This Could Make The Next Two Years Very Interesting

Don Surber posted an article today that included some rather surprising information.

The article reports:

Brad Parscale, Donald John Trump’s 2020 campaign manager, told Jesse Watters last night that 34% of the people who attended the president’s rally in Grand Rapids were registered Democrats.

Parscale knows that because people needed to give the campaign their cellphone numbers to get tickets. The campaign then used the information to check their voting record.

…Parscale called the Green New Deal a big juicy steak for the campaign.

Axios limited its report on the interview to Parscale saying, “[Trump] has been very easy to work with this week. He’s been very smiley.

“I was in the White House this week; he served me hors d’oeuvres. That was a first. … [A] little pigs in a blanket, some meatballs. …He gave me a Diet Coke; he was very happy. It was my first [time] in nine years serving, of hors d’oeuvres from the president. Which is safe to say, very good mood.”

Axios was the only outlet (besides Fox News) that I could find with a report on the interview.

Gee, I wonder how the experts missed that last election?

It’s difficult to ignore the economic success of the Trump administration. I suspect those in the deep state will attempt to undermine that success during the next year or so, but there are some fundamental changes in regulations that will make that difficult. The unemployment rate and the workforce participation rate speak for themselves. Salaries at the lower end of the wage scale are going up. People are keeping more of what they earn. The mainstream media is not telling us all of the good news, but people are experiencing better economic times and discounting the media. This President has dealt with an unprecedented assault on our southern border and is beginning to deal with the problem in spite of Congress–not with the help of Congress. The President has also dealt with an unprecedented attack on him personally and on his family. It is time to stop harassing the President and let him lead. The attendance at his rallies are an indication that the public is not listening to the mainstream media–they are doing their own research and drawing their own conclusions.

The Saga Continues

As the Russian collusion charges are exposed as a hoax, many of those involved are heading for the tall grass or implicating others. There is no honor among thieves, and many of these people compromised their principles long ago.

Today The Gateway Pundit posted an article about some recent remarks made by James Clapper to Anderson Cooper.

The article reports:

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: The 2017 assessment that the President says he now agrees with, that was done while you and then NCI Director John Brennan were still in office. So, how can we reconcile the President attacking you, but apparently after a very long time finally, allegedly saying — or saying he allegedly agrees with the product of the intelligence community that you, yourself oversaw?

JAMES CLAPPER: Yes, well, this is — yes, as we’ve come to know the President, he is not a stalwart for a consistency or coherence. So it’s very hard to explain that. One point I’d like to make, Anderson, that I don’t think has come up very much before, and I’m alluding now to the President’s criticism of President Obama for all that he did or didn’t do before he left office with respect to the Russian meddling. If it weren’t for President Obama, we might not have done the intelligence community assessment that we did that set off a whole sequence of events which are still unfolding today, notably, special counsel Mueller’s investigation.

President Obama is responsible for that, and it was he who tasked us to do that intelligence community assessment in the first place. I think it’s an important point when it comes to critiquing President Obama.

That sounds to me as if James Clapper is blaming President Obama for the surveillance of the Trump campaign and later the transition team of President Trump. That spying violated the civil rights of a number of Americans. There are also some serious questions about the basis for the FISA warrants. It seems that a number of laws were violated and the people who violated those laws need to be held accountable.

Fixing The Intelligence Community

On Friday, The Daily Caller posted an article titled, “OPINION: How Could The Intelligence Community Fail So Badly?”

The article states:

Far more than a failure of journalism, the Russia collusion narrative was, at its core, a monstrous failure of U.S. intelligence and counterintelligence.

All criticism of the news media aside for the moment, the bottom line is that professional journalists received fake intelligence information from U.S. government leakers whom they trusted.

That is probably true, but I also think that the personal bias of those individuals reporting the news caused them to believe things that most people would have regarded as totally ridiculous.

The article continues:

The entire Russian collusion debacle shows that the American intelligence and counterintelligence processes have broken down.

Emphatic former CIA director John Brennan, a main engine behind spreading the Russia collusion story through the intelligence community and into the media, suddenly doesn’t sound so certain about himself. The day after Attorney General William Barr released the special prosecutor’s finding of no collusion, Brennan confessed to MSNBC, “I don’t know if I received bad information but I think I suspected that there was more than there actually was.”

This is a shocking admission from the man who was, at the time, the nation’s highest-ranking professional intelligence officer.

Brennan wasn’t indicting just himself. He inadvertently accused the entire CIA. Whatever quality control systems it has, the CIA failed to prevent “bad information” from making its way up the chain to the national strategic level.

The article goes on to mention that journalists have learned to depend on leaks from government officials. Leaking classified information is a crime punishable by law. Those leaking need to be held accountable. At the same time, the government needs to be more transparent. A lot of things that are classified are classified to save the government from embarrassment.

The article concludes:

This leads to the most dangerous conclusion of all. The Russia collusion debacle has shown that the FBI and CIA leadership are not effectively under the oversight of elected officials, but instead are capable of tampering with the American democratic process and constitutional governance.

All this must stop. President Trump should assemble a team of solid intelligence and counterintelligence veterans to dig deep into the FBI and CIA leadership, discover the real nature of the problems and devise solutions before our system self-destructs.

It’s time to create an intelligence community that is apolitical. I don’t know if that is possible, but it’s a great goal.

Promises Made, Promises Broken

Yesterday Hot Air posted an article about the latest twists and turns in the Jussie Smollett case. The article notes that two days ago Kim Foxx told the media that she thought the court had sealed Smollett’s court file due to a misunderstanding and that it would be unsealed once the error was recognized. Well, things have changed.

The article reports:

The state prosecutors’ association also faulted Cook County prosecutors for not objecting to a defense request to immediately seal the court file at Tuesday’s brief, unannounced hearing. By Tuesday evening, all traces of the case had been deleted from court records.

In an interview Wednesday with the Tribune, Foxx said she believed the case file had only been sealed due to a misunderstanding — and that the seal did not apply to the entire court file. Nevertheless, she said, the case file would be unsealed.

However, on Thursday, an office spokeswoman backed off that claim, saying the case file would remain under seal in its entirety by court order.

The Chicago Tribune ran to court yesterday to try to prevent Smollett’s lawyers from moving to expunge his file, which conceivably would mean all records related to the case getting destroyed. Smollett’s lawyers insisted they won’t try to do that — surely you trust them — and the presiding judge assured the Tribune’s attorneys that records wouldn’t be destroyed even if the file ultimately was expunged. “That isn’t what we do in Cook County,” he said.

So, look out next week for the inevitable headline, “SMOLLETT RECORDS DESTROYED AFTER FILE EXPUNGED; FOXX KNOWS NOTHING.”

Stay tuned.

 

 

At Some Point We Need To Realize That The Abortion Industry Is A Very Powerful Industry

Abortion is a million-dollar industry. That is sad, but it is true. It is not as well regulated as other areas of the medical industry, and it is a cash industry that is extremely profitable. The industry also receives large sums of money from the federal government. In this case, money equals the power to pressure various politicians and business people to support their cause.

Breitbart posted an article today that illustrates how much power the abortion industry has.

The article states:

Conservative figures reacted with outrage earlier today as Twitter suspended the official account of Unplanned during the pro-life movie’s week of release. The account was restored shortly after its suspension, which Twitter said was related to the ban of a different account.

Unplanned, directed by Chuck Konzelman and Cary Solomon and starring Ashley Bratcher, tells the true-life story of Abby Johnson, a Planned Parenthood director who becomes a pro-life activist after witnessing a fetus struggling for life during an abortion at thirteen weeks gestation.

The film was released in U.S. theaters yesterday with a R-rating, which drew accusations of political bias against the MPAA, which assigns movie age ratings.

Unplanned is a true story. It is not fake; it is real. It is no coincidence that Twitter banned the account during the movie’s week of release.

Twitter claimed the banning was a mistake:

In a comment to Breitbart News, Twitter said that the suspension of Unplanned was an error related to the ban of a different account.

“It wasn’t directly about this account” said Twitter. “When an account violates the Twitter Rules, the system looks for linked accounts to mitigate things like ban evasion. In this case, on a second review, it was clear the account should not be affected by the other account’s suspension.”

I have an idea–why doesn’t Twitter simply stop banning accounts other than those that directly advocate violence and let free speech rule?

If President Trump Did Nothing Else, This Makes Him A Great President

For years national security experts have been warning of the dangers of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack. A nuclear warhead exploded at a precise altitude in the middle of America could totally disable our electric grid. Car engines with electronic fuel injection would no longer run (older cars could simply replace their spark plugs and a few other parts and carry on). One well-placed EMP attack could instantly bring Americans back to the early 19th Century. The phenomena of EMP was discovered in the 1940’s and 1950’s during the nuclear testing the United States did on Bikini Atoll. When an atomic bomb was set off on the Atoll, it scrambled all of the traffic lights in Hawaii. That was an early example of the impact of an EMP.

John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article today about a recent Presidential Executive Order.

The article reports:

In the first step of its kind, President Trump has signed an executive order calling for a government wide war on EMP, the types of electromagnetic pulses that can wipe out every computer, electric grid, and jet.

In joining the voices of those warning of EMP attacks, Trump called on his government to quickly generate a plan to detect EMP, protect critical infrastructure like water and electric sources, and also to recover if a hit lands.

This is part of the Executive Order:

(b) The Secretary of Defense shall:

(i) in cooperation with the heads of relevant agencies and with United States allies, international partners, and private-sector entities as appropriate, improve and develop the ability to rapidly characterize, attribute, and provide warning of EMPs, including effects on space systems of interest to the United States;
***

(iii) conduct R&D and testing to understand the effects of EMPs on Department of Defense systems and infrastructure, improve capabilities to model and simulate the environments and effects of EMPs, and develop technologies to protect Department of Defense systems and infrastructure from the effects of EMPs to ensure the successful execution of Department of Defense missions;
***
(vi) incorporate attacks that include EMPs as a factor in defense planning scenarios; and

(vii) defend the Nation from adversarial EMPs originating outside of the United States through defense and deterrence, consistent with the mission and national security policy of the Department of Defense.

In 2014 Natural News reported:

Meanwhile Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., has been working to raise concern about the issue (EMP attack) for years. He said during the first panel testimony that “catastrophic civilian casualties” could occur unless Congress acts.

…Franks has introduced H.R. 3410, the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act, which would enable the Department of Homeland Security to adopt measures necessary to protect the power grid.

Dr. Michael J. Frankel, a senior scientist at Pennsylvania State University, said Franks’ bill is a “necessary first step” for the defense of the electric grid, WFB reported. Currently, the measure has 19 co-sponsors.

Dr. Peter Pry, a member of the Congressional EMP Commission and executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security, said during testimony that the issue is urgent because an EMP event could wide out nine-tenths of the nation’s population.

“Natural EMP from a geomagnetic super-storm, like the1859 Carrington Event or 1921 Railroad Storm, and nuclear EMP attack from terrorists or rogue states, as practiced by North Korea during the nuclear crisis of 2013, are both existential threats that could kill 9 of 10 Americans through starvation, disease, and societal collapse,” he said.

That was almost five years ago. It seems as if an Executive Order may be the only way to protect Americans–Congress does not seem capable of the job.

When The Press Works Hand In Hand With A Political Party

We have all heard examples of news articles being withheld until after an election or until the politicians involved can figure out a spin. (see article here). Well, someone blew the whistle on NBC recently. In an article posted at The Daily Wire today, investigative reporter Yashar Ali reported that the managing political editor for NBC News and MSNBC bullied him on behalf of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) into holding a scoop that he broke yesterday. Think about that–the managing political editor for NBC News and MSNBC was helping the DNC.

The article reports:

“Yesterday, I received a call from @DafnaLinzer who serves as managing editor of NBC/MSNBC politics,” Ali tweeted. “Dafna’s conduct during the call was highly inappropriate and unethical. So what was the purpose of her call? She called me to bully me on behalf of the DNC.”

“Dafna, who oversees the political coverage for NBC and MSNBC, was calling to bully me into delaying the publication of an innocuous scoop and at no point did she advocate for her network, it was only about the DNC,” Ali continued. “Yesterday morning I received a tip from a trusted source. The source told me the DNC would be announcing the dates of the first 2020 primary debates later that day. The source gave me the dates they would be announcing: June 26 and 27.”

This is the most interesting part of the story:

“I realized that @DafnaLinzer, the head of all political coverage for NBC News and MSNBC wasn’t calling to advocate for her network, she was calling to advocate the DNC’s position,” Ali continued. She wanted me to wait so they could call state party leaders. I thought to myself ‘this is how people think it works.’ It’s not. But Dafna was doing it. She kept pressing me. Now I acknowledged, for stuff that isn’t about serious investigative reporting, there is no problem holding something. But I knew once others got the call.”

So much for objective reporting.

The Constitution Upheld By U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California

The legislative action part of the National Rifle Association is reporting today that ruling on the legal case Duncan v. Becerra, Judge Roger T. Benitez of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California determined on Friday that California’s ban on commonly possessed firearm magazines violates the Second Amendment.

The article reports:

Judge Benitez rendered his opinion late Friday afternoon and handed Second Amendment supporters a sweeping victory by completely invalidating California’s 10-round limit on magazine capacity. “Individual liberty and freedom are not outmoded concepts,” he declared. 

In a scholarly and comprehensive opinion, Judge Benitez subjected the ban both to the constitutional analysis he argued was required by the U.S. Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller and a more complicated and flexible test the Ninth Circuit has applied in prior Second Amendment cases.

Either way, Judge Benitez ruled, the law would fail. Indeed, he characterized the California law as “turning the Constitution upside down.” He also systematically dismantled each of the state’s purported justifications for the law, demonstrating the factual and legal inconsistencies of their claims.

The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

The Second Amendment protects American citizens from a tyrannical government–the Founding Fathers understood that the fact that they possessed weapons allowed them to free themselves from the rule of Britain. They wanted to protect future Americans from a tyrannical government. Beware of people who want to take guns away from America–that is the beginning of tyranny.

God Bless Her Husband–He Will Need It

The Marine Times posted an article yesterday that indicates how warped some parts of our society have become. There was a time in this country when military veterans and people serving in the military were honored. Although that is still the case in many places, it is far from universal.

The article deals with a bride who asked a wedding guest to leave because he is a Marine and wore his dress blues to her wedding.

This is her comment:

“Now, I have nothing against anyone in the military but this was a black tie optional wedding and frankly it felt very out of place and it seemed like he was just trying to show off. My wedding had over 300 guests and nobody else felt the need to wear something to make them stand out.”

I believe Marine dress blues are appropriate in a black tie situation.

Further comments indicate that she was simply jealous of the attention he was getting:

Emanating a “thank you for your service” radius of nearly 50 meters, the Marine — and what the bride perceived to be a “Semper I” aura — finally proved to be too much “mota, mota, gotta lotta” motivation to handle.

“Frankly it just felt like the only reason he wore that was to be in the spotlight and make it about him, which I don’t think you are supposed to do at someone else’s wedding,” she wrote.

“If he wants to wear that to his own wedding then fine, but the whole point of having a dress code at a wedding is so that no one guest will stand out too much.”

My sympathies to the bride’s husband. It seems as if this lady has some growing to do. She comes across as a spoiled brat.

 

Even The Good News Is Clouded With Doom When The Media Reports It

Market Watch posted an article yesterday about the January trade deficit in America. The article notes that the deficit shrank to $51.1 billion in January from almost $60 billion in December. That is really good news. However, the media doesn’t seem to want good economic news.

The article notes:

Economists polled by MarketWatch had forecast a $57.7 billion deficit.

Notice that they were more than a little off.

The article continues:

The lower U.S. trade deficit, if it persists, could provide a small boost in the first quarter to gross domestic product, the official scorecard of the economy. But the drop in imports could also be taken as sign of softening demand in the U.S. that adds to worries about a slower growth.

Whatever the case, the U.S. is coming off the highest annual deficit in a decade and it’s unlikely the gap will shrink much if at all in 2019.

The President is renegotiating trade deals. This is not an ‘instant’ process. His negotiating skills and business acumen are responsible for the growing economy–the unemployment rate is down and the workforce participation rate is up. Can someone in the media please give President Trump a little credit and show a little optimism.

An October Surprise That Continues

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit reported that Senator Rand Paul announced Wednesday that according to a high level source, former CIA Chief John Brennan insisted Hillary’s fake Russia dossier be included in the Intelligence Report.

The article reminds us of the series of events leading up to the 2016 election:

In late summer of 2016, then-FBI Director James Comey was notified that former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid would be sending him a letter asking him to investigate the Trump campaign’s alleged ties to Russia.

Harry Reid’s letter was written a week after he met with John Brennan – raising suspicion that Brennan briefed Reid on the fake Steele dossier — Reid’s letter was then leaked to the New York Times just before election day.

John Brennan said during a February 2018 appearance on “Meet the Press” that he learned about the dossier in December of 2016 and that “it did not play any role whatsoever in the intelligence community assessment that was done that was presented to then-President Obama and then-President elect Trump.”

The article concludes:

John Brennan told the House Intelligence Committee in a May 2017 hearing that the dossier was not a part of the intelligence used to assess Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The dossier, Brennan testified, “was not in any way used as a basis for the intelligence community assessment that was done.”

Former House Intel Chairman Devin Nunes was reportedly investigating whether Brennan perjured himself during his 2017 testimony to the Committee.

Rand Paul is right — it’s time for Congress to drag Brennan in again and question him under oath ASAP.

The total lack of integrity in some of our government officials and elected officials in appalling.

 

How A Dishonest Investigation Works

Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse reported that Congressman Doug Collins released the transcripts from the testimony of George Papadopoulos before the House Judiciary Committee. The article includes a PDF File of the 239-page transcript. Oddly enough, the transcript was released on the day that Papadopoulos released his book, “Deep State Target.”

To me, this is the most telling part:

When Robert Mueller took over the Crossfire Hurricane operation, the FBI ran an elaborate entrapment string against Papadopoulos using a CIA asset in Israel and a payment of $10,000 in cash.  FBI Agents were waiting at the airport in Washington DC for Papadopoulos to return.  However, that part of the Mueller plan failed because Papadopoulos left the money behind.  So they applied pressure another way, from his book:

It gets even more interesting–the article cites an energy deal that George Papadopoulos was a part of in the Middle East.

The article concludes:

Here’s the interesting aspect…. Do you know who was the original energy policy consultant; the person who wrote the obscure -at the time- policy paper; a plan to avoid putting an EU pipeline through Turkey; and the person who put all of these regional heads together; that ultimately ended with this announced deal?

That would be the little known, generally invisible young energy adviser, who would eventually become the central figure in the “spygate” targeting, George Papadopoulos.

Yes, for those following the granules as they expose, that 2014 energy extraction strategy; a plan from a little known energy consultant; would have put Papadopoulos in opposition to the interests of President Obama, candidate Clinton, Turkey, Qatar and ultimately Iran and Russia.

Huh… Funny that.

It’s almost as if…..

Some Democrats have long memories, nasty tempers, and are willing to wait for revenge.

Failing To Save Money

New Bern, North Carolina, is a beautiful city (rebuilding after Hurricane Florence). Obviously, rebuilding is costing a lot. The City Alderman are doing a good job of trying to repair the damage done by the hurricane, but it is costing a lot. In addition to the cost of the hurricane, New Bern is now faced with the cost of a U.S. House District 3 primary election, possible run-off election, and off-year election to replace Congressman Walter Jones. That has brought up the issue of the cost of elections–they are expensive.

In the March 21-27 issue of The County Compass (I could not find the letter on the website, I actually have the paper. This is a link to the website.), New Bern Alderman Jeff Odham explained a way that the City of New Bern could save money on elections and increase voter turnout in municipal elections. New Bern normally holds its municipal elections in October every four years (2013, 2017, 2021, etc.). Alderman Odham proposed holding municipal elections in March during federal election primary elections. This change would decrease the cost of municipal elections from roughly $36,000 (if there is no runoff) or $55,000 (if there is a runoff) to less than $5,000. What a fantastic idea. If the elections are held during the primary, the runoff can be held during the general election in November, again at a cost of less than $5,000. This resolution would have to be approved by the Board of Aldermen and sent to Raleigh so that the legislature could modify the charter of the City of New Bern.

Last night the Board of Aldermen rejected the resolution. Among other things, the proposal would result in the current Board of Aldermen serving a three-year term instead of a four-year term. A number of the Aldermen objected to that. They were willing to cost the taxpayers thousands of dollars in order to serve for one more year. The Aldermen that voted against the proposal were Aldermen Best, Aster, Harris and Bengel.

Mayor Dana Outlaw, Alderman Kinsey and Alderman Odham voted for the proposal. It is unfortunate that the other Aldermen were not interested in a savings of at least $30,000 every four years. I will not be voting for my current Alderman (who voted against the resolution) in the next election.

Why We Need Total Transparency Of The Mueller Report

Yesterday Andrew McCarthy posted an article at Fox News that brings up a very interesting (and largely unreported) aspect of the Mueller Report. The article asks the question, “How long has Mueller known there was no Trump-Russia collusion?” That questions is important because it is obvious that the two-year long investigation had an impact on the 2018 mid-term elections–it suppressed the Republican vote. It also cast a cloud over the Trump presidency which I am sure had an impact on the President’s ability to govern. Was that intentional? We will probably never know, but the article states some interesting facts.

The article reminds us:

Now that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has concluded that there was no criminal collusion, the question arises: When during their exhaustive 22-month investigation did prosecutors realize they had no case?

I put it at no later than the end of 2017. I suspect it was in the early autumn.

By the time Mueller was appointed on May 17, 2017, the FBI had been trying unsuccessfully for nearly a year to corroborate the dossier’s allegations. Top bureau officials have conceded to congressional investigators that they were never able to do so – notwithstanding that, by the time of Mueller’s appointment, the Justice Department and FBI had relied on the dossier three times, in what they labeled “VERIFIED” applications, to obtain warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

And make no mistake about what this means. In each and every application, after describing the hacking operations carried out by Russian operatives, the Justice Department asserted:

The FBI believes that the Russian Government’s efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election were being coordinated with Page and perhaps other individuals associated with [Donald Trump’s] campaign.

Yes, the Justice Department continued to make that allegation to the secret federal court for months after Trump was sworn in as president.

Notably, in June 2017, about a month after Mueller took over the investigation, while he was still getting his bearings, the Justice Department and the FBI went on to obtain a fourth FISA warrant. Yet again, they used the same unverified information. Yet again, they withheld from the court the fact that this information was generated by the Clinton campaign; that the Clinton campaign was peddling it to the media at the same time the FBI was providing it to the court; and that Christopher Steele, the informant on whom they were so heavily relying, had misled the bureau about his media contacts.

You know what’s most telling about this fourth FISA warrant? The fact that it was never renewed. The 90-day authorization lapsed in September 2017. When it did, Mueller did not seek to extend it with a new warrant.

This is the key:

This means that by autumn 2017 when it would have been time to go back to the court and reaffirm the dossier’s allegations of a Trump-Russia espionage conspiracy, the major FBI officials involved in placing those unverified allegations before the court had been sidelined. Clearly up to speed after four months of running the investigation, Mueller decided not to renew these allegations.

Once the fourth warrant lapsed in September, investigators made no new claims of a Trump-Russia conspiracy to the court. The collusion case was the Clinton campaign’s Steele dossier, and by autumn 2017, the investigators now in charge of the Trump-Russia investigation were unwilling to stand behind it.

The article concludes:

When Special Counsel Mueller closed his investigation last week, he almost certainly knew for about a year and a half that there was no collusion case. Indeed, the indictments that he did bring appeared to preclude the possibility that the Trump campaign conspired with the Kremlin.

Yet the investigation continued. The Justice Department and the special counsel made no announcement, no interim finding of no collusion, as Trump detractors continued to claim that a sitting American president might be a tool of the Putin regime. For month after month, the president was forced to govern under a cloud of suspicion.

Why?

What impact will releasing the entire bundle of background and other information that went into this investigation have? Would it do anything to heal the divide the media has caused by claiming this investigation would result in impeachment (impeachment will probably still happen, but that has nothing to do with this investigation)? Would it undo an election that was influenced by a lie? I think all information that can be released without harming innocent people or compromising national security should be released. However, I don’t think it will change anything. Any member of the government who is still employed by the government who was involved in the creating of the collusion narrative should be fired. The public will judge the media.

Better Late Than Never

Yesterday The Hill reported that the Justice Department has announced that it has found the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional.

The article reports:

The DOJ previously argued in court that the law’s pre-existing condition protections should be struck down. Now, the administration argues the entire law should be invalidated.

U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor ruled in December that the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate is unconstitutional and that the rest of law is therefore invalid.

The DOJ said Monday that it agrees the decision should stand as the case works its way through the appeals process in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.

“The Department of Justice has determined that the district court’s judgment should be affirmed,” the department said in a short letter to the appeals court.

The article concludes:

Many legal experts in both parties think the lawsuit, which was brought by 20 GOP-led states, will not ultimately succeed. The district judge who ruled against the law in December is known as a staunch conservative.

The case centers on the argument that since Congress repealed the tax penalty in the law’s mandate for everyone to have insurance in 2017, the mandate can no longer be ruled constitutional under Congress’s power to tax. The challengers then argue that all of ObamaCare should be invalidated because the mandate is unconstitutional.

Most legal experts say legal precedent shows that even if the mandate is ruled unconstitutional, the rest of ObamaCare should remain unharmed, as that is what Congress voted to do in the 2017 tax law that repealed the mandate’s penalty.

This is another example of the consequences of Congressional inaction. First of all, the government has no business in healthcare or health insurance. It the government wants to make a few minor rules to make sure people can obtain healthcare, that is fine, but other than that, we need to go back to free market healthcare. Our current policies have made insurance more expensive than it should be and care more expensive than it should be. We need to go back to the days of knowing how much things cost and being able to shop around for our care.

Are You Sure You Want To Go There For Advice?

The Gateway Pundit is reporting today that Democrat lawmakers boarded buses today to go over to former President Obama’s house to plan strategy.

The article includes a chart of President Obama’s impact on the Democrat party during his term of office:

The article notes:

Obama warned freshman Democrats to be wary of their far left sucicidal policies.
Democrat darling Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and her New Green Deal would bring America to its knees in only a few years. And most Americans are not too crazy about taking a bus to Hawaii.

Remember, President Obama ran as a moderate, but governed as a far-left progressive.

It is interesting to me that this meeting is occurring just a few days after the Mueller Report was released (and totally disappointed the Democrats). It also may be a strategy meeting to figure out how to block investigations into the abuse of the FISA Warrants and other government agencies that occurred during the Obama administration.

Unequal Justice?

The U.K. Daily Mail posted an article today about Jussie Smollett, who recently claimed to have been attacked in Chicago by Trump supporters. (Trump supporters in Chicago?) Smollett was facing 48 years behind bars on 16 felony charges for allegedly lying about the attack. The Bond Proffer is included in the article and makes for very interesting reading.

Evidence points to the fact that the attack was staged and that two of Smollett’s fellow actors were paid (by check) to help stage the attack.

The article states:

The charges against Jussie Smollett have been sensationally dropped and a judge has sealed the case after the actor agreed to pay $10,000 in bond forfeiture. 

The Empire actor appeared in Chicago on Tuesday for an emergency hearing after his lawyers announced the news in a statement.  

Smollett, 36, was facing up to 48 years behind bars on 16 felony counts of filing a false police report.   

On Tuesday, the charges were dropped after Smollett agreed to forfeit his $10,000 bond. 

It remains unclear what prompted the decision but the Cook County’s State’s Attorney’s office said it was due in part to Smollett’s ‘volunteer service in the community.’  

I don’t mean to be cynical here, but this does not increase my faith in justice in Chicago.

I am not sure any purpose would have been served by sending Smollett to jail for 48 years. However, I wonder if Joe Sixpack would have gotten the same treatment. It is interesting to me that the judge has sealed the case after the $10,000 payment.

Objectivity From An Unexpected Source

Paul Farhi posted an article yesterday at The Washington Post about the media’s role in the Mueller investigation.

The article reports:

After more than two years of intense reporting and endless talking-head speculation about possible collusion between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russian agents in 2016, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III put a huge spike in all of it on Sunday. Attorney General William P. Barr relayed Mueller’s key findings in a four-page summary of the 22-month investigation: The evidence was insufficient to conclude that Trump or his associates conspired with Russians to interfere in the campaign.

Barr’s announcement was a thunderclap to mainstream news outlets and the cadre of mostly liberal-leaning commentators who have spent months emphasizing the possible-collusion narrative in opinion columns and cable TV panel discussions.

“Nobody wants to hear this, but news that Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller is headed home without issuing new charges is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media,” Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi wrote in a column published Saturday, a day before Barr nailed the collusion coffin shut. He added: “Nothing Trump is accused of from now on by the press will be believed by huge chunks of the population.”

That’s bad enough, but there is another noteworthy observation in the article:

Other news outlets defended their reporting as well, noting that much of it is undisputed and has led to indictments and guilty pleas by figures associated with Trump’s campaign.

“I’m comfortable with our coverage,” said Dean Baquet, the New York Times’s top editor. “It is never our job to determine illegality, but to expose the actions of people in power. And that’s what we and others have done and will continue to do.”

He noted that Barr’s letter summarizing Mueller’s findings points out that the actions that warranted an obstruction inquiry were “the subject of public reporting” — a fact “that’s to the credit of the media.”

In fact, revelations by the Times and The Washington Post about contacts between Russian agents and Trump’s campaign advisers in 2016 helped prompt the inquiry that the special counsel took over in May 2017. The two newspapers shared a Pulitzer Prize for their reporting on the issue that year.

Although the mainstream media tried to make this Watergate, it wasn’t, and I suspect they have little or no intention of admitting their misreporting of major aspects of the story. First of all, where was the reporting of the abuse of power by the Obama administration in surveillance of an opposition party political campaign? Second, where was the commentary on inflammatory statements by former intelligence officials that later proved to be wrong? Third, where was the commentary on the accomplishments of the Trump administration in trade, taxes, and economic policy? If you are still watching the mainstream media and believing what they say, you will continue to be misinformed and mislead.

Still Playing The Game

The Washington Free Beacon posted an article yesterday that explains why many people are moving away from Google as a search engine. Other than the fact that Google tracks your searches (DuckDuckGo.com does not), Google is not an unbiased search engine. It has a political agenda despite claims to the contrary.

The news of the day Friday was that there would be no further indictments in the Mueller investigation. If you went looking for that news on Google, it would not be immediately obvious.

The article illustrates:

Using Google search on multiple browsers and on private-browsing mode, the Free Beacon found Google search had an aversion to the search term “indictment.”

Using either “Trump” or “Mueller” as the subject, the following word “indictment” was not suggested even after spelling out most of it. For example, putting “Trump indi” into Google’s search bar does not lead to “Trump indictment” but rather to “Trump India,” “Trump India Pakistan,” Trump India tariffs,” and “Trump Indiana.”

Seems like Google might have overlooked the obvious. When “Mueller ind” was entered, the results were similar. The article also includes screenshots of Yahoo and Bing when the letters “Trump ind” and “Mueller ind” were entered. The first entries that came up were “Trump indictment” and “Mueller indictments”.

The article concludes:

Google was previously accused of pushing positive stories about Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai has denied this kind of bias occurs in its search results, saying so repeatedly in a congressional hearing last year. Democrats, however, seemed to undermine Pichai’s message by arguing in that hearing that Google is free to suppress conservatives in its search results if it so desires. Pichai said such suppression of different views would violate the company’s “core principles,” although an executive was caught emailing about making sure Google services helped Hillary Clinton in 2016.

The company’s fidelity to principles of free expression has also come under scrutiny as it has continued to work with Xi Jinping’s autocratic regime in China. Because of severe free speech restrictions in that country, Google had been developing a special search engine “Dragonfly” that would block topics disapproved by the regime, including history about China and the Communist Party. Dragonfly was put on hold after it spawned an outcry against Google, but employees have expressed concern that it’s being developed in secret.

Domestically, the Silicon Valley giant is also dealing with pressure to have its products more strictly regulated. Democratic presidential candidate and Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren (D.) has called for breaking up major tech companies on anti-trust grounds.

On a somewhat related personal note, when I began this blog in 2008, Facebook was a good source of articles posted by conservative friends and conservative sources. Blogging was very easy. That has changed in recent years–many friends have spent time in Facebook jail, and many conservative sources have been blocked. Social media in its freest state is a wonderful thing, but gradually those in charge of social media have been removing our freedom. All Americans need to be vigilant about what they read on social media and also about what search engine they use. That is sad, but necessary.

 

 

Propping Up A Dictator

One America News is reporting today that two Russian air force planes landed in Venezuela’s main airport on Saturday carrying a Russian defense official and nearly 100 troops. This is reported by a local journalist.

The article reports:

Reporter Javier Mayorca wrote on Twitter on Saturday that the first plane carried Vasily Tonkoshkurov, chief of staff of the ground forces, adding that the second was a cargo plane carrying 35 tonnes of material.

An Ilyushin IL-62 passenger jet and an Antonov AN-124 military cargo plane left for Caracas on Friday from Russian military airport Chkalovsky, stopping along the way in Syria, according to flight-tracking website Flightradar24.

The cargo plane left Caracas on Sunday afternoon, according to Adsbexchange, another flight-tracking site.

It sounds as if the Russians are attempting to duplicate what they did in Cuba many years ago, support an unpopular dictator who will be a thorn in the side of America. The Russians have another reason to want to keep Venezuela indirectly under their control.

On March 22nd The Miami Herald reported:

Cuba would have to spend nearly $2 billion a year to meet its domestic oil needs if Venezuela’s National Assembly and interim president Juan Guaidó manage to stop deliveries to the Caribbean island.

“Cuba’s demand for oil is about 130,000 barrels per day, and Cuba produces about 50,000 barrels per day, which means a deficit of about 80,000 barrels per day,” said Jorge Piñón, director of the Latin American Energy Program at the University of Texas at Austin.

Piñón estimates that Cuba has fuel reserves for about 45 days. But the end of deliveries by Venezuela’s PDVSA oil company would force the government to spend nearly $5.2 million per day at the market price of $65 per barrel for the 80,000 barrels per day it would need to import to meet demand.

By the end of one year, that would add up to nearly $2 billion for an economy that economists agree has not reached 2 percent annual growth in recent years and has probably experienced a recession.

The National Assembly, controlled by the opposition, recently ordered a suspension of crude shipments to Cuba, which started under an agreement to exchange oil for medical services negotiated by the late Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez.

PDVSA now ships an estimated 40,000 to 50,000 barrels per day to Cuba, not quite half of what the oil company sent before it spiraled into an unprecedented crisis under the Nicolás Maduro regime.

There is also another aspect of Venezuela’s oil shipments.

In November 2013, I reported:

On Friday the Associated Press reported that PDVSA, the government-owned oil producer in Venezuela, seized control of two oil rigs owned by a unit of Houston-based Superior Energy Services. The company had shut down the rigs because the Venezuela oil monopoly was behind on payments.

Nicolas Maduro, the successor to Hugo Chavez, has not taken over any industries during the six months he has been President of Venezuela. This is the first move he has made in that direction. When Hugo Chavez began taking over industries, one news analyst observed that it would be difficult for him to keep those industries running at their profit levels without the knowledge of the companies that owned them. The seizure of these two rigs, which are repair rigs, is an illustration of that point.

Like it or not, free enterprise generates more wealth for more people than socialism.

It is a safe bet that oil production is only a fraction of what it was before Maduro took over the oil industry. That adds to the financial woes of Venezuela and will also have an impact of Cuba.

The Golan Heights

On March 21st The New York Post reported that President Trump called for the US to recognize Israel’s sovereignty of the Golan Heights, the 700-square-mile northern plateau that Israel captured from Syria in the Six-Day War in 1967. Israel annexed the Golan Heights in 1981, although the territorial claim was never acknowledged by the international community. The Golan Heights is strategic to the survival of Israel geographically.

In an article from December 2016, The U.K. Daily Mail reported on a strange event in the Golan Heights.

The article reports:

A huge cloud of dust and rain blew up along the border between Israel and ISIS last week, sparking online claims that it was a biblical storm.

Four days after ISIS fighters attacked an Israeli patrol in the Golan Heights, a plateau in Syria which the Jewish state has occupied since 1967, the bizarre meteorological phenomenon suddenly appeared. 

Eyewitnesses said the storm seemed to stop at the boundary and be unable to enter the Golan Heights, which tower above the rest of Syria.

Footage of the dust barrier was uploaded onto Facebook by Israel News Online

They wrote: ‘A weather phenomenon occurred at 8am Thursday on the other side of the Syrian border, in the same place where ISIS attacked Israel.

This strange storm of what appears to be dust, cloud and rain did NOT cross the border fence into Israel. It sat like a barrier between ISIS and Israel.’

Underneath Deborah Van Dam posted: ‘Absolutely the divine intervention of God protecting Israel. Amen!’

This is the picture (taken from the U.K. Daily Mail):

This is a map showing the location (taken from the U.K. Daily Mail):

The Golan Heights is strategic because it is high ground that overlooks Israel. It is part of what protects Israel from rocket fire or invasion from Syria. Because Syria has become a satellite of Iran, it also protects Israel from Iranian forces working in Syria.

The Bible says that he who blesses Israel will be blessed and he who curses Israel will be cursed. History bears that out. By moving the Israeli embassy and acknowledging Israel’s possession of the Golan Heights, President Trump is blessing Israel.

 

The Letter

Below is a copy of Attorney General Barr’s summary letter to Senator Lindsey Graham, Representative Jerrold Nadler, Senator Dianne Feinstein, and Representative Doug Collins. You can view the letter on Scribd by clicking on the link.

Barr’s Letter by on Scribd

Scott Johnson at Power Line posted an article about the letter today.

He notes a few basic facts about the letter:

This investigation is the product of a Clinton campaign fabrication. That’s why the investigation was a witch hunt. It is also why the finding of no collusion is unsurprising to anyone who has paid attention with a modicum of impartiality and critical intelligence. The finding of no obstruction is made by Attorney General Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein. If there was no collusion, they suggest, there was highly likely no obstruction and in fact they find that Mueller did not identify any actions that in the judgment of Barr and Rosenstein constituted obstructive conduct. See page 3, paragraph 3.

While investigations and prosecutions will continue for the foreseeable future, we can turn out the lights on the Mueller investigation; the party’s over. Mainstream media hardest hit.

One thing to keep in mind is that a team of totally partisan Democrats looking under every rock they could find for two plus years not only could not find evidence of Russian collusion by President Trump, they somehow failed to notice the entanglement of the Clinton campaign in providing a dossier that paved the way for surveillance of a political opponent’s campaign. As the Democrats continue to investigate in the hope of turning public opinion against President Trump before the 2020 election, I hope the American voters begin to realize where the scandal was in this investigation–it wasn’t in the Trump campaign.