Pussy Riot's Warning for Americans

Oh, the irony.

The New York Times ran a piece on Dec. 4th titled, "A Warning for Americans From a Member of Pussy Riot".  Pussy Riot, in case you don't know, was a really bad girl band in Russia whose leaders ended up in prison for twenty months after performing an anti-Putin political rant at a church in Russia and then resisting arrest. 

A documentary film called "Pussy Riot, a Punk Prayer" was made about their journey including their formation, arrest, trial, and imprisonment.  The moral of the story:  Putin is a brutal dictator, Russia is not free, and Pussy Riot's treatment is a symbol for smug Westerners to look down their noses at barbaric Russia.  

During the trial, which was ostensibly about trespassing and resisting arrest, the defendants were kept in cages like real life Hannibal Lecters and were not afforded anything like the rights the West is accustomed to.  The implication is that all this injustice was really just payback for anti-Putin political speech,  and it could happen here.  

Now that Donald Trump has been elected President, The New York Times wants you to know that not only could it happen here, it likely will.                   

“It is a common phrase right now that ‘America has institutions,’” Ms. Tolokonnikova said. “It does. But a president has power to change institutions and a president moreover has power to change public perception of what is normal, which could lead to changing institutions.”

                                                                                      Pussy Riot leader, Nadya Tolokonnikova


There's only one problem with all this;  what happened to Pussy Riot in Russia has not only happened here in the U.S., but it's been widespread.  What's more, it happened under Barack Obama and the Democrats, not a Republican.

Here is a list of just some of the political filmmakers imprisoned, persecuted, and legally harassed by Barack Obama and the Democrats in recent years.  Like Pussy Riot, in many cases there were ostensible non-political bases for the arrests and harassment, but the reality is that these were all political payback in one form or another.

Nakoula Basseley Nakoula was put in prison for a year as punishment for making the YouTube video famously blamed by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya.  As everyone knows though, the Benghazi attack had nothing to do with a YouTube video.   Even Hillary Clinton knew that because she emailed her daughter, Chelsea, that the attacks were al Qaeda-like terrorist operations and then followed-up with the Libyan President confirming the same.    

Yet Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama needed a scapegoat to cover for their failure to provide the necessary security in Benghazi, to maintain the fiction that they had defeated terrorism, and to deceive the American people before an election.  So off to prison went Nakoula on an ostensible probation violation.      

Dinesh D'Souza admitted he gave more money than was legally allowed to a college friend who was running for office.  He gave $20,000 while the legal limit for a couple was $5,400. More importantly though, he made a couple of anti-Obama films in 2012 and 2013.  As a result of the ostensible campaign finance violation, he was confined for eight months, put on five months probation, and forced to undergo psychological counseling.

Mr. D'Souza was the first person in the history of campaign finance law ever to be confined for an offense such as this.   

Here's what liberal Harvard legal scholar Alan Dershowitz said about his conviction and sentence:  

“The idea of charging him with a felony for this doesn’t sound like a proper exercise of prosecutorial discretion.... I can’t help but think that [D'Souza's] politics have something to do with it.... It smacks of selective prosecution.” He went on to say such alleged campaign violations are common in politics. 

David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt were behind the Planned Parenthood undercover videos made by The Center for Medical Progress.  Barack Obama himself made a point to single them out.  As part of their cover they used fake IDs that somehow became a pretense for felony charges, a raid on Daleiden's home, and seizures of his property.

“To storm into a private citizen’s home with a search warrant is outrageously out of proportion for the type of crime alleged,” said Matt Heffron a former federal prosecutor who is now Daleiden’s legal adviser. “It’s a discredit to law enforcement, an oppressive abuse of government power.”

Recently all charges in Texas were dropped against Daleiden, but the damage was done.  His funding was depleted, CMP was sidelined, and the harassment was a success.  Charges in California have yet to be resolved.

Joel Gilbert made an anti-Obama film called "Dreams From My Real Father".  It drew the ire of Democrats on the Federal Election Commission (FEC) who voted unanimously to punish Mr. Gilbert.  When Republicans stood firm and pointed out that liberal filmmakers such as Michael Moore were not similarly harassed, the punishment was eventually blocked.  Were it not for the split FEC, Mr. Gilbert would have been sanctioned simply for making a movie critical of Barack Obama.

James O'Keefe, Joseph Basel, Robert Flanagan, and Stan Dai were part of James O'Keefe's undercover video organization, Project Veritas, the organization that single-handedly took down one of Obama's favorite community organizer (and voter fraud) activist groups, ACORN. They went on to investigate Democrat Senator Mary Landrieu and ran afoul of the FBI while trying to make a film about her. They eventually settled for misdemeanor charges and accepted probation, fines, and community service.

O'keefe has also been harassed by Obama's DHS for making films about the open Mexican border, and was just blocked by Twitter for releasing videos critical of Democrats and Hillary Clinton.

Logan Clements made a movie called "Sick and Sicker...", an unflattering portrayal of Obamacare. For his disloyalty he was handed his first ever IRS audit.   

Breitbart News also earned their first IRS audit.   Breitbart is a multi-media internet megaphone that is foursquare opposed to Clinton and Obama's policies.  In this election cycle they are all-in with Donald Trump.  (Also, see David Bossie below who contributes occasionally to Breitbart.) 

Glenn Beck, Pat Grey, and Scott Baker of The Blaze Network don't just make videos, they have an entire broadcast network, publish books, run a website, and do talk radio all of which oppose Clinton and Obama policies.  So yeah, these guys all got their first IRS audits .  But that's not all.  Glenn Beck's top sponsor, GoldLine, was targeted by Democrats, specifically congressman Anthony Weiner, husband of Hillary's right hand person Huma Abedin, and a known political hit-man for Democrats and Obama.  Weiner resigned his House seat in scandal, but his (ex?) wife would have played a major role in a Clinton administration.

David Bossie and James Bopp were behind the infamous Citizens United (CU) SCOTUS case. David Bossie runs CU and James Bopp was the lawyer who defended the first amendment. The case centered around CU's right to show an unflattering film portrait of Hillary Clinton. They won the case at the SCUTUS, but ran afoul of Obama and the entire Left who believe the first amendment only applies to Michael Moore and The New York Times. Hence, in front of the entire world during a state of the union address, Barack Obama publicly berated the justices who upheld the first amendment rights of filmmakers, thus sending a message to justices, filmmakers, and supporters of people who make films: oppose me and I will use the Bully Pulpit to bully you.

No list like this would be complete without mentioning Obama's number one target in the media and film world - Fox News.  Fox has been singled-out and harassed personally by Barack Obama on numerous occasions.  These attacks send a clear and chilling message to sponsors:  Advertise on Fox and you will be the target of restrictive regulations, IRS audits, and federal harassment.

Perhaps someone at The New York Times will write a story about all this someday,  but I won't hold my breath.