Rep. Massie says DOJ put a “MAFIA” hit on Elon Musk…

September 24, 2023 (a day ago)

Well, if there’s one thing we can all agree on about Biden’s DOJ, it’s that squalid institution’s unwaveringing laser focus on targeting anyone who even questions the regime. Just take a look at their unjust actions against President Trump, the January 6th political prisoners, and Douglass Mackey, a Trump supporter convicted of “conspiracy” for sharing an anti-Hillary meme, facing a potential 10-year sentence. It’s like something out of a dystopian “Mad Max” style movie. Merrick Garland’s approach to anybody not aligned with the Biden regime is like watching a mafia hitman at work. And that’s exactly what Rep. Thomas Massie compared him to regarding the recent attacks unleashed on Elon Musk. There’s no doubt they’ll try and throw Elon is prison. It’s already heading in that direction. Undoubtedly, Kim Jong-un must be watching all of this unfold, impressed by the left’s use of Marxist tactics.

Forbes:

Federal prosecutors are probing whether Tesla’s company resources were used to supply personal benefits to CEO Elon Musk as early as 2017, farther back then previously known, according to people familiar with the investigation who also said prosecutors have made allusions to the involvement of a grand jury—indicating potential criminal charges…

Meanwhile, there has been no investigation into the $400 million donated by Mark Zuckerberg to left-wing non-profits, seemingly aimed at influencing the 2020 election through a barrage of unregulated mail-in ballots, many of which were counted late at night, behind closed doors.

Nope, nothing “shady” there, folks, keep moving…

AP:

He and his wife donated at least $400 million to two nonprofit organizations which distributed grants to state and local governments to help them conduct the 2020 election during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The donations came at a time when election offices were trying to transition to mail voting.

Tomas Massie grilled Merrick Garland over his politically-driven attacks on Elon Musk during a recent Judiciary Committee hearing, where Garland looked more like Mr. Magoo than a vicious Mafia hitman. Clearly, somebody else is pulling Merrick’s strings.

It’s high time the GOP takes action and initiates impeachment proceedings againstthis n0-good traitor, who seemingly follows orders without question, and is leading one of the most unjust and anti-American plots against “we the people”this country has ever seen.

Lock him up.

https://revolver.news/2023/09/rep-massie-says-doj-put-a-mafia-hit-on-elon-musk/

19605978 Narrative Combat: Maria Bartiromo -vs- Matt Gaetz; guess who won? PN

This notable makes me wonder“will Maria be the next Megan Kelly”on the Presidential Debates? I think so!

Biden Forced to Respond – State of the Race

September 24, 2023 | Sundance1/2

The motive of the Biden trip to visit the striking UAW workers one day ahead of President Trump visiting Michigan is transparent. However, the background of the issue is layers more interesting.

The narrative the engineers are trying to assemble, circles around a historic trip by Joe Biden to stand on the picket lines with striking auto workers.But it’s the overall collapse of support for Biden that looms larger.

The big picture problem for democrats is not thatBiden is losing to Trump in the polls, but rather the scale of the loss.

Everyone knows the DNC and activist groups will trigger their ballot fraud operations in 2024, the problem for them is they can only lift so much through the fraud itself.

Yes, it is possible for the metropolitan counties of Philadelphia (PA), Wayne (MI), Clark (NV), Fulton (GA), Racine (WI) and Maricopa/Pinal (AZ) to each generate between 300,000 and 500,000 fraudulent ballots. However, when contrast against the anticipated scale of the state loss, that might not be enough.

The democrats need a candidate who can lose at a muchsmaller statewide margin so that ballot fraud (absentee collection) in the corrupt counties can reach their goals. Biden is not that candidate.

That sets up the dynamic where Biden support within the group who will be responsible for covering his deficits has become tenuous. Remember, Eric Holder and the Chicago network organized the original ballot operation and tested it in California in 2018. The two weeks after election day 2018 showed 21 GOP win seats on the day of election, flip through the use of the post-election ballot counting. That midterm test in CA was then rolled out nationally in 2020.

The counties that must be relied upon to sway the election are nervous about the scale of lift they will be required to provide. Within that tenuous situation, the ever ego-driven Obama network cannot accept that level of risk. Hence, Obama strategically retreats.

At the same time, the DC intelligence apparatus that needs to pretend the election is legit and support the fraud, is applying pressure on Biden to exit [See WaPo Poll].

The message from Main Justice, the DOJ-CRD and the DHS embeds is that too much fraud would be problematic to achieve….

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2023/09/24/biden-forced-to-respond-state-of-the-race/

>>19607470

2/2

Team Biden is fully aware of this dynamic, they need to close the gap – not defeat Trump –but close the election gap to a distance that can be successfully closed by the ballot harvesting and manipulation operations. That’s the focus and impetus behind all of the Biden campaign operations; close the gap.

President Trump is working on gap-widening operations; meaning to push the scale of fraud to a level that cannot be achieved. Unfortunately, his campaign is having to do the heavy lifting alone. The people who organize and fund RNC operations do not want the RNC to do anything that would interfere with the ballot fraud operations carried out by the other wing of the two corporate clubs, the DNC.

The RNC is focused on the upcoming corporate debate using the Fox Business Network (Murdoch) and the Reagan Library (Bush Inc), an alignment of common interests. When you stop pretending you realize that impeding DNC ballot fraud operations is against the RNC interests.

Thankfully, the traditional illusion of choicegame is becoming so obvious that RNC base voters are eyes-wide-open. When we first started talking about the UniParty on these pages twelve years ago, few could really understand what that system really entailed. Now, thanks specifically to the sunlight that Donald Trump provided on the political system, the machinations of the two-party operation, a genuine Potemkin village, are transparently visible.

The RNC and DNC are funded by the same multinationals who identify the approved candidates. Donald Trump is not an approved candidate for the interests of Wall Street, the multinational corporations, the globalists (writ large), or the Billionaire class who depend on trade and financial systems they control.

Joe Biden is going to Michigan because he needs to close the gap. President Donald Trump is going to Michigan because he needs to widen the gap.

Just like Team Obama and the DC Administrative State, I do not think Biden can close the gap, and that frames my expectation that Biden will be replaced.

They don’t need a replacement that can win, they just need a replacement that can lose in key states by enough of a margin that can be covered by the ballot fraud operation.

Last point, within the billionaire wing of the Republican apparatus, they are now increasingly ambivalent about the GOP primary. The main tone/theme that comes out of the circle of professionally GOP billionaires, is that Trump seems inevitable, Trump will likely win, buttheir failsafe is that a DC republican system will not allow Trump to have the power of the presidency.. We keep watching…

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2023/09/24/biden-forced-to-respond-state-of-the-race/

Jack Smith’s “gag order” is actually a new trap – and it’s worse than you imagined…

September 23, 2023 (2 days ago)

What the regime is doing to President Trump ranks among the most shameful, unjust, and anti-American actions we’ve witnessed in this country. Just imagine what our Founding Fathers would think of today’s America under Biden’s fake leadership. If they returned and saw this, they’d likely be plotting another revolution quicker than we could utter “1776.” Their anger would stem not only from the unjust treatment of President Trump but also from the fact that it affects all of us.

Once again, the uni-party regime deploys every trick in the book to undermine our voting rights and silence our voices.Each move against President Trump inches them closer to muzzling us.Take, for instance, the gag order Jack Smith is attempting to impose on President Trump; it’s one of the most significant “election interference” moves since the sham indictment came down.

Slay News:

On Friday, Smith filed a motion asking for a “narrowly tailored” gag order against Trump.

The order seeks to stop Trump from making “inflammatory” and “intimidating” comments about the Democrats’ federal January 6 case.

Smith’s team has accused Trump of engaging in a campaign of “disinformation” and harassment intended to intimidate witnesses, prosecutors, and others involved in the trial.

In his motion, Smith complained about an August 2, 2023, post by Trump on Truth Social that simply quoted Fox News host Jesse Watters.

Smith wrote:

… . And on August 2, the defendant posted a quote alleging, without any basis, that the indictment that a federal grand jury in this case returned had been directed by the sitting president:

“‘Joe Biden directed his Attorney General to prosecute his rival. This is not an independent Justice Department, this is not an independent special counsel. This is being directed by the Commander-in-Chief.”

Through such posts, the defendant is attempting to submit his false and inflammatory claims to the public and jury pool outside of court, because he knows that any such claims made before the Court in the form of motions to suppress or of vindictive prosecution will fail because they must be supported by evidence—of which there is none.

Gregg Re, a former head writer for “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” responded to the order in a post on Twitter, calling it “insane.”

“The trump gag order is truly insane,” Re said.

“Headlines didn’t capture how broad it is.

“Biden’s DOJ wants to ban Trump from even suggesting Biden is behind his prosecution.

“He also isn’t allowed to say that he can’t get a fair trial in an overwhelmingly dem district.”

“But it doesn’t end there. Investigative reporter Julie Kelly, renowned for her exceptional work in exposing the falsehoods surrounding January 6th and her coverage of the January 6th political prisoners, shared her insights on the gag order in a post on X. Julie says it’s not just a “gag order,” it’s actually a “contempt trap.”

Here’s what Julie said in her post:

NEW: After “accidentally” forgetting to add the proposed gag order in motion last week, Jack Smith filed it yesterday.

This is the furthest thing from a “narrow” order.It is another contempt trap not just for Trump but those around him including campaign spokesmen. Trump’s only allowable response would be “no comment” or “I am not guilty.”

And the argument about keeping a jury “impartial” by silencing any criticism of the process by defendant and his associates is not just absurd but totally contrary to how every DC judge has handled change of venue motions.

Even amid wall-to-wall news coverage in DC on Jan 6 including nationally televised nighttime hearings by J6 committee, judges insist careful voir dire would result in a fair jury. This happened during Proud Boys and Oath Keepers trials when committee specifically targeted the individual defendants while jury selection was underway.

Will be very easy for Team Trump to refute this argument and merely look up every change of venue motion denial by nearly every judge on the district court. I bet Chutkan has at least one, too.

This is yet another instance of election interference, but in reality, the ones who could benefit from a “gag order” or two are Jack Smith and his immoral team. They are leaking information like a sieve to their media allies, so the Dems can continue to undermine and weaponize our system in their quest to hold onto power.

https://revolver.news/2023/09/jack-smiths-gag-order-is-actually-a-new-trap-and-its-worse-than-you-imagined/

>>19607171 Federal Court Shuts Down Special Counsel Jack Smith Again - Smith cannot have access to the phone records of Rep. Scott Perry PN

Federal Court Shuts Down Special Counsel Jack Smith AgainJon DoughertySeptember 24, 2023

A U.S. federal appeals court has thrown up a big roadblock for special counsel Jack Smith as he continues his investigation into the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol Building two-and-a-half years ago.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled last week that Smith cannot have access to the phone records of Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) because allowing him to obtain the information amounts to a breach of the GOP lawmaker’s immunity under the Constitution’s “speech and debate” clause.

Smith was seeking Perry’s communications with colleagues and Executive Branch officials, Politico reported. However, the clause in question shields members of Congress from being slapped with legal proceedings while they are engaging in their elected official duties.

“While elections are political events, a member’s deliberation about whether to certify a presidential election or how to assess information relevant to legislation about federal election procedures are textbook legislative acts,” U.S. District Judge Neomi Rao wrote in the opinion issued last week.

Newsmax noted further:

The decision marked the the first time an appeals court has held that lawmakers’ cellphones are subject to the same protections as their physical offices.

It also was the first significant legal setback for Smith in his bid to obtain evidence about involvement by allies of Donald Trump in the then-president’s alleged effort to overturn the 2020 election, Politico reported.

Rao, a Trump appointee, was joined by another Trump appointee, Judge Gregory Katsas, and by Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, who was nominated by President George H.W. Bush.

The three-judge panel’s ruling overturns a lower court decision by U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, who mostly sided with the government’s request to gain access to Perry’s cellphone data.

The appeals court sent the case back to Howell’s court and instructed her to apply the new ruling to any future decision in the case, according to the outlets.

Meanwhile, Fox News host Jesse Watters tore into Smith for indicting former President Donald Trump in two separate cases.

During a recent segment on “The Five,” Watters called Smith a “nervous wreck” after he unsealed Trump’s grand jury indictment while reminding viewers of Smith’s troubled legal history before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Smith obtained a four-count indictment against Trump concerning his actions to challenge the outcome of the 2020 election. They include willful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and false statements.

In June, Smith had secured a 37-count indictment against Trump following a quick investigation into allegations involving classified documents. On Thursday, a superseding indictment was issued, which also included charges against Carlos De Oliveira, a maintenance worker at Mar-a-Lago, the Florida estate owned by former President Trump.

“That was Special Counsel Jack Smith, who looked like a bedraggled nervous wreck, dripping with anger and highly emotional,”Watters said after showing a clip of Smith’s press conference earlier in the day announcing the new charges.

“The last time Jack Smith charged a politician, the case was so weak, it got tossed out of the Supreme Court unanimously. The Biden Justice Department is using obscure federal statutes to put a former president in prison for the rest of his life,” Watters told viewers.

Watters was referring to a case where Smith prosecuted then-Republican Gov. Bob McDowell of Virginia over receiving gifts, securing a conviction that the Supreme Court unanimously threw out.

“These charges are not bribery, not assault, not tax evasion, not sex trafficking. They’re charging Donald Trump under the Act of 1866,” Watters said. “It was used against the [Ku Klux] Klan, and now they are using it against Trump.”

Trump has pleaded not guilty to all counts and has likened the indictments to election interference.

https://conservativebrief.com/court-down-76678/?utm_source=CB&utm_medium=DJD

>>19607524

Anons you know what this ruling means? The majority of Fanni Willis’s case will be kicked out of court. Many involved involved are in senate or house, others were working for the President which are covered by Presidential immunity and other were using their 1st Amendment rights in politicking. Its going to the SC and will be thrown out. Willis should be counter sued and be required to pay all costs due a frivolous indictment and lawsuit, (she will have to pay all of the defendants legal costs)

Multiple Remote Viewers Warn of World Changing Event at Year’s End

(Greg Reese)—The counterculture is now aware of False Flags. Operations that are executed by the powers that be and blamed on someone else are now being called out in real-time on social media platforms despite the censorship. It’s becoming popular. And if the powers that be can no longer trick us, then they will try and hurt us.

According to the scientific data, nearly all humans have a certain degree of psychic awareness. And some of us become acutely aware of it. The term, Remote Viewing, was coined by the US Department of Defense when they began training people in this field. It is the art of viewing an unknown target at any distance within the mind’s eye and retrieving accurate data. To refine this data, Remote Viewers work together as a team and look for redundant data.

Remote Viewing teams such as, the Future Forecasting Group, work with a double-blind protocol. This means that they do not know where or what the target is. The information they are given is an arbitrarily designated number such as; A9I5-Q7K4. As they blindly view the target in a meditative state of focus, imagery is flashed in the mind and immediately sketched out and collected. The Future Forecasting Group has been successful at predicting the Panama Canal incident, the Destruction of the Kakhovka Dam in Ukraine, the Halloween stampede in South Korea, police violence at the Canadian Trucker protest, and many others. Which can all be found at Future Forecasting Group.com.

The Future Forecasting Group was recently assigned the target of the next financial crisis. Because of their double-blind protocol, the only information they were given was an arbitrary number. But theViewers were all distracted by overpowering images of a catastrophic event. They all saw the same thing. Massive explosions with multiple points of impact, small particles, and debris falling from the sky, people sick with Cesium, which is the most dangerous of all radioactive isotopes. Used in Dirty Bomb scenarios. They saw police checkpoints, people seeking shelter underground, and an exodus of sad-looking people.

Remote Viewing goes back in the written record for millennia. And has been repeated in the current scientific record for decades. According to this body of work, most people are able to do this. And this is why Clif High’s Predictive Linguistics program works.

By reading the entirety of human language across the World Wide Web, the program will list repeated words and phrases in all languages creating a macroscopic view of what everyone is talking about. So if all humans are psychic, whether they know it or not, then you would see it in the collective chatter. Especially for traumatic events. The bigger the trauma, the more people would be emoting their anxiety online. And key words can be found. Such as the word “ejecta”, which has been showing up in Clif High’s work. Which shows the same event.

Predictive Linguistics reveals a time frame of when a big event happens at the point in time when the tension language ends, and the release language begins. The tension language is the psychic awareness before an event. And the release language is the event itself as everyone is made aware.Based on this, Clif High sees this event happening near the end of this year.

Both the Predictive Linguistics and the Future Forecasting Group saw that this was a decision that was made by some faction of government. Several saw a button being pressed. And they propose that if enough eyes are on the powers that be, maybe it will never happen.

(Recent prophecy says between September 15 to October 25th, will be Trumps time to move and render those in power, powerless)

Bo Polny and Juanito -"THE FIGHT IS HERE! GET READY!!"

Ninoscorner

https://rumble.com/v3h9e3h-bo-polny-and-juanito-the-fight-is-here-get-ready.html

https://discernreport.com/multiple-remote-viewers-warn-of-world-changing-event-at-years-end/

Judge overseeing case to remove Trump from ballot agrees to order banning threats and intimidation

Story by By NICHOLAS RICCARDI, Associated Press •

DENVER (AP) — The Colorado judge overseeing the first significant lawsuit to bar former President Donald Trump from the state's 2024 presidential ballot on Friday issued a protective order prohibiting threats and intimidation in the case, saying the safety of those involved — including herself and her staff — was necessary as the groundbreaking litigation moves forward.

“I 100% understand everybody's concerns for the parties, the lawyers, and frankly myself and my staff based on what we've seen in other cases,” District Judge Sarah B. Wallace said as she agreed to the protective order.

The order prohibits parties in the case from making threatening or intimidating statements. Scott Gessler, a former Colorado secretary of state representing Trump in the case, opposed it. He said a protective order was unnecessary because threats and intimidation already are prohibited by law.

It was sought by lawyers for the liberal group Citizens For Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which is seeking to disqualify Trump from the ballot under a rarely used Civil War-era clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Gessler said heated rhetoric in this case has come partly from the left.

“We do have robust political debate going on here,” he said. “For better or worse, this case has become a focal point.”

Dozens of lawsuits have been filed around the country seeking to disqualify Trump from the 2024 ballot based on the 14th Amendment clause barring anyone who swore an oath to the Constitution and then “engaged in insurrection” against it from running for office. Their arguments revolve around Trump's involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol to halt the congressional certification of the 2020 presidential election.

The case in Colorado is the first filed by a group with significant legal resources. The issue is expected to reach the U.S. Supreme Court, which has never ruled on the insurrection provision in section three of the 14th Amendment.

Wallace has set an Oct. 30 hearing to discuss whether Trump needs to be removed under Colorado law prohibiting candidates who don't meet qualifications for higher office from appearing on ballots. She has said she wants to give the Colorado Supreme Court — and possibly U.S. Supreme Court — as much time as possible to review the decision before the state's Jan. 5 deadline to set its 2024 presidential primary ballot.

A parallel case in Minnesota filed by another well-financed liberal group is scheduled to be heard by that state's supreme court on Nov. 2.

Trump's attorneys are scheduled to file two motions to dismiss the lawsuit later Friday. One will contend the litigation is an attempt to retaliate against Trump's free speech rights. Wallace has set an Oct. 13 hearing to debate that claim.

Sean Grimsley, an attorney for the plaintiffs in the case, proposed the protective order in court Friday. He cited federal prosecutor Jack Smith last week seeking a gag order against Trump for threats made in his prosecution of the former president for trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

“At least one of the parties has a tendency to tweet — or Truth Social," Grimsley said, referring to Trump’s own social network where he broadcasts most of his statements, “about witnesses and the courts.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/judge-overseeing-case-to-remove-trump-from-ballot-agrees-to-order-banning-threats-and-intimidation/ar-AA1h7pGY

How to Hide a $2 Trillion Antitrust Trial

We did an analysis of the Google antitrust trial. Last week, over half of the trial was held behind closed doors because the judge, Amit Mehta, is deferring to Google on the need for secrecy.

MATT STOLLER1/3SEP 24, 2023

Normally on Sunday’s I do a round-up of monopoly-related news for paid subscribers. That’ll be at the end of this email. But today, I want to do a bit of a summary of the Google antitrust trial, since we’re investing so much into covering it. The key question is as follows. Google is a very powerful corporation worth around $2 trillion, it controls access to the internet, and it will roll out generative artificial intelligence for billions of people. And yet, the public hasn’t heard that much about a major trial where the firm and its executives are being asked how they secured that immense power. Why?

There are several possibilities, but in my view, the most obvious reason is that the judge in the case, Amit Mehta, is effectively holding the contest in secret. Last week, according to our calculations, over half of the trial, including testimony from key witnesses, happened in closed session, unavailable to the public. Why? Here’s Mehta in a pre-trial hearing in August, explaining his thinking to Google’s attorneys.

“Look, I’m a trial judge. I am not anyone that understands the industry and the markets in the way that you do. And so I take seriously when companies are telling me that if this gets disclosed, it’s going to cause competitive harm. And I think it behooves me to be somewhat conservative in thinking about that issue, because, you know, I can’t see around every corner.”

In other words, Mehta is deferring to Google on the need for secrecy.

The Trial Isn’t the Remedy

In 1998, the richest man in the world, Bill Gates, had to answer to the public in an antitrust trial. Gates had been a titan for almost two decades, gracing the cover of Time Magazine multiple times as a young genius. That all changed when he was deposed by government lawyers. “The Bill Gates on the courtroom screen,” reported the New York Times, “was evasive and uninformed, pedantic and taciturn, a world apart from his reputation as a brilliant business strategist, guiding every step in Microsoft Corp.'s rise to dominance in computing.”

For eight months, the Microsoft antitrust trial was front-page news, the drama of the trillion dollar personal computing revolution unveiled to the public. One result was that Microsoft, afraid of public exposure years later, refused to use its control over the browser to kill nascent rivals, in particular a young search company called Google.

Today, we should be in a similar moment, only this time with Google as the titan on trial. Google has engaged in behavior that’s almost identical to what Microsoft did in terms of coercion of rivals, and just as consequential in terms of shaping the future. And yet, the reporting and interest in this trial is minuscule compared to what we saw 25 years ago. Frankly, some days, our Big Tech on Trial reporting site is one of the few journalists in the court room, which is astonishing. This dynamic is especially odd because, unlike 1998, we are in an anti-monopoly moment, with political interest in corporate behavior far more elevated than it was in 1998.

What gives? There are a few reasons for this odd disconnect, but one reason is very simple - there was public access to the Microsoft trial in 1998. However today the judge, a guy named Amit Mehta, has effectively barred the public from seeing anything meaningful or interesting. In my profile of the trial, back in August, I focused on Mehta, because I knew the dynamics would be organized by his decision-making. And so it has been…

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/how-to-hide-a-2-trillion-antitrust

>>19607699

2/3

Let’s compare the two trials. For Microsoft, the judge ruled on behalf of media organizations that the deposition of Bill Gates would be unsealed, a deposition that was not meaningful for the trial, but also critically important to the historical record, and one you can watch online today. He also unsealed over a hundred transcripts of other depositions from industry players, including ones that weren’t used in the trial itself. This public record was critical to the reporting, and to public understanding of the industry.

But this Google trial?By far the most important moment was when Judge Mehta denied a third-party motion to broadcast a publicly accessible audio feed of the trialfor fear that information Google wishes wouldn’t be disclosed become public. Indeed, Google lawyers have explicitly argued that the judge should avoid allowing documents to become public solely because it is “clickbait.” To put it differently, the search giant literally argues material should stay sealed merely because if that material is interesting. Imagine if Bill Gates, or say, a routine defendant in any case, could have availed himself of that innovative legal argument!

These arguments should be laughed out of court. And yet, Mehta takes them seriously,which has led to an almost-entirely private trial, deadeningly boring to the public because key documents have been deleted and the important or embarrassing moments are held in secret.

As a result of this monumental decision,the trial is now only available to people who can go to the court in D.C.And yet, even if you can come to the courthouse, it’s hard to see the trial because huge portions are fully sealed. There is often no clear indication beforehand of how long the trial will be sealed for. And when court ends a sealed session and re-opens to the public, it often resumes within a couple minutes of opening the door to the courtroom. This means anyone who wants to watch the public portions of the trial just has to wait outside the courtroom to see when it re-opens. Moreover, even though you can watch the trial from the courtroom or a public overflow room, unless you are in the media room, electronic devices are not allowed.

It’s an eight week trial, but a chronicle of Friday’s court date is as good an example as any. Big Tech on Trial waited all day, with no information, as the lawyers debated something in what is known as a ‘closed session.’ This is a common occurrence. Most of the trial is happening behind closed doors, including procedural questions that should clearly be public. Indeed, Big Tech on Trial looked at the transcripts for the last week to estimate roughly how much of the trial was held in secret, based on how much they are redacted.

Easily half of the week’s courtroom days were sealed. Here’s a breakdown of how much of the trial was sealed on each day:

Monday, Sept. 18: roughly half of the trial was sealed

Tuesday, Sept. 19: trial was fully open

Wednesday, Sept. 20 roughly three quarters of the trial was sealed. That morning, Bloomberg reporter Leah Nylen came to the courtroom with a First Amendment attorney hired by Bloomberg. But the attorney never got a chance to speak because the court unexpectedly began in a closed session and the public was asked to leave the courtroom(after Judge Mehta reportedly had a private meeting with the lead attorneys in his chambers).

Thursday, Sept. 21: roughly half of the trial was sealed

Friday, Sept. 22: the entirety of testimony was sealed. Court opened up only for a few minutes to deal with administrative matters at the very end of the day.

And that means we heard little of the most important testimony, perhaps of the entire trial, from a man named John Giannandrea. Giannandrea is a senior executive at Apple who reports directly to Tim Cook and came to Apple from Google in 2018, where he was head of Search. The relationship between Apple and Google is the heart of the trial, and, in the year this man left from Apple to Google, the two firms went from aggressive competitors to gentle collaborators. And yet, the public heard just ten minutes of open-court testimony from Giannandrea. Another Apple executive, Eddie Cue, will testify on Tuesday, so there’s a chancewe’ll learn more about the relationship between Apple and Google. Stranger things have happened.

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/how-to-hide-a-2-trillion-antitrust

>>19607708

3/3

Mommy, Where Do Conspiracy Theories Come From?

Judge Mehta isn’t just closing the courtroom,he’s also allowing Google to hide evidence without consequence. On a separate post, I’ve put up seven different ways he’s doing that, fromletting Google avoid disclosing documents based on false claims of attorney-client privilegeto doing nothing even when Google executives used “history-off chats” to destroy conversations after 24 hours even after Google was on a litigation hold.The point is, Mehta is far more concerned that Google isn’t embarrassed, and almost wholly uninterested in public access.

The problem here isn’t just the judge or Google.The Department of Justice shouldn’t be let off the hook either. The trial team, which is generally doing a good job, seems mostly unconcerned with public access. They didn’t support a set of nonprofits who made a motion for a public audio feed, andthey tend to litigate in closed session whenever Google seems uncomfortable, so as not to come close to offending the judge. Indeed, when the judge expressed a bit of frustration that exhibits were posted publicly, government lawyers immediately pulled down their website and said they would work with Google to make sure everyone was satisfied with the process. That’s the opposite of standing your ground.

Trials are supposed to be public, and the government should fight for them to be public. Public access and a public record in a trial, especially when the powerful are concerned, is a core part of what makes our legal system different from those in authoritarian regimes. Not vigorously challenging Google in its penchant for secrecy is inconsistent with their obligation to their client, which is the people of the United States.

And this isn’t costless. At this point,I am hearing from random commentators that the fix is in, and it’s hard not to disagree. Conspiracy theorists arguing how the corporations, judges, and the government are in collaboration could look at this trial and have a field day. That’s the price of secrecy, there’s just no way to uphold the legitimacy of a legal order when redactions are both unnecessary and routine.

Fortunately, this trial isn’t the last time Google will be on the stand. And despite Mehta’s caution, we are learning more about Google, just not nearly as much as we should. I didn’t know what to expect from this trial, but a blackout of information wasn’t on my radar. But I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised.After all, who knows more about the value of privacy than Google?

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/how-to-hide-a-2-trillion-antitrust

Wisconsin Supreme Court BANS use of absentee ballot drop boxes in big election ruling

SEP. 23, 2023 11:38 AM BY THE RIGHT SCOOP

The state of Wisconsin will no longer be able to use absentee ballot drop boxes as they did three years using COVID as an excuse.

The conservative majority of the state’s high court ruled thatthe boxes are illegaland that when someonedelivers an absentee ballot to the clerk’s office, it must be done by the voter and not someone else.

Here’s more from Wisconsin Public Radio:

Absentee ballot drop boxes won’t be allowed in Wisconsin under a ruling handed down Friday by a divided Wisconsin Supreme Court.

The court’s conservative majority also ruled that it’s illegal for someone else, like a spouse or roommate, to return a voter’s completed absentee ballot to the clerk’s office. The voter must carry out that task personally.

The majority decision was written by Justice Rebecca Bradley and joined by the rest of the court’s conservative majority, including swing Justice Brian Hagedorn.

Both rulings mean absentee voting in Wisconsin’s 2022 election and beyond won’t be as convenient as it was two years ago when it surged during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Nothing in the statutory language detailing the procedures by which absentee ballots may be cast mentions drop boxes or anything like them,” Bradley wrote.

The justices ruled that theWisconsin Elections Commission exceeded their authority with the drop boxes in 2020:

The Wisconsin Elections Commission issued guidance in 2020 providing local clerks with advice on the best practices for unstaffed drop boxes if they chose to use them. Bradley wrote that guidance exceeded the WEC’s authority.

“WEC’s staff may have been trying to make voting as easy as possible during the pandemic, but whatever their motivations, WEC must follow Wisconsin statutes,” Bradley wrote. “Good intentions never override the law.”

Bradley also wrote that absentee ballots delivered in person at a clerk’s office must be delivered by a voter, and no one else.

“Reading the election statutes in context and as a whole, we conclude an absentee ballot delivered in person … must be delivered personally by the voter,” Bradley wrote.

Finally common sense prevails in the state of Wisconsin and hopefully it will help keep the 2024 election more secure in this blue state.

https://therightscoop.com/wisconsin-supreme-court-bans-use-of-absentee-ballot-drop-boxes-in-big-election-ruling/