Some Things Can Be Done Better Without The Government

This video was posted at YouTube yesterday by The Daily Signal. It is the story of Solutions for Change, an organization that is helping solve homelessness in Vista, California. The organization does not receive federal aid because the program requires residents to be drug-free.

The article summarizes how Solutions for Change makes a difference:

Instead of simply providing residents a place to sleep, Solutions for Change takes a holistic approach to solving homelessness, requiring residents to go through counseling, take courses in financial literacy, parenting, leadership, and anger management, and eventually, get a job.

 

Solutions for change had to choose between keeping their drug-free policy or accepting federal money. I believe that they made the right choice.

The Lawsuit The Media Has Overlooked (Purposely??)

On Tuesday, Mary 16, Legal Insurrection posted a story about two class-action lawsuits brought against the Democratic National Committee.

The article lists the two complaints involved:

1) It’s shenanigans during the primary to weigh the nomination in Hillary Clinton’s favor.
2) Failure to pay its campaign workers for overtime.

The article explains:

This class action lawsuit has been making its way through the court system since October of 2016, and reports are now available covering the the hearing in the U.S. District Court of Southern Florida in which the DNC requested the base be dismissed.

The lawsuit alleges that the DNC and DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz violated the DNC charter and helped tip the scales in favor of Hillary Clinton.

As most conservatives usually have little interest in liberal politics, and the media has even less desire to cover this topic, it took some searching to discover interesting analysis from Bernie supporter and Washington DC show host Tim Black and Huffington Post author H.A. Goodman: Seven Jaw-Dropping Revelations From DNC Fraud Lawsuit’s Motion to Dismiss.

The article lists the seven revelations (taken from the CounterPropa website):

1. The crux of the Motion to Dismiss asserts the Judge is not in a position to determine how the Democratic Party conducts its nominating process.
2. The Democratic Party views itself as having authority to favor a candidate without any legal repercussions.
3. Judge Zloch appeared skeptical, noting the Democrats’ interest to obscure the guarantee of the Party’s impartiality clause.
4. The Democrats insist that “impartial” cannot be defined, so the DNC’s impartiality clause is akin to a political promise in that it can not be guaranteed.
5. DNC’s legal counsel appeared unaware of any procedures in place to determine how the DNC supports state parties as they conduct individual primary nominating contests.
6. The Democrats’ lawyers takes the position that while the Democrats are not legally obligated to conduct the primary fairly, they did in fact conduct the 2016 primary fairly.
7. In closing remarks, U.S. Federal Court district judge emphasized: “Democracy demands the truth”.

Has anyone seen any reports in the mainstream media about this lawsuit?

It was noted in the Legal Insurrection article that some Democratic Workers who supported the platform plank of a $15 per hour minimum wage were not paid anywhere near that amount. Another example of do as I say, not as I do.

 

A Quick Summary Of The Trump Economy

Elections have consequences. Thank goodness that one of the consequences of the 2016 presidential election is a rollback of some of the regulations that were crippling the American economy. The Gateway Pundit has a summary of what has happened to the American economy under President Trump:

The DOW daily closing stock market average has risen nearly 14% since the election on November 8th. (On November 9th the DOW closed at 18,332 – on May 19th the DOW closed at 20,804).
* Since the Inauguration on January 20th the DOW is up 5%. (It was at 19,827 at January 20th.)
* The DOW took just 66 days to climb from 19,000 to above 21,000, the fastest 2,000 point run ever. The DOW closed above 19,000 for the first time on November 22nd and closed above 21,000 on March 1st.
* The DOW closed above 20,000 on January 25th and the March 1st rally matched the fastest-ever 1,000 point increase in the DOW at 24 days.
 * On February 28th President Trump matched President Reagan’s 1987 record for most continuous closing high trading days when the DOW reached a new high for its 12th day in a row!
* The S&P 500 and the NASDAQ have both set new all-time highs during this period.
* The US Stock Market gained $2 trillion in wealth since Trump was elected!
* The S&P 500 also broke $20 Trillion for the first time in its history.

Somehow this news has escaped the mainstream media.

The article also includes the following:

The article goes on to list job statistics and home sales statistics. I strongly suggest that you follow the link to read the entire article.

The article concludes:

In Summary

President Obama left President Trump with a weak economy and all sorts of domestic and foreign policy nightmares.  To date President Trump has had little time to address all of these messes but if he handles these as well as he has the economy Americans will soon be in a much better and safer place.

Overall based on the above data it is clear that President Trump is doing a solid, if not excellent job.

The mainstream liberal media won’t report this, but when looking at the economy, President Trump the businessman thumps the former community organizer Barack Obama.

Despite what the media is telling us, this does not sound like a White House in chaos. It sounds like a White House that is getting the country back on a solid economic footing despite tremendous opposition from the media.

While You Were Watching The Political Circus…

Yesterday The Washington Examiner reported that at the beginning of May the total continuing claims for unemployment benefits ran at the lowest level in 28 years. The workforce participation rate in April was 62.9 percent (in March it was 63.0). That number has been hovering at 62 and 63 percent since January of 2012.

The article reports:

Over the past month, the average number of continuing claims per week has clocked in at 1.95 million, the lowest number in 43 years.

Those numbers were released as part of the department’s weekly jobless claims report, which is valued by investors and government officials because it provides a frequently-updated indication of new claims for unemployment benefits, a proxy for layoffs. Fewer layoffs means more job creation.

Thursday’s report showed just 232,000 new claims, adjusted for seasonal variations, for the week ending on May 13. That was the lowest number in nearly three months, and an extremely low mark by historical standards.

…At 4.4 percent in April, the unemployment rate is already below where Federal Reserve officials thought it could sustainably go if the economy were fully healthy.

Jobless claims below 300,000, economists calculate, go along with steady or declining unemployment, meaning that the unemployment rate could fall further still.

Deregulation, efforts to repeal ObamaCare, and the development of America’s energy resources have a lot to do with the economic growth that has begun under President Trump. Note that all three of these things involve an undoing of President Obama’s policies. Elections do have consequences, and the 2016 election has had very positive economic consequences.

After A While It Just Gets Silly

Yesterday Investor’s Business Daily posted an editorial reminding us of how many times we have watched the Democrats and the media attempt to bring down a President. It worked once. The Democrats and media liked the experience so much that they have been trying to duplicate it ever since.

The editorial reminds us:

On May 1, 1981, thousands of protesters marched in Washington to denounce President Reagan‘s economic and social policies. The event was billed as ”Days of Resistance to Roll Back Reaganism.” (Sound familiar?) At the event, at least two speakers called for impeaching Reagan.

”Our purpose is to turn this country around,” one said. ”Getting rid of Reagan is the first step.”

In early 1983, Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., said Reagan should be impeached “for incompetence.” Later that year, he called for impeaching Reagan over his military action in Grenada.

Jesse Jackson wanted Reagan impeached in 1984 for mining Nicaragua’s harbors. Texas Rep. Henry Gonzalez and six other Democrats introduced a resolution to impeach Reagan in 1987 over the Iran-Contra affair.

Gonzalez pushed to have President George H.W. Bush impeached in 1991 because of the Gulf War.

Reps. Dennis Kucinich and Robert Wexler introduced 35 articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush in 2004 that centered on the Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina, global warming and the 2004 elections.

Conyers filed a resolution in 2005 calling for Bush’s impeachment, and was still publicly advocating it by 2007. And Kucinich kept pushing for impeachment into Bush’s last months in office.

Most of these efforts were aided and abetted by the media. It is truly a shame that our Fourth Estate has chosen to become a Fifth Column.

The article continues:

Heck, Rep. Maxine Waters — who is currently making a big stink about impeaching Trump — first called for his impeachment before Trump was inaugurated. Rep. Alan Grayson was talking up Trump’s impeachment before he’d even secured the Republican nomination.

What is newsworthy, however, is the fact that some Democrats outside the Beltway — as well as some inside the Beltway — are urging their colleagues to get a grip.

In an interview with Politico that aired online this week, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel warned that the party’s monomaniacal focus on the president wasn’t doing anything to make Democrats more appealing to voters who cast ballots for Trump last November.

“We don’t talk about and fight for the middle class like we are,” he said. “We believe we’re for them, but they don’t — if they don’t hear we’re for them, then we got a problem.”

Politico’s Edward-Isaac Dovere said Emanuel “thinks everyone in Washington is too focused on the crazy around Trump to see what’s actually going on — and what’s not.”

Meanwhile, the American voters are not buying into this garbage. They are looking at the economic improvement, the reduction in regulations, and efforts to help the middle class made by the Trump Administration.

It is really wild when the sane Democrat on the subject of impeachment is Dennis Kucinich, not known for always being the most rational voice in the room. This is his comment:

“This is about the political process of the United States of America being under attack by intelligence agencies and individuals in those agencies,” he told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Wednesday.

“You have politicization of agencies that is resulting in leaks from anonymous, unknown people and the intention is to take down a president,” he said. “Now, this is very dangerous to America. It’s a threat to our republic. It constitutes a clear and present danger to our way of life.”

The American people voted. In three years they will get to vote again. If the Democrats continue to behave like spoiled two-year-olds, they can expect to continue to lose elections. That’s fine with me.

It Really Is All About The Money

None of the predictions made about global warming have come through–the polar bear population has increased, New York City is not under water, and there have not been more catastrophic hurricanes (remember Andrew, Camille, and Hazel?).

WattsUpWithThat reports:

Guest essay by Dr. Susan J. Crockford of polarbearscience.com * see update below on the % number

Survey Results: Svalbard polar bear numbers increased 30 42% over last 11 years

Results of this fall’s Barents Sea population survey have been released by the Norwegian Polar Institute and they are phenomenal: despite several years with poor ice conditions, there are more bears now (~975) than there were in 2004 (~685) around Svalbard (a 30 42% increase) and the bears were in good condition.

So what is all the fuss regarding global warming about? Yesterday Investor’s Business Daily posted a commentary about global warming.

The commentary reports:

Just when you think the climate change lunacy couldn’t get any worse, the U.N.’s climate-crats up the ante. Meeting in Bonn, Germany, for yet another unneeded climate conference, attendees are now demanding $300 billion a year more to help less-developed nations cope with anticipated climatic warming. Are they kidding?

By the way, that $300 billion is in addition to the $100 billion that the world’s governments have already promised to deliver under the Paris Climate Agreement. So now they’re asking for a total of $400 billion a year in climate welfare for the developing world. No sane government would sign on to such a scam. Which of course means that most of them probably will.

There’s really no end to this insanity. To make it worse, the proposal before the Bonn climate talks calls for the added taxpayer-funded cash to be doled out not by the governments themselves, or even the U.N. No, the money will be channeled through existing nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs.

In other words, left-wing green groups around the world will become the conduits for billions of dollars in money handed out to ethically challenged, nondemocratic governments. Think there might be a tiny temptation for corruption there?

It gets worse when you realize that most of the countries that would wind up with this money are run by tyrants and that none of that money would actually be used to raise the standard of living for the average citizen of that country.

The article concludes:

We have suggested before, and we will repeat now, what the only rational response to such financial and scientific lunacy should be: to cease all cooperation with the U.N. on its global warming schemes — which amount to little more than a massive effort to redistribute wealth from rich nations to poor nations, and to put all free people directly under the controlling thumbs of global bureaucrats.

That means we should pull out of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, which President Trump promised to do as a candidate, but has yet to do as president. It’s a costly fraud perpetrated on the America people by morally preening global socialists. It’s time to make the world great again.

So Which Answer Is Actually True?

The source for this story is The Gateway Pundit.There are a number of stories from various sources on the internet reporting the same thing. There are some serious problems in the charge that President Trump interfered in an investigation.

The Gateway Pundit reports:

Former FBI Director James Comey testified under Senate oath May 3rd that the Trump administration had not pressured his agency to halt any investigation for political purposes.

Comey admitted that the FBI has always been free to operate without political interference—flying in the face of Democrats’ paranoid delusions about Russia and President Donald J. Trump, and exposing for what it is a new political witch hunt Wednesday by enemies within the president’s own Justice Department.

Videotaped testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee blows apart the phony narrative New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt wove on Tuesday, which resulted in Mueller’s appointment. Schmidt’s only sources were anonymous. They claimed that on Feb. 14th, the day after National Security Adviser Michael Flynn resigned, Trump had asked Comey to end an investigation into Flynn’s connections to Russia.

Schmidt’s allegations that Trump attempted to obstruct justice hinged on the sources’ accounts of a memo authored the same day. Schmidt, a Democrat party lackey, admitted he hasn’t even seen the document—dated nearly three months before Comey’s testimony that totally contradicts it.

Comey’s statement to Hawaii Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono from May 3rd, which Center for Security Policy analyst Nick Short noted Wednesday, exposes the Democrats once again for their political gamesmanship.

The Gateway Pundit reports that lying during sworn congressional testimony is committing perjury, a federal offense punishable by up to five years in prison. The Special Prosecutor was appointed to investigate the wrong thing. Let’s hope he realizes that quickly.

Using Watergate As A Template

The Watergate Scandal began a period of Democratic control of Washington that essentially lasted until the 1990’s. Ronald Reagan won the Presidency, but the Democrats controlled Congress. The Watergate Scandal played a role in the Democrats obtaining and keeping that power. It was their high watermark of political influence. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that they would like to repeat their success. Unfortunately for the Republican party, this time they have a few turncoat Republicans helping them.

This is a quote from an article I posted in March:

The actions of the Democrats during Watergate provide a preview of what is happening now. Watergate was a high watermark in the politics of personal destruction. In his book, Inside the Real Watergate Conspiracy, the author, Geoff Shepard, states:

“It seems clear that without Cox’s intervention, the federal prosecutors would have issued indictments at least by August 1973, and the public’s desire to know that the government was seriously pursuing the Watergate case would have been fully satisfied. Indeed, on May 24, 1973, the U.S. attorney publicly stated that comprehensive indictments were imminent; and the prosecutorial memo submitted to Cox on his arrival stated that the case was all but closed.”

As Americans, we need to make sure that this sort of manipulation of the news does not happen again. Today we have an alternative media that we did not have then. Hopefully that will make a difference. At any rate, we need to be aware of what is being attempted.

As Democrats and some Republicans applaud the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel there are some things we need to remember. First of all–no investigation has turned up any evidence of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign to impact the 2016 election. Second of all–the longer these accusations can be dragged out, the more people will accept them as fact. Third of all–if the Democrats can turn the heat up high enough with fake stories, they may be able at least to vote on impeachment. The don’t have the votes to impeach President Trump, but impeachment hearings might win them some votes among some Americans (or it could seriously cost them votes as the impeachment of Bill Clinton cost the Republicans votes).

What we have watched this week is political theater. Unfortunately it is political theater played without any sense of truth or fairness. It is a glaring example of the fact that the swamp in Washington needs to be drained–and Donald Trump is not the problem. The media has created chaos with anonymous sources and unseen memos. The chaos is not from the Trump Administration, it is from a media that is trying very hard to reverse the votes of the American people.

The Deep State At Work

No one ever suggested that fighting an entrenched Washington establishment would be easy. My husband used to have a sign on his desk at work that said, “When you are up to your neck in alligators, it is hard to remember that your objective was to drain the swamp.” That is a very accurate picture of what the Trump Administration is dealing with.

Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse posted an article about the latest attempt by the Deep State to bring down the Trump Administration.

The article reports:

Always remember the basic rule that has been proven accurate 100% of the time:

  • When the CIA wants to leak a damaging story they coordinate with the Washington Post and ABC. (and vice-versa).
  • When the State Dept. or FBI/DOJ wants to leak a damaging story they coordinate with CNN and the New York Times. (and vice-versa)

This consistent pattern has NEVER been broken.

Tonight using “unnamed” and the most vague descriptions of  “anonymous sources” The Washington Post creates a fake news story specifically timed to release at the 5pm hour to hit President Donald Trump.

This is the tweet the Washington Post used to begin the attack on the Trump Administration:

The article at The Conservative Treehouse provides the timeline:

Transparent Media Agenda:

  • First indication is the timing of the Washington Post news release (5:02pm EDT).
  • Second indication coordination with NYT for immediate follow (6:26pm EDT)
  • Third indication – Same exact pattern as Flynn intelligence leaks. Identical timing.
  • Fourth indication – Same use of entirely anonymous sources: “former American government official” ie. an Obama official.
  • Only 3 U.S. Officials actually in the room with first-hand information:  National Security Advisor HR McMaster, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Senior Adviser for policy, Dina Powell.
  • Publication motive/intent – The Washington Post never contacted anyone in the White House for questions, nor did they ask McMaster, Tillerson or Powell for comment before publication.  All three call the Post article – fake News.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. It provides a lot of insight into how the media manipulates facts to create a narrative that may not be true. The good news here is that those in the Trump Administration responded to this attack quickly, and it was quickly revealed to any thinking person that this was fake news.

It is very obvious that the long knives are out to get Donald Trump. The good news is that the people attacking him are becoming desperate and more blatant in their attacks and their disregard for the truth. If the media continues in this direction, they will lose whatever following they have left. That is good news.

 

Don’t Look For This On Tonight’s News

Lifezette is reporting the following today:

A class-action suit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in October by residents of 45 states against both the committee and Wasserman Schultz for “intentional, willful, wanton, and malicious” conduct in violating Article 5, Section 4 of the DNC Charter.

They  represent three classes of plaintiffs: donors to the DNC, donors to the Bernie Sanders campaign, and all registered Democrats — and they want their money back.

On April 25, the court held a hearing on a motion to dismiss, with the DNC’s lawyers arguing that the party has every right to pick candidates in back rooms.

Then why did they spend the money on state primary elections?

The article concludes:

A WikiLeaks document dump also revealed that former interim DNC chair Donna Brazile appeared to favor Clinton when she leaked a Democratic primary debate question to Clinton in an email. Sanders supporters cried fowl. But the media largely spurned them in favor of dogging Trump.

“The elephant in the room for the DNC isn’t Trump or the GOP or Bernie bros or Russian hackers; it is its own elitist, corporatist, cronyist, corrupt system that consistently refuses to listen to the will of the people it hopes to represent,” McClennen wrote. “This all proves that the DNC has a serious problem not only with the democratic process but also with the very idea of representing the will of its constituents.”

The Democrats needed someone like Donald Trump to shake up their primary process!

There Is A Certain Amount Of Irony In This

The political left spends a lot of time complaining about income inequality. They place the blame for that on CEO’s of large companies that are compensated well. Yes, CEO’s are compensated well. They also work a lot of hours a week and have spent a lot of time getting the education that qualifies them for the job they hold. But somehow, they are the villains that are responsible for wage inequality. Well, we have another villain,

The Washington Free Beacon posted an article yesterday about the compensation paid to union officials.

The article reports:

Leading union officials earned an average salary of $252,370 in 2016, outpacing the average salary of private sector chief executives, according to a new report.

The Center for Union Facts compiled the salary information from federal labor filings of 192 of the largest national, state, and local unions. The report found that labor presidents enjoyed nearly a $60,000 advantage over the take-home pay of the nation’s business leaders, who earned an average of $194,350, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The average compensation of union officials, which includes salary and other perks, was $283,678, according to the report.

One of the complaints of the unions is the ratio of the average CEO’s salary versus the wages of the average worker.

The article further notes:

Airline Pilots Association President Timothy Canoll was the highest-paid union official, according to the federal data. He earned total compensation of $775,829 with a base salary of $526,292. The union, which is a member of the AFL-CIO, gave Canoll about $250,000 in perks in addition to the take-home pay, including $24,000 in allowances and $29,000 in official business expenses, such as meals and entertainment. He was given $196,534 in compensation classified as “Other.”

The claim of wage inequality is bogus to begin with. Like it or not, people are paid according to the scarcity of their skills and their value to a company. It is also noteworthy that somehow when the discussion of wages comes up, athletes, and movie starts are not generally mentioned. How much do they make in relation to the wages of the people who work for them?

Wage inequality is a fake issue, and the hypocrisy of those on the political left regarding union executive wages makes that very obvious.

A Few Reminders About Current Accusations

I don’t even have the words to explain how tired I am of hearing the accusation that Russia helped Donald Trump win the election. The obvious answer to this charge is ‘how?’ However, as this charge is bandied about, there are a few things that need to be noted.

The investigation into the so-called Russian interference began with an alliance between John Brennan, CIA Director, and British Intelligence. In April I reported (here) that the ex-MI6 agent who created the dossier that accused President Trump of behaving badly in Russia was being paid by Fusion GPS to perform opposition research against Donald Trump. That dossier was part of the basis for the wiretapping and investigation into Donald Trump and Russia.

I want to back up and take a look at one of the people involved in the charges against President Trump regarding Russia. I would like to note at this point that so far there is no evidence of any wrongdoing between President Trump and Russia. But let’s look at who is involved in the investigation.

John Brennan was Director of the CIA until President Trump took office. When President Trump took office, John Brennan was replaced by Mike Pompeo. It was assumed in 2016 that the next President of the United States would be Hillary Clinton. There were a lot of people in Washington doing a lot of things to ensure that they would remain in their positions under a Clinton presidency. FBI Director Comey probably would have assured his position in the new administration by his July press conference where he listed the charges against Hillary Clinton and invented a new reason not to prosecute her–she didn’t intentionally break the law. John Brennan would have preferred a Hillary Clinton presidency because she would have continued President Obama’s policies that chose to ignore the relationship between Islam and terrorism.

It is important to remember that in October 2011, then Assistant to the President for Homeland Security, John Brennan, received a letter from Farhana Khera, President and Executive Director of Muslim Advocates. The letter demanded an embargo or discontinuation of information and materials relating to Islamic-based terrorism. The letter insisted that officers, analysts, special agents, and decision-makers who created or made these materials available be fired or re-trained. In 2012, that purge was executed. Evidently, John Brennan was not serious about dealing with Islamic terrorism. President Trump obviously takes a different view.

There is a swamp in Washington that needs to be drained. All efforts to drain this swamp will be met by resistance by the Washington elite, the media, and those in the swamp seeking to retain their jobs. Please keep this in mind as you follow the news and attempt to sort fact from fiction. Keep in mind that Russia had no reason to help Donald Trump win the election and every reason to want Hillary Clinton to become President–in addition to the fact that Hillary could be blackmailed (her private server was probably hacked by at least three or four foreign powers), Hillary had been such a failure at the State Department, there was no reason to believe that she would actually accomplish anything as President. It should be noted here that frequent flyer miles are not an accomplishment.

While the media is attempting to distract us with a totally irrelevant and useless investigation of cooperation between candidate Trump and Russia, they are ignoring a lot. There have been some major accomplishments during the beginning of the Trump Administration–undoing some of the regulations that are crippling American businesses, discussions with foreign leaders that have led to some apparent cooperation between the U.S. and China, and some substantial reductions in government spending. These have been overlooked (I believe purposely) in favor of a fake scandal. It is time to realize that the mainstream media has become a force for political propaganda. Because of that, they need to be ignored.

Supporting Voter Fraud????

The Washington Free Beacon posted an article today about a group of liberal professors who want to counter the efforts of President Trump’s voter fraud commission. Why? I would think all Americans would be in favor of making sure our elections are honest. Any fraudulent vote cast nullifies a legitimate vote. Why would anyone support voter fraud?

The article reports:

A leaked email obtained by the Washington Free Beacon shows a proposal floated by members of the a prominent left-wing professor’s email listserv to form an academic commission to counter President Trump’s voter fraud commission.

Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to establish a commission to investigate voter fraud in the United States. Vice President Mike Pence and Kansas Secretary of state Kris Kobach will lead the new body, which will “study the systematic issues that have been raised over many years in terms of the integrity of the elections.”

Shortly after the announcement, Rutgers University Professor Lorraine Minnite emailed UC Irvine Law School Chancellor Rick Hasen’s email listserv in an effort to enroll members to “resist” Trump’s commission, according to an email provided to the Free Beacon.

“To members of this listserve [sic], especially the academics: If the President does indeed create a commission to study voter fraud and voter suppression in the American election system to be headed by the Vice Preisdent [sic] and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, I’m calling on scholars of election administration to resist participation of any kind in such an effort,” Minnite wrote.  “We should expect a Pence-Kobach Commission to find ‘evidence’ of rampant voter fraud across the U.S., and to recommend proposals to amend the Voting Rights Act and the National Voter Registration Act to require proof-of-citizenships to register and a national voter ID requirement, among other changes that will be damaging to voting rights and therefore, damaging to democracy.”

So having to identify yourself and prove that you are a citizen of America to register is damaging to democracy?? First of all, we are a representative republic–not a democracy (you would think a professor would know that). Second of all, we are one of the few countries in the world where elections are held that does not require voter identification. It is time to realize that not everyone is honest and that we need honest elections.

The article concludes:

“Foes of the commission are trying to cover up crimes,” Logan Churchwell, spokesman for the Public Interest Legal Foundation, an Indiana-based group that litigates to protect election integrity, said of the proposed academic commission. “They are accessories after the fact to voter fraud.”

Most Americans have some form of identification. You need some sort of identification to buy cigarettes or liquor, board an airplane, cash a check, enter a government building, and attend many liberal political events. It seems very odd to me that someone would oppose having to show identification to vote, particularly when most states offer free voter identification cards.

The Connections Are Mind-Boggling

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article with some of former FBI Director James Comey‘s employment history.

The article reports:

Comey served as general counsel at Lockheed Martin until 2010 when he departed with over $6 million to show for it. That same year Lockheed Martin became a member of the Clinton Global Initiative and “won 17 contracts from the U.S. State Department, which was led by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,” Big League Politics reports.

Comey just so happened to have joined the board of the British bank HSBC Holdings in 2013, which just so happens to be a Clinton Foundation partner.

Former Director Comey’s brother works for the Washington law firm DLA Piper, where he serves as “Senior Director of Real Estate Operations for the Americas”.

The article further reports:

DLA Piper is one of the top ten all-time career campaign donors for Hillary Clinton. On top of this, DLA Piper also happens to do the Clinton Foundation’s taxes. DLA Piper performed the 2015 audit of the Foundation when the scandal first broke.

The article also notes that former Director Comey owns his brother’s mortgage–meaning that former Director Comey had a direct financial relationship with a DLA Piper executive during his investigation of Hillary Clinton.

This is crony capitalism at its worst. President Trump needs to drain the swamp as quickly as possible.

Taking Steps To Improve America’s Economy

Yesterday Investor’s Business Daily posted an article about a bill that was recently approved by the House Financial Services Committee.

The article reports:

With little fanfare and even less media coverage, the House Financial Services Committee recently approved along party lines a bill that would significantly reform the economy-deadening Dodd-Frank law. It’s a good first step toward restoring our financial freedom.

The fact is, the 2010 Dodd-Frank law has been a disaster, responsible for killing hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs and putting a damper on economic growth by making credit harder to come by for those who need it most.

In a recent interview with NPR, House Financial Services Chairman Jeb Hensarling of Texas made a succinct case for getting rid of Dodd-Frank: “Free checking at banks has been cut in half. Banking fees have gone up. Working people are finding it more difficult to get mortgages,” he said.

He could have gone further. Small- to medium-size banks — the traditional sources of working capital for small business — have been hurt worst by Dodd-Frank’s extensive regulations that impose billions of dollars in unnecessary costs each year. And rather than repealing too-big-to-fail for big banks, Dodd-Frank actually makes it all but certain that taxpayers will be asked to bailout big banks during the next downturn.

Dodd-Frank was passed with the idea that the banks and Wall Street were responsible for the financial meltdown of 2008. Actually, the government and government policy were much more to blame.

The best explanation I have seen of the cause of the financial crisis can be found in a YouTube video called “Burning Down the House.”

Here is that video:

The article at Investor’s Business Daily further explains:

Under regulatory threat from the government, banks made loans they knew were bad, then the government bought them back. When the Fed went too far in raising interest rates in the mid-2000s, the housing market cratered, banks’ balance sheets were destroyed, and a massive credit crunch and the “Great Recession” ensued. The government caused this crisis — not Wall Street.

As we’ve written repeatedly in the past, Dodd-Frank should have been shut down long ago. It has strangled entrepreneurial activity and dampened economic growth, and made it impossible for millions of Americans to get home loans. It’s a major reason why GDP during the Obama years grew at a pathetic 1.9% rate, rather than the more normal rate of 3% or more.

We hope the House will move quickly to end Dodd-Frank, one of the worst financial regulatory laws in modern history.

It is going to take a while, but the damage done to the American economy by the policies of Congress and the misdirected efforts to correct something that did not cause the problem can be corrected. We need both political parties to work together to make that happen. Unfortunately, I don’t think that is likely. Hopefully the Republicans have enough votes to pass this legislation without any Democratic votes.

Fake News

Yesterday The Boston Herald reported that Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey has had to issue an apology for remarks made on CNN. Unfortunately I think it is very possible that many people will hear the remarks and few people will hear the apology.

The article reports:

Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Edward J. Markey was forced to apologize yesterday after he “erroneously” claimed live on CNN that a New York grand jury was investigating President Trump’s campaign ties to the Russians.

“There are very strong allegations the Russians had relationships with people inside of the Trump campaign,” Markey said. “In fact, subpoenas have now been issued in northern Virginia with regard to Gen. (Michael) Flynn and Gen. Flynn’s associates. A grand jury has been impaneled up in New York.”

But responding to a Herald inquiry yesterday, spokeswoman Giselle Barry said Markey had made the New York comments “erroneously.”

“Senator Markey does not have direct intelligence that is the case, and the information he was provided during a briefing is not substantiated,” Barry said of the senator’s alternative facts.

The apology explained that there are subpoenas in Virginia regarding the behavior of General Flynn, but there is no grand jury in New York.

On February 17th of this year, Forbes Magazine posted an article showing the ties between Russia and a number of Democratic lobbyists. Ninety percent of what you are hearing in the news about Russia and the 2016 election is fake news. I just wish the media was required to correct a story when they get it wrong.

While The Media Is Distracting Us…

Fred Fleitz posted an article at Breitbart today about the surveillance of the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.

The article reports:

Fleitz (Fred Fleitz, Senior Vice President for Policy and Programs at the Center for Security Policy), who has strongly criticized Rice’s story about why she “unmasked” the identities of people connected to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign who were caught in foreign surveillance operations, said there were two ways this surveillance took place.

“One, apparently, were formal FISA requests to have information collected against certain members of the Trump team,” he said. “This has not been confirmed, but it’s been leaked so often to the New York Times and the Washington Post, probably by Obama people, I think that happened.

“The second way was to go through intelligence that was not targeting the Russians or Trump to find references to Trump officials, and have those names unmasked. That way, they could say, ‘Hey, we weren’t targeting the Trump people, we were just going through intelligence that happened to mention them. We wanted to know the context of the report,’” he continued.

“You know, it’s okay for a senior official to ask for the name of a U.S. person to understand an intelligence report. It’s uncommon. I’ve been involved with it, with a senior policymaker. But to ask that the names of the members of a campaign from another party be unmasked – that may not be illegal, but it is highly unethical,” said Fleitz.

“If Rice gave the reason for that unmasking to be something that it really wasn’t, like if she really was doing it for political reasons, she could be in legal jeopardy,” he said.

The article points out that at one point during John Bolton‘s career,  Fred Fleitz, as his chief of staff, had asked for the unmasking of the names of ten Americans. During the confirmation hearings for John Bolton as the U.N. Ambassador, the Democrats accused him of violating the privacy of American citizens. Somehow, they are not as concerned when Democrats do the unmasking for political purposes.

The article concludes:

Fleitz previewed his upcoming Fox News piece about the widely-reported intelligence analysis prepared in January that claimed “not only did the Russians try to intervene in the election, but they did so to help Trump win.”

“Well, Director of National Intelligence Clapper revealed this week this was not the intelligence community’s view, of all 17 agencies,” said Fleitz. “That was known. It was just 3 agencies. We now know the analysts who wrote this were handpicked. How were they handpicked? How did the hyper-partisan director of the CIA, John Brennan, how did he handpick the CIA analysts who wrote this assessment?”

“I don’t think this assessment is accurate. I don’t think the Russians intervened to help Trump. Read my piece at FoxOpinion.com. This has to be added to the investigation of interference in the election – interference by our intelligence agencies.”

There was a crime committed here. It had to do with unmasking civilians and leaking information to the press. However, as long as the press can keep us off target, those who committed those crimes will go unpunished..

 

This Is Incredibly Misguided And Sad

The New Orleans Times-Picayune posted a story yesterday (updated today) about the removal of the statue of Jefferson Davis from the monument site on Canal Street at Jefferson Davis Parkway. That is so sad. Jefferson Davis was a Democratic U.S. Representative and Senator from Mississippi, the 23rd U.S. Secretary of War, and the President of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War. He is guilty of doing what he thought was right and what the people of his state thought was right. We are wrong to judge him in the context of today rather than the context of the time in which he lived.

Admittedly, slavery was a horrible thing, but it was a worldwide acceptable practice at the time. Jefferson Davis was guilty of complying with the norms of society at the time. It is unfair to judge him by today’s standards. Slavery is part of America’s history, just as it is a part of the history of most of the countries in the world. Unfortunately, there are countries where it is still practiced today.

The article quotes a resident who came to watch the statue being removed:

Pat Gallagher, who lives in Jefferson Parish, said she decided to go out to the intersection because she is concerned about the preservation of all monuments, both Confederate and others.

“I think it’s a slippery slope,” she said of taking down monuments. “It’s part of history — whether it’s good, bad or indifferent. You can’t change history.”

She expressed a special concern for monuments to those who served in the military, ticking off a list of wars and battles in which she said her ancestors have served, beginning with one who fought at Valley Forge and continuing through the Battle of New Orleans, the Civil War, World War II and a nephew now stationed in Afghanistan.

“This is about monuments to military men who fought for their country,” she said. “This is very personal for me. That’s why I’m here — to stand up for my ancestors — all of them.”

“I’m getting sick at heart because they’re getting ready to take this down,” she said, tearing up. 

The article includes a statement by the Mayor:

“There are four prominent monuments in question. The Battle of Liberty Place monument, which was removed three weeks ago, was erected by the Crescent City White League to remember the deadly insurrection led by white supremacists against the City’s racially integrated police department and government. The statue coming down today is the Jefferson Davis statue on Jefferson Davis Parkway. The statues slated to come down next include the Robert E. Lee statue at Lee Circle and the P.G.T. Beauregard equestrian statue on Esplanade Avenue at the entrance to City Park.

“‘Three weeks ago, we began a challenging but long overdue process of removing four statues that honor the ‘Lost Cause of the Confederacy.’ Today we continue the mission,’ said Mayor Mitch Landrieu. ‘These monuments have stood not as historic or educational markers of our legacy of slavery and segregation, but in celebration of it. I believe we must remember all of our history, but we need not revere it. To literally put the Confederacy on a pedestal in some of our most prominent public places is not only an inaccurate reflection of our past, it is an affront to our present, and a bad prescription for our future. We should not be afraid to confront and reconcile our past.'”

This is the sort of thing that happens in third-world countries. I would ask those who see these monuments as a celebration of slavery that need to be removed, what other parts of our history do you want to remove? We can’t change history because we did something that was acceptable at the time that we now realize was wrong. We need to look at the monuments in the context of the time they were erected and realize that we have grown since then. The monuments should be a reminder that even good men make mistakes. As I said, slavery was a worldwide, accepted practice. The fact that those in the southern states wanted to continue it and expand the territory it was allowed in is a reflection of the culture they lived in. We need to understand that despite the fact that slavery and the Civil War represent a very dark period in American history, they are both part of our history. These statues represent that history and need to be left alone.

 

Lied To Again

Honesty in Washington, D.C. seems to be non-existent. A lot of the things we were told during the Obama Administration have turned out to be simply not true.

Recently a news site called Circa reported that the statistics released by the Obama Administration showing the number of American citizens unmasked after being captured in accidental National Security Agency intercepts were inaccurate.

The article reports:

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, now under new management with President Donald Trump, confirms that the 654 unmaskings reported last year for fiscal 2015 was underreported by a factor of more than three times. The correct number was actually 2,232.

…National intelligence officials say the 654 figure reported last year actually represented the number of times a government official had a request approved to unmask an American name and not the total number of U.S. persons’ identities that actually were unredacted after the fact in intelligence reports, as had been represented in last year’s report.

…But starting in 2011, former President Obama made it easier to access that information, essentially creating keys for intelligence professionals and even his own political aides to unlock the NSA’s lock box to consume surveillance on Americans.

Circa reported last week that since those changes, the number of requests to search NSA records for Americans’ information more than tripled under the former administration from about 10,000 in 2013 to more than 25,000 in 2016.

These numbers confirm the fears some Congressmen had about the Patriot Act. What we saw in the Obama Administration was the use of government agencies to spy on political opponents. Every person involved in this effort needs to be fired and sent to jail. This is totally unconstitutional.

It Wasn’t A Unilateral Decision

This article is based on two sources–an article posted at Lifezette today and an article from the BBC, also dated today.

The article at Lifezette reminds us that until President Trump fired FBI Director Comey, the Democrats wanted Director Comey fired.

The article reports:

Comey, being Comey, closed the new investigation in record time, ending the investigation two days before Election Day and enraging Republicans by publicly declaring he still would not recommend charges against Clinton.

Schumer indicated Comey’s handling of the matter was a deal-breaker.

“I do not have confidence in him any longer,” Schumer said of Comey on Nov. 2.

Schumer called Comey’s letter to Congress “appalling.”

Schumer is far from the only Democrat who has questioned Comey’s judgement or called for his firing.

…”This is not fake news. Intelligence officials are hiding connections to the Russian government. There is no question,” then-Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said in a Dec. 10 interview on MSNBC. “Comey knew and deliberately kept this info a secret,” he said.

The MSNBC host asked Reid if Comey should resign. “Of course, yes,” Reid replied.

 Comey’s decision to publicly reopen the Clinton investigation drove Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) to also demand the FBI director resign.

“I called on FBI Director James Comey to resign his position after his recent communication with members of Congress regarding the bureau’s review of emails potentially related to Hillary Clinton’s personal email server,” Cohen wrote in a Nov. 3 op-ed published in The Hill.

It gets better.

The BBC posted a copy of the letter written by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein recommending that Director Comey be fired. Follow the link above to read the entire letter.

Director Comey made some unusual decisions during the run-up to the November 2016 election. There are some valid questions as to whether or not the FBI was politicized under President Obama. It is very obvious that the Justice Department was compromised, but the jury is still out on the FBI.

I don’t know whether or not this is part of draining the swamp. I do know that draining the swamp is going to be a long term, ongoing operation, and I wish President Trump all the best in doing that.

Sometimes A Change Is Needed

CNS News is reporting tonight that President Trump has fired FBI Director James Comey.  Both Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions recommended the firing.

The article reports:

In a letter to Comey on Tuesday, Trump said he received letters from the attorney general and deputy attorney general recommending that Comey be fired, and the president has accepted their recommendation.

“I have accepted their recommendation and you are hereby terminated and removed from office, effective immediately,” Trump said.

“While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau,” the president said.

“It is essential that we find new leadership for the FBI that restores public trust and confidence in its vital law enforcement mission. I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors,” he added.

The search begins immediately for Comey’s replacement.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Tuesday that “this was a difficult decision for all concerned.”

“I appreciate Director Comey’s service to our nation in a variety of roles,” Graham said in a statement.

“Given the recent controversies surrounding the director, I believe a fresh start will serve the FBI and the nation well. I encourage the President to select the most qualified professional available who will serve our nation’s interests,” Graham added.

Although I believe James Comey attempted to be even-handed while at the FBI, there were a few times when he dropped the ball.

A website called grabien lists ten scandals that occurred during James Comey’s tenure at the FBI:

1. Before he bombed the Boston Marathon, the FBI interviewed Tamerlan Tsarnaev but let him go. Russia sent the Obama Administration a second warning, but the FBI opted against investigating him again.

2. Shortly after the NSA scandal exploded in 2013, the FBI was exposed conducting its own data mining on innocent Americans; the agency, Bloomberg reported, retains that material for decades (even if no wrongdoing is found).

3. The FBI had possession of emails sent by Nidal Hasan saying he wanted to kill his fellow soldiers to protect the Taliban — but didn’t intervene, leading many critics to argue the tragedy that resulted in the death of 31 Americans at Fort Hood could have been prevented. 

4. During the Obama Administration, the FBI claimed that two private jets were being used primarily for counterterrorism, when in fact they were mostly being used for Eric Holder and Robert Mueller’s business and personal travel. 

5. When the FBI demanded Apple create a “backdoor” that would allow law enforcement agencies to unlock the cell phones of various suspects, the company refused, sparking a battle between the feds and America‘s biggest tech company. What makes this incident indicative of Comey’s questionable management of the agency is that a) The FBI jumped the gun, as they were indeed ultimately able to crack the San Bernardino terrorist’s phone, and b) Almost every other major national security figure sided with Apple (from former CIA Director General Petraeus to former CIA Director James Woolsey to former director of the NSA, General Michael Hayden), warning that such a “crack” would inevitably wind up in the wrong hands.

6. In 2015, the FBI conducted a controversial raid on a Texas political meeting, finger printing, photographing, and seizing phones from attendees (some in the group believe in restoring Texas as an independent constitutional republic).

7. During its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified material, the FBI made an unusual deal in which Clinton aides were both given immunity and allowed to destroy their laptops. 

8. The father of the radical Islamist who detonated a backpack bomb in New York City in 2016 alerted the FBI to his son’s radicalization. The FBI, however, cleared Ahmad Khan Rahami after a brief interview. 

9. The FBI also investigated the terrorist who killed 49 people and wounded 53 more at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Fla. Despite a more than 10-month investigation of Omar Mateen — during which Mateen admitting lying to agents — the FBI opted against pressing further and closed its case. 

10. CBS recently reported that when two terrorists sought to kill Americans attending the “Draw Muhammad” event in Garland, Texas, the FBI not only had an understanding an attack was coming, but actually had an undercover agent traveling with the Islamists, Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi. The FBI has refused to comment on why the agent on the scene did not intervene during the attack. 

There are just too many concerns about some of Director Comey’s actions during his tenure at the FBI. It is time for him to leave so that the agency can regain the confidence of the American people.

 

This Is What Justice In A Muslim Country Looks Like

CNN is reporting today that Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama has been found guilty of blasphemy and has been sentenced to two years in prison.

The article reports:

Ahok was detained immediately after the verdict and taken to the Cipinang detention center in East Jakarta, local media reported. He said he would immediately appeal the court’s decision.
The Jakarta governor sparked controversy in late 2016 after quoting a verse from the Quran to prove to his supporters that there were no restrictions on Muslims voting for a non-Muslim politician.
Almost no one who has been charged under the blasphemy law has ever escaped conviction, associate professor of Indonesian politics at the Australian National University Greg Fealy told CNN.
“The blasphemy law has really been a blight on the rule of law and democracy in Indonesia for decades,” he said, adding that “the fact that Ahok was charged at all was really a product of massive street demonstrations that frightened the government into acting.”
This is one way free speech can be limited in a Muslim-majority country. In America, because blasphemy is not an everyday concept, the concept of ‘hate speech’ is being used to undermine our First Amendment rights. We also have the concept of ‘hate crime’ being introduced into our justice system. Technically a hate crime judges the motive of a criminal, which the courts have neither the authority or the means to judge. However, the concept has become a part of our justice system. That also can be used as a tool to limit free speech.

He’s Back

The Washington Examiner is reporting today that former Vice-President Al Gore wants to ‘decarbonize’ the world’s energy system.

The article reports:

Al Gore wants to reverse modernity and save the world from itself through an elimination of its fossil-fuel-based energy system. During the final week of April, his newly created Energy Transitions Commission released a document setting forth a fool’s-errand pathway to “decarbonize” the world’s energy system.

…But, don’t worry! The all-in estimated cost to re-engineer humanity is only a mere $15 trillion—enough money to give every man, woman, and child in the United States more than $46,000.

Al Gore has been demonizing fossil fuels and attempting to marginalize all those involved in the traditional energy sector since 1988, the year the climate-change movement was rolled out in Washington, D.C., which happened to correspond with a nationwide heatwave and with Yellowstone in flames. Ever since, Gore’s pathway to political power and personal riches has been a successful one, to be sure, but his multi-trillion-dollar effort today is his most sophisticated effort to date. Unfortunately for him, it will also fail, because what he’s selling in his “new” proposal is bad for the people being asked to embrace it.

The plan suggested by the former Vice-President would tax carbon use at $50 per ton and gradually increase to $100 a ton. This would essentially destroy the market for the continuing development of fossil fuel. Since the world’s economy runs on fossil fuel, this tax would be devastating to the world’s economy.

I need to explain that I am concerned about keeping planet earth as clean as possible and providing the best living conditions for everyone living on the planet, but I don’t believe taxing carbon is the answer. I am also not impressed by those complaining about the carbon footprints of most Americans while they live in mansions and travel in private jets to climate conferences??!!

In August 2014, The Daily Caller posted an article which stated:

The Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed global warming regulations aren’t just about stemming global temperature rises — according to agency’s chief, they are also about “justice” for “communities of color.”

“Carbon pollution standards are an issue of justice,” said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy in a teleconference call with environmental activists. “If we want to protect communities of color, we need to protect them from climate change.”

If you truly want to protect communities of color, you need to reform the welfare culture in those communities, and help the residents of those communities obtain the education and tools they need to be successful. You need to restore the two-parent family in all communities and bring back the values that made America great–hard work, equal opportunity (not equal results), honesty, respect for the law, and the concept of working together to help everyone reach their potential. We need to teach all Americans that nothing is free and that you can choose not to be a victim.

Meanwhile, hopefully Al Gore’s carbon tax will be dead on arrive in Congress and at the EPA.