. First, today’s FBI isn’t associated with one person the way that it was to Hoover. Because of his longevity, and his status as its de-facto founder, he was able to run it as his own fiefdom. He also tended to publicize himself in a way that today’s FBI heads cannot. When I was growing up, everyone knew who J Edgar Hoover was. Today, the head of the FBI does not become a household name.
But here’s the thing about Hoover, versus today’s hierarchy at the FBI. Hoover was bi-partisan. He intimidated politicians (blackmailed?) of both parties that chose to cross him. He was dedicated to the institution he headed, and yes, his own aggrandizement. And mostly he used the FBI to go after what he considered the enemies of the United States, whether they be domestic, such as organized crime, terrorist organizations like the Weatherman, or, yes, Martin Luther King, who he may not have considered an enemy, but who he was deeply suspicious of.
The point I’m trying to make is that despite his flaws, he was still a patriot and he wasn’t partisan in the way he involved the FBI in politics.
I don’t feel that’s the case with today’s FBI. I’m not even sure that their hierarchy in Washington is all that patriotic.
I’m no fan of civil forfeiture laws and they have corrupted both local and federal law enforcement agencies.
My problem with your statement is, where’s the bribery? It’s controversial enough that civil forfeiture allows the agency to keep the money. But outright bribery is where the agents involved pocket the money, not hand it over to their agency.
The link you provided also includes a YouTube video title where they place “The FBI Lied” in scare quotes. Well did the FBI lie or not? Perhaps they did when they swore out the warrant as to intent. Did they commit outright perjury? You state that no one went to jail, but were they disciplined or fired? Did they not pay a price at all? We probably don’t know from what you provided (I didn’t watch the full video).
Civil forfeiture should be unconstitutional. A victim of that dubious legal tool should not have to sue to get their money back, the government should have to sue to keep it.
As you can tell, I’m not a fan.
But let’s get the accusations of wrongdoing right.
If you reference my post, the lie is clear. They lied about their intentions. Did you watch? If so, and you still don’t think they lied, you are being obtuse.