by Mackubin Owens

Not too long ago, a good friend of mine took umbrage at a Facebook post that compared a proposed “vaccination passport” to the requirement that Jews in Nazi Germany carry papers identifying them as such. As a Jew, my friend argued that such a comparison trivialized the horrors of the Nazi regime that culminated in the Holocaust.

My friend’s objection was justified. But this same individual has not hesitated to join the president of the United States in comparing the recent Georgia voting law to Jim Crow. Anyone who makes such a claim has no idea of what Jim Crow entailed. Second only to slavery, the Jim Crow era represents the darkest period in U.S. racial history, far darker than Reconstruction or the decade that followed.

Indeed, the racial oppression, segregation, and violence that prevailed throughout the South during the era of Jim Crow in many respects exceeded that of the period of slavery. At least during slavery, there were free blacks in the South who, while denied most civil rights, were protected by laws that left them free to go about their business unmolested and did not prevent commercial interactions between the races.

Jim Crow is usually lumped together with Reconstruction and the period that followed: the Compromise of 1877, during which the South was “redeemed” by the Democrats’ overthrow of the “carpetbagger” regime in the reconstructed South and the end of Republican governance. But even after federal protection of blacks in the South was withdrawn following the Compromise of 1877, blacks continued to vote and to hold political office. As C. Vann Woodward writes in The Strange Career of Jim Crow, for a decade, alternate approaches to race relations not involving disenfranchisement, segregation, and violence competed as attempts to address the race problem in the post-Civil War South. Indeed, during this post-Reconstruction period, blacks were making substantial economic, political, and social progress. This all came to an end with the Jim Crow era, which began in the late 1890s.

Jim Crow, especially in the decade after World War I, marked the high point of racism, not only in the South but also in the United States at large. Jim Crow was enabled by the triumph of progressivism and its corollary, “scientific” racism. Both shared the same intellectual roots and involved the explicit rejection of the principles of the Declaration of Independence.

The administration of Woodrow Wilson came down foursquare on the side of racism, dismissing most African Americans from the civil service and resegregating those few who remained. It sanctioned the rise of the “Second” Ku Klux Klan that far exceeded the power and influence of the short-lived Klan of Reconstruction. Segregation and repression of African Americans were enforced by the barrel of a rifle or the end of a rope.

To compare Georgia’s law, which seeks to achieve election integrity, to the dark period of Jim Crow is an abomination, pure and simple. It is a smear and a libel, not worthy of a reasonable person. But yet we have presumably respectable people, including the current occupant of the White House, making that claim.

The ludicrous claim that Republicans in Georgia want to reinstate Jim Crow is part of a broader false narrative. It acknowledges the racist past of the Democratic Party and its role in defending slavery and Jim Crow, even the racism of the Progressives like Woodrow Wilson. But, goes the argument, the parties subsequently changed places. The Republicans adopted a “Southern strategy,” which sought to appeal to the racism of white Southerners. Thus the Party of Lincoln and the Declaration of Independence became the party of racial bigotry.

The “Southern Strategy” narrative persists because it offers comfort to Democrats who wish to atone for their racist past. But it is false. According to this narrative, white Southerners decamped to the Republicans in response to the civil rights movement of the 1960s. The proof? Any political party that appeals to Southern white voters is racist because Southern whites are by definition irredeemably racist.

In addition to the blanket slur against white Southerners, many of whom worked within the limited political and social environment available to them, there are a number of other flaws with this argument. First, African-American voters began to shift to the Democratic Party during the era of the New Deal. They did so because they perceived it was in their economic interest to do so. Why didn’t the white Southern racists exit the Democratic Party then?

Second, many more Republicans than Democrats supported the civil rights legislation of the 1960s. Why would those motivated only by race shift their support to a party that did not share their racist outlook?

Third, many former Democrats left the party because of its feckless foreign policy and continuing government overreach. I was raised in a Southern Democratic household. From 1968 through 1976, I voted for Democrats. Jimmy Carter turned me into a Republican. Race had nothing to do with my odyssey from Democrat to Republican.

Fourth, white Southerners continued to this day to vote for Democrats. Indeed, since 1964, many Southern states have voted for Democrats in presidential elections, including Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Barack Obama.

Racism in the guise of both slavery and Jim Crow was at odds with America’s founding principles. If the principles of the Declaration are not universally true, then there is no logical reason not to pursue racist policies. The American tragedy represented by both slavery and Jim Crow is that we have often failed to live up to these principles. But there have always been Americans of good will—including many white Southerners—who have worked to bring American practice into line with American principles, no matter how imperfectly.

Which brings us back to elections. Elections are the lifeblood of a self-governing people. Accordingly, the integrity of the electoral process is of critical importance. People who persist in comparing Georgia’s efforts to ensure the integrity of the electoral process to Jim Crow—an evil, unconstitutional, and inhumane monstrosity­­—are engaged in slander, pure and simple.

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Mackubin Thomas Owens is a retired Marine, professor, and editor who lives in Newport, RI.
Photo “Worker at polling counter” by Governor Tom Wolf CC 2.0.

The post Commentary: Election Integrity and the Jim Crow Slur appeared first on The Georgia Star News.

Glenn Greenwald exposes the fact that Congress itself is under the surveillance of the U.S. intelligence agencies, which includes the very Congressmen and women that are supposed to have oversight over those same agencies. This is why Congress is afraid of them. Never Forget.

In an interview at Mar-a-Logo, Candace Owens presses Donald Trump on why he did not pardon either Edward Snowden or Julian Assange, Dec. 29, 2021

As I’ve often said, Pompeo was a neocon who manipulated and deceived Trump by flattering him and staying in his good graces. So Pompeo was the one who was the one we knew we had to overcome in the transition. But there were enough people pushing Trump that we started to hear and believe based on very good, reliable information, that there was more than a 50 percent chance that Snowden was going to pardon Trump and less than 50 percent, but very far from zero, that he would pardon Assange.

Now, as we know, Trump left the White House and he pardoned neither of them. And I was angry about that because I knew it was a real possibility. And here’s the tweet I posted on January 20th, the day Trump left the White House and Joe Biden moved in, I tweeted quote “Trump left the White House about his week, cucked and submissive as it’s possible for a grown adult to scamper away.”

Now you can obviously see the anger and disgust in that tweet, because I knew that Trump wanted to pardon Edward Snowden and had strongly considered pardoning Julian Assange, but got scared into pardoning neither of them for reasons I’m about to explain to you.

Now, remember what happened after that Politico article on December 24th? After all of these indications were coming that Donald Trump was considering pardoning both Snowden and Assange, he was considering declassifying the JFK files. He was considering a whole variety of other acts that the establishment in Washington, meaning the establishment wings of all parties or petrified he was going to do.

What happened, they brought a second impeachment trial against him after January six. They brought in impeachment proceedings against the president, who they knew they had no time to impeach and remove from office. Why would they do that? It never made any sense from that perspective. Why would you try and impeach somebody who is obviously going to be leaving the White House before you have a chance to impeach them?

The reason is is because that gave them enormous leverage Republicans in particular over Trump being able to say to him, we know you want to do things like pardoning Edward Snowden and are considering Julian Assange and are considering declassifying CIA documents from 60 years ago about the JFK assassination and other matters that we don’t want you to do. And now we have leverage over you. If you do something like pardoning Julian Assange or Edward Snowden, we will vote to convict you in that impeachment trial that will render you potentially barred from seeking office in the future. You will have been the first president or the second president and the first president in over a century to be impeached and then convicted. It was a serious threat that Trump wanted to avoid. And the Republicans like Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham, who were working with Liz Cheney to prevent these pardons, suddenly had a lot of leverage over Trump.  . . .

 Video Transcript: The Semi-Inside Story of Why Trump Refused to Pardon Snowden and Assange

Four journalists and attorneys who visited WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in asylum filed a lawsuit against the CIA and its then-director Mike Pompeo on Monday for allegedly partnering with a private security firm that illegally recorded them and copied their data during the visits.

The lawsuit — which also names the private security firm, UC Global, and its founder, David Morales, as defendants — alleges the surveillance program violated their Fourth Amendment protections against illegal searches and seizures when they visited Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

British authorities later arrested Assange and have ordered his extradition to the U.S., where he faces 17 charges of espionage and one charge of computer misuse for helping steal and later publishing classified military documents. Assange appealed the extradition ruling last month.

For years, Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy to avoid trial and met with a number of visitors.

The suit states the two lawyers and two journalists named as plaintiffs were required to leave their devices with a security guard at the reception desk as a condition for visiting Assange, and that UC Global, which the embassy contracted to provide security for the facility and Assange, copied the data and later gave it to the CIA.

“While the named Plaintiffs initiate this action, the practices complained of violate the rights of well over 100 American citizens who visited Assange at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, England,” the suit states, adding that the stolen data included confidential information from lawyers, journalists and doctors.

The suit alleges Pompeo personally approved the program, which also included hidden microphones inside the embassy. Pompeo later went on to serve as secretary of state in the Trump administration and is rumored to be considering a run for president in 2024.

Pompeo had called WikiLeaks a “non-state hostile intelligence service” in his first major public appearance as CIA director and described Assange as a “fraud” and “coward.” The agency under Pompeo also reportedly considered kidnapping or assassinating Assange.

The Hill has reached out to the CIA and Pompeo’s political action committee for comment.

“The conduct by the government was outrageous and inappropriate, which violated the most profound privacy rights of the plaintiffs and others who visited Assange in the embassy,” Richard Roth, the plaintiffs’ attorney, told The Hill.

“To make matters worse, many of the conversations were absolutely privileged and confidential in nature, in that the plaintiffs are journalists and attorneys who went there to visit their clients,” he said.

Many of the allegations were published in 2019 by El País. The newspaper reported Spain’s High Court was investigating UC Global, a Spanish company, and Morales after Assange himself filed a criminal complaint in the country alleging bribery and violations of client-attorney privilege and Assange’s privacy.

The lawsuit filed Monday alleges UC Global was connected with the CIA when it was providing security to the embassy after Morales attended a convention in Las Vegas, Nev.

Security personnel employed by Las Vegas Sands, which at the time owned the Venetian, the Palazzo and the nearby Sands Expo, recruited Morales to conduct surveillance on behalf of the CIA in early 2017, according to the lawsuit.

Court documents allege Las Vegas Sands, which was founded by GOP mega-donor Sheldon Adelson, had previously cooperated with the CIA on “similar matters.”

Las Vegas Sands declined to comment.

Journalists, lawyers claim CIA spied on them during Assange visit | The Hill

Julian Assange supporters demanding his release will hold vigils across London today to mark two years since WikiLeaks founder was imprisoned after being dragged out of the Ecuadorian embassy

• Assange, 49, was dragged out of Ecuadorian embassy in London two years ago 
• Supporters demanding his release will join events on Sunday outside embassy  
• Assange lived there for seven years before being removed on April 11, 2019 

By ISABELLA NIKOLIC FOR MAILONLINE

Assange, 49, was dragged out of the Ecuadorian embassy in London after seeking refuge there for seven years

PUBLISHED: 06:28 EDT, 11 April 2021 | UPDATED: 06:58 EDT, 11 April 2021

Julian Assange supporters demanding his release will hold vigils across London today | Daily Mail

Assange’s family hopes the Mexican government can put in a word to the United States to cancel the upcoming extradition of the WikiLeaks founder.
AP

MEXICO CITY (AP) — This week the objective was to insert mention of Julian Assange into a meeting between Mexico’s president and the United States’ top diplomat. Next week, it will be to have Australia’s prime minister bring it up with the U.S. president at Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral.

The efforts are part of the campaign by John Shipton, father of the WikiLeaks founder, to find allies and convince the U.S. to drop espionage charges against Assange, who remains in a British prison awaiting extradition to the U.S.

The journey by the septuagenarian Australian architect together with another son, Gabriel, brought them this week to Mexico. The country has become the family’s main ally in Latin America since President Andrés Manuel López Obrador offered Assange political asylum and called for the U.S. to allow him to seek refuge there.

“We call President López Obrador an ice-breaker,” because afterward the leaders of Chile, Colombia and Bolivia called for his release too, Gabriel Shipton said during the visit to Mexico. Among a packed scheduled of events, John Shipton received the key to the capital Wednesday on behalf of Assange, a ceremonial honor the city bestows on distinguished guests. The day before, he addressed Mexico’s Senate.

WikiLeaks founder’s family brings campaign to Mexico | The New York Post

Goldman Sachs has hired Jared Cohen, a former Google executive nicknamed the “director of regime change” by Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, for a  new project that will use technology to advance the notoriously powerful investment bank’s policy goals around the world. Cohen was also a senior official in Hillary Clinton’s state department who will now manage “shifts in the geopolitical landscape” for the financial giant.

Goldman Sachs Teams Up with Google’s ‘Director of Regime Change’ to Influence Global Politics | Breitbart

irst things first.  I feel the need to apologize to Mr. Deripaska.  It is an unfortunate situation to see Oleg Deripaska receiving the Julian Assange treatment.  Yes, that is exactly what is happening today as the institutionally corrupt FBI and DOJ attempt to throw a bag over Deripaska, in order to cover up their previous operations.

That said, Oleg Deripaska is not stupid, he knows these players and knows exactly what game the corrupt U.S. officials are playing.   It was transparently obvious over the past few days that something was happening in the background.  The Fourth Branch of Government, intelligence apparatus, Dept of Justice, FBI, and media enablers -writ large- began conducting an information warfare operation.

It is not coincidental: (1) the collective media apparatus brought Chris Steele out of hiding for an ABC interview with George Stephanopoulos, and a rehabilitation of his Dossier effort; then (2) the intelligence apparatus began scrubbing the Dossier from public downloads; then (3) the FBI apparatus notifies the media in advance and shows up to raid the home of a central participant in the Dossier story line.  There are no coincidences of this connective scale.

This is a full-blown propaganda operation carried out by the DC-based Fourth Branch of Government.   These moves indicate a likelihood that John Durham is almost finished with the spray paint operation.   Remember, Lisa Monaco is Deputy AG, and John Carlin is back in the DOJ-NSD position. Both of them participated in the illegal weaponization and political surveillance operations against candidate Trump (that involved Deripaska), and both are now central to the ongoing clean-up and cover-up operation.

DC is a horrible and abusive vehicle; rusted to the core with metastatic corruption.  Bill Barr was the bondo application and John Durham is the spray paint.  The clear objective is to cover-up the corruption from public view and giving Oleg Deripaska the Julian Assange treatment is one part of that process.  The FBI is to Washington DC what the FSB represents to Moscow.

Today, FBI agents from DC’s main office as well as Washington Field Office (WFO) raided the home of Russian Billionaire Oleg Deripaska.   This move comes just 36 hours after CTH outlined the risk that Deripaska represents to all of the corrupt DC officials who participated in the Trump-Russia attack scheme. {Go Deep}

VIA NBC – FBI agents on Tuesday swarmed the home of Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska in Washington, D.C., an agency spokesperson confirmed to NBC News.

The reason for their presence wasn’t immediately clear. The spokesperson said the agency is conducting “law enforcement activity at the home,” but wouldn’t elaborate.

The investigation is being led by federal investigators in New York City, according to two officials briefed on the matter.  (read more)

The FBI told news outlets what they were doing in advance so the cameras could be present as part of the operation (similar to the Roger Stone raid).  Unfortunately, most news consumers cannot see the script and performance that underpins the corrupt motive.

FBI Raids DC Home of Oleg Deripaska, Chris Steele’s Former Employer and Central Player in Corrupt FBI Operation Against Donald Trump | Conservative Treehouse