Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

Government Corruption

Jan. 6 Attorney Alleges FBI Criminally Altered Evidence, Requests Special Master Review Of Leaked Messages

2023-03-14

[ET] Rogers Roots, an attorney representing Dominic Pezzola, a Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach defendant, alleged on Sunday that the FBI had committed crimes by altering evidence and requested that the court appoint a special master to review the evidence.

Roots’s move came days after the testimony of FBI Special Agent Nicole Miller, who was involved in the agency’s investigations of the Jan. 6 defendants. When cross-examining Miller, Nick Smith, an attorney representing Proud Boys member Ethan Nordean (listed as co-defendant on Pezzola’s case), revealed classified FBI emails that were hidden in a tab in an Excel spreadsheet, which included a directive to Miller to "destroy" 338 pieces of evidence and "edit out" an FBI agent from an informant report.

"Destroying evidence is a federal crime. It actually falls under a federal crime under more than one statute. The same goes with altering documents, altering records, that is a federal crime," the John Pierce Law attorney told The Epoch Times in an interview on Sunday.

In a filing on Sunday, Roots requested that Timothy J. Kelly, a Trump appointee presiding over the case, either dismiss the case in its entirety or appoint a special master to independently review the FBI messages that were revealed in court.

"The unceremonious and uninhibited nature of Miller’s discussion of committing these serious crimes suggests an FBI culture of corruption and lawlessness that must be immediately stopped, and fully investigated," Roots said in the filing.

"Accordingly, this case must be dismissed en toto and with prejudice," Roots’s filing continues. "Even if the Court were to overlook this massive trail of FBI corruption and the trial were to proceed, defendants have a right to cross-examine Agent Miller regarding all of these crimes, her missing emails, her discussions of violating defendants’ 6th amendment rights, her discussions of evidence tampering, and her discussions of altering documents involving [confidential human sources] in this case."

Link

-Short Attention Span Theater-

NZ government minister sculpted in dung

2009-11-03

[Mail and Globe] A New Zealand artist has sculpted the head of the government's environment minister out of cow dung in a conservation protest.

Sculptor Sam Mahon from Canterbury in the South Island usually works in bronze but he adapted his technique to fill a cast with cow dung, finishing with a bronze-like bust of minister Nick Smith.

The artist said on Thursday he was upset about plans to dam a local river and the pollution of waterways by effluent from dairy farms.

"The only way I can find to comment about this is to use the very medium that's killing our rivers to sculpt his beautiful face," Mahon told the TV3 network.

Smith took the protest in good spirit, describing it as "a bit of a laugh".

"Though I'd also say, excuse the pun, I'd call it 'crap art'."

Mahon has put the sculpture for sale on the Internet but is not worried if it fails to find a buyer.

"I'll just regrind it and spread it in the garden," he said.

Link

Home Front: Politix

Jim Geraghty: "Don't Panic!"

2006-04-11

National Review. EFL'd a touch, boldface emphasis added.

I see that George Conway, another NRO blogger, appears to have come to the end of his rope regarding the current Republican Party leadership . . . First, get that man a good sandwich or other comfort food and a Guinness. Save some room for dessert. Let's get the blood sugar up.

Second, there are two things that conservatives can do right now. They can push for the ideas that they believe strongly in, and take their message to the people. . . . Or conservatives can throw up their hands and say, "I'm through with this, I'm leaving the party, all of this is pointless."

With option one, conservatives may win, or they may lose. On option two, they will definitely lose.
Third, let's not recall previous administrations through rose colored glasses.

Thinking back to the Clinton administration, do we look back fondly at their "foreign and military policy competence" in the way they handled the growing al-Qaeda threat? The cruise missiles fired, once, at the training camps and empty tents? Those decisive, responses to the first World Trade Center bombing, Khobar Towers, the embassy bombings, the U.S.S. Cole?

Do we look back fondly at their "foreign and military policy competence" in the way they handled Iraq? The collapse of the U.N. inspections, periodic cruise missile attacks that had little impact, the leaky sanctions that hurt the Iraqis more than the regime and that the world was ready to repeal?

Do we look back fondly at their "foreign and military policy competence" with, say, their approach to China? Loral? Madeline Albright's champagne toast in North Korea to "friendship between our peoples" with Kim Jong Il?

If you're upset with the current Bush administration's stance on illegal immigration, how did you like the Clinton administration's "Citizenship USA" program, unveiled in August 1995, designed to deal with an INS backload that ended up naturalizing 1.1 million immigrants in time for Election Day 1996?

We are righteously outraged with Abramoff and Duke Cunningham, and ought to be. But let's not forget Henry Cisnero's guilty plea about lying to the FBI, Hazel O'Leary's apology to Congress for her travel expenses, John Huang, James Riady, and Maria Hsia, the Marc Rich pardon, the grant of clemency to FALN bombers in 1999... I'm not even getting into that scandal, or Jocelyn Elders' "hands-on" proposal for sex education.

In Congress, the opposition party had Jim Wright, Dan Rostenkowski, the post office scandal, the Keating Five (with McCain), Tony Coehlo's resignation. By the way, it's not like the post-1994 Republicans had avoided any perception of scandal until recent years. We've had Gingrich's book deal, Bob Livingston's resignation, Rep. Nick Smith's claim that someone offered a bribe on the Medicare bill, the guilty plea of a New Hampshire GOP official and a consultant to using the phones to "jam" the lines of the New Hampshire State Democratic Party's phone bank on Election Day 2002.

Let's go beyond Clinton, and think back to the first Bush administration. Perhaps we were happy at the time with the decision to leave Saddam in power in Iraq, but it certainly left a festering problem. The military deployment to Somalia represented a major commitment of U.S. armed forces to a part of the world where we had no compelling national interest; the subsequent withdrawal (on Clinton's watch) is cited by jihadis as a major victory. Do we look back fondly on Bush's economic policies, the retraction of "read my lips, no new taxes," the "Chicken Kiev" speech, the well-oiled communications machine that was the 1992 campaign? How about Justice David Souter?

Regarding the Reagan administration, many of us have fond memories because the Gipper, God bless him, got so many big things right. But do we think back on Iran-Contra, or the quiet-at-best reactions to the bombing of the embassy in Lebanon and the Marine barracks months later? The handling of Robert Bork's nomination, the 35 percent approval rating in January 1983, the revelation of the astrologer? And if you don't like our current immigration policy, what do you think of Reagan's 1986 mass amnesty for illegal aliens?

Any administration is going to have its mistakes, and sometimes, they're going to be big ones. Let's be honest about where the current president and cabinet have botched things, but let's not fool ourselves into nostalgia for some golden age of political and substantive skill.

I like the attitude described by Tony Robbins (cant find his quote online, so Im paraphrasing). If youre a gardener, and youre worried about weeds, the answer is not to panic because you know the weeds will crop up and grow and take over your garden. The answer is also not to be excessively positive, and declare, there are no weeds, there are no weeds. The answer is to say, I know there are going to be weeds, and Im not going to panic when I see them, because if I see them, I can do something about it.

Yes, the Republicans have problems right now. But its better that they see them and can do something about it.

Link

Afghanistan

Congress team to meet former king

2001-09-30

Washington Times
A bipartisan delegation from Congress will meet former Afghan King Mohammed Zahir Shah today to demonstrate Washington's support for efforts to build a post-Taliban government. The delegation of 11 members includes Reps. Dana Rohrabacher, California Republican and vice chairman of the House International Relations Committee's East Asia and Pacific subcommittee; Curt Weldon, Pennsylvania Republican and chairman of the Armed Services military readiness subcommittee; the subcommittee's ranking Democrat, Solomon Ortiz of Texas; Silvestre Reyes, Texas Democrat; and Republicans Nick Smith of Michigan and Roscoe G. Bartlett of Maryland. "Ultimately our goal is to show support for the unity of the Afghan people. It's not a matter of eliminating [Osama] bin Laden. It's a matter of [eliminating] the whole terrorist network in Afghanistan. And the foundation of that network is the Taliban," said Al Santoli, national security adviser to Congress.

Afghan elders and military commanders met the former king of Afghanistan yesterday. King Zahir Shah, 86, who has lived in exile in Italy since 1973, has become the focal point of diplomatic activity to find an alternative to the Taliban regime in Kabul following the terrorist attacks on the United States. The former king wants to convene a grand council of elders, a so-called Loya Jirga, to try to rally Afghanistan's fractious tribes behind a government of national unity.

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