Plus, We Must Learn From History   Fighting For Faith, Family & Freedom Tuesday, August 16, 2022 To: Friends & Supporters From: Gary Bauer Liberty Under Siege Last week amid intense pressure, Attorney General Merrick Garland made a big display of going before the cameras to tell us that the Justice Department was asking a court to make public the details justifying the FBI raid on Trump’s home. Yesterday, the Justice Department abandoned its commitment to transparency. It suddenly reversed course, and is now refusing to tell us what the probable cause for the search was. Needless to say, Donald Trump is demanding the release of the full, unredacted FBI affidavit requesting the warrant. I want to remind you of the Fourth Amendment to the Bill of Rights because these are the key words in this controversy. “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” The word “particularly” means that government agents must be very specific when they seek a warrant. By any reasonable standard, the raid on Trump’s home violated the Fourth Amendment. We know that FBI agents spent more than nine hours rummaging through Trump’s home. They even went through the former first lady’s clothes! We now know that FBI agents seized Trump’s passports and other documents protected by attorney client privilege. As Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz put it, this raid was “absolutely outrageous and unconstitutional.” As we get older, we learn that unless we exercise our muscles, they wither away. The same thing is true of a free country that doesn’t exercise its rights. The raid on Mar-a-Lago was unprecedented in its audacity, but it’s not an exception. It’s just another example of the left’s ongoing assault against our rights and liberty. The intolerant left routinely attacks the First Amendment’s freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and religion of religion. The totalitarian left routinely attacks the Second Amendment right to protect yourself and your family. Now it’s attacking the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures. They’re doing it against a former president and the leading opponent of the regime that occupies the White House, which is why so many people are comparing it to the actions of tyrannical states like Cuba, communist China and Venezuela. And if they will do it to a former president, they will do it to you! Please stand with me now as we fight for Faith, Family and Freedom! Not An Option I know many people are concerned about the state of our union. They are anxious about the growing division in the country. Some are suggesting that we need to find a way to compromise. Sadly, they are missing the moment we are living in. The desire to find common ground is perfectly normal when the disputes are perfectly normal. But we’re not talking about marginal tax rates or trade policy. How are we supposed to find common ground with those attacking the freedom of speech? Do we give up free speech on Tuesdays and Thursdays? Should we compromise the right to be free from unreasonable searches and allow the government to enter our homes whenever it demands? Those of you reading this report probably don’t need this reminder, but I suspect many of your friends and family members do: The search for common ground is not an appropriate response to a brazen attack on our God-given liberties. Compromising in such circumstances will only make it more likely that we lose those liberties. Don’t Be Fooled Don’t let the hypocrisy of leftists, socialists, Marxists and their allies confuse you. It’s very important that we be clear thinkers. Here’s some of the hypocrisy I’m referring to. All of a sudden now, the left just loves law enforcement . . . as long as law enforcement is attacking Donald Trump and his supporters, including shooting and killing an unarmed woman at point blank range on Capitol Hill. But they don’t love law enforcement when police officers patrolling the mean streets of liberal-run cities have to defend themselves or be killed. They don’t like law enforcement at the border. Far-left prosecutors don’t like law enforcement when officers are making arrests in communities that heavily favor progressive candidates. The left is at war with freedom of religion. They ruthlessly criticize any church that clings to traditional, biblically-based views. But they love churches that abandon the Bible, fly the LGBTQ flag and push socialism from the pulpit. The left loves babies when they are being brought illegally across the border. And when the U.S. military goes to war, the left quickly accuses U.S. troops of being baby killers. (Leftists say the same thing about Israeli soldiers almost every day.) But they don’t love babies when we try to save them from abortion. They want to put abortion clinics on military bases. That really would make the U.S. military “baby killers.” To the left, the U.S. flag is a symbol of white supremacy and oppression. Some leftists claim to be triggered or emotionally disturbed when they see pickup trucks flying American flags. They support anyone who kneels in disrespect during our national anthem. They are trying to kick the Pledge of Allegiance out of our schools. But they love the LGBTQ flag. If anyone dares to criticize that flag or suggest it shouldn’t be in a classroom, they are destroyed on social media and smeared as a bigot. So, this is why progressives and their Marxist allies are so aggressively embracing the FBI over the Russia hoax and the raid on Trump’s home. Sadly, it’s working. It is causing some conservatives to go wobbly now when we can least afford it. We Must Learn From History We must be wise and discerning right now, and history has a lot to teach us. I have studied many books about what happens when a country is under siege by totalitarian forces like socialism, Marxism and Nazism (the acronym for National Socialism). Whether it’s Castro, Stalin, Mao or Chavez, the pattern is always the same. Before the left is able to seize power, it despises law enforcement, the military and the church – for obvious reasons in each case. But once the revolution succeeds and power is consolidated, the left loves the police because the police are used to arrest their political enemies. The left loves the military because it keeps order for the regime. The left even loves the church because they pack churches with pastors who are actually agents of the government, telling their congregations to obey the government because that’s what Jesus would want you to do. That trend is happening right now at the FBI, in the woke Pentagon and in many churches that seem more interested in satisfying the leftist juggernaut than preaching the truth of Scripture. So, keep this in mind as a filter for what we are experiencing today. Yes, we support law enforcement and the military. Yes, we love our churches. But if we lose this battle for America and our freedom, all those things we love will be distorted and used as instruments against us. Recall Fail The recall effort against George Gascon, the left-wing district attorney in Los Angeles, has failed. Why? Because the city claims there weren’t enough valid signatures submitted by the recall committee. How can that be? They turned in 200,000 more signatures than necessary. Well, the power structure in Los Angeles, which looks the other way when it comes to verifying voter signatures, all of a sudden got very meticulous. For example, in the 2020 presidential election, less than one percent of mail-in ballots were declared invalid for a variety of reasons, including mismatched signatures. Incredibly, county officials rejected a whopping 27% of the signatures collected in the Gascon recall effort. In this case, they didn’t cheat in the counting of votes -- they prevented a vote from even taking place! Remember Afghanistan One year ago today, three Afghan civilians held on to a U.S. military aircraft as long as they could after the plane took off from the Kabul airport. Tragically, they all fell to their deaths. This is the image the entire world saw, courtesy of Joe Biden’s incompetence, as innocent people were desperately trying to flee 12th century barbarians. Now ask yourself this vital question: Why would anyone trust Joe Biden and his woke Pentagon leadership to manage a bigger war against Russia in Ukraine? Remember Afghanistan, my friends. MAKE YOUR TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATION NOW SHARE VIA SOCIAL MEDIA Share This Email Share This Email Share This Email As a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, donations to American Values are tax deductible for federal income tax purposes. 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