Authoritarian Rule By Our Intelligence Services

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The Suggested Discussion Outline for our meeting last evening (May 16) had contained at the very end three Six-Degrees-Of-Separation E-mail Campaigns relating to the “6 most important constitutional issues facing America at the moment” as listed on the face of the “Participant Comments” section of this bulletin board for our May 16 meeting --

Re No. 4 (Campaign Finance), to revive McCain-Feingold public financing of political campaigns with such robust funding that “political contributions” are relegated to the scrap heap of history while extending such financing to Senatorial and Congressional Campaigns.

Re No. 5 (The U.S. Senate’s 60-vote “filibuster” rule), to eliminate it.

Re No. 6 (Authoritarian Rule By Our Intelligence Services), to insist that the illegal interference by our intelligence services in the 2016 Presidential Campaign and its aftermath be prosecuted, for the sake of sound public policy, to the fullest extent of the law.

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All three proposals were “approved” unanimously.

The reason for the quotation marks is that we did not achieve our minimum quorum of 6.

We had 8 RSVP’s, and there are usually 1 or 2 members who appear without having RSVP’d.

However, no extras appeared.

And earlier in the week, 2 RSVP’s were hospitalized on an emergency basis and a third RSVP took a bad fall and was bedridden on doctor’s orders.

HOWEVER, all of our Six-Degrees-Of-Separation E-mail Campaigns over our 12.5-year history are collected in the first section of this bulletin board in addition to each appearing below in chronological order with the materials for the meeting in which each was approved.

AND, the comments on the face of the first section of this bulletin board say with respect to our E-mail Campaigns --

“All 27 e-mail campaigns over the years are collected in this section. They include 6 e-mails sent by John Karls that did not receive an official endorsement for the rest of our members to send. The titles of the 21 official recommendations are ALL CAPS and the titles of 6 unofficial recommendations are lower case.”

The requirement for “official” status is either unanimity or, at most, one dissent at a meeting which had at least the minimum quorum of 6 participants.

There were 6 occasions on which Yours Truly felt strongly about an E-mail proposal for which there were two dissents, usually from among more than a dozen participants.

Those “unofficial” campaigns (whose titles are lower case in the first section of this bulletin board) explain that since the U.S. Constitution still contains the Right to Free Speech, Yours Truly had the right to inform his friends of his strong views (virtually all of the 150 recipients of our weekly e-mails are close friends of Yours Truly around the world accumulated over many years).

Bottom line???

Yours Truly had felt so strongly about each of the 3 currently-proposed e-mail campaigns that he would have made them on an unofficial basis if there had been two dissents.

Since, as mentioned above, 3 separate disasters prevented a quorum last evening, the 3 campaigns will move forward on an unofficial basis.

However, even though we fell short of a minimum quorum, the participants were unanimous in supporting each of the 3 campaigns and in recommending that each of them proceed.

Each will be posted here as soon as each is drafted and sent out to our members.

BTW, there was one change. Vis-à-vis the e-mail campaign to revive McCain-Feingold, last evening’s participants decided that it should be directed to Meghan McCain instead of Senator McCain. Because the key to success would be marshaling public opinion. And as a Co-Host of ABC’s “The View,” she is admirably positioned to keep the issue in the public eye until public opinion is marshaled. Which could be aided considerably by her Co-Hosts, each of whom is presumably patriotic.

Respectfully submitted 5/17/2017,

John K.
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johnkarls
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Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:43 pm

Authoritarian Rule By Our Intelligence Services

Post by johnkarls »

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This is the third campaign that was approved unanimously at our 5/16/2018 meeting.

It comprises the following letter sent certified mail to Attorney General Jeff Sessions --
RL-e530-Letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions.pdf
(83.01 KiB) Downloaded 368 times
USPS Tracking No. = 7017 3040 0000 0494 8672

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Issues Raised When The Letter Was Circulated To Meeting Attendees For Comment

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First, why address the campaign to Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

It was unanimously agreed that the Attorney General is responsible for the entire Department of Justice even though he has recused himself from the so-called Russia investigation.

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Second, why the campaign didn’t take the traditional form of an already-prepared e-mail that could be sent to America's decision makers which, with only a few computer keyboard key strokes, can be sent by each of our members (1) to the decision maker, and (2) to all of the member's friends and acquaintances requesting them to do the same in an unending chain.

It was unanimously agreed that https://www.justice.gov/contact-us does NOT have even the pretense (as do Senatorial/Congressional websites and the White House website) that you can send an e-mail to the Attorney General.

[Instead of purporting to send your e-mail to the President, a Senator or a Congressperson, the Department of Justice website “hits you between the eyes” that you are merely sending your e-mail to the Department of Justice!!! Moreover, the “contact” e-mail form has a drop-down menu for “Subject” that contains 35 choices, one of which is “Inspector General” and another of which is “Solicitor General” -- but for the Attorney General the prescribed subject is only “Messages for the Attorney General” which makes it painfully obvious that some staffer will screen the e-mails and make a low-level determination of whether your e-mail merits the attention of the Attorney General!!!]

Moreover, unlike an e-mail campaign to a politician such as the President, a Senator or a Congressperson, all of whom presumably would be impressed by how many e-mails are received in making her/his political decision, this is a “matter of conscience” made by the nation’s chief prosecutor.

Accordingly, it was unanimously agreed that the campaign take the form of a Certified Mail letter addressed directly to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and “a pox on his house” if it fails to reach him!!!

HOWEVER, IF ANY READER HAS DIRECT ACCESS TO ATTORNEY GENERAL JEFF SESSIONS AND IS WILLING TO ACT AS “A GOOD SAMARITAN,” PLEASE FORWARD TO HIM THE ADOBE.PDF FILE AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD APPEARING ABOVE.

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Third, why a four-page letter didn’t include an Executive Summary.

[Usually, letters that are more than one page begin with an Executive Summary that is less than one page.]

It was unanimously agreed that --

(1) all of the information is important and cannot be summarized, and

(2) since American Democracy itself (vs. Orwell’s “1984”) is at stake, Attorney General Sessions should take the time to read a mere four pages.

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The Difference Between The Decisions of Our 12/13/2017 Meeting and Our 5/16/2017 Meeting

The “Conclusion” for our letter of today (5/30/2018) to Attorney General Sessions requests that for the sake of American Democracy --

“Accordingly, it was the unanimous opinion of the participants at our 5/16/2018 meeting that you should institute prosecutions for such obvious criminal behavior imperiling our national security as (A) the Clinton Foundation in general and Uranium One in particular, (B) Hillary putting top-secret documents on a personal computer server that was less secure than g-mail and that was hacked by at least 5 foreign governments, (C) Hillary and the DNC buying false “opposition research” from the Kremlin and distributing it to the mainstream media while masking their deeds by using the Perkins Coie law firm as their agent to accomplish these illegal activities, and (D) rigging the Democratic Primaries against Bernie Sanders who was the only candidate in 2016, other than Donald Trump, standing up for American workers (which should comprise a “slam dunk” case of criminally defrauding all of Bernie Sanders’ zillions of small campaign contributors).”

As explained in the letter to Attorney General Sessions, the attendees of our 12/13/2017 meeting voted 6-3 for an e-mail campaign OPPOSING the extension of FISA Sec. 702 unless two conditions were met, the first of which was the same as the just-quoted request for the sake of American Democracy.

Since our e-mail campaigns require either unanimous approval or, at most, one dissent -- that e-mail campaign was NOT approved.

However, it was clear that the three dissenters were more concerned with security than George Orwell’s “1984”!!!

In other words (which words were featured both in the meeting materials and in the discussion), the three dissenters did NOT believe in “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death”!!!

Accordingly, it was unanimously agreed at our 5/16/2018 meeting that there is a difference between sacrificing American Democracy on the altar of security, and the hope that American Democracy can be preserved within the constraint of exalting security above all other concerns.

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