Tag: 2016 elections

Dirty Barack Obama Who Was Caught Spying on Candidate and President-Elect Trump – Now Takes Credit for Trump’s Booming Economy

Democrats turned to Barack Obama this week to stop the bleeding from the Kamala Harris campaign.

Obama spoke in Pennsylvania on Thursday and used his time on stage to attack President Donald Trump and then lie about his record.

During his appearance in Pennsylvania on Thursday Barack Obama attempted to take credit for the booming Trump economy.

What a crock.

Obama has a lot of nerve slandering President Trump. After all, it was the Obama Administration that was caught spying on the Trump Campaign, President-elect Trump, Trump’s family, and the Trump administration.

Here is a reminder on how Barack Obama was caught spying on Trump from our earlier reporting.

The Gateway Pundit was the first to report back in 2018 that the Deep State was using foreigners to spy on then-candidate Trump in 2015.  President Trump tweeted our report by Joe Hoft the following day and the fake news mainstream media immediately attacked him for promoting what they called a “conspiracy theory.”

We later discovered more evidence in 2020 that we were 100% correct in our initial reporting.

Joe Hoft reported on this development at the time.  In June of 2018 The Gateway Pundit posted an article identifying unredacted words in previously redacted texts between corrupt cops Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, two individuals supposedly having an affair and key players at the top of the FBI involved in spying on candidate and then President Trump.

The discovery came from an individual on Twitter who was later removed from the platform, named Nick Falco, who identified a word uncovered in a Senate text that the corrupt DOJ previously redacted.

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Obama’s CIA Asked Foreign Intel Agencies To Spy On Trump Campaign

The revelation that the U.S. intelligence community, under the Obama administration, sought the assistance of the “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance to surveil Donald Trump’s associates before the 2016 election is a chilling reminder of the lengths to which the Deep State will go to protect its interests and challenge its adversaries. (The Five Eyes countries are the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.) This bombshell, reported by a team of independent journalists, exposes a dark chapter in American political history, where foreign intelligence services were reportedly mobilized against a presidential candidate.

The alleged operation against Trump and his associates, which predates the official start of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation, is a stark example of political weaponization of intelligence. The involvement of foreign allies in surveilling American citizens under the pretext of national security raises serious questions about the integrity of our democratic processes and the autonomy of our nation’s intelligence operations.

The narrative that has been pushed for years, that the investigation into Trump’s campaign began with an Australian tip about a boastful Trump aide, now appears to be a cover for a more extensive and coordinated effort to undermine Trump. If reports are accurate, British intelligence began targeting Trump on behalf of American intelligence agencies as early as 2015, long before the official narrative claims.

The implications of this are profound. It suggests an unprecedented level of collusion between U.S. intelligence agencies and their foreign counterparts to influence the outcome of an American presidential election. The use of foreign intelligence to circumvent American laws and surveillance limitations represents a grave threat to our nation’s sovereignty and the principles of democracy.

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He’s Going to Prison for Twitter Trolling. That’s Not Justice.

It took an FBI investigation, a three-week trial, and lots of taxpayer dollars, but the government finally got what it wanted this week: A Florida man is heading to federal prison for disseminating trollish memes during the 2016 election season that prosecutors alleged “deprive[d] people of their constitutional right to vote.”

In the months leading up to Election Day, Douglass Mackey, an erstwhile far-right social media influencer, posted a series of photos on his Twitter profile—which had about 58,000 followers under the name “Ricky Vaughn”—encouraging Hillary Clinton–supporters to cast their votes by phone. That obviously didn’t go so well for the people who fell for it. But however you feel about Mackey’s obnoxious brand of politics and feeble attempt at comedy, the case became about a lot more than him, raising questions about protected speech, overcriminalization, and a politicized Department of Justice.

To prosecute Mackey, the government leveraged a law from 1870, a century and change before Twitter trolling would become a sport. That legislation was passed to deter the Ku Klux Klan from trying to prevent black people from voting, as they were known to do. According to the indictment, the DOJ alleged Mackey conspired to “injure, oppress, threaten and intimidate one or more persons in the free exercise and enjoyment of a right and privilege secured to them by the Constitution and laws of the United States, to wit: the right to vote.”

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Meme Artist Douglass Mackey is Sentenced To Seven Months in Prison For Hillary Clinton Voting Meme

Douglass Mackey, a once well-known creator of memes on Twitter, has been sentenced to seven months in prison.

The conviction marks a dramatic escalation in how free speech is being handled in the United States. Rendered in the New York criminal court, Mackey was declared guilty of perpetrating a “conspiracy against rights”—the right to an unobstructed election being the one in focus here.

Mackey, who operated under the alias Ricky Vaughn, had made and shared memes critical of Hillary Clinton during the 2016 Presidential race. His memes humorously suggested that Clinton supporters cast their ballots through text messages – a patently invalid method of voting.

Although such an improper method was clearly ineffective, Mackey was still convicted over the notion of election interference.

Quite interestingly, many have noted, other internet users who shared similar content regarding the option of text voting for Donald Trump were neither charged nor convicted.

The absence of evidence showing any voting attempt made following Mackey’s meme did not deter the US Department of Justice from declaring it an interference. Despite Mackey professing his mere intent of creating a viral meme, similar to those which his fellow Clinton detractors had created; he was singled out and penalized.

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Russiagate’s Missing Pieces

The first thing to understand about John Durham is that he was a fearless prosecutor who went after organized crime and put in prison retired and active FBI agents who protected the mob for money or other enticements. One of the agents he stopped had enabled James “Whitey” Bulger Jr., once one of America’s most wanted men, the Winter Hill Gang boss who evaded arrest for sixteen years.

In his forty-five years as a state and federal prosecutor in Connecticut and Virginia, Durham worked often and closely with FBI agents, especially on cases that involved violations of federal racketeering statutes.

Durham also handled two inquiries into the CIA’s conduct in the War on Terror, and he did so without angering his superiors in the executive branch. In one case he was asked to investigate the alleged destruction of CIA videotapes of detainee interrogations, the so-called torture tapes. His final report on the matter remains secret, and he recommended that no charges be filed. He was later asked to lead a Justice Department inquiry into the legality of the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” that resulted in the death of two detainees. In that case, he was told that officers who were given and obeyed what were determined to be illegal orders—there were many of those after 9/11—could not be prosecuted. No charges were filed.

Durham’s 306-page report was made public on May 15, and it pleased no one with its focus on the obvious. The journalist Susan Schmidt, whose byline was a must-read when she was a reporter for the Washington Post, pointed out on Racket News that Durham said the FBI would have done less damage to its reputation if it had scrutinized the questionable actions of the Clinton campaign in 2016: the Feds “might at least have cast a critical eye on the phony evidence they were gathering.”

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Anti-Hillary Election ‘Meme’ Case Could Open The Floodgates To More Gov’t Censorship, Legal Experts Warn

Douglass Mackey’s Friday conviction for an election “meme” he posted on his account with over 58,000 followers has legal experts raising alarm bells about its impact on free speech.

A jury convicted Mackey for conspiring to deprive others of their right to vote through a meme he posted during the 2016 election, which advertised a way to vote for Hilary Clinton via text message. First Amendment experts say Mackey’s conviction is based on an expansive interpretation of a Conspiracy Against Rights law that could impact other forms of speech, from satire to lies in election campaigns.

While the First Amendment allows for punishing fraud, “it’s not clear Mackey’s actions qualify as fraud in a legal sense,” Aaron Terr, director of Public Advocacy for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“Fraud generally requires a speaker to make a false statement to obtain money or something of material value from the injured party, who relies on the false statement to their detriment,” he said. Even if Mackey’s actions did qualify, Terr also noted that the Justice Department indicted him using a statute that goes beyond fraudulent speech.

“It criminalizes conspiring to ‘injure’ or ‘oppress’ someone in the exercise of any constitutional right,” he said. “If that vague language covers speech that deceives people into voting improperly, it raises the troubling possibility of the government also applying it to allegedly false statements about political issues or candidates that discourage people from voting, not just misrepresentations about the logistics of exercising the franchise. Anyone who cares about free speech should be concerned about how the government might abuse this vague and broadly worded law to chill the spirited public discourse on which our democracy depends.”

After being charged with Conspiracy Against Rights, Mackey faces up to ten years in prison. Eugene Volokh, Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law at UCLA, told the DCNF there are two primary routes he could take for an appeal.

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MEME TRIAL: Defendant says he wasn’t committing ‘election interference’, was simply trying for viral meme

On Monday, attorneys gave their opening arguments in the trial of internet meme maker Douglass Mackey, also known as Rickey Vaughn, with his lawyer Andrew Frisch telling a federal jury that Mackey wasn’t looking to trick voters when he posted Hillary Clinton memes in 2016 telling supporters to “vote from home” via text messaging.

Frisch said that Mackey was merely attempting to go viral, according to the New York Daily News, stating that Mackey was “sh*t-posting,” or “stuff-posting” as he told the jury.

“It means what it says — he was posting stuff,” Frisch said. “A lot of it was online trash-talking. Juvenile, sure, and some of it was vulgar.”

“Whatever your reaction when you hear his views … whether he was a great thinker or a neanderthal caveman, you will see that none of it is proof of a criminal conspiracy.”

According to Rolling Stone, Frisch argued that people had begun texting the number only after media outlets began covering the meme. He noted that two people texted “Hillary for prison” to the number.

Federal prosecutors claimed that Mackey worked with fellow meme makers to create the Twitter posts and make them as real as possible.

“This wasn’t about changing votes. This was about vaporizing votes, making them disappear,” said Assistant US Attorney Turner Buford.

“The number was real and set up to receive incoming messages,” he explained. “The release of these fake campaign ads was timed to flood the internet before Election Day.”

Mackey posted the memes on November 1, a week before the election, and Frisch said that the meme’s message was “ludicrous to anyone with a basic knowledge of how presidential elections work,” the New York Daily Mail reported.

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Biden DOJ Crusade to Jail Young Man for Anti-Hillary Memes Just Got Much Uglier

Last month, Revolver profiled the Biden Administration’s persecution of former Twitter anon Doug Mackey, who was a famous pro-Trump voice back in 2016 under the moniker of Ricky Vaughn.

For those whose memory is foggy, a quick review: In the late stages of the 2016 race, Mackey posted several memes, designed to resemble Hillary Clinton campaign images, claiming that supporters could vote by simply texting a phone number.

The memes were a Twitter-generation version of the common joke about telling one’s political opponents to turn out for the election next Wednesday. But, in an unprecedented move, the Biden Administration says Mackey violated the Ku Klux Klan Act by systematically acting to strip Americans of their civil rights. The KKK Act was passed to prevent literal assaults and terrorism that prevented black Americans from voting, but now the DOJ’s prosecutors say it applies to satirical online speech — they say Mackey broke the law, even though they can’t produce a single person who failed to vote due to Mackey’s stunt.

(By the way, you can donate to Mackey’s legal defense here or here or here).

All of that is bad enough, but newly-unsealed documents released on Wednesday reveal new, sinister depths to the DOJ’s agenda.

Last fall, we warned about a new tool in the arsenal of weapons used by the regime to justify censorship and rolling back the basic rights of Americans. With this new tool, corrupt journalists like Taylor Lorenz can dox, harass, and lie about anyone they want and enjoy total immunity from criticism. Why? Well, if you dare to criticize a journalist like Lorenz, someone, somewhere, might become outraged and decide to commit an act of violence. With this remarkable censorship tool, the media’s attack dog journalists are magically absolved from any criticism because some nut job, somewhere, maybe, at sometime, might act violently upon this criticism.

The tool goes by the name “stochastic terrorism.”

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Most Important First Amendment Case You’ve Never Heard Of: Biden Regime Tries to Toss a Young Man in Jail for 10 Years for Anti-Hillary Memes

Douglass Mackey is alleged to be one of the many anonymous Twitter users who made the 2016 election so different, so memorable, and so important.

Like other anonymous internet memesmiths (anons), Mackey had no external reason that anyone should care what he said. He held no office. He had no byline at an elite publication. He had no vast pool of wealth that conferred legitimacy, deserved or undeserved, on what he had to say.

Mackey’s notability, like that of Bronze Age Pervert or Libs of TikTok, came exclusively from what he had to say, and that people found it funny and compelling. Over the summer and fall of 2016, Mackey allegedly went by the nom-de-tweet Ricky Vaughn (after Charlie Sheen’s character in Major League) and collected tens of thousands of followers who found him funny and compelling. Mackey was not single-handedly responsible for getting Donald Trump elected. But the work he allegedly did along with dozens of others is what made Trump’s victory possible. An MIT analysis estimated that Ricky Vaughn was a bigger influence on the 2016 election than NBC News.

But for the regime, the specter of anonymous individuals making the system tremble was too much. And so, for more than two years, the regime has been battling to send Mackey to prison.

You might not know much about Mackey’s case. It’s far less notorious than the January 6 prosecutions, or the murder trial of Kyle Rittenhouse. But in terms of how much the speech matters for American liberty, it is as important as either of those — perhaps more so. 

In January 2021, shortly after the January 6 incident inaugurated a national anti-MAGA crackdown, the Department of Justice charged Mackey with “conspiring … to deprive individuals of their constitutional right to vote.”

Mackey’s offense? Illegal memes.

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Western Journalists Are Cowardly, Approval-Seeking Losers

Research conducted by New York University’s Center for Social Media and Politics into Russian trolling behavior on Twitter in the lead-up to the 2016 US presidential election has found “no evidence of a meaningful relationship between exposure to the Russian foreign influence campaign and changes in attitudes, polarization, or voting behavior.”

Which is to say that all the years of hysterical shrieking about Russian trolls interfering in US democracy and corrupting the fragile little minds of Americans — a narrative that has been used to drum up support for internet censorship and ever-increasing US government involvement in the regulation of online speech — was false.

And to be clear, this isn’t actually news. It was established years ago that the St Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency could not possibly have had any meaningful impact on the 2016 election, because the scope of its operations was quite small, its posts were mostly unrelated to the election and many were posted after the election occurred, and its funding was dwarfed by orders of magnitude by domestic campaigns to influence the election outcome.

What’s different this time around, six years after Trump’s inauguration, is that this time the mass media are reporting on these findings.

The Washington Post has an article out with the brazenly misleading headline “Russian trolls on Twitter had little influence on 2016 voters“. Anyone who reads the article itself will find its author Tim Starks acknowledges that “Russian accounts had no measurable impact in changing minds or influencing voter behavior,” but the insertion of the word “little” means anyone who just reads the headline (the overwhelming majority of people encountering the article) will come away with the impression that Russian trolls still had some influence on 2016 voters.

“Little influence” could mean anything shy of tremendous influence. But the study did not find that Russian trolls had “little influence” over the election; it failed to find any measurable influence at all. 

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