Paul SLAMS Biden Admin Labeling COVID Critics 'Domestic Violent Extremists'
He called it 'one of the most dangerous abuses of power in recent memory.' #29
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Rand Paul is blasting new information coming to light about how Biden’s agencies operated during the pandemic, revealing what the senator now calls “One of the most dangerous abuses of power in recent memory.”
A new report shows that President Joe Biden’s FBI and DHS categorized critics of the federal government’s COVID-19 policies as “domestic violent extremists.”
Michael Shellenberger shared part of his report on X (co-reported by Catherine Herridge and Alex Gutentag on Friday, “The Biden Administration labeled Americans who opposed the COVID-19 vaccination and mask mandates as ‘Domestic Violent Extremists,’ or DVEs, according to newly declassified intelligence records obtained by Public and Catherine Herridge Reports.”
“The designation created an “articulable purpose’ for FBI or other government agents to open an ‘assessment’ of individuals, which is often the first step toward a formal investigation, said a former FBI agent,” the report noted.
What might those “articulable purposes” be for feds to show up at your door?
More (emphasis added), “The report, which the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has declassified, claims that ‘anti government or anti authority violent extremists,’ specifically militias, ‘characterize COVID-19 vaccination and mask mandates as evidence of government overreach.’ A sweeping range of COVID narratives, the report states, ‘have resonated’ with DVEs ‘motivated by QAnon.”
I personally still don’t understand what QAnon is and don’t know anyone else who does either, but I did complain about vaccine and mask mandates. Sometimes with others.
Were we a militia?
Sen. Paul shared Shellenberger’s post and called the Biden administration out.
More from Shellenberger, “The report cites criticism of mandates as ‘prominent narratives’ related to violent extremism. These narratives ‘include the belief that COVID-19 vaccines are unsafe, especially for children, are part of a government or global conspiracy to deprive individuals of their civil liberties and livelihoods, or are designed to start a new social or political order.”
The parameters here are broad.
You think mask mandates are unnecessary? You could be a “domestic violent extremist.”
You oppose vaccine mandates? You’re definitely a “domestic violent extremist.”
You want school and business to remain open? You might be a violent extremist.
The federal government under Joe Biden wanted to not only censor this kind opinion by citizens, but apparently targeted the individuals who shared it.
Former FBI agent Steve Friend said of these policies, “It’s a way they could go to social media companies and say, ‘You don’t want to propagate domestic terrorism, so you should take down this content.”
Democrats have long warned that if Donald Trump became president again, America will become more authoritarian.
They say this while ignoring the many ways in which Joe Biden’s presidency was an authoritarian regime. From weaponizing the legal system against his political opponent, to pressuring social media companies to censor citizens’ speech, to attempting to throw Donald Trump off of state ballots, Biden and his party were prepared to bulldoze any democratic norm or standard necessary to maintain power.
It didn’t work, but they definitely went there.
RandPaulReview reported just last week on how far the Biden administration was willing to go in spying on Director of National Intelligence Gabbard, a former congresswoman at the time.
As DNI Gabbard head declassifies more data, we learn about even worse abuses of power from the last administration.
It seems as if there was no law Team Biden wasn’t willing to break to control citizens’ speech and thought. Literally targeting Americans for arrest for wrongthink.
The Trump administration should continue to uncover just how dangerous Joe Biden’s presidency was in threatening some of our most basic liberties - free speech, the right to assemble, and more - in the name of that kind of government power never being used again.
The question is how to prevent this from happening again regardless of who is president or what party he belongs to.
There will be no consequences for any of this either except handwringing from congress which will do nothing to prevent it from happening again.