Tag Archives: Mark Warner

Have The Republicans Learned To Play Hardball?

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On Thursday, The Epoch Times posted an article about the oversight efforts of the Republicans in the House of Representatives. The Republicans are getting very little help from the Justice Department in their investigations. In fact, you might even say that they are being stonewalled.

The article reports:

Anger and frustration were the feelings expressed by bipartisan members of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Jan. 25 over a lack of access to the classified documents found in the homes of President Joe Biden, former President Trump, and former Vice President Mike Pence.

Speaking with reporters at the Capitol after a classified briefing with National Intelligence Director Avril Haines, Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Vice Chairman Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) asserted that the Biden administration had been blocking their oversight efforts.

“It is our responsibility to make sure that we, in the role of the intelligence oversight, know if there’s been any intelligence compromised,” Warner noted.

Members of Congress have sought access to the materials—or at least a risk assessment detailing the information they contained—since the discovery of documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida last summer. But they say the administration has objected, arguing they can’t provide that access as two special counsels at the Justice Department (DOJ) are investigating Trump and Biden’s mishandlings of the documents.

Rubio, however, said the administration’s position was “untenable,” noting, “The information we’re asking for has no bearing whatsoever or would interfere in no way with a criminal investigation.”

It also defies precedent, the senators argued, as during the DOJ’s Russia investigation, committees were given access to the classified materials that were part of then-special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe.

Warner, noting that there was broad agreement among the committee members on the matter, added, “Literally every member of the committee, without exception, said this won’t stand.”

On Friday, Townhall reported:

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said he and other Republicans will block presidential nominees until members of the Intelligence Committee are shown the classified material found at former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence as well as President Biden’s home and office.

Please follow the links and read both articles for further details. The thing to be aware of is that the desire to see the documents is bi-partisan. I believe that we are looking at Democrats wanting to prevent President Biden from running in 2024. If you watch carefully, you will see leading Democrats quietly removing their support of the President as the major media begins to report his scandals and missteps.

 

Questioning Everyone Except The Person You Need To Question

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Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse posted an article about some interesting information within the Senate Select Intelligence Committee (SSCI) Russia Report Volume-5 that a Twitter user discovered. The tweet explains how some of the major players in the RussiaGate scandal were able to avoid questioning.

This is a screenshot of the pertinent part of the Report:

The article reports:

Dan Jones left the SSCI prior to the 2016 election and went to work pushing the Trump-Russia narrative through his media contacts.  Jones took over funding Fusion-GPS and Chris Steele in 2017 at the same time Senator Mark Warner took over as SSCI vice-chairman. Dan Jones and Mark Warner coordinated the efforts outside and inside government on the same objective.  The Senate Intel Committee was part of the effort.

As a result of their alignment and common purpose the SSCI didn’t investigate the origin of the Trump-Russia narrative; and instead positioned themselves as a shield to block any investigative inquiry into what took place.  THIS IS A BIG DEAL !

The attempt to remove President Trump from office encompassed all three branches of the U.S. government.

    • Executive Branch – FBI, DOJ, CIA, State Dept., and Special Counsel Office.
    • Legislative Branch –  SSCI in 2017 and 2018 with an assist from House Intelligence Committee and House Judiciary in 2019 and 2020.
    • Judicial Branch – FISA Court 2015, 2016, 2017; Federal Judges (Sullivan, Walton, Howell, Berman-Jackson) in alignment with DC intents in 2018, 2019 and 2020.

How does the office of the United States president; and more importantly a constitutional republic itself; survive a coordinated coup effort that involves all three branches of government; while simultaneously those in charge of exposing the corruption fear the scale of the effort is too damaging for the U.S. government to reveal?

The article also reports:

Senator Dianne Feinstein was vice-chair of the SSCI in 2016.  Feinstein’s former chief of staff was Dan Jones.

The post-election plan to protect the intel community would involve using the SSCI institution to cover for prior Obama-era operations. Senator Feinstein was not a good fit for that role, so Feinstein abdicated her position in advance of the next congress in 2017.

In January 2017 Senator Mark Warner took over as SSCI vice-chair after Dan Jones left the SSCI to continue efforts as a freelance operative.   Warner was put into place to carry out the strategic objectives needed to protect the DOJ, NSD, CIA, FBI and ODNI operations against Donald Trump who was now the incoming president-elect.

Keep in mind with control of the SSCI the group inside the legislative branch could control who ran what intelligence agency because they held the power of confirmation; and they could control who would rise to be inspector general within the intelligence community, a position needed if a whistle-blower was to surface.  The SSCI would only allow Michael Atkinson to act as ICIG – That’s because Atkinson was part of the 2015/2016 crew.

Please follow the link above to read the rest of the article. It is chilling that there was a coup going on for years and no one has yet been held accountable for it.

Telling The Truth

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Rick Grenell definitely left his mark as acting Director of National Intelligence. Things that should never have been classified were unclassified so that the American people could see for themselves what their government had been up to. Hopefully, John Ratcliffe, who replaced Ambassador Grenell, will be as equally concerned about unnecessary government secrecy.

Ambassador Grenell was interviewed on Tucker Carlson Tonight last night. Fox News posted an article about the interview late last night. The article includes a video of the interview. Please follow the link to view the interview. It is telling.

The article reports:

Former acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell told “Tucker Carlson Tonight” Monday that his time in the Trump administration has shown him that the great political struggle is no longer between Republicans and Democrats, but between the District of Columbia and the rest of the U.S.

The article includes a screenshot of something Ambassador Grenell tweeted:

The article continues:

“The fact of the matter is,” Grenell said, “we have a real problem in Washington, D.C., because it’s a system that it no longer is Republicans and Democrats pushing against each other to create good policy. It’s a fight between Washington and the rest of America.”

“What we have [is] a system in Washington where people get jobs if you’re there, if you know someone and you work your way up, and it’s like musical chairs from one agency to another,” Grenell added. “There is no outside thought, there’s no outside perspective.”

Grenell, who also spent two years as U.S. ambassador to Germany, characterized Trump as a great disruptor of this insular system.

“He’s breaking their system,” he said. “He doesn’t play by the rules.

The article concludes:

“I saw that at ODNI,” Grenell added. “I saw that by entering the intelligence world, and senators from the Democratic Party saying, ‘You have no experience, what are you doing — why should you be there?””

Grenell specifically called out Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, by noting that Grenell had received his first intelligence briefing back in 2001, before Warner was elected to public office.

“He said that I wasn’t qualified,” Grennell said of Warner. “I actually am a receiver of intelligence, and [I’m] an expert on the consumer part of the intelligence and how to utilize it, but that perspective is never brought to Washington.”

Change is hard–particularly if that change means you are losing control of something you have controlled for a very long time. That is the current battle in Washington. Does the bureaucracy want to represent the American people or do they want to represent only their own interests?

 

On His Way Out The Door…

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Ambassador Rick Grenell did a wonderful job as Acting Director of National Intelligence. He showed himself to be a true patriot in revealing to the American public the misuse of the intelligence apparatus by the previous administration. Sara Carter posted an article yesterday about something he has done that will help further the cause of transparency.

The article reports:

Outgoing Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell slammed Sen. Mark Warner Tuesday saying his request last week to declassify and publicly release the underlying intelligence reports in which Obama officials “unmasked” the identity of former national security advisor Michael Flynn would jeopardize sources and methods.

Grenell also criticized Warner’s alleged political move as ‘cherry picking’ documents for political purposes at the expense of national security. Warner is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee and spoke out against Grenell’s declassification of the senior Obama officials that requested Flynn’s private conversations and unmasking of his name.

“I find it puzzling that your letter initially complains about the declassification of the identities of unmaskers, a declassification that posed no conceivable risks to sources or methods, only to then request the declassification of actual intelligence reports,” said Grenell. “Cherry picking certain documents for release, while attacking the release of others that don’t fit your political narrative, is part of the problem the American people have with Washington DC politicians. I would appreciate it if you would explain your philosophy on transparency as it appears to be based solely on political advantage.”

Grenell had declassified the names of 16 former senior Obama officials involved in requesting Flynn’s private communications 48 times, according to the declassified documents provided by the DNI. Grenell only declassified the requests made between Nov. 30, 2016 and Jan. 12, 2017, according to the documents. The most controversial request was the phone calls between Flynn and former Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, who spoke on Dec. 29, 2016. The contents of that classified phone conversation, which was wiretapped by the FBI, would later be leaked to The Washington Post columnist David Ignatius in January.

Despite Warner’s concerns mentioned in his letter last week, the declassification of the Obama officials’ names did not violate any sources or methods, stated intelligence officials.

Please follow the link to the article for further details.

I would like to point out the contrast between what Mark Warner and Adam Schiff have been doing regarding classified information and what Ambassador Grenell has done. Mark Warner and Adam Schiff have been selectively leaking tidbits to their allies in the press for the purpose of making President Trump look bad. Ambassador Grenell is declassifying information to inform the American public about what has actually been going on. Representative Schiff and Senator Warner need to be held accountable for their leaking. If they are not held accountable, we will see more of the same.

Bias Is As Much About What Isn’t Reported As How News Is Slanted

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Newsbusters posted an article yesterday about the report that the Senate Intelligence Committee has found no material evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. You might think that after two years and millions of dollars spent on an investigation, that might be news. You might think that, but evidently the major news media disagrees with you.

The article reports:

It’s been two days since NBC’s exclusive reporting that the Senate Intelligence Committee has found no material evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, and as of yet none of the three major broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) have given it even a single second of coverage in their evening newscasts. Considering these networks have given the Russia probe a massive 2,202 minutes of airtime, their silence on this major development is deafening. 

MRC analysts examining all coverage on ABC’s World News Tonight, the CBS Evening News, and the NBC Nightly News found that those 2,202 minutes spent on the Russia investigation accounted for nearly 19 percent of all Trump-related reporting between January 21, 2017 and February 10, 2019. However none of those three shows have even mentioned the investigation since NBC’s report came out on February 12.

The situation has been much the same on those networks’ flagship morning shows. Neither CBS This Morning nor NBC’s Today have even acknowledged this new information from Senate investigators since the news broke on February 12. ABC’s Good Morning America briefly touched on it in a news brief totaling less than one minute on February 13. 

In that segment, ABC’s Mary Bruce focused only on the public disagreement between Republican Chairman Richard Burr and Democratic Ranking Member Mark Warner. She failed to acknowledge NBC’s reporting that other Democrats on the Committee had agreed with Burr’s finding that thus far, they had found no direct evidence of collusion.

The article concludes:

Over the past two years, broadcast evening news shows have spent more than 36 hours haranguing viewers about potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Given their keen interest in the subject, you might expect a bipartisan group of investigators finding “no material evidence” of collusion to be newsworthy. But evidently, you’d be wrong.

And there are still some people who wonder why most Americans do not trust the mainstream media.

The Truth Is Slowly Coming Out

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The Conservative Treehouse posted an article today about Russian involvement in the 2016 election. I strongly suggest that you follow the link and read the entire article–it is complicated. I will try to provide a few highlights here. The name to watch is Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire. Mr. Deripaska had been banned from entering the U.S. by the State Department. Christopher Steele was asking Bruce Ohr to allow Mr. Deripaska to enter the U.S. The discussion was taking place in emails from February to May (ish) of 2016 (during the time that President Trump won the Republican nomination for President).

The article reports:

In essence, Christopher Steele was interested in getting Oleg Deripaska a new VISA to enter the U.S.  Steele was very persistent on this endeavor and was soliciting Bruce Ohr for any assistance.  This also sets up a quid-pro-quo probability where the DOJ/FBI agrees to remove travel restrictions on Deripaska in exchange for cooperation on ‘other matters’.

Now we skip ahead a little bit to where Deripaska gained an entry visa, and one of Oleg Deripaska’s lawyers and lobbyists Adam Waldman was representing his interests in the U.S. to politicians and officials.  In May of 2018, John Solomon was contacted by Adam Waldman with a story about how the FBI contacted Deripaska for help in their Trump Russia investigation in September of 2016.

Keep in mind, this is Waldman contacting Solomon with a story.

The article continues, naming some of the players:

Again, as you read the recap, remember this is Waldman contacting Solomon.  Article Link Here – and my summary below:

♦In 2009 the FBI, then headed by Robert Mueller, requested the assistance of Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska in an operation to retrieve former FBI officer and CIA resource Robert Levinson who was captured in Iran two years earlier.  The agent assigned to engage Deripaska was Andrew McCabe; the primary FBI need was financing and operational support.  Deripaska spent around $25 million and would have succeeded except the U.S. State Department, then headed by Hillary Clinton, backed out.

♦In September of 2016 Andrew McCabe is now Deputy Director of the FBI, when two FBI agents approached Deripaska in New York – again asking for his help.  This time the FBI request was for Deripaska to outline Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort as a tool of the Kremlin.  Deripaska once hired Manafort as a political adviser and invested money with him in a business venture that went bad. Deripaska sued Manafort, alleging he stole money. However, according to the article, despite Deripaska’s disposition toward Manafort he viewed the request as absurd.  He laughed the FBI away, telling them: “You are trying to create something out of nothing.”

The article includes some very telling emails between Adam Waldman and Senator Mark Warner (Senate Intelligence Committee Vice-Chairman). Waldman was the liaison Senator Mark Warner (Senate Intelligence Committee Vice-Chairman) was using to try and set up a secret meeting with Christopher Steele.

The article continues:

Now, think about this….  Yes, with Oleg Deripaska in the picture there was indeed Russian meddling in the 2016 election; only, it wasn’t the type of meddling currently being sold.  The FBI/DOJ were using Russian Deripaska to frame their Russian conspiracy narrative. It is almost a certainty that Deripaska was one of Chris Steeles sources for the dossier.

Now, put yourself in Deripaska’s shoes and think about what happens AFTER candidate Donald Trump surprisingly wins the election.

All of a sudden Deripaska the asset becomes a risk to the corrupt Scheme Team (DOJ/FBI et al); especially as the DOJ/FBI then execute the “insurance policy” effort against Donald Trump…. and eventually enlist Robert Mueller.

It is entirely possible for a Russian to be blackmailing someone, but it ain’t Trump vulnerable to blackmail; it’s the conspiracy crew within the DOJ and FBI.  Deripaska now has blackmail material on Comey, McCabe and crew.

After the 2017 (first year) failure of the “insurance policy” it now seems more likely President Trump will outlive the soft coup.  In May 2018, Oleg tells Waldman to call John Solomon and tell him the story from a perspective favorable to Deripaska.

The article explains how this conspiracy works:

The Russians, notorious for sewing discord, are being used as a shield from sunlight upon actions taken by U.S. own intelligence officers: James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Loretta Lynch, Sally Yates, John Brennan, James Clapper etc.

There’s a reason why I keep emphasizing the source of the John Solomon story was Adam Waldman. Think about it from the perspective of the conspiracy group reading how Oleg instructed Waldman to present his story.

With Deripaska telling Solomon how the FBI contacted him; the background of their prior collaborative relationship; and the likelihood of Deripaska giving information to Chris Steele for the dossier; the scheme team really, really, needed to double down on the Russian conspiracy narrative in case Oleg ever did testify to congress.

By doubling down on the Russian Collusion narrative the conspirators created a ‘catch-22’ defense. They could/can claim Deripaska was/is giving disinformation in his version of events to support the interests of Russia and sewing chaos in America etc. And any Republican who would give Deripaska a platform to tell what happened in 2016 would be doing the bidding of Vladimir Putin. See how that works?

The soft coup team protects themselves by impugning the motive of Deripaska, and diminishing his credibility under the auspices of Russian disinformation.

Wow. Just wow. Get out the popcorn. Is anyone taking bets as to whether Deripaska will ever appear before the House or Senate committees involved in this mess?

There Is A Reason The House Of Representatives Has Had To Do All Of The Work On The Illegal Surveillance Of The Trump Campaign And Transition Team

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Have you wondered why all the information and investigation of the illegal surveillance of the Trump campaign and transition team has come out of the House of Representatives rather than out of the Senate? Well, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has the reputation for being one of the leakiest, most politicized, and most corrupt committees in Washington. The current chairman of the committee is Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina; the current vice-chairman is Senator Mark Warner of Virginia. Both are seriously entrenched creatures of the Washington swamp. That fact explains the following report.

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted the following:

Chairman of the Senate Intel Committee Richard Burr (R-NC) said on Tuesday there were “sound reasons” why the judges issued FISA warrants on Carter Page.

The newly released Carter Page FISA docs, although heavily redacted, reveal the FBI and DOJ relied on Hillary’s phony dossier and liberal media reports as ‘evidence’ presented to the court in order to wiretap Page.

The FBI omitted the fact that the dossier was paid for by Hillary and the DNC.

This is not only criminal, but unconstitutional, says investigative reporter, Paul Sperry.

So spying on an American citizen based on information bought and paid for by a political opponent is now justified? Under what constitution? Has this man read the Fourth Amendment? Donald Trump’s constitutional rights were violated. If this is allowed to stand, we can expect it to happen again to anyone who disagrees with the party in power. That is not a good thing.

The article continues:

Even the argument the FBI thought Carter Page was an agent of the Russians doesn’t hold water. Carter Page was never charged or arrested for being a Russian spy, furthermore, not too long ago Page was actually helping the FBI take down Russians.

So now the FBI expects us to believe Carter Page flipped and became an agent for the Russians…yet they never arrested him?

Comey, Rosenstein, McCabe and Sally Yates all signed the FISA applications even though Hillary’s fraudulent Russia dossier was used as a pretext to obtain the warrants.

According to Senator Burr, these are “sound reasons.”

“I don’t think I ever expressed that I thought the FISA application came up short. There (were) sound reasons as to why judges issued the FISA,” Burr said to CNN.

Hopefully my fellow voters in North Carolina will remove this man from office during the next election. I don’t care if a Democrat replaces him–he has not lived up to his Oath of Office to defend the Constitution.

UPDATE: It should be noted that a copy of the unredacted FISA application was delivered to the committee on March 17, 2017. This was then leaked to the media by a staffer on the committee. That is one of many questionable actions by the committee regarding the illegal surveillance of the Trump campaign.

 

An Honest Man Creates A Problem For The Deep State

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

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

The article reports:

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

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

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

This is the story:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The article concludes:

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

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

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

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

“Tis The Season Of Fact Checking

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The Washington Examiner posted a story today about a comment made by Senator Mark Warner of Virginia during a debate with former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie.

The article reports:

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., earlier this week pushed back on estimates that approximately 250,000 Virginians will lose their health insurance policies as a result of the Affordable Care Act, President Obama’s signature piece of domestic legislation.

That figure is “completely made up,” Warner said this week during a debate with Republican challenger, former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie.

“My opponent’s charge and this figure of 250,000, actually, the head of the Association of Virginia said that number was completely made up. And [Gillespie’s] attack has been called by … PolitiFact, simply false,” the Democratic incumbent said, citing the noted fact-checking group and Doug Gray, the executive director of the Virginia Association of Health Plans, an association group.

Republicans on the committee calculated the figure based on remarks Gray made at a Sept. 10 hearing when he said that approximately 60 percent of Virginians with individual plans renewed early. There are an estimated 400,000 policyholders in the Virginia market. So take 60 percent of all policyholders, apply it to the state’s 400,000 and you now have roughly 250,000 affected Virginians.

The article goes on to explain that the number of 250,000 was reported in the news, but all the news stories relied on the same source, which have not proved to be reliable. However, the article also explains that there are some serious problems with the implementation of ObamaCare in Virginia in terms of rapidly rising premiums and cancelled policies.

Polls indicate that Senator Warner is leading in this election, so the problems with ObamaCare may be irrelevant. However, American voters need to realize that if they want to avoid the problems that ObamaCare will continue to bring, they need to vote for people who will be willing to overturn it–generally those people are not Democrats.

 

The Latest On The Keystone Pipeline

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Building the Keystone Pipeline would not only affect American energy at home, it would drastically change the energy picture overseas. On Thursday, the Washington Examiner posted an article showing the latest movement on the Pipeline. Building the Keystone Pipeline now would be the easiest and most painless way to stop Russian aggression into Europe–increased American energy at lower prices would collapse the Russian economy.

The article reports:

On Thursday morning, Democratic Sens. Kay Hagan and Jon Tester agreed to co-sponsor a bipartisan bill by Republican Sen. John Hoeven and Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu that would give pipeline company TransCanada the go-ahead to start work. Another Democrat, Sen. Mark Warner, signed on in the weeks after the State Department’s January determination that the pipeline would have minimal environmental impact. And seven other Democratic senators — Mark Pryor, Claire McCaskill, Mark Begich, Joe Manchin, Heidi Heitkamp, Joe Donnelly, and John Walsh — were already co-sponsors. In all, 11 Senate Democrats, some of them facing tough re-election campaigns this fall, have put their names on the pro-Keystone bill.

…Previous efforts to pass a Keystone bill have fallen short, and Hoeven cautions that a desperate White House lobbying effort might yet stop the new momentum with perhaps a vote or two to spare. But the tide has turned, and the pro-Keystone forces believe they are on the road to victory.

“If we don’t get this bill now,” says Hoeven, “I think we’re going to get it after November.”

Some of the movement on the part of Democrats has to do with the election in November. It will be interesting to see where these Democrats stand if they are still in office after the 2014 election.

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Showmanship Over Substance

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The Daily Caller reported today that at least five Democrat Senators are bringing illegal aliens to President Obama’s State of the Union speech.

The article reports:

The DC reported Tuesday that five Democrats — First Lady Michelle Obama, Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, Illinois Rep. Luis Gutierrez, Rep. Marc Veasey and Rep. Kathy Castor — have announced that they are bringing illegal immigrants to the speech as their guests.

Most of those guests are young. Alan Aleman, the 20-year-old guest of Michelle Obama, is a benefit of President Obama’s deferred deportation program for illegal immigrants who were brought into the country when they were under 16 years old. He has since been given a Social Security number.

But Gutierrez is bringing 27-year-old Gabino Sanchez, an illegal immigrant who lives in South Carolina and is fighting deportation, as his guest.

The article points out that all attendees of the speech undergo a government background check which includes providing a Social Security Number, which theoretically an illegal alien would not have. An American citizen would have to provide that information.

It would be interesting to know what inspired these government officials to bring people who were in the country illegally to a major Presidential speech.

Our government seems to have forgotten that protecting our borders is supposed to be one of its highest priorities. The government also seems to have a problem understanding the meaning of the word illegal.

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