Tag Archives: Power Line

Caught!

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On September 18th, Hot Air posted an article about the Hezbollah pagers that exploded yesterday. There were some very interesting people who had those pagers.

The article quotes The New York Times:

Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amini, lost one eye and severely injured his other eye when a pager he was carrying exploded in a simultaneous wave of blasts targeting wireless electronic devices, according to two members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps briefed on the attack.

The Guards members, who had knowledge of the attacks and spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said Mr. Amini’s injuries were more serious than Iran initially reported and that he would be medevacked to Tehran for treatment.

Hossein Soleimani, the editor in chief of Mashregh, the main Revolutionary Guards news website, confirmed the extent of Mr. Amini’s injuries in a post on X. “Unfortunately the injuries sustained by Iran’s ambassador were extremely severe and in his eyes,” Mr. Soleimani wrote.

Why was Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon carrying a Hezbollah pager?

John Hinderaker at Power Line reported on the news that on Thursday handheld radios were exploding.

The article at Power Line notes:

Apparently fires have broken out in seemingly random buildings, and loudspeakers are telling people to take the batteries out of their phones. I haven’t seen any reports, however, of exploding cell phones.

The usual suspects are up in arms over yesterday’s pager attack:

The United Nations Security Council will convene an emergency meeting on Friday afternoon to discuss Israel’s wave of attacks in Lebanon, according to Slovenia, which holds the Council’s rotating presidency this month.

How many emergency meetings have they held over Hezbollah’s rocket bombardment of Israel, which has gone on for months?

The United Nations’ human rights chief, Volker Türk, has criticized the pager attack as a violation of international law and called for those behind it to be held to account.

So, does sending thousands of rockets into Israel violate international law? What does the U.N. propose to do about it?

Nothing, of course. Hence the need for Israel to defend itself.

That is the current state of the United Nations.

 

Kamala Harris Has Selected Tim Walz For Her Vice-President Running Mate

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On Tuesday, Breitbart introduced us to Tim Walz.

Here are some basic facts the article reports about the Minnesota Governor who has been Governor since 2019:

Below are seven things to know about Waltz’s record:

    1. A June report from Minnesota’s legislative auditor found that Walz’s administration “failed miserably in its duty to properly oversee millions of federal dollars it administered to nonprofits to feed children.” The report said that Walz’s alleged incompetence “created opportunities for fraud.” Axios reported: “The report highlighted several ways in which the Walz administration failed to rein in the fraud, undercutting the governor’s longstanding claims that his agency staff deserve credit, not criticism, for their efforts to catch and stop it.”
    2. Walz signed legislation to allow minors to get sex-change operations in Minnesota. He signed a bill to require schools to stock period products in boys’ bathrooms.
    3. Walz allegedly failed to anticipate and react to riots in Minneapolis after the death of George Floyd. Even the liberal mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, slammed Walz’s response to the riots.
    4. Under Walz’s leadership, Minnesota gives free college tuition to illegal immigrants.
    5.  Walz signed a bill into law that will give driver’s licenses to potentially 77,000 eligible illegal aliens.
    6. Walz openly championed socialism last week during a “White Dudes” for Harris event.
    7. Waltz was also a radical member of the House of Representatives, with Heritage Action giving him a lifetime score of 13 percent

Honorable mentions:

    • Authorities arrested Walz for DUI.
    • Walz said it was “ageism for Americans to be concerned about Biden’s fitness for office.

Walz is considered to be politically somewhere to the left of Bernie Sanders.

On Tuesday, Steve Hayward of Power Line Blog posted:

First, the fact that a choice of running mate did not leak out prior to the announcement this morning likely means Harris didn’t make up her mind until yesterday. She’s indecisive.

Second, the Walz pick suggests the progressive anti-Semitic left successfully intimidated Harris out of picking Josh Shapiro. So she’s weak, too.

A confident Democratic nominee would have picked Shapiro. He could have helped Harris nail down the all-important state of Pennsylvania, and represented for Harris a “Sister Souljah” moment of repudiation to the progressive left that the newly “centrist” Harris badly needs. Shapiro, and perhaps Mark Kelly, would have been a move to add the veneer of ideological diversity (heh) to the ticket, like Michael Dukakis’s pick of Lloyd Bentsen in 1988, JFK picking LBJ in 1960, or Al Gore selecting Joe Lieberman in 2000. Instead she has doubled down on progressivism.

As Scott’s analysis reveals, Walz’s record is almost as target rich as Harris’s. Cue the Trump campaign ads displaying “Kamala’s San Francisco” and “Tim’s Minneapolis” from the summer of 2020. (By the way, will Trump’s nickname be “Tiny Tim”?) The only pick from the field that would have been better from a Republican point of view was Pete Buttigieg. The ghost of Lee Atwater smiles.

The election is going to need a LOT of popcorn.

The Impact Of American Elections

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On Sunday, John Hinderaker at Power Line Blog posted an article about the recent prisoners swap with Russia. The article made a few observations on why the swap took place now instead of after November.

The article quotes a Wall Street Journal article:

[Deputy chief of the foreign secret service BND Philipp] Wolff’s team saw an opening when their Russian counterparts said they wanted to wrap up the deal before the U.S. election in November. Some officials deduced that the Russians were either concerned about an unpredictable Donald Trump coming again to the presidency, or they feared that [German Chancellor Olaf] Scholz would no longer be willing to help a president who rarely misses an opportunity to criticize Germany.

“We then decided to push it to the limit,” a senior official involved in the talks said.

The article speculates that the real reason for the rush to complete the deal before November is based on the fact that if President Trump is elected, his administration will be much better negotiators than the Biden administration. The article reminds us that the Iranian hostages of the 1970’s were released as soon as Ronald Reagan became President.

Some Americans may get caught up in the ‘never Trump’ movement, but have they thought about the consequences. The Biden administration has given us a small taste of what a Harris administration would be like–higher taxes, weak economy, more unemployment, shrinking middle class, etc. Don’t get caught up in the media spin that says President Trump is a threat to democracy (we are not a democracy) when the Democrat party candidate for President has been put in place without a single vote in the primary election. All of the Americans who voted in the Democrat primary have had no say in who the candidate is–their votes didn’t count. So who is the threat to ‘democracy?’

 

The Consequences Of Liberal State Government

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On Saturday, John Hinderaker at Power Line Blog posted an article about the movement of the American population from Blue States to Red States.

The article reports:

One of the most important phenomena in contemporary America is the Great Sort–we are increasingly dividing into red and blue states, in part because of domestic migration. But that migration is basically a one-way street: people are fleeing blue states and moving to red states. Many, but not all, of these migrants are conservatives seeking a more congenial home. And of course there are liberals living in red states, but very few of them are picking up stakes and volunteering for higher taxes and more sluggish economies.

This is not a new phenomenon. The billboard below is from 1971:

So what impact does this movement of people have on red and blue states? The article includes the following charts:

If the state governments are the laboratories of democracy, it is becoming very obvious which states are doing better economically and in other areas.

The article concludes:

Where does it all end? I don’t know, but one possibility is that the current balance in our national politics, where far-left and center-right forces are almost equal, may before long become obsolete. America may become definitively a center-right country, simply because that is where most people and most resources are located.

Moving illegal immigrants to red states might help restore the balance of power. Just sayin’.

 

Curiouser And Curiouser

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Curiouser and Curiouser is a phrase from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I am using it here to refer to an article I posted on Sunday about a shooting in North Carolina. A Chechen man was shot by a  Fort Liberty (formerly Fort Bragg) Special Forces officer under strange circumstances.

On Monday, Red State posted more information about the shooting.

The article includes a quote from The Moore Country Sheriff’s Office:

Daraev (Ramzan Daraev) was reported to have been working as a subcontractor for Utilities One, a company based in New Jersey, at the time of his death. Investigators are still working to verify his official employment status. At the time of the incident, Daraev was not in possession of any utility equipment, utility clothing, or identification. The incident has been reported to the U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

I am not sure OSHA should have been the agency contacted.

Red State reports:

First, most utilities send some kind of notice to residents that there will be workers/subcontractors out in the field who might access their property. This is an especially good idea in rural North Carolina, and an even better idea in an area so close to Fort Bragg/Liberty, where so many Special Forces soldiers live. Apparently there was no such notification in this case.

Second, generally utilities workers, even if subcontractors, wear some kind of identifying gear and/or reflective vests. Daraev was found 250 yards (more than the length of two football fields) from the roadway and along a power line, according to the MCSD. The Sandhills area of North Carolina (where Carthage is located) is extremely wooded and it’s strange that Daraev wasn’t at least be wearing a reflective vest, since that’s hunting country. It’s also interesting that MCSD doesn’t say what Daraev was wearing when he was shot. Was he wearing camouflage?

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. There are a lot of unanswered questions in this story.

 

A Very Odd Story Out Of North Carolina

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This story is just now making the news.

According to WRAL News posted May 23:

A Fort Liberty soldier shot and killed a utility worker he believed was trespassing outside his home in Moore County, authorities say.

According to the Moore County Sheriff’s Office, around 8:15 p.m. on May 3, deputies were called to a home on Dowd Road in Carthage.

For those who may not know, Fort Liberty was formerly Fort Bragg. There are a few very weird details about this story.

Red Voice Media reports on May 25:

According to reports, two individuals identified as Chechen men were discovered near the soldier’s residence. The family alleges that one of the suspects, 35-year-old Ramzan Daraev from Chicago, was taking unauthorized photographs of their children. As the family confronted the intruders in a wooded area of the property near a power line, a violent altercation ensued, resulting in Daraev being shot multiple times at close range. Another man, identified as Dzhankutov Adsalan, was found in a vehicle at a distance from the incident and was subsequently questioned and released. The investigation is being led by the Moore County Sheriff’s Office.

Fox News reported on May 23:

Sheriff Ronnie Fields said Daraev was working as a subcontractor for Utilities One, a company based in New Jersey, at the time of his death. Investigators are still working to verify his official employment and immigration status.

At the time of the incident, Daraev was not in possession of any utility equipment, utility clothing, or identification. The incident has been reported to the U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

Sources tell Fox News that “power company employment is often a cover for status/action” that U.S. intelligence agents use for surveillance of foreign targets overseas.

Another Fox News report stated that the network had unsuccessfully tried to reach the ‘power company’ through telephone calls and emails but had gotten no response.

 

 

The Myth Of Green Energy

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Yesterday John Hinderaker at Power Line Blog posted an article about the feasibility of achieving 100 percent green energy.

The article notes:

High on the Left’s agenda is mandating 100% “green” generation of electricity–if not 100% of energy, period. I believe Joe Biden, among others, has now come out for 100% “green” energy, meaning wind and solar. But for now, let’s stick with energy generation. Would it be feasible to get 100% of our electricity from wind and solar?

Basic problems with these energy sources include inefficiency and intermittency. Wind turbines produce energy around 40% of the time, and solar panels do much worse than that in many parts of the country. So how does a utility ensure that the lights will go on, even at night when the wind isn’t blowing?

The liberals’ favorite answer is “batteries.” Produce electricity when the wind is blowing and the sun is shining, and store the energy in batteries for use when electricity is not being generated. Batteries exist, of course; we use them all the time. But where is the battery that can store the entire output of a power plant or a wind farm? That battery does not exist. Further, battery storage is ruinously expensive. The cost of storing the entire electricity needs of the U.S. for even a day would be prohibitive.

But there are also other problems in terms of the materials required.

The article notes:

But that isn’t the worst of it. Wind and solar are low-intensity energy sources. It takes many acres of wind turbines to produce, on a best-case scenario, what a single power plant can produce. And solar panels are even worse. A single 3 mw wind turbine uses 335 tons of steel, 4.7 tons of copper, 3 tons of aluminum, 2 tons of rare earth elements, and 1,200 tons (2.4 million pounds!) of concrete. If we take seriously the idea of getting all of our electricity from wind and solar, where will all of those materials come from?

The article links to another article at Center of the American Experiment that explains how much metal would required in just Minnesota to implement the Green New Deal. Please follow the links above to read both articles. They are enlightening.

The article at Power Line Blog concludes:

The Democrats’ “green” agenda does not represent a set of meaningful policy proposals. Taken seriously, and objectively evaluated, they immediately crumble. It is literally true that the Democrats could propose to harness the energy of unicorns running on treadmills, and it would make as much sense as reliance on wind, solar and batteries. “Green” energy is driven by two closely related things: 1) politics, and 2) enormous quantities of money being made by politically-connected wind and solar entrepreneurs.

We need to use energy wisely and we need to do what we can to prevent pollution. But we also need to remember that as cultures become more advanced, those advancements tend to result in cleaner air and cleaner water. Many of the rivers and lakes in America are cleaner than they were 100 years ago because of scientific advancements in sewage treatment and manufacturing. We are capable of protecting the environment and also enjoying the fruits of civilization.

When You Realize That What You Said Is Ridiculous

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Scott Johnson at Power Line Blog posted an article today about a recent directive from the City of Minneapolis that has since been modified. When I first saw the directive posted on Facebook, I wasn’t sure if it was real. Evidently it was.

Here is the original directive:

Yesterday the message was updated (per alphanewsmn)

Wow. Just wow.

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.’

Numbers Don’t Lie (But Politicians Do)

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John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line Blog yesterday about one aspect of the latest draft of the Democrat Party platform. The article notes that the platform is largely an attack on white people. The platform mentions whites or whiteness 15 times, never in a positive light.

The article includes a quote from the platform:

Median incomes are lower and poverty rates are higher for Black Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, and some Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, compared to median white households.

Well, the article includes a chart from the 2018 Census:

As you can see, the charge included in the draft of the Democrat Party platform is not true.

The article concludes:

The Democrats are right to focus on median income as a basic indicator of well-being, but they have to lie about the statistics. They can’t face the reality that America is a land of opportunity, and there is nothing standing in the way of people of any ethnicity succeeding in the most fundamental way: making money.

If the United States were really a white supremacist society, as the Democrats claim, the facts would be very different. Whites incomes would dwarf non-white incomes. That obviously is not the case, which demonstrates that America is not a racist or white supremacist society. The Democrats are wrong. It is hard to see why voters would entrust with power a party that falsely slanders its own country.

The platform is being put together with a purpose. After seeing the racism and the lies in the platform, I wonder what that purpose is.

Is The Destruction Related To The Cause?

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Destruction of other people’s property is not constructive, whatever the cause. In recent weeks we have seen total insanity in terms of the destruction of our history. It really doesn’t accomplish much–it simply gives vandals a chance to vent their general anger. We all agree that the killing of George Floyd was awful. Most of us don’t agree with much of what happened next. Protest is legal. When the first brick is thrown or the first person attacked, it is no longer a protest.

John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line Blog today about some recent actions by the rioters that simply betray what they claim is their cause.

The article reports:

So much for the idea that “Confederate monuments” are under attack. Last night in San Francisco, left-wingers pulled down a statue of Ulysses Grant, the man who did more than anyone except Lincoln to preserve the Union and abolish slavery. Grant also, as President, did all he could to enforce Reconstruction and protect blacks in the South. He sent the military after the Ku Klux Klan in South Carolina, worked to ensure passage of the 15th Amendment, and signed the Civil Rights Act of 1875.

Of course, the Left knows little and cares less about any of this. Leftists hate the Union and hate men like Lincoln, Grant, Sherman and Sheridan for preserving it. Slavery is only a pretext. The United States and our constitutional democracy are the targets.

The article notes that Grant at one point was given a slave and was so against the idea of slavery that he freed the slave within a year. It seems as if Grant would be someone they would approve of. The fact that they tore his statue down gives weight to the fact that the riots have a deeper purpose than protesting racism.

The article concludes:

Every four years it is said that the current election is the most important one in our lifetimes. This time, it is actually true. Not a single Democratic Party official, to my knowledge, has condemned the anti-American madness that is sweeping across the nation. Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are fully on board with the extremist elements in their party–I am starting to wonder whether there is any Democratic Party apart from the extremist elements–and the Democrats’ presidential nominee is a senile nonentity who, in office, would be controlled by the radicals. It is absolutely essential to our country’s future that Donald Trump be re-elected.

Anti-Semitic Or Just Mean-Spirited

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Jews have been called the ‘canary in the coal mine.’ For whatever reason, when governments allow or sponsor mistreatment of Jews, even worse things follow. John Hinderaker posted an article at Power Line Blog yesterday that should give all of us pause. We are all aware of the rather unique actions of some governors and mayors who have decided that the coronavirus spreads very easily in rallies to protest business closures but does not spread at all in rallies to protest police. It’s a somewhat amazing double standard. Well, Mayor de Blasio in New York City has taken it one step further–hundreds protesting in the streets of the city without masks or social distancing is fine–little Jewish children playing in their neighborhood playground are a public health risk.

The article reports:

It has appeared throughout the Wuhan epidemic that Warren Wilhelm Jr. Bill de Blasio is eager to crack down on Jewish funerals and other gatherings while turning a blind eye to much larger gatherings not involving Jews. He has now gone over the top, ordering the gate to a park frequented mostly by Jews welded shut, while encouraging massive Black Lives Matter demonstrations. Paul Watson reports:

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio ordered gates at a park in a Jewish area welded shut to keep people out despite simultaneously approving numerous mass gatherings of BLM protesters.

“Bill de Blasio is Welding the gates at the biggest park in the Jewish community, (Borough Park, Brooklyn) So your child shouldn’t try to break in,” tweeted Joel Fischer. “While Hundreds of thousands of people gathered yesterday at Brooklyn Museum.”

...UPDATE: This tweet says that local Jews have cut the lock and opened the gates. Not sure how the lock relates to the welding that apparently was going on earlier. I report, you decide.

This mayor, who is so concerned about little children playing in the park, is the same mayor who demanded that nursing homes admit people who had tested positive for the coronavirus. Hopefully this is his last term as mayor.

Are Colleges Living Up To The Principles They Were Founded On?

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Yesterday Paul Mirengoff posted an article at Power Line Blog about the recent virtual graduation at WSU Tech, an affiliate of Wichita State University. Ivanka Trump was scheduled to speak at the school’s virtual commencement.

The article reports:

Some students, faculty members, and alums objected.

WSU’s president responded as college presidents do. She decided that Ivanka would not speak at the virtual ceremony. Instead, her address would be available online.

Ivanka posted it on Twitter. She included a reference to the “cancel culture,” of which WSU’s actions are an example.

The article details the rest of the story:

The Kansas Board of Regents called an emergency meeting and went into “executive session.” After the meeting, the board issued a statement expressing support for free speech, diversity, and inclusion.

It decided not to fire WSU’s president, notwithstanding her obvious lack of commitment to these values. In turn, she issued a statement giving lip service to them.

I suspect that this “resolution” will satisfy Wichita State’s donors. Whether it should is another question.

At this point in the descent of nearly all American colleges and universities, I wonder why any conservative would donate a penny to almost any of these institutions. Such donations subsidize the indoctrination of students by those who dislike conservatives and despise our values. The effects of this leftist indoctrination are there for all to see. In my view, they are undermining America.

We conservatives should do our best to “defund” the nation’s colleges and universities until such time as they demonstrate a true commitment to free speech and viewpoint diversity, and cease the systematic leftist indoctrination of students.

Not only should conservatives ‘defund’ the colleges that are limiting free speech–we should refuse to send our children there.

The Dead Case Continues

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Yesterday Townhall posted an article about the continuing saga of Michael Flynn. This story should have been over years ago, but there are enough deep state operatives running around Washington to keep it alive. The real root of the case is that Michael Flynn is a very smart man who would have figured out the corruption in the Department of Justice in his first week on the job.

Townhall focused on the missing 302, the form that the agents interviewing General Flynn would have filled out at the time. The original 302 has somehow gone missing. The article includes a timeline of the case.

The article cites the latest developments in the case:

Sidney Powell is part of Flynn’s new and aggressive legal team, who said in October that new documents would show an FBI entrapment plot. Well, that day arrived for sure. Flynn has fought to withdraw his guilty plea since the beginning of this year. Right now, his legal team has filed a new writ of mandamus to get this case tossed, the judge removed, and the amicus brief motion dismissed as well. Yeah, I forgot to mention that Sullivan decided he was going to allow every anti-Trump legal team in the world to file amicus briefs. The good news is that the DC Court of Appeals had every right to dismiss the writ outright, no questions asked. Instead, they’ve ordered Sullivan to respond to Powell’s writ personally and defend his actions regarding this case. Legal observers noted this is a huge development and a sign that Flynn’s legal team already passed a huge hurdle. Not only that, but the DC Court gave this judge the most serious method regarding a response. It’s quite clear that the DC Court of Appeals is disturbed by Sullivan’s actions. We’ll circle back to that in a few days. It seems that at least part of the writ might be granted and bring Flynn closer to putting this nightmare behind him. 

Yesterday Paul Mirengoff at Power Line Blog reported the following:

Judge Emmet Sullivan has hired Beth Wilkinson to represent him as he defends his unusual actions in the Michael Flynn case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Sullivan already asked for assistance from outside counsel when he appointed John Gleeson to argue against the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss the Flynn prosecution. That extraordinary move helped land Sullivan in the dock, so to speak, thus causing him to enlist Wilkinson as his lawyer.

A highly regarded litigator, Wilkinson represented top aides to Hillary Clinton in her email controversy. She also assisted Brett Kavanaugh when Christine Blasey Ford made her unsubstantiated allegations against him.

Sullivan’s retention of a hired gun litigator is the latest in a long line of bizarre developments in the Flynn case. The likelihood that, in the face of the D.C. Circuit’s order that he file a brief explaining himself, Sullivan would finally bring an end to the farce by granting the DOJ’s motion was never great. With Sullivan now lawyering up, it seems clear that the farce will drag on, with yet another bizarre twist, for a while longer.

It would be really interesting to know who is paying Judge Sullivan’s legal fees.

The More You Know…

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John Hinderaker at Power Line Blog posted an article yesterday about some of the things we have learned as information about spying on the Trump campaign and transition team is declassified. One thing that I don’t think has been widely reported is that Obama Treasury Department officials were on the list of those making unmasking requests relating to General Michael Flynn.

The article reports:

When Acting DNI Richard Grenell released the list of individuals who made unmasking requests relating to General Michael Flynn, one of the curious facts that stood out was the presence of a number of Obama Treasury Department officials on the list. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and no fewer than five of his subordinates–Deputy Secretary, Under Secretary, Acting Assistant Secretary, and so on, all political appointees in the Obama administration–all made unmasking requests with regard to conversations that turned out to involve General Flynn, on the same day: December 14, 2016. Lew made a second request on January 12, 2017.

The mystery of why President Obama’s Treasury Department was interested in electronic surveillance carried out for national security purposes may have been solved by this scoop in the Ohio Star: “The Treasury Department Spied on Flynn, Manafort, and the Trump Family, Says Whistleblower.”

President Barack Obama’s Treasury Department regularly surveilled retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn’s financial records and transactions beginning in December 2015 and well into 2017, before, during and after when he served at the White House as President Donald Trump’s National Security Director, a former senior Treasury Department official, and veteran of the intelligence community, told the Star Newspapers.

“I started seeing things that were not correct, so I did my own little investigation, because I wanted to make sure what I was seeing was correct” she said. “You never want to draw attention to something if there is not anything there.”

The whistleblower said she only saw metadata, that is names and dates when the general’s financial records were accessed. “I never saw what they saw.”

By March 2016, the whistleblower said she and a colleague, who was detailed to Treasury from the intelligence community, became convinced that the surveillance of Flynn was not tied to legitimate criminal or national security concerns, but was straight-up political surveillance among other illegal activity occurring at Treasury.

“When I showed it to her, what she said, ‘Oh, sh%t!’ and I knew right then and there that I was right – this was some shady stuff,” the whistleblower said.

“It wasn’t just him,” the whistleblower said. “They were targeting other U.S. citizens, as well.”

Only two names are listed in the whistleblower’s official paperwork, so the others must remain sealed, she said. The second name is Paul J. Manafort Jr., the one-time chairman of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

The Star’s source says that she filed a formal complaint with the Treasury Department’s Inspector General in March 2017, but nothing was done. There is much more at the link.

Please follow the link to read the entire article–it is fascinating.

The article concludes:

We don’t know what Flynn communication these Obama officials were poring over, but we do know that the Treasury Department was never able to make any kind of a case against Flynn for financial misdeeds of any kind. It bears remembering that Jacob Lew was an unusually political Secretary of the Treasury. He was Obama’s Chief of Staff before taking over the Treasury Department. We have written about him several times, e.g. here.

Evidence continues to grow that the corruption of the executive branch of the U.S. government by Barack Obama was comprehensive and perhaps unprecedented.

Consequences are justified and needed.

It’s Time To Reward Good Behavior

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Yesterday Paul Mirengoff posted an article at Power Line about Taiwan. As you know, Taiwan has been shunned by the World Heath Organization (WHO) and other international bodies because of the influence exerted by China.

The article reports:

China’s behavior during the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak has been disgraceful — marked by deceit and an unwillingness to cooperate with the rest of the world until it was too late. In addition, there’s reason to believe that the virus originated in a Chinese lab that did not meet safety standards.

By contrast, Taiwan’s behavior has been exemplary. According to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the U.S., Taiwan has donated more than two million Taiwan-made masks to the U.S. and more than five million to the EU. It plans to donate another five million globally.

Moreover, according to our friend Michael Auslin, Taipei tried early on to warn the World Health Organization that the coronavirus might be transmitted between humans. That body, which is heavily influenced by China, refused to act on these warnings. (To appease China, the WHO refuses membership to Taiwan.) “If the WHO and Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus had acted responsibly, the COVID crisis could have been significantly contained, even in the face of Beijing’s misleading the world about the nature of the virus and the numbers of infections and deaths in China,” says Auslin.

Indeed, Taiwan’s understanding of the virus, along with its experience with the SARS outbreak, enabled Taipei to respond to the outbreak in a highly effective manner and without a lockdown.

…The numbers (from Worldometer) demonstrate the effectiveness of the response. Taiwan has had 427 total cases (184 of them now active) and 6 total deaths.

The article concludes:

Moreover, Taiwan will be a key player if the U.S. diminishes, as we must, our reliance on China for supplies:

For decades, Taiwan has been a leader in the high-tech economy, and will become increasingly important as global supply chains shift away from China, due to China’s maturing economy, President Trump’s trade war and now the coronavirus. It has long been one of the world’s leading producers of advanced semiconductor chips, while Foxconn, one of the major suppliers to the iPhone, has already urged Apple to move its production out of China. As the competition between China and the United States heats up over semiconductors, 5G and artificial intelligence, a closer tech relationship between American and Taiwanese firms should be a priority.

I agree with Auslin that the U.S. should use its budgetary power to get Taiwan full membership in international groups such as Interpol and the International Civil Aviation Organization. We should also the leverage our $400 million contribution to the WHO, the world’s largest, to force WHO’s member states to invite Taiwan into the organization.

Taiwan never should have been exiled from the world. As Auslin concludes, “it’s long past time to bring Taiwan in from the cold.”

Taiwan is a successful democracy. The only reason they are blocked from joining various international organizations is the influence of China. China does not acknowledge their existence as a separate country and at some point in the not-to-distant future will attempt to take them over. China wants to take freedom away from Taiwan just as it took freedom away from Hong Kong (after promising not to). It is time to show Taiwan the respect and acceptance into the world body of nations that it deserves.