Tag Archives: Richard Burr

When Republicans Go Bad

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On Tuesday I posted an article about Senator Rand Paul’s amendment that would end the position of director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a position Dr. Fauci has held for more than thirty years. Unfortunately, common sense does not often make appearances in the Senate. Senator Paul’s amendment was to replace that one position with three new institutes, each with its own director. The institutes would be a National Institute of Allergic Diseases, a National Institute of Infectious Diseases, and a National Institute of Immunologic Diseases. Replacing one all-powerful agency with three less powerful agencies would be a step toward bringing America back to where it began–government by the people–not by un-elected bureaucrats.

On Tuesday, The Daily Wire reported the following:

Six Republican senators voted against an amendment Tuesday that would eliminate the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) position, which is held by Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Senators voted on Kentucky Republican Rand Paul’s amendment to replace the NIAID with three separate national research institutes on Tuesday morning in Washington, D.C.

Republican Senators Richard Burr of North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, and Jerry Moran of Kansas each voted against the amendment.

The senators did not immediately respond to The Daily Wire’s requests for comment.

“We’ve learned a lot over the past two years, but one lesson in particular is that no one person should be deemed ‘dictator-in-chief,’” said Paul when he introduced the amendment Monday, adding, “No one person should have unilateral authority to make decisions for millions of Americans.”

The article concludes:

The Senate passed a resolution, led by Paul, to repeal the mask mandate for public transportation on Tuesday.

While Democrats voted in favor of Paul’s resolution, according to The Daily Caller, Romney was the only Republican to vote against it.

Paul had also promised last week to force a vote in mid-March ending “unscientific” mask mandates on planes and public transportation.

“Apparently government doesn’t want to relinquish its power and plans to extend the mask mandate on planes & public transportation,” tweeted the Republican senator. “Not on my watch! I’ll be forcing a vote next week to end this unscientific mandate.”

Please remember these votes when voting in the mid-term election.

Just Because It May Be Legal Doesn’t Mean It’s Moral

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Fox News posted an article today about four Congressmen who are taking advantage of the coronavirus epidemic for personal gain. What they are doing gives us insight into how Congressmen can enter Congress as middle-class Americans and be millionaires four years later.

The article reports:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California and three of her Senate colleagues reported selling off stocks worth millions of dollars in the days before the coronavirus outbreak crashed the market, according to reports.

The data is listed on a U.S. Senate website containing financial disclosures from Senate members.

Feinstein, who serves as ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and her husband sold between $1.5 million and $6 million in stock in California biotech company Allogene Therapeutics, between Jan. 31 and Feb. 18, The New York Times reported.

Feinstein defended herself in a series of tweets on Friday, saying she has “no control” over her assets and the stocks in question were her husband’s transactions.

“During my Senate career I’ve held all assets in a blind trust of which I have no control. Reports that I sold any assets are incorrect, as are reports that I was at a January 24 briefing on coronavirus, which I was unable to attend,” she tweeted.

“Under Senate rules I report my husband’s financial transactions. I have no input into his decisions. My husband in January and February sold shares of a cancer therapy company. This company is unrelated to any work on the coronavirus and the sale was unrelated to the situation.”

When questioned by the newspaper, a spokesman for the Democrat from San Francisco also said Feinstein wasn’t directly involved in the sale.

“All of Senator Feinstein’s assets are in a blind trust,” the spokesman, Tom Mentzer, told the Times. “She has no involvement in her husband’s financial decisions.”

The article names the other Congressmen who took similar actions:

Reports identified the three other senators as Richard Burr of North Carolina, Kelly Loeffler of Georgia and James Inhofe of Oklahoma, all Republicans.

Burr, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, used more than 30 transactions to dump between $628,000 and $1.72 million on Feb. 13, according to ProPublica.

The report said the transactions involved a significant percentage of the senator’s holdings and took place about a week before the impact of the virus outbreak sent stock prices plunging to the point where gains made during President Trump’s term in office were largely erased.

All of the Congressmen have the same story–I was not directly involved in the transactions, yet these transactions are suspiciously timed. I wonder if Congressmen should be banned from altering their stock portfolios in any way while they are serving in Congress. They might not like doing that, but it would be one way to end this sort of suspicious activity. Foregoing trading stocks while in office would be a small price to pay to insure the honesty of those who serve in Congress.

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 Backtracking Has Begun

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I will be in my office doing my happy dance on the day (if it ever happens) that the political left admits that President Trump has been treated unfairly by the instruments of government–his campaign was spied on, he has been investigated for almost two years without a shred of evidence, and evidence against his political opponents has been carefully ignored. I honestly don’t know if there are any Democrats left who will be honest enough to admit any of that even when faced with overwhelming evidence. However, you can already see some Democrats (and deep state Republicans) covering their tracks. This post is based on two articles–one posted yesterday at Breitbart and one posted at The Conservative Treehouse today.

Breitbart reports:

On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Rachel Maddow Show,” former CIA Director John Brennan stated that he didn’t mean President Trump committed treason when he referred to the president’s performance at the Helsinki summit as “nothing short of treasonous.”

Host Rachel Maddow said, “After Helsinki, you were stark, and even a little bit scary in your criticism of his behavior. You said it rose to treason.”

Brennan responded, “I said it was nothing short of treasonous.”

Maddow then stated, “In this current controversy, that specific comment has been singled out by a number of people as a comment that maybe, by you, crossed the line, that was maybe –.”

Brennan cut in to respond, “Crossed what line?” He continued that he has a right to free speech.

…Brennan answered, “I know what the Russians did in interfering in the election. I have 100% confidence in what they did. And for Mr. Trump to stand on that stage in Helsinki, with all the world’s eyes upon him, and to basically [say] he wouldn’t — he doesn’t understand why would the Russians interfere in the election. He’s given Mr. Putin and the Russians a pass time after time after time, and he keeps referring to this whole investigation as a witch hunt, as bogus, as — and to me, this was an attack against the foundational principle of our great republic, which is, the right of all Americans to choose their elected leaders. And for Mr. Trump to so cavalierly just dismiss that, yes, sometimes my Irish comes out, and — in my tweets, and I did say that it rises to and exceeds the level of high crimes and misdemeanors and is nothing short of treasonous. … I didn’t mean that he committed treason, but it was a term that I used, nothing short of treasonous.”

He does have the right to free speech and he is entitled to his opinion. However, his lack of judgement in making these statements is obvious.

Next we move to The Conservative Treehouse, which reported:

The Associated Press published an interview with Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr today where the intensely corrupt Senator Burr tries to reverse all his prior positions, publications and manipulated committee findings, against President Trump.

Richard Burr could be the star of a new television series called, “When Republicans Go Bad.”

The article at The Conservative Treehouse reports:

Burr said there is “no factual evidence today that we’ve received” on collusion or conspiracy between Russia and President Donald Trump’s campaign. But he said he’s still open on the issue and hasn’t personally come to any final conclusions, since the investigation isn’t finished.

The Senate investigation is the last bipartisan congressional probe of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and connections to Trump’s campaign. Working with the panel’s top Democrat, Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, Burr has so far managed to keep the investigation free from the extraordinary acrimony that has plagued work on the House side of the Capitol. The House Intelligence Committee bitterly fought through its entire Russia investigation, which ended earlier this year despite the objections of Democrats.

“From an institution standpoint I want the American people to understand that the Senate can function, even on the most serious things,” Burr said. 

So why are we still spending millions paying politically biased investigators to continue investigating this?

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.

 

If There Is An Innocent Explanation For This, I Haven’t Heard It

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As the investigations into the actions of the FBI and DOJ under President Obama continue, the information coming out of these investigations makes less and less sense. A recent bit of information makes no sense in terms of logic.

Yesterday John Solomon posted an article at The Hill with the following headline: “How Comey intervened to kill WikiLeaks’ immunity deal.” The article includes the draft immunity deal the Justice Department was considering for Julian Assange. Obviously, Julian Assange would be the person who would know exactly who was behind the hacking or leaking of information from the Democratic National Committee computers.

The article tells the story:

This yarn begins in January 2017 when Assange’s legal team approached Waldman — known for his government connections — to see if the new Trump administration would negotiate with the WikiLeaks founder, holed up in Ecuador’s London embassy. They hoped Waldman, a former Clinton Justice Department official, might navigate the U.S. law enforcement bureaucracy and find the right people to engage.

…Laufman (David Laufman, an accomplished federal prosecutor and then head of Justice’s counterintelligence and export controls section) described what the government might want to achieve, and Waldman laid the groundwork for a deal to give Assange limited immunity and a one-time “safe passage” to leave the London embassy and talk with U.S. officials. Laufman played to Assange’s belief that he was a publisher, the documents show; he put an offer on the table from the intelligence community to help Assange assess how some hostile foreign powers might be infiltrating or harming WikiLeaks staff.

…Just a few days after the negotiations opened in mid-February, Waldman reached out to Sen. Warner; the lawyer wanted to see if Senate Intelligence Committee staff wanted any contact with Assange, to ask about Russia or other issues.

Warner engaged with Waldman over encrypted text messages, then reached out to Comey. A few days later, Warner contacted Waldman with an unexpected plea.

“He told me he had just talked with Comey and that, while the government was appreciative of my efforts, my instructions were to stand down, to end the discussions with Assange,” Waldman told me. Waldman offered contemporaneous documents to show he memorialized Warner’s exact words.

Waldman couldn’t believe a U.S. senator and the FBI chief were sending a different signal, so he went back to Laufman, who assured him the negotiations were still on. “What Laufman said to me after he heard I was told to ‘stand down’ by Warner and Comey was, ‘That’s bullshit. You are not standing down and neither am I,’” Waldman recalled.

A source familiar with Warner’s interactions says the senator’s contact on the Assange matter was limited and was shared with Senate Intelligence chairman Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.). But the source acknowledges that Warner consulted Comey and passed along the “stand down” instructions to Waldman: “That did happen.”

There are some obvious conclusions that can be drawn from these events, and I will let the readers draw them on their own. Suffice it to say, there were people in very high places that did not want Assange’s sources (or information) revealed. It will be interesting to see if Julian Assange is ever offered immunity and what that immunity will include.

Please follow the link to read the entire article which includes screenshots of the various documents that back up this strange story.

 

 

Why The Republican Party Is Losing Voters

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The 2016 Republican Platform includes the following on Page 8:

Reducing the Federal Debt

Our national debt is a burden on our economy and families. The huge increase in the national debt demanded by and incurred during the current Administration has placed a significant burden on future generations. We must impose firm caps on future debt, accelerate the repayment of the trillions we now owe in order to reaffirm our principles of responsible and limited government, and remove the burdens we are placing on future generations. A strong economy is one key to debt reduction, but spending restraint is a necessary component that must be vigorously pursued.

On May 10, 2018, CNS News reported:

The federal government collected a record $2,007,451,000,000 in total taxes through the first seven months of fiscal 2018 (October through April), but still ran a deficit for that period of $385,444,000,000, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement.

It’s the spending–not the revenue–that is the problem. So what are Republicans doing about it?

On May 8, 2018, The Washington Times posted the following:

House GOP leaders vowed Tuesday to speed President Trump’s new $15.4 billion spending cuts proposal through their chamber, brushing aside complaints from Democrats and some Republicans over the trims the White House wants to see.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday predicted the House will pass the package, which includes 38 cuts to programs and generally involves money that’s sitting unused.

So what happened when the bill reached the Senate?

The Daily Haymaker posted the story today:

Senators voted Wednesday to block President Trump’s $15.4 billion spending cuts package, with lawmakers saying it trimmed the budget too much.

Brushing aside administration promises that the cuts were chiefly to money that was never going to be spent, the Senate voted 50-48 to keep the bill bottled up. Two Republicans — Susan Collins of Maine and Richard Burr of North Carolina — joined Democrats to defeat the package.[…]

So if the Republicans won’t even cut spending on money that wasn’t even spent, why in the world should I vote for them? Didn’t they read their own platform? How long could you run up your credit card before creditors would start clamoring for their money? Is the government any different?

 

Why We Need Real Answers On Benghazi

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Benghazi was a horrible event. Killing an ambassador is an act of war, but somehow in all the discussion that fact has been overlooked. I’m not sure what we would have accomplished by going to war with Libya, but on the other hand, not doing much of anything hasn’t worked either.

To add to the miscellaneous information that has dripped out about the Benghazi attack, the report of the Bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee Report cites former CIA Director Mike Morell as having a major role in creating the talking points used by Susan Rice on the Sunday news shows after the attack. (see Fox News video February 3, 2014.)

The Washington Free Beacon also posted the story yesterday.

The article in the Washington Free Beacon reports:

On September 15 one day before Susan Rice made her infamous appearances on various Sunday shows, according to the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report Morell received an email from the CIA station chief in Libya indicating the Benghazi attacks were “not/not an escalation of protests.” The report does not indicate when Morell read the email, but that same day Morell cut the word “Islamic” from the talking points and left the word “demonstration.”

On September 16, Morell emailed embassy staff in Tripoli asking for more information. The FBI and CIA reviewed the closed circuit footage on September 18 showing there were no protests. Yet, President Obama still employed the “demonstration” verbiage just days later.

It is becoming obvious that the Obama Administration chose to lie to the American people about the Benghazi attack–who did it and why. It was politically expedient to lie about the attack, because admitting it was an Al Qaeda attack would have created a problem with President Obama’s statement that Al Qaeda had been destroyed. The attack on Benghazi might also have been seen as a threat to Hillary Clinton’s presidential ambitions.

The article further reports:

Adding another layer of complexity to the Morell’s backstory, Sen. Richard Burr (R., N.C.) told Fox News many of Morell’s recent statements on the war on terror run contrary to what he told Senate committees over the previous decade as a CIA employee.

Herridge goes on to report some speculate Morell may have higher political ambitions considering his employment at Beacon Global Strategies, a government relations firm founded by close Hillary Clinton confidante Philippe I. Reines.

Whatever the reason for the lies, a country that elects leadership that puts politics above national security will not continue to exist in a world where terrorism is growing stronger. Islamic radicals now control more territory in the Middle East than they did before President Obama took office. This is not a good thing for innocent civilians in these areas (or non-Muslims), and it is not a good thing for America.

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