I’ve been monitoring the progress of the new FBI leader Kash Patel, just waiting to see what he will do about some of the well-known scandals of the Biden-Harris regime. Things like the Trump-Russia collusion scandal, the Hunter Biden laptop, the targeting of Christians for persecution, etc. Well, there was some shocking news this week about the Biden-Harris regime FBI.

Here’s the story from The Federalist:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) interfered with an investigation into Chinese meddling in the 2020 election to cover for former Director Christopher Wray, who had just testified to Congress that he had seen no evidence of a coordinated voter fraud effort, According to previously classified documents released Tuesday by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.

The FBI “suppressed intelligence” of alleged Chinese Communist Party (CCP) interference in the 2020 election, including the production of ‘”tens of thousands’ of fraudulent drivers’ licenses to manufacture mail-in votes for then-presidential candidate Joe Biden,” according to a press release.

Grassley said:

“These records smack of political decision-making and prove the Wray-led FBI to be a deeply broken institution. Ahead of a high-stakes election happening amid an unprecedented global pandemic, the FBI turned its back on its national security mission,.. Chris Wray’s FBI wasn’t looking out for the American people – it was looking to save its own image.”

And:

Grassley’s office says that the evidence was never investigated further, despite signs of credibility, because of a “sudden and ‘abnormal’” decision to stop further proceedings and “bury the IIR’s existence,” because, as the FBI put it, “the reporting will contradict Director Wray’s testimony.”

[…]The FBI recalled the report to “re-interview the source,” but also told “recipients” to “destroy all copies of the original report and remove the original report from all computer holdings.”

I checked Grassley’s government web site to make sure this was a real story, and yes, the story is real.

A while back, I was asking Grok (the AI) about 2020 election, and it was very dismissive of election fraud, relying on reports from corporate news sources. These are the same corporate news sources that make statements like “the Hunter Biden laptop is Russian disinformation”. And even after those corporate news sources exposed, search engines, Big Tech and AIs decline to update their views of these sources. In fact, Grok reverts back to using news sources like NPR, which dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop story.

Recently, I was asking Grok about the FBI’s actions related to the Hunter Biden laptop and the release of the Nashville shooter’s manifesto. Regarding the Nashville shooter, Grok said that the FBI had not intentionally suppressed the Nashville shooter’s manifesto.

And then one FOIA request later, we find out this:

The trans-centric Biden administration wanted to protect the trans agenda, and, as the Star News Network reported, the FBI advised against releasing information that it believed could put males pretending to be females and females identifying as males at risk.

[…]“And we knew that the FBI had this information. They did not want to release it to the public. They withheld it, requiring us to sue them,” the attorney added.

When I pointed out to Grok that the people who run many of these corporate news providers and fact checkers are Democrat donors, Grok just acts surprised. It’s not capable of taking into account the political contributions of these organizations to determine bias. It’s just programmed to see left-wing corporate news sites as reliable.

Prior to publishing this post, I asked Grok if there was any evidence of CCP election interference. Grok checked it’s favorite 3 web sites: the UK Guardian, The Washington Post, and The New York Times – and it claimed there was no evidence for it. Then I sprang the trap and linked to Grassley’s link above. Grok dismissed The Federalist, Daily Signal, National Review, Epoch Times and Grassley’s government web site despite having no evidence against their claims from its own preferred left-wing news sources.

Big Tech companies that run search engines and AI are biased to the left. Studies show that their products are affected by political bias. And leaked videos of executives show that. And political donations show that. What’s troubling to me is that even after left-wing news sources are caught lying about the Hunter Biden laptop, the Russia collusion hoax, the Jussie Smollett hoax, etc. it doesn’t seem to change the bias of the search engines or the AIs.

Libertarians generally favor relaxing criminal laws. They want to eliminate capital punishment (which deters violent crime). They are pro-choice on abortion. They want to decriminalize sex work of all kinds. And they want to decriminalize highly-addictive hard drugs. Let’s take a look at that last one and see if it’s produced results.

Here’s Reason magazine writing in August 2021. They are far left / libertarian on social issues:

In 1973, Oregon became the first state to decriminalize marijuana use, setting in motion a movement that has unraveled much of the disastrous U.S. drug war—with far-reaching consequences.

Today, Oregon is once again at the vanguard of reform: In February, it enacted Measure 110, a law ending prison and jail sentences for all types of drug use and possession, whether it be cocaine, meth, heroin, or psychedelics.

[…]Haven Wheelock, who runs a needle exchange in Portland called Outside In, says delaying decriminalization would have been morally unacceptable.

[…]Wheelock says that even if Oregon’s decriminalization gets off to a bumpy start, in no small part because the pandemic has exacerbated substance abuse problems nationwide, that Oregon voters have made the right choice.

“I think we’re going to see systems improve. I think we’re going to see people have access to care that they currently don’t have access to. I think we’re going to see less people getting saddled with convictions that harm them for the rest of their lives. And to me, all of that is a win,” says Wheelock.

And, here is the Cato Institute, a libertarian advocacy group, crowing happily about legalizing hard drugs:

In November 2020, Oregon voters passed Measure 110, which decriminalized the possession for personal use of small amounts of all drugs, including cocaine, heroin, LSD, methamphetamine, and oxycodone. Oregon is the only U.S. state to have implemented this policy.

[…]The problem, however, is that 110 did not go far enough.

While 110 eliminated serious penalties for personal use, it did not legalize production and sale of drugs.

When you make something legal, more people use it. And that’s exactly what happened.

Libertarians seem to think that when you legalize something addictive, then no one will commit any crimes to feed their addictions. Of course people will be able to keep their jobs with a cocaine addiction. And OF COURSE cocaine addicts will be able to make enough money legally from that job to support their habit. Libertarians think that crime will go down, because people with addictions can just work at their white collar jobs, and pay for their cocaine. No problem.

So, what happened next? Something that was a great surprise to libertarians.

The far-left The Atlantic noted:

But three years later, with rising overdoses and delays in treatment funding, even some of the measure’s supporters now believe that the policy needs to be changed. In a nonpartisan statewide poll earlier this year, more than 60 percent of respondents blamed Measure 110 for making drug addiction, homelessness, and crime worse. A majority, including a majority of Democrats, said they supported bringing back criminal penalties for drug possession.

Libertarians like to point to Portugal as a model for successful drug decriminalization, but again it’s just wishing and hoping.

The far-left Washington Post explains:

Portugal decriminalized all drug use, including marijuana, cocaine and heroin, in an experiment that inspired similar efforts elsewhere, but now police are blaming a spike in the number of people who use drugs for a rise in crime. In one neighborhood, state-issued paraphernalia — powder-blue syringe caps, packets of citric acid for diluting heroin — litters sidewalks outside an elementary school.

[…]A newly released national survey suggests the percent of adults who have used illicit drugs increased to 12.8 percent in 2022, up from 7.8 in 2001, though still below European averages. Portugal’s prevalence of high-risk opioid use is higher than Germany’s, but lower than that of France and Italy. But even proponents of decriminalization here admit that something is going wrong.

Overdose rates have hit 12-year highs and almost doubled in Lisbon from 2019 to 2023. Sewage samples in Lisbon show cocaine and ketamine detection is now among the highest in Europe, with elevated weekend rates suggesting party-heavy usage. In Porto, the collection of drug-related debris from city streets surged 24 percent between 2021 and 2022, with this year on track to far outpace the last. Crime — including robbery in public spaces — spiked 14 percent from 2021 to 2022, a rise police blame partly on increased drug use.

Going back to Oregon, the article also notes that “overdoses this year in Portland, the state’s largest city, have surged 46 percent.”

I think that libertarians are great on fiscal policy. But I don’t think we need to listen to them on social policy. Or on foreign policy, but that’s for another post.