BIG WEDNESDAY SOOPER THREAD

✪ When most Americans hear the term “Capitol Police,” they likely conjure visions of uniformed officers manning metal detectors at the numerous congressional buildings or helping tourists navigate the sprawling Capitol grounds: a D.C. version of a mall cop.

That imagery, however, is in stark contrast to reality as Democrats have weaponized yet another federal agency to target their political enemies on the Right. 

After January 6, 2021, Capitol Police officials announced plans to expand beyond the legislatively authorized purview of the agency and open offices in Florida and California, as well as in other states. Congress overwhelmingly supported a bill last year to fork over $2.1 billion in new funding to the Capitol Police. Now flush with cash and immune from any serious public oversight, the agency is returning the favor by spying on dissidents of the Biden regime.

According to Politico, Capitol Police investigators are preparing secret dossiers on lawmakers, congressional staff, donors, and even constituents who visit their representatives in public or in private. 

“After the Jan. 6 insurrection (sic), the Capitol Police’s intelligence unit quietly started scrutinizing the backgrounds of people who meet with lawmakers,” reporters Betsy Woodruff Swan and Daniel Lippman wrote. “Several Capitol Police intelligence analysts have already raised concerns about the practice to the department’s inspector general,” one source told Politico.

Investigators are asked to scour social media accounts and even examine “tax and real estate records to find out who owned the properties that lawmakers visited.” In one example, Capitol Police analyzed a fundraiser held in a private home for Senator Rick Scott (R-Fla.). Donors to House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), who was shot by a Bernie Sanders supporter in 2017, also are under Capitol Police scrutiny.

Far from ensuring the safety of legislators and their staffs, the underlying political motive is obvious to anyone who’s been paying attention the past several years: the Capitol Police, acting as the Stasi of the Democrat Party, will collect dirt on Republicans under the pretense of national security then leak gossipy details to an always-compliant news media.

Journalists will then source the leaks to anonymous “intelligence officials” to legitimize any incriminating disclosures, which in turn will prompt Democrats to call for immediate investigations and criminal referrals—see the January 6 select committee for how this successful formula works.

In fact, an official from the Obama Administration, the birthplace of Russiagate and other political espionage efforts, is heading up the new endeavor. 

“Major changes in the Capitol Police intelligence unit started in fall of 2020, when the department brought on former Department of Homeland Security official Julie Farnam to help run its intelligence unit, which is housed in its Intelligence and Interagency Coordination Division,” Politico confirmed.

Who is Julie Farnam? In October 2014, Farnam was hired by the Obama Administration to serve as the acting chief of staff for the Homeland Security department’s field operations in Washington, D.C. The following year, Farnam was promoted to senior advisor on immigration issues. According to her LinkedIn profile, Farnam represented the Customs and Immigrations Services at “high-level meetings within the Agency, Department, other Federal agencies, and the White House.” She also “briefed senior officials on matters with national impact or controversy.”

One senior official with whom Farnam presumably worked at the White House would have been Lisa Monaco, Obama’s Homeland Security Advisor during his second term. Herself a key architect of Russiagate and an unabashed partisan, Monaco now serves as the Deputy Attorney General, responsible for the Justice Department’s sprawling and punitive investigation into January 6. Monaco’s prosecutors are handling at least 730 criminal cases related to the Capitol protest, with new arrests announced every week.

Monaco’s street cred as a political operative is stellar. Chief of staff to former FBI Director Robert Mueller, Monaco is moving at open throttle not just to round up trespassers who objected to Joe Biden’s election but to hand down criminal indictments against Trump loyalists such as Steve Bannon and investigate alleged “fake electoral slates” in seven states sent to the National Archives in December 2020

Farnam seems to be following in Monaco’s footsteps—or taking her marching orders—to whip up frenzy about the imaginary threat posed by Trump voters. 

In an interview earlier this month with CBS News, Farnam revealed her agency prepared an “special event assessment” on January 3, 2021 that warned of potential violence during the Electoral College certification. “Supporters of the current president see January 6, 2021 as the last opportunity to overturn the results of the presidential election,” Farnam wrote. “This sense of desperation and disappointment may lead to more of an incentive to become violent. Unlike previous post-election protests . . . Congress itself was the target on the 6th.”

Erroneously claiming “protesters plan to be armed”—the only person who used a firearm inside the building that day, ironically, was a Capitol Police lieutenant who shot and killed Ashli Babbitt—Farnam’s report relied heavily on bogeyman terms such as “white supremacists” and “extremists.” 

She questioned the issuance of January 6 permits for “Stop the Steal” rallies, which, according to Farnam, attract bad actors who “actively promote violence.” Farnam must have missed all the video and social media evidence of how leftist activists attacked Trump supporters and police after previous Stop the Steal events in Washington in November and December 2020.

Seven Republican congressmen sent a letter this week to both sergeants-at-arms, the Capitol Police chief, and the architect of the Capitol to demand answers, insisting the new spy initiative “constitutes a dramatic and troubling expansion of the USCP’s authority.”

Like all inquiries sent to Biden regime apparatchiks, the letter will go unanswered. Farnam, another Obama minion who learned from the best how to aim powerful government tools at political foes, will accelerate her unchecked surveillance operation to complement Monaco’s January 6 criminal investigation and House Democrats’ January 6 select committee—all intended to produce damaging headlines for Republicans during the 2022 midterm elections.

The rotten, unpunished legacy of Crossfire Hurricane continues. ✪

✪ Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, privately announced on Monday that users can use its platforms to solicit human smugglers, a decision that goes against demands by anti-human trafficking groups that urged the tech giant to crack down on the practice.

In an internal announcement of Meta’s “human smuggling policy” obtained by the Free Beacon, the company concluded that a crackdown on human smuggling solicitations would hamper the ability for people to use the platform “to seek safety or exercise their human rights.” The company said it will maintain its current policy, which prohibits users from offering human smuggling but allows them to solicit smuggling services.

Meta said it reached its policy decision after five months of deliberation that sought out “global perspectives and a broad range of expertise.” No specific organizations or groups are named, although Meta said they included “NGOs working with migrants” and “former border enforcement officials.” Ultimately, more stakeholders advised the company to allow the solicitations, it said.

“We observed that a slight majority of stakeholders favored allowing solicitations of smuggling services for reasons associated with asylum seekers,” the memo reads. “We decided that this was indeed the best option since the risks could be mitigated by sending resources, whereas the risks of removing such content could not be mitigated.”

In order to “mitigate the risks” from allowing migrants to seek smugglers on its platforms, Meta said it “proposed interventions such as sending resources to users soliciting smuggling services.” It did not elaborate on what those resources may be or whether they would end up effectively discouraging human trafficking. The company said it would allow “sharing information related to illegal border crossing.”

The commitment to the controversial policy demonstrates the tech company’s willingness to bow to left-wing activists even if it means facilitating illegal activity. An April 2021 report from the Tech Transparency Project identified a surge in Facebook groups devoted to human smuggling. Meta’s new policy comes as more migrants attempt to illegally cross into the United States than at any point in the country’s history.

Meta spokesman Drew Pusateri confirmed the platform would continue to allow solicitations for human smuggling after its consultation with outside experts.

“We regularly engage with outside experts to help us craft policies that strike the right balance between supporting people fleeing violence and religious persecution while not allowing human smuggling to take place through our platforms,” Pusateri said. “At this time, we have no policy changes to announce.”

Republican lawmakers have criticized Meta’s practice of tolerating human smuggling on its platforms. In May 2021, Rep. Kat Cammack (R., Fla.) wrote a letter to CEO Mark Zuckerberg sharing posts she found on Facebook from potential human smugglers.

“It is unacceptable for an American company to allow a criminal enterprise to use your platform to freely encourage and facilitate criminal activity,” Cammack said in the letter.

In response, Meta maintained the platform prohibits “content that either offers or assists with human smuggling” and said it deleted the content highlighted by Cammack.

Meta acknowledges in the memo that its decision comes with “tradeoffs.” Allowing the solicitation of smuggling services “can make it easier for bad actors to identify and connect with vulnerable people.” It also added that “law enforcement and government bodies … raised concerns that permitting this type of content on our platforms facilitates illegal activity and puts migrants at serious risk of exploitation or death.”

Both Republicans and Democrats, including President Joe Biden, have condemned human smuggling operations that bring migrants into the country across the southern border. In July 2021, the White House announced a new “Human Smuggling and Trafficking Task Force” to “disrupt and prevent migrant smuggling and human trafficking operations.”

Migrants who enlist the assistance of human traffickers to come across the southern border are often subjected to sexual assault or other forms of violence. A May 2017 report from Doctors Without Borders found 31.4 percent of female migrants who traveled through Mexico into the United States had been sexually abused.

“Migrants and refugees are preyed upon by criminal organizations, sometimes with the tacit approval or complicity of national authorities, and subjected to violence and other abuses—abduction, theft, extortion, torture, and rape—that can leave them injured and traumatized,” the report reads. ✪

✪ Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters on Tuesday that the $2 trillion Build Back Better Act is not dead, despite West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin’s decision to oppose it in the 50-50 Senate.

Democrat leaders were trying to pass the sweeping legislation with only votes from Democrats using budget reconciliation to avoid the legislative filibuster.

Schumer was asked if he would be moving forward with standalone bills reflecting certain provisions of the House-passed version of the Build Back Better Act.

“We’re continuing to have discussions and we will be moving forward on Build Back Better. You will see how we do that as we move forward,” Schumer said. “We want to get as much of Build Back Better done as we can and you will see us move forward on it.”

Some Democrats, including Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, have suggested voting on a Build Back Better package that includes permanent expansion of Obamacare subsidies as well as the prescription drug pricing provisions in the original bill.

Schumer mentioned that Senate Democrat leaders plan to pass a new version of the China competition bill that passed the Senate more than 7 months ago. House Democrats recently introduced their own version of the Senate-passed bill. The legislation includes over $50 billion for manufacturers of computer chips to improve supply chain security amid shortages.

“I am very optimistic we will get this bill done very shortly,” he said. ✪

✪ The cost of living is skyrocketing in certain “migration destination” cities where those fleeing mostly blue states are landing, according to a newly released report.

Redfin released the analysis, which shows that cities like Atlanta, Phoenix and Tampa have seen higher rates of inflation than the country overall. According to the report, those increases are “double the inflation rates in San Francisco and New York, places people are moving away from.”

“Migration into those places is one reason for rapidly rising prices of consumer goods and services,” Redfin said. “Because of high inflation, including rising home prices, the financial advantage of living in what are now relatively affordable places is likely to diminish.”

Americans have moved in droves, particularly from states like Illinois, New York and California, to other states. Many of those migrants are settling in the same cities and drastically affecting the economies there.

“Atlanta, the 10th most popular migration destination in the fourth quarter, saw prices of goods and services increase by 8.9% year over year during the same period, the highest inflation rate of all the metros included in this analysis,” Redfin reports.

Another city, Phoenix, saw an 8.4% price increase in the fourth quarter of 2021, the second highest inflation increase and the second highest number of new arrivals from other states, according to the report.

“In Tampa – the fifth most popular destination – prices rose 8% year over year, the third highest inflation rate,” Redfin reports. “On the flip side, San Francisco, the number-one place Americans moved away from during the fourth quarter, had the lowest inflation rate (4%). New York, which had the second-lowest inflation rate (4.6%), ranked number three on the list of places people are leaving, and Los Angeles – number two on the list of places people are leaving – had the seventh-lowest inflation rate (6%).”

Inflation has become a major concern for Americans after a steady stream of data showing prices of consumer goods and services are rising at the highest level in decades. These factors have only added to Americans’ pessimism on inflation.

Gallup released a poll this month showing that 79% of surveyed Americans “predict inflation will go up.” The poll also found that 50% of respondents expect inflation will go up “a lot.” According to Gallup, those are the most pessimistic figures on inflation ever recorded by the pollster.

“In the past, Americans have always been more likely to say inflation will increase rather than decrease, but the current expectation is higher than usual – in fact, it is the highest Gallup has measured in its trend,” Gallup said. “The prior high was 76% in September 2005. In recent years, from 2007 through 2020, roughly six in 10 Americans have expected inflation to increase.”

Redfin compiled its report by looking at metro areas where inflation data is available along with migration data.

Home prices have been a major source of inflation in those cities, due in part to the large difference between home prices in the cities where migrants are leaving, compared to the substantially lower prices in the cities where migrants are settling.

“For instance, Atlanta home prices were up 22.8% year over year in December, compared with a 10.3% increase in San Francisco,” Redfin said. ✪