Biden’s Anti-Terrorism Plan: Debunking The Fear Mongering
Yesterday marked the two-hundred forty-five year anniversary of the ratification of the Deceleration of Independence, which occurred on 7/4/1776. Tomorrow marks the six month anniversary of the Storming of the United States Capitol, which occurred on 1/6/2021. One the second day mentioned, the values of the first day were put into question — although those values ultimately won the battle.
However, it’s possible for something to win a battle and lose the war, hence why President Biden has made it clear that a war is going on and the values of a democratic republic are what’s at stake.
Of course, this has lead to a large amount of fear mongering from the right-wing noise machine who have been constantly looking for something to attack Biden with. (It says something that the best criticism they have about Joe Biden is “he’s going to take action to stop fascists from taking over the United States.”) On 6/28/2021, Tucker Carlson claimed on his Fox News show that the National Security Agency was spying on him so they could leak his emails, which would lead to his Fox News show being taken off the air. (Wait, what’s in his emails and why would seeing them lead to him being taken off the air?) He provided no evidence of this claim outside of the word of some unnamed “whistleblower,” and the plan is also utterly nonsensical.
The NSA quickly released a statement saying the following:
On June 28, 2021, Tucker Carlson alleged that the National Security Agency has been “monitoring our electronic communications and is planning to leak them in an attempt to take this show off the air.” This allegation is untrue. Tucker Carlson has never been an intelligence target of the Agency and the NSA has never had any plans to try and take his program off the air.
Tucker responded to this by saying on 6/30/2021 that the NSA “effectively conceded, yes, they read our emails.” Naturally, Tucker followed this up by talking to Glenn Greenwald, a top fear-mongered against Joe Biden. (And a man who has spent the past year doing everything possible to ruin his reputation as an honest journalist.)
It should be noted that the NSA did not deny that they have read any of Tucker Carlson’s emails, just that he is not a target of any investigation. The statement went on to say:
NSA has a foreign intelligence mission. We target foreign powers to generate insights on foreign activities that could harm the United States. With limited exceptions (e.g. an emergency), NSA may not target a US citizen without a court order that explicitly authorizes the targeting.
As Keith Olbermann was quick to point out, that would mean that the only way Tucker Carlson could have had his emails read would be if he was in contact with a foreign government that is trying to harm America.
Kevin McCarthy has already called into a Congressional Investigation into the NSA’s spying on Tucker Carlson — which he called for before showing any signs of supporting an investigation into the Storming Of The Capitol.
Mind you, Republicans have been pushing this narrative of them versus the intelligence agencies for multiple years. During the Trump Administration, it was this brave fight by the President against “the deep state” usually in the form of the Intelligence Agencies and Robert Mueller. This manifested in things like Spygate or the conspiracy theory that the FBI put a mole in the Trump Campaign, the constant attacks against Lisa Page and Peter Strzok who were two FBI agents that had an affair, and the claims that Michael Flynn had been framed by Barack Obama. Dan Bongino, one of the people behind Parler, published a book in 2018 called Spygate: The Attempted Sabotage of Donald J. Trump which was praised by both Donald Trump and Sean Hannity.
Before 1/6/2021 was even over, Republicans were looking for some way that they were the victims. Matt Gaetz quickly said the attack was the fault of Antifa, but the number one story that stuck involved a Trump supporter named Ashli Babbitt who was killed by a guard during the insurrection. However, as New York Magazine pointed out, she was not the only one killed that day:
It’s telling that, amid the commemorations of Ashli Babbitt’s life and death, and the bluster of January 6 defendants, there is one name that is hardly ever mentioned, if at all. The other woman who died that day was a Kennesaw, Georgia, resident named Rosanne Boyland — like Babbitt, in her mid-30s, white, a fervent believer in QAnon — but she has not become a similar rallying point for either recruitment or revenge. This, presumably, is owed to her manner of death: She was trampled by the crowd surging at the Capitol and seeking to overwhelm police lines, crushed by the bodies of her fellow patriots. The January 6 riot was sparked by a man who wanted to retain presidential power at any cost. And in the story of a woman whose blind belief in conspiracy led her to a lonely death in the middle of a mob is the tragedy at its heart: Boyland died in the service of a movement that never cared for her, or others like her. They were just foot soldiers, pawns in the service of seeking power at any price.
It should also be noted first-hand reports show that Babbitt was not shot by a member of the DC Police Force, but instead a guard for Mike Pence. However, that has not stopped her from becoming a martyr for the Trump movement, with Trump himself asking simply “Who shot Ashli Babbitt,” less than a week ago.
According to them, this is all part of Biden’s new “Domestic War On Terror,” with the manifesto Biden’s National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism document, published on 6/15/2021. The American Mind claimed to explore this in a 7/1/2021 article called “Who’s Next,” but none of their claims came even close to holding water. Take this claim:
“Today’s domestic terrorists espouse a range of violent ideological motivations, including racial or ethnic bigotry and hatred as well as anti-government or anti-authority sentiment.” [Biden’s Document says] Dissent is terrorism and will be prosecuted as such: they know what they sound like. They know you can hear them. They just don’t think you can do anything about it.
Of course, it’s quite a leap to take “terrorists espouse this view” and turn it into “anyone with this view is a terrorist.” Osama Bin Laden was a terrorist and a Muslim, that does not mean that all Muslims are terrorists. Believe it or not, we don’t believe that ideology or belief systems make someone a terrorist — we aren’t you guys — we believe that actions make someone a terrorist.
Once you realize this article is intentionally misunderstanding what Biden’s trying to fight, most of the article can be debunked just by saying “good thing nobody is doing that.” Watch:
It is a hallmark of authoritarian regimes to define political action by the opposition as inherently violent and morally unconscionable.
Good thing nobody is doing that. Hence why even members of the Republican Party who encouraged and supporting the Storming of the Capitol are still allowed to serve in Congress. Christopher Wray, a Trump loyalist who allowed the Storming of the Capitol to happen, is the head of the FBI — which is one of the agencies that they keep saying is trying to ruin them.
This, it turns out, is the opening for a series of articles called “They’re Coming For You,” all published by The American Mind on 7/1/2021. All of them make various ridiculous claims — none of which they can supply evidence for — that warn of everything from China style Social Credit Systems to Joe Biden banning critics of Critical Race Theory.
Obviously, the Biden Administration crossing a line when it comes to going after Domestic Terrorists is a concern every American should have — but The American Mind turns that from a concern that we need to take into consideration into Biden’s secret plan all along.
The reason why they’re doing this is simple: To provoke fear in their audience. It’s no different than the claims that Barack Obama was a Muslim who was going to take your guns and force your grandma to see a death panel. It’s no different than the claim that Bill Clinton is going to take your guns and turn your kids into promiscuous hippies. The only difference is, instead of the violence being a result of the fear-mongering (as it did with Timothy McVeigh under Clinton and Robert Dear under Obama), the fear-mongering is taking place because they’re worried their audience agrees with the violence. To put it simply, this should make you scared — if only because it means a non-insignificant amount of people agree with what happened on 1/6/2021.
