State media is on the job --

Protecting your right not to know

The Friday Letter / No. 477 / Jan. 28, 2022

The 21st paragraph of a 22-paragraph story at ABC News notes that “The Justice Department usually tries to refrain from taking overt investigative steps involving a candidate close to an election.” That is certainly helpful to know about the FBI raid on U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar's Laredo home near the Texas-Mexican border. The implication here is that Henry's crime against the state is so egregious that a pre-election raid is warranted and urgent.

According to ABC, the raid has something to do with Cuellar's long-standing support of Azerbaijan, a secular and modern Muslim country. Were his friendship with, say, Iran or China, we wonder how worked up the Justice Department would be at this point.

Put it on us to supply the missing details that somehow escaped the ABC reporter.

Henry is a Democrat and hardly a conservative. His lifetime favorability with the American Conservative Union is 24.97, about 10 points lower than Republican Sen. Susan Collins' 35. In 2020, the latest year of rankings, his conservative bona fides were a paltry 7 out of 100. Seven!

But Henry has one teenie-weenie flaw, and it doesn't matter how nearly pure his voting record is otherwise: He is a fierce, loud, and sometimes boisterous defender of the sovereignty of our national borders, especially that with Mexico.

Mr. Cuellar opposes the Trump model of completing the wall. He favors surveillance technology. It doesn't matter, as he surely must know: Any deviation from the party-media policy is unacceptable. That policy is fully open borders, cash and driver licenses for illegal aliens who are sent to red states, no vetting of any kind for disease, criminal status, or prior deportations. At Cuellar's website, here is how he explains his position:

“Congressman Cuellar believes in coordinating the efforts of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies to better protect our southwest border and respond to evolving threats and violence associated with drug and human trafficking, weapons smuggling, terrorism, arms trades, illegal cash flow, and contraband movement across our nation's borders.

“In 2007, he authored the Prosperous and Secure Neighbor Alliance Act to combat drug trafficking and weapons smuggling within border communities. In 2009, he authored and signed into law a high-level U.S.-Mexico Commission to increase in teroperability between law enforcement agencies domestically and in Mexico.”

Henry has to go. Stay tuned.

Short takes on the news

Great moments in maudlin sentimentality. The syrup ran thick Monday during an interview with Biden health advisor Anthony Fauci when Stephanie Ruhle, a propagandist for state-partnered MSNBC, told Dr. Fauci that “You make us smarter and safer and better every day.” Fauci continues to promote mask wearing and coronavirus vaccinations even as new research disputes their effectiveness. He has been director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for more than three decades and is the highest paid federal employee. Forbes reported his 2017 salary at $417,608. POTUS makes $400,000. Meanwhile, WBZ in Boston reports that Brigham and Women's Hospital has denied a heart transplant to a 31-year-old father at the top of the list because he refused the now controversial vaccinations. He is not expected to survive. . .

The Bible on trial. At The Federalist, Joy Pullman reports that in the trial of a Finnish Member of Parliament and a Lutheran bishop charged with publishing a pamphlet on the Christian teachings of sex and marriage, prosecutors described quotations from the Holy Bible as hate speech. . .

Inflation: Bring it on! Fox News reporter Peter Doocy asked an uncomfortable question of Joe Biden, whether he thinks soaring inflation will hurt Democrats in November. “It's a great asset, more inflation,” Biden revealed in a rare act of leftist honesty. Then he had words for Mr. Doocy, caught on an open microphone: “What a stupid son-of-a-bitch,” the nation's uniter muttered. . .

As your free speech crumbles. U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy wants Joe Rogan's Spotify podcast censored because he says Rogan spreads false information on the CCP's Wuhan coronavirus. “Nearly 1,000 people, some of whom are doctors and scientists, have insisted that Spotify implement stricter content controls so that people like Rogan cannot have interviews that question the administration's narrative on COVID,” the Post-Millennial reports. Dr. Murthy made his comments to state-affiliated MSNBC propagandist Mika Brzezinski.

Biden propagandist Don Lemon on CNN previously accused Rogan of taking a veterinary form of ivermectin, which he did not. He took the human pharmaceutical form. The “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast reaches an estimated 11 million viewers per episode. CNN Primetime's audience is less than 1 million, according to The Blaze. . .

The perils of stepping in it. Morgan Ortagus, a press flack in Trump's State Department, got the Trumpster's “complete and total endorsement” of her possible run for Congress in Tennessee. Now, a blogger called Raheen J. Kassam reports that Morgan sent out a fairwell email to colleagues pledging to “faithfully serve the Biden Administration.” According to Raheen, Trump's endorsement is the brainchild of a man called Ward Baker, the mastermind of Republican losses in Georgia's U.S. Senate races. Whoops! Tighten up, as my drill sergeant used to say (gently, with compassion, of course). Robby Starbuck is said to be the leading conservative candidate in that Tennessee-5 primary.

And now, a quiz, or How to Educate Your Children Without Sending Them to a Government School. Which statement of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is correct?

A. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

B. Congress and anyone affiliated with the Democrat Party may censor, arrest, and/or imprison anyone who disrespects or disagrees with any decree from the Party and its Permanent State affiliates.

If you think this presentation is so absurd that no human being would answer anything but A, you aren't paying attention to what goes on in our schools and colleges and what is spewed from the television and newspaper propaganda machines.

Steve's notes: Many thanks to Ron Alexis, Mike Mendola, and Porter Martin for sending us lots of good material over the years.

Recommended video

Jim's Jordan's interview with Marty Makary, M.D., professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Recommended reading

“The murdering of free speech in America,” at Issues & Insights, a website produced by editorial writers at the former Investors Business Daily