Right Wing Granny

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Right Wing Granny

Monthly Archives: May 2018

The Timeline

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The Russian Collusion/Spy In The Trump Campaign story is getting old and it is getting complicated. There are some reporters, however, who have made the story a little easier to follow. Sharyl Attkisson has continued her outstanding work as an investigative reporter  and posted a timeline of changes in Justice Department personnel from October 2015 to the present on her website.

Here is the timeline:

As the spying scandal unfolds, keep an eye on the people who have moved out and the people who have moved in. I would suspect that the people who are being moved in are there to drain the swamp. The people who have moved out or left are quite likely looking for good lawyers at this point.

A Resettlement Program Gone Awry

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Yesterday Scott Johnson (one of the regular writers at Power Line Blog) posted an article at The City Journal website. The article was related to some recent events involving large amounts of cash flowing from Minnesota to Somalia.

The article reports:

When it was noted that the carry-on bags of multiple airline passengers traveling from Minneapolis to Somalia contained millions of dollars in cash, on a regular basis, law enforcement was naturally curious to know where the money came from and where it was going. It soon emerged that millions of taxpayer dollars, and possibly much more, had been stolen through a massive scam of Minnesota’s social-services sector, specifically through fraudulent daycare claims. To make matters worse, the money appears to have wound up in areas of Somalia controlled by al-Shabab, the Islamic jihadist group responsible for numerous terrorist outrages.

The article goes on to explain that beginning in the 1990’s, the State Department began sending refugees from the Somalia civil war to be resettled in Minnesota. Minnesota now has the largest population of Somalis outside of Somalia.

The article reports:

As the Washington Times noted in 2015, in Minnesota, these refugees “can take advantage of some of America’s most generous welfare and charity programs.” Professor Ahmed Samatar of Macalester College in St. Paul observed, “Minnesota is exceptional in so many ways but it’s the closest thing in the United States to a true social democratic state.” A high-trust, traditionally homogenous community with a deep civil society marked by thrift, industriousness, and openness, Minnesota seemed like the ideal place to locate an indigent Somali population now estimated at 100,000.

Fast forward to 2015 when the House Homeland Security Committee task force on combating terrorist and foreign-fighter travel discovered that Minnesota led the nation in contributing foreign fighters to ISIS. It gets worse. The refugees masterminded a very lucrative daycare fraud scheme that sent millions of taxpayer dollars to terrorists in Somalia.

The article cites one such example:

The case of Fozia Ali, recently sworn in as a member of the park board of an upscale Twin Cities suburb, is illustrative. Ali’s daycare center in south Minneapolis was suspected of billing the government for more than $1 million of bogus child-care services. According to Special Agent Craig Lisher, the FBI “found records that she was collecting a significant amount of money for a much larger number of children than were actually attending the center.” Ali’s case also had an international component. “We are aware that some of the funds went overseas, what she was cashing out, money from the business,” Lisher noted. He declined to specify the purpose to which the funds were put.

Ali used a phone app to register charges to the Minnesota state government while she stayed at an $800-per-night hotel in Nairobi. She pleaded guilty in March to charges of wire fraud and is serving time in federal prison. But the scam goes well beyond Ali. Though the total loss to the state’s $248 million daycare program remains to be determined, we have a serious case of deceit, obviously. But the real damage, harder to measure, is likely to be to the high-trust values of Minnesota, where newcomers can dupe the natives so easily.

These are not the sort of refugees we need.

A Massive Train Wreck Blocked The Street

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Investor’s Business Daily posted an editorial yesterday about the two investigations that are currently going on involving President Trump. The editorial reminds us that as the media continues to breathlessly report of the Trump-Russia Collusion Scandal, there is a definite lack of actual evidence to report. Meanwhile there seems to be a lot of evidence showing that the FBI and DOJ overstepped their bounds and acted in a very partisan manner during and after the 2016 presidential campaign. However, that evidence is being purposely ignored.

The editorial cites an interesting story that illustrates the media’s focus:

National Review reporter John Fund relates an interesting story. He was waiting to go on the air and struck up a conversation with another prominent reporter in the network’s green room.

Why, he asked, aren’t reporters actively investigating the suspicious activities at the Justice Department and the FBI regarding the Trump/Russia and Hillary/email investigations?

Fund says the reporter “bluntly told me ‘There’s only room for one narrative on all this. And it’s all about Trump.’ “

You might think that reporters are chasing facts wherever they might lead, and “speaking truth to power,” especially when that power involves the CIA, FBI and Justice Department.

Instead, it’s all about the “narrative.”

The editorial reminds us of the solid results of the investigation that is getting results:

While Mueller has turned up no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, this “counternarrative” has led to: former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe fired for lying to investigators; Peter Strzok and Lisa Page booted off Mueller’s team for virulently anti-Trump texts; Deputy Assistant AG Bruce Ohr demoted after contacts with a Trump oppo-research firm came to light; the quitting of former Deputy Assistant AG David Laufman, who played a key role in both the Russia and Clinton email investigations; and FBI general counsel James Baker reassigned after evidence emerged that he’d been in contact with leftist reporter David Corn.

In other words, while the Mueller investigation sputters along, the evidence of political abuse at the FBI and Justice is piling up.

This “counternarrative” also has uncovered the fact that the FBI had a spy in the Trump campaign, and that the FBI has not been entirely forthcoming about how the Trump investigation got started, or when.

The editorial concludes:

It reminds us of the story about the cub reporter who is sent to cover a routine meeting of the local town council. The reporter later returns to the newsroom without a story. When the editor asks why there’s no story, the reporter responds: “I couldn’t get to the government building because a massive train wreck blocked the street.”

A good reporter, or at least one who isn’t hopelessly biased, would be able to see that the real story isn’t the go-nowhere Mueller investigation, but the more troubling story of abuse of power by Obama administration officials to protect Hillary Clinton and then derail the Trump presidency.

The mainstream media is going to look very foolish when the only people reporting on the train wreck are the alternative media.

The Dangers Of The Mueller Investigation

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Yesterday Mark Penn posted an article at The Hill stating that it is time to end Robert Mueller’s investigation.

The article reminds us:

At this point, there is little doubt that the highest echelons of the FBI and the Justice Department broke their own rules to end the Hillary Clinton “matter,” but we can expect the inspector general to document what was done or, more pointedly, not done. It is hard to see how a yearlong investigation of this won’t come down hard on former FBI Director James Comey and perhaps even former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who definitely wasn’t playing mahjong in a secret “no aides allowed” meeting with former President Clinton on a Phoenix airport tarmac.

With this report on the way and congressional investigators beginning to zero in on the lack of hard, verified evidence for starting the Trump probe, current and former intelligence and Justice Department officials are dumping everything they can think of to save their reputations.

The article states:

This process must now be stopped, preferably long before a vote in the Senate. Rather than a fair, limited and impartial investigation, the Mueller investigation became a partisan, open-ended inquisition that, by its precedent, is a threat to all those who ever want to participate in a national campaign or an administration again.

The tactics in this investigation are designed to make people think twice before they participate in a Republican campaign. Michael Flynn and Michael Caputo have both been essentially bankrupted because of their connection with the Trump administration and the Trump campaign. (articles here and here)

The article concludes:

The president’s lawyers need to extend their new aggressiveness from words to action, filing complaints with the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility on the failure of Mueller and Rosenstein to recuse themselves and going into court to question the tactics of the special counsel, from selective prosecutions on unrelated matters, illegally seizing Government Services Administration emails, covering up the phone texts of FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, and operating without a scope approved by the attorney general. (The regulations call for the attorney general to recuse himself from the investigation but appear to still leave him responsible for the scope.)

The final stopper may be the president himself, offering two hours of testimony, perhaps even televised live from the White House. The last time America became obsessed with Russian influence in America was the McCarthy hearings in the 1950s. Those ended only when Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.) attacked an associate of the U.S. Army counsel, Joseph Welch, and Welch famously responded: “Sir, have you no decency?” In this case, virtually every associate and family member of the president has been subject to smears conveniently leaked to the press.

Stopping Mueller isn’t about one president or one party. It’s about all presidents and all parties. It’s about cleaning out and reforming the deep state so that our intelligence operations are never used against opposing campaigns without the firmest of evidence. It’s about letting people work for campaigns and administrations without needing legal defense funds. It’s about relying on our elections to decide our differences.

In 2016 (and beyond) the leadership of the FBI and Department of Justice were much more of a danger to our Republic than the Russians were.

Do Employers Have The Right To Set Conditions Of Employment?

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The Hill posted a story today about today’s Supreme Court ruling that employers can include clauses in employment contracts that force employees to settle disputes individually with a third-party arbitrator.

There are a few aspects of this ruling–the most obvious one is that employers can write employment contracts without government interference. Another is whether or not employers have the right to include in employment contracts clauses that include the prohibition of class-action lawsuits to settle disputes over wages and working conditions.  These clauses preventing class-action lawsuits in employment contracts are fairly common. It should also be noted that many companies have mandatory arbitration procedures–that is the proper way to deal with conflicts. Our society has often been too quick to seek legal action as a way to gain instant wealth. Not all class-action lawsuits have merit. We live in a society where people are free to change jobs. If salaries or working conditions are unacceptable, a company will not be able to find quality employees. The system will police itself. There are also federal avenues available to address valid salary or working condition complaints.

The Hill reports:

The EPI ( Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a liberal think tank) found in a survey last year that 53.9 percent of nonunion private-sector employers already have mandatory arbitration procedures.

Software company Epic Systems Corp., accounting and financial firm Ernst & Young LLP and Murphy Oil USA Inc. were the employers at the center of three cases the court consolidated that argued in support of the agreements.

The government, which changed its position under President Trump, had also intervened in support of the employers, arguing that Congress enacted the Federal Arbitration Act in 1925 to “overcome judicial resistance to arbitration.”

The court’s decision settles a deep split among the lower courts. The 2nd, 5th and 8th circuit courts of appeal and the California and Nevada supreme courts had ruled these arguments are fully enforceable, while the 7th and 9th circuits, along with the National Labor Relations Board, ruled the agreements violate the NLRA.

Government does not belong in the business of writing employment contracts or telling employers what to put in them.

Sometimes The Media Spin Is Simply Pathetic

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On May 10, The Gateway Pundit quoted a Wall Street Journal article by Kimberley Strassel (The Wall Street Journal article is not linked because it is behind the subscriber wall):

Thanks to the Washington Post’s unnamed law-enforcement leakers, we know Mr. Nunes’s request deals with a “top secret intelligence source” of the FBI and CIA, who is a U.S. citizen and who was involved in the Russia collusion probe. When government agencies refer to sources, they mean people who appear to be average citizens but use their profession or contacts to spy for the agency. Ergo, we might take this to mean that the FBI secretly had a person on the payroll who used his or her non-FBI credentials to interact in some capacity with the Trump campaign.

This would amount to spying, and it is hugely disconcerting. It would also be a major escalation from the electronic surveillance we already knew about, which was bad enough. Obama political appointees rampantly “unmasked” Trump campaign officials to monitor their conversations, while the FBI played dirty with its surveillance warrant against Carter Page, failing to tell the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that its supporting information came from the Hillary Clinton campaign. Now we find it may have also been rolling out human intelligence, John Le Carré style, to infiltrate the Trump campaign.

We now know the identity of this person, and it has been confirmed that he was in the Trump campaign working for the FBI. So how does the media spin this?

On Friday, The Washington Post reported:

…But Trump and his backers are wrong about what it means that the FBI reportedly was using a confidential source to gather information early in its investigation of possible campaign ties to Russia. The investigation started out as a counterintelligence probe, not a criminal one. And relying on a covert source rather than a more intrusive method of gathering information suggests that the FBI may have been acting cautiously — perhaps too cautiously — to protect the campaign, not undermine it.

As a former FBI counterintelligence agent, I know what Trump apparently does not: Counterintelligence investigations have a different purpose than their criminal counterparts. Rather than trying to find evidence of a crime, the FBI’s counterintelligence goal is to identify, monitor and neutralize foreign intelligence activity in the United States. In short, this entails identifying foreign intelligence officers and their network of agents; uncovering their motives and methods; and ultimately rendering their operations ineffective — either by clandestinely thwarting them (say, by feeding back misinformation or “flipping” their sources into double agents) or by exposing them.

Was there an FBI spy in the Hillary Clinton campaign to make sure the Russians did not influence the campaign?

If American voters fall for this spin, we probably do deserve to lose our republic.

Spending Money Where It Is Needed–Not For Political Purposes

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The Washington Examiner posted an article today about ending the federal funding for abortion.

The article reports:

President Trump’s action last week, barring Title X family planning funds from programs and facilities that perform abortions, is thus entirely right and reasonable. For all Planned Parenthood’s gnashing of teeth, the only thing to suffer will be its own profits and the rewards of its senior executives. The public good and women’s health will, at a minimum, remain completely unaffected and, depending on your perspective, will be improved.

Trump’s decision will not reduce Title X funding at all. Rather, his policy guarantees that the limited funds available from that source will go to comprehensive community health centers all over America that provide health services Planned Parenthood doesn’t offer. There are 20 such community health centers for every Planned Parenthood affiliate. Most provide services such as mammograms that Planned Parenthood doesn’t offer. Most are also not so heavily involved and invested in partisan politics.

According to opensecrets.org, in the 2016 election cycle, Planned Parenthood (through its PAC) donated $671,048 to federal candidates (98% to Democrats, 1% to Republicans).

According to the ACLJ (American Center for Law and Justice):

Planned Parenthood just released their 2016–2017 annual report. The findings are clear: over 320,000 abortions committed in the last year; over half a billion in government funding; nearly $100 million in profit (a staggering 27% increase over the prior year). Big Abortion is big business.

Regardless of where you stand on protecting the unborn, abortion should not be a million dollar business.

It is obvious from the above numbers that Planned Parenthood does not actually need federal money–they are making a substantial profit on their own and they are supporting political candidates.

It has been my belief for a long time that entities that make political contributions should not be eligible for federal funds. This should include any political action committees (PACS) set up by those entities. This seems rather obvious to me, but evidently Congress has not yet figured it out (I guess Congress likes its donations from these entities). The idea of taking federal money and making political donations seems like money laundering to me.

 

An Honest Man Creates A Problem For The Deep State

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The American Thinker posted an article today about the role of retired Admiral Mike Rogers in making things difficult for the deep state during the primary election season. The article is a perfect example of how one honest man can make a difference.

The article deals with the revelation of the identity of the spy the Obama administration had placed inside the Trump campaign during the primary and beyond.

The article reports:

Last week I reported that Internet sleuths had winkled out the name of the spy/agent provocateur that Obama’s intelligence officers had used on the Trump campaign. The New York Times and Washington Post, the Democrats’ semi-official newspapers this week megaphoned the instigators, offering up their justifications without naming his name. 

Again, the name is Stefan Halper, who, as I wrote here last week, was paid a substantial sum by the Department of Defense’s Office of Net Assessment. 

If it was for this work – and it suspiciously looks like it because the payments were made in July and September of 2016 when he was weaseling his way into the campaign – then we know we have the DNI, CIA, DOJ, FBI, Dept. of State and the Defense Department working for Hillary’s election and to smear and create a basis for further spying on Trump and his campaign. 

This is the story:

Former FBI agent Mark Wauck suggests Halper may have been operating under a preliminary investigation(PI), not a full Investigation (FI)

The FBI is asked–way back as early as 2015, but who knows? — to be helpful to the Dems and they agree. What they do is they hire non-government consultants with close Dem ties to do “analytical work” for them, which happens to include total access to NSA data. Advantages? For the Dems, obviously, access to EVERYTHING digital. A gold mine for modern campaign research. For the FBI there’s also an advantage. They get to play dumb — gosh, we didn’t know they were looking at all that stuff! They also don’t have to falsify anything, like making [stuff] up to “justify” opening a FI [full investigation]on an American citizen and then lying to the FISC to get a FISA on the USPER [US person] and having to continually renew the FISA and lie all over again to the FISC each renewal. And the beauty of it all is, who’s ever going to find out? And even if they do, how do you prove criminal intent?

So everything’s humming along until a pain in the a** named Mike Rogers at NSA does an audit in 4/2016, just as the real campaign season is about to start. And Rogers learns that 85% of the searches the FBI has done between 12/2015 and 4/2016 have been totally out of bounds. And he clamps down — no more non-government contractors, tight auditing on searches of NSA data. Oh sh*t! What to do, just give up? Well, not necessarily, but there’s a lot more work involved and a lot more fudging the facts. What the FBI needs to do now is get a FISA that will cover their a** and provide coverage on the GOPers going forward. That means, first get a FI on an USPER [US person] connected to the Trump campaign (who looks, in [April] or [May] 2016, like the GOP candidate) so you can then get that FISA. That’s not so easy, because they’ve got to find an USPER with that profile who they can plausibly present as a Russian spy. But they have this source named Halper.

So they first open a PI [preliminary investigation]. That allows them to legally use NatSec Letters and other investigative techniques to keep at least some of what they were doing going. But importantly this allows them to legally use Halper to try to frame people connected to the Trump campaign — IOW, find someone to open a FI on so they can then get that FISA. However the PI is framed, that’s what they’re looking to do. It has legal form, even if the real intent is to help the Dems. And you can see why this had to be a CI [counterintelligence] thing, so in a sense the Russia narrative was almost inevitable — no other bogeyman would really fit the bill, and especially on short notice.

So that’s what they do, and Halper helps them come up with Papadopoulos and Page, so by the end of July they’ve got their FI. Problem. Their first FISA is rejected, but eventually, 10/2016, they get that.

And then Trump wins and Rogers visits Trump Tower. And the Deep State has a fit.

The article also reveals the role of Virginia Senator Mark Warner in this story:

Mark Warner was also the guy caught text messaging with DC Lawyer Adam Waldman in the spring of 2017. (his first assignment) Waldman was the lawyer for the interests of Christopher Steele – the author of the dossier.

While he was working as an intermediary putting Senator Warner and Christopher Steele in contact with each other, simultaneously Adam Waldman was also representing the interests of… wait for it… Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska.

Derispaska was the Russian person approached by Andrew McCabe and Peter Strzok and asked to assist in creating dirt on the Trump campaign, via Paul Manafort.

You see, Senator Mark Warner has a vested interest in making sure that no-one ever gets to the bottom of the 2016 political weaponization, spying and surveillance operation.

Senator Mark Warner was a participant in the execution of the “insurance policy” trying to remove President Trump via the Russian Collusion narrative. 

The article concludes:

Wretchard tweets something impossible to deny: “The biggest problem with politically weaponizing intelligence agencies is it CREATES a pathway for the foreign takeover of the system. If once a hostile power takes over the WH, it obtains the power to remain indefinitely.”

We now have an imaginary crime – collusion – with imaginary evidence and even imaginary defendants. What is not imaginary is the selfish effort to destroy our polity by several handfuls of men and women who abused their positions of trust for intended partisan gain that failed. Give them the hook already.

No wonder Congress is having such a hard time obtaining the documents it is entitled to!

Please follow the link to read the entire article. There are some amazing connections revealed here. There are also many people named in this article that need to suffer the consequences of their actions.

The Pieces Are Beginning To Fit Together

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Townhall posted an article today that explains a lot of the pieces in the Special Prosecutor story and how those who supported Hillary Clinton for President worked together inside the government to create problems for President Trump.

The article reminds us:

On December 29, 2016, the Obama Administration – with three weeks remaining in its term – issued harsh sanctions against Russia over supposed election interference. Two compounds in the United States were closed and 35 Russian diplomats were ordered to leave the country.

In the two years since that was done, it has become obvious that the basis for the sanctions was questionable at best. So what was this all about?

The story begins with the emails showing that the Democratic primary election was rigged for Hillary Clinton. There are still questions as to whether those emails were ‘phished’ or hacked. The scandal was significant enough to cause the resignation of DNC chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz on the eve of the Democratic convention.

The article points out:

The FBI never bothered to test the computers for a hack.  That task was left to CrowdStrike, a private contractor whose CTO and co-founder, Dmitri Alperovitch, is a Russian ex-patriot and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a think tank with an anti-Russian agenda.

The Atlantic Council is funded by Ukrainian billionaire Victor Pinchuk, a $10 million donor to the Clinton Foundation.  The fix was in.  CrowdStrike dutifully reported that the Russians were behind the hack.

Lat year The Nation, a progressive publication, got a group of unaffiliated computer experts to test CrowdStrike’s hypothesis and they concluded that the email files were removed from the computer at a speed that makes an off-site download from Russia impossible.  

The saga continued:

Trump protested by stating the obvious: the federal government has “no idea” who was behind the hacks.

The FBI and CIA called him a liar, issuing a “Joint Statement” that suggested 17 intelligence agencies agree that it was the Russians. Hillary Clinton took advantage of this “intelligence assessment” in the October debate to portray Trump as Putin’s stooge.

She said, “We have 17, 17 intelligence agencies, civilian and military who have all concluded that these espionage attacks, these cyber-attacks, come from the highest levels of the Kremlin. And they are designed to influence our election. I find that deeply disturbing.”

The media’s fact checkers excoriated Trump for lying. It was the ultimate campaign dirty trick: a joint operation by the intelligence agencies and the media against a political candidate.

The article concludes:

The machinations that followed, the secret memos and special counsel, the prosecution of Flynn anyway for what happened in his conversation, the whole sordid mess, is a cover-up.

In the inverse logic of Russian collusion, the investigation itself supplies credibility to the collusion narrative. Any attempt to end the investigation is obstruction of justice.

One person has the constitutional responsibility end this nonsense. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who himself was duped into recusing himself by since discredited intelligence, should bow to recent disclosures of impropriety and say enough is enough.

His Inspector General will be issuing a report to him sometime soon. Maybe then he will lift his recusal and start the prosecutions. People should go to jail for this.

This is a scenario generally reserved for third-world countries. It is distressing to know that we have people in government who are so unpatriotic as to engage in this sort of shenanigans. Hopefully there will be an influx of politicians into our jail cells in the near future.

I Suspect There Are Some People In The FBI And DOJ Who Wish Mueller Had Shut Down His Investigation Before This Information Came Out

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Sundance at The Conservative Treehouse posted an article today about some of the information discovered regarding the government spy inside the Trump presidential campaign. It is a long article, but worth reading. Please follow the link above to read the entire article.

To me, this is the highlight of the article:

The article details some of the contradictions in the story the media and the FBI and DOJ are currently trying to sell us.

For instance:

Remember, in May 2016 Mr. Page was the key witness working on behalf of the FBI in a case against Russians. [ Evgeny Buryakov Case] Now in September 2016, the same FBI is fixing to put Carter Page under a Title-1 surveillance warrant and label him an agent of a hostile foreign government….

… funny, that.

The two last exchanged emails in September 2017, about a month before a secret warrant to surveil Mr. Page expired after being repeatedly renewed by a federal judge.

This whole thing stinks. I can totally understand the opposition party infiltrating a political campaign–that has been going on for years. But when the government not only takes sides during an election, but puts a spy in one political campaign, we have entered into a new realm of dishonesty. This makes Watergate look like a job done by amateurs (which it actually was). The people involved in this need to go to jail–regardless of their status in our government–they used the government’s power against the people. They violated the Fourth Amendment. They violated the Oath of Office they took to defend the U.S. Constitution. They not only didn’t defend the Constitution–they walked all over it and would have killed it had they won the election. If Hillary Clinton had won, the corruption would have gone unchecked and probably gotten worse. It is long past time to hold the people involved in this scheme accountable.

Sometimes The Double Standard Is Very Puzzling

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The New York Post posted an article today about Bill Clinton. Although he is doing a lot of speaking at various political and charitable events, he is keeping a rather low profile. No so with his wife. According to Hot Air, Hillary Clinton recently tweeted:

If I were a Democrat, that would strike fear into my heart. According to an April 19th article at BizPacReview, Mrs. Clinton’s favorability rating is at 27 percent. The article reports that this is a new low for Clinton who dropped in popularity from 30 percent in August 2017. Just as a point of reference, President Trump’s rating was at 35 percent. I suspect it may have gone up in the past month.

Meanwhile, Bill Clinton seems to be relatively popular with the American people despite his past actions.

The New York Post reports:

As recently as 2016, the very liberal Joy Behar was dismissing the women who slept with Clinton as “tramps” on “The View.” Not that much has changed since the period in the ’90s when Maureen Dowd dismissed Lewsinky as being “nutty and slutty” and “a ditsy, predatory White House intern who might have lied under oath for a job at Revlon.”

A Rasmussen Reports poll taken in November 2017, a month after the #MeToo movement began, found that 59 percent of people believe the accusations against Bill Clinton. But you wouldn’t know it from the way he’s being treated.

Somehow Bill Clinton has escaped the wrath of the #metoo movement despite the believable accusations against him.

The article at The New York Post concludes:

It’s not hard to find worse men than Bill Clinton of course (Harvey Weinstein). It’s not even hard to find worse men named Bill (here’s looking at you, Cosby). But there’s a big difference between “not being the worst man in the world” and “being a guest of honor in an age where women are speaking out against assaulters like you.”

If Democrats want to hold Donald Trump accountable for his alleged misconduct, and we should, then we have to hold Democrats accountable, as well. Sexual harassment isn’t an important issue because it serves as leverage against another party. It’s important because it destroys women’s lives and careers. At least in Lewsinky’s case, we know the fallout from the affair rendered her suicidal. But Clinton seemed to go blithely on, largely beloved in spite of the way he abused his power.

Maybe this is the year we say enough. After 20 years, it’s time for Bill to go and take a long walk in the Chappaqua woods.

We should be so lucky.

Does This Man Not Remember Watergate?

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The Daily Caller posted an article today about a recent comment by James Clapper.

The article states:

Former Director of Intelligence James Clapper said Thursday night on CNN that it was “a good thing” there was an FBI informant spying on the Trump campaign.

Clapper admitted the FBI “may have had someone who was talking to them in the campaign,” referring to President Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. He explained away the possibility of an FBI informant spying on the campaign as the bureau was trying to find out “what the Russians were doing to try to substantiate themselves in the campaign or influence or leverage it.”

James Clapper was President Obama’s Director of National Intelligence. At one point didn’t James Clapper take an oath to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution. Did he read the Fourth Amendment?

The Fourth Amendment states:

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.

This is frightening.

The Investigation Of Russian Collusion Just Keeps Coming Off The Rails

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Kimberley Strassel posted an article at The Wall Street Journal yesterday that casts further doubt on the origin of the investigation into President Trump and Russian collusion. As we learn more and more about spying on the Trump campaign and other nefarious activities of our FBI and Justice Department during the campaign, it becomes obvious that the investigation of President Trump was an investigation in search of a crime.

The article states:

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes appeared on “Fox & Friends” Tuesday, where he provided a potentially explosive hint at what’s driving his demand to see documents related to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Trump-Russia probe. “If the campaign was somehow set up,” he told the hosts, “I think that would be a problem.”

That is definitely an understatement.

The article explains some of things we have recently learned:

Think of the 2016 Trump-Russia narrative as two parallel strands—one politics, one law enforcement. The political side involves the actions of Fusion GPS, the Hillary Clinton campaign and Obama officials—all of whom were focused on destroying Donald Trump. The law-enforcement strand involves the FBI—and what methods and evidence it used in its Trump investigation. At some point these strands intersected—and one crucial question is how early that happened.

What may well have kicked off both, however, is a key if overlooked moment detailed in the House Intelligence Committee’s recent Russia report. In “late spring” of 2016, then-FBI Director James Comey briefed White House “National Security Council Principals” that the FBI had counterintelligence concerns about the Trump campaign. Carter Page was announced as a campaign adviser on March 21, and Paul Manafort joined the campaign March 29. The briefing likely referenced both men, since both had previously been on the radar of law enforcement. But here’s what matters: With this briefing, Mr. Comey officially notified senior political operators on Team Obama that the bureau had eyes on Donald Trump and Russia. Imagine what might be done in these partisan times with such explosive information.

And what do you know? Sometime in April, the law firm Perkins Coie (on behalf the Clinton campaign) hired Fusion GPS, and Fusion turned its attention to Trump-Russia connections. The job of any good swamp operator is to gin up a fatal October surprise for the opposition candidate. And what could be more devastating than to paint a picture of Trump-Russia collusion that would provoke a full-fledged FBI investigation?

It is definitely ironic that as the Mueller investigation continues, more and more facts discrediting the Mueller investigation seem to surface. If I were Mr. Mueller, I would be in a hurry to wrap this up before the American people find out any more about what was behind the investigation.

The article ends with a statement about leaking and about government transparency:

Whatever the answer—whether it is straightforward, or whether it involves political chicanery—Congress and the public have a right to know. And a Justice Department willing to leak details of its “top secret” source to friendly media can have no excuse for not sharing with the duly elected members of Congress.

Somehow This Didn’t Make The News

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WattsUpWithThat posted an article today about temperature records set during the past two years. The records were not what was expected.

The article reports:

NASA data show that global temperatures dropped sharply over the past two years. Not that you’d know it, since that wasn’t deemed news. Does that make NASA a global warming denier?

Writing in Real Clear Markets, Aaron Brown looked at the official NASA global temperature data and noticed something surprising. From February 2016 to February 2018, “global average temperatures dropped by 0.56 degrees Celsius.” That, he notes, is the biggest two-year drop in the past century.

The article also includes some other climate news that the major media seemed to overlook:

There was the study published in the American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Climate showing that climate models exaggerate global warming from CO2 emissions by as much as 45%. It was ignored.

Then there was the study in the journal Nature Geoscience that found that climate models were faulty, and that, as one of the authors put it, “We haven’t seen that rapid acceleration in warming after 2000 that we see in the models.”

Nor did the press see fit to report on findings from the University of Alabama-Huntsville showing that the Earth’s atmosphere appears to be less sensitive to changing CO2 levels than previously assumed.

How about the fact that the U.S. has cut CO2 emissions over the past 13 years faster than any other industrialized nation? Or that polar bear populations are increasing? Or that we haven’t seen any increase in violent weather in decades?

This is not to say that we shouldn’t do what we can to limit air pollution, protect clean water, and keep our planet clean. We need to do that because we are responsible human beings. However, we don’t have to run around with our hair on fire about something we can’t change.

 

 

That Was Then, This is Now

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Fox News posted an article today stating that Gina Haspel has been confirmed as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). She will be the first woman to head the agency.

That is fantastic news, but there is another side of the story. The Democrats and some Republicans opposed her nomination because of her role in black sites after 9/11. That is in marked contrast to the confirmation hearings for John Brennan in 2013 when he was President Obama’s choice to head the CIA.

At The Fox News Insider, Laura Ingraham reminds us:

Laura Ingraham said Thursday that both President Obama’s pick to lead the CIA and President Trump’s nominee either supported or worked under the policy of enhanced interrogation techniques.

Ingraham said that in 2013 at Obama nominee John Brennan’s confirmation hearing, 13 Republicans broke with their party to support his nomination, including Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

She said Brennan either supported or was involved in operations involving the techniques which some consider torture.

He was asked whether and subsequently confirmed that interrogation techniques used on detainees “provided information that was useful [in]… the ultimate operation to go after Bin Laden.”

At the same time, Ingraham said Democrats, except for Joe Manchin of West Virginia, are signaling their opposition to Gina Haspel, Trump’s nominee.

The opposition to Gina Haspel was strictly political on the part of the Democrats. I have no idea what the motives of the Republicans who played along were. Brennan was in a supervisory role when the questionable activities took place–Gina Haspel was not a supervisor.

I am glad to see this lady confirmed–she has served her country honorably.

The More We Know, The Worse It Gets

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Yesterday The New York Times posted an article about the government spying on the presidential campaign of Donald Trump. Crossfire Hurricane was the name given to an operation that was so secret only a few in the FBI knew about it.

The New York Times reports on the operation:

…in the summer of 2016, the F.B.I. dispatched a pair of agents to London on a mission so secretive that all but a handful of officials were kept in the dark.

Their assignment, which has not been previously reported, was to meet the Australian ambassador, who had evidence that one of Donald J. Trump’s advisers knew in advance about Russian election meddling. After tense deliberations between Washington and Canberra, top Australian officials broke with diplomatic protocol and allowed the ambassador, Alexander Downer, to sit for an F.B.I. interview to describe his meeting with the campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos.

The agents summarized their highly unusual interview and sent word to Washington on Aug. 2, 2016, two days after the investigation was opened. Their report helped provide the foundation for a case that, a year ago Thursday, became the special counsel investigation. But at the time, a small group of F.B.I. officials knew it by its code name: Crossfire Hurricane.

The article reports:

Only about five Justice Department officials knew the full scope of the case, officials said, not the dozen or more who might normally be briefed on a major national security case.

That alone should set off alarms in the minds of those who worry about abuses of power in our government.

The article goes into a rather lengthy analysis of the investigation from The New York Times’ point of view. What it doesn’t say is more instructive than what it does say. The article fails to mention the very real possibility that Mr. Papadopoulos was set up to trigger the investigation or that the Comey briefing of the President was to make way for the media to report on the Russian dossier.

What the article does confirm is that spying on President Trump began during the campaign and continued after the election. The Inspector General’s report will be out at some time in the future and will confirm that Fourth Amendment rights were violated and that certain people within our intelligence agencies should go to jail.

So What’s The Problem?

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When justice becomes political, it is a problem. The Mueller investigation is a great example of that fact (but not if you ask a Democrat). On the one-year anniversary of the Mueller probe, The Gateway Pundit listed the criminal and unconstitutional acts within the Mueller investigation.

Please follow the link to read the entire article, but here is the summary of the list:

1. Rosenstein’s special counsel order identifies collusion as the crime but no such crime exists in US Law.

2. Mueller’s investigation exceeds the scope of special counsel law which requires the scope of a special counsel to be specific. Rosenstein created the special counsel with a scope that is so broad it is not supported by this law.

3. Mueller accepted the special counsel position with known conflicts of interest and was assigned in spite of a horribly corrupt track record.

4. Rosenstein and Mueller’s entire team have known conflicts of interest.

5. The Investigation exceeds the scope of Jeff Sessions’ recusal of only 2016 campaign related matters.  Mueller’s scope is much broader.

6. Rosenstein’s original authorization to Mueller extended to “Russia government collusion” in 2016 campaign only. By pressing charges against Manafort for 2006 actions, Mueller’s scope is much broader.

7. Rosenstein does not have authorization over tax crimes. Only the Assistant Attorney General in charge of Tax Division can authorize indictments of tax crimes.

8. Rosenstein’s letter tells Mueller only to look to Rosenstein for clarification of Mueller’s authorization. Rosenstein is not the Attorney General of the United States, and could not monopolize supervision of Mueller for matters that did not relate to Sessions’ recusal.

9. By Rosenstein issuing his expanded authorization to Mueller in secret, Rosenstein created a secret inquisitor, unelected and un-appointed by elected officials, with all the powers of the federal criminal law enforcement, but none of the democratic checks and balances.

10. The special counsel law requires that the Attorney General create the special counsel when a criminal investigation is warranted. There was no reason for Rosenstein to create the special counsel that could not have been addressed with other means, if necessary.

11. The entire story of Trump – Russia collusion was a farce. Deep State had a spy in the Trump campaign who set up young and eager twenty-something George Papadopoulos in England.

12. Mueller’s Special Counsel took emails and attorney – client privileged information from the Trump transition team and from President Trump’s personal attorney. These egregious acts that destroyed the attorney – client privilege between the President of the US and his personal attorneys are unconstitutional and perhaps the most brazen illegal actions taken in US history.

How much money has this travesty cost the American taxpayer?

 

 

Terrorist Pay Is Better Than Israeli Army Pay

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Terrorist at the Gaza border are being paid by Hamas. Yesterday FrontPage Magazine posted an article explaining the pay rates.

The article reports:

Hamas had offered $100 to every rioter. During previous violent assaults back in April, the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist group had been offering $200 to anyone shot by Israelis, $500 for severe injuries and $3,000 to the dead. 

$100 a day may not seem like a lot, but the Israeli teen soldiers they’re trying to kill, earn $13 a day.

The Hamas supporting thugs are depicted as helpless, starving victims who can barely lift the firebombs they’re throwing at Israelis, but they make ten times as much as the Israeli soldiers they are there to kill. 

Hamas can write all those checks to its aspiring killers because the cash is coming from Iran.

Last year, Senwar, whom Israel had released in exchange for captured Israeli hostage Gilad Shalit, had boasted that Iran was once again “the largest backer financially and militarily”.

That comes out to an estimated $100 million a year. 

With as many as 50,000 Hamas supporters in Gaza participating in the day’s attacks at $100 a head, over 1,000 allegedly injured at least $200 each, and another 52 allegedly killed at $3,000 each (there is no reason to treat Hamas casualty figures coming out of Gaza as anything other than propaganda), the whole thing cost Hamas and Iran $5.3 million. The unmarked cargo plane filled with foreign currency that Obama dispatched to Iran carried $400 million. That was part of a known $1.7 billion cash payment.

But the total Obama terror payments to Tehran may go as high as $33.6 billion. 

Despite media misreporting, the Hamas mass fence attacks began back on March 30 and even though their Great March of Return was supposed to end in mid-May, the show proved to be unexpectedly popular in Tehran, Brussels and Berkeley, and the attacks will continue through at least June.

On March 23, President Trump signed the Taylor Force Act into law. The Taylor Force Act will end U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) as long as it pays stipends to Palestinian terrorists — either those in Israeli prisons, or the families of those who are deceased. Unfortunately, it seems as if Iran has picked up the slack.

The article concludes:

Hamas organized the invasion. It urged its human shields to head to the fence telling them that the Israelis had run away. That was the same way Egypt’s Nasser had tricked Jordan’s King Hussein during the Six Day War. Instead of defeating the Israelis and salvaging Gaza, Nasser’s scheme led to the liberation of Jerusalem, along with Judea and Samaria by the indigenous Jewish people. And it also had disastrous consequences for this latest attempted invasion by Egyptian-Jordanian settlers into Israel.

While the Hamas supporters were destroying their own crossing point infrastructure, as they had previously trashed their own gas lines, the United States was inaugurating the opening of an embassy in Jerusalem. Despite media misinformation, the riots predated the embassy and will postdate it. 

The media used contrasting photos of the embassy opening and the Pallywood fake photos of protesters crying for the cameras and pretending to limp on crutches to smear Israel and America. And as usual they missed the real story. While Israelis and Americans were building something, Muslim terrorists were destroying everything they could get their hands on. While Rabbis and Pastors blessed, Imams cursed. 

Hamas Sheikh Iyad Abu Funun had sworn on the Koran that, “We will not leave a single Jew on our Islamic land.” It did not matter, “whether left-Wing, right-wing, secular, religious, or extremist.”

That is what this is about.

The dedication of the embassy is a leap of faith. Faith in building rather than destruction. Faith in life instead of death. Faith in the G-d who watches over Jerusalem, not the Allah for whom Gaza burns. 

Lied to again by the mainstream media.

I’m Not Sure This Is About What I Am Being Told It Is About

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On Monday, Civitas posted an article about the North Carolina teachers’ walkout today. It’s called a walkout, but it is actually a strike. Schools are closed because the teachers have chosen not to teach today.

A Civitas article from May 9 points out the fallacy of comparing teacher’s salary across the nation–the cost of living in various states can be very different.

The May 9 Civitas article reports:

According to data compiled by NEA, the average salary for teachers in the U.S. in 2013-14 (the latest figures available) was $56,610. The average teacher salary in North Carolina in 2013-14 was $44,990. That figure ranks North Carolina 47th among the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The U.S. average national salary ($56,610) ranks 16th highest in the list.

…Let’s start with terminology. The very term “national average” implies a middle-range figure, not too high, not too low, somewhere in between. But is it? Are we really looking at a middle-range figure? We all know high numbers can skew averages.

That looks like exactly what has happened with the states with the highest average teacher salaries. Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, California and the District of Columbia all have average teacher salaries above $70,000. These figures have skewed the average salary upward.

A true “average” would rank the national average somewhere in the middle of the states. However, it’s not. The 2014 NEA Salary Rankings & Estimates says the national average teacher salary is $56,610. Fourteen states plus the District of Columbia have higher average salaries than the U.S. average. That means 36 of the 50 states have averages that are below the national average teacher salary. So it’s fair to ask: Is the national “average” really a mid-range figure?

Teachers’ pay has increased in recent years in North Carolina. The legislature has planned another increase in the upcoming year. Governor Cooper’s plan would give a larger increase, but then increase taxes. Governor Cooper’s plan gives with one hand and takes away with the other hand.

The May 14th article at Civitas lists the purpose of the teachers’ walkout as stated at the Durham Association of Educators website:

The essay on the DAE website demanding everything is a mix of idealism and snark, guaran-damn-teed to torch any straw man who questions budget allocations that are ostensibly “for the children.” The piece is unsigned, but almost certainly written by DAE president Bryan (“There are powerful forces aligned to steal our joy and snatch our students’ futures”) Proffitt; it has his earnest and unforgiving style.

The key passage in the essay reads as follows: “North Carolina’s educators, you see, believe in this radical idea that [all of our kids], every last one, should have:

  • Nutritious food, clean air, and poison-free water
  • Homes and neighborhoods filled with love and respite
  • Physical and emotional health and the resources and knowledge they need to care for their bodies
  • Emotional and physical safety
  • Boundless opportunities to laugh and learn and grow with their elders and their peers
  • Challenges that push them to test their limits while offering safety and grace when they inevitably fail along the way
  • Meaningful work and joyful play
  • Computers, books, clothes, balls, dolls…everything”

I wonder how many teachers have actually seen the list of things they are marching for. (In Russia, they used to call people who thought they were marching for one cause, but were being used for another cause useful idiots).

As an American citizen, I want the opportunity to earn all the things on the above list to be available to all Americans. Bringing that opportunity to all Americans would require bringing moral concepts back into our schools. It would require teaching our children reading, writing and arithmetic, as well as critical thinking skills. It would require promoting children to the next grade only when they have learned the necessary skills to succeed in that grade. It might even require bringing back the concept of God into our schools–letting our children know that there is a higher authority and teaching them to respect authority. The problem isn’t money–it’s cultural rot. No amount of money can fix that.

Teachers, your hearts may be in the right place, but your mathematics and critical thinking skills are not. You have wasted a day and been used for purposes other than those which you intended.

Telling Only One Side Of The Story

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Yesterday Townhall posted an article about the reporting of the violence on the Israeli border with Gaza. First of all, let’s look at some of the history of Gaza. In 2005, Israel turned over Gaza to Arabs who wanted a Palestinian state. The Arabs immediately destroyed the greenhouses that supported the Gaza economy and began using Gaza as a launching pad for missile attacks against Israel. In June 2007, Hamas took over Gaza. Hamas is designated as a terrorist organization by America. They have definitely lived up to their name.

The article at The Hill shows some of the headlines from the mainstream media about the violence:

CNN: “37 Palestinians killed in Gaza protests ahead of US embassy opening”

ABC News: “Death toll in massive Palestinian protests climbs to at least 41, bloodiest day in Gaza since 2014 war”

Washington Post: “Israelis kill dozens of Palestinians in Gaza protesting U.S. Embassy move to Jerusalem”

Los Angeles Times: “At least 37 Palestinians killed by Israeli army at Gaza border”

Let’s add a few facts to this just to make it interesting. News outlets reported that the ‘protestors’ set tires on fire, sending plumes of black smoke into the air, and hurled firebombs and stones toward Israeli troops across the border. Doesn’t sound like a peaceful protest to me. It was also noted that at least three people were killed because they were about the detonate a bomb. This sounds like self defense to me, but it is not being reported that way.

The article concludes:

The media’s biased reporting on Israel is nothing new. It has been a staple of liberal media reporting. Anti-Israel bias is also rampant amongst Democrat politicians. Even some liberals cannot understand it, calling it a double-standard. Howard Kurtz uses some very appropriate terminology when he discusses the media’s double-standard on Trump reporting in his new book Media Madness, calling the media’s biased reporting a “decimation of original reporting.” “The lines between news and opinion were not just blurred, they were all but obliterated,” Kurtz writes. That exact bias is all too familiar in the reporting of Israeli defense against Palestinian violence. Just as mainstream media has been irresponsibly spreading fake news about Trump, so too have they been spreading lies about Israel – vilifying Israel and victimizing Palestinian aggression.

If you would like unbiased insight into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I suggest you read analysis by self-proclaimed left-wing Arab, Fred Maroun. 

But until the media stops with the fake news, take heed what you read.

Israel is a small postage stamp in a football field of Arab nations. It is truly sad that the Arab nations will not let them live in peace.

 

There Seems To Be A Definite Lack Of Transparency Here

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Most of the information we have about the Mueller investigation comes from strategic leaks from those working for Robert Mueller. Other than that, we really don’t know much. Well, it seems that the investigation has not revealed some important items to those overseeing the investigation.

Yesterday John Solomon posted an article at The Hill that raises questions about certain aspects of the Mueller investigation.

The article reports:

But there’s one episode even Mueller’s former law enforcement comrades — and independent ethicists — acknowledge raises legitimate legal issues and a possible conflict of interest in his overseeing the Russia election probe.

In 2009, when Mueller ran the FBI, the bureau asked Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska to spend millions of his own dollars funding an FBI-supervised operation to rescue a retired FBI agent, Robert Levinson, captured in Iran while working for the CIA in 2007.

Yes, that’s the same Deripaska who has surfaced in Mueller’s current investigation and who was recently sanctioned by the Trump administration.

The lesson here is simply–whichever side of the political aisle or the investigation you sit on, it pays to be transparent. Mueller has been anything but transparent.

The article concludes with several legal opinions on the matter:

Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz told me he believes Mueller has a conflict of interest because his FBI previously accepted financial help from a Russian that is, at the very least, a witness in the current probe.

“The real question becomes whether it was proper to leave [Deripaska] out of the Manafort indictment, and whether that omission was to avoid the kind of transparency that is really required by the law,” Dershowitz said.

Melanie Sloan, a former Clinton Justice Department lawyer and longtime ethics watchdog, told me a “far more significant issue” is whether the earlier FBI operation was even legal: “It’s possible the bureau’s arrangement with Mr. Deripaska violated the Antideficiency Act, which prohibits the government from accepting voluntary services.”   

George Washington University constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley agreed: “If the operation with Deripaska contravened federal law, this figure could be viewed as a potential embarrassment for Mueller. The question is whether he could implicate Mueller in an impropriety.”

Now that sources have unmasked the Deripaska story, time will tell whether the courts, Justice, Congress or a defendant formally questions if Mueller is conflicted.

In the meantime, the episode highlights an oft-forgotten truism: The cat-and-mouse maneuvers between Moscow and Washington are often portrayed in black-and-white terms. But the truth is, the relationship is enveloped in many shades of gray.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. There is a lot of information there that needs to be in the public domain.

Pictures From The Opening Of The U.S. Embassy In Jerusalem Today

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This are two pictures from Israel today as America opens its Embassy in Jerusalem.

In December 2017, The Washington Post reminded us:

Ten days before he was assassinated in Tel Aviv, Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin gave a speech in Washington about the city of Jerusalem.

“Jerusalem is the heart of the Jewish people and a deep source of our pride,” Rabin said at an event recognizing the 3,000th year of the city’s existence.

“We differ in our opinions, left and right,” he said as the speech concluded. “We disagree on the means and the objective. In Israel, we all agree on one issue: the wholeness of Jerusalem, the continuation of its existence as capital of the State of Israel. There are no two Jerusalems. There is only one Jerusalem. For us, Jerusalem is not subject to compromise, and there is no peace without Jerusalem.”

That speech was given Oct. 25, 1995. On Nov. 4, a far-right student fatally shot him.

The evening before his speech, the Congress of the United States passed a law echoing Rabin’s assertions about the city. Spurred by the desire to act before Rabin’s visit, the House and Senate passed a bill called the “Jerusalem Embassy Act,” which formally recognized the city as the country’s capital and called for the U.S. Embassy in Israel to be moved there from Tel Aviv by 1999. Support for the bill was overwhelming. It passed the Senate by a 93 to 5 vote, with four Republicans and one Democrat voting no. It passed the House 374 to 37, with 153 Democrats joining most of the new Republican majority that had swept into power in 1994.  (the underline is mine)

So why wasn’t it done? The article explains:

The bill was not signed into law by then-President  Bill Clinton. Clinton had made an early effort to craft a new peace agreement in the Middle East, forging the Oslo accords between Israel and Palestinians, signed in 1993 and September 1995. (Rabin’s support for the accords was apparently one of the things that motivated his assassin.) The Embassy Act, Clinton said in a statement, “could hinder the peace process. I will not let this happen and will use the legislation’s waiver authority to avoid damage to the peace process.”

That waiver authority was a critical escape valve for Clinton and his successors. Initially, the legislation introduced by then-Kansas senator Bob Dole (R) mandated that groundbreaking on a new embassy in Jerusalem begin in 1996. To quell concerns from Clinton allies on the Hill, Dole added a provision that allowed the president to postpone implementation of the move for six months if “such suspension is necessary to protect the national security interests of the United States.”

Every President since Clinton has taken advantage of that waiver to avoid moving the Embassy. Why? Because up until now America has been almost totally dependent on Arab countries in the Middle East for our energy supply. Now that we are on the road to energy independence, we are free to make decisions on the basis of what is right rather than how much oil we need.

Thank you, President Trump, for having the courage to move the Embassy.

An Interesting Take on The Charges Against Michael Flynn

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I think most of us have wondered how the Mueller investigation convinced Michael Flynn to make a plea deal when the recently released notes from the investigation show that no one thought he was lying. Conventional wisdom says that the FBI threatened him with action against a family member and that he had been bankrupted by the entire escapade up to that point. Career military officers do not make enough money to pay for the kind of legal help that being investigated by Mueller requires. Particularly when the FBI and members of the former administration have been illegally listening to your telephone calls.

The Gateway Pundit posted an article yesterday that might provide some clues as to exactly what happened.

The article states:

Now former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik is weighing in.

Kerik believes Mueller was pressing Michael Flynn to take a plea deal so the Special Counsel would not be caught in their lies and corruption.

But now those lies are coming out into the open!

The article includes the following tweet:

Mueller’s attempts at avoiding discovery have not been going well lately. I am hoping that continues. The discovery process may be the only way we can get to the bottom of the corruption within the Mueller investigation.