Anonymous ID: a03793 Feb. 14, 2022, 4:01 p.m. No.15628710   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>8929 >>9178 >>9216

Free Speech Becomes Roadkill In The Crackdown On Canadian Truckers

 

Below is my column in the Hill on the government and media campaign against the Canadian truckers. The Canadian government has now cleared the Ambassador Bridge. However, there was lasting damage done to the rights of free speech and association after an alliance of the government, corporations, and the media sought to isolate the protesters politically and financially. The most disturbing element was the freezing of donations by companies and the courts. Most recently, the TD Bank joined in blocking support from thousands of citizens. The organized effort to cut off access to donations is alarming, particularly in conjunction with efforts to curtail social media and other informational avenues for the protesters.

 

Here is the column:

 

Canada appears to be facing its greatest threat since Benedict Arnold came close to seizing Ottawa in 1775. The source of this “insurrection” and “attack on democracy,” however, is not a foreign government but Canadians who have descended on their own capital to protest continuing COVID-19 mandates.

 

The protest has been peaceful — and highly successful in cutting off key highways. But the most alarming development has not come from the convoy but from the commentary about it, including calls for mass arrests and even vigilantism. The Ottawa Police Services Board chairman has called it a “nationwide insurrection,” adding, “Our city is under siege.”

 

CNN analyst and Harvard professor Juliette Kayyem was apoplectic at the thought of truckers shutting down roads and interfering with trade. She tweeted out a call to “slash the tires, empty gas tanks, arrest the drivers, and move the trucks.” CNN correspondent Paula Newton said this act of civil disobedience was nothing less than a “threat to democracy. An insurrection, sedition.”

 

Blocking streets, occupying buildings and shutting down bridges have long been tactics of protesters. Yet what constitutes a protest or an insurrection often seems to depend on the cause involved. When rioters caused billions of dollars in damages, burned police stations and occupied sections of American cities in the summer of 2020, for example, few in the media declared them to be terrorists or a threat to democracy. But CNN’s Kayyem once called conservative protesters occupying a state capital “domestic terrorists.” GoFundMe, which previously helped in the funding of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters, froze more than $10 million raised for Canadian truckers to prevent it from being used to support them.

 

After the money was frozen by GoFundMe, supporters switched to GiveSendGo to “adopt a trucker.” The Canadian government then moved successfully to freeze millions of donations to the truckers, and the Supreme Court of Canada approved the freeze in a major blow to free speech and associational rights in Canada.

 

In the meantime, the government has demonized the convoy. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who praised truckers just two years ago as heroes, has denounced them as “trying to blockade our economy, our democracy.”

 

This is the same Trudeau who praised BLM protesters and stressed that “I have attended protests and rallies in the past when I agreed with the goals, when I supported the people expressing their concerns and their issues, Black Lives Matter is an excellent example of that.”

 

https://jonathanturley.org/2022/02/14/free-speech-becomes-roadkill-in-the-crackdown-on-canadian-truckers/

Anonymous ID: a03793 Feb. 14, 2022, 4:03 p.m. No.15628723   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>8736 >>8818 >>8929 >>9154 >>9178 >>9216

Durham Probe Accelerates – More People Cooperating and Coming Before Grand Jury — Bill Priestap, James Baker and Dirty Marc Elias Mentioned

 

A new court filing from Special Counsel John Durham from this past weekend revealed Perkins Coie allies connected to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign spied on Trump’s internet traffic – WHILE HE WAS PRESIDENT. According to Durham, Joffe and his associates exploited internet data from “the Executive Office of the President of the United States” to further their own political agenda. Durham investigators uncovered evidence that shows Hillary Clinton’s team paid operatives to “infiltrate” the Trump Tower and then President Trump’s White House servers to link Trump to Russia.

 

On Monday FOX News reported that more people are cooperating and coming before the grand jury in the Durham probe. According to FOX News, Former FBI General Counsel James Baker, FBI Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Bill Priestap, and General Counsel to the Clinton Campaign, creepy Marc Elias, have already been called before the Durham Grand Jury.

 

FOX News reported:

 

Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation has “accelerated,” and more people are “cooperating” and coming before the federal grand jury than has previously been reported, a source familiar with the probe told Fox News.

 

The source told Fox News Monday that Durham has run his investigation “very professionally,” and, unlike Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, his activities, and witness information and cooperation status are rarely, if ever, leaked.

 

“Durham does this right and keeps it a secret,” the source said, adding that there has been “much more activity” in Durham’s investigation “than has been visible to the public.”

 

The closest look Durham has given with regard to grand jury witnesses came in a federal court filing last month, outlining materials that had been provided by the special counsel’s office to defense attorneys for former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann.

 

Sussmann has been charged making a false statement to a federal agent. Sussmann has pleaded not guilty…

 

…Durham lists a number of individuals, including “the above-referenced former FBI General Counsel,” which could be a reference to James Baker, who served as FBI general counsel from January 2014 until May 2018. Fox News reported in October that Durham had plans to call Baker to testify in the case against Sussmann.

 

The indictment against Sussmann, says he told then-FBI General Counsel James Baker in September 2016, less than two months before the 2016 presidential election, that he was not doing work “for any client” when he requested and held a meeting in which he presented “purported data and ‘white papers’ that allegedly demonstrated a covert communications channel” between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, which has ties to the Kremlin…

 

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/02/breaking-durham-probe-accelerates-people-cooperating-coming-grand-jury-bill-priestap-james-baker-dirty-marc-elias-mentioned/

 

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/02/breaking-durham-probe-accelerates-people-cooperating-coming-grand-jury-bill-priestap-james-baker-dirty-marc-elias-mentioned/

Anonymous ID: a03793 Feb. 14, 2022, 4:07 p.m. No.15628775   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>8929 >>9178 >>9216

SEC Subpoenas Morgan Stanley, Goldman In Probe Of Block-Trading Practices

 

Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are trading lower after hours following a Wall Street Journal report that federal investigators are probing the business of block trading on Wall Street, with the SEC sending subpoenas to Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and several hedge funds

 

According to 'people familiar with the matter', WSJ reports that regulators are examining whether bankers may have improperly tipped hedge-fund clients in advance of large share sales.

 

Regulators have been looking into irregularities around block trades since at least 2019.

 

Some of the funds that have received subpoenas act as “liquidity providers” to Wall Street firms, according to some of the people, standing by to purchase slugs of stock or other securities, including those that have few interested buyers (which makes on wonder if a certain firm that rhymes with bitterwell may be involved).

 

The block-trading business has boomed in recent years (along with everything else) as record volumes of IPOs and secondaries hit the market as liquidity sent stocks higher and higher.

 

The Journal does note that, according to lawyers, the rules surrounding exactly what and when Wall Street firms can tell their clients about upcoming block trades is murky at best, and we note that the issuance of subpoenas doesn’t mean charges will be brought against any of the firms or individuals whose activities are being scrutinized.

 

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/sec-subpoenas-morgan-stanley-goldman-probe-block-trading-practices