Menu Close

Release The Reckoning

Newsletter | November 3, 2022

Eagle - American Flag

There’s a Red Wave due to sweep through polling places across the country Tuesday. The prospect of a big Republican win appears imminent. Here at America’s Future, we pray for an outcome that sets our nation on a brighter path where our elected officials respect our Constitution and individual rights, our national sovereignty and security, and work to unify this divided nation.

Republicans seem destined to take control of the House of Representatives and likely the Senate, too. Even in deep Blue states like New York and Oregon, GOP candidates stand a good chance of winning their races for Governor. But here’s the plain fact: victories for straight-speaking politicians who want to get our country back on track mean that plenty of our neighbors and fellow countrymen are crossing party lines to reject the policies and postures that have left us all on the brink of disaster. So it’s not really about partisanship — rather, Americans are linking hands in a broad nationwide effort to save our great country.

And that terrifies the very worst of our political establishment, left and right. The prospect of us all coming together as one is a threat to their power.

Look at how hard they work to divide us. In their hands, everything is a weapon used to divide and destroy the country. There’s nothing the ruling class won’t do or use to hold on to its privileges — they’ve turned public health emergencies, social media platforms, and even their own transgressions into instruments to hurt Americans.

They know we’re on to them.

Just last week the Washington, DC-based magazine The Atlantic asked Americans to forgive the establishment for the destruction it caused with COVID lockdowns, and mask and vaccine mandates. But we can’t and won’t forget about how public health officials and their media allies gleefully threatened to fire us from our jobs if we didn’t take the shot. And the memory of our children locked out of schools and our loved ones dying alone will burn forever. You hurt registered Democrats as well as Republicans. Sorry, there will be no COVID amnesty. You’re going to pay for what you did, and the reckoning starts on election day.

This week we learned that federal agencies created to keep Americans safe from terrorists and criminals are being used to censor us. The FBI and Department of Homeland Security have been collaborating with Big Tech to cheat the system, violate our voting rights, and criminalize free speech. All Americans are hurt by this. Those who conspired against the Constitution won’t be forgiven for their crimes. The reckoning is coming November 8.

Americans don’t care what adults do in the privacy of their own homes, whether it’s the home of a middle-class family, or one belonging to the House of Representatives’ top official. But turn that around and use it to smear half the country as criminals and terrorists and you’ve crossed the line. And that line will be redrawn Tuesday as voters across the political spectrum join in unison to remind our elected officials who calls the shots.

On Election Day, we’ll be reminding the establishment why we’re the greatest nation on earth. Get out and vote — and get out friends and family, too. This is America, a country governed by, of, and for We The People.

Thank you for taking our survey on our feature article about the consequential upcoming midterm election. Hundreds of readers respond each week with great insights and interesting comments. We read them all and share some of them every Monday at 9 a.m. on America’s Mondays With Mary – our live broadcast hosted by our Executive Director Mary O’Neill. 

3star-divider-sml

America’s Future Files Amicus Brief Objecting to Jan 6 Committee Subpoena

US Flag on Flagpole

On Friday, October 28, 2022, America’s Future along with four other nonprofit organizations jointly submitted a Motion for Leave to File an Amicus brief with the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) supporting an Emergency Application to Stay a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals order compelling a cell phone carrier, T-Mobile, to comply with a subpoena that demands T-Mobile disclose the personal cell phone account information (e.g. phone call data, voicemails, text messages, contacts, other related records, etc.) of three customers, including Dr. Kelli Ward, the Chairwoman of Arizona’s Republican Party.

The case comes before the SCOTUS as Michael Ward, et al. v Bennie G. Thompson, in His Official Capacity as Chairman of the United States House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, et al. (“Jan 6. Committee”), SCOTUS Dkt No. 22A350 (2022).  The Docket can be found here.

The Emergency Application was filed with the SCOTUS, through counsel, by plaintiffs Drs. Michael and Kelli Ward, husband and wife, along with Mole Medical Services, P.C.

Dr. Kelli Ward is the central focus of the Emergency Application. The Application requests SCOTUS stay the Ninth Circuit order and enjoin T-Mobile from releasing the requested records to the Jan 6 Committee, a partisan ad hoc committee installed by Democrat Party leadership to “investigate” the events of January 6, 2021.

Kelli Ward’s role in the 2020 election in Arizona and its aftermath is a matter of public record. The Jan 6 Committee has not alleged that she was in or even near the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Further, there is no suggestion that she violated any law on January 6.

Here, the Emergency Application maintains that actions of and by the Jan 6 Committee members infringe her First Amendment right to freely associate with others based on political philosophies, political party preference, or for whatever reason.

Kelli Ward is a political opponent of the political party in power; she is actively engaged in political party committees and political activities; and in this politically charged climate, without any good cause stated and not one accusation of wrongdoing by Kelli Ward, it just doesn’t pass the smell test that the Jan 6 Committee cannot perform their legislative duties of oversight without Kelli Wards cell phone records.  That notion is preposterous and any member of Congress or government official who argue otherwise is dishonest, disingenuous, and failing the constituents who elected him or her to public office.

We, at America’s Future, support Kelli Ward’s well-reasoned position and arguments put forth to the Court. To that end, we further argue compliance with the subpoena will result in yet another profound chilling effect on free speech in America.

Additionally, our brief objects to the subpoena under Fourth Amendment grounds, in so much as it is an arbitrary and capricious fishing expedition with no valid predicate.

As our brief describes, this subpoena is reminiscent of general warrants used by the British Crown in the early days of America to conduct wholesale searches of the “persons, houses, papers and effects” of original American colonists using “suspicion of wrongdoing” as a pretext to identify which colonists were “disloyal to the Crown.”  General warrants and the like are un-American and outlawed.  Their purpose and effect advance tyranny and abuse of power under the color of law – conditions unacceptable to Americans.

3star-divider-sml

DOJ Announces Regulation Amending Policy for DOJ-Media Interaction and Arrests

Today, November 3, 2022, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) announced an Interim Final Rule amending regulations under Title 28 Chapter I § 50.10, which sets forth DOJ policy regarding the Department’s interactions with “members of the news media,” including but not limited to FBI interviews, arrests, and the filing of criminal charges against members of the media.

The title of this new DOJ policy regulation, which is effective immediately, is “Policy Regarding Obtaining Information From or Records of Members of the News Media; and Regarding Questioning, Arresting, or Charging Members of the News Media.”

So, who, exactly, are considered “members of the news media” for purposes of this amended policy? The answer is stated in Section (e)(1): “When there is a close or novel question as to the person’s or entity’s status as a member of the news media, the determination of such status must be approved by the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division.”

The DOJ’s summary and statement of principle under this regulation, in part, follows:

Summary
This rule amends the regulations setting forth the policy of the Department of Justice regarding the use of compulsory legal process, including subpoenas, search warrants, and certain court orders for the purpose of obtaining information from or records of members of the news media.

Statement of Principle
In determining whether to seek, when permitted by this policy, information from or records of members of the news media, the Department must consider several vital interests: protecting national security, ensuring public safety, promoting effective law enforcement and the fair administration of justice, and safeguarding the essential role of a free press in fostering Government accountability and an open society, including by protecting members of the news media from compelled disclosure of information revealing their sources.

It is important to understand the differences from the prior policy versus the new regulation because this regulation helps to frame the way our government interacts with the media. It appears the regulatory language has been significantly modified throughout and the newly enacted § 50.10 adds “metadata and digital content” to the type of communications that may be collected by subpoenas, search warrants, and court orders. When powers of the DOJ-FBI expand, as they appear to do here, our God-given liberties and freedoms of speech, press, religion, and due process are particularly at stake.

3star-divider-sml

America’s Future second book, “Understanding The Separation of Powers Principles” is in production and should be completed before the end of the year. This adds to our educational series of materials for families, individuals and homeschoolers. 

If you have not submitted your information for a print version of our first book, “Exploring America’s Founding Documents,” please do so by clicking the button below, or you can access the digital version here.

3star-divider-sml
Unequal Justice Under Law

The FBI’s War on the First Amendment

This is the eleventh article in our series on the nation’s premier law enforcement agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and its self-destruction over time.

FBI agents are required to take an oath of office to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”  One would hope that the agents would understand that oath to include the First Amendment, but that raises the question — what rights do FBI agents think the First Amendment actually protects, if they think of it at all?

Properly understood, the First Amendment elevates the rights of the individual above the reach of the state.  It protects the rights of Americans to freedom of religion, speech, press, petition, and assembly.  Each of these First Amendment terms had an established meaning before they were written into the Constitution.  For example, freedom of speech had its origins in the right of members of Parliament to criticize the King without being sent to the Tower of London.  And, freedom of the press protected not Big Media, but every individual who wanted to lay his views before the public through pamphlets and the like.  Both of those speech and press rights protect robust criticism of government.

Now, government is changing the meaning of those constitutional terms.  Lawyers and judges, with no respect for truth, have made Swiss Cheese out of the First Amendment text.  No matter what the text of the First Amendment may require, they can find a way around its clear meaning.  Remember what Bill Clinton said when asked if he had been lying about his White House indiscretions?  He replied: “It depends on what the meaning of the word is, is.”  Clinton followed in the path of Humpty Dumpty who said:  “When I use a word … it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”

The real problem is that protecting the constitutional rights of Americans is an afterthought when compared with one of the FBI’s central, but unspoken, responsibilities — to tamp down criticism of government.  How does it do that?  The way that it always has — by surveilling us and then instilling fear into the hearts of those who speak against government.  If our response is to fear the consequences of speaking out, we silence ourselves.  In that way, the FBI “chills” speech.

The groups that the FBI targets over the last century have moved from anti-World War I activists, communists, civil rights supporters, socialists, Vietnam War protestors, and draft dodgers.  Under the Obama and Biden administrations, their focus has been on militia members, “domestic terrorists,” MAGA Republicans, constitutionalists, gun rights advocates, and election protestors.  Under Obama and Biden, FBI efforts to suppress protected political speech have skyrocketed.

The FBI is making widespread use of private informants to report on their neighbors who have political views that differ from those of the administration.  The FBI has “wide leeway…to use informants when investigating citizens based on their ideological beliefs.”  As whistleblower Chris Stevens has revealed, during the Obama administration, he was asked to become an informant within the Northern California Militia.  The FBI asked Stevens to keep spying on the group even after his investigation failed to find any probable cause.  “I was just a human recording machine paid by the government to go into people’s lives and befriend them and find out what they were thinking,” Stevens said.  His infiltration of militia groups contradicts the FBI’s claims that federal law enforcement does not investigate Americans based on ideology alone.

Another whistleblower revealed that the FBI characterized a veteran-organized group called “American Contingency” as a “domestic violence extremist” group, continuing to do so even after concluding that the group “desires to assist Americans in preparing themselves for catastrophic events and not to overthrow the government.”  On September 14, 2022, House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jim Jordan (R-OH) wrote a letter to FBI director Christopher Wray to defend the group, noting that “the FBI opened an investigation into an American citizen — and deemed him a potential ‘threat’ — simply because he exercised his First Amendment right to speak out in protest of the government.”

It is past time for us as patriotic Americans to stop our self-censoring.  We need to speak up, to be loud and effective critics of government abuses.  True, the FBI may spy on us and hear what we say.  And the FBI may knock on our door, or worse.  So this is a good time to remind ourselves what God says: “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”  2 Timothy 1:7. Another translation puts it this way:  “God has not given us a spirit of cowardice….”  It’s time to put away fear and put away cowardice.  It is a certainty that if we don’t find the courage to use what Freedoms we now have, soon we will lose those as well.

We must recognize and accept the fact that the FBI doesn’t care about us — it serves those who seek to rule over us and control our lives.  The FBI has become the tip of the spear of the “enemies domestic,” which they promised to defend us against.  Until we can dismantle the FBI once and for all, we must stand for truth, and accept whatever the consequences may be.

As has been said before: “If not us, who? If not now, when?”

To read the entire series of articles, please click here.

3star-divider-sml

Reminders & Updates

ELECTION INFO RESOURCES: America’s Future wants to help ease the way by providing an “Election Information Resources” page on our website. Here you will find direct links, telephone numbers and email address to all 50 states and U.S. jurisdictions’ election information websites. It’s user-friendly with easy access to check where your polling location is and other assorted points of voter information. Click here.

AMERICA’S MONDAYS WITH MARY: Tune in every Monday morning at 9 a.m. (ET) to watch our Executive Director Mary O’Neill report out on the comments and insights submitted via our weekly Reader Survey and listen to updates about America’s Future activities and what’s ahead at America’s Mondays With Mary.

STAY CONNECTED: You’ll find America’s Future on your favorite social media platforms. Thank you for remembering to follow us and please share our posts.

3star-divider-sml

Support America’s Future

America’s Future is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
All donations are tax-deductible to the full extent of the law.