U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Thursday lambasted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), often described as fearless and even never-daunted, as “too afraid” to send the articles of impeachment to the Senate that were approved mostly along party lines with three Democrats defecting.
On the Senate floor Thursday, McConnell accused Pelosi of suggesting “that House Democrats may be too afraid … to even transmit their shoddy work product to the Senate.”
Referring to the development as “comical,” McConnell said Democrats who stressed the urgency of the process now seem “content to sit on their hands.”
McConnell, one of the top Republican leaders who has been holding the party together against the impeachment-fueled onslaught against Trump and his allies, taunted Pelosi’s threat to withhold the articles of impeachment until the GOP agrees to a fair impeachment trial.
“This particular House of Representatives has let its partisan rage at this particular president create a toxic new precedent that will echo well into the future,” McConnell said from the Senate floor Thursday.
“Looks like the prosecutors are getting cold feet,” McConnell mused in remarks on the Senate floor after the House voted to impeach Trump along party lines.
Three Democrats defected, voting against at least one of the articles, while the Republicans remained together in their opposition.
House Democrats impeached Trump on abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Trump joined the impeached president’s club as its third member.
Historically, the House sends the articles of impeachment approved in the House to the upper chamber — the Senate – for a trial.
Pelosi, however, appears to be doing what she knows best, playing legislative games. She has threatened that the Democrats would only send over the impeachment articles until she gets what she wants — the promise of a “fair” Senate process.
“We’ll make a decision… as we go along,” Pelosi told reporters Wednesday, adding that “we’ll see what the process will be on the Senate side,” Fox News reports.
“We have acted,” Pelosi continued, repeatedly refusing to commit to sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate. “Now, they’ll understand what their responsibilities are, and we’ll see what that is.”
Many Republicans have balked at Pelosi’s request because they believe Democrats denied them a fair trial while Pelosi sat by and watched the show.
McConnell’s speech on the Senate floor came after House Democrats voted to impeach Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress on Wednesday night.
On Thursday, Senate majority leader McConnell deemed the House impeachment vote — which passed without the support of a single Republican — as “the most rushed, least thorough, and most unfair impeachment inquiry in modern history.”
Impeaching Trump became an obsession for many Democrats soon after he took office.
Speaker Pelosi has vowed not to send the articles of impeachment against President Trump to the Republican-controlled Senate until they agree to make the Senate trial fair. House Republicans repeatedly made similar requests, but the Democrat majority ignored them.
So now, Democrats are complaining that Republicans are denying them the legislative commodities that just a few weeks ago they gleefully refused GOP lawmakers.
Pelosi’s threat not to release the articles of impeachment until she gets what she wants is a surprise move that plunges Congress’s timeline of Trump’s trial in the Senate into even more uncertainty.
There are multiple freight trains headed the way of the Deep State. I know it is hard to believe that Hillary will ever spend a day behind bars. However, after reading this 3 part series, it is hard to believe that she will not. If it one thing to dodge one bullet. It is another to dodge a volley of bullets fired at point blank range and that is what key members of the Deep State are facing, especially Hillary.
The Clinton email investigation by Comey and the IG report provided Federal authorities with enough to prosecute Hillary Clinton, John Podesta, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Comey, McCabe, Paige, Strzok, Paige et al.
Keep in mind, the FBI never looked at the content on the DNC server. Many feel that would have implicated Podesta in th murder of Seth Rich. The IG report stopped just short of implicating Obama in the fake Dossier which should be sending Loretta Lynch to prison along with Rosenstein.
In Part One, I detailed how McCain, Clinton and Obama are implicated in the formation and providing material support for terrorists including ISIS. Previously, I exposed Clinton and Obama for Benghazi and the attempted cover up that they sanctioned, with regard to gun running, drug dealing and child-sex-trafficking. Benghazi, as I previously revealed was conducted to cover up these crimes, just 7 weeks before the 2012 election.
Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner have tapes on virtually all of these events according to a deep cover FBI source. I have written about this a number of times, maybe now, people are ready to connect the same dots I did back in 2016.
Comey and Clinton
Comey’s investigation was actually very complete and produced actionable evidence that should have sent Hillary to prison for life. Comey excoriated Clinton and then as he was reeling her in for the kill, he cut the line, exonerated her, and let America’s biggest snake slither into the darkness. The investigation could be characterized as “EXCORIATION TO EXONERATION”.
The IG Report
The IG report convicted the FBI of illegal surveillance of private citizens, collusion to plant false evidence, and most of all, flagrant violations of the Hatch Act. The Hatch Act prevents Federal employees from working to influence and publicly supporting a candidate, or in Trump’s case, working to block the election of a candidate.
The IG Report followed the same exact strategy of EXCORIATION TO EXONERATION. The American people have been made aware of the fact that crimes were committed, but are told the crimes are not sufficient enough to warrant indictments. Therefore, the same pattern of EXCORIATION TO EXONERATION REMAINS IN PLAY!
America should be in the streets with pitchforks over thes two failures to indict, but instead of people like Clinton doing the perp walk, the perps are walking. However, this may change. There are two very serious revelations surfacing that even a compromised IG cannot ignore, without being charged with obstruction.
As a side note, many people have told me to back off against my crusade against Attorney General, Jeff Sessions. They say he is playing a game of deception and he and Trump have a plan to play dumb until it is time to spring the trap. Sorry, I don’t believe in Santa Claus. However, Sessions, in the face of this new overwhelming evidence, will have only two choices: (1) Resign, or, (2) Indict and Prosecute.
Wasserman Schultz Could Bring Down the Deep State IF She’s Not Murdered
Wasserman Schultz got away with her role in the death of Seth Rich because her brother, a federal prosecutor in Washington DC intervened and got the investigation into Seth Rich’s murder stopped. I wrote extensively about this in the Summer of 2016.
However, Wasserman Schultz and her good fortune is about to come to an end. It is common knowledge that Awan was given access to classified material by Wasserman Schultz, some of it very Deep State orientated. Now, Awan and his wife have entered a guilty plea to a minor bank fraud charge. In light of all that they could have been charged with, only a minor bank fraud charge is being brought against them? There is a deal in there and it is going to have major implications on the release of the DNC tapes and Wasserman Schultz’s connections to Podesta and Clinton and their criminal activities. I have been told by a reliable informant that Awan has provided information against Wasserman Schultz and Podesta. If only one of these two turn state’s evidence, then it is over for Wasserman Schultz and ultimately Hillary Clinton. And if Clinton falls, so does the Deep State. Subsequently, Debbie Wasserman Schultz is about to slip on a banana peel. Why? Debbie Awan has a deal with the DOJ, separate and apart from her husband. If she makes the deal with the DOJ it goes back to good ‘ole Debbie Wasserman Schultz. She is the key to concealing DNC voter fraud and the murder of Seth Rich and the Pizzagate scandal. Therefore, the Awan’s present a double-barreled threat to the Deep State.
This opens up avenues to John Podesta and most importantly, Hillary Clinton. OMG, the Deep State can not afford to have Clinton investigated because it will open up everything from child-sex-trafficking to organ harvesting and how the Clinton Foundation is at the heart of all of this and their main target. The best investment in town may be to invest in a life insurance policy for Wasserman Schultz. If she’s lucky, she will only be charged and convicted for obstruction of justice and aiding and abetting.
More dirt is continuing to come out on the Awan brothers. The charges border on treason and sedition, but they have gone away.How? IT is a called a plea deal. Wasserman Schultz had to have known the extent of their criminality as they destroyed evidence which would have implicated her. Here is the entire story and it is shocking. Please keep in mind the following represents old news that I previously revealed. This is why I am so frustrated with Jeff Sessions, I revealed this information two years ago and it was easy to find.
Conclusion
The Awan-Wasserman Schultz connection won’t be the only bombshells that are coming the Deep State’s way. There is a star witness that will be testifying to the Senate Intelligence Committee this week. And this witness knows where all the bodies are buried, as this person served in two administrations, and I guarantee you that this witness will not fall on their sword and this person is too public to murder. This will be the topic of Part Three along with the retaliatory options the Deep State has in their arsenal.
There is a plot that is so intricate, so detailed, so complex and so very brilliant, it is very difficult to explain to others who already don’t know some, or most of the story. The revelation of this plot may cause me, in the near future, to reverse my position on Jeff Sessions and my expressed to desire to have him removed as Attorney General.
Unlike when I stood alone for months on reports of the near coup against the Obama administration over Benghazi, what I am about to reveal is known by others, either in part or in whole. My preference would have been to have waited and several journalists report what is known at the same time. However, I just conducted a telephonic interview with Paul Preston. In addition, one of my best sources, after months of telling me big things are going to become public with regard to Deep State minions, I have concluded that I am a bit ahead of the knowledge curve and it would not be wise for me to hang onto what I have learned.
In a nutshell, this paper will reveal that high profile figures have been involved in treasonous activity against the United States, coupled with illicit criminal behavior at the same time. I have learned that some of these figures are on the verge of being arrested and indicted y the Trump administration. Unlike my Benghazi revelations, I do not stand alone in my discoveries. Without the information I have recently learned, I could have made a strong circumstantial case supporting what is going to be revealed here today. Subsequently, from a credibility standpoint, this is very low risk. However, from a personal safety perspective, it would not be wise to reveal my discoveries and recent conclusions.
Part one of this series consists of contextual background which will provide the factual justification to make the allegations against key Deep State operatives in Part two.
Relevant Contextual Background
The brief summary of what I have already reported in the past is highly relevant to what is coming.
The following events have already been documented and reported on The Common Sense Show will be revealed in this section.
John Cruz-Vice President of HSBC Bank
I first interviewed John Cruz in 2011 and again in 2o12. Most recently, I interviewed Cruz in 2016. This person is an unique position to connect keep members of the Deep State with treason against the United States as well as overt criminal behavior.
Here is a summary of what I reported in 2016 and unfortunately, the nation was ready, at that time, to fully embrace the Cruz revelations.
John Cruz is your ordinary family man. He put himself through college and worked his way up the corporate ladder. He excelled at working with bank customers. He rose to the position of Sr. Vice-President of HSBC Bank. Everything was fine was until he discovered that his bank was laundering drug money for the cartels and terrorists and some of the money ended up in the hands of the elite.
John Cruz was fired from his job at HSBC Bank in New York for whistle-blowing on the bank’s illegal activity, his family was threatened. and yet, he still feels that everyone needs to know what goes on behind the scenes of a major bank. Cruz even reported the illegal money laundering to Homeland Security, but to no avail. He should be an American hero, but instead, he was chastised, employment was hard to find and he lives in constant fear of his life. If it were not for the tapes he’s made and held back, for leverage sake, he would already be dead.
John Cruz discovered that massive amounts of drug cartel and terrorist money was being laundered through HSBC. Cruz investigated and found evidence of multiple money-laundering operations. He went to his bosses and reported what he found after he had conducted field operational investigations and found evidence of boiler rooms operations and fake business addresses, etc. His bosses told him to get back to work and to forget what he had told them. The head of HSBC security told him “This is how we make money, forget what you think you have seen”.
One of the by-products of this criminality has impacted millions of Americans. Cruz revealed that the scourge of identity theft is headquartered deep in HSBC bank as fake accounts done so in order to launder illicit drug sales, funding terrorism, gun running and child-sex-trafficking. There are some of you reading these words whose names appear on HSBC bank accounts that are being used tos upport money laundering for one or all of the interest listed above and if you run afoul of the Deep State, this information could be used to falsely set you up.
I previously documented how FBI director Comey served on the Board of Directors at HSBC during the time of the coverup of the criminal activities. Comey is not the only senior federal government official implicated in the crimes of HSBC either through participation or cover up. I asked Cruz about Comey and he was aware that Comey had been on the board of directors at HSBC bank and was responsible for “moving money” (ie laundering terrorist-based activities as well as organized crime. We now know that moving money meant, in part, included moving money to the Clinton Foundation. And are we surrpised that Comey gave Clinton a free pass for her illegal emails? Comey should be in jail.
When I first printed these documentable allegations against Comey, he was not quite the household public figure that he is now. Now, people are going to pay attention.
Cruz also stated that the Clinton emails undoubtedly deal with her involvement iwth HSBC and the connection to the Clinton Foundation.
Eric Holder’s DoJ did not investigate money-laundering charges in deference to bank clients of his very own Washington-based law firm, where Holder was a senior partner prior to joining the Obama administration. Obama participated in this coverup after the fact. Do you remember the classic movie The Firm, starring Tom Cruise in which the law firm’s purpose was to provide cover for organized criminal activity? This is Eric Holder, pre Attorney General activities. Remember, Holder was also cited for Contempt of Congress, for his role in Fast and Furious in which, under his direction as the AG, he supplied the drug cartels with weapons which resulted in the murder of Border Patrol agent, Brian Terry. Today, Holder is the spokesperson for the unconstitutional and illegal CALEXIT, in which California is trying to exit the United States as a protectorate of the United Nations.
Cruz went far and wide with his allegations. DHS told him to go away. Manhattan’s District Attorney’s told him that this would cost him his job, and that is if he was lucky. The head of the New York Eastern District covered up the crime as well, after Cruz provided her with irrefutable prof of his allegations. And who was the head of the Eastern District of New York? Why, it was none other than Loretta Lynch, the current Attorney General.
Lynch, to cover her legal behind actually found HSBC guilty of violation the “Banking Secrecy Laws”, but ignored the 800 lb. gorilla in the room, the money laundering and the violation of national laws on terrorism. I asked Cruz why Lynch would pursue the one charge and not the other. He told my audience that she could prosecute on a far lesser charge to make the serious charge go away.
This fact actually came up in the confirmation of Lynch’s nomination to the AG position, but it was quickly swept under the rug. However, the Cruz two hour testimony before the Senate Judiciary committee was so damning, that the Senate had to withhold Lynch’s nomination vote for three weeks in order “to let things calm down”.
ON THE COMMON SENSE SHOW (7/31), CRUZ STATED THAT LYNCH “HAD FULL KNOWLEDGE” OF WHAT TRANSPIRED AT HSBC BANK. HOW DOES HE KNOW THAT? BECAUSE HE GAVE HER SECRET TAPE RECORDINGS HE MADE ALONG WITH DOCUMENTS DEMONSTRATING, NOT ONLY THE ABOUT MONEY LAUNDERING, BUT THE SENIOR OFFICIALS AT THE BANK ENGAGED IN A COVERUP. LORETTA LYNCH IS AN ACCOMPLICE TO MONEY LAUNDERING FOR THE DRUG CARTELS AND TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS SUCH AS THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD.
And according to Cruz, all of thee Deep State minions and notable public figures, former members of the Obama administration, have intimate connections with the Clinton Foundation.
When Lynch and Bill Clinton had their conflict of interest meeting in the Phoenix airport, what do you think they talked about?
Please keep in mind that these are the revelations from an insider of the most corrupt bank on the planet. By the way, I have learned that HSBC is laundering money into the CALEXIT movement.
Here is the last interview I did with John Cruz, who should be getting a lot more attention from the Independent Media than he is.
Scott Bennett-Former Army PSYOP
Dr. Scott Bennett served in the U.S. Army 11th Psychological Operations Battalion, attempted to blow the whistle by contacting the corporate controlled media as well as reaching out to US politicians after being removed from his job as a terrorist finance investigator after he proved to be too good at his job. This was due to the fact that the Obama administration and DHS were too cozy with various terrorist groups.
Dr. Bennett served in U.S. Special Operations Command, U.S. Central Command, the coordinator for the State Department Counter-terrorism and many other agencies in the US government.
If one wants to understand the close relationship between former high level operatives of the Obama administration and current Deep State interests, this is a can’t miss interview and the interview is listed below this narrative. On The Common Sense Show, Bennett laid out how terrorism was funded by key member of the Obama administration. Like John Cruz, Bennett, was not told this information. As an insider, he lived it. When Bennett began to leak the intelligence related to funding terrorism, he was imprisoned for two years by Obama for FILING A FALSE BUSINESS EXPENSE REPORT. This was to minor to imprison someone, but he served two years on totally false charges in order to cover up these crimes.
Bennett started out his intelligence career in the George W Bush administration. He transitioned into the Obama administration where they funded and supplied terrorist groups such as ISIS. These events, from a logistical and time frame perspective perfectly coincide with the Cruz revelations listed above.
The amount of information regarding the degree of the threat of terrorism which all of us face, is laid out in exquisite detail by Dr. Bennett in this interview.
Hillary Clinton and ISIS
In 2016, WikiLeaks continued to reveal criminal and outright treasonous behavior on the part of Hillary Clinton. WikiLeaks, with their “retrieval” of Clinton emails continued to show ties between Clinton and foreign governments,through the Clinton Foundation, criminally corrupt corporations and serious human rights violations.
At the center of the WikiLeaks revelations of Clinton’s treason and criminal behavior demonstrates undeniable Clinton links to Lafarge. Lafarge paid taxes to ISIS in order that they could protect its cement factory from destruction. The factor is located approximately northeast of Aleppo, Syria.
Another criminal investigation conducted by a Syrian news agency, Zaman al-Wasl, an independent news organization, stated that Lafarge bought oil from ISIS on a consistent basis.
In a 2007, a Washington Post article, at the time, when Clinton provided the bulk of the Clinton family income. in the 1990’s before husband Bill was elected President of the United States. Hillary Clinton, at that time, was “earning more than $100,000 a year from her law firm salary and corporate board fees.” At the time, she also served on Lafarge’s board, making about $31,000 a year from the company. the year 2007, was the year that Lafarge built its cement plant in Syria. By the way, CEMEX was a part of this operation. Who is CEMEX? They own the land in Tucson where a large child-sex-trafficking operation was discovered earlier this month.
John McCain and ISIS
My disdain for McCain is well known. Therefore, I will let ex-CIA clandestine officer, Robert David Steele speak to the terrorist related activities of John McCain, who remains a globalist till the end.
From Mr. Steele:
“We do now know (I did not know this at the time the below video was recorded and I have no link for this, it comes to me from an inside source) that former CIA Director John Brennan plotted this false flag attack, which may have involved some real sarin allegedly destroyed during the Obama Administration, with Senator John McCain and National Security Advisor Herbert McMaster…”
There are a couple of important considerations here. First, I have a deep-inside source that confirms Independent Media reports which places Senator John McCain at the scene of the crime. In other words, he visited Syria only days before the false flag. Further, I have had it confirmed by the same source that McCain has been tabbed to be the public source espousing Deep State propaganda to push to America towards war based on false allegations of election tampering by the Russians.
Previously on The Common Sense Show, I have documented several times, with interviews with people like Scott Bennett, that Hillary Clinton was instrumental in starting ISIS. John McCain has reportedly taken this relationship to a whole different level when he allegedly met with ISIS representatives when he was in Syria in which my source alleges that John McCain helped to coordinate the false flag attack in question. Further, my source claims that there is a Sandy Hook component to this flag attack in which he claims that First Responders were not even wearing gloves when they arrived on the scene and they should have been attired in hazmat suits and of course, crisis actors abound.
Robert David Steele continues:
“Brennan (Editor’s note: Ex-CIA director) got the Saudis to pay half and McCain got Israel to pay half. They blind-sided – this is clearly treason – not only the Director of the CIA, but the President, the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of Defense. In my personal view, both John McCain and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be impeached by their respective legislative bodies. Whether true or not I cannot certify – it is consistent with my evaluation of each of these people, and a good starting point for an international investigation. I have long felt that John Brennan should be standing before the International Court of Justice as a war criminal, not least because of the CIA’s drone assassination program that I recently denounced in a book review article for Intelligence and National Security.”
Conclusion
So, what did we learn? We have learned that prominent members of our government, both past and present haver served to undermine the country’s national security interests. In doing so, they have associated with terrorists and their organized criminal activities.
These summaries simply provide evidence that what is going to be revealed tomorrow has basis in verifiable fact. Based on what I already know and what I have recently learned, Part Two of this article will be revealing that we are sitting on revelations of unparalleled treason and corruption including attempted assassinations of President Trump, and his counter strike which will be described as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre of Deep State Operatives.
One of the few positive things in the ill-named USA FREEDOM Act, enacted in 2015 after the Snowden revelations on NSA domestic spying, is that it required the Director of National Intelligence to regularly report on its domestic surveillance activities. On Friday, the latest report was released on just how much our own government is spying on us. The news is not good at all if you value freedom over tyranny.
According to the annual report, named the Statistical Transparency Report Regarding Use of National Security Authorities, the US government intercepted and stored information from more than a half-billion of our telephone calls and text messages in 2017. That is a 300 percent increase from 2016. All of these intercepts were “legal” under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which is ironic because FISA was enacted to curtail the Nixon-era abuse of surveillance on American citizens.
Has the US government intercepted your phone calls and/or text messages? You don’t know, which is why the surveillance state is so evil. Instead of assuming your privacy is protected by the US Constitution, you must assume that the US government is listening in to your communications. The difference between these is the difference between freedom and tyranny. The ultimate triumph of totalitarian states was not to punish citizens for opposing its tyranny, but to successfully cause them to censor themselves before even expressing “subversive” thoughts.
We cannot celebrate our freedom or call ourselves an exceptional nation as long as we are under control of the kind of surveillance that would have turned the East German Stasi green with envy. We know the East German secret police relied on millions of informants, eager to ingratiate themselves with their totalitarian rulers by reporting on their friends, neighbors, even relatives. It was a messy system but it served the purpose of preventing any “unwelcome” political views from taking hold. No one was allowed to criticize the policies of the government without facing reprisals.
Sadly, that is where we are headed.
Our advanced technological age provides opportunities for surveillance that even the most enthusiastic East German intelligence operative could not have dreamed of. No longer does the government need to rely on nosy neighbors as informants. The NSA has cut out the middleman, intercepting our communications – our very thoughts – at the source. No one who calls himself an American patriot can be happy about this development.
Not even the President is safe from the surveillance state he presides over! According to a news report last week, federal investigators monitored the phone lines of President Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, even when he was speaking to his client – the president!
An all-powerful state that intercepts its citizens’ communications and stores them indefinitely to use against them in the future does not deserve to be called the leader of the free world. It is more the high-tech equivalent of a Third World despotism, where we all exist subject to the whim of those currently in political power.
016 STATE OF THE JUDICIARY ADDRESS
THE HONORABLE CHIEF JUSTICE HUGH P. THOMPSON
SUPREME COURT OF GEORGIA
January 27, 2016, 11 a.m.
House Chambers, State Capitol
Lt. Governor Cagle, Speaker Ralston, President Pro Tem Shafer, Speaker Pro Tem Jones, members of the General Assembly, my fellow judges and my fellow Georgians:
Good morning. Thank you for this annual tradition of inviting the Chief Justice to report on the State of Georgia’s Judiciary. Thanks in large part to your support and the support of our governor, as we move into 2016, I am pleased to tell you that your judicial branch of government is not only steady and secure, it is dynamic; it has momentum; and it is moving forward into the 21st century with a vitality and a commitment to meeting the inevitable changes before us.
Our mission remains the same: To protect individual rights and liberties, to uphold and interpret the rule of law, and to provide a forum for the peaceful resolution of disputes that is fair, impartial, and accessible to all.
Our judges are committed to these principles. Each day, throughout this state, they put on their black robes; they take their seat on the courtroom bench; and they work tirelessly to ensure that all citizens who come before them get justice.
Our Judicial Council is the policy-making body of the state’s judicial branch. It is made up of competent, committed leaders elected by their fellow judges and representing all classes of court. They are assisted by an Administrative Office of the Courts, which is under a new director – Cynthia Clanton – and has a renewed focus as an agency that serves judges and courts throughout Georgia.
A number of our judges have made the trip to be here today. Our judges are here today because the relationship we have with you is important. We share with you the same goal of serving the citizens of this great state. We could not do our work without your help and that of our governor.
On behalf of all of the judges, let me say we are extremely grateful to you members of the General Assembly for your judicial compensation appropriation last year.
Today I want to talk to you about Georgia’s 21st century courts – our vision for the future, the road we must travel to get there, and the accomplishments we have already achieved.
It has been said that, “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”
Since a new state Constitution took effect in 1983, our population has nearly doubled to a little over 10 million, making us the 8th most populous state in the country. We are among the fastest growing states in the nation, and in less than four years, our population is projected to exceed 12 million.
Because it is good for our economy, we welcome that growth. Today, Georgia ranks
among states with the highest number of Fortune 500 companies, 20 of which have their global headquarters here; we have 72 four-year colleges and universities; we have the world’s busiest airport and we have two deep-water ports. Georgia is a gateway to the South, and for a growing number of people and businesses from around the world, it is a gateway to this country.
All of this growth produces litigation – increasingly complex litigation – and just as our state must prepare for this growth by ensuring we have enough roads and modes of transportation, enough doctors and hospitals, and enough power to reach people throughout the state, our courts also must be equipped and modernized for the 21st
century.
While our population has nearly doubled since 1983, the number of Georgia judges has
grown only 16 percent. We must work together to ensure that our judicial system has enough judges, staff and resources in the 21st century to fulfill the mission and constitutional duties our forefathers assigned to us.
A healthy, vibrant judiciary is absolutely critical to the economic development of our state. Thanks to many leaders in the judiciary, as well as to our partnership with the governor and to you in the legislature, we are well on our way to building a court system for the 21st century.
This time next year, with your support, we will have put into place an historic shift in the types of cases handled by the Georgia Supreme Court – the highest court in the state – and by the Court of Appeals – our intermediate appellate court. Thanks to Governor Deal’s Georgia Appellate Jurisdiction Review Commission, this realignment will bring the Supreme Court of Georgia in line with other state Supreme Courts, which handle only the most critical cases that potentially change the law. Serving on the Commission are two of my colleagues – Justice David Nahmias and Justice Keith Blackwell – as well as two judges from the Court of Appeals – Chief
Judge Sara Doyle and Judge Stephen Dillard.
I thank you, Justices and Judges, for your leadership.
Under the Georgia Constitution, Supreme Court justices collectively decide every case that comes before us. Currently the state’s highest court hears divorce and alimony cases; we hear cases involving wills; we hear cases involving titles to land; and we hear disputes over boundary lines.
But the Governor’s Commission, and a number of reports by other commissions and
committees issued since 1983, have recommended that such cases should be heard by our intermediate appeals court, not by our highest court.
Both of our courts are among the busiest in the nation. But unlike the Supreme Court, which sits as a full court with all seven justices participating in, and deciding, every case, the Court of Appeals sits in panels of three. With your approval last year of three new Court of Appeals judges, that court will now have five panels, so it will have the capacity to consider five times as many cases as the Supreme Court.
Modernization of the Supreme Court makes sense. In a 19th century court system, when
most of the wealth was tied up in land, maybe title to land cases were the most important. Maybe they had the greatest implications for the public at large. But as we move into the 21st century, that is no longer true.
In answer to questions such as who owns a strip of land, what does a will mean, and who should prevail in a divorce settlement or an alimony dispute, most judicial systems believe that three judges are enough to provide the parties with a full and fair consideration of their appeal. It no longer makes sense to have seven – or nine – justices collectively review these types of cases.
There is no doubt these cases will be in good hands with the Court of Appeals.
Let me emphasize that all these cases the Commission recommended shifting to the Court of Appeals are critically important to the parties involved.
Let me also emphasize that the purpose of this historic change is not to lessen the burden on the Supreme Court. Rather, the intent is to free up the state’s highest court to devote more time and energy to the most complex and the most difficult cases that have the greatest implications for the law and society at large.
We will therefore retain jurisdiction of constitutional challenges to the laws you enact, questions from the federal courts seeking authoritative rulings on Georgia law, election contests, murder and death penalty cases, and cases in which the Court of Appeals judges are equally divided.
Significantly, we want to be able to accept more of what we call “certiorari” cases
which are appeals of decisions by the Court of Appeals. The number of petitions filed in this category during the first quarter of the new docket year is nearly 14 percent higher this year over last. Yet due to the amount of appeals the law now requires us to take, we have had to reject the majority of the petitions for certiorari that we receive.
These cases are often the most complex – and the most consequential. They involve
issues of great importance to the legal system and the State as a whole. Or they involve an area of law that has become inconsistent and needs clarification.
Businesses and citizens need to know what the law allows them to do and what it does
not allow them to do. It is our job at the highest court to reduce any uncertainty and bring consistency and clarity to the law.
Under the Commission’s recommendations, our 21st century Georgia Supreme Court will
be able to accept more of these important appeals.
As we move into the 21st century, plans are being discussed to build the first state Judicial Building in Georgia’s history that will be dedicated solely to the judiciary. We are grateful for the Governor’s leadership on this. The building that now houses the state’s highest court and the Court of Appeals was built in 1954 when Herman Tallmadge was governor. Back then, it made sense to combine the state judicial branch with part of the executive branch, by locating the Law Department in the same building.
But the world has changed since 1954, and the building we now occupy was not designed with visitors in mind. It was not designed with technology in mind. And it surely was not designed with security in mind. Indeed, it was designed to interconnect with neighboring buildings that housed other branches of government.
A proper Judicial Building is about more than bricks and mortar. Outside, this building will symbolize for generations to come the place where people will go to get final resolution of civil wrongs and injustices; where the government will go to safeguard its prosecution of criminals; and where defendants will go to appeal convictions and sentences to prison for life.
Inside such a building, the courtroom will reinforce the reality that what goes on here is serious and solemn; it is a place of great purpose, in the words of a federal judge. The parties and the lawyers will understand they are all on equal footing, because they are equal under the law.
There is a majesty about the law that gets played out in the courtroom. It is a hallowed place because it is where the truth must be told and where justice is born. The courtroom represents our democracy at its very best.
No, this building is not just about bricks and mortar. Rather it is a place that will house Georgia’s highest court where fairness, impartiality, and justice will reign for future generations.
We are no longer living in a 1950s Georgia. The courts of the 21st century must be
equipped to handle an increasingly diverse population. Living today in metropolitan Atlanta alone are more than 700,000 people who were born outside the United States. According to the Chamber of Commerce, today some 70 countries have a presence in Atlanta, in the form of a consulate or trade office. We must be ready to help resolve the disputes of international businesses that are increasingly locating in our state and capital. Our 21st century courts must be open, transparent and accessible to all. Our citizens’ confidence in their judicial system depends on it. We must be armed with qualified, certified interpreters, promote arbitration as an alternative to costly, courtroom-bound litigation, ensure that all those who cannot afford lawyers have an avenue toward justice, and be constantly updating technology with the aim of improving our courts’ efficiency while saving literally millions of dollars. For all of this, we need your help.
When I first became a judge, we had no email, no cell phones, no Internet. People didn’t Twitter or text, or post things on YouTube, Facebook or Instagram. The most modern equipment we had was a mimeograph machine.
This past year, by Supreme Court order, we created for the first time a governance
structure to bring our use of technology into the 21st century. Chaired by my colleague Justice Harold Melton, and co-chaired by Douglas County Superior Court Judge David Emerson, this permanent Judicial Council Standing Committee on Technology will lead the judicial branch by providing guidance and oversight of its technology initiatives.
Our courts on their own are rapidly moving away from paper documents into the digital age. At the Supreme Court, lawyers must now electronically file all cases. This past year, we successfully launched the next phase by working with trial courts to begin transmitting their entire court record to us electronically. The Court of Appeals also now requires the e-filing of applications to appeal, and this year, will join the Supreme Court in accepting electronic trial records.
Our goal is to develop a uniform statewide electronic filing and retrieval system so that lawyers and others throughout the judiciary can file and access data the easiest way possible.
Using a single portal, attorneys will be able to file documents with trial courts and appellate courts – and retrieve them from any court in the state. This is the system advocated by our partner, President Bob Kaufman of the State Bar of Georgia, and by attorneys throughout the state.
Such a system will not only make our courts more efficient at huge savings, but it will make Georgia safer. When our trial judges conduct bond hearings, for example, they often lack critical information about the person before them. They usually have reports about any former convictions, but they may not have information about cases pending against the defendant in other courts. The technology exists now to ensure that they do.
Also on the horizon is the expanded use of videoconferencing – another electronic
improvement that will save money and protect citizens’ lives. After a conviction and sentence to prison, post-trial hearings require courts to send security teams to pick up the prisoner and bring him to court. Without encroaching on the constitutional right of confrontation, we could videoconference the inmate’s testimony from his prison cell. Again, the technology already exists.
Our Committee on Technology will be at the forefront of guiding our courts into the 21st century.
As Georgia grows, it grows more diverse.
Our Georgia courts are required by the federal government to provide language services free of charge to litigants and witnesses, not only in criminal cases but in civil cases as well.
Even for fluent English speakers, the judicial system can be confusing and unwelcoming.
My vision for Georgia’s judiciary in the 21st century is that every court, in every city and every county in Georgia, will have the capacity of serving all litigants, speaking any language, regardless of national origin, from the moment they enter the courthouse until the moment they leave. That means that on court websites, signs and forms will be available in multiple languages, that all court staff will have the tools they need to assist any customers, and that court proceedings will have instant access to the interpreters of the languages they need.
Chief Magistrate Kristina Blum of the Gwinnett County Magistrate Court has been
working hard to ensure access to justice for all those who come to her court, most of whom are representing themselves.
Recently her court created brochures that provide guidance for civil trials, family
violence matters, warrant applications, garnishments, and landlord-tenant disputes. These brochures provide basic information about each proceeding – what to expect and how best to present their case in court.
Judge Blum, who is in line to be president of the Council of Magistrate Judges and is a member of our Judicial Council, has had the brochures translated into Spanish, Korean and Vietnamese. Such non-legalese forms and tutorial videos that our citizens can understand go a long way toward building trust in the judicial system, and in our entire government.
The Supreme Court Commission on Interpreters, chaired by Justice Keith Blackwell, is
making significant strides in ensuring that our courts uphold the standards of due process. With the help of Commission member Jana Edmondson-Cooper, an energetic attorney with the Georgia Legal Services Program, the Commission is working around the state to educate judges,court administrators and lawyers on the judiciary’s responsibilities in providing language assistance.
The essence of due process is the opportunity to be heard. Our justice system is the envy of other countries because it is open and fair to everyone seeking justice. By helping those who have not yet mastered English, we reinforce the message that the doors to the best justice system in the world are open to everyone.
Our law demands it. Our Constitution demands it.
The courts of the 21st century will symbolize a new era. A turning point in our history occurred when we realized there was a smarter way to handle criminals.
Six years ago, my colleague and then Chief Justice Carol Hunstein accompanied
Representative Wendell Willard to Alabama to explore how that state was reforming its criminal justice system. Back in Georgia, Governor Deal seized the reins, brought together the three branches of government, and through extraordinary leadership, has made criminal justice reform a reality. Georgia is now a model for the nation.
Today, following an explosive growth in our prison population that doubled between
1990 and 2011 and caused corrections costs to top one billion dollars a year, last year our prison population was the lowest it has been in 10 years. Our recidivism rate is the lowest it’s been in three decades. And we have turned back the tide of rising costs.
For the last five years, the Georgia Council on Criminal Justice Reform – created by the governor and your legislation – has been busy transforming our criminal justice system into one that does a better job of protecting public safety while holding non-violent offenders accountable and saving millions in taxpayer dollars. I am extremely grateful to this Council and commend the steady leadership of co-chairs Judge Michael Boggs of the Court of Appeals and Thomas Worthy of the State Bar of Georgia.
Throughout this historic reform, Georgia’s trial court judges have been in the trenches.
Our number one goal in criminal justice reform is to better protect the safety of our citizens.
Central to that goal is the development of our specialty courts – what some call accountability courts.
These courts have a proven track record of reducing recidivism rates and keeping our
citizens safe. Nationwide, 75 percent of drug court graduates remain free of arrest two years after completing the program, and the most conservative analyses show that drug courts reduce crime as much as 45 percent more than other sentencing options. Last year, these courts helped save Georgia more than $51 million in prison costs.
From the beginning, you in the legislature have steadfastly supported the growth in these courts, most recently appropriating more than $19 million for the current fiscal year.
Georgia now has 131 of these courts, which include drug courts, DUI courts, juvenile and adult mental health courts, and veterans courts. Today, only two judicial circuits in the state do not yet have a specialty court, and both are in the early stages of discussing the possibility of starting one. In addition to those already involved, last year alone, we added nearly 3500 new participants to these courts.
Behind that number are individual tales of lives changed and in some cases, lives saved.
Our judges, who see so much failure, take pride in these success stories. And so should you.
Chief Judge Richard Slaby of the Richmond County State Court, speaks with great pride of Judge David Watkins and the specialty courts that have grown under Judge Watkins’ direction. Today the recidivism rate among the Augusta participants is less than 10 percent.
The judges who run these courts are committed and deserve our thanks. We are grateful to leaders like Judge Slaby, who is President-Elect of the Council of State Court Judges and a member of our Judicial Council; to Judge Stephen Goss of the Dougherty Superior Court, whose mental health court has been recognized as one of the best mental health courts in our country; to Chief Judge Brenda Weaver, President of the Council of Superior Court Judges and a member of our Judicial Council. Judge Weaver of the Appalachian Judicial Circuit serves on the Council of
Accountability Court Judges of Georgia, which you created last year by statute. Its purpose is to improve the quality of our specialty courts through proven standards and practices, and it is chaired by Superior Court Judge Jason Deal of Hall County. Judge Deal’s dedication to the specialty court model in his community, and his guidance and encouragement to programs throughout the state, are described as invaluable by those who work with him.
We may not have a unified court system in Georgia. But we have judges unified in their commitment to our courts. Among our one thousand four hundred and fifty judges, Georgia has many fine leaders. I’ve told you about a number of them today. In closing, I want to mention two more.
When the United States Supreme Court issued its historic decision last year on same-sex marriage, our Council of Probate Court Judges led the way toward compliance. Three months before the ruling was issued, the judges met privately at the behest of the Council’s then president, Judge Chase Daughtrey of Cook County, and his successor, Judge Don Wilkes of Emanuel County. Together, they determined that regardless of what the Supreme Court decided, they would follow the law. Both Governor Deal and Attorney General Sam Olens also publicly announced they would respect the court’s decision, despite tremendous pressure to do otherwise.
These men are all great leaders who spared our state the turmoil other states endured. The bottom line is this: In Georgia, we may like the law, we may not like the law, but we follow the law.
The day-to-day business of the Georgia courts rarely makes the news. Rather judges,
their staff and clerks spend their days devoted to understanding the law, tediously pushing cases through to resolution, committed to ferreting out the truth and making the right decision. It is not easy, and they must often stand alone, knowing that when they sentence someone to prison, many lives hang in the balance between justice and mercy.
So I thank all of our leaders, and I thank all of our judges who are leading our courts into the 21st century.
May God bless them. May God bless you. And may God bless all the people of Georgia.
Thank you.
By Kevin Barrett, Veterans Today Editor
The truth-seeking community – and the airline industry – are abuzz over Rebekah Roth’s new book Methodical Illusion. It’s poised to break into the top 1,000 worldwide, selling so fast that Amazon may even have tried to stop its rise to bestseller status by falsely claiming “sorry, out of stock.”
We’ve seen this situation before…such as on September 8th, 2013, when the RT documentary 9/11 and Operation Gladio started to go viral and suddenly disappeared from search engines – as emails containing its url began falling into a big black hole in cyberspace.
So what’s all the excitement about? Why would the people whose job is to “disable the purveyors of conspiracy theories” try to limit sales of a potboiler novel by a former stewardess?
hqdefaultHint: It isn’t literary quality they’re afraid of. If you want a 9/11 truth novel by a literary genius, read Thomas Pynchon’s Bleeding Edge. Pynchon’s book has lots of great writing and a modest amount of 9/11 truth, packaged in such a way as not to offend the Tribe that dominates American media.
But if you want a rough-hewn page-turner with more 9/11 truth than anything you’re likely to read this side of David Ray Griffin or Christopher Bollyn (or Veterans Today for that matter) check out Methodical Illusion. Roth boldly goes where no stewardess or novelist has gone before, pinning 9/11 squarely on the Israelis and their American assets, and providing a convincing explanation of how the planes were “hijacked,” by whom, where they went, and what happened to the passengers.
Roth’s book has set off a stampede by her former colleagues in the aviation industry, who are rushing to provide details supporting her revelations. They are confirming the installation of FTS (Flight Termination System) equipment on the models “hijacked” on 9/11, which allowed those planes to be taken over remotely and flown from the ground. When FTS takes over a plane, it completely shuts down that plane’s communications with the outside world. That explains why not one of the four pilots on any of the 9/11 planes managed to flip a toggle switch and squawk the hijack code. Had the aircraft been hijacked in a normal manner, the pilots, who are trained to instantly squawk “hijack” in such an emergency, all would have done so.
The failure of any of the 9/11 planes to squawk the “we are hijacked” message is absolute, conclusive proof that the official story of hijackings by Arabs armed with box cutters is false.
According to the author’s hypothesis, the FTS-captured-and-silenced planes landed at a nearby Air Force base with gigantic hangars, which Roth identifies and a colleague who was there confirms happened, less than 20 minutes after takeoff. Once on the ground, selected flight attendants and passengers were guided (or forced) to place cell phone calls, during which they read from scripts prepared by the perpetrators.
This scenario is very similar to one planned by the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1962: the infamous Operation Northwoods. And it is entirely plausible. The main counter-argument – that the FAA tracked the two Boston aircraft from takeoff to crashes – has been disproven, since we now know that the 9/11 perpetrators were inserting false blips onto FAA controllers screens and thereby controlling what they saw.
According to this scenario, the Twin Towers would have been hit by military aircraft and/or missiles, not passenger jets.
Roth’s hypothesis is compelling, for several reasons. First, it explains why the perpetrators would invent such a ridiculously implausible scenario as “hijacked suicide attack planes fly all over the Eastern half of the USA before finally hitting their targets or being taken down by heroic passengers.” They needed this palpably absurd scheme to allow for time to covertly land the planes and stage the dramas via scripted cell phone calls. And the dramas – which would brainwash Americans into hating Israel’s Muslim enemies and killing them by the millions – were (alongside the horrific images broadcast from New York) the key part of the psy-op. Without the “cell phone calls,” nobody would have “known” what happened on those planes.
Were there such a thing as al-Qaeda suicide hijackers, they would take over the plane immediately after takeoff and fly straight for their targets, thereby minimizing the possibility of things going wrong, such as FTS being activated by the good guys or NORAD interceptors showing up in around 10 minutes – the normal procedure every time a plane deviates significantly from course.
But since there have been no successful hijackings in the USA since the 1970s, the whole idea that even one plane would be successfully hijacked on 9/11 is ludicrous. The preposterous claim that four planes with military-trained pilots were commandeered by 130 pound “muscle hijackers” with box cutters and flown with consummate skill and impossible speed by pilots who couldn’t even fly Cessnas is one of history’s most bizarre delusions.
Roth’s hypothesis also explains why so many of the people who received phone calls from the “hijacked passengers” insisted that the calls came from the person’s cell phone, positively identified through caller ID. In 2001, cell phones did not work at altitude. The calls must have been made from the ground.
Additionally, this scenario explains why many of the cell phone calls went on so long; were often placed to improbable recipients; had none of the correct background sounds; and were full of bizarre glitches revealing that they were scripted and/or coerced, not actual emergency calls from in-flight aircraft.
Roth’s explanation sheds light on the role of Rabbi Dov Zakheim, a US-Israeli dual citizen who served as Comptroller of the Pentagon on 9/11 and managed to abscond with $2.3 trillion dollars, as Rumsfeld announced the day before.
Roth writes:
“Remember the comptroller of the Pentagon (Dov Zakheim), who owned the company that manufactured the flight termination system? He also owned a company that refurbished commercial 767s and sold them as military refueling tankers. He just got some free airplanes to add to his inventory. They could have easily kept those planes hidden in the hangers (at the Air Force Base) and flown them out after dark”. (251)
According to former NSA officer Wayne Madsen, one or more of those planes may now be parked at the “Boneyard” (the Marana Air Field) in Arizona. Madsen spent several days on-site investigating the murder of former CIA pilot and 9/11 truth author Philip Marshall – a crime which, like the recent assassination of Gray State filmmaker David Crowley, was a professional hit disguised as a murder-suicide. Madsen believes Marshall may have been killed because he discovered one or more 9/11 planes stored at Marana. The quickest way to shed light on this, I suspect, would be to waterboard Rabbi Zakheim.
But the larcenous and murderous Rabbi was not the only key Israeli-American player in the plane-capture operation. Another was Daniel Lewin, the “hijacker in seat 9B” on Flight 11. Lewin was (and may still be) a topnotch Mossad assassin. Roth suggests Daniel Lewin may have been one of the agents tasked with overseeing the FTS plane-takeovers, controlling the passengers and crew, coercing cell-phone-callers, and ultimately killing the “9/11 plane crash victims” whose DNA samples would then be sent to a military laboratory for identification. (Though there is no documentation of any discovery of passenger remains at Shanksville or the Pentagon – indeed, there is not one shred of evidence that Fight 93 was ever excavated from the ten-by-fifteen-foot hole in the ground it allegedly disappeared into, or that airliner or passenger remains were ever removed from the Pentagon – the government claims that all of the passengers and crew from those two sites, but none of the alleged hijackers, have been DNA-identified from crash site remains!)
Among the airline industry whistleblowers who have contacted Roth is one who still possesses the original passenger manifests for the “hijacked flights.” There are no Arab names on those manifests. That would explain why the public versions also contain no Arab names; why no remains of any alleged hijackers were ever DNA-identified; why the US government has repeatedly refused pleas from the alleged hijackers’ family members to accept DNA samples and try to identify their falsely-accused loved ones; why several of the alleged hijackers were identity theft victims with Mossad dopplegangers; why not a single authentic security camera image shows any of the alleged hijackers en route to boarding any of the four alleged attack aircraft; why no airline industry employees have ever testified about ticketing or boarding any of the 19 Arabs; why no passenger stubs have ever been produced for the 19 Arabs; and why ten of the alleged hijackers turned up alive after 9/11.
Digital StillCameraMethodical Illusion, unlike previous 9/11 truth novels, isn’t afraid to tell us who did it: “…A political leader of one of our most trusted allies in the Middle East.” I think we know who she means: The one who has just been invited by traitors to address Congress, over the objections of the President.
“…Because they have been such a trusted ally of our nation, they have infiltrated our media, the Federal Reserve, the banking system and they control most of the lobbyists that manipulate far too many of our politicians. They also control most of the campaign contributions as well as both political parties…their complete control over the media is going to be very problematic for us.”
It may be a novel, but truer words have never been spoken.
The BlackRobed Mafia 