Tag Archives: House of Representatives

It’s Time To Bring Back The Tea Party

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The Conservative Treehouse is reporting today that the House Republicans have voted to reinstate earmarks. An earmark is defined as a provision inserted into a discretionary spending appropriations bill that directs funds to a specific recipient while circumventing the merit-based or competitive funds allocation process. In plain English, it is a bribe inserted in a bill to get the vote of a specific member of Congress. Earmarks are one of the things that are responsible for the bloated federal spending that characterizes Washington. Instead of crafting bills that everyone in Congress can support, Congress resorts to earmarks to buy the votes of their members. Eliminating earmarks was one of the goals of the Tea Party.

The article reports:

When earmarks exist, the crap legislation passes because individual votes can be purchased through the earmark process.  Remember: “The Cornhusker Kickback”; “The Louisiana Purchase”; or “Gator-Aide”; those were legislative earmarks to get Obamacare passed in the Senate.

Obamacare was the sh!t sandwich the American people were forced to eat, the earmarks just gave senators some justification for their votes.

Bottom line.. it is the earmark process that makes crap legislation pass.  Confront any politician and they will admit this.

The most brutally honest answer to the question of earmarks is this: If the legislation sucks and will not pass on its own (hence the need for earmarks), then why would adding some expensive ice-cream make the sh!t sandwich better?

Remember, the originating legislation doesn’t come from inside congress.  The K-Street lobbyists are the ones writing the legislation; the earmark process only arms congressional leadership with an enhanced tool to sell the K-Street construct. {Go Deep}

Every Republican Congressman who voted to bring back earmarks needs to be voted out of office as soon as possible.

The End To Honest Elections

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The Democrats in the House of Representatives have passed HR1. There were no Republican votes for the bill. That is the bill that will fundamentally change American elections to the point where honest elections will become a thing of the past.

The Federalist posted an article yesterday listing fifteen of the major problems with the bill.

This is the list. Please read the entire article for details:

1. Openly Breaks the Constitution

2. Set Up Star Chambers to Intimidate Judges

3. Mandate Mail-in Ballots, 10-Day Delay in Results

4. Eliminate Voter ID Election Security

5. Register Millions Of Criminally Present Foreign Citizens to Vote

6. Explode Opportunities for Election Cheating

7. Prevent Cleaning Up Voter Rolls

8. Unleash Mobs on Political Donors

9. Gerrymander Districts to Favor Democrats

10. Make Vote Hacking Easier

11. Let Former Felons Vote Before They’ve Completed Their Sentences

12. Help 16- and 17-Year-Olds Vote Illegally

13. Bans Keeping the Records Necessary for an Election Audit or Recount

14. Mandates Ballot Drop Boxes

15. Giving U.S. Territories Extra Democrat Seats in Congress and the Electoral College

I honestly don’t know if the Republicans can stop this disaster from passing in the Senate. If it becomes law (and survives the court challenges that will follow because it is unconstitutional–states control their own elections), we will have lost our republic.

Is This Part Of The Search For Unity?

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The following bill was recently introduced into the House of Representatives:

117th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 484

 To prohibit the use of Federal funds for the commemoration of certain 
               former Presidents, and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            January 25, 2021

Ms. Sanchez (for herself, Ms. Schakowsky, Mrs. Napolitano, Mr. Danny K. 
Davis of Illinois, Mr. Carson, Ms. Escobar, Ms. Lee of California, Mr. 
 Blumenauer, Mrs. Hayes, Mr. Gallego, Mr. Connolly, Mr. Lowenthal, Ms. 
Williams of Georgia, and Ms. Chu) introduced the following bill; which 
was referred to the Committee on Oversight and Reform, and in addition 
    to the Committees on Transportation and Infrastructure, Natural 
 Resources, Armed Services, and Veterans' Affairs, for a period to be 
subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration 
  of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee 
                               concerned

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To prohibit the use of Federal funds for the commemoration of certain 
               former Presidents, and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``No Glory for Hate Act''.

SEC. 2. FEDERAL FUNDS RESTRICTION ON COMMEMORATING CERTAIN FORMER 
              PRESIDENTS.

    Notwithstanding section 3102 of title 40, United States Code, no 
Federal funds may be used to--
            (1) create or display any symbol, monument, or statue 
        commemorating any former President that has been twice 
        impeached by the House of Representatives on or before the date 
        of enactment of this Act or has been convicted of a State or 
        Federal crime relating to actions taken in an official capacity 
        as President of the United States on Federal public land, 
        including any highway, park, subway, Federal building, military 
        installation, street, or other Federal property; or
            (2) name, designate, or redesignate a Federal building or 
        Federal land after, or in commemoration of, any former 
        President that has been twice impeached by the House of 
        Representatives on or before the date of enactment of this Act 
        or has been convicted of a State or Federal crime relating to 
        actions taken in an official capacity as President of the 
        United States.

SEC. 3. RESTRICTION OF FEDERAL FUNDS FOR PROPERTY BEARING THE NAME OF 
              CERTAIN FORMER PRESIDENTS.

    Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no Federal funds or 
other Federal financial assistance may be provided to a State, 
political subdivision thereof, or entity if any such funds or financial 
assistance will be used for the benefit of any building, land, 
structure, installation, or any other property that bears the name, or 
is named or designated in commemoration of, any former President that 
has been twice impeached by the House of Representatives on or before 
the date of enactment of this Act or has been convicted of a State or 
Federal crime relating to actions taken in an official capacity as 
President of the United States.

SEC. 4. FORMER PRESIDENTS ACT RESTRICTION.

    Notwithstanding any provision of the Act entitled ``An Act to 
provide retirement, clerical assistants, and free mailing privileges to 
former Presidents of the United States, and for other purposes'', 
approved August 25, 1958 (3 U.S.C. 102 note; commonly known as the 
``Former Presidents Act of 1958''), any former President that has been 
twice impeached by the House of Representatives on or before the date 
of enactment of this Act or has been convicted of a State or Federal 
crime relating to actions taken in an official capacity as President of 
the United States is not entitled to receive any benefit, other than 
Secret Service protection, under such Act.

SEC. 5. PROHIBITION OF BURIAL OF CERTAIN FORMER PRESIDENTS.

    Section 7722(a) of title 10, United States Code, is amended by 
adding at the end the following:
    ``(3) In carrying out paragraphs (1) and (2), the Secretary of 
Defense shall not approve a determination of eligibility for interment 
or inurnment in Arlington National Cemetery made by the Secretary of 
the Army that permits the interment or inurnment in Arlington National 
Cemetery of any former President that has been twice impeached by the 
House of Representatives on or before the date of enactment of this Act 
or has been convicted of a State or Federal crime relating to actions 
taken in an official capacity as President of the United States.''.
                                 <all>

 

Will the pettiness every stop? This is just spiteful and stupid.

Changing The Rules

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The Federalist posted an article today about some of the rules that are being put in place in the House of Representatives. These rules will damage America. They will also result in major Democrat losses in the House of Representatives in 2022. The question is how much damage can the Democrats do in two years.

The article reports:

House Democrats blocked a Republican measure Monday to cut a provision in the Democrats’ rules package for the 117th Congress exempting favored legislation from PAYGO requirements such as the socialist Green New Deal.

PAYGO requirements stipulate that any legislation spending money must include a “payfor” component that could come in the form of additional legislation analyzed by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) offering members insight into the true cost of any new spending bill. Under the proposed Democratic rules, however, proposals such as the Green New Deal are exempt from the requirement, protecting its supporters from having to answer how to cover its initial estimated $93 trillion price tag.

Are there any fiscally responsible Democrats that could have stopped this?

The article continues:

“On only day two of the 117th Congress, House Democrats are already attempting to strip Americans of the transparency they deserve in order to push through an expensive progressive wish-list,” House Budget Committee Republican Ranking Member Jason Smith of Missouri admonished lawmakers. “This exemption is irresponsible since arguably it could apply to any radical, progressive, out-of-touch legislation dreamed up next by House Democrats.”

Democrats blocked the Republicans’ Motion to Commit, striking the exemption by a margin of 217 to the GOP’s 203 voting in favor. The radical proposals Smith prophesied are certainly in the pipeline.

The article concludes:

With few votes to spare on major legislation, Pelosi will need to keep her caucus’s farthest-left members on board. The final check on two years of Democrats passing every item on their wish list with an incoming Democratic president then falls to the Senate, control of which will be decided in the Georgia Senate runoffs Tuesday.

Hang on to your wallets. This is going to get very ugly and very expensive.

Who Is Our Government Supposed To Represent?

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A lot of us have questions about who our government is actually representing, but what about the question of who they are supposed to represent? Theoretically, the census determines how many representatives each state has and also impacts the electors in the Electoral College. So who should be included in the census? Various courts have been dealing with that question for a while.

Just the News reported today that a recent Supreme Court ruling states that illegal aliens will not be counted in the 2020 census. That makes perfect sense to me–if they are here illegally, why should they be represented in Congress?

The article reports:

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday vacated two lower court decisions that blocked the government from excluding illegal aliens during the process of allotting congressional seats.

The decision to remand the two cases to lower courts “with instructions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction” follows a ruling by the high court earlier this month that allows the Trump administration to pursue plans to exclude illegal aliens from the apportionment base.

Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented from the high court’s ruling yesterday, just as they had in Trump v. New York earlier this month.

So what is the possible impact of this decision? California had been relying on its illegal alien population to counter the fact that many residents of that state are leaving the state to settle in other states. This is the result of continued poor fiscal policies in California and a refusal to deal with many quality of life problems. Homelessness in California is out of control while taxes on ordinary people are increasing and the cost of living in the state is increasing. Because of this ruling, California may lose a Congressional Representative and an elector in the Electoral College. Other states with large populations of illegal aliens may also lose representatives or electors.

Regardless of how you feel about illegal aliens, amnesty, a path to citizenship, etc., Congress is supposed to represent American citizens. They don’t, but they are supposed to.

This Isn’t Really Surprising

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Bad governance has consequences. Yesterday The New York Post posted an article about what is happening to New York. California may not be far behind.

The article reports:

More residents escaped from New York over the last year than from any other state, according to estimates released by the US Census Bureau on Tuesday.

Some 126,355 people hightailed it out of the Empire State between July 2019 and July 2020, a dip of 0.65 percent, the preliminary figures show.

New York has been losing locals since 2016, but the most recent drop was significantly larger than in years past.

It was also the state with the nation’s biggest population decline, followed by Illinois with a 0.63 percent dip, Hawaii with 0.61 percent and West Virginia with 0.58 percent.

The estimates are based on the 2010 Census, and the official 2020 Census results will be released next year, along with a new legislative map.

The once-a-decade national head count determines how the 435 seats in the House of Representatives are divided among the 50 states based on the population changes recorded.

If the numbers hold, New York could lose one seat, dropping to 26, according to an analysis by William Frey, chief demographer for the Brookings Institution, the New York Times reported.

That would leave the Empire State with fewer seats than Florida for the first time ever, the report said.

That seems only fair since many of the people leaving New York are headed to Florida. However, it will be interesting to see if the transplanted New Yorkers bring the same bad ideas to Florida that caused the downfall of New York.

Words Have Consequences

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has played a much larger role in Congress than would ordinarily be warranted by the district she represents. However, even a media darling is capable of getting out over her skis.

Fox News is reporting today that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, after saying that it was time for new Democrat leadership in the House of Representatives, has been passed over for the committee assignment she was hoping for.

The article reports:

The House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee on Thursday voted to seat Rep. Kathleen Rice on a coveted committee over her New York colleague Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the latest example of House Democrats bucking the firebrand who represents the Bronx and Queens.

With five open slots on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., nominated four people and left the fifth spot open for members to choose between the two New Yorkers in a vote, Politico first reported. Fox News confirmed that Rice decisively won the vote 46-13. 

The Energy and Commerce Committee handles some of the most critical legislation in the House, from the environment to health care to nuclear facilities. Its site says that it “has the broadest jurisdiction of any authorizing committee in Congress.”

This is an interesting move by Speaker Pelosi. It indicates that the far left sector of the Democrat party is not going to have the influence they want. The far left stood down as Joe Biden was chosen for the nominee for President and supported him knowing that his Vice-President was one of them. Now they are finding out that at least temporarily they have been put on the back burner. If Kamala Harris becomes President in the next six months, the far left agenda will be back on track, but I am not sure they will be willing to wait. The first few days on the new Congress could be very interesting.

This Should Make Every Small Business Owner In America Furious

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On Friday, Townhall posted an article about some recent comments by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi about the stimulus bill that has been held up in Congress for months.

The article reports:

When asked by CNN reporter Manu Raju if it was a “mistake” to wait months for a concerted effort to pass a clean COVID relief bill, Pelosi got defensive.

“I’m going to tell you something — don’t characterize what we did before as a mistake, as a preface to your question if you want an answer. That was not a mistake, it was a decision, and it’s taken us to a place where we can do the right thing without other, shall we say, considerations in the legislation that we don’t want. Now, that is it. Now the fact is, I’m very proud of where we are,” Pelosi said.

She went on to say the reason why she wants to pass a bill now is because Joe Biden has been declared the winner of the presidential election and a number of vaccines are being produced.

What sort of logic is this? Small business owners have been suffering for months, and she is holding up a bill until after the presidential election!

The good news here is that the Democrats have lost seats in the House in this past election, and hopefully some Democrats will be willing to work with Republicans to craft legislation that could actually pass the Senate. It is time for the Democrats to put away the ideas that their radical base loves and embrace ideas that everyday Americans love. If you want to see a shining example of a bill that will go nowhere in a sane Congress, just look at HR1, the first bill the Pelosi House passed when the Democrats took over the House. The bill sought to federalize elections, make it more difficult to remove voters from voter rolls after their status had changed. The bill would also limit the ability of states to find duplicate voter registrations.

It’s time to work on bi-partisan legislation that will actually be good for the American people.

 

This Is Ridiculous

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The Epoch Times reported  the following yesterday:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) announced a bill to create a “Commission on Presidential Capacity to Discharge the Powers and Duties of Office” that would possibly attempt to invoke the 25th Amendment of the Constitution to enable Congress to “help ensure effective and uninterrupted leadership in the highest office in the Executive Branch of government.”

The article continues:

Earlier on Thursday, Pelosi said Democrats were planning to discuss the 25th Amendment, but she did not elaborate. At the same time, she called on President Donald Trump, who tested positive for the CCP virus, to reveal his latest test results.

“I think that the public needs to know the health condition of the president,” Pelosi said in a news conference. “Before he got the virus and admitted to it, when was his last negative test?”

According to the Constitution, Section 4 of the 25th Amendment allows Congress to come up with a body to declare whether a president is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”

“In emergency situations, Congress could pass a concurrent resolution requiring the Commission to examine the President, determine his/her ability to execute the powers and duties of the office, and report its findings to Congress. If presidential incapacity exists, the Vice President would immediately assume the role of Acting President,” said Raskin’s office in a news release.

It really is time to take the House of Representatives away from the Democrats. They have done nothing for the past four years but try to undo the 2016 election. They keep asking President Trump if he will accept the results of the 2020 election if he loses, but they have never accepted the results of the 2016 election. Their actions are causing harm to America. They are creating division and doing nothing to help Americans deal with the coronavirus. This bill needs to die quickly, and those who sponsor it need to be removed from office in the November election. This is a horrible example of partisan politics that is harmful and divisive to the country.

This Might Explain Why The Bill Has Not Passed

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Yesterday Breitbart posted an article about some of the items found in the bill the House of Representative Democrats are trying to pass that is supposed to help people impacted by the coronavirus. It is time to pass a law that says bills introduced into Congress deal with only one subject per bill, are no more than three pages long, and are written in English that is easily understood. As long as there are lobbyists, that will never happen, but it is a good idea.

The article reports:

The 2,154-page bill says:

During the [healthcare emergency] period described in subsection (e), an alien described in subsection (d) shall be deemed to be in a period of deferred action and authorized for employment for purposes of section 274A of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

…The Democrats’ “emergency supplemental appropriations” bill is titled “The Heroes Act.”

The legislation also allows employers to import many nurses and doctors to work in lower-wage staffing companies, even though many American nurses, doctors, and medical experts have been laid off during the coronavirus crash, even though many Americans are training to become healthcare workers.

Starting on page 2034, the bill offers fast-track green cards to foreign doctors, nurses, and scientists, including many who arrive on temporary H-1B, J-1, or O-1 visas…

The article concludes:

Wages for Americans in healthcare careers would be “totally undermined … That’s clearly what’s intended here,” he  (John Miano, a lawyer with the Immigration Law Reform Institute) said, adding:

The purpose of this is to bypass the American labor market entirely and to turn the American labor market into a third-world labor market .. The people in management level are able to undermine higher wages in the professional class in America.

“What this bill tells you is that Wahington is totally controlled by lobbyists … They rule the roost,” said Miano. “Manipulation of immigration policy is one of the major reasons why we have all increases in wealth flowing to the extremely wealthy in this country.”

This may be the reason that the coronavirus relief package is being held up–it is being used as an excuse to pass laws that otherwise would not get passed. We are seeing ‘never let a crisis go to waste’ in action.

Getting The Job Done–Even When You Have To Do It Alone

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One America News reported yesterday that President Trump has signed four executive orders designed to alleviate some of the economic disruption caused by the coronavirus.

The article reports:

On Saturday, he signed a payroll tax initiative, which will defer payroll tax to those making less than $100,000 a year until the end of 2020.

…The president has renewed supplemental unemployment benefits at $400 a week. This new amount came in just below the previous $600 extra, which Americans were receiving before the enhance benefits expired earlier this month.

…He also provided assistance to renters by imposing a partial moratorium on evictions and suspended mandatory student loan payments through the end of the year.

…The president has expressed he had to step in because Democrats in Congress have not stepped up to the plate.

“Democrats have refused these offers,” said President Trump. “What they really want is bailout money for states that are run by Democrat governors and mayors, which have been run very badly for many, many years.”

This is a stroke of genius. The bill that the House of Representatives put forth included a lot of things that have nothing to do with the coronavirus, and they refused to negotiate on anything less. We don’t need national mail-in voting–we stand in line at the grocery store, at Home Depot, and at WalMart almost every day. We don’t need to bail out badly-run states–they need to clean up their own budgets first (and Washington also needs to do some serious spending reduction).

The Democrats are unhappy. They might take this to court, but if they do, they will be fighting a President who signed an executive order to help Americans while Congress could not come to agreement on doing anything. Even if they won in court, they would lose in the court of public opinion, and the election is less than three months away.

This was a brilliant move on the part of the President.

Isn’t That Special?

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Yesterday Just the News posted an article about the people who attended the funeral of Representative John Lewis.

The article reports:

Washington, D.C. attendees to the Atlanta funeral of the late Rep. John Lewis are exempt from following the District of Columbia’s strict quarantine rules after returning home from Georgia, the D.C. mayor’s office says.

Lewis, a longtime member of Congress and one of the major figures of the American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, died on July 17 after a battle with pancreatic cancer. After lying in state at the United States Capitol, his body was returned to Atlanta for a funeral at that city’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church.

…The extraordinary exemption from Bowser’s quarantine orders is just one example of congressional members being released from strict coronavirus mitigation rules in the District of Columbia. 

Earlier in July, Bowser declared that D.C. residents must wear masks while in public indoor spaces, as well as outdoors when likely to be around other people for “more than a fleeting time.”

Yet exempt from that order were “persons in the judicial or legislative branches of the District government while those persons are on duty,” as well as “any employees of the federal government while they are on duty.”

Though the mayor’s office is not requiring members of Congress to wear face coverings, this week Pelosi instituted a mask mandate for the House of Representatives, shortly after Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) tested positive for COVID-19.

Pelosi threatened to have congressional members and staff removed from the House if they don’t comply with the mandate, calling the failure to wear a mask “a serious breach of decorum.”

Who says there is not a ‘ruling class’ in America?

It gets worse. Scott Johnson at Power Line Blog posted the following today:

The double standards in public health guidelines, left-wing protest, and all the rest might be enough to make a reasonable observer wonder if the plague is all it’s cracked up to be. Has anyone other than Amber Athey gone in for a close-up and asked the obvious questions in connection with the funeral of civil rights hero Rep. John Lewis? Athey asks the pointed question: “Who deserves a funeral?” Answer: Not you or me or our loved ones, that much I can tell you. (Thanks to Spectator USA for making Athey’s column freely accessible at our request.)

Maybe we need to take a closer look at some of the decisions being made ‘to protect our health.’

Congress’ Incredible Ability To Waste Taxpayers’ Money

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Yesterday Just the News posted an article reporting that Congress added $3 million to the legislative branch’s already exorbitant $1.3 trillion annual budget for the failed impeachment of Donald Trump. There are several problems with this expenditure. First of all, we really don’t have $1.3 trillion to spend on a wild goose chase. It was understood from the beginning that the Senate would never impeach President Trump, so what was the purpose of this futile exercise? It was a purely political stunt. Damn the taxpayers, and full speed ahead. Second, anyone paying attention with an IQ of more than 50 understood that the charges against the President were not impeachable offenses. The whole impeachment theater was an exercise in futility.

The article details the spending:

That price tag included the salaries of more than 100 congressional staffers and employees who, for those four months, essentially worked full-time on the impeachment proceedings. It also factors in the hourly fees of the six attorneys who were hired as lawyers of record for witnesses who made appearances during hearings, and acted as impeachment counsel for the House Democratic impeachment managers throughout the trial.

The high cost of the impeachment effort is primarily due to the House’s decision to use congressional staffers to investigate the president for potentially impeachable crimes. For reference, during the impeachment of President Clinton 1998, the majority of the fact-finding was done by Independent Counsel Ken Starr’s staff. For President Nixon’s impeachment inquiry, the bulk of the investigating was handled by special prosecutors Archibald Cox and Leon Jaworski, in addition to a Senate select committee.

The $3 million tally is a conservative estimate, since it does not yet include the impeachment costs run up during the Senate trial in January and February. It also does not factor in overtime pay for Capitol Police, witness travel expenses, or supplies and materials required for the hearings and trial. 

The impeachment inquiry began just weeks after the release of the Mueller Report and conclusion of the two-and-a-half year Russia probe. Adding the impeachment spending to the $32 million spent on the Mueller investigation, the taxpayer has been billed a total of $35 million for the two investigations, neither of which resulted in bipartisan findings of presidential wrongdoing.

Elections have consequences. The impeachment fiasco was the result of turning the House of Representatives over to the Democrats after the Democrat candidates promised they would not spend their time going after President Trump. The impeachment fiasco was something that the more radical elements of the Democrat party demanded, but most American voters did not support. If the Democrats hold the House of Representatives after the November elections and President Trump is reelected, I can guarantee that more taxpayer money will be wasted in Congress on political theater.

A Step In The Right Direction

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By now most Americans have realized that China is not our friend–they have stolen intellectual property for years, the have manipulated their currency to gain trade advantages, and they have gifted the world with the coronavirus. Well, someone in Washington is attempting to take action to prevent further bad behavior.

The Washington Free Beacon reported yesterday that Republican Senator John Kennedy and Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen sponsored a bill in the Senate that could prevent some Chinese companies from listing their shares on U.S. exchanges unless they follow standards for U.S. audits and regulations. The bill passed by unanimous consent. It still has to pass the House of Representatives and be signed by President Trump.

The article reports:

“The Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act” bars securities of any company from being listed on any U.S. securities exchange if it has failed to comply with the U.S. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s audits for three years in a row.

The measure also would require public companies disclose whether they are owned or controlled by a foreign government.

The bill is written to apply to all foreign companies, but it is targeted at China, and follows intense criticism of Beijing by Republican President Donald Trump that has been echoed by Republican and Democratic lawmakers.

Trump and other officials in his administration insist that China mishandled the novel coronavirus during the early weeks of an outbreak that has spread into a global pandemic that has killed more than 320,000 people and cratered global economies.

Beijing denies such allegations.

“There are plenty of markets all over the world open to cheaters, but America can’t afford to be one of them. China is on a glidepath to dominance and is cheating at every turn,” Kennedy said in a statement.

“For too long, Chinese companies have disregarded U.S. reporting standards, misleading our investors,” Van Hollen said.

Let’s hope this bill becomes law.

This Is Really Pathetic

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Yesterday Breitbart reported the following:

House Democrats told the Supreme Court on Monday they need access to secret grand jury materials because they are still investigating President Donald Trump in connection with Russia “collusion” and may want to impeach him, again.

In a legal filing published by CNN, Democrats said that they need the grand jury materials because the House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment inquiry into Trump’s alleged obstruction of justice in the Russia investigation is ongoing.

Unbelievable. The story belongs in the Babylon Bee, but unfortunately it is real. This needs to be added to the list of reasons to end Democrat control of the House of Representatives in November. I can’t believe this is what Democrat voters voted for.  What have the Democrats accomplished in the House of Representatives in the past two years other than harass the President?

The article continues:

The Democrat-run House seeks “disclosure to the House Committee on the Judiciary of a limited set of grand-jury materials for use in the Committee’s ongoing Presidential impeachment investigation,” the Supreme Court filing says.

The saga began in 2019, when Special Counsel Robert Mueller determined that there had been no collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. When he released his report, however, Mueller submitted two volumes — one on the collusion investigation, and one on a separate obstruction of justice investigation. Though he made no recommendation for prosecution, Democrats seized on the latter as providing the basis for potentially impeaching Trump for obstruction.

Democrats also claimed that certain redactions in the report must have hidden relevant information — though they declined to read a less redacted version. They also demanded access to material that Mueller had shown a grand jury. Normally grand jury proceedings are secret, and so Attorney General William Barr, citing federal law, declined the Democrats’ request. They then held him in contempt of Congress, and took their case for the materials to federal court.

The case made its way through the courts, and Democrats won at the D.C. Circuit. The Department of Justice appealed to the Supreme Court on May 7, and Chief Justice Roberts put a temporary hold on the grand jury materials on May 8.

In their court filing, the Democrats complain that further delays in the release of the grand jury materials would make it impossible for them to impeach the president again before Congress’s term ends:

Maybe the Democrats should actually try to accomplish something instead of chasing partisan unicorns.

What’s In The Bill

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Yesterday PJ Media posted an article listing ten of the pet projects included in the House Democrats’ proposed $3 trillion coronavirus bill. I am posting the list here, please follow the link to the article for details:

1. Repealing parts of the Trump tax cuts.

2. Releasing prisoners

3. Delaying a coronavirus public health corps

4. Tying Trump’s hands on inspectors general

5. Student loan forgiveness

6. “Environmental justice grants”

7. Voting by mail for the 2020 election

8. LGBT training

9. Hate crimes act

10. Perverse incentive unemployment checks

This bill is a nightmare for mainstream America. Repealing the limits on tax deductions for state and local taxes helps rich Democrats in New York, California, New Jersey and Connecticut. It brings back the practice of fiscally responsible states underwriting the spending of fiscally irresponsible states. Releasing prisoners also includes an end to cash bail. We see how well that has worked in New York–crime rates have skyrocketed. (see article here). Voting by mail would enable voter fraud at levels not previously seen.

This bill is being introduced for political purposes. The Democrats know that the Republicans cannot support it. In the 2020 election, the talking point will be that the Republicans blocked the Democrats’ efforts to help people deal with the economic impact of the coronavirus.

It’s a shame that the Democrats who control the House of Representatives couldn’t create a bill that would deal with the issues at hand in an apolitical manner. Unfortunately, that is not the way they do things.

 

 

If You Are Going To Investigate Something…

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The Gateway Pundit posted an article today with the following headline, “STUNNING: Pelosi Blocks Investigation of China and Origins of Wuhan Virus — Puts All Resources into Another Hoax Investigation of Donald Trump.” Wow. Who cares about investigating the virus that killed thousands of Americans–let’s just get Trump.

The article reports:

Nancy Pelosi is not interested with finding the origins of the Wuhan virus that is decimating the US economy and has killed 60,000 elderly and sickly Americans.
Instead, Pelosi wants to spend her resources on another hoax investigation of President Donald Trump.

The article includes a quote from Breitbart:

Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA) told Breitbart News this weekend that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would rather investigate President Donald Trump again than focus on the actual origins of the Chinese coronavirus and U.S. tax dollars that went to the Wuhan Institute of Virology from which intelligence officials increasingly believe the virus leaked.

Appearing on Breitbart News Saturday on SiriusXM 125 the Patriot Channel, Reschenthaler discussed his efforts to investigate tax dollars that flowed through a New York firm to the Wuhan lab. He said that Pelosi and House Democrats are not interested in holding the Chinese Communist Party accountable and, instead, want to focus their oversight efforts on politically harming President Trump again just like they tried and failed with the partisan impeachment last year and earlier this year.

Breitbart reports:

“We should have an investigative body looking at these grants, but Nancy Pelosi is not going to do that,” Reschenthaler said. “So you have myself and House Republicans. I can tell you I’m going to continue to look into these grants. I’m going to continue to look into the Department of Homeland Security as well to see what grants are going from there to China. I’m also looking at defunding the World Health Organization and we can talk about that as well. But the bottom line of the Democrats’ behavior is this: They hate this president so badly that they would rather side with the Chinese Communist Party than defend Americans and defend our spending and spend wisely and just be honest. That is their hatred for President Trump and disdain for President Trump’s supporters.”

The Breitbart article also lists a number of grants from American sources that flowed to the Wuhan laboratory.

Just for the record, I do not believe that the virus was leaked intentionally. I believe it was leaked due to sloppy laboratory practices. When the Chinese realized how devastating the virus would be, they chose to share the devastation they were about to suffer with the world. I honestly believe that China remained silent because they did not want their country to be the only country in the world to be devastated by the virus.

Every Now And Then The Truth Slips Out

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Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse posted an article that brings up a very interesting question.

The question is found in a tweet from Kentucky representative Thomas Massie. Here is the tweet:

That is a really good question. The article then provides an insightful answer. The article is very complex, so I suggest you follow the link to read the entire article. However, I will post some excerpts here.

The article notes:

Most people think when they vote for a federal politician -a House or Senate representative- they are voting for a person who will go to Washington DC and write or enact legislation. This is the old-fashioned “schoolhouse rock” perspective based on decades past. There is not a single person in congress writing legislation or laws.

In modern politics not a single member of the House of Representatives or Senator writes a law, or puts pen to paper to write out a legislative construct. This simply doesn’t happen.

Over the past several decades a system of constructing legislation has taken over Washington DC that more resembles a business operation than a legislative body. Here’s how it works right now.

The article explains that elected representatives are no longer writing bills:

Outside groups, often called “special interest groups”, are entities that represent their interests in legislative constructs. These groups are often representing foreign governments, Wall Street multinational corporations, banks, financial groups or businesses; or smaller groups of people with a similar connection who come together and form a larger group under an umbrella of interest specific to their affiliation.

Sometimes the groups are social interest groups; activists, climate groups, environmental interests etc. The social interest groups are usually non-profit constructs who depend on the expenditures of government to sustain their cause or need.

The for-profit groups (mostly business) have a purpose in Washington DC to shape policy, legislation and laws favorable to their interests. They have fully staffed offices just like any business would – only their ‘business‘ is getting legislation for their unique interests.

These groups are filled with highly-paid lawyers who represent the interests of the entity and actually write laws and legislation briefs.

In the modern era this is actually the origination of the laws that we eventually see passed by congress. Within the walls of these buildings within Washington DC is where the ‘sausage’ is actually made.

Again, no elected official is usually part of this law origination process.

The article explains how the election of President Trump temporarily flummoxed the system:

President Donald Trump winning the election threw a monkey wrench into the entire DC system…. In early 2017 the modern legislative machine was frozen in place.

The “America First” policies represented by candidate Donald Trump were not within the legislative constructs coming from the K-Street authors of the legislation. There were no MAGA lobbyists waiting on Trump ideology to advance legislation based on America First objectives.

As a result of an empty feeder system, in early 2017 congress had no bills to advance because all of the myriad of bills and briefs written were not in line with President Trump policy. There was simply no entity within DC writing legislation that was in-line with President Trump’s America-First’ economic and foreign policy agenda.

Exactly the opposite was true. All of the DC legislative briefs and constructs were/are antithetical to Trump policy. There were hundreds of file boxes filled with thousands of legislative constructs that became worthless when Donald Trump won the election.

Those legislative constructs (briefs) representing tens of millions of dollars worth of time and influence were just sitting there piled up in boxes under desks and in closets amid K-Street and the congressional offices. Legislation needed to be in-line with an entire new political perspective, and there was no-one, no special interest or lobbying group, currently occupying DC office space with any interest in synergy with Trump policy.

Think about the larger ramifications within that truism. That is also why there was/is so much opposition.

No legislation provided by outside interests means no work for lobbyists who sell it. No work means no money. No money means no expense accounts. No expenses means politicians paying for their own indulgences etc.

This is a system that needs to be permanently broken.

One Reason Transparency About The Russia Investigation Is Taking So Long

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Yesterday John Solomon posted an article at Just The News about some behind-the-scenes maneuvering by Adam Schiff that made it difficult to get the truth out about the investigation into President Trump and any connections he might have had with Russia.

The article reports:

Shortly after Schiff took over from Republican Rep. Devin Nunes as chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) in 2019, he sent a letter to the office of then-Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats.

The letter obtained by Just the News specifically ordered that the witness transcripts — some of which contained exculpatory evidence for President Trump’s team — not be shared with Trump or White House lawyers even if the declassification process required such sharing.

“Under no circumstances shall ODNI, or any other element of the Intelligence Community (IC), share any HPSCI transcripts with the White House, President Trump or any persons associated with the White House or the President,” Schiff wrote in a March 26, 2019 letter to then-Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats.

“Such transcripts remain the sole property of HPSCI, and were transmitted to ODNI for the limited purpose of enabling a classification review by IC elements and the Department of Justice,” Schiff added.

U.S. intelligence officials said Schiff’s request made it impossible for them to declassify 10 of the transcripts, mostly of current and former White House and National Security Council witnesses, because White House lawyers would have had to review them for what is known as “White House equities” and presidential privileges.

But 43 of the transcripts were declassified and cleared for public release and given to Schiff’s team, but they have never been made public despite the committee’s vote to do so, officials said.

One senior official said the 43 transcripts were provided to Schiff’s team some time ago, and the 10 remain in limbo. Asked how long House Intelligence Democrats have had the declassified transcripts, the official said: “You’ll have to ask Mr. Schiff.”

A spokesman for Schiff and House Intelligence Committee Democrats did not return an email Monday seeking comment.

The article concludes:

Newly declassified footnotes from the Horowitz report released last week show the FBI’s key informant in the case, the former British spy Christopher Steele, may have been the victim of Russian disinformation. More declassified evidence from that probe is expected to be released later this week.

In the meantime, Republicans who led the House Intelligence Committee probe in 2018 when the witnesses were interviewed are trying to learn what came of the transcripts.

Schiff’s letter to Coats suggests that at the time the new Democratic chairman was still interested in releasing the transcripts.

“I hope our staff can reach agreement soon on a schedule for returning the transcripts to the Committee for ultimate public release,” he wrote.

Nearly 13 months since the letter, that release has not happened.

Elections have consequences. The consequences of turning the House of Representatives over to the Democrats was three years of wasted money on an investigation that many of the Democrats knew was unwarranted from the beginning. Because the Democrats were so focused on getting President Trump, they overlooked the looming problem of the coronavirus and were not prepared to deal with it. In fact when President Trump closed our borders to China, the Democrats criticized him for it. We may find out in the coming months why the Democrats were so intent on removing President Trump. As more information comes out about the surveillance of the Trump campaign and Trump presidency, it is becoming more obvious that laws were broken. The goal may have been to take out President Trump before that was discovered.

Leadership?

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Ed Morrissey posted an article at Hot Air today about a recent statement by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

The article reports:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi signaled Thursday that the House is unlikely to return to session later this month, her clearest indication yet that Congress — like the rest of the country — could remain shuttered for weeks or even longer as the coronavirus crisis continues.

In a half-hour interview, Pelosi issued a stark warning to President Donald Trump, urging him not to prematurely rush to reopen major segments of the country before the coronavirus is under control, which she said could further send the U.S. economy into a tailspin.

“Nobody can really tell you that and I would never venture a guess. I certainly don’t think we should do it sooner than we should,” Pelosi said when asked if she still planned to bring the House back on April 20, which is the current target date.

“This has taken an acceleration from when we started this…Little did we know then that at this point, we’d be further confined.”

It would be nice if the House of Representatives convened to see if they could do anything to help Americans weather the crisis. On the other hand, considering how partisan and ineffective the House of Representatives is, we might actually be better off with them staying home.

The article concludes:

Congress, to put it mildly, is an essential business in constitutional governance. In a national emergency, they need to show up and do their damned jobs. Doctors, nurses, the armed forces, the National Guard, police, paramedics, firefighters, and even grocery-store workers and restaurateurs are showing up to their jobs in this national emergency. Shouldn’t we expect the same or more from our elected officials?

Pelosi and McConnell need to get their members back to Washington now. If those don’t want to do those jobs any more, then they should resign and be replaced by people who are more willing to lead in times of crisis. And if Pelosi and McConnell are reluctant to do that, even just to settle how to operate remotely in a national emergency, then Trump should start demanding it publicly — every day, in his coronavirus briefings — by asking, “Where’s Congress?”

Addendum: Not that I’d expect the media to adopt this policy, but they shouldn’t give any political oxygen to members of Congress who aren’t leading in a national crisis…

Why are we paying Congress right now while Americans are missing paychecks?

When Personal Interests Overrule Good Legislation

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Yesterday The Gateway Pundit reported that two House of Representatives Democrats have proposed lifting tariffs on imported Chinese goods. The two Democrats are Florida Congresswoman Stephanie Murphy and Democrat Joe Cunningham of South Carolina. Oddly enough, Representative Murphy’s husband manufactures sportswear in Chinese factories. She also owns a patent on one of the products manufactured by her husband. What an amazing coincidence.

The article reports:

Murphy and Cunningham’s plan does not provide any insight or plans on how they would make sure said imports, which include everything from food to construction supplies, would be properly tested to make sure they are not carrying the Wuhan Virus. Furthermore, the individuals involved in loading, shipping, and unloading said imports have no requirements to be tested by American officials to determine if they are also carrying the Wuhan Virus. To say that this is reckless would be an understatement.

…Jamison Johnson, who is a graduate of the The Citadel in South Carolina, also served three tours of duty as a marine in the Middle East. He is running for the GOP nomination in South Carolina’s 1st District to take on incumbent Congressman Joe Cunningham, the co-sponsor of Murphy’s pro-China legislation.

“The Wuhan Virus came from China. If they would’ve been open and honest with us from the beginning, far less people would’ve gotten sick and far less people would have died. As a marine with three combat tours, I understand all too well how to deal with bullies like China. You have to show resolve and not back down,  just like how President Trump is remaining firm and steadfast in handling them. At the end of the day, it is quite clear that “Smoking Joe Cunningham” simply lacks the moral compass or courage to unite and lead us in any capacity,” Johnson told TGP in an exclusive statement Wednesday afternoon.

It is unclear how much support this effort has, but Murphy and Cunningham are pushing to have this placed in the Coronavirus aid package being considered and developed by President Trump. This is a breaking news story and we will update you as more happens.

I suspect that the obvious conflict of interest Congresswomen Murphy has between the interests of her husband’s business and the well being of America is only one example of something that is rampant in Washington. It is time to look at the business interests of both our Congressmen and their spouses. Some of their business interests may be in conflict with the interests of America. When that is the case, they need to be removed from office.

When Common Sense Takes A Vacation

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Yesterday Frontpage Magazine posted an article about a recent vote in the House of Representatives.

The article reports:

As old Joe Biden would say, Look, Fat, look, here’s the deal: I’ve been warning for years that it would sooner or later become “Islamophobic” to offer even the mildest opposition to jihad violence, and that the “Islamophobia” mongers would become increasingly open about their support for jihad terrorists, and here we are. On Thursday, 174 Democrats in the House of Representatives voted against an amendment to the Rights for Transportation Security Officers Act that would prevent the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) from hiring convicted terrorists.

Yes, you read that right: if these House Democrats had gotten their way, on your next flight, you could have gotten a pat-down from a TSA agent who previously conspired to down the airplane you were planning to fly on. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) explained that the amendment “was pulled back by leadership because the socialist wing of the party did not want to have that amendment go forward on this bill. When it was offered, overwhelmingly the majority of the House would like to see the TSA not hire terrorists or those who have been convicted of sexual misconduct with minors and others. But the socialist wing of the party, that controls now the Democratic Party, said that that could not be offered.”

Are their memories so short that they do not remember an article in the Tampa Bay Times on September 19, 2019, which reported:

An American Airlines mechanic accused of sabotaging a navigation system on a flight with 150 people aboard at Miami International Airport was denied bond by a federal judge Wednesday after prosecutors suggested he may have links to a Middle East terrorist organization.

…Prosecutors also said Alani allowed the FBI to search his smart phone and agents found a “disturbing” Islamic State video in which a person was being shot in the head, and that he sent the video to someone with an Arabic message asking “Allah” to take revenge against non-Muslims. In addition, they said Alani sent $700 to someone in Iraq, where he was born and has family.

The article at Frontpage Magazine concludes:

The outcome of years of this propaganda pounded into the American people without any respite or pause, while establishment Republicans jumped on the bandwagon and echoed the same rhetoric, was inevitable: now even an agency that was established in order to protect Americans from jihad terrorists must, in the view of a majority of House Democrats, hire the very people it was created to stop in order to avoid falling into the “racism” that the miseducated hordes who vote Democrat see behind almost everything. It has been clear where all this has been tending for years. Now it is even clearer.

Will these outrageously anti-American Democrats be voted out of office in November? No, that would require a thoughtful Democratic voter base and a responsible establishment media. Unfortunately, those ships have long since sailed.

Are we willing to put Americans at risk in the name of political correctness?

Further Proof That The Russians Did Not Hack The DNC’s Computers

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Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article with the following headline, “BREAKING EXCLUSIVE: Joe Biden’s Former IT Director, Warren Flood, Implicated in ‘Russia Hacked the DNC Email’ Narrative.” Periodically I post an article that I do not technically understand. This is one of those articles, so if you are a computer person, please forgive my feeble attempts at explaining this.

The article reports:

On June 16, 2019, we presented arguments against the Mueller gang’s assertion that the DNC was hacked by Russians. Cyber expert Yaacov Apelbaum posted an incredible report with information basically proving that the DNC was not hacked by the Russians.

Today we have support implicating an IT Direct0r, Warren Flood, connected to Joe Biden.  Flood is linked to the ‘Russia hacked the DNC hoax’.

Last year we reported a series of arguments proving that there is no proof that Russians hacked the DNC. These arguments came from cyber expert Yaacov Apelbaum whose first argument was this –

According to the WaPo (using CrowdStrike, DOJ, and their other usual hush-hush government sources in the know), the attack was perpetrated by a Russian unit lead by Lieutenant Captain Nikolay Kozachek who allegedly crafted a malware called X-Agent and used it to get into the network and install keystroke loggers on several PCs. This allowed them to see what the employees were typing and take screenshots of the employees’ computer.

This is pretty detailed information, but if this was the case, then how did the DOJ learn all of these ‘details’ and use them in the indictments without the FBI ever forensically evaluating the DNC/HRC computers? And since when does the DOJ, an organization that only speaks the language of indictments use hearsay and 3rd parties like the British national Matt Tait (a former GCHQ collector and a connoisseur of all things related to Russian collusion), CrowdStrike, or any other evidence lacking chain of custody certification as a primary source for prosecution?

A second point by Apelbaum was –

… that three of the Russian GRU officers on the DOJ wanted list were allegedly working concurrently on multiple non-related projects like interfering with the 2016 United States elections (both HRC and DNC) while at the same time they were also allegedly hacking anti-doping agencies.

Those are the basic questions that need to be asked, but there is more.

There is the issue of the speed of the transfer of information:

Esteemed NSA whistleblower Bill Binney reported in June 2019 that there was no way Russians hacked the DNC based on the speed of the transfer of the data that was hacked. But according to Apelbaum the transfer speeds is a minor issue here. It’s just an indicator that it would have been difficult for Guccifer 2 who was sitting in Romania to access the DNC system remotely.

The article contains a screenshot that also raises suspicions about what really happened along with further information about the hack:

But of course the Mueller gang never interviewed WikiLeaks in an effort to determine how they received the Clinton emails. Of course the Mueller team could not risk WikiLeaks saying the emails were not received from Russia which would destroy their Russia hacked the DNC fairy tale.

Today we identify Warren Flood, a Biden protege who appears to have helped create the ‘Russia Hacked the DNC’ narrative:

Apelbaum obtained a parts of the Word and PDF versions of the purported DNC Opposition research document showing the original English template and the pasted version into a Russian template and resulting subsequent broken hyperlink error messages in Russian

The article then explains the significance of the screenshot:

In the image above, on the left it shows the Word doc properties of the document created at 1:38 PM on June 15, 2016. The Company name is given as GSA. This appears to be the General Services Administration (US gov agency), which shows as the Company for MS Office documents created via GSA-contracted copies of MS Word.

(Note that the DNC server wasn’t supposed to be using a GSA-contracted MS Office suite. A number of Democratic politicians and aides (e.g,, many members of the US House of Representatives) had DNC email accounts, but the DNC is a private entity and should not have hosted GSA-contracted software.)

The supposed author of this document is Warren Flood as is noted at the bottom left of the diagram above.  He was Vice President Joe Biden’s IT Director at the White House (which does use GSA registered software).

The article concludes:

Based on the document metadata there is little doubt that either Warren Flood (who BTW, speaks Russian), or someone using his GSA licensed MS Word software created the Russian fingerprint. Also, it’s important to note that several other documents also show this type of manipulation, but they were created by users named “Blake” and “jbs836”.

In terms of the big picture, it is possible that whoever added the Russian fingerprint did this as part of laying the ground work or for future unmasking. We know that in June 2016 the Obama administration (via people like Susan Rice, John Brennan, and Samantha Power) started unmasking Trump campaign officials on the pretext of ‘Russian interference’.  This June 2016 activity overlaps with dates of the Guccifer 2.0 saga.

So, it is possible that Guccifer 2.0 and MSM outlets like the NYTimes who promoted him were part of a larger campaign to affirm Russian interference with the DNC hacks.

If this is indeed the case, then it means that the DNC email leak could implicate Obama administration officials who were doing all this document manipulation on government time and on GSA registered computers all in an effort to tie Russia to the DNC email heist.

Based on information available today, there is no way Russians hacked the DNC. This was made up from the start.  Now we know that the Obama White House, and specifically Warren Flood, is involved in the Russian hoax.

Hopefully. someone in the Inspector General’s office is honest enough and smart enough to investigate this.

The Law Of Unintended Consequences At Work

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Evidently the coronavirus has been around since December. China kept quiet about it, and when it spread to Iran in January, Iran kept quiet about it. One of the ‘advantages’ of a totalitarian regime is the ability to keep the public from knowing about a pending epidemic. Well, there seem to be some consequences of the fact that China and Iran chose to remain silent about the problem. As of now, Iran has the highest number of deaths outside of China.

The Gateway Pundit is reporting today that after the death of Commander Soleimani,  Democrat Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, met with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif in a secret meeting in Munich. The meeting was in February.

The article includes a quote from the Israel National News:

This year’s Munich Security Conference may go down in history as the COVID-19 viral super-spreader “event of the century,” if not in all of recorded history. That’s because the Munich 2020 event took place from February Friday 14-Sunday 16, and Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif attended.

Unknown to apparently all the high security-minded attendees, FM Zarif was likely carrying much more than the dark secret that the COVID-19 virus had already begun rampaging through the highest echelons of the Iranian government and society. FM Zarif , or one of his minions, was likely carrying the actual COVID-19, and infected who knows how many of the world’s highest and most influential politicians at the Munich event.

In fact, US Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat from Connecticut, not only met FM Zarif, but met him in Zarif’s hotel suite where there was likely a rat’s nest of COVID-19. Unless drastic steps are taken, Sen. Murphy may become the Typhoid Mary of COVID-19, and infect the entire US Senate and House of Representatives.

As of February 28, 2020 there were officially 210 actual deaths in Iran. Unofficially, there have been over 500 reliably reported Iranian deaths. But, what is very unusual about the Iranian deaths is that a large number of extremely high ranking government officials in Tehran, the capital, have actually caught the disease and have died. The officially “First reported” Iranian case was on February 19. Working backward from the 19th, that means COVID-19 was likely already circulating in Iran from middle-to-late January when FM Zarif, or one of his staff, could have caught the disease.

I don’t wish anyone ill, but it seems like violating the Logan Act might be the least of Chris Murphy’s problems.