Tag Archives: Daily Caller

A Few Notes On A Previous Post

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Yesterday I posted an article about the latest attack on Justice Kavanaugh published in The New York Times. As more information comes out, it becomes even more obvious that this is a political hit job. Below are a few sources and quotes.

From The Daily Caller today:

The Washington Post passed on a thinly sourced, unproven allegation about Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh before the New York Times published it in a misleading article in Sunday’s paper that has since been corrected.

From The Federalist today:

The New York Times has finally admitted that the premise of its much-hyped story about an alleged incident with United States Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was false, as the alleged victim says she has no recollection of the incident in question.

The admission undermines what was an already weak story of dubious credibility.

From PJ Media yesterday:

On Saturday, The New York Times ran a story repeating allegations that Brett Kavanaugh was drunk at a party in college and had his genitals thrust into a woman’s face. The allegation has not been confirmed, and friends of the alleged victim say she has no recollection of the events. The man telling the story, Max Stier, represented Bill and Hillary Clinton in the 1990s when Bill Clinton was accused of exposing himself to a woman in a hotel room.

The mainstream media used to do investigative reporting. The fact that they no longer investigate allegations against conservatives or Republicans is one of the reasons the alternative media is flourishing. The New York Times story is a prime example of a political hit job disguised as a news article.

As I have previously stated, there should be a penalty for making unsubstantiated allegations against any public figure.

When Justice Isn’t Justice

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The Daily Caller posted an article today about some recent actions of a California court.

The article reports:

A California court overturned the conviction Friday of a five-time deported homeless illegal immigrant who shot Kate Steinle in 2015.

The 1st District Court of Appeals ruled that the trial judge erred in not giving the jury “the momentary possession instruction,” NPR reported.

“It is undisputed that defendant was holding the gun when it fired. But that fact alone does not establish he possessed the gun for more than a moment. To possess the gun, defendant had to know he was holding it,” the appellate court wrote, according to NPR.

Jose Ines Garcia-Zarate was deported five times before he shot Steinle on a San Fransisco pier in 2015. Zarate was a seven-time convicted felon and Mexican national. Before he shot Steinle, Immigration and Customs Enforcement lodged a detainer for Zarate with the San Francisco sheriff’s office. The office did not honor the request, according to former Acting ICE Director Thomas Homan’s statement.

The article notes:

A jury acquitted Garcia-Zarate of the charge of murdering Steinle in November 2017 but convicted him of being a felon in possession of a gun.

So the argument is that the defendant did not know that he was holding the gun when he shot Kate Steinle?! And that argument worked!? Something is seriously wrong with our justice system.

More Corrections For Falsely Reporting Information

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Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article about another fake news story that created a false impression.

The article reports:

After initially reporting that new guidelines could potentially deny “birthright citizenship” to the children of American military members abroad, NBC followed up with a major correction.

Initial reports on the new policy from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services focused almost entirely on one line from the guidance, namely that the Department of Homeland Security “no longer considers children of U.S. government employees and U.S. armed forces members residing outside the United States as ‘residing in the United States’ for purposes of acquiring citizenship.”

After a more careful reading of the policy, however, NBC’s Ken Dilanian offered a correction noting that the policy would apply to children adopted by American military and government employees overseas.

Candidate Joe Biden lost no time in trying to benefit from the false report. Below is his tweet:

It would have been nice if he had checked the facts before he spoke.

A Rare Moment Of Truth In The Democrat Debates

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The Daily Caller posted an article today about remarks made by Democratic Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard regarding Senator Kamala Harris of California during the Democrat debate on Wednesday.

The article notes:

Democratic Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard was among the first to land a solid blow on presidential primary rival Sen. Kamala Harris (CA), but she may not have taken her attack far enough.

“She put over 1500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana,” Gabbard said of Harris’s time as a prosecutor and District Attorney of San Francisco.

But as Joe Garofoli of the San Francisco Chronicle discovered as he fact-checked Gabbard’s claim, the number of people Harris sent to jail for marijuana violations was actually closer to 2000.

Garofoli noted that an initial report published by the Washington Free Beacon had put the number at 1560, but that a spokesman for California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation had told him the actual number was 1974.

It’s an interesting attack. First of all, Kamala Harris was doing her job as District Attorney of San Francisco. Admittedly, her priorities might have been a little off, but she was essentially doing her job. The really sad part of the story is that she is so arrogant that she laughed about putting people in jail for something she herself had done. Some of our politicians have made a career out of ‘one rule for me and another rule for thee.’ That is the sad part of the story.

When The Circus Comes To Town

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Yesterday Tom Fitton, President of Judicial Watch, posted an article at The Daily Caller. The title of the article says it all, “FITTON: Congress Should Stop Wasting Time On Mueller — And Investigate Hillary Clinton’s Role In Steel Dossier.”

Here are some highlights from the article:

This hearing will give Mueller and the Democrats an opportunity to once again push the “destroy Trump” narrative and jump-start the impeachment process. Mueller’s testimony will be geared to that end. Democratic questions will seek to fill in the blanks to preserve Mueller’s manufactured reputation for probity. And the mainstream media will be primed — and probably pre-briefed — to drive the point home.

However, unlike at his press statement where he allowed no questions, Mueller will now have to face hard scrutiny from Republicans and honest Democrats about the origins of his investigation, misconduct during the process, and his questionable, sometimes completely erroneous conclusions.

For example, why did Mueller sit on the fact that his team had early-on discovered that there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, which was the central question of the entire Russiagate hoax? Were the midterm elections a factor in his delay for exonerating President Trump of Russia collusion?

Why did Mueller continue as special counsel after learning that former FBI Director James Comey broke the law to get him appointed by leaking information from President Trump’s FBI files to the New York Times, using a Columbia professor friend of his as a cut-out?

It is truly sad that Congress continues to waste time on attempting to remove a duly-elected President instead of actually investigating some of the facts that have come to light about the 2016 campaign which they have totally ignored.

The article continues:

Why did Mueller hide from the American people for four months Peter Strzok and Lisa Page’s outrageous conduct and flagrant anti-Trump bias, which necessitated they be fired from the investigation? And why did his office quietly delete all the text messages they passed while on his team, going so far as to reformat their government-issued phones?

Did Mueller’s office have any contacts with the media, such as leaking information regarding the massive pre-dawn raid on Roger Stone’s home, or the inexplicable guns-drawn action at the home of Paul Manafort?

Why didn’t Mueller investigate the Steele dossier that was the basis for the Russian collusion hoax? Why didn’t Mueller examine contacts between Steele, Fusion GPS employees like Nellie Ohr, and/or members of the Clinton campaign with the sketchy Russian sources who fed the rumors that were the basis of the dossier

The article concludes:

This is rooted in a Clinton campaign operation seeking to create a false narrative that the Russians were conspiring with Donald Trump to rig the 2016 election. But she was the one subverting the American electoral process, with the unprecedented and illicit cooperation of corrupt swamp dwellers in the upper reaches of the Obama administration. And it is important that the sedition be exposed, and Hillary Clinton and the rest be held accountable.

To this end the president should start releasing all the key documents that detail the depth and breadth of the scandal, who was involved in it, and how it unfolded. Attorney General William Barr needs to investigate how the Mueller investigation came about and, in particular, the matter of the manufactured predicate for the unprecedented and troubling mobilization of government resources to spy on the Trump presidential campaign.

Meanwhile, Judicial Watch has over 50 lawsuits to uncover more information, of which over a dozen relate to Mueller himself.  The Democrat circus hearing may boomerang as the “investigation of the investigators” accelerates.

The activities of those in government who have tried to remove this President need to be exposed. This should never happen again.

Elections Have Consequences

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The Daily Caller posted an article today about a planned resolution that will be introduced in Congress this week by Democratic Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar.

The article reports:

Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar says she will introduce a resolution this week supporting the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

The freshman Congresswoman told Al Monitor on Tuesday that her resolution approving of a boycott of one of America’s allies will be an exercise in “American values,” and a stand for the First Amendment. The move comes after President Donald Trump accused Omar and other progressive congresswomen of being anti-American.

“We are introducing a resolution … to really speak about the American values that support and believe in our ability to exercise our First Amendment rights in regard to boycotting,” she told the outlet. “And it is an opportunity for us to explain why it is we support a nonviolent movement, which is the BDS movement.”

I don’t have a problem with anyone exercising their First Amendment rights. However, it is interesting to me that a Congresswoman would introduce a bill approving a boycott of one of America’s strongest allies. Israel is the only truly free country in the Middle East–it is the only country that allows people to worship whatever god they serve. The Congresswoman has shown herself to be anti-Semitic in previous statements, and this resolution simply reinforces that idea. Last time I checked, antisemitism was a form of racism. It seems that some of the charges this woman is making against the President might apply to her.

A City That Has Forgotten Its Heritage

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The Daily Caller is reporting today that the City of Boston is being sued by Liberty Council for refusing to include a Christian flag in a 248-flag display on Constitution Day in 2017 and 2018.

The article notes:

“The city’s application policy refers to the flagpoles as a ‘public forum’ open to ‘all applicants,”’ Shurtleff said in a statement, “City officials have never denied the ‘messages’ communicated by Boston Pride and the pink and blue ‘transgender’ flag, and even the flags of Communist China and Cuba, but will not allow the civic and historical Christian message of Camp Constitution.

Boston has allowed the pride flag, Turkish flag, communist Chinese flag and Cuban flag — among others — to fly high and proud above city hall. Their reason for disallowing Camp Constitution’s Christian flag: no non-secular flags permitted, the lawsuit filed by the group says.

However, the Turkish flag is not secular. Turkey is one of 21 different nations with an Islamic symbol on their flag.

The article concludes:

“Censoring religious viewpoints in a public forum where secular viewpoints are permitted violates the First Amendment,” said Liberty Counsel’s Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said in a statement. “Boston city officials may not ban the Christian flag as part of a privately-sponsored event when they allow any other flag by numerous private organizations. It’s time for the court to stop the city’s unconstitutional censorship,” he added.

Camp Constitution executives are optimistic about “key undisputed facts” that will compel the court in their favor. They say the city changed their parameters about the flags after their application and that the refusal is “content-based” discrimination.

The City of Boston’s press office did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation for comment at the time of publishing.

Christianity is a major part of America’s heritage. The Judeo-Christian moral principles form the basis for our legal system. It seems a little odd to allow the Islamic flag to be flown and not allow the Christian flag to be flown.

Moving In The Right Direction

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The Washington Examiner is reporting today that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today that the Trump administration’s restrictions on family planning funds could go into effect, a move that would cut off millions of dollars from organizations like Planned Parenthood that provide abortions.

The article reports:

The Trump administration refers to the provision as the “Protect Life Rule,” and its supporters say that funding for family planning should not be used to help subsidize abortion providers.

The rule will go into effect everywhere except in Maryland, due to a lawsuit from Baltimore. The state legislature there also passed a bill that would reject the Title X funds if the Trump administration’s rules were attached to them.

Planned Parenthood’s president, Dr. Leana Wen, said the organization would continue to fight the rule from taking effect.

…The rule applies to a $286 million-a-year grant that 4 million low-income people use. Planned Parenthood receives between $50 million and $60 million from the grants.

On January 21, 2019, The Daily Caller reported:

Planned Parenthood has claimed that stripping federal funds from the organization would devastate women’s access to health care, but private contributions put the organization’s donations total at nearly $631 million.

Total net assets also increased from roughly $1.6 billion to nearly $1.9 billion in 2018, according to the report.

“Planned Parenthood turned a profit of nearly $250 million, a 150 percent increase, according to its own accounts,” Students For Life (SFL) President Kristan Hawkins said in a Monday statement. “What a waste of taxpayer dollars.”

The abortion organization reported findings through the fiscal end year date June 30, 2018.

Somehow I think Planned Parenthood can manage to squeeze by. Meanwhile, taxpayers should not be required to fund Planned Parenthood.

Mohammed Morsi Has Died

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The Daily Caller is reporting today that former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi has died following his collapse in an Egyptian courtroom.

The article reports:

Morsi was 67. He has been in custody since his ousting as president in 2013 during a crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, which he represented, reported BBC.

Morsi was being tried on espionage charges when he passed out and was taken to a hospital, reported TIME.

His presidential term was short-lived after he was elected in the country’s first free elections in 2012 after the expulsion of former President Hosni Mubarak. Morsi broke out of prison in 2011 during the uprisings against Mubarak and was sentenced to death in 2015 for the jail break after being removed from power. He was sentenced for conspiring with Hamas and Hezbollah militants to break out, but the death sentence was overturned in 2016.

…President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi has led Egypt since 2014. El-Sisi has promoted peaceful relations between Christians and Muslims in his country, including by presiding over the opening of a cathedral, but Egypt’s human rights record is far from perfect. For example, an Egyptian TV journalist was sentenced to prison for a year in January and fined 3,000 Egyptian pounds after interviewing a gay man on his show in August 2018, Egypt state-run media reported.

President el-Sisi was essentially put in place by the military to end President Morsi’s reign of the Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt is not actually a democracy, but the military seems to run it with a fairly even hand–allowing most people to quietly practice their faith.

The Proof Is In The Emails

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Judicial Watch released the following Press Release today:

Judicial Watch: State Department Emails Show Coordination Between Obama State Department and House Democrat Leader on Christopher Steele/Russia

JUNE 12, 2019

‘You’ve been a warrior on these issues, and I look forward to speaking further to preserve and wherever possible strengthen the important work you have done’ – Hoyer aide Daniel Silverberg to Victoria Nuland 

(Washington, DC) Judicial Watch and the Daily Caller News Foundation today released 16 pages of documents revealing former Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and Special Coordinator for Libya Jonathan Winer coordinating with then-House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer’s (D-MD) national security advisor, Daniel Silverberg to work on Russia dossier materials provided by Christopher Steele.

Steele is a former British spy and author of the anti-Trump dossier used to justify a series of FISA spy warrants targeting Carter Page. Winer is a former Obama State Department deputy assistant secretary who was implicated in working with Steele and Clinton associate Sidney Blumenthal to circulate the anti-Trump dossier.

Judicial Watch obtained the documents in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed on April 25, 2018 on behalf of itself and the Daily Caller News Foundation against the State Department after it failed to respond to three separate FOIA requests (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:18-cv- 00968)). The lawsuit seeks:

  • All records of communications between State Department officials, including former Secretary of State John Kerry, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, on the one hand, and British National Christopher Steele and/or employees or contractors of Steele’s company, Orbis Business Intelligence, on the other hand.
  • All records and/or memoranda provided by Christopher Steele and/or his firm Orbis Business Intelligence or by others acting on Steele’s/Orbis’s behalf, to State Department officials.
  • Any and all records in the custody of the State Department related to the provision of documents to British national Christopher Steele and/or his firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, or the receipt of documents from Steele or his firm.  Time period is January 20, 2009 through the present.
  • All records created in 2016 by Jonathan M. Winer relating to research compiled by Christopher Steele.

In an email exchange on September 19, 2016, Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS asks Winer if he is “in town?” Winer replies “For a couple of hours.”

In an email exchange on September 26, 2016, Winer emails Nuland asking for “15 minutes of your time today if possible,” to discuss a “Russia related issue” from his “old O [Orbis Business Intelligence] friend.” Orbis was co-founded and run by Russia dossier author Christopher Steele. Nuland’s assistant suggests a secure call for the discussion and Winer asks his aide to postpone a meeting he was to have with the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) to accommodate.

In an exchange beginning in November 2016, Hoyer top-aide Silverberg emails a “thank you” to Nuland, calling her a “warrior on these issues” and stating that he looks forward to pursuing “some of the things we discussed yesterday, albeit on the system integrity side.” Nuland forwards this email to Winer who adds that he wants to talk about “some new info.”

From: Silverberg, Daniel [mailto:Daniel.Silverberg@mail.house.gov]
Sent: Monday, November 28, 2016 10:57 PM
To: Nuland, Victoria J
Subject: Thank you

Toria,

It was a delight to speak today, notwithstanding the context. You’ve been a warrior on these issues, and I look forward to speaking further to preserve and wherever possible strengthen the important work you have done. I’ll follow up regarding a possible working group meeting.

On Nov 29, 2016, at 10:07 AM, Nuland, Victoria J <nulandvi@state.gov> wrote:

Thanks, Daniel. I look forward to continuing our collaboration in whatever capacity life brings. Copied here is Jonathan Winer, who has some legal ideas that may be of interest to you and Cong. Hoyer.

From: Nuland, Victoria J
Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2016 10:08 AM
To: Winer, Jonathan
Subject: RN: Thank you

They want to pursue some of the things we discussed yesterday, albeit on the system integrity side.

From: Winer, Jonathan
Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2016 10:12 AM
To: Nuland, Victoria J
Subject: Re: Thank you

Want to talk briefly further. Some new info want you to be aware of. [Redacted] Phone call ok sometime this am? Five minutes is enough.

From: Nuland, Victoria J <nulandvj@state.gov>
Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2016 10:23 AM
To: Winer, Jonathan <WinerJ@state.gov>
Subject: RE: Thank you

Of course, [redacted] Send me good number and time.

From: Silverberg, Daniel
Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2016 10:52 AM
To: Nuland, Victoria J
Cc: Winer, Jonathan
Subject: Re: Thank you

Great. Jonathan, I am all ears.

From: Winer, Jonathan
Sent: Saturday, December 10, 2016 2:10 PM
To: Silverberg, Daniel <Daniel.Silverberg@mail.house.gov>
Subject: Re: Thank you

I’ve reached out per our call yesterday. Please call me to talk further at your early convenience. Weekend best but can also talk Monday.

In a November 2016 exchange with the subject line “Would like to catch up on something at your convenience,” Winer reaches out to Nuland for a meeting, which gets booked in the Truman building on November 28. 

In an email exchange dated December 12, 2016, Winer requests a brief meeting with Nuland saying, “Something new has come up of which I want you to be aware.” Nuland replies, “Ok,” and adds her assistant to the exchange. Winer’s assistant then emails Nuland’s assistant looking for a time to meet.

In February 2018, Winer wrote an op-ed claiming anti-Trump dossier author Christopher Steele and Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal approached him with separate dossiers. Winer wrote: “In the summer of 2016, Steele told me that he had learned of disturbing information regarding possible ties between Donald Trump, his campaign and senior Russian officials.” Also, “While talking about that hacking, Blumenthal and I discussed Steele’s reports. He showed me notes gathered by a journalist I did not know …”

“Every day of digging reveals more and more political collaboration on this hit job, and at the highest levels. While so much of the media is content to chase Russian conspiracies, The Daily Caller News Foundation and the fantastic lawyers at Judicial Watch are going to keep doing the hard work of holding power accountable,” said Christopher Bedford, editor in chief of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“These documents further confirm the Obama State Department was obviously a way station for Steele’s smear dossier and other anti-Trump activism,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

Judicial Watch recently released 43 pages of documents from the State Department revealing that its “Special Coordinator for Libya,” Jonathan Winer, played a key role in facilitating Steele’s access to other top government officials, prominent international business executives. Winer was even approached by a movie producer about making a movie about the Russiagate targeting of President Trump.

Judicial Watch previously released two sets of heavily redacted State Department documents showing classified information was researched and disseminated to multiple U.S. Senators by the Obama administration immediately prior to President Donald Trump’s inauguration. The documents reveal that among those receiving the classified documents were Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), and Sen. Robert Corker (R-TN).

Also, Judicial Watch is suing the State Department for communications between Nuland and employees of Fusion GPS, as well as top ranking Department of Justice, FBI, and State Department officials.

Stay tuned. More information on the roots of the Russian collusion investigation will be coming out shortly. We already have enough information to realize that because President Trump was a political novice, professional politicians felt that they could easily set him up for disaster. Recent letters from the people involved in investigating the root of the Russia investigation indicate that people will be held accountable for the misuse of government agencies and the violation of the civil rights of Americans.

Investigating The Investigators

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As the House of Representatives recycles Watergate, the Department of Justice is actually getting something done. The Daily Caller posted an article yesterday about the investigation into the roots of the Russian collusion hoax.

The article reports:

“It is now well established that, in 2016, the U.S. government and others undertook certain intelligence-gathering and investigative steps directed at persons associated with the Trump Campaign,” Boyd (Justice Department official Stephen E. Boyd) wrote Nadler, adding that “there remain open questions relating to the origins of this counter-intelligence investigation and the U.S. and foreign intelligence activities that took place prior to and during that investigation.”

“The Review is broad in scope and multifaceted, and is intended to illuminate open questions regarding the activities of U.S. and foreign intelligence services as well as non-governmental organizations and individuals,” Boyd wrote.

He did not explain the references to foreign intelligence services or non-governmental organizations. It is known that the Australian and British governments were involved in some degree to the counterintelligence activities against Trump associates. Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele, a former British spy, investigated President Donald Trump and his campaign associates on behalf of the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee.

We are not engaged in a battle between the Democrats and Republicans–many of them are working on the same side. We are engaged in a battle between globalists and those who believe in American sovereignty. That is the reason the globalists in the Obama administration were able to get foreign help in their quest to stop President Trump, who is not a globalist. A strong America is a globalists’ nightmare, and that is what President Trump is building. I suspect there may be some surprises as the rocks are turned over in the investigation of the misuse of government agencies to spy of candidate Trump and later President Trump.

Whoops!

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The Daily Caller posted an article on Friday about some signs that were quietly removed from Glacier National Park. It seems that those in charge of the park had bought into the extreme reports of imminent global warming.

The article reports:

The National Park Service (NPS) quietly removed a visitor center sign saying the glaciers at Glacier National Park would disappear by 2020 due to climate change.

As it turns out, higher-than-average snowfall in recent years upended computer model projections from the early 2000s that NPS based its claim glaciers “will all be gone by the year 2020,” federal officials said.

The article explains:

“Glacier retreat in Glacier National Park speeds up and slows down with fluctuations in the local climate,” the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), which monitors Glacier National Park, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

“Those signs were based on the observation prior to 2010 that glaciers were shrinking more quickly than a computer model predicted they would,” USGS said. “Subsequently, larger than average snowfall over several winters slowed down that retreat rate and the 2020 date used in the NPS display does not apply anymore.”

NPS updated signs at the St. Mary Visitor Center glacier exhibit over the winter. Sign changes meant the display warning glaciers would all disappear by 2020 now says: “When they completely disappear, however, will depend on how and when we act.”

Get over it, people. We do not control the climate. The computer models were wrong because the data put into the computers was either wrong or incomplete. We are not in charge. We do have an obligation to do everything we can to keep the air and water as clean as possible, but we do not have a major impact on the climate. One major volcanic eruption puts more junk in the air than a million people driving around for years. I was living in New England when Mount Pinatubo erupted in 1991. We didn’t really have a summer that year.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported on the impact of that eruption:

Nearly 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide were injected into the stratosphere in Pinatubo’s 1991 eruptions, and dispersal of this gas cloud around the world caused global temperatures to drop temporarily (1991 through 1993) by about 1°F (0.5°C). The eruptions have dramatically changed the face of central Luzon, home to about 3 million people. About 20,000 indigenous Aeta highlanders, who had lived on the slopes of the volcano, were completely displaced, and most still wait in resettlement camps for the day when they can return home. About 200,000 people who evacuated from the lowlands surrounding Pinatubo before and during the eruptions have returned home but face continuing threats from lahars that have already buried numerous towns and villages. Rice paddies and sugar-cane fields that have not been buried by lahars have recovered; those buried by lahars will be out of use for years to come.

As people, we really don’t have the power to impact the climate to that degree.

I Don’t Have Enough Imagination To Come Up With This

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The following appeared in The Daily Caller yesterday:

This is real. I am not kidding.

The article notes:

Hillary Clinton, who used a private email server as secretary of state, will speak at a cyber defense summit later in 2019, it was announced Thursday.

FireEye, a cybersecurity company based in California, announced Clinton will give the keynote speech at its annual summit in Washington, D.C., in October.

The article continues:

The FBI investigated Clinton for mishandling classified information, but she was not charged in the probe.

James Comey, who served as FBI director during the investigation, called Clinton’s use of the server “extremely careless.” He said it made more vulnerable to cyber attack by foreign powers, though investigators did not find evidence that the server was hacked.

Clinton has also asserted the hacks of her campaign chairman’s emails and that of the Democratic National Committee led to her defeat at the hands of Donald Trump in the 2016 election.

The Russian government allegedly hacked into the DNC’s computer systems and released nearly 20,000 emails through WikiLeaks. The same Russian intelligence operation also stole John Podesta’s emails through an unsophisticated spear-phishing attack.

I would like to note that the FBI was never allowed to examine the DNC’s computer systems to confirm how John Podesta’s emails were accessed–it was done by an organization called CrowdStrike, considered an ally of the Democrat Party. There has always been speculation that the Podesta emails were leaked by a Democrat. Julian Assange of Wikileaks has stated on numerous occasions that he did not get the emails from the Russians.

At any rate, would you attend a cyber security conference with Hillary Clinton as the featured speaker?

 

Congress Needs To Remember That They Are Responsible For Making Laws

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There was some genuine ugly in Congress this week. Unfortunately that is fairly common lately, but sometimes things are said that are really over the top. Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article about a discussion Democratic New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez probably should not have gotten involved in.

The article reports:

Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defended a fellow Democrat who argued in a Wednesday hearing that the deaths of migrant children in U.S. custody were “intentional.”

“Yesterday, GOP moved to silence Lauren Underwood’s words bc she had the audacity to say the obvious: that stealing children away from their parents, trafficking, & caging them w/o end is intended to do harm,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. “They tried to silence her; make her back down. She didn’t. Be proud.”

…Underwood, a Democrat representative from Illinois, had claimed a day earlier that Republicans, and specifically the Trump administration, had intentionally chosen a policy that they knew would result in harm or death to migrant children.

…What neither Ocasio-Cortez nor Underwood acknowledged was the fact that the family separation policy had been adopted in part to reduce the trafficking of children, and neither mentioned the hundreds of children who had been removed from adults who were not actually their parents or even relatives, some of whom had been “rented” in order to help a single adult gain entry to the U.S. more easily.

Just for the record, the policy was implemented during the Obama administration. If Congress is against the policy, it is their responsibility to change it–not to blame someone else for their inaction.

Common Sense In Sports Competition

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The Daily Caller is reporting today that Paul Bossi, the president of the 100% Raw Powerlifting Federation, said Wednesday in a statement posted to Twitter that Mary Gregory is a biological man but did not reveal this to the 100% Raw Powerlifting Federation League. The group boasts of their authenticity in weight lifting, saying they are “100% raw” and do not allow any wraps, supports or enhancing drugs. Because of this, Paul Bossi has removed the record set by Mary Gregory for a national women’s championship.

This is a problem we didn’t have to deal with in the past–life has definitely become more complicated.

The article reports:

The incident follows a May decision by the Swiss Court of Arbitration for Sport that though restrictions on testosterone levels can be discriminatory, such discrimination is a “necessary, reasonable and proportionate means” of ensuring the equality of female track and field competitions. The case drew international attention after two-time Olympic champion Caster Semenya, widely believed to be intersex, challenged testosterone limits for female athletes.

“Any records set by trans woman ( those born males with male biology & advantages) should be removed when all of this confusion & unfairness is sorted out .. otherwise just like the cheating world records of the testosterone fuelled East Germans they will stand for years,” tweeted Olympic medalist Sharron Davies.

Somehow I don’t think they had these problems before they discovered the impact of testosterone!

This Should Never Have Been Legal

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Yesterday The Daily Caller reported that President Trump made a change to a 2014 Medicaid regulation. Some states had been skimming money from Medicaid payments and funneling it into union coffers.

The article reports:

The Obama administration issued a regulation that protected a state practice that had, by that time, been practiced for decades. Since the 1990s, states have accepted Medicaid money from the federal government meant for home health service providers, often the family or friends of the Medicaid-assistance recipient, according to the conservative think tank Freedom Foundation.

In distributing checks to the health providers, some states had begun skimming money and diverting it to unions and other interest groups in the form of dues, even though home health providers may not be members. The Center for Medicaid Services will begin cracking down on the process in July.

…The new regulation will prevent states from skimming up to $150 million per year from Medicaid payments and diverting it to other causes. The Freedom Foundation found that in 2018 eight states – California, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oregon, Vermont and Washington – were skimming money off Medicaid payments to caretakers.

As expected, the unions opposed this new regulation:

Unions slammed the Trump administration over the new rule. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU), one of the largest public-sector unions in the U.S., said the new policy was “anti-worker.”

The final rule attacks “roughly 800,000 home care workers’ ability to use common paycheck deductions for health insurance contributions, union dues, and other expenses,” the SEIU said in a statement. “The rule wrongly targets independent provider home care workers who, without a union, are faced with a physically and emotionally demanding job with a median wage of just $10.49 an hour, no healthcare, no paid sick time and no benefits.”

How about letting home care workers decide for themselves whether or not they want to join a union or pay union dues? The Obama regulation was simply another way to put money in union coffers that they could donate to Democrats during election cycles.

This Isn’t Good News For Those Pushing Electric Cars

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Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article yesterday about emissions testing done on the Tesla Model 3.

The article reports:

A Tesla Model 3 is touted as a zero-emissions car by government regulators, but it actually results in more carbon dioxide than a comparable diesel-powered car, according to a recent study.

When the CO2 emissions from battery production is included, electric cars, like Teslas, are “in the best case, slightly higher than those of a diesel engine, and are otherwise much higher,” reads a release from the German think tank IFO.

…Driving a Tesla Model 3 in Germany, for example, is responsible for 156 to 181 grams of CO2 per kilometer, compared to just 141 grams per kilometer for a diesel-powered Mercedes C220d — that includes emissions from producing diesel fuel.

IFO looked at electric car production in Germany, which is heavily reliant on coal power. Electric car emissions in other countries depend on their energy mix, but Germany is the world’s third-largest electric car maker.

…Federal subsidies for Teslas are set to be phased out since the company, founded by Elon Musk, hit the 200,000-vehicle production cap. However, Congress is debating whether or not to extend electric car subsidies.

It’s not just battery production, but charging vehicles that emit lots of CO2. Germany gets 35 percent of its electricity from coal-fired power plants, so charging a Tesla in, say, Bavaria results in 83 grams of CO2 per kilometer driven.

The article concludes:

IFO isn’t the first research group to conclude electric cars might not reduce carbon dioxide emissions as promised.

A study released in 2018 also found driving electric cars might come with higher emissions than diesel vehicles, largely because of lithium-ion battery production.

Likewise, a Manhattan Institute study from 2018 also found putting more electric cars on the road would likely increase emissions compared to internal combustion engine vehicles.

We may eventually have a clean form of energy powering our cars. However, it is a pretty safe bet that the invention of that clean form of energy will come through the free market–not through government subsidies. Any time the government interferes in the free market, they slow down innovation. If the people who have the knowledge and curiosity to invent the next generation of cars are allowed to reap the rewards of their inventions, we will see those inventions. If the free market is allowed to flourish, innovation will follow.

Walter Jones Will Be Missed

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Walter Jones was my Congressman. I met him on various occasions. He was a humble man who worked hard to represent the people of eastern North Carolina. I know of more than one instance when he went out of his way to help someone cut through the red tape of government to get help with an issue.

Tonight The Daily Caller posted an article about his death.

The article notes:

Jones, who represented his North Carolina district for over 20 years, was fighting off several illnesses over the last few months, according to Fox News, and was granted a leave of absence in late 2018 after missing several votes on the floor.

A strong supporter of the U.S. Marines, Jones previously served in the North Carolina General Assembly. His district has numerous military bases, and while he initially supported the war in Iraq, he eventually sided with Democrats calling for the withdrawal of troops from the country. 

…Back in 2011, Jones was one of 10 members of Congress to file a lawsuit against President Obama in an effort to stop the U.S. from sending troops to Libya, calling the U.S. bombing an “abuse of power.”

“Libya had done nothing to America,” Jones had said. “I realize they’ve got an evil leader, Qaddafi, but still, you don’t go around the world attacking countries because they have an evil leader.”

Any time a constituent spoke with Walter Jones, he told them how concerned he was about the budget deficit. He would not vote yes on any bill that increased the deficit. He was a man who represented the people in his district well and stuck to his principles.

The Need For A Reality Check

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Green energy is a wonderful concept. Energy in Iceland is almost entirely green because the country sits on a number of volcanoes that supply it with thermal energy. I’m not sure that I am willing to live on a volcano to get thermal energy, but that is one way to go green. However, the quest for green energy where there is not such an obvious energy source has not been particularly successful.

CNS News posted an article yesterday about the statement put out by Speaker Pelosi to recognize Black History Month.

The article has the entire statement, but I think the focus is interesting:

Democrats will be pushing a “For the People” agenda that will include raising wages by building green infrastructure.

“And we are pushing forward a bold, ambitious agenda For The People to make good on the promise of the American Dream for everyone by lowering the cost of health care and prescription drugs, raising wages by rebuilding America with green, modern infrastructure, and strengthening our democracy by ensuring that our government works for the public interest, not the special interests,” Pelosi said.

Let’s talk about rebuilding America with green, modern infrastructure. Green energy is one of the major special interest groups in America.

In 2015, The Washington Times reported:

Taxpayers are on the hook for more than $2.2 billion in expected costs from the federal government’s energy loan guarantee programs, according to a new audit Monday that suggests the controversial projects may not pay for themselves, as officials had promised.

Nearly $1 billion in loans have already defaulted under the Energy Department program, which included the infamous Solyndra stimulus project and dozens of other green technology programs the Obama administration has approved, totaling nearly about $30 billion in taxpayer backing, the Government Accountability Office reported in its audit.

The hefty $2.2 billion price tag is actually an improvement over initial estimates, which found the government was poised to face $4 billion in losses from the loan guarantees. But as the projects have come to fruition, they’ve performed better, leaving taxpayers with a shrinking — though still sizable — liability.

It’s a good thing Speaker Pelosi didn’t say anything about lowering taxes–maybe the increased wages with increased taxes will pay for the green energy.

This green energy idea has not been successful when tried before.

In August 2014 The Daily Caller posted an article about Spain’s attempt to convert to green energy:

According to a new report by the free-market Institute for Energy Research, Spain’s green energy policies have resulted in skyrocketing electricity prices, billions of euros in debt and rising carbon dioxide emissions.

“For years, President Obama has pointed to Europe’s energy policies as an example that the United States should follow,” said IER in a statement on their new study. “However, those policies have been disastrous for countries like Spain, where electricity prices have skyrocketed, unemployment is over 25 percent, and youth unemployment is over 50 percent.”

Spain began heavily subsidizing green energy sources, like wind and solar, in the early 2000s with its“Promotion Plan for Renewable Energies. The country used a combination of generous feed-in tariffs, green energy generation quotas and green power subsidies to boost renewable energy development in the country and lower its carbon dioxide emissions.

…But what seemed like a booming green energy economy on the surface was really becoming a costly way to help drive Spain into economic recession. By 2011, Spain’s electricity prices stood at 29.46 U.S. ¢/kilowatt-hour — two and a half times what electricity cost in the U.S. at the time.

President Trump has helped all Americans. We have the lowest unemployment among minorities that we have had in a very long time. Wages are going up, taxes are going down, and the workforce participation rate is climbing. I suggest that if Speaker Pelosi truly wants to help minorities during Black History Month she should support President Trump’s economic agenda.

How To Edit A Video To Support The Narrative You Want

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Last Friday morning Roger Stone was arrested at his house. Rather than follow the usual procedure in a case where the suspect is not a flight risk and is not armed, the FBI stormed his house with heavily armed agents and scary-looking vehicles. The normal procedure in similar cases is to call the suspect’s attorney and have the suspect turn himself in. Evidently the Mueller team is into drama. CNN coincidentally was on the scene to film the episode so that it got played endlessly on the mainstream networks. However, they seemed to have forgotten to play all of the video.

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit reported:

On Monday Roger Stone told Judge Napolitano in a FOX Nation interview that his 72-year-old wife was also forced to stand outside barefoot and in her nightgown.

For some strange reason this was not aired on CNN who had a camera crew at Stone’s home during the arrest.

The Gateway Pundit wrote CNN for comment — It would be completely irresponsible if they hid this from the American public.

Below are Roger Stone’s comments on this matter:

Roger Stone: I was wearing a Roger Stone did nothing wrong T-Shirt. You can get those at 1776.shop. The proceeds go to my legal defense fund. I was wearing a pair of shorts but I was bare-footed. They said who else was in the house. I said my wife. They said, “Who else?” I said, “My wife. That’s it.” You sure? I said, “I’m positive plus two dogs and three cats.” I’m a dog lover. I’m an animal lover. You can read my activities on animal welfare on Daily Caller. I was afraid they would go upstairs and my wife was not complying with an order she cannot hear.

Judge Napolitano: Did they take your wife out of the house, Roger?

Roger Stone: They did. I was made to stand in the street, handcuffed and in bare feet. They brought my wife out in her nightgown and also in bare feet to stand next to me even though she’s not accused of any crime.

Does anyone else find this highly inappropriate?

A Sobering Thought

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Yesterday The Daily Caller reported:

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a bill Tuesday night, expanding abortion access and codifying a woman’s right to abort under state law.

Cuomo, a Democrat, signed the Reproductive Health Act on the 46th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, making good on his promise to add abortion protections to the state constitution, according to the New York Post.

Roe v. Wade gave women the constitutional right to an abortion under the 14th Amendment on Jan. 22, 1973. The ruling extended the right to abort up to the point of fetal “viability,” a slippery term that continues to foster debate as neonatal care advances.

The bill codified a woman’s right to abort under state law and removes abortion from New York’s criminal code.

The bill will also allow women to have abortions after 24 weeks in cases where “there is an absence of fetal viability, or at any time when necessary to protect a patient’s life or health,” according to the legislation. Nurse practitioners, physicians’ assistants and qualified health care professionals can provide abortions under the legislation.

Meanwhile, CNS News reported:

Last Thursday, Jan. 17, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stated that undercover video footage filmed by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), which showed Planned Parenthood employees discussing the sale of tissue from aborted fetuses, was “authentic” and “not deceptively edited.”

The federal appeals court also vacated an injunction by a district court, which had barred the Texas Health and Human Services Commission’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) from terminating Medicaid provider agreements with Planned Parenthood affiliates throughout Texas. The federal appeals court sent the case back to the district court.

…In 2015, the CMP, a pro-life organization, released several hours of undercover video footage that showed employees and doctors from various Planned Parenthood affiliates discussing potential research partnerships with individuals who expressed interest in obtaining body parts of fetuses aborted during the second trimester of pregnancy and paying a handling and shipping fee for those parts.

After the footage was released, the OIG sent Planned Parenthood affiliates a notice of termination of their Medicaid agreements. The OIG argued that the affiliates had violated “accepted medical standards, as reflected in federal and state law,” and were no longer “qualified to provide medical services in a professionally competent, safe, legal and ethical manner.”

The article at CNS News concludes:

CMP founder David Daleiden wrote that the court’s decision “vindicated” the CMP’s “citizen journalism work” by “debunking Planned Parenthood’s smear that the videos were ‘heavily edited’ or ‘doctored.’”

“Now, it is time for the U.S. Department of Justice to do its job and hold Planned Parenthood accountable to the law,” Daleiden added.

Since the videos were released in 2015, Planned Parenthood has claimed CMP’s footage was heavily and deceptively edited. Many mainstream news outlets have reported that the footage was altered or distorted, using, as the basis for these claims, a Fusion GPS report that was commissioned and funded by Planned Parenthood.

It’s amazing how the same names keep coming up.

In April 2016, Life News reported:

On average, Planned Parenthood receives approximately $500 million a year in taxpayer funds, as a GAO report indicated last year.

Theoretically, this money does not pay for abortions.

In September 2018l Live Action reported:

Taxpayer-funded abortion corporation Planned Parenthood has announced its political arms are joining other “progressive” groups to invest an “unprecedented” $30 million to influence who is elected to key state and federal offices in the 2018 midterm elections.

Does anyone else object to the idea that an organization that takes money from the federal government contributes to political campaigns?

 

The Value Of Doing Your Research

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Sometimes people on the radio say things that are so ridiculous that you have to back up and wonder if they really believe the nonsense they are spouting. There was a blatant example of that on the David Webb show on Tuesday during David Webb’s interview with CNN analyst Areva Martin. For those of you not familiar with the David Webb Show, David is a black conservative who hosts a very low key, informative show. The Daily Caller posted the story yesterday.

The article reports:

Sirius XM radio host and Fox News Contributor David Webb brought Martin onto his radio show to discuss diversity in media, and he noted that he has always considered his accomplishments to be more important than his skin color when applying to jobs.

“I’ve chosen to cross different parts of the media world, done the work so that I’m qualified to be in each one. I never considered my color to be the issue — I considered my qualifications to be the issue,” Webb explained.

Martin, apparently unaware that she was talking to a black man, said that Webb’s approach to media came from a place of white privilege.

The article continues:

“That’s a whole other long conversation about white privilege, which assumes that you have the privilege of doing what people of color don’t have the privilege of,” Martin said.

“How do I have the privilege of white privilege?” Webb asked with an air of confusion.

“David, by virtue of being a white male, you have white privilege,” Martin replied.

Webb paused for a moment and then dropped a metaphorical bomb on Martin’s argument.

“Areva, I hate to break it to you, but you should’ve been better prepped. I am black,” Webb asserted. “You’re talking to a black man who started out in rock radio in Boston … that’s actually insulting.”

Martin apologized for her comment and insisted that her team gave her incorrect information about Webb’s race.

Webb refused to let Martin off the hook, explaining that it was unacceptable for Martin to make assumptions about any person or his or her level of privilege because of his or her skin color.

I think all of us would do well to get rid of our pre-conceived notions and stereotypes about race. This conversation was hilarious to anyone who is familiar with David Webb.

An Anonymous Article

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Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an anonymous article written by someone they know to be a senior official in the Trump administration. I am posting the full text of the article because I believe all of it is very important. I have no additional comments.

As one of the senior officials working without a paycheck, a few words of advice for the president’s next move at shuttered government agencies: lock the doors, sell the furniture, and cut them down.

Federal employees are starting to feel the strain of the shutdown. I am one of them. But for the sake of our nation, I hope it lasts a very long time, till the government is changed and can never return to its previous form.

The lapse in appropriations is more than a battle over a wall. It is an opportunity to strip wasteful government agencies for good.

On an average day, roughly 15 percent of the employees around me are exceptional patriots serving their country. I wish I could give competitive salaries to them and no one else. But 80 percent feel no pressure to produce results. If they don’t feel like doing what they are told, they don’t.

Why would they? We can’t fire them. They avoid attention, plan their weekend, schedule vacation, their second job, their next position — some do this in the same position for more than a decade.

They do nothing that warrants punishment and nothing of external value. That is their workday: errands for the sake of errands — administering, refining, following and collaborating on process. “Process is your friend” is what delusional civil servants tell themselves. Even senior officials must gain approval from every rank across their department, other agencies and work units for basic administrative chores.

Process is what we serve, process keeps us safe, process is our core value. It takes a lot of people to maintain the process. Process provides jobs. In fact, there are process experts and certified process managers who protect the process. Then there are the 5 percent with moxie (career managers). At any given time they can change, clarify or add to the process — even to distort or block policy counsel for the president.

Saboteurs peddling opinion as research, tasking their staff on pet projects or pitching wasteful grants to their friends. Most of my career colleagues actively work against the president’s agenda. This means I typically spend about 15 percent of my time on the president’s agenda and 85 percent of my time trying to stop sabotage, and we have no power to get rid of them. Until the shutdown.

Due to the lack of funding, many federal agencies are now operating more effectively from the top down on a fraction of their workforce, with only select essential personnel serving national security tasks. One might think this is how government should function, but bureaucracies operate from the bottom up — a collective of self-generated ideas. Ideas become initiatives, formalize into offices, they seek funds from Congress and become bureaus or sub-agencies, and maybe one day grow to be their own independent agency, like ours. The nature of a big administrative bureaucracy is to grow to serve itself. I watch it and fight it daily.

When the agency is full, employees held liable for poor performance respond with threats, lawsuits, complaints and process in at least a dozen offices, taking years of mounting paperwork with no fear of accountability, extending their careers, while no real work is done. Do we succumb to such extortion? Yes. We pay them settlements, we waive bad reviews, and we promote them.

Many government agencies have adopted the position that more complaints are good because it shows inclusion in, you guessed it, the process. When complaints come, it is cheaper to pay them off than to hold public servants accountable. The result: People accused of serious offenses are not charged, and self-proclaimed victims are paid by you, the American taxpayer.

The message to federal supervisors is clear. Maintain the status quo, or face allegations. Many federal employees truly believe that doing tasks more efficiently and cutting out waste, by closing troubled programs instead of expanding them, “is morally wrong,” as one cried to me.

I get it. These are their pets. It is tough to put them down and let go, and many resist. This phenomenon was best summed up by a colleague who said, “The goal in government is to do nothing. If you try to get things done, that’s when you will run into trouble.”

But President Trump can end this abuse. Senior officials can reprioritize during an extended shutdown, focus on valuable results and weed out the saboteurs. We do not want most employees to return, because we are working better without them. Sure, we empathize with families making tough financial decisions, like mine, and just like private citizens who have to find other work and bring competitive value every day, while paying more than a third of their salary in federal taxes.

President Trump has created more jobs in the private sector than the furloughed federal workforce. Now that we are shut down, not only are we identifying and eliminating much of the sabotage and waste, but we are finally working on the president’s agenda.

President Trump does not need Congress to address the border emergency, and yes, it is an emergency. Billions upon billions of hard-earned tax dollars are still being dumped into foreign aid programs every year that do nothing for America’s interest or national security. The president does not need congressional funding to deconstruct abusive agencies who work against his agenda. This is a chance to effect real change, and his leverage grows stronger every day the shutdown lasts.

The president should add to his demands, including a vote on all of his political nominees in the Senate. Send the career appointees back. Many are in the 5 percent of saboteurs and resistance leaders.

A word of caution: To be a victory, this shutdown must be different than those of the past and should achieve lasting disruption with two major changes, or it will hurt the president.

The first thing we need out of this is better security, particularly at the southern border. Our founders envisioned a free market night watchman state, not the bungled bloated bureaucracy our government has become. But we have to keep the uniformed officers paid, which is an emergency. Ideally, continue a resolution to pay the essential employees only, if they are truly working on national security. Furloughed employees should find other work, never return and not be paid.

Secondly, we need savings for taxpayers. If this fight is merely rhetorical bickering with Nancy Pelosi, we all lose, especially the president. But if it proves that government is better when smaller, focusing only on essential functions that serve Americans, then President Trump will achieve something great that Reagan was only bold enough to dream.

The president’s instincts are right. Most Americans will not miss non-essential government functions. A referendum to end government plunder must happen. Wasteful government agencies are fighting for relevance but they will lose. Now is the time to deliver historic change by cutting them down forever.

The author is a senior official in the Trump administration.

Blaming The Other Guy When You Are Not Willing To Talk

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The Daily Caller reported today that the Democrats refused to negotiate with President Trump on the wall and then blamed President Trump for the government shutdown that is the result of unsuccessful negotiations.

The article reports:

Democratic leaders walked away from the negotiating table Thursday in the midst of a government shutdown over funding for border security, a senior White House official tells The Daily Caller.

The government partially shut down shortly before Christmas after President Donald Trump refused to sign an appropriations bill that did not contain his requested $5 billion for border wall funding. Since then, Republicans and Democrats — who will take control of the House in the New Year – have been looking to strike a deal to reopen the government.

…The new development all but confirms that the government will remain shut down through the New Year — until Democrats take over the House and current House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi gets confirmed as Speaker. House Republicans confirmed on Thursday that there are no votes scheduled for the remainder of the week.

Pelosi promised that when she assumes the speakership, she will put forth appropriations legislation that does not include any of the president’s demands.

Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have repeatedly sworn not they would not budge on funding for Trump’s border wall.

There are actually very few people in Washington who want a border wall. However, there are many people throughout America who want the wall. So what is the disconnect about? It’s about money and votes. The Democrat Party sees illegal immigrants as people who will eventually become citizens and Democratic voters. The Republican Party sees illegal immigrants as a cheap source of labor for their corporate sponsors. One of the major lobbying groups and campaign contributors is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce–a group that loves cheap labor. Unfortunately neither political party is willing to address the danger to Americans caused by an open border.

Weighing The Facts

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Yesterday I posted an article about the sentencing of General Michael Flynn. In the article I noted that there were some curious circumstances surrounding the interview in which General Flynn is accused of lying. Evidently I am not the only person concerned about those circumstances.

The American Thinker posted an article today about the judge who will be sentencing General Flynn.

The article reports:

Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, who is due to sentence General Michael Flynn next Tuesday, has thrown a wild card on the table, raising the possibility that a miscarriage of justice may finally be called out and the guilty plea coerced by Team Mueller thrown out.

Thanks to the sentencing memorandum filed by counsel for General Michael Flynn, we now see that the FBI used deception to ensnare him in a perjury trap.

Yesterday The Wall Street Journal posted an editorial titled, “The Flynn Entrapment.”

The editorial states:

Of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s many targets, the most tragic may be former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. The former three-star general pleaded guilty last year to a single count of lying to the FBI about conversations he had with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. Now we learn from Mr. Flynn’s court filing to the sentencing judge that senior bureau officials acted in a way to set him up for the fall.

Not a rich man after decades in uniform, Mr. Flynn pleaded guilty to avoid bankruptcy and spare his son from becoming a legal target. Mr. Flynn’s filing doesn’t take issue with the description of his offense. But the “additional facts” the Flynn defense team flags for the court raise doubts about FBI conduct.

The Flynn filing describes government documents concerning the Jan. 24, 2017 meeting with two FBI agents when Mr. Flynn supposedly lied. It turns out the meeting was set up by then Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, who personally called Mr. Flynn that day on other business—to discuss an FBI training session. By Mr. McCabe’s account, on that call he told Mr. Flynn he “felt that we needed to have two of our agents sit down” with him to talk about his Russia communications.

There is another clue in The American Thinker article as to why the Judge is asking questions:

Chuck Ross reports for the Daily Caller News Foundation on Judge Sullivan’s startling order:

District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan on Wednesday ordered Flynn’s lawyers to hand over two documents: a memo that then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe wrote after speaking with Flynn ahead his Jan. 24, 2017 interview with two FBI agents and the FBI summary of notes taken during that same interview.

That summary, known as an FD-302, was compiled on Aug. 22, 2017 by the two FBI agents who interviewed Flynn. It is unclear why the summary was put together seven months after the Flynn interview.

When you look at the actions of the FBI and Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s team, you find that in some cases civil rights were trampled (attorney-client privilege, having a lawyer present, being put in solitary confinement for crimes that did not warrant it, etc.). Hopefully the actions of Judge Sullivan will cause both the FBI Special Prosecutor Mueller to be more aware of the civil rights of all Americans.