LOTS OF POSTS IGNORED BY BLOGGER.....

OR REMOVED ON THEIR WHIM!

ALL POSTS ARE AVAILABLE ON

MIDDLEBORO REVIEW AND SO ON

BLOGGER DOESN'T LIKE TRUTH OR FACTS!

BLOGGER DOESN'T LIKE FUND RAISERS AND DELETES

POSTS THAT INCLUDE FUNDRAISING THAT 'VIOLATES THEIR

UNDEFINED COMMUNITY STANDARDS SO ALL 'FUND RAISING'

IS DELETED - CONTRIBUTE AS YOU ARE INCLINED TO SUPPORT

IMPORTANT ISSUES! THESE ARE NOT SOLICITATIONS

—→July Flash Sale:🔓 Unlock the full story. > For a limited time, you can tear down the paywall for 40% off—Just $6/month. . Get unfiltered, deep-dive political analysis from the sharpest strategists in the game when you upgrade now for just 16 cents per day!

---

Pulpit Politics and the IRS: How a Tennessee Megachurch Is Testing the Law

As evangelical leaders openly defy the Johnson Amendment, a Chattanooga church shows how close the U.S. is to turning houses of worship into tax-exempt Super PACs.

Frank Figliuzzi Jul 29 ∙ Preview

Frank Figliuzzi hosts The Frank Figliuzzi Show on Lincoln Square. He is an FBI Assistant Director (retired); 25-year veteran Special Agent; and author of the national bestseller, The FBI Way, and Long Haul: Hunting the Highway Serial Killers. Subscribe to his Substack.

The congregation attending Calvary Chapel church in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on Sunday, July 19, heard a different kind of sermon. According to experts, it was the illegal kind.

Church leaders invited several Republican candidates running in midterm elections and “explicitly encouraged attendees to support them.” As the GOP candidates took the stage, the church’s civics and cultural ministry leader, Adam Calabrese assured his faithful flock, “We can vouch for them.” Unless Calvary Chapel is rebuked by a higher power – like the IRS, all signs point to much more of this in the lead up to November and the great beyond.

Never miss a show or column from Frank Figliuzzi. Become a Lincoln Loyal paid subscriber today.

If this political blessing of one party’s candidates seems wrong to you, that’s because it is. According to federal income tax specialist Samuel D. Brunson, associate dean of Loyola University Chicago, Calvary Chapel appears to have crossed the unholy line into a tax code violation. Churches are tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organizations forbidden from directly endorsing political parties or candidates in this manner:

“I’ve seen a lot of sermons that endorse, that try to endorse, that try to endorse without endorsing. This one’s pretty blatant. This is as explicit a violation as you could design. They have done literally everything they could possibly do to violate the Johnson Amendment part of Section 501(c)(3) – like they couldn’t have done a better job violating it if they had tried, and maybe they did try.”

It’s Brunson’s comment, “… and maybe they did try” that’s worth our attention. Calvary Chapel is an evangelical Christian association of 1,800 fellowships around the world. It started in California in 1965 and was the subject of the movie Jesus Revolution starring actor Kelsey Grammer as founding Pastor Chuck Smith. It has regional leadership councils domestically and abroad.

While its local churches are afforded certain autonomy, Calvary Chapel is not some primitive, loose-cannon organization. The Chattanooga fellowship has thousands attend its weekly services and has been listed as one of the fastest growing churches in America. While we don’t know for sure if the Chattanooga event was purposely designed to challenge the IRS’s Johnson Amendment, it wouldn’t surprise me based on recent history. The church has not yet responded to media questions...

Subscribe to Lincoln Square to unlock the rest.

Become a paying subscriber of Lincoln Square to get access to this post and other subscriber-only content.

A subscription gets you:

	All-Access to our weekly roundups, daily commentary, all LIVE! events w/ special guest, $20 in Lincoln Bucks every 60 days
	Weekly Strategy Sessions w/ Rick, Stuart, Joe & guests, The Enemies List, Trippi Show, Anchor Watch
	Ad-free podcasts, live & community chats, discounts in our store. Access to our full archive

 

Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more

The J. Edgar Hoover precedent for weaponizing the FBI

"Yes, we could have a repeat of that," Frank Figliuzzi tells us.

Aaron Rupar and Thor Benson Dec 9 ∙ Preview

Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover in 1969. (Getty)

---

🕵️ Public Notice is possible thanks to paid subscribers. If you aren’t one, please click the button below to sign up and support our independent journalism. 🕵️

---

After serving in the FBI for more than two decades, in 2011 Frank Figliuzzi replaced a guy named Robert Mueller (you might’ve heard of him) as the assistant director of the bureau’s counterintelligence division. Suffice it to say he saw a lot in his career.

So it should be taken seriously that Figliuzzi, now an MSNBC senior national security and intelligence analyst, describes Trump’s picks to run what are sometimes referred to as the power ministries — among them the DOJ (including the FBI) and the defense department — as a “hijacking of the entire national security structure.”

“My chief concern is this single characteristic that seems to run through these nominees — blind allegiance to Donald Trump,” Figliuzzi told us.

We recently connected with Figliuzzi to get his insight on Trump’s picks and what they signal about how the federal government will operate over the next four years. He warned that “we could be heading toward tremendous abuses of power, with the FBI going after Trump’s political enemies.” And he noted that a previous FBI director provided the president-elect and his choice to run the bureau, Kash Patel, with a blueprint.

Source: Bluesky

“J. Edgar Hoover was found in the 1960s and early 1970s to have repeatedly authorized illegal wiretapping and pursuit of perceived enemies — people he didn't like and people the White House didn’t like,” Figliuzzi said. “Notoriously, the FBI was doing dozens of ‘black bag’ jobs — breaking into people's homes, planting evidence, seizing evidence, planting microphones.”

“Yes, we could have a repeat of that,” he added. “People say, ‘Oh, this won’t be so bad.’ No, it could get really bad.”

A transcript of Figliuzzi’s conversation with Public Notice’s Thor Benson, lightly edited for length and clarity, follows.

Kash Patel's nomination signals how bad things can get Noah Berlatsky · Dec 2 Read full story

Thor Benson

As someone who’s focused on national security and has a background there, what are your top concerns with Trump’s choices for national security roles?

Frank Figliuzzi

Sadly, we’ll have to rank order them.

It’s not just that many of Trump’s nominees are remarkably unqualified for the jobs, and they are — from the DNI pick with Tulsi Gabbard to the DHS with Kristi Noem to Hegseth at DOD and now Kash Patel. But the lack of competence is not my chief concern anymore.

My chief concern is this single characteristic that seems to run through these nominees — blind allegiance to Donald Trump. Yes, there are national security issues with someone like Gabbard or Hegseth — I say national security with Hegseth, particularly, because similar to the concerns about Matt Gaetz, we don’t know what we don’t know. Is there more coming with Hegseth? Is it extortion and blackmail?

Tulsi Gabbard and Trump's scheme to gut the intel agencies David R. Lurie · Nov 29 Read full story

He’s already written a check to a woman in California. What else do we not know about? According to the latest reporting, he appears to have an alcohol problem. He’s had to physically be carried out of events he attended because he was drunk. That’s not good with someone who’s running things at the Pentagon. Are there more women and incidents out there? According to the New Yorker, he also yells “kill all the Muslims” when he gets drunk.

Out of all of the nominees, Kash Patel lacks the capacity to have his own independent thoughts and ideology. His record is replete with nothing but kissing Trump’s ass. That’s it. You don’t have to take my word for it. Look at his public statements about persecuting the “deep state,” prosecutors, the media, for christ’s sake. Combine that with Pam Bondi’s almost identical comments, and we’ve now got a Trump hijacking of the entire national security structure.

---

Programming note: Aaron will hold his first live chat with subscribers on the Substack app tomorrow (Tuesday) at 11am CT (noon eastern). He’ll take any and all questions for an hour. If you’d like to partake, please support our work by becoming a paid subscriber. (And for those of you who have already done that, thank you!)

---

Thor Benson

So where does that take us?

Frank Figliuzzi

Well, we could be heading toward tremendous abuses of power, with the FBI going after Trump’s political enemies. Where have we seen this before? People may call me alarmist, but this isn’t the first time this has happened in the FBI. ...

Judge SCREAMS AT TRUMP Inside Courtroom Seconds Ago: "STOP WASTING TIME!"

 

Anti Republican Network

467K subscribers

Judge SCREAMS AT TRUMP Inside Courtroom Seconds Ago: "STOP WASTING TIME!"

Trumр_Rаllу Јսst ЅНUТ DОWΝ Вy 7Ο0 РRОТЕЅТЕRЅ

American News Channel

417K subscribers

 

Five Questions with Former FBI Agent Frank Figliuzzi

JOYCE VANCE MAY 25 ∙ PREVIEW

Earlier this week, Donald Trump used a fundraising email to claim that the Biden administration wanted to kill him during the execution of the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago. The email read, "Joe Biden was locked & loaded ready to take me out". Then, Trump posted on Truth Social: “Joe Biden’s DOJ, in their Illegal and UnConstitutional Raid of Mar-a-Lago, AUTHORIZED THE FBI TO USE DEADLY (LETHAL) FORCE.”

Trump is unusually mendacious. But this, he said, was based on newly unsealed information about the search warrant executed at Mar-a-Lago, which referenced the FBI’s deadly force policy. So, was it true?

Who better to turn to for the truth than former FBI Agent Frank Figliuzzi, who retired as the Assistant Director for Counterintelligence after 25 years of service. After Trump’s announcement, Frank tweeted, “Yep, every FBI operations order contains a reminder of FBI deadly force policy. Even for a search warrant. Deadly force is always authorized if the required threat presents itself.” That’s the top line, but there’s more to it than that, especially as this story has become a firestorm in conservative media.

Frank, with his beloved Boston Terrier, Bella, of blessed memory.

You are probably familiar with Frank from his role as a national security contributor for NBC News. He is the author of a national bestselling book, “THE FBI WAY: Inside the Bureau’s Code of Excellence,” and his second book, LONG HAUL: Hunting the Highway Serial Killers, was released in May. He is uniquely qualified to weigh in on tonight’s issue: He was named Chief Inspector for the Bureau by then-director Robert Mueller. In that role, he oversaw sensitive and complex internal inquiries and audits worldwide, including reviews of all use of lethal force by FBI agents.

“Five Questions With” is an opportunity for us to do a deeper dive into an important issue several times a month. I’m committed to keeping Civil Discourse available to everyone, without regard for ability to pay. Five Questions, the only feature that is limited to paid subscribers, is my way of saying thank you to everyone who is able to support this work financially. I really appreciate all of you who are here and our commitment to keeping the Republic!